Speaker 1: Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I am Tom Holland, and this is Fitness Disrupted. As
Speaker 1: I stand here doing this podcast, as I do, I
Speaker 1: don't sit. I stand in my studio. I am really
Speaker 1: sore walking up the two flights of stairs to my studio.
Speaker 1: It's painful, painful in a good way. That good sore
Speaker 1: that anyone who's done a hard event, hard hard workout
Speaker 1: knows what I'm talking about. My quads or shredded as
Speaker 1: I like to say. And going downstairs, I'm doing it sideways.
Speaker 1: And I've been doing that for a couple of days now,
Speaker 1: because it is Tuesday. And on Saturday, I did my
Speaker 1: second Grand Canyon Run, second run across the Grand Canyon
Speaker 1: and back with a little change. As I will tell you,
Speaker 1: and some of you may have listened to my first
Speaker 1: podcast about doing my first Grand Canyon run, known as
Speaker 1: the Rim to Rim to Rim. So you run across
Speaker 1: up to the top, then you run back down and
Speaker 1: back to the other side, and that was incredibly special.
Speaker 1: The event and the podcast came back a day earlier
Speaker 1: than I did for this one, and I recorded that
Speaker 1: podcast right away, and I did the same for this one,
Speaker 1: but I'm a day at an extra day that we
Speaker 1: built in just in case the weather went a little
Speaker 1: wonky and we needed to move the run forward today
Speaker 1: back a day, whichever way you look at it. But
Speaker 1: that's what today's podcast is about. I'm feeling beaten up.
Speaker 1: It's so good. I warn you, I'm still mentally out
Speaker 1: of it because it's it beats you up psychologically as
Speaker 1: well as physically. But another one of the most incredible
Speaker 1: experiences I've ever had, and that's what I'm all about,
Speaker 1: is collecting experiences and connecting all of it to everything
Speaker 1: that I talked about here on Fitness Disrupted, living our
Speaker 1: best lives, being healthy, controlling what we can and there's
Speaker 1: so many different topics that I've already talked about, but
Speaker 1: I will hit on in this podcast as well. The
Speaker 1: biophilia hypothesis did a fit tip about that hydration. All
Speaker 1: of that stuff goes into what I just did. And
Speaker 1: that's the final thing too. You know, when I first
Speaker 1: started in this industry, So these are the ways I'm
Speaker 1: going to separate myself. The education, the experience, and walking
Speaker 1: the walk. I'm fifty three people. The guy ran with right,
Speaker 1: and then I say ran with, traveled with, started with
Speaker 1: and a phenomenal ultra runner, really smart. He's the one
Speaker 1: who does all the logistics for these runs that we've
Speaker 1: done now twice. Because I just like to do these things.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big one for the specifics the details.
Speaker 1: He is. And so that's what today's podcast is about
Speaker 1: to tell you all about, basically my race report, even
Speaker 1: though it's not a race, and that's a really important
Speaker 1: part of this experience is that a race. It's not organized.
Speaker 1: We chose to do this on our own, as others
Speaker 1: do as well, and there was no official start line
Speaker 1: or start time or finish line. There's nothing to compare
Speaker 1: to it, and that's what makes it so awesome. All right.
Speaker 1: So this podcast, hope weeks like all the others, but
Speaker 1: in a very specific way, hopefully entertains you, educate you
Speaker 1: as well. You can learn from my successes as well
Speaker 1: as my lessons learned, not failures, lessons learned and I
Speaker 1: never stopped learning. Those of you who are runners at
Speaker 1: whatever level can learn a lot from my successes and
Speaker 1: my lessons learned. And for those of you who don't run,
Speaker 1: hopefully it can be inspired to challenge yourself. Podcast I
Speaker 1: just released I think it was last week on why
Speaker 1: you Need a Missaggi. This was one of my miss
Speaker 1: Aggies for this year. Challenge. All right, quick break, when
Speaker 1: we come back my Grand Canyon Run race report, Take two.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, and we are back talking about
Speaker 1: my very recent Grand Canyon run, so recent that it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a little it's a little hard to stand
Speaker 1: right here and do this, but it's going down the
Speaker 1: stairs that's the challenge, right, Even the up not as
Speaker 1: bad as the down, And anyone who's run run uphill
Speaker 1: downhill realizes that, right, And there's a scientific reason for that.
Speaker 1: I've talked about that the east centric contractions of your
Speaker 1: muscles going downhill, your quads are essentially breaking, you know,
Speaker 1: the breaks for your legs, and that beats the heck
Speaker 1: out of your body. And that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: this run is so challenging because it's like running into
Speaker 1: a bowl. Right you started, Depending on where you start,
Speaker 1: let's say seven thousand feet, you drop down thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of feet right away, so downhill then you go flat.
Speaker 1: So let's call it to make it simple. Seven miles downhill,
Speaker 1: seven eight nine miles across depending on what route you take,
Speaker 1: and then seven or eight back up, and then you
Speaker 1: do it again, you go back and so that again.
Speaker 1: For those of you who didn't listen to the original podcast,
Speaker 1: have no idea what I'm talking about. You go to
Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon and there's a handful of people who
Speaker 1: have a bucket list challenge goal of running in the
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon, and there's many ways to do it. There's
Speaker 1: a Rim to Rim where you just run across and
Speaker 1: I say, just let me take the word just out
Speaker 1: of there, So anywhere from to about twenty four miles.
Speaker 1: There's two main trails. The Bright Angel which is the
Speaker 1: one I did last time, and that's a little longer
Speaker 1: twenty four miles across, but a little less crazy on
Speaker 1: the down as a result, so longer miles and less
Speaker 1: steep incline as a result. But the one I did
Speaker 1: this time was the South Kaibab, which is three miles
Speaker 1: shorter across, but a faster ascent and descent. So catch
Speaker 1: twenty two right. So many people their goal is to
Speaker 1: do the Rim to Rim and you can hike that.
Speaker 1: It can take about a day for most people if
Speaker 1: you're walking, and then they have a bus I've never
Speaker 1: done it this way, but they have a bus supposedly
Speaker 1: that you can time it perfectly, and then you have
Speaker 1: to go back. I think it takes I don't know,
Speaker 1: four or five six hours or something like that to
Speaker 1: get back around. But that's what some people do, the
Speaker 1: Rim to Rim and then you can do the full
Speaker 1: Rim to Rim to Rim, and there's people who do more,
Speaker 1: by the way, but those are generally the two. They're
Speaker 1: now called the R three and the R five I
Speaker 1: just found out, which is easier to say than the
Speaker 1: R two, R two R. But if you take the
Speaker 1: Bright Angel Trail four miles across back forty total, that's
Speaker 1: what I did last time, and it was insanely amazing.
Speaker 1: I've done so many races around the world in so
Speaker 1: many different formats, from triathlons to running races, to adventure
Speaker 1: races and now these ultra marathons. Some of the ultramarathons
Speaker 1: are organized. This is not there's just people who show up.
Speaker 1: You get out there, you travel out. We flew from
Speaker 1: the East coast to Phoenix, drove three and a half
Speaker 1: hours hotel room, did that on Friday, got up Saturday
Speaker 1: morning and ran and there was a handful of other
Speaker 1: people there with us, and that's just kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: When you start doing things like this. As you meet
Speaker 1: other people who do it, like marathoners, will experience that
Speaker 1: whatever your sport is, triathlons, whatever you're you're specific, that's
Speaker 1: just my world. And then you start to think that
Speaker 1: it's normal that everyone's doing it, and you realize no,
Speaker 1: but there's other people who are doing this as well.
Speaker 1: Generally they do it in groups of like two to four.
Speaker 1: The person I travel with again is faster than I,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to make him wait for me.
Speaker 1: His goal is to go fast, wants to see how
Speaker 1: fast he can do it. So we start together and
Speaker 1: that's pretty much it. We see each other as he
Speaker 1: passes me coming back, and then we see each other
Speaker 1: at the finish. So many people think it's a race,
Speaker 1: it's not. Many people think that we are running together.
Speaker 1: We are not. And that's important because even though there's
Speaker 1: other people scattered on the trail, you may not see
Speaker 1: a person for hours, and I will talk about what
Speaker 1: happens because it did if you run into trouble. And
Speaker 1: so this is a solo run for me and for him,
Speaker 1: and that makes it so incredibly special because it's so
Speaker 1: challenging mentally and physically to think you're gonna be out
Speaker 1: there in the Grand Canyon by yourself running across and back,
Speaker 1: and it scares the heck out of you. And that's
Speaker 1: what makes it so amazing. I'm just gonna abuse those
Speaker 1: two words over and over. It's amazing incredible, all right.
Speaker 1: So now you get the general idea, hopefully if you
Speaker 1: didn't know what the rim to rim to Rim is,
Speaker 1: and now'll give you a specifics. So, like I said,
Speaker 1: we flew out Friday early Friday morning. He's got the
Speaker 1: you know, five six hour flight. But the great thing
Speaker 1: is as you fly west, you get the time is
Speaker 1: on your side, especially when you cut it that close,
Speaker 1: and that's what works out really well for us. So, kid,
Speaker 1: did we get into town. I think we got an
Speaker 1: earlier sometime in the afternoon on Friday afternoon and checked
Speaker 1: into the same hotel right outside the canyon. It's real
Speaker 1: tough to get hotel rooms. Uh. The guy I run
Speaker 1: with does all the the booking of everything, so he's
Speaker 1: telling me, like the ones in the park like crazy,
Speaker 1: and we saw so many tours when we did this
Speaker 1: last it was during COVID and so there were no tourists.
Speaker 1: Foreign tourists couldn't come, and now was filled. You know,
Speaker 1: you heard French and Spanish and Italian everywhere, which is
Speaker 1: very cool. So stayed in the actually did two hotels
Speaker 1: last time, but we stayed in the same one we
Speaker 1: started in last time, which is just outside the canyon.
Speaker 1: Went to the same restaurant, got the same plane pasta.
Speaker 1: I had a huge, um, huge dish of spaghetti and
Speaker 1: meatballs and bread. Keeping it simple. Loading up on the carbs. Yes,
Speaker 1: you have to go into these events with your fuel
Speaker 1: tank at the top. And I actually for the couple
Speaker 1: of days prior eight a heck of a lot more carbs.
Speaker 1: So there you go. For those of you who are
Speaker 1: endurance athletes, runners, whatever your sport is, if you're exercising
Speaker 1: for a long period of time, yes you still carve up.
Speaker 1: You need to make sure that your energy stores are
Speaker 1: topped off. Carbs are our friend, especially if you're doing
Speaker 1: something like running all day. And so I did what
Speaker 1: we did last time. I stuck with what worked right,
Speaker 1: same hotel, same dinner. Uh. And then the beautiful thing
Speaker 1: again with the time change, is we tried to get
Speaker 1: we did get to bed super early because we were
Speaker 1: getting up three am. Three fifteen am. All right, So
Speaker 1: what I did the night before is always important, right
Speaker 1: on so many levels. So eight dinner, went back to
Speaker 1: the hotel basically said to the to Bill that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, CEO, what time you want to start? He's
Speaker 1: always making the executive decisions with all that stuff, so
Speaker 1: he said, you know, out the door at four am.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, good to go. And that
Speaker 1: meant getting up around three fifteen to make sure I
Speaker 1: could get everything done that I needed to. It's a
Speaker 1: little more time than I need, but something inevitably goes wrong, right,
Speaker 1: So forty five minutes pretty perfect for me, especially to
Speaker 1: eat something because that's important too. Even though you carve
Speaker 1: up the night before, the breakfast is super important for
Speaker 1: many people. This is so highly individualized, and that will
Speaker 1: also be a theme of the show and all shows. Right,
Speaker 1: But when it comes to nutrition, super individualized doesn't mean
Speaker 1: a carb is not a carb and protein isn't uh,
Speaker 1: it doesn't do what it does. But we all experiment
Speaker 1: with different things and see what works for us and
Speaker 1: then we stick with it. But carbs, by and large people,
Speaker 1: regardless of the new stuff you here is what you
Speaker 1: want to fuel up your body with. Alright, So back
Speaker 1: from dinner and then it's preparing. So I want everything
Speaker 1: as prepared as ready to go. So I wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning and I can't forget anything. Really, everything
Speaker 1: I can do the night before, I do everything. So
Speaker 1: that includes packing a ridiculous pack. Right, and if you
Speaker 1: want to see that, I put yes on my Instagram
Speaker 1: account Tom h Fit. You can see so much of this.
Speaker 1: I will remind you at the end. Um, you can
Speaker 1: see what I packed the night before. Took a picture
Speaker 1: of that on the the bed, two beds and the
Speaker 1: other bed. I just use as my staging area for
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. Be there's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's not a race. There are no aid stations. That's
Speaker 1: frightening to someone like me who has spent decades doing
Speaker 1: marathons and uh, you know iron Man triathlons where you're
Speaker 1: paying a lot of money to have it totally supported
Speaker 1: all the sports, drink and fuel you want at the
Speaker 1: perfect spaced intervals. Iron Man, the brand generally does it phenomenally.
Speaker 1: You know, every hour on the bike, basically you're gonna
Speaker 1: hit another aid station. And during the run. You know,
Speaker 1: it's every couple of miles, not even and so for
Speaker 1: this you gotta bring everything. You gotta bring everything. And
Speaker 1: also there's no dropping out. In order to drop out,
Speaker 1: what do you do? You know, if you're on the race,
Speaker 1: and some of these races are multiple loops, many people,
Speaker 1: if they're having issues, they drop out after a first
Speaker 1: loop or second loop or first leg, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: You can't do that here. So that's what makes this
Speaker 1: so unique. And I need unique by the way I
Speaker 1: collect experience is and it's rare for me to repeat
Speaker 1: certain things. But that's why this was different from the
Speaker 1: get go. We weren't going to do the Bright Angel Trail.
Speaker 1: We were going to do the South Kaipop, which is
Speaker 1: twenty one miles across, a little shorter, a lot steeper
Speaker 1: at the start, and then it hooks up with what
Speaker 1: we have done before, so you basically start differently and
Speaker 1: then you end up on the same trail to go
Speaker 1: up the to the North Rim and then back down.
Speaker 1: So packing food and hydration and what I have after
Speaker 1: getting into this couple of years ago. The Ultra Marathon
Speaker 1: is the longer distance events is a running vest and
Speaker 1: that's got to carry everything people, and these are phenomenal.
Speaker 1: And I remember back in the day when I would
Speaker 1: see people with even the belts, even the handheld I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, that must be so so much of
Speaker 1: a pain, you know, heavy to carry. Let's not feel good.
Speaker 1: These vests are amazing at holding what you need to. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's weight to them, but they don't bounce around. And
Speaker 1: I couldn't possibly do it without it. Because I was
Speaker 1: loading in just over five thousand calories of fuel and
Speaker 1: that was gels that was semi solid blocks is what
Speaker 1: they're called. So gels. I had about fifteen gels and
Speaker 1: that's a hundred calories apiece. I had blocks I was
Speaker 1: going to try to avoid brand names wherever I can
Speaker 1: um and that was about two hundred calories. I think
Speaker 1: it's six of those, so six by two hundred. And
Speaker 1: then I had a sports drink powder, which is essential
Speaker 1: not just for calories, but more for the sodium the electrolytes,
Speaker 1: and I'll get back to that. Had six packets of those,
Speaker 1: so that's another twelve hundred calories because about a hundred
Speaker 1: per serving in each pack. And then I had some bars,
Speaker 1: six bars at two fifty so those bars were like
Speaker 1: the most workally dense thing I had. I prefer fluid first,
Speaker 1: gels second, and solid third. And that's most people. Your body,
Speaker 1: especially when you're running, but when it's exercising, doesn't want
Speaker 1: to have to digest stuff. And that's why it's so individual,
Speaker 1: and that's why you have to experiment, and that's why
Speaker 1: it keeps changing. Just when you think you've figured out
Speaker 1: your nutrition plan, it might not work, and that it's
Speaker 1: because of a variety of factors, including the heat and
Speaker 1: many other things. So you never quite figured out. You
Speaker 1: come close, and you get really better at it. But
Speaker 1: I was starting with five thousand calories. And let me
Speaker 1: give you a last little math. I'm not a big
Speaker 1: math person, but this is where it's crucial, and I
Speaker 1: love that. Actually, my son had a math project where
Speaker 1: he said he had to ask interview someone about how
Speaker 1: they use math in their daily lives, and this was
Speaker 1: one the example I gave. And so for me, it's
Speaker 1: I need flee three hundred calories per hour and this
Speaker 1: run can take gosh, I wasn't gonna do it in
Speaker 1: twelve but let's say twelve to seventeen hours. And if
Speaker 1: you slow down and you're you know, taking breaks and
Speaker 1: things like that, you know, quick bathroom breaks and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And this is it's not a race. You
Speaker 1: can't go too fast. I mean there are people that
Speaker 1: do obviously, But I had extra fuel just in case,
Speaker 1: and that's really important because you want to run out
Speaker 1: of fuel as I did. Uh so five thousand calories
Speaker 1: and then I have so much. I had a head lamp,
Speaker 1: which I had to start with because we started in
Speaker 1: the dark. I have extra batteries, super important in case,
Speaker 1: you know, you finished in the dark, which I did
Speaker 1: last time. Spent three or four hours in the dark
Speaker 1: last time, finishing poles, running poles, which I had never
Speaker 1: used before the first Grand Canyon run. I definitely needed
Speaker 1: for this one, and I would never do this without them.
Speaker 1: But let me say this, all used them the first time,
Speaker 1: didn't use them this second time, and that blew me
Speaker 1: away because coming out of the canyon and even going
Speaker 1: downhill sometimes they saved my life and I can't imagine
Speaker 1: climbing out without them. But different things work for different people,
Speaker 1: and that is such an important part of this whole show,
Speaker 1: not just this episode Fitness Disrupted in general. I give
Speaker 1: you things that are based on science. I give you
Speaker 1: things that I have tried as an experiment of one.
Speaker 1: I will tell you what's worked for clients over the years,
Speaker 1: and then you figure out what works for you. I
Speaker 1: carried poles. Bill didn't. At the end, I said, are
Speaker 1: you sad that you didn't bring them? He goes no,
Speaker 1: I said, I could not have done it without it.
Speaker 1: So that is just one example of you do what
Speaker 1: works for you. You'll mean people say, oh, no, you
Speaker 1: have to do this, and fitness, you have to wear
Speaker 1: these shoes, you have to do this. Oh you have
Speaker 1: a foot pain, you have to get inserts. No, might
Speaker 1: work many many layers to all this stuff. All right,
Speaker 1: all right, quick break, when we come back, let's just
Speaker 1: get into it. Let's get into the run. All right,
Speaker 1: quick break. When we come back, am getting up four am,
Speaker 1: hitting the trail, we'll be right back, and we are
Speaker 1: back talking about my grand Canyon run. I'm still a
Speaker 1: little out of it, as I said in the intro,
Speaker 1: takes a while to recover, not just physically but mentally.
Speaker 1: It's scruling and and the psychological part is it's more
Speaker 1: of what I do it for than the physical. And
Speaker 1: anyone who's done something like this, and at any level,
Speaker 1: whatever challenges you mentally and physically knows what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: And when you start something like this and you finish
Speaker 1: something like this, you're a different person. Then that's why
Speaker 1: I challenge you to do something like this, And that's
Speaker 1: why I really don't like the diets and the programs
Speaker 1: that make you feel bad about yourself because you did
Speaker 1: what they said to do and you didn't get the
Speaker 1: long term results you were promised. We'll get back to that,
Speaker 1: all right. So I went through most of I think
Speaker 1: I'm forgetting anything. Uh well, A lot of people ask
Speaker 1: how you carry the fluid. So I have to sixteen
Speaker 1: ounce soft bottle soft flasks that sit on my chest
Speaker 1: and they have these great little tubes that come off them,
Speaker 1: So you just put pop that tube in your mouth,
Speaker 1: right chest, left chest, and you've got sixteen ounces on
Speaker 1: either side. Behind me, I have a huge reservoir for fluid.
Speaker 1: I didn't fill that up, and I'll tell you why
Speaker 1: in a second. I did the last time, and that
Speaker 1: made the pack really really heavy. But for this run,
Speaker 1: there are two stops to um what do you want
Speaker 1: to call them? They're not aid stations, but they're stations
Speaker 1: along the way. First ones about seven and a half
Speaker 1: miles where there's water Phantom Ranch, and then eight and
Speaker 1: a half miles after that there's a place called Manzanita.
Speaker 1: When you take the South Kaibab Trail. Actually when you
Speaker 1: take both, it's just the starts a little different. And
Speaker 1: so that's where you fill up, refill with your water
Speaker 1: and with my sports powder. I would mix the powder
Speaker 1: in with the water, and I started with the sports drink.
Speaker 1: I choose sports drink over water until I can't, until
Speaker 1: I can't literally stomach it anymore. Because the sports drink
Speaker 1: is giving me fluid, It's giving me energy through the sugar. People,
Speaker 1: the sugar is good for this. This is what it's for.
Speaker 1: And the electrolytes the salt, which is crucial to me.
Speaker 1: All right, And so I started with the two chest
Speaker 1: ones filled and then I knew that I would refill
Speaker 1: in seven and a half miles. All right, cut to
Speaker 1: the chase now, right, So am get up good to go.
Speaker 1: I brought oatmeal with me the night before. I put
Speaker 1: it in a cup. I have to do nothing other
Speaker 1: than things that I couldn't do the night before. So
Speaker 1: the oatmeal brought it with me. Plain oatmeal, super simple,
Speaker 1: slow releasing carbohydrates, easy on my stomach, and I throw
Speaker 1: water in it. I throw it in the microwave for
Speaker 1: one minute in the hotel room. Boom done. I've been
Speaker 1: at places where there is no microwave, so what do
Speaker 1: you do? Use the coffee maker, put water in, no coffee,
Speaker 1: heated up, boom. And there's been times where they didn't
Speaker 1: have that, and I just did it cold. Not a
Speaker 1: big deal. Many people aren't fans. But it's just fuel.
Speaker 1: It's just fuel, all right. So did that and then
Speaker 1: I coded myself. This is important because chaffing, as I
Speaker 1: wrote about uh in both of my you know, the
Speaker 1: Marathon Method book in the Twelve Weeks Tray Athlete, chafing
Speaker 1: is an endurance athletes worst enemy, right. You get those
Speaker 1: blisters and they just haunt you, especially if they come
Speaker 1: on early enough an event like this or you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: in an event like this, even though to not an
Speaker 1: event per se, but you don't want that to happen.
Speaker 1: So over time you realize where your hot points are.
Speaker 1: You know, last time I had major chafing right underneath
Speaker 1: my horry monitor band, right in the middle of my chest.
Speaker 1: And I know that women often get that from coaching
Speaker 1: them years ago. I should have kind of thought about
Speaker 1: that with sports bras and stuff during marathons and events
Speaker 1: like that. So I coded myself my toes, outside of
Speaker 1: my toes especially, and other spots on my body, even
Speaker 1: upper body where my arms swing and things like that.
Speaker 1: Why don't I tell you this because, as I will
Speaker 1: say shortly, I had no chafing. That's unheard of for me.
Speaker 1: So I'm getting better at that. We learn over time.
Speaker 1: Experience teaches us so much. Okay, all right, good do
Speaker 1: my oatmeal. Put everything on my water bottles by the way,
Speaker 1: with the sports drink already done, I just have to
Speaker 1: put them in the pack. So every single thing I
Speaker 1: could do the night before I did, because I've forgotten things.
Speaker 1: You get up, it's three o'clock in the morning, granted
Speaker 1: at six am back home, and I'm only a day
Speaker 1: into traveling. But to every single thing the night before
Speaker 1: you can. It goes for just about everything, all right.
Speaker 1: This goes for getting up early to work out. I
Speaker 1: did that podcast. Your brain knows when the alarm goes off.
Speaker 1: If you're just able to pop up and you've laid
Speaker 1: out your clothes and your sneakers and whatever else you need,
Speaker 1: and you're that much more likely to do it and
Speaker 1: not hit snooze. All right, So I got everything ready,
Speaker 1: got out to the car, jumped in, drove just a
Speaker 1: couple of miles pitch dark, and part we had to
Speaker 1: walk because Grand Canon a little tricky on parking and
Speaker 1: things like that. So walked a couple of miles to
Speaker 1: the start, headlamps lighting our way and by the way,
Speaker 1: what info here? Don't want to bore you with too
Speaker 1: much of it. Degrees at the start, which freaked me
Speaker 1: out because I did look the night before and actually
Speaker 1: got backtrack, sorry skipping around still a little out of
Speaker 1: it really important the night before, how did I prepare? Also,
Speaker 1: I had my pack totally done. I got like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to bed at about was my goal,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what, I'm gonna watch a
Speaker 1: video because everything is out there. People. This is so important,
Speaker 1: so many levels as well, because I had never run
Speaker 1: the South Kaibab trail before, and Bill and I start together,
Speaker 1: but I have no sense of direction, as I talked
Speaker 1: about in the last Grand Canyon Run podcast, and he
Speaker 1: does so sure enough, I google South kaibab Rim to
Speaker 1: Rim to Rim run videos and I watched a couple
Speaker 1: and they're amazing. People brought go pros with them, edited together,
Speaker 1: narrated it, and so now I see where I need
Speaker 1: to make turns and things like that, what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: experience that I didn't experience last time, and that is
Speaker 1: really mentally helpful. The day of and when I got
Speaker 1: to those spots that I had never been to before,
Speaker 1: many times in the dark, I've already seen it, I
Speaker 1: knew what to do. So we have so much available
Speaker 1: to us thanks to technology. I mean, how many times
Speaker 1: have I talked about that, fitness tech, all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, And so I took advantage of that and
Speaker 1: I felt better about the directions and knowing where to go.
Speaker 1: But let me say this, it also freaked me out.
Speaker 1: It freaked me out. A lot shows all about me
Speaker 1: being as honest as possible, and I've done a lot
Speaker 1: of races. I've already done a lot of events, and
Speaker 1: I did this one time prior and this was to
Speaker 1: be shorter instead of but it freaked me out because
Speaker 1: running in the dark isn't my favorite thing with a
Speaker 1: head lamp on, and if anyone has seen what it
Speaker 1: looks like at the Grand Canyon when you're dropping in
Speaker 1: their cliffs where you fall two ft or more or more,
Speaker 1: and they're narrow. It's challenging, to say the least. And
Speaker 1: so even though I watched those videos and felt good
Speaker 1: about navigating, I actually sat there the night before, right
Speaker 1: before I went to bed, and thought, maybe I won't
Speaker 1: do it. I've done a lot, and I've done this before.
Speaker 1: I did this event before. It's amazing, but it was
Speaker 1: really hard, one of the hardest things I've ever done
Speaker 1: in my life, so longest I had ever exercised in
Speaker 1: my life the last time I've done it, So I knew,
Speaker 1: as amazing as it was, how much I was gonna suffer.
Speaker 1: So I thought, I don't have to do it. I'm
Speaker 1: perfectly fine with flying out here and yeah, sitting around
Speaker 1: in the sun. Well, Bill goes and runs, but of
Speaker 1: course I didn't. But we all have doubts, no matter
Speaker 1: how many events, no matter how many things we do,
Speaker 1: And I just want you to know that that's normal,
Speaker 1: especially when you're doing something that's really challenging. It's like
Speaker 1: jumping out of a plane. You're not a little scared
Speaker 1: you got problems. We all have problems when we're doing
Speaker 1: things like this. I always say it's therapy in a
Speaker 1: in a sense. But yeah, So I went to bed
Speaker 1: and I thought, we'll see woke up. Good to go.
Speaker 1: All right, So back to where I was, we're walking
Speaker 1: to the start. We get there. Wow, I'm getting the
Speaker 1: feelings of those butterflies right now that I had just
Speaker 1: thinking about starting, because you know what's ahead. You know
Speaker 1: how challenging it's gonna be. You've on this before. It's different,
Speaker 1: but you've done it before, and so you're super excited
Speaker 1: and you're just super freaked out. And four thirty pretty
Speaker 1: much on the nose. Bill and I look at each other.
Speaker 1: We're right at the trailhead and I said, see you
Speaker 1: see you tonight, Well see you along the route, but
Speaker 1: you know, back at the where we started. Right there,
Speaker 1: that's where we would end up meeting. We'd see each
Speaker 1: other as we passed along the way, as he was
Speaker 1: coming back because he's faster. But that's it. We start together.
Speaker 1: I see his head lamp just disappear into the darkness.
Speaker 1: I just say that out loud. Freaks me out. Ah,
Speaker 1: And then we're off And so it's pitch dark. Now,
Speaker 1: what was different about this one? Even starting at four
Speaker 1: thirty The last time we ran it was May, and
Speaker 1: so this time it wasn't gonna be as dark as long,
Speaker 1: and we did start a little earlier. I think we
Speaker 1: started three am last time, and so it has about
Speaker 1: an hour of me running in the pitch dark four
Speaker 1: ft you know, trail at most parts really steep drop off.
Speaker 1: The great thing about running in the dark is if
Speaker 1: you don't look to your left or you're right, depending
Speaker 1: on where you're running, you don't know how crazy it is.
Speaker 1: So that's a blessing. And then the most amazing part happens.
Speaker 1: The sun starts coming up. It's incredible, and that's where
Speaker 1: you go. I know, I am suffering. I don't know
Speaker 1: how many of you listening have been to the Grand Canyon.
Speaker 1: I had not been until I ran across it the
Speaker 1: first time. It is mind boggling. It's overwhelming. It's I've
Speaker 1: been to many places around the world that are spectacular,
Speaker 1: and you know, this takes your breath away. And so
Speaker 1: running far and probably about an hour, and it's slow
Speaker 1: going down, slower than you would think, so you know,
Speaker 1: not quite seven miles yet wasn't that phantom ranch yet.
Speaker 1: But the sun's coming up, and it's just this is
Speaker 1: why you do it. And so I'm feeling good. I'm hydrating,
Speaker 1: I'm taking in my gaels, I got a plan. Everything's working.
Speaker 1: And by the way, twenty degrees at the start. I
Speaker 1: started with a long sleeve shirt over a short sleeved
Speaker 1: shirt with arm warmers, so basically two layers. And I
Speaker 1: knew that I was going to take that top shirt
Speaker 1: off and just stuff it in my pack. Really lightweight
Speaker 1: one from a race, so I think it was a
Speaker 1: marathon shirt. And uh, about half hour in, I took
Speaker 1: it off and I said, gloves on. It was cold
Speaker 1: at the start, but not as cold as I would
Speaker 1: have thought. I'm not a big fan of the cold anymore.
Speaker 1: I've trained in it and raced in it for years.
Speaker 1: But about yeah, half hour forty five, maybe an hour in,
Speaker 1: I took the top layer off, stuffed into my pack.
Speaker 1: Now was just t shirt arm warmers that I eventually
Speaker 1: rolled down to my wrists. Arm warmers are amazing and
Speaker 1: and lake gloves. And it was gonna get up to
Speaker 1: ninety four so degrees to degrees, all right, So feeling good.
Speaker 1: Feeling good. And this is what I have learned to
Speaker 1: do from all these races, is just being the moment,
Speaker 1: so you don't think ahead, as hard as that could be.
Speaker 1: You should go how do I feel right now? And
Speaker 1: you want to enjoy it? And I know so many
Speaker 1: of these concepts I'll talk about in these race reports.
Speaker 1: Event reports are so simple, but I say it all
Speaker 1: the time. The answers are simple. It's the application that's difficult,
Speaker 1: and so being in the moment and just enjoying it, saying,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I'm running in the Grand Canyon. How
Speaker 1: lucky am I? They have fortunate to be healthy enough
Speaker 1: to do this, and at fifty three, how lucky am I?
Speaker 1: And also I've worked for it, by the way, to
Speaker 1: feel as good as I do. And that even surprised
Speaker 1: me because as the day progressed and the miles clicked off,
Speaker 1: I was still feeling great, no blisters my back. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm carrying a pack. I expected more. Last time. I
Speaker 1: definitely felt more. Granted it was heavier, but suffice it
Speaker 1: to say, the body felt amazing. And that goes for
Speaker 1: muscular lye, that goes for energy wise. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of times. If you do this enough, you
Speaker 1: go I need a little bit more, you know, start
Speaker 1: to get light headed, but you feel like, yeah, the
Speaker 1: energy stores are going down, so boom. I would take
Speaker 1: another gel or block or some sports drink or all
Speaker 1: the above usually and you're good to go. So I
Speaker 1: went through that first aid uh eight station. So so
Speaker 1: many races I've done. It's so weird. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a Phantom ranch, which is just a ranch, a bunch
Speaker 1: of buildings. There's some toilets. There's actually a little store
Speaker 1: and they sell lemonade. I'll get back to that, but
Speaker 1: that's about seven and a half miles in. That's where
Speaker 1: you're fuel so fill up your water bottles, use the
Speaker 1: bathroom if you need to boom. Then you're off. There
Speaker 1: was another eight miles and so that's basically you know,
Speaker 1: five three five miles down down hill. Then it slowly
Speaker 1: levels off to Phantom and now you're running through the
Speaker 1: canyon another eight and a half miles to the next stop,
Speaker 1: and the whole way the most amazing run, feeling amazing.
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of people, but not many. A
Speaker 1: couple other people, some hikers who already in the in
Speaker 1: the canyon. You know that you can camp there one
Speaker 1: or well, maybe four other runners, but generally you know,
Speaker 1: two together. And then it was just me, and it's
Speaker 1: the sound of the Colorado River, and it's the sound
Speaker 1: of your footsteps, and it's the sound of my poles,
Speaker 1: you know, as they say, pickpock pickpock in the in
Speaker 1: the dirt, and you run across the Colorado River and
Speaker 1: you run through a couple of tunnels and it's magical.
Speaker 1: And it's getting hotter. It's now eating up. So I've
Speaker 1: got the T shirt on, I've got the arm warmer
Speaker 1: rolled down, and I'm going this is gonna be a
Speaker 1: hot one. It's gonna be brutal, much hotter than the
Speaker 1: first time. I was feeling great. I was feeling great,
Speaker 1: and then I started having an idea, a choice, because
Speaker 1: these are all when you're in your head. You're just
Speaker 1: in your head. There's no there's nothing like spending twelve
Speaker 1: plus hours. Last time, it was seventeen just by yourself,
Speaker 1: talking to next to no one other than the occasional
Speaker 1: you know, passer by, which is maybe every hour two hours.
Speaker 1: At that it's just you, and it's unbelievably especially and
Speaker 1: I feel sad because so many people come remotely close
Speaker 1: to experiencing things like this. You know, it's to work,
Speaker 1: it's to school, it's just there's no downtime, and it's amazing.
Speaker 1: And so as I'm running and I'm approaching mile fifteen
Speaker 1: and a half, basically that last stop before you climb
Speaker 1: up and out of the canyon up to the north
Speaker 1: rim and then back down, I thought, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I'm doing that part and you
Speaker 1: wait a minute, Tim, You're not gonna finish. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna do what you set out to do. I get it,
Speaker 1: I get it. But I thought, you know what, I
Speaker 1: feel so good thirty two miles instead of forty one,
Speaker 1: and that nine miles is exponentially hard. I know what
Speaker 1: it was. I've done it before. I've already done forty
Speaker 1: And so I was debating, do I run to this Manzanita, stop, refill,
Speaker 1: and turn back around and go back. I went back
Speaker 1: and forth for a while, and again, always honest social
Speaker 1: media friends, they're like, wait, you went there to run
Speaker 1: across and back. Well, yeah, things change. And so this
Speaker 1: is the most important part, I would argue, at least
Speaker 1: for me, of this podcast is what I think is
Speaker 1: what do I need? What did I need? Did I
Speaker 1: need to go to the top again? Did I need
Speaker 1: to go Oh yeah, I did run to room to
Speaker 1: room again, not that day. What I needed was to
Speaker 1: enjoy it in a different way. And the forty eight
Speaker 1: mile one I suffered, and there was a lot of
Speaker 1: slow running and a lot of walking up steep parts,
Speaker 1: and that last section up and out and then back
Speaker 1: down to get across for the first time, that's just
Speaker 1: hiking straight up and then running straight down for the
Speaker 1: most part. So what do I need. I want to
Speaker 1: enjoy this. I want to have a great run and
Speaker 1: a fifty k thirty two miles. It's pretty dark good
Speaker 1: And I also knew the heat. I also knew there
Speaker 1: were factors that we're going to come into play. And
Speaker 1: so as I approached this final stop where I would
Speaker 1: have to reload with the water and actually load up
Speaker 1: my backpack the back flask, the huge one with water
Speaker 1: because there was no water at the top. Least that's
Speaker 1: what they told us. It changed, but it was going
Speaker 1: to be a different nine miles. And so I got
Speaker 1: to that station and there was actually like twenty people,
Speaker 1: so there was more people that started, and they went
Speaker 1: down the other trail, the bright Angel that we had
Speaker 1: started on last time. And when you run uphill like that,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna pass people and then trade off
Speaker 1: and slow down, and you're gonna be around people more.
Speaker 1: And I thought, you know what, it's the final thing
Speaker 1: to help me make my decision. I thought, I'm banging left,
Speaker 1: I'm going back, and all those people are gonna be
Speaker 1: ahead of me or behind me rather and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go ahead and I'm just gonna enjoy this like never before.
Speaker 1: And it was the greatest decision I had made in
Speaker 1: a long time of racing and doing events, because it's
Speaker 1: what I needed, it's what I wanted. I had already done.
Speaker 1: I knew what that experience was. I'd been to the
Speaker 1: top already, and I wanted it a different experience. I
Speaker 1: wanted to run more, I wanted to run faster, and
Speaker 1: I did and it was amazing. And so when everyone
Speaker 1: else turned right, that was at that stop. I went
Speaker 1: left and I spent the next see let me do
Speaker 1: the math here, three or four hours all by myself,
Speaker 1: running and enjoying the canyon and in pure bliss. And
Speaker 1: it was different from the last time, because by that
Speaker 1: point I had gone up and back and I couldn't
Speaker 1: run as fast and remotely that I was doing this
Speaker 1: time because they was so beaten up from doing that
Speaker 1: nine mile climb up to almost it was eight thousand
Speaker 1: feet eight thousand feet and then back down. So we
Speaker 1: make choices, my choice, and that's what I love about
Speaker 1: these type of events. Listen. I love the organized events too,
Speaker 1: and I love going fast. I've accomplished a lot of
Speaker 1: those goals most you know, sub three hour marathon, subten
Speaker 1: hour iron Man one, a small marathon, all those things
Speaker 1: have been there. And I would argue that's the problem
Speaker 1: is so many of the people I know who I
Speaker 1: raced with, who don't necessarily do what they need or
Speaker 1: what their body needs or what's healthy for them. And
Speaker 1: I want what's healthy for my body and healthy for
Speaker 1: my mind. That's it. And so if you think that's
Speaker 1: making an excuse, so be it. But I would argue,
Speaker 1: especially with social media and times being posted and things
Speaker 1: like that, and caring what other people think about the
Speaker 1: choices you make, that's a huge problem. And so I
Speaker 1: had the greatest mile run, I say, because the wheels
Speaker 1: fell off. The wheels fell off bad, and that's a
Speaker 1: really important lesson to all right, let's take on more
Speaker 1: break when we come back and pull it all together
Speaker 1: and finished this all up talking about my Grand Canyon
Speaker 1: run six miles of I can't believe how good I
Speaker 1: feel at fifty three running in the Grand Canyon. And
Speaker 1: then boom, we'll be right back all right, talking about
Speaker 1: running across the Grand Case. There's so much here? Is
Speaker 1: this so complicated? And I've said I think I said
Speaker 1: it in the last Grand Canyon Run podcast. I don't
Speaker 1: write race reports, or didn't write race reports like most
Speaker 1: people do, and you know, tryathlons and marathons, and I
Speaker 1: always wondered why and and never liked as personal it's personal.
Speaker 1: And then and then you realize, like I don't like listen.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people just especially when you're
Speaker 1: starting out, there's a lot of excuses, right, this one wrong,
Speaker 1: this one wrong, okay, But this podcast has allowed me
Speaker 1: a different medium, in a different way to do this,
Speaker 1: and I love now this being the second time doing
Speaker 1: this right after when it's fresh, when I'm still literally
Speaker 1: sore from the run. And so that was the theme,
Speaker 1: like what do I need? And I want you to
Speaker 1: think about that when you're doing things, when you set
Speaker 1: goals for yourself too. It's never linear. And I am
Speaker 1: not saying quit people, it's the lad don't misinterpret. I
Speaker 1: say get what you want and do things differently. That
Speaker 1: was huge for me. Been there, done that, and thought
Speaker 1: I was gonna do it again. But it wasn't enough
Speaker 1: variation for me. And there was other factors. The heat.
Speaker 1: I knew. Listen, I could potentially run into problems. All right,
Speaker 1: I gotta move on because this is like So I
Speaker 1: turned back, had the most amazing four or five hours.
Speaker 1: Then the wheel fell off. Ridiculously hot. I sweat out sodium.
Speaker 1: I sweat out salt like you wouldn't believe. If you
Speaker 1: want to see what it looks like, go to my
Speaker 1: Instagram account. I could not believe my black shirt how
Speaker 1: much salt was on not just the front but the back.
Speaker 1: So go to tom h Fit if you want to
Speaker 1: take a look and see exactly what it looks like
Speaker 1: to sweat out so much sodium. All right, I think
Speaker 1: I was experiencing some heat stroke. I was super lightheaded
Speaker 1: as I started climbing back out. So I got through
Speaker 1: Phantom Ranch. By the way, I'm just going to skip
Speaker 1: ahead a little bit here. Uh stopped the Fandom Ranch
Speaker 1: stow and they had that store. Let me just say that.
Speaker 1: And I stopped and had lemonade because everyone said you
Speaker 1: have to do the lemonade if you're running across, and
Speaker 1: I didn't do it the first time, or maybe we
Speaker 1: it wasn't open. I didn't get there in time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: these runners, when you read and talk to other runners,
Speaker 1: they say, yes, you have to try the lemonade at
Speaker 1: Phantom Ranch, especially if you've been running for hours and
Speaker 1: hours on end. It's the greatest thing you've ever had.
Speaker 1: It's five dollars and cents for a cup, although refills
Speaker 1: are dollar. So I did because I don't care about
Speaker 1: the time, and I need the fluid and I want
Speaker 1: the experience, and so did that. So the last five
Speaker 1: miles was brutal, just like it was the first time,
Speaker 1: but totally different as well. So first time it was dark,
Speaker 1: it was snowing, and I was beaten up, senseless my
Speaker 1: legs and everything my body because I had gone the
Speaker 1: full forty eight. This time it was the heat and
Speaker 1: the speed in the sodium, and so cramped unlike I'd
Speaker 1: ever cramped calf cramps, quad cramps, abductor abductor cramps. I
Speaker 1: just stop fine shade every fifteen minutes. I didn't think
Speaker 1: I could finish, but you have to. And there would
Speaker 1: be hikers because now I'm getting close where people had
Speaker 1: walked down into the canyon, you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: hours and then would walk back out. And there was
Speaker 1: one father and son who ended up next to me
Speaker 1: as I was I can't imagine what I looked like
Speaker 1: trying to stop my full body seizure. Basically at that point,
Speaker 1: because I was out of sodium, and I bring salt
Speaker 1: tablets with me, by the way people salt stick things
Speaker 1: like that, wasn't enough and I lost one one fell.
Speaker 1: So suffice it to say, I went from oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I feel this good too, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I don't know how I'm gonna get out of here.
Speaker 1: And that's the opposite of what I've talked about, what
Speaker 1: I've experienced in most events. It's that you're doing a race,
Speaker 1: you're doing an iron Man or something, and you're you go,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I can't believe how bad I feel.
Speaker 1: And that's the lesson. As you learned you can feel,
Speaker 1: so you just keep moving forward and gets better. Well,
Speaker 1: yes and no, sometimes yes, sometimes you know, and this
Speaker 1: is life. There are obstacles, and that's why I do
Speaker 1: these things, as crazy as that sounds. Do I want
Speaker 1: to be in suffering like that? No, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go through you know, the couple of hours
Speaker 1: that I dealt with this, with the cramping and the
Speaker 1: trying to take in the little bit of salt, but
Speaker 1: I was running low on fluids, and so suffices to say,
Speaker 1: for the next couple of hours I suffered and did
Speaker 1: not think that I was gonna make it out because
Speaker 1: the body was seizing up, the legs would not work,
Speaker 1: and then a hand started cramping. I've never had hands cramping,
Speaker 1: and that was obviously a factor of using the poles.
Speaker 1: But I did it, and it took forever, and it
Speaker 1: was a new level level of suffering that I had
Speaker 1: not experienced in that way. And I know somebody going,
Speaker 1: why would you possibly do this? Why is that fun?
Speaker 1: Because when you get out, when you finally get out,
Speaker 1: and by the way, like three times, I thought it
Speaker 1: was at the top, and this is the steeper part.
Speaker 1: Even Bill who's seasoned ultra guy was like, that was
Speaker 1: the hardest climb out that he had done. My tone
Speaker 1: swelled up, said like heat stroke, signs of that. So
Speaker 1: I was finding shade. I was stopping for a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes to recover, watch my heart rate go down.
Speaker 1: The goal is just to finish people. It is not
Speaker 1: a race, and I don't want to, as crazy as
Speaker 1: it sounds, hurt myself. And so you learned the techniques,
Speaker 1: you know that you need to to finish to get
Speaker 1: through that obstacle. And it seemed like an eternity every
Speaker 1: time you turn their switchbacks and you look up and
Speaker 1: you go, oh my gosh, and then you stop looking
Speaker 1: up because you can't believe how much farther you have
Speaker 1: to go. And when it's that's steep, it's just brutal.
Speaker 1: It's basically if you do step ups for exercise, it's
Speaker 1: five miles of step ups and there's sections where if
Speaker 1: you slip, you've got problems. But I finished. I finished quick,
Speaker 1: couple of points. At one point I stopped before the
Speaker 1: insanity started, right before the insanity started. Because I've been
Speaker 1: at so many races around the world and events where
Speaker 1: people just go fast and they look around like New Zealand,
Speaker 1: South Korea, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, and I get it again.
Speaker 1: You're there to race, You're there to race, and I've
Speaker 1: been there, but I always want to experience where I
Speaker 1: am and take it all in. And again, this isn't
Speaker 1: a race. It was even easier to do those type
Speaker 1: of things like stop. And at one point I stopped
Speaker 1: and just sat on this cliff looking at the most
Speaker 1: amazing view I've ever seen, and I experienced silence like
Speaker 1: I had never experienced. I understand the term deafening silence.
Speaker 1: It was actually unnerving. The wind would come and go
Speaker 1: during the run. The wind had stopped, so there's no
Speaker 1: sound in your ear of the wind. There was not
Speaker 1: a bug, be a bird. The river was way down below,
Speaker 1: couldn't hear it. And it was spectacular. And those are
Speaker 1: the moments I take away, not only collecting experiences, collecting
Speaker 1: moments and as crazy as it sounds, that moment of
Speaker 1: silence that was unlike anything I had ever experienced and witnessed.
Speaker 1: You know, as I was looking out on with the insane,
Speaker 1: excruciating pain of the cramping, I want both. I want both.
Speaker 1: It's that purification, the miss Oggi that I talked about
Speaker 1: in the fifth tip, because when you get out, you
Speaker 1: realize how strong you are, and all of those little
Speaker 1: things that seemed like big things in life are no
Speaker 1: longer remotely closed. I had a couple of incidents on
Speaker 1: the plane, crazy people, all that kind of it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: You realize what matters, and then when you experience setback,
Speaker 1: they're not You're like, you're kidding me. I was stuck
Speaker 1: in the canyon with degrees, ran out of water than
Speaker 1: sports drink and was cramping up and I had, you know,
Speaker 1: hours more to go, hours hours final twist because I
Speaker 1: didn't go up the final climb. I was ahead of
Speaker 1: my running partner. We usually see each other on the
Speaker 1: way back. He usually finishes ahead of me. I'm at
Speaker 1: the top waiting for him for the first time. Now.
Speaker 1: This guy is seasoned professional, as I said, like carries everything,
Speaker 1: like has just knows what he's doing. Consummate professional. He
Speaker 1: texts me, which is he's gotta you know that you
Speaker 1: really have no cell service until you're just a couple
Speaker 1: of miles from the top, and then it's sketchy at best.
Speaker 1: It basically says he was stopping just to, you know,
Speaker 1: gather himself, eat some stuff, and then he was gonna
Speaker 1: be out in an hour. And then he texts me,
Speaker 1: I just hit s OS on my garment. I'm having
Speaker 1: an asthma attack. Crazy, and so here I am. You know,
Speaker 1: Run thirty two suffered immeasurably. I think it took like
Speaker 1: twelve and a half hours. So now we're coming towards sunset.
Speaker 1: And I spent the next five hours dealing with park
Speaker 1: rangers and helping him get out. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: They don't take a t v s or motorcycles down
Speaker 1: in the canyon. They don't even come get you with
Speaker 1: a mule or anything like or a horse. You either camp,
Speaker 1: They come down to you and tent and a sleeping bag,
Speaker 1: make sure you're warm, and then get you out in
Speaker 1: the morning, or you come out. And Bill came out,
Speaker 1: and so he was prepared. He had everything he needed,
Speaker 1: and just where I thought I was done, more stuff happens.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't anything he had done wrong. If anything,
Speaker 1: he was so covered with everything he needed when that
Speaker 1: emergency happened, A lot of people would have had what
Speaker 1: he had, including the garment device and a handful of
Speaker 1: other things emergency blanket, you go, I'm not gonna bring that.
Speaker 1: I won't need it until you do. And so just
Speaker 1: another point that things happen, and they continue to happen,
Speaker 1: and you just deal with them, and that makes the
Speaker 1: event that much more special, as crazy as it sounds,
Speaker 1: because not only did you accomplish something, you know, another
Speaker 1: obstacle was thrown at you and you just you just deal.
Speaker 1: And that's what these events and that's what these miss
Speaker 1: aggies teach us. Just be in the moment. What do
Speaker 1: you need to do? What do you need to do
Speaker 1: in that moment? You need to enjoy it, and I
Speaker 1: think about what your friends are gonna think, family is
Speaker 1: gonna think about your how fast you go or what
Speaker 1: you accomplished, what you said you were going to do
Speaker 1: and what you did. You're in control and things happen,
Speaker 1: and so focus on the good when you're in the moment,
Speaker 1: don't focus on what's ahead, and just keep moving forward
Speaker 1: and challenge yourself. All right, I'm tired. It's like one
Speaker 1: of the greatest lines and Forrest gumpany what he just
Speaker 1: stops and says, I'm tired to think I'll go home now.
Speaker 1: The problem and when you're in an uh situation. I
Speaker 1: wanted to say ave, and I'm gonna stop saying that
Speaker 1: because it sounds like it's a situation like the grand
Speaker 1: can't and you go, I gotta finish. I gotta finish
Speaker 1: what I started. And yeah, I changed what I started.
Speaker 1: I would not. I'm so glad I made that decision.
Speaker 1: It was the right decision. And I would have been
Speaker 1: behind Bill by the way when he had his issue
Speaker 1: and wouldn't have been able to call, wouldn't have gotten
Speaker 1: his text, so we could have a whole another discussion
Speaker 1: about things happening for a reason. It gets a little
Speaker 1: more complicated in my philosophy at least, but amazing. Another
Speaker 1: amazing experience. And I feel so good at fifty three
Speaker 1: and now I'm switching gears by the way. Recovery spent
Speaker 1: a couple of days, so it's now Tuesday again. Saturday
Speaker 1: we ran, spent Sunday walking around. We hiked around, just
Speaker 1: to move. Just did that uppisode on recovery. You gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta move. It was painful, you know, sore. When
Speaker 1: I say painful, it's not you know, it's soreness. So
Speaker 1: moving is what we want to do. Low level. Didn't exercise.
Speaker 1: Obviously some do crazy depending on you know. You don't
Speaker 1: want to do too much, is my point. You gotta
Speaker 1: recover shredded my quads, micro tears and the muscles. But today, tonight,
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna get on a stationary bike for an
Speaker 1: half hour and go super easy to loosen up again,
Speaker 1: and I'm eating better and I'm refueling, hydrating all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So important. Again, you want to see
Speaker 1: pictures from this, That's what I kind of love. I'm
Speaker 1: not a big fan of the social media. I gotta
Speaker 1: play in that world, though, and what I do is
Speaker 1: show your pictures like from the Grand Canyon, and again
Speaker 1: you can see all the fuel, the pack that I
Speaker 1: put together the night before. You can see pictures from
Speaker 1: the Grand Candy. You can also see my shirt. It's
Speaker 1: really it's just a great visual on why we need
Speaker 1: sports drinks. People. When you do something like that, that's
Speaker 1: an extreme thing, but that's what sports strengths were invented for.
Speaker 1: You need the fuel, which is sugar, because that's where
Speaker 1: you bonk, which I was doing the last couple of
Speaker 1: miles because I didn't take in enough fuel. And you
Speaker 1: need the electrolytes in the salt, because you're sweating it out,
Speaker 1: and we sweat it out at different rates. And when
Speaker 1: we sweat out too much, I guess what happens. You
Speaker 1: cramp that. I've done dozens and dozens of races and
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to nail it that and you never,
Speaker 1: you never totally do as I said at the start,
Speaker 1: all right, but that's half the fun. Enjoy life, challenge yourself,
Speaker 1: do crazy things, prepare for them, but challenge yourself, and
Speaker 1: then leave with this. I think, what do you need?
Speaker 1: What do you need physically and what do you need
Speaker 1: mentally out of it? And that's yours. Don't let social media,
Speaker 1: don't let what others think matter, because that ruins the
Speaker 1: entire event. If I let those thoughts creep in as
Speaker 1: I'm doing this event, what is the point. I have
Speaker 1: to enjoy the moment. And I see far too many
Speaker 1: people doing organized events that aren't and I know from
Speaker 1: coaching hundreds, if not thousands of people with camps and
Speaker 1: charity events and things like that, we care too much
Speaker 1: what other people think. It's yours. It's yours, and that's
Speaker 1: really important. All right? Questions comments Tom h fit Is
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter. You can message me Tom h fit
Speaker 1: am I going back? Think I am I story for
Speaker 1: another day. But it's different. It always has to be different.
Speaker 1: I want you know, it has to be different, goals, different,
Speaker 1: something different. Right. Although it's always different, you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna have different experiences as well. Uh Tom h Instagram
Speaker 1: and Twitter. You go to fitness this rapp the dot com.
Speaker 1: Email me through the site. The micro Workout Plan is
Speaker 1: my most recent book. Follow the show, subscribe if you
Speaker 1: can comment, I'd love to hear from you. Challenge yourself.
Speaker 1: We have one life. We get to control how much
Speaker 1: we move when we put into our mouths and our attitudes.
Speaker 1: And that's awesome. I am Tom Holland. This is Fitness Disrupted.
Speaker 1: Believe in Yourself. Fitness Disrupted is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
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