Elite Spartan Athlete Hunter McIntyre On How Obstacle Course Racing Saved His Life

At odds with the world seemingly since birth, the future wasn't looking so bright for Hunter McIntyre. A misfit kid with uncontrollable attention deficit disorder, Hunter realized early and often he functioned on one mode no sedative or bipolar medication could possibly curb: full blast. Discovering drugs and alcohol at 14 give his ill-at-ease nature comfort, but trouble soon follows. A downward spiral that invites increased school suspensions; escalating run-ins with Johnny Law; and even a short-lived, unsuccessful stint at military school in West Virginia. Facing jail time or rehab for a drug-fueled senior year prank gone terribly awry, Hunter's despairing parents ultimately ship him off to outpatient care in Montana, hoping clean air and big skies will bring grounding and perspective to young Hunter's errant ways. But dirty drug tests follow, leading to incarceration-type rehab stays in Nevada and New Mexico. Ultimately Hunter's sobriety officer intervenes, hooking him up with a logging job back in Montana. Hunter bulks up. Sober up? Not so much. The next chapter finds Hunter in Los Angeles, failing upward with lucrative modeling gigs for companies like J. Crew and Abercrombie and Fitch while setting his sights on becoming a celebrity personal trainer. But life goals are eclipsed by an ever-escalation in partying. Living the sun-drenched frat boy lifestyle in a Malibu bro-house, days and nights revolve around girls, ecstasy, mushrooms, acid, more girls and even more alcohol. A spontaneous booze-fueled, chest-pumping whim leads to Hunter and his Malibros challenging each other to sign up for a local Spartan Race — unchartered terrain for all involved. But come race day, only Hunter is able to drag his hung over body out of bed. Despite several beers enjoyed that morning, he nonetheless finishes ninth overall, just eight minutes behind world champion and 2:16 marathoner Hobie Call. And just like that, the lights turn on. It's the wake up call Hunter needed. The rest is history. Immediately parting ways with his partying ways, purpose and focus take center stage. Almost overnight, Hunter morphs into the man they call The Sheriff, transforming himself into one of the world's best obstacle course racers. A rare talent with the body and size of a cross fitter who not only excels at strength, speed and agility but also boasts the endurance of a Kenyan. Sponsorship offers soon follow. Magazine cover stories abound. And notoriety ensues, outpaced only by The Sheriff's now famous, quickly growing ego. Full blast finally found a life. If you know anything about Hunter, you know he has a huge, at times controversial personality. But there is a thoughtful, far more contemplative side to this brash, outspoken athlete than meets the eye. I think you will be surprised by our conversation. I know I was. Specific topics explored include: * Hunter's colorful past * what is OCR? * replacing superficiality with performance * Hunter's typical training day * ego rightsizing * the importance of meditation * exploring the vegan lifestyle * Hunter's Achilles heel * Hunter's daily routine * the SEAL dream * advice to the younger self * Joe DeSena & the Death Race * the importance of surrounding yourself with selfless people I sincerely hope you enjoy our exchange. I really enjoyed my time with Hunter and I think you will too. Peace + Plants, Rich 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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• 1:04Speaker 01

  Well, you never know the highest highs until you've experienced the lowest lows. And I've been there, and I've seen it.

• 1:09Rich Roll?

  That's champion Spartan race athlete Hunter McIntyre. And this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:30Rich Roll?

  Greetings to the world of podcast listeners. Welcome to the show. My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. But you guys already know that, right? You push play on this. You found it on iTunes. You're purposely selecting this episode for your infotainment, which I appreciate greatly. Thank you very much. So I don't know why I go through this rigmarole every week. Well, in any event, if you're new, what do I do here? Well, each week I sit down with the best and the brightest, with thought leaders across all categories of health, wellness, diet, nutrition, what else? Spirituality, consciousness, entrepreneurship, mindfulness, meditation, and in the case of today's guest, athletics, fitness.

• 2:10Rich Roll?

  ...performance and the like. So, thank you so much for tuning in today. I really appreciate all the support. I love you guys. I appreciate all the shout outs on social media, sharing it with friends, subscribing on iTunes. Can I talk today? Leaving a review and all that good stuff means so much to me. And of course, for always using the Amazon banner at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. Making a habit out of that really does support us tremendously. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am going to use the opportunity to make one quick announcement. It's short, but you're gonna like it. Guess what? Julie, my wife, and my sometime co-host on the Ask Me Anything episodes of the show, well, you might not

• 2:54Rich Roll?

  know that she recently launched her own podcast. How about that, right? It's called Divine Throughline. It's really cool. It's very different from my show. If you enjoy Julie in her guest appearances on the RRP, I think you're gonna really dig it, because it is Julie completely in her element and uncensored. It's basically spiritual musings. It's not a guest-based show. It's basically her talking, telling stories, and relating her experience in the spiritual context to kind of illuminate the divine through line in life. And it's really cool. It's laced with music. There's always a musical performance. I think Tyler was just on the

• 3:36Rich Roll?

  other day. She's had Brad Swanson, who is somebody that we collaborate with on musical projects. He's the sound engineer on the show, and he kind of works as the co-host on the show. It's really cool. In any event, she's got 11 episodes up. She's doing two a week. One of them is a show proper. It's about 35 to 45 minutes where she kind of muses and shares. And the second one is a practice, like a takeaway, whether it's a meditation practice, or some kind of tool that you can use in your own journey. And it's really cool. Check it out. Again, it's called The Divine Throughline. Support the show. Subscribe to it on iTunes, and let me know what you think. So that's it. Okay.

• 4:20Rich Roll?

  So today on the show, really excited to have superstar obstacle race athlete Hunter McIntyre, AKA The Sheriff. Hunter burst onto the scene of this fairly new sport. It's a sport that has really been exploding, however, in popularity over the last couple of years, and almost overnight established himself as one of the world's best in the Spartan race discipline. He is a rare talent in this world, in this field, because he's got like the body and the size of a CrossFitter, so he can excel at strength and speed and agility, but he also has the endurance of a Kenyan. It's a very potent combination. But perhaps more compelling is that he has this very interesting background.

• 5:04Rich Roll?

  He was a full blast misfit kid with uncontrollable ADD. He discovered drugs and alcohol at 14 that sent him on this kind of downward slide, getting into trouble all the time, accumulating a robust police record, arrests, ultimately getting him shipped off to Montana to get his head screwed on straight. He ends up becoming a male model in LA, which does not put a cap on his wild partying lifestyle. And it wasn't until he discovered obstacle racing that he began to put his troubled habits in the rearview. And as soon as he turned his formidable energy on Spartan, almost overnight, this guy like

• 5:44Rich Roll?

  transforms into one of the top-ranked, if not the top-ranked player on the Spartan circuit. He's a guy with a huge personality. He's graced the cover of magazines like Men's Journal. He's been profiled in Outside Magazine, all of which have been very instrumental in aiding the growth and exposure of this kind of emerging, exciting sport. And if you're familiar with Hunter, or you've seen other interviews with him, I think you're going to be surprised by our conversation. I know that I was. And I think, you know what? I think that's all I'm going to say. Let's hear it from Hunter directly. But first...

• 6:25Rich Roll?

  So you're living full-time in Malibu now?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, up at the top of Latigo.

• 6:29Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So you're, so you must be neighbors with like Laird Hamilton and Darren O'Leary?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:35Rich Roll?

  And those guys? Are you part of their Saturday morning workout situation?

• 6:38Speaker 01

  I got involved with that clique a little bit last summer. I used to run up, up past their house. I'd ride my bike past their house and like, you know, I'd shout at them, things like that. And eventually Laird invited me in and it was an incredible experience. I mean, that is, that is a wolf pack right there.

• 6:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  They're like majestic beasts.

• 6:55Rich Roll?

  They're a tight, they're a tight group? For years I was like, how do I get in on that group? I didn't know anybody. Like I've been living here, but I was a nobody. But you'd hear these stories, you know, about like what those guys would do. But it was like this very closed off group. And then I had Darren on the podcast. He's like, you should come up, you should come and do it. And then I got scared. I need like a couple of months of like really working out to prepare myself. Cause I don't want to go there and look like an idiot, you know?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  I was put to shame by an Olympic rower there, a female Olympic rower. So, I mean, you have to...

• 7:27Rich Roll?

  Brian's wife?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  No, not Brian's wife. It was one of the girls that she trains with.

• 7:31Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  And it's the type of thing where you gotta kind of check yourself before you go to the front door. And you just kind of like, anything that happens here, I'm just gonna let it go.

• 7:39Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  But it's mesmerizing. Like you're doing these pool movements and there's just people around you. And there's Pink Floyd being played throughout the pool and there's bubbles being blown up in the air. It's a whole experience. And, you know, I cherish these kinds of things you find in Malibu.

• 7:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I gotta, I'm gonna tap into that.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  You gotta go now. Darren's an amazing guy. He taught me some good tips.

• 7:57Rich Roll?

  He's great, you know, he's super cool. I think he's in Mexico right now, or he was, but... And Laird's probably, they're probably gone in Kauai now, by now, I would think.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  They jumped ship, I think, like, you know, early, you know, early fall.

• 8:08Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. So do you have, like, is it like a bro house? Like what's going on up there?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  No, but I'll, I'll cue off with a crazy story about how I ended up in Malibu. One of my friends in college, you know, we called him Mo Dini. He was always doing like kind of random weird things and we never really knew what Mo was up to. And one day he just goes, Hunter, I'm gonna go out to California. I'm gonna go make it big. And I was like, whatever, Mo. Do your thing, bro. Six months later, I get an email from him. I said, he's like, Hunter, I'm gonna fly you out here and I wanna tell you something big. And he goes, you know, I was like, whatever. I'd love to see ya. I get a first-class ticket in my email box. He flies myself and eight other friends out here to California and he bought a big mansion in Malibu for a year for all of us to live there. He hit big in the stock market.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  And basically, like, we had this entourage going for a year. And like, that's how I fell in love with Malibu. Just this crazy experience, something you'd have to have in some kind of book or movie eventually in life, but...

• 9:00Rich Roll?

  How many years ago was that?

• 9:01Speaker 01

  That was in 2011.

• 9:03Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  And it shocked me. I mean, like, we-

• 9:05Rich Roll?

  But this was like a very different Hunter, though, right?

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Oh, this was crazy. I mean, this, we'll backtrack all into the situations of how I went through my party days and everything, but like, I was introduced into this lifestyle, which is, you know, a beautiful part of my life now, as a party boy. And like, Malibu's not known for a party scene, but that's how I was introduced to it. So, I transitioned into the place that I have right now, which is kind of more of like a hippie artist community, because I was working on someone's property and I'd help, you know, walk their dogs while they were gone and things like that. And I ended up breaking up with my girlfriend who I was living with and I was like, hey, man, I've got nowhere to live. Do you have any kind of clue of where I can live?

• 9:38Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  My friend kinda reached out and just said, hey, you can stay on my property. Take care of it. So, that's been two years now where I live up in this amazing place. I mean, it's, uh, Google Rising Star Ranch and you'll be able to find out about it.

• 9:50Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. Okay. Definitely, man. I wanna come and check it out.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  It's majestic. You gotta come up there. I try to tell everybody, but as you said, you know, as the crow flies in Malibu, something could be a mile away, but then it could be like a 35-minute drive.

• 10:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's funny, because where you live, I'm like, you told me where you live. I was like, that's really kind of a hike from here. And people think of Malibu, they just think of this little strip of beach, but there's actually like, I don't know, 28 miles of coastline. And then beyond that, there's all, you know, where we live in the mountains, you live on a completely different canyon. Like, I ride my bike up La La Go all the time.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  It's a whole different world.

• 10:20Rich Roll?

  But that's like a ways from here. Yeah.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. You're always welcome, my friend.

• 10:24Rich Roll?

  All right, well, I'll take you up on that, man. Well, let's, I want to get into the origin story and all of that, but before we do that, why don't we just like set the stage? And, and, you know, for people that are listening that are maybe unfamiliar with the world that you are currently dominating. Let's just explain what OCR is, obstacle course racing and kind of the different variations of that and kind of, you know, get our foot, our feet wet in, in the sport.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, obstacle course racing is kind of a dynamic sport where it could last anywhere from, you know, 800 meters, not even like American Ninja Warrior style, like it's a very popular television show right now. That kind of falls into the category. And then it goes all the way up to the 24 hour events or like, you know, the Fuego de Aguas races where we're doing adventure races throughout the jungles and there's natural obstacles that they have people do. But mainly I'm kind of stuck in the category of these, you know, battle frogs and Spartan races and Tough Mudders that I compete in. Where they're kind of testing, it's almost like a cross-country meet meets like, you know, a military obstacle course race. And it's, it's amazing, you know, it's one of the fastest growing sports in the world now. So I think.

• 11:30Rich Roll?

  I think I read it's growing faster than marathon racing.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Totally. I think.

• 11:34Rich Roll?

  There can't be as many people doing it as marathons because marathons.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:37Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, but those marathon, thousands and thousands of people show up for some marathon every weekend, it seems like.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that, so in Temecula, which is the biggest event of the year, I think they had 30,000 people there. Last year.

• 11:50Rich Roll?

  And do they, they must have to do it in heats though. They can't have everyone do it at the same time, right?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  There's swarms. It's crazy. It's crazy.

• 11:56Rich Roll?

  I know the one that, there's the one in Malibu that's literally right down the street here and I watched it from afar as my car was driving quickly by.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  But they get 10, 12,000 people.

• 12:05Rich Roll?

  I've never, is there that many people at those? Yeah. I didn't even know.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  To the point where I'm almost like, you guys probably have to start capping this thing off. Cause one, it's just, the experience gets a little bit out of control when it's just like a flood of people trying to go through these things. And two, just probably not the safest thing in the world, but.

• 12:21Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, I would imagine, right? So is there, so there's, there are these, there's different, there's like a governing body now, right? Is that true that like regulates all this? And then within that world, there are different organizations. There's the Spartan Race and there's the Tough Mudders and you know, what is the differentiation between those?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Well, Tough Mudder is an experience. It's a run, not a race. So they really want people to come out there and focus on the experience. Like they want you to get dirty. They want you to try things you never would have experienced before, like getting shocked by an electric wire, jumping in a cold plunge. Spartan Race is trying to really tackle you in a way that they're trying to, you know, force you into like challenging yourself via speed and picking up heavy things. It's like really a competition. That one's like grit. That one's all grit. And to the point where, I mean, I'm having to crawl under barbed wire every single weekend. I'm having, I'm always cut and scraped up and things like that. It's a rugged lifestyle.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  But I think, you know, the, the sport of obstacle course racing is something that, you know, there's a, there's a documentary my friend made called Rise of the Suffer Fest that you should check out. It's all about kind of getting people out of their comfort zone. And I think there's a lot of experience revolved around that these days, but this is probably the biggest exposure you're going to get for people like that.

• 13:37Rich Roll?

  And I think that, that's a big part of the, you know, explosion and popularity and the success equation, you know, people are looking for ways to, you know, break their mundane life up, you know, and, and we're in this culture that prioritizes, you know, comfort and security and, and that's fine, but I think we all have an innate, you know, genetically inbred yearning to get out of that comfort zone. And, you know, so to be able to provide people with that experience and then allow them to go back to their job, you know, I can see why it's so successful.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. My stepmother came into one of my events one time and my dad wanted to do it and she didn't want my dad doing it. He's like, she's like, Douglas, you can't, you can't do this event. And she ended up chasing him through the event in like little, you know, Chanel slippers and an overcoat and everything like that. And at first she was really pissed off that she had to chase my dad. But then afterwards, I saw this smile and life in her that I've never seen before. So I think everybody kind of needs to get out there and give it one try. And I think, you know, it's the difference between, you know, when you run your first marathon, it's something where everyone kind of feels so liberated. It's something that you've been wanting to accomplish. Heard about it so many times and I think mud running is starting to become like that new peg in the community where people are like wow I did it you know they really you know you can actually walk around towns or in airports now where you see people wearing Spartan race shirts and things like

• 14:55Speaker 01

  that they wear it with pride

• 14:57Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. So and the Spartan races really that's your that's your baby, right?

• 15:01Speaker 01

  That is my baby.

• 15:02Rich Roll?

  That's what you are, that's what you're specializing in.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  I'm a Spartan pro team athlete. So yeah, I gotta kinda.

• 15:07Rich Roll?

  So let's uh, so let's track it. Uh, how did it begin for you? Like take me through the experience of signing up for your first race and why you did that and kind of what has happened since?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  So in that frat house I was explaining, uh.

• 15:21Rich Roll?

  Well, we'll get in it, we'll get into that. We'll get into the early, the early ADD hunter getting into trouble stuff in a minute, but yeah, let's start at the frat house.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Okay, well, the frat house, I'll just say that we were all hanging out and we'd always just like kind of be in different rooms doing weird things, you know, whether it be YouTube videos, drinking beer, kinda, you know, playing card games, whatever it was for the day. All of a sudden, my friend charges in my room and starts screaming the Spartan race and I had no clue what he was talking about. So we all just start jumping up and down, getting excited because we were rowdy guys. And so he shows us on the computer, there's this event called Spartan race and we were all kinda, you know, bro guys in the gym. We'd all lift weights and you know, we'd kinda play basketball in the backyard type things. We thought we were gonna be champions at it.

• 16:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  So we just sign up and we're like, we're gonna throw down. No questions asked. I'm gonna charge on this thing. So I show up and you know, this is still in my party phases. I showed up to the starting line and I was drunk. I was in a pair of underwear and a headband and I was just in a pair of tube socks and I was like, I'm ready to throw down.

• 16:19Rich Roll?

  Cause these races are parties, right?

• 16:21Speaker 01

  They are. Some of them are.

• 16:22Rich Roll?

  They're serving beer like before the race?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Before, after, during. I know people go out there and like with camel packs filled with beer, like, you know, you know, vodka, Red Bull type things because they, people just want to have a good time. And that's what I was there for, but I had a little bit of competitive element in me. So I just start charging and it was like as if, you know, it was like the snap of that gun, the shotgun start that I used to have back in my cross country days and I was gone and I felt like a million bucks. I'm climbing up ropes, I'm throwing spears, I'm jumping over walls and there's dirt. Flying off the back of my shoes. I'm sweating. I'm breathing like crazy and it just clicked. You know, this combination, I was always a lover of running and I loved cross country and things like that.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  But, and I also liked lifting weights and it all seemed to kind of just come together at the moment. And I just said, I'm in love with this thing. And I told my friends and I told my family, I was like, I'm going to become the best in the world at this. And my dad and my mom were like, whatever. They just kind of shrugged it off. They're like, could you get a real job?

• 17:21Rich Roll?

  So, so just to back it up a little bit, like of all your buddies though, you were the only one who

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Only one who showed up.

• 17:27Rich Roll?

  Who showed up, like what, they were all just too hungover or something like that?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Everybody kind of just, everyone kind of just dodged me.

• 17:33Rich Roll?

  And then how did that race go? Like where did you end up in that race?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  I ended up first in my heat and I think sixth place overall. And there was thousands of people, but I didn't, I mean, like I looked at it and I was like, okay. You know, that looks pretty cool. And then, you know, I just went back to my drinking and didn't really, you know, pay any attention to it for another like eight months. But then, you know, I had, it just kept on calling to me. So I just started kind of going to act sites like active.com or just anything, just trying to source as much information as possible. And like then I, that's how I first found out about you because I was reading about like triathlon. I was, you know, reading about Dave Scott, Mark Allen. I've actually named my two feet after those guys. And I just got obsessed with it and I started training and I just wanted to focus so hard and learn how to become the best.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  But, you know, it was still a cocktail of a party boy meets a pro athlete.

• 18:22Rich Roll?

  Right. So that's like, we're talking about like 2012 around this time.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, 2011 to 2012.

• 18:28Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And, and where did it kind of click in like, okay, you really, you actually have a shot at being one of the best guys? I mean, how many races did you do before? I mean, did you hire a coach and like how regimented was your training originally versus what it is now?

• 18:43Speaker 01

  YouTube was my coach. YouTube. I think that's how all great athletes start is probably the internet nowadays. Like, you know, you just find all this ridiculous information. You start training like a madman. But I showed up to a Sacramento race about just under a year after I had done my first one. And I had researched this guy named Hobie Call. He was the best in the sport. You know, he was like, you know, the Mark Allen, Steve Scott's of triathlon. And I was like, I need to catch him. I swear, I just need to catch him. And I showed up and I just threw down. And he and I were shoulder to shoulder the whole race. It was exactly what I wanted to experience. And then at the end, I, you know, it's in these kind of races. It's all about waiting for one screw up and then you're done. You know, you're out of the standings.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  So I screwed up and he ended up beating me out. And that's when I knew that it was my time.

• 19:31Rich Roll?

  And that was how long into this journey?

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Uh, this was only probably about like a year later. But I had, I took like a six month hiatus where I just went straight back to just partying like a madman. Because, you know, people really have their dreams, but I don't think a lot of people want to step up after them. You know what I mean? So I talked about it a lot, but then all of a sudden, like, you know, I would say around that summer, it really started to become a passion of mine. But I still was like really heavy into the partying scene. I knew that I had to like take my life seriously and change my life after one event. Um, it was actually like the first week of January, uh, following that race.

• 20:07Rich Roll?

  Right, so this would be a good place to jump, jump back into the, a little bit more of the origin story. I mean, you were, you were like a rowdy kid, right? Like you were difficult to control. I think it's fair to say, uh, ADD, hyperactive, uh, always getting into trouble.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  To say the least.

• 20:25Rich Roll?

  Um, you know, started doing drugs at 14 or something like that. Like, where was this happening? Where were, is this in Connecticut?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yes, I was, uh, I was born in New York City, raised in Connecticut and Westchester, New York. So my mom and dad split when I was young. And I ended up spending the majority of my time with my mom and like every other weekend and every Wednesday with my dad. So I still had a very tight connection with him. And I don't know what it was. I, I think, you know, I think this nowadays, I, as I start to look back at it, I, I start to write things down just so I could understand my past better. You know, I've become more, you know, that's something I'm comfortable with these days. I think it was just so crazy. They took, I was in the era of ADHD when it was in its prime, like when they first discovered it and they started to discover Ritalin and Adderall and things like that. So they just wanted to throw these things at kids like Skittles, just like eat it, control the beast. And they, they had me on medication like that

• 21:17Speaker 01

  from like the age of like six or seven. And I don't know why, they just didn't try to channel my energy through, you know, positive outlets, which I'm assuming they, they've done with kids nowadays.

• 21:27Rich Roll?

  Right. Like if you can't sit down and pay attention, there's something wrong with you as opposed to, well, let's figure out like what makes this kid tick and kind of channel that energy into something productive.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's crazy. And I, I mean, like, that's something I want to give back, you know, later on in life, when I'm successful enough that I can start to return to the community and give back. That's something I want to start to express is like, you know, basically helping kids who are in my situation. But just to go back to my story, I realized I was just a wild kid and like, you know, my parents would monitor me eating the pills because the teachers were so adamant about it. Like, you know, Hunter has to take his medication today. We could tell he was off it yesterday.

• 22:01Rich Roll?

  Do you, do you remember what it feels like to be on all those pills?

• 22:05Speaker 01

  It just felt like my head was in a fishbowl. I remember like I would just be sitting there from, I would be looking at the rest of the world with like a pane of glass in front of me. Something wanted to come out, but it just wasn't there. I mean, it was very good at suppressing, you know, the kind of energy I had. And I remember they got me so hyped up on one kind of medication. I think it was called Dexedrine. I, I literally had this vicious tick where I would just keep my heads, my hands and my hair. And I would just-

• 22:34Rich Roll?

  It's like speed, right?

• 22:35Speaker 01

  It was.

• 22:36Rich Roll?

  It's weird how you give hyperactive kids like speed, like-

• 22:38Speaker 01

  I don't even know what they're-

• 22:40Rich Roll?

  And for some reason it has the reverse reaction. But yeah, you're like a meth addict, start pulling your hair out and like-

• 22:45Speaker 01

  That's what happened to me. That's what happened to me. And I got really good. I got really clever at being able to hide pills and like my fingers and things like that. Like me, like, you know, grasping it, but then slipping it between my fingers right away and putting it in my mouth, pretending like I ate the stuff. So eventually like, you know, I was hiding from it all, you know, I just didn't want to handle it anymore. But as I started to get older, you know, you start to realize that the pills that you're taking, that, you know, it's supposed to be controlling you. A lot of kids are starting to abuse and like you start to hear about it around school and then- You start to get to understand like, well, if they're having a good time with it, then I can buy it. I basically have a bag full of it.

• 23:19Rich Roll?

  Right. You either have a good time, or you can sell it and become a little dealer.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, like, I didn't want to try to make any profit off my days, but um, I don't know, like, eventually, it just became something where I had a lot of older brothers, and I got to experience, like, kind of like, you know, the outside talk of what they had going on. I'd hear them talking to their friends about it, and I'd hear, like, you know, them drinking beer, getting girls, and things like that. So, my lifestyle was accelerated really quickly of getting introduced to those things. Like, you know, imagine an only child, or, you know, being the oldest of all your siblings, you're experiencing things first, but I had to experience through them. So, I immediately started to find out about things like marijuana, beer, cocaine, whatever, and I remember, probably when I first started to, like, really chase after the dream of, you know, being a party boy, was just, after

• 24:06Speaker 01

  my mom's or dad's parties, I'd see, like, empty classes, or wounded soldiers, as they call it in parties, and I would just down them.

• 24:13Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Yeah, yeah.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so...

• 24:15Rich Roll?

  Cigarette butt and all.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, and it accelerated really, really quickly to the point where I don't even know where it went wrong. Um, I have to say, like, I don't, I look back at it now, and I don't have, I don't see it as a regret. I just, like, you know, I, I just kind of see it as how life went. And, the only regret I have now is, I was never able, like, you know, that whole thing you were just talking about with, about Dave Goggins and Jesse, I wanted to be a Navy SEAL more than anything else in my life. That's the one regret that I have in my life, is that me taking all those drugs and getting all that trouble, I was held back from that. And, like, that truly is my, my greatest dream in life, was become one of those guys.

• 24:55Rich Roll?

  Right, because you actually went through the process of the application.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Five times.

• 24:59Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  I was in the military for two days until they kicked me out.

• 25:01Rich Roll?

  Because they, what, they discovered your, "Oh, this guy's been in trouble before", or what was it exactly?

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, they discovered. Um, of course, they found it all. I mean, I don't know why, I guess these recruiter, recruitment, um, you know, factories, that basically that pump out soldiers into the system, they find all these kids to come in, they get them, and they get bonuses through getting as many people as possible, or they rank up, however it works. They basically just tell you to fudge the facts as much as possible so you can potentially get into the system. And if there's any kind of flack or like, you know, kickback from it, they're not helping you out. You're just another number in their booklet. So, you know, I was really passionate about it. I was obsessed. Like, I was like, "I'm not drinking anymore, I'm not being a bad boy." But, you know, the damage was already done.

• 25:43Rich Roll?

  Right. I would imagine it's probably less about the, like, the drugs and the alcohol, more about, like, how does this guy do with authority? Because if you have an issue with authority, that's gonna be a problem.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:54Rich Roll?

  In the streets, right?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  I got dubbed as one of those guys who had an authoritative, you know, issue.

• 25:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  But I think that was more so just because, you know, the only people who were, had authority over me in my life were telling me to do things that just seemed absurd. Like, you know, "You can't be a kid anymore. You need to be a kid who sits in a special room with the special kids who takes the, you know..."

• 26:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I've heard Casey Neistat talk about this as well. It's like, he just always didn't agree with what the adults had to say about what he should do and all of that. And because of that, he would be maligned and punished. Instead of, you know, sort of encouraged to sort of pursue that, you know, thought pattern or what have you.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:34Rich Roll?

  And you just get into trouble and then you get turned into, you know, you get labeled as the bad kid and that puts you on a completely different trajectory and you start to believe that, right? And then you act accordingly.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Well, you also get, it's kind of like, you know, the situation with getting put into a jail. Like, you know, if you were somebody who entered a jail and didn't really have too many, you know, you weren't that bad of a person to begin with, you get surrounded with people who are involved in a lot worse things. And I ended up getting in that because I would always be in the detention class and I got in detention for maybe like, you know, doing a spitball. And then all of a sudden I get put in detention class next to these two kids who got caught stealing a bunch of kids and then punched the teacher in the face because they got caught. So then I start to learn lessons from those guys and eventually, you know, you get thrown in different circles. But for me, it was never really about, like, revolting or, you know, just, you know, trying to be a troublemaker. I just was a person who was always obsessed with really living life through all the experiences available to me.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  You know, if someone threw pot down on the table, I would smoke it. If someone gave me a bicycle, I would ride it, you know? You know, climb a tree, jump off a building, whatever it was for the day, I really just wanted to live life. And that's still something I'm obsessed with now. Like, you know, any single, every day of the week, I try to wake up and I try to experience life to the fullest. And as a kid, you know, when you hear about all these, you know, these highs and lows you can have with all these amazing drugs and stuff, like, obviously you're drawn to it.

• 27:52Rich Roll?

  Right, right. But at a, you know, at a pretty early age, like the cops start getting involved, you get, you're, you're in like, you're putting like outpatient treatment.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:59Rich Roll?

  There's all kinds of ramifications that were going on, right?

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, eventually a bit back. Um, I, I didn't really consider any of the things I did to be too wrong, but obviously I, I started to see the same judge so many times. They were like, we're teaching this kid a lesson.

• 28:14Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  And eventually, uh, it was just, you know, the hammer was slammed and they said, "Look, you're going away and you're either, if you don't participate with every single thing that they say, you're going away to jail." So immediately after my high school year, I was shipped away to Montana. I was there in Montana and then I get introduced to my first year of college and that's the worst thing you can do. They put me in outpatient program and I was immediately, I was free of all the people telling me what to do, so I started to party more.

• 28:41Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Then they send me into like the, you know, they blindfold me in the middle of the night one night and take me out to the desert in Nevada where I'm basically surviving off one pair of pants, one jacket, one pair of boots and like, you know, a little canteen and you're out there for three and a half months.

• 28:55Rich Roll?

  So that's like, that's like, uh, delinquent school, right? Like, we're gonna, we're gonna give these kids a rough experience and try to make men out of them?

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:03Rich Roll?

  Is that one of those, one of those kind of places?

• 29:05Speaker 01

  It was. I mean, it, it wasn't too extreme. I think for them, I, I think they try to really kind of pull your spine out of your back and then rebuild you up. They try to make you think that you're, you're worthless.

• 29:15Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  You know, you have to be part of society. And I think that's something that does need to be shown to kids who are kind of just out of control like myself. So I did learn something from it, but, uh, eventually it kind of just made me more involved with the system and learn more about my potential of being able to, you know, participate in some of these extracurricular drugs.

• 29:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I just kept on learning more. And, uh, once I got out of that program, I ended up going, I ended up getting sent back to Montana and they said, "Uh, Hunter, you've got one more chance." And I said, "Look, I'm gonna do as many drugs as I can unless you get me something that's gonna exhaust me so much at the end of the day." And this is probably my first introduction to like really working out and loving, loving it. And they got me a job as a logger.

• 29:58Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I show up in like my little pair of skinny jeans and like, you know, Those little cheap 99 cent mittens and they just shove me up into like the 10,000 foot tall mountains of Montana with these guys and I went from being a boy to a man within eight months. Like I went from 165 pounds to 200 plus pounds and I had to learn the lessons of life very fast.

• 30:18Rich Roll?

  Right. I would imagine the dudes that you were hanging out with that were doing that is they're a whole different breed.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  So rugged. Like our lunch, this is how we had lunch. You take a can of beans that you bought from the store. You put it on top of the engine block of the crane and you were not able to eat for, you know, four or five hours and you were exerting yourself to the point of exhaustion from 4am until lunch and then you had two, two, three hours worth left to work and then you go back down the hill. And by the time I got home, I was just toast. Absolutely toast and I love that. And I think that was probably the first time that I really started to understand that if I want to really be at my best and be able to wash out all that crazy noise that was in my lifestyle, I had to really challenge myself. I'm one of those kind of people.

• 31:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's almost like there's a theme here, which is even though the seals would not take you, you're seeking out seal-like, you know, experiences, your own version of, you know, hell weeks wherever you go.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:12Rich Roll?

  And that seems to continue to, to, to current day.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then I ended up getting released back to society.

• 31:18Rich Roll?

  Right. So, so from Montana, after being a logger, somehow you get it into your, your mind that you're gonna go to LA and be a male model? Is that?

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:27Rich Roll?

  The evolution of Hunter McIntyre?

• 31:30Speaker 01

  You know what? What spurred that actually was my girlfriend. She and I got in a fight and we ended up breaking up and I don't know what it was. I just got this in my mind, like, you know what? I'm a good looking kid. I can go be a male model. And I just told her, I was like, you're gonna regret this so much, you're never gonna see me again and you're gonna really be upset about this. And, you know, it was ridiculous.

• 31:52Rich Roll?

  Like a revenge career path?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Look, trust me, it was ridiculous, but you know what ended up working out and I got to, you know, I got the opportunity. One of my friends ended up connecting with somebody. I went down to Miami for a while, worked, I went back to New York, worked, and then I went overseas to Barcelona and worked as a model for a while. And for me, it was a great experience. Like, you know, I got to see the world. I got to meet some pretty crazy people. And, you know, I realized that what I was doing was fun and I started to really tune into my body and my appearance and started to get more obsessed with what it took. And like, this is what actually, how I fell in love with fitness, because I had to do so much research every day. I had to look in the mirror and be able to dissect my body and be like, if you want to drop your body fat, if you want to be able to change the way your skin looks, all these things,

• 32:38Speaker 01

  I had to do all this research. So, I did that, you know, I got a couple of good pictures. Uh, it was fun and met a lot of cool people, but then I started to transition into the obsession of being able to perform better and I wanted to help people perform, so I became a trainer. So I started to work out in New York City and I started taking certification after certification after certification, so I could learn more and more and more. And, uh, you know, I eventually got introduced to some of these great companies, got to work for SoulCycle as a spin instructor, got to work for all these kind of gyms and, you know, all throughout New York City, which is one of the meccas of fitness.

• 33:14Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  And, uh, it became an obsession, you know, it became less about being superficial, but be more performance-based. Eventually, and then that turned into Spartan Race, but that's a big jump.

• 33:24Rich Roll?

  So, so was the plan then like, I'm gonna be a celebrity fitness trainer? What was the sort of, were you happy to just stay in New York and do that until like, the party house opportunity arose or, you know, how did it, how did it kind of unfold?

• 33:37Speaker 01

  No, I always wanted bigger and better things. Um, not that that wasn't an amazing career right there. I think anybody who's a trainer is living a great lifestyle because you get to be active and have a great time with it. But for me, I wanted to express my knowledge and really be able to share it with the people. And, you know, now there's so many vessels of being able to do that through YouTube, Instagram, podcasting like this. But back then, I didn't know. I didn't know how to channel it. One, I was young and just stupid. I didn't see all the opportunities, but... I, you know, I really was fishing for opportunities and then that, you know, that party boy transition where we just were flown out here on first class tickets to come live in a mansion was like, all right, wow, this is awesome.

• 34:16Rich Roll?

  Right. And are you still like partying all the time or have you kind of put a lid on that?

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, no. I was partying like a maniac. I can tell you right now that that trip, my parents were so upset with me because I was just tapering out, like, you know, out of being in college. I was taking a couple of community college classes. I just was like, you know what? I'm going out to California. My parents were like, don't you do it. Don't you do it. Like, we will cut you off. And I was like, I'm going. And.

• 34:41Rich Roll?

  And what are your, like, what are all your brothers do? They all live in New York City?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I'm the black sheep. I'm the black sheep. Oldest one is a lawyer, works with my dad now. The next one is a neurologist at Cornell Medical Hospital, like, you know, top of his class, you know, runs the whole residency operation there. The next one worked for the number one hedge fund in the world and now works for some, you know, Palantir, which is this great, like, data analysis company, which is, you know, top of its, you know, whatever field that it's in. My dad, Harvard graduate, all my, you know, my grandfathers are like doctors and editors and things like that. And then there's me.

• 35:17Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 35:19Rich Roll?

  They're like, what are we gonna do with this kid?

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Nobody knew what to do. I, I was, I was the worst. I mean, I think everyone was excited and knew I had potential, but I was burning myself to the ground.

• 35:28Rich Roll?

  Were you like, you're like, you have so much potential, Hunter.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I always.

• 35:32Rich Roll?

  When are you gonna get it together?

• 35:33Speaker 01

  That was always the award I got in high school, most potential. And that's a slap in the face. That's like, you know, the guy who could have had it, but didn't work hard enough for it.

• 35:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's like, it's a, it's another way of saying biggest underachiever.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. But that, that's, that's the shadow, like, our little rain cloud that followed me around. Like, I just was not really ready to tap into what I was meant to do or able to do.

• 35:55Rich Roll?

  But you also are a guy who, I mean, look, you're pretty well known for having, like, a pretty healthy ego. So on some level, like, back net, because if somebody's being told that kind of stuff their whole life, they're gonna start to feel a little downtrodden, you know, like, maybe I won't ever amount to anything. Maybe everybody's right. I am a loser. Like, you start to then, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. But I don't get that that, like, you were able to, like, have a dividing line between all this messaging that was coming into you and still find a way to, like, feel pretty good about yourself.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Is that? I mean, I kinda, I guess, I mean, I was definitely, I felt like I was running on nitro rather than like clean, clean like diesel or something like that. I was just always burning so hot and never ready to slow down.

• 36:38Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  So, I mean, even though that's, that sounds like an exciting thing, I, I just wasn't ready to ever settle. And, um, eventually, I think California kind of gave me an eye opener, being out here, because we were surrounded in this party house where we were drinking ourselves stupid every single day and talking about the big things, but never really connecting with them.

• 36:59Rich Roll?

  Nobody's actually doing anything.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Yes, and, um...

• 37:02Rich Roll?

  It's probably good that you were in Malibu instead of like in West Hollywood up in the hills there, because you could have gotten into a lot more trouble.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm lucky. You know, I'm, I have to say, like, it's very fortunate. My, my stepmother sat me down the other day. She said, "Look, I want you to know right now, you shouldn't be alive right now." And like, she's like, "I mean that in the best way possible. All your friends, a lot of my closest friends have passed away because of drug use." And she's like, "You're very lucky, and I'm so happy you've turned things around, but like, you know, you have to stay connected and on the path."

• 37:29Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  And I think it's, I'm blessed. I thank Mo, if you're listening to this. Mo's my friend who hooked me up with all this. Like, you know, I owe it all to him. Like, you know, he did introduce me to this world, and he also, even though we were party boys and he was funding a lot of it, I never would have been able to see this. I never would have done my first Barton race, probably. So, I'll tell you the, the turning point, even though, um, we may have skipped a couple of chapters. One night, I, you know, this is when I was still heavily into drugs. I went out to Miami, and like, nobody knew I was in Miami, not even my family. I was supposed to be home, you know, doing work. And I went out and we had a cocaine binge. We went crazy. We went to the, the strip clubs, everything, and we were just going crazy. And I went to bed for the first time

• 38:15Speaker 01

  in my life, knowing that I was likely gonna die before I woke up. And I went to bed and I was sweating profusely. My heart was jacked up to the point where I was like, you know, I was taking a spin class while laying in bed. And I woke up the next day, and I was throwing up, blood was pouring out of my nose. I mean, this is graphic for a podcast, but, you know, I had to be honest about it.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  And I ended up changing my flight, flying home as soon as possible while throwing up, going to the airport and everything because I didn't want my family to know, like to find my body dead in Miami. I thought I was still gonna die. And that was the shifting point. And that was in 2000, I think, 12.

• 38:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Wow, that's, uh, yeah, that's heavy. I was just, we were talking before the podcast. I was just in Miami, uh, like a week ago. And I had some really dark times, like trolling South Beach, like in the late 1990s, man, like really dark. And, and I really, I passed through Miami a couple of times over the years since I've been sober, but, um, I hadn't really spent any time there, uh, as a sober person. And so the other week was the first time I'd been back in that like area and spent a couple of days, you know, like as a sober person. And it was, it's, it's weird, man. I was like, you know, I'd look at, I'd go, I remember what I did in that place. And I know, you know, and it's like to kind of, you know, create a new relationship with a place like that, that, you know, has an

• 39:41Rich Roll?

  association that's so dark.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  It's tough.

• 39:43Rich Roll?

  It's not a cool thing. Yeah, it's heavy. Um, but that's interesting. So, but you're, you never, you never felt like it got to a point where you needed to like go to AA or that you would sort of think that you're an alcoholic or a drug addict? Like, from what I've read, you seem to feel like you have a little bit of a different kind of relationship where you could just sort of set it aside.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes. I've been able to put that up on the shelf. And, you know, I could take it back down and use it for a day and then go back. But the reality is, is, you know, don't take this as a cocky comment, but I, I always said that I was never an addict, but I was an enthusiast. You know, I was very enthusiastic about the, the experience of it all. And, you know, I, I think that some people really struggle with that. And I never want anybody to go through that experience or manipulate, take my words for granted and be like, well, Hunter's an enthusiast, I can be an enthusiast. No, I, I just never had that connection to the drugs. And, um,

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Look, I was able to walk away from it clean and I haven't touched it since. I haven't done, you know, ecstasy, cocaine, none of that stuff. And I feel great about it. And, uh, you know, some days I look back, it's very tough because I've had to alienate a lot of people in my life, you know. There's people, I was just living down in Miami recently and I just didn't, like, people would call, they knew I was there and I would just ignore their phone calls. And it's, it's sad to close those doors. But, um,

• 41:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but if you wanna, I mean, look, you know, that's what's required sometimes, man.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 41:05Rich Roll?

  Reinvent yourself. You just can't, you just, you can't hang out, you can't hang around that stuff, you know, without it eventually happening.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  No. Look, and another thing that I, I came out of it, I like to tell people, you know, never know the highest highs until you've experienced the lowest lows. And I've been there and I've seen it. And like, you know, I've been there with those people and I've been in those like, you know, those crack dens for a couple of days at a time where I was just in, in the moment of it. And I'm, I'm very liberated now, being able to say that I was able to experience both sides.

• 41:35Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So, so the, the Miami, you know, bottom is, uh, how, how, how like sort of along your journey into, into Spartan Race were you when that occurred?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  That was basically, I'd only done two races before that. And I, it was a one week away from, it was one week before one of my biggest races that I ever had. I knew that I was going up against the big contenders in the game. And,

• 42:00Rich Roll?

  And you're just getting super crazy.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. I, cause he didn't, I didn't even think twice about it. I was like, I could do both. Um, but the reality is, is I, I remember I showed up at that starting line, still with that, like, you know, big macho man kind of feel on my shoulders. But then I started running and these guys were just kind of peeling away from me. And my heart's just pumping, just like, ready to tear at the seams. And I knew, like, you know, you can't, you can't do that anymore.

• 42:26Rich Roll?

  You can't fake it. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's kind of a turning point, right? Like, okay, I'm gonna get serious about this.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 42:32Rich Roll?

  And then at some, at some point, you bring Brian McKenzie on, right? Like, he was your coach for a while?

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Brian was a great coach. Intense coach.

• 42:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's an intense dude. He's been, he was an early guest on the podcast.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  He's great.

• 42:44Rich Roll?

  A while back. So, so, yeah. So then he, so suddenly you kind of have structure to your methodology.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. I think, um, I was always, as I said, I, you know, I, I loved having weightlifting meeting, uh, endurance and I always liked to channel my lifestyle and my performance through the weightlifting into the performance of endurance. So CrossFit Endurance was a great introduction to that kind of, uh, you know, sport. And working with somebody like Brian, he is such a tough dude. Like it just, it just kicked me right off my feet and just laid me on my ass. And I was just like, wow. Like this is the commitment's gonna take to become somebody who's like, you know, better, like, you know, become one of the greatest. So I spent, I remember the first year I was, uh, somewhere I was working with Brian, I spent it up, um, living in Joe DeSena's house, the guy who was the founder of Spartan

• 43:31Rich Roll?

  Races. In Vermont, right?

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that guy's insane.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  He's so nuts. Man, there's so many funny stories about that dude. And I would just sit in my room, wake up in the morning, train for two or three hours, go, I had a stipend at the, at the general store. He's like, here, look, I'll pay for your food and let you live here if you dedicate yourself. And I, you know, thank you so much, Joe.

• 43:51Rich Roll?

  Pretty gracious of him to do that.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 43:53Rich Roll?

  How did you, how'd you hoodwink him into that deal?

• 43:56Speaker 01

  I don't know. I really don't know. I think, you know, because it was just the rise of the sport and they started, they really wanted people to start dedicating themselves and showing that, that this sport was real. So I think the first person who was the ambassador, um, was Hobie Call. He was this, he's this guy who was just, I still think he's the greatest in the sport, um, out of Utah. And he was dedicating everything he had in his life, selling off his TVs, his couches, everything to make it to the races until he could start funding it that way. And, um, I think Joe really saw, uh, a spark in me and he said, look, you know, you could do this if you really dedicate yourself. So I would literally go into this general store and I would clean out shelves of food. I would just work so

• 44:39Speaker 01

  hard, eat, pass out, work so hard. And I did it for a whole summer straight. And I, I did it. I mean, I got up on the podium at world championships, but I mean,

• 44:48Rich Roll?

  And that was 2014?

• 44:50Speaker 01

  2013.

• 44:50Rich Roll?

  2013.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  And now it, it, things are just, it, it's getting more and more competitive.

• 44:55Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was working, you know, seeing the, it's amazing getting to experience somebody like Brian McKenzie. And I'm not working with him anymore. One thing I like to do is I like to read tons of books on training, but I also like to experience tons of coaches. So he's one of the guys that I, you know, I, I wear around and I always talk about his work. And now I'm working with a triathlon coach, you know, every time I want to learn more and see what my body adapts to.

• 45:17Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Who's the coach you're working with now?

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Um, Josiah Madaw is the guy who's, uh, it's his company. He's the number one extera athletes in the world right now, uh, cross, you know, triathlon extera.

• 45:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  And his brother Yaro is my coach.

• 45:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. Cool.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  They're really good.

• 45:31Rich Roll?

  So, uh, so walk me through, we're gonna, we're gonna step by step get to 2014. But like, walk me through like what a typical training session and day looks, looks like for you.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  With Brian was very different than what I do now. Um, if I had to explain it with a CrossFit endurance, I would say, I would say it's probably half to two thirds of it is weightlifting and like, I'm talking about heavy stuff. Probably about two hours of weightlifting conditioning in the morning.

• 45:59Rich Roll?

  But like, like heavyweight, low rep, circuit training type of stuff.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like, let's say I would do a workout where I do four rounds of like, you know, seven pull-ups with weight on me, seven thrusters, like, you know, 150 pounds, um, seven box jumps, seven handstand push-ups, seven, you know, um, you know, 700 meter row, you know, seven rounds.

• 46:22Rich Roll?

  All with the training mask on?

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Oh, man. You know, the training mask, people, people love hacking on that thing, but you know, you know about Weem Hof and all these guys. That thing is a tool.

• 46:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is. I mean, look, I, I came up as a swimmer and we would do tons of breath control and hypoxic training. So you're training your system to be more efficient with less oxygen. I mean, it makes sense. It's easy to make fun of though.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Oh, it totally is. I mean, look, I, I'll even shrug, like I work with that company and like I shrug when I see people in the gym wearing it, kind of like marching around and stuff. I'm like, duh, just don't.

• 46:55Rich Roll?

  It's like wearing compression gear out in public.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Hey, look, I'd do it. But now, I would say, like, if I could structure a week and really let somebody into my life, I would say, I'm working out seven days a week. First two, three hours of the morning is conditioning via bike, or probably about one to two hours of running.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Lunchtime, probably about an hour to two-hour hike. And then the afternoon, I'm probably doing about 90 minutes to two and a half hours of weightlifting.

• 47:23Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. That's now.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  That's now.

• 47:24Rich Roll?

  Right. So the, it sounds like the biggest difference between Brian and what you're doing now is more kind of like, you know, really what would be prototypical triathlon endurance-type training.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:36Rich Roll?

  As opposed to just being overly focused on the strength and like, power and speed.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Look, I think anybody could understand this. You have to be most proficient at being efficient through time and space. And weightlifting is a vessel of making you strong and like, you know, resilient. But you eventually have to put yourself in the shoes of your sport. Like, you know, I could tell somebody to weightlift all day, and they'd get really, really fit. But if they're a swimmer, they need to be in the pool. And, look, I still take a lot of pages out of the books that the people like Power Speed Endurance, Brian's book, and I use them still. But the reality is, is I've learned, as I've gotten more and more competitive, I just, I have to put in time. Which sucks. Like, I used to run 10 miles a week and be competitive. Now I can run up to 100 miles a week.

• 48:25Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Yeah, that's interesting.

• 48:34Rich Roll?

  Well, I think that the sport that you're doing, it requires the best of you in like, every category. Like, in, like, with what I do, I just have to be able to go really long and be efficient. Like, I don't really need a lot of power, you know? And I don't need very much agility. You know, you need power, speed, agility, quickness. You gotta be incredibly agile. You have to be able to make decisions very quickly. Like, all of these different things. Like, you have to have complete command over every aspect of your body and the functional strength that you have to kind of carry in order to do that. I can't think of any other sport where everything has to come into play. There has to be total synchronicity with all of that in order to be the best.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, not to play into the cheesy name of Spartan, but you have to be like a Spartan. You have to be across the board unbreakable. Our sport is just so painful just to even get through the event. Like, you know, it's incredible. I just went and did the world championship for World's Toughest Mudder and you're climbing through sewer drains. You have to do things where you're getting shocked. You're jumping off a 30 foot, 8 foot cliff. And I mean, everything about that, your body has to be tough against the time and against the, you know, whatever the obstacles are in front of you.

• 49:46Rich Roll?

  Well, what about the mental aspect of it, though? Because I think that's equally important. I mean, what kind of training do you do to kind of prepare yourself mentally?

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Meditation. I got really into meditation. I know, I hate being the guy who says it again, but I hear it on your podcast all the time, but it is really the only way that you can sharpen the axe with your mind, I think. I think you can perform out there and, you know, train all day long and you can become accustomed to what you're doing. But to become more fierce in the moment, I think it's just meditation. And one thing that I start to do, and rather than just sitting there and breathing, is going into poses that are challenging, whether it be like holding at the top of a push-up and breathing there for 10 minutes, holding like a wall sit and things like that, and just really allowing my body to experience it,

• 50:36Speaker 01

  but try to avoid the actual taxation of like, you know, my body, like avoid that lactic acid that's building, avoid the pain in my shoulders and my lower back and try to be in the moment of my mind.

• 50:47Rich Roll?

  Uh huh, that's super interesting. Meditation in the process of holding like a challenging pose.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I started meditating with a kettlebell.

• 50:56Rich Roll?

  Did you?

• 50:56Speaker 01

  I swear. You think it's a joke?

• 50:59Rich Roll?

  No, I don't. Like, I think that's a great idea, actually.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 51:02Rich Roll?

  Meditation under duress. Well, you meditate in order to be able to perform better when you're under duress. So why not? It's like putting on a 50-pound weight vest, you know what I mean? When you go running, you're just, you're basically just, you know, upping the difficulty factor of the whole thing.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:17Rich Roll?

  So why not? I mean, what is that? What, do you use a specific technique or any app or anything like that?

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Um, box breathing. Uh, look up Seal Fit. Anybody who's listening, look up Seal Fit. And Mark Divine has, um, many breath, uh, breathing techniques that he incorporates into his own routines. And I use box breathing, you know, five count in, hold, five count, exhale, five count, and then hold at the bottom. And I try to add, um, presence to every single stage of that. You know, when I exhale, I'm focusing on recycling and like releasing and trying to get everything out of my system. When I'm at the bottom of the hold, I'm focusing on like actually saying the word focus or control. When I'm breathing back in, I pull an intention. And at the top, same exact thing.

• 51:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Um, one thing though, the other, uh, aspect of, uh, mental strengthening is I think reading. Um, reading was very challenging for me at first. I just couldn't even look at a page without going crazy. Uh, but to be able to put yourself in other people's shoes who have maybe done something like, you know, the David Goggins of the world or, you know, that, that book about the, the guy who got lost out at sea, The Soldier, what was that movie that just came out?

• 52:22Rich Roll?

  Uh, The Soldier That Got Lost At Sea?

• 52:24Speaker 01

  He was like the best miler in America and then he went to that jet.

• 52:27Rich Roll?

  Unbroken.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like, things like that make me realize that the world could be so much harder than it is for me right there. So, you know, I like to be able to bring those things into my life and consider myself to be fortunate for what I have. So like, you know, work harder.

• 52:44Rich Roll?

  Right. What are some of the books that have been instrumental for you?

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Um, Old Man in the Sea?

• 52:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  That one's great. I think that's so funny, like, you know, people would like, you know, be like, oh, some Napoleon book. But Old Man in the Sea is a great lesson. Oh, man, the sea is a great lesson.

• 52:59Rich Roll?

  I've read it in like 7th grade.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Read it again, it's a quick read. It makes you think, that guy can hold on to that fish for so long, you can hold on to whatever you're doing. Another one, I'm reading The Ultimate High about Goran Krop, do you ever hear about this guy?

• 53:14Rich Roll?

  Uh-uh, I don't think so.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  It's in my backpack right now. He rode from Sweden with everything that he owned and was ready to climb Everest with, so he rode everything that was necessary to climb up Everest with, from Sweden to the Himalayas, and then climbed up without any supplemental oxygen.

• 53:30Rich Roll?

  All the way, he summited?

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 53:33Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  All on his own. And like, that right there, like, that's just like, that's such dedication.

• 53:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Something like that's incredible.

• 53:40Rich Roll?

  That's pretty cool, wow.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  I'm trying to think of one more book that's really just been so helpful. I mean, the Seal Fit books are amazing as well, I'd say that.

• 53:46Rich Roll?

  Right, alright, so you podium in 2013.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:50Rich Roll?

  And then 2014, you kind of enter that season, you're like, everyone's looking at you, right? And you start chalking up all kinds of wins.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  That was rowdy.

• 53:58Rich Roll?

  And there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of fast talking, and there's a lot of anticipation of you potentially winning world championships that year. And you start to get a lot of attention, right? You're on the cover of Men's Fitness Magazine, like, suddenly you're like, you're blowing up, dude, so...

• 54:13Speaker 01

  It grew fast.

• 54:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, what was going on at that time?

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Um, I think maybe the hype got a hold of me a little bit, but I, it kind of got subdued later on, but I focused and I worked so hard. And I was cocky, I was very, very cocky, but I kind of put on that, that kind of WWF belt, and I walked into the ring and I was ready to throw down. And that's the kind of mentality I had to wear, at least at that point in my life. And I ended up having the most successful season of my career. I won pretty much everything except for 3 events, 4 events. I was a point series winner that year. And then I ran all the way up to world championships, and the last event of the year before world championships, I tore one of the ligaments in my ankle.

• 54:58Rich Roll?

  Ah, wow.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm not going to say that that's what held me back from winning, but that was a month before the race. And then I went into that championship event and... We all threw down and it just shows that the more contenders are coming in and

• 55:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  It was tough. Like, you know, I came in and I ended up coming fifth in the long course and then I ended up winning the short course that year, but uh I have to say that was a scary letdown. Um, that I had to reposition my whole self after I did not win that race.

• 55:26Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So mentally and training wise or?

• 55:30Speaker 01

  I think mentally because I ended up breaking up with my girlfriend and being like, I need to go dedicate myself. So I moved out to the mountains of Colorado. Like I went from Malibu where the mountains are like, you know, pretty good, big. And I was like, look, what are the biggest mountains in the United States? What are the toughest hills? Where do all the endurance athletes go?

• 55:47Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  I'm going to Colorado.

• 55:49Rich Roll?

  Altitude training.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Oh, man. It was the worst. I don't tell anybody. Nobody should go to altitude.

• 55:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Why Durango though?

• 55:55Speaker 01

  My friend Cody was out there and Durango is amazing. Have you been?

• 55:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's beautiful.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Some of the best trails in the country for biking and things like that. And I dedicated myself. I dug in. That's where I started to obsess over meditation. I would sit in cold rivers and I would just meditate. And I'd be like, be in the moment, obsessed with like what you have ahead of you. And it was tough. Like, you know, I, I, I totally just threw everything else in the world to the side. Like I, I, you know, hung up my phone. I would not talk to people. I just wanted to focus and um, it made me realize that even though that's something that that race was super important to me, I really have to be able to be present with the life that's around me, like my family, my friends, my girlfriend. Um, it was tough.

• 56:40Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:41Rich Roll?

  And so how long were you living out there?

• 56:43Speaker 01

  July until October.

• 56:45Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:46Rich Roll?

  So you're just recently back here then?

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, no, no. That was last summer. Last summer. I'm all over the place. That's the one thing you're gonna learn about me. I just woo.

• 56:55Rich Roll?

  All right. So, so then, uh, so then how did that translate into the following season?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  You know what, I ended up whooping some serious butt, but um, I think the wind came out of my sails a little bit. It's scary, man. Like, when you really think you're made of just, just steel and you're ready for anything and then you have that kind of letdown, I had to reposition myself, but I didn't let it really hold me back. I came back and I really just kept on hustling. I ended up coming out and we won the um, World's Toughest Mudder, which is a very, very hard 24-hour world championship as a team, uh, a month later, and then some new opportunities popped up and I kind of removed myself from the Spartan Race world to become a TV host and travel the world, which is a very big change-up.

• 57:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so it's a little bit, it's kind of difficult to go from, training is your only thing, and that's what you're focused on, being the best, and then suddenly, as a result of that, you get other opportunities that broaden the horizon of your life, but also distract you from what got you there in the first place, which is something that I deal with quite a bit.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was pretty incredible. It was like, almost like, something just was like, created underneath me to catch me from what was, from me falling, but uh, it was incredible. One day I get a call from this guy, Simon Donato, who's my co-host now, and he says, "Hunter, I've been following you, um, I want to know if you're interested in potentially talking about doing a TV show with me," and I was like, "This guy's just another crazy online who wants to talk business," and uh, it really became something. I became a co-host in the beginning of 2015 for a show called Boundless, which is on Esquire, traveling the world, doing the hardest races, like, endurance races in the world.

• 58:36Rich Roll?

  That sounds like an amazing, like, that's a perfect thing for you.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  It is.

• 58:41Rich Roll?

  You know, I want to be, I want to be on that show, you know, like, get paid to just go to all these amazing places and tackle these challenges. So what were some of the races? So, have you already taped a season?

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Everything's done.

• 58:51Rich Roll?

  But it hasn't aired yet?

• 58:52Speaker 01

  Ten episodes. It should be coming out in January, from what I understand. The networks, they, they make their decisions from this point on, but, yeah, um, ten races around the world, and every single one of them was nine hours plus. So, I mean, it was a kick in the butt. The longest event I had ever done was that 24-hour event, which murdered me pretty much, but now I had to do this for a living. I had to travel around the world, and like, every single one of them was like, getting in the ring with Mike Tyson.

• 59:17Rich Roll?

  Right, and you're gonna be on TV doing it, so...

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Oh man, I looked awful.

• 59:20Rich Roll?

  You gotta be on point.

• 59:23Rich Roll?

  So what were the races?

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Okay, so I'll list them off. Number one, we were in Arizona doing a 24-hour mountain bike race. The next one, we're going to Greenland and we're skiing a three-day stage race of cross-country skiing around Greenland in the Arctic Circle. I've never done this, never cross-country skied before.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  We move on to Moab for an adventure race, Chile for a 100-mile race across the Atacama Desert.

• 59:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. Is that part of the Seven Desert Series, that race?

• 59:55Speaker 01

  No, but Dean Karnasas was there at the same time running that race as we were running the other one. We were just in a different section of the desert making circles. I wish I knew he was out there. It would've been fun to link up with him. Then we went over to the GoPro Games in Colorado, then we're over in Europe and I did the hardest mountain bike race in the world. Crazy. Look up the Ultravelo in, I think it's in Chamonix. It was insane.

• 1:00:21Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Traumatizing, amazing though. Then we went to Scotland for the quadrathlon. It's a four, it's like a triathlon with extra stuff. And then we're over, gosh, it keeps on getting crazier. Where did we go next?

• 1:00:34Rich Roll?

  That's crazy, but I mean, it's definitely out of your, you know, it's out of your comfort zone. I mean, you're doing things that you don't have that much experience doing, right?

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  I had no experience doing any of these things. I think it was the greatest year of my life. I don't want to, you know, put down any of the other years, but it was just such an experience. I was, I was so lucky and fortunate to have these people believe in me to begin with. But also being able to experience life in these wild places and like these totally new sports. It really revived my love for being an athlete. Because I think when I lost that race in 2014, it made me realize like, what are you doing? Like, you're just working out all day long just to kind of go against other people who work out all day long. It lost its meaning to me. And after doing this year, like, I was like, wow, you are the most fortunate person in the world.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Like, you just need to keep on channeling yourself towards the direction of just greatness. Yeah.

• 1:01:28Rich Roll?

  Well, I like that. And I think kind of, it has to be, it has to mean something more than just a podium. Especially if you want to keep doing it, like, what's going to get you excited? And what does it all mean? You know, why are you doing it? And what is, what is it that you're trying to express, especially now that? Look, you're well-known, you have a platform, you have an opportunity to, you know, kind of have a voice. And what does that voice look like? You know, what does it mean? And, and, and, you know, what is it that you're trying to communicate to all the people that follow you?

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Rich Roll?

  You know, there's a, there's kind of a responsibility that comes with that.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  I realize that a little bit too late, maybe not too late, but...

• 1:02:04Rich Roll?

  It's alright, man.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was pretty, I was pretty rowdy for a while, just big, "rawr" kind of guy, but...

• 1:02:11Rich Roll?

  How old are you now?

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  I'm 26. I'm still young, I'm still young. You should have seen it, though, like, I mean, when they, Reebok produced this video where they, they, like, you know, Hunter's Redemption year, when I was training for this last world championship. And when they released it, people just tore into me, like, "This, this kid thinks he's all that and a bag of chips. He's just a lazy kid. He doesn't have a family he has to take care of. He just has to sit on his butt and work out all day." And I was like, "Ouch."

• 1:02:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  These people are cruel.

• 1:02:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  So, I mean, I think I was able to come full circle, at least at this point in my life, where I realized I used to want to challenge other people, but now I want to challenge myself. Like, I mean, at the end of the day, I was saying this-

• 1:02:52Rich Roll?

  That's the ultimate challenge.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It feels great. I mean, it's liberating when you be able to say, like, at the end of the day, everybody else lays down in a different place than you are. Like, you have to be comfortable where you are, you know? So, that's, that's at the point where I'm at right now.

• 1:03:06Rich Roll?

  Right. And, and on that tip, I mean, one of the things that you're exploring right now, if I have my facts correct, is you're, you've, you're trying on this vegan lifestyle.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  I did vegan, I did vegan. I did three months of it. I did, I just, I just stopped, I'll be honest with you. I did.

• 1:03:21Rich Roll?

  Oh, come on, man.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  What do you want?

• 1:03:23Rich Roll?

  Alright, but let's unpack that. Like, so what was going on that even interested you in that to begin with?

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  You, you. No, I swear, it was you.

• 1:03:32Rich Roll?

  Alright.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  Look, I'm not trying to, and I know you're gonna be excited about hearing me say that I'm still vegan, but...

• 1:03:38Rich Roll?

  I just want you to be honest.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  I am being honest. I'm being totally honest. Oh, cool. So... I went and tried it because I ended up having IT band syndrome last year for eight months, or that's still this year, actually. Starting in the beginning of January, and I had to do it all the way through this TV show season, by the way, which was just a horrible idea. And it was, it was just totally debilitating. I couldn't do anything. And what was the name of the football player you had on? You just slipped my... David Carter? Yes. The football player who was vegan. When I heard that, I mean, like, for years I had researched being vegan and like, I really wanted to understand it. And I would ask everybody in my circle, like, "Hey, I'm really thinking about going vegan." And they're like, "Don't, you're gonna fall apart, you're gonna, you know, become emaciated and just die." Right.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  I'm sure Brian McKenzie was really excited about hearing that from you. I ended up talking to him about that, and he just wasn't hyped about it. No, no, I can't imagine he was. My friend Ben Greenfield, who I work with, he said the same exact thing. He's like, "You're gonna fall apart and die." And eventually, I was driving across country, and I was moving out to Miami, and this was over the summer, and I was listening to your podcast, trying to keep myself awake while driving. And I heard this guy telling the story about how his joints were going, everything was going wrong. And it just clicked with me. I was like, "That's exactly what's going wrong with me." So, I made the switch. And it was very difficult, because I was traveling, and like, you know, being in foreign places, trying to eat vegan was tough. But I have to say, I've never felt better in my entire life as a whole.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Like, everything seemed to be coming in and out of my body at like, you know, full speed, full capacity. My skin got better, I didn't have any dandruff, my eyes seemed to be wider, like, something seemed to be firing properly. But then, do you know Paul Check? No. Look at Paul Check. He's very interesting. He's a trainer, I think he's out of Hawaii. And, you know, he has his own, his whole, whole method. But, you know, I also follow him as well, and he's the kind of guy who eats in the moment to support the presence of what he's doing. You know, if he's really, really training super hard, he eats meat. If he's, you know, kind of having a stagnant lifestyle, and he's not training that day, or he's taking a lot of time off, he's more vegan.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  And I realized I started to slowly, um, last month started to slowly, you know, kind of add things back into my diet. Like, you know, dairy wasn't working well, add a little bit of meat, add a little bit of fish, fish wasn't going so well, I mean, meat wasn't going so well. But the things I did realize is I started to get my oomph back a little bit, you know, my, you know, the, the machan-ness of my body. And, um, you know, I, I will say that like, I was like a gazelle when I was out in the mountains when I was vegan. But when I went to the gym, I had lost my oomph.

• 1:06:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  I did, I swear.

• 1:06:23Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Well, I'd be interested to, to like, you know, learn a little bit more about what exactly you were eating and maybe identify like, you know, a way to repair that without having to go back. But, you know, we can have that conversation.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't want to bore you people.

• 1:06:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no, no, but I mean, it's, you know, it's cool that you tried it and, uh, and, uh, and that you had a, you know, basically a good experience, but, you know.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  I had an incredible experience. I think something that everyone should do, and I'm a big fan of it, is self-experimentation. I think you really need to be able to take yourself out of whatever your comfort zone, and you need to be able to place yourself somewhere else. Whether that be, like, right now, I'm practicing fasting a lot. Um, you know, the whole vegan thing was incredible for me. It was, it was stressful at first, but then I found this kind of a higher power of a feeling of just understanding my food, my diet, and the way I functioned. And, you know, my obsession with, uh, guys like Timothy Ferris, who are just so in tune with their body and always experimenting, trying to have a better understanding, and then relating it to the people who they're involved with. I think that's amazing, and that's something I obsess over.

• 1:07:22Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. And I would imagine it was, I mean, during that, during the period that you were vegan, were you traveling the whole time?

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:29Rich Roll?

  Or were you showing up at the CrossFit gym? Because it's an interesting thing with, you know, sort of the paleo movement and the way it's vertically integrated with CrossFit gyms and, and that kind of, you know, I, I feel like the Spartan Race or the obstacle course, uh, race movement is kind of under that umbrella, and even if in an informal way.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:48Rich Roll?

  Um, and, and kind of the idea of being vegan in that environment is kind of like a, a verboten, you know, sort of, um, concept or foreign, I think, to a lot of people. So...

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  I did get a lot of, uh, support. Some people just came out of the woodwork. People I had never even heard from before, and they're like, "You inspired me so much. You've changed my life by doing this vegan thing." I tried it. My family and I, they all feel amazing. That was incredible.

• 1:08:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Look, you know, I think the thing is, is if I could prescribe the perfect diet for somebody, it would be something that's like 90% vegan. I really would. I think that's the healthiest way for the world to function, for people to function. I think, you know, for me, I cannot make the call ultimately, but for me, I understand that when I'm trying to perform at my best, having a little bit of extra support from that of meat proteins, it was helpful, you know? I don't think dairy is great, but I still need to do more work. I need to learn.

• 1:08:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, keep experimenting.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  I have a lot of time.

• 1:08:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know. So what is, what are you training for right now? Like, what is the focus?

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  You know what I'm training for? Nothing. I'm so excited to slow down. But the reality is, is I have to, after, after January, I, the season picks up again. And the likelihood of me starting over the balance season again is, is pretty much on the horizon. We don't know yet, but, and then Spartan Race doesn't really have a season. There's a championship season, but there's races year round. And, you know, that supports my lifestyle, to be honest. So I have to be competitive. And people forget names if they don't show up on the podiums, you know, to be honest. So that's tough.

• 1:09:30Rich Roll?

  Right. Like, because now you're going to balance doing this TV show, which, you know, is exerting by going off and doing these challenges, but isn't sports specific?

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  No, it was the most exhausting experience of my life.

• 1:09:41Rich Roll?

  But no one's going to give you a break. Like, oh, well, he didn't win, but he was doing it. It doesn't matter.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  No, they didn't care at all. I would come home like, just like, just defeated from these experiences. And even though I was so, I had a blast while I was there, I, I just didn't have the guts to kind of show up to a Spartan Race and just get pummeled again. Because it took so long to recover from these things. You know, the, the cross country skiing race alone, like, had my bones shaking for like, you know, two weeks afterwards.

• 1:10:08Rich Roll?

  Right. Where, where do you think that, what do you, what do you think your Achilles heel is, as an athlete? Like, where do you have to focus on, on growing and developing the most?

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  For me, I have to experience conditioning a little bit better. I have to become a, through time and Space, basically endurance. I'm kind of the outlier in our, in our sport. I'm 195 to 200 pounds the majority of the year and the guys who I compete against are 140 to 150 pounds.

• 1:10:36Rich Roll?

  Right. Are those guys, like, who are the guys that are excelling the most? Is it people? And what kind of backgrounds do they come from? Like track backgrounds or?

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, I would say, so if I could list the other five best people in the sport besides myself, they'd be, um, Ryan Atkins is probably one of the most competitive guy right now. He came from a mountain biking world cup, like, you know, background and loves, you know, doing ultra running. The guy is, he was a six-time world champion in unicycling. Like, just like, absurd.

• 1:11:08Rich Roll?

  I didn't know there was a world championship.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Nobody knows until you meet him and then he just destroys you on a race course. And, uh, he's amazing. Then you have somebody, this guy, John Albin, who's won a couple of world championships. He's just a true blue runner, just runs like a madman. And then, like, you know, a couple of the other guys, they come back from like D1 running, you know, backgrounds. Basically, you have to just be like, have been a thoroughbred all the way through middle school, high school, college, and now you're like a semi-professional runner, if not a professional runner already.

• 1:11:38Rich Roll?

  And what does that mix look like for you in terms of, uh, going out and doing like, sort of just, uh, typical endurance, trail running versus getting on the track and like throwing down tempo work and speed work?

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Just time under tension. The best thing you could probably do, like, you know, you hear about the old traditional method of just like 80, 20, um, like, you know, Matt Fitzgerald, it's, you have to just be out there and slowly get your body to adapt with what your other, your sport is. And I would say probably, you know, a couple of times a week, I'm really trying to push the threshold of just becoming super intense in what my sport domain is.

• 1:12:15Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  But I love, look, I'll tell you, my favorite thing is just lifting. Uh, like, right after I'm done with you, I'm gonna go right over to my buddy's house and we're just gonna pick up the biggest things we can find.

• 1:12:24Rich Roll?

  What gym do you go to in Malibu?

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Um, as I said before, Malibu's all about finding these little gems, like these little secret nooks of people who have these incredible places like your home and, you know, they've got like, you know, the guy's house I was with the other day, if you look at my nose, we were wrestling and I think he broke my nose. Um, you know, he's got-

• 1:12:42Rich Roll?

  It's all blue.

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  Wrestling, he's got, I mean, I haven't wrestled since, you know, my first year of college and I just, I saw this wrestling mat out in his backyard and I'm like, we're throwing down. And basically, you know, every single day, I'm either in my backyard lifting up really heavy tires or I'm, you know, finding guys like this who've got kettlebells that go up to 200 pounds. You know, Laird Hamilton's house, whenever I could get experience to go there, I'd just channel my body through that kind of stuff. But, I mean, I have my own gym back in Miami, which I opened up and now we're going to open up one here in Miami. I mean, Malibu, no, probably not Malibu, Santa Monica. What's your gym in Miami? It's called Epic Hybrid Training. Yeah. Where is it in Miami? Brickell?

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, basically, you know, downtown goes right into Brickell and there's Mary Brickell Village. Have you ever been to there? No, I don't know that area. Basically, they're just, Brickell's just become this new hotspot, so it's pumping up. But our gym model is kind of circuit training meets high intensity and like, you know, American Ninja Warrior meets Tabata intervals. So it's like you're using all these kind of different fundamental tools of like functional fitness, kettlebells, resistance bands, box jumps, and you're going in circuits and using different kind of intervals to just... Right, that's cool. So you want to open one of those in Malibu? Not Malibu, I was just... I was gonna say, like, Malibu's probably gonna be the best. It's the worst. I said Malibu just because we were talking about it.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Like, you go down to Cross Creek in the middle of winter and you're like, how do any of these businesses survive? SoulCycle is crazy for it. Are you still teaching down at SoulCycle? No, I mean, I was so in love with it, but it was something I couldn't hold on to because I was always traveling so much. That's my favorite way to work out is like, you know, at least teach classes is on the bike. Right. But do you get out and road bike around here? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. My bikes are in Miami. I'm picking them up next week. But, yeah, if you're ready to throw down, man. Yeah, well, we're gonna have to get out on the bike, man. That would be good.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, mountain biking, you know, do you like that?

• 1:14:44Rich Roll?

  Um, yeah, I've only done it, like, I'm embarrassed to say, a few ti- I don't even have a mountain bike.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:14:50Rich Roll?

  I go out, like, a friend loans me one once in a while, like, I just, I don't have a lot of experience on mountain biking.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  How? You live in, like, one of the best places?

• 1:14:57Rich Roll?

  I know, I know, I know.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 1:14:58Rich Roll?

  I gotta, I gotta do more of it. That's the next thing.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, here's the thing, you can show me road biking trails, I'll show you mountain biking trails, and then we're gonna beef you up a little bit, get you some kettlebells and some stuff.

• 1:15:08Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. You just missed, uh, well, there's a guy called, do you know who Ben Bostrom is?

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:13Rich Roll?

  So Ben-

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  He lives right across from my house.

• 1:15:15Rich Roll?

  Well, he used, he used to live on Latigo, he moved, he lives in Vegas now, but-

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  Bummer.

• 1:15:19Rich Roll?

  He's one of the sickest mountain bikers out there.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:15:22Rich Roll?

  Well, he, I mean, he was a professional motorcycle racer, like, he was one of the best in the world, and that, that was his career for a long time, but he would train on the mountain bike, uh, and he's just an in- he's an insane talent. Like, he could have been, I really think he could have been a pro peloton cyclist, like-

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:15:37Rich Roll?

  He's incredibly gifted, yeah. And he goes and he does, now he just does it for fun, but he still can compete at a really high level, uh, and for a long time, like, he had, you know, he had all the Strava records and all the Malibu Hill, he's moved now, so he's away from it, but, um, he used to live in that house that's just past, like, that main cluster of houses, when you kind of-

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  It's, it's directly across from my house.

• 1:15:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, it is?

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  I used to see him all the time.

• 1:16:00Rich Roll?

  So you know his house, yeah, yeah, yeah, he doesn't live there anymore.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  I know, I'm, I just got back, so I, I heard he moved to Vegas, which was a bummer.

• 1:16:05Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  But yeah, I, I would see all the Strava things, and I'm always kind of chasing that kind of stuff.

• 1:16:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  We're neighbors, so every time I go out on the bike, it's like, "Your thing's been beaten," I'm like, "Gosh, darn it."

• 1:16:14Rich Roll?

  The hills around here are very competitive on Strava.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, well, you gotta love it.

• 1:16:19Rich Roll?

  I know. And also, the other guy I wanna hook you up with, if you don't know him already, do you know Timothy Sheaf?

• 1:16:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:16:24Rich Roll?

  Oh, dude, you gotta meet this guy. He is, um- He's one of the world's most famous parkour artists, kind of like Ninja Warriors.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  No way.

• 1:16:34Rich Roll?

  And he, uh, yeah, I think he won Ninja Warrior in the UK. He's British. And now he's getting into obstacle course racing and he's, he's, he's new to it, like, but he's gotten obsessed with running and he's super into it. But he's a brilliant, um, kind of, uh, you know, movement guy, like he can do stuff with his body. That's absolutely insane. I think he's coming to LA in a couple of days. He's passing through here, but he's long, he's super passionate vegan guy.

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:17:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:02Speaker 01

  Oh, man, it's gonna break his heart when I tell him.

• 1:17:04Rich Roll?

  He's, uh, he's been on the podcast. You should dial him up.

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  I'll tune in. Every single time I, I pick up my phone, I try to kind of scroll through and find something on your podcast. I was listening to you right on the way over here.

• 1:17:14Rich Roll?

  You're cool.

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  I gotta get to know you a little bit better.

• 1:17:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, good, man. I didn't realize that you actually lived here, so I thought you were just passing through.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  No, I've been to Malibu resident since 2011 and the thing is, is I, I know in my heart right now, this is where I'm going to die. Like, you know, this is where I'm, I'm so passionate about Malibu and, uh, it's unfortunate because my whole family's across the way. And I wish I can move everybody out here, but, uh, the reality is, is these hills are kind of for the crazy and the rich and famous.

• 1:17:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, it, it's, uh, it's epic training playground.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:47Rich Roll?

  It's amazing there aren't more professional endurance athletes that live out here.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  I go out in the mountains every single day and I don't see anybody.

• 1:17:54Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're like, where is everyone?

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's, cause it's so insane. I mean, people give LA a hard time and fair enough. They fly into LAX, they're on Lincoln Boulevard or Pico. And it just, you know, they're stuck in traffic on the 405 and you're like, it's easy to just go, this place is terrible. Cause this is kind of far out there, you know?

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:18:11Rich Roll?

  It's like, most people don't venture this far out, but once you're here and you see it, um, it is pretty, we're, we're pretty blessed to live out here.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, I live the life of a hermit. I'm, I, I live so far up the mountain. Whenever I try to invite people over, they're like, No way.

• 1:18:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, well, they might as well, you might as well be telling them like, come and visit me in Santa Barbara. Like, it's, it's, I mean, to put it in perspective for people that are listening, if you live at the top of Ladago, if you want to get like, if you want to just go to the grocery store and grab something to eat, or go to the gas station, you gotta go down this mountain. It's gonna take you like, just 15 minutes just to drive down it.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  Well dude, it's a 30 minute trip to do anything.

• 1:18:48Rich Roll?

  I know. So that's a commitment, especially for like, a young guy. Like, there aren't a lot of like, guys in their twenties living out in this part of the world, because there's nothing to do. You know, so it's probably, you know, good for you to focus on training that way, because there's not a lot of distractions.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  It's made me an old soul, and I'll be honest, I was always an early morning person. I would always wake up around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. every single day. And for some reason, when I was younger, I didn't go to bed until like, midnight, and I didn't really need to sleep. But now, it's just very therapeutic for me to kinda get home at 6 o'clock, and be in bed by 8, and wake up. And that's just my life. And I think something that a lot of people don't really experience is those early hours in the morning. And like, if I can have two to three hours by myself in the morning, I can get so much stuff done that the rest of the day is my playground.

• 1:19:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. I'm an early morning guy, too. But one thing I think people don't realize about this part of the world, is that at this time of year, it was 27 degrees the other morning.

• 1:19:48Speaker 01

  It's so freezing, man. Like, I like to get up and get on my bike and ride, but like, that, and it'll be 60 at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, but it's super cold in the mornings. No, man, I put on like, my big fur coats and I walk around the house, just in my underwear. I feel like, I feel like a badass.

• 1:20:05Rich Roll?

  And you live, you live, you live with a couple other people, though, right?

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. We have, we have an amazing, like, kinda like, artist community, where I've got my roommate Brock, who's like, this incredible, you know, yoga artist, and like, you know, constantly painting. And then, there's constantly like, you know, artists coming to stay for a couple months at a time, and they're building sculptures and stuff. I'm the total opposite from them, so it's very fun to kinda sit down with them and rap about it, and they think I'm crazy, and I think they're crazy, but... Yeah, we, I mean, but they're in their own little world. You know how artists work. They're just, they just get so caught up in it. And I can get a few words from them every once in a while, but you know, I'm in my world, they're in their world, and we just kind of live the dream.

• 1:20:42Rich Roll?

  And so where are like your brothers and your parents now in that kind of evolution of Hunter from like brohood to manhood? Like, are they cool now with you? Like, is everything, like, are they, they can sleep at night?

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:54Rich Roll?

  Feeling like you're tapped in a little bit now?

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  I think everyone's, I think everyone's very, very happy for me. I think my family understands me finely. I think they always knew who I was, but they were waiting for me to find my calling. But every once in a while, I can tell, like, you know, especially with my stepmother who, you know, knew the full extent of my life. Um, she's waiting for the rubber band to maybe snap back.

• 1:21:15Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  I don't think I'm ever gonna happen, that's gonna happen, but the, the honesty is it's, it's not that far behind me.

• 1:21:22Rich Roll?

  What do you think you would be doing if there was no such thing as obstacle course racing? Or that day that you guys all signed up for that first race, like, it just, it didn't happen? Like, you never discovered this outlet?

• 1:21:35Speaker 01

  I'm a very driven person in the way that I really want to see, like, you know, I want to have all the opportunities in front of me, and I really want to take advantage of them. So I would have done something in the fitness industry, but I would have found some way of getting in the military. I still, to this day, I'm, I feel like I just want to, like, write every senator, every governor, every person in the, in the United States to kind of petition for me to go in.

• 1:21:58Rich Roll?

  You still, you'd still want to be able to, you still have a desire to go and maybe be a SEAL?

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  I would give everything up.

• 1:22:04Rich Roll?

  Do you still fill out the application every, can you keep doing it? Like, how does that work?

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  No, I kind of gave up. I remember I went into the Navy twice, I went to the Marines twice, and I went to the Army once. And everybody was just turning me down. After the first run through, um, you know, I got red flagged. Every time I tried to go to the other ones and fudge the facts a little bit, they were like, we found your paperwork, we know you've been.

• 1:22:27Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Is there one thing that's popping up that maybe you could kind of get erased from the record or rectified?

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  Nothing's there, but you know, the government has, you know, they have much deeper fingers than all the other, you know, people in the world. So, I mean, look. To be honest, I got arrested, um, five times and they were all silly ridiculous things. Like the last one, uh, the, the big one that I got in trouble for was a senior prank where I stole something and we were gonna, you know, hang it up in school and parade it around.

• 1:22:54Rich Roll?

  I know what you stole, but we'll just like, it's, we're gonna keep it family friendly.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  Okay, of course, but you, you, that's what I'm trying to say. I tried, I try to be as, um, you know, relaxed about that conversation as possible these days, but the reality is, is if you knew me, you would have laughed. But you being, uh, you know, from the legal side of things, everyone's like, this kid is a Dennis the Menace on, on steroids. Like, we need to settle him down and we need to punish this guy.

• 1:23:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:23:20Rich Roll?

  So, uh, where do you, where do you see this going? Like where, where do you want to be five years from now?

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  If I had, if I could lay train tracks down in front of me, like, you know, for the next five years, I would love to see myself be able to pursue the, the passion of what I have through sport. I, I would like, even if I'm not winning things or really competing or contending, I would love to just compete. I think it's great for people to really channel themselves and experience that. Like I, I think it pulls a different energy for me, which I love. I would love to be able to experience the, uh, opportunity of TV where, you know, I, I think that I really love being myself, um, and telling my story and having a good time with other people. And if people like watching, then that's something I, I, I would appreciate. And in reality, if I could give back, that's, that's the thing I want later in life, you know?

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  I, I want to be able to facilitate things that will help people who are like myself, you know? I want to be able to do charity work. Something I'm trying to do right now and I, you know, whoever's listening will probably steal this, is I want to do something like $5, 5K, where it's only $5 to sign up for a 5K and the ways that you could deliver this is if you want to help out, you give me money and it will pay for other people to do 5K and people can just sign up. Because I think that I want to go into impoverished areas and be able to help kids who didn't have the same opportunity as me. Because I think, you know, physical activity is a great way to give back to the world and be able to save people who are in my shoes.

• 1:24:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, for sure. If you could go back and, and like, you know, kind of, uh, you know, slap yourself on the head when you were 15 years old, what would you tell your younger self?

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  I would be like this, and I tell a lot of kids this, and I hope I'm not crude by saying this. I'd say, you know, put the beer and the girls to the side because it will be there later. You know what? I don't think girls are bad. I don't think beer is bad, but I think that you have a lot more opportunity to seek out than just trying to get hammered and chase girls. And I think, I tell kids that all the time. I'm like, look dude, you-

• 1:25:29Rich Roll?

  But it's hard to get that message across, man. You know, like, you're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, old man."

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, I know. And look, it's tough to express that message, but I would just say that, like, look, I wish I had all these scholarship opportunities and I had great opportunities to move forward from high school into something, you know, where my parents didn't have to support my menacing behavior, and I just chopped it all in half because I was a maniac. And I don't know how I'm going to be able to return this to the community, but I will find ways to be able to, you know, make sure that kids can understand that it's all gonna be okay, and you don't have to worry so much about these years, but make your time constructive. Don't make it destructive, you know?

• 1:26:12Rich Roll?

  Right. And for people out there that are listening who are kind of intrigued by this idea of maybe doing their first obstacle course race, you know, what are some ways to kind of get your feet wet with that? Like, where would you direct people to kind of, you know, find maybe a training plan for a novice? Or some resources to kind of get, you know, up to speed on how the whole world works?

• 1:26:38Speaker 01

  To be honest, I think that, you know, you gotta go out there and you need to go to things like active.com and find a race that's close to you. That's how I started. You know, I think Spartan Race is a great experience. Tough Mudder, Battle Frogs, those are the three big names. And once you find an event that's really going to, you know, challenge you and make you excited, I think that you need to be able to determine how much time you can spend on preparing yourself. And here's the one thing is, look, go in there and don't expect the best, expect the worst, because these obstacles can be really tough. And I'm not trying to scare people away. I'm saying that because don't let-

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  That scare you away from coming back a second time. I think that should like really motivate you to come back a second, a third, a fourth and a fifth until you accomplish all of your goals and succeed in all the obstacles. Because I think that's where people really get the most from these experiences. And training aspects, um, you know, Spartan Race does provide a lot of really valuable information of helping people out. They have it all on their website. My Gym Epic Hybrid Training, you know, they, we have an entire class based around, you know, preparing people for these events and, you know, just reach out to anybody online like myself. I really like to help out the community any way possible and, you know, look, look up to people who, you know, really inspire you and just reach out to them and they'll help you out a ton. I'm sure.

• 1:27:53Rich Roll?

  Does Joe DeSena still do that crazy race that he founded?

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  The death race.

• 1:27:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the death race. Right.

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  The death race unfortunately fell apart. Um, but there's a lot of, there was such an impact from it that there's.

• 1:28:06Rich Roll?

  I mean, that was really, that's what burst the whole thing, right?

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:09Rich Roll?

  I mean, he was, explain what the death race is for people that don't know.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Uh, the death race is built around the idea that you may die during his event and it is honestly the most ridiculous way to spend 72 hours, 48 to 72 hours ever. I mean, it's worse than Hell Week that Navy SEALs would experience because what he's doing is he's breaking you down mentally and physically and spiritually. He's penetrating all levels. And the worst part about it is, is he's so clever. He's getting people, I mean, he's getting them to come together and work very hard together and build things, but he's having them build things on his property.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  He's a madman. He had these.

• 1:28:48Rich Roll?

  He's like demoralizing and self-serving at the same time.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  I mean, that's the thing, the reason why I never signed up. I was like, I know what you're doing, Joe. And like, you know, he had these people take slabs, rock slabs as big as his table, drag them up a mountain that it goes from like, you know, 2,000 feet to 3,500 feet and build stairs from the bottom to the top. And I think that really creates an incredible connection with the people to the race because those people can go back and say, "I did this."

• 1:29:15Rich Roll?

  Right. And it's kind of a mindfuck, right? Because he doesn't tell you like what you're gonna be doing.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:29:21Rich Roll?

  You sign up for it, but you don't know what the course is. You don't know how long you're gonna be awake for. You don't have any idea. It's just sort of be here at this time. And then he parses out the information on an as-needed basis. So you never know what's gonna come next or anything like that, right?

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:29:37Rich Roll?

  That's just mentally brutal.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  I think one year, he had people bring a bike, have it dismantled, and they had to carry it around the entire race. And then like maybe a couple hours before the race was finished, he had them build the bike back up, ride it like 10 feet around a cone, bring it back, and then ditch the bike.

• 1:29:51Rich Roll?

  So had nothing to do with riding a bike.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Could you imagine how upset that would make you? Oh, gosh.

• 1:29:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:57Speaker 01

  He's a maniac, but he is also one of the greatest motivators of our current day. He's really making something big out of all this.

• 1:30:04Rich Roll?

  Well, his story is incredible, too.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:07Rich Roll?

  Like, he was basically like a Wall Street guy, right? Who just started doing 100 milers and then just changed his whole life and created these races, moved to Vermont.

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  He really made me look at myself and say, you know, "Am I gonna dedicate more to this?" Because when I thought I was training hard, he told me what he did, and I was like, "Ouch." Like, he came back to New York City one time, and he had a flight to Vermont, and the flight was canceled. He just put on a pair of shoes and started running to Vermont. Like, that became one of his things. And you have to understand, he is a madman, but there's a method to his madness.

• 1:30:40Rich Roll?

  What is that method?

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  I think honestly, I think he just wants to expose people for maybe their weaknesses and insecurities. And I don't think that's in a negative way, but I think that is trying to really restructure your lifestyle to become a better person.

• 1:30:56Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  And I thought he was crazy at first, like, because he takes his kids on a lot of these experiences with them, and I thought he was like, "He's gonna kill these guys." But I think those guys are gonna be so mentally strong and experience so much of life. Like, you know, by the time they're 20, they're gonna have experienced more than somebody, like, you know, five lives, you know, all in that little period of time. And he's even touched me in a way that I really feel like every day I wake up, I'm like, what would Joe do? And I'll send him these little emails and they'll respond back with like one little snippity comment. And I'm like, alright.

• 1:31:28Rich Roll?

  He's, you know, Jesse Itzler is to David Goggins as you are to Joe DeSena.

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:31:34Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  No, Joe DeSena is my, yeah, David Goggins.

• 1:31:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, but your relationship with Joe is sort of like Jesse's relationship with David.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  For sure. And look, very inspiring. And I think people need things like that in their life. And I think you need to find somebody who will kick your butt. Like, I feel so great. One of the biggest impacts I've had in my life right now, it has nothing to do with me, it's my brother. My brother Garrett, who I love with all my heart, was working at this hedge fund for five years, and he went from a lean, good-looking kid to, he just blew up, added like 50, 60 pounds, working 80, 90s hours a week, and lost himself. Lost himself. He finally grew the courage to quit his job. He wanted to for so long, but like, once you get in that world, it's like the, you know, it's like, you know, the Darth Vader world, like, they control you. And he wanted to get out of it. And eventually, he snapped

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  out, he changed his life, he dumped all the weight. And he sends me a picture the other day of him, him behind a squat bar with all the plates stacked up. And I just felt amazing. I said to myself, I was like, I changed someone's life. And I, you know, my brother did it himself, but you know, I helped inspire that. And, you know, that's awesome. So if you ever have anybody who really inspires you, reach out and have them try to really, you know, have any kind of influence on your life.

• 1:32:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's great, man. Well, I think that's a good place to wrap it up a little bit. But before we do that, I did want to talk a little bit about what you're doing with Ben Greenfield. You guys kind of partnered up. I know you have this podcast.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:02Rich Roll?

  Obstacle Dominator Podcast.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  We love it, dude. We love it.

• 1:33:05Rich Roll?

  So Ben's a maniac. How'd you connect with Ben? Just through the obstacle course world? Because I know he got really into it.

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I saw Ben. Ben pulled up in like, in like a biking bib to do a Spartan race a couple of years ago. And I saw him, and I knew who he was. And I was like, this goofball. And I was like, I went up and I was like, dude, you really inspire me. You're a great person, blah, blah, blah. I really love what you do and I'd love to get involved with that somehow and then we partnered. And he's amazing. We try to put together as much as we can in the sense that, you know, we want to share back with the community, but he's so busy. It's hard to kind of get all the things together, but obstacle dominator is just a way that we try to connect with people who have been involved with the sport or somebody who may be be able to give some insight to our listeners on how

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  they're mentally tough or prepare themselves for whatever they do in life. Like, you know, we reach out to the Seal Fit guys. We have, we were supposed to have Joe on, but he, you know, missed some flight from Singapore yesterday and you know, another great person that we're going to have on next week is, gosh, what's the Supple Leopard guy? I just lost his name.

• 1:34:12Rich Roll?

  Supple Leopard? I don't know.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  Why am I missing this? This is the worst. He's the guy who's like, you know, the number one sports physiotherapist from the course world right now, Kelly Sturet.

• 1:34:23Rich Roll?

  Oh, Kelly Sturet.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he's a great person and I love.

• 1:34:28Rich Roll?

  But I'm sorry, go ahead.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  No, no, no. I'm just saying like we get an awesome opportunity to be able to connect with these people.

• 1:34:32Rich Roll?

  Right, right. But Ben, you know, is busy living in the woods, like prepping for the apocalypse. So like, you guys must do it by Skype, I would assume, right?

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have to do it via Skype. I mean, what you have right here is amazing, but Ben and I are always trying to connect like, you know, through some kind of crazy version, like whether it be a cell phone, walkie talkie or anything, we have to connect.

• 1:34:53Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. That's cool, man. All right. Well, what else you have? Like what else is coming up? So the show you think might be coming out in January, you're not sure?

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  From what I heard, you know, I haven't talked to him since, but you know, that's coming out. I have a couple other kind of cool TV shows that are coming out, but I have to keep it a secret or I'll get shot by the networks. Other than that, you know, just expect a year of racing back in Spartan Race. I'll be out in here in Malibu. I'm going to be opening up a gym in Santa Monica, another epic. And, you know, if anybody ever wants to reach out to me, my name's Hunter McIntyre, Hunt the Sheriff, because I got a sheriff badge tattoo on my chest.

• 1:35:27Rich Roll?

  I know. I was going to ask you where the nickname, the sheriff, came from.

• 1:35:31Speaker 01

  All three go from drinking, my friend. Just so you can only imagine the stuff we got into.

• 1:35:36Rich Roll?

  The Hunter S. Thompson of obstacle course racing.

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  Dude, I love that guy.

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  So basically, yeah, you can always reach out to me. I'm always trying to kind of get out there, share my message and have people come along the journey.

• 1:35:48Rich Roll?

  Cool, man. And you're @HunterTheSheriff on Twitter.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  Hunt the Sheriff.

• 1:35:52Rich Roll?

  Hunt the Sheriff.

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Hunt the Sheriff it is.

• 1:35:54Rich Roll?

  And you're on Facebook and all that.

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:35:56Rich Roll?

  You don't have a website, do you?

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  You know what? Squarespace screwed me, man. They came, they shut down my website and now I have to rebuild it like in some other way in their new format.

• 1:36:04Rich Roll?

  You can't talk shit about Squarespace, man. They're a sponsor of the show.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  I know. Well, look, I'm not saying they're bad people, but I get this email. Squarespace is like, blah, blah, blah. We've shut down until you've ready to reconfigure. And I'm like, I just haven't done it.

• 1:36:16Rich Roll?

  Uh, okay. Yeah, because I was poking around. I was like surprised I couldn't find like a home base for you.

• 1:36:20Speaker 01

  No. If you look at my Facebook page, Hunter McIntyre, the athlete page, I always, I post videos every single week about things I'm doing. So connect through that.

• 1:36:28Rich Roll?

  Right. All right. And like final little like nugget of wisdom here. For somebody who's out there who's listening, maybe they're stuck in that cycle of like partying with their buddies and they can't break out, or they have some aspiration of, you know, doing something fitness related, or maybe doing one of these races, but they just can't, they just, they can't get their shit together to like take that first step. Like what, what kind of, you know, what kind of inspiration would you suggest to kind of jumpstart somebody into checking it out?

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  If I could go back and I looked at myself in a little fishbowl, um, I would say, you know, you have to find something that really calls to you every day when you wake up, besides the things that you may be using, like something that you know you really are passionate about. And that was for me, it was fitness. But also I think that you need, I think a lot of people isolate themselves in situations like that where they don't want to reach out because they know that they're in a place where they don't want other people to see what they have going on in their life. But I think the most powerful thing is, is connection with other people. And you need to really just have people in your life who care about you and are willing to, you know, reach out to you and be able to stick their neck on the line for you because that's what happened with me. I never would have gotten to where I am right now if it wasn't for the people who sacrificed, you know, a lot of money and time to help me get in the place I'm in.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  And I'm fortunate, but I think that's the thing. Like, you know, you need to be able to reach out and you need to be able to expose yourself. And even though that might be scary, it's, it's going to take a lot, but there's a huge, you know, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if you can do it.

• 1:38:05Rich Roll?

  Right on, man.

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:06Rich Roll?

  Thanks for talking to me.

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  Love it, my friend.

• 1:38:08Rich Roll?

  Right on.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  Peace.

• 1:38:17Rich Roll?

  All right, we did it. That's this week's show. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Make a point, make a practice of checking out this week's show notes so you can take your edification and your entertainment to the next level. Lots of clicks and links in there to learn more about Hunter and Spartan. And while you're at it, why don't you subscribe to my newsletter? Just good stuff, no spam. I'm looking at doing more and more interesting things with my email subscribers. Let me know in the comments section on the episode page of this episode what you think would be helpful or informative. What would you welcome in your inbox? Because the last thing I want to do is like spam people. It's always a weird thing when you send somebody an email. Like, I feel like I'm invading your personal

• 1:39:00Rich Roll?

  space. So I really don't want to do it unless I'm adding value, adding something, you know, helpful, solid content. So I would love to hear what you think. And in the meantime, I'm not sending any spam, just basically weekly podcast updates, updates about my new videos. I'm putting up a new video every week on YouTube, and any kind of product offers or discounts. But beyond that, nothing else. That's it. In case you missed it, make sure you check out my video from this week. It's called "Let's Talk About Meditation." It's short, it's fun. I think it's kind of funny and entertaining. And also, I'm doing daily stuff on Snapchat. You can add me there at I Am Rich Roll, I A M Rich Roll. Having

• 1:39:42Rich Roll?

  a lot of fun with that medium as well. I'm really just enjoying exploring video as a way to deepen my connection with you guys and hopefully try to provide some helpful content. That's all. For all your plant-powered and RRP schwag and merch, visit richroll.com. Lots of cool stuff there to take your plant-powered vitality to the next level. Keep sending in your questions for future Q and A podcasts to info at Rich Roll. And you know what? Thanks so much for the support, you guys, for telling your friends, for sharing the show on social media, all the good stuff, all the emails that you sent me. I realize I can't respond to all the emails that you send me, but I do read them all and I really appreciate it tremendously. And once again, thank you for using the Amazon ...or at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. That's it.

• 1:40:27Rich Roll?

  See you guys in a couple of days. Love you. Make it great. Have fun. And remember, life is short. Start to cultivate your authentic expression. Start to put more energy and intention into that and see what comes of it. That's all. All right, you guys. Peace. Plants.