Latest / The People Run Podcast / #36 Adversity, Discipline, and Chasing a 100 Miler | Rio Mata

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#36 Adversity, Discipline, and Chasing a 100 Miler | Rio Mata · The People Run Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: I ran my Austin full marathon.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I was RSV sinus infection still.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: It was two months long.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I ran it through planar fasciitis and IT band pain.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I only ran 20 miles total.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was a long time.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Real.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming out, People Run Podcast, man.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, jumping right in.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, your story, man, is very intriguing.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you started young with some uh commitment issues when you were a lot younger, you locked in, you had some great achievements as you locked in, and you're seeing some insane progress here over the last few years, you know, running, coaching, um, training other people, talking that mindset.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: When did it all actually change for you?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: When did when did it click?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Heck yeah, dude.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate you having me on.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, man, so when I was say 15, 16 years old, uh, dude, I got hit with some injuries that kind of just like spiral me out at a young age.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: My mom got a TBI, traumatic brain injury, and then all this other stuff, lost my hair at 17 years old, and all that just like spiraled me out, and then I found the gym, man, and I found fitness, and then I was introduced to that at a young age, and I used that as my outlet and my passion, and I went all in on that, and then just over time when I started putting up discipline and my consistency, I learned what the mind can do and how important it is throughout all of this, and then just started building up the mindset, the fitness, and then all of these things, and now I'm a 22-year-old, you know, online coach, marathoner, bodybuilder, and I'm training for my first 100-mile trail race in the mountains in September.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: All in, man, that's amazing.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's tough though, man.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Having, you know, you got family on one end, need to help them out.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're developing the gym.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like dealing with the stress of both sides?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, man, I got my mom's situation here.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm training here, and I'm, you know, learning obviously the gym helped, but like what was going through your mind at that time?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, dude.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: At that time, it was it was an emotional roller coaster.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: Is really all I can say to describe that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: Just knowing what was going on with my mom.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: And then ended up breaking my ankle, and I was in like my last two years of football, and we were state champions, and I just never played again.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: And then I lost I lost all my friends at that because I was one of the all-stars on that team, and after I couldn't come back, like they all just stopped talking to me.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so balancing all of that was just I didn't even know I was in like a depressive state back then until I looked back at my TikToks.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, fun fact, and I realized that I was so depressed.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but um, at that time, man, I it was it was it was brutal.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't really talk about my emotions to anybody.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: I kind of just kept it bottled down, just to me, and I just started going to the gym when I could with the time I could, and um just letting out at that time.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: It was my anger, it was rage, like that is how I was introduced to the gym.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, that that was my outlet, and just yeah, and then over time I started changing my mindset around it, and I started falling more in love with it.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then my mom ended up, she's been getting better, you know.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: She still deals with that stuff.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Love to hear it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's a long journey, and she's yeah, she's really she talks to a lot of other people and a whole committee about it, and she actually leads them for people that just like the same things that happened to them.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: She leads it now, which is like absolutely amazing.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so, like over time, it it got better.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: It did.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: We just went through the trenches at one time and just kept pushing through it.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: Don't know how I managed to at like 16, 17 years old, kind of just went through it in the motions at the gym, channeled it, and yeah, like that's how I got to here now.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's amazing, man.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Family all in on helping others, inspiring others, man.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you found the gym and was able to make that turnaround.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, walk me through that, man.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: What was it like in the gym?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: You eventually hired a coach, you're like, hey, I'm going all in on getting shredded and bodybuilding, and boom, it clicked, and you just started becoming a different person.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: Heck yeah, dude.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: So, like, I've been in the gym for a few years now, and I was like saw progress, you know, at a young age because I would always train hard.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: The only thing is I lacked the knowledge, and then September of 2024, I decided, like, hey, I need to switch something.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: I was, I believe, 21, 20 years old, going on 21, and I was like, I want to take a risk.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: This is my first big risk, and it was reaching out to a bodybuilding coach.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: And then we hopped on a call and we talked, and I I loved it.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then I told him, unfortunately, I couldn't sign up with him because I was flat broke.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: There's no money, and so and he was super nice and he was cool with it.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, Okay, like no worries.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: And then a month later, because I still promised myself that like I'm gonna do this, it's gonna happen.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: A month later, I reached out to him again and I said, Can we do just one month and not the upfront?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because I can't afford it.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: And he he agreed to it, and so then I finally got my foot in the door, and I promised to myself that I was going to make the most out of this opportunity that I was gonna get my absolute all, and I was gonna like be recognized and all this and that, and that was the starting point for this crazy journey that has been changing my life, just just going all in on fitness.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I did that bodybuilding prep, you know.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: I learned the knowledge on how to train, and and it just like changed the game, it got way more enjoyable.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: I finished my first bodybuilding show and prep like flawlessly, and that moment I realized hey dude, like I got this, like I can do hard, hard things.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: And ever since there, it just started building up and building up, and now I'm a big advocate of having coaches because now myself am a coach for that company that coached me for my first bodybuilding show.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you were saying your story, I got one month only to train with this guy and go all in.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, the moment, for some reason, that's the first thing that popped in my head.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: You only got this one shot.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Go all in, and obviously you did that.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, what what do you think helped you the most by investing in the coaching?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's because I put my ego to the side, I realized that hey, like I want to be great, and I'm a student, I'm a student of the game.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: All these great athletes, great public speakers, business people, they have mentors.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: They none of them are just winging it on them themselves.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: So when I started taking in the notes and figuring out what everybody is like the common denominator, it was they had a mentor, they had a coach backing them, teaching them.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so when I realized that, I was like, you know what?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I could make some serious damage if I actually did this.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then I did, and I realized how much more progress I made in that in a in the same time frame than without a coach.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: And ever since then, like I was like, oh, like, yeah, the accountability I got from this, the discipline, knowing that someone is in my corner, like watching me, but also rooting for me, because they're giving me the plan, they're they're giving me the path to success.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: All I have to do is follow it.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that is a feeling of wow, this guy's rooting for me, and I don't want to let them down.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: So, like, that was probably the one of the biggest things that I took away from having a coach.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that makes me very curious because following your content and and your followers will say this as well.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you're a big student of the game, as you mentioned.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: You you study a lot of mindset, coaching, and something you said sticks out.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, a lot of these pro athletes, it's not one person, it's a team behind them.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and often most people try to tough it out on their own.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, I'm gonna run a marathon, for example, and you know, they they wing a program for years on years before they get like a coach, or you know, I'm gonna do bodybuilding, and they wing it for years to get a coach, or I'm gonna start a business before they get their first business mentor.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you think the biggest miss is with people like just trying to tough it out and figure it out on their own?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like the biggest miss is not understanding how much time they're going to save by investing, and when I say investing in themselves, I mean investing in somebody that's going to help them.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: That is when I'm when I say invest in yourself, dude.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean like invest in people that know more than you, that are in the spot that you want to be in, because they they know the path to success, and they are willing to help you.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: So, like that biggest miss is people in their egos.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: They want to say, Oh, I can tough this out myself, you know.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: I have AI, AI can whip up a program for me in 10 seconds.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but you're missing out on the accountability, you know, you're missing out on the discipline, you're missing out on you're going to spend a lot of money, and that's going to make it very serious for you.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: That that that just knowing that you're spending a lot of money is going to change everything on how you view it.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: You're gonna view it as this is serious, and I cannot mistake this.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so you're going to put your best foot forward at all times to try not to fail.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: But again, failure is important.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: We fail, fail, fail, learn, fail, fail, fail, grow.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, for sure.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: That is literally my motto on everything.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: I do get excited, like literally to fail because I know growth is going to come from it.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: And on the opposite spectrum without a coach, people who want to tough it out, and their egos, they don't realize that, and they're afraid of failure.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: So they just never they never lean into that, and then they get stuck for way longer.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Something you're touching on, like I'm just a random person.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: LeBron got a massage, a cook, a chef, uh, uh, a gym coach, uh, strength coach, uh, shoot coach, uh dribble coach.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, like if you look at any CEO, they typically have two, three coaches.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: One helps them with speeches, one helps them talk, um, one helps them with strategy.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's a team behind them.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I love that you share that message and get the people to help you out, experts, fast-forward that time and become your greatness, if you will.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: And what my take on that is when I hear that all these athletes have all these different coaches, it makes so much sense to me.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because when you think about like a billionaire and they'll wear the same pants, the same shirts, not all this designer.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then when you think about why, it's kind of they're doing the same things to take away decision fatigue.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, yeah, same thing as having having a bodybuilding coach.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, he's taking that's taking away my decision fatigue on what exercises to do, how many sets, so my physique's gonna get better, all I have to do is train hard.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: Same thing with a business coach.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: He's taking away the fatigue of figuring out with all the learning of what I need to do.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: So it it all comes together as taking away decision fatigue to put more emphasis on what's actually needed to actually level up.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Question for you on that.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Someone's listening to this right now and going, like, yeah, I'd love to get three coaches, money tight though.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's your response to that?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: Always, bro.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: I get that all the time.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: My response to that is figure out what you're the most passionate about, lean into that, and then burn the ships.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: Figure out what you need to do to afford that coach, and then go all in on it.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: Because I did that exact same process, I had no money, but I decided that I I'm gonna make this work.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I leaned into it, and fast forward a year, like something happened.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm a coach on that team now, and it changed my life.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: I took risks.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: So you need to lean in, figure out one thing that's the most important thing to you, figure out who specif specializes in that field, and then go all in, and then you'll build from there.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about that one year fast forward.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you had a big year, you did a show, I think it was five minutes something, Myler.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: You did Austin, you crushed your PR and a half, like what all clicked.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so that's actually tough.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: So, my first bodybuilding show I went into, uh, I was sick, I got really sick, and then so it wasn't the best showing.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: The second I still nailed all my stuff.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: The second show two weeks later, I got way better.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: I was way leaner, it was fantastic.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: That was the show where I was the most proud of.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, I did my all my half marathon sick also.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: I ended up running that with RSV and a sinus infection and two injuries, and I still ran a 129.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: And then again, it's been a tough come-up for me.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I ran my Austin full marathon.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was RSV sinus infection still, it was two months long, and I ran it through plantar fasciitis and IT band pain, and I only ran 20 miles total.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was a long time.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think you had like a 129 half, 330-something marathon, first debut marathon.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what the hell?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, I haven't talked about it enough, but one of the things that I'm very big on that I did a lot on my prep was um breath work.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: So I I did breath work before every track workout, and then before my race, before that marathon, I did a 40 minutes of breath work, you know, just reach that flow state, just make my body feel better, and to get locked in, knowing that I was about to go through so much pain throughout that.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: And when I got to the line, like I was still in pain, and I ran the whole marathon with plantar fasciitis.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: Every step was intentional, meaning I could not waver with my focus.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: Every step I needed to land right, or I'm hurting my foot.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: With my IT band pain, I needed to be super careful with my the the stride length, or else I'm gonna, you know, cause more stress on it.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that that popping pain.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then I was I was going so serious to where I was I was literally drafting behind bigger runners to save my endurance because I knew how sick I was.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I was drafting behind every big runner that I could for 15 miles to save energy.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So was that the key mover there for you, breath work?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that look like?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: 40 minutes of breath work.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: Breath work.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's I sit down and I'm just inhaling through my nose, breathing out or through in through my nose, out through my nose.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: We just do that, and then after about 15, 20 inhale, exhales, I go into a hold, and I would hold up to two minutes long, just breath retention.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: And then while I'm in that breath retention, I go straight into envisioning.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I envision the pain cave, what it's going to be like, when my foot is hurting, when my lungs are on fire, when every step hurts.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_03: So through that two minutes of breath hold, I'm envisioning all the pain.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: Not the finish line.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not bit I'm not envisioning the the reward.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm envisioning the journey to get to that reward.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: So that when I get there, familiar.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: So when I when I get to that moment where I'm in pain and I want to quit, I'm familiar with it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: So that was one of the biggest keys that I had to survive three and a half three and a half hours of running in pain and injuries.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's that's amazing.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: And uh four days later, ran the 515 mile.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: Oof.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, more breath work needed.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Where'd you learn that or figure like, you know what, this is gonna be my thing.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna, you know, obviously train for the race, but I'm also gonna work on breath work.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Where where'd you learn that and made you go that route?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: So another thing about me is I am I have extremely high like chronic cortisol, so I get chronic eardiacaria, which is just hives.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: So whenever my stress gets high, my entire body breaks out with hives.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: And just a year and a half ago, I got it in my throat and it blocked my airway.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: But luckily, I got Benadro in right in time to where I could breathe again.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: And then four days later, I ran a 10K with an epipin in my pocket.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so ever since I realized like this stress is really bad, that's when I started to do breath work, you know, it was kind of like a way for me to calm myself, and then I realized that that breath work helps me reach flow state, and I even got my resting heart rate down to 35.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: And and I sh just did breath work all the time, it just improved at a tremendous rate, actually, through injuries.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: I had a really hard prep.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: I've never ran without pain.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't condone like running through pain or anything like that, yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: But I've actually I've I've never ran without pain.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think I saw towards your build, you know, obviously there was times where you could run high mileage, sometimes where you couldn't, and you were just doing the best you can.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you got your resting heart rate you just mentioned into the low 30s.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you feel the breath work like helped correlate?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you lower your heart rate and you got a lower resting heart rate, obviously you're more efficient.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: That you feel the breath work made that much of an impact towards your running efficiency.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: 1000%.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: 1000%.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: So that was one of the biggest dramatic effects that I realized.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: This is a cheat code.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: And when you think about it, and if you're a student of the gang, which I know you are, you realize these athletes, LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, you know, Gabby Douglas, right before a big moment.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: They're they're breathing and their self-talk, like this is normal to me.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: I can do this, I am going to score this, you know.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: Breath work paired with that that belief in themselves.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: And you realize, like, all the greats do this.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then so I started doing it, and I realized the effect was insane.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: Not many runners ever do this, they don't promote doing it, they never talk about doing it.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know if it's a very popular thing or not.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I found it's an absolute cheat code for me to reach flow state.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's why you mentioned that just a couple weeks ago.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think I saw it on social media, and it was literally a post of like LeBron and a couple other athletes doing breath work.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: LeBron was on the bench on the Lakers, literally doing breath work right before the game and pre-warm-ups.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, that's insane, man.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: To lower your uh resting heart rate that much and be able to use it, that's a great tip nugget there.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how often do you do that?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: The the breath work a couple times a week?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: I I haven't done it as much, but during that marathon prep because I knew my mileage was so low.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: The most mileage I hit was 48 miles in one week, but my average mileage was about 25 miles in a week, yeah.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was doing it every day.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: I was doing that, and the the days that I had track workouts or long runs, I did the longest.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: I would do 20 to 30 minutes of breath work every time.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: So for the bigger sessions, got it.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely for the bigger sessions.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Walk me through Austin, man.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: You did Austin, right?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: You you finished in a 330, but not only did you finish Austin, you had several other people finish Austin with you.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: You had a whole team, you coached the team all to finish everyone.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like running your first marathon, coaching several people at your first marathon, and getting everyone across that line?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: It was surreal knowing that that all of these people that I was I played a part in their journey to run their first half marathon, their first full marathon.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I if I remember correctly, there was there was 12 of us total that finished.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: The youngest person, I mean the oldest person was just 30, and the youngest was 17, and they all completed it, they all took a risk because I I would tell them, I was like, guys, listen, do do this with me.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm I'm inviting you along for this journey because I it's gonna change my life, and I know for a fact it's going to change yours if you are willing to do this with me.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: And they all agreed, they all trained for it, and every single one of them finished, and they all told me afterwards, they sent me messages like dude, thank you so much for mentoring me in this journey to do this, like this changed my life.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: Now that people were telling me I did this for my dad, and it was just surreal.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I got emotional afterwards.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, Man, I didn't even think about this marathon for myself anymore.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like, this was for everybody else that ran it.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're running your first marathon, you probably got some pressure on yourself, then you gotta do it for 12 other people.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where you're not like nervous, like, oh man, I I'm coaching myself while coaching 12.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: Man, I no, because it's exciting.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like, all these all these people they put in the work to get there, and you know, we we got them there, and all they had to do was just execute.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I had faith in every single one of them to finish it, and they did, and it it was amazing.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: I believed every single one of them was gonna give their all.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: There was no doubt in my mind.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: I I didn't never overthink that.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_03: I only believe in the best for everybody, and when you just believe that and you give your energy off to them, man, they can't help but feel it, you know?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they can't help but feel that belief in themselves too.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, dude, it was this is no pressure, man.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_03: We lean into it, there's enjoy.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Would you feel um during that you finish obviously, but was their performance more important to you than yours?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: I man, that's a tough one actually.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm I'm always like serious about my performance, always.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but um, but a lot of those, a lot of the guys, they weren't really running to race it and get the craziest time, they were running it to experience something.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: And and when I when I realized that, it kind of changed my mindset about you know what, I'm not really racing this to get the greatest time because I know I didn't have the best build, I didn't have the best prep, but I want to experience something that's going to shake me to my core.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what all of us felt.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, no, it was.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: It was probably just I was just locked in on everybody.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't even thinking about my own time goals.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about coaching people, right?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: You obviously coach people, you still do.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you continue to do your coaching is growing.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you uh think people gain from doing hard things?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: You preach very often, like, hey, do hard things, how important it is to go big, take the big swing.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, what what do you think people gain from doing that?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: Purpose.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: Reasons to wake up every single day, reason to wake up every single day and go do something that is going to just light up your light.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: So if you are just you have no big goals, you don't know what you're gonna do, you have no plans, you're gonna wake up like just lack of purpose, like you don't know what you're doing, you start letting your your physique slip away, your fitness slip away because you don't really know what you're chasing.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: But when you set a hard goal on your calendar and you wake up and you see it on your calendar every single day, wow, dude, I'm fired up.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I get to go run a marathon in three months.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna wake up today and give my all for this track workout, you know, and then they're just gonna build up purpose, and then the more they do this, they're gonna build up confidence, and the more they build up confidence, just the the better overall they're going to live their life.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's just going to just work in a synergistic effect to just physically, mentally, spiritually, just lift them up in all aspects.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned some of that, some of them there like confidence.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: What what changes do you see when people go all in and commit to the to your coaching and just in general, like all into the big goal?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: So when they fully commit and they go all in, you can see a clear divide between the people that are all in and half in, half out.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: The guys that are all in, they're they're burning the ships, as we talked about earlier.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: They're they're putting their best foot forward, they're gonna do whatever it takes, and they're gonna give their all.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's the other guy that's half in, half out.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like he likes the program, but he's not sure he really wants to follow it.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: So then he's not training as hard, he doesn't trust it.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: And again, like confidence is key in all of your training.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_03: If you are confident in what you're doing, you're gonna give your absolute all.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then that that change right there is going to give you your results from here to here, just if you're confident in it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you're confident, if you go all in, you're going to be confident, like you're going to know, like, hey, I got no backup plan.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to give my absolute all.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: Confidence is going to come with it.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: Half in, half out, you know for a fact, you're not all there.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: So you're going to lack confidence, and therefore your results are going to be low.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Real, you you train people, coach people often, but I'm sure you're learning stuff yourself.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: What are you learning from like coaching others?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: That not there's no one, there's no two people that are the same.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: Every single person is different, and as a coach, you have to adapt to that person.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: I might have one guy on one end who he has been training and he he can take the higher volume training, he can recover quicker, and then I might have the guy that's kind of newer to the game and he doesn't really know what to do, and he's struggling, then therefore I have to be a little bit more patient and get him, help him understand what it is he exactly needs.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the other guy, I just gotta give him the program.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: He's like, Let's do this.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: So for me as a coach, like I've learned how to adapt to each person, each client that comes in, each athlete to match them to best suit their needs.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Your training method, right?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: You lift heavy, shredded, you into physique, but you also run fast.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So what are people getting wrong, in your opinion?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: From you know, hey, you gotta run more, don't lift as much, vice versa, like strong versus being strong and running at the same time.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: There's actually so many things in the fitness industry that is wrong.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: So one of the first things I'm gonna start with is it's called the said principle, it's specific adaptations to impose demands.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: So if you want to build muscle, then your priority needs to actually be hypertrophy training to build muscle.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: But if you actually want to get faster first, then your focus needs to be on getting faster, right?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: So you can't just build all this muscle and then get faster at the exact same time because it doesn't really work like that unless you're a freak of nature, which there's some people out there that are.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's some out there.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: So too many, yeah, too many people want to just do both of them.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: They want to lift as hard as possible and go as hard as possible in the gym, but then they also want to run as hard as possible and burn themselves out, and then they wonder why they're plateaued and they can't recover.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: But in my coaching, like what we change is if you want to build muscle, you know, or get shredded, then we're going to focus on that with the hypertrophy training.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: More volume goes to that, and then a little bit less volume goes to the running, right?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then vice versa, if you're training for a marathon, we lower the volume of your lifting to where you can still maintain your muscle, but then we we adjust your training volume for running to specifically get you faster for the marathon while still maintaining muscle.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: So you can't really build and get faster.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like this, this, this.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of just you have to find that balance and slightly lift on the other spectrum.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, essentially, and like you have your program set where they're they're shifting to the other one.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and the nutrition that was another one, a big one that so many people don't understand.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: They are afraid of carbs, and as an endurance athlete and a guy who likes to lift, you need to be consuming more carbs than you think because that is extremely important for running and for lifting.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a that's a big thing people shy away from.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, carbs is uh, I feel like it's one of those things that's finally coming out.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do a lot in the endurance space, but we're still not there yet.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um eat all the carbs.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, oh, go keto and no carbs, and now you have like people shredded eating tons of carbs.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: You yourself include it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: See, there you go.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: I eat I eat about five to six hundred grams of carbs a day.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oof, wow, okay.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, walk me through that.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: You work in a full-time job, several, you you got uh social media and content, you got the business, coaching, you got a lot of people depending on you, you got family, girlfriend, like how do you balance all that?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like eating wise, so that's that's probably the craziest part, which actually built some of like a lot of my discipline.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: So at my work, at my job where I work full-time, um, I have been eating beef and rice three meals a day, every single day, over at my job for two years now.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: Every single day, three three years or two years of beef and rice three times a day, and that's it.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't eat anything else while at work.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: And then when I was in my bodybuilding bulk, I was eating 5,000 calories a day at 160 pounds, and I was eating seven meals, whole food meals a day, no liquid calories, and uh it was brutal.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_03: How did I fit it in?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: I was eating every two hours, and it was it was ridiculous.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: I was meal prepping every single day, but again, like anybody that tells me they don't have time, it's it's not that they don't have time, it's they have misaligned priorities.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I was I was packing my meals early in the morning, late the night before, and I was just eating them whenever I could at any moment.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: I would eat right after I left the gym.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: As soon as I got home, I had meal prep containers laid out with everything, and and the biggest part of that is I never I don't eat out, so everything is made at home by myself, so it took even more time.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Beef and rice, oof.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: It works protein and carbs right there.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, real.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk mindset, man.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: One thing you you talk about often is belief.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like now that you've gone on this journey, you've improved yourself.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel your belief has been tested recently?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: So my belief has been tested when like I start to think like, am I really a good athlete with all of these injuries that I keep getting?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's it's that limiting belief of maybe I'm not a good athlete, you know?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: And and then it tests you, it starts to see how bad do you want it?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: And in those moments, like I have to tell myself, I'm like, that's not me, that's not who I am.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I have to tell myself, like, hey, dude, you are an athlete, you are going to get through this.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: All of this is an opportunity for you to learn more about your body.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: If you still have injuries and pain, cool, dude.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: Heck yeah, we get to learn more about the body and figure out what I can do to, you know, heal this injury so that possibly I can help one of my athletes later down the line if they suffer from it.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that's how I view all of that now.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I love to I fun fact about me, a little nugget.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: I never say the word hate.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: I don't I don't speak it.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: I I I I don't say it, you know, I never say I am angry, I'm depressed because I never want to put that identity on me because that's not who I am.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: I am not angry, I'm not depressed.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_03: Instead, like I've I recently heard, you know, other languages they would go and say something like, anger is passing through me.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: Because when I think about it, like that is not my identity, the great I am, God, like that is not who I am.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know, he didn't he didn't create me like that, so that's not who I am.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: I would never say that.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I am joyful, I'm positive, I am passionate, that is how I speak, and people think it's crazy, but it it's just who I am, and over the years, my mindset around what I say is so serious because words frame your world, is what I was taught growing up, and so I take that to the heart.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it just made me think there.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm Spanish background, and the word hate is odio in Spanish.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as you said that I started thinking, like, how often in Spanish do we say the word odio, which is hate?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not often like just naturally, it just doesn't come up in conversation.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like really bad.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like something bad happened.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we'll say things like no me gusta or no está bien and it's like I don't like that, that's not good, that's not working.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: But like the word hate, now that I think about it, is not often said, it's just really a much more severe thing.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's said, but like it's like oh snap, everyone turned heads when that happens.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's now it's such a common word.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a strong belief now.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Where does it all come from?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, I believe the belief that I've got, it didn't come from the success, it actually came from the failures, the the things that people never saw.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I've you know, I've had my hives since I was a kid, they come up on my whole body, my face, you know.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: And when I was younger, I had extreme acne.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I had all these giant knots on my face that I couldn't touch because it hurt so bad.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was just everywhere, and I have acne scarring, and then I've just always had injuries and you know, going losing my hair at 17.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I always thought at that moment, I was like, I would be fine if I was at 30 years old and I lost my hair, but at 17 years old, losing all my hair and people look at me different.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_03: I was known for having long curly red hair, you know, people loved it, and yeah, and then and and then I lost it, and that shook me to my core, yeah, and I just had to learn to adapt, you know, and I I do not like to beat myself up, and I don't want to call myself worthless.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: And at those times it was very difficult for me, and so I've never had like, oh, like this is great, this is great.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: I've always gone through something, there's always been pain, sickness all my life, and I just have to push through it.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: And people don't know these things, but that's where the confidence and the belief stems from, knowing that God got me through those times to where I am now, and when I look back at it, I'm like, wow, that was a dark time, but here I am, joyful and positive and loving it because that those those that adversity shaped me to who I am now.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I have the belief I have.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: What do you tell yourself in those moments, right?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's gotta be tough, man.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can't touch my face, you know.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: You make progress, I'm running now, I got uh the ankle issue.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like in those moments, obviously, hindsight is 2020, but in those moments, what's going through your mind?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: Back then, it was just like it was just beating me up, you know, it was eating me up inside.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't I don't even honestly remember too much of what I used to tell myself then.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: I would just tell myself like, hey, like let's just keep going, let's go to the gym today.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I was introduced to the gym at such a young age, because I had nothing else to do.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't have friends.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_03: I I didn't have a single friend, all I had was my cat.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so when I in my last two, three years of football, when I broke my ankle and I never went back, all my friends stopped talking to me, you know, and then I didn't finish high school till 21 because my mom and she was my teacher in TBI, and then I had the limiting belief that I couldn't learn for years, and and in those moments I was like, I was like, there's there's more to me, there's more for my name.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I know there's more out there for me.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: People are going to know who I am.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: All of this hard times right now is going to shape me into an amazing person in the future, and I just repeated that self that to myself for years and years, grinding in silence before anybody knew who I was, you know.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: I just keep repeating that stuff to me.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like, there's I'm there's inner greatness inside of me, you know, like my time's going to come.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_03: And fast forward to now, like now I feel like okay, like we're starting to really pick up steam.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I can feel it right there, man.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Who is that person in your mind that's like arrived, and also like you said it earlier, like an athlete, like a good athlete, where you're like, I wasn't sure if I'm a good one.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: What's a good athlete, and what's a good Rio that's arrived?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: That that Rio is the Rio that you know does not let anything stop him.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: You know, nothing can break him.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever comes his way, he can navigate it, you know, like like we're going through a storm, the craziest storm in a ship.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: We're navigating through it, and then we finally get out to the other side.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I knew I grew from that.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_03: And that that's how I know I've made it.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_03: When I know I can go through the hardest thing in my life, yeah, and I made it out the other side, and I'm happy that I went through that.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm grateful for that opportunity.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_03: That adversity was an opportunity.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's how I know I've made it.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: When I'm grateful for every single hard thing in my life.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: What about the good athlete?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_03: The good athlete is the guy that's like no longer in injuries when when he can run, when he can run without pain and truly tap into his potential, that's when I know I've become that athlete that I've always known that I could be.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's not here yet.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: We're working on it, but I know for a fact it's there.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about that athlete.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard you share this.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Chase big goals, burn the ships.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing I'm tough in December.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most brutal hundred milers.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: I actually learned this from you out there.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, because I live in Colorado now, and for it to be worse than Leadville, I was like, oof, what made you chase that uh hundred miler race out of all of them?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And also your first.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: So my coach is a guy that I'm very close to and I trust wholeheartedly.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: And he reached out to me one morning, he called me, he said, Hey, do you want to do a hundred miles with me?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_03: No, no question about it.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like, let's do it.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: Send me the link, I'll sign up.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if he if he comes to me with something, I know it's gonna be good.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so I went all in on it.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um, am I fit for it yet?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: Am I still have injuries?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: Am I am I scared that I won't finish it?
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yay.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: We're going all in on it.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know, even if we have 10 weeks of training for one of the hardest hundred-mile mountain ultras in the country, we're gonna put our best foot forward.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: What's the uh DNF rate?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think you shared it was 50% or something like that.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've experienced ultra runners.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: I am inexperienced.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, okay.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: You love that underdog.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so you're not scared about it.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know you have the confidence you're gonna finish.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um is there any challenges you're expecting at that race so far right now?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's early, but oh heck yeah.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: The elevation gain is 22,000 feet.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's gonna be brutal, you know.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the terrain, I I'm live in Texas.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: There is no hills here, you know.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's all flat.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_03: So the terrain's gonna be brutal.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's super technical.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's exciting.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_03: That means more fun, that means more mental, you know, we gotta be more mental fortitude because we are going to have to be focused on every single step on top of that.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, the aid stations, you know, how am I going to am I gonna get GI issues?
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe I'm a big Whole Foods guy.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_03: I don't like to down chips and candies like I know a lot of Ultra Runners do.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I might try.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: I got a lot of controversy, but I might try my dates, you know, my sourdough.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's just who I am, dude.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a Whole Foods guy, so I stick true to it.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, there's a there's a lot of things that are going to be very difficult, but um, that's the name of the game, dude.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I'm doing it.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Learning an experience, yeah, for sure.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: What uh uh how do you plan to train for that?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know you lift, you know, there's certain lifts you like for running.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you don't got the hills, but how do you how do you plan to train for such a big race in Texas and how you like to lift and whatnot?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: Definitely.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: So, priority right now is getting my legs as strong as possible.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm focusing on single leg movements, you know, for my for my glutes, hamstrings, quads, my calves, you know, strengthening my ankles, my knees, all of that to build up the foundation.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_03: And then I'll start running on the incline treadmill, doing a lot of stairmaster to get a little bit closer, you know, comparison to what it's actually gonna be like running on those trails, and then still doing sauna to get as much heat adaptation that I can in case the the time where it gets extremely hot, you know.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna do that, and we're also gonna plan for when we get to the race, you know, having proper attire, having proper fueling.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna we're we're gonna cover every base that we can.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: What does uh success look like for you other than finishing?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: You already know you're finishing.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_03: Success looks like to me is one of the biggest goals I had.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: Fun fact, actually, was to be able to make jokes throughout the entire run.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: As soon as I stop making jokes, that's how I know it's brutal.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_03: So making jokes throughout the whole run.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and one of the biggest things actually is there are, I believe, five of us running this 100 miles, and I would love to cross that finish line with everybody, but I will not be the weak link of this group.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_03: So if we can stay healthy, we can stay strong, we don't let injuries hold us back and have a successful prep, then I know for a fact the end result of that race will be will be really good.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Have you guys talked logistics and all that yet, or is it still too early?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we haven't talked too much, still early, but we might go out to the Grand Tetons and I believe it's Wyoming.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe a month before, you know, do some training up there two months before some training in there, which is what I'll need because I live in Texas.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: They live in Arizona, so it's a little bit better for them.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they can get some uh elevation and and some trails and whatnot.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh both of them are close to me, so I I get it.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, heck yeah.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Real, if the younger you saw who you are today, what would you tell him?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: Alright, Rio.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: You're almost there, dude.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_03: You just gotta keep pushing for a few more years.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, all you ever dreamed of is right there.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: Chase your passion.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know it's deep down inside of you.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: That inner greatness is there.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: I know you're feeling a tug at you, that there's something out there that's calling to you to explore the world, to impact lives, you know, all of these things.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: Keep chasing that, that still voice that's inside of you that is speaking to you.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because there is a great calling on your name, and you're going to achieve great things in this life.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oof, fire.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone, you heard it best from real there.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Real, thank you for hopping on, man.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: This has been the People Run podcast.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Appreciate you for having me on here, Fitzgerald.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, man.