James Lawrence, World-renowned speaker, best-selling author, and endurance athlete

Summary

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The Walker Webcast — Episode Summary

Guest: James Lawrence (Iron Cowboy)

Host: Willy Walker
Release Date: April 2, 2026

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Overview

In this inspiring and energetic episode of The Walker Webcast, endurance athlete and Guinness World Record holder James Lawrence—famously known as the "Iron Cowboy"—joins host Willy Walker for a deep dive into the mindset, methodology, and meaning behind his astonishing ultra-endurance feats. The conversation traverses James's journey from an average athlete stumbling through his first fun run to conquering 101 Ironman triathlons in 101 days, and the life lessons he’s learned along the way about growth, resilience, family, leadership, and transforming individual pursuits into collective inspiration.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Early Beginnings & the Athletic Mindset

• Genesis of Endurance Career:
  • James's endurance journey began after his wife Sunny signed them both up for a full marathon, prompting him to confront limitations and a bruised ego.
  • Quote: “My wife used the words, you're pathetic, actually... That was kind of the moment where it was like, I'm either going to allow this moment to define the failure, or I'm going to dive into it.” (04:07)
• Path from Golf to Triathlon:
  • James grew up golfing and wrestling. He attributes his mindset and discipline to wrestling, emphasizing his attraction to solo, individual sports.
  • “Between all three of those sports, it's all individual. If I win or if I lose, it’s my fault... That drive, the athleticism, the mindset, came from my seven years of wrestling.” (08:58)

Growth, Personality, and Business

• Addictive Personality?
  • Contrary to what people assume, James describes himself as "super chill, relaxed, introverted," with no addictive tendencies. (05:58)
• Entrepreneurial Growth:
  • James is prouder of his business growth—real estate, franchising, and speaking—than his athletic achievements, as it represented an entirely new learning curve:
  • “I’m more impressed with the entrepreneurial side that I took this through and developed it.” (06:37)

Physiology, Genetics, and Longevity

• Is there something special about James?
  • After genetic testing, James discovered he is “an average white Canadian,” underscoring that his success comes from consistency, not innate gifts:
  • “The secret to success is doing a lot of little things consistently over a long period of time.” (11:14)
• Health Impact & Longevity:
  • Despite extreme feats, testing shows no damage; James is healthier and biologically younger than his age:
  • “I turned 50 next week, and my biological age is 36. I'm as healthy as can be.” (13:15)

Resilience, Motivation, & Dealing with Adversity

• Finding Motivation—What Gets You Through?
  • James describes a “bag of whys,” meaning a single motivator isn't enough for massive undertakings; the WHY must be big enough:
  • “When you’re in your darkest moments...the reward at the end of all of it needs to be big enough.” (18:04)
• The Inner Bully:
  • The "bully" is the inner critic and fear. Rather than silencing it, James harnesses it as a growth indicator:
  • “If I haven't heard from the bully in a long enough period of time means I'm not showing up.” (20:49)

Journey vs. Finish Line

• Focus on Process, Not Just the Goal:
  • Finish lines are “victory laps,” but growth happens in the journey. James relates training and preparation to business and life:
  • “The finish lines are victory laps and they’re an indicator of the type of suffering you’re going to do on said day. And hopefully it reinforces how you move forward every single time.” (29:11)
  • Consistency and incremental progress are critical.

Leadership, Family, and Bringing Others Along

• Individual Sport to Collective Impact:
  • Endurance sports can seem egocentric, but James turned his pursuits into vehicles for raising awareness, charity, and leadership.
  • “Those selfish one-on-one times with yourself is not selfish at all. It's one of the most beneficial, important times...because that’s the only way I can lift up and put so many people on my back…” (24:09)
• Role Modeling for Children:
  • James’s kids witnessed his failures and successes firsthand; he’s confident they’ve learned grit and resilience. (26:50)

Practical Habits & Recovery

• Recovery:
  • Recovery is paramount—days off, sleep, and “massive emphasis on recovery.” (14:33, 38:05)
  • Uses tools like sauna, cold plunge, red light therapy, hyperbaric chamber, massage, yoga, and Theragun for recovery. (38:10)
  • “I take a day, sometimes two days off an entire week and that's for full body resets.” (14:33)
• Motion creates emotion:
  • Starting is always the hardest part, but action begets motivation:
  • “Motion creates emotion...Never regretted a workout that I just showed up to, started out by going through the motions, and then completed...” (31:58)

Nutrition

• Secret is Adaptation:
  • James consumed 12,000–15,000 calories daily during his big challenges, learning to eat anything—even pizza, burritos, and cookies—while moving. Gut training was key:
  • “I could eat an entire pizza while running the marathon...my body responded the best to massive caloric density that I could easily get down.” (49:51)

Dealing with Criticism

• Public Scrutiny:
  • James faced criticism for running one marathon on a treadmill due to hurricane conditions:
  • “Don’t let someone else’s opinion of 0.24% of your journey impact how you proceed... If you’re showing up with honesty and integrity...they don’t get to have an opinion.” (45:32)

Building Resilience & Perspective

• Deliberate Hardship Builds Character
  • Undertaking the impossible makes everything else easier.
  • “Do something so hard in your life that everything else is easy... You need to figure out how to continue to take the next step until an Ironman a day becomes routine, whatever that means to you.” (53:10)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Consistency: “The secret to success is doing a lot of little things consistently over a long period of time.” (11:14)
• On Motivation: “The reward at the end...needs to be big enough. So the dream, the purpose, the impact needs to be big enough.” (18:04)
• On Self-Sacrifice: “Those selfish one-on-one time with yourself is not selfish at all. It's one of the most beneficial, important times every single individual needs to take.” (24:09)
• On Overcoming Criticism: “Don’t let someone else’s opinion of 0.24% of your journey impact how you proceed.” (45:32)
• On Pushing Boundaries: “If I haven't heard from [the bully inside my head] in a long enough period of time, it means I'm not showing up.” (20:49)
• On Process vs. Destination: “The finish lines are victory laps… But the individuals that are suffering, that are chasing potential and living in that moment, that's the victory lap. That's the celebration.” (29:11)
• On Family: “My kids are special. I think it's because we gave them an unfiltered front row seat to chaos and failure and missteps, criticism, but also compassion, charity, grit, toughness, resilience, what teamwork looks like…” (26:50)
• On Perspective: “Do something so hard in your life that everything else is easy… until an Ironman a day becomes routine, whatever that means to you." (53:10)
• On the "Iron Cowboy": “I didn’t go to college. I’m a high school graduate. Like, I really had to dig in and learn business and investing...I would say I’m more impressed with the entrepreneurial side.” (06:37)

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Key Timestamps

• James's Endurance Genesis & First Marathon: 03:20–05:49
• Personality & Addictive Traits: 05:51–06:25
• Business vs. Athletic Growth: 06:37–08:26
• From Golf to Endurance Sports: 08:26–10:49
• Physiology, Genetics & Success: 11:14–13:03
• Longevity & Health: 13:15–14:33
• Mindset: Dark Moments & Motivation: 16:35–20:42
• The Inner Bully & Fear: 20:42–22:08
• Journey vs. Destination: 28:20–31:26
• Motion Creates Emotion: 31:58–35:19
• Recovery Tools & Approaches: 36:03–41:22
• Logistics & Criticism (including treadmill marathon): 41:22–48:33
• Nutrition During Ultra-Events: 48:33–51:58
• Perspective, Resilience, & Raising Kids: 53:09–57:31
• Tattoos & Personal Milestones: 57:31–59:15

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Conclusion

James “Iron Cowboy” Lawrence’s story is not only of superhuman physical endurance but of consistent, relentless personal growth, self-mastery, and the courage to lead by example. His approach rejects excuses, values incremental improvement, and prioritizes service to others—welcoming adversity as a necessary companion on the path to an extraordinary life. The impact of his journey reverberates through his family, his audience, and all who hear his message: “Do something so hard in your life that everything else is easy.” (53:10)

Follow James:

• Instagram: @ironcowboyjames
• Website: ironcowboy.com

Transcript

[A]

Walker and Dunlop brings you insights for life. Unique perspectives from impactful leaders. This is the Walker webcast with Willie Walker. Good afternoon and welcome to another Walker webcast. It is my really great pleasure to welcome James Lawrence, AKA Iron Cowboy to the Walker webcast. To those of you who know me and a little bit about my background, I have done my fair share of endurance sports over the years and while I'm predominantly a biker and a skier today, have certainly spent plenty of time in pools and pounding the pavement. And there is nobody on the face of the planet who has done more time in the pool, pounding the pavement with the running shoes or on his bike, covering thousands and thousands of miles than James and all of his incredible accomplishments as truly, truly one of the most accomplished endurance athletes of our era and of all times for that matter. Because endurance athletics really have only existed for pretty much our life. We're the only ones, James, who are stupid enough to go do this stuff. Let me do a quick bio and then we'll dive in. James Lawrence, more commonly known as the Iron Cowboy, is a world renowned speaker, endurance athlete, author and documentary film subject. Success magazine named him, quote, the most enduring man in the world, unquote. James is a devoted husband to his wife Sonny and a loving father to their five children. His family plays a crucial role in his endeavors, providing unwavering support through his remarkable journey. He gained media attention in 2015 for setting the former world record for the most Ironman distance triathlons completed in a single calendar year. 50. James went on to break that record in 2021 during the Conquer 100 in which he completed 100 consecutive Ironman length triathlons in. He then completed one more for a total of 101 and 101 consecutive days. You've done 197 Ironman distance triathlons, I think. James, am I correct? You've got,

[B]

I believe it's 193.

[A]

193. You've done Cape Epic, you've done RAM, you've run across the country of Greece. You, you've biked up Kilimanjaro. What won't you do?

[B]

Well, I mean, I don't know man. I always say that I'm done as the last one. And as you know, you in the middle of something, you're like, I'm done this last one. Then you cross the finish line and you recover and you remember the all the good moments and you forget the bad. And so, so I don't, I don't know. I don't Know what? What? When I'll stop. I just think I love living life now and having adventures and, and experiences and so who, who knows what's next?

[A]

But it's so interesting because you grew up in Calgary, Canada, and you did a four mile fun run with your wife, Sunny. And from my listening to you tell the story in the past, she kind of gave you a hard time for kind of hobbling through the four miler and signed you up for a half marathon. And that was kind of the beginning of the end. What, other than the fact that it seemed like she was sort of shaming you into doing a longer distance a little bit faster, what was it that sort of hooked you as it relates? Like, was there a moment when all of a sudden you're like, wow, I'm. Either I got something else here that others don't have, or there's a side to me that I want to express that I just don't feel like I have yet. What was it that kind of got you into this?

[B]

Yeah, I think it was more the latter. It was not a hidden talent that I had found. My wife used the words, you're pathetic, actually. And it wasn't a half marathon, it was a full marathon that she signed us up for. And so we had five months to get ready. And that, that deciding moment that you're kind of talking about was that that evening after the marathon. So around the marathon, hated it, developed, you know, it problems and planters like every new runner does in a short period of time when you crank your volume up. And we had no idea what we were doing. Anyways, long story short, went to some MMA fights that night in Salt Lake City and refused to move out of my seat. And by the end of the evening, it was no longer a choice. I couldn't get up because my knees had swollen up so bad. And that was kind of the moment where it was like, I'm either going to allow this moment to define the failure, or I'm going to dive into it and figure out why that 26.2 miles beat me up so significantly. And that put us on this trail to where we, you know, we found triathlon, got into the community, fell in love with it, and the people and the, the expansiveness of the training to doing the swim, the bike, the run, strength training, nutrition, mindset, like, all of it. I just started to fall in love with the whole thing. And then over time, you know, you get great at sprints and Olympics and you're winning your categories and then you're like, oh, what, what's an iron Man? And then you just keep going down that rabbit hole. Next thing you know, I just want to do one. I do one. And then you're like, okay, how fast can I do one? And then we started, like, doing coaching and business because we'd lost everything in the economy, and just everything spiraled and led to 100 consecutive Ironmans 20 years later.

[A]

That's a lot. Yeah.

[B]

Sorry.

[A]

And, but, but what I find to be so fascinating about it. Do you have an addictive personality?

[B]

No, not at all. In fact, I've, I've never had alcohol. I've never done drugs. I've never. I would say I'm just, I'm super normal, man. Don't have an addictive personality. Super chill, relaxed, introverted, actually. Um, so, yeah, which is the complete opposite of what my career is now. Now I do, I mean, I just did an event in, I saw it.

[A]

And you, you're on after Jeff Bezos, right?

[B]

Bezos was there and Katy Perry was there, and the Prime Minister of Canada was. I mean, it was just a crazy, crazy event. I would have never, ever thought I'd be in that room.

[A]

Is that more gratifying to you than the athletic accomplishments?

[B]

I think that, I think they're, they're, they're different categories, but the same vein in terms of, like, just growth, overall growth and doing anything hard, doing anything for the first time. Like, I don't care what category it's in as long as you're, you're, you're moving in a trajectory of growth, right? And so I think I, I, I, I grew up doing athletics, right? And so I always thought, you know, and always progressed through that. And so as I was going on this journey, it was just kind of a natural progression for me. So I want to say the business side is, is more impressive for me because that was something I really had to learn. I didn't go to college. I'm a high school graduate. Like, I really had to dig in and learn business and investing and all these other things. And now I do real estate and franchising and, you know, all the many amazing opportunities that we've been able to, to partake in now. So I would say I'm more impressed with the entrepreneurial side that I took this through and developed it and came on out on the other side of, because that's very rare to do as well. But I'm equally as impressed with my doing something that nobody else said would, would even be remotely possible to do. So I think they're just impressive in, in different realms. I'm definitely more proud of the business side of stuff than the athletic side of stuff because I can, I can, I can poke a lot of holes in, you know, wanting to do a campaign better or differently and just learning from a boo. He had never done it before. And with the business side of stuff, it's just this like, steady growth pattern where we're learning and fixing mistakes from fairly quickly and rapidly as we move through that. Where the big challenges that we were doing, they were on such a big scale with such short time turns in order to, from mistake to getting it right before the campaign completely blows up on you.

[A]

You mentioned that you were an athlete growing up, but you were a golfer. When I say but you were a golfer, you're a very talented golfer. But when I think about people and endurance athletes, I wouldn't exactly say, okay, that's the natural trajectory. I mean, a lot of my triathlete buddies were either runners in colle, they were swimmers in college or what have you. Golf to triathlon doesn't seem to be the natural progression. One other thing on that, James, when you give this all up, you say you want to go back to golf.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. I just, Golf's my passion. In fact, I'm turning 50 this year and the my to celebrate, I'm going to Scotland to play golf. And so just going to check out for a couple of weeks and go play some amazing courses over there. But, but I, you know, golf is kind of like squeezed in the middle and it's bookended with wrestling and, and triathlon and so, but, but if you notice between all three of those sports, it's all individual. If I win or if I lose, it's my fault, right? You've got your team and your training, your preparation. But like race day, like me against the course, wrestling me against one guy, whether I win or lose, it's how much effort I put into it and how great my experience has been. Triathlon, solo pursuit, me against the course. Right. So it's always these individual pursuits. I can't, I can't kick the ball out to someone in the last seconds and hope they make the shot for the team to win the game. Right. Like it all falls on my shoulders. And so I think this drive, the athleticism, the mindset piece came from my seven years of wrestling. And then that no longer was kind of a thing. Once you graduate, that disappears. And then I had some friends into golf and I was, you know, I would work in a nightclub doing Bar cleanup and everything at night and free time in the day. And so I got into golfing and, and things like that, then moved to the States and, and the reason I came to the States was because the golf season was much longer. I came to visit a friend and I was like, this thing is awesome. I'm not going home. And then that's when I found my wife and then got into running and endurance. But I, I think I'm pulling a lot from my wrestling background. But man, golf's one of those sports too. Like, it's a lot of mind control, It's a lot of discipline. It's a lot of having a short term memory. Dude, if you, you. I don't know if you're a golfer or not, but if you want to know anything about a future business partner or a future relationship, whatever it is, go golf with someone for 18 holes and just watch them. By the end of those 18 holes, you'll know if that's someone you want to do business with or not.

[A]

Yeah. So I love one. A couple quotes that I'd love to just jump through that I've pulled out of your. With your books and your speaking. Everyone's heart is different. Yeah, you're. You're hard. Seems to be on another level. Is there, do you think there's anything physiologically about you that lets you do what you've done?

[B]

So everyone, everyone's heart is different depending on where they are on their journey. Because if you and I were sitting here having this conversation because we randomly got matched up and I was telling you the story at the time, or a few days later after I struggled through a four mile fun run, your, Your question wouldn't like, that was, that was my heart at that time. But I evolved over time. And then to your point of. Once I finished the 50, they were like, okay, the only reason you were able to do the impossible is because you're genetically gifted. You're different. There's something inside of you that you were born with that you couldn't train that allowed you to accomplish this. And so I got curious, man. I, I went down the rabbit hole of longevity and epigenetics and my genetics and where I came from and all these. All right. And when the results came back, I joke and I say, I sat my kids down and I was about to tell them the gift I gave them at birth. And, you know, I open up the envelope and the first, in bold letters right at the top, it says, I'm sorry, but you're an average white Canadian. And. And as we go through all the results and everything, there wasn't one single genetic marker in there that allowed me to accomplish anything. It was one of my quotes I love to say is the secret to success is doing a lot of little things consistently over a long period of time. And I recognize that. Man, four miles beat the crap out of me. And then a marathon completely broke me. And that was the moment I was like, I'm either going to allow this to define who I am and I'm not an endurance athlete, or I want to figure this out. I want to get to the other side of this. I want to know why I was defeated by this. Because so many of the people have a lot of success in it. And I knew I was an athlete back in wrestling days because I. Great success on the mat. And so, yeah, just total, total spin on. On, you know, doing that.

[A]

You mentioned longevity, James. Do you think that what you've done is good for you? Do you think it's actually made you so that from a longevity standpoint, you're going to live longer, pushing your body as hard as you've pushed it?

[B]

Yeah, I. I think that's been one of the miracles or discoveries from it. I didn't do any damage. We had all the cardiovascular tests and stress currently sitting right here. I turned 50 next week, and my biological age is 36. I'm as healthy as can be. I'm as fit as I've ever been. I. I think the question could evolve into, man, you were out of balance. And, and in life, we. We see a lot of people get out of balance in order to accomplish great things. The problem is, is if you get stuck out of balance. Yes. Then. Then you break. Right. And then you cannot continue. There was. There was a breaking point. I didn't find it. And that's awesome. I don't want to find it necessarily. Right. But I just, you know, we can go down the rabbit hole of what that accomplishes, when you accomplish what that does, when you accomplish something. Now you have the belief system, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to physically break, but I have the belief system. I could go till I broke at this point. Right. And so, you know, for us, it was. I can't remember the original question.

[A]

No, I was just. Whether it's all. Whether. Whether. Whether it actually. If I'm healthy, healthier for the long term, or whether it actually has done damage. And you're basically saying it hasn't. You've tested to it.

[B]

Yeah, I haven't I've tested to it and my point was like if you stay out of balance for a long period of time, yeah, that's when you'll establish those long term problems. You'll break and, and things go sideways. But in fact our coaching philosophy in terms of like our coaching with our athletes, it's how high can you soar, stress, optimize, adapt, recover. And we have a massive emphasis on recovery. I take, I take a day, sometimes two days off an entire week and that's for full body resets. I do a lot of like, like people would look at my strava and go dude's the slowest person on the planet. And I'm training to do my fastest iron man in my entire career. Later this year I want to go sub 10 as, as a 50 year old. And so it's, it's the type of training we're doing, it's a massive respect to recovery. But we, we definitely go out of balance to test limits and potential and you have to swing out of balance. There's also thing as balance in life. It's, it's peaks and valleys, it's lefts and rights and we definitely have to bumper back into the middle just to recalibrate ourselves, take a deep breath, reset, get back to some creative ideas instead of like grind, grind city all the time. And so life is again those ebbs and flows, backs and forths, resetting, digging in, sacrificing, celebrating. All of it. It's all part of the journey. You've experienced that building one of the most unbelievable firms there is. I mean that you can't deny that that's part of the process. No.

[A]

And I think your comment about the secret to success of doing a lot of little things consistently over a long period of time is, is such incredible whether it's in the business world or whether it's in the athletic world. It's just, I mean it's quite honestly it's why the great golfers and the great baseball players are as great as they are as they sit there and they just do the same thing over and over and over again. And I think one of the questions I have for you because you spent, I mean if you add up all the miles, I mean like when you did the, when you did the 101, what is it, 14,400 miles or something? I mean you basically swam, ran and biked to shine from New York to Shanghai or something.

[B]

It's the equivalent of New York to LA and back five times. It was 14,060 miles, plus the bonus 140.6.

[A]

And oh, by the way, you actually during that slept a lot more than you did during the 50, 50. During the 50 50, you slept like four to five hours a night. During the 101, you slept five to six. But you never, from hearing you talk about it, you never really got true restful sleep. And. Yeah, and, and so I'm just curious about how there had to have been so many moments, particularly after you crashed. And we can dive into that if, if you want to. When you broke your L4 L5. L5. Sorry. But you know, most of us go out and I mean, whatever, you're in mile 20 of a marathon, you're out trying to do your first Olympic distance triathlon, and you get off the, the bike and you go to run and your legs feel like they're stuck in quicksand. And you're like, I, I can't move, I can't, I can't do this. You've done that time and time and time again. Where's your brain go? What's that? What's that motivator? Is it, is it fear? Is it that you're letting yourself or, you know, sunny or your kids are down? Is it that you've got the public who's resting their hopes on the future on your shoulders? What is it? Because you've gotten to that dark space more times than probably almost anybody.

[B]

Yeah. Just making some notes here. Yeah. You know, I think I've done a lot of things that are on as much smaller scale and a lot of things are on a really big scale. And the things that are on a really big scale. You have to make the reward big enough. I talk about it in our book Iron Hope, about the bag of whys, and your one why is not going to be big enough when like you say your knocked unconscious lane in the middle of the road because of an accident or five different lawsuits just came through and you're just like, oh my gosh, I cannot, I don't know, I don't know how to deal with this. Right. So in those moments you have to like, take a deep breath, obviously focus on the one thing that's going to move the needle and the thing that's going to get you around this corner. But you, in order to, to get back in motion, have those quick turnarounds, you got to be able to figure out what your folk, what you need to focus on. But the reward at the, at the end of all of it needs to be big enough. So the dream, the dream, the purpose, the impact needs to be big enough. And when I was doing these big public challenges, the fifty and the hundred, it was like, hey, I made a commitment to the public, which means I made a massive commitment to myself. I got my family and friends that are watching. We were raising money for charity every single time. And there's a big business play behind all of this. I make no money during these big challenges. But. But I'm a corporate speaker and I do online coaching and I do all these things and it provides immense life experience that I can then turn around and share. And if I man, I, I believe that leaders lead from the front. And I'll never do anything I'm, or ask anybody or what that I'm not willing to do myself. And in those moments, it's like, okay, well, when you're in your darkest moments, do this. But when I'm in the darkest moments, I can take a different path and. But I can just coach you how to do this, right? Like, I want to be able to say I've experienced something like that because we all have our own different unique experiences that we're going through to navigate this world. But I want to be able to relate as best I can in terms of, like, the bully conversation we're having with herself and what it looks like when it gets real. When you're backed into a corner and the weight of the world is on top of you and all the commitments that you've made and the tasks you've committed, like, everything, I want to be able to relate to that person and without doing it, you know, because it's interesting. Every time I do one of these big projects, it's. I'm putting my entire career on the line. Like, people won't. They'll forget the 10 things you did right. They will hyper focus on the one thing you did wrong. And it just takes one little slip up. Like, bad news travels 10 times faster than good news and a failure travels 10 times faster than the successes do. And so, like, it is a massive career dice roll for me every time I put one of these big challenges on the table because of what my belief system is and who I am and what our brand stands for.

[A]

You mentioned the bully. I've heard you say, make sure the bully is showing up in your life. What do you mean by the bully showing up?

[B]

Yeah, I think the bully is the guy that, you know, you mentioned fear versus excitement. And I think the bully is, is being guided by fear and doesn't want to see growth and wants to keep you sick. And it's. It's the. It's the bad, bad things that, you know, hold us back in life from doing amazing things. And so life isn't about silencing the bully inside of our head. It's about learning how to navigate them and talk to them. Success. So when I. When I say become an advocate to your bully, it means if I haven't heard from the bully in long enough period of time, if he's not showing up in my life, that means I'm not showing up in a capacity where I'm pushing my limits, my boundaries, where I'm trying to bring as many people to the mountaintop with me. And so life is about doing enough and pushing boundaries so that you continually have the conversation with the bully inside your head where he tries to stop, he tries to instill fear, but then you gain the knowledge and experience to win those conversations, learn how to navigate them. But I think he's a great barometer. And like I said, if I haven't heard from him in a long enough period of time means I'm. I'm not showing up. And I believe we're never just standing still. We're either moving forward or we're slipping backwards. Right? And so in that moment of complacency where I'm not having a conversation or criticizing myself or doubting myself or questioning the path, I'm not showing up, I'm not trying, I'm not dreaming big enough.

[A]

It's really interesting when you say bringing other people to the top of the mountain, because I remember distinctly in 2012, I went to the Olympic distance national championships in Des Moines, Iowa, and I really wanted a podium, and I came in fourth. And I was really bummed out that I wasn't going to get the pony. And then I realized that at nationals, they actually have five steps on the podium. So I actually got up on the podium, and I was standing there in fourth place and looking at this group of people. And I had three kids under eight. Yeah, I had three kids under eight. I was out there alone. My wife was home with my kids, standing on this podium, looking out at this crowd of people. I don't know a single person there. And I started saying to myself, what are you. Why are you doing this? Who are you doing this for? It's all about yourself. And trying to say, oh, I went to nationals and did really well, and I literally went home. And that was kind of the end of my competitive triathlon career. And I view triathlon as such A kind of an individual sport, and the amount of time and effort it takes to train for it is very sort of egocentric. It's like, I gotta get myself faster and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yet you converted what is viewed, at least from my standpoint, as one of the most individualistic sports. That requires a tremendous amount of sort of just not only self control, but also self investment. You're investing in yourself every single day. Your meals, your sleep, your training, everything is about you. And you've converted that into two things. One, you've carried a lot of people to the top of the mountain with you by doing these challenges. You've gotten people to invest in you, to invest in the causes of child trafficking and a number of other charities that you've raised money for. But then also, your family has played an incredible part in supporting you as you have gone on this journey. Talk about a. Where was it that you changed from being like, this is all about James to this is about a bigger thing? And then how gratifying that journey has been as you brought your family and other people into it?

[B]

Yeah, one has been incredibly gratifying. I do a lot of speaking, I'm on the road a lot by myself, and I'm always thrilled to come home and reconnect with the family. But it's also reconnecting with a brotherhood, a sisterhood out there of humans, which is also really cool, too. You know, nobody talks to you. The volume and the length, the amount, the intensity that you talk to ourselves, and we are just with ourselves most. So the conversations that we have with ourselves and doing things for ourselves, I find to be incredibly important. And if we aren't of sound mind, sound body, have joy and peace in our lives, we can't do that later thing you're talking about and helping everybody else. And so if someone. If someone refills their bucket by playing 18 holes of golf and that consumes four hours of the day, and someone would look at that as an absolute waste of time. Well, maybe during those four hours, he gets incredible ideas on how to serve his fellow man, and that fills his bucket. And then he goes, and he's way more effective after that round. And why do I care if someone live, loves to play a realistic amount of games or whatever it is that fills their bucket, that allows them to contribute. Now, again, if you're out of balance and you're doing that thing selflessly all the time, then there becomes a problem. But I. I don't feel guilty or selfish at all by taking two to three hours a day to meditate, strength train, do some endurance training, ride my bike up in the mountains, go for a swim. Because that allows me to be more clear in my head. It allows me to have that dream time, it allows me to have that positive conversation with myself, it allows me to do hard things so when life happens I can be there for my family. Those selfish one on one time with yourself is not selfish at all. It's one of the most beneficial, important times every single individual needs to take. Spend the amount of time with anybody but yourself. So you better become really comfortable with who you are in the good moments, the bad moments. And all of that time prepares you to help everybody else have experiences, contribute, do everything else. And if you're again imbalanced for one way or the other, you're not going to have enjoyment in either place and you're just going to be a miserable bastard all the time. And so you really got to take time to fill your bucket, make yourself extremely whole and powerful because that's the only way I can lift up and put so many people on my back to get to the mountaintop because they can't carry their own weight sometimes. And leaders got to lead and we lead from the front man, and that takes fill in our bucket, being selfish, doing things, strengthening ourselves, body, mind and spirit, like it's all a massive necessity and part of the journey in order to help everybody else around you.

[A]

Do you see your five kids having that same outlook?

[B]

Man, my kids are special. I think it's because we gave them an unfiltered front row seat to chaos and failure and missteps, criticism, but also compassion, charity, grit, toughness, resilience, what teamwork looks like, sacrificing together, crying together, laughing together. A lot of people are worried about their kids in this generation. I'm not worried about mine because they show up, they work hard, they don't make excuses, they learn, they listen, they're humble, they're hard working, like they're good. Like I'm really proud of who they've become through this entire process and, and man, I'm excited to watch them now take on and whatever passion and come up with any, whatever their whys are that they're going to fill their bag with and what their pursuits end up doing. And we're just here to cheer and give them some guidance and, and again try to lead from the front. And we're parents, we're, we're still. I'm, I'm a new time parent to my 16 year old son. I've never been a parent to a 16 year old son and now we've got three grandkids who are learning how to be grandparents and all these things. And so life is just this continual journey and perspectives and, and belief systems change as we go. And that only happens by having experiences, doing hard things, connecting with people, building relationships, dreaming and failing. All of it's part of this amazing journey. And what's the point? Like I tell my kids all the time, look, purpose and passion is not coming to knock on your door. Like go out and have experiences, meet people. Because trust me, a life long and well lived is without the people around you and having experiences.

[A]

As someone who's crossed more finish lines than probably anyone I've met, I'm interested that you consistently say you wish someone at the beginning of all this would say to you, focus on the journey and not the destination, not the finish line. And that coming from someone who always has that finish line in place, you've been masterful at saying I need to create a new finish line, I need to push that finish line out, I need to find the new challenge to go after it. So you're very goal oriented. You clearly establish not only highly ambitious goals and finish lines, but then you go do them. And yet at the same time you're also a firm believer in it ain't, it ain't the destination, it's the journey. How do you, how does. I can't reconcile those two things, James.

[B]

I think for me the, the finish lines are victory laps and they're an indicator of the type of suffering you're going to do on said day. And hopefully it reinforces how you move forward every single time. And what I mean by that is I train, we train athletes, right? And so I have athletes that letter to the law, they don't miss a workout, they do it in the exact zone I tell them to. They upload their data like perfect. And that's rare. I have one, maybe two athletes that'll do that way. And then we've got your middle of the road one they miss, you know, 10, 15% of them and it's just called life. And it happens. And that's the way most training goes. And then there's one people that do 10% of it, well, they all get to race day and the guy that did it meticulously, that's a, that's, that's a victory lap for him, that's a test of potential. The other guys in the middle, they're just bordering between like chasing Potential and regretting the work they didn't do. And then the bottom group is like, it's just this massive suffer fest from start to finish. They're complaining, they're unhappy, they're grumpy. Now all of those groups are suffering. But the individuals that are suffering, that are chasing potential and living in that moment on that race day, that's the victory lap. That's the celebration. And then I hope people learn in that process, show up in a different capacity now, have a different belief system because of their experiences and want more from themselves else. And then they set a new target, a new benchmark, a new goal. And then we learn and we grow as we get to them. And every time, if someone sees a headline, 100 consecutive Ironmans, they're like, dude's different. They don't realize that that was building a system of belief over a long period of time by doing all little things and crossing all the finish lines and victory laps along the way. But to see that headline, they can't relate with it that and understand that it was a belief system and change along an entire way. And it was just small stepping stones because people are like, well, that's impossible. He can't do it. But for us and our team, it's like, oh, yeah, that's the next natural step in, in our progression. Let's go. After that, when. When we went from the halves to the fulls to 30 to consecutive to 50 to doubling it, like, it was always a natural progression and it was always the same stretch or belief from us because the gap was always there. But someone who's like, just getting off the coat couch, new to a 5k can't even conceptualize a marathon, let alone an Ironman. The guy that does 100 is completely unrelatable.

[A]

So you've said when you talk about getting people up and going, there are plenty of people who are going to listen to this, who are. They've done endurance athletics. They know how to do it. They've got the habits in their daily life to either establish the goal or not school. And then there are other people who are listening, are sort of like, gosh, you know, I get exercise three days a week, which turns into two days a week, which turns into one day a week, and then next thing you know, they're not exercising that much and kind of everything in between. But one of the things I've heard you say that I think is so helpful is motion creates emotion. Talk about that for a second.

[B]

Yeah. Actually, the hardest thing to do is start, man. I mean, how many times have you made your list and there's one thing on that list and you just put it off for a day, two days, maybe a week, and maybe a month, and you finally do it and it ends up being like this eight minute, non stressful, super easiest task you've done, but you've created something so grand in your mind. That's the way it is with working out and, or doing something that is new for you or that you're not an expert at. I've never regretted a workout that I just like showed up to. Started out by going through the motions and then completed the workout versus saying, I'm not gonna do the workout, I'm too tired of it, and allowing my feelings to dictate my actions. Never regretted the times that I go and do the workout right, but every single time, I've regretted not doing them. And so I, I'm doing, as my 50th year on this planet, I'm doing a unique challenge every single month. And my challenge in March was to do yoga every single day. Because I, I've been getting tight and sitting on airplanes and all the things and we're writing a new book. And so I'm at a computer a lot and so hips, you know, everything tightens up. And so I'm like, okay, if I'm going to accomplish a sub 10 iron man later this year at Iron Man Sacramento, I got to be limber, I got to be injury free, and I ain't getting any younger and it's not getting any easier. And so I did the challenge to do the yoga every single day for the entire month of, of March. And man, there wasn't a single day that I wanted to do it, but I ended up doing it every single day. And I, and I love it once I am doing it and once it's over because I feel infinitely better. My body feels looser. I, you know, there's. Everything was positive and still every single day, it's the last thing I wanted to do. And I still don't want to do it. But I have, I, I just found out like two weeks ago and I am not ready for this. But I'm guiding a boy with autism through the Boston Marathon. And so gonna be really my first time at Boston, a really cool experience. But I just found out like, homeboy's gonna run a 3:30 and I know that's not super quick, but it's fast. And if you're not ready and you're just like in the beginning of your Build, and you're coming off of an adductor injury. Like, all of a sudden, I'm terrified to go do this. And so I'm like, I have really got to make sure I'm loose, just even have a chance to not get dropped by this kid at Boston. So I'm super excited to do it, but it's really motivated me. Right. Like we talked about, rewards. Is your reward big enough? Yeah, the reward of not being dropped by this young man in Boston is. Is my incentive to do yoga every day between, you know, for the entire month of March and then all the way through April 20th of this. This month. And so how big. How big is your reward? And what does that mean to you? And that'll change how you. How you show up every single day. But you're right. Motion creates emotion. And I. I never want to do the hard things. And. But that. That's the secret. We've heard people say you can't allow your emotions to dictate your progress. And. And that. That is a huge piece of it. Like you. You do when you're sick, you do when you're tired, you do when you don't feel like it, you do it when you're sad. And that motion. Motion can create a new emotion and just figure out how to be perfect for one second. And sometimes that's enough to be the catalyst to get the momentum going. And all of a sudden, now you're like, I'm so glad I did this. And every time I put something off and then I end up doing it, I am so freaking glad that I did it. And it's always less of a dramatic moment than I was putting it out to be.

[A]

When I hear you talking about yoga and, like, not wanting to do it, it reminds me of when I first got my cold plunge and I had the clove plunge down at around 40 degrees, which is where you have yours.

[B]

I just bumped it up. That was.

[A]

That was like, I got. Because I know you're going to do some ridiculous swim in the. In the.

[B]

In the Arctic C circle or something

[A]

where the water's going to be 30 degrees or something, but I had mine at 40. And I swear to you, James, I found every excuse under the sun to walk by that room and say, oh, no, I'm too busy. I got to go. And I raised it up to 50, and then I brought it down to 48. And the bottom line is doing it is what's important, not, like, doing it at some level where I'm like, get out and I can't get my core temperature back up to something normal.

[B]

Do you.

[A]

I know you cold plunge. I want to know a little bit about the things that you do at 50 to stay in shape. And you're obviously at a different level from any of us as it relates to the amount and volume of exercise you're doing. But for a moment, sauna, cold plunge, stretching. I know you lift weights as well, which is as someone who used to be just an endurance athlete. And I just, last night showed my girlfriend a picture of me when I was. I don't know, well, back when I. I went to nationals and came in fourth and I was like, this thin. I mean, I literally was just like, I looked like Poguchar, and. And she was like, wow, man. I don't know that I would have been attracted to you when you were that thin. You know, you got a little. You got a little more meat on you. But I want to talk about weightlifting, and then I want to talk about nutrition and gut health and. And one quick question. Do you wear a continuous glucose monitor

[B]

or a whoop or a OURA ring? And I wear an OUR ring.

[A]

You do wear. And what do you. What do you track on that? Is it really just for sleep or is it for other metrics?

[B]

Yeah, you know, I'm not a super numbers guy, which is crazy. So I track my sleep. I'm monitoring my heart rate. That's a big thing for me. And I've just. The software is really good, and so I look mostly just for, like, recovery or when it's like, bro, something's going on. Because there's been times where I'd like, it was a subtle change or I did get less sleep than I would normally, and it, like, goes off and it gives you a warning. So I'm, like, really impressed with the software wear. And so I use it just kind of for me as bumper rails. I don't really get. Dived really deep into it. I kind of.

[A]

Hey, what's your resting heart rate?

[B]

51 and.

[A]

And heart rate variability.

[B]

Yeah, it was. It was funny. I was just at an event in Montana, and the CEO and founder of Oura Ring was there, and he was like, let me see your app. And he starts, like, flipping through all my things, and he was like, oh, yeah, your numbers are really good. So he looked. He looked specifically at my hrv, so I can't remember offhand what it is, but he. He said it was. He said it was great.

[A]

That's good. As far as sauna, cold plunge, I Know you cold plunge. Do you sauna as well?

[B]

Yeah, I have a sauna here. I have a cold punch here. I have a red light therapy bed. I have a hyperbaric chamber. I have, I use thera guns, I use the compression boots. I love massage because that's the easiest one for me because I can just check out lay there and like that physical muscle manipulation. My body, body responds really well to. And then obviously getting more into stretchy mobility and, and some, some yoga.

[A]

Talk for a moment about normatech and how big a believer you are in normatech. Go, go back to Arizona for the quick story on normatech.

[B]

Man, how do you know that story?

[A]

I do my research.

[B]

Holy cow. That that's there. That story is like buried pretty significantly. So you know, those boots were kind of new out. You know, they were at all the tries and all the expos and stuff. And so I got a pair of the Normatex and literally every night during the, the conquer 100, I mean the 50 as we were traveling through, like we were a moving caravan or circus or call whatever you want. And we didn't have the, the money, the funding, the sponsors, like nothing. And so we didn't, we, we didn't have a medic with us, we didn't have a massage person with us. And so I really relied on, you know, sunny and normatec boots and, and really an early generation theragun. And so we, you know, we're in Arizona, it's day number seven and I was wearing these knee braces on the marathon and we were pushing Dayton. The young man with cerebral palsy came and I was doing a second round with him and we, we pulled him on day 27 in our first world record through a full iron man and thought it'd be cool to include him in this world record and not realizing how exhausted we would be and how incredibly challenging everything was. I was, I was wearing these knee braces just to support my knees and it turns out I'd cut off the circulation and created this pitting epidema in my legs like hard as a rock. Couldn't. Like it was just a disaster. Like we were learning so much in those early days of doing an ironman every single day and trying to get to the next state and the enormity of it and all the complications. If you want, you can check it out. You can read redefine impossible or we've got the Amazon prime documentary called Iron Cowboy. But, but you know, as soon as we took those knee braces off and jumped in the NormaTec boots, complete flush, you know, ran all the blood all the way through my entire system, brought the new oxygen blood down to my legs. It was literally the, the probably the number one tool that we were able to use that, that you know, kept my blood flowing and kept all the inflammation out as best we could. And it really was the main tool that we used for the 50 consecutive.

[A]

And you continue to use them now?

[B]

Oh, for sure, yeah, yeah, we, we, I used, I used them less on the hundred, but that's because I had a full time therapist here that would do. You had to. Hayden, My Hayden. Yeah, Hayden was unbelievable. He would do two to three hours worth of work on me every single night. And for half the campaign Felicia would come in too, and she's been working on me since 2010 and, and they would, they would tag team and forehand it and it was just crazy, the impact of that hood. And so that, that was the thing my body responded the best to. And so we went to that first. But we didn't have that option during the 50. The 50.

[A]

From a logistical standpoint, I did. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but I just find it to be incredible. I mean, to do 50 triathlons in 50 states over 50 days. Just the sheer logistics of moving that, as you called it, circus from, I mean, and you started on the long haul flights to get those out of the way. So you started in Hawaii and went Hawaii, Alaska, Seattle, I think, and you had all those big long flights. And so you kind of, you, you front loaded the most enduring part, which ended up really kind of hurting you right at the very beginning. And so then you had to kind of endure that early hit to your physiology for the rest of the, of the, of the 50 triathlons. If you had to do it over again, probably flip that order.

[B]

No, in fact, I would keep the same order. There's a lot of other things that I would change in terms of logistics. And so the reason I say that is because. So we started in Hawaii, went to Alaska, then Washington and you know, the first, I did three Ironmans, three days, a total of six and a half hours of sleep. Commercial airline, like completely exhausted, falling asleep by day number four on the bike. And we, we had just thought, okay, obviously naive, naivety was a huge part of this. We thought, okay, we're gonna have some longer hall days, we're gonna have some catch up days, we're gonna have some, you know, he's gonna get one night where he's gonna get Eight hours of sleep and it'll be a total reset that it, it never happened because it was so chaotic from day to one and everybody just got basically Hulk Hogan leg dropped in the first two to three days that there was never any catch up time. And so it just compounded over, over every single day. And we, we never had the luxury to, to recoup on that time. And I wouldn't flip it because the biggest risk in flipping it is I can reset after two to three days because of the airlines. But I do not want to ever get 48 days into it, have two days remaining and then something completely outside of my control in terms of commercial flights go sideways. Then no way. Now I would. Ideal world, money's not an option. Yeah, we take a different route through the United States. We cut corners and minimize our drives and then we have a private jet that takes us from Washington to Hawaii and then Hawaii to Alaska. And then we, you know, celebrate for 10 days there. That, that's a very different, you know, that's a different campaign. You, you man. We did something nobody had done and there was no, there was no guidebook to this thing. And we, you know, it was early in social media days, so we were, we're at the mercy of anybody that would help and, and volunteer in each of the states because again, we're broke. We got five little kids. We're trying to plan this for over the Internet with, with volunteers. And so we were kind of like, yes to people that would help us, that would maybe add two hours to our drive. But when you're, when you're in the planning stages of things, you're like, oh, it's just a two hour difference, that's not a big deal. But when that happens every single night and, and sleep is the most highest priority and it's non existent, those two hours would have been gold for us. There's a lot in terms of path and logistics and what I would focus on that I would do differently.

[A]

How'd you deal with the criticism you got for doing one marathon on a treadmill? I found that to be so if that. I run a publicly traded company, lots of investors look in at us. Some people pick out certain things or whatever, but there are lots of times where I'll be sitting there and someone will be spending a lot of time looking at something that in my view is like, it's not a big issue, but you can spend all your time on that. But the real issue is what we do every single day and the value we create for our clients. That then creates the value of our company and all this kind of stuff. How'd you deal with people like, nitpicking in there and saying, oh, you're going to do 50 and 50 states? And in one stage of those 150 different events, if you will, you had an injury and you got on the treadmill rather than going outside. And they say, oh, but it doesn't count to me. That's. So you did it. And, oh, by the way, that treadmill was in the state where you were running a marathon.

[B]

So.

[A]

So Last I checked, 26.2 is 26.2. And I've also run a marathon on treadmill, and it's a hell of a lot more difficult than it is running one outside.

[B]

Yeah, you know, it's always interesting. I think people. One, don't like to see people succeed, and so they're just sitting in the wings waiting for the slightest of mistakes. Two, I've got to extend some grace because they. They have no idea what it's like and how we're basing our decisions. And so you kind of have to like, be like, okay, well, I, I appreciate the insight, but when you're in the moment, it's really hard because you, you know, as humans, we want to be liked by everybody. And it's actually turned into one of the most valuable teaching messages or points that I get to share from stage. That's super impactful because it's really relevant, especially with social media is. And by the way, that, that. The day that that happened, it was in Mississippi. It was hurricane conditions. We were literally pushed indoors. Incredible lightning. Like, I could show you all the Dopplers, like, they wouldn't let. Let us go outside. And so we, we had to pivot in order to continue. And do I wish it didn't happen? Yeah, for sure. But I'm so grateful it did because we didn't give into the pressure. We did continue on. We had massive impact. It completely changed mine, my family's lives, and so many others. And the message, the message is like, we. I totaled up all the miles, right? It was 7,030 miles that we did that summer. No days off, no excuses, consecutive of doing something that was so far beyond what anybody had done in the endurance space at that point. Like, it was actually entertaining that there was any pushback on something like that, but they're just. It stems out of jealousy and context. We covered 7,030 miles of which that moment in Mississippi represented 0.24% of all the miles. 0.24%. And so the messaging and what I love to teach, which, which really resonates with people is, is don't let someone else's opinion of 0.24% of your journey impact how you proceed. Ultimately. If you're the one in the arena doing the work, showing up with honesty and integrity, trying to bring people to the mountaintop with you in there with mud on your face, like, they don't get to have an opinion. I'm sorry. And the faster anybody learns that lesson like you, you will be infinitely more successful. It's something like not caring about what other people think about your journey as long, you know, especially when you're showing up with honesty and integrity and doing the right things and trying to have impact and create culture and community and experiences and all those things, like, I, I don't understand it. I'll never understand it. I have a beautiful perspective of it now. I'm so grateful that it happened. When you can turn your worst moments or oversights into a gift, I think, I think that's the point of life, is to make mistakes and then be able to have the wisdom or emotional intelligence to not give in to that pressure and then to go on and turn it into something even more power or more great. I, I tell my kids all the time, like, hey, if you don't like what people are saying, just continue to ride your rocket ship and eventually you're going to get so high you can't hear them anymore. And it's. And it doesn't matter.

[A]

It's so cool and so inspirational nutrition. I, I have to say, James, when I heard what you did as it relates to, like, your, your penchant for Costco waffles and taking two burritos and stuffing them in your bike jersey and eating those on the bike ride every day. The thing that not only what you ate, which I love, because, I mean, one of the reasons that I do as much athletics as I do is because I want to be able to eat anything I want to eat whenever I want to eat it. And that's the whole reason I do it. But what I found to be so incredible was how you had to train your. Anybody who's listening knows how difficult it is to eat while doing serious endurance athletics. I remember trying to figure out how to eat a goo at mile 21 when I was racing Boston's. And it was like the hardest thing for me to be able to get that thing in and keep it in. The concept that you were. I mean, like, there was one where you Stopped and you ate a T bone steak between I can't remember what miles it was. When you're like on mile 91 of the bike ride and you stop and have a, a T bone steak. How did you train yourself to be able to take in those calories as you were pushing your body to such a limit?

[B]

Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I think it's if, if anything I've either trained my body really well to handle food and exercise or, or therein lies my secret power because most people are sidelined in these big long endurance runs and ultra races and all that with gut health, digestion problems, stomach cramps and throwing up and, or out the back end. I mean those are all very common things. And so the fact that I had to consume 12 to 15,000 calories a day and no time to do it and do do a hundred percent while moving down the road in, in conditions, I mean that, that became the secret sauce figuring that out. And, and I just think because again I didn't wake up off the couch and go, I think 100 is a good idea. I've been doing and race nutrition for 10, 15 now, 20 years. And in those big challenges and big training days and doing eight days in the back jungle of Fiji, like you learn how to consume while moving in large quantities because the output is so great and you're burning a lot of calories. And so I just over time learned that I could eat an entire pizza while running the marathon. I could pull over and have double fist the burritos and have a porterhouse steak and mash potatoes. Like I just learned that I could do all those things and still function. And we became so metabolically efficient that it didn't matter what we ate is it just, it converted it into energy. And the hardest part became deep into this journey, weather and wind and sun. And I developed thrush in my mouth and so really bad tongue sores and cracks on my mouth and my lips. Which is why I end up doing a lot of Costco muffins and a lot of crumble cookies because I could there one, they were high, high caloric density and I could break off pieces of the muffin in the cookie, get it past my lips and it was soft enough that I could almost suck on it and get it down. But I just needed so many calories. And so, and again it didn't matter what the calories were as long as it was just energy.

[A]

On the 50, 50 and on the 101 you basically set your own pace. If you will. You've gone and done Ram, you've done Cape Epic, you've done a bunch of other races where the clock was really going on the big, big ones. It was your pace, your clock if you will. Obviously you had to get done enough time to sleep and get ready to go the next day. So I'm in no way trying to say without the clock on there.

[B]

You had a constant clock and on the 50 and the 100 I made sure that all of them were under 17 hours. I've just learned you don't want to give the public any more ammunition than they're going to try to drum up on themselves. And so we wanted to adhere to that 17 hour. And so during the 50 and the 100, all of them were sub 17 hour efforts.

[A]

Do any of the others come close as it relates to the pain and endurance? I mean Cape Epic is eight grueling days. Ram, how long did you guys take to do, did you do two or four men?

[B]

We did. If we did a four man and we did it in six and a half days.

[A]

Yeah. Was either Cape Epic or, or, or Ram or anything else like as it relates to the Hurt Locker up there in comparison to the 50, 50 or the 101?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No.

[B]

And I think the only reason is duration. Right. You're doing because you know, as an endurance athlete it's really hard to go 15 or 20. You're always pushing the, the limit of whatever distance you're going to in order to go the fastest you possibly can over that distance and time that's required to do it. And so you limits. Right. And so now the, now the conversation just is how long do you have to sit at your limit for and what kind of limit and what does recovery look like and what does feeling look like and what, what are the modalities you're doing look like? Like all these things come into play. But we did, we did the, the world's toughest race on tv, which was a map and compass. Amazon Prime. Bear Grylls was the host, Mark Burnett was the producer. Just this adventure race. And they, it was, it ended up being like seven and a half, eight days, I can't remember. But the producers kept wanting us to say that this was the hardest thing that we had ever done. And my teammate was a very seasoned Ironman athlete. Our female was a four time Kona age grouper. She ended up second in the world one like just this stout group. And it was funny because the racist tagline was we eat Ironmans for breakfast and so they, they wanted us to come on the show and they were going to make a mockery of us. And we ended up becoming producer favorites. And the team, the, the, the teams ended up loving us and all of the production crew loved us because we were having the time of our lives. Like, we were just out there having an unbelievable adventure. And I think the, the lesson and point here is, is not that everything needs to be a lesson, but do something so hard in your life that everything else is easy. And all the other teams were suffering around us and complaining and whining and dude, we, we were, we were having an adventure. We were telling jokes, we were celebrating. We come into the main camp camps laughing. And the producers were just like, who are these four people? And they really, on camera, they wanted me to say this was the hardest eight days of my life because the race was called the world's toughest race. And I would never say it, and I think it upset them, but I'm just like, you do anything really hard. And I hadn't done the 100 yet, so my basis of experience was the 50. And so they were like, in my head, I'm like, eight days is not as hard as something that is 50 days long. And then now we've since doubled it to 100 plus one. And now my baseline in terms of what I can tolerate in real life becomes infinitely easier. Like when I watch somebody arguing with a flight attendant or the. A hostess out of what I'm just like, dude, your life is so meaningless and pathetic. Like, this is the battle that you're choosing right now. This. You have any energy to put towards this right now. Like, it, it blows my mind. Like, you've, you've dealt with no real challenge or adversity in your life if that's the fight that you're trying to pick. And I just feel sorry for these individuals because it tells me they haven't lived the life, they haven't had experiences, and life is hard enough for them that they aren't taking the time to learn the lessons. They need to learn that these are their reactions in real life. And so the challenge here is go do something so live so extraordinary, so beyond belief and keep doing things like that until you become successful at it and the new normal becomes that. I tell people from stage all the time, look, this is going to sound crazy, but you need to figure out how to continue to take the next step until an iron man a day becomes routine, whatever that means to you. Because if, if, if the NBC announcer says that iron man is the single hardest day in sports. Well, then 100 consecutive has to be one of the most impossible things to do. Well, get to the point where you become such an expert at it that an ironman a day becomes routine. Routine. That's how you navigate life. And then when life happens to you, that's why, again, that's why I'm not worried about my kids, because most of this generation is a bunch of marshmallows, and my kids are going to stomp all over you. And that's just the way it is when you go into real life. Like, have you dealt with adversity? Have you dealt with challenges? Do you know how to problem solve? Can you manage emotions intellectually? What is your response when somebody triggers you or says something that you don't agree with? Like, how do you navigate that? Right? And these are all things that are important that these experiences in our lives give us so that when real life happens to us, it's like, meh, I got this, Covid. Yeah. Well, this is what's happening. How do we deal with it? Right? The economic crash in 08. Great. Lost everything. Remember the moment they knocked on my door? How do we move forward? What's the next decision? How do we continue to find peace and joy? What does that look like? What's the next experience? Who we bring in with us? That's where you got to get to in life.

[A]

We do clips, and I just. That's going to be a clip right there. That's a. That's a tour de force on everything that you've done and the perspective it brings to you and the life you live and the life that many of us ought to aspire to live. I got one final question for you. You got a lot of tattoos on your body. You got a scorpion on your chest. You got a Canadian flag on your calf. What. What. What gets you to move to say, all right, I'm gonna add. I'm gonna add another one on here. What's the last one you put on? And what was the reason for it?

[B]

Man, the last one, I haven't. I've done. I haven't done tattoos in a long time. So these are from another lifetime. The scorpion people are like, are you a Scorpio? I'm like, no. Nope. I was 17, and it's the biggest one I could afford. And I said, put it right here.

[A]

That's great. The last.

[B]

The last one I got was in Hawaii right after the honu half. I was breaking the world record, and I had no idea what the journey was. Was. Was going to become. But I ended up tattooing the Ironman logo with the dot as a world. To represent the world record. And then I had an American flag and a Canadian flag, like, because I've been. I've born in Canada and then moved here and I've raised my new family here in the United States. I've been in both countries 50 years. I mean, 25 years. And at that time was. Was obviously still. I love both countries. And so I, I consider myself both. And so the last one I got and I, you know, I doubt. I don't think I'll get any more. So. But yeah, we'll see.

[A]

When you go sub 10 in Sacramento, maybe. Maybe you're gonna do it. You'll do a less than 10 on. On little place. It'll be a less than 10. That might.

[B]

That's a good. I'll do it right on my forehead. So everybody knows.

[A]

James, it's a. It's a. It's a huge pleasure I. That as I said previously, there. There are lots of guests to the Walker webcast that both take me a while to get, and when I get them, I get really excited about it. When you reach back out after I'd reached out to you and said, would you come on. It's. It's just an honor. And I. You're that piece about three minutes ago about what it all means and how it all comes together, I think is what is so incredibly special about you as a person and what you've accomplished. But then the message that you send all the time and bringing other people to the top of that mountain. And so I'm just very appreciative spending an hour with me. And for all the people who've listened to this, I'm sure they will take a lot away from it. So thank you. And I hope at some point you and I can go on a bike ride together. We can go for a run together or something. I'll come track you down in Park City and we'll go get some exercise in together together.

[B]

Perfect, man. I love it. Appreciate you carving out some time and having a meaning conversation. I hope everybody out there enjoyed it. And if you want to follow us, you can do it on Instagram, Iron Cowboy James, or my website, iron cowboy.com.

[A]

thanks, James. Have a great day.

[B]

Absolutely, man. See you, bud.

[A]

Sa.