Courage is not the absence of fear, it's moving forward even though you feel the fear. So because you feel the fear, that's not something that says you shouldn't do it.
In fact, I always say that sometimes if there is fear, granted, if the fear is, like, legit, like, if there's a burning fire, like, don't go run into the burning fire, but if there's a big goal that, like, and you get this fear, you get this, this, this scared, like, thing that comes up to it, maybe you should move towards it.
Welcome to For The Long Run. We explore the why behind what keeps runners running long, strong, and motivated, and how they've been able to achieve sustainable excellence.
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So the Boston Double just happened, and it was unlike anything I've done before. I ran the course in reverse, 3:00 AM start at Boylston Street, all 26.2 miles back to Hopkinton in the dark.
No crowds, no fanfare, just headlamps and the quiet version of one of the most iconic courses in the world. Mount to Coast put the whole activation together, and while I ran one way, seven people ran both ways.
The full reverse overnight, then turned around and ran the official Boston Marathon, 52.4 miles. These are the people Mount to Coast was built for.
They launched a few years ago with a simple mission: make shoes for runners who go the distance. Road and trail models, sponsorship at Badwater 135 and the Vermont 100, and now at Double Boston. That's their crowd.
I ran in their shoes, and they held up for every mile of it. Go check them out at mounttocoast.com and use code FTLR for 10% off your first pair, or your second pair.
My favorite shoe is the H1, their road to trail option, and the C1, which is their non-plated super trainer, and the shoe I ran the reverse Boston in. Mount to Coast, transcend distance.
Thank you to Mount to Coast for hosting this awesome event. Um, I'm Jon. I host For The Long Run podcast, all about exploring the why and understanding what enables sustainable excellence.
Joe Corcione is of Everyday, the, uh, Everyday Ultra Podcast. Mm-hmm. You wanna do a little intro on, uh, what your show's all about? Yeah, for sure. So, um, I'm Joe.
Uh, we have the Everyday Ultra Podcast, and our whole show is helping our listeners be better endurance athletes, no matter what distance.
Even though we have Ultra in the name, uh, we have people listening who are starting their very first 5K, doing from marathon and, and beyond.
So, um, we're all about helping people become better runners, not just physically, but also mentally as well. And, uh, I'm sure those running, uh, tomorrow, you guys will go on that physical and mental journey.
Those out here to support, you guys will see that. And, um, if, if we're all here, we're connected with running somehow.
And so, uh, we always love to, to share tips to help anyone wherever they are on their journey to, to be the best version of themselves. As I've texted Joe a bunch of times, his podcast makes me wanna run through walls.
Like, s- [laughs] who, who has listened to his show? Awesome. Thank you. Your show is full of entertainment, but also just motivation from really interesting people who are doing the thing and doing it well. Mm-hmm.
And so the conversation we wanted to have today is really all about how do we do the thing? How do we do it better? Mm. How do we go longer?
We're hosted by Mount to Coast, who's hosting the Double Boston, and so Boston one way is hard.
Boston both ways [laughs] is really hard, and I think it's just a microcosm of when we do hard things, we can do hard things.
And so this conversation, honestly, is just a, a selfish one for me, because I wanna just pick Joe's brain and let everyone else benefit from, from what's inside of it. Um, so I've run a bunch of marathons.
I've run a couple of ultras. Joe's run many ultras, and part of my interest in this conversation is really just understanding, how do we go further, and what are the tools mentally and physically that we need?
What are the products that help make it possible so we can just dive into, uh, dive into it? But tell us a little bit more about- Mm... your running and what, how running found you, and then how ultra-running found you.
For sure, yeah, and I love the concept of, like, going farther and, um, you know, in ultramarathoning or just running in general, right, like, what's the question that a lot of people ask you, or maybe you ask yourself, is like, "What's next?"
Right? And I think in the ultra community and, and running community in general, it's always about, like, okay, like, do you have to go farther and farther and farther?
And, and I think, yes, the answer is farther, but not necessarily. It doesn't have to be the distance, right? It can be taking time off your current marathon time.
It can be exploring a new skill that you haven't done before, right? Going farther isn't just about doing more. It's about becoming better.
And so when we talk about, like, the whole thing today about, like, going farther, it's not just necessarily running more miles. It's being a better at whatever given area you want to, right?
Cutting off time off your marathon time, being a better person. So that's why I always like to find my go farther, and go farther can be not even just applied to running, but in life. And so I, from my story, right, like
I, I, I did not grow up a runner at all. Like, at all. And so, like, all the stuff that I've done today, if you, like, if I told you who I was in the past, you'd be like, "What the heck?"
'Cause, um- You might not even believe him. Yeah. [laughs] Exactly. I, sometimes I, I don't even believe myself.
Um, but I grew up in New York, and I worked on Wall Street, and I ended up, uh, developing a pretty nasty, uh, drug addiction.
I was using cocaine, Adderall, alcohol, tons of hard drugs, and basically, like, my whole reason for doing that was I didn't like who I was deep down inside. Um, I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was a kid.
I was always getting in trouble. Um, doctors, parents, uh, teachers always told me that, uh, I would never be amount to anything because I had this condition.
So I always had this thought about myself that I couldn't be someone if I didn't use drugs, 'cause I got prescribed Adderall.
That taught me a wrong lesson in my mind, that I can only be the person I wanted to if I took this drug, and that spiraled when I got into Wall Street. I can only be productive if I take cocaine.
I can only be social and talk to those cute girls if I drank alcohol, right? And, but really, that just led to a deep insecurity about myself.Fast forward, um, that all snowballed into me just blowing up my life.
I moved back in with my parents. I was dating a girl for four years, so I was gonna get married. She left me. My parents hated me. I was, like, almost dead broke 'cause I blew all my money on drugs.
And I moved back in with my parents, and I was in the floor of my childhood room, looking up the ceiling, and I don't know what it was.
You can call it grace, you can call it w- whatever you wanna call it, but something in my mind clicked and said, "If I don't change, I'm gonna die before I'm 30." I was 22 years old at the time.
And so, um, so I said, "Okay." So I went to the computer, and I just typed in, "How to get sober" on Google. Like, that was, that was my thing. And, um, the common thing on there was exercise.
Now, I didn't play any sports growing up. I played golf, and that's arguably a sport, and I can say that because I play golf. Still play golf. But, uh, I had no athletic ability, no athletic talent.
So when I saw exercise, my first thought was, like, "I don't wanna go to the gym 'cause if I go to the gym and try to lift a dumbbell, like, everyone there is gonna laugh at me." So I was like, "Okay, what can I do?"
I was like, "All right, well, it's dark in the morning at 4:00 AM. I can go running in my neighborhood, so I'm gonna get a pair of running shoes, dang it, I'm gonna do it."
So I went to the store, I bought my pair of running shoes. I wish Mountain Co was out at the time. Um, but I went and I, I bought a pair of running shoes, and I was like, "All right, today's the day.
I'm gonna go out there, I'm gonna run one mile today." I made it about a quarter mile before my lungs were burning and I was heaving, and I was like, "Dang, like, I- maybe I'm not cut out for this.
Maybe I'm not good for this." But there was something deep down inside of me realizing that I wasn't a runner, and that day I ran.25, and that was further than I've ever gone.
And the biggest thing I wanna say about that story is that.25, right, so, like, you meet people and, and I don't want anyone here, right, like if, if you hear me, like, running these 100 miles, 200 miles, like, there is no such thing as like, oh, let me, like, steep myself down based on what other people have done.
If you've done something you've never done before, that is incredible. I always say someone who runs their first 5K is more impressive than me running another 100 mile 'cause they've never done that 5K.
The example I always give, right, when a baby takes its first steps, you don't go, "Ah, everybody walks, so you know what, baby? That's not cool." No, you don't do that. You celebrate and you're like, "That's amazing.
That's awesome," 'cause that baby's never done it before.
So when you've done something you've never done before, you gotta celebrate that 'cause that is the semblance that you can do and become someone who you haven't been before.
And so that, that quarter mile turned into a half mile, and then one mile, then f- I ran my first 5K, and then I ran my first half marathon and, and then eventually that spiraled into eventually 250 miles across Arizona, and now I'm seven years sober, sitting here, too.
And it's not just about the running and the miles, it's about going farther.
And the, the belief around this entire thing, the key to going farther in life, is that you can do anything you want to as long as you're willing to put in the work and learn. And putting in the work is, it's hard.
It's tough, right? Running a marathon is really hard. Like, running your first 5K is really hard. It's tough, but you gotta overcome that struggle. And secondly, you gotta learn, because I failed.
I went to go for a mile that one day, and I failed, but I learned. What can I do better? Do I need to just gradually, like, increase my, you know, mileage, like s- like, a little bit safer?
Do I need to take better hydration in? And I learn along the ways, and I'm still learning to this day. And if you do those two things, you can never lose, 'cause there's no such thing as win or loss, it's win or learn.
And so the key to going farther on this very long po- like, the very long point here is that you can go farther.
You can go as far as you want to as long as you're willing to learn and put in the work, and everybody can become whoever they wanna become. Do you see what I mean about wanting to run through a wall?
[laughs] How can you not be inspired from a story like that, that's shared with that much energy?
And I've, I've heard Joe have this conversation a million times, and the, the undertone is, like, whatever the biggest thing you think you can't do is, like, you can do it. Mm. And we're gonna run...
Some people are gonna run 52.4 miles tomorrow, and that's awesome. That's incredible. Some people are gonna run 26.2 miles tomorrow. That's awesome. Some people are gonna run two miles tomorrow. That's awesome, too.
And, um, it's really, like, what I love about running is it's all relative.
And, and so it's-- We have so many of these opportunities to do something new for the first time, and so many people go through life just doing the same thing over and over again, and they never get to experience this novelty.
Um, I ran a race from Crested Butte to Aspen through the Colorado Mountains last summer, and we spent most of the time above 11,000 feet, and there were a couple of peaks, summits at 12.5.
And I had this realization, I was 25 miles in, and I was like, "Most people on this planet will never see anything like this."
What a cool thing that we get to experience, whether you're running Boston tomorrow and stri- or stri- and striving for a PR, whether you're inspired by Joe's story and you wanna sign up for your first 5K.
Like, the ability to go do something new that scares you, I think is what makes life worth living and what adds life to, to life. Mm-hmm, for sure. I love that you say, like, the, the scared part, right?
Because I think the biggest barrier, at least for me, like, growing up, like, the biggest barrier for myself of wanting to be better was always fear.
Like, wanting to get sober, there was the fear of, what if I can't be the person that I was on drugs? The fear of signing up-- My-- The most scared I've ever been for a race was my first 10K, and it was a trail race.
It was crazy weather and everything, but I was so scared 'cause, like, that was double the distance I'd ever gone before, and I was terrified. I remember I was in the port-a-potty, like, heaving up.
Like, I was like, "Oh my gosh," like, "that is so crazy." And, um, but you go out and do it, and it always, like, reminds me back to this quote is that, "Courage is not the absence of fear.
It's moving forward even though you feel the fear." So because you feel the fear, that's not something that says you shouldn't do it.
In fact, I always say that sometimes if there is fear, granted, if the fear is, like, legit, like if there's a burning fire, like, don't go run into the burning fire, but if there's a big goal that, like, and you get this fear, you get this, this, this scared, like, thing that comes up to it, maybe you should move towards it.
Like, when I did my first 100-mile race-I did it, and I thought, "Okay, like, what, what, what can I do next here?" And so I said, "Okay, I can do another 100-miler," but I didn't really get this fear feeling.
I was like, "Oh, I've done it before, I can do this again." And I was like, "Okay, well what if I try to take off like, you know, four hours off my time?" And I was like, "Okay, that's a little bit scary."
And I was like, "What if I like try to go out and compete?"
And all of a sudden, as soon as I say compete, like, my stomach got this, like, pit, like I start, got, like, all the butterflies in my stomach, and I was like, "That's it." Like, that's when you push myself.
Now, my point here is that you don't have to go out and compete. You don't have to go out and, and be on the podium. Like, it doesn't matter.
It's like you gotta find that thing that gets you so excited and fired up, and for you to be in this process of becoming that person and being that person that you're proud of, and then the outside of this is this scary thing, this thing you don't even know if you can get there, but it's not necessarily about whether you get the goal or not, it's about who did you become in that process?
And the scarier the goal, the better the person you're gonna become. So in that story, later that year, I said, "I'm gonna go race Javelina Jave 100," which is one of the most competitive 100 milers in the United States.
I was like, "I'm gonna go for top two." People were calling me crazy. They're like, "What are you, nuts? You've ran one 100-miler before. You don't have any running background. Like, dude, you're nuts."
And I was scared, and I was on that starting line, and I, uh, and I was thinking about all the training I was putting in the entire time. I was like, "What if I fail? What if I screw this up?
Like, what if I'm a laughingstock out there?" And I went out and I didn't get top two, but I got 10th place, but that didn't matter to me.
What mattered to me was, like, whoa, I went from someone who never ran before in my life and got top 10 at this race, and it was just becoming of that process.
So I think the biggest thing to get rid of that fear is stop, like, putting so much weight on the actual outcome. Put your weight on the process, and the g- and the person that you're becoming along the way.
Because if you start here, and the goal that you're going is here, but you end up over here, then my gosh, that's amazing, because you've gotten further. You've moved forward in life, right?
And any time, if you think about any, like, thing that you're the most proud of in life, there's one common element between every single thing. You made progress.
And so don't worry about are you gonna get the goal or not.
Put y- all your chips on getting towards that, and you'll come out a better person, and you'll find that even though there is fear, you're gonna move forward every time and you're gonna walk away super fulfilled.
The other piece with that is that talking more about setting goals that scare you, like, setting that goal enables the process- Mm... to occur.
So a couple years ago, I was struggling with motivation, and my coach suggested that I put a scary goal on the calendar, something that, like, I hadn't done before, something that fired me up, but I, I wasn't sure that I could do.
And so I picked a runnable 50K, Black Canyon 50K, and the thought of, like, running a, a 31-mile race where I can't, trail race where I can't really hike because it's entirely runnable, I was like, "Okay, I gotta train and get really fit so that I can do the, this whole thing."
And so I went through that winter, and every time that I wanted to stay in bed because it was cold out, and we actually had a winter in Boulder that year, and I had to run the treadmill a couple of times.
Every time I was faced with this decision of like, "Do I stay in bed or do I get out and run for two hours in the, in the snow?" The decision gets easier when you- Mm... have something that you're building towards.
And there are people in this room that have set crazy goals that, you know, the rest of the non-running world would not understand, but people in this room understand that these are the goals that, you know, they don't really mean anything, but they mean the world at the same time.
Mm-hmm. 100%. I love what you said, like, when you do the hard things, it becomes easier, right? Like, those are, like, reminders of that human potential that everybody has.
Because once you go farther, you realize that you have the tools, you have the capabilities, you have the skillset to do it.
So n- I don't wanna say every goal becomes easier, but it becomes easier to not let the fear hold you back. Choosing to go after the goal becomes easier. Correct, 100%.
And, you know, and I, I think the beautiful thing about, like, the whole journey, too, is it, it, like I said, it doesn't get easier. Right. It just gets, it, it just- You get better at doing it.
You get better at doing it. Um- So how does that apply to other places of life? How do you take the, the ability to get out and run a 5K every day, run- Mm... get out and run 10 miles every day.
How do you take that repetition and apply it to business and relationships and other, other parts of life? Yeah. I think so much in life
we can be so easy to compartmentalize, like, our different areas, especially with running, because think about it. Who here has gotten the comment, "Oh my gosh, I don't even drive that far.
Oh my gosh, are your knees, like, super shot?" Right? It's, it's almost like we're in a different universe. Like, we're here with our people, right?
These are our people, but then maybe we go back to our, our job or, like, our family, and, like, those people are no longer there, and we feel like we're almost have this, like, double life, but in reality, that's just not true.
That same person who's out there putting on the shoes, doing the race, is that same person who's going to work, is that same person who's being the parent to their kids, is the same person who's showing up in that personal challenge outside of your life.
And so all these times, right, like, I'll give you an example. Like, last weekend, um, we put on our very first ultra-marathon. We'd never put on a race before. It was our first event.
And- Joe's a coach and has an amazing coaching business. Thank you. And they put on a, a, um, 50K and 100K. Yep. Thank you. Appreciate it. Um, that was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life by far.
I've never done anything, like, even remotely as hard. And so there was, so there was one moment, by the way, like,
there's a lot of lessons to be learned, but in our first thing, so I'll, let me give you, let me paint this picture for you, right? So, uh, it's the start of the race, 5:30 AM. I'm hyping up all the runners.
I'm like, "Let's go. It's gonna be amazing." And, and in my mind I'm like, "Wow, this dream is coming to life, like, this is incredible."
And I send all the 50K, or the 100K runners out, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing." So I was gonna drive all the way up to the mountain, 'cause they climb this big mountain. I was gonna see everybody on top.
And I- Climb a mountain right at the beginning. Yeah, right in the beginning, 'cause I, I guess I want people to hate me.
But, um, but anyway, so I'm about to get in the car, and all of a sudden my phone just starts buzzing a million times, and, like, from runners I know who are out there and everything, and I'm like, "What is happening?"
Like, instant, just all of a sudden, like, the pits and the stomach just comes up, and all of a sudden my stress just starts spiking, like, what's happening?
I answer the phone, it's my friend Jake, and he goes, "Dude, everybody is running five miles in the wrong direction right off the jump."And I was like, "How did this happen?"
And so what I did was, he's like, "You gotta go and tell everybody they're going the wrong way."
So I, like, immediately turn the car around, I go down, and what happened was, so when, when you get out in the beginning, there's an intersection, and we put an arrow there.
Now, either the wind blew it away or someone took it, but the arrow was gone. Now, granted, it's a big loop course, so no one's watch was going off because they're on the course.
So everybody was running in the wrong direction. So in that moment, right, like what is the immediate thought that goes through my head? I messed up. I'm a failure. People are gonna have a bad time. I suck. Oh my gosh.
Like, all these things, too. But first of all, let me just pause for a second. Like, I, in that moment, the big underlying thought was I'm not enough. Now let me ask you all a question.
Who here has had that thought before, I'm not enough? Okay. So one thing that I've learned is that if you guys are all having those thoughts and I'm having those thoughts, how can they be our individual thoughts, right?
You have to, like, separate yourself from the stress, r- like, response, 'cause that is our human biological system that is basically saying, "This is danger. This is bad." Like, it's trying to alert us.
So the first thing, you gotta remove yourself from that. So that's what I did first. But then I was like, "Okay, like, what do I do?"
And I actually went back to the time where I was in, uh, my first 200-mile race, Cocodona 250. And I remember, I, like, like, transported back in, like, in my mind in a matter of seconds. I was at mile 190. 190.
There's 60 miles to go, and I'm broken. Like, I am broken. My legs are destroyed. I'm moving at, like, 30-minute mile pace. Like, my stomach's all jacked up. I'm so tired. I'm hallucinating.
I'm crying 'cause I can't control my emotions. And I- Doesn't this make you wanna do ultras? Yeah. It's fun, I promise.
[laughs] And so anyways, I s- I remember sitting down at mile 190, and I looked at my pacer and I was like, "How am I gonna do this? Like, how am I gonna do this?" And my pacer, she's awesome.
She's also my CEO, COO of my company. I would trust her my life. She looks at me in the eyes and she goes, "Okay, well, what are you gonna do about this right now?"
And that just changed something in my mind, where I was like, "Okay, like, this is an issue. This is a situation, but all I need to do is just solve the problem. I need to solve the problem."
And so I said, "Okay, what's the problem in this situation?" Okay, the problem is I'm thinking about 60 miles to go, when all I need to think about is just getting to that next aid station. That's it.
And so I said, "Okay, I'm just gonna go for one mile." And I went for one mile. I was like, "Great, one mile done. All right, let's go. Another mile done. Done, done, done."
And then pretty soon, I'm at the end in Flagstaff, 250 miles. Now, transport back to this race this past weekend.
I was in that s- I felt mentally broken in that scenario, and I said, "Okay, what do I gotta do to solve the problem? Get out there and go to the runners and make sure that they're going the right way."
So I got out there and did that. And then the next day, we had a 50K. I said, "Okay, make sure we're gonna have someone down there in the morning to make sure that those runners don't go the wrong way.
We're gonna have people directing that. Go to the top of the mountain, apologize to every single runner. 'Hey, I'm so sorry. That was our mistake. My bad, my apologies. Like, let me make this up to you.
What can I do to help?'" And then everybody walked away from that race saying, "Hey, it's no big deal. Thanks for everything."
And so in that moment, right, like, even though that was not me running an ultra, I mean, it was putting on an ultra, but I wasn't running itself, that moment at Cocodona where I overcame that broke point became that reminder of what I need to do in that moment to overcome that challenge.
And so running is such a good vessel for life because you gain these, these tangible experiences that actually prove that you can do the thing, right?
Listen, I love mantras like the, like the next person, like, but also, if you have mantras and you don't actually have the actual hard evidence proof, your brain's gonna go, "No way. Like, that's not true.
What are you talking about?" Like, but if you have that, that undeniable evidence that's like, "I did this.
I can do this," when you're in the mode, your brain can't fight it, 'cause it's like, "Oh, you've done this hard thing before. Now all you gotta do is do it again."
And so I think ultra running is life, and I think life are like ultras. I shouldn't even say that as ultras, but running is life and life is running. And so, like, it's vice versa.
'Cause even when you're running, right, I always say this. So I coach a lot of parents, and who, who are parents? Who have kids? Anybody up here with kids? Right?
I don't have kids, but I can tell you from the outside in, it sounds hard. It sounds difficult.
And I tell, I tell my parents, uh, like, who I coach all the time, like, I'm like, "Hey, listen," like, you know, they're, they're talking about, "Oh my gosh, like, she's not sleeping at night, like, this is crazy.
Like, I'm feeding her all this stuff." And I was like, "All you gotta do when you're out there running is just run." And because, like, they're doing that really hard thing, right?
Like, I think running compared to parenting is, is, you know, way easier. And so it's like you can use that and vice versa. So it's not just about running to gain the experiences of life.
Use your experience of life when you're out there running, too, 'cause you're doing hard stuff every single day. So don't compartmentalize. It all feeds the loop.
It all feeds a cycle of you becoming that better person and reminding yourself what you're capable of. I'm sorry for these very long answers. I just go on.
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I just, like, lob up a, a sentence and he, he takes it. Um, when we're thinking about picking goals, when we're thinking about picking races, how are you advising athletes- [clears throat]...
in choosing hard things that are hard, but not, like, [laughs] you know, you wouldn't take someone who's run their first 5K and sign them up for a 250-mile race- Mm... would you? Maybe you would. I don't know.
How do you... [laughs] Actually, you might. [laughs] I feel like you would. You've probably done that. Um- Is that the Randy Zuckerberg experience? Uh, yeah, no, but shout out to Randy. She's amazing.
Like, she signed up for Cocodona, which is two- that 250-mile race I was talking about, and when she signed up, the furthest she had she'd gone was a marathon, and she did it, and she did it this past year.
She's going back also as well too. She's going back in, uh, less than 20 days. I think it's 20 days away she's going back. Um, and so I wouldn't... Uh, uh, for context, like, if someone was like, "I r- ran a 5K.
Next week's Cocodona, I'm gonna sign up for it," like, I would say no on that too, but I always believe this: on a long enough timeline, you can do anything. On a long enough timeline, you can do anything.
So if you did a 5K, but you're like, "Hey, like, in two, three years, I wanna run Cocodona," okay, great, right? And so on a long enough timeline, you can do anything.
So even if you wanna set these big goals, maybe it won't happen in one year, maybe not two years, but maybe in three years you can get there.
I truly believe that people greatly, like, overestimate what they can do in a year, but they underestimate what they can do in 10. I truly believe that to be true.
And so if you, like, have this goal, it's, I think it's likely closer than, than you think.
And so, like, even just outside of running, for an example for me, like, my whole goal, we have our, a coaching company, Everyday Ultra, we help with the ultra, and one of my biggest business goals was I wanted to basically, like, get enough coaches where, um, you know, I can kind of, like, transition out of one-on-one coaching and be more of, like, a, you know, CEO of the business, and I set a five-year timeline for that, and I did it in 2.5.
Now, I'm not saying that because of a standpoint of bragging or, like, saying like, "Look at me. I'm awesome. Like, blah, blah." Like, no.
It's just the standpoint is that, again, people underestimate what they can do in 10, and I underestimated myself in that moment. I was like, "Whoa, I can do this in 2.5."
So don't let, like, don't set these, like, long, or think, "Oh, it's too far in advance. Like, I shouldn't start thinking about it." Like, start thinking about it now. Now, in terms of the goal of what to go for, right?
It goes back to this crux of this whole conversation. I think a meaningful goal does two different things. Two different things. Number one, you are going farther. Now, again, it doesn't have to be distance.
You're just getting better. Are you-- You ran Boston Marathon this year, and next year you wanna go back and maybe run a faster time.
Oh, like, I want to be able to go from, instead of a road marathon, I wanna go to a trail marathon with elevation gain.
Like, there has to be some level of progress, because, like, goals that are way too easy, th- you're just gonna feel, like, a little empty, right? You're just gonna feel like, "Oh, that was too easy."
Like, we love the challenge. We love the push. Like, I truly believe that there are far be- few better feelings than pushing yourself so hard at something and looking back and being like, "Whoa, I did that," right?
Isn't that such a good feeling? Like, you're just like, "Holy crap." So you definitely want that one thing.
But the second thing, and this is the most important thing, because this screws up a lot of people, and, um, it actually, like, relates to my journey too.
So when I first r- I first ran my ultra, and, uh, after that I really wanted to do an Ironman. I was like, "I wanna do an Ironman. That's what I wanna do. I wanna go for it." And, uh, I did my first Ironman.
It was awesome. It was great. But I signed up for another Ironman after that, and I realized that I didn't really like biking, and what's most of an Ironman is biking. Um, I didn't like it.
I didn't like the sore butt feeling.
I, I wanted to run, and I was out there just doing all this stuff, and I was signed up for this race, and I did months and months and months and months of training, and I didn't enjoy it. I wasn't having fun.
I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is such a drag." And I ended up doing the race, but, like, something about that just made me feel very empty, and what I realized was that it's not about the goal that's fulfilling.
You have to be excited about the process of getting that goal. I would love to play the piano. I would love to be like Ray Charles and just rip out piano and be awesome.
But, like, the process, thinking of me playing the piano and learning it, does not sound fun to me.
So even though as much as I'd love to be the next Mozart, like, the process of becoming Mozart to me does not feel very fun. And so some people will come to me and they're like, "I wanna do Cocodona 250."
And I'm like, "Amazing. So do you wanna do a lot of volume? You're gonna be going at a really, really relatively, you know, uh, more leisurely pace. You're gonna have to carry heavy packs. Does that sound fun to you?"
They're like, "No." Like, "That doesn't sound fun." And I'm like, "Well, you probably shouldn't do the race end, because that's most of the training." Most of your life is just the training. The race is one day.
Boston Marathon tomorrow is one day. For those doing the double, it's, like, a little more than a day, but you know. [laughs] You get the point. Gonna feel like it for a few days. It's one day.
Training is months and months, sometimes years. So why would you do something where you're not enjoying the months and the years for the sake of one day?
I truly believe we're on this life, uh, on this earth to make our lives just fulfilling and special and enjoying.
And so if you're thinking about a goal, you wanna have something that can push you, but you have to enjoy the process. If you wanna go for a faster marathon time, do you like speed work? Do you like doing intervals?
Or do you wanna go for a 50-miler and do more low-intensity volume? What do you prefer? What's more, what's more fun to you? Now, I'm not saying that everything in training is gonna be awesome.
You're gonna wake up every single morning and be like, "Honky dory, I'm gonna go for my 20-mile long run today." Like, no. There's- Listen to the Everyday Ultra Podcast. Yeah, there you go. Then you will.
[laughs] But, like, not every day is gonna be like that, but I always say, like, the, the collection of days where you feel more excited than not have to be in a bigger proportion than the days that you wake up and be like, "I don't wanna do this today."
'Cause they're, they're gonna come. I'm not saying, like, every single, you know, you pick an exciting goal and every single day is gonna be awesome.
Like, you're gonna have the days where you're gonna have to, you know, put on those big boy, big girl pants and get out there and go. But you should enjoy that process for the most.
And I think if you do those two things, any goal you set's gonna be really fulfilling. So just talked about the time horizon of setting goals. I started running in 2013.
I ran my first marathon that year, and I was like, "Cool, like, I'm gonna BQ next year." And my first marathon was 335. I was, like, a cocky 24-year-old, and be like, "Yeah, I'll take 30 minutes off."
And at the time it was a 305 marathon for men, and it's dropped, like, an hour or something since then. But [laughs] So I spent the next year, I'm like, "Yeah, I owe it.
I'm owed this BQ because I worked so hard," and I ran 3:20. And, and I was like, "Cool, that's not a 3:05." And I, I kept at it, and I kept thinking that I was, like, owed this thing- Mm... because I was doing the work.
And I wasn't really doing the work. [laughs] I was over-training and, and not recovering well.
And so four years later, I finally ran the 2:59, and when I f- when I crossed that finish line, I had this realization that, like, achieving the goal made me not a better runner, like I was the same runner three hours earlier that I was, um, when I crossed the finish line, but it made me a better person.
Mm. I was able to take the, the ability to d- set my mind to something and work towards it, and then, like, actually do the work instead of just thinking I was owed it because I thought I was, um...
I don't know how many people are big trail fans. Like, young and fit. Like, I thought I was Hans.
Um, and, uh, it was like a, a dose of humble pie every time I, I went out, and the progression for me was I ran 3:35, 3:20, 3:40, 4:05, uh, 2:59. And I learned more in that 4:05 than, like, any other race- Mm...
that I, that I did.
And again, it took four years to do it, and crossing that finish line, um, it was, it was more about things outside of running and the, the mental side of it than, than the physical aspect of running whatever that pace is for, for three- less than three hours.
And so I think
it's really cool how we can take these things, and if you're, if you're gunning for a PR tomorrow, if you're gunning for a longest distance you've ever run on roads, like, whatever the specific goal is, like, these are the, these moments of uncertainty.
Like, I had the pleasure of getting to know Shalane Flanagan back in 2019, 2018. She started doing November Project here in Boston.
Anytime she was in, in town, it was, like, really cool, um, to see her run on the hills with us.
And I talked to her before, before that, um, marathon in Providence in 2019, and she was like, "I never feel more alive than I do when I'm racing."
And so much of our life is this, like, we basically know what's gonna happen with plus or minus 10% of variability, but racing, like, you go out and you try and run sub six hours, sub five hours, sub four hours.
Like, you might do that or you, you might run, like, an hour and five minutes slower than you thought you were gonna run, and that's just, like, the kick-you-in-the-teeth kind of a thing that, that makes the, the good days so much better.
But it's that uncertainty of like, what's gonna happen f- after I cross the starting line that, I don't know, that fires me up. Talk to me more about the, this uncertainty piece, and, like, how do we- Mm...
how do we harness it and, and really, like, live in the moment? Because there- Mm... there's so little time we get to spend in that, um, feeling of uncertainty, and, and in a good way.
Yeah, for sure, and dude, congrats to you and, like, you getting the BQ and, and- It was a million years ago, yeah [laughs] I mean, dude, I mean, but I think no matter what, it's an incredible accomplishment to see you chip away, and I think, I think goals are so much more, like, you know, just special when you've had the failures along the way, right?
Like, those make the things. And let, let's talk about that uncertainty piece like you talk about.
I think the biggest thing with the uncertainty, right, is the fear before, but in the fear, like, what are we, what are we afraid of? What are we really afraid of?
If you really boil it down to we're afraid of failing, that's w- that's where the fear is coming from. So I'll, again, I always like to tell stories 'cause they illustrate things.
So kinda similar to you, like, uh, in, in the sense of, like, setting big goals and everything, uh, I went to go race, uh, Arizona Monster. It's a 300-mile race, like, in Arizona. I know it's crazy.
But, uh, I, I went out here and I was like, "I wanna win this thing," and I was vocal about it. Like, I was, like, putting it on social media. I was telling every single person I invested.
I got, like, a documentary team. Like, I, like, put so much money, time, effort into it. My training went amazing. It was so awesome.
I was, like, on that starting line, I was like, "There is no way that I can't win this race."
Now, I get to mile 200, and I have to drop out because my knee looks like it's, like, the size of a grapefruit, and it's super, super swollen. And that was so hard and painful for me.
Like, I'm even getting emotional right now. I was in the hotel room crying. I was like, "I'm a failure. I suck." Like, "This is not good."
Like, "Oh my gosh," like, "I put all this money into it," and everything as such too, and it really was hard. And I took a few days to process it, and I was like, "Okay, well, now that you..."
Like, the, first of all, like, whenever you have a failure, you, you gotta feel it, right? Don't just shove it up.
Like, listen, guys out there, I know, like, we're professionals at, like, shoving down our emotions, but it's okay to talk about them. It's okay to feel them.
Um, so anyways, like, you look into them and explore them and be like, "Okay, like, well, why was this painful?" Or like, "Why, why did this happen," right?
And so I assessed it and I said, "Well, this happened because I wasn't strength training enough, and because of that, like, my right leg was actually weaker than my left leg, and that led to overcompensation over 200 miles, and that led to the big thing."
Okay, great. Now that we know what's wrong, what do we need to do to fix this thing? I said, "Okay, well, I need to hire a strength coach." So I hired a strength coach.
He got me, like, all, like, ready to go and everything as such too, and I just put in tons of work in the gym, rehabbed, everything as such too, and I was like, "Great," and I had the plan.
Now, I line up for my next race, the Tahoe 200, 200-mile race, and this is my first race back from injury, and there's a lot of uncertainty still.
I think the first time you come back after failure is the scariest because you have, your last thing that you've done was a failure, and you're like, "What if that happens again? What if that happens again?"
And then I realized something in that moment on that start line as I'm about to take off. I realized, wait a second, I failed, but I didn't lose. I learned something.
That failure gave me the lesson that I needed to go get a strength coach, put in the work in the gym, and now I'm lining up on the start line. I've had no issues since.
So how can that failure be seen as bad if I got this beautiful thing that allowed me to get to this starting line even better than I was before?
And I went out and I got sixth place male, which, for that race for me, was like, like, I could have never imagined that in my dreams. But that would never have happened if I didn't have the failure.
So here's how you approach uncertainty, right? Like, this is, like, the biggest thing anytime I get scared about failing or dropping the ball or, like, whatever those things are, or just messing up.
I always say, there is no such thing as a loss here, 'cause either I get the goal, and it's amazing, and it's awesome, or I'm gonna learn something that's gonna eventually get me that goal.And so like I said earlier in this talk, is that on a long enough timeline, you can do absolutely anything, on a long enough timeline, right?
You might not get it time one, you might not get it time two, you might not get it time three, hell, you might not even get it time four, but you're gonna learn things along the way that's gonna get you closer and closer and closer and closer if you just keep showing up.
So the way to un- curb uncertainty is, and the fear of that uncertainty, is don't be afraid of that failure.
Know that no matter what, at the end of that start, at the end of that finish line, at the end of that journey, at the end of that training process, you're gonna get something great, whether it is that goal that you wanted or a lesson that's gonna get you the goal.
There is no such thing as losing. There's only winning, and there's only lessons, and that's it. And once you see life that way, then there is no such thing as failure. There's no such thing as fear of failure.
Like, it is just a matter of enjoying the process and learning along the way, and that is the truth, right? And, and it's not even just me. Like, I think about, so Jim Walmsley, who knows Jim Walmsley?
Like, Jim is amazing, he's great. So he went out and he ran Western States, and he was the hot kid on the block. Like, everyone was like, "Oh, he's gonna win."
He's like, everyone knows the famous video where he's like, "Oh, I have no headlamp 'cause I'm gonna get the course record."
And he ends up running completely in the wrong direction and ends up just walking it in, not getting first thing. Okay, so he learned something. Next year, you think he's gonna do better? No, he actually DNFs.
He DNFs from the race. He doesn't even finish. And then he comes back year three, gets the course record, comes back again, course record again, and comes back again. But you think that's the end of the journey. No.
Then he's like, "I wanna do UTMB." He goes over to UTMB, and DNF, fourth place, doesn't get it right, DNF, DNF. Takes another three years on that, and then now he's the current male course record holder.
So the point is this, is that along the journey, like once you nail it, you're gonna have more failures, and that's okay, but it's all part of the process, and you're always gonna get closer to that.
But the biggest thing, it's like as long as you keep showing up, and you know it, and I know every single person in this room will keep showing up, if you keep going, you can't lose, because you're gonna learn things along the way.
So next time you fail, don't see that as a sign to be like, "I need to stop here." See a sign of, "Okay, we need to learn. We need to get better, and we have gotten better."
And that's it, 'cause if you keep going, you're not gonna lose. Along the way, things get hard, and we know that things get hard, and so the anticipation of, "Okay, this, this isn't gonna be easy the whole way." Mm.
And even if I, even if I have a great day, like it will be hard. How do you, how do you attack that head-on? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think there's t- there's two different things. So I think the first thing is you really...
And it, I hesitate to say this now, because I feel like this has become such a cliche thing in not just running, but self-help, but I promise you, like this, this thing is so true.
It is so, so true, is like you need to have this like deep, burning, compelling reason of why you're doing the thing. One of my favorite books of all time, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, um, incredible book.
It's a, it's a guy who, um, he was in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. His whole family got killed. It was horrible. It was terrible.
But he talks about the entire time, he had his will to live for his family, and that he believed, for him, that helped him to get through all the things to survive the concentration camp.
Now, that's crazy example, right? And then we, but ultrarunning, right, of course, like incredibly much lower stakes, but it's, running in general, in any challenge, right? It's hard. It's challenging.
But if you have this burning reason of why you wanna do it, then you're gonna overcome anything. 'Cause in that book, Viktor Frankl says, "He or she who has a powerful why can do any how." Right?
So it doesn't matter what the thing is. Like, if you're like, "This pain is worth it, because of what I'm going for is gonna give me so much more in return," you're not gonna worry about the pain.
Because to you, you're like, "Hey, this thing is gonna help me even more."
And by the way, like sometimes we hear like, and I'm not like saying this to, to say like people's whys are different, but some people are like, "Hey, I'm gonna raise like $10,000 for pediatric cancer," or, "I wanna do this to like say this."
It doesn't have to be this big, grandiose thing. It can just be, "Hey, I wanna show myself I can do this." Right?
I wanna show that little kid, like for me, I wanna show little Joe, who was so insecure and like just totally beat himself up and felt like a piece of crap out of him, I wanna show him that like he can do this stuff.
Right? Like that, I've got like tears welling up saying that. I wanna show little Joe that we can do this stuff. [laughs] Yeah, exactly. But like, whatever that hey is, like you have to like get really, really into it.
So don't just say like, "Oh, well, why do I wanna do this? Oh, it's a cool race." Like, keep asking yourself why. Well, why is it a cool race? Well, it's a cool race 'cause there's a lot of people pushing themselves.
Well, why is that cool? Oh, well, that's cool because I'm pushing myself. Well, why is that cool? 'Cause I can really figure out like what I'm capable of. Right? Get that deep, compelling why.
Now, the second thing, this is- One thing on the why. My podcast is all about exploring the why, 420 episodes of diving into that. Uh, there are a couple of people that have been on the show in the audience here.
For me, the, the understanding of this piece is really the fundamental, like, why do we, why are we doing this? When things get hard- Mm-hmm... if you know why you're doing it, as you said, you can get through anything.
And so whether you're, you're racing for a PR tomorrow, like stand on that starting line and think about why you're doing it, and tell yourself why you're doing it. Mm.
And then when it gets hard, because it will get hard, remind yourself of that thing you said to yourself on the starting line.
And again, it could be this grandiose, like, "I wanna prove to my kids that I can do anything." Mm. "I wanna prove to myself I can do..." Whatever it is. Or it's just like, "I'm running 50 states.
I, and this is Massachusetts. Check the box."
Like, it doesn't need to be a big, grandiose thing, but I think that you really do need to understand why you're doing something so that you can get through it when, when those things get hard. Sorry to cut you off.
No, it's all good. And that's why I love his podcast, 'cause that's what it's all about, right? It's all about the why. It's like, "Why are you doing this?" I'm not just doing this for the BQ.
Like, I'm doing this for like that internal, like just, you know, self-confidence, belief, self-love, whatever that adjective is, right? Or you wanna be a better parent.
Like, that's why I love your podcast, man, because you really get to like the nitty-gritty essence of why we do hard things.
Um, this- I asked you a bunch of really hard questions in, uh, summer of 2024, so you can wind back and listen to that one if you're, if you're needing some content for tomorrow. Heck yeah. But- Absolutely.
It would fire up out there, for sure. Yeah. Um, the second thing, and again, I learned a lot at Cocodona 250, so I'll take it from this story again, because this taught me everything, right? So again, I'm out there.
Now, this is, this is like past that point where I, I kinda overcome that low point, but now I'm at like mile 220, and there's still 30 miles to go, right?
The, the biggest trip about Cocodona is people are like, "It's only 30 miles to go." And then you realizeThat's way more than a marathon, and I got a mountain to go over, too. Like, what the heck? It's a lot.
And so my brain starts spinning. I'm in a bad mood. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh," like, "This stinks," or whatever. I'm with my best friend. He's pacing me. His name's Scott, and Scott's the most positive guy ever.
Like, at the time, I was working at a startup with him, and he would always just be so positive. He was on the sales team. He's always, like, you know, just in lifting people.
And- Sales guys always have more energy than everyone... yeah, it's- it's got tons of energy, right? So I'm out there, and, uh, I'm- I'm, you know, being all poopy pants. I'm like, "Oh, God," like, "Oh, God, am I hurt?"
Like, blah, blah, blah. And he just looks at me and he goes, "Hey, man, this is awesome." And I just look at him and I was like, "What did you just say?" He goes like, "This is awesome, dude."
I was like, "Bro," I was like, "I don't need this right now." Like, I was like, "I, I just need to go forward. I don't need it, man." And he's like, "No, bro," like, "I want you to say it, too."
I was like, "Dude, I'm not saying that." He's like, "Well, why not?" I was like, "'Cause this is not awesome." And he's like, "No, no, I want you to actually say it." I was like, "All right, fine.
If I say it, will you stop telling me to say it?" He's like, "Sure." I was like, "All right, man, this is awesome." He's like, "Nah, man," like, "Say it like you actually mean it." I was like, "All right.
This is awesome." And he's like, "Great. Sounds good." So I was like, "What is he doing, man? Like, this guy, he's like doing all this, like, hokey stuff right now. I can't deal with this. Like, I'm, I'm dying."
And so anyway, he's like, we're just shuffling along, and he goes, "Bro, this is awesome, right?" And I'm like, "[sighs] All right, man, this is awesome." He's like, "Yep, that's the spirit."
So we keep running and he's like, "Bro, is this awesome?" And I was like, "Yeah, I think this is awesome." I'm gonna say this to you at 4:00 in the morning at mile 12. Now, now, yeah, yeah.
And as I'm going, though, like, I was going like this, and now all of a sudden, like I'm starting to jog a little bit. And as we're jogging out there, he goes like, "Hey, man, this is awesome, right?"
And I was like, "Yeah, this is pretty awesome." And now all of a sudden we're, like, actually running now. And then he goes, "Bro, what is this right now?" I was like, "This is awesome, man."
And I looked down at my watch and we're going 8:30 minute miles when I was going 20-minute miles.
Now, the point here is this, is that it is a choice in any single moment of how you see a situation and the words that you say to yourself. So you can say out, "This stinks. This is hard.
Oh, my gosh," or you can say, "This is awesome. This is amazing. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I'm out here. I'm doing this thing." Because what you say to yourself genuinely matters, right?
And so, again, go back to crazy examples, 'cause I always like to say, like, how powerful these examples are.
In World War II, like, one of the, um, one- a country would capture, like, soldiers, and what their form of torture was for this person was they would make those prisoners of war read the ideologies of their own country.
And the craziest thing is, when they got released, those people actually believed those ideologies.
Now, again, extreme example, but that just shows that if you repeat things over and over and over, it actually changes your neurochemistry to believe the things.
Because our beliefs, our, our thor- our thought pathways in our mind, they're actual neural pathways that get hardened every time that you say something over and over and over and over again.
So when you're out there at mile 22 or you're going up a Heartbreak Hill, and r- you wanna say out of your mouth, like, "Oh, this stinks," like, "This stinks," I want you to say, "This is awesome."
I want you to say, "This is amazing." I want you to say, "I am a strong climber." Like, when I- I, I was doing a hot race last year, Javelina 100, h- two years ago.
It was 100 degrees, and I would say out there, someone was like, "How you feeling?" I was like, "Man, this is like Iceland. It's so cold out here."
Now, granted, it's a blatant lie because it's so hot, but, like, you know, you wanna say the words that are gonna support you in those moments.
So the things that helped you get through it, you gotta monitor how you talk to yourself. Now, here's the biggest catch. You can have the thoughts.
If a thought pops up in your mind like, "This stinks, this is bad," but what comes out of here is gonna determine how you feel and the things that are gonna get into motion. And so, like, remember, this is awesome.
You get to do this. You are strong. You are capable. You can think those things, but what you say out of here has to be something that is going to empower you and make you a better person.
And no matter what thing is hard, like, one thing I like to say, like if, if something is really hard, I go, "Easy day, piece of cake." Like, this is, this is just, like, a jolly old time, right?
Like, I've learned to, like, say these things, and I don't wanna say they become easier, but they become more manageable. Amazing. This is awesome. This is awesome. Yeah. [laughs] This is awesome.
Joe, thank you for this. Mount to Coast, thank you for this. Yeah. Thanks for having us. We'll be running the double Boston and probably the C1s over there. Um, those shoes are awesome. And, uh... No, C1s over here.
S- All C1. These are all C1s. Oh, this is the one I have, and they're great. Very comfy. Um, again, thank you all for coming, and, uh, we'll see you out there tomorrow or tonight. Yeah.
[laughs] That's it for today's episode. Like many long runs with friends, it's sad when it has to end. Join us next time as we continue to share inspiring stories from the running community.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or training partner who you think would like it, too.
This podcast was produced by Emma Benner of Sandy Boy Productions with musical composition by Brian Walters of Single Track Sound. Thank you for your support, and we'll see you out there. [outro music]