July 5, 2023 • 38 mins
Welcome to Unbreakable! A mental health podcast hosted by Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer. On today's episode, Jay is joined by Rockstar's Johnny and Jeff Agar. Their journey to the IRONMAN World Championship has been a long one. Johnny was born with cerebral palsy, a muscle disorder that makes it difficult to walk and talk. With the unwavering support of his father, Johnny has embarked on a unique athletic journey. Jeff selflessly pushes, pulls, and hauls Johnny through triathlon's as they swim, bike, and run — embodying the spirit of teamwork and determination.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental health podcast
helping you out of the gray and into the blue.
Now here's Jay Glacier.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome back to Unbreakable, a mental health podcast with Jay Glazier.
And I'm so excited about today's guests. I mean, you
want to talk about rock stars, unbelievable and not in
the form of the rock stars like the Guy Fieres
and the Brett Michaels Reed had on those two rock stars.
Would be dying to talk to our two rock stars today.
But before I get to them, if you're like many people,
(00:37):
you may be surprised to learn that one in five
adults in this country experienced mental illness last year. Get
far too many failed to receive the support they need. Caroline,
behavioral health is doing something about it. They understand the
behavioral health is a key part of whole health, delivering
compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional, and social needs
and tandem, Carolyn, behavioral health raising the quality of life
(00:59):
through empathy and action.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
All right, Yeah, Like I said.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
You know, this is a mental health podcast that I
think leads to mental wealth if we can kind of
tap into a lot of things that hand that life
has fed us.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
There's two ways we can go.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
The way that Jeff and Johnny Agar have gone have
been absolutely unbelievable, and these two cats really show us
there's nothing we can't do. I see what these guys
have done already. I don't know what they can't do.
So with that, I want to welcome and Jeff and
Johnny Agar. How are you guys doing?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Hey do you tod ain't good to hear from you.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Thanks for having us on, Jamie Wally appreciate absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Now for people who don't know, because this is also
more an audio show, Pops once you kind of tell
us you know your story with you and your son,
you guys are I'm not gonna do it right If
I try to, that'd be louder sometimes, you know what
you gotta know what to lay out.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm going to lay out here.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
Yeah, So, uh, you know when I was like when
I was younger, I played baseball. A lot of it
was I threw hard, but I had very little athletic
ability outside of that. Yeah, and I didn't have to
run much in baseball, which is great, so it fit
perfectly for me. But later on, after we had Johnny
and he had an opportunity about fifteen years ago to
do a triathlon with some local group called My Team
(02:18):
Triumph that takes kids that are special needs and runs
them through endurance races.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Johnny's got cerebral palsy.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
He was born prematurely at twenty nine weeks, three pound
seven ounces. Within a couple of weeks, diagnosed was ferebral palsy,
and we were told he would probably never walk and
probably would never talk as well. So that was a
big shock to us, not only the premature piece of things,
but just a diagnosis. We had no idea what we
(02:46):
were even getting ourselves into.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Do you know, like Johnny wants to chime in here
real quick on this and say, like, hold on a second, here,
I got something to say.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
But I've been never put any limitations on me. They
had me involved in everything that everything.
Speaker 7 (03:01):
That you know that a No More kid does in life,
and so I was very thankful for that. And they
always taught me, you know, I had to work hard
everything that I did if I was to be successful
in life.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
And so I had always watched sports.
Speaker 7 (03:22):
Sports was always the way that you know, I could
connect with that when I was younger, and so they
always taught me that, you know, Johnny, if you want
to work as hard and be as independent as you
want to be, you need to work as hard as
Steve Eisman or Robert Porchet for the Lions.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
And so that was.
Speaker 7 (03:47):
Always something that I really enjoyed and really caught onto me.
And because I go to therapy every day, uh eight hours,
and they just like they train every day.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
Ye get to the point where if he would he
would only go into therapy if he had a team
shirt on, and if the therapist wouldn't call him ierman,
then he wouldn't work on So really funny red Wings
were huge one year, and yeah, he had multiple jerseys
and that's what his whole approach was, Hey, I'm working
out just like the guys are, and he's working on
(04:22):
his own end.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
But then you decide to take it to a different level.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
Debt, Yeah, kind of decided for me. So I wasn't
a big fan of biking, running or swimming, which less
an idea when you're going into triathletes for triathlons, but
Johnny loved it. He did some of these races with
a local group, like I said, and he just loved
being kind of on the inside part of the game,
someone like yourself. I mean, you know, there's a big
(04:45):
distinction on being in the outside seeing all the stuff,
what's going on, and when you're on the inside, it's
a whole different deal, right, So that's where he kind
of felt like he was now participating at least more
like an athlete than he had been in the past.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
So we started.
Speaker 6 (05:01):
Doing some five k runs together. So I thought, well,
hall hard, get a five KB after I had looked
up how many miles was in a five k. But
it turns out you really should train for these things.
The first time just brutal. I didn't train at all.
The second race we did and him, yeah, I'm pushing
him in an old jog at the time, nothing.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Like the equipment I have today.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
But our second race at an eighty year old power walker.
She was beating me for two miles and I had
to kick it in to finally beat her towards the end,
and I thought, we're going to do more of these races.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
I have got to do a lot more training. She
might have been Olympic power.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
Walker on her day, but she was eighty years old.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I gave him a look after that, it's something going.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
But it was a very humble beginning.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
So if anybody ever tells you I can never do that, hey,
I went from from zero to where we are today yet.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
To have the right motivation.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
And yeah, you've probably seen this too, right, people can
do extraordinary things, but you got to the right motivation
to get through. You can't just you know, will yourself
at it all the time. And and Johnny was my motivation.
He's been a motivation for a lot of people. But
if you find what motivates you that gets you over
the hurdles and makes you at least set yourself up
to accomplish things.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Tell me the feeling for both of you the first
time you both crossed a finish line in anything.
Speaker 7 (06:21):
It was such a feeling of accomplishment because you know,
I know with Dad, you know he doesn't like swimming,
backing and running, so for him to be able to
do what it takes to get me to that line,
it's really really something special every day, every time, and
no matter if it's a five K or a iron
(06:44):
Man transthmon, it really is something special and I never
take it for grand And then it really teaches me
so much about you know, what it takes to you
with my three palsy on a day basis so, but
it also.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Shows you, man, look how much this man loves me.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 7 (07:05):
I've never met as as good as you in a
very rarely well over tin and I don't think I have.
Speaker 6 (07:15):
I have many times thought, you know, Johnny, couldn't you
have taken on a hobby like stamp collecting.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
I might get a paper once a little while, that
would be it.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
But when did you then decide all right, we're gonna
get serious about this and I've got to start ramping
my training up.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
What does that look like? You know?
Speaker 5 (07:33):
For me, it was an evolution of things.
Speaker 6 (07:35):
And uh, you know, when you start hanging around you've
probably seen this in different sports communities, but they tend
to be very uplifting. The endurance community is like at
the crazy level of uplifting, encouraging, supportive. So every time
we would do something, you know, we started doing several
five k's and then someone we ran into say hey,
(07:55):
you should try a ten k and you started thinking, wow,
you know, could I do that?
Speaker 5 (07:59):
And so we did, and then I would always say count.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
You know, I've kind of hit my that's my physical
peak right there. And then we're running with our run
group and someone said, well, there's the biggest twenty five
k is in the in the countries in our hometown
here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So I thought, wow, that'd
be cool to do the twenty five k, and like,
you know, you believe these people who know what they're doing,
and they say, yeah, if you trained for it, you
could do it. And then I said, okay, that's it.
(08:22):
I've you know, twenty five k, fifteen miles.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
I'm kind of done.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Then someone in our group says, well, you've done a
twenty five k, you should think about doing a marathon.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Is that someone of your group sitting next to you.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
No, he'd be sitting there even though I like this
telling them, you know, yeah, I encourage my dad to
do this, given him my puppy eye. Yeah, but I
would have told him Johnny, and I had several times
to that Johnny, it's just physically not possible. I don't
have the ability to do a marathon. And then someone
who has done tons of marathons in one of our
(08:52):
groups would say, oh, yeah, you can do it, and
you know the power of someone telling you something's there's
a power and someone saying you can't do something because
motivate you to do it. There's also a huge power
in someone who really knows what they're doing and saying yes,
you're able to do it, you can do it, and
it opens up your mind to think, wow, maybe I
possibly can do it.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
And so that's how.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
It was for me, Rather than someone's saying you're never
going to do this, it was those people encouraging me
along the way that always.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
Got me to take the next step and keep training
further and further.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
How did the swimming part get involved, because now that's
the last part that's the Ironman triath a triathlon's.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Put in the swimming part.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
How did that part, that last piece of the puzzle
come in?
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Yeah, so really it was taken after Rick and Dick White,
who had started out doing these teams competitions many years ago.
And Dick would pull his son Rick in a boat,
and so in my Team Triumph group that we had
started working with, they do they take kids and races
and they had a bunch of boats that you would
use for the swim portion, and so we just started
training and got used to it. We have a nice
(09:52):
kayak now that it works really really well in the water.
So the swimming is actually the easiest part. And you
start with the swim. You get that out of the
way and it's the easiest and shortest of the three.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
It's still hard.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
You swim two point four miles, takes about an hour
and a half, but we we love the swim, yeah.
Speaker 8 (10:08):
For a full iron Man, but it kind of just
it kind of evolved and we've gotten better and better
equipment along the along the way, and I think we
have some of the best equipment you can get now
that it really helps us out and helps overcome the
my limited athletic ability I have in this sport.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So how long does it take for the whole truck
for seventeen hours?
Speaker 7 (10:27):
Yeah, so yeah, seventeen hours to do it for iron Man.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
So yeah, about an hour and a half of the swim,
which is the two point four miles, then you have
to bike one hundred and twelve miles. That takes us
Ballpark is eight day and a half hours. Then when
you get downe with that, you run a marathon which
is Ballpark ish six hours, about twenty six point two miles, and.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
Then we have a fourth fle like that I like
to do with my walker, which is less race.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
That's my favorite part. And I'm done, Johnny gets to
walk it in And.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
How does that make you feel?
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Me walking the last? Okay?
Speaker 7 (11:03):
So I had started to do that because you know,
I was training with that one day and I said,
you know, I'm capable of doing more. I had heard
him panting behind me, and one of those things where
you know, I got I got sick and tired of
telling him thank you all the time, because if you
tell us a person thank you, you know, you can.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Tell them thank you, but do you really really mean it?
Speaker 7 (11:27):
And so what I tried to do is try to
take my words and put them into action.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
And so.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
That was my way of because watching the mind for
me is like running marathon. My parents like to say,
for most people, I have to focus on you know,
everything I do in.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Order to take a step.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
You know, my pasture, my breathing, you know, my where
my leg placement is.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And so that was my way.
Speaker 7 (11:58):
Of kind of giving me and kind of giving him
a break a little bit.
Speaker 6 (12:04):
Like so, yeah, and I think he really he was
dying to know what it felt like to be an athlete.
So he had participated in all the you know, hundreds
of races, but there's a difference if you're actually in
the game, you know, on the field.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Right, And so that first time he got to actually be.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
The athlete was eye opening to him and opened up
all kinds of doors.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
But it was really an extraordinary experience.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Because what you have, it shuts down your body, right,
but your brain.
Speaker 7 (12:34):
Sure, yeah, your brain is the most powerful power of
your body. And so when you get your brain to
overtake everything that you know, everybody says your musbans can't do,
it's really really something powerful. And I think, you know,
that's what all the athletes that I look up to there,
(12:56):
they always stay positive all the time, and they always
you know, find ways to say, Okay, how can I
get better from my loss? And people with turn failure,
but they're not really failure. They're just helping you to
understand how to be better. And so that's an approach
that I took from my training. Don't really helped me
(13:20):
to understand exactly what it's ak to optimize and to
be successful in life.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
So yeah, he's so Johnny's cerebral palsy.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
It's there's a wife variety of cerebral Paul jo His
is heathy focused on the lower in his body gets
the worst things are but it's a disconnect between the
brain and muscles.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
They just don't communicate like they ought to.
Speaker 6 (13:42):
So he's been able to overcome some of that through
just intensive training, so that the typical physical therapy might
be going to an hour a week, and if you
are going to take golf lessons, we went for an
hour a week, we'd get better. But if you went
to a golf school and went every week after week
after week with some of the best pros in the country,
(14:02):
you would get really, really good at it. And that's
what he's done in this physical therapy program he's in
where intensive training hours and hours every day made a
lot of progress, very small progress, but huge progress for
someone like Johnny.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
We never were to dream to you'd be able to
walk at all, you with a walker.
Speaker 6 (14:18):
And so with the group he's in at the Conductive
Learning Center in grund Rapids, Michigan, here, he's made great progress.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
And I hope that you write a book then, because really,
our scars, that's our superpower, right, My scars make me
walk in every room and say I don't like the
rescue people in the ere because of the stuff I've overcome,
not the stuff that I've done, and so scars have
got me. So you too, the stuff that you could
just you could teach the world. Whether people have CP
or not.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
We could all learn from you.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Matter Just interestingly you need to say that, oh really, Yeah,
Johnny and Becky have actually published a book.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
It was endorsed by Michael Phelps, So I thank you.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
That's my guyl.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Yeah. So came out about a year ago. It's called
fall a.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Mile Impossible Mile. Okay, good, I'm getting it.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
So it goes through all the lot of the background,
the history.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
My wife's a phenomenal author, and so she wrote a
lot of it because Johnny was too young to.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
Remember most of it.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
But it really it chronicles how he overcame all these
challenges he's faced and some of the things that we've done,
and premiery of my wife was a huge portion of
the of the nice thing is I get ninety percent
of the credit, Jay, but she does ninety percent of
the work.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Played off of last thing with the book, Johnny, you
could run your ass over to my house now and
give me a copy.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Of the book. I love that I would.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Done and done. So there's so many questions I have
to you. Okay, when you guys are well, you guys
are together. Now, if I was with my friend right,
let's call it, let's say Marcus Strat for seventeen straight hours, okay,
Strayann and I were like, you know, John c Riley
and Will Ferrell from STEP we fight NonStop.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
We couldn't go seventeen minutes without fighting. You fight?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Do you guys motivate each other? Like, how are those
seventeen hours?
Speaker 7 (16:06):
I love talking to all the other athletes on the boards,
you know, getting stories from the other people.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
You know, do you talk to motor ATHLETs?
Speaker 4 (16:16):
What's that?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Do you talk ship to the other athletes?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
No?
Speaker 7 (16:19):
No, I go just to motivate everybody else. I don't think.
You know, in endurance sports, we try to get each other.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
To the line. You know, you're not you're not beating.
Speaker 7 (16:32):
Each other necessarily, you're beating You're trying to beat yours
and it's mostly you versus you type deal. So you know,
we try to bring each other to the line. And
I think that's something special about endurance sports and really
helped me out in like, how can I not beat
(16:53):
somebody else but better myself? So I love motivating each
other across and talking to each other and trying to
get bits and pieces that I can carry on in
my life.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And it's really a special.
Speaker 7 (17:10):
But sometimes Dad won't tell me to stop talking.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Because in his own something that.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Is true. Sometimes you just got to block things out
and not think about it.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I hope that every single day, though, you're able to
like it never gets old, and every day you're able
to say to yourself like, oh my god, look at
this that I'm doing with my son.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
This is the ultimate sign of love.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And I hope you're able to love yourself up fully
every day and don't ever let it get used to it.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Yeah, you know that.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
The tough thing is we've kind of evolved. I appreciate
you saying that that we've kind of evolved into it.
And so it's, uh, it's when you step back once.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
In a while and hear from people.
Speaker 6 (17:54):
When we finished in Ironman Maryland, that was actually the
first iron Man out of after failing five you know
quote unch, failing five times to get through under the
official cutoff times. So we made it and you just
don't think about the magnitude of it. But then you'll
see people post stuff online like, you know, one guy said,
I've done seven iron Man's I can't even imagine pulling
(18:14):
another human being for the race. That kind of stuff,
and you know, just I mean, you hear people will
say like, man, I don't do anything with my kids
and I should be doing so much more kind of stuff.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
And so if it's those kinds of things, when you
step back from it, it really hits you.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
But when you're in the day to day, you know,
it's just part of your life, right, and it just
becomes a lifestyle. It's what we do all the time,
so you don't really think about it. And I'm just
doing it for my son, I don't. You know, I'm
not joking when I say that I don't I don't
like running. It's like the whole runners High thing. Never
at it, never never go to Probably people go I
(18:50):
love to go for a long run. I'll think, are
you insane? But it's all you know, I'm just doing
it because Johnny loves it. And I hope that's what
inspires you know, other fathers to think about, is you know,
you don't have to be, you know, the father of
the year or anything like that. You just got to
keep keep being a better father than you were, you know,
the day before kind of thing into what you are today,
and then it'll it'll head into certain kind.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
Of cool things.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
What's the emotion emotional part for you? Is it the start?
Is it when you guys hit your worst struggle, or
is it the finish?
Speaker 6 (19:20):
You know, it's the biking for us is so difficult
that we're hauling. If you think of an average tra
athlete with their bike, they're under two hundred pounds. I mean,
these people are really fit and it's a couple hundred
pounds and we're hauling about three hundred and eighty the
three hundred and ninety pounds and depending on how many
deserts Johnny has bumping up.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
To four h say it sounds like Johnny and he's
lose some weight.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, that that though, is the part of my day.
Give me.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
But when we so, when we can get over the
when we make the bike cut off, that's the greatest
feeling because then I feel like, yeah, I got to
run a marathon next, But I always feel like.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
I can gut that out and get through the marathon.
Speaker 6 (20:03):
The greatest feeling is when when I'm when we're strapping
with our team, when we strapped Johnny into his walker,
and I know that.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
We're going to make it, and I know that he's
got to walk.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
The rest of it, but it's, Uh, he's been sitting
there for sixteen almost seventeen hours waiting for his chance,
and it's like, you know, you get an athlete who
hasn't played in a long time and they're sitting there
waiting in the sidelines for a chance to play, and
now he gets his chance to go in. Uh, that
to me is the most gratifying. Then getting over the
finish line.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Is it's just really cool to stop.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
But when we're strapping Johnny in and now he gets
to actually take over, he gets to become the athlete,
that is the piece that's the most gratifying for me.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Peyton Manning has opened up a door for you guys
to actually compete in the actual try, you know, the
iron Man triathlete out in Hawaii.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Yeah, how cool is that? Right? No doubt that was amazing. Listen,
when I saw Peyton come on on there, I was like, oh, no, crying.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Now you could see look I know Peyton well.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
You could see in his voice he was so genuinely
excited to announce this to you.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
There was nothing but authenticity.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
There, good, good, gad, I wrote, look up to him.
Speaker 7 (21:13):
You know just how he carries himself, and just you
know how much how much fun he has playing the game,
and how much fun he had off the field too.
I really see a lot of myself and him, And
so just to have him announced that we're going back
next year to what we consider our super Bowl, really
(21:39):
really an awesome feeling, because you know, he's one of
the athletes that I look up to as a child,
and so you know, it was kind of a to
have him announced that we're going back to our super
Bowl was really a full circum moment, and I was
so shocked and so thankful for the opportunity just to
(22:02):
be able to have the.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
When when is that? When is that that Iron Man?
Speaker 5 (22:09):
It's a late October of twenty twenty.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
Four, twenty four, Yes, Johnny Staff, Peyton Manning's jersey hanging
on his wall for the longest time. So it's really
a wild thing to to have Peyton Manning be the
one to announce we're going back to the iron Man
World Championship.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
So when will you start training for this?
Speaker 5 (22:26):
In October twenty three months.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Ago Bally, Yeah, it's a uh it's a huge effort.
So you know, while we finished in Ironman, the one
in Hawaii, that's that's the World Championship. It's it's called
the most brutal one day endurance event on the planet.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
So what makes a difference in the other ones? Crazy steep,
So the steepness is really hilly for the bike. The
uh your bike through the lava fields of Hawaii, so
it's well.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Over one hundred degrees, it's super super hot, and then
it's crazy windy with us some of the winds coming
off the ocean, so you'll see riders leaning into the
wind so they don't fall down. So it's it's so
much more difficult.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
Than any others.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
Just the level of extreme so like strength has to
be dramatically better than it was back then.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
See if you have any tips on like strength.
Speaker 6 (23:18):
I'm all for any of your listeners that can help
me build like strain, but I have to have an
endurance level and a like strength level, and an overall
fitness level beyond what we've ever done and I'm at
sixty years old, so there's there's a lot.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
That goes into it. So we've been training in the Hope,
so we got invited, but there's there's a lot of
effort has to.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Go into it.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
But we're excited for the job.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Yeah, we really appreciate iron Man giving us the opportunity
Payon Manning delivering the message to us and CBS mornings
to the ones to get it to us.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
How many hours a day goes into this training? And
do you give yourself rest days?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (23:56):
See, you rest one day a week, but typically you're
leads doing one of your events or one of your exta.
You get one sabbath yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like a Monday.
But I mean I'm swimming and running typically on one
of the days, and then like one time in the morning,
run a night four days a week.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Uh, then you also do running three days a week.
Strength training.
Speaker 6 (24:19):
I do yoga classes for stretching and flexibility all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
So then and then nutrition is.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Like the fourth leg of traft and so uh, there's
like six major areas of things you got to focus on.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I think sleep will have to be in there too.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
Sleep is a portion of it not enough. And I
work full time as well, right, you work for I've
got a job to so so you work for a
great company.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
You saying you work forty hours a week, fifty hours week?
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Yeah, in that right, eighty hours a week.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Now, so how many hours a day? How many hours
are day training outside of work?
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Yeah, I'm training at least two hours a day, and
then sometimes three or four. Then the weekends or when
you do your long runs and long bikes, so then
it could be seven, eight, nine hours of training on
a given day.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
So it's a hit the lifestyle commitment.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I only, for example, if I want to watch the Lions,
I guess they're getting better. Johnny keeps telling me, so Lions,
I always time it where might do an indoor bike
ride while the game's on it he is always only
on when I'm doing some kind of a training event
with us.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
You coordinate everything that way.
Speaker 7 (25:25):
And then with my training, my my aunt and uncle.
It's family affair here, so my aunt and uncle help
me with my with my training, in my walking and
the help me stretch and everything. My aunt is an
occupation of therapist, So it really works out that way.
But you know, it really helped.
Speaker 9 (25:47):
Me to be able to do something every day, because again,
you know, if I'm doing therapy pretty much every day
to strengthen my muscle and everything, then I'm getting better.
Speaker 7 (26:01):
And so the supports is kind of my way of
waking up, but in a fun way, and it's making
my doctors happy.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
In the fact, clearly making.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
You happy, which is great. Last couple of questions for
you start from dad to son. Okay, what's the biggest
thing you've learned from him during this time.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Wow, that's a good question.
Speaker 6 (26:27):
I think just being able to overcome obstacles and having
a good attitude about it when you're doing it.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
It's you know, Ironman training.
Speaker 6 (26:36):
Is really really an individual activity a lot of times,
and there's you're constantly trying to do better, but failure
is kind of part of the whole process a lot
of times. And I've learned a lot from Johnny about
not letting failure standing her way. So, just to give
an example, when we didn't we actually participated in the
iron Man World Championship in twenty sixteen. We got invited
(26:59):
when we were so earlier in our iron Man career,
we didn't know what we didn't know, and so we
were horribly ill prepared, but we got halfway through the
bike and we missed the bike cut off. So, you know,
I looked at it as a pretty sizeable failure. Only
a million people watched this, you know, fail on national TV,
so kind of a big negative. But my wife much
(27:19):
more positive than I am, a super super supportive of it,
and she said.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
Something good is going to come out of this.
Speaker 6 (27:24):
At the time, I wasn't quite as sure that something
good was going to come out of it, but some
amazing things have happened because of that. We kept working,
kept training, trying to do more and more and really
made the failure into something and so it led to
them writing their book, Johnny having a relationship more with
Michael Phelps and under Armer.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
He was actually in a commercial with Michael Phelps in.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
Michigan and then in a commercial with the Rock Duayne
Johnson too, a notable guy. And so had we made
it in Hawaii that first time through those other things
never would have happened because there had been no reason
for us to keep pushing it. And the last piece
said I'll kind of tie together is that Johnny's a
motivational speaker.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
He's done a lot of speeches so far to groups
from one hundred to.
Speaker 6 (28:07):
Seven thousand, and a lot of his messages to people
that you know what, failure is just part of the process.
You got to keep working, keep overcoming, learning from things.
And the reality is if we'd made it the first time,
people would have said, well, that guy was an athlete
and it should wasn't that hard. But I wasn't an
endurance athlete, and it is brutally hard to get through
an iron managed. So we finally got through on a
(28:28):
sixth try. Shows that overcoming obstacles and failure along the
way is just part of the process, and we are
so much better off today than we would have been
had we made it through ConA the very.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
First time through. And great things have happened to Johnny
because of that. So my wife was right. You know,
he took a lot of years to figure out that
she was right on these things.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Two things you know I take from that one, adversity
is a gift.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Most people run away from it instead of figuring, Okay,
we'll got knocked out.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Let's figure out what's going to take to overcome it.
That's what leads to greatness.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
And you did exactly that you ran to it instead
of saying, well, I can't do this, I'm just gonna
go I'm gonna transfer school.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
So I'm gonna quit this job. I'm gonna quit this school. Right,
that's not the mindset you guys had. So that I love.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
And the other part is I try and tell this
a lot of people I work with also, Man, you
never know what luck like why things happen in life,
but you don't know why he was born with this
and will drive you crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
I don't know why good.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Things happen to bad people, who bad things happen to
good people, And if you try and figure out, I'll
drive you crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Just take life for how.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It is and try and find the good and the
blue in life and let's go after That's absolutely so
let's switch to you. So what has been the biggest
lesson you've learned from that?
Speaker 10 (29:45):
I think, you know, just I think the love Dad
has for me, in the length in which she's willing
to go through to prove.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
That to me is really really.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
A lot, and not not every son has the opportunity
to see that, and so.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I'm very thankful. And also just the consistency.
Speaker 7 (30:13):
What it takes to do something if you want to
if you want to be great at something, you know
what it.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Takes to be able to do that.
Speaker 7 (30:23):
Because because Dad was never a swim, bikeer, runner, So
you know, I get to see that nothing motive. Somebody
that wasn't an athlete and now has become something it's
now has become an athlete himself, is really really something
special and I'm I'm so grateful for it because it
(30:43):
really helped me again understand, you know, if you want
to be good at something, you can't just say I'm here.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
You know if I was you know, watch Lions on TV.
Speaker 7 (30:55):
You know they can't just say I'm gonna suit up
and watch I'm gonna suit up and play a game.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
You know, there's working, everything goes into it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
And so.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
That has taught me so much and and it's loved
me so much.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
I'm so grateful before it and and I really can't
thank him enough.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
And I'm so great.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
For Johnny to give things to try, and and that's
what got us to even take on the iron Man
World Champions the first time, where NBC and iron Man
offered us to uh to go and it'd be hypocritical
to say to Johnny's whole life, hey, you need to
get things to try.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
You may not you know, I may not succeed, but
you've got to try.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
And then for us to then turn around and say, well,
I'm not gonna do that because we're probably not gonna
make it. So we've tried to encourage him, especially my
wife has and uh, and I'm trying to support that
as well, that Johnny can do things you never thought possible.
But it's gonna take a lot of work and there's
gonna be failure along the way. But it's been, Uh,
it's been a good thing to try to do. And
you know, we've tried to go out of our way
(31:58):
not to put limitations in front of Johnny. It took
us a long time before we would say that he
had circle polsy.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
We would just say, you know that he wasn't. We
never used the word normal, even though he does once
in a while.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
We always say I am freaking normal South.
Speaker 6 (32:13):
It's typical a certain way, but normal is not a
word that we took that we like to to use
very often, just because it sets up the negative things
are going to happen or something something wrong. And when
he decided he wanted to walk a mile, Like my
evolution was step by step along the way. He decided
to walk a mile, he'd only walk twenty three steps
(32:33):
in therapy school, and so that'd be like you or
I walk into the mailbox and our next goal was
a marathon.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Right, it's just just a crazy level just doesn't happen.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
But you've probably seen people that hugely ambitious goals, and
what happens is the wheels of activity and people start
coming around you when you start attracting. It's that that
law of magnets doesn't right where you start attracting.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Things to help you achieve that goal.
Speaker 6 (32:58):
So sometimes in an audacious goal, is is good to
go after.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Mine were very incremental.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
But this has been a huge for us to see
two different approaches to get to, you know, a similar
type of endpoint, one step by step and then Johnny's
setting a massive goal and finding a way to get there.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Johnny, I think you also seen, you know, a God's
sacrifice for you, for your love that to me makes
you one of the richest dudes in the world.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
I'm very thankful, and.
Speaker 7 (33:27):
You know I want That's one of the things that
I tried to do in my motivation speaking and trying
to help people understand is you know, I try to
teach them some of the lessons that my parents have
taught me, because you know, what good is the lesson
that you've been taught if it's not given to other people.
(33:49):
So that's what I tried to do, and the basis
and what doing to the day.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Being service absolutely being of services huge to help us
between the years. Last question for you both. I always
ask every one of.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
My my guests, what is the one moment that could
have broken you and didn't and you came through the
other side of that tunnel stronger as a result your
unbreakable moment.
Speaker 7 (34:17):
Well, I think for me it was it was not
making Cone in twenty and sixteen, because you know, it
really showed me the whole athlete experience and that you
have to fail out in order to learn how to succeed.
And so that was something that was very, very beneficial
(34:38):
for me in the end. I learned a lot from
that experience and just seeing how hard be able to
have this opportunity now and.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
That well, so similar to that, but you know, I mean,
not finishing in ConA the first time was a huge setback,
but then we kept hoping we'd get invited back knowing
a lot more, understanding more of what it takes the train,
And so it went year after year, or we would
try a different Ironman event to kind of show we
(35:10):
could get through one, and so we failed a total
of five times.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
We had weird things happened.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
One year is one hundred degrees on the on the
bike portion and we didn't make the cutoff. Another we
had forty miles of a flat tire and his chariot
where we didn't realize it was like that. We just
thought it was wy windy. We had a huge downpour
of rain all thought the bike in another race just crazy.
And one we got a bike crash, someone slammed into
us accidentally. And we've had weird things happen along the way.
(35:38):
So every time you start thinking, man, I just don't
know if it's in the cards for us to do it.
So that was, you know, my moments were a long,
long period of time when you just don't know if
you're actually gonna get through to the finish line. And
I keep leaning back on something Johnny said when we
first time we didn't make it through through Kona NBC
(36:00):
was recording and they said, you know, they came up
to Johnny and said, you know, basically, what do you
think after we got pulled off the race? And he said, well,
sometimes you win, sometimes.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
You learn, and that's exactly and I thought I didn't
know he'd said it. I was hilarious at that point.
But it's really a really cool way to look at
things that if you.
Speaker 6 (36:20):
Look at everything as a learning opportunity, you know, we're
so much better off having learned along the way and
now leading up to trying to get back to ConA.
Now we have a lot more experience. Yes I'm older,
but you get a lot more experience, a lot better training,
a lot better equipment, And to make it now would
show that, you know, you know Ironman's mantras, anything is possible,
(36:43):
and us getting through you know what, would seem to
be pretty impossible if we make it. It kind of
feeds into that whole thing anything is possible the right
amount of hard work, attitude, and the right motivation.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Right, So I think it's we're better suited now than
we are back then.
Speaker 6 (36:59):
And so that was any any one of those things
along the way, we kind of could have said, you
know what that it's not in the cards for us
to get through one of these Iron Man events. That's
we've done a pretty decent job, but let's kind of
stop here. And so it was a string of unbreakable
moments that have gotten us where we are here today,
and so we're very focused now on taking everything we've
(37:19):
learned and getting through ConA next year in October.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Didn't break, it just made you stronger. And man, I
want to say that you.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Guys have a definitely fan hear me for the two
of you now, But more so I would like say
a friend, go, oh, man, if I can get I
know it's during football season October twenty twenty four, but
if I can get out there somehow some way and
be there at the finish line of cheer you on,
my ass will be standing right there for me.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
Oh I see.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
If I could do that.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Right, that would be awesome. That'd be fantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
And I really appreciate your time tonight.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
Thanks Jay, We appreciate thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Gan, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I just I really you know, like I said, you
ever trying for your life out and you know there's
certain people put in your life that God puts in
your life to to learn certain things from, and today
was a day where it was just a day to
learn that, Hey, I'm just a happy guy today listening
to these two.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
I appreciate how much you will both He'll be today.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
Appreciate it very much
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental health podcast
helping you out of the gray and into the blue.
Now here's Jay Glacier.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome back to Unbreakable, a mental health podcast with Jay Glazier.
And I'm so excited about today's guests. I mean, you
want to talk about rock stars, unbelievable and not in
the form of the rock stars like the Guy Fieres
and the Brett Michaels Reed had on those two rock stars.
Would be dying to talk to our two rock stars today.
But before I get to them, if you're like many people,
(00:37):
you may be surprised to learn that one in five
adults in this country experienced mental illness last year. Get
far too many failed to receive the support they need. Caroline,
behavioral health is doing something about it. They understand the
behavioral health is a key part of whole health, delivering
compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional, and social needs
and tandem, Carolyn, behavioral health raising the quality of life
(00:59):
through empathy and action.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
All right, Yeah, Like I said.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
You know, this is a mental health podcast that I
think leads to mental wealth if we can kind of
tap into a lot of things that hand that life
has fed us.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
There's two ways we can go.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
The way that Jeff and Johnny Agar have gone have
been absolutely unbelievable, and these two cats really show us
there's nothing we can't do. I see what these guys
have done already. I don't know what they can't do.
So with that, I want to welcome and Jeff and
Johnny Agar. How are you guys doing?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Hey do you tod ain't good to hear from you.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Thanks for having us on, Jamie Wally appreciate absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Now for people who don't know, because this is also
more an audio show, Pops once you kind of tell
us you know your story with you and your son,
you guys are I'm not gonna do it right If
I try to, that'd be louder sometimes, you know what
you gotta know what to lay out.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm going to lay out here.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
Yeah, So, uh, you know when I was like when
I was younger, I played baseball. A lot of it
was I threw hard, but I had very little athletic
ability outside of that. Yeah, and I didn't have to
run much in baseball, which is great, so it fit
perfectly for me. But later on, after we had Johnny
and he had an opportunity about fifteen years ago to
do a triathlon with some local group called My Team
(02:18):
Triumph that takes kids that are special needs and runs
them through endurance races.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Johnny's got cerebral palsy.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
He was born prematurely at twenty nine weeks, three pound
seven ounces. Within a couple of weeks, diagnosed was ferebral palsy,
and we were told he would probably never walk and
probably would never talk as well. So that was a
big shock to us, not only the premature piece of things,
but just a diagnosis. We had no idea what we
(02:46):
were even getting ourselves into.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Do you know, like Johnny wants to chime in here
real quick on this and say, like, hold on a second, here,
I got something to say.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
But I've been never put any limitations on me. They
had me involved in everything that everything.
Speaker 7 (03:01):
That you know that a No More kid does in life,
and so I was very thankful for that. And they
always taught me, you know, I had to work hard
everything that I did if I was to be successful
in life.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
And so I had always watched sports.
Speaker 7 (03:22):
Sports was always the way that you know, I could
connect with that when I was younger, and so they
always taught me that, you know, Johnny, if you want
to work as hard and be as independent as you
want to be, you need to work as hard as
Steve Eisman or Robert Porchet for the Lions.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
And so that was.
Speaker 7 (03:47):
Always something that I really enjoyed and really caught onto me.
And because I go to therapy every day, uh eight hours,
and they just like they train every day.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
Ye get to the point where if he would he
would only go into therapy if he had a team
shirt on, and if the therapist wouldn't call him ierman,
then he wouldn't work on So really funny red Wings
were huge one year, and yeah, he had multiple jerseys
and that's what his whole approach was, Hey, I'm working
out just like the guys are, and he's working on
(04:22):
his own end.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
But then you decide to take it to a different level.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
Debt, Yeah, kind of decided for me. So I wasn't
a big fan of biking, running or swimming, which less
an idea when you're going into triathletes for triathlons, but
Johnny loved it. He did some of these races with
a local group, like I said, and he just loved
being kind of on the inside part of the game,
someone like yourself. I mean, you know, there's a big
(04:45):
distinction on being in the outside seeing all the stuff,
what's going on, and when you're on the inside, it's
a whole different deal, right, So that's where he kind
of felt like he was now participating at least more
like an athlete than he had been in the past.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
So we started.
Speaker 6 (05:01):
Doing some five k runs together. So I thought, well,
hall hard, get a five KB after I had looked
up how many miles was in a five k. But
it turns out you really should train for these things.
The first time just brutal. I didn't train at all.
The second race we did and him, yeah, I'm pushing
him in an old jog at the time, nothing.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Like the equipment I have today.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
But our second race at an eighty year old power walker.
She was beating me for two miles and I had
to kick it in to finally beat her towards the end,
and I thought, we're going to do more of these races.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
I have got to do a lot more training. She
might have been Olympic power.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
Walker on her day, but she was eighty years old.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I gave him a look after that, it's something going.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
But it was a very humble beginning.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
So if anybody ever tells you I can never do that, hey,
I went from from zero to where we are today yet.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
To have the right motivation.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
And yeah, you've probably seen this too, right, people can
do extraordinary things, but you got to the right motivation
to get through. You can't just you know, will yourself
at it all the time. And and Johnny was my motivation.
He's been a motivation for a lot of people. But
if you find what motivates you that gets you over
the hurdles and makes you at least set yourself up
to accomplish things.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Tell me the feeling for both of you the first
time you both crossed a finish line in anything.
Speaker 7 (06:21):
It was such a feeling of accomplishment because you know,
I know with Dad, you know he doesn't like swimming,
backing and running, so for him to be able to
do what it takes to get me to that line,
it's really really something special every day, every time, and
no matter if it's a five K or a iron
(06:44):
Man transthmon, it really is something special and I never
take it for grand And then it really teaches me
so much about you know, what it takes to you
with my three palsy on a day basis so, but
it also.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Shows you, man, look how much this man loves me.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 7 (07:05):
I've never met as as good as you in a
very rarely well over tin and I don't think I have.
Speaker 6 (07:15):
I have many times thought, you know, Johnny, couldn't you
have taken on a hobby like stamp collecting.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
I might get a paper once a little while, that
would be it.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
But when did you then decide all right, we're gonna
get serious about this and I've got to start ramping
my training up.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
What does that look like? You know?
Speaker 5 (07:33):
For me, it was an evolution of things.
Speaker 6 (07:35):
And uh, you know, when you start hanging around you've
probably seen this in different sports communities, but they tend
to be very uplifting. The endurance community is like at
the crazy level of uplifting, encouraging, supportive. So every time
we would do something, you know, we started doing several
five k's and then someone we ran into say hey,
(07:55):
you should try a ten k and you started thinking, wow,
you know, could I do that?
Speaker 5 (07:59):
And so we did, and then I would always say count.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
You know, I've kind of hit my that's my physical
peak right there. And then we're running with our run
group and someone said, well, there's the biggest twenty five
k is in the in the countries in our hometown
here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So I thought, wow, that'd
be cool to do the twenty five k, and like,
you know, you believe these people who know what they're doing,
and they say, yeah, if you trained for it, you
could do it. And then I said, okay, that's it.
(08:22):
I've you know, twenty five k, fifteen miles.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
I'm kind of done.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Then someone in our group says, well, you've done a
twenty five k, you should think about doing a marathon.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Is that someone of your group sitting next to you.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
No, he'd be sitting there even though I like this
telling them, you know, yeah, I encourage my dad to
do this, given him my puppy eye. Yeah, but I
would have told him Johnny, and I had several times
to that Johnny, it's just physically not possible. I don't
have the ability to do a marathon. And then someone
who has done tons of marathons in one of our
(08:52):
groups would say, oh, yeah, you can do it, and
you know the power of someone telling you something's there's
a power and someone saying you can't do something because
motivate you to do it. There's also a huge power
in someone who really knows what they're doing and saying yes,
you're able to do it, you can do it, and
it opens up your mind to think, wow, maybe I
possibly can do it.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
And so that's how.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
It was for me, Rather than someone's saying you're never
going to do this, it was those people encouraging me
along the way that always.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
Got me to take the next step and keep training
further and further.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
How did the swimming part get involved, because now that's
the last part that's the Ironman triath a triathlon's.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Put in the swimming part.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
How did that part, that last piece of the puzzle
come in?
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Yeah, so really it was taken after Rick and Dick White,
who had started out doing these teams competitions many years ago.
And Dick would pull his son Rick in a boat,
and so in my Team Triumph group that we had
started working with, they do they take kids and races
and they had a bunch of boats that you would
use for the swim portion, and so we just started
training and got used to it. We have a nice
(09:52):
kayak now that it works really really well in the water.
So the swimming is actually the easiest part. And you
start with the swim. You get that out of the
way and it's the easiest and shortest of the three.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
It's still hard.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
You swim two point four miles, takes about an hour
and a half, but we we love the swim, yeah.
Speaker 8 (10:08):
For a full iron Man, but it kind of just
it kind of evolved and we've gotten better and better
equipment along the along the way, and I think we
have some of the best equipment you can get now
that it really helps us out and helps overcome the
my limited athletic ability I have in this sport.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So how long does it take for the whole truck
for seventeen hours?
Speaker 7 (10:27):
Yeah, so yeah, seventeen hours to do it for iron Man.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
So yeah, about an hour and a half of the swim,
which is the two point four miles, then you have
to bike one hundred and twelve miles. That takes us
Ballpark is eight day and a half hours. Then when
you get downe with that, you run a marathon which
is Ballpark ish six hours, about twenty six point two miles, and.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
Then we have a fourth fle like that I like
to do with my walker, which is less race.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
That's my favorite part. And I'm done, Johnny gets to
walk it in And.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
How does that make you feel?
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Me walking the last? Okay?
Speaker 7 (11:03):
So I had started to do that because you know,
I was training with that one day and I said,
you know, I'm capable of doing more. I had heard
him panting behind me, and one of those things where
you know, I got I got sick and tired of
telling him thank you all the time, because if you
tell us a person thank you, you know, you can.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Tell them thank you, but do you really really mean it?
Speaker 7 (11:27):
And so what I tried to do is try to
take my words and put them into action.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
And so.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
That was my way of because watching the mind for
me is like running marathon. My parents like to say,
for most people, I have to focus on you know,
everything I do in.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Order to take a step.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
You know, my pasture, my breathing, you know, my where
my leg placement is.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And so that was my way.
Speaker 7 (11:58):
Of kind of giving me and kind of giving him
a break a little bit.
Speaker 6 (12:04):
Like so, yeah, and I think he really he was
dying to know what it felt like to be an athlete.
So he had participated in all the you know, hundreds
of races, but there's a difference if you're actually in
the game, you know, on the field.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Right, And so that first time he got to actually be.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
The athlete was eye opening to him and opened up
all kinds of doors.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
But it was really an extraordinary experience.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Because what you have, it shuts down your body, right,
but your brain.
Speaker 7 (12:34):
Sure, yeah, your brain is the most powerful power of
your body. And so when you get your brain to
overtake everything that you know, everybody says your musbans can't do,
it's really really something powerful. And I think, you know,
that's what all the athletes that I look up to there,
(12:56):
they always stay positive all the time, and they always
you know, find ways to say, Okay, how can I
get better from my loss? And people with turn failure,
but they're not really failure. They're just helping you to
understand how to be better. And so that's an approach
that I took from my training. Don't really helped me
(13:20):
to understand exactly what it's ak to optimize and to
be successful in life.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
So yeah, he's so Johnny's cerebral palsy.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
It's there's a wife variety of cerebral Paul jo His
is heathy focused on the lower in his body gets
the worst things are but it's a disconnect between the
brain and muscles.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
They just don't communicate like they ought to.
Speaker 6 (13:42):
So he's been able to overcome some of that through
just intensive training, so that the typical physical therapy might
be going to an hour a week, and if you
are going to take golf lessons, we went for an
hour a week, we'd get better. But if you went
to a golf school and went every week after week
after week with some of the best pros in the country,
(14:02):
you would get really, really good at it. And that's
what he's done in this physical therapy program he's in
where intensive training hours and hours every day made a
lot of progress, very small progress, but huge progress for
someone like Johnny.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
We never were to dream to you'd be able to
walk at all, you with a walker.
Speaker 6 (14:18):
And so with the group he's in at the Conductive
Learning Center in grund Rapids, Michigan, here, he's made great progress.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
And I hope that you write a book then, because really,
our scars, that's our superpower, right, My scars make me
walk in every room and say I don't like the
rescue people in the ere because of the stuff I've overcome,
not the stuff that I've done, and so scars have
got me. So you too, the stuff that you could
just you could teach the world. Whether people have CP
or not.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
We could all learn from you.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Matter Just interestingly you need to say that, oh really, Yeah,
Johnny and Becky have actually published a book.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
It was endorsed by Michael Phelps, So I thank you.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
That's my guyl.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Yeah. So came out about a year ago. It's called
fall a.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Mile Impossible Mile. Okay, good, I'm getting it.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
So it goes through all the lot of the background,
the history.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
My wife's a phenomenal author, and so she wrote a
lot of it because Johnny was too young to.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
Remember most of it.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
But it really it chronicles how he overcame all these
challenges he's faced and some of the things that we've done,
and premiery of my wife was a huge portion of
the of the nice thing is I get ninety percent
of the credit, Jay, but she does ninety percent of
the work.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Played off of last thing with the book, Johnny, you
could run your ass over to my house now and
give me a copy.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Of the book. I love that I would.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Done and done. So there's so many questions I have
to you. Okay, when you guys are well, you guys
are together. Now, if I was with my friend right,
let's call it, let's say Marcus Strat for seventeen straight hours, okay,
Strayann and I were like, you know, John c Riley
and Will Ferrell from STEP we fight NonStop.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
We couldn't go seventeen minutes without fighting. You fight?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Do you guys motivate each other? Like, how are those
seventeen hours?
Speaker 7 (16:06):
I love talking to all the other athletes on the boards,
you know, getting stories from the other people.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
You know, do you talk to motor ATHLETs?
Speaker 4 (16:16):
What's that?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Do you talk ship to the other athletes?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
No?
Speaker 7 (16:19):
No, I go just to motivate everybody else. I don't think.
You know, in endurance sports, we try to get each other.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
To the line. You know, you're not you're not beating.
Speaker 7 (16:32):
Each other necessarily, you're beating You're trying to beat yours
and it's mostly you versus you type deal. So you know,
we try to bring each other to the line. And
I think that's something special about endurance sports and really
helped me out in like, how can I not beat
(16:53):
somebody else but better myself? So I love motivating each
other across and talking to each other and trying to
get bits and pieces that I can carry on in
my life.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And it's really a special.
Speaker 7 (17:10):
But sometimes Dad won't tell me to stop talking.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Because in his own something that.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Is true. Sometimes you just got to block things out
and not think about it.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I hope that every single day, though, you're able to
like it never gets old, and every day you're able
to say to yourself like, oh my god, look at
this that I'm doing with my son.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
This is the ultimate sign of love.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And I hope you're able to love yourself up fully
every day and don't ever let it get used to it.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Yeah, you know that.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
The tough thing is we've kind of evolved. I appreciate
you saying that that we've kind of evolved into it.
And so it's, uh, it's when you step back once.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
In a while and hear from people.
Speaker 6 (17:54):
When we finished in Ironman Maryland, that was actually the
first iron Man out of after failing five you know
quote unch, failing five times to get through under the
official cutoff times. So we made it and you just
don't think about the magnitude of it. But then you'll
see people post stuff online like, you know, one guy said,
I've done seven iron Man's I can't even imagine pulling
(18:14):
another human being for the race. That kind of stuff,
and you know, just I mean, you hear people will
say like, man, I don't do anything with my kids
and I should be doing so much more kind of stuff.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
And so if it's those kinds of things, when you
step back from it, it really hits you.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
But when you're in the day to day, you know,
it's just part of your life, right, and it just
becomes a lifestyle. It's what we do all the time,
so you don't really think about it. And I'm just
doing it for my son, I don't. You know, I'm
not joking when I say that I don't I don't
like running. It's like the whole runners High thing. Never
at it, never never go to Probably people go I
(18:50):
love to go for a long run. I'll think, are
you insane? But it's all you know, I'm just doing
it because Johnny loves it. And I hope that's what
inspires you know, other fathers to think about, is you know,
you don't have to be, you know, the father of
the year or anything like that. You just got to
keep keep being a better father than you were, you know,
the day before kind of thing into what you are today,
and then it'll it'll head into certain kind.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
Of cool things.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
What's the emotion emotional part for you? Is it the start?
Is it when you guys hit your worst struggle, or
is it the finish?
Speaker 6 (19:20):
You know, it's the biking for us is so difficult
that we're hauling. If you think of an average tra
athlete with their bike, they're under two hundred pounds. I mean,
these people are really fit and it's a couple hundred
pounds and we're hauling about three hundred and eighty the
three hundred and ninety pounds and depending on how many
deserts Johnny has bumping up.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
To four h say it sounds like Johnny and he's
lose some weight.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, that that though, is the part of my day.
Give me.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
But when we so, when we can get over the
when we make the bike cut off, that's the greatest
feeling because then I feel like, yeah, I got to
run a marathon next, But I always feel like.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
I can gut that out and get through the marathon.
Speaker 6 (20:03):
The greatest feeling is when when I'm when we're strapping
with our team, when we strapped Johnny into his walker,
and I know that.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
We're going to make it, and I know that he's
got to walk.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
The rest of it, but it's, Uh, he's been sitting
there for sixteen almost seventeen hours waiting for his chance,
and it's like, you know, you get an athlete who
hasn't played in a long time and they're sitting there
waiting in the sidelines for a chance to play, and
now he gets his chance to go in. Uh, that
to me is the most gratifying. Then getting over the
finish line.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Is it's just really cool to stop.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
But when we're strapping Johnny in and now he gets
to actually take over, he gets to become the athlete,
that is the piece that's the most gratifying for me.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Peyton Manning has opened up a door for you guys
to actually compete in the actual try, you know, the
iron Man triathlete out in Hawaii.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Yeah, how cool is that? Right? No doubt that was amazing. Listen,
when I saw Peyton come on on there, I was like, oh, no, crying.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Now you could see look I know Peyton well.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
You could see in his voice he was so genuinely
excited to announce this to you.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
There was nothing but authenticity.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
There, good, good, gad, I wrote, look up to him.
Speaker 7 (21:13):
You know just how he carries himself, and just you
know how much how much fun he has playing the game,
and how much fun he had off the field too.
I really see a lot of myself and him, And
so just to have him announced that we're going back
next year to what we consider our super Bowl, really
(21:39):
really an awesome feeling, because you know, he's one of
the athletes that I look up to as a child,
and so you know, it was kind of a to
have him announced that we're going back to our super
Bowl was really a full circum moment, and I was
so shocked and so thankful for the opportunity just to
(22:02):
be able to have the.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
When when is that? When is that that Iron Man?
Speaker 5 (22:09):
It's a late October of twenty twenty.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
Four, twenty four, Yes, Johnny Staff, Peyton Manning's jersey hanging
on his wall for the longest time. So it's really
a wild thing to to have Peyton Manning be the
one to announce we're going back to the iron Man
World Championship.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
So when will you start training for this?
Speaker 5 (22:26):
In October twenty three months.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Ago Bally, Yeah, it's a uh it's a huge effort.
So you know, while we finished in Ironman, the one
in Hawaii, that's that's the World Championship. It's it's called
the most brutal one day endurance event on the planet.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
So what makes a difference in the other ones? Crazy steep,
So the steepness is really hilly for the bike. The
uh your bike through the lava fields of Hawaii, so
it's well.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Over one hundred degrees, it's super super hot, and then
it's crazy windy with us some of the winds coming
off the ocean, so you'll see riders leaning into the
wind so they don't fall down. So it's it's so
much more difficult.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
Than any others.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
Just the level of extreme so like strength has to
be dramatically better than it was back then.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
See if you have any tips on like strength.
Speaker 6 (23:18):
I'm all for any of your listeners that can help
me build like strain, but I have to have an
endurance level and a like strength level, and an overall
fitness level beyond what we've ever done and I'm at
sixty years old, so there's there's a lot.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
That goes into it. So we've been training in the Hope,
so we got invited, but there's there's a lot of
effort has to.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Go into it.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
But we're excited for the job.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Yeah, we really appreciate iron Man giving us the opportunity
Payon Manning delivering the message to us and CBS mornings
to the ones to get it to us.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
How many hours a day goes into this training? And
do you give yourself rest days?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (23:56):
See, you rest one day a week, but typically you're
leads doing one of your events or one of your exta.
You get one sabbath yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like a Monday.
But I mean I'm swimming and running typically on one
of the days, and then like one time in the morning,
run a night four days a week.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Uh, then you also do running three days a week.
Strength training.
Speaker 6 (24:19):
I do yoga classes for stretching and flexibility all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
So then and then nutrition is.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Like the fourth leg of traft and so uh, there's
like six major areas of things you got to focus on.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I think sleep will have to be in there too.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
Sleep is a portion of it not enough. And I
work full time as well, right, you work for I've
got a job to so so you work for a
great company.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
You saying you work forty hours a week, fifty hours week?
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Yeah, in that right, eighty hours a week.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Now, so how many hours a day? How many hours
are day training outside of work?
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Yeah, I'm training at least two hours a day, and
then sometimes three or four. Then the weekends or when
you do your long runs and long bikes, so then
it could be seven, eight, nine hours of training on
a given day.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
So it's a hit the lifestyle commitment.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I only, for example, if I want to watch the Lions,
I guess they're getting better. Johnny keeps telling me, so Lions,
I always time it where might do an indoor bike
ride while the game's on it he is always only
on when I'm doing some kind of a training event
with us.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
You coordinate everything that way.
Speaker 7 (25:25):
And then with my training, my my aunt and uncle.
It's family affair here, so my aunt and uncle help
me with my with my training, in my walking and
the help me stretch and everything. My aunt is an
occupation of therapist, So it really works out that way.
But you know, it really helped.
Speaker 9 (25:47):
Me to be able to do something every day, because again,
you know, if I'm doing therapy pretty much every day
to strengthen my muscle and everything, then I'm getting better.
Speaker 7 (26:01):
And so the supports is kind of my way of
waking up, but in a fun way, and it's making
my doctors happy.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
In the fact, clearly making.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
You happy, which is great. Last couple of questions for
you start from dad to son. Okay, what's the biggest
thing you've learned from him during this time.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Wow, that's a good question.
Speaker 6 (26:27):
I think just being able to overcome obstacles and having
a good attitude about it when you're doing it.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
It's you know, Ironman training.
Speaker 6 (26:36):
Is really really an individual activity a lot of times,
and there's you're constantly trying to do better, but failure
is kind of part of the whole process a lot
of times. And I've learned a lot from Johnny about
not letting failure standing her way. So, just to give
an example, when we didn't we actually participated in the
iron Man World Championship in twenty sixteen. We got invited
(26:59):
when we were so earlier in our iron Man career,
we didn't know what we didn't know, and so we
were horribly ill prepared, but we got halfway through the
bike and we missed the bike cut off. So, you know,
I looked at it as a pretty sizeable failure. Only
a million people watched this, you know, fail on national TV,
so kind of a big negative. But my wife much
(27:19):
more positive than I am, a super super supportive of it,
and she said.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
Something good is going to come out of this.
Speaker 6 (27:24):
At the time, I wasn't quite as sure that something
good was going to come out of it, but some
amazing things have happened because of that. We kept working,
kept training, trying to do more and more and really
made the failure into something and so it led to
them writing their book, Johnny having a relationship more with
Michael Phelps and under Armer.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
He was actually in a commercial with Michael Phelps in.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
Michigan and then in a commercial with the Rock Duayne
Johnson too, a notable guy. And so had we made
it in Hawaii that first time through those other things
never would have happened because there had been no reason
for us to keep pushing it. And the last piece
said I'll kind of tie together is that Johnny's a
motivational speaker.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
He's done a lot of speeches so far to groups
from one hundred to.
Speaker 6 (28:07):
Seven thousand, and a lot of his messages to people
that you know what, failure is just part of the process.
You got to keep working, keep overcoming, learning from things.
And the reality is if we'd made it the first time,
people would have said, well, that guy was an athlete
and it should wasn't that hard. But I wasn't an
endurance athlete, and it is brutally hard to get through
an iron managed. So we finally got through on a
(28:28):
sixth try. Shows that overcoming obstacles and failure along the
way is just part of the process, and we are
so much better off today than we would have been
had we made it through ConA the very.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
First time through. And great things have happened to Johnny
because of that. So my wife was right. You know,
he took a lot of years to figure out that
she was right on these things.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Two things you know I take from that one, adversity
is a gift.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Most people run away from it instead of figuring, Okay,
we'll got knocked out.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Let's figure out what's going to take to overcome it.
That's what leads to greatness.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
And you did exactly that you ran to it instead
of saying, well, I can't do this, I'm just gonna
go I'm gonna transfer school.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
So I'm gonna quit this job. I'm gonna quit this school. Right,
that's not the mindset you guys had. So that I love.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
And the other part is I try and tell this
a lot of people I work with also, Man, you
never know what luck like why things happen in life,
but you don't know why he was born with this
and will drive you crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
I don't know why good.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Things happen to bad people, who bad things happen to
good people, And if you try and figure out, I'll
drive you crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Just take life for how.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It is and try and find the good and the
blue in life and let's go after That's absolutely so
let's switch to you. So what has been the biggest
lesson you've learned from that?
Speaker 10 (29:45):
I think, you know, just I think the love Dad
has for me, in the length in which she's willing
to go through to prove.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
That to me is really really.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
A lot, and not not every son has the opportunity
to see that, and so.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I'm very thankful. And also just the consistency.
Speaker 7 (30:13):
What it takes to do something if you want to
if you want to be great at something, you know
what it.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Takes to be able to do that.
Speaker 7 (30:23):
Because because Dad was never a swim, bikeer, runner, So
you know, I get to see that nothing motive. Somebody
that wasn't an athlete and now has become something it's
now has become an athlete himself, is really really something
special and I'm I'm so grateful for it because it
(30:43):
really helped me again understand, you know, if you want
to be good at something, you can't just say I'm here.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
You know if I was you know, watch Lions on TV.
Speaker 7 (30:55):
You know they can't just say I'm gonna suit up
and watch I'm gonna suit up and play a game.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
You know, there's working, everything goes into it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
And so.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
That has taught me so much and and it's loved
me so much.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
I'm so grateful before it and and I really can't
thank him enough.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
And I'm so great.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
For Johnny to give things to try, and and that's
what got us to even take on the iron Man
World Champions the first time, where NBC and iron Man
offered us to uh to go and it'd be hypocritical
to say to Johnny's whole life, hey, you need to
get things to try.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
You may not you know, I may not succeed, but
you've got to try.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
And then for us to then turn around and say, well,
I'm not gonna do that because we're probably not gonna
make it. So we've tried to encourage him, especially my
wife has and uh, and I'm trying to support that
as well, that Johnny can do things you never thought possible.
But it's gonna take a lot of work and there's
gonna be failure along the way. But it's been, Uh,
it's been a good thing to try to do. And
you know, we've tried to go out of our way
(31:58):
not to put limitations in front of Johnny. It took
us a long time before we would say that he
had circle polsy.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
We would just say, you know that he wasn't. We
never used the word normal, even though he does once
in a while.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
We always say I am freaking normal South.
Speaker 6 (32:13):
It's typical a certain way, but normal is not a
word that we took that we like to to use
very often, just because it sets up the negative things
are going to happen or something something wrong. And when
he decided he wanted to walk a mile, Like my
evolution was step by step along the way. He decided
to walk a mile, he'd only walk twenty three steps
(32:33):
in therapy school, and so that'd be like you or
I walk into the mailbox and our next goal was
a marathon.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Right, it's just just a crazy level just doesn't happen.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
But you've probably seen people that hugely ambitious goals, and
what happens is the wheels of activity and people start
coming around you when you start attracting. It's that that
law of magnets doesn't right where you start attracting.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Things to help you achieve that goal.
Speaker 6 (32:58):
So sometimes in an audacious goal, is is good to
go after.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Mine were very incremental.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
But this has been a huge for us to see
two different approaches to get to, you know, a similar
type of endpoint, one step by step and then Johnny's
setting a massive goal and finding a way to get there.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Johnny, I think you also seen, you know, a God's
sacrifice for you, for your love that to me makes
you one of the richest dudes in the world.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
I'm very thankful, and.
Speaker 7 (33:27):
You know I want That's one of the things that
I tried to do in my motivation speaking and trying
to help people understand is you know, I try to
teach them some of the lessons that my parents have
taught me, because you know, what good is the lesson
that you've been taught if it's not given to other people.
(33:49):
So that's what I tried to do, and the basis
and what doing to the day.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Being service absolutely being of services huge to help us
between the years. Last question for you both. I always
ask every one of.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
My my guests, what is the one moment that could
have broken you and didn't and you came through the
other side of that tunnel stronger as a result your
unbreakable moment.
Speaker 7 (34:17):
Well, I think for me it was it was not
making Cone in twenty and sixteen, because you know, it
really showed me the whole athlete experience and that you
have to fail out in order to learn how to succeed.
And so that was something that was very, very beneficial
(34:38):
for me in the end. I learned a lot from
that experience and just seeing how hard be able to
have this opportunity now and.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
That well, so similar to that, but you know, I mean,
not finishing in ConA the first time was a huge setback,
but then we kept hoping we'd get invited back knowing
a lot more, understanding more of what it takes the train,
And so it went year after year, or we would
try a different Ironman event to kind of show we
(35:10):
could get through one, and so we failed a total
of five times.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
We had weird things happened.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
One year is one hundred degrees on the on the
bike portion and we didn't make the cutoff. Another we
had forty miles of a flat tire and his chariot
where we didn't realize it was like that. We just
thought it was wy windy. We had a huge downpour
of rain all thought the bike in another race just crazy.
And one we got a bike crash, someone slammed into
us accidentally. And we've had weird things happen along the way.
(35:38):
So every time you start thinking, man, I just don't
know if it's in the cards for us to do it.
So that was, you know, my moments were a long,
long period of time when you just don't know if
you're actually gonna get through to the finish line. And
I keep leaning back on something Johnny said when we
first time we didn't make it through through Kona NBC
(36:00):
was recording and they said, you know, they came up
to Johnny and said, you know, basically, what do you
think after we got pulled off the race? And he said, well,
sometimes you win, sometimes.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
You learn, and that's exactly and I thought I didn't
know he'd said it. I was hilarious at that point.
But it's really a really cool way to look at
things that if you.
Speaker 6 (36:20):
Look at everything as a learning opportunity, you know, we're
so much better off having learned along the way and
now leading up to trying to get back to ConA.
Now we have a lot more experience. Yes I'm older,
but you get a lot more experience, a lot better training,
a lot better equipment, And to make it now would
show that, you know, you know Ironman's mantras, anything is possible,
(36:43):
and us getting through you know what, would seem to
be pretty impossible if we make it. It kind of
feeds into that whole thing anything is possible the right
amount of hard work, attitude, and the right motivation.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Right, So I think it's we're better suited now than
we are back then.
Speaker 6 (36:59):
And so that was any any one of those things
along the way, we kind of could have said, you
know what that it's not in the cards for us
to get through one of these Iron Man events. That's
we've done a pretty decent job, but let's kind of
stop here. And so it was a string of unbreakable
moments that have gotten us where we are here today,
and so we're very focused now on taking everything we've
(37:19):
learned and getting through ConA next year in October.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Didn't break, it just made you stronger. And man, I
want to say that you.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Guys have a definitely fan hear me for the two
of you now, But more so I would like say
a friend, go, oh, man, if I can get I
know it's during football season October twenty twenty four, but
if I can get out there somehow some way and
be there at the finish line of cheer you on,
my ass will be standing right there for me.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
Oh I see.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
If I could do that.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Right, that would be awesome. That'd be fantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
And I really appreciate your time tonight.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
Thanks Jay, We appreciate thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Gan, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I just I really you know, like I said, you
ever trying for your life out and you know there's
certain people put in your life that God puts in
your life to to learn certain things from, and today
was a day where it was just a day to
learn that, Hey, I'm just a happy guy today listening
to these two.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
I appreciate how much you will both He'll be today.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
Appreciate it very much
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
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