How Adam Transformed His Life, Dropped 50 lbs & Became the 1st Person to Run the 163 Mile Pan-Mass Challenge

Straight up, this conversation encapsulates every aspiration I ever had for the show when I embarked upon this podcast journey a little over a year ago: inspiration, in the form of a relatable everyman guest sharing his personal story openly and honestly with absolute humility and a vulnerability that is rare in today's panoply of admirable role models. We get emotional. We get real. We get authentic. There's even a few tears. If you're not moved by Adam' story, then check yourself for a pulse. ” Adam Scully-Power ? Never heard of him.” I get it. Adam certainly isn't a household name. But that’s a shame, because we need more guys like Adam. So I'm doing my part to help change that, because Adam's story is extraordinary. And one that needs to be more widely heard. I'll start off with this — talking to Adam was like staring in a mirror. Not because we look alike – we don't. But I have never met anyone with a story that so closely tracks the facts and emotions my own experience. In fact, it's downright eerie. So let's break it down. Much like me, Adam is a happily married family man and father of four. Much like me, Adam had a denial-snapping middle-aged come-to-Jesus moment of reckoning catalyzed by his ever-expanding waistline, quickly deteriorating energy levels and dissatisfaction with his overworked, all-too-sedentary corporate lifestyle. Much like me, Adam turned to his health-conscious wife for a little guidance, who at the time had been experimenting — and finding success — with a plant-based way of eating. Much like me, and with nothing to lose, Adam decided to give this insane idea of just eating plants a whirl. Here's the Cliff Notes on what happens next: Adam's energy levels explode. Almost overnight, the extra pounds around Adam's waist melt away, seemingly without effort. With a vitality he could not previously recall, and for the first time in years, Adam resumes a modest fitness program to burn off all the extra energy coursing through his veins. But incapable of contentedness with “the occasional jog” Adam instead sets his sights higher. So high, in fact, he becomes determined to achieve his own personal impossible. Overwhelmed by the tragedy of last year's Boston Marathon, driven by an undeniable primal urge to test the outer limits of his physical, mental, emotional and spiritual limits, and propelled by a series of eerie, impossibly synchronistic and equally improbable events — including an image texted to him by his friend David Green from the Boston Marathon finish line that led to the capture of bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — last summer Adam lined up to attempt the unimaginable. An unprecedented 163-mile run across the entire state of Massachusetts. Adam accomplished this feat. Not in spite of his plant-based diet, but because of his plant-based diet. A feat made all the more remarkable because it occurred only one year subsequent to his epiphanic, life-changing moment of reckoning. To be sure, Adam Scully-Power's story of life transformation is nothing short of miraculous. An extraordinary journey that didn't just repair his health and resolve his waistline dilemma, but instead resulted in astonishing heights of accomplishment he could have never previously imagined in his wildest fantasy. A story of such dramatic life transformation you will be left in tears — and beyond inspired. Of course, not all of us have the desire to test ourselves as ultrarunners. That's not the point. What's important is the power that resides within all of us to change, achieve and be so much more than we think we can. Inside all of us resides a better, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

  Eating well rarely falls apart because of one big failure. It's the daily question that wears you down. Like, what am I actually going to make tonight? What's in the fridge? And it's exactly why we built the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's a personalized, plant-based meal planning program that matches you with recipes based on your taste, your allergies, your cooking skills, and how much time you actually have. You build, through this program, a balanced, nutrient-dense plan for your entire household in a few minutes. Then it generates a grocery list for you with one click that plugs right into our delivery partners. All the recipes in the program are built by dietitians with culinary training. Plus, you get your own food coach to help you problem-solve along the way.

• 0:44Rich Roll?

  It's kind of an amazing thing. For listeners of the show, all you special people, we're offering an exclusive $20 off an annual subscription right now. To get it, go to meals.richroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz, and enter promo code RICHROLL20 at checkout.

• 1:06Rich Roll?

  Welcome to episode 71 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Adam Scully-Power.

• 1:24Rich Roll?

  Hey, people, welcome to the show. I'm Rich Roll. I am your host, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. No, you are not being Rick Rolled, but yes, this is a podcast. What kind of podcast, you ask? Well, health, fitness, for sure, but oh, so much more. Each week, I bring to you the best, most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds in entrepreneurship, health, fitness, wellness, diet, nutrition, spirituality. I cast a broad net. Basically, my only rule for guests is, are you living an inspiring, authentic, and extraordinary life? Are you a service to something greater than yourself? And can we, can I, can we, benefit from what you have to offer?

• 2:10Rich Roll?

  And in return, it's up to you. You guys, you take the tools, the messages, the inspiration that resonates with you and implement them into your life with a focus on implementation, because osmosis is not going to get you there. This is a two-way street, people. And hopefully, you, me, and the world, we all become better as a result. That's my goal, pure and simple. Today on the show, we've got the great Adam Scully Power. Who's Adam Scully Power? I've never heard of him. Well, I'm going to get into that in a minute. But before I do, I wanted to address a particular thing that's on my mind. As I'm sure everybody knows,

• 2:51Rich Roll?

  this past week, we lost the great Philip Seymour Hoffman. Another life taken too soon from the harrowing ravages of addiction, a disease that I, of course, for better or worse, am all too familiar with. So tragic. And it's also, you know, due to media coverage and social media, it becomes this other thing, this tabloid wet dream gift of a story that is exacerbated by the extraordinary, wondrous, and incomprehensible singular talent of a

• 3:31Rich Roll?

  guy, a star, an actor, so prodigious that, you know, essentially, hyperbole is impossible when describing him. And, you know, every day, people die from this disease. Every day, it just so happens that because of his enormous talent, it begets so much coverage. And, you know, I didn't know Phil. Well, actually, you know, scratch that. I actually did know Phil, kind of. We weren't friends. We did meet on several occasions over the last 10 or 15 years. So I suppose it's fair to say that we were acquainted, but even that sounds weird. I think that's a little bit of a stretch. And, you know, when these things

• 4:14Rich Roll?

  happen, these tragedies, usually I just, you know, I numb out. Guy who is generally kind of incapable of summoning up that typical pantheon of tears and grief and empathy that's catalyzed by this kind of event. And, you know, I kind of like turned to stone, unfortunately. This emotional numbness and I don't know why. You know, I do know that, that the way that I often respond and react to these things, you know, makes me feel weird. It's sort of like, I don't know how to describe it. You know, it's a feeling of almost feeling subhuman, like, why don't I have that depth of emotion that other people seem to have about these things?

• 4:59Rich Roll?

  And, and, you know, it kind of leaves me feeling alone once in a while or separate from other people. But this time I have to say, it's really different. You know, I've been bereft the last couple of days. Why, you might ask, would this occasion be different? And it has to do with the fact that I'm very close with Phil's brother, his older brother, and I'm also well acquainted with his mother. And Gordy, Phil's older brother, is somebody who's played a big part in my life. He's somebody who, when I was very down and out and kind of at the end of my rope, held out a helping hand and has been a guiding force in my life for many, many years.

• 5:43Rich Roll?

  And so, my grief, as much as it is for the passing of this, you know, this wonderful talent, it's really for Gordy, for his mom, and for, you know, Phil's partner and his children, who I don't know and probably will never meet. But, anyway, I just wanted to, you know, address this. And I think also that the depth of my emotional response to this is as much...

• 6:13Rich Roll?

  A gratitude response for this incredible amazingly full and rewarding life that I now get to freely enjoy and all too often take for granted. And this crucial kind of almost incomprehensible role that Gordy has played in it. So if you're struggling, this is my message. If you're struggling out there with an addiction problem, with alcoholism, you don't know where to turn. I want you to know that there is an exit out of this prison. You don't have to continue to suffer the ravages of this horrible disease. And I personally, I'm happy to connect with anyone who genuinely needs help and is seeking help. So please, reach out to me through the website or find somebody in your orbit that you can talk to and don't be afraid to ask for help.

• 6:55Rich Roll?

  And if you do, you might be amazed at how much your life will change. And I think the other thing is the interesting sort of response on social media to this event. I tend to sort of assume that most people understand addiction the way that I do. And it's been interesting to see that there still is a lot of misinformation out there and kind of this weird reaction of whether he was selfish or whether he, you know, had a choice that he made and he made the wrong choice. And what you have to understand is that this is incredibly powerful. And that locomotive for him pulled out of the station quite some time ago. And so although he may have had a choice at some point in the distant past about certain

• 7:40Rich Roll?

  actions that he was taking, by the time he was in that apartment, or even over the last who knows how long, you know, weeks or whatever, that choice was almost seized from him. And that is the powerful, incomprehensible grip of this disease. And so I'm just feeling it right now and wanted to kind of address it. So, all right. Enough of that. Rest in peace, Phil. You will be deeply, deeply missed. Today's show, Adam Scully Power. Never heard of him? Okay, fine. That's a shame. I hope to change that. He's an extraordinary dude. And I have to say, talking to this guy and getting to know him a bit was almost like looking in a mirror. I have never met somebody with a story so incredibly similar to my own. I mean, this is a guy with a corporate

• 8:25Rich Roll?

  job. He works in the investment field. He's got four kids. And he just turned 40. He's out here kind of on a vacation with his family. But, you know, not too long ago, like a year, year and a half ago, he hit, you know, a midlife malaise, 50 pounds overweight, and decides to make a life change. He ends up adopting a plant-based whole food diet. And essentially, what transpires as a result of that is pretty miraculous. He becomes this crazy ultra-running phenomenon. And this last summer, he ran all the way across the state of Massachusetts, a 163 mile run. And he's going to come and tell us all about that, and his trajectory, his journey, how he got to where he was to where he is now. His story is so similar

• 9:10Rich Roll?

  to mine that at times during our conversation, I was just like, dude, I cloned myself? It was crazy and amazing to hear his experience, how it relates to mine, and how it's different. And it's emotional, it's real, it's authentic. In short, this episode is flat out already one of my favorites. And sharing stories like his, like this one, are exactly why I started this podcast. All right, you guys. So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Adam Scully Power. So I guess it was about, how long ago was it? Maybe nine months ago, a year ago, where I get this email from Brian Wendell, who's the executive producer of Works Over Knives?

• 9:55Rich Roll?

  And he's like, hey, man, you got to check this guy out, Adam Scully Power. He's got a great story. And there was an article about you, I guess it was ESPN.com?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was probably six months ago now.

• 10:07Rich Roll?

  Six months, right. And I read this article and I was like, oh my god, I've never read a story about another person that was so similar to my own story, like the, the, the amount of overlap was almost ridiculous.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, you know, they, the article went out one morning and you know, and the whole thing was like a fanfare to me. I was literally sitting in a meeting and my phone just starts pinging like, you know, vibrating, blowing up. And so I said to the person, I said, can you excuse me for a second? I want to make sure one of the kids wasn't hurt.

• 10:41Rich Roll?

  Uh huh, you were, were you at work or something?

• 10:43Speaker 01

  I was at work, right? And so I, I checked my phone and people are like, dude, you gotta go check this article out. And it was, uh, I, I didn't even really know it was, it was gonna come out. I had talked to the person about a week before, the, uh, the, the folks at the Pan Mass Challenge were sort of promoting what, what I was doing. And so they, they told the story. And a guy had called me, asked me a bunch of questions. Uh, he said, you know, I might write an article and, you know, it might come out. And I didn't even know it was gonna launch that morning. And it just, just kinda blew up that day.

• 11:15Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Suddenly your world gets turned upside down.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. And folks, most, most of my friends, people I work with, they didn't even know what I was doing. So I kinda kept it a little bit quiet because I didn't know if I'd be able to finish.

• 11:27Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, yeah, it's, it, that's the, that's the thing, you know, you go too public about it, then your, your successes and your failures are on a bigger canvas, I suppose.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  It got out there and so it was, uh,

• 11:38Rich Roll?

  Definitely did. I think Bri, and then Brian put it in the Forks Over Knives sort of email newsletter. Like, I don't know how many people subscribe to that, but there's a lot, you know, so.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it's, it's funny, like my phone rings that day and, uh, you know, I, I get a call and he's like, hey, I just read this article about you on ESPN and they talked about Forks Over Knives. You know, I watched the movie. He's like, tell me your story. So I kinda walked him through the story and he's like, Dude, that's unbelievable. It's changed your life. And I said, it really started right there, that movie.

• 12:10Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. So let's walk it back. Um, you know, you're, uh, you know, the similarities again are so profound. I mean, you've got four kids, you're corporate executive, you know, focused on climbing the corporate ladder, doing all the good, you know, sort of just living the life that we're all sort of, you know, trying to live, right? Like, what, you know, how long ago are we talking now? So you just turned 40. Happy birthday, by the way.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Thank you. Yeah, I'm getting, getting old, but I, you know, I turned 40, but I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life, which is, it's kind of a weird place to be. But, uh, so going back, it was, you know, it was, uh, probably about 18 months ago. And, uh, you know, I've got four kids, um, you know, I used to work out years ago, was, you know, what I consider, you know, a decent athlete.

• 12:56Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  But.

• 12:57Rich Roll?

  You play like typical sports in high school?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Uh, high school. I wrestled in high school, was captain of the football team, you know, all of that. And, um.

• 13:05Rich Roll?

  Where'd you grow up?

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Uh, actually, I'm originally from Sydney, Australia.

• 13:09Rich Roll?

  Oh, really? Wow.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Moved here to the US, um, because of my father's work. I was still pretty young and grew up in Connecticut.

• 13:16Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, no accent.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  No, I've been here a while now. So, uh, yeah, so we're, we're, uh, you know, I was working hard, four kids running around, you know, a lot of client dinners, eating out, the weight kind of packs on, you know, and not working out that much. And all of a sudden, you know, I'm, I'm looking through photographs and, uh, there was one in particular. It was a photo of the family there at Easter and I was like, oh, wow. It kind of just hit me. I was like, man.

• 13:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  I'm big.

• 13:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a weird thing. Um, you know, I've talked about this before, uh, you know, denial is really powerful. Like, okay, so you're captain of the high school football team and you kind of walk around, if you're anything like me, you know, I'm a swimmer, kind of sort of thinking you're still that guy, you know? And even when you look in the mirror, you still see that guy from college or, or high school, even if that's not what's actually being reflected back to you.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:11Rich Roll?

  Until something shakes it up and you're able to snap that denial. But it's weird how it, it, it doesn't, you know, it takes, it takes something for that to crack.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Well, it's kind of two things, right? So it was that one photo and then it was my mom was in town and she had been cleaning out. She brought a bunch of photos and she's like, oh, here I got all these old photos. And I remember sitting on the couch flipping through these photographs and like, and I describe it to people, like every photo was like being hit by a heavyweight fighter. I was just like boom, boom. And I was looking at these photos like, man, I'm, I'm heavy. And it's not that I wasn't like, you know, a contender for the biggest loser.

• 14:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I always say.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Myself too. It's not, but I was, you know, I was, I got, I was probably two fifteen, two hundred seventeen pounds and, you know, it's, it's, it's not what I, you perceive yourself to be, but then you, you're looking at all these photos and, and all of a sudden it just triggered. I was like, you know, forty was right around the corner. And I said, that, that's it. I just made a decision to, to get myself back into shape.

• 15:15Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, I've seen a couple of those photos and, uh, and yeah, it's not like, especially now with kind of what we, you know, what we entertain as normal in terms of, you know, weight and what people our age look like. I look at you and I go, I just, he looks like a guy who's, you know, working at an investment bank. You know what I mean? You don't look like, you're not like a super obese guy, but you also look ten years older than you look now.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:40Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:41Rich Roll?

  So it's, it's not like anybody, you, you weren't a guy who somebody's going to pull aside and say, hey, man, you need to, uh, you know, get your stuff together. Like take a little inventory about how you're living. I mean, you just look like a normal dude, you know?

• 15:52Speaker 01

  It's funny, like going through this experience is I think the rea- the reason this story resonates too with a lot of people is, is people say, you know, and I was in shape at one point and, you know, doing the corporate thing and I got kids and, you know, I let myself go a little bit. And then, you know, you go through this transformation and people, people respond to that.

• 16:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, because it's well, it's it's relatable to everybody, you know, we all we all struggle with how much time we have during the day. We're all over committed. We're all, you know, maybe spending too much time on the wrong things and and it's easy to say, I don't have time or I'm too busy. And then when somebody like yourself goes and and says, you know what? I'm not going to accept that definition and I'm going to do something different. I think the reaction is cuts two ways. It's inspiring for a lot of people because they see it can be done, but it's also threatening to other people because then they have to look at themselves and say, well, he could do it, then I can too. And I'm not sure I'm ready for that, or I don't like that.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Well, you get, I mean, you get a lot of mixed emotions. I mean, it's so I'll go back a little bit. So I all of a sudden, I'm like, all right, that's it. I'm going to get myself back into shape. And there's like a little two mile track near my house. I'm like, I'm gonna go out today. I'm gonna go for a run, right? So I go to the two mile. I couldn't get through two miles, right? Which is crazy because at one point, you know, years ago, I was like, that would it was would have been like nothing. But it sort of was grounding in kind of where I was at the time. So I made a commitment to work out, not every day, I said, every other day, I'm going to work out. So I started to work out, started to quote unquote, eat better, you know, at least at the time, it was what I thought was eating better.

• 17:31Rich Roll?

  Right. Like, what did that mean, actually?

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Um, try and cut out some of the the sweets and like, you know, I'm going to eat healthy. So I'd have a big steak dinner with some salad, right? That was like eating healthy to me at that point. And, you know, I started dropping a little bit of weight just by, you know, quote, eating better and starting to working out. And then my wife, who's fantastic, I mean, love of my life, and she, she's always reading books about eating better and living longer. And she's like, you gotta watch this movie with me. And she's like, it's called Forks Over Knives. So we sit down, the two of us, and we watch this movie. And I'm like, And it makes sense. I mean, it just really makes sense. At the end of the movie, she says, I'm gonna try this for three months. Now, you gotta understand, my wife's from Argentina, right?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  It's like the meat capital of the world.

• 18:19Rich Roll?

  The best beef you're ever gonna have.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  We go down there and visit her family. You get off the plane and it's like a four hour barbecue. I mean, that's what they do. So.

• 18:28Rich Roll?

  And explain for people that might be new to the show or unfamiliar, kind of the, the guiding principle of Forks Over Knives.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  So the, the premise is, is that

• 18:39Speaker 01

  in order to be healthy, you wanna, you wanna eat a plant-based, whole food diet. And people always say, well, what is that? And it's like fruits and vegetables and nuts and beans. And what you wanna cut out is meat, dairy, and all the processed food, right? Which sounds so simple and you watch the film and then you've got all the backstory. And it just, it, it makes sense. But even, even, even at the end of it, my wife's like, alright, I'm gonna do this for three months. And I said, good luck, honey. Let me know how it goes, kinda thing. And so she starts and, and you know, she cuts out the meat, dairy, and all the processed foods. And she's, she's starting to eat fruits and vegetables and she's healthy already.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I mean, she's not overweight and, um, and then every day she'd give me the nudge like, hey, you should try this. I feel great. And you should, you should try this. You should try this. So, you know, I had, uh, this was a couple of months after my, my trigger to get myself back into.

• 19:36Rich Roll?

  Right. So you were already kind of inclined to, you know, you're trying to take it to the next level.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd started dropping some weight and I was feeling good and, and, uh, you know, she started in September. So, uh, October 1st, I'm like, alright, stop bothering me. I'm on board. I'll do it with you for three months and we'll see how it goes. So October 1st, um, I just went one day, just said, that's it. I cut out meat, dairy, and all processed food, cold turkey. First week was.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Guys, like what I would envision going through like a detox program. Like your body is just completely trying to readjust to this new lifestyle and type and the way you eat. And after about a week, all of a sudden I was like, man, I just feel amazing. I mean, my energy like went through the roof. And I had all this energy and so I started to run a little bit more. Quite frankly, it was just to burn some of the energy off.

• 20:36Rich Roll?

  And you're not like some, some hippie living in Topanga Canyon, right? Like you're, you're an investment banker. You're living in Florida at the time?

• 20:44Speaker 01

  I was living in Florida at the time and, um, you know, I'm, I'm doing the corporate thing. I'm going, I have a lot of client dinners and steak dinners and wine and the whole nine yards and stuff. And so all of a sudden now I'm like, now I'm not eating meat.

• 21:01Rich Roll?

  Right. But when you said, just to backtrack, you've said, you know, you watched a movie and it made sense to you. I mean, I think when you, at least my experience, when I kind of talk to people and I say, I eat a plant-based diet and it doesn't include these things and, you know, I focus on these things. That doesn't intuitively make sense to most people. That's, that's sort of like, well, what's, what's left? I don't understand and why. And so what was it about it that spoke to you or seemed to make sense to you? You know, how did that equation come together?

• 21:28Speaker 01

  I'm kind of a numbers guy and so like the data behind it is really powerful, right? When you watch it and, uh, you know, people always ask me, they're like, you know, where do I start? And I always tell them, I'm like, listen, go watch the movie. And, uh, you know, for me, it, it just clicked. I don't know. And then, you know, my wife started and she's like, I just feel great and great. You know, try, give it a try, give it a try. So I'm like, okay, I'm on board, man. I'll try it for three months. We'll, we'll see what happens. And, uh, so my energy's going through the roof and all of a sudden like, well, the weight just starts dripping off. Like it was just, it was bizarre to me, right? And, uh, you know, um,

• 22:11Speaker 01

  So weight's coming off, I'm feeling better, and I just started running a little bit more, right? Just literally to burn energy off and I would like recover unbelievably. So,

• 22:23Speaker 01

  so it was like October 1st that we started and then I've been doing it for, God, it was probably early December and I was running up to, I got up to about 13 miles at that point. And a buddy of mine goes, hey, would you mind pacing me for the second half of this marathon that I'm doing? So I'm like, alright, my buddy George, I'm like, no problem at all and I'll come out and I'm a little nervous, right? Cause I'm, he's fast, I'm not that fast. But I don't know, he asked me to come out and pace him, so I'm like, alright. So I drive my car out to halfway point in the marathon. He comes running by, I jump in and I'm pacing him and we're just, we're trucking along and you know, he, he had a tough second half anyway.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  So he started to slow down and everything. So, but we get to the finish, the finish line and I'd, so it's 13 miles for me and it's kind of as far as I'd been going at that point. And I don't know what it was or what it clicked, but like all of a sudden I'm like, man, my car's halfway back in the marathon.

• 23:28Rich Roll?

  You didn't really think this through?

• 23:29Speaker 01

  I didn't think it through at all, dude. I didn't think it at all, but I'm feeling great and I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and run back and get it. And I, and so, and I did. And you know, it took a while, but I ran back, I got in my car and I was sitting there and I was like, holy cow, man. I just like doubled as far as I'd run at that point. And I ran a marathon today. And it was-

• 23:53Rich Roll?

  How long after switching your diet did this occur?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  So this was, uh, this was two months after switching my diet.

• 23:59Rich Roll?

  Only two months. And so you'd only really been, like, how long had you been, how, how long had you resumed your exercise routine?

• 24:06Speaker 01

  So, in the, so, so that was, uh, that was in December. It would have been that summer is when I started. You know?

• 24:13Rich Roll?

  So you're like six months in or something like that?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, probably six months in from going from not even being able to do two miles to working myself up and you know, I was doing about 13 and then, uh-

• 24:27Rich Roll?

  And you switched the diet and it just

• 24:28Speaker 01

  I switched the diet in October. Dude, when I switched the diet, man, everything just clicked. It was, and it was, and I'm just watching the weight drop. I mean, in my adult life, right? I was, I, I'd sort of like, I'd get down to a certain point and I just, all of a sudden I switched to plant-based and it just blew through that. And I almost couldn't believe it.

• 24:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm literally, you know, freaking out here because I, I've never heard somebody tell my story, like, almost to the T. Like, the way that you're relating your experiences, it's so incredibly similar to my experience. And when I tell, I mean, my version of your marathon run experience was, you know, it was maybe three months after I'd switched my diet. And, and like you, I'd started kind of resuming an exercise routine prior to that, but it was, it was never anything all that significant. You know, I was just trying to lose a little bit of weight. And when I switched to plant-based, that's when all the weight kind of just shed off without having to really do anything. And, and the energy levels are going through the roof. And, and I'm starting to run

• 25:31Rich Roll?

  more and go to the pool, et cetera, predominantly to burn off all this extra energy that I had so I could sit still and focus when I was at work. Like, I literally was bouncing off the walls. And then I went out for a trail run. And my expectation was I was gonna run for like, an hour, something like that. It was a weekday morning. And I did the same, I ran away from my car. But it was one of those days where I just felt amazing and everything's clicking. And you just feel like you can go and go and go.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  That was the, that was the pace day.

• 25:58Rich Roll?

  And I was like, dude, I've been running for two hours and I, I haven't turned around yet. Like, I turned around to go run back to my car, not because I felt like I was running out of steam, but because I got worried because no one knew where I was. And I thought, you know, if I get a cramp and fall in the bush here, and they're gonna have to bring a helicopter out here and get me. And, and yeah, I clocked it out later and it was like 24 miles. And, and, you know, it was, it was so much further than anything I'd ever done. And I couldn't believe it. And when I tell that story, You know, the reaction that I get often is, well, you're just some kind of athletic freak. And I have to say, well, you know, maybe I did kind of unlock some dormant gene that I didn't know that I had, or at least a passion for this, because I loved it so much.

• 26:42Rich Roll?

  But I can't emphasize or over emphasize, you know, the extent to which the diet contributed to that, that catalyzed that. And so to hear somebody else essentially tell the exact same story, like reaffirms that.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Well, it's funny, like, if you think back over the years, like, you can work out, lose a little bit of weight, right? You can eat a little bit better, lose a little bit of weight. But for me, it was switching to a plant-based diet, it just all came together. Right? And so, so what happened was, like, you know, I did this pacing, you know, got myself back to the car, did the, ended up doing the marathon that day, which was just kind of mind-boggling at the time.

• 27:21Rich Roll?

  Did you just come, you come home and tell your wife, like, guess what I did?

• 27:24Speaker 01

  I was just bizarre. It was just a little bizarre. But it was like, and then three days later, I see one morning a buddy of mine, David Green, and, you know, I knew he did crazy stuff and crazy races.

• 27:37Rich Roll?

  He's like, he's like the local ultra-freak. Every, every town's got one of those guys.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he's like, he's no, he tells me, crazy racist and all this stuff. And I didn't even know what it all meant, to be honest with you. So I see him, and I'm like, hey, how's it going? And he's like, good. And I'm like, hey, what are you training for these days? And so he said, oh, man, I'm training for this, this ultra marathon in two months. It's a, it's 110 miles, and we're raising some money for charity. He'd go on and on, and I'm like, and I'm looking at him, like, are you serious? And all of a sudden, he stops in the middle of this conversation, he looks me square in the eyes, and he goes, you should do it with me.

• 28:14Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  And I'm like...

• 28:16Rich Roll?

  And this was kind of after you'd done that out and back marathon?

• 28:19Speaker 01

  This was three days later.

• 28:20Rich Roll?

  Oh, three days later.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  It was literally three days later. And, and I'm like, I couldn't tell if he was joking, or he was serious.

• 28:27Rich Roll?

  It's a message from God.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  But you know what, I'll tell you, it's like, all of a sudden, it all kind of came together.

• 28:33Rich Roll?

  Snap focus.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  And so, and he planted this little seed, right? And I'm like... Man, maybe, maybe I should try this, man. I just, I feel, I'm feeling amazing, right? I mean, um, the diet's kicking in, weight's dripping off. And, uh, so I sort of just, I was like, yeah, I'll think about it. And I sent him an email later that day. And I said, how do you, how do you even do something like that, right? So guy, God love me, emailed me back and he's like, this is what we do. This is the plan and everything like this. And so that was, uh, that was December 14th. Um, and long story short, two months later, I show up at the starting line of this 110 mile ultra marathon.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, I cranked my mileage up in those two months. I seemed to recover incredibly well. I mean, like, and I'm, I'm just, I'm all, all in, 100%, all plan-based, nothing processed. Um, ramping the miles, recovering, going out the next day and.

• 29:39Rich Roll?

  How many, so how many mi- I mean, that's a really short period of time to ramp up.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  It's ridiculous.

• 29:44Rich Roll?

  You know, like most people would say, you can't do that. You're gonna, I mean, maybe physically, like sort of aerobically, you could handle that, but you're gonna get injured.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Well, what I, this is what I said to myself was like, so I didn't tell anybody, right?

• 29:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  I mean, like my wife knew, right? I told my wife, I'm like, I'm thinking about doing this. So David, he's like, he gives me his training program and I'm like, I'm, I'm gonna see if I can stick to it. Let me get to the end of December and see if, hopefully, let's see if I don't get hurt.

• 30:07Rich Roll?

  And are you getting like multiple long runs in, in the week or doing one long run and shorter runs more repeated throughout the, how's that, how did that look?

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Dude, I just ran.

• 30:15Rich Roll?

  You're just running, yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Right?

• 30:17Rich Roll?

  Don't overcomplicate it.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Don't overcomp- and people are like, like, what, like, I got four kids, right? So I, I'd get up at 3:30 in the morning and I'd run, right? And I just, I'd run for four hours. And I'd get home, I'd take a quick shower and then we're off to soccer practice or lacrosse or whatever, you know, it was just, I'd do it early in the morning. Or I'd do it at, and I remember one night coming in and like, where I got home late from work and I'm like, I'm going to run, right? And I put, I had my, my, my blinky lights on and everything like that. Pitch dark. My wife's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm going for a run. She's like, you look like a Christmas tree out there, you know? So I'm just doing the miles and I'm like, if I can get through, let me get through December, see if I don't get hurt.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Fine, I do that. Let me get through January, see if I don't get hurt. Right. So this is, so I'm in February, this, this race was in mid February. And all of a sudden, I started to tell people, I'm like, I'm gonna try and do this run. They're like, you can't do that. There's no way.

• 31:16Rich Roll?

  And you hadn't even done a marathon yet. I mean, other than, other than you're out and back when you were helping your buddy.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, like years ago, I used to do, you know, I used to do stuff, but it'd been a while and you know, it's, um, so this is like, you know, it's just, it just seemed incomprehensible. But so we go to, uh, we go to the starting line.

• 31:34Rich Roll?

  And what was your longest, what did your longest run been? Ramping up?

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Um, I probably did, I think I did a 30 miler once, cause I remember, I remember taking a picture of the watch. And being like, wow, that's kind of a long way, right? And then the idea of running 110 was just like, I went into it with.

• 31:56Rich Roll?

  So you had to do that more than three times.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  I had no idea. Right. Right. But God, you know, I tell people all the time, it's like, you know, you have, you have a goal, go, go for a big goal, but have a plan. And so I give a lot of, a lot of kudos to David. He, he helped me out with a plan in terms of training. You know, he sent me like a list of like, this is all the stuff you're gonna need. The thing about these things, which I've learned too, is it's not about you and you have a support crew, right? You can't get through one of these without a support crew. And I had, I had a tremendous support crew. My family's fantastic. You know, kids decorated the whole car. But, uh, but I remember this incident, uh, where I was at a basketball practice, this was probably a couple of days beforehand.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  And a friend of ours was, was asking someone else in town, they're like, hey, you know, who's doing that 110 miler? You know, they said, oh, so and so and so and so and Adam Scully Power. And she goes, what?

• 32:51Rich Roll?

  That guy.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Nicky not doing, there's no way you can do that, right? And I see her practicing, she's like, you can't do that. And I'm like, I'm like, well, I'm gonna give it a try. So we went to the starting line.

• 33:03Rich Roll?

  And you had, you had gone from 215 pounds down to where, where were you?

• 33:06Speaker 01

  I will tell you exactly where I was, right? So I was, I was 215 pounds. I probably got down to maybe, I don't know, one. Well, when I started the race, I was 172 pounds, right? And the reason I know that is because what we did is we weighed ourselves.

• 33:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they make you, at these long races, they make you get weighed so they can monitor.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, so you weigh yourself, right? To know where you are, but then like every 10 miles, like our support crew would, would put the scale on the ground. We'd run up, we'd step on the scale and we'd weigh ourselves. And the reason why is because it's kind of like you can monitor how your body's doing. And, um, you know, if you put on too much weight, it's not good. If you're not putting on enough, it's not, it's not good either. So that was how you would monitor yourself. So, you know, I'm out there and now I've been eating all plants, right? Super clean, super clean, but I don't know what I'm doing out there. And all I know is David's like, you gotta take in calories, 300 calories an hour, right? You gotta do it, whatever you do. So not knowing what to do, so I'm, I'm taking the gels.

• 34:14Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Right? All processed.

• 34:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  And when you go from eating clean, clean, clean to all processed, man, your body doesn't react that well.

• 34:24Rich Roll?

  Not to mention the fact that, you know, that's a huge burst of sugar. And once you spike your, your blood sugar like that, you gotta keep it up or you're gonna have a crash. And you're gonna be out there for God knows how many hours.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  So we're, we're like 35 miles in, we're out in the middle of nowhere. And, and all this processed stuff, all of a sudden there was a porta potty. And I'm like, I gotta go in there, man. I didn't, I go in there, I come out, it didn't react well with me at all. And quite frankly, I had horrible diarrhea. I get out, I get on the scale and I dropped six pounds, right? And I remember David looking at me going, he's like, that's not good, right? That, you know, that's dangerous. He's like, you gotta put the weight back on, but you can't do it all at once. So it took me, uh, It took me three and a half hours while I'm running to put six pounds back on. But we kept going. And, uh, and we did, I ran a hundred and ten miles.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Took me twenty-four hours and thirty-eight minutes. So I went from, you know, that sort of crazy, you know, pacing the guy to do a half marathon to running a hundred and ten miles in two months.

• 35:32Rich Roll?

  That's, that is just mind boggling.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  It's just, honest, it, it, it changed my perspective on what's possible in all aspects of my life. You know, and I, and I, you know, I put a lot of faith in, in the, the way I was eating to get me there.

• 36:00Rich Roll?

  So what, what, what, what did, uh, I'm sure it's evolved since then, but what did a typical day in food look, look like for you ramping up to that race?

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Um, I just ate a lot, man. I ate just huge quantities of food, but I, you know, I do, uh, I became a fan of the Vitamix. My wife bought a Vitamix and so, you know, she started it first and so now everything, everything was going into the Vitamix, huge salads, you know. Um, just huge quantities of, I didn't count a single calorie. It just, it's not like that.

• 36:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, we were talking, um, before the interview, we just made a Vitamix in the kitchen. And, uh, we were talking about like how, yeah, you know, people say, well, what's your, what's your pre, you know, pre-workout Vitamix, what's your post-workout, you know, what do you put in? And we were sharing, uh, this idea that like, hey, man, it's whatever's in the, whatever's in the fridge, man, it goes in there. And like, I don't get caught up in measuring this or that, or making sure I have one or the other things more often than not, especially when you have four kids and you're working and it's like. You know, you know, I don't have time to make sure I'm completely stocked in every single thing. Like, I got, you know, the kids are in there eating it and I just, I go in there and whatever's there is what's going in.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Whatever's there goes in, you know, and it just, you whip it up and it's, you know, and now, you know, it's funny, I remember like, I think it was in the movie too. They said, when you get to the point where you crave like a kale salad, you're there. And, you know, I'm, I got there quickly, you know, it just changed, all your cravings for all sweets, that's gone.

• 37:34Rich Roll?

  Right, that's the important thing. People say, well, why don't you, you know, what about cheat days or what about just doing it, you know, 90%? And I say, that's great if that's where you're at, you know, if that's a step up, you know, I had to do it cold turkey like you. I had to go all in and if I allow myself to be 90%, then that's a slippery slope back to Jack in the Box for me.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I went all in and, you know, it's just, you know, that three month, I call it the experiment was when the weight came out. I went to the doctor after I had my cholesterol, my cholesterol dropped like a rock, you know, and running these crazy miles. So, uh, yeah, it was just, it was amazing. So we do, we do this 110 miler and you do something like that, it did change, it does, man. It changes your perspective. And so we finished and people are like, oh, you know, one and done, you know, you got that out of your system. And then, you know, my buddy David's like, well, let's go do another one, right?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Okay, so we, uh, so we went down in May and we did the Keys 100, which runs from Key Largo down to Key, well, I'd never even actually been to the Keys before. So I figured it's a hell of a way to see the Keys, just run, run the whole way.

• 38:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  So we go down and we do the Keys 100 and my goal for these things, you gotta remember, man, I was 50 pounds heavier just a few months ago. So, um, my goals for these things are just to finish. That's it. All I want to do is go down and finish and it was like brutally hot.

• 39:00Rich Roll?

  Right, I heard. I had a buddy of mine who spent on the podcast a couple times, Mishko Shabali. He uh, he went down to that race and was pacing a buddy of his and he was telling me how hot it was.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Oh, man, it was, it was like sauna hot, right? And you're just, you know, every chance you can, your support crew will just, just drench you with ice cold water. And there was, there was a big group, I don't know how many people, 150 people started in. And I think at the end of the day, only 68 people actually finished. It was a huge dropout rate. But, you know, I go down and I'm just, I'm slow and steady. That's all I'm all about, just slow and steady. And, you know, it was a tough day and, and I went through and I, you know, I came across, I think that one was like 20, 22 hours and uh, camera, 22 hours and something.

• 39:48Rich Roll?

  The only good one about that is it's flat.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  It is flat, right? You know, it's funny, like I come across, they're like, hey, congratulations, good job. You know, they're like, you're in, you came in 15th. And I'm like, whoa, what? Like this whole thing is just new to me, right? This, this ultra distance thing. Um, so we got the keys in and that was, that was a great race. And then uh, you know, and then the next thing is my buddy David, again, he's doing all these crazy things. So he goes and runs the Boston Marathon.

• 40:17Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  And uh, comes across the finish line of the Boston Marathon. And he's on the finishing block when the bombs go off, right?

• 40:26Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  And I hear it on the news and I go, I call right away. I'm on the phone, all the phone lines are dead, like nothing's going through. So I send him a text that says, two words, are you, you okay? Question mark. He texts me back, he's like, yes, blast happens in front of me. And he sends me a picture. So what happened is when the bombs went off, he's on the block, he takes his camera out and takes a single, single photograph of Boylston Street, right there at the finish line. Yes, blast happens in front of me and he sends me the picture. Don't think anything of it. Thank God he's okay. But when the Boston Marathon bombing, I don't know what it was, but I I sat there and it sort of affected me and I'm just thinking, I'm like, I gotta do something.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  I didn't know what it was and you know.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  So I get this idea, a colleague of mine at work, probably a couple of months earlier was like, hey, you uh. You wanna, you wanna join us, we're we're getting a team together to ride in this thing called the Pan Mass Challenge, which is. It's one of the largest, I think it's the largest charity fundraiser in the country. It's been going on for years, five thousand people will bike across the state of Massachusetts. And I get this idea.

• 41:43Rich Roll?

  You go west to east?

• 41:44Speaker 01

  You go, uh, you go west to east, there's a couple of different routes, they all end up in Provincetown, right at the very tip of uh, of the Cape down there in Massachusetts. So uh, Wednesday night, Marathon was on Monday, Wednesday night I was traveling and I I tracked down the owner, the founder of the Pan Mass Challenge, a guy by the name of Billy Starr, never met him. And I send him an email completely out of the blue saying, um, I've got this idea. After what happened this week with the Boston Marathon, I'd like to participate in the Pan Mass Challenge this year, but I don't wanna bike it, I wanna run it.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  I'm sure you probably don't get an email like this every day, so think about it, if you have any interest, you know, I'd love to chat with you, and that was Wednesday night. So Thursday morning.

• 42:35Rich Roll?

  And this, this wasn't something you ran, you uh, sort of ran by the wife, you just uh, you got an idea?

• 42:39Speaker 01

  No, no idea.

• 42:41Rich Roll?

  Fired off the email.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Dude, I'll tell you, I looked back at the email.

• 42:43Rich Roll?

  Before you could uh, change your mind about what you might possibly be committing to?

• 42:47Speaker 01

  I tell you what, I'm on the road, right, it's ten o'clock on Wednesday, and I looked at the ten o'clock Wednesday night, I fired it off to him. And uh, Thursday morning, he calls and he's like. You, this is a bike event, this, we don't, we don't, this is not a running event.

• 43:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think you, you misread the uh, fine print on our website.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  He's like, we've been for thirty years, we've, this is a bike event, right, and uh. And I go, no, no, I I understand, but after what happened this week, I wanna do something as a tribute to all the victims in Boston, and I wanna, I wanna run this thing. And I walked him through, I'm like, you know, we'll have our own support team, we'll just, we'll, we'll go through, we'll do the thing, and you know, and he goes.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Alright. He said, he said, we'll do it. And I said, alright. Let me, let me get, let me get right back to you. So this is, this is Thursday now.

• 43:39Rich Roll?

  Then do you have a, oh shit moment? What did I just?

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Well, no, no, I'll tell you what happened, man. You know, things, things in life, things in life come together for a reason. It's just, you know, so this was, this was probably 11 o'clock on that Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon, the FBI releases the images of the two guys that they think are the, uh, the bombers from Boston. And it hits the news. And we're looking at the picture. That the FBI releases. And then we go back and we're looking at the picture that my buddy David, uh, texted on Monday. And if you open up the picture that he texted. And you look in the lower left-hand corner. Crystal clear, he's got the picture of the bomber. I mean, it was just.

• 44:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Zokar Sarnoff is in the picture, right?

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, you, but, eh, for those that are, you've seen, you've seen his picture. A hundred times.

• 44:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  And we look and we're like, oh my God, look, that's him.

• 44:40Rich Roll?

  How did, how did he get his image to the FBI? Did he send it to them?

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he, we're like, so he, Davidson, he sends the photo into the FBI. The FBI goes, this is the clearest, highest resolution photo we have of, of the bomber. Uh, one of the bombers. Um, and and the photo just goes viral. I mean, it goes like literally viral. And, uh,

• 45:10Speaker 01

  it was, you know what, like, I talked to, I talked to Billy Starr that morning about running the pan mass as a tribute to, to all these victims. And when the photo, which was texted to me on Monday. Which you wouldn't think anything of it until.

• 45:24Rich Roll?

  Right, everybody had their phone out, taking pictures.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was like, that was a sign that we're like. Wow, man, this is meant to be. So, I mean, you know, CNN calls up Dave and, hey, we want you to come on and show the photo and everything like that. And I remember texting him and going, dude, I'm doing this Pan Mass Challenge.

• 45:45Rich Roll?

  Now you're in.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm, I'm all in at this point. You know, at first it's like this crazy idea, you know, Billy Starr says, yeah, let's, I'm good, let's do this thing. And that photo was like a sign that says, I'm all in.

• 45:58Rich Roll?

  Right. So you sent me the, the, not just the photo, but like a screen grab of the text message being sent to you of the photo. I'll put a, I'll put a, I'll put that up on the website so you guys can check it out. But that's really eerie. I mean, it's, that's crazy, right?

• 46:13Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 46:14Rich Roll?

  And it makes me, you know, think a lot about something that I also talk a lot about, which is this idea that, you know, your life in so many ways can boil down to these little events, these little moments that occur. And when you're paying attention, they can be momentous and change your life in dramatic, marvelous and wonderful ways. So like when your friend David comes up to you and says, hey, man, do this 110 with me, like out of the blue, like what's that, what's that about? Like that's never happened to you before.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  It happened three days after that run.

• 46:48Rich Roll?

  And it happened to you at the exact moment when you were ready to hear that and do something and make that change in your life. And then to sort of be interested in the idea of honoring the Boston Marathon and the synchronicity of that photograph and the timing of when it went viral and released and your commitment to do this 163 mile run. It's like, dude, you know, there's more going on here. You know, that's just, it's, it's an extraordinary chain of events.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  It's, it's, as I think back on it, it's almost eerie in some regards. So, so now I'm committed, right? I'm, I'm, I'm in and I'm starting to. Uh, I'm starting to ramp my, I gotta start preparing for this thing, you know, I'd, this was a long way.

• 47:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  For a guy who just, you know, not that long ago was 50 pounds heavier.

• 47:36Rich Roll?

  But for the average person listening, it's like 110, 163, it's the same thing. I was like, whatever, you know, anything above, anything longer than a marathon, it just gets lumped into the category of ultra marathon. Like whether it's 50 or 163, it all, it's like the difference between a hundred billion and a trillion. It's like you can't, it gets to that point where you can't wrap your brain around it.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  But it's, and it's all new to me, right? But, you know, at each step, I mean, you, you change your perspective on what is possible, right? And so I'm, I'm training for this thing and I didn't tell a lot of people at first, right? So it's, you know, I, I did it as a tribute to the victims of Boston, the Pan Mass Challenge. They raised money for, for cancer research. So, you know, I had a commitment to raise some money for cancer research as well. But in most of the people that I work with had no idea. And I, I didn't tell them because I didn't know if I could finish, right? And it's.

• 48:31Rich Roll?

  But you're already known as the guy who ran 110 and, you know, you've done two ultras at this point.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so they're, yeah, right. I, I guess so, but I don't think of myself. People are telling me all the time, like, hey, you're the runner. I don't think of myself as a runner, but I mean, I guess I am at this point, but I still don't even think of myself that way. So it's, uh, and, and the people from the Pan Mass Challenge, yeah, I, I didn't, I quite, I'd quite frankly, didn't really want the publicity for this thing. But there, this was different, right? So for 30 years, they've been raising, they raised 30, 38 million dollars in a single weekend. This is a huge, huge endeavor and, uh, no one had ever run it before.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  So they start to tell the story a little bit because they're trying to raise awareness for the charity. And I said, you know, it's for charity. I'm going to go with it. And so they could float the story to a few people. And that's when that reporter called me up and, you know, said, tell me about what you're doing. And, uh, and then that, then the article, it was the morning before I was gonna start Friday morning, that Thursday morning, that article went out on ESPN. And, uh, it was a great article and it just blew up. I mean.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  It just blew up that day.

• 49:51Rich Roll?

  So what happens when you show up at the event? Now, everybody's looking at you like you're, everybody knows what you're gonna be attempting here.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Well, it's, so it's, it's like, so I'll, I'll tell, let me kinda go back for a second. So, what they do with the Pan Mass Challenge is they start Saturday morning, right? And they'll bike half the distance on Saturday. Then they, they sleep out, they spend the night, there's a, the 5,000 bikers, they've got a little, uh, army barricade, barricade, barracks that they spend the night. And then they get up Sunday morning and they bike the seconds, the second half. So Billy Starr, who runs, it says, you know, I want, I want you to try and finish before all the bikers get in. Now, um, I have to kinda create a plan, right?

• 50:38Speaker 01

  And one of the things that when you put yourself out in life like this, it's amazing who comes into your life. And I got connected, um, with, uh, with one of a world-class ultra-distance runner, Lisa Smith Batch.

• 50:53Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Uh, she's a, you know, I got connected with her, she kinda heard about what I was doing. I did a call with her and I told her, I was, you know, what I was doing, I needed some help. And she's like, okay kiddo, I'm gonna come on board and help you. So, she helped me with, uh, with the training stuff leading up to it, fantastic. She's got, she's doing some crazy events coming up.

• 51:13Rich Roll?

  She's amazing, things that she's done.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Dude, she's just an amazing, amazing person, fabulous lady, and, uh, forever indebted for the help that she, uh, she gave me. So, um, so I talked to her and she's like, you know, we've, we've figured out the schedule. She's like, you know, best thing to do is leave Friday morning. So, so I start 5:45 at sunrise on Friday morning. All the bikers are gonna start Saturday and, uh...

• 51:44Speaker 01

  And I just, I go nonstop.

• 51:45Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  For a hundred and sixty-three miles.

• 51:48Rich Roll?

  And who's, who's your crew?

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had the crew. I had the fam, right?

• 51:52Rich Roll?

  Ah, yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  I had my wi- my wife is the best. I mean, the absolute best. She's my crew person and uh.

• 51:59Rich Roll?

  I'm sure you got the advice that that's, that's probably not a good idea.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  So the crew is my wife, my uh, my brother, my dad, and then my, my wife's father, my father-in-law. So I have the whole family, right, which created some uh, interesting moments along the, the course.

• 52:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  I can assure you for that. Um, but we start out and uh, I had a plan, you know? I gotta, I, it's like anything in life, right? You gotta have a giant goal. You gotta have a plan. You gotta have a tenacity, a purpose of what you're trying to do. You're gonna have setbacks along the way. There is no question and you gotta persevere through them. Um, and don't be afraid to ask for help. You know, people rally around really big goals, right? Really big goals. And um, so I start. And what, what happened the day before is the word started to spread, right? The local news was like, oh, I wanna come and talk to you. We're gonna put you on the news and everything like that.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  So the whole thing was just a whirlwind.

• 53:02Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  And then uh, and you called me that night, right?

• 53:05Rich Roll?

  That's right. Yeah. How did I, how did we connect? Like, I think I tweeted out, like, oh, you got, I tweeted out the ESPN story or some, I shared it. And then, or I found out where, how to tag you on it or something like that.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  I think you somehow tagged me on the ESPN story and it hit Facebook. And I'm not a big Facebook person, but I, and I was like, now, you gotta go back. So I, I, I didn't know you beforehand, but when I decided, when I watched Forks Over Knives and went plant-based and then got sucked into doing that first Ultra, I, I didn't know what I was doing. So I went online, right? I started reading stuff.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Ultra distance, plant-based, and guess who pops up?

• 53:48Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Rich Roll.

• 53:50Rich Roll?

  Because not too many other guys.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  Rich Roll, that's right. So I, I get your book, right? And I read your book. Actually, I downloaded it and I used to, I used to listen to it when I was running. And, uh, so, um, you hit, yeah, the ESPN article went, you, you tweeted, put it on Facebook and, uh, I pinged you a message back and I was like, yeah, thanks for the, the shout out there. You know, I've read your book, you know, fantastic. And, uh, I think we swapped a few, a few messages back and forth. And I, I'll never forget, I was at the, I was sitting in the minivan and we'd rented a minivan for the support crew. And I was loading the minivan up the night before and all the supplies and you called me just to say, good luck tomorrow. And that was, that was huge.

• 54:31Rich Roll?

  Oh, man. Well, I mean, just huge respect for what you had taken on and, and, you know, like I said, I mean, your story resonates with me so completely. You know, it's like I get chills hearing you say it like the, it's, it's my story. You know, I can't help but like celebrate that and, you know, anything that I could do to help inspire you to see it through. You know what I mean? Like it's just unbelievable what you were undertaking.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Cause I didn't know, again, you don't kind of know what you're getting into. You don't know how your body's going to react, but the, at this point, man, I felt pressure, right? Cause now it's out there.

• 55:05Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Like I tried to.

• 55:07Rich Roll?

  It's different, right?

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Oh, it's very, like, you know, I tried to keep it quiet because I didn't know if I could finish. But now it's like this article's going out and, you know, I didn't look for that. But because they were trying to bring some awareness to the charity, you know, they, they started to tell the story.

• 55:23Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  And, uh, so, you know, local news did a thing the night before, but it was weird. So I started at 5:45 on that Friday morning. Um, and there's no one. Well, actually, you know, they, they sent a little news crew there, right? There's a news truck there. They wanted to, you know, videotape me leaving. I'm like, this is just weird, right? So we just started running, right? And I got the support crew and. Cars would come up, right? And they roll down the window, they go, "Hey, are you, you that guy running? Running the Pan Mass?" I was like, "Yeah, yeah. I saw you on the news last night. Good luck." And it's just, it was a weird experience for me.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  So we're trucking along. So I started at 5:45 Friday and I just kept running.

• 56:08Rich Roll?

  And what you said, you know, you have this big goal, but then you have a plan. So what, what was the plan?

• 56:15Speaker 01

  So first, well, the plan is, again, you go back to nutrition and calories and pacing and, you know, I have,

• 56:26Speaker 01

  I have all that in my head, you know, ready to go, written out. Lisa had helped me really devise a, like a race strategy to get through it. Cause the goal for one of these things is just to finish. It didn't matter to me. This was all for charity. Didn't matter how long it took. I just wanted to finish. That's all I tried to do. And so Friday, we were out there and it was, it started getting hot and we're just trucking along and I'm eating, drinking non-stop.

• 56:57Rich Roll?

  And so I assume there's like a, there's a run, walk kind of protocol.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  I'm a big fan of the run, walk. Yeah. So we go, I go eight twos, right? Which is run for eight minutes, walk for two minutes. Run for eight minutes, walk for two minutes. And those two minutes that you're walking, it lets you eat. It lets you drink. It gives your legs a little bit of a break. And if you do it, you can just, you can go for a long time.

• 57:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's amazing. And, uh, you know, I had Charlie Engel, great ultra runner on the show and he said, uh, he's like, you know, cause there's all this, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about ultra running. They think people are just running six minute miles for like 24 hours straight. And I'm like, no, it's not really what's going on here. Even the greats, even the winners are, are choosing their walk moments and they're implementing a smart run, walk method, you know, and Charlie always says, You know, who, you know, when he does public speaking, he says, who here can run a mile in 11 minutes? You know, and most people raise their hand.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 57:54Rich Roll?

  And then he says, well, if you could do that for the 135 mile distance of bad water, you wouldn't just win the race, you'd break the course record. So that's what we're talking about here, right? And the run-walk method is, is really the way you have to go. And it's not about walking when you start to get tired. It's about walking from the very beginning so that, you know, you, you have to implement that strategy before you start to win.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Oh, you gotta train, you gotta train that way.

• 58:19Rich Roll?

  You have to train it, right. And, yeah, you can train your walk so that you're, it's a swift, it's different from a normal walk.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, when you, you know, the walk is not a little, it's not just a stroll in the park. You're, you're kind of, you're power walking.

• 58:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  You've got to train that way so that you can run, power walk, and then get going again and keep cranking it, cranking it out. And you just, you know, I've got my watch and it just keeps beeping, you know, and you just...

• 58:43Rich Roll?

  Time to do it. And even when you don't want to do it, like, I feel good, I want to keep running, like, no, you know, stick to the plan.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  You know, and you go through, you know, you hear, you hear people talk about, I hit the wall in a marathon. Well, like, when you, you run 163 miles, you hit a lot of walls, right? And the thing that amazes me is that, you know, I mean, David Goggins said, I read about it. He said, you know, when you, you get to the point where, I may misquote him here, you get to the point where you think you're done, and you've only used 40%, you know?

• 59:16Rich Roll?

  And, you know, dude, you keep saying, saying things that I say all the time. When I do public speaking, I always, I leave people with that quote.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  It's true, I mean, it's, it's, I mean, you can, it's amazing how you can feel horrible. And all of a sudden, you can turn the corner and be reborn again. And you go through these, you go through these moments. And I remember, I remember, you know, pacing myself and, you know, probably, I was probably at the 70 mile mark, and maybe like seven, between 70 and 80 miles. I just felt phenomenal. I don't know what it was, I was just cranking those miles out. And then I'm running along and then these, these two bikers came up behind me. And, you know, it's, you know, when you feel someone behind you and you just, you kind of like look over your shoulder and they're peeping their head around and then... I think it's the, that's the guy, right? I think that's the guy running and they're like, hey,

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  you, you, you running the Pan, Pan Mass? I was like, yeah, yeah. They're like, I told you that's the guy. I told you that's the guy. So these two, uh, guy and a girl were on their bike. They, they hung with me for a couple of miles and were chatting and everything. It was, it was cool. And they, they went on. And then about half an hour later, I'm, I'm still running. Uh, they're on the side of the road with their running stuff on.

• 1:00:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  And he goes, hey, can I run with you for a while? And I go, yeah, I'd, I'd love the company. And he ran with me from, uh, I don't know, maybe 10:30 to like 11:30 that night. Um, and it was just, it was nice to see. I mean, people came out and really rallied and supported. It was, it was very cool.

• 1:00:50Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. So, uh, so you make it through this. How many hours does this take you?

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  So, um, the whole thing took me four, just over 41 hours.

• 1:01:02Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Wow. And was there, you went, you powered through? Did you ever, did you sleep at all? Grab a nap or anything like that?

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Didn't sleep. Um, you know, we'd, I'd stop from time to time, take 10 or 15 minutes to, you know, refuel up and just kind of mentally check in and whatnot. Maybe, you know, every 20, 25 miles or something like that. And, um, you know, you talk about the dynamics of the support crew, right? So we were, now the course is, the course is not a straight, like point to point. It weaves through different roads and this way and that way. And, you know, they're keeping the direction and, you know, I'd be like, hey, uh, how much further we have? And they, they'd go to their, their phone and the GPS and it'd be like, oh, you've got, uh, whatever, 70 miles, right? And what they're looking at on their phone is just the straight road.

• 1:01:47Rich Roll?

  Oh, oh no.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  And I'm like, oh, that's not too bad. We've got 70 miles. They're looking,

• 1:01:52Rich Roll?

  You can't mess around with that.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  As the bird flies, so to speak.

• 1:01:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  And the, and the course is on all these side roads and everything. So like there's, the way they're saying 70 miles, I probably have 90 still to go. And they kept doing this all day. And it's not their, not their fault, but it, it messes with you a little bit.

• 1:02:08Rich Roll?

  Oh, that can be debilitating when you find, I mean, even just to know you have. A couple more miles than you thought when you're at that point, that breaking point.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I tell people, I'm like, you know, so I started at 5:45 on a Friday morning. I ran all day Friday. I ran all Saturday night. I ran all Saturday. Saturday night, the sun goes down. Now, when you're putting your reflector vest and your blinky lights on for the second night in a row. Emotionally, that's a tough place to be, right? That's, and people are like, did you have any tough moments? That was one of them, right? So the lights, sun's going down and putting the vest on for the second night. And for some reason, I didn't think about it, but, you know, the course goes out down through Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and I figured when we get out to the Cape, it would get nice and flat. It doesn't get flat down there at all. It gets really hilly, right? So those last, those last parts are in the hills.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, it's, it's funny, folks will say, hey, was there ever, was there, was there points where you were just like, I can't do it? And I felt pretty good. I remember my brother goes, um, hey, you're, you're almost there. Now, if someone says you're almost there.

• 1:03:20Rich Roll?

  That's a relative term.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I don't know, right? So he's like, hey, you're almost there. And I'm thinking, God, maybe two or three miles, we're almost there. And then there's silence and he goes, you got nine miles to go. Now, nine miles in the scope of 163 doesn't sound like a lot. But when you've been running for, you know, 150 something miles, nine miles at that point was like, whoo. So we kept trucking along and I'll tell you the point where, the point where I said it became toughest, I was probably three miles away. And, uh, I said, that was tough, those last three miles. Those, those were, that was a really tough moment, you know?

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  I think physically and mentally, it just became difficult and you, and you talk about like things that happen. So, um, you know, my support crew is in the car. And all of a sudden, the police car comes up with a flashing light. And I remember the cop, uh, comes up, rolls his window, he goes, what the heck are you doing? Cause it's dark. It's Saturday night. We're on this busy road and he's like, what are you doing? Like a guy's out there, like running. I said, um, I'm like half delirious at this point. I'm like, I'm running the Pan Mass Challenge. He's like, oh. Oh, you're that guy. He's like, I'll stay with you, right?

• 1:04:42Rich Roll?

  Ah, wow.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  So he stayed with the flashing lights. I'm starting to really deteriorate. And my wife gets out of the car, I love her, and she comes up. And, you know, you're, you're run, you're running a little bit, you're walking a little bit. And, uh, so she's, she's by my side, right? Which was just great. And my wife has her phone in her hand and she gets a text message from, uh, from Lisa, my coach. And, uh,

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  yeah. The, uh, the text exchange between the two of them, of which my wife is reading.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  It was tough. It was it.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  They're, uh,

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Le- Lisa's texting, uh, messages. Man, I get caught up with this. It's alright, man.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  So, uh, she's texting messages of, of friends of hers who have died from cancer.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  And my wife's reading it.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, man.

• 1:06:09Rich Roll?

  No, man. I've had the, uh, privilege of, of you sharing a couple of those and I've read some of them in the articles.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Well, she's, so Lisa's sending messages of, of friends and, uh, people in her lives that have died of cancer. And, uh, you know, that's what the whole thing's about, in raising money to find a cure for cancer. And, you know, at the, right at the moment where it's the most difficult, you know.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm running and I'm listening to this text exchange between my wife and her. And Lisa saying, read it out loud to him. And

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  it helped, it helped finish it, helped me get through those last few miles.

• 1:07:00Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. And these were emails that, these were emails that had been sent to you in support and in the wake of the press coverage? Or?

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  No, this is.

• 1:07:09Rich Roll?

  These are just stories of people out there that had suffered?

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  These are, this is, uh, this is my wife and Lisa having, literally having a text exchange back and forth between each other. And, uh, and my wife's read, reading the messages that Lisa's sending along and, uh, it's, uh,

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  you know, she, she, I'll read you some of them, right? I have them here, man. It's, uh, she, she said, she sends, uh, she sends my wife a message saying, three miles, question mark? And my wife responds back, uh, yeah. He's, he's delirious, he's delirious, right? And Lisa writes, God wants him to suffer to some degree. It puts it all in perspective so that Adam can understand the power behind his giving and doing. My wife, she's like, oh, he's moving. This is, this is the text exchange they're having back and forth. She says, cry with him. He should be very emotional. Okay. As you can tell, you know?

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Let him sob, tell him it's okay. Men are so different. They try and hold it all in.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Then she starts sending pictures of friends of hers who have died from cancer. And, uh, and it just, it just hit me hard.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  Says, she says, tell him to cry, put his hands to heaven. What he's done is beyond what most can imagine.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  But we kept powering through there. And, uh, and we finished up.

• 1:08:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that put the, the wind in the sails to get you through to the finish.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely, definitely helped.

• 1:09:03Rich Roll?

  So you achieved this impossible, incomprehensible feat that in such a short period of time prior would have been completely out of your realm of possibility.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  Com- I mean, honestly, just sitting here like today is just bizarre to me, man. You know, to think, to think back 18 months ago where I was and some of these things that I've done, um, and now we're sitting here talking about it is just...

• 1:09:34Rich Roll?

  It's amazing.

• 1:09:46Rich Roll?

  How does this, you know, now you've had some time, there's, time has elapsed between this event and, and where you're sitting now, and how does this color how you, you know, uh, live your day? And how does this change your perspective on, on, you know, your legacy, your purpose, what you have to share and, and give?

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  I think it does a couple things. Number one is, uh, you know, you, you kind of think about, well, what's next, right? You know, you, you, you break through some of these boundaries that I don't even know if you want to call them boundaries, things that you just thought were seemingly impossible to do. And you, and you start asking yourself, well, like, what's next? And the, and the other part about it is, it's, it's, you know, having gone through this experience and, and not that I intended it for it to be as public as it was, but, I mean, I, I remember, so I, I finished the, uh, I finished the event. At like eleven o'clock Saturday night, like forty one hours after I started.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Bikers are all gonna come through on Saturday, so we went to the hotel and crashed and got some sleep. I probably got to the hotel at, I don't know, twelve thirty. I woke up at four o'clock in the morning, like wide awake, and I have hundreds and hundreds of emails from people. And the email messages are just, they're unbelievable. I mean, I remember one guy emails me, it's like, I read your story. And I went downstairs to, to my eighteen year old son and I read it to him. And the two of us went out and ran five miles together. And you, and you think about how, you know, you touch people and I, I don't, I never thought about it this way,

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  but I think people sort of resonated with the story. And so I've got to meet just, just amazing people through the journey. And people reach out to you and they're like, how'd you do it? And I'm, I help, if someone wants, I help everyone, right? They wanna know and, and it's funny, right? So, you know, for, for work, I remember being at a, we had like a big meeting where everyone flies in and I hadn't seen everyone for a while and people are like, damn.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  And they lean in, they go, are, are you sick?

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  It was amazing to me how many people like I, which I hadn't seen regularly would be like, the first response was, are you sick? And I'd sort of laugh, it's funny you laughed, right? Cause I'd laugh and I'd be like, am I sick? I've never felt better, but people's reaction was, well, you lost a lot of weight, you must be sick. And I said, no.

• 1:12:36Rich Roll?

  And for the record, I mean, this is a podcast, people can't see you, but it's not like you look gaunt or anything like that. You, you, you look fit, dude. You look like Lance Armstrong right now.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  What I look like right now, but it's, I'm wiping the tears away still from that. It wasn't, listen, it was an emotional experience, but it's, you know, I, I think what happens when you go out and you do any type of ultra event, that, you know, the real you comes through, right? It's the raw emotional you comes through. I mean, you just get to that point.

• 1:13:08Rich Roll?

  It's coming out for better or worse when you do something like that, the good and the bad.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  The good and the bad, right? But people will like, you know, people are like, how'd you do it? They wanna know how you did it, right? And I said, listen, I watched this movie called Forks Over Knives. I went plant-based, hunt all in, um, energy went through the roof. I recovered well and you know, it's funny. I remember uh, someone was asking me afterwards, they sort of wanted to do an interview and they asked, hey, you're gonna go back, you're gonna go back to the way you used to eat?

• 1:13:41Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  And I, I looked at them funny and I said, let's see, I've dropped fifty pounds. My cholesterol dropped like a rock. I feel as good as I've ever felt in my life. I went from running two miles to running a hundred and sixty-three miles in a really short period of time. I'm not going back. Why would I? I'm not going back.

• 1:14:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the, the question comes up with me a lot like, oh, well, you know, you're, you're stabilized now. You know, you know, what's wrong with having, you know, a piece of fish once a week or, you know, why don't you just do the paleo diet now or something like that? And I'm like, why would you backtrack on the thing that absolutely changed everything about your life?

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just, listen, make, for, for me, and look, I'm not, I don't, people, I'm not telling people what they should or shouldn't do, but you know, a lot of people through this experience would reach out and say, hey, how'd you do it? And I, I'd tell them, I'd say, go watch the movie, right? First, first thing, go watch Forks Over Knives. Digest the information and then call me and I'll tell you exactly what I eat, alright? Every meal, I'll tell you exactly what I eat. When I go to the supermarket, this is what I buy. And um, you know, the, if I can give back and help other people to uh, make a positive change in their lives that I think is gonna help them from a health aspect, long-term,

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  then I'll help you out. Call me up and I'll tell you exactly how I do. And I, and I think the challenge is in today's world is like, how do I do it with my lifestyle?

• 1:15:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Like, people always wanna know because I eat, I eat out with clients all the time. It's just part of my job and then people are like, hey, I mean, a lot of my colleagues, how do you do it when you gotta do like the steak dinner thing? And I say, well, it's pretty simple. I go, I sit down and they're going, the waiter or waitress is going around taking our orders. And I'm, I, I tell everyone, I'm like, shh, okay, I'm gonna order, right? And I want, I want everyone to listen to my order so that when I'm done, you can make fun of me. And I'll say to them, I'll say, listen, this, I'm, I'm on a big health kick right now. Um, this is how I'm eating. Can you do this for me? Can you make me a huge green salad? And whatever vegetable you have in the kitchen, put it on. Extra avocado, put it on. I'll take it all.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  No dressing, just that's what I'd like. Can you do that for me? And God, they make the most amazing salads, right? They put everything on there.

• 1:16:05Rich Roll?

  The chef's probably so excited because he gets to do something different for a change.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and so the people at the table, they all laugh and then they go, so, uh, guy, you dropped a lot of weight. You look good. So tell me more about this. And for like the next hour at dinner, that's all they want to talk about.

• 1:16:21Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:16:23Rich Roll?

  That's so interesting. That's a great strategy. I, I actually, I, I often do the opposite of that, which is like slink away and pull the waiter aside like in a quiet moment when no one's looking. So, because I don't want to be the guy who's drawing attention to myself at the meal. And I think part of that is what you just alluded to, which is this idea of I don't want to be in the position of telling people what they should or shouldn't be doing. Or to present myself in a way where I'm up on a pedestal, like I'm, I'm sort of being, uh, you know, this presumption of like, oh, I'm better than you because I'm not gonna order this or something like that. Like, I'm very attuned to that social dynamic. And that's heightened when you're in a work situation or if there's like an extended family situation, like it can go left on you.

• 1:17:08Rich Roll?

  So you have to be really judicious.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  It's who you are right now. So I just, I'm like, this is what I'm ordering. And I don't tell people that they should eat like this. If they want to, I'll help them. I'll tell them like how I, how I went through my journey. But it's funny, like I was, I was flying out here last night, right? And when you're on the road, it's tough.

• 1:17:27Rich Roll?

  It's hard, yeah.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  So we're at the airport and I go to the, there's, I don't know, whatever, six, seven different places to get food at. None of it's really what I normally eat. So I go to this one place and I, I buy, I, I take the, I have two apples, I have three bananas, a big bottle of water. And the guy goes, uh... Hey. Nice. He's like, you like fruit, huh? I was like, yeah, I eat plant-based. And he's like, yeah. He goes, most people, they come up, they, two brownies, three cookies. And he's like, he's like, go ahead. He, extra apple on the house. Last night, literally, he goes, take an extra apple for my side. That's what I had fruit on the plane last night.

• 1:18:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool. The airports are getting better slowly.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  They are getting better.

• 1:18:16Rich Roll?

  LAX, there's a real food daily restaurant in the American Airlines Terminal now.

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:18:21Rich Roll?

  You can get your green juice. You can get your plant-based meal, a whole deal and bring it on the plane.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you just, you know.

• 1:18:27Rich Roll?

  Newark's got some great stuff. I mean, every time, I mean, how am I going? I'm surprised, I'm like, oh, there's a new place that wasn't there before.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  You got up, you just got, but you got a plan.

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  You do, you definitely do.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  You got a plan. So like, you know, and the more people like, what do you have for breakfast? And I, I was talking to a buddy of mine, Stu, this morning. He's like, what do you, what'd you have for breakfast? I made it, a Vitamix, man. I make it a juice. I load it up, everything, just whatever I got, I put it in there and that's what I have.

• 1:18:52Rich Roll?

  What about, ah, it takes too much time, too expensive?

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  You know what's funny about, you know, so a couple of things, right? When you cut meat out of your diet, it's amazing how your supermarket bills actually drop, right? Cause meat, meat's pretty expensive. So, um, yeah, you can buy a lot of fruit and vegetables for not that much, right? And, uh, and we go, and we go through it. I mean, we just, we juice, we juice stuff all the time and I'll make extra and I'll, I'll bring it in. And, uh, you know, we do make, actually the food made, my wife, my wife is fantastic. And she just, she cooks up big lentil, big lentil meal. It's just great, really good.

• 1:19:32Rich Roll?

  And how do you manage it with, I mean, that's the other thing we have in common. We both have four kids.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:19:37Rich Roll?

  So how does that color how, uh, you know, you, you talk to the kids about nutrition, what they get fed, what they, what the kids do when they're at a friend's house and all of that?

• 1:19:48Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny, like we, so this is, this is, this whole uh switch is still relatively new uh for me. But it's, we don't enforce it upon our kids, but I'll tell you what they do. They see how you eat. And they, they start to gravitate to it. So, you know, if, if I, if I was at my house right now and I, I said to the kids, "Hey, I'm gonna make, uh, create the Vitamix," and this'll sound weird to probably a lot of people listening, but I'm gonna, "I'm gonna take the beet and make a huge beet juice." And the kids love the beet juice, right? It's like red and they, they love it. They love it. Now, they, if you had said to them before this, "I'm gonna make some beet juice," they probably wouldn't, they'd look at, no, not a chance in the world. But, so they sort of, they start to watch what you do.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  And they start to follow along. So, we don't force upon our kids uh completely, but they're, they gravitate that way.

• 1:20:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's pretty similar to the strategy that we've used. I mean, not that it's a strategy. I mean, it's not like we're attempting to do anything other than live our lifestyle, but it starts with the example that you set in the home. You know, you can't transmit something you haven't got. So, you can't, you can't be a parent telling your kid to eat healthy if you're, you know, sneaking Fritos and, at night, you know, the kids know what's up. And, and to not make a rule around it takes all the charge out of it. You know what I mean? If you, if you make a rule, then there's something to rebel against. But if you just eat healthy and you sort of do more and more and more of that, the kids will come around. And they're gonna go do whatever they're gonna do, but they're armed with the tools and they have the resources at home.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, you, you know what? You sort of, you try and set an example and uh you give them the choice. And you know what I, what we're finding is that, given the choice, they lean more towards some of the stuff that we're eating now. You know, and it's uh, it's nice to see. So, um, yeah, you know, eh, eh, people.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  I look back over the last eighteen months and you say, you know, like, what was it? What was the catalyst? Not so much for getting started, but for what transpired, it was, it was switching to the plant-based diet.

• 1:21:58Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. It always goes back to that for me.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  It's, I mean, it was like, I mean, I, it was October, I started plant-based. Again, the weight comes off, the energy goes through the roof, and these series of events that just sort of came together.

• 1:22:14Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  And I wasn't, I wasn't, I didn't wake up and go, hey, I want to go run an ultra, I want to run a hundred and sixty. I had no even concept, but it comes together and then, then you kind of get to like where we are now and you're like, well, what, what's next?

• 1:22:29Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh. So, I want to hear about what's next, but one, one kind of thought I wanted to share on that, that comment that you just made is, you know, somebody would, will say to me, well, maybe you'd be faster if you ate this or that and the other. And I'm like, well, first of all, I don't know that to be true, you know, because all I know is what I do. But I can tell you one thing for sure, which is, I never would have done Ultraman, I never would have done Epic Five, if I hadn't switched my diet to a plant-based diet, because that was the thing that changed everything. That was the thing that gave me the energy to even be interested in it and to even entertain the possibility of pursuing it to begin with.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  That's so true, man. I'm just, I mean, that's what it is. It's like, you know, I don't, you don't know what you're capable of, but for me, and this is, I'll just speak for myself, right? But switching to the, to a plant-based kind of whole food diet just worked, right? It just clicked in all, in all aspects of my life and, uh... I pay a lot of tribute to that.

• 1:23:37Rich Roll?

  So what is next?

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  What's next?

• 1:23:41Rich Roll?

  Other than getting, by the way, you're sitting here in your cycling kit. You guys are on your way, I forgot to even say that, you're on your way to Santa Barbara and just basically stopped in to go to the bathroom and fill your water bottles. I hoodwinked you into this podcast. I gotta get you guys back on the road here, but uh.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  It's so, yeah, I haven't been on a bike in a long time, right? Cause I've been running and a long time and we flew in last night and a buddy of mine was like, hey, you know, you were, you want to ride up to Santa Barbara. It's a hundred miles and I'm like, I remember I reached out to you and I was like, hey, I'm coming into LA. I just, I'd like to say hello in person. I really appreciate you reaching out to me when I did that, that run. So we're, uh, we're riding up, up to Santa Barbara.

• 1:24:24Rich Roll?

  I was like, perfect. You're gonna have to kind of dr- ride by my house anyway.

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  For people that don't know, it is extraordinarily hilly to get to Rich Walz's house.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  There's some steep hills.

• 1:24:35Rich Roll?

  That's good for you.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, uh, what's next? You know, we've got a couple of things that we're working on or thinking about for events that are coming up this summer. Lisa, uh, who helped do some coaching for me last year, she's doing this, she's doing an epic, epic event this summer. She's gonna do a, uh, four time quad crossing of Bad Water.

• 1:24:58Rich Roll?

  Oh my God.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:00Rich Roll?

  Having just crewed that race, I just, I can't even fathom that.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. She's, she raises money for, she's called Bad Water for Good Water. Raising money for, uh, clean water around the world and she's, she's just an amazing, amazing woman. And I, I appreciate everything that she did to help me. And so I, I reached out to her and said, I, I want to get involved in that. So I'm gonna get involved in that.

• 1:25:23Rich Roll?

  I wonder if they're, um, you know how they, the just Death Valley National Park is not permitting any events in there. So I wonder if that's gonna create a issue.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  I don't think, it's not an event. It's just her, it's just her running.

• 1:25:34Rich Roll?

  Or doing it.

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  So, uh, I think I'm gonna go out and, and, uh, do, do part, a part of that with her.

• 1:25:41Rich Roll?

  Very cool.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  But again, it's, uh, four times. That's crazy.

• 1:25:47Rich Roll?

  Dude, you have, I was gonna say you have no idea, but I think you do have an idea.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  I don't know, I don't know if I'll do the whole four time. I'd like, I'd like to, I'd like to do it. So I just, I just started really kinda cranking the training up again right here. And um, you know, you go back to the recipe to accomplish anything. And number one, it's have a big goal, right? Have something that inspires you that's big, right? And you may not finish it or accomplishment, that's okay, right? But it's the journey that you go through that I think people, uh, that you cherish. So have a big goal, uh, have a plan, right? Having a plan is important. I didn't know what I was doing getting started, but I had great support and great mentors that gave me a strategy and a plan to get through it.

• 1:26:37Speaker 01

  And um, and you gotta persevere because you're gonna, that you're gonna have setbacks. There's no question about it.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  But if you do those things and you ask for help,

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  you can accomplish, people rally around you. People rally around big goals.

• 1:26:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no question about it.

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  You know, I'll tell you, I'll read, I'll read you a little quote here. I was talking to a colleague of mine, Jeff, the other day. And uh, we were having this exact same conversation here around big goals. And he gets up and he walks, he just walks out of the room. And he comes back and he goes, did you read Esquire this month? I said, no. He goes, there's this guy Greg Allman, right? And it's talking about people who are afraid to sing in public.

• 1:27:25Rich Roll?

  Greg Allman, Allman Brothers, Greg Allman.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, this is, yeah, okay, so here it is. Here's the quote. He's like, you gotta, you gotta come across the barrier. So many people out there can probably sing pretty well. All they need to do is just drop the inhibitions. That's why most people do their singing in the shower. And of course, when you get drunk, you don't give a shit. So you find a way to say, I don't give a shit who's listening and you sing for the gods. You know, and it's, that's about singing, but it's about everything in life, right? You just gotta get across the barrier and sing for the gods.

• 1:28:02Rich Roll?

  I gotta tell you, man, I could Vulcan mind meld with you for the next five hours, but I can't think of a better note to end this on. That was beautiful.

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  All right. Thanks for being here.

• 1:28:11Rich Roll?

  Hey, man, thanks so much. You're an inspiration and it's an honor and a privilege to be able to sit down with you and, and share your story, man. And I can't wait to see what you're up to next.

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  It all, it all started going online and reading Plant Based and Ultra. And what did I find? I found a rich roll.

• 1:28:27Rich Roll?

  I know. Here we are, man.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  And here we are.

• 1:28:29Rich Roll?

  Lighting fires.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  All right. Thanks, buddy.

• 1:28:31Rich Roll?

  All right, buddy. Peace. Plants.

• 1:28:38Rich Roll?

  Okay, people, that's our show this week. I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to know more about Adam and his mission, you can find that out by going to whywerun.com, W H Y W E R U N dot com.

• 1:28:55Rich Roll?

  Listen, everybody, it's time to become the CEO of your own life. Be the movie star of your own movie. Be the quarterback of your own existence. You heard Adam say it, dream big. So make no small plans. Create a plan around that dream that you want to actualize in your own life and then start to execute on it. That's the message. That's the theme of today's episode. If you want to learn more about what I'm up to, go to richroll.com. If you're going to shop on Amazon, visit the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. Click through that. Amazon kicks us some loose change, helps keep the lights on, does not cost you

• 1:29:35Rich Roll?

  an extra penny. So thanks, you guys, for all the support, everybody who's been using it. If you're inspired by Adam's message, as I am, it was like looking in a mirror. Definitely check out Forks Over Knives, the documentary. You can get it on Netflix or Amazon. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Rich Roll, R I C H R O L L, Facebook, all the good places. You can find me there and lots of good products coming your way that we're developing for richroll.com. But we have some nutritional supplement products there. I've got a downloadable cookbook, a meditation program, and some other cool stuff. So check that out. And I'm going to come back to you

• 1:30:16Rich Roll?

  next week with another great guest. So get out there, get it done, make your life happen, and I'll catch up with you next week. Thanks, you guys. Peace.