4,000 Kilometers On Foot: Nedd Brockmann’s Epic Run Across Australia

Imagine running 2,500 miles across Australia, in some of the most brutal conditions on Earth, in under 50 days. This is the remarkable story of today’s guest Nedd Brockmann. A charismatic young electrician apprentice with a legendary bleach blonde mullet and world-class personality, at just 23 years old, Nedd audaciously set out to become the fastest person to ever run across his native Australia–4000km (2,500 miles) from Perth to Bondi Beach in Sydney. This is a phenomenal conversation in which we unpack Nedd’s extraordinary and inspiring journey. We cover why he got into running, how he progressed so quickly, and the intrinsic motivation behind his trans-Australia adventure. Nedd shares how he grapples with hardship—including his post-run PTSD. But more than anything, today’s conversation is about what we can all learn from his example when it comes to human potential and the power we all have to do amazing things when the mind, body, and spirit are dialed in. I loved getting to know him—and I know you will too. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: ROKA: http://www.roka.com/ Whoop: http://www.whoop.com/ Calm: http://www.calm.com/richroll Express VPN: http://www.expressvpn.com/RICHROLL Athletic Greens: http://www.athleticgreens.com/richroll Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:19Speaker 01

  There was never any doubt in my mind I'd get there. I just didn't know how that would work.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Ned Brockman. Ned Brockman. An absolute legend of a man.

• 1:29Speaker 03

  Running a whopping 3,800 kilometers from Perth to Sydney.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Day one.

• 1:35Speaker 04

  In pouring rain, strong headwinds, blaring sun, and pain no normal human should cope with.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  And I've never been in so much pain. I'm just wriggling, like, in terms of the run pain. And I'm just like, my eyes are on the back of my head, and I'm going, this is, what am I doing? Like, I am in the middle of freaking South Australia, and the doctor goes, "Look, mate, it is gonna fucking kill you to run." But it was never like, "I'm gonna quit."

• 2:05Speaker 03

  Ned Brockman reached his goal of raising a million dollars. He raised more than that to combat homelessness.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  The 23-year-old sparky receiving a rock star reception as he ran the final steps to Bondi Beach.

• 2:20Rich Roll?

  Today, I have the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Ned Brockman. In this conversation, we cover why he got into running, how he progressed so quickly, the motivation behind his trans-Australia adventure, the many extraordinary obstacles that he faced and overcame along the way, including a near debilitating injury suffered early in the campaign. We discuss his post-run PTSD, how he's dealing with sudden overnight fame, his new role as an inspirational figure. Most importantly, what we can all learn from his example when it comes to human potential and the power we all have to do amazing things

• 3:03Rich Roll?

  when the mind and the body and the spirit are totally dialed in. And also, this insane story about his toe becoming maggot-infested.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  40K into the run, it's pissing down rain, and I thought it must be water in my toe. So I pulled my socks off, and then I'm like, I've got maggots in my toe. There was like five maggots in there.

• 3:24Rich Roll?

  Ned is the real deal. As they say down under, he's a bloody legend. I love getting to know him a bit, and this one is both fun and inspiring. I've got a couple more things I would very much like to mention before we dig into this one, but first.

• 3:44Rich Roll?

  Special thanks before we get into it to Peter Ostick and Gary Garro of Soma Byron, which is the most extraordinary and gorgeous meditation retreat center I have ever visited. They graciously allowed me to host this conversation at their exquisite facility. If you ended up watching the Nicole Kidman Limited Series: Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu and wondered, what is that beautiful place? That is Soma. That show was filmed almost entirely at Soma. And Peter also hosts a great meditation mindfulness-themed podcast called The Soma Collective Podcast, on which I was a guest recently, so check that out. Anyway, thank you, Gary. Thank you, Peter. So here we go. This is me and Ned Brockman.

• 4:30Rich Roll?

  I'm super excited to be with you here today. A legend in flesh. I'm on my sabbatical here in Byron Bay and typically I don't do any podcasts or any work. I try to avoid everything, but come on, man. I'm here. I gotta get together with Ned.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  We have to make it happen.

• 4:48Rich Roll?

  I know, and you drove eight hours from Sydney to come up here?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, we just established that you flew 15, so I made it part way, eight hour drive. We're here now, so I'm very excited.

• 4:59Rich Roll?

  I appreciate it, man. I was just so enthralled and enamored, not just by the sheer kind of physical and mental feat of you running across Australia, but really, you know, how you comported yourself throughout that experience and the manner in which you shared all your vulnerabilities throughout that insane adventure. I'm excited to unpack it with you. And I think, you know, in thinking about, you know, why I wanted to do this and what makes you special, as you might suspect, I'm on the receiving end of a lot of messages alerting me about this person and that person doing, there's always somebody doing something crazy, right?

• 5:41Speaker 01

  I can imagine.

• 5:43Rich Roll?

  And after a while, I sort of become immune to it. I'm like, okay, that's cool. Amazing, you know, hat off to that person. But it, those feats have become less and less interesting to me unless there's a compelling story behind it. And you're such a unique character. I think I said to a friend, like, this guy is not only supremely authentic, he is also like the most Aussie, Aussie in the history of all Aussies. Like, you're a full-on character, dude.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  I guess, I guess the lingo is, is strong in me and the mullet and the tradie, I guess. Yeah, it's pretty Aussie.

• 6:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had the honor to talk to a bunch of guys who've run across the United States. Helis Adibay, Robbie Ballinger, I did one with Mike Wardian that hasn't come up yet, Ricky Gates. I reached out to all those guys and I was like, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be getting together with Ned and they're all fired up. Like, they all followed you and they're all like massive fans.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:48Rich Roll?

  And I asked them for some questions to ask you, which we'll get to.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Amazing. No, I'm pumped. And yeah, I actually, like Robbie and Hella, I remember a message would be Robbie a bit.

• 6:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Robbie said he talked to your crew recently, I guess.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's just like, you know, to have that, you know, I kind of, it's now almost worldwide. There's people all over, all over the country has been able to, been able to talk to about their experiences. And it's been, yeah, pretty, pretty wild.

• 7:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's the best of what social media has to offer. Social media has a lot of problems, but.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  A lot more negative than positive, but when you can use it for the good.

• 7:22Rich Roll?

  The ability to just inspire people all over the world without any kind of filter or middleman.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 7:28Rich Roll?

  Powerful thing. And you were like this amazing example of that.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you.

• 7:32Rich Roll?

  See people all over the world. But what clinched it for me was, you know, I was, you know, I was like, oh, this guy's Ned's doing this. Okay, I'm sort of paying attention from a distance. Like, that's cool. But it wasn't until you rolled into Bondi and I saw thousands of people there. And I was like, what the fuck is going on? How did that happen? Because my friends who've run across the United States, they finish, their friends are there, family's there. It's pretty uneventful in terms of, you know, kind of mass enthusiasm about that accomplishment. But in your case, it felt like the entire country was just holding their breath, waiting for you to finish this thing.

• 8:15Rich Roll?

  And the, the kind of reception that you received at the, at the, at the finish line was something I've never seen. Like, how did that, is that just an Australian thing? Or like, what was that about?

• 8:26Speaker 01

  I think the Aussie thing was a part of it, but I also think it was quite a, I would almost say it's been a pretty crappy time for people. And kind of coming out of COVID and it's been like, everyone's trying to do more stuff now. And so this, it was almost this shining light in a kind of, you know, crappy time. And so people were just relying on me to show up each day and kind of used me as a fuel for them. And yeah, by, you know, I was, I was showing up and I got quite injured along the run and, and, but I was showing my, as you said, vulnerability. Day in, day out, whether I was feeling amazing, I'd be screaming at the thing, saying, I'm feeling amazing. Or I'd be crying and, and just showing all the hurt I was feeling.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  I think people were like, oh my God, if this, you know, powerful person can do this, I can too, and I can get behind it. And, and so, yeah, the, the further and further I got and the more and more I showed myself and what I was doing. And like the, the original goal was 100K a day and which is 60 odd miles, 62 miles. And I stuck to that, stuck true to that for the first 11, 12 days and then got a pretty severe shin injury. And I kind of, I went, disappeared for one day on social media. I was so present, you know, posting my daily update.

• 9:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there was a gap on the Instagram feed for a couple of days there.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  I reckon, I reckon I got a good hundred messages going, mate, are you okay? And meanwhile, I was 14 hours away from where I'd marked the pink line on the road and getting an injection and trying to work out a plan to get back and get running again. And then, yeah, the day after, I just screamed, "Let's fucking go!" on the screen. And then people were just like, "Oh my God, he's back." And it just, yeah, built this momentum, which was just, gives me goosebumps thinking about Bondi, like that, those scenes there and coming down. And I wish I could relive it, but it was such, it was over in a flash.

• 10:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:16Rich Roll?

  I've, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the power of, of inspiration and the difference, the qualitative difference between aspiration and inspiration. So I know, like, David Goggins is like a North Star for you. He's somebody who's unbelievably, you know, powerful in his ability to motivate people and, and be this, you know, kind of beacon of inspiration. But there's something inaccessible about him because he's so extreme, right? And he's so taciturn. And, and so I think it's a challenge for somebody to kind of emotionally relate to his interior experience because it's so, you know, on the far end of that

• 10:59Rich Roll?

  spectrum. Whereas you fall more into this, you know, kind of in the middle between aspiration and inspiration because people can see themselves in you because of that willingness on your part to be vulnerable, to show the warts and to talk about how much you're hurting and how much you hate it, like how it sucks and like all of that.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Even like, like for me, Goggins was a not, it still is a big form of inspiration for me. And it kind of kicked my mindset into gear, like kind of kicked me into a, oh, you can actually tap into that and start doing more, you know, with your day and start running more and start, you know, doing uncomfortable things. And then I was exactly that. I found that it's not all about staying hard all the time. Like I tried to emulate that a bit, but it just, you will burn out. Like there is no, I just don't know how. It's possible to continue to be like that because if you do something, for example, run across the country and, you know, averaging eighty K a day or eighty five plus, you are going to crash at the end of that.

• 12:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's not going to go smooth.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  No, and you're like, your adrenal fatigue, your mental state and that, you know, you have to keep showing up and you have to keep getting in that mindset of fight or flight every day. So when you do get out of that, it's like your body's going, oh, he's resting now. Let's chill out. And if you keep trying to fight that, it's just gonna, it's gonna end badly.

• 12:21Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  So I think there's beauty in getting really uncomfortable and showing up when it's the time to. But when it is the time to not, it's like, allow yourself to relax and appreciate what your body's done for you. Because, you know, you've only got one of them, you've only got one set of legs. It's like, you've got to, you know, allow it to be, be settled, settle down.

• 12:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, uh, we're gonna go through all of it, but I want to start with, uh, like how you're doing now. Because in the postmortem, how many months has it been now? Like three months? About three months, right? Like, so how is the body doing? How are you doing physically? And how are you doing emotionally? Like, what has this, you know, couple of months been like for you?

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been, it's been interesting and it's like, I don't really know how you navigate these things unless you do a lot of them, right? My physically, I'm actually pretty good now. Uh, I've still got like, you know, fat pad and my feet issues. Cause I was running on just tar, no dirt, no grass.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  And then I've got like, had a few hip wear and tear, like, uh, glute, knee tendons. But other than that, I'm pretty, pretty good, to be honest. I've been running, um,

• 13:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you started back a little bit.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  And strength training in the gym, stretching, doing all this stuff emotionally and like, Um, you know, spiritually, I'm like exhausted.

• 13:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Still not waking up like I usually in the in the go time. I'm a four AM wake up, go, go, go. You know, um, there's no stopping. But now I'm like, it's like six AM and I'm like, open my eyes and like, what's going on here? Um, sun's up, so that's usually a bit hard for me when I see the sun up. When I'm usually used to getting up before it and go getting it. Um, but I I'm I'm getting there. It's like I had a rough, I had a rough, probably month in the middle where I almost a lack of purpose. So you've, you know, I've had this idea of this two year goal, got the goal, woke up every day thinking about it. Went to sleep, thinking about it every night. And then to be finished and then to, you know, have nothing almost to push for.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  It's not that I don't have any other goals or any other, you know, happiness in my life. It's just that when you're so devoted to something, it's really hard to, you know, oh, amazing. Now let's get on with the next thing. It's like, I've got to, you know, be be okay with sitting back and trying to ponder what I've just done and and and appreciate it, you know? So, yeah, I had a had a tough four month, uh, four, four weeks or so where I just found myself a bit lost. Um, but yeah, I I guess I've, I think that's probably the lack of exercise too, to be perfectly honest. When you're moving for seventeen hours a day, you need to, uh, uh, you know, you go cold turkey on it. You're not going to be able to feel that same excitement. So, uh, but yeah, I'm actually, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at at the moment.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  And I've just got to appreciate that my body has done a lot for me.

• 15:17Rich Roll?

  But you did, you have talked about PTSD, like night terrors. The alarm would go off and send you into a panic, thinking you have to get up and run a hundred K.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  I still.

• 15:28Rich Roll?

  And like the kind of, you know, the emotional residue of of like enduring that trauma and having such an intense experience.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And the the PTSD, I think that started probably ten days into the run, to be honest, because I'm. Like Australia, it's, I don't know about America. I know it's pretty, there's a lot of people in America, but it's pretty similar distance running across as running across Australia or a thousand, probably a thousand K.

• 15:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's well, four thousand K versus like thirty one hundred miles.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. So five and a bit.

• 15:56Rich Roll?

  It's in the range, I guess.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  So it's, it's, yeah. So for me, it's like when you get out of WA, so Western Australia, after about four hundred K, it's pretty remote. So you go from civilization and people to maybe a town every two hundred kilometers. And then in the middle of it, there's nothing for like eight hundred kilometers.

• 16:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a mind fuck.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so when you get to, um, so you go, you head east, you go down and then you literally, at, um, it's called Norseman, you head across and you don't see really any people until you hit New South Wales, to be perfectly honest. Um, and so that's scary. And knowing that you've had, you've got nine hundred kilometers in your legs, you've got a good eleven day stint of running a hundred kilometers a day with no healthcare, not really any access to good food. Um, you know, you're very isolated, no service. So you can't reach out to many people if, you know, it does go wrong. So that gets you incredibly, uh, on edge. And so the fact that it was feeling like I was

• 17:02Speaker 01

  almost going to war, like, okay, this is it. We're going. This is, we're out in the depths of hell here. Um, so yeah, I think I, knowing I had to put my head and body through that, when I would go to sleep of a night in one of these road houses, which is all that they have in these towns, is just like a place to sleep.

• 17:19Rich Roll?

  Um, I mean, what are those? Like bunk houses or something? Are they like motels?

• 17:23Speaker 01

  They're just like fuel stations with a few beds in them.

• 17:25Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Um, and the food is like, it's your pub grub steak or chicken schnitzel or,

• 17:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Um, you're not getting like, it'd be tough to be a vegan out there. I'll tell you that.

• 17:36Rich Roll?

  Vegan pad thai.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, no, definitely not. Um, and so for me, I'm like, well, and even like the chicken schnitzel, chips and veggies. It's like, I've got all the oils and all this. It's like, not the greatest nutrition, but for me, I was just craving this, whatever I could get there, I would eat, you know?

• 17:51Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Um, and so of a night, of a night on the run, I would be waking up in the middle going, who's taking me back? So I would have these like out of body feelings. I'd be waking up going, oh, fuck, I'm three hundred meters, three hundred kilometers. Back from where I was. So I'd wake up in this terror of, oh no, I've got to run an extra 300 kilometers on top. Like someone's taking me back in the middle of the night. Um, but yeah, so a culmination of all that. And when I did finish, I was, cause there's so many road trains as well, like, you know, 50 meters long, 120 plus tons. So that wind, when it's coming at you is like.

• 18:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Road trains are just the 18 wheelers, the big, the trucks, the cargo trucks.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. The 18 wheeler is one carriage. So there's like four carriages.

• 18:35Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. They, they're like, Australia's pretty well run off trucks. Um, where they're just going every three minutes probably across the country. So that road I run is really only for trucks, to be honest.

• 18:47Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  And so they, they would just go every three minutes. So I would, even if I had music, there'd just be this like,

• 18:55Speaker 01

  I pass you every time. And so when it, when you're in that mode, it's like, it's just, you, you can't control it. But you still like, there's nothing you can do about it.

• 19:06Rich Roll?

  And there's no shoulder really, right?

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely not. And any, if I was to run on the like rocky dirt on the side, it'd be on a tilt of 30 degrees, which meant, you know, my body's out of line.

• 19:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  So yeah, definitely no shoulder. The shoulder was all of a foot. And so I'm getting brushed and I'm, you know, some trucks were pretty good to me, but a lot were like, get off the fucking road, mate. Um, and so, yeah, I just, when I finished the run, I was probably for the first week out, I'd wake up and just like screaming, just going like dodging trucks in my sleep and, you know, like going, oh no, I'm back on the road. Um, and so, yeah, that, that, that hurt a bit, but I got on top of that and I'm, I'm not still thinking about trucks at night.

• 19:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And what about the brain? Like I, I, I've spent time with, uh, the Iron Cowboy, James Lawrence.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, incredible. He was a massive inspiration to mine too.

• 19:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I was, I was, uh, I was there for the final day of his 100, you know, consecutive Ironmans and.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  How is he going?

• 20:05Rich Roll?

  Say, well, he's, he's, you know, he, he's been pretty transparent about how difficult the recovery has been. And the brain fog and, you know, his inability to like. He's probably, I'm sure he's fine now, or at least mostly fine. But, you know, he was concerned that his body might not ever recover. His brain was having difficulty. I know you talked about some brain fog stuff. I mean, you know, sort of healing the shin and all that other stuff is one thing. But, you know, your cognition and just the emotional, like, you know, waking, like you talked about, like spitting all the time. Cause you're used to doing that. You couldn't stop spitting afterwards.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Again, I woke up in the middle of my, after the run, spat at the wall. My girlfriend was like, you can't do that, mate. It was, it was like, it was traumatic.

• 20:51Rich Roll?

  Cause you're getting the, the red dust.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, just so much dirt. And I even, I even had like my AirPods in all the time, right? And so I must've just been pushing dust in there. And when I went on a bit of a holiday, when I finished, I couldn't hear out of this left ear. And I'm going, what's going on? But I got an ear check and it was just so much buildup of red dust.

• 21:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, this is not good.

• 21:10Rich Roll?

  Have you had like blood tests done and stuff like that in the aftermath?

• 21:14Speaker 01

  I was low iron and like a few other things. I was still inflamed internally, so potentially a gluten problem. But yeah, it was, it's all sorted, which is good. And, but yeah, back like on the, on the trance, like on the, with the same as Iron Cowboy. It's like, when I finished the run, you know, I'm doing all these media, you know, all this media, all these podcasts, all this stuff. And I actually limited it as much as I possibly could. But when I'm in them, I'm, I'm talking like I'm there, but I'm also talking like I'm out of it. So I'm in this confusion between the two. And so when I get prompted a question, I would be like, oh God, I'm, you know, this is really hard for me to talk about.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And it might be either the trauma or the fact that I am still trying to process it. So I was finding that really, really hard. And so a few of these chats I'd have, I'd just go blank. And then I'd be like, oh my God, I'm so sorry, guys. I actually like, I think this is like my brain trying to block out what I've just been through.

• 22:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  But now I'm, it's cool cause I'm, you know, I'm starting to do a few keynotes and get the words, you know, try and actually work out what I was feeling. And, and it's, yeah, it's pretty insightful, I guess.

• 22:29Rich Roll?

  Have you, do you have a therapist that you're working this stuff through with or?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  I haven't, I haven't yet. I, I had him in place, but I There is obviously clearly benefit in having therapists. For me, I wanted to try and see how I'd go manage it myself.

• 22:44Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  But yeah, I guess there's, you know, giving me, it would be good to get tools to be able to deal with it much easier than having to, you know, find my, find the way myself.

• 22:53Rich Roll?

  So you just turned 24, right?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Just turned, yeah.

• 22:56Rich Roll?

  So you were 23 when you did this, incredibly young. Uh, most big ultra endurance feats are people that are in their, you know, at least like their mid to late 30s, if not 40s and into even their early 50s. It's like a, you know, it's like a sport that a lot of athletes get into later in life when they've got a lot of Ks under the belt.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 23:18Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 23:18Speaker 01

  The barns and.

• 23:19Rich Roll?

  So it's very, yeah, it's very unusual for somebody so young. I think it's, it's cool. Like the ultra world is exploding and more and more young people are getting into it earlier than traditionally has been the case. But, you know, the added kind of flavor here is that you'd only been running two years, right? You didn't even get into running until you were like 21.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, literally. I am, yeah, I just honestly was about to have a shower. I'd looked into the mirror and I saw back fat and I went, I gotta start running, lose some weight. And that was, that was when I was just started, just turned 21.

• 23:52Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So you grew up, you grew up on like a farm, right? Like not like sort of how far, like not, not anywhere near Sydney.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  No, no, we're about 600 kilometers. So west of Sydney, pretty well bang smack in the middle of New South Wales.

• 24:06Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were 60 K from town. So nearest town to healthcare food, whatever was 60 kilometers away. That's, yeah, obviously people would have thought of my running to town, assuming my running really, but no, I didn't. Um, yeah. And we, we, I mean, I always, we always did sport like rugby and swimming, but it was never, it was all our parents' choice, not us. I would have loved to have not, but then I found a love for sport probably through going to high school and then just fell out of love with it when I finished high school and I. You know, do what every 20, 21 year old would do and went out partying, went out drinking, you know, skipped exercise. And yeah, then I saw the bit of back fat and thought I had to get on with it.

• 24:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. So you, you moved to Sydney to become an electrician.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:52Rich Roll?

  Right. So you're doing your apprenticeship. Uh, you know, lifestyle caught up to you a little bit.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:58Rich Roll?

  On the early side though, you're lucky, man.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:00Rich Roll?

  Those people don't have that kind of epiphany until their mid to late 30s or something.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Probably 40. That's probably the distinct correlation between ultra and just starting at 40.

• 25:08Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Cause I just had a bit of a blowout at 38.

• 25:10Rich Roll?

  You're an early midlife crisis, a young life crisis.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 25:14Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 25:15Rich Roll?

  So, so where does the impulse, uh, so you, so you have this realization like, you know, I don't, I don't like the back fat or whatever. So where's the leap to putting on the running shoes come from? Just that's the easiest way to.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  And then went, um, and ran and went, I knew that I, you know, energy out, energy, um, food in. I knew that eat a bit more, eat a bit less and run a bit more, you'll burn, burn fat. I have a pretty good basic knowledge of, you know, strength training and all this stuff through sport. But I just went, I've got to get out. And so I actually started doing it literally for weight loss. But when I quickly realized what the feeling I was getting of this, of running kilometers, I was like, oh wow. So then I just literally went, okay, ran 5K, ran 10K, next time ran 15K. Then literally by two weeks later, I was running 21K. Never run up over six kilometers before, other than the, you know, school cross country. And then all of a sudden I'm running half marathon and I went, ran 30K.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  And then I asked my mate, I said, do you want to go run a marathon today? And I just went and ran a marathon. So it was just like this, oh, and then I heard people that, you know, run marathons and I never even thought of it. Like that was a wild thing for me. Um, so this is all in a matter of like six months.

• 26:25Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  And then, um, I'd heard of ultras. I heard people had run 60, 80, 100 kilometers. And I'm like, this is, this is pretty cool. I'll see if I can do it. And then, yeah, within, within a year, I had finished a 100K run and 50 marathons in 50 days.

• 26:41Rich Roll?

  Within a year.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Within a year.

• 26:42Rich Roll?

  So the 50 marathons in 50 days was still within one year of you beginning running.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And, and like the 100K and those other, you know, running the marathon, those weren't races. You, you just, I just got, you just got up in the morning and was like, I'm gonna do this.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually got home from work.

• 26:57Rich Roll?

  You ran to Palm Beach, right?

• 26:58Speaker 01

  I actually literally got home from work and went right there. So I'd do a eight, 10 hour day at work. Get home, tried nap, couldn't nap because I'm so excited about the thought of running 100 kilometers. Put my pack on, all I had was a muffin, a banana and two of the water bottles. And then I came back with the two water bottles empty. I didn't fill them up. I just literally had no idea about nutrition or hydration or electrolytes. Got there, got 50K by two o'clock in the morning. Turned around, ran home, found like found a way. I didn't obviously know where any water was.

• 27:32Rich Roll?

  Right. You could like stop at gas stations or something like that and get like water.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  For me, I was, I didn't even touch the water till I was at 30K because I was trying to, trying to keep it to,

• 27:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  use it for later. And then I literally had a muffin and a banana. That was all my nutrition. And, you know, I know how many people, you know, it's gels and Cliff bars and everything. And I was just, I guess I was like, oh, cool. I'd now run 100K with minimal nutrition. Like I can, what else can I do?

• 27:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Just kind of.

• 27:59Rich Roll?

  Like a light bulb moment.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:01Rich Roll?

  I, I got, I got something in my tank.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  I was just hungry. I was just hungry to see what I actually could do. It wasn't like, you know, find your possibilities. It was like, I'm not actually sure where I can, where this stops. So let's go find it. And then I remember running the 100K and being in that like immense pain, but like, you know, that awesome feeling when you're finished. Laying in bed, looking up at the roof going, I gotta do something. The next day I posted a thing on Instagram saying, I'm gonna run 50 marathons, 50 days in a month's time. And then I've never back to back any runs like that. And I did a half marathon and a half marathon, like 21, 21. Like two days later, back to back and went, I'll be sweet. And then, yeah. And so I, um, on August, no, September the first, I did it August, the first I posted that.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  And then September the first, I was working full time while I was running the marathons. And yeah, I'd finish work about 3:30, put the shoes on at four, run out the door and run for four and a half hours and get home and go again.

• 29:00Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:02Rich Roll?

  There's something really powerful about the naivete of the whole thing.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:08Rich Roll?

  I think a lot of people get up in their heads. And they have an aspiration, I'm going to run a marathon, or I'm going to do a 50K, or even outside of running, some other challenge. But then they sort of get lured into this analysis paralysis, like, oh, I gotta,

• 29:24Speaker 01

  10%.

• 29:24Rich Roll?

  Like, I gotta work out the logistics, and then the date for the start date keeps getting pushed back out of fear or whatever, but the impulse to just like, be like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to do it anyway, and I have that confidence to do it. And like, the fact that you just ran to Palm Beach, you're like, there's a lot of instances in your story where you're just out over your skis.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 29:47Rich Roll?

  Like, like, when you started the Run Across Australia, like, I've heard you talk about, like, not knowing that there was all kinds of elevation in Western Australia, right? Like, you didn't even get a topo map and figure out, like,

• 29:59Speaker 01

  I knew.

• 29:59Rich Roll?

  what you were dealing with?

• 30:00Speaker 01

  I knew there was about 20,000.

• 30:02Rich Roll?

  Other people would have that, like, fully mapped out.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  I had the route, that's all I had.

• 30:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess I saw there was 20,000 meters elevation over the whole country, and I went, it must be in New South Wales, so I reckon I'll be fine by then to run elevation. And yeah, it was obviously not, it was always, it was a lot in WA.

• 30:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Probably about 8,000 meters elevation on the first 12 days.

• 30:25Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  But yeah, it's, it's just like, I think people, as you said, people just overthink it and get so stuck on the fact, you know, there's all this scientific research that you've got to incrementally load by 10% each week if you want to start, instead of otherwise you'll get a stress fracture, you'll get this or that. And I'm going, I'm young, bones are strong, you know?

• 30:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  I'm good, I'll be right, and if I'm not, I'm not. And more times than not, I'll find that actually was okay. And I think, you know, as soon as you have that mindset of like, oh, you know, something could go wrong, the first moment of anything slightly off the track of what you planned will be gone.

• 31:04Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  You'll be done.

• 31:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it's not without its perils, though, like, we're going to get to day 11.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:10Rich Roll?

  What happened there, so, you know, maybe a little, a little bit of wisdom and preparation might have avoided that.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:17Rich Roll?

  Who knows, but.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  I guess my preparation is more mental at this, like still, um, I don't, I obviously like I strength train a lot. I do a lot of strength training. My K's, I like to be probably under prepared in kilometers, but over prepared in strength training. But when you put out what you're doing and you've put it out there, you've gone on, you know, today show live television and said, I'm running across the country in September, you kind of can't get it pulled out of it. Um, and

• 31:45Rich Roll?

  That's a powerful accountability partner.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I, I love

• 31:48Rich Roll?

  The whole nation.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. In there, while they're eating their weight picks. Um, and I, yeah, I, I, once you put it out there, you can't, you can't stop. But I had, I had three MRIs in my tibia, um, from April till September. September was the start and I had three MRIs for to stress for the stress fracture in my tibia. Um, because I was just so aware of it. And so my kilometers were like all of 40 plus K a week.

• 32:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, a couple of thoughts on that. I mean, first of all, you can't, there's limits to how much you can train to prepare for running across the country, right? Like it's more important, like to your point of, of making sure that your strength training is on point and, and being fresh when you start. Like you can't show up tired because you've been, you know, cranking out so much volume.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:37Rich Roll?

  Right? And the Iron Cowboy talks about this, like when he, he barely did any running before the hundred.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:44Rich Roll?

  Uh, Ironmans because he just figured he would walk and run his way into that fitness and too much running ahead of time would set him up for injury.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I think if you're running, you know, if you're to run 700 kilometers a week, like the time it would take you to be able to run 500 kilometers a week consistently would be so long. Like, you know, you, it's just so much time on your feet throughout your training. Like you just can't do that.

• 33:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  But getting your head around it and getting your strength and your, you know, timer on your feet, you, it's just, it's a mind game.

• 33:18Rich Roll?

  So walk me through the, the kind of mental decision, the decision, once you did the 50 marathons in 50 days, I'm sure that was a huge accomplishment and made you feel like you were capable of even greater things. It's a leap to say, okay, now I'm gonna not only run across Australia, but I'm gonna break the record, which was 42 days?

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Forty-three, yeah.

• 33:42Rich Roll?

  Forty-three.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Forty-three and a half, I think.

• 33:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, so how did you land on that?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  So it was actually midway through the 50 marathons. When I got to day 10, I was like, I'm gonna do this, no worries. What's next? I wanna have that in my head because, you know, I was saying, you know, when I, you feel a bit lost after it, you wanna kinda have what you want. And so, yeah, I was running and I did the run and I met up with a mate after I finished the marathons and we're sitting in, in the pub, having a schnitzel and he's like, I told him my plan of running it, I think 60K a day, but, because the Guinness World, the Guinness record was like 67. And he goes, why don't, I'm sure there's people have done it quicker. I went, alright, I had a look and I saw that it was 43. And I go, what's that average had to be? And it's like, it was, I think it was 93K a day or something

• 34:31Speaker 01

  to beat it. And I went, 100K, that'd be pretty cool. And then I looked up the guys, you know, people in America, running across America and Pete Castolny, he's, you know, ran 114K a day or something. Why can't I do that? And so, you know, if someone's done something, why, what, what is limiting me from not being able to do that? Why is it that someone can? You know what I mean? Like, that mental block isn't there for me.

• 34:54Rich Roll?

  But where does that come from? Is that instilled in you by your parents? Like, that level of confidence and capability?

• 35:02Speaker 01

  I think so. I think it comes from them allowing, them, our belief in allowing, in doing something comes from belief in you to do whatever you want. So by, as long as you're allowed and you allow yourself to be okay with getting whatever it is, I think that is the crucial part. So not having your, not basing your...

• 35:28Speaker 01

  The idea of achieving a goal as you're of who you are, but achieving whatever you want.

• 35:33Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Who you are. So like when you, if you don't get the record, then it doesn't matter. But if you do, if you don't get the record and you haven't been okay with who you are, you're going to probably align your self-worth with this record. So you're, you know, not worthy of getting it. For me, I'm just okay with who I am. So whether I go out on a limb and I've, you know, failed, but I've still tried, I have no issue with that.

• 35:59Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  So by being like, my parents have always been like, just whatever it is, do it, but do it with absolute conviction. Don't, you know, sit back, do it half ass.

• 36:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  And I was always like, when I rode at school, I was always, you know, I was never in the top boat, but I was always like, I'm going to get this top boat. I was never in the first 15, but I was like, I want to get in this football team like so badly. So I'd rock up to training earlier. I'd run to training. All right. Um, just, or just a culmination of things. And I think watching dad as well on the farm, like has never complained his whole life. And he's, you know, rocked up to work every single day for 40 plus years. And so, but not, not just talking about it, but actually seeing him do it. That was kind of a big thing for me. So I guess another thing, I went back to the farm and saw him actually just show up again, again, again. I'm like, this bloke is the biggest workhorse I've ever met.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Like, and to see how hard he has worked, that for me was like, oh, you can actually just keep doing this. Yeah. I guess, yeah, I just, it came about by that, I guess. Yeah.

• 37:05Rich Roll?

  And, and your parents were part of your crew.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:08Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 37:09Speaker 01

  It was pretty.

• 37:10Rich Roll?

  What, what was their response when you told them that you wanted to do this?

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Mum was all for it. She was like, whatever, if that's what you want to do, I'm supportive of you, but just. Don't half ass it. Don't, you know, don't get all these sponsors and then get halfway through and go, oh, I don't know if I can do this. So, um, but yeah, a mother's love is, you know, her sitting back and watching me put myself through that was a lot.

• 37:35Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Um, and I can tell you every day she would have been going, fuck, I want to tell him to stop. But if I do, it's going to shit him off because he's, you know, the plan was a hundred K a day. This is what we're doing.

• 37:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Um, but to have them there for the whole thing for 47 days, like, you know, you, you leave school, you leave, you know, your parents, they're, you know, gone. You're probably on the same for Christmas or New Year's or, you know, your birthday potentially. And, but to spend 47 days with them on the road, you know, so intensely was, um, a life memory. I'll, you know, I'll forget.

• 38:13Rich Roll?

  So you make this announcement, you're preparing, uh, you're starting to talk about the challenge with the media. And I know that you went on, on Mark Boris's show and he asked you like, how are you feeling? And you're like, oh, great. You know, ready to go. I'm feeling perfect.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:28Rich Roll?

  Quietly though, you're fully injured. Your knees are fucked up.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:32Rich Roll?

  Uh, your trainer, uh, wrote a whole blog post about all your injuries and like everything that was going on behind the scenes. Yeah, I read it. Um, behind the scenes before, we're not even at the start line yet. And you were, you were fully tweaked.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. My, so I did, um, prior to announcing this run, I hadn't run a hundred K since November 2020. And I was like, well, I need to remember how running a hundred K feels.

• 38:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Uh, and in my, I went and did like a bit of a hell week. I went and trained out at, um, my family farm for like, uh, hell month, sorry. Um, I went out and I did two 100 Ks in a week plus probably, you know, another 65 K on top of it. And then after the first hundred K I did, I ran, went pretty quick and I felt good, did all the food right. And I finished and I woke up the next morning and my knees, I've, I've never been in so much pain. But I'm like, this is not good. And I ran, I ran, I think 12K the next day just to kind of, you know, try and run on very sore legs. But I, they were just, I was obviously pretty patella, like, patella femoral pain.

• 39:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  And, but it was just like, I had to keep running on it. So I was just like, just damaging it more, damaging it more. Obviously just tight quads, tight everything. And it's just referring to my knees. And then I had to run 100K on the Saturday. And because I had to said, this is what I have to do. I have to run two 100Ks this week. It's just a no brainer. You have to do it. And so I just started, I went, this is, it's gonna have to find a way. Like, if it's not a bone, I'm fine. Like, if it's not a stress fracture, we're all good. And it wasn't. So I just had to, had to show up. And yeah, so when I finished that, I didn't really run until the start of the, till the start of the event.

• 40:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, which wasn't great. I'm not gonna lie.

• 40:17Rich Roll?

  Like the, the kind of like youthful, arrogance is the wrong word, but like, yeah, stubbornness. The wise thing is, you know, just make sure when you line up on day one, like, you're fully 100%. Like rested, no injuries, none of that. But

• 40:33Speaker 01

  I remember the two days.

• 40:35Rich Roll?

  You could have pushed it. Like, let me just push the start date.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I, the problem is Australia is just so freaking hot, especially in the middle of the country. If I went another month.

• 40:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  I'd be, I'd be, I'd be blistered up on the back, on the back of my legs and arms. And it just would have been too hot. It would have been just like, the heat would have just been so intense that it would have just factored in so much more, like, time.

• 40:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  But yeah, I got to, two days before leaving, and I went for a run with my girlfriend. And I was just complaining about my knees the whole time. I'm going, this is gonna be pretty, like, I guess I was only complaining though, because I knew about the pain I was about to put myself in. It wasn't that, oh, my knees are hurting. It was like, oh, my knees are hurting. I'm gonna do some serious damage here. That's all that was going on in my head. It wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna be able to find a way to pull out, because I couldn't. I had to, like, I just don't pull out.

• 41:26Rich Roll?

  And how far in advance of the, the, the beginning?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  This is about two weeks. So I flew over like a week, a week and a bit to go. But two days before I flew over from Sydney, I, yeah, I was like, telling my girlfriend that. This is gonna be fun.

• 41:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Like potentially looking at walking for 20 hours a day.

• 41:44Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Um, to get a hundred K out and no breaks. You know what I mean? It was, I was, it was just finding a way. Um, and then, yeah, I flew over. I ran once when I was over in WA.

• 41:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  And like a lot of people think I just, you know, I was running because I turned my Strava off because I wasn't running these K's and I was just like, yeah, a hundred plus or, or good, running all these K's. Um, and I got over there and I'm like, oh no, oh no. Anyway, and I just wanted to be in it because all I was doing was thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it. And then when I finally got to the day one of that morning, I was just so happy because I, now I'm in it.

• 42:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Um. Where do you, where do you compartmentalize that, that doubt?

• 42:29Rich Roll?

  Cause that doesn't have any room.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  No, it doesn't. And I, uh, there was just no, it was all affirmations of you're gonna do this. There was no like, oh no, oh no. It was like, I was, I was thinking about the, I just wanna start, but I wasn't thinking about, once I was in it, I was like, I can't wait for the knee pain because it's gonna be there. I knew it was gonna be there, right? But it was all just like positive words. It was like, I'm gonna get to Bondi. In a, I'm either gonna get sent out of here in a body bag, I'm gonna get to Bondi.

• 42:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  There was no other way. And so each day, there might've been a few like, fuck, I'm not, like, this is fucked.

• 43:02Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Uh, but it was never like, I'm gonna quit. There was never any doubt in my mind I'd get there. It just didn't know how that would look.

• 43:10Rich Roll?

  So you kick things off, you pull together, first of all, you pull together a bunch of sponsors. You got Puma, you got like, you got a camper van, right?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 43:18Rich Roll?

  You, you, so you were able to like string this together because financially like it's a, it's not a small thing, right?

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Especially when you bring, yeah, five or six people as well the whole time.

• 43:27Rich Roll?

  Uh, and you get to the starting line, you kick things off. It's all, it's all fucking rainbows and you're sharing positivity on social media. Uh, a little bit of like, whoa, didn't see all this elevation coming. It's beating you up a little bit. So let's get to day 10, 11 and like walk me through like that whole insanity.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, so well, like starting my first day was like, it was really good to be like, okay, cool. Hundred and three K, amazing. I was done by 5:30 that night. I still had a lot of light.

• 43:58Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  In the ice bath and I was like, right, we're in this. However, I wake up, I'm gonna wake up earlier and get the day done because I knew the adapting would come at some point. But I didn't know when. Uh, I got to day three and that was pretty well where I was like my worst in terms of doms, like just muscular soreness. Uh huh. And then about day five and six, my core temp was just shot. So I just could not regulate my system. Yeah. And so as soon as I'd finished, I'd be freezing my ass off and then I'd be trying to warm up, trying to warm up. We're getting massages and I was just shaking. I couldn't stop. And then I'd get in the campervan bed

• 44:39Speaker 01

  and just sweat, sweat all night and the walls would be dripping with my heat sweat. And so I couldn't, just couldn't sleep. So that first week, I, I wouldn't have slept more than an hour a night. Because I was just so out of whack. I got to day nine, we've just hit that north end section where there's no nothing. I've just camped on the side of the road, um, on the day 10. My physio leaves.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  I. Just in time. Just in time. And I've woken up the next day on day 11. And I got to, so I got to 42K and my, um, shin, my right shin just was like, just so much swelling. I was just like, okay, this isn't good. This might feel, this feels a bit bone stressy because I've had a few before and I was like, this feels an awful lot like bone. This is not good. Um, then we're running my fingers down it and I was not, didn't feel I was on the bone, but there was just so much swelling. So I was kind of, I couldn't really work it out. I got the hundred K out, took me a long time. I was finished at nine o'clock that night. And woke up the next day, could not run for life for me. I think I tried close to 40 times to get in a bit of a rhythm with running, but I couldn't.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  It was just jarring. Um, and I've called my physio, but it's like crackly on the line. And he's like, mate, oh, can you try strap it this way? Can you put this in it? Can you do this? And we tried everything, Voltar and all day. Nothing would work. And so I walked forty K that day and I went, look, I've got to give myself the best chance of, you know, healing. So I went and finished at one o'clock in the afternoon, went to the roadhouse, iced and just slept, just tried to get some sleep back. So I knew the lack of sleep was really fucking with me as well. I started to get a bit delirious. My body isn't actually recovering the best it could. And so I gave myself one until three AM the next morning, so fourteen hours, which was much more than I was getting before.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  I was getting all of six, seven hours. And then I went again, I couldn't do it. And so my physio was rung up the nearest MRI place, which is fourteen hours away. Fourteen hour drive. Fourteen hour drive. So about sixteen hundred kilometers. Fucking nowhere. Yeah, middle of fucking nowhere. It would have been longer to go back to Perth. And so I got to forty K and my physio had rung up the sports doc and sports doc had ordered an urgent MRI for the next morning at this place. And so we stayed the night in Seduna, drove another four hours to this place to get the MRI. Got the MRI at twelve o'clock that lunch, midday on the fourteenth day, so the fourteenth of September. And then

• 47:17Speaker 01

  we got the results back. I'm in the car sitting there and he goes, good news is your bones are as strong as I've ever seen for someone being fourteen days into this monstrosity. However, you've got suryotino sinovitis and that's not great. And we're going, okay, what does that mean? He goes, look, usually it's a six week in the boot, do nothing, but you're not going to do nothing. So we're going to work out what you got to do. Shin, it's this injury to the shin sheath. Yeah. So the tendon sheath has just become so inflamed, but it can actually get infected because of the inflammation. And so the further, you know, the longer you delay it. And so I've got there, I go, what do I do? And he goes, look, we can cortisone it, but usually you have to take five to seven days off, but I know you're not going to do that. So

• 48:00Speaker 01

  we'll cortisone it and we'll just try and blast it, like try and just disperse it everywhere. And if you can find a dictus band, which is for people with drop foot, it allows, it's a rubber band, goes through your laces, allows your foot to pick up and down. If you can find one of those, that'd be ideal. And so, so my girlfriend's on the mission to find a dictus band. I'm in the injection part of the hospital and I'm getting injected into my shin. No anaesthetic, just straight cortisone it.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  And I've never been in so much pain. I'm just like wriggling, like in terms of like the run pain and the shin injection pain. And I'm just like, my eyes roll in the back of my head. I'm going, this is, what am I doing? Like, I am in the middle of freaking South Australia, getting injected in my shin after fifteen hundred.

• 48:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're only like twenty percent in.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Literally. And so that was a big like, and also the, the record slowly getting

• 48:53Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  dragged away was also weighing on my head. And so I got this injection. It's three o'clock in the afternoon. And I'm adamant, I'm running on the fifteenth morning. We're fifteen hours away.

• 49:06Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Uh, I get the injection and the doctor goes, look, mate, it is gonna fucking kill you to run. But this dick disband is gonna allow you to lift your foot up because you have no function of it. But you're just gonna have to work it out because it's not bones. So you'll be right. And we're done. Got in the car at three thirty, drove fifteen hours.

• 49:25Rich Roll?

  Back to where you left off.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Back to where we left off. But thankfully, the time zone was, would go back. So we got, we actually made up some time.

• 49:34Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Not like actually, but in terms of the time we started. Got there at two AM. Slept, well, laid down for two hours, started running at five, got seven hundred K out of that next week. You know, I've got this injury, right? The record's gone. This is the point I was saying before is like, if you, if I based my worth or my, you know, who I am on me getting this record, then I'd be on a plane, the nearest plane back to Bondi as soon as I could. But for me, I was like, what you're doing is so much more important than any record, any putting a flag in the ground could ever be. It, it was like, you know, you, you caught on to it. So people were catching on and seeing this, this person just continuing to show up, continuing to like, keep fighting. And so when.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  You know, I had that option to go, oh, this is, you know, it's incredible. You've done 500 kilometers. No one would excuse you for, no, everyone would excuse you for going home and you'd be congratulations, but I went, this is not what I set out to do. I set out to get from A to B and raise a shit ton of money for charity and I'm not sober now.

• 50:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, let's get into that. I mean, you've spoken quite a bit about how you're an intrinsically motivated person.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:46Rich Roll?

  That motivation, meaning it's coming from within yourself.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:49Rich Roll?

  So I want to understand that a little bit better, but at the same time, in parallel, there's a lot of extrinsic motivation because it was this ground swell thing where slowly more and more people, you know, in Australia and across the world, we're starting to tune in.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:05Rich Roll?

  Pay attention to what you're doing. You have media figures in Australia who are talking about you on the radio, like Hamish and like all these people are like, you know, and, and, and a lot of these people are also donating money to the charity piece, which I want to get into as well.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:20Rich Roll?

  So that's, that's a lot of external pressure at the same time. So how do you think about those two factors in, you know, when you wake up in the morning and you're staring down the barrel of another 100K and, you know, you just feel like you can't even move.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  I guess, um, like the Instagram and the, the media and the talk is cool and I loved it because it allowed the awareness of what I was doing, but also the money raised, like that allowed that to go gangbusters. But getting a message from Hamish or getting a message from like, um, Adesanya, the UFC fighter.

• 51:58Rich Roll?

  Right, you were getting videos.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was getting videos and all these cool things, which when I, if I wasn't doing the run, would have been amazing, but mid run, it's like, that doesn't wake me up on day 10 or day 11 to go to Bual and get this injection. It's like. Why is it you're doing this? And so when I'm, if I boil it down, it's like, it has always been from that day one, running to Palm Beach and back about me wanting to succeed at something for me. So when it comes to about, like it was even with the 50 marathons, I did that because I wanted to see what I could do. But raising the money was the byproduct of people seeing it.

• 52:35Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  And so the same thing with this run, it's like you're a 23 year old who's never run before, or never really run before, who's attempting to run something of like a magnitude that very few people have done.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  How fucking cool is that? Like, that is wild.

• 52:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  And so the pride that comes out of me when I talk about it is like, yeah, it's, it's, I'm, I'm just, I'm so proud of the fact I've been able to go, oh my God, I can make a life in this. I can, I continue to push myself while helping people to know they're more capable of a lot more because I haven't come from a running background or, you know, anything like that. It's all just come from, fuck, let's just see what I can do.

• 53:19Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, when it's, when it gets to that point, it's just like,

• 53:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Every day is exciting.

• 53:26Rich Roll?

  The experience of, of, you know, being so deep in that pain cave, uh, where you, you can't hide from yourself and the demons are coming out and they're, they're talking a big game into your head and telling you to quit and you're having this out of body experience. I mean, it really is a spiritual odyssey.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 53:47Rich Roll?

  Uh, that, that, you, you know, really shows you exactly who you are.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 53:52Rich Roll?

  So, so what, what did you take from that? Like, what did you learn from the experience of, of, of just being in that other place that very few people flirt with?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  I think that like, because you, you're not doing it all the time, right? But when you are doing it, it's like, like you, you would know with all your, all your runs you've done.

• 54:13Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  There is nothing like that feeling of getting up and going again. So I think it's like the, the pressure of people saying you can't, for one, for me, but also the, what if you just take another step?

• 54:27Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  And so when you do take another step, what is that going to bring? What new thing are you going to see? What new feeling are you going to feel? And so like, I can't, there is no words I've found yet to explain the feeling of getting to Bondi and seeing that. Because that was a culmination of not just forty seven days, but three years of, two years of busting my ass every day, waking up at four o'clock, having cold showers every day, strict food, doing like, you know, it's not just like, I didn't wake up one day and go bang. It was like, I'm doing hard things every day. So when it does get there, it's like, it was all worth it. You know what I mean? I get to Bondi and see that. It's like, holy shit.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  And that out of body spiritual feeling I got when I got to Bondi, like a finish line feel through getting through something that was so hard. And, you know, everyone would have said you couldn't have done it.

• 55:19Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  But knowing I went through all that with my injuries and through all that with, you know, when you look up on the highway in the middle of this country and you can't see anything but the horizon of nothing, it's like, oh, we're out here, we're out here alone. Even though I had my family and my crew with me, I was so alone. Like, I was so vulnerable out there.

• 55:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Um, and yeah, to get to Bondi and feel that, like, I, I wanna get the words to describe that, but I don't think I will for a while.

• 55:49Rich Roll?

  But it must give you this profound sense of, of purpose, like a sense of like, I made the right choice. There was something deep inside me that guided me to do this for a reason beyond myself. Because in many ways, like you've run yourself into an entirely new life.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  A hundred, hundred percent. I actually ran from being relatively unknown to then like, this person that people are like, oh, fuck, what's, what's Brock going to do again? What's his, what's his next thing? What's like, yeah, and but like, I like, like purpose is cool. I really like, I think we all have a purpose. I think there's purpose for everyone. But it's like,

• 56:34Speaker 01

  There's purpose in everything. It's just as long as you do it fully like I, I like for me, this has all come about so quickly. So I'm not sure. There might be purpose in me doing something else in two years. Like my purpose might not be running across continents. It might be to motivate people or to, you know, I'm not sure what it is, but it's like, as long as I'm giving it everything, it's, that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Not like, not just sitting back going, oh, that's cool. That'd be nice. It's like, no, I'm, whatever it is I'm deciding to do, I'm fucking doing it.

• 57:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. I think that's pretty healthy. I mean, I think I, I, I see two different kinds of people who do these hard type of things. On the one hand, there's people that continue to do it like they're just, you know, in a healthy way, like they're testing themselves and they're always trying to find that outer edge. In an unhealthy way, it's almost like they're stuck. Like my value or my identity is so wed to doing hard things. If I stop doing that, then who am I? You know what I mean? Which I think, I think a lot of people get caught in that trap and it's like, I have to plan the next thing. Yeah. You know, if I don't, then, you know, what are people going to think of me? Of course. And then the other group of people who are like, I did this

• 57:53Rich Roll?

  thing. It's changed my perspective on capability, potential, who I am, et cetera. Now, what do I do with what I learned to continue to grow? And sometimes that means, yeah, I'll do another hard thing. But sometimes it means I need to apply this in other areas of my life, you know?

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 58:11Rich Roll?

  And I think that's the healthier plan. And it doesn't mean that you shouldn't go and do more stuff like this. Of course. But to not get caught in that trap and feel like you're doing it because you have to, or that you need to be in a rush to do it.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that's like, I get asked that a lot now. It's like, what's next? What's next? And I go, I don't know yet, but when I do do what I'm going to do, it's not going to be for anyone else but me. In terms of, I'm not doing it for external pressure or doing it. I'm doing it for the fact that I want to do it because I know that spiritual feeling I got when I finished that run. I know of that, the amount of people I had inspired and motivated to go and like the messages I get, like you were saying, it's like, some are like, oh, you, you know, you should go see what this person's doing down there. But a lot of them are like, Mate, I know you've probably got all these messages, but I just wanted to say I was, I was addicted to meth, or I was, this is literally like, I've had five or so messages like that.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Now I'm running, I would love to run with you.

• 59:13Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Or this, I'm like, the power of being you and doing you, you know what I mean? Like, if you're trying to be someone else, like, people would have seen through what I would, what I did if I was trying to be someone else.

• 59:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  But because I was being me, and I was being so true to what I want to do, that's why people were so excited about it.

• 59:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  There was no like, oh, fuck, he's doing this for fame, or he's doing this for, to be seen. It's like, no, I'm doing this.

• 59:40Rich Roll?

  Aussies are very attuned to that, too.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Fuck.

• 59:41Rich Roll?

  Any sniff of that, and you're, you're out.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:45Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:45Rich Roll?

  And it's like. Don't get too big on yourself, dude. They'll turn on you quick.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It's like, Aussies love the underdog.

• 59:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so, but it's even now, I'm like.

• 59:55Rich Roll?

  But now you're not the underdog anymore.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Oh, I know, I know. But I feel like when I, so be it, some people aren't going to like it. But that's, that's all part of it, too. Like, you don't want, I'm not, I'm not doing my days hoping that everyone likes me. I'm doing it because I want to be me and do me. And so, whatever comes of that, comes of it.

• 1:00:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah. There's an adage in, in the ultra world that you should never compile a crew of your friends and loved ones, because those dark moments are going to snap back on those people. And you defied that rule. Your crew was comprised of your girlfriend and your parents, the people you love the most. And, and you had a little bit of a learning curve with that, too, right?

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Yes. I, um, yeah, I, it's probably grown my relationship with my girlfriend and my mother. I, yeah, just finished, got back from the injections. And we're seeing that horizon of nothing, and there's nothing in front of us.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  And I was just in a really foul mood. I was obviously in a lot of pain. I was still in this pain from the shin. It hadn't got easier yet. And I just was just foul. I was foul. Yeah. Um, so I'm plus thousand K in and I just snarled at my girlfriend and I think I told her to fuck off. Um, and she was, I think she was just like, I'm scared. Like this is not, because I was, I was in a dark, dark. I had to, I had to go to that place. And I, I don't really know when I'm going to go there, but when it's fucked up out there, you've just got to find whatever it is you need to use as fuel. Um, and so I just did it. I just went it, went at my girlfriend. I, I wanted it to turn on me, to be honest. I wanted her to go, you know, you can't do it. You something, you know

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  what I mean? Any fuel, any fuel, give me fuel. And so instead of appreciating that they're there for me to help me and use that out on the, you know, use that, give me fuel on the roadkill or the road trains. I used it on my family and my girlfriend and my, you know, photographer. And so when I got to the van and my girlfriend had spoken to my mum, mum got out of the car and just like, the mother's look of, oh, like looking through me, it was through me. And I was like, oh no. She goes, don't ever can talk to your girlfriend like that again. Don't ever speak to like, to that. Don't ever speak to us like that again. Mm hmm. Um, or we're all gone. And I was like, noted. I'm really sorry. I needed that. I needed the slap

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  in the face because I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. If, if they kept going on and kept allowing me to do it, I would have kept pushing the boundaries. Yeah. Um, and mum just, yeah, went, and I think she, I think I've spoken to mum since and she's said, I was so worried everyone would leave and there would be you, me and your dad. That's why I had to turn on you just at that point. And I was like, oh. So mum was like managing all these little relationships because Yeah. I've never been so intensely with my girlfriend like that, never been so intensely with a photographer like that or my physio. So my mother has, my mother's been with me. So she was just managing these little fires that I was, or they were starting. And so she was just like, we cannot have Gemma leave. We cannot have Bradley. Yeah. So she's like, Ned.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  You know, we're gonna leave, meaning they will leave if you don't freaking shut up.

• 1:03:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Or, you know, appreciate what they're here for and take it out on something else. And so from then on, it was like smooth sailing, but I'm sure they would have got on a freaking.

• 1:03:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, crew rebellion is a real thing. And if you don't have that cohesion, these people are taking, you know, forty seven days out of their life to devote it completely to you. And to know that you being this kind of affable, fun guy can be that dark is its own teacher.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:03:35Rich Roll?

  That you have, you have that inside you.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  And you're putting this up on your video, but that's, that's why I was putting up the terrible stuff too. Like, I'm like, I'm not just all, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. It's actually, it's hard and, and, and my family and my friends got that.

• 1:03:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Talk about the roadkill.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:03:52Rich Roll?

  That's real, right? Like, I didn't realize that that is so intense.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:56Rich Roll?

  There's so much of it and the stench is just with you like the whole time.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's putrid, especially when you got, when you're eating so much food all day. And then you get that waft probably a minute before you see the animal. But yeah, because Australia is so, it's so many, so much wildlife.

• 1:04:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Um, kangaroos are running, trying to eat the food along the side of the road. And so, you know, in the headlights come along, they decide to run in front of the vehicle, not run away. Um, and yeah, there's just literally, there'd be a kangaroo or a possum or a wombat or a fox or anything just on the road. There's even a dead camel.

• 1:04:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Um, they reek the most. But yeah, it was just like, it just stuck with you and then you can't, you don't want to eat, you know, gagging at the thought of what you've just run past. You're trying to hold your breath. You don't want to hold your breath because it's.

• 1:04:45Rich Roll?

  It stays with you. Yeah. So if you smell it now, does it bring you back? That sense memory bring you right back?

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Road trains are the worst. They, they bring me back to the, to the road.

• 1:04:53Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, I just, I kind of got used to the roadkill. I was like, here's one. Run past and then get on with it. But yeah, sometimes you, you miss them and they would just pop up when you're right next to them.

• 1:05:13Rich Roll?

  In the questions that like Wardian and Hella and Robbie shared with me for you, there were a couple, I mean Wardian, I think Robbie also asked, wanted to know like, what was the most unreal act of kindness that you experienced? Because I think these guys, they're running across America, so they're going through towns all the time. They're interacting with lots of people, plenty of, you know, opportunities to like, have chats and stuff like that. But I don't know that that would have been an experience that you would have had, right? Because there's so few, well, you're in these road houses, you are seeing some people along the way, right?

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was, I was seeing a lot of truckies. So the truckies were starting to recognize me. And when I would get to halfway across there, he's still going. How far has he run? Where's he going to? There was a few like really cool times where I, like when I got to Mildura, which was like the first big kind of town since, you know, Perth, the whole town was lining up. And I was like, if this is what Mildura is like, and Wagga was pretty well the same, what's Sydney gonna be like? This is, this is wild.

• 1:06:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  And honking and cash donations and I think someone rocked up and gave $1,500 cash just on the side of the freaking highway. This is like Nullarbor area. I guess like majority of people were so like had heard about it by the time I got halfway through. So there was always like every second car was a honk or filming or standing up donating. And there was no real, I'm trying to think about standout. Yeah, I can't really.

• 1:06:49Rich Roll?

  What about, you have any run ins with the cops?

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, on day two. So because I initially in the planning with the legal, like the state and governments, they said I had to run at sunrise and sunset. I couldn't run any time either side of it. And um, yeah, I well, obviously

• 1:07:12Rich Roll?

  That's not gonna work.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  Seventeen hours of the day I'm running.

• 1:07:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Um, and I got to the end of day two and the local copper I was had clocked me at like sixty K.

• 1:07:22Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  And he'd pulled up and going, you gotta get off this road. I've had my, one of my best mates was killed walking along here. So I need you just, I think it was his own thing. I was like, yep, no worries. But like, I'm about to go into thirty or forty plus more days of this.

• 1:07:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Like, I appreciate that, but I gotta get going. That feels so far away. I'm only just picturing that again. Like, day two felt so much longer away than what day forty six was. That feels like six years ago.

• 1:07:50Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  That moment. But Bondi feels like a week ago.

• 1:07:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  Where.

• 1:07:54Rich Roll?

  Time's weird that way, right?

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Especially.

• 1:07:57Rich Roll?

  The first couple of days probably feel a lot longer and then time starts to like morph where the later days, when you're starting to feel good again.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  But you're in this trance and this um, flow state for so long. You just wake up and when you do get into it, it's like, okay. And then, and then you're at eighty K and you're like, okay, I remember this roadhouse, I remember that where I left. But you don't really remember the in betweens. Um, and I think that might be a bit of PTSD, but.

• 1:08:23Rich Roll?

  And you had AirPods in, in all the photos. So what were you listening to? Were you listening to music? What are you, what are you pumping into the head?

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Um, I was first ten days, funnily enough, didn't listen to anything. That was all mute, no music. Uh, and then about day twenty, I was at four thirty in the morning, ACDC blasting.

• 1:08:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Cause I just was like, I was using it um, kind of the way Goggins talks about it as cheating. How you like, if you put music in it, it makes it easier.

• 1:08:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  So I was using it like last ten K of a few days, last ten K.

• 1:08:55Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  But it's like torture when you aren't using it when you know it's there. And

• 1:08:59Rich Roll?

  Because it wasn't hard enough, you had to make it harder.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Um, but I as more podcast when I could, um, when it was like, you know, fine for me to listen and not actually be in pain, so to speak, I could listen to it. But when I was hurting and when it, which was majority of the time, I was just playing.

• 1:09:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:20Rich Roll?

  Robbie wanted to know if you had any kind of mantras or, or mindset tricks that allowed you to kind of weather the, the dark moments.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  I just, it was always the, just if you can't run, just walk, just go and walk to the next post. So there's obviously the, the sign posts along the way. And I'd be like, if today's the day where I'm not really feeling it, I would run to a post, walk to a post, run to a post, walk to a post. Until I got into a rhythm of like, okay, this one's good. But it would be like, at the end of each day, I wrote my Instagram, um, post up, which was almost like a reflection for me. It was like this beautiful, um, amount of time for me to sit back, do my diary journal, but on Instagram. And I, at the end of each one, I was just like, telling myself, I've got to just find a way, like find a way, find a way. And that would be why I got through the shin and why we got, you know, it's just like,

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  do not give in, just find a way of what you've got to do.

• 1:10:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  And so I think it, I think find a way was a good mantra I had. Um, and then just keep showing up. So it's a similar thing.

• 1:10:24Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:25Rich Roll?

  Talk to me about the mullet.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Rich Roll?

  Did you have a mullet beforehand?

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:31Rich Roll?

  You did. How long have you been rocking the mullet?

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  I've been in and out of them for probably since year six.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  But in between job interviews, I had to cut them and go again. Um, I think, I think the main reason for it is like the breaking down of like a stereotype. So when I walk into a room, you already have a idea of me. If you don't know who I am.

• 1:10:52Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  And if I go in there and I can hold a conversation, I've also raised two and a half million dollars for charity and I can run. You know, you've, you've already got this preconceived idea of me being some bullhead tradie that, you know, goes out all weekend. But, you know, you can also not. And it's like, if I walk in a room with, you know, people in suits or whatever, and I rock up like this, breaks down barriers straight away.

• 1:11:14Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  And it's like this, you know, I can, it's just like tattoos or it's like, I, this is me, you know?

• 1:11:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  There's no like, I don't have to be clean cut to be a good person or to be a, a good man. Like it's, it's just me.

• 1:11:29Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think I like doubling down as well.

• 1:11:34Rich Roll?

  But now it's iconic.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:11:35Rich Roll?

  You can't, you can't, you can't. There's no way, right?

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:11:39Rich Roll?

  It like, it, it, it precedes you every room you walk into.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  And I also.

• 1:11:44Rich Roll?

  Now that you're like this media darling, like highly, you're recognizable at like 200 meters.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, way more recognizable from the back than the front.

• 1:11:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:11:53Rich Roll?

  How has that been? Like now, you know, three months later, you know, you go from this just, you know, kind of normal bloke into, into being somebody who, you, you, you know, is, is probably recognized everywhere you go, especially in Sydney.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  Especially in Sydney, especially around the beaches.

• 1:12:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Um, even Byron, like I went up here yesterday, I'm going, it's going to be nice, most peaceful, gonna walk around Main Street, get some food to eat, just chill out. And I'm like, get every third man's going, Ned. Uh huh, no, should have worn a hoodie. It's too hot though. Um, yeah, it's, it's been, it's been fine. And I was saying before, it's like, I can't raise money, can't, you know, be this person to use inspiration without being known. So now I am, it's like you take the good with the bad. Like, you know, sometimes walking down to Woolies and getting your food.

• 1:12:45Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  You don't want to be pulled over and say, can I get a photo? But. It's all part of it. And it's like, that might be there one time to meet me. And so I don't want to be seen off as being a flog or I want to be myself, but I've also got to appreciate that. I don't want, you know, I've got to be by myself and with myself a lot too.

• 1:13:04Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  I can't always give my energy.

• 1:13:06Rich Roll?

  But, but there's got to be a lot of gratitude with that, too. They're not, they're not doing that because they saw you in a reality show.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:13:14Rich Roll?

  Or they're recognizing you for the, you know, the valor of the accomplishment.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  And people felt, felt like they were on the journey with me.

• 1:13:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they're your friends.

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And I'm somewhat approachable on my Instagram.

• 1:13:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  People.

• 1:13:29Rich Roll?

  They already know you. There's Ned.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Hey, mate, how's that this? I'm going, how do you? Oh, that's right. Social media.

• 1:13:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  Power. Yeah. So no, it's been cool. It's been a weird transition and it's like, I'm just, I'm starting to find peace in it as well. Knowing that, you know, people are just going to know me. The more and more I do with this, the more and more people are going to know me. Just go with it.

• 1:13:50Rich Roll?

  All right. So talk to me about the homelessness issue, why you decided that this was going to be the cause that you wanted to direct your attention towards and, and leverage the run to raise funds to combat.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I get on, on the homelessness, I think a lot of people would, were a bit confused with me doing the whole run for homelessness. I do want to clear that up, that it's like, I wanted to do it for, see what's possible, what I'm capable of, to help inspire and then to also help on the side. The homelessness came about when I moved to Sydney from the country. And I saw a heap of homeless people in Eddie Avenue, which is in the city. When I went to, I would ride or run or walk into TAFE. And I was like, just confronted by how much homelessness there was. And so initially I'm like, how do I, how do I talk to these people? Like, I don't know how approaching them, how to approach them, how to, you know, interact.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Where I'm like, now I'm like, it's so fucking stupid because they're just people who need help. So my initial, you know, hesitation was.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Obviously, I think what a lot of people feel, they don't know how to go up and help. I just called my mom and said, what do I do? And she goes, just talk to them, mate. Get down to their level and just talk to them. I went, yeah, that's right. So I would go up and I'd go, hey, how you going? I'm Ned. Get to the eye level, introduce myself, make them feel as comfortable as possible. Um, and just to be like, can I get your food? Can I get your water? Can I get you anything? Um, and a lot of times they're just like, ah, I don't want your help. So just they didn't acknowledge, didn't acknowledge me at all. Um, but a lot of times they would, they'd go, oh, thank you. I'd love that. This would be great. And it just was like, every time I left, I had this profound feeling of like, like it just, I needed to help. I needed to, every time I walked past someone, I'd needed to help them. And so I was like, fuck, my running's starting to get a bit wild.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  My, uh, the fifty marathons had just set. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this homelessness. So I raised a hundred grand when I did the fifty in fifty. And then, yeah, it kind of just went, I wanna do something with this run. Uh, I wanna keep in theme of the homelessness as well, and let's raise a million dollars.

• 1:16:01Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  And, yeah, it kind of just came about that way.

• 1:16:04Rich Roll?

  And how did you decide upon the nonprofit that would deploy those funds in the best way?

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Noah, who owns Mobilize, we are Mobilize, which is the charity I raised for. He reached out to me during the fifty marathons of fifty days and was like, what you're doing is incredible. We're a homeless charity, homelessness charity, then all volunteers. Uh, the most that ever raised prior to this run was fifteen grand in a year. And they literally, a lot of them were just literally getting money out of their own pockets and buying stuff and going and starting conversation. But their bread and butter is conversation. So going up and starting, talking with these people and seeing where the help can be given. Uh, so it was quite cool that it was the way I went and started talking to people on the street. Um, and yeah, then I went, oh, that's right. Noah reached out. They did really cool stuff.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  Hey, mate, do you wanna, we're gonna raise a million dollars for you. You can? He's like, yeah. Um, and then, yeah, we're fast forward to now, we raised two point five million.

• 1:17:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you got two and a half.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:04Rich Roll?

  What's interesting is that, that when you started, I mean, you didn't even have a hundred K raised, right? When the run started.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:17:11Rich Roll?

  So it just picked up steam along the way.

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, um, I think I hit a hundred thousand dollars on like day six. And then I was about four hundred and fifty thousand with ten days to go.

• 1:17:21Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  And then I was one point seven million when I hit Bondo.

• 1:17:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  I think people, especially Australians. Wanna see the person finish before they give their cash. Mate, honestly, it's, it is. But this is what happened with the fifty and fifty. I think I had twenty thousand raised with ten days ago, then I raised a hundred thousand.

• 1:17:38Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  Um, but they just love it when you've, and they wanna say and help, because a lot of the donation was to help for homelessness, but a lot was to thank me for what I'd done for them.

• 1:17:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  And so.

• 1:17:51Rich Roll?

  That's what, like Mark Boris said that to you, like he donated, he's like, yeah, I know it's for this, but I'm really doing it.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  For you.

• 1:17:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, and for what you've done for me.

• 1:17:59Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Um, and that was, that was cool, but I think that's what a lot of the later influx was for.

• 1:18:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  This motherfucker's done it. Go.

• 1:18:07Rich Roll?

  There you go.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Um, homelessness is such a, such an intractable problem, you know, it entails socio economic conditions, systemic issues, political issues, mental health, addiction, all of that, like it's a sticky wicket, right? Like you can buy somebody a meal or, you know, maybe, you know, give them a helping hand, but solving the problem itself is, you know, I, I mean, I don't know the nature of the problem here in Australia, but in the United States.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's massive in the States. Um, I think the misconception is that it's addiction, it's alcoholism, it's, it's actually like here in Australia, it's housing affordability, domestic violence, and like a few other things that have just like, not having a family that's there for you. And something goes wrong, you know, a lot of people are one paycheck away from being on the street.

• 1:19:07Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  Um, and so like with mobilize now, their, their bread and butter obviously is the interaction and conversation for change. But they're now implementing another pillar, which is, um, they go out and they, for example, that, because they have so much funding, they can actually help so. Say you're homeless, you need healthcare or you need, um, you know, you need a place to rent. You need to gather together 10 grand. I've, I'm from Mobilize, I go up to you and say, you know, what is it you need? They go, I need 10 grand for this. If you can raise five grand, we'll give you the other five. So you can show and we can help you and see where you can save it, where you can do this. So actually helping allow them to get into.

• 1:19:50Rich Roll?

  Right, like instead of giving them a fish.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  So you're gonna hear.

• 1:19:53Rich Roll?

  Teach them how to fish.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  Exactly. Being like, well, if you're willing to give this a go and we'll give you all the tools to help, we will help fund half or, you know, whatever it is, um, to help make that happen. And so, but it doesn't have to be about healthcare or housing or whatever. It can be anything.

• 1:20:09Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  But as long as it's gonna aid them in potentially making them get off the street, then that's what we're hoping.

• 1:20:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  And if you, sorry.

• 1:20:18Rich Roll?

  Go ahead.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  Homeless, like, whether we like it or not, everyone has needs. So money is like, you know, me saying I gave them food or water. It's like, I'm having a preconceived idea of what they can do with the money. So instead of being, you know, like going, we need to just give you food or water, because that's what I think you need. It's like when they have needs, the money is theirs to do. If you're gonna give them something and they want the money and you're willing to give something. You know what I mean?

• 1:20:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  That hard, we, we all have needs.

• 1:20:48Rich Roll?

  Sure, sure, sure. And, and is the, the fundraising still open?

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  It is still open and then you can still obviously donate to Mobilize. And they're, they are incredible. Like the, this one volunteer, he's my, he's 26, he started it. Just all young volunteers who, I was on a, done a few Zoom calls with them and they're just the most passionate, helpful people.

• 1:21:10Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  I'm like, this is great. This is what you want.

• 1:21:13Rich Roll?

  Doing the real work.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like just, they're all volunteers. There's no one doing anything. And I, I would hope that Noah who started it would be able to pay himself a bit of a wage to start going full time in it because of how passionate he is about it.

• 1:21:26Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  Um, but he won't, he just won't do it. Wow. So anyway, they'll work it out.

• 1:21:30Rich Roll?

  Right, so it's we are mobilize with an S, right? In America, they use a Z, but yeah, N S dot com dot A U?

• 1:21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:39Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Or you can go to.

• 1:21:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:43Rich Roll?

  What is it that, that you want people to, you know, take away from this experience that you've had? In terms of how they reflect upon themselves?

• 1:21:55Speaker 01

  I think knowing, limit your limitations. So I think a lot of people sit back and go, there's no, there's no way I could do that. No way I could do what they've done. So it's like, allow yourself to think, and you know, it doesn't have to be ambitious people. People love just, happy with their day, right? And happy with getting on with whatever it is. But I think if you're hesitating in wanting to do something, but I don't know how, it's like, don't overthink it. Just go for it. You're not gonna, no one's gonna rouse on you for having to go. No one's gonna, you know what I mean? You're not gonna let anyone down by having a crack at something.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  I think it's showing people and giving people that hope that they can also, whatever it is they want to do, go and do it.

• 1:22:42Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. So you're now in a situation where you're gonna be getting up on stages and, and, and doing keynotes and kind of delivering this type of message, including an event. I know you're gonna be at an event where Goggins is also speaking, which is very exciting for you. That's great.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  It is, especially on your first keynote.

• 1:23:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's your very first one?

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  I've done it like the Q and A.

• 1:23:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a different thing.

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  Very different.

• 1:23:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you're working it out?

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, getting there. I've only got two weeks, but I've got, I've got a pretty good plan.

• 1:23:13Rich Roll?

  That's good, man. So are you, are you still doing the electrician thing? Or is that no, no more?

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  It's been, mate, if there's something, I will not be doing it to that. I just, again, it's like, for me, when I moved to Sydney, it was exciting. And, you know, I'm doing it, being electrician, and I'll be able to, you know, even if it was electrical that I ended up doing, it would be, I would have a hundred guys working for me. Or I would, you know what I mean? I'd be just pushing, pushing and pushing. But now it's not. It's this ultrasound, and it's this motivation and it's inspiration. And in five years' time, I'll be something different. But hopefully, I've now got somewhat of a name to be able to then use that to continue to live and be able to do this.

• 1:23:55Rich Roll?

  You're so young, man. You got, you got your whole life ahead of you to figure this out. And you're in a position now where, yeah, you have a girlfriend and stuff like that, but you don't have a ton of liabilities and responsibilities. And you have the flexibility to kind of pivot and move and, and, you know, create the life of your dreams. It's, it's cool, man.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, um, yeah, I'm just, I'm just pumped to be able to, you know, I, I have actually created this. So now it's like, where to now?

• 1:24:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So speaking. What else?

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  For the moment, um, yeah, I'll be on the, on the speaking circuit and just like back into training, back into like getting fit and healthy and happy and being like excited about training. Um, and then, yeah, working on probably another event. I, um, just cause I wanna do it. I'm, I'm stinging from that, what I've just been through. So

• 1:24:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  I'm just, um, just trying to, not, nothing's set in stone. There's no like, you know, there's still, there's a few ideas I've got circulating, but, um, yeah, nothing yet. But I think it'll be just like, oh, we can try this and we could do this and, and maybe I'll get a lot more sponsors together or whatever and

• 1:25:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  and make it even, even cooler.

• 1:25:09Rich Roll?

  What is the, uh, what was the nutrition strategy when you were doing the run? Like, I know it gets difficult to keep food down and all of that, but knowing you're, you know, you gotta get, I don't know, some ungodly amount of calories in you every single day.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, the plan was 10,000 calories a day, but it's quite hard to

• 1:25:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  do when you're moving so much and the lack of food along the way. So we had to store everything or, you know, what we could purchase wasn't great. I was every, so in the morning would be oats, um, heap of brown sugar on it and then a coffee, banana, strawberries. Um, and then I would usually vomit that up by about an hour in. Um, and then, because it just like the phlegm I had from the dirt

• 1:25:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  and mosquitoes and the, you know, it was just, it's pretty wild. And then I would probably try and eat every hour on the hour, 500 calories if I could. But I was never really getting that in. I ended up losing about 12 kilos over the whole run. So I think I plateaued at about 70 kilos.

• 1:26:14Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  Uh, and I was probably eating and Burning the same amount by then, but all the way up, I was burning way more and eating heaps less.

• 1:26:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  Um, but I came into it quite heavy, like with extra weight.

• 1:26:26Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  Sorry. Um, so I had that to lose, not 12 kilos, but I had probably six or so to lose, where I'm at my probably peak weight. Uh, and then, yeah, obviously I probably lost a few more kilos than I would have liked, but that put that back on, no worries.

• 1:26:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. When you were coming into Bondi, that final day?

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:47Rich Roll?

  Is it true that your final marathon was a two fifty three?

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  Oh, no. So that was in the fifty marathons in fifty days.

• 1:26:54Rich Roll?

  I mean, okay, okay, okay. I misread that or I misheard that.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  On my fiftieth marathon of the, in twenty twenty.

• 1:27:02Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  It was a, um, yeah, two fifty three.

• 1:27:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's freaking epic.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Right. Um, but I was, I ran sixty K on the last day, um, from Campbelltown into Bondi.

• 1:27:13Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  But even then, like, uh, we woke up at like seven thirty.

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  I still had sixty K to run that day. I felt like I'd finished, but I still had to run sixty kilometers where it's like.

• 1:27:23Rich Roll?

  But that's the way it works, right? You're like, oh, it's just sixty kilometers and I'm done. Like, I'm basically finished with this whole thing.

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I'm like, fuck sixty K's a long way, isn't it? And like, I was running through towns with no like road paths, like, um, through suburbs with no paths, that no one ever runs out there. Um, and so I'm like, this is fucked up. Like, I'm just running on this highway the whole way. And now I've been trying to navigate streets and work out where I'm going. But yeah, it was, it was pretty nice when I got to Bondi. I got to Bondi about twenty minutes early because I told everyone five thirty, I got there about five o'clock. And, um, there's like cop convoy, like people storming helicopters above me and I'm like, oh no.

• 1:28:02Rich Roll?

  Did you have a sense that that would be waiting for you or was that a total shocker?

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  Total shock.

• 1:28:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  I, I knew it was gonna be, like, I knew there'd be a few people there, like. A thousand or two, maybe.

• 1:28:13Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  But even that's a lot. Um, and I just like, I remember running halfway up the road before Bondi Road. And I just saw two helicopters and I'm like, what's that? But they were like hovering with me.

• 1:28:27Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. This is me. Um, yeah. And then I just, I remember coming down. So I'm running down Bondi Bay, Bondi Road. From the south end and just every person was like, and you know, when there's this like hysteria of like, you know, they don't know what's going on. They know something's going on. So there was like, half the people knew what was going on, but the rest were like, what's all this commotion about?

• 1:28:50Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  And, um, but so there's just me in this, in this left lane in the Bondi Road, which never gets shut. Uh, they've blocked it off for me. I'm running down and I just saw the beach, like the promenade. And it was like a summer's day in Bondi on steroids.

• 1:29:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  I was like, you don't see it like that.

• 1:29:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  Um, and then I, I got quite taken back. I got quite like, almost like tall poppy syndrome, like you don't deserve this sort of like.

• 1:29:16Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  And then I went, and then about 10 seconds later, I went, you've been through hell and back, mate. You just, you owe me. And then there's just like, I'm just like screaming at everyone like, yeah, that was pretty cool.

• 1:29:27Rich Roll?

  It was crazy. I mean, people who are watching or listening, go to Ned's Instagram and you got the videos there pinned and stuff. It's, it's wild. I mean, there, I don't know how many thousands of people were there, but yeah, plenty.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not, I don't really know. And I, the, the number changes every time I say, so I'd say around 10,000 to be honest.

• 1:29:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  But maybe more. I'm not really sure. But then you go like the wide shot from the drone. It's like the whole beach and the whole like, it's wild.

• 1:29:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Um, one of the, one of the, uh, injuries that you, you sustained that I gotta hear more about is, uh, the fact that you had like maggots burrowing in your toe.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Rich Roll?

  So is that due to like blisters and swelling or whatever? And then it's the flies like laying eggs?

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty well it. So when you, you know, your toenails peel off.

• 1:30:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  It would, my big right toenail had like half come off. So it was like an opening, but it wasn't fully out. So I didn't like try to pull it off. And we were just cruising along, finished a run, lot of flies in the outback of Australia. And it flown in, I'm obviously like kicking him away. And then two days later, or three days later, I'm in the Nullable Roadhouse, like the most remote roadhouse of Australia. And I'm, my toes like aching, it felt like an ingrown toenail. And I'm like, I'm trying to pull the skin away. And I'm like, this is fucking keeping me up. Like it was full on, I could not sleep because of it. I couldn't really sleep anyway, but that was just like a whole nother thing. So I clipped my nail,

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  half my nail off and still wouldn't, still didn't fix it. So I got out in the run, I'm 40 K into the run, it's raining, pissing down rain. And I'm, I thought it must be water in my toe. So I've pulled my socks off and there's no like, like I've dried it and it's like all good. And I'm like, fuck, maybe we need to dry it out. Get some alcohol spray. So I sprayed some alcohol into it. And then maggots just start crawling out of it. Yeah. And so I'm like, oh no, because I obviously wanted to get out of the alcohol. So they've just dispersed. I'm like, I've got maggots in my toe. Cause I saw this red, this red blood thing move, sliding away. And it was freaking, it was like five maggots in there. So then we got the cotton bud, scraped it out. And then, yeah, put the new sock on,

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  freaked out a bit, worked out, like, tried to.

• 1:31:48Rich Roll?

  Did you take a video of that?

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've got a video.

• 1:31:50Rich Roll?

  You haven't shared that one?

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  I haven't shared it. I think we're gonna try and use it.

• 1:31:55Rich Roll?

  Oh, you're making a documentary?

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Potentially, yeah. Cause we've got a little bit of footage. So we'll see, we'll see about, I just, yeah, it just depends on like the work to put into it and first outcomes.

• 1:32:07Rich Roll?

  But your PT said that possibly the fact that you had maggots in your toe, kept it from getting infected. It was actually a blessing.

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I think.

• 1:32:17Rich Roll?

  Which is fucked up to think about.

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:19Rich Roll?

  Well, it is.

• 1:32:20Speaker 01

  I think they had like.

• 1:32:21Rich Roll?

  You had to clean a wound.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you had a wound, like you'd put a maggot in it, like not obviously the big ones, but like the smaller, and they just eat away at the infection and take them out, which is fucked. Like it is so gross. I, um, yeah, I did question my life choice at that point, uh, but we scraped them out and we were good to go. And I didn't have any pain after that, which is great.

• 1:32:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So life after the run, you went to the, the GQ man of the year awards. A lot of people are calling for you to be Australian of the year 2023. That's a bit of a head fuck.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  It is a head fuck, especially when, you know, when I was out there on the road, like, I'm not thinking any of this. I'm thinking about getting back to Bondi and like, you know, some people being there. So when, you know, I do get invited to those things or I feel weird going out there and accepting an award because I'm like, but I guess all the people in there were just the same at some point, not necessarily the running part, but you know, had a dream of being a singer or a dream of being an actor. And then they're finally an actor and then they're up there accepting their award for the best solo actor, you know, and so best solo artist. Uh, and when I went up there, I'm like, it's hard to believe I'm up here to be perfectly honest, like being in, you know, two weeks into the run on the Nullarbor, having no clue what was ahead of me to being here dressed up in a

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  suit that I do not feel comfortable in, um, is very like, it's very surreal. And like, you know, I've got the prime minister in front of me, Russell Crowe, uh, you know, all these people. And I'm like, I'm swearing my head off. And I'm like, oh, well, it's just me, isn't it?

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  No, it's very cool. And it's been, yeah, I, I do pinch myself, but I know I've got so much more to give and I know I've got so much more in me that people want to see and that I want to give to people. Yeah. So it's like, embrace it.

• 1:34:07Rich Roll?

  The, uh, the fact that it's GQ and you're rocking the mullet like that, there's just something really beautiful about that. I love that. Yeah. But no, but it's powerful. You're going to bring it back. Are there a bunch of like, you know, Ned acolytes cruising around now with bleach blonde mullets?

• 1:34:22Speaker 01

  Again, um, there's always like, you know, the sports parties or people have parties and it's like rock up as your favorite athlete or your favorite.

• 1:34:29Rich Roll?

  Like for Halloween, people dress up like you?

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  The amount of freaking things I got tagged into that was great. But there's a few, there's a few bleach mullets getting there. Yeah.

• 1:34:37Rich Roll?

  My favorite of the things that you've done though, didn't you, did you do a thing with the, uh, the Inspired Unemployed?

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  Uh, a podcast?

• 1:34:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, those guys, like those, I love the, like, I don't, I can't remember when I tuned into those guys, but I love those guys.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. They're so, like, they're so, they're so funny, those dudes. So they're, they're such good boys. Like, they're so. They're just like your everyday dude, but they've just done some funny content and it's just blown up. People love it. They're just like, like, you know, they've got some anxieties and they got, they're just, they're just their everyday dudes. You know what I mean? And they're just doing their thing and they're, um, like they presented the award at the GQ for me. And I was so nervous before it. And it's like, you know what I mean? It's like this stuff is, you have to be trained to, you know, you have to do stuff like this to be good at it. But, you know, you're doing like for me, like going up there. I'm like, this is fucking wild. But now, the more keynotes I do, the more, you know, this sort of stuff I do, the more comfortably I'm talking about your story. Um, but yeah, those, those boys are so good. They're so funny and

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  they've, they've done so well out of it.

• 1:35:39Rich Roll?

  On the keynote thing, you know, if you're just yourself and you just, you know, like double down on, on just the authenticity of who you are and, and keep it real, all the rest of it takes care of itself. Yeah. You know?

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  And you've done a few, haven't you?

• 1:35:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm not great at it. It's not like my, I can do it and I've done plenty of them. I don't think it's my strength. Um, I've learned a lot doing it though. But I, I think the, the ones that I've done that have been the best are where like, I know what I, I know, like the things that I want to say, but I just, I don't try to like be so tied to that. And I just kind of like show up and be present.

• 1:36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:14Rich Roll?

  And, and relaxed, then it's better. Um, that's more important than like staying on script. And then I think just making it about the audience. Like, not, it's not about you, but like how, like, okay, who are these people? Like, where do they come from? What are they interested in hearing about? And the more you can like customize it or make it about them?

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  Once you have the script, it's like, you know,

• 1:36:37Rich Roll?

  Well, then it starts to just become, I mean, I did it so many times after a while. I was like, is this even true? Like I, I just, I felt so disconnected from what I was saying that I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. Or, you know, if I'm going to do it, I have to just throw that out and like show up blank slate. Yeah. So I don't know, but I'm excited for you, man. It's exciting.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  It's gonna be, and I know, you know, the first one's gonna potentially suck and that's all part of it. I've done a few already, like on my own, not in front of anyone or like in front of my girlfriend, but I, um, Yeah, it's gonna be like, you know,

• 1:37:10Rich Roll?

  You're rehearsing it.

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  We're only going up from here.

• 1:37:12Rich Roll?

  You got the power, the slides and everything?

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Have to.

• 1:37:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  I need pointers to remember what I'm.

• 1:37:17Rich Roll?

  Are you, uh, are you, you have any plans to come to the States?

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  In April, hopefully.

• 1:37:22Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, potentially speak with like a sponsor, like a global sponsor. And do you know Cam Haynes?

• 1:37:32Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:37:32Rich Roll?

  I do.

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Hunting and.

• 1:37:34Rich Roll?

  I know that he, he likes all your posts. I saw that. And I was like, oh, that's cool. Cam, I've never met him, but we've communicated a little bit on the internet and

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 1:37:43Rich Roll?

  Super like, you know, really like, you know, has a positive attitude about like,

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 1:37:48Rich Roll?

  You know, just supporting as many people.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:37:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Yes. And he's just like, no bullshit. And like, yeah, I think it's great. I think we need people like that, you know?

• 1:37:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you're gonna go hang out with him?

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go and try and pull a bow and.

• 1:38:03Rich Roll?

  That, that's a video I wanna see.

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Bow hunting in Oregon with, with Cam Haynes and go for a run.

• 1:38:09Rich Roll?

  Nice, man.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:10Rich Roll?

  Well, I'm sure there's plenty of eager hosts for you in the States.

• 1:38:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. That'll be good.

• 1:38:16Rich Roll?

  Just as a final thing to kind of, you know, close this thing down, I already asked you a little bit about like what you want people to take away from, from your run, but you know, I think, you know, there's a lot of people, you know, to your point, who get stuck in their head or walk around with a, a sense of incapacity about their own possibility and, and potential. You, uh, you know, you serve as this really, you know, kind of shining star in terms of, you know, what we're all capable of. Because in so many ways you are like the everyman and you just discovered running a couple of years ago. You're so young.

• 1:38:52Rich Roll?

  But, you know, speak to that person who, who does feel kind of stuck on the couch or every time they feel like they take a stab at something, it snaps back on them and, and, and they're just, you know, feeling a little bit directionless.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  I think making sure that you're you're not doing it because you feel you should do it because it's like the right thing to do. As you said before, it's like, cause you see through the bullshit of people trying to do it for something other than them wanting to do it for them. So when if you're doing it for, you know, you're per someone to like you, or, you know, someone to compliment you on something, or, you know, whatever it is in that way. It's like that, that will not be enough to get you to continually keep getting up off that couch.

• 1:39:38Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:39:38Speaker 01

  And so do it for, for you to feel good, or for you to succeed in something that you've always felt, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I guess like not, not doing it for any other reason than for the, the reason that you want to do it, if that makes sense. Not like, not for any external validation.

• 1:40:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:02Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I, I, I'm, I need, I wish, I want a bit more time to probably word that, but that, I guess that's the essence of what I'm.

• 1:40:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, when I, when I reflect upon, you know, how, how you've accomplished this thing, I mean, it really, it feels to me like it, you know, it started with, with one little jog because you, you had the back fat, you didn't like it. And there wasn't, it, it, it wasn't like some grand ambition that you were going to run across Australia. It was one tiny step. And, you know, when I asked you about mantras and you're talking about just getting to the next lamppost, it's breaking everything down into really easily, you know, repeatable, digestible actions. And, and, you know, the lever's really moved through those tiny things undertaken every day anonymously. You're a bloke at home going out for a jog here and there, and you strung some things together that led

• 1:40:54Rich Roll?

  to something fantastic, but it didn't begin that way. So I think like being humble and, and just getting into the habit of, of kind of flexing the muscle of, of self-care, wherever that kind of instinct or, or inspiration is, is leading you is really the, the kind of impulse to pay attention to.

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And like, like how many New Year's resolutions are like a two week set up? You've changed everything dramatically and then they're back into doing it. And so I think it's like, you know, I didn't start with, I didn't start with running. A hundred K. I didn't start with ice cold baths every day or ice showers every day, cold showers every day. I didn't start with reading Termite's book. I started with go for a run. Okay, I'm getting further in my running. Now I can incorporate eating well. Oh, this eating well is actually really helping me. And it was just like this incremental increase in doing the more uncomfortable things. So when that became comfortable, I just did the next thing. And then

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  all of a sudden, I'm, you know, beating down marathons and I'm running further and I'm, you know, I've got this energy about me that I'm running around being like, hello, how are you? Happy freaking Friday. How good's this? How good's living? Blah, blah, blah. Like, it was never like, there was just this energy coming out of me. So I think it's just these slow steps that allow you, but being consistent and disciplined to make sure you continue to do it.

• 1:42:20Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  Um, and then, you know, even like with the weight loss, it started out as a external, you know, lose weight. But what I found when I was trying to do that was this feeling of achievement by getting the next run, by getting the next run. And all of a sudden, I'm, you know, doing these long runs and I'm feeling this excitement about how far I can push myself. So when, you know, now it's got nothing to do with losing weight, the weight is a byproduct of now me being happy, me being content with what I'm doing.

• 1:42:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Beautiful, man. Well, I appreciate you taking the time here. I wanted to say, I asked you before you came out, I was like, bring me a budgie smuggler.

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:59Rich Roll?

  So here's, this is your sponsor, right?

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  He's in the.

• 1:43:01Rich Roll?

  I love that, like, like, an ultra runner who ran across Australia had a, had like, basically, like, a bathing suit company as your sponsor.

• 1:43:10Speaker 01

  Shout out to.

• 1:43:10Rich Roll?

  But there is nothing more Australian than the budgie smuggler.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  It's.

• 1:43:14Rich Roll?

  I asked you, bring me one. This is like, perfect. And I feel like I'm an honorary citizen of Australia now.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:43:21Rich Roll?

  I love it.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  I'm proud to be able to give you a pair. You guys are budging.

• 1:43:25Rich Roll?

  I will wear it proudly.

• 1:43:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Um, on the surfboard today.

• 1:43:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, for sure. Uh, super inspired by your feats, by your example. But I think more than that, and like I said at the outset, like, the reason I wanted to talk to you. Has less to do with the fact that you ran across Australia and more about like how you comport yourself. And I think in this age of social media influencers, there's a lot of like not so great influencers out there. And I've got four kids and I think a lot about like, who are they looking up to?

• 1:43:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:58Rich Roll?

  Who are, you know, the North Stars of people that they can like draw wisdom from? And the fact that you, you know, being at your age, uh, you know, can serve that for young people and old people like me, um, I think is really cool. And so I just wanted to honor you for that and let you know that I appreciate what you're doing and, and, uh, I'm, I'm at your service, man.

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  You're welcome.

• 1:44:18Rich Roll?

  I love everything about you and it's been great to meet you.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  Thank you. And you, I've been, yeah, it's been an honor to be here. Really, truly am very grateful and I'm blessed to meet you.

• 1:44:27Rich Roll?

  Cheers. Uh, everybody definitely check out Ned's Instagram. Uh, if Ned's new to you, cause he, he, you know, you're probably new to a lot of people in the States.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 1:44:37Rich Roll?

  Um, you can scroll through his feed and get a pretty good sense of, of not just the adventure, but like who this guy is. Pretty cool. Ned with two D's, Brockman with two N's.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  Double D, double N.

• 1:44:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there you go. That's unique in and of itself. Um, we'll put up links to We Are Mobilize and your website and all that other good stuff, man. So.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:44:57Rich Roll?

  Cheers, Brian. Cheers.

• 1:45:10Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com.

• 1:45:41Rich Roll?

  If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering

• 1:46:23Rich Roll?

  by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and A.J. Akpodiette. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.