#71: How to Balance Running & Life: Tips for Non-Elite Runners

It's a practice, so it's not— you're never going to perfect it, but that's the idea, is like always gives you something to practice and try this little tweak or try this new system or try this way of thinking about your form. As long as you're into learning and humble and never feel like you figured it out, then you're always going to enjoy your running practice. And to me, that's what running is, a combination of like being willing to learn and improve and be a student of the practice. And the other part is just to have fun with the practice. That's the whole reason we're doing it in the first place, you know?

Hey there, my name is Floris Gierman, and if you have ever enjoyed watching any of my videos or listening to any of my podcasts, it would mean the world to me if you can go over to YouTube and subscribe to my channel. Currently, only about 22.7% of the viewers of my YouTube channel are actually subscribed, and I would love to increase that. It really helps get my videos in front of more people so it can actually help more people on their health and running journey, plus it helps book more additional guests for future episodes as well. So yes, please go to my YouTube channel and hit that like and subscribe button. If you're listening to the podcast, leaving a review on any of the podcast platforms that you listen to goes a long way as well. So thank you for that. Today I have a conversation with my friend Kyle Whalem, and we talk about low heart rate training, about meditation, about quitting alcohol, and a lot of the different lessons that he has learned along the way. Cal is a professional musician. He's the bass guitar player for Kelly Clarkson and Katy Perry, and he's now actually transitioning over to The Voice. So we talk about balancing training, racing, and life. Cal is a really legit runner, and we have done many different adventures together. Cal is one of our PATH Project crew members, so one of our ambassadors. So he's been involved on several of the photo shoots and video shoots that I've been a part of as well. One of my favorite trips with him was to the Grand Canyon where went down South Kaibab Trail and we went all the way to the Colorado River and then end up going up to Bright Angel. So it was like a sunrise to sunset kind of adventure, ended up running about 24 miles. So that was definitely a fun one. And Kyle has been putting a lot of the Path Projects gear through the wringer on all of his ultra endurance events, including some of his latest 100 milers that we'll talk more about as well. If you would like to find out more about Path Projects gear, that's also gear that I use on all of my different running adventures, check out pathprojects.com. It has been really exciting to watch Kyle's transition and dabbling into low heart rate training and then learning a lot of things along the way and then applying that across, across various areas of his life. And we'll have a deep dive on that discussion. This episode is brought to you by Element, which is a delicious electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing that you don't. That means plenty of salt, potassium and magnesium, and no sugar. Increasing my electrolyte intake has made a significant difference in my energy levels, in my quality of sleep, and no more brain fog or headaches. It really can make that much of a difference. I typically start my day with drinking a large glass of water of about 500 milliliters— that's half a liter— and I mix in one package of LMNT. It helps rehydrate and allows me to maintain my focus and physical performance. And I actually really like their packaging. You can decide how much water you want to put in, and that's how salty it actually becomes. And you will notice you can make it quite salty, or you can dilute it, but it tastes delicious. Go to drinklmnt.com/flow to get a free sample pack of 8 flavors with any order. This offer can be used multiple times. That is drinklmnt.com/flow. F-L-O. See also the link in the description. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Carl Whalen.

Cheers, man. Thanks for having me over.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for coming over. Had a nice morning run over here.

Yeah, that was great. Your second one of the day.

Second one of the day. Warm-up before then.

Yeah, 15-mile warm-up.

Nice little ice bath afterwards.

Man, that was wonderful.

And then it was interesting. We came home to my place and then before we started recording, you said, ah, now I'd like to meditate for a little bit.

Yeah.

Tell me more about that. Like, have you always been into meditation? Like, what kind of role does meditation play in your everyday life here?

So, uh, I got into meditation actually kind of out of necessity, um, about 3 years ago in the middle of the pandemic. So, uh, the first thing about me off the bat your viewers will probably recognize very quickly is I have ADHD. Um, that's something that, uh, I first had brought up around 3rd grade. And, um, you know, I was kind of in denial about it. I think my parents were in denial about it for a long time. And then as I got older and got to know myself, um, it started to make a lot of sense the more I read about ADHD. Um, we have a thrill-seeking kind of mentality. I can't remember if it's, um— I always get them confused, so, so forgive me. I can't remember if it's low low dopamine or low serotonin. But essentially, a brain like mine is kind of always looking for stimulation, and that's why the attention can drift, because it'll, it'll latch on to whatever is the most exciting, right? Around when the pandemic, pandemic broke out, uh, it was sort of the first times I started to fully come to grips with the fact that, like, okay, I've been told this my whole life and I actually have a diagnosis, and I was still even in denial about that. So I, you know, I did therapy, got formal diagnosis, got medication, all this stuff. And that was— I must have been 29 then. I'll be 40 this year in a couple months. So, you know, for easily for 8, 9 years, I even still, after I got a diagnosis, was in denial about my own brain and what ADHD is and all that stuff. Um, the pandemic was sort of a perfect storm of you know, frustration, um, you know, uh, coming to grips with my own— and by frustration, I mean frustration with the pandemic, the circumstances, being locked at home as you were with the family. And, you know, here in, uh, LA County and Orange County, a lot of our playgrounds were even shut down, so the kids had nothing to do. We had nowhere to go, working from home. My daughter had just got her autism diagnosis, perfect storm of all kinds of stuff. I'm sure all the listeners and viewers went through their own journey during the pandemic, but, uh, for me, I started dealing with, um, anger for the first time, really started struggling with accepting my daughter's autism, accepting my own ADHD, accepting the pandemic, and being kind of bottled in. We had just moved back to LA, so it's a lot going on. It was— it turned out to be almost too much for me, you know.

Oh, that is a lot to take in for sure.

It's a lot, dude. So, um, it basically came down to a threshold where I was struggling to kind of keep everything— basically I put my fist through the wall more than once. It never, never laid a hand on my kids or my wife. It's just— that's not who I am. But I found myself not having an outlet for all of this kind of frustration and rage. And so, you know, I would, I would lose it. I would just like, you know, smash a— I think I smashed like my daughter's plastic step stool or something. I just, you know, lost it. Ah! Or, or punched the wall or something. And so this happened like maybe 2 or 3 times, and it got to the point where my wife was like, you know, dude, you gotta, you gotta figure something out. You know, like, she's not like, uh, she's never been scared of me or anything. I'm not a scary guy. I'm— you, you know me, I'm kind of lighthearted and totally kind of silly and, and little in stature. You know, I'm not, I'm not a scary dude, but I was really at my limit. And so, um, the first fix that we found here in LA where it's legal was pot. She's like, just go to the dispensary, get some weed, and just smoke that if that keeps you from freaking out, you know. And, and that was— it was a decent kind of Band-Aid for me. It wasn't the depth of fix that I was looking for. Earlier, I had kind of played with some mindfulness meditation and that kind of thing, um,. And from my work with Katy Perry, one of my bosses— come to find out Katy's big into Transcendental Meditation. And so, um, I had remembered a— our guitar player Casey for Katy, um, always had kind of this like calm disposition. It was something that I, um, was really just drawn to, almost the way that, um, like in, in Christianity A lot of us grew up Christian, and there's always this thing of like, well, you know, your lifestyle will draw people in. People will be curious about, you know, like, I want what you have kind of thing. Well, Casey always had that, um, demeanor that I wanted. He was just so chill, dude, like at all times. Um, he experienced joy and, and the great highs of life, but nothing ever seemed to kind of really rattle him. Um, so in that moment of crisis, I was like, basically my wife was this close to like putting me out of the house. She's like, go stay in a hotel, like smoke this weed, I don't know what you got to do, but sort yourself out, get it together, you know. So I hit Casey up one day on text and just said like, like, hey man, like tell me more about this meditation you do. I'm looking for solutions here. So, um, yeah, Casey kind of gave me— we call it the bootleg version of Transcendental Meditation. You're kind of supposed to be taught by a teacher. This technique's been handed down for like 6,000 years, they say. Um, and so it kind of helps to have someone formally show you, I will say that. But Casey gave me sort of a bootleg version, like we talked about earlier. Like, if you were interested, I kind of show you the mechanics of it. Yeah. So he gave me some advice, uh, I played around with it, and like I woke up the next morning and started using this mantra that I'd kind of made up. And, uh, honestly, it was the first thing in a long time that really worked, like without having to smoke weed, without having to do drugs or drink a beer or take a Xanax or whatever. It was like— it felt like I took a Xanax when I came out of the meditation. Everything was just at zero, like baseline. And from there, I was able to, like, go out, be with the kids, face all the frustration of the pandemic, and just navigate it without being so angry. And, you know, the, the meditation I do, I tend to try to do it twice a day. So I'll do one, um, sometime before lunch, usually Uh, they recommend in the morning, but you know, I'm a musician, so morning for me, it depends on whether I've been playing that night or, you know, sometimes we wake up at 10 AM, 11 AM. But I'll get one in, it's about 20 minutes, um, and that'll give me— it's almost like, uh, taking a dose of a medication where you'll get like, you know, like 6 hours of like a curve where you start out extremely relaxed and fresh and all this stuff, and then gradually life just kind of beats you up, you know, the day stress, all this stuff. That's why we do an evening one too, ideally sometime before dinner. But the way life is with kids and stuff, sometimes it'll just be like before I go to bed. Yeah, but I'll do another one, and that it's kind of like my second dose of the day.

So for anyone listening, can you explain high level how they can implement this in their own life? Like, what would you have told your younger version of yourself about what you know at this point about meditation and the power of meditation. And at some point we'll start talking about running too. But I find the meditation part very interesting because I've been doing it for about 10 years.

Okay. You actually got me beat by like 7 years.

But I've noticed positive impact in many different ways. And whether that is in the morning or whether that is later on in the day, like I'm trying to get my kids to get introduced to it or at least play around with it. But I would love to hear in what sort of— because you have noticed significant changes in your life. And so I think to anyone listening over here as well, I feel it doesn't only help improve your anxiety levels or your stress levels or any of that, but I think indirectly it can help improve your running as well. It can help improve improve the way you connect with yourself, the way you can calm down some of your thoughts and lower your resting heart rate, your stress levels, anything like that. So how would you go about it if you don't have any experience with meditation and you would like to try this?

I mean, so first of all, I mean, I'm a big fan of any type of meditation. I mean, I'm just like, whether it's mindfulness or guided meditation or walking meditation, you know, um, like we talked about earlier, even yoga, you know, yoga and meditation. We were talking about how, uh, in some of the Vedic traditions that meditation originated from, uh, yoga and meditation aren't necessarily looked at as like separate things. It's like part of a full lifestyle. So you have meditation for your— for the mind, um, and the intellect. Uh, you have yoga for the physiology, um, and you have your spiritual practice, you know, for your, your spirit and all that stuff. So, you know, to me they're intrinsically connected. And, um, I don't think that— I think one kind of begets the other. So it's like you were talking about with running, um, a guy like me with ADHD I— in one sense, running is a balm for me. It's all activity all the time. It's all stimulation. It's all motion. It feels good to just get all that shit out, you know, you know, daily. And then meditation is sort of the other end of that spectrum where it's the complete opposite of running. It's just stillness, you know. For me, it's like, uh, any, any dalliance or dabbling in meditation or picking it up, whether it's from an app or whether it's from a YouTube channel or a recommendation, it's like, it's like hard to go wrong. It's like, it's like saying, um, you know, exercise is good for you. So it would be like sitting there and fretting over, oh well, what sort of, what sort of exercise should I do? Am I going to do it wrong? Blah blah blah. It's like most any doctor would say, like, just going from not exercising to exercising, huge boost and huge, like, life benefits from that. I tend to look at meditation the same way. It's like, uh, it's hard to go wrong, you know, any— whether it's literally 2 minutes or an hour. I recommend people just try out several types and kind of see what gels with them the best, uh, The Transcendental Meditation that I practice, uh, one of my favorite things about it is that it's very, um, it's very easy. You kind of like, you set up these conditions, you get a mantra, and you kind of let yourself fall into this space. At least that's the idea. Sometimes our, our intellect can kind of get in the way of that where, uh, we overcomplicate it. I'm hugely guilty of this, of making something easy harder than it needs to be, you know what I mean? But the idea is very simple. You repeat this mantra, you repeat it until it kind of starts to get a little quieter, and, um, you're, you're focusing kind of unintentionally on the mantra, and that's helping you not focus on all the other stuff. And as you kind of repeat it, um, slowly it kind of gets quieter, and you're not doing this out loud, by the way, you're doing this in your head. And, um, gradually it gets, it gets quieter and quieter, and after a while you're just not, you're not repeating the mantra and you're also not really thinking about anything. And that period can be, that period of like silence or whatever can last like seemingly 5 seconds, or it can last 5, 10 minutes, you know, on a really banging one, like 10 minutes go by and I'm like, holy shit, I haven't had like a single thought. You know, those are kind of unicorn. Yeah, you know, that's, that's what you're— those, those are the, the, the ones that you kind of like, uh, um, well, you shouldn't celebrate one over the other. That's kind of part of the philosophy of it. But those are the ones where you're like, holy shit, that was mind-blowing.

You know, the one part I have noticed is when Like sometimes I go through periods where I'm very consistent in meditation. And I also go through periods where I'm much more off the rails and I'm much more on my phone, like constantly interrupted with things and sometimes work, busyness, apps and flows as well there. Yeah. That being said, I think meditation is quite interesting that the more you do it, not necessarily the easier it gets, but the better you become at overcoming some of your distractions. Totally. And that part is trainable to some extent as well. And some days you have better days that you can concentrate longer, like you said, and some days it becomes easier. But I think that even applies to your running too. Some days you have a really busy head and like thoughts are all over the place. Yet if you can get back to a place where you can anchor your thoughts, or like you can anchor yourself to, for example, your breath. Because you can do it with meditation, but you can do it during running too. Once you can find certain patterns between your breathing and your cadence, or once you can like just— I wrote on my Strava this week, I did some speed work and I told myself, be here now. Yeah, yeah. Not thinking about the next mile you're going to be running, or not even thinking about the next lap. I was doing 800 repeats and towards the end it was getting a bit challenging. 800s are so brutal. Once you start thinking about, I have one more lap to go. Yeah. It might start like your mind start racing versus like, I'm here right now. What can I do? Let's focus on my breathing. Let's focus on running relaxed. Let's focus on enjoying this process. Yeah. So once again, like you kind of anchor back your thoughts to that present moment. Yeah. And I think if you have a daily meditation practice, that becomes easier to do in other parts of your life than only in your running part. Right. I've definitely noticed some correlation there, dude.

I mean, it's, it's been huge for, um, I mean, it's hard to not oversell it, but it's been so good for my whole life, you know. Yeah. Uh, whether it's, uh, I don't really get stage fright a lot. It's kind of funny. I mean, with the ADHD comes anxiety, which is kind of one of the, the pillars of Kyle Whalum. It's like, I'm kind of anxious. But, you know, it's helped in those moments where you're— you know, you said be here now. It's like there's a moment where you're overwhelmed with worry or fretting, or am I good enough, blah, blah, blah. I mean, all you can really do is be in the moment you're in. Like, you really have no choice. And once you kind of surrender to that, um, it can be really, really healing and cathartic because before you know it, that moment has passed and you got through it. And now you're on to the next one. You can get through that one too. And it's like, after a while, nothing becomes that hard in a sense, even if it feels hard. It's like the mindfulness and just settling into the moment you're in, you know, realizing that like you have, I don't know, trillions, trillions of moments in your life that have already passed that you survived, you know. Yeah. Um,— or if it's a tough workout or if it's a tough moment with the kids or if you're on a date and you're nervous or— I mean, there's an infinite number of circumstances you could think of.

Here's one I can think of. Yeah. Let's talk about the early stages of your meth low heart rate running journey. Oh my God. Because I do want to talk about— Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. What was your training like before that? Yeah. And what was that transition like for you in those early stages? Because I know it was mentally and physically challenging for you, so I would like to talk. But there were also many different benefits that you noticed along the way, so let's talk through that.

So, so, um, if you were to ask me, if someone were to come, and I guess you are asking me, sort of, in the last 2 years, what have been the 2 biggest changes in your life? Um, one would be my meditation practice, and the other would be my my low heart rate training, which, uh, low, you know, Flo introduced me to, if you didn't know that. Uh, yeah, I had heard about it for a while. Um, I got into ultra— I got into running, uh, 14 years ago or so, maybe 15 years ago. And, um, I'd heard of people doing this heart rate training where you're trying to keep your heart rate low. Um, and it wasn't until— I'm trying to think of what was the catalyst to get me into it. Well, I honestly, I had a, um, so I'm an ultra runner. If you didn't know that. And, um, I had my last 100-mile race was in September 2022, so coming up on a year ago. And I had a really, really rough day, like one of my top worst, you know, perceivably worst 100-mile performances.

This was the Flagstaff to Grand Canyon one, right? 100-miler There was soft sand, there was altitude, there was a point.

Yeah, points of point, soft sand.

Um, what was the name of that race?

It's called Stagecoach, uh, the, the nickname is Stagecoach 100. Yeah, I think it's called Stagecoach 100 Grand to Grand or some, something like Flagstaff to Grand, something like that. It's got kind of a long title. Um, in that race, I just got humbled. So I had come off of The race, the 100-miler previous to that, I had gone under 24 hours, which for 100-mile racers, it's a lot like, um, going sub-4 in the marathon. It's considered one of these sort of, uh, an indicator of progress, or that you're on the right path, or that you're one of the real ones, you know, or whatever. It's considered one of those social, like, hey, I went sub-24, you know. So I kind of had, in a sense, the race of my career because I'm not I'm a musician. I'm not a runner for a living.

I'm not nearly as fast as Flo or as talented, but you go a lot further. I, I go— I go like a diesel. You just keep going.

Yeah, I can get in a low gear and just kind of keep going. But, um, this particular race, everything— I mean, from mile 25 on, I just was in the Hurt Locker. It— I had some moments up to about mile 50 where I was running really well. But my feet were hurting, and that became an issue we can, we can talk about later. But basically, um, after this, I went from, you know, the race before having the best 100-miler of my life, and, and even the few before that, I'd been kind of getting better and better at the 100-milers. So like, in my head, I'm like, oh, I'm figuring this thing out, you know, I'm killing it, maybe I'll go sub-20 at my next 100, maybe I'll be some elite soon. And This race was not that. I turned in like almost 31-hour transit time. So like the cutoff was 32 hours, I think. So I'm like back of the pack.

Um, and that's even more brutal because you're out for like 7, 8 more hours.

That's no joke. Yeah, I was out for, uh, math is not my strong suit, but what, 7 hours longer than my last one? Something like that. So that's 7 more hours of suffering and eating, you know, eating endurance food and heat. And it has punishment. It was terrible. And, um, it was after that race that I was prompted to kind of take a look at my whole approach to running. Like, what am I— what am I doing? It went from elation the race before of like, I'm killing it, I'm like in the zone, you know, I figured this out. To like this existential running crisis of like, how could this go so poorly? Like, and I had noticed leading up to that that a lot of my runs weren't— I wasn't getting any faster. I wasn't— I was struggling with weight gain, you know. I was kind of hitting this, and I, I thought maybe it's just old age, you know. I'm starting to enter my 40s and midlife and all that stuff, and one of the metrics that I thought to take a look at was heart rate. I had heard you talk about it, and I'd seen, I'd, you know, read about Dr. Maffetone, heard some podcasts that he was on and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, well, maybe I'll give that a try. Maybe that seems like sort of a simplified way to kind of rejig my, my, uh, running life. I didn't know before I set out on that path that like low heart rate training would get me to look at all these other things in my life. And so the funny thing is, now Flo and I are sitting here talking. Uh, Flo knows that I hit him up a couple months ago and just said one day, hey man, uh, so I gave up drinking like 2 days ago. I was like, I know, I know you don't drink, you know, I know you used to. Tell me about it. I just— for my first week of not drinking, I just kind of interviewed one person a day that had made the same choice, and it was half to get advice and it was also half to just be in the presence of other people that had walked that path and had something to say about it. And so, uh, from, you know, weight loss to, um, you know, just dietary choices, uh, focusing on sleep, cutting back on caffeine, uh, obviously cutting out alcohol That's also a massive change. A lot of changes, man. I mean, in the last 6 months, I'm kind of a whole different dude. And I mean, I'm still, I'm still me, but, you know, um, heart rate training was one of those, you know, uh, it opened a bunch of doors to things I hadn't really been focusing on of why I might have been stagnating, you know.

Um, you surely start to listen more to some of the signals from the body. Yeah. And you become more aware of what's happening, right? And then when you make some of those changes— let me sleep a little bit more— all of a sudden you see your resting heart rate drop. All of a sudden you see your MET pace improve, or— right, some of those things. Like, yeah, that— you definitely made a lot of changes there.

Yeah. And I gotta say, for anyone that's either tried it or thinking about trying it, um, the, the beginning, the opening 6 months of my heart rate training was by far the hardest thing I've done in my running career. It was so much harder. Not that it's like physically hard, mentally and the ego, it was hard because, you know, you're used to— my easy pace at that point was maybe 10 minutes per mile, 10:30, something like that. And when I started MAF training, like, or heart rate training, I had to look at my watch and be like, Okay, to stay under my number, I'm having to put down like 15-minute miles, you know? Like, I'm having to walk almost more than I jog. And so for me, that was really, really brutal. Um, I think now looking back, like, the things that I didn't know going into it, like alcohol, caffeine, my ADHD medication, you know, like when I take that was a huge part of why that heart rate might have been so fucking high. You know, it's like, you know, I, uh, some days, uh, after a night of like, you know, when I was drinking, I never really went crazy. I wasn't like a hard party or anything, at least at that point in my life. I had been in my 20s, but you know, I'd have a couple beers after a day and no big deal. I didn't notice that it was, it was really messing up my sleep and it was also making my heart rate the next day just spike, you know what I mean? Like, and I would, I would wake up, you know, mildly hungover, not, not like, not even perceptibly hungover, just that aftereffect of having 3 or 4 beers, right? And then I would drink a cup of coffee before the run, and then I would probably take my Adderall for my ADHD and I, I go run and my heart rate numbers are like, I'm at like 190 and I'm doing my easy 10-minute pace and just looking around.

Plus you live in Altadena, or at the time you lived in Sierra Madre. Yeah, so it was super hilly as well. I mean, basically, so those are like the perfect combination of all of the things that will spike your heart rate like no tomorrow.

Hills, summer heat, you know, all the stimuli. You know, also like I'm a nicotine addict, that's something we can, we can talk about too. But, uh, you know, I wasn't doing myself any favors, so I basically was like a case study of like everything, doing everything wrong and trying to keep your heart rate low. And I think that's why it took me 6 months as opposed to— for some people it's 3 weeks to kind of start seeing results, right?

Yeah.

So for me it was, you know, I'm texting Flo like, like screaming from the mountaintop, like, what am I doing wrong?

You know, tell me more, because there were challenges and there were breakthroughs.

Yeah, alternately, right? Um, at first it was only challenges, it seemed like. And then I— there was— I remember one, one run, uh, dropped my son off at his gymnastics class. They have this thing where you can kind of like— it's not really child care, but you're allowed to kind of like go get a coffee or something. So I would show up with my running clothes and tell them, hey, I'm gonna dip out for 30 minutes, you know, it's an hour-long class. So I went on a jog, and, uh, where we live now in Montrose, it's, it's a lot like Sierra Madre. All at the foothills, and so it's a lot of hill running. You're either going uphill or downhill. And I take off, I leave his, um, class, and it's a douche-grade uphill, and I know that. And it's like I was gonna go a mile and a half and turn around and come back down. On the way up, I kept looking at my watch, like waiting on it to tell me to walk, and I was like, I might fuck around and not have to walk on this run, you know? It's like the first run in 3 or 4 months where I didn't have to even consider walking. And I was like, there's hope. We just did a whole run and I kept my heart rate under the freaking number, you know. Um, so that was really the turning point where I probably texted you right after, like, dude, I think it's working, you know. And from there, I mean, I went from like, uh, trying to remember what the number was in those days. I was trying to stay under 137, I think, something like that. And, um, yeah, I was able to do the whole run like peak of 136 or something like that. And from there, I mean, there were easily days for a long time where I was— easy run was, you know, 128 heart rate. Um, and, you know, only, only if I hit a hill would it get up to, you know, the mid-30s or even like, you know, low 40s or something. And we were, we were talking while we took a break for the camera battery, um, that with— and you can tell me if I'm off here, but I think with, with heart rate training, maybe it can be beneficial to do like a few rounds of it, right? So, so, uh, I was sharing with Flo that I'd been on a blood pressure medication for the past 10 years that, um, had been doing me some favors as far as keeping the heart rate a little lower. Even with all the drinking and abusing my body I was probably doing, you know, on top of that. So now, uh, you know, cut out alcohol, slow down with caffeine, but I have come off that blood pressure medication as well, which is a good thing. I don't really need it anymore. Um, but I'm noticing the heart rate creeping back up, and we're also in summer months in the middle of a heat wave. So I'm not, you know, I'm not like drastically. I'm not as high as when I started, but it's kind of come back in between. And so, uh, definitely thinking about another round of kind of base building and like base building, being a little more strict with the, the heart rate number and trying to stick, you know, maybe doing some walking and stuff like that. So do you find that's common?

Yeah, and I think it kind of goes through stages too. Like sometimes people would do a base building period where they tried to really minimize speed work or don't do any speed work, no higher intensity workouts. After that, jump into a race-specific schedule. Just start adding in once or twice a week high intensity. Then there's typically a race. And then afterwards, depending on when your next race is, you either want to, like, go back to base building for a little bit, or after you recovered from your race, like, still, if you, if you have a race and it's, it's in 6 weeks or 8 weeks, you might want to keep doing once or twice a week speed work. Sure. But there's quite some people who can keep improving even by just running aerobically. And once you get your math pace lower, that will help pay off on race day too. But then again, I do think there's a time and place for higher intensity running too. Sure. Because on race day, depending on the distance, if you're running a 50-mile or 100-mile, you're probably going to run mostly at a low heart rate anyways. But then if you're running a half marathon or a marathon, you're going to be racing at a higher heart rate. So becoming a bit more familiar with that is also, is also good. So marathons. Ooh.

Oh yeah. Gosh, I don't miss that.

What, what advice do you have for people looking to start out with low heart rate training?

Just go into it with a mindset of like you're about to be really humbled, period. Like, you know, I'm not an elite athlete by any means, especially in your circle, right? So I'm on this podcast. With a lot of people that are endurance-focused and they know the ins and outs of marathoning and cycling and ultra running. For the other group of people that I interact with, which is, you know, musicians, people out on the street, whatever, they consider me some sort of elite athlete. It's kind of a joke to me. I'll walk around and be like, oh yeah, he's a world-famous elite ultra runner. I'm like, okay.

I'll roll with it.

Come talk to some of my running friends and they'll tell you how slow I am, you know. Um, but I, but I understand what they, what they mean is that like to the average person, someone that will get up and on any given day go run 100 miles makes you some sort of elite athlete in their eyes, you know. Yeah. Um, but either way, it was really helpful for me to, to just know you're about to get humbled, you know, whether you're someone like Flo that's running sub-3 easily, or you're like me, like, uh, you know, uh, more of a hobby jogger that does endurance stunts, you know, once or twice a year, um, it'll still— it's gonna find whatever, um, whatever can be improved. It's basically gonna find that sort of kink in the armor, so to speak, you know. I remember what you were talking to me about, um, taking— there will come a point, maybe it's a couple of weeks in, or maybe it's several months in, where you'll have to kind of start taking a look under the hood. I remember you saying that, and that's what led to a lot of lifestyle changes for me, is kind of this number won't go down and I'm doing everything by the book, and I'm like, that's when you might have to look at sleep, you might have to look at diet, you might have to look at, um, alcohol or caffeine or, you know, substances and stuff. So that's all good stuff, and that's part of why I started the journey, was to find out what I could be doing better and why I wasn't really improving as an athlete, you know what I mean? Like, why, why I might have plateaued.

And the other thing is too, we haven't talked about this yet, but you're a professional musician. Yeah. Your lifestyle is not like an everyday 9-to-5 work Right. Tell me a bit more about that part because sometimes you will go to bed much later than most people and your sleep is compromised in certain ways. So how do you deal with combining and balancing it all? Like irregular lifestyle with late nights to bed, you still are dad mode to two young kids, 4 and 6 years old. You're still trying to find a way to get running miles in. Yeah. Yet the running brings you joy and makes you function in other parts of your life again.

So how do you do that all, man? Um, stubbornness, you know. I'm kind of a creature of habit. One of the fun things about hanging with you today was, uh, just getting to do all that, the habit stuff with the homie. Like, we go for a run, we took an ice bath, I've got to meditate, you know. So that's me. That's at least part of my personality is that I have these routines and things that I feel like make me a better person. I really enjoy practicing those things daily, right? Well, when you are a musician, it depends on the type of work you do, but certainly if you're on the road touring, I mean, by definition, every day is different. You're somewhere different. Potentially in a different hotel bed, or you're on a tour bus, which is like— you feel like you're sleeping deeply on a tour bus, but your inner ear knows that you're in motion while you're trying to sleep. So you're— if you were to wear an Oura Ring or something—

is it called Oura? Yeah.

If you were to wear an Oura, you would, you would be noticing your sleep numbers not being very good because you're on tour. And this is why I think we used to drink so much, is like You play a show in front of thousands of people, if, if you're lucky enough to, which I have been, and, uh, it's the highest of highs. You're just, you know, good night, thank you, yeah, rock and roll. You go back and there's, you know, IPAs on ice, and you have some beers. And don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic way to live. I would recommend everybody get to try it if they could. It's, it's amazing. I'm so grateful for what I do, but it's not exactly conducive to health, right? Both for the ego and the body. It takes a lot of intention to, like you said, balance, to keep all that shit like in its proper place. So, um, you know, say you're getting on a tour bus after that. It's like, okay guys, it's, it's 1:30, we gotta roll on to the next city. You go get on this bus and you know you gotta go down these back roads with some driver that you barely know that's responsible for your life, and you're supposed to just drift off to sleep after being, you know, praised and adored by thousands of people, then get on this bus with some dude you don't know driving it, or a woman, and let yourself get like restful sleep, you know?

At—

I mean, to wind down from a show, a lot of us are You know, the show might end— you typically, if you're headlining at like 11, you know, 11 o'clock, to kind of wind your ego down, it takes a few hours. And then by the time you're ready to go to bed, it still might take you an hour to drift off to sleep. So I mean, you're easily up till— I mean, on tour, going to bed at 4 AM is pretty normal. There's almost no way to avoid that, even if you're whether you're partying or you're not, or you're a monk or you're a rock star. Like, most people go to bed, you know, between 2 and 4 AM. So that means, um, if I'm touring, being that exercise is important to me, meditation is important to me, I basically just treat my day— I just go with the flow. Like, if I'm out there on the road, that is what it is. My wife knows if I call home, like, if I call to say good night, you know, it's going to be probably before we go on, and I'll just talk to you tomorrow. And they know not to call me really until noon because that's, that's morning time for me now, you know.

Well, yeah, when you go to bed at 8, at 4 in the morning.

Totally. Yeah. And, you know, for me, I mean, as, as an amateur athlete, getting that 7.5, 8, 8.5 hours of sleep is very important to me. So if I can even if I went to bed at 4, I'm still gonna try my, my best to wake up at 11 or noon. It's hard as a dad, it's hard for me to get up at noon. So as long as I get up at 11, like technically in the morning, that seems like I'm on the right track, you know. And, and I will still get up and do my routine. So I will still get up and run wherever I am. Lately I've been in Las Vegas a lot for, um, the Katy Perry residency. And, um, yeah, I'll get up 10, 11, uh, get out and get my miles in, do my meditation. I'm usually fasted until, you know, if I normally fast until lunch on my normal schedule, then if I'm in tour mode, that'll easily mean 3 or 4 PM, eat a meal, then I'll start getting ready for show mode. Yeah. And then it's okay to start letting go of the health stuff and start getting in the, you know, rock mentality.

It is so fascinating because some of the things that you're describing, it always almost reminds me of some of the skateboard tours that I used to be on back in the day. Very similar, right? So it was like with Flip Skateboards or with Volcom, we would have an RV and you would go for 10 days on the road. Yeah. And you would literally like finish a skateboard demo and autograph signing. It wasn't me. It was like with the athletes, but I helped organize the tour. Tour. And then it was all right going afterwards for dinner, and like, you go with a group of 20 people, it takes forever. And then eventually go on the RV, and then it would either be back to the hotel or it'd be going to the next city, right? And it's one of those, like, you try to sleep whether it's in the van or whether it's in the RV, and you're in a bunk bed. And Kelly Slater's brother Sean Slater, he was the RV driver, and it was like Yeah, you just hold on. Well, that's debatable as well. But anyways, it's one of those things that you're like, you don't really get good sleep. And then there's still the other factor in the mix of, all right, at that time there's alcohol, there's whatever else going on. Girls, whatever. Basically, the amount of— yeah, you're constantly in this deficit. You're constantly in this part of not being able to— you kind of live in this blur and you think you're doing okay, yet you're far from optimal.

Yes.

And there's that part. I just remember running my very first marathon. Yeah. The day after I organized a world premiere for the Tony Hawk video. Oh, so that was not the end, that was the beginning. So that was the new Tony Hawk video, and that was in Hollywood, and it was literally like, uh, one of the, one of the big venues over there, and it was me organizing it with my team. Right. Yet the next morning I had to get up to go run a marathon. And it was one of those you're completely wrecked and out of it. You're trying to perform. It just— it's definitely not optimal for setting yourself up. But this is one of those things where I think you have started paying much more attention to sleep too. Yeah. And the direct correlation with what that's doing with heart rate. And I see that sometimes with even members in our PB program. Our Personal Best Running coaching program. We sometimes see night shift workers or people who are working irregular times, and sometimes that can be quite challenging. So then it goes back to, are there any potential options for you to take a nap in the afternoon? Are there any potential ways to even include like meditation? Because it is to some extent calming the brain down a little bit. It doesn't substitute sleep yet. At least bringing some, some calm there.

Yeah, we can at least help mitigate some of the damage, right? So like a lot of times on the road, I'll just look for good, good in-betweens. I mean, the overall reality is that life is not optimal, you know. We all know that as humans and as parents and as just people. But, um, you know, so you kind of during a season where you can practice more, uh, optimization, then you lean into that, right? Like, during times of peace and structure and stability, then you kind of celebrate all of that stability and you just milk that for all it's worth. And you save it up for these moments where things are not optimal and you still want to do the things you want to do, and you just kind of have to roll with the punches, you know. Like, uh, Goggins— love him or hate him, I'm a Goggins fan. He's not for everyone, but he, you know, he oftentimes talks about, uh, there's a point if you want to do amazing things, you are going to have to embrace imbalance at some point, right? It's just baked into reality. You can't, you can't avoid it. So like, when I think about, um, whether it's running a 100-miler or playing in a stadium or an arena. Those are two extraordinary things that I'm so grateful for, but they take sacrifice, you know what I mean? It's just, it is what it is. So like, when I'm in tour mode, if I'm out with Kelly Clarkson or Katy Perry or whatever it is, like, you know, things are just not going to be optimal. And so for that reason, when I am back home and I can help it, especially now that I'm not drinking every day, it's easier to bank those days where I can get 8 hours of sleep consistently and know that when I go out and do the rock and roll version of my running practice and all that stuff, that, um, I'm not doing any harm, and then I'm probably going to be okay. For me, being an ultra runner helps me in a lot of different aspects of my life, and one of those things is knowing, hey, before you ran one of these 600 milers you've done, like, how many did you have a full 8 hours of sleep for? None of them. You know, there was— I can remember a few ultra races that I've done. At this point, over 22 ultras, I think, um, 6 of them being hundreds. Damn, 22? Yeah, yeah. And I think, um, I think it's between 22 or 24, I can't remember. Some of them aren't on Ultra Signup. You know, almost none of those have I had 8 hours of sleep. In fact, if I have had 8 hours of sleep, those usually weren't like don't— they don't correlate to the best performance even, you know what I'm saying? So like, um, it just helps to know that like, dude, you've got up on no hours of sleep and run 100 miler and done a great job, you know? Not that that's the best way to enter it, but it's just like you said, you just kind of roll with the punches in life, you know?

I think that's a great way of putting it. When you wanna reach some pretty significant goals, there's going to be sacrifices in some parts of your life. Yeah. And there's that part, right? Let's say you want to reach certain running goals, whether you want to reach certain career goals, like family goals, financial goals, whatever those things are. And sometimes I have a guilt feeling around running. The entire part of, oh, I'm going to go out for a run for 1 or 2 hours. And that takes away from family time.

Yeah.

Yet it makes you a better person too. And I think that, that part too, sometimes of rephrasing that entire way of, all right, sometimes investing time in yourself towards your goal. Yeah. Can also set examples towards your kids or it can help inspire other people. It can like it's, it makes a better version of yourself too. Yeah. And I think it takes away some of that pressure or guilt feeling too, because I'm not going to lie, even now in 9 weeks, I got the Berlin Marathon. Yeah. And yeah, wanting to ramp up training volume, but there's also plenty of work going on. I still would like to sleep 7 to 8 hours a night. So it's that constant balancing game. And I think it's impossible to have an ultimate balance. It really is, especially with what's going on in, in daily life with, with all of the different things. But at least we're trying to do the best we can and, and being kind to ourselves and not beating ourselves up so much over it.

Yeah, right. I mean, it's like part of it, I'm like you, man. I'm very, um, I'm very aware, uh, emotionally and with vibes and feelings and stuff. And so like, and I'm very sensitive. Almost any good musician or artist is going to be sensitive. And so Um, you know, with my wife, uh, she's like my partner, my soulmate. We're best friends. We do life together. You know, I wouldn't change it. In fact, the thought of divorce or anything terrifies me, where I, I think about it sometimes. I know I don't want a divorce, you know what I mean? So I want to do what keeps us, our marriage, happy. Well, my wife historically, and anyone that knows me will chuckle at this, is not the biggest fan the ultra running thing. Like, just not the biggest fan. So I've had to navigate, at this point, 8 years of marriage and many years of friendship and dating where, uh, knowing that this is not her favorite thing, she's been gracious to let me do it. She still supports it. She's not overly supportive as far as like, you know, oh babe, go do a 12-hour run today, I got the kids. It's not like that. Like, fair enough. Yeah, it's like It's very real. I got to kind of, you know, we talk about deposits and withdrawals for me, you know, in a marriage. And I try to just, when I can, go hard with the kids and go the extra mile. You know, it usually works out to where when I do have to make a withdrawal, hey babe, I got a training run. Like, she's cool about it. She understands, you know, like, but you know, I mean, you're right, it's tough to keep, the, the balance and the, and the perspective on all of it. But I think it comes back down to a very, you know, uh, cliché saying, which is like, you know, put your mask on first. It's easy to say that. It's, it's hard when a partner is maybe bitter about it, or when you feel like you're sacrificing work or whatever it is to get your run in, or your, your meditation, or whatever. But I, I do try to go back to like Man, if I don't do this and manage my anxiety and my ADHD and my neuroticism without drugs and alcohol— like, this is the healthiest way I know how to do it. If I don't do these things, then you really are going to get the guy punching holes in the wall, you know, the longer that I delay my own self-care, right? Yeah. So any good partner will recognize the positive results from your practices and your, your routines and Um, I know we're both fortunate to have partners that, that get it, and they want us to be great. They want us to be happy and be the best dads and husbands we can be, right? So for us, for guys like us, running, meditation, ice baths, like all that shit is like, it's important for us, man, because other— otherwise, especially with our background, skateboarding, music, otherwise it's drugs and alcohol, you know. I'm not knocking those things, I just don't want to use them to get to be a better person, because that's not really what they do. Yeah, for me at least, for sure.

Like, while we're sipping on water over here, let's have a brief conversation about—

this is vodka, man, I don't know what you're drinking.

Let's have a brief conversation about alcohol though. Yeah, because I cut mine out, like alcohol, probably about 5 years ago. Wow. And once I made that decision, I'm never gonna drink alcohol anymore, it It was, it was actually not that hard once I made that decision. I also hadn't been drinking that much in the years leading into it. But I'm curious, not only like how did you go about it, but you, you often talk about setting yourself up with a support system. Like you started calling some friends who had gone through it before. Like, tell me, tell me about why you did it, which I think we have already covered to some extent here, but also How do you go about— like, now you're about 2 months in. Yeah. Um, so how do you set yourself up for success?

Yeah, I mean, first of all, when I let it go not long ago, uh, similar thing. I mean, we talked about during the cut, you know, um, it just— it's one of those things, didn't feel like it was serving my goals anymore. Like, um, I'm a bit more habitual maybe than you are. I, I can't speak for your personal private life, but like, I've just always been a very habitual person. If I like something, I want to do it every day— running, whatever. Uh, and, uh, so alcohol was one of those things for me, um, that in my 20s, earlier life, I had probably a more problematic relationship with. I think it's actually— people that knew me back then know it was a bit more wild. Um, I was doing a lot of like blacking out and just— I fully bought into that whole rock and roll thing. I thought that's what you're supposed to do, you know. And, um, about 11, 12 years ago, I, I got completely sober with some help, you know. I went to some meetings and got some professional help, and I stayed sober for like a year and a half, vaguely. I know it was over a year, maybe a year and 3 months or something. And, um, I made the decision as a grown adult with my now wife, uh, just one day I was like, I'm curious if I can drink a little more moderately. I've never tried that. All I knew was just belligerent drinking all night, you know, one gear, go. Yeah, exactly. Um, and so, you know, to my credit, I was able to put in 10 years of like like some of the most successful years of my life where I still enjoyed some beers at night and stuff. Um, not much of a day drinker, not much of a liquor drinker. The first time I got sober, I let go of like shots. And, you know, people knew even, even recently that I would flat out turn down your shot. Like, I don't care who bought it, what famous person is in the room. Like, I just know what it does to me, and it, it sends me into a zone that's fun when you're 22. It's not as cute when you're like a 40-year-old man. Uh, my shirt just comes off for some reason.

You gotta find yourself with pants on. Yeah, or pants off.

Oh my gosh, so many stories, dude. Um, so for me, it just gotten to the point where, um, nothing was really wrong. Wasn't hurting anybody. I wasn't acting belligerent. I was at work on time. I was doing good work. I was a good father to my kids. So, you know, One of the things this time that made it more palatable for me was that like no one was saying, dude, you need to stop, or you need to slow down. In fact, that was actually contrarily met with a lot of like, oh really? I'm like, yeah, I just decided to stop drinking. They're like, oh, okay, man. You know, like almost that like kind of, um, like they're a little bit bummed because they're like, oh, you, you were, you were fine drinking, you know. And that's the things, like, I was fine But Flo has— if you guys don't know, I wish I could show a picture of it— Flo has a giant poster in his office of, um, I remember that when I first called you about, hey, I'm giving this up, like, what do you think and how was it for you? Um, he sent me— he's like, hold on, and he sent me the text while we're on the phone of this, uh, poster, and it's your life in weeks. And, uh, it was, uh, it's like How many weeks is it total?

Uh, you remember, it's 4,000 weeks if you want to turn like 88 years old, right? 82 or 88.

Yeah, which, you know, depending on— I mean, for most of us, that's like an age we'd be proud to get to, right? Like, it's in your 80s, that's great. Um, so it's like an average lifespan, sort of. And he sent me— every week you've been crossing out one. It's like a— it's a bunch of boxes and each box represents a week, and it's this big tall poster, and every week you've been— you cross out one. And the picture you sent me is the, the picture— the poster is halfway filled up.

And so how old are you? I'm like 40, turning 41 next month.

You're going on 41, so you're a year older than me. I'll be 40 in a couple months. And basically half the boxes are crossed out and the other, the other boxes are empty. And it was like, you know, you sent that as sort of a— not necessarily— it's kind of an interesting picture. It's like a piece of art, really, because it's, it's not depressing and it's not bleak, but it is very real. And it can even be like uplifting depending on, you know, how you look at it. And for me, it was just like, um, a great sort of a gentle shove into the phase of life that I felt I was moving of like, hey man, like you are not going to live forever. And, um, how do you want the next, next half of your life to be? I've had some amazingly high highs, and I don't have any regrets in my life. And for me, drinking served a time period, and we both talked about how it just didn't seem to serve what I'm wanting to achieve during this time period, you know. For me, I'm not even sure if I answer your question.

No, no, no, totally. Like, for me, that poster like, and I will link to that as well on the show notes, but it's something like 4K weeks. It serves for me as a purpose, as a reminder of how quickly your life can actually go by and where you are in the stage of your life. And every Sunday I grab indeed a Sharpie and I cross off one of the boxes and all of a sudden you see, wow, I'm really turning 41 here soon. And it made it for me, even so if I do some journaling and you see in the bigger picture of where you are in life, you can even put dates on there. Of that are important to you and whatever that might be. But for me, it really has been one of those of don't push out some of these things. Don't— like, you only have one life. And to me, that poster of seeing your actual life in weeks is a constant reminder. I think some people feel like, ah, this is such a negative or such a depressive, or like, I could never do that. Well, we're all going to die. It's the reality. I think a lot of people don't dare to talk about death or want to push this out. I heard one thing, the 5 regrets of the dying, and one of the main regrets is I wish I wouldn't have worked that hard. I wish I would have truly been true to myself. I wish I would have followed my own passion, stayed in touch with friends more. Yeah. So I think some of these are good reminders sometimes. If you want to truly remind yourself of like what life is going to be like, go volunteer in an elderly house or at an elderly home, or just go visit your grandparents or any family members that might have been. All of a sudden you realize like, wow, life goes by fast and one day it's going to end. And for me, that just brings it back to today of, all right, let's make the most out of it. We have so many things to be thankful for, so many things that are good in our life.

So, but I also feel like if anyone out, like, listening or watching is like, like me, one of the, one of the biggest hurdles to considering sobriety or considering letting go of specific vices is like, well, how am I going to have fun? I want to have fun. That's the wildest thing, is that, like, if you're looking at optimizing your day like we were talking about and living in the moment, I know I can have fun doing a variety of other things besides drinking alcohol, right? But alcohol was costing me those first few hours in the morning where I didn't feel great or my mood was shitty or, or whatever. And then it was also kind of an anchor for my evening where, where I might go out to eat might depend on whether or not they have draft beer, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like, in other words, it had way more of an encompassing effect on my day than I realized. And when I let it go, it's like, well, all I have to let go of And by the way, I still— non-alcohol beer, non-alcoholic drinks are not for everyone, but for me it's been a great way of like, well, I still drink mad beer. Like, I'm still drinking 3 or 4 beers a night. They just are non-alcoholic, and a lot of them are really good now. So for me, I had to let go of one very small thing, which is, does this drink actually contain alcohol? Yeah. And by the way, the way I was, I'm kind of contrary. I actually didn't like being drunk. Drunk. That's the stupid part about it, is I spent the last 4 or 5 years trying to see how much beer I could drink without becoming drunk. Yeah. So I'm only getting the calories, I'm only getting the shitty sleep, I'm not even like having that much fun with it. I just liked the taste of beer and blah blah blah. So it's like, you know, it was— it started to, as I got older, become a smaller and smaller price to pay for like just a lot more freedom. Now it's like, you know, if I want to, um, this might be TMI, but like, uh, at some, you know, I would start thinking about my evening. It's like there's things I can do now that I, when I was a habitual beer drinker, that I really couldn't. And it's like, if I can't get my meditation in in the earlier part of the evening, maybe I want to have it after dinner. Well, now I'm not like 2 beers in. Yeah, to where it's going to affect my meditation. Or, you know, being with my wife. We want to have like our time, the kids are asleep, you know. I'm not 2 beers in, I have that, that freedom to kind of pick and choose what I do with my evening. It's just, you know, again, it's a very small sacrifice for me personally. And I understand people are on different levels of their relationship with alcohol, and it's not always that easy. And if you, if you need help putting it down, by all means, you know, and you want to put it down, like like, get the help, you know. Like, it's inspiring to hear how you were able to kind of just decide, you know. For me, at this point, it's worked that way as well. I was able to just decide I didn't want it anymore. But I've also been the person 12 years ago that could not imagine and needed some help, you know.

It took me a while to realize how it was impacting the other areas of my life, that indeed I would drink a beer or a few beers and the next day, like, my runs would not be as good, or my sleep would be impacted, or my resting heart rate. So, so that to me was pretty impactful. I was like, well, being in control and enjoying my runs to the max, um, like was for me. And where some other people can pull it off and they might have more moderation in that.

So yeah, I'm always jealous of folks that— interesting one, you know, like I— there are actually more of these people than I was ever aware of. They're— to me it's like unicorns, but they But you know, some people once a week can have like 2 or 3 drinks in the middle of the day, and then they don't go home and drink more. To me, that's weird, you know. I'm not going to call myself like flat out alcoholic. I think there's— that, that term is kind of, uh, it's a little binary. But I definitely always had— I'm on some sort of spectrum of like alcohol use disorder or some sort of weird relationship with it where it just got a little too it wormed its way into my, like, all my decision-making for some reason. So I'm just happy to let it go.

Well done, man, on your 2-month journey over here. I do want to be respectful of your time here. Sure, sure. 2 last questions. One, where can people find more about you?

Yeah, um, so Instagram is pretty much the only social platform I engage on, so it's just @KyleWhalum, K-Y-L-E-W-H-A-L-U-M. I have, uh, well, you can see me on starting on The Voice. You can see my silhouette and hear my bass playing behind all the people, all the, all the voice artists and competitors, um, for season 25. Exciting new chapter. Yeah, it's gonna be fun, man. I'm looking forward to it. Uh, still doing the Katy Perry residency in Las Vegas. We're going until early November, so definitely get tickets if you're a pop fan and want to see the show because it's definitely—

I want to take girls, like, we're gonna come visit you guys.

It's, it's like you did mushrooms as a family, you know, like eating the kids. That's awesome.

Completely surreal. That'll be, that'll be really cool. And then one last question is, do you have any closing thoughts to those listening? Like, we've discussed a lot of different things here. Like, if they're looking to improve, any athletes looking to improve to become a stronger, healthier, happier athlete, any closing thoughts over here?

Yeah, just being open to, uh, that process. We were talking today about like, we're not— we're never— we were talking about form, you know, little things we're still working on. And you and I are easily 10, 12, plus 14 years into our running career, right? Journey. It's a practice, so it's not— you're never going to perfect it, but that's the idea, is like always gives you something to practice and try this little tweak, or try this new system, or try this form, way of thinking about your form. Um, I think to me, as long as you're into learning and, and humble and never feel like you figured it out, then you're always going to enjoy your running practice. And to me, that's what running is. I'm not an elite athlete, so it's not a career for me. It is a practice, and it's something that I just enjoy. So, and just to keep it make it fun. I mean, if it's all technique and technical and you're fretting about every run, then you're kind of missing the point, right?

Like, that was even today, it's like, ah, let's meet up at the trail, go for an hour run and see what happens.

Like, I don't— we didn't know what pace we're gonna run, we just kind of did what felt natural. So exactly, um, yeah, just a combination of like being willing to, to learn and improve and be a student of the practice. And the other part is just to have fun with the practice. That's the whole reason we're doing it in the place, you know.

Sure. So thanks so much, Kyle. I'm looking forward to many more adventures. Like, we already went to the Grand Canyon, we've gone to the San Gabriel Mountains several times, we've seen cougars, we got to see a bear now.

Yeah, the only animal out there.

Yeah, yeah, that'll be, that'll be good. There's many more, uh, running adventures coming up there. So absolutely, thanks so much for having me on, dude.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, for sure. Thanks for listening. A few closing thoughts over here. What was your favorite lesson, takeaway, or quote from this episode, please let me know in the comments on YouTube. And I will actually link to that poster called My Life in Weeks, and it's actually been pretty eye-opening for me. And this is what Kyle and I talked about as well in this conversation. It's a reminder that our life on this earth is limited. And so yeah, I found this quite helpful, and maybe some of you might find this helpful too. There are a few different durations that you can select. I selected the 88 years, as in like, ah, hopefully I'll be living healthy until 88 years. But they also have versions of 100 years and 125 years. I know there's a lot of talk about life extension and whatnot, but I feel at least let me put that number in there. And then, um, aiming to live much longer than that. I told my kids I'm going to be living to 150 and see their kids and their grandkids and everything and beyond. One more thing I want to share was from a recent run, and Kyle and I briefly talked about this as well, about being here now, being present. And yes, you can focus on that during meditation, but you can focus on that on your run too. And this is something that I've been playing around with more and more because sometimes I notice my thoughts are just drifting off when I'm actually running. And so dialing yourself back to the present moment has been a really helpful tool for me because sometimes you really start thinking about, ah, I have this many more miles to go. And whether you do that on race day or in training and then just coming back to the present moment, I've noticed when I start to pay attention to these steps that I'm doing right now, and often I'm anchoring my breath with that. So starting to recognize that pattern between your breath and your cadence has been very helpful for me. The other part as well is sometimes just listening to the sounds around you. Sometimes it might be quiet, but sometimes you might hear quite a bit, or the wind on your skin. All of these different things will get you back to the present moment, and I found that to be quite helpful. Every night I drink tea with my daughters on the balcony, and one game we play over there is listen for 1 minute to the sounds that you actually hear. And then after 1 minute, we'll say, these are the different things that we just heard. And all of a sudden, it's a sense that you start to develop a little bit more. All of a sudden, you become more aware of sounds that you might normally block out, and all of a sudden it starts coming back. And I think you can do that on your runs too. When you're present, when you're well aware, I found that to be quite calming versus like having your thoughts all over the place. And so whether you do that with audio, whether you do that with feeling, whether you do that with sound, breathing rhythm, it's just something that I want to throw out there. One last thing, if you would like to learn more about my running coaching program, the PB program, check out pbprogram.com. One of the main things that I really enjoy about the program has been the supportive community. It's not just me being active in there, it is a lot of community members from around the world answering questions to each other and actually helping troubleshoot. That's not only about low heart rate training, but a lot of the different things around it, like have you been at this race before, or like I'm experiencing challenges with my heart rate strap, or how do I sync this or that to Strava. So I'm in that group active every single day, um, but we also have different personal best coaches from around the world who are active in that group, but it's also the community members who are active in there every day. So I think it's a real good support system for those who are looking for some additional guidance, or for those who are somewhat lonely on that low heart rate running journey and just want some additional support over there. So check out more info at pbprogram.com. I hope all of your runs are going well. Um, I'm still in the middle of my Berlin marathon training cycle. It's coming up soon. And yeah, really excited about all of that. Hope to meet several of you guys out there in Berlin as well. I know a few different people have said they're going to make it out to the Shakeout Run. Link is posted on Strava, on my Strava at this point too. So yeah, have fun out there on your runs. We'll be back for more podcasts very soon. All right, have a good one.

Later.