Latest / The People Run Podcast / #75 He's a Double Amputee Who Ran a 2:58 Marathon and First to Finish Leadville 100 | Brian Reynolds

Transcript

#75 He's a Double Amputee Who Ran a 2:58 Marathon and First to Finish Leadville 100 | Brian Reynolds · The People Run Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, I thought there was a point in your life that you wrote and through your post uh you would drive building to building rather than walk.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now you run a 258 marathon, you just got done running a hundred miles right behind you through Hope Pass and level 100.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: What changed in that guy?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I sometimes I think that uh I'm like two different people with my lives.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um there there's pre-running Brian and then there's running Brian, and uh pre-running Brian would have no idea that any of this was even remotely possible.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, I grew up a double amputee.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I contracted meningitis, a rare form of it called meningicoxemia when I was four, and lost both of my legs below the knee due to that.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And growing up as an amputee in the in the nineties and like early 2000s, there just wasn't as much technology.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my first set of legs, part of it was partially wood carved.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we're talking about 1993, and they were still carving wood as part of prosthetics.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it gives you like a good setting for how far technology has come in the last thirty plus years.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think part of it was the lack of technology or the technology that was there, lack of access to it.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because even now in 2026, getting coverage for anything athletically based is very, very difficult.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other part of it was lack of knowledge that it was something that I could even strive for.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we didn't have social media at that point in time, and like the internet barely existed then as well.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So knowing that there was even amputees out there that were doing incredible things in the 90s and into the early 2000s wasn't something that was completely on my radar, so part of me didn't know that there was anything to even strive for there.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last the last part of it was my own self putting myself in a box was not wanting people to know that I was an amputee.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I hit that like eight or nine range and started wearing pants all the time, all year long.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't matter if it was 110 degrees.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of put myself in, like I shackled myself, essentially, and I kept myself shackled all the way through high school and college, and it wasn't until after college that I was like, This is stupid.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I wearing pants in the gym and it's 110 degrees out?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I put on shorts for the first time, and it was such a freeing sensation because I realized one, everybody knew anyways, and two, nobody cared.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of like the unboxing of Brian.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was like finally brave enough to put on shorts, what else am I brave enough to do?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where endurance me kind of started to take more of a momentous step.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's uh Man, so that that's the first part of Brian, like you mentioned.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh that that's that's the uh first life of Brian, where uh I was still doing sports, I was very competitive into powerlifting, I was pretty good at horseback riding, um like I had a bunch of other things that I was into, but it wasn't really until I took off the pants and put on the shorts that it was like, okay, what else are we gonna do?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the very first thing that I found was like it was within a few days of starting to wear shorts.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I found a flyer for the team in training, which they fundraise for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it was advertising, you know, fundraise and go hike the Grand Canyon with us.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't walk to the end of my street at that point in time, like half a mile, too far for me.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this was like, you know, go hike anywhere from like 10 to 15 miles in the Grand Canyon.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: I signed up for it without even a second thought of hesitation.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: My family was like, What have you just done?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you literally can't walk to the end of the street, and you think it's a good idea to go hike 10 to 15 miles in the Grand Canyon, but I did all of the training with team and training.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I did everything they said in between, and I went all their hikes on on the weekends, and it was like three or four months later, we went to the Grand Canyon and hiked in the Grand Canyon, and it you know, at that point in time, it was the hardest thing I had ever done endurance-wise or physically.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I literally crawled the last hundred or two hundred meters out of the canyon.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it it ended up being like about fourteen miles, but it was it was so exhilarating, and also the worst and hardest thing I've ever done.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of funny because I I went back just a few years ago and I did the same exact trail, but it took me like three hours instead of fifteen.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it was kind of that full roundabout circle of like where it all started to where it is now.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that that was my first entrance into the endurance space was that hike in the Grand Canyon with the team with team and training.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: It just it kind of snowballed from there.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was mainly hiking for the first couple years.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um because it's still even now it's still kind of hard to get a running blade.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um most states it's not covered by insurance still.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's starting to change slowly, and I emphasize very slowly.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's it's still pretty hard to get.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was just getting into the running space, um, you know, it was probably about I ran my first marathon in 2014, so it was like 12 to 13 years ago.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was still very hard to get a running blade at that point in time.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually ran for the first full year on my actual walking legs, which is it'd be like if you tried to like go run in like a work boot or ski boot or something like that.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just my walking legs aren't built for it, and it was very painful and just not fun.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I I would never have seen myself going any further in distance just based on that.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: What gave you those early uh you know, early on confidence?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, once you rip the shorts off, I mean I I think I saw you already deadlifting 500 pounds.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: That that's gotta be a certain confidence in itself.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like Yeah, I I used to be a big gym rat.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard, uh, it's hard to tell looking at me now that I I've been a runner for over a decade, but I I was big into powerlifting and everything at that point in time.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I I don't think it had anything to do with uh like weights that I could lift or anything like that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was mo mostly just knowing that the people around me supported me.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of gave me the initial confidence of finally like breaking those chains and putting on shorts.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I don't think I needed those uh crutches for long, but it was definitely like a few weeks of I I I still can't believe I'm actually wearing shorts out and about.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely with a lot of uh family and friends support that I was able to move in that direction.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you started running, albeit with some tough uh no blades yet, 2014.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what was that like and and when did it just okay, I'm gonna start because eventually you started running marathons, like how did that transition happen?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was I was just stuck at very low mileage because running in my everyday walking legs um was very, very difficult.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It it caused all kinds of skin tears and um really beat up my body.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And my body was still trying to get used to you know building the muscles that would allow me to run because I was essentially starting from zero.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it I think it took me like eight or nine weeks to even run my first mile.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was just one minute a day on the treadmill every single day, and then two minutes a day for a week, and then three minutes a day for a week.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it took me a long time to even build up to getting to that mile.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I got my first set of running blades in somewhere around November or December of 2013, and I literally ran a marathon six, five weeks later, I think.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was just like, this feels amazing.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: What comes after a 5K marathon?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I ran my fur I read my first marathon in uh 2014.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, it was terribly hard, and um there was definitely some run walking involved in the last 10k or whatever it was, but I did get to the finish line.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: What was that first point?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was the Disney marathon back in 2014, which which can be a fun marathon, but like the course itself is kind of terrible.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're just kind of like running loops back and forth on the highway between the resorts.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember it was like somewhere right around mile twenty.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: You had to run up an off-ramp to a different highway or an on-ramp to a different highway, and the um the ramps there, there the camber is like it's really steep be because of all the rains and stuff, and I couldn't figure out how to get up the ramp because I was so new to running blades that I couldn't like I I just I've run it since and it's fine, but you know, in my first few weeks of actually being on running blades, I just could not figure out how to get up it.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was right at the stop where um like the Toy Story G.I.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Joe's are because every mile of Disney is a different theme or something like that.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually had to hold the shoulders of two of the G.I.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Joe's just to get up the ramp because I couldn't figure out how to do it.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, I ran that marathon and I was like, okay, I I've run a marathon, I'm I'm pretty good now, I don't really need to do anything else.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of went back to power lifting.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then it wasn't really until the fall of twenty sixteen that I I was like, I'm ready to give the marathon an actual go.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I signed up for I think it was the Houston Marathon in 2017, and that was like the first real big transition into running was uh in the fall of 2016, where I actually put together like a full marathon training block and stuff, and um kind of after that the rest was history as far as uh leaving behind the power lifting and really moving into the running space.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: How was those first few marathons, right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like the first few, you're figuring out logistics, you're figuring out um the tech's not where it is now, you know, and just figuring out the logistics.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure your family's like, wait a minute, we can't walk, now we're hiking.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and now we're running 5Ks and we're going straight to marathons.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I I still re it still makes me smile thinking about those early days of marathons for me.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, as much as I was trained and I still didn't know like how to strengthen my hips enough.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just didn't have enough base strength of muscles because as an amputee, my hips have to be a lot stronger without having the ankle propulsion and the calf to push me off.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: My hip does so much of the pulling, so um like I I would have trouble on long runs because like I would I'd do like 15 or 16 miles, but then I'd be dead for like three or four days.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't move my hips.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the marathons themselves, I had to wear like all kinds of like heavy compression around my hips just to like stop them from blowing up in the middle of a marathon.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's so much different than running a marathon now.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: It I don't mean like running a marathon to take it lightly by any means, but yeah, um just my body's base level of endurance is so different now and so much more used to it that running a marathon doesn't bother in the in the same way that it used to.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: How does um how do you keep going?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like you were just telling me, you know, one mile was hard, then two mile became harder.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you just go, man, you know what?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Screw this.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm you just kept going.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: All the way to 26.2, and further we'll get to later, but wow.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do you just keep going?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I think that it's because I spent so much of my life not knowing that I could push my limits, that at this point in time I just I'm really curious to see how far I can go.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not even how far I can go physically, but how much we can change and adapt the technology as I go to meet the demands.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that's just as exciting because that's not just a benefit for me, that's a benefit for everybody that's trying to do it now, that will try and do it in the future, is you know, if we can keep pushing those limits and showing what not only amputees but just para athletes can do, hopefully as we get further down the road, we can say, like, oh, every amputee can have running blades, or every adaptive athlete can get the equipment they need easily, whether it's through insurance or something else, is like it's just pushing those boundaries, showing that showing what is possible.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not just for me, but for the entire amputee and power community.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's awesome, man.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a big why there uh to keep going for sure.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, when did the goal become sub three?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you eventually hit your sub-three marathon, you got serious, I'm sure, after 2016.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: It became okay, I'm going for it.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, well, when did that become the goal?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it w pretty much after I ran Houston, I I had what was like a more traditional marathon training block there, and I saw for the first time that it was like, oh, I could probably be like reasonably fast at this.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um I forget what I ran in Houston at this point.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was like 319 or something like that.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was a really big jump from my first marathon.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: My first marathon at Disney was 430.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: So jumping 70 minutes down or whatever it was at that point in time um gave me my first inkling that like it'd be kind of fun to shoot for the sub-three.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I tried a lot for the sub-three.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: It took me a long time to get there.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um both between figuring out how to train as an amputee, figuring out how to fuel myself, figuring out how to strengthen my legs enough, you know.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think the fueling is what's taken me the longest out of all of it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um I figured out the leg stuff and the strength stuff way before I figured out the actual fueling, but a recent study has come out.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um forgive me if I quote it wrong, but it's something like a double amputee expends 38% more energy when they're running.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you put that into the context of like calories and energy that needs to be taken in during a race, um it's it's quite a significant amount more than I need to take in.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And because my legs sweat so much, I also need to be conscious about taking in like I don't have an exact stat on salt, but my sodium intake has to be drastically higher, my fluid intake has to be drastically higher.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything correlating to that energy expenditure and uh fluid loss and electrolyte loss through sweating and stuff all has to be factored in.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I've it took me until last year, just in 2025, to figure out how to actually combine all of those things, the right training, the right prosthetics, the right fueling, and then hope that it magically comes together on race day.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh to all form into the perfect day.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, like if an average three-ish hour marathoner takes, I don't know, let's say seven or eight gels in a marathon, like I'm taking thirteen or fourteen.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it it ends up being a lot more calories that I have to cram through my GI system.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find yourself being able to put it down, or is just the expenditure kind of matches it for you as well, like hey, I'm just really need this fuel.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was not able to put down the fuel for a really long time.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's take it actually took me training for ultras to figure out how to fuel for marathons.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's interesting.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: How come?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just because for ultras you have to you have to work on consuming more than just the gels and hydration stuff.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: You have to work on eating actual food.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it it wasn't until I got to ultra training that I would eat dinner and then go train and have have to force my digestive system to be used to that.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and even that took me a couple of years to figure it out fully, but three like three years into doing ultras, I was finally able to figure out the fueling for marathons on the road.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, how have you been able to figure all this out until eventually last year when you hit the the sub three, like the fueling, the the the right tools, uh, you know, eating GI and all that, like what's it taking?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a lot of support from uh the community.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's there's not many amputees that run distance, let alone ultras, or and there's not many amputees that I can ask about sub-three training and stuff like that, but uh, you know, the fewest the few of us that there are, you know, we try and talk to each other and advise each other on that side of things.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I've been working with my coach now for I think four years, so it's a lot of trial and error on our side as well, um figuring out how to com how to combine what would be considered low mileage with a high volume of cross-training um that gives me the strength to either run fast or run far or whatever I need, while also making sure that my legs stay healthy.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then just really working with um my prosthetic company, telling them what works, what doesn't work, and just constantly looking for what we can do differently.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: What did you think about when you finally crossed through Eugene and you saw 258 coming down that finish line?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um was it relief?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Pride?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: I figured it out.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: What what came to you?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I think a large part of it was relief.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was uh like a seven or eight year journey since I was like, I I'm gonna try for sub three.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um part of it was relief thinking I at that point I was like, maybe I don't have another marathon PR in me.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe those PRs are are past and um I'm just gonna have to be content with whatever I had.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was just um you know, happiness that I finally put all the different components together and made it work on on race day.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I rode that high for quite a while.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think there's only like three or four besides me.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: In the whole world?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's two that are actively r like are still running actively that have run sub three, and I think that there was like one or two before us, but it it's not many.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's really, really hard for us to put together all of those different components.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, talking about putting it together and fast times.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: I saw you also ran a 10k in 3729.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's considered a world record.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like dude, where's the ceiling?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I mean, I don't think I found my ceiling.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm still out there I love hearing that um doing whatever I can.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, that that world record just came a couple months ago back in June of 2026, and it was just like I didn't even I didn't do any speed work for it.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: It just came in the middle of an ultra training block, and it just show it it was just proof that all of the work that we're putting into kind of building the aerobic engine um is working and that we're heading in the right direction, and that like basically our experiments of how to train as an amputee are working, and that my experiments of how To how to um have my prosthetic company build legs for me is working.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was just it just kind of showed that we're on the right track with everything.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, proof is in the pudding to use old school.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Showing that my hundreds of hours of training are uh paying off.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, when you train this hard and you achieve this level and you're seeing all these fast times.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Does that ever bother you when you hear runners like I'm training my my 16-week block is hard.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I'm trying to hit that PR.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Here you are just knocking it down and grinding, grinding for years on years on end.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Do you ever go, hey look, let me show you my checklist.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it doesn't matter if you're an amputee or if you're not an amputee or able-bodied or a different type of paraathlete or whatever it is, it's um all of those results have quite just this year alone have quite literally hundreds of hours behind them.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know that nobody sees that work that gets put in.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's there.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's um, you know, it's me spending three hours every single night in my garage staring at a wall while I ride a bike or I would run uphill on a treadmill.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think that the comments that grate me the most are the one are the people that say that I have an advantage because I'm an amputee.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I see those comments on a weekly basis, and those ones like, eh, if I had an advantage, everybody would be getting amputated.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um if it's an advantage, then you would see Elliot Kipchogi getting his uh legs amputated.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sub 130 or whatever, right?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Until I see somebody run faster as an amputee, I'm not gonna believe that one.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um it man, I'm sorry you get that.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: That sucks.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it doesn't particularly bother me.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's uh it's more of a laughable thing than anything.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it shows that there's uh you know some ignorance out there.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I just when you were talking about the muscle it takes, I can I that's gotta like you train for this, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: You I'm sure deadlifting days help.
• 24:27
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean you know, deadlift is still part of a routine, it's just it's not heavy deadlifting anymore.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know deadlifting for lots and lots of reps.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do you ever have workouts where like cardiovascularly, you know, like, oh I got this, I could go another 10 miles, no problem, but like the legs just won't maybe muscle, it's fatiguing, and you kind of just have to stop and like you just say you're done.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's that like?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's that's definitely been a part of how we've changed training now is making it so that especially for runs, I I go in more tired.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um just just because it simulates some of that um like later race um fatigue without actually having to put in all the miles.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this year, you know, the night before a workout, I might do like a short five-mile run, but then two hours on the bike and then lift.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that by the time I wake up and do my workout in the morning, like I'm still tired and I'm still feeling it.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: I have a speed workout.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll do the same thing for long runs where I might I might do a lot on a Friday night and then wake up and do my long run.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or at some blocks this year I would bike for an hour and then go out for my long run.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Stuff like that that kind of simulates me being tired without putting the pounding on my legs.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there's been plenty of those runs this this year where I was like, uh no, my body just doesn't want to do this.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how easy it feels from the waist up, like my legs do not want to move anymore.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um how do you make sure you and your team like that you absorb this?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because that that's a lot, right?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, I'm gonna go hammer it on Friday and then you know what, long run the next day.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you make sure you absorb all that training and fitness?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I leave that to my coaches, to be honest with you.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um honestly, I I feel like I have been exhausted for almost this entire year at this point.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um even on light days, I was still doing double workouts basically.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it was all for for a purpose with um a big ultra.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, I basically just tried my best to trust everything that they wrote on the schedule and then wrote honest feedback on everything so that it could be adjusted when needed.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: I see why when we started this, you said I'm gonna take the two weeks now.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well deserved, and maybe even more.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this year I've put in a little over five hundred and fifty hours of work just on cardio.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of work.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, we gotta talk about this background and this ultra you just alluded to.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: You just finished level 100.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Congrats first off.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: What made you keep coming back?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, four times you run this course, you finally finished it and got the buckle, but four times you tried, what made you keep coming back?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think the simplest answer is uh just like sheer stubbornness.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's the simplest answer is I just I could not let it go without crossing the finish line.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if it didn't happen this year, then it would have happened next year or the year after or the year after.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I I think that the longer answer is that um I fell in love with Leadville.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh before I ran there, I was working at the event and then I crewed a friend the year after, and I just fell in love with the race, with the community, um, and with trail running in general.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: So when I signed up for when I signed up the first year for the lottery, usually they say it takes a couple years to get in through the lottery.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, I'm gonna start signing up now, and then by the time I get in, I'll be ready for it.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I somehow got in the first year.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay so I got in and I was like, well, start doing it now.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I definitely had absolutely no idea what I was doing that first year.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that I I didn't go in thinking that I would know what I was doing, but I also had I also knew far less than I thought I did.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it I learned so much about what I needed to do prosthetically that first year, how things needed to change to even have a shot at that race, but it it took me three full years of making adjustments to actually be successful on the fourth attempt.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I was gonna ask you, like, hey, in the second or third one, what did you maybe think Leadville uh was telling you no, but you said it would happen.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: This fourth one, if not the fifth one, sixth one.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: So there was never ever I gotta finish this no matter what.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I won't say that there wasn't some doubts, like after uh each each little bit, but um the doubts went away so quickly that people question whether like people being my friends and family question whether the doubts ever existed.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um like some years, like the first year it took me until I that we drove back into town for me to say that I was doing it again.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um after like an hour before swearing that I would never do it again.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then last year was probably the biggest doubts that I had.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: It I think it took me um like a full five days before I said I was gonna do it again.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um I never doubted myself physically, but I doubted that I knew how to do it from a prosthetic equipment standpoint.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the these races are tough for anybody.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you have both your legs or not, but as as a double amputee, when we're talking about Leadville, it there is some parts of it that are just very technical, very steep, and especially trying to do it as a double amputee, you know, going downhill.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about the traditional running blade, which has that C shape to it, there's no heels on the running blades.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be like if you tried to walk around on your tippy toes.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can imagine what going down a forty percent grade on loose dirt and rock feels if you're trying to do it on your tippy toes.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: That that's what a good section of Leadville is like.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's just it's hard.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's hard whether you have feet or not.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I just that has been my nemesis.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's Hope's Pass, it's the backside of Hope Pass.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been my nemesis now for uh you know, I'm gonna say this year too, it's been my nemesis for four years um trying to get past that section.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, this this year I definitely spent a lot more time both fine-tuning training, but most importantly fine-tuning the prosthetic side of things.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And just bringing different equipment with me.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to bring running legs and hiking legs and a backup set of running legs, and I had to have removable tread for my running legs, because the last couple years my running legs, the tread on them broke, and that was a major limiting factor as to why I got cut at aid station.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we just kind of threw everything at it this year with extra pairs of legs and hiking legs and different types of equipment that would allow me to get through the course.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Both faster and safer.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I switched uh the race is uh very kind.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: They let me bring pacers from the start line.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just had to switch up how I use pacers so they're carrying equipment for me, or especially on these downhills, I use their shoulders to hold on to so that it was safer for me.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and luckily uh all of the tweaks that I made this year allowed me to get past those cutoff times and get to the finish line.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and you finally figured it out and got that buckle.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: What was that moment when you're like, oh man, fourth one's the one, I'm gonna make it.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what was going through your head, like, I'm finishing this thing.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was pretty convinced until like mile ninety-eight that I wasn't gonna make it.
• 33:29
  unknown: Okay.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was just convinced that I was like that my crew was lying to me about the time and it was tighter than it was gonna be for cutoff times or something, or that I would like trip and fall and face plant and not be able to get up.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think I believed it until I turned onto the street.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh 6th Street is the finishing street in Leadville.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and my entire crew and all my pacers were waiting there for me.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I finally it was like, Whew! This is actually gonna happen.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um But to me it's it's been a journey, it's not just been about me.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I had I had 19 crew members there this year, which for Leadville is like an absolutely massive crew.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And outside of I I had like between family and a and some longtime friends, I had like five people come from the East Coast with me.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: So That's cool.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Four so fourteen of the people are people that I met at Leadville over the years.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I mean by journey, is like if by some miracle I had finished it in my first year, I just I wouldn't have appreciated the racing community in the same way, and I wouldn't have built my own community in the same way.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: But that finish line doesn't happen without any of those people there.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I would not have made it to the finish line without them, and I wouldn't have made it to the finish line without the family that's back home that couldn't come out, that you know, watch my kids while I'm out on these long training runs, or are they telling me to like get on the damn bike and train in the evenings and not chicken out just because I'm tired?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it it is an entire community that got me over that finish line.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I did the running, but without all of their support, it just I can a hundred percent say it wouldn't have happened.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: What was it like when you did cross?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know it's done, you get you get the the buckle.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: And this whole crew's there waiting for you and saying, You're done, man, you can rest.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean there's there's definitely relief there.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Leadville's been the gorilla on my back for close to five years now.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um and given all the technical issues that I have to overcome that aren't even training based, it it truly is a question of like, will it happen?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Can you figure out all of those issues?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: So there's definitely joy in crossing the finish line.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've I've been lucky enough to get to know the race director and the race founders pretty well over the last 40 years.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: So being able to cross the finish line and um give them hugs and thank them for all of their support.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: It just it was a full circle journey from me for me.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, it's I I got into this race because of how much I fell in love with the community and all the love that the community gave back to me over these four years.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I just felt all of it crossing that finish line.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, we started this talking about like the first phase of Brian versus phase two.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Long pants, uh power lifting, but you know, later on you eventually start running one mile turn to three three in a marathon, man.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: What does the family think looking at all this and the support now like marathon, sub three, records, lead bill?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um have you ever thought about how crazy and reverse that is, phase one versus phase two, Brian?
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean 20-year-old Brian would not have known what the heck you're talking about if you were talking about any of this.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um it it has been an amazing and unique journey, and I think that my family is worried about whatever crazy adventure I'm gonna come out with next.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: At least at least with uh if I hadn't finished Leadville, they'd be like, okay, next August we're gonna be in Leadville.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's kind of like, oh no, what's he gonna dream up next?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: They think you're gonna up to Auntie.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I probably will because I figured out how to do that, so I need to figure out what more I can do.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that I don't know what that is yet.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't have any specific calling or feel towards anything right now, but um you're still resting, it's fair.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think my family's definitely family and friends are uh all waiting to hear what the next thing will be.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, you have a family of your own.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do the kids think?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: What does dad do?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do you ever get that, or they're just like, oh, he's on a long run again?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I was lucky my my oldest boy was with me um for lead bill this year.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um it it was amazing.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: He ran the final street with me, so yeah, having him there was was absolutely amazing.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had him on one side, I had my brother on the other side.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was really, really cool having them with me.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that they have maybe skewed opinions on what other dads should be doing.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because they'll be like, oh, how many miles did your dad run this morning, like on a Saturday?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my dad didn't run really?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's longer on Saturday, like why didn't he run?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I don't think that they fully grasp that it's not just like a commonplace thing to go out and do 10, 20, 30 miles on a Saturday morning.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um my oldest gets it now because he he's come to um a lot of my events with me, but my younger two definitely don't fully grasp that notion yet.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um But I've been lucky enough to have have uh my oldest Steven on a lot of cool projects with me.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um we went to Tanzania a couple years ago and both of us climbed Kilimandara together.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um then I ran it in one in one day, which was just an amazing project to be a part of, but I think that that was like his first inkling that it's probably not normal to be doing what I'm doing.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, all these achievements, do you ever feel like or think about man, I'm I'm an inspirational guy now, like what's that like, or do you get tired of it?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I understand where people are coming from when they when they say that I'm an inspiration, so um it's not something that irritates me, but I think that everybody has their own obstacles to overcome in life.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: And my obstacles happen to be more visible than everybody else's obstacles.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean that you or somebody that we pass or that passes us don't have their own demons that they're battling with, whether you know, whether it's internally, mentally, externally, something's happening, anything.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just my mine are very visible.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if it helps people get up and move or keep moving or strive to achieve something that they didn't think possible, then um, you know, I'm happy that our paths crossed.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and most especially if other amputees or adaptive athletes can look at it and say, like, there is a path forward, we just have to figure out how to get around the obstacles, then I'm doubly happy because I didn't have that growing up.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just mentioning what you said earlier about the nineties, man, that that sounds crazy that you know we had chipsets and all kinds of tech back then.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: But we didn't have it in the prosthetic field.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty crazy.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just to hear and you went through it, which is probably even crazier.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's great to see where technologies come and that amputees will have much better access in the future and as we continue to advocate and push these boundaries.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, we just finished Leville and family's like, what's he gonna do next?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: What is a goal that you have that you're scared to say out loud?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: But once you say it like, damn, I gotta go for it.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: You have one that's just in there somewhere.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my my long-term goal, which has been a a goal for a while now, is I I really want to climb all seven of the uh all seven summits, which is the highest summit on each continent.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've done Akincagua, I've done Kilimanjaro, but you know, now now it's some of the the big boys left going up to Denali, going out to Everest.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I still want to do all those.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know about other projects right now.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I've been invited to some other cool races that are all longer than Leadville, but there's there's nothing that's like really calling to me yet, and I I feel like part of the reason why I kept going back to Leadville was joy in that journey.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like I felt a calling to Leadville.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna have to see what I feel is really calling me over these next couple weeks and months.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um just because, you know, if when you go on these long journeys like with Leadville, it's like if it's not something that you love and it's not something that's calling you, it's really hard to keep the motivation, especially when you're in the gym for the seventh night in a row doing three hours of work after everybody else has gone to bed.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like you just you really need to have the drive and the motivation to really go after something like that.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um so other than my long-term project of the seven summits, I I just don't have anything right now.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, it makes total sense, man.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of work all those hours to to do for something just simple or vague.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I'd really like to run another marathon PR.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the same type of project as like the Leadville, but um I I'd love to see like a sub-250 marathon.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: You could take a course where at anywhere in the world.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean I really like uh the London Marathon.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I ran there I ran there once in uh I think it was 2018, but I just ran terribly.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful course though.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean if I could pick any course, I'd probably uh have them redo Kipchogi's uh sub-2 course and give me some pacers every 5k and my bottles handed off on motorcycles and stuff.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Funny, like right before you said that, I had a feeling you were going there because you mentioned Kipchogee earlier.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm about to say Vienna course with the road paved and like final services.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean I th I think my favorite overall marathon course so far has been London.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um it seems uh give you like a good mix of like going downhill going flat, teeny little bits of ups here and there, but nothing too too terrible.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I love London as a city, so it's a very scenic course.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I I've always wanted another I've always wanted another crack at that course.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing it this year, so you're getting me excited to say sorry, not this year, the coming year.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're getting me excited saying it.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it it's a beautiful course.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I just I ran terribly and it was a pretty hot year, too.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um Yeah, that's my only fear, the heat.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Brian, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing, man.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh love everything we've spoken about here and uh love what you're doing.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can't wait to see what the next endeavor takes you.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um just hearing what you're saying.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's gonna be one you're like all bought in and fully in for and passionate about.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: So uh thanks for coming on the People Run Podcast, man.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, everyone listening, this has been the People Run Podcast.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Catch you on the next one.