The King of Moab: Ultrarunner Max Jolliffe On Winning Moab 240, Recovery From Heroin Addiction & Why Suffering Is His Greatest Teacher

has shifted away from chasing these really big audacious performance goals like I did in

“the past to now accepting my limitations in this current reality and learning how to build a daily”

rhythm that actually feels sustainable for where I'm at right now today and whoop this wearable health and fitness coach that you see right here on my wrist every time you see me is this

amazing tool that gives me insights into all the things that influence how I feel and how I

perform my sleep my recovery my strain and my overall health so that I can better understand how my habits are influencing how I feel and what's interesting is how these insights translate beyond training better sleep changes improve how I show up at work recovery changes how patient I am with my family and when I'm planning for bigger goals like lining up to participate in the New York City marathon to celebrate my 60th birthday this fall whoop helps me stay grounded in what my body

“needs right now not what my ego wants it to do or what I used to be able to do and I think”

that's really what adding more life to your years means making decisions today that allow you

to show up more fully tomorrow go to join dot woo dot com slash roll for one month free of loop I've been sober for 12 years to a big part of who I am I just come from like a really long line of alcoholics and drug addicts people ask me what is my heritage and it's like alcoholism max joliff the king of moab the moab 240 is a 240 mile race through the desert of Utah you have climbing you have descending you have dirt dust sand moab 240's got everything

for you to win moab after only a few years of running yeah is so unique in this space

if you make the conscious decision that this is something I want to do or go after and achieve

and you do put in the work anything is possible you come into this recovery community and you're introduced to all of these tools for life that are obviously going to make your life better but how have they made you like a better runner that's a great question super nice to meet you it's been so fun following your journey over the past couple of years and I'm just delighted to talk to you thanks for coming for people that don't know you won the moab 240 and you're on this

kind of a scent path right now in your in your careers in ultra runner what do people not get about a race like moab 250 we see these videos we watch your videos we think we have a sense of what's involved what is your kind of like reality check on what it's actually like to cover that much distance in a competitive environment it's almost like these races are not even races like I try to go into the multi-day events almost looking at it as this is a big adventure that I'm just

trying to do absolutely as fast as possible and it's like you almost can't wrap your head around being out there and pushing so hard for I mean quite literally days straight and not sleeping it's just there's there's so many outside factors and variables I mean you run a hundred miles and it's like your problem solving and dealing with you know all these different little issues that might come up and foot stuff and pains and you know fueling and hydration and you know managing

electrolytes and sodium and the crew logistics and the gear there's like so many moving parts and

“I think the the 200s and the multi-day stuff is just like that just longer and on a bigger scale”

so yeah it's hard to almost even look at them as a race and most of the time you're like out there by yourself like the field is so spread out there on some kind of spiritual like you can experience every single human emotion during the during a race like that the crazy thing and in the King of Moab video is those last four miles you know that that last stage where you know after all that time in distance it was still up for grabs like are you going to win

are you going to get past you know like all these you know like you're moving so slowly at this point anything can happen and then you find your legs you're like you know God gave me my legs back and you're hitting you know paces that you hadn't like in the entire race like at the very end of

that like deeper reservoir of you know access like you know a capacity that you know no one would

“have thought possible yeah and that's like kind of just the race factor and you know being motivated”

and getting a little spike of adrenaline or like seeing like the hope or the light at the end of the tunnel like oh maybe there is still a chance for me which is really what I felt during Moab was you know five hours behind the leader at mile 250 miles behind him and he just happened to be going through you know a rough part of the race for him he kept having to stop and you know the 12 hours before I was having a really rough section so it's just like it's so variable

and the races are so long and so many things that could happen like you can quite literally get to the

very end of the race you know second to last aid station like I did a Kogidona and just have to drop

like can't stand up anymore I got a solulitis infection in my legs and I can't stand up I can't but she's on I can't move um it's over yeah after all that time being out there pushing so hard so much work so much so many months of training and it all comes down to this race and it's just doesn't happen yeah just the way it goes you know what do you think are the the most salient aspects of of your upbringing that have contributed the most to you being who you are today

“yeah this could this could be a very long story but I think maybe the best way for me to just put it”

is like I I had it like just a really complicated upbringing and life um there was lots of good that happened um you know I can't say it was all bad like I really did enjoy my childhood

and you know I was lucky enough to be born and raised in like a really incredible place you know

newport beach like of all places like what a what a killer place to uh to be out to you know be a kid and to grow up and but um yeah I just come from like a really long line of alcoholics um and drug addicts you know my entire family and both my parents um my sister my grandparents on each side probably you know their parents and their parents and their grandparents it's like people asked me what is my heritage and it's like alcoholism it's not like English or European descent it's like

alcoholism is uh just where I come from and um yeah as much as uh you know I've had it just absolutely rock my family um it was kind of inevitable that I was gonna go down the same path and like I really do think if I even if I had the best upbringing ever and there was no trauma

“and no abuse like I still probably would have gone down the same path that I did um and yeah I think”

that I'll just like started from the beginning with me just uh having this uh this obsessive mind um and you know like even when I was like a little like real little kid it was like Halloween time like candy like being obsessed and like hoarding like candy or sneaking off to go to 7/11 to get a little sugar fix and uh you know just uh yeah the the the signs were all there and it was pretty

clear from you know uh third person perspective that I was gonna end up uh with an addictive personality

and kind of uh falling to alcoholism and drug addiction um as much as I would have not like to and I've seen it absolutely rock my family my mom has been sober for you know 36 plus almost 40 years and um my dad you know is uh has had a really rough go and is still currently suffering and he's out and um yeah that's uh that's a really difficult and uh complicated relationship for me to even talk about but um I know it's not different than a lot of other people like I know I know so many

people that you know suffer from the same thing that I do and have a very similar story so me at least being able to share that with people and tell my story and if people relate to it and can get something good out of it that's like what what I um what I look forward to and what satisfies me the most and yeah it's like you know first started drinking and using right around I don't know middle school times like 13/14 like started off smoking weed with friends and

you know cracking a couple beers and you know just being a curious kid trying things out

with my mom and my sister were at Trader Joe's and I had some friends that were uh gonna go to the

“skate park and I was in a rush to get home and uh was crossing the street uh in the crosswalk with my”

skateboard and this lady hit me in her car going like 35 miles an hour and uh I ended up in the hospital I like almost broke my femur um I ended up just chipping a bunch of my teeth got road rash all over my body they rushed me straight to the hospital um they're doing CT scans on my brand I wasn't wearing a helmet um so uh just a very chaotic traumatic event and you know they get me into the ER and they just hit me with morphine and that was the first time in my life where

I was like okay like I'm gonna be okay like despite this like crazy traumatic event that had just happened to me it was like I felt the relief for the first time you know in warm blanket yeah and then they send me home with a prescription for oxy and uh that kind of like set in motion this uh this snowball that turned like uh into a really really big problem for me in my life uh throughout the next uh I don't know ten years yeah so it was oxy that was the drug of choice yeah I mean it was

it was always kind of opiates and I like I was a garbage disposal for a long time like I would

do or try anything but um in the end it ended up just being uh opiates and heroin and like those Purdue pharma oxycontin pills like exactly family like the uh that uh documentary pain killer like that's those are the pills they really like destroyed me and like almost an entire generation of people and a ton of my friends and yeah uh it's just it's just real man so the heroin that is the heroin when you just run out of the pills and you can't you don't you can't get them yeah well it was

a path to heroin yeah it was around got it had to have been right when I was graduating high school

“around 2010 um I think the government and uh people started to come back talking down these things are”

so highly we were going to those pill clinics where it was a super easy to like fake a script or something yeah I wasn't specifically but I had you know multiple friends that were doing the doctor shopping you know going coming up to LA you know seeing cricket doctors getting 120 of these 80 milligram oxy pills and then going down the street to another cricket doctor that'll write them a prescription for another 120 so they were like everywhere I mean if you were um a

user it was like very easy to get those things and around 2010 and well what was super unique and weird about those pills is like you could so easily just scrape the time release coding off of them and like people were smoking them on tinfoil like like straight up heroin and um I know you could

“smoke them yeah so that's what me and I mean you could smoke them shoot them eat them they were like”

it was a very uh maybe innovative yeah it's like crazy that's dark shit though right and was that intentional on their part uh who knows um but yeah that was just like you know I you know having and like a lot of those friends who were doing that same thing that I was that are doing the doctor shopping thing and addicted just like I was like I have a friend who he broke his like surfing and that they prescribed in most pills it was like we almost like like none of us

planned on being like junkies and drug addicts but um that's just like you know you I think anyone if you put on those pills for long enough like you will become addicted there's like it's unavoidable like our brains are just wired when that chemical hits your brain it's just like you become dependent upon it and around 2010 the government caught on they just stopped making them they banned them so uh they just pretty much overnight disappeared everywhere and all of

these people who were addicted to uh these pills just immediately switched to heroin yeah your mom your mom was sober has been sober your whole life though yeah whole life so and I would assume that she's got some you know kind of radar vision you know when this starts when this starts kicking off for you like well and how many siblings do you have like what was going on at the at the house at this time so I have one younger sister um and my mom she's been you know

sober her whole life uh she was a stay at home mom and this is where kind of the whole family dynamic

gets a little bit uh interesting is she uh she I never really worked a job and when uh you know

right around the same time that you know I'm starting to experiment with uh using drugs and alcohol

masters degree in journalism from Northwestern just a very smart uh and very gifted and talented

“human being but just deep at his core just an alcoholic that never really was uh equipped to deal with”

life you know and um he ended up losing his his job um due to alcoholism and you know for the majority

of my childhood he was like kind of pulling it off but you know always kind of chipping on the side like

we'd go on family vacations and uh the family car would like be be totaled and you know he would have a DUI or some story that was like oh someone borrowed my car you know typical yeah typical alcohol was in the house he was in the house um and then uh their marriage I mean just I mean my dad just really lost everything um and their marriage fell apart my mom you know didn't really have anywhere to go so she ended up um moving to Arizona to live with her parents and uh

me and my sister just like didn't want to go and we chose to stay where we were um and what we were familiar with and uh we're kind of like left with this man who was uh just a progressing alcoholic and uh yeah things got like really bad and dark um pretty quickly you know my dad like it was every day like uh pint of vodka I'd come home from school like leaving Las Vegas style like worse like like he would spend you know days on end just on the couch like couldn't even get up

or stand up like he would drink fifths and just giant bottles of vodka and you know I'd come home from school and like find him on the floor the kitchen and have to like get on my hands and

“knees to check if he was breathing and that was like a daily occurrence like I remember one time”

I got arrested at school for uh stealing a sandwich from this like deli that was like across the street and I ended up getting busted coming back on campus and they had me you know in handcuffs in a cop car and school gets out and everyone walks you know walks past I'm just completely humiliated and this cop I ended up getting suspended whatever it was like wasn't that big of a deal um but the cop was sent was telling me he's all hey like you like I can release you if you have

a family member that can come pick you up and I was like I just straight up told him I was like dude you can call my dad but he's not gonna answer like we're across like we live in these apartments across the street and like you can walk me over to our house and all up in the door and he'll he'll be passed out on the ground and um cop drove me over there we walked up to my door and open the door and loan behold he's just like literally passed out on the floor and um it was just

chill like that you know it was just uh so you're just you're just left to your own devices

“yeah yeah raise yourself it's just chaos and like I you know do but the only thing that I”

feel like that makes me feel comfortable is just like the same shit that he's doing it's like drugs and alcohol were like the solution and the fix and just like what made me just feel okay with like the shitty circumstances of my life but the internal conflict the tension of like

I'm never gonna be like my dad and knowing that like yeah you're kind of headed in that

direction like deep down like maybe not consciously admitting it to yourself as much as I knowing that yeah as much as I don't want to float down the river to you know you're on this inevitable like escalator that you can't get off yeah yeah it's I'm so sorry man you know though in the the K I can't imagine like my circumstances growing up are very different but this idea of the home environment being so chaotic and this this notion that like no one's

no one's coming to save me like it's just up to me and trying to figure that out as a young person like all on your own with just you know your sister yeah and then like I mean eventually my mom did come and save us we ended up moving to Arizona for a year and living with her and which I just continued the progression of my own disease but uh there was almost a whole year in high school where I was like homeless like living at friends houses because I just like couldn't or didn't want to stay

at home and you know it was like at one point my dad owned two houses on this street that

caught if he didn't lose those houses they'd probably be worth you know five million dollars in total

but uh yeah lost one house then you know drank the other house away and then we move into apartments and eventually he just like gets his seventh DUI in however many years and he ended up

to not end up in the system somehow well I think we were about to so when my dad finally you know went away for a pretty long stint uh in jail my mom just showed up and she was like you guys are you guys got to come with me like this it's it's a wrap here were you at Newport High School Newport Harbor High like for people that don't know like this is you know and insanely you know well healed privilege like high net worth like area you know like a lot of people with a lot of

money you know conservative community um and for you to be you know kind of in the circumstances

that you were I would imagine you know created some social consternation yeah and like I always felt like

like why me you know like seeing all of my friends that have all these like kind of picture perfect families and then like I'm just stuck in this household of chaos and abuse and fighting and the cops getting called to my house and wondering if one of my parents is going to go to jail like just the chaos of my life I almost uh yeah just a lot of times remember thinking like God like why like why do this to me you know like why do I deserve this and um

I don't know it turns out like I like in hindsight I'm like so grateful that um I was able to experience you know some uh some hardship early on in my life and it taught me some really valuable lessons and um as much as you know as terrible as alcoholism and drug addiction is like I really

“feel like it's made me the person that I am today and um yeah like honestly wouldn't take any of it”

back there is this amazing pipeline from uh you know drug addicts and alcoholics in recovery

into you know ultra endurance for you know ultra running is this like show up at the start line of any ultra you know just just tattoos as far as the eye can see and you know just it seems like you know there's just an insanely high percentage of people who are you know in recovery yeah and sometimes I wonder it's like did I just become like so desensitized to life just from just all the shit that I've been through that ultra running is like the most extreme form of running and just

inability for me to like feel something you know I mean if it's um hardship or pain or I mean dude some races you can almost experience an entire lifetime of emotions in one single race so

“I don't know maybe that's a big reason why I was just so drawn to ultra running yeah I think”

there's that's that's an interesting lens on it I hadn't thought of it in that way I mean the way that I generally think about it is I believe that addicts or seekers on some level and they're seeking answers to their questions and they're seeking comfort to their discomfort in unhealthy ways but ultimately like they're they want what everyone wants they want they want to feel connected they want to feel love they want to feel safe like all of these things and you know drugs in alcohol

you know are very reliable and providing those things temporarily until they derail your life but then when you take that away that that hard-wired you know kind of predisposition for extreme experiences to to feel something to feel alive to try to understand yourself in the world when that gets removed like you're gonna find another way to explore that and ultra running is like right there like hey you know you can go as deep as you want and

suffer and you know on some level maybe it's like you know that addict thing like I'm better than everyone else but I'm also the biggest piece shit in the world you know it's like well ultra running will deliver on both levels you know because if you finish a race you're like

this amazing you know a steam building sort of situation but also like you're just gonna go to

the darkest cave you've ever gone to and you're gonna experience that level of suffering that on some level maybe you you you you're kind of looking for right there's something therapeutic and yeah yeah like how do you think about suffering as a teacher? I feel like yeah

“pain and suffering is my biggest motivator in life to do anything like I remember specifically you know”

finally you know after all the shit that I went through overdosing you know getting arrested multiple times spending quite a bit of time in jail which is how I did finally end up getting sober I just like and the one thing that my dad did for me that I like was the most valuable thing that he ever taught me was he just like dragged my ass to AA and while I was like kind of in the worst time of

you know he had periods of you know kind of pulling it off and multiple years of sobriety here and there which came and went but I remember you know when I was like just really strong out and

“really bad the only thing he could really think to do was like I just need to like get this kid”

in an AA meeting and he would drag me into meetings and I was like I'd be going to meetings high and it was yeah I just like wasn't ready but at least it planted the seed for me to know that

hey when the stars do align and I do finally have this opportunity where I'm ready and willing to

get sober I know where to go and I ended up getting out of jail I spent almost three months in there and for what would you just got busted yeah I mean I had originally gotten arrested for possession with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana to separate charges and then was you know ended up getting put on formal probation for multiple years and I just like could not give a clean drug test like I failed just dirty drug tests over and over and

over and then finally my probation officer was like dude this is like the tenth one like you

“you're out of here you're going in for a 90 day violation which was the the best thing to happen to me”

like I just needed to be removed from this situation that I was in the people that I was in I was just strong out and I had you know I tried detox and had little briefs but I just like kept going back to the same thing and I needed like a long extended period of time of being locked up away from

everyone to like finally get my shit straight and like just physically detox so yes meant three

months in like a very low security jail facility in Orange County and then as soon as I got out I just like got super plugged into it and I just like it was every day I was going to meetings and I got really lucky that like a lot of my friends that you know I was out there using and running and gunning with like a lot of them were like kind of like end up getting sober right around the same

“time and I just had like a super like awesome support group and I like feel so lucky I just got”

so plugged in with this like this community down in Orange County and Orange County is like weirdly a hub for AA like there's tons of you know rehabs and treatment centers it's like almost kind of like a mecca for recovery and alcoholics and onumus and narcotics and onumus so yeah I just like really dove in headfirst to the program and work in the 12 steps and yeah you know I my life did start to get better but it was you know like anything you know you become complacent and going back to like

the pain pain was the biggest motivator thing for me like it really took me to get to a point where I was like sober but like still completely miserable to actually like really invest into working the 12 steps and actually applying them to my life and then you know once I finally do work the 12 steps and I start working with other people and take them through the steps and like that's when like I really started to make serious progress in my life and start to feel the benefits and like

right around the same time I like randomly just discover running I just like yeah quite by mistake cleanup after dinner this is something that used to end with a compost routine scraping plates dealing with the bin taking stuff outside and it works kind of but it was just one more sure at the

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“it's an interesting kind of conundrum when you know you need to change you know it's inevitable”

that at some point you're going to have to like you know give up this thing and start doing something else but that's not enough to get you to do it you know there is something very specific about pain and suffering that gives birth to the willing it's all about willingness it's like it's you know what you need to do right but are you willing and until you're willing you're not going to make that choice and you're going to continue to slide and your life's going to get worse

until you reach that point where enough enough as we say you reach that point in jail but willingness is such a fickle kind of energy like you can't you can't will somebody to be willing and you can't just decide to be willing it's almost like this weird thing that that descends down on you when you're in enough pain and gives you this burst of energy that you didn't have five minutes prior to

“finally do that different thing and I think for me I was just like quite literally like beaten”

into a state of willingness like I share about this in meetings all the time the you know weeks in months leading up to the day that I got sober like truly every single day felt like the worst day in my life it was like ground hogs day on repeat of just like just the worst day ever and

yeah when you know the cop showed up my door you know like they always do when you're on probation

they just show up at any given time and they showed up one morning and I was like this like this is it this is my one opportunity like I know they're taking me to jail so like I'm just this might be my only shot to get sober so I was you know quite literally beaten into a state of willingness and reasonableness and I you know had a moment of clarity where I saw that like hey this might be you know where the stars align and I might only have this small window of opportunity to

like actually get sober in this meeting moments yeah you know if you don't act in that moment

“it will pass and you'll be back to your bullshit you know and yeah I think for people that don't”

really understand addiction they struggle with this idea of like well clearly you know you're going down the wrong path here look at your dad like there's the blueprint this is where you're headed how come you can't just make this different choice you know but you're stuck in this cycle of you know compulsion and you know craving and reward that is so cunning baffling and

oh it doesn't really work the sobriety rage very low and all of that they miss the fact that like

“you know when somebody relapses or goes out it's like oh my god somebody drags like no it what the”

miracle is that like all these other people didn't drink today you know it is it's it's so it's so pernicious and challenging to overcome and it requires those moments of clarity where willingness descends and you realize you have this brief moment of time to like make that different decision and set something in motion that's going to move your life in a new direction and then through working those steps you know you end up developing a relationship with God and you know getting I mean

the byproduct is like I've just like been gifted this like super amazing life now that I like

never thought would have ever been possible it was just it looked like scorched earth just all around

it's pretty crazy yeah the arc and so that was 2012 right yeah I got sober April 6th of 2012

“so I'll have 14 years um on April 6th yeah that's amazing and like yeah I just like I can't really”

take any credit for it it's all like what God has done for me in the program of alcoholics and on this and like all the people around me like I could go on and name 100 different people that like have done so much for me in my life but I just like I just like quite literally like grew up in the program of alcoholics and on this and like finally for the first time had like real um men around me who were like solid role models and like learned valuable life skills and how to live

a life like I I had no skills of any kind I wasn't good at anything I had nothing going for me and um all I do is like show up to these meetings and like listen to people talk and like get my hand held as I figure out how to pin be a normal human being you know and you had no solid stable male role model in your life up to that I mean it's like so weird like my dad was he's like been around my whole life but not really ever super present and like I really don't feel like

I even know the guy I mean especially in the last you know seven or eight years that we've been a strange like I haven't spoken to him in uh many many years and yeah he's you know chosen a life that I can't be a part of you know that involves drugs and alcohol and crime and mental institutions and jails and hospitals and a life that doesn't involve his family which you know is is fine that's it is what it is and as much as it hurts it uh I don't know it's

tough you know yeah are you able to find some level of compassion because he's the you know he's the alcohol like who's out there you know sick yeah totally and like I don't I don't ever like harbour any resentment or anger towards him I mean obviously you know it's like that does no one any good is like the resentment is only killing me but like yeah I just like genuinely like feel sorry for people who are just like suffering and just cannot get it because I've been there

I like I've so badly wanted to just stop getting high and stop drinking and stop using but just not being able to like for the life of me so um yeah I just you know I just really feel for him and I still do love him but I just have to separate myself and like for my own mental health and sanity it's just like I've done this dance over and over where you know I let him back in and give him an inch and he takes a mile and just it chaos ensues and it's just yeah it's uh it's just

really complicated and messy you know so you're this skater kid basically right like I'm trying to imagine you know you in high school like like punk rock like what are you listening to like who are your influences like what are you thinking about and then let's like lead it up into like how you

“get introduced to running I think I was just really I mean super into skating and surfing was always”

like my two loves um I'm like decent at both never good enough to be uh never good enough to end up

being on the surf team or skating and contest or anything but just always really loved uh you know both surf and skate culture and you know growing up in Orange County, Costa Mesa like all of the big brands are there like volkum quick silver ruka hurley like you name it um that's kind of where surf and skate mecha was so you know being a kid I just like loved going to the skate park

like Andy Irons and Kelly and uh skaters like all of the Baker guys and Tony Hawk I mean I do I was just my friends sent me an old foot of uh me and a bunch of us little grums as kids and I'm like in every single foot I'm wearing like a Tony Hawk shirt and like old volkum shirts which is funny but that was just like me I just I just was a little skate surf rat um and what was the vision like do you had did you have an idea of what you wanted your life to be or were you thinking about like

“what you might want to do not really I mean I don't know I think there was just so much”

going on I think there was so much going on at home that I like really didn't have an opportunity to envision a life for myself um and like I remember being like a little kid like I mean young like almost a toddler and like wanting to be a trash man just because I saw the trash right here when you're in high school and things are going sideways it's like hey man like I don't you know I'm not really seeing like a path oh for myself so I'm just going to enjoy

I mean I got good grades in school and I just like knew I was never going to make it to college

like there was just no way that I was going to be able to financially be able to afford or pull it off or even just like apply for a loan or a scholarship like I just like that was it was never even like in the cards for me I was just like quite literally trying to survive like

“I was you know homeless in high school so I knew that yeah I was just like trying to survive just”

barely making it you know so you're plugged into meetings post 2012 you're dialed you're starting to put the you know pieces back together and figure your life out I get a job at a surf company yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I worked it early for until like this past year yeah up until just last year November um left I was there for almost 15 years but yeah just started off at the company sweep and floors and cleaning screens

like t-shirt printing screens and doing artwork with a friend of mine and you know weird little marketing activations but yeah it was just like kind of like a hang around gromm and worked my way up through the company going from you know just a 10 and 99 freelance contractor just contracted help to getting brought on to the graphic design team and then designing t-shirts and

“board short prints for a couple years and you know acquiring more skills and hunting my craft”

and then becoming an apparel designer for multiple years after that like I you know at the

beginning when I first got brought on like I was a Nike employee at the time hurley was a

that surf category for the Nike organization so was you know affiliated with Nike and this is like your college for learning exactly an effective storyteller and right kind of public facing content creator and it was cool being part of like such a big like well-willed kind of corporate machine like I saw the inner workings of like how focused hurley in the Nike organization was on brand and storytelling and we'd have these big town hall meetings where it was like it felt like

almost like a broken record on repeat it was like storytelling storytelling storytelling and um yeah just like getting to work with like John Florence you know um he was you know a huge part of the brand and I'm still super tight with a lot of the the Hurley family that's gone on and started Florence Marine Axe John's company um so yeah just being really plugged in with very talented and creative people and just kind of being brought up and learning for the people around me

but it never been like a quote unquote like a athlete like an athlete as we understand an athlete like in high school you play sports or anything like no I played I played water polo for like the

first two years high school and was that like on sort of a new part yeah I mean I just like I always

kind of like loved the water and like wasn't good enough to make it on the surf team so like what's the only other water sport that you can do it's like water polo and swimming and I was just like really small um in the beginning of high school uh and you know was never gonna make it onto the varsity team so my sophomore year uh they swam season was coming and I was like I don't want to go through the hell of just being on swim team during swim season it's just like so grilling and

so much like hard work which is funny that I was hilarious of way in hard work so I was like I'm just gonna and then I ended up getting recruited by the the coach of the wrestling team so I ended up wrestling my sophomore year high school got brought on straight to the varsity team because they didn't have a 103 pounder so I was like the lightest way and already it was in pretty good shape just from being on swim team and so yeah so you weren't like a total burnout in high school then no but I was

like the worst player on the swim team in the water polo team and then you know because I'm so small in this weight class where I'm like because I have decent cardio I was you know immediately put

a gifted or talented athlete but I did always have the ability to like put in the hard work like

“yes I wasn't like genetically gifted to like ever get big or be talented or have any skills in any”

sports but I always was able to work hard if that makes sense yeah but not on the cross-country team or the truck and 15 I didn't I didn't even ever run once until I was 25 or 26 yeah where is that first touch point was running so once I once I got a job at Hurley they had a skate park in one of the warehouses they had this huge campus like I'm probably 10 or 15 buildings and one of the buildings was this dedicated warehouse that was just a skate park in it so you know I get a job there

I'm you know a couple years sober you know my life starting to get good I'm starting to piece things together I'm starting to do things that I had you know completely given up like surfing and skate like I'm getting back into skating I'm getting back into these things that I love doing I got this nice crew of people like we're going to the skate park at night like I'm getting better I'm you know progressing and you know when you're skating is one of those sports where like you

do it like you're just bound to get injured and I ended up breaking both of my ankles like a year apart so had a couple injuries and at the time I was living with a friend of mine who he was just like he was like really into the jails of bodybuilders so he was just really into the gym at the time and I was in a boot for a while and the or a cast and then a boot for a while and I just got like really out of shape and at the time I was just you know eating junk food and smoking a pack and a

half a cigarette today just in a age just drinking coffee smoke and so you're just like the only two vices that I have and you know over that year just like got really out of shape and just felt like shit

a lot and once I started to finally be able to move around and walk again and felt like I got

to the point where I could work out my roommate at that time was like dude just come to the gym with me like it's the best investment in your health like just I'll show you what to do just we're going to just work out every single day so start going to the gym with him and um that was great and I love lifting I just like wasn't really trying to be a bodybuilder like he was and I found myself going to the gym and I would just like gravitate to the cardio section and the the

stair climber was actually like my entry my gateway into running and then ultra running but I would just like go to the gym and just do an hour on the stair climber and that was like all I would do and then after a while at that point just going to be on the stairs like my ankles were still like

“just to messed up to be able to run at that point and then I remember one day trying to go for”

run on the treadmill and then I was like oh this feels good and then I you know started running on the treadmill and then doing the stair climber and the treadmill and then eventually I found myself just going to the gym to only run on the treadmill and I'm doing this for you know a couple weeks or a month and I'm like why do I have this gym membership and I'm just going to run on the treadmill like I can do this outside and then you had just started running outdoors and I like I never

really enjoyed or liked running but when I finally started doing it on my own like we always

had to run for wrestling and I mean even water polo and swimming they would have us run and soccer and baseball and sports that I played as a kid running was always involved but I just like never really thought that I liked it and it wasn't until I started running on my own and like doing this thing that was like very easily and rapidly producing like tangible results and progress for me

“I think that's when I was like oh this is like something that's hard it makes me feel good”

and I'm like getting these like small little winds it was like the first time and like so long in my life where I was like actually felt like I was starting to make progress and I was I was winning even though I was just like completing a five mile run like that was a win for me or like running a mile at eight minute pace like that was a win like those things were so hard and um yeah I just somewhere along the line just like fell in love with running and just ran more

and more I remember I do like an hour long run and be so wrecked I couldn't run for a week after but just kept with it and every time I'd run I'd try to you know either run a little bit further run a little bit faster and just continued to push myself and at one point was like I just did I just ran 10 miles without stopping like I could probably like sign up and train for a marathon and signed up for my first marathon in 2019 OC marathon and the rest is kind of history 2019 was

good at this was it that first marathon I think was that first marathon I um after like talking with some people and I did I knew nothing going into it I just had heard from some people that

“maybe four hours is a decent time goal which for the average person I think four hours is a very”

very good and very achievable goal um and then I ran three hours and twenty seven minutes like I ran you know over thirty minutes faster than I was even expecting and without knowing what you were doing yeah without knowing what I was doing in a session like I was like oh that's interesting and then you know signing up for another marathon I think my second one was LA marathon ran a three of six you know it was like that kind of kept happening to me where I'd have this maybe like just

to conservative goal for myself and I would just blow my expectations out of the water and then that carried on into you know my third marathon I ran uh two forty two forty eight or two forty seven or something Boston Qualified got like fourteen or something at the race um and then you know my

“first ultra I mean it was a super competitive ultra race fifty-k broken aerospace I it wasn't I mean”

in the grand scheme of things wasn't that good of a performance but I did be all of my other friends that I was doing it with who were like fairly accomplished runners and had been you know running ultra races and running for a long time and I'm like brand new in this thing and I'm like okay I'm like actually surprising myself at every turn and it really wasn't until I ran my first fifty mileer which was in twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty three and I signed up for this race

you know there's some like old expired gels that are like in this like Tupperware thing like I could just piece somebody I'll just run the race for fun and um and it jumped into the fifty mileer the next morning and ended up winning which was like and then after that I was like okay like there might be

“something here and you know I'm really I'm starting to feel um the success um that I'm having”

and I was like I'm just like really going to lean into this thing like maybe this running thing

is my thing you know that I've been looking for for so long like I've just never really ever been

good at anything and then I find this thing where I'm starting to have a little bit of success and I'm like maybe this is it I'm just going to go on and on this thing so that was it like okay now whether or not this is my thing almost doesn't matter I'm deciding that it is and I'm going to just focus on it and take all of my you know kind of like you know addict obsessiveness and just like in a blasted in here exactly into this thing that also not for nothing is pretty good at

emotional regulation you know what I mean like when you you know like that antsy kind of addicty feeling of like not feeling comfortable in your own skin and like this is pretty good at

managing that and if you're training super hard during the day it's like I always say it almost

feels like you just have to sauce yourself you're so it's all okay you'll have this like force field around you we're like anything that like someone might say to you that might like irritate your piss you off it just like that stuff just seems like bounce off you uh you're just like more content with life it like almost does the same thing that like drugs and alcohol will do for you you know so do people I'm sure they do like say well you just transfer jurisdiction like you're

just you're out of control max like you're just you're just a dry drunk like with all this ultra running stuff how do you answer that um well I mean for I mean for you know over 10 years I was like super involved and plugged in without college anonymous and you know have had a sponsor in sponsors it's not until like maybe the last couple years where I've just I just have been blessed with this path that I just have to go down and my time is very limited and you know I'm doing

so much traveling and training that um I haven't been able to like make it to AA and be like super active and involved with meetings and a group uh in a little while but yeah I mean I would totally agree like I take everything to the extreme and um running is definitely one of those things but at least it's you know a healthy outlet that's um become a very fruitful part of my life and brought

me so many blessings and so many friends and so many experiences that I'd never would have been

able to experience if it wasn't for I mean it's certainly uh expanding your life aperture not like narrowing it in the way that drugs and alcohol do but there is also the the kind of warning

know where you're coming from and there's something that happens with training and sometimes

“during races where like I feel closest to God during those times and um I like have a strong”

relationship with God today then I ever did um being super involved and plugged in with AA and I don't know if that's just uh a product of you know seeing the blessings that he's given to me in my life but yeah I'm very cognizant of the fact that like I can't rely on racing and training to be my everything I do still have to be um carrying the message and being of service and surrounding myself with um good people who are on like the same path as me and invested in the same lifestyle

as me and just like also on the pursuit of bettering their lives and being better people this episode is sponsored by Better Help money stress is something most of us carry at some point in our lives it's not just numbers on a spreadsheet it can shape how we sleep how we show up in relationships

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When you think about the tools of sobriety, how do they inform or how have they made you like a better runner? I'm always interested in this relationship between these two worlds. You come into this recovery community and you're introduced to all of these tools for life that are obviously going to make your life better, but are pretty applicable as an athlete and the decisions that you make about what's important and where to focus your energy and your

time and how to hone your mindset and push your body. I think the biggest thing is just knowing that nothing is ever going to be as hard as getting sober. That will forever be the hardest thing that I've ever done. No matter what, no matter how hard training or how much pain I'm in during a race, nothing is worse than kicking heroin and jail.

and I am able to do these really hard things. But I think more so is just being able to surrender to circumstances and situations that are out of your control, which a lot of ultra-running is just like problem-solving and dealing with these things that just pop up and are out of your control and being able to just roll with the punches and I mean even more so just being

“public figure or a person on social media, I think the tools of AA have helped me navigate this”

weird world that is social media and you know putting my story out online and just dealing with

people, you know, in person it's like it's always great and there's never any issues that

races like the community is amazing. I've only ever had good encounters or interactions with people. It's you know online where there's can be some resistance or just like weird shit that goes on with people online and I that's where I really have to lean on the tools of AA to you know not fire back at people online and not make comments you know and just keep my mouth shut and you know take an inventory and admit when I am wrong when I do something stupid

or fire off something you know a comment that hurts on what's feelings like take a step back do a tent step and reflect on like okay what is my part in this like where was I wrong like this is human being who has real feelings and emotions and like I just want to keep my side of the street clean and not have someone you know with their feelings hurt because of some stupid shit that I said so yeah I mean I'm you know a real person I you know emotional I struggle with the same

things that everyone else does I'm not perfect but you know being brought up and learning from the principles of AA has helped me be able to like just deal with that shouldn't be a man you know

“I'm glad that you mentioned surrender because I think that that's like a key piece in all of this”

you can't get sober if you're relying on yourself will you know you're going to you're going to just relapse and relapse and relapse if you think that you know you're going to be able to figure it out on your own it's only when you get to that point where you are willing to like let go let people in and you know understand that you know you're not the center of the universe and don't have all the answers and that you're more powerless than powerful and in the context of you know running

ultra is you have to be in a state of surrender there's too many variables it's too long the distances are so mind boggling you have no control over the elements or the other competitors I mean that's true in any athletics but the only way you're going to be able to get from the starting line to you know 240 miles later is if you are you know in that in that state of like surrender like okay god like you know help me get from here to there and like I don't know what's

going to happen but you know I'm not going to be able to do it completely under my own power and I

certainly have no control over all the things that might happen along the way and to like always

remain being teachable you know like always trying to learn the lessons and a lot of these races like I'm just like I'm learning as I'm going like I'm still very new to this thing even the 200 mile distances are a very new world within ultra running so yeah just trying to and it's like a lot of it's uncharted territory and trying to learn from the mistakes that I made and I've made so many mistakes like I really honestly haven't felt like I've had a good 200 mile race yet like

I've won one I've DNF to another and had you know a decent podium performance at another race but like I really feel like I haven't cracked the code at that distance I've had some dude you've only been doing this a couple years no you're still like so new I mean the idea of these 200 mile races is new you're new to it you're also super young and the other people that are excelling at those distances are like 20 years older than you and have been like running for you

know most of their lives sure yeah but I mean it's I think it's more so just all of us like learning

“together on this new thing you know like what's the yeah brand what's the best way to handle”

sleep in a 200 mile race you know like no one's really cracked the code or figured it out so

just yeah me I always try to like take valuable lessons and learn from these races and

be able to apply it into future races so yeah that's just like another principle of you know

when I think of the ultra world like we forget like it's so new you know the idea of this being a competitive landscape and to the extent that people are like well this is how you train for a hundred and this is how you do it's like is it you know like I think like we're at the very beginning

“of trying to figure out you know what the best way to approach these kind of races are and that's”

what makes people like David Rose so interesting you know like they're trying different things and like who knows what's what's going to you know pan out or not but like he's sort of approaching it like a scientist and a lab and I think that's really and sharing it transparently what's going to be so much respect to him for sharing everything publicly it's like and that's like in the at the hundred mile range yeah but you know then you get to the like I think people

equate these things like oh 50 a hundred 200 it's all the same like these things are wildly you know the universe is a part and and I think when it comes to like the distances that you're selling out like this is just you know the wild west right now yeah I was out to dinner the other night

with some friends and Molly Sidel was there I never met her before for people don't know

she won the bronze medal in the in the Olympics in in 2020 and she's now like you know like moving

“into the ultra world and to me that's super exciting like I think that when you start to see”

you know Olympic medalists and like you know people who are like you know in the in the top top top of the the kind of international marathon world decide to move into the ultra world we're going to see a lot of innovation and a lot of records being broken because they're bringing you know kind of an elite legacy into a world that's really untapped right now yeah and she I mean props Molly just earning a golden ticket I and I think her second ultra race ever so she'll be in

right western states the most competitive hundred mileers can be really enthusiastic yeah super

excited for her I've met her before she's an amazing human being and yeah I would love to see

more of those kind of higher profile people coming into trip I mean it's great for the sport and trail running is booming I mean maybe on bias but I feel like trail running and ultra running is growing at a faster version maybe any sport out there right now yeah what do you foresee for the future near and far in the sport just the sport generally not yourself in it but like where is this where is this heading terms of like is the popularity going to continue to grow do you think like

you're going to see more I mean it seems to me like there's going to be more money coming in and we already see what happened with with UTMB like that's going to continue and as soon as there's more money there more of the Molly side elves are going to like if you're on the if you're on the world marathon circuit and you're coming in you know eighth or tenth and these races consistently you're like I don't know ten minutes off the pace or whatever like why don't move like the ultra

“world is like why it open for you yeah and I think you know as more eyes grow on the sport you know”

the brands are going to be working over more money we will get some of those athletes that are crossing over and we're starting to see it so I envision this sport just growing as a whole it's really is a very accessible sport like you can essentially do it in so many different places in the U.S. and throughout the world I mean it's a worldwide sport and yeah I think also just a lot of people just really crave and have a desire to do hard things and there's nothing more simple

and challenging than just running really far yeah all you need is a pair of shoes to pull and now with these all these these these backyard all these you know unique formats that are popping up people designing their own challenges like there's no barrier to enter into this and then like how I mean there's you know the monster 300 there's 300 mile rate like what are we going to say I mean I've heard people talking about and I mean it does kind of exist in this whole other world

challenge of what you're talking about doing 500 yeah yeah but I mean even so you can go you can race the John mere trail or you know the Pacific restaurant like doing FKT is like that's a whole other world of ultra running that there's almost like there's people who do that that don't even really run races they just are focusing on setting records and setting times on like super long this I mean in FKT can be any little route that's you know 20 miles up it up to you know

the Pacific Crest Trail that's 3000 miles you know the amazing thing about your story is the fact that it's such an unlikely story like you've been living your whole life with this like reservoir of potential you had no idea about and but for like a couple things that happened you might have

lived your entire life never going on a run or realizing that you have this capacity and when you

millions or billions of people are walking around with capacities and capabilities that they're not

aware of because they never are in a situation or presented with an opportunity to kind of do the

“math and you know like square that equation right I think like yeah if you're a person who's”

listening or curious about ultra running or just running in general like maybe just like maybe just try it you know maybe it could end up being that thing for you and or like maybe it's not even running maybe it's playing guitar or artwork or what I like I just I hope that people just like find something that they're into and just pour everything that they have and do it and I don't know I think about this all the time like back when I was younger I used to think it was so cool seeing people who just

like effortlessly were good at things and I think now I have so much more respect for people who

actually care and people who actually try hard and people who like fail at things over and over and they dedicate their lives to you know going back to maybe a race or whatever it is but like I really like watching and hearing stories of people just overcoming adversity and really trying hard like I thought it was so cool to like not care or not give a fuck about anything but like nowadays I'm like I love people who like give a shit and like want to dedicate everything in their

“life to one specific pursuit like I think that is so sick and so cool when you think about”

your life now and reflect upon you know where you were not that long ago like it must just be mind blowing astonishing yeah it seems like an almost an entire lifetime ago like I like I haven't had the urge or the thought of drinking or using in like a very long time like I was

blessed with the gift of the obsession being lifted like quite a long time ago and it's never

came back and I'm super grateful for that I think there's something that people say that every 16 years or something like all of the cells in your body quite literally are replaced so I really do feel like it was an entire lifetime ago and my life is so different now that I you know every year on my sobriety day and I do a lot of reflecting and I just try not to get not to forget what it

“felt like that day before I got sober and like that's something that I always need to remember that”

this whole thing really is a daily reprieve and if I you know slip up and make the mistake of putting something in my body that can cause the allergy and the craving of alcoholism like I'm right back to swear one and I don't ever want to go back there again like as much as my life is different today and I have so much to lose I like I'm really one bad day away from being right back at square one trying to get sober again and it's so much easier to just stay sober than to try to get sober

again I don't ever want to have to do that again what do you say to the person who looks at you and says well you know Max is different from me obviously he's this gifted runner I can see how he was able to you know pull himself up you know from his with his bootstraps and changes life and you know become this runner but like I don't I don't really see how I'm going to be able to make that change like what have you learned about just the nature of change itself

or the the power that we all have to make in a significant life change I mean I felt the same same exact way for a long time there's there's no way that you know sitting in meetings listening to people tell their stories it's like well yeah like that's true for you but I'm I'm different you know totally totally unique I you know what what what what you suffer from and what you feel in your head is like just not what I'm feeling and I'm different and just like

you know I just would love to be an example like I'm I'm no different than anyone like I'm not talented I'm not special I suffer from the same thing that like literally millions of other people suffer from and you know there is a solution if you want it as long as you're willing to do the work and that's true for getting sober that's true for you know getting good at anything like running it's like if you make the conscious decision that this is something I want to do or

go after and achieve and you do put in the work anything is possible yeah that's the great thing

start seeing the results then you feel more connected to it and you know as as we say in the rooms like

“self-esteem is built on the shoulders of performing a stable acts and like going out and run”

running is an esteemable act on behalf of yourself right you know what I mean the more you do that the better you feel about yourself and then you see that progress and you want to do more these things and it doesn't have to be running it can be whatever and whatever your curiosity is fascinated by that's almost exactly the inverse of the more I drink the worse my life gets the worse my life gets the more I drink and use and do drugs and the more I do drugs the worse my life get so it's it's exactly

you understand my problems and when I wake up in the morning it's so bad that I have to drink you know and then there goes the cycle around and around and around on a mindset level I've heard

you say like you're you know like you're just a never quit guy right like how do you think about

mindset and what are some of the ways that you try to you know foster a growth mindset yeah the never quit mindset I mean that's a tough thing I almost invested too much of like my identity into being someone that's like never gonna quit or gonna die before I quit and then when I'm finally presented with a situation during a race where I'm like quite literally about to die you know at mile 238 of a 250 mile race and I have you know and and less amount of

problems going on with me and people around me are very scared for me in my life and I have to make that hard decision of like letting my ego go and like okay this race is over I'm gonna drop I'm gonna have to quit this race and I'm going straight to the hospital which is what happened to me at Coconona last year um it's kind of like changed my perspective and um I've kind of let go of the like I'm not like invincible I'm really not that tough like and you know I'd rather

rather just fight another day you know like we all you know have these situations and points within races or any part of our life where I like today's just not the day and I've experienced that and I now look back and think like oh it was a little bit naive to think that

“there's never gonna be a situation where I'm ever gonna give up but uh I think for the most part”

like I try not to make quitting an option and I think that just kind of goes back to uh just sobriety there was like like drinking and I had to in my head make it like absolutely mandatory

that I was never gonna use again like no matter what and um with running maybe I just tried to borrow

that um philosophy with racing like I'm just never gonna quit when in reality like there are gonna be situations where you quit and as much as I would have loved to have gone my entire career never having quit or dropped from a race it's like I'm doing some of the hardest races in the world like you know of course right but that binary is helpful especially in the early days like the when you're in the room it's like it's very clear like you either sober you're not you know

like there's no gray area you know but life is full of grays but when you get into running and you're like okay well I'm gonna use that rule that works so well for me in this context and apply it over here there's value in that initially but then as you grow and evolve like you have to you

“know you have to amend these rules and I think a lot of that just boils boils down to you know”

you know it all comes down to you go so when you're when you you mentioned you know doing inventories when you are like doing whether it's a daily inventory or more formal inventory like what are the what are the patterns that continue to to kind of recur that that trip you up that you know that you still need to work on I think a lot of it just has to do with patients you know having patients with people a lot of it has to do with you know fear like I may react a certain way because

I'm just I'm just afraid of people not liking me or you know things not working out or yeah just like getting angry over stupid shit you know I think just like having real human emotions that all of us all of us have and like I to it's like I am so a product of my parents like I see the things that I suffer from are like character flaws that have just been passed down to me and like me being impatient or me you know getting angry or upset or just all of those

of those things and addressing them when they happen and immediately like trying to figure out okay what's the part that I played in this like where was I wrong let me you know fix this whether it's you

know an apology like I always try to um and it's almost like I am a confrontational person but

I will like if anything happens or comes up I will immediately like try to squash it and you know fix things like yeah I just a human being like everyone else like I have I have I'm not perfect how the how's the imposter syndrome going oh god I mean yeah I definitely have like this

“people when you because you're very you're you you talk about it a lot I don't know I think I came”

up in an era when like self promotion and self glorification was like very frowned upon you know and I think I don't know I'm just like so hyper critical of myself um and almost kind of like my own worst enemy and like another thing with you know just shit that comes out me online it's

like nothing that anyone can say is like any worse than what I actually feel about myself I am

very self deprecating and feel like I'm not good enough and I'm not enough and you know that's just you know a pattern of thinking that's just existed within me for a long time and you know working progress to feel any different but um yeah I mean I feel like I don't know I think a lot of it boils down to like I just feel like there's a lot of people out there that maybe don't respect me or my accomplishments or don't want to give me the credit that I feel like I deserve and that's

okay you know I'm like not running the most competitive races in the world like I'm just like carving my own path and doing stuff that intrigues me and I really actually don't like competing like I don't like the racing I don't like the competitiveness of it I just like really crave the challenge and it's really easy to find the challenges within these races especially like the super super long distance stuff like you're not racing against anyone else anyway and those

“right dude I think the Barclay marathons is the sickest race ever because none of the people are”

racing against each other they're racing against the race it's like no one wins it's just finishers you know like I I love that I just really create the challenge and um yeah it's like I I see shit that people say about me online and maybe maybe I shouldn't even have ever looking at any of it yeah you keep coming back to this thing I think that's where your work is the like like finding a way to detach from all of that so obviously this is like agitating you

right you know this this this thing and it has nothing to do with you you know it's just it's other stuff but it's running a lot of space and you're right you know I'm I'm aware of it you know

like sit you know somehow it just always seems to get to me so I mean but it's it's all good I mean

I'm I'm grateful for everything I know I'm just like only getting better I'm only making progress and I'm like not even close to where my potential could be so I think you're just I think you're just beginning but I think to the extent that you have some degree of imposter syndrome or have an attachment to being perceived in a certain way like these are these are all human

“traits obviously but at the same time you have to have you know incredible self belief to”

toe the line at a race like Moab and say like you know I'm in the hunt for this thing or you know like I have a chance to win this thing like those two things are in conflict with each other I mean this is a very kind of like alcoholic trait and it's interesting how they can co-habitate with each other like I'm an imposter they're going to come and tell me like you know we figured you out at the same time thinking like I'm going to win this fucking thing you know what I mean

because I'm better than these guys you know what I mean it's insane like how does that work yeah I mean hating yourself but thinking that you're the go at the same I mean yeah it's you know it's that's alcohol that's the ism of alcoholism is the the ego and self obsession and yeah it's you know it's a blessing in a curse yeah what's the key race this year what are you focused on I'm really excited to go back to Cocodona and just get a finish out there I just got so close last year

that I really want to cross the finish line that's like my main goal and objective of that race but then a couple months after that I'm running bad water 135 yeah which is a exciting challenge

some of my best performances and it's pavement yeah it's a road I'm okay red running yeah

how are you changing your training to uh to make sure that you're ready for that race so I mean I'm lucky that I live here in Southern California and death valley is really only like a four hour drive so I'm actually just planning on spending a bunch of time out there like I'm unemployed now I don't have a job so I can quite literally you don't have a job I yeah you don't have a corporate job I mean this is your job this is my job right um imposter syndrome again but uh

no I just I just plan on going out there a bunch uh this year and just doing a ton of training out there especially in the summer once it starts to heat up um but yeah that's uh that's a really

“exciting race that's intrigued me for a really long time I think I first found out about that race”

watching Sally McCray when it back in god was that 21-22 um when I first kind of started discovering

ultra races and you know I grew up going out to death valley and doing camping and boy scout stuff is a little kid out there so just having a you know a connection with that area and then being able to you know race my way into the race like winning Sean O'Brien which got me a ticket into AC100 and then I went AC100 which got me a ticket into bad water so it's kind of been this cool like progression of races to get me there but I do really well in the heat um I've actually been working

with satisfied to um help create some heat specific product that will be that I'll be wearing for the I mean it'll be coming out and I'll be wearing it for the first time at bad water so um it's been

like really the the response to the Nike ACG like mesh shirt that what's his name more at western

states last year it's it's a bit different I mean that's kind of one one item but this is like a full kit uh well I mean when you see people at bad water just like how everyone's decked out and white sleeves you know I don't want to give away too much of like what the product is like white beekeeper right yeah everyone's just all kidded out and everything white just because it's so hot in the son of so harsh but it was uh it was really cool opportunity getting to work with them and present

them with like hey this is like I live in I live in this area where I'm running all these like super hot races it would be really cool and fun to develop some heat specific uh products and you know presented the ideas to them they worked on creating some stuff Sammy prototypes I've been wear testing them and then we were just in uh South America and shot the campaign for for all the stuff so it was a really cool like kind of full circle moment and I'll be able to wear and race

and use the product at bad water this year so that's been like really fun and excited and you're

“putting the treadmill in the sauna like some of these guys have over the years I think Harvey Lewis”

yeah used to do that so I have a I have a like a stair climber machine a stepper stair climber machine in my garage and in the summer my garage will get like 85 to 90 degrees so I'll do that and then I saw date I saw David Roche doing all his heat suit training so I just bought like this Tyvec painters heat suit and cut the feet off of it so I'll do the stair climber with the heat suit on in the summer um that's kind of like one way that I'm doing active heat training but I'm also

like torn with ideas of like do I build like a tent in my backyard and get like a cheap little treadmill or a bike trainer and just throw my bike in some heaters in this thing and be able to do some active heat I just feel so bad going to the gym and being like that guy in the sauna that's like doing squats or lunges or something it's just like kind of a noxious so I'll I'll do that you know the passive heat training in the sauna at the gym and then I'll do you know the active heat training

in the garage maybe I'll you know do another but like my whole year this year is very focused on like building durability and volume and heat training because all my races this year Cocodona is tip I mean not last year is freezing cold which is a freak year but usually Cocodona is a very hot race bad water hotest race in the world and then AC100 right here on the San Gabriel's is typically very hot they did move the race from August to October going forward so hopefully it'll be a

little bit more mild temperatures but I mean last year when I won it it was over 100 degrees during the day so have you met David Roche no I haven't you you got to talk to this guy and you got

“you got you you got you should I'm a fan compared notes I'm a fan yeah what is a day in the life”

of training now that you're you know liberated from having like any kind of day job and you can just focus on this yeah I still feel like weirdly like I'm still as busy I got you know quite a few things going on in the works where I'm working on some co-labs and doing some free

got like up for my job and I was like I'm just gonna run 200 miles a week now

“didn't didn't really work out like that nor would that be a smart thing to do but yeah my”

mornings are typically wake up have a coffee chill with my dogs maybe take them for a run four to five miles and then have a little bite to eat maybe hop on a collar too and then do a midday run maybe 10 to 15 miles so trying to hit 15 to 20 miles a day also my fiancee McKenzie she's a personal trainer so been getting into the gym with her quite a bit more now that you know I don't have to be in the office at 8 a.m. I can you know two to three days a week in the mornings

go work out with her and then yeah just getting to travel and run pretty much any race that I want

anywhere in the world has been super cool and fun and exciting and just last weekend going to

awesome marathon and running awesome marathon was super fun so yeah just kind of getting to do whatever I want and really focused on getting all of the training in with a lot less distractions has been really nice how many miles did you run the week leading up to the Austin marathon this probably wasn't smart but I like I didn't really plan on racing the race I kind of was just going into it that was more like you're there for this brand and it's a bunch of dudes or we're

gonna hang out oh and there happens to be a marathon and I haven't been doing a ton of marathon specific training like I'm training on the track throwing down like intervals are you like

like speedwork so I mean I mean I had been a little bit here and they're like I do know that

that is still a very important part of ultra training I being in the best shape that you can and being as fast as you can is great running shape so I do you know I try to be consistent with throwing and speedwork out and doing longer tempo and threshold workouts which I kind of had been doing because I was toying with the idea of running a surf city marathon which is in Huntington it's around the same time as the Austin marathon but BPN had reached out and they were like hey

I mean they were the main sponsor of the Austin marathon they were like hey a couple of you

“athletes like we want you to come out if you want to run the race cool if not all good and I was like”

I'll just like jump into the full um use it as a training run for uh analog island 50 mileer which is another race I got coming up in March um but yeah I didn't even know what I was going to do up until the morning of the race like I was like should I should I run hard or should I just cruise or should I be like a pacer for like a two four I thought I was going to run like maybe two forty five or something um I didn't know what kind of shape I was in I haven't race to

road marathon and over a year I mean hadn't specifically trained for a road marathon or PR and over three years so yeah I just ended up showing up to the start line and my friend Matt Lanna and teammate of mine on satisfied he just ran a Olympic trials qualifier at CIM in December and I was out there and during the race I thought it was so cool he just he set his watch to time of day mode and just didn't pay any attention to any splits didn't look at his heart rate just nothing just

ran what he felt like was sustainable for him on that day and was right there with the lead pack and uh ran his personal best and OTQ I was like so stoked for him and I thought that was like so sick and cool so at Austin Marathon I was like I'm just going to do what Matt did I'm just going to set my watch to time of day mode and um use this run is just a solid steady hard run workout and um ended up PRing there was yeah well that is that is sort of a surrender lesson also

like I'm just here I'm gonna be present for the experience and you know let it tell me what it wants to be or whatever whatever my fitness is today is what it is so just you know do that I don't need to which is the opposite sort of an antidote to the kind of fitness culture like optimization like obsession that people have like you know with every little metric being dialed in and you know athletes at your level like you have that connection with your body like you know what it

feels like you know what you're capable of and like you don't need to be dependent upon all of these things because there's like into it like there's a there's a integration you know and sometimes it is just better to listen to your body and to run intuitively and just give the best that you can

“on that day you know like the numbers don't really matter so you must have been happy with a”

234 oh yeah yeah I was I was I had no idea I you know the only split that I saw was

having flashbacks of CIM where I went out too fast and ran you know 116 half and just absolutely

blew up in the second half and awesome marathon isn't known for being a PR course like it's a

1,000 feet of gain and on like on the day it was like 20 mile an hour it was like super windy so the conditions were not ideal the course was not ideal and I saw my split at the halfway point and I was like oh no here it comes I'm gonna blow up and you're hanging out with the VPN guys you're probably like they're making you like lift weights we were lifting weights the day before but to get back to your what was my training the week so the week before I ran out 146 mile

week I ran 146 miles the week leading before Austin before Austin yeah just because I was more focused on the 50 mile that was coming up and I was like the rate like running the marathon doesn't really matter I'm probably not gonna PR anyway so I'm just gonna I'm just gonna keep my volume up and use the brace as a hard run workout and ended up running also 100 miles the week of the race so the race ended on Saturday so I ended up finishing the week with 100 miles and then this last week

I ran another 100 miles so I'm like really just focused on like the ultra training and just keeping high volume and keeping my mileage up and building the durability and doing tons of heat I mean dude we were out there sitting in Nick's sauna in the sauna at the VPN HQ and that those are the like the hottest sauna in the world like 200 degrees over 200 degrees just absolutely cooking

“in there but yeah it was a really fun and amazing trip and I honestly just had no expectations going”

into the race I just kind of sent it for fun and then I feel and had a nice race going into the season what is motivating all of this what is it the source of your motivation do you have a sense of what that is like what's what's the animating energy behind all of it for you I think just the desire to push myself to whatever this potential is that I have and just my desire to do hard things like I just love training and I love the process of prepping for a race and I love putting in the work

and as much as I don't love a lot of aspects of the competitiveness of races I do love the adventure of races I think it just really boils down to I just like a challenge I just like doing hard things and I like pushing myself and I like seeing the tangible results of my hard work which is you know what you can get if you put in the work and race really hard and pour your heart and soul into this thing like if you put in the work you will get results when you get married

“June and she's like your crew captain yeah she's the essential team member yeah and”

she's like kind of like my coach my strength and conditioning because you don't have you don't have a proper coach no but I'm like I'm very obsessed with like training and product and

ever like I'm always like learning things and I like I just like see I get's pretty easy to see

what a lot of elite athletes are doing and it's really not that hard to research you know training philosophy and I just like I I do a lot of research and I just kind of like copy what a lot of people do you know and bar workouts from people and I know the recipe in the formula maybe I don't have a lot of the structure that maybe like the day-to-day structure that maybe having a coach would give me but I don't know I also think it's I'm pretty good at listening to my body and

knowing what I need to do and you know someone could lay out a plan for you but you still need

“to like be able to show up every day and execute that plan and I think I'm you know I can”

create a decent plan for myself and just do it on my own as we're coming to the end here obviously

you're this incredible avatar example of the power of changing her life like you've made these

dramatic changes in your life and it's just this incredible 180 turn around what can you share about what you've learned about the capacity we all have to make changes in our lives. I think everyone has the potential to do amazing things and a lot of times it's just really hard to take that first step to you know start on a path of pursuing you know a crazy dream that you might have or just dedicating everything in your life to one specific thing.

I love people who are just obsessed and just truly dedicated to whatever it is I mean it could

the ability to do amazing things but it's just sometimes a little bit difficult to find what

“that thing is for you and also to have the knowledge and the awareness to really lean into that”

thing when you do discover it which is kind of just what I've found with this whole running journey but yeah and aside from that like I don't know I just feel insanely grateful to be able to live this life and share my story and inspire people like that's the most satisfying thing that I get from you know putting out content and running races and telling stories is when I hear people say

that like oh this inspired me to lose weight or this inspired me to get into running and I love

running and it's a part of my life now like that's where I get maybe some of the most satisfaction

“in my life and something that I'm kind of like most grateful for that I've kind of discovered”

on this weird crazy journey and what is the message that you want to say to the kid max who is sitting in a jail cell in 2012 knowing what you know now I just hold on tight stick with it put in the work as long as you just do the right thing and continue on the right path try to better yourself like everything will work out and good things will come yeah I mean when I reflect on your story there's just no way that you can script this when you're that kid in jail

back then if you told that kid like hey one day you know it's like why do you even talk about like yeah so the notion of even like we'll set a goal and work towards it and this is how it's like it's it's not even that it's like bigger and more mystical and magical than that like by you just doing the next right thing like taking a contrary action and then the next right action after that and repeating that and repeating that and repeating that your life

the trajectory of your life you know starts to alter and then it leads you to these little opportunities that you say yes to and you make these little discoveries and then you wake up one day and you're like winning ultra right like you're living a life that like you just it wouldn't even like compute you know to that person so to me what I what I gather from that is like hope and possibility like no matter how far down the path you have you have gone right like there

is always the opportunity for hope and possibility if you can just do the next right thing in front of

you to do magical things can happen and you're this incredible example of that like it's the most unlikely story and yet here you are sitting across from me and in my mind like you're just at the very beginning of this you know incredible journey that you're on thank you thank you yeah and just stay the path focus on today all we have is today you know so um yeah I'm just going to keep putting in the work and doing my thing and hopefully good things will come well i'm a fan and and keep making

like awesome you know content docs and all of that it really is cool thank you i'm really appreciated a lot

“and i think when you do that everyone else sees it and then they have to up their game and it's just”

up leveling the quality and the caliber of you know what's available to the public to like be inspired and learn about you know these these subcultures and these you know ways of life so thank you for that yeah and all right well come back and share more adventures from the trails by sweet all right thank you peace