Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1152: Just Won't Quit! Epic Bill Bradley

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Ep. 1152: Just Won't Quit! Epic Bill Bradley · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports Podcast.
0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey folks, we have Epic Bill Bradley for you today, but before we dive into that, a couple of quick announcements.
0:26
[SPEAKER_01]: If you would like to be a guest on the Adventure Sports Podcast, while it's true that we have amazing world-class epic.
0:34
[SPEAKER_01]: athletes on the show frequently.
0:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We also love to have people that are getting into an adventure sport who are passionate about it, who just want to share the joy of the experience.
0:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if you love adventure sports, you're qualified to be on the adventure sports podcast, simply let us know at info at adventuresportspodcast.com
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, the number one thing that I hope you do is if you hear an episode that you find inspiring and fun, share it with some friends, let them know about the Adventure Sports podcast and thank you in advance.
1:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Now here we go with Epic Bill Bradley.
1:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi friends, welcome again to the Adventure Sports podcast.
1:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's show is going to be special.
1:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very rare that we get to visit with someone who has done this much and let me rewind a little bit.
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We've had a lot of people on the Adventure Sports podcast to have done the things, right?
1:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But a few people have done as many of the things as epic, bill, Bradley, who is our guest today,
1:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, thank you Kurt.
1:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I just want to say it right up front adventure sports podcast power.
1:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Woo.
1:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Right on.
1:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate it.
1:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You are so welcome and we appreciate you coming on.
2:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Bill's story goes way back and I'm going to hit a couple of bullet points just for context and then Bill will dive into more details and hear why and how and what it's amazing.
2:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Bill started a chain of video stores, many, many moons ago, and in 2005, then all of that kind of came crumbling down as streaming became increasingly popular, and he kind of reimagined himself as an endurance athlete.
2:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And started doing amazing endurance athletic events all over the world and I'm just going to hit some of the highlights there are so many in 2009 he did the Western states 100 ultra I didn't finish though I made it 63 miles
2:47
[SPEAKER_01]: 63 miles.
2:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I was in I was 105 degrees.
2:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I had not dealt with that kind of heat up to that point.
2:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I have now.
2:56
[SPEAKER_04]: But then yes.
2:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is part of your story.
2:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a lot of DNFs.
3:02
[SPEAKER_01]: but eventually they become completions and that's something that I think is super cool because you just kept going back and hitting it again and again and again and then you got to the point that I mean for instance let's talk about the arrowhead 135 we're talking about 130 miles in Minnesota 40 degrees below zero
3:25
[SPEAKER_01]: right and it's like are you serious?
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see.
3:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have 2,010 DNF at 70 miles, 2,011 they DNF at 110 miles.
3:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody they could say they did 110 miles.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how you can call that a DNF.
3:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, we've got 2,012 DNF at 100 miles, 2013.
3:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't make it man on my
3:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, that was when they filmed the documentary, my next attempt will be my my 13th.
3:59
[SPEAKER_04]: So when they filmed the movie was my eighth, my next attempt will be my 13th.
4:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I never quit.
4:04
[SPEAKER_04]: That's my message.
4:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't always make it.
4:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm gunna because I don't quit, but I'll be on my 13th.
4:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And my longest is 98 miles.
4:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's talk about the rim to rim and the Grand Canyon.
4:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I just did it once and I did I did seven room to rooms seven room to rooms it was a world record It was a world record the you know the old unofficial kind Where you I called all the all the running clubs in the area and they go the most we've ever heard anybody do is four And I go well, I'm gonna go down and do five and you know what I posted it and I put it out there and then guy went down and did six
4:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You had to do seven.
4:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I did do seven.
4:49
[SPEAKER_04]: It almost killed me doing seven of those things.
4:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It's crazy.
4:52
[SPEAKER_04]: You know the down below was like a hundred to 110 degrees, you know, and then you're and you've got the climbs up to sides, which are, you know, steep, crazy.
5:02
[SPEAKER_04]: 7,000 feet.
5:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and then swimming the English channel.
5:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I've took in five attempts at that, and I still have been made.
5:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I made it 20 miles, and I got separated from the boat by a storm.
5:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah, and I finally, yeah, yeah, that was a crazy one, man.
5:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a storm blowing at the end.
5:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It was really, really wild.
5:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It says here that you're training for another attempt.
5:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that correct?
5:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I am.
5:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I just tried to, I took eight years off from swimming.
5:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I was so burned out.
5:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Five attempts at the English channel.
5:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I was so burned out.
5:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I took eight years off.
5:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I had to do a six hour qualifying swim in San Francisco Bay.
5:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Under, it's got to be 60 degrees or under.
5:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
5:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's like 58.
5:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And I tried it like a couple of weekends in a row, and I made four hours.
5:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Taken eight years off took, it was taken longer to get back in swim and shape than I thought.
6:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I gave myself like a year and a half, and it wasn't enough.
6:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm signed up again for 2027 English channel.
6:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess when he said English, I know.
6:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's see, Akin Kagla.
6:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you're hitting all the ones.
6:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the last ones I've done, I've made them all up to the last like three or four of these things.
6:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Ogwin Kagla was, because I took it, I tried to climb Denali.
6:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I've tried six times to climb Mount Denali in Alaska, which is the world's coldest mountain and I've had frostbite, so bad my thumb turned black,
6:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I've found in a crevice 25 feet down, oh no.
6:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean like crazy nightmare stuff, and then, so I go like, they go, hey, you should try Oglin' Cogwood, it's not nearly as technical as Denali, right?
6:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
6:56
[SPEAKER_04]: That sounds great, I'll try it, they go, it's just really high, you know, because it's like 22,800 feet and I go,
7:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I haven't any big drums on, you know, with the altitude on Denal and I haven't any trouble with the altitude, but I went down and did a cog on and it was like, I got, you know, within 600 feet of the top.
7:18
[SPEAKER_04]: We've been climbing for like eight days and there's like half this last day, everybody, that's the day that kills everybody, right?
7:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
7:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And so like half
7:32
[SPEAKER_04]: when we're going up to the 228 and I know he said okay let's take a break over here and it was like 600 feet from the top and I sat down and then when I went to when he said let's go I couldn't stand up man I was like I'm like I'm like I'm a wall crawl I'm not gonna quit and I'm like I don't even crawl I finally rolled over my back and I'm like
8:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just like pant like a dog trying to get air and then you're like, wow, I hope I can get off of this thing, you know, and yeah, it was, yeah, so there's, I never quit, but that's when I've took in three attempts at and you know, that's my highest was 22, six, 22, wow, well, you've done so many things, big swims, big runs, big hikes, big mountains, it just goes on and on and on and it, you've been doing this for 20 years.
8:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, How old are you now?
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, old are you now.
8:34
[SPEAKER_01]: 30.
8:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I do it up here.
8:36
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all brainwashing here, man.
8:38
[SPEAKER_04]: They're going to go, man.
8:39
[SPEAKER_04]: That guy looked like hell, but he was 30 when he died.
8:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Bill, here's the funny thing.
8:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I tell everybody I'm 23.
8:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, my like my younger brother, man.
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your younger brother.
8:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Between the two of us, we're probably shaving an extra like 50 years off of our really.
9:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not me, I'm 30.
9:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I really work hard and trying to keep myself that young spirit in there, you know?
9:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
9:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Because, well, I'll tell you one thing.
9:10
[SPEAKER_04]: There's nothing worse than somebody who's young and acts like they're old.
9:15
[SPEAKER_04]: and then the people were old and act like they're old.
9:18
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the second worst thing.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I agree.
9:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Our bodies do age, but inside we're only as old as we think we are.
9:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I want that you're talking to my language.
9:33
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why you look so good, man, and you do so much stuff.
9:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Well let's go back, rewind all the way so people know the history when your Bradley video chain started, I mean, you just got hit by technology, right?
9:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But you were 45 is what this is when all of that happened and then you had to kind of rebuild a life.
9:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that why you started doing these major athletic events?
10:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so what how that went was back then I was doing after high school, I drank and party for about 10 years, you know, and then, but I'd run track and cross country in high school, you know, okay.
10:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And I went to a Tony Robbins seminar at like 30 years old and Tony, you know, it was like, it was life-changing for me, you know.
10:26
[SPEAKER_04]: It got me, I was the first weekend I'd had, it was like a four-day weekend I had, I had fun, you know what I mean, without drinking.
10:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And within a year so I went to AA, I mean, I was a good part of your, you know, as a binge drinker,
10:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And I quit.
10:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I just totally quit.
10:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I started running again, you know, I just started, you know, and I was doing bit I had done the business.
10:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I started the video stores with credit cards because the banks wouldn't loan me money.
10:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So I used.
10:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So I went to every store and, you know, every bank in San Francisco, some guy told me to do that and pull a credit card application and mail them all in and that's what we did.
11:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I actually owned a house like a half the money from borrowing off the house the other half I got with these credit cards I just never let anything stop me ever And that's what I'm encouraging everybody's listening your podcasts don't let anything stop you.
11:19
[SPEAKER_04]: There's always a way
11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There's there's got to be a way.
11:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if 50 credit cards is necessarily the best way It would be hard to do now.
11:31
[SPEAKER_04]: They're so back then the guy told me he's a friend of the family And he said so you see you want to do this video story and you can't get loans.
11:39
[SPEAKER_04]: He says well This is what you got to do if nobody alone you anymore money you go to downtown Sam was just going hit all these banks
11:46
[SPEAKER_04]: grab a credit card application and mail them all at one time, and so I think we just overwhelmed the system we got for a team back, and that's how we, we've charged a second out for the stores.
11:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I have a friend Bill who one year he realized he had a huge tax bill with the IRS.
12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: and looked at how much he owed them and he thought, you know what, I could start a good business with that money.
12:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he looked at the terms to pay in the IRS off, you know, by making payments.
12:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, actually, that's not a bad loan.
12:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so instead of paying the IRS, he opened a new company.
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And he made the payments, but he got his business off the ground.
12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always a way, right?
12:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of them are more wise than others, but you did really well with your video business.
12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you obviously are a successful person.
12:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you just don't stop.
12:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was a good run as like people we lasted 20 years, you know, and really Netflix knocked us out, knocked the whole industry out, we were one of the first to go, but it started out, you know, we were one of like 10,000 little video stores in the country, you know, and because people always go, like, oh, I don't know, I can't do that, you know, too many people are trying to do it and I go, no, if you just be the best of the best, the best of the best always make it.
13:09
[SPEAKER_04]: There's always run at the top you always constantly improve and that's it's it's not that hard to be the best of the best of your always improving You just keep improving keep improving.
13:19
[SPEAKER_04]: It's so small incremental steps that bring you to greatness in life You know and that and that's how you get up there But we ended up being like one of the top 20 chains in the country out of 10,000 one of video store the year award You know and one of the highest volume stores
13:37
[SPEAKER_04]: We would on a weekend, we would have 2,000 people come through and like a four-hour period.
13:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we really were really busy, seven checkouts and stuff.
13:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So, but it was just, when that, when that industry went,
13:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it was so devastating to me, you know, I like don't quit, right?
13:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm like, you know, you could see the signs like with Netflix and all that.
14:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And it just, it got me, you know, I was one of the first to go because we were expanding.
14:07
[SPEAKER_04]: We were doing so well.
14:09
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't have three new stores and we were just killing it.
14:12
[SPEAKER_04]: But then, man, when it, like the business just dropped incredibly fast, you know.
14:18
[SPEAKER_04]: and it took me out, you know, unfortunately my wife left at the same time.
14:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It was too much stress for her.
14:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, and it was like, I've been doing Iron Man's and Marathon's up to that point, right?
14:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And my buddy was like, I saw a guy ran, I was just running, I was back to work for the company business, doing, you know, like sales, like electrical contracting.
14:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I was doing sales in downtown San Francisco.
14:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I was so devastated with the bankruptcy that it couldn't even look people in the eyes.
14:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I would look at the ground and walk down the street.
14:52
[SPEAKER_04]: It was my identity, you know, I've been doing that for 20 years, like you said.
14:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I was, but I was doing marathons and triathlons and doing some iron man.
15:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And my buddy said, you know Bill, you've been talking about doing a 50 mileer for a long time.
15:10
[SPEAKER_04]: the perfect one would be tomorrow.
15:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Tomorrow.
15:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I know, that's what I said.
15:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I go, I'm so devastated, right by this bankruptcy.
15:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But I just remember when I did my first Iron Man, even my first half Iron Man, how great I had felt.
15:28
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, like when you do something new for the first time, it's like that you fork feeling and you feel like you could conquer the world, you know, when you do that,
15:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, yeah, I said, it's tomorrow.
15:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And so then I went to dinner with another friend of mine, and I said, you know, my buddy said, there's a 50-mile tomorrow.
15:48
[SPEAKER_04]: God, it would be really good for my confidence.
15:51
[SPEAKER_04]: If I go down there and just a new I, you know, like going run this 50-mile or, you know, and I'd never done it before, because I was worried about failing, you know?
16:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
16:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And then my buddy, and I go, but the problem is, I have poison oak on my manly parts, right?
16:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And he knew I know, and I go, I don't know if that'd be smart, you know, and I haven't done that much training since I went through the bankruptcy's like four months later, you know, and he goes, well, you want me to call my dad, his dad was like an 80 year old retired doctor.
16:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
16:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And they go, yeah, why don't you hear dad on the phone?
16:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's see what he thinks.
16:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And so he gets his dad on the phone and his dad goes so bill.
16:32
[SPEAKER_04]: You want to know what I think about you running a 50 mileer with poison oak on your manly parts.
16:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Not a good idea, Bill.
16:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Not a good idea, right?
16:43
[SPEAKER_04]: So, so I go to bed that night thinking I'm not going to run this 50 mile, right?
16:49
[SPEAKER_04]: But I woke up like Tom Cruise at in risky business at like three in the morning.
16:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, you know, sometimes you've got to say what the F, man.
16:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And I freaking set that alarm for five.
17:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I went out there and ran that 50 miles like my life depending on it because it did.
17:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
17:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And after I ran that 50 miles I'm walking down downtown San Francisco.
17:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm looking people in the eyes again.
17:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm standing straight up, you know, feeling good.
17:17
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, and it was huge, huge, huge.
17:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't your first big event, but it was the first of that distance and it brought you back.
17:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It brought you back from a real devastated place.
17:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It did.
17:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And then from there, 100 miles, if I could do 50, I got to do 100.
17:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I was like off to the races.
17:38
[SPEAKER_04]: It was like, if I could do 100, then I could do 100 in Alaska.
17:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And I could do 100 in our 135 in Death Valley.
17:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was just like I just kept one up in myself, you know.
17:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's talk about the Death Valley events that kind of blows my mind and I'll tell you why I'm one of these people that likes the cold bill.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm fine with the cold But when it comes to the heat Oh It just beats me up.
18:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I saw what you were doing in Death Valley, I thought you got to be kidding me.
18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're talking about bad water here.
18:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us what that is
18:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So bad water is, you've got to crew in a van and you do 135 miles and it's from the hottest spot in the world, I guess bad water down there, it's 200 feet below sea level where it starts and then we go all the way up to the portal of Mount Whitney.
18:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And so yeah, and that was, it was like a big deal for me to do that.
18:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And I didn't all the way know how to handle the drinking and all that stuff, you know.
18:48
[SPEAKER_04]: So I remember when it got really, really hot, I started chugging off my camel back.
18:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, ha ha ha.
18:56
[SPEAKER_04]: During the heat of the day, and I got myself a hyponutremic.
19:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
19:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
19:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And actually, I was in some sort of study that they pick so many people out, and they wait us ahead of time, and they wait us afterwards.
19:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And I got myself so hyponutrimicked at like every step it felt like butch your knives were going into my quads I had to fight through so much pain to make it to the top and they weighed me afterwards I was like 15 pounds heavier than when I started because that's so much water They're like you could have died, man They go they go don't drink anything else and then we go to pizza with my crew and they're looking at me
19:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, at least you're getting a little bit of salt.
19:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was like, but that heat was something I had never felt before.
19:50
[SPEAKER_04]: How hot that can get out there.
19:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
19:53
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, especially on the pavement, you got the air, you know, coming off the ground, just excruciating heat, man.
20:01
[SPEAKER_01]: unbelievable how hot it gets there.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I drove through Death Valley a couple of years ago and I looked down at just at the car thermometer and I saw the heat and I think it was the highest I'd ever seen on a thermometer.
20:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you took me Bill and dropped me in the middle of the wilderness in the winter time, I'm confident that I'd be fine and get back out again, but you dropped me in Death Valley in that heat.
20:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I'd last day.
20:26
[SPEAKER_04]: you would be beef jerky that's what they say they look like when you get when you get lost out there they go you're like jerky yes I didn't want to be jerky out there well how many years did you do the bad water I so I did the bad water because this will kind of go with you know what I do I did the bad water race twice and I finished it then I heard about somebody doing a double
20:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to try that.
20:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So the next year, yeah, I went out and I did, I did, I went all the way across.
21:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I went up to the top of Whitney because the duty official, the first guy who did the bad water, he went all the way to the top of Whitney.
21:10
[SPEAKER_04]: But the race only goes to the portal, which is like halfway's up where the, where the payment ends.
21:15
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just, it's probably for safety.
21:16
[SPEAKER_04]: They only go that high.
21:18
[SPEAKER_04]: But I went up the trail and I went all the way to the top and then you go all the way back.
21:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I was that took like seven days.
21:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm one of 24 people ever to do a double bad water.
21:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And then somebody told me that somebody's had done quadruple bad water.
21:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know that starting doesn't like a quadruple heart bypass surgery.
21:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, man I went out and I did I did 584 miles back and forth in Death Valley for basically three weeks two Mount Whitney summits 110 degrees just just grind it out for three weeks.
21:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, and you did it I did it.
22:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, okay.
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's time for the why question
22:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
22:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you do that?
22:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the big thing is I think I'm supposed to, because I asked myself a lot of questions after the bankruptcy.
22:21
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I mean?
22:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, you know, because I remember we were at the peak and I remember like all the material, not that I had tons and tons of money, but you know, have a nice car and house and
22:33
[SPEAKER_04]: and I really thought at the time I thought, wow, this is really hollow, you know what I mean?
22:37
[SPEAKER_04]: There's this materialistic thing as way overrated.
22:41
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not what people think, you know?
22:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
22:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, you know, maybe my call in something else.
22:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that's the universe said, well, yeah, probably is something else.
22:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So we'll take all that stuff away.
22:55
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, that's a wake up call.
22:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and so I feel like I'm supposed to inspire people.
23:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, to take on their dreams, and that was hurt.
23:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I was thinking like, oh, it's just to get people to do things out of their comfort zone, because all these things I do are way out of my comfort zone every time.
23:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's why I do them, you know, and then I wasn't making them, right?
23:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So like, like, in the movie, you know, at Arrowhead, I'm on my eighth attempt.
23:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't know what attempt I was on.
23:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I was so embarrassed that I couldn't make it because I done so well up to these last, you know, three or four events, you know, the hardest in the world.
23:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I'm getting stuck on them.
23:35
[SPEAKER_04]: but I keep coming back.
23:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I remember in the movie when it came out and she had the director, the young director did great, Quinn.
23:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And she told me before that she goes build, you know how many of these you've tried because I was so embarrassed, I never kept count.
23:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And I go, I don't know, like two or three, that was my normal answer.
23:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:56
[SPEAKER_04]: She goes, no, you're on eight.
23:58
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew it was more than two or three, but that was my normal answer.
24:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I go, I go, I just, I go, no way.
24:04
[SPEAKER_04]: She goes, yeah, I went to the official race register.
24:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I went down all the way.
24:07
[SPEAKER_04]: You've done eight.
24:08
[SPEAKER_04]: This is your eighth attempt.
24:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is pointless event, so people understand what this is.
24:13
[SPEAKER_04]: So it is the guy who did this was a genius in the crazy way.
24:20
[SPEAKER_04]: He, he came up with the idea.
24:22
[SPEAKER_04]: He's, he's a cold weather guy, you know, I think he, I guess he lived up to the time.
24:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I think now he lives in Alaska, but he actually graft out in northern Minnesota international falls, which is the coldest place in the continental U.S., and he came up with the, it's right on the Canadian border and came up with the coldest day of the year.
24:44
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, by looking at 10 years and trust me, it's right there most of the time.
24:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and he put the race on that day.
24:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I'd gone to Alaska and I did this this sitting up.
24:54
[SPEAKER_04]: There are a hundred miles and it was like a hundred and it was minus five.
24:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was over the cutoff and yeah, it was every story I got is a big story.
25:05
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I ended up finishing that one like six hours over the cutoff and a blizzard.
25:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know what I, I know, but I thought like I go like, okay, I can, you know, I'm, I'm good to know, I finish in a blizzard, man, you know.
25:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And, uh,
25:22
[SPEAKER_04]: But they said, you got to go to Northern Minnesota, man.
25:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a different kind of cold.
25:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And because that's in Southern Alaska, you know, this is it, it was, you know, on the I did a raw trail.
25:34
[SPEAKER_04]: But man, it was like minus 35 out to the first year I did it.
25:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I've never felt cold like that.
25:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm cold.
25:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm from California, man.
25:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to the first checkpoint.
25:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And my hands were frozen.
25:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I go, I don't understand this.
25:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to, I go, I bought the best gloves in Santa Rosa, R. E. I. Santa Rosa.
25:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, they've got gloves for that kind of weather.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure.
26:01
[SPEAKER_04]: They were warm enough at all, man.
26:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm I made into that first checkpoint this this the first year and I've been making everything up to this point You know and pretty much and I go into this like a gas station you have to pay for your food.
26:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's old school, man I love the arrowhead.
26:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I love it
26:19
[SPEAKER_04]: and yet the pay for your food and I go in there and I'm I'm trying to war get feeling in my hands and I'm putting my hands over this hot dog warmer you know to try and get some feelings going and and they and then I noticed everybody was dropping and I I looked at the race director I mean you know the the not the race director I don't think was there at that time it was one of the volunteers and I said
26:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Can I I can still go right now.
26:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you can still go, but nobody nobody has ever left this late and made the race officially.
26:54
[SPEAKER_04]: They never had cut off something to that point, right?
26:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
26:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's like, it's minus 35.
26:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I come in there.
27:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Now it's dark.
27:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, pitch black out there and way colder, you know, with the, you know, with the air and everything.
27:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And I go, well, I don't quit.
27:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I went out by myself and it's, it's 12 hours of the next checkpoint.
27:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was, you know, so you're going to 73 miles.
27:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember, I mean, I came up.
27:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Everybody's ahead of me, right?
27:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm in dead, dead last.
27:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And I came up to a fork in the road.
27:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And they do mark the race a lot better than they did back then.
27:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember I came to this fork.
27:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, OK, there's like,
27:33
[SPEAKER_04]: 80 people in front of me man.
27:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I should be able to figure out I got my headlamp.
27:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm looking down And I go, okay, it looks like all these people these guys went this way and like you say there's bikers there's skiers You know, no other might have been there's never skiers on those goldiers, so it's just bikers The skis don't slide too good, but anyway, and so I looked and I go they look like they're going to the left and so I start to go to the left
27:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And just as I'm going, a snowmobile comes up behind me one of the volunteers, a good friend of mine now, and he yells at me goes wrong way.
28:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I would have been really big trouble if I'd gone down that trail.
28:16
[SPEAKER_04]: But anyway, so I continue on, and I get to where this checkpoint supposed to be,
28:23
[SPEAKER_04]: 35 miles, and it's like a restaurant I was told, and I'm up there, and it's pitch black, dark, um, you know, no cars in the park and lot, and I'm like, they left me!
28:39
[SPEAKER_04]: They left me!
28:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I had gone to a survival camp before I went to Arrowhead, literally like a guy to teach survival in Alaska,
28:52
[SPEAKER_04]: just because I, from what everybody was telling me, they go, it's really a crazy race, right?
28:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And so the only main thing I remember from that whole course is you got to get in your sleeping bag while you still can, you know?
29:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
29:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, so after I beat on the windows and realized, nobody was around.
29:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I, I start, I'd go, okay, I got to get my sleeping bags.
29:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So I ran for my sled.
29:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I whip open my, my, my, my, I slid bag, pull out my sleeping bag, and I'm like, shaking like this, like, oh, I got to get this open, because that's why that's what deals you have to get him while he's still can, because you start shaking so bad.
29:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And I, you know, and I took some deep brass and, and I wrote got it down and then I zipped it up and, and I'm like, and I'm like hyper ventilating and I'm like, okay, I quit now.
29:47
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what I said to myself and I was like I'm laying on this ice-covered parking lot.
29:52
[SPEAKER_04]: This was an emergency bivvy man, and then then I hear one of the guys I'd been with earlier and he comes He's yelling out he goes, hey Bill, do you want to come sleep in a warm cabin?
30:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So the place was like a quarter mile away.
30:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I just couldn't see any markings in the dark, you know?
30:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And from what I understood it was there.
30:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And I go, I go, no, I really like sleeping on this ice-covered parking lot.
30:20
[SPEAKER_04]: But then I go, I go, oh, this is so freaking hard.
30:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I love this race.
30:25
[SPEAKER_04]: This is so crazy.
30:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's why I've been back 12 times.
30:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Trying to finish it.
30:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, times.
30:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I fell in love with it, man.
30:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It's so freaking crazy.
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Ugh.
30:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they call you epic bill, and now I know why.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You just don't quit, do you?
30:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't quit, man, I have nightmares.
30:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I have nightmares.
30:46
[SPEAKER_04]: What's, how was it to move you up here?
30:48
[SPEAKER_04]: The wrestling movie from like the 80s.
30:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And the guy was fighting, he was gonna wrestle the guy.
30:54
[SPEAKER_04]: He dropped down two weight classes to wrestle this undefeated guy, right?
30:59
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, because he wanted to make a mark in life.
31:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And so he drops down two weight classes of this, it'd been undefeated for his whole high school career.
31:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And in the guy went out and he watched the guy and he's walking up and down this this champion with a log on his shoulder Up and down the beaters, you know right and the guy goes you know you're gonna have nightmares because of this he goes.
31:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I already have nightmares I go that's I go I'm exactly that way.
31:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, he's have nightmares if I don't have nightmares.
31:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It means I'm in my comfort zone too much
31:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
31:34
[SPEAKER_01]: What a lot of stuff.
31:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have a movie about all of this.
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: What's a name of the movie?
31:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, epic bill.
31:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, it's really, really great.
31:45
[SPEAKER_04]: My uh, my how it came about was my my nephew was getting ready to graduate from film school and my sister came to me and said, what do you think about him and his friends?
31:57
[SPEAKER_04]: doing a movie on you.
31:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And I go, wow, that sounds great.
32:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course, who wouldn't say that, right?
32:02
[SPEAKER_04]: You know?
32:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
32:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, so these three kids, I remember they showed up and I was training for arrowheads.
32:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm I'm out on the beach out here, you know, pulling my sled up and down the beach.
32:13
[SPEAKER_04]: That's how I train for it.
32:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And, and these kids I looked at and I said, I go, I hope you guys know we're going to win an Academy Award with this, right?
32:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I got these 23-year-olds that get these big eyes and I'm going like, no, we shoot for the top, man.
32:29
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what I do.
32:30
[SPEAKER_04]: We shoot for the top.
32:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, yeah, these kids, they come out the first race that their film is international falls Minnesota, so coming out to the arrowhead and it's going to be a cold year.
32:43
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like a minus 40 year.
32:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And my sister's like, you got to get somebody to drive them around the course to keep them alive because they're from my leg.
32:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So I got a local guy out there who was great, just great fudges name.
33:00
[SPEAKER_04]: He's in the movie, actually.
33:02
[SPEAKER_04]: They talk about him, gives his feelings on how cold Arrowhead is.
33:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And these kids, they just did a terrific job.
33:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's on Amazon.
33:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's, I'm really proud of the movie.
33:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I think they did a great job.
33:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's very, very inspiring.
33:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And it really shows that I don't quit.
33:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And he didn't shoot anybody else so it was on PBS for a while.
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's on Amazon and Apple TV now is that right Amazon Apple TV Epic bill man sounds fantastic and I I am sad I haven't seen it yet, but I'm going to watch it.
33:37
[SPEAKER_01]: That's going to be fun.
33:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, man.
33:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate it.
33:40
[SPEAKER_04]: It's doing really, really good.
33:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
33:42
[SPEAKER_04]: We got we got trailers out there that were promoting and they're getting hundreds of thousands of views.
33:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So just yeah, it's going to be really big on Amazon.
33:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, here's a question for you, specifically about these altras in the extreme cold.
34:00
[SPEAKER_01]: To stay warm enough, you have to stay fueled, right?
34:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are extreme cold temperatures, and you're out there for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours, and hours exerting yourself, how do you stay fueled?
34:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you eat so that you can keep going?
34:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you have to eat stuff that's not gonna freeze.
34:18
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the key, or you put it inside your jacket to keep it warm, but most of it is like, for me, it was like breads and pastries and easy to digest sugary type stuff for me.
34:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Is what I eat out there.
34:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I know some people put their goos into their water Water's another thing, man.
34:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I was wearing camel backs and this hose no matter what blown it out all that stuff Yeah, they say blown the air out and it's still with freeze and then then I even bought one There was all insulated and all his fancy thing and it froze So I'm back to bottles, you know, and you in and those I've even had those freeze inside the sled when it's super cold, you know
35:05
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just, but you got to keep fueling, you got to keep eating, I'm trying to eat 300 calories an hour.
35:11
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, like I said, I do a lot of brave people do a lot of people do candy and stuff, you know, just whatever, because when you get in the middle of the night and you're doing this, I call it like the death march.
35:22
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's like minus 30, you're like, out, you've been out, you've been going for 10 hours or eight hours and you're walking through the night and you're just, it's like this death march.
35:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody even talks.
35:33
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're round anybody,
35:35
[SPEAKER_04]: because we're also miserable.
35:37
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you got to eat, it's got to be easy to eat food, you know.
35:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you, and if you need to refuel your water or go back to your sled to get more food, you know, because I wear like pouches that I have food in, you know, and getting those in or
35:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, some of the the shot blocks, you know, those work good and then and then you could eat like and when you get to check point everybody pigs out on the food there.
36:02
[SPEAKER_04]: There's only three checkpoints.
36:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I've only made it to two of them.
36:05
[SPEAKER_04]: The third one's at 112.
36:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I've never made it to the TP.
36:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
36:11
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's yeah, you gotta keep eating to keep you warm and otherwise you freeze and you freeze anyway, but you freeze more if you're under fueled you will get in trouble out.
36:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And you don't want to eat things that your body has to put a lot of energy into digesting.
36:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's what you can get them down and play and get them down.
36:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It's got to be easy.
36:32
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, my buddy, like I said, he, he squirts the goose into his water and stuff.
36:36
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, and then he drinks his goose, you know, right.
36:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And then he got that advanced, I guess.
36:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've done the extreme heat, and you've done the extreme cold.
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: People would argue the hottest and the coldest, right?
36:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Which do you prefer?
36:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I know, well, I used to say, because bad water, I had that, even when I get the quadruple bad water, you have a van with you, you know what I mean?
37:03
[SPEAKER_04]: The whole time you have a van, so, you know, you got a crew, and you know what, and as long as the van, this is the bad water rules, as long as the van doesn't move, you can get it in cool off and eat and drink and put your head against the rock, I mean, the air conditioning, and I do all that.
37:24
[SPEAKER_04]: But at Arrowhead, I like to say it's kind of like bad water without the van, because you're going like 12 hours, man, and you've got to move quick, I've had frostbite out there.
37:35
[SPEAKER_04]: One year, I made it like, I think I made it 70 something miles, and because I was too slow at getting, you know, my bivian, you know, getting my, my sleeping bag open, even with liner gloves, I got frostbite, you know, and that knocked me out of the race, but it's
37:50
[SPEAKER_04]: But they started doing, I heard about people doing the unsupported bad water, which is now you load a card up with all your ice water and food, no crew.
38:02
[SPEAKER_04]: You have observers there just to make sure you don't die, but no crew.
38:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So I went out and I did the quad bad or I go, man, I got to try this solo.
38:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And I come out there and I'm really stubborn like I'm doing it on that day because I committed to that day right well the day the first year I did it I commit to the day and it comes on the news
38:31
[SPEAKER_04]: This next weekend is going to be one of the hottest weekends ever on earth.
38:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
38:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm out there pulling this cart in this heat and it was like, yeah.
38:44
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's, I got a movie called Pushing Mercury, a little short movie, you know?
38:49
[SPEAKER_04]: That's about that.
38:49
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we filmed it.
38:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And I didn't finish, but it was 140 degrees in the heat when I was pulling that thing.
38:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I lasted like, I don't know, like nine hours or something like that, you know.
39:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I started throwing up.
39:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going up to a little hill and, you know, and I started throwing up.
39:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And once you lose it there, because you got no help, you just, you know, I made it to this point where there's this little bit of shade.
39:13
[SPEAKER_04]: My buddy had told me there's like these ditches on the side.
39:18
[SPEAKER_04]: He goes, you're gonna take, he says, you know, he's in the van.
39:21
[SPEAKER_04]: He says, you're gonna take a break up with this next ditch.
39:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Because you could sit on it and your, your, your, your calves will be in the shade.
39:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And it'll feel good and my buddy had tried to do it.
39:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And I go, like, you gotta be kidding me.
39:36
[SPEAKER_04]: That's my relief as I'm gonna sit in a ditch and my calves are gonna be in the shade.
39:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know what was funny is, it felt good.
39:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Except my butt was burning on the ground.
39:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's no joke, that kind of heat is just dangerous.
39:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You could really, really, I mean, people die.
39:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Both of them are.
39:56
[SPEAKER_04]: The real extreme cold people, you know, they get that cold and they start yanking their clothes off and crazy stuff like that, you know.
40:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's strange.
40:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Hypothermia makes you think you're overheated and people take their clothes off.
40:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's one of the last things you do with hypothermia.
40:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I haven't done that one yet.
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, let's avoid that one, okay, Bill.
40:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Bradley died with his clothes on.
40:21
[SPEAKER_04]: He didn't get it.
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll speak enough cold, Denali.
40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us your Denali story.
40:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm doing all this, and then I'm hearing about mountain climbing, right?
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
40:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like,
40:37
[SPEAKER_04]: they're like, wow, because I had read that book into thin air a long time ago when it first came out about the god all the people dying on Everest, and I said, wow, that I want to do Everest some day, I'm going to do Everest, you know, because it's so, as soon as I hear people are dying, I go, oh my god, that's so hard, I got to try it.
40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure that's a wise way to approach life, Bill.
41:03
[SPEAKER_04]: But it definitely gives you a good challenge, you know what I mean?
41:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It does, yes.
41:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So I went up to Denali and it was, and I looked at the odds and it was like,
41:13
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, like, I don't know, like six people had died the year before something.
41:18
[SPEAKER_04]: But like most of them were solo climbers, right?
41:21
[SPEAKER_04]: So they're up there.
41:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I think almost all of them were solo.
41:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm with a team, you know, so there's six of us all put together.
41:28
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was like, and I wasn't really good shape from all the running I was doing, you know, but we got up,
41:37
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I kind of was like, I didn't feel good in the hotel.
41:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I think I was coming down with something, you know?
41:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I just, and I got up on that mountain, and I just started feeling like crap.
41:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember, yeah, I had like, it's funny, my dad was a Marine.
41:53
[SPEAKER_04]: So my dad's really, really, he was a Marine at like 17 or something in high school.
41:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And he was a Marine, and I remember I had a phone up there, I go.
42:03
[SPEAKER_04]: This is probably not the good guy to call as my dad, right?
42:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't, I don't feel too good up here, man.
42:09
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, what do you think should I keep going up?
42:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Because you can do it, Bill.
42:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I believe in you can do it.
42:17
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's kind of like one of the worst things you could do is when you start getting sick to keep going higher on the mountain.
42:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
42:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So I got only up to like 14,000 feet.
42:28
[SPEAKER_04]: the camp up there and I'm like literally like like they where you get the hot at night, you know?
42:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
42:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like I'm boiling up and then I'm unzipping my sleeping bag.
42:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember I fell back to sleep and I woke up in my hand was outside the sleeping bag and it's like minus five.
42:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm going like no.
42:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I put it up under my armpit, it must have just been for, you know, a very little time, but enough of put a fear in me And so I told the guy I'm gonna need to go down now or whatever, you know, so and there was another guy and he He was having trouble with like his boots and all this stuff.
43:07
[SPEAKER_04]: He was in a lot of pain and so we had to go down Yeah, it was just like, but it was like it was really hard to go down sick like unbelievably hard.
43:17
[SPEAKER_04]: You that's why
43:18
[SPEAKER_04]: You, I always know that you, you know, most people die coming down because they use too much energy summoning, you know, and so now I'm always when I mountain climb I say, okay, can I make it back down?
43:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't want to push past that point, you know.
43:34
[SPEAKER_01]: If you got a little bit of gas in the tank.
43:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a horrible trip down, but let me know.
43:39
[SPEAKER_04]: They're fricking mountain climbers really hard.
43:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So now I've taken sticks of tamps, toilet and alley, I've made up the high camp.
43:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep, I've had everything.
43:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I fell in a crevice in like 25 feet down and I looked over there was a glove hand sticking out of the wall.
43:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's like this, it's a slow motion because you're all roped.
44:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I said, help.
44:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I'm looking at this hand, I'm going,
44:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I gotta stay away from that hand, you know.
44:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, I was so shook up by falling in there and getting that all, you know.
44:16
[SPEAKER_04]: whatever that I never mentioned anybody about the hand, you know, and then the next year I remember I had this guy and I go, you know, we were up right around that point and I go, you know, there was a crevice around here.
44:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I fell in last year and there was a club hand sticking out of the water because there was not there was not and I go, yep, there was not your right, but there was.
44:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Ha!
44:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's crazy.
44:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I really like mountain climbing too, because it's so hard.
44:46
[SPEAKER_04]: It really gives me nightmares.
44:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I've climbed a lot of 14ers.
44:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I have not been above the 14er level.
44:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never hit 15.
45:01
[SPEAKER_01]: What changed for you when you like between the 14 and the 20?
45:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I started not making them.
45:10
[SPEAKER_04]: minor detail.
45:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it just gets everything gets harder man with a lack of oxygen.
45:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, Whitney's 14 something and I've done that like numerous numerous times.
45:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But I try to do like alto lab was, you know, I was buying something and they were sponsoring for a little while, but just the breathing thing.
45:30
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the altitude.
45:31
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what makes it harder, you know, for sure.
45:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And it gets
45:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean a king of colder on Denali for sure man they get up there that wind gets whipping up you can't get caught the last time I tried it like a couple people got caught up on the ridge man and it was like
45:48
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, the winds hit and you get, you know, and they ended up with, well, we thought they were going to be dead and they ended up just with, like, horrendous, like, frostbite or something.
45:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
45:58
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just terrible, man.
45:59
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's just terrible.
46:01
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's, yeah, it's a risk we all take and it's, we all do it for that, you know?
46:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like we're doing it to challenge ourselves.
46:08
[SPEAKER_04]: If, if it can't kill you,
46:11
[SPEAKER_04]: It's probably going to be too boring for me to even try.
46:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Goodness.
46:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's got to be, you know, very challenging.
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
46:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Bill, you told us the story of doing the 50 mile or without really training, and how that kind of brought you back, right?
46:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Where you could look people in the eye again.
46:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're also someone who knows when to say, Nope, not this time, and to stop.
46:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, these are major events when you give up at 100 miles.
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: like what you did a hundred miles, but still what advice do you have for people?
46:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we need to stop so that we can come back and try again another day.
46:52
[SPEAKER_01]: What advice do you have to be?
46:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think when I stopped at 98 miles in Arrowhead,
46:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I stop because I needed to sleep so bad, but when I left, you'll see in the movie when I left the checkpoint, the doctor was recommending me not to go on because I had trench foot so bad on my feet.
47:11
[SPEAKER_04]: There are blisters all over the bottom.
47:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, well, is that an order can I still go, he says it's not an order, but I would highly recommend you not going.
47:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, well, can you, can you put some tape on those things?
47:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to go because my, the cutoffs coming up.
47:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I went back out for another 22 miles.
47:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And I went, then I slept.
47:35
[SPEAKER_04]: and then my feet swelled like out of my shoes.
47:39
[SPEAKER_04]: It was level 10 pain when I did it.
47:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Just a side note though, I learned later in the Grand Canyon because I was just a very experienced ultra runner.
47:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And the same thing happened in the Grand Canyon on when I was doing my seventh crossing or sixth crossing already noticed from getting what feet wet.
47:59
[SPEAKER_04]: To the bill, if you can go 10 to 15 minutes,
48:04
[SPEAKER_04]: start walking, even though it's level 10 pain, the pain will start going down, the feet will, the swelling will go down on your feet so you continue.
48:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And so back then I didn't know it, and so I've done my stood up, it was level 10, and so I had to quit.
48:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So I do quit.
48:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I freaking hate it.
48:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I hate it like you wouldn't believe.
48:24
[SPEAKER_04]: But I also know, like, climbing a mountain, you know, when you're roped to other people, you know what I mean?
48:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You got to be smart that way.
48:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember when I was swimming my first English channel and, you know, I went over there, I did the Ultra Man in a wide, you know what the Ultra Man is?
48:42
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a real one.
48:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's like two and a half iron man, basically around the big island.
48:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Really, really elite athletes there, you know?
48:52
[SPEAKER_04]: There's people like Olympians and stuff and I don't know how I got him, but I just I snuck in because I don't quit and I remember I finished it and and and they were doing a word ceremony and one of the girls
49:08
[SPEAKER_04]: who she was with me, we swam together, and she only beat me like five minutes in the swim, right?
49:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And then they announced that she had done the English channel.
49:19
[SPEAKER_04]: The English channel, I said, she swam, if she swam the English channel, I could swim the English channel.
49:26
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, because you only beat by five minutes, of course, that was now like 13 years ago or something, but I did sign up for the English channel and you have to do a six-hour qualifying swim in San Francisco Bay, and I went down there and remember I'd called, you know, the one of the clubs down there, the swim clubs, and I said, yeah, I signed up for the English channel and I need to do a six-hour qualifying swim in the lady said,
49:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, what have you done so far ago?
49:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I just did a 10k swim with, I think I had a wetsuit on to in a why.
50:04
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no wetsuits because people were getting stung by the jellyfish out there.
50:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And she, and it was smooth bay.
50:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And she says, and you want to do the English
50:16
[SPEAKER_04]: What if you come down here and swim in the bay and don't like it, I go, well, that's not going to happen because I already gave my deposit.
50:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So I remember when I went down there, though, it was like one of those foggy days in the city and people were coming out of the water in this fog and I just, I was like, whoa, this is crazy.
50:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And the reason I bring that up is when I went over there, I said, you know what, I'm going to make the channel because you know why I'm just not going to quit, right?
50:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just good.
50:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just not going to quit, right?
50:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I remember I met a guy, my boat pilot the first year I went over there and he meets me.
51:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I meet him, you know, when I'm going to town, we meet for a cup of coffee or something to talk.
51:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's just so billed.
51:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I was looking at your website.
51:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're an extreme endurance athlete.
51:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And you think you could swim the English channel?
51:19
[SPEAKER_04]: He goes, no way in hell, you're real swim the channel.
51:23
[SPEAKER_04]: No way in hell.
51:25
[SPEAKER_04]: My worst guy lasted 20 minutes and he begged me to pull them out.
51:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You haven't won even last 20 minutes.
51:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, I just handed it, I go,
51:37
[SPEAKER_04]: That is, like after I walked away, I go, this is very unusual service for a guy just handed like a $3,000 tech to and then I get this call like two days later, it's like, okay Bill, tomorrow's your day man, it looks good, the weather's going to be good, right?
51:54
[SPEAKER_04]: It's really dicey out to these storms come in fast and stuff, you know?
51:58
[SPEAKER_04]: But anyway, the guy goes, so it's going to be your day tomorrow.
52:02
[SPEAKER_04]: He says meet me down at the boat dock at 3 a.m. in the morning, right?
52:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And up to this point, I've only swam in San Francisco Bay where it's relatively protected.
52:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
52:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And I go down there and we meet him at the boat dock.
52:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's like it's literally like I'm a
52:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know like a 30 minute ride to where you start to swim and I'm going down It's pitch black and there's white caps everywhere's like it's really Ryan I'm like dude you said it was gonna be nice and he started laughing goes all bills surprise storm blue So I jump off the boat.
52:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I swim to shorts like a quarter mile
52:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I could hit by a big wave on my back and I crawl out of the water, you know?
52:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
52:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I look out at this angry ocean.
52:51
[SPEAKER_04]: This totally white cap angry ocean.
52:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought of myself, what have I got myself into?
52:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And I jumped in into this day.
53:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the roughest water I've ever been in.
53:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I could even tell which way it was up.
53:05
[SPEAKER_04]: You're just getting a washing machine huh.
53:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, like oh, that's how they described it was a washing machine.
53:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I couldn't even tell which way was up.
53:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember as I'm swimming You know what I'm thinking to myself Please please bill last 20 minutes.
53:19
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't want to laugh at me
53:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to beat 20 minutes.
53:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I've got to beat 20 minutes.
53:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to be the worst.
53:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And I end up I made it four hours, but I started real.
53:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I would just start it throwing up after like an hour.
53:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I got seasick in this water.
53:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember I threw up so many times.
53:37
[SPEAKER_04]: The, you know, the guy looked at me and he goes, man, if you keep going to this place could be 30 hours for you to make it, I just start throwing up again, you know, it's just guys give me this lecture and then I started swimming again because I'm just thinking myself, I'm not going to quit.
53:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going to quit.
53:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I just got so weak, you know, your leg start because I was puking and puking and puking and puking, you're like you're thinking just just my head is above the water.
54:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And I go, okay, I could either drown or quit.
54:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, probably better to come back next year.
54:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
54:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So I ended up stopping in the guy, when I got on the boat, the guy looked at me goes, you know, Bill, I knew you wouldn't make it, but that was a hell of an effort.
54:21
[SPEAKER_04]: So in some level, I got that guy's respect.
54:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
54:26
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, that was where I decided that better to quit than die.
54:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I think that's always the case when it's a mountain, you got to make that decision early because you have to get back down.
54:37
[SPEAKER_04]: You got to get back down.
54:38
[SPEAKER_04]: You always have to ask yourself, can I get back down?
54:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
54:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You got to ask that, you know?
54:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Because on August and Cagoa, you'll see when I stopped up there, but that's like not as dangerous as like a...
54:52
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, Denali or Everest or some, but yeah, I got up there and it was, I was really weak at the top, but it was, you could out and you got to go down and then you spend a night at a camp and it's just hiking.
55:03
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not, you know, there's no, the type of snow isn't like, I don't know, it's old snow.
55:09
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not like fresh blizzard new snow.
55:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can solidate it heavier stuff.
55:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You can kind of walk on.
55:15
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, I hate to quit, but when you're between quitting and dying, better to go back the next year.
55:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so what's coming up next?
55:22
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm still signed up for 2027 English channel because I freaking don't quit.
55:31
[SPEAKER_04]: But I also like realize when I swim, I went all the way through the winter this year's swimming.
55:36
[SPEAKER_04]: It those two six-hour swims really forced myself in these long swims when I really,
55:43
[SPEAKER_04]: didn't have the training for it.
55:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Just forced it.
55:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I got sick for a month.
55:47
[SPEAKER_04]: That's one of the reasons I didn't make the six-hour swim.
55:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, it was a little burnt on swim, and so I've started running again.
55:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So, so next is, I'm looking at, you know, I'm going to try and run a six-minute mile.
56:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I haven't done that since twenty five years.
56:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I go, I was only five years old when I did my last six minute mile.
56:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, and then I'm watching these, I've done a 200 mile.
56:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I did, you know, I just done an unofficial one when I did.
56:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I did, if you ever read Dean Karness's book, The Ultra Marathon Man, that he did the solo 200 Mile, I was, I was a second one to do it.
56:26
[SPEAKER_04]: No relay, I just did it.
56:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
56:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, so that was a while ago, but now these 200 Mileers are in now.
56:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So I want to do a 200 Mileer, so I'm, I'm running and I'm swimming.
56:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, so I'm doing both.
56:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm running and swimming.
56:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess I got a lot of, I got a lot of my plate.
56:46
[UNKNOWN]: Woo, woo.
56:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like quite the amazing life to do this many big events, but you just keep going back again and again and again and what keeps you going back like that.
57:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what, I really think about this because I go, other people aren't doing this is like what I do, you know, right?
57:09
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not even a question in my head.
57:11
[SPEAKER_04]: As soon as I don't make arrowhead, it's like, okay, right out your list, what are you gonna do different?
57:15
[SPEAKER_04]: How are you gonna make it next year?
57:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure you know what I mean what are you gonna do training what's your food what's your this I mean that's what I'm thinking like right after I'm done and that a lot to do with the movie You know like that I got a lot of respect from people from the movie and instead I was very inspiring that I didn't quit but I think we're really comes back to was a ninth grade I got cut from I was playing all the ball sports right right
57:38
[SPEAKER_04]: But I was a late grower, so in ninth grade I was one of the shortest guys in the class.
57:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I got cut from the basketball team, the baseball team, I didn't play on the football team.
57:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I could even make the top three in track, you know, for like, we ran three laps like the 13th.
57:55
[SPEAKER_04]: 20.
57:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I remember, and I remember when I, when I got cut from the basketball team, because I, it was the first I'd ever been cut ran out of the dream, Jim crying, you know, as a ninth grade or I go, I go, this was in probably real high on the cool scale for a junior high.
58:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But I remember I went out that summer I went and I was with my buddy who's one of the top runners He ended up he was like one of the top runners in the state in like the two mile in high school, you know, and he was going for a run And we were both up at Tahoe, you know, we're up there, you know, on vacation little vacation thing and He said I'm gonna go for an eight mile run.
58:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you want to go with me?
58:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And I hadn't run, but I was like, I go, I go, yeah, I wouldn't mind.
58:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And so this is my sophomore year.
58:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was playing soccer because they didn't cut.
58:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I sucked at soccer.
58:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't play it.
58:52
[SPEAKER_04]: They just didn't cut.
58:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I had no passion for it at all.
58:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And so he went for a run.
58:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And I went with them.
59:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know what, we were going out four miles and coming back four miles.
59:05
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I did at the four mile mark?
59:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I had to catch a bus back to the hotel.
59:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I was so screwed up.
59:13
[SPEAKER_04]: But it triggered me again.
59:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I go, oh my God, I'm gonna run again.
59:17
[SPEAKER_04]: So I went back out for the I quit soccer.
59:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I went back out for the cross country and track in high school.
59:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was one of the top five guys like in the half mile in the county in in in in track.
59:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it kind of like, you know, it re got me going again.
59:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, you know, it was just like, but I ever since then, when I went back to track and ran and did good, I've never quit anything since I said, I was such a big quitter in junior high, I'm never quitting again.
59:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I haven't quit to this day, anything.
59:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You found a reason to turn your your life around.
59:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You found a reason to say, no, I'm not this person.
1:00:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm that person.
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It became a part of who you are.
1:00:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And I love you as a kid.
1:00:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I used to want to I used to run to junior high to play basketball in the morning, you know, I'd run to high school.
1:00:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I loved running, you know, so came back.
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that's great.
1:00:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Bill, we've already burned through all of our time.
1:00:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for sharing all the fun stories and we want to make sure everyone knows about the movie again.
1:00:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Epic Bill and you can see that on an Amazon Apple TV and then what was the the short was pushing Mercury?
1:00:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's what I was carbon TV.
1:00:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
1:00:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I have I have five.
1:00:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm also in another documentary called 40 below.
1:00:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm looking at the same feature guy.
1:00:47
[SPEAKER_04]: The toughest race in the world.
1:00:49
[SPEAKER_04]: That was also That's just on the arrowhead race, but it was filmed that year.
1:00:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
1:00:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I was weird.
1:00:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Here I'm the last place guy and I got like two film guys Followed me as the last place guy, but but who doesn't quit are coming back
1:01:05
[SPEAKER_01]: that's fantastic.
1:01:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you so much.
1:01:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Great stories and amazing.
1:01:11
[SPEAKER_01]: All the things that you've done, you've attempted you've gone back again and again and again, and again, you're an inspiration.
1:01:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you very much.
1:01:19
[SPEAKER_04]: But you're great.
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Your podcast is great.
1:01:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I love that you're doing all this and exposing people to get them to do adventures that are hopefully out of their comfort zone.
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I mean?
1:01:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And then when you figure it out,
1:01:32
[SPEAKER_04]: What you want your big big gold and you just keep going out of it and don't quit no matter what Ooh, even if you see a hand sticking out of a creme Don't quit.
1:01:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
1:01:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good word.
1:01:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So everyone out there find your thing and get out there and have some fun