February 18, 2020 • 31 mins
Former MMA fighter turned long-distance trail runner Kyle Dietz is no stranger to pushing the limits. But when a tumor was discovered in the frontal lobe of his brain, he faced the challenge of his life. After a successful surgery, Kyle was forced to start from the beginning, learning to walk and run again, all while battling memory loss and partial blindness. With the support of family, friends and his unparalleled determination, Kyle is back on the trail, pushing his body further than he thought possible.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
I use. My family has my recovery. That's my fuel
right now. I'm just getting back to where I was,
you know, for them. But you know, I think they
feel like I should be more selfish and do it
for myself. But I feel like everything I do anymore
is for them. I don't think anything's easy. Like, if
(00:26):
I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it full fledged
and hard as I possibly can, especially on long runs
and races and you know, long training days. I don't
want things to be easy. I don't want things given
to me. I want to work for it, and I
don't think enough people do that. Welcome to the new podcast.
The only way is through a collaboration between under Armour
(00:49):
and I Heart Radio. Episode three, Kyle De's suffer Progress.
Some people have a fire that burns inside them. It
goes beyond training, beyond sport. It's intangible. It's the thing
that tells you to get back up after you've been
knocked down, the thing that tells you to keep moving
(01:11):
forward when you've got nothing left in the tank. Former
m M A Fighter turn ultra runner, Kyle Deets has
a burning desire to be challenged and to endure it.
Pushes him through steep inclines of mud and hard rock,
through ultra marathons that span hundreds of miles, and ultra
is the ultimate test of stammin us strength and determination,
(01:33):
because when you're sixty miles in with sixty miles to go,
you gotta search for something greater than yourself to push
toward that finish line. For Kyle, it's the thing that
keeps him primed for the battles that you can't train for.
It would even be the thing that pushes him through
the toughest fight of his life. Kyle sat down with
(01:57):
Kyle Fussman and share his story. He is cow, so
tell us what got you into trio running. My buddy,
his wife was going to do this race and he
was telling me about it before I knew what they were.
He was like, she's gonna run this thirty mile race
and I just started laughing. I was like, no one
runs thirty miles. That's impossible. So I looked into it
(02:19):
and he was signing up for a fifty miles. Did
you want to do it with me? I was like sure.
He'd failed on it a couple of times before He's like,
you get me to mile thirty, you can go do
your own thing. Where is his race taking place? Wisconsin?
He knew everything, every ins and outs of running, but
I was a better athlete than he was. So we
get the mile thirty and look over at him and
(02:41):
he was like, you guys can go. So me and
my buddy flinchement. I just took off and it was
until like the last five miles started cramping up. I
don't really know how to hydrate, right or this funny story.
I running and I that leg just because like it
seized up over my hamstring and I fell and I
look at the back of my leg and it looks
(03:02):
like there's a softball. It's just this giant nod. I'm
like screaming. I'm like grabbing sticks and rubbing sticks on
my leg and I'm like, so I get up, and
I'm like, all right, I think I'm good. What like
ten feet it happens again, he said, it looked like
a ghost walk again. But I finished and I did
pretty well, so that kind of let me hear. Running
(03:33):
for me was always discipline, like ad to cut weight
or to keep mind during something, to fight or whatever.
It was never fun. It was never ever ever fun,
so doing the traathl on stuff, but it takes me
to the trails whatever, And I was like, this true
running is where it's at. This is what I want
to do. The minute you got out on the trail,
(03:53):
this is it, this is what I was really born
to do. It was just like an instant love. I
love it first sight kind of that feelings what am
I doing? Like this is awesome? What what is it about? It?
Just being able to see so it's like it's majesty
sense of awe. You get that fresh air, leaves are changing. Son,
(04:22):
It's hard to explain if you don't do it. Were
you seeing life in a different way in a sense? Yeah,
just kind of like why haven't I done this sooner?
I grew up planning in the woods and running around.
It was like a sense of nostalgia, like it came
back to me. I was like, man, I feel like
a kid. I'm out here running being doing the hell
I want and climbed this tree I want Like no
(04:44):
one's going to tell you what to do out there.
The moment you just described was fantastic and it's your
first moment, is there the best moment that you can
recall on on the trails as you're moving forward. It
was a failed attempt, but uh I went to Dominica
a couple of years back and it was I was
(05:05):
running the White two Guboe trail. So the trail they say,
it's a hundred fifteen miles and they're like, well, how
long do you think go take to you? And I
was like, oh, maybe, like oh twenty four hours. I
can get it done today. So we fly into St.
Martin and it is the most mountainous island I've ever
seen in my life. So they give us the map
and we're looking at topo. Was just like ups and down,
(05:25):
up and down, up and down, up and down. I'm like, cool,
it's a hundred fifty miles. Was like yeah, we think
they don't know. So we're starting this tiny little Captain's
off the island and it's almost like a little bridge,
and we run up into the jungle. I've never ran
the jungle before. I don't really care for jungles, but
I'm like, what kind of wildlife do I need to
be worried about? Like snakes, spiders. I was like, there's
(05:47):
nothing on the island that's poison this. I was like, okay,
that's really good to know. Can anything kill me? They're like, well,
like there might be some stuff out that, like, all right, whatever.
So we start and it's so high. It's like sweating. Brutal.
It's literally brutal. And I had no idea what time
it was, and I didn't know how much time i'd
(06:08):
go by. I just wasn't looking at watch. I was
just trying to get done. How long was the race
in total? It wasn't a race. We were trying to
set the fastest known time on the trail and to
be the first ones to do it. So let me
go on. It comes nighttime. Here, crunch, crunch, crunch. Turn
on my head lamp and as far as I can
see how it's just crabs. Were literally running on top
of crabs, like you don't see the ground because it's
(06:30):
just giant crabs. And that's the only way two weys
yet to run on top of It's disgusting. I had
been running for exactly like straight. My last few miles,
I ran thirty minute miles, so dense it was. That's
very slow. I had only made it fifty five miles
(06:52):
in thirty seven thousand feet elevation game. It was insane.
But it was amazing trip. Just watching your face tell
that story, I can tell how much you loved even
the worst moments. Seven It was just hilarious. So what
year more or less did you start running on the trails? Shoot? Wow,
(07:16):
I'm going on maybe eight or nine years now, and
I actually have quite a bit of memory loss from
my injury. But uh, I don't know the Zach day
when I really started turning. Okay, so you have no
memory from the time that these symptoms are approaching. So
(07:37):
when I started acting we or whatever, people are like, hey,
are you all right? God, I just said, migraines. I've
always had them. I know how to deal with them.
So that was it. But people like skyline drugs is
what is going on. It's not acting like himself. Like
I would just be at work and I would leave
or I just wouldn't show up to work. That's not me.
(07:57):
One day I was at work. I didn't know what
I was doing. I didn't know how to do my job.
What was the job? I was on the computer, I
didn't know how like typing all this stuff, and I
didn't know my coworkers names. Everything was just shutting down.
(08:18):
I remember I was in the bathroom, and I didn't
know how to go to the bathroom. Now I didn't
know what I was doing, so he became reclusive. What
about your girlfriend? It's at this point things go blank.
Kyle only remembers this period because of what his friends
(08:38):
and family have told him. They've helped him fill in
the gaps. Kyle's dad, Fred, his daughter Ava, his friend Nathan,
and his girlfriend Kelly Well guide us through, just like
they did for Kyle. We had only been together probably
six months before things had started to like kind of flip.
(09:01):
She was like reaching out to my friends, like, what's
going on Kyle. Yeah, it's just like like he wasn't
and it needs to be reliable, and then it wasn't.
The last couple of months when I was getting these calls,
calls from friends, calls from his boss. You need to
check on Kyle. He goes he's always here early, and
(09:22):
he didn't show up. I think more towards the end
he stopped like coming around more because he forgot a
lot of things. And then it was just he was
very manic where he would not work out at all.
He just wasn't around a lot. I finally able to
track him down we just went for a run. Let
me get this spot, and I really had to relieve myself,
so I took off. I came back and I didn't
(09:43):
didn't see him. Eventually worked my way back down to
the car and all the cars were gone, Hey, you
were going to go to the doctor, right? Did you
do that? And I was telling everyone I was going
to the hospital. Whatever it wasn't I was like, yeah,
but girl, I got checked out. But it's just in
my head. I had no idea. I didn't know, Like
I hate saying that to him, but like I was like,
(10:03):
I didn't know if you were like a con artist
or what was happening, because when I first met you,
you were this person. And then like everything stopped. So
I called a doctor and he goes, we hadn't seen
Kyle in seven years really, And then my dad came
and I was like, we're taking you to the hospital
right now. I tell you this, We've seen something we
(10:24):
really don't like. Do you have a brain tumor? Compared
to their brain looked like about one third of the brain.
My tumor was so big it was pressing on my personality.
I think it was Saturday or Sunday, and I was
in my room and my grandma called me and she
told me, and so I cried to my mom about it.
(10:44):
It's pretty had no feelings, like if you were to
tell me your dog got ran over, it would be
nothing to me. That's been one of the hardest things
for me. I feel like I was a piece of
ship to people. He's super apologic to all of his friends,
thinking he let down, and I didn't go knock on
his door to see if he's okay. So we're kind
(11:05):
of a friend of mine, and people understand, but it's
like that kills me. That's kills me thinking about it.
Kyle's tumor was diagnosed as a hamagio parasite toma, a
(11:27):
type of aggressive tumor that can occur anywhere in the
body where capillaries exist. Kyle's grew in the frontal area
of his brain. Unlike most tumors, Kyle's was growing for
as long as eight years, remaining undetected, and by the
time it was discovered, was already stage three. Out of
all brain tumors, there's one percent chance anyone could ever
(11:47):
have this tumor, that's how rare it was. Thankfully, these
doctors they all came together, like I think there's two
teams that worked on me for a fifteen hours straight. Yeah,
we got it all out, and they said, if I
want to on it, and I probably wouldn't have made
another two weeks. It's insane, So very thankful for my
friends and family to get my ass in there. His
(12:10):
mind works in the athlete way. That's Kyle's girlfriend, Kelly.
She stuck about kyle side every step of the way.
When he woke up from surgery. There was no sit
down talk about well, if something goes wrong and you
can't run again. It was like, Okay, what do we
do next, Let's take the next step, Let's be there.
Let's just kind of move in the moment and not
(12:30):
worry about how far ahead we're looking. He couldn't walk.
He was just gonna keep standing until he could take
a step and then go from there out of the hospital.
I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't walk. I
couldn't really do ship. It was awful. I could see,
but like I couldn't make out anything in my ear.
(12:53):
I could hear, but it was just hanstant reading. Learning
how to walk again. That was tough. Like equilibrium was
so off. I'm stand I'll get up out of my
chair because I had to sit up for a long time.
I'm good, and I would just stand there just to
work on my balance. Tell the fall back into my chair.
Each member of Kyle's family played a significant role in
(13:16):
as we had. His dad spent each day helping him
learn to walk again and guiding him as Kyle pushed himself.
Here's fred Dee's and uh, okay, we're gonna go. We're
gonna go out the door. Okay. Now we're gonna go
out the door and pass Bob's house. Okay, we're gonna
go out the door, pass bop saus next door. And
he's wore out. I mean, that's all he's got. So
(13:38):
the next day we're gonna go a little bit further,
a little bit further and then get to the end
of the block, which is like a hundred mile marathon. Now,
just everything he had to get to the end of
the block. Touch the top foot them, let's stop right here.
You know, one little touch a televile bowl. I can't
carry you back. I'll be okay, I got touched to
(13:59):
the bowl. Okay, touch horrible back Kyle's daughter spent long
hours with her dad while he got better, playing games
and working on puzzles to help his mind. I haven't
sleep on the couch right next to him, so like
I would always be awake all the time. So then
if he needed help, I would help him up stairs
to use the bathroom. And I was sitting away for
(14:20):
him so I could take him back downstairs. We did
like word searches all the time, and we can never
find words, so we'd always give bad and then we
just put it down and walk away. They wouldn't give
up on me, and they wouldn't let me give up
on myself. Say with my daughter, she's built just like me.
What's she's the best? What's her name? Ava? What did
(14:42):
you feel like walking on your own for the first time?
It was emotional, it was and like my first run back.
So we have a skybridge at home. My buddies all
took me to go for a run. And he's dead
and want to be on a horrible winner, so they
took me up there. I think I ran down one
stretch of it. I don't know if you'd call it running,
(15:02):
but shuffled down and nothing. I just tucked in one
of the corners. It was broke down. It was it
was hard, Uh, just that you were able to be
running again, It was, it was, It was. It was
hard on me, like because I didn't think I wasn't
able to get back, Like you know, I'm not a
negative person, but it was like, how the hell am
(15:24):
I gonna get back on my feet after all this?
Here is Nathan TACKI a running partner and friend of Kyle's.
He's passionate about all sorts of different things, and when
it burns, it's bright man, just like the dimmer ever
there on that wall. When he finds something, whether it's
your frenzy likes or where any activity is gonna do
his mountain climbing, fighting bike, it's going to be that
(15:44):
lights which is on and it's on all the way.
There's no no dimmer there. Then my opinion of him
is so high as an athlete and it it was just
a man, but as a runner was so good that
I was like, finally slowed down a little by me.
I can keep up with them, finally, that's not true.
Maybe that first runner too that, but not so. At
what point does your memory return? I remember stuff like
(16:08):
off the bat I remember stuff, chunks of stuff I
still don't remember. Do you remember that you love to run? Yeah?
M hmm, it was weird. I remember. I woke up
wanting to train fighting again though like that, What's all
I wanted to do was started doing m hold on
going back for a minute. Yeah he did m M
(16:34):
A help give you the tools through this through training. Yeah.
So like our gym was known for being one of
the toughest gyms as well, and you basically go through
like a hell week. It's everyone just speaks the ship
out of you. Yeah, you can prove your worth. You
get your ass kicked, and you keep coming back and
(16:56):
you 'ear in that respect, you didn't really get a
chance to take a break. It was there were two
rounds on you. You're exhausted, the other guys fresh, and
you're just getting beat up. Yeah. What does that teach
you everything? How to keep that dog in you? Right?
(17:17):
You want to keep fighting, You don't want to give up,
beaming help to endure and coming back over and over
and over and suffering. Once you have that, does it
translate to every aspect of your life? For me, it has.
Out of all the things I've done, I don't think
that's ever gonna leave me. As a championship belt right there.
When I run, I'm fighting, When I run my bike,
(17:42):
I'm fighting. When I'm doing anything, I'm fighting. The fighter
will always be in me. So that just doesn't never
leave me. But as you recovered, you had trouble remembering
other things, chunks of stuff I still don't remember. It's
just weird. I don't remember a couple of my buddies.
(18:03):
Still I'm learning them. Even now, you're meeting people who
you knew for a long time. Could you remember when
you met Kelly? No, No, I had no idea, so
you didn't even know when you met your girlfriend. When
I woke up, I thought I was still with my
ex girlfriend. We had been apart for almost two years,
so when I woke up, my feelings we're still for
(18:25):
that person. So did Kelly have to win your heart
all over again? She did flying colors, Like you're in
the hospital, your girlfriend is there, you don't even know
who she is, don't recognize her, and now she's got
to make you realize that you're together. So it was cool.
(18:46):
She was heart. She never pressured me into a relationship,
She never put it on me, or made you feel
bad for not remember who she was. She made me
like a big picture book with pictures of us doing
things and trying to help my memory and still nothing.
But I see these photos of us and me with
her family, and I don't know her friends and my
(19:08):
friends and all of this, Like how how was this
blocked out? You know? So she won me over again.
It's just made us stronger. Kyle's athletic ability is rooted
in the intangibles. It's hard, his focus, his fight. Kelly
shares these same qualities. These are the things that bond them,
(19:30):
that brings them balance. Here's Kelly. I could communicate for him,
no problem. If somebody else was asking him something, or
he needed to tell somebody something, he couldn't get the
words out. It just bonded it so quick, so easy.
And there was a point we didn't know if we
would just be friends or date or whatever else. That's
kind of how it turned into us dating because he
(19:51):
didn't want people to feel sorry for him. So my
main goal was just to be there and if he
needed to see, then I would help him see. If
you needed to walk, I'd help him be his legs.
You just see someone who's so passionate lose it and
then want it so bad you don't give a crap
about anything else. You just want to help them move
along their journey without feeling bad because they're a burden
(20:13):
on somebody. My most proud woman, so Kyler behind the scenes,
when no one's watching him or no one cares, he's
going harder than anybody else that has no hindrance to
their athletic ability. Like, my tumor messed with my brain
so much that now I have a clear conscience, right,
(20:33):
So it's like all this stuff that was like these
little disciplines and things I was just thinking about my
brains working full force. Now it's like everything's clear now,
and like I see all these things like, oh man,
if I did this better, I could do this, and
so you could see clearly. But and one of the
things that this affected was your eyes. Yeah, so I
had really good eyes before this. Now I'm visually imparent.
(20:59):
So my left eyes but he doesn't work. My right
eye ites like how does she ran rap over it?
And my eyes are fine. It's the nerves from the trauma.
I mean, that's probably the hardest thing that throughout this
whole situation. A couple of days after surgery, he said,
don't take my eyes. And that's the only thing that
has not come back. So that's pretty sad. But like
(21:21):
I said, it's just something that you can't sit around
and sulk in are you You'll just be stuck. So
we just kind of moved forward. And how does that
affect you when you go out to run Roman ancles
a lot? My depth perception is really off, so um
(21:47):
could come back. It might not. They don't know. Kelly
one of our my first rate I think, first real race.
We rank arm in arm and she never ran the
partner but maybe on here, hold on here. So you
wake up in the hospital, your girlfriend's there and you
(22:07):
don't even know she's your girlfriend, and she's never really
run before. She ran a little bit from what she
was telling like she would do like local races like
five cases. But now she's out with you for fifty.
So when I got back on my feet again and
started running and walking, she was there. Her and my
family were there with me every day. But on a
(22:30):
trail it's a completely different landscape. It's not flat and
you have to really be able to see so that
where are you going so we went out and ran
a couple of trails that I think I kicked every
rock and rolled backle on every stomp, Like so Kelly
is with you when the whole time you're running arm
(22:52):
trail that, how did she come through the day killed it?
She's a beast, she is. She's as tough as nails,
and she's stubborn, just like me. The longest he had
run was probably eight miles before this fift K we
signed up for. I had no idea about a pace
or anything. We were just going and at this point
(23:14):
in time, his eyes, if we got in a dark spike,
he couldn't go over, so we just had to lock
arms and keep going. So I had to say step
up left, right, and it was affecting him his back
because he was coming down where you couldn't see, and
I think the fourth lap was one. Mentally, I was like, Okay,
I don't know if I can do this. I don't
(23:36):
know if I can finish this, but where arm And
you can't say that because he's still going, And we
ended up coming around and when we finished, I mean
like it was just the most emotional thing in the
world because everybody was there and That's what I like
about the whole trail community is everybody was so supportive.
I mean, two people ripped their shirts up and we're like,
do you want to run another lap with someone else?
Run with you? If I was watching this on a
(23:57):
movie screen, what would I be seeing and hearing? We
were flying most of the day because more me, I
would get frustrated with myself because not performing where I
think it should be. I was just down on myself.
I think that whole run, you know, these people wizz
past me that we've never touched me before. I'm just
I'm competitive, and uh, it was just that was hard.
(24:20):
How can you be competitive after you've just had a brain,
which is what I am? What What does that tell
you about approaching any illness where there are certain laws
laid out you gotta do this guy do that. I'd
never never had anything like that happened to be not
(24:43):
broken hands, feeing all this random stuff from fighting and
running bikes. But like, I was never really ever taken
out like that. I'm not a stationary person, not built
that way. I would refuse to be that way. I'm
I'm hard to no. So I just did it, and
like that all my friends are the same, all the
same mentality. When I get to those darker moments, whatever
(25:08):
I dig for negativity, that's kind of what I feed
off of. You know, people doubting me, you know things
that happened to me throughout my life. And when I
get in those moments, I run harder. I get emotional
amounts like a roller coaster. I'm happy, I'm pissed, I'm
going through it all. I'm going through all the motions,
(25:28):
especially on long runs and races, and you know long
training days, you know, being out there for hours and
hours on your own, your mind's all over the place.
So you get into those dark zones, you get into
those areas where most people will never tap. And I
think that's what kind of feels me and keeps me
(25:48):
motivated to keep going. Kyle feeds on suffering. What do
you mean by that? Is? See, you're you're in a
in a race, and most of us normal mortals are
you're getting towards the end of the race, if we
put out a lot of effort, we're struggling. And he
fuels on that like he like sniffs it smells that
that's suffering that people are doing. He gets stronger, on
(26:09):
it like other people. When he sees other people like
shift back a gear that gives him an extra gear.
He'll try to like tell me to motivate myself, think
of something that just angers you, or just think of
the worst possible thing, and like like no, like absolutely not,
Like I'm looking up into the sky distract myself, like
I'm thinking about happy thoughts. But he just is someone
who he's just very emotional. The small things are what
(26:33):
he remembers, like the tiny little things, Like he just
picks those awful things out of his life and just
works against them and just digs harder than anyone I've
ever seen. But that's Kyle. Since his injury, Kyle has
worked to return to the trail running fighting because people
(26:57):
have cheered him through every step and every mile. The
journey in front of him will be a challenge. What
Cole is more than used to adversity. He's built for it. Now,
is Kelly still running with you? Arm and arm? I don't, Nope.
So I'm like I've adapted pretty well to my surroundings. Um,
you can do this alone now, Okay, then let's let's
(27:19):
go back to Colorado where you're running with Kelly this
last August. What was it that came to you to
decide to get down on a knee? Oh? Man, everything
that she's done, I mean, she made me love her
(27:40):
right off the bat. As much as I I have
no idea who she is, it was there like there
was something between us. She was the best. Like she's
been by my side anything I need. No, I can't
drive anymore, so she takes me to work every day,
picks me up, takes me to my doctor's appointments. She's
phenomenal with my daughter. They get along to pick on
(28:01):
me all the time. So what's it like that day
when you decide this is the day? So I had
planned it for a little bit now, And uh, I
secretly got the ring because you know, she does all
our bills and everything anyway, and so I secually got
this ring especially made for And uh we're running up
so the day before the trans rockies, and we're running
(28:25):
way far than we should have that day up mountainside
in Buena Vista, and I'm like the whole time running
like we'll keep going a little parks. I was looking
for a spot with a nice landscape in the background.
Can you see very well? Yeah? I can see. I
can make it up. I've been in the area before,
so I know the area. And that's so we're running
up this mountain side. Oh my gud, this is a
(28:46):
good spot. And I'm like, under EMA wants us to
do some media obligations whatever they want to do it
for you. She's like, what, Actually, I don't want to
talk in front of the camera. But so I had
set my phone up. She's scolding me. She's piste off
that she has. She's like, I just run. I don't
want to do this. I'm like, I had her answer
a fake question. Then I give him my little spiel.
I got down on when you and I asked her.
(29:09):
So the story goes, and how did she react? She
jumped on me. Well, she said, fucking serious. She didn't
believe me at first, but it was it was a
good day. Wow. Yeah. And and how long after that
was it when you could start to run alone, sharing
that moment with her, showing her what I used to do,
(29:30):
and like explaining it to her along the way, like
going over mountain peaks and stuff. It's like it's the
best and like you know, getting on top of the
mountain and like sharing that view with her and everyone.
It was was pretty cool. So being able to propose
at the top of the mountain, does that feel like
you won the battle that you've been through. Yeah in
(29:52):
a sense. Yeah, like I still got a lot of
ground to cover before all this, everything I did, I
waste well by myself. I'm trained by myself, did racist
by myself. I never had crew people crew me or
come out and pace me for races, and now it's
like I have a crew for a lifetime. If I
would have done that a little bit earlier in my life,
(30:13):
I don't know if how much it would have changed
my attitude. But I'm nothing without them. I think everyone
needs a team. But you can't be aloner forever. As
much as I still love that mentality, I can't, at
least I can't. So you know, my team is the best.
You know, my family, my friends, my daughter, you know
(30:34):
you guys, and everyone that's involved in my life. It's
my team. So and I have a good support system.
With that, I'm unstoppable. This trail season, Kyle's out to
(30:56):
prove himself. He'll be running ultras throughout, including an other
trip to the Sixth Day one hundred and twenty mile
trans Rockies. He's not just training to be the car
he was before his injury. He's training to be better,
to prove his worth. To endure this has been the
(31:16):
only way is through a podcast collaboration between under Armour
and I Heart Radio. Join us next time to hear
more stories with athletic performance and what it means to
push yourself through
I use. My family has my recovery. That's my fuel
right now. I'm just getting back to where I was,
you know, for them. But you know, I think they
feel like I should be more selfish and do it
for myself. But I feel like everything I do anymore
is for them. I don't think anything's easy. Like, if
(00:26):
I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it full fledged
and hard as I possibly can, especially on long runs
and races and you know, long training days. I don't
want things to be easy. I don't want things given
to me. I want to work for it, and I
don't think enough people do that. Welcome to the new podcast.
The only way is through a collaboration between under Armour
(00:49):
and I Heart Radio. Episode three, Kyle De's suffer Progress.
Some people have a fire that burns inside them. It
goes beyond training, beyond sport. It's intangible. It's the thing
that tells you to get back up after you've been
knocked down, the thing that tells you to keep moving
(01:11):
forward when you've got nothing left in the tank. Former
m M A Fighter turn ultra runner, Kyle Deets has
a burning desire to be challenged and to endure it.
Pushes him through steep inclines of mud and hard rock,
through ultra marathons that span hundreds of miles, and ultra
is the ultimate test of stammin us strength and determination,
(01:33):
because when you're sixty miles in with sixty miles to go,
you gotta search for something greater than yourself to push
toward that finish line. For Kyle, it's the thing that
keeps him primed for the battles that you can't train for.
It would even be the thing that pushes him through
the toughest fight of his life. Kyle sat down with
(01:57):
Kyle Fussman and share his story. He is cow, so
tell us what got you into trio running. My buddy,
his wife was going to do this race and he
was telling me about it before I knew what they were.
He was like, she's gonna run this thirty mile race
and I just started laughing. I was like, no one
runs thirty miles. That's impossible. So I looked into it
(02:19):
and he was signing up for a fifty miles. Did
you want to do it with me? I was like sure.
He'd failed on it a couple of times before He's like,
you get me to mile thirty, you can go do
your own thing. Where is his race taking place? Wisconsin?
He knew everything, every ins and outs of running, but
I was a better athlete than he was. So we
get the mile thirty and look over at him and
(02:41):
he was like, you guys can go. So me and
my buddy flinchement. I just took off and it was
until like the last five miles started cramping up. I
don't really know how to hydrate, right or this funny story.
I running and I that leg just because like it
seized up over my hamstring and I fell and I
look at the back of my leg and it looks
(03:02):
like there's a softball. It's just this giant nod. I'm
like screaming. I'm like grabbing sticks and rubbing sticks on
my leg and I'm like, so I get up, and
I'm like, all right, I think I'm good. What like
ten feet it happens again, he said, it looked like
a ghost walk again. But I finished and I did
pretty well, so that kind of let me hear. Running
(03:33):
for me was always discipline, like ad to cut weight
or to keep mind during something, to fight or whatever.
It was never fun. It was never ever ever fun,
so doing the traathl on stuff, but it takes me
to the trails whatever, And I was like, this true
running is where it's at. This is what I want
to do. The minute you got out on the trail,
(03:53):
this is it, this is what I was really born
to do. It was just like an instant love. I
love it first sight kind of that feelings what am
I doing? Like this is awesome? What what is it about? It?
Just being able to see so it's like it's majesty
sense of awe. You get that fresh air, leaves are changing. Son,
(04:22):
It's hard to explain if you don't do it. Were
you seeing life in a different way in a sense? Yeah,
just kind of like why haven't I done this sooner?
I grew up planning in the woods and running around.
It was like a sense of nostalgia, like it came
back to me. I was like, man, I feel like
a kid. I'm out here running being doing the hell
I want and climbed this tree I want Like no
(04:44):
one's going to tell you what to do out there.
The moment you just described was fantastic and it's your
first moment, is there the best moment that you can
recall on on the trails as you're moving forward. It
was a failed attempt, but uh I went to Dominica
a couple of years back and it was I was
(05:05):
running the White two Guboe trail. So the trail they say,
it's a hundred fifteen miles and they're like, well, how
long do you think go take to you? And I
was like, oh, maybe, like oh twenty four hours. I
can get it done today. So we fly into St.
Martin and it is the most mountainous island I've ever
seen in my life. So they give us the map
and we're looking at topo. Was just like ups and down,
(05:25):
up and down, up and down, up and down. I'm like, cool,
it's a hundred fifty miles. Was like yeah, we think
they don't know. So we're starting this tiny little Captain's
off the island and it's almost like a little bridge,
and we run up into the jungle. I've never ran
the jungle before. I don't really care for jungles, but
I'm like, what kind of wildlife do I need to
be worried about? Like snakes, spiders. I was like, there's
(05:47):
nothing on the island that's poison this. I was like, okay,
that's really good to know. Can anything kill me? They're like, well,
like there might be some stuff out that, like, all right, whatever.
So we start and it's so high. It's like sweating. Brutal.
It's literally brutal. And I had no idea what time
it was, and I didn't know how much time i'd
(06:08):
go by. I just wasn't looking at watch. I was
just trying to get done. How long was the race
in total? It wasn't a race. We were trying to
set the fastest known time on the trail and to
be the first ones to do it. So let me
go on. It comes nighttime. Here, crunch, crunch, crunch. Turn
on my head lamp and as far as I can
see how it's just crabs. Were literally running on top
of crabs, like you don't see the ground because it's
(06:30):
just giant crabs. And that's the only way two weys
yet to run on top of It's disgusting. I had
been running for exactly like straight. My last few miles,
I ran thirty minute miles, so dense it was. That's
very slow. I had only made it fifty five miles
(06:52):
in thirty seven thousand feet elevation game. It was insane.
But it was amazing trip. Just watching your face tell
that story, I can tell how much you loved even
the worst moments. Seven It was just hilarious. So what
year more or less did you start running on the trails? Shoot? Wow,
(07:16):
I'm going on maybe eight or nine years now, and
I actually have quite a bit of memory loss from
my injury. But uh, I don't know the Zach day
when I really started turning. Okay, so you have no
memory from the time that these symptoms are approaching. So
(07:37):
when I started acting we or whatever, people are like, hey,
are you all right? God, I just said, migraines. I've
always had them. I know how to deal with them.
So that was it. But people like skyline drugs is
what is going on. It's not acting like himself. Like
I would just be at work and I would leave
or I just wouldn't show up to work. That's not me.
(07:57):
One day I was at work. I didn't know what
I was doing. I didn't know how to do my job.
What was the job? I was on the computer, I
didn't know how like typing all this stuff, and I
didn't know my coworkers names. Everything was just shutting down.
(08:18):
I remember I was in the bathroom, and I didn't
know how to go to the bathroom. Now I didn't
know what I was doing, so he became reclusive. What
about your girlfriend? It's at this point things go blank.
Kyle only remembers this period because of what his friends
(08:38):
and family have told him. They've helped him fill in
the gaps. Kyle's dad, Fred, his daughter Ava, his friend Nathan,
and his girlfriend Kelly Well guide us through, just like
they did for Kyle. We had only been together probably
six months before things had started to like kind of flip.
(09:01):
She was like reaching out to my friends, like, what's
going on Kyle. Yeah, it's just like like he wasn't
and it needs to be reliable, and then it wasn't.
The last couple of months when I was getting these calls,
calls from friends, calls from his boss. You need to
check on Kyle. He goes he's always here early, and
(09:22):
he didn't show up. I think more towards the end
he stopped like coming around more because he forgot a
lot of things. And then it was just he was
very manic where he would not work out at all.
He just wasn't around a lot. I finally able to
track him down we just went for a run. Let
me get this spot, and I really had to relieve myself,
so I took off. I came back and I didn't
(09:43):
didn't see him. Eventually worked my way back down to
the car and all the cars were gone, Hey, you
were going to go to the doctor, right? Did you
do that? And I was telling everyone I was going
to the hospital. Whatever it wasn't I was like, yeah,
but girl, I got checked out. But it's just in
my head. I had no idea. I didn't know, Like
I hate saying that to him, but like I was like,
(10:03):
I didn't know if you were like a con artist
or what was happening, because when I first met you,
you were this person. And then like everything stopped. So
I called a doctor and he goes, we hadn't seen
Kyle in seven years really, And then my dad came
and I was like, we're taking you to the hospital
right now. I tell you this, We've seen something we
(10:24):
really don't like. Do you have a brain tumor? Compared
to their brain looked like about one third of the brain.
My tumor was so big it was pressing on my personality.
I think it was Saturday or Sunday, and I was
in my room and my grandma called me and she
told me, and so I cried to my mom about it.
(10:44):
It's pretty had no feelings, like if you were to
tell me your dog got ran over, it would be
nothing to me. That's been one of the hardest things
for me. I feel like I was a piece of
ship to people. He's super apologic to all of his friends,
thinking he let down, and I didn't go knock on
his door to see if he's okay. So we're kind
(11:05):
of a friend of mine, and people understand, but it's
like that kills me. That's kills me thinking about it.
Kyle's tumor was diagnosed as a hamagio parasite toma, a
(11:27):
type of aggressive tumor that can occur anywhere in the
body where capillaries exist. Kyle's grew in the frontal area
of his brain. Unlike most tumors, Kyle's was growing for
as long as eight years, remaining undetected, and by the
time it was discovered, was already stage three. Out of
all brain tumors, there's one percent chance anyone could ever
(11:47):
have this tumor, that's how rare it was. Thankfully, these
doctors they all came together, like I think there's two
teams that worked on me for a fifteen hours straight. Yeah,
we got it all out, and they said, if I
want to on it, and I probably wouldn't have made
another two weeks. It's insane, So very thankful for my
friends and family to get my ass in there. His
(12:10):
mind works in the athlete way. That's Kyle's girlfriend, Kelly.
She stuck about kyle side every step of the way.
When he woke up from surgery. There was no sit
down talk about well, if something goes wrong and you
can't run again. It was like, Okay, what do we
do next, Let's take the next step, Let's be there.
Let's just kind of move in the moment and not
(12:30):
worry about how far ahead we're looking. He couldn't walk.
He was just gonna keep standing until he could take
a step and then go from there out of the hospital.
I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't walk. I
couldn't really do ship. It was awful. I could see,
but like I couldn't make out anything in my ear.
(12:53):
I could hear, but it was just hanstant reading. Learning
how to walk again. That was tough. Like equilibrium was
so off. I'm stand I'll get up out of my
chair because I had to sit up for a long time.
I'm good, and I would just stand there just to
work on my balance. Tell the fall back into my chair.
Each member of Kyle's family played a significant role in
(13:16):
as we had. His dad spent each day helping him
learn to walk again and guiding him as Kyle pushed himself.
Here's fred Dee's and uh, okay, we're gonna go. We're
gonna go out the door. Okay. Now we're gonna go
out the door and pass Bob's house. Okay, we're gonna
go out the door, pass bop saus next door. And
he's wore out. I mean, that's all he's got. So
(13:38):
the next day we're gonna go a little bit further,
a little bit further and then get to the end
of the block, which is like a hundred mile marathon. Now,
just everything he had to get to the end of
the block. Touch the top foot them, let's stop right here.
You know, one little touch a televile bowl. I can't
carry you back. I'll be okay, I got touched to
(13:59):
the bowl. Okay, touch horrible back Kyle's daughter spent long
hours with her dad while he got better, playing games
and working on puzzles to help his mind. I haven't
sleep on the couch right next to him, so like
I would always be awake all the time. So then
if he needed help, I would help him up stairs
to use the bathroom. And I was sitting away for
(14:20):
him so I could take him back downstairs. We did
like word searches all the time, and we can never
find words, so we'd always give bad and then we
just put it down and walk away. They wouldn't give
up on me, and they wouldn't let me give up
on myself. Say with my daughter, she's built just like me.
What's she's the best? What's her name? Ava? What did
(14:42):
you feel like walking on your own for the first time?
It was emotional, it was and like my first run back.
So we have a skybridge at home. My buddies all
took me to go for a run. And he's dead
and want to be on a horrible winner, so they
took me up there. I think I ran down one
stretch of it. I don't know if you'd call it running,
(15:02):
but shuffled down and nothing. I just tucked in one
of the corners. It was broke down. It was it
was hard, Uh, just that you were able to be
running again, It was, it was, It was. It was
hard on me, like because I didn't think I wasn't
able to get back, Like you know, I'm not a
negative person, but it was like, how the hell am
(15:24):
I gonna get back on my feet after all this?
Here is Nathan TACKI a running partner and friend of Kyle's.
He's passionate about all sorts of different things, and when
it burns, it's bright man, just like the dimmer ever
there on that wall. When he finds something, whether it's
your frenzy likes or where any activity is gonna do
his mountain climbing, fighting bike, it's going to be that
(15:44):
lights which is on and it's on all the way.
There's no no dimmer there. Then my opinion of him
is so high as an athlete and it it was just
a man, but as a runner was so good that
I was like, finally slowed down a little by me.
I can keep up with them, finally, that's not true.
Maybe that first runner too that, but not so. At
what point does your memory return? I remember stuff like
(16:08):
off the bat I remember stuff, chunks of stuff I
still don't remember. Do you remember that you love to run? Yeah?
M hmm, it was weird. I remember. I woke up
wanting to train fighting again though like that, What's all
I wanted to do was started doing m hold on
going back for a minute. Yeah he did m M
(16:34):
A help give you the tools through this through training. Yeah.
So like our gym was known for being one of
the toughest gyms as well, and you basically go through
like a hell week. It's everyone just speaks the ship
out of you. Yeah, you can prove your worth. You
get your ass kicked, and you keep coming back and
(16:56):
you 'ear in that respect, you didn't really get a
chance to take a break. It was there were two
rounds on you. You're exhausted, the other guys fresh, and
you're just getting beat up. Yeah. What does that teach
you everything? How to keep that dog in you? Right?
(17:17):
You want to keep fighting, You don't want to give up,
beaming help to endure and coming back over and over
and over and suffering. Once you have that, does it
translate to every aspect of your life? For me, it has.
Out of all the things I've done, I don't think
that's ever gonna leave me. As a championship belt right there.
When I run, I'm fighting, When I run my bike,
(17:42):
I'm fighting. When I'm doing anything, I'm fighting. The fighter
will always be in me. So that just doesn't never
leave me. But as you recovered, you had trouble remembering
other things, chunks of stuff I still don't remember. It's
just weird. I don't remember a couple of my buddies.
(18:03):
Still I'm learning them. Even now, you're meeting people who
you knew for a long time. Could you remember when
you met Kelly? No, No, I had no idea, so
you didn't even know when you met your girlfriend. When
I woke up, I thought I was still with my
ex girlfriend. We had been apart for almost two years,
so when I woke up, my feelings we're still for
(18:25):
that person. So did Kelly have to win your heart
all over again? She did flying colors, Like you're in
the hospital, your girlfriend is there, you don't even know
who she is, don't recognize her, and now she's got
to make you realize that you're together. So it was cool.
(18:46):
She was heart. She never pressured me into a relationship,
She never put it on me, or made you feel
bad for not remember who she was. She made me
like a big picture book with pictures of us doing
things and trying to help my memory and still nothing.
But I see these photos of us and me with
her family, and I don't know her friends and my
(19:08):
friends and all of this, Like how how was this
blocked out? You know? So she won me over again.
It's just made us stronger. Kyle's athletic ability is rooted
in the intangibles. It's hard, his focus, his fight. Kelly
shares these same qualities. These are the things that bond them,
(19:30):
that brings them balance. Here's Kelly. I could communicate for him,
no problem. If somebody else was asking him something, or
he needed to tell somebody something, he couldn't get the
words out. It just bonded it so quick, so easy.
And there was a point we didn't know if we
would just be friends or date or whatever else. That's
kind of how it turned into us dating because he
(19:51):
didn't want people to feel sorry for him. So my
main goal was just to be there and if he
needed to see, then I would help him see. If
you needed to walk, I'd help him be his legs.
You just see someone who's so passionate lose it and
then want it so bad you don't give a crap
about anything else. You just want to help them move
along their journey without feeling bad because they're a burden
(20:13):
on somebody. My most proud woman, so Kyler behind the scenes,
when no one's watching him or no one cares, he's
going harder than anybody else that has no hindrance to
their athletic ability. Like, my tumor messed with my brain
so much that now I have a clear conscience, right,
(20:33):
So it's like all this stuff that was like these
little disciplines and things I was just thinking about my
brains working full force. Now it's like everything's clear now,
and like I see all these things like, oh man,
if I did this better, I could do this, and
so you could see clearly. But and one of the
things that this affected was your eyes. Yeah, so I
had really good eyes before this. Now I'm visually imparent.
(20:59):
So my left eyes but he doesn't work. My right
eye ites like how does she ran rap over it?
And my eyes are fine. It's the nerves from the trauma.
I mean, that's probably the hardest thing that throughout this
whole situation. A couple of days after surgery, he said,
don't take my eyes. And that's the only thing that
has not come back. So that's pretty sad. But like
(21:21):
I said, it's just something that you can't sit around
and sulk in are you You'll just be stuck. So
we just kind of moved forward. And how does that
affect you when you go out to run Roman ancles
a lot? My depth perception is really off, so um
(21:47):
could come back. It might not. They don't know. Kelly
one of our my first rate I think, first real race.
We rank arm in arm and she never ran the
partner but maybe on here, hold on here. So you
wake up in the hospital, your girlfriend's there and you
(22:07):
don't even know she's your girlfriend, and she's never really
run before. She ran a little bit from what she
was telling like she would do like local races like
five cases. But now she's out with you for fifty.
So when I got back on my feet again and
started running and walking, she was there. Her and my
family were there with me every day. But on a
(22:30):
trail it's a completely different landscape. It's not flat and
you have to really be able to see so that
where are you going so we went out and ran
a couple of trails that I think I kicked every
rock and rolled backle on every stomp, Like so Kelly
is with you when the whole time you're running arm
(22:52):
trail that, how did she come through the day killed it?
She's a beast, she is. She's as tough as nails,
and she's stubborn, just like me. The longest he had
run was probably eight miles before this fift K we
signed up for. I had no idea about a pace
or anything. We were just going and at this point
(23:14):
in time, his eyes, if we got in a dark spike,
he couldn't go over, so we just had to lock
arms and keep going. So I had to say step
up left, right, and it was affecting him his back
because he was coming down where you couldn't see, and
I think the fourth lap was one. Mentally, I was like, Okay,
I don't know if I can do this. I don't
(23:36):
know if I can finish this, but where arm And
you can't say that because he's still going, And we
ended up coming around and when we finished, I mean
like it was just the most emotional thing in the
world because everybody was there and That's what I like
about the whole trail community is everybody was so supportive.
I mean, two people ripped their shirts up and we're like,
do you want to run another lap with someone else?
Run with you? If I was watching this on a
(23:57):
movie screen, what would I be seeing and hearing? We
were flying most of the day because more me, I
would get frustrated with myself because not performing where I
think it should be. I was just down on myself.
I think that whole run, you know, these people wizz
past me that we've never touched me before. I'm just
I'm competitive, and uh, it was just that was hard.
(24:20):
How can you be competitive after you've just had a brain,
which is what I am? What What does that tell
you about approaching any illness where there are certain laws
laid out you gotta do this guy do that. I'd
never never had anything like that happened to be not
(24:43):
broken hands, feeing all this random stuff from fighting and
running bikes. But like, I was never really ever taken
out like that. I'm not a stationary person, not built
that way. I would refuse to be that way. I'm
I'm hard to no. So I just did it, and
like that all my friends are the same, all the
same mentality. When I get to those darker moments, whatever
(25:08):
I dig for negativity, that's kind of what I feed
off of. You know, people doubting me, you know things
that happened to me throughout my life. And when I
get in those moments, I run harder. I get emotional
amounts like a roller coaster. I'm happy, I'm pissed, I'm
going through it all. I'm going through all the motions,
(25:28):
especially on long runs and races, and you know long
training days, you know, being out there for hours and
hours on your own, your mind's all over the place.
So you get into those dark zones, you get into
those areas where most people will never tap. And I
think that's what kind of feels me and keeps me
(25:48):
motivated to keep going. Kyle feeds on suffering. What do
you mean by that? Is? See, you're you're in a
in a race, and most of us normal mortals are
you're getting towards the end of the race, if we
put out a lot of effort, we're struggling. And he
fuels on that like he like sniffs it smells that
that's suffering that people are doing. He gets stronger, on
(26:09):
it like other people. When he sees other people like
shift back a gear that gives him an extra gear.
He'll try to like tell me to motivate myself, think
of something that just angers you, or just think of
the worst possible thing, and like like no, like absolutely not,
Like I'm looking up into the sky distract myself, like
I'm thinking about happy thoughts. But he just is someone
who he's just very emotional. The small things are what
(26:33):
he remembers, like the tiny little things, Like he just
picks those awful things out of his life and just
works against them and just digs harder than anyone I've
ever seen. But that's Kyle. Since his injury, Kyle has
worked to return to the trail running fighting because people
(26:57):
have cheered him through every step and every mile. The
journey in front of him will be a challenge. What
Cole is more than used to adversity. He's built for it. Now,
is Kelly still running with you? Arm and arm? I don't, Nope.
So I'm like I've adapted pretty well to my surroundings. Um,
you can do this alone now, Okay, then let's let's
(27:19):
go back to Colorado where you're running with Kelly this
last August. What was it that came to you to
decide to get down on a knee? Oh? Man, everything
that she's done, I mean, she made me love her
(27:40):
right off the bat. As much as I I have
no idea who she is, it was there like there
was something between us. She was the best. Like she's
been by my side anything I need. No, I can't
drive anymore, so she takes me to work every day,
picks me up, takes me to my doctor's appointments. She's
phenomenal with my daughter. They get along to pick on
(28:01):
me all the time. So what's it like that day
when you decide this is the day? So I had
planned it for a little bit now, And uh, I
secretly got the ring because you know, she does all
our bills and everything anyway, and so I secually got
this ring especially made for And uh we're running up
so the day before the trans rockies, and we're running
(28:25):
way far than we should have that day up mountainside
in Buena Vista, and I'm like the whole time running
like we'll keep going a little parks. I was looking
for a spot with a nice landscape in the background.
Can you see very well? Yeah? I can see. I
can make it up. I've been in the area before,
so I know the area. And that's so we're running
up this mountain side. Oh my gud, this is a
(28:46):
good spot. And I'm like, under EMA wants us to
do some media obligations whatever they want to do it
for you. She's like, what, Actually, I don't want to
talk in front of the camera. But so I had
set my phone up. She's scolding me. She's piste off
that she has. She's like, I just run. I don't
want to do this. I'm like, I had her answer
a fake question. Then I give him my little spiel.
I got down on when you and I asked her.
(29:09):
So the story goes, and how did she react? She
jumped on me. Well, she said, fucking serious. She didn't
believe me at first, but it was it was a
good day. Wow. Yeah. And and how long after that
was it when you could start to run alone, sharing
that moment with her, showing her what I used to do,
(29:30):
and like explaining it to her along the way, like
going over mountain peaks and stuff. It's like it's the
best and like you know, getting on top of the
mountain and like sharing that view with her and everyone.
It was was pretty cool. So being able to propose
at the top of the mountain, does that feel like
you won the battle that you've been through. Yeah in
(29:52):
a sense. Yeah, like I still got a lot of
ground to cover before all this, everything I did, I
waste well by myself. I'm trained by myself, did racist
by myself. I never had crew people crew me or
come out and pace me for races, and now it's
like I have a crew for a lifetime. If I
would have done that a little bit earlier in my life,
(30:13):
I don't know if how much it would have changed
my attitude. But I'm nothing without them. I think everyone
needs a team. But you can't be aloner forever. As
much as I still love that mentality, I can't, at
least I can't. So you know, my team is the best.
You know, my family, my friends, my daughter, you know
(30:34):
you guys, and everyone that's involved in my life. It's
my team. So and I have a good support system.
With that, I'm unstoppable. This trail season, Kyle's out to
(30:56):
prove himself. He'll be running ultras throughout, including an other
trip to the Sixth Day one hundred and twenty mile
trans Rockies. He's not just training to be the car
he was before his injury. He's training to be better,
to prove his worth. To endure this has been the
(31:16):
only way is through a podcast collaboration between under Armour
and I Heart Radio. Join us next time to hear
more stories with athletic performance and what it means to
push yourself through
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