Ep 526 | Born To Run 2 - Return Of The Mac - Christopher McDougall

It's Christopher McDougal coming back. We had to get him guys. So welcome back to well, welcome to, bad Boy Running, and we've just recorded with him. He's as fun as ever. But we go into what I was really surprised. Well, first we go about his move to Hawaii and finding out how he met his wife how he met his wife. Which is really funny. We spoke about that for longer than we probably should have done. But, talking about the second book of free to run, really interesting how he was mentioning so many different aspects of what we're doing wrong in our and running and how you can use the book to actually just ask yourself certain questions to figure out how you can actually make massive jumps in your training. One of the was simply just to think about if you're running fast enough, and he spoke about some training sessions that are crazy doing, for example, hill sprints halfway through a two hour run and the impact of that.

So there was your first run, your first run that's been given to you as a program yeah, as a non runner.

Yeah, and quoting Zalapet, you know he started doing 100 meter sprints to train for the marathon and stuff like that. I mean it's such a good episode as you'd expect, so take it away, Nick.

They're bad, they're boys and occasionally they talk about running. Yes, it's the bad boy running podcast, with your hosts Jody Rainsford and David Heller.

So our next guest. You, of course, know him, and if you don't know him, you know his book. It was the first good running book of the maybe Dekan assets, the second good running book ever created, and it took us 10 years to get him on. And then he ignored us for another few years, and so we've got him. We've got him on a year late, and last time we got him on we didn't even talk about that, but we talked about racing donkeys, and now we're probably going to talk about UTMB. So welcome to the podcast, christopher McDougal.

As we were pointing out, I am interrupting my 24th wedding anniversary to spend it with you guys. You truly are the bad boys.

So if you weren't, if you weren't doing bad boy running podcast, what would the perfect wedding anniversary evening with, with Christopher McDougal in tail, go on?

and give them insight? And would you have? Would your wife have, the same opinion of what the perfect wedding anniversary evening would be?

Well, this is going to be extremely anti climatic and I do not mean that in any funny sort of way, but but a long time ago we started this tradition. So where I am right now in Hawaii, it's actually morning, it's 10am and we had this tradition because we had when we had the kids and they were little. We would drop them off at school and my wife would make this like special, amazing double chocolate cake and we would watch a film and eat chocolate cake before the kids came home from school. Like that was our wedding anniversary for like 20,.

So would you finish the whole cake so the kids wouldn't know there was any cake they come back and they'd be just empty clean kitchen.

Well, when we say, would you in a singular sense yeah, I would do some pretty heavy damage in that cake. My wife would eat a slice and I'm like I got four hours to kill. That's a lot of cake. So I would murder pretty hard.

And then you'd pass out and not be able to make love. Convertation of sugar.

She worked that one really well.

I said it was anti-climactic right.

So you've moved to Hawaii. Is this? Is this running related? Is this just your related joy related? Is this how does, how does one go about making a move to somewhere as far away as Hawaii?

The first smart move I made was marrying a woman from Hawaii. First wrong move she made was marrying me because she was only going to be in Philadelphia where we met for nine months. She was actually kind of engaged to another dude.

He was kind of Kind of Kind of Kind of Kind of. That sounds like someone feels guilty of their actions.

I feel pretty goddamn smug and happy. I'm kind of flexing. I'm flexing like an enemy fighter. Yeah, everything except for the engagement reign to formal announcement. They had planned to marry but he was off in Hong Kong. He's working in the hotel industry. She was a news reporter, so she was only going to spend nine months in Philadelphia doing a news job and then going back to Hawaii, and then he was supposed to rotate back to his hotel job. But we met, started dating, she cut him loose and then, lo and behold, instead of rotating back to Hawaii after nine months, she ended up spending 25 years in Pennsylvania, 20 of those years on a dirt farm in the middle of nowhere with donkeys and sheep and goats.

So can I ask when? When she cut the other guy loose, did she do it in the form of her profession?

What sense?

did she like news just in so and so freshly. Single ex, ex ex fiance set to marry famous writer Wow, and then have to finish with like a nice story at the end but put in other news.

It turns out that a recent dog in Philadelphia has learned to write escapers.

All time video to send some dude your dating. What the f? No, she did. I'll tell you what. What really happened actually happened was after she and I got involved and she's like you know what? I'm going to be upfront, I'm going to let him know. And so she called him up and say this is what's happening. I'm seeing this other guy. He's like give me a day, I'm going to the airport, I'm coming right away. And she told me that this like he's finding for Hong Kong right away. All my instincts would have been to use every second of my disposal to trash, talk this dude into oblivion, like undermine him, sabotage him, talk him down and instead of like okay, you know what, you got to have a conversation. So I did the exact opposite of what every instinct was telling me to do. Realize it, there's no way you can win this. You just got stepped away and luckily, he ended up blowing it. He showed up and got a little domineering and, you know, testosterone on her, and then she just tipped out the door and said I'm done. So it was one of the few times in my life where I said don't be you, be anybody except you and you might have a chance here. Wow.

That's so cool.

How did so? How did you? Did you meet her in the role? Yeah, she was a reporter. What's she? Did she interview you? Is that how?

you met? No, no, I. We had actually worked for the same news agency. We were both reporters for the Associated Press, and I'd worked overseas a bunch, and I had just rotated back to Philadelphia and was working in my hometown Philadelphia bureau, and I didn't like it. You know it's much different working state side than it is working in like conflict areas, so I didn't like it, so I quit, and they actually brought her in to replace me. So she was my new, you know, replacement at this small Philadelphia news bureau, and they brought her in, and she was just going to do nine months working that shift until they found someone full time, and then she would go back to her job in Hawaii. And after I had left, though, and people were telling me hey, this girl came in to replace you from Hawaii. Like that's kind of weird. Like what's she like? She doesn't really like it here, and you know she's not dressed for the weather. It was like February, and in my mind, I'm picturing some like 500 pounds of mulling woman. I don't know why I got this image, but I associated every Hawaiian is looking basically like an overweight Jason Momoa, you know, just like a massive overweight.

Jason Momoa has got a nice eyes, I'll give him that.

You know what you know. I made a spiteful, wrong analogy, like I think I would still go for an overweight Jason Momoa.

That's how I met her.

Yeah. So anyway, in my mind for weeks I'm hearing about this poor girl from Hawaii and I'm envisioning the point where the mental image I created I thought was just reality oh there's poor, 500 pound woman wearing her moomoo. And then, when I met her, like holy shit, like the thing about them. They invited me to a party and because I felt so sorry for her, I brought this little gift that brought her some African music CDs, because they told me, oh yeah, she likes African dance. So I bring these CDs to the party, thinking I'm doing a pity act. And instead I'm really like holy shit, the greatest opening move I ever could have done. And then I did the second smart thing in my life I gave her the CDs and say, hey, I hope you enjoy these. And then I pivoted 180, turned my back to her when it crossed the room with just other friends, and I just stayed away from her the rest of the night and I realized that's the way. That's the way this thing. Open your mouth after this. If you open your mouth after this, you will blow it up because she was so attractive. I knew I was out of my depth and I would have compensated for it by, like, please tell me what you're thinking about. Philadelphia, you know how you had a cheese steak, yet I was just like a manic freak. So I just you have to. Your only chance is by separating yourself from her. You gave her the present, now leave.

But did you think she was? Did you think she was furious at you being dragged away from Hawaii to have to go to Philadelphia to cover someone who's decided to leave, did you? Did you think? Did you think, oh, she's going to be furious, she's going to. She's going to be only if she's going to be 400 pounds. She's going to be angry 400 pounds.

That's right, man, I'm going to find myself in a cage match here, but I'm going to lose. No, she, it wasn't about me. You know. They offered her the job, she took it. She knew it was limited time period. No, I just thought that she was sad and depressed and mopey and I was just doing a wheel. It was one of those times I thought, you know what, dude, do something nice for a team, do something nice without expecting something to return. I was so happy with myself walking to that party, like you know what. You're not going to let this 400 pounds, simone, but give me a goddamn present, man, you know, and I really suck in my mind.

There's a lot. There's a lot, isn't there, about taking the pressure out of that situation by imagining the there's anything wrong with 400 pounds Simone, just in case you've got 400 pounds Simone, she's not coming after us or anything else like that but just take it, taking the, the, the, the, the, the danger out of that situation. Just 100% improved that for you.

It. It's one of those pieces of advice that's invaluable but impossible to enact, because you know if you remove the desire, you're at your best self. But if there's no desire, why are you in the conversation in the first place? You know it's it's losing self-consciousness that lets you be your best, but you're always conscious of the fact. Okay, now I have to relax. You cannot give yourself that word.

So you, you prescribed to the something about Mary methodology of a before the date, just in a clearing, clearing the obstacle to success.

Yes, Absolutely yeah, but although I'm not sure of a physical, I'm sure of a physical release to make any difference. So you know this kind of not to stray back into a topic like running, but this is really the key to success in any kind of race. So let me just dart in with a quick little story and we'll get back to stuff that's completely irrelevant. Again, I was talking to Billy Barnett, who is on the cover of the original born or run. He's the original wild child and he also lives in Hawaii and he and his wife had a baby and they were both taken terms with the baby and they didn't have time to train and they put training and racing out of their mind for that year and they both had the best running year of their lives. And he shows up at the Halloween marathon at age 35 on almost no training and almost wins it. He gets third place overall, smoked. It runs a PR it was like two something and his wife did her PR in the hurt 100 ultra marathon and she finished, I think, fourth, fourth woman, 15th overall. It was crazy and they said spending a year not giving a crap, not caring, showing up at races. We're just there for the smiles gave them the best running of their lives. So it's that tricky sort of Zen conundrum is like you can do your best if you don't care about doing anything at all.

We can retrospectively apply that to everything and say that we say that us not caring. Is that philosophy? David's got a newborn, so maybe that's a training approach that you could possibly take.

I mean the things. I do deeply care. That's the sad thing. I never take that off. I do deeply care. I want to train, I want to be fast, I want to be better and also I need to care to actually train. And that's the issue. If I ended up, I think it works somewhere warm. But if you'll say in London or somewhere crappy in England when it's raining 50% of the year, all dark or cold, then you're not just going to want to go for a run, naturally, and so actually you end up massively unfit if you haven't got that external motivation to train. And so I think it can work somewhere lovely like Hawaii or California, where on a box on boxing day you're slightly hungover, you look out the window and it's sunny and you think I'll just go for a lovely run.

When you look out the window and it's absolutely shitting it down, I think it probably has a different impact on how much you run every day, but I wrestle with that too, Because for 20 years we lived on a small farm in rural Pennsylvania that we heated with a wood stove, so we were taking care of animals. So I constantly had farm chores, I constantly had fire. We'd have to be split and stacked. And then the days were short. The sun's going down at 4.30 in the afternoon and it is coming up at like 6.30. So you have a short window of daylight and I like to run in the afternoon. So usually when I'm done work for the day and ready to go for a run, the sun's already going down and it's getting cold. I'm like, ah, screw this. And I sort of made my peace with it, which was kind of a grizzly bear approach to training. Which is what is a grizzly bear doing in the winter? It just hangs out and gets fat, you know, it just relaxes. And I started to think about a lot of survived subsistence cultures. You know what are farmers doing in the wintertime? They're not trying to grow potatoes because they ain't going to grow, so they spend their time repairing their tools. It's called slopping the fields. They're putting down liquid manure in the fields. What do fishermen do? They're not going to see. They're repairing the nets, and so I had to repair the net. Velocity which is, you know, maybe it's healthy to dial things way back in the wintertime Build up your strength, build up your anticipation, and then, when the weather starts to turn, then you're raring to go. The difficulty, however, though, is when you live in the UK, where you know, like you said, a lot of the year it's not that pleasant. So, but maybe you know and also a lot of the Kenyan marathoners do this too they go back for a month and do nothing, Just sit around and talk, story and eat. So maybe what we need to do is if not for a long amount of time, but just counter in 45 days a year of almost nothing and see if that recharges the battery.

But I think also the Kenyans don't have dominoes and Ben and Jerry's on tap every day with a house. I guess a cupboard full of just pure trans fats and like liquid liquid heart attacks at every turn, and so you know they can go back and they'll eat that I can't remember the name, food, that, the maze like substance that a lot of the runners got Oogali, oogali. Yeah, I mean, maybe they pick out an Oogali, but probably not that much, you suspect.

So it's here. There's only so much you can get down your throat. You know it's. It's. It's a cardio exercise. Just chewing that it's like celery. You lose weight trying to eat it.

Yeah, so what happened to your donkey then? If you, if you've left for for Hawaii, the last time we spoke you were doing donkey running. That was the, the previous book. It was something that I've. I've spoken extensively to people from Salomon about documentaries They've made. I think Courtney Duarte was telling me about it and someone else and yeah, and now no more donkeys.

What was Courtney telling you about? About that Salomon documentary with, like, ryan sands and all running. That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, was she, was she? Was she around for that?

She I'm trying to remember because we one was a cool we were having a call about potentially gets the run show. I, I can't remember she was there in the race or was she. She just knew the stories about it and I was saying go and watch this Documentary. Actually is brilliant.

So before I answer your question, let me fanboy a little bit. I've never met Courtney. I never actually seen her in person, but on Camera she just seems like the best. Is she, like this, the coolest person on the planet?

Yeah, it seems to be. I mean I wouldn't say no that well, but every Everything I've seen of her she just seems to be Courtney. I've never seen a not be Courtney, from what I can tell.

That that point we were making about Succeeding by not caring. I mean, that's the vibe she gives off like. I've never seen a picture where it's almost like she's not expressing like hey, we're all in the same joke, isn't this fucking ridiculous? You know it's. She can be winning UTMB in an aid station and she's rocking up and he's like massive basketball short and again. The smile that she has it's a full-on, like what's going on kind of vibe which distracts me is unbelievable for the level of performance she has.

But I do get the sense that with people like her, killian John Alvin, they very much like being being in the public eye Drains them significantly and so actually Things like UTMB Western States and they're almost racing from the moment they get on the plane because actually being in the public starting to eat away on their energy Whereas other people feed off it. So I think actually they can. They can kind of turn up for a weekend and and just be completely cool and race Because it's just that weekend, and I think they then go back absolutely shattered and and quite quite likely because she's Isn't in Leadville and she and he's up in Norway, and so I think they do need that complete separation from individuals for a long time To recharge their batteries.

Yeah, I'm like that too. I might be the Personality trait that all those having common in attract us to sport. We you were mentioning before the days you ten years to track me down with another year before I agree. Even this morning, I was like sitting my way to God, jesus, there's nothing else, this. And I was like, oh my god anniversary, anniversary, come you can't forget already. Oh no, I'm there. I'm there with that, but like there's nothing else I have to do all day. I don't have to do any chores on any farm stuff, but this one hour of very delightful chatting just seem absolutely unbearable in position upon my life. So I'm kind of like that too. I enjoy it when I'm in it, but then there's something about, I think, an ADHD Shiny object mentality that I just don't want to have to have any scheduled. I'm happy to do stuff and it pops up, but if I have to be scheduled I start the fret. But let me circle back to your original question, and which was what happened to the donkey.

But before that does, does that make it hard to to write a book to a scheduled time?

then yeah, and I learned a lesson Early on. So my my career started off as a Newswire service reporter, which meant working for the AP. I'm covering everything that happens in a zone. So if I'm, I was the AP corresponding Portugal. So if it's soccer, finance, true crime, please be. Anything's happening in Portugal. I'm covering in very small, short news bullets, which is perfect for me because you know I do a story about the crime and I'm done it in an hour. Then I do something about the ascooters dropping in value, and I've done it an hour. So my brain was always all over the place and I loved it. Then, when I shift over to longer articles when I would have to sit down and do the same subject for two or three days at a time or a week, it drove me crazy until I realized that you can just kind of work in all the wins. I don't schedule yourself, just do it when you feel like it. I feel like a translate that the exercise as well. So I'll sit down to work and after now, like this sucks, I'm gonna go for a run. At that point you can't wait to run, no matter what the weather is like, the run just seems like the best thing ever. So go do that and I chore them and putting off like clean the dishes, like now I really want to clean dishes. I don't feel like sitting back down to work again. So you end up getting everything done by making it seem like the least, the least awful option at that moment and everything kind of slides around. So after a run I don't mind sitting down and doing a little bit of work and you know I don't mind washing the dishes. If you know, if I've been waiting for a while and said that's how I learned how to do so with a book, I Realized that my prime time to work was like from 8 pm To about 1 in the morning. So during the day I would just run around like a kid all day, just mess with the animals, you know, shopping for food, doing ever. But then 8 o'clock my energy was starting to go down. But then 8 o'clock my energy will start to sag a little bit. Now we're mind sitting in a chair and then you know, let my brain take over for a while.

Interesting and do you think the the nature of you, because it means you always writing when you're in a very particular mindset. Do you think that sets the tone of what you write? And do you think if you were to say to force yourself to write at 9 am, instead the, you would have written very different text.

Probably there would have been, like you know, an undertone of resentment and yeah for sure. Well, here's, the interesting thing too was I was, um, at a bookstore and I was being introduced before going on stage to speak and the owner of the bookstore Says you know, one thing that characterizes Chris McDougal books is he truly loves the people he's writing about. And as a journals I sort of like Froze for a second, like no, no, no, no, there's no emotion here. I am, you know, clear, a purely a clinician. I'm in here to just tell what's going on, and so I was kind of processing that and then I went on stage. I thought actually I was about to disagree, but I got a circle back to the Greek. What she said is exactly accurate, because I like to think that I'm objective. But you know, out of all the things in the world I've chosen to write about, why wasn't those books? And I think it's because I really like those people on born to run, I am. I genuinely love them. Bear for 10. I Make fun of him more in that book and any human I've ever encountered on her. And yet I genuinely like him a lot and I still see him all the time over the years and he's come to visit me in Pennsylvania with his wife. I visited him in California, lewis Escobar, when Micah True went missing man, I bolted down there. And so I think what has happened is that I've been able to create this scenario where I write about people that I genuinely Like and I can continue our relationship Virtually by writing about them, so at night I I basically can sit down, have a conversation with my friends by writing about them and telling stories about them, and I think it does create An element in the books of of fun, you know. So One of the things I've always been trying to figure out is, like you know, born to run has had kind of an amazing, kind of an amazing Like the book it's kind of funny if you track the sales is selling the same number of copies per week. This week that it's sold 10 years ago it has had a completely steady sales rate. Wow and I Always kind of thought about that. What it was and I think it's because it's one of the few Books about sport it's really the having fun. It's not about, you know, the challenge was hard, but I was harder, you know, was it about being tough? I might, might like was running out of my shoes, was like no man, jen Shelton bombing in margaritas and the dude's bathtub, you know it's so. I think that was it that I was able to write, and then all my books subsequently. I think that tried at the same element of fun and joy.

I mean, I think Jadis books are gonna sell the same amount in 10 years as they do this week as well, for very different reasons.

Yeah, mine aren't about fun at all. Have you ever written about a character and a fallen in love with the character that you've written about as it was then? But you have a very different relationship with that person now and you speak. You still love the character as it was portrayed in one of your books.

Well, I want to say that I did notice a trend that is so predictable now that I anticipated in advance, which is that I've learned that every book that I write, one person is gonna be really pissed and Really pissed off and erupt, and usually it's the person you least expect. And now it's the point where, now that the person I most suspect so whoever I think is Is what I should least expect, now I expect that's gonna be the one, and yeah, and I think the thing about it is, in endurance sports we are Self-actualized. You know we are what we've created of ourselves. You know, in a lot of other sports, sprinters, you know Usain Bolt's a did a lot of work, but he's also six foot six dude with unbelievable fast-twitch muscles. Like you can't make a Usain Bolt. You know he basically showed up good to go. You cannot make a. You know Shaquille, and you can't make a LeBron James. They have physical gifts, but endurance athletes Putting aside the killings and all most of us are what we make of ourselves, and so I think there's a certain amount of control and Pride in what we have created ourselves and that's what we take pride in, and so if you describe an endurance athlete, they can also get very, very pissed off because they say hey, man, I carved myself at a marble dude, you know. And who are you to say that you could carve me out of marble better?

What's? What's the disconnect? What's the disconnect between how they see themselves and how you paint them, would you say?

So I don't really think there is a disconnect and so, but lack of self-awareness on their side. Well, you know, judy, funny, oh sorry, I gotta ask it to your ass. I thought you asked me this from a place of personal experience. What's happened now Three times in a row? So natural born heroes were English sermon and born to run. Before the book would come out, I would give an advanced copy of people that I thought are the principles hey, here's, here's what's gonna be and each time I would just get a Listering message back with like bullet points. You know, you said I was wearing black shorts. They were not black, they were blue gray. I'm not kidding like this kind of stuff. You said it was over. It was not, it was quinoa. You know, it's all these like and I mean, dude, you're a hero in this book like. Hmm to me the book just radiates respect and admiration. And and I'm I think I'll hold you up to the people look at how great this guy is and you're pissed off because I got the color. You're sure it's wrong, or we now you know I got it wrong we disagree about and that's happened over and over again. So the first one was like Mike, a true born ranking. Now he fucking hated it, hated it. But you know who liked it was barefoot Ted. And I said I only said two advanced copies. I said one to Ted and one to Micah, like all right, these guys are gonna Give me piss, but I might as well let them know in advance. I don't want to be surprised. And Micah sent me back to that who do you think you are and Ted's like? Finally, the PhD thesis about myself. I don't have to write this. So One of the things I keep circling back with Ted Ted is a nut man and Anybody who's met Ted will tell me. Now I read born to run and I thought you're exaggerating. And then I met Ted and I thought, no, you kind of. You kind of dial it down a little. Ted is everything double that is in born to run, and yet his heart is so big that he just he rolls with it. He's never been resentful and every time you make a request of Ted, the answer is yes, oh, here's, here's a great one. So Lewis estuar, the guy did all the photographs for born to run. He was recently down the Copper Canyon for another endurance event and Ted called him up and say hey, are you gonna see Manuel Luna While you're down? There is oh, yeah, I'm gonna see him. Oh, great, I'm sending you a box. So Lewis gets this massive box. It's all taped up. What the fuck, dude? I'm already carrying cameras and my own luggage and I got this massive box. So he flies down the Chihuahua and he goes through customs and the guy says Is that your box? He's like yeah, did you pack it yourself? And those are oh, my god, I don't know what's in this box. I don't know what the tell Ted sending there. Yeah, you guys like what is it? He goes Presence, they open and it looks like freezing. What is this? It actually was a ton of beautiful custom material for making handmade sandals. And you're setting it down to Manuel Luna and so it's like leather and leather cores and these Vibram soles, beautiful stuff. And he was allowing Manuel Luna to use this stuff to make these handmade sandals, and then we sell them to the group that Lewis was guiding and they're charged, like you know, 150 dollars, 200 dollars a pair of sandals. And now, well, luna sold like a hundred samples, clearing, you know well, over two thousand dollars. And he said, lewis said to Ted, hey, how much, how much of this is yours? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's all for Manuel Luna. So, unrequested, painting the ass to Lewis. But it was the kind of generosity where Ted Donates two thousand dollars worth of materials to a guy that he only met 15 years ago for a couple hours in the bottom of the canyon.

Wow, what happens then? When Say that you know someone is angry with it, what do you do? Do you just say, oh, it's already so, you know, you should just kind of like fight your corner and then go. But this is it, or what happens? Yeah.

I mean, I Haven't had a moment where I actually felt that I was wrong. It's not that they are disputing the facts, it's disputing the characterization. You know you said this, but it's. You know. Why do you say that? Why don't you tell them this story? And one thing like let's, let's say, for an errand, for instance. There are two things which occasional gunner my skin, which is that People will say oh you, you write about them like they're superhuman. And I'm writing the story from the beginning, not from yet. Well, at the time I first heard of the tabo mata, I went online to research them and the only information I could find made them seem superhuman. So what I'm describing at the beginning of the book is wow, he seemed like these unbelievable super athletes. It seems like they never get sick and they never get old, and it's what I'm trying to express is my own Incredulity at these people. And then, later on, once I'm actually there, I'm able to paint, you know, a more accurate human portrait, but you know, it's just like someone teleking you. But hey, I just saw this a massive shark and I see like a million teeth in your imagination. It's huge. And then you actually see the shark Okay, it's a little bit smaller sister, that you know. It's kind of great skin and so I Will continue to get criticism. People say you say they're super athletes like a.

I'm saying that I went in search of superathletes and found humans and then but do you think the because actually, now to when the book came out, ultra running has so fundamentally changed in the number of people running 100 miles, the number of races are above 100 miles, the number of people who've If done a man who's skipped marathon distance to get to an ultra? I remember when I first read it, ultra runners were still something kind of outside of running. There was awareness these people existed. You knew races happened, but it still seemed Beyond the remark.

I was. I was a god to you pretty much.

Yeah, I Regreted that concept. So in the title yeah, the title is Thank you. What's the subtitle? Born your own, forget, yeah, I'm gonna grab.

Born to run fuck up because it's a.

It's. It's ultra running, super athletes, and it's something super athletes and the greatest race in the world have never seen. In that context, the greatest race the world's ever seen oh yeah, it's a lost the lost tribe, super athletes and the greatest race the world has never seen the lost tribes. In the title model, the super athletes are ultra marathoners and the greatest race is the contest between the two of them. So I'm not referring to the subtle moda as a super athlete, I'm referring to, like the Scott George. So back when I first got on the window this this is like 2002, 2003 I Never heard of hundred mile races. Like little to me was a revelation and so that man people running for marathons in the trail. So looking back, it's kind of like trying to imagine a world before smartphones, like. Yeah, it's only been like really, it's what's it been like 15 years since we've all had these things or less, and yet it seems like we always had them. And it's remarkable to me to think back on the time where I didn't know about ultra marathons.

But yeah, at that time I Didn't know what was going on in, who these people were, and to me they seem like like super athletes and if you, okay, I was just wondering if you've had an insight into Someone younger now who's grown up with alchohol around them reading the book, and how they perceive it.

How they perceive the sport of ultra marathon.

I just wondering because, given that the community's changed so fundamentally, as has the race scene Just what. I'd love to know what your book is like from the perspective of someone reading it new now, having already grown up surrounded by all these ultra runners.

Yeah, it's a good question what I tend to run across when people. Well, one thing is I'm actually not around that many people that often because, you know, I lived in a farm surrounded by Amish farmers for 20 years and now I live in a Surf culture, you know, or most people about the water, so I'm not really in a place now like I'm like running through Chicago or something and see a lot of runners all the time. But when I do bump into people, they're usually excited about the adventure. It's like the adventure that they're really tuned into. It's not the extremes of running, not barefoot running, it's like man. That sounds like really cool. And I Think there are two elements it's kind of in confidence with each other with ultra marathoning and I think it's kind of my perspective. And then, like the David Goggins perspective and it's funny I actually spoke about I think I was on rich roll and I mentioned this and I got this like Furious message from David Goggins beyond silly how dare you? I said well, here's how I dare. You know, his motto is stay hard, be hard, get hard. And I feel like the philosophy, one philosophy in ultra marathoning is hey, if you don't finish the race in the emergency room. Then you, you didn't really try, you know you should be running yourself to a point of kidney failure, and my attitude is actually not like none of this.

You should be drinking yourself to kidney failure. You should be running yourself away from.

The kidney failure happens after the race. Same destination.

Same destination.

Isn't that the challenge with alters, though, and anything of that type of distance, is that with marathons, because you've got a specific distance, all of the, all of the variables of Interest happen within that distance. With ultra marathons is almost as though the distance is getting longer. Therefore, people don't really know how to cut, how to Quantify the sense of achievement or adventure, and so, and then our job which I think is you, as you as an author is, and then us as a podcast is we have to try and find Stories within that that we find of interest, because we'll get loads of people go oh, so it's, those run like 300 mile, 400 miles, or one the length of this country 500 times, and we'll be like, okay, that's, that's great, but actually it is there. Is there a story within that? Is there more of a story within that? And I think that's. I think that's the challenge, isn't it the challenges? That is not. It's kind of not about the distance, and it's not necessarily about the performance. It's like how do you, how, how do we keep this interesting? How do we keep it interesting? And it's and, and I think we, we have that challenge, don't we? In trying to try to find those stories and find it doesn't really matter whether someone ran a hundred miles or 200 miles or the five times the country or whatever. It's like what, what, what specifically was it about them and why they were doing it? That made that interesting, I think, sometimes, especially when you come up with the kind of like the city and a citizen journalist and if I sound strogotry I completely mean it in a derogatory way as well, in the sense that you know they're like. Well, I've done this amount and I've done much more and I've achieved much more. So why are you not listening to my voice more than anyone else's? Because these other persons not as quick as me, not as yeah, hasn't gone as far as me, hasn't achieved as much to me, but they've got a better story and they have a more interesting so and they know how to tell that story. They know how to communicate that story as well. So I just think ultra running is such a it's such a bit of an open-ended, difficult thing to quantify that no one really knows how to gauge achievement in it.

Well, you know it's interesting. So when I was starting born to run, I went to Leadville to interview Ken Clover and he's like a hard rock minor. He's the guy that created the race to save his town. And my opening question was why have you never brought the title of lot of back to race in Leadville? Like every other contest, you bring back the defending champion. He's like I don't care about defending champions, I'm a different shit, like that's not my bread and butter because the top fastest guys they bounce from race to race. He's like my bread and butter is the back of the pack. These are the people that barely finish and they come back year after year. And he told me a story. He's like the Leadville tradition is that the mayor of the town, as the countdown clock is taking off the final seconds of the race before the cutoff, he turns his back away from the finish line so you can't see the finish line, and he holds a shotgun. He just looks at the countdown clock and a second it clicks down to zero. He blows the shotgun and the race is over. So if someone is seven inches from this finish line, they're out. They did not finish. They technically did not finish the race.

So that's the same as comrades. Which one did it first? And do you think one of them? Because they have exactly the same rule where the gun monitor can't see the finish line. Do you think one of them heard the idea from the other? Do you think they are they two independent solutions, or has one copied the other? I mean so which was first? Because I've not heard it about Leadville.

Oh yeah, I would imagine that Leadville got it from comrades If they were educated enough to know about it. So that's the funny thing about it is, these are a bunch of cowboys up in the mountains so in some regards they don't give a shit what anybody else is doing. On the other hand, comrades is way older, so it could be one or two ways. It could have been someone's. Oh, you know what they do with comrades and Leadville would happily borrow anything. They didn't know what they're doing. You know they're putting this thing together, and so someone gave them a good idea like great, let's do that. It sounds awesome. We love guns. We already got a shotgun anyway. What I love about it was Ken was telling me a story about, as a way of proving his point about not caring who wins the race. So this was the year that Tony Kropitschka won Leadville and they were calling him make a guy because he just wore shorts and no shirt and he looked like running Jesus and he was a real kind of a sensation. But the big story that year was there was some old guy who had failed three times in a row to finish Leadville and this was his fourth attempt and he's approaching the finish line and the mayor turns his back and he holds up the gun and this guy's approaching the line and people are going crazy and as the gun goes off he falls across the line just in time and his whole pack of people dive on top of him to congratulate him and Ken goes like from the scrum. This one arm emerges and just holds up a single finger and people just went crazy. And at that moment you're like who won the race? again that story just blew away, and so to me that's my personal preference is I kind of? You know, I lose track of who's fast. Max King and even Killian. I like Killian as a marvel. I'm just not that interesting Killian as a dude. I expect the Terminator to go out and kill everybody. You know, that's what he is To me. That's what's interesting. I love the people. Let me give one more example. A friend of mine is named Chris Solarz and he just sent me a race report. He just swam all the way around Staten Island and it's only been done three times in history, because nobody wants to swim around Staten Island. It's like swimming in a gigantic cesspool. But he sent me this race report and yeah, last time someone did, it was 1957. During my swim. I read a news report the next day. Apparently the severed foot was recovered from the water while I was in it. I don't know where the rest of the body is, and I'm reading this race report. It was very, very hard. It took him like 16 hours of non-stop swimming and nobody cares, no one gives a shit. He's not flexing. Those, to me, are the mess stories. It's like you pick the starting line, you pick the finish line and you just decide. Hey, I wonder if I can do this.

What was his motivation?

He was motivated by two things. One was he was so curious about the last guy who did it. So two people done it and the last guy did it in the 1940s and he's like, who is this guy Like? Why did he do it? Like I have modern equipment, I got gels, I got a boat next to me. How about this guy? You know like who is that? It's like the guys who like thumbeted Everest, you know, back in the 30s, like in their wool and shit. He was intrigued by that person and he goes. I spent most of the swim trying to see the swim through this guy's eyes. And the second reason was Staten Island is so frapped upon, you know, it's considered like the crappiest of the burrows. He's kind of like it's like an underdog story. Yeah, you know what? I'm gonna swim around Staten Island. So that was it. It was his own personal challenge and intrigue and curiosity. That was it. That was the only motivation.

It'd be like seeing the get that guy to come over and swim the Isle of Wight. It would be the equivalent in the UK the kind of islands that's been left behind, where there was a murder 20 years ago and no one cares about it. And yeah, well, we were gonna talk about your new book as well, which last time we had you on, you'd mentioned how you'd always in You'd recently intended to write a book which actually wasn't just about the stories to do with kind of 4 foot running and barefoot running, but actually was more of the how to barefoot run that you felt people had assumed born to run was, and you wanted to basically come out of a journal to help people.

Yeah, and to expose all the charlatans trying to set, trying to try to sell barefoot. Is that right? Is that right?

Exactly right. I'm thinking a walking tour. I'm going now for a copy of the book because I have to say the UK covered to me, so I love both covers. But Our publisher in the UK profile books. They designed all the stuff so we wanted this book to be really visual. I have lots of pictures and graphics and things like that and this is the UK cover. And I always tell people if you're gonna buy a copy, like, get the UK important, isn't that cover?

just I just love it.

It's so freaking cool. There's so much going on.

Are the people that are drawn on the cover based on people and characters you know, or they just chose a selection of individuals?

That's actually a stylized photograph. Those are actually real people.

Ah okay.

So what happened was so I'm actually so in love with this book because of the pictures. Like the pictures. Oh, actually, there you go. That's Billy Barnett's wife, by the way, alex. And then Let me see there's one of Billy. Oh chicken, just get this dude out. I mean this guy's 36. Jesus Christ, billy, you know, give yourself a, grab a body fat once in a while. What happened with this book was I was actually supposed to be writing a different book called King of the Weekend Warriors, and I was writing it as a counter argument to the sort of David Goggins thing about be hard. I'm like no, just be happy. But what I realized was that I wasn't telling stories, I was arguing a point, and it's kind of a crappy way to write a book. That book you were talking about. What if I wrote something at 9am on caffeine? It would have been that pissed off, resentful and pushing back. So I abandoned that project. I thought, well, what is it that people keep asking me for? Which is training advice? I keep telling them I'm not that guy, I'm not the trainer. But I realized, you know what, when Eric Horton started coaching me back in 2004,. He said if you change your approach to running. You will wipe out your injuries and you'll actually have fun. And you'll be running for years and years. And it's suddenly dawned and like, oh you know what man, the odometer has just clicked over on 20 years. I've been 20 years of following his advice and he's right. So I thought let me collaborate with Eric on this book, because people keep asking me. I'll get thousands of requests almost weekly for training. I'm not a coach and I realized something else is that I think too many people separate out their running from the rest of their lives. Like you know, I'm going to eat this food and then I'm going to go run it off, you know, or I'm going to squeeze in this run, I'm going to run as fast as I can. And running doesn't become a craft or an art. It becomes like an antidote for pizza or something. So I wanted to fold in all the aspects of running, like you know pacing and form, and footwear and food all those aspects. So people weren't just wondering what was contributing to their injuries or their dissatisfaction. They would be able to diagnose it themselves. So that became important to run too, and the last thing I wanted to do was I wanted to fill it with photos because I wanted everybody. So this is a random picture I picked up, but this is our friend Zach Friedley, who's an adaptive athlete who runs on a blade. I was kind of hoping like that any person who picked this book up and opened to a random page would see somebody that looked kind of familiar. You know, whatever ethnicity, complexion, gender, whatever you are, you see in this picture badass. So I wanted to fill it with photos. So what we did was, I realized, because of our timeline, we had to do the photos first, otherwise they wouldn't be available in time for the print edition. So you got a bunch of people together before I wrote the book, took the pictures and then actually from the people we gathered because that diverse group I ended up folding a lot of their stories into the book because it became the actual thing that I wanted to write about.

So when you say their stories, is it their stories related to being injured or adapting running styles, or how did you actually thread those in when it's meant to be more of a diagnosis?

look, Well, you know it's funny. I think it gets back to your point about what's more interesting. You know the people from the pack, or the stories, the people who are achieving and the people who are struggling. We put all these athletes together. So I'll give Zach freely. We adapted that. But he was only there for one reason Zach was going to be there because he runs on the blade and he's the only guy that I know who runs on the blade. So that was a phone call. And then he gets there and I noticed that he actually already knows Lewis Escobar, the photographer. So how'd you guys meet? And he starts to tell that story. And then that story itself becomes crazy that Zach wasn't even a runner, he was a wrestler and Blaze never fit in. And he showed up at Lewis Escobar's born to run extravaganza and he knows everyone's having so much fun. He ended up jumping into a 10 mile trail race. He'd never run more than a mile in his life. I'm paving and I'm hearing this story and I'm so enchanted by it. But I'm also realizing that there's so much in his story that applies to everybody, but in different words, everybody who feels like, well, you know, I'm too heavy, I'm too this. I'm too that I'm too old. This guy has got one leg. You know, are you sure you shouldn't be running, because this guy seems to be doing okay, things like that? Or our friend Karma, who is a trans athlete. She's got an eight year streak going and she got inspired by bare footed, which I didn't know about. But I said, hey, you're running sandals. Oh, there's Luna. She's like yeah, why you wear Luna sandals? And then all of a sudden, this whole story about how, as a trans person, she felt very self conscious about going on public to run. But then she read board and run and she sees Ted and she's like right, I got to run around barefoot. He didn't seem to give a shit and it opened up a lack of self consciousness in her. And then she idolizes barefooted. And here's a barefooted story. So at that photo shoot he was in California and I messaged Ted and say, hey, dude, you want to come down and just like, meet some people, hang out. And of course he shows up late, he's talking a mile a minute, he's disruptive as hell, but he makes a hand made pair, a handmade pair of sandals for everybody, no charge. And then he said hey, by the way, if you haven't trouble adjusting your sandals, ask Karma. She knows as much as I do. And the look on Karma's face was like. It was like Superman had just flown down out of the sky and said you are as strong as I am. And it was. It was amazing and it was so cool to watch Karma feel like she just been knighted and this realized that just head off the cuff, he gives this wonderful respect to this woman who idolizes him. So your question was already real people yeah, those are the people we gather and call to him. But then their stories became really illustrative and useful in the book itself.

How do you, how do you decide what the kind of the philosophies by it, because it's very different saying, you know, writing a book saying like this is this is the way that we're supposed to run. You know, this is, this is the natural way. It's supposed to be fun, supposed to be joyful, everything else like that. But then when you're writing something that has a practical application, you are taking people where they are, so you're almost like having to decondition them from running how they were. And so how, how do you, how I mean, they're kind of probably with lots of different approaches of how you're going to do that why did you, how did you go about ensuring that it has that universal application, while also you know answering all the objections and things like that, because I think a lot, of, a lot of running theory books, you know the theory could have been done on probably two sides of a, for the rest of it is just answering objections. So like, yeah, how did you kind of approach that?

That was. That was the key question. That's the reason why I never tackled it before was I don't want to spend 300 pages in an argument, you know. And so what we ended up doing is I spent a lot of time talking about this with Eric Orton, who I think is really kind of a understated genius, and I think he's really right and I think he's got 20 years of a track record that proves he's right. But he's what it comes down to for him. He said look, every movement has a has an approach that's either biomechanically better or worse. You know, if you are diving, if you are swimming, if you are playing a violin, you're either going to perfect the craft or you're going to hack away. There's, there's no two other options. Everything can be improved and there is a biomechanical ideal for everything. And so we go out the door and just ignore running forms at that show. Hey, it's fine, or you can actually refine your form. And again, you watch the top athletes and they are stylists. They're absolute stylists of form. And so what he said was for running form, you can argue about heel striking at the end of time, but the fact is, if you land on your forefoot, you are activating way more reflexive tissue than if you land on your heel. And just there's just just a fact. If you are bending your joints, that is way better than straightening your joints. And then he said um, but look, rather than have the argument. So this is what we came up with. The book is rather than arguing the point, let's come up with physical movements that people can try for themselves and see how you feel. Do you feel better, do you feel worse? And so one of them is we call the rock lobster, which is we're not even going to argue about running form. We're going to say take off your shoes, put rock lobster on your, on your phone for the B 52s, and then stand with your back facing a wall and then pull the song and run in place in your bare feet to rock lobster. Do that and the song lasts about three minutes. At the end of three minutes, do you feel better or do you feel worse? So here's what happens with rock lobster it's at 180 beats per minute, so you're giving that bouncing cadence. When you run in place in your bare feet, you have to land on your forefoot. You can't run in place on your heels, and if your back is to the wall. You can't kick back because your heel will keep hitting the wall. So very quickly you learn to be self-correct you lift your knee as opposed to flicking back your heel, you're landing on your forefoot and your cadence is quick and rhythmic, as opposed to like what most of us are doing, which is kind of stopping our motion and starting our motion and stopping and starting. Instead you're bouncing. So those are the kind of things we do is or for nutrition. We do a thing called the two week test, which is a film off of Tom's old thing that he taught Mark Allen and his original Ironman triathlete monsters. He gave him the two week test. He goes I'm not going to argue about nutrition. Just for two weeks he had all the high glycemic foods out of your diet no posset, no bread, no sugar, no rice, no fruits. Hang them all out, eat a non-glycemic diet for two weeks and then eat a piece of bread and see how you feel. And what you find is you'll understand your body's reactions to food. What I found from the two week test is I can eat one piece of bread, feel fine. If I eat two pieces of bread, I suddenly feel bloated and sluggish and heavy. But in the past I would never know where that reaction was coming from. Now I know it's from the second piece of bread.

Interesting. So is your diet now. I guess almost an Atkins style diet.

Yes, you know it's funny, atkins so many things that were fads that we then dismiss are actually where it's at Cold plunges. Cold plunges have been around forever, but then when the cough comes along, oh yeah, we're not thinking that people are doing 1800s, it works. Atkins diet is pretty much where it's at, exactly. You just said, david, I stray. I'm not a purist, I am no monk. At two o'clock in the morning last night I was eating Hagen Daz ice cream, watching a Chris Rock comedy special. So Dr Atkins does not recommend that, but it seemed like a good choice last night at 2am.

But it's not a famous Chris Rock. Is that the issue?

Or is that?

Atkins wasn't the famous Chris Rock. He's not a famous.

Chris Rock. He's looking at the ice cream. Chris Rock, on the other hand, he had a problem. Anyway, what I find is any food that spikes my blood sugar, the jacks my insulin, I'm going to feel a reaction to it.

And that's why a lot of the super sapiens is. I think the intention of things like that and Zoe, is for people to be able to see that I don't think I could live without my carbs, my toast, my bread. I'm happy at being sluggish. I'm a joyful slug, shall we say.

That's the thing about, though, david. That's fine, but what we're proposing is at least understand what's happening, and that's what most of us have lost. Is that like oh, I feel sluggish, oh, I better have some coffee, or is it because I'm sleepy? We don't understand the diagnostic panel on the dashboard, and what we're doing with Born to Run 2 is listen. If you choose, you want to wear your hoax, wear them, but at least understand what that cushioning is doing. If you make the choice to wear it, at least make a knowledgeable choice. Don't make an ignorant choice because a guy in a store upsold you on a thick piece of foam.

And are there any other unintuitive choices that you think a lot of runners and a lot of people are making?

Yeah, I think the biggest one this is something that Eric Orton pushes a lot of is you got to go fast, to go slow, because most people are terrible slow runners, and you're better off starting with sprints, which again, I really love it when advice has a pedigree, a lineage going back hundreds of years. When Emile Zadopec was training for his first marathon, he started doing 100 meter sprints and people are like dude, it's 26 miles. He's like, yeah, but I thought the point was to go fast. I already know how to go slow, I want to learn how to go fast. But what he did was he tacked together. He wanted his 100 meter form to persist for 26 miles, so what he kept doing was 100 meters rest, 100 meters rest. And Eric said the same thing that if people understand how to run fast, they can then run slowly much more efficiently. But what most of us do is we start slow. People will get faster. You start fast and translate that into slow.

I think it's really is that what you're doing now, David? Like we talked about that, didn't we?

You said that you're focusing on faster and yeah, because I think 80, 20 running has actually been quite damaging for most people, in that it is giving people the almost the excuse to never have to train hard. And actually 20 is still quite a lot if you're doing 80. And actually most people are doing probably 90, 10. And actually they're probably doing 22. And so, yeah, I certainly had tried to focus on more speed work, because it just makes everything else more pleasant and more joyful and it's quicker as well, it's easier to get done, but you feel so much better afterwards, so much better. But yeah, I think you're completely right where, particularly in ultra running, everyone almost fears running fast in any way. It's the secret to everything.

It's fascinating too. So Eric has a theory. He's read some studies but neither one of us know if it's actually accurate that high intensity releases human growth hormone, that it triggers that release of that hormone to superpower and to repair. It's basically sprinting, tells your body. Oh, you know what we're stressing the machine. We're going to flood the body with this restorative compound and so things will happen. You've experienced it yourself. I've gone into speed workouts. So Eric will have a schedule and like a day after a three hour run he's got a speed workout. Like 30 seconds on, you made it off and like what the fuck, this is going to suck. And like you know, my hamstring sore, my knee hurts and I do the speed work and like holy shit, I feel way better after the speed workout than I did after the beforehand, after the long run, and he's like something about it. Man, I don't know if it's the blood flushes out the tissues, if it's the release of hormone, but somehow speed workout is actually a restorative that's going to recover your workout for distance run.

And it's also something that, psychologically, you can always do a short sprint, whereas going into a session thinking I've got to do six miles at six minute mile pace or whatever it may be like oh God, this is going to absolutely kill me. Whereas you go, I've just got to run for 30 seconds. Should I Sure Done?

Yeah, and we know this maniac would do so. The first time, when you first started to train me up and I'm training for the I mean I wasn't even a runner. This is like my first experience doing any kind of training and I was training for the Copper Canyon race and I had barely to matter. But you sent me a workout. It would be like a two hour run and then at the one hour mark you would have me do one minute hill repeats. But what? I can't even run two hours and you're gonna fold in a hill workout which is also a speed workout. But it was genius because what would happen is you start to do this hill repeats and you completely forget about the hour you just ran. You completely reboot your system. You've dialed your form back in, you've kind of flooded your body with serotonin and it's almost like you've rebooted. So instead of doing a two hour mediocre run, you do two pretty good one hour runs. And that speed workout in the middle was magic.

Interesting. Oh wow, I'm actually gonna get your book now. It sounds better than I was expecting. I thought it was about running from.

Well, you know we do address one topic too. So we had these seven Fs. You know, form, focus, footwear, blah, blah blah. But two of them are family and fun. And I said these are like the two. If you think you know, form and footwear are problematic. What do you introduce family and fun to a serious running book? People don't want to hear that. If it's fun, you've discredited yourself. But I feel like as human animals, we evolve to be collaborative and communal, to run as a pack and also to enjoy it. But we would not evolve to do shit that we hate it because we would at some point quit. And I think for a lot of us, even more than worrying about minimalist footwear or four foot striking, we should really be thinking about do we actually enjoy this or do we kind of secretly hate it? And if we secretly hate it, that's the first fix.

I think it's perception, isn't it? I think a lot of people above a certain age. I mean, it's the reason that ultramarathon is popular with parents of children of a certain age, because you can obviously disappear for four or five hours and do it, but you have to give the impression it's hard, because if the partner thinks that you're having fun while you're doing it, that is the worst situation possible. So I think it is fun, but you're not allowed to give the perception that it's fun, because if someone thinks that you're away, not looking after the children, for four or five hours and you're having a nice time, that's gonna be banned in the future.

Yeah, what do you guys know about the running punks? Right?

The running punks. Is that Jimmy? What's Jimmy's surname? Yeah, watkins, jimmy Watkins. In fact, we need to invite him to come on the podcast. Like him for games. Yeah, I sort of speak at.

Love Chas. Oh my God, yeah. But it's funny because, to your point, I think he gave up any pretense that this is hard, he's a maniac, he's just streaching and running. And I think he took as a starting point like, oh screw it, man, I'm just gonna have there and have a party on my feet. So I guess he doesn't have small children back home, that he's got to pretend he's not neglecting. But I just I love his attitude. He's turned into a thing which is actually starting to gather momentum.

Yeah, and his backstory is really great as well. He's a really cool guy. Well, christopher, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And what book is next for you then? Because I know last time we spoke you'd spoken to how you were just trying to find almost communities rather than specific stories. It's finding that passion within a group of people.

Or finding a villain, finding a really big evil type corporation style villain that you can completely blow apart and destroy. And if only there was someone or some organization that began with you and ended with TMB that you could focus on.

You know it's funny. I had a. That's really fascinating. It's funny how we dodged that topic or got distracted from it, because one of the big concerns is, you know what's the old saying, that any movement, any social movement, at some point turns into a racquet or a corporation. And watching the corporatization of ultra running is kind of alarming, particularly, you know, I think I don't know about you guys, but I now stand the divide where I was there at the tail end of the half-astery of it when it was all local and you know Boy Scouts are running the aid stations and now it's clicked over into big business Like, for instance, lifetime sports, bought and led it. All that happened on my watch. It went from being a bunch of local Jibbonis into now a global fitness company. Now owns the race and everyone sees the changes. So it's a good point, although I feel like I feel like I need to step away from running. I feel like I've learned enough about it. Where my opinion is boring, I got nothing else to say. You know, yeah, and also you're wagging.

Do you think you're actually more because you're so involved you no longer see the external story? You actually you're probably thinking, look at the running form and oh well, and you're asking all these little minutia, questions that runners would ask that the members of the public wouldn't care about and also wouldn't be distracted by from the main story.

Yeah, and it's the reason I walked away from that book. So I was calling a king of the weekend warriors this was going to be my Goggins rebuttal and I was actually building it around that guy that I told you, the guy who swam around Staten Island, because he's done a ton of other wacky stuff like that and it's funny, I was actually at UTMB to pace him and he dropped that around mile 60, which shocked me because he was super fit and it was the dissents were just killing his quad. He hadn't expected that. He thought the climbs are gonna be hard and when he decided to bow out I thought he was gonna be crushed. He flew all the way to France. He's gonna do the same. His family was there and he's like hey, you know what, if we hurry up, we can catch my kids. They're like inside of a glacier. Right now there's somebody in the glacier, let's go. And I thought this guy, he ran hard for 60 miles through the night and then he just pivoted Like let's go find some other fun. So I think what it comes down to is I am now the codger on the porch, like you know. Back in my day, you know we did things this way. I don't want to be that guy. So when I'm looking at now I'll give you like a preview I'm actually looking at a book about body surfing. You know, competitive body surfing, which to me feels as raw and kind of undiscovered. It has the same who gives a shit status the ultra running had back in 2002. So Scott George won his seventh Western table. Who gives a shit? No one heard of Scott or Western States. So that's what body surfing is now. It's high level performers that nobody cares about. And do you think that?

now, because of social media, do you think these communities can exist with the same, I guess, separation and maturity? Or is the fact that now everything is so instantly discoverable and can go from anonymous to front page within a week Does it make it harder for actually these communities to ferment and to actually grow in isolation?

I think always it's gonna be the evil and chantress of corporate sponsorship. You know, once people find a way to make money off of it, it's kind of over. And so the lucky thing about body surfing versus surfing surfing you're standing up on the board and your body is fully visible. Body surfing all you see is a head, and so you can't put a label on it. You can't sell the head. You can't sell the head, and so there's almost nothing to sell. I'm just trying to figure out if there's a way of sharing a video. Honestly, can I put it in the chat? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I'm gonna see if this will work. I am crap. Oh, here we go. So I'm gonna show you something which will completely underwhelm you.

But this to me Is it you attempting this? I?

It is. It is me body surfing. I'm gonna say, let me pick up, this will show you what body surfing is. And I can watch this seven second clip for hours repeatedly on loop and be fascinated by it and I pick up all the nuances and I think for most people that I yeah whatever. Move on to the next TikTok.

I think about it is.

Did you share it in?

the chat yeah.

I did, but it's taking a long time to load. I can see it kind of slowly loading here.

Oh, I see you're sharing the video rather than the link, gotcha.

Yeah, maybe I was mistaken. We'll pop that out. All right, let me do it. Let me show you the link while I'm busy wasting everyone's time here.

That's all right. That's why I've got the wonderful editor Nick.

All right, hang on. I think that's something about it. I think that if the community is interested and they don't care about making money and whether anybody shows up and watches, then Then the thing okay, here we go. Okay, that same one. You said that Epic Raw 4K. Oh yeah, that's good. I know that guy Cool. All right, yeah, that's a great one. So when you found, we'll be given one to watch.

And so, to just describe it for the viewer, it's people who are, I guess, using their body like they're sticking their one arm out to create their body into a straight line, as if they're a surfboard, and then they're surfing down the way. It does look quite cool actually. Yeah, have you tried it? That's exactly right. Is it incredibly hard?

So, yeah, I was actually gonna send you a video of myself, of me at that place Point Panic, ride Waves and it is hard in exactly the right way you want it to be hard, which is that it's all about the learning curve, understanding stuff, figuring stuff out which is really what ultra running is is problem solving Problem solving on your feet, figuring out your nutrition, figuring out your pace, figuring out the terrain, figuring out whether you should run in the group or be happier on your own. I think that's what really appeals to people about ultra. In marathons, there aren't that many decisions we made anymore. It's a relatively flat, asphalt surface and you just go from here to there as fast as you can in a straight line. Essentially, trail running is constant variety and it forces you to reconsider over and over again. And that's how I look at my body. Surfing is the way it's coming at you and you're trying to decide the angle of the height, the speed, your position, and there's anybody next to you. It's just a bad idea, probably, is you know? And then you gotta make the move. Then, when you're in the wave, it's the same thing. You're adjusting, you're adjusting your body.

And do you feel it's gonna? Is it extreme enough to? Because part of the interesting stories is almost the with ultra running, for example. It's just how hard it seemed or how far removed it seemed from what's possible. Do you think something like body boarding is? Has it got that level of unworldliness?

Yeah, and I think that was the thing that people liked about running the Sherman or born to run. It takes the sense of the superhuman and then it dials it back to human form. So with born to run, I'm talking about the Scott Jorix, but people in the race are just everyday people like me and Ted and Lewis and I guess where people felt the sense of attachment, they liked it like, oh, there's an everyday guy doing it. That's kind of what we wanted to do with born to run too. We wanted to show everyday people that this is for you too. Eric has this phrase like everybody's born to run, everybody is born to run. And so with body surfing it's similar. There are the streams of performance. There's a guy named Colani Latanzi that body surfs at Nazaré. He's out there in 50, 60 foot waves surfing on his hand, and there are dudes doing a double take. Guys are out there on jet skis telling him to surf and here's something to jaboni swimming out there with a pair of fins and holding his own. So there's that extreme performer like Colani, but most of the people. One of the cool things I like about throwing the point panik is you'll see some absolute monk seal out in the water, some guy doing spins and twists and just taking the biggest waves and he climbs out and he's like a fat 70 year old. How weird. This guy suspends the laws of gravity. So it's a sport that anybody can do really well and you don't know who it is. It's man or woman, what the age they are, where they're on the wave.

How does it take to master, because that looks incredibly hard to do.

It's one of those things, just like running you have those just enough moments of deliciousness that keeps you in the kitchen Like you burn the toast over and over again. And man, one piece turned out pretty good. So I'll get one time. I was out there, out in this one place, and I was actually having a pretty good day. My wife was watching. I was kind of showing off for her I'm riding these waves, and then I completely messed up and I just got hammered, Got my face smashed into sand and I just got out of the water and I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to go home and never come back. Whenever you think you're getting better, you will get humbled really quick, and vice versa, Whenever you think you suck, you'll get a moment of joy, which, again, to me, that's what sport should really be about.

There's something isn't there about not having equipment and just using your body. I don't know what it is. It's sort of like it always feels like it takes the pressure off, like I've been, like trying it for triathlon and just having the addition of like a bloody bike there. It just adds so much more to it and it feels much more of a hassle, more of a drain and everything else, whereas running is just running, whereas you don't have to deal with a surfboard. You don't have to deal with losing the surfboard and then having to collect it back and then to. I suppose it maybe takes something out of it in terms of the pressure, or I don't know. It looks so odd.

Well, it feels like you've conquered the elements, doesn't it?

Yeah. Yeah, you're kind of stripped down, but I think there's something about it. Like, jody, are you wetsuit, wetsuit, swimming?

I'm not wetsuit swimming at the moment, no, I'm barely swimming. I had to learn how to swim in my 40s, basically crawl at number four. So I'm still at that stage.

Yeah, just because you know, I've been to California to body surf and having to wear a wetsuit like oh, if I lived here I would never do this Like having to add a wetsuit to the whole equation. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, really Okay, yeah, oh, wow, okay, that's what I was wondering about whether you're doing this for yourself, and is that serious cheating Is that?

Because there's a little bit of buoyancy with a wetsuit, so okay.

Yeah, no, because because the water is so frigging cold in California, surprisingly, that you need it or you just can't do it. But I don't know. I mean, even with ultra running like now, the equipment has changed so much in the past 15 years and there's what used to be considered extreme is now matter of fact. So I'll see people out on like a 10K run and you're fully like vested up. You know we were talking about this.

The other day, didn't we? We were talking about this like people wearing hydration vests to go out for a 5K or whatever.

Yeah, and it's like they will not go into the woods without all the stuff Like, oh wow, it just seemed like overkill and I think if that were me, I wouldn't want to do it. The more I got to carry it, the less I want to do it.

Yeah, same. Well, I'm going to go and hand over the baby for my wife, so. But thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And also, if people want to buy the book, is there other places that you get more money from each sale?

No man, it's out there free to everybody. Not free to everybody, but same out to everybody. So wherever they can get it, I always push people to independent bookstores because they're awesome. But yeah, yeah, get born on too, which, at the very least, it's got amazing pictures.

Yeah, I mean it does sound fantastic. And when you've written this book about bodyboarding, do letters know about that as well? We're happy to promote it to our listeners. And if you have a question for London, lit me up, because we still got to get that run and that drinking.

Absolutely. And guys, do not wait another year before you get back to me.

Don't keep me waiting anymore Deal deal thanks, christopher, and love to your wife and just give her a happy anniversary. And like get baking that chocolate cake.

All right guys. Thanks so much great talking with you. Cheers, christopher, take care.

Yeah, when he's someone who, when he eventually hit my back, I was like it wouldn't matter if he had something out, if he had anything to talk about. I just quite happily talked to him all day long. Oh, I know absolutely Every week yeah well, I guess that's great isn't it? Yeah, I'm trying to think of some good other episodes to talk about, linked to this. Obviously, the first interview we did with him was great, where we talked about the intention that actually of that interview was to assess the impact of born, to run kind of 10 years on and to see whether the outcome had been or as the intentions had been going in, and what the perceived from our perception was like. Everyone got injured when that book came out and whether he felt that as well or was getting the heat from it which he. The second book is the response to Other stories, if you like, the stories of Tara and Marga, sam Sheward from Ultra X. We spoke to him about putting on a race over there and having I think Jason Slab was racing against a local and him saying that he thought he was possibly the in that race, the best runner on earth, the local guy and how he. It just was just incredible. So that was really good. Whatever stories would you say, linked to this one, we've had Barefoot Tony, who has run the coastal path completely barefoot. He was amazing and also speaking quite a lot about spirituality and potentially trips. I can't remember exactly what it was. It was something fruity in there.

That's quite a recall. I don't know it's funny. I always put I put our chats with Chris in with any of those episodes where we've got someone on we've heard of some historical character has done something weird and someone's an expert at it, and they've come and they've spoken to us about this like weird, unusual character, you know, like was it. Was it? Yeah?

It was the guy, the Canadian guy. He ran all the way across Canada to do a 24 hour race, won it and then ran all the way back again, or something.

Yeah, exactly. And what was it? Was it the 1911 Olympics or the 1907 Olympics or something like that? That was filled with just it was like the most ridiculous, ridiculous races and stuff like that. It's just such a good storyteller, he knows just exactly, he just gets the kernel of the story straight away. But I was just I'm not sure I'd say that you know body boarding and there's no way, there's no way you can monetize that. And I'm like Iron man is watching carefully, watching, carefully, thinking I think we could definitely ruin this sport. We could definitely ruin this sport.

How can we make this sport more sexist? Absolutely.

How can we?

make it more sexist. So any, who, any, that's what you think, guys. If you've got suggestions for future guests, message me, david, at badboyrundercom, or ping us on.

Instagram. Oh, and if there's any guests that we've had on before, you think, oh, let's get them back on, that'll be great. You know we're over 500 now, so there's probably a few that we said we'd definitely get back on that we've probably forgotten about. Yeah, absolutely, there's probably a whole bunch of them that we would say, you know, they'll be great to come back on as well and, to be frank, we need them.

Fantastic for seeing us, though.

Bit of bye bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Bit of bye bye, bye, bye, bye, bye bye bye.

Bit of bye bye bye bye bye bye. Bit of bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye. Bit of bye bye bye bye bye bye bye, bye bye. Bit of bye bye bye bye bye, bye, bye. I must admit I was a clown to be messing around, but that doesn't mean that you have to leave town. Come back, yes, and give me one more try, Cause I love like this. Should I never, ever die? Come back, fuck you, buddy.