Podcast Episode #89: How To Use Your Mental Power To Run 400 Miles With Minimal Training.

In this episode, using mental tactics for training a high fat diet, for staying lean, eating while running, yerba mate, agave nectar, strength training while endurance training, sugar, alcohols, and passing a physical examination test.

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Hey podcast listeners, it's Ben Greenfield. I'm excited about today's podcast because there's some pretty cool questions and some really interesting stuff that we're gonna cover. There's an interview today with a guy named John Berghoff who ran almost 400 miles and did so with very minimal training and he used a lot of mental techniques and tactics to allow himself to do that. You're gonna want to listen to his interview because you will learn a bunch of stuff about how to motivate your yourself and maybe even get away with a little less training physically and a little more training mentally. I've also got a special announcement about a Mother's Day contest and much more in today's podcast. So sit back and listen in and remember that if you need to go check out anything that you hear about, it's all going to be on the show. Notes to today's podcast. Episode number 89.

Special announcements.

So jumping right into today's special announcements, the first is about a Mother's Day contest. And the idea behind this is there's a website. It's a really cool website actually. They sell digital books at a way more affordable price than you'd be able to get the books if you were to, say, buy them at Barnes and Noble or on Amazon. And it's called mindset triathlon.com mindset triathlon.com Obviously, the books on this site are geared towards endurance athletes, but for any of you writers out there, they're actually having a writing contest. And the idea behind the writing contest is they're looking for short essays about mothers who, you know, who do triathlon. So basically, whether you have a friend who's got a mom who does a triathlon, whether your mom does triathlon, whether you're a mom who does triathlon, any of those cases, you could go over to Mindset Triathlon, click on the link that I have there in the show notes and what happens is that the best essay that they receive before April 15th, and that's coming up soon. April 15th. But the best essay that they receive will get an underwater MP3 player. Actually two underwater MP3 players. And that in and of itself is pretty cool. If you could sit down and churn out an essay in 45 minutes, it's well worth it. Two of my books from mindset triathlon.com and you get a membership to the Rockstar Triathlete Academy, which is the online school that I run for triathletes. So a bunch of stuff in there. Also, USA Triathlon's Multi Sport Zone is going to publish some of the winning essays, too. I'm one of the judges for that contest. The essays aren't super long that I've been seeing coming in. I mean, you can write a few paragraphs and that will count as an essay. So if you want to get some cool prizes and you're a writer and you have a mom who you want to honor, I mean, make it a double task. Give it to your mom for her Mother's Day present and win something for yourself at the same time. So check that out. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. If you are part of the VIP cell phone text club that I just started, then earlier this week you got a big, big discount on a book that nobody else got access to. You're the only person that got that text message. So I mean, we're talking like 50 to 75% discounts that people are getting by being a part of the VIP text club. So definitely go to the website and put your information in there to join the text club. Or if you're listening right now, right now, all you need to do is text the word Fitness to 411247. Let's text the word Fitness to 411247. And that is a very, very cool club that I'm giving a bunch of insider stuff to. So check that out. And then a couple of other things. If you're listening to this podcast during the week that it came out, remember that if you're in the Spokane or Coeur d' alene area on April 8, that's Thursday evening at 6pm over in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho, place called Pilgrim's Market. I'll be teaching a free clinic to help prep you for Ironman. Coeur d'. Alene. Everything that you need to do in the final eight weeks leading up to Ironman. And if you're listening to this podcast, you're not in that area. Don't worry. I will hopefully make it available for your download at a later time. It won't be free like the clinic is here, but you'll still have access to it if that's something that you want to listen to at a very affordable price. And then the Body Transformation Club, of course, we will be giving away another free membership to the Body Transformation Club today to the best question that rolled in. So we'll be going on to the Listener Q and A here in just a second. But remember that if you have a unique question that you feel is just a fantastic thing to ask about fitness, nutrition, triathlon performance, whatever, ask it and you could win yourself a free month of personal mailings from me and accountability from me in terms of everything that you need for little fitness things that you can do throughout the week, as well as recipes, nutrition tips and tricks and a bunch of other stuff that's literally physically mailed to your mailbox. You walk out to your mailbox, you open it up and there it is. So we're going to move on to this week's Listener Q and A.

Listener Q and A.

If you have a question that you would like to ask, you can email Ben greenfieldfitness.com you can call toll free to 877-209-9439 or you can Skype to Pacific fit. And today's first question comes from listener Sarah. And Sarah says, I have a question. I was recently reading how Hilary Swank was trained for her muscle while preparing for her role in Million Dollar Baby. That was actually a pretty good movie. Evidently her trainer had her on a very low carb regimen, high fat, mostly from flax oil and high protein. But her calorie intake was upward to 4,000 calories. Training hard in the gym, plus a couple hours of cardio every day. Mandatory that she got nine hours of sleep every night. And and they had her getting up in the middle of the night to drink eggs. Anyway, my question is I've heard that type of regimen is almost impossible to build muscle on, but apparently she put on 23 pounds of muscle. I could see how she got shredded, but the muscle I was actually going to try this approach. I've been trying to put on muscle forever, but I really don't want to put on extra unwanted fat in the process. But all the bodybuilder and fitness people I know say that in order to put on muscle that you got to put on some fat and do cardio. But then I see what Hillary did and it makes me wonder what is Your opinion and your recommendation for building but staying lean? Great question. First, let's look at Hillary's diet, this whole high fat thing. So the idea behind fat is that your body doesn't directly take in fat and then use that for energy. What happens is that the fat has to get converted to something called acetyl CoA. And acetyl CoA allows fat to enter into your body's energy cycle the same way that a carbohydrate would enter into your body's energy cycle. So what happens is you consume a fat, and typically most fats are going to be packaged in the form of something called a tract glyceride. And that, that fat, that triglyceride, gets broken down into something called glycerol and fatty acids. Now, if you're consuming fatty acids, like essential fatty acids, or in some cases, some of the type of fatty acids you're going to find in flax oil, you can kind of bypass that first process of breaking down a triglyceride. So a lot of times, the type of fats like the fatty acids you find in a nutritional supplement or are already going to have that first step almost done for you, but the fats that you get from food are generally going to be packaged into that triglyceride. Now, what happens is, once you've got that glycerol and those fatty acids ready for being broken down into energy, what happens is the glycerol is basically treated almost like a sugar. It gets turned into energy almost immediately, like a sugar would, and the fatty acids are actually converted into that thing I talked about earlier, the acetyl CoA, via a process called beta oxidation. And beta oxidation requires a bunch of things. You know, water is one of the most crucial components of beta oxidation. That's why if you're dehydrated or you're not drinking enough water, you're really not going to burn much fat. But the idea is that these fatty acid chains eventually get broken apart and turned into energy via what's called the Krebs cycle, which is the same thing that produces energy from carbohydrates or from proteins that have been converted into carbohydrates. But the idea behind that process that I just described is that the body can do it very efficiently. You can burn fat all day long, most people do, but it doesn't do it very quickly. And so if you're trying to rely primarily on fatty acids for energy, then anything you do that requires explosiveness or that requires speed, you're not going to do very well, so you can go out and do cardio all day long on fatty acids, and you can, even if you're not really lifting really hard and really explosively, get away with working out in the weight room at a little bit lower intensity, burning primarily fatty acids. But it's pretty difficult to do. And the other thing is that it draws a lot of water into your intestine, into your gut, because fats and proteins take a longer time to digest. And so you also tend to have gastric discomfort on this type of diet. So while Hillary taking in a high fat diet would allow her to produce the energy necessary for exercise, it's unlikely that she would be able to exercise at a real, real intense. And if she was, then it would be at the expense of quite a bit of gastric discomfort. So I wouldn't recommend the high fat diet. I do have a little bit less of an issue with skewing the diet towards a little bit higher protein. So you could be looking at a 25 to 30% fat, 25 to 30% protein, and anywhere from 40 to 60% carbohydrate intake. And that still is considered a high protection protein, high fat diet compared to the FDA recommendations. Some people do take it overboard though, and go high high fat. There's zero research that shows that's going to give you any advantage over the 25, 30% fat, 25, 30% protein, and 40 to 60% carb diet that I just described. Now, as far as the flaxseed oil goes, the idea behind using flaxseed as one of the primary fats for a higher fat or a skewed fat percentage diet would be that flaxseed oil can decrease appetite cravings, it increases metabolic rate, so it can actually improve cellular activity, improve metabolism, it makes you feel a lot fuller after you eat, and so you tend to have fewer cravings, especially if you're exercising a lot. It helps to regulate your blood sugar and your insulin levels, which can assist with sugars not getting converted into fats and, and again, keeping your appetite levels satiated. And it can also increase oxygen consumption. There's been some studies that have looked at the enhancement of metabolic processes by flaxseed oil in terms of allowing you to actually work out a little bit higher intensity. So the idea is that in moderation, something like a flaxseed oil would be one of the ways, excuse me, that you could get fat and still be able to exercise. Now, what you need to remember is that if you are looking to get your omega 3 fatty acids and get those into a good ratio compared to your omega 6 fatty acids. You're probably going to want to consider a fish oil as well. You just need to be real careful with the type of fish oil that you use, because recent studies have indicated that lots of them tend to be painted with things like the PCBs and mercury and heavy metals, things of that nature. So you need to be really careful with the fish oil. For the fish oil, I recommend you go with Bioletics. There's also a good company called Carlson's that you can get over at Hammer Nutrition. And for the flaxseed oil, definitely the NREFA from Impacts. Those are two good brands to get your oils and your fats in. Now, as far as putting muscle on while getting lean, at the same time, getting it does depend on your body type. You're seeing more and more bodybuilders these days abandon the idea that you go through this cycle where you get really fat and then you put on a bunch of weight and then you lose all that weight and get toned up for the show, because they've realized that that's not very good for your heart. And it's not very good for the amount of free radical production that you produce, for example, in the coronary arteries. And you get that oxidized cholesterol from all this fat that you're consuming combined with the hard exercise tends to kind of wreak havoc on your internal organs. So what they're doing now is they're eating a lot, skewing it towards higher protein, not getting their high calorie intake from, you know, 1,000 calorie plates at IHOP and big old hamburgers and french fries, but rather they're choosing their calories a little bit more wisely. The type of things that would, that you would think of intuitively anyway. The whole grains, the seeds, the nuts, fruits, vegetables, quinoa, things that are considered to be higher calorie, dense calories, but that also are not giving a lot of saturated fats, trans fats, the type of things that would make somebody fat it's very possible to do. The trick is that you do have to eat a lot and you typically have to eat more than you think you should eat. Most of the people who are successful at putting on lots of muscle quickly are eating tons of good food and then basically living at the gym. Meaning they're there either for a two a day or they're there for four to six hours during the day. I mean, if you really are trying to Put on tons of muscle. You have to be moving heavy stuff lots of the time. You have to be eating lots of food. And then to control the fat and keep your body's fat burning process strong, stoked, you're also doing cardio. So something very similar to what Hillary did, that's one of the reasons she was waking up at night to take in those eggs, was just to keep the calories coming in and in and in, but not necessarily doing the whole high fat diet thing. I actually think Hillary probably could have gotten even better results or at least probably enjoyed the results more because she would have had less fat sitting around her stomach if she would have probably skewed the fat intake a little bit down. You know, you tell me that she was on a high fat diet, you know, if she was doing much more than about 30% fat, probably would have had some GI distress going on. So those are my recommendations. Great question. Hopefully I cleared some of that stuff up for you. And remember, as you're listening to my questions, if you have comments, things that you'd like to add, things that you know that I didn't touch on, go to the show notes for podcast 89 and leave a comment. So we have a question from listener Jeff and Jeff says, Ben, you might remember I emailed you a little while ago from England with a question regarding shedding a few pounds before I entered my first duathlon. Well, I thought you'd like to know that after following your tips, I managed to shed those pounds and beat my target time. In fact, I fared so well I've entered another race in a couple weeks time. Which brings me to this question. I was listening to a recent podcast and during the listener Q and A, the subject of nutrition and triathlons cropped up and you mentioned that eating too much during a run can slow you down when you make the transition between running and cycling. I was wondering if you could just explain that in a little more depth. It's pretty simple, Jeff. Basically the idea is that you can eat more when you're riding a bike than you can when you're running. Because when you're riding a bike, you're not moving the upper body around so much, you're not jarring your body gut so much with that up and down impact based motion. So most people can take in 100 to 150 calories more on a bicycle without GI distress than they can on the run. They also tend to do a little bit better with solid food on the bicycle without GI distress than they do on the run. And so the idea is that during a duathlon or during a triathlon, you want to prioritize getting the majority of your calories in on the bike and then kind of tapering off calories and getting away with as few as possible on the run. And you'll get some pro triathletes. You know, Andy Potts is a guy who does this. They'll eat like 300 to 400 calories an hour on the bike and then do nothing but water on the run and just basically bring themselves through. Granted, you know, a guy like that's running anywhere from a 110 to a 120, and so he's not out there as long as somebody might be running a half marathon in two hours who may need a little bit more.

More fuel.

But the idea remains the same. You really want to prioritize fueling on the bike, taper it off on the run, and primarily choose liquid or easily digested fuels on the run, like gels or flat coke or even the soup that they provide on some courses. So those are my recommendations. Jeff, great question. Then listener Christine says, what are your thoughts about Yerba Mate as a pre or post workout drink? Most pre and post workout drinks or shakes have a lot of ingredients I don't want to consume. And the healthier choices are very expensive. I'm looking for a more economical option. I've read that yerba mate contains a lot of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. There are also many other claims of its benefits, including improved digestion and helping with weight loss. What are your recommendations? So, you know, I've used Yerba mate before and it really is a kick in the pants. I mean, it does give you quite a bit of energy. It's very similar to green tea in that it has a lot of what are called polyphenols and those are phytochemicals that are very powerful antioxidants. They help you protect yourself against cellular destruction the same way that like the lycopene and tomatoes or the flavonoids and blueberries would. And yerba mate has a very, very high polyphenol concentration. And so that makes it similar to green tea in terms of its health benefits. It does have even more antioxidants than green tea and it has way more nutrients. You're getting vitamin A, C, E. You got the B complex in yerba mate. It's got pretty much all the electrolytes, calcium, manganese, iron, selenium, potassium, magnesium. It does have some fatty acids in it. It's got some trace minerals in it as well, even has a few amino acids in it. The one thing that you're going to be missing from yerba mate if you're going to use that as a pre workout drink, are actual calories. So what you'd have to do is find a recipe that contains yerba mate, but that's also giving you the calories that you need pre workout. Now understand that yerba mate technically does not contain caffeine. It contains something called a xanthine. And caffeine is a xanthine. But it contains a different type of xanthine. Yerba mate does, called amatin, and it's the South American term for caffeine. But it's a little bit different physiologically. And because it's different, what I personally find is that yerba mate tends to give me a little bit more alertness than coffee does. It feels like it works quite a bit strong, stronger than coffee. And because of that, I also tend to get a lot more jittery when I drink yerba mate. And I want to warn you about that, that it's a different type of feeling that you get when you consume caffeine. And I'm always careful with people when I recommend anything like yerba mate or coffee or any caffeine derivative. Just because you can overtax your adrenal glands if you're constantly drinking this stuff or relying on it, an artificial form of energy. If you're telling your adrenal glands sitting on top of your kidneys every single day to produce as much adrenaline as possible and you're stringing your body through the day, when you finally do cut yourself off from the yerba mate or from the caffeine from the coffee, you may find that you crash. You'll also find that you require more and more of the yerba mate or the caffeine on a weekly basis, because your body eventually becomes tolerant to that adrenaline that's produced by your kidneys. So you need to be careful not to rely on it as an artificial form of energy, but rather as something that you use if you really feel like you want to work out a little bit harder. But it's not something you use if there's no way you're going to make it to the gym or exercise unless you have your yerba mate, then you're walking a fine line. And I'd recommend you use something that has a little bit less of the central nervous system stimulant and use something instead that contains more of the natural energy compounds like a vitamin B theanine is another really good one to look for. I've talked about the Chinese herbs and the adaptogens as well as being some good alternatives to central nervous system stimulants. So look into something like Delta E from a company called Impacts, or look at Tian Qi from a Roger Drummer. I've talked about both of those on the show before. I personally use Delta E almost every day. That's my choice. But it's a great question. And if you're listening in and you have a recommendation for an actual recipe for Cristine that contains yerba mate but that also has calories for pre workout, then let me know. Leave that as a comment because I haven't actually seen any recipes that include a yerba mate. I'm going to move on to a question from listener Todd and Todd says Ben, what is your true take on agave syrup? I heard from your interview with Nancy Appleton that it's about the worst thing to ingest close to high fructose corn syrup. Yet it is in many things these days, including hammer bars and the Coco Chia bars that you and Casey Kreischy discussed last week. We've been making our own energy bars lately and have been using agave syrup and agave nectar in them. However, we also add a sucrose glucose source like honey or sucanat to the mixture, as I understand that a glucose fructose mixture is a better combo for digestion. Can you weigh in on this agave syrup debate? Should it be avoided like the plague or used in moderation with respect to the nectar versus the syrup? Is one better than the other? Am I correct in thinking that mixing agave syrup with another sugar source is the way to go? This is a great question. Now I have for a long period of time recommended products and some of those products, like the ones that Todd talks about, do contain agave nectar as an alternative to the high fructose corn syrup. And just recently people in the health industry are starting to realize that agave syrup actually isn't everything that it's cracked up to be and actually could be worse than high fructose corn syrup. So the idea behind agave is that agave is a Mexican plant and it's basically a flower stem if it gets fermented. That's where corn tequila comes from. But it also has a nectar or a syrup. Basically what you tend to think when you turn over the label on an organic, say, energy bar or drink and it says agave syrup, you tend to kind of think about this natural plant derivative that's getting essentially poured from the plant into your cup. But that really is not the case. First of all, the agave syrup has a higher amount of fructose in it than any commercial sweetener on the market. And what we know about sucrose is that the liver processes it much differently than glucose. Specifically, fructose doesn't actually increase insulin levels. And while most people would think, oh well, if it's not increasing insulin levels, it must be healthy. But the idea is that insulin is necessary. It's the message to your body to actually take stored sugar and put it into the muscles for energy. If you produce too much insulin, that's a problem. But normal physiological amounts of insulin are a good thing. But when you consume a sugar or a calorie and your body's not producing insulin and your body is not getting the message to actually take the sugar and put it into the muscle to be used as energy, where do you think that the energy ends up? Goes straight to your liver and it gets converted into fat. And it also can produce a lot of other issues with your liver in terms of actual liver damage. So the idea is that the stuff that they call agave nectar in most cases is not really like a SAP from the agave plant, but it's actually a starch, kind of like corn, and it's made up of fructose molecules. And it's actually converted into a syrup in a factory setting using genetically modified enzymes and a process that involves a high amount of chemicals, specifically acids, clarifiers and filtration chemicals. And these chemicals include charcoal, resins, sulfuric acid, something called clarimex, inulin enzymes. And inulin is a completely nutrient stripped fiber and something called fructozyme. So the idea is that essentially the result once you get this agave syrup is that it's basically fructose syrup with some inulin added. And that is not really that safe of a product for you to be consuming. Now, before you get scared away and completely drop anything that you're consuming that has agave in it, you should know that there are some natural food companies that do provide healthy agave nectar. They actually work with the indigenous people in Mexico. They use an organic agave that hasn't been chemically processed the way that I just described. Described doesn't have pesticides added. It's processed at low temperature. So it still has all the natural enzymes in it that help you digest it. It's usually closer to about 70% fructose than 90% fructose. And it's actually bonded the fructose is to other sugars, which actually makes the fructose a little bit less damaging. You get a little bit more of an insulin response and you get a lot less of the issues that I just talked about. Now Todd, you talked about mixing other types of sugars with fructose. Now returns to what I just mentioned. The idea is that you get a little bit of an insulin response when you do that. And so you do get some more of the muscle uptake, a little bit less of the damage to the liver, a little bit less of the sugar conversion into fat. Now you asked me about the difference between agave syrup versus agave nectar. Absolutely no difference. They're basically the same thing. You asked about the honey as well. Honey, high fructose content, but still only about 70% fructose. And if you use a raw organic honey, you are not going to be getting a lot of the issues with the mass produced or factory produced agave nectar that I just talked about. So ultimately, here is my recommendation. If you're using product that contains agave syrup or agave nectar, look at the package, find the contact information for the company, call them up and ask them where they're getting their agave nectar and how it's produced. If they're unable to tell you that, that's a red flag right away. But if they're able to say that they're actually using an organic agave that's naturally produced, that is responsibly attained by them for from Mexico, then you're probably okay. You would still want to limit the use of that fructose, but you're probably okay. Now, just like any type of sugar based compound, it's still candy, it's still sugar. So you don't eat an energy bar while you're sitting at your desk in the middle of the afternoon. Energy bars are for energy. It's pre workout fuel, it's for fuel during your workout or it's post workout fuel. So ultimately what it comes down to is you need to watch the amount of energy bar consumption from any source period. But it's a great question and hopefully that clears some things up. Todd. Now the next question is from listener Bill. And Bill says, I'm a 34 year old male whose typical workout routine involves strength training. However, influenced by some friends attempts to train for a triathlon in San Diego, I started training with them. I've been doing very well with the biking and have worked my way to Jogging and running. But I'm confused about how to balance with the strength training I love to do. Currently, I hit the weights one day and then do cycling and spinning and running the next day with one to two days of rest. I've lost about £10 in the past two months. But is my current workout regime going to negatively affect my ability to improve improve my biking and running? Well, Bill, there's been a lot of research done on what's called concurrent training, which is what you described. Concurrent training is when you're training for both strength and endurance simultaneously. And there's a lot of debate in this area because the research is inconclusive. Some research shows that concurrent strength and endurance training can be damaging to strength gains. And some would argue that the concurrent strength, strength and endurance training is damaging to endurance gains. But in most cases, these studies were looking at pure high level endurance athletes who took up strength training and found either a deleterious effect or took away from their endurance training or very big strength power athletes lifting heavy weights who started jogging or running and had some of the endurance training actually reduce their ability to produce a force. The idea is that the muscle fiber has the ability to convert. You can take a fast twitch muscle fiber that's designed to produce high amounts of force and you can turn it into a slow twitch muscle fiber by requiring that it do primarily aerobic type of activities. And you can also take a slow twitch muscle fiber, require it to produce high amounts of force in short periods of time and convert it into a fast twitch muscle fiber. Now, if you are not wanting to be an Olympic or competitive powerlifter or a football player, or somebody who needs tons of strength in a short period of time. And you're also not trying to go to the Olympics for the marathons or go win your age group in New York or in Boston for the marathon, or go take first in a triathlon, then you're definitely not doing yourself a disservice by combining the strength and the endurance training because you're hitting all aspects of your fitness. Now, if you really truly want to specialize and you want to take your endurance training to the next level, yeah, you got to back off the strength training a little bit. And if you do want to bring your bench press up to £400, you're probably not doing yourself a favor by doing tons of swimming because you're training the slow twitch muscles of your upper body. But ultimately, in the majority of individuals who I worked with, concurrent training utilizing both endurance and strength training is the best of Both worlds, because you get strong, you get fit, you improve bone density, you improve your cardiovascular fitness, and you kind of get everything at once. And as long as your goals aren't to really take it to the next level and go pro as an endurance athlete or go pro as a powerlifter, then you're doing just fine. And even if you were trying to take it to the next level for triathlon, you're still going to need to do core training, rotator cuff strengthening, quad hamstring strengthening to improve the balance in the legs. You're just not going to want to do a ton of heavy, heavy weightlifting. So. Great question. And then I've got a question from listener Chris, and he says, I have a question about sugar content in carb control protein bars, such as the Myoplex bar produced by easy. It has 1 gram of sugar, but around 20 grams of alcohol sugar. How do they claim carb sensibility with that amount of alcohol sugar? And are there adverse effects of that much alcohol sugar that we should be aware of? Great question. Now, alcohol sugars, some people think those are totally calorie free, but they're not what sugar alcohols are, because technically that's what they are. Sugar alcohols, not alcohol sugars. Semantics. They're also known as polyols, and you're going to see these on nutrition labels as maltitol, sorbitol, isomalt. Xylitol is a really popular one. And while sugar alcohols occur naturally in plants, they can also be manufactured. This is the case in most commercially produced foods manufactured from sugars and from starches. Now, the idea is that they're not absorbed by the body. And so. Well, I shouldn't say that they're not completely absorbed by the body. So the blood sugar impact of sugar alcohols is less and you get fewer calories per gram in a sugar alcohol. Now, unlike some people would assume the actual sugar alcohol can't get you drunk, but because they're not completely absorbed, they basically can sit in your intestine and flow ferment. And a lot of people get bloating and gas and diarrhea and have an actual reaction to the sugar alcohols. Now, that's one reason that you need to be careful with sugar alcohols. I want you to also think about the calories per gram. Sucrose has 4 calories per gram. You take probably the most popular sugar alcohol, and that's xylitol, and that actually is two and a half calories per per gram. So you still get quite a few calories per gram. But those calories are not as completely absorbed as the calories in a straight up sugar. The issue is though, that there still is going to be a little bit of an insulin response. It's going to be a little bit less than what you're going to get, say if they use sucrose instead of a sugar alcohol. And there's also going to be some bloating and some indigestion and some gas. And for a lot of people, that can be uncomfortable. When people switch to health foods, they switch to protein bars, they start to get these problems and they blame it on the fiber, they blame it on the protein, or they blame it on the, you know, whatever else, the increased exercise that they're doing. But in reality, sugar alcohols can a lot of times be the culprit. And something as small as that can actually keep someone from starting into a healthy diet or from exercising. So that's where you need to be careful. Careful is understand that that could be producing some symptoms. If you're having those symptoms, it's likely that they're coming from that fairly large amount of sugar alcohols that you're getting from that protein bar. The other thing that you should be aware of is that there's a term used by the FDA called GRAs, generally recognized as safe. And all of the sugar alcohols are basically generally recognizes safe or the FDA has filed generally recognizes safe petitions for most of them except mannitol and interestingly xylitol. And those are actually considered food additives. Now what I would recommend is that if you're looking for kind of a carb control or appetite control type of protein bar that you maybe consider some alternatives to something with that much sugar alcohol in it. While the only adverse effects are going to be that gas, that bloating, that diarrhea. Some of the things that you may want to consider would be going for a higher fiber bar to control appetite and control carb intake as opposed to a high sugar alcohol bar. We just talked about the agave syrup, but if you're using these pre or post workout anyways, look into like the Bumble bar or the Coca Chia bar. Another thing you could look into is a powder instead of a bar and that tends to be a really good choice as well. Look into like the Mount Capra organic whey protein or double bonded protein. That's actually what I use every single day. Also look into the living protein by living fuel and just leave me a comment or shoot me an email if you have questions. About those, listener Shantel asks, I am trying out for the SERE specialist position in the Air Force. This is one of their toughest jobs. SERE stands for survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. In order to get into SERE tech score, you need to be able to pass a physical aptitude stamina test in which all the exercises are performed back to back. The order is 200 meter, swim, one and a half mile run, calisthenics, minimum of six chin ups within one minute, 50 sit ups within three minutes, 42 push ups within three minutes, and be able to carry a 65 pound rucksack four miles in one hour. How do I work up to this in eight weeks? Can you go from five pushups to 60 in eight weeks and zero chin ups to six? Yeah. Let me give you a few tips, Chantelle. Basically, I have trained some people for the past and a few of the things that you're going to want to do is first of all, understand the importance of eccentric muscle activation. This is something that a lot of athletes use when they're preparing for an event. And the idea is that you can get a lot faster results from eccentric or negative type of exercise. So what that means is that rather than when you're focusing on doing more pushups, just doing push ups, you instead focus on lowering yourself in the lowering phase of the push up, using cheating or the rest of your body to get yourself back up into the original position and then lowering yourself again. So, for example, what that would look like is you would start off with the five push ups that you can do right now, but then you would keep going. And while you may not be able to push yourself up from the ground, you can focus on lowering yourself down very slowly to the ground. It's a lot easier to slow the body against gravity than it is to push the body up against gravity. But the idea is that the muscle still adapts and responds. So that's one little trick that you can use is you basically do as many reps as you can to failure of a regular pushup and then you do those negative pushups where you're lowering yourself slowly and then just cheating to get back up until you get to failure. And you can't lower yourself slowly anymore either. So that's one example of something you can do. You can do the same thing with chin ups as well. You cheat to get yourself up to the top of the bar and then you lower yourself very slowly and then you jump or swing or do whatever you need to do, cheat to get to the top of the bar again and lower yourself very slowly. And by doing that, you can systematically allow your body to actually get much stronger at the push ups and the chin ups. You could absolutely go from five pushups to 60 in eight weeks generally for any of these type of exercises. If you're going to go to fatigue using negative reps, give yourself about 48 hours between workouts. So you would, for example, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, work on your push ups, work on your chin ups, work on your sit ups, and then on your Tuesday, your Thursday and your Saturday work on your swim and your run and your rucksack carry. So, you know, there's obviously quite a bit of programming that could go into writing out an actual program for this that we don't have time to go into today. But the idea is that those eccentrics could work very well for the 1 1/2 mile run. Definitely don't make the mistake of going out and just focusing on running one and a half miles a few days a week and trying to get faster. Use intervals. What that means is you can, for example, do eight repeats of a quarter mile run, of a 0.25 mile run where you're running at your sub 11:30 pace over and over again and then giving yourself a one to one work to rest ratio or a two to one work to rest ratio, eventually focusing on the fact that you're going to be able to string together all those 0.25 mile repeats into a 1.5 mile run, which you might only practice the full 1.5 miles four or five times before your actual event. 200 meter swim, same thing. Focus on doing 25 or 50 meter intervals to get yourself up to the point where you can string together all those intervals and do your full 200 meters. And then finally for the rucksack, carrying a rucksack four miles in one hour. You could for example, do 10 minute intervals with the rucksack or 15 minute intervals with the rucksack. And basically intervals are the way that everybody from Ironman triathletes train all the way down to people getting ready to race the 800 meter. Whereas the 800 meter athlete might be doing 50 to 100 meter sprints, the Ironman athlete might be doing 10 to 20 mile bike intervals. But it all returns to that concept of intervals. So great question. Use intervals and use eccentric negative training. Finally, we're going to move on to a comment from listeners. Brett.

Hey Ben. This is Brett Nelson from Cedar City, Utah. I'm one of your CEO Dominator or the Triathlon Dominator athletes and I was just going to leave you a message about how my tune up race, my half iron tune up race went. It was fantastic. The pacing that you prescribed was just absolutely spot on. I stuck right to the nutrition plan. Two, three, about 350 calories an hour on the bike and then a gel every half an hour on the run. And I my bike time was a little slow just because I'm not really good on the downhills, but I ended up pr' ing on my half Ironman distance. And the last time I ran my half marathon time it was about 2:30 and this time I finished about 2:30, 2:45. This time I did about an hour and 57 minutes coming off the bike. So 45 minute PR. Can't argue man. Awesome stuff. Great material. A little skeptical at first about how the volume was going to match up against my friends that are training for the same race, but man, I just owned it. It was awesome. So anyway, just going to give you a shout out. Awesome stuff man. I'm looking forward to my Ironman comes up in about a month. Let you know how that race goes. Thanks buddy. Take care.

Well Brett, thanks for the positive feedback and definitely keep in touch about your results with the Triathlon Dominator. I'm getting a a lot of word from people because remember that Triathlon Dominator package just came out last year and now people are starting to hit their race seasons. They've been using it for the past few months and it's going to be great to see the results that are happening. So if you want to check that out for yourself, go to triathlon dominator.com and remember, if you have a question, a comment, feedback, whatever, call toll free to 877-209-9439. Email me ben greenfieldfitness.com or Skype to Pacific Fit. And now we're going to move on to our interview with 400 mile man John Berghoff.

Featured Topic.

Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and as promised, I have got an endurance athlete on the call today. And this guy is not a conventional athlete. The type of training that he does is basically just a fraction of what he actually goes out and performs when he does some of the events that he does. And really he's not an ultra endurance athlete by trade. He runs a sales training company. But all the same type of mental strategies that he's developed through ultra endurance training are the same type of strategies that he uses to help people in what's called peak performance sales training. He's got Tons of great mental skills and strategies that are going to help you whether you're doing an Ironman triathlon, whether you're just trying to get motivated to exercise a little bit, maybe shed a few pounds. But his name's John Berghoff, and as a matter of fact, he has done a 400 mile run. And we're going to talk about that a little bit today. But first of all, John, thanks for coming on the call.

Yeah, it's my pleasure, Ben. I'm excited to be here.

All right, well, let's jump straight into things. How did you get into ultra endurance, John?

Yeah, well, I first, and I'm glad you clarified, I'm not really a traditional athlete. I'm a big fan of all sorts of different sports. And I played sports as a kid. I wasn't a runner. I didn't run in high school or in college. But the short answer, Ben, of how I got into these ultra marathons is it was actually for a charity. A buddy of mine started an organization called the Front Row foundation. And the way that he launched his charity was by running 52 miles. And it's a funny story because he didn't train for it at all. And so of course, you know, a couple years later to support him in the Front row, I thought, hey, that sounds like a cool idea to try and run 52 miles. And so that was maybe four years ago. And you know, that year I ran the 52 miler and when I finished, I was still alive. And I thought, hey, wait a minute, this is. I could actually do a little bit of preparing and probably feel a lot better than I did after that first one. And that, that was how it all started. And yeah, I've run, I've only run five or six other ultra marathons, Ben, but I've run three other 50 milers. I did a. Two years ago, I did my first hundred miler and that was the Old Dominion out here in Virginia on a hot day. That was a tough one. And then last year ran this, well, we call it the 400 mile run. I ran 332 miles in about eight days. So that's the extent of my experience there.

Wow. So we've got people listening, John, and they're training two years to go out and run 26.2 miles in a marathon.

Or in an Ironman.

How did you actually go out and do 52 miles without really training? As a matter of fact, you've done multiple 50 mile runs. You've done hundred mile runs, you've done this 332 mile run. And you've used that same kind of minimal training strategy for all of them.

Yeah. Well, you know, first thing I should come out and say, Ben, is I'm a fan of your podcast, and I have been listening to you for a little while now, and I recognize that many of your listeners, my guesses are they are more. They're. I don't know how to say it. They're a lot more knowledgeable than I am. They've got better training technique, and they've. And that's the right way to go about it. And I don't want to jump on your program here and tell everybody that I believe the smartest way to approach an event is by not training. I've got a good foundation in that. I've always played sports As a kid growing up, I'm only £150. I'm five foot nine. So it's not like I've got a lot of weight that I'm moving, and I don't have any major health problems. I had a lot of knee problems as a kid. But my approach to these runs when I first started was it wasn't to accomplish them in any period of time. It was just to get the distance in. So the only tool that I had without being physically trained at the level that I probably should have been was my mind. And I know that can almost sound corny or cheesy, but I'm guessing your audience, you've got listeners here who, they understand that completing, whether it's an ironman or a marathon, even a half marathon, for the first time, it's physical and mental. So a lot of what I did for myself was using my mind and my own psychology to get myself through some of these crazy events, combined with some training and some yoga. And I eat really healthy. So I got to say that I am focused on my nutrition a lot.

Gotcha. So when you talk about the mental training as being one of the things that really helped you, you get through these ultra endurance events that, you know, maybe you didn't do a formal training protocol for. What type of mental training strategies did you actually utilize while you were out there?

Yeah, well, you know, you mentioned something a minute ago when you were introducing me, Ben, that I run a sales training company, Global Empowerment. And, you know, we train organizations and companies around the world. At this point, we've worked with tens of thousands of salespeople and entrepreneurs, and a lot of what we teach them in my business has to do with how to adjust their psychology so that they have what I would call a winning psychology. Because if you have anybody, if any of your listeners are either in sales or they're an entrepreneur, they run a business, then they fully understand that when you run a business, you deal with a lot of rejection, and whether it's someone rejecting your ideas or your product or your service. And so you have to be mentally fit to deal with that and to deal with the challenges that face someone in that role. So when you ask me, hey, what are the strategies? It probably helps that your listeners have that context and understand that, you know, a lot of that's where it comes from, is working with salespeople. And when I ran that first run, I'll tell you, I ran it, and I realized right from the beginning that, oh, my gosh, so much of what I've been teaching my clients is so true in this totally different arena, but it applies so much the importance of managing our mindset. So, I mean, that's where it came from, if that helps to kind of paint a picture of the background.

Right.

And what exactly, when you talk about managing the mindset during a run, you know, let's say you're out there and you're at mile, you know, 30 or 35, and you're really feeling tired or fatigued or exhausted. Give me an example of what type of mental strategy that you use that maybe our listeners could use in a situation like that.

Yeah, well, you know, your listeners might find this to be interesting or maybe something that they've heard from you or other training regimens. But for me, Ben, my training mentally begins long before the run. And again, I'll paint a picture for your listeners. You know, last year I trained for. I did this run where I ran about 40 miles a day for eight and a half days straight. And we can get into what that was about or why we did that. But I'll tell you that leading up to that, I had nine weeks in a row where I was training, traveling all over the country, speaking to organizations for my sales training business. So I was training out of hotel gyms, which was a nightmare a lot of the time, sometimes just figuring out how to work out, like, standing, you know, at the corner of an airport, just odd situations. And so a lot of my training had to be mental. And one key component of that, Ben, was visualization. I've done a lot of work with my clients, and also now in my running to visualize what I wanted to see happen. And we could get into the science of why. I think that's so powerful. But at the end of the day, the more frequently and with the more intensity and the more precision we envision ourselves accomplishing something, whether it's in a business or running, I believe it programs ourselves to overcome the inevitable challenges that come up.

Now, when you say visualization, are you visualizing your running form? Are you visualizing success at the finish of the run? Or what type of visualization strategies do you use?

John?

Well, there's, that's a great question and I don't know if I've, if I've put a name or a label to it, but I mean I can just describe it that when I'm like right now I'm going to be running another hundred miler in a few months here and again, I'm not able to fit in a normal training regimen. So an example of my visualization, Ben, is when I go out on a four mile run right now, which anyone else training for the same race is probably running 20 miles or whatever they might be doing. I envision, while I'm running, I actually envision like a movie playing out in my head, that I'm actually running 20, 30, 40 miles on that four mile run. And as I'm watching that movie play out in my head, I actually practice seeing myself go through all of the ups and downs that a lot of your listeners can relate to. And what I found is that by actually mentally rehearsing how I'm going to respond to that moment when I got blisters, my knees are giving in, my muscles are giving in, my lungs are giving in, that when I rehearse that mentally and then I get to that moment, as surprising as that could sound to some people, it's a great way to be prepared because as you know, and many of your listeners know, with more experience than I have, that, you know, that can be the difference between finishing a race and not is being mentally ready for those moments when you want to give in. And you know, to me that's my strength. It's not the all the physical training that I probably should be doing.

Yeah, well, I think it's a huge missed component in a lot of people's training protocols, not realizing that it goes beyond just hammering and hitting each training session. You actually have to have your mind ready, especially when we're talking about ultra endurance events, you know, the type of things that you've done, especially the real long run that you did, that we'll talk about here in a second. But just getting the mind ready because there's, I don't know if you've heard of something called central fatigue before, John? Are you familiar with that at all?

I think I've heard the topic discussed, yeah.

Yeah. Basically the idea that the body will go just about as far as your mind believes that you're capable of. And then at that point you, you simply lose it, your body quits. And so if you can convince your mind or overpower your nervous system to believe that you actually can keep going, then a lot of times your, your central fatigue takes a little bit, a little bit longer to kick in. So.

Yeah, can I make a point about, can I make a comment about that, Ben?

Yeah, absolutely.

Last year, for example, while I was, I mean I say while I was training for the 400 mile run, I was, I wasn't really training, but you just made a great point. And the word is beliefs. And one of the things that I did is I made sure that everything that I exposed myself to in terms of mental information was supporting the belief that I could run 40 miles a day for eight and a half consecutive days. And so for example, I remember I had the DVD with me the Running man, the story of. Oh God, I'm losing his name. David Orton. Is that his name? He ran 40 plus miles a day for 65 days along the Pacific coast rim or whatever it's called. And then I read the book Born to Run multiple times where you hear about the Tara Umara, these native Indians who they run out of necessity, 20, 30, 40 miles a day. So I was extremely exposing myself to resources and information that supported the belief that it was possible. I was very quick to ignore the people and the doctors in my life that said I shouldn't be trying to do what I'm doing. And so the word you use, belief, I think is just so important. I'm a huge testament to that. Overcoming lack of physical training, that's for sure.

Yeah. Well, that kind of leads into the question I wanted to ask you, John. What exactly made you want to do this 400 mile run, which I believe was from D.C. to Cleveland? Is that, is that the distance that you did?

That's right, yep.

Okay. What was your impetus for, for choosing to do that?

Yeah, well, my family kept saying, why would you run to Cleveland? We don't even want to fly into Cleveland. Well, you know, there's two reasons. Number one, it was for my own gain in terms of my business. And this helps to explain part of the situation here. There's an organization called Entrepreneurs Organization. It's also referred to as EO and EO has 7,000 members around the world and they're all business owners that have successful growing businesses. And Ben, they hire speakers to come in to talk to their entrepreneurs and they typically bring in people who are really well established. And at the time I wasn't as well established as a professional speaker as many of their other speakers. And so when I pitched myself to them, I said, hey, I'm going to run a seminar on peak performance leadership. Which I'd been doing that for years. But I told them, I said, to give you kind of a cool angle, what I'm going to do is I'm going to run to the event. So what we haven't told your listeners yet is that I actually ran the 332 miles and then the day after I got there, I then ran a seminar for, for 150 or so entrepreneurs. And we got to do it at Quicken Loans arena, which was kind of cool because once they heard I was going to try this, they wanted to set it up at a cool venue. So that was one part of the purpose, Ben. And another part was I wanted to continue to raise awareness for the Front Row foundation, the same cause I mentioned earlier. So that's kind of how that came together.

And in terms of your preparation for that, John, was there anything special that you did to, you know, once you decided you were going to run from D.C. to Cleveland?

I mean, how was that? What do you think was more challenging?

The actual training leading up to it.

Or the event itself?

Yeah, you know, that's a great question. The training leading up to it was a different type of experience than the actual event. We'll talk about the training leading up to it for a minute. As I mentioned earlier, my time was very limited, so. And I don't want to paint the picture that I'm this guy that just woke up and started running. That's not true. I, I did put in probably an average of an hour a day. I'm trying to average it out. There were days I didn't train and there were days where I got two to three hour runs in, but my average wasn't more than your average Joe who likes to work out a lot. So the question is, well, how did I get physically prepared enough to not fall apart because I had to have something going on. And you know, part of it then was making sure that a lot of my exercise was. And again, I'm not an expert on this, so I might use terms that make no sense, but functional full body training where I'm combining, you Know, high intensity cardio and anaerobic at the same time. You know, where I'm trying to be really efficient. Most of my runs, my goal would be to find a hill and I would just go sprint up a Hill for 30 minutes. And you know, for my body, I found that the results and the benefits I would get from sprinting up a hill for 30 minutes were better than when I go out on a two hour run sometimes at least. So trying to learn to be efficient and how to push myself to get the most out of the shortest period of time. And I definitely did a lot of yoga, combination of Bikram power yoga. And I found that that helped me to stay healthy, which was key. Staying flexible and aligned and always focusing on my posture and my form. I'm a big believer, Ben, that with the right form and the right posture and some quality breathing that anybody could surprise themselves in terms of how far they could go before they get injured.

Interesting. So it's basically a combination of the mental training with some of those strategies, some of those time management and then the functional training combined with the yoga.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Has to be noted that I am nutritionally pretty intense. I'm passionate about eating healthy, so I was staying healthy in terms of the food I put into my body as well.

Were you following a special diet like vegan or Mediterranean or anything like that?

No, I mean, I focus on trying to eat what I consider to be a balanced diet. I try and eat, consume a lot of dark green leafy vegetables. I've got a Vitamix that I passionately use multiple times a day where, you know, I learned how to get a lot of healthy quick meals that maybe didn't always taste great, but you know, whether it was just putting some water and some vegetables in a blender and grinding it up with some nuts and then throughout the day just munching on some seeds and some nuts and some fruit and I'd eat a lot of lean meats, fish as well, but it wasn't one particular type of diet like everything else I do. At least with running, it's very intuitive for me. I don't know that I'm always doing the best, making the best decisions, but I try and think with a lot of that.

Interesting. So in terms of the run, how'd you break it up?

How many miles did you run each day?

Yeah, well, the way we broke it up is the original goal was to cover 400 miles in period of nine days. And going into that, Ben, I was also well aware That I had no idea what was going to end up happening. Now, part of the challenge, although I guess I could say this was part of my strategy for success, is leading up to the run. I told. I publicly pronounced to, like, thousands of people, literally, that I was going to do this run. And, yeah, I call that leveraging your integrity. You tell enough people you're going to do something and you're afraid not to do it. And for me, as a professional trainer, all I did is I just. I just became part of the story that I was telling that summer. So I told literally, like, five or six thousand people that I was going to be doing this run. And so I was a very emotional experience, Ben, because I knew I had a plan, which was to cover, you know, approximately 40 to 50 miles a day. But at the same time, I knew that I was going to be dealing with injuries, and I knew that it was just going to be a totally intense mental battle. And that battle, Ben, began on the second day, when. The first day we got about 40 miles in and the run, just to paint a picture, we began at the steps of the Capitol building because it was. I was. The run was meant to be symbolic. We actually called it the Recession Rejection run, because at the end, I was speaking to entrepreneurs, right? And so we. We started the steps of the Capitol. And because I'm a huge fan of nature, and I just believe there's beauty and spending time in nature, and there's a great connection that I can have there, I set it up so that the entire run was along trails. So I ran the first half of the run was along the C and O Canal, which is a historic canal that follows first the Potomac river, and then it connects with what's known as the Allegheny Passage, which we cross over the Continental Divide, the Eastern Continental Divide. And then, I mean, it's technically downhill from there, but it's still through mountains and trails up to Pittsburgh. And then. So the point is, it was along trails, and I had a crew of seven people. We also had a professional film crew. And, Ben, I'll tell you what I overlooked and I didn't plan for was the challenge of not only having to keep myself moving, but I was also the leader of a crew of seven. And that was very difficult because these trails were not all accessible. So I'm telling you all this because you asked, well, what was your plan? Well, we realized at day one, our plan was going out the door because it was so difficult to stay in communication with my crew because they needed to keep me Hydrated and keep me fueled and with nutrition. We brought a massage therapist with us. I think that was huge. And I don't know what you call it, divine intervention or irony that I met this guy three days before the run started because I had an injury right before the run. Someone recommended him. I'm sitting in his office talking him what I'm about to do, and he says, you're nuts. I said, I know you want to come with me. And he said, yeah, let's do it. And he ended up becoming a great friend, and I don't think I would have made it past the second day without him. But just on the second day, Ben, I had an incredible pain in my knee, and I had to stop 30 miles into it. And, I mean, I thought I could have been done that night. I didn't know how I'd feel when I woke up. So the whole thing became a mental battle right from the beginning, and it was a heck of a journey.

Wow. So you had that knee pain, and did you run into other things along the way in addition to that?

Yeah. You know, I don't know if I'm not real proud to say this, Ben, but I went into that run not physically where I needed to be, where I really wanted to be. And I don't talk about how I wasn't physically trained, because I think that that's something to brag about. It just kind of the nature of how I showed up to this event and how my life was structured, that I could only get so far. And so the. What ended up happening, Ben, is I was dealing with a lot of injuries from about mile 71 until mile 332. And. And what I started to realize, though, was that. That many of these injuries, I could still push through them. And. And I tried to be very careful about listening to my body. And if something was hurting, I would pay attention and not just stop because I had pain, but I would pay attention to, is the pain getting worse? Is it still getting worse? Okay, where it's at right now, can I manage this? And so the run became a constant process of kind of almost redefining pain and pleasure, as sick as that might sound, and taking that pain and asking myself, can I? Could I keep dealing with this if this doesn't get worse? And I was very surprising, Ben, that a lot of times the pain would get really bad, but then I could go 20 miles and it wouldn't get worse. And, of course, the way the body works, it doesn't surprise you that the pain would move to different parts of the body. Because even though I was trying my heart out to have perfect form and to breathe deeply and all that stuff, you know, my body would still compensate. So I'd wake up every day with new pains and new spots. And by about the third day, my right foot, I had bones that may have been broken. I had shin splints that our doctor with us, he was convinced were stress fractures by about the fifth day. And, you know, someone might hear this thinking, you know, why would you keep going? And, you know, for me, it was. I had a cause. And my cause was that this was a journey of self discovery, Ben. And also the front row foundation, which we didn't talk about this earlier when you asked, But I believe that for many folks getting through a super endurance event, the difference between succeeding and failing is what's your reason? What's your cause behind it? For me, the process of learning about myself and what humans are capable of, that was part of my own inspiration, if that makes sense. The pain kept going. It didn't go away, and we just had to keep managing it.

Wow. So in terms of advice, advice, John, that you could give to the listeners as far as how to achieve something that they want. Their own personal Mount Everest. You talked a little bit about the mental training, but do you have other tips or other pieces of advice that you could give to people who right now are facing something that seems pretty formidable?

Yeah. Well, I'm sure everybody has picked up by now that Ben is the one to be listening to for physical training advice, not me. So what I will say, Ben, is that in my experience, what could help anybody is to make sure that they get clear on why they are doing what they are doing. I know that somebody might say, well, I want to run an. I want to complete an Ironman because it's cool or because I want to. But, you know, I question that. And what I would challenge your listeners to ask themselves is why? What's the deeper part? There's got to be a meaning to it. And what I found, Ben, is that, you know, a lot of the traditional training, because I do connect with and speak now to a lot of different endurance athletes just because I'm so passionate about it. It's a world I'm interested in. And find a lot of the traditional training focuses so much on the structure. It's almost like it gives people a map. Well, here's what you do to follow. You follow this map and you'll be prepared. But anybody who's completed an Ironman or any Type of ultra event has figured out really quickly that a map is only one part of the equation. And so when you ask me for any tips, I would say that when you answer that question of why, when you get clear on the cause of the purpose of the mission, that's the fuel that keeps us going. It's great to have a map. But we all know as soon as the run starts, as soon as the race starts, everything goes out the window. And what matters at that moment. And I have a friend who just got back from K2 a couple years ago. He was actually with me on the run. I wanted to have good people around me. Right? That's important. And it was one of the things that he shared with me before this run is he said, look, you're going to do everything you can to train, but you got to make sure that you don't forget your purpose. And sometimes, Ben, I think people get too caught up in, hey, am I going to get my best time ever? And that's great and that's important and that might be valuable, but it's just. It's so important to have clarity and what's the bigger reason why I'm doing this? And if people can and I can't tell your listeners what that should be for them. It might be religiously based. It might be a cause or a charity that they're wanting to raise awareness for. It might be that they want to set an example for their kids or, you know, they want to set an example for the community or they want to learn more about themselves. I don't know what it is, but that would be one tip I'd give is get connected to a cause. And the other thing I would say, Ben, is to make a decision about being committed and not just interested. I think there's a difference between committing to accomplishing something and just being interested. And sometimes we try and get ourselves committed by saying we're gonna do something or making a decision. But to me, commitment is a way of living. It's not. It's not, hey, I signed up for the race, so I'm in. That's, you know, all these runs that I've done, I make a commitment that no matter how I show up to that event, I'm gonna complete it. That's why, I mean, the 400 mile run, it was kind of. I ran out of time. But when I did my first hundred miler last year, you know, I showed up. It was 100 degrees plus the whole day. Less than half the people who started didn't finish. And my deal was I'm going to finish. I'm going to be committed because that's what I'm about. And that's part of that even ties back into my cause. I want to learn about human potential. And your listeners may not care about that as much, but getting that cause and getting that commitment to me, I think is so important. Aside from everything they should be doing physically.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think it's true for everything in life, from knowing why you're going to do a triathlon and having the commitment to that, to knowing why you want to spend more time with your kids.

And having more commitment to that. I think the two things that you just hit on are two of the most important things that people can do from a mental perspective when it comes to achieving something.

So spot on, man. Well, we are getting towards the end of our call, but I wanted to ask you in terms of resources, books, websites, anything else that you might want to point people towards that have helped you in your journey and in your ultra endurance, do you have any recommendations?

You'll be disappointed. I have so few recommendations because I am so untraditional. Right. I mean you heard me mention the Born to Run, which I am a huge fan of that book. I do a lot of training wearing Vibram fight finger shoes. I go running on trails and I always wear my Vibram five finger shoes. I feel that that helps my balance. And then nutritionally I just, I'll give a shout out to Hammer Nutrition. I have no affiliation with them but they. I use all of their products and their fuel for my training and for my runs and I would encourage anybody who likes. Actually here's two websites of interest that I'd love to promote. One is just go to four 400 mile run and you can watch a video blog that we filmed during the run. There's like 20 different videos that were filmed during the run if any of you want to go check that out. And feel free to contact me through the site if you have any questions. And of course because I've mentioned it, you're welcome to Visit the Frontrow Foundation.com it's the cause that I've been supporting that has kept me fired up.

Awesome. Well John, thanks for coming on the call and sharing your experience.

You're welcome, Ben. It's been a pleasure. I appreciate it.

So folks, be sure to check out John's website. Some cool videos on there and I also put a video of John on the show notes to this podcast podcast episode number 89 iTunes is there waiting for you. Make sure if you if you're not subscribed, definitely subscribe to our podcast on itunes. But leave a ranking. Give a little quip about what you like about the show and leave a star ranking. It helps the show out quite a bit. And then remember, if you're interested in that Mother's Day contest and you want to win a free underwater MP3 player, a few books from me, and free membership to the Rockstar Triathlete Academy, then you will want to go over to mindset triathlon.com I'll put a link to that in the show Notes. If you have questions about anything that I talked about today, from supplements to tactics for training or nutrition, just shoot an email or leave a comment on the show notes of this podcast. And until next time, have a healthy week. This is Ben Greenfield signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

SA. Sam.