#1: How to Overcome Challenges in Training, Racing and Life - with Charlie Engle

We get fixated on, on finishing things when what we need to do is focus entirely on what we're doing right now.

Hey, what's up guys? It's Floris Gierman from the Extra Mileage Show, where we help athletes reach their full potential in training, racing, and life. I interview world-class athletes, coaches, and record makers about health, wellness, and performance. And today we have a very exciting guest on the show. His name is Charlie Engel. He is an ultra-endurance athlete, a father, and a husband, and his life has had many highs and lows. He had a long addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine, and eventually he turned to running as an outlet. He started with marathon running, and eventually, after doing many different marathons, he was looking for more, and he ended up finding ultra races. He placed high at the Badwater 135-mile race, one of the toughest ultra races on the planet. And he has placed in the top 5 several times over there. And Charlie and 2 of his friends also ran across the Sahara Desert in Africa. This is 4,500 miles in total, 111 days straight, and 2 marathons a day. Absolutely unbelievable. And Matt Damon, he actually produced a documentary about this. Talking about going the extra mile, like, this is absolutely a whole nother level of that. And so this movie actually gave him quite a bit of fame and put him on the radar of one IRS officer. And with very bad luck, actually, he ended up in jail for what he calls a 16-month federal holiday. He kept running in jail and he actually turned a lot of the different inmates over there into runners. Charlie is now a successful public speaker and an author, and we're going to dive into a variety of different subjects. We're going to talk about how to overcome mental challenges in training, racing, and in life. We're going to talk about some of the highs and the lows in Charlie's life and his mantra when things really get tough. Charlie also ended up breaking the sub-3-hour marathon, and this was not easy. He tried many times and failed many times, but then he changed a few things around. So we're gonna dive into what it took for him to go from failing to to do the sub-3-hour marathon to eventually running almost every marathon sub-3 hours. So without further ado, let's dive right into my conversation with Charlie Engle. I hope you enjoy it. Hey, hey. Hey, Charlie, how are you?

I'm doing fine.

Nice. Last week was a fun one over at the World Conference.

It was.

That workout that we did with Joe DeSena from the Spartan Races, That was definitely a heavy one. I was sore for probably about 5 days after. Seriously.

Me too. Really? Yeah. So don't feel badly. Yeah, I was sore also. It was, you know, I mean, if you don't do burpees and you don't do those things, then you're going to get sore. That's the thing.

I think we totally did like 500 burpees and push-ups combined. And then like, yeah, the whole like chest and the shoulders and everything.

Well, it just tells you, of course, that we need to do more of that.

Oh yeah, no, but then again, like, how much cross-training versus running do you do? Like, it's, it's always one of those. If you have that many hours in a day, like, I tend to typically just go out and run as much as I can. What about you? Do you, do you end up, um, do a lot of cross-training, or is it, is it mostly running?

I do. No, I try to do as much cross-training as I can. I mean, I'm I'm at a point where if I'm just running, you know, I'm, I'm risking a lot of, you know, injury and just, it's just too much, you know. It's, I've run for too long and most of the things I do, my fitness matters of course, but it's more important that I'm just healthy overall.

Yeah.

So, um, I, I used to do a lot of paddling there on the Back Bay in Costa Mesa.

Oh, like right here? I ran that this morning. I just ran 12 miles. That's, I saw them paddling Oh yeah, do you ever go paddle there? No, I haven't, but it looks like a good workout.

A friend of mine actually runs that place. Yeah, his name is Billy, and Billy's been there forever. My kayak, my old kayak lives there.

Oh, no way.

Yeah. That's funny.

You were last week one of the speakers at the World Conference, and you shared one of your very impressive stories over there of running across the Sahara in Africa, 4,500 miles from Senegal all the way to the Dead Sea, 111 days at extreme temperatures. Like, I couldn't even believe it when I heard it. And so I've run a few ultras myself. I've done some 50-milers, I've done a 100-miler, but just thinking about 111 days nonstop running 2 marathons a day in those temperatures, like, How in the world did you do it? Like, what possibly, first of all, made you do it? And second of all, how did you physically and mentally do this?

Yeah, I think if I'd known it was that far when I started, maybe I would have reconsidered. So, oh, but it's— so look, the idea— and I always make the joke that the idea came about, you know, like most of my bad ideas, and that's in the middle of another hard race. So I was running across the Amazon jungle, racing against several friends. It was probably 300 people in this race, and it was a stage race, very much like the Tour de France. So, you know, we had downtime every night, and I'm just laying there in the middle of the jungle in a jungle hammock, and a guy I really didn't know said to me, you know, hey, I wonder if anybody's ever run across the whole Sahara Desert. And, you know, I always say that, you know, words that are said to us by, you know, a stranger can like be the thing that can change the rest of your life. Yeah, you're just paying attention. And I actually thought it was a terrible idea at first, and but I went home and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I did some research and I found out that, that no one had ever run across the entire Sahara Desert. And in the adventure world, it's really hard to find things that nobody has done before. Yeah, that's a difficult one. So I just, I fell in love with the idea and I began to just tell people, anybody that would listen. I told them that I was going to be the first person to run across the Sahara Desert.

And then you were able to tell this story. Probably there was a lot of disbelief. Some people hoped to see you do it, but not that many people probably believed in it. Yet still you convinced Matt Damon and a crew to actually make a documentary out of it.

Out of it, right? Yeah, I think most people that heard the idea, I mean, look, I had been doing some pretty crazy runs for a number of years, and I think most people just humored me, like, okay, yeah, that's nice, you know, but not really believing. A few of them said it's just simply impossible. You know, my even close friends said, you know, there's no, you can't get resupplied, the temperatures are just too high, and there's simply no way to run in deep sand for, over 4,000 miles. And all of that made me dig in my heels and I felt myself basically taking, I took possession of the possibility and I let them have the impossibility. They could believe it wasn't possible and I just kept telling the story. And finally, a friend of mine who knew a director named James Mull offered to make an introduction. And I met James and he had won the Academy Award for best documentary a few years earlier.

That helps then, right?

Yeah, well, so, but I didn't— I mean, this is just a meeting. I thought maybe I would get a student director or somebody. And, you know, when I go in and I'm late to the meeting and I'm disheveled and sweaty and I come in the door and I'm like, you know, hey, Torrigs, Sahara Desert, never been done before, sand, water, you know, all of this. And, and it was the worst, absolutely the worst pitch I've ever made in my life. I mean, no, no doubt about it. And at the end of the meeting, he stood up and he stuck out his hand and he said, I'll do it. And a week later, he called me. He called me and he said, hey, I just talked to Matt Damon. And Matt says that he wants to narrate the film and executive produce. And then he asked me, he's like, would that be okay with you? And I said, I told him, this is, this is the truth. I said, you know, I was really looking for somebody better, but yeah, but yeah, Matt Damon would be okay. So, and we started to plan.

So no pressure at that point, right? You basically have those guys lined up. You have two friends with you that are going to do it at the same time, and you have a whole crew as well. So you have all these really high expectations. You got a lot of people involved.

Yeah.

And then eventually you get to Africa and you have to start running. And then, like, how, how were those first few days? Were you like, what in the world did I begin?

Yeah, first of all, we got there, and I mean, I really did believe that I had in my gut, I felt sick all the time because I was worried I had like suckered all of these people out to the desert and that, you know, that this was going to be a joke because I mean, look, I felt like it could be done, but I knew we needed to run, you know, basically 50 miles every single day for probably more than 100 days. And the first The first 2 to 3 days, we, we began this slow descent down into hell. And by day 7, we had gone fully into the abyss and the entire team was falling apart. Ray and Kevin, who were my partners in this thing, were both sick. We were having ground temperatures of 130, 135 degrees every day. We were behind schedule. After 1 week, we were behind schedule by 3 days. So we had— every day we were just having unbelievable amount of problems, and people started to argue, and the doctor with our crew began to pull, you know, really express himself about how dangerous he thought what we were doing was and how, you know, irresponsible I was, and We tried to make adjustments and, and I finally, you know, I've been clean and sober for 25 years now. And one of the things about, you know, sobriety is that everyone's heard the mantra, you know, one day at a time. It's cliché, but on day like 8, I said to myself, I have to start approaching this expedition the same way that I approach sobriety. So literally on day 9, I got up in the morning, 4 o'clock, we started running at 5, and the only thing that I thought about was running a marathon before lunch. It's all I was worried about. Yeah, lunch, I took a nap, I got up and ran another marathon after lunch, and that's all I thought about. Yeah, got finished with the day, and you know, I had food and a massage, and I lay down on my, on my mat, and I looked up at the stars, and there's not an electric light for 1,000 miles, and I just watched the stars. I watched the space station going around the Earth, and I was just grateful to be alive. And then I got up the next day and I did it again, and I stopped thinking about the finish. Yeah, because we get fixated on finishing things when what we need to do is focus entirely on what we're doing right now.

And I think that is so interesting you're saying that because When I ran my 100 miler, like I left my house in Long Beach and I ended up running 17 hours 45 minutes to San Diego to take the train back. Even at the beginning of that, it was like, although it's nothing to compare to the amount of miles that you ran, this was in one day, double of what I had ever run before. And even there, like sometimes you get that feeling in your gut of like, oh God, What did I start? And then even at that point, I said to myself, let's break it up in 5 miles. Let's run 20 times 5 miles. Let's just get to the next 5 miles. And if I need to, I'll take a short walk break at that point. But let's just keep— and I think that is one really good way to come through it.

But for you, and it translates, it translates to any distance. I tell people all the time because everyone thinks, you know, oh, There's always somebody that runs farther or faster.

Even though I doubt that at this point with you, I think you must be up there with the amount of miles.

Maybe for some hard ideas, but a 100-miler, I've done dozens of 100-milers, and not one of them ever has been easy. Every single one of them at some point of the race or the run, I wanted to quit. Yeah, and actually in a way I want that. Like, people ask me why all the time, and I love getting to the place where I want to quit, where I can't take anymore, and then try to find a way to continue, to keep going farther. Yeah, but what you said translates to anybody, you know. If you're running your first half marathon, you know, all you should think about is one mile at a time, or, you know, you get You get to 6-mile, you get to the halfway mark, and then, you know, and just focus on small goals and the big goal will happen.

And then it's like focus on the next aid station. Yeah, it's really like running aid station to aid station at that point. I see that very often in the half marathons or in the marathons as well. So yeah, that's definitely the only way to do it.

It's— I mean, to me, it's the, it's the only way. If you're thinking about the finish when you're starting, you know, you're getting the crown or the medal or the hug or the food or whatever it is at the very— or the sex, whatever it is at the very end if you're lucky enough, you know, it's so self-defeating because then the moment you hit the first problem— and like you with your run, I'm wondering, did you experience some low times?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, because the furthest I'd ever gone was 50 miles. So as soon as I got past 50, you're in that zone of unknown territory. And that is the exciting part. You don't know what's gonna happen after that. And so at about 62 miles, I was at a stretch for 20 miles where there was no water. And about 15 miles in, I ran out of water. And I ended up bonking and really getting to a negative place that I was walking and I was really trying to find out how do I overcome this? And then eventually you run into a convenience store, find like a Coke or find a water, you drink it and you have that rebirth. You're like a second person. And then the amount— and I think a lot of marathon runners can relate as well. Like once you almost hit that wall, you hit that wall around mile 18 or 20 and you take some food and eventually you overcome it again. Like that is like, that's where that passion really comes through. Like I feel that's a very exciting part in a race.

Well, if you're properly trained, and I always tell people, you know, most of the time if you've done some decent training, and for a 100-miler, I don't even know what that means. It's so different for everybody. You know, for me, most of my training is about time on my feet. It's not about distance. You know, if I know I'm trying to run a 100-miler in less than 24 hours or 20 hours or whatever it is, I focus my training on, okay, how am I going to run for, you know, 20 hours? How am I— how's that going to happen? And usually, like, maybe every single time when I have, when I have problems, it's almost always nutrition and hydration.

Yeah.

So when you feel— and if it's a marathon or 100 miler— when you feel the wheels coming off and everything's going to hell, If you can just force yourself to eat and drink like 1,000 calories like that, I mean, as much as you can cram into your body, and, you know, 30 minutes later, usually you will start to feel better.

Yeah.

And I think that that's— a lot of people quit, you know, that they make the bad decision to quit right then. And instead of, you know, taking in the nutrition, you can always quit later. Yeah, that's what I always—

yep, absolutely. Well, the interesting part is there though, like on one of the shorter races, you you're going to be okay if you have not enough calories for a little bit, right? Like, you have quite a bit of reserves. When you run across the Sahara, anything that you miss in nutrition today, it's just going to come back at you tenfold tomorrow and the day after, right? So you have to constantly, like, keep refueling there.

Well, and that's just it with multi-day events. And I've done a lot— I've probably done 25, you know, multi-day events. So obviously the Sahara That was 111 days, and we didn't take one single day off, not one, partly because we were behind schedule. It was budgetary. I just never could justify taking a day. I've done a lot of the 7-day stage races also. The hardest thing to do is— I've won a lot of those races, but I don't usually win any stages, or maybe I'll win one stage, or maybe two. But a lot of times I'll win the race, and it's because obviously I'm consistent. Yeah, and a lot of people— because a lot of people can beat me on one day. So the question is, can you get up the next day and do it again? And can you get up the day after that and do it again? Because day 1 and 2 of those races are pretty easy. I mean, they're hard, but they're— your body's in good shape, you feel good. By day 3 and 4, everything hurts, you know, you're really in bad shape. If it's a hot race, you're more dehydrated than you know, even if it seems like you're drinking enough. And so I love— they're like puzzles. Yeah, they're like puzzles. I love trying to figure it out.

Absolutely. So how, how in the world do you train for something like this?

Yeah, so I mean, for— well, for Sahara, I always make the joke, although it's not a joke, I always say that life is you know, was the training for Sahara because it's like, uh, you know, it's really just all mental. I mean, yes, have basic physical fitness, but you know, in the Sahara I ran 350 miles a week for, you know, for like, uh, 11 weeks. Oh wait, yeah, 11 weeks. And, and that's a lot of 350-mile weeks. And so So it's not like before the event started, it's not like before it started I was running 350 miles a week because that would have been destructive. So, but what I did do is, and what we did in that first week in general, we did have some, a few lower mileage days early. So we did, you know, 25 miles on day 1 and 30 on day 2.

To get your body adjusted to some extent to the heat. Yeah.

And then we had logistical problems, and we had one day where we couldn't cross the border into— from Senegal into Mauritania. And so we had to— we were stuck there for almost 12 hours and being eaten by mosquitoes, and it's terrible. And, um, we just weren't— we weren't bribing at a high enough number, so finally had to get to the right number before they would let us cross, even though we had paperwork. But, you know, the, the, so the training though for a regular multi-day event like a 7-day stage race, yep, once again those races, almost all of them, you have to carry all of your equipment. So people also make the mistake of doing a lot of miles but not enough miles carrying with the backpack. Yeah, because if you, if you're training and then all of a sudden you start with a 20-pound backpack on day 1 and you haven't been training very much with it, yes, it's hard on your body, but more than anything, I guarantee 100% you'll get blisters. Yeah. Because your body—

Yeah, different.

Yeah, it's just not used to it. Everything's different and it feels different. My training is very much based though, as I was saying, on time. I know that most of the stages in these 7-day races are going to take me— most of the stages are between 18 miles and then there's always a long day, a 50-mile day. So I know the stages are going to be between 3 hours and 10 hours depending on the terrain and on a lot of things. So when I'm doing my training, you know, especially in the month before the race, you know, I'll take a week where I run. I don't worry about distance, but I'll put on the backpack and I'll run 3 hours on day 1 and then 4 hours on day 2 and then 5 and then 6 and I'll I will work myself up, but I'll do a lot of walking. Yeah, you know, my goal is not to cover the mileage. My goal is to see what it feels like to be on my feet for that amount of time every single day. And this is the most fascinating thing to me about the human body when it comes to this kind of training, and that is that, you know, just like with Sahara, day 2, day 3, day 4, 4, you're just like down, down, down, down, down. And but, but yeah, you've gotten out. And I always say your body finally says, okay, you jerk, I see you're trying to kill me. Yeah, so I'm going to adjust to this. And, and suddenly on day 4 or 5, you know, you begin to feel better. Not great because you're, you're beaten up, but you're— you adjust and you feel better. And, and if you can survive Like day 3, usually you're gonna be okay.

And there's this one part as well, right? We were just at the World Conference up in LA, and Andy Wells from Red Bull High Performance Group was speaking over there, and he was talking as well, like, about the perceived risk and the actual risk, right? Where at some point your mind is gonna tell you, all right, this is not good. You cannot go further. Or like, it's same if you, if you go run a 10K, if you go run a half marathon, a marathon, whatever, at some point your body says this is not good. Yet you can override that. You can, you can do a lot more than what you think you're capable of. Like, you're only at 40% or something like that when you, when you hit that initial wall, right?

Yeah.

And so I'm sure that you over the years have been able to get that higher and higher, but at some point You're gonna get to a point where it becomes dangerous. And so that's why I'm sure you have to listen as well to some of the doctors on staff or some of these other scenarios.

So I think it's all— and you just said a really important thing. I always try to make sure that there's somebody along with me that I really trust their judgment, because normal people, even your family or just regular friends, They're gonna tell— when you all of a sudden, when you're throwing up for the 10th time, or you're limping because your foot hurts and you got blisters, they're gonna say, hey, do you, you know, do you want to stop? Do you? I mean, because it's okay. No, you've done, you've done so well. Well, I make sure I don't have anybody like that on my crew.

Yeah, exactly, because then you would stop right away.

Yeah, I don't want somebody telling me that. I know I don't necessarily want them yelling in my ear like a drill sergeant either, but you know what I want is someone there that I trust that can give me an honest opinion and say— and this happened to me, one, I have a good example, you know, and several years back, you know, I tried to break the record for the fastest run across the United States and I failed miserably and I made it like 17, 18 days running 70 miles every day and I was just— I mean, by day 2, I was already a disaster. I had MRSA, which is—

you already started with the MRSA, right? Like, yeah, you already had it a few days prior.

Yeah, 3 days before the event began. But I already had— we had sponsor money, we had camera crews. We— there was no— at that point, there was no not going. Like, I was going. There was no— there was no way out, and I wasn't going to use it you know, as an excuse not to go. But it was— it was— but, but the point is, really, the point is, if you saw that film Running America, I, you know, I had people around me that I trusted, and there came a point where they had to come to me and say, look, you, you have a foot drop. You have— I had numbness in all my toes. I had some serious stuff going on with tendonitis in my right leg especially. And they're like, You know, you're gonna— there is a genuine chance you're gonna screw yourself to a point where maybe you, you won't run again. Yeah, I mean, and if I was on— if I was, you know, 2,500 miles into it and I only had, you know, one week to go, then maybe I would have said, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna risk it. But I was only, you know, I was two weeks into it and I was an absolute disaster, and, and it just simply wasn't It just wasn't going to be safe and it wasn't going to happen. I needed though, I needed someone else to tell me to stop. And it was Chuck actually, Chuck was my crew chief in the Sahara and I trusted him, you know, because he's a tough son of a bitch, you know, he's not the guy that's ever going to say, I think you should stop.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's really good to have someone like that around. So at least you can blame him, you can't blame yourself for it, right?

I didn't want to stop. No, but the other thing about it too, I'll give you another great example of the mind and how important— what a role it plays. I've seen it so often myself. I mean, you have a lot of people that you talk to that talk about coaching. I mean, I'm not a coach really, but I understand me pretty well. I went to run the Barkley several years back. And most people know the Barkley in this world. You know, it's like an impossible race in Tennessee, and only, you know, only 15 people have ever finished. I wrote it. I wrote an article for Runner's World, a feature article, after I ran the race, and I didn't finish, but I interviewed a lot of people before the run, and I interviewed them on my little camera and on audio, and JD, the guy who did actually finish that year. There was one finisher.

There was a finisher that year. That doesn't happen every year.

Yeah, so it doesn't happen every year for sure. And so, and he said to me, I said, why are you here? You know, why are you here? I tried to just keep it very simple. I asked a bunch of questions, but I said, why are you here? And his question, his answer was so perfect, like gives me goosebumps. He said, I'm here to run 5 loops. And like, that was his mentality. And I realized when he said that to me that what I was there for was to do my best. Yeah, that's what I was telling myself. And, and because I was afraid of this event because so many people who are better runners than me had failed at this run. And so it, it, you know, it was always crazy. My mind was messed up and, and I think the point is, so often we, we start events with this goal of doing our best. And sure, I get that. It's a good, safe thing to tell ourselves. But once that, once that even slightly negative thought enters the mind, or the, or the, you know, if I, if I've got this injury, and so if I feel badly, I'm gonna quit, you know, those thoughts at the start of a race. Yeah.

Essentially, absolutely, it's all mental at that point.

Doom.

No, and that's the thing, like besides the Sahara and Barkley Marathon, you've, you've run many different Badwater events, you've placed in the top 5 several times. Like, do you have some type of mantra or something that you go back to like once things really get tough? Is there anything that you keep repeating to yourself, or is I do.

I do. And in fact, check it out. It's right there. I don't know if you can read it.

No big deal.

No big deal. And, you know, and actually there's a more personal note to that. But my— so my wife has had lymphoma 3 times in her life. Wow. And once as a little girl and as a teenager and then again in her 20s. And this was her mantra that I, that I borrowed. And It actually gets me choked up. She was— the odds of me ever meeting her, because we've only been together 4 years, were almost less than zero because she shouldn't have survived the first time at 7 years old. She shouldn't have survived the next time at 17 years old. Her mantra though as a teenager became— she just told herself every time, "No big deal." not as the disease as a whole so much, but on a daily basis she was in so much pain and discomfort, and it was chemo and radiation and all the things that we all know about with cancer. And her perspective— like, the things I do are for fun. It's, it's there for fun. Nobody's, nobody's, nobody's forcing me to go to the Sahara or to run 100 miles or to, you know, my life doesn't depend on it. And so I remind myself of that, that I get this opportunity to do something very personal for me. And, and yes, it's a challenge. And I say I don't need it. I do need it. Like, my, my, my body needs it. My mind needs it.

It's your outlet. It's your—

it's right. Yeah, keeps me sane, moderately. It keeps me motivated. It makes— believe me, it's better for everybody around me because I'm a nicer person, you know. And it's All of these things it does for me, and it also feeds that part of me that needs to know whether or not I can do something. You know, I want to know. I want to get to that place where I want to quit. And my wife tells me that I'm far too comfortable with suffering, that I— maybe I like it too much because it's— but it is something that I understand suffering. And like most people, a lot of my suffering has been self-imposed. You know, some of it has been put upon me by other people or other circumstances or just, you know, bad luck.

I mean, you know, and, and that is also what really comes through in your book, right? So last year you wrote a book, The Running Man, and it's really your life story, right?

It is.

Exactly. So Very fascinating read. I read it last week and it's incredible how it describes all the different ups and downs and, and the different moments, the different things that you've gone through. Like, and I'm not going to lie, like reading that, I'm like, wow, that's a, that's a heavy life. And that is everything from performing really good in school to getting addicted to alcohol and drugs to eventually like getting all this fame with different running documentaries. To people diving into your personal life, and eventually you go to jail and spending time there. Like, can you talk a little bit more about some of these highs and lows that you've experienced and how you have gone through that and actually come out as a stronger person?

Man, yeah, it's been quite a— it has definitely been a journey. And I think that the thing that is most— listening to you describe that, it's always interesting to me when someone else has their perspective and What I try to be and what I tried to be in the book is honest, because I am an incredibly flawed person. I have a weird circumstance because— I like to actually just say this out loud. It's fun for me in a weird, sick way. Running the Sahara, the film, anybody who's ever seen that, there are parts of that film that make me look like an asshole. And people watch that film. I mean, tens of thousands, a couple hundred thousand people at least have seen that film, and a lot of them are runners. So they're, they're my peers, you know, they're people who know me or think they know me. And that's kind of my point. They see a film about me and they think they know me. So then when something— and look, I'm not saying the film— there are parts of the film that are just inaccurate, you know, the The end of the film where I supposedly leave my teammates and stuff like that didn't happen.

But that's all Hollywood trying to make it into a movie.

Yeah, right. It made a movie more interesting, whatever. But the point is, people judge me by that. So then flash forward a few years, you know, Sahara had made me a big fish in a little pond in my small hometown in North Carolina. And I became— I have no idea, I'll probably never know why, actually I'm sure I'll never know why— I became a target of one particular federal agent who decided that he wanted to see how a runner could afford to, you know, run across the Sahara. And he made it basically his mission to get me. And it is a fact in this country, you know, if you're targeted by someone like that, there's very little chance you're going to escape. So when I got arrested, not even— forget about being convicted, but when I got arrested and it made the papers the next day, so many people— there were plenty of people who stood by me, but a lot of people said, see, I told you that guy was an asshole. And it gave people like fuel for their fire. And so the hardest part for me, and I can actually say I did a decent job of this, I never reacted to one single person. I never defended myself, and I think that that taught me a lot of lessons because I understood. I put myself in their shoes and I tried to look at me from their point of view. And if I— when I did that, I could see how that reaction would happen. And I admit, I admit I still every once in a while see a review online. Someone will just get around to watching The Sahara and they'll— they might give it 5 stars. They Great movie except for that jerk at the end, you know, whatever. And it still— and it does still hurt, you know, it hurts. But so to get to this place though, where— of the question you asked me, ultimately I became the first person in the United States to be charged and convicted of allegedly overstating my income on a home loan application. So I always like to let that sink in for a second. And yeah, and Look, I'm not here— we're not here today to talk about, you know, any of the nuances of that. Read the book. You know, I think you can vouch for the fact that I tried to keep my book very balanced, and I tried to make it about my— what I actually believe, my philosophy, which is it just doesn't matter what happens to you in life. All that matters is what you do about it. Yeah, good and bad.

Absolutely.

Bad things happen to everybody. Fair and unfair happens to everybody. And so what matters is how you react to it. So when it happened to me, I focused on what I was going to do about it. Once, once the— once I was in prison, which I was there for a year and a half in federal prison in Virginia, West Virginia. Once I was there, I really did on day 2, I just had to talk with myself and I'm like, look, I have a choice. I can be bitter and angry and I can make this whole thing miserable for me and everybody around me, or I can look at it as an opportunity to have a weird new experience that I absolutely didn't want, but here I am.

And there are not many people who can do that. Like, I feel that requires a lot of strength, like mental strength, in order to see that something— you're the only person who was convicted for something like this in the US, even though there were many high-top executives who should have been in jail, yet they got away with murder. And then some signatures are like faked, and in a very unfortunate circumstance— and we're not going to dive into it, anyone who wants to go into detail can can read it over here. But like then being in prison and knowing, oh, I'm going to be in here for at least 16 or 18 months and still making the best out of it. Like, I have a lot of respect for that, for that mindset. And I do think that is part of the reason why you came out of it stronger again as well, right?

Yeah. And you know, where I learned it was in recovery. I learned it from, you know, AA and NA and programs like that because What you learn there is that bitterness and anger towards, you know, the people who ruined your life, it really— they don't care. Yeah, they don't care. The people that, that, you know, went after me and put me in prison, they did not lose not one minute of sleep. They still don't. And so I could either focus this intense anger and energy towards them, but the only, you know, the only part— it's cliché, but the only person that was going to hurt was me. Yeah, or I could just see what happens. And you know, when in prison, the craziest thing happened. I mean, I, I try to live by this idea of, as I call it, attraction rather than promotion. And that's a, that's an AA sort of, you know, idea. And what that means is We learn early in recovery, like when I first got sober 25 years ago, I thought I had found like the answer to life, and maybe I did to my life, but I wanted to go in and grab, you know, friends, strangers, everybody. I wanted to pull them out of the bar and show them this new way of life. And of course, if I tried that, all they said was they told me to, you know, F off. And but what happened, what I learned was if I just continued, you know, my life was so rotten at 29 years old that if I just improved my life and just slowly over the years I began to do that and other people then saw me and eventually those people came to me and they said, hey, how did you do it? Because they were tired of drinking or drugging or whatever their problem was. Then I had permission to try to help them. Well, the same thing happened in prison. I went to prison and look, you don't go up to the fat guy in prison and say, "Hey man, you look like you could lose some weight." That's really bad.

That's not a good intro, right?

No. So, but what I did was just go in there and run, and I did yoga, and I did, I did crazy stuff that that I got made fun of for. And guys, you know, would— they would razz me, and, and, you know, and I just smiled and waved and laughed about it. And after 2 or 3 months, it's almost like some switch flipped, and, and guys like every day started to come up to me, you know, big guys, little guys, black, white, you know, everybody. And, and usually on the sly though, they would come up in the, in the in the food line or privately, and because they were anxious, you know, they were insecure. A lot of these guys in prison, they've been— they were in gangs or they were whatever. They never had any chance to learn what it was like to be healthy and to understand. Talk about a stress reliever. I mean, prison is very, very stressful. I mean, that's it. You're never alone. Never. I mean, For a year and a half, I spent, you know, every minute with 450 guys in a prison that was built for about 150. So you're crammed in this space, and the sound and the smells and just everything drives you crazy.

Especially for you being a runner, like hitting the road for so many miles. That's from one extreme to the other again.

I was like the worst person ever to be locked up. I mean, just from a standpoint of my— myself. So what I did is, I mean, there were times I ran in place. In my cell for hours. They thought I was nuts. I mean, nobody ever bothered me because they thought I was just out of my mind. But, but slowly guys came up to me, and by the time, you know, when I got there, there were a handful of guys that were running, you know, on our little quarter-mile track around the recreation yard. And by the time I left, there were— not saying this is all me, it spreads— but by the time I left, there were more than 50 guys running every day. Wow, that is incredible. And that spread. Like, I, you know, some of those people, I absolutely was responsible for getting them into it. But then of course other people came up to them. Yeah, it spread out, and all of a sudden it was like this, this cool club. And I mean, I thoroughly enjoyed— I read like 150 books while I was in there. I started writing my own book while I was in there, and I just made a decision my happiness and my fulfillment was completely up to me and not up to anybody else, no matter what the situation was. And that's how I approached it. Yeah. Wow. And no big deal.

What a story that is. And then you come out back into the real world again, and now you have a—

Sucks out here. No, I'm kidding. On that note, I just had to say this one thing. You know, recidivism— and I don't want to go off on a prison tangent— but recidivism is very high, meaning guys that end up back in prison.

What, 60, 70% or something?

70%. And it's not just because— it's a multitude of reasons. Number one, the government likes to keep its prisons full because it's basically a business. But setting, setting aside my conspiracy theories there, it's easier in there than it is out here. And a felon who spends 5 or 10 or 15 years in prison, he gets out, especially if he's of any color other than white, you know, if he's a black guy or Hispanic or something, he has like almost a 0% chance of getting a decent job. So consequently, his life is very stressful. You know, he can't— he's lucky if he can get a job as a dishwasher, much less anything else. And I always encourage people, that's why I'm using this for 2 seconds to say this, you know, Guys need a chance because, you know, most of them are just like us. You know, they're just normal guys who, you know, I knew guys who never bought a single bag of weed, like the first one they ever bought in their life, and end up in prison for 10 years. I mean, stuff happens to people, but they get out and they can't get a job and they can't vote and they can't do anything. And so they actually end up on purpose committing another crime that'll send them back. Where, where you can get 3 meals a day, you can sleep all you want, you can read books, you can let somebody else take care of you even though you don't have freedom. You know, it's, it's crazy that anybody would ever want that, and I certainly don't want it again. But you know, it's a— we need to divert people who have drug problems into other programs because as taxpayers it also costs us a fortune a fortune. It costs us 10 times more to incarcerate someone than it does to treat them. Yeah. So why would we put them in prison and they're just going to come out worse, and then we're going to have to take care of them for the rest of their lives because they're going to be on, you know, welfare or some sort of social program? Instead, send them to treatment a couple of times, you know, give them some sort of diversionary treatment and let them build a life. And then if they don't do it, I mean, there comes a time when maybe prison is the only option, but it should never be the first option for a nonviolent offender.

Yeah, okay, I'm done. That was it. No, and then, but then you came out of, then you came out of prison and now you're a successful public speaker, you're an author, like you've, you've spoken at places like, like Google, you've, you've done all sorts of other significant, um, presentations. So what is Charlie up to these days? Like, I know you're working on a next adventure. Can you tell us a little bit more, more about that?

I'm not really good at anything else. So, you know, I have to— you know, no, in the book you can see, uh, you know, my old business used to be chasing hailstorms. So I, I was a storm chaser for many years, and when I got out of prison, I had this skill, and I had to like humble myself and go back to my, my roots. And I'm talking to you today from, you know, Omaha, Nebraska, because there was a big storm here and You know, I'm here doing some work.

I'm so— by the way, this is side conversation, and I think you and I can go into the whole storm chasing for like a whole nother like talk for the hours because I've been really fascinated by storms myself. I've been out there storm chasing for many years also with some of the vehicles out there. So when I heard that, once, once Ryan Imigot, one of our mutual friends, introduced us and he said, you gotta meet Charlie, like he ran across the Sahara, which I already knew about, but then he's also really into storm chasing. I was like, all right, I gotta, gotta connect.

Oh, I love it. I love the energy around storms, and, and I just, you know, it's, it can be a little dangerous, but I always say it's only dangerous if you're really lucky, because most of the time, you know, you're just a little bit behind. Yeah, but no, so I got out, I started doing that, but I did, I got a chance. I was, I'm a lucky one, you know, because my job, if you will, is speaking and it's writing. These things I've been able to do and I've been very fortunate. I needed to find something else though, and that something else is coming in shape right now. It's basically It's a new adventure that I think will more than rival running the Sahara, and I've been planning this thing for many years. You know, prison kind of interrupted these plans, but that's life. But it's to go from the lowest place on Earth, which is the Dead Sea, to the top of the highest place on Earth, Mount Everest. And so to do that— How far is that? So it's about 5,000 miles if I don't get lost. Too often. So it's a bit of a moving target simply because, like with Sahara, you know, what I'm doing is I'm actually swimming across— I'm going from Israel, swimming across the Dead Sea, and in the middle of the Dead Sea, I'm going to do a free dive to add a couple hundred feet.

To get even lower.

Yes, exactly. Finish the swim across, and when I reach the shore in Jordan, you know, dry off and start running. And it'll be about 2,000 miles across Jordan and Saudi Arabia and Oman. Saudi Arabia has this incredible place that many people heard about called the Empty Quarter, which is kind of like just what it sounds like. It's like the emptiest place on earth. When I reach the tip of Oman though, I will then get into a kayak or possibly an indigenous sailing craft and sail or paddle about 700 miles across the Arabian Sea. And there's a lot of pirates out there, and it's bad weather, and it's all kinds of things that I'm incredibly unqualified to do also, which I, you know, I have a lot of work to do. But then when I hit the shore in India, I'll be going across to India. When I land, I'll get on a mountain bike and I'll go about 2,000 miles across rural India to the base of Mount Everest. And then it's just like what, 2 miles, 2.5 miles to the top?

I mean, who's counting at that point, right?

Piece of cake. No, not a piece of cake. I am not a— you know, once again, people always ask, are you a climber? And I mean, I've been over 20,000 feet probably a dozen times, but, but I'm also humble enough to realize how over my head I am with this. And so I have a lot of training to do between now and then, and this will start This expedition will start in January of 2019, so I have about, you know, a little less than 18 months at this point. And, you know, you mentioned Ryan Emmergard earlier, and companies like Volcom have come on board to support me. And that's just, you know, again, I'm incredibly lucky. But I do want to say one thing about that, you know, I mean, look, it's the lowest place to the highest point, and it certainly is a metaphor for my life, and I think for the lives of pretty much everybody. I mean, we, we kind of go through life, you know, hitting these lows and finding our way to climb out of that. And sometimes it takes a goal, something to really shoot for, and sometimes it just takes, you know, clawing one day at a time, doing the best you can. I'm approaching this with that same philosophy, but I'm going to take a little flask of water from the Dead Sea, and I'm going to carry it with me the whole way, and I'm going to try to hopefully pour it out on top of Mount Everest.

On the top of Mount Everest?

Wow. Right. To bring these two extremes together in one place and just to remind myself that that is this journey for all of us. You know, not to be philosophical, but that's what we all go through.

It really is. And so for you now, the big part is also like, it's an expensive expedition, right? So right now, one of the things as well is looking for ways to fund a project like this, to find whoever wants to make a documentary or a movie about this. So that is probably—

You mentioned you were writing a check.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I hear that at dinner. No, but it is. So look, I'm not a wealthy person, so yes, I don't have a way— you know, if I had millions of dollars in the bank, I think I would just go do it. I mean, I would still try to do it, you know, in conjunction with something, because I do have really strong feelings. I've thought about doing this, calling it the Run for Everything, because I have— you know, I have a— I'm clean and sober. I have family members that have struggled with sobriety. I have a mother with Alzheimer's. I have a wife who survived cancer. I've raised lots of money for clean water. Matt Damon and I started what basically ended up being water.org. We founded H2O Africa and now—

You guys started that right before you ran across the Sahara, right?

Yeah. We had no idea. It was basically just, look, Matt had never been to Africa. He was incredibly supportive, and he had yet to— this is 10 years ago, and at that point, he was still already Matt Damon. I mean, he's very famous and seen as a really good guy, which he is. He hadn't quite found his thing, his cause, and he wanted to use his celebrity to help people.. And we discussed this idea of clean water, and, and really it just was like, okay, well, let's, let's just start a clean water foundation, H2O Africa, and let's see what happens. And what happened was we raised about $6 million, and, and we were smart enough to know that we weren't administrators. You know, neither of us was— no, nobody wanted to run and like, now granted, I would have gone over there maybe and started digging wells, you know, for physical labor, but I don't, I don't know how to make all that work. So we joined with a guy, Gary White, who back then, his nonprofit was called Water Partners. But basically, Water Partners and H2O Africa morphed into water.org, and now today, thanks to Matt and Gary, and in the tiniest part, you know, this crazy idea to run across the Sahara Desert where it all started.

And it all tied in together.

Yeah, we're helping, you know, millions of people with clean water solutions and permanent clean water solutions, not just temporary, and that's the important part of it. They do an amazing job.

And just watching your documentary running Sahara, right? That was the name of it, right?

Running Sahara. Yeah, very inventive name.

I wanted to make sure I got it right. So over there, there's one scene where you guys are running through the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden you see a 7-year-old boy sitting on the ground waiting for his dad to return with clean drinking water, and he had to wait for 2 days. And that was so touching to see that scene, and I can really see that tie in with the clean drinking water project. So So just seeing that was very powerful.

And that's what the world faces. That's what, that's what so much of the quote-unquote third world faces, you know. And the irony in that scene is that he was way more terrified of us than he was of, you know, his parents being— that was his life for him. He was accustomed to it. He stayed behind while they'd be gone for 2 or 3 days to get water, and they'd come back and he would tend to the goats or whatever they had. And, you know, just imagine instead you see this group of, you know, mostly, you know, white people, which he'd never seen.

Yeah, he'd probably never seen a white person before.

Coming out of the desert, right? He was far more afraid of us than he was of being by himself. But it was very poignant, you know, for me. The hardest part about it— and we encountered other things, you know, I think I wrote about a couple of them in the book where we We encountered people in serious physical distress, and we had a doctor with us. And so, you know, Dr. Jeff Peterson, he helped where he could. And in a couple cases, though, I mean, we're leaving— 7-year-old boy, there was a baby who got burned by scalding water, and the odds of survival were very small. And we had no way to— to this day, I have no idea what happened to those people because it's not like I could call and check up on them. Or, you know, so we had to do what we could and then move on. And that's kind of the way it is in those countries, you know, you try to do what you can, but very often it's a very helpless feeling.

Yeah, but at least you were able to bring attention to it in the movie, and you're also able to raise money, which is a very good thing that way. So I do want to kind of change subject here for a little bit. Because one part that I found very interesting in your book is you were training for a while to run a sub-3-hour marathon. And in our group, there's a lot of people aiming for the sub-3-hour barrier, right? And so you tried several times and you kept just missing it, even up to like a 3:01, so 1 minute off your goal. And then all of a sudden you changed a few different things. Can you describe like what happened beforehand and how you came out of that and how it did happen?

Yeah, so very briefly, so I got sober at 29 years old, and I immediately began to run because I knew from my— from being a runner in high school and all of that, that I, I knew it had been something even through my years of addiction that I would clean up for short periods of time and I would go out to run. So when I finally got sober, I started running, and I ran like— I ran like 30 marathons in the first, you know, few years. And, you know, and it was It was just this crazy thing. I mean, it was addictive in a way, you know, the way I—

That's a lot of marathons in a short period of time.

Yeah, it is. And, and, you know, and I— but I— but during that time, and this is what you're describing, I became fixated on running a 3-hour marathon. And quite frankly, it took all the joy out of running because, you know, I would be out there in, in Honolulu and San Diego and LA and all these places, these, these great places to go run. And I was so focused on trying to break 3 hours that it's like I didn't see anything. I barely talked to anybody. Like, that's all I cared about. And I'd run a 3:01 or 3:02. I ran a couple of those, 3:05. And almost all these races I would be— and everybody who's a runner understands this, like, man, I would be at 122, 125, 127 for the half, right?

So, you know, you knew, you knew you had it in you, right?

So, I mean, all I'm doing, I'm doing what we do. I'm doing that math, right?

I'm calculating.

I get to 15 miles, I get to 18, I get to 21. I'm thinking, okay, all I got to do is whatever, you know, per mile for the rest of the way. And then the freaking wheels fall off again, and, you know, I end up like practically crawling to the finish line and just missing it. So finally, what I did was use once again the lessons of, of AA, really, of sobriety, of just stopping focusing on that. And I got back to just enjoying being a runner and being out there and noticing people and noticing sounds and how I felt and actually enjoying my training again, because I was making myself miserable. I was taking all the joy out of it.

You were training hard, hard, hard, right?

Oh my God, always. If I was sick, I trained. If it was whatever, I trained. And, you know, and that's not the way to go about it. Instinct— having good instincts about training is the way to be successful, you know. And sometimes that means recognizing today's not the day for me to go out, pound a 20-mile.

Rest and recovery is such an important underestimated part of training. That's really where the recovery happens. That's where the progress happens.

And Yeah, you can't be a slave to the schedule. I don't care even if you have a coach, and you've had some great coaches on here, but hopefully even they would say, okay, yeah, this is a guideline to what you're supposed to be doing. If you feel great, then yes, I expect you to be following this plan, but be smart, be instinctive, make good decisions. And when I did that and finally let go, of course, you know, a year later or whatever it was, I finally broke 3 hours, and then I broke 3 hours like every time. Like, once I got that barrier out of the way, I never broke 2:50, but I never obsessed about that. I wanted that 3-hour mark, and I was not an elite marathoner. Although I do like telling this one little story. When my son Brett was 6 years old, I ran the Boston Marathon. I've run it many times through the years, but that year he was 6, and he's finally understanding, "Oh, Daddy's going off to a race." So I go run and I come back and what is he— he asked the question that all 6-year-olds would ask, did you win? And I'm like, yes, I did. And you know, I had a medal to prove it and I had all that. So he's like 12 years old, you know, this is years later. And he's like, you know what, Dad, you didn't win the Boston Marathon. Like, it took him that long. Finally clicked. Finally clicked and he's like, you suck. That's incredible. Very funny. But you know, I mean, he wanted to hear that I won, so I of course gave him that. But of course, you know, it's, it's a, it's a journey, man. It is, you know, it's a, it's a— all of this is just, it's, it's learning experiences and, and giving your permission.

Like the whole part where you just said they're having fun with the running, and I think a lot of people indeed get so fixated. You're not the only one. Like I've done it myself and I see it around me all the time and I think that's where once I came across Dr. Phil Maffetone as well, the part of like, all right, let's actually listen to your body. Let's actually not only focus on the, the busting out the miles, but also what you eat and what you— how you mentally get your stress under control and everything.

And he's amazing. Oh, he's incredible. I think I told you that my— so my wife ended up playing professional beach volleyball, and Phil was actually her coach for a while.

Oh, I didn't realize that.

Yeah, not just online, like he was, he was her coach. This is many years years ago. And so she's a big fan of Phil's, and I've not met him before, but I hope that— I'm pretty sure we're going to cross paths sometime soon. You know, maybe, maybe you'll make the connection.

I'll definitely introduce you guys.

He's, uh, he'll introduce me for Dead Sea to Everest. Exactly. I like this. I like having a coach because I like accountability. I want somebody to ask me how I'm doing, what I'm doing, and, and be accountable to somebody, you know, so that, you know, and maybe, and someone like him of course would have an opinion about what to do, but it's important to have accountability.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, this was, this was a really good talk. I absolutely appreciate it. I wanted to do, do a little book giveaway. So I read the book. I have to say it is very well written. Like, it is not easy to write a book, and I know it's, it's a monster, and you really put everything in there. Like all the different stories, and it's really well put together. So I can highly recommend people getting a copy of the book. But I want to give a copy away as well for anyone who wants to leave a comment on the blog. I want to basically just ask to leave a comment for if anyone is struggling with anything, like what that is and what you're doing to overcome it. Charlie has overcome several different struggles in his life, and hopefully some of the lessons that you're heard here as well will help overcome some of your struggles. I'm curious to hear about that, and we'll pick a winner from, from the comments over there.

So thanks for doing that. Thanks for doing it. I appreciate what you said about the book. It's— The New York Times actually reviewed, and the guy that did a review of the book, it was the greatest compliment I ever got because I knew him a bit. So it was a backhanded compliment. He said, you know, I knew you would have good stories, I just didn't expect the book to be so well written.

No, absolutely not, but it was.

It really was. As if a runner isn't capable of writing. Exactly, exactly. The paperback actually comes out September 13th. For those people that might want one but don't want to drop the full amount for a hardcover, the paperback will be out in a little over a month.

It's available at the major bookstores, right?

I saw it was Amazon, Barnes Noble. Is the publisher, and so you can get it obviously on Amazon, but at Barnes Noble or Books-A-Million or any of those independent bookstores too.

Good, good. Where can people find out more information about you? How do people follow along? Yes, especially now your next adventure. I'm sure people want to see how this is all going to come together.

Yeah, simple, just my website. I have a pretty cool website that's just charlieangle.com, so You flashed the book up there enough. Hopefully people can figure out how to spell the name, but it's just charlieangle.com, and, and that will have a lot of historical information and, you know, a lot of photos and videos. And I'm beginning to— I've been slack about writing a blog, but I vowed that that's going to start happening as I lead up to Dead Sea to Everest.

So yeah, there's— I noticed like in the media section several different blogs I saw You did the Rich Roll podcast. You've been on the podcast with several other people.

So yeah, yeah, you know, it's fun. As you can tell, I like to talk. So, and I think that people— I think people find comfort, I hope, in how— I don't know if I'm normal or not, but I'm not some elite superstar, you know. I wasn't genetically gifted with— as a great runner. But I don't think that matters. You know, it's about how you approach it, and everybody's success is relative to, you know, to themselves. And what's important is to go out and give it a try. Don't— especially if you, if you run a half or you run a marathon and you're thinking about an ultra, just enter it. Yeah, just find a race, find a 50-miler, whatever, and just pay your money and enter the race and What you'll learn out there, whether it's an incredible success or failure, what you'll learn will change your life.

Absolutely. One foot in front of the other. Just slow down the pace. The longer the distance, just slow down the pace a bit more, and eventually, like, you'll get into that new territory, and that's the exciting part, right? Constantly discovering what new territory to get into.

It is. Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks, Rob.

All right.

Thank you very much, Charlie. We'll be in touch very soon, and hopefully at some point we can do a follow-up conversation as well as you get closer to your project.

Project over here. Well, I have a feeling you may end up coming out there and, uh, you may have to run across the desert with me.

I absolutely would love to find it. I would love to find a way to be involved and help you out in whatever way I can. So yeah, same here. Hey, what's up guys? I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Extra Mile podcast. Would be amazing if you can leave a review in iTunes. Many more episodes are coming up soon with world-class athletes coaches, and progress makers from around the world. So make sure to subscribe via my website extramileist.com/subscribe. My name is Floris Gierman. Thank you for listening and hope to connect with you guys more soon.