#115: From Overweight to 19 Marathons in 4 Years (Age 50-54) with Chris Neil

It was brutal. I couldn't barely hang on for 20-25 minutes of just walking at a decent clip. Started eating a lot, drinking a lot, found myself overweight, decided to get back into running and ordered a treadmill. I was in absolutely no shape to do any running. After a week or so, things started to pick up. The body is amazing, absolutely amazing. If you give it an opportunity, It will do things that you never expected if you just give it a chance.

Today, a conversation with Chris Neal. He is a 54-year-old runner who went from out of shape and overweight to now slowly but surely started to walking more, running a little bit more, to then now few years later completing 19 marathons. Chris is one of the members of our Personal Best Running coaching program, and I've been able to see him transform his running and his life over the last several years over here. He ended up losing 30 pounds, he stopped drinking alcohol, and all the other areas of his life started clicking as well. He joined the Personal Best program because he wanted more structure, he wanted a detailed plan, a community, and coaching guidance as well. You can learn more at pbprogram.com.

I don't want to be trapped in my body. Trapped in a house and not be able to go do things. My long-term why is, is I want the golden years to truly be golden.

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Hope you enjoy my episode with Chris Neal. Yeah, Chris, I'm glad that we're recording this conversation. Welcome to the Extra Mile Show.

Hey, Floris, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. It's been 19 marathons right now, and you only started running marathons in 2022. So only 3 and a half years ago. I want to take a deep dive into your running journey and how everything unfolded. And, yeah, I mean, like, I've seen you grow as an athlete over the last 2 and a half years. You've been a part of the Personal Best coaching program. Maybe we can just start out at the beginning because for you, it started really in 2021 that you started getting into walking on the treadmill, started getting into running. So take us back a little bit more towards those early days, how that was, and what gets you excited about working out more consistent?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, everybody knows what happened in 2020 when, you know, everything shut down. And, you know, I myself, you know, started eating a lot, drinking a lot, found myself overweight, decided to get back into running and ordered a treadmill, ordered a NordicTrack, had it delivered in January of '21. Sounded like a good idea, you know, because they have all sorts of online programs and everything that you can sit there and watch the videos and participate. And I was in absolutely no shape to do any running where I was at in the Pacific Northwest. If you're not familiar with the Pacific Northwest, for 8 or 9 months out of the year, it's 45 and rain. So doing activities outside can be pretty daunting. Then you're left with a lot of questions like what gear you need or is it raining outside today? Am I going to be a muddy mess when I get back?

40 international, so 45 Fahrenheit, and that's what, about 10 Celsius or something.

So it's 8, 9 degrees, I think.

Yeah, it's cold enough, but it's not freezing yet.

But it's more the ongoing rain that is consistent. It's very Yeah, it penetrates everything. So rather than have to worry about that, I set it up in the loft over my garage. We were living in Washington State at the time, and, and set up the treadmill so I could, you know, at, you know, any time of day, morning, noon, night, whatever, go up there and, and just start walking. And again, you know, the, the iFit and NordicTrack, they have all this, all sorts of programs that you just 30, 45 minutes, an hour, you can start walking and see different things. And it got me motivated enough to be working out, you know, 3 or 4 times a week. And things started changing pretty quickly. My body, you know, was starting to rebound where I then after, you know, a number of workouts, start run walking and picking up the pace a little bit. And it was, it was, you know, kind of a byproduct of, you know, losing weight. It wasn't something that I was set out to do. It was just like I figured I would lose weight because I've been on the roller coaster a number of times through my life. But, you know, it wasn't necessarily the goal. It was more about, you know, getting back on track and feeling better.

What was your weight at that time?

Let's see, when I started, I was probably around 210, which is the heaviest in my life that I've ever been. I stand 5'10". 5'10", so I carry it relatively well, but it wasn't healthy at all.

Yeah. So, that's about 95 kgs. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And then, you brought that down?

I got down to about 80 kilograms, so 180.

Yeah.

Right? And that just, you know, if you went out and got a 30-pound weight vest and carry it around with you, you would definitely know the difference.

Yeah. And over how long of a period was that?

That was probably about 6 months. It was a, it was a nice steady decrease in weight. And now I vary between 75 and 80 kilograms, you know, 170 to 180, depending on where I'm at in my training. And, you know, what's, what's on tap next? How much am I eating versus how much I'm, I'm not.

I don't think it's— I think it's a good one for people to hear, though, the whole part of going out there consistently 3 times, 4 times a week walking on a treadmill and then at some point doing some walk jog intervals. But it wasn't going out for hard, hard workout sessions. It was actually a gentle way of easing into training again. Yeah.

I mean, the— I mentioned the roller coaster before, the roller coaster that I had been on. You know, I had been plagued with injuries for years and years. You know, in my running journey, I would go out and run. I would, I would get the bug. I would go run for about 6 months where you would do 3 or 4 or 5 times a week thinking that that's what you needed to do. Not really paying any attention to pace or distance or mileage or anything like that. End up with, you know, usually for me it was shin splints that I would always get. I would get shin splints and that would just deter me. So after about 3, 4, 5 months of running, I would give it up for 4 or 5 years. And so, you know, the weight would come on, the weight would go off. And that was just the life cycle that I had for, you know, a few decades until I got to this point where it was, it was much more of a mindset, you know, listening. I started listening to, of course, your show, Extra Mile List. I was listening to Peter Attia and Alex Huberman and a few other folks talk about longevity and the keys to, to longer life. This, this started me down the path of like the long-term why, why do you want to run? Like, why do you want to run? I want, I want the last years of my life to be as, as exciting and mobile as now. I want to be able to run, walk, do whatever, not be limited by my body. I don't want to be trapped in my body, trapped in a house, and not be able to go do things. And so my long-term why, besides all these other things, my long-term why is, is I want the, the golden years to truly be golden.

Yeah, and that is such a good way of looking at it. I think there's the one part of running marathons for health And there's the running part of having joy with it. I still sometimes think it's more of the consistent training that we're doing that puts us in a place of health. I don't necessarily think running a marathon is the absolute healthiest thing you can do. It probably does take things out of you as well. But at the other hand, it does get you in a consistent training approach and the community component. And there's so many good things about it. So, so what advice do you have to your younger self in that stage who is just starting out? Like maybe someone is listening here who is like, okay, I am kind of out of shape or I'm looking to get back into training. Do you have any advice to your younger version who is just there or just got into it?

I think the big thing is to keep it simple. I mentioned listening to all these podcasts and all these different people and all these different perspectives. Um, you can get overwhelmed really easy with all the information and think that you have to do all these things to be successful, when what it really comes down to is showing up every day. Um, you know, being, um, being present, being consistent, perseverance. It forms a certain set of discipline, uh, to do something for yourself every day. I'm not saying that you need to go run every day or walk every day, but moving every day. And maybe it's, maybe it's, you know, some yoga or some stretching or, you know, you do a few push-ups or some planks or something, something that is, is simple. Just keep it simple. And over time, as you're able to take on more things and your body gets stronger and your mind gets stronger, you can do more. You can go out and do more running. You can do out— go out and do, you know, more strength exercises. You can go, you know, do all of these things that you wanna do, but you, you have to take it one step at a time. What do they say? You know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So just, just take it slow and, you know, just be patient because good things will come.

Yeah. So when did you decide from there it was starting to walk consistent, doing some walk runs? When was your first race that you end up doing?

I don't know that I did any races in 2021. I'd have to go back and, and look. There wasn't a lot going on. As you recall, there might have been a half marathon locally. But that wasn't really a target at the time. And racing really wasn't— didn't enter my mind until probably a good 6, 8 months into it. So it was, let's see, started in January of '21, get into maybe August or September and realize that I'm in actually really good shape because I started doing multiple of these, you know, workouts on the treadmill. A day. The treadmill can be really forgiving because it's, it's, it's a softer surface and allows you to, you know, adjust all sorts of things. So I think because of that, I was able to really, really start adding in a lot of those workouts to build my fitness to a level that I always wanted to do a marathon. I thought now is probably the best time to just go see if I can get it done. And so I signed up for the Phoenix Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in Arizona for January of '22 and just set my sights on it, not knowing really anything on marathon training, you know, other than, like I said, listening to your podcast and a few others, just trying to piece things together because I hadn't really put any framework to my training. It was just more— it was it was still trying to take it easy, you know, be consistent. Some of the iFit trainers that, you know, got me motivated to go in that direction, like Tommy Rives has a great backstory. He's super cool. And I was fortunate enough to run into him on the New York City Marathon.

Oh, right.

Running by and I noticed him. And so we got to take a picture together.

So inspiring.

Such a great guy. Yeah. And then I met, um, the other one that— and she's full of energy, Ashley Paulson. She's just like very vibrant, and how can you not be excited about running when you're around her? I got to meet her, uh, ran into her at the St. George Marathon. She lives in St. George, Utah. I went up there for the, for the marathon in '24 and got to meet her. But these are, these are folks that got me thinking in that direction of, hey, you can do this, you can go out and make this happen. So that, that positive affirmation started to come in. Sign up for the marathon and let's go for it.

So once again, surrounding yourself with others. And yeah, I think that, that plays a big role in some of this as well. Sure. Tell me more. What was your, like, first marathon experience like, and what were some of the things that you learned over time? Because you have grown significantly as an athlete from first just go and not really know how to go about your training and your racing to getting some more structure. Tell us, tell us more about that journey and some of the things you learned along the way there.

Yeah. I'd like to think I've, I've grown over the last 5 years. It's been a, it's been a trek. So look, I, I think I fell into some of the same traps that a lot of beginner runners or first-time marathoners fall into. I'm like, hey, I'm in pretty good shape. I can go out and run training runs. I can go do, you know, 13, 14 miles. You know, I'm probably can go do a sub-4-hour marathon. It's this, you know, fake barrier that I think everybody thinks is like magic is going to happen if you get below sub-4. It doesn't. But that's the idea. So I set my sights for the Rock 'n' Roll Arizona to be a sub-4-hour marathon. Like I said, we were living up in the Seattle area, so flew down, you know, went through all of the regular motions of first expo and, you know, first time toeing the line, tried to pay attention to all of the little things as far as making sure that you're, you're applying the Vaseline in the right places and you're carrying the right things for the right, for the right reasons and practicing gels and everything up to that point. I got— and this is, this is where I think it kind of launched through the whole thing. Takeoff and I start, start running the paces that you're supposed to run and I'm feeling good and everything's going right. And the time at the time, the course, when you get to mile 17, 18, uh, in Phoenix overall it's a relatively flat place until you find a hill, and then it's a hill. Um, and I hit that hill and it destroyed me. There was, there was, and there was no plan, right? That there, it was like I didn't have the concept of, well, what if I now have to walk? Um, so I didn't have a plan to get myself in and, and recover from that. So Mile 19 became a mantra for me where, you know, that, that barrier really became the, the reason to go out and do another one because I hit that barrier and I didn't understand it. I didn't, I didn't know why I fell apart at that point, nor did I know, nor did I have any tools in my tool bag to keep me going and get me across the line. Now, I made it across the line. It was a slog.

It wasn't pretty.

It was really rough. Um, but at the same time, uh, yeah, it was— I did finish, and that started, that started me looking, you know, further down the future to other races and other things. And I just wanted to, I wanted to go find Mile 19 and conquer Mile 19. That was the next milestone per se of how do— what do I need to learn? What do I need to do to make it so mile 19 and, and the rest of the marathon experience is good? Because I see people just like run right through it and get all the way to the end.

Um, and you make a good point, you make a good point though, because I think at the beginning you just have to go through that. You have to sometimes be inexperienced realizing what it's like to— alright, there's a certain pace you can actually hold. And it's different when you go into a race having a bit of an idea roughly what pace you're gonna be aiming for versus I'm gonna go by feel. And at the beginning, I feel amazing. And at the end, the wheels might come off and I have to slow down. And it's, it's so common. I truly, I often look through people's Strava to see what happens at mile 20, and 90% of the people you look at and you just look at, this is the average pace on the top of Strava. You can see they run an average of 9-minute mile, and then you look mile 20 on, so it's 32K on, all of a sudden it's 2 minutes per mile or per K slower. And you're like, yep, that was a rough race. Whereas it very often doesn't come until a bit more experience, or at least someone who has been guided or who has like has a bit more understanding of what it's like. It feels so easy at the beginning of a marathon if you kind of hold back, but it should feel easy. And that takes experience to go through that.

Yeah. And I'm a slow learner. You're going to find out how slow a learner.

We'll talk about 19 marathons and still learning.

I think we're all, man, I think we're all how this all is supposed to work. Um, uh, because I mean, every marathon's different, right? Every time you toe the line, you have a different, different level of fitness. You have different conditions you have to, uh, face. You have different challenges that you've, you've been put through, stresses in your life or, or what have you. So, um, each, each time is an adventure. Uh, you can only, you, you can only, you know, hope and pray that you have, again, all the tools in your tool bag to make it a successful journey.

Yeah. What do you think started making it a more successful journey for you? What were some of those additional tools in your tool bag?

After the Rock 'n' Roll, I went later. So, I'm originally from Iowa and I went and did the Des Moines Marathon in October later that year with the exact same mindset. Nothing changed. Get to mile 19, crap out. I thought, I thought maybe it was just a matter of, you know, I need, I need a bigger base or I need more things. That didn't happen.

You needed more David Goggins in you. You needed to toughen it through more.

Exactly. Just, just, yeah. Um, go back to Arizona to run the Rock and Roll again. Same story. Uh, made it to Oklahoma City, uh, That one. So that one was a turning point for the worse. So this set me up for future success by having an even worse race because I started taking things for granted. I started taking things that, oh, I know what's going to happen, so I will just let it happen. Well, I got to Oklahoma City and I was probably not in the fitness that I should have been in because I was like, well, I can run a marathon, right? I know how to do this now, or I know how my body's going to react. It was— it got to a point and I finished. I want to say, you know, these other marathons have been like 4:25, 4:30 timeframe. This one was a 4:55, and I crossed the line, and I remember walking through, and after about 5 or 10 minutes, I sat down and passed out. Oh wow. Yeah, and I was— and I was out. Uh, they had— they had to wheelchair me over to the medical tent, give me— give me an IV, a couple IVs, um, It was quite the experience and the eye-opening experience that I sure don't know what I'm doing. It was about that time where it was like, I need to like put some framework around this, which is when I really joined the PB program to find that framework. Because without it, this is— this Mile 19 quest is going all wrong. And so With your help and the help of, you know, Coach Scott and Amelia, you know, the framework that you have, I've been able to figure out the right— for me, the right level of activity every single week and the pieces that I needed to put together to start having some success. Later that year, the next real target race, the next A race, as they would say, was the Houston Marathon in 2024. This was a complete 180 where everything went right. Like, I had 9 months of, okay, let's not end up in the medical tent again. Let's, let's do all the right things as best I can. And I pieced together a race and finished in 3:57. And it was just like this joyous time. And I still look back on my Strava and have some of my fastest splits for various pieces in there, even to this day, because it was, you know, just such a good experience. And when you taste that, when you taste that success, you're like, I want that every time. I'm still looking for that every time.

It has been so fascinating and awesome to see because you and I have been on a variety of different group Zoom calls. I've seen your updates in the Facebook group and the Strava group on a weekly weekly basis and just seeing how athletes like yourself are progressing, who are, like, learning some of the fundamentals of the approach to training, knowing what to do and why. And it's not me telling you this is the exact workout you gotta do this day. Yes, there's some of that, but it's really you becoming your own coach and you're becoming your own decision maker on this is what feels right this day. But at least through certain frameworks. And then on top of that, I think there's a lot of people who spend all their time and effort on the training, but I feel we spent quite a bit of time and effort on developing a race day strategy as well, where you go into a race with confidence. And I think that part alone is where a lot of athletes leave room for improvements on the table, as in, like, how do we approach race day? What are we doing pacing-wise? Where our training runs are? And is that realistic to go off like to go from your last marathon of 4:55 to shave off almost an hour from that time and not ending up in a medical tent and being able to finish strong and fast and knowing what— like, it's just an entire different experience. And I feel the pacing comes into play, the nutrition comes into play, the gear comes into play. But it's been phenomenal to actually watch your, your growth as an athlete. And still you continue till today to to improve there.

Well, and it's— it continues to be different types of goals. Like 2024, 6 weeks later after the Houston success and thinking that that was going— all I wanted to do in 2024 was get a sub-4-hour marathon. So all the stress was off, there was no more pressure. Um, I had set up 6 weeks later to run the, the Mesa Marathon, and I was like, We're going to just let it fly. And it flew. I ran a 3:44. Granted, the Mesa Marathon, for those who know about it, is predominantly a downhill marathon. But to, to make that next jump like that so significantly and still have, you know, just that, that strength at the end where I continued to accelerate like The last 10 kilometers were a joy. That was fun. That was fun. The rest of the— I did 3 more marathons that year, all of them with some level of success and all under 4. It was— it was— that was the style of running or racing that I was going through where I was still kind of shooting for time. Still kind of just running hard in every single one of those situations where nowadays, you know, in 2025, I've really changed my tactics. 2025 is a totally different beast than what the previous 3 years of marathoning have been because I've changed from running or racing to completing and completing multiple marathons in a shorter amount of time.

Tell us more about it because you have, you have had, you set some big goals for this year, even with the number of marathons that you're running and you've done that tied into certain causes. So tell us a little bit more about why you're doing it. And after that, I want to dive into your recovery in between races as well. So let's talk through, first of all, like why, why you've decided to do this and what you're exactly doing.

Yeah, the setup for 2025 Um, through this whole process, I started to learn that you had to, to do the marathons you wanted to do, you really had to plan ahead. The logistics of, of planning one race is, uh, can be quite daunting. So in some cases you have to plan a year ahead when, when that race is done in one year, they open it up for the next year and you need to sign up now to get your name on the list. I had done that for like. A spring set of marathons. I did that probably in June or July of '24 where I was like, okay, we're going to set up. And I did like 6 marathons from January to June in 2025. I set all that up. I also put my eye on— I started putting my eye on the majors. Like everybody else, I had been signing up for the lotteries and not getting accepted into the lotteries and And, and so I wanted to, I really wanted to run one of them. Didn't really matter which one of them. Uh, I applied to the Run for Autism team for the Berlin 25 marathon and got accepted. This was in September. So right after, right after Berlin ran in '24, I got accepted for the '25 Berlin and I was super excited. Started raising money right away. In a few weeks' time, well, Chicago came and went, and they sent me a link and said, hey, would you like to run Chicago 25? And I was like, well, sure, I'll run Chicago 25. A few weeks go by and New York runs, comes and goes, and they're like, hey, would you like to run New York? And I was like, okay, hang on, let's just do all of them. And they're like, what, really? And I was like, Yeah, I think, I think this is an interesting challenge to go and just stack the majors up. I had seen some other folks, some other influencers and whatnot, go after this challenge where they do all the, all the majors in a single year. Um, if, if it's possible, if that's okay, I would like to raise the money for each one of them and go and do all the majors. And there's— then they were like, absolutely, there's just one catch. The, the, the Run for Autism team didn't have a spot for Boston. And we'll get to that story. I ended up getting a spot for Boston through another foundation. It's a very, very, very cute little story. But now, now I have set up, you know, all of the, all of the majors. Um, Sydney— it was Sydney, Berlin, Chicago, New York. That was this fall. And then Tokyo, Boston, London, and I do have my spot in Cape Town for the spring.

Unbelievable. I wanna pause here for 1 minute because there might be people listening who are like, how does this all work? Because no, like, honest question, because I do think there might be other people who are very much having a hard time getting in some of these world majors. And do you have any advice, even if there's— it doesn't have to apply to, to any race, but if there's someone looking to go the charity route to go into a specific race, whether that will be the New York Marathon or Chicago or Berlin or whichever one, like, share some of your thoughts there and then we'll continue with your story.

Yeah, absolutely. What I found going the charity route, I would recommend picking charities that you have a clear connection with. Because you can— you have a story with that particular foundation. I had picked a couple of different autism charities to reach out to. My connection with autism is my sister and her two boys, both with autism. One is a nonverbal. And so we're, we're very close in that regard. And so I had a story that I could tell that they, they clearly saw, they, they understood, and which is probably why, uh, they, they selected me to be able to run with them. Yeah. Uh, I also applied to a few others. I wouldn't limit yourself, but I would just encourage you to have a story. And once you have the story, and once you have the connection, once you've been accepted to one, I would reach out to the directors if you have an interest into running others with them to just have the dialogue. They're people. They will have the conversation about what you want to accomplish. And of course, you know, if you're able to raise the money through the charity, however you go about doing that, I think that that makes it a pretty straightforward conversation at that point. But that's what I did. I ended up developing a really good relationship with the folks at Run for Autism, Sarah, Adeline, and Cora, great people to work with. And I didn't actually meet them until Chicago this year. I got to, got to meet them in Chicago, which was great. But that was, that's just what I would encourage is, is have the story, have the conversation, and, and explain to them what it is you want to, want to do.

And that's so the charity route is one route that you can go to get in some of these races. Like, if, like, most of these world majors, they all have lotteries or there are certain qualifications that are pretty high standard, like, they are high. Even Boston, like, the times you have to run for are very high. Um, then there's the other route. There's sometimes the marathon tour operators as well.

Yep.

Um, those are— I know the charities have certain thresholds that you have to reach. Even with the marathon tour operators, they only have limited spots. The price this can sometimes be up there. So that's like another route, right?

They're a little, they're a little more expensive. I am doing a sport tour to, for Cape Town. They reached out about a week after Cape Town canceled this last year. They, they started sending out mailers for pre-authorization for 2026. And I just, accepted it. I was just like, okay, cool, let's, let's do this. It was, it was relatively straightforward. I have heard in some, in some instances for some of the, uh, majors, because they're so exclusive, like the Bostons, if you've never— if you've not been a client of sport tours for others, they have a list of people for their sport tours that they only accept those people because they've spent money with them in the past. So that can be even, even more challenging as well, but Yeah, you're right. The, the standards to qualify are really high. You've done a good job in that regard of being able to qualify for, for those. I'm still, I'm still looking. I'm still searching. I'm in my, I'm in my training block. Let's say I've taken some time to shift from completing marathons to actually going out and racing. I plan to race Tokyo to see if I can get, get a BQ.

But it's exciting, man. What an exciting place to race for sure. Yeah.

Very, very, very excited for that. So we'll see.

Good, good, good. So we're gonna continue the story. Mm-hmm. Because I interrupted you and I now half lost my train of thought, but that's why I try not to interrupt people so much. But you were gonna talk about this year you're doing more of this type of racing and how have things been going so far in your approach?

Right. There's— when I look at a marathon, when I look at any race, there's 3 approaches, mental approaches that you can take to those races. Um, you can race it where you're going all out. You can run it where you're just using it as, um, a good workout, or you can go there to, as they would say, party pace, or just complete it and have a good time. Um, in 2024, most of my races were either good strong runs or races where I was really trying to to go for time. Uh, for 2025, I was going for volume, so I've shifted totally to party pace and completing, which is a different set of tools and a different set of training and, uh, a different set of recovery methods that you really have to go about. And I remember before starting on this journey, you and I having some conversations over one of the Zoom calls, and I told you I wanted to become a master of recovery because I knew that there was a long road ahead of me. And at 54 years old, this can be challenging. So, you know, using all the tools in your tool bag to be able to recover, go out and run, recover, go out and run, not just on training, but, you know, from marathon to marathon. And those marathons might be in back-to-back weekends. Those marathons may be 2 weekends apart. It's, it's an uphill battle. You can get tired fast.

How do you go about the recovery? Any advice to other runners who have close back-to-back races? And I, I agree what you said earlier about those different approaches of pacing. When you're gonna go all out in a race, obviously your recovery, whether that's a full marathon or even shorter races or longer races, it's gonna take longer. Like the harder you go, typically the, the longer the recovery is gonna take. Mm-hmm. But even at a lower intensity or like a slightly less hard push, it's still 26.2 miles, 42K on your body. So how did you approach recovery in between?

So one of the major things that I've committed to myself is almost every day I take a nap.

Nice.

It's almost a non-negotiable at this point. My Garmin has a great little nap feature that, you know, for 20 minutes it will wake me up in 20 minutes and remind me. So I will go into my bed. I have a very nice sleeping mask. I put sound-canceling headphones on. I go to Spotify and hit my sleep, my sleep playlist, and I zonk out for, for 20 minutes. Now, sometimes I lay there for 20 minutes and don't actually get any sleep. Other times I fall fast asleep and I wake up and it's like, oh wow, 20 minutes, that was fast. Sometimes I hit snooze and go another 20 minutes because I'm, I'm so exhausted. Uh, so I think sleep is super important. The nap feature has been, uh, something that's really helped, especially, um, you know, having long days, uh, working from home or whatever you have to do. If you can, if you can take those naps, it really makes a difference. The other thing that I did, um, doesn't matter what day of the week it is, I'm going to bed at 8:30, and my wife has just come to terms with it where she knows that If it's 8:30, she sees me get up. It's like, oh, it's that time. I was like, yes, it's that time. I go upstairs, I wind down, brush my teeth, and by 9 or 9:30, I am, I am out.

How many hours a night of sleep do you get?

I get anywhere from 7 to 7.5 hours because I'll be up, I'll be up at 5. The alarm usually goes off at 5. So living in Phoenix, especially during the summer, it's non-negotiable to get up before the sun in the summer. If you're going to do any training that's not in a gym, you're going to go run the roads. You have to be out there before the sun. So you have to just make that commitment that the alarm goes off at 5 or 4:30 or 4, sometimes even earlier in the summertime if you have a long run. You're going to go spend 2 or 3 hours out on the road, you're getting up really early. But that alarm goes off, you have to get up and get it done. Now, in the wintertime, most of the time, 5:00, it comes and I'll go out and get my run in. Other times, you know, I'll be okay having a slow start to my day if I know that I have, you know, a time window later in the day that I can go out and get my 3, 4, 5-mile run in. Or whatever, whatever that is.

Those naps are wonderful, man. There's such good ways to reset the body. I do it quite frequently myself too. And indeed, like you said, sometimes you sleep, sometimes you just let your thoughts reorganize and it feels like you have a second part of the day after. It's almost like a reset of your morning routine.

So there's some sleeping tricks that you should go investigate if you— if anybody has any trouble falling asleep, there's methods of similar to the counting sheep, right? One of the, one of the ones that I use or have used quite, quite a lot was I do my ABCs, but for every letter, I call out a marathon. So a city, a city that a marathon is in, right? So you have Amsterdam, you have Boston, you have Copenhagen, you have Chicago, right?

How do you fall asleep? That's so much I'm not thinking.

And eventually, all of the day's stresses have just melted away and you've thought nothing about running. And then, by the time you get to HIJ, you're really tired. Your mind just lets you go to sleep.

That is classic. What do you listen to? You're saying you put stuff on headphones.

Yeah, literally, you can go search on Spotify for sleep And it's just a playlist that has this really melodic organ string type music in the background to just soothe your mind. That's all.

It is wild how much— like, I've had a conversation with Dr. Phil Maffetone about music and the mind and altering states and whatnot. And so you're using it over here in a way to calm you down. When I do deep work flow state, I put on focus music and I can literally listen to it for 8 hours straight. And you go in these different deep focus zones and it's wild how much it can either wake you up or it can really calm you down. And yeah, the whole like wavelength of your, your brains, it's eye-opening how much of an impact it can have.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Good. Good. Good. Well, that basically gets us all the way through 2025 when you're on a back-to-back marathon journey over here. And so far it sounds like things have been unfolding really well for you. These races have been going really well.

I've been really fortunate. So look, my, my work allows me a lot of latitude and they are, gracious. I work in technology, one of the larger tech companies. My boss is very supportive of charitable giving. I have been able to work around a lot of my work schedule to be able to go to these far-off places— Sydney, Berlin— use some of my, my travel time, my, my time off to go explore some of these places. Some of the, some of the ones closer, just a nice long weekend— Chicago, New York. Just a nice long weekend. So I think I have to, I have to look at, you know, my situation. Not everybody has that benefit where they can do back to back to back to back because they have other obligations. So I'm pretty fortunate in that, in that manner. So that's part of the reason why I've been taking advantage of it. You know, I have the health, I have the means, I have the time. I should probably just go for it while I can because you never know what next year or next race is going to bring.

Right throughout this whole journey, what have been some of the aha moments for you? What have been some of the breakthroughs that you have experienced in your— not just your running, but your health as well? Because I think there's even been a tie-in. At some point you started running more, you started losing weight. But there was still some challenges with alcohol and a few other areas in your life. So let's talk through that a bit more.

Yeah. I mentioned earlier that although I started running, I didn't clean up my act at all. I ate like I was 30. I still kind of do sometimes. Drink like a fish, which I had acknowledged myself as a functional alcoholic for many years. Which it's amazing what you can get away with. But I think it started really wearing on those around me to the point where they had had enough. So I'll credit, you know, the people that love me stood up and said, hey, I think it's time for a change. And in many more words than that, but That was, that was a little over 2 years ago that my son-in-law and I went round and round and it was just like, yeah, I think you're right. I'm an alcoholic and I need to clean my act up. That started a shift where you're addicted to one thing and now you're like all in addicted to another. Up until that point, my addiction was still alcohol. I was running, but I was running for whatever reason. You know, there, there's the longevity of it, there's the health of it, somewhat of the health of it, uh, there's the checking the boxes of going and running races and things like that. Um, but I was still— my addiction was, was alcohol. When that was no longer there this is my personality of having an all-in personality to something. I had to like recommit everything to something else. And that's where running really became and has become, you know, the one thing that I focused on almost nonstop now. So I do have my work and I do have my family. But when I, when I'm not focused on those things, I am really all in on, well, what's the next race? What are the logistics for that? Do I have the right training setup? You know, all the things that you need to be successful in the world of running marathons or half marathons or whatever you're doing, that became the addiction. So it was, you know, the fall of '23 when that all changed.

I think the difference is, and I see this more where there's people who are Type A personality are very focused, very driven, who indeed they have one thing and then from there on they almost need to repurpose that energy. And you have to sometimes even be careful there not to go overboard because I do see even people in our program that I have to dial back as in like, hey, it's really good and well that you're excited to run every day, but running more is not always the answer and training 16 hours a week is there might potentially be other ways to go about this and getting better results with less of an effort. And it's this balancing act. And I think sometimes looking in the mirror and seeing what is the true reason I'm running right now and, and looking at your why and looking at your ego and looking at a variety of different things. And we have often talked about the importance of dropping ego and, and not caring so much about what other people think and living to a true authentic self and different things. And I feel that takes time as a runner to go through that. But it seems like you've found a good balance between that that seems to work well for you. And I'm so glad that you're actually changing your running intensity on some of these races because otherwise your wheels would just not stay on.

Yeah. We were having those conversations, me and you and Scott, when you started seeing me go after all of these races, there was genuine concern from you all about, am I overdoing it? Am I overdoing it? And then when it finally came out, the realization that I wasn't out there racing for, for time every time, and the body had started building up its resiliency to be able to handle the volume at a respectable level. Then it became more of a conversation of, okay, now how do we manage recovery? How do we manage the right training? There is a word that I think gets misconstrued a lot in the running world, and that's discipline. And I don't mean the discipline of simply just getting up every day and going and running every day. That's, that's persistence and consistency. There's discipline where you get up in the morning and you realize it's not my day. I shouldn't be going out and running. Or you're in the middle of a run and you're like, I need to dial this back some because I may have a hard session later in the week or, or what have you. And I need to be disciplined in the way I approach this workout so that future workout is good as well. That's a level of discipline that I'm talking about that not a lot of people, you know, they may grasp it wrong because like you're saying, it's, it's real easy to fall into the trap of— and I did some of this last year where you fall into the trap of running not just every day but sometimes twice a day. And I was, I was going out there and probably clocking 8 or 9 runs a week and Although I could do it and get away with it, it wasn't really necessarily helping anything. If you do the right runs at the right intensity throughout the week, you know, 4 or 5 runs can go a long way.

Sure. And, and that's the interesting thing. For some athletes, the discipline is dialing back the volume and intensity. And for some athletes, it's actually the opposite where they do need a bit more discipline or they need to need some more consistency and being honest with that true self if they are really putting in the effort that they could and listening to that internal dialogue and not letting themselves off the hook too easy when it's raining or snowing or whatnot. And so it's this fine balance really. But I think we grow as an athlete over time that we get more in tune with that inner voice. So Well, first of all, like, where, where can people find more about you? Where do you typically post? I see you're active on Strava, but where else?

Yeah, I mean, when I really started getting more serious about running, I didn't want to spam all of my friends and family everything. So I went and created a separate Instagram account. So you can find me at See Chris Run More. It started out as See Chris Run 2023, and then it was See Chris Run 2024. And I was like, okay, I'll— but see Chris run more is where you'll find me on, on Instagram. You can find me on the PB Program. You can find me on Facebook if you so choose. But a lot of my running content ends up there. Occasionally I share it out to Facebook, some of the pages, some of my recaps that I do for the various runs that I go do, the various races will get posted on various pages on Facebook. Yeah. Those, those are probably good.

Yeah. We'll make sure to link to that as well. Do you have any closing thoughts, any ideas for people listening who wanna become a stronger, happier, and healthier athlete?

I just go back and stress on be patient, be consistent, show up every day. And over time, you'll get results. It just takes time. It's taken 5 years for me to get to the point of being able to run multiple marathons throughout the year. It, it could take longer for others, but it's really about the patience and consistency that you need to have and making things right in your life so you can go do that.

So well said. And it started all with you getting a treadmill and walking consistently on the treadmill, right? What, what were some of those first sessions looking like?

Oh, it was brutal. I mean, it was 20, 25 minutes sweating to the oldies, as they would say, right? I couldn't barely hang on for 20, 25 minutes of just walking at a decent, decent clip. After a week or so, things started to pick up. You know, the body is amazing. Absolutely amazing if you give it an opportunity. It will do things that you never expected if you just give it a chance. Feed it right, water it, a little bit of salt here and there.

Awesome. Chris, thank you so much. I really appreciate it and looking forward to seeing how the rest of the World Majors are unfolding and what other adventures you have coming up down the pipeline.

I appreciate it, Floris. Maybe we'll have to check in, you know, in 2026.

Absolutely. That would be wonderful. Have a good one, Chris.

Thanks a lot.

I love watching Chris's progress over the years in his running and health journey. If you would like to find out more about our running coaching program, check out pbprogram.com. And then my book, Running Breakthroughs, is available now as an audiobook, printed book, and ebook at florisgierman.com, which is my website, on amazon.com or the Amazon in your country.

So if you live in the Netherlands, it will be.nl. If you live in Australia, it's.au. So find your local Amazon website there, or otherwise at a variety of other different stores as well.

I would love to hear from you. What was your favorite lesson, takeaway, or quote from this episode?

Please let me know in the comments below on YouTube.

Several more podcasts in the works. Dr.

Phil Maffetone coming up next here, and I can't wait to share that episode with you. Have a good one, bye now.