247. Matt Johnson: Jelly Roll’s Weight Loss, Running 842 Miles & Escaping Addiction

How does a self-taught ultra runner from rural Iowa end up living with one of music’s biggest stars and helping him lose 260 pounds? Matt Johnson’s journey from a near-suicide attempt with three thousand dollars to his name to moving into a Beverly Hills mansion and transforming Jelly Roll from barely walking a 5K to running his first mile is one of the most unlikely accountability stories in fitness! CLICK HERE TO BECOME GARYS VIP!: ⁠https://bit.ly/4ai0Xwg⁠ Connect with Matt Johnson Website: ⁠https://bit.ly/4qQ9bTd⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://bit.ly/4rw5F1m⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://bit.ly/4s2R2Te⁠ TikTok: ⁠https://bit.ly/3MmiOLf⁠ Facebook: ⁠https://bit.ly/4tRn9XJ⁠ Thank you to our partners A-GAME: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: ⁠http://bit.ly/4kek1ij⁠ AION: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: ⁠https://bit.ly/4h6KHAD⁠ AIRES: "ULTIMATE20 " FOR 20% OFF: ⁠https://bit.ly/4a3Duze⁠ BAJA GOLD: "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: ⁠https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa⁠ BODYHEALTH: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: ⁠http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV⁠ CARAWAY: “ULTIMATE” FOR 10% OFF: ⁠https://bit.ly/3Q1VmkC⁠ COLD LIFE: THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: ⁠https://bit.ly/4eULUKp⁠ GENETIC METHYLATION TEST (UK ONLY): ⁠https://bit.ly/48QJJrk⁠ GENETIC TEST (USA ONLY): ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3Yg1Uk9⁠ GOPUFF: GET YOUR FAVORITE SNACK!: ⁠https://bit.ly/4obIFDC⁠ H2TABS: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: ⁠https://bit.ly/4hMNdgg⁠ HEALF: 10% OFF YOUR ORDER: ⁠https://bit.ly/41HJg6S⁠ PEPTUAL: “TUH10” FOR 10% OFF: ⁠https://bit.ly/4mKxgcn⁠ RHO NUTRITION: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: ⁠https://bit.ly/44fFza0⁠ SNOOZE: LET’S GET TO SLEEP!: ⁠https://bit.ly/4pt1T6V⁠ WHOOP: JOIN & GET 1 FREE MONTH!: ⁠https://bit.ly/3VQ0nzW⁠ Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST: YouTube: ⁠https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8⁠ Podcasts: ⁠https://bit.ly/3RQftU0⁠ Connect with Gary Brecka Instagram: ⁠https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs⁠ TikTok: ⁠https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo⁠ X: ⁠https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf⁠ Facebook: ⁠https://bit.ly/464VA1H⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2⁠ Website: ⁠https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU⁠ Merch: ⁠https://bit.ly/4aBpOM1⁠ Newsletter: ⁠https://bit.ly/47ejrws⁠ Ask Gary: ⁠https://bit.ly/3PEAJuG⁠ Timestamps 00:00 Intro of Show 02:22 Matt Johnson’s Back Story 23:27 The Book that Changed His Life 26:16 Matt’s Running Journey 37:15 Brand Partnerships 40:33 Moving in and Training with Jelly Roll 45:13 Running for a Good Cause 45:44 Where Does One Start? 52:02 Managing Mental Health while Ultra-Endurance Running 58:00 What’s Next for Matt? 56:54 Breaking Guinness World Records 1:00:04 Overcoming Depression After the Texas Race 1:06:42 What does it mean to you to be an Ultimate Human? 1:07:50 Connect with Matt Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not provide medical advice. It is not intended for diagnosing or treating any health condition. Always consult a licensed healthcare professional before making health or wellness decisions. Gary Brecka is the owner of Ultimate Human, LLC which operates The Ultimate Human podcast and promotes certain third-party products used by Gary Brecka in his personal health and wellness protocols and daily life and for which Ultimate Human LLC and / or Gary Brecka directly or indirectly holds an economic interest or receives compensation. Accordingly, statements made by Gary Brecka and others (including on The Ultimate Human podcast) may be considered promotional in nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I truly believe any fit person can run 100 miles. But I don't believe that the reason why they don't is because you can't beat this right here.

• 0:07Gary Brecka?

  I think we subconsciously don't want to set ourselves up for failure. We either don't try, or we do things that we know we can complete.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  I have like official 100 mile races. I think I've done five and I think I've finished two. Did Texas in 24, I did east to west. I just did it this October, north to south. I'm the only man to cross Texas both ways. Fastest man to do it both ways and the only man to do it both ways.

• 0:28Gary Brecka?

  It doesn't cost you anything to just get off your couch and set a goal and just start.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  If you want to get into fitness, have someone with you. When you are doing something and you're suffering, when you know that the person next to you is suffering, it changes everything.

• 0:42Gary Brecka?

  For somebody that is coming from a similar place to where you were, where do they start?

• 0:47Speaker 00

  I'm not afraid to fail. I truly believe like that's why I'm different. And if you want to be different, you have to not be.

• 1:04Gary Brecka?

  Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything. Anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's podcast is going to be a really, really special one because I just followed and, and spent the last 48 hours with this podcast guest. Really got to know him, see his heart, see like how he thinks and operates. His story is absolutely phenomenal. Get ready to be inspired. Get ready to have the limits of what you think you can accomplish in your life. Just absolutely blown. And when you hear this man talk about his pain to purpose,

• 1:47Gary Brecka?

  I think it's going to be very, very inspiring for you. So, welcome to the podcast, Matt Johnson.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:52Gary Brecka?

  Brother, this is, this is awesome, man. We've, we've had a pretty incredible 48 hours.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it's cool to, you know, usually when you walk into a podcast, right? Like you just nobody, know somebody by like a sheet of paper?

• 2:05Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Or know somebody by videos you've seen or, you know, but like being able to. Meet you, you meet, you know, us being together for 48 hours is really cool to, because now I'm sitting here and I just, I feel like I know you.

• 2:20Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, dude, I felt like I spent my whole life with you. And for my audience purposes, I'm going to talk a lot about your background, but this is the fastest man to ever run across the state of Texas. And, and when people think like, okay, we ran across the state of Texas, realize that's 842 miles that he did in a little over 17 days. And I want to sort of back the story up because, you know, there's a theme that runs through a lot of my podcast guests. Like some of the most impactful, purpose-driven people, passionate people I've ever had on this podcast have solved a problem in their life. And they've either taken the pain in their life and turned it into their purpose and made a big impact, or they solved a major problem. And they're not always the most credentialed.

• 3:05Gary Brecka?

  Like, you know, my podcast is about longevity and anti-aging and biohacking. And, and you would think it's like all these great PhDs or MDs or researchers. But the truth is, I've had, I've had soccer moms sit in that chair that have had more impact on humanity than the smartest, most qualified PhD. And I think that you'd fit that category. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit about your background in the military. Not everything was roses, right? You did a little bit of time in the popo.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  You've been in jail a couple of times.

• 3:39Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, you've been in jail a couple of times, but who hasn't? I mean, everybody's been in jail. And, you know, I would love for you to talk about that. And then I definitely want to get into our journey with Jelly Roll. Because, you know, I was working with Jelly early on in his weight loss journey. But when you parachuted in and moved in with him, everything changed for Jelly, like, and his accountability changed, his mindset changed. I mean, you had a demonstrative impact on this man and his capacity to drop 260 pounds. You know, we were talking before the podcast about all of the demons he was struggling with. But first I want to tell, you know, your story for.

• 4:20Gary Brecka?

  For my audience, from military to 842 miles across the state of Texas.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it was very, um.

• 4:28Gary Brecka?

  Frigging mind numbing.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was very unplanned and sorry if I have a raspy voice or my lips are chapped.

• 4:34Gary Brecka?

  You did a lot of yelling.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  I did a lot of yelling yesterday.

• 4:38Gary Brecka?

  A lot of, Matt yelled for 24 and a half straight hours.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We, uh, yeah, the boys did 100 yesterday and.

• 4:46Gary Brecka?

  100 miles.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  And we're, we're a little cooked too.

• 4:48Gary Brecka?

  Yes, yeah, but dude, but I gotta tell you, man, you got my son and Kyle and the Nelk Boys and those runners, six of them safely across 100 miles. And dude, the semi trucks going six feet away from us, 80 miles an hour. I mean, the wind would almost blow us over.

• 5:06Speaker 00

  And I mean, I mean, a lot of people don't know, I mean, I would say the entire, the entire operation doesn't know that the crew that made this possible is the Texas crew that I had.

• 5:16Gary Brecka?

  Oh, really?

• 5:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it was just me, Drew, who was out there shooting.

• 5:20Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Crew chief Rob.

• 5:22Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  And Amanda, I mean, we're, we're missing one, one of my crew members from Texas. And as soon as Kyle hit me up and was like, yo, like, I want to do this. And then I heard about how the operation was going to be. I was like, I was like, I need to bring a couple of people in.

• 5:34Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  And, you know, just to, you know, obviously make this part quick, but yeah, I mean, it was very, uh, you know, crew chief Rob crewed me across America. He's crewed Paul Johnson or crewed me across Texas.

• 5:45Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  He crewed Paul Johnson across America.

• 5:47Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  He holds his own 100 mile records, you know, and he, so he knows how to do that. I'm like, I need to bring Rob in, Amanda, you know, my, my fiancee Amanda, I'm like, I need to bring her in because she's crewed me. You know, she can help crew the boys as well, knowing what they need. Drew, you know, he's obviously the filmer, but he's done, you know, he has so many documentaries on YouTube about running.

• 6:06Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  But I knew having him there, you know, Kyle has his own filmers, but I'm like, hey, if you bring Drew on to film, you're going to have a second, you know, you're going to have somebody else that knows what's going on.

• 6:15Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  And, you know, so, yeah.

• 6:17Gary Brecka?

  The amount of logistics dude was mind numbing to me. I mean, I was in Cole's chase van, so my, my, every, every athlete had their own assigned van.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:26Gary Brecka?

  So I was in the one assigned to my son.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:28Gary Brecka?

  And there were five of us in there. You know, Andy, who's like the, the, the absolute guru of endurance running.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 6:36Gary Brecka?

  Blessing to have him.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:38Gary Brecka?

  But Cole's sister, you know, myself, his fiancee, Meghan, you know, we were all in that van for, for 24 hours. I got in 20 miles on my, accidentally.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that's how it happens. Yeah, that's exactly how it happens. Like I, I told Amanda when we wrapped up, I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, that was 54 miles.

• 6:57Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  And there was times where I wasn't, you know, I was running back, like that was just running.

• 7:02Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  You know, when I would be running, when I would stay up there, I would start my watch.

• 7:05Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  And so like, that doesn't even count back to the van, to the front of the van, to the back of, you know, when I would come back to talk to you guys. And I'm like, who knows?

• 7:13Gary Brecka?

  Didn't stop, dude. We, we, the gun went off and we moved for a hundred straight miles. And I, and I was watching the comments on, on YouTube because they livestreamed it. And I was watching the comments on YouTube and I would say 70% of the people in the comments gave them a 0% chance of finishing.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 7:29Gary Brecka?

  A hundred percent of the people said, there's no way six that started are going to come across the finish line together. So.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  Beat the odds for sure. A hundred percent. No one, no one believed in them from the start. Like, like it's from the time that I got attached to it in November. Um, you know, I was going through comments on Instagram and, and people were like, there's no way you're going to run a hundred miles.

• 7:48Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, Kyle Foregard and all these guys.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  But that's the thing is like, you know, which I mean, well, I'll probably dive into this later too, but like, there's a lot of people out there that don't really actually know what

• 7:59Speaker 00

  you're, what they're capable of.

• 8:00Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 8:01Speaker 00

  You know, because running a hundred miles is pretty easy. You know, I mean, and, and when I say that, I mean, I, when I, well, when I say that, I, you know, this is what I called, this is what I told all the boys is I'm like, I truly believe any fit person can run a hundred miles. But I don't believe that, that the reason why they don't is because you can't beat this right here. Like that's why the, the point 001% that do finish the ultra marathon, the hundred mile distance, they're able to conquer this.

• 8:30Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  And that's the problem with everybody else is that they can't conquer this. So they're never going to know.

• 8:35Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. You know, I, I remember when we crossed the, the 32 mile mark, um, in the back. My mind, I was like, okay, every single one of these guys is in uncharted territory, including my son.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:46Gary Brecka?

  Um, they have, none of them have been further than this point. So up till now, up to thirty two miles, they're like, okay, I've done that before.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:56Gary Brecka?

  Um, but now I need to go more than double this distance.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:59Gary Brecka?

  And I have no idea if my body is going to break down and be able to carry this. And, and they were all in that uncharted waters. I mean, basically not, not, not knowing if they could finish or not. But I want to circle back to, um, your background, you know, because I, I want to delve into that pain into purpose journey for you, because a lot of people listening to this, you know, there's another common theme that runs through my podcast, a lot of people are like, well, how do I find my purpose? I mean, I, the, the thought of completing a hundred mile race and doing something that epic and that difficult, just to prove to no one other than myself that I can do it is not something that I can wrap my arms around.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:42Gary Brecka?

  And maybe starting with the goal that lofty is, you know, way out of bounds. But how did this journey start with you from the military to ultra endurance, ultra endurance competition? I mean, you've got, you, you, you, you've won multiple races in the five K, hundred, hundred K, hundred mile distance. You know, you covered eight hundred and forty some miles across the state of Texas. Like, go back to the beginning of how, what did that journey look like?

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it, it's been a process for me of, of doing that on my own now as an adult, right? Because there's times where I'm living this life and I kind of sit back and I'm like, how the hell am I here? You know, like, you know, so, you know, I think, I think reflection is, is very important. You know, starting to how, how did you get to the military, right? Like, like, why, because that's not a choice that a lot of people make.

• 10:31Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 10:32Speaker 00

  And, you know, I was born in a small town. We didn't have stoplights, like it was that small. The nearest Walmart was fifteen minutes away.

• 10:40Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 10:40Speaker 00

  So we had a gas station and like a convenience store.

• 10:42Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  And was born and taken back to a double wide trailer and, and, uh, my mom got pregnant with me when she was seventeen. Um, my dad was, you know, was out of the picture from the very beginning. And it was me and my mom.

• 10:56Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  And, uh, you know, my grandparents, you know, were, were around and, and my mom was working two jobs, all the way, you know, I mean, shoot, until. As far as I can remember, you know, she was working two jobs. She was driving, she was commuting an hour to work a nine to five um and driving an hour back and then working overnights at the gas station.

• 11:17Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  And then, and so I was rotating a lot through my grandparents' house and um you know, fast forwarding, uh, my mom got married when I was

• 11:29Speaker 00

  um probably ten.

• 11:32Gary Brecka?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  And that was where, that was where all of the trauma really like where it started.

• 11:38Gary Brecka?

  Hmm.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  And at that point, uh, I had a little brother, uh, who was probably three. Um, so I, I was probably twelve. My little brother was about four or five, because like we would have

• 11:48Gary Brecka?

  Same dad?

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Uh, no, no. So my brother and I, my brother and I both have, uh, we have different dads. Um, and then my mom was engaged to, to his dad and then that broke off and um then she, she got married. She's been married once and um, you know, she was married to this man who was, he was, he was a really good guy at first and then, you know, about six months in, um, shit started just really getting bad. There was a lot of, um, started with, you know, emotional abuse.

• 12:19Gary Brecka?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  Um, like I remember a time that I tell a lot where my mom went to work and my little brother and I were locked in a bedroom the entire time that she was gone.

• 12:28Gary Brecka?

  Hmm.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  Like, just like you, like, like there, like, chair to the door and we were locked in a bedroom for ten hours.

• 12:36Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  And trying to comfort my brother through that as I'm thirteen.

• 12:41Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  You know, and I'm not understanding like why the hell am I locked in a bedroom?

• 12:45Gary Brecka?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  You know, and I'm trying to figure out and I can't get out and then, you know, then it turned into physical abuse. Um, and you know, he was, you know, we, we moved around a lot. We were moving around to different, because he was a government contractor and um, yeah, you know, it, it got to the point where, you know, I remember a time where my mom was drug by her hair to her bedroom and I watched that happen. My little brother watched that happen. Uh, and it got to the point where my mom started, my mom became addicted to pills because she was trying to.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  Exit that life, you know, or, or at least numb it.

• 13:24Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  And unfortunately, in the pill addiction, um, you know, she, she got so far deep, she tried to commit suicide.

• 13:31Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  And, and I tell the story of me coming home and finding her face down on the floor in the kitchen.

• 13:37Gary Brecka?

  How old were you at that time?

• 13:39Speaker 00

  Uh, I was in high school at that point, so probably 16.

• 13:42Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Um, and she was taken away for like three days. Like, like, like if you, if you, I guess, if you like try to commit suicide, they take you and they like lock you up, like in a facility.

• 13:55Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Especially if it's like, yeah. And so I remember like she was gone for like three or four days. She came back and she like sat me down. And you know, like, cause I was old enough, she's like, she's like, I didn't want to like, this isn't me.

• 14:07Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Like I just, we, I have to get, we have to get out of here.

• 14:10Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  And, but I, but she was scared and you know, that process led to, that conversation led to, um, he smashed her face off of the front of a car and knocked her teeth out.

• 14:23Gary Brecka?

  Hmm.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  And they, it became a big debacle and he left, like, like we might, it was a big ordeal that doesn't need to be talked about, but he left and, and at that point, you know, there was a, he put us in a situation where my, like, he didn't want my mom to work.

• 14:45Gary Brecka?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  You know, the controlling or he had access to everything, the bank accounts, the cars, the, and when he left, he took everything. We had nothing. I mean, he drained the bank accounts. We had no car. Like it was, it was, I remember it was just, it was bad.

• 14:59Gary Brecka?

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• 15:35Speaker 00

  And from that point on, you know, obviously, everything started to get better, but then I had to watch my mom like battle, you know, kind of like I did when I was a kid, right? Like where she did everything she could to put food in and and give us shelter, you know?

• 15:48Gary Brecka?

  Right, right.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  Just, you know, back to working two jobs.

• 15:50Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  And she was working overnight. I was taking my brother to school. She was, you know, she was grinding.

• 15:54Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  And that is where I get my endurance from. I know that. I know that I get my endurance and my drive and my will and and why I am here is because of because of who I watched my mother being.

• 16:04Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  And, you know, so, but I think in that process, that led me to like, you know, seventeen, as I turned eighteen and I was a senior, I was like, I need to get out of here.

• 16:15Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Like, I've been like, I didn't like where, like, Amanda and I talk all the time. She's like, I wanna, I haven't, we've been together three years and I haven't taken her back home.

• 16:24Gary Brecka?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  Because I, I don't think I want to go.

• 16:26Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  And I haven't been back to that town since I, since I left.

• 16:30Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  And, you know.

• 16:33Gary Brecka?

  Now, is your brother still in pictures?

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he actually, he just moved to Austin.

• 16:37Gary Brecka?

  Did he?

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, yeah. So he, uh, um, you know, he, he went through, actually, the, he went through a big trauma that led, that ended up me is, that's why I'm here.

• 16:50Gary Brecka?

  Hmm.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  Um, but, yeah, so he, he lives in Austin now. Um, but, you know, so I, I joined the military and, um.

• 16:58Gary Brecka?

  What age? Eighteen?

• 16:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, eighteen. And I left for basic training at nineteen.

• 17:01Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  Um, so I had like a seven month waiting period until I left for basic training. And, um, yeah, it was, you know, I actually, we were talking about this. I think I was talking to Kyle or somebody yesterday while they were running. I was like, there was no, like, I was a child. Like, I can't, so we were talking about something.

• 17:21Gary Brecka?

  Dude, eighteen, you're a baby.

• 17:22Speaker 00

  And I had no clue. Like, I didn't even know. I didn't know how to do like, you know, I mean, I knew how to do laundry, but you know what I mean?

• 17:27Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  Like, like, I, I don't know how to wake up on my own, you know? Like, when you're eighteen, you, you.

• 17:32Gary Brecka?

  You can't find your ass with both hands.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  No. And like, when I got there, and that was my first time ever away from my mom. And obviously, through the single motherhood, to my brother, to all that trauma, like, that fuck, like, that got me.

• 17:44Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  Being away. And like, that was hard.

• 17:47Gary Brecka?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  And, you know, basic training, they just, you know, they break you down. And it took me, it probably took me a little bit over a month to really adapt and be like, oh, like, uh.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  I'm not leaving.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  Like I made this. I made this choice and like I like I'm here. Like this is it.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  But so what I did is I joined the National Guard because I was nervous going active duty and leaving my mother. Like that because National Guard, you come back home.

• 18:17Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  And it's like, oh, two weeks, two weeks in the summer, um, you know, one week in a month. So this, so I go, I leave basic training, I come back home, right back to that toxic environment that I left. And that turned into, I lived with four dudes. We were partying, drinking, doing drugs every night. I went to jail twice. I was fighting, you know, like I, I, I, I'm so surprised those couple, I was not kicked out of the military. Like I was a, I was not a good person. Like I came back and I just, I got swept into this toxic environment of, of where I grew up, but now as an adult. And now I can make my own decisions around here, like, you know, like just in, and

• 19:01Speaker 00

  I just, I look at that timeframe and I'm like, holy shit. Like, how did I not?

• 19:06Gary Brecka?

  Impload.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:07Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  And I mean, because I, I, when I first got in the military, I like, I have a picture of myself from like 2014 of just like man boobs, like, like I, I, I was this body and I was almost 180 pounds.

• 19:23Gary Brecka?

  Oh, my God.

• 19:23Speaker 00

  From drinking, smoking weed every day, just like, just horrible. I mean, I'm talking every single day I was drunk every night, like just, just all the time.

• 19:36Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  And it was, I think, because I just never, I never faced those demons that I had. I tried, I left.

• 19:43Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  But then I came right back to that same environment. It's what happened. That's why people end up failing at things they try.

• 19:48Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  And what led me to the ultra running, right? I think is where we're, where we're, where we're going with this.

• 19:54Gary Brecka?

  That's what I want to hear.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. So to 2021, uh, in that, in that timeframe, I moved out of that town. I got out of that partying phase. I actually, I went active, I got an active duty job in the military.

• 20:05Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 20:06Speaker 00

  Such a blessing. So I'm, I was in the National Guard, but I did almost five years active duty.

• 20:10Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Where I worked full time at Camp Dodge, which is Iowa's largest National Guard base. So I worked at, uh, Crazy enough, right? Like during those days of me doing drugs, I got a job at Midwest Counter Drug.

• 20:23Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  Where I was, I'm not even kidding. Like, I'm pretty sure I was still like smoking weed and, and I was going to work at Counter Drug where we were training law enforcement to like,

• 20:33Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  to like kick indoors and find drugs. It was, it was crazy. Um, but, got an active duty job, moved up to Des Moines, the capital. Um, you know, was making, I made E5 Sergeant, was making probably, you know, four grand a month. Um, got married very young, probably, uh, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-three, um, to someone who was nineteen, twenty.

• 21:00Gary Brecka?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  And it was, you know, it was a, it was a, it was a great marriage. Um, but we were babies. And I was, and I was still a very shitty person.

• 21:10Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  And, you know, that, you know, that led me to, when I moved to Austin, you know, there's, there's more I'll cover in the middle, but, you know, went through a divorce, moved to Austin. Um, but what got me into the ultra sport was, um, Marcus, my little brother, in twenty twenty-one, um, had two friends that were murdered. And he was, Marcus was sixteen, um, and then those two boys, the two brothers were seven, were sixteen and eighteen.

• 21:41Gary Brecka?

  They were brothers?

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they were his best friends.

• 21:43Gary Brecka?

  Hmm.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  Um, and, and, and to, to kind of just be completely transparent and tell you the bond that they had, um, my little brother's mixed. Um, and his dark, like dark skin. And we lived in, in rural Iowa, right? Where that is not, that he was the only dark kid in this town.

• 22:01Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  And these two kids, I have their names tattooed right here, Devonte and Malachi, they moved into town and they were also mixed. And so there was a bond between them because, you know, there was a lot of racism towards them and hatred. Um, and they bonded because they were all, you know, when they, when they became friends, they were, I don't know, seven, eight, nine years old.

• 22:23Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  You know, and then they grew up together. Um, unfortunately, they, you know, they were murdered. Um, not in this small town, up in the city in Des Moines, when they were splitting time with their moms. I think they just got caught up in,

• 22:35Gary Brecka?

  The wrong crowd.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  in the wrong crowd as they were getting older and they were splitting time between mom and dad.

• 22:40Gary Brecka?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  So I started looking for ways self-help. I'm like, because my brother dropped out of high school. Um, he just, he locked himself in his room, said, I'm not, I'm not going to school. He gained over a hundred and fifty pounds.

• 22:52Gary Brecka?

  Oh, my God.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  And, and like, like at one point, he was, I'm pretty sure he was three hundred and some pounds at, at five foot, five. I mean, and he, he just locked himself in his room, wouldn't leave, wouldn't like, wouldn't do anything, but just eat. And so I, I, I'm like, I'm like, you're, he's gonna die.

• 23:12Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  You know, and I'm like, I need to, and this was seven, eight months that this happened, like that, you know, because this was January, they were killed. And I didn't, I didn't get to this point until fall.

• 23:26Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  So I just got on Google and I'm like, self-help books.

• 23:31Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  And sure enough, first thing that pops up is Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins. And I, and, and the only reason, the only reason I was attracted to this book is because it was wrote by a Navy SEAL. I had no idea. And I'm like, oh, like this guy's in the military, writes a book, you know, like, cool, let's read it. Reading that book, I, you know, I was like, Marcus, like, we're gonna read this book together. Reading that book flipped my entire perspective on everything. And it wasn't the fact of like, the stay hard woo-woo bullshit is not what drew me to Goggins. It was the, if you go and you read those first three trapped chapters, he was abused. His father was an abuser, his, like, they were poor.

• 24:13Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  They were, it was him and his brother. I related to, I'm like, how in the hell did this guy write a book and go through this?

• 24:21Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  And I'm like, who am I? I'm like, I'm like, that was me, like, like, I, I, that happened to me. I'm like, and, and this guy's writing books and is one of the most well-known runners of all time. I'm like, and at that point in my life, I hated the military. I was making excuses. I was still drinking. It was post-COVID.

• 24:39Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  And I was, and like, at that point, I was still drinking. I was, you know, just, I still just wasn't a good person. I wasn't where I wanted to be. So what I did is I am not a great reader or writer. I started listening to the book. And three times a week, I would go out to the, the track on Camp Dodge, and it was a two-mile, like, loop. And I would run four loops, eight miles. And in like,

• 25:05Speaker 00

  Walmart shoes, you know, like I just, I, and I didn't, you know, and hoodie and a sweat man like, and just, yeah, I had no clue what I was doing. And I would just would, and I would listen to his book and I'm, I'm not kidding. I probably listened to that book since 2021. I probably listened to that book 15 times.

• 25:20Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  And to just remind myself, like, who I can be because he did it, you know, not the stay hard, you know, no rest days, like, no, no, that's not me at all. It's just like, if, if, if this guy can do it, why can I not do it? And that's what I'm trying to preach to my audience.

• 25:40Gary Brecka?

  So that was the early days of you just starting to run, right?

• 25:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:45Gary Brecka?

  Even, even, and I

• 25:46Speaker 00

  I didn't start running until, I didn't start actually running full time, like running 30, 40 miles a week until April of 2021.

• 25:56Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  And now we're here.

• 25:58Gary Brecka?

  Because Texas was 2022, right?

• 26:00Speaker 00

  No, Texas was 2024 and 2025. I'd done it twice.

• 26:04Gary Brecka?

  Right?

• 26:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:05Gary Brecka?

  Wow. So, I mean, would you say that you just fell in love with that? Or it was an escape? Because I mean, that's like really hard shit.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  For me, I think the reason I fell into the love of running is because it was the only time in my life that I was able to control the pain that I was in. No one else had any control over me.

• 26:28Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  And I controlled the pain. I controlled like, if you want to quit, you can quit.

• 26:34Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 00

  And, and, and I've been through a lot of things in life and a lot of situations where I was unable to have control over what was happening to me.

• 26:41Gary Brecka?

  Hmm. So you, you, you sort of start to fall in love with this, maybe not for the reasons that most people think, like conditioning and

• 26:49Speaker 00

  No, I was running, early on, I was running away from everything.

• 26:53Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  I was using that time of running as long as I could.

• 26:56Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  70, 80, 90 miles a week, and I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn't even eating food while I was doing it. But I was using that time because I was able to, in that moment, I was able to exit the fact that I hated my marriage. I hated the military. I wasn't who I wanted to be. And I just, and when I ran, I was, I found out that I liked that person.

• 27:18Gary Brecka?

  And so then this morphs into you reconnecting with your faith.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:23Gary Brecka?

  Um, you kind of really dedicating yourself to the sport. I mean, cause you're, you're an iconic figure in the sport and eventually it morphs into you moving in and, and living with Jelly Roll.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:33Gary Brecka?

  Which is, I mean, you know, the, the, the 16 year old you looking at, you know, the 28 year old you would have to be like, wow, I never thought that I would be here.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  No.

• 27:45Gary Brecka?

  You know, uh, literally earning and gaining the trust of one of the most iconic, you know, musicians, maybe, maybe in all time. Certainly in the, in that crossover rap country.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, right now, for sure.

• 27:57Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. So, um, so you start running, did you set this goal for yourself that said, I'm just going to do something really, really epic? Because you know, um, Jesse Itzler talks about this all the time, the Masogi.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:10Gary Brecka?

  Right? That, that, that one thing you should do every year that, that you know, you only have a 50 50 shot.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:16Gary Brecka?

  At completing. And I think most of us don't, I think we subconsciously don't want to set ourselves up for failure. So we either don't try, um, or we do things that we know we can.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:27Gary Brecka?

  Complete. So we set our goal so low. So for you, when was the, when was that big, bold, audacious goal set? Where you were like, okay, I'm going to run 842 miles across the state of frigging Texas.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. Okay. You want to, you want to fast forward to Texas?

• 28:43Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, so what happened was, you know, just to, to quickly get, to quickly get caught up. Yeah. Um, February 2023, uh, you know, I had, I had been travel, like I had been traveling. I'd been racing, you know, Iron Mans, and I was in the military and the military's like, you know, we don't want you doing this. And at that point I was a recruiter and I was like, hey, like I can, like that's what Goggins did. I was like, I can recruit kids by using this Instagram platform. If I can build it, like, can you guys help me? And they're like, no, like, we don't fucking, we don't, we don't like this. Like, we don't want you doing this.

• 29:16Gary Brecka?

  Why is that, you think?

• 29:16Speaker 00

  I don't know. I, I think, you know, I, I don't think that's the military in general. I had horrific leadership.

• 29:22Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  Like everyone on my team was fat. Everyone was out of shape. Like. It was the small town Iowa, it was the small town Iowa vibe within the Iowa boys and the Iowa National Guard. Like, you know, well, that's not normal. We don't do that, you know, and like they didn't, they didn't. I didn't have any type of support from me saying, I want to do hard things and post about it on Instagram so people can see it. But I never even had, like, I didn't even think, never once in my life was like, I'm going to be an influencer.

• 29:51Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Or, you know, like, I was just like, hey, people are loving, like, people are telling me that I'm inspiring them to run and, you know, like, this is cool. Really, like, the biggest moment of my entire life, the turning point moment, was I came home from Austin and my ex-wife met me in the kitchen and was like, I want a divorce. As soon as I walked in the door.

• 30:12Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  And I, we had been having horrific problems. I was, I was a horrible person. I was a liar. I was a manipulator. I was, I was horrific. And, but I never, I knew that I didn't, I knew I needed to get out of that, but I, as a man, couldn't make that choice.

• 30:27Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  Because I felt like it was my job to like, I don't, I guess, be a shitty person, but I was in this, you know, I am like, I can't say no, like, I'm in, you know. And she met me in the kitchen. She's like, I want a divorce. And that was, I got home from Austin on Monday, that was Monday. On Friday night, I was sitting in my upstairs bedroom. She immediately left. My mom had come over, my brother was there, and I was sitting in my upstairs bedroom and I loaded a shotgun and put it right to my jaw.

• 30:56Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 30:57Speaker 00

  And I was sitting, and I was going, I was gonna take my life, sitting on the floor in my bedroom.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  And by the grace of like God calling me to Austin, I, I, I'm not even joking, I, I get a text message from a friend, it was a text message, phone call, I don't know. And, and it pops up and I see his name, Harrison Zucker. And he was in Austin, because he, he, when I, when I was leaving Austin on that Monday, he was like, oh, because he lives in the Midwest and it's cold and that's why we bonded. And he's like, I'm not, he's like, I'm not leaving Austin. He's like, I'm gonna stay here for like a month. He goes, he's an online coach and he's like, I'm just gonna chill down here. Soon as he texted me something and me, I saw his name and it said, go, like, within me, it was like, go to Austin.

• 31:44Speaker 00

  And I picked up my phone. I texted him. I was like, are you still in Austin? And he's like, yeah, dude. And I go, I'm coming tomorrow. I'll, I'll, I'll explain more.

• 31:53Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  And he's like, okay.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  And I, I packed a duffel bag.

• 31:58Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  Actually, it wasn't a duffel bag. To be completely real, it was a like broken hamper that I'm pretty sure we still have. That black hamper that's like missing a handle. This hamper means so much to me.

• 32:08Gary Brecka?

  This hamper means so much to me.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  I like packed up this, this black hamper, just all my clothes and stuffed them in there.

• 32:14Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  And grabbed my dog and I drove to Austin.

• 32:16Gary Brecka?

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• 33:00Gary Brecka?

  Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Kind of dog. I love dogs.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  Uh, blue healer.

• 33:05Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  And he is, he is incredible. I drove to Austin and I called my mom on the way down to Austin and I was like, I don't give a shit what is about to happen. I'm going to figure it out. I had $3,000 in my bank account and I was like, I'm like, I'll be an online coach. Like, I don't care. I was like, all like, I'm, my, my idea was that I was going to use, at that point I had about 25,000 followers. I was going to be an online fitness coach.

• 33:27Gary Brecka?

  Cool.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  And

• 33:28Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 33:29Speaker 00

  To make that story quick, got down to Austin. Lived in an Airbnb, lived in five Airbnbs over 61 days. Ran out of all of my money.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  I, I had just won a marathon and did an Ironman within the same week.

• 33:44Speaker 00

  And right after the Ironman, I had a friend that, that gave me this bike. I sold that bike to put a deposit down on a duplex. And I slept on the floor of that duplex for two weeks.

• 33:55Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  And I just started grinding of like, people like, you want, I'll coach you a hundred dollars a month.

• 34:01Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  And I just slowly, like, next thing you know, I. Got a couch for a hundred dollars from the market, right down the road.

• 34:07Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  I got a mattress pad. Like I have, I have a picture of the mattress pad with a blanket and a pillow.

• 34:13Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  It was laying on the floor.

• 34:15Gary Brecka?

  Damn.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  And then I got a TV.

• 34:16Gary Brecka?

  Not a mattress, a mattress pad.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Mattress pad. Yeah. Yeah. The little, the little pad.

• 34:20Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  Um, fast forward there. Just started, just kept going. Just kept, I just kept going.

• 34:25Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  And the Instagram following started to grow. Um, very first brand ever, uh, Keaton IQ.

• 34:32Gary Brecka?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. I've talked to those guys. I love those guys.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  Michael Brandt. And they sent me a message and like, yo, we'd love to pay you 500 a month to promote our product.

• 34:40Gary Brecka?

  You're like, yeah.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  I know. I was like, I was like, are you kidding?

• 34:43Gary Brecka?

  I just won the lottery.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  I was like, I will give you my, my right arm for $500 a month. And, uh, you know, over the next two or three months, I signed another deal. The second deal was an alcohol deal, which was like.

• 34:55Gary Brecka?

  At that point, you'll take whatever.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  I, I probably shouldn't have done that one, but you know, I signed the alcohol deal. Uh, I started blowing, like, it was like, all of a sudden. Everything started changing. And I met Amanda and this amazing woman was like.

• 35:12Gary Brecka?

  She is amazing.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  Like first, first day we're together. She's like, well, she's like, it was Saturday night. We're going on a date. She's like, what do you, you want to go to church with me tomorrow?

• 35:19Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  And I'm like, I'll go wherever the hell you want me to go.

• 35:22Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Like, take me, take me wherever.

• 35:27Gary Brecka?

  She's amazing, dude. I've gotten into her last 24 hours.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. Started going back to church. The ball started rolling. The followers started skyrocketing. And you know, that led me, that led me to my, my Masaki, right? Like, like the big, the big one. And late 2020, all, all in that timeframe, when I, when I went back to church, right?

• 35:47Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  Like, and I, I had met, I think I met Amanda after the leg injury. So I was running. I spent 2023 running from everything.

• 35:54Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Run, just run, run, run. And I, I was like, oh, my leg hurts. I kept running. My leg hurts. I kept running. I did a hundred mile race on a broken leg. And I had no idea my leg was broken. I just thought it hurt.

• 36:06Gary Brecka?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Couldn't finish this race. Go to the doctor. They're like, you, you have three fractures. Like, like I had the X-ray of like, like you could see that it fractured in the calcium deposits. Like I can feel the calcium deposit right here because it's trying to heal itself. And she's like, you're done for six months.

• 36:23Gary Brecka?

  Hmm. And that's your identity at that point.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  Yes, that's everything I have.

• 36:28Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 00

  And it was in that moment where I had to like, sit with myself, I had to sit with God, I had to, you know, where I'm like, what do I do?

• 36:36Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  And one day, just one day, I went to the gym and I remember exactly where I was sitting outside the gym. I still couldn't run. I still was walking with a limp. And I texted one of my best friends and I was like, I want, I don't know how it came. I don't know. I have no clue. I said, I just had popped in my head. I was like, I want to run across the whole state of Texas.

• 36:54Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  And I texted my friend and I was like, I want to run across Texas. And he's like, you're a logistical nightmare, but I think you can do it.

• 37:02Gary Brecka?

  That's a good friend.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:04Gary Brecka?

  You're out of your fucking mind, but I think you can do it. Yeah.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. So that's, that, that was kind of, you know, obviously it took a little bit there. Um, you know, but that's, that's how we got there.

• 37:13Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  And, and, and it was, it was 20, 2024 is what changed my life forever.

• 37:19Gary Brecka?

  But the, the, the money and the logistics, I mean, you know, for 17 days to just be absent, obviously you're not coaching during that timeframe, you're not earning money during that timeframe. Did you get sponsors and?

• 37:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:29Gary Brecka?

  And you just lived in a van?

• 37:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. So what happened is, you know, just, yeah, just like what you said, like, yeah. The operation that we had was the exact operation, you know, we had an RV. Yeah. Yeah. We had, we had an RV and a Sprinter van.

• 37:41Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  But yeah, I just, you know, I, um, I overworked my team at that point, you know, I didn't have a lot of, you know, I mean, I had 200,000 followers. I, I had a little bit of pull on the social media side from brands.

• 37:55Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 37:55Speaker 00

  But I just started hitting them up. I was like, yo, like, how much money can you give me to use your product while I do this event? And you know, I feel like it was so good to do that because now I know so much about business and I had to teach myself all of these things because I didn't go to college. I just went to the military.

• 38:09Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  And like, oh, like we'll give you five grand for three reels and a thousand stories, you know, like it was just, they were just getting me and I'm like done.

• 38:19Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 00

  And you know, like, and we accumulated, um, $60,000 the first year.

• 38:24Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  Through 40 brands, like it was, it was, it was, I, I.

• 38:29Gary Brecka?

  Like I tie my shoes with these places.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Drew, who you met, um, Drew is now, yeah, now one of my best friends and he was, he was the lead content guy out there and I just put him through the wringer with the things he had to do. But yeah, we got, we got $60,000 and, and the operation was. We cleared, we had a thousand dollars left when we were done. Like, like we were, and then we don't, and then I donated it to Valor Fix. I was doing it to raise raise money for charity. But yeah, that was.

• 38:59Gary Brecka?

  That's awesome, man. Yeah. And now, um, you know, so I saw none of that side of you in the last forty eight hours. I mean, the, the precision with which you ran this operation to get these guys a hundred miles, like I say, including my son, across the desert in the middle of the night. Cause I, I don't think most people realize, like, running for twenty four and a half hours, like these guys did. Just the sheer grind and the, I mean, we got pulled over three times by the police.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, right off the bat.

• 39:31Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, right off the bat, dude. We were barely, and at night, I see the popo come by and he bangs a U-turn, throws his lights on and parks.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  And parks in front of the convoy.

• 39:40Gary Brecka?

  In front of the convoy.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  Facing the convoy. That was the cra- like, that was like.

• 39:44Gary Brecka?

  Facing the convoy.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Malicious. Like, like I was like, I was like, you're gonna turn and face off.

• 39:48Gary Brecka?

  You were so nice to him. Like, how are you, officer?

• 39:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  And I'm like, just keep running.

• 39:52Gary Brecka?

  Were you on shift? Small talk. But, but, you know, the, the, I was impressed with like, your unrelenting commitment to the safety of the runners. I think none of them understood the task that they were, they were getting ready to do. Like I said, there's semis blowing by us six feet off the, you know, side of the road. Half the shoulder was not wide enough for the vehicles to get off the road. And the first thing that cop said was, you need to be on the other side of this white line.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:20Gary Brecka?

  The entire tire time you're down. So half the time we're driving on all that, like gravel. It was pretty crazy. Yeah, I was pissed off because I couldn't sleep.

• 40:29Gary Brecka?

  I wasn't, I wasn't gonna complain about it. Full sister sacked out in the back. But, um, you know, so you, you, you do this iconic race in, in, in Texas, but how, how does that jump? To you moving in with Jelly Roll, because I do remember during my journey with Jelly Roll, this dude Matt, and I didn't know who you were, you know, like was moving in with him to train him. And I was like, who's Matt?

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Literally everyone, everyone, like, like,

• 40:57Gary Brecka?

  Like, how did this kid just get involved?

• 40:59Speaker 00

  News stations were like, who is this random?

• 41:01Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  Person with Jelly.

• 41:04Gary Brecka?

  Random.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:05Gary Brecka?

  I didn't have any, you know, necessarily a problem with it. I'm like, well, look, man, he's got a, he's got a chef. He's got a, you know, he's got a coach. I mean, it sounds like a great idea. But dude, when you parachuted in and were with him 24/7, you were traveling with him, everything, right?

• 41:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So we went to Hawaii, like in April.

• 41:23Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  And he was landing in LA for like a West Coast stint of like, he had things that were, you know? So they got a, they had a house up in Beverly Hills. And when I was flying back from Hawaii, Amanda was going to fly home and I was staying and I Ubered to this $30 million Beverly Hills mansion. That like, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, all right. And it was, yeah, it was the entire month that I was out there. We were traveling and, you know, training together.

• 41:53Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. And, I mean, because at that point Jelly hadn't even walked a 5K.

• 41:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I think, I think the first, you know, my connection to him was Ian Laurie, his coach. So crazy enough, 2023, when I was grinding, when I first moved to Austin, I was grinding for, you know, selling coaching to people, I get a call and this guy's like, yeah, like I'm on tour, you know? I want to run on that, I want to run around the island of Bali. And I'm like, oh, like you're like a musician?

• 42:19Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  And he's like, no, he's like, I'm Jelly Roll's chef. And I was like, holy shit, like that's crazy. And then come to find out, he's like, he won chef of the year for the UFC.

• 42:30Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  And like, and I'm coaching this guy. So that's how I got to in with Jelly is I, I gained the trust of, of Ian.

• 42:36Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  And Ian was like, oh, like, you know, Matt's personality, who he is, like, you know? And he pitched it to Jelly where he's like, because Ian wasn't there the whole time. And the problem was, and you probably saw this with Jelly, Jelly and Ian are like side by side at all times.

• 42:50Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 42:51Speaker 00

  And Ian was gonna be gone and Jelly wasn't gonna have anyone to train with.

• 42:55Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  And so it was.

• 42:57Gary Brecka?

  Lack of accountability is a death sentence.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So they, so they brought in a secondary chef. But then they wanted to bring me in to kind of play that Ian role. To help him, you know, to have somebody there to train with.

• 43:09Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 00

  Um, but yeah, I remember my first workout. I wish I, uh, I could pull it up on my phone. But my, the first workout was like a five minute walk and like 10 seconds of like, and we use the term run very loosely.

• 43:26Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 00

  10, 10 seconds of as fast as you can.

• 43:29Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  You know, and then, and then, and that was it. Yeah. And then we got in by the time, by the time that I got done, right before the Two Bears 5K. He had, he had ran one mile without stopping.

• 43:44Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, dude. And for, for him at that time, I mean, that's.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  Even when, even when I was out there, he was still three, he was still right at three, three, three, 3:30 maybe.

• 43:54Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, yeah. And that's a big boy.

• 43:56Speaker 00

  Because when I look, when I look back at him now, when we were out there, I look at photos and I thought he was skinny then.

• 44:02Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 44:03Speaker 00

  Now, now he's like, he's.

• 44:06Gary Brecka?

  It's a game.

• 44:06Speaker 00

  Now you, you look at him and you're like, oh, this guy's skinny.

• 44:09Gary Brecka?

  So many people. So, uh, I, I, I love how, to me, this is like two stor-, this is like a story of two like misfits, like with very kind of similar backgrounds. You know, doing something really iconic because if, you know, even if you've never done a 5K, I mean, to think that you're gonna take a 350, 60 pound man and move that mass over, you know, 3.2 miles is a major feat. I mean, getting to the mailbox is a major feat. I, I remember one of my first conversations with Jelly and he was like, where do I start? And I said, you just start by walking to the mailbox, like literally.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:47Gary Brecka?

  Um, just, you know, bite sized, bite sized goals. And it sounds like when you parachuted in, like you, you just started chipping away with this with these little bite sized goals.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:59Gary Brecka?

  I love how you say we use. The term running loosely.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  We use the term running very loosely. That is a, that is a full sentence quote from Jelly himself.

• 45:06Gary Brecka?

  Really?

• 45:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. He's like, y'all know, we use the term running very loosely around here.

• 45:10Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. Um, but you had a major impact on him and then, you know, finishing this hundred mile race with these guys. I know that had a major impact. They raised almost $400,000.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  And the documentary, it'll, it'll go well over 500K.

• 45:25Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 00

  With the documentary coming out and yeah, it's gonna be incredible.

• 45:28Gary Brecka?

  And I think for the people that are listening, so you know, what does all of this mean? They're like, okay, he had a rough life. Jelly's had a rough life, but look at them now. I mean, there's somebody sitting on their couch right now, maybe listening to this podcast that in a similar situation to you, and they have to take that first step. Like literally just take that first step. What I like about what you did and what I like about what you do is that it doesn't cost you anything. To just get off your couch and set a goal and just start. So where does it, for somebody that is coming from a similar place to where you were, where do they start? How does it start tomorrow morning? What do they get up and do?

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, you know, I think that, you know, I've said this multiple times, you know, if you, you, you, you have to set a goal. And I feel like the problem with people is, is that you're, you're scared to fail. And you can't, you, you truly can't be scared to fail. What a lot of people don't know about me is I've actually DNF'd more ultra marathons than I've finished.

• 46:29Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's true. Like, like I, I have, I like official hundred mile races. I think I've done five and I think I've finished two.

• 46:39Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:40Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 46:41Speaker 00

  And, you know, I, I'm not afraid to fail. That's why, that I truly believe like, that's why I'm different. And if you want to be different, you have to not be afraid to fail either. And what, what is a failure? You have to define what a failure is, right? You know?

• 46:54Gary Brecka?

  Failure is not trying.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. You know, but if you're sitting on the couch right now and you're like, well, where, where do I start? What do I do? Well, you know, tomorrow, if you're fit enough, like go run, you know, set a goal. Hey, I'm gonna run a mile. I'm gonna run a mile Monday through Friday.

• 47:06Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 00

  You know, and like, like set a goal. And here's what happens. Monday, you run a mile. Tuesday, you run a mile. Wednesday, you wake up and you're like, ah, I'm sore. I don't want to do this anymore. And then you quit, right?

• 47:17Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 47:18Speaker 00

  What do you do the next day? Because what you do the next day defines who you really want to be.

• 47:23Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 47:24Speaker 00

  And you have to be okay with that failure because, because what you do the next day, if you want to, if you want to sit in chairs like this, that the people that are here, guess what? They woke up the next day and they started over.

• 47:37Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 47:38Speaker 00

  And then you start on Thursday. All right, I'm gonna go Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. I'm running a mile. And then, you know, next up, the last time you got two days. Next up, you're gonna get four. And then you're gonna fail again. And that's okay.

• 47:51Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  You know, you'll get it. Just you have to be okay with failing and, and, and that's it. Like people, why don't you start? Well, because it's hard and, and, and I might, I might not be able to do it.

• 48:02Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. Well, and you know, I noticed too, like you're, you're very present also, like you're not somewhere else when you're doing these things. I, I'm, I'll never forget, we had just left the 93.5 mile aid station. And my son was in really pretty good shape, but I pulled up next to him and I was, I got about a mile in with him. And my mind was like wandering around somewhere else. And you pulled up right behind Cole and I and you were, put your hand on our back and started running with us. And you were like, hey, guys, never forget that this is, um, this is, there will never be a first time for you to be in this, in this situation.

• 48:46Gary Brecka?

  This is the last time that it will be the first time. So just be present, just take this all in, because this is an amazing moment. You know, you'll wish that you were right back here. At some point, you sort of just, and then you backed off. And it was just such a cool moment for Cole and I, because I've been in that situation with Cole before, you know, in Antarctica. And when he did the great world race and there's nothing to me, like no place I'd rather be than in one of those situations with one of, one of my kids. And I was like, you know what? He's so right. This is, this is the last time that it will ever be the first time. You've run a hundred miles in, in Vegas. And my mind just instantly cleared. And I was like, I'm just not gonna do anything, but.

• 49:27Gary Brecka?

  Be present right in this moment. And what was so cool was the sun was starting to rise. And that sun was like caffeine for these guys. I saw their mood change.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  Even you, even you, because you came up, you're like, the sun's up, it's caffeine.

• 49:40Gary Brecka?

  Dude, it felt like, yeah. Cause it was so cold and so dark. And, and, and it just sucked for them, not, not for me. And I looked over and I could see this fear and they, and they had this fear that was like a, like a sunrise. I've never seen that before. And, um, and it was just that, that, that cold, bright morning. And at that moment, I was like, these guys are actually all going to finish this. And you, you could feel like the energy of the group's starting to pick up a little bit.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:07Gary Brecka?

  And, um, so thank you for that, by the way, because it was like that. I needed that reframing of, of, of that moment. Just so I could be present. I think a lot of times we just go through life and we never stop to realize it's not the destination, it's the journey.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah.

• 50:26Gary Brecka?

  Like you want to enjoy the journey.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  And that's the biggest thing is like even downstairs this morning, right? What were the boys talking about? All of the painful times.

• 50:33Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 00

  You know, like, like they're like, oh, the finish line, right? Because that's probably about damn near the only good time that they had.

• 50:39Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  But, but they're just, they're, they're talking about those horrible painful moments.

• 50:44Gary Brecka?

  Cave. Yeah. I remember, um, you know, some of them couldn't even move their hips. They were doing this like side wobble. And I didn't know, you know, exactly what I'm talking about. It's like they had braces on their legs and couldn't bend their knees or their hips. And they were doing this sort of weird, weird waddle.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  Because they weren't, they weren't supposed to do that.

• 51:03Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  You know, they, they trained for 71 days.

• 51:06Gary Brecka?

  What are the top three reasons why I prefer a vertical cold plunge versus a lay down tub? Well, I've used both. When you're in a vertical position, your body naturally regulates your breathing better. So if you're holding on to the sides and you're in a vertical position, you can just focus on your breath work and you can stay calm. A lot of people feel more calm when they're in a vertical position than when they're laying down in the water and think they might slip under the water. So when you're vertical plunging, you're fully immersed faster, you can focus on recovery, inflammation reduction, and you're not struggling to just stay in a lie down position. Your body floats in and Awkward way sometimes. So it's just a more efficient, comfortable experience in my opinion. It takes up way less space, too. It has a smaller footprint. So you can put these on your patio, your garage, your bathroom, your locker room. You can really put it anywhere. I've got one on my balcony.

• 51:50Gary Brecka?

  I've got two in my bathroom. So this is why Cold Life is my favorite cold plunge on the market. So click the link below and you can order yours today. Make sure you get the ultimate human version. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. So how do you deal with the mental side of ultra endurance racing? I mean, what, how, what percentage of it is, is actually mental versus physical?

• 52:12Speaker 00

  You know, um, it depends on where you're at in the process, right? Like, I would say, honestly, at this point with me, I would say 95% of it is all mental. And 5% of it is, is, is physical. Once you're in shape to run that distance, like, you know, just like, just like you saw, you know, the reason why Cole feels so good today.

• 52:36Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, I was shocked.

• 52:37Speaker 00

  Is because he's already done this type of stuff before. The seven marathons in seven days. His body is already like, oh, I remember this, you know? So once you kind of build that base.

• 52:49Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  It's all, it's all here. And I even told, you know, right at the very beginning, even after looking at those guys, I, I told, I don't know, somebody, Amanda, I was like, if Cole was doing this on his own, he would go under 20 hours.

• 52:59Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  Like, you know, he's just, Cole, Cole was probably number, I'd call it one, Kyle at two, Brad at three. And, you know, the rest of them, that was actually pretty much how it was.

• 53:11Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, yeah, that's exactly.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  And, um, yeah, but you know, once you get there, it's all mental. Just like I said earlier, any, I truly believe anyone can move that distance if you are a fit human. But not everybody can, can, can do that. And that's what, that's what, that's what sets people apart.

• 53:28Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. When we were on the great world race, it was, we were six marathons in and Cole had gotten a really bad stomach

• 53:36Gary Brecka?

  bug on, on the flight from, from Istanbul to Cartagena. And I mean, just thrown up diarrhea, probably lost four or five pounds on the flight. He was still sick as a dog. He was fully fasted, had no fluids.

• 53:48Speaker 00

  Oh, boy.

• 53:49Gary Brecka?

  And I remember telling my, um, uh, telling Max, my, the head of our production team who, who went with us before the race. I was like, there's. No chance he's finishing this marathon and Cartagena was so hot and it was such a hot, humid, sunny, long, unforgiving course. And like just the dehydration alone is gonna, is he's gonna DNF it. I actually ended up running the entire marathon and I'd never run a marathon and I didn't train at all. But I ended up doing that just because I was so worried about my son. And, and he just went to this place, he locked in because he was in the pain

• 54:30Gary Brecka?

  cave from like mile six, just so dehydrated and every two and a half miles are these rest stations and it's Cartagena, right? It's like third world country. So the rest stations were like third world rest stations. They just basically had a porta potty and a little table with some bananas. And, and he would go into the porta potty and he'd throw up and I could hear him, he had diarrhea. He would sit on the little porta potty toilet and then throw up into the urinal. And then he would get back out and start running again. And I was, at the end of the race, I was filling little bottle caps full of coconut water and he would zip on a bottle cap while he was running. It was like the only nutrition he could take. And to this day, I don't know where he got the fortitude to go through that because, you

• 55:13Gary Brecka?

  know, my level of concern for him was like at a 10 out of 10.

• 55:17Speaker 00

  Especially when you're in a third world country.

• 55:18Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  And you're like, we don't have a lot of access as a medical.

• 55:21Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. And I'll never forget, like, I start to get a little delirious. Like, I was all full of vigor at the, at the, you know, at the start line, I pull up next to Cole and I'm like, listen, if you don't give up on this race, I won't give up on you. You know, I'm gonna stay with you this whole race. And then like mile 18, I was like, you wanna throw in the towel, dude, I'm all in. I mean, there are a lot of quitters in this world. The quitting's not as, you know, bad as.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  People quit all the time.

• 55:44Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, people quit all the time. Thomas Edison quit 35,000 times. He invented the light bulb. I didn't say it. And then I would start to get like sentimental and I was like, because I was half delirious and I was like, you know what, Cole, there's no place I'd rather be than right here with you right now. Someday, we're gonna wish we were right back here. And he looks at me, he goes, Dad, shut the fuck up.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:05Gary Brecka?

  I was like, pull the letter.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:07Gary Brecka?

  Because he was just in that. He apologized to me after.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  Oh, no, for sure. I give, I give Amanda that same thing all the time. Where she's just. And because that's it, that's when you're in there.

• 56:17Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  You know, when you're in there and it's just like you're, you're trying to battle yourself and you just can't have anything from the outside world come in.

• 56:23Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, yeah. So I think, I think that's the big takeaway from these. It's such a metaphor for life. And you know, if you're sitting and listening to this podcast, you're like, I'm never going to run a hundred miles. And maybe you never will.

• 56:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's not about that.

• 56:34Gary Brecka?

  But it's not about that. It's, it's literally about accomplishing something that you never, ever thought you could. Every single one of those guys broke down in tears at the end.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:45Gary Brecka?

  Of the, um, you just saw every emotion, even as we were coming up to the finish line.

• 56:50Speaker 00

  Brad?

• 56:50Gary Brecka?

  Brad, Brad just.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  Brad was going through it.

• 56:54Gary Brecka?

  He was, man. And, and I don't think m- most people never find that place in themselves. It's such a beautiful thing.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:03Gary Brecka?

  You know, and it's not just the pain. It's that overwhelming sense of accomplishing something really, really hard.

• 57:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, you know, I've heard that, you know, it's, I said that after Texas where I was like, I hope, I hope that anyone out there in, in an Instagram story, I was like, anyone out there can feel this type of happiness within my body.

• 57:25Gary Brecka?

  Amen.

• 57:26Speaker 00

  Like, it is the most incredible thing in the world. It's not about, just like we said, it's not about running.

• 57:31Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Speaker 00

  You know, it's not even about fitness.

• 57:33Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  Like, you know, if, if you changing your life looks like you're scared to just leave your job and go to a new one.

• 57:40Gary Brecka?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:40Speaker 00

  Like that, and then, oh no, like, like what happens if I don't like that one? Then find another one.

• 57:45Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 00

  Then find another one.

• 57:46Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 57:46Speaker 00

  Then find another one. That's the same thing as run one more mile.

• 57:48Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 00

  One more mile, you know, like that's, you have to figure out where you can apply, you know, this type of mental of like, of like, you can't be afraid to fail.

• 57:56Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  And it doesn't need to be fitness.

• 57:57Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. So what's, what's next for you? Like, what are, what is, what's your next big, bold, audacious goal?

• 58:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, um.

• 58:08Speaker 00

  July, uh, the 4th of July.

• 58:10Gary Brecka?

  This year?

• 58:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:11Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 58:12Speaker 00

  We're, uh, yeah, I haven't announced this yet at all. It's not a, uh,

• 58:17Gary Brecka?

  Drop it dude, drop it, drop it.

• 58:20Speaker 00

  It's, uh,

• 58:21Gary Brecka?

  Don't hold back.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  All right, this is a, this is 90% confirmed.

• 58:23Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  All right, so that's why I haven't really dropped it yet.

• 58:26Gary Brecka?

  We'll keep it between you, me, and 20 million people that watch the podcast.

• 58:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm gonna run 250 miles from Times Square to the front lawn of the White House on the 4th of July. And my goal is, one of our Iowa National Guard units was deployed in Syria and two of our boys were killed uh, about a month ago. You probably saw that.

• 58:49Gary Brecka?

  I did see that.

• 58:50Speaker 00

  Um,

• 58:51Gary Brecka?

  That was Iowa National Guard?

• 58:52Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:52Gary Brecka?

  That was, wow.

• 58:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And, uh, my goal is to get ahold of them and get their deployment flag. And I wanna carry their deployment flag to the White House.

• 59:03Gary Brecka?

  That's awesome.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  In honor of them, while raising money for a veterans charity.

• 59:07Gary Brecka?

  So cool.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  So, that's, that's my, that's my goal this year. It'll be part of the White House, so you know, the 200, you know, this is our, this is America's 250th birthday.

• 59:15Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 59:15Speaker 00

  Uh, this year, so happy birthday, America.

• 59:17Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 59:18Speaker 00

  So, you know, 250 miles for 250th birthday, and then, you know, hopefully I can get ahold of that deployment flag. And, uh, you know, carry,

• 59:25Gary Brecka?

  I'm sure the families will do that for you, man.

• 59:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, carry that the way, so, um, yeah, I'm, uh, I'm excited about that and, you know, there's some, there's, there's some partners involved, I'm just gonna leave the, I'm gonna leave them out of it for now, but, um, yeah, I'm very, I'm very excited to do that, and then, um, you know, the next one is getting married, I guess. Gotta, yeah, gotta, gotta,

• 59:46Gary Brecka?

  His beautiful fiancee is, is right off camera, bruised up from the fall that she took on the, on the side of the road. Uh, I was following her and I saw her eat it outside the road, but she bounced right back up.

• 59:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Gary Brecka?

  And, uh, so getting married, accomplishing this goal, that's, that is phenomenal. I'll also put in a shameless plug for, you know, Jelly, um, uh, and your Run Club, which is now one of the biggest run clubs.

• 1:00:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, on Strava, yeah, the Losers Run Club, yes, we have a big, we have a large Strava group, a Facebook group, um, yeah.

• 1:00:18Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, so we're gonna try to break the Guinness Book of World's record on April 19th in Vegas.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Gary Brecka?

  With Dana White. Um, yesterday, I was in Dana's office and, and I got him to commit to running the 5Ks. Like, I haven't run a mile in 15 years.

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  That's crazy. Like, like, when I think of Dana White, I'm like, yo, like, that, like, That's wild.

• 1:00:37Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, that's wild. And I know Dana, because Dana is one of those guys, if he, he's either kind of all in or all out. Like, when I first started working with him, and he was like, "I'll do whatever you say for 10 weeks. I can do anything for 10 weeks." And then six weeks in, he was like, "I'm never giving this up." But he committed. And so I brought his assistant in, I brought his, like, right-hand Elliot in. I got his many witnesses. I took a video, sent it to Jelly Roll, and I was like, "Jelly, Dana's in." So he's gonna run it. And the whole idea is not to set a land speed record, but just to inspire a lot of people.

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:01:09Gary Brecka?

  We want to carry the weight that Jelly lost over that, you know, over that 5K.

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Gary Brecka?

  To just show people that it's just like what you've overcome, what he's overcome. And just inspire people to maybe choose movement and exercise as an outlet.

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Gary Brecka?

  Rather than drugs or alcohol, or just isolation. And what I find that happens every time I'm around one of these groups, like the Great World Race, or the 100 Miles that you guys just did, the unity, the community that comes out of accomplishing something like that is absolutely palpable.

• 1:01:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Gary Brecka?

  Like, you guys love each other. Like, you guys are like, it's a brotherhood.

• 1:01:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I told Kyle, I said, "Yo, like, after this run..."

• 1:01:53Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  Like, like...

• 1:01:55Gary Brecka?

  The six of you will have a bond that is different than any other bond you have.

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  You guys think that you're friends now? Like, you will, like, these will be the greatest friends that you have for the rest of your life.

• 1:02:04Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  Because you suffered together.

• 1:02:06Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  That's the type of camaraderie that you see in the military.

• 1:02:08Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  You know, and that's why...

• 1:02:10Gary Brecka?

  I've interviewed a lot of SEALs.

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:13Gary Brecka?

  DJ Shipley, and, you know, Sean Ryan, other guys that, like, talk about how that, that, you know, that pain is a unifier.

• 1:02:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:02:23Gary Brecka?

  You know, that struggle is a unifier.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  Because when you're, you know, and that's something to the audience as well, you know, like, if you want to get into, you know, fitness, have someone, have someone with you. You know, if you're just trying to get off the couch, call up one of your friends. Maybe they're just waiting for you to call.

• 1:02:36Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  And because...

• 1:02:37Gary Brecka?

  Maybe they need the same thing, too.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, because when you are doing something and you're suffering, when you know that the person next to you is suffering, it changes everything. Because, because then you can, you know, in your own head, you're like, "Well, you know, if I'm suffering, if Gary's suffering next to me, then, you know, if he's doing it, then I can do it."

• 1:02:56Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Speaker 00

  So, yeah.

• 1:02:57Gary Brecka?

  So, so the last thing I want to touch on is, is you, you talked about it, suffering some depression after your Texas race. And like post-race depression, post-accomplishment depression, whatever you want to call it. How did you, how did you grapple with that? Because now you accomplished this insanely bold, audacious goal and, and you fell into depression. And I've had, I've had a lot of athletes talk about that that I, that I know, including like John Jones and Michael Chandler, you know, they've always talked about how your identity becomes this iconic figure. DJ Dillashaw talked about the same thing, you know,

• 1:03:41Gary Brecka?

  three-time UFC champion. And then you're no longer a UFC champion and like your accomplishments are yesterday's accomplishments. And now you're, you find yourself in this really strange identity crisis. Like, well, who am I now? What's next? Do I have to keep doing this to, to, to get validation? And how did you crawl out of that?

• 1:04:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, you know, I want to be completely transparent right off the bat is that, you know, the, the depression was, you know, imagine, imagine going for 17 days and having people tell you all day long, you're the greatest. You're so good. Like, you're the best. You're inspiring me. No, other people can do this. You're the GOAT. Like, you know, and then, and then unfortunately, when that ends, whether it's running or, you know, carrying a, you know, UFC world title or anything like that, when it ends, no one cares.

• 1:04:38Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 1:04:38Speaker 00

  They don't. Like, you know, and like, yeah, okay, maybe you have fans out there that care. Yeah, sure. But like, the noise stops. And when you fade from the UFC, right? Like, if you're not fighting.

• 1:04:51Gary Brecka?

  Somebody else is.

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  Somebody else is. The world just always continues to move on.

• 1:04:54Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:55Speaker 00

  And so what I found is, you know, just like what you said, it's an, it's identity. You know, I don't, like, Matt Johnson.

• 1:05:06Speaker 00

  The ultra runner, you know, the, the Matt Johnson underscore underscore, the Instagram guy, right? Like that's, that's not who I want to be. I want to be Matthew. Like I want to be me.

• 1:05:17Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:18Speaker 00

  And, you know, what does that mean? And, you know, for me, it's like, even this year, right? Like, like for me, it was, it was so big. I told Amanda after the Texas run, you know, cause I did Texas in 24, I did east to west. I just did it this October, north to south.

• 1:05:31Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 1:05:31Speaker 00

  And so I'm the only man to cross Texas both ways.

• 1:05:35Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 1:05:35Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah. So fastest man to do it, fastest man to do it both ways and the only man to do it both ways.

• 1:05:41Gary Brecka?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 1:05:41Speaker 00

  Um, but I told her, I was like, I don't want to do anything next year. Like I don't, I don't want to do this again. I don't want to like, I, I don't, I don't, I will, I don't think I will ever do a 20 day event ever again.

• 1:05:53Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:53Speaker 00

  It's just too hard on the body.

• 1:05:55Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  And, but I told her, I'm like, that's when I became, you know, and then, and then I had the opportunity with Kyle in November, um, you know, October, November, or yeah, October to become Matt Johnson, Coach Matt.

• 1:06:09Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:10Speaker 00

  You know, so then it's like, okay, like now I'm Coach Matt. Like now I have something. So then it was November, December, January, I was wearing the coaching hat and I'm just training, you know? I got, I'm just training on my own, running 50 miles a week. I'm lifting in the gym, you know? But like, I know that like this big event yesterday is coming. And, you know, so it's just, it's not putting your identity. Yeah. You have to.

• 1:06:32Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. So it doesn't become who you are. So I, I wind down all of my podcasts and I can't wait to hear your answer here by asking my guests the same question. There's no right or wrong answer to this question. But what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

• 1:06:45Speaker 00

  It's easy. To me, like being the ultimate human is, is, is helping others. Like I, I believe that we, we are put on this earth to, you know, to not just be for, for us, but to be for others. I get my most fulfillment when I am, when I am helping others. I never had anyone there for me.

• 1:07:06Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Speaker 00

  I never had a dad there for me. I never had anyone telling me how to run, how to lift. Like I had to go to the gym and just watch people doing, you know, tricep, you know, tricep push downs. And I'm like, okay, like I'm going to copy that, right?

• 1:07:19Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 1:07:20Speaker 00

  I never had anyone there for me. Like if you know something, share it with somebody, be there for somebody. And that, like, to me, like, that is the ultimate human, like just showing.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  Just showing love to others is just like that is

• 1:07:34Gary Brecka?

  That's amazing, man.

• 1:07:35Speaker 00

  That's it. It's helping.

• 1:07:35Gary Brecka?

  I gotta say like John Maxwell, one of the greatest success authors of all time. He talks about the difference between living a life of significance and living a life of service. And like being in service to other people and like how much more fulfilling it is. Brother, mad respect for you, man. Thank you for getting my son 100 miles through the desert safely. Appreciate you. We're gonna follow your story.

• 1:07:57Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:07:57Gary Brecka?

  How does my audience find you if they want to know more about you?

• 1:08:00Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Instagram, you know, Instagram page at Matt Johnson. Google Matt Johnson Runner. You'll find all the crazy stuff. And then YouTube, yeah, on the YouTube, you know, we're trying to, I'm trying to, one of my goals this year is I want to hammer down on the YouTube. Just doing, doing cool stuff and documenting.

• 1:08:18Gary Brecka?

  Inspirational stuff.

• 1:08:19Speaker 00

  I built the Instagram following through all the funny, you know, BS. But like now, like I want to really show people like the life I'm living.

• 1:08:25Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Speaker 00

  And, you know, hopefully they can figure out how to, you know, get there for themselves as well.

• 1:08:29Gary Brecka?

  Sounds great, man. Matt, I hope you come back on the ultimate.

• 1:08:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

• 1:08:32Gary Brecka?

  And until next time, that's just science.