Ultra Phenom Harvey Lewis On Finding Your ‘Why’, Nirvana Moments & Winning 300+ Mile Races

What’s stopping you from living the life of your dreams? For many, it’s finances. Family obligations. Demanding careers. You get the picture. But today’s guest truly believes you can have it all. Meet Harvey Lewis. For more than 25 years, this Cincinnati-based high school teacher & plant-based running phenomenon has been competing in ultramarathons with relentless consistency, racking up 23 wins across 76 races (and counting). A 5-time member of the USA National 24-hour Team, it’s a journey that has taken him to 101 countries across seven continents. Along the way, he’s toed the line at most of the world’s most prestigious races, including ten Badwater 135 appearances, winning what many consider the globe’s most challenging foot race on two occasions. In addition to an impressive slew of victories, Harvey is also known for plying his talents to celebrate civil rights history. In 2008, he celebrated Gandhi by retracing his famous 240-mile Salt March—and followed it up in 2009 by running from Selma to Montgomery in honor of MLK. Ever the teacher. Now 45, you’d suspect Harvey would be slowing down. Instead, he’s found an entirely new gear, collecting breakthrough performances that include not only a second Badwater victory but an absolutely breathtaking win at the 2021 Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra. For the uninitiated, this is a last-person standing format race that entails running a 4-mile loop every hour on the hour until no one’s left. Harvey clocked an astounding, world record-setting 354 miles over an 85 hour period. 354 miles. On essentially no sleep. Today we cover it all. We discuss the hows and whys behind Harvey’s training and racing. His commitment to human-powered commuting. The daily run streak that remains unbroken since 2019. And the role his plant-based diet plays in all of it. Of course, we review his storied accomplishments—from the dirty details behind his backyard ultra breakthrough to becoming the fastest to run from Badwater Basin (the lowest point in North America) to the actual summit of Mt. Whitney (the highest point in the contiguous U. S.). We also talk about his FKT attempt on the Appalachian Trail, how it brought him closer to his father, who crewed the affair, and the documentary Like Harvey Like Son that tells the tale. In addition, we reconcile Harvey’s life as an elite ultramarathoner with the practicalities of his full-time occupation as a high school teacher—and how the two passions inform each other. But more than anything, this conversation is about the power of showing up with intention. Making room for the magic that comes with the rigorous, consistent, and patient pursuit of the thing you love. The importance of incremental improvement. And why the ability to push beyond the limits of what you perceive possible rests not in physical talents but instead in training your mindset. To read more, click here. You can also watch it all go down on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Harvey is a beacon of infectious exuberance. He’s bursting with positivity and joy. He’s the teacher we all wish we had. And an example to us all. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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• 1:05Harvey Lewis?

  You know, you go through these lows and highs. But going into 300, it just felt like we were invisible. Like, just feeling like fired up and like, let's just go. So it was wild to hit that mark and then feel all kinds of new energy. That was what was so special about it, because you get beyond 300 miles and then you realize, wow, like, you have more force than you ever had even in the first day. You're like, where did this come from? So, I mean, so much is the mindset to get out there when it's cold and rainy and 11 p.m. You know, like, what's driving you? So then it gets us back to the question of why. And that's the other major thing. And like, to be honest with you, whenever I'm doing an A race that I really care about,

• 1:50Harvey Lewis?

  I actually write down my why statement. And I write down a bunch of stuff under why. Some are sort of personal. Some definitely would be like for other people. You know, for my students or my parents. I would like to impact other people and their lifestyle. That motivates me a lot to do my very best to hopefully impact someone else.

• 2:23Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. How you guys doing? Are you good? Is it all good out there? Good. Well, prepare for more good because my guest today is Cincinnati-based high school teacher and plant-based ultra-running phenomenon Harvey Lewis. This guy, get a load of this. He's been running ultras for over 25 years at this point, over 76 ultras and counting, including 10 Badwater appearances. And along the way, he's won a whole bunch of them. He's won a slew of races.

• 3:02Rich Roll?

  But this past year, at the ripe age of 45, Harvey finds this brand-new gear, not only winning his second Badwater, but following it up this past October with just an absolutely stunning win at the Big Dogs Backyard Ultra, which is this really cool last-person-standing format that entails running a four-mile loop every hour on the hour until nobody's left, where he clocked an astounding and world-record-setting 354 miles over an 85-hour period. 354 miles on essentially no sleep. How does he do it?

• 3:46Rich Roll?

  Well, we're about to find out. But first.

• 3:56Rich Roll?

  So Harvey, the first thing you notice about Harvey is just his infectious energy. This guy is bursting with positivity. And this conversation was just an absolute joy. Of course, we cover his storied career from the dirty details behind his backyard ultra-breakthrough to also becoming the fastest to run from Badwater Basin, which is the lowest point in North America, to the actual summit of Mount Whitney, which is the highest point in the contiguous U.S. We also discussed the hows and whys behind his training, continued improvement, and the role that his plant-based diet plays in all of this.

• 4:39Rich Roll?

  We discussed how he balances life as an elite ultra marathoner with his full-time occupation as a high school teacher, and how the two actually inform each other. We, in addition, talk about his FKT attempt on the Appalachian Trail, how it brought him closer to his father, who crewed the affair, and the documentary, which is entitled "Like Harvey, Like Son," that tells the tale. If there is a theme to this one, it's the power of showing up, making room for the magic that comes with rigorous, consistent, and patient pursuit of the thing you love. It's also a masterclass on mental toughness,

• 5:21Rich Roll?

  how pushing beyond the limits of what we perceive possible rests, not in physical talents, but instead in training mindset. I love this guy. I think you will too. So here we go. Harvey Lewis, in all his resplendent awesomeness.

• 5:43Rich Roll?

  Harvey Lewis is in the house. I can't believe you came out here to see me, man. I'm so excited to talk to you.

• 5:48Harvey Lewis?

  It's an absolute honor. Honestly, I'm so excited to be here.

• 5:52Rich Roll?

  In thinking about your story, and as somebody who I've followed for a long time, you know, I'm very familiar with your career. You're a guy who's been rocking ultras since the 90s. I mean, you've had this 25-year career of doing this thing and have had plenty of successes along the way. But I gotta say, you're really having a moment right now, right?

• 6:14Harvey Lewis?

  It is wild.

• 6:15Rich Roll?

  It's crazy. Like, you're having huge breakthroughs, and winning races at a level that, you know, I don't know, would you have even thought this possible five years ago? Here you are at age 45, just absolutely crushing the game. What is going on?

• 6:31Harvey Lewis?

  It's amazing. Honestly, like, well, I think back to all the different stages. You know, starting off in 1996, which 25 years ago was my first ultra. And I would never have dreamed where I am today, going back 25 years ago. Never, ever would have dreamed that. And just in the last, even in the last five years, to be able to do the things we did this year, it just, it kind of have to like... Sometimes I don't feel like it's even real.

• 6:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, you're a ball of energy, but it wasn't, I mean, how many weeks ago did you do the Big Dog's Backyard? I mean, that was in October, right?

• 7:09Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it was three and a half weeks ago. We had the world championship of Big's Backyard, Last Person Standing event in the backyard of Laz Lake's Wilderness in Tennessee.

• 7:21Rich Roll?

  So let's just start there. I mean, that race has come up in the past because we had Courtney in here who was talking about the last time that she, you know, went around the loop with you. This year was a different affair. For people that don't know, maybe explain the format of the Backyard Ultra situation because it's very unique.

• 7:43Harvey Lewis?

  Definitely, and Courtney is amazing, of course, you know. So the Backyard Ultra is basically a race where you do, half the race is on the trail and half the race is on the road. So it's a 4.16, 7 mile loop.

• 7:57Rich Roll?

  I like how it goes down to the thousandth.

• 7:59Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:00Rich Roll?

  Of the mile, and even your finishing thing is down to the thousandth?

• 8:03Harvey Lewis?

  Every inch, yeah. It's incredible. And this is wild because Laz actually dreamed this up when he was in high school. He had this idea and it didn't really come to fermentation until like he was in his 60s. And so, I mean, it's a race that every 24 hours, you're running 100 miles.

• 8:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:23Harvey Lewis?

  And you just keep on going until the last person can run a lap. And as you're going, if you don't make it back to the loop in 60 minutes, you're out. Or if you don't start the loop after 60 minutes, then you're out of the race.

• 8:39Rich Roll?

  Right, so you do this 4.16, 7 mile loop on the hour, every hour, until literally last man is standing.

• 8:48Harvey Lewis?

  Last man or woman.

• 8:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, last man or woman, right?

• 8:51Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's, yeah, I mean, you can take naps if you finish fast enough to have like seven or eight minutes remaining or 10 minutes. You have to eat like a ton of food and you have to keep your mind in the right place.

• 9:08Rich Roll?

  You could go as fast as you want. Obviously, the faster you go, the more rest you're getting. And as time wears on, you're slowing down. So that window starts to shrink. I mean, at the end, you're getting like 12 minutes or so of rest in between. So there's no sleep involved here. Like, there's barely enough time to sit down and get something in your belly before you're up and at it again.

• 9:29Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, the first year I ran it in 2017, it was completely novel. I had no idea what it's doing. And back then, we didn't sleep. But now, I really try to incorporate sleep because the further it goes, after like, the first night, I can make it through without even drinking caffeine drinks. You know, it's not really a big problem. But once you get in the second night, and then the third night, you feel like a zombie at times. You know, you almost get to that, you get to those moments where you start to sleep for like a microsecond, like while you're running, and you wake yourself up. Yeah, and so, sleep has become an important component. And on the nighttime loops, you can go faster than on the trail because it's on the road.

• 10:12Rich Roll?

  Road.

• 10:12Harvey Lewis?

  And I would make maybe 48-minute loops or out and backs. So I'd have 12 minutes where I could utilize, like, just eating as much as humanly possible in five minutes. And I would like lay down for maybe five or six minutes. And I'm not really sure.

• 10:28Rich Roll?

  Able to fall asleep?

• 10:29Harvey Lewis?

  I didn't really fall asleep most of the time. I would just lay there. But I kind of experimented with it. And I found that even laying down with your eyes shut for like five or six minutes is really powerful. It actually, it does revitalize you to an extent, even if you can't fall asleep.

• 10:47Rich Roll?

  Right. Courtney was talking about these one-minute naps where she thought that she was asleep for like an hour and was pissed at her crew.

• 10:54Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 10:54Rich Roll?

  But felt totally refreshed after a literally, you know, closing her eyes for 60 seconds.

• 11:00Harvey Lewis?

  That's not.

• 11:01Rich Roll?

  Like, is that your experience? Or no? Like, how do you train for this? Or like, what is the, do you try to do this in your training?

• 11:07Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, this year I did. Like, because last year, that really impacted me, not getting enough sleep. So this year, what I did is like, during my lunch at school, I would take a five-minute nap every day. So I would just go into the, like, I have this bigger closet. I'd just lay down on a yoga mat and literally try to sleep for five minutes. So I got to a point where I was, two or three days of the five-day week, I would fall asleep for like three minutes, which is kind of wild. But in the midst of the race, there's a lot of things happening. One, your heart rate gets elevated. Two, after the second day, you're probably drinking some caffeinated drinks. So you're trying to play like an edge where you're trying to stay awake on

• 11:49Harvey Lewis?

  your out and backs on the second and third night by drinking caffeinated drinks. But on the other hand, you want to fall asleep. And so it's like a tough dilemma there. Right. And it's, yeah, so just, I'm not really sure, like, because the way your mind works, I'm not really sure if I was, at sometimes I would, I would drop into like some level of sleep, but I just felt like my, my mind was continuously running. So I would like be somewhat more conscientious. And you're always waiting to listen for lads blowing the whistle. At three minutes, he blows the whistle three times. And then two minutes,

• 12:28Harvey Lewis?

  one minute. And so you, I have a really great, amazing crew chief, Judd Poindexter. And so I was able to rely on him and I knew he would wake me up. But you still have like this, this anticipation that, oh, I gotta get up and get going. I've got to like have everything organized. And there's a lot of temperature variation, too. Like at nighttime, it gets cold. And the daytime is warm. And your body, after like 200 miles, it doesn't do as well. You can't self-regulate. Yeah, you can't regulate the temperature as well. So it ends up being, it's a wild experience, just pushing your body. That's what is special about this race, is it really

• 13:10Harvey Lewis?

  gives everyone the opportunity to explore their limits. And the other thing is, it's really a pretty interesting race to watch. Like, you know, in a lot of ultras, you might have an idea of like the top two or three runners based on like the front field of a race. You know, if you're watching like Western States, and you're like, you know, maybe one of those runners might drop out. But you kind of have an idea of who might be the top three or four. In this backyard ultra, everyone finishes the loop in a tied position. Right. So I mean, going into the second day, you have no idea who's going to be the final runner. That's really interesting. It's like, there's so much competition, you have no idea. You don't know who's feeling good or who's not, because it's just four miles.

• 13:54Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, no idea what cards other runners are carrying. Yeah.

• 13:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's like a poker game.

• 14:00Harvey Lewis?

  It's a total poker match.

• 14:01Rich Roll?

  But it ends up going off a cliff and becoming like Squid Game.

• 14:05Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Rich Roll?

  At the end, right? When people start dropping off and like the guy, the second place guy, Chris Roberts, he got, I mean, he literally was with you until the last loop. But because he started a loop and didn't finish, it's a DNF. Like, he doesn't even get second place.

• 14:22Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 14:23Rich Roll?

  Which is like super harsh.

• 14:24Harvey Lewis?

  It's brutal.

• 14:25Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 14:25Harvey Lewis?

  It's hard, it's Laz, uh, Laz, he is hilarious. Well Laz always has some like element to mess with runners.

• 14:32Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 14:33Harvey Lewis?

  And so technically, everyone that doesn't finish as a final runner is a DNF.

• 14:39Rich Roll?

  So even if he finished, if he finished the loop and didn't start another one, would he get second? Or just everybody DNFs except the person who wins?

• 14:46Harvey Lewis?

  Everyone DNFs. Exactly. The person who wins.

• 14:49Rich Roll?

  There is no second place.

• 14:50Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, Laz is brutal with that.

• 14:51Rich Roll?

  There's the last person and that's it.

• 14:53Harvey Lewis?

  Exactly.

• 14:54Rich Roll?

  Oh my god.

• 14:55Harvey Lewis?

  So if you're trying to keep your DNFs down, it might not be the best format.

• 14:58Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Wow, that's so funny. Well, I mean, Lazarus Lake, I mean, this guy is like an all-time world-class character.

• 15:07Harvey Lewis?

  He is. He is on such a high level of that, like, his philosophy is, is just, it's so interesting to even spend time with him, just because everything he says is so philosophical. And, I mean, I love how the race is actually named after his dog.

• 15:22Rich Roll?

  His dog, right, yeah.

• 15:23Harvey Lewis?

  And now he has a little dog, Little has a race as well named after him. And, I mean, Laz, he is just, uh, he is, you think maybe from the outside that he's extremely masochistic, or maybe he's got some sort of like vendetta, like to really be cruel to runners. But he does get some, some humor out of things. But, uh, you know, he really is interested in seeing, uh, he loves watching people work through those extreme challenges and he gets inspired by that.

• 15:56Rich Roll?

  Where does that come from? I mean, he's not a runner himself.

• 15:59Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, he is actually going back into the day. So back in the 60s and 70s, you know, he was a big runner in Tennessee. And it's interesting because his dad was actually a NASA scientist. And he actually, uh, worked on, uh, the, uh... Lunar module coming off the moon.

• 16:20Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 16:20Harvey Lewis?

  So he's a really brilliant guy and he has a ton of interesting history on his back. But he's kind of taken that, he's very particular about organization too. Like you had talked to his wife Sandra, like it's so funny. He's got a certain way that every flag has to be rolled out. You know, everything has to be just perfect. And I mean, we're not even talking about Barclay yet.

• 16:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know, we're getting there.

• 16:46Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, so he is definitely admire, I really do admire him for what he has done.

• 16:54Harvey Lewis?

  You know, with the sport and he's captivated people in so many ways that we can't even begin to describe.

• 17:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, he's sort of single handedly like created a whole new genre of running.

• 17:07Harvey Lewis?

  It's exploded.

• 17:08Rich Roll?

  With the unfinishable Barclay, Barclay marathons and this whole backyard format. Which he didn't invent it, right? But he's sort of made it a thing here, at least in the United States.

• 17:19Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, he actually invented the backyard. Yeah, he invented that. Yeah, so it's now spread to over 62 countries and they have, I mean, hundreds of events. There is over 13,000 people have participated already. And I mean, it's really exploded in just the last five years, last four years. It's just, just, it just grown by madness.

• 17:42Rich Roll?

  I mean, the format makes it really fun. There's a gamesmanship to it and I suspect from a race organizer point of view, it's a lot easier to conduct than, you know, a race that's traversing like a huge swath of land in a point to point kind of way.

• 17:57Harvey Lewis?

  It's true. Yeah, yeah. It surprises me at times though, because I'm like, I'll follow their Facebook page and I'll see like, posts from Pakistan or Morocco and I see like all these places where they're like formulating this race. And it's exciting to see that. I love that.

• 18:13Rich Roll?

  It's also less intimidating if you're trying to dip your toe in the ultra world. Cause you can just go and run four mile loops until you're done. It's not like, oh, I have to do 100 miles or anything like that. You can just show up and do what you can. So it feels like a little bit more welcoming.

• 18:30Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, it is very much welcoming. And it's it's nice because especially the first day, there's a lot of camaraderie.

• 18:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 18:38Harvey Lewis?

  So you mean, it's it's just like a big party. You get to like hang out and share stories. You know, it's just, it's just like a party on, you know, in the wilderness and it's just moving around. I mean, it's fantastic.

• 18:52Rich Roll?

  Well, it's a party until it's not. I mean, you ran 354.1667. That's how specific this is. Miles, which is 85, they call them yards, right? Each four, each four plus mile loop in 85 hours. Like, I just, I can't even wrap my head around that. And it's so much further beyond anything that you had done in that format or even outside of that format.

• 19:22Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Rich Roll?

  Like, it's a whole new threshold of experience for you.

• 19:27Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's it's wild. During the race, I actually, you know, I went through a low part around like mile, I think about 140 or 170, rather. And it's incredible because, I mean, I had like the the battle inside my mind, like the side that was not wanting to submit at all. But I had like a little bit creeping in. I thought of like, well, it would be nice to like, you know, just go relax in a hotel. And they'll put my feet up and like, how long is this thing gonna go for? So.

• 19:59Rich Roll?

  And you're only halfway in.

• 20:00Harvey Lewis?

  And I didn't know that at that time.

• 20:02Rich Roll?

  You don't know, that's the thing, you don't know how long it's gonna go.

• 20:05Harvey Lewis?

  I had no idea at that time. And so to get through that dark place, I like shared with my crew chief. And I mean, having a strong crew chief is really important in this race. And I just like, when I got back to the tent, I made sure no one else was nearby. And I just said real quietly to Judd, I said, hey, I'm I'm struggling through this a bit right now. And he came up with a good idea. He's like, just visualize that you're running back and forth to work. Cause I, I run commutes to work.

• 20:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 20:33Harvey Lewis?

  And so like, that was incredible because at that point, I was really able to just go beyond it. And then just focus on each loop and just imagine I was running back and forth to work. It was so easy at that point.

• 20:45Rich Roll?

  Which is kind of about the same distance, right? Three or four miles?

• 20:48Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's about the same distance. So it's incredible how just changing your mindset in like, can make such an impact. And I really didn't go through any other. I mean, I went through, it was tough in the, in the fourth day. But I didn't go through a point that was like as mentally like where I was in a dark place like that. Yeah.

• 21:07Rich Roll?

  And then reframing it through that shift in perspective, like gave you this boost that carried you for another 170?

• 21:17Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 21:17Rich Roll?

  I mean, I know you had a crazy moment at 300, right?

• 21:20Harvey Lewis?

  Right, right. That's a whole nother.

• 21:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, let's talk about that.

• 21:23Harvey Lewis?

  Topic. So, yeah, so basically, once we got into that third night and it kind of becomes like automatic. And you're just like, you, you get yourself back to the tent. You're laying down for five minutes. You're eating as much as humanly possible. And you're just lining up at the line again. And you're wondering like, how long are these people gonna go for?

• 21:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 21:44Harvey Lewis?

  But.

• 21:45Rich Roll?

  And you're, it's a poker game. You can't play your hand, right? You can't let anyone know that you're feeling down.

• 21:50Harvey Lewis?

  Oh, no, no, no. Like that would be destruction. Yeah. So I mean, it's like, yeah, so then you just, you just keep on playing it out. And, um, you know, during the third night, there was something that kind of hit me, I think. I just, I got very automatic with it. And, uh, I felt pretty strong. Like I was just like dialed in that I was back to my game plan. That, okay, I'm gonna go as long as this thing carries, however long that might be. And you know, the Chris Roberts at that time was actually really, really struggling. The Japanese runner, runner Mori Mori, he was looking strong.

• 22:34Harvey Lewis?

  But Chris Roberts, in the last three loops of the nighttime on the third night, he got to a point where he was actually running sideways. Like, he was actually hip skipping sideways. And I was like, wow, I was really impressed by that. I'm like, this guy is staying in here because I was pretty sure he was gonna like tag out. He's got like three minutes left on his loop. And he's like, he is so serious to the point where he's willing to skip sideways to get himself down to the, which is not easy to do.

• 23:04Rich Roll?

  So he pivoted his body.

• 23:07Harvey Lewis?

  Cause his knee was hurt.

• 23:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 23:09Harvey Lewis?

  And he literally skipped sideways. I mean, I was like, you're running sideways after like 200 and some miles. These guys are never gonna give up either.

• 23:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:18Harvey Lewis?

  So I said something to Lazz, I'm like, Lazz, you know, none of the three of us are gonna submit. I said that, like, I think somewhere after like 300 miles, I'm like, it's just not gonna happen. He's like, it's gonna happen eventually.

• 23:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, one way or another, right?

• 23:31Harvey Lewis?

  Right, right.

• 23:32Rich Roll?

  So the year prior, when you were going tete-a-tete with Courtney, you pooped out at 240 or something like that?

• 23:40Harvey Lewis?

  277. Yeah, 277, and she did 281.

• 23:46Rich Roll?

  When you came up on that kind of mile marker this time, what do you think, like, how were you able to get to a different gear? Like, did you do something different in training? Is it experience? Like, what changed?

• 23:59Harvey Lewis?

  Well, you know, I thought back to 2017 because that's when Guillaume and I, the French runner, we both were running, we ran like an additional day beyond everyone else. And we end up going to 241, and I submitted at 241. And I was the assist that year. And I thought about, Lazz, back then, he said, he had this big thing about saying, okay, I think you guys, someone's gonna make it to 300 miles. And like, that year in 2017, it was the first year I did it. And so this idea of 300, it kinda got in my head. And I'm like, well, shoot, we're gonna get to 300, and neither of us is gonna wanna quit either. I gotta get back to teaching. And it just became this like number that was like out there.

• 24:43Harvey Lewis?

  And then last year with Courtney, I told Laz somewhere before, I think three laps before I stopped. I'm like Laz, we've got this. We're gonna beat a 300. There's no way we're stopping. And then sure enough, three laps later, my mind like wouldn't, it gave up. Like, so I felt at this race, I really didn't want to like give up mentally. Like if I was gonna like be be out, it was gonna be based on me not making it back in time. Like I didn't, every other time I did this, when I submitted, it was because my mind, I had given up. It wasn't because I timed out. And so this race, I wanted, if I didn't, if I was gonna go out, it was gonna be based on not making it back in the 60 minutes.

• 25:28Harvey Lewis?

  Not based on like, oh, I don't think I can go any further. You know, because last year with Courtney, you know, I thought it was, it was really amazing running with her number one. Like, we were in a dynamic where we were supportive of each other, which was really special. I mean, like, we both have a history with the 24 hour USA team. But like to work with somebody, it makes it like just an amazing experience. Where you're like working for something greater and it's like, so yeah, last year I just got to this place where I was in my mind, I didn't think I could, I thought I was losing time on the laps and I didn't think I could make it many more laps.

• 26:10Harvey Lewis?

  And so I was like, okay, I started to like hallucinate a bit more and I said, okay, this is, I think this is it. And so I gave up. So this year, I've really trained my mind more to not submit. Like it's gonna, if I go out, it's gonna be physical, not.

• 26:28Rich Roll?

  And what does that training look like? Like, is there a specific program or method to this madness?

• 26:34Harvey Lewis?

  The method to the madness. Well, part helped that I did a backyard ultra in March where I actually was the final person standing. And that was the first time I did that. And so we did that in Ohio Backyard Ultra. It went. To about 240 some miles. So that that helped to have that victory on my back to to understand what it's like to be the final person. And then, leading up to this year, I did two races. I did, well, I did Badwater, which helped.

• 27:03Rich Roll?

  Right, which you won.

• 27:04Harvey Lewis?

  Little Badwater. And then I did the fans 24 hour race, seven weeks out, and the I did the Superior 100 race five weeks out. So doing a road race and then a trail race with 20,000 feet, like, five weeks out, it it helped, you know, including both dynamics. But also conversation with my crew chief. You know, like, we had, we had it dialed down in terms of what we wanted to do. I think that helps a lot.

• 27:33Rich Roll?

  What is, what are the the characteristics or qualities that you look for? Like, what makes a great crew chief a great crew chief? Because I think people really underestimate how crucial, you know, those people are who are supporting you. And, you know, many of us have had experiences, like, we get our friends to do it, or, you know, I've had my wife do it, and my stepsons, and it's great, you know, but they're not, like, dialed in as crew people. And when shit's going off the rails, like, you want someone there who really understands what you're going through and can make sure that you're getting what you need.

• 28:12Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, I think it's so important. With the crew, it's, number one, is a positive mindset. Like, no matter what happens, they're going to have a mindset that's positive. So there could be crazy, crazy things happening, and all, anything you could imagine. And no matter what that is, their mind is going to be positive. And they're going to be looking through problem solving. So problem solving is great. Having someone that is loyal and has your, you know, that's huge, that you feel comfortable with. So it's like, They don't have to be an amazing runner at all, at all, not at all. It's more important that they are flexible, like they're willing to like, they're excited about.

• 28:58Harvey Lewis?

  It's also important to have someone who's excited. I mean, you don't want to have someone come out there and say, oh my God, we're out here for like, can you imagine? Like, I mean, that's a long time.

• 29:05Rich Roll?

  Well, there's, I mean, there's legendary stories about, you know, people bailing in the middle of ram and all that kind of stuff, right? Like, wow, this is way more work than I thought, like, and the crew's fighting and they're not getting along and the whole thing just craters.

• 29:18Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's important. So I tried to build the crew months and months before the actual event. And I don't have crew for all my races, you know, but like on my A races, I definitely try to build that prior to going. So like Badwater, for example, is a fun race for the crew component. Cause you have the crew that is going to basically follow you the whole 135 miles. And it's so important to have a group that gets along together. But also people that bring different dynamics to the team. So someone might be the person that does a lot of the miles, but you need someone who's extremely good at like logistics and organizing.

• 30:02Harvey Lewis?

  You know, that's really important. And you think outside the box. Like, I mean, it's, the crew is really important in a lot of these ultras, for sure.

• 30:12Rich Roll?

  They gotta be five steps ahead at all times. Do you like, like, for example, with Badwater, do you like it when someone's running with you all the time? Or do you like them to kind of bump and run? Or what's your, what's your kind of mode?

• 30:24Harvey Lewis?

  So for Badwater, I definitely like having someone run with me. It's like after mile 42 now, you can have someone run with you all the way to the finish. And I like rotating it because after a while, you know, I always want someone fresh. So I kind of feel like I take on their energy force. So I get someone new in, it's like, I kind of feel their energy, even though I'm running in front of them. And it's not like pacing in the traditional sense, they're running behind you. It's like, I feel their energy force and it's like, it helps me to go faster. So I like having a rotation. I love having someone with me in Badwater. It's just, you know, sometimes we're not even speaking, you know? It's just being out there and running like.

• 31:07Harvey Lewis?

  A team. It's like we're wild animals. You know, migrating across the plains. And that's huge. It's a huge impact.

• 31:16Rich Roll?

  So you're at mile 300 of Biggs. Like, I gotta hear about this, like, hallucinatory Nirvana moment that you had.

• 31:24Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, so the... This year, I would just say, like, it was kinda crazy because, you know, you go through these lows and highs. But going into 300, it just felt like we were invincible, almost. Like, in Morimori, the Japanese runner, he just was fired up. We were both fired up. So, once we got past 300, we started doing crazy things. And like, some of it was like strategic on my part, trying to like, wear him down a little bit. But some of it was just like, impassioned. Like, just feeling like fired up and like, let's just go.

• 32:06Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, so we started doing things that you probably shouldn't do after 300 miles. Like, we started running up the hill, like, that we've been walking up since day one. And then we started sprinting through the camp, like, getting everyone fired up. Like, just kinda ridiculous things. And sometimes we just, like, start running super fast through the woods in places we probably shouldn't, where you'd like crash. So, it was... And we just... Sometimes we'd be hollering. Like, we'd just start yelling. Like, not in like aggressive ways towards each other, but just because we were fired up.

• 32:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 32:38Harvey Lewis?

  And like, excited about it. Like, so it was wild to hit that mark and then feel all kinds of new energy. Like, I mean, I felt, and sometimes, more energy than I felt the whole race at like, loop two.

• 32:52Rich Roll?

  Right, you just go into some crazy gear that you didn't even know that you had.

• 32:56Harvey Lewis?

  Not even though that you had. Like, that was what was so special about it. Cause you get beyond 300 miles and then you realize, wow, there's these like... Like, you have more force than you ever had even in the first day. You're like, where does this come from?

• 33:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, where does it come from? I mean, what do you make of that?

• 33:11Harvey Lewis?

  It was wild.

• 33:12Rich Roll?

  Like, for somebody who's pushing the envelope to such an extreme and has been doing this for so long, you'd think you kinda know at this point, like, where that limit sits. And yet, you have this huge... I mean, it wasn't like you went four miles longer than you did last year. Like, you just exploded the ceiling on... Probably what you, I mean, 300 being the mark and then you go so much further past that.

• 33:35Harvey Lewis?

  And I really didn't think Chris was gonna even submit it like when he did at 354 or 350. Like I thought, actually, I thought we're definitely going through the whole night here. Cause we, it's just pretty much, once you, the road is easier. So as long as you can overcome the sleep deprivation, you don't have like a serious injury, you can usually just make that, that out and back in the time. And so we were making it with plenty of time. If it weren't for his knee injury, I think we would've gone a lot further.

• 34:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:05Harvey Lewis?

  Too.

• 34:05Rich Roll?

  And once he submitted, are you allowed to keep going or that's it?

• 34:11Harvey Lewis?

  No, it's like against the ethics of our race. So you only go one more loop.

• 34:15Rich Roll?

  Right. So even if you, do you feel like you could've kept going?

• 34:18Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was definitely dialed in for the remainder of that night. And that would've been challenging, going back on the loop course in the, the fifth day would've been interesting. Cause I don't know how I would've adapted.

• 34:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 34:31Harvey Lewis?

  But then again, you never know and nothing's guaranteed. So I mean, something can change. It can change fast. And so you're always trying to just focus on that loop in front of you.

• 34:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:42Harvey Lewis?

  Just one loop at a time.

• 34:44Rich Roll?

  And you took a, if people are watching on YouTube, they see the brace on, on your right hand. I mean, you took the spill, right? Fractured your hand, but you couldn't let any, you couldn't like evince any outward facing pain, right? You didn't wanna.

• 34:56Harvey Lewis?

  No, no, no, no, no way, no way. Not until the finish.

• 34:59Rich Roll?

  You can't telegraph any weakness.

• 35:01Harvey Lewis?

  And I was like, oh, that's not good. But yeah, one thing I do actually in races, I don't know how unique it is, but I always like in my A races, I always take on like a spirit animal. And so for this race, my, my spirit animal was a honey badger. And so I watched that video, it has four million views.

• 35:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 35:22Harvey Lewis?

  And I was serious about it. When I was going into the race, I was like, I'm a honey badger. So it doesn't matter what happens, I'm gonna still run. So you know, the fourth day, a honey badger fall down on the rocks. Doesn't matter, you just get up, keep on running. Yeah, at that point, the fourth day, actually, I got to a place where I was, it was tough. Like, the fourth day is hard. Like, Lads didn't really expect people to do that. And it's the, you got, it warms up. I mean, it's not like really hot, but I mean, even like 70 degrees, after you've been running for, you know, three plus days, it just takes more energy. And, yeah, I got a little bit dehydrated.

• 36:02Harvey Lewis?

  Doing the running with Maury, Maury, just doing that crazy running probably didn't help things either. I mean, Chris Roberts was sitting back thinking, man, you guys are gonna kill each other.

• 36:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 36:12Harvey Lewis?

  And like, I'm fine with this.

• 36:13Rich Roll?

  But Maury like passed out, right? He went unconscious?

• 36:16Harvey Lewis?

  Unfortunately, yeah, he actually literally fell, like, in close to, I think it was, maybe 346 miles. He literally fell and knocked himself out, like, for like 20 seconds or something. But it was enough to just put him over the edge. Yeah, he didn't make it back. He missed a cutoff by maybe a minute or two. So, yeah, it's, it's kind of a crazy race. It definitely is a crazy race, but it's exciting because of just all the different aspects of it. There's a lot of psychology in the race, as well as the physiology.

• 36:59Harvey Lewis?

  And, yeah, I was surprised. Like, honestly, I didn't feel anything in my hand. Like, I knew I did it, because when I fell, I had no energy. Usually I fall, I fell, the first day I fell like three times. I don't think I fell the second day at all. But I literally fell, and it'd be easy spots, like, where I was like just looking off or talking to someone. But when I fell, I had zero energy to catch myself or to roll. And I just came right down on the hand. I knew right away I did something to it. But I was like, well, it's not like essential, you know?

• 37:29Rich Roll?

  We can deal with that later.

• 37:30Harvey Lewis?

  I checked my knee, knee was fine, no problem, just keep on going.

• 37:34Rich Roll?

  Right. It's sort of like that Roger Bannister thing of breaking the four-minute mile, right? Like, once somebody, once he does it, then all kinds of people do it. People have struggled to eclipse the 300-mile mark. There is that, I mean, you broke the world record that was set on an easier course in the UK, right? That was 300. Twenty or something like that.

• 37:54Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, John Stocker.

• 37:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 37:55Harvey Lewis?

  Set that in the UK.

• 37:56Rich Roll?

  So it's not like no one had ever gone over 300 before. But here you have three guys who are all competing against each other, but also supporting each other to kind of break that ceiling. And it'll be interesting to see what happens next year. Like, oh, that's possible? Like, OK, are we going for 400? Is that what's happening now? Like, you know, who knows?

• 38:16Harvey Lewis?

  It's absolutely true. Like, I don't think the record's gonna stay there that long.

• 38:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 38:20Harvey Lewis?

  The rate, what is special about it is that it did happen on Laz's backyard. In his event, it is tougher. Like, it's got more technical elements to the course. There's more like elevation climb. But there's a lot of variety. Like, they've now done these backyards in like Mexico, where they have like 1,000 feet per lap. You know, so I mean, it's like nuts. There's a lot of variety, but this was a tougher course to set that record on. But I think you're right. Like, it's gonna be like crazy. Like, where's it gonna go?

• 38:52Rich Roll?

  I mean, have they done one on a track? Just to see how far you could do? Like, creating the optimal conditions for like a crazy record?

• 39:01Harvey Lewis?

  They, I don't know about a track.

• 39:02Rich Roll?

  It's kind of not really in the spirit of the thing.

• 39:05Harvey Lewis?

  It'd be better to have it like incorporate like trails as well as the road.

• 39:10Rich Roll?

  Mixing the flip flop between trail and road. Did you find that helpful? Because you got a little variety. I mean, mentally, I would think it would be good.

• 39:19Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, it's wild because you get to a place where you get tired of one. And you're like, oh, God, I can't wait till I get back to the road. Yeah, so when you got like two or three loops to go, you're like, oh, my God, two more loops and I'll be back on the road. I can survive forever. And then when you get back on the road and you're like out there for like nine hours in the dark. And we had an amazing full moon. I mean, there was coyotes like howling. It was really special, like nighttime. But nevertheless, after nine or 10 hours of, you're out there by yourself. Like, because I wasn't running with Maury Mori or Chris. We're just out and back. So you have a lot of time to yourself, to have thoughts within yourself.

• 40:02Harvey Lewis?

  And it definitely, you're so thankful when you get back to the trail. You're like, oh, thank God.

• 40:08Rich Roll?

  Can you put anything in the ears? Or do you listen to stuff?

• 40:14Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, you can listen to music on the road portion. And I find that very helpful. Laz doesn't allow it on the trail. You know, like unless it's like the final two runners, final two, three runners, then he doesn't really mind. But he doesn't want to have it on the trail when there's like many people out there. You got to have like, you got to pass people and stuff like that on a little single track. So the music is really powerful because it kind of, if I am feeling discomfort, it numbs that. So I don't take any painkillers, like ever. Like, I mean, I haven't taken any since like I broke my neck back in 2004.

• 40:52Harvey Lewis?

  And when I'm in the, yeah, so having the music actually helps me to put my mind somewhere else. If I am feeling like just total fatigue or discomfort, just listening to music is like, it's really nice to have it on the nighttime.

• 41:15Rich Roll?

  What is the nutrition strategy like? Like, how are you keeping calories down after all that time out there? Like, what's the feeling like?

• 41:23Harvey Lewis?

  Well, you just have to look at it as like, this is all you can eat buffet and be so thankful that you can eat all the food in the world. But it's really important to eat like probably 500 calories, 400, 500 calories an hour.

• 41:36Rich Roll?

  That's a lot. That's a lot to keep down.

• 41:39Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it is. And that's actually where the plant-based foods really helps out. Because I feel like I'm able to digest a lot of food, like a ton of food and drinks, without having, like, I very, very rarely have any sort of like upset stomach in races. It's like extremely rare.

• 42:01Rich Roll?

  So what's the combination of kind of performance nutrition? Like the, you know, high calorie? Drinks versus real food and what does the real food look like?

• 42:11Harvey Lewis?

  Right, so I would drink tailwind, but I also had diversity. So I would have like, I'd have like soda as well. I had like coconut water, which was really nice. And then I'd have like things like from fruits, like watermelon, blueberries, to squeezable fruits, to soups and like vegan mac and cheese. I'd have like, I mean, Judd was actually really good about making up food. That's another thing about you're a crew chief. Like with this race, you're only allowed one crew chief or one person in this crew. So it's really important to have someone who is able to make up food for you that knows a little bit about it. Yeah, he's not vegan, but he's really good.

• 42:56Harvey Lewis?

  I mean, he makes, he oftentimes makes me special like things. It brings it to the race. I'm like, man, thank you so much.

• 43:04Rich Roll?

  So you're not getting 500 calories an hour on fruit. That's coming through tailwind and through mac and cheese and stuff like that.

• 43:10Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, and also like Abe's muffins from Whole Foods. I grabbed a bunch of those. I mean, those are like, actually, believe it or not, it's like 400 calories or some 300 calories per little like muffin. So I mean, and chips. So I mean, guacamole and I'm eating a lot of things that aren't like healthy to eat on a daily basis, you know, like just high calorie items. And I'm not really looking too much at like, you know, my protein content. It's more like, I want to get complex carbohydrates rather than just simple sugars. Like I definitely am getting a ton of simple sugars, but I'm also getting complex carbohydrates too. So I mean, everything, pastas, soups, things are easy to digest.

• 43:53Harvey Lewis?

  Like I'd have like, like mashed potatoes and vegetable broth mixed together. And that was really easy to digest. And especially if it's hot out, like then you want to think about things that are easier to digest than at nighttime, I could eat like the. Hardier items.

• 44:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 44:13Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Rich Roll?

  No stomach upset?

• 44:16Harvey Lewis?

  No stomach upset. Yeah, it's wild.

• 44:19Rich Roll?

  That gets the best of them.

• 44:21Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's huge. It's like the ultra, like ultra has maybe, you know, there's like 10 or 12 major components I can think of that are really important elements to a race, like pacing. Pacing is huge, but nutrition is definitely one of the top ones. And like being able to just eat a, like a bean burrito and then just take off. Like that's a huge advantage.

• 44:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 44:46Harvey Lewis?

  To be able to digest that while you're moving and running is a big advantage.

• 44:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but also ultras are famous for like, oh, I'm just gonna eat pizza and like, you know, all kinds of candy and crap and stuff like that because I'm burning all these calories out there. And then people, you know, start barfing and having the runs and all kinds of stuff happens.

• 45:04Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. I think that's where not having the dairy in there really helps a lot, too. I mean, yeah, it's, I can name the, like, maybe three or four times in the last five years where I've actually gotten sick in ultra. That's it. Like literally like three or four times. And usually I can explain what happened in each of those instances.

• 45:24Rich Roll?

  Have you, I have to ask you, have you talked to Courtney about this?

• 45:28Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, this last one?

• 45:30Rich Roll?

  She has her, she's sort of notorious for like her.

• 45:33Harvey Lewis?

  The nachos and cheese.

• 45:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like all the stuff that she eats.

• 45:35Harvey Lewis?

  Right, right, right.

• 45:36Rich Roll?

  And, you know, she occasionally has like a stomach issue in her races, right?

• 45:40Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 45:41Rich Roll?

  There's Harvey's right over there.

• 45:42Harvey Lewis?

  I love Courtney. So, I mean, I'm like very respectful about.

• 45:45Rich Roll?

  Of course. I don't, I'm not taking anybody's inventory on this. Like she's in on a different planet. So it's like, knock yourself out Courtney, whatever works for you.

• 45:53Harvey Lewis?

  Exactly. So.

• 45:54Rich Roll?

  Only love.

• 45:55Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I usually, I, yeah, I usually am kind of careful about how I, how I, like if someone asks me, then I'll share, but I don't usually like, like, I mean, once in a while I do, but um. You know, we do share ideas. A lot of times, like on the 24-hour team, you know, we'll have something that works really well and like the other runners will pick up on it. You know, so I imagine I'd love to collaborate with her more in the future.

• 46:23Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 46:23Harvey Lewis?

  You know, I mean, but I haven't really said a whole lot to her about.

• 46:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I get it. Yeah, completely.

• 46:29Harvey Lewis?

  She's so like.

• 46:30Rich Roll?

  I wouldn't either.

• 46:31Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, no, she's got her like nachos and cheese that she loves.

• 46:34Rich Roll?

  Right. If that's working for her, awesome, you know?

• 46:37Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 46:37Rich Roll?

  So let's, maybe this is a good opportunity to kind of dive a little bit deeper into the whole vegan thing. I mean, you've been, you went 100% plant-based in like 2016?

• 46:47Harvey Lewis?

  Yes.

• 46:48Rich Roll?

  And so talk me through like what that was about and why you made that switch and what you were doing beforehand.

• 46:54Harvey Lewis?

  Right. So going back in time, I've actually been vegetarian since 25 years ago, when I first picked up ultras at the same time. And, you know, that was just a revolution in my life. Like, just because I felt a transition just overnight. Like, just like, I went from being like Chunk and Goonies, like the chubby kid growing up and not being like one of the top runners at all. In fact, I was usually one of the last runners to finish races. And so.

• 47:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think it took you, like you said, like it took you years and years and years to break five hours in the marathon.

• 47:35Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it took me five years to actually break five hours in the marathon. I did get started young, like at 15, but you know, it's kind of, it's amazing for me mentally just to think about the, like, chiseling through the little wall. You know, like the Contamante Cristo, just all the little walls I had to chisel through to get here.

• 47:54Rich Roll?

  I mean, you've been chiseling for a long ti- I mean, yeah, it's like, you are like the ultimate, like Harvard Business School test case in like persistence and consistency.

• 48:05Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 48:05Rich Roll?

  You know, 25 years of relentless, I mean, you really haven't taken a break, right? Like, you've just been doing this full speed. I mean, you have a full-time career and we'll talk about that. But, you know, this has been your life for a very long time, which is why I kind of opened it with the question of like, how are you having this break? You would think like you plateau and it would just kind of balance out. And you're like, okay, this is where I sit in the pecking order of things. Especially in the ultra world where it's kind of notorious, particularly with men.

• 48:37Rich Roll?

  Where the elite level of their performance seems to have a pretty short shelf life. Right? Like, we see people who burst onto the scene. They win everything for a period of two or three years, or four years, or something like that. And then really struggle to kind of match those results.

• 48:53Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's been incredible. Like, it's been incredible year. But there's a few things that happen in my formula. And one is always keeping it fun. So like, I just love what it is. Like, I really genuinely love running ultras. And I love the adventure. I love the meeting the people. I mean, the opportunities I've had, like, coming here today is incredible. Like, I mean, it's been incredible. So I love the spirit of what it is. So keeping it fun is really important. Like, and then listening to your body. So I think that's a really key component. So I don't have, I'm flexible. Like, I know, like, coming off of Biggs, now I'm getting ready for Barclay.

• 49:38Harvey Lewis?

  But I don't have, like, a coach. I don't have, like, a set program, which is interesting, comparable to Courtney. Like, she'll tell you too, she doesn't have, like, a set routine of, like, what she's doing. It's basically, we're very similar on that domain. Because I'll just go out and run. Like, this morning, I went out and ran. I didn't have any measure of how far I was gonna go. It just depended on how I felt. And so, like, listening to your body and going by that. While you have, like, goals for each week or each month, it really helps you to be flexible. So being flexible and listening to your body. And also, different specializations. So I like getting out and running like a 5K. You know, I'm not gonna likely win that race. You know, sometimes I might in a local race.

• 50:23Harvey Lewis?

  But I'm likely to finish, like, 10th or 12th, or who knows what. It doesn't matter, because I'm pushing myself in that area. So not getting caught up into, I have to do only this particular type of thing. You know, getting into swimming, you're doing whatever it is. Like, being able to diversify is super powerful as well. Because if you're able to run a 5K better, or you're able to get out there and swim a mile, that's gonna make you stronger when you come back to the event you really excel in. And that'll make you stronger in the event you excel in.

• 50:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're pretty diverse in terms of distances and terrain. I mean, you're a 245 marathoner, right?

• 51:01Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 51:01Rich Roll?

  And you can throw down for a 10K all the way up. I mean, usually the people who are excelling at the super long stuff, that's the thing they do. I mean, there's exceptions to that. I mean, like Jim Walmsley is rewriting the record book on what's possible in that regard. But you are really, you know, kind of resilient and capable across, you know, a multitude of specific disciplines within running.

• 51:26Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's, you know, I think going back some time, I think people kind of had me pegged as like a road runner. Yeah, like they thought, oh, Harvey does bad water. He does a 24 hour team. Yeah, he's not like an ultra, a trail runner. But I actually really love both. You know, and like Biggs gave me the opportunity to show that. I love, I love trails as well. It's just, uh, people maybe assume because I live in Ohio, you know, it's like we don't have like the, the big mountain trails that you have like in the Rockies or out in the Sierras.

• 51:59Rich Roll?

  And you haven't done, uh, Western States or UTMB. Those are the two things that kind of stand out. Like where's Harvey?

• 52:05Harvey Lewis?

  I know. It's kind of wild. Like, uh, UTMB, I've been out there twice, like with, uh, other people I've taken out and just run the, the loop and it's beautiful. And I'd, I'd love to run both those races, of course. And, uh, Western States is just like, that's so tough to, to get in the lottery. So actually this year was the first year I applied.

• 52:25Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 52:26Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, I did actually. Like, uh, so I'm thinking maybe, you know, maybe about 10 years from now I'll get in. We'll see. We'll see.

• 52:34Rich Roll?

  I think you'll probably find a way to get into that race sooner rather than later.

• 52:38Harvey Lewis?

  We'll, we'll see.

• 52:39Rich Roll?

  But the original question that we got sidetracked here was, was kind of exploring the, the plant-based, you know, pivot you were talking about, um, going vegetarian earlier in life. I mean, that was, it feels like that was more of an ethical compulsion at the time.

• 52:56Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, it was actually, it was, it was kind of a storm that hit me. Like, because my mom had a stroke in nineteen ninety-five. And that, I, I just kind of had a reflection on like what we had been doing growing up. I mean, my mom was a nurse. She was only like fifty-four at the time. She survived, but it was catastrophic. Like, I mean, she lost movement on her one side and she also lost speech. So, I mean, her speech is really impacted. I mean, fortunately, she is still alive and she's, she's living independently. And, I mean, she's amazing, like, for, for having that endurance through those difficulties of not being able to speak, but knowing what she wants to say, you know, and, and surviving all those years.

• 53:41Harvey Lewis?

  But that, that really made me reflect on like what I was doing, you know, in Ohio. I mean, what was I eating in Ohio? Like, what I grew up eating that I thought was like the healthy thing to, to do. And also I had, like, going back to when I was, I guess, maybe a junior in high school, I had like this sort of epiphany that, I, I did make this connection. I was like going through, I think McDonald's, and I was thinking about like just, you know, where the food actually comes from. And I think, you know, we're really disconnected from our, our, where the food comes from. And I was thinking about slaughtering and all that, and I just really didn't want to be a part of it. But it only lasted for like a day, or maybe even like half a day.

• 54:25Harvey Lewis?

  And I just didn't know where to go with that. Like, I had no, no one was vegetarian in my school that I was aware of. And there was no options at the line, like the lunch, the lunch line. So I was like, where do I go with this? So I had that original thought, but I didn't have any legs to run with it. And then when I was a sophomore in college, you know, after my mom had the stroke that summer, I, I finally said, you know, I need to like actually make, you know, in, in, in effort to like research this and find out. And that's when I started like transitioning. I just went over to eating vegetarian. And so...

• 55:08Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's uh, the last five years, I finally came in 2016. I've been wanting to do it for a long time, but I thought, what am I doing? Why do I still, like, why am I still avoiding this? Like, what is it? And it was out of convenience. Like, I thought it was gonna be an inconvenience for other people, for me to go vegan. Or maybe it would be difficult with my, like, travels. I love to travel around the world. Maybe that would affect me.

• 55:37Harvey Lewis?

  But basically, I thought, you know, this is, I've, I've, I want to do this. I've got to do it. And I just said, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna set this. And, and then after like, literally like, I think maybe 10 days, I was like, what? Why did I not do this like years ago? Like, it's so easy.

• 55:54Rich Roll?

  Did you feel a difference?

• 55:57Harvey Lewis?

  I don't know that I felt like, um, in 10 days, like, an incredible change. Cause I already felt pretty good, um, with eating vegetarian. But definitely within a matter of months, like, I noticed, like, changes. Like, just, uh, I would say my performances, like, I had my fastest marathon ever. Like, uh, in 2018. Yeah, so that was my fastest marathon ever. Uh, and I like, noticed that I was getting faster after that case.

• 56:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:30Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 56:31Rich Roll?

  So, you attribute, I mean, I, I, this is attributable to just improved recovery, right?

• 56:38Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, that's the biggest thing. Yeah, thanks. So, what I found is that my speed of recovery is ridiculous. Like, I mean, it's just crazy. I mean, like, for example, I did that, uh, 24-hour fans race, seven weeks before BIGS. 13 days later, I did the, and I, I, I end up, it ended up being a 19-hour race. Because we had like this crazy lightning storm. But I ran, I think, over 120 miles in 19 hours. And then 13 days later, I did the Superior 100 with like 20,000 feet of climbing. So it's like, it's, it's kind of crazy.

• 57:14Rich Roll?

  What is your, like, monthly mileage?

• 57:16Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, it's not nuts. Like, honestly, I really, truly, I end up averaging like 100 miles a week, roughly.

• 57:24Rich Roll?

  But when you're packing, like, a bunch of those races, and, I mean, that's the real training for the bigger races, right?

• 57:30Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Rich Roll?

  The races themselves are part and parcel of the training.

• 57:35Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, like I mean, I have A races. Those are the ones I'm just like all forces in. I'm actually gonna taper for. And I have like B and C races. The C races are like, okay, there's a race this weekend. I've like done zero taper. I've run a hundred miles this week. I'm gonna go run this. It's good training. You know, um, but it's important not to overdo it. Like, I mean, that's really like, I don't typically do races 13 days apart. I might do that once a year. Uh, running like this year, I've run seven ultras. And that's, and I've run maybe like 10 other races or like marathons to like three, uh, 3.1. Uh, so it's important because if you, if you run an ultra every three weeks or two weeks, you're just not gonna survive.

• 58:19Harvey Lewis?

  You know, you, you're, you're gonna end up burning your, your passion out. Or you're gonna end up, uh, just like hurting yourself potentially. Yeah. So I mean, it's important to think about.

• 58:32Rich Roll?

  Sure, sure. But you do this string of ultras kind of back to back. And the point you were making really is just the benefits of eating plant-based allowed you to kind of bounce back in a way that you hadn't prior.

• 58:43Harvey Lewis?

  Absolutely. I mean, it's just incredible. Like, uh, a lot of people traditionally might say, oh, you need X number of protein, grams of protein a day, or you need this and that. Um, but by just eating a balance of variety, uh, eating like healthy, whole food-based items, it's, it's incredible how quickly you can get your body to recover. And it's like, when I was in my twenties, in my thirties, I can remember feeling like aches in my, my legs or just like fatigue that lasts a long time. And now it's like crazy, but it, it doesn't last long. Even after doing bigs, I mean, I left bigs. And that was kind of a wild experience because after I finished, I really didn't want the event to end.

• 59:28Harvey Lewis?

  Like I was just, it, it was so much fun to have that, like something I dreamed about for years, like come to fruition. It was just incredible. I mean, I just felt like it was, it was too exciting to end. So I literally just slept in a tent that night that was like 20 meters away. From the finish line. But the next day I end up like driving back to Cincinnati. I didn't get back to like 11pm. And I like went out and did my mile run. So I have like a run streak.

• 59:56Rich Roll?

  You're on a streak, right?

• 59:57Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, run streak going.

• 59:58Rich Roll?

  So you get home at 11 and you went for, you went running?

• 1:00:00Harvey Lewis?

  Went for a mile run and then my student teacher, his, his wife or fiance is a ER doctor. So she said, hey Harvey, you should go to the, you know, university hospital and get this checked out. So after the mile run at midnight, I went over and got my hand x-rayed. And then I was there for a few hours. They had some good laughs with me. And now I got back home. I ran to work the next day. Like at like, I don't know, like seven or something like that. So it was wild just running to work. I felt pretty good. Like, I mean, I felt that I ran, you know, a good distance, but it's like that process of healing had already like started to really happen. And it happens really fast.

• 1:00:43Rich Roll?

  What do your students think about all this? Like, what's the vibe? Like, I want to do a vibe check.

• 1:00:49Harvey Lewis?

  They're amazing.

• 1:00:50Rich Roll?

  Like, do they have a concept of like what's actually going on?

• 1:00:53Harvey Lewis?

  They, they, there's, there's a lot of variety there. You know, they're, they're super supportive. I have this just amazing group of students. SCPA is a really neat school. It's like K through 12 public art school. And so we're, we're, you know, our kids, they all have majors in the arts. Some are ballet, some theater, you know, it's like all over the place. So they have incredible energy already and they're already doing so many amazing things. So for me to be doing this is just kind of like, I'll just fit in like they're already doing their own. Like we have a major musical happening right now, Grease. And, but they, they do kind of like get excited about it and they're like, they're kind of like, you ran how far? You did what? Like that's to like, uh, that's like to Michigan.

• 1:01:38Rich Roll?

  What?

• 1:01:39Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, like, what is that? Where is that? I don't understand. What, what'd you do?

• 1:01:43Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:43Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Rich Roll?

  Are there sports teams at the high school?

• 1:01:46Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, we have like a basketball cheerleading, a running club that organized. Yeah, but it's not like a sports.

• 1:01:53Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah. It's a different kind of school.

• 1:01:55Harvey Lewis?

  Arts, yeah, they're amazing artists.

• 1:01:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so everybody's really eclectic and into different kinds of stuff.

• 1:02:00Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, you would love it. You would absolutely love it. If you get through Ohio, we would love to have you as a guest speaker at our school.

• 1:02:05Rich Roll?

  I would love to come. My eldest daughter is a senior at the LA version of that, like the, you know, the LA Performing Arts High School here.

• 1:02:14Harvey Lewis?

  That's neat. What was her major?

• 1:02:16Rich Roll?

  Visual arts, so painting and sculpture.

• 1:02:19Harvey Lewis?

  That's so amazing. I love that stuff.

• 1:02:21Rich Roll?

  You know, we went back east and we're looking at art colleges and stuff like that. That's what she wants to do.

• 1:02:27Harvey Lewis?

  That's so incredible.

• 1:02:28Rich Roll?

  So, yeah, I watched some videos of you kind of at your school and stuff like that. And I was like, it's very similar to my daughter's school.

• 1:02:35Harvey Lewis?

  That's so cool.

• 1:02:36Rich Roll?

  So I think I get the vibe. They're special places. They're different than typical high schools. And the kids are all so unique.

• 1:02:44Harvey Lewis?

  Yes, they are. It really is. I get a lot of positive energy from my students. There's no doubt about it. I mean, it's like a two-way street. Like I give, but I also get, I probably get back a lot more than I give, for sure.

• 1:02:56Rich Roll?

  Right. So that kind of leads me into this thing I was curious about because I suspect along the way, you've probably had opportunities or been tempted to just be a professional runner, like get a shoe contract and they pay you equal or maybe even more than you're getting paid as a teacher. And you could just do the thing, right? But clearly, you're getting nourishment out of your profession in a way that that doesn't make sense for you.

• 1:03:23Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. I always like to joke with my fiancee Kelly, who's also an amazing part of my life. I mean, she gives me a lot of energy as well, but she's a teacher as well. And I always joke like, well, if, I don't play the lottery much, maybe once every five years. But if I play the lottery and it's like millions, millions of dollars, I'm like, if I win this lottery, I'm still gonna go back to teaching. I'm still teaching. I'm not leaving teaching if I win the lottery. Now maybe I do something special with the money.

• 1:03:51Harvey Lewis?

  Created some scholarships or something at my school, but yeah, I'm not leaving it. Like I really enjoy it. I mean, it's a lot of fun. So it's not, it's, it's something that I have my challenging days. There's no doubt about it. Like definitely we have our tough days too, but overall there's a lot of, it's an incredible experience to be able to work with young people when they're at that crossroads in life and they're like, okay, where do I want to go next? Like I'm 16, 17. I have like the juniors and seniors. So where do I want to go next with my life? Like where, what pathway do I want to take? It's kind of neat

• 1:04:29Harvey Lewis?

  to be there at that moment and get to like guide them a little bit. But also just it's an exciting, exciting life period.

• 1:04:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool. That's so refreshing to hear how much you enjoy doing it. Like it just makes me feel hopeful about humanity. You know what I mean?

• 1:04:49Harvey Lewis?

  Thank you. I appreciate that.

• 1:04:50Rich Roll?

  The fact that like, you're like, yeah, I would do this no matter what. Like, I don't know, man. That's cool. Those kids are lucky to have somebody like that, like you.

• 1:04:57Harvey Lewis?

  Thank you very much.

• 1:05:05Rich Roll?

  So during the week, you have this thing where, you know, it's partially training, but also partially kind of sustainability minded that you're, you know, a human powered commuter. You got this three mile trek to and from work. So you run, you run to work, you run to the school in the morning and then you run home. And during the week, that's kind of like your training. I'm sure you go longer on some days versus others, but like you're at the school all day. So it's not like as the soldier runner, you're going out and running, you know, 40 miles every single day or anything like that. Like I suspect it's rather contained like during the weekdays.

• 1:05:42Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's a, it's a really important part of my training. Like I run basically three miles of work, but at a lot of days it ends up being like longer. Two or three days a week, I might run like eight or 10 miles back and forth. And it's a really nice way to get the day going. I mean, like, It gives me a chance to reflect on what's happening for the day, like what I want to focus in on. And I think having that, having that energy, it kind of prepares you for being like a speaker or being, interacting with students. And then at the end of the day, if you had a rough day, it definitely helps as well, because I mean, it's like running is therapy.

• 1:06:27Harvey Lewis?

  I mean, so you have a chance to think about, okay, what happened with that student? What could have I done differently with that situation that will work better? Or where should I like, maybe what should I do with class next week? You know, so I have those thoughts, but I also have thoughts like, you know, maybe it was just a challenging day, or maybe I'm exhausted. Like in running home, literally like, again, reinvigorates me to like transition to like that second part of life. So I'm able to leave like stresses that are work-related at work and not carry them with me. And I think that's a powerful tool, running is like, is free, virtually, and it's like such great therapy for us. I mean, no matter what your situation is, having that running is a really powerful thing.

• 1:07:10Harvey Lewis?

  The other thing about it is I run with a backpack. So I'm running with a little weight for, you know, 30 plus miles a week. And that definitely helps. And Cincinnati has some hills, so I get a little hill training in.

• 1:07:23Rich Roll?

  How do you avoid injury?

• 1:07:26Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's, I've got, well, I've got Mr. Miyagi.

• 1:07:29Rich Roll?

  Right, you were telling me about this guy. I'm ready to get on a plane and go visit this guy.

• 1:07:33Harvey Lewis?

  You're invited, like you can stay at my place. It's only like a half a mile away. But Andy Shutterly does active release therapy. And, you know, people can seek out, you know, sports massage or physical therapy and things like that. But I've just found it really powerful. Like I typically will see him three times a month. And then if I'm having ever an issue, like I'll just go see him like twice in like a week and he can usually fix it in two visits.

• 1:08:04Rich Roll?

  Right, super painful, ART.

• 1:08:07Harvey Lewis?

  ART, oh yeah, yeah. So it's not painful at all. Like we keep it like on a scale of one to 10, like a four or five. Like we believe it's like, it's better. His practice is better to just like have a little bit of an impact on like breaking up scar tissue or whatever it is without making it painful. So I never do like I'm not into leg pain.

• 1:08:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:08:30Harvey Lewis?

  You know, I mean,

• 1:08:31Rich Roll?

  I've had a few pretty painful ART sessions.

• 1:08:33Harvey Lewis?

  Right.

• 1:08:34Rich Roll?

  They know right where to go.

• 1:08:35Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:36Rich Roll?

  It's just like excruciating.

• 1:08:37Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, but it's

• 1:08:37Rich Roll?

  In a good way.

• 1:08:38Harvey Lewis?

  It is.

• 1:08:39Rich Roll?

  Like you need it and you always feel amazing afterwards, but.

• 1:08:41Harvey Lewis?

  It's one of those key components. Uh, sleep is another one. So I mean, I think I really believe in in sleep. And I think it's important, like if you look at, you know, the top marathoners in the world, like they actually are getting like nine or 10 hours of sleep and a nap in a day. And I mean, if I wasn't working, like I would probably take a nap every day, too. You know, I think it's it's a great thing. But, uh, yeah, it's I think getting seven or more hours of sleep is really important, like as important as whatever you're doing physically.

• 1:09:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:09:13Harvey Lewis?

  Like, I think it's really important to you.

• 1:09:15Rich Roll?

  And you're you teach government is what you teach, right?

• 1:09:18Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, I teach government, AP government. And that's why I was really, I was excited to listen to Andrew Yang and your podcast with him.

• 1:09:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, what do you think? Are you in the Yang Gang?

• 1:09:28Harvey Lewis?

  Well, I I was very intrigued by him and I I love his energy. I think he brings a a strong dynamic that we need. I feel like we need that voice. And I know I have students that are, yeah, I've had students that are attracted to, you know, him as well as like a candidate. Um, but, uh, yeah, I think it's, um, it's, uh, we need a change. We need a, we definitely need a change in America. There's no doubt about it.

• 1:09:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:09:55Harvey Lewis?

  We need like, uh, some positive energy infused. And that's one of the things with running. Like, I really like the fact that running brings us together. It's like, I don't think about someone as being Republican or Democrat. I have friends of both extremes. And it's like, running, when we run, I mean, sometimes we get on topics and we're like, okay, let's switch the topic here. But, uh, you know, it's like, I I like that running brings us together.

• 1:10:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it it has an amazing power to do that, you know, to just unite the best of us and bring us together in a way that few other things can. And it's beautiful for that and for so many other things. But, you know, one of the reasons I asked you about teaching government, um, is that

• 1:10:43Rich Roll?

  You've done a couple of cool things with your running that I think are really unique, you know, in and outside of the ultra-space. Like, you went and ran Gandhi's Salt March in 2008, and then you did the Selma-to-Mongomery route in 2009. So it's this cool way of applying, you know, a really practical civics lesson and melding it with your running to like have like a boots-on-the-ground experience of what those historical, you know, occurrences must have felt like.

• 1:11:13Harvey Lewis?

  Absolutely, yeah. It's, I really believe in like experiential learning. So I mean, I would love to take every one of my students to Selma to do the Selma Trail, every year. I mean, that would be incredible, but we're limited by time and resources. So having the opportunity to go down there with a group of 10 friends, the second time I went down there and like to bring that back and like share that with students. When I was down there the first time in 2000, I think it was '07, I got to actually meet with civil rights leaders and like Mother Cooper, Amelia Boynton-Robinson, these folks were just like

• 1:11:55Harvey Lewis?

  reaching 100 years of age. And like, so to get a chance to like actually speak with them and interview them about their experiences, Harry Belafonte, to chat with these people and really get pieces of the story that you don't read about in the textbook, that was powerful. Like, to bring that back and share that with my students and say, "Look, you know, this is what I heard from, you know, Mother Cooper and her experience with the sheriff, you know, what it was like when they were trying to overcome, you know, the literacy test." And like, I mean, that just makes it, it kind of breathes life into what you're trying to teach about when you talk about the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And like

• 1:12:40Harvey Lewis?

  that, I love that. Like, I would, I would love to do that for every unit I have. So, and then the Gandhi experience, that was a whole nother story. That one, we could probably spend a few hours on, but Gandhi... As an individual that I deeply admire, you know, so many facets of what he was able to achieve based on the resources he had. And following the 240 mile journey, I start off with my cousin and his girlfriend. They end up having, they broke up on the second day and they end up like, they end up going cruising ahead. Yeah, eventually they end up getting married. So it all worked out.

• 1:13:21Harvey Lewis?

  But so I end up by myself out there in India from day two, just carrying like, I thought, well, if Gandhi could like survive with like 10 items, I should be able to like survive a month with like 10 items as well. So I'm just running through the countryside in these super intensely urban, very polluted cities. Unfortunately, like the air pollution there was really strong. It's a lovely, lovely country and the people I met were so generous. I mean, I met farmers that didn't have anything, but they would want to offer something to me, offer food or whatever they could give me. And they were so generous. I mean, it just, the generosity I experienced amongst the people in India.

• 1:14:03Harvey Lewis?

  And then it kind of took off while I was there too. Like they were writing about in the Times of India every day. And so every other truck driver would be honking at me and waving. And I mean, it was tough like because it was so hot. It was like 100 degrees, but the humidity was really hot and I wasn't as strong as I am now. And so I end up like even have like, I had blood in my urine on like the third day, which I've never had ever before or since. And it was just from like being overheating myself and like pushing myself too hard. But I destroyed my feet. I had like a thousand blisters.

• 1:14:46Harvey Lewis?

  I had to get these bamboo sticks. I mean, one day I found a big chunk of ice on the ground. I was so thankful for that chunk of ice. I was like, it's so hot. Oh, it's like a gift from the heavens. I mean, I've never been so excited about a chunk of ice.

• 1:15:00Rich Roll?

  Ten items?

• 1:15:01Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Rich Roll?

  You only brought ten items with you. So what were the ten items? And were you just camping? Like, did you have a backpack? Or was this like a self-supported thing?

• 1:15:08Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it was a self-supported. I didn't really have a plan. Like, I was kind of just winging it. And so I started off at the Gandhi Ashram. And they basically had these, uh... They escorted me out of the city with all these scooters. And they had the media there and everything. And, uh, basically, the first night... Or first couple nights, they organized for a place for me to sleep. But I... The first night, I like slept in the middle of this village, just out on a bed outside the small, small home. And like, uh, it was kind of funny, because I like look up and there's like twenty villagers circled around me, just looking down at me. And I'm like, alright, I'm trying to sleep here a little bit. Um, but then I met other people, like, uh, this gentleman Patel. He, uh, invited me to...

• 1:15:53Harvey Lewis?

  It was like the sixth day. He invited me to stay with his family at his house. I just met him, uh, out on like this lonely road. And he still keeps in touch with me today. So like, maybe once a month, he'll call me and say, "How is your family? How is everything in Cincinnati?" It's pretty neat. Uh, yeah. So, but that... At the end, we were met by a, uh, principal of a school for deaf and blind children. And they escorted me like the last mile. So we shared that mile together. And that was super amazing. Like, I could never, uh, put a value on that, like, sharing that experience with those kids was incredible.

• 1:16:32Rich Roll?

  And now, when you think about Gandhi and, you know, his civil disobedience and what that salt march must have been like, you have a whole, like, rich kind of history of experience to draw upon that makes that come to life in a way that it can't in a textbook.

• 1:16:49Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I met, uh, a guy who shared stories about, uh, his father. He brought me a sheet of paper where Gandhi had like written his father a note on it. And, uh, just the...

• 1:17:04Harvey Lewis?

  It was as much a connection with Gandhi's story as it was the local people. Because the people were so, even though they didn't have a lot of material wealth, they were extremely generous with their time and whatever they had. They would be willing to give it to you. So, I mean, a lot of times I would stop in these little tiny, tiny little stores, like a little shack that's selling goods, and they wouldn't let me pay. They said, "No, you're gonna have to take that. You can't pay." I was like, "What? Thank you."

• 1:17:39Rich Roll?

  Right, and they have nothing.

• 1:17:40Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, nothing, yeah.

• 1:17:43Rich Roll?

  Wow. You seem like a generally happy, like, very positive guy. Like, you have this sunny disposition. You must have your, like, I'm looking, where's the dark side? You know, like, is there, is there a dark side? Like, I mean, when I look at you, I see somebody like who, that disposition is really a big part of how you're able to weather such mental toughness when the chips are down in these races. Like, I see the same thing in Courtney. Like, she's, you know, like, the worldview is like, "The world's a good place, and it's gonna be fine, and like, let's have a good time." You know, and that's an underappreciated superpower.

• 1:18:27Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's how I feel. Like, I mean, I do have, like, you know, my moments, but they don't, I try to get myself through those moments by focusing on good things, like, the good things, you know? There's a lot of rough things out there that we can all get ourselves caught up in, but focusing on the people in our circle, you know, focusing on the experiences that we can have in life, it can be a superpower, I guess.

• 1:18:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:56Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Rich Roll?

  What kind of kid were you?

• 1:18:59Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, I was a challenging kid. I was a big challenging kid. Like, I actually really, I think I have to go back to like my parents getting divorced when I was like five. So I grew up in this remote area of Pennsylvania when I was really young. A place called Chalk Hill, Pennsylvania. And then I moved to a suburb of Cleveland with my mother. So that, that, that had a challenge for me. When I was going to school, I, I really struggled. Like, I was not, I was a D student, F student, all the way up until like 10th grade. I mean, I was really a struggling student. I mean, I, I was in,

• 1:19:41Harvey Lewis?

  I was literally placed in like learning disability classes because I was a problem.

• 1:19:46Rich Roll?

  Because you didn't care, or you couldn't pay attention?

• 1:19:49Harvey Lewis?

  It was a variety of things. I was challenging with my behavior. Like, I just was, I'd do my own thing, you know? And, uh-

• 1:19:58Rich Roll?

  Like, not a, not like a bad kid, but just, I'm not listening to anybody?

• 1:20:02Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, I wasn't causing fires, but yeah, I would just be, I would, would like, yeah, I wouldn't listen. I'd be, you know, off, like, you know, challenging. I, I just would be really challenging.

• 1:20:13Rich Roll?

  Was part of that, like, your coping mechanism for the trauma of the divorce, or?

• 1:20:18Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, probably some of it was that, a little bit. And then also, I think, like, learning styles. Like, my learning style, I, I got behind my first couple of years of elementary school. Like, so I wasn't a good reader. I struggled. Uh, I think that some of my teachers in the earlier grades, they'd want, like, kind of push me off in the corner because I was just, what do you do with this kid? I've got a ton of stuff going on. It's, it's, it's, it's challenging to work with this student, you know, so-

• 1:20:46Rich Roll?

  And then you start to believe that you're the kid who can't learn, or?

• 1:20:49Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. And then I just had like this mindset that I just couldn't learn. Yeah, it was really true. I mean, I had some amazing teachers along the road. I had this Mrs. Gondish, like, was my elementary school teacher in special ed. I, I really struggled with reading comprehension and my self-efficacy. So like, I, I really didn't think I could do it. And I had a big, giant change was when I went and did the marathon, when I was 15. So-

• 1:21:23Rich Roll?

  And why, what prompted that?

• 1:21:26Harvey Lewis?

  I had been, I've always been sort of curious about challenges. Like even when I was a chubby kid, I was always kind of curious about like, I'd always want to go kind of climb up like the hill that's like, it doesn't look like it's very climbable or do, do things like that. And the marathon just intrigued me. It, it, it cut into my morning cartoons when I was a kid. Like I'd be watching on Saturday, I'd be like, what the heck is this? But I, I got drawn in. I was watching it when I was probably like 11, 12, somewhere around there, 13. So I knew about this Cleveland marathon. And for whatever reason, like I was like, I want to do that. I told my mom when I was like, like eight days, nine days before the race, I want to do that marathon.

• 1:22:11Harvey Lewis?

  And she was like, my mom always say, okay, to everything. And so she said, okay, we'll, we'll sign you up. So I went down there, got signed up for the marathon. The furthest I ran at that time was like eight miles. I mean, and

• 1:22:24Rich Roll?

  And this is like, what, like 91?

• 1:22:26Harvey Lewis?

  Like 91, exactly. When I was 15. So I was a freshman in high school. Like my coach at the time said, like, I ran one marathon and it was miserable. There's no way you want to do that. Like, yeah, yeah. So I mean, and everyone else

• 1:22:41Rich Roll?

  Thanks for the pep talk.

• 1:22:42Harvey Lewis?

  And everyone else on the team's like Harvey, because I'd usually finish towards the back of the group. They're like, Harvey, there is no way you're going to be able to finish that marathon.

• 1:22:50Rich Roll?

  And it was unusual then for somebody that young to do something like that.

• 1:22:53Harvey Lewis?

  Back then, yeah.

• 1:22:54Rich Roll?

  Like the idea was you could harm yourself or

• 1:22:56Harvey Lewis?

  Right, right.

• 1:22:57Rich Roll?

  You could do permanent damage.

• 1:22:58Harvey Lewis?

  Right. So I ended up like going down and I had to get down there by myself that day. So my mom was working at the hospital. And I ran the first 10 miles like I, like I thought it was no problem at all. Like I think I went real fast. I got to mile 10, I just about like, man, I'm like, I'm gonna die. I don't know if I'm gonna even finish this thing. So I ran and walked the rest of the race. And I like met up with a couple of other runners. And that helped me out a lot. And I end up like finishing that race. I can still visualize the finish line and it just seemed like it was a country away. Like I would Never happened, but finishing that race was monumental for me at the time because I had

• 1:23:42Harvey Lewis?

  never experienced that kind of like success. So even though I finished it like over five hours, to me like just finishing a marathon was like a huge giant success.

• 1:23:52Rich Roll?

  Especially when everyone was telling you it was impossible.

• 1:23:54Harvey Lewis?

  Impossible, yeah. So, you know, that changed my mindset. And then after that, I started applying myself in school. And so like, it would still take me probably two and a half, three hours to do what someone would do in like 30, 40 minutes, like for writing a paper, but I put a lot of energy and thought into it. And then I end up really doing much better. I end up like turning around from being like a D student that really didn't believe in themselves, didn't want to put themselves out there for the risk of failure, or whatever it might be, or didn't think that I could do it, to being like, I'm just gonna apply myself until I do do it. So it's gonna get, it was, it was a monumental change for me.

• 1:24:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's really powerful to hear, the idea of going out and doing something hard, and then learning as a young person that you can apply that will or that determination to these other areas in your life. And, you know, most people who get relegated to the side in the educational system, I don't have to tell you as a teacher, like, that's all she wrote. It becomes very difficult for that person to like inch their way back in and find a path to self-efficacy, short of finding something outside of the academic realm that gives their life sort of direction and purpose, like you did.

• 1:25:14Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's for our, for our school at SCPA, I mean, I think the arts do that for our kids. Like finding that like vehicle through the arts is super powerful, but finding some vehicle to like motivate kids is like revolutionary, it's huge.

• 1:25:30Rich Roll?

  It's the whole game, man.

• 1:25:31Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's huge. And it's, it's hard. I think that me having the background I do where I, I really struggled through school until like my sophomore, junior year, and then I really took off, it does help me a bit with some of my kids are like on that same edge where they're struggling, and I can kind of relate to them. And Yeah, I can understand what it's like to not do well. You know, and to try to turn it around.

• 1:25:59Rich Roll?

  Can you crack them, though?

• 1:26:01Harvey Lewis?

  I don't always crack it. No, it's very tough. But, you know, when you do with one or two, like, or however that is, like, then it's like, wow, that's like a wild moment.

• 1:26:10Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Do you ever invite any of the students to run with you?

• 1:26:14Harvey Lewis?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we have, I mean, we have a running club at school. There's been different things.

• 1:26:20Rich Roll?

  It's an excuse for you to get a third run in.

• 1:26:22Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, it is, it is. Yeah. But I had, I've had a number of students have really taken off with it. One of my students, Logan, he got into running club so much. And then he ended up doing ultras and another one, Chris Meyer. And it's kind of neat to see like them getting into it. And like, actually, Logan was at Badwater this year, crewing one of our racers.

• 1:26:45Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:26:46Harvey Lewis?

  So that was really cool to have happen.

• 1:26:48Rich Roll?

  That's really cool.

• 1:26:48Harvey Lewis?

  But one time, I actually, with one of my students, because I was trying to really get, get his mind, focus on his mind, but I actually raced him on his bus. Like, he took the bus home to his house and I raced and I beat him. Like, I said, okay, I'll race you home. You take the bus, I'mma run, I'mma beat you. And he's like, no way, you're gonna be... So I did it.

• 1:27:13Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:27:13Harvey Lewis?

  And that was fun. So it was kind of like a breakthrough because then we were able to like, you know, build upon that.

• 1:27:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:27:18Harvey Lewis?

  You know, but, yeah, it's, it's, there's no like, cut science entirely with teaching. I mean, there's, you have to like, always be adapting and trying new things.

• 1:27:31Rich Roll?

  Well, that 14 to 18 kind of span of time, which is where, you know, my parenting falls right now, between two different kids. Trying to figure out that way in is so tough. And on some level, it's like, it's not for me. Like, they don't want to hear it from their parents. It has to be through someone like you or somebody else, you know, that they can look to for inspiration, but, you know, try, I must. And, you know, it's that age where it's like, they don't want to hear it, they don't want to be around you, it doesn't matter what you say, it doesn't matter what you do, you're just the furthest thing from being influential on that level. And it's a powerlessness that you feel as a parent.

• 1:28:12Rich Roll?

  That makes it really hard, you know?

• 1:28:13Harvey Lewis?

  It's challenging.

• 1:28:14Rich Roll?

  I can see like here's kind of where I could wedge my way in and maybe nudge this young person in this direction, but they're not having it.

• 1:28:23Harvey Lewis?

  Exactly.

• 1:28:23Rich Roll?

  And they gotta find it for themselves, or they gotta hear it from somebody else.

• 1:28:26Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah. Yeah, my, my son is 25 now, and I went through that when he was a teenager. I mean, it's like, I tried every angle and it's just like, during those years, we really struggled. But I'm, I'm happy to say that now it's like, it's, it's come full circle. He's like, really, we have a much better communication now than we did when he was like, in those teenage years.

• 1:28:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:52Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  Well, your relationship with your dad is super interesting as well, right? So, the divorce happens, you go to live with your mom, and you're, I don't get the sense that you were estranged from your dad, but you just didn't know him like he wasn't in your daily experience, right?

• 1:29:08Harvey Lewis?

  Well, my dad was really good about communicating with me. Like, every Sunday, we had a conversation. And it would be annoying to me at the time, like, it'd feel like a lecture. But it, it was also a way for us to stay connected, because he, he had moved to Minnesota following the divorce. And we also spent time in the summertime. So, we would typically, he exposed me actually to the wilderness. Like, we would go, when I was in seventh grade, and then also ninth, going, or maybe 10th grade, we went to different, like, trips out west to the Wind River Mountains. So, having that experience with my father, even though it was limited on time, was super powerful as well as valuable to me.

• 1:29:52Harvey Lewis?

  I mean, like, I told you, I had the breakthrough with the marathon, but there were other things that, you know, having, having my parents in my camp were, were important to me.

• 1:30:02Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:04Rich Roll?

  A couple of years ago, you take a crack at the fastest known time for the Appalachian Trail and you use this also as an experience to create a deeper connection with your dad and you make this documentary out of the whole thing. So, talk a little bit about that because this is really kind of, it's super touching. It's like a running thing, but it's kind of not. It's about something else altogether and I think it's really cool. I haven't had a chance to watch the whole thing, but I watched a couple, I watched the trailer and then read up on it and stuff like that. So, tell me more about this project.

• 1:30:36Harvey Lewis?

  Definitely. So, I came up with the idea of going for the fastest known time on the AT and we set out for it in 2018 and I was looking at, it's one of the biggest challenges is the logistics. Like, who is going to crew you? I mean, if you're going for a supportive record, it's like 40, it was 45 days at that time. And like, having someone with you for 45 days, that's a, that's a major contribution. It's a major commitment. So, I'm like, I had a lot of friends that could come out for like maybe two or three days. I have my friend Alan Lopes, Lovaz could come out for three weeks, but I needed someone who could be there the whole time. And I was like, I don't know if I want to

• 1:31:19Harvey Lewis?

  do this to my dad. He's 79. It's like, it's a lot of intensity to be driving on these rural roads. There are no road signs and like you have to navigate and stay up late.

• 1:31:30Rich Roll?

  Who's in more peril? You on the trail or your dad in the van?

• 1:31:34Harvey Lewis?

  Exactly. I was really concerned on some days. But, my dad, he has a really, he is a strong man. I mean, honestly, I don't know anyone is, is, is tough as he is in a sense of like his mental strength and ability to problem solve. So, he's, he's got engineering background. So he said, yeah, I'd like to come on out and it'd be a blast. And then it became not just going for the record, but actually having this opportunity to spend, you know, 50 days with my father is like priceless. You know what I mean? Like that's, we'd never get that opportunity. You know, it's like, we might have like a week here or a week there.

• 1:32:17Harvey Lewis?

  We never have 50 days together and going for something so tough, like getting up every day at 5:00 a.m. and going until 10 or 12 at night, every single day. You're trying to cover, you know, basically like almost 50 miles a day. And it's like, it is just, it's incredibly difficult. I mean, it's like probably the most difficult thing I've done. It's just, you get to like day three and you're like, every day you're climbing 10,000 feet, you know, a third of the height of Mount Everest. And you're like, wow, when is this ever gonna end? And it never gets easier. You know, it's like, it's always some element of challenge to it.

• 1:32:57Harvey Lewis?

  But having my father along, it gave us opportunities to kind of, I mean, it just was so nice to arrive at 10 o'clock at a station he set up with some oatmeal. And like, we just have like oatmeal for, it was 10 minutes, five minutes, eight minutes.

• 1:33:12Rich Roll?

  Right. Have a little Tuesdays with Maury moment.

• 1:33:14Harvey Lewis?

  Oh, that moment. I mean, it just, it meant a lot. And so we, we had simultaneously, we had this film that was being shot by Rode ID, Like Harvey, Like Son. And Rudy Harris, who directed and produced it, he did an amazing job. Like, I didn't see that initially as a story. Like, I thought, okay, we're gonna do like this documentary on the fastest known time. It's gonna be really neat because we're gonna have like these amazing shots of like the AT and we're gonna get to talk to people on the trail. But then it became so much more interesting.

• 1:33:50Rich Roll?

  Here's the story. What's going on between these two guys?

• 1:33:52Harvey Lewis?

  Right. It was so much more interesting to focus on my father. Like, he's way more entertaining than I am. And he's sitting there talking to people and giving out like food to people through hikers. And I mean, it's just, and then seeing the dynamic between he and I. You know, I really had to rely on his, he didn't say one negative thing the whole time for 50 days.

• 1:34:15Rich Roll?

  So that's where you get it.

• 1:34:16Harvey Lewis?

  One negative thing. Yeah, I do get a lot of that from my father.

• 1:34:22Rich Roll?

  And he said, sorry to interrupt, but it's funny that you're like, he's so entertaining. Cause he says in the trailer, like, like, you know, Harvey's so charismatic. Like, I'm not, I'm just a guy. Like, you know, he's downplaying his own charm.

• 1:34:35Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, he's, he's much, he's got a ton of charm. And I think he actually is the, the main star of the film. But yeah, it's, it was a fun documentary and it's, it's, it's amazing to, you know, be able to have that piece with my father that's, that's there. You know, it's like forever. You know, right now there's, they're, they're in works with a major platform. So the hope is that it will come to a larger streaming service in the months ahead.

• 1:35:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So it's kind of a self-release thing at the moment?

• 1:35:14Harvey Lewis?

  Right. At the moment, actually it got a little sideswiped by the pandemic. So initially we were supposed to have a, a big opening out here in Hollywood. Well, not like a big, but a few theaters and we're gonna like, you know, generate. It was gonna be at several hundred theaters across the country. Yeah. But it was supposed to come out, I think it was like a, literally a month after the pandemic started in April. Like, so, so it's just, it's okay. It's what, what happens? So it ended up going to maybe like, I don't know if it made it to like 50 theaters or 60 theaters. I'm not sure.

• 1:35:54Rich Roll?

  Well, it did get a theatrical release though. I didn't know that. Wow.

• 1:35:57Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. And. And it's, uh, it won a number of film festivals. So believe it or not, it won like, uh, I think 11 different film festival awards. And so it, it, it has, uh, some really, uh, very nice components to it. I mean, uh, and from, I'm just grateful to have it out there. But I'm hopeful that, you know, we can, we can get it to the streaming service.

• 1:36:24Rich Roll?

  Well, uh,

• 1:36:25Harvey Lewis?

  Get it to a larger platform.

• 1:36:26Rich Roll?

  Well, obviously we'll link, we'll link it up in the show notes, but the website is like harveylikeson.com. So people should just go there and check it out and stream it.

• 1:36:35Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:35Rich Roll?

  I definitely will. I'm gonna watch it tonight. I should have watched it.

• 1:36:38Harvey Lewis?

  Awesome.

• 1:36:38Rich Roll?

  I feel bad that I didn't watch it before the podcast.

• 1:36:41Harvey Lewis?

  No, no worries.

• 1:36:42Rich Roll?

  Um, so Barclay.

• 1:36:45Harvey Lewis?

  Yes.

• 1:36:46Rich Roll?

  This is, this is what the sites are on right now.

• 1:36:48Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:49Rich Roll?

  Like, why is this freaking thing so hard to crack? Like 15 people in the last 30 years have finished this thing?

• 1:36:54Harvey Lewis?

  It's incredible. Since 1986. Uh, so.

• 1:36:57Rich Roll?

  Why is it so hard?

• 1:36:58Harvey Lewis?

  Laza just has created the most incredibly difficult race you can imagine for a number of reasons. Uh, not only, I mean, it has 120 miles. Like, that's not that big of a deal. But the fact that it's got, uh, yeah, it's, it's got.

• 1:37:15Rich Roll?

  It's all relative, Harvey. For, you know, you just ran 354 miles. So like 120?

• 1:37:21Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, that's not, that's, it's supposed to be 100, but really it's like, ends up being 120 because you have to navigate. So only 20% is on trail and 80% is off trail.

• 1:37:31Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:37:31Harvey Lewis?

  And then.

• 1:37:32Rich Roll?

  So that extra 20 is built in because he, they, you know, you're gonna go off the course and stuff?

• 1:37:36Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, everyone knows that it's longer than 100. So you just wanna think already, like, so you don't, you know, prepare yourself for what it's gonna be. Then you got, uh, close to 60,000 feet of elevation climbing. So that's like two times up Mount Everest and back down in 60 hours. And then you have, uh, going in the fog at nighttime. Like, imagine you're off course, or you're on a course that's off trail and you're, it's pitch black. Uh, it's gonna be, uh, maybe a quarter moon. There's fog. You know, you, you basically are relying on somewhat intuition, somewhat on your, your compass. Uh, you know, I'm carrying that with me now all the time.

• 1:38:18Rich Roll?

  It's an orienteering kinda thing.

• 1:38:19Harvey Lewis?

  A little, a little bit of orienteering. And then not only that, you have to follow, uh, Laza's, uh,

• 1:38:27Harvey Lewis?

  It riddles that he has written in his own language to where these books are hidden. And so there's 14 books you have to find the one that's, you know, maybe at the state penitentiary, you know, that they have there. You have to find one underneath a rock that's by the birch tree. I mean, it's like, it's very encrypted. So it's a challenge once you get like yourself to a place where you've been going for 36 hours.

• 1:38:54Harvey Lewis?

  And you have to navigate at nighttime and you're tired, you've had sleep deprivation. I don't think, most people don't sleep even the night before the race because they're waiting for the conch shell to be blown. And they're like, have a hard time falling asleep. So, I mean, it becomes really important to take mental record of where you're going because you also rotate loops every other loop. So you're going in a different direction every other loop. So there are so many components to this race that add to the difficulty, like including the elevation. I mean, imagine climbing up and down Everest in 60 hours. And it's not like on a road or like a path.

• 1:39:39Harvey Lewis?

  It's on like this muddy like climb up like a steep embankment with thorns. You know, it's like, it's very challenging, but that's what I love about it.

• 1:39:52Rich Roll?

  So how do you get your head around that and sort of customize your training to be in the best kind of prepared state that you can?

• 1:40:03Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, that's what I love about taking on these new challenges. Like bad water is such an extreme, like the hot environment. This now, I'm not, I'm starting to not think about things in terms of mileage. So now, I've never done this before. I know a lot of runners out here do this. But now I'm starting to think about it just in terms of like vertical ascent. So now like I'm actually plotting down, I never did it before. I never really cared about it, just like, but now I'm writing down every week what my vertical ascent is and every day what that is. And I'm literally seeking out every single hill, mountain, molehill I can find.

• 1:40:40Harvey Lewis?

  And when I can do it, on the weekend, I go to like a state park in Ohio. And I just literally go right off trail, right through the like the brush, the thorns, everything. I just go straight off trail and I just go like in like a Yeah, get lost and then try to find your way back.

• 1:41:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You need to have like a buddy of yours like kidnap you in the middle of the night and blindfold you and just like drop you out of the trunk of a car somewhere and you don't know where you are and it's like, good luck buddy, you gotta get home. Like that would be

• 1:41:13Harvey Lewis?

  That's an idea. I might actually use that one. Yeah, that's a good thought.

• 1:41:17Rich Roll?

  Or what's the tallest skyscraper in Cincinnati?

• 1:41:20Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, we have the crew tire. Yeah, it's, uh, I don't think that's gonna be, uh, it's probably not, I don't think that's gonna do it. Yeah, it's not tall enough, Rich, but I mean, I know you could do

• 1:41:32Rich Roll?

  But at least like conveniently located if you want to get some vert like during the week or something.

• 1:41:37Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, fortunately Cincinnati is a city of seven hills. So we do have great hills in Cincinnati. So I just go up and down the hills. And you know, there's really that element of also being out in the environment. Like that's another thing, just being comfortable being out when it's like dark and it's 3 a.m., you know? So it's, I'm not gonna train every day like running at 3 a.m. But I have to be comfortable, be out in the middle of nowhere and like just, you know, be, being out in the dark at 3 a.m. In the middle of nowhere.

• 1:42:11Rich Roll?

  Like you're a contestant in a reality show or something.

• 1:42:13Harvey Lewis?

  Exactly. Yeah. So it's like you end up doing these kind of crazy training. I mean, every, every one of these major races involves a degree of some new crazy training that I love. That I love that. I love like trying to be creative. I think that the creative element is so important in ultras and it's also under recognized. Like as a, as a pivotal element is being creative.

• 1:42:39Rich Roll?

  Well, one of the things that you do is part of, you know, part of it is part of this human powered commuting is like you kayak to work sometimes. Or I think you even swam.

• 1:42:47Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, I swam a few times. Yeah.

• 1:42:50Rich Roll?

  To mix it up and like keep it fun and fresh and, and you know, experience a little bit of cross training benefit too.

• 1:42:57Harvey Lewis?

  Definitely, definitely.

• 1:42:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was surprised. I saw on Instagram, like, you hit the pool.

• 1:43:02Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:04Rich Roll?

  On the fairly regular, don't you?

• 1:43:05Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, not enough, honestly. I do it like kind of seasonally. Like, uh, so there's an outdoor pool I like to go to.

• 1:43:12Rich Roll?

  It's like a city pool, right?

• 1:43:13Harvey Lewis?

  It's a city pool in OTR. Yeah, it's right in the heart of the city and it's underutilized as well. So I mean, I like to get out there when they're open in the, like, season for it. And if I, yeah, if I had a, yeah, if I had a pool like that that was open year round, I'd probably utilize it more. But I just kind of go with seasons. Like, sometimes I'll get into something like that for just a season. And like in the wintertime, I literally, uh, from like January to February, I usually like sign up for a gym that has like a, like a big movie theater, like that you can just run on the treadmill. And like, I just like watching the movies and like, yeah, I'll do that in like January or February.

• 1:43:54Harvey Lewis?

  But the last couple of years I haven't because my races have involved more element, being out in elements. And with Barclay, it's like you have to just throw yourself out in that.

• 1:44:04Rich Roll?

  No treadmills.

• 1:44:04Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, no, I mean, even like.

• 1:44:06Rich Roll?

  Laz would not approve.

• 1:44:07Harvey Lewis?

  No, Laz would not approve. You know, even like, uh, being subjected to more cold, like you want, it's gonna be very cold in that race. Like, uh, when you're up on the ridgeline and it's like, maybe you're gonna be, uh, in the twenties or it could be in the thirties. Uh, this week it's gonna be down to nineteen. So I mean, it's, it gets windy and wet.

• 1:44:30Rich Roll?

  What, when is the race?

• 1:44:31Harvey Lewis?

  I can't say the exact date, but it is in March. Yeah, so it's, it's all secret.

• 1:44:37Rich Roll?

  You know, but you can't say, or I know it's all shrouded in smoke and mirrors.

• 1:44:41Harvey Lewis?

  Right, right, right. So they, they.

• 1:44:43Rich Roll?

  Why does he, why secrecy around the date?

• 1:44:46Harvey Lewis?

  Well, right now, it has become just an incredible phenomenon in terms of like, people are so excited about it. So he wants to like.

• 1:44:56Rich Roll?

  Is that part because of the Netflix documentary?

• 1:44:58Harvey Lewis?

  I think that's definitely part of it. So it has a huge following. I mean, I posted about, uh, that was in the race, which is a little bit of a no-no.

• 1:45:07Rich Roll?

  The condolences, the letter that you get.

• 1:45:09Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, but, but people knew I was gonna get into it because I had won, um, Big's Backyard. And like, that was one of the. The benefits of what I won from winning bigs was I got into barcreats. So I get some more punishment.

• 1:45:22Rich Roll?

  But you're being shamed for even talking about it. It's like Fight Club, like you're not allowed to say anything?

• 1:45:27Harvey Lewis?

  No, you can say a little bit about certain things, but you can't say the date. Yeah, but like he has had challenges with a lot of people or people showing up that aren't supposed to be there. And it's a relatively small space, like at the campground and things like that. So they don't want people showing up like those dates unless they're like invited guests. Yeah.

• 1:45:51Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, good news because we're heading into winter. So you're going to get a fair amount of cold weather in Cincinnati.

• 1:45:58Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:59Rich Roll?

  So I can see you out there shirtless.

• 1:46:01Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:02Rich Roll?

  Goggin style.

• 1:46:04Harvey Lewis?

  I'm gonna try like probably on my run commutes to school, a couple of days a week, where I'll probably just wear like a t-shirt and shorts, even if it's like 20 degrees or 15 degrees. But not every day, not every day. It's like with Badwater, I only train for heat a couple of days a week. Like it's better for your mind.

• 1:46:24Rich Roll?

  And we might as well spend at least a minute on that because I think, you know, I know what you did, but that would blow people's minds to know the kind of heat acclimation work that you put in.

• 1:46:34Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, Badwater is, I mean, it's definitely one of my favorite ultras in the world. It's not that far from your home. So I know you've been out there.

• 1:46:43Rich Roll?

  I crewed it one year. That was enough for me.

• 1:46:47Harvey Lewis?

  I love the environment out there. I mean, it's like.

• 1:46:50Rich Roll?

  It's beautiful.

• 1:46:51Harvey Lewis?

  It's incredible. So I mean, it's 120 degrees typically in the race. It's 135 miles. You know, you go to, you go up over three mountains and you finish on Whitney. And yeah, this year was magical because it was my 10th year running Badwater. I had won the race back in 2014 on the alternate course that year due to the park closure.

• 1:47:16Rich Roll?

  There was all that shenanigans.

• 1:47:17Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah. And so it was a dream of mine. I write out goals each year and like that was one of my like 12 goals for the year was to win Badwater. And it was wild because I had written it down and I mean, you just like, it was a bit of a high stretching goal. But to have it come to fruition was, again, it was just incredible because I'd been dreaming about that again for years and working at it and just trying to tweak and tweak. The race was, it was very windy this year and we, there was a runner from Ukraine who

• 1:47:57Harvey Lewis?

  got out ahead. He was leading throughout most of the race and he was continuing to build a lead. And then going up the second mountain, this was about mile seventy-nine or to eighty-three, I was really feeling beat up. Like I was actually-

• 1:48:16Rich Roll?

  That's the one where it's the middle of the night, right?

• 1:48:18Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, because of like the race starting at ten-

• 1:48:21Rich Roll?

  Oh, they changed the starting time?

• 1:48:23Harvey Lewis?

  PM, yeah.

• 1:48:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, I forgot about that.

• 1:48:24Harvey Lewis?

  Led the last six years. So that, that's actually around, I think it was around noon, like about noon or one o'clock. And I was feeling like a bit beat up. I was trying to hang in there mentally, I was thinking, because I, I was like, I always think like, you never know what's gonna happen to a person in front. And I was in second place at the time and I'm just like, I just have to work through this. So my team, getting Judd and my other friends, they were trying to keep me hydrated, give me like enough liquids. I wasn't doing the greatest. Somehow, when I got to that aid station at Darwin, I had this just fire

• 1:49:04Harvey Lewis?

  that, that hit me. And I, I just felt like a different person. Like, and I, and I knew that at that aid station, I, I got the clock time on the runner in front and I knew that he was struggling as well. Because despite me slowing down, he had put no time on me. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go get you.

• 1:49:28Rich Roll?

  What was the gap at that point?

• 1:49:29Harvey Lewis?

  It was about, I think about twenty-five minutes or so. Like, but I'm like, I'm gonna just give everything I have. And then, so we started running, we ran a few miles and all of a sudden, we had this really special experience where the fighter jets literally- Really just buzzed over top of us like 60 meters above our heads. And that was just like, that just lit me up even more. And now I'm just like, alright. And then another, maybe another half a mile, mile from that, literally I saw Igor, Ukrainian runner, and he was in my sights. And then I just was very consistent not to overdo it, but to continually like chip away.

• 1:50:12Harvey Lewis?

  And I think I caught up to him about mile 114. We had a really good exchange, actually it was very like positive between the two of us. It was actually one of the coolest events, like moments I've ever had running, to have like a positive embrace and where he's like, you know, I was like, you know, keep at it. And he's like, you go get it. And that was something really special. Yeah.

• 1:50:36Rich Roll?

  Wow. Two wins, 10 Bad Waters, plus the fastest known time from Badwater to the summit, Mount Whitney Summit, right?

• 1:50:45Harvey Lewis?

  That was another wild one. So with 2020.

• 1:50:48Rich Roll?

  Explain like, first of all, Badwater for people that don't know, 135 miles across the desert. Most people are familiar with the crazy heat and they know, you know, some sense of what that's like. But they don't really understand that there's like an insane amount of elevation gain. And the last, however many, when you get into the portals and you go up to the 8,000 feet of Mount Whitney, it's like the last, what is it, half marathon is like straight uphill.

• 1:51:15Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, the last half marathon is definitely a climb. It's like another 5,000 feet up to the portal.

• 1:51:22Rich Roll?

  But then it's a whole other thing altogether to continue past that point and go all the way to the summit, which is the highest point in North America. So the original concept behind this race was you go from the lowest point in North America to the highest point in the contiguous US.

• 1:51:38Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, absolutely. So Al Arnold did this back in 1976 and set it up. 146 is the original Badwater course. But the park service, as things are, they really didn't like the idea of having runners go up.

• 1:51:53Rich Roll?

  Right. You've run 135 miles and now you're going to do a summit push and it's treacherous up there.

• 1:51:58Harvey Lewis?

  It's treacherous.

• 1:51:59Rich Roll?

  People would die for sure.

• 1:52:00Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, I mean, in the early days, we're talking about, you know, 20 people in the race. You know what I mean? So it wasn't like the bigger number. Now we have 100 people. So I think that, you know, runners, we don't oftentimes put safety nets in there or like stoppage. So if it was lightning, I could see some people be like, oh, hell, I'm still going up there.

• 1:52:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:20Harvey Lewis?

  You know?

• 1:52:21Rich Roll?

  I'm so invested at this point.

• 1:52:23Harvey Lewis?

  Right. So, I mean, it is good that we have the 135 with the number of runners we have today. But in 2020, we were having the pandemic and the race was canceled. And I, you know, I had trained for the race and I had never done the 146. And I was always kind of intrigued about it. And Marshall O'Rourke had the record going back 29 years earlier. I have a lot of respect for Marshall.

• 1:52:46Rich Roll?

  91? Same year you did that first marathon?

• 1:52:49Harvey Lewis?

  Same year. Yeah, I mean, he's a phenomenal guy. So I thought, okay, well, I'm just going to organize my team. We'll go out there in August. And we'll, you know, go for it. We raised money for the City Gospel Mission, which is like a homeless shelter in Cincinnati that also has a running program for individuals that are recovering.

• 1:53:09Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 1:53:10Harvey Lewis?

  It's so cool. And at first I was thinking, okay, we'll just go for like a thousand dollars or $2,000. I wasn't like really hyping it up that much. And by the time we got out there, we had like $5,000 were donated. And so that actually kind of fueled my fire, like going into that event at mile 17 to hear feedback from the team that, hey, we had already raised 5,000 and it was going up. And, yeah, to me, it was, it meant a lot to me.

• 1:53:43Harvey Lewis?

  I tried to keep really a good pace going through the race. When I got into Lone Pine at mile 122, I felt there's no way I'm gonna get this record. I was just depleted after going through the desert. I was exhausted and I was like, okay, well, we're gonna like go up to the 135 and we'll see how it goes. I mean, maybe I'll just stop at that point. And so I was hiking up the final 13 miles that would have been to the 135. And I was talking to my fiance on the phone and I was like, you know, Kelly, I feel like really, I don't think this is possible.

• 1:54:25Harvey Lewis?

  I really feel like there's like a 1% chance I could do this. There's no chance I can do this. I feel depleted. That's an unusual statement coming from you. It's unusual. So if you're saying it out loud. Yeah, I was saying it out loud. It's like 1% chance I can do this. Like I feel like totally depleted right now. And as I was going up the mountain, like with about maybe five miles before the portal, the temperatures were starting to drop a bit. And I think I was able to get more liquids into my body. And I was starting to feel, hmm, okay, maybe there's something here. And then so then I got to the last two miles up to the portal. I said to one of my friends, I said, Max, you're gonna have to prepare.

• 1:55:08Harvey Lewis?

  Or you're gonna have to prepare things because I think I might go for it. So I, actually, I said that to Jeremy. So when we got to the top, I still wasn't feeling like thunder. But I felt like it's maybe I'm gonna go for, I'm gonna go for this. I don't know if it's still, I'm not sure if it's possible. At that point, when I got to a portal, what was really amazing was Marshall Ulrich, who had the record from 29 years earlier, called me on the phone. And he's like, Harvey, you know what? You can do this. Like, and I was thinking, I can't because I'm an hour behind where I want to be in order to make the ascent.

• 1:55:52Harvey Lewis?

  And I know Marshall's an amazing climber. He's climbed all the seven summits. And, but he gave me like a little. Forty-five seconds, sixty seconds pep talk, which is amazing. Someone has had that record for twenty-nine years to be so gracious to do.

• 1:56:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:08Harvey Lewis?

  And so cool.

• 1:56:10Rich Roll?

  How did you even have service up there? How could you even get a phone call?

• 1:56:14Harvey Lewis?

  You get service at the portal. Like, yeah, I don't know. My team, they, they put that together. Like, they had gotten in touch with him. And then my friend, Michael Jimenez, Davy McCoy, and his friend, they accompanied me up to the, to the summit as like a crew. And like, once I got on the trail, like, I had my hiking poles. Marshall and I talked extensively about what was permitted, what was not permitted, time to leave, everything. And I felt like a new energy. Like, again, it was wild. Like, I've, I've felt different than I felt down below. Like, I felt like, okay, I felt, I'm just gonna go with everything I got. I don't know if we have a shot. But I was moving. I was moving really fast.

• 1:56:58Harvey Lewis?

  And Michael said, wow, it's hard to keep up with you. And so, once I got to like the, to the switch, once you get at the top of the switchbacks, you come up over the ridge line. There's like one point eight miles left or something like that. Now I thought, okay, it's in our sight as long as I don't make any catastrophic mistakes. You know, and, and then to get there at like three-thirty in the morning, that was like, just incredibly powerful. Because on the Appalachian Trail, we end up coming up short. We got like the eighth fastest time. Which was, you know, still amazing because we got that, it had an amazing experience I could never take back. But again, to get up there, to, you know, be a part of Marshall's

• 1:57:42Harvey Lewis?

  record from twenty-nine years ago. And then to involve my team, and then to do it for the City Gospel Mission. That was, that was cool.

• 1:57:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you got it. You clipped it by like twenty minutes or something like that.

• 1:57:54Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:54Rich Roll?

  But here's the thing. You get up to the summit, you did it. You still gotta get down.

• 1:57:59Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:59Rich Roll?

  Right? You can't just get in a van and drive off.

• 1:58:01Harvey Lewis?

  That's the challenge.

• 1:58:02Rich Roll?

  To summit this huge mountain.

• 1:58:03Harvey Lewis?

  Right. So, yeah, my mind was really thinking about that because the temperature, even in the summertime, is really cold up there. And especially after you're like, imagine like, if you can think about, if you've ran a marathon before, you've done some event where at the end of that race, you get really chilled fast. Like, after like-

• 1:58:22Rich Roll?

  That's why they hand out those, those like tinfoil blanket things.

• 1:58:25Harvey Lewis?

  Exactly. So like, ten minutes later, you get super chilled. So I went into the shelter, I think for like five minutes, literally. And then I was just all about focus. But it took me a long time to get down. Like actually, I wasn't trying to speed down. I was just taking my time, but I mean, it was slow. I mean, I like, I was going so slow.

• 1:58:44Rich Roll?

  Dude, you got 146 miles in the legs. I mean, you know, I think it's okay. Like, it's kind of amazing. You're even, I mean, the quads could even handle going down a mountain.

• 1:58:54Harvey Lewis?

  But the food after you have experience like that is the best food of your life. Like, I mean, that's one of the things about these ultras is like having that period where you're, you're kind of like, uh, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're challenged. You're, something like cause suffering. I would never cause suffering. I like to look at differently in that. But you're like in fatigue. And then once you have the opportunity to like relax, it's like the best relaxation ever. Get into the hot tub or down at the bottom of Whitney is a really nice cold river, like a cold creek. And I like to just get in that creek and like, it's just, uh, it feels like something magical. I mean, it's like rejuvenating.

• 1:59:37Rich Roll?

  Well, you earned it, buddy. You know, uh, people are gonna kill me if I don't ask you, you know, what you eat on the daily. Like, what's a day in the life of food for you?

• 1:59:48Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's, uh, well, it's, it's during the weekdays, I'm in Cincinnati. And then on the weekends, I spend them with Kelly in Circleville. So Circleville is a country town. So Kelly makes some amazing foods on the weekends. I, on the weekdays, I eat a lot of stuff like that I just throw together. Like, I mean, breakfast might be like paros and almond milk and like chia seeds and blueberries. And then, or oatmeal. And then lunch is like maybe some sort of burrito or it might be something that like, uh, like, I don't eat a lot of salads, but I might be a salad a couple of days a week.

• 2:00:30Rich Roll?

  Do you make that and then put it in the backpack and?

• 2:00:34Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, I do. I like throw all that stuff in my backpack. Yeah, sometimes my backpack.

• 2:00:38Rich Roll?

  Not eating the school cafeteria lunch.

• 2:00:40Harvey Lewis?

  Not too frequently, unfortunately. Like, once in a blue moon, they might have something I can eat, but they don't have a lot of offerings. Like, our school program, we still have to work on it.

• 2:00:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:50Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah. Yeah, but I like ethnic foods, so like Thai food, Indian, Mexican food, all those things.

• 2:00:58Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 2:00:58Harvey Lewis?

  In Circleville, it's more challenging. Like, that's a rural community. So we have, in Circleville, there's literally only Chipotle and like a Mexican restaurant we eat at. And then otherwise, I just have to like buy stuff at our grocery store and throw it together. Yeah.

• 2:01:14Rich Roll?

  But are you, do you like the cooking part? Or are you just rather, like, you're on the, you're on the move?

• 2:01:19Harvey Lewis?

  I'm on the move. So I'm so bad. I wouldn't mind cooking, but I'm not, I, I don't, I rarely cook. Like, I literally just go and buy things fast in Cincinnati, like, out to eat.

• 2:01:29Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 2:01:30Harvey Lewis?

  Um, or, uh, I, my mom, I take her out to eat a couple nights a week in Cincinnati, so we go out to eat. And, uh, but I don't make food that often. Like, I mean, Kelly's really gotten into it. And I, I just get to be the free rider on that. Like, uh, it would be a great idea. It's not like, I'm, I'm definitely like, I'm interested in the idea, but I don't, I don't dedicate the time to it. Like, I'm just always on the move.

• 2:01:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get it, man. I get it. Um, the last thing I want to explore with you is, I imagine somebody's listening to this and they're like, "Man, I can't believe this guy does all this stuff. How does he do it? Like, I'm inspired. I want to, I, you know, it's, it's time. It's time. I, I gotta finally get off the couch and like rectify this couch potato situation I'm in." Like, how do you, you know, catalyze that spark, get people off the couch, get them active? Like, how does somebody begin that journey?

• 2:02:25Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, I think it, it, the most important thing is, is to find... Find something that you love or you have fun with. And I know it doesn't become a love immediately. I've heard people like they start running and it's like it takes three months before they actually start to like it a little bit. Like they have that period where it's like, I don't like this.

• 2:02:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:45Harvey Lewis?

  So I guess.

• 2:02:45Rich Roll?

  Getting in running shape is the worst.

• 2:02:47Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, finding something you enjoy. And it might be hiking, it might be like swimming or whatever it is, but finding something you have fun with. Also having like accountability partners. So like with Cincinnati, it's a really nice city because we have actually like eight different running groups like that you can like join that are just, that's not even counting the private running groups everyone is part of. And like joining a program, it can be really helpful to have that motivation like, okay, every Wednesday or every Saturday, we're gonna meet up and run. I think having some sort of accountability partner is huge. Having goals, like having a goal out there.

• 2:03:27Harvey Lewis?

  So like I like to make my list of like 10 to 12 goals, literally every, like I do it over the winter break. Like I do that before January 1st comes. It might sound kinda like, but I literally, that's powerful to me because it sets out what I want to go for the year. And I like to dream big and go for big things. But having like goals out there, something that you can like sign up for, it's like three months out, that's, that's huge. Keeping things interesting. So like I have routines, like I do certain routines, like my run to work is pretty routine. But I also like to mix it up. So on a Saturday or Sunday, I wanna go explore something new. So like in Ohio, I've had this goal of like going to all 88 counties.

• 2:04:10Harvey Lewis?

  And it's probably taking me another 20 years to get there.

• 2:04:13Rich Roll?

  It's like a Ricky Gates thing.

• 2:04:14Harvey Lewis?

  Right, but I always, and I go out to state parks, I try to see a new trail. But like, and I also like to do that with countries. So I've like, now I'm at 101 countries and I like to go see a new country and like incorporate some adventure with that, cause it kinda sparks running as well with what I do.

• 2:04:36Harvey Lewis?

  But having like a little like thing that you do maybe once every couple of weeks, where you you you get off your normal routine, it can be powerful. It doesn't have to go to another country or even another county, but just like trying something a little bit different with what you're doing, it makes it, it brings a nuance to it that makes it so that you'll have incredible long, you know, more longevity with it.

• 2:05:00Rich Roll?

  One of the the daily habits that you've adopted that I think is super interesting is this um personal journaling that that is beyond journaling, like you write down everything that you do.

• 2:05:13Harvey Lewis?

  Well, not everything, but I should have bring my calendar in here.

• 2:05:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:05:17Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, I've got this little old school calendar.

• 2:05:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it's like every day I write down everything that I do.

• 2:05:21Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, it's kind of funny. Like my students occasionally will see my calendar on my desk. I'm like, man, so what are you doing with that? Like, don't you write that in your phone? Like, no, I'm like old school. I have like everything. I've I've got all my runs in there, all my like, uh, your plots, like whatever is happening. Yeah, I do like to write, I don't write everything down, but I do like to write some things down. I think there's something powerful about writing down like your program, whatever that is, or whatever your goals are for the week. Like, there there is some power to that. When you write something down, like before Biggs, I also had some things on my mirror. Like, I mean, my fiancee comes to the city house, I'm have to clean things up. But in my my bathroom, my mirror, I have like three quotes are written down right now, and they're just...

• 2:06:06Rich Roll?

  What are those quotes?

• 2:06:08Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, one of them is actually, one of them I have to paraphrase, but it's actually from Laz. It's like something about being inspired when people push like to the most extreme amounts and go beyond it. Like, it was like going into Biggs backyard, you know, like Laz is a, he's quite a remarkable character, and he's kind of influenced a lot of us out there. And, you know, to just see his joy of his inspiration of us making 300 and having three runners do something that he didn't think might be possible on his course. Was something that lit me up, you know, like that was super powerful. And I'm gonna keep that quote up there now since I'm doing Barclay and the chances of me finishing

• 2:06:51Harvey Lewis?

  are like, according to Laz, like one in a million.

• 2:06:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:06:54Harvey Lewis?

  In fact, I'm like this.

• 2:06:55Rich Roll?

  I love how so much of this is like, I gotta win over Laz.

• 2:06:58Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:58Rich Roll?

  It's like, I'll, I'll kill myself in order to get that guy's approval.

• 2:07:03Harvey Lewis?

  Right. And it's like, he's actually said, I'm like the sacrificial lamb, which is like the runner least likely to expected to finish the race.

• 2:07:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:07:12Harvey Lewis?

  But, um, yeah.

• 2:07:14Rich Roll?

  And other quotes?

• 2:07:15Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, yeah, let's see. You know, uh, actually there's one from David Goggins. I mean, I, David and I, we've done some races together and I admire him. I think it's uncommon amongst uncommon.

• 2:07:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:07:32Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:33Rich Roll?

  To be, yeah, I, yeah, I don't know exactly how it goes.

• 2:07:35Harvey Lewis?

  It's something, I'm paraphrasing, I'm messing it up again, but it's something, you pushing yourself to, to a place where you, you never imagined yourself to possibly go to.

• 2:07:51Rich Roll?

  Right. His other big quote is all about this idea that when you think you're done, you've only tapped into 40% of what you're capable of. I mean, how do you think about that? That valence between the mental and the physical with what you do? I mean, it tips so mental when you're talking about bigs. It's like it's all in the head.

• 2:08:12Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's so much in the head. Like is, with your training, which will catapult you to that level, like that depends on your mind as well. So, I mean, so much is the mindset to get out there when it's cold and rainy and 11:00 PM, you know, like what, what's driving you? So then it gets us back to the question of why? And that's the other major thing. And like, to be honest with you, whenever I'm doing an A race that I really care about, I actually write down my why statement. And I write down a bunch of stuff under why.

• 2:08:45Rich Roll?

  So for bigs, what was the why?

• 2:08:48Harvey Lewis?

  I had about 15 things.

• 2:08:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:50Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, but, uh, some are sort of personal. Some definitely would be like, uh, for other people, like, uh, you know, for my students or my, my parents, uh, for.

• 2:09:05Harvey Lewis?

  I would like to, to, to impact other people and their lifestyle and like their, their health and like what they're doing. So like that motivates me a lot to, to, to do my very best to hopefully, you know, impact someone else.

• 2:09:20Rich Roll?

  Sure. And just being clear about that why makes it the thing that you can pivot to when you're hitting the wall and you think you can't go on, you, you, you kind of return or remind yourself like, oh, these are the whys that gets you into that extra gear.

• 2:09:34Harvey Lewis?

  It's so important. I mean, it's so powerful. Like, I mean, there's so many times where you, in your mind and your conscious, you, you, you struggle with a thought about giving in, but you can't give in. So you have to like have a why that's so strong that you would not give in.

• 2:09:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So what's your why for Barkley?

• 2:09:55Harvey Lewis?

  Barkley.

• 2:09:56Rich Roll?

  Do they stay the same or just?

• 2:09:57Harvey Lewis?

  Uh, no, they always change. Yeah. So I usually don't write it out until like the two weeks before. Like I really write it out then. So I have to really think about it. But I do, I do have some ideas for my spirit animal. Cause that, that also rotates, you know?

• 2:10:12Rich Roll?

  You can't go back to the honey badger?

• 2:10:14Harvey Lewis?

  No, the honey badger is good in bigs, but like I think in Barkley, it might be the wild boar. Yeah. Yeah. Is there a wild boar out there? And you gotta like just be like.

• 2:10:23Rich Roll?

  Resourceful.

• 2:10:23Harvey Lewis?

  Resourceful.

• 2:10:24Rich Roll?

  Will survive anything.

• 2:10:25Harvey Lewis?

  Right. Somehow those animals manage to make it up all those steep mountains.

• 2:10:29Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 2:10:30Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:30Rich Roll?

  Maybe find a truffle here and there.

• 2:10:32Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. Find a truffle.

• 2:10:33Rich Roll?

  Well, best of luck to you, man. It's really inspiring. Not just what you do and what you've accomplished, but like how you comport yourself. Like I, I really enjoyed talking to you and I, I find your example to be incredibly inspiring. And the fact that you're out there just having the year of your life at age 45 with like no end in sight in terms of, of your potential and your capabilities and you're doing it plant-based. I mean, you're setting a new like example for what's possible in athletics. Like you're an adventurer. Like you're. Way out on the fringe, man, like seeing what all the rest of us, you know, are capable of.

• 2:11:17Rich Roll?

  And I think it's really cool. And if there's anything I can do to be of service to you, like I'm at your disposal, my friend.

• 2:11:23Harvey Lewis?

  Wow, thank you. Thank you so much. It's really been fun chatting with you and honored to be here.

• 2:11:30Rich Roll?

  Cool. So if people want to learn more about you, I mean, is Instagram the best place to send them? Or where, in addition to the documentary?

• 2:11:37Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, Instagram, Harvey Lewis Ultra Runner, or Facebook.

• 2:11:42Rich Roll?

  That's your deal, man. You got a website? You don't have a website?

• 2:11:45Harvey Lewis?

  I don't have a website, no.

• 2:11:46Rich Roll?

  You're keeping it old school.

• 2:11:47Harvey Lewis?

  I have RunQuest Travel, so I didn't mention it, but I do take people on running holidays in June to Portugal.

• 2:11:56Rich Roll?

  Oh, in Portugal, wow.

• 2:11:57Harvey Lewis?

  Yeah, so if you ever want to come along, there's some amazing swimming places as well. And mountains to hike up and run, all kinds of things.

• 2:12:05Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna be thinking about that.

• 2:12:06Harvey Lewis?

  Yes.

• 2:12:07Rich Roll?

  I'll just be coming back from, we're doing one in Italy in May, so I don't know if I could back to back it. Maybe I'll just stay there and go from Italy to Portugal.

• 2:12:16Harvey Lewis?

  That would be the way to go.

• 2:12:18Rich Roll?

  I gotta talk to you later.

• 2:12:19Harvey Lewis?

  Where are you guys going in Italy?

• 2:12:21Rich Roll?

  We do this event in Tuscany every year. I mean, COVID, obviously, we didn't do it. But we have this amazing location there, this like working olive farm, where we've been taking groups for many years. And it's sort of a seven day kind of food, meditation, trail running, you know, extravaganza experience.

• 2:12:43Harvey Lewis?

  Wow.

• 2:12:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:44Harvey Lewis?

  That sounds like a dream.

• 2:12:45Rich Roll?

  So, got a spot for you if you want to do that first and get a lead on your Portugal trip.

• 2:12:52Harvey Lewis?

  My principal might not be too happy.

• 2:12:53Rich Roll?

  That's right. Yeah, when school get out, you get those summers off, man.

• 2:12:56Harvey Lewis?

  Right, yeah, now that's a big thing, but yeah.

• 2:13:00Rich Roll?

  Right on. Well, good luck at Barclay. When you conquer that thing, you got an open seat to come back here and tell me how you did it.

• 2:13:08Harvey Lewis?

  Wow, that's another Y.

• 2:13:10Rich Roll?

  There you go. I just added to the Y.

• 2:13:12Harvey Lewis?

  You just added to the Y list.

• 2:13:13Rich Roll?

  Cool, man. Appreciate you. Thanks, man.

• 2:13:15Harvey Lewis?

  I appreciate it.

• 2:13:16Rich Roll?

  Peace, plants, run.

• 2:13:21Rich Roll?

  Harvey. All right.

• 2:13:26Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as The Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. Supporting

• 2:14:10Rich Roll?

  the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, The Meal Planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg and Grayson Wilder. Graphic and social media assets courtesy

• 2:14:53Rich Roll?

  of Jessica Miranda, Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and A.J. Akpodiate. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.