242. Cole Brecka: The Great World Race, 100-Mile Ultras & Why Hydrogen Water is the Ultimate Recovery Tool

The Great World Race, it sounds like seven marathons in seven days. Like you run a marathon, you get to sleep, and you lay down on the plane. It's not that. You pack your shit, you get on the plane, you fly there, you run a marathon, and the race kicks off. I still to this day don't know where you went in that pain cave because you did quit. Everything that could go wrong just started going wrong. I'm running on broken ankles. I can't keep any food down. I can't keep up with the climate. I haven't slept. It was like the most raw and vulnerable and like primal that I'd ever felt ever. The more pain you're in, the easier it is for you to find something that you're grateful for. Listen, if we take everything we know about human performance, optimization, science, in 100 days' time, is it possible to not only go out and attempt this race, but complete it? And so we did just that. I wonder if you'd talk a little bit about the race, Brad. At some point, you cross a threshold where you have to have... hey guys welcome back to the ultimate human podcast i'm your host and father human biologist gary brecca and today i'm sitting down with my son and actually one of my mentors cole brecca now I've done over 200 episodes of this podcast. I've interviewed Navy SEALs, UFC champions, world-class athletes, PhDs, doctors, MDs, researchers, and some of the most elite performers on the planet. But I've never been as nervous and concerned and as proud as I was as a father when I watched my son and five other of his buddies, including Kyle Forgard from the Nelk Boys, run 100 miles straight through the Vegas desert. And what makes this even more insane is that Cole has not ever run 100 miles before. In fact, just 10 months before this race, he'd never even run a marathon. Last year, he went and did something absolutely psychotic. He ran seven marathons on seven continents in seven days at the Great World Race. Let me say that again. Seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. That was the first time he'd ever run a marathon. Started in Antarctica at 28 degrees below zero, nearly died from frostbite and hypothermia, ran through a stomach bug that left him fasted for four consecutive marathons, developed double stress fractures in both feet. And as a father, nothing was more concerning to me than him now attempting to run 100 miles straight through the Nevada desert. Pay special attention when Cole talks about going primal, that moment when everything materialistic disappears and all you want is sleep, food, water, and shelter. That's when you find out who you really are. This isn't just a father-son conversation. This is a front row seat to the future of human performance optimization. If you've ever wondered what you're truly capable of, if you've ever wanted to push beyond the limits you've set for yourself, this episode is going to change your life. Kyle is like popping in the running community, right? He is. I think because, dude, to be an influencer and to run 100 miles is like... Especially for... I would say... I'm not kidding. Like, you can be an influencer. Like, so many influencers, like, do 5Ks or run marathons or do stuff like that. But to run 100 miles is like... You can't walk on and fake that. Like I used to say when I was in the triathlon game, like you could walk on and do a sprint try. Yeah. You know, it's like an hour and 10 minutes. You're not walking onto a Kona Ironman. You know what I mean? You're like, this sounds like a great idea. By the way, you could kill yourself. I mean, you get out there, you're untrained and like, you know, you could end up getting rhabdo or something and really hurting yourself. So, I mean, from- And you've had rhabdo before. Yeah. And it was, it's horrible. I mean, like, I remember even when I got rhabdo, I remember it was when I was training for the Great World Race. I was like moving houses and I just started training and it was like my first time getting into it and we had such a little time to prep for the Great World Race. And so I remember just like diving in head first and like trying to just ramp up the miles as fast as possible. But you were also doing Muay Thai and kickboxing. Yeah, I was still in the gym. I was also like, I wasn't a runner. I was like a basically a bodybuilder, if you will. Like I was just a gym bro. And so when I was training like that, I just started running like seven miles a day, then 13 miles a day. And then I was like, just trying to get in as many miles as possible. And then I remember I like, I was moving houses and stuff like that. So I was just on my feet all day. And I woke up like in the middle of the night and I felt like every single muscle in my body was cramping. Like I felt like the muscles in my fingers really like my hands my wrists my my biceps everything and everything like curled over and i woke up and i was like super tense yeah and um i'd never had a full i thought i was just having like a full body cramp yeah and like it stayed like that and eventually it eased out and i was like super sore and um i got up and i just went to piss and it was like brown yeah it was brown and i um i remember feeling like like i got covid or something like i felt like just depleted like i felt like everything in my body was was gone so like that that's like the risk you run into sometimes and rhabdo can shut your kidneys down i mean it's couldn't be life-threatening there have been ultra marathoners and and and competitive distance athletes that have actually died from rhabdo well my thing was like if you can only control so much Like you can eat all the right things. You can, you know, go through the full training program. Like I followed for the hundred mile race. I followed the training program to a T. I didn't miss a single mile. If anything, I did extra miles. But rhabdo is something that, you know, you don't even know that it's oncoming. It's, it's painless. You don't know your liver values are super stressed out. And if you rush into something like a hundred mile race, especially someone like Kyle, like that is a huge risk. Like you could very seriously go out there, especially if like you're, you're mentally strong and like capable, which he was. And so am I. Like you can just think like you're pushing yourself through like just some pain. I mean, you go through tons of pain while doing these races. Or you're just too sore or just like, I'm just didn't sleep well, whatever it is. Yeah. And you just, you don't, when you're first getting into it, you think like more is always better. And like, I know you talk about it all the time. Like these most professional athletes are not overtrained, they're under recovered. And I think like- Totally true. In our training protocol, in this 100-mile race training protocol, the one thing that we took very, very serious was the recovery. Like, after every workout, it was still in a cold punch, hydrogen water. We were doing hyperbarics with you. We were doing red light. I made sure of it. And I made sure, like, I did all of that. And I think that's why I felt so good running this last 100 miles. I'm surprised you feel that good right now. I mean, I want to sort of back it up for the audience because a lot of people don't even know what the Great World Race is. So let's back up. So this is November 2024 that you did the Great World Race. But what's important about that is 10 months before that, you'd never run a marathon. In fact, right up until the day you did it, you'd never run a marathon. Yeah. So for context, Great World Race is seven marathons in seven continents in seven days. And the concept behind that was there's a guy named Alvaro Nunez who you had on the podcast, and I listened to his podcast. I'm a huge fan of Level Up, who's actually become a huge mentor in my life from the fitness aspect. and he's actually going to coach me in this next thing. But great human. I saw him talking about this race, the seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. I think you were out for a run with him because I'll never forget. You called me and you were like, Dad, I just finished a run with Alvaro and I think I want to do the great world race. And I was like, the great world race? Isn't that seven marathons on seven continents in seven days? And you're like, yeah. And I was like, you don't mind if I state the obvious, do you? They're like, no. And I'm like, you've never run a marathon. So maybe we should start with one. Yeah. Yeah. So concept was like, listen, if we take everything we know about human performance, optimization, science, everything like that, in a hundred days time, is it possible to not only go out and attempt this race, but complete it? And so we did just that. And I think, you know, it started in Antarctica, which was insane because it was negative 28 degrees Fahrenheit. And so, you know, it's funny. One of the rules about Antarctica is if you sweat, you die. And that's because- I remember him saying that at the briefing. Yeah, it's because like if you sweat and you know, the clothing that you're wearing absorbs all of that moisture, it'll actually freeze and you'll go hypothermic. And I remember just like sitting in that race briefing as they're telling me this being like, what the fuck did I get into? Dude, I remember when we flew into Cape Town, South Africa and they were passing the microphone around. Remember the first day of the race? And so you're like, you know, everybody introduce themselves and tell each other a little bit about yourselves. And the first girl that takes the microphone is like, I'm a three-time US Olympian and I'm like a decathlon. The next guy was like the world record holder in the ultra marathon. There's one guy there that was like, they started passing around. I was like, oh, I've run over a hundred, a hundred mile races. I'm like the Olympic qualifier for Lebanon. I, you know, I, I beat Dave. There's a, there's that one girl there with pink hair. Her name's Ashley Poulsen. And she was like, I beat David Goggins at Badwater 135. And it gets to me and I'm like. I've never run a marathon before. It's my first marathon. The whole, the whole room just stopped. And they're like, yeah. The fuck is this guy? Like literally they gave you zero chance of fishing. I felt so shallow and so small. Plus you were big. You were like 208 pounds. 210 pounds. 210 pounds going in there. You look like a rugby player. In Antarctica, you stack on layers and stuff. So I was probably racing at like 2.13, 2.14. I was full of carbs and water and stuff too. So that was insane. But anyways, we get to Antarctica and I remember running around. So the way that the course map was laid out is Antarctica is a research base. And so they're very delicate on whatever you bring in there. So you have to check all your nutrition and stuff like that. You can't bring your own stuff in there. They make you wipe your feet off as soon as you get off the plane. Like no dirt, like no trash. Like everything is studied. And so like they're very particular about what they have there. So they have one snowmobile. They've got, you know, a couple huts that, you know, are dedicated to research that we ended up using. But you basically land on this tarmac, which is a fucking block of ice, you know, in the middle of nowhere. We've got to put up an image of that 727 signal. Yeah, if you can put up an image, that'd be great. Because there's literally nothing for as far as you can see. And actually the only thing you do see is mountain peaks and which is a crazy concept because you don't realize that there's an entire mountain under you. So you're at like 3,500 feet in elevation gain. Again, it's negative 28 degrees Fahrenheit. And this course map is set up in like a six and a half mile loops. And you do like, um, just, just under four of them. Um, and so like at first you start out, you go and everybody's kind of together, but like the qualifications of some of these people, like some people are going fast and people are going slow. some people know that like there's six more marathons after this so everybody just immediately spreads out and there's only 60 racers so like you start to spread pretty thin so like i was going through periods of just not seeing anybody like for for miles like almost sometimes hours and um i remember like one thing i didn't realize about antarctica is although it's frozen solid it's it's also a desert yeah so like the uv index is 13 and so the layers i was wearing i was wearing like this black base layer and this black jumpsuit and I had these big like Oakley glasses on and this this beanie and the ski mask and these gloves I started like cooking from like the inside out yeah and I remember like just trying to drop layers as fast as possible and I come through the first aid station and I remember telling Max um you know our videographer who's shooting the documentary um that like hey I need like fresh gear fresh gloves I was like go and go in the support pad, go find me whatever you can. And I need you to somehow just get me some stuff out there. And my concept was like, hopefully I can, while I'm out there running, I can drop some layers and I can cool back down and then I'll make it back to the aid station. You know, I'll run six and a half miles and I'll make it back to the aid station. Well, I left that first aid station and 20 minutes goes by or whatever. And I immediately feel like my fingers have gone completely numb Yeah And it happens so fast It not like painful like a normal slow frostbite It happens so fast It like all of a sudden you look down and your hands are white and they numb Hands are numb. And I remember I had one hand warmer and I ended up tearing it open to try to like shove my fingers into it. I was like, I, whatever's on the inside, like I want my fingers to be in. And so I teared it open. I was trying to share between like one thing and my gloves were soaked. My shirt was soaked. My beanie was soaked. So I just started like taking stuff off and then i would start to freeze so like put my gloves back on and as i'm running i swear to god it was like something in the movies like i felt my vision just like start to narrow and it just starts going like legit tunnel vision and like your ears start ringing your vision gets blurry and i swear i saw it like just start to close in on itself and my fingers had gone numb and i was like best case scenario pass out here um you know hopefully some runner or somebody you know sees me soon and they can get me at least save my life you know because the the runners were spread out sometimes by miles like you wouldn't yeah you sometimes couldn't even see the other runner and so for me it was like i was like also like i'm worried like if i if i fall asleep or i pass out or whatever like my blood's gonna move slower i'm gonna freeze even faster i was like so hopefully somebody finds me and they at least like save my vital organs and I lift a couple fingers or something and I can walk again. But by the grace of God, I'm running and I swear my vision's going tighter and tighter. And videographer Max, dude, literally saved my life. He came out on the only snowmobile in all of Antarctica. He commandeered that thing. Commandeered that thing and literally came out. Max was off camera. Where did you get the snowmobile from, dude? I just saw it. It was Hakees and I just took it. You saw Hakees and he just took it. I know. brought me yeah yeah thank god by the way yeah brought me fresh gloves he brought me a fresh beanie and like if it wasn't for that 10 minutes max like i would have hit the deck yeah because i was i was in such like a fight or flight weird mode where like there was nothing you know like no racers by it was the same distance to go to the the next aid station as it was to turn around so you're in like this weird predicament you think like oh i'll just keep going and keep going and keep going and try to get as close as possible. And then, so I get fresh gear. And as I'm racing in Antarctica, I also like, I did all of my training in Miami. So it was a lot of like road running. I mean, we went up to the mountains of Colorado to try to simulate. Yeah, yeah, we used to get up at 4.30 in the morning. Antarctica as close as possible. I would follow you from 10,500 feet up to 14,000 feet. And I remember we would try to wake up at 4.30 in the morning. So we'd get out before daybreak. So it would be as cold, as high. as possible so yeah you know we could try to simulate antarctica i mean the altitude was a lot more um it was insane that you were able to run from 10 500 feet to 14 000 feet that was that was even that was like 30 degrees fahrenheit which is freezing but still 60 degrees away from where it was 60 degree difference from that to antarctica which is insane to even think about yeah but but again like i did a lot of like other than like the mountain running that i did i did most of my training on the roads. So what ended up happening, it was a mixture of ice and like snow, compact snow. So it was almost like running in sand. And so it made me sore in places I hadn't been sore before. So like all my muscles got accustomed to like road running. So like as my foot placement was getting off and everything like that, it really jacked me up. And so we finished that marathon and, you know, we get on the plane and then we fly to Cape Town. and in cape town it's the polar opposite climates it's you know it's like hot 90 degrees fahrenheit humid uv again 13 sun's beaming um and i think the soreness and everything like that threw off my mechanics because as i'm running in cape town i feel like my my ankles really start to hurt my feet like are really really hurting and it's not like soreness it's like starting to become like ligament pain and like i could feel like my tendons like really really deep deep like tissue pain and and i'm running around um cape town and it's hot and immediately like there i'm like dude what did i sorry myself i think the crazy thing is too that um you finished the marathon in antarctica but it was only a five and a half hour flight to cape town so we literally ran strapped into an economy seat like my feet on the ground like this you know and i'm like shopping this so like all the swellings going into my feet yeah we're just strapped on this this basically this old like war war ii prop plane yeah it's like dude that thing was something out of the stone ages and and so no we land back the food was awful on that part of the flight too it was like five and a half hours of cave town we land in cave town we clear customs and go straight to the start line so really it was the first two marathons were in less than 24 hours oh yeah well think about antarctica also like it's it's so unpredictable how the weather is like you could have a blizzard one second and like crystal skies you know the next and so like they watched the the weather for days and as soon as you get like a window you have to leave yeah we left like two days early i think or a day and a half early we left yeah yeah like 28 hours early yeah so like you think you're getting into cape town you're gonna warm up you know you'll get a shakeout run eat some good food and the next thing you know they're like all right we're leaving in an hour yeah and like you you pack your shit you get on the plane you fly there you run a marathon and the race kicks off yeah and so like and now you're in it so like you travel to antarctica you run the marathon you immediately get on the plane and on the plane like you're not really resting because you're one you're sitting upright um two like you're trying to get nutrition you're trying to you know deal with all your injuries or whatever and then you land you've got to grab all your stuff run a marathon literally within seven hours of your last one and then again pack up your stuff and it's time to travel and like so like a lot of people didn't realize like and i didn't even realize it either like the great world race it sounds like seven marathons in seven days like you run a marathon you get to sleep and you know you lay down on the plane it's not that you gotta you gotta clear customs you're in different time zones you're in different climates you have to like travel to the airport sometimes you're on a bus for like an hour and a half I spent one night in a hotel, just so everybody knows. Every other night was on the plane. Like there was only one night and that was in Turkey between the European side and the Asian side. So as the race progressed, so we did Antarctica, Cape Town, and then we flew to Australia. And I think, I don't know, something about Australia, I felt pretty good in Australia, going through Australia, but I think somewhere between- Perth was nice, yeah. Cape Town and Australia though, like I don't know if I got a parasite or I- A bunch of runners did. Or the water. I knew better not to drink local water out of the tap. I don't drink tap water in general. But I knew better not to drink that water. People always say it destroys your gut. But I think one of the things you said is they wash the vegetables in the water. Most of the athletes that got the Greek salad or the ice had ice in the drinks. Or ice in the drinks. Yeah, ice in the drinks or something like that. So it could have been the water. But from that moment forward in the middle of the Australian marathon, I couldn't keep anything down. I remember. Dude, I was so worried about you between Istanbul and Cartagena because we had done Antarctica, Cape Town, Perth, Australia, Istanbul, Asia, Istanbul, Europe. And then it was almost 19 hours. Remember, that was the longest flight. I think we refueled in Dubai. And they wouldn't let us off the plane. And so you and Alvaro and I went out and did breath work. They put the thing up for the steps and they said, you can't touch the ground because we're not clearing customs here. So they put the thing up against the plane and we just went out on the little platform and we did breath work. And then we get back on, but, and then we, it was like six and a half hours into the flight. And I would say 25% of the athletes woke up puking, shitting, Montezuma's revenge. It was all within an hour and a half of each other i had everybody come into my seat they're like gary mr rick do you have anything for nausea like oh just awesome nauseous all of a sudden and i think david the race director said you know trace it back to the ice or the salad but i mean you probably lost you didn't take one ounce of fluid and you probably lost so much weight on that flight it was everything that could go wrong just started going wrong like my my my ankle started to collapse because again like i Like the way I was supporting it, I was definitely also too big. I was 210 pounds like racing like that. And that's not smart. Yeah. I ended up with double stress fractures. You know, I had one in each, one in the top of my left foot, one in my right ankle, which made my ankles swell up like a balloon. And then I got this bug, this stomach bug, and I couldn't put a cracker into my system. I was trying to give you like literally capfuls of, capfuls of coconut water. Yeah. And I would pour it into a cap, literally the cap of the bottle, and you would try to sip it just to keep moisture in your mouth. And then when we got to Cartagena, it was 98 degrees, blazing sun. Humidity. It seemed like the worst possible course because it was a concrete, long, flat, unforgiving course with no shade. And then they just had those little port-a-potties like every two and a half miles and the little table set up. and um and dude you would go into that port-a-potty and you like vomit and other shit uh literally uh every two and a half miles dude i couldn't keep anything i remember telling max i was like by the way that's the sixth marathon that was number six this happens at the end of australia okay so yeah that's three marathons in i go four marathons completely fasted i know like it's crazy to see so it goes antarctica cape town uh perth australia istanbul asia istanbul europe cartagena and then miami and um i i remember just like thinking like dude how how could this literally be any worse like i was like i i feel like everything that could go wrong i'm running on broken ankles i can't keep any food down i was like i don't know i mean i can't keep up with the climate i haven't slept my longest sleep during seven days was an hour and 50 minutes consecutive yeah it's because like you're trying to slam nutrition in and you're like now i'm like throwing up every 30 seconds and like your whoop score had a recovery of one every day yeah one percent one percent yeah every day yeah and so it's honestly like spectacular to see how primal like the human body can go like there's those stories about people that get stranded in the woods or in the mountains or something and survive for three months off you know like berries and sticks and you know you know catching rabbits and shit and like that's true like yeah no you were in the human capabilities are insane yeah and like so to to feel that there was like the most raw and vulnerable and like again primal that i'd ever felt ever like i it's weird how like anything like materialistic or anything like that or like the little shit that people care about like you know your your clothes and what kind of shoes you're wearing and you know like what the what kind of car you drive and shit like that and like what kind of watch you have dude i didn't want anything i wanted sleep food water and like like like i wanted shelter and kind of in that water literally i felt like a caveman i wanted shelter i wanted nutrition and I wanted to hydrate. Yeah. And that's all I wanted. And that like, I would have done anything for it in that moment. And like, I couldn't keep anything down. So like the race just started slowly breaking me and breaking me. And one of the crazy things is that to 60, 60 or 65 racers started for only 40 finished. There was a guy, he had a Dublin, Ireland who broke two world records on the great world race. He broke one in Antarctica and one in Asia. He ran a two 14 marathon in Dublin. And they actually found this guy and they brought him on the great road race. He took the record in Antarctica. In Cartagena, that race you're talking about, I running behind him and all of a sudden I see him start to like wobble And I literally running behind him and all of a sudden he just hits the deck and just like falls to the side And like he looking up and his eyes are just glazed over and he just like sitting up And I'm like, dude, what am I like? Yeah. I saw, I said, they actually pulled a couple of people off every course. Carding people off, taking them to the hospital. I remember they would drop people off at the plane and like, like IVs still in their arms. They'd pull them and like throw them on the plane. It was chaos. and to see like again i'm just this kid coming in here like yo i never ran a marathon ever yeah and and here i am like running seven marathons and seven continents in seven days like absolutely battered yeah and um you go in a survival mode and like once you're in survival mode you know it's like it's an insane feeling it's something like i've only felt in that moment And, you know, I only feel like when I do like these ultra endurance things that really, you have to strip yourself physically of like everything you have. And you really start to find out who you are like mentally. Like what is your mental capabilities? Like how do you- Is my mind as strong as my body? Is my mind as strong as my body? Like how can you handle adversity like in those times? You know, it's like, what's your ability to problem solve and stuff like that? I remember when we pulled up to the race start in Cartagena because you were still fasted. You've been fasted for over three days. And I remember pulling Max aside and I was like, I think there's 0% chance he finishes this race. Yeah. And I said, if you don't give up on this race, I won't give up on you. That was the only marathon I've ever ridden run either because I was so worried about you. so um and i hadn't trained so i was in horrific pain but i'd only run one then you were on your six so i didn't say a fucking word yeah yeah well that's part i mean part of the the documentary that we ended up filming on was like you know i you were kind of this scientist and i was kind of this guinea pig yeah but then there's also like during when we started racing there's also like concerned father and son like yeah at what point do you very concerned push the boundaries as a scientist and throwing the towel as a father it's like there was a lot dude mile i'll tell you exactly when it was it was mile 18 in cartagena i was like what did i say at the beginning of this race if you don't give up in this race i won't give up on you i was like hey if you want to throw the towel i'm actually good with it dude lots of people have quit not everybody that quits is a loser yeah like thomas edison failed 3 000 times before he found the light bulb but i i i still to this day don't know where you went in that pain cave um because you didn't quit i i didn't quit the one marathon but we we started breaking it down into those into the distance between the ice buckets where they had the water so we just shove our whole legs and they had to cut my socks off me yeah i remember the mts cutting your socks off your you had this big balloon out the front of your tibia and then i was like dude when do i throw in the towel on my son and we're like one marathon away from him completing this goal. He's already done six. And I was running it through my mind. I'm like, what, do we come back next year and try it again? Yeah. And so I wanted you to finish so bad, but I also didn't want you to have permanent damage. And I was running that fine line the whole time. You know, when do I start, when do I keep throwing science at this and biohacking and recovery? There's no science in the side of that wharf. Yeah. And then when do I, you know, just say, listen, I can't, you know, watch my. Yeah. So I want to transition to the 100 mile race because you'd also never run 100 miles. Yeah. And there was a moment during that race. This was just two days ago, by the way. Yeah, I'm fresh on that. And hats off to Kyle Forgard and four of the guys that went with you guys because when that race started, and I was in there, because it was live streamed, when that race started, I was in the comments and chats and just listened to what people were saying. Zero percent of the people thought that you guys would finish that. Zero percent thought all six would finish. Yeah. and all six of you guys crossed the finish line. Yeah. But I think it was around mile 32 where every single one of you entered the unknown. What was the first you'd ever written around before that? Consecutive 37 miles. Okay, so 37. So for you, it was 37. For them, it was 31. Yeah, for them, it was 31. You were at 37. And that was the uncharted territory. So every step after that. Yeah, it was a personal best. Yeah. So, you know, I wonder if you'd talk a little bit about the race prep and like, first of all, you're a completely different racer. I feel like we went into the Great World Race blind and you went into this one really structured. I mean, Matt, you know, helped a tremendous amount. Yeah, shout out to Matt Johnson. Yeah, Matt Johnson. By the way, if you haven't seen the podcast with Matt Johnson, please check it out. No, he's a lifesaver. I think his program was a huge part of kind of why I did so well. Between him and Andy Glaze, I mean, those two guys basically took me across that finish line. They crafted this thing so well. They have so much real world ultra racing experience that I basically just turned my life over to them from a training standpoint. I said, listen, this is my goal. I want to run this 100 miles. I want to do a consecutive. I don't want to sleep in between. And I want to do it in a straight shot. As little aid stations as possible, as minimal time as possible. and I want to, you know, stay on my feet and I want to feel good also doing it. I was like, the Great World race scarred me pretty bad. You know, it was like, it jacked me up for months. I know. And I didn't want to like run after that. Like it really messed me up. You know, I lost 37 pounds in the Great World race. I double stress fractures. You ended up on an 80. It also stressed out like the family, my fiance. Like it was hard to, yeah. Oh, Megan was about ready. Yeah, she was ready to throw in a towel. Throw in a towel. And so like when I committed to another race that's, you know, similar to that, this is four of those marathons, but I'm doing it in 24 hours. So it's tough. And so for me, I wanted to find someone that was super, super experienced. And so they created a program, tailored it to me. I followed it to a T. Like if anything, there was no day that I went under miles. I did over miles. And that also gave me confidence, I think, going into this race that I could just kind of trust in the process always. Yeah. You know, like if they said I could do it and everything like that, I knew that my training wasn't going to fail me. I was like, at a minimum, I know I'm qualified based on whatever they say. It's just whether or not you're going to have the mental fortitude. The mental fortitude. Because there's nothing they can do to prepare you for that pain cave. It's also like the unknown can hit you. I mean, you could train and you could be perfectly in shape, but like some of those guys were getting like gut issues. Yeah, yeah. And like gut issues could take you out. one of them developed like so you're running behind a support van for 100 miles it's kicking up dust one of the guys like started to develop wheezing and asthma dry air dry air and stuff like that so like he went to the er today um oh did he went to yeah mark sagoda he went to the er today yeah um two days after having trouble breathing trouble breathing he just couldn't couldn't handle it yeah and he called it desert lung he's like the dry air with all the dirt and all and And it was so dry. And dude, when those semis were coming by and it was going boom. The wind was just like a wall that felt like a linebacker hitting you, trying to knock you off the road. It was uncontrollable. But mile 20 to 40 was probably the toughest, honestly. Because when you start to feel pain at mile 20 and that early on, I have done another 20-mile runs. And I was like, I felt better on those runs. and like, why do I feel like this right now? And then I'm also like, I'm not even halfway to the halfway point. Like, yeah. I'm not even halfway to the halfway point. I'm not even a marathon in. I got three and a half marathons to go. You start to like, all those thoughts start to play in your head. So it's like, they call it, Andy calls it mile 80 training. Yeah. The reason he calls it that is because like, you get to a point for me, it was like 50 miles. Once I got to 50 miles, I got to start to count backwards. I was like, I was no longer going like, Almost like you're going downhill now. I was like then 49, 48, 47, and so on and so forth. But it was scary for everybody because when we started feeling like that, one of the things about this race was majority of it was in the darkness. Okay, there was 16 hours of nightfall. You know, the sun set at around four o'clock. It got up at like 7 a.m. Yeah. So majority of the race was in the night and we started at 10 a.m. So like we're running through the day. It's pretty overcast. during the end of like right before the sun was setting like the sun was beaming on us and so like i started to sweat everybody started to sweat um like there was a section of this course that was like 15 miles of like um the support fans couldn't be on the side of the road with us so we couldn't have like crew and stuff so we were running in a single file line there was and it was just silent like you're out in the desert until the traffic that comes by like the desert desert area 51 is where we ran yeah literally area 51 so like google area 51 there's nothing yeah there's actually only sketchy shit yeah there's there's one gas station that sells fireworks there's a strip club fireworks a bar and and alien and like an indian restaurant super random and an indian strangest combination of anything um but i remember just being out there and it was so silent and you're just like that's when the thoughts start to come in and it's insane like how creative the brain gets when you're in those moments like how creative you start to convince yourself like to quit it's like listen if you just like step on that rock over there maybe it'll hurt your ankle and like everyone will be like oh that's a serious injury that could be permanent and like you can go out or like you're like oh you know i i um i got i got the flu two weeks ago you know everybody will be like oh he was sick and stuff like that how creative your brain like just starts to convince yourself and i think that's where the training and the preparation and the trust and the recovery comes in because you're like listen you somewhere in the back of your mind you know like i'm qualified you know like i did the preparation i'm qualified you knew these thoughts were going to come like yeah you know it's not going to be easy you know there's going to be the mental aspect and they just start flowing in especially in those high times or those low times and and the hundred mile race is like just highs and lows and highs and lows and you have high highs and you have low lows and you know what's you know what's wild about that is like i watched you guys um yeah and um i i would i would you know run nutrition and stuff back up to the front and back to the van for for you guys mainly for you um and i watched like the motion and the energy of the crowd like the six of you guys shift and like you would run so long and like the longer you would run the more the mood would like get suppressed and suppressed and suppressed and then like when when they decide they would allow you guys to have caffeine yeah and then they would allow you to have advil it was like mile one for you guys you guys were animated and chatty but fucking kyle started rapping yeah yeah yeah you know to the music and and it was like it was like it's the little things to you i swear to god doorstep two sips of a bang and two advil once you're in problem it's like those little things it's crazy. Like you get a little bit of water and like you get to put your feet up for a second. And that's like, like you, dude, it's like a warm bath. Changes your perspective. I think it's such a metaphor for life. Oh yeah. Yeah. Highs and lows. It's just highs and lows, but also perspective for like, what are you thankful for? And like the more pain you're in, the easier it is for you to find something that you're grateful for, you know, because you were so grateful for like a quarter of a bang energy and two Advil. You have no idea what that did to my body. If I had offered you anything else, if I'm like, do you want a new Ferrari or do you want these two apples? Every fucking milligram of that energy drink just like hit my soul. Dude, I know. It went down to my fingertips. Hit my soul. Well, what I did is I meant to- Bang energy, good for your soul. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So honestly, everything that I ate on that race, do not eat unless you're my mom. Oh, dude, that's the ultimate human. I was like, dude, he's on his 50th Rice Krispie treat. I can't watch this. Honestly, I need a Rice Krispie sponsor after this because, dude- You do. I fucking pounded probably 150 Rice Krispies. You did, dude. Skittles. It's like Coca-Cola, yeah, Skittles and shit. It's the nastiest stuff, but it's fuel. And like, you just kind of, you take from these guys that have this ultra running experience and it probably works Yeah and you start getting sores in your mouth And I think you know what I did with the caffeine was I tried to delay it as much as possible So like, there was a section where like, I was just running and I felt myself like going to sleep. I was like, I'm gonna fucking fall asleep while I'm running. And I was like, I feel like I'm yawning. I'm like getting delirious. And I like, I would start to nod off. And I was like, okay, this is probably the time I should have it, but I wanted to delay it. So it like gave me something to look forward to. It gave me a little bit of energy. It's insane how depleted your body is that something like that little, it was not a lot of caffeine. It was a quarter of a bag. So it's probably 80 milligrams of caffeine or something that you got. But you guys lit up like Christmas trees. And then the two Advil just dulled a little bit of the pain. So your pain cave went from an eight to a six. Yeah, yeah. It was insane. And so as the race progresses, is it goes from kind of being warm in the evening to being freezing cold. And then it goes down into, I think, the upper 30s and stuff like that. So when you're moving, you're heating up. But as soon as you stop, it's like you're shivering, you're cold, and your blood starts moving cold. You immediately get exhausted and tired. And so I remember coming out of those aid stations and just being so fatigued. And then you start running, and you start to pick back up again, and then you're in cruise control. But I'll tell you what. I honestly, I felt good. Like I felt a lot better than I thought I was. No, you look great. Honestly, like I ended up actually going to the gym. Yeah, I know. I kind of shot him all right. And I went to the gym. And I think, you know, as corny as it might sound, the hydrogen water actually works, actually saved my life. the whole reason and not to even get into hq tab but the whole reason i started hq tab is is when i was doing the great world race in the great world race rep i found a research article because i was studying all this stuff like how can i amplify my recovery because it's marathon you know playing marathon playing seven marathon seven contents in seven days um and i was looking at all those things beta alanine you know beta carotene you know like all these things that amplify recovery I was looking at beet juice and all this different stuff, nitric oxide stuff and like everything. And I stumbled upon this research article on delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS. And it showed a reduction in DOMS by like 76% or something. And so I contacted the patent holder on the tablets because I realized it was from the tablets. Got my hands on some of these tablets and I took them on the Great World Race. And other than the physical ailments, like the stress fractures in the gut, I wasn't sore. Yeah. And I ran seven marathons in seven continents in seven days and I wasn't sore. Like I could have walked out and hit a back squat. And like that was freaky to me. Like I was like, I was like, that's, I was almost skeptical. I was like, what is that? And so like, you know, I got that science over to you. You really started to validate it. And I think that is when we took the leap on H2Tab and I got to validate that again with this 100 mile race. Like I was taking five hydrogen tablets before the race and then I would do these little hydrogen water bombs where I would put like three tablets and like half a liter of water, I'd let it fully dissolve and I'd chug it back. So like if you go back and I mean, the whole entire race is live stream. You go back and watch how I felt throughout the entire race. No, no, you look, it was a completely different race. And I think I'm with you. I mean, I don't want to turn it into a hydrogen H2 tab either, but hydrogen gas, I think is one of the greatest, its role in the human body is one of the greatest discoveries of our millennia. I know it doesn't break it fast. it to select a antioxidant we could go all into the the mechanism of you know how it restores something called redox homeostasis which is a balance um and we bathe in hydrogen water i mean i bathed john jones in that before you know his his big last title fight um sean ryan talks about it all the time how i convinced him to get in my bathtub shout out sean yeah rogan too um i want I want to close out by rounding out on a few things. So we have a big project plan. And, you know, we're going to do a documentary around it. But the whole concept is, you know, the vast majority of athletes are not overtrained. They're under-recovered. And we don't target our recovery at the tissues that need it the most. I mean, you know, strength and conditioning is, in in my opinion that is a field that has where there is just absolute excellence you know and professional sports teams have strength and conditioning coaches they do positional training you know hand eye coordination speed timing agility strength you know we've really maxed out with with where we are but we haven't gotten anywhere near the threshold on recovery yeah and this is joints ligaments tendons connective tissue and this is where people where athletes break down i mean You look at a number of non-contact injuries in the NFL. These are non-traumatic injuries, blowing an Achilles heel, running off the sideline, blowing an ACL, running a pattern. Those are injuries that professional teams and athletes should not have to tolerate, and it has a lot to do with recovery. And so creating a documentary that's going to be centered around how far can we push the limits of human performance, and my role will be to target the recovery of those tissues, your joints, ligaments, your tendons, your spine, your nervous system, targeted red light therapy, hydrogen and nanobathing, hyperbarics, post-electromagnetic field. And can we get this connective tissue in these areas of body that are deprived of oxygen to recover as fast as our muscles? And if so, can we reset every day to baseline even after something as extreme as a full distance Ironman? When you get into like multi-day endurance events, It's like there's only so much training you can do for something. Like for the 100-mile race, like my longest run was 31 miles, 32 miles. It's like me running 50 miles or 60 miles doesn't do me any better than me running 30 miles. So at some point, like the training actually does start to plateau. It's like you can't, more training is not just going to mean more miles you can run. That's not a thing. And so like where you can buy more time and buy better performance is in the recovery. And for me, like the things that start to go in these multi-day endurance events are the tissues, the ligaments, the tendons, that stuff that is just completely getting pounded for, you know. Yeah, I believe in this. I think we're going to prove it. Should we say what you're going to try to do? 10 Ironmans in 10 days. So the distance of 10 Ironmans, we're going to condense it down. So it'll be a 24-mile swim into an 1,112-mile bike ride, followed by a 262-mile run. And we're going to try to complete that in 10 days. By the way, if anybody wants to join, we're really going to see how we can push the limits of recovery. And that'll be the biggest thing. And the whole concept behind that is like at some point you cross a threshold where you have to have all of that or else you can't complete it. You just physically can't. Like you can't do 10 Ironmans in 10 days without having your physiology and every ounce of blood work and, you know, everything just dialed into it. Yeah, we'll dial all that in. Your training, your sleep, your recovery, everything has to be dialed in to AT. and and and that is why we chose this distance i actually dana white called me after doing the um great world race and he said what you did was fucking insane one and two he's like i'm so fascinated about it i i want to whatever you're doing we were sitting in my kitchen that day yeah he's like whatever you're doing next he's like i i want in on it he's like i want to film something about it he's like it's so inspiring it's so crazy and so like the concept behind the great race was how do we take somebody in 100 days time that was not a runner or anything never run a marathon turn them into you know a mediocre athlete and how do we take a mediocre athlete and turn them into a super athlete yeah and i think and i think i think following this sometime in early 2027 you're going to see the first wave of superhuman athletes at the market and i hope to be a big part of that and you're going to see human um records shattered by margins we never thought possible so you know before we wind down the podcast i just want to say in the podcast call you're you're an inspiration to me as your father like i i couldn't be more proud thank you i mean we um our entire family in there you know both of our careers have been built on this backbone of health and wellness and preaching health and wellness so for me it was like when when looking for a test subject to do stuff like this and be this guinea pig Like, you know, it was me that raised my hand just because, you know, if you're going to talk the talk, you better be able to walk the walk. And for me, it's like, you know, I own a hydrogen water company and I talk so much about the benefits and the performance benefits that like I want to be the first person to prove it to people. It's like, don't take my word for it. Just look at the actions that I do. You know, like I just ran 100 miles. You know, like you can't fake that. You know, like a lot of people can, you know, talk about supplements and stuff on the internet and talk about health and performance and bio-optimization. And I think for us, it's like, how do we, you know, put our money where our mouth is and prove it to the world? Like, you know, I talk about this stuff for a reason. I was a user before I was, you know, someone that promoted it. And, you know, I had a life-changing experience with all of it. So for me, it's like, how do I become the test subject? How do I become the example? and take everything that we've always preached and put it back into ourselves. Amen. So you know that I run down all my podcasts by asking my guests the same questions. You get the same question. You forgot about that one, didn't you? Dude, 200 podcasts that you know I've done so far. I don't watch a lot of the podcasts on the screen. I usually watch them in person. So you're ready. What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? I don't know. For me, it's pushing yourself beyond your own capable limits. And I think we talk about this notion called the Masogi. And they're basically- Jesse Itzler. Jesse Itzler, that's his thing. That's where I learned it. Basically, that's like one day a year, you do something that's so impressive that you can reap the benefits of it for the rest of the year. You're supposed to only have a 50-50 shot. 50-50 shot. And I think for some people, it doesn't have to be seven marathons or doesn't have to be 10 Ironmans. It could be starting a business. It could be writing a book. It could be doing a 5K or losing 10 pounds. It's just taking the leap for something. My message out to the people back after doing the Great World Race was not that I want you to go out and run seven marathons and seven continents in seven days. That was insane. But it's to show people that I did that in 100 days' time. I dedicated my life to this thing. And like, I just went all in and I cut off all distractions. I cut out anything that didn't serve a purpose for that mission. And I think if you're watching this, you can do the same. And if you're, if you want to get 10,000 steps a day, like just get out and do it. And then, you know, cut all the bullshit out of your life and just go after it. And so for me, like being the ultimate human or the ultimate human version of yourself, it's just kind of just taking a leap at what you want. For me, that's endurance stuff. That's business. That's being the best fiance I could be. That's being the best dog dad. You are a great dog dad. One thing you want to be is a dog in Cole's house. He actually will make your meals for you every day. Bring them to you in your own bed. Yeah, not to close this out, but I have a 17-year-old. And he'll actually carry you down the steps. Yeah, I've got a 17-year-old Black Lab that's on peptides. I make his whole foods. Peptides. Peptides. He's on BPC, KPV. He's on, I put him on MCT oils. I've got a multivitamin. I make his own food. Meg and my fiancee spoils the both of them. So shout out to her. Well, I love you, Cole. I can't wait to see this unfold. Thanks for being on The Ultimate Human. Awesome. Let's do it. Until next time, guys. That's just science.