December 3, 2024 • 50 mins
Daniel laces up for a conversation with ultrarunner John Kelly, one of only 20 people to finish the brutal 60-hour, 100+ mile Barkley Marathons race in the event's nearly 40-year history.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Up until the very first year that you finished it
in twenty seventeen. Yep, and it started in the mid eighties.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yeah, eighty six.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Eighty six.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Okay, how many people had finished it by by your
first year of running it?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Fourteen had finished.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Fourteen humans had ever finished this race.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Tashha Tosh Show, Tosh Show Show, Happy, Happy Tuesday. It's
your buddy, Daniel Tosh. Welcome to another episode of Tosh Show.
Who I am relieved?
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Why are you relieved?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Eddie? I done? Goofed?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I done, Goofed. I'm worried they're gonna back trace me.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I consider myself to be a top ten parent. True
or false doesn't matter in my head. I'm a top
ten parent. But what I did to my daughter the
other day, if someone were to say, hey, we we
have to take your child away from you for a
week just so you understand how bad what you did was,
(01:09):
I would be like that seems fair?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, you ready for this?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, let's hear it.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Every day of my son's life I walk them to school,
but I walk him with his sister. His sister's year
and a half a little bit older. We get there,
we do a routine. We go to his class, puts
his book back away. We play for about three or
four minutes outside, and then we go in. We start
on the first project of the day. They let the
(01:39):
parents kind of assist, you know, with the first little
writing activity. He and my daughter sometimes, hey, she participates
with me.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
On this day, they.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Were doing a little One of the classmates was doing
a presentation to start the class, and my daughter is
being a little loud, so I excuse myself with her.
We go outside, stand by the window and watch from outside.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Got it nice?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Okay, you're not ready for this.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I don't think I am.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
There's a metal bin about table height, you know, just slightly.
My daughter's a little bit taller than it is. That
they put all the balls in from recess. I thought
it'd be funny. I put my daughter inside of it.
It's right next to the window. I can watch inside.
And then my daughter starts throwing the balls out. And
(02:33):
then I picked the balls up, I put them back in.
She's laughing. Now we've got a game. Okay, she throws
the balls out, I pick them up, I put them in.
I go to my phone, I look at things. I
take a photo over how cute, let's do it again. Okay,
next thing, I know, I don't know what I was doing,
certainly wasn't paying attention. She climbs up out of the
(02:57):
cage on our way, flips over, heads straight down into concrete,
bites her tongue in half, bleeding. I'm positive she's concussed,
just screaming. The TK teacher assistant she sees me. She's like, oh,
like she saw it. Oh no, there's nothing I can
(03:20):
do at this point. I'm like, oh no, so I
just start running. No, I'm kidding. I picked my totter
up and she's just screaming, like, oh why have you
forsaken me?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Father?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
You've never let me get hurt? And I'm just like,
oh no, I'm holding her, and you know, my wife,
she I don't know where she was at the time.
She just comes running out of the classroom. She's like,
oh no, what happened. I I just tell the truth.
I'm like, she was in this thing. She climbed, got
herself up and flipped over, landing on her head. You know,
(03:54):
do we need to go get a cat scan. I
don't know what you're supposed to do. I don't know
how hard you're supposed to hit in your head on concrete.
Turns out she has bit her tongue a little bit,
not too bad, but she is bleeding. But that that's
starting to stop. But now I'm like, well, i gotta
feel her head. You know when a kid hits their head,
it knots up really good. Yeah, okay, I can't find anything. Nothing.
I'm just like, there's nothing wrong with her. She laid
(04:17):
on her head, she rolled out of it perfectly. Maybe
she hit her shoulder. I didn't actually see the impact.
All I know is she's got a nap coming up,
and it's gonna be three hours long. And for those
three hours, you know, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be
panic stricken. Right, her mood snaps back to normal, her
eyes look fine. I'm trying to do concussion protocol. Yeah,
(04:39):
I don't know what it is, you know. I I'm like,
let's go to the blue tent. Yeah, let's see if
you can still play. She's playing. You gotta get her
back out there. I keep thinking in my head, she's
probably gonna be nauseous or irritable if it's a real concussion.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
She was neither of those. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
She goes down for the nap. She sleeps for two
and a half hours. I keep checking her. There's movement.
Her personality seems slightly altered. But whatever, maybe it's for
the better. The rest of the day, she's fine. You know,
what are you gonna do? This happens? Yep, you feel
so stupid.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
You do feel bad, God.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
You feel stupid. You're like, how can I let this happen?
I never let it happen with my son. He never
never took a spill under my watch. But my daughter, whoo,
this was a real one. Anyway, I got a new
game I want to play. It's called Peter Verse nine.
What do you like better, Eddie, Peter or none?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
I'm going none.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
That's how you play.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
No.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Give you guys an update about having my wife on
the podcast now. The negotiations have hit a snag, partially
because my daughter was dropped on her head.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
It's okay, okay, but.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
You know this year, calendar year twenty twenty four not
looking good. First of the year twenty twenty five. I
think I can make it happen. I think she'll be
over it by then, and I'll be honest with you.
Have my wife probably not gonna be that interesting anyway,
You're gonna find out what my knight's like every day.
(06:11):
It's like, yeah, you want to go to bed, Yeah,
it's eight forty five, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
We have a wonderful relationship. It is riveting. So so
many fun stories to share, all right, not as fun
as today's guest. Today's guest may single handedly be the
most impressive person physically that I've ever met in my life.
(06:37):
Enjoy Pasha. There's a good chance my guest today ran
all the way here from Tennessee. He is one of
only a handful of people in the history of humankind
to finish the Barkley Marathons, and he's done it three times.
Please welcome to the studio where we sit down in
(06:59):
chairs for an hour like normal people, mild mannered masochist,
I mean, ultra marathon or John Kelly.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Thank you. Excited to be here. Didn't come all the
way from Tennessee, but I was tempted to run to
the studio here.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Oh man, where'd you come from?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Santa Monica? Just down the read.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, Santa Monica, I thought he was in Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
You live in Tennessee, though, don't you.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, yeah, I'm right there on the North Carolina Tennessee border.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
You guys got hammered. We did on this storm? Dude,
you how did your neck of the woods do?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So? Our house was very fortunate. We lost power and
water for a few days. Our road was washed out.
But yeah, there are definitely areas that I've effectively been
wiped off the map.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Oh that's awful. Oh well, I'm gonna get more in Tennessee.
Let's start this with my first question. Okay, do you
believe in ghosts?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
John?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I'm ghost agnostic. Okay, evidence isn't there?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Your name is John Kelly. You worked under President Trump.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I get that a lot. I get lots of angry
messages on social media thinking that I'm that John Kelly,
But no, not me.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Were you on the track team in high school?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I was did track and cross country. I was good,
definitely not great. Took about ten years after that before
I started running again.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Can you be a great ultra marathoner at nineteen or
does it really take experience? And like I mean, you
can go till you're fifty, right or is that not true?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah? The things that I do, the multiple day events,
there are people still competing at the top end until
about fifty. Some of the shorter events you could certainly
do when you're nineteen and be extremely good. But the
longer things get, the more time you have to have
to build that aerobic base and to build the experience.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
What's the longest distance you've ever run? A one hundred mile?
You ever done one of those dumb races?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Oh? Yeah, that's I focus on the multi day stuff,
and so one event I did was about three hundred
and fifty.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Three hundred and fifty miles.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
I love everything you're saying.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And when you average your time out, what minute miles
are you doing for three hundred and fifty miles?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
So that one took about five and a half days,
but that's including sleep. I probably got about six staight
hours of sleep over that period of time. So you know,
in the mountains for that length of time, if twenty
to thirty minutes a mile is going to be pretty solid.
You look at Barkley and it's really all you have
to do is move thirty minutes a mile to finish
(09:28):
and you're good.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, all right, let's get into the Barkley marathons because
now this I'm gonna I'm gonna ramble on it.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
You correct me when I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Somehow something came into my feed I started reading about this,
and then I just became fascinated, and then I just
all I could do was look into this. So the
Barkley Marathons are a multi day race of five five
day race sixty hours, sixty hours, sixty hour race in
the mountains of Tennessee, and it's basically every you're running
(10:01):
a loop, which is basically a marathon. It's a little
less than a marathon. Yes, twenty miles a day, is
that what it is? Or twenty miles a loop?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, he calls it twenty miles. It's more like twenty six.
It's all on marks, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Fair enough, it's unmarked. You don't have like a GPS
with you or anything like that. You have to run
this crazy race. There's a book they get to rip
a page out that coincides with your numbers, so that
to verify that you actually went this.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
People lose pages.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
People's books have been occasionally mysteriously lost or misplaced, and
if you don't get that page, your race doesn't count.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
You know, you're not in the record books.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
As someone who finished it and up until the very
first year that you finished it in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yep, how many people had finished the race? And it
started in the.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Mid eighties, yeah, eighty six, eighty.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Six, okay, so you know no one can do that? Math,
but how many years with that? When twenty seventeen, thirty one,
thirty one? All right, so how many people had finished
by your first year of running it?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Fourteen had finished.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Fourteen humans had ever finished this race. This is why
I became fascinating. The first person to finish the race
was a full decade after the race had been going on.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Correct, Yeah, and he kind of everyone thought it was
a joke at first, like no one can actually do
the first five loops, and this Mark Williams came over
from the UK and wasn't in on the joke, and
he went ahead and went out and did the full
five loops.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
How many people have finished to this day twenty now
and this year twenty twenty four, the first female finished.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
What did you think of that? Were you upset?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
No?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
It was incredible. So that was Jasmine Paris, a brit
I lived in the UK for a few years and
got to know her quite well, and it was. I mean,
I don't know that I'll ever see anything in sports
like that, definitely not in person. Everyone had given up.
She had no chance. Time was running out and then
(12:01):
running into camp and finishing like that with thirty seconds
to spare.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
If she was thirty five seconds wouldn't have counted.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Nope, there is sixty hours.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
She was thirty seconds away from it, not counting, finished
all five loops.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
How many women every year do you see in the race.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I'd say it's about a quarter, so you know, eight
to ten.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
They only let forty people run, right.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, and it's math to try to figure out the
number of total loops amongst those forty people.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And this race was based off of the assassination of
MLK what's his name, James Arlwray James ear Olray, who
escaped from prison and was caught sixty hours later and
had only made it twelve miles away.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, I think it was less than that, just a
few miles. Kind of curled up in the fetal position,
and so Gary Cantrell, the race director, kind of said,
I could go one hundred miles in that amount of
time in those mountains.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
That was the genesis of the race.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, By the way, the guy Gary Cantrell, he's the
one that started this race.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
But is he a runner.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, yeah, he's quite an accomplished culture runner back in
his day, and also a heavy smoker. So there's where
you get your mix there.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Okay. Has he ever finished the race?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
No, No, not.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Like not close. He's done a loop at least.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And by the way, does he own this land?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
No, it's a state park.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
And has the state ever been like, oh, you can't
run on this Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
In the early two thousands, the head park ranger effectively
tried to shut it down and it took a resolution
by the Tennessee State Senate to keep it going. And
that's why things are so strict now on kind of
protecting the land that we run, on limiting the number
of entrants, limiting any sort of spectators.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
It's not a spectator sport or is it at all?
And no, can I come and watch the finish?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
No, because it's in a tiny park that's really resource
in space constrained as it is, just with the participants
and most of it is off trail out in the wilderness.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
I just want to see the final leg. Yeah, I mean,
it's about cameras. Will he set up cameras.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Ever, he has had a few people on specific spots
on course with cameras before, and he does have a
few media people there each year.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Okay, why I'm so fascinated with you in particular is
that you grew up in a neighboring mountain, and the
odds of that are are ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
This is a tiny rural community that you know, the
high schools don't even have track and cross country teams there.
No one runs. The whole idea of running for fun
is just a foreign concept to most people there. So
it's it's astronomic laweds someone would want to do it,
much less be capable of finishing it.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
He probably has no desire to commercialize the Barkley Marathons.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Oh, there are no sponsors. The entry fee is still
a dollar sixty.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And what's that the price of so.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Originally it was supposed to be one or yeah, one
cent per mile with one hundred mile or plus. The
fund you're on added together is where it came from.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
To get in the race. This is all so fascining.
You don't just like, oh, I want to show up
for this race. It's not like the New York Marathon.
You have to write an essay every year? Do you
have to write an essay? Are you grandfathered in?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Now?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, I'm grandfather done and once you finish, so I
don't waste my time or his with a big essay.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
And what is he grading papers? What is he looking
for in this essay?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
He's looking for do you have the motivation and do
you have the credentials to actually have a legit shot
at this?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Well, what if you're like a famous ultra marathon or
but you're like you don't want to pick up a
pen and jot a few things down.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Well, if you're not motivated enough to do that, you're
probably not motivated enough to finish the race.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
John, I hate everything you're saying, and it's one hundred
percent accurate. Okay, so you write an essay. He lets
you in the race. Now, the race always takes place
in April or May, March or April. Marcher, I don't
I tried to research it. This is just all from memory.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
You've done good again, much better than a lot of
running podcasts that.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
It's just it's just batshit bonkers what they're doing. Okay,
he lets you know when the race is going to
be how far in advance?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
A few months?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, But then when you get there, the start time
is tbd.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It can be anywhere between midnight and noon. And you're
notified an hour ahead.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Of time, okay, And then when the race starts, he
blows a conk shell or something that's that's your one
hour warning. That's a one hour warning. And then when
he lights a cigarette, start running. Yep, everyone at the
same time or is it staggered.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
No, it's it's everyone. It's a small field, so that
kind of keeps things spaced out.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Your preferred time to start the.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Race an hour before first glide, I think for me
is perfect because you start off on a climb, and
on the climbs you don't really need light very much
because you're going slow, so that by the time you
start your first descent you have daylight.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Okay, and sure you're going through the mountains.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
It's not a loop, but it's not like a trail
that like every you know, tenth tree is painted red.
It's you have to figure this out. He gives you
a watch, like some digital crappy watch.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yes, I get ten dollars Walmart Time.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Next I wear when I I only wear it when
I go surfing, and then that way, I know it's okay,
the kid's about to wake up. Time to get home
and be a parent. But you have to navigate some
new path through the mountains. And the elevation that that
you're going up and down throughout this sixty hour race
(17:39):
is the equivalent, uh to two up and downs of
Mount Everest.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yep, zero zero net elevation change.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
That is ridiculous. So that's the race. Now, the first
time you ran it, did you finish?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
No? I got three loops?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Is that that's considered a fun run? It is so
calls if you do three loops of fun. By the way,
each loop, first loop one direction, second loop opposite direction,
and then who's ever in first place for the fifth
and final loop, they get to pick which way they go.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Is that an advantage at all?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
It is generally clockwise direction is preferred and someone just
might be more familiar with a given direction.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Have you ever been in the lead for the fifth loop?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah? So I chose my direction both of my first
two finishes, and this past year I kind of I'd
already finished twice and I knew both directions pretty well.
So I kind of just told the other people they
could pick and I go out whenever look at you. Well,
I also, you know, I wanted the finish in the
other direction.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Let's talk about the years you finish twenty seventeen, what's
the next one?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Twenty twenty three?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Oh, what a huge gap of failure in between there.
Do you consider it failure if you don't finish?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
I only tried twice in that gap. The first time
I was in the lead after two loops and I
just quit. I didn't want to do it.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I was cursed with knowing what the later loops would
bring and realized that I just didn't didn't care enough
to go through that. And then twenty twenty two, I
lost my pages. I had them in a little waist belt,
and the waist belt came off. I spent hours going
up and down a hill looking and by the time
(19:27):
I found them, just not enough time left to keep going.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I mean, just horrible depression after that.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
No, it's fine, And you know it's like you said,
do I consider it failure? You know, maybe technically, but
like those early failures for me in Barkley, like my
first year, I did three loops the second I did four.
Those failures were my quickest path to success. I really
jumped in the deep end and had no idea what
(19:52):
I was doing that first year. So sure my goal
was to finish, but failing is what led to my
eventual finish. You won it, yeah, I want it in
two thousand and so I was the only finisher in
twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Was that the most rewarding race of your life?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
The first finish, all I wanted to do was was
get there. The second finish, I wanted to enjoy it,
and it was. It was incredible. Like the final climb
goes up a mountain that overlooks my childhood home, and
it was a beautiful sunset, perfect conditions, and like I
just stopped and enjoyed it for like twenty minutes at
the top, and that was rewarding. And then this past
(20:30):
year getting to see others finish, Jasmine finish like that
was that was an experience.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but this has happened
where I panicked when you said you stopped and enjoyed
it for twenty minutes. People have tried to do like
a twenty minute cat nap and then just fall asleep
for eight hours.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, that's happened, and it's something that I'm always concerned about.
I try to follow it. If I do do that
on the trail, I try to find really uncomfortable spots
to do it to where I know that my body
will wake it self up after a bit of time.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I think I read about somebody that tried to fall
asleep in like a tire rut that was full of water.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
That was that was me?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
That was you? Yeah, that was you.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Oh I read about that that was so put himself
in a tire rut, just like what he's saying, because
it was like, this is the most uncomfortable place. There's
no way I'll sleep for a long time in here.
How long did you sleep?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
It was, you know, fifteen minutes if even that? And
that was so sorry. This was this was one of
maybe my craziest culture running story.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Wait wait wait there was a family. Yeah, okay, go on.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
So I laid down. I found this muddy tire track, like, oh,
that's perfect, and I laid down there for a few
minutes and then I look up and here comes this
guy and his wife and his two kids walking up
and just without hesitation. I go, oh, hey, Kit, how's
it going? And he says, oh, that's a John Kelly
Nap if I've ever seen one, And I mumble something
(21:55):
about Barkley and he just keeps going. And it wasn't
until after the race that I was like, wait a second,
the probability that someone was out there at that time,
in this random place that it happened to be one
of my childhood friends from twenty years ago that I
hadn't seen since high school. I immediately recognized him, and
(22:18):
then he just kept going like everything was fine. So
I was, you know what, it didn't happen. I was convinced.
I was like, I finally had my first real hallucination.
Because other people have hallucinations like seeing pink unicorns and
all sorts of crazy stuff that never happens to me.
I was like, I finally had it. And then I
found him on LinkedIn of all places. I was like,
(22:39):
hey kid, this is going to sound weird, but was
this you? And he said yeah, yeah, it was me.
We love going and for hikes out at Frozenhead. I
actually saw it.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Why did he say? Why did he say the John
Kelly Knap thing?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Because he knew about Berkley, and he knew what I
had done there, so, you know, because normally I would
think if you see someone face down in a muddy
higher track in the woods, you might be concerned and yeah,
but no, you just kept going face down. Yeah, well,
you know, I'm a stomach squeeper.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Well I meant to be uncomfortable. Do people in the
area are they even familiar with this race? Do they
know that people throughout the world care about this race?
That are these elite athletes?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
They definitely do now And that's been one of the
cool things for me is seeing that knowledge and that
pride and it grow over the years that I've done it.
When I was a kid, my dad kind of knew
that crazy people showed up in the woods at the
park there once a year, but didn't know much more
about it.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I mean, there should be a sign going into your
city that says you live there. I mean, do people
know who you are in town? Like, oh, hometown boy
made good or no a bit? Yeah, that's my goal here.
My goal here is to get you on a Wheaty's box.
If anybody should be on a Wheati's box. By the way,
we underrated Cereal it tastes pretty good if you dump
(23:57):
a lot of sugar on it.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
What about your diet? Are you crazy about your diet?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
No, I'm pretty infamous for my sweet tooth and junk foods,
so it's fule. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
How do you eat during the race?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
A lot of its liquid calories and jels. Some of
it is also in a race that length, You're you're
missing actual meals too, So between loops in particular, might
have a burger or pizza or whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You're missing birthdays, missing meal the days. But by the way,
has it ever fallen on anything where you're like it?
You know, it has some pretty uh serious conflicts with
your personal life.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
That's something that I avoid. Uh, it's and it is
a bit of a minefield now as the kids have
more activities, there are only so many weekends per.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Year, endless activities. It's just NonStop. The every day with
these kids a new thing I have to care about.
You have four children, Do you like being a dad?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
That's pretty fun.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Huh that's great.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Are your hands on father?
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah? Yeah, all right, it's I mean, now, I'm not
a helicopter parent by any means. No, No, they've.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Got to learn Okay, well, I mean sure, but.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Got to have the freedom to screw up, all right, But.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
You don't want to get hurt physically. You live out
for me, not permanently. The best parenting anybody's out. You
don't want to get it hurt permanently. I love that.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Wait, when you go for a daily run, what do
you go distance? Or do you go time?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Mainly distance? But you know I don't go as far
as everyone assumes I would. I really don't train more
than a serious marathon runner would.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
More than a serious marathon or you know that seems
like a lot. So you're doing multi I mean five miles,
ten miles?
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, five tennis?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
You ever run on a treadmill?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I do? I hate it?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
You hate it?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
But I did start doing I got a bike trainer
recently and started doing this swift thing with the virtual
kind of video game thing. That's fun. You enjoy that?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah? Can you bring anything on your persons during this race?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I mean other than electronic devices?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, I mean, like you can bring some toilet paper
if you felt like it. Do people do that?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
How many times do you go to the bathroom?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And when I say go to the bathroom, I'm not
talking about urine during this two and a half days.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
This time, probably a couple of times. It's you know,
one of the secrets of my first finish. It was
zero none, zero poop run. Yeah, you held it the
whole two and a half days. I just didn't didn't
need it. I guess I was mostly on luck with
calories and it never had the urge.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
And then what do you do do you just go.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, find a nice spot in the woods somewhere, or
hold it for between loops when you can actually have
the luxury of a nice bathhouse and toilet.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
When the year that you quit stopped whatever after two
laps because you knew what was going to come ahead.
Talk about the things that come ahead, your mind playing
tricks on you.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, the worst for me, everyone kind of has their
own strengths and weaknesses, and the worst for me is
dealing with sleep deprivation. Like some people hallucinate, some people
just can't think straight I will straight up, you know,
I'll fall asleep on my feet and go down harder
than the bad guy in a Rocky movie. I just
cannot stay awake. And so that's that's the point for
(27:18):
where for me it still gets pretty miserable.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
So how long do you get to sleep after each loop?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Generally none? This past year, I was the only one
of the finishers that swlept, and I went back to
my campsite between loops four and five and slept for
like twenty minutes, and that let people get out in
the directions they wanted to go. And then I was
on my way two.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
And a half days and you had a twenty minute nap.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah, I mean, do you realize what we're.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Talking about here? Guys? You understand why I was so
passionate about this. This is just nuts.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
I can't make it past lunch without needing an hour nap,
and then I need one hour to recover.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
But have you ever, really, have you ever had that
motivation to just see if you could push through it? Well,
not running, I think you could do it.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
What are you talking?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
No, I'm not cut out for this. I don't like running.
Every step is awful.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
That's fine, and you know, but any of these things
you build up to them, and you know, starting running.
If you told me I was going to finish Barkley
or do half the things I've done, I would have
said you were absolutely nuts and crazy.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I've ran about four times this year because I was like, oh,
I need to lose some weight and you can't cheat running.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
So I'm like, I'll just start running.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Every day that I ran, I like spent the next
three weeks just telling everybody that I went running.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
But you know, again, I think you could do a
lot more than you think you could. Maybe you couldn't
build up to finishing, like I'll never build up to
dunking a basketball or running a ten second hundred meter dash.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Have you seen that current dunk champion is a short
white kid? That's true, and out of Philly can just fly.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I can't even palm my kids like toy basketballs, so
it's not happening. But you know, I could do better
than I think I could. And you know, maybe you
could do a loop at Barkley.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Who knows well I would, but I'm the problem is
I won't be able to get in my strong suit
would be the essay. I probably could pull that part off,
but I just want him to know that I only
want to try one lap and that's not going to
interest him.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
He's not gonna be well, you're not taking it seriously.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
So there's people that try to get in every year
as the Virgin sacrifice the number one BIB. But you
know those are people that are still serious runners but
just have no chance. And he kind of no one
has ever gotten in by volunteering to be that person.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, it's not gonna I'm not. I mean no part
of me would take it. Seriously, How easy is it
to get lost on these races? Like how do you
figure out where you have to go?
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Most races you do actually have a GPS under route
that you loaded into your watch or your phone. The
Barkley you do not. You just have a map and compass.
But also at Barkley it's in a fairly confined area,
so if you wander off in the same direction too much,
you're you're gonna hit a road at some point. And
people who have certainly done that and had to kind
(30:08):
of hitchhike back to the start finish.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Can you cheat and get to the book a shorter way?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They are laid out to where the course is pretty
much self penalizing, like if you don't go the correct way,
you're losing time from it. Now, as far as if
you can kind of do the books in a different
order and get a short cut that way, It is
theoretically possible, but it's pretty well self policed out there
(30:36):
because people are gonna notice, like, hey, how did you
get ahead of me?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And you guys are so you care so much, it's
like who are you cheating? You know, and that's my
instinct is like how do you cheat to finish this?
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Do you ever practice there? Actually at that mountain? Off season?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
So you're you're actually not allowed to go off trail
at the park other than during the race.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
What a strict park?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Well, part of it's to protect some kind of some
native species that are growing, coachers from coming in, and
there's also open mind shafts from like decades ago that
you could just fall into. But there is an on
trail twenty mile loop around the park that you can
go run.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Do you ever run that one?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Oh? Yeah all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Is the terrain capable of continuing to get hard enough?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
They could change things and make things way worse.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, it's it's definitely gotten to the point where it's
converging on what is really possible. I mean, if there
are other huge improvements in gear.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
I mean, what other gear besides shoes.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
That's one of the things I love about the race,
is it the course keeps getting harder to try to
keep it right at that edge where like one percent
can finish, And a lot of that is in response
to to gear improvements over the years. You know, in
road running we have this big debate about super shoes.
Shoes were a thing at Berkley. The course would just
(32:02):
get harder and that would solve that problem. Back when
this race started, the course was easier, but people were
seriously out with carbided mining lamps on their head because
their other choice was those giant mag lights with the
four D cell batteries that would last for like five minutes.
We now have running vests, great shoes, led headlamps, running, nutrition,
(32:23):
training and knowledge is good, so I don't know how
many worse hitting, diminishing.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
To get a shirt that changes temperature to keep your
body the same.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Temperature at all timebe that.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
But you know again, he can start coming from the
other direction and eliminating some of that stuff, like there's
no gps, you can't listen to music, there's no altimeters.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
So do you like to listen to music when you run?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I don't. It's kind of like my one time of
day when I don't have to think about anything, and
I can kind of just let my mind wander on whatever.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Supposed to listen to your body. Yeah, that's what people say.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Or nature taking nature.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Do every year, do you have a talk with your
wife like, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna race it this
year or do you does she just know that you
probably will?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Now it's it's pretty much at a fault after that
first year, Like that first year was gonna be a
one and done sort of like my first marathon, and
so that was a conversation going into the second year.
But at this point, the way I approach it has
changed a lot. I know how to train efficiently to
or it's not a disruption and it's not this obsessive, unhealthy,
all consuming thing. It's really just going out and having
(33:27):
fun in the woods with my friends.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Would you have a job like you're not you're this
It's not like you're like one of the best in
the world. If not the best, you're you're you're in
the conversation, right, Is that fair?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Within a tiny niche, within a niche, you know, ultra
running as a whole, No, definitely not okay, But with
elevation type of race like Barkley.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
People would say I don't know if they would say
this because it's so niche that it's like, well, if
more people knew about this and cared about it and
there was money into it, then there would be these
apps athletes they could do it. But I feel like
the only the people that can do this do this already.
I don't think it's not like it's not like Lebron
James could be like, oh I'll do this.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
He would die.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, there are certainly some people out there that I
would love to see do it whenever they have the
desire just so they just they feel it tunity, Yeah,
well to see what they could do. But you know
a big piece of this is having to have that
desire and that little bit of crazy in your head
to go after it. And if they don't have that,
then no, they're not going to finish.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Do you genuinely enjoy these races?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I do now, And you know, Barkley, like I kind
of had this where I was over focused and obsessed
with it and then dropped off to where now I
just didn't care enough, and now it's just this. I
genuinely enjoy doing it, even in the moment other than
when I'm trying to stay awake and I have no stress,
I have no pressure of trying to finish. It's just
(34:58):
an adventure out in the woods.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Do you feel like you've accomplished like amazing things.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, yeah, I've done pretty well, you know, But that's
not to say I don't still have goals. And that's
one thing. The first time I finished Barkley, I was
kind of like, well, what do I do now? I
never want to get to that spot where I'm like,
I've done good things, nothing left to do.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
That's literally my goal in life is to get to
a place where I'm like I'm done.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I mean getting there with my job and getting there
financially would be fantastic.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
That's where you got hosed.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
You were cursed with being amazing at something that a
lot of people don't care about. That's a rough one
of this type of race. Is this the one that
people care the most about? Or how many are there
throughout the world.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Barkley is pretty neat unique. It's definitely a niche within
the niche of ulture running. There are other multi day
events like Tortoisian is one that I've done quite a bit,
which is in Italy and I haven't been successful at
it yet. It is one of the more well known ones.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
At what age will you stop doing ultra marathons and
go back to regular old marathons like some pussy Well?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
I mean the thing is, the longer it gets, the
more well suited it is for old age. So you know,
if anything might go the opposite direction.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
What about then the joints and the knees, everything on
your body good.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah, they're good. And I think that's kind of my
biggest superpower as an ultr runner is I've managed to
not have any major injuries the whole time I've been
doing it. I fell off a ladder six weeks before
Barkley last year and went in and did it. I
just I haven't had anything that's kept me sidelined for
a while.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Eddie fell off a step stool, can't do anything for
four months.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
You know, if you catch things wrong, it can happen.
I was fortunate. I was bruised my ribs and broke
my wrists.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
How high up were you?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I was about twenty feet.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Twenty feet here that step toool's playing it on asphalt.
He was up twenty feet on asphalt. Ran the Barkley
Marathon six weeks later. Unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
He's way lighter than me.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I just kind of bounced.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
He bounced.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Everybody's on the show.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I give them gifts, but it's all, you know, just
so you know, it's just stuff around my house that
I don't want anymore. These companies had been setting me
a bunch of socks. I didn't like it, but I
feel like they're probably not good. There's some bombas in there,
there's some element. I just wanted you to have some
fresh socks for your toes.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Well, thank you, that's that's handy.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
The other day a person was just throw it on
the floor, was on the show, and I gave them
old Tosh point zero merch.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I was like, get rid of this.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Then I found another box of Tosh point o merch
in my garage.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
I'm like, son of a bitch.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
So now you need extra T shirts for running and
stuff like that. There might be sweatshirts in here. I
don't know who knows. You wear a new shirt, then
you send it to goodwill.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
My wife and I used to love the show back
when I was in grad school.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Now you're you're gonna want all the shirts.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
I can't stop giving you this. These are fun. These
for your kids.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Since you have twins, you always have tip two of everything. Okay,
this is These things are like electric boards. They go
so fast. Now the joke with these, I gotta call
I always get two.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
This is gonna be interesting getting back on it, and.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
I'll ship everything. I always think it's funny. My brother
has twins. I always think it's funny to order him
things and just have it sent to his house and
then he just calls me furious.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
He's like, what did you buy? What are these things?
They're dangerous, they're too fast.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
But anyway, he last time he came thought it was funny,
threw them back in my garage and I'm like, oh,
well played, buddy. But now I'm like, one of your
kids will like these. They're barely used, we got charge.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
They're heavy.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, they got real batteries in there. You're gonna have
trouble with those. You'll like them. Thank you for getting
that off the table. I also got got your kids.
I always have these toatch point oh not tous point o.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
These are from tours, stand up tours.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Oh wow, skateboards, just because I want your kids I
want to make sure your kids get into something that's
cooler than running.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
There is a skate park, right, but right, they got
to give them some skateboard. This is the perfect kind
of thing where they can get hurt, but not permanently.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Right, well, you can get permanently hurt on a skateboard,
but whatever. Those things are probably not even good skateboards,
but at least they can have fun with that.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
What's that up? Because because I was aware of, Oh no,
what you do here? What is this hold on?
Speaker 3 (39:36):
What kind of bag is this? Is this a running bag?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
It is, it's a running vest. But they're they're kind
of like Santa's.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
With those weights.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Ever, No, when I see people walking around my neighborhood
with that, I'm like, just walk longer.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
No, I've never done that.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
One of my friends put one on his dog, wait,
like to burn off energy, and the vets like, hey,
you're killing your dog's hips.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
So, so you know my own set of hand me
downs here.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
I'll look at you tit for tat.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Here we go get my own Italian designer uh running
shirts here? Uh huh. You know you're probably taller than me,
so I definitely how those are going to work.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I like, I like jogging in the mid drift.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
The things that you can fit in these bags. I got,
you know, for your kids?
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Here?
Speaker 3 (40:28):
What is this?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Got evy?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Is this a pokemon?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (40:32):
My son is into it.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Got a dress for your daughter, I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Look at this dress?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
You watch, you watch, I'll send you a photo of
her in this immediately.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
That's adorable.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Here's the bet I actually look at you. I didn't
even know this was in here.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
This is it.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
I don't want whatever that is limited edition. Just hold
on to it and uh limited, Maybe sell it on
eBay in a few years.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (40:56):
That's that's some of the liquid nutrition for it.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Meant I gotta taste this just just kind of you
mind if I taste this.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
It's a powder. So you got to mix it under
your drink. Yeah, I was just gonna pour it. That
wouldn't end well.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
But I don't even know the cost. So you mix
this into your drink and then that that's your meal
for the night.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah. Yeah, it's probably half my calories off my desk. No,
it's fine. I don't know if we fully so. The pages,
so there are books along the course, and you have
to rip out your page from each book.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
What's your page? What's your page?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So you have a BIB number for each Loop, and
so whatever your BIB number is, you have to rip
out that number page from the book to prove that
you followed the course. And so here is your very
own page from an actual Barkley book in twenty nineteen,
the year that I gave up. I thought you would
(41:54):
appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
Year Loop too, you know. I actually.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
This is probably my second favorite gift that I've ever
received on this show.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
First I was a hat that I liked that what's
his next?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Fair?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
But this this right here, has he ever is there
any significance the in what book he puts out there?
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Every year?
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Usually anywhere from twelve to fifteen books per Loop, and
they all have sort of mocking titles like this one
I think has Lost Souls, and you know you'll have
all sorts of them that the kind of poke fun
at the people out there.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I mean, the importance of page sixty seven to you?
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Or were you sixty eight?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
It's all odd numbers. There are only odd number bibs
because if you had someone that was sixty seven and
another person that was sixty.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
You could still you could space them out. It was
only forty people.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Yeah, well, but multiplied times each group, so generally you
know my final.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Oh, they're not putting different books out for each loop.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
No, So like you know your BIB one, your loop
one BIB might be thirty seven, and then your loop
two bib like seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
And why can some people one loop everybody finds the book,
and then loop four nobody can find the books missing.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Has that happened or no?
Speaker 2 (43:16):
There have been a couple times where yeah, books come missing,
but most of the time it's just by that point
in time, your your mind is not thinking very clearly.
You might be going in the opposite. No, you can
have this too. I ha been used. Yeah it has,
but I washed it. It's been washed. Have you drank
(43:37):
those have been washed as well?
Speaker 3 (43:38):
So it is disgusting.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Man, there's no world where I'm putting my mouth on that.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Ever. I'd rather just dehydrate. Has he ever used the Bible?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
No? No, not to my knowledge, none of the years
that I've done.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I bet you, I bet you there'd be people like
you know, just boycotting the rays. They're not You can't
rip these pages out and the importance that you were
just just that right there isn't that silly? How much
has he changed the race from from the very first
time he had it to what it is now? You
know things the book, the odd pages that was from
(44:18):
the one.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, that's that's all there from from the beginning.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
But yeah, did you ever read this page?
Speaker 2 (44:25):
No?
Speaker 3 (44:25):
I haven't.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
It's kind of well, it's kind of like a little
romance novel of sorts. There's there's some kissing going on
in this page with Christy.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Do you get anything at the end? Do they give
you anything? You get a ribbon.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
So the joke is that the award for finishing is
that you don't have to do another loop, which you know,
it's it's nice in the moment.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
There's no plaques, there's nothing is your name.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
No, I made my own plaque. I took all the
first finish I had. I took all of my pages
and make kind of a little picture frame collage of
all the pages.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
After the race, do you guys all go out to
a you know, a restaurant together or a party? Does
he does he throw a barbecue for everybody?
Speaker 2 (45:11):
No, we oftentimes will We'll pick a local restaurant and
go there for dinner or breakfast some of us, but no,
pretty much, Gary included is is kind of exhausted and
you know he's he's old and smoking the whole time
and not sleeping, and so yeah, he's he's done.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
And how quick after a race do you catch yourself
in normal life where you're like, you know, you're playing
with your kid or you're doing something that you don't
want to be doing with them, and you're like, you
know what I was doing a day and a half ago.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Or is that like? Or do you give yourself a
week to decompress?
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Yeah, I mean that's that's the other thing. I've basically
just put my life on pause for a few days,
so I have to try to catch back up on
things with with war and family and everything else that's
going on. So there's not a big kind of just
crash and do nothing for a week like people might think.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Right Like, it's not like winning the NBA Championship.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
We're like, oh, okay, now I get to take a
month off and just lay in Italy.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
I do have a week where you know, there's there's
no running and I eat absolutely everything, which I love, but.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
And do you enjoy a week of not running.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, I do, Yes, I do it.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Could enjoy that, that's one thing every week.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I've never understood people going into these races. You have
a taper generally where you decrease your training right before
the race, so you go unrested, and a lot of
people hate the taper, and I'm always just like, wow,
this is this is awesome. You know. I enjoy having
that bit of downtime and bit of rest and relaxation.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I'd like, I mean, I'm just letting you know. You
could extend that instead of a week, you could make it.
You know, I don't know, a lifetime.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
You gotta have the balance.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Well, John, thank you very much for taking some time
out and sitting down.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
I'm you know, good luck to you.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Thanks very much, appreciate, enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Thank you, Casha. What did you think of that, Carl, John,
it's impressive. Now, Hey, I want to say something. I
thought this was a funny bit on the show where
I give stuff away, but now too many guests are
bringing me things and I needed to stop. Now, John,
(47:30):
I want to say that giving me that page that
I love, the other stuff, I don't want it. I
don't want other guests to be like, oh he brought
I watched this, he brought something. I don't want your stuff. Guys,
do you take my shit? It just defeats the entire purpose.
The best gift you could ever give me is nothing
at all. I don't want to hold anything. I don't
(47:52):
want to look at it. I don't want to respond.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Just stop.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Thank you, but no, thank you. All right, let's do
some plugs. Carl, where did you go? Come on, man,
we're still doing a show. You only have to do
the last act of every episode, and you act like
I'm torturing you. Show some enthusiasm. There you go, let's go.
Let's do this right, all right, let's do the plugs.
(48:19):
Boyswearpink dot com, tossshowstore dot com.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Put your head right back down. Eddiegosling dot com. Check
out his tour dates. Hey Edie, I heard you're gonna
work in a Key West coming up?
Speaker 4 (48:30):
Yeah, Key West, second or third week of January.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Try to look at that. I love the Keys. Never
been you've never been to the Keys? No, man, are
you gonna fly into Key West?
Speaker 4 (48:40):
I guess? So where would I go? I mean maybe Miami?
Speaker 1 (48:42):
A lot of people flying in Miami and do the drive,
but then they realize, oh shit, that drives two and
a half hours.
Speaker 4 (48:46):
Oh yeah, then maybe I gotta figure that out.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
You'd also swim in from Cuba.
Speaker 4 (48:51):
Huh yall fly into Cuba and then swim across.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Yeah. I like that.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
That's kind of the cool way to get in anyway,
was what was I talking? And then our tour and
check out our tour? Oh Daniel Tosh dot com. Okay,
best part of the show. Free plug? What struggling business?
What mom and pop company or fundraiser are we going to.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Help out this week? I love that music.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
By the way, this week's free plug is for Taylor Swift.
She's performing in Vancouver, Canada, at BC Place December sixth
through the eighth as the final show of the Airs Tour.
Tickets are still available starting as low as one five
hundred dollars as at US Yes, that's US fifteen hundred dollars.
(49:41):
That's before fees. You're looking closer to nineteen hundred. That's said,
and I don't know this to be true. They are
by no means a sponsor of this free plug full disclosure,
but you might still be able to use our seat
geek code.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
I don't know if that's still a thing. But it
doesn't matter, pay full price. It's just a good show.
Taylor Swift the airas tour. Is there somebody opening for her?
Is that Gracie Abrams opening for her?
Speaker 2 (50:07):
She is?
Speaker 1 (50:08):
She is great, she's wonderful, little Nepo baby, right, yeah,
that's all right. And she was taught by my kids
music teacher music. That's interesting. It all ties together, guys,
I think that does it, Carl, Until next week. I'm
the captain now.
Up until the very first year that you finished it
in twenty seventeen. Yep, and it started in the mid eighties.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yeah, eighty six.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Eighty six.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Okay, how many people had finished it by by your
first year of running it?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Fourteen had finished.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Fourteen humans had ever finished this race.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Tashha Tosh Show, Tosh Show Show, Happy, Happy Tuesday. It's
your buddy, Daniel Tosh. Welcome to another episode of Tosh Show.
Who I am relieved?
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Why are you relieved?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Eddie? I done? Goofed?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I done, Goofed. I'm worried they're gonna back trace me.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I consider myself to be a top ten parent. True
or false doesn't matter in my head. I'm a top
ten parent. But what I did to my daughter the
other day, if someone were to say, hey, we we
have to take your child away from you for a
week just so you understand how bad what you did was,
(01:09):
I would be like that seems fair?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, you ready for this?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, let's hear it.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Every day of my son's life I walk them to school,
but I walk him with his sister. His sister's year
and a half a little bit older. We get there,
we do a routine. We go to his class, puts
his book back away. We play for about three or
four minutes outside, and then we go in. We start
on the first project of the day. They let the
(01:39):
parents kind of assist, you know, with the first little
writing activity. He and my daughter sometimes, hey, she participates
with me.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
On this day, they.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Were doing a little One of the classmates was doing
a presentation to start the class, and my daughter is
being a little loud, so I excuse myself with her.
We go outside, stand by the window and watch from outside.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Got it nice?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Okay, you're not ready for this.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I don't think I am.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
There's a metal bin about table height, you know, just slightly.
My daughter's a little bit taller than it is. That
they put all the balls in from recess. I thought
it'd be funny. I put my daughter inside of it.
It's right next to the window. I can watch inside.
And then my daughter starts throwing the balls out. And
(02:33):
then I picked the balls up, I put them back in.
She's laughing. Now we've got a game. Okay, she throws
the balls out, I pick them up, I put them in.
I go to my phone, I look at things. I
take a photo over how cute, let's do it again. Okay,
next thing, I know, I don't know what I was doing,
certainly wasn't paying attention. She climbs up out of the
(02:57):
cage on our way, flips over, heads straight down into concrete,
bites her tongue in half, bleeding. I'm positive she's concussed,
just screaming. The TK teacher assistant she sees me. She's like, oh,
like she saw it. Oh no, there's nothing I can
(03:20):
do at this point. I'm like, oh no, so I
just start running. No, I'm kidding. I picked my totter
up and she's just screaming, like, oh why have you
forsaken me?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Father?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
You've never let me get hurt? And I'm just like,
oh no, I'm holding her, and you know, my wife,
she I don't know where she was at the time.
She just comes running out of the classroom. She's like,
oh no, what happened. I I just tell the truth.
I'm like, she was in this thing. She climbed, got
herself up and flipped over, landing on her head. You know,
(03:54):
do we need to go get a cat scan. I
don't know what you're supposed to do. I don't know
how hard you're supposed to hit in your head on concrete.
Turns out she has bit her tongue a little bit,
not too bad, but she is bleeding. But that that's
starting to stop. But now I'm like, well, i gotta
feel her head. You know when a kid hits their head,
it knots up really good. Yeah, okay, I can't find anything. Nothing.
I'm just like, there's nothing wrong with her. She laid
(04:17):
on her head, she rolled out of it perfectly. Maybe
she hit her shoulder. I didn't actually see the impact.
All I know is she's got a nap coming up,
and it's gonna be three hours long. And for those
three hours, you know, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be
panic stricken. Right, her mood snaps back to normal, her
eyes look fine. I'm trying to do concussion protocol. Yeah,
(04:39):
I don't know what it is, you know. I I'm like,
let's go to the blue tent. Yeah, let's see if
you can still play. She's playing. You gotta get her
back out there. I keep thinking in my head, she's
probably gonna be nauseous or irritable if it's a real concussion.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
She was neither of those. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
She goes down for the nap. She sleeps for two
and a half hours. I keep checking her. There's movement.
Her personality seems slightly altered. But whatever, maybe it's for
the better. The rest of the day, she's fine. You know,
what are you gonna do? This happens? Yep, you feel
so stupid.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
You do feel bad, God.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
You feel stupid. You're like, how can I let this happen?
I never let it happen with my son. He never
never took a spill under my watch. But my daughter, whoo,
this was a real one. Anyway, I got a new
game I want to play. It's called Peter Verse nine.
What do you like better, Eddie, Peter or none?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
I'm going none.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
That's how you play.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
No.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Give you guys an update about having my wife on
the podcast now. The negotiations have hit a snag, partially
because my daughter was dropped on her head.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
It's okay, okay, but.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
You know this year, calendar year twenty twenty four not
looking good. First of the year twenty twenty five. I
think I can make it happen. I think she'll be
over it by then, and I'll be honest with you.
Have my wife probably not gonna be that interesting anyway,
You're gonna find out what my knight's like every day.
(06:11):
It's like, yeah, you want to go to bed, Yeah,
it's eight forty five, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
We have a wonderful relationship. It is riveting. So so
many fun stories to share, all right, not as fun
as today's guest. Today's guest may single handedly be the
most impressive person physically that I've ever met in my life.
(06:37):
Enjoy Pasha. There's a good chance my guest today ran
all the way here from Tennessee. He is one of
only a handful of people in the history of humankind
to finish the Barkley Marathons, and he's done it three times.
Please welcome to the studio where we sit down in
(06:59):
chairs for an hour like normal people, mild mannered masochist,
I mean, ultra marathon or John Kelly.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Thank you. Excited to be here. Didn't come all the
way from Tennessee, but I was tempted to run to
the studio here.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Oh man, where'd you come from?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Santa Monica? Just down the read.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, Santa Monica, I thought he was in Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
You live in Tennessee, though, don't you.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, yeah, I'm right there on the North Carolina Tennessee border.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
You guys got hammered. We did on this storm? Dude,
you how did your neck of the woods do?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So? Our house was very fortunate. We lost power and
water for a few days. Our road was washed out.
But yeah, there are definitely areas that I've effectively been
wiped off the map.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Oh that's awful. Oh well, I'm gonna get more in Tennessee.
Let's start this with my first question. Okay, do you
believe in ghosts?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
John?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I'm ghost agnostic. Okay, evidence isn't there?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Your name is John Kelly. You worked under President Trump.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I get that a lot. I get lots of angry
messages on social media thinking that I'm that John Kelly,
But no, not me.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Were you on the track team in high school?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I was did track and cross country. I was good,
definitely not great. Took about ten years after that before
I started running again.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Can you be a great ultra marathoner at nineteen or
does it really take experience? And like I mean, you
can go till you're fifty, right or is that not true?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah? The things that I do, the multiple day events,
there are people still competing at the top end until
about fifty. Some of the shorter events you could certainly
do when you're nineteen and be extremely good. But the
longer things get, the more time you have to have
to build that aerobic base and to build the experience.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
What's the longest distance you've ever run? A one hundred mile?
You ever done one of those dumb races?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Oh? Yeah, that's I focus on the multi day stuff,
and so one event I did was about three hundred
and fifty.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Three hundred and fifty miles.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
I love everything you're saying.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And when you average your time out, what minute miles
are you doing for three hundred and fifty miles?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
So that one took about five and a half days,
but that's including sleep. I probably got about six staight
hours of sleep over that period of time. So you know,
in the mountains for that length of time, if twenty
to thirty minutes a mile is going to be pretty solid.
You look at Barkley and it's really all you have
to do is move thirty minutes a mile to finish
(09:28):
and you're good.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, all right, let's get into the Barkley marathons because
now this I'm gonna I'm gonna ramble on it.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
You correct me when I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Somehow something came into my feed I started reading about this,
and then I just became fascinated, and then I just
all I could do was look into this. So the
Barkley Marathons are a multi day race of five five
day race sixty hours, sixty hours, sixty hour race in
the mountains of Tennessee, and it's basically every you're running
(10:01):
a loop, which is basically a marathon. It's a little
less than a marathon. Yes, twenty miles a day, is
that what it is? Or twenty miles a loop?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, he calls it twenty miles. It's more like twenty six.
It's all on marks, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Fair enough, it's unmarked. You don't have like a GPS
with you or anything like that. You have to run
this crazy race. There's a book they get to rip
a page out that coincides with your numbers, so that
to verify that you actually went this.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
People lose pages.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
People's books have been occasionally mysteriously lost or misplaced, and
if you don't get that page, your race doesn't count.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
You know, you're not in the record books.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
As someone who finished it and up until the very
first year that you finished it in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yep, how many people had finished the race? And it
started in the.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Mid eighties, yeah, eighty six, eighty.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Six, okay, so you know no one can do that? Math,
but how many years with that? When twenty seventeen, thirty one,
thirty one? All right, so how many people had finished
by your first year of running it?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Fourteen had finished.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Fourteen humans had ever finished this race. This is why
I became fascinating. The first person to finish the race
was a full decade after the race had been going on.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Correct, Yeah, and he kind of everyone thought it was
a joke at first, like no one can actually do
the first five loops, and this Mark Williams came over
from the UK and wasn't in on the joke, and
he went ahead and went out and did the full
five loops.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
How many people have finished to this day twenty now
and this year twenty twenty four, the first female finished.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
What did you think of that? Were you upset?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
No?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
It was incredible. So that was Jasmine Paris, a brit
I lived in the UK for a few years and
got to know her quite well, and it was. I mean,
I don't know that I'll ever see anything in sports
like that, definitely not in person. Everyone had given up.
She had no chance. Time was running out and then
(12:01):
running into camp and finishing like that with thirty seconds
to spare.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
If she was thirty five seconds wouldn't have counted.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Nope, there is sixty hours.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
She was thirty seconds away from it, not counting, finished
all five loops.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
How many women every year do you see in the race.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I'd say it's about a quarter, so you know, eight
to ten.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
They only let forty people run, right.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, and it's math to try to figure out the
number of total loops amongst those forty people.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And this race was based off of the assassination of
MLK what's his name, James Arlwray James ear Olray, who
escaped from prison and was caught sixty hours later and
had only made it twelve miles away.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, I think it was less than that, just a
few miles. Kind of curled up in the fetal position,
and so Gary Cantrell, the race director, kind of said,
I could go one hundred miles in that amount of
time in those mountains.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
That was the genesis of the race.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, By the way, the guy Gary Cantrell, he's the
one that started this race.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
But is he a runner.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, yeah, he's quite an accomplished culture runner back in
his day, and also a heavy smoker. So there's where
you get your mix there.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Okay. Has he ever finished the race?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
No, No, not.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Like not close. He's done a loop at least.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And by the way, does he own this land?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
No, it's a state park.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
And has the state ever been like, oh, you can't
run on this Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
In the early two thousands, the head park ranger effectively
tried to shut it down and it took a resolution
by the Tennessee State Senate to keep it going. And
that's why things are so strict now on kind of
protecting the land that we run, on limiting the number
of entrants, limiting any sort of spectators.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
It's not a spectator sport or is it at all?
And no, can I come and watch the finish?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
No, because it's in a tiny park that's really resource
in space constrained as it is, just with the participants
and most of it is off trail out in the wilderness.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
I just want to see the final leg. Yeah, I mean,
it's about cameras. Will he set up cameras.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Ever, he has had a few people on specific spots
on course with cameras before, and he does have a
few media people there each year.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Okay, why I'm so fascinated with you in particular is
that you grew up in a neighboring mountain, and the
odds of that are are ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
This is a tiny rural community that you know, the
high schools don't even have track and cross country teams there.
No one runs. The whole idea of running for fun
is just a foreign concept to most people there. So
it's it's astronomic laweds someone would want to do it,
much less be capable of finishing it.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
He probably has no desire to commercialize the Barkley Marathons.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Oh, there are no sponsors. The entry fee is still
a dollar sixty.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And what's that the price of so.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Originally it was supposed to be one or yeah, one
cent per mile with one hundred mile or plus. The
fund you're on added together is where it came from.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
To get in the race. This is all so fascining.
You don't just like, oh, I want to show up
for this race. It's not like the New York Marathon.
You have to write an essay every year? Do you
have to write an essay? Are you grandfathered in?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Now?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, I'm grandfather done and once you finish, so I
don't waste my time or his with a big essay.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
And what is he grading papers? What is he looking
for in this essay?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
He's looking for do you have the motivation and do
you have the credentials to actually have a legit shot
at this?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Well, what if you're like a famous ultra marathon or
but you're like you don't want to pick up a
pen and jot a few things down.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Well, if you're not motivated enough to do that, you're
probably not motivated enough to finish the race.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
John, I hate everything you're saying, and it's one hundred
percent accurate. Okay, so you write an essay. He lets
you in the race. Now, the race always takes place
in April or May, March or April. Marcher, I don't
I tried to research it. This is just all from memory.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
You've done good again, much better than a lot of
running podcasts that.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
It's just it's just batshit bonkers what they're doing. Okay,
he lets you know when the race is going to
be how far in advance?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
A few months?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, But then when you get there, the start time
is tbd.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It can be anywhere between midnight and noon. And you're
notified an hour ahead.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Of time, okay, And then when the race starts, he
blows a conk shell or something that's that's your one
hour warning. That's a one hour warning. And then when
he lights a cigarette, start running. Yep, everyone at the
same time or is it staggered.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
No, it's it's everyone. It's a small field, so that
kind of keeps things spaced out.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Your preferred time to start the.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Race an hour before first glide, I think for me
is perfect because you start off on a climb, and
on the climbs you don't really need light very much
because you're going slow, so that by the time you
start your first descent you have daylight.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Okay, and sure you're going through the mountains.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
It's not a loop, but it's not like a trail
that like every you know, tenth tree is painted red.
It's you have to figure this out. He gives you
a watch, like some digital crappy watch.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yes, I get ten dollars Walmart Time.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Next I wear when I I only wear it when
I go surfing, and then that way, I know it's okay,
the kid's about to wake up. Time to get home
and be a parent. But you have to navigate some
new path through the mountains. And the elevation that that
you're going up and down throughout this sixty hour race
(17:39):
is the equivalent, uh to two up and downs of
Mount Everest.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yep, zero zero net elevation change.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
That is ridiculous. So that's the race. Now, the first
time you ran it, did you finish?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
No? I got three loops?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Is that that's considered a fun run? It is so
calls if you do three loops of fun. By the way,
each loop, first loop one direction, second loop opposite direction,
and then who's ever in first place for the fifth
and final loop, they get to pick which way they go.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Is that an advantage at all?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
It is generally clockwise direction is preferred and someone just
might be more familiar with a given direction.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Have you ever been in the lead for the fifth loop?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah? So I chose my direction both of my first
two finishes, and this past year I kind of I'd
already finished twice and I knew both directions pretty well.
So I kind of just told the other people they
could pick and I go out whenever look at you. Well,
I also, you know, I wanted the finish in the
other direction.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Let's talk about the years you finish twenty seventeen, what's
the next one?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Twenty twenty three?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Oh, what a huge gap of failure in between there.
Do you consider it failure if you don't finish?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
I only tried twice in that gap. The first time
I was in the lead after two loops and I
just quit. I didn't want to do it.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I was cursed with knowing what the later loops would
bring and realized that I just didn't didn't care enough
to go through that. And then twenty twenty two, I
lost my pages. I had them in a little waist belt,
and the waist belt came off. I spent hours going
up and down a hill looking and by the time
(19:27):
I found them, just not enough time left to keep going.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I mean, just horrible depression after that.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
No, it's fine, And you know it's like you said,
do I consider it failure? You know, maybe technically, but
like those early failures for me in Barkley, like my
first year, I did three loops the second I did four.
Those failures were my quickest path to success. I really
jumped in the deep end and had no idea what
(19:52):
I was doing that first year. So sure my goal
was to finish, but failing is what led to my
eventual finish. You won it, yeah, I want it in
two thousand and so I was the only finisher in
twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Was that the most rewarding race of your life?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
The first finish, all I wanted to do was was
get there. The second finish, I wanted to enjoy it,
and it was. It was incredible. Like the final climb
goes up a mountain that overlooks my childhood home, and
it was a beautiful sunset, perfect conditions, and like I
just stopped and enjoyed it for like twenty minutes at
the top, and that was rewarding. And then this past
(20:30):
year getting to see others finish, Jasmine finish like that
was that was an experience.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but this has happened
where I panicked when you said you stopped and enjoyed
it for twenty minutes. People have tried to do like
a twenty minute cat nap and then just fall asleep
for eight hours.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, that's happened, and it's something that I'm always concerned about.
I try to follow it. If I do do that
on the trail, I try to find really uncomfortable spots
to do it to where I know that my body
will wake it self up after a bit of time.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I think I read about somebody that tried to fall
asleep in like a tire rut that was full of water.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
That was that was me?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
That was you? Yeah, that was you.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Oh I read about that that was so put himself
in a tire rut, just like what he's saying, because
it was like, this is the most uncomfortable place. There's
no way I'll sleep for a long time in here.
How long did you sleep?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
It was, you know, fifteen minutes if even that? And
that was so sorry. This was this was one of
maybe my craziest culture running story.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Wait wait wait there was a family. Yeah, okay, go on.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
So I laid down. I found this muddy tire track, like, oh,
that's perfect, and I laid down there for a few
minutes and then I look up and here comes this
guy and his wife and his two kids walking up
and just without hesitation. I go, oh, hey, Kit, how's
it going? And he says, oh, that's a John Kelly
Nap if I've ever seen one, And I mumble something
(21:55):
about Barkley and he just keeps going. And it wasn't
until after the race that I was like, wait a second,
the probability that someone was out there at that time,
in this random place that it happened to be one
of my childhood friends from twenty years ago that I
hadn't seen since high school. I immediately recognized him, and
(22:18):
then he just kept going like everything was fine. So
I was, you know what, it didn't happen. I was convinced.
I was like, I finally had my first real hallucination.
Because other people have hallucinations like seeing pink unicorns and
all sorts of crazy stuff that never happens to me.
I was like, I finally had it. And then I
found him on LinkedIn of all places. I was like,
(22:39):
hey kid, this is going to sound weird, but was
this you? And he said yeah, yeah, it was me.
We love going and for hikes out at Frozenhead. I
actually saw it.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Why did he say? Why did he say the John
Kelly Knap thing?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Because he knew about Berkley, and he knew what I
had done there, so, you know, because normally I would
think if you see someone face down in a muddy
higher track in the woods, you might be concerned and yeah,
but no, you just kept going face down. Yeah, well,
you know, I'm a stomach squeeper.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Well I meant to be uncomfortable. Do people in the
area are they even familiar with this race? Do they
know that people throughout the world care about this race?
That are these elite athletes?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
They definitely do now And that's been one of the
cool things for me is seeing that knowledge and that
pride and it grow over the years that I've done it.
When I was a kid, my dad kind of knew
that crazy people showed up in the woods at the
park there once a year, but didn't know much more
about it.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I mean, there should be a sign going into your
city that says you live there. I mean, do people
know who you are in town? Like, oh, hometown boy
made good or no a bit? Yeah, that's my goal here.
My goal here is to get you on a Wheaty's box.
If anybody should be on a Wheati's box. By the way,
we underrated Cereal it tastes pretty good if you dump
(23:57):
a lot of sugar on it.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
What about your diet? Are you crazy about your diet?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
No, I'm pretty infamous for my sweet tooth and junk foods,
so it's fule. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
How do you eat during the race?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
A lot of its liquid calories and jels. Some of
it is also in a race that length, You're you're
missing actual meals too, So between loops in particular, might
have a burger or pizza or whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You're missing birthdays, missing meal the days. But by the way,
has it ever fallen on anything where you're like it?
You know, it has some pretty uh serious conflicts with
your personal life.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
That's something that I avoid. Uh, it's and it is
a bit of a minefield now as the kids have
more activities, there are only so many weekends per.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Year, endless activities. It's just NonStop. The every day with
these kids a new thing I have to care about.
You have four children, Do you like being a dad?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
That's pretty fun.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Huh that's great.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Are your hands on father?
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah? Yeah, all right, it's I mean, now, I'm not
a helicopter parent by any means. No, No, they've.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Got to learn Okay, well, I mean sure, but.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Got to have the freedom to screw up, all right, But.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
You don't want to get hurt physically. You live out
for me, not permanently. The best parenting anybody's out. You
don't want to get it hurt permanently. I love that.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Wait, when you go for a daily run, what do
you go distance? Or do you go time?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Mainly distance? But you know I don't go as far
as everyone assumes I would. I really don't train more
than a serious marathon runner would.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
More than a serious marathon or you know that seems
like a lot. So you're doing multi I mean five miles,
ten miles?
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, five tennis?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
You ever run on a treadmill?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I do? I hate it?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
You hate it?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
But I did start doing I got a bike trainer
recently and started doing this swift thing with the virtual
kind of video game thing. That's fun. You enjoy that?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah? Can you bring anything on your persons during this race?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I mean other than electronic devices?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, I mean, like you can bring some toilet paper
if you felt like it. Do people do that?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
How many times do you go to the bathroom?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And when I say go to the bathroom, I'm not
talking about urine during this two and a half days.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
This time, probably a couple of times. It's you know,
one of the secrets of my first finish. It was
zero none, zero poop run. Yeah, you held it the
whole two and a half days. I just didn't didn't
need it. I guess I was mostly on luck with
calories and it never had the urge.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
And then what do you do do you just go.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, find a nice spot in the woods somewhere, or
hold it for between loops when you can actually have
the luxury of a nice bathhouse and toilet.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
When the year that you quit stopped whatever after two
laps because you knew what was going to come ahead.
Talk about the things that come ahead, your mind playing
tricks on you.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, the worst for me, everyone kind of has their
own strengths and weaknesses, and the worst for me is
dealing with sleep deprivation. Like some people hallucinate, some people
just can't think straight I will straight up, you know,
I'll fall asleep on my feet and go down harder
than the bad guy in a Rocky movie. I just
cannot stay awake. And so that's that's the point for
(27:18):
where for me it still gets pretty miserable.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
So how long do you get to sleep after each loop?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Generally none? This past year, I was the only one
of the finishers that swlept, and I went back to
my campsite between loops four and five and slept for
like twenty minutes, and that let people get out in
the directions they wanted to go. And then I was
on my way two.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
And a half days and you had a twenty minute nap.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah, I mean, do you realize what we're.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Talking about here? Guys? You understand why I was so
passionate about this. This is just nuts.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
I can't make it past lunch without needing an hour nap,
and then I need one hour to recover.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
But have you ever, really, have you ever had that
motivation to just see if you could push through it? Well,
not running, I think you could do it.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
What are you talking?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
No, I'm not cut out for this. I don't like running.
Every step is awful.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
That's fine, and you know, but any of these things
you build up to them, and you know, starting running.
If you told me I was going to finish Barkley
or do half the things I've done, I would have
said you were absolutely nuts and crazy.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I've ran about four times this year because I was like, oh,
I need to lose some weight and you can't cheat running.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
So I'm like, I'll just start running.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Every day that I ran, I like spent the next
three weeks just telling everybody that I went running.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
But you know, again, I think you could do a
lot more than you think you could. Maybe you couldn't
build up to finishing, like I'll never build up to
dunking a basketball or running a ten second hundred meter dash.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Have you seen that current dunk champion is a short
white kid? That's true, and out of Philly can just fly.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I can't even palm my kids like toy basketballs, so
it's not happening. But you know, I could do better
than I think I could. And you know, maybe you
could do a loop at Barkley.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Who knows well I would, but I'm the problem is
I won't be able to get in my strong suit
would be the essay. I probably could pull that part off,
but I just want him to know that I only
want to try one lap and that's not going to
interest him.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
He's not gonna be well, you're not taking it seriously.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
So there's people that try to get in every year
as the Virgin sacrifice the number one BIB. But you
know those are people that are still serious runners but
just have no chance. And he kind of no one
has ever gotten in by volunteering to be that person.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, it's not gonna I'm not. I mean no part
of me would take it. Seriously, How easy is it
to get lost on these races? Like how do you
figure out where you have to go?
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Most races you do actually have a GPS under route
that you loaded into your watch or your phone. The
Barkley you do not. You just have a map and compass.
But also at Barkley it's in a fairly confined area,
so if you wander off in the same direction too much,
you're you're gonna hit a road at some point. And
people who have certainly done that and had to kind
(30:08):
of hitchhike back to the start finish.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Can you cheat and get to the book a shorter way?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They are laid out to where the course is pretty
much self penalizing, like if you don't go the correct way,
you're losing time from it. Now, as far as if
you can kind of do the books in a different
order and get a short cut that way, It is
theoretically possible, but it's pretty well self policed out there
(30:36):
because people are gonna notice, like, hey, how did you
get ahead of me?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And you guys are so you care so much, it's
like who are you cheating? You know, and that's my
instinct is like how do you cheat to finish this?
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Do you ever practice there? Actually at that mountain? Off season?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
So you're you're actually not allowed to go off trail
at the park other than during the race.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
What a strict park?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Well, part of it's to protect some kind of some
native species that are growing, coachers from coming in, and
there's also open mind shafts from like decades ago that
you could just fall into. But there is an on
trail twenty mile loop around the park that you can
go run.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Do you ever run that one?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Oh? Yeah all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Is the terrain capable of continuing to get hard enough?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
They could change things and make things way worse.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, it's it's definitely gotten to the point where it's
converging on what is really possible. I mean, if there
are other huge improvements in gear.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
I mean, what other gear besides shoes.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
That's one of the things I love about the race,
is it the course keeps getting harder to try to
keep it right at that edge where like one percent
can finish, And a lot of that is in response
to to gear improvements over the years. You know, in
road running we have this big debate about super shoes.
Shoes were a thing at Berkley. The course would just
(32:02):
get harder and that would solve that problem. Back when
this race started, the course was easier, but people were
seriously out with carbided mining lamps on their head because
their other choice was those giant mag lights with the
four D cell batteries that would last for like five minutes.
We now have running vests, great shoes, led headlamps, running, nutrition,
(32:23):
training and knowledge is good, so I don't know how
many worse hitting, diminishing.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
To get a shirt that changes temperature to keep your
body the same.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Temperature at all timebe that.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
But you know again, he can start coming from the
other direction and eliminating some of that stuff, like there's
no gps, you can't listen to music, there's no altimeters.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
So do you like to listen to music when you run?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I don't. It's kind of like my one time of
day when I don't have to think about anything, and
I can kind of just let my mind wander on whatever.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Supposed to listen to your body. Yeah, that's what people say.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Or nature taking nature.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Do every year, do you have a talk with your
wife like, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna race it this
year or do you does she just know that you
probably will?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Now it's it's pretty much at a fault after that
first year, Like that first year was gonna be a
one and done sort of like my first marathon, and
so that was a conversation going into the second year.
But at this point, the way I approach it has
changed a lot. I know how to train efficiently to
or it's not a disruption and it's not this obsessive, unhealthy,
all consuming thing. It's really just going out and having
(33:27):
fun in the woods with my friends.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Would you have a job like you're not you're this
It's not like you're like one of the best in
the world. If not the best, you're you're you're in
the conversation, right, Is that fair?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Within a tiny niche, within a niche, you know, ultra
running as a whole, No, definitely not okay, But with
elevation type of race like Barkley.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
People would say I don't know if they would say
this because it's so niche that it's like, well, if
more people knew about this and cared about it and
there was money into it, then there would be these
apps athletes they could do it. But I feel like
the only the people that can do this do this already.
I don't think it's not like it's not like Lebron
James could be like, oh I'll do this.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
He would die.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, there are certainly some people out there that I
would love to see do it whenever they have the
desire just so they just they feel it tunity, Yeah,
well to see what they could do. But you know
a big piece of this is having to have that
desire and that little bit of crazy in your head
to go after it. And if they don't have that,
then no, they're not going to finish.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Do you genuinely enjoy these races?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I do now, And you know, Barkley, like I kind
of had this where I was over focused and obsessed
with it and then dropped off to where now I
just didn't care enough, and now it's just this. I
genuinely enjoy doing it, even in the moment other than
when I'm trying to stay awake and I have no stress,
I have no pressure of trying to finish. It's just
(34:58):
an adventure out in the woods.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Do you feel like you've accomplished like amazing things.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, yeah, I've done pretty well, you know, But that's
not to say I don't still have goals. And that's
one thing. The first time I finished Barkley, I was
kind of like, well, what do I do now? I
never want to get to that spot where I'm like,
I've done good things, nothing left to do.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
That's literally my goal in life is to get to
a place where I'm like I'm done.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I mean getting there with my job and getting there
financially would be fantastic.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
That's where you got hosed.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
You were cursed with being amazing at something that a
lot of people don't care about. That's a rough one
of this type of race. Is this the one that
people care the most about? Or how many are there
throughout the world.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Barkley is pretty neat unique. It's definitely a niche within
the niche of ulture running. There are other multi day
events like Tortoisian is one that I've done quite a bit,
which is in Italy and I haven't been successful at
it yet. It is one of the more well known ones.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
At what age will you stop doing ultra marathons and
go back to regular old marathons like some pussy Well?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
I mean the thing is, the longer it gets, the
more well suited it is for old age. So you know,
if anything might go the opposite direction.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
What about then the joints and the knees, everything on
your body good.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah, they're good. And I think that's kind of my
biggest superpower as an ultr runner is I've managed to
not have any major injuries the whole time I've been
doing it. I fell off a ladder six weeks before
Barkley last year and went in and did it. I
just I haven't had anything that's kept me sidelined for
a while.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Eddie fell off a step stool, can't do anything for
four months.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
You know, if you catch things wrong, it can happen.
I was fortunate. I was bruised my ribs and broke
my wrists.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
How high up were you?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I was about twenty feet.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Twenty feet here that step toool's playing it on asphalt.
He was up twenty feet on asphalt. Ran the Barkley
Marathon six weeks later. Unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
He's way lighter than me.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I just kind of bounced.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
He bounced.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Everybody's on the show.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I give them gifts, but it's all, you know, just
so you know, it's just stuff around my house that
I don't want anymore. These companies had been setting me
a bunch of socks. I didn't like it, but I
feel like they're probably not good. There's some bombas in there,
there's some element. I just wanted you to have some
fresh socks for your toes.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Well, thank you, that's that's handy.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
The other day a person was just throw it on
the floor, was on the show, and I gave them
old Tosh point zero merch.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I was like, get rid of this.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Then I found another box of Tosh point o merch
in my garage.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
I'm like, son of a bitch.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
So now you need extra T shirts for running and
stuff like that. There might be sweatshirts in here. I
don't know who knows. You wear a new shirt, then
you send it to goodwill.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
My wife and I used to love the show back
when I was in grad school.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Now you're you're gonna want all the shirts.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
I can't stop giving you this. These are fun. These
for your kids.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Since you have twins, you always have tip two of everything. Okay,
this is These things are like electric boards. They go
so fast. Now the joke with these, I gotta call
I always get two.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
This is gonna be interesting getting back on it, and.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
I'll ship everything. I always think it's funny. My brother
has twins. I always think it's funny to order him
things and just have it sent to his house and
then he just calls me furious.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
He's like, what did you buy? What are these things?
They're dangerous, they're too fast.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
But anyway, he last time he came thought it was funny,
threw them back in my garage and I'm like, oh,
well played, buddy. But now I'm like, one of your
kids will like these. They're barely used, we got charge.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
They're heavy.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, they got real batteries in there. You're gonna have
trouble with those. You'll like them. Thank you for getting
that off the table. I also got got your kids.
I always have these toatch point oh not tous point o.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
These are from tours, stand up tours.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Oh wow, skateboards, just because I want your kids I
want to make sure your kids get into something that's
cooler than running.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
There is a skate park, right, but right, they got
to give them some skateboard. This is the perfect kind
of thing where they can get hurt, but not permanently.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Right, well, you can get permanently hurt on a skateboard,
but whatever. Those things are probably not even good skateboards,
but at least they can have fun with that.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
What's that up? Because because I was aware of, Oh no,
what you do here? What is this hold on?
Speaker 3 (39:36):
What kind of bag is this? Is this a running bag?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
It is, it's a running vest. But they're they're kind
of like Santa's.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
With those weights.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Ever, No, when I see people walking around my neighborhood
with that, I'm like, just walk longer.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
No, I've never done that.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
One of my friends put one on his dog, wait,
like to burn off energy, and the vets like, hey,
you're killing your dog's hips.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
So, so you know my own set of hand me
downs here.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
I'll look at you tit for tat.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Here we go get my own Italian designer uh running
shirts here? Uh huh. You know you're probably taller than me,
so I definitely how those are going to work.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I like, I like jogging in the mid drift.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
The things that you can fit in these bags. I got,
you know, for your kids?
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Here?
Speaker 3 (40:28):
What is this?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Got evy?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Is this a pokemon?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (40:32):
My son is into it.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Got a dress for your daughter, I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Look at this dress?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
You watch, you watch, I'll send you a photo of
her in this immediately.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
That's adorable.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Here's the bet I actually look at you. I didn't
even know this was in here.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
This is it.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
I don't want whatever that is limited edition. Just hold
on to it and uh limited, Maybe sell it on
eBay in a few years.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (40:56):
That's that's some of the liquid nutrition for it.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Meant I gotta taste this just just kind of you
mind if I taste this.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
It's a powder. So you got to mix it under
your drink. Yeah, I was just gonna pour it. That
wouldn't end well.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
But I don't even know the cost. So you mix
this into your drink and then that that's your meal
for the night.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah. Yeah, it's probably half my calories off my desk. No,
it's fine. I don't know if we fully so. The pages,
so there are books along the course, and you have
to rip out your page from each book.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
What's your page? What's your page?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So you have a BIB number for each Loop, and
so whatever your BIB number is, you have to rip
out that number page from the book to prove that
you followed the course. And so here is your very
own page from an actual Barkley book in twenty nineteen,
the year that I gave up. I thought you would
(41:54):
appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
Year Loop too, you know. I actually.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
This is probably my second favorite gift that I've ever
received on this show.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
First I was a hat that I liked that what's
his next?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Fair?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
But this this right here, has he ever is there
any significance the in what book he puts out there?
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Every year?
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Usually anywhere from twelve to fifteen books per Loop, and
they all have sort of mocking titles like this one
I think has Lost Souls, and you know you'll have
all sorts of them that the kind of poke fun
at the people out there.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I mean, the importance of page sixty seven to you?
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Or were you sixty eight?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
It's all odd numbers. There are only odd number bibs
because if you had someone that was sixty seven and
another person that was sixty.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
You could still you could space them out. It was
only forty people.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Yeah, well, but multiplied times each group, so generally you
know my final.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Oh, they're not putting different books out for each loop.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
No, So like you know your BIB one, your loop
one BIB might be thirty seven, and then your loop
two bib like seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
And why can some people one loop everybody finds the book,
and then loop four nobody can find the books missing.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Has that happened or no?
Speaker 2 (43:16):
There have been a couple times where yeah, books come missing,
but most of the time it's just by that point
in time, your your mind is not thinking very clearly.
You might be going in the opposite. No, you can
have this too. I ha been used. Yeah it has,
but I washed it. It's been washed. Have you drank
(43:37):
those have been washed as well?
Speaker 3 (43:38):
So it is disgusting.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Man, there's no world where I'm putting my mouth on that.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Ever. I'd rather just dehydrate. Has he ever used the Bible?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
No? No, not to my knowledge, none of the years
that I've done.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I bet you, I bet you there'd be people like
you know, just boycotting the rays. They're not You can't
rip these pages out and the importance that you were
just just that right there isn't that silly? How much
has he changed the race from from the very first
time he had it to what it is now? You
know things the book, the odd pages that was from
(44:18):
the one.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, that's that's all there from from the beginning.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
But yeah, did you ever read this page?
Speaker 2 (44:25):
No?
Speaker 3 (44:25):
I haven't.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
It's kind of well, it's kind of like a little
romance novel of sorts. There's there's some kissing going on
in this page with Christy.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Do you get anything at the end? Do they give
you anything? You get a ribbon.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
So the joke is that the award for finishing is
that you don't have to do another loop, which you know,
it's it's nice in the moment.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
There's no plaques, there's nothing is your name.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
No, I made my own plaque. I took all the
first finish I had. I took all of my pages
and make kind of a little picture frame collage of
all the pages.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
After the race, do you guys all go out to
a you know, a restaurant together or a party? Does
he does he throw a barbecue for everybody?
Speaker 2 (45:11):
No, we oftentimes will We'll pick a local restaurant and
go there for dinner or breakfast some of us, but no,
pretty much, Gary included is is kind of exhausted and
you know he's he's old and smoking the whole time
and not sleeping, and so yeah, he's he's done.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
And how quick after a race do you catch yourself
in normal life where you're like, you know, you're playing
with your kid or you're doing something that you don't
want to be doing with them, and you're like, you
know what I was doing a day and a half ago.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Or is that like? Or do you give yourself a
week to decompress?
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Yeah, I mean that's that's the other thing. I've basically
just put my life on pause for a few days,
so I have to try to catch back up on
things with with war and family and everything else that's
going on. So there's not a big kind of just
crash and do nothing for a week like people might think.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Right Like, it's not like winning the NBA Championship.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
We're like, oh, okay, now I get to take a
month off and just lay in Italy.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
I do have a week where you know, there's there's
no running and I eat absolutely everything, which I love, but.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
And do you enjoy a week of not running.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, I do, Yes, I do it.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Could enjoy that, that's one thing every week.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I've never understood people going into these races. You have
a taper generally where you decrease your training right before
the race, so you go unrested, and a lot of
people hate the taper, and I'm always just like, wow,
this is this is awesome. You know. I enjoy having
that bit of downtime and bit of rest and relaxation.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I'd like, I mean, I'm just letting you know. You
could extend that instead of a week, you could make it.
You know, I don't know, a lifetime.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
You gotta have the balance.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Well, John, thank you very much for taking some time
out and sitting down.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
I'm you know, good luck to you.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Thanks very much, appreciate, enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Thank you, Casha. What did you think of that, Carl, John,
it's impressive. Now, Hey, I want to say something. I
thought this was a funny bit on the show where
I give stuff away, but now too many guests are
bringing me things and I needed to stop. Now, John,
(47:30):
I want to say that giving me that page that
I love, the other stuff, I don't want it. I
don't want other guests to be like, oh he brought
I watched this, he brought something. I don't want your stuff. Guys,
do you take my shit? It just defeats the entire purpose.
The best gift you could ever give me is nothing
at all. I don't want to hold anything. I don't
(47:52):
want to look at it. I don't want to respond.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Just stop.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Thank you, but no, thank you. All right, let's do
some plugs. Carl, where did you go? Come on, man,
we're still doing a show. You only have to do
the last act of every episode, and you act like
I'm torturing you. Show some enthusiasm. There you go, let's go.
Let's do this right, all right, let's do the plugs.
(48:19):
Boyswearpink dot com, tossshowstore dot com.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Put your head right back down. Eddiegosling dot com. Check
out his tour dates. Hey Edie, I heard you're gonna
work in a Key West coming up?
Speaker 4 (48:30):
Yeah, Key West, second or third week of January.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Try to look at that. I love the Keys. Never
been you've never been to the Keys? No, man, are
you gonna fly into Key West?
Speaker 4 (48:40):
I guess? So where would I go? I mean maybe Miami?
Speaker 1 (48:42):
A lot of people flying in Miami and do the drive,
but then they realize, oh shit, that drives two and
a half hours.
Speaker 4 (48:46):
Oh yeah, then maybe I gotta figure that out.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
You'd also swim in from Cuba.
Speaker 4 (48:51):
Huh yall fly into Cuba and then swim across.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Yeah. I like that.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
That's kind of the cool way to get in anyway,
was what was I talking? And then our tour and
check out our tour? Oh Daniel Tosh dot com. Okay,
best part of the show. Free plug? What struggling business?
What mom and pop company or fundraiser are we going to.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Help out this week? I love that music.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
By the way, this week's free plug is for Taylor Swift.
She's performing in Vancouver, Canada, at BC Place December sixth
through the eighth as the final show of the Airs Tour.
Tickets are still available starting as low as one five
hundred dollars as at US Yes, that's US fifteen hundred dollars.
(49:41):
That's before fees. You're looking closer to nineteen hundred. That's said,
and I don't know this to be true. They are
by no means a sponsor of this free plug full disclosure,
but you might still be able to use our seat
geek code.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
I don't know if that's still a thing. But it
doesn't matter, pay full price. It's just a good show.
Taylor Swift the airas tour. Is there somebody opening for her?
Is that Gracie Abrams opening for her?
Speaker 2 (50:07):
She is?
Speaker 1 (50:08):
She is great, she's wonderful, little Nepo baby, right, yeah,
that's all right. And she was taught by my kids
music teacher music. That's interesting. It all ties together, guys,
I think that does it, Carl, Until next week. I'm
the captain now.
Host
Daniel Tosh
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