#011: Tyler Swartz - How Endorphins Disrupted the Status Quo of Brand Building

I think having something every single day to commit an hour to that's going to better yourself or something that you can see progress in is one of the most rewarding things. You're not going to see an improvement one week after you start, but 3 weeks you might feel different. And after 3 months, you're going to be a different person. And then come race day, you'll have done so much work on yourself towards a goal that it's literally a party if you're healthy.

Tyler Swartz is the founder and CEO of Endorphins, one of the fastest growing running communities in the United States. Previously, Tyler was a principal investor at Alpha Miner and the director of product at LEX, a commercial real estate marketplace based in New York City. In this episode, we cover how running completely shaped Tyler's life, why more brands are being built out of tight-knit communities, and his own transition from investor to founder. Welcome back to episode 11 of the Turning Pro Podcast. We have Tyler Swartz from Endorphins with us today. Thanks for joining, Tyler.

I'm pumped. Let's get it.

So I want to start at an interesting place with this episode. I met Tyler a few months ago before Endorphins really existed. Uh, I actually got introduced to Tyler and we did a content thing together unrelated to the podcast, unrelated to Endorphins. And correct me if I'm wrong, Tyler, but when we did this activity together, which will eventually be out on YouTube, you texted Ryan and I after, and you were my roommate, and Tyler was basically like, I was so inspired by what you guys did, like, this is awesome, I love creating content. I still haven't released a piece of content yet to date. And Tyler, from that moment on, has just like blown up on social media and like has built this massive community. And it has been so cool for me to watch because he participated in a piece of content that I was producing before he actually created his own thing. And now we're sitting here on this podcast talking about this insane community that he's built that we'll dive into. But the reason I need to start at the beginning of your origin story is because I was talking to Adrian and obviously the name of the podcast is Turning Pro. And for those of you who are just tuning in, the genesis of that is around the idea of the moments in your life where you decide to take things to the next level, elevate yourself, get up from one poker table and move to the next. And when we were talking about the name of the podcast, I looked at Adrian and I was like, dude, I have literally watched Tyler turn pro over the last 4 months. This guy absolutely needs to come on this podcast and talk about it. And so here we are. Um, I would just love to jump into like Endorphins, how it got started and what really inspired you to jump into the community building and content world.

Sure. So I want to take like 3 steps backwards. We met at Nick Sharma dinner.

It was Nick Sharma's dinner.

We met at Nick Sharma dinner.

Wow, I forgot about that.

And you and I were sitting across from each other at the dinner, and we were both talking about how we wanted to be like— we wanted a film crew following us around. And I feel like a lot of people say that.

Love at first sight.

Yeah, exactly. We were talking about creating content, and the next day I posted my first TikTok, which was about—

wow, I really butchered that.

I apologize. No, but I think that was a really important moment in like— I had been posting videos online when we like did that other series and I still hadn't found myself and endorphins didn't exist at that moment in time. And I think I've just come like full circle with my content creation journey. And you've seen like literally every single step of the way from the idea to like where we are now, which is really cool.

You walk us through that idea to phase 1, 2, and phase wherever it is right now.

Yeah. So I always thought that I needed to be online posting content, but a few things like I didn't have the, like, I wasn't secure enough to be posting. I didn't know what I wanted to say. And I signed up for a 50-mile ultramarathon and I was like, okay, I'm a runner. I now I'm gonna be doing this like very different running initiative. I should be talking about it and I should document my journey. And I just made a video literally saying exactly that. And one thing led to another and I said I would do one video a day for 30 days. And I feel like that's how a lot of content creators start. And the rest is really history. I, I started a series, I'm gonna start running with strangers. I don't want to run alone. I'm training for this 50-mile race, running like a lot, running 20 miles every Saturday is going to be brutal alone in the dead of winter. Let's run with strangers. And like after I did that series 3 times, I was like, I can't call this running with strangers anymore because like these people have shown up 3 times and that would be so rude to these people.

They're not strangers anymore.

Like Steve is my boy. I did my first run. I posted I'm running with strangers. I have no idea who's gonna show up. One person showed up. And Steve still comes to the runs. That's my homie. So that's kind of how it started. And my purpose has changed a ton since starting with our first run. Our first run was me running with strangers, and now it's about promoting positivity and happiness through movement and exercise in other people's lives. I think the thing that makes me super happy is when I see people connecting after a run, sharing contact information, because we've been able to impact their New York City moment, and now we're in 4 different cities, so we're now impacting people's just general well-being. They're meeting other people in a way that they never thought they could. So that's what it's become, and I could have never imagined that's what would happen.

So what— can you explain to Adrian quickly just like what Endorphins is? Because I didn't actually include that part.

Yeah, so Endorphins is a running community that helps promote positivity and happiness through movement and exercise. And we say movement and exercise because I think it's way more than running. What we're doing is we're offering the ability for people to have a sense of belonging and connection in a world where people are on their phones and people are stuck in their apartments and it's hard to meet other people in a non-drinking format. We do do social events that involve drinking, but it isn't about that. So what gets me really excited, and we talked about this a little, was I see people that come to one of our runs and then they might never come back, but then they tag us on Instagram saying, we're at the Yankees game. Sharing a hot dog and a beer. And that is what they think of endorphins. It's not about the group run that they came to.

Yeah. I think the coolest thing just from what we've been talking about thus far has been ever since I moved to New York, graduated, early 20s, you guys, a lot of people, making adult friends is such a weird process. And I think luckily you and I are both in, our job is literally to meet partners and customers. And investors, and you just end up becoming friends with a lot of those people. But almost every friend of mine from college that I've talked to, that if you're working at a big corporation with 1,000 people, they're like, yeah, there are a couple of cool people on my team. And then I just see, you know, the guys from college.

Yeah.

And it's this really weird disconnect that I kind of live in a different world that you live in and you live in. And so having sources like that or communities like that, even just to meet like one new person, can completely change your experience.

Totally. And I think in college, like my experience, and I'm super tight with all my college friends, like our connection point was drinking and having fun and partying. And that isn't a sustainable way to maintain relationships. So what we've done is we found running, running, which is a vehicle for connection, but that isn't the only thing. That's just a shared interest. So we bring people together on a passion-based activity and then they get to do other things outside of that passion-based activity that just humans do. And because they have that single point of connection, it creates really strong—

I don't think enough people in this world reflect on relationships after removing a vice from the picture. And I know that, like, I've talked about this before. I haven't had a sip of alcohol in a couple of months at this point. And I think the first thing that it did to me was force me to realize how many relationships I had that were grounded in drinking. And it forces you to basically recognize, is there a world where you can reconcile this relationship and reinvest in other areas where it can become more than just drinking? Or do you just have to accept that as time goes on, the world changes, people go different ways, you realize the relationship wasn't as deep as what you thought it was, and there's an opportunity to like fill that time meeting other people, new people. And it's not about necessarily holding a grudge against these people, but just recognizing that it's not sustainable, to your point. So I think giving people outlets in the form of community where they don't have to feel pressured into doing an activity they don't want to or something they don't like. But can still participate, I think is the reason you find so much joy and so much happiness from the people who went to a Yankees game together and sat there and shared the moment of eating a hot dog.

Yep, exactly. You nailed it.

What's the most fulfilling part of it? Is it that outside of just like seeing that, you know, picture that someone posted, being like, damn, this is something I started or I helped create, and this is positively impacting someone's life even though I'm not touching it directly? But on a daily, weekly basis, when you're organizing runs, when you're bringing people together, What's fulfilling about like that part that, you know, maybe it's texting and organizing and logistics like that? Maybe not. That's not always the most fun part, I'm sure.

Yeah. So it's funny. Ben introduced me as the founder of Endorphins. I like hate that term for what I'm doing. And like I reference that right now because you said, is it because I started it? I don't feel any ego attached to what we're doing.

Okay, I'm going to— I'm going to interrupt and change the title because I think this will be the right one. The community lead.

I don't like that one either.

Damn it.

So that's what I, that's a word that I use, but like, I just like the word organizer because what I'm doing is facilitating these connections, but I actually don't make any decisions on behalf of the group. What we do is every single week on Tuesday, we post a Google form and we say, what should we do next? And the community decides. And it's actually so simple. But it's nothing that like, I can't name another brand that builds their business that way.

It's a lot of failed NFT projects.

Exactly. And we, we were talking about Web3, like I was coming from a consumer Web3 background at my previous job. So I took some of the learnings there. Like we literally just asked the community. So this has nothing to do with, like, I don't know what's going to happen next. Um, we asked the group and they decide, and because they have a say in what's happening, everyone feels inclined to participate. And it's just created a really strong sense of belonging in our group.

The beautiful part about that though, and we see this, I think, I think it's just more talked about now, uh, is just the notion of community and how strong that is and how that really is the stranglehold in so many situations. You look at some of the biggest creators in the world, I think are great anecdotes. They can launch anything and everything and it works because they have community. Or you look at successful businesses, like they don't fail because they have community. And so the beautiful thing for you is you're still very early on in this journey. But if you continue to make sure that the community trusts you and stands by you, you can mark my words now. Like, we can look back at this clip in a decade of me saying that Endorphins will be a household name. And I truly believe that because you're doing it for the right reasons so early on. And as long as you don't veer away from the integrity, like, I think it's— it'll take care of itself.

Yeah, it's funny. Like, I can point to some examples of us showing the community that we're there for them and not for any, like, monetary purposes. Like, we, we hosted a happy hour and in our community vote we said, how should we pay for this? Should we sell tickets? Should we try and get a sponsor? Should we do donations? And we ended up doing Venmo donations. And I think the event raised $1,800 from our group. Everyone chipped in whatever amount that they could, and we spent, I think, $1,600. And after that event, I posted in our weekly update, we have $250 left over, what should we do with it? It's $250. That isn't doing anything for anyone but the fact that we can show our community, hey, we're going to take money from you and then we're going to invest it back into the group and we're going to be transparent. I sent a picture of my bank statement to the group so they saw that we're not hiding anything. It did include that I went to the Russian bathhouse, which is another story, but recovery— it was for recovery. And sure, yeah, exactly. Um, and it just goes to show, like, we're not trying to take from any one. Like, we're really just trying to provide, provide, provide, and give value to people. And like, that's what it's truly rooted in. And I think because of that, people are super bought in because they know that there's— like, we're super transparent. Every single community vote, we post the answers. Like, there's no hiding.

Yeah.

For you as an individual, I mean, going from what we were talking about before, you were in venture, you were an engineer before, and everything we've talked about this far, you're organizing events— we use that term— you're building a brand. That's filled with not only fulfillment, but a lot of excitement, it seems, for you. And you're creating content. Those are 3 activities that are very difficult, by the way, that you weren't doing a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago. How have you had to carry yourself differently, surround yourself by different people that inspires you to do those things?

Yeah, that's a really strong question. I think I've been doing these things in different aspects of my life, but they all haven't been geared towards one single purpose. So like, for example, when I was a software engineer, I was super active in the fintech Twitter space. Um, and I was tweeting and I grew a following there and it was hilarious, but I wasn't building for myself. Like I can even take a further step back. Like the way I envision building community in this day and age is, um, you need experiences, you need a community that can fuel those experiences, and then you need a product on the other side. And I think like right now our product is is going to be a marathon training program and our experiences are the group runs and we have a community that's fueling both. And I think like that's how I think about building a business in 2023. Like I think in 2022 the model was content, community, commerce. And I think now it's experience, community, and products and how you can mesh them all together. And I think content just has to be happening. Like we, we can go back to when we've met, like content has to be happening. So, um, I think that's how I'm thinking about things. And I think I've been doing all the things, but I just wasn't doing them under one single thread. Mm-hmm.

What, what structures have you had to, or have you thought about putting around that content creation or that organizing?

That's funny. There has been no structure. Um, I literally am posting on content weekly, and I think the best content that I produce is actually unscripted. Um, because it's the most true to who I am and what I'm doing. I have tried to like put together a content calendar. And it just doesn't feel real. Like the things that I'm posting are literally me walking down the street, talking what's going through my head. And I think that's actually how I feel. And I think the people that I'm speaking to know that that's like real. It's not me trying to sell anything. It's just like, hey, there's this race happening. I'm super stoked about it. And I think that comes through the screen.

Yeah. I think that makes a ton of sense when you're, when you're trying to overproduce things, I'm guilty of this for sure with content. It like, you lose, you lose sight of like the core reason you do it or the core reason that people end up getting attracted to it.

Yeah. And like, I started just posting videos not knowing what I was going to say, and like, then it became like, I want to start like posting running videos. And now it's literally like, I feel like my whole purpose is connection and belonging, and I understand that. So like, I can tailor my videos to that, but like, that isn't what I think people— that's not going to make me a huge content creator. Like, I don't see myself as a content creator. I see myself as someone that likes to run that has something to say. And because of that, like, I'll speak to a small audience, but those— that audience, I think, will power the growth of what we're doing because they know that I'm speaking to them.

That's what a lot of content creators are, though. Usually, though, newsflash, they do an activity and they have something to say, and that actually equals becoming one.

Yeah.

So you are a content creator. You're just putting the ego aside and you're an organizer for a group of a lot of people, which also works.

Yeah. But I think like there's this like concept of building in public. That's what we're doing too. Like you can take that, like you hear people or you see people on Twitter tweeting about building their business and, and showing their MRR, their ARR, or showing how many customers they hit and you know, it's all like, it feels a little ego-driven. Like, that's what we're doing too. Like, most of my videos now are like, okay, like, I just got off a call with a girl in Chicago and she was awesome and she wants to be the Endorphins community lead in Chicago. If people are interested, we will build Endorphin Chicago. But like, what does TikTok think? And if TikTok loves it, great. And if they don't, we have our answer. Um, so it's— that's like how we're thinking about things.

Yeah.

What was the moment when you, like, through the last couple months where you just looked at yourself and you were like, holy shit, this is real?

It's a great question. Um, we hosted a 300-person happy hour. I kind of mentioned it earlier, and like, it was all community funded. Like, I didn't spend a dollar out of my pocket. The first time I did, we did an event, I spent several thousand like organizing, like cultivating and paying for the entire event. And then like the community came together and made it happen. Joined. And that's when I was like, oh my God, like 300 people chose to be here on a Wednesday night because they wanted to be to meet other people. And they funded it themselves. Like that spoke volumes to me. And then more recently, when the group came together and said that they want to do this marathon training group that spoke like, that was huge for me. Because I realized like, oh my God, like there's actually like something of value here. Like, this isn't just going to be us running. Like, we hired a coach and like, she's going to make a lot of money through this program and it's all going to run through Endorphins. And that's when I was like, oh my God, like, if we have 5,000 people doing this program, like, what does this look like? If we have 100,000 people doing this program, what does that look like? And I was like, okay, there's a, like, there's an opportunity here.

Yeah. Why do you think a lot of brands today, I'd say every other running brand in the world, um, are being built from a top-down approach of like, there's so many brands that I've heard of that raise $10 million, and then they're like, maybe we organize some run clubs or something like that.

Yeah, I, I don't think it's just like running brands. I think it's all brands. Like, find a consumer-facing brand that starts with the community. Like, we have a larger Strava group than most running companies.

No way, really?

Wow, that's crazy. I think that's crazy because I mean, not that you would ever— not that you're gonna do this, but like, this to me is one of those things where it's lightning in a bottle and there's going to be a massive running company who's like, we have to buy this. Like, we can't let— we can't let this thing run crazy, like, buzzing in our ear anymore.

Yeah.

And like, I think that's such a real possibility. Yeah, I was just reading about this, a little bit of a tangent, but like, I know a kid who started a dating app called Official, and the concept of it was not bringing together people, but like strengthening existing relationships, like giving you things to do and ways to like continue to build together. And like he went from idea to acquisition of Bumble in like under a year and a half.

It's crazy.

Is that the recent Bumble acquisition?

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was official. This kid Zach—

for friends? What is it just for like friends or is what sort of— is that for like your girlfriend or your boyfriend?

The app? Yeah, it's for couples.

Oh, okay.

So like you and your girlfriend, I think it'd be weird if we did, but um, are they all romantic ones? I think mostly romantic. Uh, but I'm not in a relationship, so I can't say that I downloaded the app.

Ben is single.

Uh, but no, I, I say that because there are these opportunistic moments where you just like find a hole and you just go and there's lightning in a bottle and one of these bigger players, it's like, we need this now. And I, call me crazy, but I feel like Endorphins is kind of on that path right now.

Yeah. And that is exciting, but like, I don't know if that would bring me personal happiness and I don't know if that's what I'd want to do.

Yeah. And the beautiful part is that you don't have to make that decision right now.

Yeah. And like, we're not building with that intention, which is the best part.

100%.

Um, I like— so we use two emojis in the way that we operate. We use a lightning bolt.

You beat me to it. It was on my— it was on my list of topics we had to get to.

So we use the lightning bolt emoji and the heart emoji. And what we like to say is that when you align your energy, which is the lightning bolt, with your heart, which is the heart emoji, like, good things will happen. You experience the endorphins. Like, our energy and our heart are fully aligned here. Like, I love to run and it's my passion. Like, I'm devoting all of my energy into what I love to do. Like, I think only good things can happen from that. And that's why I'm super excited. That's why I think why, like, my excitement resonates with—

dude, he literally just like, when you talk to him, you see the smile lighting up. He's just smiling out of nowhere. But it's all the time. Like, he's literally just a smile. Look at the camera. Like, he's just smiling on his face when he talks about running. I'll FaceTime him throughout randomly throughout the day when I just like had a bad call or something. I'm like, I just need Tyler's energy for 10 seconds.

But it has nothing to do with running.

No, no, no, not at all. It's just the infectious energy. But like, in order to be someone who's— what was the word we used? Moderator, organizer. To be the organizer of like a community, it's a— the one thing that is top-down is your energy and your attitude.

Yeah.

Because if people— that's the thing that people are taking from you. And so if you're not always on, always positive, always smiling, for sure there's moments where you're like, I'm exhausted, but you're still showing up for everyone because you can't, you can't like give off that bad energy because that will just have a ripple effect. That is like the one thing about you that I think is so admirable when trying to run a community is like you show up all the freaking time.

Yeah. And but I think like my— like we talked about like what it would look like for a big running company to acquire Endorphins, which is hilarious thing to think about. Like what I'm thinking about actively is how I can fade away. Like how can we get this to a point of this will operate without Tyler? If that can happen, Endorphins will live forever. And that's what I really want.

How many businesses do you know that are talking about the concept of legacy like 2 and a half months into starting?

It's fucking great.

It's the coolest thing ever.

Yeah. Yeah. Have you, uh, no, I'm not going to talk about Shoe Dog. We'll talk about that later.

Yeah. I'm a big Nike person.

Okay.

We can talk about it. So it's actually funny. I was running the Tokyo Marathon earlier this year and I was reading Shoe Dog at the same time. And a lot of Nike's roots are based off of Japan.

His first trip, right?

Exactly. And um, then all their factory relationship. Like, Japan plays a huge role in Nike's upbringing, and it's just so funny to see how Phil Knight built that business. Like, it was a grind for 40 years.

Credit sharks.

Exactly. They had a full grind. And not to say that I have— I'm just— I'm a Nike loyalist. Like, I'm wearing Nike, literally all Nike right now. Um, I see a trajectory for Endorphins where I'm doing this for 30 years, and I'll be like the smile you see on the screen is, is what I'll be doing for 30 years. And if that could be the case, I'd be the happiest guy ever.

Somehow I just— he has the hat on. Somehow I just envision that yellow line becoming a little bit more of a smile for some reason.

Yeah, I was going to say more swoosh.

Yeah, well, like, I think it's just like something about taking like a picture of Tyler's face and taking the exact curvature of his smile and like integrating that into the Endorphins logo.

Yeah, but then again, that would be too much about me.

Can I— you both have run marathons? Yeah.

Yeah.

I can't believe I could say yes to that question. And we were talking through that whole thing, which is also hilarious. Yeah. Tyler was someone that I was talking to. I was like, dude, I signed up for a marathon. I'm doing it, but I've never run more than 5 miles in my life.

I want to run with this for a second. No pun intended. So like, that's something that we offer to people in Endorphins right now. Most people, when they start their running journey, have no outlets or don't know Anyone when it comes to the first thing to running a marathon. And we have a virtual community right now that is almost like Reddit where people can come and be seen and heard and talk to other people about what running watch should I get? Like what running shoes should I wear on race day? Like what gels should I be consuming? And like, it's become a like hyper-engaged group of people educating each other. Um, and we have people in all different cities helping each other learn how to become a better runner. So like, I've built that because of the conversation that we've had.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is you see people, you just like drive by the West Side Highway and you see people running. You're like, oh, you put on a pair of running shoes and just start moving one foot after the other and all of a sudden you're running. And then you try and think about a marathon, all the thoughts that actually go into it. Like you already named a couple of them, but it's like, what shoes should I wear? I didn't know that you can go to like a store where they're gonna measure and scan your foot and tell you like you have a wide foot, so you should wear this shoe, and you need to go one size up, and you should wear these socks because your feet are gonna get, uh, swollen. And like, you need to figure out which gels work for your digestive system. And like, here are the different watches, and like, here's the one you should wear, and make sure you wear waterproof. And like, all I wanted to do was just run. Like, I didn't even realize this. And that was the moment for me in the journey of it when I was like, wow, there's a lot more that goes into this than I thought. And so that was also part of the foresight that I had in understanding the value that endorphins brings to a broader community. Because I was fortunate enough that I had a lot of friends around me who had run marathons, or, you know, I'm just like big into fitness, so I just know people in that world. There's so many people who don't, who were looking for this outlet to get connected to other people who wanted to do this for the first time. And it's a little less daunting, like, let alone having to figure out how to successfully run 26.2 miles, to have people doing it with you who can guide you, I think, is a very helpful thing to have.

That's it. You nailed it.

A lot of my, I don't know if it's just that we're 27 and it's at that age where a lot more people start running, but a lot of my Type A ambitious, not just founder friends, but anyone in an ambitious career trajectory, so many of them, myself included, basically have just been, maybe you played sports in college or something, have essentially just been weightlifting for the past 5 years. I feel like almost everyone I know right now is either going to some sort of martial arts at least a few times a week, like Muay Thai or kickboxing or boxing or something, or running. And it's like one or the other or both of them. Is that something that you feel— I don't know if it's just my age or our age or this broader shift of moving away from heavy lifting or more traditional types of "workouts." Yeah.

What I've noticed is the pandemic, really hard launch running into like the general, like wellness person's appetite. It's like something that's free. It's something that's easy and it didn't require any gym membership or being inside. So that was like a really easy, like first on-ramp. And then I've noticed that TikTok has really helped like promote running as a form of wellbeing that's easy for people and now anyone can do it. And it's just like very approachable.

I think the last point you made is the one that stood out to me. It was the concept of being outside. Right, because during the pandemic when everyone was stuck inside on lockdown, because it's like you took two steps outside into someone else's home, which was like so frowned upon during then, it was like the only means of like getting fresh air. I actually didn't even realize that. I mean, that makes so much sense, but I never thought about that being the thing that propelled running to be so mainstream.

Yeah, and it's only growing. I think it's like 1 in 5 people run today. I think it'll be way more than that moving forward.

But what about like I feel like you can tell me if I'm wrong, but running just like isn't good for your body. Like, what do you think about people getting access to more information around like running properly versus just running? Like, I'll be the first person to tell you, I can like get from point A to point B faster than a lot of people, not real runners, but I sure as hell know it's ugly when I'm doing it.

Well, you said it. You just said exactly why it's an issue. Like running, if you want to get faster, you actually have to go slower. So like 80% of your mileage should actually be really slow, like slower than— like people go out and they think that they have to run fast every single time and they run their body into the ground when it's actually way healthier for you to run at lower heart rate zones, which is like for me, a slower pace.

Continuing to run. This is one of the learnings I had from the marathon. Continuing to run for long periods of time at a pace where you're not getting tired is such an ego thing. To be able to convince yourself that it's okay to be doing it while you're not exhausting yourself. That took me probably the first 6 weeks of my training program to wrap my head around that, because I've always been trained as an athlete, especially as an interval athlete playing hockey. It was like, you go balls to the walls until you can't breathe anymore, and then get the fuck off the ice, recover, and then 2 and a half minutes later go back out there. But the fact that you're going to be doing something for 4 hours for some people, like, you need to be able to pace yourself. And the concept of pacing seems easy until you're someone with an ego who tries it for the first time. It's really freaking hard.

Yeah, if you want to go longer distances, you can't run fast and you have to slow down. And I think, like you said, something about misinformation. People see people running really fast and they feel like that's what they have to do all the time, and that's just really wrong.

Can you walk me through, as a beginner— I think a lot of people listening to this probably are interested or have run before, obviously, but don't know how to ramp. I'll just speak personally. I enjoy 2 or 3 miles and every time I do it, I just try to go as fast as I can and I'm trying to get more into running, but every time I hit like 2.5 miles, I'm just ripping and I'm exhausted. And then I'm like, all right, fuck this. And then I go back inside. So like, what would your plan for me be if I want to get consistency consistently to be able to run with you or with you and like enjoy 6 miles?

So it's funny. I'll right after this or now I'll forward you a link to a product that I've literally forwarded to hundreds of people at this point. And it's a running watch. And people, once they put on a running watch, can see what their heart rate is when they're running. And your heart rate can dictate how hard you're working. If your heart rate's like low, you know, you can maybe run faster. And if your heart rate's too high, which it probably is when you're running, you should slow down. And just having that barometer of when you're actually moving is like, I know that if my heart rate is between 117 and 135, I can go for 12 hours straight.

It's, it's, it's knowing, knowing where your heart rate is. And the other piece of it I'm telling you is putting your ego aside and accepting the fact that like it's okay if you're not barely breathing because you're so exhausted to— because like it, it, uh, compounds when you go. Like when you, when you run 10 miles, even if you're going at like an easy pace, like you're still gonna feel that. 10 miles is 10 miles regardless of what anyone says. So I think if I could give you any advice to someone who's not an advanced runner who made it through a marathon it's being okay with pacing yourself. Like, next time you go out for a run, what, what would you say is like your average mile pace right now when you go do 2 miles?

Just when I'm like going as fast as I can?

Yes.

Like 6:20.

Okay, so go run, go run 2 miles at a 9:30 pace. And the next time you run, I want you to run at a 9:30 pace, even though at 4 minutes into it you're going to want to pull your hair out and just start sprinting. Force yourself to do it and try to run 4 miles instead of 2. At a 9:30 pace. Just try it and see what happens.

That's great advice. And I think, um, it's all ego and it's misinformation. Like, I'm at my peak in training, I was running like for my 50-mile race like 80 miles in a week, and like probably 60 of them were at 9:30 pace.

Really?

Yeah. And like 20 were at tempo, which is like 75-20 split.

What's your 25 split? I guess question to both of you. When you're— what is the hardest part of the marathon? And two, what's your self-talk in those hardest parts?

Yeah.

Oh, I like that question.

I'll start with you. What are you—

no, I want you to go first.

The hardest part is getting to the, uh, starting line healthy. I think you experienced that, Ben.

So I didn't know what that meant. Yeah, I don't know what that means. So I, I didn't know what that meant until Tyler told me that be— probably before or right when I started my training. Um, I was like, okay, that seems like a crazy concept, but sure, I'll— you've done this before. I, I can understand what you mean directionally. A month before the start date, I couldn't run without taking ibuprofen. My body was so fucked up, and I called Tyler and I was like, holy shit, this is so real. I know exactly what you're talking about. Think of it as any other performance sporting event. Like, it's the hard work that goes into it is what you do behind closed doors. Like, you're supposed to show up the day of and enjoy it because you already put the work in. Like, when you have to show up and struggle through whatever it is, it's because you didn't work hard enough beforehand. Think about like a concert, right? If you didn't practice whatever the song was that you're gonna do, you're gonna go up there and shit yourself and do a terrible job. You're putting in miles and miles and hours and hours and hours in training of a marathon to be able to show up the day of and like get through it. Uh, and I pushed myself a little bit too far, and I like—

I—

there was days I couldn't walk, you know. And the other— when I, I went to get it looked at, there's a place that I went to in New York. Um, I went to this place called Complete Wellness, which they're, they're great. And I went there and I got x-rays done. I did the whole thing. And the doctor actually looked at me and was like, I'll give you my advice and then I'll talk about option 2 because knowing you, because we knew each other previously, I know what you're going to say to option 1. His advice was like, if I were you, I would stop running now and I wouldn't finish with the marathon. But I, and I interrupted him immediately. I was like, not an option because I told myself I need to run at least one marathon in my life. And there's no shot that I'm getting through like 85% of training and then pulling out. Like, I'm just going to will my way through this regardless of the repercussions. But essentially what was happening was because I was running incorrectly with every single step that I was taking and one part of your body starts to hurt, you start to overcompensate somewhere else in your body. So like I was having problems in my shin and then I was having problems— my shin on my right leg and my hip on my left leg. So it's even worse. Typically, like, if you get shin splints in both legs, it's usually like something in conjunction that's happening. But when you only get shin splints in one foot and pain in the other hip, it's like you're compensating somewhere and the other thing is falling apart. And it was also that in, um, in tandem with the fact that like my hips are not great from 20 years of hockey, cuz like skating really wears and tears your labrums. But it got to a point where, to Tyler's point about let's just get you healthy to the, the starting line. For the next month I was doing rehab. I really didn't run that many more miles. It was just like, what are all the things that I can do just to give myself a chance the day of? Um, and I was, I was able to get through it, but it— those 3 weeks before, it was pretty miserable.

Just pain, like physically painful.

Yeah, like getting up in the morning and like struggling to get out of bed, honestly, as crazy as it sounds.

Yeah, yeah. I think I've run, I've run a handful of marathons, and I would say the majority of them I've been injured during my training cycle. Like I'm really injured right now and I'm not running. And I think that also speaks to like the fact that when we go out and we're not a runner, like we go out and run really fast every single time. And that's why like you need to re— like you need to change how you approach running or else you will be injured for the race. And like, I think that leads to your next question, which is what happens when you do want to run a marathon? What's the hardest part? When during the race, it's like you're going to feel a lot of pain, especially if it's your first time, if you didn't train the right way. And they say the first 10 miles you should run at a little slower than your goal pace, the second 10 miles you should run a little faster than your goal pace, and the last 10K you should give everything you fucking got. And that's really what it is, because you are going to be grinding and you'll go through a roller coaster of emotions. You'll be on high, you'll be on a low, you'll be excited, you'll be anxious, you'll be nervous, you'll be hurting. You'll be in a dark place and like you have to be able to acknowledge all those emotions and proceed. And it's really difficult. Like you go through such a roller coaster ride in such a short amount of time. Like think about all the times in your life that you felt anxious, excited, happy, nervous, scared, injured, and just like, like all of those things in one period of time.

So here's the, here's the way that I'll pose it to you. And I think this is what hit home for me. How many things do you do in your life for 4 hours straight without stopping other than sleeping?

Nothing. So it's just your mind like chattering at nothing.

Think about that. Yeah, think about how many things you do every day. Nothing for that long in one period of time consistently. When people don't think deep enough about the question, like, oh, I work, I'm like, yeah, but you go on Instagram and you go for a walk and you get a snack and you sit on the couch. It is 4 hours non-stop in your thoughts up and down. For me personally, there was one specific moment that I call upon that was like the moment where I hit a wall. So I had my headphones in and Siri would read my messages to me. And it was actually really helpful because I would have friends who were texting me like, hey, keep going, like, you're doing great. And as crazy as it sounds, those moments of like confidence were really good for me. There was one moment I was— my family was there and I saw them 3 times throughout the race, the New York City Marathon. And my mom would basically just tell me like, here's where we are. So just look out for us when you're coming because it's a long race. And there was one moment I was running down Fifth Ave and I think I was at around 120th Street or something, and I was in a really good rhythm. I was in a flow state, like I was doing very well mentally. And this was pretty late in the race at this point. And I got a— Siri goes on the headset and goes, you've received a text message from your mom. And she goes, hi, buddy, we're on 56 in Park or something. And I looked up at the street sign and I was at like 120th and I was like, oh my fuck. Every street for the next like 30 minutes, I looked up at the street, street sign. It was the longest stretch of the marathon by a mile because time slowed down in that moment because I was tracking where I was. Whereas the best part of the previous 3 hours was very much just like me in the present in my thoughts, like really just staying calm and enjoying it. But then once I was battling with this concept of time, I was like, oh my God, I'm not going to make it.

And 4 hours is like pretty fast. Like if you run in 4 hours, that's awesome. Like people listening to this might be like, 4 hours? Like I did it in 7.

So I did, I did 4:06.

Uh, my fast, I don't even remember.

I did 4, I did 4:06. It was my first time ever running a marathon. My goal was to do 4 hours. I'm not going to sit here and make excuses. I do know that like it was Strava. Strava put out a report after the marathon last year that it was the, it was 11 minutes slower than the previous year and the average marathon pace for that marathon because the conditions were so poor.

It was just really hot.

It was really humid, dude. People were dropping like flies. It was crazy.

What happened? Did people literally pass out?

Yeah, people passed out. I would be running next to someone and they would just like grab their hamstring and fall over. In addition to like, it's like I ran—

it was on the course.

I ran with two friends. I feel remiss to not tell this story. I ran with two friends and we were running together and on mile 4, one of them stopped to take a shit and I waited for like 5 minutes. And after that I was like, I can't wait anymore. And then at like mile 10, I was like, I'll see you guys at the end.

Do people just cramp up and like—

Yeah, no, no one was hydrated enough.

I also want to just say like, like 4 hours, like I don't like to talk about pace when I talk about—

Yeah, let me, let me take this back. For a second, like I'm not a runner. I'm not sitting here saying it's a good time or a bad time. It's just the objective time I got. I was just me competing with myself, but I have way more respect for people who can run 10 marathons, even a little bit slower than that. It was just the competitive part of me, like setting a goal for myself and working towards it, which by the way, I failed my goal. My goal was 4 hours. I did like 4:06 and 29 seconds or something. Uh, so the time is definitely not like anything, not relevant at all.

Yeah.

But you, what were you gonna say?

Good.

When I talk about running, I just know that there's so many people with so many different experience levels that like, if you were to say that's fast or that's slow, that's really not fair because it's relative to yourself. To your point, like 4:06 might be fast for you and that might be slow for someone else. So it's really unfair to say like 4:06 is a fast time. It's like what you said, it's you versus you. And that's why running's really cool because you can track how you've done and then you can go out again and see how you've done against that benchmark. And like having something to shoot towards every single time you go out is really cool and special.

What— I have a lot of questions for you guys, as you can tell. First question, when the same way launching as we're all doing right now, launching and growing a community, a company, whatever, a brand, whatever you want to call it, once you've done it or creating content, once you've done it, it changes you as a person and it bleeds into other interactions like the confidence I have of having launched a company and have it do well and have a team and lead that team, it changes the way I interact with you, every single interaction in a day. You become more confident. And a lot of people that I know that do hard physical things have a similar way of moving after and have a swagger about them because I've talked to them before and after. And so does that happen with running marathon or doing 75 Hard? How has it changed you as people and how you interact with me and interact with people before and after?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. So 2 weeks ago, around a 50-mile race—

Jesus—

and I think I've grown 10x through the training of that because I was constantly having to hold myself accountable and do really hard things every single day. And that's like run 10 miles today on a Monday morning before work, or that's run 35 miles in 2-degree weather to train. And like, those are the things that you don't necessarily see. You might see that on like when I'm posting on TikTok, but like, that's every single day thing. And when you can hold yourself accountable and consistent like that in a training capacity, like, you can do that with relationships, you can do that with friendships. Like, I will always follow up. Like, I'm always there, Ben. You might know this about me. Like, you probably get at 6 AM, like, I'm journaling, reflecting, and sending off texts. And like, I think that's created a process for who I am as a being that's transcended running. And I think that's like really, really special. And I think I can definitely attribute that back to my training, which has been interesting.

I think for me it was a unique, uh, it was a unique moment for me because I would say that it was the first time post my hockey career where I was really searching for like— there was kind of this void where I devoted so much time and dedication and sacrifice and energy into like one thing, and you actually were able to like quantify the results. And then once that was over, I just felt like I had all this pent-up energy and desire to like do another thing. And it was more so, uh, how can I do something outside of like my daily work life, which is like building a company? And so for me, the marathon was that challenge for me, despite the fact that I was never a runner. I knew how hard it was. I knew the sacrifices that I had to make going into it, uh, for 3 months of my life when I went into this training program, when I like stopped drinking. I was basically— everything I was doing was, uh catered to this program. It was running 4 days a week. It was like this many miles these days of the week, and there was nothing that was going to get in my way. And it was hard. It was fucking hard. Like, you sacrifice so much to do it. And I think the thing that I got out of it once I finished it was how much fulfillment I got and how much energy I got from the actual journey of like doing hard things, right? Like right now I'm doing a lot of different things and I'm more fulfilled than I ever was because I think I've fallen in love with being able to see results of incremental improvements every single day. The thing that I believe now more than ever is truly that like your daily actions compound. Like a lot of people lose sight of the fact that like doing the right things day after day matter. And I think the marathon training was that moment for me. And so now if I don't see progress in a day or two, I don't lose sight of remembering what I saw after 3 months. And it forces me now to stay the course with anything new that I'm trying. To just trust if I stay consistent and work hard that it will get to where I want it to go.

Yeah. Do you think it's— do you think that's what— that's why a lot of people gravitate over time maybe to running, especially like former athletes, because you can very easily measure yourself up against how you did yesterday. Like with— I mean, even we've talked about this with boxing or Muay Thai or stuff like week over week. I can— okay, maybe my technique's better, but like I'm not training for a fight. I can't measure. There's no goal that I'm building towards where I'm really tempted and I'm really personally interested by running because I'm like, I could just go sign up for a 5K and that's going to be in 3 weeks and I can measure myself and then do it again the next one.

Yeah. Well, I think you can measure yourself in Muay Thai or any other thing. You can measure things that are qualitative, not quantitative.

I think it's the— But I do think it's probably the easiest form of fitness when you're trying to recalibrate in a sense that you want to track quantitative progress, I think running is probably one of the easiest ways to do it. Because like with boxing, there are ways to do it quantitatively— qualitatively, sorry— but it takes a lot more thought and it's a lot harder to actually track. Whereas with running, it's like, okay, I'm gonna run a mile every single day, and day 1 was a 9-minute mile, and maybe by day 30 I'm doing like 7-minute miles. And you can actually see the reward there.

Yeah, that's at least why I'm tempted by it.

Yeah, I think, I think that's, I think that's directionally fair. I would say for me, I wasn't so much tracking time, uh, more so than it was like a goal that I was working towards. Because the other part with, with like the boxing piece, we're not training for a fight. So when you're doing it every day, it's a lifestyle thing. There's not an end result. Whereas for me, with the marathon, it was like I'm training to be able to successfully run 26.2 miles, which I was able to do. So I think having a goal maybe was my why, but I can understand what you're looking for in running.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's in life— if you played college sports, like, your goal might be to win the championship, right? But like, in life, like, you have professional goals. Many don't have personal goals. Most, most don't have personal goals. And I think having something every single day to commit an hour to that's going to better yourself or something that you can see progress in is one of the most rewarding things. And that's why, like, when we talk about marathon training, you're not going to see an improvement one week after you start, but 3 weeks you might feel different. And after 3 months, you're going to be a different person. And then come race day, like, you'll have done so much work on yourself towards a goal that it's literally a party. If you're healthy.

What are the feelings immediately after a race when you step over the line of a 50-miler?

When's the next one?

Really?

So the last 5 miles of my 50-mile race, me and my friend Carrie Clark, who's another TikTok creator, we're literally talking about we need to sign up for another race during this race or else we're going to feel some of like you were kind of talking.

So I'm going to just tell you that the— what was the exact question is what's the feeling after the race? The minute you step over the feeling after the race, the minute you step over the line, you recognize recognize if you're a serial runner or just someone who wanted to do a marathon. Yes, because I did not finish that race with the thought of like, when is the next marathon? I was like, holy fuck, get me a nice tub and put the Bills game on, and I just need to sit down for a minute. I'm so glad this is finally over, despite it was rewarding and it was cool. But I did not— honestly, like, being completely transparent, I did not walk away from that like, oh my God, I can't wait wake up tomorrow and run. It was like, I don't want to think about this for a while. And after a few months, I decided to start running again, and I do enjoy it now. Like, we're gonna do some crazy running activity in a few weeks, which we can talk about. Um, I'd love to talk about it. Yeah, we can, we can jump into that in a minute.

But I will say, if you get injured during your training cycle, it becomes extremely miserable. Like, it becomes miserable. And I feel that, like, I'm surprised that, um, someone that's so goal-oriented as you, Ben, you didn't hit your goal. Like, most people, if they don't hit their goal, they are signing up immediately for another race because they want another. So like with New York City Marathon last year, it was super hot outside. Like, I talked to runners every day, and the people that are signing up are people that ran last year that didn't hit their goals because it was too hot outside.

You know my problem with that? Because I— you just saying that actually like made my heart sink into my stomach, and now I probably have to do another marathon just because of that.

Got a hit for him.

Yeah.

Um, it was more because it's Dude, it's like not— it's not a one-week commitment, right? Like, when you fall short of that goal, like, to just get up and, uh, spontaneously be like, I gotta do it again, like, you're just committing to another 4 to 6 months of your life.

It's like 4 to 6 months if you—

I did 3 months, but I wouldn't recommend that to anyone because I never ran before.

So you're touching on something that goes back to endorphins. Like, I don't see endorphins as running. I see it as a way of life. If you can buy into the day-to-day of making training a priority or just running a priority for yourself, it doesn't feel like it's work. Like, I'm gonna go through a 5, um, a 4-month training block right now when I train for Chicago or New York City Marathon, and like, it doesn't feel like training because it feels like it's a lifestyle for me. And I think like, once you can like flip the switch in your head of training isn't a chore, it's something that you should be grateful that you do with my friends. Exactly. It's something that you should be grateful for because you're able to do it, you're healthy enough to do it, then it doesn't feel like it's work. It feels like it's part of that lifestyle of pushing yourself towards a goal. And if you can get to that mentality, you can flip the switch, then it becomes fun.

Yeah. Tell me more about— maybe this leads into what you guys are planning, but again, one of the reasons I'm so intrigued by it is sometimes after, like yesterday, after a long day of work, it was like 6:30, I went and lifted for 30 minutes and then went back upstairs. And I was just sore. I hadn't talked to anyone. I didn't, like, get my space, get some peace where I realized I was like, I could have gone for a 30-minute run outside with a couple of friends and that would have been a completely different end or bookend to my day. And so maybe that leads into what you guys are planning. But tell me more about that.

Yeah. So to what you were just speaking about, I think like when you share exercise with other people or when you do hard things with other people—

Tone House, baby—

you get um, you create really strong bonds. So like some of the runs that we do in New York City are like the perimeter of Manhattan, options for 1 to 33 miles.

Really?

People— I'll share my location with people and they'll come for literally 1 mile or they'll come for all 33. And what I've noticed is the people that stick around for the entire run leave and they are super tight after because they shared a crazy hard experience with one another. That's why anytime I run a marathon— like, I've run like 15 marathons this year, um, sanctioned or just ones that I'm just running for fun, like running around the city. And like the people that stick around for all of those, like I'm tight with, like we still text. Like I have group texts with people like Dan Churchill who's going to be in the June—

genuine friends.

Like these are people that— I mean, if you do anything hard with anyone, yeah, you become tight. Like when you share that moment of the last 10K that we talked about, when you're grinding, you're in the pain cave with someone else, you're just bonded for life, dude.

I love that. I actually just got chills when you said that because I'm just like reflecting on moments in my life that were tough when there were people there, and I'm like, holy shit, that's so true.

Yeah, it's—

there's, there's an—

there's a, a qualitative element to it that you can't really describe, but you both get it because you're both there and you understand it, and no one else can relate, which is what you guys— which allows you to relate on a level that no one else can be at in that particular moment.

And that's why Endorphins is growing the way it is.

I think it's like heightened emotions.

Yeah, it's amplified.

Pain cave. Like, there was, uh, I was in Costa Rica this past week. It was for my birthday. A bunch Friends like flew in. And what I remember most when I think about that trip, the immediate memory is not going out to dinner and like getting drinks with each other and getting drunk, even though that was a lot of fun. The, the, the memory that comes top of mind is we're coming back on this boat and there's like a storm coming and the waves were getting like really choppy. And there are a couple of moments where even the captain was like, you could see there's like a little danger on his face. He was like, we should slow down. We ended up getting like out of the way, but there was like 20 minutes where it was like borderline dangerous. Like people really hitting the sides of the boat and water splashing everywhere. And everyone's just kind of looking at each other and holding on for dear life. And that's immediately my favorite memory of the trip, even though it was physically painful and I was mentally a little shaken up. Still, that's my favorite time.

I think something that might be really relatable for anyone watching this is pledging, pledging a fraternity or being the freshman on the hockey team, right? You're going through getting shit on and kicked in the balls every every single day and you're doing that with other people, like, you can take that same approach and tie it towards running long distances or running 5 miles with other people. Like, that just takes a mutual respect for people to show up and do hard things with one another, and you create those bonds that are like very strong and no one else can relate.

That's what makes it beautiful.

Yeah.

Um, I think it should be, it should be live by now. Uh, so I think it's appropriate for us to talk about I mean, you guys both know this, but I haven't spoken about this publicly, but I've been working on a vlog for probably the last year now, uh, which has just been like a passion side project of mine. I think for me, I've always been someone who's always had to like itch that— scratch that itch, excuse me, um, of like the creative side of me, just because it's like fun and I just always want to explore. And I had this concept for a vlog called Birthday Party, uh, which I'm just explaining it for the people listening because obviously you both know what this is, but The concept of Birthday Party is around this idea that a lot of times on your birthday, people would just— excuse me— blow out a candle and make a wish. And usually the wish is just something that's so unattainable, or it's like materialistic or unattainable, and it just kind of stays there in the ethos forever and they never actually go after it. And so, and the other piece of it is that there's a lot of people who don't like celebrating their birthdays. And so this idea that I had was around the concept of having guests on the, on the vlog, and every episode they blow out a candle and make a wish. and then we go do the wish with them. Uh, so basically our infrastructure as the birthday party vlog or the birthday party team serves as the forcing function to bring these things to life. And part of that for me was number one, wanting to like see other people fulfilled and doing things they've always talked about wanting to do but never did. And the second one selfishly for me is like being able to do really cool things with really cool people. And we are doing an episode with Tyler on June 10th. Uh, which is way outside my comfort zone. Um, but I'm really excited for it. I would say like to date, it's definitely the hardest, uh, production that we've put together. I've given you a little bit of information, Adrian, but like we have two executive producers that are co-producing it. Uh, we've like a full team of people have been working on this for weeks. Um, yeah. So basically we're doing 126-mile run from the lighthouse in Montauk to Times Square. And it's going to be 2 teams of 7, 8. Ryan and I, my roommate, are the co-hosts, but we're like kind of just plugged in there, uh, where there's 2 teams of 7, all predominantly running creators, uh, each team in an RV, and it's going to be a relay run. The rule is basically just one person has to be running at all times, and it's the first one back to Times Square wins. It'll be like a 21 to 24 hour race starting at the lighthouse, starting at the lighthouse in Montauk.

Damn.

Yeah.

And so it's a bunch of running creators.

Not necessarily.

Not all of them.

I would say it's a bunch of friends.

Honestly, it's a lot of friends, but a lot of them are full-time running content creators. And we have a couple who are content creators who don't do running content, but are like hilarious people who do also happen to run. Um, and then there's a couple of people who aren't creators, but they're like big runners. Uh, but we have a group of 16 people, including Ryan and myself, that are all participating in this.

When this goes live, we got to like link in videos of that.

Yeah, yeah, we can, we can put, we can put like a link or a blurb or a quick shot of whatever the funny moment is of Tyler along this journey.

Me eating Cheez-Its on the Montauk Highway.

Yeah, I don't know. I feel, I feel all the things for this because like the competitive side of me is going to definitely force me to like carry my weight on my team. But I can tell you that there's a couple of people who are participating who have already asked Tyler permission to like run at least 50 miles of the leg. Yeah, which I never thought— I never thought the problem we would have to deal with from 126-mile run is holding people back to make sure that everyone can get enough miles, because 22 miles in an RV is like kind of a long time. So you want to make sure you're at least getting to run for like a decent amount of it. But the fact that there might be a world where there's people like fighting over, no, no, I want 10 more miles, is like a hilarious thought to me.

I got off the phone with Dan Churchill this morning, who's training for for Leadville, which is like one of the most intense races. Um, it's a 100+ mile run in Leadville, Colorado at altitude. There's Summit to Peaks, you're going through the wilderness. Wilderness. It's like known as one of the toughest, uh, races in the US.

That's like David Goggins shit.

Yeah, Leadville.

Yeah, Goggins I believe has run it. There's a few other of these like crazy ultra marathons. Like, it's intense. And like, when you're training for a race like that, you need to be putting up 50-mile runs here or there, um, during your training cycle. So like, Dan is running this race in August. He needs to run— he wants to run 62 miles of this race, half of the race. So I'm like, mate, if you want to come out— he's like, the Saturdays are so important, I need to be training. It's like, coming out, there's, there's 126 miles and RVs for you and food and water and cameras. Like, what else could you ask for? She's pumped.

That's fucking amazing.

Yeah, you should also have Dan on this podcast.

Yeah, definitely. I can't wait to meet him.

Yeah, he's awesome.

We gotta get more like fitness creators on.

He's a chef.

I randomly— yeah, that's the funniest part. He's not a fitness creator, uh, but oddly enough, I've like gotten connected with so many lately. So the— an episode that we shot a few weeks ago, we ran a 5K at the Circuit of the Americas track in Austin, which is where F1 takes place. Um, again, like, I look back at why I started Birthday Party, I was like, I would never ever wake up one day and be like, I'm gonna figure out how I can run a 5K on an F1 track. Never would have been a thought, but like, after doing it, I'm like, holy shit, that was so cool.

So cool.

Another one, uh, actually I'm gonna pull— I don't wanna—

I don't—

we just booked one the other day, but I don't know if it will air yet before this goes, so I don't want— I'll tell you guys offline. No, no, another episode of something that someone proposed. I'm like, that is crazy. I had to Google what it was, uh, but we're doing it. I can't wait to share with you guys, but I don't wanna— I don't wanna spill it yet on here.

I'm excited.

One, I think we're probably coming up on time, but one question I had for both of you, say in a month when I'm doing 6 miles or 7 miles or something, when my self-talk goes to, fuck, this is hard. What do you, what have you guys learned about managing that self-talk when it gets difficult or when you're in pain or something really fucking hurts or you're cramping and you say, let me just like, I can finish this tomorrow or I can pick this up in in a week, what are you telling yourself?

I think there's two different things. Um, when I'm in pain, I have to really understand the moment that I'm in. So like, for example, there's been many times where I've been in pain when I'm training for these long-distance runs, and I say, is this race day, yes or no? If it's not, I have to be able to tell myself and acknowledge this moment isn't as important, and I need to stay healthy. So I'll actually pull out. Really? And like, I think that's harder for many than actually continuing. I think like we live in a world today where toughness is perceived as fighting through pain. And I think if you really are mentally tough, you can understand the moment that you're in, and then you can make the right call for your body in that moment. And I think, um, that self-talk is really, really difficult to train yourself in. So I'd say that's the hardest thing for me.

I think that's a much more mature response than the one I'm going to give you. And I think the difference is he approaches every situation knowing the longevity that aiming for in his running career. Whereas for me, I was very much like, get through the marathon at all costs. And like, the bottom line is you have to put miles in in order to be able to do it. So like, if I was falling short at 6 miles every single time I ran, like, there's no world where you just wake up and run 26. I mean, it's possible, but it won't end well if the most you did was 6 and then you try to do 26. For me, it was two things. The first one was remember why you started, and the second one was think about moments in your life where you actually were going through hard hardship. Like, being tired or a little bit hurt when you're going through a run is not the worst thing you face in your life. And if it is, like, more power to you. But like, think about real adversity you've overcome. And for me, like, I find peace in thinking about other situations that were harder that I did overcome that allowed me to like feel more at peace in the present with whatever the pain was that I felt.

It's a good answer.

I'd also say, so I spoke about when it's not race day, and then when it is race day, it's a whole different thing. You need to dig really fucking deep. So like I ran this 50-mile race and I went into it and I wasn't healthy. And I mentally the whole way was like, okay, I was doing body scans the entire way saying, okay, left knee, good. Right knee, good. Left hip, good. Right hip, good. Like going through the whole thing. And for the last 10 miles, my knee was shot. And I basically had to tell myself like, it's only 10 miles. So I think like what I mean when I say it's only 10 miles is like you can say, shit, I have 10 more miles to go, or you can say it's only 10 miles. Like, I've done that so many, so many times. And if you can approach it with a positive mindset as opposed to this negative lens, like, it makes approaching really hard things easier. So that's how I'd approach it, like, in that pain cave moment.

And I think that's how he approaches his life. And I think that's a beautiful place to end because that, to me, epitomizes endorphins as well.

Yeah.

Um, Tyler, this was awesome, man. I appreciate you coming on. Take a look at that camera. Tell everyone where they can find you and what you're, what you're working on.

@SportsCenter, all channels. And, uh, yeah, this is cool. Thanks for having me.

What about Endorphins?

Endorphins, uh, community.endorphins.io. Um, it's all on my, like, personal socials, but we have @EndorphinsRunning on Instagram as well. And we don't really post there. It's like only UGC. It's like if people want to post on their story about endorphins, great, we'll restory it.

But that's right. If someone wants to join, uh, Endorphins NYC, where do they go?

Um, Westside Highway, Monday morning, 7:15 in the morning, baby. Let's go! Pier 45.

There you go. Yeah, awesome. Thanks, Tyler.