More Than Miles: The Discipline Behind an Extraordinary Life

On this episode of Fit For Radio, we sit down with endurance athlete, chiropractor, husband, father, grandfather, and lifelong competitor Drake Tollenaar. For nearly three decades, Drake has redefined what it means to pursue elite endurance sports while balancing family, faith, career, and community.

Born in Springfield, Oregon, and a graduate of Thurston High School, Drake's path eventually led him to the University of Oregon, Western States Chiropractic College, and a move to Tualatin in 1991, where he built both a successful chiropractic practice and a life centered around serving others. As a Youth Pastor, Worship Pastor, husband, and father of three daughters—including twin daughters born in 1996—Drake's schedule was already full before he discovered endurance sports.

What started as an attempt to shed a few pounds of "sympathy weight" quickly turned into a lifelong passion. After running his first marathon in 1997 and making every rookie mistake imaginable, Drake was hooked. He went on to tackle triathlons, Half Ironmans, Ironman races, 100-mile ultramarathons, Ultraman Canada, and eventually the prestigious Ultraman World Championships.

For more than 25 years, Drake woke up no later than 3:00 a.m. to train before his family started their day. Those early mornings fueled incredible athletic accomplishments, but the medals and finish lines aren't what matter most to him. Some of his favorite memories came from running races with his daughters, completing Disney marathons together, pacing first-time marathoners, helping athletes qualify for Boston, and supporting others in achieving goals they never thought possible.

We discuss his journey from first-time marathoner to Ironman World Championship competitor, the lessons learned from decades of endurance training, and how his perspective has shifted from chasing personal records to creating meaningful experiences with the people he loves. Today, with four grandchildren, a fifth on the way, and a renewed focus on longevity, Drake is thinking less about finish times and more about staying healthy enough to create "forever memories" with future generations.

This conversation is about much more than endurance sports. It's about discipline, consistency, servant leadership, family, faith, and the realization that the greatest victories in life often happen far beyond the finish line.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I want to do the Ultraman World Championship one more time. And the and the race directors told me, Hey Drake, you got a slot anytime you want it. You know, it's like, okay, I just know what and my and my kids are like, Yeah, dad, go for it. And my wife's like, Oh boy, she knows what it takes for me to get ready for that too, you know? Yeah, that's awesome. But I want to do that when because they're getting that age where they're gonna have forever memories. You know, my my my my grandson definitely said the age where the things that are happening now in his life, when he's 30, when he's 40, he'll remember those. Yeah, if they're not just stories or pictures of things. And so I would like to, uh, you know, and maybe this is my own selfish thing of of of of wanting this, but I want my grandkids to have the memories of the cool things that Papa did. Yeah, just the stories.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

It's the Fit for Radio Podcast, and I'm your host, Drew Tiedeman, right here at the beautiful Stafford Hills Club. If you haven't been here, what are you doing? You gotta get down here and check it out. It is not only a beautiful place, it was also voted the best health and wellness facility in the Portland area. And hey, let's be honest, there's some nice clubs, but this one is number one. Also, the saltwater pool. My kids, when I pick them up, it's the same question every day. We go into the pool, Dad? We going to the pool? And why not? It's like a staycation every day of the summer, and it's gonna be out there. So get in where you fit in before the family memberships fill up and you end up on the sidelines. Staffordhills.com. Tell them truth sent you for half off your initiation. Uh, right now, I'm pretty excited to sit down with this guy. Uh, we have uh we definitely have some like tendencies, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he takes it to another level. He spent decades balancing faith, family, business, and an obsession with endurance from marathons to Iron Man's, triathlons, you name it, he has done it all and he did it, um, he did it under the cover of darkness for so many years. Welcome to the show, Drake Tallinar. Hey, Drew, it's nice to see you today. It's great to see you too. And uh when I met you in the lobby, first thing I thought is this guy's in shape. Um, he's maybe ready to run a triathlon right now. Now, you were born and raised in Springfield, Oregon. Yes. And for people who don't know, that's just on the other side of the tracks from Eugene, Oregon, where the University of Oregon is, a place I lived for a long time. Spent a lot of time um in and around Springfield. And you lived there throughout, went to high school at Thurston High School, very familiar with that as well. Uh, got married early while you were in college.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Yeah, it's pretty much um just as I started college. My wife is a year younger than I am, and so when she we were kind of waiting for her to graduate high school and then got married right after that. So yeah, very good. Um got married pretty, pretty, pretty early, but um, it was good. We were ready.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

So which is amazing because a lot of people are like, well, oh my god, you gotta live your life, you gotta do this and that. And I come from a family where my parents, now my dad's from England, so you you had to kind of do it quick, but my parents got married at 19 and have been married for 50 years. So, you know, I think that uh true love will t uh withstand the test of time, and you're proof of that.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Yeah, we're coming up on our um 37th anniversary coming up here. Nice. And um, yeah, and I I think about the fact that, you know, she was 19, we got married. I I just turned 20, she just turned 19. And um, I remember the day when I had been married longer than I had not been married, and I like that. And I like the fact that I've got that many more memories with my wife than without my wife. And so um, yeah, I I think the early getting married early, I think it's a good thing. It's a good thing. Um, you we grow up together, you um you uh get to grow through life. Um, you know, I had a lot of schooling to do. Um, she walked through that with me, and so it wasn't like we had different lives, different experiences. No, we had the same life, same experience growing up together. So which is really cool.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

And I I do I actually keep an eye on those numbers myself. My wife and I are coming up on 15 years, and in two years, well, a year and a half, or even a little bit less, we'll have been together for half of her life. So we're about to cross that threshold. And um, I I think it's great. And it gives you that stability moving uh nice and early. And you know, there is the risk. You guys overcame some odds there because when somebody gets married when they're young, there's that moment of, oh, is somebody gonna turn 21 and get the itch to go out? And the other one's like, I'm trying to grow up. And there can be that kind of that tug-awar. So congrats for overcoming all of the little because you're not the same people you were. Yes, correct. Yeah. And that's impressive. Um, so you finish up at the University of Oregon and you decide to go um into school to be a chiropractor.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Yeah, I'd um I'd always known I was wanting to be a doctor of some type. Um, um, I remember when I was in high school, I had um gotten a call. It was then in my junior year, and it was from the U of O saying, hey, we want you to come to school here. If you you come here, um, we'll give you a full ride and um, you know, all your books, tuition taken care of. And so, because leading up to that, it's like I didn't know for sure what I was gonna do. Um, as far as um schooling, we weren't in a position to um build a Ford school. So then it was like, well, I guess I'm going here locally, which was perfect because we had family there as well. Yeah. And so um what was interesting was I was actually in the process of going through med school or um pre-med there at the U of O. And then my wife and I got in an auto accident, and she was like, Well, we better go get checked out by my chiropractor. And so I said, Okay, well, let's go ahead. You know, so we went in and um, and this is a family chiropractor. So she he'd been treating her and her family for a long time. So here's who's this new guy? Yeah, you know, exactly who's this guy, just the side piece. Yeah, exactly. So he's kind of he's asked me questions, what I'm planning and stuff. I'm um, you know, UVO, taking pre-med. And he asked, Well, have you ever thought about chiropractic? And I said, Well, no, I haven't. So he gave me a couple books on chiropractic, one about um the philosophy of chiropractic and the kind of the history of it. And and I looked into those books, and as I read them, I realized, oh, I love this idea of you know the body heals itself and and um chiropractic is about more about finding, you know, what's uh what's the cause of the symptom versus treating the symptom itself. And I realized, ooh, this is what I want to do. And um I looked up um to see what it took to go to chiropractic college, and it's based on the same prerequisites as med school. So I just continued the pre-med program at the U of O and and then transitioned everything to uh moving up to here to Portland. Um it's funny, I got my acceptance letter at National First in Chicago. And we were thinking, oh, this will be fun. We can go to Chicago, um, go watch some Cubs games and things like that. And the very next day I got my acceptance letter to Washington States up here in Portland. We said, uh, do we want to really go that far from home? Let's maybe stick a little bit closer to family, but just two hours away. So that's what originally brought us up here to the Portland area to that is hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Um, almost the exact same thing happened to my brother. He was pre-med, got accepted. It was either Chicago or Boston and was going, like they were packed. And then he found out he got to stay here and go to OHSU dental school. Yes. And now he's a dentist. So it's like you both had the same path, and now you have you just like pick something that's just fits you perfectly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Um, and it's something you still do today? Yes. Uh huh. Yeah, so still in practice. Uh it's been uh 32 years, my 33rd year. I'm coming on to now. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

So you guys moved from Eugene to Towallatin. Uh, you just wanted to change a pace, or what was the decision? Well, that was the school.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

It was to go to school at the time. And then you stayed. And then and then, yeah, and then that was kind of funny too, because um my wife's a dental assistant and um she got a job um in Twalleton. And so we're trying to decide do you want to live closer to the school, which was more um or on the east side, closer to Gresham, or do I want to live closer to um her work? We decided to live closer to her work, which now in retrospect, it's like, oh, I'm so glad we decided to be on the west side in the Twalton area. We really love this area. Um, and and then when I was finishing school, um, same kind of thing. We'd planned on moving back down to Eugene, her old chiropractory just built bought a building. He said he's always had a spot for me there. Um, my mom had gotten a chiropractor at that time, and then he was getting ready to retire. And he was like, hey, maybe you can come down, you can buy my practice, you know. So I had some great opportunities down there. Um, but when we were up here, um, when we um when we moved up here, we started going to uh a church that was just right down the road from us. It was a four-square church, and that's what my wife had gone to, and we'd gone to when we were down in Eugene, um, Springfield area. And um, so we when we started going to church there, they didn't have a youth group. And my wife had had a really good youth group experience. And so we thought, well, girl, maybe this is something we could help, you know, start to develop. And um, and it was funny because one on one Sunday, I was gonna come up to tell the pastor, hey, you ever want anybody to start a youth group or start doing something with youth? We'd be more than happy to help out. And he actually met me halfway up the aisle and said, Hey, Drake, we were one asked, well, how would you and Beth like to start a youth group here? Wild. And so so then I started becoming the youth pastor there and then started doing worship worship as well. And then this just became our home. That became our family. And so our plan was to move down to Eugene. And um, we even had a U-Haul rented and everything because I was just getting ready to graduate. And and um I came home one day and told my wife, honey, I feel like I'm grieving someone's death, this whole idea of leaving. And she said, I've been feeling the same way. And that's telling you something. Yeah, and it's like, you know what? I think we're supposed to stay. And I had a uh a friend at church who her chiropractor, she she she'd been telling him about me for years. Um, um, she had been telling me about him. So we contacted, he said, Hey, why don't you come in here for a little bit? So I started my started in practice with them. I I we called our my family, said, Hey, we decided to stay up here. And it was like, What? That wasn't in the plan this whole time. You were gonna come back home. Yeah. And so um, so yeah, we stayed up here and just have been up here since.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

And so and you know, it's those things are there's a feeling in your gut, you know, that and if you ignore it, you would have gone down there and you probably I mean, you would have worked it out, but he would have been miserable and you would have always wondered what happened up here. Now, when when you decided to stay and all that, this is kind of when you become a dad. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Um, our first um uh child, um, she's 32 now, or she'll be 32 come up this um here in this this month and actually this next week. And so yeah. So um she um my wife was pregnant with her, and so um she was born just right right as I was graduating. And um, and so then it's like, oh hey, I gotta start taking care of a family now too. I gotta help start supporting, you know, my family. Because now my my wife, I want her to be able to stay home and and not work anymore. She was a hard worker. Um, I always point out she she's only missed one day of work ever. And that was the day she had to call and say, Hey, I can't come in today, I'm in labor. You know, yeah. So she's strong work ethic. So, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Which is great because it's kind of something we'll get in with to with you. Um, and I feel like working out and well, job streaks are a lot alike. Um, so I prided myself on I went 10 years at my last job, never had a sick day. And when when your job starts at five in the morning every day, that's that's pretty good. But it's also the streak. Like a cold isn't gonna stop you. Pre-COVID, you know, you try not to do it whenever that was going on. But I was just like, no, I'm going in, I'll be fine. I'm not like, and then by the time you're at work, you're fine. Yeah, and so that's that's impressive. Now, when you're going through all this and you for you have that first daughter, and I have to ask, you said her birthday's next week. Do you remember her birthday? Oh, yeah. What is it? 11th of June. So my birthday's the 12th of June. I was taking a stab, maybe, and my mom's is the 10th, and it's her 70th, so we're throwing a big party. We should be doing it right there in the middle. But my mom's is the 14th.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

I have twins, their birthday's the eighth, and I've got a son-in-law that's the ninth. So there's something about everything's all bunched in there. Yeah. Yeah, you back up nine months. Something weird for us.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah. So you you have the twins in '96. Now you've got three daughters. Yes. Something I know a lot about. Um, that's a lot of action. Oh, yeah. Um, so what was that like for you early on?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

So that was that was that was hard. You know, one well, one, we didn't know we're having twins until I think was it 21 weeks when my wife went in for uh ultrasound and the ultrasound tech. You stopped for a second, he said, Now, has your doctor said there's anything unusual about this pregnancy? And we're like, no, you know, and he said, Well, golly, you're having twins. And and and then then we and before that, it's funny because my wife had been saying, pregnancy, I just feel so big, you know. And I said, Well, honey, every every pregnancy is different, you know. And she goes, No, but I just feel really big, you know? And then it was like, okay, yeah, yeah. That's when you felt big. And so, yeah, and then we then we um and and well, then at 23 weeks, so we had the ultrasound at 21, finds out she's she's pregnant at or she's pregnant with twins, and then at 23 weeks, she went into early labor. And so then there's the whole rushdown of okay, let's what's going on, you know, and then they were able to get that stopped, and then they uh put her on bed rest. She was on bed rest at home for about a month, and then she went into labor again, and this time they kept her in the hospital, and so then she ended up staying in the hospital for two months. And this was a one-year long shadow was still one, she wasn't quite two yet. That's tough to deal with. So my mother-in-law came and lived with us for those um couple months because she was kind of became Shadow's caregiver since you know Beck was on bed rest. Yeah. We had people at church that were coming around helping out when she was at home for that first month. There were ladies there with her all day, every day, making sure that she was taken care of. And that's huge. And then when she was in the hospital for that two months, I just remember I'd go to work every day, I'd come home, and then I would um um, you know, get my my daughter and my mother-in-law, we'd drive down the hospital. My wife got one um wheelchair ride a day. So I'd get in the wheelchair and I'd wheel her through the hospital and stuff. And then get some fresh air or something. And so, but that was a tough time. That was that's really hard because still early in practice with one year old and not knowing what's going on with my wife and and um what our what was gonna happen with our babies. And they gave us a uh a walk through the uh uh NICO unit, you know. Did they end up in the Nick unit? Um, they they didn't. They ended up, they um she ended up holding them long enough that they said, okay, now if they're born, they're gonna be okay. So we're able to come home three days later. Um, you know, um she goes into labor, it goes in. And then when they were born, they weren't they weren't eating well, so they had to stay for nine days before we were able to successfully bring home.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

So um, and yet another weird like association to my life. My uh uh the non-dentist brother had one kid, and then they were gonna have another one. And I I'll never forget the text message that said, surprise, it's twins and like not the plant, twin girls as well. Um, but they also ended up in the Nick unit, and so which is a very scary time. I mean, one of them was so tiny, and we always joke that the other one was eating all her food. Yeah. And and now they're all they're full grown and happy and healthy. But I remember that being a trying time for them.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Yeah. No, it was uh um, it was very, very trying in indeed. In fact, um uh I just remember um well, it it was hard. It that was that was that was just hard. There's um everything, everything about that was was hard. It was so good when we were finally able to bring them home. Um my wife at first didn't know for sure if the she thought maybe the nurses weren't letting us take them home because they wanted to keep them. You know, she was like, I'll stay there, I'll feed them myself, you know. And then, but then when they finally got it figured out how to feed them. Dialed in. They're they're dialed in.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah. So at this point, you're still not in the endurance athlete game. Yeah. But be it's you said in your notes that you sent me that you gained 20 pounds of sympathy weight. Oh, yeah. Where how did we get there? What happened?

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Well, that was um, you know, again, we were um I was the worship pastor, youth pastor at our church, and and um we were the young couple at church, you know, and when um my wife went on bed rest, uh, the um uh one of her friends really gathered around her to kind of make sure, hey, let's make sure meals are being delivered and everything. Well, there was my mother-in-law, she was hypoglycemic. We have a one-year-old, and then my wife's on bed rest. But people were bringing us meals every day, and and it was like, you know, and they're feeding four people. Well, my mother-in-law is not gonna eat much, my one-year-old's not gonna eat much, you know. And they'd bring a whole plate of brownies. Oh, it's like and you're crushing them. Oh, yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like, oh no, I knew how to put them down. And so, and more's coming tomorrow, you know. And so you don't want to waste the food, exactly. And and I've I've always been that way. I mean, I'm still that person that goes through the fridge and um, okay, I need about this much protein, this much carb, this much fat. Let me eat the things before they go bad so we don't have it throne away, you know. But um, but oh yeah, so for those three months, we had people bringing us food and they were wanting to treat us really well too. So they'd be great meals and you know, and and extra dessert and things like that. And so um, and it's funny because after my wife gave birth, you know, within three weeks, she was back to 115 pounds. And you're like, uh oh. And I was like, and I was like, you know, six months later, a year later, it's like, oh, I still got 20 extra pounds I'm carrying around.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah. And I did the same thing when Amy was pregnant. The first, I I realized the error in my ways as time went on, but you know, you just kind of get comfortable with them. And, you know, they're they're kind of lounging, isn't the term because they're going through hell, but they're just kind of sitting there, and so you're just kind of sitting there. And and for me, that was one of those things where I just looked up one day. And as a guy who doesn't have a huge frame to start with, you take 20 pounds and throw it at me, it's not gonna fall in the most attractive places, you know. It's uh love handles in the gut and moobing out and the whole deal.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

So what do you I'll still have patients sometimes say, yeah, when I first met you, you looked a little different.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

You're a little chunkier in there. Oh no, I know. Um, so what do you do? Like, what's the decision? Because it says in just less than a year later, you run your first marathon. So did you have a moment where you're like, I've had it?

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Yeah, I just say, I've got to do something. I've got to do something to lose the weight. And um, I actually had a patient who had talked about when he his first marathon, he ran Avenue of the Giants Marathon. And I thought, you know, that's what I got to do. I'll sign up for a marathon. Surely I've got to lose some weight, just the process of training for it. And so I signed up for Avenue of the Giants Marathon down in California because it's like, oh, hey, he mentioned that one and it sounded really beautiful. I thought, let's let's go ahead and let's go ahead and do that. And so I just kind of signed up for a marathon and just started running. So yours, wait, hold on. You're signed up, but you're not a runner. Um, right. I I ran a little bit in high school, like I'd been uh in the summer to get ready for football season, that kind of thing. Okay. And um, and but yeah, no, I was not a runner um by any means. I um I would maybe just run a little bit just for general fitness, but never more than you know, three, four miles.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

And that was rarely, you know. So you build up the the mental fortitude over time with these things, but on the first one, are you doubting yourself coming into that?

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Um, I I I kind of went into it um really um not knowing what fully to expect. Um, I kind of came into it really overtrained. I ran too much, um, didn't taper, didn't even know about a taper, um, didn't um do a proper morning meal, those kind of things. And so that first marathon was a was an eye-opener. It was it was uh an interesting experience because um it was uh it was a kind of a double out and back. They were doing a half marathon and a marathon at the same on the same day. Okay. So everybody runs out the same out and then half or whoever comes back. They all run across the finish line, and then the marathoners take out another loop for another half marathon and then come back. Okay. And um, and I remember starting out um going out and man, I'm weaving between people thinking, everybody's running so slow out here, you know. And so we're I'm kind of weaving between here and there. And and it's funny because I remember these two ladies um as I'm passing by and I hear one of them say, Oh, don't worry, we'll see him later. I think there's no way you're gonna see me later. I'm out of you. So far in front of you. Um, but I found seven miles in, I was like, Oh, my legs are tired. I need to take a walk break, my stomach didn't feel well, and my legs were wanting to cramp about mile 10. So I didn't even gotten halfway done, and I was already way behind pace and of what I'd kind of told my family what to expect, you know. And um, I get to that halfway point, and and I told my wife, wow, honey, I said, man, this is this is hard. This I'm I'm really kind of struggling out here. She goes, Well, why don't you just run across the finish line? Just do the half marathon today, you know, just have it be that today. And I said, Oh, okay, maybe that's what I'll do. And then my oldest daughter said, Oh, darn, dad, I was hoping you were gonna do the whole thing. Okay, I'm back out there. See you guys later. And so I took out on that second half, and that second half was um, wow, I um my calves were wanting to cramp so bad. I had to literally run with my toes, you know, trying to flex my toes up in the air my calves would cramp. And um, but I finally finally made it across the finish line. Nice. And um, we had rented a uh a little mini, um, a mini Winnie, a little motorhome, driven down there, I was camping. Nice. And then we thought, hey, we'll drive up the coast the way up, um, the the rest of the way up and stop at all the lighthouses along the way, something fun to do with the family. Um, but at this point after the race, I'm so cramped up, I can't drive. So I'm I'm laying in the on the uh couch on the on the motorhome. My wife's driving it, and I'm just trying not to cramp, move in some way. Every move hurts. Exactly. But what I'm doing, I'm looking at the Race Center magazine, looking for the next race I want to sign up. So you're already addicted right away. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

And one thing that is so important with endurance uh athletes or any attempt to do something that involves endurance, if you don't have a proper plan, it's now it wasn't doomed, but you're fighting an uphill battle, you know. And I've done these things like trying to break push up records where not no proper hydration plan, no proper rest ahead of time, no. Proper uh repetition plan, which would be a pace plan and running. And you find out like you can be brute force for a while. Like when I was trying to beat that push-up record, I was on pace to break the world record at 35 minutes. Yeah. And then I broke. And then I broke again. And then if you're like, oh, that's what broke feels. No, no, no, no, no. And then afterwards, within minutes, my kids were like, You want to go to a Costco? And can we get some samples? And this and then I'm like, sure, I love Costco. It had been minutes. And I walked into a Costco and my whole chest was cramping up. And I'm like, cramps don't start that fast. Yeah. And when you do that, you know that you've taken it too far. And if I ever try that record again, I'm going to do what I'm guessing we're going to find from you is, and that is plan accordingly. Yes, exactly. The Fit for Radio podcast is brought to you by Motosport Hillsboro. And I got to tell you, it is time to get down there and get yourself the hot sale of the day, the Gas Gas G Light Trail 2.0 Electric Mountain Bike. Now, if you're looking for a great deal on an electric bike, this is the one. And with the assist, I was riding this bike. And the harder you pedal, the more juice it gives you. It's got you going farther, faster, and harder than ever. You got to check them out today at MotosportHillsboro.com. A lightweight frame, powerful motor, and built for the trails. And why is it just $21.99 marked down $3,000? It's because they've got the entire inventory. They bought a bunch to bring the savings back to you. So stay rad and get down to Motorsport Hillsboro and get riding today. The Fit for Radio podcast is brought to you in part by Axiom Plumbing Sewer and Septic. All things water and waste. They've got you covered. I'm so stoked to have these guys on board. Worked with them for a long time on the radio, and to have Bruce and the gang here is nothing short of amazing because I know the kind of work they do. Any job in the Portland metropolitan area, including Vancouver, they got you, and I got a discount for you. All you got to do is use the promo code Drew, and you'll get 10% off of your new service. And it doesn't matter if you're dealing with plumbing, sewer, or septic, it's good for any of it. And even $500 off of a water heater. And when mine went out, the first call I made was to Axiom, and they took care of business. And don't forget, Bruce is born and raised Oregonian and has been here his entire life. And this is a privately owned and operated company, not some private equity. So go get it while you can. Residential, commercial, the whole deal, AxiomPDX.com or give them a call at 971-431-4810. That's 971-431-4810 and tell them Drew sent you. But now you're hooked and you're already, I mean, you're cramped up, you're laying in the back of a Winnie, mini Winnie, uh picking your next race. Now you continue to run marathons, right? For a while.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah, Craig. I um kept running marathons um usually a couple a year. Um I did Portland Marathon that year. Um, you know, took significant time off my time from Avenue of the Giants from all the mistakes I had made. So now I started learning, okay. I started reading up a little bit about you know what good training plans would be. And that's when I realized, oh, I had over, I just ran too much. So explain the tapering miles in. So a taper is um, and and tapering can change with time, is uh my tapers have changed through the years. Um taper is you kind of build up um this, uh especially for endurance um events, you're building up your miles. So, so like for a marathon, for example, I would suggest people never really go in past 21 miles because the the recovery that you have to do after running 21 miles is just too much to be able to keep training. And it'll rob you a future session. Exactly. So I always so it's just this slow build, and and you can periodize it to where like you do three weeks of a buildup and then have one week where you back off just a little bit. Let your body recover a little bit better and then then build up from there. But then when it comes race day, you want to go maybe three weeks, maybe a month, maybe two weeks, depending upon the length of the race, to really back off your mileage a lot because really you've been doing kind of some damage to your tissue. And that's part of it with endurance racing. I always tell people you can kind of fake a marathon. You know, you can go into a marathon untrained and get through it. You may, it may be a disaster, but you can get across that finish line. But when you start talking about, you know, um ultra marathons, especially 100 milers and things like that, you can't fake that, especially here on the West Coast where we've got big mountains and things like that. Those downhills, they'll they tear your muscles up, they beat you up. And if you haven't built in that strength and that fibrous tissue in the in the in the muscles, um, you're if you didn't, if you try to do it untrained, you'll have too much muscle damage, too much enzymes being dumped into your kidneys. You might be looking at kidney failure before you ever get across the finish line. You'll have too many other issues that it'll stop you from from making it there. So that taper is you've been building up, um, you know, um kind of doing damage to your body, let it recover, do damage to your body, let it recover stronger. It's coming back stronger, it's gonna come back tougher. But then right before the race, you want to start backing off those miles significantly less because now your body's just getting fresh and everything's getting healed up nicely. Um, I always tell people during that taper, you're gonna feel junky. You know, feel you feel stiff, you feel tight, you feel you got to watch your diet because you're not um putting as many miles of backing calories off just a little bit. So you don't start putting on any extra body fat that you don't need, you don't need extra weight to carry around, those kind of things. But um, but that taper is you're you're just slowly back off the miles so that come race day, your body's completely fresh, everything's healed up, and you're ready to go. And I always tell people you might feel junkie, but don't worry. That's your your butt you're part of it.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

So with the you mentioned the kidneys, and I just want to ask a quick quick question. Is there a way to better protect your kidneys as you're going into these types of things? Because that's something I've noticed when I go extreme with things that I can feel the ache in my kidneys and I start to panic.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

So um, you know, a couple things is um you want to avoid insays. And so a lot of people will use um insayes as uh kind of a pain reliever. It's an anti-inflammatory, but that's so like ibuprofen. Ibuprofen, yeah, exactly. Ibuprofen, advil, those kind of things. Those are those are tough on the kidneys. Um in fact, there's been some um some people who have ended up in the hospital with kidney failure and some big ultramarathons because they were using insects during the race to keep the inflammation down, but they just pushed it a little too much. And these are top-in elite runners. Yeah, they're trying to big race all the time.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Oh, so-and-so ended up in the hospital. Yeah. Oh, and it's kidney stuff. And I could see somebody thinking it's a golden ticket because, oh, it drops my inflammation and I'm not gonna feel all of my pain. Right. But in reality, there's a double-edged sword there. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Um, it's funny. That reminds me of this race I did once. It was um, it was a it was a 50 miler in uh Reno, and um it was it was uh um interesting course of course because it was 50 mile and a 50k going at the same time. And in and this is a lot of the old-timer um um ultramarathoners were out there. Um, in fact, Gordy Ainsley was out there, who he was the first 100 mile ultra-marathoner. He was a um the Tevis Cup 100 mile horse race. He was in that. Um, he's in the horse racing hall of fame as well as in the um ultra running hall of fame. Wow. And his horse came up lame, and he ended up um saying, Well, I'll just run it. And everybody said, Well, you can't run 100 miles to the Sierra Nevadas. He did. And then when he crossed the finish line, they gave him a belt buckle like they did everybody else. And then they said, Hey, maybe we can make this a running event. And that was the the next year was the first Western States 100, which is the kind of the granddaddy of all hundred milers. Wow. But so he was there. So he's the grandfather of ultra running. And I came into this aid station where um the 50 milers and 50kers were crossing, and he was running the 50K. He's a little quite a bit older now, which is about 30 miles. Yeah, 31 miles, 31 miles. And so we're coming at this aid station at the same time, and there was a gentleman there who um he's coming in, he's asking the aid station, you guys have anything? You guys have proofing or any Tylenol or anything like that? And and um, and it's funny because this is Gordy Ainsley, you know, the the grandfather, you know, the master. Yeah. And he says, Well, what do you what do you need the Tylenol for that villain? And the guy's oh, well, just for the pain, what do you use for the pain? And he's like, Well, if I couldn't deal with the pain, I shouldn't be out here. And it's like, oh, he just got schooled by the master, you know. And so, and it's like, yeah, that's the thing, is you you want to know what your body's telling you. You don't want to hide things. Um, um, especially for an event that's that long, um, you it's usually the mistakes you make are early on that you end up paying for 10 hours down the road. That kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

And it's impressive. And you listen to the godfather of it when he's willing to get off a lame horse and run it. You know, exactly if you show up to an event to run, when you just decide to run, that guy's pretty hardcore. Yeah. And uh you take that advice when you can get it. Now, now that you're doing marathons, triathlons in the early 2000s, yeah, right. Um, you you get this regiment going. And let me know when you started it, but you're doing a thing where you're getting up no later than three in the morning every day. So they, and when you and I talked initially, uh it actually was commendable to me um that you would get up at that time so you could work out so that your workouts did not impede on family time and you supporting your kids and your wife and their other endeavors and and whatever comes up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

So I actually started that early on when I was um even training for marathons. Um, because um, well, at that point I was I'd be at work at seven. And so um, in order to get my workout in, get home before the kids got up, um, um I kind of have a routine. I get up in the morning, I always want to have a cup of coffee, I sit and read my Bible for at least a half an hour, and then and then I work out. And um, and I needed to get up at three in order to do that and get my workout in, and then get back and say, oh, good, everybody's still in bed. So that way I knew I didn't take up any family time. And then that became one of those things too, as I started doing longer things, things like trap-ons, things like um ultra marathons and things like that, that um I would even sometimes get up at midnight to get a six-hour bike ride in. Yeah. Or um, and those are all in the garage on a trainer because um didn't want to be out on the road at midnight. Um, or sometimes I'd be at in Forest Park at two in the morning, running, getting at four, six hour, eight-hour run in the morning, and again coming home in time. Oh, good, everybody's still in bed. Um being pretty tired. But um, for me, it was important because that that was one thing in the um endurance, especially the ultra-endurance world. A lot of people um that do endurance racing, it's a it's a real struggle for the family because they're gone so much. You know, dad's always training, or mom's always training, they're always gone, um, especially like on the bike, you know, where you put in long, long hours. So my thing was always how can I do this and not have it have a big impact on my family?

SPEAKER_00 32:55

And there's also like a superhero factor to it. And tell me if you feel differently, but it's like when you get up and you check that many boxes in the morning before anyone else is moving, you know, like because when I would do radio shows to get up at 3:30 and do anywhere between 2,000 and 2,800 push-ups before I would, you know, get in the shower and call it a day and get the day going. And for years, I never even would tell people that that was what I would do. But when you get it, get to work and it's 5.45 in the morning and everyone else is like barely got their eyes open, and they're like, oh my God, how are we here? And you know in the back of your head that you've already been crushing for hours and that if you choose to work out again later, that's great, but you already check the box. It there's something special about it. And I always felt like that morning workout, if you want to be selfish about it, people who work out in the evening, you work out, you go to bed, you lose half of it, you wake up, you do your whole day. You work out, you go to bed, you lose half of it. You spend very little time in the sweet spot. But if you do what you do and you do what I did, you start and finish every day at your peak look and feel.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah. No, you're exactly right. I I I uh treasure those times now too, the in the morning. I I have started um um trying to take better care of myself by getting a little bit more sleep now, making that a little bit more of an important factor. Um it's funny, I got an aura ring um about a year and a half ago, maybe a year ago. Yeah. And just to check to see, it's like because like, hey, I do fine on very little sleep. I used to always say it's great because I get 28-hour days. You know, everybody else has 24 hour days, I get 28-hour days because I only have to sleep four hours a night, you know, that kind of thing. And uh I got the aura ring and and I was able to, and from the that I found, okay, one, don't watch TV at night, um, don't drink caffeine because I could I could drink a pot of coffee and go straight to bed. Now, as I try not to drink coffee in the afternoon, or at least after two. Yeah. Um, and then um no sugar heavy meals in the evening. And um, and I found that makes a big difference. But what I found from ordering was that one, I wasn't getting any REM sleep because just as I barely start to get REM sleep, I'd get up. And so I never gave myself a chance. And so now I get up at four. I try to go to bed early. So so my night my new thing now in um is is I get up at 4 a.m. every morning and um and it still gives me time to to get all the things I I need to do. I only start work at 8:30. We're emptying nesters now. I'm still trying, and it's funny because it'll be 6 a.m. on the weekend. And I feel like I miss my memo, I can't work out today. And my wife my wife's like, honey, you can still work out. It's okay. Most people aren't up, it's the weekend. Oh, I miss my sweet spot, you know. But but it's like, no, it's um, it's good. It's good. Um it was good. It was good doing that because it did work well for my family. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

And I think it's also important that last part you talked about, that you you do have to listen to not just the statistics about it, but to your body. And I didn't get a like a successful sleep score on my Apple Watch a single time in that 10 years that I told you about. Yeah. Now I do sometimes like, yeah, you got a 91. It's like, oh, well, how'd I get a 91? And my wife, I was telling her about you, and I'm like, yeah, this trake guy, him and I have a lot of the same tendencies. And I'm like kind of going through some of your stuff, and she's like, and I'm like, yeah, and he gets up at three, and I get up at three, three, or I've gotten up at 3.30, and she goes, Are you gonna tell him that you're not currently getting up at 3.30? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna tell him. And she's like, Okay, because you're not getting up at three. I'm like, I'm still getting up hours before you guys, and I'm still, you know, hit my Peloton, hit my push-ups, do the whole thing. Um, but I am starting to think that I need to for recovery and for, you know, mental clarity and everything, I do need to get a little bit more sleep than I was because I was getting five a night, and I do I really want to try and be at that six plus number. Um, but it's easier said than done sometimes. Yeah. But you're better about probably about the no TV. It's like I grind all day and I do like to, and especially I like to watch sports. And right now, you know, like the the sports is on until you know nine o'clock, and it's like it's hard to be like, oh, shucks, it's in overtime, heading to bed. Like it's that's the hard part for me. And you know, I I go through lines of being more and less disciplined with that. Um, but 25 years at 3 a.m., that's commendable. Yeah, it was it's it was a long time.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

And um, yeah, it it it became a kind of like a lifestyle, you know.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

And it becomes who you are, right? Like totally. Like Drew, the push-up guy. One reason I can never stop it is for fear that one of my friends that I haven't seen forever is gonna be like, oh, this is the guy right here. And then you have to make, I'm not the guy. Yeah, yeah. If you want to be the guy, you have to do the work. And so I continue to absolutely put myself through it. Now you um kind of introduced your family to the to this whole endurance thing too, because it says here that you ran some races with your daughter and other members of your family.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Yeah, it was fun. Um when um um I done a half marathon with my dad at Pacific Crest one year, and that's they do the that's where they did the big um Pacific Crest half iron man as well. So is that on the Pacific Crest Trail? Um no, it's it was all in Sun River. Okay, and the bike course was um um usually the swim was in Wicki Up um Reservoir, and then the swim the bike was along the Cascade Lakes Highway and through there, and then most all the run was within Sun River proper.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Yeah, and and the Pacific Crest Trail is just right off of there anyway, through sisters and the whole thing. Yeah, I've done tons of races on along different parts of the Pacific Crest Trail.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Beautiful California, you know, Oregon, Washington. It's always a nice part when you have a race and you get on the PCT. It's like, oh yes, that's that's the nice part of the trail. You always have a good trail there.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

And being in Sun River, I love the weather and environment there. It does just kind of scream like, let's get out and do something. So you're you're in the right place to be kind of training that up. Yes, no, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

And so we would um go as a family, and um, my girls would do the splash pedal dash they had for the kids. And then as they got a little bit older, they would do the 5K. My wife would maybe do the 5K or the 10K. Um, I would do that with them as well. And then my brother, my sister-in-law, and I would all do the half iron man together. Um, so we started, um, it became this whole family event. And the girls grew up seeing that. And um, my oldest daughter, we used to run together. Um, we were part of the Oregon Roadrunners Club. And this is when like she was like eight, nine, 10, or 19, 11, right in that era. And um, we'd go, um, we'd do a lot of 5K's and 10Ks together. And and depending upon how you finished in your age group, you got points for the for the year. Well, she always took first place in her age group. So she always got six points. You get six points if you took first. And um at the end of the year, they'd do an award ceremony where you go and total it all, but yeah, exactly. And you get awards for the age group. And so, of course, every year she would win her age group. You know, she'd come get first place. What's funny is every year I would get like for males 35 to 39, I'd be getting second place overall for the year, you know, one time third place, you know. And it's like, well, every single race I did was side by side with my nine, 10, 11-year-old daughter. So had my daughter been a 35 to 39-year-old male, she would have been taken. She would have also been out there. It's like, I'm not doing anything but running with my daughter, you know. So, so yeah, so she was a good runner. And then my uh my twins started running, and um, we started doing some 5K's and 10Ks together. And then finally, um, one of my daughters, Brianna, she um, I think it was her junior year in high school. She said, Dad, I want to run a marathon. And we had done a couple half marathons and kind of building up her training and and stuff. And I said, Okay, and I thought, well, just in case it's one and done, let's pick the Disney World marathon. Okay. It'd be a ton of fun. Yeah. I didn't even know they had that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I'd actually ran it previously with a friend one year. They just kind of went on a vacation there, and that was kind of compartmentalize that this could be good for them. Yeah, too, because I knew well, you run through all the parks before the parks are open. Oh, cool. Disney puts it on. So all the in-between, they got tons of activities, entertainment. And then I also knew they have tons of characters along the way you can take pictures with and things like that. And I thought, too, if there's there's a a struggle going on, it's like, oh, and let's let's stop and take a picture here with Bell, you know, and you can sugarcoat it if it goes south. And I know she's getting a little break here while we're waiting to take the picture, you know. And so, and um, what was really cool about that, um, I remember um with Brianna, that first, that first uh marathon, she was our my first daughter that ran a marathon, um, was I put her on a training program. So I'd already had it kind of built her up about that that half marathon distance. And then I put on a six-month training program, about a hundred training runs. And we literally ran probably 98 of those 100 training runs together. So every day when I'd get home for work, okay, baby, let's let's get our run in, you know, and then on the weekends, okay, Saturday's our long run day. And if it was really long, we'd go up to Forest Park and put the long run out there. And she'd always um um, you know, it was always a little bit harder there than what the race was gonna be. But um, that time that we got to spend together, you know, every night priceless. And and it's during the winter time, so it's Christmas time too. So let's go at night and looked at Christmas lights. We knew the neighborhoods we want to run. Oh, it was very priceless, very, very bonny. Yeah. So um that was that was amazing. I I loved that opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

And as a girl dad, I anytime you get those moments, you know, you and you never know like how fleeting they are. And now, granted, I I know that you've got a great relationship with your family and it still works out for you, but you you never know when they're gonna get a little older and be like, you're not cool, or like I'm over it. And so you're like, I'll just take everything I can get and just bank it as core memories. Exactly. And that's just impressive.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

And I think from that, too, seeing that her the very next year, her twin sister said, Hey dad, I want to run a marathon too. So, well, let's do Disney World. So then the next year we did Disney World, had the same, got to have this that same experience. You know, that is so all the training runs together and then and then doing the race, you know, side by side.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

So that is truly impressive. Now, um, as you're doing all this, you're still kind of like starting to push yourself and you're kind of going to a new level of fitness and you go from marathons to triathlons. What what led you to that?

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Yeah. So it was um at Pacific Crest, seeing the triathlete, you know. So I ran that half marathon with my dad. And then afterwards, we started seeing the triathletes coming through and too, just looking at their physiques and and just looking at their level of fitness of that, man, that looks awesome. Yeah, run doing what I just did, but having done a 56-mile bike ride before that and the swim. And so then we decided, hey, let's let's do this next year. And um, my brother, who's just a couple years older than myself and his wife, Kim, um, um, we decided, hey, let's kind of do this together. So we'd signed up for uh a triathlon at Blue Lake, you know, an Olympic triathlon, and then we're gonna do uh the Half Iron Man. Um a few weeks after that.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

So is your your you've been training up towards this? Was your brother doing the same types of things, or was he just like, let's see how this rolls?

SPEAKER_01 43:30

They were they were athletic, and and we were doing we were doing some of these things together. Um, we had um done a marathon together with my dad at um Arizona Rock and Roll Marathon. And so um, and my brother is a is an extreme athlete. He is um probably one of the best athletes I'd ever had ever met. So if he puts his mind to it, it's gonna happen. Yeah, exactly. He has he has this athletic prowess and ability that um um he can do things that most people wouldn't be able to do on very l less training just because he's got the athleticism to it to be able to do that. Okay, that makes sense. And so they they They jump on board. Yes. So they jump on board and um and we started doing Pacific Crest um every year. And um we did that like about three years in a row. And then someone said, Well, are you ever gonna do an Iron Man? I said, Well, man, until until I can finish a half Iron Man under six hours, I don't want to do an Iron Man because I want to be out there that long. And I was finishing Pacific Crest in like you know 630, 620, that kind of thing. When then that year, um I finished under six hours. And it's like, okay. You made the promise nearly under, and so the same weekend is um Iron Man Court d'Alane. And in order to get in, you got to sign up online. And my brother and I we finished the um the half iron man. I said, Hey, I came, I came under six, you know. I want to I want to sign up for the Iron Man. He says, Let's do it. And so my brother and I both went down to the library the next day when registration opens up, we're waiting for it to like the 7 a.m. open and got on there real quick and got our names in there and and got got signed up and um signed up for our first Iron Man together.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

So that is incredible. Now, when you do an Iron Man, do you train differently or you how do you how do you switch things up? Now, obviously, you got to work swimming in and and more biking. Are you training all three all the time or how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 45:11

You are training all three all the time. Um for me, my strength was on the on the bike and the run. I built in a nice strong running background from running marathons. And then um, and biking is I found in I even found even now, um when there's periods of times where I'm maybe not doing triathons and just doing ultrasound, I still bike. Because the biking is a great way to keep the strength in the legs and to work the legs and and to build a big aerobic motor, but without pounding so much that the running does. So I will incorporate that in in between. So the the bulk is still the bike and the and the run, and then just make sure you can get through the swim well. You know, make and the swim is kind of nice because you can put a good swim workout in afterwards, like, wow, I did a good workout and my legs aren't shot.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Yeah, which was different than all the other training. Yeah, which is which is important. And I I do believe that the the bicycle for anybody, even if you're not an endurance athlete, I think everyone should have. If you live in a beautiful place, your bike can be outside all the time. I feel like everybody should have a stationary bike. I have one. I have a minimum of 150 miles I have to do a month, which is nothing compared to what you guys are doing, but always keeping the motor going and then not compromising my joints at the same time. So I just have that in the back of my head that that's just kind of like having the glass of water in the morning. You're like, okay, gotta do that and then get going. Very wise. Yeah. And maybe it'll build to some longevity. The Fit for Radio podcast is brought to you by the Stafford Hills Club. And if you haven't been here, I really wish you would check it out because we've been spending so much time at the pool right now. Salt water, too, so it's not messing with your skin and your hair, and it's just nicer, easier to deal with all the way around. Also, premier fitness facilities and a staff that is so kind and knowledgeable that it's second to none. There's a reason they were voted the best health and wellness facility in the Portland area. You want to get in where you fit in. I would love to be sitting there right by the pool with you, having a cold beverage, maybe enjoying something from the saltwater grill, which is open right now. And my kids love it so much. In fact, that they drag me all over the pool trying to get a hot dog and an ice cream sandwich. Go check them out today, staffordhills.com. Tell them Drew sent you for half off your initiation. The Fit for Radio podcast is also brought to you by Motorsport Hillsboro, who have a serious deal for you right now. I've been talking about this, and I've been riding the gas-gased electric mountain bike, which is now $3,000 off MSRP. And why and how? Well, Motorsport Hillsboro bought up the inventory to bring the savings back to you. We're talking lightweight frame, powerful motor, and built for the trails. The more you go hard, it goes right along with you faster, harder, and farther than anything you're used to. You never seen the second part of that trail? Well, you will now just head out to Motorsport Hillsboro and get yourself on a gas-gas G Light Trail 2.0 electric mountain bike. So you've really kind of ramped it up. You've you're now like fully addicted to this endurance thing, but you take it up another notch and you've done triathlons now, you've done marathons, but you go up to the hundred milers in 2010. Now that I I've been meaning to ask, now I've had a couple of people who are like you and and go extreme on these things, but it just for me, I always think of it as so much more when you go up to that level. Um from top to bottom, just what comes to mind is like blistering rashes, chafing, what happens to your stomach or your bowels, or you know, like when you have to use the restroom, does the body, what is the bodies of rejecting things? Um when you move up to a hundred miles quickly, why did you go there? And then what was like were there big surprises when you went to that? Or those of us who don't do it overthinking it?

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Yeah, I um I always tend to like to see what's the what are where are the limits? And um, I had a couple patients who were um veteran um ultrarrunners. One of them, the the lady, she was an elite ultra runner, and uh they'd been talking to me, they'd been coming in as patients, um, um, and they've been talking, oh doc, you gotta do uh uh an ultra marathon with us sometime. It's like, oh, okay, you know, if I've got the time, you know, finally they talked me into doing a 50K, then a 50 miler, and they say, Oh, you're ready for it. You need to do a hundred miler. And then what I found just doing a 50 miler is like, wow, it's not like just two marathons. It's like that second one is a totally different story than what the first one is. And so I thought, oh wow, I can't even imagine what another one would be like. Um, but I finally, you know, I said, okay, let's let's go for it. So I um so I signed up for uh uh Hundred Miler. Um it was a Rocky Raccoon Hundred Miler. Actually, it was it was great. My um brother was my um was my crew for that. And so because we'd been we'd done a few Ironman's together at that point, and um and he knew me athletically more than anybody, and I knew he could be very attentive to details. And so he flew with me out to Texas and to do that first hundred miler. And yeah, it was a uh flatter floor, so it wasn't super hill hilly, which was nice. Um, and it was a 20-mile loop that you ran uh four times and or five times, I'm sorry. And then um, and so he was he would meet me at certain places, and all I knew is yeah, that second half, man, it started getting so hard. And uh, and it was also an interesting one because at night um you would see all these bright lights all over the ground, you know, as your headlamps shining off them, and you're wondering, what are all these lights? You know, and then as you got closer to him, you realize they were all spiders. Oh, yeah. Oh man, there's just thousands of spiders everywhere that would come out. And then um, every once in a while you'd see the red eyes out there, and those are alligators because there's a bunch of alligator stands through here. And so my brother runs the last uh 20 miles with me, and and I'm telling him these stories. Now he's like, Oh, are you kidding me? There's all these spiders out here and stuff, you know, and alligator stands in case in case you get cornered by an alligator. But yeah, so he was um it was great having him there with me. And um, we get through it, I get through it, and um, I'm just shot, you know. Um, he gets us back to our hotel, and I remember just laying on the bed, I could barely move, and ask him, Tony, could you lift my left leg and move that ice pack here? Tony, I just didn't have the power to lift my legs, you know. That's where it's nice that he's your brother. Yes, exactly. And um, I also remember when I was done, it's like one, oh, I just wanted to shower so bad. Just had to get out of those clothes and and um, and I remember I had to go to the bathroom. And I went to the bathroom and I'm looking at, holy cow, it looks like I'm peeing a latte or something. And that's when I realized, ooh, there's a lot of blood mixed in with there as well. And that's what I and and a lot of enzymes from the muscles, you know, mixed in with that. And I thought, oh, you know, my my muscles have had some damage. And so that first um um ultramarathon, like that was um, I got to see just what it does to the body in the midst of that too. And then from there, it didn't continue to be that bad, you know. And I didn't never had the the latte urine after that, but um um definitely with the the uh muscles, um muscle breakdown. Um, you you have to put the training in on that, do really hard heel training to just beat your legs up so that they can handle the big build it up, especially the ones that we have out here, and um and then talking about um um you know body rejectioning and things like that. I think I've ran a couple dozen hundred milers now, and I think out of all those, I think there's only three ever where I didn't throw up at some point. So the body is like, what's going on? Yeah, the body, and I always feel it's kind of like my body saying, Okay, how can I get him to stop doing this? Just take a break. Yeah, exactly. And if you're heaving, you're gonna break. Yeah, and it's and at some point, and it and it's a roller coaster. It's this big roller coaster where um you'll feel like one moment, just oh, and even it no matter how fit I was, at the at the most fit, you know, 30 miles, that's kind of fun. After 30 miles, it's just hard. It just gets hard, and you just got to barrel down. And you know, I got another 10 hours of this or 15 or 20 hours of just pain and just putting in the effort and riding this roller coaster where you'll feel like, man, I can't hardly move at all. And to to um, man, I end up feeling pretty good. And when you get those feelings, you capitalize on that because you know it's not gonna last forever. Oh, yeah. Just you keep riding that roller coaster and and you keep figuring out. Um, and I think every ultrarunner's got their bathroom stories, you know, because you're eating and drinking out there, you're gonna have to go to the bathroom. The beauty with um trail running is there's a bathroom behind every bush. Yeah, that's true. You got places you can find to go and stuff like that. But um, what you're gonna eat and how you're gonna eat and how you're gonna feel yourself. Um, I know I couldn't handle gels for after six to eight hours in the heat. I just it would almost heave, just even holding one in my hand. My body was like, Yeah, you knew that taste and that the texture was coming. Exactly. And um, I remember I ran 100 once where I feel I love caramel. I absolutely love caramel. And so I thought, oh, I'm gonna hundred thousand dollar bars, the little fun size, you know, the I ran the whole hundred miler on um hundred ground, hundred ground bars. Yeah, I'd eat one of the little fun size every 20 minutes. And so I went through dozens of those. That's amazing. It fueled me. And and and even 20 hours in, it's like, oh yeah, I get a lot of people. I still love them.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

I still love them, yeah. And so which is smarter, you know. You you walk into like a dick's sporting goods, and you're like, oh, I'll get the sour apple and the this weird peach puree. That's gonna make you heave.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

Yeah. And those aren't shorter races, but the longer races, like, no. And now, and what's great, especially doing some of the classic hundred milers, you get the eight station captains who's like, I've been the captain of this eight station for you know 10 years. And so they're all trying to outdo each other. And so some I've had some really good food out on the trails. Um, I remember the Tahoe Rim Trail. Um, it came out of the mountains this one time at this eight station. This guy's out there grilling up cheeseburgers. So I left that eight station with a cheeseburger any chance. She was eating them down. Anytime I get homemade cookies, homemade brownies, I'll stuff those in my pockets and eat those on the go.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

And so I had a one lady on here who was who ran these distances, and I was asking him, like, well, that doesn't seem like good fuel for your body. And she's like, Well, you're going so hard that whatever it is your body just eats it up. I was using an example of somebody had made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and like gone to the effort to cutting the crusts off for these people, and they were just eating them with their eyes closed, like, you know, where it's like stuck to your mouth, but it was like pure ecstasy. They was just like, it was just everything in that moment. And they probably crushed afterwards. Um, I think it's pretty cool, uh, just to go back for a second that your brother was there um to help you with the recovery and stuff. When I did my world record attempt, I brought my brothers with me here to the club to do it. And, you know, three-quarters of the thing way through my older brothers who are not here to coddle me. One of them's got a wet towel that he's like rubbing on my back and like basically whispering sweet nothings in my ear to like keep me going, a guy who does not talk to me that way. So it's nice when they're family because when you're breaking down, you need them. Yeah. Right. And so you pull that off. You um, and then you start doing ultramans. What is an ultraman in comparison to these other races?

SPEAKER_01 56:28

So ultraman is an iron, is is a is a triathlon. Um, it's uh it's a uh extra endurance triathlon. It's about the swim is about a it's a 10k swim, and then it's a 274-mile bike and then a 52.4 mile run. So it's about a two and a half times Iron Man swim, about a two and a half Iron Man times um bike, and a double, double marathon at the end, double double um uh Iron Man run at the at the end.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

Because a triathlon just isn't enough.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Yes. Yeah, well, well, it was funny, is it was actually I was um in the um uh package pickup line for Iron Man Arizona one year, and then there was a person in front of me carrying a bag, and it said, you know, Ultraman World Championship. Oh, what's this? You know, and I'm seeing the distances. I'm thinking, oh man, this is even this is even more. Yeah. Yeah. So I I tap her and I ask her, hey, see your bag? What is it? Oh, yeah, my husband did this race the the last year. And so she told me all about it. And so I went straight from the package pickup to get on my phone to go, okay, what's Ultraman all about? You know? And then um saw what it was. Okay, I gotta find a qualifier to do the Ultraman World Championships. And there was one in Canada. So so I quickly signed up for Ultraman Canada. And it's a um, you have to kind of put in uh your bio and because it's an invitation-only race. So you have to kind of let them know you're capable. Here's what I've done, and then you wait, and then you wait and see if you get an invite. And so I put that in, and then I got the invite to to come that year.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

So that's cool. Now you you compete in the Ultraman Canada, then competed in the Ultraman World Championships in 2016. Yes. So did is that something you had to hit a certain time to qualify for?

SPEAKER_01 58:01

Um, well, um, at Ultraman Canada's fine because I had my brother come. He was he was my kind of my main crew, him and a friend, um uh Mark. And um, I knew they would get along really well. They're both good friends. My brother knew me athletically, and then Mark's job was to I don't make me not have to think you keep track of my my calories, my my water intake, you know, those kinds of things. You just grind. Yeah, and um, and with the thing, the difference with uh an Ultraman is your crew is with you the whole time. And so um Are they in a car then? Yes. Okay, yeah. So it's kind of like tour to four out. Yeah, yeah, they're in a crew vehicle. So um my uh my brother actually did the um all the athletes, and that's the difference too. Iron Man, you're gonna have um uh like maybe 2,000, 2,500 people in Iron Man. Um, Ultraman, you have a maximum field of 35, 40 at the world championships. So it's a very small group of people. Um and and then um every athlete in the water, because it's 10K swim, you know, this is gonna take you, you know, three and a half, four, four and a half hours to complete. Um every athlete has their own swim escort. And so my brother was my swim escort. He was in a kayak next to me. What was funny is what I didn't know was they had gotten a maturing kayak, which is is not nearly as stable. And while I'm dealing with it, yeah. So while I'm getting ready, he's getting ready to launch and he dumps himself, you know, and he's like in a foot of water, you know, and he's like going, oh no, if I can't balance this, what am I gonna take? I'm gonna lose my brain. So I don't know this is going on. You know, he tells me this after the race and stuff. But um, so he was my crew on the water the whole way. He's with me. Um, it's funny too, because um, you know, as you start off 10K, you know, you can't see that far across the lake. So they, you know, so the race director is like, just swim that way. Eventually you'll see a buoy. You know, and I was about an hour into the swim before I first looked up and went, Oh, I think I see some little pink ball on the water. Well, I know that ball's five feet tall, you know, but it's just a little dot out there. But it took me an hour before I could even see it, you know. And so it's such a long way. Are are you having to stop, tread water, and rest? Um, my my brother had some water bottles with with him, and I said told him every half hour, just get my attention and and then I could stop. He could toss me the bottle, I couldn't and then go and then keep going. And so, yeah, you don't really rest other than um when you take those those quick little breaks. Um, you can hold on to the boat if you want, but you can't move, make any forward progress or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:24

Okay, and yeah, that that would be convenient. Yeah. Ro, Tony! Now, um, so you you pull off the world championships, you complete that race.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

Yeah. So um, so after the um after Ultraman Canada, I again invite to go to the uh World Championships, um, went and did the world championships, and um, and then my family was my crew there. And so um, because then they want to be a part of that. Yeah, they're leaping. It is over the course of three days instead of just one day. The first day you do the swim and the first 90 miles of the bike, and then the next day it's 17 um four miles on the bike, and then the third day is the is the run, is the run. And so the whole time they're leapfrogging you on the course. Um, what was funny was, you know, uh the start, you know, I get out of the water and everybody's hey, cheering stuff. And then I take off on the bike and and and they'll leapfrog me and they're getting out of the car. Go, dad, go, dad. Well, by that second day, yeah, like you know, one kid's getting out of the car, need anything, dad? Yeah, their toes. Oh, they're exactly because they've been falling the whole time and stuff. And it was funny because even at the end of the race, they were um they were like, Yeah, oh, I'm so sore and achy, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

And it's like, oh, from getting in out of the car the whole time. You're like, don't worry, guys, I'm fine. But it's funny, you know it's a real endurance race when your crew is exhausted.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:42

Yes, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

Exactly. It shows that you've taken it to another level. Now you you actually got to do an Iron Man, the the Iron Man, the world championships in Kona.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

Yes, yes. I just did that this um in 2024. So I I um I got an invite um from Iron Man Foundation to to come do it. I've been doing Iron Man's for a long time. There was a little hiatus. Um, COVID kind of messed everything up, you know, because yeah, um, all everything was canceled. And then when they started doing races again, they were all kind of weird, you know. It's like, oh hey, you can't gather before or after the race, or or for the ultramarathons, there won't be anybody at the aid stations, you got to wear a mask at the start of the race. And I thought, yeah, it gets weird. Forget all that. I'm gonna I'm gonna wait until things get normal. And so there was a little bit of hiatus. And so um, but I were you running alone during that time? Yeah, you know, and um, and and I wasn't doing quite as much as what I had been doing for so long because I always had a I always had a race on the schedule. I always had a race on the schedule. So people used to always ask me, you know, man, you must work out a lot. I said, No, I don't I hardly work out at all. Now I train a lot, yeah. I I do train a lot, you know, and that's the whole thing is I always I was always training. I had a specific workout I was doing that day because it's getting me somewhere because I've got something on the calendar. And with nothing on the calendar, it's like, oh, and I just feel like I'm working out, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:52

Which is funny because people are like, oh, you must work out. You're like, I don't, and I train. To them, that's the same thing. But in your mind, if yeah, you have a plan and and a and and there's all it's not a panic, but it's a I have to do this because this day is coming. Exactly. Because I know if I don't, oh, I'm gonna suffer. Because you're doing what for this, what they do for a trip to Cabo, or they know they got to get in a bikini, or they gotta do, they gotta be in swim trunks in front of everyone. They circle a date and work out towards it. You're training towards a big event. Now, you I thought it was interesting. Um, well, I just want one more question about Kona because I had a guy on here who's done 45 Ironmans, and he told me Yeah, Bob Jordan, yeah, uh, one of my heroes. And Bob said that you know, you have to qualify for Kona at another Iron Man and finish in a certain thing, or you have to you have to basically apply for a golden ticket. How did you get so I got an invite from the Iron Man Foundation?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

Part of it was from doing um Ultram the Ultraman World Championship is on Kona. Yeah. Race director there, they do things with Iron Man as well. Okay. Um, and and so I I think she put my name in there saying, hey, give this guy an invite. And so I'd gotten an invite um from just the history of what I had with Iron Man already, and then um, and and have putting in the lottery and doing and then the things I'd done with the Ultraman um world championships that they send that invite to me and it's like, man, I'm getting an invite, I'm taking it. Because I always wanted to do Kona, you know? Absolutely dreams.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

I mean, honestly, even if you get the golden ticket, you go to Kona. I mean, for a triathlete, it's the Mecca, it's the Super Bowl, it's it's everything you could ever imagine that you want it to be. Exactly. Um, now for you, um, I thought this was an interesting stat, and it leads me to my next question. And I do want to get into the next phase of your life with your grandkids and everything, because I think that's a really cool thing that you've got your head wrapped around. But it says here that you ran the Portland Marathon at least 20 times, but only raced it three times. And what I'm gathering here is you're pacing for other people.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:03

Yes, yeah. I um it's funny. I one of the things I found is especially when I started doing ultra marathons and things like that, I would just run marathons just kind of more for fun. And um, and I I've got a very large patient base. Patients were always interested in what I was doing. I'd always be encouraging people, hey, sign up for something, let's do something, you know, or hey, I'll help, you know, I'll help you uh write out a training plan for you and things like that. And um, and so um all those other times I was either running with um with a staff member or a patient and helping them to either qualify for Boston or finish just to complete their first marathon. It's like I'll run it side by side with make sure you don't make any of those mistakes that keep you from getting across that finish line. Now let's make sure this is a fun experience. That's impressive. I always tell people a lot of um training programs I've evaluated and look at them, and they're thinking, well, no wonder you're having a problem. This is too much. You're putting too many, too many miles on your body. You're not recovering enough. Um, and so I always tell people the goal really you need to get to the start line uninjured. And then once you get to that start line, Now execute the day based upon the training you're able to put in. Because people always say, Oh, if I feel like I could train more, it's like, well, everybody could train more. You gotta quit your job and just that's all you do. But that's not reality. Yes. You know what kind of training you were able to do. And now you got to execute based upon that training. The training was really, really good. Go for it. If you know, oh man, you had some struggles, some injuries, some little things that came up in the way, but now you're at the start line. It's like, okay, you need to work in some walk breaks when you do that. What kind of pace should you run? You know, those kind of things to make sure that that you get across the finish line. And it's not just a torture fest the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

It's pretty cool that you're doing that. And I was when you were talking earlier about the Disney marathon, I was like, this is this is pacing in the early stage here. And I don't know if you're doing that, you know, at the same time, but kind of what you were doing for your daughters with the plan and the training regimen and so that they could go and do those marathons, you were kind of honing your craft at that early. I kind of realized.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

And I just even as you mentioned, that's like, yeah, that's exactly what it was. I never even thought about it that way. Yeah. Um, all the races that I did with my daughters side by side in training runs with them, because then I'd know exactly what pace should they run. You know, because I went with I know where they're at. So I can set the pace for them now. I know, I know what they're capable of.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:12

And which it's easier to do in a fatherly spot, but like you actually can take that exact same way of talking to someone because if you're training me to do a marathon, I'm gonna listen to you like a father because you've got the knowledge, and if I can just soak it in. And so, like, I think that doing it with daughters too, it it gives a you you can almost be more crafty with it, how you explain to somebody. You know, if it was your son, it could be as simple as like just grind it out, which would likely lead to a disaster. Now, um do you find the same joy in pacing someone else's when it's your own your own uh achievement?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:56

It was kind of interesting, you ask it because it's um um I ran uh the Zion 100 with a patient, um, and when he had asked me, he actually paced me the last 30 miles on uh ultra marathon when he was starting to build up his miles. He said, Hey, can I pace you on a race? Well I'm doing the Mountain Lakes 100. Why don't you run the last 30 with me? Yeah. So he did that, and that was a lot of fun. You know, he he really enjoyed getting to see too. You got to see what the tail end of 100 miles looks like. That last 30 miles, I was like, uh, that's that's when you really see what you're made of, you know, is that that that last little bit. And so he got to see that. And um, and so he had asked me, Well, when I ever run my first hundred, could you run it with me just to make sure I don't do anything to keep myself from finishing? I said, sure, of course. So he got ready and we decided to have a Zion 100. So signed up for that. We went to do that race. We did it side by side the whole way. And it was funny because the very first 30 miles, the whole time, the first 30 miles, I said, Scott, slow down, slow down. You're trying to pick up pace too much, you know, stay back here with me. You know, I always tell people your first hundred miler, if you feel like, oh, this is a this is a good pace, no, you're going too fast. You should feel like, oh, this is ridiculously slow. Yeah, perfect. That's where you really want to be. And so for the first 30 miles, it was all um, you know, slow down, don't, don't go too fast. All night, it was like, Scott, you got to eat more than that. Here, eat this too. What have you eaten? So here, eat this too.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:10

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SPEAKER_01 1:10:09

So, yeah, then at night, um, you know, it naturally slows you down. It's a little bit um the darkness slows you down, it's a bit cooler, so you can digest a little bit better. So that's when you want to refuel your body as much as you can because come the next day, it lightens up, you're gonna have a little bit more difficult time with that. So the next day, um, then he was getting tired and he was slowing down. So I was going, come on, Scott, pick it up, stick with me, stick with me here. You know, trying to encourage him to stay with me as I'm running the pace. I'm trying to keep him about two hours in front of the time cutoff clock. So the each day station, you have to hit a certain time. I it's that way. If something gives you wiggle room, wiggle room. If someone goes sideways, I got two hours to get him straightened out and get going again. So um, so he's doing, we're going along and then finally we were with him about five miles of the finish line. And that's when it's like, oh, he's got it in the bag, you know, because we could walk it out from there if we needed to, you know. And I told him, Scott, it's all you now, you know, you you pick the pace, you know. He slowed down considerably because, you know, he was hurting a lot. But what I found um for myself was at that five mile mark, you know, that 95 mile mark, five miles to go, all of a sudden it's like I had this joy welling up in me. And I thought, oh, I remember this. I remember when I did Rocky Raccoon with my brother, and and I was five miles from the finish, and I knew I was gonna finish it. That's the same kind of joy I'm having now, but I'm having it for him. And that's when I thought, oh, this is the good stuff. And that's when I kind of decide, you know what? I I've done I've spent so many thousands of hours all by myself in the woods, all by myself training. I want to, it's all about the shared experience now. And even now, when he comes in to the office as a patient, we always talk about Zion 100. Oh, you guys have that bond forever. Oh, yeah. The hallucinations, the different things that happened, you know. Um, at one point, uh, you know, uh yeah, we thought we were seeing trains because usually you don't see straight lines, but um, Zion's got a lot of stratification to the rocks. So we'd say, Oh, we must be coming on an aid station. I see a train up ahead, you know? And we'd get, it seems like within 50 feet of it, all of a sudden they're rocks. But man, that was a train.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:07

And you could see a train that whole time, you know. The brain's playing tricks on it. Oh, yeah. And having someone there with you to where you both kind of can come out of a moment together and be like, well, that wasn't there. You know, and it's like you're not going crazy because it's happening to him too. You know, it's like, oh, this is part of it. Precisely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:23

And you can tell him, like, okay, we're all right. I tell him about all the different other other um hallucinations I've seen during races and stuff and you make him feel better. I'll be different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:33

Yeah. That is wild. Now, um, you pace your son-in-laws um when they did it at Lava Man. Yeah. And so you, this is a thing you you enjoy doing and are gonna continue to do. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:45

The thing that I I found that this is something I've I've been having fun doing these last few years is kind of roping people into doing things, you know. And um, oh, you should do this, you know. And so um I talked a friend into doing Lava Man last year, and now next year he's gonna um come back to the island and do the um half iron man on the island. And um, and then my son-in-laws, um, I talked them into doing Lava Man this last year. Awesome. And so we went and did that, and um, and we did it together. It was funny because my um one of my son-in-laws, uh, he's a good swimmer, and my other son-in-law, he was kind of new to swimming. And so I stuck with him on the swim, kind of helped help break some of the waves for him. I told him, Hey, I will swim us a straight line. I'll stay right next to you. And and um kind of got him through the swim and he did great. And then he took off on the bike, and I was with him on the bike until we caught my other son on the bike and then let him go. And I stuck with my other son-in-law on the rest of the bike, and then on the run, he started having leg cramps. I helped work the leg cramps out of him, then helping get him through the run and just all the all the little things that came up. That is so cool, though. The race that I I know from just the experience of oh, wait, we need to take this kind of fuel and let's get this in you here. So let's slow down, let's take a walk break here. Okay, now we can start running a little bit, you know. And then he finished out really strong, and now both of them are signed up for the half iron for the for the lava man next year. Oh, that's cool. I've got a couple friends I'm trying to talk into it. I think I got them talked into it. Um, my brother and sister-in-law might come next year um and do the lava man too, because they haven't raced for a long time. And and so I'm keeping one of my old race bikes here for my brother just in case he needs a bike. It's like it's like I make sure it works out because I was figuring out that you know, the more the the more, the more the merrier. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:21

And so that's so great. Uh, you remind me of um, he also was on this show, the guy whose world record I tried to beat, Tommy Vu. I should introduce you to him because his whole goal is to break records and to spread awareness so that other people will attempt to break his record. Well, in in general, he's like, you can break a different record, but he wants anyone and everyone to try to break a world record because why not? And so, like, that's how he motivates others. And it's it's kind of like what you're doing here, where you're you're spreading this whole feeling person by person. And and being a triple girl dad like you are, all you hope is that your kids find somebody who's gonna take care of them, treat them right, and that you can get along with a little bit. And you've been gifted with kids who want to run with you, son-in-laws who want to train with you and do these, do the lava man and and to listen to you and be a part of that. Like that's a gift. Yeah. It's um, I I I've definitely been blessed.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:23

I've been I've been blessed. I was telling my wife the other day, just you know, the fact that like our daughters call her two, three times every day, you know. And it's like, you know, that is just an awesome thing. And so, and um, and again, be able to have these shared experiences um where um they're not just stories of oh, let me tell you about this race that I did. But it says like, remember when we did this. And um, my daughters had been able to be part of some of the ultra marathons I've ran where they'll do a little six-mile section in the middle of the night with me, you know, and and I remember those and they remember those, and they remember the big torrential rains and and you know, uh crossing rivers and things like that. Um, I know my um one daughter, Brittany, she did a um a part of uh uh the Bryce 100 with me, and it was the hairiest of all um ultra you know, ultramarathon terrains, and then she did it, you know, it's like way to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:14

Yeah, and it's something to be proud of, you know. Like you my kids are just at the soccer practice phase of life, you know, but you just want to see them try and you want to see them to like, you know, think that the that this is as far as they can go, and then to jump past that, and it'll spread to so many other aspects of their life. And you've done a really, really great job of that. And to to help others achieve the things that you have to is you're really you're keeping the infection of it alive, right? Because like the patient that you ran it with, he's jazzed about that. He's I bet you, and he goes into other circles, he talks to them about it, and then when they they get a little inkling that they want to do it, he's the infectious one. It's like, nah, man, it's there's a feeling. There's a you need to go hallucinate with your buddy while you're running a trail in the middle of the night in the spiders and alligators and everything else. Um, but it's so cool. Now you even paste your uh son-in-law on a 50K as well, which is that 31 miler. Yeah, yeah. But um, my um uh two of my kids uh live live on the big island.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:17

And uh the one family before they moved there, um, just as a year, about a year and a half ago, he did his first 50K um waist wonder. And um, and so we ran that together side by side, and we'd gone on some pregnant rents together, and that was a huge accomplishment for him, you know. And um, and again, it's one of those things we've got that shared experience now. And every time I see him wear his waist, you know, shirt or hat, it's like we talk again about yeah, remember this and remember different parts, and and um so again, it's that that shared experience and and that um um uh history together versus just stories, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:51

Yeah, and and he wants to do it, you know, like whereas in, oh, I was forced to go fishing with my father-in-law and hear his stories is different than we share this thing together. It's a bond rather than a required sit-down or a almost like being in class because I have to, because he's my wife's dad. It just feels like something so much different that you've built there.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:11

Yeah, he's all right, I I've talked about I'm gonna um I want to start doing uh, I'd really like to do a couple more hundred milers coming up and then one on the on the um on Oahu. I've done it before, it's the hurt 100. It's uh really rough terrain, you know, but it's something that's like, hey, this is something I could do and have my family there because they can island hop over with. Yeah. And my son-in-law, he's like, yes, do it because he wants to pace me. You know, he wants to be out there with me and because it's one that's you could run sections with someone. And so I I'm that's my thoughts too, is picking races that is are paceable. And I'm because I I never used the pacer ever, you know, for a long time. I just always would just go do it all by myself. But then when um that patient ran that last 30 with me on the one, it's like, you know, that was really fun just being with someone out there. Yeah. And now having the opportunity to have um my family be out there and stuff. I'm just looking for those kind of opportunities now where I can pull in family and friends and and a race that we could do sections together, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:08

Yeah, that's awesome. And you're not gonna stop there. What I think is cool is, you know, you have grandkids now and you're spending a lot of time with them. That's why you're spending more time over on the island. And, you know, I think it's awesome because you told me that you would like to keep going long enough in case they would like to do marathons or triathlons, that if they asked you, you could do it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:31

That's that's my one of the things I'm thinking about longevity a little bit more now, too. You know, yeah, I got to make sure because you know, my uh oldest grandson's five, and I've got um, I've got granddaughters that are just turning three this summer, and then then a newborn, and then another one's on the way. So I've got grandchild number number five on the way, and I figured we'll just keep having more from there. But um, my goal is is I would love to um, because I I know that like right now we do uh the turkey trot every year over there the um at the Fairmont Orchid. And it's and they have a little kids' race, and then the adults will do the 5K. I'm thinking maybe another year to my um my grandson's like, hey, you want to do the 5K? And by golly, we're gonna do every step side by side. That's right. And you pace them right through that. Exactly. And and my my my thing is I think, yeah, I would love to um um one is is if any of my grandkids ever say, Man, I want to run a marathon, I want to make sure Papa can still say, Hey, I'll do it with you. Yeah. So I got to make sure I can, I don't wear myself out. I also gotta keep myself fit fit enough that I can do it. But um, but I wanna I wanna be able to again have those shared memories with them. And and as their, as they've gotten older, I had all my my fondest childhood memories are with my grandparents. Um, I was very close to my grandparents. Um, probably some of the most precious relationships I had as a child growing up was with my grandparents. Yeah. And um when I had kids, I want to provide that opportunity for them to have that relationship with their grandparents. And now that I have grandkids, it's like I want I want to be there. That's why we do travel so much is we want to be there all the time to be creating those relationships with them, give them the opportunity to have that the same feelings that I have about my grandparents. Um, you know, sometimes people people say, Well, you you know, be with them now because later they might not want to be. It's like, man, I always want to be with my grandparents. Yeah, and even as an adult, I will I'd love being with my grandmother and my grandpa. Yeah. And so I think we'll have that kind of relationship. And so, but my thing is too is I want to um, I want to do some things. I'd love to, I want to do the Ultraman World Championship one more time. And the and the the race directors told me, Hey Drake, you got a slot anytime you want it. You know, it's like, okay, I just know what and my and my kids are like, Yeah, dad, go for it. And my wife's like, oh boy, she knows what it takes for me to get ready for that too, you know? Yeah, that's awesome. But I want to do that when because they're getting that age where they're gonna have forever memories, you know. My my my my grandson definitely is at the age where the things that are happening now in his life, when he's 30, when he's 40, he'll remember those. Yeah, if they're not just stories or pictures of things. And so I would like to um, you know, and maybe this is my own selfish thing of of of of wanting this, but I want my grandkids to have the memories of the cool things that Papa did, but just the stories.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:09

I don't think it's selfish ever to have your legacy live on, especially if it's something so positive like what you're building. I just hope a couple things. When you do that 5k, I hope that at 2.5k, you stop and you hand your grandson a fun size 100 grand. Yeah. You two give that, you fuel up and you finish drawing. And then, you know, obviously, I believe just, you know, when I walked into the lobby to come grab you, I was like, I wasn't sure it was you because I was like, he looks younger than I would have expected. Like you, you're holding yourself very well. I mean, you're still young, but I'm thinking in 10 years, when your grandson's 15, he's gonna be at an age where he can run run. And I see you being right there. Yeah. So I'm I'm excited for that for you. I think you're doing it all right. You've got your priorities in check. You have a just an incredible uh list of accomplishments here. Um, I think that you're also a great resource if anyone was trying to figure out if it's uh if ultraman's if triathlons, marathons, any of the stuff was for them. Nobody really knows better than you on um how you go about starting something like that or uh or whether you're I guess you wouldn't say you're incapable. It's just are you ready yet type of a thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:26

Yeah, that's um um that's what's something I've had fun these last several years with with uh again with a lot of patients that uh encourage them to try, you know, try find new limits, you know, and then help them find the right way to get there. Um I remember there was one patient who um he was um he was struggling to um to to finish uh the an Iron Man. And um he was and I was told him you're just running too much. You know, he I told him, just get super strong on that bike. Make sure if anything, you know you can swim, but put your time in the bike. So that at least if you get off the bike, you can look at your watch and you know, hey, I got eight hours to finish. You can walk a marathon in less than eight hours. What you don't want to do is get off the bike and go, oh, you're chasing the clock. Yeah, and then you're sprinting. Exactly. And um, and so and then um, and same kind of thing when he was trying to qualify for Boston, he was always trying to put time in the bank, you know, and and so that you know he'd have a little extra time for the second half to told him, oh, your fastest marathon ever will be a negative split. And if you didn't run a negative, so if the second half wasn't faster than your first half, you could have ran faster. And and he tried three, four times. Finally, he he he took my advice and and and um stuck to the timing plan that I'd laid out for him, and he qualified for Boston that year. That's awesome. So I yeah, that that that's um that's kind of the my most fun thing now is helping people accomplish those kind of goals, you know, either qualify for Boston or just do something new that they haven't done before. And then um, I found it'd be fun to in with patients. I've had um one that ran uh Eugene one year and said, Well, I'll go run it with you. And I was just her Sherpa, you know, and I guess I just ran side by side with her the whole way. So cool. And then, and again, even now when she comes in, we always talk about that time down in Eugene. So we've got this shared memory now that was you know her boss and qualifier. And and I told her, you just stick with me, I will get you across that finish line in time. You just don't worry about anything, just stay side right beside me, and we'll make we'll make it there. And and so that to me now is is the most fun part of everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:19

That is awesome. And I would love to be able to sit here and pick your brain about this stuff forever because it really is. It's kind of what I've always been trying to do is to, you know, chop the wood and haul the water and just do it over and over and over. And and, you know, you are a product of what you continuously do. And so even somebody who's not in the best shape of their life or somebody who hasn't run a marathon yet, if you just kind of start and you go, you'll become that instead of what you were before. And you inspire me, you really do. Um, and I want to stay in contact. I want to know about your next big race, and I'll be uh I'll be a big cheerleader for you, right? All right, all right, Drake Tallinar in the studio. So great to see you and have a great rest of your day. Thank you very much, Drew.