SPEAKER_00: 0:00

So you're thinking about running, but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson, and I'm here to help. Welcome to Brian's ROM pod. It's Brian's Ron Party ready to share some running tips and tricks with you. Today we're diving into another awesome conversation, and this time it's with Jeffrey Rice. Weiss, the ultra runner and author who only started running seriously at age 48. I kick things off by asking him what drives him to push his limits with ultramarathons. I really do hope you enjoy part two of our chat. And if you haven't listened to part one yet, then please go back in our catalogue and you'll find it there. So without further ado, let's get into it. So moving on from that, so you were quite experienced in doing the doing the marathons, but also you have done ultras. So so what's what's your history there in terms of um uh looking to go that next step to the ultras? Because I know it's being it's quite it's quite popular now.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24

Yeah, it wasn't something that I it wasn't as natural a progression for me as going from 10K to the half to the full. That I think is a path that a lot of us follow. Um I did three marathons and had pretty much decided that I was done with marathons. And then I saw an article, an interview with Catherine Switzer, who was the first woman to originally run, to officially run the uh Boston Marathon. Um and she was seven years old at the time of the article, getting ready to run the race to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her achievement, which was pretty remarkable. But she was in DC to run uh uh a 10-mile or there as part of her preparation. And in the interview, she surprised me by talking about the Comrades Marathon, a 56-mile uh ultra marathon in South Africa. It's actually the world's oldest and largest ultra marathon. And she said it was a race that she'd always wanted to do, and uh and and she said, perhaps one day I'll still yet do it. And as I read it, I thought, I think at 70, it's probably too late. But I'm right now 56, and and I might still have time, and I don't want it to be too late for me, so I need to actually look at it in a serious way. And so that's really what got me into it. So trained, did my first 50k uh getting ready for comrades and tried the race in 2018. Um ended up getting cut at the last checkpoint before the stadium after 51 miles, 11 hours of running. Um but stayed with ultras. Uh, and uh since then uh did my longest one uh just a little over a year ago, a 72-mile race in the States called Midnight Express. It's a it's a race all the way around Lake Tahoe. You start in the outside and run uh through the night and then through most of the next day into California and then back uh across to uh Nevada, uh, done a 50 miler and a few more days. Um and they're interesting. It's a different animal uh in some ways than than running marathons uh just because the races are so long and and which makes the mental uh struggle, I think, that much tougher.

SPEAKER_00: 3:34

And is uh there's other things to think about. I mean, you there's obviously nutrition that you have to think about. And how does that work? I mean, do you do they have sort of nutrition points every so many miles or that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_02: 3:49

Um it depends on the race. Usually they have some aid stations, yeah, but typically you do have to um take some responsibility for it.

SPEAKER_01: 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 3:59

Often, you know, you have an ability to give them drop bags, to give the race organizers drop bags that they will have for you at particular points along the course. Um for Midnight Express, that 72-mile race, I actually had a friend uh come out to support me. And so we would meet every uh two hours, every nine miles or so. And uh I'd refill my uh my bottles and uh replenish my nutrition. Um and the kind of food you eat is is quite different. You can really do marathons. I think most of us on gels for ultras long races, you really need a little more variety than that, um, whether it's sandwiches or candies, which I've started to get into more recently, um, which are kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01: 4:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:41

Uh and it's something you can really look forward to eating and and making sure you're keeping your calories uh topped off.

SPEAKER_01: 4:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:47

Um but uh but yeah, you definitely have to be thoughtful about the nutrition piece because otherwise you're gonna run into some problems.

SPEAKER_00: 4:55

Yeah. So how does it work on the ultras? So obviously you're not running all the way, but are you you you run for a bit, do you take a rest, or do you walk, or how does how does it work? I mean, what's the strategy?

SPEAKER_02: 5:09

Pretty much everybody who's who's non-elite does some version of run walk.

SPEAKER_00: 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:14

Uh in the States, Jeff Galloway was the one to first kind of make that popular. Um, so for me, typically uh I do a six minute, one minute uh uh kind of cadence. So run for six minutes, walk for one minute. Um, really try hard not to stop. Um other things station briefly to grab nutrition. The the one exception, on the advice of my coach, um at Midnight Express, I actually took a 20-minute nap. Um the race started at nine o'clock at night. You ran through the night, and uh, I started having knee pain in the morning and uh decided that uh I would take the 20-minute nap, take uh some aspirin, hope that they would start to work while I was taking that nap, and then would, you know, would try to uh pick things back up again. And that ultimately uh did work out.

SPEAKER_00: 6:04

So uh so you can take medication if you uh if if you've got issues.

SPEAKER_02: 6:10

Yeah, I mean, I think generally people tell you, you know, you have to be careful not to mask pain that could be sign of an injury.

SPEAKER_00: 6:17

Of course not.

SPEAKER_02: 6:18

Yeah. And so I did not think that my knee was truly injured, such that I was going to damage it by continuing in the race. I really did think it was just a pain and discomfort issue that I could manage. Um but if it had if it had continued to intensify, I I wouldn't. And in fact, I didn't continue to take aspirin after that first after that first dose.

SPEAKER_00: 6:42

So you you obviously got the bug and you got you were doing, you know, marathons and even um doing ultras. So how do you balance that? You know, you've got your professional life, you've got family life, and you're doing training. How do you balance that out?

SPEAKER_02: 7:01

Um, I think a few things. I think one, in some way, starting later was um was useful in the sense that, you know, at that point at four age of 48, I didn't have young kids at home.

SPEAKER_01: 7:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:13

I think, you know, disappearing for a four-hour long run or a five-hour cycle on the weekend, you know, when your spouse is home with young children is probably not a very good idea. Um I think it needs to fit into your stage of life. Um, I do I do almost all my training first thing in the morning. Um, and I'm a big believer, you know, in in the area of personal finance, they talk about pay yourself first. So if you want to make sure you're attending to your savings, take money out of your paycheck the moment you receive it, put it aside for savings before you start spending money on bill and and other things.

SPEAKER_01: 7:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:51

Um, I think the same is true with working out. I feel like I own, you know, very first thing in the morning, that's my time. Um, but once the workday starts, I don't own my time anymore. And I might generally be able to squeeze in a luncheon workout, but if if my work uh heats up, I'm gonna miss that workout, you know, and the same thing with the evening workout. So I feel like with morning workouts, it's the most reliable time, the most consistent time. And of course, with with these kinds of sports, uh consistency is really essential.

SPEAKER_00: 8:21

Yeah. I mean, I've I've I've spoken to someone before, and basically they say if you sort of see your day in a digital term, you've got, let's say, a hundred points. Um by the, you know, if you do if you work out at the beginning, that's when you're fresh, sort of thing. Whereas if through work, stress, family life, and you're working at the end, you know, your energy levels are kind of not as much as they were. So you have to really motivate yourself to go later on in the, you know, if you wanted to work out later on in the day. Um, and you're if in your mind you're thinking, well, maybe I don't want to do it now, sort of thing. Whereas, you know, if you do it first thing, either put the shoes by the door or the training kit by the door, there's there's more incentive to do it and you're gonna feel better about it.

SPEAKER_02: 9:12

Yeah, I I I think I think that's right. I think, you know, certainly for me, definitely I have a much higher energy first thing in the morning. Um, the idea of running at night, I you know, I I I I personally would I would struggle to pull that off on a consistent basis. My energy nearly at the same level at night. But but everybody's different. I think some people actually really enjoy a good workout after a a hard day uh of working. Um and I think the key is to find what really what what fits best in your schedule, what fits best just for the kind of person that you're now I understand you you've worked as startups, is that correct? I did.

SPEAKER_00: 9:48

What are the lessons that you've learned in your working life in working in startups to help achieve your your fitness goals? I mean, if if any.

SPEAKER_02: 9:59

Um I think I think a couple things. I think maybe one of the most um interesting and helpful ones was uh when I was first getting started uh with the startup, and my kind of startup journey and my fitness journey really overlapped. I ran my first marathon three days before my first day on the job uh at the startup. Um and uh you know, basically did my my whole journey with with running marathons, ultras, uh with triathlons all the way up to Iron Man did that at the same time that uh that uh the company was being built. But um I had read a business book at the beginning uh by a guy named Jim Collins, Jim Collins called Good to Great. And it was about companies that had successfully uh distinguished themselves from their competitors and become leaders in their category. And one of the reasons or one of the um explanations for how they're able to do it was by setting what he called a B HAG, a big, hairy, audacious call. Something that aspirational, just you know, basically not something that they would be certain to be able to accomplish, but something they could if they applied themselves diligently over time and had a little bit of you know good fortune and and all of the rest. And as I read it, I thought, you know what, this actually could work for the end for an individual. Um and so for me, uh comrades was B HAG. And then as I was getting ready for comrades, uh decided that I want to have another goal for after this race, especially if I end up failing. Because I thought there was a 50% chance that I wouldn't succeed in in covering the distance in sufficient time because it's a very uh severe time constraint for a slower runner like me. And so the next BHAG that I set was to do a half Iron Man the following year and a full Iron Man the year after that. And those goals I um and so it really did supercharge my training, um, gave me this wonderful feeling that my life had adventure, that I was on a journey. And and I think that's a great feeling to cultivate, I think, especially as we get older, because for a lot of us, life can get sort of smaller and narrower. Yeah. And um, and we can feel like, you know, perhaps our best years, our best experiences, our adventures are kind of in the review mirror. And I don't think it has to be that way. I think we can actually still be bold, still find excitement, still find uh new mountains to climb, all those cliches that I I actually do find uh very compelling.

SPEAKER_00: 12:26

On the uh just they touched on the Iron Man thing. So did um obviously those are there's two other skills that you have to learn. Obviously, there's the biking and then there's and the swimming. Did you have to invest more that, okay, well, I know I'm a runner and I'm, you know, and I'm a good endurance athlete. So did you have to invest in learning, let's say, getting the right techniques for swimming and also for the biking?

SPEAKER_02: 12:53

I did, but I did those along the way. In other words, right from the beginning with running, I cross-trained. And the cross-training sports for me and I think for a lot of runners were cycling and swimming. So I already had some level of proficiency with each of those. Um, as it turned out, even though I'm not particularly fast at any of any of the triathlon legs, um, swimming ended up being my strongest. Um, my swimming, I think, was in pretty good shape. And then cycling, I just really needed to work on my endurance because, you know, 112 miles, 180 kilometers for an Iron Man uh bike leg, that's that's a long ride and it's not something that I was accustomed to doing.

SPEAKER_00: 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 13:33

Um I've done a lot of marathons, so the idea of running a marathon as the final segment of Iron Man was less intimidating to me than the idea of that huge uh bike uh portion that I was going to need to complete.

SPEAKER_00: 13:45

Yeah. And I mean, from what I I've heard uh um on the swimming leg, it's it's basically either two-beat kick kick or don't use your legs.

SPEAKER_02: 13:58

Yeah, there's uh there's a type of there's a swimming technique called uh total immersion.

SPEAKER_00: 14:02

Yeah, I did it. I did it. Yeah, I did it many, g many years ago.

SPEAKER_02: 14:07

Yeah, it's wonderful. And it is the two beat kick, and uh I think it is quite popular among triathletes. And I think for me it was it was great, um, and it really helped me. Um I do have to say that uh I would probably struggle in a race where the water was so warm that you couldn't wear a wetsuit because the wetsuit actually gives buoyancy, yeah. Yeah, it gives you some nice buoyancy and and really kind of um, you know, makes your body much more horizontal in the water and and less like you're swimming uphill, which yeah, you know, for me who are less proficient, uh, you can have that feeling that you really are, you know, kind of swimming uh almost uh against yourself. And so um with the wetsuit, it's it's a much nicer experience.

SPEAKER_00: 14:51

Yeah, it's all about looking down, not keeping the head up. It's about keeping down. Although I don't I do if you're doing open water, then you know you can look out and to see where you're going. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:02

But uh its own challenge, the psychic part, which uh uh which which I always found to be a challenge, but got better at it over time.

SPEAKER_00: 15:13

Now, we we one of the reasons why I interviewed you is because you've written this book, but we will we will get to that before we before we finish. So um what what sort of advice um would you give to those to whom physical fitness may currently not be a priority? I mean, is there anything there that um, you know, you said you started your journey um at age 48, but obviously before 48, then physical fitness wasn't well, it kind of it wasn't top there. I mean, you were just doing strength training. But what advice would you give?

SPEAKER_02: 15:48

Um, I think a couple things. And I guess first to be clear, I I don't believe that everybody should be doing marathons and ultras in Bryant's environment. I I don't believe that. I think it's right for you, that's great. If it's not, that's great too. What I do think pretty much all of us would benefit from is a serious commitment to our fitness. I think if if we make that commitment, we can we can with with almost complete certainty radically transform how we age, how we pass through middle age. Uh, we can be stronger, fitter, um, I think happier, uh, more positive, more optimistic, greater resilience, greater grid, all those things that people talk about if we are uh uh serious about our fitness. Um one tip that I got uh early on, which I I really do think is is powerful and applies to most of us, is working out six days a week, at least 45 minutes each time, um, is is a is a great baseline for attending to your fitness. And and I think the key is to try to find activities that that you can enjoy. Um not a carnival ride, you're not gonna do it, you know, laughing and smiling the whole way, but that you can enjoy and not tread, recognizing that you may have to do them for a little while to gain some minimal up minimum level of proficiency, at which point you will enjoy them more. But I I really do think it's incumbent upon, you know, really all of us who care about how we are gonna go through this aging process, yeah, um, to to really integrate the fitness part in a in a serious way. And and to me, there's a lot of talk these days about longevity and how long we might be able to live. And I actually don't think it's constructive to overly focus on that.

SPEAKER_01: 17:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 17:32

I think my upgrading assumption is all the fitness I do is not gonna make a difference by one day in terms of how long I live, but it absolutely is transforming, and I believe will continue to transform how I age three. I just ran my 13th marathon. I've done on top of that two Iron Man races, uh another uh six uh ultra marathons, and uh and I'm not done yet. And I think and and I and I give the credit for all of that to having made that commitment starting at age 48 to really be uh consistent and serious about it.

SPEAKER_00: 18:07

I mean, I know that um uh my dad was in a care home, and one of the things uh and um as I said, he he died earlier than this year, but one of the things that did become quite apparent is that um is you when you are of that age, he was 89 when he died, but I mean when you are at that age, you know, you are susceptible to falls. So I was gonna it was I know it's a very simple thing, but it's you know, to have that um uh foundation of strength and you know, being able to have you know strong legs, it it's it's it it will help you going forward, you know, into your later years, I think definitely.

SPEAKER_02: 18:47

Yeah, I think Peter Ratia in in his book Outlive and on his podcast talks a lot about that, that uh if you can increase increasing your strength, increasing, you know, improving your balance, um, and avoid falls that that you might otherwise experience. And if you do actually uh you may well come out of them uh more successful with less risk of a broken bone. And of course, you know, a broken hip or the or the like can be a death sentence for uh for an older person.

SPEAKER_01: 19:14

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 19:15

Um so I do think you know we we will absolutely benefit if we start to take these things seriously. And look, you could it's never too late to start, and and nobody should ever say, well, I haven't done it yet, so I'm now in my 60s or 70s or even 80s, someone do it now. You should always start um wherever you happen to be. But the earlier you start, the more benefits you'll uh you'll see and experience.

SPEAKER_00: 19:38

So, so with all this experience, you decided to write a book, uh, which I think has just recently come out, is that correct?

SPEAKER_02: 19:46

Uh correct. It was actually officially released uh just last week.

SPEAKER_00: 19:49

Brilliant. Okay. Well, I'll definitely be putting a uh a link in the show notes to that. So um so how long did it take you? And what was the the spark or inspiration that decided um that you wanted to write, put this down on paper?

SPEAKER_02: 20:05

It took me about three years. And for me, I think the spark was realizing that um there was an arc kind of to my journey, that there was a lot, there was something about it that I actually thought had potentially some universal application that others could um benefit from from reading. Not just kind of a string of of anecdotes about experiences at races, but really more, you know, going from a place where I was really not fit at all uh to becoming uh quite fit. Uh and during a point in life where I think most of us tend to think um, you know, our best years are behind us, but really my 50s, you know, looking back were my fittest and and most uh enjoyable decade in so many different ways, and and really because I think of fitness. Um so you know, wanted to share that experience uh with folks. I think um I enjoyed going through it, and I think I think I think people will enjoy reading uh about uh how that all uh went and and asking themselves whether something more suited to them might be possible uh in their own lives.

SPEAKER_00: 21:12

And so um do you think it would give it's kind of like gives them at least some advice as to if if they're finding it uh it diff it difficult at certain stages of their training? So, you know, it would it be something that maybe people might want to pick up and at least give them, you know, some markers as to how they can push forward?

SPEAKER_02: 21:34

Yeah, I think so. I think uh because I do try to talk a lot about the mental aspects of it. It's not just, I think success or progress in endurance sports is not just about having the right equipment and the right training and uh and doing your workouts faithfully and all of the rest. I think a huge part of it is the mental emotional part. And and I I try to to treat that um in in a serious way as well. Um, I think goal setting can be so important, but how we sort of talk to ourselves and how we um think about what we're trying to do and and how we might benefit from achieving goals. And I think that's cuts across all spheres of our lives. And that's where I think to me the startup experience and and the fitness journey were very much self-supporting or mutually uh supporting.

SPEAKER_00: 22:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 22:24

Um whole idea of setting an audacious goal and achieving it and then looking for another audacious goal to follow it. I think that's something that we should want to have in every aspect of our lives as as as as people in relationships, as parents, um, as business folks, uh athletes, I I think it cuts across uh every sphere of our life.

SPEAKER_00: 22:44

Just a couple of things there is is there a way or a special technique you use to setting your particular goals? I mean, did you I mean, I've heard of a sort of a pyramid goal or something like that? Or was it, you know, is you know, it wasn't just you know about, oh well, you know, I'm gonna do the Boston marathon or whatever, but you know, are there any ways that you could give um uh advice our audience as to how to go about setting those particular goals?

SPEAKER_02: 23:16

Um I think the goals for me, in each case, they were exciting goals to set. Umrads was a race I had read about a lot also and had thought about before, but always had kind of written it off as being impossible for me. Yeah. Uh and I was the same kind of thing. Um, I think the race always had a lot of mystique to me. And it was also something that I always thought, well, that's just not for for folks like me. Um, but so when I set those as goals, it became quite exciting. Uh, you know, the year or so of training for each one to just always have that in mind, to think about it from time to time, to, you know, open up my phone or my iPad and look at the course map and wonder what it would be like. I think, I think that was really wonderful. So, you know, I I encourage people to pick things that that really stimulate their imagination and their excitement. Um, I do also think um sometimes I try to imagine if I could go back in time to 17-year-old me, you know, what would 17 me think about um about this this last uh 15 years or so of our fitness adventures? And I think 17 or me would be happy to know that there's still some fun stuff ahead. And and then when I fast forward uh, you know, to the end of life, I think that I will take comfort looking back that I pushed myself and I took risks and and wasn't afraid of failing and and did fail, but recovered from those failures and kept moving forward and and did some pretty um, at least for somewhat of my skill level, some pretty audacious things. And so I I think that can be a helpful kind of uh uh model as well for how to pick things that are going to really get you going.

SPEAKER_00: 24:56

Something I I've asked before with other guests is that is it is it this kind of 50-50 split between the kind of the mindset and then also doing the the physical work uh in the you know to accomplish that particular goal. Um or is it it's like in golf? I always think that's a you know 90% mind game and 10% technique sort of thing. Well, when it comes to me anyway. What do you think? What's that split?

SPEAKER_02: 25:26

Um I think I guess the way that I think about it is the physical part, the fitness part is necessary but not sufficient. So if you're gonna do an Iron Man race, you've got to do the training. There's no the strongest mind, well, it's not gonna get you through an Iron Man on an insufficient training base. Um, but it's not enough. And you do need so you need both pieces, whether it's 50-50, 80-20 um bias toward the physical. There's just no getting away from the fact that if you don't attend to the mental part, it's not gonna work for you or it's gonna be a horrible experience. Um so I think you absolutely need both. Um, and there's no shortchanging the physical because you feel like you're an emotionally strong person.

SPEAKER_01: 26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 26:15

And there's no shortchanging the mental because you feel like you're incredibly fit and you're not gonna have any problems. Because in long races, inevitably there's going to be down moments, there's going to be pain and discomfort and doubt and all of the rest. And you need some emotional tools to uh navigate that.

SPEAKER_00: 26:31

Do you do you log that in terms of obviously people would log their training like they've done, you know, like you know, you know, in weight training, four times eight, uh six, you know, whatever 60 kilos or whatever that kind of thing, or even repeats, that kind of thing. Do you log as to your your mental fitness, as it were?

SPEAKER_02: 26:54

I log all my workouts.

SPEAKER_00: 26:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 26:56

And then for every race that I do, I do a race report. Okay. And then the race experience, the highlights of the experience, and and absolutely the emotional part. So for daily workouts, I'm not really um getting into, you know, today I did X and I felt great, or I felt not so great, but managed to persevere. I I don't really do that for workouts, but for with every single race, I do a detailed race report really for myself. And at the beginning, they were just for me. And then when I decided to write this book, it was it was delightful to realize that I had these race reports that um were pretty contemporaneous accountings of these big races. So that really helped uh my ability to be able to um, you know, to kind of uh uh tell the story of how those particular races that took place years ago went.

SPEAKER_00: 27:46

So do you think the writing the book was a bit sort of cathartic? So a good way of Yeah, very much so.

SPEAKER_02: 27:53

I th I think for me, it really helped me integrate my experiences into something that made sense uh to me and that I that I think I think will be um appealing to other folks as well. Um, and really to think about it as a journey with a uh a beginning and a middle and you know progressing toward, you know, hopefully uh an ending that's still that's still far off into the into the future, but I think, you know, hopefully a a a good ending to uh to this long journey.

SPEAKER_00: 28:22

And do you see, is there uh is there a part two to this book? Can you see yourself doing another fitness book or another memoir about your fitness journey? Or is that basically um you'll probably move on to a different subject area?

SPEAKER_02: 28:37

I could see myself doing it depending on how things go over this over this decade of my 60s.

SPEAKER_01: 28:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:44

Um, already I'm finding it to be a fascinating uh decade so far. Um it started with actually with that 72-mile race, I did a 50 miler uh the following year, which was an absolutely wonderful experience. Um, ran my fastest marathon, but then actually ran my two slowest marathons after that. Um, and probably for the next 12 months need to focus more on speed and recovery and uh shorter distances and flexibility. So um depending on how my 60s uh go, um, and if there is, again, kind of an arc that I think makes sense and that would be helpful to other people, absolutely I could see doing another one, but but not just to record, you know, kind of anecdotes and funny experiences. Yeah. I think for me to be passionate about it and to be committed to it, um, I really do have to feel like there's a story there that um will resonate with other people.

SPEAKER_00: 29:38

Before you go, just a couple of other questions. Is that what's you're residing in Israel at the moment? What's the running community like in Israel now?

SPEAKER_02: 29:49

Um I live in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv's a is a pretty young city.

SPEAKER_00: 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 29:53

And the folks here are quite fit and active. Um, and they're great places to run. There's a path. Along uh the Mediterranean that goes for for quite some distance, I think uh down to Jaffa in the south and in the north up to Herzalia. So that's good, I think, 10 miles or so, which is quite popular. Um, and then there's Ardsha Park, Yarkon Park, which is actually where I do most of my running, that is also quite big. I've done 17, 18 mile runs in there uh without having to repeat segments. Um, so it's quite a big park. Um, so yeah, I think this is an this is an active fit country, and running is becoming uh more and more popular. And actually on both the men's and the women's side, Israel now has uh marathoners that are competing um on the world stage and yeah, require Berlin. There was uh a male uh runner who was 13th or 14th from Israel.

SPEAKER_00: 30:49

All right. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 30:50

A female runner um who has been, I think, a top five finisher at some of the largest races in the world. So um it's becoming uh a bigger and more popular sport here.

SPEAKER_00: 30:59

Yeah. I know I went to Israel in the eight, well, uh in the eighties uh to see my aunt as I wrote to you earlier. And um and the the one thing that struck me was that it was a very young country. And uh I was, you know, with a very young country and very vibrant, and you can see that probably they're very active, you know, obviously with the national service and everything like that. But that's one thing that just struck me as a, you know, 26-year-old or 20, 20-year-old uh when I went there in the 80s.

SPEAKER_02: 31:36

Yeah, it's funny. When people ask me about how I like living in Tel Aviv, I I always give some version of the same response, which is it's a very young city. And I I am not a young person, but I like being I like being surrounded by that kind of youthful energy, vitality, um, action, you know, people in and you know, out there doing fun things, uh, you know, running along the beach in particular. You see people not just playing volleyball, but a version of volleyball with just using feet and all sorts of gymnastics and uh pretty remarkable stuff. And uh I like being around all that.

SPEAKER_00: 32:10

Um Right. I I know this wasn't in the outline, but I just got a couple of quickfire questions. Do you have a particular sporting icon or anyone that's inspired you?

SPEAKER_02: 32:20

I guess a few people, but one in particular, and and at least for US folks, it may almost be a cliche at this point, but uh I really am taken with David Goggins. Um I've read both of his books, uh Can't Hurt Me and Never Finished. And I think most people think of him as this incredible, you know, athlete who's strong and relentless, iron-willed, can do almost anything. And I think there's a lot of truth to all that. But I think if you read his books carefully, there's tremendous, in my view, emotional depth to his writing. Um, and I think really actually talks very persuasively, very powerfully about the emotional component of the kinds of things that he does and what he goes through to get himself through difficult events and and what that does for him when he succeeds and the impact that it can have when he doesn't succeed. Um so for me, I I love both things. I love, you know, I love I love sports figures who really inspire us with what they can accomplish. But in in in Goggins's uh case, I think also really can teach us so much about ourselves and how we can harness um fitness and sport to um really improve every part of that.

SPEAKER_00: 33:34

Is there any well, for audience, finally, is there one thing that you would, or one piece of advice that you would give our audience based on your experiences and obviously, you know, what you've written in your book?

SPEAKER_02: 33:49

I th I guess a couple things. I mean, reading for me was a huge part of my journey. Um, when I got started with fitness at 48, I started to read a lot of um memoirs by folks like Dean Carnassus, um, you know, later read the Goggins book, um, by a lot of other terrific athletes um who had done some extraordinary things. And and that I did find that to be an inspirational thing. And it made it um, I think it helped me on my journey. It helped me set targets for myself. Uh, Rich Rolls book was another really wonderful book uh that I read. Um, so I do think that so I mean, for me, writing this book was writing the kind of book that I would have liked to have read when I was getting started.

SPEAKER_00: 34:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 34:29

Uh by who was um relatable in the sense that I'm not an elite athlete. Um, I'm not out there running Boston Marathon qualifying times or you know, running in the Olympics or doing things in that sense that are extraordinary. I think, I think I'm a very typical um adult in that sense. I'm not especially fast.

SPEAKER_01: 34:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 34:50

But I think if we really um push ourselves and train properly, we can really surprise ourselves. And for me, this was quite a journey of surprise and discovery. And I think others uh could have some version of it that's suited to them that they would really benefit from. And, you know, honestly, that's why I wanted to write the book.

SPEAKER_00: 35:09

Brilliant. Thank you. You've been a wonderful guest. Um, and uh you've been my first guest from Israel. So my my aunt would be very excited. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 35:19

This has been a wonderful conversation. I've I've enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00: 35:22

It's been brilliant. Um, if you'd like to just stick around briefly just for a few minutes um after we finish the podcast, but I'd just like to say thank you very much, Jeffrey, for coming on the podcast. And uh I just want to say to our audience, um hopefully you'll be looking forward to uh listening to this podcast um coming out in the future. But for now, this is goodbye from Jeffrey and from me, Brian.

SPEAKER_02: 35:46

Thanks so much, Brian, for having me. I really enjoyed it.