Episode 629: Brooke & Andrew Vigorito

0:09Brooke Vigorito: Welcome to The Running Public with Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWint. Whether you are a brand new runner or you already have a great mustache, we're here to help you increase your running knowledge and present it at a practical level. This is The Running Public.

0:30Brooke Vigorito: When you're ready to take your training or racing to the next level, go to the running public.com. We have both monthly subscription training plans,$19.99 a month. And Bracken and I both offer one-on-one customized coaching. Again, go to the running public.com and check out our offerings. Where are you guys at in Alaska?

0:50Andrew Vigorito: We're in Palmer, Alaska. That's like an hour from Anchorage. Yeah.

0:58Brooke Vigorito: You've been up there, Bracken, haven't you? Yeah, I've been at Anchorage one time. Is it very different than Palmer?

1:04Andrew Vigorito: Very different. Very different from Palmer, yeah. Palmer, we like to pride ourselves in small hometown feel. So we don't have Walmart. We don't have anything like that here.

1:20Brooke Vigorito: You don't have nighttime this time of year?

1:23Andrew Vigorito: We don't have nighttime this time of year. We have plenty of rain this time of year, though.

1:29Brooke Vigorito: You gotta see some blackout curtains It'll mess with your mind Yeah The constant daylight It's awesome for a couple days And then Alaskans kind of short cycle They'll go off the rails Stay up too long Not sleep much And then you need to do a hard reset Every couple days How much daylight do you have right now? The darkest time is like Two or three in the morning But it actually doesn't get totally dark It's an interesting effect Where the sun kind of cuts horizontally And at one in the morning it's getting pretty dim then it just stays dim till about four and then it starts getting more and more light it never gets totally dark yeah i would have a hard time with that um so let's figure out your uh your background so i don't know anything about you guys bracken obviously you're in the same boat um are you guys native alaskans have you been endurance athletes your whole life we have to get to toughest alive of course but um just a little but your backgrounds would be great.

2:24Andrew Vigorito: No, so we're not native Alaskans. I'm actually from Massachusetts and Andrew's from Louisiana. Neither one of us have a, like we didn't, you didn't grow up playing sports. No.

2:41Brooke Vigorito: I just grew up roughhousing. I grew up with seven brothers.

2:43Andrew Vigorito: Yeah. And I just grew up doing dance. Um, so that, that was basically our, our just athleticism background.

2:56Brooke Vigorito: I think we both got into working out kind of, uh, about the time we started dating.

3:02Andrew Vigorito: Yeah. Yeah. We both, I mean, we've always both worked out, but just really, um, getting into fitness and trying out just different aspects of fitness. when we started dating and then definitely like after we got married, we just continued with that. My background's in nutrition and natural health. So that was always something really important to us. It was just healthy lifestyle. And then you just got into anything you could get into with working out.

3:36Brooke Vigorito: Well, for me, it started, I kind of grew up a chubby kid. And so when I was 17, 18, I was like, man, I got to get my butt in gear and start working out with my older brothers. And it was funny, when we got married, we were on very opposite ends of the spectrum and knew that fitness was good and really appreciated the mental aspects of it equally just as much as the physical aspects. But Brooke would want me to go for a jog with her and I'd be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no cardio. You're going to kill my gains. and and i'd be like well come come lift with me and she'd be like no no no you're gonna you're gonna blow me up and hulk me out you know the common misconceptions people have with starting out in fitness uh but we slowly merged closer and closer um just experiencing more and more and then um finally started working out together uh i'm trying to think what's some of our first endurance events probably where endurance wise i think maybe when we both did a spartan sprint um and i was just absolutely gobsmacked how i couldn't even run for three or four miles you know because i've been in power lifting and bodybuilding up till that point um then this has probably been six years seven years we kind of started started focusing a lot more on endurance.

5:04Andrew Vigorito: Yeah. And running in particular.

5:08Brooke Vigorito: We both kind of became intrigued with the question, how much endurance can you build and not lose your strength? That's kind of a running proposition. I don't know if we've totally answered it, but you can definitely build a lot. So what brought you to Alaska?

5:25Andrew Vigorito: We came out here towards the end of COVID and just fell in love with the mountains and the outdoor lifestyle. Like we're both really into hiking and mountains and backpacking. So just the fact that you have it literally right outside your front door is really something that excited us to be able to have that and to have the girls experience that. So I guess really just the mountains, the fresh air, the extremes we we'd love anything extreme so even the extreme weather is something that really intrigued us about Alaska it's like living in a national park yeah all through COVID Brooke

6:13Brooke Vigorito: kept us all uh sane and I worked a lot uh in COVID ICUs in California uh we came up on a 10-day vacation to Alaska and it was like wow this is this is a this is like nothing we've ever seen before. Just the mountains and the wide open spaces, it kind of recategorizes your life. You're like, wow, there are not a lot of people here. And this is huge open country. Don't get caught out in a storm on the wrong side of the mountain. You can't just call 911 and they come get you. It's a whole different proposition up here. So how long was that between that 10-day vacation when you decided to just pull the plug and go?

6:55Andrew Vigorito: Oh goodness. It was like three, four weeks. We came up here for a 10 day vacation. We're like, okay, we're, we're in love. Like this is

7:03Brooke Vigorito: she was campaigning to move before the 10 days was up.

7:06Andrew Vigorito: Yeah. I was like, okay, we can, we can, we can do this. Like we can settle. Um, so we came up here 10 days, but absolutely fell in love with that went back, just kind of sold everything and flew back up with our luggage. That was it. We didn't ship a pod or anything. Just flew up with a couple of bags and settled down.

7:29Brooke Vigorito: And for the next few years, I keep flying down to California and knock off seven or 14 night shifts in a row and then come back and be off a couple of weeks. Did that for a number of years. you're still working out of california yeah yeah yeah i was in a critical staffing pool for a company that owned 30 something hospitals that i could just pick up shifts they needed covered and they needed a bunch of shifts covered at every hospital they owned uh but they were willing to pay my travel expenses so when we were up on vacation when i found that out we're like oh we're moving we're moving it's quite an impulsive decision yeah i'm curious though because well

8:12Andrew Vigorito: is your family's all in california no so uh we have family kind of all over um the majority of my family is in arizona andrews is in louisiana texas florida maine so i mean everybody's pretty

8:27Brooke Vigorito: much so spread out anyways well bracken he uh he left his family and compulsively moved up to colorado and now he lives next door to his parents came crawling back so just throw you under the Sounds bad to say I left my family. I took my wife and kids with me. That's fair.

8:47Andrew Vigorito: The important family. I was going to say, yeah, because you guys have some winter training as well. Like some below zero winter training we've seen.

8:59Brooke Vigorito: Yeah. Yeah, it gets cold enough.

9:01Andrew Vigorito: It gets cold enough.

9:02Brooke Vigorito: Are you still in Colorado now, Brock? No, I'm back in Wisconsin. Yeah, it gets cold enough there.

9:07Andrew Vigorito: Yeah, that's cold too. We just know it's cold.

9:11Brooke Vigorito: It's all relative. We just like the mountains, you know? So we just don't be cold without that. So let's bring us to sort of why we're having this conversation. One, so you'd sent an email over with sort of like what you guys had going on, starting this Toughest Alive. What caught my eye right away was your children's pursuits. Honestly, right away, I was like, well, this is something I haven't seen come across the desk ever before. So that caught my eye. and then seeing it was a family who pursues the ultra events together, I think is the best way to put it. And then also now starting a race company and a race potential series and the logistics behind all of that.

9:57Brooke Vigorito: I just assumed you guys were a bunch of dirt balls who had been running your whole life and this is so ingrained in you. That was just my assumption because you guys are so all in. And so to hear that you came up with like a strength background, Andrew, which I mean, we've talked about this in the podcast. I don't know how much, but like trying to be big and jacked and strong, but also like wanting to pursue these running goals. They're so conflicting and headbutting. So trying to balance it all out. Like I used to do split bodybuilding routines. I don't know if you ever did, Bracken, but used to do that and then recommitted to my running again.

10:33Brooke Vigorito: And now that I'm committed, I'm, you know, lighter and miss the olden days, we'll call it, when I was throwing a bunch of weight around. And then you have an event where it all matters as well, right, with your challenge. And so point being, I think what I want to know or understand is how you got to this point then. You moved to Alaska, obviously. How many years ago did you say that was? Six? Came, we, five. Vacation in 2020. Yeah, six years. Yeah, six years. So you just get humbled at a Spartan race and then go, I need to work up to 100 milers. And Brooke, what was your journey, I guess? Because that's just like, that's very, that's a sharp left turn from strength work and such.

11:16Andrew Vigorito: What he's also leaving out. So our oldest gets her competitive drive, definitely from Andrew. Sophia, yeah, it's definitely. And like our youngest is definitely more like me. We have just that quiet, competitive edge that we're just going to pretend like it doesn't exist. Where Hadassah and Andrew are just way more in your face. Like they are very competitive and you know that just off the rip. But yeah, so like we had been into working out for years, always trying to test the limits. Like where I was really more into running and cardio when we first got married. and he was more into weightlifting, we're like, okay, how can we merge these two together?

12:02Andrew Vigorito: Because at that time, that really wasn't a thing. Like, that just wasn't something that you did because we wanted to work out together. So we started trying to merge that together slowly. But his younger brother got into ultra running and then started getting into 50 miles and then he started doing 100 miles. And so Andrew was kind of like, well, I mean, if he can do it, I can do it then. I mean, I was thinking back and I was like, you know, when we were kids, I'm pretty sure I was faster than him. So that's really where the whole running came in was. Well, I mean, I can't I can't let my younger brother kind of outshine me with this.

12:46Andrew Vigorito: If he can do it, I can do it then. I can do it.

12:48Brooke Vigorito: Didn't I run my first marathon on our vacation up here?

12:51Andrew Vigorito: Yeah, you ran your first marathon through the mountains. Oh, I got so humbled. vacation here in alaska um he yeah i mean it was a tough marathon it was it was through through the mountains um and at one point he called me and he was like can you come pick me up

13:07Brooke Vigorito: and i just there was a road that intersected like several miles in and so talks with my brother he started running he was trying to quit alcohol and so running kind of became his therapy and i was you know staying in touch with him and he ran a 5k and then he ran a 10k and then he ran a half marathon. He's like, I'm going to run a marathon next month. And I'm like, man, okay. I'm pretty sure I've been in better shape than him my whole life. Like he's about to go run a marathon. So I was like, well, shoot, I'm going to run a marathon too. And they were on vacation and kind of just spurred the moment.

13:38Brooke Vigorito: I'm like, bam, they got one going on like 10 miles from where we're going to be in Alaska. I was like, I'm signing out. And so I did, that was kind of training what I thought was training. You know, I was doing like these five, eight mile training runs. So I show up for the marathon and I ran pretty well and pretty fast for 16 miles. And then I blew up and could barely walk. I had such bad IT pad pain. It was remarkable. And yeah, the road had intersected by that point. And I'm like begging Brooke. I'm like, I'm calling it. Let me in the car. And she's like, I'm not letting you in the car. She's like, because if you quit, you will be mad at me that I let you quit for like the rest of your life.

14:19Brooke Vigorito: Ah, dang it. And you know, the girls are pretty small at this point. They're like looking out the window and they're laughing I'm like, ah-ha, daddy looks like he needs to go potty. Because I'm like, I barely shuffle along. I finished in like five hours and 14 minutes. And, you know, was kind of just shocked. I'm like, man, I thought I was going to finish in like under four hours. What in the world happened? But that probably gave me more fire to be like, okay. And I remember talking to my brother after that. I'm like, dude, when do you train? You're putting in these hour and a half long, two hour long running sessions.

14:53Brooke Vigorito: like multiple times a week when do you do them because you work 55 hours a week and he was like i get up at 3 a.m and i was like what so what do you do about sleep and he was like sleep when you're dead and i was like all right challenge accepted try harder what is it about miserable failures that bring us back to them it seems to be a theme with people yeah just like i don't know decisive moments after like yeah like that wasn't fun was that fun like that fun right it's just interesting that then you're like you want to use something in you i mean i just did two ultras recently 50k so let's barely call them ultras and after both it's like i'm not doing this again i'm never doing this again and you know a week later it's the same like short-term memory loss thing but i don't know that doesn't sound like a super positive first experience i suspect if if all four of us were to reflect back about the things that made us who we are now it's actually the things that humbled us that shaped us the most i mean rarely do you ever walk away from anything and you perform the way you wanted to and you're like yeah that was awesome and then it makes you grow a lot you just don't you kind of pat yourself on the back like yeah that's cool it's when you get just smacked in the face and you're like whoa and it doesn't feel good in the moment um but you're like i'm i'm not gonna let this happen again you know and that's that's true in every area of life not just fitness you know you have some bad experience like i'm i'm gonna learn from this uh and it builds your character

16:31Andrew Vigorito: massively yeah brooke have you done ultras i have um i've done done a few and then just training with the girls honestly is also uh just kind of has dragged me along a little bit as well um and yeah but i i've also segued it a little bit more now into wanting to combine though the two like go a little backwards to more training weight lifting and running and seeing how we can merge those two together a little more um but yeah that's i you can't help but run with these three

17:15Brooke Vigorito: so what does that training look like you say the training for the girls is this intentional scripted training or is it uh let's do what you enjoy and keep it fun or is it go by feel each day how do you how do you navigate training young individuals good question yeah

17:33Andrew Vigorito: that's a good question um so for them it's still fun like it's still something fun that they enjoy that they're working towards. We do work with them to sit down and like have training plans that we'll make out with them that we also make sure they are really involved in coming up with and looking over. But for them, it's still fun and it's still enjoyable because the one thing we do not want to do is we do not want to make working out and running not fun and not enjoyable for them. Like I want this to be a lifelong thing for them because it is healthy. It is a healthy lifestyle. That the last thing we ever want to do is to turn them off from that.

18:22Andrew Vigorito: So making sure it stays fun, it stays enjoyable is the number one, the number one goal. For them mainly, if they're around just other people running, it is fun and it is enjoyable for Hadassah and Sophia just to run with other people and to be able to talk to other people and have conversations. So that's like the best day ever. They got to run, they got to talk to other people. So that makes it really enjoyable for them.

18:53Brooke Vigorito: They'll totally forget their work now. If they're running with the two of you, they'd just be just chattering the whole time and totally forget, totally forget they were running. Well, I'll give you a couple of practical tips. I cut a deal with them back when we were doing, you know, one mile to the gas station and back. I was like, you know what? I will reward you. I'll give you a dollar for every mile you put in. So they don't get an allowance for doing chores. You know, they do chores just because, you know, they're part of the family and families have chores to do, but that's still standing to this day.

19:24Brooke Vigorito: They keep a tally on the refrigerator and dry erase marker of how much money they have based on how many miles they put in. So we go on a family run. We do six miles. You get$6 and a bonus dollar if you kept a great attitude the whole time. And that's how they earn money. Because I don't necessarily agree with the parents who accidentally fall into the trap of using exercise as discipline. You know, I'm going to make you run a lap because you had bad attitude or, you know, drop and give me pushups. I'm like, no, exercise is like a reward. I'll reward that. The punishment is when you mouth off to your mom, oh, sorry, you lost$2 and scratched off on the fridge.

20:06Brooke Vigorito: So that started small and grew bigger. And then you do a really long run day and you're like, man, I just got them both 23 bucks today. But having that as a fundamental philosophy that it's got to be fun meant that when when they started training for this event specifically and we're like, man, you know what? We're talking like they really need to get like 17 miles in today.

20:32Andrew Vigorito: Yeah.

20:33Brooke Vigorito: What that meant for us is we need to get them 17 miles where they're not actually even really thinking about it and make it fun. So we'd pull up Google Maps and be like, all right, we're going to run to this gas station six miles away. We'll all share some donuts there. Then we'll cruise eight miles to this restaurant. We'll stop there for a while. all share an appetizer. Then we're going to cruise to this gas station and then back home. It's going to be a multi-hour event. We'll probably all be out four or five hours. We're not setting a speed record for 17 miles, but it'll be a fun family experience.

21:04Brooke Vigorito: By the end of the day, they'll be like, yeah, that was fun. No, it wasn't a big deal. We ate donuts and hit a restaurant.

21:10Andrew Vigorito: Yeah. Really just trying to keep them engaged while they're running is a major thing. So whether it's listening to, they love books on tape, like absolutely love books on tape. So we'll be listening to a book on tape. They'll listen to different podcasts, of course, their music. And then sometimes they just want to talk just about their day. So it also allows us to have that time just talking about the day. What's been on your mind? What are you thinking about? That it's really built like a close relationship and a close bond with us, with them. then like you know of course you also have to distract them several times like we're like okay it's fall how many signs can you see about pumpkin spice or apple cider like let's count them or you know how how many times can we spot a pumpkin or just whatever you can you can enter integrate with their workouts but we don't live in in a place uh here in alaska where they can just run outside by themselves.

22:16Andrew Vigorito: So it does mean we do have to go with them during that time, which yeah, that, that does, that adds in a whole different elements because it means we all have to, we definitely still have to train together. Um, they are still young. They're still 12 and 10. I'm not comfortable with just releasing them out to go run five, six miles by themselves. But I will say it has been probably the running has been a really bonding experience for our whole family. It has really made us all closer together rather than something where we're like, no, no, you got to go exercise. No, you have to go run. No, you have to.

22:57Andrew Vigorito: It hasn't been that sort of a conflict for us.

23:01Brooke Vigorito: So does your training revolve around their training then? Is it like, at least in the lead up to this event, it is like, like Andrew, I know your 17 miles would go a heck of a lot quicker and logistically easier if it was just you. So was there, is there periods of time where it's like, we're both on the back burner in regards to what they're pursuing and we make do with, yes, being along with them in the process or how does that work? It's definitely not super rigid. You know, I think if, if any one of the four of us were training for an event, we'd be pretty rigid and be like, all right, this has just got to happen each day to get me ready.

23:41Brooke Vigorito: And working with kids, there, there is a lot of kind of like by feel, like, you know, we, we think we're going to go do a family workout today. And then they're like, ah, dad, I'm sore. This and that and the other. I did a back bend yesterday in my dance class and I pulled a muscle and I'm like, Hey, no, let's, uh, let's go to the trampoline park and bounce that soreness out rather than the training day we had in mind. but also frequently to make sure that our perspective and attitude about it all is right we'll go get our own workout in the morning you know we may be up at six in the morning and knock a workout out you know she may hit the treadmill in the garage and i might hit a loop around town at some really fast pace so i'm already almost pre-fatigued a little bit and then we're like all right girls let's go out for it and and because if you have the tension of well i i got to work myself out in this moment uh at least for me personally i can be a little too keyed up so i'll frequently find myself doing a little doing a little workout before we head out for a family session yeah because as much as like we want to pour into their goals and their aspirations

24:48Andrew Vigorito: It's also, we also need to make sure that for us to do so and to be happy parents as well, we have to get our own workout in and really make sure that we're still reaching our goals individually as well. So normally it would happen that we'd have to get up just a little earlier, get our workouts in, and then later on in the day be able to focus more on their goals and training them rather than trying to make it into a whole session for all of us together.

25:19Brooke Vigorito: And you know what? We haven't even told you guys about family workouts. So running is just half of it because that, yeah, sometimes you got to knock out your own session before. Family workouts, you don't. When we say family workouts, the girls would know exactly what we're talking about. So we'll take a sheet of paper and ask them to give us a movement. And they'll say push-ups. And so we'll write push-ups down. Pull-ups, we'll write pull-ups down. Jumping jacks, right? We'll write all the movements we come up with down. Freaking it would be seven or eight movements, most of them body weight.

25:48Brooke Vigorito: Or sometimes we'll put in farmer's carry 100 meters and we'll walk out of our garage. So we'll have all these movements and then we'll pick numbers. And generally we'll go from 100 to 1 ,000. Like, all right, 100 pull-ups, 200 jumping jacks, 300 flutter kicks, and the 1 ,000 will end up being like 1 ,000 mountain climbers or 1 ,000 jump ropes or something. So we'll have this sheet that represents like 4 ,000 reps. And we'll just start a stopwatch. And the goal is just knock it out as a family. So we'll tape the paper to the wall and hit go. And everybody does. The rule is you've got to do multiples of 10.

26:26Brooke Vigorito: so you do at least 10 of whatever you're going to do or maybe you do 50 or 100 if it's flutter kicks you might be able to do 50 or 100 and then you write it on the paper and this sort of thing we've done it enough that we know the the numbers we write out it's going to take us 40-ish minutes to knock it out um and you kind of just cycle between you like you do pull-ups and you're like okay my upper body's a little torqued now i'm going to go do jump ropes so you jump ropes and you just bounce between movements and we all just knock it out as fast as we can until each, you know, and we'll scratch through each column that gets finished up.

27:00Brooke Vigorito: And that has been a really good way that we can get a killer workout in. And so can they. And it's a fun mixing environment that we're all collaborating together. Just knock it out. Yeah, it's working as a team. That is fun. We've been asked on Q &A episodes a few times about like training kids. Like I want my kids going to do track. what should we do? And they're 10. And going long has never been our recommendation. The word fun is used a lot. But I mean, can you think of like, Brack, in the last time we had this question, wasn't it for like, I don't know, somebody was entering track or something.

27:45And I mean, the advice was like,

27:47Brooke Vigorito: yes, lots of intervals, short stuff. Don't make them go run long and slow. keep the mileage low as they're developing, right? That's roughly our advice, wouldn't you say, Bracken? I mean, very vaguely. You're muted. And a lot of different modalities. A lot of different modalities. Right. And yet we're sitting here with 17 and 24 mile long runs. So it's interesting. That's interesting to me because play isn't 17 miles and fun certainly isn't five hours of running, at least through the lens of most kids that I know. And my nephews love to run really hard for 50 seconds and then be done. And they let, you know, fun for them, whether I promise to buy them a new bike, I don't think I'm getting them to do that.

28:38Brooke Vigorito: I really don't. I could dangle the money in front of them. I don't know your kids, how they would respond, Bracken, but like, are they wired differently or something?

28:50Andrew Vigorito: That is a question we get a lot. Like, so many times people make the comment like, well, my kids are just not like your kids or my kids can never do what your kids are doing. And like, listen, they are my girls. Like, they are like, of course, they, you know, I'm proud as punch about them, but there's nothing special. like that's why I always try to tell people like there's nothing special they don't have something different running through their veins um I just think that Andrew and I've always said normal is just what you do every day so working out to us has always just been normal um incorporating the girls into our workouts has just been normal so for them running is just normal like this is just all a normal part of life.

29:47Andrew Vigorito: But yeah, so for them, it's normal and it's fun and it's enjoyable, but they've also been accustomed to it from a young age to just, and I would not just throw a 10-year-old right into like, okay, now you're just going to go run 10 miles or 17 miles. You you have to build up to that, of course, start small and, and get there. Um, but yeah, normal is just what you do every day. So if it's not normal, it's, it's going to be something, something crazy. What would you say?

30:24Brooke Vigorito: You know, I, I think they're into fitness because we're into fitness. And so you, this kind of delves into parenting a little bit, but, um, when we had kids, we didn't want to be apart from our kids. And so we've taken great lengths to include them in everything we do. You know, if my thing was tinkering on my car in the garage, I think they'd be right alongside me being like, all right, dad, let me take the wrench. Like, show me what to do. And I think kids want to be included in whatever their parents are doing. You know, if you're a chess whiz, they're going to come stand by the chessboard and be like, all right, show me what to do.

31:01Brooke Vigorito: And unfortunately, in a lot of Western society, we can be so career-driven. You send the kids to daycare, you send the kids to school, you live your life, and then you kind of pick them up at the end of the day. And there's a sad disconnect. We started homeschooling our kids at a young age because I was travel nursing at that time. And then even when we moved to to Alaska, if I was going to go down for more than seven shifts in a row, I'd bring the family with me. It wouldn't be financially advantageous. We just didn't want to be apart for that long. And so I'd be staying in a hotel. They'd be staying in the hotel with me.

31:38Brooke Vigorito: We're all in a hotel room. I'm going to work my night shifts and then waking up in the afternoon and we're all going to do either a family workout or a run because that's our family culture. But I kind of think it started out from them being really little. They're like, oh, mom's going to run. Can I come with you, mom? And so that was our question is, well, yeah, if you want to come with me, we should figure out a way that you can come with me. When they were really little, I'd wear a weighted vest a lot. Brooke would wear a rucking backpack because we were like, yeah, we want you guys to be able to come.

32:11Brooke Vigorito: But I was also planning on this being part of my workout. So let me make it more difficult for myself that I feel like it's helping me toward my goals. But yeah, if you're five years old and you want to come, absolutely come and we'll make it fun for you. Well, I get the chess thing and I get the working on the car thing. The ultra running thing comes with exertion over really long periods of time. And the attention span of most kids that I know doesn't go much longer than minutes or unless they're stuck in front of like a show. So I still think there's something there. Like it can't be fun for 48 hours.

32:54It can't be engaging for 48 hours.

32:58Brooke Vigorito: How long did it take her? 48 hours? Something like that you said? 42. 42 hours. I'm sorry, 42 hours. So like the I don't want to, I'm tired, this isn't fun anymore. Like those hurdles, like those have to exist, right? we have those conversations like i suspect you talk to any endurance athlete and you're like all right tell me about the most recent super long endurance event you did how many times did you mentally quit and almost just walked off the course and then you found some extra piece of motivation and it kept you in the fight they'd probably tell you well shoot man in my head i quit 50 times two times i almost literally quit other times it just my motivation was running low So, you know, that's very relatable.

33:45Brooke Vigorito: The struggle is the same for them. So we have these conversations with them. We're like, oh, okay, this isn't really fun anymore. Like, all right, well, let's find something to make it fun. And the times we've been out on a long family expedition run, and they've seen a kid's playground park, and they'd be like, oh, can we go hit the swings? And, you know, to my kind of training mind, I'm like, we're in the middle of a run. What do you mean, can you hit the swings? But I kind of have to pause that and be like, yeah, go hit the swings uh and just let them do a mental reset and to the to the actual event yeah 42 hours is a fantastically long amount of time if you ask dossie you know three weeks a month out she was like i'm pretty sure i got this and then when she did 50 miles in her simulation a month out she was like yeah i did half of it i'm pretty sure i got this i still was not at all convinced i was like oh kiddo and 80 90 miles you are gonna hit such a wall you have you have no idea and i can't explain it to you and it's that's true of anybody trying you're like i can't explain to you the amount of pain you're gonna be in so in the actual event you know we called it the midnight sun event it rained the entire time we started in the rain at midnight and it would it would slow up just enough, just such a faint drizzle, give you a little bit of false hope and then pick back up again.

35:08Brooke Vigorito: She got soaked so many times and so did Sophia. And we had planned to make them sleep several naps of like one hour plus, two hour plus. And they did. I think Sophia ended up sleeping like six hours at night. She had like 30 some miles and slept six hours and then got up and finished her event. Right. And Dossie took like three different naps. they end up getting soaked in the tent and in their sleeping bags like water pooled and like ran up under the tent leaked in it wasn't great and then all that affects your morale right so when dossie got to i think she was like mile 47 she came up her feet were wet she's like dad my feet hurt she sat down on the picnic table took her shoes off and dude as she took her sock off her right foot this big honking piece of skin peeled right off the ball of her foot and i was like, oh, snap.

35:58Brooke Vigorito: We're done-zo, especially if she sees it. So I was like, Brooke, give me that pair of dry socks. She's like, sweetie, you need some dry socks and some dry shoes. And I just handed her the socks. And she's sitting there looking at the tops of her feet. And she's like, dad, my feet are so white and wrinkly. She never saw the missing skin off the bottom of her feet. She put on the dry socks. She put on the dry shoes. She was like, man, this feels so much better. A couple miles later, by the time she got to about 50 miles was about the time I'd finished my event and I was back. And I was like, yeah, I'm just going to cheer her on.

36:31Brooke Vigorito: But she wasn't doing very good mentally. And I was like, all right, well, let's walk a lap. And just after she passed 50 miles, I was like, this is probably about all she wrote. She's not going to pull this out. Some friends from her soccer team showed up to run with her. And this is something very relatable for anybody who's ever done an endurance event. you know when your morale hits a low and then all of a sudden a friend shows up with fresh energy it can be just a godsend and it was for her her friend got there was like i bet i can beat you in a sprint now and she was like no you can't and just just all of a sudden they took off and i was like where'd that energy come from you got a big you got a you're missing a quarter-sized piece off the ball of your foot and you're sprinting you've been you're 51 miles in you know but their kids right uh so they did a lap her friend ended up how far did you go like 17 miles yeah she ran 17 miles this other kid who was like a couple years older than dossie and uh they play soccer together and was like well you know if we're gonna like run lap and then walk a lap i'm pretty sure i can go for a while i can probably get at least 10 miles and i'm getting 17 but uh her showing up you know at i'm trying to think we started at midnight and that was like the evening at the second day so we're like 20 hours in or something it it was an absolute lifesaver for her and that by the time she left us was past the 60 mile mark and uh then i think actually she was closer to 70 about 70 miles in it was fresh mental landscape she was like oh now i'm so far in it's incredible do you guys ever get pushed back on all this oh yeah oh yeah yeah you're pushing your kids way too hard you're ruining them though you're you're gonna kill them well i assumed going into this conversation because why would I assume otherwise is that this was like a very much a top down thing.

38:21Brooke Vigorito: I assume more like push from the parents and, you know, like not regimented, but to hear, you know, kids going 50 miles at 10 and a hundred miles at 12. I just assumed that there was more of a militant vibe. And I feel like we're just running on vibes. Like it's the exact opposite. It's like, that's, it's like totally different. I just can't like imagine like a kid, very much a kid's like grabbing hold of something so big. Like I do this for a living. You know, a hundred miles is scary. I've only gone 50 K. I mean, I've gone training runs a little further, but like a hundred miles is daunting to me and I, I get it.

39:06Brooke Vigorito: Maybe ignorance is bliss. I don't know, but like that a hundred miles to a kid might as well be around the world. So I just feel like that's, I don't know. That's just, it's a wild thing to grab onto. I, I'm shocked.

39:19Andrew Vigorito: I think we get more pushback from people who don't know our kids. Um, if you, people who know our kids, who have met our kids have chatted with them. They're like, you know, anybody that Hadassah was like, oh, I'm going to run a hundred miles. They're like, oh yeah yeah you are girl you got it like I wouldn't expect anything less um is that's normally the vibe we get from people that know us people that don't know us are like oh you're you're probably just like David Goggins your kids like and we're like that's totally the opposite of what uh all this is for us like totally the opposite but one of our big things is is definitely teaching the kids like be self like be self-aware um and even for us too like you do hit that place mentally where you're like okay now i'm just in a negative headspace like and the we've uh our girls have always watched a lot of survival shows and stuff because we are in alaska like that's that's what you do um and like one of the things they always sit on is like your your humor your sense of humor is the first thing to go.

40:29Andrew Vigorito: And when you see that go, you know, okay, dang, I'm in, I'm in trouble. Like I'm in deep waters. So that's one of the things we've always taught our girls. Like the minute you feel like your sense of humor, you're not able to laugh at that's when things are getting, getting serious. So let's all communicate when that happens. So we know let's, let's swap something up. Let's change something up. Um, because that's just, it's going to, all our training is going to go downhill once we get to that spot. So they've been very aware of while we're out running and maybe they're like, okay, you know what, mom, my sense of humor is going down.

41:07Andrew Vigorito: Like I'm not finding things as funny. I'm getting a little bit in a negative headspace. So it's like, okay, well, let's, what do we do? What do we want to swap up? What, what song do you need to hear to, to pump you up and get you out of that headspace? Or maybe you just, you know, need to take a break for a little while and then we'll come back to it. Maybe you need to swap to rollerblades. So that's something we really taught them to be to be self-aware of. And even for ourselves, we took a family overnight backpacking trip in winter, about 30 miles. and I remember we were we were like I don't know five miles from from the end and I just looked at Sophia our youngest and I was like listen mommy's really sorry but mommy started to get into a negative headspace like I we need to swap something up and she was like don't worry mom I brought something just for that time and she pulls out like these like little pieces of candy and she's like, you can have one chocolate now.

42:10Andrew Vigorito: And then when we get a quarter mile down the trail, I'll give you another chocolate, you know, and I was like, man, they're okay, like, they, that's exactly what I would have done to her, you know. So it's neat to see them now pick that up and put that into practice themselves. But yeah, being self-aware of that negative headspace and when things are just not fun anymore, that's crucial. That's really crucial. Anytime you're working with kids, anytime you're working with kids, because that's the last thing you want to push your kids to is the point where this is just, this is not fun and I'm starting to, you never want them to get to the place where they're like, okay, I hate this.

42:56Andrew Vigorito: Like I hate this now. Um, it's never where, where we want that to go for them.

43:02Brooke Vigorito: All right, Kirk, here, here's my, here's my pitch for you. And you'll understand a lot of the psychology when I pitch you on this. What's the, what's the furthest distance event you've ever done? Uh, let's say 37 miles. You need to do an open-ended time event where there's no set mileage on it because it totally relieves the pressure on you. anytime you sign up for a dedicated i'm going to run this amount of miles you automatically start putting a lot of pressure on yourself calculating okay how fast do i need to run each mile how much fuel done you blah blah blah when you go to a open-ended event you know they have them up to 96 hours most popular is 24-hour events you go to a 24-hour event you set up your camp you put your sleeping bag out you've got all your food there's an aid station there there's other people doing it you cruise until you're just like blah i'm almost falling asleep on my feet okay i'm gonna actually go sleep for an hour you get up and you go again it's a radically different experience because i mean for me the whole game changed when i realized shoot i can fall asleep actually hit the mental reset button wake up and continue uh that's wild but it it eases up the pressure so much that it almost becomes a game with yourself.

44:23Brooke Vigorito: And it's funny even saying this because I remember long before I'd ever done any endurance event, meeting a nurse practitioner at work who told me, oh, I run 100 miles. And I was like, you do what now? He was like, well, I run these 100 mile events. And I was like, who runs for 100 miles? Because at this point, I've only done like 5Ks and 10Ks. And he was like, well, you don't run the whole time. You walk when you need to. I'm like, ah, cheating. And he's like, he just started laughing. He's like, cheating. He was like, when you get to the end, they don't ask, did you walk ever? Did you stop to use the bathroom?

44:51Brooke Vigorito: How many times? He's like, bro, I'll go to an aid station. They feed you lasagna and you lay down and sleep for like an hour if you need to, and then get up and go again. I was like, ultimate cheating. You eat lasagna and sleep for an hour? My mind was just blown. But once you actually do something like that, you find you're like, man, the goalposts moved so much. And you're capable of your body and your mind are capable of so much more than you can even really comprehend until you put yourself in that environment to actually give it a shot. That's my pitch. Kirk, would you ever do an event that required sleep in the current place you're at?

45:31Brooke Vigorito: Would I ever? Probably. I think the crossing of the wires is I'm so time-focused, meaning like every start line I, I tow, I want to win or the time still matters. Or if it's the 24 hour event, well, I'm going to cover the most distance. So it does matter. I think it would be releasing the handcuffs cause I don't like to lose. So it's, I think it's a different space. Maybe I'll, maybe I'm not grown up enough yet to, to go do it just for me, but I don't, it's not part of my MO, I guess right now it probably will be. What about you Bracken? Uh, me, no, because I, I respond so poorly physically to sleep after a big effort.

46:19Brooke Vigorito: Like I, I am so stiff after I'm, I, I, I understand like the regeneration that would come from it, but I'm like, I'm a zombie when I get out of a, like if I'm doubling in a day and I nap after one, I wake up significantly worse than I went to bed. And I'm better for it later, but I don't have the mindset right now to wake up in that state and be like, all right, let's keep doing this. So I understand why it works for people, but not for me yet. Did Brooke tell you guys about Michael Ortiz who showed up at our event? This guy's got a New York Times article written about him when he ran a hundred miler inside his small apartment in the Bronx during COVID lockdown.

47:04Brooke Vigorito: he was trying to complete a hundred hundreds and he wanted to do one in each of the 50 states so this guy lives in new york flies to la works three days in finance and you know flies back to new york he emails us three days before the event he's like hey guys i want to do it's a hundred in alaska i just read about your event i want to come i checked flights but i'm not going to land in anchorage till 11 30 so i got an uber out there i'm not going to show up till an hour too late is that okay and we're like of course it's okay man we're gonna be here 48 hours so he had been at work got up at seven in the morning drank his coffee worked his job in finance in la jumped on his flight shows up ubers all the way out there two in the morning he's been awake since seven in the morning the day before and he's like i'm ready to go he's nowhere near ready to go He's already sleep deprived.

47:56So he ran and I think he got to like 29.

48:00Brooke Vigorito: He was close to 30 miles. I'd never seen somebody falling asleep on their feet before. I'd read about it in Goggins books, right? I've never seen this with my own two eyes. This man is literally falling asleep and like wandering straight off this paved trail on his feet. And it's like a few of us would be running. Dossie's next to me. I'm here. There's a couple other guys. We're all trotting along. And then all of a sudden we're like, where'd my goat? Mike and we look back and he's just like his feet are moving but he's literally not they're just coming straight up and down he's not going at all we look Mike you good and he's like yeah yeah guys and he's like jogging catch back up with us and I'm like we can't get back to the age station I'm telling Brock I'm like there's no way there's no way this dude's finished 100 and I tell him like hey man listen we got the tent set up over here we got some air mattress inflated you need to give yourself at least an hour uh to just rejuvenate he's like yeah that's this that's probably a good idea passes out for an hour uh and then he comes back up he's like yeah i feel good let's go he didn't feel good and neither did i i mean we're both you know quite stiff you know it's raining on us you know nobody feels good he got past 40 miles and around mile 45 he literally started spinning in the middle of the trail he'd fall asleep so bad he'd be like mike you good and he would just spin a 360 in the trail and not fall over i'm like this ain't good this guy's he's gonna get himself hurt we get back up he didn't even make it to the tent he just sat down on a chair didn't even prop his feet up he was just out and so he slept like 15 minutes i jogged another lap with dossie and i woke him up i was like hey man you want to come with us or you need to sleep more and he's like i need to sleep more i'm like hey let's go get in the tent so like walk into the tent woke him up after the next lap you need to sleep more yeah i need to sleep more and he slept about another hour and then he got up and kept on going and he did that like three or four times i forget but i had never seen anything like that did he feel good no he felt terrible the entire time.

49:50Brooke Vigorito: He got such bad blisters on his feet. I ended up giving him a new pair of shoes, but moral of the story, he was super stiff. He was having trouble just like doing a slow trot, but it regenerated him mentally just enough to keep him in the bite. And he finished. It's like 41 hours and he got his 9 ,800. I was like, bro, this is a rough way to go, man. You're starting in such a hole. I've never seen it before. People talk about getting a bad night to sleep before a race there's there's nothing like that there's nothing why do you start at

50:23Andrew Vigorito: midnight because um well that was actually hadassah's idea so it's hadassah's idea she was like this is um she's like i want to run through the the night first so that way it doesn't mess with her as much mentally she's like if i run through the night first then start the next day I basically am starting fresh at night. And so also from a parent's perspective, I'd rather her start fresh at night anyways as well, rather than start fresh during the day and then be running more tired at night. So that's why we started at midnight. Also, we are in Alaska, the land of the midnight sun is what we are known for, even though during our whole event, It rained the whole entire time and the sun was barely out.

51:16Brooke Vigorito: Still didn't need a headlamp.

51:17Andrew Vigorito: Yeah, you didn't need a headlamp whatsoever. But so that's why we started at midnight was that was that was her idea. And this whole event was really just for her to run her hundred, her hundred miles and to have that that achievement. So that's why we decided, why not? What other race starts at midnight? You know, so. So it sounds miserable. Yeah. The big joke is we're like, misery loves company and everybody out here apparently loves misery.

51:50Brooke Vigorito: So do people try to get to bed really early and get a few hours or are they just straight up?

51:56Andrew Vigorito: Some did. Some tried that. Of course, like for us with our girls, we're like, you are sleeping all day long. Like you are down for the count all day long so that you're fresh and ready to start. because that was something really important to us is making sure our girls are prepared, are fresh, and are ready for it. But no, some people literally, we had a couple from Texas that flew in. They were on their way to an Alaskan cruise, and they took an hour and a half detour to just go run their first 10K together at our event. ran their 10k and then off they went to go drive further south to go to their their alaskan cruise some people just came right from work others tried to to sleep beforehand so it was a mixed bag of all just kind of all different people trying out all different things so what's the setup of this

52:52Brooke Vigorito: event how did this evolve and what does it look like there's a 1.2 mile loop at a local recreation area. We got a permit from the county. We just set up a central aid station and each person that was coming, what distance they had declared and their sign up, all friends signed up. They were trying to go. We gave them the corresponding number of check boxes they need so they could check a box off every time they completed a loop. The goal was to make a very low-key, non-intimidating format to try something that you kind of thought was crazy for the first time. And without exception, every single person that came did some distance they had never done before.

53:35Brooke Vigorito: We had a guy with cerebral palsy show up and do a fast walk, slow jog, four miles. He was like, well, I did a 5K. I'm going to see if I can do four miles.

53:47Andrew Vigorito: That was probably one of the highlights, honestly.

53:50Brooke Vigorito: That was pretty motivating.

53:51Andrew Vigorito: That, to me, someone like that coming out to try something, especially putting themselves out there like that. That is a highlight. That was really awesome to see and to be able to experience him completing that for himself. We had a couple of first 10 Ks, first 50, first.

54:14Brooke Vigorito: And then there was Cougar. So this guy showed up almost halfway through the event to pace one of his buddies who was attempting 100. and as he showed up his buddy just kind of hit critical mass and ended up calling it at 50 which he'd done like a marathon before 50 was still huge for him but his buddy was like man i'm i'm fueled up i'm fresh and so michael ortiz the guy was talking about was like well come come jog some laps with us and uh his jogging couple laps with us ended up you know many many hours he ended up hitting 30 miles before he called it was this was this a grassroots event is this Did this happen this year already?

54:51Brooke Vigorito: Is this recent? I guess I don't know when this happened.

54:53Andrew Vigorito: This was three weeks ago.

54:57Brooke Vigorito: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you guys are just riding high coming off of this thing, and this is the inaugural event. Is that right?

55:03Andrew Vigorito: Yeah, so this was the first of this one. And this one was just specifically tailored just to help, just to get Hadassah and Sophia their goals. And then it just really became such a big thing that we're like, no, you know what, let's really continue with this. Because one of the things we really also find hard is even running events is we have to always get special permission for our kids to do basically any running event because they're below the age bracket. it. So we're like, well, let's, how can we continue something like this with, with allowing other families to come out? We had some families come out all together and run their first 5k together.

55:54Andrew Vigorito: Others that their kids had, you know, put in Hadassah's friend who put in 17 miles. The furthest she had run before was a 5k. Sophia, some of her friends came out. They had maybe run And a 5K before, they did a half marathon distance. So seeing everybody is also just excitement about that. And like, they're excited. You have young kids that are like, this is far. Like, this is very far for them. We're like, well, let's, how do we, how do we, you know, model this and multiply it a bit more?

56:31Brooke Vigorito: So this event then, first year, did you have ideas of grandeur before this? Or now that it's been done, you're like, hey, maybe we're on to something here. And we need to create a space for more people to have access to this. Has this been in the works, I guess is what I'm asking. Or now that it's come and gone, it's like, hey, we need to do something with this. Which way did it work? We had no ideas of grandeur. Now we might have slight. We literally were like, you know, talking with Dossie and she's like, you know, I want to break the record for 100 miles. We're like, okay, well, let's sign you up for an open into time event.

57:13Brooke Vigorito: Like we can make this a really chill experience and not push you too hard. Then we found out there are none in Alaska. Yeah. There were two 24-hour events in Alaska, no 48-hour events. Just the first 48-hour event in Alaska that we're aware of. Um, and that's how it started. We're like, well, let's hold an event that you can do this and give this a shot. And then from there, we're kind of like, well, we're going to hold it. Sure. Let's open it to the public. See who else wants to try something. Um, then, you know, we got far greater response than we anticipated. We ended up almost 60 signups. The rain kept a lot of people away.

57:52Brooke Vigorito: I think we ended up about 35 people, uh, registered participants showed up. not including the participants who showed up to help others and then ended up, you know, grabbing a sheet and being like, I'm going to mark off boxes. You know, let me, let me see what I can do. And where's this name come from? Toughest Alive. Yeah. Ooh, that's a good question.

58:15Brooke Vigorito: So we've had many, many, many conversations, you know, once upon a time I was interested in CrossFit. We tried Spartan events.

58:25Andrew Vigorito: Sorry, Tough Mudder. We've heard,

58:26Brooke Vigorito: We did Tough Mudder. We're kind of interested in High Rocks. I mean, we're just interested in fitness work. Do you guys not recognize Bracken from the Spartan Pro Team, third in the world championships? Do you guys not know you're with royalty right now?

58:41Andrew Vigorito: We don't have Spartan here. Spartan does not come to Alaska. Spartan doesn't come to Alaska.

58:45Brooke Vigorito: They've got their own. They have Novakovich and Chad Trammell and Lars Arneson up there. Nice. Nice.

58:51Andrew Vigorito: We're the redheaded stepchild of the 50 states. You know, no one wants to come up here and do anything.

58:59Brooke Vigorito: It's not that they don't want to. I think they can't justify the cost to get there. Yeah, there's just not a population base to make events big enough. Yeah. Well, nothing against that. Dude, you could probably tell me some ridiculous stories about some events you've pulled off doing Spartan competitions, races of all different sort of formats. As a past life. As a past life. All right. He's being coy. Both of us were on your pro team for a while, but he was the real poster child for a little bit. With both your past lives, I'd be really interested to hear about your present lives. Just running ultras and saying I'm never going to do it again.

59:44Brooke Vigorito: That's mine. That is my current life.

59:48Andrew Vigorito: On repeat. On repeat.

59:50Brooke Vigorito: I don't know. I don't know. I did 250K seven weeks apart. And this last one, I kind of went down in flames chasing a time, a record. And so now I'm pretty sunburned from that one. So we'll see. Not legit sunburned, but we'll see. But what's your idea of grandeur then with this thing? So obviously there's going to be another event next year. And then maybe. And will this be marketed to the young crowd trying to do something like this? Is this a young friendly? Because I don't know of any like this. We just we had a conversation with Stand Hope Ultra, which is coming on where there's lactation stations for nursing mothers.

1:00:30Brooke Vigorito: And there's, you know, like very like niche friendly for that. I don't know of anything for kids or advertise as such. Is that part of your thing or no?

1:00:41Andrew Vigorito: Yeah. So the name Toughest Alive, we we came up with because we said, you know, the toughest thing to do is to be consistent and to show up every day. You know, you can always find an excuse not to go for a run, not to get your workout out, not to. But the hardest thing and the toughest thing to do is to show up and to be consistent every day. So that's where the name came from. So, but yeah, so we actually in August, we'll be moving to Nevada because we would like to really take more events across the lower 48, which I don't know if you guys are familiar with that term. In Alaska, we call the rest of like the states the lower 48.

1:01:29Andrew Vigorito: We're over here.

1:01:31Brooke Vigorito: You might know it as America.

1:01:32Andrew Vigorito: We know it as the lower 48.

1:01:34Brooke Vigorito: I thought you guys loved Alaska. Wait, you're leaving?

1:01:37Andrew Vigorito: We do love Alaska. But we do want to bring more events down to the rest of the states. But continue this Midnight Sun block party festival once a year in Alaska. At least once a year. Next year, we're looking at expanding it to more of a seven-day festival. So people are able to come out for seven days and just run for seven days. Run, walk, ruck for seven days straight. But our events are really tailored more towards running, walking, of course, because we don't want to disclude anybody. If you can walk, sure, come on out. But ruck, because we have a huge military presence here in Alaska, rucking is something that is also really important to us.

1:02:37Andrew Vigorito: So that's also a genre we like to hit at. But yeah, so you want to?

1:02:45Brooke Vigorito: Yeah, well, very first event we ever held. I guess back to Bracken's original question, Toughest Alive, we always say the toughest thing is to show up every day. And kind of the other concept we talk about a lot is the toughest alive, leave no one behind. You know, the fitness industry, it's, you know, if you go to a gym, you very well may have a bad experience where some guy's slamming weights and you feel like they're trying to intimidate you and outperform you. We say, you know, if you're actually really tough, you don't take it as any, you want people to exceed you and you want to encourage whoever you can.

1:03:20Brooke Vigorito: And so we said toughs lives built on generous encouragement. If you're an actual tough person, you will be generous with your encouragement toward anyone and everyone. And building other people up will be rewarding to you. The competition challenge, we said, man, somebody ought to put together a challenge to test strength, discipline, grit, endurance, strength, speed, stamina to the absolute max. and so we said shoot you gotta have a power lifting meet and then an ultra marathon and then just a a grueling grind to see just how much do you have in the tank in an absolute sense not different days you know just back to back to back and they just accrue your total time so what the toughest allow toughest allowed challenge put together was try to hit over 6.2 times your body weight um a power lifting total bench squat deadlift if you hit 6.2 times your body weight roll into running 62 miles which is 100k ultra after you do that roll into 620 reps split between burpees and 62 pound sandbag throws um so that that's what i've done at the at the midnight sun endurance festival and try to set a benchmark Does that mean when you say 610 pounds or 20 pounds, was it 620 pounds?

1:04:46Brooke Vigorito: Or 6.2 times, sorry. Oh, yeah. Would that mean like, so if you weighed 150 pounds, then between your squat bench and dead, you need to be at whatever 6.2 times 150 is in a sense. Absolutely. And so your total, whatever you pick, 250 on the bench and 400 on the deadlift just has to add up. and then you have to rep that out for how many times? No, no. Those are single maxes. Okay, single maxes. One single max squat, one single max dead, and he's a total of 6.2 times your weight. That makes sense. Okay, got it. Yeah, that's formidable though. Not many people are going to be able to say they're well-trained for 100K and they're not going to even get the buy-in.

1:05:27Brooke Vigorito: Right, right, right. Yeah. So you have to qualify for the run by hitting those metrics. Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:33Andrew Vigorito: They all have to be done in that sequence.

1:05:35Brooke Vigorito: Is there like an hour to complete it or what? Oh, just the clock's ticking. Take as long as you need. Take as long as you want. Okay. As soon as you finish the third lift and it totals 6.2 times your body weight, you're off on the run. Yeah. So for me, it's 1 ,000. Let's say I weigh 170 pounds. It'd be 1 ,054 pounds. So I weigh 170 pounds. And I'm trying to think. I used to focus on the big three. Gosh, first thing was like the 1 ,000-pound club. And then it was the, can you get to the 1250? Right. But if you start breaking that down, I mean, you're looking at 400 pound dead plus 300 plus pound squat.

1:06:17Brooke Vigorito: And then still left almost a 300, 275 pound bench. So this is not for, I mean, just to be able to show up to this event. I mean, right? Like that is a measure in itself. So this wasn't for mass marketing. This was just kind of like, we're like, you know, if we're going to use the name Toughest Alive, we got to come up with a challenge. Like, you know, CrossFit says fit on earth and every brand has their slogan. We're like, we got to have Toughest Alive. Like, can you pull this off? And then we're going to slap you in the face after you run a hundred K. We're going to make it just a little extra.

1:06:50Andrew Vigorito: Oh, wait, there's more. Oh, man. Well, we were first like trying to come up with this challenge because we're always trying to push the limit. like okay can you can you do both can you be a weight lifter and a runner like can you do both because the industry says i think where the industry is slowly moving towards that a little

1:07:11Brooke Vigorito: bit more um especially with and everything yeah yeah i think there's a lot more interest in hybrid

1:07:17Andrew Vigorito: athlete yeah but you know i we've always asked that question like can you can you do both like Like, and we were never satisfied with the answer. No, like we're like, no, no, let's test this. Let's see if we can, if we can do this. So at first when we came up with this challenge, Andrew was like, well, instead of let's have the run be a hundred miles. And I was like, dude, no one is going to want to do that. Like that would have to be last. Yeah. Newsflash.

1:07:45Brooke Vigorito: There's like one person who wants to do a hundred K after that at most, probably two though. Right. You gotta be wrong with you a little bit. There's a little bit. I tried it and failed it. Yeah.

1:07:58Andrew Vigorito: So then like, wait, I was like, why don't we, why don't we knock this down to like, you know, 62. That sounds, that sounds still extreme, but doable. So at the event three weeks ago when Hadassah hit her a hundred miles, so he was, I have her like focusing on her a hundred miles, having to reach that goal. same time Sophia's like running her 50 miles doing her goal and he's doing this challenge at the same time and uh he gets done with with all that then he decides well I'm just gonna go run some more miles with Hadassah so he ended up doing that whole challenge and running 112 miles um all together so maybe it is doable maybe it is doable well parental instinct Dossie was only

1:08:45Brooke Vigorito: 50 miles in so i just went out to pace her and yeah 50 miles of pacing ended up totaling 112 by the time was all said and done how'd you split up the burpees in the over shoulder throws just based on what was giving out or what no i set a timer to beep every minute i would do 10 burpees and then just wait for the rest of the minute being my rest and i do 10 sandbag throws and wait uh so i just was going every minute on the minute so took me 62 minutes it was like a That was a good 62-minute workout after the 100K. Cramping everywhere, I would assume. So what was your time? 17 hours, 15 minutes.

1:09:21Brooke Vigorito: And what do you think is doable? If it is not raining and I'm not having my daughters compete at the same time, I think I could do it again in less than 14 hours. And what do you think a human is capable of right now in this time? That's a good question. I would like to see if I can pull this challenge off in less than 12 hours in my lifetime. You're really limiting who can get in and the fast runners are not going to be able to participate. So there's a roadblock for the ones who could really make it fast on their feet. Most likely. So that's the whole reason for it. Well, no, I understand. I love it.

1:10:00Brooke Vigorito: Trust me. I pride myself on being a strong guy runner for sure. But I'm saying like you're not going to have the marathon world record holder. The guy can't deadlift probably 225. So, yeah.

1:10:12Andrew Vigorito: Right.

1:10:13Brooke Vigorito: Right.

1:10:14Andrew Vigorito: And so that's part of like, like that does this is something we've talked about. We're like, OK, this is this is like the ultimate. And then I'm always like, OK, what about for the you know, let's also dumb it down a little bit to like, let's see. Can we also have a version that's just strictly body weight and really focus more people who would just do body weight? and so we would like as we put this on more and more and travel around the 50 states have those different brackets for it so you'd have just a body weight bracket and mileage would be lower and then another tier would be above it with maybe are you doing a sandbag for your deadlift your back squat and your bench press so have the different levels and the different tiers so that it's really more marketable to anyone in the fitness industry that's maybe more beginner to more advanced.

1:11:15Brooke Vigorito: Break it down, have a 5K version, 10K version, half marathon, marathon version.

1:11:19Andrew Vigorito: Yeah, even a kid's version that the kids can get into anything like that.

1:11:24Brooke Vigorito: Is the 6.2 times body weight scaled for women or is that same percentage?

1:11:29Andrew Vigorito: Same percentage.

1:11:32Brooke Vigorito: Women weight less. Well, that's big numbers. Well, relative to your body weight makes it kind of the equalizer. So we just have a little bit of time left here. So I have two questions really still. I don't know what's on your list, Bracken, but maybe I should ask your kids this, but we'll ask you instead. Where do your girls go from here?

1:11:58Andrew Vigorito: So that's a good question. But literally as I was driving Hadassah home from after she finished her 100 miles, she we're in the car and we're driving and she just like I was just telling her, I was like, you know, I am so proud of you. Like, this is a huge accomplishment for anyone, anyone, let alone someone that's that's 12. And she just looks at me and she's like, I'm just conflicted, mom. I was like, why are you conflicted? She's like, well, I've been training so hard for this. I've been really looking forward to this. Now this moment's over. And now I'm like, what do I do next? What can I tackle next?

1:12:38Andrew Vigorito: My first instinct is sleep. We're going to go sleep for a while. So next, they're still trying to figure that out. They're still trying to think of what they'd like to tackle next. One of our things our families wanted to do, though, is a triathlon all together as a family. But that's going to take some, as we've looked into it more and more, we realize that the age bracket, that's something we're going to have to try to see if we can get that to work just because they're younger. So, yeah, so they're still figuring out that goal, what they want to accomplish next.

1:13:20Brooke Vigorito: I mean, if mileage is part of their internal workings, it's like if you've done 100 at 12, you either try to do something faster or you try to go further. But all I know is, I mean, not that you're painting yourself into a corner by going 100 miles at 12 or 50 miles at 10, but you've already done a lot. Yeah. You've already done a lot. Like I hate the bar is already way higher than anybody their ages. So it's like, where, what do you do? Do they thrive on getting faster or is it just going far? Is it like those things are like, it's a very interesting place that they've earned the right to be in.

1:14:00Andrew Vigorito: I think they thrive on going faster. They do thrive on that. And they thrive at anything that's community oriented. Like anything, if they're out with other people doing it, they really, really thrive on that. And that's one of the things we really love about the running community is everybody's super encouraging. Like any event you go to, people are super encouraging and especially to our kids. And that's something we really value as parents, having other people also encourage and pour into our girls. To have all these people that came out to our event that took time just to do laps with our girls and talk with them and encourage them and get to know them.

1:14:48Andrew Vigorito: That's a huge thing. And as a parent, that's all you really want. You want to see them be encouraged and thrive and be uplifted by other people. To have Michael, who came from New York, and he ended up finishing with Hadassah all her miles. I think he finished like her last 30 miles or something with her. And it was awesome. He just kept encouraging her and pushing her. And she would do the same to him, encourage him and push him. And that's why we love running and love the running environment because it is very supportive to our girls. and they do, they can recall people back from their first 48 hour run that they did when they were six and eight and be like, oh yeah, do you remember that lady who would give us candy every single time we'd go by?

1:15:46Andrew Vigorito: Or this guy who stopped and ran like three laps with them and just encouraged them and, you know, helped them on some running form and different things. so it's it's been a really awesome environment to get kids into especially at a young age

1:16:02Brooke Vigorito: and have them progress i wouldn't be surprised if jossie ends up trying a 200 miler when she's 13 yeah she's mentioned that a couple times yeah she's mentioned that she's like can i do another

1:16:12Andrew Vigorito: 48 hour before i am you know before the end of august like okay that's right around the corner that's when she turns 13 i assume that's when she turns yeah i was bringing her younger sister

1:16:26Brooke Vigorito: you can already see younger sisters she's uh sophia is gonna clearly be trying to break whatever uh hottie sets huh or dasa yes i mean like you can see where that's going already too

1:16:40Andrew Vigorito: it's good she's the hadass is the more uh verbal competitive one sophia is just the quiet competitive one. Yeah, the sleeper cell, the one you have to watch out for. She's, it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting.

1:16:57Brooke Vigorito: Well, I don't know if I have. It was a very interesting, very fun conversation. I'm sure a lot of people listening with kids at home are going to glean a bit from this and start to maybe think outside the box a little bit. I don't know if I have any other questions. Do you, Bracken? No, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. Where can we follow this journey, I guess. Where can people find out about the race? I'm oddly curious about what happens with the kiddos moving forward. Where can people do that? Instagram and Facebook. In two weeks, we're rolling out a Toughest Alive app that's mostly based on community and community encouragement.

1:17:39Brooke Vigorito: Daily accountability, sharing what what you're doing every day. Yeah, but toughest.alive on Instagram is probably the best place to follow. That's what I'm looking at right now. Okay, perfect. Yeah, it pops right up. Okay. Oh yeah, you guys get quite a following too.

1:17:54Andrew Vigorito: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:17:55Brooke Vigorito: Nice. All right, cool. I guess final question I have to know, what were your numbers for your three lift? Yeah, so I got a 500 pound deadlift, 400 pound back squat, which is right on the nose. And 255 on bench. So I did back squat first, then deadlift, then bench, flopped shoes. Yeah, the part that surprised me, I was more gassed than I thought I'd be by the time I got to the reps at the end. but during the run the first there were several laps that i ended up uh walking and trying to encourage people that were were in the pain cave on some distance they were trying that uh where'd i where i had to do it again and just focus on on speed i i think i could i think i

1:18:51Andrew Vigorito: can knock a couple hours off of it yeah we're gonna have to do it do it again just because like i mean he'd be like going around and like walking with someone encourage them i'm like You're killing your time.

1:19:03Brooke Vigorito: Kirk, what order would you do the lifts? I would do it in that exact order. Really? I would not. I would dead squat and then bench. Yeah. What would you do? I'd do the exact opposite. I'd squat. I mean, I'd bench squat dead.

1:19:20Andrew Vigorito: Really? Okay. Squatting takes so much out of me that I wouldn't be able to bench after that.

1:19:28Brooke Vigorito: I don't think. I'd be able to lock in and deadlift. I feel like I'd rather just push against the earth than ever have to balance anything once I was dead from the deadlift. Ironically, that's why I did squat first was because deadlift is definitely my strongest lift. My best deadlift ever is 585. And I was pretty sure I'd be able to hit 500. So I warmed up squat and then hit singles like 225, 275 315 365 and then just went far at 400 and got a rough rep and then just as i stood up i just threw it on the ground i'm like all right i'm deadlifting that next and ripped the first dead lift right there at 400 and then went up because i my reasoning was if i hit a good squat i'll be primed for the deadlift but the deadlift will probably happen regardless and the bench um Um, I, on a great day, I might hit 275.

1:20:28Brooke Vigorito: I've got a, an interesting old shoulder injury, um, that, that's a little bit limiting on bench. So I figured I had, I had the most, uh, to gain by hitting a good squat. And I guess I'd want to shift as much to my upper body as I could to take pounds away from what I'd have to squat. And from the run.

1:20:46Andrew Vigorito: And from the run. Yeah. No, we're gonna, we're gonna have to test it all out once we, once we get to Nevada where there's no rain hopefully and uh we also had some territorial moose that were out on our trail

1:21:04Brooke Vigorito: so hopefully there'll be none of those but this is all theoretical i couldn't hit i could i'd have to hit like 1150 or i couldn't hit that i don't think you all have to go to nevada and try it

1:21:15Andrew Vigorito: how's that we'll run you all through the whole thing hey you guys are gonna have to come try an

1:21:20Brooke Vigorito: hourglass. Last thing, if I could for 30 seconds, the very first event held was I read this article about an event that happened in New Zealand. I was like, babe, we got to do that. So we did it in Alaska, dead of winter, January 20th. It was absolute worst case scenario conditions. We had a foot of loose snow on this trail that fell in the 24 hours prior to doing it. But the format is the runners run two miles in 30 minutes and you cannot start again. You get back, you have to wait till the 30 minutes is over the clock resets to 29 minutes and you do it again get back to the start resets to 28 minutes so it's called the hourglass because the time ticks down the people doing the ruck guys with a you know pack and women with a slightly reduced pack uh do one mile in the exact same uh and the time clicks down so it's very similar format to a last man standing backyard ultra uh you get it with the dropping yeah yeah but the clock did take him down what was the winning how fast did somebody make it down to um the guy who won the run i think he outlasted the longest rucker by two laps uh trying to think how i think we were down to 17 minutes it was it was deep when he washed out it was the the funny thing was uh neither one of our girls were going to participate in the night before uh dossie was like dad i want to do the ruck i've never done the ruck and we had said kids could enter and we'd said okay men will have 35 pound pack women will have a 25 pound pack kids will have a 15 pound pack if they're 14 or younger and so i was like well sweetie you got to get a 15 pound pack so she went got some bags of flour and put them in a little school knapsack it was not a rucking grade pack it was like this loose floppy thing she was like all right i'm gonna do it and i was like oh okay well we'll see she ended up winning the ruck she ended up outlasting all these military guys and it's her and this local chiropractor went they battled it out for the last two rounds and then he tapped he's like i'm done she was like i won i was like no that means you got to do the winning loop oh crap so she did her last loop at 18 minutes that's amazing i'm just trying to think in that format in that format because let's say I can run two miles in, I don't know, 945 right now, maybe, probably.

1:23:37Brooke Vigorito: But by the time you get to - Oh, yeah, that's fast. Well, no, but the point being is by the time you get down to that 15, 14, 13, you already have 25 plus miles in your legs, right? So I like that format's interesting. That's just a very interesting format. That one excites me in a weird way, actually. Yeah. What's the rest? The rest is just until the period runs out. Every two miles. Yep. Yep. Yep.

1:24:01Andrew Vigorito: Yeah. So that, that one we're really excited to bring down to, to the States as well and, and try that out. Cause that it's a really fun, fun one. And you, you know, our whole vibe that we try to give is just encourage everybody else like to keep going because if I'm encouraging him to keep going, well, it's going to push me to keep going. So I'm probably going to run farther than I would have if he just tapped out and was like, no, I'm done. so it really becomes a fun an interesting mental game that you play with yourself too like am I going to let myself rest for a little bit longer or do I just continue just going at a pace and kind of building that up a little bit

1:24:44Brooke Vigorito: where are you physically located Kirk? Minneapolis area just north of the cities a lot of racing opportunities here we'll have to bring the hourglass we'll have to bring the hourglass up It's an interesting take because if you really want to win it, you got to have the stay power. But I think you get some real thoroughbreds and you might have to run. You might be able to get down to 12 minutes, maybe even close to 10 minutes, honestly, for some of these real thoroughbreds. If somebody took it seriously, for sure. Well, I'll tell you how it got won. The guy who won it, he was at the back of the pack for the first several laps.

1:25:24Brooke Vigorito: He was really smart and cerebral. he you know your first 30 minutes when you could do 15 minute miles and that's exactly what he thought so the first couple for several laps he walked most of them and saved his power to to kick in start running once it once he needed it and all the thoroughbreds had you know a lot of people got way too excited and they were just killing it and uh they kill it and we thought he dropped out and then like minutes later before the starts again he just walks in and we're like oh i guess he's still here. Tell those guys who were in the backyards come in last minute.

1:25:58Brooke Vigorito: All right. Well, go to the webpage. It looks like you guys keep people or go to the Instagram. Looks like you guys keep people pretty updated there and I'll be following along. I'm very oddly invested in your girls, so I'll be paying attention.

1:26:12Andrew Vigorito: We are too.

1:26:14Brooke Vigorito: Hey, good to chat with both of you guys. Thanks so much for having us on. You as well. We'll see you. Yeah. Thank you.

1:26:23Thank you.