242. Cole Brecka: The Great World Race, 100-Mile Ultras & Why Hydrogen Water is the Ultimate Recovery Tool

21:44Gary Brecka:I was trying to give you like literally capfuls of coconut water. And I would pour it into a cap, literally the cap of the bottle, and you would try to sip it just to keep moisture in your mouth. And then when we got to Cartagena, it was 98 degrees, blazing sun. It seemed like the worst possible course because it was a concrete, long, flat, unforgiving course with no shade. And then they just had those little port-a-potties like every two and a half miles and the little table set up. And dude, you would go into that port-a-potty and you would like vomit and other shit, literally, every two and a half miles.

22:27Dude, I couldn't keep anything. I remember telling Max, I was like - By the way, that's the sixth marathon. That was number six. This happens at the end of Australia, okay? So that's three marathons in. I go four marathons completely fasted. I know. Like, it's crazy to see. So it goes Antarctica, Cape Town, Perth, Australia, Istanbul, Asia, Istanbul, Europe, Cartagena, and then Miami. me and um i i remember just like thinking like dude how how could this literally be any worse like i was like i i feel like everything that could go wrong i'm running on broken ankles i can't keep any food down i was like i don't know i mean i can't keep up with the climate i haven't slept my longest sleep during seven days was an hour and 50 minutes consecutive yeah it's because like you're trying to slam nutrition in and you're like now i'm like throwing up every 30 seconds and like your whoop score had a recovery of one every day yeah one percent one percent yeah every day yeah and so it's honestly like spectacular to see how primal like the human body can go like there's those stories about people that get stranded in the woods or in the mountains or something and survive for three months off you know like berries and sticks and you know you catching rabbits and shit.

23:47And that's true.

23:49Gary Brecka:The human capabilities are insane. And so to feel that, it was the most raw and vulnerable and again, primal that I'd ever felt ever. It's weird how anything materialistic or anything like that or the little shit that people care about, like your clothes and what kind of shoes you're wearing and what kind of car you drive and shit like that and what kind of watch you have. Dude, I didn't want anything. I wanted sleep, food, water. And I wanted shelter. And kind of in that water. Literally, I felt like a caveman. I wanted shelter. I wanted nutrition. And I wanted to hydrate. And that's all I wanted.

24:37And I would have done anything for it in that moment. And I couldn't keep anything down. So like the race just started slowly breaking me and breaking me. And one of the crazy things is that 60 or 65 racers started, only 40 finished. There was a guy out of Dublin, Ireland, who broke two world records on the Great World Race. He broke one in Antarctica and one in Asia. He ran a 214 marathon in Dublin. And they actually found this guy and they brought him on the Great World Race. He took the record in Antarctica. In Cartagena, that race you're talking about, I'm running behind him. and all of a sudden I see him start to like wobble, and I'm literally running behind him, and all of a sudden he just hits the deck and just like falls to the side, and like he's looking up, and his eyes are just glazed over, and he's just like sitting up, and I'm like, dude, what am I like?

25:28Gary Brecka:Yeah, they actually pulled a couple of people off every person. Carding people off, taking them to the hospital. I remember they would drop people off at the plane, and like IV's still in their arms, they'd pull them and like throw them on the plane. It was chaos, and to see like, again, I'm just this kid coming in here like, yo, I never ran a marathon ever. And here I am like running seven marathons and seven continents in seven days, like absolutely battered. And you go in a survival mode and like once you're in survival mode, you know, it's like, it's an insane feeling. It's something like I've only felt in that moment.

26:06And, you know, I only feel like when I do like these ultra endurance things that really, you have to strip yourself physically of like everything you have. And you really start to find out who you are like mentally,

26:19Gary Brecka:like what is your mental capabilities? Like, how do you - Is my mind as strong as my body? Is my mind as strong as my body? Like, how can you handle adversity? Like in those times, you know, it's like, what's your ability to problem solve and stuff like that. I remember when we pulled up to the race start in Cartagena because you were still fasted. You've been fasted for over three days. and um and i remember uh pulling max aside and i was like i think there's zero percent chance he finishes this race yeah um and i said if you don't give up on this race i won't give up on you and that was the only marathon i've ever ridden run either because i was so worried about you so um and i hadn't trained so i was in horrific pain but i'd only run one then you were on your six so i didn't say a fucking word yeah yeah well that's part of i mean part of the the documentary that we ended up filming on was like, you know, you were kind of this scientist and I was kind of this guinea pig.

27:14Yeah. But then there's also like, when we started racing, there's also like concerned father and son. Like, at what point do you -

27:21Gary Brecka:I'm very concerned. Push the boundaries as a scientist and throw in the towel as a father. It's like - Well, there was a lot, dude. I'll tell you exactly when it was. It was mile 18 in Cartagena. I was like, what did I say at the beginning of this race? If you don't give up in this race, I won't give up on you. I was like, hey, if you want to throw in a towel, I'm actually good with that, too. Lots of people have quit. Not everybody that quits is a loser. Yeah, like Thomas Edison failed 3 ,000 times before he found the light bulb. But I still, to this day, don't know where you went in that pain cave because you didn't quit.

27:58Gary Brecka:I didn't quit the one marathon, but we started breaking it down into the distance between the ice buckets where they had the waters to just shove our whole legs. And they had to cut my socks off me. Yeah. I remember the MTs cutting your socks off. You had this big balloon out the front of your tibia. And then I was like, dude, when do I throw in the towel on my son? And we're like one marathon away from him completing his goal. He's already done six. And I was running it through my mind. I'm like, what, do we come back next year and try it again? Yeah. And so I wanted you to finish so bad, but I also didn't want you to have permanent damage.

28:31Gary Brecka:Yeah. I was running that fine line the whole time. How much, you know, when do I start, when do I keep throwing science at this and biohacking and recovery? There's no science in the side of that wharf. Yeah. And then when do I, you know, just say, listen, I can't, you know, watch my. Yeah. So I'm going to transition to the 100-mile race because you'd also never run 100 miles. Yeah. And there was a moment during that race. This was just two days ago, by the way. Yeah, I'm fresh. And hats off to Kyle Forgard and four of the guys that were running with you guys. because when that race started, and I was in there, because it was live streamed, when that race started, I was in the comments and chats and just listened to what people were saying.

29:09Gary Brecka:0 % of the people thought that you guys would finish that. 0 % thought all six would finish. Yeah. And all six of you guys crossed the finish line. Yeah. But I think it was around mile 32 where every single one of you entered the unknown. What was the first you'd ever written around before that? Consecutive 37 miles. Okay, so 37. So for you, it was 37. Yeah, for them it was 31. You were at 37. And that was the uncharted territory. So every step after that. Yeah, it was a personal best. Yeah. So, you know, I wonder if you'd talk a little bit about the race prep. And like, first of all, you're a completely different racer.

29:50Gary Brecka:I feel like we went into the Great World Race blind. And you went into this one really structured. I mean, Matt, you know, helped a tremendous amount. Yeah, shout out to Matt Johnson. Yeah, Matt Johnson. By the way, if you haven't seen the podcast with Matt Johnson, please check it out. No, he's a lifesaver. I think his program was a huge part of kind of why I did so well. Between him and Andy Glaze, I mean those two guys basically took me across that finish line. They crafted this thing so well. They have so much real-world ultra racing experience that I basically just turned my life over to them from a training standpoint.

30:27and I said, listen, you know, this is my goal. I want to run this 100 miles. I want to do a consecutive. I don't want to sleep in between, you know, and I want to do it in a straight shot, you know. As little aid stations as possible, as minimal time as possible, and I want to, you know, stay on my feet and I want to feel good also doing it. I was like, the Great World race scarred me pretty bad. You know, it's like it jacked me up for months. I didn't want to like run after that. Like it really messed me up. You know, I lost 37 pounds in the Great World race. I double-stressed fractures.

31:00Gary Brecka:You ended that one in 80. It also stressed out, like, the family, my fiance. Like, it was hard to - Omega was about ready to - Yeah, she was ready to throw in a towel. Throw in a towel. So, like, when I committed to another race that's, you know, similar to that, this is four of those marathons, but I'm doing it in 24 hours. Yeah. So, it's tough. And so, for me, I wanted to find someone that was super, super experienced. And so, they created a program, tailored it to me. I followed it to a T. Like if anything, there was no day that I went under miles, I did over miles. And that also gave me confidence, I think, going into this race that I could just kind of trust in the process always.

31:38You know, like if they said I could do it and everything like that, I knew that my training wasn't going to fail me. I was like, at a minimum, I know I'm qualified based on whatever they say.

31:49Gary Brecka:Right. It's just whether or not you're going to have the mental fortitude. The mental fortitude. There's nothing they can do to prepare you for that pain cave. It's also like the unknown can hit you. I mean, you could train and you could be perfectly in shape, but some of those guys were getting gut issues. Yeah, yeah. Gut issues could take you out. One of them developed like, so you're running behind a support van for 100 miles. It's kicking up dust. One of the guys started to develop wheezing and asthma. Dry air. Dry air and stuff like that. So he went to the ER today. Oh, did he? Yeah, Mark Segoda.

32:20He went to the ER today. Yeah. Two days after.

32:22Gary Brecka:He's having trouble breathing? trouble breathing he just couldn't couldn't handle it yeah and he called it desert lung he's like the dry air with all the dirt and all and and like it was so dry and and um and doing those semis were coming by and it was going yeah the wind was just like a wall that felt like a linebacker hitting you trying to knock you off the road it was uncontrollable but like mile 20 to 40 was probably the toughest honestly because when you start to feel pain like a mile 20 and that early on i have done another 20 mile runs and i was like i i felt better on those runs and like why do i feel like this right now and then i'm also like i'm not even halfway to the halfway point like yeah i'm not even halfway to the halfway point i'm not even a marathon in i got three and a half marathons to go you start like all those thoughts start to play in your head so it's like they call it and he calls it mile 80 training yeah um the reason he calls it that is because like you get to a point for me it was like 50 miles once i got to 50 miles i got to start to count backwards i was like i was no longer going like almost like you're going downhill i was like then 49 48 47 and so on and so forth um but it was it was scary for everybody because when we started feeling like that one of the things about this race was majority of it was in the dark darkness okay there was 16 hours of nightfall you know the sun set at around four o 'clock it got up at like 7 a.m yeah so majority of the race was in the night and we started at 10 a.m so like we're running through the day it's pretty overcast during the end of like right before the sun was setting like the sun was beaming on us and so like i started to sweat everybody started to sweat um like there was a section of this course that was like 15 miles of like Like the support fans couldn't be on the side of the road with us.

34:15So we couldn't have like crew and stuff. So we were running in a single file line. There was, and it was just silent. Like you're out in the desert. Until the traffic that comes by.

34:23Gary Brecka:Like the desert, desert. Area 51 is where we ran. Yeah. Area 51. So like Google Area 51, there's nothing. There's actually only. Sketchy shit. Yeah. There's one gas station that sells fireworks. There's a strip club, fireworks, a bar, and alien gear. Indian restaurant. Super random and an Indian restaurant. Strangest combination of anything. But I remember just being out there and it was so silent. And you're just like, that's when the thoughts start to come in. And it's insane how creative the brain gets when you're in those moments. How creative you start to convince yourself to quit. It's like, listen, if you just step on that rock over there, maybe it'll hurt your ankle.

35:06And everyone will be like, oh, that's a serious injury. That could be permanent. and like you can go out or like you're like oh you know i i um i got i got the flu two weeks ago you know everybody will be like oh he was sick and stuff like that how creative your brain like just starts to convince yourself and i think that's where the training and the preparation and the trust in the recovery comes in because you're like listen you somewhere in the back of your mind you know like i'm qualified you know like i did the preparation i'm qualified you knew these thoughts were going to come like yeah you know it's not going to be easy you know there's going to be the mental aspect and they just start flowing in especially in those high times or those low times and and the hundred mile race is like just highs and lows highs and lows and you have high highs and you have low lows you know what's you know what's wild about that is like i watched

35:52Gary Brecka:you guys um yeah and um i i would i would you know run nutrition and stuff back up to the front and back to the van for for you guys mainly for you um and i watched like the motion and the energy of the crowd the six of you guys shift and like you would run so long and like the longer you would run the more the mood would like get suppressed and suppressed and suppressed and then like when when they decide they would allow you guys to have caffeine yeah and then they would allow you to have advil it was like mile one for you guys you guys were animated and chatty kyle started rapping yeah yeah yeah you know to the music and and it was like it was like It's the little things, dude.

36:35Gary Brecka:I swear to God. Doorstep, two sips of a bang and two Advil. Well, you go primal. Once you're in primal, it's like those little things. It's crazy. Like you get a little bit of water and like you get to put your feet up for a second. And that's like, dude, it's like a warm bath. It changes your perspective. I think it's such a metaphor for life. Oh, yeah, yeah. Highs and lows. It's just highs and lows, but also perspective for like, what are you thankful for? And like, the more pain you're in, the easier it is for you to find something that you're grateful for you know because you were so grateful for like a quarter of bang energy and two advil you have no idea what that did to my body if i had offered you anything else but i'm like you want a new ferrari or do you want these two milligram of that energy drink just like hit my soul dude my fingertips my soul but what i did is is i bang energy good for your soul yeah yeah yeah honestly everything that i ate on that race do not eat unless you're oh dude that's the ultimate human i was like dude he's on his 50th rice krispie treat i can't watch this honestly i need a rice krispie sponsor after this because i fucking pounded probably 150 rice krispies you did it's gross it's like coca-cola yeah skittles and shit it's it's the nastiest stuff but it's it's fuel and like you just kind of you take from these guys that have this ultra running experience and it bro it works yeah and you start getting sores in your mouth and i think um you know what i did with the caffeine was i tried to delay it as much as possible so like there was a section where like i was just running and i felt myself like going to sleep i was like i'm gonna fucking fall asleep while i'm running i was like i feel like i'm yawning i'm like getting delirious and i like i would start to not off and and i was like okay this is probably the time i should have it but i wanted to delay it so it like gave me something to look forward to it gave me it was insane how depleted your body is that something like that little it was not a lot of caffeine there's a quarter of a bag so it's probably 80 milligrams of caffeine or something that you got but you guys lit up like christmas trees and then the two advil just dulled a little bit of the pain so your pain cave went from an eight to a six.

38:43Gary Brecka:Yeah, yeah. Just that. It was insane. And so as the race progresses, it goes from kind of being warm like in the evening to being freezing cold. And then it goes down into I think like the upper 30s and stuff like that. So like when you're moving, you're heating up. But as soon as you stop, it's like you're shivering, you're cold, and your blood starts moving cold. Like you immediately get exhausted and tired. And so I remember like coming out of those aid stations and just being like so fatigued. And then like you start running and you start to pick back up again and then you're in cruise control.

39:17But tell you what, I honestly, I felt good. Like I felt a lot better than I thought I was. No, you looked great. Like honestly, like I ended up actually going to the gym. Like kind of shot in my race and I went to the gym. And I think, you know, as corny as it might sound, the hydrogen water actually works, actually saved my life. The whole reason, and not to even get into HUTAB, but the whole reason I started HUTAB is when I was doing the Great World Race and the Great World Race prep, I found a research article because I was studying all this stuff. Like how can I amplify my recovery because it's marathon, you know, playing marathon, playing seven marathons, seven continents in seven days.

40:05And I was looking at all those things, beta alanine, you know, beta carotene, you know, like all these things that amplify recovery. I was looking at beet juice and all this different stuff, nitric oxide stuff and like everything. And I stumbled upon this research article on delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS. And it showed a reduction in DOMS by like 76 % or something. And so I contacted the patent holder on the tablets because I realized it was from the tablets. Got my hands on some of these tablets and I took them on the Great World Race. And other than the physical ailments, like the stress fractures in the gut, I wasn't sore.

40:41And I ran seven marathons in seven days and I wasn't sore. Like I could have walked out and hit a back squat. And like that was freaky to me. Like I was like, I was almost skeptical. I was like, what is that? And so I got that science over to you. You really started to validate it. And I think that is when we took the leap on HGTab. And I got to validate that again with this 100-mile race. I was taking five hydrogen tablets before the race. And then I would do these little hydrogen water bombs where I would put three tablets and half a liter of water. I'd let it fully dissolve, and I'd chug it back.

41:19If you go back, and the whole entire race is live streamed. You go back and watch how I felt throughout the entire race. No, no, you look. I could have kept going. It was a completely different race. And I think I'm with you.

41:29Gary Brecka:I mean, I don't want to turn it into a hydrogen H2 tab either. But hydrogen gas, I think, is one of the greatest. Its role in the human body is one of the greatest discoveries of our millennia. I know it doesn't break it fast. It's a selective antioxidant. We could go all into the mechanism of how it restores something called redox homeostasis, which is a balance. And we bathe in hydrogen water. I mean, I bathed Jon Jones in that before, you know, his big last title fight. Sean Ryan talks about it all the time, how I convinced him to get in my bathtub. Rogan too. Shout out, Sean. Yeah, Rogan too.

42:04Gary Brecka:I want to close out by rounding out on a few things. So we have a big project planned. Yeah. And, you know, we're going to do a documentary around it. but the whole concept is, you know, the vast majority of athletes are not overtrained. They're under-recovered. And we don't target our recovery at the tissues that need it the most. I mean, you know, strength and conditioning is, in my opinion, that is a field that has, where there is just absolute excellence, you know, and professional sports teams have strength and conditioning coaches. They do positional training, you know, hand-eye coordination speed, timing, agility, strength.

42:44Gary Brecka:And we've really maxed out with where we are, but we haven't gotten anywhere near the threshold on recovery. And this is joints, ligaments, tendons, connective tissue. And this is where people, where athletes break down. I mean, we did a number of non-contact injuries in the NFL. These are non-traumatic injuries, blowing an Achilles heel, running off the sideline, blowing an ACL, running a pattern. Those are injuries that professional teams and athletes should not have to tolerate. And it has a lot to do with recovery. and so creating a documentary that's gonna be centered around how far can we push the limits of human performance and my role will be to target the recovery of those tissues, your joints, ligaments, your tendons, your spine, your nervous system, targeted red light therapy, hydrogen and nanobathing, hyperbarics, post-electromagnetic field and can we get this connective tissue in these areas of body that are deprived of oxygen to recover as fast as our muscles And if so, can we reset every day to baseline even after something as extreme as a full distance Ironman?

43:53When you get into like multi-day endurance events, it's like there's only so much training you can do for something. Like for the 100-mile race, like my longest run was 31 miles, 32 miles. It's like me running 50 miles or 60 miles doesn't do me any better than me running 30 miles. So at some point, like the training actually does start to plateau. It's like you can't, more training is not just going to mean more miles you can run. That's not a thing. And so like where you can buy more time and buy more, buy better performance is in the recovery. And for me, like the things that start to go in these multi-day endurance events are the tissues, the ligaments, the tendons.

44:33That stuff that is just completely getting pounded for, you know.

44:38Gary Brecka:Yeah, I believe in this. I think we're going to prove it. should we say what you're going to try to do 10 iron mans in 10 days so the distance of 10 iron mans um we're going to condense it down so it'll be a 24 mile swim into an 1100 and 12 mile bike ride followed by a 262 mile run and we're going to try to complete that in 10 days by the way if anybody wants to join yeah yeah um and and we're really going to see how how we can and push the limits of recovery. And that'll be the biggest thing. And the whole concept behind that is like, at some point you cross a threshold where you have to have all of that or else you can't complete it.

45:20You just physically can't. Like you can't do 10 Ironmans in 10 days without having your physiology and every ounce of blood work and everything just dialed into it. Yeah, we'll dial all that in. Your training, your sleep, your recovery, everything has to be dialed into AT and and and that is why we chose this distance i actually dana white called me after doing the um great world race and he said what you did was fucking insane one and two he's like i'm so fascinated about it i i want to whatever you're doing we were sitting in my kitchen that day yeah he's like whatever you're doing next he's like i i want in on it he's like i want to film something about it he's like it's so inspiring it's so crazy and so like the concept behind the great race was how do we take somebody in 100 days time that was not a runner or anything never run a marathon turn them into you know a mediocre athlete and how do we take a mediocre athlete and turn them into a super athlete yeah and i think and i think i think following this sometime

46:19Gary Brecka:in early 2027 you're going to see the first wave of superhuman athletes at the market and i hope to be a big part of that and you're going to see human um records shattered by margins we never thought possible. So, you know, before we wind down the podcast, I just want to say on the podcast call, you're an inspiration to me as your father. Like I couldn't be more proud. Thank you. I mean, we, our entire family and, you know, both of our careers have been built on this backbone of health and wellness and preaching health and wellness. So for me, it was like, when looking for a test subject to do stuff like this and be this guinea pig, Like, you know, it was me that raised my hand just because, you know, if you're going to talk the talk, you better be able to walk the walk.

47:06And for me, it's like, you know, I own a hydrogen water company and I talk so much about the benefits and the performance benefits that like I want to be the first person to prove it to people. It's like, don't take my word for it. Just look at the actions that I do. You know, like I just ran 100 miles. You know, like you can't fake that. You know, like a lot of people can, you know, talk about supplements and stuff on the internet and talk about health and performance and bio-optimization. And I think for us, it's like, how do we, you know, put our money where our mouth is and prove it to the world?

47:41Like, you know, I talk about this stuff for a reason. I was a user before I was, you know, someone that promoted it. And, you know, I had a life-changing experience with all of it. So for me, it's like, how do I become the test subject? how do I become the example and like take everything that we've always preached and like put it back into ourselves. Amen.

48:01Gary Brecka:So you know that I, I run down all my podcasts by asking my guests the same questions. You forgot about that one, didn't you? What 200 podcasts that you know I've done so far? I don't watch a lot of the pockets on the screen. I usually watch them in person. So you're ready. What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? I don't know. For, For me, it's pushing yourself beyond your own capable limits. And I think, you know, we talk about this notion called the Masogi. And, you know, that basically - Jesse Itzler. Jesse Itzler, that's his thing. You know, that's where I learned it. Basically, that's like one day a year, you do something that's so impressive that you can reap the benefits of it for the rest of the year.

48:50You're supposed to only have a 50-50 shot. 50-50 shot. And I think for some people, it doesn't have to be seven marathons or doesn't have to be 10 Ironmans. It could be starting a business. It could be writing a book. It could be doing a 5K or losing 10 pounds. It's just taking the leap for something. My message out to the people back after doing the Great World Race was not that I want you to go out and run seven marathons and seven continents in seven days. That was insane. But it's to show people that I did that in 100 days' time. I dedicated my life to this thing and like I just went all in and I cut off all distractions.

49:27I cut out anything that didn't serve a purpose for that mission. And I think if you're watching this, you can do the same. And if you're if you want to get 10 ,000 steps a day, like just get out and do it. And then, you know, cut all the bullshit out of your life and just go after it. And so for me, like being the ultimate human or the ultimate human version of yourself, it's just kind of just taking a leap at what you want. For me, that's endurance stuff. That's business. That's being the best fiance I could be. That's being the best dog dad. You are a great dog dad.

50:00Gary Brecka:One thing you want to be is a dog in Cole's house. He actually will make your meals for you every day. Bring them to you in your own bed. Yeah, not to close this out, but I have a 17-year-old. And he'll actually carry you down the steps. Yeah, I've got a 17-year-old Black Lab that's on peptides. I make his whole foods. Peptides. Peptides. He's on BBC, KPV. He's on, I put them on MCT oils. I've got a multivitamin I make his own food Meg and my fiance spoils the both of them so shout out to her I love you Cole, I can't wait to see this unfold thanks for being on the ultimate human until next time guys that's just science