Vol. 11: Charlie Engle

For the eleventh episode of Charges, Rex brings Charlie Engle on to the show to talk about pulling himself from the drug induced streets to a world renowned ultra marathon runner. Rex & Charlie discuss: Where he grew up, addiction running in his family & his drug problem (5:15), when he hit rock bottom (13:20), sobriety & starting to run (24:09), when he began running ultra distances & across The Sahara Desert, the making of the documentary (27:21), going to prison (43:15), for those who need to get over the mental hurdles of running (58:38) & more. This episode is not to be missed!

Charges is Created by CTRL Media & Portal A. It's produced by DBPodcasts in association with iHeartMedia. 

Executive Producers: Steve Nash, Brandon Kraines, Ezra Holland, Nate Houghteling, and Todd Barrish.

Charges with Rex Chapman Theme Music

Artist: Illegal Kartel (@illegal_kartel_mikal_shakur)

Produced by: Gene Crenshaw (@yuyuthemaker) & Draft (@Draft3009)

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Charges. That's created by Portalais and Control Media. It's produced
by dB Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This
time a former Son's player who you might remember as
t Rex. More video in just a moment, but this
is Rex Chapman's mug Shaun, and we are learning a
lot more about the charge ups and charging. How did

(00:22):
you handle being in prison and how did your family?
How did your kids handle it? By my junior year,
you know, I just basically stopped going to class and
I started dealing code. My teenage sons dropped me off
at the front gate of Beckley Federal Correctional Institute. I
had a decision in that moment, literally between living and dying,

(00:43):
and I chose running. This is Charges with me. Rex Chapman,
My guest today is not a household name as an
athlete like some of our previous guests, but I guarantee
that he will run right into your hearts during this episode.
Charlie Angle is known as Running Man. He is the

(01:04):
closest example I can think of to being a real
life Forrest Gump. If you threw him feet first into
a requiem for a dream reality. Ten years of doing
drugs in the streets around America, thirty plus years sober,
three thousand miles running across America for mental health advocacy,
undred miles running across the Sahara Desert. One documentary executive

(01:28):
produced and narrated by Matt Damon, six million plus dollars
raised as co founder for water dot Org for clean
water projects in Africa, and one mistake in judgment that
led to sixteen months in federal prison. This is charges.

(01:48):
Welcome to charges. I'm your host, Rex Chapman. I hate running.
In fact, in basketball, it's punishment. You mess up, you run.
You have a bad attitude, you run, you didn't run
fast enough, you run. I'm more of a brisk walker. God,
I can't imagine it doing it for fun. And yet
our guest today, well he'll tell you he doesn't necessarily

(02:11):
do it for fun either, But that doesn't stop him
from doing it a lot of it all on his own,
no coach forcing him to do it. But Charlie Angele
doesn't just compete as a runner. He's an ultra marathon runner.
That means he runs anywhere from thirty five to a
hundred miles. He also has been using running to help

(02:31):
keep him sober and away from addiction for almost thirty
years now. I'd like to think that recovery, just like running,
is all about putting one foot ahead of the other,
over and over and over again. Let's find out from
a man who'd know it best, Charlie. Thanks for being here, buddy, man.
I that was the best intro I've ever had. And
and actually you'd be you'd be surprised to learn that

(02:54):
I don't like running that much either. I definitely am,
because honestly, you know, basketball is what I grew up playing,
and uh, you know, everything even punishment off the floor,
like if you got in trouble that didn't go to
class up. You're up at six am running, which you
know for a basketball player, I could run sprints all

(03:14):
day long. You know, stop start stop start. The mindset unbelievable.
I'm just I'm dying to find out more, you know
what I mean in short, and I know we'll we'll
talk more about it. But you know, running for me
is a running for me is about where running takes me.
It's about you know, it's a vehicle to not just
reach certain places within myself and learn more about myself.

(03:38):
It's it's literally about cultural exploration. You know, I've I've
run in about fifty countries at this point. And look, man,
most of the world is on foot. You know. We
live in a very privileged bubble here in the US,
and uh, you know, and I visit a lot of
places where nobody has a car and everybody's on foot,
and by being on foot with them, it creates a

(04:01):
whole different dynamic and one that I seek out all
the time. So running, as much as anything, is just
a way for me to see the world in slow
motion because I am slow. That's amazing and I can't
wait to get into all of that. Where'd you grow up, Charlie,
And what was that it like at that time for you?
I grew up here in North Carolina for the most part,
and high school here and you know, played six sports

(04:25):
and made some decent grades. And my my parents were
nineteen years old so when I was born, and so
I had a pretty bohemian upbringing in the sixties. What
were your teenage years like? And looking back, did you
have any vices that you know, maybe led you down
the wrong path or could have Yeah, you know, I

(04:46):
as a kid, my mom was perpetually in grad school
so she was a writer and uh, you know, basically
she wrote plays primarily. Uh there's a chapter in my
book that I I sort of jokingly called my mother
the Lesbie and who you know, she was married a
couple of times, but let's just say those were loose
arrangements and uh an only child, and you know, and

(05:10):
there were you know, they were like cast parties and
whatever in my house all the time every night. You said,
it was a bohemian upbringing, and you know a lot
of times there wasn't a lot of food or or
anything else in the fridge. And I would wander around
as a nine or ten year old and finish off
people's beers and a little bit of wine. And I

(05:33):
actually say, you know, in the book, and I think
it's so true. It's like alcohol planted a flag in
my brain when I was a kid and like claimed
that space for its own, and you know, and it
took a while before it manifested, but like I knew,
I sort of knew as a young kid that it

(05:54):
was gonna be my you know, something I could always
count on. Like that's how I felt, like this makes
me feel warm, been safe, and like I'm going to
use that when I need it. Damn, damn. You know,
looking back, I had addiction in my family, but it
wasn't until I went to rehab that I started hearing

(06:15):
you know, I knew what my issues were, but hearing
people with alcohol issues and their stories. And you know,
when you when you started talking, it takes me right
back there, because you just don't know what people are
going through. You don't know how a certain drug or
this this alcohol or that alcohol will affect you particularly well.

(06:36):
And I'm a fourth generation addict, you know, I mean,
I'm you know, I've got plenty of it in my family.
And genetics are a bit and you know, you just
like with any other disease, you it's pretty tough to
escape genetics a lot of times. And and that in
combination with environment, of course, and and some less than
good choices on my part. And you know, I I

(06:59):
moved done with my dad and I sort of went
the opposite direction, and I became trying to get you know,
some love and attention from my father, which you know
took me many years to figure out that was never
gonna happen. Um, no matter what I achieved, I went
the opposite direction. I played sports, and I, you know,
dated a few cheerleaders and made good grades and early

(07:21):
acceptance to Carolina and I show up. I show up
at u n C as a seventeen year old freshman
in nineteen eighty you know, I'm going to play football
and all this, And it took about three days. I
fully expected there to be a banner on my dorm
that said, hey, welcome Charlie, like we're so glad you're here.

(07:43):
We could start our college experience now. And uh, it
took like three days to figure out that I was
unbelievably average. And you know, and and I what I
figured out very quickly is I was an All American.
Don't forget nineteen eighty. Um, you can still drink as
an eighteen year old in North Carolina. So I turned

(08:04):
eighteen about a month after I went to college, and
I took full advantage. And you know, I figured out
that I was an All American first team drinker and
I could just I literally could. I from the very beginning,
I could just drink more than anybody else. And unfortunately
that became, you know, kind of, you know, part of

(08:26):
my identity. And that's the way it works. What were
your addictions. Uh when did they start? Was it right
around that time? Yeah? You know, And and look my
involvement with um first of all, I should say too,
like I should have run track. There's only a few
regrets I have in my life, and it probably wouldn't
have changed things. You know, I think my path was

(08:48):
genetically set, and I think I probably would have found
the same problems, if not sooner than later. But you know,
when I got to college, and I really I was
very I broke my ankle playing basketball like the first
week I was there, and um, you know, I started drinking.
And cocaine was absolutely a ubiquitous drug on campus in

(09:13):
the eighties. I mean, I I think it probably still
is to a certain degree, but not like it was
in the eighties. I mean even while you were there
in Kentucky. I mean you just and as a young
person in a college student, you don't actually realize that
what you're doing is illegal because when everyone around you
was doing it too, it just doesn't like feel that way.

(09:36):
Pretty quickly, I went from you know, the first time,
second time really that I tried coke. It's like, uh,
you know, a light went off in my head and
it said Okay, I finally found the thing that's gonna
make me, you know, invincible, and I'm gonna you know,
cure cancer and uh make my dad happy and make

(09:58):
straight a's and oh, give me another line, and uh
we'll keep talking about it. And you know, I do
think that's that's definitely where it started, thanks to quite honestly,
thanks to JV basketball. You know, I I sort of
hung on for a couple of years and managed to
not flunk out. But by my junior year, you know,

(10:18):
I just basically stopped going to class and I started dealing.
I was in a fraternity and I started dealing coke
and not you know, certainly not to make money, just
simply so that I could. You know, it's an expensive
drug and and I just wanted to make sure that
I had enough to do for myself. And you know
that led me down a certain path. Do you know

(10:39):
have you heard of Chris Herron? Well, Chris is the
reason I'm on here. Chris. I know Chris and I
know his story and what in am I mean? I
consider him He doesn't even know it, but I consider
him a mentor from Afar. Same. But it reminded me
because when I was talking with Chris. I was, and yes,

(11:00):
cocaine was everywhere in the eighties, um, every party, every everything,
and I was always so afraid and mainly I felt
like I would from what my friends said, I would
either just love it or it would kill me just
straight away and I'd have a heart attack. But what
I found interesting with Chris was his description. I said, what,

(11:22):
what's it like? You know? He said for me? He said,
you know, I would open up and talk about things
I wouldn't normally talk about and feel like I had
the whole world figured out. And then of course I'd
wake up in the morning and would barely remember or
just want to forget what I had talked about. So
I find that fascinating. Charlie, it's it's it's yeah, I

(11:46):
mean what he said, and and yeah, you know you
got these big ideas, And I mean, maybe the difference
between me and Chris is, um, I just never you know,
I never did wake up from a cocaine binge, because
is I just never went to sleep. You know, I
was two or three days at a time, always dictated
by how much money or drugs I had, And after

(12:10):
I you know, flunked out and left college. You know,
it wasn't uncommon for there to be four or five
or six day binges um and it went from you know,
coke to crack, which was much easier to get and
especially in the in the eighties, and I never wanted

(12:32):
to do that. I was working in Denver, I'll never
forget it, and I was, uh, you know several years
I was probably twenty four and I was working there
and I went down you know, my thing is I'd
go into a town and I go to a bar
and I'd be like, hey, where do you have fun
around here? And they'd say, oh, you go here, and
you go here, but be sure you stay away from Colfax,

(12:53):
you know, don't go to that neighbor. And I'm like, okay, well,
just so I don't go down there. Where is that,
you know? And of course I would drive straight there,
and anybody who knows Denver, you know, there's a certain
part of Colfax as a pretty rough spot and and um,
you know that's where I would go. And I had
this binge there that you know, after about five days,

(13:16):
I'd run out of money and the dealer I was
using stole my car um because of course drug dealers
can be very inconsiderate, and uh, you know, and I
literally they stole my jacket. And it's snowing, and I
leave this dumpy ass motel and I'm walking down Coal
Fax and I literally see my car down the road

(13:39):
and I it's all it's running. I could see smoke
coming out the tailpipe. And I run to my car
and I get in and I'm like, just I'm blown away.
I'm getting my car. I get in and pull out
and drive around the block and I hear this sound
in the back seat, you know. And I turned around
and there's like a twelve month old baby strapped into

(14:01):
the back seat of the car. And of course, I
you know, drove around the block and I come back
up to the house where the car had been, and
there's a woman frantically waving her arms out in the street,
and you know, and I literally I just pulled up.
She looked at me. I looked at her. She opened

(14:21):
the back door, she unstrapped her baby and took the
baby out, and because she knew the deal, and I
knew the deal, and you know, and I drove away,
and I mean, but that is the kind of craziness
that I put myself into almost constantly stealing your own
car back. Yeah, I mean that's amazing, amazing. Well, and

(14:44):
the crazy thing is I never got in trouble back then,
and I you know, that's almost another We could do
a whole show on the reason for that. But the
reason is, you know, of course I was a still
a pretty clean cut white guy driving a Toyota four Runner,
and nobody ever stopped me, you know, and I mean

(15:05):
literally in years, no one, despite the fact that I
deserved all kinds of d U E s and everything
else back in the day. You know, I didn't get
stopped back then. And you know, I look back on
those days and those experiences as probably the most you know,
formative and of my life, and some negative things, but

(15:26):
of course, in fact, like all lessons, some really positive
things came out of it, and some advocacy and some
understanding of the kind of the real world. Man. What's
so unique about the timeline of Charlie Engel is that
he spent his young adult years as a traveling salesman

(15:47):
before becoming a world class athlete. Not exactly a story
that we've heard before. Frankly, Charlie and the millions that
he's helped through his foundation. Are fortunate that he even
survived his downward spiral that didn't all across America. So
it's Charlie, what what was your turning point? Uh in

(16:07):
the early nineties, What were you doing and what happened
that made you go, oh shit, you know this is
really bad? Yeah? Yeah, well, you know, and during those years,
and it's basically a decade of pretty hardcore use, you know,
I made sure that I was always the top salesman.
You know, I had a lot of geographics, as we
call them in recovery, where I would move to a

(16:29):
new town, Seattle, l A, San Francisco, Atlanta. I mean
I I made the rounds and for six months i'd
get a job, I'd be the top salesman. I would
kick ass and get a girlfriend and then decide, hey,
you know, I'm doing great. I deserve to have a
beer or whatever. And even though I've never had one

(16:50):
beer ever in my life, without having all of them,
and uh, you know, in this path often led me
to want to quit. Yeah, I always made a joke
about it. I said, you know, quitting is easy. I've
done it a hundred times. Just the starting up again.
I went to rehab, I went to church, I went

(17:15):
to uh, I saw a shaman. If I could have
found a witch doctor, I would have done that. Like
I mean, I I felt like I had tried everything,
and in when I was twenty nine years old, my
first son was born, and Brett was gonna be my savior.
You know, I thought that, finally, Okay, you surely I

(17:37):
can stay sober for my son, right because, uh this person,
you know, holding this little baby and feeling the feelings
I had for him. And I know you have kids,
so I know you know what I'm talking about, you know,
and you're you're like, this is as an addict, I
actually thought I was incredibly broken and completely undeserved being

(18:00):
of love or incapable of giving love. And all of
a sudden that all changed with this little boy. And
you know, for the first time in my adult life,
I kind of had I had hope and I had strength.
And two months later, you know, I'm in Wichita, Kansas,
and inexplicably, I end up in the worst neighborhood in town.

(18:24):
And I spent six days smoking crack and drinking, and
that binge ended with me sitting on the ground outside
a fifteen dollar a night motel room that I couldn't
pay for anymore. And I'm handcuffed behind my back and
the police are searching my car and there's three bullet
holes in the car, and you know, and those were

(18:45):
meant for me, like they weren't shooting at my car,
and you know, and I'm watching this cop actually search
around the driver's seat and like he reaches under the
driver's seat and he pulls out a pipe, a glass pipe,
and he turns around, looks at me and like shakes
his head. And any rational, moderately sane person would have

(19:07):
been like, oh ship, you know, I'm in some serious trouble,
Like this is gonna be bad. And instead, all I
could think was, so that's where that was. Like I've
been looking for that pipe for two days, you know.
It's like how did that cop find it in like
five minutes? You know, And and and then my next

(19:28):
thoughts like I wonder if there's anything left in there?
And are you columbo hell? And you know, look, man,
I know you have the same thought. You can't stay
in the darkness. You have to make fun of this
stuff and of ourselves in these situations. But the important
thing is in that moment, the after six days of

(19:50):
not sleeping and all the other stuff that goes along
with it, you know, I had the clearest thought that
I'd ever had, and it was simply, nobody he's coming
to save you. Your son can't save you, your dad
can't save you, your wife can't save your job, can't
save you. Like until you make the decision that you

(20:10):
want to be saved, Like, there's just no way it's
ever gonna happen. And you know, and I realized I
had a decision in that moment, literally between living and dying,
and I chose running, you know. And I went to
an a meeting that night. That's the first one I'd
ever gone to that I actually like, was that your
lowest moment the hand, Yeah, lowest and highest right, because

(20:36):
for a change, I no longer felt the yeah, the
pressure of it all. And I'm look, man, I'm not
a religious person. I didn't grow up in a church
or anything like that, but you know, I mean the
only church I went to was with my grandparents, and
it was Southern Baptist. And I was pretty sure at
the age of like five, that I was going to
Hell already. So it was it was. It was pointless.

(21:00):
But but in that moment, I actually said a prayer
that you know, wasn't a Santa Claus prayer, you know,
it wasn't. It wasn't the typical prayer of like, if
you'll just get me out of this, then I will
fill in the blank, you know. It was just simply
I don't want to feel like this anymore. And you know,

(21:23):
and I went to a meeting. I went to a
meeting at night. I got up the next morning and
I put on my running shoes. And that was almost
twenty nine years ago, and I haven't stopped since. How
does one stay sober for thirty days coming from where
you were, let alone thirty years? Were there any moments
where you almost caved? Have you ever relapsed? You know?

(21:44):
From that day? So I went to treatment as a
twenty six year old and I stayed sober for about
six months, and I relapsed, you know, for two more years.
So and that was when I was twenty six, and
then at nine, you know, when I got sober this time,
um um, I certainly had close calls, and a couple
of them, one that you can relate to very much

(22:06):
was uh and just as a tease because I'm sure
we're gonna get there. You know, I I spent some
time on Federal Holiday in sobriety, and just before I
went to prison, I had surgery on my knee and
because I needed It's just a menisca surgery. It wasn't
that big a deal. But you know, my friend picked

(22:28):
up a big bottle of you know, I don't know
if vicodd or oxy. I don't remember what it was now,
but you know, and I'm staying at his house and
there's a six pack in the fridge and I had
a little bit of time with you know, both of
those things sitting on the counter in front of me. But, um,
but to your question, the first thirty days, Um, it's funny.

(22:49):
You made me think. It's a story I hedn't hold
in years, and it's a short one. But I got
a spot. I finally followed some of the suggestions and
I got a sponsor. Dude was in his seven and
has been sober over forty years. And in typical fashion,
I'm like, John, you've been sober forty years? How how like?
How is it possible? Is there a secret? He's like, yeah,

(23:11):
there is a secret. Come to the meeting tonight, like
thirty minutes early, and I'm going to tell you the secret.
I'm like, Ship, that's fantastic, thank you, this is amazing.
I show up thirty minutes early. He's like, I said, okay,
can we talk now. He's like, yeah, you know, do
me a favorite. See those coffee pots over there, go
make like five pots of coffee and then we'll talk.

(23:33):
And of course it took me thirty minutes to make
the five pots of coffee. There's the meeting. I come
up to him after the meeting, I'm like, John, can
we talk now. He's like, I'll tell you what I
gotta go right now, but show up thirty minutes tomorrow,
thirty minutes early tomorrow. And you can see where this
is going. And it took me like three or four
days to catch on because I'm not all that bright.

(23:53):
It was the first and greatest lesson that I ever
had in sobriety, and and it fits for the rest
of life. And that's that if you want to get
out of your own problems, serve somebody else, you know,
be of service in some way small. You know, none
of the other people in that meeting knew that I
was making coffee. Nobody thanked me, and it was like,

(24:16):
you know, the first time in my life that I
sort of did. I mean, it sounds silly in a way,
but that I did something small and selfless and didn't
expect to be congratulated for doing it somehow or thanked
and it and it felt great and that it turned
out to be the secret, you know. And I did
it for thirty days and I loved it, and it

(24:37):
it taught me, I think, the greatest lesson that I
still use today. All I think of this an expedition
so extreme it had never been attempted, that is until now.
And one of the three to conquer this feat is
Greensboro's Charlie Be. A very busy weekend for ultra a
little verified runner, Charlie angels. In fact, the next month
and a half will be kind of busy. Since he

(24:59):
glanced to you the time to run from San Francisco
to New York City, it took more than forty mile
run through Africa Sahara As a for professional runner Charlie
Angle to realize that there was money to be made
in the athletic skincare market. Film star Matt Damon and
Oscar winner James mull recorded angles track through the Sahara

(25:19):
to raise awareness about the need for drinkable water in
Africa in their documentary And Running the Sahara. How do
you start competing? I mean, come on, you're running? How
do you start competing in running? I mean because in
the intro was just pure punishment to me. No way
I'd sign up to do it as a primary competitive thing.

(25:41):
I mean, what, Yeah, be careful what you say, Rex,
because now you're in. You're in. You're in my orbit now,
so you're we're going to be having an offline conversation
about exactly how you're gonna challenge yourself next. No, but
I I did love the few ing of You know
what I love about still running a marathon? And I've

(26:03):
probably run more than two hundred marathons, and I I
like the feeling of standing on a start line. Sometimes
it's a hundred people, sometimes it's fifty thou people and
being surrounded by uh fellowship and community. It's you know,
not the same with twelve step recovery or whatever type

(26:26):
of recovery of person does. But you don't know, the
beautiful thing about running is the guy next to you
you don't know if he's the CEO of a Fortune
five company or a janitor at the local high school.
And it doesn't matter because either one of them is
probably gonna kick my ass. And you know, and there's
a beauty to being having a shared shared suffering is

(26:50):
actually the best. And that's why twelve step recovery works.
It's why organized running works, because we we like to
go out and sweat and suffer with other people. It's
it's human nature. It makes us feel connected. And you know,
I spent a few years trying to break three hours

(27:12):
in a marathon, which which made me like moderately fast,
but nowhere near like elite level. I mean, were you
maniacal about it? I mean it was something, Yeah, I
bet I wasn't. I made myself miserable for a while
because I I like five races in a row. I
ran like three oh one, three O two and and

(27:34):
and perfect fashion. My son, it was a funny story
my my son, who was about two years old. You know,
I ran the San Diego Marathon and I ran three
oh one again, and the race is over, and I've
got him on my shoulders and I'm I'm complaining to
my wife about my first wife, about um not breaking three.
You know, the wind was in my face and some bullshit,

(27:56):
and my son is like tapping me on the head,
you know how they do when you know they're sitting
on your soldiers. And it was like dad, daddy, daddy, daddy,
And he's like, why didn't you just run a little
bit faster? Like, yeah, that's a good idea, but but
what it really did was remind me that I was
actually ruining my own experience by trying to put, you know,

(28:18):
a measure of success on it. And look, I mean
the short version of my running career, just so people
know if they care, is you know, I I learned
a lot in those first thirty marathons, and what it
really taught me was that I wanted to see just
how far I could go. You know, basically, if I

(28:38):
learned this lesson from running the marathon, what lesson could
I learned running a fifty mile or or hundred miler
or I started running and actually winning races across the
Gobi Desert in China, across the jungles of Vietnam and Fiji,
and um I ran across you know, Ecuador, the Mountain

(28:59):
range is and climbed, you know, Mount McKinley and a
bunch of volcanoes in Ecuador, and all of that led
me in this. You know, I was on a weird
path of uh, both in my business life too at
that time. I and this is the early two thousands.

(29:20):
I was now sober about ten years and and I
became the senior producer for a show called Extreme Makeover
Home Edition on ABC, you know which most people you know,
h it was a top show on TV for a while,
and you know, and I worked started working on the
pilot on that show and worked for a few years.
And UM was doing these races all over the world.

(29:43):
And I did a race in the Amazon Jungle in
two thousand five, and a guy, just I've never met
him before, he blurts out this idea. He's like, Hey,
I wonder if youbody's ever run across the Sahara Desert,
like the whole Sahara Desert. And I looked at him
and I said, well, that's a dumb idea, like you'd
have to be You'd have to be an idiot to

(30:05):
do that, you know, And of course, being the idiot
I am, I I couldn't stop thinking about it, and
I went home and I found out no one Go
Figure had ever run all the way across the Sahara,
and first in the adventure world are really hard to
come by, like there's very few things that somebody hasn't done.

(30:25):
And I began to tell people I was going to
be the first person to run across the Sahara, and
I mean, I owe all this to sobriety and and
it was audacious, but you know, I finally, I think
my friend got tired of hearing me talk about it,
and he introduced me to a big Hollywood director. Um.
I was sort of you know, on the fringes of
that world with the TV show and um he had

(30:49):
won the Academy Award for Best Documentary a few years earlier.
So I tell him my idea and he's like, yeah,
I'll do it. And he calls me a week later
and he's like, hey, I just hung up with Matt
Damon and Matt would like to executive produce this project
and he wants to be the narrator, Like would that
be okay with you? And I I dead I dead

(31:09):
pan because I like to think that I'm funny, and
I like I paused and I said, you know, God,
I was really hoping for somebody better, but yeah, I
guess mad day it will be fine. Uh. And you know,
and like a year and a half later, I found
myself at the coast of Senegal in West Africa, you know,
right at the Atlantic Ocean and Senegal, and I'm getting

(31:32):
ready with two teammates. Um. One of them is the
guy that told, you know, sort of mentioned this bad
idea to begin with. And I would say, you know,
words said to us by a stranger can sometimes change
like the entire course of our lives. And you know,
and we ended up running. I ran two marathons a
day for one hundred and eleven consecutive days without taking

(31:58):
a day off, and um, you know, be we became
the first people in history, the only up to this point,
to run all the way across the Sahara, almost five
thousand miles across the Sahara and you know, a hundred
and fifty degree ground temperatures and you know, mostly deep
sand and it was it was a crazy, uh life

(32:22):
changing experience. Yeah, I can't even fathom. I mean the
endurance part, where did you always have that? Did you
have the endurance as a kid when you were running,
you just you could run forever. I did, I really did.
I mean it was and I have I've worked from
time to time with I'm not actually even plugging the company,

(32:44):
but there's a company called inside Tracker, and they they
do these blood tests which tests certain markers. And I
did come to find out a couple of years, just
a couple of years ago, though, that I I do
actually have a genetic marker that is considered like the
endurance gene um. But I mean, look, dude, I could
do coke for six days without even taking and without

(33:05):
even taking a nap. So this is this was child's play.
How many countries did you run through? What you see
for better or worse? That still stays with you to
this day. Yeah, so the I've running more than fifty
but on the Sahara Run, that was six countries including
like you know, Synegal, Mauritania, Molly, Niger, Libya, and Egypt.

(33:31):
And you know, the most beautiful that run was two
thousand seven, So that's been a little while now. But
the most amazing thing about that run was it was
still at a time where not everybody had a cell
phone and um, so we would run into these little villages,
you know, in the in the middle of the desert,
and they don't know where coming. Every kid in the

(33:53):
village comes out and ah, you know, half of them.
Of course, I always laugh. They all have a you
know Chicago Bulls or are of Jordan's T shirt on,
which just cracks me up because you know, they're it's
just everywhere, and you know, but they would just run.
They would, and I'm talking like from five years to
twelve years old. They'd run sometimes five or ten kilometers

(34:13):
out into the desert and they're just happy, just the
joy that they have of this weird thing of three
white guys running through their village. And then they just
like then they just kind of wave and turn around
and leave. And um, I sort of said this at
the beginning, But one of the things that strikes me

(34:34):
is that even well meaning tourists very often um sequester
themselves in their car, you know, so they'll drive into
that same village maybe, but they're in a car, which
separates you from the people. And I always tell people like,
that's fine to have a car. Realized, not everybody wants
to run across the desert. But before you get into

(34:54):
the village like in Africa or South America, get out
of your car, like a half mile before you get
into the village and just walk in and notice the difference.
People don't come at you with their hands out. They
don't like you know, we're the ones that create the
sort of dynamic of you know, people coming at us
and like asking for whatever, um, because we put ourselves

(35:20):
above them. And and that's been the greatest gift of
my running life is to be able to just be
a cultural explorer and to see really remote places on
the planet that no, you know, you just don't get
to see. And you know, you have to be willing

(35:40):
to put yourself into Uh. I certainly spent ten years
putting myself in really dangerous, bad situations. And to think
that I wouldn't do that as a sober person would
be crazy. So well, put be curious, right, be curious
running across the desert. What are the challenge during the

(36:01):
day and nighttime of being in a desolate desert? Man? Yeah, many, um,
logistics were We're so complicated. But I mean we started
the run and it was a hundred forty fifty degree
ground temperatures, you know, the ambient temperature probably you know,
one twenty or so, but like, you know, it was

(36:23):
it was hot, and you can plan all you want
on the drawing board, you know, it's like drawing a
game plan. You drop up a game plan in a game, right,
and it doesn't really take into account the other team,
like having the best night of their life. And uh,
you know the desert. I always say that, especially with Africa.
You know, Africa makes the rules. And within a week

(36:47):
of starting that expedition, we had run out of food,
we run out of water. It's a hundred and fifty
degree ground. My two teammates both have I v s
every day and we've covered about half the distance we
need to. And this is an expensive project, you know,
we there's a lot of money invested, and I was

(37:07):
worried the producers were going to pull the plog quite frankly,
because we were not doing well at this point. And interestingly,
what I recognized at that point, I wasn't even thinking
about this, but um, I was going about it all wrong. Right.
I was the expedition leader and this was my project,
but I was so I felt so much pressure to

(37:30):
be successful, and success meant getting to the other side
of the desert. I was so focused on that that
I forgot the lessons I had learned in sobriety. And
by this time I was fifteen years sober. And that
lesson is quite simply, you know, the mantra, the one
day at a time mantra that we all know. But

(37:51):
the point is, the only miles that I could actually
run were the ones right in front of me. And
I needed to stop worrying about the next country, than
next day, the next week, and focus on what was
happening right now. And I woke up like on day eight,
and all I thought about was running a marathon before lunch,

(38:11):
and I took a little break, and then I got
up and all I thought about was running a second
marathon before dinner. And at the end of that second marathon,
I put my little thin foam matt down on the
desert and I laid there and I stared up at
a billion stars because there there wasn't a single electric
light within five hundred miles, and and I just gave

(38:33):
thanks to the universe for giving me the opportunity to
be alive and suffering. And in that one day at
a time, you know way, we started to make progress
and we made our way across the desert and it
you know, and again it was an experience that changed

(38:54):
my life. But the metaphors are pretty much they're endless
because the idea of just focusing, the idea of like
I had a plan every day Rex I was a leader.
I get up at four o'clock and I would write
my plan and my little book. We're gonna go to
this village. We're gonna cover this many miles. We're gonna
do this. I went back at the end of the expedition.

(39:15):
Out of a hundred and eleven days, I think like
on five days it went exactly as I wrote it down.
On the other hundred and six it went from like
a little bit wrong to completely go into hell. But
we made it. And it is that. It's that idea
of continuous forward motion. If you just keep moving and

(39:39):
use the experience that you've had in life, people quit marathons.
I love this example. We always hear about hitting the wall, right, Well,
the same is true in addiction recovery or in and
I know you relate to all of this. When we
hit a real low spot, our mind tells us that
we're gonna feel this badly for the rest of our lives.

(40:03):
You know, you have a big argument with your spouse
and it's like, well, this relationship is gonna feel just
like this forever, or or we want to have a
drink or do a dry or whatever like that. In
that moment, that's what we want. And it's because you know,
life is at a low point right now and it's
always going to be this way. But experience tells us

(40:25):
if we just let that pass by, the next day
will wake up and and you know, all the problems
won't be gone, but the perspective will be different. Yes, yes,
trust the process. One man couldn't quite fathom Charlie's success.
Robert Nordlander is an agent at the I R S
who has what some folks think is a peculiar way

(40:48):
of choosing his targets. The New York Times reports that
Norlander told a grand jury that if he sees someone
driving a fancy car, he might check into their finances
to see if they can really afford it, even if
there's no but it's that they can't. The Times also
reported that no Orlander testified to the grand jury that
he just couldn't figure out how a guy like Charlie
Angel could possibly afford to train for running across continents.

(41:13):
You know, this is charges. So we need to talk
about your indiscretions that you did go to prison for.
Tell me about how you found yourself under investigation and
then ultimately convicted for mortgage fraud. Yeah, what a crazy
I mean, I I still am. I still say that
to you, and I feel I feel bad even asking
because I know how. You know, I know how when

(41:34):
people ask me about, you know, the Apple store, immediately
I go, God, I can't believe that was me. Well
when I mean, look, I'm lucky enough, even at my
age almost fifty nine, to still have sponsors for running
and things like that. And I have these conversations all
the time, and I I say to them up front,
I'm like, look, all I gotta say is if you

(41:55):
don't know everything about my background, google it. It's on
my website. You to my website to read all about
what happened to me, like you read my book, because
I don't want you to come back to me later
and say, oh, well, we didn't know this part of
your background and we can't do business with you somehow.
But you know, first of all, the irony of going

(42:17):
through ten years of street level addiction and all of
the inherently legal things that I did. Um. Now, and
I'm not implying, I mean, this country puts way too
many people who have a drug problem in prison when
they should be going to treatment. That's a subject for
another day. But um, in my case, I escaped pretty

(42:39):
much all penalties during my ten years of addiction. And
so the Sahara put kind of put me on the map.
You know, I told you I got some good media
and all of that. And there was I'm living in
small town North Carolina, and there was one single I R.
S Agent in my down in North Carolina that saw

(43:02):
the movie Running the Shara and he was not impressed
with my running, or with my philanthropy or anything else.
And on that literally Rex from that alone, he just
decided he wanted to see how a runner could afford
to go run across the Sahara Desert. I would say,
it's weird that apparently he'd never heard of Matt Damon

(43:24):
because like, I didn't pay for it. But this led
to him opening an investigation into my taxes and I
ended up going to trial. Um, he ends up like
sending in a undercover a good looking woman to come
knock on my door and she's moving I'm using air

(43:45):
quotes for people just listening, moving into my building. And
she wants to know if I'm a runner. And I
fall for all of this, and because I'm a guy,
and yeah, stupid and you know, and so um, you
know all there's dumpster diving, they're tapping phones. It's the

(44:06):
weirdest thing. And just so people have perspective, this is
two thousand nine and ultimately two thousand and ten when
I'm arrested. But all right, so I'm out running errands
one day in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I come back
to my condo and I get out of the car
and like six armed federal agents come rushing towards me,

(44:28):
and they handcuffed me and they put me in a
you know, in a police car and take me downtown
and I spend the night there and I don't actually know.
I'm not told anything at this point, and this is
this couldn't be anymore out of the blue. I mean,
I'm now like nineteen years clean and sober, and and
the next morning I'm handed a big stack of papers

(44:50):
and long story short, I am being charged with overstating
my income on a home loan application and four from
two from two thousand and five a stated income. I'm
a borrower. I'm not like a real estate person or
anything else. I mean I was I've been making enough
money that every couple of years I'd buy a property,

(45:12):
fix it up, hold onto it, sell it, just like
everybody else, and especially in those days, you know, I mean,
basically the joke was if if you had a pulse,
you could get a loan. But I become the only
person in the United States at that point actually being
charged with overstating my income on a home loan application,
and for that I can be sentenced to federal prison

(45:33):
for twenty years. And this isn't like I'm not here
to like try to bash the Feds or whatever, But
you know, the fact of the matter is they pretty
much only charge people that they are certain they can win.
You know, they have a ninety nine point six percent
success rate with prosecutions, and about eight percent of people

(45:54):
take plea deals. And to be honest, I wasn't. I
just wasn't gonna take one because I sound like a
weird broken record for guys that go to prison, But
I didn't do what I was being accused of. I
end up being found not guilty of providing false information
on loan application because I didn't do it. The I

(46:15):
had a mortgage broker who falsified a loan application. He
admitted it trial, he signed my name to it, right.
But I, and this is where I do take uh
full credit. You know, I signed the closing package and
I put it in the mail, and whether it had

(46:36):
false information that I knew about or not really didn't
matter anymore. And I at that point took ownership, if
you will, of everything within that packet, and that became
mail fraud. And I was found guilty of mail fraud,
bank fraud, wire fraud, basically mortgage fraud for that reason,
and sentenced to twenty one months in federal prison in Beckley,

(47:00):
West Virginia. And my kids, my teenage sons, dropped me
off on Valentine's Day two thousand eleven at the front
gate of Beckley Federal Correctional Institute to start serving a
twenty one month sentence in federal prison. How did you
handle being in prison and how did your family? How

(47:21):
did your kids handle it? It was it was terrible.
I mean, I you know, and the worst part of
it was the limbo that I was in because once
I was charged, you know, and again you you can relate,
and some of your other guests can relate. You know,
once your charge, your life is pretty much on hold
until there's resolution. And you know, so for me, that

(47:45):
was over a year process where I couldn't really work.
I couldn't like, you know, I couldn't do anything, it
felt like. And of course my both my boys are
struggling at this point, you know, as teenage boys, and
I'm not married to her mom anymore at that point,
and and it was hard. But you know, I'll never
forget walking into that prison. You'll appreciate this, it said

(48:10):
the book. We have to read the book or listen
to it. But the first guy that I meet when
I get in as a guy, everybody's got a nickname
in prison. And first guy I meet his pick and Roll.
I'm not kidding you, that's his name. And so Picking
Roll looks at me and he's like, he's like, hey,
you know, and he's an inmate obviously, and so've I've

(48:31):
gone through the processing and so now I'm in the
prison and and he's like, how long you here? For
I'm like twenty one months. Man. He's like, shit, that
ain't even long enough to unpack your clothes, you know,
because so many of these guys are in there for
so long. And and look, I was scared. I was scared.
I was sad, and I was really piste off. And

(48:56):
you know what, the Rex. It only took a few
days to realize that I wasn't going to I was
piste off about, you know. And again I'm using air
quotes what had been done to me, right, And it
took a matter of maybe two or three days to
gain perspective. Number One, I figured out I wasn't going
to survive this time in prison with that anger and bitterness.

(49:19):
It was gonna kill me. Number two. The first guy
after Pick and Roll that I met was a guy
in the cell next to me, and he's in his
early sixties, he's black, and he got a twenty five
year sentence for a single graham of crack cocaine. Oh
my god, and he's on like year twenty three when

(49:40):
I meet him. He had had his entire life taken away.
And I'm focused on you know, I mean, we're selfish
by nature, all of us, but I'm focused on what
has happened to me, and I immediately get slapped in
the face by the reality of real unfairness, and you know,

(50:01):
and it it allowed me to sort of settle down
and recognize that, in the weirdest way, I was the
most well prepared person for prison every No, really, I
was just thinking the same. Ten years on the street
and nineteen years clean and sober. I recognized that I

(50:22):
could do this and that in fact, it was gonna
be learning and just human experience. And I'm sure this
will get into it, but how did you become a
motivational force for other inmates to overcome addiction while you
were there? Yeah? You know it is. Yeah, it's attraction
rather than promotion. Again, because I do I do like

(50:42):
to make the joke that I didn't all of a
sudden say you know, hey, dude, you look like you
could lose some weight, why don't you work out with me?
It's it's not a good strategy for prison, not in prison. Um,
But you know what I really did, Rex, was I
just started doing what I always had on and that
is that I started to run, you know. And and

(51:03):
they're about five guys in this prison, and it is
a low security facility in Beckley, West Virginia, and the
vast majority were non violent drug offenders, you know. And
and that's the way our country is. In the federal system,
in particularly, got over eighty percent of people in prison
for non violent drug offenses. And the irony is, there's

(51:25):
no in the federal system. There is no A A,
there's no n A, there's no there's no that's insane.
There's no kind of recovery program. You can get a
twenty year sentence for a drug charge and never get
treated for your drug problem while you're in there. What
you will get is near the end of your sentence,

(51:47):
you get what's called drug education, which if you take
the class, it will give you like six months off
of your sentence potentially. But the class is basically this,
you suck your leech on society and your family, don't
do drugs like That's what the whole course boils down to.

(52:10):
And it's so insane. And so I actually did. I
I did start teaching addiction recovery classes while I was
in prison, but they were actually health classes that I
changed the curriculum and I started I turned him into
basically what amounted to informal AA meetings, and you know,

(52:31):
and I and I started to run every day and
people made fun of me. And this is this is funny.
I mean, I was a middle aged white guy still am,
and you know, people made fun of me. Like the
most dubious choice I ever made in there as I
started doing yoga a couple of days a week on
the softball field by myself. And for any of the
list there's no for any listeners who are are thinking

(52:56):
about going to federal prison, I do not recommend doing
yoga by yourself. But um, but anyway, here's what happened.
You know, after a couple of months of my running.
And I'll never forget that the day it happened. But
this guy, Kenny Squirrel was actually his name. He yells

(53:16):
out across the wreck yard. He's like, hey, running man,
you're gonna come in for lunch, and like that is
where the sort of the Monica running Man came from.
But slowly, but surely, guys started to come up to
me in you know, the cafeteria line or whatever and
asked me if I would teach basically teach them to run.

(53:39):
And you know, these are guys from all walks of life.
West Virginia is probably fifty fifty black and white in
this prison. And you know, all the white guys were
meth heads and all the black guys were businessman. And
I say that tongue in cheek, but I actually mean it.
Most of the black guys were dealers and not users.

(54:01):
Most of the white guys were actual addicts. Um. But
guys started to come up to me and just say,
and you know, when I got to Beckley, there were
maybe three guys running every day on a regular basis.
And when I left a year and a half later,
I had a running group of fifty guys and I
I run it with me every single day and I

(54:22):
had um maybe ten or twelve of them lost more
than a hundred pounds um. By when I left, I
had twenty five guys doing yoga with me on this
off fall field three days a week. You know. And
it wasn't because I ever promoted what I was doing.
It's just because I did it. And these guys started

(54:42):
to see, I mean, my life was just I mean,
I don't want to say it was better. We're all
in the same place. And I had some haters. I
had some uh, you know, I was a white collar again.
Air quotes guy in a in prison, and there is
a weird stigma that goes along with that. My biggest

(55:02):
concern was, like, what kind of tattoo am I going
to get in prison? You know, what is it? What
do you get for mortgage fraud? Like an like an
ink pen? I thought about getting a fountain pen on
my arm. There we go. I could have put M
M effort, M effort mortgage froud start. Charlie Angle truly

(55:28):
is an inspiration to me. If he can pull himself
up from the literal gutter with a bullet ridden car
and a crack pipe to becoming an advocate for change
at the top of his profession, then almost anyone can too.
What strikes me about Charlie is that he owns his
messy story instead of running from it. I'd imagine that
trotting mile after mile after mile gives a person plenty

(55:50):
of time to think about the good, the bad, and
the ugly transgressions in their life. For those in recovery,
attacking the road ahead is the best forward momentum some
one can achieve one day at a time. What would
you say to someone who knows that running and exercise
would benefit their lives, but just can't get over the

(56:13):
mental hurdles. You know, it's such a great question. I
actually think about it all the time. And I have
just recently been asked to be depox. Chopra and I
became friends years ago, and so I am now. It
hasn't even been announced publicly, so this will be the
first time I've actually said it out loud. I'm in public,
but I am now the ambassador for the Chopper Foundation

(56:37):
for Addiction and Recovery, And thank you. It's a big deal.
Of it's a big deal for me because it's uh.
Part of the reason I gave you that answer is
that my mission in a way is relies on this mantra,
and that is that if you don't feel good, you
can't get well. You know, it's about mentally, just getting

(57:00):
it through your head that if I do this every day,
you know, it really will get easier. And also the
you know, look, I have a son who's almost four
years clean and sober, and you know, again, genetics play
a role, and I tell him, I tell both my
sons all the time. You know, never quit at a

(57:22):
low point, never quit anything at a don't quit a
relationship or a job or sobriety or anything else, because
those those low moments aren't real, like they will pass
if we just let them pass. And I think physical exercise,
you know, exercises that way people People go for their
first run in five years and they feel like shit.

(57:44):
Well no kidding, but you're not gonna feel that way
all the time. You just have to keep doing it. Terrific,
terrific advice. Hey, so tell me this, what are you
up to today, Charlie? Uh, where are you and how
do you handle the pandemic? Assume you were just out
running every day? Yeah, you know that. I mean. So,

(58:04):
I'm I'm back in Durham. I've lived all over the country,
but I got married again about eight years ago to
just an amazing woman and and in full disclosure, um,
she is battling a really serious cancer and has been
for a while. So we're you know, my world has
been a little small, even even apart from COVID. We're

(58:25):
also sorry, but thank you, thank you, But again, you
know what, I get to show up for this every
single day and to be um, a supporter, a caretaker,
all the things that I need to be and would
be incapable of being if I was still you know,
using and get to You just said, I get to be. Yeah,

(58:50):
it's not a burden, it's a gift. And I would
take it away from her in a second, you know,
the cancer. But I you know, I I get to
be fully present. I don't go high, either in a
bottle or a pill, and you know, and I'm able
to just be here and be present. And you know,
covid is UM. She can't get vaccinated, so it's complicated.

(59:12):
I'm vaccinated, but I have to be really careful about
where I go and what I do and UM. I
am working on another book because you know, I I
think there's a I sort of touched on it earlier,
but I think that people in early recovery, when you
go into addiction recovery, there should be more focus not

(59:34):
you know, there's a time for talk therapy and it's
very important in the process, but physical health needs to
be put first. And I said it earlier. If you
don't feel good, you can't get well. And so I'm
really working on a book through my own experience that
will lay out the case for really focusing on physical health.

(59:56):
I'm also vegan, have been for more than twenty years.
You know, I'm not a preacher on these things, but
it is, you know, it's the way I've chosen to
live and um, and it's made things good. You know.
I'm I celebrate my sobriety every year by running the
same number of hours to match the years that I've
been sober. So this year, later this month will be

(01:00:20):
you know, twenty nine hours of running. And you know
that's my kind of party these days. UM, if you
just put yourself out there and you tell the truth,
opportunities the right opportunities present themselves. UM. I'm heading to uh.
I am actually heading at the end of this month July.

(01:00:40):
I'm getting a chance to go down to neck Or
Island with Richard Branson and a small group and and
speaking to a bunch of people in the addiction space
and advocating for some things around the Chopra Foundation. And
you know, it just is. It's a fun journey. Man.
I would I wouldn't even take the prison stuff back,

(01:01:02):
you know, I got I. I work with the Innocence Project,
UM from time to time for you. UM, I'm sure
you know those guys or know who they are, a
great friend of mine. Jason flam is one of the
founding board members. He has a great podcast um about
wrongful incarceration, you know, and getting people out and and
I think it all comes back down to where we started.

(01:01:24):
It's service based. And the thing I say to myself
and I remind others service makes you sound like you're
being some generous Uh. You know, I don't know goody
two shoes almost. I do it because I recognize that
if I don't keep doing stuff for other people that
I put myself, it's a really selfish act. I put
myself at risk if I don't do those things. Man,

(01:01:47):
that's beautiful, it really is. And I'm I'm with you it.
It makes me feel bad when I think back about
all the years I spent just as a selfish asshole,
you know, just only thinking of about me. Wasn't until
I got in trouble that I thought about how it
was affecting everybody else. I mean, and uh, just that perspective.

(01:02:08):
Thanks Charlie, Thanks for being here with me today on
charges your story and your effort or inspiring and as
someone else who's in recovery, you know, I want you
to know my door is always open if you ever
need anything. You're the man, Charlie. Thank you so much.
Same here, brother, And it was I can't tell you
how excited that was to be here. And it was,

(01:02:30):
You're really good at this. You should keep going. It's
not me, it's the guests. You guys, come on here, dude.
I've done a lot, I've done a lot of podcasts.
I can assure you you're being You're I appreciate your
humility you but it's you know, doing these kind of
things is uh, it's another gift, you know, of experience
and being able to just have a conversation and it's it's, uh,

(01:02:54):
You've got a really good platform here and I look
forward to, you know, spreading the word. Thanks buddy, Thanks Pal,
thanks for coming on My pleasure. Charges Selling No Runnians
with the Law Charges set Lee Send the Tennis and
Ball as a charge is the celebrity gank plums and
charges we came along with from Living Lawless Charges. Selling

(01:03:17):
No Runnians with the Law Charges sper Lee Send the
Tennis and Ball as Charges. The celebrity gank forums and
charge we came along with from Living Lawless Charge Charges
is created by Portlay and Control Media. It's produced by
DV Podcasts in association with I heart Radio. For more
podcasts for my heart Radio, visit i heart Radio app,

(01:03:38):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.