Dean Karnazes Is Running For Good: Lessons On Longevity & Embracing Discomfort

Gracing us with his beautiful presence for a third appearance on the show, my guest today is none other than the legendary ultra-marathon man himself. For those who missed RRP 115 and/or RRP 259, Dean Karnazes is an internationally recognized endurance athlete, New York Times bestselling author, and philanthropist globally lauded for his preternatural ability to push his body and mind to limits inconceivable to mere mortals. Among his many palmerès, Dean has: * Run 135 miles across Death Valley in 120+ degree temperatures several times; * Run for 350 continuous miles, foregoing sleep for three nights; * Run a marathon to the South Pole in negative 40 degrees. * Run a 200-mile relay race solo, racing alongside teams of twelve — on ten different occasions; and * Run 50 marathons, in all 50 U. S. states, in 50 consecutive days, finishing with the New York City Marathon, which he ran in three hours flat In addition to his many feats of mind-bending athletic prowess, Dean's first book, Ultramarathon Man not only personally inspired my path, it put the previously sequestered subculture of ultrarunning on the map, laying the foundation for the sport’s explosion in popularity over the last decade. In recognition of Dean's accomplishments, Time magazine named Dean one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in the World.” Men's Fitness hailed him as one of the fittest men on the planet. And Dean has been profiled in virtually every major publication, including features on 60 Minutes, The David Letterman Show, CBS News, CNN, BBC, ESPN, The Howard Stern Show, NPR's Morning Edition, and many others. Most importantly, Dean is an overall stellar human, leveraging his copious talents for good. Picking up where we left off three years ago, this conversation focuses on Dean's latest book, Running for Good: 101 Stories for Runners & Walkers to Get You Moving. An inspirational collection of personal anecdotes, it chronicles the physical and mental health benefits of hitting the road or the trail. More importantly, these stories demonstrate the power of running to catalyze a better world for all. In addition, we discuss how his Greek heritage informs his running. His experience running the Silk Road. How he perceives his role in the global growth of ultrarunning. The power of embracing discomfort. And many other topics of interest. A dear friend and mentor, I'm delighted to once again share Dean's grace, wisdom and experience with you today. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  An ultramarathon's a war. The battle is the elements, is the mountain you're facing, and you throw yourself into it, and it, I don't know, there's something, it tears you down, right? But there's just something so raw and visceral about succeeding and just keeping going. There's something about that. You know, someone has said that without war, you don't know if you're a coward or a hero. And this is your war, right? Everyone wants to fight and see what they're made of, and this is the test. This is where you get to see, you know, nothing holds a mirror to you like running, right? Especially long distances. You see exactly who you are. It's human, it's a very human, it's a very human instinct, and unfortunately, like,

• 1:49Speaker 01

  when you travel across this country, so many people are so far removed from that. I mean, they don't have a relationship with their body, first of all, and that's horrible. And they've kind of just got, I think, sucked into this whole world of comfort, thinking that's gonna make them happy. And you're bombarded with messaging from marketers and ads saying just that, you know? Buy this luxury vehicle and you're gonna be happy. And it doesn't work. It just doesn't, that formula doesn't work. And I think more and more people are starting to recognize that. That's Dean Karnazes, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:31Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome. My guest today is the legendary Ultramarathon Man himself, Dean Karnazes, gracing us with his beautiful presence in this, his third appearance on the show. Check out RRP 115 and 259 if you missed them the first time around for our previous two conversations. For those unfamiliar, Dean is an internationally recognized endurance athlete, New York Times bestselling author, and philanthropist known for pushing his body and mind to inconceivable limits. Among his many palmares, Dean has run across Death

• 3:14Rich Roll?

  Valley in 120-degree temperatures, which I can personally attest to, having helped crew him on one of his many 135-mile Badwater adventures. He has run for 350 continuous miles foregoing sleep for three nights. He's run a marathon to the South Pole in negative 40 degrees. On 10 different occasions, he's run a 200-mile relay race solo, racing alongside teams of 12. And he's run 50 marathons in all 50 states in 50 consecutive days, finishing with the New York City Marathon, which he ran in three hours flat. In addition to his many feats of mind-bending athletic prowess, I think it's fair to say, his first book,

• 3:58Rich Roll?

  Ultramarathon Man, not only personally and quite directly inspired my path, it put the world of ultramarathon running on the map, laying the foundation for the sport's explosion in popularity over the last decade. In recognition, Time Magazine named Dean one of the top 100 most influential people in the world. Men's Fitness hailed him as one of the fittest men on the planet. He has been profiled in virtually every major publication and has been featured on 60 Minutes, David Letterman, CBS News, CNN, ESPN, The Howard Stern Show, NPR's Morning Edition, the BBC, and many other outlets. Most importantly, Dean is

• 4:38Rich Roll?

  an overall stellar human. He's a dear friend, and I can't wait to share this conversation with all of you. But before we dive in, a few shout-outs to our sponsors.

• 4:55Rich Roll?

  Okay, Dean. We talked about a lot of stuff. We talked about the fact that this is his third appearance on the show. We recap his Badwater Race and my experience crewing for him. We talk about his books and his latest book, Running for Good, his amazing Silk Road adventure, and his relationship with the State Department. We talk about the growth of ultra-running and his role in the sport, how he thinks about and perceives himself in the context of this growing community of ultra-endurance enthusiasts and many other topics of interest. I love this guy. So, this is me and Dean Karnas. Good to see you, my friend.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Hey, it's good to be back, Rich. Thanks for having me on again.

• 5:40Rich Roll?

  Always a delight to have you on. This is your third appearance on the podcast, but it's been like almost three years since the last time you came on.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:50Rich Roll?

  The first time, we went into your whole backstory in detail. So, for people that are newer to the show, definitely check that out. The second one was mostly about your Sparta book and that whole experience. And now, we're in a new chapter. But we have a lot to catch up on. You've done a lot since I've seen you last.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  We both have.

• 6:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  That's right, man.

• 6:11Rich Roll?

  We're still standing, yeah. We are somehow. I don't know. But you haven't aged a day. So, whatever you're doing is working.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, it's killing me, but I'm keeping up.

• 6:21Rich Roll?

  I don't know if it's killing you. I think it's making you younger. What is the secret? Like longevity is one thing that I definitely want to explore with you. So, you're what, 56 now? 55?

• 6:32Speaker 01

  I'm getting up there.

• 6:32Rich Roll?

  You're getting up. Okay. You don't want to say? Come on.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Well, chronologically, I'm above 55 chronologically. But biologically, I'm in my 30s.

• 6:41Rich Roll?

  You look great. You're as fit as ever. You're still getting after it like crazy, doing all kinds of crazy adventures and stuff. And...

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Well, you know the Blue Zones?

• 6:50Rich Roll?

  Yes, I do.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  I take it. So, one of them is an island in Greece called Ikaria, where Icarus, you know, the wax wind landed. And that's the island my mom is from. So, Ikaria has the highest concentration of centenarians on Earth. So, maybe that has to do with it.

• 7:06Rich Roll?

  Maybe the genetic lineage plays into this a little bit. You're always crediting your genetics. But lifestyle is a big aspect of that. I mean, one thing all the blue zones share in common are these various principles that have nothing to do with genetics and everything about how everybody lives day to day. And you seem to be able to create your own little blue zone up in Marin. I mean, you still, you don't own a car, do you?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Don't own a car.

• 7:34Rich Roll?

  You don't own a car. You pretty much run everywhere. You keep your life very manageable. I remember when we first met, and you've been like a mentor to me over the years in

• 7:45Speaker 01

  That was paid endorsement people.

• 7:47Rich Roll?

  No. Yeah. You've been like a huge, in addition to being, you know, a great inspiration to me, you've been very helpful to me and have always been somebody I can count on with great advice. And, and I believe if recollection serves me that I asked, you know, I was asking you like, how did you, this is the very beginning of me starting out and trying to figure out how to make a vocation out of doing the things that I love. And you were sharing about your, you know, basically your experience and, and you said, you know, I don't, like, one thing you learned in the corporate world is that you didn't really want to manage people. And so, and so, and I remember that very vividly because now I'm in a situation where I am managing people and I would say it's not my strength. I'm trying to get better. Blake's over there laughing.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Their employees laughing at him now. Yeah.

• 8:34Rich Roll?

  And I'm trying to grow into that and, and learn that. But, but that's something that you were very clear about who you are. And you've kind of, you've organized your life to, to be able to do what you love doing, but also keep it at a certain scale. So it doesn't interfere with the things that you love the most.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I mean, that, that involves making choices, right?

• 8:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You have to say, I'm sure you say no, you have to say no a lot.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  You have to say no a lot. And you have to actually be content once in a while, which I'm not very good at being content. But you have to say, look, I've got enough. Like, I could make this bigger. It could be something more, but it's going to take a lot out of me. And I don't want to go there. So these are like, personal decisions. You got to look inward, I think, to make. I just know I'm not good. Like you, you know, when people are involved, things get weird. I'll leave it at that.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  It's all good to other people.

• 9:27Rich Roll?

  Is there anything you said no to where afterwards you were like, hmm, maybe I should have done that?

• 9:32Speaker 01

  There's been a couple car deals.

• 9:34Rich Roll?

  Oh, really?

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, where I'm like, God, that'd be so nice, but people know I don't drive and I haven't owned a car in over a decade.

• 9:42Rich Roll?

  Volkswagen gave you a car. You had a car. I think when I went to your house, you had a car. You were like, I never drive it, but they gave it to me.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  And that's why I felt so disingenuous in that relationship, in that sponsorship relationship that I said, I can't keep going on with this. I mean, I'm driving at 1,000 miles a year.

• 9:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  So it's just, it's, it's, I don't think I'm doing a good job promoting because it's not, it's not genuine. Let's face it.

• 10:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:06Rich Roll?

  Right. So day to day, still like running every day is pretty much, you know, front and center. Like walk me through a typical day in the life when you're not traveling and doing these other various things that you do.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So yesterday I had a day, like a day off and I'm getting ready to go do a bunch of big races. So I just got up at about, not real early, like 7:00 AM, put on a hydration pack and took off.

• 10:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  And ran about 50, 55 miles. I was gone all day.

• 10:38Rich Roll?

  Do you map that out and plan? Like, do you say, okay, this is what I'm going to do today? Or do you just head out and make a decision on the fly? Like, I feel good. I'm going to go further. Or, you know, just kind of like feel into yourself? Like, how does that work?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, yesterday I wanted to do a long training run and I thought, let's just see how far you can go before you feel like you're actually damaging yourself. Like, how far can you push and still think it's training, not like big recovery afterward?

• 11:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  And that just seemed to be the spot. So I know I wanted to run over to the beach. You've been to my place.

• 11:10Rich Roll?

  Like Stinson?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, Stinson Beach. I wanted to go see the coast, did that and just felt kind of good. And it's not, it wasn't a fast run, Rich. I mean, it's not like I'm breaking speed records. It was a good, long training run. I walked a lot on the up hills, you know, shuffled along a lot and ran pretty hard some of the down hills and just showed back home for dinner after sunset.

• 11:29Rich Roll?

  And what are the races that you're getting ready for?

• 11:32Speaker 01

  I'm going back to Greece to do this race called the Spartaathlon, which is 153 mile race from Athens to Sparta. And then I'm going to fly to Australia from Greece to run the Blackall 100 in Queensland on the Sunshine Coast.

• 11:47Rich Roll?

  I don't know that race.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  It's amazing. It's on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. How can I say no to that?

• 11:54Rich Roll?

  Right. So, back to back. Wow, that's exciting. And why go back to Spartaathlon? Just because that's your home turf?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I feel so comfortable in Greece. Like, I almost feel like it's, I feel more at home in Greece sometimes than I do here. And that race has so much lore involved. And people want me to come back. You know, I'm doing a speaking gig and they're giving me an award. And so I just can't let it go.

• 12:20Rich Roll?

  That's always good. It'll lure you back, right?

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Well, it was like Badwater. I mean, you know, I've got a different crew this year, and I get to experience it through other people's eyes. It's almost like having a child. Like, everything's afresh. Like, you went out to Death Valley with me.

• 12:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  And you were just, you were amazed by it. I mean, I could see how you were taken aback, and it was all new. And to me, that's exciting, because I've been there 10 times.

• 12:40Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  But to indoctrinate other people is...

• 12:43Rich Roll?

  It was, it was, we haven't talked about that. Like, I think Badwater took place after the last time you were on the podcast. I think. What year was that?

• 12:52Speaker 01

  See, we are old, aren't we?

• 12:54Rich Roll?

  I'm having a senior moment. What year was that Badwater? Was that, was that 2017?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  I think it was earlier than that. I think it was maybe 16 or 15.

• 13:03Rich Roll?

  Well, let's recap it, because it was an incredible experience for me. I mean, first of all, like, I was honored that you asked me to help crew for you. I was delighted to be able to show up for you. And it was an experience like I've never seen before. I knew it was a really hard race, perhaps one of the hardest races out there. But, man, it was really something, being there, step by step, with you throughout the way. And I remember, there's a couple vivid memories that I have about that experience, one of which is, when I arrived, I asked Coop, your, who, we're going to talk about, because he's in the middle of doing a crazy thing right now.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  So you know what Coop's doing right now?

• 13:38Rich Roll?

  I know. We gotta talk about that. I was like, so... Like what's Dean's, like, how are we doing this? Like, I just figured like in a lot of these ultras, the runner is running and then you kind of pace the person in the last 25% of it, but mostly they're out there and you're just feeding them as they come by or you're leapfrogging with the van and Jason's like, oh, he wants someone to run with him the whole time. And I literally turned, turned white. He said that. I was like, wait, what? The entire time? Cause it wasn't like I trained, I hadn't been training that much at that point. I hadn't thought that much about what I was getting involved in. I just said, I'm going to be handing him water bottles. And then when the reality dawned on me of what, you know, how taxing this was actually

• 14:23Rich Roll?

  going to be, I got terrified. And I remember doing, I think it was my first legit pull with you. And it was in the mid to late afternoon. I think we were coming through Stovepipe Wells. It was the hottest part of the day and I was just, I was, my heart rate was like 170. We were running like 10, 30 miles or something like that. And I had to get Jason, I was like, I gotta pull, I ran with you for like an hour and you were pulling away from me. I couldn't keep pace. And I was like, Jason, you gotta relieve me. And I was thinking, all I was thinking was, I'm going to be the only crew member who's going to end up in the medical tent. This is not a good look.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  No, it actually happens more often than not that a crew end up in the hospital versus runners. Cause they're looking after, like you, you're looking after me like, hey, I gotta support Dean. You might not be thinking about yourself. I mean, I remember you hopped out of the car, you didn't have a hat on or anything. I'm like, God, this Rich Roll guy is pretty hardcore, I'm thinking. He's gonna go shirtless on me, maybe.

• 15:16Rich Roll?

  I was not hardcore, I was just unprepared. And now I'm remembering, we did talk about this because when it came to the, I did a long pull with you in the evening. We went like most of the night and a lot of that was walking because it was uphill and you were telling me all about the book that you were working on, The Road to Sparta. So, and that obviously came out later.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:35Rich Roll?

  I felt better during that point. And we were also, I believe David Goggins was right on your tail for most of that day. And everybody knows how that guy's blown up and is part of the mainstream consciousness now. In a really cool way, which is great to see. And that was a, that was not an easy race for you. You were struggling. You had a hard time. It certainly wasn't your best performance. But another vivid memory was just how gracious and kind you were throughout the entire experience. Like not one gruff moment, not one. You know, petulant outburst the entire time.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  I'm a good drunk.

• 16:14Rich Roll?

  Very impressed by that.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Well, it's like, it's like going drinking with someone, you know, you, you think you know someone and a couple of shots of tequila in, you see a different side of him like, oh, this is not the person I thought they were. I'm, I'm a happy drunk when, uh, when I'm out there just beat to shit as it was during Badwater.

• 16:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Um, it's all good. Yeah.

• 16:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you're, for people that don't know, when you're doing an ultra, like that just, it brings you, it brings out the best and the worst in people because you're so stripped down. Like you're just so raw. So it's not uncommon. They say like, never have your friends crew for you because you know, the dark side of people comes out when all their, you know, sort of, veneer is stripped away. And I was just, it just, it spoke to me deeply about what kind of person you are and your character. And then I remember, when the race was complete, we went back to the hotel and you were so wiped. You're like, I can't go to dinner. Like I'm, I'm just wrecked. Like I've never, I don't remember ever feeling this wrecked from a race. Like, I don't know.

• 17:15Rich Roll?

  You're like, I don't know what's going on. I'm like, dude, you just ran 35 miles. What do you mean? You don't know what's going on, but you're like, I can't go to dinner. I'm so sorry. I'm like, don't worry about it. So we all go to dinner. We come back, we go to sleep, we wake up the next morning and the amazing thing about Badwater is the little strip of hotels in the main town is right along the course. So you wake up in the morning and you see people still coming in and you're like, wow, man. And you woke up and you said, I feel great. I'm going to go running. I feel like a new person. I don't know what happened, but I feel totally fine now.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, and, and to your point about, um, being gracious, I mean, think about it. I finished, we went back, I got a good night's sleep. There are people still out there running and we saw them in the morning and they're still running. I mean, they're out there for so long. I have nothing, you know, I'm complaining. It's taken me 32 hours, you know, cause I, I've run it much faster than that. But you know, the, the broader picture is that I finished Badwater.

• 18:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  And to anyone, that's a huge accomplishment.

• 18:12Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:13Rich Roll?

  Of course. And it's so uplifting and inspirational to see. I mean, imagine being out there for another 15 hours. Like how hard that's gotta be.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  And you and the crew and your crew and everyone just insane. I think. You know, if you're looking, if anyone listening to this wants to just a life-changing experience, I would say just go spectate at Badwater.

• 18:34Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  You're right. I mean, you don't, it's about as far away from Earth as you can get and still be on Earth.

• 18:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:41Rich Roll?

  And so after that year, they changed, they changed the course because there were some national park like changing of the guard, but now they're back to the original course, I think, right?

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Back to the original course. The only difference is it's now a night start. So the national parks makes them run it at night because they're, you're not allowed to have a, a race in temperatures above 120 degrees. What attorney came up with that hard mark?

• 19:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  So they've, Chris, the, the race director's like, well, if we start at night, hopefully it'll cool down by, you know, to 120 when we start.

• 19:12Rich Roll?

  Is somebody monitoring that? Because it definitely gets up to 130.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  It does in the middle of the day.

• 19:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  But you know, this, the, I think the first-

• 19:19Rich Roll?

  They just mean at the start, it can't be hotter than that.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. The first wave, I think, goes out at 6:00 PM and then 8:00 PM and then 10:00 PM. So it's the cool of the night.

• 19:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  It's like 115.

• 19:29Rich Roll?

  That definitely changes it.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  It does because you're running through Stope Pipe wells, like you're running through the middle of Death Valley at night. It's a different experience. Yeah.

• 19:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not quite the same.

• 19:38Rich Roll?

  That would have been better for me, that experience. So Jason Coop, who was your crew captain that year, and he kind of coaches you a little bit, like I, I don't know if that's still the case, but you guys kind of collaborate or whatever.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  He's more like a mentor at this point. Yeah.

• 19:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, he's just a wealth of endurance, wisdom, and he's gotten back into racing. And so right now he's in the midst of doing this insane race that I'd never heard of called Torta Gents? Is that how you say it?

• 20:07Speaker 01

  It's called the Tour of the Giants because it's insane.

• 20:09Rich Roll?

  This race, it's in Italy and basically you traverse like all the highest peaks in the Alps. You have like a week to do it. It's 205 miles and over that 205 miles, you have 80,000 feet of elevation gain. And you can, it's not a stage race. Like you just, however long you need to do to, to get it done, you get up to like, I don't know, six days or something like that.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  150 hours. I told Coop use every single second. Are you following the race? What's going on over this?

• 20:39Rich Roll?

  I haven't. I, I saw on Twitter that he was doing pretty well after like the first day and a half or something like that, but I don't know. Do you know like the up to date?

• 20:47Speaker 01

  There's been insane snowstorms. I heard yesterday. It's just snow flurries and- Yeah.

• 20:52Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:53Rich Roll?

  And you just, you have to bring all your stuff and you just sleep on the side of the trail whenever you feel like it? Or how does that work?

• 20:58Speaker 01

  There's, they call, I didn't think they call them aid stations, they call them life support stations every, every 50K. Life support.

• 21:07Rich Roll?

  Right. Only every 50K.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's 31 miles. Someone's saying, well, he just, you know, he just has to cover 31 miles. He can sleep in a hut. I'm like, yeah, do you hear how much elevation?

• 21:15Rich Roll?

  And there's only like 15,000 feet of elevation.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  I know, and it's snow flurries. It's, yeah.

• 21:20Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  You start crunching the math and it's, you know, it's tough.

• 21:23Rich Roll?

  How many people do that?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  I think there's over 100 people. I looked, I kind of looked through the roster and I think there's over 100. It's mostly Europeans, like Cooper's one of the few Americans. Yeah.

• 21:32Rich Roll?

  Huh. It'll be interesting to see.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  I hope he makes it.

• 21:35Rich Roll?

  I mean, he's been, I've been following him on Strava. He's been putting, he put in some really big days.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Oh, and training.

• 21:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:44Rich Roll?

  Wild, man.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:45Rich Roll?

  I'm surprised you haven't done that one.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I, I tell my family, like, hold me in check.

• 21:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Don't, it's so easy when you look online, right? Just to hit enter, just hit register. There's a little button right there. I hold my hand back. Yeah.

• 21:58Rich Roll?

  Because once you're in, you're in. So one thing we haven't talked about is your Silk Road adventure.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:06Rich Roll?

  So talk to me about how that came together and what that experience was like.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  So I was contacted by the State Department to be a US athlete ambassador. And it was actually John Kerry when he was in the State Department. He was a big cyclist. And he said, I have this idea that I'd like to celebrate 25 years of diplomatic relations between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan by linking the three together on the ancient Silk Road. The ancient Silk Road passes through all three countries. And he said, I was going to try and cycle it, but it's just, there's, it's not going to work out. What do you think about running it? So it was 525 kilometer run between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. And I was a diplomat, so I had like diplomatic obligations the entire way. It was a really bizarre experience.

• 22:53Rich Roll?

  What were those obligations?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  I spoke at embassies, I spoke at schools, I spoke at municipalities. Yeah.

• 23:01Rich Roll?

  So every day you'd run a certain amount and then you'd have some kind of something on the schedule where you'd have to go talk to people?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Rich, I don't know how to describe what I went through. I mean, I, yeah, exactly.

• 23:13Rich Roll?

  I mean, you're back in like the time of Genghis Khan through parts of this terrain, I would imagine.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  And it was in July, so it was in, like, it was about 110 degrees the first day and I ran across Uzbekistan. So it's like a desert. Uzbekistan's right above Afghanistan.

• 23:26Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  And I pull into town and I'm wrecked. I've run about 50 miles. There's no ice in our van. The crew is all Russian. They don't speak English. They've never crewed for a run. They just think I'm crazy.

• 23:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Out there running. And I pull into town, there's about 5,000 people along the roadway. Like, they just said, when they briefed me, they said, the entire town is gonna come out. These people have never seen an American before.

• 23:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  And here I come, running down the road like Forrest Gump, literally high fiving people and no one speaks English and I don't speak Uzbeki, so I can't understand a word they're saying. I come into the main square, there's a traditional dance going on, there's music playing, the mayor's there. And they said, when you get into town, they're gonna have a feast for you because it's a nomadic culture. So they greet people and they're gonna, they're gonna want you to try everything. So I pull in and there's enough food there for 30 people. I mean, it is a huge spread of food. And you're gonna love this. One thing, one of the main states there is horse meat.

• 24:26Rich Roll?

  Oh, no.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  So they hand me a plate of horse meat and, you know, you're in front of 3,000 people. What do you do?

• 24:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  And you eat some horse.

• 24:35Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  And then they handed me this bowl of traditional drink and it looked like a half a coconut. Imagine a coconut sewed in half and it was white inside, too. It looked like coconut milk. I thought, oh, it's something refreshing. So 110 degrees, 50 miles, I'm gonna drink something cool and refreshing. I drink this stuff and it's called kumus. It's fermented mare's milk. So it's horse milk that's been fermented.

• 24:58Rich Roll?

  Oh, no.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  And it tasted like drinking Parmesan cheese. I mean, it was just the heaviest, most fermented.

• 25:05Rich Roll?

  Was it alcoholic?

• 25:06Speaker 01

  It was slightly alcoholic. It tasted like drinking sour cream, literally, like drinking sour cream. And I was gonna gag and there's 5,000 people looking at me, you know, the mayor, you kind of, and I, you know, with their smiles of approval, like, this is our traditional drink. What do you think?

• 25:23Rich Roll?

  Oh my God. What is, what is eating horse meat like? I can't imagine.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Well, for you non vegans, it was pretty good, actually. It was real lean and yeah.

• 25:34Rich Roll?

  Was that in the middle of the run or had you concluded the run for the day?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  That was the end of the day. And then I went to a big dinner that night with a bunch of dignitaries. You know, it was like that Badwater thing where I'm just, you know, dead and I'm putting on a suit. You know, going out to dinner with a bunch of dignitaries.

• 25:51Rich Roll?

  And how, so how many miles a day were you doing for that?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  I would do about forty to fifty miles a day.

• 25:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:58Rich Roll?

  And just.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  And people would run, I probably had 10,000 people run with me. Some, like the military guys would come out and run with me. School kids would run with me. Uh, we had a couple of organized runs. And it was, it was really a phenomenal experience. You know, passing through some of the villages, obviously. You know, in the back countries, they're not runners. I mean, you know, they're more nomadic. And they just thought it was the funniest, you know, this guy running down the road.

• 26:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  You know, they probably lived there their entire lives, generations have. They probably haven't seen a single runner. And here's this American guy, you know, in this colorful outfit, just running down the road waving at them.

• 26:30Rich Roll?

  Well, you open up this new book, Running for Good, with a story from that experience. Maybe tell that story.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  You did your homework.

• 26:39Rich Roll?

  Well, it's like the opening, it's the opening chapter of the book, but it's a great story. I think it encapsulates a lot about. You know, the theme of the book, which is running for good, like about community and, and, you know, connection.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, um, Kyrgyzstan has mountain peaks, like serious mountain peaks, like 20K mountain peaks. So I was running up in the mountains one day and this snowstorm, like sleet, hail, rain, um, came in and I was totally unprepared. And as I was running along the road, I was starting to get hypothermia. Like my fingers were blue, all the things that happen to you when you get in hypothermia. And there was a, there was a yurt on the side of the road and I could see smoke coming out of it. And I saw like a face kind of come out the door and look at me. And I kind of looked at this person and I kind of waved. And then I saw a little couple of kids come out like, what's going on? What's up there? And these kids came out and got me and they said, come on, like, they just grabbed me by the hand and brought me down.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Cause I was walking at this point, just shivering. And they had hot tea inside and they gave me hot tea. They had blankets, they put these wool blankets over me. It was a yurt.

• 27:42Rich Roll?

  Right, in a yurt, right? No English, no ability to verbally communicate.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  And they must've thought I was a Martian. I mean, they're looking at, I'm in colorful running gear.

• 27:51Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Out in the middle.

• 27:52Rich Roll?

  They've never seen an American, let alone a runner.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:56Rich Roll?

  And, and so like, how, how did you, you know, communicate with them? Like, were they able to kind of understand what you were trying to do?

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Just laughter and no.

• 28:06Rich Roll?

  I mean, you said like the names of the cities, right? And you were kind of like, run, you know.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I kind of said, Bishkek, Bishkek, cause I knew the name of the city and they looked at me like, why, you know, does he need a ride or what, you know, how's he going to get there? And that kind of went like this, just did the running, you know, arm swing kind of thing. And they kind of looked at me like, they got it, like, Jesus, this guy's gonna run the Bishkek.

• 28:27Rich Roll?

  And you had, you have crew waiting for you at destinations along the way? Like if they can't get over the mountain, like how does that work?

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, or not work. Yeah. And that was another thing. It was, it was Russian. So, the language barrier was incredible. The first day I came running into this van, again, it's 110 degrees in Uzbekistan. And it's this van that's horrible for crewing. It's got, it doesn't have a sliding door, like it's, you know, regular, regular door. So I'm like going in and out of the passenger side, trying to get in this van. It's just, 200 degrees in this van, filled with flies, no ice. And all these Russian guys, what they would do, they'd pull up to the crew spot, they'd stop, they'd just huddle down in the shade of the van and they'd start smoking.

• 29:10Rich Roll?

  Oh no.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  So I'd run up to this van with just secondhand smoke. And I tried to, you know, eventually tell them, no, no cigarettes. And they, at the end, they were running with me like little spurts and they, you know, they weren't smoking. They were really respectful.

• 29:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  You're like, goddamn you, John Kerry.

• 29:26Rich Roll?

  You couldn't get like an American crew or some, some guys that know what they're doing to come out with you? Or was it just a budget thing?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  No, there was, I had one like handler and he was great, but he was, we were overwhelmed, Rich. We got thrown in this thing and it just kind of took on a life of its own. There were so many variables to manage, along with the media, like we had a media person with us.

• 29:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Trying to manage all these moving parts was just overwhelming. I mean, he, he couldn't, he just finally just was paralyzed. Yeah.

• 29:55Rich Roll?

  I saw some short little video clips of it, but did you like, did you capture enough to do like a mini documentary or anything like that from this?

• 30:04Speaker 01

  You know, the content that was captured is amazing. It was, it was a, this Russian videographer and he did a really good job and he spoke English and all of the clips are still on the State Department website. So it's all there. Yeah.

• 30:17Rich Roll?

  And what, what did you like, I mean, those, that part of the world is so foreign for Americans. We have a sense of what we think it might be like, but what is the reality? You know, what, what did you learn about those cultures? Like be, you know, literally boots on the ground?

• 30:36Speaker 01

  You know, to be honest, I don't know we have it so good here in America. Materially, we're wealthier. They're happier people. They're just happier people. Like every, Family Matters. You're right. I never saw one Starbucks, one McDonald's. I never heard us as any, I heard one British couple speaking, but other than that, I heard no English. The people are more respectful of each other. They look at each other. They say thank you. They're, you know, they're, they're happier. They're just generally happier. Their kids are smiling and laughing. I mean, when you get into the cities, you know, as usual, there's traffic and honking and all that kind of stuff. But overall, I would say it's just not as aggressive. It's a, it's a, it's a gentler place to be.

• 31:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah. We always hear these stories, uh, time and time again, you know, people that travel to places off the grid and they come back and they're like, they're happier. They don't have anything, but they're happy. They go to India and you know, people are missing limbs, but they're laughing and, and, and we have this sense of how can we? Take some of that and incorporate it into our lives. And then there's like a half-life on that sensibility. And it seems to just, you know, kind of fade away and we're just back to doing what we're doing. Arguing with somebody at Starbucks.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  When everyone is doing it around you, it's hard to keep, like you, you get a sense like if I'm not doing it, I'm missing out. Like I'm going to fall behind or be irrelevant if I'm not tweeting constantly. They don't have that feeling. There's not that anxiety. And I think we all feel it here. We really, and especially with social, social media, there's just constant pressure. It's constant and you really have to be disciplined to step away from that and just say, well, fuck it. I'm, I don't care. I'm not going to, I'm not going to respond to people today. I think you're, you're learning that, wouldn't you say?

• 32:19Rich Roll?

  Well, I think, you know, it's a, it's a weird relationship that I have to all of this stuff. Like I love what I do, but it also, you know, it can encroach on the other things that I enjoy doing. And it's been such a gift that this show has grown and impacts so many people. And I feel a responsibility to that. And, and there is a joy to it as well. Like there's, there's a few things I'd rather be doing right now than sitting down and talking to you. It's like, it doesn't, it's not, it doesn't feel like work to me, but there's a whole lot of other stuff that goes into trying to create something great. That other, that impacts other people. And that gives me a sense of fulfillment, but it can also, um, you know, become overwhelming at times.

• 33:03Rich Roll?

  And, and I have to remind myself like, oh, I, you know, I asked for this, like this is, you know, I want to, I want to be grateful. I'm not always grateful. Like this is the life that I wanted and now it's all happening. But how do I manage it all and make sure that my, my finger is on the pulse of the things that are most important? And that those things are not, you know, being ignored or falling by the wayside. And that can, you know, it gets hard and, and social media isn't, is an aspect of that. Like I use it to amplify the message of what we're doing here. But I also can catch myself scrolling mindlessly, you know? So there's a difference between using it for a purpose and having sort of a detached objectivity about it versus.

• 33:48Rich Roll?

  Um, you know, using it addictively and in a consumptive way.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 33:53Rich Roll?

  And, you know, I don't know how to strike that balance, but you seem to have figured it out. Like you have somebody else who handles all that stuff for you. I think you did at one point. I don't know what you're doing now.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  No, I kind of do myself. People, they, they kind of caught on to it. They're like, hey, it's not your voice.

• 34:07Rich Roll?

  People know.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, they know, they know. They absolutely know.

• 34:10Rich Roll?

  And authenticity is important, I think. And, and so if that means you're not posting as, as much, then so be it.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:17Rich Roll?

  No one's going anywhere. You're living your life. Everyone knows you're out on the trail, running 55 miles to and from Stinson Beach.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:24Rich Roll?

  They'll wait for you.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  You know, I'm probably like you. I get some really personal messages. I mean, runners feel a connection and people confide in me in ways that is like, I can't step away from it. Like, you know, I get these messages. I'm like, Jesus, really? You went through that and I started and like, and you're running because you read my book? How do you not respond to that? I can't like, and that happens all the time. And it's just, I can't walk away from it. I feel like a connection with this person. I feel like I owe them to respond, just a human connection. And that's fine once in a while, but when you're getting like, you know, 15, 20 of those messages a day.

• 35:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you can't respond to all of them.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  No, but where do you draw the line is the thing. Once I read something like that, I'm so engaged. It's like, all right, I'm going to spend 20 minutes at least, you know, crafting a nice response to what they're saying. And answer questions and everything else.

• 35:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a gift to get those and it's a reminder of the why behind what it is that you do. And I think for a lot of those people, they're, it's their way of giving you a gift for what you've already given them. I don't necessarily think that you owe them like some super long response. Like, I think a lot of them, they're probably surprised if you respond like, wow, you actually responded. Like they, they don't have an expectation for the most part. It's just their way of thanking you for the books that you've written and the work that you do. And, and you know, another thing that, that was palpable about. You know, me kind of tagging along with you at Badwater is I watched you in real time navigate that. Like, we go to the banquet before the thing. You know,

• 35:57Rich Roll?

  there's all this stuff around the race and all these people want a minute of your time. And you were very conscious of making sure that you were present for each of those exchanges. You know, sometimes at the sacrifice of your own well-being in preparation for the race that you're about to run, right? Like, you're willing to allow that to tax you to a certain degree because that's the job.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  It is. And thankfully, to your point, it's part of my nature. So I'm a giving person. And if it's genuine, when I make some personal sacrifices for the betterment of someone else, that gives me fulfillment. I gotta be honest. And, you know, these messages I get that say I inspire people, it goes both ways, right? I mean, I get incredibly inspired by people telling me that I inspire them. I'm not sure how I inspire them, but, you know, it like gives me a sense of purpose, almost. Like, what I'm doing matters, you know?

• 36:54Rich Roll?

  Hundred percent.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, hundred percent.

• 37:02Rich Roll?

  I mean, when you wrote the first book, Ultra Marathon Man, the state of ultra running was very different from what it is today.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:11Rich Roll?

  And, you know, you're partially responsible for this massive explosion of interest and people pushing their limits and their boundaries in various ways and in creative new ways. We're always seeing new crazy races popping up all over the place. And people are really engaged by this world in a way that didn't exist. When you, like, you really helped put this on the map. Like, do you look back on that and think, wow, look what's happened since that moment?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Well, I know the first year I ran an ultra was 1993 and in North America, there are 3,500 finishers of an ultra. Uh, last year, there were 115,000 finishers.

• 37:51Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  So the growth has been insane.

• 37:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  And yeah, I, I feel, you know, conflicted sometimes.

• 38:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Like Western states, the odds of getting into Western states now are, are less than the odds of getting into Harvard.

• 38:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Literally, there was something like, uh, 15,000 applications for 369. It's always fixed at 369. I mean, it's, it's impossible. People are like, I've tried for 10 years. I can't get into Western states. So, you know, that has kind of been a downside, but.

• 38:21Rich Roll?

  Damn you, Dean Kornax for making this so popular. Well, there's, there's such a hardcore, um, you know, sensibility, you know, with the, the tried and true community. Like this was a community that it was just about the love. They're sleeping in tents at the start line. There's 10 people. There's no fanfare. There's nothing. And there's a, there's something beautiful about that, the, the purism of that, that I think gets lost at some of these huge races like UTMB or Western States, but there's still so many other races that are still very much like that.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  And it's still, you know, I go to Western states and I think this is not the Super Bowl. I mean, everyone's like, oh God, this is the biggest thing ever. I'm like, it's still very grassroots. I mean, it's just a frigging finishes in a high school stadium.

• 39:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  You know, it's still to, you know, to people that are just getting into the sport, it is fresh and new and novel. And it's, you know, 3 million people ran a 5K in North America last year. So the numbers of, of runners running an ultra is still a very, very small percentage of overall runners. And it's still very fresh and new to a lot of people. Yeah. The room, the sport still has a lot of room for growth.

• 39:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, one of the things I know that's been in the back of your mind for a long time, and we've talked about it in the past, is this ambitious goal that you have of running a marathon in every, all 203 countries. And, and when is this gonna happen, Dean? Come on.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  People say, do you ever fail? I'm like, I've been-

• 39:47Rich Roll?

  Get John Kerry on the phone and sort out all this, these visa issues, or whatever it is that's holding you back.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  That is an ambitious plan that's killing me, but I've been failing for seven years and I-

• 39:58Rich Roll?

  What's the, what is the big roadblock here? Is it just permissions in certain places?

• 40:03Speaker 01

  No, I've got the plan. I think I can get the permission. It's just lining up the sponsorship, you know, the money to pull it off and all of that for the right cause at the same time. It's just that everything's gotta be aligned perfectly.

• 40:16Rich Roll?

  Well, all you Fortune 500 CEOs out there listening.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:20Rich Roll?

  Give Dean a call. Let's make this, let's get this thing going already.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's gonna take a global brand, right? That's another thing. I mean, if, you know, if you're a domestic brand, you might wanna sponsor the US tour, but it's one marathon in the US. So it's, it's gonna have to be a global brand that's really invested in this.

• 40:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:35Rich Roll?

  So getting permission to go to places like North Korea and like you've got that sorted out?

• 40:41Speaker 01

  There's a, the State Department has a list of countries where I can't leave the airport. Sort of like, you can set up a treadmill. You can have a treadmill set up in the airport, but you're not leaving the airport. Like, we can't get you out of the airport. And that list is kinda dynamic, as you know, as global things change, yeah.

• 40:56Rich Roll?

  So what's going on with this relationship with the State Department? I'm starting to think you're, you're, maybe you're some kind of, uh, some kind of spy. They could like dispatch you to all these, these places. Oh, he's running, but actually he's collecting intel.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  It's been an interesting relationship. That's a different world, that, that whole, yeah. What goes on there is a little bit different. And I can't, I can't talk a lot about it.

• 41:18Rich Roll?

  Tight-lipped, yeah. You're being tight-lipped. I don't know, I'm gonna spin a conspiracy yarn out of this, Dean.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  You're an attorney, they make you sign some shit.

• 41:25Rich Roll?

  That's pretty funny, man.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:27Rich Roll?

  Um, well, you, you mentioned that, that, uh, you just ran, was it yesterday? 55 miles?

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:33Rich Roll?

  I mean, you look fresh as a daisy. What is the, what is the, you know, has, as you start to age, have you had to change your recovery routine? Do you still bounce back like you always have? Or like, what is it, what does it look like? How has it evolved?

• 41:48Speaker 01

  You know, one thing I'm not doing is setting an alarm anymore. So I'm trying to wake naturally whenever I can. So, you know, I applaud you for having this interview in the afternoon because it gives you the whole morning to kind of just regroup. So I don't set an alarm. Like before, I used to sleep four, maybe five hours a night and the alarm would wake me up. Now I just, sometimes I only sleep four or five hours. Other nights I sleep nine or 10 hours and I'm fine with that. So I'm not, I'm just letting myself wake up naturally. That's helped a lot.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Just, you know, purity of diet, continuing to refine my diet, intermittent fasting, you know, all the things that are kind of in vogue right now.

• 42:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  I've been doing that for 15 years.

• 42:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  And I never sit down, Rich. That's why I'm surprised we're sitting here. This is like, yeah, sacrilege.

• 42:34Rich Roll?

  Would you want to stand? We have these really cool ergonomic stools though.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  That actually is pretty comfortable. As far as sitting, this is a good one, yeah.

• 42:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, one of the things I read is, is, you know, there's a lot of, you know, we can go down the rabbit hole on like, how long, you know, after you train are you supposed to eat and what do you eat? And how do you, how do you, you know, make sure that you're accelerating that recovery process, enhancing it as much as possible so you can bounce back day to day? And one of the things that, that I know that you do, that I've experimented with, that I think is very valuable and doesn't get talked about very much is actually you go out of your way to like, not do those things because that provides an added stress on the body and an adaptive response that ultimately will make you stronger if you're doing it right. So rather than I have to replenish right after my run, like maybe let's not do that for a while. What will happen if I don't do that?

• 43:29Rich Roll?

  I wait a couple more hours or I wait until dinner or something like that. Maybe I'm not as fresh the next day, but long-term is this going to make me stronger?

• 43:39Speaker 01

  I agree. I agree so much. And I also think that not only with diet, but you know, coming home from a long, hard run, when you're hot, you just want to hop in the pool, right? Or just hop in the shower. I always say, don't do it. Stay miserable. Just walk around in a miserable state and a hot, you know, shoes are tight, everything is miserable. Ride that out because your body's going to adapt to it. Don't just immediately, you know, let that go and make yourself comfortable. Stay uncomfortable for as long as you can.

• 44:07Rich Roll?

  Sometimes I get back from like a long ride or a run and just because I got kids and responsibility, you know, like I'll just be in my bib shorts for like four more hours because I'm, you know, helping out or doing whatever needs to get done at work or sitting at my computer and I was like, I should probably shower at some point, you know?

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:24Rich Roll?

  I'm like, wow, I haven't eaten yet.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Showering is overrated. Yeah, yeah.

• 44:29Rich Roll?

  It's not that overrated.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  I think it is. I don't know. Yeah.

• 44:32Rich Roll?

  So what does the intermittent fasting look like?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  It's typically, you know, dinner and then maybe all the way to dinner the next day. But a lot of times, late afternoon, you know, maybe like I haven't eaten anything today. I got up. I do drink coffee. I love coffee. So I had a cup of coffee and I'm fasting right now. I'm, I'll probably eat when I get back home.

• 44:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So is that, is that something you plan out or you just kind of feel it out and do it once in a while? Or is that like an everyday thing?

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Uh, it's, I listen to my body as much as I can. So it's, you know, sometimes it's hard to fast because you know, you just want to chew off the back of your hand. You're so hungry.

• 45:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  And if that's the case, I'll eat something. But now I don't, you know, I can go easily. I think people too often say, oh, I've got to eat. I got to eat. I'm going to die. I got to eat. You really don't have to eat. And if you cannot, you know, if you can withhold eating for half an hour, maybe have a glass of water, you get beyond it.

• 45:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:25Rich Roll?

  I've gotten to the point where it's really not that difficult to just eat only dinner.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:30Rich Roll?

  And train during the day. Like I, I went to the pool today. I put in 5,000. I haven't eaten anything today. I feel completely fine. Part of that, I think, is, is after doing this kind of stuff for so many years, and you've talked about this a lot, like you just become very adapted to it. You're very efficient at it. You're this fat burning machine. Like your body is so, is so used to these activities that they're just not that taxing. They're not as taxing as they would be to somebody who's newer to these kinds of pursuits.

• 46:02Rich Roll?

  And I think it does, it does fly in the face of that idea like, oh, you gotta eat, you know, three meals a day. Like, I don't know who came up with that. But I think the danger comes in with a lot of people who can develop eating disorders around this stuff. And I think, you know, in the endurance community, it's not immune from a lot of people who can hide behind, oh, I'm intermittent fasting, or I'm doing this, or this diet, or that diet, when they have a very unhealthy relationship to food. So, you know, I think people have to be really honest with themselves about what their motivations are.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  I agree. And I think you can look at people and tell, I think. You can look at their nails, see if their nails are healthy, if their hair is really brittle. You can tell if someone, you know, has gone beyond a healthy diet into something extreme. And I think, when you look at me, I'm a pretty healthy guy, you know, it's not like, I don't think it's, it's too extreme. I don't, you know, I don't, I don't stress about not eating. Like, I can eat if I want to eat, and I can go without it if I want to go without it.

• 47:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I like that, that. So when you're, when you're going out for your 55 miles, and you put on the hydration pack, what do you bring with you?

• 47:08Speaker 01

  You know, I discovered this stuff called Muir Energy. I don't know if you've seen Muir Energy. They're little packets. It's, they make the best nut butters ever. So it's primarily nut butters. So it's, it's kind of keto. Yeah.

• 47:21Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And then water as well, or any kind of electrolyte?

• 47:24Speaker 01

  No, I just drink water along the way. Sometimes, yeah, just water, plain water. I carry a handheld with my, with my hydration pack, so I've got a lot of water on me.

• 47:34Rich Roll?

  And what's the, like, longest that you'll go out when you don't bring a pack or anything with you? Like, it's just, you're just going out without a shirt on, or whatever?

• 47:43Speaker 01

  I'll do a marathon, easily a marathon. Yeah, easily, yeah. I kind of like that feeling, because you're really, you're really, really struggling to get to the, get home at that point.

• 47:53Rich Roll?

  Well, I would urge everybody out there to... Be cautious about that and work their way up to it. But I do think that, you know, when you're out on the trails and you see people that you know are only going out for their 10K or whatever, five miles or something like that, who are just loaded, loaded to bear with backpacks that are just filled with like, you know, enough food to feed a family of four on a picnic on the 4th of July. And you're like, what are you doing? You don't need all this stuff.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Don't get me started on that.

• 48:22Rich Roll?

  Go for it. Tell me. Preach it.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I still, I still do a lot. Like, I can still go to a 5K and I'm kind of a thing. Like, people know who I am, even though they're not hardcore runners, even half marathon. And you see these people at the start of a half marathon and their hydration belt is just filled with, you know, 30 gels.

• 48:40Rich Roll?

  You're definitely gonna throw up if you.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  They eat them all. They think they need them. They think, well, I gotta have so many calories before I start. You know, people still think they have to have pancakes in the morning before a race. And they still think they got a pasta load. So there's still a lot of myths out there with people.

• 48:54Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, you've, you've evolved quite a bit from the days of ordering a pizza while you're out there running to, you know, what you're doing now.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I was in, I, I mean, I carb loaded. I'm sure you were kind of in that phase too, about the same. And that was the thing to do, right? You just load up on carbs. And I remember just standing at the start of a race, feeling so bloated in the morning at the start because I ate so much pasta the night before. And I thought, something's just not right. Like, I don't need to do this to my body.

• 49:23Rich Roll?

  And now it's more of a low carb approach that you have.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Much more low, and lower fiber as well. Like, before a big race, I really watched, especially insoluble fiber. You know, there's soluble, there's two types of fiber, insoluble fiber, and the stuff that passes right through you. I try to cut back on that a few days before a race, for obvious reasons.

• 49:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's gonna, that has an impact on how many times you gotta jump off the trail and pull the pants down, right?

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah. If I get too grabby, Rich.

• 49:51Rich Roll?

  Listen, anybody who's, you know, been out on trails, you know, trail running has had that experience.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  No, I ran a, I ran a 50K the weekend before last, and I remember coming into Pantle Station. There's an aid station there, and there's a bunch of people, "Hey, Korno, hey, how's it going?" And I just run up and say, "Where's the bathroom?" I just had to go so bad, and then I came out, and I'm like, "I'm so sorry, I didn't say hi to anyone." I just went and took a big dump. And they're like, "Hey, it's an ultra. This is what you do."

• 50:17Rich Roll?

  This is, that's the deal, you know what I mean? That goes with the territory. That's, that's part of the experience.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Every runner's been there, right?

• 50:24Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah. Well, let's talk about this book, Running for Good. This is your fourth book?

• 50:30Speaker 01

  This is my second collaboration with The Chicken Soup for the Soul People.

• 50:33Rich Roll?

  How do you know you've done another one?

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Yep, this is the second running book, and this is, if you count Chicken Soup for the Soul, this is my sixth book.

• 50:41Rich Roll?

  Wow. So, well, maybe let's start with talking about like the Chicken Soup for the Soul situation altogether. Like, how did that come together?

• 50:50Speaker 01

  You know, I, when I was actually in graduate school, one of my professors said, "You guys have to read this Chicken Soup for the Soul book." I think it was the original one that came out. He's like, "It'll ground you." It was like required reading.

• 51:02Rich Roll?

  Wow, in grad school?

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is business school, actually. I was an MBA, and I was like, "Why are we reading this?" And I was so enamored with these stories. So, the concept of Chicken Soup for the Soul is their books are 101 short stories by 101 different contributors. So, it's 101 people that write about being a human and whatever the topic is about. And it's kind of voyeurism, like you see into someone else's life. They kind of confess in about, you know, three or four pages, some episode of their life. And it was really powerful. I thought, "They've got something here." You know, obviously, they've sold, I think, 500, you know, half a billion copies.

• 51:40Rich Roll?

  Oh, it's crazy.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, I mean, they obviously, it works. And when they came to me and said, "Let's do something about running," I thought, you know, this, this is gonna be great because my books, you know, you, both of our books, we're kind of, it's a different audience that we appeal to. It's not the everyday athlete, right? It's, um, you know, a little more elite sort of thing. And this really was a book that was not just for runners, but for right walkers as well. And so I thought this is a great way to help spread the message, get more, you know, kind of evangelize the benefits of running and walking.

• 52:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What was the first one you did with them?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Uh, it was just called, um, Chicken Soup for the Soul, uh, on running. It was just a running book.

• 52:16Rich Roll?

  And then you just put to get you like, uh, collated a whole bunch of stories?

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah, we get, and like, we had, for this book, Running for Good. So the theme of this one is how has running brought good to your life? And we know what, you know, that could be through a charity run. It could be through losing hundreds of pounds. It could be through, uh, overcoming PTSD through running. So it's created good in your life, and that's the focus of this book. Um, we received about, I think, fifteen hundred submissions. And again, it's a hundred and one, uh, stories. So it was, it was really hard to go through and, you know, curate and,

• 52:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  and, you know, determine which ones made the final cut.

• 52:52Rich Roll?

  Well, what's great is that, um, it allows you to continue telling stories about running without making it about you. You know what I mean?

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 53:00Rich Roll?

  Like, alright, I've, I've written a whole bunch of books about this.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:04Rich Roll?

  Let's let a few other people share their stories.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we're both kind of memoirs.

• 53:08Rich Roll?

  I've said everything I can say about this.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  How many memoirs can you write? Yeah.

• 53:13Rich Roll?

  And it's great. Yeah, there's the, there's all, it's all different kinds of people from all different walks of life.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:19Rich Roll?

  Who all have their version of how running has improved their lives. And also, good being defined broadly to me, not just good in, in my own life, meaning the storyteller, but also, how can you use running to leverage good for others? Right? Which is sort of like, you know, versions of your Running the Silk Road.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's, you know, I'm, I'm, I think, a little more immersed in that world than, than you might be, just because I do a lot of like, group events, like, you know, fun runs, um, with groups. And it's, it's a great experience. I mean, I'm a very much an introvert, I think, like you. So I prefer running on my own, you know, for fifty-five miles by myself in the, you know, in the trails of Marin. But, um, you know, spending an hour with You know, thirty or forty, or even, you know, a hundred fired up runners that are just getting into it. It really, uh, it just, it, it grounds you. It gives you a better, broader perspective on running. Like, not everyone runs, you know, in the mountains in Maran or

• 54:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Three hundred mountain, you know, three hundred kilometers in Europe. I mean, a lot of people, for them to finish a half marathon is it's undoable.

• 54:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's Herculean.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:28Rich Roll?

  Um, I just did, uh, Jesse Itzler's twenty-nine, zero, twenty-nine event.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:33Rich Roll?

  And actually, you were the person who first introduced me to Jesse. Do you remember that way back in the day?

• 54:38Speaker 01

  I do, yeah, yeah.

• 54:40Rich Roll?

  And he's become a friend. He's great. And, and that event was magical for many reasons, but profound mostly because of what you just said. Like, most of the people that were doing this event hadn't done very many hard kind of athletic things in their lives. These are like everyday people, business people or whatever. And unlike a five K that's going to be done, you know, in a half an hour or an hour or whatever, depending upon your speed.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:07Rich Roll?

  This thing, like, on paper, it's like, well, you walk up a mountain, you take the donut down. Like, how hard can it be?

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:13Rich Roll?

  Um, but it was really hard. It was hard for me and my group of hardcore friends. Like, every, every ascent back down was like, you know, close to two hours. So, and it was thirteen times. So,

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:26Rich Roll?

  you had to do, I mean, that's twenty-six hours right there. And

• 55:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:29Rich Roll?

  these are people who've never done anything like this. And it was amazing how many of them just committed a hundred percent, went all through the night, didn't sleep, like, just just did everything in their power to dig as deep as possible to get it done, whether that meant doing all thirteen, or doing ten, or doing six, or whatever. And I got more inspiration from those people than from anything that I've witnessed or experienced recently. It was amazing. And what was great is there's no, there's no leaderboard. They don't, he doesn't like, you know, track time or place or anything like that. And at the banquet, it's just about highlighting a couple people who, you know, really got outside themselves to, to, you know,

• 56:11Rich Roll?

  Exceed their perceived limits. Like one guy who had done four the year before and had lost a bunch of weight and then did 10 and a 65 year old woman who like got all 13 done right down to the wire. Like it was super cool to do that. So it inspired me to try to expand my horizons to like, I am an introvert. Like I'm not like crazy about all the group stuff. Like you do it all the time. And it's like, I don't know, man, you know, being around all those people, but I got so much out of it that I want to explore being part of that.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Well, it's and it's funny you bring that up because just yesterday I got an email from a guy from Singapore that had come over to do that event. And he's like, that was incredible. It was your book. He sent me a photo of my book. He's like, your book inspired me to like, explore this world. And I just finished the same thing you just finished.

• 57:03Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's pretty cool.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I mean, to that point, you know, Western states, more people come out, it's got a 30 hour cutoff. More people come out the last hour to watch the last finishers than are there for the winner. A lot more. So more people are inspired by seeing, can they make it in 30 hours? It's just a human drama of watching someone come onto a track with 30 seconds left, you know, after running 99.99 miles, just saying, come on, you can get there. You can get there.

• 57:31Rich Roll?

  It's crazy. Yeah, there was a, there was a situation like that at the, at the 2929 thing. There was a guy who had done 12 and he was at the summit and there was like, I don't know, an hour and 45 minutes left. And you know, he was like, he was hurting. And I think his fastest round trip was like two and a half hours, something like that.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:53Rich Roll?

  And Mark, Jesse's partner was like, well, this guy was like, I'm done. There's no way. There's not enough time for me to do another one. And Mark's like, come on, dude. The clock's still ticking. You got time. Get on that gondola, go down and, and get it done. And he was like, okay. And then everybody

• 58:10Speaker 01

  And the guy's dead, he's dead now, but yeah.

• 58:12Rich Roll?

  But everybody rallied to like, support this guy. So many people who had already finished went down on the course to help bring him up.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:18Rich Roll?

  And there was a cheering section, like bar none at the top. And literally, he had like 30 seconds to make it across the finish line before the 36 hour cutoff. And about 100 yards from the line, he like stumbled and I thought he was gonna pass out. And everyone's like, get up, get up. You know, it's like 10, 9, and he got up and he literally somehow got himself across the finish line. I don't know how he did it, and it was remarkable.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  He made it.

• 58:44Rich Roll?

  It was so awesome, yeah, to see that. And that's the kind of thing that you see time and time again. I'm sure you see it all the time at all of these events that you go to.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  It, yeah, no, those, and those, those sort of moments are magical, aren't they? Yeah, there's something about it.

• 58:58Rich Roll?

  And these are kind of the stories that are, that are in this book, right?

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Yes, and you know, there's another, there's another element that people don't really think about is there are spectators that come out to watch races. Like I, I finished New York City Marathon last year. You know, I've done it, I don't know, probably

• 59:12Rich Roll?

  700 times.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Dozen times, yeah. And I'm walking back, you know, it's just one of those New York things. I'm walking back to my hotel and I start talking to a woman who congratulated me. And I said, you know, did you have a runner in the race? And she said, no. I said, what were you doing? She's like, I'm, I'm just was spectating. I'm like, you just came out to cheer? What, what did you think? She goes, well, I've done it for the last 20 years. Like you just come out, she's like, it's the best day of my life. Like, there's something about watching these people and their persistence and how hard they have it. And just, it just, it makes me filled with life. I never thought about that. Like, I would never think to go watch a running race for what you get as a spectator. She wasn't a runner. She just said, it's something about the human drama that pulls you in.

• 59:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:55Rich Roll?

  I think that that speaks to the broader inspiration, not just like, a lot of this is like, well, you see that and then it inspires you to try something like that. But you don't necessarily have to be a runner or an endurance athlete. You can take that inspiration and apply it to something else in your life that, that, that you care about, that may have nothing to do with that. Like, you know, some other goal that you have that has nothing to do with anything fitness or athletics related.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  I get the feeling she wasn't even gonna apply anything she saw. I think she, it just made her, it just uplifted her. Like she just felt, like she was like glowing. Like it was just such an uplifting thing to see these people.

• 1:00:33Rich Roll?

  Interesting.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  There's something about shared suffering, right? You know, that's, it's, it's, it brings people together.

• 1:00:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, well, let's talk about suffering. Tell me about your relationship to suffering, Dean. I'm sure you've never been asked that.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  It's complicated.

• 1:00:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, I, I embrace it. I'll be honest. I mean, I think it was Patton who said, uh, forgive me, God, for I love it. So he was talking about war, but an ultramarathon's a war. It's just, the battle is the elements, is the mountain you're facing. And you throw yourself into it and it, it, I don't know, there's something, it tears you down, right? But, um, there's, there's just something so raw and visceral about succeeding and just keeping one foot. I mean, you saw me at Badwater.

• 1:01:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  You wanna stop. Every step hurts. Every step you're saying, I gotta stop. This is horrible. I wanna stop. I wanna stop. And just keeping going. There's something about that. Yeah.

• 1:01:30Rich Roll?

  What is it about that that makes us feel so alive? Is it because that's missing in our day-to-day equation? Like we don't have to worry about survival anymore? Is it baked into our DNA? Or what is the, what is the, you know, like, once you've experienced that, you want more of that. You realize like, that thing that we're trying to remove from our life is the one thing that's somewhat essential to actually feeling completely alive and at your best.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, you know, someone had said that, you know, without war, you don't know if you're a coward or a hero. And this is your war, right? Every, everyone wants to fight and see what they're made of. And this is, this is the test. This is where you get to see, you know, nothing holds a mirror to you like running, right? Especially long distances. You, you see exactly who you are. Yeah.

• 1:02:24Rich Roll?

  Hmm. I think that, that it's not, um,

• 1:02:29Rich Roll?

  It's not a mystery why, you know, in addition to the ultra-running community like exploding, you just mentioned some statistics of how many people run a 5K. Like, I can't imagine how many people do marathons like. And now we have Spartan races and we have every derivation of any kind of crazy endurance obstacle course challenge imaginable, available in every city on every weekend all across the developed world. Why is that happening now? And I think it's because we've drained our, our, our daily existence from strain and toil. We've created these air-conditioned castles that we live in and we're constantly being bombarded with

• 1:03:14Rich Roll?

  these messages that the path to happiness is lined with luxury and ease and comfort and, you know, a flat-screen TV and the like. And that is not perpetuating happiness and fulfillment and purpose, but rather creating a mass epidemic of depression and disconnection and disaffection. We have all of these people who are incredibly unfulfilled in their professional and personal lives in a way that, that I think is unprecedented in human history. And it is an ill that is, that is, that is endemic to the most modern of societies. And these

• 1:03:56Rich Roll?

  events are, are like the antidote to that in some way. They're a way for people to step outside of this construct that we've created and tap into something primal and real that, that makes us human beings.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  God bless you. That was really well stated. I mean, that was, that was poetry there, people. I couldn't have said that better. That was, that was poetry. I mean, I couldn't agree with you more, Rich. And, you know, you go to an executive's office and, you know, what's behind them at their desk, you know, their medal from finishing Iron Man. I mean, that it becomes more important than anything else in your life, right? It's not the, you know, what you've achieved, you know, what things you have. It's, hey, I finished Iron Man.

• 1:04:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  There's something about it that's just goes beyond material. It goes beyond. It's human, it's very human, it's a very human instinct and unfortunately, like when you travel across this country, so many people are so far removed from that. I mean, they they don't have a relationship with their body, first of all, and that's horrible. And they've they've kind of just got, I think, sucked into this whole world that you just described of comfort, thinking that's going to make them happy. And you're bombarded with messaging from marketers and ads saying just that, you know, buy this luxury vehicle and you're going to be happy. And it doesn't work, it just doesn't, that formula doesn't work. And I think more and more people are starting to recognize that.

• 1:05:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You, when you finally get the car or the job, you're happy for a little bit. And then it just becomes that's your job, or that's the car that you drive.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Rich Roll?

  And then you think, well, it must be the next car. Or if I just get that next promotion. You're just on this ladder, on this treadmill of constantly chasing the next thing without having the introspection to to look within and understand that, you know, that hole is never going to get filled in that way. And that the path towards what it is that you're lacking and seek the most is going to come from getting outside your comfort zone, from embracing adventure and experience and, you know, tapping into that thing that is that is that does make us human, that does require us to suffer and to meet our

• 1:06:09Rich Roll?

  meet ourselves in a in a place of vulnerability that just isn't, you know, part of our of how we currently live.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Well, and I think unfortunately, a lot of people listening to this are probably saying, well, Dean and Rich are so blessed, like they've created these ideal lives that they just love. I'm not like that. Like, I have to go to the office, I've got this, I got this obligation. You don't have to go to the office. I mean, you can carve out your own niche. Everyone can do that. And I think a lot of people feel trapped, but that's because they are trapped. They've made themselves trapped. They're, you know, Who was it who said, you know, that we all live in a cage with the door wide open? Um, we're all in cages and we all create our own heaven or hell. And it's up to us.

• 1:06:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, I think it's easy to, to look at your life or my life and to say, well, you know, they have it easier, but like you, I mean, you quite literally burst out of your cage and went running through the night to escape it. Uh, mine came a little bit later and was a, you know, a little less dramatic and immediate, but it was the same thing. It was like, I, I don't want to be part of this system anymore. I've got to find a different way to live my life and took me a very long time to figure out how to do that.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Well, and let me, let me, you're plugging my book. Let me plug Rich's book. If you haven't read Finding Ultra, please read that book. It is a, a hell of a story. It's a hell of a story.

• 1:07:26Rich Roll?

  I, I just wish I'd burst out of the paragon bar, you know, in the middle of the night and, and run all the way to, you know, however far you ran to Half Moon Bay.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  He wasn't always what he is today, believe me. That's the, the episode of you trying to walk up your stairs when you were, well, he wasn't quite as slender as he was, as he is today, back in the day.

• 1:07:45Rich Roll?

  Not quite. But, um, but I had to put myself, I, I think that, you know, speaking from my own experience, that I had been an athlete in college and I knew, I knew that relationship between suffering and meaning. Like I had touched that in my past. And for some reason I felt like I needed to reconnect with that in order to answer this question about what I wanted to do with my life. And it wasn't a direct, it's not a direct calculus. I just knew that the answers that eluded me that I was seeking would be found with me out alone, spending time in nature, uh, with no other sound other than my breath and my heart beating and, you know, sweating and, and trying to get to that, that, that,

• 1:08:29Rich Roll?

  that place of purity that only comes when you're completely stripped down.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I mean, you know, that's part of the reason I'm involved with Chicken Soup for the Soul and this Running for Good, because you get to read about 101 people that did just as you're describing. I mean, every single story is just what you described. And I think it's empowering for other people to read that. It almost gives them permission, like, you know, hey, my neighbor did this, I can do it.

• 1:08:51Rich Roll?

  Right. Or like, I can't, you know, I can't connect with Dean, or I can't connect with Rich, but I can connect with this veteran who has PTSD, or this mom, or this person who's, who, you know, has an amputated limb.

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, even, I mean, you know, even just everyday hardships, you know, people that couldn't walk to the end of their driveway to get the newspaper, they were so obese. Like, she couldn't walk to the end of her driveway, and she's like, this is, something's gonna happen here. And now she's running half marathons.

• 1:09:20Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 1:09:22Rich Roll?

  What are, what are some of your other favorite excerpts from the book?

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Well, there's a, there's another crew member at Badwater for me, named Michelle Barton. I think you know Michelle. And after she crewed for me, she got inspired to actually run it, Rich. So I think you gotta go back and actually run it. And she tells her story of running Badwater. And you think I had it rough. She should read her story.

• 1:09:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Why? What happened? You don't wanna spoil it?

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'll just say blisters under the toenails for one, yeah. I mean, she had it really tough, and she finished.

• 1:09:58Rich Roll?

  Wow. And, and what else? There's so many stories in here.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  A friend of mine, Burr Purnell, took his family to Greece. He went on vacation, and they saw some refugees. So if you've ever been to Greece, which I'm Greek, so on some of the islands, there's refugee camps from Syria, people trying to get out of Syria. And his daughter asked him, Dad, what are, why are those people behind the gates? And he explained to her that they're refugees. And she, it so touched her, she said, I don't like this. I don't want people to be like this. So he contacted the aid workers and said, you know what, I want, we wanna get involved. What can I do? And they said, well, you're a runner. Why don't you take some of the young boys running? Like these, these boys, they're young kids. Like they have no, you know, there's, there's no

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  outlet for them. So he started a running group on Lesbos for these young Syrian refugee boys. Yeah.

• 1:10:49Rich Roll?

  That's amazing.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was incredible. The story, I'm, I'm tearing up just reading about it.

• 1:10:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's super cool.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  And how about, how self, selfless is that? I mean, think about the daughter. They're going to some resort in Greece. You know, it's all great. And all of a sudden they're in these refugee camps instead. Yeah.

• 1:11:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but that's an experience they'll never forget.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Never. No, it's amazing. Yeah.

• 1:11:09Rich Roll?

  And what a, what a beautiful thing to do with your daughter.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  That's, I mean, for her, how transformational is that to see what your dad did? Yeah.

• 1:11:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Um, wow, that's amazing, man.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  You gotta read the book.

• 1:11:24Rich Roll?

  I know. Well, I just, I just started, there's so many stories. Part of it is like, I don't need motivation to run. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need to be inspired because it's like, that's what I prefer to do. Like, you actually have to inspire me or motivate me to do something else other than that. You know what I mean?

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:40Rich Roll?

  Um, but I love, you know, the heartfelt stories of just everyday people who find meaning and purpose through the most simplest of endeavors, which is putting one foot in front of the other. It doesn't get any more like basic or elemental than that.

• 1:12:00Rich Roll?

  What do you think you would do if something happened, God forbid, and you couldn't run anymore? Have you thought about that?

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  No, I've always defined my finish line as a pine box. So I don't like answering hypothetical questions. Um, you know, one thing I'm doing right now, which I don't think I told you about is I'm getting a, um, a classics degree from Villanova. So I'm in a graduate's, I love ancient Greek culture. So I'm getting my classics degree. And that's really fulfilling.

• 1:12:30Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Rich Roll?

  You could do that remotely from Marin or do you have to go to Villanova?

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  No, it's, I gotta go to Villanova, um, at the end to defend my thesis, but it's, it's all remote.

• 1:12:39Rich Roll?

  What is your thesis on?

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  Uh, I haven't gotten there yet. Yeah.

• 1:12:42Rich Roll?

  You don't know?

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  No, I don't know yet.

• 1:12:44Rich Roll?

  But it's gonna have something to do with

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Probably with-

• 1:12:46Rich Roll?

  Greeks and running?

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Running, probably, yeah. Greeks and athletes, at least, yeah.

• 1:12:50Rich Roll?

  Well, when we were, when we were running through the night in Badwater, you were telling me all about this amazing professor that you found, who was the, the guy when it came to, you know, the running culture of ancient Greece.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Paul Cartledge, Dr. Cartledge from Cambridge University. Yep, he's, he's profoundly influenced me. This guy is a walking encyclopedia, Winkapedia. I mean, he knows more about ancient history. He, he's amazing. He speaks, I think, six languages, you know, fluent Greek, he speaks Latin, I mean, he's just an amazing guy. And he's so humble, if he was here, he's so humble and unassuming. He's just the greatest guy, yeah. So he really influenced me to, to, you know, pursue this degree.

• 1:13:28Rich Roll?

  Wow. So focusing on Greek history.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:33Rich Roll?

  So what have you learned about Greek history and that culture since you wrote the book as a result of this Classics program?

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  That things go full circle, that the Greeks were wiser than we are today. And a lot of the stuff we're talking about, these very fundamental ways of achieving happiness, you know, if you read Plato or you read Socrates, that's what they talk about. So it's, it's not a lot different than this conversation.

• 1:13:58Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause they were facing the same thing. The Greeks, there was a huge income disparity in ancient Greece. Uh, people were, uh, living frivolous lives of excess.

• 1:14:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  And they were saying, no, don't, it's not gonna, that's, that's the wrong direction to go.

• 1:14:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  And this is 2,500 years ago.

• 1:14:16Rich Roll?

  Have you studied the Stoics at all?

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  I have.

• 1:14:19Rich Roll?

  Cause now this is such a zeitgeist-y thing. Everybody's all about the Stoics because of Ryan Holiday and his amazing books. Not the least of which is right here, ego is the enemy.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:28Rich Roll?

  Um, and it's, it's fascinating that this, you know, this canon of ancient wisdom, um, is now-

• 1:14:36Rich Roll?

  Been made so popular. And I think in part, it's because it's so practical and relevant to the problems that we're having today. Like, we're having, like, these ruminations, whether it's Marcus Aurelius, or Seneca, or Epictetus.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Finally, you got a Greek in there. You got two Romans. They're like, when's the Greek coming in there?

• 1:14:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, they write about the problems that they're facing. And if you can kind of extract out, you know, whatever is relevant to that time and age, you realize, like, these are the same things that occupy our unconscious and conscious minds on a day-to-day basis. How to be more productive, how to prioritize what's most important, you know, how to focus our lives around meaning and purpose and fulfillments and the like. And I think because of the way, the things that we've already talked about here today, there is a crisis of people trying to find a meaning in their lives because they're pursuing careers that are not as fulfilling as perhaps they would have been 20, or 30, or 40, or 50, or 200 years ago. And it's leading people back.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  2,000 years ago. I mean, we're talking 2,500 years ago.

• 1:15:41Rich Roll?

  Right. Bringing people back to this, these ancient texts where these people spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff and trying to construct pathways forward that are practical.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  No, to me, that's what, it was so profound to read these, you know, the messaging from ancient Greece and say, these are the same issues we're facing today. And, you know, what are the strategies to overcome? And they're not a lot different than what we're talking about right now.

• 1:16:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. We should just be naked below the Acropolis, you know, eating grapes, drinking wine. Other than that, it's all good.

• 1:16:14Rich Roll?

  And the occasional 55-mile training run, I suppose, right?

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:18Rich Roll?

  So when you go back to Greece for this race, are you gonna do it in the traditional garb again?

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  Hell, no. I'm taking my ass.

• 1:16:27Rich Roll?

  That was a misfire, right?

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  That was a one-and-done. Yeah, yeah. So the first time, if, for those of you listening, I ran eating only the ancient Greek food. So I ran with cured meat, like a beef jerky, something they called pastille, which is ground sesame seed and honey. Oh, it's almost like an energy paste. Nuts, you know, just basic foods that Fidibites, the ancient marathoner would have used, and it was not a good experience.

• 1:16:51Rich Roll?

  Right. And you had like the skirt and the sandals too, didn't you? For, at least for part of it, right?

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  I ran, I did a marathon.

• 1:16:58Rich Roll?

  Oh, the skirt, right. Those are two different things.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna try and test wearing it, like, how would it go? And it didn't go so well.

• 1:17:04Rich Roll?

  Not good, right?

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  No. And the foods went well. The foods, I ran, I did like 10, 12 hour training runs, but what I learned is you can eat figs for 10 or 12 hours, that's fine.

• 1:17:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  But when you eat figs for 24 or 30 hours, you can't live on figs.

• 1:17:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  For obvious reasons.

• 1:17:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Why do you eat figs?

• 1:17:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah. This is the fallacy of like, we should get back to the way we used to do things. Taking it too far. It's like, just because they did that that long ago, doesn't mean that that was the best way to do it.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  Well, and they were trying to-

• 1:17:33Rich Roll?

  We've learned a few things since then.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  And they weren't running 153 miles, you know, nonstop for 36 hours. They were eating figs throughout the day, which is fine, or even in the short run, but 36 hours of figs is not good on the stomach.

• 1:17:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no, talk about having to pull over to the side of the road, right? Why do you think that you've been able to, from what I can tell, like, I don't think you've ever sustained an overuse injury. Is that true?

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I shouldn't say that, because I'm probably trip on the doorstep and break my leg when I walk out of here, but yeah, I've never had an injury. Never, never Achilles, nothing, nothing, Rich.

• 1:18:11Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  I do a lot of cross-training.

• 1:18:13Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Which I think-

• 1:18:13Rich Roll?

  So, yeah, tell me, walk me through like that routine and maybe how it's evolved over the years.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  So, I do, I have this routine of HIIT training, so I have an office just like yours. Well, you've seen my house. And I've got a pull-up bar and a sit-up mat and throughout the course of the day, and I'm never sitting, like we're doing now, I'm standing, you know, answering emails, whatever, writing-

• 1:18:36Rich Roll?

  You have a standing desk.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  Standing desk. And then I do, I do this HIIT cycle, it's about- Twelve to thirteen minutes of pushups, situps, pullups, uh, chair dips and burpees. And it keeps my heart rev for the whole time. You're pretty much redlining the whole time. And I do maybe five or six of those throughout the course of the day, all with body weight. No, no actual weights. Yeah.

• 1:18:57Rich Roll?

  So you're at your desk, you type, if you work for fifteen, twenty minutes and then you do like a little routine and then return back to the desk. So you're, and then you're just repeat, you're constantly kind of, so you're just kind of constantly in a perpetual state of training.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  Contra- Exactly, exactly.

• 1:19:13Rich Roll?

  And when you're, what is, what is, what is writing a book look like for you then? Cause for me, like I have to sit and I have to, like I can't do it in tiny chunks. Like I have to really sit for hours and hours and hours and like mire my, like marinate in.

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  I can't get there.

• 1:19:30Rich Roll?

  Thoughts. Do you just dictate on a headset or something like that?

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  I cannot, I, I, I've tried meditation. I can't, I've gotta be moving. Like I cannot meditate. Um, to me, uh, you know, motions, uh, stirs emotion. So I run and write. I mean, I literally run. I dictate into a, uh, my iPhone now. But I run, I write a lot of verses while I'm running. And that's when you can, you know, you can really word craft a sentence when you're running. Cause you think about permutations or, you know, how are you going to say it? How are you going to say what you're going to say? How best to say it? How creatively to say it? And when you're running, you just have your clearest thoughts. I do at least.

• 1:20:08Rich Roll?

  So you just pull it out and do like a voice memo?

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:20:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know, I can memorize entire paragraphs, sometimes two or three paragraphs. And that, I'm thinking, wow, I'm big shit, right? But I mean, um, the old, uh, Lear's that read the Odyssey. They were, you know, they were right, reading, they were memorizing nine thousand, uh, sent, basically nine thousand sentences. Nine thousand lines of text they memorized and they'd orally, uh, you know, give their orations. Uh, over the course of five or six hours, every single word, perfect.

• 1:20:42Rich Roll?

  Those guys need a, they need to get a life. There was no, there was no Twitter feed there. There was no distractions. There was nothing else for them to do, right?

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  It's an Instagrammable moment. Hold it. I'm at 8,999. I'm gonna nail this last sentence. Get this one.

• 1:20:56Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58Rich Roll?

  So then you take that, so I'm just trying to like, kind of grok the process. So you would do that and then you come back and then transcribe it? Or how does that work?

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, go transcribe it. Exactly. Yeah. Have a glass of water, uh, sit down, transcribe. And also, you know, when you come to an end of a chapter, you're thinking, what direction do I take this book, right? I mean, you know, what's the story gonna be? So thinking about how you're gonna, you know, craft the next paragraph or the next, even the next chapter, even the next, you know, half a book, like which direction is gonna go? Are you gonna talk about this now? Let's talk about this. You know, it's like writing.

• 1:21:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  It's a lot of thinking. Yeah.

• 1:21:34Rich Roll?

  That is the definition of, of effective multitasking. You're training and writing your book at the same time. You may be the only person who's doing that.

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  I think it's the best time to do it. I really, I mean, anyone listening to this, I know they're saying that, yeah, I have my best thoughts when I'm running as well. It's inevitable. Yeah.

• 1:21:51Rich Roll?

  I think they need to figure out a more seamless way of like, trying to, you know, if you're running, then pulling out your phone and then like, how are you like, you know, like, if there was a really easy way to just go, bip, and you know, push one button or whatever and let it, let it flow. I don't know.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that'd be, I've got, I've got a handle on my phone, so I just run with my phone and just,

• 1:22:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  Voice dictation, voice memo. Yeah.

• 1:22:14Rich Roll?

  That's interesting. I'm gonna try, I'm gonna try that. But you don't listen to any music or audiobooks or anything like that?

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  I listen to audiobooks once in a while. Yeah.

• 1:22:21Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Yeah. No podcasts?

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  Of course I listen to Ubers.

• 1:22:25Rich Roll?

  God, no you don't.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  Every single one. Come on.

• 1:22:28Rich Roll?

  He's lying. Um, that is amazing about never, never having had an overuse injury, like no back problems or nothing like that. Like, that is, that's remarkable. I think you're, you're unique in that. And I, that must be, it has to be because of all the cross-training that you're doing. Cause the running without that, there's no way.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  I think it's a 360 degree view that allows me to be the best animal I can be. So I look at my entire life through the lens of being the best runner I can be. So that means, we know, training, cross-training, that means good quality sleep, it means diet, it's everything. But I also think it means interpersonal relationships. Like, if you have good, stable interpersonal relationships, your performance is a lot better. If your interpersonal relationships are disruptive and you have, you know, you're battling with people, it impacts your performance. We know this. And so that's the other thing I try to optimize is my interpersonal relationships. You know, part of the things you talk about is, you know, you associate with people that bring you up, right? You don't associate with people that bring you down. And, you know, that's been a lesson I've learned.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  And also, you associate maybe with fewer people. I mean, I'm an introvert, so I have fewer, closer friends. And I'm very comfortable on my own. Like, a lot of people I think are not comfortable by themselves. Like, I don't mind running with myself for three hours. I'm not bored. Like, I'm cool being by myself.

• 1:23:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I prefer it. But you must have people rolling up on you on the trails all the time.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  Oh, I have some funny things happen, yeah. Or even on the roads.

• 1:24:00Rich Roll?

  Tell me.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, even in the airport, walking here, when I was going through TSA in Oakland, the TSA guy's like, "Oh, my God, you're that ultra marathoner guy, aren't you? You're the runner guy. Like, my God, you're amazing." You know, he seems very discreet. And I said, "Oh, thanks, bro." Yeah, those sort of things happen all the time.

• 1:24:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, that's nice, you know? You're being acknowledged for who you are. That's cool.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:26Rich Roll?

  But it's different if it's, like, if you're trying to get into the, if you're, like, literally writing while you're running and you're in the middle, and then someone wants to run with you, or, you know, like, show you up or something like that. "Oh, there's the ultra marathon guy. Like, I'm gonna race him."

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I passed a guy a couple of days ago, and he saw me, and he was standing on the trailside, just catching his breath. And it was really a hot day, and he saw me run by, so he obviously caught up to me, we chatted. It was a fine conversation, you know, and he lasted a couple of miles.

• 1:24:55Rich Roll?

  But people are respectful of you.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  You know, it's good people, Rich. Like, I don't have, I'm like a movie star, a rock star, where I have all these, you know, fawning fans. The people that come up to me and say, "Hey, man, like, really nice to meet you." They're like, I would sit down and have a beer with this guy. Like, they're really solid people, so I feel pretty lucky in that regard.

• 1:25:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. And how often are you going out and doing, like, you know, just you show up at these 5Ks, 10Ks, marathons? Like, you seem to do that a lot.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  I do, it's, it's, you know, it's sponsorship sort of stuff, so I do it quite a bit, yeah.

• 1:25:29Rich Roll?

  How many sponsors are you working with now?

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  It's fluid. You know, that's the other thing with my life, and I'm sure like yours, you're just, I mean, I'm a deal chaser. You're constantly chasing your next deal. Like, you're never sure how much, how long this sponsorship's gonna last. You're never sure who the next one's gonna be, so you're always prospecting, and you're always chasing sponsors. So that's, you know, that's a pretty tough element.

• 1:25:50Rich Roll?

  And you do that all, you do that yourself?

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I tried working with a couple of agencies, and they just, they don't get endurance sports. Like, you get lost with the basketball players and the football players, and you're just, you know, let's face it, you're, you know, you're small potatoes compared to those guys.

• 1:26:04Rich Roll?

  In certain respects, yes, and in other ways, no. Like, I feel like that's shifting, but not shifting quite a bit. My sense is that most, you know, most of the large companies or the companies that would be candidates for sponsoring a person like yourself have a certain way in which they perceive athletes. It's like, these are the, you know, these are the people that we work with. This is their race schedule. These are the podiums they're gonna be on. This is the kit that they're gonna wear, and here's where our logo is going to be. And it's a very kind of binary way of thinking, whereas I look at someone like yourself, and your appeal, like, your, your, your value to a sponsor has nothing to do with, like, a podium or...

• 1:26:49Rich Roll?

  You know, whatever gear you're gonna wear, it's, it's, it's a lifestyle thing. And you have the ability to reach so many people and so many different kinds of people. And you bring in all of these people who have no idea who's first, second, or third at this race or that race. This is not part of their universe. And yet, what you speak to is meaningful for these people. And so it's confusing to me why more sponsors don't understand the value of that. Because I actually think that's more valuable than some guy who can run, you know, a 212 marathon, but is somebody that no one's ever heard of.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  Rich, that pitch you just gave me, how many executives have laid that same pitch? And they look at me like, like with the glazed over, like, well, you know, your name's not on the side of Staples Stadium. I mean, you know, they, they don't, they don't get it. I mean, I was with Wasserman and Wasserman Group, they just, they literally shut down their, their endurance group. So they laid off everyone. That was just a couple of weeks ago.

• 1:27:50Rich Roll?

  Oh, I didn't even know that.

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. And of this.

• 1:27:52Rich Roll?

  And Casey's a great guy and he's super into endurance sports. Like I would think that he gets it, but something's missing there.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, something was missing. And of the six or seven deals we did, literally all of them came through me.

• 1:28:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I get it. You know, it's hard, man. You gotta be a hustler. It's like back to like, hey, this is the life that you wanted. And this is the life that you're creating for yourself. You're forging, you know, a situation that is without precedence. Like, who would have thought, like, a guy who is super into running ultra marathons and is really good at it, could create not just a vocation out of it, but one with longevity, you know, like that. That's not an easy thing. And yet you've been able to do it year after year after year.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I look to models, people like you, like say.

• 1:28:37Rich Roll?

  I follow in your footsteps.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  Look at like Laird Hamilton, like, you know, he's a big wave surfer. I don't know. How much does he surf these days? Probably not as much as.

• 1:28:46Rich Roll?

  I mean, he surfs every day because he lives out here. You know, you see him around and stuff like that. But he's not competing. He's not a competitive surfer.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or Tony Hawk. I mean, how did he carve out a, make a go of it skateboarding? Who would ever think you could do this? But they figured it out.

• 1:29:00Rich Roll?

  You can make a cool video game out of skateboarding. You can't do that with ultra running. That'd be a really boring video game.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  Really boring, yeah.

• 1:29:07Rich Roll?

  You're just gonna run on this trail for the next 55 hours.

• 1:29:12Rich Roll?

  Let's see if you, how many Red Bulls you're gonna drink in that lazy boy chair before you fall asleep.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  Oh, he's gonna pee again. Let's get that one.

• 1:29:19Rich Roll?

  Extra bonus points for not having diarrhea.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:29:22Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 1:29:25Rich Roll?

  Come on.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  Get a little graphic here.

• 1:29:26Rich Roll?

  No, it's true though. Yeah, like, you know, Laird is probably the best example, or Tony Hawk, like people who excel at what they do, but have still, you know, have been able to create a life out of it that extends beyond the paradigm of competition.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:41Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:43Rich Roll?

  So, what's next for you, man? You got these races coming up, but what's the longer view? You just keep writing books?

• 1:29:49Speaker 01

  I'm writing another book, like, as an author, you're only as good as your next book, right? That's the saying. So, I'm writing another book. I just, um, I sold motion picture rights to Ultra Marathon.

• 1:29:59Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's

• 1:30:00Rich Roll?

  Who'd you sell them to?

• 1:30:01Speaker 01

  Shop it around. It's a producer on the East Coast.

• 1:30:04Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  Sergio Reyes, and he's a really good guy.

• 1:30:07Rich Roll?

  That's exciting.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  He's a young kid. He read my book. He like, lost, you know, I think he lost 80 pounds. He was living in Idaho and he's like, changed his life and he's Yeah, so that's exciting. Um, what else? I just won, I was given the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. I just won the Lifetime Achievement Award.

• 1:30:25Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  So, I get to go back to Washington DC and get that.

• 1:30:28Rich Roll?

  That's cool. Will they give you a fancy medal?

• 1:30:31Speaker 01

  I, I, I hope.

• 1:30:32Rich Roll?

  Who gives it to you?

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  I, I, let's not go there.

• 1:30:35Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Because our current guy at the top is not necessarily the pitcher of fitness and health.

• 1:30:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  He doesn't really embrace those values.

• 1:30:43Rich Roll?

  Is he the one who's gonna hand it to you?

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:30:45Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's gonna be interesting to see.

• 1:30:47Rich Roll?

  Should be interesting. Well, congratulations. That's super cool.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  I, you know why it's cool to me is, one of my mentors, Jack LaLanne, was the first recipient.

• 1:30:56Rich Roll?

  Oh, really?

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. He was the very first guy. And Arnold's won it as well, so it was, yeah.

• 1:31:01Rich Roll?

  Do they give that out every year?

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Every year, yeah.

• 1:31:04Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:05Rich Roll?

  That's cool. And how long before you finish your classics degree?

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  I'm on that, I got, yeah, I've got about two and a half more years. I'm on the long, yeah. I'm only taking a course or two a semester.

• 1:31:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:16Rich Roll?

  And how old are your kids now? They grown, are they out of the house?

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  They're kid, they're kid, they're, yeah, I'm an empty nester.

• 1:31:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  You know what I do all day?

• 1:31:23Rich Roll?

  Uh.

• 1:31:24Speaker 01

  I get up. I walk around naked, you know, I have some coffee naked, I bend over, look through the produce, you know, the produce drawer in the refrigerator, you know, my wife walks around the corner and I'm bending over and she's like, are you gonna put clothes on today? I'm like, you saw where I live, like, why?

• 1:31:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:31:41Rich Roll?

  Well, you're way up at the top. Nobody can see in where you're living.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  I don't even care anymore if they do. Like, it feels so good to be naked. And, you know, Socrates used to take air baths. So he'd go stand out naked in the wind. So did Benjamin Franklin. There's something to be said about an air bath. You gotta try it, Rich. It's really liberating, yeah, an air bath.

• 1:31:59Rich Roll?

  That reminds me of that scene in Jerry Maguire when Cuba Gooding Jr. is like, comes out of the shower and Tom Cruise is like, do you want a towel? And he's like, no, air dry.

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  Air dry, I remember that.

• 1:32:10Rich Roll?

  So he was tapping into his inner Socrates, I suppose. Well, that's cool. Is your, is your wife still practicing dentistry?

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  She is.

• 1:32:17Rich Roll?

  She retire from that?

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  No, she's actually in real estate now.

• 1:32:20Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:32:20Speaker 01

  So she's doing real estate. She also sells transax dental practices. So to sell a dental practice in California, you have to be a licensed dentist and a licensed realtor. So how many of those exist? So she has a little niche on that one.

• 1:32:36Rich Roll?

  And what do your kids think about what you do? Like, are they in a, I know you've, you've done some events with your son, right? You ran American with your son?

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, they've, they've, they've done some running with me. They just, they don't think anything

• 1:32:48Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  unusual with me, yeah.

• 1:32:51Rich Roll?

  My, my kids, God bless them, could not be less interested. Like, my daughters, what, they have no interest whatsoever in participating in any of these things that like, I mean, they're like, that's cool, Dad, like, but they're not, it's not like, when I see other, other parents or dads out there and they get their kids to do these things, like, I would have to move heaven and earth to get one of my daughters try to do something like that. Like, they're just, and that's fine. Like, I don't need them to do that. Like, it's not, like, I'm, I'm there to support what it is that lights them up. You know, like, that's what excites me. So it's not like I, I need that to happen. I just find it curious that the universe rigs it

• 1:33:32Rich Roll?

  for me to have kids that like, are interested in things completely different than what gets me out of bed.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, my daughter runs and we've run, you, you probably not gonna like this story, but we ran the Wine Country Half Marathon.

• 1:33:45Rich Roll?

  Now I'm gonna get angry.

• 1:33:46Speaker 01

  Nap it to Sonoma Wine Country Half. Get this, at about mile eight of the half marathon, they start serving wine at the aid stations.

• 1:33:54Rich Roll?

  Oh, no.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  So I'm like, Alexander, should we? She's like, let's wait till mile 10. So we get to mile 10 and I'm like, okay, let's indulge. Those are the best three miles of my life.

• 1:34:04Rich Roll?

  I can imagine.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  We were just, oh, there's another aid station. I don't mind. You want to break two hours? I don't, who cares? Yeah.

• 1:34:12Rich Roll?

  And you had, do you have a wine company?

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  I started a label, yep, Marathon Wines.

• 1:34:16Rich Roll?

  Did that inspire you? If we're gonna have wine, it should be my wine on the, on the race course.

• 1:34:22Speaker 01

  That's what I thought, yeah. Well, I mean.

• 1:34:23Rich Roll?

  So how did that come together?

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  It was a collaboration with a Greek guy. I've done a couple of collaborations with people on Greek products. So I have a product called the Naked Greek, which is a body lotion. These are, you know, kind of like licensing deals.

• 1:34:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  I'm starting a CBD line called On The Run, specifically for runners. So that's another one I'm looking forward to.

• 1:34:43Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  You gotta pay the bills somehow, right?

• 1:34:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, man. You're getting it. So CBD oil, wine, you had, like, you did a Greek yogurt thing for a while, too, right?

• 1:34:53Speaker 01

  Yep, Greek yogurt. As I said, you're constantly chasing the deals. Yep. It's just the next thing.

• 1:34:57Rich Roll?

  All that stuff, man. Multifaceted, Dean Karnazes.

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  Mountain tea, hint, hint.

• 1:35:03Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's right. Yeah, thank you for that. So that's your product as well?

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  No, that's a friend of mine, two, two friends of mine, Vaphni and Chloe have a company in Greece where they go and pick herbs. The way to, way to try.

• 1:35:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So talk to me about what mountain tea is.

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  It grows, it's, they call it shepherd tea in some places. It's, it's a, it's like a, an herb, a flowering herb that grows at high elevations in Greece, like mountain Olympus. And it's energetic. It's, it's almost like, it's like mate, but it's a little different. Yeah.

• 1:35:34Rich Roll?

  And so, I mean, basically you just, it's like a, you, it's, it's like the full plant. It's not like tea leaves.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, just get, just get a big pot, get a big pot.

• 1:35:43Rich Roll?

  You just steam it and boil it?

• 1:35:44Speaker 01

  Boil water in there, throw it in there for like 15 minutes and then strain it out. I put a little stevie in there for sweetness. It's fantastic.

• 1:35:52Rich Roll?

  Is it caffeinated?

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  No, no caffeine. Yeah.

• 1:35:55Rich Roll?

  Just some other kind of natural energy boost?

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  Something like 1,200 bioactive compounds within that tea. There's all kinds of stuff in there besides, you know, there's theobromine, theophylline. There's a lot of other stuff besides caffeine that makes you feel good.

• 1:36:08Rich Roll?

  Right. I look forward to checking it out. Thank you for that. Well, let's, let's round this out with a little bit of takeaway wisdom for people that are listening. I want to kind of cater it to, you know, that person who is, you know, on the couch, but maybe on the edge of the couch, like they're the person who maybe turns out to witness the New York Marathon and gets energy from that, but hasn't quite made that extra step to get out there themselves. So how do you communicate or speak to that individual to try to inspire them to put on a pair of running shoes and get after it?

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  You know, I always tell people to look inward before you start this journey because, let's face it, it's really intimidating to a lot of people. I hear that all the time. Like this is so intimidating for me to try to go running, especially if I say, let's go running because they're thinking, geez, I'm going to have to keep up with Dean. So if you're an introvert, don't sign up for a group running program. You're going to hate it. You're going to feel weird.

• 1:37:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Cause that's what everyone says. Sign up for a group. You'll love it.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  If you're an extrovert and you want group support and you like the accountability, like every, you know, every, at 6:00 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we're doing our group run. That's a great way to go about it. I also say, invest in a good pair of running shoes. Like go to a specialty running store, not like a big box, not like a big five or, you know, Dick's Sporting Goods. Go to like a Fleet Feet, you know, or one of the grassroots specialty running and get a good pair of shoes. Get fitted. There's so many great shoes out there now. So get fitted for a good pair of shoes. That'll make you more comfortable. And then again, you know, look inside and if you, if you like, you know, the accountability of being places and you like group dynamics, sign up. I also say pick up, pick an event six months down the road and, and sign up, even if it's

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  a 5K. Register and then you're accountable and tell people that you're going to do it so that, you know, on those days when you're feeling up, I'm not going to train today. You know, you've like told these people, you're going to do this thing and, and do it for charity. It makes you even more accountable. If you're raising money for others, now you gotta do it. And that helps fuel you along. I think a statistic that really surprised me from Running USA is that something like 80% of the runners start running to lose weight. And like, something like eighty percent of the current runners run because they enjoy it. So it's, it says to me that a lot of people start running because they want to lose weight.

• 1:38:31Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:38:32Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden, they find that they like running. And so now they lose their weight or they don't, but they keep running. They enjoy the act of running. So just getting someone running, I think is the hardest part.

• 1:38:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that that person who gets into it to lose weight can't imagine that one day they would actually enjoy it. It's just like this thing, like I have to do it in order to take off these extra pounds, but I'm not doing it because it's fun. It's terrible. I absolutely hate it. And it is hard to get in shape running, but once you're in shape running, that's where the fun begins.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  And it's, it's a long process too. Like people, it just, that's the problem. If you could go on one run and the next day it'd be easier, we'd have a lot more runners. But you know, it takes a month before you can actually run a continuous mile, some people. I mean, some people cannot run. I literally say, try to run for one minute. Just set your clock for one minute and run continuous. And they can't make it when they first start out. And then they make it. I say, try three minutes.

• 1:39:30Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  And they make it three minutes. So it's, you know, it's very quantifiable. Like you know, you're making progress. If you just set a time goal and, and do it that way. Cause then you see, I'm moving forward. I ran 10 minutes nonstop today.

• 1:39:42Rich Roll?

  Even if it starts with just walking around the block, you know, I think people think that they don't want to get into it because they don't want to look bad, or they feel like they need to be good at it from the outset. And, you know, we are all natural born runners, but you know, we've been living sedentary lives. And I think it's okay to give people permission, even before they go to the fleet feet and get measured for, you know, the nice pair of shoes, to just put on the Chuck Taylors and the flip flops and like walk around, walk around the block and whatever it is that you have, you really don't need, not only do you not need permission, you don't really need anything other than your body to do it.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  And willpower.

• 1:40:23Rich Roll?

  The willpower.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:24Rich Roll?

  Have you seen this really great new independent movie, Brittany Runs a Marathon?

• 1:40:29Speaker 01

  I've, I saw the, the.

• 1:40:30Rich Roll?

  Did you?

• 1:40:31Speaker 01

  I haven't seen it yet, though. Have you seen it?

• 1:40:33Rich Roll?

  I have.

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  I was dying to see it.

• 1:40:35Rich Roll?

  It's great. The.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  I mean, it's not so much about running, right? I mean.

• 1:40:39Rich Roll?

  It is and it isn't. It's better than the trailer. It's a really great movie. And it is about this woman, Brittany, and how her life has kind of gone sideways. And she gets into running initially, yes, to lose weight, but then, you know, becomes like, she's like, I'm a runner now. And it, and it starts to inform how she makes decisions about her life. So it's really about her regaining control over her life and setting her on a path to respect herself. And the marathon is just a part of that, but it, it, it's, it's like, this is how she evolves.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  I can't wait to see it.

• 1:41:13Rich Roll?

  And it's fantastic.

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  I can't wait to see it.

• 1:41:15Rich Roll?

  My buddy, Utkarsh, plays her love interest in the movie and he's been on the podcast, so that makes it extra special. So for people listening out there.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Like the way you say, her love interest.

• 1:41:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, he's like.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Very clinical.

• 1:41:25Rich Roll?

  Plays like the on again, off again, kind of love interest in the movie. And it's, it's really, it's really well done.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Is he a runner in the movie?

• 1:41:34Rich Roll?

  No, he's not. He's not. He's not. It's a super fun movie. So yeah, you would love it, actually. I think it's great. And I think it would inspire anybody who thinks like, well, I'm not a runner and I can't do that. Like, the whole kind of narrative is about this person who thinks that way as well and proves to herself otherwise.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  I, I applaud the producer, director, everyone in that, because I bet they're going to inspire a lot of people to start running.

• 1:41:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's based on a true story. The writer-director had a roommate when he was living in New York. And it was based on this woman's story and how inspired he was about how she went on this journey for herself. And it took him many years, but now he's made this movie and it's really cool.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:14Rich Roll?

  So, all right.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  Well, bravo.

• 1:42:16Rich Roll?

  Final parting, closing words?

• 1:42:19Rich Roll?

  Inspire me, Dean Karnazes.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must, just never give up.

• 1:42:26Rich Roll?

  That's your mantra, right?

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  That's the go-to. Yeah, I got some others, but that one's always a good one.

• 1:42:31Rich Roll?

  Well, I just, I want to publicly acknowledge you for the amazing example that you set for millions of people. I think the work that you do is truly meaningful. It inspired me. I don't know that I would be sitting here without the path that you blazed ahead of me and the example that you've set for me and the mentorship that you've shown me. So I really appreciate your friendship and your counsel. And it means a lot to me that you would come here today and share your message with everybody. So, thank you.

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

  Well, I'm much more comfortable running with you than sitting here.

• 1:43:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, one of these days, we're gonna get back out and run. How about that? Too much podcasting.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  I'll crew for you at Badwater. How's that?

• 1:43:10Rich Roll?

  Oh, no. No. I have too much respect for that race. That would, that would, that would need, need a major life rearrangement. Maybe when I'm an empty nester.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  Okay, you're on, you're on the record. Don't, don't cut this out, Blake.

• 1:43:26Rich Roll?

  No, it's not getting cut out. All right, thanks. Come back and anytime, come back and share, share with me when you finish your classics degree and when you got the next book.

• 1:43:36Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me, Rich. I appreciate it.

• 1:43:38Rich Roll?

  Peace, Dean.

• 1:43:42Rich Roll?

  Beautiful man, that Dean. Hope you guys enjoyed that. For more on him and his world, check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com and let him know how this one landed for you by sharing your thoughts with him directly on Twitter at Dean Karnazes and on Instagram at Ultramarathon. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the podcast, subscribe, rate, and comment on the show on Apple Podcasts. That really helps new people discover what we're doing here. Tell your friends about your favorite episode, share the show on social media, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and hit that button on Spotify and Google Podcasts as well, wherever you listen to this. And you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com/donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the

• 1:44:25Rich Roll?

  show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, interstitial music, and show notes. Blake Curtis and Margot Lumen for videoing the program. Jessica Miranda for graphics. Ali Rogers for portraits. DK for advertiser relationships. And as always, theme music by Analemma. Appreciate the love, you guys. I will see you back here next week. Until then. Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must. Just never give up. Those are Dean's words, not mine. Peace. Plants. Namaste.