Badwater: Running 135 Miles Across Death Valley With Josh Spector

Today on the show I sit down with my ultra running friend Josh Spector to talk all things Badwater. Widely accepted as the “World's Toughest Foot Race”, Badwater is a 135 mile running race across Death Valley — the hottest place on Earth, where temperatures average 120+ in July and can reach as high as 130 F with pavements temps typically in the 170-180 degree F range. Starting at Badwater Basin — the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level, approxmately 100 invitation-only runners from across the globe begin a jaunt that will take them across bleak and scorching desert terrain as well as three formidable mountain passes, including the culminating 13-mile ascent up the portals of Mt. Whitney — the highest peak in the lower 48 — to finish at 8,300 feet. Yeah – it's that insane. I had the honor & privilege of being a member of Dean Karnazes' crew this year, along with Jason Koop, Brandon Friese and Nathan Peerbolt. Together we paced, fed, hydrated and generally did all we could to help Dean complete this unbelievable race for the 10th time. It was an extraordinary experience — one I won't soon forget. Simultaneously, Josh — himself an accomplished ultra runner with three 100-milers under his belt — returned to Badwater for his third crewing experience, this time for runner Ray Sanchez. In this episode we swap stories about the experience, giving the listener a rare peek at exactly what it's like to have a front row seat at what I have to say is one of the most incredible displays of the indomitable nature of the human spirit I have ever seen — and will likely ever see. Enjoy the show! Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Rich Roll?

  Welcome to episode 40 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Josh Spector.

• 1:23Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. I am Rich Roll. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. If you've been following along, then thanks for tuning in again. For new listeners, who am I? Maybe you're tuning in, you just saw it on iTunes, you have no idea what you're in for. Well, I am an ultra endurance athlete, runner, triathlete, cyclist, swimmer. I am the bestselling author of the book Finding Ultra. I am a plant-based nutrition advocate, wellness advocate, lifestyle entrepreneur, and family guy. Just celebrated my 10-year anniversary. My wife, Julie Poyet, who will be stopping back in for the next episode of the podcast.

• 2:06Rich Roll?

  Been a while since she found a guest and has been a guest on the show, and I'm going to have her back soon. And I've got four kids, living in Southern California in Malibu Canyon, and pursuing a... Pursuing in pursuit constantly of my best, most authentic self, which is kind of a theme of this podcast. How can we be better? How can we unlock those dreams deferred and become the most actualized version of ourself? And that's also a major theme in my book and the podcast is kind of the idea behind the podcast was kind of to pick up and take off where the book left off. As a result of the book's success, I've had the great opportunity

• 2:50Rich Roll?

  to do a lot of travel, meet a lot of amazing people, wellness warriors, pioneers in health, and nutrition, and fitness, and athleticism. And the podcast is a great forum for me to bring those people and personalities to you, not so that they can become your guru, but so that you can glean some insight from them, find what works for you, apply some of the tools and insights that they provide, and hopefully improve your life so that you can be, like I said, your best, most authentic self. Today on the show, I have my buddy, Josh Spector, who's a good friend of mine. He is a fellow ultra runner and Ironman triathlete

• 3:35Rich Roll?

  slash triathlete. I've known him for a couple of years through various venues. The endurance community is pretty strong, pretty strong. It's pretty strong, but it's also pretty small. And I've had the good fortune to spend a little bit of time with him, do a little bit of training with him. And I also just got back from the Badwater 135. What is the Badwater 135? Well, the Badwater is widely considered the world's toughest footrace. It's a 135 mile run. And if that's not enough, it's straight across Death Valley, starting

• 4:15Rich Roll?

  at the lowest place in the continental United States, or in all 50 states, I'm sure, 282 feet below sea level at Badwater Basin, crisscrossing Death Valley with a couple gigantic ascents, a couple of 4,000 to 5,000 foot climbs, and then Seguing into Lone Pine, California and ascending Mount Whitney up like more than halfway up Mount Whitney to 8,300 feet. It's an incredible, incredible race, not to mention the heat. Temperatures ranging in the 120 plus range throughout the race. And why was

• 4:57Rich Roll?

  I there? Well, about six months ago, Dean Karnazes, the legendary ultra marathon man himself, emailed me and asked if I would be interested in crewing for him. And of course, it's quite an honor to be asked and a privilege. And I was not going to decline that. I jumped at the chance to get a glimpse, not just of Dean in action and to be able to have the opportunity to support him through this race, but also experience this race in all its glory up close and personal. And I do not regret the experience. It was quite,

• 5:37Rich Roll?

  quite amazing. And I wanted to do a little bit of a recap of the race. I got a lot of tweets and emails because I was sort of posting on Twitter throughout the race when I could. There's not cell service for most of it, but you know, what was going on? And I was getting a lot of replies like, I hope you can get Dean on the podcast and you know, I hope you can interview this guy and interview that guy. Well, I didn't bring my podcast recording equipment to the race. The race was not about me and the podcast or anything that I was doing. I was there simply to be of service to Dean as best as I could. And

• 6:15Rich Roll?

  so that was my focus and everything else was irrelevant. So I did have the opportunity to meet a lot of cool people and I hope to have them on the podcast pad, the podcast in the future. And I will be intent on making that happen, but it wasn't going to happen while I was there. And plus, even if people were open to it, there was no time. I mean, literally, you're working nonstop without sleep the entire time. And like I said, you're there to be of service to your athlete. And in my case, the athlete was Dean Karnazes himself. And that was incredible. It was incredible to spend a couple of days with him.

• 6:56Rich Roll?

  To be with him throughout the race, to see how he does it.

• 7:01Rich Roll?

  And what makes him tick and what makes him special. And he has agreed to come on the podcast at a future date. It's certainly one that I would want to do in person and not on Skype. So we're going to have to figure out sometime when we're in the same town to do it. But he said he'd be more than happy to do it. And I think that'll be great. We'll have a great conversation. I did, after the race, was able to spend a little bit of time with him. We had to drive back from Lone Pine to Furnace Creek to pick up my car. And he was on his way to Vegas to catch a flight to go down to the Copper Canyon in Mexico to do another race. And I got the opportunity to get him and get to know him a little bit better. I had only met him briefly prior to the event. So it wasn't like I knew him very well.

• 7:47Rich Roll?

  But I did get a chance to certainly get to know him quite a bit better throughout the experience of the race. And like I said, it was a privilege. You know, it was his 10th finish. He's had 11 starts. He DNF'd one time, but this was his 10th finish and he was going for his 10th belt buckle. That's what they give you. The belt buckle is the big prize. And he got it. And it was a hard fought battle for him. Not an easy race. He had lots of ups and downs and was not really having the race that he wanted to have or expected to have. But his perseverance and his sheer force of will was astounding because the guy just never stopped.

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  He just continued on no matter what obstacle he was facing mentally, physically, spiritually. He just would not relent. And, and he pushed himself all the way to the finish line. And it was quite, quite remarkable to play a small part in support of that effort. And certainly an experience I will never forget. Also great to, to spend time with and meet his other. Crew members, Jason Coop, who's a longtime crew member for Dean, quite an amazing ultra runner in his own right, very, very accomplished, out of Colorado Springs, where he's a coach, a very experienced, high-level coach at Carmichael Training Systems with Chris Carmichael

• 9:13Rich Roll?

  out there, a wealth of knowledge and experience. And he was really the crew captain, probably, not probably, he did do most of the heavy pacing throughout the race. He knows Dean well, he knows what he needs, and he has the aptitude and the ability to log as many miles as needed. And he certainly demonstrated his mettle throughout the race. Also, Brandon Fries, who's kind of a longtime collaborator with Dean, was with him throughout his run across America the other summer. And Nathan Peerbolt, who is the other guy on the crew who's a friend of Brandon's and has done some stuff with Dean and has worked with Brandon

• 9:57Rich Roll?

  over the years. And to spend time with those three guys, working collectively as a team for Dean, was really, really great. And I'm so glad that I did it. And I couldn't wait to kind of get back on the podcast and share some of the stories and relate some of the experiences that I had. I certainly learned a ton about what it takes to do this race and what it takes to be an ultra runner at that distance, you know, 100 miles plus, 100 miles and above. It's its own subculture, for sure. It has a lot of, you know, it overlaps quite a bit with kind of the ultra man community. They're very similar in certain respects,

• 10:42Rich Roll?

  but it definitely has its own flavor. And there's something about being in Death Valley, this sort of sci-fi, remote, you know, alternative universe where it's so hot outside, it feels like you have a hot hairdryer on your face at all times, that...

• 10:59Rich Roll?

  Brings out a certain special flavor that is unique and very specific to this race. But I'm back home in LA and I needed a foil for, for, for the conversation. And thank, thank God Josh was willing to come on the show. He was, he was there crewing, it's his third time crewing the race. He was crewing for his friend Ray Sanchez, who's also an experienced Badwater runner. I think Ray was running it for his sixth time. And so I would see Josh throughout the race on and off. We sort of crisscrossed each other's paths a couple of times and every crew has its own stories, endless stories about what it was like to make that journey.

• 11:43Rich Roll?

  And I thought I'd have him on the show so we could swap tails and kind of peel the, peel the layers off what Badwater is all about. So for you people out there who maybe have never heard of it, or have heard of it, but don't know that much about it, or think you know what it is, we thought we would kind of elucidate it a little bit further. And Josh was great. We had a really long conversation, like an hour and 40 minutes. So I'm going to keep this as brief as I can, but I think that you will enjoy it. Also, at the end of the show, quick show note, I forgot to call out how you can get in touch with Josh if you're interested in what he's up to and what he's doing.

• 12:25Rich Roll?

  So he can be found on Twitter at @SpectorJosh, S.P.E.C.T.O.R. Josh, J.O.S.H., all one word. He's on Facebook and he's got a blog, J-dash-tries, J-dash-tries, T.R.I.S.-blogspot.com. So check that out. Wait, let me make sure I got that URL right. I don't want to misspeak for him. Let's see.

• 13:02Rich Roll?

  Hold on there. Yeah. Oh, no, it's j-tries, T R I S, dot blogspot.com. So check out Josh. He's, uh, he's done three 100 mile races and he's preparing for another one in September. Um, and he's a great guy. So follow him too. Uh, also, I will be in New York City next week. Uh, July 23rd through 27th. Um, I'm doing an event at the Apple Store in Soho on the 24th at 6:00 PM. It's kind of a wellness roundup. Uh, meet the, it's, I think they're calling it Meet the Innovators, you know, the people that are revolutionizing health. We're going

• 13:44Rich Roll?

  to do a panel that's going to be moderated by Jason Walker, the CEO of MindBodyGreen.com. And it's going to be me, Tara Stiles, who's super uber, uber, not uber, uber yoga teacher. Um, super popular, uh, experienced yoga teacher in New York City. I think she was Deepak Chopra's yoga teacher. Uh, she knows what she's doing. She'll be there as well as her husband, Michael Taylor. Together they own, uh, Strala Yoga in New York City. Um, I've been following Tara for a while, but, uh, I've actually never met her in person. So I'm looking forward to that. Uh, Julie, my wife, is going to be on the panel as well. And then we have Charlie

• 14:25Rich Roll?

  Knowles, who is, uh, kind of a legendary meditation, uh, teacher. He's the son of Tom Knowles, who's very well-known meditation kind of guru and, uh, Charlie knows his stuff. Uh, I have met Charlie. He lives here in Venice, California. Super cool guy. So I'm looking forward to getting together with all those people and, uh, doing a panel. I think the focus of the panel is going to be on the kind of business side of wellness, how to, um, translate this healthy message that we're all kind of collectively putting out, um, into, uh, a sustainable kind of enterprise, uh, that is of service to others.

• 15:07Rich Roll?

  So that should be a fun conversation. Um, some cool stuff coming up with MindBodyGreen.com too, that I'm going to be telling you about. So that's it. I got other appearances coming up later in the summer, but, uh, not immediately, but I'll keep you posted as we get closer.

• 15:31Rich Roll?

  That's it. Let's wrap it up and get into the conversation. Today's edition of the podcast is a Bad Water recap. Post-Bad Water jam session with my buddy Josh Spector. Enjoy.

• 16:03Rich Roll?

  So we're back in LA. You survived.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  I did.

• 16:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  It was fun.

• 16:08Rich Roll?

  It was fun, but you know, it was a, it was your third time.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:14Rich Roll?

  Throwing for it. And just by way of background, you've run, I know you did, you recently ran a hundred miler. Which race was that?

• 16:22Speaker 01

  I did a San Diego 100 down in east of San Diego, Mount Laguna.

• 16:25Rich Roll?

  Right. And that was, was that in the?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Beginning of June. No, beginning of June, June 8th, I think.

• 16:31Rich Roll?

  And have you done other hundreds?

• 16:33Speaker 01

  I have. That was my third.

• 16:34Rich Roll?

  Wow. I didn't know you'd done three. Excuse me. Sorry about that. I didn't know you'd done three. I thought maybe you'd done one other one.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  No, yeah, I did one in summer 2010 out in Angeles Crest, AC 100. And then last summer, last fall, I did Bear 100 in Utah.

• 16:52Rich Roll?

  Right. So you're laying the foundation for your Bad Water entry application.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't want to try not to talk about that.

• 17:01Rich Roll?

  Jinx it or whatever. Well, there's got to be a little bit of a plan.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  There is. I mean,

• 17:07Rich Roll?

  You're too smart and you know, you're, I know there's something going on.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  I don't know if smart and bad water have anything to do with each other, but.

• 17:15Rich Roll?

  You've got a strategy.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you know, from the first time I was there, it's a incredible experience. That was, I was there before, I guess I was there about a month before I did my first 100 in the, no, that's not true. I was there, the first time I was there in 2009, before I even thought about, or before I'd even really signed up for 100. So, but the, once I was there that first time, it was always something sort of, whether it's on the fantasy list or actually to do list.

• 17:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  I'm not sure yet, but.

• 17:44Rich Roll?

  It's up there. Yeah, it's up there. And you've kind of transitioned. I mean, you you started out more as a triathlete, right? Are you still doing that? Or are you pretty much focused on ultra running now?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Just on the ultra running. Yeah, I I last triathlon I did was in 2010. I did an Ironman in 2009. I did Ironman Canada in 2009. It was my third Ironman. And then half Ironman in 2010. And I've spent nearly enough time on the bike since then.

• 18:11Rich Roll?

  Now, it's all about the trails.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Pretty much.

• 18:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Pretty much.

• 18:14Rich Roll?

  What do you think that? Why do you think that? What do you attribute that switch in kind of interest to?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  I think that the you know, I used to be able to say when I first started doing it, when I first, when I first switched to running, I used to be able to say that that running, it was took a lot less time, a lot less energy, a lot less thought. And than than all the than all the planning for long course triathlon, especially where you got to get in multiple workouts every day and figure out how to squeeze in recovery when you still need to get in that extra swim during that week.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  But now that I'm running, I mean, the amount of running I do now, it's probably more than I

• 18:51Rich Roll?

  You're actually training more. Well, it can't be as much as when you're training for Ironman and you got to put in those long. I mean, it's the cycling that really chews up the time.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  That's the big

• 19:02Rich Roll?

  The time, not just hours on the bike, but just getting ready to get on the bike and then taking your bike in for service and all the money you spend on it, whatever. I mean, it's just a bottomless pit of time, money and energy.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  And that's what that that's the other thing that it came down to really is that, I mean, if I run, I usually run once or it's pretty, sometimes I'll run twice a day, but mostly it's once a day. But as you know, with triathlon, you can't get away with one workout a day.

• 19:28Rich Roll?

  No.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Especially for long course stuff anyway, you know, for Ironman. And so it involved a lot more. And you're right, and the bike, just getting the bike ready and cleaning it and servicing it.

• 19:41Rich Roll?

  All that kind of stuff.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  But I do miss it. I miss the cycling. I do.

• 19:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think, you know, a lot of it is, I mean, for me, like, I'm kind of, you know, I'm much more attracted to the ultra world than the kind of traditional triathlon world. I mean, it's just a completely different community of people. I mean, you'd think there'd be a lot of overlap, but culturally, it's extremely different. You know, like the, like this sort of environment circulating around an Ironman or a 70.3 versus the people you're gonna run into at, you know, the Hard Rock 100. You know, never the twain shall meet, really, in a certain respect, I guess. I mean, not to say that there is an overlap, but, but I think culturally, it's, you know,

• 20:26Rich Roll?

  it's just a different, it's a different vibe. It has a different energy.

• 20:31Rich Roll?

  It's a much more relaxed, kind of communally supportive environment, I guess I would say.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  I think that's true. I think that, because, I think that part of that's, I mean, part of that has to do with just the way the sport works. I mean, nobody, as you saw Badwater, and I mean, it didn't do 100, you can't, no, well, you can, but very few people do it on their own, without a crew, without a support. And even you rely on other runner, I mean, you rely on other runners and people at Badwater, and it was share, you know, not share crews, but the crews help out other runners when you're out there.

• 21:04Rich Roll?

  Of course, yeah.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Just much more of a community, I think.

• 21:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, well, I think just simply by virtue of the fact that everybody has to bring their own crew, that changes the kind of tenor of the whole thing from the get-go. And it makes it all about, like, supporting each other across the finish line. Of course, it's a race and, you know, it's competitive and there are people that want to win and all of that. But, but it's, but there's also this other thing where it's, it's this environment of wanting to see everybody finish and be safe and have a good time and this kind of family feeling to the whole thing, I guess.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely, definitely. And Badwater is, I mean, it's my experience crewing is the biggest, you know, is the biggest, biggest example of that, I think, just because it is such a... So much harder than anything.

• 21:49Rich Roll?

  It's so crazy. Alright, so let's get into it. I mean, the, you know, maybe the average person listening to this has heard of Ultra Run, or maybe has even heard of Badwater, but let's assume they haven't. You know, I mean, what is, explain to people what the Badwater 135 is.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  I mean, it is, I wish I'd written it down. What he, the, the race director, Chris Cosson, builds it as what the hardest footrace, the most difficult footrace on the planet, or something like that.

• 22:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  And it certainly seems that way when you're out there. I mean, it's, it's 135 miles from the lowest point on, in North America, I believe, to, not the highest point in North America, but that the, close to the highest point in the lowest, in the lower 50, the highest road, I guess, point in the lower 58, in the lower 50 states.

• 22:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  So it goes from actual place called Badwater, which is in Death Valley, and there's a big sign in the middle, on, in, right off, right off the highway there. And it's on roads all the way through to, to, into Lone Pine, California. And then from there, you climb the, the Mount Whitney Portal Road to the Mount Whitney Portal, which start, which is the beginning of the trail to top Mount Whitney.

• 23:04Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. So, to put it into perspective, we all know Death Valley is in the Mojave Desert, and it's very hot, but it's actually been recorded to be the hottest place on Earth. And that's true, I guess, right? Like, they were, it was 134 degrees there one day in 1913. And, and I think, you know, temperatures reach close to that quite often. I don't, they've obviously never eclipsed that, that's the high, or whatever. But, you know, it is pretty commonplace for it to be in the mid 120s, and it certainly was when we were there.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:40Rich Roll?

  You know? I mean, I've never experienced heat like this in my life. So, 100 people descend on this place, Badwater, actually.

• 23:50Rich Roll?

  What happens is the race is organized by a company called Adventure Corps, which is run by this guy, Chris Cosman, who is also the race organizer for a couple of other ridiculous events like the Furnace Creek 508, a 508 mile bicycle race. If you've been listening to this show, you've heard Vinny Torterich on the show. He's done that race a couple of times. So it's kind of under the umbrella of the same organization. And Badwater, the Badwater 135 has been around for what? Like 35 years, 36? I think this was the 36th running.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Is that correct?

• 24:21Rich Roll?

  Something like that. Something like that. So, you know, it's been around for a long time and it has been dubbed, you know, the world's most difficult foot race for good reason. And, you know, it's easy to kind of throw hype around, but I really think that this race like, you know, earned, deserves its stripes. I mean, I've never seen, I've done some crazy stuff. I've heard of people doing crazy stuff. That, this thing took the cake for me in terms of what I witnessed,

• 24:51Rich Roll?

  in terms of human perseverance and suffering, you know, like it was intense, man. From the very beginning all the way to the end.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. I mean, you watch it, there's no, there's no break. I mean, you either you're battling heat and when it starts to cool down a little bit, and when I say cool down, I mean, did it get into the 70s, 80s overnight?

• 25:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think, yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't know if it got any cooler than that. So, but let's just lay it out first. So we, you, everybody shows up in this little kind of, I hesitate to call it a town, Furnace Creek, you know, it's literally this like bizarre resort. It's not even a resort either. It's like a hotel oasis smack dab in the middle of the desert. As far as you can see in any direction, there's like nothing but desert and mountains surrounding you. So you're in this bowl, you're in this cauldron that focuses all the heat. And then there's this little hotel where there's palm trees and, and, and grass and a lagoon and a pool. You know, like it's out of some bizarre movie, you know, like, like what is that even doing there?

• 25:56Rich Roll?

  And by the way, why is there even a road through this place? Like who built this road and why did they build it? I mean, the whole, none, none of it makes sense at all. Right? So from the get go, you're in this surreal, you've set yourself into this kind of surreal world that.

• 26:13Rich Roll?

  Doesn't really seem like it's part of the rest of the world at all. You're completely separated from everything. For most of the, in most of the area, there's no cell service or certainly no internet or anything like that. And you go 17 miles down the road and everybody convenes at Badwater Basin, lowest point in North America, 282 feet below sea level. So as you're getting, and they started in three flights, so they, the, the race is limited to 100, is it 100 people, invitation only every year. And, and explain to people the process of like trying to get into this race, what you have to do.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  I mean, it's from what I know, I'm, I'm not applied, but from what I know, it's,

• 26:56Rich Roll?

  But we were talking about this the other day, right?

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's crazy. It's so hard. He's, it's very selective. I mean, obviously, I mean, most years, he, he, he does a good job, or they, the, the, the committee does, does a really good job of making sure that people who they let into the race have a, are, are gonna finish it. And an amazing percentage of the people usually do. And I guess credit that to the application process. But you have to, you either have to have finished Badwater, or completed three 100 mile races, or have finished Brazil 135, which is sort of a affiliated race down in, in Brazil in January. And, but even then, that's just the, that's just, that's the minimum requirement to even submit an application.

• 27:43Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  It says in huge bold letters on the page, do not even talk to me if, do not even talk to us if you don't have that. And then beyond that, it says, they want many years of ultra endurance experience and iron, and they specifically say again, Ironman is not, doesn't even, doesn't, doesn't even come to the, doesn't even reach the radar of, of what they're talking about. They're looking for, you know, like Ultraman, or double, triple Ironmans, or multi-day stage races, or these ridiculously long bike rides, like French Creek 508, or venture rate, you know, multi-day adventure races, is what they're looking for to, to allow people to.

• 28:22Rich Roll?

  I mean, you've winnowed it down to a pretty limited number of potential applicants at that point, right? Is it really, you have to have done three 100 mils at a minimum?

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Lifetime three, that's a qualifications right now. You know, it's actually, I mean, of course, over time, it's gotten more difficult to even apply. But yeah, right now, it's three lifetime hundreds. And there is some proximity where it's three, three in your life, but one of those, at least one of those has to be within the prior year or something like that.

• 28:55Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, so this insane filter is in place. So everybody who shows up, you know, is seriously vetted by Chris. And they line up, first of all, they weigh, they weigh all the athletes. I'm not sure, it's not like they weigh you throughout the race. I guess if you get into trouble when they weigh you later, then they can at least have a benchmark to compare it.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  And I know some people carry scales. We, I don't know if you guys did.

• 29:20Rich Roll?

  No, we didn't do that.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Some people do as a safety precaution, but yeah, they weigh you.

• 29:26Rich Roll?

  Right. They weigh you, they take pictures and do all that. And then, and as you're kind of, as they're lining up for the start, if you look against, there's sort of this sheer rock wall that rises straight up from Badwater Basin, right next to where all the athletes start, you know, line up to start. And you look way up, you know, like way up the side of this cliff that is jutting, you know, literally completely vertical from where you're standing. And you see this sign like embedded into the rock halfway up the hill, it says, sea level. You realize like how far below sea level you are. And it's a trip. So, so, so you're in this crazy place and every athlete has, brings their own crew.

• 30:11Rich Roll?

  So in that respect, it's sort of like Ultraman. So the one thing that was immediately different to me was that, you know, I was crewing for Dean and we had two vans, you know, instead of one, I was like, why do we need two vans? Like, what do we, you know, isn't that going to just make it more complicated? But I think we really did need two because it, because one person was always kind of taking a break and they would take the van up ahead and rest a little bit. And that one was just kind of filled with ice and whatever people didn't immediately need.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's what

• 30:41Rich Roll?

  Is that what you guys did?

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Well, this year, we only had one, the, the past two times I did it, we had two and we, because you're allowed a maximum of, you have to have your own crew, but you're allowed, I think, a maximum of six people and two vehicles. And that's what we did each of the other two years when I was there is we had six people and two vehicles. This year, there were four of us in one vehicle. So was it, it was a, it was, it was different.

• 31:02Rich Roll?

  So if somebody wanted to catch a cat nap, that made it a little bit more difficult for it to happen.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  I mean, we slapped, like, like you said, in the prior two years, there were times in the middle of the night where we would send one car 10 miles ahead and those, and we'd want to, with two people in there and they could sleep for, you know, an hour or two hours or whatever, probably even more than that at 10 miles. But, um, but yeah, this year there was no, there was no car to go ahead and there was no time. I mean, we slept for 15 minutes, maybe once or twice.

• 31:30Rich Roll?

  Right. And so, so the race is 135 miles and if you've kind of read about it or seen pictures, you know, it gets quite a bit of press coverage because it is just so super gnarly, you know, like pictures like the Washington, like it was on BuzzFeed. Yeah. Which is like, I tweeted that. I was like, I can't believe Badwater's on Buzz, BuzzFeed, you know, it's a trip. So it does have this kind of cultural zeitgeist about it that distinguishes it also, I think, from pretty much any other ultra running race. Uh, and everyone kind of focuses on the heat and the desert and sees pictures of these guys that are running in what look like hazmat suits, you know, like full whites, you know, like full pants, long sleeves, hoods, like the whole thing.

• 32:13Rich Roll?

  Uh, and you hear about, you know, 130 degrees and, and all of that. But what people don't realize is that after the initial, you know, what is it like 40 miles or something like that, 50 miles? You start hitting some serious climbing. You do, I think you do two 5,000 foot passes or 4,000 foot passes.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Something like that, yeah.

• 32:33Rich Roll?

  And, and those are right in succession. You go, you trudge up this. Is it a mountain? Like, what do you call it? 5,000 feet? I guess that qualifies, isn't it? You know? And then you go right back down and then you climb right back up again. And, uh, and then you're on kind of some flats for a while as you kind of go into Lone Pine. And then you climb up to 8,300 feet up the portals of Mount Whitney, which is the largest peak in the lower continental United States, right?

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly.

• 33:04Rich Roll?

  So it's, so you think about the desert, but literally when you end, you're in a pine forest. And I guess like it was warm when we finished, but I've heard it could be like 30, 40 degrees up there.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  I've heard that too. Yeah. I mean, I've had the luckily, I mean, this year we finished 37 and a half hours. That was 8 a.m. start. So that was, it was 9:30 at night and it was cool. And of course the runner, Ray Sanchez, the runner that I was

• 33:35Rich Roll?

  Right. So I want to talk about him in a minute.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  But, um, it was, it was cool then, but I'm sure in the middle of night at 8,300 feet, I bet it gets down

• 33:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Too close to freezing.

• 33:46Rich Roll?

  Right. Right. They were, uh, my crew guys were like, uh, one of the guys on my crew, Brandon Freeze, uh, Dean calls him crunchy because he loves like, he's like into like fish and you know, like into like jam bands and you know, like he's like, you know, excuse me. And Brandon's like, yeah, man, if you ever come back here, we'll crew and you, you know, we'll camp up here right after and we'll, we'll make sure that we got a, you know, a place to put the tents. And I go, dude, if I ever do this, I'm getting a helicopter up here and I'm going like to the Four Seasons. You know, I'm gonna sit in an air conditioned room with a big screen TV, you know?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  It's true. Yeah. You deserve it. I think.

• 34:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know. I was like, I can't imagine just like crashing in a tent like after you finish that.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  No way.

• 34:31Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 34:31Speaker 01

  No way.

• 34:32Rich Roll?

  I know. It's insane. So, um, so tell me about, uh, Ray Sanchez that you were crewing for. Like what's, what's his story and, and how did you get to hook up with him?

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, just, uh, he's a badass. I don't say that on podcasts, but he's

• 34:47Rich Roll?

  You can say whatever you want.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  He's so tough. Um, he, he was a

• 34:52Speaker 01

  A Golden Glove, Golden Gloves boxer until, I don't have the dates right, until just a few, until maybe five years ago and transitioned into ultra running and

• 35:01Rich Roll?

  That's such a weird segue.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  It is. I mean, I guess the endurance sports thing and, and you know, I don't know why he stopped, what, what, what, what caused him to stop boxing, but um, I, he, I mean, it's not like he wanted a break from, from the regimen because he jumped in, dove right into ultra running and he does, he competes, he, he races, I, I, like we were talking about Hillary just a minute ago, he had on, on a few weeks ago, he, he's probably the equivalent of her in, in ultra running world. He races almost every weekend.

• 35:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Um, and I don't know how many hundreds and, and longer races he's done, but it's, it's a lot. He's a, this was his sixth Badwater finish. He's done, I think Arrowhead 135 in Minnesota a couple of times, Brazil a few times.

• 35:49Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Um, he's done races, long distance races all over the world and, and then there's the hundred, the, the hundred milers that he's done in the US, which, I mean, actually today's, today's Friday, tomorrow morning, he's lining up for the Tahoe, for the TRT, Tahoe Room Trail 100.

• 36:06Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Um, you know, four days after he finished.

• 36:09Rich Roll?

  It's, yeah, he finished on Wednesday, right? No, Tuesday, Tuesday night and now he's doing another hundred.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  He's doing another hundred and, and he's done that before. I mean, a couple of years ago, he did. Um, and actually, I mean, he's not the, he, and the crazy thing is, is he's not the, he's not even, he, I mean, he's probably among the, the, the craziest, but among the, the most hardcore in that. But there's another guy, I don't know if he's, Heath, uh,

• 36:36Speaker 01

  can't remember his last name. He's the one who runs, runs in the 2-2 every year, the pink 2-2.

• 36:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that guy.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, Heath Straw. He's, um, and raised on this before too, there, he's, he flew, jumped on a plane to Vermont to run the Vermont 100 tomorrow.

• 36:49Rich Roll?

  But like, why?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 36:51Rich Roll?

  And what is the lifestyle? I mean, if that's what you're doing, your lifestyle is just, that's, that's your life. You know what I mean? You, there's, it really wouldn't be too much room for much else in your life, I don't think.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  I don't, yeah, I don't think so. I know, I mean, Ray works a full-time job.

• 37:05Rich Roll?

  Does he? What does he do to make money?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  He's a mechanical engineer.

• 37:09Rich Roll?

  Wow, so legit.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he's got a legit, full-time job. They must, you know, obviously they're, they're, they're accommodating. But, you know, most races aren't Saturdays. If he's, I guess, Badwater's sort of, you know, the exception in terms of Saturdays or Sundays. But just getting the training in and then the travel to the racing and the racing.

• 37:28Rich Roll?

  It's amazing, yeah. But there's also this weird thing, like, you know, a bunch of people ask me questions or tweet questions like, you know, what's recovery? What is the, what is the recovery after something like that? It must just be horrific and forever. But it's actually, I think it's different than what people expect. And, you know, here's an example. I mean, Dean was hurting, man. Like, he was, you know, he was struggling and not feeling good. And, you know, there were a bunch of times where I thought, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if he just says, you know, I'm bagging this, man. You know, like, I've done way better in this race. Like, what am I doing out here, like, way back from what I, you know, would like to be doing? And, you know, it's just not having his day. And he just never stopped. You know, like, he just persevered.

• 38:14Rich Roll?

  And, you know, during the end, I was like, man, he's suffering, but, you know, what a, what a persistent will that he's going to see this thing through.

• 38:24Rich Roll?

  And, and he said afterwards, like, I don't know that I've ever had to dig that deep. Like, that is some of the worst suffering I've ever had in a race. And he's like, I always forget how hard this race is, but really, honestly, you know, I think that might have been the hardest time I've ever had at this race. Like, I just really was in a hole.

• 38:45Rich Roll?

  And the original plan was, you know, after the race, we'll go out to dinner, da, da, da. And, you know, we, we were just like, we gotta get this guy back in the hotel room, get him sorted out and like, get him in bed and take care of him. And he, you know, sure enough, we get back to the hotel room. He's like, yeah, I just, I can't, you know, I can't deal with going to dinner. It's not going to happen. And, you know, we're like, it's cool, man. Just rest and, you know, don't worry about us. Like, we're fine. And he, like Ray, was, had to get to Vegas like the following day to catch a plane to go down to the Copper Canyon to run 100K race down there with the Taramara.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:20Rich Roll?

  You know, and it's like, he's like, I can't believe I'm going to get on a plane. And I, I have to do this 100K. He's like, I can't even fathom it right now. Like, what was I thinking? And, uh, and then the next morning, he's like, hey, guys, what's up? Like, he was like completely, he's like, I cannot figure this race out. Literally yesterday, I couldn't move and today I feel like I didn't do anything. And so what is, yeah, so, so what is that? How do you, what do you attribute that to? And I think that it's in part just experience. I mean, the guy's been doing it. He's so adapted to doing these things that his body can rebound more quickly. But I also think that it's, you know, people say, well, like, what kind of pace are they running?

• 40:05Rich Roll?

  And I'm like, you don't understand. Like, if you, you know, they're like, you know, walking, running, stopping, walking, running. I mean, it's like a march more than anything else. And certainly they're running huge sections of it, but there's, I think there's a lot more walking and marching than people realize. And so it's very, you know, it's the pounding on the feet for sure, but there's, it's also, it's not like running a marathon at your absolute limit where you're just, your legs are so trashed, you really can't do anything for two weeks. Like muscularly, I don't know that there's as much damage.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Probably true. I mean, if your feet, I, I've seen in the past, I've seen people who come out of that with just mangled feet. And then you're, and then, and then you can't walk. I mean, then you're definitely not racing this weekend.

• 40:51Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, that's different.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  But, you know, I mean, Ray was the same way. And you saw, I mean, um, a lot of these guys, I think you're right because you're not redlining, you're

• 41:02Speaker 01

  In order to finish, you have to stay somewhat on top of your hydration and calories and electrolytes. And you're using different muscle groups. You're running and then you're hiking and then you're going downhill and then you're walking and you're resting. I mean, not having done it, it's sort of easy to say, but you're right. It's definitely that it's not the that two and a half hour, two, two hour and 10 minute or whatever marathon where it's full bore, straight ahead, quad pounding, quad, quads and quads just pounding, you know,

• 41:34Rich Roll?

  Hammering.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Hammering every step of the way. So.

• 41:37Rich Roll?

  No, I mean, it's, it's, you really have to be patient too. Like, you know, the first 17 miles, like into Furnace Creek, everyone's of course running. And there was some cloud cover this year, which made it a little bit cooler than it usually is. And I think that people got a little bit excited and so they were, you know, they were, it was a foot race, you know, they're running. But when I say running, they're not running like five, 30 miles or six minutes. They're running like seven, 38 minute pace. And Dean's like, that's way too aggressive.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:09Rich Roll?

  You know, like that's way too fast. And 40 miles in, you know, he's like, this race hasn't even started yet. Like, it doesn't matter where, whether somebody's 30 minutes ahead of you or 30 minutes behind you, or you can't see anybody else. Like, you have no idea what's going to happen. And it's hard to like comprehend that when you're, you've already been out there for, you know, 10 hours or 12 hours. That you're just getting going.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Same. But it's, it's true. It's true though. I mean, like that Ray finished somewhere in the mid twenties, 20, 20th, 20th place. I don't remember like 26th or something like that at 37 and a half hours. And when we were coming to the top, you could see the line of people, I mean, down Portal Road and in Oremine, you could see all their lights. I mean, I would guess the average finish time is somewhere in the, you know, low 40s.

• 42:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, did you stay for the, uh, the, um, award ceremony?

• 43:02Speaker 01

  We did.

• 43:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah. We popped in for most of that. And, you know, when they, yeah, when they're reading them off, you realize like, yeah, a lot of, a lot of people, I don't know if it's the majority, but a lot of people were finishing in the 40 hour range.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  And so at 135 miles, that's 20 minutes, is that 20 minute, 40? I mean, that's, yeah, like around three miles and a little over three miles an hour, which. I mean, it sounds so slow, but when you're out there.

• 43:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  That's.

• 43:28Rich Roll?

  And the longer you're out there, the harder it is in those elements. You know what I mean? They almost have to have a stronger will than the faster guys to be able to endure and bear that for that long.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  That's true. I mean, they, because they go through, I mean, some of those people with a 48 hour time limit, you could potentially see three sunrises and you're going through the heat of the day twice and the cold relative cold of the night.

• 43:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Twice.

• 43:58Rich Roll?

  I get an email from Dean like six months ago. And by the way, like, it's not like we're buddy, like I met him once. You know what I mean? And it was, it was really in passing. Like it was a really quick, like meet. So, and then, and then I, I hit him up for a blurb for my book, you know, which he was nice enough to do. So we were, we're acquainted, but it's not like we're like talking on the phone or, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't really know him. And I get this email like, hey, you know, how do you feel about spending a couple balmy days out in the desert in July? And I email him back. I'm like, are you asking if I'll crew you with Badwater? Like I was, it was this weird cryptic email and he's like, yeah. And I was like, I'm not saying no to that. You know, like that's a, you know, once in a lifetime thing.

• 44:42Rich Roll?

  Like what a privilege and what an honor. Uh, of course I'll do that. Um, and you know, I'm familiar with Badwater and I know some people that have done it and thought I knew what was up. You know, like, but I had no idea, you know? And the one thing that, and I'm interested to hear like your experience with Ray and, and in doing it with, you know, and being there a couple of years.

• 45:07Rich Roll?

  What I didn't realize is that, uh, that Dean wanted, he had somebody pacing him every single footstep of the way for the entire race, with the exception of like maybe an hour, an hour and a half from like six to eight AM. Um, then the following morning from the start time where he wanted to run alone. But other than that, he, you know, he wanted to have somebody right on his heel the whole time. And the crew van, we would, we would never pull up more than a half mile or 0.75 miles for handoffs. So you're constantly, you know, attending to your guy. And I was like, Like Jason Coop, who is the kind of the main crew captain chief, who's crewed for Dean a lot.

• 45:49Rich Roll?

  You know, I asked him, I was like, so how much, you know, we just pace them at the end, right? Like a lot of these ultras, like you don't go in and start pacing until they're unraveling for the last 20 or 30 miles or something. He's like, no, we're going to pace them the whole way. And I was, then I had this moment of like, I'm in way over my head.

• 46:08Rich Roll?

  I definitely have not been running enough, you know, like I got worried. And my first pull with him was like three to 4:30 or something like that. Like going into stovepipe wells, which was kind of the hottest part of the whole race. And my heart rate was crazy high, you know, like just doing this tiny little jog. And I was hurting and I thought, I'm not acclimated to the heat. I don't know what I'm doing and like, this isn't like not, like I might be in trouble, you know? I might be, you know, I might just collapse, like, I don't want to be the guy in the crew who's having the medical problem, you know what I mean?

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, definitely not.

• 46:46Rich Roll?

  I mean, so is, does, it was Ray the same way? Like somebody's always running with him?

• 46:49Speaker 01

  That was the plan. I mean, and each time I've done it, that's been, that's been the plan. But well, that first 17 miles from Badwater to Furnace Creek, you're not allowed to have pacers.

• 46:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  But then from then on, so that's 118 miles for the next, for the last 118 miles, each of the times I've been there, there's, the plan has been to have somebody out there with him the whole time. There was one point in the middle of night where Ray was having a low point and we decided to try, and, and there were two of us who were swapping pacing duties and neither of us could really get him motivated or awake. And we were trying to figure out what else. We tried everything and our crew chief, Brian, at one point said, you know what? Let's give him his iPod, tell him he's on his own for, for a little bit and see how he does. And I mean, ESO and I, who were the main pacers, to our dismay, he got out there on his own and did, that was the best he'd done in hours.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  And so, so we let him run by himself until I was probably like. Two to 5 a.m. or something like that.

• 47:50Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Because once, once the sun rose, we went back out there. But middle of the night, he was great on his own.

• 47:55Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, but for the rest of it, we were, there was always one of us with him.

• 48:00Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, you know what? My only point of reference really was, was Ultraman and on the run part of that, like, you're just, you're doing hand, there really, there's some pacing, but really not much. You know what I mean? The runners are kind of doing their own thing.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:16Rich Roll?

  And so that was my first experience at a real like ultra marathon where that kind of thing goes on. I mean, luckily, like my, you know, this, the next time I was up, I ran, I think I saw you, it was right out of, um,

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Panaman?

• 48:30Rich Roll?

  Panaman, yeah. Yeah, and I picked him up and, and I paced him from like 1:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. Like, and I felt great, just because I, it cooled down.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:39Rich Roll?

  You know, and I was like, oh, I felt normal again, you know, like, and it wasn't like it was that warm. It was, it went, you know, it was maybe 90, 80, 70, and then it, just before dawn, it might have hit 69 or something like that.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Maybe, yeah.

• 48:52Rich Roll?

  But, um,

• 48:52Speaker 01

  How was he moving then?

• 48:54Rich Roll?

  He was, uh, he was good, you know, he, um, you know, we just, that was the ascent, right? So you have this big, long ascent. So, you know, I think that's the other thing people don't realize is that really nobody's running those hills.

• 49:09Rich Roll?

  Not that they couldn't if they wanted to, but the amount of energy that it would take to, that you have to exert to run, your pace is not going to be that much faster than like a steady march. And so it's not worth the energy burn.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:26Rich Roll?

  To pick up a couple, you know, an extra minute or two per mile. Because when, if you're just marching it, you're going to stay fresh. You're a little bit slower, but you still have like, what, 90 miles to go or something like that? You know what I mean? So a lot of it was just, you know, marching through the night and, uh, and talking to him, you know?

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think that, I mean, that, that's, because you're right, and most, even in the 100 miles, 100 miles that I've done, or most of them, you're not a lot of pacer until half, at least halfway through the race. So, um, it is a big difference. But here, I think, I think it's the, I mean, well, one thing I was doing, and I bet you guys did too, is carry a spray bottle just to keep him wet.

• 50:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, spray.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  And, I mean, and then there was a point where I'm just with him, trying to make sure he stays awake and try to assess what he needs. So when we get to the truck or to our crew truck, I could tell them because there were definitely points where he wouldn't have been able to communicate very well what he needed when we got to the truck.

• 50:25Rich Roll?

  And so all three times that you've crewed, has it been with Ray?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  No. No, this is my first time with Ray.

• 50:31Rich Roll?

  Oh, okay.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  I crewed my friend Blake Benke from New York in 2009, and then my friend Jimmy Dean Freeman in 2010. And both of them I knew beforehand. Ray I'd met a couple of times, but when I was at San Diego 100, there were a couple of friends of mine there who were helping me through some tough spots and I'm talking to them. And one of them, Brian Recor, was supposed to race this year, and he ended up having surgery and was, long story short, was able to transfer his entry to Ray. Or somehow Ray got in and Brian and these other guys were crewing Ray, and they asked me to come join. And I was more, I hadn't been there in a few years, and I was starting to go back and do it again.

• 51:16Rich Roll?

  And so how is it different athlete to athlete to athlete? Like, I think it's a really, like you were saying, Ray, you know, wouldn't always communicate to you what he needed or what he wanted. You know, Dean was very different, very direct, always knew exactly what he wanted. Every half mile or .75 miles, this is what I want. And then you go and you get it, you know, like...

• 51:36Speaker 01

  And he stayed on that plan?

• 51:37Rich Roll?

  Pretty much, yeah. And he was, he retained his, like, composure completely well, like, always like, "Thank you, you know, okay, could you get me that? All right, great." And then every time, sometimes there's a screw up, and he's like, "Okay, you know, just get it right next time." Like, he never got, he never did that thing that is very easy to do when you're that exhausted, which is to, like, explode and, you know.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, not, I've been fortunate. Each of the three guys I've, I mean, each of the three guys I've crewed were very different. But none of them, I think you're right. I mean, there's always, I mean, when I get tired, when I get tired, I'm not, I mean, just a little bit of lack of sleep, I sometimes, you know, I mean, I get cranky and angry, and none of them... I mean, I think Jimmy would, I don't want to, I don't want to call him out on the podcast, but I think he'd laugh about it. He got a little bit, uh, he got a little bit cranky and had some, during some of his low points, but, but even then, I mean, it's nothing, you know, it was never anything, like, never anything out of what you would expect.

• 52:33Rich Roll?

  Right. You're just like, okay, you know, he's tired. Yeah. Let's just like get him sorted out.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  He's fried. He needs something. He doesn't know what he needs. I mean, the one thing is that, but they were different and like Blake was very stoic and, and, and almost silent the whole time. Jimmy is, he's very talkative and, and, and outside of Badwater and he was still pretty talkative and pretty animated for most of the race. Ray was somewhere in between where he, had a very strong focus on just moving forward, but was more, a little bit more talkative. But still was hard. He, he, he, when he was struggling, he was, he got, there were times where he didn't, he got, he was getting frustrated because he didn't know what he needed to,

• 53:14Speaker 01

  you know, he's 20 hours into a race and he's having stomach issues or heat issues and he didn't know what to do to fix it. Frankly, I don't even know what, what did fix it, but.

• 53:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So what is, um, I mean, everyone wants to know, you know, well, there's a couple of things I want to talk about. The first thing is, so there's, there's, you know, the legend of Badwater, like, you know, you better run on the white line or your shoes are going to melt, you know, and don't bring plastic bags and all this kind of stuff. And, and I guess there's a little bit of wives tale to that and a little bit of truth. I mean, I think the pavement really was like 175 degrees, you know, it's like you spit on it and it sizzles, you know?

• 53:55Rich Roll?

  Does that mean that all the runners are, you know, running only on the white line? Like, no, not really. I mean, I didn't, you know.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  I didn't see that.

• 54:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I didn't see that either.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  I think that, you know, they do, there was a sign, there was a sign somewhere. Was that, was it at Furnace Creek that, or there was something posted that like a request to tourists to stop frying eggs on the pavement. So I mean.

• 54:15Rich Roll?

  Oh, I didn't see that, really?

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Or maybe it was on. There were some where it was actually, it's the first time I'd seen it, but I saw it this year. And so people must actually do that. And the pavement is hot enough for that. But you're right. I mean, I don't see people, you don't see people running just in the white line.

• 54:30Rich Roll?

  No. But you see people doing, you know, bizarre things to, you know, lower their core temperature. Like, you know, it seems counterintuitive that you would put so much clothes on, you know, so much white clothing in that kind of heat. But you can, those sleeves, they retain the moisture longer. So it takes longer for it to evaporate, which keeps you cooler longer. You can pack them with ice, you know, deflects the sun, like all these kinds of things. And, you know, did you have a dunk tank in your, you know, the dirty water, the dirty ice, the gray ice, what do they call it?

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, we just called, I don't even know what we called it this year. But yeah, we had, we had a small cooler that we had, like the bandanas and it was pretty gross.

• 55:11Rich Roll?

  Right. Like change of shirt, like you pull it out of the ice, you change shirts and put on the cold shirt or something like that.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  That's a smart idea. I think that in the past, was it in Dean's book where he talked about that big coffin cooler where he actually like laid down in it? Did you guys have that this year?

• 55:26Rich Roll?

  No, we didn't. I want to talk about that because he was telling that story during the race too, that one year, I can't remember what year it was that he was doing it where he was, he was really hurting. And this guy comes up, you know, drives up and he says, get in the coffin. And he thought he was hallucinating, like he thought like it was the grim reaper telling him he was dead, you know? And he's like, no, you gotta get in the coffin. And in fact, you know, the coffin is this, it was just the nickname for this thing that he had filled with ice that you could lay in to cool your core temperature down quickly.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:58Rich Roll?

  And I didn't see that out there. And I know that when Scott Jurick won, you know, a big part of his equation was like having these literally bathtubs full of ice that he could, that he would submerge his, he'd stop, he'd submerge his entire body in it for five minutes or whatever and go again. And that seems to make great sense. And I didn't see anybody doing it out there.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  I didn't see it either. And I never have, actually. I mean, I know that, trying to think what. I mean, you definitely, you have ice in the bandana, you have ice in the hat, you have ice, I'm sure in sleeves and shirts, but I

• 56:33Rich Roll?

  But the difference, the difference is that, you know, when you're, when you get that hot, you can throw as much ice on you as you want, but like you're overheated, like so short of stopping and going into a cool environment and letting your body like, you know, calm down, you're not going to be able to like get a, get control over it, you know what I mean? So the ice bath seems like

• 56:55Speaker 01

  I don't know why.

• 56:55Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 56:57Speaker 01

  I guess you'd have to have a big enough car. Yeah, I don't know why.

• 56:59Rich Roll?

  Maybe it's just because it would, it's too difficult. It would be too big and too unwieldy or whatever, but

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Smart idea.

• 57:06Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I mean, all right. So when you do it next year, we'll make sure that you have

• 57:09Speaker 01

  I'm a cop.

• 57:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  We'll see.

• 57:13Rich Roll?

  But, um,

• 57:16Rich Roll?

  and, uh, so, um, so yeah, to control the heat, you have the, I call them arm warmers. They're not, they're arm coolers.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  I guess so.

• 57:24Rich Roll?

  Putting ice in there, the, the, all the hats have, um, the flaps down the, you know, the back that cover your neck, uh, putting ice in the hat, the spray bottles, which are like these, um, industrial gardening tools with like automatic, yeah, they're like, and see, yeah, exactly. With like automatic sprays, you just literally, I'd just be running behind Dean with it on automatic and it's just spraying him, you know?

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the crazy thing is how quickly, I mean, especially during the, the heat of the day, you can douse shirt, douse the hat and within

• 57:57Rich Roll?

  It's dry.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Minutes, it's, it's bone dry.

• 57:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's dry. It's crazy. One question that I asked, um, well, Jason Coop, who is again, Dean's like main crew guy and he'd, he'd run, uh, Badwater before he, he's a, he's a, um, ultra distance runner, but also a coach at Carmichael Training Systems in Colorado Springs. So he like really knows his stuff, super experienced, you know, helped crew Dean, you know, in his run across America and like really knows everything. Um, and he had done Badwater. He did it with a stress fracture and I guess was in second place by the time he got into Darwin, where it just kind of unraveled on him and he ended up having to literally like essentially walk from Darwin all the way to the finish. You know.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  And what is that? I mean, mile 90 or something?

• 58:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, something like that. That's a long walk. I think he said he told his crew ahead of time, it's either going to be a 24 hour day or a 48 hour day, but it's not going to be anything in between.

• 58:59Rich Roll?

  So, but he was saying, I asked him, I said, well, why doesn't, you know, it seems like somebody should have invented

• 59:07Rich Roll?

  a vest with like, you know, those coolant packs in it or something that you could just wear that would be comfortable and wouldn't rub, but would like, would really keep your core cool. And I think that there's some kind of rule. It's weird. There's some kind of rule delineation that doesn't allow you to have anything to like new fangled when it comes to cooling your body. Like certain things are okay and certain things aren't. So I don't know where you draw that line.

• 59:33Rich Roll?

  But it seems like, you know, why wouldn't everybody just be wearing vests when you could just swap out those cold packs in them or something like that. But you don't, you don't see that either.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  I've never seen that. You're right. And they actually have. I've seen like they have compression clothes now that have that like, I've seen.

• 59:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Or like you've seen, you know, the time trial cyclists wear those when they're warming up.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 59:52Rich Roll?

  You know, they exist and you'd think if there was any place, there couldn't be any place more appropriate for those running bad water, right?

• 59:59Speaker 01

  That's against the, it must be.

• 1:00:00Rich Roll?

  It's gotta be. It's gotta be. So, you know, we're doing a podcast on this. We should know the answer to that. Like we're just a bunch of knuckleheads.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:00:08Rich Roll?

  You know? The other thing I wanted to talk about is the shoes. Everyone is like, what kind of shoes they wear? Are the soles melting? And I didn't see soles melt, but one thing I did learn, and again, this is a, you know, I'm showing my ignorance here. But I'd never seen these Hoka shoes that everyone was wearing.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:28Rich Roll?

  Which look like, kind of like orthopedic nurse shoes. Like they're the ugliest running shoes you've ever seen. But they're, all the runners are wearing them. And Dean was like, oh yeah, they're great. You know, they, they can, they can account for like 25, 30%. You know, better feeling in your feet. Like they have these huge heels on them. And I guess when the pavement's that hot or you're just pounding on the pavement, they're effective. I don't know, I've never run in them. Have you run in them?

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  I tried them once at, I mean, because they're now, it was probably, it's probably like in the last three years where they've really gained in popularity. And I tried them at a store in LA once, just ran around the block in them. It feels really weird. I mean, they're super cushy, they're super cushioning. And I guess, I'm sure that if you, if you run in them for a little, I'm sure you can get used to it very quickly. For me, I ran around the block and I decided, I was already predisposed against them. I wore pretty minimal, low-profile shoes anyways, but I didn't, I didn't.

• 1:01:25Rich Roll?

  You didn't like them?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  I thought they were too, a little too weird. But

• 1:01:28Rich Roll?

  They're definitely weird.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  But everybody I know who runs in them, I mean, the people I know who run in them regularly swear by them. I mean, would never, almost probably wouldn't wear anything else and

• 1:01:38Rich Roll?

  For like, training and everything?

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Training, racing.

• 1:01:40Rich Roll?

  Or just for like, running a race like that?

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, even trail races.

• 1:01:43Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, they, I think that the

• 1:01:45Rich Roll?

  What is it about them?

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  You don't, I mean, well, obviously, you don't feel the ground. So you have a lot of cushioning. And you can just, my friends who wear them say they just fly downhill. And I've seen them, because it's just sort of like bounding on clouds.

• 1:01:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  And you can just bounce, and I mean, fly downhill. I'm sure going uphill is probably a little bit harder, but

• 1:02:06Rich Roll?

  It completely counters the whole, like, Born to Run, you know?

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 1:02:11Rich Roll?

  Movement.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I think that, I think that, again, I probably shouldn't say this on a podcast where I don't know for sure, but I think they're pretty low, you know, there's that like drop, the zero-drop thing?

• 1:02:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  I think they are like zero or

• 1:02:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they look pretty even all the way across. It would look like if you just added like, two inches of, you know, padding beneath your shoe, like evenly across the bottom.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:02:33Rich Roll?

  Right? Like, they look more like moon boots than they do like, running shoes.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  But there are, I mean, there are a lot of

• 1:02:38Rich Roll?

  And to be clear, like, Dean didn't wear them the whole, you know, he wore lots of different pairs of shoes, like, but it was just, there were the ones that I was like, what are those? Like, I don't even, I've never even seen these things before.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  It makes a lot of sense out there. I didn't even think about it, like, the insulation from the heat, sure. And because I'm sure that the foot pounding is probably

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  Forty, thirty seven hours or whatever it is, thirty hours, just.

• 1:03:04Rich Roll?

  Well, and your feet feel the heat, you know, like I showed you my shoes after I'm done, you know, like I just wore my old worn out pair of Asics that were already like, you know, pretty worn in. And, uh, and just like, I think just because dripping sweat on them, the salt and then constantly drying out and the flexing, the whole upper mesh just like tore in a couple of places on both shoes.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Rich Roll?

  They just came apart.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure from the, yeah, exactly. That is baking in the sun for two days, a day and a half.

• 1:03:35Rich Roll?

  Right. So, uh, so what does Ray eat?

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Ray ate, he, he, he had a plan going in and then changed it as his stomach, he had some stomach issues. And so he started on mostly liquid on this, uh, it's an Herbalife drink called 24 that I'd never heard of, 24. I'd never seen before. Um, but you know, it had some protein, electrolytes, carbohydrates. And he started using that. His plan was to use that and then switch to gels much later. Um, but he ate, I mean, we had, he had sandwiches, he had some turkey sandwiches, he had that, he had gels, he had, um, Cliff blocks, um, he had a piece of pizza at one point, which the pizza actually helped turn it around in a huge way. I think he really needed that, that food.

• 1:04:24Rich Roll?

  Some real, real food, real big calories.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, but he, he was a little bit more, well, no, actually that's not true. Each of the three guys that I've crewed were sort of had a plan going in, but had, you know, boxes of other stuff just in case, and then just tossed all over the place.

• 1:04:40Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Yeah. I think for the crew, you know, when you pack the van, it's about having as many options as possible, knowing that, you know, there might only be a couple of those that the guy's actually going to want or use, but you have to be prepared for everything and you have to know where everything is. So the back of these vans are like very well organized. You have, like we said before, you have one cooler that's full of like dirty ice where you can dunk clothes and, and maybe, you know, keep bottles that are already full cool. And then you have one that's just, at least in our van, we had one that was just ice, clean ice for drinking. Then we had a drinking water cooler. And then we had another cooler with food, with ice on food

• 1:05:22Rich Roll?

  and like other like, you know, products that we wanted to keep cold, like coconut water and stuff like that.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's exactly.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  That's exactly what we had, yeah.

• 1:05:31Rich Roll?

  And then we had like one of those plastic chest of drawers where we kept other stuff like medical stuff, you know, scissors and tape and, you know, sunscreen and chapstick and different pairs of sunglasses, like all that kind of stuff. So you have to know where all that stuff is because he runs up and it's like, I need this. And you have a half mile to like drive up and get it and then run out and give it to him. And if you don't know where it is, you're going to miss that drop.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, we weren't as organized as that. That chest of drawers is a great idea. I mean, we had bins and that's how we'd done before, like labeled bins, those little plastic like shoe bin things. But to have it, but by there are certain points in the race, we were like, okay, well, where's the bin that has this?

• 1:06:13Rich Roll?

  Well, and stuff gets, I mean, you know, like it starts to get disorganized quick. You go in, it's super organized and then like 10 hours in, you're like, I don't know where anything is anymore, you know?

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  I don't know. I bet it was the same for you guys, but like that first, because you can crew in the first 17 miles, you're not where you're not allowed to pace or you can crew. And that's when the guy's moving the fastest and you're going every mile and those miles are going by in eight or 10 minutes. And that's always been, each time I've been there, it's always the most hectic time and you're wondering and you're talking because as soon as you get him what he needs that time, you're already planning and giving him for the next time.

• 1:06:49Rich Roll?

  It's, there is no break because you think like, oh, it's chill. They're running, you know, and they're going slow, by the way. So like you'll be able to drive up, you can hang out and relax. And then when he comes up, he'll tell you what he needs and you can walk up. No way. Like, yeah, it was like, basically, you know, they, and when, when somebody starts pacing them, they're carrying three or four bottles. Your runner's carrying at least one bottle, if not two. So they just drop all their empties. This is what we did. They just dropped, dropped them all on the ground. So there's four, five or six bottles suddenly like on the pavement. And then they tell you what they, and you're handing them the new ones, right? And whatever else they need, food or whatever. And then they're saying, here's what I need next. You got to collect all the empty bottles. You got to go back to your van. You got to rinse them out. You got to refill them with whatever

• 1:07:32Rich Roll?

  they want. Get all of that ready. Jump in the van, drive half a mile, three quarters of a mile up the road, hop out, get it all out, run across the street. And by the time you're there, there they are again. You're handing it off. And then it just repeats. And you know, 135 miles and you're stopping, you know, you're, you're talking about like 300 stops.

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  Probably, yeah.

• 1:07:54Rich Roll?

  200, at least 200.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, at least 200.

• 1:07:58Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  It is, it's amazing. I remember thinking, there's no way I'm going to be able to maintain this for however many hours it's going to take. But you do, I'm sure.

• 1:08:09Rich Roll?

  You get into a vibe.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  That rhythm where, and it does as it slows down. I mean, because there are like those 20 minute miles and 25 minute miles, where you finally get to catch your breath and think about it. But for the most part, you're just not, you don't even, you can't even really, you don't have time to think or take pictures or do anything.

• 1:08:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know, I know. People, people were sending me tweets and stuff saying, oh, you gotta do a podcast with, are you gonna do a podcast with Dean? And you gotta talk to Charlie Engel and like David Goggins and don't forget to get this guy too. It was like, I didn't bring my podcast. Like I knew, at least I knew enough to know that like, there wasn't going to be any time for anything other than being completely focused on taking care of your athlete. And as a crew member, that's what you're there for. You're not there for anything having to do with you. You're there to be of service to them completely. And it's a great, it's a really great experience in giving yourself over to somebody else like for their goal, you know? And it's like, I've had the good fortune of having people crew for me for races. And it's like, high time that I repaid that favor and, and have that

• 1:09:11Rich Roll?

  experience. And it's, it's, it's fantastic. And it really is, you know, it sounds like nonsense when the athlete at the end says, well, I couldn't have done it without my crew or, you know, we did it together. This is a victory for all of us. But like, you know, there's a lot of truth in that. Like they, you know, you really have to have a well-oiled machine to perform well at a race like that.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely true. I mean, patting myself on the back, patting yourselves on the back a little bit, but it's true. There's no way.

• 1:09:38Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. I mean, I think there's, there could be a sense out there for people who are listening like, oh yeah, it's great. You have crew. Like, oh, you just cater the race the whole way. You know, it's like, it's, that's not, I'm telling you, that is not what it's like.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  No, definitely not.

• 1:09:52Rich Roll?

  And, you know, it's, it really, it can become, it can become like a really complicated equation, especially when you have three, four, or five people crewing to get everybody in sync. And more often than not, there, you know, there's crew meltdowns and dissension among your crew and they, people are not getting along and they're sleep deprived. And, and you know, once that happens, like, your athlete is the one who's going to suffer.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Rich Roll?

  Because, you know, these two guys aren't getting along and are fighting.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, we didn't, I, Yeah, we were fortunate.

• 1:10:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we didn't have that. We didn't have that at all.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  But it's definitely, I mean, I'm sure it happens. There's no way it doesn't happen.

• 1:10:28Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, of course it does.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  You put five people or four, whatever it is, six people in a hot, overheated, messy, dirty truck for thirty plus forty hours.

• 1:10:39Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  You're definitely gonna get that.

• 1:10:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, um, so he's eating sandwiches. He had some pizza. He did do gels.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  He did, yeah.

• 1:10:49Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:51Rich Roll?

  And what was he drinking in his bottles?

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the one bottle, he did, I mean, a lot of it was just water. A lot of it was just, I, I mean, the, the crazy thing is, we started off and, you know, we're putting water in the bottles with, you know, some ice and a lot of water in the bottles. And then quickly realized that the better way to do it was to just as much ice as possible in the bottle and then a little bit of water in there because it's gonna melt in five seconds anyway.

• 1:11:16Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, we were doing the same thing.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. So he did a lot of water in the bottles, but he also did that, that Herbalife 24 drink. He did another, like, electrolyte drink. He did some coconut water. He drank some Coke.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  That, that was pretty much.

• 1:11:32Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  So, oh, he, he, some chia seeds that, that, that he used.

• 1:11:36Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, I think it's a really, I think if you polled all the athletes and had them make a list of what they ate throughout the race, like, they would all tell very different tales. You know, I think it's a really personal thing. And, and, uh, you know, when you start to get tired and you're really at the limit and you're kind of losing it, you turn into like this crazed pregnant woman, you know, with these bizarre cravings and, you know, either you don't know what you want or you have this very specific desire for something that is just downright strange. You know, like, at one point, Dean was, Dean said, "I want cottage cheese with avocado and potato chips mashed into it." You know, "Just put it in a bowl, mash it up with a fork." You know, it was like, "All right, you do it."

• 1:12:19Rich Roll?

  You know, like, just bizarre, weird things. Like, he just, that was what his brain was telling him at that moment, you know?

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Is that something that, that he had, I mean, obviously he must have planned on it, because you can't, it's hard to get that.

• 1:12:28Rich Roll?

  Well, we had all those things. You know, we had all those things on tap. I don't know whether that was like a go-to thing for him or not, but, you know.

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  It's such a weird combination.

• 1:12:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know. I know. So, but I'll, but the one thing, you know, I think there's also this idea for people out there that aren't familiar with ultra running that, or at least this race. That these guys are just drinking Gatorade and doing gels the whole time. And I can tell you that that is absolutely not the case. Like more real food, whole food than than not, you know, in the balance of things.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:58Rich Roll?

  It's too long, you couldn't do it. And Dean didn't, we had no gels and we had no, none of, no Powerade, Gatorade, none of that kind of stuff.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:13:08Rich Roll?

  So, um, and he would drink tons of water. I mean, and by the way, like I'm drinking, I'm hammering 16 to 20 ounces every 30 minutes, 20 minutes. And I was just getting progressively more and more dehydrated, just being in the crew. Like I only urinated like once, you know, and I was like, yeah, I was like, you know, and I couldn't believe how much water I was putting away. But he would drink tons and tons of water, but no electrolyte drinks, like no electrolyte laced anything. You know, and I was like, aren't you going to get hype on neutrimia, you know? But he would eat other foods and I think he's just so, I mean, he's so used to doing this on a certain level, I suppose. But it was interesting to kind of see what his choices are. I mean, a lot of coconut water.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:53Rich Roll?

  But not like, you know, he's not drinking like quote unquote, like electrolyte drinks.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Sure. Was he taking salt pills?

• 1:14:00Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:14:02Rich Roll?

  Jason, our crew guy, had some Enduralyte and I started taking those and I was like, I can't believe he's not taking, you know, he's not taking salt tabs. And it's like, no, he doesn't, this is the way he does it.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  Wow. Yeah. Cause I mean, we relied, all of us, Ray was, not, that's the other thing Ray was taking. We were giving him S caps, another brand of, of salt pills every 30 minutes or every hour at most. And then, and the whole crew was taking it as well. It's amazing that Dean was doing it without that.

• 1:14:30Rich Roll?

  Well, he was eating other things. Like, I mean, he, you know, he knows what he needs, you know, to keep his electrolytes in balance. And he's done that race where they got out of whack and, you know, I think he, he knows what that feels like. So we certainly weren't going to do that, but, but way more like whole foods than, you know, you would think for running a race.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:50Rich Roll?

  You know, and, and a lot less like artificial kind of stuff.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:54Rich Roll?

  So it was interesting, you know? I mean, I learned so much just to, just, just to be there and to witness the whole thing, you know?

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  It is, it's amazing. And, and I mean, watching people, how far, I mean, I saw it's Ray and I'm sure, and see like how far down people can go. And still come back.

• 1:15:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's the thing. Like you think, just because you're feeling horrible and you think it's over, that story has yet to be told. You know what I mean? Like you see people who look like there's no way it's, it's done, you know, and then they bounce back and pull themselves up and look like a completely different person a couple hours later.

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's, I think there were 90, I think 100 people in and 96 starters and I think there were 14 people who dropped or something like that.

• 1:15:39Rich Roll?

  81 finished, something like that.

• 1:15:41Speaker 01

  I mean, that's a pretty high finish rate and especially because if you look, I mean, there were people I saw out there who I did not, definitely did not think were gonna, were pretty early in the race, who I thought were not going to be able to make another 120 or 100 miles or whatever. And they do. It's really amazing.

• 1:15:57Rich Roll?

  I know. It's incredible. Like, so, you know, you finish the race, Dean finished it in 32 hours and change or whatever it is. And, and, you know, you're up there in the pine forest and he shakes some hands and does some interviews and, you know, you do the deal and then we're driving, and then you drive back down to go down to your little hotel at the, in Lone Pine, which is 13 miles down the hill from the finish line. And we're driving down. I saw you guys coming up. You know, you weren't that far back from where we were. And, and, you know, we went, we cleaned out the vans, we took showers, we got cleaned up, you know, we just, we took care of Dean, we did all that kind of stuff.

• 1:16:37Rich Roll?

  We went out to dinner, you know. And then, you know, you, and there's people coming in, you know, it's midnight and everyone sets up lawn chairs like out on the main drag in Lone Pine and cheers these guys on as they come in through the night. And then you go to bed and then you wake up the next morning and come out and there's still people coming in and you're like, oh my God.

• 1:17:02Speaker 01

  It's, it's great.

• 1:17:02Rich Roll?

  They're coming in at 48 hours, kind of the 40, you know, 42, 44 hour mark.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:09Rich Roll?

  It's amazing, you know?

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 1:17:20Rich Roll?

  The other thing is that there's so many people at this rate, I mean, everybody has to have their, you know, own like amazing life story, you know, that kind of led them to that place. And for me, like a couple personal heroes were there, people I'd never met before, like Dave Goggins was there.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:35Rich Roll?

  And I didn't even know, I didn't know that he was competing. I think it was his first time doing that race in like 10 years. So I think it's been a while.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  Has it been 10? I don't know. It's been a while. I know.

• 1:17:46Rich Roll?

  It's been a while. Maybe even, I could be wrong, but you know, he had, you know, he took that extended break from ultra racing. He had that, he had like a heart thing, right? That could have been his first one back, or he must have done something to lead up to this, but.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  He must have. But yeah, I mean, I remember, I don't think it was 10 years. Cause I remember when, you know, the story was some, I mean, or the story was that if he ever ran again in those kind of conditions, he, his heart, there was a good chance his heart would go out.

• 1:18:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 1:18:15Rich Roll?

  And maybe 2006 or seven or something like that, I think might've been the last time he did it. Yeah. So I don't know how that got resolved, but he was out there, man. And you know, he was running kind of toe to toe with Dean for a long time. So I was able to kind of just watch him and he was being paced by Ferg Hawk, who's a legendary character in ultra running. And he's, he's the guy who kind of, you know, sort of created Bad Water lore because he would, I think he was the first guy to put a treadmill in a sauna and train like that. Yeah. Like put winter coats on and put a treadmill on and go, go in a sauna and train. Cause I think he lives up in Canada or something to get the heat acclimation,

• 1:18:57Rich Roll?

  which just, you know, plays into the kind of elevated lore of Bad Water. But to watch David, and you were talking about how, you know, people come back from lows. And, you know, at one point, you know, I think his electrolytes were off or something was going on. Like he was having a low moment and was, was struggling. And I thought, well, you know, I don't know if he's going to be able to do it, you know? And his, you know, his whole quote thing is, you know, I don't, I don't stop running when I'm tired. I stop when I'm done.

• 1:19:27Rich Roll?

  I was like, we'll see, you know, and like, yeah. And then, you know, he kind of fell back to like, maybe 10 or 20 minutes behind Dean, but then we never saw him again. And I didn't, you know, we didn't know if he dropped out or whether he just fell way back or what was going on. And then he just kind of maintained that gap the whole time and finished, you know, right behind Dean, like saw it through, man.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 1:19:48Rich Roll?

  It's just insane.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:51Rich Roll?

  And then Charlie Engel, too, is a personal favorite of mine. Do you know him at all? He had an incredible race. I think he set the record for, yeah, the Masters record. So for people that don't, that don't know, he's an incredibly colorful character with an incredible backstory. Like he is a recovering crack addict and has this crazy like addiction and recovery story. You know, sort of gets his life back, gets into ultra running, does, does some pretty spectacular things in the ultra running world, including running across the Sahara. So you might remember him from that documentary.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:31Rich Roll?

  And then got caught up in some sort of real estate dealings. Do you know the details of this? I mean, it was, there was a couple of profiles on him in the New York Times over the last couple of years.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  He ended up getting busted for mortgage fraud. And I don't want to, I don't know, I think, because if you, you can read many different stories.

• 1:20:49Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, he, it was mortgage fraud.

• 1:20:53Rich Roll?

  So it had, it had, you know, it had something to do with overstating or understating income when they were kind of just giving out mortgages without really double checking on anything. And from what I understand, he really wasn't doing anything all that different from what a lot of people were doing, you know, it was kind of a standard practice thing. But for whatever reason, some regulator decided that he wanted to make an example out of Charlie and kind of took him to the mat. And Charlie ended up going to prison for quite a, quite a extended period, like two years, three years. I can't remember how long, but it was, you know, it wasn't like a short stay. And there was an article about him.

• 1:21:33Rich Roll?

  In either this month's or last month's, one of those magazines like Outside or Men's Journal, kind of about, a little bit about his experience in prison and how he tried to maintain his running. And he would, he did his own like self-styled Badwater. He'd run around the prison yard or the track, whatever track they had there, as much as they would allow him, like every single day, until he accumulated like 135 miles. And he got like a lot of the guys and a lot of the other inmates into running and, you know, has created a bond with these guys. And he's this amazing, dynamic, you know, character. And to see him like come out, I mean, he's a guy with nine lives, right? And then he

• 1:22:14Rich Roll?

  comes out of that experience and shows up at Badwater and gets fifth place and sets the men's record. I mean, it's a pretty incredible story.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 1:22:23Rich Roll?

  So you can follow him on Twitter at, he's at Charlie Engle, E-N-G-L-E. Should check him out.

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's amazing story.

• 1:22:31Rich Roll?

  So, I want to read that guy's book.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  I'm sure.

• 1:22:35Rich Roll?

  He's got it.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  Definitely one of those.

• 1:22:37Rich Roll?

  I hope he is. I want to read it, you know?

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  I guess this Badwater would probably be a nice like, final chapter. You know, I was super high and then I was in jail and look what I did. Now I've done that, you know?

• 1:22:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  Came out of that low and that life low.

• 1:22:52Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:52Speaker 01

  And set this master's record.

• 1:22:55Rich Roll?

  It's crazy, right? It's amazing.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Good story.

• 1:22:58Rich Roll?

  So, and I'm sure there's a bunch of people with, you know, equally amazing stories that just aren't as well-known as a guy like Charlie is, but.

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  Did you see the guy with the prosthetic?

• 1:23:08Rich Roll?

  Yes. Yeah. So tell, tell.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know. I meant to go back and look. I saw him on the course and then when I was flipping through some of the pictures yesterday on somewhere, I mean, it might've been in the BuzzFeed ones or somewhere else. But yeah, there's a guy with one of those like cheetah, the running prosthetics.

• 1:23:23Rich Roll?

  Right. I think he has one prosthetic arm also.

• 1:23:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. You're right. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

• 1:23:27Rich Roll?

  So I think, I think he's from the UK. I heard him speaking. Definitely had a British accent. He, I think it was a helicopter crash or something like that. I don't know how he lost his, and I don't know if it was in military action or what happened. But, um, yeah. He finished?

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  I think he did. I think so.

• 1:23:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You know, I don't, I think he did.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:23:51Rich Roll?

  I'm not sure, but uh. But it wasn't his first time, though.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:23:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:56Speaker 01

  And there's been other, I mean, there's a, there's that woman again, uh, that I can't remember her name, who's, who's done it with a prosthetic. I don't know if she finished. She was there in 2010 when I was there.

• 1:24:05Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, there's, it, it actually on this note, like last night I was going through some of the pictures online with my wife and, and in looking at the people, I mean, like you look at the front runners, like there's Oswaldo Lopez, who came in third this year and he looks like, he, he looks like a runner in the pictures.

• 1:24:21Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. I thought he's winning it for sure. When I saw him.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 1:24:24Rich Roll?

  He kind of ran off the front in the first 17 miles and just looked like, he looks like a guy who's gonna win the race.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  Exactly. But then you flip through those photos and there are plenty of people in there who, who, you know, you can't help but judge by looking at them or their, like, who don't look like they should be out there running 135 miles and those people finish.

• 1:24:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  It, it really, really impressive.

• 1:24:47Rich Roll?

  It is.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  How these people push, how everybody just pushes themselves. It doesn't matter. Like you don't have to, you don't have to be, you don't have to look like that typical runner.

• 1:24:56Rich Roll?

  No, no, no, no, not at all. Yeah. I mean, these are not like, you know, 100 people that'll look like bean poles. Not at all. You know, they, they, people came in all shapes and varieties, really tall people, really short people, slender, slim, little, little runner looking dudes and, and, uh, and people, you know, with a good, you know, extra 20, 25 pounds on them too, you know?

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  I mean, even, well, I guess David Dawkins isn't, isn't, but he, he's taller. I mean, there, there were some, like.

• 1:25:28Rich Roll?

  He looked pretty lean. He was, he was looking pretty lean. I mean, that's a guy who I think at one point was like 283 and now he's like 183. Like, I think he's like a hundred pounds. Let's talk about him for a minute.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:38Rich Roll?

  I mean, come on. This is a guy who like eight or nine months ago went for the world record in pull-ups. You know, like he's on the Today Show. They did a 24 hour, like, see how many pull-ups you can do.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  Do you know what he did? Was it like 10,000 or?

• 1:25:51Rich Roll?

  It was some insane number and he was, he was definitely way ahead of pace in terms of breaking the record, but then he injured, he had some kind of weird injury. I don't know if it was in his wrist or something like that and had to call it a day. Um. But here's a guy who's obviously, you know, an incredible strength athlete. Anybody who can do that, right? Some ungodly number of pull-ups and he's on national television doing it. And then fast forward, he's running Badwater. You know, like, who has that range as an athlete?

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  He's a Navy SEAL. He's a SEAL, right?

• 1:26:21Rich Roll?

  He's a Navy SEAL. He is, and it's certainly mental fortitude and all of that is a huge component of it. But, but to be able to have that level of strength and that level of endurance at the same time.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  Insane.

• 1:26:36Rich Roll?

  You know, they need to invent a new sport for that guy.

• 1:26:40Rich Roll?

  That combines those things better because he would be indomitable, you know?

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:46Rich Roll?

  So I just think he's remarkable. I think that guy is super inspiring and, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

• 1:26:54Speaker 01

  Did anybody do a double, you know, did anybody do a double this year?

• 1:26:57Rich Roll?

  I don't think anybody did.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  A lot of years they did.

• 1:27:00Rich Roll?

  A lot of years, yeah. So, do you know anyone who's done that?

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  Well, I know, do you know Danny Westergaard?

• 1:27:05Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Danny lives in PV or somewhere down in the South Bay. And he's done, I mean, and when he, when most people do the double, they finish. I mean, the original Badwater course went to Mount Whitney Portal and then went up to the top of Mount Whitney for 146 miles.

• 1:27:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  And so when people do the double or more, mostly they do, they, they, they finish. And then sometimes they'll go straight ahead or sometimes they'll sleep for a few, they'll back down, sleep for a few hours. And then climb Mount Whitney up to 12,000 feet or whatever it is.

• 1:27:35Rich Roll?

  14,000.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  14,000 feet, yeah, yeah. And then come back down and then go and reverse back to, back to Badwater. And Danny, I think he's done either five or six, you know, five or six, like, you know, so three back and forth or two and a half back and forth. I don't know how long it takes him, but yeah, I mean, there are people almost every year who do, at least who do a double.

• 1:27:58Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. I know Shan Frogrifer has done that and I think she did some at Mount Whitney to go back. And she, she lives around here. She's like the local ultra-running queen and, you know, she's well-known in Badwater circles and, you know, she's quite, quite accomplished. Unfortunately, she DNF'd this year. I don't know what happened.

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  I heard, I talked to one of her crew members and they said it was, I think it was much more than just, say, stomach simplifies it, I think. But I think she was having pretty severe stomach issues.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  I guess, you know. Like we were saying before, a lot of times you can come out of that, but there I'm sure those 14 people who dropped or whatever it was, they weren't coming, nobody drops that by choice. They were not coming out of whatever they were.

• 1:28:44Rich Roll?

  No, no, no. It's, yeah, I mean, yeah, no one, no one wants the NF and certainly not her. So I'm sure it had to have been considerable. To go out there, I rented a, I just rented a car down the street here at local car rental place. I was like, I'm going to take this into insane heat. I'm going to leave it there for two days. Like, I don't know how my car is going to handle that. Like, I just really don't want to break down. So I'm just going to get a cheap rental car. So I do that and I, and I, I drove back. When I got back the other night, or when I returned the rental car, what was it, Thursday morning, I pull it in to park it like here in Calabasas, you

• 1:29:25Rich Roll?

  know, and there's a Badwater crew van, like Shannon's, she was returning her van too. And I was like, because it's, it's so weird because when you're in that Badwater universe, it's like you're a million miles away from anything. Like, it doesn't relate to anything else in your life. And then to like, and then you put it behind you by driving away and you're like, all right, that's way over there now. Like, I'm back in my world. And then to like, see a van from that, like, you know, parked right next to where I was returning my car. It was like, that's bizarre.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  That's funny. Were the stickers still on there?

• 1:29:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, she had, it was all, you know, you people paint and draw all over their vans with their nerves and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, that's how I knew. It said, you know, number 15 Shannon.

• 1:30:06Rich Roll?

  So, what else, man?

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, it's, those are, those are the biggest things that, you know, I mean, the thing that, when I describe it to people, it's sort of like, because, you know, people are, my friends, even my friends who appreciate, some of them who, not necessarily the runners, but the ones who appreciate the ultra running that I do and the endurance sports. The question is, why? Or what, how is it, you know, because I come back and I'm all jazzed. I'm like, that's so much fun. And their question is, what do you mean fun? How could that be fun? And it's this like crazy sort of summer camp, or...

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  Crazy ultra runners where like the time at Furnace Creek, the few days before the race, you, everybody, people get to know each other because there are people who, I mean, this year, I think there were multiple people going for their 10th. I mean, Ray was on his sixth in a row. I'm sure Dean's done.

• 1:30:59Rich Roll?

  That was his 11th start, but his 10th finish.

• 1:31:02Speaker 01

  His 10th finish. I mean, there are multiple people out there who are going for their 10th finish. I mean, these people, and a lot of them have the same crew over and over again, or the crew has raced before. It's a pretty cool, like, community.

• 1:31:13Rich Roll?

  It definitely, it definitely is. It's a unique community. I mean, and you have, like, you know, you have, like, the crazy characters, too, like the jester. There's a guy who's run it, he's done it a couple times. Second or third time doing it. He wears, like, a jester outfit for the whole, like, a jester hat, but also, like, a whole getup, like, long tights and, like, all this kind of stuff. And the guy in the grass skirt, like, the pink grass skirt that you were talking about, Ultraman, there's a guy, and I was telling Dean, I was like, yeah, every ultra race has their character like that. Like Ultraman, there's a guy called Cowman. It's like a legendary.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Oh, I've heard of him. I've never seen him. Yeah, I've heard of him.

• 1:31:52Rich Roll?

  You know, who were like, you know, horns on, you know, the whole thing. So, something about these races attract those, those kind of guys, and they're great. And when we were at the pool, I saw you there, when they were taking the picture of all the athletes, and everyone's congregated around this pool the day before the race, at this weird oasis hotel. And I was like, oh, this is like, spring break for ultra runners, you know, in some weird way.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  It is. I mean, it's like, it's like family, you know, because you're right, that point you made before, you're a million miles away. I mean, your cellphone works, but you're so busy that you don't, it's not like you can be connected to, I mean, nobody's doing work-work, or very few people, I assume. And, I mean, even talking to your family back home is, is just because you're so busy and you're so wrapped up in everything, and your reception's not good. It is. It's like a, yeah, other world.

• 1:32:43Rich Roll?

  It is. To put it in perspective, though, Dean had, the day before the race, he turned in the manuscript for his next book. So, he had been there a week earlier, just training and acclimating to the heat, and trying to finish a book.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  He got it in the day before.

• 1:32:59Rich Roll?

  And then got it, yeah, and then got it in, and then runs.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:33:03Rich Roll?

  That's, that's pretty crazy, right?

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's insane.

• 1:33:06Rich Roll?

  I know. And then he was going. To Vegas to catch a flight to the Copper Canyon and then from there, I think he had to do like some North Face appearances in Chicago. Like he was on the road for like weeks, you know, like with this, it's, it's, it's quite a, it's quite an interesting life.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  His Copper Canyon race is tomorrow.

• 1:33:25Rich Roll?

  I, Saturday, yeah.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:27Rich Roll?

  Saturday morning, yeah.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  It'd be interesting to see. So that's, I mean, I'm sure there's a bunch of these guys. I mean, you know, like Ray, Dean. It'd be interesting to see or to talk, like, talk to them afterwards and see like, I guess they do this, right?

• 1:33:39Rich Roll?

  That's what they do. And like Dean was like, you know, we drove back through Furnace Creek together because I had to get my car and he was on his way to Vegas. And he's like, I'm good to go, ready to go, man. Like, I didn't know, I didn't think I would be the other day, but he's like, now I'm psyched to go down there and run, you know, like 100K, like literally a couple of days after.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  And a totally different experience where, I mean, any of these guys, even a 100 miler, I mean, the, what the US record for 100 miler is, well, these guys aren't running a US record, but I think Ray's done a 16 hour 100 miler and I'm sure Dean's done one somewhere in that range.

• 1:34:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  I mean, which it's still a long time to be out there, but that's almost twice as fast average minute, or yeah, probably twice as fast average minute mile pace. And if he's going down to 100K, I mean, the pacing is so different.

• 1:34:23Rich Roll?

  Totally different. Yeah. I mean, you know, you look at, you look at the course profile for Badwater and it's, it's, it's impossible to forget because it's on the back of everyone's t-shirt and they're constantly looking at it. But you know, the first third of the race is essentially completely flat, right? And then you have these crazy mountain passes and ups and downs and, you know, culminating in this super steep ascent up, up Mount Whitney. But when you look at that and that's, you know, all you have to go on, you think, oh, they're going to be blazing through the first double marathon, you know, they'll be, they're, they should be looking at, let's see, first double marathon, some of the greatest runners in the world, you know, I don't know, how many hours, you know, they'll, they'll be passing through that in like nine, you know, I don't know, something like that.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, for a double, you know, some of these guys run that. The guys do 50 milers and mountain 50 milers and five and six hours these days.

• 1:35:15Rich Roll?

  Right. So, so how many hours had, had gone by when we hit the double marathon mark for the leaders?

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  I don't even remember. I mean, I think that it took two hours to get to mile seventeen and that was the fastest two hours of the race.

• 1:35:31Rich Roll?

  Right. By far, oh, by a landslide.

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, by a landslide.

• 1:35:34Rich Roll?

  And that was the only place where everyone was really running.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  Two, it was, it was, oh, I remember fifty-two, actually, that's where I think I saw you guys first and it was cooling down. I mean, it was getting to eve, it was six o'clock at night. I mean, I think it was ten hours for, at least ten hours.

• 1:35:49Rich Roll?

  Oh, at least.

• 1:35:49Speaker 01

  At least ten hours for, for those fifty-two miles.

• 1:35:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think it was at least ten, so ten, some of the, some of the most accomplished ultra runners in the world and they're running a relatively flat course for most of that.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:03Rich Roll?

  And it's still taking them ten hours to run a double marathon. So, that's, that, that's, that's where you really, if you understand running and pace, like, that's where you go, oh, this course must really be hard.

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  I wonder what the, what the top guys do. I don't know, I'm, oh, actually, because you guys were in, so we were in the eight AM wave and so there, the three waves, there's just six AM, eight AM, and ten AM, and they seen them roughly by experience and speed. And so we saw, um, the first, the top three guys come through somewhere around, around mile forty, probably, and they were flying. I mean, they were still flying. So, I mean, but they're in a whole, I mean,

• 1:36:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a different thing.

• 1:36:43Speaker 01

  Even in this, like, whole different league, they're in a whole, they're in their own, like, different, different league, but.

• 1:36:48Rich Roll?

  One of the coolest things that I saw was, um, uh, Oswaldo, uh, Oswaldo Lopez.

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:55Rich Roll?

  And he's in a mariachi band, right?

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Oh, he is?

• 1:36:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's what I heard. So, and he ended up third?

• 1:37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was third.

• 1:37:03Rich Roll?

  He was third, right? So, uh, and he was leading for significant portions of the race and, you know, at the end of the race, he could have been pissed, you know, I didn't win or whatever. Um, we were coming down, uh, the hill after finishing, um, coming down into Lone Pine. And he was coming out of a ice cream shop and he had an ice cream cone. And he saw, uh, he had just gotten it. Like it was totally, maybe he had one lick off it. And he saw a runner making that turn to go up portals. And he just handed it to the guys. Like you take it and go. And he was like, he was just there supporting everybody. Like cheerleading people on. And, and I was like, just witnessing that one act of him giving that ice cream cone to that guy.

• 1:37:47Rich Roll?

  I was like, oh man, that's, that's what this is.

• 1:37:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:51Rich Roll?

  You know, that's the spirit of what's going on here.

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  Totally. He's a special case though. He's like, I don't know if, uh, he never stopped smiling. He's the friendliest, I mean.

• 1:38:01Rich Roll?

  He didn't look tired at all.

• 1:38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, he never looked tired.

• 1:38:03Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  Ridiculous. It's so ridiculous, the way that those guys, and the next day at the, at the party, he was like, at the, at the post rate, at the new awards ceremony. He's like bouncing around, running around, hopping, like, I mean, all, every, you know, it was amazing how good almost all the runners looked. But, well, not almost all, but most of the, a lot of the runners looked, but he was just like, you would have, he would have never known.

• 1:38:24Rich Roll?

  He looked like he just got back from a Hawaiian vacation or something.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Run a 5K the day before and like, I mean, he looked that good. So it's, it's, you know, again, I guess it's experience and, uh, I don't know what, I don't know what, how you do that.

• 1:38:38Rich Roll?

  Genetics, experience, training, but you know, he's, I mean, his attitude is, you know, that's just who that guy is, you know?

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true.

• 1:38:47Rich Roll?

  So it's pretty cool. Um, Michael Ornstein, uh, was there crewing for Oz Pearlman. Do you know him at all?

• 1:38:55Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, I, I heard, listened to your podcast with him.

• 1:38:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  But, uh, I don't, I never, I don't know him.

• 1:39:00Rich Roll?

  So he, uh, he was, he said to me, uh, before the race, like at the starting line, he's like, so, you know, is this something you think you might want to do? Or I said, I don't know. Ask me at the end, you know, either I'll like never want to come to back to Death Valley again. Or like, I'll just be totally jazzed to try to figure out a way to make this happen in my life. And so he, so at the end he saw me and he's like, so, and I go, I don't know, I can't, you know, decide. I think honestly, like it's impossible to deny the allure of it.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:30Rich Roll?

  As ludicrous as it is, um, there's just something so compelling about it because it's just so off the charts unbelievable. And why would you not want to kind of find a way to participate in that?

• 1:39:44Rich Roll?

  But also to, you know, in a realistic world, to have enough, you know, self-awareness and respect to understand that, you know, the road to showing up on the starting line of something like that is a multi-year thing.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:39:56Rich Roll?

  Like, you know, people are tweeting me, "Are you signing up for next year?" I was like, you know, they would never, you know, like, I have, you know, a lot of things to go, that would have to be put on the resume before that would even be possible. And even if, even if they said, "You can do it," I wouldn't do it for a couple of years. I wouldn't do it until I've run a couple hundreds and had that experience. I mean, to do otherwise would belie a lack of respect for that course and that race, I think.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, it's funny, when I, when I finished, when I finished crewing the first time in 2009, I finished and my runner, we were so jazzed. He'd done, he'd run a great race, had some low points, but not, nothing like I expected. And I finished and I was like, "I'm coming back here as soon as possible. I'm going to be here." And then as time has gone by, I've had the same attitude where I'm like, you know, it, it's alluring and it would be awesome to do it, but it still scares the crap out of me.

• 1:40:51Rich Roll?

  As it should.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it should.

• 1:40:52Rich Roll?

  And if it doesn't, you're not thinking clearly.

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  Right. And after finishing crewing, I wasn't, certainly wasn't thinking clearly because the amount of prepara-, like, mental preparation and just being mature enough, having gone through, like, it's, it's, it's wild.

• 1:41:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  Really, it's terrifying to think about.

• 1:41:10Rich Roll?

  So we'll see on the, on the start line next year.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't want to, I wouldn't want to jinx anything and wouldn't want to commit to anything yet.

• 1:41:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, oh, come on. I know you've got all your letters of recommendation lined up.

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, you have to have letters of recommendation. Elizabeth, my wife, she was like, because I was talking to her about it and she was like, "So what do you have to do to apply?" And I said, "Letters of recommendation." And she was like, "What? You have to have letters of recommendation to do a race?"

• 1:41:34Rich Roll?

  You haven't done that since you were 18 years old.

• 1:41:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  But it's true. I mean, and again, that's probably, you know, I mean, it's, it's a good part of it because having crewed, that person who's finished or who's competed can say, you know, this person actually is, does have the maturity, does have the awareness, not maturity, but the awareness.

• 1:41:53Rich Roll?

  How do you act when you get tired and, you know, can you maintain your focus and, you know, having crewed it? I mean, I don't think they should let anyone do that race who hasn't crewed it. I mean, how could you have any, you know, understanding of what's going on without that experience?

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  Right. That's true.

• 1:42:09Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I think, I think the Adventure Corps offices are like right down the road here. I think, isn't Chris Cosman in like Agora?

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  He's somewhere like, I know he's somewhere in this area. Yeah. That's right.

• 1:42:22Rich Roll?

  Cool, man. So, so what's next for you this summer?

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  I got, my next race is Run Rabbit Run 100 in September 13th, I think, in Colorado, Steamboat Springs.

• 1:42:35Rich Roll?

  Oh, that'd be cool.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  It should be. I mean, it's, it's, it's on paper, well, it's, it's hard to say. On paper, it's my hardest, it's the hardest 100 I've done. It's at altitude, starts at 7,000, spends a lot of time in the nine and up to 10. And it's, the crazy thing is you, it starts at the bottom of the ski slopes of Steamboat Springs and you go up a ski, up a ski, up a ski slope, like under the lifts, I guess, go up on some ridge, go down a ski slope, through town, go up a different ski slope. So it's, climbing just looks sick. But, you know, I'm, I'm excited. It'll be, the, the last one I did was supposed to be sort of the easiest on paper based on elevation gain and it crushed me. So, no telling.

• 1:43:16Rich Roll?

  So what does your training look like right now? And are you working with a coach or what is your program?

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  No, I just, I mean, it's, that's the other thing about, I mean, it is much simpler than, like we were talking about before. It's much simpler because I know that like almost every week, except for when I'm in my very peak weeks, almost every week I take Friday or Monday off, depending on how I'm feeling. I run at least once every other day. Usually.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  Usually Tuesday, Thursday, and then either Saturday or Sunday are my long days and Tuesday, Thursday are like 12 to 18 miles or no, I guess Tuesday's more like 10, Thursday's like 15 to 18. And then Saturday, Sunday, um, I do back to back long runs and sometimes that's like

• 1:43:58Rich Roll?

  But those are the only two, those are the only days that you run back to back days?

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  No, no, no. So I run, I mean, usually I run Tuesday, I'll do like eight to 12 on Tuesday and then like eight on Wednesday and sometimes a night run on Wednesday as well. And then Thursday's a long run.

• 1:44:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  12, 15, 18 miles. And then a lot of times depending on how I'm feeling, I'll take Friday off and do, and then Saturday is a long run. Usually out in the mountains, San Bernardino's for, or San Gabriel's, um, anywhere. Right now, probably, I mean, I'm gonna build up again. Saturday, maybe it'll be 20, 25, you know, get up to 30 miles and then Sunday, go back out and do 10, 15, 20 miles.

• 1:44:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  And then depending on how I'm feeling, Monday is either a, a short run or another rest day.

• 1:44:44Rich Roll?

  Gotcha.

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I try to run, usually I'm running like six, six, seven times a week.

• 1:44:49Rich Roll?

  And do you mix it up? Like this is a tempo run, this is hill repeats, this is an aerobic run, this is like a really hard run?

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, some, sort of. I mean, the, the Tuesday run, because the group I run with, we usually push it, we, we push, Tuesday's usually my fastest day and Wednesday is my least, excuse me, my least hilly day. So that's another fast, faster run. Um, but then especially Saturday, Sunday, those are, those are more aerobic, just, I mean, as much time on my feet as I can do.

• 1:45:21Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Five hours, six hours, five, sometimes I get a seven hour run in, but like five or six hours.

• 1:45:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  It's pretty regular on Saturday or Sunday.

• 1:45:31Rich Roll?

  And how's the diet?

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  It's good. I mean, uh, you know, yeah, I mean, I went, I'm like almost exclusively plant-based. I, it's, uh, it's hard to say only like, uh, there are times where, um, I'm out and I'm hungry and options aren't there. I, I don't, um, you know, I, I know I have like a, you know, a cookie, like for example, out, out there, I know I had some cookies and those definitely had dairy in them. Um, but. Pretty much exclusively plant-based.

• 1:45:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and the balance of things.

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  And I dig it. I mean.

• 1:46:02Rich Roll?

  So it's been a lot. You've been doing this for a couple of years now. Yeah.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  Every morning I make the.

• 1:46:07Rich Roll?

  I think it was gonna be like a two-week experiment or something like that when you started.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I started off, I was like, I'll do it for one month and see how it goes. And I, you know, it wasn't, I won't say that like I had a huge transformation in that month, but I felt good. And I really enjoyed it and I liked the mental part of it too. And I just kept going with it and I feel great. I mean, the energy thing is, everybody says that about plant-based diets. You have so much more energy, but it's true. It really, I mean.

• 1:46:36Rich Roll?

  It is true. And, you know, I was talking to Dean a little bit about this. Like when he was done and he was in his hotel room and we were gonna go get dinner, I was like, you know, you hear those stories, oh, he eats pizza while he's running and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, do you want me to bring you a pizza? Like, I'm happy to bring you a pizza. He's like, no, man, I don't, I don't eat that stuff anymore. He's like, I eat way more like you now. Like, I wouldn't, you know, I don't think he would say he's plant-based or anything like that, but, you know, the dude, you know, eats a lot cleaner than he used to. And he said his body fat has gone down from like 10% to 4%. He's super lean.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:47:13Rich Roll?

  And, and, you know, just really like tight. And I was saying, how do you feel? And he's like, oh, he's like, my sleep's better, everything's better, my skin's better. My, I go, what about recovery? He's like, insane, insane. Like, you know, and, and just waking up after bad water and how good he felt, like I saw it, you know, and like, that doesn't mean that he didn't eat, yeah, he had cottage cheese during his race. And, you know, when you race, you eat a lot of crazy stuff or whatever. And like I said, he would never call himself exclusively plant-based, but I think he's eating way more in that vein than he used to and he's playing around with it. And the guy has like a degree in like. Like biomedical science or nutritional science or something like that.

• 1:47:57Rich Roll?

  Like he knows from whence he speaks. So that was interesting and it's good to hear that you, you know, are still feeling good.

• 1:48:04Speaker 01

  I like the way it feel. I like, I definitely like the way I feel too. You know, there was, uh, my friend Jimmy, he paced Jay Smithberger, I guess is his name and Jay and his wife are both vegan or plant-based or whatever he thought. Yeah. And I didn't know that either. Um, but he fin- and Jay finished, it was his first Badwater and he finished pretty well. I don't remember exactly where, but he had a good race and so.

• 1:48:23Rich Roll?

  That's good.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  But I don't know if there were, I, that's the only other one that I sort of knew of.

• 1:48:27Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. I don't know. I didn't, I mean, I just didn't, I didn't know that many, you know, I knew some people at the race, but you know, and there's kind of some overlap with the Ultraman crowd or whatever, but not, you know, not very many.

• 1:48:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:48:40Rich Roll?

  But it was cool to see how international it was too. Like, I think that that's a kind of a new thing for that race.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:48:47Rich Roll?

  You know, I, you know, I think people like Scott Jerk or whatever, putting it on the map and now it's, you know, people flying all over. There were people from South Korea, Malaysia.

• 1:48:59Speaker 01

  Japan, Mexico.

• 1:49:01Rich Roll?

  Mexico.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  The winners this year, I mean.

• 1:49:02Rich Roll?

  Australia.

• 1:49:03Speaker 01

  It was, uh, Portugal. We got from Portugal and a woman from Camp, um, no, from Australia, who lives in Dubai.

• 1:49:08Rich Roll?

  Right. Oh yeah. She, I was like.

• 1:49:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Kath is a, she's an Australian who lives in Dubai.

• 1:49:13Rich Roll?

  And she, by way of Chile, but trains in Chile or something like that. There was something, uh, there was another country in there. I think it was Chile. There was some other affiliation. I don't know.

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  And second place was from the UK and third place, I don't know if, I don't know where Aswala lives. He's, I mean, he's Mexican by heritage, but I don't know if he lives.

• 1:49:29Rich Roll?

  I think he lives in California.

• 1:49:30Speaker 01

  I think so. Yeah. I don't, I don't know. But yeah, I mean, tons of huge international presence there.

• 1:49:34Rich Roll?

  Right. Right.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  It's cool.

• 1:49:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And like, you know, the Washington Post is putting pictures on their website.

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:41Rich Roll?

  You know, the other race, like whoa, you know? So as small and insular as it is, it still is attracting this kind of national antenna.

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:51Rich Roll?

  Which is cool. It's cool to see. You know, and I think it begs the question of like, where is this ultra world going? You know, there's this purist mentality that it's, you know, these races have been around for a long time and they're relatively unchanged. They're like national parks, you know, and there's a, there's a strong legitimate argument that it should remain that way, you know? And then kind of just the gestalt of modernism pushing it towards, you know, well, get sponsors and get money and get more attention and how much of that is good and how much of that is really undermining the purity of what makes it great.

• 1:50:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:27Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. I mean, like, there's, there's no money about it. There's no prize money about it.

• 1:50:31Rich Roll?

  No, yeah.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  Makes a big point of that, right?

• 1:50:32Rich Roll?

  We didn't even, yeah, we didn't even say that because it's like, I wouldn't even have imagined that anyone would have thought that, but I guess that, you know, we should have pointed that out.

• 1:50:41Speaker 01

  But there are now.

• 1:50:42Rich Roll?

  You get a belt buckle.

• 1:50:43Speaker 01

  The winner gets the exact same thing as the guy who finishes 47 hours and 59 minutes.

• 1:50:47Rich Roll?

  And they don't do a podium. And when you have the award ceremony, there's no podium with one, two, three. They just call everyone up, name by name, and everybody applauds for everybody and they all stand up there together. And that's a beautiful thing.

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, totally. You know, ultra running is, the race, this Run Rabbit Run that I'm doing is, does have a pretty big purse. And there are now a few races that have that. And I don't, you know, I don't know what, it's, it's hard to argue because these guys who are dedicated, I mean.

• 1:51:15Rich Roll?

  They should be able to make a living.

• 1:51:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So what I'm saying is, I see, you know, yeah, where do you draw the line? Like, how do you maintain that beautiful, pure aesthetic of what it is, but also allow space for people that have, are devoting their lives to excellence in this area to be able to support themselves?

• 1:51:32Speaker 01

  Right. I guess you, I mean, some of the races preserve that and some of the, you know, give opportunities for, I'm sure there's sponsorship opportunities that weren't there. I, you know, I mean, a lot of these guys have, I don't know how much money they make.

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  I doubt there there aren't many ultra runners, just like there aren't very many Ironman triathletes who are making a living.

• 1:51:52Rich Roll?

  Of course not, yeah.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  Doing that, doing sport.

• 1:51:54Rich Roll?

  It's be incredibly hard. I mean, no, I think, I mean, is there any ultra runner other than, you know, maybe two or three guys that you could name that don't have to like have a job, you know, like, I can't imagine there is.

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, I mean, I'm thinking maybe, you know, there's, yeah, exactly, two or three, maybe five in the world.

• 1:52:14Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:17Rich Roll?

  I hope Killian Journey doesn't have to work. No, there's no way.

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  He was, he was the one, he's actually the one that you think of as the top.

• 1:52:23Rich Roll?

  He's essentially the finest endurance athlete in the world right now, like bar none, so.

• 1:52:28Speaker 01

  He would think.

• 1:52:28Rich Roll?

  Somebody should be paying that guy a lot of money. I don't care who it is, but please keep doing it.

• 1:52:32Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, totally, totally. Most of, most of them, you know, I know, like, Michael Aronstein, he is, he is, he is a real job.

• 1:52:40Rich Roll?

  Family business, of course.

• 1:52:41Speaker 01

  All these guys have, you know, full-time jobs or part-time jobs or whatever they do, they have to, in order to buy groceries.

• 1:52:46Rich Roll?

  To make it work, right?

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it's, you know, it's still very much, you know, get the camper and the tent and like, you know, go, go park at the race start and pitch your tent, you know, there's, it's still a big part of what it's all about.

• 1:53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:53:02Rich Roll?

  So, it'll be interesting to see how it, you know, kind of continues to evolve because I think, you know, look, marathoning has never been bigger and half marathons and, you know, Ironmans and 70.3s, I mean, they can't make enough of these races and they all sell out. So, at some point, it's what's the next thing? And this is the next thing. And, you know, it's the uncharted waters. And so, people are going to start spilling into that, you know, looking for the next thing. It's, it's inevitable. So, it'll be fascinating to watch how that world kind of, you know, handles that and manages sort of responsible growth, I guess.

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it is because, I mean, now, I don't know how many 100, 100, like, 100 mile races are, but there's at least one every weekend.

• 1:53:47Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, even three or four or five years ago, that was not the case.

• 1:53:52Speaker 01

  Not even close.

• 1:53:52Rich Roll?

  So.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  The nice thing about ultras is that, I guess, I mean, all races sort of have this, but there's a cap on, I mean, like, western states, I think that their cap, you know, the, the park permits cap them at 260 or whatever it is. And so, that race. Western states probably most prestigious or most well-known 100 mile race in the US.

• 1:54:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:54:13Speaker 01

  And but it will never, never get bigger than 260 or 80 or whatever it is.

• 1:54:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:54:19Speaker 01

  People per year. And so it does, there's like that self, that automatic or internal control on the size. And Badwater too, I'm sure that there's, I don't know what the cap is, but I'm sure it's somewhere around 100 where, where, where Adventure Corps couldn't, couldn't get a permit to be on those roads with more than 100 people.

• 1:54:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's gotta be that way. I mean, I, yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It is a national park. Like, people don't realize that, you know, it's, it's a national park and the park service is a big part of what allows that race to transpire. And they make it very clear to you that you better respect them and respect the rules and all of that. And as they should, you know, as they should. And there's a lot of safety concerns out there with the vehicles and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it would be so easy to get clipped from behind. These cars are pulling up because the highway, you could be going 100 miles an hour and a car pulls out in front of you. You can't tell whether it's going 10 miles an hour or 60.

• 1:55:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:55:12Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:55:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's amazing that, that, I mean, I don't know, but in the three years I've been there, I haven't heard of any, you know, any major issues. I'm sure that, that, I'm sure that the park service, I'm sure there are little things that happen all the time, but I haven't heard, I've never seen a car accident or like runner get, I've never seen anybody get hit by a, knock on wood, never seen anybody get hit by a car or like, or anything like that. And I, I think that's testament to the rules that, that Adventure Corps puts in place.

• 1:55:44Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:55:44Speaker 01

  How conscious everybody is, but it is, it's a sketchy situation. It's open road.

• 1:55:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's, it's ripe for something to happen. I'm glad that it hasn't.

• 1:55:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:54Rich Roll?

  Made it through another year without any, anything like that occurring.

• 1:55:58Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:55:58Rich Roll?

  Hopefully they'll get permitted to do the race next year. So, you know, we can all go support you running it.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  Chris, Chris, this is not me. This is not, this is not me talking.

• 1:56:11Rich Roll?

  All right. Well, let's wrap it up.

• 1:56:13Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:56:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:14Speaker 01

  This is great.

• 1:56:15Rich Roll?

  What do you think?

• 1:56:15Speaker 01

  That was awesome.

• 1:56:16Rich Roll?

  Anything else about bad water we want to talk about?

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 1:56:19Rich Roll?

  We covered the shoes, we covered the heat, we covered the food.

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  Water, you know, I mean.

• 1:56:24Rich Roll?

  We talked about Ray, we talked about Dean.

• 1:56:26Speaker 01

  Did you guys think about how much, how much water, did you guys calculate how much water?

• 1:56:28Rich Roll?

  Oh, I did ask that at the end of the guys. And I was like, how much water do you think you went through? Like, how much, I go, all I know is I was drinking 16 to 20 ounces, like every 20 to 25 minutes for a good, you know.

• 1:56:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:56:41Rich Roll?

  20 hours.

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  We did, I think we calculated that we did 25 gallons of just water. And that doesn't include the ice that melted. I mean, a few hundred pounds of ice, but 25 gallons of water between five people, plus all the ice, plus the Coke and some Gatorade and sodas and coconut water. And I mean, I don't know what the total amount was of fluids, but sorry, that's the last thing.

• 1:57:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know. I mean, all, yeah, like, well, we had one, two, three. We had four or five coolers of varying sizes. And, you know, when we got into stovepipe wells, we had to get all new ice. And then when we got to Panamint, we had to get all new ice. You know, it's like, you can't believe you go through that much ice and water.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:29Rich Roll?

  So I don't know, do the math, man, you know, crazy amounts of water.

• 1:57:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Multiplied by 100 or 96 or whatever.

• 1:57:37Rich Roll?

  Exactly.

• 1:57:37Speaker 01

  The amount of ice and water that, that area goes through that day.

• 1:57:41Rich Roll?

  I know. Did, uh, did Ray have any hallucinations?

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  At one point, yes. Yeah, at one point, we, it was, I mean, it was so tired. He, we were walking up out of hill, the, the second hill after, like the last hill out of Panamint.

• 1:57:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, right. The one that you're at, it's like three in the morning.

• 1:58:02Speaker 01

  It's like three in the morning. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was middle of the night and I'm walking with him. He's struggling to stay awake. And he said something about some figures. And I was like, what, what? Like, oh, my God, I just hallucinated. I saw some I saw some people out there in the in on the side of the hill. That was the only one.

• 1:58:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:58:19Speaker 01

  Did Dean?

• 1:58:21Rich Roll?

  No, I mean, he was sort of talking to himself on and off, but he never he never became incoherent or anything like that.

• 1:58:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:27Rich Roll?

  But he was kind of like, you know, sort of talking affirmations to himself a little bit when he had some low moments. I mean, I know he's had hallucinations in the past. But didn't see he didn't seem to have them this time.

• 1:58:42Speaker 01

  My first year, my runner was, we were walking up the portal road and, you know, there's a cliff on one side. It's a cliff you're on the road on one side. It's a cliff down on the other side. There's a rock wall. And I think that maybe some rocks had fallen down or there was some noise. And he was terrified that all of a sudden it was a massive earthquake. I mean, for like a split second, he he you could see that the fear on his face. And I was like, what, what, what? And he's like, it's an earthquake. And I told him, and you know, I talked him down. He was immediately what was cool, but but it was like, he just like, he saw something I didn't see.

• 1:59:19Rich Roll?

  Exhausted, depleted, your electrolytes are out of whack. You haven't slept. I mean, you know, it's like.

• 1:59:24Speaker 01

  Can't blame him.

• 1:59:25Rich Roll?

  And you could anything could pop into your head, I suppose.

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:28Rich Roll?

  So, anyway, everybody survived.

• 1:59:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:32Rich Roll?

  Live to fight another day.

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:59:34Rich Roll?

  All right, man.

• 1:59:35Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:59:35Rich Roll?

  Let's get out of here. Yeah, man. Thanks for coming by.

• 1:59:38Speaker 01

  My pleasure. This was great.

• 1:59:39Rich Roll?

  Bad water recap. I love it.

• 1:59:40Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 1:59:41Rich Roll?

  People are gonna dig it, I think. So.

• 1:59:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, thanks, man. And good luck with the race in September.

• 1:59:46Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:59:47Rich Roll?

  And we're gonna do some hill training, right?

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:49Rich Roll?

  On Wednesdays?

• 1:59:50Speaker 01

  I'll be there.

• 1:59:51Rich Roll?

  All right, man.

• 1:59:51Speaker 01

  That'd be great.

• 1:59:51Rich Roll?

  I dig it. What about Billy? So you can show up?

• 1:59:54Speaker 01

  I'll get him out there. Yeah, he's got he's doing 50 K in two weeks, but then he'll be he'll be right back out.

• 1:59:59Rich Roll?

  All right, cool.

• 2:00:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:01Rich Roll?

  All right, everybody.

• 2:00:02Speaker 01

  Thanks, Rich.

• 2:00:03Rich Roll?

  Thanks, Josh.

• 2:00:03Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:00:04Rich Roll?

  Take it easy.

• 2:00:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:05Rich Roll?

  Peace. Plants.

• 2:02:29Speaker 02

  The.