Zen and the Art of Triathlon & Morgan Christian of Metabender

Today my good buddies Brett Blankner — the man behind the Zen & The Art of Triathlon Podcast — and Morgan Christian — of Metabender tracking & Real Time Athlete — stop by the garage to talk shop on all things endurance, multisport & balancing life against training & racing. This one is fun & relaxed people. These guys are a blast — I hope my fondness for them comes through your earbuds. I hope you enjoy the show! 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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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:04Rich Roll?

  Welcome to episode 39 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Brett Plankner and Morgan Christian.

• 1:22Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Rich Roll. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. I'm going to keep this super short today. Why? Because I'm in my garage recording this. It's got to be about 110 degrees outside, and so that must make it about 130 in this garage. Our air conditioning broke, and I'm like, literally sweating on the microphone. But I guess that's a good practice, because I'm going to be, this next upcoming weekend, I'm going to be at Badwater, crewing for Dean Karnaz's. So consider it heat acclimation, I suppose, but I'm not there yet. I'm literally dying in here.

• 2:03Rich Roll?

  Anyway, I just got back from Vegetarian Summer Fest in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, which was an amazing experience. It's about, I don't know, 800,000 people descend on this small town in central Pennsylvania, around the campus of University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown. We all kind of lived together. I was like staying in a dorm. And it was cool. There was tons of amazing speakers and panelists, a lot of the same kind of doctors and nutritionists and trainers and, you know, the voices of the plant-based movement that I've been lucky enough to kind of meet and listen to and learn from. Over the last year, we're there and chalk it up to bad planning, I suppose. I should have stayed an extra day

• 2:45Rich Roll?

  and just scheduled podcasts all day long because I literally could have interviewed, I don't know, 10 or 15 people and and had some amazing content for you. And I thought I would be able to grab at least three or four while I was there and I underestimated how much I would be running around and, you know, kind of constraints on my time. So the only person I was able to carve out time to sit down with, which was Dr. Michael Gregor, who, if you're a fan of the show, he was one of the early guests that we had back in, I think it was December, one of the first few people that we had on. I interviewed him by Skype, which was great, but I wanted to sit down with him in person and I got the chance,

• 3:29Rich Roll?

  which was fantastic. We had an amazing conversation and that was the episode that I was planning on uploading today. But yesterday, as I was coming into the garage with my friends Brett Blankner and Morgan Christian, I was kind of schlepping my gear in here to set it up to do our podcast interview, the one that I'm going to share with you today. And I dropped my external hard drive and it landed like a thud on the concrete floor. Never a good sign. Plugged it in, started making some weird noises and of course not registering and I've been unable to access the data on that drive. And my interview with Dr. Gregor is one of those files. So I hadn't quite made it up to the cloud yet, unfortunately. So

• 4:13Rich Roll?

  lesson learned, which stinks because I've got a lot of data on there that I need to get and I'm sure I'll be able to. You know, get it accessed at some point, but it's just going to be able, it's going to take me a little bit of time. So today we have Brett Blankner and Morgan Christian, two very good friends of mine. Brett and I go back several years. I was an early fan of his podcast Zen and the Art of Triathlon and always enjoyed listening to him. Did a couple of training camps with him, one at his house in College Station, Texas a couple of years ago, and then one at Morgan's house in San Diego. I think that was two years ago. Great guys. And, you know, one of the things on this show is I try to bring

• 4:58Rich Roll?

  the perspective of kind of the everyman amateur, triathlete, multi-sport athlete, and have them kind of clue us into how they incorporate healthy living and multi-sport training into their busy life, how they balance kids, family, wife, husband, professional life and all of that to make it all work. And, you know, where their commitment to healthy lifestyle comes from and hopefully glean some insight that is helpful to you guys out there, which is obviously the goal of this show. If you're new to the show, who am I? Well, I'm an ultra endurance athlete. I am a plant-based nutrition advocate. I'm a public speaker. I'm an author. I wrote a book called Finding Ultra. What else? Blah,

• 5:43Rich Roll?

  blah, blah. I'm a podcast host, I guess. But the idea with this show is to bring to you some of the best and brightest and most engaging and entertaining minds and personalities and health and fitness, wellness in general. Everybody from, what was I going to say? I totally lost my train of thought. Everybody from world-class athletes to doctors, nutritionists, wellness experts, what else? Even entrepreneurs and the everyman as well. And the idea is to provide you with a lot of information from which you can glean what works for

• 6:22Rich Roll?

  you so that you can implement these insights and tools into your life and unlock the best, most authentic. Version of yourself because we need more of you. We need more of the authentic version of you in this world. That's what my journey is all about. And that's what I'm committed to trying to help other people experience and achieve. So, uh, let's see. Also, I'm going to be announcing the contest winners for the t-shirt giveaway. Sorry, I've been late to the party on making that announcement. It's just been traveling and spread really thin, but I'll do that on Twitter, Facebook in the next couple of days and make an announcement on the next podcast episode. What else? Want to support the show? Click on the Amazon banner

• 7:07Rich Roll?

  ad on richroll.com. Won't cost you a penny extra. You want to buy something on Amazon? Just go to richroll.com, go to the podcast page or the blog page. You'll see it right there on the right-hand margin. Click that goes to Amazon. Get whatever you're going to get. Won't cost you anything extra and kicks a few pennies over our way and helps pay for some of the equipment and the costs that we face. You can also donate to the podcast. You can subscribe weekly or monthly, throw a few dollars at your behest, whatever you choose. Thank you, everyone who's done that. But like I said, the podcast is free. You don't want to donate? You don't feel compelled to do it. It will always be free for you. But we are very appreciative of those who have donated.

• 7:51Rich Roll?

  So thank you very much.

• 7:58Rich Roll?

  What else? Let's just get into it. I think we're done. Check out Finding Ultra if you haven't already read it. Get it for a friend. Enough with the ad. Let's get into the show. Ladies and gentlemen, my good friends, Brett Pintner, Adam Morgan, Christian, enjoy.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Retro Podcast.

• 8:29Rich Roll?

  There we go.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  The always effervescent Brett Pintner.

• 8:36Rich Roll?

  That's right. See what happens to you when you hang out in Malibu? Start turning into a crazy person.

• 8:45Rich Roll?

  So we have a, I have a bone to pick with you.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  What? Who, me?

• 8:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Oh, what'd I do?

• 8:50Rich Roll?

  You make this big pilgrimage to Los Angeles and it's just, it's all about, it's all about Vinny Torterich and America's angriest trainer.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:00Rich Roll?

  I get this email, "I'm coming to LA to do Vinny's podcast. Do you have five minutes if I can find the time to swing by after I've gone and seen Vinny and worshipped at the altar of no sugar, no grains?"

• 9:14Speaker 01

  I was telling Morgan, I did this on purpose to see if-

• 9:18Rich Roll?

  See if I would get jealous?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, because I wanted to be on your show really, really bad.

• 9:24Rich Roll?

  Dude, why didn't you just, I didn't even know you were coming to LA. Why, all you had to do is say, "Hey, I'm coming to LA," and I'd say, "Come by the garage and let's do a show."

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Vinny brought it up first. And then when I said, "Hey, I'm coming up to LA to do Vinny's show," then you said, "What about me?" And I go, "Oh, I'm gonna use this."

• 9:42Rich Roll?

  There was a fact of-

• 9:43Speaker 01

  It was you two together that were doing it. I'm just riding that wave.

• 9:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but I would have, of course I would have had you on. You're the, you're the godfather of endurance podcasting.

• 9:55Rich Roll?

  When did you start-

• 9:56Speaker 01

  I smell like an old godfather.

• 9:57Rich Roll?

  When did you start your podcast?

• 10:00Speaker 01

  So in 2004, when Kai was born. So I can always go back to how old he is. So he's eight. So, and changed.

• 10:10Rich Roll?

  2004, yeah, it's almost, you're coming up on almost 10 years.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he was born preemie and we did the Iron Baby. I did the Iron Baby all by myself. My first ever Iron Man solo, self-supported and was live blogging it on a, who made the sidekick, Morgan? It was a danger side, a danger sidekick.

• 10:32Rich Roll?

  Just saying the word sidekick dates you horribly by danger.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  And so I was live blogging because you could blog to blogger.com with a text message. So I was sending text messages as my status as I was doing it and started, I think the first year I wasn't raising money for charity. But then the next year I had the idea, let's do this. We called it the Iron Baby. The next year.

• 10:54Rich Roll?

  I was wondering what the genesis of that was. By the way, we were recording in my garage and it's so hot out, I had to roll up the door and it faces the highway where and it's Sunday, which means motorcycles. So you're gonna hear a lot of motorcycles going by and you know what? I'm not gonna apologize. That's just part of the the ambiance of It's the character.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  So Morgan is over here on our, my right, Rich's left, and Morgan's the motorcycle expert. So he'll probably be able to tell when one goes by, tell us what it is.

• 11:22Rich Roll?

  I can tell you by sound. He's gonna say, idiot. Put on some pants.

• 11:32Rich Roll?

  It's gonna happen every five seconds. So. All right, Iron Baby.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I'd never done an Ironman before and I found myself in way over my head. But what?

• 11:44Rich Roll?

  But that was inspired by having a premature child? Like it was a spontaneous, like I'm gonna, I need to go out and?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  I needed to prove on Vinnie's podcast, I go in depth about like how.

• 11:55Rich Roll?

  Excuse me?

• 11:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Everybody just tune out right now. Go over to, go over to Vinnie's podcast. I'm gonna go ahead and get out my camera because this is gonna get awesome.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  So the.

• 12:09Rich Roll?

  I introduced you guys. See what happens? No good deed goes unpunished.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  I came out here for this treatment.

• 12:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  So the, the, the deal was, is as a, as a dad, you're told just to sit there. Don't do anything. You know, and so Emily was in labor for six days while they're trying to keep the baby on board while they're giving her.

• 12:32Rich Roll?

  They're trying to prevent the baby from being born.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, so that they can get enough drugs into him to develop his lungs enough so he can breathe on his own.

• 12:39Rich Roll?

  Somebody else was just telling me that they went through the same thing. And yeah, they have to, they can use these drugs to develop, like sort of expedite lung development.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Right. And so, and then still after he was born, they had to put him on a little bit of a caffeine drip to kind of keep him wired enough to want to breathe because preemie boys especially want to stop breathing. And so they had the alarm on them, you know, that's like a car battery.

• 13:02Rich Roll?

  Caffeine drip sounds good.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, we should be sponsored by Pete's Coffee or Starbucks. So the.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  And this Nick Yu, he was in there for two months.

• 13:12Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  And I was told just to go to work and keep earning a paycheck and pay that insurance.

• 13:19Rich Roll?

  Oh my god.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  So, and this was in Houston and of course, we would live back in College Station, which is an hour and a half, two hour drive away. And so, one weekend, I was told just to stay put. And so, I said, I'm gonna go out if I could try. If I could do something, if I was asked to do something besides just sit still, this is how hard I would try at doing something. And so, I went out and did an Ironman and it took me like seventeen, eighteen hours, whatever, something ridiculous. I didn't know what I was doing.

• 13:46Rich Roll?

  But it was, so it was inspired not so much by a desire to see if you could do an Ironman, but just all this pent up anxiety and energy and just not, and that feeling of powerlessness.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and every year since then, we've done it. There's one year where I skipped because I was doing Ironman in Wisconsin and it happened to co-align and it was a big deal. But the, so now, it's a big charity. So, we do, we raise money for March of Dimes and not many people do it. It's like three, four people. But it's a bring your own nutrition, self-supported solo Ironman. And now, we got people that come out and do small parts of it. They'll just do the swim or just part of the swim. Or they'll come and do the swim and half the bike and then they gotta go to work or something like that, you know? And so, and Morgan came out last year and did the whole thing.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was my first iron distance thing.

• 14:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  This is the way to do it, though.

• 14:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's so much more, there's something about doing it yourself and creating your own event and, and really just exempting yourself from all the marketing hullabaloo. I mean, Ironman's great and I'm certainly not disparaging it at all. But, but you know, you are kind of participating in a gigantic marketing scheme when you do one of those races. And it's like, you could go out and do that yourself, just like you could go out and run a marathon or a 10K or what have you. You don't need their imprimatur, their stamp of approval to do it.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  And Morgan and I were talking about on the way over here, like how much a cup of water costs. You know, by the time you pay the race fees and everything else, you know, when you could just get your own cup of water from your house.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  And it was fantastic, too. Like, it was an opportunity for me to like drag my family out there and do something I wanted to do anyway, but I get to go out and do it with Brett, so.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  I thought when I finished it that I was like one of the only persons ever that had done it, but then I found out that actually quite a few people do it. You know, they'll just do a self-supported solo Ironman, you know, just for kicks because they're a little ill.

• 15:36Rich Roll?

  Well, I think it's getting more and more when it's, you know, these races sell out in a matter of minutes or hours or days and the the entry fees are so exorbitant. You know, why not just try it yourself?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Uh, there's a photo that we have in our family photo album that's of me with Kai and a baby Bjorn. And I'm wearing headphones with a mic and recording a podcast with him in the baby Bjorn, you know, and now he's eight years old and he's a trapele. He does kids' trampons and and so, yeah, we do raise money for the March of Dimes, which helps pay for all this preemie stuff. And the medical costs were like $2,000 to $5,000 a day. And he was in there for two months. And so, you know, March of Dimes is helping cover this. Ronald McDonald House, which actually is a completely separate charity arm than McDonald's.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  It just happened to have the, they took on the name for whatever reason, but it has absolutely nothing to do with McDonald's whatsoever. It's really wild that it doesn't.

• 16:34Rich Roll?

  But they must fund it.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's it's the charity that McDonald's, you know, sends all their money to, from what I understand. So they provide housing for people that live out of the area, which we did, to come stay at. So Ronald McDonald House is a charity that we put to, and so the way, what's really cool is we just put up a webpage, come do the, or follow now, because it's really easy to follow stuff. Uh, the Iron Baby and it's in the, around the end of October and donate to these charities. And just send me an email that you donated and how much you did and then we'll raise thousands.

• 17:09Rich Roll?

  Right, so you're not even collecting the money.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  No, I want to stay out of it. I don't want to ever be blamed that I took money or something.

• 17:16Rich Roll?

  And so what is that, ironbaby.com or something like that?

• 17:18Speaker 01

  No, it's zentrathlon.com.

• 17:20Rich Roll?

  Just go to your site.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  I just do an Iron Baby page.

• 17:21Rich Roll?

  Right, that's cool. And in terms of following along, how would we possibly do that? What kind of technology could somebody conceive of that would allow you to follow along in real time?

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Somebody that helps somebody get followed along the Epic 5 maybe.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Not sure at all. No, but last year we both had Dragon Device on us.

• 17:41Rich Roll?

  Right, so that's Morgan speaking and he has a company called Meta Bender. And what does Meta Bender do?

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Basically, I do a handful of different things, but most of it is large-scale GPS tracking and media for these types of events, like the rolling road show endurance events kind of thing. Big swims. The first time I did my swim across Tahoe last year, it was the first time I'd actually used it for myself and it was pretty cool.

• 18:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so basically you get a little, it's a timer chip kind of thing, right?

• 18:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, it speaks over itself. Yeah, we did it for Epic 5. And you had one at Ultraman. And we put up basically a portal and run some pictures and videos through it when we can and follow along where you're at in real time.

• 18:25Rich Roll?

  Right, so essentially you can embed a map on your webpage with just the code that you give us, give whoever's using it, and then your crew members or other people can upload pictures that get uploaded to that same page in real time or videos. So people at home who are interested in following whoever throughout some event or race can actually feel like they're there and participate.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, kind of there. And it seems to be like not all of the events are a great big deal, but there's definitely somebody who cares about where you're at and how you're doing at a given point. So it's not even... It's not all about like doing these huge events or anything. It's like somebody's homegrown thing. That's why it was perfect for the Iron Baby and you know, trying it out. Basically anytime you're going out and somebody cares.

• 19:09Rich Roll?

  Right. And you also integrate the Twitter feed. So you can, you can customize that. So it's like, oh, well, any tweet that has that person's name or a certain hashtag or something like that will all show up in this one feed. So it's like a one stop shop. You don't have to go check four different social networks to find out what's going

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can just drop in on the page. It's great if you're going out to raise money for charity, you know, that kind of thing. Cause then you can just send them right into your portal. And it's not even, we're not even driving them to a, you know, one of what Meta Bender's web properties. You know, we put it on richroll.com or we put it on zentraathlon.com. And that way you can get your, your own branding as part of whatever you're up to at that given time.

• 19:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, it seems like a no brainer just for athletes that are looking, professional athletes that are looking to, you know, develop a greater relationship or connection with their audience. Like Luke McKenzie, I know that you, you did it for him and it seems to work really well for him. And also just for race organizers. I mean, why wouldn't some, why wouldn't a race say, hey, Morgan, you know, do this for us and you can do this for all the athletes and work it that way?

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I've been working over the last, the last several months of sort of looking at how I can scale this thing to actually be to everybody on course and super cost effective. You know, cause right now we send somebody out on course. It costs, you know, anywhere from 40 to $60 depending on how, how long the whole thing's going to go. So instead of doing that, I'm trying to drive the cost down to two or $3 per person if possible.

• 20:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  And get it embedded. Uh, you know, there's a huge, huge demographic that's, you know, half marathons, like the half marathon crowd is one of the biggest in the U.S. And, you know, if we can get this sort of thing out and into those things. I mean, people show up to do those and it's a big event in their lives. And, you know, they've got family and friends that are coming out to watch. It'd be great to see where they are mile by mile and just see how they're doing. You know, not to maybe, you know, work out how to get some media in there. So you can get a Get a feel for actually how they're doing, but at least be able to see where they are on course.

• 21:01Rich Roll?

  Right. And it's also, I mean, for the Ironmans and half Ironmans, I mean, you know, Ironman.com or the WTC is getting better at their live broadcast, but it's always pretty glitchy. And, and when you go to the athlete tracker, it takes so long for them to upload like their sort of individual split times. Like it'll be like maybe, you know, two hours later before they upload, like their bicycle split or something like that. And, and the only way to find out, you know, live, you know, contemporaneous information is to go on, is to like poke around Twitter and create a column or something like that to find out how your favorite athlete is doing or your friend.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you're, you're in the dark for hours before you hit the timing mats too. So you go, you'll go two or three hours before you know when somebody hit the bike turn around or whatever. So, you know, sort of trying to getting that down to at least mile by mile would be awesome.

• 21:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. There's a huge, I think there's a huge market for that, man.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I got some new devices and prototyping and getting there.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got, I have a, a relationship, not really a gig, but with a race company in Texas. That's really professional. They do smaller races right now, but I'm going to start pitching them to integrate this into their racing, you know, and they do lots of 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons, stuff like that.

• 22:13Rich Roll?

  That's how to do it. You gotta, you gotta start at the local level in these small races and work out your kinks and just incrementally, you're not going to be able to just step right into Ironman or something. You know what I mean? Like you gotta go, yeah, exactly.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  You never know. And who knows? I mean, there's a reason why it doesn't exist already, right? And maybe I haven't stumbled over what's preventing somebody else from getting it done either. But I think I've got kind of a head start a little bit. I'm thinking, I assume I'm thinking about it in the right way. So.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  So if, if people want to check out like something that Morgan did for me, it's a really good example is the Tahoe Swim. Morgan set up what you call a portal and it's on, it's on zentraffon.com. And at the top, there's a, you know, the phrase of the Tahoe Swim and you can go there and you can see a big map of. The GPS points as we took them across the lake and swimming and then lots of photos and videos that were embedded live.

• 23:01Rich Roll?

  Yep.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  As we were doing it.

• 23:03Rich Roll?

  Most all of them I took.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  So you go, yeah, and you go.

• 23:05Rich Roll?

  So I was carrying that.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  You go look at that and you're like, wow, I could have that for my own rate, for my own event. Like if you're gonna go out and do something awesome to race.

• 23:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  You know, want to just want to do something on your own or, you know, maybe if you're into, you're in with a racing company and you want something done like that.

• 23:18Rich Roll?

  It could be anything. It could be like a couple buddies that are just gonna go on a mountain bike weekend in Utah or something, you know, it doesn't have to be a race.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Or just motorcycle riding across the country or something.

• 23:26Rich Roll?

  And there's safety reasons too. Like, hey, here's where we are in case something happens too.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  It's really cool.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  I've integrated it with Spot completely too. So if you get a Spot satellite tracker, I can just run the front end map for that and give you a little media links and stuff too. And Spot's awesome because it's satellite driven. So if you get out the backwoods, it, you know, you're talking to the sky and not cell towers. So it's actually funk, you know, pretty functional. And when you're talking about, you know, crossing the United States or, you know, doing these big swims, uh, you know, when you're out in the middle of the Sea of Cortez or something, you don't get cell signal. So, you know, satellite's the only way to fly.

• 24:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Not even close.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Out there.

• 24:03Rich Roll?

  The Sea of Cortez. What are we talking about? Well, you did some stuff with Jamie, right?

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did, uh, I tracked Jamie's Sacramento.

• 24:11Rich Roll?

  We're talking about Jamie Patrick, who's a mutual friend of all of ours who he's, I first met him because he participated in Ultraman and then he kind of stepped into doing, uh, endurance swim events and he's done the double Tahoe.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  He did the double Tahoe. He swam 111 miles of the Sac River, Sacramento River. And I accrued, accrued for that. Uh, and then last year we went out for the, uh, the Tahoe 360, which is him.

• 24:33Rich Roll?

  Right. So explain to people what that is.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  So the, uh, you know, he's kind of Mr. Tahoe. He's done a bunch of crossings and uh, so he wanted to go back to the lake and, uh, swim the circumference.

• 24:43Rich Roll?

  The perimeter, basically. Yeah. So it's not about going, he's gone back and he's gone across it and back, right? And not very many people have done that. Has, how many people have done a double crossing?

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, I don't know. I think somebody else is in.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Maybe somebody else.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  I think one other. I think it's one other, but they, um.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  And it sent him to the hospital the first time he did it.

• 25:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  But we, we went out there last, last August and it got brutal and we ended up pulling him out of the water at 14 hours.

• 25:08Rich Roll?

  But how many, if a successful perimeter swim, how many miles is that?

• 25:12Speaker 02

  About 68.

• 25:13Rich Roll?

  68.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Depending on how, how, how hard you hug the coastline.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  And then you think like, how far is Diana and I trying to swim, right? It's about the same or is it 90?

• 25:21Rich Roll?

  Oh, I think her, hers is further.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:23Rich Roll?

  I think it's.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's more extreme. It's saltwater and sharks.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  There's definitely.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  But you get an idea of what this is. This is pretty nuts.

• 25:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And also it's, it's cold water and altitude. And I think people really are way too dismissive of the altitude at Tahoe. And I think it's going to be really interesting at Ironman Lake, like Tahoe, to see how the athletes do. And I, my prediction is athletes that are training at altitude or the boulder athletes are going, you know, are going to dominate that. And people who are not prepared for that are going to get destroyed because I've done the Tahoe swim and I've spent time up there and it's like, it is, I mean, you feel, you guys know, you've been in the swim.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Being in the cold water that long at high altitude made my asthma kick in, you know, and there was really nothing I could do about it. And.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  I had a headache the whole time.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Like I just sort of settled into some sort of.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  It's a very extreme environment.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Altitude sickness.

• 26:16Rich Roll?

  Right. So that'll be interesting to see. So what is Jamie doing now? I gotta have him on the show.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  He's going, yeah.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do.

• 26:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  He's going back to Tahoe this year.

• 26:24Rich Roll?

  For, to do the 360?

• 26:27Speaker 02

  To finish the 360. So, you know, I'm going.

• 26:29Rich Roll?

  Is he getting super fat and big? Like you gotta, you gotta be huge to, those, those open water endurance swimmers, like they gotta look like big whales, you know?

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, they pick up, they pick up a little bit of, a little bit of extra to keep them warm. But, you know, the, the last time I saw.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  They're not allowed to wear, well, it depends on the, the race or the event.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, depends on whatever they're doing.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  But usually not a wetsuit.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Traditional water swimming is no wetsuit.

• 26:51Rich Roll?

  No, no, no. You're a post, you're a post if you were.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so it's like a built in wetsuit if you can put on some body fat.

• 26:57Rich Roll?

  Exactly. There's an article, I was just flying back from the East Coast the other day and I was reading on the plane, Outside Magazine, and they had an article about. Open water endurance swimming and in particular this camp that this guy holds every year in I think it's in like County Cork in the UK and he gets like you know I don't know 20 or 30 people out there and just puts them through this insane boot camp where they're just they're swimming in insanely cold water every day for hours and hours and and this guy who is a I think his name is his last name is Bondurant who fairly successful open water swimmer went and did it and experienced it and like wrote this article about what it was like it's pretty interesting.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  It's tough. I mean it was certainly certainly an eye opener for me.

• 27:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So what was that? I mean, like for you guys to swim across Tahoe. I mean, you know, I've never done that. I mean, what was that like?

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Well, at first, I think it totally depends on the day, right? Because I've never seen anything make something harder like weather and open water.

• 27:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Right? So if you're off-road running, you can have, you know, some rain and wind, you know, and that'll make it harder. But you get weather during a swim, then it gets exponentially harder, you know? So at first, the day and Morgan's too, that we did it a year apart, but it was really mellow conditions. It was like swimming in a swimming pool.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  It was glass in the morning. It was awesome. We took off off the beach because Jamie swam at the same time Brett did and I was in a kayak in between them and it was just us. Like.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, with a kayak with glow sticks attached to it.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Yep. You guys all had glow sticks attached to the back of your goggles and stuff.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  And so started swimming at night under moonlight, maybe or something?

• 28:35Speaker 02

  It was like we started at 4 a.m. I think it was still dark.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  And you watched the sun come up and then you see the mountains around you have snow on them. Some of them do. And it was really smooth for a long time. And then in the afternoon, just, you know, a little bit of wind picks up, you get a little bit of chop. And then late in the afternoon, it started getting moderately choppy. Still.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  You don't know how much it's slowing you down.

• 28:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  You know, but you're starting to get exhausted and then you start worrying about

• 29:01Rich Roll?

  It's so deep.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  What time is the sun gonna go down?

• 29:03Rich Roll?

  You can't see the bottom, so.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Not even close.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  There's no fish.

• 29:06Rich Roll?

  You have nothing to look at. You have no point of reference to know how fast you're going.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's pretty crazy. And then there's this optical illusion of the mountains on the side, because you, for a long time, you're swimming next to the shoreline on the east side. And this one mountain, as you pass it, the, the way it grows or shrinks, something about it, it seems like you're not going anywhere.

• 29:27Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  So it really starts messing with your mind.

• 29:29Rich Roll?

  Did Jamie warn you of that at that time?

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yes, he said that mountain right there will make you want to kill yourself.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  He did, and I, I remember asking him, like, am I going anywhere? Am I going backwards or what? Like, what the hell is going on?

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's pretty crazy. But I mean, I knew that it was doable, because I just asked Jamie what time, you know, how long it took him, and I added on several hours for myself, and it still seemed like, you know, like, the better part of a day, but not like, you know, not like 24 or 48 hours or anything like that. So, slow down a little bit and have some fun, so.

• 30:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then Morgan and the rest of the crew ate my cookies on, on the boat. I'm never gonna let them. He goes, what do you want? I go, I want some of those chocolate chip cookies. Oh, we're out.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Didn't know they were off.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  We've got some raisin cookies.

• 30:13Rich Roll?

  Remember eating your, yeah.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Well, it was, we wanted to make it a little harder. You looked like you were having too much fun.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:18Rich Roll?

  How many miles?

• 30:19Speaker 01

  It's 22, right?

• 30:20Rich Roll?

  22.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:21Rich Roll?

  That's a, that's a beast of a swim, man.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:24Rich Roll?

  It's no small thing.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was pretty nuts.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  So when are you gonna do it?

• 30:27Rich Roll?

  Uh, I don't know.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  You don't like cold water.

• 30:30Rich Roll?

  I'm not getting, no, I don't.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:32Rich Roll?

  I don't do well.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  We did it with wet suits on, so it wasn't that bad.

• 30:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't do well in cold.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't that bad.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  It was cold when I got in, but by the afternoon it was warm, like service chat.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  The problem is, is you can't try too hard, you know, because you'll get, you'll wear yourself out.

• 30:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  So you don't develop a lot of body heat, because you're trying to play it cool, literally.

• 30:48Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  And so you're on the verge of it being a little bit too cold, but just right in the sweet spot, so.

• 30:56Rich Roll?

  All right, so you've done all these Ironmans, you've been doing your podcast since the beginning, well, first of all, we're not done talking about that. I want to talk about the birth of the, you know, the begin, the beginning of the, my first question was, how did the podcast start? And then we got talking about Iron Baby, but I assume at some point that led into this idea of podcasting.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  So, the way the story goes is, I was subscribed to Wired magazine, which is really good.

• 31:19Rich Roll?

  So forward-thinking of you at the time.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Long time ago, and Adam, or.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  What's his name? Was on the front of it. Now I can't remember.

• 31:27Rich Roll?

  Corolla?

• 31:28Speaker 01

  No, not Adam Corolla. Uh, Adam Curry was on the front of it and there was this article about podcasting. And so I started reading up on it and listened to one and I'm on a, I'm on a spin bike at Gold's Gym, listening to a podcast about, and it was the only like sports, like endurance sports podcasts that I could find of any kind. It wasn't even endurance sports. It was windsurfing off the coast of Wales, maybe in Scotland. And, uh, and it was really cool to hear somebody from the other side of the world with no agenda, just talking about what they love. You know, and I was like, wow, this is really neat. And then, so I'm sitting there on the spin bike, just killing time, you know, training for something, you know, two, three hours on the bike.

• 32:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  And, uh, it's raining outside or, and so, and I'm like, man, I could, I could do this. I wonder what I could do it about. And for, for days, I was like, I wonder what I could do a podcast about. And then, uh, so I, uh, at one point I had the idea, oh, I could do it about triathlon. And then I thought, well, what am I going to talk about? About triathlon. So my first podcast was like 10 minutes.

• 32:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  And then, uh, yeah, uh, I looked around, there was no, no other podcasts about triathlon. No, I couldn't believe it.

• 32:41Rich Roll?

  I mean, there couldn't have been very many podcasts about anything.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  There wasn't.

• 32:44Rich Roll?

  I mean, when you went to iTunes and looked up under the different categories, I mean, there are.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  There was hundreds to maybe a thousand or two podcasts total, like. Probably tech dominated. And I'm just guessing, it could have been much smaller than that.

• 32:56Rich Roll?

  News and tech.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  News and tech. Way, we're talking way before iTunes. When iTunes showed up on the scene, everybody thought they screwed it up. You know, iTunes, iTunes ruined it.

• 33:03Rich Roll?

  So before iTunes, how did you even, you just RSS feed?

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there was a directory, a podcast pickle or something like that. And a forum that you would go on and ask people questions on how to do all this stuff.

• 33:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  And, uh, Don and Drew was, uh, big on the scene. And yeah, so just listening to other and I really fell in love with shows that were individual personalities, just talking about their everyday life. And oh, and in College Station, Texas, there's, there's no, I like tech and I like, you know, endurance sports and it's hard to believe, but up until then you had to get all that stuff via the radio or a TV channel. And yeah, it just didn't exist.

• 33:45Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  So all of a sudden, a podcast opened up the world for me. All of a sudden, the town went from barely survivable to I'm perfectly happy, you know, because I can, I can download whatever I want. I can listen to all the tech news, Leo Laporte, you know,

• 34:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Twit this week in tech, well, that was before that. But anyway, so yeah, like the only tech stuff that I could get was, was it CNET? Did you ever watch that stuff, Morgan?

• 34:11Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. I remember that.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's old school, old school. Yeah. And so all of a sudden, there was all this tech news, like 24/7 and I could catch up on it, just, I could just listen to it all day long.

• 34:21Rich Roll?

  And so. So that, so that's when it began and.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I started doing.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  It really turned into this thing though. I mean, you know, that's how we met and, you know, I became a fan of your show and listen. And I started, I, I fell in love with podcasts really when I kind of started, you know, getting fit again and was spending all this time on a bike or, or running and I just needed something else besides music to listen to. And I was like, gosh, let me look at the triathlon podcast and there you were, you know, started listening to your show.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Oh, well, yeah. And so what happened was there was a whole lot of podcasts about Zen, right? And so, and it's fascinating. I recommend people go out and listen to this stuff because there are world renowned Zen masters that record their talks to audiences and it'll just blow your mind, their, their take on life. And so I needed that, having moved back to Texas from San Diego, back to this little town, you know, I'm really not happy with being in this little town after coming from surfing every day, you know? And the Zen stuff really taught me to take a different approach to how I see life. And College Station has this amazing cycling out in the countryside that you can just go out and running and like all this stuff.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  And so I was learning a lot about Zen at the same time that I was starting my podcast. So every once in a while, I'd, you know, say a little bit about what I'd learned and it made for some pretty good content, you know? So. There was a big change whenever on the, after, I don't know, maybe a few months to a year. I figured out, on one bike ride, I would record while I'm on the bike. And then I would, I would record the latest news in triathlon, which there's really not that much. So, and then

• 36:01Rich Roll?

  More so now.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  And some, yeah, more now. And then some like product stuff that came out, you know, there's a new Aero bottle or whatever, you know? And then, and I'm recording, at that point, recording in stereo with a mic strapped to me. And, you know, there's 18 wheelers like roaring by. People said that they love that.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  That was, dude, that was one of the, some of the best, the best.

• 36:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And I gave you a little shit about that, though. Remember that? Remember that? No, because I was like, I'd be listening and you're like trying to talk about something while you're running, you know?

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, running's hard. Yeah.

• 36:31Rich Roll?

  So I got this new, I'm going to try out this new

• 36:37Rich Roll?

  product.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, some people thought it was porn.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  I was like, dude.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Mouth breathing. I got a lot of emails from the ladies.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Spit it out, man.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, the, so on one bike ride, I just, and it's, it's in one of the old podcasts somewhere. I said, I was about to turn the mic off. I did, I turned the mic off because I was done. I'm leaving it on and I'm just going to tell you what I think about everything and just started talking while I was riding. And then that show was a huge hit.

• 37:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I was like, well, I'm going to keep doing this. So I'll just talk about whatever.

• 37:09Rich Roll?

  That's interesting because I think that, that's an important thing that I think about a lot, which is, you know, you think it's the information that you're delivering, but I think it's more about your unique perspective and, and you being authentic and honest to that. And it's so refreshing in contrast to typical programming or radio where it's like you're getting some canned whatever. And in podcasting, you get people the way they really are, you know? We could sit down for an hour and a half. It's like, you can't fake that, you know?

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:39Rich Roll?

  At the end of that period of time, people are going to get a sense of who you really are. Even, you know, even if you do your best to try to affect some other personality type.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Vinnie was asking, you know, or saying, he doesn't know why his show is so popular. And I'm like, well, one, people are, nothing against Vinnie or any of our shows, people are bored. They're stuck in their cars, right? So they, and I said, and you're, they get to tune in and listen to somebody else living a life that's different. And so it's like they get to live vicariously through you and what you're doing, at least temporarily. And you're broadcasting the best parts of your life, you know? So it sounds really way more interesting than it is.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  As we all know.

• 38:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  So, um, but yeah, I was like, you know, you're to them, you're like a character and they get to check in every once in a while on their own schedule.

• 38:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  And.

• 38:24Rich Roll?

  He is a character.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 38:27Rich Roll?

  What'd you guys talk about?

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Oh, I have a list for you.

• 38:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, God.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Of questions he wanted me to ask you.

• 38:32Rich Roll?

  Oh, please. I just had him here the other day. He could have asked me then.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  These are apparently following.

• 38:38Rich Roll?

  You really do have a list?

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:40Rich Roll?

  These are questions, these are questions you want me to ask you?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  He wanted me to ask you.

• 38:44Rich Roll?

  That Vinnie wants me to ask you?

• 38:46Speaker 01

  He, well, we did coaching on his podcast, how to do Rich's podcast, because he's been on your show three times.

• 38:52Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  And so I said.

• 38:54Rich Roll?

  But how I do it with him is totally different than how I do it with other people. When I have other people on, I prepare. When I have Vinnie on, I don't have to prepare anything.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 39:01Rich Roll?

  I just wind him up.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  But he said, first off, have lots of coffee, two cups of coffee each.

• 39:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  To keep the beat up.

• 39:08Rich Roll?

  Why? Because otherwise I'll let it drag?

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:10Rich Roll?

  Is that what he's trying to, is that what he's really saying there?

• 39:12Speaker 01

  You gotta hear this, this other episode. Okay. So, but we did, we had coffee in your house before we got going.

• 39:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Right. Okay. So then, uh, then he wanted me to ask you how you liked his book.

• 39:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he wanted, Jesus Christ. I like his book great. I love his book. I had him on the show so I could support him and what he's doing.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Okay. And then, uh, how did you like the section of Vinnie's book about the 508?

• 39:40Rich Roll?

  Oh.

• 39:42Rich Roll?

  We'll talk off camera, off, off camera about that.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  And then how did you feel about the section of his book where his parents died in a tragic car accident?

• 39:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, please.

• 39:55Rich Roll?

  What is wrong with that guy?

• 39:58Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna have to go back on his show now and set the record straight.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Set it straight, yeah.

• 40:02Rich Roll?

  So.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  No, so it's, uh, what I wanted to bring up was, um, uh, how you, you really changed my life. So I'm gonna lay it on you.

• 40:10Rich Roll?

  Well, let's talk about how you changed my life first.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 40:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  Wait.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Morgan.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  I'd like to talk about how both of you changed mine.

• 40:16Rich Roll?

  No, I mean, I was, I was gonna say, like, I started listening to your show when I was getting interested in triathlon and I was like, oh, I like this guy's perspective because A, like we just talked about, you're not trying to be someone you're not, you're just, this is who you are.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  I failed at that miserably.

• 40:32Rich Roll?

  And, uh, yeah, well, everybody who tries to do that fails.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was learning that.

• 40:35Rich Roll?

  The second thing is, uh, you know, it's.

• 40:40Rich Roll?

  You weren't coming at it like, you know, I'm Mr. Super Pro. You were coming at it like, "Hey, man, I'm here with you and I'm learning too. And here's what I found out. And I used to think this, and now I think this. And we'll see how it works. I don't know how it's gonna work." You weren't trying to say, "I have all the answers."

• 40:53Speaker 01

  I definitely don't, no.

• 40:54Rich Roll?

  And most programming you listen to, it's somebody saying, you know, "Here's how it's, here's how it's gonna be," or they're preaching to you, or they're kind of, or they're lecturing, or, you know, it's more kind of a one-sided thing. Whereas, I felt like I was in this relationship or conversation with you where we were in it together. And I found that very appealing. And I also liked, I was very attracted to, like, there were other shows, I think, that, you know, you could listen to I Am Talk, and that's very kind of like race-specific and results, talking about pros and things like that. Which is interesting, and I like that show. But totally different from what you were doing. And then there was a guy, I think his name, his name is Dave Wharton. Do you remember his show?

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, Dave Wharton.

• 41:31Rich Roll?

  It was very techie, triathlon.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I used to listen to that one.

• 41:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and he'd be like, you know, he would read about studies on this and that and different training techniques, but it was very technical. And with you, I was like, but I didn't know, feel like I knew who he was, you know what I mean? It's like, with you, it's like, "Oh, I know this guy." And I liked the, the fact that you were bringing kind of your spiritual perspective into this, in kind of a soul surfer kind of way, without being heavy-handed. You're like, "Hey, this Zen stuff has helped me out, and, you know, the Zen masters kind of say this, and that helps me out when I'm going through something like this." Like, you brought just enough of your own kind of personality and perspective into kind of how triathlon integrates into your life as a lifestyle, as opposed to, "Hey, I'm preparing for this race to do a PR." It's like, "No, this is just how I live my life on a day-to-day basis."

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. And a lot of that is the very early podcasts, where people just walking around with microphones and recordings, what they would call soundscapes. And so, there's a lot of just open-minded, like, what they're seeing, they just talk about what they see. And then you get a lot of personal opinion when they're talking about what they see, you know? And so, I made sure that my show would always be one where I've got a recorder on me. And in this sport, we run into the most amazing people just left and right. And so, I'll just bust out the recorder and start saying, "Hey, you know, what's your opinion on this?" Or, "What are you doing?" You know? And they'll say, "Oh, you know, use these wheels," or, and I'm like, "Why?" And, and then you find out way more about the person

• 43:00Speaker 01

  about it. And... So that, yeah, that was Adam, one of Adam Curry's podcasts he used to do as a soundscape. He would walk through London, you know, and Central Park with a microphone on and describe what he was seeing. And it was just amazing, you know?

• 43:14Rich Roll?

  That's interesting.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, yeah. And with, uh, what happened with you was the, uh, the Men's Health article, right? Where you were named one of the fittest guys.

• 43:26Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  And, uh, and you done Ultraman?

• 43:29Rich Roll?

  That was 2009?

• 43:30Speaker 01

  That was a while.

• 43:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think it was, I think it was 2009.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, uh, and I had just, oh, and doing the podcasting really taught me, um, to get over a whole lot of fears, you know, and, um, contacting people just out of the blue, you know, and just doing, uh, uh, sending emails to people I didn't even know and saying, and having the confidence in myself to say, hey, I do this podcast and, uh, you want to be on it? And, uh, what I didn't know at the time, what I've learned is that, uh, especially endurance athletes, you know, were under, underpaid, you know, and under promoted. So it's a game. I mean, like even Luke McKenzie, you know, has

• 44:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean,

• 44:12Speaker 01

  these people are looking for opportunities to get their name out, you know? It's, it's a, it's more than just the race, you know?

• 44:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  It's a brand and it's like all this stuff. So they're looking for opportunity, or it's a message about nutrition, right? And so to help other people. And so people are looking for opportunities to, um, get out there and say something. And, um, a lot more people than you'd think.

• 44:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  A lot more often. And so, I don't know, like, four times out of five, somebody replies back and goes, yeah, I'd love to be on your show, you know? And so, and nowadays, it's even easier with Skype, you know, you just gotta call and get somebody on there. Yeah, we started doing a couple of interviews with you, like before Ultraman.

• 44:47Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  And what it was like, you know, and I'm fascinated with, you know, I remember asking you, like, how do you get your bike rides in? And you're like, well, I just throw my bike in the back of my car and between meetings or whatever I do, I just get on my bike and ride, you know? And, um,

• 45:02Speaker 01

  And you learn these little tidbits and then I try to turn around and share them. And then you were the first person, and you opened up the floodgates, like the first person that I interviewed that was really into the nutrition side. And of course, there's photos of you and everything. And so what I did is I cut out that picture of you that's out here that was taken where you're holding one of your kids in your arm.

• 45:25Rich Roll?

  Oh, right.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  And I put it above my pull-up bar. Right? And so I'm cranking.

• 45:31Rich Roll?

  This is gonna get weird.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  No, Emily, Emily's like, this is weird.

• 45:35Rich Roll?

  I knew it was gonna get weird.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  No, but I'm like, I want to look like that guy, you know? So I started, you know, well, I got you on the show.

• 45:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  And interviewed you and then, and then the next thing I know, you called me up and said, hey, can I come down and do the training camp?

• 45:48Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's where it all got started.

• 45:51Rich Roll?

  I know. It was good. Went down to College Station, did the camp with you, which was super fun.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And your nutrition advice worked. It worked fantastic.

• 45:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, it did?

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:59Rich Roll?

  Are you still doing it? Where are you at right now?

• 46:01Speaker 01

  I'm not.

• 46:01Rich Roll?

  We can get into that in a minute.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm not vegan right now.

• 46:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  But I have no problem with it whatsoever.

• 46:06Rich Roll?

  The Vinnie's put a tractor beam on you and pulling you into his orbit of...

• 46:10Speaker 01

  I don't think he cares.

• 46:22Rich Roll?

  How has your podcast evolved? You know, how, like, what is, like, what keeps you going and what kind of, I mean, I'm sure you get emails from people all the time.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. And you know, Morgan's pointed out that compared to the shows I used to do, I don't do as much of the introspective kind of stuff. I've started trying to get competitive, you know? And, and so the, a lot of the content seems to be more, you know, trying to get faster and all that other stuff.

• 46:47Rich Roll?

  Well, you've changed as an athlete quite a bit.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've gotten faster.

• 46:50Rich Roll?

  In the last several years I've known you, so.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  But I'm thinking I'm gonna swing it back a little bit more towards stuff I'm, you know, well, I learned a lot about Zen and then after a while, Zen will tell you there's not much more to learn.

• 47:01Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  So I'm not really in the... The discovery of the concepts anymore? I've got the concepts down, but now where I'm at is applying them and like how it changes your life.

• 47:12Rich Roll?

  Right. It reminds me of a, uh, my favorite yoga teacher. I've been to lots of different kinds of yoga classes and been exposed to different methods and teaching styles and all of that. And my favorite teacher is a teacher who doesn't teach at all, you know? And I used to think like, he's not teaching, I'm paying to go to this yoga class and he doesn't care. He couldn't care less about my alignment or he's not giving any instruction to anybody. And, uh, it took me a long time to realize that he is actually, that's a very advanced perspective on the whole thing. You know what I mean? Because he's like, I think he's in a place where he understands in a Zen-like way. Like everybody's on their own journey and if they want to learn more, they will. And I'm available to them, but I'm not here to tell anyone what to do either.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 47:56Rich Roll?

  Like, so there's a, there's almost like a, a deeper respect.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:59Rich Roll?

  Even though it would appear that he's being nonchalant and, and shirking his, you know, his Harley.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, Harley, there you go. If I try to tell somebody what to do and they don't really come to me wanting to know what to do, then it, not only are they not going to listen, it's almost borderline offensive, you know?

• 48:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yeah, the podcast is just, you know, what I'm doing. You know, Morgan jokes is called the Brett Show.

• 48:23Rich Roll?

  It's the Brett Show. But it's, it's your show. It should be the Brett Show.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  It is the Brett Show. And one of the podcasts I used to listen to, like the guy that was doing it was, uh, talking about his therapist told him to do it. You know?

• 48:35Rich Roll?

  Told him to do a podcast?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because, uh, you're talking about, you, you have to verbalize your own issues. And when you verbalize them, when you put it in the words, you're having to, you know, recognize what you're doing.

• 48:46Rich Roll?

  What do you think Marc Maron is doing?

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:49Rich Roll?

  You know, I mean, that's exactly what it is.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  That's rolling therapy for sure.

• 48:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I've become such a much better self-confident and better version of myself.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  But via podcasting because it forces you, basically you're public speaking. But it's a very safe environment because you're public speaking by yourself.

• 49:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  And so, and then there's no time schedule, so you can do it when you want. And then like I'm saying, I can send emails off to people and get, you know, bigger and bigger guests. And then it's like this thing I'm building, but it's all me. It's not, it's not, it's not anybody else. It's just my thing.

• 49:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  So it's, it's, um, podcasting's definitely changed my life.

• 49:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  So, and so you've been doing it now for how long?

• 49:32Rich Roll?

  Started in December. So this is like 39th, 40th episode, something like that.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  How you liking it?

• 49:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Oh, it's amazing, you know? It's fantastic. If it was, I mean, I, I would just do one every day if I could, you know? Like I would, you know, if I could figure out a way to do that.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  But without being Justin TV or whatever that guy is that, you know?

• 49:51Rich Roll?

  Who's that?

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Live blogs all the time. Put the camera on yourself all the time. You're not really helping anybody at that point.

• 49:57Rich Roll?

  You have to keep the quality high. Like I, I think, you know, right now my goal is to get two a week out. And if I'm not quite there, I'm kind of erratic and every week's a little bit different. But if I consistently, I want to get to a place where I'm putting them up like every Monday and Thursday. And I think I'd be happy. And then if I really could create some infrastructure around that, then maybe three, but only if like the guests are good enough, you know? It's like, you don't want to do it to do it. You only want to do it if you're going to be delivering content that's valuable.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  If you have a reg, I found for sure, if you have a regular schedule, your, your audience grows a whole lot more. Because

• 50:31Rich Roll?

  I've been terrible about that.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  People are naturally wanting to, you know, they're expect, just like TV shows. They're expecting a certain time. And if you're not consistent, then they go to something that is consistent. Whether it's better quality or not.

• 50:43Rich Roll?

  They get angry too.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, it becomes, it becomes part ritual too, right? So you have your favorite podcasts when you go out on your Friday night, you know?

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I get the, I get the emails and the text of the Twitter messages, you know? You need to put up another show because I'm going on a bike ride on Sunday. And if I don't have your podcast for my bike ride, then my life is ruined.

• 51:01Rich Roll?

  All right. I joke about that all the time. Also, people get very demanding with their free content.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:07Rich Roll?

  You know, so, but I think you bring like a great voice to the podcast of fear. Podcasts, podcasts, fear, the world of podcasting. And there's been a lot of interest and kind of demand from the people that listen to this show to have athletes on who are kind of identifiable. You know what I mean? Like here's a guy who's just like me, you know, he's a dad and he has a normal job. And he's trying to do these, whether it's running marathons or Ironmans or whatever. But he's not a pro and he's not like outside of what, you know, I can relate to or what I might be capable of.

• 51:48Rich Roll?

  And you, you know, so freely share all your information like here's where I went wrong. And I thought it would be great if I did it this and it didn't work. Or, you know, here's what's really working for me. And here's where you're, you know, you might be wasting a lot of time and money. And, you know, what are some?

• 52:01Speaker 01

  I do a lot of that. Yeah.

• 52:02Rich Roll?

  I mean, I mean, what are some of the things that, that, you know, I'd like to be able to offer that now, you know, to some people that are listening, like things you've learned and kind of common mistakes that, that the amateur triathlete or aspiring Ironman might be making.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So a lot of things that the, the things that people need to read up on is bang for your buck kind of articles. Those are really handy, you know, and you can save just as much time, more time by spending a hundred or buying a used aero helmet than you could on $2,000 worth of wheels, you know? And those kinds of things, I've, the recent thing that I've come to realize is as a, as a dad with a full-time job, you've got the kid and everything and a life, that you can get fast at half Ironmans. But to be like really fast at Ironmans is kind of a, I don't know, it just seems to be.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Maybe it comes from your skill set, from what you come back, come with. And as a former swimmer, that makes me fast at about one hour's worth of the race.

• 53:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  So, not as a former runner, you know, where it would really save some time. But you can really, you can get really fast at a half Ironman and really enjoy it.

• 53:13Rich Roll?

  Without it, in other words, without it completely disrupting your life.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. And then you can go out and do Ironmans and be reasonably fast and really enjoy it. You know, and finish happy.

• 53:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's interesting.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  And have a good time out there.

• 53:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, there's a big difference between completing an Ironman and like trying to be competitive at an Ironman.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:33Rich Roll?

  In terms of the impact on your lifestyle.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:35Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Like if your goal is just, I gotta cross that finish line, I don't care what time it is. That will demand a certain, you know, level of preparation that, that may very well, depending on who you are and what your background is, be doable in the context of a busy schedule in life. But to be, like you want to qualify for Kona, well, that's a completely different conversation.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, it's crazy.

• 53:56Rich Roll?

  It may take many years and, and you know.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  May not ever happen.

• 53:59Rich Roll?

  And may come at the cost of, you know, a lot of other things in your life that you value or enjoy.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:05Rich Roll?

  So, half Ironman, yeah, it's completely, I think that's the greatest thing that the WTC has done. I mean, the sort of advent of that, that distance and all these races are up because it's challenging enough where it's not like an Olympic distance. Like you, you finished one of those and you did something.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:22Rich Roll?

  But it's not so daunting that it's going to commandeer every aspect of your life for a year.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'm trying to think of, you know, like on my show, I'll review gear and whether it's, you know, worth your time or not. And, um, yeah, I think all the, the, like Morgan was talking about with tracking, you know, websites, divide GPS devices where you can upload what you did and show on a map what you did.

• 54:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  That's really nice.

• 54:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Because then you can share with family.

• 54:49Rich Roll?

  Bike club now. Yeah. His Sons of Anarchy just went by.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  But you can share with, uh, family and friends at work, you know, kind of what, where you went and what you did.

• 54:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that's money well spent because that a big part of, in my opinion, the success equation is about community and accountability. And so money spent on tools that kind of affirm that or deepen your connection to that, I think are good. So yeah, like Strava and things like that where, hey, you put your ride up on Strava, like you're publicly accountable to whoever's

• 55:20Speaker 01

  following you. And people notice when you don't ride. Like I've been really horrible about posting my rides there and I'm getting messages from people like, hey, man, you gonna ever ride your bike again?

• 55:28Rich Roll?

  It can, it can go the other way though, too, because if you're, if you're supposed to go out for a zone two aerobic ride and you know you're posting on Strava and you're on a Strava segment, some hill, you know, you end up like attacking it when you shouldn't, you know, and suddenly you're, why am I overtraining?

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. And so, and back to the Zen stuff, it's like, the other thing I'm really learning lately is really the most important thing to change yourself is to pay attention. If you pay attention to what you're doing, then you'll notice that you're, you're doing stuff like that. Right? If you take the moment, take a moment to slow down your brain a little bit, not slow down yourself, but slow down and take a moment and pause and go, you know, I went faster than I was supposed to. Why? Ask yourself why. And then you're like, oh, I did this. Well, then if you slow down a little bit more and then say, well, turn off the, the Strava upload while I'm out here doing this kind of ride, what happens? Well, then I'll actually ride the way I'm supposed to. Right. So.

• 56:24Rich Roll?

  Usually that stuff boils down to ego and fear, you know?

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:28Rich Roll?

  It's like, oh, well, I can't let anyone see that I'm, you know, not as fast as, you know, they're, they're gonna find out that I'm actually not that good.

• 56:38Rich Roll?

  All that kind of stuff. No, it's true. I mean, how else has, has this Zen approach? Well, I guess, let me say this. You know, the last two years, you know, I haven't raced, right? And it's sort of, it's created this thing with me, like, am I gonna race again? When am I gonna race? What am I gonna race? And, and yet I'm still, I still go out and train. I'm not training with the intensity or the time commitment that I was when, like I was preparing for Ultraman in 2011, but I am getting out there. And I have this conversation with Julie all the time, which is, she's saying, you need to learn to train for the love of it. You know, this is your lifestyle. And I'm very goal oriented, like that structure and what am I, what am I working towards? And how is what I'm doing, you know, contributing to that? Those are all kind of important to me. And it's been a process of.

• 57:23Rich Roll?

  Not necessarily letting go of that, but at least for now, finding a new way to embrace this lifestyle. And a lot of it has to do with, yeah, like I'm going out to do it because this is who I am and this is what I enjoy. And, and there's no other agenda to it other than that.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Right. So a few years ago, I posted on slowtwitch.com forum, which is the hell on earth.

• 57:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was like, I try to avoid.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  I can't. Yeah.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  Trolls.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Does any, is anybody else out there not, is just training for training and not, you know, just, and I called it like a soul triathlete. I couldn't really figure out the word because there's a sport, you know, soul surfing where they just go out and take photos of really awesome surfers.

• 58:01Rich Roll?

  They're surfing to surf.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  They're surfing to surf, right? In fact, competitive surfing is actually considered a little bit ridiculous because it's the most soulful sport, soulful blah, sport there is. And so, um, I'm like, well, it's soul triathlete. And immediately I got all these hate responses back.

• 58:17Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Because they said, like, somebody was like, the people like you are the worst triathletes there are.

• 58:24Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Because what's happening is if you're not racing, then you're invalidating the whole reason that they're racing. Right?

• 58:31Speaker 02

  That's, that's fear and ego wrapped into one.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Their, their whole success with themselves is that they're racing and that they're beating other people. Well, if you're not out there to beat, they don't have anybody to beat, and then they can't validate themselves is the way I, you know, their responses made me wake up and go, wow, you know, the whole racing culture, um, really is about, there's, there's people, some people in it to, you know, just to beat other people. That's how they validate themselves. And you don't have to race, you don't have to take part in this, you know, you can just go out and swim, bike, run. And as a lifestyle, when I did a triathlon in, um, College Station, uh, a few weeks ago, that was all ages, right? And Kai was in it, you know, I think they went down to like six or five years old. And you start off by going down a water slide, like a big water slide. That's like several stories.

• 59:19Rich Roll?

  Beginning of the triathlon? That sounds like an awesome.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Into like a.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  That's just fun.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, into this big pool.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  And then you swim around like the floating turtle, you know, and like this other stuff. And you get to the, you swim a couple, they have some lane rope set up and you swim a couple of laps and then you get out and then you, uh, oh, it was a duathlon, right? So then, uh, and then you run and, um, There was a granddad that was there that used to race half Ironmans and stuff. And now he was like 80 and he was there and his daughter was racing and his granddaughter was racing.

• 59:48Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  And he was just out there just to have fun, you know, and just to be fit. He didn't care about what place he got or anything like that. And he was just beside himself to be out there with his granddaughter.

• 59:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was really cool.

• 1:00:01Rich Roll?

  That is cool.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:02Rich Roll?

  So that's, so the point you're making is then, is that, you know, it is this, it's the journey and the lifestyle, the value for you.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, after, for some people like myself, it's, and it hasn't stopped though, because it keeps changing. Like at first it was about racing, then it was about not racing. And then as I got better, it's gotta be about racing again. And then now it's like, well, maybe not racing, you know? And what I'm learning is that's okay. Like as it changes, just do, do it for the reason that you like it. And as you have more self-confidence in yourself, then you're okay with other people racing and you not. And it's like the big thing with training rides, you know, like it's tough. Hillary Biscay that was just on here. And she was saying the problem with going on a big training rides is there's always somebody, when you got 20 people, there's a few people out there that it's either on their training plan or they can't help themselves to go out there and hammer it out.

• 1:00:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  And then you have trouble holding back.

• 1:00:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's always a quandary. It's, I mean, for the most part, I do all my training alone and I enjoy that quiet time with myself. That's a big part of my personal health equation really is carving that time out just to be alone. But then, you know, in moments where I feel like I need the extra motivation, or particularly in the pool, you know, it's good to be with a group, but you just have to sort of judge the scenario, like what am I doing here and why am I doing it? And, you know, I have, I have buddies that ride every Saturday morning and even when I, you know, was training really, really hard, I generally would, would join them. But I haven't done it this year and it's been a different experience, you know?

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Right. So, yeah, so you have a backyard pool, right? And so how do you find that? Plays into your swim training whenever you're doing the swim stuff. So is it harder to get into it than go down to the neighborhood pool where there's other people?

• 1:01:45Rich Roll?

  Well, the truth, the truth of the matter with the pool is that it's so expensive to heat.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:50Rich Roll?

  That it's freezing cold. It's, yeah, it's way too cold to swim in most of the time. So I go down the road to the, the community pool. I still end up swimming alone. Like I'll do my own sets by myself there, but there are other people in the other lanes that I know, you know? So unless certain people are in, like some of the pros come into town and they want people to swim with. So I'll go and swim with those guys.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:11Rich Roll?

  But, um, but usually it's just, it's me alone, you know? And then now it's getting, the pool's getting warm enough. So I can swim in there by myself. But the thing is with that is I, as soon as I jump in, then the kids jump in.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  It's hard to do the butterfly for kids.

• 1:02:22Rich Roll?

  It's more like, yeah, it becomes like family time.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  And another thing I'm discovering is like with music or listening to podcasts, right? So don't set up a rule. Like, cause I, I love listening to stuff. I go out on bike rides, but I remember you actually saying on one of your shows or whatever, that you don't listen to anything whenever you, you bike or run. So I was like, well, I'm going to try that. Right?

• 1:02:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  It was okay, you know? But so, but it's an individual thing, right? So then I, so I went back to listening to music, but then what I realized is the thing not to do is set up a rule, you know?

• 1:02:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Is, is like, oh, you know, I have several Pandora stations. Some of them are upbeat. Some of them are mellow and some of them, sometimes I turn it off. Oh, when the battery goes dead on my phone?

• 1:03:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  And I got nothing to listen to? I just go with that, you know?

• 1:03:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, I think-

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  It's a different experience.

• 1:03:08Rich Roll?

  I mean, what I was saying originally was more like, don't be dependent on your audio for your training. You know what I mean? It's sort of, it is nice to be out there by yourself and it becomes this active meditation and you have an opportunity to develop a greater connection with your environment and yourself and what's going on with you and all that kind of thing. Now, does that mean it has to be that way for every single training session? No. Like I listen to podcasts and music too, but I always try to make sure that I do some without it completely so that I experience what that's all about. And I think that we're so used to being stimulated, you know? We have to have that stimulation all the time, you know? It's on demand, wherever we are. It doesn't matter. And, uh, and you gotta turn it, turn it off, you know? And like when you're out

• 1:03:49Rich Roll?

  training, that's one of the few times when you can say, I'm not reachable and I'm going to be, you know, just with myself.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:03:56Rich Roll?

  And I think so to, so to never do that is to deprive yourself of a valuable experience.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. So like one thing I've learned to do over the years is I get up in the morning and I turn everything off. You know, because usually I fall asleep listening to something.

• 1:04:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  So I turned everything off and then I have a piece of paper next to me and I just sit there and the things, the thoughts that come to mind that I can't turn off, that's what I need to do today. And that has cleared my mind like just unbelievable. And it's a little bit different take on meditation, right? So a lot of meditation.

• 1:04:25Rich Roll?

  And that's like Evernote, right? Except with the pen and paper.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Rich Roll?

  That was a joke, sorry.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  But, uh, but no, and so some people will say, you know, oh, that's not real meditation. I'm like, well, but I'm, but the whole thing is to clear your mind of the things that are bothering you. Now I have a to do list and now I can go throughout my day and it's only a few things that just keep coming back.

• 1:04:43Rich Roll?

  Well, that goes back to making definitions about things. What is meditation? What does it mean to be a triathlete? What is training? What is racing? And, and the consistent theme in your responses really is free yourself from those restricted definitions of things. You know, and give yourself permission to do it your way.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  And watch yourself get yanked around by what you think you need to do. You know, and make note of that.

• 1:05:07Rich Roll?

  Make, give me an example of that.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  Uh, I want to do Ultraman. Why do I want to do Ultraman? You know, there's this Ultraman floor. It's going to cost me $1,800. Why do I want to go do that? Why don't we do Ultra Baby? And then start throwing that around and just think about it for a few days, you know? And don't, uh, sit down and say, well, we're going to do it no matter what. It's like play with the idea and think about, you know, how does it, how does it make you feel to, to be considering doing something like that? And then start bouncing ideas off people like you, you know, like, okay, if I do Ultraman, what are we talking about? You know, as far as training and somebody that knows and, um, you know, am I not, uh, the ultra athlete that I want to be if I don't do an Ultraman, you know? Oh, and then now if I don't ever qualify for Kona, what does that mean?

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  As a, you know, as a, as I get older, well, I'm learning like with Kai, because he's in the triathlon. And, uh, what I, my role now is to pass down to him what I know. You know, about all kinds of stuff.

• 1:06:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  And I grew up with my, my dad worked out of town a lot. My parents married everything, but he worked out of town a lot. And so I never got as much, you know, dad instruction on how cars work and all this other stuff. So I went out into the world on my own, not knowing anything, you know? So I'm showing Kai like how everything works.

• 1:06:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  As much as I can, because it's really handy.

• 1:06:28Rich Roll?

  That's great.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  And so, um, am I, uh, am I a triathlete that's fast? Or am I a triathlete that's sharing what I know with as many people as I can and making more other people fast? And the cumulative effect of that is even faster than myself ever could be. You know, if I'm saving, you know, everybody a couple of minutes and there's a thousand people.

• 1:06:51Rich Roll?

  Then you're the fastest triathlete on earth.

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  Guy ever, right? Yeah. It's all measured impact.

• 1:06:55Rich Roll?

  But it's that, it's that need, it's that need to delineate what you're doing. You know what I mean? And where does that need come from? Like, you know, people say that to me all the time, like, oh, I, you know, can you help me? I want to qualify for Boston in the marathon, or I want to do this, or I want to do that. And my first question is always like, well, why do you want to do that? Like, what's going on inside of you that is driving you in that direction? You know, sometimes that's a healthy desire and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's being fueled by something that is off with that person.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  Right. And you and I've noticed lately, because I, a while ago I bugged you. And then I realized when I did it, what I was doing, right?

• 1:07:30Rich Roll?

  What was that?

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  About racing. I said, hey, man, you need to race. Right? And you were like, whatever. Yeah.

• 1:07:36Rich Roll?

  I don't remember that.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  And then, um, and I said, I think, I think you're afraid. I think you're, you know, like if you go.

• 1:07:42Rich Roll?

  Oh, now I remember.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  And you're, you just blew it off, right?

• 1:07:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  As any grown adult would. So the, uh, and then, and then afterwards I thought, wow, I'm doing this. Because if Rich doesn't race, then my world is turned upside down. Right? My, my view of the universe is Rich, Rich will race us, Ultramans. If he doesn't race Ultraman, then something's not right. Right?

• 1:08:04Rich Roll?

  That's interesting.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  And so it's a selfish way, right?

• 1:08:05Rich Roll?

  But you were also, you were making astute observations. You know what I mean? It made me go, am I afraid to race again? And I, the story I tell myself is, I don't like to race unless I'm like lining up 100%. You know, that's a story I tell myself. And I feel strongly about that. Like, I'm not the guy who's every weekend going to some race for fun. Like, you know, when I line up, especially for something like Ultraman, I'm like there to, I'm there to lay it all out.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you are.

• 1:08:29Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? And like, I don't want to line up unless I'm, I'm ready to go, you know? And it takes so much time and energy to get to that place. And so, you know, I've often thought like, why don't I just go out and do a bunch of races? And part of it is, maybe, maybe there's fear? I don't know. Like, oh, well, what does that mean if I go to a race and I don't do well? How does that serve the message that I'm trying to serve? And, you know, now my life has become a lot more about spreading this message of health to people that aren't necessarily triathletes at all. It's sort of transcended the world of triathlon. It's just, you know, people that need help with their diet and their nutrition and their fitness in general. And how do I balance my life as a triathlete or somebody who likes to be outdoors training with serving this message?

• 1:09:09Rich Roll?

  And I feel like I'm in this point in time that is, it's a, it's a heightened period of time where I have an opportunity to kind of take what I'm doing to the next level and serve that message in a way that's, that's of service to other people. And if I'm out on my bike all day, that seems selfish to me.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Rich Roll?

  But then what part of that is fear? You know what I mean? Like, those are all important questions to ask yourself.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:32Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  So at Ironman Texas just a couple of months ago, it was so hot and I set my handlebars too low, you know, so it drove my heart rate up. So I'm out there on the run, walking. And I've done so many Ironmans now that I don't really, it would've been, it would've been really nice to PR, but once I realized I wasn't going to, the first thing I did was start helping other people. And then a guy on the course is like, hey, you're Brett from ZenTry, you know? And so he started asking me questions about, you know, what to do here and there and whatever. And I said, yeah, do this and do that. And then I started helping people and people, it was really hot, so people passing out and stuff. So I'd go out of, off the course to go get paramedics, bring them back over to this lady, you know, 100 yards back that had passed out.

• 1:10:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  And, or was throwing up. And so, um, And I'm like, man, you know, this is pretty cool helping people out, you know, I'm gonna finish in time. And so I'll try to go as fast as I can. But yeah, like another way to look at racing, like you showing up at a race is like, you don't have to be there to compete. You're there. One way to look at it is motivation and like inspiration to people that are all, you know, racing, that they're racing, they're at the point in their life where they need to race. And then you can just be there to, to help them out and to be there as moral support.

• 1:10:42Rich Roll?

  You're the catalyst that brought him out of the house to sign up, maybe. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm definitely gonna get back into it in the next year.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  But then that lady or whatever that was on Twitter that said, you need to race, you're afraid. It was like the, and then when she did that, it made me, you know, think again, because I'd already kind of realized it, but it made me see it again, the way that what I had said to you, not through Twitter, but just in an email, just offhanded, you know, hey, I think you ought to race again. I'm like,

• 1:11:06Rich Roll?

  Well, those are two very different tones.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, but I was like, this is,

• 1:11:11Rich Roll?

  You're scared.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  People's, if, if other people don't do what they expect them to do, then your world gets turned upside down as your reality, you know? So if Rich Roll's not racing, then there's something wrong with the world. And then if what other people do, if you're dependent, if your happiness is dependent on other people doing something, then there's something wrong, right?

• 1:11:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, of course.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:31Rich Roll?

  You know, of course, I mean, who was, I think it's, uh, Wayne, Wayne, Wayne Dyer said, other people's opinions of you are, are not your business.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  Not even your business.

• 1:11:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, not even your business. So, um, but still, you know, I get rattled when I get the, the occasional negative, you know, email or tweet or something like that.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, well,

• 1:11:52Rich Roll?

  It's always curious to me too, like somebody took out, took some time out of their day to like, write a couple paragraphs to me about their negative opinion of me. I mean, it's like, wow, you expended a lot of time and energy on that.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:05Rich Roll?

  And I'm like, what's, what is that about?

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  I'll refund all your money you paid for the podcast.

• 1:12:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Anyway.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  That was, I used to use that line a lot and people quit bugging me.

• 1:12:14Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, how do you manage that? You don't give any, you, you don't put anything, I mean, when you put that up on SlowTwitch and you get a negative feedback, you seem to have a very healthy, you know,

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll just make fun of people and run away.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I just, I've learned, you know, I'm turning 40 this summer, you know, and the older I get, the smarter I get about this kind of stuff.

• 1:12:40Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  About how to handle myself as a, as a freaking adult, you know?

• 1:12:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  And, oh, I was gonna mention on the show, like, the first, another thing is really important to do is to start admitting that we don't know what the hell we're doing. Do you know what you're doing?

• 1:12:53Rich Roll?

  No, I don't know what I'm doing.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  You have no freaking clue what you're doing, do you? Right?

• 1:12:56Rich Roll?

  I don't. That's why I have guests on my show.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:58Rich Roll?

  So I can put it all on that, put it all on them.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  Once I started admitting I have no idea what I'm doing, then everything's got a hell of a lot better.

• 1:13:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  And you have to get to an age where that doesn't matter anymore, that you have to put on this air. You're terrified growing up, you know, like you don't know what you're doing. What am I doing? You know, like I said, my dad, you know, is an engineer. He, when he did teach me stuff, which he taught me a lot, you know, but when, uh, I don't know how something works or whatever, drives me nuts. I have to figure out how everything works.

• 1:13:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  And, um, so, you know, like, uh, I have to know if that piano over there, you know, I need to know how that, all the strings are wired. And it drives me crazy to not know how something works. So, um, admitting, letting go, you know, and just being like, the, the first way to learn how something works is to admit that you don't know. And then now you got a place to start, to fill in the blanks.

• 1:13:51Rich Roll?

  The most, that's some of the most powerful lessons that I've learned in my life. And I think as men were raised, you know, you're supposed to know things, you're supposed to be the authority and you tell.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Commercialism.

• 1:14:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, or what, or just, you know, sort of, um, ideas of masculinity are very wrapped up in authority, you know?

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:08Rich Roll?

  It's masculine to be in authority and to have command over a variety of subject matters and to be able to tell people what's right from wrong and all that kind of stuff. Um, and so it's sort of not acceptable to raise your hand and say, I don't know how to do that. You know what I mean?

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:25Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, maybe not, maybe saying it's not acceptable is too strong, but it's not encouraged, you know what I mean?

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Right. It's a sign of weakness.

• 1:14:31Rich Roll?

  And so I've been, you know, in my hardest moments in my life, you know, my darkest moments, the only way out, the only way I was able to make it out was To finally say like, I need help.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:42Rich Roll?

  And like, I don't want to ask for help. I want to solve it myself. I'm smart. I should be able to do this. You know, I've been given the tools during my life to be able to solve problems. And here's a problem that I can't solve and I'm afraid to ask for help. Or I'm afraid to say, I don't know how to make this work. Can you please help me? It is not my instinct or my default to do that. But every time that I have done that and kind of allowed myself to be vulnerable in that regard, that's where the magic happens. That's the opportunity for growth.

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:15:10Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  Right. So not knowing how to get out to your house out here, what do I do? Call you, right?

• 1:15:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  And then you have an awesome phone conversation, you know? It's just, it's infinite. Like, that's the smallest example, you know? But like years ago, they, at my job, they hired a new guy to run this one division. And he was from the army and he said, I can tell you right now, I have no idea what I'm doing. And I thought, that's awesome. He has no idea. You know, this is before I kind of figured this out myself. And just immediately I was like, this guy's taking charge in a different way. He's admitting that he had no idea what he's doing and he's going to be asking all of us, you know, for help.

• 1:15:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  And that is, that takes some guts.

• 1:15:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it does. Cause he's supposed to be the guy who's going to come in and say, I know how to do this job.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:15:54Rich Roll?

  And still, that's the way you instill confidence. And yet he's instilling confidence and he's instilling trust and

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  Trust, yeah.

• 1:16:01Rich Roll?

  You know, with the people beneath him by

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  Years later, after, you know, rounds of layoffs as a company, you know, grows and shrinks and stuff, he's still there.

• 1:16:10Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, because people, you know, they know that they can trust him. And he went out and found out what he needed to know.

• 1:16:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Fast, because he asked.

• 1:16:19Rich Roll?

  Right. All right. Well, speaking about, talking about stuff we don't know anything about, I gotta ask you what's going on with your nutrition these days?

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  Uh, let's see.

• 1:16:28Rich Roll?

  Well, let's, let's do a timeline here.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:31Speaker 02

  He'll be vegan tomorrow.

• 1:16:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  And then he'll be back eating nothing but pork ribs.

• 1:16:35Rich Roll?

  Heavily influenced. He's bouncing, he's bouncing back between my, my school of thought and Vinnie's school of thought. Which actually are closer than

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  Very close. Cause I've been on both sides.

• 1:16:45Rich Roll?

  Don't realize.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  It's extremely close. Very, very close. There is nothing better for you than real food. And on Vinnie's show, I was saying what being vegan taught me was to drop the fear of veggies. And it got me, because all I was eating was veggies, it got me eating tons and tons of veggies.

• 1:17:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  And learned to love them.

• 1:17:05Rich Roll?

  It's scary.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  It's scary at first, but except for like having cereal for breakfast, there's so much of America that and around the world that has meat with every meal. So there's a fear of just going without meat at lunch.

• 1:17:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  You'll see some people like there's, there's no, oh my God, there was no meat on my dinner plate. That's really weird.

• 1:17:22Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  And I was telling Vinnie.

• 1:17:24Rich Roll?

  Make it through the night?

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  I was telling Vinnie, I can go vegan for days and days and days, you know, it doesn't bother me one bit. And it's actually, I like it, you know, that I can do that. It's really nice. So, um, I went, uh, it's been like two years ago or three years ago. I went raw vegan for a while because I got sucked into all that. Right?

• 1:17:42Rich Roll?

  How, who influenced you? That wasn't me.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  No, no, no, it was that crazy guy on YouTube. Oh, the life regenerator. He's a, he's an interview on one of my shows.

• 1:17:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know you interviewed him.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, so.

• 1:17:55Rich Roll?

  And for people that don't know, he's got, is a guy with a YouTube channel and he's basically for, he puts up tons and tons of videos and they're all like about, he's got crazy good energy.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  He would turn on the Vitamix blender and make a smoothie outside of his RV.

• 1:18:06Rich Roll?

  Standing in front of his RV in some campground.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  It was a nudist colony for a while and a naked guy would roll by on his golf cart and be like, hey, what's up?

• 1:18:14Rich Roll?

  I could see why you were so influenced by him to adopt this lifestyle. Like what are we, what was going on that you're finding this so attractive?

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  So what, what I found eating that way was the volume of fiber was just so much that with raw vegan, right? That as an endurance athlete, I don't, you know, I don't know anything, any other lifestyle lately, since I've been trying to eat a whole lot healthier. So as an endurance athlete, like you can't, that, that amount of fiber like really locks you down.

• 1:18:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  It takes up space in your stomach for other calories and you need a lot of calories training. And as you and I've talked about, not as much calories as you, as, once you do it for a while, you know, the volume of calories really isn't what people think it is, is your body gets more efficient. But, um, so I was struggling with that and then there is really, now there is, I think in the past, well, it depends on who I've been hanging out with, I guess. It might be influencing my viewpoint on it, but, um, you know, the stupid question, like, where do you get your protein? Which I thought was hilarious when you had that guy on, where he asked you about.

• 1:19:12Rich Roll?

  Which, um, which guy?

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  Oh, just another, you know, just awesome nutrition guy. And he was interviewing you, it was the guy from Australia that was.

• 1:19:20Rich Roll?

  Oh, Asher?

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. My first question for you, where do you get your protein? You two just died laughing. So, um, But honestly, you know, you do need protein. So I didn't know anything about like, you know, where peanut butter or like black beans, you know, all kinds of stuff like that. You know, I was just dumb about it. And so I was, I was raw vegan and vegan for like a year and change and got lean, but I was like, and I had some of my best race results ever doing that and felt fantastic. My vision got more clear.

• 1:19:53Rich Roll?

  People say that a lot, like, oh, I can see better.

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it was really weird. And I know for a fact because I went to the eye doctor and he said, your vision's gotten better. It's not me just making that up, you know, so the, so, but I think the, the amount of fiber and not quite enough protein was leading me to have not enough energy, right? It's no fault of a vegan diet by any means. And

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  so then, of course, you know, what do you do? You start eating that ham sandwich. So, but anyway, so right now I'm eating meat and some dairy or whatever, but I'm not, what I learned by being vegan taught me so much. I was able to sit there with Vinny and eat a, you know, some meat on a salad, which I never would have done years ago, you know, with lots of bell peppers and, you know, all kinds of carrots and stuff like, and enjoy it, like really enjoy it and then feel that, you know, and then come in your house and Julie making us or giving us a slice of.

• 1:20:57Rich Roll?

  That raw vegan pie.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  That was so good. Yes. I'm able to enjoy that without thinking that that's weird or anything, you know, and I loved it. It was really great. So I eat, I eat a mix of raw vegan, vegan and throw on some meat kind of here and there. And the other thing is I'm not attached to, to, you know, I'm not, I don't try to identify.

• 1:21:18Rich Roll?

  Zen training has, it becomes so dogmatic and, and.

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  If I say it one way, I painted myself in a corner for the rest of my life.

• 1:21:26Rich Roll?

  You're so quick to.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  And then I'm wrong. Once I figure out I can't do it.

• 1:21:29Rich Roll?

  Create a label around it. Yeah. And then you're backed into a corner. I'm, I mean, you know, I'm stuck with what I'm doing. But it works great for me. I'm not in, you know, like, I love it, you know? It's, I continue to feel amazing, but it's also important for me to remain open-minded and go, "Hey, you know, you need to, as a, as a human being, you have to pay attention to who, you know, how you're feeling and be open to other ideas and not close yourself off just because you've decided that this is what you do and have created, you know, for better or worse, like, an identity around it.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  And something else I'm realizing is, I don't think everybody's a little bit different, right? So, one diet that may work for somebody may not work for everybody else. And you can really see an example of that where people, people's emotional leanings, you know, people that are mellow, people that are high-strung, you know, all this stuff, that's, that's because of the chemicals that are in their body and they react differently to different things. There's people that are gluten intolerant, there's people that are fine with it, people that are lactose tolerant, people that are fine with it, you know? And to, you know, say that one thing works for everybody, really, what you need to do is, what's so awesome nowadays is we have, you know, so much information about, if you were to eat vegan, how to do it, you know, in a healthy way, give it a try. It may be the best thing you've ever done for your life.

• 1:22:54Rich Roll?

  Right. But I think what you're saying is, people have to take personal responsibility for that.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Well, pay attention.

• 1:23:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  And then say-

• 1:23:03Rich Roll?

  Do the experimentation.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Why am I eating meat? You know, am I doing it for fuel? Or am I just doing it because that's what somebody put in front of me? You know? Am I doing it because I like the taste of it?

• 1:23:12Rich Roll?

  Well, that's mindfulness, being mindful of the choices that you're making and what's behind those choices.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:17Rich Roll?

  And where you're just passive, passively doing something because that's the way you've always done it.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  Right. So, always question, you know, why you're doing what you're doing. And, yeah, you know, I hang around you, I eat vegan.

• 1:23:30Rich Roll?

  Well-

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  I hang around Vinnie.

• 1:23:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you shouldn't, you shouldn't, yeah, but you shouldn't do that because you're around me. You should do it because you have your own personal barometer about what's right for you.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Right. Well, and I, but paying attention, I realize that I just kind of chameleon around to whatever I'm around, you know? And, and that's a really big thing for people. You need to hang around good influences. And, and uh, if you are easily influenced.

• 1:23:53Speaker 02

  Eating garbage. So, you know, you pick one side or the other, you still end up on top, no matter what.

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Are you easily, are you easily influenced? If you are, hang around good influences, you know? And if, if it doesn't seem to bother you, then you can do your own thing.

• 1:24:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. So, are you easily influenced?

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:24:12Rich Roll?

  Alright, then, by the time you walk out of here, you're gonna be a full vegan again.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Okay. You're gonna show me some horrible video.

• 1:24:19Rich Roll?

  There's a shed in the back.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Vegetables dying.

• 1:24:22Rich Roll?

  How else has, I'm really interested in this, in Zen and mindfulness. I mean, how else has that influenced not just your training and your racing, but your family life, how you approach being a husband and a father?

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  You know, spending the most amount of my time, you know, with Emily and Kai, I've watched, they're not trained in it, and I barely say that I'm trained in it, I just listen to podcasts.

• 1:24:45Rich Roll?

  No, but you're interested in it and you, you sort of, yeah, you're attracted to these principles that you've tried to incorporate into your life.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  It has really opened my eyes because they're not anywhere near as paying attention to this kind of stuff that I am. And Emily, I think, probably doesn't need to because she's just generally a better person in first place.

• 1:25:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  She doesn't need the work, you know, she's a hospice nurse, you know, she's out taking care of everybody.

• 1:25:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  So, the, um, but watching others around you get, you know, pulled around by a change in the weather or whatever.

• 1:25:19Rich Roll?

  We got, we're being bombarded by airplanes and motorcycles at the same time.

• 1:25:22Speaker 02

  So, a Porsche that just went by, I think.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  The, uh, watching Kai get upset, you know, over a cartoon not being on because it's being preempted by something else. And just watch how people get really attached to things. And, um, it worked, we had to change offices. I got moved from one part of the building to the other. And I thought, hmm, well, change is. Change, you know, let's do it. And, and watching other people just come unglued, you know, over a space that's not really theirs in the first place. You know, you're working for somebody else. It's their building. You're just there.

• 1:25:52Rich Roll?

  Well, it begs, it begs the, the larger question of how we're so quick to judge scenarios. We want to label them as good or bad, or this is terrible, or this is the best thing ever. And we're dealing with such a minute amount of information when we make that snap judgment contemporaneous with the event occurring. You know, like, only time will tell. Sometimes it takes years to realize, oh, that thing I thought was the worst thing ever was actually like, awesome. Yeah. And usually when I, when I judge things as being bad or negative prematurely, they, they always turn out to be, you know, good in the long run, like lessons that, you know, sort of set me in a direction that I wouldn't have chosen for myself, but ultimately were in my best interest. You know what I mean?

• 1:26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, and like, you're really lucky to have Julie around. She's like this oracle that speaks wisdom, you know?

• 1:26:38Rich Roll?

  Sometimes it's frustrating.

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  Well, you need it.

• 1:26:42Rich Roll?

  I need it. Yeah, I do need it.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  She's like, well, we don't get the tour here, you know, because we don't want the TV. I need the TV. And I'm like, if you need it that bad, maybe you need somebody to take it away for a little while.

• 1:26:51Rich Roll?

  She's generally right, but it comes, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's, but what she does is she's always challenging me, you know? Like in that, like, I don't, you know, sometimes my inner voice isn't, you know, I, I wish that it was always challenging me in that way, but she'll be the, the one who's like, well, you know, maybe you shouldn't do it that way.

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. And like, uh, so people know, listening to my show that I'm training Emily for her first half Ironman. So I have to be really careful. I've, I've learned not to dump all my issues onto her, you know?

• 1:27:21Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  And, uh, Kai is, is becoming a athlete, but I'm not pushing him that way. You know, if he wants to be, you know, we signed him up a couple of years late for swimming on purpose, you know, he's not playing soccer this year, you know? We're like, uh, you know, do what you want to do. And don't dump your own personal issues on whether or not you became a pro athlete or not, or a pro swimmer, you know, the Olympics on your kid, because your kid may not be into it at all, you know, and when you two guys with multiple kids, you know, I've only got the ones, I only get, I don't, I can't really tell, like, they are different, you know, each little, each kid.

• 1:27:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they come out, they come, and, and you realize how little it has to do with you.

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:00Rich Roll?

  You know, like, they're just wired differently.

• 1:28:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you see some parenting where people try to make the kids into what they never were, you know?

• 1:28:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  And push them so hard, and so it's really interesting to watch myself hold back from that.

• 1:28:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:13Speaker 01

  You know, and just let him be himself, and, you know, just work with what I got, or what he's got.

• 1:28:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that's good, you know, I mean, I think it's, as a parent, it's your job to, you know, guide them and to expose them to lots of different things, but then it's their job to let you know what they gravitate towards, and then as a parent, it's your job to support them in the thing that they

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:35Rich Roll?

  show, show interest in, you know, I mean, I think, I think the greatest gift, you know, and I, I didn't really have, well, I guess I did with swimming, because I love that, but, but is to help a kid learn who he or she is, and help them kind of unlock and find something they're passionate about, and then to support that.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, yeah, and on the sports side of that, my parents threw me and my brother into all kinds of sports, and by the time we hit high school, we were on three different kinds of, you know, sports, you know, basketball, soccer, swimming, whatever, and then it came down to picking a, you know, one sport, because, you know, in high school, it starts getting to take up more of your time, so you gotta pick one, just pick the one you're best at, or the one you want to do the most.

• 1:29:16Rich Roll?

  The one you want, I think, is more important.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  And so just did, did that, you know, and then move on, and then, but then, you know, after high school and college, it's like, well. I've done all kinds of sports. I could just do anything. It was a really good gift for my parents to, to put me through all kinds of different stuff. By the time, yeah, by the time I was 18, I'd done a million different kinds of sports.

• 1:29:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:37Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah, what you're doing with your kids with all the music stuff is awesome.

• 1:29:42Rich Roll?

  Well, that's what they love. You know what I mean? Tyler picked up a guitar when he was six or seven and it was like, all right, there you go. You know, like that's what it's gonna be. You know what I mean? And like, so now he's 18 and we've turned our garage into a studio and he's recording constantly and he just went out to Nashville with his brother to record demos with Julie's brother, who's the guitarist in The Wallflowers. He's got all this studio equipment, cool stuff and friends that, you know, sat in with them and played and, and, uh, it's fun to watch and, and, you know, my job is to be supportive of that. And it's, and it creates interesting scenarios as a parent because then, you know, the fear is, oh my God, he's choosing this life as a musician. Like what's my, is it,

• 1:30:25Rich Roll?

  you know, you want your kid to have choices and you want them to have a happy life and you want them to be safe and secure. And that's not exactly a secure path, you know? It's frightening.

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  But neither being a programmer.

• 1:30:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:39Speaker 02

  You gotta realize that, you know, up to this point, you've given them a good path to follow and that they have to make decisions based on what you've shown them.

• 1:30:46Rich Roll?

  And, and I will continue to, this is what, I mean, I couldn't dissuade him from his path, you know, if I used every ounce of energy that I have. So why would I fight it? You know? So it's like, I'm, I'm, I'm his biggest fan a hundred percent and Julie and I are gonna do whatever we can to help them find their way in, you know, this world that is, you know, imperil, you know, it's a, it's a challenging world. You know, so,

• 1:31:11Rich Roll?

  but, um, but it's cool too. You know, it's cool that, like, when I was a kid, I loved swimming. That was what I loved. But that has a, you know, at least I thought that had an end date on it. And then what do you do with your life?

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:23Rich Roll?

  I've discovered it again later in life and I've found a way to incorporate it into my life. But like, what if I, what if the thing that I'd fallen in love with as a young child wasn't swimming, but was something I could pursue professionally for my whole life?

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:36Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Like, what, what would your life look like if you'd spent the time to kind of unlock that part of yourself and find that then, rather than graduate from college and go, I don't know what I want to do?

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:46Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the, you know, the risk of going into And it's again, you know, you don't know. So it's, it's really not important to worry about it too much. But you know, with professional sports, an injury, that's your paycheck. You're out. You know, and there's people that train themselves into the ground, eating disorders and all kinds of stuff. And you know, they have to give up. And even like the most successful female triathlete, you know, so many years and she's out, you know?

• 1:32:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:32:10Speaker 01

  Because you can burn up doing this stuff. So I don't know, there's kind of an angle where taking it as an age grouper from afar, or like doing these like Ultraman where there really aren't, there isn't a pro category, you know?

• 1:32:22Rich Roll?

  No such thing.

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of like, you can come at it from a better perspective where it's not so competitive. And you could go at it at your own speed and grow gradually.

• 1:32:33Rich Roll?

  So, yeah. So, hey, like you said at the top of the show, I don't know anything.

• 1:32:37Speaker 01

  I do not know anything. And the more you, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know anything.

• 1:32:42Rich Roll?

  That's for sure.

• 1:32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:44Rich Roll?

  What about Morgan sitting over there quiet because he thinks he knows everything.

• 1:32:48Speaker 02

  I'm just sitting here soaking it in.

• 1:32:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. He's got all the answers already.

• 1:32:53Speaker 02

  I have them all on my, I got another piece of paper like that has all the answers on it.

• 1:32:57Rich Roll?

  It does. Good. Maybe you'll let me see that. Is it this, did Vinnie write them down for you?

• 1:33:01Speaker 02

  No, no, no, it's my own hand. I got it all in control. All right.

• 1:33:05Rich Roll?

  Cool. Well, I can't believe you guys didn't bring your running shoes because all I want to do is take you down the road here to a little trail that.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  I know. And I thought of that yesterday.

• 1:33:12Rich Roll?

  I've got a couple pairs. I might just have to force you into it.

• 1:33:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:33:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that was easy.

• 1:33:18Speaker 02

  Off the run of my foot.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  I'm wearing cotton. I'm wearing cotton undershorts, you know?

• 1:33:21Rich Roll?

  You are. Well, I got, no, I got running shorts for you.

• 1:33:24Speaker 02

  Smelly on the way home.

• 1:33:25Rich Roll?

  So what's now, what are you getting ready for right now? You training for?

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, there's something really cool. The big race is the SOS triathlon in upstate New York, New Paltz.

• 1:33:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool. Explain, explain, tell people what that's all about. If, if I had my, my S together, I would have gotten it together to do that with you.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  You're invited, I think, anytime you want to come to it.

• 1:33:43Rich Roll?

  It sounds like a really fun race.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  One of the guys that's, you know, in the, in the scene, you know, makes it happen, huge fan of yours.

• 1:33:49Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool.

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can, you can go anytime, I bet. I can't speak for him.

• 1:33:52Rich Roll?

  Tell people, uh, tell people what the race is.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  So there's this guy, uh, gosh, I wonder how old he is. And training for Kona years and years ago, like 20 something years ago, he used to go out his back door and do this totally trespassing, bushwhacking, crazy training day. And he would bike about 30 miles uphill. It starts off kind of rolling uphill and then he goes up in the backyard mountain territory of this, of this resort that's like something out of Dirty Dancing, you know? And I think it's probably what Dirty Dancing was based on, you know? Pokanos. Yeah, it's crazy. And so it's in the Shaolin, they say Shong Gunks or something. Shaolin. You have to live there to be able to say it. Shaolin monks? Yeah, Shaolin monks and Shong Gunks.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  Anyway, so after going uphill, the last eight miles, you know, the side of a mountain, you end up on the mountaintop and it's a ridgeline and you run from point to point. All right. It's a point to point race. So you start at one end and then you run. And then it ends up being seven stages alternating between running and swimming. It's crazy. It's the coolest thing. So you run, so when you swim. When you hit the water, you run into the water. This is what I figured out. With your shoes on? With the shoes on. And then as your waist chest's deep, so right about there, you take your shoes off, jam them in the back of your, your tri shorts and just start hauling ass to the other side of the lake, right? Right.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  And you do that alternating run, swim, three times, three different times. So bike, run, swim, run, swim, run, swim, and then run. Right. And the last run is only half a mile, but it goes up like, I don't know, like 800 feet or something nuts like that to a peak, a mountaintop. And when you finish, it's kind of like the Norseman. They call it the Norseman of, of, of America. Yeah. So, cause it's, it's equivalent of a half armed man, but you, um, once you finish, you got to walk back down.

• 1:35:49Rich Roll?

  Wow. And you're just, you've got to be on the rivet the whole time. If you're going uphill like that and changing, changing it up so much, you're just, your heart, it's got to be through the roof the entire race.

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  So it ends up being 30 miles of biking, 20 miles of running. And then whatever the change is, it's like 55 miles to upswimming. So it is crazy. And so you come out of the water, kind of like the swamp thing, you know, or like a Navy SEAL, you know, you come out with your running gear.

• 1:36:14Rich Roll?

  Put your shoes back on.

• 1:36:15Speaker 01

  Put your shoes on and just keep running. And so they only allow like 100 and change people in. It sells out like instantly.

• 1:36:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:36:24Rich Roll?

  Now I want, now, now I'm pissed that I didn't like.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Sells out instantly. Like there's people outside the race director's house with the registration papers in hand, trying to put it in his hand at midnight when it opens up. And then, um, uh, yeah, like, uh, it's through, like, it's trail running, but it's not like severe trails. It's like carriage trails. So it's groomed trails that they, people cross country or, uh, yeah, cross country ski in the winter. So it's totally doable. The views, you're on a mountain top. You can see four states from the top.

• 1:36:54Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  And, uh, and then it's really homegrown because it's all based around this one guy's training day for Kona, you know, forever ago.

• 1:37:01Rich Roll?

  That's cool. I love that, man. I like, cause it has a story to it.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  Oh, it's awesome. It's the most, it's the most amazing.

• 1:37:06Rich Roll?

  And I like races where the terrain dictates, dictates the distances. Like you, you know, oh, well, like we're going to have an Ironman or a half Ironman in this city. And then you like, you have the, the distances are preset and you're trying to lay that on top of a topography, but you know, let the topography tell you what the race is, you know, and that's kind of how Ultraman started.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  I love how the, how each swim starts off, you know, you're running it through woods. So you can't really see very far, but you start noticing that you're going downhill and then through the trees, you start to see a little bit of blue, right? And you're running downhill and then you might, after a while, you might hear some splashing, you know, and then you, you come around. So when you start hearing that, oh, and I write the race, the run distances on my arm in a permanent marker. So I know.

• 1:37:49Rich Roll?

  How far you.

• 1:37:50Speaker 01

  How far I'm going until I hit water. Right? So you come around a corner and while, when you start noticing that you're getting close to water and that you're about to swim, you, while you're running, you put on your swim cap and I ran the whole thing, even the bike. I kept my goggles on around my neck. Right? And then you just run, just storming into the water. It's the craziest thing.

• 1:38:09Rich Roll?

  That's awesome.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And coming out, it's the same. You gotta carry your water. You gotta carry your shoes with you the whole way.

• 1:38:15Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. The only other race I've heard of that sounds anything similar to that is the race in, I think it's in Sweden that Jonas Colting does. He's done it a bunch of times and you do it in pairs as a team.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  Oh, the swim, run, swim.

• 1:38:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you just basically, you're swimming across these fjords and across these islands.

• 1:38:32Speaker 01

  The whole way.

• 1:38:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're in a wetsuit, so you kind of just pull your wetsuit down and you're running in half a wetsuit. And you put your shoes, I think, in like a plastic bag behind you and let it dangle.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  This guy, this race is so authentic that this was, he was trespassing and doing this. That one of the swims, you come around the corner and you go running through this very narrow trail. It's like the only section that has a narrow trail.

• 1:38:52Rich Roll?

  Some guy's private property.

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  And there's, there's a split rail fence that you have to either go over or under because they've never moved the fence. Yeah, it's a real, a real split rail fence and you go over it and it's like a 10-foot drop right into the water right there.

• 1:39:04Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:06Rich Roll?

  Cool. So when is that?

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  Um, early September. So we're doing, I'm doing, I'm doing a sprint trap on, in my hometown, just to sprint.

• 1:39:13Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  Uh, next weekend. Uh, and it's just on campus at Texas A&M.

• 1:39:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:20Speaker 01

  And then that's just for fun. And then this one, the SOS, and then Iron Baby in the fall. But we're, I wanted to, maybe not here, but you know, start peppering you for ideas about doing either an ultra baby.

• 1:39:31Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  Right? Uh, where we do.

• 1:39:33Rich Roll?

  I know you guys have talked about like maybe doing, doing one in California.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a self-supported, self-supported, you know, Ultraman.

• 1:39:40Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  And then, uh, because it sounds doable, you know, uh, but we don't know what we're doing.

• 1:39:45Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  First person to admit. And, uh,

• 1:39:48Rich Roll?

  I'm, uh,

• 1:39:49Speaker 01

  But I know a couple, yeah, I know a couple of people that might have done something like that.

• 1:39:53Rich Roll?

  Well, also, I think it would be cool to, to do it like we were talking about, like let the, let the lay of the land tell you what the distances are, the stages are. And if you could do it like from LA to San Francisco, like it's about, that's about the distance, isn't it? I mean, how many miles? It's 320 miles, something like that. I mean, it's about right, right?

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:11Rich Roll?

  Do it where it's a point to point and it's like an adventure. You know what I mean? You hear about all these crazy, super, ultra endurance things like the Deca Ironman and the, you know, doing, I don't know, yeah, like, I don't know, these crazy, super, yeah, and they're going around like a four, like a half mile loop for like the whole thing for like, like, you know, days and days and days and days. And I'm like, ah, it sounds like, you know, basically sounds like a bullet train to the mental institution.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  If you're an outdoorsy person, it doesn't really work for you.

• 1:40:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:40:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, we could, we were talking about, um, Morgan and I just never got our act together, but we were going to do, you know, come here and swim somewhere. We joked about swimming in your pool.

• 1:40:51Rich Roll?

  Six in the ocean, man.

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  Right. Well, and then doing the swim and then biking to L, biking from LA to San Diego, you know, like a longer route.

• 1:40:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  Take it out in the mountains or something. And then, uh, and then running around San Diego for a double marathon and then calling it the, the ultra baby or something like that. So, I don't know.

• 1:41:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  Morgan's going, yeah.

• 1:41:10Rich Roll?

  Now you're gonna be, after saying it publicly on the, on the podcast.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  Oh, it's definitely, we're gonna do it at some point. We're trying to figure out how. And so this Ultraman, um, Florida came up. And Emily wants to take Kai to Disneyland before he gets too old.

• 1:41:22Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  Disney World, Disney World?

• 1:41:24Speaker 02

  Disney World.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Disney World. So, um, uh, so might go do that, but I don't really know. Then you're, uh, I'm all in on that, you know, but then I'm driving, I'm driving across the country and paying a big entry fee to go do a race when I could do it myself.

• 1:41:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  But I do like the Ultraman and it's, uh, who's, who's running it?

• 1:41:42Speaker 02

  Consuela Lively.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  Consuela Lively. It's a pretty awesome lady. So like, I'm supporting that, you know, so if I can bring more attention to that, you know, but I think they're gonna.

• 1:41:50Rich Roll?

  Nice and warm and flat.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:53Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:54Rich Roll?

  It won't, it won't sell out in minutes or hours. I would, you know, I would imagine it'll eventually sell out. When it, when is that one?

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  They do it in like February.

• 1:42:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's what I saw.

• 1:42:02Speaker 02

  Early part of the year, last I looked.

• 1:42:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What about you, Morgan?

• 1:42:06Speaker 02

  Uh, so I've got a, got a 10 mile swim in, uh, late September. I did it last year coming out of Tahoe. It was a lot of fun. And then I signed up for the Oceanside Half Ironman again. I decided I'm done finishing. I wanted to actually show up and try and hurt my age.

• 1:42:24Rich Roll?

  So you're gonna be spending a lot of time on the trainer during the winter.

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  It's a good example of somebody that's decided they want to race, you know?

• 1:42:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  And needs to race to up their game a little bit, to challenge themselves.

• 1:42:33Speaker 02

  I've showed up. You know, I've showed up. I've done a few things over the years, but not a lot. I haven't really committed to it. But I finally got to a point after last year, I sort of saw a little bit what I was capable of. And I'm like, well, why don't I just put my mind to it a little bit? See what happens?

• 1:42:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:47Speaker 02

  Could be awesome. Maybe not. Who knows?

• 1:42:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:49Speaker 02

  We'll find out.

• 1:42:50Rich Roll?

  You gotta, you know, you gotta get out of the comfort zone once in a while, you know? Shake it up.

• 1:42:56Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:42:57Rich Roll?

  That goes for me, too.

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:58Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:42:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. What are you doing next?

• 1:43:00Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  You got, you got ideas, though, don't you?

• 1:43:03Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, you know, like we were saying before, it's like my, I wake up every day thinking, how can I serve this message? Not like, how can I get faster as a triathlete? And that's sort of become more paramount, more important to me. And all that energy and enthusiasm that I had for pushing my body or having that kind of personal experience has been, has been transplanted by like, how can I help the most number of people?

• 1:43:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:27Rich Roll?

  And that's been informed by a number of things. And so that's kind of where I'm at right now. And so I'm traveling a lot, you know, like I'm gonna be going, like I'm gonna be on the road. Like September, I think I'm only here like a couple of days and I'm literally in a different city. And it's great. It's what I want. You know, I want to go out. I want to see people. I want to talk to people. I want to, you know, help people improve their lives. And that's, that's really, that's my ultimate now.

• 1:43:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:49Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? And it's like, I do want to find time to continue to race and I love it. And that's, that's honoring what got me to this place, too. And that, that needs to have a place in my life. So for me, the, the challenge is, how do I balance all of these things?

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  Right. You know, you and I did Wildflower the same year.

• 1:44:05Rich Roll?

  Oh, we did, yeah. You probably finished, though.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  I finished.

• 1:44:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  I have two claims to fame.

• 1:44:10Rich Roll?

  Maybe I need to go back to that race first.

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  I beat you in a Half Ironman. And I beat Rich Roll at a Half Ironman. And then also, I did the same Half Ironman in Galveston that Lance did.

• 1:44:21Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did that one.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  And my split on the last mile was faster than Lance Armstrong.

• 1:44:25Rich Roll?

  Oh, it was?

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  But yeah, he was walking and like shaking hands. But I've still, I need a T-shirt that says, I beat Lance Armstrong.

• 1:44:31Speaker 02

  In the last mile.

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  And then in like fine print below it, in the last mile on a split. Yeah, no, I think the You know, like fitting with your schedule because you're always on the road and stuff and Viking's kind of hard that

• 1:44:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's more running.

• 1:44:44Speaker 01

  At running, that the ultra, you showing up at an Ultraman, or not Ultraman, a ultra marathon, you know, and just out there, they're so not competitive.

• 1:44:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm gonna do. Like there's a, in, in August, there's the Bulldog 50K. It's right down the street here. That's where I was gonna take you on. And, um, you know, I thought about doing that and then I missed a bunch of training because of travel and, you know, it's like I'm trying to get a schedule that is functional for what I'm doing. And I'm gonna go crew Badwater in 10 days or whatever. So I'll, I'll probably be all inspired after.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  You won't be able to.

• 1:45:16Rich Roll?

  Either that or I'm gonna die.

• 1:45:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:18Speaker 02

  You'll either be dead or ready to do it.

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  It is so cool. When I go out and do races, the number of people that say, hey Brett, Zentry, what, I even had, I even wrecked on the SOS last year because somebody yelled my name and I looked up and crashed. So, don't do that. So, uh, but, um, the, the feeling that gives you that you're helping that many people, you know, and then the, an ultra marathon is so low pressure, you're just out there enjoying the day anyway. You can't go harder than, than easy, right?

• 1:45:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  That I think the, um, you being there and just enjoying yourself and having a nice day and showing that you don't have to race it. You can actually just be healthy, happy, you know, vegan and having a good time and, and, and what you eat, you know, and the pace that you run and how much you trained and what you're able to do would really like, uh, taking that approach is a different way of looking

• 1:46:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's definitely out of my comfort zone. You know what I mean? Like that,

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  Not racing.

• 1:46:07Rich Roll?

  That like makes me, gives me anxiety just hearing you say that because it's like.

• 1:46:10Speaker 01

  The number of people that would try to run with you, you would be like Karnaz is like, uh, you know, the swarm of people that follows them everywhere.

• 1:46:15Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, you know, for me, my comfort zone is preparing, doing everything I can. So when I line up on the starting line, I know that I've done absolutely everything to prepare for that race. And so to, to show up at a race half cocked, you know, is like, that makes me, that's, that's outside of my comfort zone. Like, that's not something I'm used to doing.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  You just do like B, B race, C race, you know, just train and run.

• 1:46:36Rich Roll?

  We'll see. All right.

• 1:46:38Speaker 01

  It's making him nervous right now.

• 1:46:39Rich Roll?

  I know, I told you, sweating already, it's hot enough in here. All right, man, let's wrap this up.

• 1:46:44Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:46:44Rich Roll?

  We've been going for a while.

• 1:46:45Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:46:46Rich Roll?

  So, Zen Tri, Brett Plakner.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  Zentriathlon.com.

• 1:46:50Rich Roll?

  You started this whole, you know, you started this whole podcasting thing.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  This whole genre.

• 1:46:54Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:55Rich Roll?

  You have full credit.

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 1:46:57Rich Roll?

  And people, you should definitely dial him up on Twitter. He's at Zen Triathlon. And the website is.

• 1:47:05Speaker 01

  Zentriathlon.com.

• 1:47:07Rich Roll?

  And that's where you can find the web, the website. You can find his podcast, Zen Tri, Zen, is it Zen in the Art of Triathlon?

• 1:47:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:15Rich Roll?

  Which is also, of course, on iTunes and all.

• 1:47:17Speaker 01

  All over the place.

• 1:47:18Rich Roll?

  Anywhere else that you find podcasts.

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  Just Google it.

• 1:47:20Rich Roll?

  Right. Morgan is MChristian on Twitter, yes.

• 1:47:23Speaker 02

  I am, yes.

• 1:47:24Rich Roll?

  And MetaBender.

• 1:47:25Speaker 02

  MetaBender.com. And also RealTimeAthlete.com, which is gonna be a subtle rebrand for the future. I've got a couple of things going on over there that are kind of cool, little training tool that's up there where you can virtually ride around the globe.

• 1:47:40Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool.

• 1:47:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:47:42Speaker 02

  It's a great project.

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  And I wanted to give big thanks to, now that I'm thinking of it, Morgan is the one that's driving me around. So I wouldn't be on these different podcasts up here in LA if it wasn't for Morgan, you know.

• 1:47:51Speaker 02

  I'm your posse.

• 1:47:52Speaker 01

  You know, chauffeuring me around. So, thanks a lot, man.

• 1:47:55Speaker 02

  I'm the road.

• 1:47:56Rich Roll?

  Thank you, Morgan.

• 1:47:56Speaker 02

  Okay, no problem. This is fun.

• 1:47:57Rich Roll?

  Well, had you called me before Vinny, maybe I would have driven down to you.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  You're always on the road now, I don't know where you are, dude.

• 1:48:04Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna give you a list of questions for Vinny now.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll do that.

• 1:48:06Rich Roll?

  You know.

• 1:48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:07Rich Roll?

  I wonder if we're finished here.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  I love it, I'll be right in the middle of it all.

• 1:48:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, let's go down for a little sunset run. If I can find some extra shoes for you guys, what do you think?

• 1:48:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 1:48:16Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. All right, thanks you guys for coming by.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Awesome, man.

• 1:48:19Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 1:48:19Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:48:19Speaker 01

  Did we do this?

• 1:48:21Rich Roll?

  Peace. We did, we did it. You feel okay?

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:23Rich Roll?

  We did it, right?

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Do you feel okay?

• 1:48:24Rich Roll?

  Let's do a Marc Maron right now, it's like a recap. Feel good?

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Are we good?

• 1:48:27Rich Roll?

  Are we good?

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  Are we good?

• 1:48:28Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  I'm good.

• 1:48:29Rich Roll?

  That's good. I feel pretty good. Anything else you want to say?

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  No, I just had to say that.

• 1:48:33Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:48:33Speaker 02

  I feel good.

• 1:48:34Rich Roll?

  All right, we're out of here. Peace. Plants.