How To Raise Adventurous, Healthy, Vibrant Children Who Have A Love For The Outdoors.

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness Podcast, our relationship with the natural world suggests that we are superior to it or we're gonna, you know, dominate this mountain. That's actually not really what I want to foster in my children.

A child develops a greater respect for nature, a greater respect for the mountain, for the raging river, for the cold, for the heat, etcetera, when they're not in it to beat it, but to just to be in it and to dwell within it. Performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. All right, today's episode is a good one. It's with a mom and a super athlete. Her name is Katie Arnold. She has cracked the code on how to raise healthy kids, how to stay active, how to get your kids outdoors. We dealt into the science of that. We delve into how to be a busy parent and stay fit at the same time, and we delve into even more deeply. You know, I cover a lot of these productivity and parenting concepts in my new book, Boundless, which, if you haven't read it yet, please grab it@boundlessbooks.com and please, please, please, if you did not get a chance to read a review or not read a review, but leave a review on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Goodreads, please leave my book a review. It's the best thing you can do to help this message of BO energy take the world by storm. And what we talk about in today's episode is a little bit of what's in Boundless parenting productivity. Staying fit, but having a life and having a social life and having hobbies and all those other things that you crave in the meantime. That and much more is in BoundlessBooks.com, but what I'm specifically asking you for right now are reviews. So wherever you got the book or wherever you're getting the book, please, please, please leave a review. It helps the show or helps the book out a ton. Well, folks, my guest on today's show, her name is Katie Arnold. You may have come across her writings before, especially if you're into the outdoors, because she is a contributing editor at Outside Magazine, and she even has a column with a great title called Raising Rippers. It's a column about bringing up adventurous children that she writes for Outside Online. She's also written for the New York Times, for Runner's World, for espn, and many, many other publications. And as you no doubt have guessed, she herself is an outdoors athlete. She's actually the 2018 Leadville Trail 100 champion. She lives in Santa Fe. Great city to be an outdoorsy person and really relevant to today's discussion. Not only has she written a book called Running Home and I'll link to that in the show notes, but she also has two daughters and she managed to weave together life as a successful endurance athlete and also a successful writer and also a successful parent. At least from what I understand. Her children are not in prison. So I'm going to put her in the category of successful parent. Her name is Katie Arnold and everything that Katie and I talk about today you can find over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com Katie that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com K A T I. So Katie, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Ben. I'm psyched to be here.

Yeah, well, I'm stoked to have you. And I've seen some of your articles pop up now and again. You're raising Rippers column about how you're raising adventurous children. And I know you've been involved in this elite ultra runner community for quite some time. But just so people can wrap their heads around what it means to be an elite ultra runner, describe the Leadville Trail race to me. What exactly does that look like?

That is a hundred mile high altitude ultra marathon.

Like how high?

It goes to 12,600ft. So it's pretty high.

That's enough. Anytime you get above 6,000, you can feel it.

Yeah, it starts at 10,000. Right. It starts in Leadville, which is about 10, 2 and kind of rolling terrain but at high elevation. And then it climbs over what's called Hope Pass, which I love the name because you do feel such hope when you're on top. You cross it, you climb it once and then descend the other side. And then you have to turn around and climb it back the other way and then descend. I hate that. And yeah, so I think some people would think that's a nightmare. I'm actually, you know, mountains are my favorite. They're sort of my specialty. So it plays to my strengths. But it's a terrific race. It's a big field. About 800 people started and maybe about 350, 400 finish it in the allotted time. But it's really and the seat scenery is stunning. But yeah, it took me just under 20 hours. So that's a long time to be in motion.

Just under 20. Now when you say that that number of people finish, based on my rough calculations, that's less than a 50% finish rate. Are people primarily dropping out? Aside from Pure boredom in the case of some folks due to injuries, due to attrition from poor nutrition management or. What do you think's the reason that the failure rate's so high?

A lot of people I think are getting cut off. There's time limits and that's in the interest of runner safety so that they're not out in the mountains, you know, too long so that there's a 30 hour cutoff and at various aid stations they're cutoff time. So if you don't make it into say the 50 mile aid station in the allotted time, there's someone there, a race official who just clips your bib and you're done. And so that I think is, you know, I think most people who show up at Leadville, I mean, obviously some people have injuries or their stomachs go south on them, but most people I think, you know, would be able to finish if there wasn't a time limit. Right. You just can gut it out at that point. It's so mental you do to get to the finish line. But there are those very strict. Down to the, down to the minute. Absolutely. I was crewing last year, I was helping someone, so I was pacing someone and I got to hang out at an aid station at mile 62. Coming back in to the finish and, you know, saw the woman cutting people off and it was, it's very moving because they, you know, the runners know there's no wiggle room, there's no talking her out of, you know, cutting their bib. But she has so much compassion. Right. And you, you can just feel the absolute human will to keep going is so strong.

How, how many times have you done it?

That was my first time.

You won it the first time you did it?

I did, yeah. That was my first hundred mile race. My first time at Leadville.

Wow. Okay. So. So for you, for something like that, I want to get into your training a little bit and I don't want just turn this into, you know, an insider glimpse of ultra running that, you know, 0.1% of the folks who are listening are actually going to go out and do. So I'm not sure how relevant your, your training program is going to be, but I want to, I want to hear you weave that into family. But I'm curious. You know me because I am huge into the logistics of the nutrition, the fueling, the pacing aspects of these type of events. Having done Ironman for quite some time, I just, I love to geek out on it. So I'm just curious like how, how you Actually engage in self care during an event like this. Like, like what, what are the big wins when it comes to the type of nutrition or hydration tactics you use, the type of pacing you might use, whether that be power or heart rate to ensure you aren't blowing up too soon. Like, are there specific big wins that you think really help?

Yeah, I think first of all, nutrition. And so fortunately, I usually have a pretty good stomach, meaning I can take in calories and convert them into energy and not get an upset stomach. But my strategy for that is that I eat every 30 minutes. So I'll take a gel, I'll take a goo every 30 minutes during the race. And that just kept my energy steady. I never had really any low points where I felt like I was bonking and, and I really could get everything down. It was probably the last 10 or 15 miles that I started to have a little bit of that gag reflex when I tried to eat, but I'm also like, I also had trained myself, so I practiced that in training and I've, I've always found that that works for me. About 200 calories an hour. That's at lower elevation. So when I get above 11,000ft, I need more. So then I'm about 300 calor an hour. But I'd practice that. As you know, I've been ultra running for eight years and I'd been doing that the whole time. But what I really practice in the training cycle leading up to Leadville was also training myself to be able to eat whatever they were offering on the aid station tables.

Yeah.

So to eat what they're offering and to not be so rigid with my nutrition that I couldn't say, have, you know, some watermelon or I tend to go for fruits, bananas. I had some ramen soup at the high point at Hope Pass. I learned how to drink soda when I run, which I'd never done. And I thought that was, you know, I just thought that was sacrilege. Right. To have soda and I don't know.

I think soda can be a godsend. Not only do I agree with you that in these long events where flavor fatigue can become an issue that you don't anticipate for the first few hours or that you haven't actually gotten to because you've only gone as far as, say, 75 miles in a training run, flavor fatigue becomes an issue, which dictates that what is available at these aid stations becomes increasingly attractive as the race progress. Whether that be cookies or coke or bananas or watermelon. Or what have you. And if you're say, relying upon that fancy, I don't know, liquid ketone, ester, dextrose blend that that is all you're going to touch during the entire race. It can become an issue when you can't even think about that particular form of fuel without the thought of vomiting or gagging. And then when it comes to coke specifically, I used to stick to my guns during Ironman all the way up to the half marathon mark of the run. And it was at that point when I figured out that the sugar caffeine flavor combination of coke was perfect for that final kick to the finish line. So I would kind of wait and wait and save it. But I would also occasionally during training do things like have an Oreo cookie or eat a piece of a power bar or consume those things that might not be staples but that I knew were going to be part of the aid station because of A, the flavor fatigue and B, what if goes south and you actually lose your, your fuel belt or your nutrition and have to rely on coarse fuel? You can't paint yourself into the corner of being just a stickler on whatever. This has got to be gluten free or this has got to be something that shifts me into ketosis versus maltodextrin and fructose. You gotta be a little bit freewheeling with these things.

I'm a big believer in that. I think that you have to train to be nimble and that goes for life as well as training and endurance. But is when we get super stuck on the only thing that works, that's pretty good sign that we need to shift our thinking and be more open minded. And so that's what I did. I think that I love what you said about flavor fatigue, but I would also say that texture fatigue is a big one, right. So I'm sponsored by goo. So I, I eat goo and they've always worked for me and I love it. And you know, I credit winning Leadville really to a lot of my nutrition strategy. But after a certain point, right the just the texture of those gels becomes oppressive and so I would just mix in watermelon, you know, whatever I could. And certain the soda I'm like you is I, you know, I just did a race on Saturday, 60k and I didn't drink soda until I wait until about the halfway mark or if I'm having a bad day then sooner. But when I, you know, if I really start thinking about it and I'm down or I'm having a Hard day or something's not working. I'll get out, get to the coke sooner.

Yeah. And for you, in addition to the nutrition, are you doing anything special from a hydration standpoint? Hydration, electrolytes, et cetera?

Yeah, I'm drinking the Gu Roctane. So I'm drinking the, you know, the bottles have what I think if you put the right amount of powder in, like 200 calories. So I've gotten a lot of liquid calories too. And my hydration strategy has always been I'm pretty much a minimalist when it comes to sort of bells and whistles and strategies and products. But when I, when I think about drinking, I drink. Right. So anytime I think I should drink, that's my cue to drink. And this just, this race on Saturday, I was even more deliberate and my goal was it was a training race, so my goal was to practice things that I would, you know, strategies that I would try to use later in some of my bigger goal races. But one of them was to finish a bottle between every aid station. So. So I'd never been so deliberate about that. Right. Sometimes I'd come into aid station, be like, oh, I only drank half a bottle. And so this was a really good practice to do that. And I was successful in that regard in this race that I emptied a bottle between every aid station, which was about seven or eight miles.

Yeah. The Gu Roctane also is interesting. For those of you listening in, most energy gels are either fructose or maltodextrin. I used to use guroctane during some of my Ironman races prior, prior to shifting into the use of essential amino acids. I would use Roctane energy gel because that has the branched chain amino acids in it and I think they double the electrolytes in that and kind of turn it into like a little bit more of a slow bleed. Ultra endurance fuel. And I've since become a little bit less excited about branched chain amino acids. And I like essential amino acids better just because I think those do a better job staving off central nervous system fatigue and post race or post workout soreness. But yeah, the Roctane is an interesting blend and it's just, it's something so many people don't realize is the amount of training that goes into one of these ultra endurance events can immediately or very quickly be negated by the improper nutrition practice. Not fueling early and fueling often. I would always have a timer. For me, it was every 20 minutes during Ironman that I would fuel you know, maintaining hydration and electrolytes, not waiting until you're thirsty.

There's no, no way.

So many things you have to stay ahead of. Now, for your pacing, did you simply listen to your body or do you use like a running power meter or a heart rate monitor or anything like that?

I'm really low tech. I listened to my body actually in Leadville. I had just started using. I rarely use a watch even, but sort of in the lead up to Leadville, like the last six weeks, I started my GP like a suunto watch and just to get a handle on pace. But I really, when I run, I try to let go of time and be in time and be in flow with time and not try to race it or, you know, I think also, you know, in life sometimes we're trying to slow things down, right? Slow time down. You know, your kids are growing, everything's going too fast. You're trying to fight time and. Or you're in a race and you're. And that's just. We create so much resistance around time. And so my whole mantra at Leadville was to be in time, to be in the flow of time and let it carry me. And so I didn't want to get hung up on the time on my watch or my pace down to the second.

Right.

Which in an ultra means nothing, but you can certainly get hung up on it. And so it was a little bit, it was a little bit out of character for me to use my watch. But right before the race I was debating it and a friend was like, just use it as a tool, tool. Just don't, you know, don't get fixated. And so I had a great race with my watch because it died at mile 50.

You mean your watch for time or your watch for heart rate?

No, I don't do heart rate. I was, I mean, it runs heart rate, but I don't really look at it. And no, my, my watch was, you know, telling me distance. So I knew where I was, I knew my pace, I would check it occasionally. And so it gave me a good sense. And because the course is an out and back, it was actually quite helpful to have it on the outb right on the, on the way out so I could, I knew what sort of pace I was running. And then right as I got to Hope Pass, I guess that's about mile 42, my watch died, right, Because I didn't know to run it on low. I'm very low tech, as I said. And so I didn't know how to run it on low, low energy use. And so my watch died, which was also a gift because then I could let go and I was already in the flow of the day and I'd already, you know, I was really having a great day and I, and then I could just run free of all that and just run with my body and the mountains and the energy that's just in the mountains. And so the pacing was helpful and then it was nice to not have to worry about it. But that's when I picked up, I did pick up a pacer. So I picked up three runners. One, my husband started at mile 50 and brought me to mile 62. And then I picked up another who took me 15 miles. And then I picked up my third who took me the final 25. And so then they were keeping an eye on the pace and I just said, you know, I just want to roll 9 minute miles in here. And they would keep an eye on the watch so I could just focus on running.

Yeah, that's one of the difficult things too about ultra endurance events is this idea of cardiac drift, meaning that if you've identified your aerobic heart rate zone that you would rarely want to shift out of so that you're not exhausting glycogen stores or, you know, causing lactic acid metabolites, et cetera, to build up too quickly, you would stay within that zone. But as your blood volume decreases and the race progresses, that heart rate shifts dramatically by the time that you finish. So it can be dangerous to rely purely on heart rate versus associating the feeling that is associated with that fat oxidation kind of aerobic heart rate and relying more upon that in the feel of it during the race itself. I think that one thing I used to do was I would use technology quite a bit in training and then unplug during the race and listen to my body, body, because I knew the sensation like I know, okay, my lactate threshold heart rate might be at 175, but here I am at mile or hour nine of an Ironman triathlon. I have that same feeling and my heart rate is at 165. Right. And that's because of that cardiac drift. And so, you know, if I would have pushed and tried to get higher and higher and closer to that 175 mark, I would have blown up. And so, yeah, understanding how to listen to your body, I think that's also very important during these events.

Yeah, I mean, that's always how I've been an athlete, I've been an Outdoor athlete my whole adult life. And I am low tech. And it's interesting to hear you talk about your strategies. It's so interesting that you train with all your metrics and then let go of it during a race. I. I didn't race on Saturday with my watch. And I think it was actually a mistake because it was too early in my season. It was a training run, right. And so I hadn't maybe in my mind, like, earned the ability to leave my watch behind. Right. I hadn't done the work I needed to, which is normal. It's February. I mean, I'm ski. I'm an outdoor athlete. I ski all winter and, you know, but I. Very different place than when I am in August, where I am in August, where I've been training in the mountains, running hard in my element, in my natural house habitat for months. Right. And you can let go of the watch. And this time, you know, I think I probably would have been better served having my watch checking my pace because I spent a lot of mental energy on Saturday wondering, am I going too fast, too slow, right? And a watch. I had this idea that my watch would sort of enslave me to the time, but it actually would have probably been a pretty useful tool. So that's just good learning for next time.

What was the most difficult part of an event like this for you?

Leadville was such a magical day. It was one of those really rare days when everything converges, right, and kind of comes behind you and is just powering you. And there really weren't any low points, and I'm not, I mean, at all. And I had had a little bit of a dip when I was climbing Hope Pass, where I felt an energy slump. A little bit of it had been raining, so I was wet and I was climbing Hope for the first time. And so I'll do what I, you know, I did what I will do when I'm feeling like my, you know, I'm losing my mojo or getting a little down is I ate something, right? And then I changed something. So I got out my trekking poles and I had. I knew that was part of my rout race plan, that I would use my trekking poles climbing Hope it's steep enough and you just. It's. It's just a nice break. It helps your back. Instead of really bending over into your knees, you're on your poles. And I had trained with them. And so I stopped. I made a conscious effort. I stopped, took out my poles. And I knew, you know, part of me, I Was in that slump a little bit. And I. When you're in that slump, there's this stubborn tendency just to keep going because maybe you'll get out the other side if you just put your head and, you know, grind through it. But I knew enough that that was my signal note. Katie, stop. Take 30 seconds, get your poles out. And just changing positions, just changing something about the dynamic is such a. Is such a great reset. And I'll use music to do that too. So I run, I run a lot with music, but I often in races, I will use the music as a reward. Say, when I get to the halfway point, I'll let myself put in music. And boy, that such a difference.

Music is dangerous music. I am so driven by and connected to music. Not that human beings don't inherently have a connection to music. And, you know, and I think music is woven deep into our DNA, the way that our cells vibrate and respond. I realize that might sound a little woo woo or esoteric, but I think most human beings are more connected to music and dancing than we actually realize. Like, I think our very existence to a certain depend, dwells upon frequencies and vibrations and tunes. And for me, well, I'll give you an example. Music is so powerful and such kind of a sometimes drug that I'll pull out during a difficult training session. Most of the races I participated in, you weren't allowed to have any type of earphones in. So I wouldn't use music that often during a race. But. But two days ago, I was driving my boys to the YMCA to work out, and they asked if I could play some epic music. Some epic music. So I went to Spotify and I found it's basically epic battle music. Right? It's just like very deep orchestral driving, occasionally kind of crunchy and dark, but all over the place when it comes to motivation, particularly just think like, you know, Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean or movies like that. And so I played it for them in the car just, just to humor them. But then, although I'll usually listen to a podcast or an audiobook when I'm working out, I kind of pride myself on the ability to be able to do hard things while something boring is playing, because it's nice to be able to educate yourself and not just entertain yourself during a workout. But I. I kept these tracks on my face, my phone, and I worked out while the tracks were on my phone and literally felt yesterday morning like I had rab dough. Because I will push myself so much harder for so much longer. When the music is playing that I almost have to be careful not to over train when I play music. So I, I'm actually a fan of. It sounds like you are like not using music all the time but pulling it out when you really want to.

Push hard when you need it. Yeah, I think it's, it's really good to have in your back pocket especially. It sounds like we're similar in that music is very powerful. There's something about that vibration, sound healing, you know, kind of just puts you. I feel more connected to my body and myself and the environment that I'm in when I'm, you know, when I'm. There's music in the background and people will say, oh, you're disconnecting, you know, you're escaping. And I actually have the opposite experience. But like you, I have this. When I first, you know, I think when ipods were first invented, this was maybe in the, you know, early 2000s and I was, you know, doing a lot of trail running. I was so into running with music that I ended up getting a stress fracture in my foot because I was just doing these epic miles on not very much training. And you know, it was the music that was. I was just lost in it. So I know what you mean about it being dangerous. So I make sure that, you know, I don't have it. You can't have it all the time. You have to be able to run without it. And like with that I just listen to my body. Today is a day I want to just hear the birds. I want to be in nature, in the silence or you know. No, I want to listen to the stories of these songs while I run. It just depends.

Yeah, I grew up on a Walkman running in loose in Idaho. I'd run the hills back behind my house on, on the Lewston Hill where I grew up to get myself fit for my tennis match matches. I had about a two mile straight up the side of this grade, two mile down. In retrospect, it was horrific sports specific training for tennis because I was engaged in kind of like a lactate threshold movement for four miles when that's not what you experience in a tennis match. But I loved those runs and I even remember now it's so burnt into my memory. I would play KZZ UFM 92.9 in Lewiston running up that hill, just old school cool. It was kind of like 80s butt rock and it would just push me. There's this old, old Walkman. So even, even before ipod it was just me, the Walkman the radio and that hill. And occasionally my dog, my boxer Bruno, would run with me. And man, like, early on, I was just so driven by. By that. And then I would lift weights as well. I converted one of my parents bedrooms, spare bedrooms, into a gym like I had. You know, I went to guard sports and I bought the little rusty dumbbells and the bench and the barbells and taught myself how to lift weights and had a couple mentors come up to the house and show me how to squat and how to deadlift. And I used to play the entire Rocky series all week long. Like, I would watch Rocky 1 through 5 over the course of a week while lifting weights. And then when the next week, week would start, I would do it over again. So still burnt into my memory when I hear Eye of the Tiger, I'm ready and raring to go.

I had a similar story in that, and I write about this in running home, is that I've always been a runner and I've always been an athlete and always most comfortable outside in motion. And like you, I would go out and I would just go for these runs with my Sony Sports Walkman, the yellow, right, with those, like, awful metal headphones that would go in, jab in your ears and just run and run and run. And I wasn't, you know, I was not on the track team or the cross country team. I ran really, because I loved it. And it was my way, you know, to be creative. And it was part of how I saw the world as a writer. And this is, you know, in high school. And. And so I've always had this relationship with running that's more than competition, which I think has helped me just stay in the sport because it is coming from this deep place of intrinsic, right, it's this intrinsic pleasure of running. But I was also really into tennis. But my version was that I would do the Jane Fonda workout, right? That was my. In the Living room. I'm from New Jersey. My dream at the time was to be in the US Open, right? That was like, as you're. As a kid, I always wanted to get to that level in tennis. And it's just funny how the world works and how life works, right? Like you get to a different level in a different sport, but it's sort of, you know, it's not that dissimilar, right, to pursue that life in motion of. Of, you know, dedication and commitment to endurance.

Well, you also have an interesting life in that I know you are doing all of this ultra endurance training with children how old are your daughters now?

They're 9 and 11.

Okay. Oh cool. My boys are 11, 11 year old twin boys, boys. And you know, I trained with Iron man for them back in the day. You know, a lot of, a lot of double strollers and double bike trailers.

And oh, that's so interesting.

A lot of workouts in the pool, kicking them on kickboards and dragging them on my back and did a lot with them. And I'm always curious because we, we do have a lot of listeners who have families who are training maybe for, for CrossFit, for Spartan, for Ironman, for cycling, for life, for health. And I would be curious and we have time, you can get into details if you'd like. But I'm curious what an actual week of training looks like for you. And I would be particularly interested in if you can weave in some helpful anecdotes of what that looks like in consideration of family and time with your daughters.

Yeah, this is something I've thought about a lot, written a lot about. I wrote a piece of last summer for the New York Times about basically just that, like, you know, how my training plan is really life and as life as a mother and a writer and an athlete, there's no gap between all of those things. And so, and that's really how I've approached training since I became a mother. And you know, because I first started doing ultras when my second daughter had just stopped nursing, so she was about a year old. And so from the start, you know, I've always been a runner, always done trails, but I didn't actually start competing until I, after I had my kids. So this is all I know as an elite athlete is having kids in the mix. And I actually think that it plays to your advantage. And here's why I think that it's hard to overtrain when you're a parent, right? Because we have so many demands and, and so it just, it gives you this forced sort of balance and moderation which I think is really helpful so that you're not so myopic that you're just going down this one path and it's the only thing in life, right? There's just as a parent, you know, this like there's a lot of parts and they all have to work together and one is not more important. I mean, on a certain day running might take precedence, but you know, in the big picture, right, they're all part of the mix and they all have the same weight.

And so for me, if I could interject a quick thought not to derail you too much, but training almost becomes part of life. And this whole idea that I preach quite a bit now, weaving low level physical activity into one's day, having a pull up bar in the door of the office or the home, something heavy you can pick up a few times during the day to work on your strength, having quick movement breaks or so called micro workouts, you know, 30 burpees thrown in here and there. These things become not an option, but a necessity if you want to stay on the pointy edge of fitness when you have children. Because there are no other options. The two hour, three hour time slots available to simply go to the gym and start with foam roll rolling, do the workout progress to sauna, do some parasympathetic work like yoga afterwards. That is one of the most luxurious things you could ever imagine once you become a parent and you have children to take care of and to weave into this lifestyle. So I completely agree. Your time management skills go through the roof and also just your view of exercise kind of being a part of life and, and of itself really increases. And that's actually, it's gone on to serve me very well, you know, being forced to train for Ironman and then later on when I'm not training for Ironman and just wanting to stay healthy, carrying some of those concepts over into the rest of my life.

Yeah, I mean my approach is very much what you just said and that it's basically staying in motion and. Right. And everything counts was really my mantra for training for Leadville. I had just heard someone say, you know, all time on your feet counts toward running 100. Right. You know, and training, you know, capital T. I've never been a conventional athlete with like a training plan. I only just started working with a coach, which is very different for me. But I was self coached all, you know, through my whole life and you know, including my ramp up to Leadville. And so basically my approach was everything counts. And so, and just stay on your feet, stay in motion, which is really the way our bodies, we were born for motion. We are happiest. Right. We're most productive and creative when we stay in motion. And so it serves me as a writer very much too. And so my day would start with walking the kids to school. That's three quarters of a mile there. I would have the dog, I would listen to a podcast and have that be sort of my creative time and I would take the long way home. So by the time I got home, you know, I'd probably done four miles Walking. And this is not like, you know, I'm not clocking myself, I'm not trying to get my heart rate up. I'm just out in the day, right. Just starting my day with very healthy, low impact walking. Then I would probably go and do whatever run I needed to do that day, between 90 minutes, you know, and two and a half hours and. And off most of the time always on the trails. Right. So I'm not a road runner. I would just use the trails, the road roads to get to the trails. And then I would come home and I would work. I would do my writing for three or four hours till my girls came home and then we would go do something active together, whether it was bike riding on the trails or just around town. And that's really my strategy is just to not make training separate from life. Right. Life is training and training is life and, you know, have it all be of a part and that is best for my happiest bottom line, you know, my happiness bottom line for sure. Because if I'm getting so serious about my training, chances are I'm not that fun to be around. Right. But whereas if I look at, oh my gosh, we're going backpacking for a weekend, that's great training. I'm going to be at elevation, I'm carrying a lot of weight. Perfect. And so we just make family activities part of my training plan and vice versa. And like I said, my basic mantra is that everything counts.

Yeah, I agree. A few things that helped me out, particularly when it came and still comes to a certain extent I do this quite a bit is getting from point A to point B. If you have an excuse to do something other than a car, to use a means of transportation other than a car. Oh my goodness. I got. I rarely went on a formal bike training ride when trading for Ironman because my office was eight miles from my home. And come hell or high water, I would ride my bicycle to the office. And at the end of a long day, whether on my feet or sitting down, programming for my personal training clients, I would ride home, no matter what, there and back. And even just having to push through that mental cognitive fatigue at the end of the day, mount the bicycle and ride eight miles is not much, but. But it adds up five days a week.

Yeah. When you want to get home and mentally you're sort of already at home. I mean, I ride my bike all the time and I'm not. I used to be really big into mountain biking and I'm not into mountain biking as much as just cruising on my bike. It's good for the environment, it's good for our bodies. I would ride my bike everywhere, you know, if I had more time, honestly don't leave myself enough time to get around. But I love being on the bike. That's just pure joy.

There's a little bit of a mental frame set switch that occurs as well as you begin to commute more and more. Because for me, especially when I'm in a large city like LA or New York City or what have you, I walk nearly everywhere. And for me, as long as something is under three miles, I will walk there. And I will be with friends sometimes who will balk at walking 1.3 miles to go to a Whole Foods to grab lunch. And for me that's nothing. 1.3 miles is a stroll, It's a walk in the park. And as you begin to commute everywhere, just your idea of time and distance kind of shifts and you have this greater and greater propensity to simply hoof it or to grab a bike if need be. And then what I would do is practically figure out ways to include the kids. Like I mentioned the double, for me it was double, but the double jogging strike stroller, the double bike trailer, anything that I could do to take the kids in a safe scenario along with me. And kind of similar to that. Not that pushing two children in a stroller or pulling two kids on a bike trailer is too easy, but I also figured out ways to make things harder. If it was a family hike, I would be putting a 50 pound kettlebell in a backpack and going out on the family hike that way. Or you know, occasionally on, you know, in more difficult training blocks, I would have periods of time where I'd like hike ahead of the family, stop and do 50 push ups, wait for the family, and then hike with them for a while and just, just creatively weaving elements of movement in to make, figuring out ways to weigh yourself down or to restrict oxygen flow, to restrict blood flow, meaning like blood flow restriction bands are fantastic for this. Like tourniqueting the arms and legs for a long walk. There's all sorts of little sneaky things that you can do to make that day to day movement more difficult. And so in addition to just going everywhere, I would figure out ways to actually make it more difficult when I would be getting from point A to point B. Did you ever experiment with anything like, like that?

I mean, we have a very similar approach in that we both try to do as much movement as possible and same thing like If I'm running, you know, if I'm doing a trail run with friends or whatnot, or I get to a point where I'm waiting, I'm always doing like what I call rock jumps. So I'll find a flat rock and I'll do box jumps on a rock or, or I'll do sit ups in the dirt, whatever. Like I just, I make the outside my gym, but I'm not quite as systematic or as sort of premeditated as you. I'm, I'm just, I sort of go with what my tells me and kind of these harebrained schemes I come up with. But it's. I admire what you do. I've never really tourniqueted my arms with a band. But you know, that said, I will on the top of the mountain, I'll do 50 squats and lunges. And for me it's just kind of like it has to feel joyous and free and not like I'm kind of stealing myself for some intense challenge, right. But more that, that this is how. It's like a natural expression of myself. When I'm outside and I'm doing, I'm pushing my body. But if it ever starts to feel like it's, you know, it's getting to be a super big grind, I don't know, that's the Zen part of me kicks in and it's like I just, it needs to feel free, right. And it needs to feel joyous for me. And so that's always like, I come back to that and you know, if it starts to feel too much like work, trust me, it's work. Right. Like you're doing the work. But when it starts to feel like work, that's a good signal to me that my balance is off or that I'm focusing too much on the goal rather than the process. And I want the process to feel joyous. Not every day. Right. But most days I want it to, to be invigorating and not depleting to me.

Yeah. Did you? Because I found this to be helpful. I think a lot of especially new parents do not realize how, how much if you are going to be going beyond just the outdoors, which is of course we both know we'd be preaching to the choir to tell our audience that the outdoors is amazing for children. They're sensory perception, their dopamine and neurotransmitter levels, the fresh air, the negative ions, I mean the list goes on and on of how freaking important it is for your children to grow up with the Realization that the outdoors is the place that you go to move. But nonetheless the health club, the gym is often a place where a parent might go to lift weights or to go to a class to be with their friends, they to take a spin or a Zumba, what have you. And man, for us joining a health club, in our case it was the YMCA with really stellar kids activities. That was huge because there was a time when both mom and I were training for triathlon. For us to be able to show up at a health club that we trusted, put the kids into an activity we check out for an hour. Did you find that some kind of a health club or a club that had, that had kids activities, did that serve you?

We didn't have that and you know we didn't. But that's just. My husband and I are outdoor athletes first and foremost. And so the idea of going to a gym, I think it's great. And I do try to go to the gym now twice a week for strength. But in our time away from our kids, right in our, you know, we wanted to be outside so we just did that tag team business we which is great and it works but boy, it's hard on a marriage or it's hard on a relationship because it's like, okay, I'm gonna run and then I'm gonna come back and you're gonna run or do your thing, you're gonna go ski, right? Whatever you need, you do. So it worked for us. But we didn't have a lot of time together. And I write about this in running home. We did have one once a week where our friends would take our kids and we would go running together. And it was, you know, so magical because when you have young, young kids you are, you're just tag teaming and you're like ships in the night. And so that was really how we did it because you know in that hour or two that we would get a day with if that to ourselves, we just, we both wanted to be outside. My husband's really big into backcountry skiing and skiing and, and so but that that's just us. I think that, that those can be great tools for sure to get the time to. You need to work out and your kids are in a safe place.

Yeah, of course. One elephant in the room here. I would be remiss not to bring up is the fact that you do want times and I'm very careful to weave this into my children's routine and even was when training for Ironman when you are fully present when it's not about your workout, when it's literally you sitting cross legged with your child in the living room building the new Lego set or gathering around the table for family dinner. And it's going to be a two hour family dinner because you're playing Monopoly. You know, basically you never want to give your kids the impression that you're figuring out a way to squeeze in time with them. You want, you want those times when you're fully present. But I remember I always just kind of viscerally did not like the idea that I would hear from some parents about being invisible exercisers. Right. Like making sure that they had, you know, they short sleep, get up at 3:30 or 4am to shower, to meditate and to train or wait until the kids are off at school to train. I think it's healthy for kids to join with their parents in some of the activities, some of the exit and just to see what it looks like. I remember there was one particular hill on the Centennial Trail here that I would have to climb up on the bike every time we'd leave the house. I remember my kids sitting in that little trailer and they'd be like, go daddy. Go daddy. Go. Go harder daddy. Come on, go up the hill. But it's cool for kids to be able to see some of, even the, not that you want exercise to be associated with pain and suffering for them, but just to see some of the hard work and to be a part of not just being outdoors and having the wind in their face and sunshine on their skin, but also just to be participants in the session itself.

Yeah. And I think that, I love that. I think that changes too as they get older. Right. So when my kids were very little and they weren't as aware of what I was doing, you know, they probably, it probably was invisible to them. I mean, I never got up at three in the morning to go running, you know, But I would go out and I would even use the words like I'm gonna sneak out for a run, which now I've kind of caught myself and I'm like, I don't need to sneak. Right? Like I'm proud of what I do and how I train and I'm a role model to my children. But you know, I would go out before they were awake or as they were just waking up and sort of that those edges of the day. I write about that in running home is like stealing, you know, time from the edges of your day. But now that they're older, you know, they, they can stay home by themselves while I run, or I'll go for a run and then come back and then we'll all go for a hike, right? So, so I'll get some extra trail time and I'm with them and I've done my run, so I'm more settled in myself and then I can be more present to them. And so it just, it's always shifting. And I think that when we get attached to the way something is and think it's going to stay that way, you know, we create suffering for ourselves and resistance because we don't want things to change. But if we take this open mind, like, okay, this is the. That's how it was last year. This year it's different. My girls can stay by themselves. You know, they can, you know, they're going to even start running with me sometimes. Just being open to, you know, to, to sort of what life is giving you right now, I think is such a good practice, kind of, kind of.

An existential question here as well, that I don't know if anyone's ever asked you this, but have you ever found that your children seem to grate again against, or almost rebel against the idea of being engaged in the same type of exercise activities that you are? I mean, I've noticed, for example, this happened last week. I commented that I was going to go out to the gym and crush it, right? And one of my boys, Taren, he said, I'm gonna go and paint at the table because I feel like relaxing right now. And you could tell he was almost kind of doing it to say, all right, dad, you're gonna go crush it. And I'm gonna be in here painting butterflies. Which, you know, that's him. That's who he is. But to differentiate, have you ever run into that?

Definitely. I mean, it's, you know, for sure. My girls are very engaged game active girls love being outside. I mean, we were, you know, taking them on river trips on our raft when they were babies. So they've grown up in nature and outside, but they still like to differentiate. And sometimes my older one will say, well, you know, I'm not going to be a long distance runner. My younger one, I think is more interested in that. But there's definitely, you know, they'll say, like, I'm not a writer like you, mom. And I think that's healthy. They're just trying to differentiate and not get swept up in my stuff. But I do think they're inspired by what I do. I know that because they were at lead for, for my Race. And they, you know, it was such so powerful for them and it was incredibly powerful for me to have them there. But I certainly don't push any kind of running or competition on them. I mean, I do. Getting outside every day and having a relationship with the natural world and with their own bodies as physical beings is not negotiable in our family. Right. And, and so. But I'm not pushing them to be a competitive athlete and X or Y. And that really came from my own childhood because my father, and this is a huge part of my book Running Home, the relationship we had. And he taught me to love the outdoors. He was a National Geographic photographer and was always out exploring and wandering. And it was he who suggested I run my first race. And I was seven and it was, was a 10K and I, you know, I'd never even run a mile before. It was a total lark. And I ran it or walked it, you know, and it was, I was sure I was last that day, but it didn't matter. I got that taste of doing something that I didn't think I could do. And that stuck with me. And what the beautiful thing with my father is that he never pushed me ever to be a runner. And he didn't have any ambitions like, oh, you better join the team and parenting now. Right. There's so much of that we have our own ambitions we want to foist onto our kids or. And my dad never did that. He, you know, introduced me to it and then he totally stepped aside so that I could have my own relationship with it. And that's really why I'm a lifelong runner. Because it's never about competing to impress or to win. Right. It was sort of how running for me has always been a way that I engage my imagination and am a creative person is when I run, you know, when I move my body, I move my ideas. And so I want to give my children that same opportunity to have their own relationships with things that bring them joy and inspiration. And if it's running great, but it could be anything. You know, we got them a trampoline so that they could go out and just have that daydreaming time. Right. Like you probably had that as a kid when you would go out and do something thing that was physical, but that you're in this sort of waking daydream. And for me, I was shooting baskets in my backyard as a third grader. I sucked basketball.

Me too. Shooting baskets and throwing the football against the chain link fence. And not, not that I give people want to give people the impression I was by myself all the time, but I would often just go outside and daydream. I think what you just pointed out is important because it's that multi sensitive, sensory, kind of like rhythmic activity that kids get to engage in that builds the kinesthetic and the tactile stimuli and really trains the senses. I think that one thing kids can see, especially in hard chargers like you and me, Katie, especially if we're engaged in these chronic repetitive motion activities, is the goal of exercise or the goal of movement, is to get from point to point A to point B or to. To check off the allotted period of time or weight or metric for the workout. And sometimes you need to just allow yourself to be instead of do right. My friend Paul Checks told me this once. He said, he said, ben, sometimes you get so caught up in the being, you forget about the doing. Or actually it was the opposite. You get so, so caught up in the doing, you forget about the being.

Right? And I think that's sort of, you know, how running, how. I have a very different approach, I think, to running than some other elite athletes for whom it is about speed and getting from point A to B as fast as possible. And for me, running is becoming more and more of an exploration of how to be in sync with time and nature and to not just rush through a landscape, but to, you know, to run as kind of a form of awakening. And it's just interesting to see how my running evolves because sometimes I don't know if that is conducive to racing. You know, I just did a race over the weekend and as I mentioned, and even though it was a training run, I got really caught up in sort of where I was in the pack and, you know, and my results quote, unquote, and, you know, it was a stunning single track, but I really was not that present to it. And I came away from that one day like, you know, I don't know if running erasing is helping me be more present or sometimes it's taking me out of it. And so it's always a practice for me because the competition is like the tiniest part of why I run. You know, it's like the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

Yeah, well, fortunately you chose a distance that does lend some amount of conduciveness to checking out and daydreaming. My wife, she ran the 800 for University of Idaho. So for her, running is just pure, all out, intense focus. Because if you aren't focused and your turnover Decreases just ever so slightly, then that's the difference between, you know, first and fifth place. And so for her, a run is, let's strap on the shoes and crush. And there's a little bit less of that daydreaming aspect versus if we go on a hike. But, yeah, I think ultra endurance is a little bit more conducive to just the daydreaming movement aspect of it that we should indeed be fostering in our children. I know you have a lot of articles on the Outside magazine Raising Rippers column that I'll link to in the show notes. So, folks, go to Ben Greenfield, finish Katie K A T I E. But I just have to ask you, why Rippers? What does Rippers mean?

Rippers is just kids who kind of rip, who shred at something, who do something well. And, you know, when I first came up with the name, this was in, I think, 2011, you know, outside. I've worked for outside for 25 years. It's like family to me. But, you know, I know their. I know their vibe over there. They want it to feel sort of like charging and hard charging. And, you know, so I came up with it. And I've always sort of struggled. Not struggle, but I've always had some conflicting feelings about it because I don't just believe kids need to be rippers and the best at everything. Right? Like, or that, you know, go crush this mountain or, you know, sometimes even the way we talk about our relationship with the natural world suggests that we are superior to it or we're going to, you know, dominate this mountain. That's actually not really what I want to foster in my children. The mountains and the wilderness have this energy that we are part of, and if we can be in sync with it in harmony, we will live happier, more fulfilled lives, more able to, you know, be our truest selves and more creative and therefore have more powerful impact on the world. But, you know, I knew that outside, you know, they wanted. They probably would want something a little snazzier, you know, a little less, like, feel good or a little less new age. But so I've always, you know, I have wrestled with that. That said, my kids are, you know, they do kind of rip at things. But I also, I don't really want the ripping to be the focus. I want the focus to be, how do I feel when I'm outside in nature, and how does that make me, you know, feel more creative, inspired, and how can I do good in the world?

Yeah, well, we do live in a society where exercise is often viewed as a cathartic activity. And so if you do go to crush it at the gym or to throw yourself at the weights or to dominate the mountain, you're. You're engaged in that aggressive yang approach to movement, which lends itself, well to, say, battling or extreme competition, but not necessarily to enjoyment and relaxation and de stressing and all these other wonderful things that movement have to offer us. And I would even argue that a child develops a greater respect for nature, a greater respect for the mountain, for the raging river, for the cold, for the heat, etc. When they're not in it to beat it, but to just to be in it and to dwell within it.

I mean, I don't think you can beat the mountain or the river. Right. That's. That is so much more powerful than we are. And to teach that humility and that sort of bringing up this next generation of stewards, right, who really care for the environment, that is sort of much more. Where my focus is as a parent and my husband's focus, too, is, you know, we do these backcountry trips. We're not out, you know, you know, taking our kids to competitions or crushing things. But it's like, for us, that sustained experience in the wilderness is the most important thing for us to give our kids. And if they're athletes, too, great. I mean, I'm a big believer in team sports. Our girls play a sport a season, but it has to be in balance with also that time, that unstructured time, that unmeasured time in nature where we're not racing the clock, but we're just out on a long family hike or we're out on the river all day. And so all those pieces go into a really healthy relationship with both the kids with their bodies and with the natural world and being in motion.

Yeah. And dare I say, not to get too epic for a podcast, but just purpose and fulfillment itself. So many of us, I think part of this might be mild American, although you see this in Europe a little bit as well and in Asia. But this idea that we want our children to be able to beat other kids upon the field of battle, to be able to throw that leather ball in such a manner that they rise in the top of the ranks and, you know, parent retires upon their children's success in the profile that they, you know, emerge to. From. From high school and club and then finally collegiate athletics or we want to pour all the energy into our child having every last fine motor skill developed in tennis at. As early, an age as possible, or in golf, so that they can achieve that success that society tends to measure as a true metric of success. Right. Success upon the field of battle, upon the sporting field, which I think is natural because it's part of Maslow's hierarchy, right? Like, are you hard to kill? Can you survive? Can, can you beat others when it really counts? But ultimately, I think a greater calling, a greater purpose, especially for a youngster, and we need so much more of this in this day and age, is the ability to be able to care for this planet and to love others. Like, for me, there was a time when I just, like, my highest calling would have been, oh my gosh, if river and Terran could be like professional tennis players and like rise in the ranks here locally for usat, then go on and play at Stanford and then, you know, go and enter into, into Wimbledon and the Grand Slams. I'm like, that would just be amazing. And now what's more amazing and more goosebumpy for me is thinking about, gosh, what if river and Terran were traveling the world in sandals, supplying water to people in Africa, spreading a message of love and sacrifice and salvation and fulfillment to so many people who are thirsty and hungry for so much that goes far beyond just kicking a leather ball around that, you know, the sports, don't get me wrong, those are short term pleasures. But once we begin attached to those, once we begin to become attached to those as the ultimate sources of fulfillment or pleasure or meaning, I think it's much more dangerous than raising a child to use whatever skill they've been given in life, to just love the hell out of people, to love others and to be there for others and to change as many lives as they can. If they're successful at sports or fitnessing in the process, great. But I, I think the foundation should be that the highest calling, the most noble calling, is to love other people. And if you're good at sports, great. But you don't have to be the fittest or the best or win the tournaments to actually make a very, very big difference in this world.

I mean, I completely agree. I think for us, my husband and me, it's like we want to raise these lifelong athletes, or not even athletes, but like kids who are comfortable or humans who are comfortable in their own bodies, who trust their bodies, who can use their bodies to move in the world and be healthy and to be in nature and have a positive relationship with themselves and they're, you know, which leads to being able to be more engaged in the world and have positive relationships with the world outside. And yeah, for us, you know, the competition is. I think that, you know, we're far more. We want our kids to be engaged, kind, curious and healthy, you know, and I think nature and sports are part of that. But if the focus becomes. And, you know, so many kids these days are. You know, I heard someone, a friend of mine told me that her son, who's I think 12, you know, doesn't consider. Consider himself an athlete because he's not on the traveling soccer team. So he plays soccer. Right. He plays on a normal team, but because he's not on the most competitive team, he doesn't think he's an athlete. And I found that so sad because. Right. So these kids are disconnecting from, you know, they don't have that sense of themselves as athletes, as kids who are, you know, physically capable and athletic and sporty and, you know, as a. I grew up in New Jersey in the, in the 80s and I played three different sports. And you know, I was good at some and sort of mediocre at others, but I always thought of myself as an athlete. There wasn't sort of a benchmark that I had to meet in order to be an athlete. I played sports, you know, I was athletic. And it was such a big part of my self concept and how I saw myself in the world. And it makes me so sad that these, you know, that we've raised the bar so high for these arcade kids that they are not thinking of themselves in that way, you know, and what's being lost with that?

We don't live in Sparta. You do not have to be like a Grecian warrior to consider. If you have a body, you're an athlete. If you have a mind, you're a mental athlete. If you have a spirit, you're a spiritual athlete. I mean, there's so much more that goes beyond.

Yeah, our culture has so deviated from that and to trying terms of, you know, your kids have to play one sport all year round, you know, and I've written stories for outside about how, you know, that is not good for your families, you know, and it's not good for the kids in terms of burnout and physical injury and, you know, change sports with the seasons, stay nimble. Just to take it back to that idea that we talked about earlier. And, you know, I think we're becoming more rigid, certainly with what, you know, our definition of success in sports and athletics.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I know you have just, just a ton of wonderful articles. If folks wanted to to kind of like add Katie's outside feed to your feed reader or follow a little bit more of her column Raising Rippers there. I will link to it on the outside online website in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com Katie Katie K A T I E I'll also link to Katie's book Running Home, which is kind of a memoir of a lot of what she's done, of just a story of parenting and adventure and how running can change your life. And it's a relatively new read. It's come out last year or so. That one's called Running Home and I'll link to that. You can get it wherever fine, fine books are sold. Also@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Katie and Kati, thanks so much. I think this is a message a lot of people need to hear, especially parents or parents to be. And I really just love your approach to all of this.

Well, thanks, Ben. It's been great. And yeah, I would just say, you know, get outside, keep moving and don't take things, you know, we don't have to be so serious about everything. If it feels good, do it, you know.

Word. All right, well, thanks so much for sharing this conversation with me. And to all you listening in, go out, equip a child in your life to be outdoors, to get exposed to healthy physical activity, to not just doing, but also being. And share this podcast, if you can, with other parents, you know, or teachers or folks who are spending time with kids because we can make a real difference in the life lives of kids and just change the way that the next generation perceives fitness competition. And we can really, really equip them with a healthy perspective on all that. So thank you for taking the time to listen in. Katie, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Thanks, Ben. It was great.

All right, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield and Katie Arnold signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and get keep it coming to you each and every week.