The Queens Of EPIC5: Danielle Grabol & Melissa Urie On Girl Power Grit

In 2010, the tireless and intrepid Jason Lester hoodwinked me into his latest fit of voluntary suffering insanity: an attempt to complete 5 Ironman-distance triathlons on 5 Hawaiian Islands in under 5 days. Hence was born the EPIC5 Challenge — and somehow we survived to tell the tale. Now institutionalized, EPIC5 annually attracts a global handful of athletes adequately unhinged to retrace our steps. Over the last 8 years, 29 individuals have successfully completed the challenge. Three of these intrepid humans are women. Two of them are here today. Meet real-life Wonder Women Danielle Grabol & Melissa Urie – both athletes thriving on the cutting edge of ultra-endurance. But it wasn't always that way. Pushing 225 pounds, 15 years ago Dani was a junk food junkie and a pack-a-day smoker who couldn't even climb a flight of stairs without losing her breath (sounds familiar!). In 2005, her doctor told her that if she didn’t change her ways she’d be dead before she turned 40. So she hit the gym. It was hardly overnight, but ultimately Dani reinvented herself wholesale. Down 70 pounds, an athlete was born. But on a training ride a year later, Dani was struck by a drunk driver. Her injuries were so severe she was told she would never run or bike again. Instead, she went on to compete in multiple Ironmans and even a double-Ironman. In 2013 she was one-half of the youngest two-person female team to finish RAAM — the legendary bike race across the entire United States. And in 2016, Dani became the very first female to compete in and finish EPIC5 — a stereotype shattering story she lays bare in her beautiful memoir, Fear No Distance*. A mental health nurse from Melbourne, Australia, Mel grew up active but never competitive. But in 1998, in an effort to lose a bit of weight and get fit, she participated in the Great Victorian Bike Ride with her dad. Thus was sparked a passion for ultra-endurance. Over the years, Mel has completed 6 Ironmans and a few double ironman distances races, including Ultraman Canada and Ultraman Australia*. Like Dani, she discovered EPIC5 by way of Finding Ultra, signed up and in 2017, Mel became the second female to ever complete the challenge. The bottom line? Mel and Dani are two badass women who know how to get it done. And this conversation is about just that. It's about putting in the work. It's about patience. Determination and grit. Not being afraid to fail. It's about the mindset required to break stereotypes. And it's about the mental toughness demanded to compete at the highest level in an arena dominated by men. So check your excuses at the door and enjoy! To view our conversation on YouTube, visit bit.ly/danielleandmel421. And don't forget we're also now on Spotify. Peace + Plants, Rich NOTE: *I recorded this interview way back in mid-November. At the time, Mel was preparing for the Ultraman World Championships in Hawaii. Unfortunately she did not finish that race. I'm not sure what happened but I'll find out and let you know. 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?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  For me, in terms of the mindset stuff, I like the point where you're not wanting to go any further. Like, when you get to that point of, you know, this is really hard, I'm really starting to struggle here, I find that's where my race starts. Like, that's where my enjoyment really peaks, because you have to push through and you have to find a way just to continue on. And then when it gets really, really hard, I'm like, yep, that's the sweet spot for me.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  I think the difference between people who are successful and people who will be like, well, what does it take? And it's not just the training, but I'm like, you've got to be grateful. I mean, you have to focus on the fact that this is an opportunity, and it's a privilege, and the fact that you're here and you're able to do this, and you're motivated enough, and people care enough about you, like, it's a privilege. So don't be out there whining and complaining with a bad attitude, because you're not gonna make it.

• 1:53Rich Roll?

  That's Mel Urie and Danny Grayball, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:08Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey people, what's the word? How you doing? What's good? This is Rich Roll, your host, my podcast, Welcome Home. So for those of you who know my story, you know that back in 2010, my buddy Jason Lester from my Ultraman days enlisted me in this harebrained scheme that he had to complete five Ironmans on five Hawaiian islands in just five days. It's a fit of insanity that he dubbed Epic Five. And if you read my book, Finding Ultra, you know that although it took us a beat longer than five days, we did successfully complete this challenge.

• 2:51Rich Roll?

  But what you might not know is that Epic Five has gone on to become institutionalized. In fact, every year since Jason and I made our first attempt, Rebecca Morgan, who took over Epic Five from Jason a few years ago, takes a handful of athletes through what I endured. And every year, competitors from all over the world complete it in the allotted five days, including three women who have done it over the years, which is just amazing. I love seeing people break these barriers and just take everything to the next level. And today, I'm super excited because two of these three intrepid women join me for the podcast. Danielle Grabol and Melissa Urie, or just Dani and Mel,

• 3:36Rich Roll?

  as they go by, are here to share their experience on the cutting edge of ultra endurance. But first.

• 3:50Rich Roll?

  Okay, let's see, Dani and Mel. So Dani's story is really quite similar to mine. About 15 years ago, she was a junk food junkie pushing the scales at about 200 pounds. She lost her breath while walking up a flight of stairs. Sounds familiar. And it hit her like a ton of bricks that it was time to make some serious life changes, especially after. She endured this routine physical, which prompted kind of an ultimatum from her doctor. He basically said, get your act together and lose weight or prepare yourself for a pretty bleak future. And I'm going to let her explain how she got from that point to becoming the youngest two-person female team to finish RAM, the Race Across America Bike

• 4:35Rich Roll?

  Race. And in 2016, how she became the first female to compete in and finish Epic 5, the first female to do it, which is incredible. And that's a story that she tells in her book, which is called Fear No Distance. Mel, on the other hand, has a little bit of a different story. She's a mental health nurse from Melbourne, Australia. She grew up active, but was never really competitive. And yet, in 2017, she becomes the second woman ever to complete the Epic 5 Challenge. So, the first two women to ever do this thing are here today. Mel has also completed six Ironmans, as well as Ultraman Canada and Ultraman Australia.

• 5:17Rich Roll?

  And at the time of recording this interview, which was way back in mid-November, she was in the midst of getting ready to compete at the Ironman World Championships in Kona. And unfortunately, she didn't finish that race. And I'm going to admit that I'm not quite certain why. I was just checking the results a few minutes ago. And it appears something happened on the day two bike, but I just don't know right now as I'm recording this. So I'm going to try to find out more and I'll report back to you guys. In any event, basically, these are two incredibly badass women who know how to get it done. And this conversation is basically about how they did it. It's about putting in the

• 5:57Rich Roll?

  work. It's about not being afraid to fail, embracing your accomplishments, both large and small, and the critical importance of developing grit, positive mindset, the will to succeed, and the mental toughness to really compete at the highest level in an arena dominated by them. I really enjoyed talking to this inspirational, dynamic duo. So, without further ado, I give you Mel Yurey and Danny Grabol.

• 6:30Rich Roll?

  Awesome. So, welcome ladies. Thank you. So excited to talk to you guys today. I'm so tired of telling stories about Epic 5 and Ultraman and stuff like that. Like, I'm excited to hear your stories. So first of all, like, congratulations on being two, let's see, you're two of three women who have completed Epic 5, right? Yeah. So awesome. Super cool. So for people that are just listening on audio, why don't you introduce yourselves? I know you have accents that will distinguish yourselves, but I don't want people listening to be confused.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yes. So I'm Melissa Yuri, Mel, I'm the Australian, so I do sound different to you two.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  And I'm Danielle Graeble, Dani, the person who's not Australian.

• 7:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And you live in, you live in Atlanta, right?

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Atlanta, Georgia.

• 7:18Rich Roll?

  Atlanta area. And Mel, you live in Melbourne?

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:21Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:23Rich Roll?

  Cool. So this is like a stop before you're heading to Hawaii, right?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:28Rich Roll?

  And you're gonna be doing the Ultraman World Championships.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:30Rich Roll?

  But so you've done two Ultramans, but this is gonna be your first World Championship one?

• 7:34Speaker 02

  First Hawaii, yes.

• 7:35Rich Roll?

  Super exciting.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, can't wait.

• 7:38Rich Roll?

  So, um, let's just tell the whole story. I mean, first of all, how did you guys each get interested in doing Epic 5 in the first place?

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Well, I actually read about it in Finding Ultra.

• 7:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 7:51Speaker 02

  And that's exactly...

• 7:53Rich Roll?

  I apologize for that. Sorry about that.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  My, my parents, thank you. No, um, so I read about it in Finding Ultra, and I had this conversation with my husband, and I was like, "Listen, I read this book, and this guy Rich, I'm like, 'He is an idiot. You won't believe what he did.'" And I start telling him all about it. And fast forward a couple of years later, we were out in Hawaii, and my husband did Epic Man. We met Jason Lester.

• 8:14Rich Roll?

  Explain what Epic Man is.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  So Epic Man was a traditional triple Ironman. So a 7.8 mile swim, a 336 mile bike, and then a, was it a 70?

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Eight seventy-two mile run?

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Seventy-two mile run, something like that.

• 8:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Four hundred and eighty-one miles continuous. So that's where we met Jason Lester and Rebecca and her whole group.

• 8:38Rich Roll?

  And Rebecca's here. She just off mic right here.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:40Rich Roll?

  Rebecca runs Epic Five now.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  She does.

• 8:43Rich Roll?

  She, if you read Finding Ultra, then you know that she was our angel. We, Jason and I would have never been able to do what we, what we did without all of Rebecca's tireless help and love.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  So a couple of years after that, some, somebody that had, was volunteering, had posted something about Epic Five applications. And I just saw it on Facebook. And I just sent this kind of random text message to her and I said, hey, I think I was texting either Rebecca or Jen and just said something to the effect of, just curious, I just got on the website, like, has a woman ever done it before? And they said, no. And then I'm like, really? Wow. I was like, I think I want to do this. And then-

• 9:26Rich Roll?

  So what was that? I mean, you went from like, this guy's an idiot to like, I'm gonna do this?

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Well, so it was a woman, a woman was, owned the race, a woman was putting on the race. The primary volunteers were all women and it just, for some reason, kind of bothered me that a woman had not done it.

• 9:43Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  So I felt like that needs to change. Like, there's, needs to be a woman that comes and participates in the race.

• 9:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  And it wasn't because they were excluding women, but women had not applied-

• 9:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, up until that point, so-

• 9:57Rich Roll?

  And we should probably clarify, I think there's a lot of people that, that think if they just read Finding Ultra, that it was just a thing that Jason and I went and did and then, then it was over with.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:07Rich Roll?

  But Jason and then Rebecca have kind of taken this event and made it an official annual thing. So every year, a group of people attempt to do this. And you guys amongst them.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 10:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. What about you, Mel?

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Well, yes, finding Ultra was my introduction as well.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, so I first looked at Ultraman. That was my, you know, that would be amazing. I really want to do that race. Um, and I went, you know, on the internet, looked up, found there was a race in Canada. So I went and did that one. And then afterwards, I'm like, you know, you know, Epic Five, it just still seemed too big, too crazy, too out there. And I was talking to a friend and he actually made a bet with me and he said, if you do Epic Five, I'll do Ultraman. And I was like, all right, game on.

• 10:56Rich Roll?

  Right. And that was all it took?

• 10:57Speaker 01

  That was all it took. Well, I think in some way, in the back of my mind, I always knew I was going to do it, but I just needed to have that. Yes, you can do multi-day events. Yes, you know, you are actually able to physically do these things. And I did Ultraman and I got through that. Um, Canada was, you know, a bit crazy, but you know, finished that one. And then I went, all right, well, that didn't kill me. So let's go for another couple of days and let's try something else. So.

• 11:21Rich Roll?

  And you, you have, you come from a swimming background, yeah?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been swimming since I was a kid. Yeah.

• 11:26Rich Roll?

  And what got you interested in, in the world of ultras?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  I think, um, I think they're just, you know, doing Ironmans. I did, you know, a couple of Ironmans and I was like, yeah, they're good, but what else is there? You know, where else? How far can I push this really? And I'm, I'm still looking for that limit. I still haven't found that.

• 11:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, clearly you haven't.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  No, I have not.

• 11:48Rich Roll?

  And Danny, you, you're, you're, you're married to an ultra athlete, right? So this is like, this is a family affair.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, married to a super talented, done everything from forty-one mile swims, hundred mile runs, triple Ironmans. We're doing a thousand mile bike race together in June. So, yeah.

• 12:06Rich Roll?

  That's crazy. So how do you, you train together?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  We don't. Um, we actually don't see each other.

• 12:11Rich Roll?

  Much never, you must never see each other then?

• 12:13Speaker 02

  We don't. No, we are like ships passing.

• 12:16Rich Roll?

  Like a perfect relationship.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  It actually, everybody's like, what's the key? And I'm like, well, we see each other, um, twice a week. And so we work totally opposite schedules from each other. We, we do really barely see each other. Um, it's very, that's one of the hardest things. We both did a double Ironman together. And that was probably one of the hardest things that I've ever trained for because when I trained like for Epic Five, he literally does everything. He does the grocery shopping, he does the cooking, he does the cleaning. All I do is work and train. So I come home and everything's, it's so like done, done. Like here's your food, eat it and then go to bed.

• 12:52Rich Roll?

  And then what? It's his turn and then you do that for him? So you take turns?

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 12:55Rich Roll?

  But the training, I mean, these are, you know, many months of ramping up. So that means that you then have to take a break or he has to take a break, right? And that's how you balance it?

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's really the only way that it works. And especially, you know, we're self-financed too. So it's not like we have an endless pit of money to just throw at races. So you're spending-

• 13:15Rich Roll?

  These races are expensive.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Very expensive. Yeah. So you're, it's a big commitment. I mean, you're, you're committing the money and the time and the energy. And then that's kind of the, the give and take of our relationship is like, I'm going to help you get through this. And then when, and then it's going to be your turn to do something kind of later down the line.

• 13:32Rich Roll?

  Right. But doing it at the same time is no bueno.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  No, it's, it's the, the thousand mile bike race is going to be a little interesting.

• 13:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Why is that? Because you guys have different training styles or you just get on each other's nerves or what?

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Um, I would love to train with him. So if I am in-

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Mel's laughing.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  I know.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  I was thinking about my husband and I, we do not train together because we cannot know. Like we would just clash the whole time.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  So if, well, we just did a big trip through Europe and we biked together. We did pretty good. So we did, we did good. If he is in, um, if he's riding with me, it means something's wrong with him. And that's not cool. So I don't really want him to be able to ride with me because it means even it, it means that I'm in amazing shape and he's not.

• 14:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  And that's not a great place to be.

• 14:14Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  So if he can, so if I'm dropping him on a bike ride-

• 14:18Rich Roll?

  That's like an ego thing though too.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. But if, but I don't want him to, but I don't want him to be feeling bad.

• 14:22Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Like I want him to be faster than me because that's, he should be faster than me.

• 14:27Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, I want to work my way up to the why behind all of this, but first I think the, the best way to kind of get into that, I think is just to, is to talk a little bit about the backstory here. Cause you have a, you, you Danny have a very interesting path that got you to this place that I can certainly relate to.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Definitely. Yeah. I was overweight and just really kind of struggling with, um,

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Just kind of every day's activities.

• 14:54Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Walking up the stairs, everything, just really.

• 14:57Rich Roll?

  On your website, it said, I think you were two twenty.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:00Rich Roll?

  At your heaviest and you had a staircase episode.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  I did.

• 15:04Rich Roll?

  Not dissimilar from my own. I don't know what is going on in the universe, but I read that and I was like, hello.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:10Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 15:10Speaker 02

  I did. I did. I had a doctor who really just kind of laid it all out for me and was like, look, like you have a family history of type two diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, like the path you're going, you're twenty two years old, you're going to be diabetic.

• 15:25Rich Roll?

  Wow, twenty two, this was happening.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:27Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:28Rich Roll?

  And had you been an athlete prior to that?

• 15:31Speaker 02

  Hmm, no.

• 15:33Rich Roll?

  Didn't play sports in high school or anything?

• 15:35Speaker 02

  No, nothing beyond like cheerleading.

• 15:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  But nothing, um, have always been competitive, but not, no, not particularly talented.

• 15:45Rich Roll?

  Most people, when they get that news, because a lot of people get that news, uh, they're sort of told, look, you gotta eat a little bit better, you gotta go to the gym, you gotta take care of yourself. And I always sort of think of that as being, I mean, it's good advice, I suppose, but it's so vague. I mean, what does that really mean?

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:03Rich Roll?

  So when you got that edict from your doctor, how did you translate that into action?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't really even know how to start because when I say that my eating habits were poor, I mean, it was like McDonald's every day bad, like coffee with sugar and cream. I mean, it was just, looking back on it now, it almost makes me feel like sick. I was so disgusted.

• 16:23Rich Roll?

  What was your favorite?

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 16:26Rich Roll?

  Come on.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Uh, my favorite, if you want to know the truth, was ordering pizza and dipping it in ranch dressing.

• 16:31Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  And eating pepperoni pizza dipped in ranch dressing. And it was, oh gosh, it was, it was just, it, at the time, it just, yeah.

• 16:41Rich Roll?

  You liked that more than cheeseburgers?

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I could care less about burgers, but yeah, I know that was it. And so I didn't even, I didn't know where to start, but I knew stuff like that wasn't healthy. So every week.

• 16:52Rich Roll?

  And you're a nurse now, right?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Uh, oh, I work in geriatrics. I run a home care company. Yeah. So I, I should, that was what was kind of interesting about it for me was. I'm working with people who have invested a lot of time and energy taking care of themselves. And that's why they are living to this age. And here I am, like, selling you a service and providing you this care, but I'm never gonna be one of you.

• 17:16Rich Roll?

  Right, that disconnect.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:17Rich Roll?

  It's like when you roll up to the hospital and you see like the orderlies or and the nurses and the doctors outside on the smoke break.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  That's exactly what it was like. Yeah. And it's like, I'm just, I'm never gonna be one of you. Like, there is, they're, they're morbidly obese, eighty and ninety year olds don't exist.

• 17:33Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Um.

• 17:34Rich Roll?

  But at twenty-two, you were probably just still in school, right? Or just out of school?

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Exactly. So at twenty-two, you know, there is no world outside of your little universe, except for when you decide to start thinking kind of more globally and you start thinking about the rest of your life. So I started really thinking about forty, fifty, sixty and what that was gonna look like. And it wasn't very pretty.

• 17:56Rich Roll?

  And so what were the steps that you took to address your diet and lifestyle habits?

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Um, the first thing I did was quit smoking, because I smoked too. So I quit smoking and then every week I would try to give up one thing. And then every month I would just try to give up something else. Um, and then all my little changes turned into big changes.

• 18:18Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So it was eliminating things as opposed to building things in, at least initially?

• 18:23Speaker 02

  It was a little bit of both and then reinforcing rather than, um, rather than approaching it from like deprivation, so thinking like you're, you can't have this. I would always try to associate how good I felt when I ate fruits and vegetables versus french fries.

• 18:39Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  So instead of saying, well, I can't have fries, it was never that like, oh, you can't have that. It was just that I'm choosing to have a banana because that makes me feel better.

• 18:47Rich Roll?

  Right. It's still a huge gap between quitting smoking and stopping dipping pizza into ranch dressing to doing Epic Five, though.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  It is.

• 18:58Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? So walk me through the process.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  It's huge. So I just, I joined the gym and I, but first, I mean, I couldn't even get through. I have a cousin who had a Pilogo, like a Pilates and yoga video, and I couldn't even make it through that home exercise video. So my goal was when I can make it through one hour of her video, then I'm going to go to the gym. And then I would go to the gym and I would just try to do like 15 minutes on each piece of cardio equipment possible because I couldn't do more than 15 minutes. And then eventually that led to a spin class. And then a spin class led to meeting people who do triathlons. And I was like, wow. And so it was just literally like every little step, like, oh, I think I can do a sprint triathlon. And then like Mel was saying, every time I'd finish something, it'd be like, wow, that was great. But I think I can do more.

• 19:46Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  And then

• 19:47Rich Roll?

  So it's a very gradual process of like increasing the pressure and

• 19:51Speaker 02

  You do an Ironman and you're like, hmm, that hurts. But man, there's like more out there.

• 19:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Like there are, people are doing things that are just crazy and crazy. Like, I want in on that.

• 20:01Rich Roll?

  What do you think that it, the thing is, I mean, people who, you know, tackle a difficult, difficult challenge, of course, there's a great sense of accomplishment. But I feel like people have one of two reactions in the wake of that. They're like, that was awesome. That was great. Never again. Or like, sign me up for the next one immediately.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:19Rich Roll?

  How can I go harder, longer, faster? What do you think that difference is about? Like, I mean, obviously you both chose the latter.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:29Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 20:29Speaker 02

  I think some people don't like the process, though. Some people

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  This, my experience is, everybody wants the finish line. Everybody wants the medal. But people don't want to put the work in. Nobody, like when people, I'm very open about Epic Five and double Ironmans and the training. And people are like, that's great. I think I would like to do that. And I'm like, well, I'll show you all my training. Oh, never mind.

• 20:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  So people want to say they did it, but they don't want to really get up at 4:15 in the morning.

• 20:54Rich Roll?

  And what they miss is that the real gift, I mean, looking back on it now, yeah, you can remember finishing these races. But the real value, when you reflect back, is that process. Like, I'm sure when you think about it, it's like, I remember that day, like when it was pouring rain and I didn't want to go out to train and I, and I went anyway. Like, that's, that's the gift.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. And I also think that people choose in their term, time of life, that yes, I'm going to commit to this at this time. And then it's not going to happen again. Like, that's just, you know, life happens and different things happen. And I go, all right, this is going to be my six months where I put it all in. And then I'll move on to whatever, whatever after that as well. So, yeah.

• 21:35Rich Roll?

  And I suppose it's worth saying, like, look, not everybody has, you know, thirty hours a week. To like, I mean, it is like a job if you want to show up.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:46Rich Roll?

  Fully prepared.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 21:47Rich Roll?

  And you have to reconfigure your life to prioritize that.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  I I describe it as having two full-time jobs.

• 21:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  When I'm training.

• 21:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's no question about it.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:57Rich Roll?

  All right. So what was it like for you, Mel, then? Like, getting, getting, I mean, it sounds like you've you've been doing this for a long time. It was more just part of who you always have been.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Oh, sort of. Um, I did sport when I was a kid. Um, you know, like.

• 22:11Rich Roll?

  I love how Australians call it sport.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  I don't know. What do you call it?

• 22:16Rich Roll?

  I went to university.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 22:17Rich Roll?

  And I did sport.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Wait, let's have her tell you what.

• 22:20Rich Roll?

  I went to hospital.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  Have her tell you what they swim in.

• 22:23Rich Roll?

  What?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  What? Oh, in bathers. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:26Rich Roll?

  Bathers?

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:27Rich Roll?

  Oh, I didn't know about that.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:29Rich Roll?

  But I do, I, um, what do they call, uh, the speedos for the guys in Australia?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Oh, budgie smugglers.

• 22:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to, I was in Australia, went to Manly Beach, and they were like, this is the home of the the budgie. I guess that's where they named it or something.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  There's a company called Budgie Smugglers that sells speedos. Yeah.

• 22:46Rich Roll?

  Anyway.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I mean.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  We can talk about that for hours. We have been. Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, it wasn't, wasn't that, because I grew up in the country. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Um, you know, I tell people where I'm from who are from Australia, and they, the first question is, where's that? So, yeah, like, our parents had to drive us anywhere that we went. So, you know, my brother and I, we'd play sport, you know, we'd play basketball and things, but it's all just local, you know, just play with your friends, muck around, like, nothing serious. Um, yeah, I was never competitive at, you know, any of the, any of the things I was doing. Um, and then I went to uni, studied, and I wasn't really doing anything at that time. And then, um, my brother got married in two thousand and five, and I was looking back over the wedding pictures, and his best man, um. And gone off and joined the Navy and he'd gotten really fit and he looked at me, he's like,

• 23:33Speaker 01

  let's go for a run. And I was like, ah, o- okay, sure. Cause you know, like, I wasn't really doing anything. I'd put on a bit of weight. And so the morning of the wedding was actually the first time I'd really run for years. And um, and I was so sore that night, it was killing me. I was thinking about that the other day. And then, yeah, like, you know, I ended up having a new year's resolution and I'm like, all right, time to get fit, time to focus on your health. You know, you're starting working now. You know, let's be a bit more serious about this. Um, and so, yeah, you know, I did. And I was working on the ninth floor of the hospital. So I'd just walk up the stairs to every shift, you know, you'd get there and, you know, take five minutes to catch your breath and everything. But I'm like, whatever, you know, and started eating a lot healthier. And then I saw a friend do a triathlon and I'm like, that looks really fun.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  I need to actually start running more because I'd never really run. I'd never been, you know, I'd been riding my bike and I'd been swimming, but not, not, you know, anything seriously. So, yeah, and I started, you know, I signed up for a five K and then a ten K and then did a couple of triathlons and just absolutely loved it. Like they were the little mini baby ones. Um, like, you know, two hundred and fifty meter swim, ten K run, ten K ride and two K run. And I'd always noticed my run would be the worst out of all my three legs that I was doing. So I was like, okay, need to focus on that, need to, you know, build that up a bit. So I signed up for a half marathon the next year. So I was like, well, that'll give me a big run focus. So I did that and it was, that was my first taste of doing something a bit longer.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  And I crossed the line. I was like, that was amazing. I want, I want more of that. Like that was, that was really cool. So then, yeah, just kept progressing and getting longer and longer. So then I did, um, you know, Olympic distance race. And then two thousand and eight is when I started doing like half Ironmans, then Ironman and then, you know, just kind of kept going, okay, so what's next? What's next? And, you know, when I did my first half Ironman, I was seventy point three. Um, my, the first words when I crossed the finish line was that was amazing. I want to do another one. So I signed up for another one, did it six weeks later.

• 25:27Rich Roll?

  Six days later, yeah.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Like, let's just keep doing that.

• 25:31Rich Roll?

  So why, I mean, a lot of people that get into this, they work their way up to Ironman, and then they just try to progress within Ironman, to get faster and better at Ironman, to get to Kona. So what was it that, that spoke to you, or that appealed to you about making the leap into the ultra world? Like, what's different about the traditional triathlon, you know, marathoning world versus the ultra world for you guys?

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Well, I think we were talking about this earlier today, and we've literally, for people that just met each other, we've talked about almost everything humanly possible, since we've talked on the phone a couple of times before.

• 26:09Rich Roll?

  Did you guys train together?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  No, we don't. No, but you had met.

• 26:12Rich Roll?

  And you guys, we should say, oh, you did?

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:14Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God. Because you did have like five on different years.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Yes, correct.

• 26:17Rich Roll?

  We should point that out.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  But we had talked to each other beforehand, so I had talked to her. Yeah. But we, like, met each other Friday night. It was amazing. Or, no, Monday, Monday. Monday. We both, we were just talking about that earlier, like, I'm a diesel. Like, I am the kind of person, just give me some, you know, give me some food and just send me on my way, and I'll come back in 10 hours. Like, but my pace doesn't stop. So for Ironman, you know, I have a lot of respect for people that, that do want to get fast and want to make it to Kona, and I think that's incredible. But for me, that's just not what I'm gonna be, I'm not, I'm, there's only a certain amount of weight that I'm gonna be able to lose. Like, I'm just not gonna be able to do that. I am made to go forever. Like, that's

• 26:59Speaker 02

  just what I'm designed to do. So I realized that, like, the longer distance races, my bike times and like my swim times from a half to a full, like, it wasn't changing.

• 27:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  And I was like, uh, this is really weird.

• 27:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  And then I was like, I just want to keep seeing if I can keep holding this pace. And then, like, you do a double Ironman, I'm like, ah, my swim was just about the same for a regular Ironman. So I guess you realize at some point that, like, You're not going to get that much faster, so you have to start going longer.

• 27:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Like when you're kind of made for that. Like you, we, I think we both probably realized at some point, like we're made to go longer.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, my, my first coach that I had had always said, I'm a diesel. It's like, you know, exactly the same. You can just go all day. As long as you have enough food and water, you will just, you know, 10, 12 hours, fine. I'll just keep going. I don't, you know, that's, that's, that's where I find my enjoyment.

• 27:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I feel you. I'm the same way. Like I'm, you know, now I go around and I do, like I go to events and there'll be like a fun run or a group run. And it's like, listen, guys, like, I ain't that fast.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:04Rich Roll?

  We're gonna run around the block, like you guys are gonna crush me, you know? It's like, this is, I ain't racing, that kind of thing.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  People are very disappointed.

• 28:11Rich Roll?

  You know, get in that lane, takes me a very long time to get up to speed. And then I get to whatever that speed is and I can just hold that.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:17Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:17Rich Roll?

  And that's a very specific skill that works very well in ultras, but isn't really translatable to anything else.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  No. It takes me like 60 miles to work up.

• 28:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  People are finishing the ride. I'm like, oh, I just, I feel warmed up now. Let's go.

• 28:31Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right, right. Um, all right. So epic five.

• 28:38Rich Roll?

  So Danny, you did it first, right? In 2016. And then Mel, you did it last year in 2017.

• 28:47Rich Roll?

  My memories, you know, of doing it in 2010 are as fresh as ever. You know, life changing for me and I would imagine for both of you guys as well.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 28:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So let's talk about it. Is the race course the same? Rebecca, is it the same? Did it change? Oh, it changed it? It's kind of, there's always some kind of curve ball condition, right? That throws it off and you have to adapt or whatever. I think for, from what I understand, for both of you guys, like day three was the hardest day in Molokai.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:17Rich Roll?

  Is that right?

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  That was my hard day.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  That was the day that, yeah, our day three, we were trying to land. And next thing you know, the plane's going back up in the air. And I'm like, wait a minute, I don't think they're landing this plane. And next thing you know, we're back in Oahu and we're sitting there and we're in the airport. And we'd been there for maybe like an hour, hour and a half. And Rebecca comes up and she's like, and we had all, there were certainly three people in the race at that point. We were wearing our bathing suits, our, our bathers. We were wearing them because we were ready, we were, we're trying.

• 29:50Rich Roll?

  On the plane?

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, on the plane, because we were trying to be so efficient with time. So Rebecca comes up and she's like, hey, listen, we're gonna have like, we need to just change plans. Like, we're gonna have to, to run like nine miles to the pool. So then like when we get, and I'm like, my first reaction-

• 30:06Rich Roll?

  There were sharks that year, right? So you couldn't swim in the ocean.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Right, so we're swimming in a pool, but she was saying like, we don't have enough time. Like, when we land, you, you have to start racing. And I just looked at her and I was like, but I'm wearing my bathing suit. And she's like, well, it's okay, like, you have time to put your run clothes on. So we, the plan lays, I mean, the, the plan, yeah, the plan got on the ground. Suitcases come out, clothes, running clothes. It's literally like, put your running clothes on as soon as you can and just start running.

• 30:34Rich Roll?

  Right, awesome.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:36Rich Roll?

  That's why it's called a challenge.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  And that's why I was like-

• 30:39Rich Roll?

  Always say.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And it was, um, so that was the first kinda change of the day. So we ended up starting probably three or four hours later than we anticipated.

• 30:50Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  And then from there, the day, the day got tough. The day got really tough. It was, it was a hard day. Um, so when I finished, my husband said, okay, you have thirty minutes before we have to be at the airport. Do you wanna eat, sleep, or shower? And I was like, well, of course I wanna sleep. So I just jumped in the van and tried to sleep for thirty minutes. And I dozed off and I woke up, we were at the airport.

• 31:12Rich Roll?

  Right, so, let me understand. So when we did it, when Jason and I did it, we did, obviously, Kauai was the first day.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:21Rich Roll?

  We ran, we ran the marathon first. We start at like three thirty in the morning or something like that.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:26Rich Roll?

  And, you know, finished at the airport, you know, with three seconds to spare before getting on the plane to get to the next island. Flew to Oahu. We had all kinds of, remember that was Rebecca, remember that's where we like, lost the bolts in our bikes? And it was like a whole disaster the next day. So we didn't even get going the next day until like ten thirty AM or something like that.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Right, like that was our Molokai.

• 31:49Rich Roll?

  It was crazy, yeah.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:51Rich Roll?

  Um, and we finished so late- That it was like two in the morning, right, when we finished?

• 31:57Speaker 02

  I think it was later than that.

• 31:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was super late. And so that's where we had to take a rest day. So for us, then we went to Molokai. And actually, we felt pretty rested for Molokai because we we had a little bit of a buffer there. Obviously, we didn't do it in five days like you guys did. So I can imagine had we made that deadline, that Molokai would have been really tough. For me, Maui was definitely the hardest. It was the hottest. It was the windiest. But you guys got a second wind when you got to Maui?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So for me, Molokai was hard because my hamstring's locked up on the marathon and I had to walk about thirty K to finish that day because I hadn't been doing any of the body maintenance that you normally do. You're stretching, you're rolling, like anything like that. My legs were just like, yeah, no.

• 32:38Rich Roll?

  Oh, there's no time.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Bit of pain. No, exactly.

• 32:40Rich Roll?

  When you could do it, depending you're not sleeping.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, sleeping, you're not eating. So what's the point? There's, yeah, there's no time for anything like that. Um, yeah. And like, again, it was, it was really, really hot that day. And yeah, I was just mentally just really, really struggling. And I remember on the run on day three, um, I was, you know, getting quite emotional about everything. And I was saying to my husband, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm gonna keep you guys up. He's like, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I'm like, oh, okay. And then I just relaxed and went, all right, well, I'll just walk it in. Like, I don't care. It's fine. And then, um, yeah, so Maui, we ended up starting a bit later because our, our swim buoy, oh, we call them boys, but our swim buoy disappeared, I think somewhere. And so then, like, there was a bit of logistics of you guys, um, sorting out what to do with, you know, the swim. And then the swim ended up being longer or something. I don't, I don't exactly know what happened.

• 33:27Rich Roll?

  Was it the same beach Rebecca or Kihei Beach?

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. All I remember is getting out and seeing six Ks on my garment. That's one for two hours. And I was like, oh, oh, well, that's done now. What are you doing?

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Exactly. Like everybody else did it here. That's cool.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think some people were a bit stressed about it, but I was like, well, you know, I can't do anything about it. I can't change it. Move on to the next thing. Um, yeah, I had, I had a bunch of flat tires in Maui as well and you know, riding along the dark and I was trying to figure out, cause I knew my crew was behind me on one of my, when I had a flat, um, cause they just swap out wheels, which was really, really handy. But I was like, how are they gonna see me? It's in the dark. So I lay my bike down and faced it towards the roads. They might see my bike light.

• 34:07Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  And they, they didn't like that. Cause like, oh my God, I thought you'd fallen off. And I'm like freaking out. Like, it's okay. So, yeah, but um, like I remember someone said, you know, you're lucky if you get sleep in Maui. Like that's, you know, basically doesn't happen. I didn't see the inside of the hotel room. Like, you know, he didn't either on day three.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  No, day three, we saw. And that was my, from Maui, that was my big thing, was I have to sleep.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  Like, I was like, I don't think you understand, like today's the day that, so when I cut, I got off the bike, I remember looking at Mike and I said, am I gonna sleep? He goes, not if you had a run like you did yesterday. And I was like, oh no, done. Done. I was like, oh no. I was like, that was it. I was like, oh, I'm, I am, my head is on a pillow tonight.

• 34:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:55Rich Roll?

  So for people that are listening, you know, it's, it's daunting, the prospect of, of attempting to do five Ironmans in a row. And then you add in getting from island to island. It makes it all the more difficult. Um, but I think what perhaps is underappreciated is the logistics and the travel.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:16Rich Roll?

  That's really as challenging. It's like, once you're on your bike, you're like, okay, I'm good. It's like all that other stuff that's super taxing. And it's really, um, a challenge in sleep deprivation as much as anything else.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:29Rich Roll?

  Uh, when we did it, we flew, like, we had a bunch of night flights, but the only night flight you guys had was off of Kauai, right? And then all the other flights were in the morning.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:38Rich Roll?

  So you get up in the morning, you'd have to fly to the next island and then do, and then go right into doing an Ironman.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:45Rich Roll?

  After you've been on an airplane and you've been traveling and you're schlepping gear around and all that kinda stuff.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  So starting the race was literally dependent on, and it was the craziest thing in the world to like, not be able to drink. So it was like, okay, wait a minute. You're about to go do an Ironman, but you can't bring any water through security. And like, we got to Molokai and there was no water. Like there was no water.

• 36:03Rich Roll?

  Well, there's nothing on Molokai.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  There was nothing. I'm thirsty. I need to eat. I need something like I need like, where am I gonna? And it was just, it was, it was against kind of the whole idea of the minute you finish your long training, you should refuel, you should rest, you should put your legs up, you should take an ice bath. Like all that stuff was done, like all the stuff I did in training, like all the recovery drinks, everything gone.

• 36:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  You were eating whatever you could, whenever you could.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 36:30Rich Roll?

  I remember when Jason and I finished the first one in Kauai and we were like, literally the plane was taking off and we're trying to get through security and we're still in our bike kits and everything and we're like shoving our gear, we're like yelling and wait, you know, like trying to get it through. And we had all this performance nutrition, liquid performance nutrition, like FRS and all this kind of stuff. And the guy's like, he's just pouring it out, like hundreds of dollars of like stuff.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  You're like, I need that.

• 36:54Rich Roll?

  For the whole week, you know? And unlike, so you guys had your, your husbands were crewing for you, right? Like you each had your own distinct crew.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:02Rich Roll?

  Rebecca was basically crewing for Jason and I, essentially by herself. We had people that would show up on each island, like who volunteered out of the kindness of their heart.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:11Rich Roll?

  But really Rebecca's trying to manage all of this like on her own, you know? And it was just, I mean, it was an unwinnable, you know, task.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Which is, I mean, if the world is on fire, I want Rebecca like helping that.

• 37:24Rich Roll?

  Hundred percent.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  And people don't realize like the logistics. So for her just to be able to think on her feet in Molokai and come to us and not be dramatic about it and not be making a big deal, but just be like, hey, guys, guess what? Like you need to, you need to just run, like you're gonna need to run to the swim. People don't realize like what a value that is in a race director, that not everybody can do that. That that's part of putting these events on, that if you didn't have somebody like her, like it wouldn't be happening. Like they just wouldn't, they wouldn't be taking place.

• 37:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, agreed. Yeah, because we had one guy in Molokai whose bike didn't make the flight. So like, okay, we'll just do part of the marathon, you know, when it comes, then you can, you know, like after the swim.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  And then there was a local who just rode with him as well. Like it's just things like that. I'm like, where, who else would do that? What other race would do that? Just to make sure everything possible.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  Well, who would think about that?

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, everything possible is done. You can be successful.

• 38:17Rich Roll?

  You have to be malleable and adaptable.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 38:20Rich Roll?

  You can't be like, well, here's my race plan and this is how it has to go. It's like, you know, within an hour of beginning, like that just goes out the window.

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:28Rich Roll?

  And some variable gets thrown at you.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 38:31Rich Roll?

  That you're gonna have to contend with. And I think that's as much about what that event is about as just covering the distances.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're not gonna be successful if you are black and white and you can't operate in anything outside of, well, this was what my plan was, then you're not gonna be successful.

• 38:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're gonna crumble. It will crush you.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  And that's the part where just being able to adapt and being able to just do whatever and being able to eat this food that you've never had before because somebody gave it to you and you just have to realize you just have to go with it.

• 38:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Oh, I got a flat and I don't know where my crew is and there's no cell service and like, what am I gonna do? You know, there's no aid stations.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  There's nothing. There's nothing. There's nothing. And that's, I mean, and just, but still remaining, like the attitude part is important. And that's, I think, the difference between people who are successful and people will be like, well, what does it take? And it's not just the training, but I'm like, you just, you've gotta be grateful. I mean, you have to focus on the fact that this is an opportunity and it's a privilege and the fact that you're here and you're able to do this and you're motivated enough and people care enough about you, like you're, it's, it's a privilege.

• 39:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  So don't be out there whining and complaining with a bad attitude because you're not gonna make it.

• 39:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And that really gets tested because when you compound the level of fatigue with the sleep deprivation, you're not operating at your full capacity to be able to manage everything emotionally.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Right. Yeah. So my goal was not to complain.

• 39:55Rich Roll?

  Did you, were you successful?

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:57Rich Roll?

  Rebecca, she telling the truth? She is. She is.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  I didn't complain. There's a picture of me stuck on the side of the road.

• 40:03Rich Roll?

  I complained a lot.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  You did?

• 40:05Rich Roll?

  I was a, I was a baby. Yeah. I had a, no, I had a couple, like Rebecca could tell you. I mean, I talked about him in the book. I was trying to be as honest about that as possible. Like I had several moments where I thought I was gonna break and I just was a, I was a baby. I was an immature baby.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:23Rich Roll?

  Cause I was so exhausted. I'd know, it was really the sleep deprivation as much as anything else.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I hallucinated. I saw people coming out. I saw, I saw cats. I saw animals. I thought a woman was racing me on the last day because she was just walking. And I was like, what is she doing out here? Why is she racing me? Doesn't, somebody needs to tell her that this is my fifth day out here.

• 40:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  It she was real, she was real.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Okay. Oh, no, I saw a lot of people. The cars were talking to me as I was going along.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're encouraging me. It was amazing.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think probably for me, like ninety percent of the time I was on top of the world. I was like, I can't believe I'm doing this. Like this is, you know, I think it was like two, three years I decided to do it before I actually was there. And like, this is amazing. Like I had a couple of little moments, you know, I call my princess moments where you kind of have a little mental breakdown just for, you know, those brief few minutes. And then you're like, all right, yep, sorted. Let's continue on.

• 41:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  It's fine. Yeah. And I always associate that with food. I I think I need to eat more. So I just eat something else. I'm like, okay, I feel good now. So keep going.

• 41:21Rich Roll?

  And no matter how much you eat, you're going to be running a caloric deficit.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're waking up hungry every morning. Yeah.

• 41:27Rich Roll?

  And and you just have to be eating constantly.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:30Rich Roll?

  Even in when in moments when you're not hungry, you're always eating for six hours. Like, you know, what's going to be happening six hours from now, tomorrow? Um, staying on top of that is.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. My mantra was, um, I had to eat for day five. I had to eat enough to get myself to day five to be able to then finish it.

• 41:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was always in my mind all the time. And my crew actually wrote down what I ate and I was showing some people, they're like, oh, my God. Well, but then, um, on.

• 41:57Rich Roll?

  So you could like look at it at the end and realize.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Afterwards. Yeah.

• 42:00Rich Roll?

  What happened to me, I don't know if this happened to you guys, uh, was that I thought like, oh, man, by the end of this thing, I'm going to be, I will have lost like fifteen pounds. Like, there's just no way around it.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:13Rich Roll?

  But actually I got progressively more and more bloated.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:17Rich Roll?

  And I felt like super, you know, it's the combination of inflammation and also your body trying to hold on to everything because it thinks you're trying to kill it.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:25Rich Roll?

  And then like ten days after Epic Five was over, like all the weight went away and I got like super emaciated all of a sudden. It was like, oh, we're we're safe now. Like now we don't need to hold on to.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  The man went and stopped chasing me.

• 42:40Rich Roll?

  It was weird. My coach told me that was going to happen and I was like, there's no way. Like, I don't, and that's exactly what happened.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think I had issues with access to food. Like when we finished, it was like, all right, now what do we eat? And they're like, there was nothing.

• 42:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  There just wasn't. I was surprised how I greatly underestimated the access to food.

• 42:58Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  And just thought that we would go to these airports and we'd be able to grab food.

• 43:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no, no, no.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  And it wasn't like that. So, um.

• 43:07Rich Roll?

  Rebecca with the Thai food.

• 43:10Rich Roll?

  I didn't, I was like, I kinda went after you in the book about that. You know, because I was like Thai food again is terrible, greasy, horrible Thai. But it was like, that's the only thing. Rebecca is like, our bikes aren't making the flights. And then she's running around like doing the best that she can. And I'm like, brah.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  She's probably like, I called these people and begged them to stay open to this Thai food.

• 43:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Lucky she's still talking to you.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  God bless you.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. In, in Molokai, I think it was, I was so hungry and I, it was this volunteer Scott, he handed me, um, what was it? Musabi? The Spam sushi? Like sushi that was made with Spam in it? That sounds horrible. And I had no idea what it was, but when I ate it, it tasted so good because it was so salty and I kept eating it. And I was like, oh, this is amazing. This is so good. Thank you. So then in Kona, my crew found some musabi and they gave it to me and I was like, what is this garbage? This is horrible.

• 44:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  And they were like, you just ate it yesterday and you loved it. I'm like, oh, well, that was yesterday. Today, my tastes have totally changed. I don't like it anymore.

• 44:10Rich Roll?

  Molokai is a really special place. Who was that guy, um, who lived there who rode with us? Will? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Will. Did he ride with you guys? He's like the tour guide.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  If you can believe this, if you can believe this, Will's parents live in the same town that, that, um, I'm from.

• 44:27Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 44:27Speaker 02

  Like, we know the same people.

• 44:29Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  So this is the cool, this is the cool story about Will. So he told me that he had been out every single year since the race started, right? And the year that I was there, he brought his daughter and she was what? Maybe eight or nine years old? She met us at the airport. The first thing she does is run up to me and start asking me a million questions. And he was like, I'm really sorry. And I was like, why are you apologizing? He was like, my daughter is so excited that you're here. She's never seen a woman do the race.

• 44:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  So when I was doing the run and I was putting my fuel bill on, what's that? What are those bottles for? What are you gonna do this? I mean, she was just fascinated with everything and I got so overwhelmed. And when all of our bikes were lined up and he was like, oh, that's probably not her bike because of the gearing. I had, I had, I didn't have as many gears as the other guys. And then he was like, when you came up and that was your bike, I was trying to explain to my daughter, like, that's a girl riding a bike with really big gears. And it was so overwhelming. And then to find that connection, it was the coolest thing. And I told Rebecca initially that I didn't want him to ride with me. I was like, no, I don't want to ride with him. She was like, no, this is your island that he said he's gonna ride with you and it's gonna be will. And I'm like, no, it's okay. I don't.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  What if I don't like him? What if he talks to me? What if he messes me up? I don't really want to ride with anybody. And then it ended up being perfect. Like, we had that connection. We knew all the same people in Atlanta. It was so cool.

• 45:47Rich Roll?

  That's wild.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:49Rich Roll?

  That's wild.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  It's awesome.

• 45:50Rich Roll?

  Well, Molokai is is such a unique place and it was my favorite island. Because it's the purest, you know, it is as close to its natural state of any of the Hawaiian islands. I mean, one stoplight, right? Barely any people live there. More churches per capita than anywhere like on planet Earth because of the leper colony, you know, for that's what it's most known for. And just super like weird and diverse and strange, you know, from the um kind of abandoned developments. You know, they they work so hard to prevent um hotels and resorts from from being there. And there was like a big fight over that one side of the island.

• 46:32Rich Roll?

  Where now there's kind of like half-built buildings, but you know, it's still, it's it's so quiet and. I don't know, there's something I think really cool about that place.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was kind of neat. And I, of course, I wanted to ask a lot of questions and learn. So but we saw people wearing shirts like keep Hawaiian Hawaiian and I wanted to know all about that. So we learned about it. Um but then the people were so nice to us, like they weren't. It was like they understood you're just visitors and you're here doing this thing and then you're gonna leave and you're not gonna leave trash anywhere and you're gonna be nice to us. So we're not gonna be mean to you.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:03Speaker 02

  So it was really cool.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  It it was so funny going past some locals and they're just kind of looking at it going, what are you, what are you doing? Like, what's actually going on here?

• 47:10Rich Roll?

  I would have thought everybody would know because like, like the fact that anything was happening there, like, oh my God, something's happening. We all have to like show. Well, when we went, I mean, it was like half the town showed up, like all these kids came out and ran with us and all the teachers from the high school. And who were those kids? The Akona, the Akona kids? Like, there was like one, like one teenager and his younger brother who came out and ran like through the night with us while their parents drove next to, I mean, it was really something special.

• 47:38Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 47:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, because they were like, wow, there's something cool happening. Like, everybody turned up to support us.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  That's really cool.

• 47:44Rich Roll?

  Which was really awesome. And now that it goes back every year, I would have thought like it's just every year it was more and more.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Well, we had the local volunteers, because I had a guy that just happened to be there that was in medical school that was from there. And it was just these random people with these random stories, like, oh yeah, I know this race happens every year, and I just happened to be here. So I'm gonna run the whole thing with you. And I'm in medical school and I live in New Jersey and I, but I grew up here. And I'm like, where do these people come from?

• 48:07Rich Roll?

  And you did the whole Ironman?

• 48:08Speaker 02

  He did, he did the whole run. He stayed out on the whole run with me. He was a runner. And it was just so, he was a kid. I mean, he was just, just in his first year of medical school. It's just so awesome.

• 48:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Mel, what about you?

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, like, I had three people in my crew. And so like, they'd all just taken in turns running along. Um, because there was 10 of us in the year that I did it last year. So it wasn't as kind of small and intimate as well.

• 48:32Rich Roll?

  So Danny, when you did it, there were four, but one, one person dropped out after the first day, right?

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. So there was only three of us. So if volunteers were showing up, they were really, yeah, it was a, it was a really kind of one on one experience for sure with the volunteers. Yeah.

• 48:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  With 10 people. You were taking over the whole island.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, we really were.

• 48:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we didn't really have so much of all the locals like coming in and doing a lot of stuff. It was more, yeah, we were just kind of managing it ourselves. But it was cool because like my crew, you know, when they come and run with me, then they tell me stories about what their day had been like. Because I'm like, well, you know, let's, let's chat. You know, I haven't seen you. Like, you've been passing me stuff all day, but I haven't had time to talk to you. Um, and they were saying they were constantly getting questions for like every island, people coming out going, so what's this? What's going on? What's happening? And yeah, they found that really, really fun. Yeah.

• 49:18Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:19Rich Roll?

  Um, Oahu is interesting because you have to deal with the, you know, the congestion, you know, it's such a contrast to Molokai.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:27Rich Roll?

  Um, I just remember, you know, trying to just get out of Waikiki and Honolulu took forever.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:33Rich Roll?

  And then, you know, you're on the other side of the island. It's beautiful. It's pristine. But then kind of making your way back. Into Honolulu, it was like stoplight, stoplight, stoplight. And I just remember it just drained me. I was like, is this bike ride ever gonna end? Like, I just wanna ride and finish it. But because of traffic and just in the urban metropolis, it took so much longer. So Rebecca, was the bike course the same?

• 49:57Speaker 02

  No, we changed it.

• 49:58Rich Roll?

  Oh, you changed it? Oh, okay. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, cuz that was a problem. But is the marathon course still out on that highway?

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, you run up Diamond Head.

• 50:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  I had Chet the Jet with me.

• 50:09Rich Roll?

  Oh, we had Chet.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  He did the whole thing. He did the whole thing with me. I was like, that was my treat. That was my big Oahu treat, was having Chet with me the whole time.

• 50:18Rich Roll?

  So explain who Chet the Jet is.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  So Chet the Jet is... I saw, I met his...

• 50:22Rich Roll?

  This guy is a world-class character.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  He really is. And I have to tell you, as somebody who like grew up in Georgia, and we go to Hawaii, and we're new to ultras, and Jason's doing this triple Ironman, and we land in Hawaii, and I'm training for a 400-mile bike ride across Florida. I'm trying to break this record. And just here shows up this guy Chet with his bike, like, hey, take this bike, like, go ride this bike. And I'm like, what? Like, who are you? Where did you come from? And then he just starts telling me, he's, I mean, just a legend, double-decker finisher, played 100 hours of tennis nonstop for charity once. I mean, if there's something that Chet is gonna, if there's a way to spin it, but in the most humble way. I mean, not because he wants you to know that he's Chet, and he's done

• 51:06Speaker 02

  these incredible things, but because he truly is like that hungry, just to figure out what all he can do.

• 51:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's kind of like, he's kind of like Jack LaLanne, a little bit like that. And I don't know if you noticed, but when he sends emails or posts on Facebook, he does it in all caps with lots of exclamation points, no matter what he's saying.

• 51:23Speaker 02

  But that's how he is. And I told him, I was on the phone with him one day, and I'm like, Chet, I always think you're yelling at me because you're always in the cap lock. I was like, you gotta stop with the cap locks, man.

• 51:33Rich Roll?

  That's his thing.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  But he's so funny, and he's just so awesome. And his wife speaks no, very little English. And they have this awesome relationship. And I'm like, how do you guys even talk? He's like, you know, universal body language. He's just so cool. And so going there and having him, like, having met him, and then I went and crewed him down in Florida at a double Ironman, and being able to kind of keep that connection up, and then having him, it was like we never skipped a beat. Like, when I saw him, I hadn't seen him in two or three years. But it was like... That was it. Like, we just, he talked the whole time. We told stories like we were best friends and talked on the phone every day.

• 52:07Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  It's cool.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  Chet's very special.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  He came up and said hi and said that he'd met you the year before.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like, make sure you go find Mel and go talk to Mel.

• 52:15Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And he run with you as well?

• 52:17Speaker 01

  No, no, I had my crew who were running with me. Yeah, yeah, we just came up to say hi and yeah, yeah, it was fun.

• 52:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I just remember, uh, a whole bunch of people from the Hurt team, like the Hawaiian, you know, ultra runner crew that live on Oahu, like turned up and it was like a weeknight, you know, and we didn't start until, I think it was, it was definitely dark when we started running that day. I can't remember exactly what time, it wasn't that late, but um, I was like, all right, they'll run five or six miles and then, you know, they all have jobs or whatever. And it was like, like, no, it was like a couple of them peeled off, but most of them ran the entire marathon with us that night, just on a weeknight, like just because or whatever. And like Chet was like right there.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  That's what Chet did and we finished late, like two o'clock in the morning or something.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, wow.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  One or two, and I was like, do you have to work tomorrow? And he's like, yeah. It's like a Tuesday.

• 53:07Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Let's go. I'm like, do people not go to, and he's like, oh no, it's cool. I'm going to work. Like that's

• 53:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 53:13Speaker 02

  Just

• 53:13Rich Roll?

  Like whatever.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Run a random marathon in, in the middle of the night on a weekday and go to work. But that's just totally, that's, that's the kind of people that you meet. Like that's, these are, these are the people that are out there. Yeah.

• 53:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's uh, and, and it's, it's sort of surreal to be like running through Waikiki with all those shops and everything like that. After being in, you know, the more remote areas of the other islands.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was really funny, running down, um, you know, Waikiki beach with all these people, you know, these tourists and all these people. Cause it was in the afternoon, the sun was shining, the beach was pumping and we're like running along, doing a marathon.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  And there was all these tourists.

• 53:53Rich Roll?

  And no one knows, no, and that's, that's kind of what's awesome about it is that like, no one even knows what you're doing.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  They have no idea. And the tourists on Diamond Head, they had all these like people stopping and taking pictures. We're like, excuse me, excuse me. It was so fun.

• 54:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Really.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  People just no clue.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  No glau.

• 54:08Rich Roll?

  And and really, the strategy with all of this is you you don't want to go too hard, right? Because there's no reason to overly deplete yourself, like the flight's still gonna leave when the flight's gonna leave. So you're you're it's sort of, I call it like persistent conservation. Like, you want to keep moving, you don't want to go too fast and overly exert yourself unnecessarily. Yet, the longer you're out there, the longer you're out in the heat, and the less sleep you're gonna get. So you're like trying to balance these things to try to maximize the amount of rest you're gonna be able to get without kind of tipping too far into overexertion mode.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:49Rich Roll?

  So how did you like gauge that for yourselves?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Oh, I found on day one, it was really hard, and I didn't know. I just kept going, especially on the run, because that's what's gonna beat you up. You know, I was like, I wanna run and walk. And I did the run walk from the whole, the very, you know, first marathon. But I was like, you know, I feel okay, I probably could run a little bit faster, but I don't want to. And I was like, oh. And I was always questioning, I'm like, I know I'm gonna get through this, I'm not gonna do it. There was never a doubt in my mind. But it was how I was going to do it. And it wasn't until I woke up on day two, and my body just felt like I'd been out doing a normal training day as I was doing, you know, I'd been out, you know, riding and running for eight hours or whatever. And I just had that level of fatigue. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I've got this. That's fine. And that's when I had that, okay, now I know how to do to do this and how to get

• 55:34Speaker 01

  through this. Yeah, but it wasn't wasn't until that point. And that was a a concern. And no one that I was able to talk to would have an answer, because they didn't know what I could do. So it was like, I don't.

• 55:45Rich Roll?

  And they hadn't done it themselves.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I could have asked Daddy, but she doesn't, you know, we're very different people in terms of like pacing and things. So it's like, you just have to figure it out. So.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Because you don't know.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  No, no, you don't. Yeah.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  I was fortunate, in hindsight, kind of fortunate. So mile forty six, I cracked a rim on my bike. So I ended up spending like an hour and a half off the bike on the first day. So it was a lesson in patience because I ended up getting passed. So I'm a lot stronger cyclist than anything else. So it's unusual for me, even in a field where I'm with men, it would be unusual for me to be not kind of up there with them. So that was the whole deal with me in, in the first two islands, because in Oahu, I spent maybe two hours off the bike. And to leave your little bike computer on and see it go down to like 11 miles an hour. And I was only at the halfway point. And I remember Rebecca saying like, you can't get back on the bike and hammer it. Like, I know that

• 56:41Speaker 02

  you can, but you can't. And she was completely right. Like, I had to just be, it was a huge ego check, like a huge, um, I am capable of going faster, but I can't.

• 56:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  And I shouldn't.

• 56:55Rich Roll?

  Because you have to have the long-term goal in mind.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  Right. And the fact that I've been off the bike for an hour and a half or two hours, I was like, just use this as an opportunity to eat food and to get, you know, to rest and to hydrate. And I'm, and just be patient. Like, it was patience. Like, it's okay. Just sit here.

• 57:12Rich Roll?

  And on Kauai, I mean, there's one bike shop, right?

• 57:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:15Rich Roll?

  So if you break down, I remember we broke down, we didn't have cell service. Do you remember that? Like, and, and just like stranded forever. Like, I broke my cable and, and it was like, how do I even let anyone know that? It's like, yeah, you're sitting there on the side of the road forever. You feel helpless. And you're like, the clock's ticking. And you're like, that airplane's still gonna leave. Like, I got a long way to go today.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it was really rough. And, um, you know, my husband and I are pretty, fairly like intense people in terms of, like, um, times of the essence. And he's very much like a hurry up, hurry up, hurry up kind of person. So in Kauai, it was interesting because ultimately, we ended up borrowing a wheel from the person that ended up dropping, um, which was amazing because if it wasn't for that, then, you know, I wouldn't have finished. But borrowing that wheel meant I needed a new chain. So we had to wait for the mechanics and it was just, um, Very different in terms of, and then in Oahu, it was kind of like, somebody that lived on the island put something in their mailbox that I needed. I don't even remember what it was. And they were like, oh yeah, we're gonna drive to this guy's house and grab it from

• 58:20Speaker 02

  the mailbox. We'll be back in like an hour. And my husband's like, an hour?

• 58:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Like, you can't get there any faster? And it's, I'm like, you don't understand. Like, it's different here.

• 58:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  This island time. So, there's no such thing as like, he's like Marine Corps mentality, like, come on, come on, come on, come on. And I'm like, these people aren't gonna move any faster. Like, this is what they're doing. You're just gonna chill out.

• 58:41Rich Roll?

  And you were able, I mean, you strike me as a very intense person.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 58:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So Rebecca told me that you showed up with like a three inch binder of all your prep for the race.

• 58:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:53Rich Roll?

  You had the whole thing dialed, right? Like, you're attacking this like a Navy SEAL.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  Everything, everything. Well, I, it is comforting to me.

• 59:01Rich Roll?

  No, it's laughing. Because Mel is not like that, right?

• 59:03Speaker 02

  Well, I'm organized, but I'm not that. It's comforting to me to, there's so many things that I can't control.

• 59:09Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  And the only thing that I can control is how organized I am. And it, so it provides like a level of comfort to me to be organized. So like, the minute the race was over, um, like, I downloaded, I typed everything up. Like, I did, I typed up all these notes of all the stuff that I did wrong, all the things that I would have changed, because I want to help other people. And then when Mel contacted me, she was like, well, what would you do different? I'm like, well, let me share this three page document with you of every mistake I made. But it's like,

• 59:38Rich Roll?

  And you're like, whoa.

• 59:39Speaker 02

  I'm like, okay. Don't do any of that. I was like, this is what you don't want to do. But yeah, I had gallon, like, bags, and I had literally everything labeled, like, day one swim, day one bike, day one run. Because, you know, you want to set your career up for success. I had instructions. Like, this is the kind of stuff, don't coddle me, don't tell me I'm doing great. If I'm not, don't call me sweetheart, don't be nice to me, just, like, be forceful. Because those are the type of instructions, like, you know, if I'm caring somebody, I want to know everything. Like, I want to know that you don't want to talk, or that you like to talk, or that you don't like, um, vanilla gels. You know, those are the types of instructions. So yeah, oh yeah, I will totally show up and be like,

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  But then I also showed up with a unicorn and tried to get everybody to take pictures with my unicorn. So I have a very, I have two different sides.

• 1:00:28Rich Roll?

  Right. And well, your husband knows what you need and don't need and can, there's a shorthand there, of course.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Rich Roll?

  And I think what's, what's maybe interesting for people that are listening that aren't familiar with this world is when you're doing these crew-supported events, it's incredibly challenging for the crew members. Like you think, oh, we're just driving behind them in a van. Like it's really, really hard work. It's very intense. And you're dealing with, you know, somebody who's trying to do something amazing and you want to serve that person, but what comes out of their mouth and what you should do are often two different things. So you have to really understand what's going to serve the athlete, not what they're asking for, right? Because what they're asking for may not be what they actually need. Like they'll say, I'm not hungry. I'm not going to eat. And you have to force them to eat

• 1:01:16Rich Roll?

  and make sure they understand they need to eat. And all of those cues are important to, you know, keep in mind, especially for like new people who are crewing who don't really know what they're in for.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I had a funny story. When I was in Maui, my shoes weren't fitting properly. Like my feet had swollen and my little toes were just a blister. Like I had no toes left. It was ridiculous. And I had two, just, just my little toes. And then I had a blister on the inside of my other foot, which ended up being like a pressure sore. So that was pretty, pretty bad. But I had two pairs of shoes and I'd convinced myself that one of them didn't fit and I wanted to try the other one on. Same size, nothing different. And my husband's like, no, no, they're the same. I'm like, no, no, I want to put the other shoes on. He's like, okay, fine. It's like just pass the least resistance. Just do it. Yeah. But I think they have a harder job than the athletes every time. Like the crews are just.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Amazing.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  It's totally selfless and it is really difficult. And when I was in Kona, it was, it never rains on the side of the island. Poured rain the entire marathon.

• 1:02:16Rich Roll?

  On the Kona coast?

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:18Rich Roll?

  Oh, it did?

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  Poured rain. It never rains on the side of the island. And I kept wanting to change my shoes and socks. And my husband was like, it doesn't matter. It's pouring rain.

• 1:02:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  You're running through puddles. And I was like, I have blisters. He was like, it's the last day. Who cares? You just have to keep going. And, and I listened to him. Like he could say that where other people might like let me stop and change. And then five miles later, I would have been in the exact same situation. I want to stop and change my shoes and socks. So you have to have somebody who knows you enough to kind of push back when you. Because you almost, you start acting almost like an infant, like it's almost like children who lack judgment.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  Like where you have to make the decisions for them because they're like, they have impaired functioning. Like it's almost like that's how you are when you race. Like your brain's not working right.

• 1:03:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:03:05Rich Roll?

  How did you guys feel on the last day?

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  I was so excited. That was party day for me.

• 1:03:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  I was like, I've got here. I'm finishing this. Yeah. Cause like up until that stage, it was, you know, anything can go wrong. Anything can break, anything, you know, something can happen that will completely derail you and you won't be able to finish. And so in my mind, the whole time I'm like, get to day five, get to day five, and then it's fine. Then, you know, you're there and life will be amazing. And yeah, it really, it really was. Um, it was really, really fun. I absolutely loved day five. Um, yeah, I had a couple of naps along the way, which was, which is awesome. Cause I said to my crew beforehand, cause um, my, my old coach, um, he passed away about Craig Percival when he did that.

• 1:03:46Rich Roll?

  I wanted to talk to you about that.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so when he did the eight in Australia, the eight Ironmans, he would have power naps and that really re-energized him and helped him. So I thought about that. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do that if I feel like I'm gonna fall asleep. And I was on the Queen K and I started seeing dots in front of my eyes and I could see on the bike, I was actually swerving and I'm like, I'm gonna run into a car. I'm just gonna accidentally just swerve into a car. So I pulled up to my crew and they're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I need a nap. So they just put me in the front seat. I put my feet up on the dashboard, laid the seat down and just slept for 15 minutes, got back on the bike. I'm like, all right, good now. And then kept going. And yeah, like, you know, I just, I just hung out and took my time. Like, yeah, there's a Facebook video when I'm at the turnaround at Harvey and I'm, you know, sitting down the car, just

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  eating chips, you know, having a chat. My brother's, you know, talking shit on Facebook too. You know, sending all these random messages and yeah, like, you know, like what you were doing, like hallucinating and, you know, just all over the place. But I just had so much fun. And it was one of those times, like the end was really emotional for me. Like I could feel Craig's presence there and just, I just became really overwhelmed with the fact that all of these people were here to support me. Like, you know, I had, um, three people fly over from Australia to come over there. I'm like, who, who does that? Who flies, you know, gets on a plane for me? Like there was no other reason. Like they were having their own holidays and everything else, but that was the reason why they were there at that time. And it was just that whole.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  You know, experience about that. And yeah, like, there wasn't many people who weren't crying at that time when I finished. But yeah, that was just, oh, it was amazing. And I still can recapture that feeling just talking about it now. And so like, I just take myself right back there. And it's, yeah, it was, it was amazing.

• 1:05:27Rich Roll?

  So explain who Craig Percival was.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  Ah, Craig was an amazing man. He was a huge personality in the Australian triathlon world, basically. Um, he's, when I met him, um, he was working for Blue, well, around Blue Seventy and doing a lot of wet suits. And, you know, like, he helped me get into my wet suit before a race that I was doing. And he would do it for anybody. You just walk up to him and go, oh, can you help me? And then just like, put it on properly. And like, oh, amazing. And then, you know, go off. And, um, yeah, so he had started his own coaching business. He had owned, um, Aqua Shop, which was like a, a bathing suit, bathing company and like wet suits and, you know, like everything. And he was like the go to person about everything that, um, and he was married

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  to, well, yeah, his, um, wife, Lyndle, and two kids. Um, a beautiful, beautiful family, absolutely amazing. So, yeah, he had done Ultraman Canada, um, the year before I did it. So I met up with him and he's like, hey, when you're ready to talk, you know, I'll tell you everything that you need to know about the whole event and everything. So that was, that was amazing. He was a really, really good resource for me for that as well. And then he came over to, um, Hawaii and did the year after, I can't remember what year that was.

• 1:06:40Rich Roll?

  Ultraman World Championships.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:42Rich Roll?

  At least once, right?

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did once. He did two Ultramans. Cause then when the rest of us had done two, we're like, oh, come on, Craig, got to do another one now. Like, what are you doing? It's slacking off. And so then he actually co-race directed Ultraman Australia, um, for a couple of, yeah, yeah. So he brought Ultraman Australia, um, out with another guy, Tony, in two thousand and five was the first year that they did that. So, yeah, like, he was big, like, everybody knew him, you know, he couldn't walk anywhere at a race without, you know, stopping.

• 1:07:11Rich Roll?

  Right. Legend, absolute legend in the multi-sport community in Australia.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:15Rich Roll?

  And like beloved by everyone.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. So, um, after he did Ultraman Hawaii, he was like, okay, so what else can I do? So he created his own event, um, which was eight in eight in eight. So it was, um, Eight Ironmans in eight different states of Australia in eight days. And yeah, like he had a hell of a time doing that as well.

• 1:07:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  And you know, he, he had timelines of having to do like, you know, 11 hour Ironmans to get on a plane to get to the next state. Because Australia is huge.

• 1:07:43Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  And to be able to.

• 1:07:44Rich Roll?

  It's not a puddle jumper flight from one little island to the next.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  No, not at all. It's, yeah, it's hours, hours of flying. Um, yeah. So then after he did that, then he um was having problems with his knee and he wasn't able to run and he was like really struggling. So he went in and had surgery on it. And then subsequently, as a result of that surgery, had a blood clot um that he ended up dying from. So yeah, he was in intensive care for about a week before he ended up passing away. So it was.

• 1:08:11Rich Roll?

  How old was he?

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  He's in his forties.

• 1:08:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't remember exactly how old. So it was incredibly sudden as well. And you know, like a fit, healthy guy, then suddenly, you know, in intensive care, in a coma and never waking up. It was, yeah, it was just.

• 1:08:27Rich Roll?

  Devastating.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So that was December, um, two thousand and sixteen.

• 1:08:33Rich Roll?

  Right. So he was coaching you at the time.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Rich Roll?

  And you're six months out from doing Epic Five.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So there was, there was a few of us who were doing, I was doing Epic Five and then others were doing Ultraman Australia.

• 1:08:46Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  And all around the same time of year in May. And so we're all just talking to each other, just going, what do we do? Like, you know, it's kind of one of those things. I'm like, I also, I need to be selfish and think about myself and what I need at this point in time. But also be respectful about, you know, it was such a kind of a balance and a juggle that we're all really, I know I was kind of struggling with.

• 1:09:07Rich Roll?

  Like feeling guilty for thinking about like, well, how do I train for this race right now?

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And I mean, we all knew that Craig wouldn't want us to give up on our dreams and you know, we, he would really want us to continue and not stop. But it's like, okay, so then what, what do we do? Like how, you know, where do I go from here? Because he was, I'd only, like, I'd known him for years, but I'd started with him at the start of that year. So I'd had him for about a year. And I didn't want to go back to my old coach and I was just kind of a bit stuck. In Limbo at that time.

• 1:09:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So then how does Kate come in?

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Um, so I contacted her. So yeah, I'm coached by Kate Bevelacqua now. Um, and she's, she's amazing. I sent her a message and I said, look, this is where I'm at. This is the event that I've got. You know, I was coached by Craig, you know, he's obviously, you know, passed away. So are you able to help me? And she was amazing. She just, um, you know, we had a chat over Skype and she's like, yep, yeah, I can help you. That's fine. Yeah, no worries. And then just started training with her and it's worked out, worked out really well. She, she thinks I'm absolutely crazy and I'm like, yeah, that's fine.

• 1:10:05Rich Roll?

  And she won Ultraman one year, right?

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:10:09Rich Roll?

  I can't, I can't remember what year it was.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  A couple of years ago, I think. I can't remember. Yeah, yeah. No, she won it. And she did, um, cause Ultraman Canada was rebranded and so she won that outright. Like she beat everybody in the field. So I was like, well, someone with that pedigree, they, well, I mean, I don't care if you're not, you know, amazing at what you do, but you understand ultra racing and that was the big thing that I wanted in a coach.

• 1:10:32Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that's why I reached out to her and I said to her, I'm like, I'm talking to a few other people. I really wasn't, but I was like, just in case you say no, I'll just, you know, I've got other options. But yeah, no, she was, she was totally cool about it. So that was really good.

• 1:10:53Rich Roll?

  What do you, what do you guys think is the biggest difference between, you know, the, uh, how you prepare for and race? Like a marathon or an Ironman? I mean, there's a lot of people listening who've dipped their toe in some kind of race or another. What's the difference between like mindset wise? I'm not talking about like the physical training aspect of it, but like mindset wise and experience wise between those traditional types of races and say Epic Five, you know, RAM, which we haven't even talked about yet, which you did. Um, you know, these multi-day, super ultra experiences.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  I think the difference is that my coach and I have a joke that there's people that do like executive level training. So there's, he's got his doctors and his attorneys that require an executive level training plan, which is the bare minimum to finish an event. And there are things that you can just. Get up and and get off the couch and train a little bit and you can do them.

• 1:11:49Rich Roll?

  You'll make it through.

• 1:11:50Speaker 02

  And you're gonna make it through. And then these events, you cannot do that. You cannot show up without a certain level of preparation, or you absolutely will not finish. And if you, um, and it's not to say you don't respect the distance, but the other, you know, the other aspect that I think, not just the physical part, it places a lot of strain on every part of your life, your relationship, your job. So you've really got to be in a good place. Like if you don't have a good support system in terms of your family, your, your partner, you know, you're, it's all that's just gonna be, become bigger and bigger and bigger.

• 1:12:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  So if your friends are giving you a hard time because you're, you're missing out on stuff every weekend and you're overcome by the guilt of missing out on yet another birthday party or something, like it's just, that stuff will kind of like eat at you.

• 1:12:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:36Speaker 02

  Versus people saying, hey, I know you're about to go in a hole and I'll see you in six months.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Hmm. I, I often tell people, you know, what's going on in your life at this time? And they're like, oh, you know, my mom's sick, you know, I've got this going on, like work's really busy. I'm like, maybe wait.

• 1:12:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  You know, you need your life sorted at that point in time, as much as you can. I mean, obviously you can't control everything, which, you know, that's fine. Um, but if there's big things that are happening, you know, you're planning a wedding, ah, maybe, you know, if that's big enough as it is, yeah, maybe wait. I think for me, in terms of the mindset stuff is, um, I like the point where you're not wanting to go any further. Like when you get to that point of, you know, this is really hard, this, I'm really starting to struggle here. I find that's where my race starts. Like that's where my enjoyment really peaks. Because you have to push through and you have to find a way just to continue on. And then when it gets really, really hard, I'm like, yep, that's, that's a sweet spot for me.

• 1:13:28Rich Roll?

  And what have those moments taught you? Like, how do you carry, how do you carry those forward into other aspects of your life?

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  Um, I guess that I, I mean, for me, it's that I don't stop. Like I, I grew up as a very, very stubborn child, as my parents tell me, and I've kind of turned that into a mental strength. And so I guess, I mean, in my world, in my job, I'm a mental health nurse, so. Anything that is incredibly stressful is like, you know, that's really intense point. You know, that's like we're talking about, you know, somebody was saying before, you know, if, if no one's trying to commit suicide, if no one's beating each other up, if no one's, you know, intimately gonna die, it's okay, we can deal with this. And so I think I have that attitude in all of aspects of my life. Um, yeah, so I think that, you know.

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  My husband's a sniper on the SWAT team.

• 1:14:15Rich Roll?

  Is he?

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, so if people aren't trying to kill us, we're like, are people on trees? No, we're good.

• 1:14:22Rich Roll?

  This is no big deal.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  And I work in healthcare too.

• 1:14:24Rich Roll?

  That's like the David Goggins perspective.

• 1:14:26Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. And I work in, um, with end of life. So I'm with people, whether they're old or not, I am, I am working with people in the, like the end of their lives. So for me, it's like, I, what, you know, what it's taught me is I am comfortable being uncomfortable. And I tell people, I'm like, I'm the kind of person that could walk around all day with a rock in my shoe and never take it out. And that's, people aren't like that. People aren't, so I'm willing to have those uncomfortable conversations with my patients. Like I'm willing to do, and like in, in her, you know, in your work, that's, you're, you can go places with people and not feel uncomfortable.

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's daily.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  That's every, so in every single day, I do something I don't wanna do, every day.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:08Speaker 02

  Whether it's, um, having a conversation, because practice, I mean, practice is what you have to do. And the more often that you do it, it just teaches you that discipline. So that if every single day I do something, whether it's having a conversation with an employee about a performance issue, that I don't wanna have that conversation, but I have to have it, it just teaches me I can do things I don't wanna do.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:15:29Speaker 02

  And that's part of being an adult and I can be uncomfortable and I don't always have to be comfortable and it's okay.

• 1:15:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, getting comfortable with discomfort, having the willingness to, you know, face and confront those uncomfortable situations and scenarios. It's a muscle, just like anything else, right? And, and I know that that's what makes me feel alive. And it also gives you the strength to tackle more and more difficult challenges, not just physical challenges, but emotional challenges, professional challenges, relationship challenges, like anything that life throws at you.

• 1:16:04Speaker 02

  Right, right. And it's just, I mean, it's a resiliency thing.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  Like it's just a resiliency thing, um, and, um.

• 1:16:12Speaker 02

  You know, there's, there's kind of a joke at work that I'm kind of like a cockroach. Like the world like can come to a nuclear end and here I am gonna just gonna be running around like a little cockroach.

• 1:16:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  That can never be because it's just, you're right. I mean, you do, you, you always compare it to the experiences that you've had. So if you, if you live in a higher stress environment or you work in a high stress environment like my husband, like nothing to him is that big of a deal because look at the work that he does. So when, you know, when I, people are like, gosh, Epic Five was so crazy. I'm like, you know what was really crazy? Taking two weeks off work. Epic Five was a vacation. You should have seen the work I had to come back to. Like, that was a treat. Like, that's nothing compared to like what we do day in and day out. So it, it makes it, yeah, it just puts everything in perspective for sure.

• 1:16:56Rich Roll?

  Another thing I think, uh, at least that I've found is when you make that decision and you're like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna take on this challenge.

• 1:17:07Rich Roll?

  Understanding the amount of time and energy and focus that's going to be demanded of you, that's gonna be required of you in order to show up and be your best self for that particular challenge, requires you to get super focused on what's important and what's not in your life.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:26Rich Roll?

  Anything extraneous sort of gets stripped away. It's like what you were talking about with your friends and birthday parties and things like that. You do have to be in a good place in order to do that. But for me, it was almost not a cleansing, but a clarifying process of getting me closer to what is important to me and what's not. And what am I willing to sacrifice to accomplish a certain goal? And then you almost need that three inch binder just to guide you through your life. Okay, like what's the decision tree today in order for me to get the things done that need to get done? And there's just not a lot of downtime for fucking around.

• 1:18:03Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:18:03Rich Roll?

  Like, you know what I mean?

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:05Rich Roll?

  So it, it makes you extremely, it just the looming deadline or, or, you know, event date makes you get extremely diligent in how you're managing your time throughout the day.

• 1:18:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. And I think You know, I was, I had this experience recently with my coach and I was in Hawaii and had planned all the logistics for he and his brother to, to race in Kona. And we were talking about how it's, it's very difficult. He races, his brother's got cerebral palsy, so he swims and, and swims with him and does a modified bike and pushes him on the run. And we were having this conversation about like all the media and stuff. And I said, every, every exchange that you have with someone, like you're giving a piece of yourself away, whether you mean to or not. Every time you talk to somebody. And if that's not a positive encounter, or if it causes you anxiety or angst, like that you get chipped away and, and then you feel depleted.

• 1:18:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  And your training depletes you. So you have to be very cautious about the people that are in your life and how they support you and what they need from you because you can't, if you're a problem solver, or you're a person who's always trying to fix things for people, and then you end up doing all this training and you can't, at some point, you've got to back out of some of those other obligations.

• 1:19:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you have to create healthy boundaries.

• 1:19:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:19:22Rich Roll?

  And the stakes are higher, right? So you don't have the, um, you know, the bandwidth to kind of engage people in a way that ordinarily would be no big deal.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:19:34Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Exactly. Like, I'm really sorry, I can't listen to your conversation on my way to work this morning about the argument you had with your husband over a pint of spilled blueberry. Like, I'm like, seriously, I don't give a shit. Like, I can't, I, I can't waste energy. And for me, it's all about energy conservation. And I'm like, I can't be worried about that. Like, when I did Ram, one of the, the girls in the crew, she had a tattoo on her finger that said, "Let it go." And so that's my thing is, I do this, and it's like, "Let it go." And it's like, just let it go. Who cares? Yeah. Just let it go. Yeah.

• 1:20:06Rich Roll?

  So what was Ram like? You were, you were the, what's the accolade? You were the fir-, the, the youngest?

• 1:20:13Speaker 02

  The youngest two-person female team. Yeah. So we set the two-person female, uh, record in terms of speed and, uh, and age. We were the youngest.

• 1:20:24Rich Roll?

  How long did it take you?

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  Eight days, two hours and 35 minutes.

• 1:20:28Rich Roll?

  I can't even imagine.

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was pretty incredible.

• 1:20:31Rich Roll?

  So what is that like, sleeping a half an hour a night?

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

  We did, um, so for 12 hours during the day, we did anywhere from like 10 to 30 minute pools a piece.

• 1:20:41Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:20:42Speaker 02

  And so we did that for 12 hours. And then at night, we did, um, We did a three, three, three, three. So three hours on, three hours off, three hours on, three hours off.

• 1:20:54Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:20:54Speaker 02

  And our goal was to sleep for an hour and a half during that three hours. Cause that was also when we were doing like a full kit change, brushing our teeth.

• 1:21:01Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  Um, so the goal was to do, get like an hour and a half to two hours, but broken up into two segments.

• 1:21:08Rich Roll?

  So three hours a night total on average.

• 1:21:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:21:12Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:13Rich Roll?

  And in between, it's essentially an eight day interval workout.

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:21:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:18Speaker 02

  Time trialing the rest of the time.

• 1:21:20Rich Roll?

  Oh my God.

• 1:21:21Speaker 02

  Yep. Time trial across the country.

• 1:21:23Rich Roll?

  So hardcore.

• 1:21:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:24Rich Roll?

  What was the hardest part about that?

• 1:21:27Speaker 02

  Um, honestly, I think the hardest part was that was the, we had a crew of 11 people. And just managing the, the dynamics of the people with the crew and, and just being different. And having to make sure that not worrying, like not trying to worry about how people were. My job is to ride a bike and like, I can't be worried that you guys were arguing with each other.

• 1:21:49Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:49Speaker 02

  And, um, we had these like radio pieces that they use where you, they can talk to you. And my, my husband and his brother were like, they, they argue, like they argue all the time. And by like the sixth or seventh day, they, they were arguing with each other. And every time they talked, it came in my earpiece. And they were like, bro, bro, that's not the right turn. Dude, dude, shut up. And I finally, I just ripped it out and I was like, I'm done. I can't listen to you guys anymore. I just need to ride my bike.

• 1:22:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:15Speaker 02

  So, so I think the dynamics, like that was probably the hardest part was that's a long time for people.

• 1:22:20Rich Roll?

  And who was your partner?

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  Um, her name's Casey Darden. Um, yeah. So she was, she was my partner and I met her double Ironman.

• 1:22:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. In Atlanta. And, um, she went out and crewed an eight person, or she was part of an eight person team that rode. And she came back, she was like, we can totally do this.

• 1:22:37Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  And I was like, yeah, of course.

• 1:22:39Rich Roll?

  So. I mean, we're, I just, I'm trying to wrap my head around like the whole process of going end to end across the entire country. I mean, what was the hardest terrain? Was it the super long flats through the middle of the country where you think it's never gonna end? Is it going over, going over the mountains?

• 1:22:56Speaker 02

  The Appalachians are definitely the hardest.

• 1:22:59Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  So, everybody talks about the Rockies and Colorado and all that, and that's great and everything, but nothing is compared to the Appalachians. And the good news is-

• 1:23:07Rich Roll?

  Why is that? Because it's humid or because it's, it's like-

• 1:23:10Speaker 02

  Because it's humid, it's 600, the climbs are harder. The climbs are harder, the roads are windy, you can't see what's around the corner. Like Colorado and the Rockies are just wide open. It's beautiful. The Appalachians, it's not like that. It's trees. It's just, there's not the scenery to look at. The climbs are harder. It's disgustingly hot. It's just so gross. And you're 600 miles from the finish, so you're 2,400 miles into the race. The good news is, we have a place up in the, in the mountains, in the Appalachian Mountains. So that's kind of our ground. Like, that's what we train in. So-

• 1:23:43Rich Roll?

  So you were ready for it?

• 1:23:44Speaker 02

  So we were more ready for that because we have such close access to it from Atlanta. Yeah, but that was definitely the hardest in terms of the terrain.

• 1:23:53Rich Roll?

  Was it a bigger sense of accomplishment doing that versus Epic 5? Or how do those two compare? I mean, there are apples and oranges, but-

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  Epic 5 was definitely, definitely a much, um, yeah. Yeah, Ram was incredible. And at the time, I was like, it's gonna be really hard to kind of top this, but Epic 5 definitely topped, topped that, for sure. Um, yeah, and it was, it was, yeah, it was a lot harder. Logistically, like, we didn't have stuff that went wrong. We had stuff that went wrong, but nowhere even remotely close to Epic 5.

• 1:24:27Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So, paint a picture, each of you, for what a typical training week looks like, so people can really understand what goes into this.

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  Well, we were just having this hilarious conversation, because I like to actually let myself get like completely out of shape for things. Um, almost because I like the challenge of just like being like all the way back in shape, but-

• 1:24:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, how old are you now?

• 1:24:51Speaker 02

  I'm 37. When I say-

• 1:24:53Rich Roll?

  It gets harder when you get, you don't wanna get too far away from it.

• 1:24:56Speaker 02

  I should be cautious about how I say out of shape. I'd like, I like to- Out of shape is a relative term, is a relative term. Um, but when I am- In shape or training for something. I mean, I typically will try to swim. I swim in a masters program, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. When I was, when I was training, my heaviest training week for Epic Five was like thirty nine hours.

• 1:25:17Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:25:18Speaker 02

  So I did two back to back weeks of training.

• 1:25:21Rich Roll?

  And that's just low intensity volume for the most part?

• 1:25:24Speaker 02

  For the most part, I would always.

• 1:25:26Rich Roll?

  Thirty, thirty five hours?

• 1:25:27Speaker 02

  Thirty nine. So I did a thirty eight hour one week and thirty nine the next.

• 1:25:31Rich Roll?

  You're literally training basically seven hours a day.

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  And I would do like at least ten hours on the weekend. I would always like get up and swim masters, do a seven and eight hour ride, and then I would run for like two to three hours off the bike. So I was getting these huge blocks of training in and I would take Fridays off and do these big like massive training blocks. And then like come Monday morning, when you're exhausted, I would get up at four fifteen and go swim.

• 1:25:59Rich Roll?

  And did you experiment with sleep deprivation to acclimate to that? Like waking up in the middle of the night and going to work out and stuff?

• 1:26:04Speaker 02

  Here is the great news. I do that already.

• 1:26:06Rich Roll?

  Oh, you do?

• 1:26:07Speaker 02

  Uh, last night, Mel's like, how are you?

• 1:26:09Rich Roll?

  That's like SEAL training.

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  Mel's like, how are you still awake? And I was like, I don't sleep. She's like, I told her, I was like, I'm gonna be up at three o'clock in the morning. And then what do you, I found a twenty four hour cafe. So when I was, um, so I don't sleep very much, and that's the good news. But when I was, um, training for Epic Five and I'd get really tired and I would go to sleep like at nine, I would wake up at two AM, a hundred percent awake.

• 1:26:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:26:34Speaker 02

  And I would, yeah, just get up and go train. And it is a gift. And that's one of the things I think that makes me, um, but you know what? The gift of being able to fall asleep. Mel was like, oh, I fall asleep and I sleep. Yeah. And two seconds later, she was dead asleep. Yeah. And I'm looking at her like, I was looking at her like, she really is gonna sleep all night. Yeah. Like, look at, like, who are you? You sleep all night. I was so jealous. And then she sleeps and she wakes up like a gazillion hours later and she was like, that felt great. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I toss and I turn. I don't, I don't sleep well. So I, I don't have to practice with sleep deprivation because that's, that's kind of my life already. Which makes me, I think, a little bit better to ha- train to handle it when it comes to.

• 1:27:14Rich Roll?

  Right. Mel, what's, what's training look like?

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  So I didn't do those bigger weeks. I think my biggest week was probably about uh thirty hours. Um, and I would, because when I was training for Epic Five, I'd changed jobs. Yeah. So I was doing a Monday to Friday job. So that made it a lot easier because before that I was doing shift work. So I'd be doing like mornings, afternoons, night shifts. I did a um, a really heavy block of training for Ultraman Australia when I was on night shift. And so that was my sleep deprivation training. That was, yeah, full on.

• 1:27:44Rich Roll?

  She'd work all night and then catch a nap and then train?

• 1:27:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:47Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  And then go back to bed and have another nap and then go to work.

• 1:27:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that was, yeah, that, that kind of prompted me going, well, if I can manage that, that's okay. Because I mean, I do sleep and I sleep like seven, eight hours a night, but I can nap as well. I can lie down on the couch, nap for half an hour, get up, go to work. Like it was, yeah, I'm a very good shift worker in that way. But I'd changed jobs and I was um, working Monday to Friday. So I could train before and after work every day. So my hours would probably be between about two to four hours a day um, each Monday to Friday. And then on the weekends, I do generally about seven, eight hour days um, on the weekends, every weekend. So where I live in Melbourne, I'm about a forty five minute drive away from some really good hills. I mean, my hills are not compared to what your hills are like. My longest hill, I could probably ride about seven Ks, but.

• 1:28:34Rich Roll?

  But Melbourne is great for cycling, right?

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Really good.

• 1:28:37Rich Roll?

  It's like the cycling capital of Australia.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  Very much so. Yeah. So if I want to ride flat, I'm riding with thousands of cyclists every, you know, every weekend. Um, if you want to ride hills, there's cyclists everywhere. And I go to places where there is cyclists because in the cars, I mean, there's, you know, people who don't like cyclists, but there's a lot of people who expect them. So then they drive a little bit differently and it's a little bit safer. It's the way I kind of look at it. Yeah. So I'd use the week, like during the week, it'd be my, you know, do a bit of strength work, do a bit of speed work in all disciplines. Um, so you know, my, Kate would get me to um, you know, have a swim week, a bike week, a run week. So I'd have extra sessions on whatever the focus was that week. And on the weekends, it was always heavy bike. So. Um, you know, like seven hours ride, one hour run off the bike. Cause she's like, you have to be strong and fit in swim and bike. And then the run will just take care of itself. Like we won't

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  focus so much on that. Um, because it's about getting to the run as in best shape as you can.

• 1:29:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  Then to get through that.

• 1:29:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you can use the bike to develop that aerobic engine without all the load bearing that running, you know.

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:29:38Rich Roll?

  Ends up, you know, creating injuries and.

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:41Rich Roll?

  All sorts of other issues.

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I didn't have any injuries in my prep. So I was really lucky. Yeah. That's great.

• 1:29:47Rich Roll?

  So when people come up to you and say, as invariably I'm sure they do, like, oh, I'd love to like do this or that, but like, I just don't have time.

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I say, I'm like, well, I make time. I never actually say I don't have time. I'm like, I have different priorities to you.

• 1:30:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  And that's, that's the way I kind of reframe it for people. People are like, oh, I'd love to do that. You know, I don't have time. I was like, well, you know, if you re-prioritize, you know, you've got different things going on in your life at the time, but you know, if you actually juggle things around, I actually don't have that many people saying they want to do Epic Five.

• 1:30:17Rich Roll?

  No, no.

• 1:30:19Speaker 02

  I'm so shocked. Cause nobody is like, oh my gosh, I want to do that.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  I've had like three people. One girl who's, has her heart set on it and she's, she's a hundred percent committed to doing it, which is amazing. Um.

• 1:30:31Rich Roll?

  And you could pay it forward by helping her.

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  I, yeah, I have been. Yeah. Yeah. I said to her, I'm like, ask me any questions whatsoever. Like I'm an open book. Like I want to help you as much as I can. Um, yeah. So it's, it's really good. I really, really enjoy that. And then the two women who did it, um, last year as well, you know, like both of us were in contact with them and just saying, you know.

• 1:30:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  We'll help you as much as we can, you know, we, we want to help you be successful. So.

• 1:30:55Rich Roll?

  Right. So four women have attempted.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:30:58Rich Roll?

  Three have completed it.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:31:00Rich Roll?

  Who's the third?

• 1:31:02Speaker 02

  Her name is Michelle Santiala, Santa. And she's, um, amazing. English, uh, swim, uh, ram finisher, arc to arch finisher.

• 1:31:14Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:31:14Speaker 02

  So the fact that she, when she messaged me, I, I was literally like, now why are you asking me again? Like you did, she's like, I'm not a strong cyclist. I was like, uh, you finished race across America. You're fine. You're gonna be fine. Like, you're good. She's like, well, that was a ton of years ago. I mean, she's impressive, really impressive. And that, you know, when we were talking about women racing, and that's one of the things that I really like appreciated so much about when Mel reached out, she was like, look, and it didn't matter if she had, she could have finished 25 Ultramans or two. She was like, look, like, I want this to be the best experience possible. And if you've done it and you've learned anything, either positive or negative, and you're willing to share, because sometimes you ask people,

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  and they're very vague, or they they want to be very elusive about it, or they don't really want you to finish, or they're threatened by the idea of, or they want to make it seem like it's impossible. Like, they want to kind of, like, oh, gosh, you don't want to know about Epic Five. It was so, but I think it's a little different. And our approach is different, where we're like, if you really want to commit and do this, like, I'll absolutely help you finish it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'll tell you everything I know.

• 1:32:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's super cool.

• 1:32:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:23Rich Roll?

  I think what's amazing about the ultra world is that it's this great equalizer in sport, because the longer the distance is, the less, the more parity there is between men and women. Yeah. Like, when you get into the crazy, super long stuff, like, then, like, we're all in this together. And women are able to excel on an unbelievable level. I mean, when you see what Courtney DeWalter is doing right now, she's just crushing all the dudes. It's like, amazing, right? And, and I love the idea of, I mean, I embrace the, the idea that, you know, once these kind of barriers are broken, then the floodgates are open. Like, you know, when Jason and I did it, like, we didn't know whether it was

• 1:33:08Rich Roll?

  possible, or we could do it. And we struggled through it and got it done and, you know, didn't get it done in five days. And now it's like a thing. And people do it every year. And there's like, three women who have crushed it. And I think that's so cool. I love all of that and I think it it basically puts out into the universe a greater sense of what's possible in general.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:30Rich Roll?

  So that, you know, James Lawrence, the Iron Cowboy can go out and do 50 Ironmans in 50 states in 50 days, which to this day I still have trouble wrapping my head around.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:41Rich Roll?

  But I think it's, you know, it it it speaks to like that incremental, you know, progression of human beings doing things more and more difficult that allows us all to believe that we're capable of more than than than we like to imagine.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:33:56Rich Roll?

  Or that we're prone to imagine.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I I just want more women to do ultra racing.

• 1:34:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  It's amazing. Yeah, so if there's anyone who contacts me, I'm like, yes, do it, do it. I'll help.

• 1:34:06Speaker 02

  I'll tell you everything.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  I'll tell you everything you need to know.

• 1:34:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, women are women are very underrepresented in the sport of ultra community and particularly in ultra cycling and long distance bike riding. And I think, you know, there's a lot of, um, we both have very, very supportive partners who are very proud of what we do and proud of the fact that we can go out and on any given day, we might destroy them on the bike or or ride for twice as long as they do. But not everybody has that situation and not everybody feels like, you know, they can they can do that.

• 1:34:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:43Speaker 02

  And so.

• 1:34:43Rich Roll?

  You can't do it without support at home.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no chance.

• 1:34:47Rich Roll?

  It's a team sport.

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:49Speaker 02

  It really is.

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:34:50Speaker 02

  It is, and people, um, they definitely underestimate how much support you're truly going to need.

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:56Speaker 02

  It is a, some of these races are really like a community event.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:35:00Speaker 02

  And people don't get that.

• 1:35:02Rich Roll?

  How do you guys think about yourselves as being role models for young women and other female athletes?

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've I kind of find it's weird. I'm like, you know, because people are like, oh, you're such an inspiration. I'm like, oh, really? I'm just an ordinary person doing fun things I enjoy.

• 1:35:18Rich Roll?

  But you are.

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:20Rich Roll?

  You know that.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I love it. I love it.

• 1:35:22Rich Roll?

  And I think it's important for you to go out and tell the story.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:25Rich Roll?

  Because you don't know the impact that your experience can have.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:30Rich Roll?

  Like when you told the story of the the young girl, you know, in Molokai, Will's daughter, like, that's profound.

• 1:35:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, that's huge. And that's. So like you don't, you don't think about that or the fact that like, one of my friend's daughters, they, you know, they can't wear Halloween costumes in school anymore. They have to dress up like a book character and she literally dressed up like me for Halloween. And I was like, what? Like me? Like, are you serious? I'm like, but why? And people, it's so it, it has a level of responsibility with it that sometimes can feel like a little overwhelming. But I like the fact that at the end of the day, like we're, we're average people, like we work jobs, like we, we are, we were talking about how unassuming, um, I, when I was in Kona a couple of weeks ago. This guy was, you know, the swim start, he's made a comment about,

• 1:36:22Speaker 02

  oh, have you ever done Ironman? I said, oh yeah, I have. And my friend that was with me was like, oh, she did this race called at five. And he starts telling her about it and he looked over at me, he goes, what did you weigh like a hundred pounds when you did it? And I was like, no, I was just large like I am now. I like the fact that, um, we can be like regular people who don't look like professional athletes. Wouldn't ever look at us and be like, oh, wow, that person can totally ride a bike across the country. But then you can, so you're breaking a lot of stigmas around like, how you should look or how you should act or how you should, like those people must not have jobs. Like that's what people will say. That's what people ask all the time. You must not work.

• 1:36:59Rich Roll?

  Well, cause it's easier for them to, you know, feel okay about how they're living.

• 1:37:04Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:37:05Rich Roll?

  They can be dismissive.

• 1:37:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, oh, well, you just.

• 1:37:08Rich Roll?

  They don't really have to confront it.

• 1:37:10Speaker 02

  I'm like, well, no, I mean, but if, but I don't watch television. Like when people say, well, you don't have time. I'm like, how much time do you spend a week watching TV? Yeah. I don't watch TV.

• 1:37:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:37:18Speaker 02

  So if you don't watch TV.

• 1:37:19Rich Roll?

  They'll say not much. And then like, all right, well, how much football do you watch on Sunday?

• 1:37:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:37:23Rich Roll?

  Oh, six hours.

• 1:37:24Speaker 02

  You're like, oh, that's not much. I mean, people make, you make whatever's a priority in your life, you make it a priority. Yeah. In the same, you know, when I look at the people that I race with and I look at the people that I train with and recently. Um, I was at the pool swimming and when I was in the locker room, like nine out of the people, nine out of like the fifteen women that were in the locker room showering after the swim were all doctors. Like they were all physicians and surgeons. And this um, woman was talking to me about Epic Five and she's like, I just don't know how you did it. And I was like, well, how did you get through medical school? Like, how'd you get through your residency? Like, how'd you get through law school? That same grit, that's, I mean, that's what it is. It's just grit and that's the difference is whatever, like, you either have it or you kind of don't.

• 1:38:07Speaker 02

  Like, the people that, you know, have it and figure out a way to get their PhD when, you know, they weren't very well educated growing up, like, those are the people that are gonna excel in this kind of sport. Cause they've just got it.

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  I think, I think you can have it, but also you can develop it.

• 1:38:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:22Speaker 01

  As well. I think that's something that I like, I don't take my mental strengths for granted. I build it up over time. Every training block for a new race, I will start, you know, and go, okay, you know, focus on this, focus on that, and then keep developing and building it all the time. I don't just rely on it being there when I need it as well. So I think it is, yeah, you know, like a muscle, you can, you can improve it and work on it.

• 1:38:43Rich Roll?

  And what's driving all of this? Like, this is the why question, right? Why do you do it? Why do you do it? What are you trying to learn? What is it doing for you? What is the, you know, what is the driving force that compels you to tackle these challenges? And I'm sure the answer is different for each of you.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know your why. Um, yeah, I guess for me, um, what I said before is trying to find the limit, um, you know, trying to, to push myself. And I guess, you know, I, I grew up.

• 1:39:13Rich Roll?

  But why?

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, why, why, why?

• 1:39:16Rich Roll?

  The why behind the why?

• 1:39:18Speaker 01

  Well, I guess, you know, I grew up, you know, I, I don't feel like I'm any kind of extraordinary person. And I had a lot of people doubting that I was actually able to do my first Ultraman. And then, you know, and even Epic Five. And so I guess some of it's a bit of like, well, I'll prove to you that I can, you know, it's a little bit ego in it, it has to be, you know? That's normal, that's natural.

• 1:39:35Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  Um, but also just because I, I wanna see how mentally far I can push myself and how physically far I can push myself until, you know, I just, I can't do it anymore and like, I can't. I I haven't found that point, so I'm still searching. I'm still trying to to go and like keep going and go beyond that. And I guess the enjoyment that I get from really digging deep is just like, it's just like nothing else in my life, just to be able to get to get to that. I don't know. I I don't really feel like I have one particular thing that is this is why. It's a whole bunch of other things. You know, I I really enjoy, you know, I I love the sport. I love, you know, going out for, you know, riding for ten hours just

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  because, you know, I decided to ride from here to there and it took me a long time to get there. Yeah. And it's, it's just, you know, like next year, um, I'm looking to do Uberman as well. And that's gonna be my next, you know, massive thing. I'm like, all right, well, you know, am I able to do that? That scares me. Let's do it.

• 1:40:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  Let's sign up for that.

• 1:40:39Rich Roll?

  So explain to people what Uberman is, because this is really something else.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, I I don't really.

• 1:40:46Rich Roll?

  I know the guy who came up with this crazy hair burning guy. He lives here in Malibu.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  Oh, does he?

• 1:40:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Good to know. Um, yeah. So the swim is the Catalina Channel Swim. So it's thirty three, thirty four kilometer swim. I don't know miles. Um, and then the bike is just over six hundred kilometers and you finish at the start of where the um, Badwater Run starts. And then you do the Badwater Run at the end of it. So there's, I I like in the fact that there's no cutoff. So you start and then you finish whenever you finish. Like, um, you know, obviously, I'm gonna try.

• 1:41:17Rich Roll?

  You could do it over the course of a year if you want.

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  If you really wanted to. I'm not going to take a year.

• 1:41:23Rich Roll?

  So basically, you swim from Catalina to Palos Verdes, and then you do Ram, essentially, and then you run Badwater.

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Just a little bit. Yeah. And it, you know, it's it's another challenge. And yeah, you know, as I said, it's something that scares me. Like, Epic Five intimidated the hell out of me. And I was like, I want to give it a go. Just, you know, put it out there, see if I can do it. You know, why not? Just give it a go. Yeah. So, and I, you know, I do like it. Like, one of my, one of my good friends, his daughter, who's eight, you know, he was telling her about this. And so she wrote me a card that actually I have with me and it's it's beautiful. And he goes to me, oh, by the way, she expects you to win. I was like, oh, okay. No pressure. I'm not gonna win. Um. But yeah, like, you know, she feels really inspired by it. And I'm like, that's, that's amazing. So there's a whole bunch of whys in that. And yeah, just because I can.

• 1:42:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Danny.

• 1:42:14Speaker 02

  I think for me, like, working in geriatrics and working with older adults. And when I started doing long distance racing, I was working in a retirement home. And every day, people would get up and they would go to the library and they would drink coffee. And I would constantly hear people talking about stuff they didn't do. And like, people never said, I missed, like, the season finale of Grey's Anatomy in two thousand eight, or, oh, my God, I can't believe that I that it it always had to do with, like, travel, or I wish I would have spent more time with my kids. And that was about the same time that, like, that YOLO hashtag, you know, you only live once was coming out. And I really started thinking about that and in thinking, like, one day, I'm gonna be sitting in this retirement home,

• 1:42:57Speaker 02

  and I'm gonna be like, I did everything that I could. Like, I went all the places I could afford to go. I put my body through every physical limitation possible. If it sounded cool, I wanted and I wanted to do it, then I did it. And I just like, literally want to be at the end of my life saying, like, I gave it all. Like, I'm empty. There's nothing left. Like, I just did everything that I could. And for me, it's, you know, in a lot of ways, I feel, I feel really grateful because I was in a really bad accident where I got hit by a drunk driver. And the doctor's like, you're probably never gonna be able to run again. So I feel.

• 1:43:30Rich Roll?

  How long ago was that?

• 1:43:31Speaker 02

  In two thousand six. Yeah. So I I feel, you know, I feel really grateful for the fact that I can do anything, because I realize, you know, I got hit going like fifty miles an hour. I crushed his windshield. And I landed in gravel parking lot. My leg was completely in shambles. And so to be able to recover from that and then have any kind of resemblance of activity or a healthy lifestyle afterwards, like, that's a huge gift.

• 1:43:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:59Speaker 02

  But then to even take it even further, like, I don't. You know, I say attitude to gratitude, but I really, I mean, I mean it like I'm, I wake up and I feel like I'm grateful for this and it is, you know, the stuff is out there. So why would we like, why would I hold back on myself? Like, you know, you make promises to other people and, and you feel so guilty when you like, break a promise to somebody else, but people break promises to themselves all the time. Like you always, you sign up for a race and then you, you bail on yourself. You're like, oh, well, maybe I'm not gonna do that. Or you, you have a goal like, oh, I want to learn how to sew. And then you're like, oh, no. But if you, if somebody else, you know, you have that commitment to them, you would try so hard to make it. But I'm like, you owe that to yourself, too.

• 1:44:42Rich Roll?

  How come you didn't end up becoming a Navy SEAL?

• 1:44:46Speaker 02

  Is it too late?

• 1:44:48Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I think you would be a badass SEAL. I mean, you have everything, you, you have everything.

• 1:44:54Speaker 02

  Is it too late?

• 1:44:54Rich Roll?

  I don't know. You would know. Ask your husband.

• 1:44:57Speaker 02

  This is the part that's really funny about our relationship that people like, and Rebecca has met him, so she'll understand. So I can't remember where we were in Ram and um, I couldn't feel my toes. And I was like, oh, my gosh, baby, I don't have any feeling in my toes. He goes, it doesn't matter. You don't need toes to ride bikes.

• 1:45:14Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:45:15Speaker 02

  And that was it. And he goes,

• 1:45:16Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:45:16Speaker 02

  He goes, get back.

• 1:45:18Rich Roll?

  No sympathy there.

• 1:45:19Speaker 02

  He goes, get back on your bike. And that, like, when I was training for Epic Five, or he was like, if you sign up for this, there is no complaining. Like in our house, there is a rule, you wanted this, you do not complain. He is, and I, I had like a mechanical issue one time on my bike, like, five hours into a ride that was supposed to be seven or eight hours. And I, I was so frustrated because I was just, I was having such a good ride. And I came home, he goes, get your ass on the trainer and finish. He was like, there's no reason why you can't finish a ride. You have a trainer upstairs.

• 1:45:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:49Speaker 02

  Go finish. And that's kind of that. Yeah, I've done that. Like that level.

• 1:45:53Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God. Are you guys gonna have kids? I'm like terrified for your child.

• 1:45:58Speaker 02

  Like, that's that level of accountability that um, that like, very few people, like, there's, you know, you don't, you don't get that. You don't, you don't have people that are telling you, well, yeah, you can totally do that. Like, when Mel's telling me about this race, I'm like, wait, when is it? Like, like, I want to do it. But, you know.

• 1:46:18Rich Roll?

  You guys gotta do it together. After this, come on, who's met today?

• 1:46:24Rich Roll?

  Well, you have to do something together.

• 1:46:26Speaker 02

  We do. Yeah, we gotta, we gotta find something together. I'm doing, we're doing Race Across the West in June. So that's a thousand mile bike race. Yes, I'm really excited about that. So we're going to try to go real fast there. So, um, yeah, so that's my next goal. So we're, we're trying to, we're trying to ride our, we're going to time trial for a thousand miles and see how that turns out.

• 1:46:46Rich Roll?

  And Mel, your next race is coming up quick here.

• 1:46:48Speaker 01

  Yes, it is.

• 1:46:49Rich Roll?

  Ultraman World Championships. You're headed to Hawaii for last minute prep.

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah.

• 1:46:54Rich Roll?

  Super excited for you.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Very excited. Thank you.

• 1:46:56Rich Roll?

  Um, it's such an amazing race and such an amazing community of people.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:02Rich Roll?

  Um, interestingly, in the wake of the volcanoes, they've had to change the course, right? So how are they working that this year?

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  So, um, the swim's the same. Day one bike is out and back and it finishes back in Kona because they can't go to volcano. Um, the, the place where they stay, the military base is closed. Well, it was, I presume it's still closed.

• 1:47:22Rich Roll?

  So just for people that are listening, it's three day stage race, double Ironman. You circumnavigate traditionally the big island of Hawaii. The first day is a 6.2 mile swim and then a 90 mile bike that takes you from, uh, that, what is that bay, um, where you finish the swim?

• 1:47:38Speaker 01

  I can never remember the name of it.

• 1:47:39Rich Roll?

  Um, but you ride up to Volcano National Park, the last 20 miles of which are some, it's like a crazy 4,000 foot climb with all these headwinds and everything. But because of the volcano, you can't go up there. You can't go down the backside is really where.

• 1:47:52Speaker 01

  One of the roads is completely taken out by the lava.

• 1:47:55Rich Roll?

  The red, the red road is, is like the most beautiful, pristine part of the whole island has just been washed out.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Lava's just overtaken the road.

• 1:48:04Rich Roll?

  When they say out and back, you're riding out to where and back, do you know?

• 1:48:07Speaker 01

  Uh, good question. Haven't figured it out yet. When I get there, I'll have a look.

• 1:48:11Rich Roll?

  See, this is where, this is where, yeah, Danny would have this question and answer for sure, you know?

• 1:48:17Speaker 01

  I do, but do you know what? I, I just.

• 1:48:19Rich Roll?

  I made a binder for Ultraman. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of more on the Danny side of it.

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I, I ran New York Marathon on Sunday and people were like, where's the run go?

• 1:48:28Rich Roll?

  You just ran the one.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was like, um, Staten Island to Manhattan. They go, where do you go through? And I was like, a few of the burrows. I don't know.

• 1:48:35Rich Roll?

  Plenty of people to follow.

• 1:48:36Speaker 01

  I won't be leaving, so it's fine.

• 1:48:38Speaker 02

  Like I just could have followed the maps.

• 1:48:40Rich Roll?

  The weather was great, right?

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  Oh, it was amazing. Yeah, yeah, it was beautiful, beautiful run, had so much fun. But yeah, I, I don't really care about the courses, you know? If there's hills coming up, I'm like, oh yeah, about this distance, I'll be, you know, doing a climb or whatever. But I honestly, I don't really know a lot about the courses and I don't look, you know, I'm not that, not that prepared. I don't have a binder.

• 1:49:01Rich Roll?

  It actually is easy to get lost, um, because you're so separate from, you know what I mean? Like your crew really needs to know where they're going.

• 1:49:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I rely on my crew for that because, I mean, when I did Epic Five, I had all the maps on my Garmin, just in case we got separated and I took a couple of wrong turns and did get a little bit lost.

• 1:49:19Rich Roll?

  I've never figured out how to read the maps on the Garmin. It's so tiny, I can't even see it.

• 1:49:23Speaker 02

  It never worked. It started beeping at you when you're off course, but you have to download them. Like it never worked for me. So it would constantly tell me I was off course.

• 1:49:30Rich Roll?

  It's wonky, they haven't figured that out yet.

• 1:49:32Speaker 02

  And then I was like, oh, forget it.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it helped a little bit, but we did take a couple of wrong turns, but.

• 1:49:36Rich Roll?

  But all right. So then out and back ninety miles and then.

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  St. Kona. And then the second day we go, um, over, is it Station Road? I think there's a new road that's through the middle of the island that they've, um, they've made. And so we still finish in Harvey and we still do the same run, but we don't go through the Kahalas anymore either. They couldn't get permits for that part of the road, so they've completely changed it. And it ended up going from fourteen thousand feet down to thirteen thousand feet and a bit of elevation for the day two bike. Cause they cut out the Kahalas, which I'm a bit upset about, cause I really love.

• 1:50:09Rich Roll?

  Ride the Hapuna Coast though, before that, that's like the north, uh, eastern.

• 1:50:14Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure, yeah.

• 1:50:16Rich Roll?

  That's super hard and windy and windy and lots of ups and downs. Um, but yeah, that day two bike, the kicker is that you have to finish by going over the Kahalas, which are the biggest climbs on the Big Island.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we're not, we're not doing that bit anymore. That's, yeah, there's other climbs. So it's taken the elevation down a little bit, but the road through the middle, apparently it's, I think it's like a twenty mile climb or something. So it's.

• 1:50:37Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's good.

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna be interesting.

• 1:50:40Speaker 02

  You wouldn't want them to make it easy.

• 1:50:41Speaker 01

  No, no, no, absolutely. And you know, like on Facebook, people are like, now that's an Ultraman course. And I'm like, oh, okay. I'm like, whatever it is it is.

• 1:50:48Rich Roll?

  Maybe it's harder. I don't know.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. I think the elevation's more, but I don't, I don't know if that's gonna make it harder or what it is. Cause I haven't done it before, so I don't have a comparison to it. Like I've been around the island in a car, but that's different, you know, you can't, can't compare to that.

• 1:51:02Rich Roll?

  Right. And when people think about the Big Island and think about triathlon, you think about. Ironman World Championships, which is known for the heat and the headwinds and all of that. You certainly have headwinds at Ultraman, but it's not really hot. I mean, it is hot on the run, but not hot like it is in October.

• 1:51:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:20Rich Roll?

  It's not quite, it's really not that bad.

• 1:51:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:23Rich Roll?

  I mean, you could have a crazy heat wave or whatever. And the other parts of the island, actually it was like cold and it was raining and, you know, it's not what you think of when you think of Hawaii.

• 1:51:33Speaker 02

  No. The day I went to volcano, like during touristing, it was actually really cold when we got out of the car.

• 1:51:38Rich Roll?

  It's freezing up there. Oh, yeah.

• 1:51:39Speaker 02

  What the hell? You wake up in the morning. This is Hawaii.

• 1:51:42Rich Roll?

  And then you have to do this like 15 mile descent and it's almost always raining.

• 1:51:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:45Rich Roll?

  And the pavement's soaking wet.

• 1:51:46Speaker 02

  It's very wet over there.

• 1:51:47Rich Roll?

  It's very treacherous.

• 1:51:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. The day after I finished Epic Five, again, won't be surprising.

• 1:51:52Rich Roll?

  You went out and trained.

• 1:51:53Speaker 02

  Jason woke up and he goes, come on, let's go. And I was like, go where? He's like, we gotta sightsee. We drove the entire circumference of the island.

• 1:51:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:52:00Speaker 02

  It took like 10 hours.

• 1:52:01Rich Roll?

  It takes you the whole, it takes you the whole day.

• 1:52:03Speaker 02

  He wanted to go everywhere.

• 1:52:04Rich Roll?

  And then you're like, wait, this racing?

• 1:52:05Speaker 02

  He was like, black sand beach, let's go. Green sand beach, let's go. Come on, volcano's national park. Come on, we're gonna see all these things. And I was like, alright, we're gonna get it all.

• 1:52:11Rich Roll?

  That dude needs to chill. You know what I mean? Like, he needs a little mindfulness practice, maybe.

• 1:52:15Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:52:16Rich Roll?

  Be present.

• 1:52:17Speaker 02

  He should. He does need a mindfulness practice. Yeah, I'll talk to him about that. We'll see.

• 1:52:21Rich Roll?

  You can still have your binder. It's okay.

• 1:52:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:52:24Rich Roll?

  Just like, hit pause once in a while, right?

• 1:52:26Speaker 02

  Yep, yep. That was the ongoing joke when we were in Kona. We had like 50 people that came to help cheer for Brent and Kyle. And,

• 1:52:34Rich Roll?

  Explain a little bit more about.

• 1:52:36Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So my, sorry. So my coach is Brent Pease and he and his brother Kyle Pease, Kyle's got cerebral palsy. And so when they race and they were invited to do Ironman World Championship, it was their fourth Ironman, they swam like a 107, which is unbelievable.

• 1:52:53Rich Roll?

  Crazy fast. He's pulling Kyle.

• 1:52:54Speaker 02

  He's pulling Kyle in a boat and then they ride a modified track, like a three wheel bike. That adds a significant amount of weight. It's like made out of steel.

• 1:53:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:53:05Speaker 02

  And then he pushes them running, doing a race chair and they finished fourteen and a half hours. They were the second ever duo assist team to finish Kona outside of the Hoyts, which was awesome.

• 1:53:18Rich Roll?

  Everybody knows the Hoyts.

• 1:53:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:19Rich Roll?

  But.

• 1:53:20Speaker 02

  And Kyle, so they started a foundation and that is what we do is like they went to Marine Corps this weekend and had like twenty one teams that finished. So we take people who have, you know, various, you know, levels of being differently abled and we take them to these sporting events and they're able to participate with other people and that doesn't really exist. So there might be, you know, modified baseball or basketball, but it's uncommon that you would go to a marathon and see people running, pushing people in race chairs. It's really cool.

• 1:53:56Rich Roll?

  Super cool.

• 1:53:57Speaker 02

  So that's the whole idea behind the group. So when we were in Kona, that was kind of the ongoing joke was around the notebook and what are we going to do on this day? I don't know. Check, Danny, check your notebook.

• 1:54:10Rich Roll?

  What do you think people most misunderstand about these races and what you guys do? Like when you're just, when people ask you about it or?

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  I think that people just think it's, it's too, too big, can't do it, impossible, you know, and they, they think that we are just extra superhuman or like super athletes or, you know, just something absolutely incredible that's over there that is just, you know, far too far out of people's reaches, whereas I don't see that at all. I think that's probably one of the biggest things that people like, I could never do what you do. You must be so fit. You must be so super strong and everything. And I was like, yeah, you know, you build it up over time, but it's, um, yeah, it's, it's kind of this superhuman, like godlike almost that people put you off on pedestal. I'm like, yeah, that's not, I don't really agree at all.

• 1:54:58Speaker 02

  I don't have very many people putting me on pedestals, but I do somehow people think that like I must get paid to do this. I'm like, it's the complete opposite.

• 1:55:07Rich Roll?

  Must be, must be nice.

• 1:55:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. You must be sponsored. They're like, God, it must be great to get paid to go.

• 1:55:13Rich Roll?

  So much money.

• 1:55:14Speaker 02

  Ride your bike. And I'm like, look, like Justin's nut butter might send me like, like a hundred packs of almond butter and I'm excited about that. Like that's, there is no money in this. Like there's, there is nothing. I mean, it's the total opposite. Like I'm pouring all these resources into doing it. No, there is nothing in there. Um, so it's this huge misconception that like, you know, you must, you must be paid to do this. A sponsor. Yeah, you're sponsored.

• 1:55:38Rich Roll?

  It's a lot of money and everybody is, you know, looks like a, like a racehorse.

• 1:55:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:44Rich Roll?

  It's like, have you seen this documentary called 3100 Run and Become?

• 1:55:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:55:49Rich Roll?

  So I had a filmmaker on the podcast. Actually, there's a screening this Friday night. I'm going to do a live Q and A with the filmmaker and this guy Knox Robinson afterwards. But it's about, um, this ultra run called the self-transcendence run, which is a 3100 mile run around a half mile block in Queens, New York.

• 1:56:11Speaker 02

  I've heard about that.

• 1:56:12Rich Roll?

  That Sri Shinmoy started, the guru. Uh, and you basically run from 6am to midnight every day and you got a clock about, basically around, I think it's 30 miles a day in order to stay on track. And you just do it until you've gone 3100 miles. And it's literally around a half mile city, like a, just a nondescript block in Queens, which is just outside New York City. And it follows the stories of a couple of the competitors. It's pretty small. There aren't that many people there. But when you watch these people, they look like, they don't look like athlete. They look like, just you would never think like, oh my God, that guy just ran 3100 miles over the course of a summer. He just, he's just a dude, you know, and the women, the same thing.

• 1:56:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:55Rich Roll?

  And I think that disabuses people of this idea of what an ultra athlete looks like.

• 1:57:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:00Rich Roll?

  And it begs the question of, um, where the mental game ends and the physical game begins. Like, if you had to answer, how much of this is mental or emotional versus physical aptitude? Like, how do you think about that?

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  I'd say probably be eighty twenty split, eighty mental, twenty physical. You can only physically train so much.

• 1:57:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can only be so fit. And then, yeah, everything else has to be.

• 1:57:26Rich Roll?

  And the body is gonna give out before them. It's the mind that is the limiter.

• 1:57:29Speaker 02

  I agree. And we were talking about this. It's interesting, because I will get at the gym, people would be like, oh, you must be a CrossFit athlete, or you're, or you're, oh, wait, you ride bikes? Like, you're a lot, well, you're so big. And I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, I don't look the way you think I should look to, to be able to do this, but it's right. I mean, it, it's, it's how you, it's how you think. I mean, it is, your body is gonna give up and, you know, I think if you went out and did like FTP testing, or like threshold, or all this on ultra people that are success- successful, I think they would probably be more like middle of the pack than you would realize.

• 1:58:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that has no bearing on your aptitude.

• 1:58:09Speaker 02

  They're really not gonna be that amazing. Like, you might not look at people's numbers and be like, oh, my gosh, like, look at her, VO2 max is like through the roof. What's not?

• 1:58:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:58:18Speaker 02

  I just suffer.

• 1:58:19Rich Roll?

  You probably have a low resting heart rate, though.

• 1:58:21Speaker 02

  I do, I do. Like, my skill is that I can out suffer you.

• 1:58:24Rich Roll?

  Thirty.

• 1:58:25Speaker 02

  Like, I will out, like, I will out suffer you, and that's what I'm better at. If we're both miserable, I can be miserable for a lot longer than you can.

• 1:58:31Rich Roll?

  Right. And how do you train that? Do you train that simply by continuing to place yourself in those positions where you're tested? Or are there specific things that you do? Visualization, or like, I don't know, like, are there things that you do outside of swim, bike, run? To test that in yourself?

• 1:58:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I do think that, um, yeah, I mean, that's the whole doing something every day that I don't wanna do, um, forcing myself to, to be in uncomfortable situations. And I will do things that I think are miserable. Like, I'll run for three hours on the treadmill with no music and just sit there and look at nothing. Like, I will train myself to be bored, or train myself to be miserable in that capacity.

• 1:59:12Rich Roll?

  Do you sleep in a chair, sitting up, like, like Goggins does?

• 1:59:17Speaker 02

  No, but I should.

• 1:59:18Rich Roll?

  You should, yeah. You're thinking about it.

• 1:59:20Speaker 02

  When I first started training, like I know, when I first started training, I used to like eat things that were really ridiculous and then I would go out and run. So when I was training for Epic Five, I would, um, there's a, there's a pool that's like eight miles from our house and I would run with a pack on my back and swim. And then sometimes I would have to run back and sometimes I wouldn't. And I used to ask Jason to bring me a towel and he goes, you're training for Epic Five. The last thing you need to be worried about is drying off.

• 1:59:46Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:59:46Speaker 02

  He was like, if you need a towel, we have bigger problems.

• 1:59:48Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:59:48Speaker 02

  And that was just that whole, I'm about to swim.

• 1:59:52Rich Roll?

  You were gonna call him to have him pick you up.

• 1:59:54Speaker 02

  Oh, he would never do that. He would never. There was one time, there was one time I thought about calling him to pick me up and I was like, he would laugh at me and be like, you have to find a way home and it's not gonna be me.

• 2:00:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:00:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, sorry.

• 2:00:07Rich Roll?

  Holy shit.

• 2:00:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, like he's not, he's not, he is not picking. But I'm not married to him. No, he's fantastic.

• 2:00:15Rich Roll?

  Sympathy at home?

• 2:00:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little bit, yeah.

• 2:00:16Rich Roll?

  Alright.

• 2:00:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little bit more.

• 2:00:17Rich Roll?

  I feel better.

• 2:00:19Speaker 02

  No, there's no, but he'll tell you, like you're, he'll say, you're the toughest person I know. Like he'll be like, you're the, so you don't need it.

• 2:00:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, like you did Epic Five, he didn't.

• 2:00:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, like he will tell you, you're the, he will say like, you are the toughest person I know. Like you don't need it. Like you're fine. Yeah. He'll always be like, you're fine. Like you're so tough. Like you're fine.

• 2:00:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:00:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00:37Rich Roll?

  Alright, well, we gotta round this thing down. Um, but I wanna leave people with, um, a little bit of insight that they can, you know, take away from both of your experiences. There's a lot of people that feel stuck or they feel like they're incapable of tackling difficult challenges or their life circumstances aren't such that, um, they can participate in these things. I think people in general, uh, tend to underestimate their aptitude and their abilities and their potential. And both of you are just beautiful, bright, shining stars and examples of what's possible when you apply yourself rigorously towards

• 2:01:20Rich Roll?

  a goal that most people would dissuade you from or tell you is impossible.

• 2:01:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:01:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think I had a, um, so I have a quote and it's been written on a, it's been written on a chalkboard. And it says, our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we're powerful beyond measure. And then underneath it, it says five, five, 16, which was the date of the race. And it's literally been sitting in my bathroom since I decided to do Epic Five. And that's like, that's what I will, I will tell people. I'll be like, that's really what you're afraid of. You're not afraid of what you can't do. You're more, people, people tend to get more afraid about what they, they can do when they really start to think about it.

• 2:02:01Rich Roll?

  Right. They're afraid, like they say fear of success, but it's really fear of what happens if you put all of yourself on the line for something.

• 2:02:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:02:10Rich Roll?

  Because that's a terrifying, very vulnerable thing to do.

• 2:02:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah, of course. I mean, there's fear of commitment, there's fear, fear of failure. Like, you know, Mel was talking about how many people, like when you do these races like Ram, we had 11 people on our crew. Like the fear of the fact that we paid for 11 people to be out here with us. What if we let these people down? Like, that's a huge, like for Brent and Kyle racing Kona, physically Brent was like, I'm in the best shape of my entire life. He's like, but this isn't just about me. There are 50 people that paid their own money to be here and watch me race. He's like, I can't let them down. Like, it's just the, that, that pressure.

• 2:02:48Speaker 01

  I guess for me, um, I have a lot of people, you know, just going, well, I could never do what you can do. And I said, well, what can you do? You know, it's like, you know, people are like, oh, you know, they always talk their achievements down, which really drives me insane. Oh, you know, I just ran a marathon.

• 2:03:00Rich Roll?

  You did a little bit of that earlier.

• 2:03:02Speaker 01

  Okay, sorry.

• 2:03:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  But, but people do that, like.

• 2:03:05Rich Roll?

  Aussie thing.

• 2:03:06Speaker 01

  Oh, very much so. Very much so. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like I, I know, not many people at work actually know what I do outside of work. And if, you know.

• 2:03:13Rich Roll?

  That's shocking.

• 2:03:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's really funny because my friends actually brag for me. Like obvious, you know, I'll say, oh, you know, yeah, I do triathlons and they're like, no, no, no, no, you tell them, you tell them what you do. Like you've, you've done all this. And it's like, oh, yeah, okay, fair enough. So, no, I do a bit of that. But I also pick up when other people say, oh, you know, I ran a 5K, but you know, that's nothing like what you do. And I'm like, that is amazing. Like celebrate your achievements, you know, obviously, you know, you don't have to do what I do. But, you know, whatever you're doing, that's amazing. You know, if that means, you know, you can get up off the couch and walk around the block, awesome, celebrate that, you know, like just, um. You know, just start somewhere. Like, I had to start somewhere. You know, everybody has to.

• 2:03:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:03:53Speaker 01

  So I think that's probably, probably the biggest thing. And I draw inspiration from other people doing what they can do as well. Like, I look to other people. You know, I've got, you know, friends who like ran the first marathon and I'm like, that is awesome. Like, that inspires me as well. So I draw energy from, from that as well. And yeah, like when you're talking about visualization before, when I sign up for races, I visualize the finish line. That's always for me what I, what I think about. You know, when I'm like struggling on something and then I'll be like, no, no, how amazing that finish line gonna be. So that's, yeah, that's one of the things that I, I always do as well.

• 2:04:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, uh, you know, to that point, um, you know, Danny, what you said about when you started and you were severely overweight and had, you know, you could just go to the gym for fifteen or do fifteen minutes or whatever it is. I mean, it's, it's extraordinary what you're doing now in juxtaposition to that. Because I think a lot of people can relate to, you know, being in that place and, and being afraid to go to the gym. Because going into a gym when you're out of shape is a very intimidating, frightening thing.

• 2:04:53Speaker 02

  I was mortified. I was scared to death of the gym. I had no idea what I was doing. I was embarrassed by how I looked. I wear these huge baggy clothes and that's, you know, when I tell people, I'm like, there is like, I'm not like a college athlete. Like, I, I was, I'm a really normal person. Like, it doesn't, it's not as, it's not quite as scary as you think. But you're right. I mean, you have to, short stuff is hard and five K's hard.

• 2:05:16Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, my God, yes.

• 2:05:17Speaker 02

  Things are as hard as you make them. And so just don't say, well, I only did an Olympic or I only did a sprint or I just did. You know, things are absolutely as hard as you, as you want them to be and as hard as you, as you make them. And they can really, really hurt.

• 2:05:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:32Speaker 02

  For sure. Um, but not minimizing and, you know, just a kind of accepting. It's also just accepting kind of where you are. And, you know, we went and swam together. And I had, of course, gotten lost on this hike and it's amazing that I didn't get eaten by a mountain lion. Um, and that I survived three hours later. But, um, when I was joking around and I said, you know, I swam for fifteen minutes and she swam for an hour and it's not like, oh, why can't I swim for an hour? That's not where I am in my life right now. Like, that's not, that's not what I'm, like, I'm not supposed to be there. Like, my place is not, you know, I am excited that Mel is going into an ultramarine next week, but I'm not there. Like, that's not, and just so not comparing yourself. Like, don't get into that.

• 2:06:16Speaker 02

  You know, comparison really is a thief of all joy. So don't get into that habit of saying, "Well, why can't I go out on a two-hour run with Mel?" Well, because it's been months since you ran more than, you know, five miles. So that's just not where I'm at.

• 2:06:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, being comfortable training where you're, where you currently sit as opposed to where you think you should be or used to be.

• 2:06:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:06:39Rich Roll?

  One thing I say all the time, and I think it's super, you know, important and helpful. And I also, you know, appreciate and respect the incremental progression of both of your stories, right? Like, it just, this, this, this happened over a long period of time of just slowly increasing, you know, the intensity and the volume and the distances and challenging yourself just a little bit more than you did before. And, you know, sure enough, it takes you to this place where people are like, "Holy cow, I can't believe you did that." And I think it speaks to this idea that, that a lot of people tend to overestimate what they can do in a month or a year. Like, "I'm gonna do this thing." And, you know,

• 2:07:22Rich Roll?

  generally, people flame out on that goal before they even get to that year, or they're discouraged because they haven't reached some crazy goal in a compressed period of time. But if you just commit to the process and that little progressive incremental growth that is almost imperceptible, you know, five years, seven years down the line, like, look what you're able to accomplish. So it's about like staying in the game, right? And continuing to remain engaged with that goal that you seek.

• 2:07:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, consistency is key. Yes. You can't look at, at something like Ultraman and think, "Well, she just signed up for that after she did her first Ironman" or something. I mean, we have thousands and thousands of miles in our body.

• 2:08:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:08:04Speaker 02

  And we started off on a very normal progression jet, like with a 5K, with a 10K. My first, you know, my first race had a 200-yard pool swim.

• 2:08:14Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 2:08:15Speaker 02

  And a 10-mile bike.

• 2:08:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:17Speaker 02

  And that's, I mean, and that was, that was all I could have done at that point.

• 2:08:21Rich Roll?

  And if somebody had told you then, "You're gonna do Ram."

• 2:08:23Speaker 02

  I would have, I would have died laughing.

• 2:08:26Rich Roll?

  What is Ram?

• 2:08:26Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I had no idea what it was. Although, I will tell you, when Jason and I first started dating, I found this email that I had sent him and I said, it was the Race Across America website, and this is like 10 years ago. And I was like, hey, I found this website. Look how ridiculous this is.

• 2:08:43Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 2:08:43Speaker 02

  And it's the same thing, like the whole Rich Roll. And I was like, and I remember Jason being like, there's no way we could ever do that because we like logistics and we like, you know, he's like, oh, logistically, that sounds like a disaster. They lost their nuts and bolts? No way. He's like, oh, no, no, no, there's no way. There's no way. And I'm like, they're crazy. But then you just, you don't know.

• 2:09:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:04Speaker 02

  You never say never. Like, I'm sure you read at some point, you read about Ultraman and was like, oh, that's crazy.

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  Oh, you know, I read it and went, I want to do that.

• 2:09:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's fun. Where do I sign? Yeah.

• 2:09:17Speaker 02

  That's funny.

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:18Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool. How are we going to get more female athletes, more women engaged in ultra sports?

• 2:09:25Speaker 01

  It's, it's interesting. I heard someone say, I have no idea who it was, but they said that women need to be 80% confident that they're going to finish before they sign up for something, whereas men need to be 20% confident. Like, it's just that whole disparity.

• 2:09:38Rich Roll?

  Interesting.

• 2:09:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And like, I look at people in my life and it's really true. Like, I know for myself, like, I had to, you know, four years of planning before I got to Ultraman because I was like, okay, let's step it out. You know, I need the distance in my, you know, all the training.

• 2:09:52Rich Roll?

  Have it all figured out.

• 2:09:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:54Rich Roll?

  Even if you didn't have a binder?

• 2:09:55Speaker 01

  Well, I did not have a binder.

• 2:09:57Rich Roll?

  It was in your mind, though. The binder was in, committed to memory.

• 2:10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, for me, it was, I've only just started in the sport. I need to get all that base miles before I can start training for that. Otherwise, I'm just going to break down. It's not going to be possible.

• 2:10:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:10:09Speaker 01

  So, um, yeah, I think it's getting people to that confidence level to say, yes, you actually can. And just, you know, even like dipping your toe in the water, like, you know, not just, but, you know, like doing 100K run and then, okay, so then moving up from that, not necessarily, you know, going from Ironman to Ultraman, like, you know, we did, although if they, you know, they did, that'd be amazing. But trying to figure out how to develop that confidence of, yes, this is actually possible. And then, then getting to that.

• 2:10:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think not being overwhelmed by the fact that You know, when you look at results, or you look at, you know, I did a 24-hour bike race out here in Borrego Springs, and like, there was me and Shawna Hogan racing, and that was it. And she's like, Ram, record holder, record holder for five gazillion, you know, races. She's had records since like, I was a baby, literally since the 80s. Not getting caught up in the fact that, well, why aren't there more women that are signed up? And it's, you know, the longer, in triathlon, the longer distance races, the percentage of men to women, it will start to shift. And so, once you get past that 70.3 distance, it really

• 2:11:18Speaker 02

  starts to lean more, more towards men. And I do agree that it's a confidence issue, and it's the confidence also sometimes around the training. Well, how am I gonna be considered a bad mom if I sign up for an Ironman? Like, am I gonna be, are people gonna judge me? Are they gonna, are they gonna make me feel guilty? And, you know, people don't say the same things about men. Like, nobody, when I go on a ride with a guy, nobody's like, well, who's watching your kids? Like, it's, you have to, you have to level that out at some point. And you've gotta, you gotta surround yourself by people that support you, and find other women that can not judge you and support it, for sure. And then not be overwhelmed when you look at something and think, well, there must be a reason why

• 2:12:02Speaker 02

  other women aren't doing it. Well, the reason is, because we all kinda have to come together and take that first step.

• 2:12:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, cool. I can't end this without taking a moment to formally and publicly thank the great Rebecca Morgan for all of her amazing work.

• 2:12:23Speaker 02

  I know.

• 2:12:24Rich Roll?

  None of this would be possible, or would have happened, without her tireless commitment to, not just Epic 5, but, you know, Rebecca and I go way back. I mean, she's a big part of my story, going back through early Ultramans, and has always been like, an angel there. Somebody who is really of selfless service. And it's so cool to see that you've taken over this race, and you're running it, and you're, you're, you're making it available to so many people, and that there are these kick-ass women who are crushing it right now. It's super cool. So, can you just come over here and say hi?

• 2:13:03Rich Roll?

  I want to hear your voice.

• 2:13:04Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 2:13:05Rich Roll?

  So, this is Rebecca Morgan. If you read Finding Ultra, you know who she is. And, uh, thank you. I love you Rebecca.

• 2:13:12Speaker 03

  Oh, I love you too.

• 2:13:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:14Speaker 02

  We love you too Rebecca. Don't start crying.

• 2:13:16Rich Roll?

  I know, she's gonna cry.

• 2:13:18Speaker 03

  I just want to keep Epic five alive.

• 2:13:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:19Speaker 01

  Oh, you are.

• 2:13:21Speaker 02

  And she's a great resource too. I mean Rebecca's incredible because she's-

• 2:13:24Rich Roll?

  She knows everything from top to bottom.

• 2:13:26Speaker 02

  Right. And she'll, and if you're not ready, she's gonna tell you. I mean, I had somebody that reached out to me that said they wanted you to do Epic 5. And I said, I think you need to do Ultraman. And they did. They did Ultraman Flora. And I'm like, here's the path that I would probably put you on. And she will help you. Like she will, she will help put you on that trajectory.

• 2:13:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So how many people are currently signed up for this year?

• 2:13:47Speaker 03

  Well, we just finished this year.

• 2:13:48Rich Roll?

  Oh, you just finished? Okay.

• 2:13:49Speaker 03

  We just finished this year. So we're working on next year. We have quite a few events next year. We've got Classic Epic 5, Epic 5 Canada, the 565, which is the 70.3 distance, and the Run.

• 2:14:01Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 2:14:01Speaker 03

  But we're not going to have an Epic 5 in 2020.

• 2:14:04Rich Roll?

  Oh, you're not? Why not?

• 2:14:05Speaker 03

  We're doing the DECA.

• 2:14:06Rich Roll?

  Oh, oh my God. All right. Are you guys doing that?

• 2:14:10Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:14:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:14:11Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:14:13Rich Roll?

  That's the first no I've heard in two hours.

• 2:14:16Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:14:16Speaker 01

  I, I thought about it, but I need a break. Like I've done-

• 2:14:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14:22Rich Roll?

  There's no women?

• 2:14:23Speaker 02

  Which is sad. She tried to fish me a couple of weeks ago and she sent me a text and it was, it was really one of those times where it was probably one of the only times I responded back. And she said, do you think this is possible, the schedule? And I said, honestly, no, not for me. For, for somebody who finishes an Ironman in nine or 10 hours normally, then yeah, I was like, but for me, that's gonna be a pretty big stretch.

• 2:14:43Rich Roll?

  So DECA, meaning 10 Ironmans, how does it break down? Like-

• 2:14:47Speaker 01

  It's two an island? Is that right?

• 2:14:49Speaker 03

  It's not quite two an island, almost. It's, uh-

• 2:14:54Speaker 03

  Three islands were doing two.

• 2:14:57Rich Roll?

  Three islands doing two.

• 2:14:58Speaker 03

  I think we might do three on the big island.

• 2:14:59Rich Roll?

  Right. Alright, well if people want to learn about that, they can just go to the Epic Five website. No?

• 2:15:05Speaker 03

  Crazy.

• 2:15:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know, it's crazy.

• 2:15:07Speaker 02

  That's a big invite only.

• 2:15:08Rich Roll?

  Is it epicfive.com? Is that the website? Yeah, alright, so if you lunatics out there want to learn about that.

• 2:15:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, we gotta have a secret handshake for the duck.

• 2:15:16Rich Roll?

  But don't blame me, like, you know what I mean? Alright, you guys, you are two of the most inspiring women I've ever met. Thank you for coming here and sharing your story.

• 2:15:27Speaker 02

  I appreciate that, thanks.

• 2:15:28Rich Roll?

  You guys are awesome. Good luck, Mel.

• 2:15:30Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:15:31Rich Roll?

  At Ultraman, I will be thinking about you and cheering for you and following from afar. And your Race Across the Rock, what is it?

• 2:15:38Speaker 02

  Race Across the West, yeah, so from Oceanside to Durango.

• 2:15:42Rich Roll?

  Wow, when does that start?

• 2:15:43Speaker 02

  Uh, June, March or June, so.

• 2:15:46Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 2:15:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:15:47Rich Roll?

  And if you want to learn more about these lovely ladies, the first thing to do is to read Danielle's book, Fear No Distance, which I have not yet read, but you brought me a copy here today, so thank you. I'm looking forward to checking that out. And how else can people find you, follow you, cheer for you, give you a "hey, what's up?", high five?

• 2:16:05Speaker 01

  So, Facebook is my name, Melissa Yurie, and my Instagram is at rangamel, so.

• 2:16:12Rich Roll?

  You're gonna have to say that in American. Ranga? Ranga Mel? Like, what?

• 2:16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, what is that? So, um, yeah, ranga is a, well, it's a derogatory word for redheads in Australia. It's actually quite, it's an insult, but a lot of us as redheads take it on and just use it as our nicknames, because that's the Australian way. Just embrace it. So it's R-A-N-G-A-M-E-L, and I've got a blog, which is rangamel.wordpress.com, which I update once a month, mostly with race reports and other things that I think about to write about.

• 2:16:44Rich Roll?

  Right on.

• 2:16:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I am Dani, D-A-N-I underscore Graeble, G-R-A-B-L-E on Instagram, and Danielle Graeble on Facebook, and I have a website and... Don't do a good job of updating my blog, but if you ever come to Atlanta and you want to ride some mountains, you know, you can, you can find me somehow.

• 2:17:03Rich Roll?

  Right, but you have to keep up with it. That's the problem. Or, and your husband might snipe them.

• 2:17:10Speaker 02

  I know. I wish I could tell you.

• 2:17:11Rich Roll?

  You're giving the chase.

• 2:17:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, you never know. He's gonna, you never know where he's, where he's gonna jump out at. No, he's, he's, he's, he's great to ride with too, if you, um, yeah.

• 2:17:21Rich Roll?

  If you, uh, if you don't need a pat on the back.

• 2:17:23Speaker 02

  Exactly. If you don't like to be coddled, you don't think we told you're good, be doing a good job and you want somebody who's.

• 2:17:29Rich Roll?

  He's your guy.

• 2:17:30Speaker 02

  But if you want someone that's gonna make you finish, it will be us. And I liked to tell my, my last little story here, when I was crewing for Chet, he would finish a gazillion races in the whole world. He tried to quit on me and I picked him up, threw a donut in his hand and kicked the chair out from under him and said, no, like if you want somebody to kick the chair out from under you, we're your people.

• 2:17:49Rich Roll?

  Right. And I jest, I mean, he's, I'm sure he's the guy who you want on your team, who's gonna support you and show up for you 110%.

• 2:17:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, like you want to be stuck in a foxhole with him, for sure.

• 2:17:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Um, yep, he's great. I mean, if he is in, he is like all in.

• 2:18:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:18:05Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 2:18:06Rich Roll?

  Cool. Well, if you guys, are you guys gonna get on a train today? We've got a swim to do later.

• 2:18:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:11Rich Roll?

  All right, cool.

• 2:18:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't have a swim to do, but I'm gonna.

• 2:18:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm driving Danny along for a swim.

• 2:18:16Speaker 02

  I'm supporting her swim.

• 2:18:17Rich Roll?

  Cool. Um, thanks again, you guys. Thank you. Appreciate it. Come back anytime and, uh, look forward to crossing paths again soon. Sounds good. Thanks.

• 2:18:25Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 2:18:25Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 2:18:28Rich Roll?

  Those women rock. That was a privilege. What an honor. True inspirations, the both of them. Do me a favor, let them both know what you thought of today's conversation. You can find Mel at Ranga Mel, R A N G A M E L on Instagram, and Danny is at Danny, D A N I underscore Grable, G R A B O L on Instagram. Uh, and don't forget to check out Danny's book, Fear No Distance. If you would like to support the work we do here on the podcast, there are a couple of simple ways to do just that. Tell your friends about the show. That's it. In conversation. Analog, face-to-face, or you can share it on social media. Take a screen grab of whatever episode that you're listening to and share it on your favorite

• 2:19:13Rich Roll?

  platform. Hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on YouTube, anywhere that you enjoy this content. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you can also support the show on Patreon at RichRoll.com/donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for behind-the-scenes production, audio engineering, show notes, interstitial music. He's helping me with writing scripts, all kinds of stuff. So, thank you, Jason. Blake Curtis and Margot Lubin for video and editing. Jessica Miranda for graphics. DK for advertiser relationships and theme music, as always, by Analemma. Thank you for the love, you guys.

• 2:19:56Rich Roll?

  I will see you back here next week with another great episode with entrepreneur, high-performance business coach, Todd Herman. It's a really cool conversation, all about his new book, which is called The Alter Ego Effect. I really look forward to sharing that one with you guys. Until then, may you dream bigger, may you reach higher, and may you love more deeply. Peace. Peace.

• 2:20:22Rich Roll?

  Namaste.