Episode 414: Marathon Monks with James Pieratt

This episode kicks off a series of episodes covering some of the most prolific ancient endurance groups and tribes the world has ever seen. Joining me as co-host for this series is James Pieratt. For more on James, check out episode 395 where we discuss his incredible lifestyle.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 Introduction to Tribal Endurance Feats

00:06:22 Techniques for Non-Sleep Deep Relaxation

00:12:27 Insights into Transcontinental Running

00:18:23 Recovering Hormones After Intense Physical Activity

00:24:16 The 100-Mile Road Championships: An Epic Showdown in the 80+ Division

00:30:28 Connection Between Ultramarathon Monks and Ninja History

00:36:52 Misconceptions in the History of Archery

00:42:52 Marathon Monks' Unbelievable Feats of Endurance

00:49:00 The Lessons of Consistency in Ultrarunning

00:55:18 Exploring Spirituality Through Ultra Running and Marathon Monks

01:01:25 Experiencing Flow in Ultramarathons

01:07:45 Transformational Power of Minimalist Running Diets

01:13:32 Physiological Adaptations of Japanese Monks

01:19:17 Cultural Differences: Japan vs. United States

01:25:29 Mindfulness and Gratitude in Ultra Running

01:31:20 The Importance of Strength Work for Runners

Episode Transcript:

And the training, the minimal training that I've done for this, for Fat Ox coming up in a few weeks has really kind of given me the perspective. I think that it's one of the most interesting events in ultrarunning, the 24 hour, just like a timed race. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating. I plan on actually doing a lot more. I personally think I'm much better suited to the 48 to 72 range, just being slower and maybe a little bit more durable, than, you know, at least having that be my strength, leaning more towards my durability than my speed, at least. but I think the 24 hour stuff is really fascinating because it's just in that sweet spot where you really can push. I mean, you can push your body pretty hard for 24 hours, you know what I mean? And, Yeah. So I think you really can't have a whole lot of downtime at all in, like, and still kind of hit like your potential or get close to your potential. But then when you get to like 48 hours and beyond, it's like it's almost the expectation then is to like, okay, I'm going to have to take a nap, maybe, or do something other than just continually move in order to make it sustainable. So then I think it sort of gives you a little bit of a, a little bit of a different strategy at least. So, yeah. You know, a lot of people in the timed event world, they'll say that the 48 hour is one of the hardest because you can start kind of because you can get serious sleep deprivation with that one. Yeah. Without really sleeping like, like you can sort of justify maybe not sleeping. Although I think what little research we do have on that would suggest a nap in there somewhere is probably optimal. But. You know, it's just like, you know, that one is another one where, like, you hit that second night and it's just. Oh, so it's interesting to watch these things because it's like it's the longer they go, like, the more the passive things play a part, like, oh, hey, like, I'm not a good sleeper. Like, you know, like if you're someone who has a difficult like whereas I know guys, I'm kind of in the middle like a little bit of both, but I know guys that can take like hit like, it seems like they hit REM sleep in like eight minutes flat and then they pop back up and they're like, like, all right, cool. And they're fully awake, fully cognizant, you know what I mean? Whereas other people toss and turn and I definitely kind of trained myself to be able to close my eyes and shut up a little bit. And I think even if you can kind of just do something like that, like a Huberman style protocol with non sleep, deep relaxation, anything to just kind of like down regulate the nervous system a little bit. I found it helps me a lot with multi-day stuff. Yeah I was going to ask you about that if you had tried anything like that. Because I would think maybe some breathing techniques or something would be useful. Yeah, bring things, bring things down a bit. Yeah. Basic Wim Hof is just a ten minute cycle that you can get on YouTube for free. You know, it's like, you know, he has it out there for anyone. And, that was just the basic thing I taught myself going. I got really into it before, the Pacific Crest Trail, before the Oregon State run. And, just thinking that it would probably help because for me, in the past, that's been an issue with just the CNS stimulation and kind of a, a, restless person in general. And, so in the past with the multi-day stuff, I bet, you know, you get like a little. A little shaky. And so I put a lot, a decent amount of attention into the breathwork to regulate the breathwork, to maintain regularly, but also, just monitor like not never letting my heart rate, my heart rate runaway and really just trying to kind of keep things at like right around 130, you know, 140 if I'm doing like some heavy incline or something. But it's like if I start to climb up over that, I slow my pace, like, you know, I maybe get some more hydration and some carbs in for a week. Use that, that time to troubleshoot. So I'm not just sitting there wasting energy or leaking time, and then I get back to moving. But it's like a, you know, the like the short, like 100 miles. I don't really measure my heart rate at all. I just kind of push it because I know, like, hey, it's going to be fine. It's only 24 hours, you know what I mean? Whatever it is. Yeah. but over the multiple days, like I noticed, I can't really get away with that. Yeah. Yeah. How are things going for Fat Ox feeling? Feeling good. Good good I am yeah I so basically just kind of I had an eight hour run on, on concrete last week and the feet and knees felt good. a little tightness in the old torn meniscus the next day, but like, no actual no acute issues or anything. And it was also just a cold day. today I have a pre fatiguing, lower body, strength session. And then tomorrow and the next day I'll do five hour runs. and then that's about it. It'll be just over two weeks from, you know, right about there. So that'll be my day load from there where I'll just kind of work some accessories and do some base runs and stick to the, you know, the program, the same program we ran last time. When you help me with the last hundred miles. My first hundred mile or technically, organized race, which was a lot of fun, by the way. Yeah, yeah. That's right. You did that between the last time we chatted. I think so, yeah. Yeah. Busy. Yeah. No, that was, that kind of give me the bug to to do more organized events. and so now I'm becoming a am officially what you, I guess you would call, like, a, a serial training race guy who's just like, I'm using these events. Yeah, because, like, I got some, you know, I obviously my bread and butter would be the more wilderness stuff, but actually, next year, next spring. I haven't announced this yet. This will be the first time I've. I've talked about it, but I'm going to make take a swing at a thousand miles. oh. California. Yeah. California coast. So it'll be, you know, nice and slow. but we're looking, you know, ideally to just like, hold to an average of, like 35 to 40 mile 35 to 40 miles a day for about a month. and, work up the coast with, you know, minimal support, team shadowing. But I will have to carry a decent amount of stuff, too. so we're going to see I think the actual, according to the state of California, like the FCT for that route, I just found out was like 44 days. So if things are feeling, if things are, you know, feeling good, it's a newer route and it's pretty broken up. But, things are feeling good. I might, you know, who knows, who knows where we end up with that? We might make a crack at that. Yeah. Right on. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Yeah. End of the world of 1000 mile races, then. Yeah. Typical ultras are training sessions. It's crazy. I'm just not. Like I said, I never really considered it, but then, like, I just, I just love I. That was actually one thing I, I, one of the things I wanted to pick your brain because I know you were planning at like, a transcontinental run. It like was a year or two ago. Yeah. So, like, at some point, I'll, we can get into that. But, I'm just, just curious on some of the things, that you were looking at as far as, like, likely problem areas that you were trying to preempt or prepare for, and then any just logistical things that you found that you were curious about. because it's it's a pretty small world. I've been doing some research and it's like, you know, there's not a lot of races or, you know, especially, I guess it used to be a little bit more common, but now it's less so. But, I did see that the world record for a 1000 mile run is ten days and about ten days and ten hours, which is just there's something nutty about nutty about, like, holding my best, holding my best hundred mile pace for ten days straight, basically. So, you know. Yeah, that one's stout. It is interesting. Like, I think we're getting a little bit more momentum on like the longer multi-day type stuff over the last couple of years. It's definitely a spot that's growing a bit as the sport grows, which is cool to see because like, yeah, there's a lot of history in that, in those like the transcon, like I don't think people realize how far back some of that stuff goes where, you know, they're doing ultras in Madison Square Garden in the 1800s and all that stuff. And, and a lot of it was the longer haul stuff originally, too, that was the more popular. Yeah. So but yeah, I mean, yeah, I, I mean, unfortunately for my transcon effort, I got injured before the start and that's why I wasn't able to do it. And I've waited to put it back on the calendar just because I think there's some things I could probably do better in hindsight. And one of those is doing some multi-day things that aren't going to be as long as, you know, if everything went perfect for me, the transcon I'm still looking at is like six weeks. So, you know, it's a healthy amount of time to be out there and. Yeah, I think I could probably learn something from some stuff, some intermediate distances between between what I have done in that and but yeah, but when I was getting ready to do that, there was, I did a bunch of podcast episodes with people who've done either transcon or similar type things, and then after that, I've always kind of tried to keep my finger on the pulse of when people are doing stuff like that. So I've had, Christian Morgan, it's been on a couple of times. He used to have the South bound Appalachian Trail record actually just got broken by Tara. Tara. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She crushed it for like 40 days or something like that. yeah. And I think she, I haven't unpacked the data from it yet, but I was, I did a podcast episode with another guy who does a lot of ultra content stuff, Joe Corson. And, and he was saying that it looked like at least on her Strava, that she sort of like a negative split it where she was just hauling at the end. And, you know, there's a couple like two things every time I've talked to these people that they've told me are like, just like that just seemed like everyone had this message was those first few days are are really rough because you kind of have that like gradual descent and you can kind of you can kind of tell like, you know, day two is worse than day one. Day three is worse than day two. And it's really hard psychologically to kind of get in to not get into this mindset of like, especially if you have something as long as like a transcon or a thousand miles of like, okay, it's going to just like linearly digress from here and you're already kind of getting to this pretty low point, and you start kind of having a hard time wrapping around about how it could get much worse. But then it's sort of kind of like. Normalizes, and then you sort of start feeling a little bit better and you know, you're not going to feel amazing at any point at there, but you're going to feel like, okay, I can start wrapping my head around keeping doing this because it's not like one day's worse than the next any longer. So you get like this, like a few days to kind of just get your body sort of like you used to like or I this is like not the scientific way to think about it, but it's like you almost shock your body into thinking like, okay, well, they're going to this is an ending. They might as well get comfortable. It's the way the experience kind of sounds to me when they tell it. So I will have a benefit in that regard because. So I didn't know any of this, did not expect any of this when I went, when I did the 500 mile run across Oregon. And at the time, in retrospect, I was not ready, prepared or like that was. I was way ambitious, and I paid some serious prices along the way for that. But basically my first three days, I barely eked out a marathon each day. I like my bio rhythms. Nothing was there. I wasn't used to the elevation. I had to adjust my water ratios. I had to adjust, like, some small things with my electrolytes. But. Just. I just haven't found my rhythm. I didn't feel like myself. I didn't feel like I felt the day before I was about to start, when I was confident and dialed in and sure, I was just going to crush this and, you know, develop a 57 mile a day pace and just hold it all the way through nice and clean, you know? Yeah, I didn't feel like that guy. It was. And it messed with my head a bit for the first three days. And now, in retrospect, I know, like the elevation played the part like magnified that to some things it just makes you feel a little off if you're, you know, if you go up 6000 ft in a day and then just start to run. But, that was the thing. And the way I described to people is the longer you're out, that essentially it's like a reverse, or what would they call it, I believe the, the academic, the inverse, an inverse relationship between, like, the state of your body and the state of your mind. So I started out in my body on paper and felt great. And my mind was like, you know, I feel good. I wasn't thinking clearly. I didn't have energy, you know? And then the longer we went, the better my mind felt. The more I was finding my groove, the more I was getting used to everything. But then, like my joints, the muscles, the more that degraded. So it was just like, you know, it's like constant, you know? And by the end, I felt amazing, like, like quasi, a quasi sense of, like meditative enlightenment. but my body was messed up, I think, like at the end we counted, like, eight legitimate injuries, like, like ankle, ankle, ankle sprains, torn ligament and the finger from a fault like you. Just all these little things and none of not not one of them was devastating enough to, like, stop me from running just to slow me down and. And then that was the only time in my life I've had, like a real bad blister, to the point that it actually the entire toe that it was on got infected down to the root. And, it was like. Yeah, it was like an actually infected toe. but that was again, just like, it all seems so far away. And I mean, you know, it was a trip and I'd experienced that before, you know, running well, especially running races. I wasn't quite prepared for running distances I wasn't quite prepared for, but that was that magnified it considerably. So I am expecting that, on a greater scale in this next one, for sure. yeah. You know, the other thing that I heard a lot was and maybe this was just because I asked this question to pretty much everyone was just like what they were doing from a fueling standpoint and how their body was sort of keeping up with stuff. And the folks that were able to kind of more or less maintain weight or come close to it. I think it's probably a tall task to try to maintain weight on a transcon or something like that. But, you know, there would be stories of people losing 20 plus pounds and then other ones where people were losing like 2 or 3 and like even to the degree where I had, I think it might have been Dean Karnazes who he had done. He's done it at least twice, maybe more. And he's had both experiences where one he lost a bunch of weight and the other he tried to maintain. And I think another time he even went in like a fair bit overweight, just pre preempting that a little bit and doing that. Yeah. And the ones that were able to kind of maintain or stay closer to kind of their typical weight, tended to bounce like they felt a little bit better at the end and then bounce back a lot quicker. So like they didn't have this huge tail effect of like I feel miserable for the next few months. And then, you know, you hear stories of people never really getting back to normal after some of that stuff too, because it's just a little bit of a harsh project to take on. It is. And I noticed you're A mean, from speaking just personally, I noticed my hormones recover like that. That or, you know, even when I get them tested or not that sends, you know, all the biomarkers, the energy, the mental clarity. You know all that as they say, like the way to measure these things in simple terms, I learned this from a rugby coach. I like it. It's like you can kind of track where or you can see if your hormones are recovering healthily after, like a massive amount of exertion, a peak training playoffs, you know, series of games, a head injury and ultramarathon, whatever by, like three things. Are you hungry? Are you happy? And are you horny? Like, are these things, like, existing in healthy balance with each other? And if the answer is yes, like, you probably don't need to, like, make any drastic changes. And the answer is no. You should probably, like, look closer with bloodwork and kind of see what's going on there. So I've come, I've kind of told my athletes, especially, you know, as the, the one that we kind of dabble across ultra endurance and strength and often sometimes martial arts too. So it's like sometimes the inputs are very different and you're not tracking the same, a b as you would like. If you're training one thing and like it, like powerlifting has telltale signs of burnout, ultra long ultra running does. And then there's, like, just general central nervous system stuff, but it's like, point being, it's good to pay attention to this stuff. And that's an easy guide to go by. Yeah, yeah. And it's probably just good practice. Keep in your mind in terms of just kind of assessing your day to day state of recovery when you're in big training blocks and things like that, to where if you start seeing that stuff, not check off for periods of time that are more than acute, then yeah, probably probably worth making some adjustments. So you got that kind of stress recovery balance done right? It is. And I pay attention to it specifically because I'm prone to depression following events like, not not like anything overwhelming or dramatic, but like being in a pretty consistent depressive state. Like I love like I love what we do. I love what you feel when you're 70 and 80 miles into a hundred mile race, or when you're running across the state or whatever. Like, I love it and I never feel more like myself or more present and free than when I'm doing that. And so I sometimes find it a bit jarring to come back to normal life immediately after, especially when it's like 24 hours later, you're standing in line at the Safeway buying a rotisserie chicken, and you're like, oh, like, you know what I mean? I thought I'd do anything to earn this. Yeah, I know exactly. Yeah. And so I have, but now I know enough to plan for it. And, kind of, you know, basically what I mean. Not that everyone has their own recipe, but for me, I find just getting really into creative stuff right after, you know what I mean? Like planning. I started writing my new book . In doing so, I found some really cool, relevant information relevant to the marathon monks that we'll get to. But like, you know, something like that to kind of, flex a different muscle, so to speak, you know, something maybe non-physical, but I, I find that productivity is the best antidepressant outside of just a healthy lifestyle. And for me personally. And so that's something I generally look to do after an event. Yeah, I mean that's a great point. And it is a good transition into the marathon months, I think. But it's something I think about as the sport gets more professionalized to where, you know, it hasn't been very long where you'd have anybody that was like, oh yeah, I'm just like an ultramarathon athlete. And, you know, I think about just the way I've kind of structured how I've gone about my career and it's always had other inputs. I mean, for what? Even even if you count what we're doing right here now recording a podcast, it's like, yeah, you have, you have these other outlets where, yeah, after a race or after a big effort and it's time to take some downtime, you're kind of removed from the whole, what you describe that kind of like the excitement of chasing and building and then competing and everything that kind of goes into that, like, what are you going to how are you going to feel that fill that hole when it's not there? And I think that's just good practice in general, because if you're doing it when you're still actively participating, I mean, there's going to be phases in your life. Some people may run ultramarathons until the day they die. I see these 70 and 80 year olds out there. So I know some people do it, but you know, you're going to have different stages just like your relative competitiveness or even if you want to keep doing it. So I think like, yeah, putting yourself in a position where you're already like thinking about those things ahead of time, probably a good idea for your mental mental health. Agreed. And that reminds me, at that last hundred miler I did the one meeting where I met your buddy Nick. yeah. Yeah, we had a lot, a lot of fun. He ended up finishing first in our age division. I got second, although I was, like, hours and hours behind him. But speaking of that exact race, in that race, there was an 81 year old man. And he finished. He finished? Yeah. He finished. and I did like, we got hit with a really bad heat wave both days. And, one of the days I was walking with him and just kind of picking his brain on it. He's just. He's done, like, a lot of them. He's done them. He's been doing them since the 70s. And he just kind of likes, you know, like, why not at this point? You know, I think he made it. He made a joke about, he tastefully made a joke about, like, you know, some of his plumbing not working like it used to. So at least he can still enjoy him, like, enjoy himself like this. And I was like, fair enough, fair enough, you know? And that's funny. I can't remember if I told you this, but a couple of years ago at the Hundred Mile Road Championships there, you know, they have all the age grouping stuff for that. So one year in and they have like categories up until like as far as they need to. And one year like there's the 80 plus category. Usually you show up and finish in the 80 plus category. You're going to win if when it's the 100 mile road championships, there's just no one else but you there. But there were four guys there one year that were between 80 and 85, I think. So they had a little throw down and it came down to the very end too. I think it was like the guy who won took the lead, like in the last mile or so, or it was really close. But so yeah, imagine being fourth in your age group in the 80, 80 plus division at the Hundred Mile. Well, imagine being 80 years old, 80 something years old, having lived your whole life, lost a ton of people you love, but you got through all the ups and downs. And then in the, in the last, you know, the last stretch of your life, you get into the showdown over the last mile of a 100 mile race with another guy. Like there's something that dude, it is that's that's like, that's a movie. Like there's, there's several movies you could make in several directions. You could take a movie like that, you know what I mean? but that's just like that. Tell me that's not an awesome life story, man. Yeah, yeah. You know. Yeah, 81 years, 81 years old. You're getting an ultramarathon gunfight with another, you know, another old mile slinger like you. And it's. I mean, that is cool. That's that's the guy I want to be, you know? Right. Yeah. They did a story on all four of them leading into the race because obviously you see that on the sign up and you're like, okay, this is this is the story to follow for this one. And part of it was like they were asking him like, well, when was the first hundred miles you did. It was like, yeah, 1979. Like super, super old, old events and stuff like that. So. Well, you're still I mean, he's not quite that old, but I'm in Northern California, so it's like you'll still be the ultra runner and will still be out hitting trails around Auburn and stuff here. And just see Gordon Ainslie just come by holding the jar of pickle juice and a Bologna sandwich, one in each hand, literally. Like, just like haunts the trails like this. And I had this buddy of mine who was having a hell of a time on the Tahoe rim one year, like he's lying on the trail, can't get up. It's just a leg's legs are shot, elevating everything. And he looks up. And who does he see? But Gordon Ainslie like right there, he goes, son, I never quit a race in my life and he just keeps shuffling on it, you know, like just a steady four mile an hour shuffle. And then my buddy's like, oh my God, I couldn't, I couldn't DNF after that like that. How shameful would that have been? And I thought that was the funniest thing. You know, it's where you start asking, so was that a hallucination or was that Gordon? No. Was that real? But apparently that time it was actually. Who knows bro? He might just be, you know, who knows if he was ever real, he might just be. It might just be the spirit of us all. Yeah. You know I, I hesitate to, to to sidestep again. But you reminded me of another story where John Kelly this last year at Berkeley. So he's finished it now for the third time. yeah. So he's just he's got that one figured out, like, he's just so good at it. And he was taking a nap at one point where he found a, like a rutted out, like tire track that was a little cooler. So he, like, laid down in it and he's lying there and he sees like this, this guy and his wife and kids walk by and he likes, looks at he's kind of like kind of half asleep, awake, half asleep. And the guy goes, oh, hey, that's John Kelly. And then keeps walking. And then, he realized after he woke up he's like, oh, that was my high school friend who I hadn't seen in like two decades or something like that. And he's like, I thought he was hallucinating. So but then after the race for. Yeah, for some reason after the race, he decided, well, I'm just going to reach out to him and see because like, who knows, maybe he was like, oh yeah, we, we were out there on a hike and we knew the race was going on. And we just happened to see you lying there sleeping. Oh, dude, what are the, like the cosmic, butterfly effects involved in that that that paths crossing, you know, I know, yeah. Yeah, it's hilarious to think it's just like. Yeah, you're out in the middle of one of the craziest events ever, and some old friend from high school comes back. Would you ever do it? you know, I probably would. I mean, I say no now just because, like, I don't have any orienteering skills that would justify getting around the first loop. Even so, like, that would be the biggest hurdle if I ever got. If I got into learning that stuff, which I am, I would be interested in that if I decided, okay, I, I spend the time kind of learning it, then I think I'd get more excited for something like that. but right now, like, my only hope on a course like that would be to get as fit as I could on really harsh terrain and just try to follow somebody. And then even if I get super fit and figure it out and get through the first four loops, then I'm going to get in trouble on that fifth one, probably when you got to go opposite directions and, and then you're in the situation where you torture yourself for 48 hours and then DNF no payoff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'd be interesting. But then again, like if you ever do get, you know, like it might happen three years from now, you might be interested in hunting and have a year or two in the backcountry, and then you already have those skills without having developed those skills, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That, you know, that's the reason I'll never say absolutely no is because I am looking at getting back into hunting here soon. So yeah, that'll be I did some whitetail hunting when I was younger in Wisconsin, but once I moved from Wisconsin I've really disconnected from it. So I'm trying to, you know, figure out a way to kind of get that back into the rotation. I had a great whitetail hunt in the Midwest for sure, man. Yeah, but yeah. So anyway, ultramarathon, you know, I have a way that we can open this because I've discovered in the process of researching my book, which touches on the ultramarathon monks briefly, but also on some, some similar tangents. I have discovered a very strange connection that, to my knowledge, no other historian has, exposed or discussed. I gotta double check with my buddy Daniel Bailey on this, but I believe that we will be the first ones to break this, this theory, and you can give me your thoughts on it, but. Okay. Okay, so the marathon monks have mounted a mount. Hey. Excuse me. They are, you know, in broad overview, a small group of crazy guys who've been there for somewhere around 900 years, who believe that running ultras or endurance in general, is the path to enlightenment? They worship the immovable wisdom King, who is like an extremely terrifying but like, justice based deity that holds like a flaming rope and a sword. And, essentially they do nothing but do this all the time. so having established that. Very close. And unless you're familiar with feudal Japanese geography, which I certainly was not before this, you would not know that the ninja okay, generally seen as at this point a pretty cartoonish and, you know, more of a comic book character than like, say, a historical figure. The ninja were real. They were known as Shinobi at the time, and they were essentially just, you know, covert operatives, like, they you know, we have Navy Seals, you know, the feudal feudal times had, had, ninja and for reference, it would have been slightly different. It would have been like, imagine that in the United States, we got all of our Navy Seals from the states of New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and these two states, their entire economies were essentially built around raising from childhood Navy Seals and creating them. It would be so essentially that it would be a more accurate parallel. But in essence, they were Special Forces guys, spies, intelligence operatives, very real. however they come specifically, the reason I use the states of the examples come. They come from two regions, the IGA and Coco provinces, and these were remote mountainous areas in Japan. To make a very long and relevant story short, essentially they were local peasants and local peasant landowners who formed what they called, Defense leagues against Bandits, invaders, and like, tyrannical local samurai lords. And at a time when, you know, peasants didn't have recourse for such things, so they become lacking the strength in military strength to conventionally challenge the samurai, they become these shadow warriors. Funny thing is, it brings us back to the ultramarathon monks. They come from basically the same area. In fact, the two strongholds are exactly 50 K apart, 31 miles apart. And this is relevant because the Ninja have a long history of, admiring, venerating, studying, studying, and studying directly under monks. Because they learn initially as peasants, they learn their skills from a group called the Yamaguchi, which translates to warrior monks, or just some wandering, essentially wandering monks who just practice fighting and praying all day long. And this is where the ninja learned a lot of their, not just their fighting skills and martial arts, but like, mountain asceticism, survivalism, all these skills. So here you have literally located right next to each other in a very remote and mountainous and otherwise sparsely populated region of Japan, the marathon monks. And then right next to them, you have the Shinobi. So this made me just generally curious, like, how is it possible that you can live that close to each other and not have a history of interaction? And admittedly, I didn't find any evidence of direct interaction between the two because they're both pretty. Neither group is very chatty or big on records. And, However, what I did find was three separate historical examples of ninja from the feudal period, covering insane distances on foot like nothing magical. Not a thousand miles later, he was somewhere overnight, but like a guy who cranked out right around. What was it, 300 miles in, like a little. It's like four and a half or five days, something like that. And it was like two and one of these, like, marathon type things, you know, battle of marathon to carry an important message, you know, high stakes and, and then you start seeing, another reference talks about them regularly covering distances of 30 to 70 miles for military operations, scouting like one of their main purposes, outside of all the other stuff, they were primarily scouts, you know, it was like, how can I go really far, see some things without being seen and come back, which means no horses. They weren't, you know, horses, you know, that was a feudal thing anyway. But horse riding was the only other way around at the time. And that's allowed. It's very large and horses are very finicky. They're not good in mountainous terrain. They need a lot of water, a lot of food, a lot of attention. So it's not it was, it just wasn't part of what they did. Which means that there's no other way to cover those miles than to cover them on foot. And if you're covering 30 to 70 miles per day, you know, sunset, sunrise to sunset time frames, and you're living right next to the marathon monks who are still doing these crazy things, covering these crazy amounts of distance through the mountains and similar terrain. it is I, I cannot think of a way that those two would not in some way, at least indirectly, be connected. Especially when the Shinobi have an established and consistent history of studying and learning from monks. You know, the skills that they use to survive. So again, just a theory. But it is fascinating that these two people come from the same area. These two cultures come, subcultures come from the same area. Yeah, yeah. It makes you think that there was maybe some sort of, like, connection point that's just undocumented, because it seems odd that there'd be, like, two ships in the night between those two groups just passing by one another like that. Exactly. And again, it's like, who knows, maybe it was. These are sparsely documented. Like Japan is great at keeping records. Like to this day they have some of the oldest companies. I believe the oldest corporation in the world still is in Japan, and it was a construction company that used to build shrines in, like the sixth century or something crazy. However, these are two groups who've had like, you know, political opposition, who've been outlawed, who've, you know, had records destroyed, purges, you know, and the warring and warring clans. And so it doesn't, you know, it generally there wouldn't be a clear connection left on paper after all this time between these two people. but that's like, again, something I was talking to my buddy Daniel Lily about. But like a lot of the academic historians get focused on, like, needing a direct paper trail, even in cultures that didn't have paper trails, you know, and they'll accept nothing less. But it's like a lot of times we look at these things logically. So it's like, Occasionally you'll hear. You'll hear someone who has never shot a bow discuss the history of archery and get some, like, very obvious things wrong. And it's because they're not actually familiar with anything more, you know, than the information on the topic. They have no direct experience to draw from. So sometimes I look at these things just very logically. So it's like you could have like for instance, if there was a mountain kingdom anywhere in the world, any period of time, they were good at rucking because it's physically impossible to do anything effectively in the mountains without being decent at carrying a load on your back, especially if you're a soldier. So it's like something like that. You would only know if you I mean, you've been hunting you, you know, you've been to mountains, you know, you know, it's just there's no getting around it. And, whereas a lot of times these, you know, the people that need these direct academic paper trails would look at that. Well, I didn't see any evidence, any written evidence that Alexander the Great really did train his army with ruckus, even though Macedon was, you know, a mountainous kingdom, which in this case was false. We know at least we know. Alexander's father trained his men by loading bags, big bags of flour onto their backs and forcing them to march, to build strength in their legs, moving up hills, rucking and essentially, like these bags of flowers in ancient Greece were up to £100. So it could have also been used to simulate carrying wounded comrades and whatnot. But again, I digress. Point being, like, if you look, just look at this objectively and you look at you got guys, both of these guys can run a 50 K and, you know, four hours or less. So as you know, this is a few hours apart by foot and a mountainous remote area where there's nothing like this isn't like two people living in Tokyo or two groups in Tokyo. There's nothing there like these are intentionally remote mountains. I find it fascinating, especially when you see the Yamaguchi connection and the fact that they, the ninja, were, like, actively seeking out monks to learn things from, you know. So, again, nothing solid, but, pretty, you know, some possibilities there. But it opens up the conversation on the marathon monks as a whole because, I mean, I do not know how these guys don't have their own HBO series and their own, you know, like CNNs. Like, this is, it's , it's fascinating. I initially met them like, I'm a lover, you know, my mom's Japanese and I'm a huge fan of Japanese culture and history. But I was skeptical when I heard a lot of this stuff, too. And then I started peeling back the layers. I'm like, this isn't B.S. this isn't like a new inflated new age, you know, sensibilities like, you know, overwhelming historical fact. Like, these guys are actually doing these crazy things and they're actually doing them with some very minimal resources too. Yeah, I mean, when I just look at the stats and maybe, maybe I'll just read some of the stats and it's like it's just grand enough, but you can kind of wrap your mind around it if you've been in the ultrarunning world at least. But then when you add, like you said, the resource side of things and plus they're not just doing this, they have all sorts of other things going on along the way. But I mean, for folks that are kind of just coming to this a little bit more fresh. It's, you know, the Marathon monks, they're known for this 1000 day challenge where they cover, like, I think six, 24,000 miles. And it's essentially this seven year journey where on year one, they'll take 100 days and go 19 miles each day on this, this route, on, on mount here. and then that's year one. So I mean, like a lot of runners, a lot of ultra, like I can wrap my head around that. And then year two and year three kind of the same thing, 100 days each, 19 mile route. Then year four and year five, it sort of starts to pick up a little bit where they do 200 days in a row with 19 miles each day. Then this is where I think it starts getting really interesting if you end that one with that nine day retreat, which involves this like Buddhist deity chant or I think it was it 100,000 times. They have to chant it, no food, no drink, and they're seated upright with no sleeping. So they actually have people, they're basically making sure they're doing those things properly. And when you listen to the accounts of this, it's like the thing they complain about the most is just keeping their head upright and just it just is mind boggling to me. Just like being able to do anything like that and then finding like, what do they actually find the most challenging of it all? But yeah, I mean, you can just imagine the state you would be in that point, just from that alone. One. I have one thing. I heard one of the guys talk about the things that they found most challenging, or one of the guys second hand. He was saying, it's getting up every night, so the only water they get through the whole thing is a tiny bit of water at midnight. It's the only time they're allowed to move within a 24 hour period in the middle of the night. The hardest thing was going to the well every night, and they talked about each night. The first night it took, it gets 200m, about 200m to walk to the well. It's not very far, right. They're talking about like the first night it took him like, you know, like a couple minutes. And then by last night, it took him like two hours to get there. Like, you know, it was just so, like, so sweet and just like, you know, like it took, you know, and so that apparently that. And then. Yeah, keeping the heads up and I guess sometimes they'll like to have like other monks on either side so they can't, you know, do the tip over if they get, you know, nod off or whatever. But apparently from their perspective, the hardest thing is getting to the well with the meditation retreat. Yeah, that's a good point. I do remember hearing about that, that extended timeline that takes between night to night. yeah. I mean, and then you make it through that and you have year six, which is now 100 days with 34 miles per day. So you're just, you know, you're you're upping that and then you're Of 700 days, 52 miles per day, followed by another hundred days 18 miles per day. And yeah, that's where I start to get a little bit in my mind. Like I'm starting to think about like, okay, like that, that hundred days, 52 miles per day, I, I can wrap my head around the execution of all resources available. Right. And like when everything else is just like when you build your entire life around that existence, but when you look at just like what they're doing, they're not just going out and focusing on moving 52 miles and that's it. They're limiting the amount of food and essentially water they can get. They've got other obligations to do in their sleep. Their sleep is really, really low. Like even in the early stages, I think with the 18 mile days or the 19 mile days on year one, they've got like a bunch of other stuff going on, so they're not actually sleeping a ton. And yes, they're I mean, the whole time they're doing this, that's the thing they're doing like, they're going to shrines saying prayers, like making offerings like, and I heard I'm not sure if you heard there was a European guy who, like, went over and observed them and, He was saying that, like, it seems like even when they're just, like, hiking, like, it seems like they're not moving very fast, but then you try to keep up with them and they're holding like a four, you know, 4 or 4 and a half mile pace the whole time at just like, you know what I mean, a shuffle or a fast hike and, which, you know, I mean, cover some ground, but even still, like, like you're going to be doing that pretty much all day, you know, and, stop and make offerings. You get a little, you know, a little bit of sleep. The crazy thing to me is that they're averaging three to, like, during the peak of the peak days that these towns are averaging 3 to 5 pairs of shoes a day because they're using tatami sandals that are wearing out. So these guys are literally strapping extra sandals to the outside of their packs. They're carrying packs, you know what I mean? Like, so it's yeah, I was I mean, before we can get into nutrition after this because that's a whole other the whole other thing, you know, but just the fact that you're wearing out 3 to 5 pairs of shoes every single day during a peak challenge, and your only protection from the element isn't, you know, like the fancy, ultra windbreaker. I like to run in when it's just a tiny bit chilly here, you know, just like, like, five degrees below comfortable. no, they just. They get, like, a wooden hat. They're only allowed to wear it when it's actually raining, too, by the way. Like, it's not like. Oh, like the Sentinel. If it's raining, you can put on the wooden hat and then if it's not. And then just like, literally like a basic kimono, you know what I mean. Yeah. Nutty. Yeah. It's definitely not optimized for performance. That's for sure. You know it's pretty wild to think about. I mean it's one of those things where it just makes me wonder because I think we see this in other disciplines too. I think running and walking is very unique, because I think humans are just biologically made to be able to tolerate this at a higher level than a lot of other animals are. And but even when you look, you'll see people do like, like rock climbing or just gymnastics and things like that, and you start to recognize how far we've actually removed ourselves on average, from what our bodies are really capable of, when it's when when that's really your only goal is to be able to be be able to continuously move through like really harsh environments. And every once in a while, you come across a group of people like this, like the marathon monks, where they just did not give that up for one reason or the other. And we're seeing these feats that we would actually, you know, you take this, we'll get into nutrition. And this is where I think it gets really wonky, is like, you take this into any like, you know, Western University exercise physiology lab, nutrition lab. They're just going to say like, yeah, it doesn't compute. Like this person would be dead. This person would lose an insane amount of weight. And. They don't. Well, I'm sure they lose a bunch of weight, but, like, they're alive. Assuming the ones that make it are alive, we should I we I should probably mention that like there is once you get. Is it after yours? Is it? I think it's after year three. You have to get three. It's all in nothing after that. Yeah. That's what you have to kill yourself if you fail, right. Yeah, yeah. They bring a rope and a knife and you're generally you're supposed to commit seppuku or maybe hang yourself. But I know the route is littered with skeletons and, you know, like the gravestones of the guys who didn't make it. Yeah. So, I mean, the fact that everyone hasn't failed is insane to me. There's actually people. So then, then I then when, when you have situations like that too, then I wonder how many like just sort of freak out. Liars just get identified through the people who make it versus the people that, you know, end up on the side of the trail. And it's like, are these just like, are we just is this like a just an incredibly like intense, specific long like timeline version of us selecting like all the LeBron James's or Michael Jordan's of the like movement, walking and calorie deprivations, humans like I think I think for sure that plays a part. I mean, there's no way that something that extreme and physical isn't going to select for people that are, you know, predisposed genetically towards it. Yeah. But at the same time, it's like, man, I think LeBron James is the Michael Jordan of the mental strength guys. Because it's just like seven years is a long time, man. It's a long time I mean like you know what it is to turn that switch on and be like, okay, here we go. But I like to leave it on for seven years. That's, that's that's, you know, and they're doing it and like the running performance side. Like I said they're not like running super fast. They're you know oftentimes with a walking stick much like we use trekking poles. And they're just holding that for four and a half mile pace. You know three and a half, probably to four and a half mile pace over any terrain, you know, rain or shine. And, it's kind of like, you know, I don't know if it's probably been a long time since this happened to you, but maybe when you first started, it's like that, that woman that you meet in like 100 mile race or any ultra who is like 15 or 20 years older than you and, like, doesn't appear nearly as athletic as you. And then she just sits at that pace and holds it and you're like yours going up and down. And she's still like finishing or ahead of you or you're like, oh, okay. Like consistency does pay, I guess. Yeah. So that that's what I picture in my mind, having had that happen to me more than once. That's what I picture in my mind. Just some small bald Asian guy, just me and my ultras drinking my my glycogen, my glycogen drinks and, you know, with my, my son deflecting, cooling, windbreaker on and just getting passed up by some guy at a brisk walk with a walking stick in a in a robe. Yeah. And a robe. Yeah. As he's chanting now, he's chanting with it. You know, he's not breathing. He's chanting. That. That's when you assume you're hallucinating and you're not actually seeing that happen, or that's the way to cope that you didn't just have that experience of him being, I would lie to myself. I would lie to myself for sure. Like that's crazy. I did have, I did when I was sitting, accidentally breaking the weighted run world record. I passed a guy. I passed a guy on a bicycle at sunset on the second day who was riding a mountain bike on a road with a, he was wearing a leather jacket, and he had a small wiener dog perched on his shoulder like a parrot who was also wearing a matching leather jacket with little metal stud. Like he was like. He was, like, going to, like, rob me of my wallet. The little guy. Yeah. and that was real. Apparently the guy, as I walked by stopped, turned my head and was like, what? And then he had, like, a special harness and the thing was, like, rigged up on his shoulder, like a, like a side backpack. And I was like, yeah, that was real. Oh my God, that was real. And then I just kept going. But it happens. It happens. Yeah. I mean, the only like Western -like beat that I would put in a similar ballpark as the 52 miles per day for 100 days is Pete Castle. Nick, I don't know if you're familiar with some of his stuff, and he's got the men's transcon record at 70. It's like 72.5 miles a day for almost exactly six weeks. And I mean, that's a super impressive thing. That's much more well documented. But he's got something I would consider even more impressive where it was self established. He called it the keys to keys, where he started up in keys Alaska and then worked his way down to keys, Florida. All self-supported. Yeah, he had like a running store and he averaged 50 miles a day doing that. So it was like, yeah, it's a similar structure. Like I mean, it was, I mean, it's basically around 100 days. I think I'd have to look back at the specifics. But, you know, the fact that he was self-supported, obviously he's got a lot more gear available to him, and he's eating a lot more than these guys are. But in terms of getting into the realm, like we're at least in the same universe here with something like that. And, and that's just kind of far and away the most, like, insane thing that I've seen done in recent times where when you just start thinking of the number of things that could go wrong, especially up in Alaska. Oh for sure. But the thing about that that gets me is this pace. Because these guys like they stacked a mile with it, but they're moving pretty consistently slow. And like for me, at least with me personally, I know, like I can move slow pretty much forever. It's when I start moving fast that I start, my fuel starts going down, my injuries start going up. Do you know what I mean? My local fatigue, all these things, which is one reason I pace at a pretty slow moving pace with minimal stops when I'm doing a wilderness ultra. But the fact that you would go keys to keys holding a averaging 50 miles a day, that's like I mean, that's that's what do you think goes into the durability in a human being who can crank out a 50 mile pace, presumably, you know, at a pretty active moving or pretty fast moving pace day after day and not get injured or just break down. Yeah. I mean, if you look at Pete specifically, like he had a series of years where he was logging some insane training where he would do, like in the neighborhood of 30 miles per day pretty consistently. So he used it in, like, I remember, like he, he started that before, like Strava was as popular for runners as it was. And he was a little bit late to Strava. But I remember when he signed up for it, he's like, you guys, just wait till you see what I'm doing. Yeah, yeah, dude, it's 300 mile training weeks. Yeah. Uh Huh. So I mean, I think yeah, I think, like, I don't know, like where the trade off is there. I think there may be a trade off in terms of, like, preparing like that probably puts you in a position where you get so one dimensional. If you can fit the effort of your keys to key- type things in a window of time, you're going to just do something heroic like that. But I don't think it's super sustainable. I don't think you'd see that approach working. And then also that same person is 80 running the US 800 mile World Championships. I think those two things are separated. and your approach is actually probably more conducive to becoming an 80 year old ultramarathon runner where you're doing. Yeah, you're doing a lot of different activities. You're staying strong, you're staying durable. It's not one dimensional. yeah, but but I mean, it's just kind of one of those things, like, do you want to put something on the table that hardly anyone, if anyone, will ever replicate? You know, you might have to do what Pete did. Yeah. No, I, yeah. No, dude, if I set an fkt next year, it'll be the year after that. Someone else gets, you know, it'll be broken by a 19 year old college girl. You know, that's fine with me, but, get just enough attention to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, like I, I got hey, I made a really cool running program, and this proved it was legit, so. Yeah. no, but it it's, for me, it's just like I said, I'm. I started running. It was like 31 or 32, and, like, you know, it's I don't, I don't have any outwardly competitive aspirations towards it, but inwardly I'm like savagely so because it's, I, I expect a constant, you know, like a relentless forward momentum on some aspect, you know, like life happens and obstacles come up, you get injuries, you lose loved ones, you get all these things that happened. But taken on the whole, like I, I prefer to look at life as just one endless chance to kind of evolve across the spectrum. And I've just been very lucky to find ultrarunning and specifically wilderness ultrarunning. That kind of checked a lot of the boxes I needed as opposed to like 1 or 2. And, so that's, that's kind of what I go in. I'm like, oh, if I can go in and just have a really cool time with, you know, like my crew is all made up of my family and, you know, my wife, my friends. And so it's like, you know, with some people that I love and go out there and just really like, do some constructive, productive and constructive suffering and, maybe do a cool thing or two for some other people to find value in, you know, accidentally in the process. And that's cool with me. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. I think, like, with the respect to the Marathon Monks, it's like I was trying to like my first thought was like trying to get into, like, what their purpose is with it. And it is one of those things where I think, you know, you have a group of people. Well, maybe I should back up. You have let's take modern, especially modern Western society. And there's just so much stimulus that is around us that is like you can sort of like you could go your whole life without even asking, why am I here? Like, it's that absurd. But then you have these groups of people, like the marathon monks, where they really seem to just like. Have one big question, and that's sort of like transcendence and like, what is the meaning of this? Why are we here? And they're just continually pushing their, their body, maybe to like a state where their mind almost is like it sounds almost like they're trying to force themselves into like another, like almost spiritual dimension in their mind. So they're exploring these different, different worlds, almost like this sort of activity. Because I can't imagine they're not just like that. They're not getting these massive hallucinations and almost these, like, drug-like euphoria is when they're doing these sorts of activities. So you actually nailed it on the head. So one of my closest friends is the Buddhist monk and he is, pretty good friends with, one of the guys who's been a monk from Mount Hazen. He hasn't done the challenge, but he's one of the monks at the mountain, you know what I mean? And or at the monastery, rather. And he was essentially like, I was asking him like, what kind of what the guy was like and what it just looked like at the very normal, mundane things. Not how do you train your thing, but like, you know, just kind of what he was like. And, he's saying he's just, like, mostly occupying somewhere else, like he's mostly somewhere else, you know, like he's if you talk to him, he's intelligent and clear, you know, like, he's not like druggy or dopey, but like, you can tell he's he's doing something else somewhere else. And I think they really, I think they just cultivated a massive spiritual reality. and I think that they, they choose to reside in that more than this physical world, much in the same way that like from a destructor, you know, like, Jonathan Height was just, just released some stuff, you know, he's really constantly talking about, juveniles getting lost in like, Digital World with their phone. And he released some information charting, like the effects on the human brain from the 80s and 90s, which showed like, you know, we had video games, kids played them, you know, very minimal, almost no negative impact on the brain. And then all of a sudden these like hyper realistic, hyper specific reality based games. And then immediately it started changing the human brain. I think much like, you know, on the negative side of things, we have people that hide in these false realities. You also, you know, that can work. That can work. The blade cuts more than one way. And you could essentially just create a route, a reality built around this, the spiritual pursuit of knowledge. And, you know, use an overused catch term, enlightenment. and really just kind of put all of your eggs in that basket, so to speak. And that's my perception. Yeah, yeah. And then the big question then becomes, are they doing like the meaningful version of like the kids playing The Sims, I guess, or whatever the modern version of that is. And, and and where's that sort of like, is there a better payoff for them? Is that sort of like, okay, well, they've accessed some spiritual dimension and they're setting themselves up for some afterlife with that versus like the person who complacently sits there in some online world and just wastes their life away there and then there's really no payoff at the end other than just like, okay, now you're gone. Yeah, yeah, but digital tokens, no, I think, I mean, naturally, I can't speak to the afterlife part of it. Right. But my, My perception is that, I mean, in short, yeah, I think that's probably the actually it's probably the best description I've ever heard of, of what they're doing. But the way that I conceptualize it to me, my mundane brain is like, I've, I've, since I got sober six years ago. I meditate on mindfulness, basic mindfulness like your Sam Harris, you know, app and practice has been my staple of my routine. And every now and then, like, I've had, like, very clear insights and views and, you know, like, same thing when I've done psychedelics in the past, you've had, like, very clear moments of ego death where you're just like, you're viewing this mountain and you see a mountain you don't see like a mountain through the eyes of a human, you know, like just these small, these small moments and glimpses. And so I conceptualize that as essentially they're just diving deeper and deeper into a world of that, whether in pursuit of those moments or just living in one endless, you know, moment like that. I'm not sure. But that's what I get. And also it's like, and we get the same thing over. We do like, you know, when the highs, the high like there is no high or high from drugs life or anything outside of like, you know, maybe the birth of your child or something that you're going to feel, then you are when you hit your eight mile 89 and you just hit a surge, you know what I mean? Like everything like your electrolytes, your fuel, everything is lined up, your body's intact, and you just hit a surge and you're like, oh, I'm going to go on a run. Like the feeling that I had running that 830 900th mile at that last hundred mile race, which was my fastest mile of the event, I believe, was just like that. I got to assume it's that and just more, you know. Yeah, yeah. You see. Yeah, it is when you start thinking of it that way. And I think it's also something where you can sort of see. How they're able to continue. If you put yourself into that scenario where, yeah, think of the most euphoric you've been during an ultramarathon or a race or an event where you're just in that absolute flow space where you just would like nothing more for it just to continue. Yeah, it's almost like they get into that state and they're just like, okay, now I got to kind of stay in here. Yeah. And they managed to do it. And that's maybe how they get through the 52 day settings. So that's like and again I'm aware this could be like the ultra runner child in me. Just like creating a fantasy, like, you know, the ultimate ultra runner's fantasy. You just live in that loop. But like, it is more or less kind of what I see. And I mean, like, whatever feedback it is, it's enough to keep them there. It's enough to kill, you know, a lot of guys are willing to die for it. You know, like when you guys open. I saw you when I wrote my first book. I touched on the ultra marathon monks, and at the time, I was consuming everything I could find related to them. And I found it old. And I believe it was a BBC, or maybe it was a European documentary on them, and they actually interviewed this guy who had been an office worker and just walked away. They called him a salaryman. He had been a salaryman. He walked away and just randomly one day just felt unfulfilled and empty. And he just walked away from that life entirely, shaved his head, became like a, you know, a monk disciple or whatever, and worked his way up. And they were like talking to him. And essentially he was just kind of relatable for me and certain strands of this. But he was just saying, like he felt essentially like a vessel or like it's a hollow thing, like going through the motions and his old life like it had no actual deeper meaning, no substance to it. And, that's something I think, you know, a lot of people in our world are going to be able to relate to. And so, and to be fair, Japan does have a very long history and reputation for, like, extreme corrections for things, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I saw something recently that's like they have a whole subculture of people. It's like there's a name for it and everything of people who, like, just decided to, like, disengage entirely from society. Like they had, like, failed marriages, deaths or something like that. I saw it on Instagram and I was reading about it. I was like, but yeah, they essentially just look like, no, we're good. Like walking away. Like just becoming like a ghost society within a society. And I'm like, that's I mean, dramatic but like fascinating, you know. So, you know. Yeah. It's almost like when you think the I think the, the kind of maybe human nature or modern society way of looking at some of the stats for what they're doing. It's easy to maybe think like, well, how are they motivating themselves? How are they like staying, you know, in it and kind of continually going back day after day when it seems kind of like and like you were saying before, it's like once you start here for now, you're now you're in it like there's no turning back. Yeah. And I wonder, I wonder how much of it is just we're looking at the wrong way. I don't suspect these monks are just like David Goggins. Through these four years, they're there. And to be honest, I doubt that Goggins is either. I think he's probably getting some sort of, like, pay off that we're not necessarily associating with what he's doing, where it's like on the surface, watching it, it looks an awful lot like punishment. But when you hit that kind of transcendent spot, it becomes rewarding. And then that reward is what's actually motivating to keep coming back. It's almost like the video game dopamine hit. Like on the surface. You could sit there back and watch this kid or adult just waste hours and hours a day playing a video game. Like, how are they staying motivated to do that? How are they staying focused? How are they staying awake? How are they staying alert? And it's like, oh, well, they found a way to digitally tap that dopamine button over and over and over again. And these guys are just doing it kind of, I guess, the natural way. There is that. And also speaking from my experience, transformation is it's, it's, it's own like you can reveling in your own transformation is its own thing. Like, I assume that Goggins I imagine that I perceive that to be part of the same thing with him, and not in an unhealthy way. Or it's the same thing with me, but it's, like watching the old self die on the new self born. Whether you're a drug addict or you're a fat guy like Goggins was, or whether you're a, you know, a guy who leaves his salary job behind to shave his head and become a, you know, a monk on a mountain. Yeah, I think you're I mean, I think that there is and rightfully so, like, there's honor for, you know, for lack of a more modern word, there's honor and a sense of purpose in that. That's probably going to be pretty hard to replicate. from traditional inputs, you know what I mean? At least that's what I mean, for me, you know, like a lot of times. And maybe that's something that I draw on too. And, you know, when it seems like you get to kind of some of the more undesirable mundane parts of the endurance stuff, like making and breaking a tent or collecting water when you're doing 50 mile days, really, you just want to, like, sit there, put CBD on your feet and eat a meal of rice and chicken and be fatal for four hours before you move on, you know? because for me, honestly, those are the, the, the challenging parts for me, it's not generally the output. It's like I really, really, really don't want to tape each of my toes and then go walk down to that stream and collect and purify this water and then bring it back and boil it and cook, you know, like, and then I don't want to break my tent, you know, but it's like those are the moments if I like the only times I really have to talk to myself at those moments and it's not like, hey, keep going. It's nothing motivational. It's like, hey, come on, stop being a child. Like, clean your room, brush your teeth, you know? Yeah, those like, it really is for me. So but so outside of that, outside of that, I think the transformation alone is its own currency. Something to consider. Yeah. And I think it seems like there's something about the physical breakdown, too. And this maybe leads into the fueling side of things with these, with these monks because like with, for listeners who are unaware, like they're eating very little like it's like less than 2000 calories. It is in, in a day. And I mean, think of 52 miles like, yeah, 52 miles. One day on 2000 calories. You're going to be fine. Yeah, but you gotta do 100 days in a row that's going to cause some problems. yeah. Just so just a quick overview to my to my understanding, we're looking at. Yeah. So calories are right in there. I'm not sure if there's any meaningful fluctuation day to day or if it's like a sit down in the chow hall. Have the same exact meal every day. But long story short, they're not. They're eating, you know, a fraction less than half of what you would advise, even like a smaller slider athlete with a pretty efficient metabolism to eat. Additionally, it's all vegetarian. Their diet is almost entirely tofu, vegetables, noodles, rice, and then the one saving grace that's got to make a huge difference is the milk. They do consume a good amount of milk, which is from like a, you know, amino profiling perspective and, you know, like, just like the milk's got to be huge. I'm a huge milk drink. It's one of the main things I drink when I run ultras. Milk and ginger ale. but the, like, outside of that, like you said, it's not it's not a lot like. And this isn't this isn't, you know, like, we're not just spitballing here, like, you can go online. I mean, when I was doing my initial research, I watched the meals, I watched them eating meals. And it's like a, you know, a bowl of tofu soup, like, you know, like some things here, some things there. And it's it's not what I would I mean, it's less than, you know, like their entire day is probably about, about a pretty solid meal for me honestly. Yeah. Yeah. No that's what I was thinking too. I when I saw the, the list of what they were eating, I was like oh yeah that's one meal. Yeah. And not even an insane training day either. Like no typical one. So like no. Yeah. It's seriously you can I mean for anyone interested you can go on YouTube type decent, you know, just pull up. I can't remember the name of it off my head. It's been a few years, but there's the main like, main old school documentary on it. You can watch them at meal time and you're like, oh my God, that's I mean, it's, you know, it looks like a pretty balanced, nutritious meal, to be fair. But like, you know, from a vegetarian perspective, but like, not like you said, that's, that's that's an entire day of eating, you know, like that's a solid meal. Yeah. Maybe, maybe a post-run meal on a run day. Yeah. You know. Yep, yep. Yeah. And so that makes me think like what is there. Because I mean obviously they're breaking down tissue like their body is breaking down. They're losing weight during these things. And some of it almost feels like I'd be curious what they're actually doing on the non running sections. Because if you think about this like year one is 100 days 19 miles. Well, you know, there are 265 other days there. So to some degree I'd love to see what they look like. They must be gaining some weight back and sort of almost like setting themselves up to be ready for the next year to some degree. I can't imagine they're eating a ton of food if they're only getting what they're getting on active days. But, you know, it's going to be a little bit different at least. But yeah, it makes me think about the physical breakdown where there's almost this, like the opposite reaction on the like, mental spiritual side of things, where it's like the more broken down you get, the more you're transcending. And how much of that has to play into it where there's the other physical breakdown of actually doing what they're doing, but also their body breaking down from just not actually getting enough food to necessarily fuel the activities that they're producing. Yeah. So I do think that's why they schedule it the way they do too. It's like, I don't think these guys have any shyness away from mental challenges, but I think it's like you do 100, 100 days of this year, 100 days of this year to give your body that time to not just heal, but also to like, super compensate and adapt. And I think honestly, what we should do is probably the best parallel to look at from the nutritional standpoint would be like your faster paced PCT hikers maybe and you see them, you know what I mean? Like someone who does the PCT and 100 miles, like that'd be a pretty good or 100 days rather would be a pretty good parallel to look at. Of course, being a piece of PCT trash myself, I can tell you that we stop it in every town along the way, and we eat hamburgers made from donuts and we eat literally like ice cream floats and such, so it's there. But it would be essentially like, go do the PCT in 100 days. Any 1800 calories of vegetarian diet and nothing else along the way. You know what I mean? And no cheat meals. It's not like they're hitting 7-Eleven up every time they want. Like that ho ho Slurpee combo that gets you through mile 36, you know? Yeah, yeah. So I think that would kind of be a way to look at it. And to be fair, like at different points I've been on the PCT, I have seen like I saw this one kid. He was a Eastern European college kid from Slovakia who was like for a day and a half. He was hiking and he kept what he was like in my rearview mirror for like a day and a half somehow. And I don't know how I never saw him run a single step. And I think he was just mostly doing it off ramen packets, because we saw when I first met him at. No, seriously, when I first met him at a watering hole, he was just there, like literally this little camp making a ramen packet. And I'm, like, filling up water bottles and mixing scratch recovery. And, you know, like all, you know, all these different things and, and. Yeah, and he I think it was, it wasn't until like the next afternoon when I finally liked, like peak over my head and he wasn't there anymore. And I was like, yeah, I think, I think the fit is like most of these guys are going to be physically not huge human beings. You know, most Japanese for this. I mean, the average Japanese man is going to be smaller than the average American man. They're also Essentially. I mean, at some form or another, you have to assume the physiological adaptations to a low calorie existence have already started. You know, just being basic monks, like, you know what I mean? The second they get there, that's got to start. So it's not like they, you and me are eating steak one night and then they expect us to go. Do you know what I mean? 100, 115, 100, 170 K's back to back to back and on, you know, minimal vegetarian calories. So you have to consider that, you know, they're not bodybuilders. They're smaller guys. They're metabolically adapted to the low calorie existence. Before you get the inputs of the mass of mileage, the mileage itself is lower intensity. It's consistent. You get the time, but you know, you get to the next 200, you know, 265 days of the year as recovery days. And in essence, what I do want, I mean, like all of all of that, it's insane. But it makes it physiologically possible in my brain. What I wonder about is, how are you doing this without strength conditioning? Like how, you know, how are your joints staying together? How are you? How were you standing? And just forget running or walking? How do you stand that long without your lower back? Just like you know what I mean. And how are you doing it? In rope sandals. Yeah. Yeah. It makes you wonder that because I know when you look at kind of their routine and I was kind of referencing this kind of in the beginning too. It's like they're not just sort of rinsing and repeating the, the, the hiking side of things. They're like they're doing like temple chores and they're going to services. I imagine the services aren't anything physically demanding, but the temperatures might be. So maybe they're getting a little bit of strength and conditioning through that. But yeah, I wonder the same thing too, because, you know, when your body's breaking down like that. yeah. Being strong going into it or having a strength program is going to just mean, you don't have to look any further than the protein requirements for somebody who's doing resistance training versus the protein requirements for someone who isn't in terms of preserving lean body mass with the weight loss. And it's pretty impressive to the degree where the resistance training is probably more important than the protein to a degree. Or maybe another way to look at it. You can get the low end of the protein requirement if you interject with resistance training and a calorie deficit versus optimal protein calorie deficit. No resistance training. You want the resistance training lever just as much as you do the high protein. So yeah you know yeah you it makes you wonder how they're how they're doing that it is I mean it's not uncommon like, you know, monasteries throughout Asia and China even, you know, India, look at yoga are known for, you know, frequently having like a mobility discipline of some sort maybe, you know, maybe not. I'm sure they don't call it that. But like, you know, these, these basic, basically meditative positions and, you know, stretches and stuff. I just don't know. I would love to, though. I'd love to see what, what they're doing that's keeping their body together through that. Especially as touching on the protein like, and physical degradation, like, you know, a normal person needs this much protein. You know, a person's resistance training needs this much. But a person with high volume endurance training who wants to maintain muscle needs more than either one of them. You know what I mean? and so it's like. It's fascinating and I definitely will take the opportunity if I get a chance to go visit or to interview one for sure, because just you got to, you know, there's so many things. I would be curious about the physical stuff, but that probably represents 20 to 30% of my questions. Like, you know, the lion's share would go into just like, what did going on in your head and during this situation and this situation and how long after nine days of no food with very minimal water, to the point where you're so weak can barely make it to a well? Are you recovered? Well, you know, like, how long after that are you recovered? What's that recovery cycle like? What's your physiology? What are your bio patterns like throughout the year? Like, you know, in the hundred versus the 265 versus. You know what I'm like just anyway, so many, so many things. But most of them would honestly be my mindset related. Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest hurdle with having to just say a reporter go over there because the one thing I found interesting is I was like looking into some stuff there is like there's just like you're saying that again, there's not a lot of information. And I mean, there's decent information, but a lot of it's repetitive. So you sort of like you can watch or read like ten different things and you sort of get the same information ten times. And I wonder, like, there's just so much stuff here where there may be a fairly big disconnect between communication, where they're actually able to tell you what they're experiencing because like, how many of us have a reference point that they would actually be able to connect with, they're telling us to in the first place. So sometimes I wonder if that's the biggest bottleneck for like some of these big organizations that would maybe make a story out of this is like, how do we actually connect the 99% of the people we want to reach with this, that are going to have zero experiences in life that can actually relate to what this person's talking about? Yeah, I was going to say it's different to have Barbara Walters in that story than Dean Karnazes. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, he could go, you know, like like you said like. Context. Context is everything. The, I mean, yeah, it's I mean, you can guarantee there's some disconnect for sure just because, I mean, there's a pretty large baseline disconnect between Japanese and American people in general. And having grown up that I'm an expert in it, but having grown up in a Japanese American house, like I can tell you that much for sure, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's pretty mind boggling to me to think just like, you know, everything that kind of goes into this and, and some of it I think is just like, yeah, lifestyle differences is, you know, you you have a different connection point to just existence. And unless you were like growing up in that one, although, I mean, you're, you're talking about I watched that video of the guy who kind of just like, totally like abandoned his, his, his office job and then went into this. But but even then, I think you're what you said before about maybe even just like cultural differences between Japan and the United States is you still you you do have that very kind of more regimental kind of orderly design around things, too, that may feed into something like this a little bit better, even if you're coming off of a more modernized version of Japan. It is. And yeah, yeah, just to be clear, I make that reference because I'm my perception, limited as it is, is that we're dealing with a very rare, ancient strain of Japanese thinking, you know, but yeah, there's a continuity of that, obviously, in the modern culture, which just honestly fascinates me. Everything from, you know, the kaizen mindset to ikigai, the process for finding your purpose in life, which is essentially to identify what you're good at, identify what you enjoy doing, identify what the world needs, and identify one other point. Basically, you look at where they all, you know, essentially, you fill each circle up with definitions and then see where they overlap. I love stuff like that. And I love simplified reading, like you said, regimental processes for things, especially when they're highly efficient and productive productivity oriented. Yeah. But. Yeah. So. And, long story short, I think that that, it I mean, clichés aside, it's just, I think just think through that committed I think that they are getting feedback, you know, a positive feedback off of this. I mean, how could you not? I mean, that's it's just that's it's epic. And I've always personally, myself been drawn to like, acts of, absolute commitment to a thing. And it's probably because I'm incapable of thinking about myself, like, I find 4 or 5 different things interesting, and I want to like, you know, I want to like, I do them all at one time, a little bit. But like when I look at someone like, have you ever gotten into, like, martial arts at any point? I didn't know, so it's like, using jiu jitsu guys specifically. Like, there's a few of, like, the older school guys, like, you know, from Brazil who, like, lived very much, like monkish sort of existences. And they specifically would like focus on one aspect of the game, like they'd be proficient, obviously, but they would focus on one aspect of the game and just become like a hyper specific expert in it, you know, and just this one, you know, the guard play or the the guard pass or whatever it was. And so you would see these guys kind of like in an almost Jiro Love sushi sort of way, like dedicating a 40 year Jiu-Jitsu career to like one exact thing. And I always thought, like, whenever I saw that, I would think two things. The first is like, that is fascinating, and the second is like, oh my God, I can never get me out of here. I can't even think about this, but just all the energy drains from my body. I'm like, oh my God. but I think it's amazing. And I think that's what it is. But I'm also curious, like what? What's recruitment like these days? What's recruitment that's happened to recruitment over the last hundred years? You know. Yeah, it can get harder and harder to find guys willing to do that right. No doubt. Just live that life. Yeah. I think they were referencing that on one of the documentaries I watched where it was like they're sort of alluding to like is this the end, is this the last one kind of type of a messaging. There. Because yeah you just don't have a huge, huge drive to go to that. I mean, it's just so, so far removed from, from the starting point you almost need. You probably almost need a series of things getting bad enough where you get more people. Like that last guy who completed it that you were talking about, where he quit his job and went in and just was like, all right, this has got to be better. You don't care how miserable this looks from a modern standpoint. That's got to be better. And then I'm going to figure that out one way or the other. And they dived in. But you know, it makes me wonder kind of like what you're saying about that narrow focus of just like, I'm just going to master this one thing. And I think we'll probably get into this with some of the other topics we do in future episodes. For some of these ancient endurance societies, when I think about it is like, I mean, we're so far removed, you actually probably can appreciate this better than I can because you've actually done things like go out back, Country Hunt and stuff like that. But like when you take someone who's lived in a city their whole life and they don't do any of that stuff, like the idea for them to like, go out and survive off the land is just such a far disconnect. Like, they're not even going to last a day, right? But you take someone who's born in that and lives in it and it's like. Yeah. It's harsh, it's difficult. But you're really focused on just a handful of things, like you're focused on water, food, acquisition, shelter and then anything that's left over some like relationship type stuff like yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not like, oh, did I pay the gas bill? Oh wait. We got to take the car to the auto shop. Oh the kids get picked up at three. All of that is like thousands of little things that just like Nick, get you constantly but are trivial to do. It's very easy for any one of them, but there's just millions of them in our modern society. You get all of that out of there and you're just kind of like you're focusing on survival essentially. Yeah. And you, I wonder. Yeah. Go ahead, go ahead. No, I was gonna say you just sum that up really well. And it just as you were talking about, I was like, God, my wife's a saint because I just, I disappear. And I was just like, like sometimes an hour's notice just into the mountains and, you know, back and sleeping with dogs and family, you know, all the things. And, so, yeah, I was just, I had a, I had a, marital gratitude moment there when you were talking about that. But no, you're right, man, it is. That, the same thing, I mean. I mean, what would we experience? The same thing as endurance athletes, too? It's like just that constant check loop of where's my fueling at? Where's my where are my injuries at? Where is my stride at? Where's my breathing at? Repeat. You know when you know when you know, what do I need to top off at the next aid station, you know, mentally rehearse real quick what I'm going to do when I go up there, you know, go through it once or twice. All right? And then your brain just repeats that simple, beautiful, peaceful, quiet loop indefinitely, you know? but at the end, it's the same thing. Food, water, shelter, repeat. And then the thing I like about it, though, is when I find myself getting excited over Little thing, it's like I would like, like 3 or 4 days in, I could whoop for joy if I find a really good campsite, like I'm a quiet person, like actually a quiet person. And I could just be like, literally whooped for joy because I found a campsite that has boulder shelter on one side, no widowmaker trees that might fall like water. Water just down the hill, like, no, you know, all these things in a nice view. And I'm just like, oh my God, the decaf coffee or the hot chocolate I drink tonight in my little gas heated mug is just going to be awesome. And, Like one time. Yep. And so I mean you know they say gratitude. Everything comes back to gratitude. And you know the guy who's probably, you know, more than one time over shouldn't be here right now. I'm, I'm forced to agree with that because it's, those, you know, those are the moments, I think, when we're most present. And I think that just running, you know, ultra running alone really creates a fertile ground to kind of experience those and connect with those. And we're not even doing, you know, shrine visits and meditative, you know, retreats and, you know, all the crazy fasting stuff. So, again, bringing it back to them, I think it really they're just getting a bigger dose. They're getting the, you know, the bigger, the bigger, less diluted dose of what we're getting, you know, and they've just built an existence around it. Someone. It's crazy that someone figured that out, you know, 900 years ago to. They're just like, nah, we're just we're just going to do you guys go fight for kingdoms and, you know, do your thing. We're just supposed to be over here. We're just going to do some laps, like forever, you know? Yeah, yeah, it has to be. It has to be better than this. We. It can't be just warfare and invading and all that. Yeah, yeah. Society kind of goes through those sort of cycles to some degree and then different, you know, the world is big enough where, yeah, it's all happening at the same time somewhere. Yeah. I mean, I guess I couldn't really criticize that given the fact my earliest chance, I moved to a small house in a small mountain area, and then literally I just do eight mile loops around a mountain lake all day long. And that's pretty much my, my life outside of, you know, writing the occasional book and filming the occasional, social media stuff down at Mark bills Super Training or wherever I'm at, you know. Yeah. But yeah. Oh, by the way, I mean, unrelated, but I saw, I was, getting caught up on some of your podcast episodes and, I was or maybe this was supposed to be. Anyway, I saw one of your strength and conditioning routines lately. recently. Dude, I was like, this is Zach's a beast, dude. Like a weight room beast. That was, like, serious. Like serious. I was like, that's like. I mean, I lift a decent amount of weight through a lot of GPP, and I was like, that dude, that'd be a workout for me to get through. Damn. Yeah, yeah. You know, I've really gotten, you know, actually, my strength work for me has been an interesting component because. You know, I got into it actually, in kind of high school. I was all like, it took me a little bit of an evolution to really go all in on running. So, you know, I was pretty typical as a kid where I was like, oh, you know what? It's probably cooler to be strong than it is to be weak. And so like doing strength work and then like alongside cross country and stuff like that was something I kind of picked up on. I remember when, like my sophomore year in high school, and then I kind of stepped away from it a little bit here and there as I took running a little more seriously. But then my freshman year of college or actually my sophomore year of college, I was injured for the entirety of the indoor and outdoor track season. It was Achilles tendonitis, so I couldn't do any running, and even the bike was aggravating it, so I couldn't do that either. So I just went to the weight room and would just strength train and stuff. And I actually got my my, I haven't talked about this too much, but like, I got my bench press up to like two, I did £235, and I was only £140 too. So it was like a legit bench press. You were hitting two plates at that size. That's legit. I actually remember one day I was with one of my cross-country and track teammates. He was working in the gym as one of his favorite kinds of jobs during college, and I hadn't been at practice in a meaningful way in weeks. It was actually getting close to being able to return to running. So I'm in there working out and he's in there is this kind of quiet and I put like, I think I put like £185 on the bench press. And I was doing like reps of like, I think I was doing reps of 5 or 6 or something at the time. And he sees me put it on there and he's like, this is just a bad situation because he's thinking of me. I was just like this runner friend that he's had. He's like, he comes over there, he's nice about it. He's like, hey, man, you want me to spot you? I'm like, sure, spot me. And I rep it out. And he's just like, dude, how did you do that? I like that, but you know, I did have I got into bench pressing from probably more aesthetic reasons than anything in high school as kind of like one of the things I would just kind of do a little more consistently. And I bought like a used bench press from a buddy and would would do that consistently enough to kind of maintain a decent amount of strength with it. So then when I got injured from running, it wasn't. It wasn't, you know, a too big of a bar to get up to that, but, but, yeah, you know, so, you know, back to the original thing, like, you know, I, I've definitely kind of ebb and flow and how seriously I took strength training over my more professional running career. But, you know, I'm 38 now and, I've had enough injuries in the last few years compared to, like, what was relatively an injury free career up until that point. For the most part, other than a couple issues that Achilles tendon won for being one of them. that, like, strength work is just a non-negotiable for me now. Like it is as important when I was in my mid 20s, early 30s, it'd be like, you know what? I really don't feel like doing strength. Like, I'm going to go for an extra run now. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. If the strength work is on the program that's getting done, and if you still feel like going for a run after that, maybe question it. But it's you're getting the strength work in first. So, I put a lot of attention into that the last couple of years. Yeah. I enjoy running obviously more than I like. I like being strong. I can lift a decent amount of weight. but I like it. Yeah, just being out on the trail like an unstructured run to me is the apex of exercise, like, essentially, I love, you know, like, like the martial arts stuff. I like lifting. I like, different types of lifting and, like, you know, and all that stuff, but, yeah, it just like a couple snacks in my pocket, a good bottle on my hand, you know what I mean? It's good. And. Yeah. And just put me in, like a good trail and, you know, somewhere, somewhere beautiful and that I really don't care, you know, like, nothing else is going to match that for me. But I gotta lift the second I get done with this call, I gotta go vote and then come back and lift, you know, new legs tonight. So it's like, you know, it is what it is, but I'm pretty good. I keep my vault, like, volume pretty low. sorry. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say, like, I probably should let you go here pretty soon, because I know you've been going for a while, but it's been fun to know. Yeah, I, I kind of like the format of chatting about the, a variety of stuff on top of kind of the main topic. Yeah. Well, you know, this thing like, you know, you know, these things, they branch out and organic conversation. But also it's like it's not, not so, you know, not fun to be regimented. I'm, I tend to kind of approach everything with a more informal view. I kind of, my guys tell me I'm kind of, I guess the opposite of, like, the David Goggins type, but, like, I think that, like, if you're going to do a hard thing, it's generally better to do it with a smile and a, you know, an informal, some informal banter and, like, you know, I probably wouldn't be a great politician or something like that, but, you know, it's like, why not? So, you know, me, your buddies might as well just chat and let everyone, you know, we talk about interesting stuff, but everyone else, you know, get in on it. We'll occasionally steer it where we want to, but I thought we did a good job of addressing the marathon most. I don't I don't think I missed anything either that I, I intended to get to. Yeah, no, I was. I was glad you shared kind of some of that intro stuff. That was really interesting. I hadn't gotten nearly that in-depth with kind of just the surrounding areas or anything when I was looking into it. So, was the trip fun to hear? Cool. Yeah, I'll try to get into it. I mean, on the off chance that there's a person somewhere on, you know, somewhere in this wide world that's actually interested in hearing more about that. I'll try to learn more and get into it in the next book. I'm trying to get my book out by Christmas or so, but. And that and I guess that plug, I'm working on a book about the history of warrior training. Spoiler alert: running is pretty much the main way warriors trained in strength stuff. They did this, you know, something like the Vikings and the Maori did like rowing as opposed to running because they were maritime people, but always comes back to the running because you can't fight someone if you can't get there and get away if things go wrong. yeah. Yeah. Brother in the books December who said yeah I'm looking at December. It's just it's literally just called preparing for war. How the greatest warriors in history trained. It's aiming to be like a hundred pages, highly consumable so anyone can pick it up or put it down. but, yeah, I keep just coming up, you know, it's like I'm the Apache. It's the Navajo. This time it's the San Bushmen. It's Robert Murray who I believe we're going to get to pretty soon to like it. Yeah. You know, it just always comes back. Always comes back to running, you know. Right on. Well that's cool. Hopefully the listeners will get on that book and get themselves a Christmas present. That sounds good. It'd be a good one. It will not disappoint. Where else can people find you James I know you've got other resources out there. Oh, yeah. We're on. You know, I'm the normal one. do most of my stuff on Instagram. Have a YouTube channel now that's grown pretty good. And, we do have a decent amount of running content on there. Both the historical breakdowns and conversations with, you know, my runners. Some of the things that I've, I've done, there's the, the documentary from, my run across the hottest desert on Earth in spring, Sonora. And, you know, any of that? Many of the stuff we talked about today sounds interesting. Find me on, anywhere on social media, you'll probably find more of what you like. Cool. It's all Wild hunt conditioning. All Wild hunt conditioning. Right on. I'll definitely link that in the show notes, too, so people can click over easily. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. James. Well, I'll let you get to that strength, that strength session and voting and everything that goes into the rest of your day. All right. Thanks. Talk soon. Take care.