Colin O’Brady’s Attempt On The Explorers Grand Slam World Record

As I write this entry, it's Sunday evening, January 10 around 8pm. Less than one hour ago, after days spent slogging across Antarctic desert in -30 celsius temperatures, 30-year old pro triathlete turned mountaineering adventure athlete Colin O'Brady reached the South Pole — the first stop on his world record quest to become the youngest and fastest human to ever complete the Explorers Grand Slam — an adventurers challenge to summit the highest mountain on each of the seven continents as well as trek to both the North and South Poles. Only 44 people in documented history have successfully completed the challenge. Of these, only 2 have done it under a year. Colin's goal? Get it done in five months. If that's not amazing enough, consider that just eight years ago, Colin faced the very real possibility he would never walk again. After graduating from Yale in 2006, Colin left to explore the world on a backpacking trip. While in Thailand, he suffered a tragic accident and was severely burned in a fire. His injuries covered nearly 25% of his body, causing potentially irrevocable damage to his legs and feet. Determined to beat the odds, he set a seemingly outlandish goal to not just walk again, but to complete a triathlon following his recovery. Colin didn't just finish a triathlon. In his first attempt he won — stunning the multisport community with an overall amateur title at the prestigious 2009 Chicago Triathlon less than two years post-accident and after only a few months of training. On the day immediately following his victory, Colin turned pro, quit his job as a commodities trader, hopped a flight to Australia and spent the next five years representing the United States in triathlon competitions all over the world with a keen eye on landing an Olympic berth. Insane. And yet despite his amazing success, Colin sensed something missing from his life. He wanted more. A compulsion to more deeply explore uncertainty and precariousness that fatefully gave birth to the expedition he calls BEYOND 7/2. His inspiration isn't fame, but pure adventure, buttressed by a conviction to land a blow to childhood obesity by raising $1 million on behalf of the Alliance For A Healthier Generation, a non-profit founded by the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation dedicated to helping kids to develop healthy habits. From his hippie upbringing to life at Yale, organic farming on Kauai, and the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual fortitude required to succeed in his world record attempt, this is an incredibly inspiring conversation with a young man courageously embracing fear to meet his absolute limits in search of meaning, place and giving back. We cover a lot of ground in today's confab, including: * Explorers Grand Slam history * the logistics behind Beyond 7/2 * how to manage fear, risk & unknowns * the difference between poles vs. peaks * climate change impact on the North Pole * the desire to combat childhood obesity * Colin's tragedy in Thailand * Colin's remarkable recovery * Colin's Olympic dream * the discipline of swimming as a springboard * lessons learned from world champions * physical/mental preparation * Colin's daily meditation routine Enjoy! 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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• 1:04Colin O'Brady?

  So it's that process of having that big goal out there, but also those incremental steps along the way, which, you know, for me, was challenging and powerful and tested every inch of me, but in the end really led to a beautiful outcome. For me, it's always been about the journey, about the adventure, and about, you know, living my passion, and that's been enough reward for me.

• 1:24Rich Roll?

  That's adventure athlete Colin O'Brien, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:43Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody, how you doing? It's Rich Roll. I am your host. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. You know what I do here, right? Each week, I sit down with the best and the brightest across all categories of health, wellness, diet, nutrition, fitness, entrepreneurship, spirituality. In the case of today's guest, adventure sports. Why do I do this? To help you guys unlock and unleash your best, most authentic selves. So, thank you for tuning in today, for subscribing on iTunes, for always using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. I'm continuing this new trend of doing the intro without any script whatsoever, winging it. It makes me very uncomfortable, nervous. This might be a little rough around the edges, but people seemed to like it last week, for the most part.

• 2:28Rich Roll?

  So, I'm going to give it a stab again, and we'll just see how it goes. One thing I want to comment on before I get into today's guest is 2016 for me is going to be a lot about video. I have committed to uploading one new YouTube video a week. I'm also doubling down on Snapchat. I've been doing a lot on Snapchat around morning routines. You can find me there at I Am Rich Roll, I A M Rich Roll. Why am I doing this? Well, video has always been a very underdeveloped aspect of the advocacy work that I do, and I've just made this decision that for 2016, I want to explore that and really develop that. It does not mean that I'm going to reduce my attention to the podcast.

• 3:12Rich Roll?

  If anything, I'm doubling down on the podcast. So, this has nothing to do with the podcast. The podcast will always be the podcast. I'm just as excited, if not more excited, about the podcast than I ever have been. So, no worries there. Okay, today's guest, Colin O'Brady. Very interesting guy, pro triathlete, adventurer, athlete. He's got a very compelling, unique story. Basically, this is a guy who, when he graduated from Yale, I think he graduated in 2008, he took the year off to travel across the world. And he was in Southeast Asia when he suffered an accident and was severely burned, sustaining injuries that covered about a quarter of his entire body. And there was some speculation that he may never walk again normally.

• 3:57Rich Roll?

  And as he was convalescing in the hospital in Asia, he made a commitment to himself that someday he would do a triathlon. And not only does he learn how to walk again, and not only does he ultimately complete a triathlon... He actually wins the amateur division of the Chicago triathlon in 2009, just one year after his accident and literally only months after he began to actually train in any direction whatsoever. It was essentially his very first triathlon. At the time, he's this commodities trader in Chicago and literally overnight, he quits his job and he's on a plane to Australia to pursue a career as a pro triathlete and his dream of becoming an Olympian, which is like this crazy unbelievable story, right? So, over the last five years,

• 4:41Rich Roll?

  he's fared pretty well racing all over the world on the ITU circuit, but he started to feel like there was something missing in his life. And that's when he dreams up this crazy Explorers Grand Slam Challenge to become the fastest person and the youngest person to climb the highest mountain on each of the seven continents and trek to both the South and the North Poles. Only 42 people in documented history have actually accomplished this, only two have done it in under a year, and Colin is striving to get it done in just over five months. And along the way, he's attempting to raise a million dollars in charity to combat childhood obesity. So, this is a crazy, amazing story. I want to

• 5:24Rich Roll?

  get much more into Colin and his adventure in a minute, but before we do that... Alright, so I sat down with Colin, I think it was the second week of December, yeah, it was December 10th, to hear all about his life and this amazing challenge. It's a challenge he calls Beyond 72, which literally just began January 1. When I sat down with him, he was in the final days of getting ready before departing for Antarctica to tackle the first challenge, which is skiing to the South Pole. And I checked in with his fiancee today to get an update because I wanted to be completely contemporaneous

• 6:05Rich Roll?

  with where he's at now, leading into this podcast. And it looks like he is going to reach the South Pole on either Saturday, January 9th, or more likely, Sunday, January 10th. So, literally by the time you're listening to this, he will have a... Accomplished that first, that first goal. Apparently, he's traveled about forty-four miles from the drop-off point. He's still got sixteen to go. It's an average of negative twenty-eight degrees. I assume that's Celsius. And once he completes, uh, reaching the South Pole, he's gonna go direct to Mount Vinson without any rest days whatsoever. Apparently, they're already behind schedule due to bad weather that delayed the start during the first week in Antarctica. So, anyway, I'm gonna stop burying the lead. Uh, let's just hear from Colin.

• 6:50Rich Roll?

  All right, should we do that? Let him tell us the story instead of me? Let's do that.

• 7:01Colin O'Brady?

  Got the full setup now, man.

• 7:02Rich Roll?

  You heard, you heard the very first one in Kauai?

• 7:05Colin O'Brady?

  I think so, yeah, yeah. Someone turned me on to it when I was there on Kauai. And I think you, did you do the first one there?

• 7:10Rich Roll?

  I did, yeah. We were, uh, we were living at Common Ground.

• 7:13Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:14Rich Roll?

  Which you know, right?

• 7:15Colin O'Brady?

  Five minutes from my dad's house.

• 7:16Rich Roll?

  That's crazy. So, your dad has an organic farm on the North Shore?

• 7:19Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, yeah, he...

• 7:20Rich Roll?

  Has he always had that?

• 7:22Colin O'Brady?

  He's been there since nineteen ninety-nine. So, yeah, my sisters, uh, my sisters were raised, um, on Kauai, my stepsisters. And then they left to go to the mainland because the public schools weren't, weren't great there. So, they came to the mainland and that's when their mom met my dad. Uh, and we're right about the same age. So, I was, uh, you know, I guess thirteen, uh, when that all happened. And so...

• 7:45Rich Roll?

  That must've shook things up a little bit.

• 7:46Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, for sure. Um, but it ended up being great because my sister, uh, there were a couple, two, two sisters on board from that, uh, that crew. But, um, yeah, my sister ended up coming, uh, uh, being the exact same age as me in school. Now, I was married to my childhood best friend, actually, and they have two kids, so...

• 8:03Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 8:04Colin O'Brady?

  That's exciting. But as far as Kauai, it was great because they, my stepmom always planned to go back to Kauai. It was just to come to the mainland of Portland, Oregon, where I grew up, just for, for them to finish high school.

• 8:14Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 8:14Colin O'Brady?

  And so, uh, so, yeah, so we... Ended up spending a ton of time over there and my, my parents moved over there and it was great for me, you know, just assimilated in the community immediately because, you know, you've got siblings who are the same age, uh, right there. So it can be a little bit tough in Hawaii to do that immediately.

• 8:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, the, the North Shore of Hawaii is its own universe, man. And like try to, trying to like penetrate the social structure there is tricky. It's like most people there, they go to Hawaii on vacation. When you're living there, it's very different. And there's an island mentality that can take a little bit of time and patience to connect with.

• 8:50Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely.

• 8:51Rich Roll?

  To put it in a political.

• 8:52Colin O'Brady?

  That's, that's being kind. No, it's a, it's a beautiful place. It's paradise for sure. But like you said, so many people just see it from the tourist perspective. So to really get that local perspective on it and have that, you know, feel like my second home now and have my dad be a, a farmer there. He's got a beautiful, small, small plot, but a beautiful piece of land out there. Just not far out of, outside of Kilauea, which is not far from Common Ground where you guys were. And, uh, yeah, it's amazing. It's just, it's paradise.

• 9:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's really cool. So what does he grow there?

• 9:18Colin O'Brady?

  So much stuff. I guess he's most known for his, uh, white pineapples, um, onions, but really he has the gamut. I mean, he's got all the greens, you know, bok choy, char, toma, different types of kale, apple, uh, apple bananas, papayas. I mean, you name it. Three different types of avocados, lemons, lime. I mean, everything.

• 9:37Rich Roll?

  That's cool. So is he, is he able to make it work as a business?

• 9:40Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. Yeah, he is. Yeah. He's, so he's at, uh, the farmer's markets. There's the one right by Common Ground there, just across the gas station from, from Kilauea. Um, as well as, uh, he's at the Kilauea Farmer's Market. And then a bunch of the restaurants in town source a lot of their local produce and stuff from him. So yeah, he's been able to, to make it work for himself. It's, you know, it's a labor of farming. It's a lot of hard work.

• 10:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's not easy.

• 10:02Colin O'Brady?

  He's got woofers out there, which is, uh, so people that help to work on the farm and live there and trying to share the lifestyle. So it's kind of a communal whole vibe going on there.

• 10:10Rich Roll?

  The woofer lifestyle is like a, well, when we were living at Common Ground, we were sharing yurts with a bunch of woofers.

• 10:16Colin O'Brady?

  Yes. Yes.

• 10:17Rich Roll?

  And, uh, and it was interesting because a lot of them had like graduate degrees in hermiculture. Like they're not just like hippie, you know, dropouts. Like they're into it. Like they've studied. They understand it, they're passionate about, you know, organic farming and they understand it on like a whole nother level.

• 10:32Colin O'Brady?

  Oh, for sure, which is really cool because for my dad, I think when he first started this 15 years ago or whatever, he thought, oh, it's gonna just be like these surfers coming through, kinda need a place to stay, do a little work here and there. And, you know, we've had a few people stay, come through like that, which has been totally great, but he's really realized that there's some people, like you said, that have like formal background in this, really, you know, mature in their training and understanding of this and really wanna like learn even more depth of organic farming. So he's had some of his people on his farm, lots of one, two, three year stays, like really established community there rather than this, you know, there's still a bit of a transient that, but you know, he likes that. He's got this whole community. So yeah, it's called Olana Farm. It's a cool little place. Definitely, definitely awesome.

• 11:11Rich Roll?

  Did you like email me a long time ago? Like, I feel like I remember there was somebody who was a professional triathlete who like maybe around the, like right around the time we left.

• 11:20Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I think, this is what I'm saying. I think I got turned on. I heard your podcast and you guys have been on Kauai. I think I may have tweeted to you like, oh man, it's awesome you're starting this podcast. Like I'm a pro triathlete on Kauai. Like we should talk at some point, like whatever.

• 11:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And you were like blogging from, you know, training.

• 11:34Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Training, being on the farm, you know, eating the fresh food, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, I feel like our universes have been circling each other for quite some time. So.

• 11:43Rich Roll?

  I'm sure we have quite an overlap in the people that we know and all that kind of stuff.

• 11:47Colin O'Brady?

  For sure. Fun to finally sit down with you and have a chat, have it out.

• 11:50Rich Roll?

  Awesome. Thanks for, uh, thanks for making the time.

• 11:52Colin O'Brady?

  Oh, my pleasure.

• 11:53Rich Roll?

  It's an exciting time for you. You're on the precipice of, of launching into perhaps the greatest adventure you could ever conceptualize.

• 12:00Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 12:01Rich Roll?

  How are you feeling?

• 12:02Colin O'Brady?

  Feeling good, man. You know, obviously we'll get into the, the depths of what it, what it really means. But, you know, we dreamed up this project about 18 months ago now, my fiance and I, Jenna. Um, so she's, she's kinda my rock in all of this. We kinda do, do everything together. She's been on the road with me as a professional triathlete for a long time, kinda just managing all our logistics and all the various other pieces in the background that go on. And yeah, we dreamed up this project. So in 15 days from now, actually, we, I embarked to set off to. Set a, hopefully set a world record to go to the, climb the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents, as well as go on expedition both the North Pole and the South Pole.

• 12:41Rich Roll?

  Right, so let's, uh, let's dissect this. You're calling it beyond seven two.

• 12:45Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly.

• 12:46Rich Roll?

  The seven is for the seven summits and the two is for the two poles.

• 12:49Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 12:50Rich Roll?

  And there, so, so the idea is to be the fastest, as well as the youngest person to ever tackle all seven summits and both poles.

• 12:59Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Rich Roll?

  And there's only been forty-two.

• 13:02Colin O'Brady?

  Forty-two people who have ever done that.

• 13:03Rich Roll?

  Done that, right?

• 13:04Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Rich Roll?

  And, and how old is the youngest person who's ever done it?

• 13:07Colin O'Brady?

  I'm not sure, I think it's about thirty-seven, thirty-eight is the youngest. I'm third, just, as I'm thirty, I'll be, I'll turn thirty-one during the project, so I'm significantly younger than the average person. But of the forty-two people that have done it, you know, most of those people have done it, um, you know, it's a great lifetime achievement for anyone.

• 13:24Rich Roll?

  They do it over the course of their life.

• 13:25Colin O'Brady?

  Had to do it five years, ten years, fifteen years, or something like that, you know, each one of these expeditions, piece by piece.

• 13:29Rich Roll?

  Two have done it in, under a year.

• 13:31Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly.

• 13:32Rich Roll?

  That's it, right? And you're trying to do it in six months.

• 13:34Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, so the, the record that I'm, I'm after is six months, eleven days is the, uh, the duration, uh, so hopefully under that. But the way we have it scheduled now, if everything goes to plan, which of course it won't go, all go to plan, but if it did all go to plan, we do it in about five week, five months, excuse me, five months, so.

• 13:51Rich Roll?

  So you've built in.

• 13:52Colin O'Brady?

  We've got a little bit of buffer.

• 13:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you've built in like five weeks of buffer.

• 13:54Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 13:55Rich Roll?

  Interesting. And, and of the two that have done it in, uh, in under a year, what's the fastest, what's the current record?

• 14:02Colin O'Brady?

  The current record's six months, eleven days. So that was a guy, a Welsh guy named Richard Parks, um, who did that in two thousand and eleven. And then the other person is a American woman, uh, named Vanessa O'Brien, who's from Boston, so. Um, I've never had any, much interaction with Richard, but, um, Vanessa's actually been a great mentor to help me kind of figure out some of the bits and pieces and the insane logistics and all that, that it takes to do all these things back to back, so.

• 14:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, this is no small thing.

• 14:26Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 14:27Rich Roll?

  I would imagine the planning alone, you know, has taken you the full eighteen months and.

• 14:31Colin O'Brady?

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:32Rich Roll?

  In order to, let's say you do break the record, to verify that, how, are there sort of like.

• 14:36Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, you know.

• 14:37Rich Roll?

  Things that you have to have in place in order to, for it to be legit?

• 14:40Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, it's funny, you know, mountaineering has. There's a storied history around this and obviously there's been some controversial summits and things over time or disputed summits. For the most part, it's a gentleman's game, you know, there's, it's different than, you know, professional, traditional professional sport like triathlon or something like that, which there's a governing body and all those sorts of things. You know, mountaineering doesn't quite have that, but the mountaineering community is very strong in that. So, you know, what we're gonna do is really, we're gonna try to engage our audience fully in real time through this whole project through, you know, being on sat phone, being on GPS, posting photos every day, all that sort of stuff. So there's gonna be quite a bit of documentation that should, you know, be pretty obvious and evident that I did these things.

• 15:17Colin O'Brady?

  But there are also, you know, I know Vanessa, when she did it, and she also holds a record for the women's fastest, women's fastest for seven summits as well. And for Guinness to approve that, she has certificates from each mountain that actually, the people that were there certify that. So we'll, we'll make sure to do as much of that as we can to, you know, make sure it's as legit as it possibly can be, obviously.

• 15:39Rich Roll?

  Right. When you get Guinness involved, then it becomes a trickier thing, because they have all kinds of extra requirements and they also want you to pay them.

• 15:46Colin O'Brady?

  Yes, it's a whole, it's a whole, it's a whole other thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 15:50Rich Roll?

  All right, well, well, let's break it down. So the first, the first challenge in the seven two is the South Pole, right? Are you gonna go directly from LA to there?

• 16:00Colin O'Brady?

  No, so I'm from Portland, Oregon, you know, been living around the world the past five years, being a professional triathlete, and lived all over the place, raced in 25 different countries, six different continents, been a bit of a whirlwind, an amazing whirlwind at that. But when we dreamed up this project and knew we were kinda taking a little bit of a pivot, decided to return home full-time to Portland, Oregon. Traveled a bit still this year for racing, but Portland's been home base, so I'll head back to Portland from LA for a couple of weeks after this. And then I'm off on Christmas Day for the, for Antarctica and start with the South Pole.

• 16:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's, it's quickly getting real.

• 16:33Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, it is, it is. It's crazy. It's like a year and a half in the dreaming and, you mean, you know this from preparing for big events and stuff like this, so much of it is really just getting you...

• 16:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but not like this. This is, this is a different universe.

• 16:44Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, it's just getting, I mean, getting to the start line has been as big a challenge as anything, you know, really the journey and the process of that, it's been no small feat to get us here, so I'm... I'm proud that we're on the precipice of really, really making this, you know, dream a reality and all the, all that goes behind it and the cause and everything that we've got going.

• 17:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and we're gonna get into all of that.

• 17:01Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Rich Roll?

  But to begin, so, so how many people are traveling with you? Like, what does the entourage, the crew support, look like?

• 17:08Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, it really is, uh, it's different, um, from peak to peak. Um, there's no one person who's with me throughout the entire journey. Jenna, like I said, being, being my rock, also the executive director of our organization, she really is the one person who I'll have continuity with, not in person the whole time, but daily contact with to facilitate a lot of this. Um, and then at each individual mountain, I have different people coming in. Um, so for example, on the South Pole and Mount Vinson, which are the first two, Vin- Mount Vinson's the tallest mountain in our, Antarctica. And then the South Pole trek, I'm just going through a company called Alpine Ascents. It's just a logistics coordinator, you know, a guiding service.

• 17:49Colin O'Brady?

  Um, and I'm trying to do most of these, you know, independently on my own and whatnot, um, to not be in that sort of formally guided context. It's not the way I want to do this, the ethic I want to do it. But Antarctica being as logistically challenging as it is, as prohibitively expensive as it is, all these sorts of things, the, the path of least resistance is to just go through the kind of formal context that is established down there. So I'll be with, um, three other people on the South Pole trek, um, and about five other people. And the, the guy who I'll be doing the South Pole trek with, one of the reasons I wanted to do it with this organization is actually the guy who, guy named Vern Tejas, who holds the current record for the Seven Summits. Not the Seven Summits in the poles, but the Seven Summit, so.

• 18:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 18:27Colin O'Brady?

  A lot of knowledge and, you know, expertise there. A good way to kind of kick things off, for sure.

• 18:31Rich Roll?

  That's a good guy to have on board, I think, right?

• 18:33Colin O'Brady?

  But then, uh, yeah, but then as we get further in, along into the trip, um, really, so the next, the next phase is Aconcagua, which is in Argentina. And, uh, climbing partner of mine, an Ecuadorian guy, who's a good friend of mine, is, uh, joining me on that. So it'll just be myself half the time and then he's coming to meet me for the summit push. And, uh, Kilimanjaro will be just me, um, out there. And, uh, Then on Everest and Karsten's Pyramid, I've teamed up with a woman named Masha Gordon, who's someone who I met while I was working, while I was training in Nepal. I was on an expedition in Nepal not long ago, training for all of this. She's a really strong climber there, and so her and I are going to team up for those. So we kind of have used some of the overarching logistics

• 19:15Colin O'Brady?

  of some of these people over there, but we'll be climbing independently on those mountains. And then last but not least, Denali, I'll be with a childhood friend of mine, a guy named Tucker Cunningham, is gonna kind of meet up with me. He lives in Bozeman, Montana. He's a very experienced mountaineer, guide, ski mountaineer and all this. So him and I are going to team up to finish it up with Denali. It'll be great to be that. Hopefully that's when we're setting the record, so to be up there with a, you know, good, good 20-year-long friend of mine, finishing this thing up will be great. So it's kind of nice. I've got different people coming in at different legs that are going to still be, you know, fresh. And obviously, as this goes on, I'll be, probably the cumulative fatigue will be adding up and all sorts of that. So it's nice to have new blood sort of inserted in different pieces. And then there's a few small breaks in there, not, not a ton. That's all, of

• 19:57Colin O'Brady?

  course, weather and logistic permitting, but Jenna will be able to come meet me up on a couple of those places and, and base camps and stuff in the interim. So that'll be nice. Just from a, as much as a physical challenge, as the emotional challenge and having those, you know, recharge energy from the positive vibe of that'll be, be huge. So.

• 20:12Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. So, so what's the scariest part of this for you? Like, what's the, the one, the one aspect of this that you're a little bit like, "Yeah, I don't know, man."

• 20:22Colin O'Brady?

  Um.

• 20:23Rich Roll?

  I mean, is it Everest? Is it?

• 20:25Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, no, I mean, that's a good question. I think that there's, there's certainly a lot of fears, of course, a lot of confidence as well. I think the biggest thing that can derail this, other than, you know, some silly injury or something, is, you know, there's things, there's a few things we can't control in this. Like I said, we've poured our lives into this mission and this, this thing. And a few things like, you know, weather has to go away, you know? Then we've, obviously, we can have some bad weather and sit out some storms and stuff like that, but there's a certain point where, you know, there was no one, somebody at Everest this past year because of the avalanche and the devastation of the earthquake in Nepal and stuff like that. And of course, we're not hoping for anything like that to happen, but you know, stuff like that's just out of your control, bad luck. So I don't know if that's worth being fearful or anxious about. But it's certainly, you know, it plays on your mind.

• 21:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, those are things you can't control.

• 21:10Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:11Rich Roll?

  And you've built in this five-week buffer to account for that, I would imagine. But you know, there's probably going to be moments where you're going to want to go. You know, the clock's ticking and you know, the weather, you know, it's going to be that decision of should we go? Should we not go? Should we wait? You know, I would imagine you'll find yourself in that position.

• 21:29Colin O'Brady?

  Certainly, you know, and so much of of mountaineering is gauging that risk and being comfortable taking certain risks, but also, you know, being smart about what you do. So for me, of course, I'd love to set this record, you know, that's a big goal of this project, as well as our charitable endeavors with this project, you know, to inspire kids to be outside and be healthy. But really, you know, coming home safely with all my fingers and toes, that that's obviously first and foremost, number one priority, and you got to put that in perspective. And it's, you know, been good to sit down with my family, friends, Jenna, you know, and have those conversations while I'm sitting here at sea level and thinking, you know, completely straight, to, you know, realize that there's going to be maybe some tough decisions along this road and to make the right decisions when I'm out there. So that's, you know, a hu- a huge part of this.

• 22:10Colin O'Brady?

  Like I said, I'm a competitive guy, come from a competitive sporting background and whatnot. But, you know, this is, you know, something that I'm hoping to achieve, but I realize that there's, you know, dangers and risks and there's, you know, certain things that I'm not willing, you know, to risk just to achieve this goal, of course.

• 22:24Rich Roll?

  What's the biggest difference between scaling the peaks and the two pole?

• 22:29Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, no, that's

• 22:31Rich Roll?

  The two poles, I mean, those are different disciplines.

• 22:32Colin O'Brady?

  Very different, very different. So, you know, I've got a quite a bit of background in mountaineering, having grown up in Portland, Oregon amidst the Cascades, climbed a ton growing up. And I've been fortunate enough to intersperse through my triathlon training of going off to different peaks around the world and that. So, but the pole or travel is something that'll be entirely new for me. Um, really what it is for this record, the Explorers Grand Sam World Record, it's, uh, basically going the last degree of latitude, uh, from to both of the poles. So, um, that means you're basically dropped off at the 89th degree, which is 69 miles from the pole. Um, and then you, from there, you're, you know, not resupplied or supported. So basically you have to have all your gear in a sled behind you, which is, starts out at around 100 pounds.

• 23:15Colin O'Brady?

  Um, and you're on cross-country skis and you're basically pulling the sled across the cold, desolate polar regions. Um, so that's really more of a, it's different. There's, there's a few technical, you know, aspects in it, but for the most part, that's really just long endurance days and during the cold. Enduring pulling this heavy sled hour after hour after hour until you know, get there and navigate to the pole. So that's very different in scope than what the mountaineering challenges are.

• 23:41Rich Roll?

  Are there landmarks along the way like I mean, I assume when you actually reach the pole, there's some, there's something there to tell you. That you're in the right place, but are there like way stops along the way?

• 23:52Colin O'Brady?

  There aren't. So there's nowhere that you're resupplied. I mean, from, from what my understanding is, I've never been to Antarctica. I'm really looking forward to that. But you know, you get dropped off and you look in all directions and it's basically white, you know, Antarctica. People don't normally think about this, but Antarctica is actually the largest desert in the world. It doesn't actually snow that much there, but when it snows, it never melts, right? And so in that case, you're just going there, but there is, uh, people have probably seen this photo of like this silver globe that's at the South Pole. So then it's come to the flag around it. So that acts actually a permanent landmark there. So you know, you've arrived then. Or the North Pole is kind of this funny other thing. It's not a continent. It's just floating ice, right? And it's always moving. And so you're actually, when you're in the North Pole, um, it's very different than Antarctica.

• 24:35Colin O'Brady?

  So the North Pole, you're moving across floating ice, which means that on every, any given day, when you try to go these 69 miles, you could hypothetically go to bed in your tent and wake up and realize that the drift has pushed you back five miles.

• 24:47Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 24:48Colin O'Brady?

  Or it could put you forward a few miles, you know, and it's probably a little bit of both is ultimately what will happen.

• 24:54Rich Roll?

  So much more reliant on GPS.

• 24:56Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. And the funny thing about it is when you get there, there's no, you know, it's really, the North Pole is a point at the bottom of the ocean in this case. There's no continent there and there's no landmass. And so you can be standing at the North Pole, it looks just like everything else. And then, you know, five minutes later, you look at GPS like, oh no, it's over there now. So it's kind of this like strange moving target, uh, very different than arriving at the top of a mountain or even at the South Pole where you're, you know, there's like, it's kind of a landmark there. The North Pole is kind of just a point in a momentary space of time that you're sort of passing through as you float, float over it. So it's kind of an interesting one.

• 25:30Rich Roll?

  Has global climate change impacted how people approach the poles or specifically the North Pole?

• 25:36Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, specifically the North Pole for sure. My understanding is, so interestingly enough, this might be obvious once I say it, but it's something I had to learn, that there's only one sunrise and one sunset at the pole each year, right? Of course, it stays, you know, be like permanent sunrise or permanent sunset for a month or something as that sun's coming up or going down, kind of that twilight phase. But as a result of global warming, from what people have told me up at the North Pole, that the season is getting shorter and shorter and shorter for being able to be on the ice. So, one of the big challenges of this project actually is to be, you know, at the North Pole, I need to start, the first, the earliest I can get there from the first sunrise is basically the earliest part of April, about April 4th, when I'll be flying out there. And the season ends, you know, three and a half weeks later.

• 26:21Colin O'Brady?

  So unless you're willing to be in the polar regions when it's complete darkness, it's melting out too quickly. Big open leads are coming up and that's just the, you know, the Arctic Ocean below you. So, you know, it's not a place you necessarily want to be and...

• 26:33Rich Roll?

  And you wouldn't even be able to get to it because it's water.

• 26:35Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly, exactly. So, I mean, it's obviously not good for the planet that we're seeing that and from just an explorer and scientific perspective, what people have said, of course, I've, this will be my first time up there, but from all the sort of experts that I've drawn on to build this campaign have told me, yeah, it's changing fast. So, who knows how much longer people will be able to do that. Hopefully, you know, we can reverse those trends and, you know, we can continue to explore this region of the world, but it's apparently changing very fast.

• 26:59Rich Roll?

  And amongst the peaks that you have to scale, you know, what's the most technically difficult peak?

• 27:05Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. I think, well, Karstens Pyramid, which is in Indonesia, is a truly technical rock climbing spire. So includes like a Tyrellian traverse where you actually have to, you know, take ropes across a massive, you know, opening, as well as a few technical rock climbing moves. So from that perspective, that's fairly technical. From a true mountaineering perspective, I would say what you're going to see on Denali would, most people might consider more technical than Everest, because Everest, of course, has the fixed ropes on the main route. And I'm also looking to potentially climb the west... Rib route rather than the west bustress on Denali, which is off of this kind of standard route, a different route, so that'll make that a bit more technically challenging for that.

• 27:47Colin O'Brady?

  So I think, you know, it may, it might well be Everest if you didn't have the fixed ropes, but you have the fixed ropes that really diminishes some of the risk with the, the technical nature. But if, they all really, they're very different mountains from each other. You know, each one has its own sort of big challenge, you know. Akankago is not particularly technical in any regard, but it's almost 23,000 feet. You know, the tallest mountain outside of the Himalayas. So, you know, that in itself is, is challenging. So there's really, you know, different, different pieces that are challenging for sure.

• 28:17Rich Roll?

  And are you using oxygen for all of these?

• 28:20Colin O'Brady?

  No, only Everest. Everest will be the only one I use oxygen for, yeah. So that's, I think, necessary on Everest particularly because I'm doing these so quickly back to back. But no, no other ones will have you using oxygen. One of the, actually, it just, coming back to one of your original questions, one of my biggest fears for sure is, what I'm thinking of is the last third of this project, but that's the North Pole, Everest and Denali, those are the final three. And speaking about the sort of the time when you can get to the North Pole, April 4th is the earliest I can start the North Pole, and that's going to take me about 10 or so days to get there from the last degree. So I'm not leaving the North Pole till April 15th. Now, most people start their Everest expedition around April 1st. So, best case scenario, I'm two plus weeks behind the normal acclimatization schedule

• 29:05Colin O'Brady?

  that's happening in Everest. And of course, as we just talked about, the North Pole is floating above the water, so it's truly at sea level. So, there's, even though I'll be acclimatized from some of the previous mountains, I'll lose a bit of that in sort of the most crucial acclimatization period. So one of my fears for sure is with Everest that I'm cutting it pretty close, you know, in terms of the amount of time that I'll be able to spend on the mountain in preparation. Because of course, you need to be there for weeks at a time to get your blood ready to acclimatize.

• 29:33Rich Roll?

  And, and that, I assume you've figured out this is the, the, the most efficient schedule?

• 29:38Colin O'Brady?

  Yes, yes.

• 29:38Rich Roll?

  It still has these like really narrow time windows for you to get it done?

• 29:42Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's really only, if you want to do it under six months, this is really the only way to do it. You know, there's a few of those other ones, you know, Denali, Everest, North and South Pole really need to hit the weather windows. You can kind of move Carson's Pyramid, you can kind of move Kilimanjaro, Mount Elbur, around Russia a little bit. Um, you know, in there where the schedule fits, but those other ones have pretty specific windows that, I mean, you're not going to the South Pole in June. It's the middle of winter. It's, you know, minus 100 there. So, you know, that's not happening. Everest really has only climbed in the pre monsoon in that mid-May, you know, period of time. Um, and the North Pole has a very small window, like I said. So, yeah, there's kind of like a really pretty specific way in which you need to do it. We've kind of stopped through it as many different ways as we could and kind of keep coming back to this is the only way to do it in the way we want to do it.

• 30:26Rich Roll?

  And you're, you're, you're basically going to travel from one to the next. It's not like you're going to come back to the US.

• 30:30Colin O'Brady?

  No, when I leave on the 25th of December, um, I'm not coming planned to be back in the US at all until I'm on Denali, which will be the, you know, the last peak of them all in June. So, yeah, it's pretty much that my downtime, if you will, is a 20-hour international flight to the next destination, more than anything.

• 30:47Rich Roll?

  And I assume, or at least I hope, that you're making a documentary out of this.

• 30:51Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 30:51Rich Roll?

  It's going to be documented.

• 30:52Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, for us, you know, so much of this project, and I think you'll probably ask me about it, but, you know, I want to talk about the, the cause behind this because really the charitable element of this is a huge piece of it, which is, you know, inspiring kids and combating the childhood obesity epidemic and raising money around that. But a huge piece of that is also the awareness piece. You know, we want to document this project. We think, um, you know, telling this story in real time is, you know, um, really a special way to share this story and share the, the narrative of behind this. So, yeah, we have a documentary filmmaker, a production company out of the Bay Area called Trip Life is kind of, you know, spearheading the documentary efforts on this project, um, which would be great. And then in addition to that, you know, I plan to tell this story

• 31:33Colin O'Brady?

  just through my own social media channels, through our own media channels. So, at beyond underscore seven two, um, is, is our handle. And, you know, with through sat phone technology, through satellite, it's all that sort of stuff. We, you know, have the ability to tell that story, which is cool because, you know, even, you know, certainly 10 or more years ago, but even five years ago, that technology didn't necessarily exist. People would leave, you know, certainly, you know, the history of expeditions over the years have been someone saying, hey, we're going to do this and then coming back three or six or five months later and say, hey, I did this and this is what happened. And so it's pretty remarkable that. You know, we can kind of tell this story day by day.

• 32:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 32:12Colin O'Brady?

  Which is we plan to do, which I think will be a fun way to engage the audience as well.

• 32:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, very cool. Can you, like, how do sat phones work? Can you, can you like configure an iPhone to be a sat? I mean, I'm thinking like, can you periscope from a sat phone?

• 32:24Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, so there's a couple.

• 32:25Rich Roll?

  You'll be able to do that kind of stuff?

• 32:27Colin O'Brady?

  There's a couple of different ways that it works. So the, the most challenging places, believe it or not, are the poles because the satellites usually fly around the equator. And so the poles don't pick up the best service. So there, there is a kind of a one way to do it, but it's not great. So it kind of needs to be really low resolution images, very small files to be able to be sent. But the rest of the time, I'm actually going to be carrying a, basically a small little wireless satellite modem with me. Which, you know, is, it comes at an expense to do this, but we think it's worth it for the project. And apparently I'm able to FaceTime, I'm able to, you know, send short video clips. I don't know about periscope, that might totally overload the system, but it's worth, it's worth trying for sure.

• 33:10Colin O'Brady?

  So, you know, that's something we gotta, we gotta kind of make sure it works and everything. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's pretty amazing what you can do now through, through this technology. And it's like, again, I think it's closer to a dial up speed than what we're accustomed to. But yeah, Bluetooth to an iPhone and you can send photos that way and take photographs and all that sort of stuff. Which is pretty, I mean, it's amazing comparing how remote some of these places are, that you can even have that access.

• 33:32Rich Roll?

  And, and people can, can participate in the journey in real time.

• 33:36Colin O'Brady?

  Oh, absolutely. And that's what, I mean, that's what we really want. And there's, and then this other thing I'm carrying with me is this a small device called a DeLorman Reach, which basically connects to satellites, but Bluetooth to my iPhone allows me to text. You know, again, simple, simple text, you know, 160 character type of, you know, things, tweets and texts. But, you know, just to be able to have that, to be able to talk back to Jenna or to home, or hopefully the people that are engaging with this project, have some people, you know, reach out or shout out, or, you know, family reach out when I'm having a tough day, all that, you know, will make a big difference to, you know, all of this for sure. So I'm grateful for that.

• 34:08Rich Roll?

  All right, so what is, why are you doing this? Like, what inspired this? You know, how did you come up with this idea? And like, what's it all about for you?

• 34:16Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:20Colin O'Brady?

  I mean, for me, the biggest thing is, we'd have to take it back eight years, I think, really, to where this all began, this whole journey in endurance sports, you know, began for me. You know, I'd been an elite athlete, you know, my whole life, had swam in college, obviously.

• 34:36Rich Roll?

  So you swam, you swam, you grew up swimming, in high school, swimming in Portland, right?

• 34:41Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 34:41Rich Roll?

  You swam for Multnomah?

• 34:42Colin O'Brady?

  No, I swam for a smaller team called PPST, Portland Park Swim Team, which is now known as Portland Aquatic Club, but it's just like a small, local team, but the MAC, yeah, Multnomah Athletic Club, where a lot of, know a lot of guys.

• 34:52Rich Roll?

  It still exists, right?

• 34:53Colin O'Brady?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a big, big machine, cranking out some great athletes year in and year out, for sure.

• 34:57Rich Roll?

  And then you, so you took your talents to Yale?

• 35:00Colin O'Brady?

  I did, I took my talents to Yale.

• 35:02Rich Roll?

  Was, is Frank Keefe still the coach there?

• 35:05Colin O'Brady?

  Thank, I love you Frank, if you're out there, but thankfully, he has passed the baton down. A guy named Tim Wise is now the head coach there, who was my assistant coach when I was there, so I still know him real well, and actually, we talk frequently.

• 35:18Rich Roll?

  Right, but Frank was, Frank was the, he was the coach there.

• 35:21Colin O'Brady?

  Frank was the coach when I was there, yeah, so, for people who don't know the swimming world, obviously, Rich, you do, but.

• 35:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, I mean, Frank's a legend, he's been the coach at Yale forever and ever and ever. He was, there used to be this thing called the National Sports Festival, when I was in high school, and it was sort of like a mini Olympics, but just in the United States, and they would divide the US up into north, south, east and west. And my senior year in high school, I made the east team, and Frank was the head coach of that, so I met him that way.

• 35:48Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, exactly, so, yeah, he was a big name in northeast swimming for a long time, he was assistant Olympic coach in the 84 Olympics, and I think he coached Yale all up for just under 40 years, 35 years, maybe, it was in the 30-year range when I was there, and then he stayed on another five-plus years after I graduated, so, been around a long time, absolute legend of a coach, so, yeah, I swam under him for four years at Yale.

• 36:11Rich Roll?

  And you swim breaststroke?

• 36:12Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I was a breaststroke swimmer, exactly, exactly, so, um, and then, uh, after that, you know, I kind of just like, you know, most people, I think, at the end of their collegiate swimming career, unless they're gonna go on, you know, to make an Olympic Games or something like that, it's kind of end of your athletic career for most people, um, and I certainly thought I fell into that category for sure, um, and having an economics degree, sort of thought my, my next step would be to go work on Wall Street, uh, in some capacity, although that never, you know, felt like the perfect fit for me, it just kind of seemed like the next, the path that I was on.

• 36:44Rich Roll?

  That's what you do, man, you graduate from Yale, you got an economics degree, like, that's your option.

• 36:49Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I guess, that is true, it's funny though, because, you know, growing up in Portland, Oregon, until I was exposed to living on the East Coast, like, I'm, I went to Yale when I was seventeen, I was young out of high school, and just going out there from this West Coast, you know, organic farming family, natural foods, co-op, all this, it was a, it was a trip for me, it took me a while to adjust to that East Coast mentality.

• 37:09Rich Roll?

  You didn't come from Phillips and over, or a deer field.

• 37:12Colin O'Brady?

  No, yeah, I didn't, I didn't come from prep school, so, you know, a lot, a lot of my best friends now are, are from that subset, of course, I made great friends out there in the end, but it was a whole new world for me going out there, and I didn't, I didn't even think I knew what investment banking was before I, uh, started school, um, but of course, you know, in that environment, you're, you know, quickly swept up in, in that environment, um, but I think also my Portland roots and just, you know, my curiousness about the world and all this, said, you know what, you gotta go, go travel, I'm twenty-one when I graduated from school, and everyone was taking these jobs, and, you know, maybe there was a lot of money to be had, I had, you know, not much, I had a few thousand dollars saved up in my bank account from painting houses in the summer with my buddy, you know, that's what I did, instead of taking

• 37:54Colin O'Brady?

  these fancy internships, and decided, hey, you know, I'm gonna go, go see the, see a bit of the world for a year before I, uh, you know, kind of settle into what I think my career might be, and so I, like I said, scraped a few pennies together and took a surfboard and a backpack and, uh, just set up by myself to travel all over the world, and, um, just, you know, hostel to hostel, and basically just kind of surfing and seeing what, seeing what was out there, wasn't, wasn't glamorous, but it was certainly a wonderful time in life, you know. Staying in hostels and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but you know, I'm meeting tons of people and having a great time.

• 38:25Rich Roll?

  That's uh, that's like the, I mean, your parents must be hippies, right?

• 38:29Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, pretty much, full on.

• 38:30Rich Roll?

  Well, you're, we didn't even say your mom like owns a natural food.

• 38:34Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, my, my, uh, my mom, my stepdad, uh, co-founded a natural foods chain called New Seasons Market in Portland, so it's kind of like a local version of, uh, Whole Foods and that. So yeah, the words sustainable and local and all these things were thrown around my house in the eighties until the rest of the world started, didn't hear, hear those words until, uh, you know, the mid two thousands maybe. So yeah, it was a hippie, hippie upbringing. I was actually, uh, to, to put it fully in perspective, I was, my mom was, uh, in school in Olympia, Washington when she had me at Evergreen State College. Her and my father were married at that point, but she was young and I was born on a hippie commune with about 20 people watching my home birth and Bob Marley's redemption song was playing on repeat throughout the

• 39:16Colin O'Brady?

  entire, through the entire thing. So that's kind of how I entered the world. So as you can.

• 39:20Rich Roll?

  I'm getting the picture.

• 39:22Colin O'Brady?

  There was a, like I said.

• 39:24Rich Roll?

  How did you not end up at like UC Santa Cruz or something?

• 39:27Colin O'Brady?

  Probably, might've been a better fit. It might've been a better fit. So, and this sort of east coast mentality sort of thrown in there at age 17 was a, a whole, a whole different thing for me. It actually took me a couple of years to really adjust to it. Actually halfway through, I, uh, took a semester off. Yale does not allow you to get credits for this, but I took a semester off to go to, uh, Patagonia, do a Knowles course down there where I spent three months sea kayaking, mountaineering and all those sorts of stuff. And then went back and finished my degree, which for me was just a much needed kind of break, but definitely a break from the, so I think I've been like, you know, kind of had this in my mind.

• 40:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, sort of this dualistic, dual life kind of thing.

• 40:04Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 40:05Rich Roll?

  So, hold on, real quick aside, cause it just popped in my head. Uh, did you, when you were at Yale, did you swim with, uh, who's the guy who became the truck driver? And, uh, and now he's like inspiring, uh, truck drivers to get, he like changed his name, now I'm gonna, now I feel bad cause I can't remember his name right now. I'm trying to get him on the podcast. Basically, he swam at Yale and, uh, and then he like disappeared.

• 40:29Colin O'Brady?

  Hmm.

• 40:29Rich Roll?

  And nobody had talked to him for a very long time. Smart, young guy or whatever. And he ended up becoming like a truck driver cause he just loved like seeing the US and, and having his own schedule.

• 40:39Colin O'Brady?

  How old is he about?

• 40:42Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 40:43Colin O'Brady?

  Younger than me?

• 40:43Rich Roll?

  He might be a little bit younger. He might be a little bit older than you.

• 40:45Colin O'Brady?

  Okay.

• 40:46Rich Roll?

  Actually, yeah, I think so. Yeah.

• 40:47Colin O'Brady?

  I wanna, I wanna know about this guy. Sounds awesome.

• 40:49Rich Roll?

  Well, uh, yeah. Well, I'll put links in the show notes to it and we'll, when we're done with this, we'll look online and figure out the whole thing out. But it's actually an amazing story.

• 40:56Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I know. It sounds amazing.

• 40:57Rich Roll?

  Um, alright, so, so you're having your Leonardo DiCaprio, the beach, you know, sort of experience, right? In Southeast Asia.

• 41:05Colin O'Brady?

  Yes, yes. And, um, so yeah, the trip, I've been going well so far. I actually met Jenna, who is now my fiancee, um, on a beach in Fiji, you know, so things were going pretty darn well on this trip so far, meeting tons of people. And then, yeah, I'm in, I'm in Thailand on a small beach in Koh Tao and kinda tragedy struck for me. And I was severely burned in a fire, um, there was a, you know, I grin when I say it, but, uh, I was partaking in what is somewhat common in Thailand, but fire dancing. So I was jumping a flaming jump rope, which in retrospect, of course hindsight is 2020, not, not a smart thing to do. But, uh, sold, lulled into a bit of a false sense of security, I suppose, by just how many people are participating in this and how common that is there and all that sorts of stuff.

• 41:50Colin O'Brady?

  And, um, the, the rope that night, um, tripped me up and, uh, gas spread all the way up to my neck. Lit my body completely on fire.

• 41:57Rich Roll?

  So it's like they, they soaked the rope in kerosene, right? Lighted it on fire and then it was still, like, there was still liquid, it was still wet.

• 42:04Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, imagine a big rope, like a 20-foot rope, like you would jump when you were a kid out in the street, but two people, you know, a different person holding on at either end and jumping in the middle. And somehow, you know, it always happened so fast, so I can't completely remember, but it somehow got, tripped my legs and I think the excess kerosene splattered my clothing and that lit on fire. And before I knew it, there was basically fire to my neck, um, and...

• 42:27Rich Roll?

  And your clothes, like, were you wearing long pants or shorts?

• 42:29Colin O'Brady?

  No, so I was wearing shorts and a tee shirt, but no shoes, um, which actually kind of saved me in a lot of regards. I had at least, you know, those clothes on, cause I jumped in the ocean, uh, to put out the flames, um, which certainly saved my life. But as you can imagine, you know, and then 25% of your body having been burned and jumping in a saltwater ocean is certainly not, uh, anything without...

• 42:50Rich Roll?

  The infection.

• 42:51Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. That, the salt water, the pain, all that sort of stuff is a grim situation, to say the least. Um, and then I came out of the water and fortunately, like I said, I've been traveling by myself pretty much for most of this trip. But a good buddy of mine, David, the one who I mentioned is now married to my sister, um, happened to be there with me. Uh, and so, you know, he looked down, we both looked down at my legs and knew that we were in a pretty bad situation straight away. Um, and my clothes were charred and kind of charred and crumpled like where I'm so we're expecting, you know, pretty bad situation. And so he calls over, the first person at the hotel, hey, you know, we need some help here. And a guy pulls up on a moped, you know, we're on a tiny little island, drives me down a dirt path on his moped to this tiny little, you know, hut.

• 43:34Colin O'Brady?

  Um, basically, which is the closest thing they have to a hospital and it's, you know, a one-room hut there. Um, fortunately, they had a few of the basics, you know, penicillin, morphine, um, but not much beyond that. And.

• 43:46Rich Roll?

  And are you like conscious through this whole thing?

• 43:49Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 43:49Rich Roll?

  I mean, how are you walking, like, are you aware of how bad it is or how mu- I mean, I would imagine you're on a tremendous amount of pain.

• 43:56Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean, the pain was unimaginable. It was horrible amount of pain. Um, and you know, one of the things that happened when they did line me down in this hospital bed is they cut my clothes off me because they were charred. And we were kind of all expecting to see, you know, burns on my chest, burns everywhere, basically. And, you know, to a great surprise, in a positive way, I was only burned basically mid-thigh down all the way to my feet. But where the clothes had been shorts, t-shirt, there was no burns. I had a small burn on my right hand, but pretty much it was severe second and third degree burns on both of my legs. So it was pretty bad, but it could have been, if it had been fifty, sixty, seventy percent burns, you just look up some of these statistics online in terms of burns in these countries and the infection rate and that. You know, you're, you're facing a, you know, pretty life or death situation at that point.

• 44:38Colin O'Brady?

  But, you know, it's interesting. I was, I was so scared and I was so fortunate to have, you know, David there with me. You know, they're starting to, you know, look after my wounds and I'm looking around, we're in this tiny little shack in Thailand. And I said to him, I just, and he's like, I'm gonna faint, I'm out of it. And I kind of grabbed a hold of him at this one really intense moment. I said, David, like, I need you right now. I need you with me right now and you gotta be my eyes, my ears. I can't tell what's going on and what's the infection? Are these needles clean? You know, all that sort of stuff. And, uh, just in a really. You know, sometimes these horrible things do some bring out the best, or at least bring in these intense bonding moments. You know, he's been one of my closest childhood friends my entire life, but you know, there was something that happened that night where he just, that moment, he switched on and was just so there for me in such an amazing way.

• 45:22Colin O'Brady?

  Um, you know, so much so that, you know, we're, we're two, you know, young adults, twenty-two, twenty-three years old at this point. And, you know, once they finally did get me my legs bandaged, we're lying in there and they said, they're not gonna, they're not gonna be able to take me to a true hospital, uh, which isn't even really much of a hospital, at least on the next sound over on Koh Samui, until the morning, they're gonna, they can get a boat over there and all this sort of stuff. It's gonna be twelve hours just lying there.

• 45:43Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 45:43Colin O'Brady?

  Finally, once the adrenaline started to wear off, I just broke down. I was crying. I was so scared. And, you know, David actually, you know, got in bed beside of me and just held me through the night and said, I don't know how, how we're gonna do this, but we're gonna get through this. You know, I love you and we're gonna figure this out. But, you know, to your, your question, it burns are a strange injury because I think, you know, as a kid growing up, I'm sure you can relate to this. You know, you break a bone, you skin a knee, you know, sprain your ankle, those are things you kind of have context for. Um, but severe burns, unless you've been around an injury like that, it's, you don't, I mean, at least I didn't, and I would imagine most people don't. Like, oh yeah, that's exactly, the treatment looks like this and it takes this long and here's what you can expect and all that sort of stuff.

• 46:23Colin O'Brady?

  So that was a whole other crazy part of this because of the language barrier there, there wasn't able to, people weren't able to explain it to us as well. And so there was a kind of a few days lag. We were like, this is bad, but how bad is it?

• 46:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 46:36Colin O'Brady?

  You know?

• 46:36Rich Roll?

  And are you, do you have cell phones? I mean, can you call your parents and tell them what's going on?

• 46:40Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, so David, we don't have cell phones. It was traveling without a cell phone, which is kind of funny to think, but two thousand seven wasn't that long ago, but, or two thousand, early two thousand eight. Um, but yeah, no, no cell phones. We had Skype, so he went and made a Skype phone call to my mom, called home and said, here's where we are, this. Um, and that kind of brings to the next phase of what happened, which is my mother being an amazing person she is. Um, you know, Mama Bear hops on a plane immediately to come, uh, fly over to, you know, look after me. But it still took her about four or five days to get over to where I was, just with the travel and the time change and all that sort of stuff. So next morning I was from this hut, I was taken, you know. Back of a pickup truck, onto a boat, boat driven over to this other island, picked up there,

• 47:21Colin O'Brady?

  taken to the Koh Samui Hospital, and then for the next eight days, uh, I underwent surgery every day for the next eight days of them cleaning the wounds, uh, and all this sorts of stuff, and, uh, kind of to paint the picture, I would come out of, in the ICU every day and wake up and there was literally a cat running around my bed in the ICU. Um, so it wasn't.

• 47:40Rich Roll?

  Could they, they couldn't just get you directly to Bangkok?

• 47:43Colin O'Brady?

  No, so that was the thing, obviously that's what we wanted, but, um, you know, one of the things, again, wouldn't have known about burns, whatever, but your body is just in such a fragile place that flying is pretty tough on your body. So of course, immediately we were like, how do we get back to the United States? How do we this? And they're like, there's not a chance, you're gonna be in Thailand for a couple of months. Um, so on the eighth day, my mom finally convinced them to fly me one hour to Bangkok, um, which in my mind at the time, although I was in so much pain, I was like, how could being in a plane be any different than being in this hospital bed or whatever? But they were a hundred percent right, which was just flying one hour was the absolute limit. I mean, it just wrecked me. I was already in such a bad place. And by the time I was in Bangkok, it was just a pretty grim scene.

• 48:23Colin O'Brady?

  But that said, you know, Bangkok actually has amazing medical facilities, you know, some of the best in the world, medical tourism and all this sort of stuff. So by the eighth day, when I actually did arrive to Bangkok, um, I was, you know, really well taken care of, I think, you know, from that sta- from that point on. But it still was, you know, a couple of months in that hospital in Bangkok, you know, without taking a step, without walking, you know.

• 48:43Rich Roll?

  Couple of months?

• 48:44Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I think.

• 48:45Rich Roll?

  And they just have your legs band, like dressed and they're just changing the dresses?

• 48:49Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly, dressed and bandaged, and, you know, the doctor would come in, so we didn't need any more surgeries by the time I was there, but they'd be like, oh, we'd come in, again, I hadn't ta- hadn't taken a step, and they'd come in, you know, every few days and change the bandages, and more than anything, my mom just kinda sat by my bedside and looked after me and, uh, yeah, until I could, and even when I left to go back to the United States, I was, uh, I was, um, you know, in a wheelchair, carried onto the plane, carried off the plane. I still hadn't taken a single step, even by the time I got back home, you know, many, many years later.

• 49:18Rich Roll?

  What was the diagnosis in terms of like, long-term prognosis?

• 49:21Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean, that's what was really scary and that, you know, it's scary to look back at, but also I look at it as a strangely a bittersweet, you know, turning point in my own life. Um, you know, like I said, some of these horrible things can happen, but can also lead you into a different path that you never expected. Um, you know, for me, they had said to me, they said, you know, you may never walk again, at least not normally. Um, you know, and because a lot of that had to do with the severeness of the burns over my joints, so knee joints, ankle joints, you know, that sort of stuff. You know, probably gonna be regaining the ability to be on my feet to some capacity, but with the scar tissue that can happen with these severe burns. Um, you know, you really can lose a lot of mobility in that, you know, having been an athlete my whole life, being told that at twenty two years old is.

• 50:04Colin O'Brady?

  I mean, being told that at any age would be horrible, you know, but I'm just, my whole life had in front of me and being told that was awful and so. You know, my mother, if she's sitting by my bedside, you know, she admits now she was more or less just placating me, but she was just trying to keep me positive. What are we gonna do next? How are we gonna beat this thing? You know, stuff like that, just kinda trying to pep me up. And we stumbled on this idea of, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna complete a triathlon. It wasn't, I'd never raced triathlon before. Obviously, I've been a swimmer, soccer player in high school, swimmer in college. Um, at a pretty high level, but you know, I'd never done triathlon, something I knew a little bit about, but we, you know, in that hospital room, just kinda started like. What are the distances? You know, what does that really mean? Where are the races?

• 50:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, just something to hang your hat on to give you a little bit of hope and, you know, kind of like forward trip.

• 50:46Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's, you know, obviously. You embody this for sure in your, your whole story, but you know, being able to set those goals incremental or whatnot is, uh, is really powerful. So for me, you know, I set this goal, one day I wanna complete a triathlon, but then that broke down into small things, you know, after being, you know, carried off. You know, the plane in a wheelchair in my house back in Portland, in my mom's house, it was literally sitting in the wheelchair and my mom put, you know, our kitchen chair. Two feet away from me and she said, all right, you wanted to complete a triathlon? Great, but your goal today is to get out of that wheelchair you're sitting in and move yourself to the chair that's two feet away, you know? So it's that process of having that big goal out there, but also those incremental steps along the way, which,

• 51:27Colin O'Brady?

  you know, for me was was challenging and powerful and tested every inch of me, but in the end really, you know, led to a beautiful outcome, which was, you know, eighteen months after uh, the accident, I had moved to Chicago and started doing what I thought I would be doing for a while, which is I started trading commodities there. Um, and about a year after the accident, I finally started to be able to to actually train again, you know, be on my feet, jogging a little bit, joined a gym while I was working, that sort of stuff, and I signed up for the Chicago triathlon.

• 51:55Rich Roll?

  And how long, how long after the accident before you could get up out of the wheelchair and walk around?

• 52:01Colin O'Brady?

  It was, you know, three months until I could move around a little bit. It was another couple of months until I felt like I could, you know, be on my feet, but it was a full year of being in compression garments, not exposing my skin to the sun. My skin was so fragile that literally if you just tapped into a chair, I mean lightly just bumped into something, it would be immediately opened up, cut, wound. I mean, it was a very fragile situation.

• 52:25Rich Roll?

  Did they have to do grafts or how does it?

• 52:27Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 52:27Rich Roll?

  The healing process?

• 52:29Colin O'Brady?

  So often you have to have grafts. I'm not sure, for me, it was severe second degree, um, which doesn't always require grafts. And then third degree, uh, on my left foot, where had I been in a western hospital, it's possible I'd have had some grafting there, but, um, I didn't have any grafting. The, the blessing and a curse of the injury I had is severe second degree means that it's pretty much as deep of a burn as possible, but your skin will still regenerate from there. But all the nerve endings are fully exposed. So it's actually the most painful type of burn. Severe third degree, of course, is so bad that your skin will never regenerate, which is why you need grafts. But it also. Is less painful because it's burned beyond the nerve endings.

• 53:10Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly. So it's kind of a blessing and a curse, if you will. So fortunately, I didn't have to have grafts. And I don't know, I, you know, I feel fortunate to have made a pretty remarkable recovery in terms of the scarring is, is not so bad. Obviously, I swim every day in my triathlon training and it's certainly not the first thing someone would notice. I mean, you can see if you look closely at my legs and my left foot's still pretty red and banged up, but it's not, it's not the first thing someone would notice. And, you know, compared to what my legs looked like for that year, I never thought it would, you know, be anything different than really bad.

• 53:41Rich Roll?

  Right. I would imagine there was quite a bit of atrophy too.

• 53:43Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. I mean, my legs coming out of there were the size of my wrists, basically. So you say when I got back on my feet, well, a few months later, I was able to kind of walk around again. But, you know, think about running, think about doing a triathlon, riding a bike and those things was pretty unfathomable. You know, in my mind, it's funny, you know, me and my mom had a funny enough, had a lot of fun together through this pretty tragic process. But I remember one day when I could start to walk around again, I said to her, I was like, I think I could beat you in a race right now. She's like, Colin, come on, a race? And I was like, yeah, like just down the block, like not far, but like, you know, she's like, really? You want to do a race right now? She's like, we're not doing this. And I finally just kept at her. You gotta race me down the block. You gotta race me down the block. And in my mind, I was like, I should be fine. And we get outside and

• 54:26Colin O'Brady?

  I'm jogging what would probably be like 15 minute per mile pace or something like that. And I'm trying to go as hard as I possibly can go. And she's like just jogging around and she's kind of taunting me at this point. And one of our neighbors who of course knows about this injury, who we were close to walks out their front door and sees my mom taunting me as we're running down the middle of the street. Got like, what's going on here? So.

• 54:46Rich Roll?

  That's amazing. I mean, that really punctuates the kind of extraordinary arc from that place, you know, 25% of your body covered in burns, you know, barely able to walk to, you know, thinking you're running fast at a 15 mile, you know, 15 minute mile pace to kind of what happens next in this, you know, introduction to professional triathlon. It's kind of amazing, right?

• 55:09Colin O'Brady?

  It's a crazy arc. I mean, the thing that happened that, like I said, I put the Chicago triathlon on the calendar because I was living there in Chicago, but coincidentally. At that time, and I'm not sure if it still is, but it was the largest triathlon race in terms of participation. I think there was about four or five thousand participants in that race. And obviously, I just signed up in the normal amateur field to compete. And my goal was to finish. My goal was to get across the finish line and certainly surprised the heck out of myself and many others when, when I crossed the finish line, I was, had actually won the entire race rather than just, you know.

• 55:39Rich Roll?

  So you won the entire amateur division?

• 55:41Colin O'Brady?

  The amateur division, amateur division, exactly.

• 55:43Rich Roll?

  Was your time faster than any of the pros?

• 55:46Colin O'Brady?

  You know, I haven't looked at it. I think maybe, no, I haven't. It was, it was right around two hours. So that's, you know, usually kind of middle to back of the pack of the pro for Olympic distance, it was Olympic distance. So, but it's amazing, you know, it's funny in, in, you know, amateur triathlon, the races start in waves, as you obviously know, and particularly the Chicago triathlon, there's like 50 waves or something like that. And so you have no idea what place you are. So I'm just out there in my own head, just trying to tick this box, set this big goal for myself, and I'm pushing as hard as I can. And I trained, you know, once I could get my body going, I still took my, you know, swimming mentality into it. Of course, I worked hard to get fit, but I didn't really know how I stacked up against others. And so when I crossed the finish line, it wasn't until about three hours later until everyone else had

• 56:30Colin O'Brady?

  processed and they processed the results. So we looked up and it was like, oh, you won this race.

• 56:34Rich Roll?

  That's crazy. Did you, did you have your own TT bike or did you borrow one like?

• 56:39Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I had met a couple guys at the gym I had been training at, this gym called East Bank Club in Chicago, and they had kind of, you know, brought me into the fold and said, oh, you gotta try this bike. So I did. I had, you know, this guy lent me his bike and eventually sold it to me, you know, through some pro deal that he had had and, you know, had a disc wheel on there. So I had like a nice setup, but like I didn't, I didn't know anything. I didn't know why this bike is faster than the other bike, what aero man. I didn't have like a dial position perfectly, any of that stuff. It was just like, I was fortunate to have some cool gear, but I wasn't out there like, oh, at first I couldn't afford to like just go buy some nice bike, you know? So yeah, I did have a bike, you know, from, from some of those guys helped me out, but yeah.

• 57:17Rich Roll?

  And, and you, did you ever run track?

• 57:20Colin O'Brady?

  No.

• 57:20Rich Roll?

  So you played soccer, so that probably already made like, cause first, just to like lay the foundation, like swimmers are terrible runners.

• 57:26Colin O'Brady?

  Yes, usually.

• 57:27Rich Roll?

  They just can't run, you know what I mean? But since you played soccer, I would imagine you already had, you know, aptitude there that maybe a lot of swimmers don't have.

• 57:34Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean, I, so at the end of high school, I was recruited Division One for both swimming and soccer. And you have Division One sports being what they are, and so intense, you kinda had to, can't do both. So I chose swimming over soccer. But I had been playing soccer at a pretty high level, and it is true, the athleticism of swimmers is, is not world renowned.

• 57:52Rich Roll?

  It's very specific.

• 57:54Colin O'Brady?

  A funny aside, a kid named Alex Riggy came onto the Yale swim team my freshman year, and he eventually broke the American record in the hundred freestyle, you know, eighteen, or fifty, eighteen, seven in the fifty free, you know, forty point in the hundred, you know, that, you know what that means, crazy stupid fast.

• 58:09Rich Roll?

  I can't even relate to forty point in a hundred free.

• 58:13Colin O'Brady?

  And so he was a freshman when I was a senior, and a couple of my buddies that I grew up with came out, were visiting, like, this is my senior year, and we were playing basketball in the spring, and they're like, we're playing just with the swim team, plus my, you know, childhood friends, and they're better than pretty much anyone out there. And these guys aren't athletes, they're just normal guys. And they're like, these guys are all like elite level athletes? I was like, yeah, that kid there is American record holder, this guy's this. And he's like, they're like, they're tripping over their own feet on the basketball court.

• 58:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, get them out of the water, and it's a disaster.

• 58:40Colin O'Brady?

  So, we always had fun. So yeah, I guess, you know, I had a little bit of that extra athleticism than the, the average swimmer I did, you know, growing up in Oregon, there's such a prolific track scene, you know, with Nike being right there and stuff like that. So I grew up, you know, you know, Galen Rupp grew up in my neighborhood, I didn't know him growing up, but, you know, you know, he was right there, and there's a lot of other guys up and coming, kind of in that track scene, so, you know, through some of my coaches actually ran a couple of track workouts here and there for fun, but like, I had never competed in running in any capacity, you know.

• 59:17Rich Roll?

  So this is an eye-opener, right?

• 59:18Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 59:19Rich Roll?

  Like, I mean, you figure out you won this race, and then what? Are you like, "Holy shit."

• 59:24Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 59:24Rich Roll?

  So you reconfigure how you're gonna live your life?

• 59:28Colin O'Brady?

  Kind of. You know, what happened next was a fortuitous turn of events that really is remarkable. You know, I had gotten to know some people in Chicago, friends of mine, and one guy who I got pretty close with him and his family was a guy named Brian Gelber, who's a big, you know, a pretty world-renowned trader, has a big trading firm in Chicago called Gelber Group. And, you know, he was, he actually was at a barbecue at his house, coincidentally, the same day I did this race, a family barbecue, I think it was over, you know, it's a summer barbecue. And he was been asking me, "Oh, what happened today?" And I'm, "Well, I won the Chicago trampoline today." And so I wasn't working for him, I was working for a different trading firm at the time. But, you know, not long after that, it's like you said, I'm sort of reconfiguring my

• 1:00:13Colin O'Brady?

  life, and, you know, he said, "Hey, it's not a lucrative path, but if you're passionate about that, you know, I'd love to come on and be your first sponsor and, you know, support you down this path and see what you can go with this, whether that's in Olympics or being a professional athlete or, you know, whatever that means."

• 1:00:27Rich Roll?

  You haven't even decided you want this as a career yet, and you already have a sponsor.

• 1:00:30Colin O'Brady?

  Well, I mean, I think it's funny because...

• 1:00:32Rich Roll?

  The universe is conspiring.

• 1:00:34Colin O'Brady?

  My whole life, as a kid, there's no doubt, of course, I wanted to be a professional athlete. You know, just growing up, I can remember vividly watching the 92 Barcelona Olympics, being seven-years-old, Pablo Morales swimming, you probably remember those names from your Stanford days, right?

• 1:00:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Pablo and I swam together and went to law school together.

• 1:00:50Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, so, you know, that, for me, that, you know, I was seven-years-old and thought of myself as a butterfly more at that time, obviously turned into a breast joker, but, you know, he was a legend to me, you know, in that, in those, that period of time. And, you know, the longest I can remember, I wanted this dream, but having this kind of turn of events, you know, 18 months before that, I was not walking, and then 18 months later, I'm someone saying, "You can turn professional in this sport, you're good enough, and here's, you know, a little bit of financial backing to get you out of the gate."

• 1:01:16Rich Roll?

  That's amazing.

• 1:01:17Colin O'Brady?

  It was incredible. And, you know, and for me, it was, you know, people down the path, and even now, have asked me... You know, do you regret that decision? Was that the right decision? Because there's no doubt there was some of the guys that I was sitting there on the trading desk with that, you know, seven, eight years in the future now. Maybe I've made seven-figure bonuses and stuff like that, but there's not a day in my life where I've regretted that decision. It hasn't been, you know, financially glamorous, this path that I've had. But, you know, Brian Gelber's been a willing supporter for a very long time and including with this latest project. He's the primary supporter of that as well. So I mean, I have such a debt of gratitude to him and his family for supporting me early on.

• 1:01:53Rich Roll?

  That's amazing. I mean, what does he get out of this?

• 1:01:57Colin O'Brady?

  You know?

• 1:01:57Rich Roll?

  Other than being like, you know, a benefactor, like a beautiful benefactor of your life and a mentor.

• 1:02:02Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean, he's been an incredible mentor. I'm close to his family and, you know, they're, they're very special people to me, you know? Even outside of this, this context, they're, you know, some of the more important, special people in my life. And he has been, like you said, an amazing mentor to me. He, uh, interesting, you know, in his career, I don't want to speak for him too much here, but, you know, he was an amazing trader in his own right. And, you know, did very successful there, but the way he's run his firm now is that he doesn't trade anymore. Hasn't traded for a very long time, but he fashioned himself as a coach and a mentor for young traders up and coming, who of course work for him. But there, you know, there's a sort of mentorship that he has built in there and a coaching philosophy. So him and I have had some amazing conversations over the years with certainly ups in my careers,

• 1:02:45Colin O'Brady?

  but some major downs that I've had in my careers and setbacks and that sort of stuff. And, you know, he, he, he made that relationship between high performance, whether that's in business, whether that's on the sport, you know, field of play, whether that's in, you know, parenting, many different aspects. You know, really, there's a lot of similar lessons. And so he's, you know, although, you know, he was never a professional athlete, you know, he was a, you know, he ran a high school and, you know, did some stuff like that. But, you know, really even from his business, you know, background has been able to be a great mentor for me. And I, you know, God, I've appreciated that relationship so much in so many different ways.

• 1:03:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's kind of like, uh, Mark Hollowesco and how he supports cycling and a couple triathletes.

• 1:03:21Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so certainly fortunate to, to have that role. And, you know, he's taken a couple of other people sort of on, on that path. A female golfer and a couple of musicians and things. And it's, you know, it's a, a way for him to, you know, follow some people and, you know, give back in that way, which is, which is fantastic, you know, so grateful for that.

• 1:03:39Rich Roll?

  So you're, so now you have this new, you know, there's new, new life ahead of you.

• 1:03:44Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:45Rich Roll?

  You're gonna be a pro triathlete.

• 1:03:46Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly.

• 1:03:47Rich Roll?

  But are you still continuing to work as a trader or you just quit?

• 1:03:49Colin O'Brady?

  You know, I quit my job like more or less the next day. No, not after, I mean, maybe a week, once, once Mr. Gelber came on to, you know, offer my initial round of support. And I had been introduced to a guy named Simon Thompson, who was an Australian Olympian for triathlon, came 10th at the Athens Olympics. This is 2009, so he had been five years in the TV Olympics. And he had said, hey, if you're looking for a squad, of course, we're into September in Chicago.

• 1:04:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're not gonna want to train in Chicago.

• 1:04:21Colin O'Brady?

  You know, you gotta get out of there immediately if you want to train in any sort of serious capacity, especially over the winter time. And he said, you know, my coach lives in Canberra, Australia, which is, you know, the capital of Australia inland, not a place that not everyone visits on the Australian circuit, but it's where their Olympic Training Center is, the Australian Institute of Sport. And he said, if you want to come out, you know, we've got a squad of, you know, pros and top amateurs and stuff out here, you know, move out to Australia. So in a matter of a couple of weeks, I went from thinking I'm a commodities trader for the foreseeable future to winning the Chicago triathlon. Two weeks later, I quit my job and I'm on a plane to go move to Australia for six months.

• 1:04:58Rich Roll?

  That's crazy.

• 1:04:59Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, it was certainly a wild turn of events and something that no way I could have predicted at all. And that began the path for me, you know, that was in, like I said, in 2009. And I've spent the last, you know, six plus years now being, you know, on the professional triathlon circuit and fortunate enough to, like I said before, raced in 25 countries now, six continents, you know, lived several parts of the world, as triathletes do, chase the endless summer a bit to training destinations and, you know, various places. And it's been a remarkable ride for sure.

• 1:05:30Rich Roll?

  And, and the goal I would presume was to make the Olympic team.

• 1:05:34Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:35Rich Roll?

  Right, and racing the ITU circuit, which I want to talk a little bit about.

• 1:05:38Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, so that's, obviously, particularly in this country, when you say triathlon, I think most people gravitate towards Ironman or think of Ironman, for sure. But the ITU circuit, like you mentioned, is what I primarily focused on up until, you know, this year, basically, or I've switched more over to long course. But, um, yeah, the ITU circuit's a little bit different than, uh, non-drafting. So it's draft-legal triathlon, um, which means the bike course is more like a Tour de France-style cycling race where you're on road bikes and you're drafting one another.

• 1:06:07Rich Roll?

  Draft-legal, and it's, uh, it's, it's the one kind of, uh, professional discipline in triathlon where swimming actually is really important.

• 1:06:15Colin O'Brady?

  Yes.

• 1:06:16Rich Roll?

  You know, for the most part, swimming, like, whatever. You can be a lousy swimmer and get away with it.

• 1:06:20Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21Rich Roll?

  But in ITU, uh, if you're not, if you're not killing it on the swim, you're gonna miss the first group on the bike and you're toast.

• 1:06:28Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, no, that's absolutely true, and I think that's certainly part of the reason that I, you know, gravitated to this, uh, you know, part of triathlon for a while anyways, which is your absolute ride in Ironman. You need to be a capable swimmer, but you can come down two, three, you know, five minutes behind the main group and you've got four and a half hours on your bike and a full marathon to make up that distance.

• 1:06:47Rich Roll?

  It's, it's, it's negligible.

• 1:06:49Colin O'Brady?

  Whereas in ITU, because the draft-legal nature of the bikes, even if you're maybe 10 seconds down from the main swim pack, 20 guys ride away from you and you're by yourself, I don't care how strong you are. You're never catching up. You're never bridging, you know, so 10 seconds ends up being, you know, a lifetime. And it's one of the beauties of ITU if you have a swimming background, and certainly one of the biggest frustrations is it's unforgiving. I mean, there's certainly plenty of times where you have a good swim and it's great, but there's also times, and, you know, even good swimmers in the sport will probably reflect on this experience, but you fly halfway around the world, you have a bad swim for whatever reason, you get knocked over the head at the first buoy, you get off the group and before you know it, you're five seconds off the back of the pack and you're never there. And you, you know, the race is over before it even starts. So it's, it's brutal in that way, for sure.

• 1:07:33Rich Roll?

  And it's sort of like, I mean, you're just redlining the entire time.

• 1:07:36Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Rich Roll?

  And it's, there's a couple of observations about, about this that I think are interesting. The first is that, you know, for the most part, in, in a typical, you know, sort of conventional triathlon, you have your race plan and the idea is kind of, you know, you're racing yourself, stick to your plan, you know, execute the plan that you have for yourself. But in ITU, you're really, it's, it's way more sort of a fluid strategy where you're reacting to what's happening around you, you're observing how the, the peloton is behaving and you're trying to make decisions on the fly, right? And you have to kind of, you really are racing other people. You're not really racing yourself.

• 1:08:11Colin O'Brady?

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's so, you know, like you said, for Ironman or a non-drafting triathlon, it's about executing your plan. You know, there are other people out there and there's some tactics involved, but it's really a massive time trial. It's against you, against the clock, getting yourself from start to finish as fast as possible. But in ITU, it's really about, it's more reactionary.

• 1:08:29Rich Roll?

  Super tactical.

• 1:08:30Colin O'Brady?

  It's very tactical. I mean, there's times when it's full tilt, the whole bike course, but there's times when everyone makes the front pack, for whatever reason, the packs come together and, and the pace comes off. Or there's, that might happen for a lap and then the next lap is full on. You know, there's this kind of this toggle of up and down. So it's a little bit of a different of training your body to be able to handle that red line, handling those surges, handling that, you know, throttling up, throttling back, you know, all that sorts of stuff. And then being able to run a darn fast 5 or 10K off of, off of that type of bike, which represents its own challenges.

• 1:08:59Rich Roll?

  And I think, yeah, the other observation I had is that I think sort of maybe, you know, I don't know, eight, eight or nine years ago, 10 years ago, like if you were an incredible track athlete, like if you had mad running skills.

• 1:09:11Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:11Rich Roll?

  You were going to be the guy at the, at the top.

• 1:09:14Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:14Rich Roll?

  Like it, it kind of came down to guys that could just hammer on the run. But now I feel like it's matured to the point where even that's not good enough. Like you really have to be exceptional in all three disciplines.

• 1:09:25Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:26Rich Roll?

  There's no weak spots anymore.

• 1:09:27Colin O'Brady?

  It really, it's remarkable the, you know, even in, like I said, six years that I've been involved with ITU, the, it just seems like every year the depth is just growing and growing and growing and it takes a complete athlete now to, you know, get the job done. Like you said, it used to be if you could hang around in the swim, you could sit in on the bike a little bit, if you're a good runner, you know, you could dominate. But, you know, those days are gone, the, the bike is so full on, the swim is so full on. If you're not doing all three at a pretty, you know, elite level, you're, you're left behind pretty quickly. So, yeah, it's a, it's an intense form of racing and it's a... Exciting and fun and hard and all that.

• 1:10:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, did you acclimate to that culture? And what were some of the, you know, highlights for you being on that circuit?

• 1:10:09Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a remarkable thing, you know, I really, you know, I had certainly had my ups and downs with it. I had, you know, some great races and I had some absolutely horrible races. I think it's interesting, you don't see it so much in Ironman, you don't see people perform. And even when they have an off day, they're still kind of up there in the top five or top 10 or something like that. You look, you know, kind of pour through ITU results, you know, there's certainly a couple of guys like the Brownlee brothers, Gomez, some of these guys who have consistently dominated the sport. But, you know, for, you know, Gwen Jorgensen on the women's side right now is obviously doing that, which is incredible to see from an American. But, you know, you see a lot of guys, they might be on a podium one week and literally the next week they're 57th place. I mean, there's not, there's so much parity in the level of racing that one thing doesn't go your way on the day.

• 1:10:54Colin O'Brady?

  It's, it's not a matter of one or two places, like you're, you're way back there. Yeah, so that was always hard for me. And like I said, I had, I had ups, I had downs on the circuit. But it is an amazing, uh, you know, forget the racing for a second, but the entire lifestyle of it is, I think, really unique in that it's very international in scope. You know, even with Ironman as it grows to being more international, it still is pretty US, North America focused, you know, particularly with the world championships always being in Hawaii, which is an amazing tradition in itself. And, you know, I, I love Ironman as well, it's, it's, but it's just different. Whereas the ITU really requires you to, you know, be on, you know, all the different continents, race all around. But it's amazing because, you know, you do end up racing against a lot of the same guys.

• 1:11:38Colin O'Brady?

  You know, each start list is limited to 75 guys maximum. Um, you know, and that all is dependent on points rankings and all this sort of stuff to get on those start lists.

• 1:11:46Rich Roll?

  Completely like impossible to understand.

• 1:11:49Colin O'Brady?

  It's not even worth talking about.

• 1:11:51Rich Roll?

  I couldn't even begin to understand how that.

• 1:11:53Colin O'Brady?

  That would be a whole other two hour podcast to discuss how the point system works. That's a whole nother thing. But um, but no, yeah, so basically you've got 75 guys on these start lists and in all these different countries. And of course, on the day, like you said, it's this tactical type of racing that in some parts requires you to work together, but certainly it's a very intense, very competitive environment. You know, you and I grew up pool swimming or in your own little lane. Now imagine jumping off the blocks with 75 guys that can all swim about the same well and go in front first turn buoy is just a wrestling and punching match. You know, it's pretty.

• 1:12:25Rich Roll?

  Your heart rate is through the roof from, from the first stroke, all the way to the end of the race.

• 1:12:29Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly. So that's, I mean, the racing itself becomes pretty intense, but it also is a great community. And that's not just like within your own country, but from an international level, the amount of friends I've made, you know, on that circuit has been amazing. We might be, you know, enemies on, on the race course, but you know, pretty much the second you step off the race course is a pretty remarkable community of people, you know, coaches, athletes, everything. And it's, it's incredible. There's some of these people who, you know, maybe they're from the US or certainly from, you know, parts of Australia or Western Europe where I've never seen them in their, their hometown before, but I've been to Zimbabwe with them and Valparaiso, Chile and you know, Japan, you know, there's some of these places that you end up with these circuits. So you end up sort of being in these crazy, traveling, cultural environments with this kind of traveling circuit of people, which is pretty, pretty amazing life experience

• 1:13:13Colin O'Brady?

  from that perspective for sure.

• 1:13:15Rich Roll?

  And how does the nuts and bolts of that life work? Because there's so much travel.

• 1:13:21Colin O'Brady?

  Yep.

• 1:13:22Rich Roll?

  And you're racing all the time and this is your profession. Um, like, how does anybody make a living doing this if you're not like a Brownlee brother?

• 1:13:31Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:32Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Like it's so expensive to sustain it.

• 1:13:34Colin O'Brady?

  It is.

• 1:13:35Rich Roll?

  And you know, I don't know what the, you know, is it prize money? Is it completely dependent on sponsor support? Like, what does it look like for like the journeyman?

• 1:13:42Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:43Rich Roll?

  ITU guy?

• 1:13:44Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean, it's really hard and it's also different from country to country. You know, because it's an Olympic sport and this is the distance race at the Olympics. You have governing bodies. There is some governing bodies that have some funding. The US doesn't have nearly as much funding as countries like, you know, in Australia or some of the Western European countries. Which is mostly in part because we have the NCAA system, which is an incredible way to privatize Olympic sports, basically. And there's certainly controversies about it, but you know, scholarship, swimming, track and field, all this. There's a reason that we've been really, you know, dominant in the Olympics and the world stage in those sports. And I think a lot of it's attributed to the NCAA and the facilities.

• 1:14:24Colin O'Brady?

  But triathlon, not being an NCAA sport now is for women, just in its very nascent phases of that. There's only about five schools maybe that have that, but for the most part, triathlon's not an NCAA sport. So, similar to what I did and many other Americans, they'll take a scholarship path in either swimming or running and then come to triathlon later in life. Whereas, you know, certainly in Australia and some of those other countries, they'll start funding you through their national governing body, age sixteen, age seventeen, all the way through. So that's how some people make it work, certainly, is through the government funding. And in the US, that does exist to some regard, but it's really kind of a small amount and really at the very, very top level of the sport. So when you're coming up, you know, those opportunities aren't necessarily available to you at all.

• 1:15:06Colin O'Brady?

  And, yeah, the prize money, you know, if you can get it, isn't glamorous and a lot of the races pay five, maybe ten places deep. Like I said, it's easy to come, you know, fifty-fifth place too, and that you've flown over to wherever, Asia, and you're not getting paid that day. So really having some strong sponsorships in place and support in that regard, you know, make it work. You know, for me, like I said, fortunate enough to, you know, have Brian Gelber and his family stepping in to work me early on and throughout my career. As, you know, well as some other sponsors that have come on board along the way, that have made it possible. That said, it's always been, you know, month by month, piece by piece, it's, you know, it's never been, you know, it's not, from a financial standpoint, you know, I haven't saved a penny.

• 1:15:46Colin O'Brady?

  There's not like, you know, but for me, it's always been about the journey, about the adventure and about, you know, living my passion. And that's been enough reward for me. Right. So just to be able to get to the next race, I always felt, you know, grateful for that. It wasn't, you know, yeah.

• 1:16:01Rich Roll?

  And how how much do you think like your background as a swimmer informed your ability to kind of step into, you know, the professional athlete lifestyle and absorb the training in, you know, two new disciplines that you had very little experience with?

• 1:16:16Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean, I think you know this a bit, which is swimming is a brutal sport from a training perspective. You know, we grow up as kids swimming, you know, twice a day, four or five hours a day, oftentimes, certainly six plus days a week. A lot of that has to do with, you know, there's no pounding against the ground in swimming. You're you're in a pool, so you're not overheating. You know, those types of things allow you to log a lot of hours in swimming compared to some other sports. And because of that, it's a, I don't know if it's the best environment, there's certainly plenty to say about that. But if you get through that and through a division one swim program, whatever, you've logged a lot of hours training cardiovascularily and aerobically, aerobically, all that sorts

• 1:16:59Colin O'Brady?

  of stuff. So I think that played a huge role in terms of all of these things are, you know, they require some technique and there's a huge learning curve and many things I've learned and continue to improve on in my career. But having, you know, logged those hours, you know, as a kid in this one discipline really, you know, has allowed you me to step in and know what it means like to train 25, 30 hours per week, log that time, be focused, you know, train two, three different sessions per day, recover, all that sorts of stuff. So I think that's huge. And it's no surprise that you see other people coming from swimming backgrounds and stepping into the sport and having quite a bit of success. Because I think there's something about that environment that really, you know, teaches you how to handle and absorb a lot of this.

• 1:17:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that that was, it was, you know, even though there had been, you know, two decades between my swimming career and then getting back into being fit again, you know, that that that base is always there. And I think just the mental aspect of knowing, you know, knowing how to train.

• 1:17:56Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:17:57Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly.

• 1:17:57Rich Roll?

  And being comfortable with that level of discomfort.

• 1:17:59Colin O'Brady?

  For sure.

• 1:18:00Rich Roll?

  And kind of what it takes, I think, is. You know, is a good thing. And I'm actually surprised there aren't more swimmers that go into triathlon.

• 1:18:07Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:18:07Rich Roll?

  Just because they can't run. But like, I think with all of that training, it really is, you know, there's a leg up in terms of like, understanding what it's gonna take.

• 1:18:15Colin O'Brady?

  For sure, for sure. And I, you know, you're seeing it more and more. And, you know, in this country, doing a better job of getting that pipeline developed. I think you're seeing more people who are triathletes, you know, the next phase of guys that are young, you know.

• 1:18:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they're not coming from another sport.

• 1:18:29Colin O'Brady?

  No, they're coming from triathlon, which is awesome to see. And it's definitely raising the bar, you know, in this country, uh, which is, which is fantastic. I love seeing that for sure.

• 1:18:38Rich Roll?

  So you, you train at, at AIS for a while. And then at some point, like you're training, but then you're living all, you lived out here in Santa Monica too.

• 1:18:45Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, so.

• 1:18:46Rich Roll?

  This is all happening in the last couple of years. It's not like this is like some past life. Like, this is all between 2008 and now.

• 1:18:53Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, 2009 and now, more or less. Yeah. So, yeah, I lived in Australia. Um, then I came back and did some time back in Portland, uh, with a former coach of mine. And then, uh, for about a year, and then, uh, Siri Lindley, who I believe you know.

• 1:19:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know Siri.

• 1:19:08Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. She, uh, you know, invited me for a spot on her team, which was an amazing opportunity.

• 1:19:13Rich Roll?

  Is that when she was coaching out here?

• 1:19:15Colin O'Brady?

  When she was coaching in Santa Monica. So I got introduced to her and the spot kind of opened up on her, her squad, which she keeps pretty small and pretty tight. Uh, and at the time, and still to this day, obviously she has some of the best athletes in the world, but it was kind of the, felt certainly the who's who of triathlon when I was stepping in. And this is only a year plus into my professional career. So before I know it, um, you know, the, the triathlete audience will respond to this. It'll be random people to everyone else. But, you know, Leanne DeCave, Miranda Carfreys on there, Maggie Tashere, Luke McKenzie, you know, these are some of the biggest, best names in the sport, multiple time world champions. Um, and now I'm thrown into a training environment with them, which was incredible. So yeah, right here in Santa Monica is where that started. And then we were doing, um,

• 1:19:57Colin O'Brady?

  And then we were doing, you know, their training camp was in Noosa, Australia in the winter time. So basically splitting time between there.

• 1:20:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So swimming at the Culver plunge.

• 1:20:06Colin O'Brady?

  Yep, exactly.

• 1:20:08Rich Roll?

  And a lot of tempo running in Malibu Creek State Park.

• 1:20:12Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly. Right, right here in your backyard.

• 1:20:13Rich Roll?

  I probably saw you guys out there a couple of times.

• 1:20:15Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Rich Roll?

  I mean, Siri's amazing because she's, first of all, she is, she's really sweet and she's incredibly positive and she loves her athletes and she'll do anything for them. And she really is, you know, there to like support and uplift her athletes in every conceivable way possible. And she goes so far as to when, when, when there are group rides with all of her athletes, she, she's in the car, like driving, you know, on the ride the whole time. Not just like, hey, go on your ride and come back and tell me about it later. Like she is right there with you.

• 1:20:47Colin O'Brady?

  I mean, she's incredible in that way. She's just, she's so there. Like you said, so positive, shows up to the pool, ride, run with a smile on her face, energetic, joyful. It's, it's really remarkable to be in that environment every single day. And like you said, so many coaches are either coaching remotely or at least, you know, saying, oh, go on this ride. I'll see you in three hours. Let me know how it went. And she's literally there driving her car beside you. Sometimes you, you'll turn over and she's like got the radio turned up full blast. Like, come on, get up that hill, get up to Panga Canyon or like, you know, one of these roads out here and that. Just an amazing, yeah, amazing from that standpoint. So, you know, definitely a special person and it was a gift for me at that point in my career to be in that group and in that environment, you know, in a lot of regards with her and also with, you know, what I learned from those other athletes was priceless.

• 1:21:30Rich Roll?

  What I was gonna ask, I mean, what, what did you learn from either Siri or Miranda or Leander or Luke or these, you know, the, the absolute crime de la crime of the sport?

• 1:21:40Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I think, you know, the, the biggest lesson for me, I would say, you know, was an evolution, but definitely that Noosa training camp that I went to, which was in the winter, it was a three month training camp in the winter of 2012, 2011, 2012, sorry, our winter, their summer. So summer in Australia. And not only was it all those people that we just mentioned, but a lot of other people, you know, top American athletes were over there at the time.

• 1:22:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, a lot of people go and live there.

• 1:22:04Colin O'Brady?

  Greg and Laura Bennett were there, Melissa Housh, Tim O'Donnell was there. I mean, really, the Belinda Granger, you know, lots of some of the biggest names in the sport.

• 1:22:12Rich Roll?

  Did you meet Dan McPherson?

• 1:22:14Colin O'Brady?

  No, Siri was living in his house at the time.

• 1:22:17Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:22:18Colin O'Brady?

  And so Beck Keatt, you know, Beck Keatt had just joined the squad. So, I mean, just an amazing, you know, group of athletes. And I was, like I said, pretty, pretty young and new to the sport. And so it was pretty amazing to be in this environment. And I think one of the biggest-

• 1:22:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you'd be like the youngest person, right?

• 1:22:32Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I was young and definitely the least experienced at the time and wide-eyed and just felt privileged to be there for sure and just learning from all these great athletes. But I really look at that time for me as one of the, the best learning lessons, certainly in my life, from, from a lot of regards. You know, I probably, if I had to pick, pick a moment, it was, you know, I spent a few months, I was actually living with Leander during this training camp, you know, as we split up housing and all those sorts of stuff. And so got to see her in action every single day, not just, you know, at training sessions, but at home and all that sort of stuff. And at that time, to give perspective, she'd already won two world championships early on in ITU and ITU Longs. And then later on that year, she went and won 70.3 Worlds and won Kona. So it was

• 1:23:15Colin O'Brady?

  a massive year for her. And I was, you know, there through that whole time. And interestingly enough, I think actually some of this has led to what I'm doing with my life now with this mountaineering challenge. But it, you know, I asked her one time, what's your favorite victory that you've ever had? And here's someone who's, you know, literally won every sport, every big race in the sport. And she said, you know, it was actually when I came second place at the Commonwealth Games. I said, second place? What do you mean, multiple time world champion? I was actually asking you, which world championship did you win? That you won the best, you know? She was like, no, for me- It was amazing because, you know, she has of British descent, although she grew up in Australia and it was, uh, her family was there.

• 1:23:56Colin O'Brady?

  And when she had won some of these earlier championships, she hadn't been surrounded by, you know, that many people, uh, you know, coaches, athletes, but different than having, you know, your true core family around there. And that always stuck with me, that really stuck with me, um, because of course I really, you know, admire her and still to this day is what she's done athletically. But I admire that she recognized that although winning is what we're trying to do as professional athletes, there's more to it. There's more to the balance of that and really understanding weaving the fabric of our lives, uh, you know, through that. And, um, you know, certainly not, not long after that, I had been spending a lot of time away from Jenna, traveling so much. Um, and Jenna and I kind of sat down and I said, how, how can we do this together?

• 1:24:38Colin O'Brady?

  Again, we don't have a lot of financial resources or anything like that, but we, you know, we made it work and Jenna has been now with me, you know, doing this whole adventure and with me for the past four plus years and has been, you know, the cornerstone of building this new, new beyond seven two project and doing that together. And that really has, what has made the difference for me, you know, I have certainly performed better on the race course as a result of that. But also just the balance of my own life has just been so much more meaningful when I've had successes and when I've had failures. And to know that have the continuity of the person that I love and care about right there beside me through all of it, has really, uh, you know, made a big difference. And so that was certainly a, a huge lesson from that phase of time of my life.

• 1:25:20Colin O'Brady?

  Um, and I think the second one is interestingly enough was finding my limits a little bit, um, and learning how to develop as an athlete. So, you know, most of the people that we've named were all Ironman athletes and I was racing ITU. And of course I was eager to train side by side with some of the best and greatest in the sport. And so I wanted to push every single workout and train super hard and all this sort of stuff. Ultimately, I overtrained myself in this training camp, you know, I had a great three months. And the rest of the year was probably my darkest year in the sport after that from, you know, my testosterone levels dropped to, you know, the level of a 90 year old man, basically I had to take some time off from the sport to just let my body, you know, get back to whatever. You know, that's a hard lesson to learn, but also an important lesson to learn, I think of where are those limits?

• 1:26:05Colin O'Brady?

  And how do we do this sustainably? And as I look back and reflected on that time, I realized that even some of those amazing athletes, I was like, well, why is he riding a little slower on this group ride today? Or why is he this? And those people who have 10, 15, 20 years in the sport, they're savvy veterans. Like they know how, they know that consistency is the king. Like winning every, anyone given, you know, workout or whatever is pretty inconsequential. If you can't string it together, you know, week after week, day after day, all sorts of stuff like that. So learning that lesson, maybe learning that lesson the hard way, but learning that lesson was hugely valuable to me. Not in the continue, not only in the continuation of my travel and career, but certainly with this next project and climbing all these mountains back to back and all this sort of stuff. It gets about consistency. It's not about one big summit day or one big push. It's about how do I stay healthy?

• 1:26:50Colin O'Brady?

  How do I stay consistent six months straight, you know, and keep going day after day?

• 1:26:54Rich Roll?

  And, and I think that requires you to render your ego to be subservient at times. And that requires a certain level of discipline. And, you know, I don't know what your swimming training was like, but like when I came up, which is, you know, I'm a lot older than you, but you know, the training philosophy was not as refined as it is now. It's like more is better. And you would just go in every single workout after warm up, like you just, you just killed it on every set. And like just go as hard as you can. It was never like, okay, this set, we're just going to work on technique and you're going to back it down. I want to keep your heart rate under X. Like no, you just go hard. You go, and maybe it's because it isn't an impact thing. Like you can kind of do that, but I mean, I'm convinced looking back that I overtrained my entire summer career.

• 1:27:37Colin O'Brady?

  I mean, I, I agree a hundred percent. Like I said, yeah.

• 1:27:39Rich Roll?

  And just walked around like a zombie for like 10 years, you know?

• 1:27:42Colin O'Brady?

  I, I, I give love to Frank Keefe because like we talked about early on, he's an absolute legend of the sport. But he was obviously coming with a older school perspective. So my college career was pretty much defined by that same type of more is better, the long yards and all this. And looking back.

• 1:27:55Rich Roll?

  And then you just rest at the end and pray that your paper's going to work out. But in try, when you're running and you're doing those different disciplines, that will catch up to you a lot more quickly.

• 1:28:04Colin O'Brady?

  It absolutely will. And the other thing is, isn't swimming, as you know, we, you know, we're, we're peaking once. Maybe two times per year, really with a full shave and taper. And in triathlon, and you asked, how do you financially make it work? How do you make this stuff work? How do you get the point system, all this sort of stuff? You've got to race a lot. I mean, on, well, not main peak of ITU, I was racing 10, 15 times per year in a six to eight, nine month period. So oftentimes you're racing back to back weekends on different continents and all this sort of stuff, full gas. And so there's no time to just do a full taper. You might have an A race that you're a little more focused on or this, but it's being able to back up day in, day out, all this sort of stuff. And that, when you're training that hard and racing that hard and whatever, finding that balance and figuring out how to recover is, is a challenge. And it's, I think everyone has different limits and processes, you know, with that.

• 1:28:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, interesting. All right, so, so things are, are progressing and maturing in your, your burgeoning young, you know, professional triathlete career.

• 1:28:56Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:56Rich Roll?

  So why, why, you know, suddenly interrupt that and, and embark on this left turn of an adventure?

• 1:29:02Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, you know, you know, I think it's a, it's a combination of things. The biggest, you know, moment that I can point to is at the, the end of last year, I had decided to start, you know, trying out what long course triathlon might, might be like, you know, half Ironman, Ironman type of distance. And I signed up and did the Rev3 Anderson half Ironman. And I won that race.

• 1:29:27Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:29:27Colin O'Brady?

  Which was-

• 1:29:28Rich Roll?

  You won the whole race?

• 1:29:28Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, yeah. Which was, which was great. I mean, a phenomenal day. Very proud of, proud of that achievement. And of course Jenna, being there like she has been for me, was there. And it was an interesting moment because winning that race was a big career breakthrough for me. It felt great. But it was also an interesting moment. And even reflecting on some of the stuff I said before about balance and other things in your life, it was, this is great, but this path, at least at the moment, felt a little bit, felt very personal. I wouldn't take back a single day, but it felt somewhat self-serving. When you're a professional athlete, you know, your sponsors are happy for you and that sort of stuff. And you know, you feel good about that, your family, your coach, yourself, you know, that's all great. But there's not a huge, larger impact that you can have in the world, you know, with that.

• 1:30:11Colin O'Brady?

  And so Jenna and I kind of put our heads together and said, you know, I, I certainly want to continue to push my body as hard as I can. I certainly love being an endurance athlete. And will I continue to be a professional triathlete after this project? You know, possibly, for sure. But we were wondering, I wonder if there's something we can do with this level of athleticism right now that has a much greater impact than in my own personal success or failure. And that's really where Beyond 72 was born from. You know, for me, with the health and nutrition background of my family and some coaching I've done and mentoring with kids, you know, the childhood obesity epidemic for me is, you know, a tragedy. And I know that on your podcast, you've had various other people supporting that cause and yourself, proponent of that. You know, it's really hard, you know, to see that, that, that health issues that we're

• 1:30:56Colin O'Brady?

  having in our country, not only with youth, but all the way up through all the different, you know, ages, you know, kids turn into adults. And so with this project, our, our aim really is, yeah, the goal is to set a world record, sure, but that's not the, even the primary goal of this project. The goal of this project is to build a platform where we can inspire and encourage, you know, people, young people to get outside, be active, be healthy. We've partnered with an organization called the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, and our goal was to raise a million dollars for them. So part of this campaign is a fundraising campaign for us. You know, corporate sponsorship is taking care of my expedition expenses. So when people are donating to this cause, it's going a hundred percent to kids, a hundred percent to those programs.

• 1:31:41Colin O'Brady?

  And so with this, with the media attention that comes from attempting and setting a world record, the visual component of all of this, really, it's about inspiration and inspiring and raising awareness and raising funds for this, you know, to me, which is a really, really important cause that's close to my heart. And I think a lot of that has to do with, I was, I was, from that regard, from a health regard, I was fortunate. You know, like you said, joking around, born to this hippity dippity, organic, you know, family, and you know, I even poked my own fun at that through most of my childhood.

• 1:32:10Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, you rebelled by going to an Ivy League school and becoming a traitor.

• 1:32:13Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly.

• 1:32:14Rich Roll?

  Like the ultimate rebellion for somebody who grows up on a commune.

• 1:32:17Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly. And so, you know, coming back, coming back around to that in my, you know, young adult life and realizing like, wow, like, I was really fortunate. I was fortunate that someone was cooking me, you know, kale salad and rice and beans and Whole Foods growing up. And I was just what I was accustomed to. And took it for granted in some regards and realizing that so much of you know this problem, there's it's a very complex issue of childhood obesity and there's many different facets to it, but certainly one of that, one of those things is is access and education around those things and just knowing how to eat healthier and having access to those things. So, you know, obviously my project is just one drop in the bucket of trying to help, you know, with this problem, but hopefully through this, we can, you know, help and inspire and educate and, you know, raise awareness around, you know, healthy eating

• 1:33:02Colin O'Brady?

  habits and inspire some youth to, you know, continue in that direction.

• 1:33:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, you know, there are a few more worthy causes, you know, this is the future of our planet, right? And when you see kids, you know, having, uh, you know, issues with obesity at such a young age and it's become such a, you know, prolific problem. Um, I think right now, uh, seventy, you maybe you know, maybe you're boned up on the stats more than me. I mean, seventy percent of Americans are obese or overweight. I think childhood obesity rates are on the rise and accelerating at a ridiculous rate. And it is multifaceted because, uh, it's an issue of parental education. It's an issue of convenience. It's an issue of access. It's a, it's a socio-economic issue. Um, you know, and it's also an issue

• 1:33:47Rich Roll?

  of interest and focus. You know, when kids are staring at their phones or at their tablets and they go to school and they eat a crappy school lunch and they just want to play video games and like go to the mall and the movies and eat at the food court, like, of course they're going to be obese. So you have to change the environment, you have to educate, and you have to inspire kids to, you know, be more interested in things beyond the tablet, beyond the screen. And you have to attack that from all different sides.

• 1:34:23Colin O'Brady?

  So much of our project, like I said, you say you're out raising awareness to inspire kids and, you know, try to combat the childhood obesity epidemic and immediately people go to, of course, that's on the ground work with kids, which a lot of it is that, but you're a hundred percent right, which is about needing that buy-in from all the stakeholders. So, you know, it's about, you know, getting buy-in from school administrations. It's about educating the parents as well. It's about getting, you know, big businesses, the food and beverage, you know, administration, all that sort of stuff to make certain changes and that's a whole systematic, you know, change. And I think that the organization we partner with, the Alliance for Healthier Generation, Does really well. We vetted a number of organizations and really felt good about this one.

• 1:34:59Rich Roll?

  Why these guys? What are they doing?

• 1:35:01Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, so they were founded by the Clinton Foundation, the American Heart Association originally, not long after President Clinton had some heart problems and kind of in his own life realized, hey, this is a problem here and dedicated some resources to that, kind of incubated it in 2005. And the Clinton Foundation, now it's its own thriving 501(c)(3), it's on its own. And they basically built this program out and now that they're impacting 20 million kids nationwide, they're in 29,000 schools with their curriculums. And they're doing kind of a three-layered approach, which I think is really positive. One is called their healthy in-school time, which is getting into schools and like I said, getting that buy-in from the school administration, changing the food, the food lunches,

• 1:35:45Colin O'Brady?

  getting the kids more active and healthy, PE class, all that sorts of stuff. Then they have their healthy out-of-school time, which is basically getting Boys and Girls Clubs, after-school programs engaged and keeping the kids there. Because you're only in school, you're in school a lot, but after the hours of 2:00 PM and when you go home to when you wake up in the morning, there's a lot of also downtime. So maybe you're healthy in school all of a sudden, but what are you doing after school? Like you said, are you sitting down in front of that tablet? Are you playing video games with that or is there engagement in that way? So they're really ramping that up, which is great. And then the third level, which on the outset might not seem like a perfect match, but for me, it's actually one of the more powerful things they do, which is because of President Clinton's involvement and because of some of the high-up people that they have involved, they've been able to be a stakeholder at the negotiation with some of the food and beverage companies.

• 1:36:30Colin O'Brady?

  Last year, they made a partnership with McDonald's, which sounds crazy, a childhood obesity company and McDonald's partnering. But what they did is they convinced McDonald's to take french fries out of their Happy Meals and replace it with apple slices. And that's sweeping change in terms of maybe that's not the end result, the game ending, complete change, but that actually has impact. That's millions and millions. I mean, of course, we wish that families weren't getting, buying the Happy Meal in the first place perhaps, but to be able to be a stakeholder and at least have some say at some of those tables, I think is really powerful.

• 1:37:05Colin O'Brady?

  I'm really, you know, proud to be, you know, all of our efforts to be supporting this organization. And then they have a foundation, you know, they actually were started, although they're nationwide, but in Portland, Oregon. So they have some roots in Portland as well. So, you know, that feels good to be starting to support them. So, yeah, all of the funds we raised for this goes directly to them. And they're a program that doesn't have very high overhead costs. That was important to us. So, pretty much, dollar for dollar, pretty much all is going straight to the kids, straight to the program.

• 1:37:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's great.

• 1:37:31Colin O'Brady?

  So we feel very good about that.

• 1:37:32Rich Roll?

  That's great. So, and so you just basically, you know, researched this, found these guys, reached out, and just developed a relationship.

• 1:37:39Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, exactly. And we said, we want to do this project. And we, you know, we were very clear for ourselves that in terms of, of course, climbing all of these mountains, going to the North and South Pole is not an inexpensive thing to do. And we didn't, our point is to be raising money, you know, towards the combatant childhood obesity epidemic. So, we very, you know, clearly, you know, drew a distinction of getting sponsors on board who are supporting the, you know, the cost of the project itself. Of course, you know, I'm not getting paid myself anything to do this, but there's just operating expenses to doing this. So, we ourselves, Beyond72 is its own 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and we've had some great, you know, support. So, Nike Foundation has been one of our largest supporters. You know, it's huge to have them on board. Like I said, Brian Gelber, who has been through my triathlon career, has been a, you know, primary supporter. We've got Columbia on

• 1:38:24Colin O'Brady?

  board, Mountain Hardware, Sorrel, Prana, Moose Jaw, Ray Taylor out of the Midwest. You know, we've got some, some really great brands in support of us, and we feel, you know, great about having that support.

• 1:38:34Rich Roll?

  That's great. I mean, I can't imagine what the ultimate price tag is.

• 1:38:37Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:38Rich Roll?

  On this thing. It's gotta be really high.

• 1:38:40Colin O'Brady?

  It's high. It's not, it's not inexpensive.

• 1:38:42Rich Roll?

  It's not something you're gonna do on your own.

• 1:38:43Colin O'Brady?

  No, it's not a check that I can write out of my personal bank account.

• 1:38:46Rich Roll?

  I would imagine you feel that pressure, though. Like, wow, you know, there's a lot of...

• 1:38:50Colin O'Brady?

  For sure. You know, there's a lot of that pressure. To me, it's, there's a, it's a, it's a big, it's a big effort to do, and it's a big, but it's also, I think it goes to show that, you know, to have someone, you know, like a Nike, you know, really, really put their, their money and resources behind a project like this shows that it's a unique project and a unique platform. And the, you know, the media attention is starting to, you know, gain. We've got, you know, you're, you're here, I'm on your podcast, which is great. That's the biggest thing. That's the biggest one there. That's the most important thing. That's bigger than anything, but we, uh, we've got, uh, you know, Men's Journal just came out, uh, followed me around for three or four days as a journalist and they're writing a feature on that should come out in March and a few other things as well as a documentarian looking after this. And so hopefully, you know, as we, to me, you know, the, the, the million that we're hoping to raise is, is a huge

• 1:39:35Colin O'Brady?

  goal and hopefully we can get there. You know, you can go on our website, hit on the donate button. Um, that's the, probably the easiest way to do that on beyond72.com. But also, you know, the awareness piece, there's, you know, it's not as easy to quantify, but you know, I've been out, uh, speaking in schools, uh, in the, the lead up to this and that's been honestly after a year of planning and trying to get sponsors on board and kind of the boardroom hustle, if you will, um, which has been an interesting phase of this project. It's actually amazing to be turning the phase on that. Go, the expedition is funded. We have great support and now it's time to like, do the work. And so, you know, I've been in these elementary schools, giving these speeches about what I'm doing, talking about goal setting, talking about, you know, eating healthy, healthy habits. And that's been amazing. The reception from the kids, the curiosity. I've been bringing

• 1:40:17Colin O'Brady?

  in a lot of my climbing gear, my big Everest down suit and I had the kids try it on and they're laughing. They can't believe, you know, these big boots and these mittens and all that sort of stuff. And they're just, you know, the kids are amazing. They really, it's, it's so fun to be able to interact and give back in that way. And it's something that's really, like I said, the fabric of the whole reason behind doing this project. And for us, the project doesn't end. When I get back in June, hopefully I'm back in June, having set a new world record and that, that will be amazing. It'd be certainly a cherry on top of this. But, you know, both Jenna and myself are dedicated. And that's not like for this, this beyond 72 ends on, you know, June 15th, when I set or don't set the record, you know, beyond 72 continues on for that. Certainly through the remainder of 2016, you know, we're committed to, you know, doing way more of that outreach

• 1:41:01Colin O'Brady?

  through the Nike Foundation, through some other, you know, folks who are, you know, supporters of ours have kind of put us into some networks where we can really drive impact on the ground and continue those fundraising efforts. And then hopefully, I don't know what the, the next, next thing is, but hopefully, you know, we can continue on in this vein and continue to, you know, build on this progress that we have from here. So it's not, not just a one off for us in any way.

• 1:41:20Rich Roll?

  It's interesting that you chose to, um, to, you know, embark on this mountaineering adventure because as a professional triathlete, the obvious, like if you're grappling with like, how can I do this in a more meaningful way and give back? The more obvious choice would to do, would, would be to do like an Iron Cowboy kind of thing.

• 1:41:41Colin O'Brady?

  Sure.

• 1:41:41Rich Roll?

  You know, or like come up with some crazy triathlon. I'm going to go all the way around the world, you know, swim, bike, run, or something like that. But relate it to those three disciplines.

• 1:41:50Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:50Rich Roll?

  And for you to just put all of that aside and go, no, I'm actually going to do something completely different.

• 1:41:54Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, you know, first of all, aside, I, my hat is off to the Iron Cowboy. If you're out there listening or what, like mad respect.

• 1:42:01Rich Roll?

  Insane.

• 1:42:02Colin O'Brady?

  I listened to the Rich Roll podcast about the Iron Cowboy. First of all, it's amazing working with the Jamie Oliver Foundation, childhood obesity as well. Fantastic work with that. But just on a personal level, I think Rich, you said at the end of that podcast, you said, I've got mad respect for this guy, but I have a little bit of doubt. You've done five Ironmans back to back and you're like, I hope he does it, but just the logistics and the this, like is this going to pull it off? And I remember, I remember listening to that and thinking like, I'm the same. I'm not, I'm not a hater. I wanted him to succeed, but I kind of had those doubts in the back of my mind. I was like, this is a tough challenge. So to accomplish that, mad respect wherever you are out there, my friend James.

• 1:42:36Rich Roll?

  That is insane.

• 1:42:37Colin O'Brady?

  That was such a cool project and just the impact and the passion and mission behind it. And there's so much that I can relate to in that own story. You know, we've been planning this project before the Iron Cowboy did his thing this summer, but you know, just having his wife along for the ride and all that sort of stuff. It's really, you know, you can, I can really relate to that in my own life. And it's a, it was an amazing accomplishment to witness.

• 1:42:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:56Colin O'Brady?

  Being a triathlete and being an Ironman, my own self is unreal. So mad respect.

• 1:43:02Rich Roll?

  This, of course, you know, nothing but crazy respect for James.

• 1:43:05Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:06Rich Roll?

  And, and, and perhaps the same concerns apply to your own thing. Like I don't have a point of context or reference for it because I'm not a mountaineer and I don't know what that entails, but it's, it's analogous in many ways. And, and perhaps maybe the most, you know, relatable one is the fact that A, you're going to be meeting unforeseen obstacles that will have unforeseen ramifications. You're on a, a really pretty Very tight timeline with not that much room for error.

• 1:43:33Colin O'Brady?

  Yep.

• 1:43:33Rich Roll?

  And a lot of things that are outside of your control. And, you know, James came up against crazy weather conditions, so he had to move things inside. But that's very different from being at base camp in, you know, at Everest and saying, well, we're just not gonna, we just can't do anything, you know, until it clears.

• 1:43:48Colin O'Brady?

  For sure.

• 1:43:49Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Like so many things you can't control.

• 1:43:51Colin O'Brady?

  There's things I can't control and I try to, you know, in my visualizations, meditations, just thinking about this, try to focus on what I can control and making sure I've dotted at least all those i's and crossed those t's as best as I can. And what will be, will be and prepared myself as best as possible for, for this mission. And you know what, you know, your original question was why, why this and not something in the swimming, biking and running space? And I think the answer is twofold, which is, you know, for me, I've always dreamed of climbing these mountains. Mountaineering has always been a passion for me, so it's not a complete divergence from something I've never done. You know, you wouldn't embark on this, which has its inherent risks if you didn't have the mountaineering expertise and knowledge to do that. So that's a background of mine.

• 1:44:33Colin O'Brady?

  But the other thing is, is that triathlon is a professional sport. You know, I've been a professional athlete at that, but for me, I'm not a professional climber. I'm not a professional mountaineer. And so much of this project is about having a universal message around this, which is saying, you know, I'm not shying away from the fact that I, you know, a pretty, have been a top level athlete, but I haven't been a top level mountaineer. And so so much of this project is not, hey, Colin's doing this unattainable thing that no one else can do.

• 1:45:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:00Colin O'Brady?

  It's like, hey, I've set myself a big goal and it's a big goal in a place that like I have some sort of comfort in, but I'm not an expert. I'm not Conrad Anker. I'm not, you know, Jimmy Chan or these guys who are just insane mountaineers, right? I'm a good, strong, competent mountaineer, but I'm not a professional mountaineer.

• 1:45:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:17Colin O'Brady?

  And so it's about trying to tie in a universal thread to whoever out there, which is, hey, I'm doing this, but can you run a local 5K? Can, if you're a kid, can you ride your bike to school? Can you, you, can you go for a walk? Can you take your dog out, run around the block? You know, that sort of stuff to try to make this less of, oh, Colin's out doing this crazy, extreme thing that no one can do, but really to tie in on a, in a universal way of, you know, messaging around this and, you know, what we can do to sort of inspire, you know, everyone. So.

• 1:45:44Rich Roll?

  And how is that, how do you prepare physically for this? Like, how does, you know, you're, look, you're, you know how to train for triathlons, you know how to train for swimming? How do you then take that knowledge base and tweak it to, to do the specific preparation that's required for tackling?

• 1:46:00Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, for sure. You know, one of the big things was I switched to long course triathlon this year, which just suits from an aerobic standpoint, a lot better. So I can, did my first Ironman this year, raced a bunch of 70.3s, which the training for that, rather than the ITU training is more conducive to this. Cause really a lot of it is just a big aerobic challenge, obviously. But then, working with my coach, Greg Mueller, you know, working in throughout the triathlon year, even though I was still racing triathlon through August when I raced Ironman Japan, I, you know, was doing strength stuff. I was doing stuff in the mountains, strength specific, you know, mountaineering stuff. And then after, in August, August 23rd was my last race of the year, which was Ironman Japan.

• 1:46:42Colin O'Brady?

  I flew straight from there to Nepal to start a six week expedition to climb Manaslu, which is the sixth tallest mount, or eighth tallest mountain in the world at 26,800 feet. Very similar in scope to an Everest expedition. So that was by design, which was to be super tired coming off an Ironman, and then go see if you can climb one of the biggest, baddest mountains in the world backing up of that. Because of course, I'm going to need to climb Everest fatigued, you know, not in a perfectly dialed, ready to go state.

• 1:47:09Rich Roll?

  Everybody else shows up there, their whole life has been oriented around that one climb. And you're coming off all these other climbs and, you know, what are the, what are the kind of like, things that you have to deal with when you're dealing with going up and down at such high altitudes all the time on a repetitive basis?

• 1:47:23Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean, it's got its own challenges from, you know, just the way weight bearing and strength is a lot different in, in mountaineering than it would be running. Of course, the uphills, the downhills, carrying weight on your back, on the poles, you're dragging a hundred pound sled, you know, that's just like engaging your body and core in a very different way. So being able to do a lot of strength training to prepare for that is, is big for sure. And just getting my body accustomed to that. It's been a little bit of a strange year, which is, you know, in triathlon, you want to be very lean for the most part, you know, Ironman Japan is arguably the hilliest. Course in the entire world this year. So you're going up all these hills, running, biking up these hills. You want to be super lean. Whereas a mountaineer, a lot of people have looked at me and said, you're pretty lean to be going to this cold of places. So to have that sort of balance and trying to, you know, figure out my body composition and all that.

• 1:48:08Rich Roll?

  You look pretty big right now. You don't, you don't look like an Ironman triathlete. Like you look like you've been in the weight room.

• 1:48:13Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. So exactly. So as after August, after August, my that Ironman, I went to Nepal for six weeks and then it's pretty much been full, mountaineering, weight room type of focused training, of course, is still the cardio component, but there's been a drastic shift from doing the swimming, biking, running, which is definitely the foundation of my strength and stability. But there's been some, yeah, like I've been lifting my body for the first time since my swimming career, which is feel upper body, which just feels different, you know, just like there was a time when I feel like I could throw it down in the weight room, but now I actually coming up to triathlon, it's like, well, I haven't done lap pull down or pull ups or that sort of stuff in a, in a long time. So it's been kind of good to get back to that and get some of that strength out in, in preparation for this.

• 1:48:54Rich Roll?

  And what about the mental training? Like, how are you preparing for, you know, sort of those 10 days in and out when you're doing the, you know, the pole expeditions?

• 1:49:02Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. You know, the biggest thing for me is meditation, actually. You know, meditation, it was introduced to me in 2010, I guess, 2011, in a pretty meaningful way. A woman, a friend of mine came and watched one of my races and she doesn't really have much of a sporting background. It's a wonderful friend of mine from Turkey, but not a big sports watcher or whatever. She was like, this is very a mental thing you're doing. And I was like, yeah, it is. And she's like, you know, I think that meditation would be very helpful for you. And it's something, of course, with the hippity parents that I grew up around, I've, you know, it's been in my consciousness, but not something I've ever practiced or really done. And she reck, she said, well, there's this thing called a 10 day silent meditation retreat, Vipassana silent meditation retreat.

• 1:49:46Colin O'Brady?

  I think you should, you know, try this out. And so that year.

• 1:49:51Rich Roll?

  I can't take 10 days off of training.

• 1:49:52Colin O'Brady?

  And so I had my, I basically have two weeks of off season that I give myself in December of every year, more or less is about the, pretty much the duration of my off season for the most part. And at the end of that year, which was 2011. I, most of the athletes thought I was crazy. They were like, we're gonna like, party and hang out for like, the only two weeks we can do that this year. And I was like, oh, I'm going to this place where I'm gonna be silent for ten days. I can't read, I can't write, I'm meditating seventeen hours per day. No one talks to me, no one looks at me, and you can't really eat very much food. You can only eat a couple very small meals throughout the day. And that was life-changing for me, you know, it really was. It was, uh, like I said, my, even my stepdad, he said,

• 1:50:34Colin O'Brady?

  "I don't think I've ever heard you be quiet for five minutes." He's like, maybe I should, he dropped me off at the, at the center in, you know, in Washington State. And he said, "Should I just hang around for an hour or two until you realize this was a bad idea, and then he can come back in the car?"

• 1:50:48Colin O'Brady?

  But it really, it was challenging, but it is, it's completely changed my mental game for sure to have that. And I've gone back, not only done that one ten-day retreat, but I've done another ten-day retreat, uh, from complete silence after that, and some shorter ones, and how to brought that into a daily practice for myself. Interesting. You know, so much of that is, it's funny because I went into it like, oh, this will be good for trachone. And certainly it has been, and it's been good in my mental game, preparation for the Beyond Seven Two Mountaineering World Record. Because there's that element, you know, in, in Vipassana, there's this part called the Sittings of Strong Determination, which is three one-hour sessions throughout the full day of meditation. You sit there and you're in this meditation hall, and they say to you, "Okay, sit in whatever position feels comfortable, cross-legged, kneeling, whatever."

• 1:51:30Colin O'Brady?

  But once the hour starts, there's no moving your posture. You know, there's no readjusting your back, stretching your hands, you know, any of this sorts of stuff. It's just sit there, and as the sensations through the body come up, sometimes those are positive, sometimes those are negative. But it's about just objectively being aware of those things, and then saying, you know, this too will pass, this too will change, this is temporary. Um, and it's incredibly hard and incredibly challenging and painful at times, but to try to not have those cravings or aversions, you know, to the positive or the negative of that. And that, certainly in sports, as we, you know, push our bodies beyond what they want to be pushed. You mean, your mind is telling you to stop alarm before it actually really needs to stop, those alarm bells start ringing. And so that's been powerful in that aspect, but really it's been even more powerful in...

• 1:52:15Colin O'Brady?

  The rest of just my day to day lives and you know my relationships with family and friends and all of that and giving me a perspective of just awareness and you know in the world and I would say probably in a subtle way has really led me to this path and going back to your saying it seems like in the middle of your triathlon career as things are going really well you're taking this like massive divergent pivot and I think that you know through meditation through checking in with myself daily it's allowed me to check in with sort of you know what's calling me and that awareness around that and maybe it's not the most obvious path what I'm doing in the middle of this triathlon career to you know to make this change but I feel very called to do it I very very called towards the cause and the charitable aspects of doing this and it's still pushing my body in a way that it's interesting and meaningful and I'm excited about

• 1:52:59Colin O'Brady?

  it and to be able to work on this project with Jenna from an idea in our you know kitchen to a full formed you know funded project that has you know we're actually doing has just been the pathway of that has been an amazing journey so succeed or fail with the record or what that I'm I've no doubt that the the journey is is valuable and so much of that certainly has come from the ability to check in with myself and meditate and really you know be aware of that so that's been super powerful for me in in my life in the last you know several few years.

• 1:53:30Rich Roll?

  That's beautiful. I mean it's beautiful when you can you can merge something you're passionate about with something that has meaning beyond that, right?

• 1:53:39Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:39Rich Roll?

  And as you kind of mentioned earlier you know triathlon, any sport really is is such a self-oriented thing and by its very definition it has to be that way if you're gonna perform at the highest level so I think it's ballsy and cool like doing this.

• 1:53:55Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:55Rich Roll?

  And and that's interesting about meditation. I've had friends that have done silent Vipassana meditation retreats before, not athlete friends but other friends and and for every single one of them they said it's been the hardest thing they ever did but completely transformative.

• 1:54:10Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:10Rich Roll?

  Is there one organization that oversees these retreats or are there a variety of them?

• 1:54:15Colin O'Brady?

  For me that's one of the things that's the most amazing about it. It's completely just a pass down word to word so there's no marketing around this. This guy named Guenka basically who grew up in Burma and sort of spread this lot of this teaching to the West just kind of started doing these retreats and. Accepts no money for it. You, you literally can't pay even if you wanted to pay. Um, and all the people working to facilitate the facilities as well as, you know, volunteer to cook the food and facilitate the stuff, the teaching that's going on. It's completely on a hundred percent volunteer basis. Once you've completed 10 days, they will accept a donation from you if you feel like it, but there's absolutely no pressure to do that or whatever. So.

• 1:54:58Colin O'Brady?

  That started from one center in the United States. Now I think there's 250 of these around the world and it's the thriving thing. I mean, to sign up for. At least the one that's near my house, which is in Washington state and on Alaska, Washington, kind of halfway between Seattle and Portland. Sometimes there's two, three, four, five month waiting list. There's just a slew of people and that's just word of mouth. Like I said, there's, they have a very small Mello website, but you'll never see like a poster or a flyer or an email about it or something like that. It's just. Completely word of mouth and I think it speaks volumes about. The realness and the power of that. And you know, myself, I'm not, uh, you know, I guess I would consider myself in, in this regard, if you want to call that spiritual, but I'm definitely not traditionally religious person or something like that.

• 1:55:37Colin O'Brady?

  And, um, there's absolutely no dogma there. You know, it's a very universal teaching of just kind of awareness and, and health and thoughtfulness and mindfulness. Which has, you know, it's like, if you're a Christian or a Muslim or, you know, you can practice this. It's not like, uh, this, oh, you're choosing this like faith based thing. And for me. You know, that kind of dogma would have, you know, pushed me away from this pretty quickly. And so the, the acceptance of that, I think is powerful and it's also not the situation where you're feeling like. Okay, this is powerful, but I need to pay thousands of dollars to be here and this, the Kai teaching this, it's kind of a business too, and that sort of stuff. There's, there's absolutely none of that.

• 1:56:14Rich Roll?

  If you do this, then you can get into the next one where they really teach you.

• 1:56:18Colin O'Brady?

  Exactly, exactly. So, so there's not that, which is me, I mean, that's not. Me trying to knock other, you know, organizations or groups and there's certain realities of costs of things and stuff like that. But I do think that. You know, this, this Vipassana meditation really speaks pretty loudly that there's, you know, that much support for something like this. That's thriving. That is like. In truth, the most nonprofit of nonprofit environments that I can possibly imagine. Like there's not even a, there's not a development team or any, there's no one raising money like afterwards. They're like, you know. If you feel like it, you know, we could take these nations, but like if not, thank you for being here. And the people that are there at the facilities, the reason the facilities have been built is because of donations. There's a lot of these people start out with a donated plot of land and it starts in a one room.

• 1:56:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:56:59Colin O'Brady?

  And so now these places house a hundred people, whatever, and that's just been piece by piece built and added on to and that sort of stuff. So it's pretty remarkable. And like I said, for me, certainly on an emotional level was a life changing as, you know, a lifelong practice for me at this.

• 1:57:12Rich Roll?

  So then what is the, what is the daily practice look like?

• 1:57:15Colin O'Brady?

  The daily practice for me is, is more, um, you know, they encourage two one hour sittings per day, but I'll be honest, that's, uh, that's not happening. Um, I wish, I wish it were in some regard, but that's a pretty, pretty serious level of time. Um, so for me, I find that the mornings are the times when I have the most control over my schedule and my day. Uh, and so I like to, you know, start days with a 20 or 30 minute, you know, meditation. There's, there's moments where I feel like I can have more time and go longer and certainly times when I can sit before bed and that sort of stuff. But I try to at least carve out that, that regular piece in the morning and, you know, if I'm being completely transparent, there's times when I'm better at it. And there's times when, you know, I, I, I lose that, but it's something that I continue to check in with.

• 1:57:57Colin O'Brady?

  And certainly as I've been building up the physical, but not only physical, but the mental preparation for this next challenge has been a huge element of that. Because I think the mental fortitude, when I'm out in these cold, desolate places alone and that sort of stuff, it's going to be the mental game more than the physical game. So I think that and continuing that practice through this project is, is huge, is really important. Yeah.

• 1:58:18Rich Roll?

  When you're out there alone, you know, on these, these, these pole ventures, can you bring like, can you like listen to your iPod? Can you like listen to audiobook? Like, can you do, can you have any of those comforts or?

• 1:58:29Colin O'Brady?

  A few, you know, like obviously one of the cool things about the South Pole, uh, makes it harder to sleep, but it's 24 hours of sunlight. Um, so like I have a small little solar panel, which is mostly there so that I can keep the stuff charged up. So we can continue to send images and continue to tell the story in real time through our, you know, sat phone and stuff like that. So the priority is not to have, uh, you know, TV shows on my phone and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, obviously I want to be connected to the project, but yeah, I'm going to have a book there with me or have, you know, my Kindle or something like that, you know, a few of those. Comforts to pass the time and you know certainly you know I'm sure at times I'll listen to some music to get me pumped up but of course you can't just plug your stuff in anywhere so it's you know it's there's a limit on that but there's a little bit a little bit of that that can happen of course everything you have to carry with you too so

• 1:59:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:14Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah. Yeah you gotta think think pretty critically about it but uh you know I allow I allow myself a few a few of those comforts out there for sure.

• 1:59:21Rich Roll?

  And is there one thing that that scares you the most like is there one thing that where you have like the fear button gets pushed?

• 1:59:34Colin O'Brady?

  I I there I don't know I'm I'm having a hard time putting that one into words it's the second time you've asked me that and uh there's pieces there's bits and pieces.

• 1:59:44Rich Roll?

  I'm trying to get I'm trying to.

• 1:59:45Colin O'Brady?

  I know I know it's uh it's good it's good that you're asking that it's.

• 1:59:49Rich Roll?

  Well like let me come at it from a different perspective when you're preparing for this obviously you've had to even with your mountaineering experience and your experience as a professional athlete um I'm sure that there is a lot that you've learned about these particular mountains or you know trying to get to these poles and probably found out a lot of stuff that you didn't really realize that maybe maybe dawned on you oh man you know this is a little bit more involved than maybe I thought when I decided I was gonna do this like is there a blind spot in your experience perhaps or something where you know you're gonna have to you know really meet your maker in a way that you've never had to before?

• 2:00:29Colin O'Brady?

  I think the biggest thing for me is in mountaineering if you compare it to my endurance sporting background which is you start an Ironman you start a triathlon you start a marathon or any sort of race you might be having a bad day and we've all seen at Ironman someone throwing up on the side of the road or heat exhaustion or getting pulled off by an ambulance but at the end of the day you can put your hand up and you can say alright I'm having a bad day I'm gonna step off the course here you know sucks wasn't what I wanted to do but that and mountaineering the commitment level was so much higher your days if not weeks away from real help um and so every step and everything you take further towards the top of that mountain is also taking you into a dangerous environment and that's very real.

• 2:01:09Colin O'Brady?

  That's that part of it for me is is scary when I compare it to the risks that we take to endure in Ironman. And if you look at that, it's a much more controlled environment where you can really push your body to the very absolute limit. And if you, you know, and some of these famous people like a Paul Anubis Frasier collapsing at the Kona finish line and crawling across the line. I mean, these are amazing moments in a history of our sport. But also, it's like, if something really went wrong, there also was like all of these people around. And mountaineering, you just don't have that. And you're responsible for making those decisions. So that that really scares me. And the thing that's, you know, like I said, in a lot of years in the dreaming, I'm not blind to the risks of mountaineering.

• 2:01:49Colin O'Brady?

  But the thing that really, you know, has struck me most recently on this regard is on this expedition I was just mentioning Manaslu, where I went to climb, just in Nepal, is my first time climbing an 8,000 meter peak in Nepal. And, you know, we got up pretty high on the mountain, the team I was climbing with. And we decided that on our, before our last summit push, that the avalanche conditions were just too extreme. And we decided to turn around, so I actually didn't summit that peak. And several teams decided, about half the teams decided to make the same decision as us. And half the teams decided to continue up the mountain. So it was kind of a split on the mountain. And there was certainly moments and times like, oh, did we make the wrong call? Do we make this, this? And several people did go on to summit that mountain.

• 2:02:32Colin O'Brady?

  But a man, an Austrian man named Zoltan, who, you know, we had known a bit from earlier down the mountain and on a different team, also went up there with his climbing partner and he died on the way back down. And, you know, it wasn't somebody who I know really well, but it's somebody who a couple of weeks before I was sitting around camp just having a chat to. And, you know, that puts it into perspective, like it's, it's, the danger is real out there. And it's, you know, you make one decision, you know, this can happen. Or you can thread the needle, like all, a lot of those people that did summit. And I'm going, well, how, they summited, we didn't summit. So you're always, you know, having that. So it's an interior battle, internal battle, excuse me, to, you know, make the right decisions out there. And

• 2:03:14Colin O'Brady?

  You know, death is certainly more present in your mind and the risks of that than ever. And I try to not dwell on that because I'm not trying to manifest that in my own, in my own space. And maybe that's why I have some challenge answering, you know, what am I most fearful about? But like, of course, that is the, a big fear of mine. And, and the cold, you know, not just the truly dying or whatever. But I've had a debilitating injury before and I feel so fortunate to have recovered from that. Um, but to be putting myself in an environment that quite frankly, does carry with it some risks that, you know, something could happen to my legs again, something could happen to my hands again. You know, all this sorts of stuff. And I'm willingly putting myself in that environment. Um, I'm not paralyzed by fear with it.

• 2:03:58Colin O'Brady?

  If I thought it was so risky and it was just a dice roll, of course, it would be foolish to embark on this. So I think my level of experience allows me to take these risks in a reasonable way. But, you know, anyone who's out there, anyone who's climbing, even the best climbers in the world are, you know, wavering between their own personal limits of what the challenges are to complete the objective and what's a reasonable amount of risk to, to take on. And so, yeah, that scares me. And it, as much as the environment of having people engage in this project, obviously what I want is the people to be engaged in this project. You know, the school children I was speaking before this are following me on their classroom blogs now and sending me little messages and all this sort of stuff. And that, to me, that makes the project so valuable.

• 2:04:42Colin O'Brady?

  But does that add extra weight to your shoulders when you're up there on the summit day? And it's a coin toss, should we go up, shouldn't we go up? Oh, wait, all these kids really also are wanting, you know, so.

• 2:04:52Rich Roll?

  It's not like, uh, should I break away from the Peloton or shouldn't I? You know, the, the stakes aren't even in the same universe. You know, it, it truly is life or death and those decisions that you, it's not like, are you going to have to make that decision? It's how many times are you going to be forced to make that decision along this path?

• 2:05:08Colin O'Brady?

  And so, you know, that's why I do really value, um, certainly Jenna, who I've mentioned a ton because she is the lifeblood of this project, but. Conversations I've had with my family and stuff and going into this, you know, I've had some pretty real and serious conversations about, you know, what that means. And what are acceptable risks and what are not and really hammering home into my mind that they're all cheering for me, you know, they want me to succeed, but they want me to.

• 2:05:33Rich Roll?

  Is your mom cool with everything?

• 2:05:34Colin O'Brady?

  You know, she's, she's, she's both. She's, she's uh been incredibly supportive as she is. Like I said, I think I, the way I described her with. What she did for me in Thailand and that, there's nothing but a loving, supportive mother. Um, but she's also. Been involved really intimately in a lot of things that I've done in my life and mentoring and all sorts of stuff. And she certainly has, you know, played that role, you know, through this trip, but she's also said like, all right, you know, I want to be the mom. She said to me last week, she said, I want to be the mom here, you know, I. I don't want to be your advisor on this necessarily. Of course, she always gives me advice. She's such a smart, competent, you know, successful businesswoman. She ran for mayor of Portland, Oregon, you know, she's.

• 2:06:13Rich Roll?

  Your mom is, your mom is a huge part of.

• 2:06:16Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 2:06:16Rich Roll?

  Your life, right? Like she seems really cool.

• 2:06:18Colin O'Brady?

  Huge part of my life and it's just such a, you know, not just my mom, but mentor, you know, rock solid, you know, person in my life. I would be, it'd be hard for me to do a project like this if I didn't feel like I had her support. But she's also been really honest with me, you know, for the first time in a long time that, you know, this puts her into. A somewhat vulnerable place, like she's worried about my safety. Um, and I think that certainly she has some experience mountaineering, you know, she's climbed mountains. She took me out on some of my first mountains. So maybe she's, she's the one to be blaming herself for going. Time machine 20 years ago and taking me out and showing me how amazing mountains can be. Um, but she's never been to the Himalayas. She's never been to some of these places. And of course, you know, you read about these places in the, the media and then there is some truth to it, that there's some serious danger out there.

• 2:07:02Colin O'Brady?

  Um, and so she's also worried and, you know, is trying to sit back and, you know, just digest all of this. So I think that's one of the. Blessings of this is the support and love I have from my family, but also I would say. Absolutely without a doubt, one of the most challenging pieces of this is feeling that. I know that I'm going to do something for the next six months and there's people that are close to me that are going to be sitting there worrying about me for the next six months, you know. Some of my friendships, close friends that I've had, that I've seen over the last few weeks that don't necessarily live in Portland or live other places. You know, and saying goodbye to them and I'm not going to see them until the summer have just given me some little, little longer hugs, a little more lingering, a little bit more thoughtful.

• 2:07:42Rich Roll?

  Am I gonna see this guy again?

• 2:07:44Colin O'Brady?

  You know, that kind of stuff and it's, it's a. Like I said, I mean, it puts it, it's real, you know, and having, like I said, just been on this mountain,

• 2:07:53Colin O'Brady?

  and known somebody who passed away doing the exact thing that I was doing certainly puts that into, you know, real perspective for sure, so.

• 2:08:01Rich Roll?

  Well, good luck and Godspeed.

• 2:08:04Colin O'Brady?

  Thank you, thank you, yeah.

• 2:08:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's great talking to you.

• 2:08:06Colin O'Brady?

  No, I super appreciate you having me on the podcast. It's, uh, it's fantastic to be here and, you know, you're, you're an inspiration, you know, for all the, all the people out there doing amazing things. We mentioned the Iron Cowboy and there's so many countless other people not to mention, but, you know, all, all the people and just the, and everyone just living their, dreaming big, setting big goals, being ambitious, health, fitness, all that sort of stuff. It, it's huge, so, uh, um, yeah, hopefully people will, can follow along with our project and, um, it's, uh, you know, beyond72.com, that's the number seven two is the website. You'll probably put it up on your website.

• 2:08:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so, no, no, no, yeah, we'll get in, let's, let's break it all down. So, basically, this thing's kicking off January 1st essentially, and the way to get on board and follow along and participate online and in real time is to go to the website beyond72.com. Also, the Twitter, uh, and Instagram are both beyond underscore seven two. Is that correct?

• 2:09:02Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, exactly. You gotta get that underscore in there, that beyond underscore seven two.

• 2:09:05Rich Roll?

  Those are the two places.

• 2:09:06Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:07Rich Roll?

  And, uh, if you want to donate or you want to learn more about the, uh, Alliance for a Healthier Generation, all that information is on beyond72. It's a beautiful website, by the way.

• 2:09:16Colin O'Brady?

  Thank you, thank you.

• 2:09:16Rich Roll?

  It's really cool how it's all laid out and you can kind of really, uh, visualize what this is going to entail. So, everybody should go check that out.

• 2:09:23Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:23Rich Roll?

  And, uh, it's extraordinary, man. You know, I wish you the best of luck. It's gonna be quite the adventure.

• 2:09:30Colin O'Brady?

  Thank you so much.

• 2:09:31Rich Roll?

  For you, of course, and for us to be following along. And I hope that, uh, I hope that not only... Do you break the record, but you get to the other side intact and safe? And when you do, I hope that you'll come back here and tell us all about it.

• 2:09:45Colin O'Brady?

  Oh, it'll be my pleasure. Hopefully, we come back and have some good stories for you of the successes and the failures and the ups and downs and the lesson learns and the soul searching and then hopefully the world record, bringing that haul home and inspiring some folks out there. So, thank you for having me on the show and the well wishes and coming back. Absolutely, we'll do that this summer. Hopefully, an exciting follow-up, so, thanks so much.

• 2:10:10Rich Roll?

  And people out that are listening, if you, I think it would be cool also as a sort of measure of support to send Colin some tweets, too. So, when you're trekking on your way to the South Pole and if you can get, if your sat phone is working and you can see your Twitter feed, that you can show him a little bit of love, because he's going to be a little lonely out there.

• 2:10:30Colin O'Brady?

  For sure. That's what we want. We want interaction through this whole thing. This is not me in a vacuum. I want people giving shout-outs, just telling me what they're doing in their day, all this sorts of stuff. So, that's the whole point, is for us to be tracking this stuff real-time and Jenna will be helping to facilitate that, but it'll be me responding in that. So, any interactions or shout-outs are greatly, greatly appreciated while I'm out there. So, @beyond underscore seven two, yeah.

• 2:10:52Rich Roll?

  That's it, right?

• 2:10:53Colin O'Brady?

  Yeah, that's it.

• 2:10:54Rich Roll?

  Uh, final thing, though. I remembered the name of the guy.

• 2:10:57Colin O'Brady?

  Okay, yeah, the trucker.

• 2:10:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so his name, well, his name, his God-given name and the name that he had at Yale was Tony Blake.

• 2:11:04Colin O'Brady?

  Tony Blake.

• 2:11:05Rich Roll?

  So, I think he's older than you. I don't know how exactly old he is, but he changed his name to Sifaway Baleka. There's an article about him on Sports Illustrated and there's an incredible video of him and kind of his trajectory from swimmer to trucker. And now, he's like revolutionizing the trucking industry by implementing all these wellness programs, because he's got, I mean, talk about an obesity problem. These guys just take amphetamines and drink Red Bull and eat Cheetos all day and drive cross-country. And they're on these crazy timelines. They don't take care of themselves and, you know, it's a terrible mess. So, this guy's actually revolutionizing that industry by implementing all these programs to get these guys healthy. So, it's cool. And former Yale swimmer.

• 2:11:44Colin O'Brady?

  Tony, Yale swimming along to Yale swimming along. Tony, if you're out there. You gotta come on this podcast.

• 2:11:48Rich Roll?

  He will. We've been trying to work it out. He just isn't in LA and he's driving around and doing these programs all the time. So it's a scheduling thing, really, but we've been, we've been trying to make it work. So it will happen at some point.

• 2:11:58Colin O'Brady?

  Awesome to see Yale Swimmers doing cool things. So mad respect for that.

• 2:12:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool.

• 2:12:03Colin O'Brady?

  All right. Thanks, Rich, for having me. Much appreciated.

• 2:12:06Rich Roll?

  Absolutely, man. Peace.

• 2:12:13Rich Roll?

  All right, we did it. That's the show. Hope you guys enjoyed that. I enjoyed it. Don't forget to go to beyond72.com and also at beyond underscore seven two on both Instagram and Twitter for real time updates on Colin's progress. If you enjoyed this podcast, I have no doubt that he would love to hear from you on social media. Send him a tweet, leave him a comment on Facebook or Instagram. That will be sure to put some much needed wind in this guy's sails. So send him some love, send him some support. Lots of amazing resources in this week's show notes on the episode page at richroll.com, including ways you can learn more and get involved. So make a point of checking that out. And while you're at it, make a point of subscribing to my newsletter. No spam, just good stuff. If

• 2:12:56Rich Roll?

  you want access to the entire RRP catalog, Beyond the Most Recent 50 Episodes that are available on iTunes, well, I've got an app for that, and that app is free. Just search Rich Roll in the App Store, it'll pop right up. That's that. For all your plant powered and RRP swag and merch needs, because you know you got those needs, I can feel it. You feel it in your loins, right? Go to richroll.com. We got organic t-shirts, we got plant powered tech tees, we got sticker packs, we have nutritional products, we have fine art prints, all kinds of groovy, cool stuff to amp up your wellness experience in the world. Keep sending in your questions for future Q and A podcasts to [email protected]. Check out

• 2:13:37Rich Roll?

  my online video courses at mindbodygreen.com, The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, The Art of Living with Purpose. Julie and I are actually in the processes of getting ready to record a third course with MindBodyGreen.com. That's going to be on relationships. I'll be sharing more about that in coming weeks, but pretty excited about that. And you know what, you guys? Thank you. Just thanks for all the support that you have shown me, for supporting the show, for telling your friend, for sharing it on social media, all that good stuff, for using the Amazon banner ad. I love you guys. You guys are amazing. And I will see you guys back here soon. Peace. Plants.