Latest / The People Run Podcast / #38 He Wasn’t Supposed to Walk… Now He’s Chasing 100 Miles | Scott Davidson

Transcript

#38 He Wasn’t Supposed to Walk… Now He’s Chasing 100 Miles | Scott Davidson · The People Run Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't the physical pain that got me.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: It was what everybody around me, how they saw me.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: They saw me as less than, weaker, not even human.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: Scott, welcome to the People Run podcast.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming on, man.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, welcome.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be awesome.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: I think we're gonna have a great conversation.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: A lot of lot of stuff happening.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: So talking about a lot of stuff happening, you just realized a childhood dream today.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: I want to start there.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: You are shooting and you got to go to Florida for Disney, man.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be in a Disney ad.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh walk me through that.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: What's that feel like to accomplish a childhood dream of yours?
0:43
SPEAKER_01: Man, it's like full circle.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Think of it this way as when I was at Disney, I only had two vacations as a kid.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: And people are like, Whoa is me, only two vacations, right?
0:51
SPEAKER_01: But it's just that's all we had.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: That wasn't a lot of people had zero.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: So I'm very grateful for what I have.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: But those two vacations my grandmother paid for, took us kids down, her grandkids down to Florida, and we went around the park.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: I think it was like five days in Florida each time.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: We drove down there, got there, and I hobbled through the park.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: I have a picture that shows me as a kid, my legs are like bowed out, bent, just destroyed.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: Here I am, unable to walk.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: And not, well, I could walk, but it was very damaging to me.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Now, fast forward all these years later, I'm in this Disney ad.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: Why is that important?
1:24
SPEAKER_01: Because I was never supposed to walk as an adult.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't supposed to run.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm one of the more severe cases you see.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: I was born with birth defects from my face to my lower limbs.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: And my lower limbs, they're pretty damaged.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: But luckily, a village has kept me afloat and I'm able to go run down at Disney.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: And it was pretty amazing.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: I actually went to Epcot, where I remember riding with her on certain rides, revisited the one that's still open, walked around the whole deal, just kind of took it all in and just thought, you know, Graham, we got it.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: We're building something here.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: No, that's awesome, man.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Like to have that journey of being visited and young, and then like the feeling I'm not supposed to be here, but Disney gives you the phone call.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Like, what's the phone call like?
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Hey, we we need you.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: It was it was this.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: I was actually visiting my daughter.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: She, my middle child, she's away at school, about seven hours away.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm visiting her.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm in her dorm room and I hear a ding on my direct messages.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm a casting director for Disney.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: You interested to run?
2:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, of course I'm interested to run.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: They're like, audition tape, audition, record it, get it to me tomorrow.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'll be flying, I'll get it to you at in the evening, you know?
2:29
SPEAKER_01: And I got it out to them.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: I got it to Disney, and they're like, how quick can you get here?
2:33
SPEAKER_01: We want to film next week.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm in.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: I can get there right away.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: And so I cleared the calendar, hopped in a plane, you know, and I was on my way.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: And they were so cool.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: They put me up at like Grand Floridian, got to hang out there, run around that place, just enjoy myself.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: It was a bit lonely, though.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't like going to Disney alone.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: It was a bit lonely, but the running part was fun.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: And so to have that opportunity, I just can't believe it.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: Like this life was not supposed to be this way, meaning that I wasn't supposed to have a chance to run at Disney.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: I should probably be in a wheelchair, and that's okay.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: I'd be a good chair athlete.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: I really believe that.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: But the whole point is that I it didn't happen.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: And I'm now running and I'm looking at this ad and I'm like, damn, it turned out all right.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, everything turned out good.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: What I have never shared before, actually, on anything like this, is that the prosthetics that I wear on my legs, the first rendition I got, my grandmother bought me.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: My grandmother was a single mother.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Her son, who I'm named after, died, you know, in a bad car wreck.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: And um, she had a really hard life.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: And my grandfather wasn't really great.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: And so she had to work these jobs.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: And she put aside in a savings bond, about$25 or so per pay period.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: That paid for my first prosthetics.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: So, like, we're really tight.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: And I remember just thinking, you know, on each run, Graham, like, I'm doing the best I can with what you gave me.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, you made this happen.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna fail you.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna keep going.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Man, awesome way to pay it back.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: And and shout out to Grams, man.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she had a look at it's like, oh, he did it.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: I believe she's I I do.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: I believe I kind of believe in that, or I really believe in that, that she's seeing it play out.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: I wish it was in person, you know, here in this existence, but I believe she's watching this play out and she's gonna see how far we can go.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you thought of her while you were there running on that track.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: I saw the photos, like, you know, what went through your mind when you touched down, I'm in Disney, I'm Orlando, like her thoughts about you and stuff.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was freaking out.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even gonna play it cool.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: Like, I was just like, I'm not, I'm like, this is Disney.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've had other brands, I've had like REI degree, stuff like that.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, who else?
4:38
SPEAKER_01: Just a bunch of Honda or something.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: They were cool, they were nice, but it's nothing like Disney.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: You're you're talking like this is a childhood dream.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: And here I am on the ground.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm taking pictures, videos, hitting my kids up, hitting a whole family up.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, like I'm here, it's happening.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: This is real.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: And uh finally, this is like this is something that was a huge deal to me.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: And like, I'm not a huge brand guy or something like that, but I am I am thinking, you know, here I am chasing these runs.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: I didn't seek out these brands, you know.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: I didn't necessarily like, I'm not emailing them like, could I be in one of your things?
5:10
SPEAKER_01: But what I am doing is I pick these goals.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: I picked this goal of finding out how far somebody like me can go.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: And I picked it at my worst state when I didn't think I'd run again as an adult, when my last set of pairs, these dynamic AFOs I was wearing, failed.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was over.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: But then I just just something in my head said, I got to try this exosystem.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: And and when that happened, I started picking out like maybe I'll run a marathon, maybe I'll do this.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's find out how far I can go.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: And from there, we started to build out that journey.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: And by chasing those goals, by chasing that, that door opened.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: So it was like I didn't need to go see, like, can I go make money with a brand?
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Can I go run a Disney or something like that?
5:48
SPEAKER_01: That wasn't the focus.
5:49
SPEAKER_01: The focus was like, let's go, let's go become the best runner like you on earth.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: And then that opened the door to Disney, which was really cool.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: No, man, the the hard work, man.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: They see the work and you know it follows, man.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh congrats, man.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: That that's freaking amazing.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: It was it was cool, Scott.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Taking it back a bit, you mentioned it a little bit as far as childhood and not being able to walk and eventually walking and running.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, take it back a little bit.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Like for those watching who follow you Instagram, they're like, man, this guy ran 100K, run a hundred mile, but at one point, you weren't supposed to do any of that and couldn't even walk.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: No.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: So let me give it, let me give you guys an idea.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: My face has been reconstructed, my junior year of college.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I couldn't breathe right, I couldn't chew right.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the most common outcomes from people that are born like me, they're comorbid with lower limb differences.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: My legs, they had something called a postmedial release, which is a full reconstruction.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: My tendons, some of them are are are missing, ligaments are missing, or they've all been lengthened.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: Every joint capsule has been open.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: Everything in those lower limbs is different.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: My knee joints are different.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: So when I when it came to is he gonna walk or is he gonna run, it was like, we don't know.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: We don't know what's gonna happen.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, we've had these treatments, these surgeries.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: We'll see what goes down.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: By the time I reached ninth grade, that's where sports kind of died for me.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: It felt like I was no longer hanging with my peers.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: They went on to play sports.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: I lost my identity as this athlete.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: And now, fast forward all these years later, here we are, we reclaimed it, we're gonna go chase it again.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: And so uh people say, Aren't you worried?
7:24
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you worried?
7:25
SPEAKER_01: You you've got such so many issues.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you worried that you're gonna do so much damage that maybe you're not gonna be able to walk in like 10 years?
7:32
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's not the point.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: I already faced that before.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Now the point is we've got this small window of time to be the best we can.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be the best in the world for somebody like me.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Man, that last part.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Total badass.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Excuse my French.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Just gotta the first thing that came to mind, like, you know, I'm sure you heard it growing up or even in adulthood, like, you know, can't do this, can't do that.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: You have doctors telling you you can, and here you are, Scott, running a hundred K, 100 miler.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, I saw you even put you might want to run Badwater at some point.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I want Badwater.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: I want it, I want Badwater really bad.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: In fact, here's here's how much I wanted Badwater.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: When I was on that couch and things were failing, I was running, what, running, I was watching Running on the Sun, and it's a Badwater documentary, and it's got two legendary runners in there: Marshall Ulrich, who's in your home state, and Lisa Smith Batchen, who's in the state over.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: And these Lisa's my coach, and Marshall has been a mentor in several ways to me.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: I reached out to them when I finally finished the 50-mile distance and said, Maybe, maybe I'm worthy to talk to y'all.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you'll coach me, Lisa.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you'll help me, Marshall, because I want to do what you guys have done.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: I want to run on the sun.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: I want to do the hardest foot race in the world.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: And it's so intimidating.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: As much as I say I want to do that, when I was there in 25, Sierra, who was on your show when she was out there running, I didn't even get out of the car for the first 30 minutes that I was there at Badwater Basin.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: I was one of the first cars there for the heats to begin the three heats.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: I didn't get out of it because I was so intimidated.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: I live in Vegas, I'm used to heat, but I wasn't used to that extra 10, 15 degrees.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: It was something else.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: And to watch these runners go out there and just execute it.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: I want to do the same thing.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: It's going to be different for me.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be slower.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: I'll be in the heat longer.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: These prosthetics, these exorcisms I wear on my legs that you see here, they are going to absorb tons of heat.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: Everything's going to be different for me.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: But I got to figure out how to make it happen.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: And so if I have to, I'll solo it with a crew and do it under the old original rules of Badwater, which meant that under 60 hours.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: And so I'll get that done.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: And if I can get that done, I think I'll be super happy.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: That's one of my, that's one of my last goals in this whole running world.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Man, what was that like there being in person?
9:50
SPEAKER_00: You're in the car, I can't get out.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: And then you're seeing all these idols and people you want to, you know, also do bad water with.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: I knew I was doing it no matter what, anyways.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: I do this all the time.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Like when I was running a 50K and I knew that eventually I'm gonna run bad water, I said, I'm not running bad water now.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm not running a 100K now.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even running a 50 miler now.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: I just got to figure out this 50K.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: And if I put all the work in, if I trained hard enough, then I'll open the door to the next distance.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: And that's what happened.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: I failed on the next one for a 50 miler.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: I got 45, but I came back two months later, got the right coach behind me, and we got that 50 miler with ease.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: It was fine.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: And then it came to the 100K.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: I got a good coach behind me, Lisa, Lisa Smith Batchin, and we got the 100K, no problem.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: Now it's the 100 miler.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: That was difficult.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: That one beat me up pretty good.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: That was really hard.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: The swelling above prosthetics was really hard for me.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: I learned a lot about myself there.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: I learned that I need to move faster when we get to the other side.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: Second is stop the videos for social media and just get going on your run.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: I could have been like three hours faster, but we're recording a bunch.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: But I need to do that to pay for prosthetics.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: So just record that faster too.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: But there's a lot I learned from that.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: And it was that I don't have to think about the next distance right now.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: I just got to focus on this one that's ahead of me.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: I need another 100 miler before I step up to Badwater.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: I know it because that 100 miler absolutely jolted my solar system.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: But when I was outside Badwater, what I was thinking is like, you're gonna get out of the car, you're gonna go meet these people, you're gonna go down a Badwater basin and absorb that energy there, and you're gonna sit until that last heat is gone.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna just know what is out there and you're gonna feel it.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna know what Badwater really is.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what I'm doing, and that's what I did, I should say.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: And I got to meet so many cool people, and you know, I've been communicating with them a lot, just groups of teams that went out there and they they're out there kind of supporting me, cheering me on.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: 100 miler is difficult in itself.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: It is maybe double, triple.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: You understand this better than than me, like to for you to do a hundred miler.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: Like, what sort of challenges come up for you to run a hundred miler?
12:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, it would be so here's here's how people speculate that research or develop these types of hybrid prosthetic orthotics.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: What I wear is a hybrid between a prosthetic and an orthotic.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: It's an exoskeleton, it's a future.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: And so, what is the difference between me running versus somebody else?
12:17
SPEAKER_01: It's equitable to running in a prosthetic walking foot.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: So you never see somebody that's an amputee running heavy mileage in a prosthetic walking foot.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: It's just not going to happen because it's just so it's just so hard to do.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: The energy that you have to do to utilize to go over, like the rocker, the third rocker I have in there, is so tremendous, so hard that over time it just breaks you down.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's the biggest thing is learning how to avoid those breakdowns there.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Second is the rub issues, the friction issues, they're huge.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, get the right products on the legs, the right prosthetic sleeves, which we still don't have.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: They're still not dialed in completely, the right shoes.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: I go through shoes every two to three weeks because you're just pounding on them with the type of prosthetics I have.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: So all those things compound and break you down.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: So, how I would say it this way is that growing up, I could easily clock before I like as even as a little kid, I could get six, seven minute miles.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: That felt a hell of a lot easier than a 15-minute mile, which I'm in.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: And to put it this way, I know somebody that's a boss of marathon runner that is um that was sub three hours.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: So she's in a device, just one side, and she is not even coming close to hitting consistent like 10-minute miles anymore.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: And so it's just a full difference.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: And that's only we're only talking like a five to a 10K here.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: So there's people out here that are attempting it.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: We even have an Olympic sprinter that's in this, or a lot of other people that were elite special operators in the US military, and they're just not hitting it.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: So why is it working for me?
13:45
SPEAKER_01: I've always been at a deficit.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: So anything that could offset permitted me to go chase these distances.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I had an advantage in the sense that I had so much disadvantage because that paradoxically, just putting this on just made it so my legs didn't balloon up, swell, all that damage.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: So, how much how much time?
14:05
SPEAKER_01: They think it's it's many times more than a regular human foot to travel that distance.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you went through some confidence at some point.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, I trust the exosim, but then I also have to trust it now for 50k, 100k, 100 miler.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, at what point do you know, you know what?
14:20
SPEAKER_00: I feel good enough, I can test this on you know the 50k, the 100k, 100 miler.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: So I did, I have broken an exosim before, uh, right side.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: I have done that shit.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: It's expensive, it's an expensive process.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Luckily, my prosthetist, Ryan Blanc, he's the goat, he he helps me out when we have a break.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: He's able to fix basically anything I've ever broken on there.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: He's able, he's been able to fix.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: So that's the good news.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Second is I have a backup pair.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: But when we get out there, like how was that confidence?
14:47
SPEAKER_01: Man, that 50K, what people don't know was was maybe as hard as the 100 miler because I ripped up my leg.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: I wore the wrong socks.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: I really just didn't have the right coach and I didn't have the right team.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: Nice person.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: But this was uh this was, you know, a situation where I just didn't know what was going on.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: And if I was prepped different, I didn't even know how to fuel properly.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: I just said, we're gonna go do this thing and figure it out as we go.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: I probably should have got, you know, a different team around me and it wouldn't be so hard.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: So, what how did I get to the point of trusting the egg system?
15:20
SPEAKER_01: It started with like hood to coast relay with an all-adaptive team.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: And that was the we were the first adaptive team to finish that.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: That was really fun.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: But that mileage, those three legs of 17 miles, really broke me.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: It should not have, but it did.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: But each step you just grew into it.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: And so I feel myself getting better every single month right now, being able to perform more because I'm you learning to use my body in a different way that maximizes these exercises, meaning that I'm using posterior chain a whole lot more than other runners would.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: And that helps to dial it in and pedal myself forward.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Do you find yourself training for that?
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Like the posterior chain, like doing a lot of train chain in that area?
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: All day.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: We're we we are dialed in.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, I have a really good um trainer that's up in Gig Harbor that has helped me dial that in.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: And we've got Lisa Smith Batchen, who's a PT and also, you know, a coach and a very experienced Hall of Fame bad water runner, you know, things like that, where we can get really creative with what we're doing.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: And we're doing that right now.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Weighted vests on stair climbers and weight of vest on treadmill, maybe get me on trail occasionally, but let's minimize that that way we don't have that uneven terrain or risk injury.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: Just a lot of different things that we're we're working on, just PT exercises at home.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: It's just pretty wild out there, you know.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Like I just want to, you know, what's crazy is I just want to hang with y'all.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: That's all I want.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: Is it a taste of just being with like all the other runners?
16:43
SPEAKER_01: And and so like all this work to be part of that.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: It's it's crazy to think, you know, that I'm doing all that just so I can run, you know, but that's what we're doing.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, we we do what we love and the passion behind it, obviously, you know, so uh it's gonna help fuel a lot of it for sure.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: I just thought of this, but from a fueling perspective, um, do you have to eat more uh than most because you're expending so much more energy, you know, just trying to carry a lot more weight and a lot more muscle tension and that kind of stuff?
17:14
SPEAKER_01: I think it's it's more just it's more just duration.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: We're out there so much longer.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: So that's why I'd be eating more.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, somebody that was, you know, without this ish issue is gonna finish it and two-thirds of the time I'm gonna finish it.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: So that means like, what am I doing out there?
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, we're eating a lot of salt stick.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: We're eating, we're drinking, you know, we're drinking a lot of sodium.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I tend to like like 500 to 700 milligrams per hour of sodium on high end, and as I'm doing each of these distances, and then when it comes to carbs, somewhere I seem to sit around 60 to 80 grams of carbs per hour.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: And um, I I'm kind of feeling good right there.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: And I have found that I've overhydrated too.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: I've learned that on the 50 miler, for instance, whereas I pulled back on 100K and just, you know, I was just better off.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of things, it's just been trial and error.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I feel like everybody else in many ways, except we're just out there doing it longer.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: Y'all are just staring at me while I'm just hitting those loops a little bit longer and going.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's gotta be motivating nonetheless, man.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Everyone's seeing you out there, like they get pumps like, wait, okay, now we both out here, you know, you in the sun in a lot of these races.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's never been as long as you're under the age of like 800, everybody's cool.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: If sometimes though, I'll get that older runner, it's like, what the what the hell's wrong with you?
18:34
SPEAKER_01: And you're like, dude, what?
18:36
SPEAKER_01: Like, chill out.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes you'll get that generation, and it also depends on location.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh, if I'm running where I'm running at, you know, everybody in the ultra world is great, though.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: Always.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Question for you on the team.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned it a little bit.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: You wanted to get Lisa on as a coach for a while.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: And I think you just mentioned, like, hey, you know, at some point, what what race can I hit to get her on?
18:59
SPEAKER_00: What was that moment like when she said, Okay, fine, I'll train you?
19:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, she's so when I so what people don't know is when I'd watch her, I watched her just crush this Badwater, just running it.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Like people don't know when Lisa did Badwater, she did it with Gatorade.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
19:16
SPEAKER_01: She's just a she's done a Badwater quad.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: She's done everything.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: Like people, you know, a lot of the younger generation forget who these crazy ass pioneers are, you know, that trailblaze these distances.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: So I knew like there's nothing I can do that can truly impress her right now, except show that I can complete distances.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, she doesn't know who I am, she doesn't know if I'm that dedicated.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: So once I hit the 50 miler, I go, I got to get a new right side.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: My leg changed a little bit, new right side egg system.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: And I got to dial that in.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: As soon as I was dialed in, I'm reaching out to Lisa.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: I reached out to uh Marshall first to ask him about how would you line up doing this whole Badwater thing.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: Then I reached out to Lisa for coaching.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: And uh because I didn't want to jump to that coaching side where you're like, you're not ready to jump into their coaching training plan.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: We were not ready.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: I was still learning to run again with a whole different side that's plantered more.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: So just a lot of things I had to train for.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: And then I reached out to Lisa and I'm like, are you up for it?
20:11
SPEAKER_01: She's like, I'm totally game for it.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: And now I look at her resume, I'm like, yeah, of course she wouldn't, she wouldn't flinch on something like this, you know.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: She's had a runner, she's been around a lot of uh para-runners in her life.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome, man.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: What was it like?
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, like the moment you mentioned earlier you were running and at some point you thought you lost it.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: When did it come back and when was that moment?
20:37
SPEAKER_01: I I I want to hit on one story that like it leading up to it that really sucked.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing when I lost it as a kid, I was defeated.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: I was wrecked.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: It sucked.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: I accepted it, I moved on, lifted weights, figured shit out, still participated in para sports at some point in my life, and and just tried.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: But I knew I was better than like what I am.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: I just needed, I just needed some sort of equity out there, meaning like something to offset it, which I'm wearing now.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: But that wasn't at the time, it was there was a whole nother side of it where I look different.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm very different, meaning that if you see me in shorts, I am six foot three, 180 pounds right now.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: Today I'm eating a bit, but my ankles are under six inches in width, meaning they're just bone.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: And so if I'm wearing shorts, I can't go out with my kids, I can't go anywhere in public without people taking pictures.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: This was prior to prosthetics.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's taking pictures, looking at me, pointing, laughing, all that kind of shit.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: And so, like, same thing happened.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: I would go to my daughter's swim meets and I get all these looks from all these other parents, and I felt so inadequate, so awful.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Here I am, a young father, and I don't want to come out of the house.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: And so it got to a point where I stopped coming out of the house and I started falling apart, and I just didn't want to be.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Part of society.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to die, but I just didn't want to go.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: And so that was some of the most difficult parts is maybe it's not just a lack of mobility.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: It's a lifetime of just getting messed with just because you're born different and you look different.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: And the discrimination is so high in that section of life that it ruined pieces of me.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: But it ruined me because I allowed it to.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: I had a choice and response, and my response wasn't good.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I worked on.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: And I spent the rest of my time putting all my energy into finding out what are the most adaptive people on earth doing?
22:37
SPEAKER_01: What am I not doing?
22:38
SPEAKER_01: What can I do better to make myself better so I can get out there and do something?
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Because I know that I wasn't put on this earth to just sit there and hide away and talk about how sad shit is.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: I knew that I was put on this earth to go find something out, to find out who I am, to maximize my potential, to challenge the worst physical thing about me, my legs, and see how far we can go.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: And in there, there was a big, bigger story.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: There was a message in there too.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's where I found that my purpose came out of my adversity.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's amazing and um you know, tough to come out of for sure.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: As I'm sure you you went through it and felt like, would you say more, I guess, the physical pain of it or the way people reacted to it?
23:24
SPEAKER_01: Physical pain's fine.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: I I can deal with that.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't actually take any pain medication.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: When I got my face reconstructed, yeah, when I got my face reconstructed, I took one pain pill after the surgery.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: They literally saw the top part of my jaw off.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: And so um it's not the pain that gets me.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I when I was a kid, I'd play football.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: I played, I played on the deem since I was second grade in helmet and everything.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: I have no cushion under my heel.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: I remember the cleat smacking the bone of my heels, the heel bone.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: And I remember just stopping and I would stop and practice and pretend to tie my shoe and cry.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: And luckily nobody could see it.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: I know my one of my best friends probably could at the time, but I just knew the other audience, they couldn't see it, the the other teammates and things like that.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: And then it got to the point I would come home and just soak my feet in a hot tub.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: We had one of those foot baths and just pray that it would stop.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: And it was just always slow to stop.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: It just wouldn't stop.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: And then when the pain would get so high, I would just throw up.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: I'd feel nauseous and I would just throw up.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't the physical pain that got me.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: It was what everybody around me, how they saw me.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: They saw me as less than, weaker, not even human.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: And that's what broke me up.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Man, that that's rough, man.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, you're out there trying to crush it, you play sports, you know, also you got the family.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, what maybe I know you say you found your purpose, but like, how did you find that?
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, how did you go, you know what?
24:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna start going outside.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: It is what it is.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: I think this is gonna be so.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: What makes my message hard sometimes for a lot of folks is that I man, I'm not saying I subscribe to a certain religion or something, but I knew.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: I always felt spiritually connected in some way that God had me here or God's had me here or whatever to go do something.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: I just knew it.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: I just knew it was gonna come.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: I just didn't know when or how.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: I just knew we were gonna get to this point that we're at right now, to go try and do something big, to go challenge this thing.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: And so, how did I get there?
25:23
SPEAKER_01: It was all work.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: People, one one thing I've learned is that if you're willing to work hard enough, I mean, work relentlessly, obsessively.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: You hear this all the time when people speak about it.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: But I learned it on my own too, is that that word focus, to dial in a focus and be like, I'm gonna get this done no matter what.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna clock something.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you say, What did how did I get there?
25:44
SPEAKER_01: What I learned from interviewing the most adaptive people on earth is that they chose a goal.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: They decided that even if they didn't feel hope, they valued hope.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: And then they always did at least something to go chase that goal.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: And so I noticed that as long as there's movement, some sort of movement each day, some sort of progression, we would get out of the hole we were in.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I was in.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: I was in a giant hole and I figured out how to get out of it.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: And to be fair, it wasn't just me.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: It was an entire village that surrounds me, the prosthetist that gives me the best exosems on earth, meaning the best hybrid prosthetics on earth.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: I have the best coach on earth.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: I have a great training ground.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: I have a family that surrounds me with care and love.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: I have compassion from a community like you.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: And so for me to go out there and say, how did I turn it around?
26:31
SPEAKER_01: It was a village that made me turn it around.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: Each distance is a village, man.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: Everything I do comes down to a whole group that helps me get here.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
26:40
SPEAKER_01: What bothers me about it too is that there are there are thousands.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you I'm the most common on earth in terms of like musculoskeletal birth defects.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: I just happen to be the most severe version.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: And so if there's one in a thousand born like me, one in two to one in three are bilateral like me, of that half are severe.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: So you're looking at whatever stat that is.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: Let's just say it's like one in five thousand, one in eight thousand or something, are born like me.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: They're sitting out there and they may be 10 times the athlete as me, but they just don't have the same equipment and same village like me.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: So I'm just grateful.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: I will not waste this opportunity.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's awesome.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, it takes a village forever to have that support, man.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: What's that like for your kids and family now to see it?
27:25
SPEAKER_00: And even the team, like, you know, that they're helping you train, they see you putting the work day in and day out, and then you go bus 100K, bus a hundred miler, Disney.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know?
27:35
SPEAKER_01: I think I think people are proud of it.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Like, I know my kids are like, holy shit, he's going again.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, like we're we're at it again.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna go again.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: It puts a lot on them.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm training 16 to 18 hours a week, you know, and then I work too and support the family.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: And it's just like it's a lot.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: Luckily, they're older now, college, so they're doing their own thing.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: We, you know, we kind of have our skills.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: And in training for something like this, I can do it in the middle of the night or at the beginning of the day.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter, you know, just get it done.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: So it hasn't, but I do I hope they're proud, you know.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: I hope that when I I love the saying that the idea that um your legacy is defined by your response to your adversities, you know what I mean?
28:17
SPEAKER_01: So everybody around you, those that love you, they're watching your response to your adversities.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: What are you gonna do?
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna quit in front of them?
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna try to chase something bigger?
28:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's a good idea to quit.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: It goes back to a story when I was in summer camp.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: It was horrible, man.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: All these kids are like, you stick leg bitch.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: I'll kick your ass if you tell anybody that we're saying this shit to you.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: It was bad.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: It was really bad.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: And all this is going down.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: And and I get asked about that incident, that very incident, they could say, What was your worst bullying experience?
28:49
SPEAKER_01: And I said, That one.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: They're like, What did you learn from it?
28:52
SPEAKER_01: And I think this is true.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: Authentically, this is true.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: This is not toxic positivity, but I had the choice to stay where I was and be upset about this shit, or go look in a past and just be like, Why me?
29:04
SPEAKER_01: Why did this happen to me?
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Or move forward and start moving towards what I want.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: And I move forward and all goodness followed.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: No, for sure, man.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: You got one way or another to go, right?
29:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's amazing that you came out on the other side of the positive.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: One of the messages you share often, I love, is like you say, is uh adversity is always guaranteed.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, you think most people waste it?
29:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that um I don't know if they, you know, a lot of people don't put it on a public stage like I do, you know what I mean?
29:37
SPEAKER_01: And just and share.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: I really don't know if there's a lot or a few or whatever, but I do feel like a lot of people miss the opportunity to share what they've done.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I I have this mountain, and my mountain is my leg.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: Somebody else has the mountain of depression, and other people have mountains that are different, bad marriage, something like that.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: We're all climbing these mountains and we're gonna attempt to summit them at some point.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: But my summit just happens to play out on social media or publicly, and theirs doesn't.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: And the power of storytelling is missed on that group.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: They have so much to share.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: I think the bigger thing is why are we having so many people have such, you know, deep experiences, yet they're not sharing it.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: You know how much value that is than what we get right now in the media and other places?
30:26
SPEAKER_01: We're missing components.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, I grew up with Mr.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: Rogers.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: I said that in another interview, how much he meant to me.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, he's my man, you know.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: This dude is like, that's that's that's who I kind of want to be like.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not, I fall short.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: I swear a lot, I do a lot of shit.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm aggressive with this running stuff at times.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: But I do try to have that compassionate side, especially for kids that are like me or kids going through anything that's tough, or their parents, their parents are going through hell.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, I try to show that side.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: But there's just, I think it's more like how many people are out there that have done some awesome summits, meaning climbing those mountains, and they never got the chance to share their story.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Talking about sharing your story, like I'm sure you get positive messages all the time, people in your situation.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: What what what does the those messages feel like when you get them?
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, man, I'm in a similar situation, and you're that light that helps them get over that summit.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: It's um, I will say that there's two sides.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: I get a lot more positive stuff.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: And the positive stuff, like when folks are they're really, man, I don't know what to say.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: It's like, whoa, it worked.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: It worked out.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: I I get to help people.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: What greater calling in this life to help or to, I don't know, just be part of something or suffer with somebody.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, my DMs are a lot of times suffering together, being like, dude, I'm sorry you're in this spot.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry you need another surgery, or I'm sorry something else is going on that's much worse.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: And having that chance to kind of just sit with them and go through it, that's the realness of life.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: All the other shit is just bullshit.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: Because like this existence is so short.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: And this whole thing that we're doing, this like the this the cars, the houses, all it just doesn't mean shit.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, what am I gonna do with this time?
32:20
SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing, nothing more important to me than being with those folks that are just going through those hardships or celebrating those wins too.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: And so those messages do mean a lot, they change a lot of who I am.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: I get to meet the parents and uh folks like me, kids, adults like me, and it's pretty life-altering to see um them say, if they're like, Will you help me?
32:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I sometimes I just don't know if they're just being nice or if they're being real, but I feed off that energy.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: When you started sharing your story at some point, when was that moment you went like, you know what?
32:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna share my story.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it came from a positive space at that point, you know, because you're willing to share it.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: But uh, when was that turning point?
33:05
SPEAKER_01: 2016.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: 2016 was the one where um I felt like first it got easier to share these stories, you know.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: It just, it just felt maybe I was just better with myself.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: I accepted who I am.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: I I didn't like myself.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, people think it was like you liked yourself going, I hated myself.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't even look in the mirror.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: I hated every aspect of me.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: I hated my legs, I hated my face.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: I hated, I told people in college that I was getting jaw surgery because I got into a fight.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: I thought that sounded cooler.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: I didn't want anything about myself to be known when it came to this whole disability side.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: I wore pants for three straight decades after, after, I think about six or seven, after a group of kids in my damn elementary school kept running up and putting their fingers around my legs, tried to hide it when I played basketball for our team.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: It was just awful.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: So I'd wear pants as much as possible.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: I should tell you about the deep down hate I had for myself.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, you know, that that drove a lot of it just it just made me feel awful.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: And so by 2016, that meant that I was starting to blossom, that I realized that my greatest weakness might be, it might actually be my greatest power.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: And that took a long time to get there.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's uh one, thank you for sharing.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because that's deep.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Um to have that and you know, have people mess with you and stuff, man.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: But like I I love how you turned it around, man, the adversity and just kicking ass for lack of uh better words.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's just so I was gonna say that I feel like so many people feel so scared to share those those really haunting moments where like somebody does do that, or where you don't have the power.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, I didn't have the power to make people stop.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't beat up everybody that was around me.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: Shit, I couldn't beat up any of them, probably.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing I could do to make them stop.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, I had a choice, you know, to figure this out to just get my life on track, moving in the direction I want.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: And that required a lot of learning, a lot of development.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: It just wasn't an easy day.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you have to go through it a lot on your own, right?
35:16
SPEAKER_00: Because 2016 is early Instagram and social media and stuff.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: So there's no like, you know, oh, there's 10 other people like me here.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, that we're all sharing.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: You want to hear something crazy?
35:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, when I was uh when I was on the gram or anything like that, I would get messages from across the world.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: And at first I'd be so mad.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: Then I understood where these folks are coming from.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: I had this mom, she was well, she was gonna be a mom.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: She had a baby just like me, and she goes, I'm having I have a kid just like you.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna be born just like you, and I don't want to have him because I don't think your life is worth it.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: Like, meaning your life, I still have the screenshots of that.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: I still have all of the receipts from that.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: And she said, I don't think your life is probably worth it.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, What the hell are you talking about?
36:04
SPEAKER_01: You first came to ask me.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, my life is definitely good.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: You're reading things wrong.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: But you know, those were the types of messages you got early on.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: It was a different cultural thing.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: This poor lady was blamed for her kid's birth defects.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: That's what was going on in her culture.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: Her husband left her, and here she is through direct messaging this idiot in Vegas, like, hey, do you like your life?
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, fuck, I love my life.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: If you consider your kid's birth defects a giant issue, then your kid will too.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: But if you see it as an opportunity to realize potential, yours as a parent and your child navigating this adaptation, then your kid will also develop in the same way.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: It's all about how you approach this and frame this out.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: And I try to discuss that now with parents, but I was definitely pretty ill-equipped at that time.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's uh oof.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: That's that's straightforward, if you will.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: You keep the receipts.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: Is that like a kind of like a Goggins thing where you're like, I'm gonna look at these receipts as I'm trading, or or it just fuels the fire at this point.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: I you will not see me keep anything but a receipt like that.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: I just don't even want it in my phone, except when it's something like that.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: Because it's it's something to remind me, like you said, you know, who are the doubters?
37:14
SPEAKER_01: Who are this?
37:15
SPEAKER_01: Just stare at it for a second.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: Remember that it was there.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: Remember that people didn't think your life was worth living, because you need to have perspective that there's kids out there that they're telling them right now their life isn't worth living.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, about 2018, 2019, there's a guy like me, beautiful dude, man, from South Africa.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: He breaks up with his fiance, longtime fiance, and he kills himself, all because of his legs.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: It's just legs.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: And he killed himself over his legs.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: It broke him, it took his well-being.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: I already know what he went through.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: He went through a childhood of everybody picking on him.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: And he decided to take his life and leave.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: A beautiful person, highly successful, gone from this earth over being born like me.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: And so all these messages like that person or the other ones remind me that there's so many others that are just struggling.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: We need to keep that perspective.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: There's so many people that need a helping hand.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: I needed a helping hand.
38:07
SPEAKER_01: I got a helping hand.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, so many people help me.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: Whereas others, they're just not getting that helping hand.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: So hopefully, you know, this podcast or the social media side that they're gonna see that there's others out there.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: We got this village, we're gonna build it up, we're gonna build a stronger community.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Love that you're sharing and helping a lot of others.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's a lot many that we can't, but like through this and more, man, it's it's the beautiful thing.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: We can help spread the message.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: What do you think people get most uh, I guess, misconstrued, you know, about how you train and running ultras and even your choice of doing ultras versus I'm sure you have other options in sports as well.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: So I chose, so first, uh, I'll I'll address why I chose running.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: It's the most difficult for thing for me.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing more difficult for me to run, but to get this opportunity to not only run and chase an ultra distance, it's like, well, we're gonna find out a lot about who I am at this point.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: That's what I wanted to do in this life.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: I want the greatest growth possible.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: So when I go back to our maker, I can be like, I did the best with what you gave me.
39:07
SPEAKER_01: And I truly believe that.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: When it comes to the misconceptions, a lot of people think I am like that David Goggins type, like something that trains like that.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: I'd see Goggins.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: Goggins lives 15 minutes from me.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: I see him in a canyon occasionally.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: I see Alex Honnold free solo out there and stuff like that.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: And I think I'm kind of like that.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: And I hearken back to this.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm not.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: I do get fired up, I do get competitive, but you will find me out there with a maple latte before I go smoke one of those dudes.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm serious.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm always like that.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm more chill.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: You will find me more like that than getting crazy out there and um, you know, getting all fired up.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: And and that's that's just who I am fundamentally.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: It's like uh uh I find compassion works better, even compassion to myself when I'm out there running.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: I try to be more compassionate.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: Trust me, my voice is very mean to myself when I'm out there, and um, but I do my best.
40:01
SPEAKER_01: But I side, I I find myself again with that Mr.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: Rogers side.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: That's the biggest misconception.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: And I have run.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: David Goggins talks about running on broken feet.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Much respect, but I've been doing that my entire life.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: And I had a broken foot for my 50 miler when I finished it.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: And um, it's just what it is, man.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: You just go out there and get it done.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: And actually, people think it's this terror, it's this horrifying thing.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: It's not that bad.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: You'd be surprised.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people don't even know they have a break and they're running.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: So, as glorious as that sounds, it's not that painful.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like often you define two things?
40:33
SPEAKER_00: One, the running, but also like how you are as a person out there when you're out there deep in 30, 40 miles.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: You know what's crazy is one of the most so when I get out there, my favorite moment is when it gets quiet.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: It's nighttime, I'm alone, and my mind is starting to go a little bit haywire.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, like, am I gonna hallucinate out here?
40:55
SPEAKER_01: Have we been out here?
40:56
SPEAKER_01: Have we been sleep deprived as much?
40:58
SPEAKER_01: But at that point, I start feeling connected with everything.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: It's weird.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: I probably sound crazy, but I feel connected.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: I feel my grandmother out there, I feel everything.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: And and I'm just out there and I'm trying to get through this, and there's nothing else that I have to focus on.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: I just got to get this distance done and we got to stay alive.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: Because somebody like me, man, I'm more prone for anything you can think of.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: My red blood vessels are different than yours, you know, knee down.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: My my my legs were atrophied in a womb.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of issues we got to think about when we're out there, but I tend to not.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: I tend to just zone out and just like, we got to get this done.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: You know, we've got this mile, and then we'll worry about the next.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: What's your favorite well, you mentioned your favorite part is when it goes quiet, but like what's your favorite um parts of just running in general, like defying the odds?
41:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you have doctors telling you, hey, you can't do this, you do it.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: That's one, but like, what's your favorite part of this whole journey so far?
41:57
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think the favorite part, man, that's a tough one because there's so many pieces that are tough in a good way to think about what is my favorite thing about attacking this thing that I was never supposed to do?
42:13
SPEAKER_01: What's what do I love so much about it?
42:15
SPEAKER_01: Why, why did it, why is it going this way?
42:18
SPEAKER_01: It's hard for me to put one thing down as my favorite, but I do want to say that with every doubt, with everything that was going on, with every look and every picture, every bullying, every person shoving me over my legs, coaches laughing at me, kids making fun of me, my peers making fun of me, people taking pictures.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: It just on and on.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: All this stuff that has gone down, my response was to go attack that very weakness that everybody mocked and do it in the biggest way possible on the ultra running course against every other ultra runner.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: No special circumstances given to me whatsoever.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: Man, respect.
43:03
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: Hello, respect for that, Scott.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: You have a lot that you do in running and sharing and putting on for the community.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: What sort of things are you outside of running, you know, um working and trying to change?
43:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so I I'm presumptive agent orange, so wartime toxin exposures.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: My dad, my mom and dad are both veterans.
43:27
SPEAKER_01: And so they assume that I was probably caused by that because we're finding that as high as 24% of kids that are born after agent orange exposure ended up with something similar to what I have.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: So, what's causing it and where's the support for it?
43:42
SPEAKER_01: And we're finding that's the same play, same case for post 9 11 kids.
43:46
SPEAKER_01: So I work on the advocacy side there, introducing legislation or attempting to.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: So I work on that side for those kids that are born with birth defects due to these toxin exposures, and that spans from Vietnam to the kids that came from post 9 11.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: And global war and terror, it's now called.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: And probably eventually, if we hit boots on the ground in Iran, those kids that are born from those parents that have exposures.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: And keep in mind this is a global phenomenon.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: It's like we limit it to the United States, but that's not the case.
44:14
SPEAKER_01: We've got a whole global community impacted by this.
44:17
SPEAKER_01: That's one world of advocacy I work in.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: And another one is this these very prosthetics I work wear on my legs.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: We want to innovate and make access more possible for those, not just in the United States, but around the world.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: These are$9,000 that I'm wearing on my legs, and that barely keeps the lights on for that clinic.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, and so people think, is he making a ton of money?
44:38
SPEAKER_01: No.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he donated the patent to the Department of Defense so they could build it all they want.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: This is the type of human he is, just an amazing human.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: But you've got to make a living in this industry.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: And he's, you know, this is not egregious what he's asking for.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: The problem is our healthcare companies don't cover him.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: And so I work on that side too.
44:56
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of advocacy I work in, but those are the two specific worlds that I'm in right now.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, the passion obviously is coming through.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: You can see it in here.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, what are some of the things you're hoping to achieve in the future with that?
45:09
SPEAKER_00: Like in the near future?
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's a tough battle.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: Look, I I've had senators that sat on a veteran affairs committee chair them and be like, and burn me.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: Take my work and just go and create policy.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: And I've had that happen.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm used to it.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: But like coming from a childhood that I'm at, I'm used to all those no's.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't really break me.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: So what do you say?
45:30
SPEAKER_01: What's my greatest uh thing that I want to do in policy is bring equitable health care, high-quality health care, access to it to everybody that needs it.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: And then second, also access to these prosthetic devices.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: Those are the two I try to narrow the focus and work there.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of other good people that work on the other side that do it in other countries or right here in the United States in different factors, getting higher reimbursement, state-based initiatives, things like that.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: But that's where I'm at right now.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: And I hope those will pass.
46:00
SPEAKER_01: But if they don't, I hope we at least get some pro, you know, progress.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: And then maybe my own kids will work in policy and take it over for me.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
46:07
SPEAKER_00: Scott, how does your uh kid shape your approach to everything?
46:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I my kids in general.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: So I have three kids, and everything I do in this life is would they would they be proud of me for doing it?
46:21
SPEAKER_01: Like this running stuff.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: Are they proud of me for doing that?
46:24
SPEAKER_01: When I'm working in a world I'm in right now, I know for sure I'm not harming anybody and I'm trying to help people.
46:32
SPEAKER_01: I can go make more income somewhere else, but that doesn't interest me.
46:35
SPEAKER_01: Or if I align with a brand, was it a brand and a message that works?
46:39
SPEAKER_01: Like when I when I got hired by Honda for that, I talked about childhood bullying in the reels with a Honda Ridge line.
46:46
SPEAKER_01: And who pulls that shit off?
46:48
SPEAKER_01: But that's what I worked with them.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: I said, look, if we're gonna do this, let's do it right.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: And we were able to do forest gump music during that time.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, it was a different time in social media, like 2022 and three, I think it was.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: You could still pull it off with brands and you wouldn't get in trouble.
47:03
SPEAKER_01: And so, like stuff like that, when I align with them, I hope the message is good.
47:06
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I want them to see is that I did the best of what I got.
47:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm imperfect as hell as a parent.
47:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm so imperfect.
47:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm so hard on those kids in a lot of ways, but I do the best, I know I'm doing the best I can with what I got.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned, you know, you obviously share your story and you got a lot of people to help and message you across.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: Like if someone's listening to this right now and you know they're going through it and they're trying to figure out, man, how do I get back in sport?
47:31
SPEAKER_01: Or I think we would get mixed up all the time if somebody thinks David Goggins or myself is special, or somebody or Alex Honnold or somebody else out there is special.
47:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you've got these people that are on social media from the David Roaches to others.
47:44
SPEAKER_01: You get this elite run world where everybody's looking towards them.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: Look, the reality is most of the world doesn't care.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: They don't they don't need all these like elite accolades and athletics or anything.
47:55
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to be anything like that.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: And frankly, those people aren't better than you.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: That's just their skill set in that subsection of that part of life.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: You need to understand that none of us are better than you.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: It's just a matter of how you position yourself to get back up and to taste it again.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: You need to know that you didn't do anything wrong oftentimes, but you're the one that's beating yourself up, and it hurts to hear that.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: But you gotta believe in yourself, you gotta regroup, and you gotta go again.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: And that's what this this whole thing is, is that I'll get, like you said, messages of like, man, that's incredible what you're doing.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know what?
48:29
SPEAKER_01: If you had what I had, you can do it too.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: And that's I I don't I just don't think that the the message is is you just gotta move forward, you gotta figure out a way to move forward and put some work into it no matter how bad you feel, because you're feeling your potential is so much higher than you think it is.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: And chase, pick and chase that impossible dream.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: If you just do it and shout it to the world like bad water for me or 100 miler when I shouldn't even be there's nobody, anybody like me, nobody's gone past a 26-2.
49:01
SPEAKER_01: And to go for a hundred miler in this stuff is like nobody thought it was possible.
49:05
SPEAKER_01: Now it's very possible.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: There's somebody out there that's about to crush me.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna step up with the right village and they're gonna get it done.
49:12
SPEAKER_01: Believe in yourself and realize none of us are special.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: We're not bettering you.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: That's what I want to say.
49:21
SPEAKER_01: You people out there, all y'all are struggling.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: We are not bettering you.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: We are not, maybe some are gifted in some sort of athletic way.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean anything in the long term of things.
49:33
SPEAKER_01: Like, you gotta just figure what you want from this life and chase it.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: Scott, what's the next chase?
49:39
SPEAKER_00: What's the next race, next plan uh you got coming up or playing?
49:43
SPEAKER_01: I gotta do all right.
49:44
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna dial it down to something.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: I gotta get back to, I gotta do another 100 miler.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: I know it.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know in my heart after I got smoked on that 100 miler.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: We finished it, but I know that I need to learn more about myself and condition myself before I head out to Badwater.
49:58
SPEAKER_01: I feel like that's a very dangerous scenario right now.
50:01
SPEAKER_01: It already is, but you add in all the stuff.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: I gotta do that.
50:05
SPEAKER_01: And and so preparation has begun.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: I started training again.
50:09
SPEAKER_01: The swelling went down.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: I never really swelled that bad, but this time I did.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: And I regrouped and I was able to start running about two weeks later.
50:15
SPEAKER_01: I was training again like three days later, but that was just gym training and stuff like that.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: So regroup, let's get this done.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: Because like I've had my eyes and my heart set on getting these impossible hard distances for somebody like me.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: And we're not gonna waste the momentum.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: And I know my window is small to succeed.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: So I've already signed up for the Route 66 Ultra in November.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: But if we can get one before Badwater, then potentially I'll try to do Bad Water this summer with a solo crew.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: If not, it will be the following year, solo crew for sure.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Oof, one way or another.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
50:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
50:48
SPEAKER_01: And then also, I do want to bridge out to this other side of the run community.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: I want to get in and do a 26-2.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: I skipped, I went from through my trajectory, is this I went from a 5K to a half marathon alone to sitting quietly and training, crewing my buddy as he did the speed project, showing up, getting a 50K, then eventually a 50 miler, then a 100K, 100 miler.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: What people see that's missing from there is a 26-2.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: I do that all the time in training.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: I tend to run 26-2s or um or 50Ks at least once a weekend on my, you know, as we're dialing, peeking out.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: But in this case, I never got to do like a marathon.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: So I thought about maybe going back to my home turf of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and running it there and just getting a chance to finally uh feel what you all feel when you do those 26-2s.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: That would be dope, man.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: Back home setting.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: My first marathon was back home, so that's gonna be awesome, you know, to go back to uh New York City first one.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh it was insane.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: That's a big one.
51:48
SPEAKER_01: That's a huge one.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know when I signed up to be honest with you.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: But that that'll be dope.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: 26.2 in Pittsburgh, man.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: I hear it's a hilly but beautiful course.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: So that should be fun.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a while.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: Like when I went back, I went back to uh my my uncle was passing away, unfortunately, pretty young.
52:07
SPEAKER_01: He had a uh blood disorder.
52:09
SPEAKER_01: And anyways, he passed away.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I got to go back to the University of Pittsburgh where I did my undergrad and speak to their prosthetic and orthotics program.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: And they happen to know the doctor that uh did my surgery, uh Dr.
52:20
SPEAKER_01: Stanitsky.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: He went on to UNC and took over there.
52:23
SPEAKER_01: Point being is, is I'm out there and I'm like training and running, and I'm like, damn, these hills are intense.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: I forgot.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: I forgot where I came from.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's different than a mountain where you're just kind of going straight up.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, behind me, you see a lot of shrubs and stuff.
52:37
SPEAKER_01: But if you keep walking that way, you're gonna go into a canyon that leads to California.
52:41
SPEAKER_01: And so you can keep going uphill there for a long time, whereas Pittsburgh is all those hills.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: I think you gotta just based off how you're training right now, man.
52:49
SPEAKER_00: That stairmaster with a weighted vest, that that's a whole nother animal.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: That that trains is everything.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: And I'm at this bodybuilding gym too.
52:57
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like I mean, you could argue this is like the new Venus species, this gym called Cult Fitness.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: Awesome owner, great people, very supportive.
53:04
SPEAKER_01: Here's my skinny ass sitting on their treadmill or treadmills and stair climber, just doing endurance stuff all day.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, they're all jacked.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, these dudes are these people are all jacked up and getting ready for Olympia and stuff, and then my ass is just slowly cranking it out on a stair climber with my crippled ass legs, you know.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm sure people are like, what the hell?
53:24
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's been a good experience.
53:26
SPEAKER_01: All the training, the process of the training has been awesome.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: And you know, hopping back in, getting that 100-mile area, just just like once it was done, I was like, cool, we can go back to training.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Scott, appreciate you, man.
53:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, Scott, I'm gonna steal Scott's message here.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: Adversity is certain, but how you deal with it, it's on his shirt.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: Adapt.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: Um Scott, I appreciate you coming on, man.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh, thank you for sharing.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: Everyone, this has been the People Run Podcast.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: Until next time.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Fitz.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: Of course, man.