David Rutherford Show: Inside Jeff Garmire’s 45-Day Appalachian Trail Record: Pain, Fear, and Unbelievable Grit | Ep. 79 - The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What does it take to run, walk, hike twenty two
hundred miles in forty five days. Find out today on
the David Rutherford Show. All right, everybody, I'm going to

(00:21):
tell you one of the greatest places that I've ever
lived in my entire life was out in Ashville, North Carolina.
I love North Carolina as it is, but out in
Ashville in particular. And the reason was is because of
the hiking and the running trails that were there. And
so when I'd come back from overseas, I'd get home,

(00:42):
and my way to find that piece in my heart
in my head post deployment craziness was to get out
on the Appalachian Trail with my dog Zulu and just
go for two three four hour runs and just escape
out into the wilderness. Well, today, my guest is a
gentleman named Jeff Garmeyer, and recently he finished an unsupported

(01:08):
southbound Appalachian trail and set a record for forty five days,
eight hours, and thirty seven minutes, beating the former record
of Joe my favorite string being McConaughey at forty five days,
twelve hours, and fifteen minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
And he's just.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Waiting on the faster known time organization to set the
trail record for this incredible feat. So, without further ado,
I am so honored to welcome ultra endurance athlete Jeff
Garmyer to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thank you Jeff for coming on.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm glad you've experienced the
trail as well on your runs. It's a pretty rugged
trail out there, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
You know what I used to think, like, all right,
I'm going to crust this. At that time, I was.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Doing long run in Florida, where I live.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
We moved up to North Carolina, and I swear to
god I could do thirty minutes and those those elevation
and I mean and the trail itself is hazardous you
know too. So it's like I had to completely adjust
my whole mindset, like I had to.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
It was cool.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
There's so many great trail runners out there and the
community is so wonderful that I was able to get
a lot of instruction and assistance.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
And guidance, so that that really helped me for sure.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah, miles are a lot slower out there than on
the roads when you're just jogging around or in Florida.
But that's what makes it fun too, is it's so
engaging because every step matters. There's usually a route or
a rock in your way as well.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, I mean I I think you know what I
remember when I really started to realize just how difficult
it is to be, you know, off the beaten path.
I remember doing long range of rock runs and stuff
in the teams, and you know, ever get a solid step.
You never like your equipment is never where it needs

(03:04):
to be. There's always a rub, there's always your shoes
are all you're battling your boots or your shoes or whatever,
and there's just you know something that you know, nature,
Nature fights back a little bit when you're out there
trying to conquer it for sure, totally.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
And what I love about it is you just never
know what's going to be like a factor or the
problem that you have to solve of the day, Like
is it going to be a blister or a chafing thing,
or humidity or rain or mud or lack of water.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
That's what kind of just on the general sense why
I've fallen in love with these long things in the
woods because it's just constant problem solving. It's like your
mind is racing and it's working. And people may think, oh,
it's you're out there moving twenty hours a day or so,
but it's like, yeah, but you're also thinking twenty hours
a day. It's unlike anything else in real life.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Oh at all people, And that I think, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
For me, that was the one of the most rewarding
aspects about doing those kinds of endurance type of outdoor endeavors.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
You know, it really is.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
It is about the problem solving of the environment, the
problem solving of your your own kit, the problem solving
of your physicality, and then most important part, you know
that that spiritual problem solving your working through too in
different aspects of your life. I want to know, let's
just start out, what got you into this? I mean,

(04:32):
you know, it's one thing to be outdoorsy and you know,
to enjoy mountain biking and hiking and all that, but
you've taken this thing to such an elite level. I
would love for my audience to understand, like, what was
the catalyst? What got you going?

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah? I think a lot of things that develop into passions,
or we realize our passions are almost on an accident,
and that's sort of how it feels with this. I
was in the middle of college and not really into it,
not really fitting into the college style. I didn't really
love it. It felt like just being graded on how
good you were at test taking. So I was looking

(05:10):
for a reason to quit it. Didn't just want to
be a college drop out and not do anything. And
so I remember that we'd met these people that were
through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail when I was about sixteen,
and with nothing more than just that memory, it was like, Okay,
I'm going to quit college and hike the two thousand
and six hundred and fifty mile Pacific Crest Trail. I

(05:33):
was twenty years old who was like, this is going
to be the time where I figure out what to
do with my life. And turns out I love that
experience so much. That turned out to be what I
actually wanted to do with my life and involve more
bit and the biggest reason I fell in love with it.
And that's literally all it took for me to dive in.
Two weeks after deciding I was going to do this,

(05:55):
I was on the trail figuring it out with a
fifty five pound pack and no good gear. But that
didn't really matter because it was like the chance to
grow up. There were now like dining halls like in college.
There weren't just schedules or courses or the curriculum for
four years mapped out. It was like, I need to
buy enough food in this town because the next four days,

(06:17):
I'm not going to have a town, so I'm going
to go hungry, or I have to carry enough water,
or I'm going to go thirsty. Is it made me
grow up and become an adult so quickly where the
consequences of my actions actually had implications, And I think
that was just such a valuable thing to learn in
the most rudimentary sense compared to college. Felt like it

(06:38):
was like just a stepping stone barely after high school,
and I was kind of I was needing like a
clean break and to just kind of find my own
identity in my own self rather than just kind of
being guided through a curriculum. So eventually I went back
to school and and finished. But it just gave me
this much bigger sense of decision making and consequences and

(06:59):
problem solved, and also confidence and empowerment of like I
can make these decisions and live with the consequences and
deal with problems and things like that. So it really
was the need for a break from college, and I
went on one thru hike and decided that that didn't

(07:19):
need to be my last one. I would find a
way to make it a part of my life in
some way moving forward. So that's where it all started
at twenty years old.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
That's such a beautiful story.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Man. It's crazy to me that those one little single
things that take place, like just witnessing other people in
that moment, that transformational moment, and it's not like you're, hey,
sit down and tell me why you're out here, tell
me what you're doing there, Like there's no context in it.
It's just the revelation that can take place in that

(07:52):
shared space where you know somebody is in this transition,
somebody is in this space of execute eating something bigger
than themselves. Right for me, it was my freshman year.
My next door neighbor, Tony Gronsky, gave me a book
about Navy seals in Vietnam, and I didn't know what
a Navy seal was and I read this thing and

(08:14):
I'm like, well.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
That's the coolest thing I've ever read.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
And you know, fast forward four years later, when I
realized that college was not for me, I didn't the
same as you, like, I didn't get it here. We
are supposed to be in the most advanced technical aspect
of education, and it's very similar. You're just in regurgitating

(08:38):
information to test, to get to the next thing, to
get compile all your credits and to get your diploma
so then you can go work in a cubicle or.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Whatever, you know.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
And it's just that that Washern's recycle, repeat thing of
your mind.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
And I was in that same thing too. It's like,
my mind is not because.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
There are there are aspects of college that I think
you can absorb a unique perspective from. It can push
you to think. But if you're not prepared for that,
and like you said, if you don't have the maturity
to allow the rigor or regiment of college where you

(09:17):
can explore your own individual construct of of of intellectual
your intellectual prowess or whatever it is, you know, you
are shunted in this way that you're you're you're restructed.
And so you know, leaving and going out into into
that trail must have just been like how soon did

(09:38):
you feel the elation of it? How soon And what
what was that feeling like? What did you Was it
a sense of freedom?

Speaker 2 (09:45):
You know? I? You know I.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
I love your podcast, the Free Outside Podcast. The name
is so cool, and that's that's what it is, right Like,
when you're outside, you're free. You're you're disconnected from the
tether of society, if you will, or the rigors of it,
and you're free to go explore yourself.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Did you feel that instantaneously? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (10:09):
I felt it pretty soon. The first night I was
scared by every like a little bird or animal steering around,
So it was a bit of a transition into being
comfortable out there. I have no fears of the outdoors now,
but I have to admit I was quite quite scared
for the first few days on that trail. But the
biggest thing that stuck with me and made it feel

(10:33):
like home or community was there were probably three hundred
other people out there attempting the trail that year, and
they all are so different, different beliefs, views, from different countries,
from different backgrounds, different levels of income, and it was
so cool to experience that we all are doing the
same thing. And I think that just made me realize

(10:54):
that the whole greater country in the world is there's
just these like commonalities between people, and it just made
me understand that I don't understand everything and everyone out there,
and that was just as important and it almost made
it fascinating to well, you made me want to just
get to know these people and their stories and we

(11:14):
shared and you become friends and everything. You become friends
so quickly because all your goals are aligned at this
moment in time of we want to get to this
campsite at the end of the day, we got to
get water here, resupply in this town. That you just
realized that no matter people's backgrounds or anything like that,
that you can just have like really cool conversations and

(11:35):
become friends with anyone if you have shared goals. And
I think that was the biggest learning at twenty that
was almost addicting, of like I got to find these
situations in the future so that I can continue to
find like this greater community that is just very different
than I was getting in my college classes. I didn't

(11:55):
get that immersement. There's too many distractions to really feel
like you could share out when you're all vulnerable and
cold and tired or wet or exhausted or hungry. It's
a lot easier to just share on a deeper level
than than in that more superficial world.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
It feels like, oh, I think.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
That that right there is about as gospel as there
is right there, and and it's I always find the
beauty of the outside world, and that you know there
there's no no matter how hard people try to manipulate
the the the the majesty or the influence of nature

(12:35):
for whatever purpose, the.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Only you don't need to do that.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Just be in it and be in it with someone else,
and it happens naturally.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Right, you find that common ground.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Which is which is you know, that expansive landscape, or
those beautiful pine trees or or redwoods or sequoias, or
the smell of those you know, those creeks or or
whatever it is. Man, there's it's just there's no manipulation
that going on in any of that. And I think
it allows for people, like you said, it allows for
that genuine sense of honesty to emerge out of us

(13:11):
that we spend so much time trying to bury or
trying to what is it, I don't know, protect maybe
because I think you know to a certain degree and
I've traveled all over the world up meant thousands of people,
talk to thousands of people, and and I think, you know,
when you when you can somehow what pull the barriers

(13:32):
down a little bit, or or not having pulled down,
but just like have.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Them open the little you know, the little.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
You know security gate of their soul and and you
can offer up a genuine curiosity and intrigue and respect
for what they.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Think and who they are and whatever.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
And regardless if you believe it or not, there's just
this shared sense of like that within the human condition
that we are connected, and we are connected in a
in a natural way.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
And I think that you're right. It really only happens.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Out when you're out in the woods like that is, so,
as you finished that first one finish college, when did
you like make the decision?

Speaker 2 (14:11):
All right, this is going to become more.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Of a quest or an active uh an active goal
for me to begin these more grander scales of endurance.
And and then you know, what I always kind of
describe as is that I'm a true slave of time itself.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Right, I'm always like I got to be there, you know,
I got to be there.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
It's like that and that gnawing sensation of what time
can do to you. But like with those decisions, you're
almost trying to gain control of the time itself. Like
time is saying you can't do this, and you're saying
I can. When did When did that all shift to
a more focused way?

Speaker 2 (14:55):
And why?

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, that's a that's a good and tough question. So
so after college I dove into the world of finance
and accounting in Denver, and if you can believe it
or not, it was not the most stimulating on the weekends.
Every single week in the first summer I was there,
I climbed multiple fourteen ers and my goal was to

(15:16):
finish fifty eight fourteen thousand foot peaks in Colorado, and
the climbed the mall within ten weeks, and that was
the highlight of every week. Is like can I fit
in five or six different mountains on this weekend? This
hobby was just like as big as my normal life.
So I began looking at how do I do something

(15:38):
a little bit bigger, a little bit more epic than
the Pacific Crest trail that I'd done, And so I
kind of came to the conclusion that I am going
to quit my career and do this eight thousand mile
adventure involving hiking the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail,
and the Continental Divide Trail in the same kind of

(16:01):
what moving over the edge was the same exact feeling
that I had in college, whereas like I just don't
fit in, I'm not everything feels superficial here. Every social
interaction involves going out and getting a beer, where I'd
rather just like be in the mountains and doing something.
And yeah, it made me very depressed. And so when

(16:21):
you get to a point of depression, it's sort of like, well,
I if I don't change anything, I'll feel like this forever.
So I can do anything, like I can make any
other choice. And it was like quitting my job and
going on an eight thousand mile adventure. What's the downside
of that? Because that is better than what I'm giving up.
Even if I run out of money or I'm in

(16:42):
a bad spot at the end of it, at least
for this eight months, I was in a better spot.
So that's sort of the mindset that just naturally developed
of when you feel like you have nothing to lose,
then you can make the decision. That's really guided by
your feelings and your passions and your heart. And so
that's what I did, and that just at that time,

(17:02):
only four other people had done this adventure. I was
the youngest by far. I didn't have hardly any experience,
no experience in the snow, but that's what I wanted,
something where it was a complete un down. The problem
solving aspect is my favorite part of it. When you're
freezing cold, you only got what's in your pack to
stay warm. So all these little things and they made

(17:26):
me so present and I think that's the most enjoyable part.
And so this that sort of launched this uh I
guess into going further and further, and eventually was like, well,
I'd like to see how fast I can do things,
And so it naturally led into going fast and trying

(17:47):
for these records, and if you come close or you
get one, it's sort of like, okay, I get in,
I can do this, And that sort of fueled getting here.
And then the trick is this world cost money to
live it, so finding ways to support it over time.
But I think when something was so cemented in my

(18:07):
mind is like this is my passion, this is what
I love to do. This is where I feel extremely present.
It's like I can figure out all the other things
around it, at least I just add this one thing
that seems to be when you're like four and adults
are like, you can be anything you want when you
grow up, it's like, well, why would I ignore that?
It seems like I found what I want to do. Now,

(18:29):
I just got to feel like I got to figure
out how to make it sustainable. So that's sort of
the journey. And when you talk about a time and
a slave to time, that's so fascinating because, like in
a record, it's against a certain time, but when you're
out there, you feel like time moves at this natural pace,
Like at thirty minutes before the sun rises, the birds

(18:50):
start chirping, and then the day flows naturally. As the
sun rises, a temperature eats up and it sets and
cools off, like the wind changes. Like you pick up
and note all these cues that our ancestors probably noticed
and paid attention to for tens of thousands of years.
And that's what I love. It just feels so natural.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Well, you said something that I really was fascinating to me.
You know, you you you you alluded to a sense
of depression that you were locked into a space that
wasn't genuinely your choice, and you realize that you weren't
going to experience life the way you wanted to.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Which was.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
In in in nature itself right to be connected to it, right,
And and then you you know, and so you know
you said something about presence, you know, when you're when
you're present in those moments, and you just alluded to
it right there, you you're present on the trail, your
present in the in the how time actually works in

(19:52):
conjunction with the natural order.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Of of of.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Of all things, right, I think you know, we we
we have a real propensity to try and contort the
sensation of time through technology and all the other aspects,
in particular are our sense of meaning and focus with
work and all these other aspects that can be profound
distractions for trying to figure out who we are, where

(20:16):
we fit in. But that presence and the time itself,
it it sounds like when people are struggling that they're
not present or there, or or they're overly present in
a space that isn't the genuine nature of their reality, right,

(20:39):
And you start to spin in the what you're spinning
in the things that you know are not working, and
then you kind of get trapped into that time, that
that space and time. But as soon as you step
out of that and you and you, you go out

(21:00):
and you like for me growing up in South Florida,
it was going to the beach, going surfing. You know,
now it's paddleboarding, snorkeling, swimming in the ocean. You know
that that connectivity that helps my sense of time get restructured.
And so there is something remarkably.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
What is it?

Speaker 1 (21:25):
It generates the sense of presence that obstructs the ulterior
motives to control the time, which which I think bleeds
into us feeling controlled, like our sense of identity being controlled.
What we have to fit in being controlled, We have
to fit it in this box or this structure that

(21:45):
you know, societies have a tendency to impose on individuals
and that generated some frustration in me as well too,
And that's why I wanted to seek this adventure of
the teams to figure out, first and foremost could I survive? Right?
That was the one thing, you know, And then it
was then it was problem. Oh, I enjoyed the problem solving,

(22:07):
and then for me the biggest part was to be
to be in proximity to other people that sought out
those answers in this more intense environment to operate in.
And so I just find it fascinating the way you
describe it, like you're recapturing who you are in these

(22:29):
hard tasks or these adventures.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, and it's really interesting too to hear the comments
or talk to people, and a lot of the one
big question is like, well, are you ever bored? Out there?
And in my life, for some reason, we've created this
construct that like boredom is the enemy, And it's like, no,
I'm not really bored, but sometimes my mind is pretty blank,

(22:53):
like maybe that is boredom, but I feel pretty present
or focusing on, like I can eat at any time.
I'm not a slave to at six pm, I have
to eat dinner out there, Like all of these little
things that feel like they just built on each other
with how life is kind of constructed and growing up,
it felt like I could dismantle them, and just like

(23:15):
boredom is I guess maybe just not being comfortable with
more of a blank and present mind, And maybe it's
boredom to other people, but it's very present and enjoyable
to me, like you just listen to a bird sound,
or look at a sunset, or focus on walking or
the next mile, or you listen to the queue that
you're thirsty. So I think that's been the most interesting

(23:39):
thing of the disconnect. Once you've been out there for
an amount of time, even if it's an overnight backpacking trip,
or you've never really let yourself or put yourself in
that experience, and a lot of your experiences of time
are clouded by always having a distraction in the palm

(23:59):
of your hand. So I think that's the biggest thing
that has made me fall in love with it, is
it is really just embracing almost what you're given, rather
than having to create something to waste time or let
it go by. And that's also where all these relationships
and interpersonal connections are formed, when there is no distraction,
when you don't have text coming in or sharing a

(24:23):
video with each other, and you're actually just talking about
how each other is doing, or what you've done in
the past, or what you care about. That's kind of
what all of this I think is built on, is
it's eliminating kind of these constructs that just didn't really
feel like I was enjoying them, and that's kind of
what led to the depression and kind of leaving that

(24:43):
world behind to general as well.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
That's beautiful, brother, that's really, that's really that's a pretty
profound observation.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Thanks for sharing that.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
All right, let's get into kind of the technical realities
of Obviously you had grown a custom, you figured out,
you became an expert in this type of endeavor.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
What walk me through?

Speaker 1 (25:12):
All right, I'm going to go for the record, and
then how you begin to plan for that and execute
that totally. Yeah, So what I think of everything and
coaching philosophy is the same on specificity, like if this
is the goal, this is how we need to get there,
which means I need to come up with every factor

(25:33):
and have that dialed going in and then also consider
what could go wrong. So for probably the first thing
I would start with is thinking about nutrition.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
So I probably initially thought like eight thousand calories a day.
Maybe you move up to ten thousand, and it's like, okay,
I have to carry all this. So it's a calories
per announce equation on what is the most efficient. And
so I did a training camp on the exact terrain
to Maine and train with it out there. I tested

(26:03):
gear as well, but the main thing that came back
was like, Okay, maybe all of these nuts are extremely high,
like one hundred and sixty calories announced, but I can't
eat them as much as I want to. So it's
like we got to we got to shift strategies a
little bit here. We have to come up with some
alternatives that maybe more diverse palate and can stomach these

(26:24):
a little bit easier, something a little easier, and the
heat to consume. So that's how I dial in food.
And that what I would do is I had forty
five days, so I took every single day, I prepackaged
all my food, so like in basically like a bulk
food section plastic bag that would hold eight to ten
thousand calories, and that would I would need to get

(26:47):
through that every day. So when I'm on the trail,
I want to eliminate as many decisions as I can.
And so it's like I can eat anything in this
bag at any time, but for today, I need to
just finish it. And so that is it gives the
freedom out there to eat something salty or something sweet,
depending on what you feel like. But you know that
your end goal is to get through that, and so

(27:08):
I think of that as like micro goals. So every
day has micro goals like get to a certain campside
or consume amount of calories. And then how I break
down the gear is everything, I mean carrying everything, and
more you carry, the more calories you need and the
harder it is and the more on your muscles. So
it's like we want to get down and eliminate as

(27:28):
many items as possible, and then we want to have
like dual use items. So maybe that is using my
tart that I would sleep under that could also be
used as a rain jacket or extra insulation to wrap
around myself, and just things like that, like what's the
and then testing things like what's the least amount of
clothing possible that I can be not comfortable because you're

(27:52):
not doing a record attempt to be comfortable, but to
get through it. So it's just like how what are
the multi use things? How do I intimantly know my
gear so that if it gets unseasonably colder and seasonably wet,
I had these tools that I can pull out and
use in the gear side. So an example of that
in the training camp that I did out in Maine

(28:12):
was it was quite foggy, and I had a headlamp,
but it was getting I guess refracted or Boston the
fogs that I couldn't see so well. So I thought of, like, well,
what if I mounted a bracket to my waist belt
so that it was closer to the ground so I
could see where my footsteps were. And so that's what
I did. I had a little plastic mount. They would go,

(28:32):
that's cool, yeah, the waste belt of my pack, and
so that solved that problem. So it was really just
come up with the baseline, the initial plan, and then
brought both my experience and then also I'm a pretty
creative person, so let's creatively come up with all the
things that can go wrong and think of like what
are possible solutions, what are possible tools, what are ways

(28:55):
we can work on these? And I go to the
so on a few times a week, and that's kind
of the thing. My exercise I love doing in there
is like, what's something that could go wrong? How am
I going to solve it? Doesn't yeah, yeah, And it
doesn't mean that you have to come up with every
problem and solve every problem. But I think just learning

(29:16):
that mindset is so important in life. We're never going
to know everything that's going to go wrong, but if
you know what to do when something goes wrong, I
think you're even more You're way more trained than me
and this, but I think that's like the basis of life.
It's not going to go according to plans, So how
are you going to deal with it?

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Well?

Speaker 1 (29:33):
That's that's that is like no truer statement has ever
been made. Right. Life is inevitably imbued with suffering and pain.
There's just it's part of the thing when whatever context
you're looking at, And so it really is about managing
those reactions right. And and like I remember when we

(29:55):
started doing mission profile and mission.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Planning and you're like, okay, the there'll be this much
a loom.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
You have to make it this far with this amount
of water you have to you can you only have
this many rounds?

Speaker 2 (30:07):
You know.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
It's all that weight distribution and how much water versus
fuel and all that.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
When you're getting picked up, how you know just like
what you're describing.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
But the thing for me was, well, what happens if
we get here and the enemy does this or this
or this, and what happens in this and then you
start getting into that like over complicating it, and I always,
you know, the response that they would always give to
us is it's situationally dependent. And you're like, oh, oh

(30:35):
what does that mean. They're like, stop asking so many
damn questions. Right, if you've been trained, you know that
as problems that distilled down to the base problem. Am
I getting enough nutrition every day? Am I properly hydrated?

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Right? Are my feet gonna last? Right?

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Am I going to get hype out? And then do
I know where I'm going? And you know, other than that,
the other stuff you can kind of deal with. And
so I love you know that that that.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
It's it's a game for you, right.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
It's like you're you know, you're sitting there, You're you're
putting it up on this dashboard of your mind or
this gps your mind, and you're like, Okay, this could
take place, this could take place, but but you've already
thought through. So when you were hit with something like
I remember, I remember watching the video of your shoe
just getting destroyed. Can you walk through when you got

(31:35):
hit with a few different problem sets, the process in
your mind, the solution and then managing like, God.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
This sucks, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks. Right. Can
you walk through that for people?

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Because I agree if we can somehow in this show,
like give an example of what you're talking about on
how to mitigate the the mental impact of consequence versus right,
you know, proper preparation and then mental adjustment, right, being

(32:10):
emotionally adroit to where we are consumed with that negativity
and then fighting the problem even though we dealt with
it and we're still moving forward.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
I know that's a lot, Sorry.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
But you under totally. Yeah, there's a number of examples.
This went far from perfect, probably more things than any
other record attempt to happen. Why wrong on this? But
I mean it makes it fun and an engaging story.
So there's a couple of memorable stories, but one is
specifically so I mailed out eighteen boxes that had all

(32:44):
my food that I'd tried out nutrition dialed. I knew
it worked for my stomach. And in Shenandoah National Park,
about thirteen hundred miles into this twenty two hundred mile journey,
I go to this lodge that I had mailed the
box too, and I ask word and they say that
it's not here. So they look again and it's not here.

(33:06):
And this is the longest stretch It's one hundred and
sixty miles there that I need nutrition for. So this
is not good. It's immediate panic. And then it's just like, okay,
well it's not here. This is my mindset of this
where my mind goes, So it goes it's not here.
So I'm solving nothing by killing more time here, Like

(33:26):
I can't can't get any nutrition that I need here,
and so I saw that there is a wayside basically
it for this little store about five miles further. So
I it's like, okay, this is my next option. So
I'm going to go here. So that's what I do.
And I get there and it's the day after Labor Day,
and on Labor Day there hours change, so this store

(33:47):
is closed. So now we're round two of like, Okay,
this first problem solving method did not work. Now I'm
down to like a handful of peanuts. I have like
five hundred calories and the only option from here is
there's a store in thirty two miles that I can
It's like basically a gas station where I can resupply enough.

(34:09):
And so it just became Okay, I have thirty two
miles to go. I have just like a handful of
peanuts to get there. So this is going to be miserable,
basically a fasted fifty kilometer adventure here and then so
as I'm going, it's like the emotional roller coaster because

(34:29):
it's just thinking because there's more problems present. It's not
that I don't have food. It's said, if you don't
have food for a day, your body's going to be
weak for the days to come. And so it's just like, Okay,
I need to figure this out. And I'm very frustrated
at the same time, but it's like, okay, first step,
I just need to get to this store. And as
I get closer after a night of sleep, tried to

(34:52):
sleep a little extra to have some form of energy.
As I'm getting to the store, it's like, Okay, so
I'm going to be able to solve this food problem.
It's not going to be the food that I've trained with,
but I can I can at least fill that void.
But the problems present are that I'm going to have
a lack of energy for the next few days. I'm
already going into this store having basically fasted for the

(35:16):
last twelve or so hours. So it's like I need
to stop at this store and consume as many calories
as I can, and then I can set up how
much I've be eating to ten thousand calories a day
for at least the next week or so. And not
only did my box that was missing have all my nutrition,
it also had my power bank that was keeping my

(35:38):
tracker charged, my head leg urged my and I had
a spare pair of socks, and so it was a
lot deeper problem than that. So it was just like,
I need to have a tracker, so I can have
this verified, and I have my watch as a backup,
and I have this tracker. So it was like, well,
I can charge them up while I'm eating all these
calories I can, and then for the next three days,

(36:01):
I can switch like one day on my watch, one
day on the tracker to try to save as much
battery as possible, and then use my head lamp on
dim and just go a little bit slower. But it's
just like the example of I think in life like
a big problem, it's like it's got all these little,
like compounding issues that you have to solve along with them,

(36:23):
and when the solutions are there's just very few options.
When you don't have a car and you're out there
is that's where that problem solving mindset kind of takes place.
So for the next three days or so, I ate
more calories. It was not the calories I trained with,

(36:43):
but you know, I made it work. I sort of
had to have this talk with myself on I could
write this off because I've just heard my body's chances
by starving it for a day, or I could just say, well,
I'm still on pace, I've still got a chance. We

(37:03):
just hold on to this, And that's kind of my
mindset in everything in life. If you've still got a chance,
you still need to give one hundred percent. So it's
basically like, I've still got a chance. So we're just
going to see how this plays out. We don't have
to decide that this killed my adventure before it actually
does or something. So that's yeah, that's probably the biggest
example of one thing goes wrong at compounds and you

(37:26):
just have to come up with a way to problem solve,
and I'm consuming more calories. I slowly upped the mileage
after that and was able to get back on track.
But it was the scariest part of that was just
knowing that my body is going to suffer from this
issue for multiple days, but not letting that impact the present.
So it's like I can do the best of this moment,

(37:48):
but I can't decide how I'm gonna feel tomorrow until
it happens.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
I love that concept, right that, right, I think that
is the thing that impedes so many people both from
accessing the freedom that you're talking about. And people will
hear me say that, and the freedom we mean the
dude's body was eating itself, right, is His stomach was

(38:12):
like eating its interior lining right, he was his muscle
tissue was being devoured. Right, you know every reserve you had,
plus the sleep depp, plus you know the angst of
like you're dehydration or whatever, all that compounding thing.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
You know, there's no freedom in that. And I say,
there there.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Is because you know in that moment you made that decision,
like there's still hope. And for me, like I've been
in a lot of those different moments whereas like, oh no,
you're not quitting.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
There's there's no way you're quitting, Like it's just there's
not an option, right.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
You know, there have been in many moments, even in
those moments where it's like, man, I should quit, and
then that little voice, whatever that is is, you know,
which is I believe correlated to the sensation of freedom.
And I think it's counterintuitive because I think people people
have a tendency to aggregate real pain with some type

(39:15):
of debilitating restriction, right, and the thought of the pain
that's coming in the future precludes us overly from releasing
the chains, right or the self imposed limitations.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
To get out there and explore who you really are.
And that's the beauty.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
That's where you're free because you're discovering. Yeah, dude, I
just starve myself in a thirty two mile just brutal,
like foodless, like you know, try to figure this out.
And then you're in the store and I can only
imagine like trying to say, all right, I'm not gonna

(40:00):
have ring dings. Maybe some beef jerky, you know, there's tough.
Some like peanuts are probably just saturated in salt. But
you're at that point, republic salt's good. But like picking
and choosing and then going to yourself, like you can
just sit there and stew on the reality of Oh man,
I'm gonna eat this, and I know I'm gonna pay
for my stomach later. I know, oh this is I

(40:22):
don't have the right socks. I'm gonna pay for that.
But you you had this amazing ability to stifle all
that and like we said, be in the moment of
what I need right now, and what I need right
now is this, and then I'll worry about what I
need next when it hits me. And I just think,
like that is the story, Like that's the essence.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
If we can figure out how to teach.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Right like tens of millions of people out there that
there's a way to get to that freedom, you know,
like that seems to be the thing, and you know,
and I just find it fascinating. It's just really impressive
to how you describe it all right after you solved
it and started to get your body back, you know,

(41:09):
and your conscious back in terms of the focus and
what you needed to do in order to execute.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
Did it seem easier after that? Wow?

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Good question. I think it seemed it seemed different, like
I'd overcome this thing and then I made this conscious decision,
which I think we can all do in life of
like I don't need to create future problems, like I
don't need to worry about tomorrow or people in a marathon.
A mile ten, it's like you don't need to be like, well,

(41:44):
I can't do this for the next sixteen miles. It's
like you don't need to just do it for the
first mile and then do it another mile and then
you'll get to the end. But it created this very
present feeling on like Okay, now I've gone through a
few different issues out here, and I'm still I've still
got a chance. And so I think it made it.
It was like the peak of motivation, and it sort

(42:06):
of got to this I think of things and thirds
I like to where it's like the first third you're
figuring out how to do everything, the second third you're
setting yourself up for that final push. And so I've
gotten into that last third by this point too, so
it's like I can take the reins off a little
bit push. This schedule followed a little bit more sleep deprivation,

(42:27):
and it was just I think more so empowering that
it's like I got through this, my body is moving well,
I can do these big days.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
That it was a.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
Little hesitant or having trouble with it even a week ago,
that it just gave me this sense of like, Okay,
I got through that. I know I can get through
every other issue that's going to come up. Will I
get the record. I don't know, we don't know what's
going to happen, but I've got a shot and I
can give everything to this now. I think it just
gave me the empowerment to, I guess go all in

(42:59):
or feel like they're less training wheels at that point
on I've gone through so much like we might as
well just throw out all at the wall at this point.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
I love that, man, because that again, that goes back
to that space where it's just like all everything just
falls off you and it's just like I am, I'm
a hundred, I'm in. I call it a focused obsession
right where it's not it's not a detrimental obsession that
destroys you.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
It's it's the focused obsession.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
That allows you to kind of go through the you know,
the the eye of the needle right or walk the
razor's edge or whatever whatever metaphorical you know, poetic metaphor
that's been used in the past by by great authors
or explorers or whomever. Can you give an example of
in that final third leading up to what a daily

(43:53):
routine look like? And and and then and then maybe
discuss a little bit of that sleep depth, because for
people who've never been sleep deprived before, you don't know
what you're missing, and especially when you combine you're doing
these ultra elite endurance things in the midst of it. So,

(44:13):
will you give us a typical day towards the end
where you're really driving?

Speaker 2 (44:18):
How much distance?

Speaker 1 (44:19):
You know, how long do you stop the bathroom, you know,
what do you do to like? Just give us that
and then talk about the sleep debt. That'd be awesome, totally.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yeah. I think of the days during these record attempts,
so they're all twenty four hour days, and that's kind
of how I structure it. So it's like, Okay, I
want to get two hours of sleep, but I'm gonna
so we're gonna kind of do it backwards. So I'll
be hiking the night before, and then I'll get to
maybe some days it's eleven PM, maybe some days it's

(44:49):
one am, maybe some days it's three am. And then
that's where that two hours of sleep is going to
fall because I want it to be the most efficient,
Like I'm going to be sleeping that full two hours,
like I I'm ready to fall asleep, and so wherever
I need that sleep, whatever I've decided is the duration,
that's where that's going to fall, and it's just going

(45:10):
to be where my body needs it. And then I
wake up, and then it's I can pack up in
probably two and a half or three minutes a couple
of years ago at a time to I think I'm
a little quicker even now. And so on the top
of my bag, I pull out my food for the day.
About half of it goes in my front pockets or

(45:31):
in my pockets, and as I'm going, the first thing
I'll do is I'll brush my teeth while moving, so
I'm already logging miles. My head lamp is on, and
then I'll have Usually this strategy is just two items
per hour of what I'm eating to keep it extremely simple.
They can be anything that's in that bag for the day,

(45:51):
just two items just to kind of stay on track
with nutrition. And then water sources will fall anywhere from
three to ten miles. I guess between them, and that
as I'm between these sources. I'm kind of calculating how
water works out the rest of the day so that
I know what I need to carry if a stream
is dry and I need to carry more or drink
more at that stream. And it's gotten light at this point,

(46:15):
and it's pretty much continual movement the whole day unless
I'm collecting water. Everything is accessible except for maybe one
mid day break where I just grab the other half
of my food from the top of my pack and
move it into the accessible pockets, and then I go
into the evening again, and then there's always just a

(46:38):
little I think, just as we're programmed as humans, there's
always a little bit of dread as the night starts,
because it gets harder, like you just it's hard to
stay awake. It's like I'm going to be tired, and
there's always I sleep think of sleep deprivation is like
there's this this wall or a plateau or something, and
you have to get up over it, and then you

(46:59):
can stay way longer than you think. But it's really
easy to give up on that like really hard wall
in front of you that's just held you with everything,
Like you're so tired your eyes can't stay open. But
if you get through that, for some reason, it gets easier,
like your body accepts it and you're away, and now
you're not operating at one hundred percent. Maybe you're eighty percent.

(47:23):
You're moving fine, but your brain is tired, so it's
playing tricks on you. So a stick may look like
a snake slitherin in front of you. There's like shimmers
of leaves that turn into objects or stumps are the worst.
They always turn into like bears or something like that.
So these are the hallucinations that kind of with sleep deprivation.

(47:46):
When I was about five or six, my parents for
some reason watched Jumanji with me, and I had nightmares
about the Safari guy that has the rifle and is
hunting them down. And so when I I experienced sleep deprivation,
about ninety percent of the time, he'll pop up somewhere
and it's not it's not so fearful now, but it's

(48:08):
just like this thing persists, just all the way back
from thirty years ago.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
And yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Think, I don't know, what do you do? You have
anything to add on the sleep deprivation side. It's so
hard to explain it is.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
I had no idea until hell week and and then
it was just I mean we started I started first
hallucinating probably I don't know seventy hours in, but like
my brain was playing tricks on me fifty five sixty
hours in. By seventy I'm in that complete cognitive disassociation.

(48:45):
You know, my my physical self is fighting my emotional
you know, one minute I'm caving in the next minute,
I'm screaming who yeah, you know, and I'm just kind
of trying to feed off other dudes. And but like
that Thursday night, we're doing around the world where we
paddle all the way around San Diego and Coronado and
it's like a sixteen hour paddle, and we were paddling

(49:09):
in San Diego Bay and there's like Volkswagen bugs driving
down the middle of of of San Diego Bay. And
like I had one one like we were paddling, and
this one there were seals popping up on parts of it,
like they just pop up, check you out. Well, this
this head pops up and I'm like, oh, look at
that ceil, And.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
This seal looks at me and goes, what's up? Rut?

Speaker 1 (49:32):
And I'm like, I'm like what it ended up being
my body who was trying to sneak pizzas in Copenhagen
out to his buddy's boat crew.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
So like I was like, dude, what's up man?

Speaker 1 (49:45):
And he's like, hey, where's where's you know, where's Bick's
boat crew?

Speaker 2 (49:49):
And I was like what do you mean? He's like
I got dip for him. I'm like, can I have something?
He's like, no, bro, And I was like, so.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Like, it's it's it's I think what it is is
it makes you realize how elastic if you are, how
elastic your uh the governor is in your body, in
your soul. Right we I think we because of those

(50:19):
nightmares as a kid, because of the depression of being
young men or whatever you're dealing with in your life,
those those things translate into things that restrict us, right,
and they they force us to whether we were conscientious

(50:40):
about the pullback.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Or we're we're we're we're.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
It's in our subconscious we're just it's fear right that
pulls us. But once you kind of kind of persevere
through the whole thing, right, you begin to realize whoa, whoa,
there's a lot more elasticity in my perceptions, Like I

(51:05):
can I can stretch this.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Way further than I ever dreamed of.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
And I think once you have, once you know you
can do that, Like I said before, it gives you
the freedom to really explore who you are in all
these different average And I like when I work with
my private coaching clients, you know and performance stuff, the
first thing I always want to do is test them

(51:33):
physically and usually within an endurance thing. And what I
always like to do, because not very many people are proficient,
is put them into water, right because it's your fish
out of water type thing. And so like I think
when I watch people struggle in that you can because

(51:53):
I think I've gone through so many of those battles
in terms of stretching my perceptions of ability.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
It was sleep dep involved.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Like it's like I can see it happening in a
person and for for me, like that's one of those
revelatory experiences. And that's what you get in this, Like
you get this sensation like like I would I would
love to have been like a little drone over your head,
watch your pace change or your gate length or like

(52:27):
the strength and and and and the efficiency. Like you said, man,
I can pack my kit in in and out in
two minutes, Like people don't if you're not doing that,
People don't understand the levels of proficiencies that come with
being acute in your movements, right, And I would have

(52:48):
loved to watch you feel that sense of of strength
even in the sleep depth, even in the the physical
the physical uh.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
Grind that was on you? Was there, Like could you
feel that taking place?

Speaker 1 (53:04):
In particular as you're getting closer to the end, was
there this feeling like, oh, I'm not going to beat
it because I know you're close.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
I mean you're pretty close to the last.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Tell me about that, Like that that sense of confidence
building and then the battle with the time itself to
set the record.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
Yeah, So I did the first half in about twenty
four days, which means that I was behind by considerable amount.
Of course, the northern half is the hardest half, and
so that that made it this battle against doubt the
rest of the time. When my whole mantra, my whole
goal from the beginning was I just want to have

(53:46):
a chance, like I want to have a shot as
laid into this thing as possible ideally till the end.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
But you're never going to.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Know you're going to get a record early on, and
so it's just like the goal is to have that shot,
and sometimes that felt further away or that chance, but
it was still within reach or at least with the
eyesight metaphorically, And so as I got closer and I
bogged a couple like fifty five mile days, it was like, Okay,
I can do this. I just need to keep doing

(54:15):
this type of thing, and it kind of racked up
and felt this confidence on like Okay, this sleep deperation
it also comes in waves. So if you stay up
through a whole night, you'll be like real tired at ten,
and then you'll be like running through the woods for
an hour, and then it's going to hit you a
little bit harder the next time, and then it's going
to be easy again, and then it's going to hit
you harder. But I'd go through these waves and it's

(54:37):
like each wave that i'd battle, we're talking maybe the
last week of the adventure would be just like a
huge accomplishment or win and just like empowering. And then
that's when that pace would pick up and I'd move
quicker through the night and be like, Okay, I can
do this. I can get fifty six miles done. For
this twenty four hour span, and so it just kept

(54:59):
being these like little confidence boosters. And when you do
get really tired, and I would say I was critically
sleep deprived for probably eight or nine days. For the
at the end of it is you also get very emotional,
which I'm sure is really entertaining to see in the
Seal training as well. You just see these incredible warriors

(55:22):
that are so emotional.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
But I doubt that that was the thing, Like you're
just open, You're flayed with your emotions.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Yeah, And emotions are incredible, like we should all embrace
them more because they are. They're a compass. They guide
our lives. So it's just like when I get to
the top of a climbing field, this huge sense of
pride or accomplishment, It's like I can ride that for
the next hour. And then when there's like a sense
of doom or sadness or something at three am, it's like,

(55:53):
maybe that's the signal that it's time to take my
hour long nap or something. But it just became so
raw and I could trust these emotions, which guided me
through that last week. And before that, it was like
fitness routine experience that guided it. And then when it's
like still have a chance with a week left, it's
like I need to give everything and that just trust

(56:15):
that my bodied, mind and physical ability are aligned here
and that I can get it. And so that's kind
of how that final push went, and the crazy the
craziest thing happened. It's happened a couple times, but the
last probably five hours, when I had maybe fifteen or
twenty miles to go, I had maybe ten hours to

(56:36):
finish it. I knew I would finish it in five hours.
And then suddenly that sprint, that drive was less strong,
like it was just like I just need to get
through this on this pad. This pushed the whole way
when it was like, well I could be thirty minutes faster,
thirty minutes lower. That was the hardest part of the
whole trip, that last day of like, well, who cares,

(56:57):
I'm going to get this. I'm going to finish, but
it's so it so hard to finish strong where it
felt like there was less a question about this goal.
It was more like a trivial amount that impacts it.
That's the deepest I think I've ever had to dig
of like I'm gonna get this, but I just need
to get through these miles, like, I just got to

(57:18):
keep going. There there's few no more tarrots dangling out there.
It's there's no one out here. It's just monotonous. It
became so hard that final bit.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Oh god. And that's like, that's the interesting thing.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
And I think there's a correlation to that with with
any endeavor that we seek to pursue, right, Like, there's
you work up the courage within, the motivation behind the ambition,
and then you start to apply the ambition and the

(57:54):
motivation to a regiment of preparation and training and focus
and determined nation you know, uh, preceding you know, uh
with ideas that will enable you to solve problems in
real time as you get But then you just got
to cross the threshold and go and just you know,
now you're in it. But then even within within something

(58:17):
difficult in your life, there it always breaks out into
these unique sections. I don't think anything hard I've ever
tried to do didn't have these natural divisions that took place.
And I love the way you describe it. As as
as your emotions become raw, they become unfiltered, right they're
happening in real time regardless of like you almost cease

(58:41):
to have control over it, and it's your it's the
proximity of the accomplishment that seems to be manipulating you
a little bit, right, Like the goal itself regains the
the power in you over you, and and then you
and then you, and you like fight back and you're

(59:02):
pushing it back against it and you're like, no, no,
I'm going to maintain my my sense of presence in
what I'm doing right now in the time. Right. It's
just just so you put that so perfectly, man, it's
just really beautiful how you describe that.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Take us to the.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Crossing, like finishing the I know, obviously very very difficult.
You know, you're you're there, it's over. You just want
to shut it down and go to sleep. But that
and then can you then describe what it's like afterwards
in that post trail letdown or transition or acclimatization back
to normal. Can you just walk us through those final

(59:47):
sections if you could?

Speaker 3 (59:49):
Yeah, yeah, I would say for forty four and a
half days it was like motivating, empowering, let's go for it.
And then, as I alluded to, it just the last
couple hours 're like, just get this done, and it's done,
and then it's just like so much relief. I'm like,
it's like when you have to go to the bathroom
and you get home, your body's ready to give up

(01:00:10):
right before you get to the bathroom. That's sort of
what it felt like. It's like my body wants this
over and it can't quite be over. And then I
finished immediate relief and then everything shuts down. Like I
walked up Springer Mountain, got a thousand for a climb
or so maybe a little more, and look great coming
down that mountain. The mile to get to the car

(01:00:33):
that was going to take me back to Atlanta, I
was walking like I was one hundred years old. It's
just like it's not a mental thing, like I wanted
to be in that car and eating pizza as much
as anything, but just somehow the body just once that
goal and it's I think it proves how strong goals are.
Is once that disappeared, ten minutes later, I can barely

(01:00:54):
walk like it's it's so incredible. And then that lead
into I've suddenly lost my routine, which I think we
in today's age, it's like freedom everything, like do whatever
you want, but I think we do need some baseline
of routine, Like what's something just if you make your

(01:01:15):
bed every morning, Like you got one thing that you
do and all life is around that. Suddenly my routine
that had, you know, mornings, lunch, evenings all accounted for,
it's completely gone. I'm back in the normal world. I
can eat ice cream anytime I want, and I don't
have to make my bed. I can shower ten times
a day. It's like all of these things that were

(01:01:36):
the staple of my life that kind of held it
together for a month and a half suddenly disappeared. And
I felt like I was back at ground zero, trying
to just like figure out how to rebuild a new
routine or what this new life is. And I think
of it a lot of like as I and then
I flew back to Montana where I lived, but as

(01:01:56):
I came out of that and this old routine is done,
and try to find a new routine and put things
back together by the stable moments and every day that
I can't just go back to the old meme because
this adventure and every big thing in life changes you.
So it's like I've got to find a way to
put this new meat into this same world. And so

(01:02:18):
that's kind of where that post trail depression where just
difficulty in finding your way in a world because you
don't get to use all the strategies that you used
two months ago, because you're coming out of this different
person with a different perspective, with hopefully a different respect
for yourself, and you're not just going to want to
be the same old you that was pre adventure or

(01:02:41):
life changing moment. And I think that's where a lot
of the post trail depression lies on your task with
twenty four hours a day to put back together in
a new way, when just a week ago you had
that twenty four hours dialed, you had it perfect right,
You had to figure it out, and it's like, all right,
now you're a novice at life again. Good luck the

(01:03:04):
adventures over.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
I love that you're back to back to zero.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
That's what it is, these freaking resets that happen after
you experienced these radical shifts in perspective, like you said,
I mean, I remember every single time I came back
from a deployment to a war zone, it was like,
all right, how do I fit in? Like does this
even make sense to me? Like, I don't even know

(01:03:32):
what to do? And you know, for many many years
I didn't. I didn't I didn't tap into the things
that would have helped that at all, which was to
live a healthy life and to you know, take care
of myself, to do good emotional work, or you know,
to write my experience, write poetry or pain or draw

(01:03:53):
whatever I love to do. And you know, and or
and then the other aspect of our relationships. Right, Obviously
relationships can shift or change too, because you have new perspectives.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
On the world.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
But I think that that is a remarkable way to
look at it, as like, man, you go through this
revelatory transition and gain a whole new, uh understanding of yourself,
of what you can and cannot do, of what means
things to you and what doesn't mean. I mean, obviously
it's just this. It's it's like it's what is it?

(01:04:28):
It's it's it's almost like you're shedding your old self
through this rigorous like you know, friends of mine, we
call it putting ourselves on the anvil of life, right,
and just beating down all the unnecessary stuff. And then
you then you hop off and you're like, oh, all right,

(01:04:49):
but all right, now, how do I how do I
fit this into the new world? You came home and
had a massive experience as well because of an engagement too,
So how how are what are you taking with what
you learned about yourself that on this experience and how
are you going to apply it in this new adventure

(01:05:11):
and getting married and you know whatever that future looks
like for you guys?

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Totally.

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
Yeah, a lot of things changed once I finished. So
right before I put all my stuff in storage because
I didn't want to have a backup plan or like
didn't want to if I quit, like there's no reason
to quit. I just was like, let's eliminate all those excuses,
and so I proposed right at the finish, so I

(01:05:37):
sleep deprived and everything. It was like this, it's actually
pretty funny story. So by friend who gave us a
give me a ride back to Atlanta. She was there
and then my girlfriend and she was like, well, should
we leave soon? And it was like, just give me
five more minutes. And in those couple of minutes, it
was just like, Okay, what do I need to say?

(01:05:57):
I need to ask about getting married? Doesn't need to
be perfect, and then it's like, Okay, where's this ring
I carried for forty five days?

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
Pull it out?

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
I don't there's a video, but I don't really know
if I nailed all the words or something. But I
got them out and then we got engaged and it
was back.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
It was awesome. What it was I watched was amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
Thank you. Yeah, I feel like it was an ambitious
time to decide I was going to propose, but you know,
it made it work. Might as well, might as well
make it hard on myself. And then yeah, so go
back to normal life. And on top of the post
trail depression, it's like, well, I need to move, move
all my stuff out of storage. We're engaged, and I've

(01:06:46):
got this trail and I coach athletes, so I got
to get back into that. It was just like, how
how am I going to get through everything changing at once?
Because I think it's there's like a number of things
that are the biggest moments or struggles in life, and
like moving and relationship stuff are definitely two of them.

(01:07:11):
And it's like, well, getting engaged in moving right after
already probably having dramatically low dopamated serotonin in my brain
because I'm sleep deprived and also changing my life completely
by reintegrating back into society. And so yeah, that was
just like the biggest shift. And I think what to

(01:07:32):
get to the question what really showed? I think, ever,
we're all valuable and have things, but someone who can
support your crazy goal like she was posting the updates
on my Instagram, she was helped figure out places to
resupply when we created a spreadsheet for the whole adventure.
But someone who's willing to go along with whatever your

(01:07:55):
passion is. I think that's kind of what things really
boil down to in life. Even if she never wants
to do this or doesn't, if someone doesn't get it,
as long as they can respect that, it means something
to you. I think that's kind of the baseline on
the basis of the relationship. On everything else is superficial,
but the core of your being, if it's a passion

(01:08:17):
or what feels like an activity that saved my life
over the years, if someone respects and wants to help
me do that, it's sort of like, well, that's probably
a pretty valid person to have to be a central
part in your life. And so it was it was
like I started the trail. I bought the rendering the
training camp and was like, by the end of this record,

(01:08:37):
I'll know for sure. And it was like three days
in that it was like, Okay, I already know the
answer or the question I'm going to ask at the
end of this thing. Oh, I just got to get
to the end of this thing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
That's so beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
That was like they tiend didn't even talk about any
of that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
And so I'm doing research, I find that video and
I'm like, oh my god, this is even more It's
it's you know, it's just encapsulates I think what is possible.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
And I think we need.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
So many more of those stories in our lives right now.
I think, you know, there's so many people out there,
in particular young people who are struggling.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
They're struggling with.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Their own their own challenges, their own demons, you know,
and and to show them this very pure way of
unlocking yourself from those self you know, from the self
imposed limitations by you know, doing something difficult, but but
with a purpose in mind and an intent, right and

(01:09:42):
then in the midst of that coming to the uh
uh self awareness that you want to share your life
in this these pursuits with somebody as not only in
marriage but also as a coach. I mean, the reward
that you can help instill in other people. I mean,
there's no greater gift in my mind in this life

(01:10:05):
than to share the wisdom you learn the hard way
with other people who not necessarily avoid the hard way,
but can appreciate the hard ways as an ability to
generate that freedom within themselves to explore who they.

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
Are and where they really want to go in life.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Right, And that's that's an that's an incredible challenge, but
you're doing it just flawlessly in my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
All right, last question, last couple questions.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
Tell me why you picked the Trevor Project and and
the fact that you raise twenty seven thousand dollars for them.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
Yeah, I think we had like forty seven thousand actually
with ever a little bit after the trail.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
I think that everyone is valid and especially the support
therapies done big things for me and stuff, especially trying
to find my way in a world where it seems
like initially I choose the wrong path for at least
sustainable happiness. And so I just really you know, create

(01:11:10):
rated charity and also just empowers a population that sometimes
gets lost in the shuffle. It supports therapy, crisis line counseling,
and stuff for the LGBTQ plus community, and I just
think that my view on the world is that we

(01:11:31):
should all be empowered or have the resources to succeed
or at least help out there. And I know this
is never going to be achieved, but if I can
make a small difference, and you know, helping a community
and people that often are forgotten or lessened, it's just
I don't know that brings meaning to life. And my

(01:11:52):
whole thought going into this is if I'm going to
get the spotlighte for doing going for a record on
at close to one hundred million people, that would be
like two hours, It's like, what if we can deflect
some of that into saving people's lives. And it's just
felt like this was one of the most I guess

(01:12:13):
use or maybe one of the ways that I could
direct money that would be spent on these services that
directly do change people's lives. And that sort of was
the whole baseline, because at the end of the day,
I'm trying to do a trail faster than someone else.
But if we can raise some money to just help
people live a happy, healthy, long life, especially through this

(01:12:36):
formative years when you're a young teenager and it's just
really hard to make it. If there's someone that's on
a crisis line that has a more relatable experience, I
think that that's pretty empowered. So that was the whole goal,
just send money to people that it can impact most.

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
I love it, man, It's so admirable.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
I mean, I you know, my wife and I we exist,
uh pretty profoundly in the world of suicide. You know,
I've lost dozens of friends to it in the last
decade or so, and and that's why we started our
own little charity as well too, called the Operator Center Foundation,
was to stop suicide. And you know, it doesn't matter

(01:13:19):
if if you know you're part of the lgbt Q
plus community or your veteran or wherever community you're a
part of. Man, people struggle, and they struggle immensely. And
you know, I think, you know, if we can take
our accomplishments and transfer those accomplishments into supporting mental health

(01:13:40):
for other people, I think it's it's one of the
greatest duties that we have as as human beings, right
is to if we if we can, if we can
garner a sense of strength and confidence and success, that
can translate into into supporting other people that are struggling.
And I think that's that's what we want, that's what

(01:14:02):
we're supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
So I love that you chose that charity. I love
the mission what you're doing with it. Man, it's just really, really,
really powerful. Okay, all right, last question is what's next? Right?
And then how can people follow you, support you and
listen to your show?

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
What is next? That's tricky. So I am running. It's
called Cocadona two fifty. It's a two hundred and fifty
mile race from Phoenix, Arizona to flag stuff. So that's
in May. That's my immediate what's next? And then as
far as record stuff, looking at possible stuff overseas and

(01:14:46):
things like that. I love doing a billion things. So
I love to push forward and get a book about
this written. And I wrote one about the adventuated in
and so I just uh. And then everything's called free Outside,
free Outside dot Com, the free Outside on Instagram, Free

(01:15:10):
Outside to the name of the book. There's a movie
Free Outside you can watch. So keep it all pretty
simple that way, and uh, yeah, what while I have
the moment, I just want to say, like I've been
on that side where you feel the uh pressure, the
push or the darkness of suicide and stuff too. And

(01:15:32):
that's when I thought like, well, I'm going to quit
this and go do this thing that I was passionate
about and or that I knew could make me happy,
because it felt like when one option is the end
and the other can be anything you want. Is just

(01:15:53):
when you get so low in life you can make
the most dramatic decisions on like hike for nine months
or something like that, Like there's there's always an option.
And I think a lot of these things and people
that talk about taking a month and a half off
to go for a record or HiPE for nine months,
some of this feels impossible and it can be tricky

(01:16:15):
and stuff, but nothing is ever impossible. So if you
want to do any of these things, or your own
thing that you've dreamed about forever, maybe it takes a
decade to set your life up in a way that
you can't. But I think the second that we give
up on these things that we really love, it just
makes the world a lot more harder. We live a
lot with a lot more resentment, and so just if

(01:16:37):
there's something you always wanted to do, it doesn't have
to be something that you die always wishing you'd done.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Jeff, I just can't thank you enough. Man. You're a
wise man.

Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
And also you know your feats are beyond imagination for me.
When I was looking you up on Instagram, I saw
all that Uh, Cameron Haynes was following you, and I
know Cam, and I just like, man, you're You're an

(01:17:09):
inspiration to people, and I think what you're doing is
really powerful and it's in such a positive way. And
I just I can't thank you enough for coming on
and sharing your story with UH, with me and my audience.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Thanks.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
Yeah, it was fun to have a crossover and think
of it in the similar mindset was like, oh yeah,
grown tough men probably crying the first time during how
we can be on the trail also crying because emotions
are hard.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
There.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
I'm telling you, we're all so much more connected than
we could ever imagine for sure, and that's the beautiful aspect,
all right. Brother, God bless you man and wish you
all the best. Thank you, Thank you,

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David Rutherford Show: Inside Jeff Garmire’s 45-Day Appalachian Trail Record: Pain, Fear, and Unbelievable Grit | Ep. 79

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}David Rutherford Show: Inside Jeff Garmire’s 45-Day Appalachian Trail Record: Pain, Fear, and Unbelievable Grit | Ep. 79