Episode 431: Ultra Run Across Texas with Matt Johnson

Ultra Runner, Matt Johnson got into running in 2020 after discovering a love for the sport following a difficult youth, and a career in the National Guard. Since, he has built a successful Instagram channel that blends competitiveness and humor. He took his love of running across the State of Texas, an 841 mile journey in 17 days, raising awareness for ValorFit.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 Introduction to the Human Performance Outliers Podcast

00:10:48 Fundraising Challenges During a Live Stream

00:20:37 The Challenge of Small School Sports Programs

00:31:00 From Rural Beginnings to Competitive Running

00:41:41 Clash Between Professional Runners and Influencers

00:52:14 Running Across Texas: The Initial Idea

01:04:10 Planning the 841 Mile Cross Texas Run

01:13:32 Fueling The 841 Mile Cross Texas Run

01:23:42 Training Consistency and Progress

01:33:45 HPO Sponsors Discounts & Descriptions

Episode Transcript:

I wanted to have you on just to kind of talk about some of the stuff that you've been up to. especially the run across Texas, because I really get interested in the multi-day stuff now. I was going to run across the country back in 2021, and I got injured right before, right before, like the last phase of training. But too close, to really justify going after the goals I was going to. So I had to cancel that. And one of the things I kind of recognized through that process was that I probably had to do a different approach in preparation for it. So since then, I plan to do it at some point. But I also know, like, I don't think I can do what I'm currently doing and just kind of shoe horn that in there. I think it has to be something where, all right, you've got the Hunter modeling stuff out of the system. Now focus on something like that and do some intermediate stuff in the in between too. So I've talked to a bunch of people who've done transcon done like Pacific Crest, Appalachian Trail type stuff. So these really long kind of transcon type sessions, but less with like those intermediate ones where, like, how long did it take you to go across Texas with 17 days? Yeah. 17 days. Eight hours, 54 minutes, I believe. Okay. But like, we finished on the 18th day, so like, yeah, it was like 18 days. But once the Strava, you know, once they all did it, it ended up going back because I guess. Sure. Because yeah. Which was funny to me because we did it in you know, because when you start on the 18th day then they're like, oh you only did eight hours within the 18th day. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, okay. 16 hours on the board. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that was like that was kind of cool because I was like, oh man. Like faster than I thought. Yeah, yeah. With my like hours. And so I was like okay. I was like, that's cool. But yeah. Yeah. So it, yeah, it was yeah. 17 days, eight hours or so minutes. Yeah. So I think there's a lot to learn with those intermediate ones where you can avoid a bunch of mistakes that could cost you being able to get across the country. So I think I probably need to do some of that before kind of jumping from single day ultra all the way up to, okay, now I'm running 40 plus days. Yeah, the run across America is like that. Obviously after I did the Texas event, like so many people were like, when are you going to do that? They're like, hey, like like it was never like, hey, what's next? It was like, hey, this is next. And to me, you know. I just like, like I love, I love my life and I love how I do, you know, I, I do business, I do coaching, I do, you know, I talk to brands, I create content, I, I think I'm an elite runner. You know, I have so many, so many hats that I wear that I don't. I don't think I would want to be out there for 50 to 60 days. Yeah. That's actually one of the reasons why I haven't put it back on the schedule yet, because like since then, I've built out my coaching business and like the podcast frequency and everything else. It's like it's hard to really block off what ends up being a couple of months. Yes. Yeah. And then and then getting it structured in a way where you have the right support to do it properly. Yes. And yeah. And the money and the money. So finding the partners that are gonna like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I don't know what it costs you to run across Texas, but it's probably three times as much to run across the country. Yeah. I mean, it ended up, you know, I was actually very transparent about how much it costs. And I felt like we didn't we didn't go above and beyond our means. Right. And I think we ended up spending $52,000. Okay. I think that we could have made some budget cuts to probably bring it down five, six, seven, probably 7 or 8000, which would bring us down to about 45. Okay. But like, still like 45,000, you know. No, actually it's not even talking about that $52,000 for 18 days. Yeah. It ends up being what a day I don't I don't know the math on that. But yeah almost 3000 I think. Right. Yeah. So so let's say yeah let's say 3000 a day for 60 days. Yeah. Is $180,000 okay. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Was that a lot of like film crew stuff? so media media expense was the biggest expense. Okay. But I do want to say this. And I'm not I won't, I won't, I won't say names here at all, but, there, you know, there like the run across America filming. You know, I have heard pitches of of six figures. Uh-Uh. Nowhere even near what, what we had for the run across Texas. I had a friend that filmed it, and and he was very, very nice to me. I found out afterwards. Yeah, yeah. You know, especially when we had another filmer come out, like when we, when we ended on, on the day and what he charged us what for one day like the day rate was lower than what my filmmakers day rate was the entire time. Yeah. Yeah. So it was higher. It was higher than than what my guy made being out there for 17 days, you know? So, Yeah, the number one expense was filming. number two was, was crew chief and, cook. So like I had and not I really don't want to say cook. I want to say RV driver. Sure, but but our RV driver was also our cook. Yeah. So he would he would wake up in the morning, he would whip up breakfast for everybody. And I mean, which was just like oats and stuff like that. And then would drive the RV to to mile 15, whip up a, you know, a brunch, and then drive to to 30 and whip up lunch, okay? And then drive to 50 and whip up dinner. Okay. So you know, I mean yeah. So and he was RV maintenance. He was so yeah, we had one guy that was like cook maintenance. Like he, he had probably the worst job of everybody. Uhhuh. then the next cost was flights for, crew. Right. Like, like if someone was going to come out and crew me, like I was covering their cost to get there. Yeah. gas. My mom, you know, I covered my mom's like she ran. She was at Midland, which is like five hours from Austin, five hours from El Paso. Yeah. And so she was running out left and right to, like, I mean, a lot to bring us this and bring us that. We needed this. Yeah. Food. I mean, yeah, there was so much, so much to break down there. Yeah. Yeah it does. It's one of those things where once you start unpacking you're like, oh yeah, there's this. Oh yeah, there's that. And it does add up pretty quick. Yeah, yeah. And the interesting thing too I think is like you have I mean the biggest expense being the film crew and stuff, but to some degree depending on how you structure that content. That probably pays for itself eventually to some degree, even if it's like I talked to Louis when I was going to run across the country, I was going to do it to raise funds for fight for the forgotten, and I met with some of their team and stuff, and they were saying like, yeah, if we can get a really good documentary out of this and then, you know, pitch it to Netflix or something like that, and, you know, it's going to cover that and then some, and then we'll hit like, I can't remember what our our fundraising goal was. It was pretty aggressive. I think it was going to be like almost $1 million as kind of like this target to try to get to. And, which is what we really sucked at. Yeah, some of it's just getting the word out for it too. Yeah. Because at that time I had liked Rogan potentially promoting it, which would have boosted the fundraising by, by a long shot. Sure. And then we ended up like we only raised 30% of what the goal was. Okay. What was your goal? My goal was 100 K okay. And we raised $30,000. Yeah. And it was just like there was I think, you know, we were so logistics and like trying to make sure everything was going to be fine. That's like we didn't really do a lot of promotion outside of Instagram. Like like we raised $30,000 off of Instagram that like that was it, you know, but like we didn't have any corporate matching. We didn't have any like we had nothing that like which honestly, I kind of take a little pride in because like that was raised off of $5 donations from, from people from. Yeah. From people like there was raised $30,000, but there were thousands of donations. Like it was $5. $10. Yeah. You know, cool thing. Nick bear was the largest donor. Randomly. Yeah. Just completely randomly woke up at 4:00 one morning and I had a text. Yeah, yeah, I had a text from him, and he's like, you know. Keep going. And I went in and I looked at it and was like, Nick Barron family. Yeah. so that was really cool. And, you know, just. Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's so many things I could have done differently. But yeah, it's one of those things. I think you almost got to do it again to really get everything right and optimize some of that. Especially hearing that from my like from drew. Right. Who did the content? And he's like, we wouldn't do this. We wouldn't do this. We wouldn't do this. Because he also played like content. He was one of two people there that knew about running, you know, and he played best friend and crew and you know, so he was like, we would do this and this and this and this different. We wouldn't do that. We would do this instead. Like, we already have a whole list. That's why we're kind of fired up about it. Yeah, yeah. You almost need like whoever the recipient is, if they have the setup for it to do just to take the responsibility of, okay, we're gonna really market the fundraising side of it. So like every day it could be something like contributing something per mile or something like that. So every day there's new messages going out. Yes. Creating new people coming in. Yeah. But yeah that's a whole nother person or whole nother like. Like thing you have to account for in order to kind of get that right, because I kind of had the same scenario when I did a treadmill hunter miler during the pandemic, and we're raising funds for that, and I was kind of surprised we didn't raise more, given kind of just the amount of attention. I mean, Burke Reiser came on the live stream, so it was like we had some pretty good reach with it. But, yeah, some of it's just I think when you like, I had probably way too much sponsorship type messaging in that because that's what kind of made it happen. And that sort of drowns out a little bit of the like, actually like the fundraising side, because they're getting hit with all sorts of other stuff. But we did, I mean, we had 22 brand partners. Yeah. So yeah. So sometimes that's because then you're worried about making sure. Yeah. But also at the same time how it's so hard. Right. Because it's like I had 22 brand partners that made it possible that I do it like. And this is where I think people get mixed up because I put it on Instagram. Right? Like, hey, we spent 52, we raised 30, and people were like, what the fuck? You know, like people were pissed, right? You know, I mean, people that like being caught that weren't following me, you know, like like, you know, those people that don't follow you and they just comment dumb shit. Well, they just see that number. They don't think in the past. But I'm like, I'm like, here's what you don't understand. These 22 brands assisted me in fulfilling my idea. That was a dream of mine. To then raise money for the veterans, right? Like they were, they assisted me in the funding to tell a story that was going to raise money for veterans because people were like, why didn't you just take the 52,000 and donate it? Right, because you needed it. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, yeah, because I need it. I need it to be able to tell the story. And what was I where I became okay with that with myself is trying to, you know, and I think for you as well with your, you know, with, with that live stream. Right. Whether you're putting sponsorship messages in there or not. How many people did you inspire by even doing it, let alone the money raised? Like, I mean, someone commented on my real yesterday and was like I was running down South Congress listening to your run across Texas playlist and it and it fired me up like, and that's what, six months ago. Yeah. You know and and she's still listening to like the playlist that I made during you know and and that's affecting her today and we were still able to raise money for veterans. So how many other people are out there getting fired up about stuff like that? We're six months down the road. Yeah, yeah. And I guess you're not necessarily tracking potential donations post hoc either, where it's like they get aware of the organization that you were supporting during it and now they're aware of it and maybe brand awareness. Yeah. Yeah. So there's probably a tail there. Yeah. Because it's like you said, I think I get people to reach out to me about the treadmill thing still. And it's been five, four years since I did that. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. But that's cool. Yeah. So. Maybe we jump back a little bit and rewind. Since running across Texas was relatively recent, you didn't just wake up one day and decide, oh, I'm gonna run across Texas. There's a whole story about you that got you to that point in the first place. You grew up in Iowa, right? Yeah. Okay. My grandpa, my grandparents and some of my family on my mom's side live in Guttenberg, Iowa. Okay, I don't know if you've heard of Guttenberg. Yeah. I was like, no, that's. Yeah, that's got to be another because I'm from a very, very like, you take a drone up and it's cornfield. Yeah. Like that's that's it. No stoplights. No. No nothing. Guttenberg is like, I think maybe 30 or 45 minutes outside of Dubuque. Okay. Right off the Mississippi River. So it's kind of down on that kind of east or east side part of the state. Yeah, but we're south central. Okay. So we were an hour south of Des Moines, okay. Just right, right smack dab in the middle. So it took about an hour and a half to get to the Missouri border. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that kind of area. There's Des Moines fun, but yeah, there's not a lot outside of that. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that Des Moines a lot like Des Moines has so much stuff to do, and I think it's because it's so damn cold. It's like September to April, it is freezing, and there has to be so much stuff for people to do because it's so cold. That's what I've come to like with Austin out here, right? We have so much stuff, but it's just like outdoor patios. Outdoor this outdoor that Des Moines got like cool stuff, you know, like I think about Smash Park, which is like indoor. Like even before it was cool. They had indoor pickleball back in like back in like 2020, you know I'm like and with a bar with a, like a Buffalo Wild Wings type bar with like a Dave and Busters like it's this massive compound facility of just cool stuff. but yeah, grew up, grew up in a small town in Iowa. joined the guard and then and then lived in Des Moines. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I wonder about, like, small towns and if they'll be, like, more interested in those in the future because we have with online and stuff now things are so global that we really miss an opportunity to kind of. Live locally to a large degree, but you get a lot more of that in the small towns where it's like, I mean, some of them you can go to. I'll never forget. I was driving through New Mexico right after the pandemic, and I went through this tiny little town just out of the middle of nowhere, and I'm just talking to this guy, and he's like, nobody here has been vaccinated or wore a mask or even really cared about the pandemic because it just hasn't ever gotten here. Yeah. It's like, okay, he's probably right. Like, I might have been the first person going through town that had been exposed to any of the Covid virus since, since that had happened. So it was just like a different world, almost. And that's obviously an extreme, but like, you get like smaller towns and I think you just get a little bit more of just like this attitude of like, oh, I'm just going to compete with the friends and the people at my school versus I'm going to try to compete at a global level or a national level right out the gate. And I think from just getting your feet wet and being able to explore and be curious about what you're interested in the first place versus thinking like, oh, that's what I have to do. And you're like planning to be an adult when you're like eight? Yeah, yeah. You know, for me it was like. It's like, I think I was different though, because. So I was born. This is a wild little story here, but like, I was born in small town Iowa, fifth grade, moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Okay, U of A yeah. Was there from fifth grade to 10th grade. 10th grade. Moved back to small town Iowa, back to where I grew up. All the same friends. Nothing had changed, but I had been gone for six years. So like now, my friends that I had seen, you know, that I had seen when I was in, you know, fifth grade are now like adults. Yeah. And you're like, whoa, you know, because you have a picture in your mind of, like, your friends. Yeah. And now they're like teenagers. Yeah. And so I remember that that was kind of funny to me. But, you know, so I had this experience of living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the college town, the South, and but, you know, so then I like going down there like, I had these aspirations, like, I was like, man, like, I want to play football at the U of A, I'm, you know, five foot tall, but but whatever. I want to play football. I want to go to the U of A, I want to go to college. and then like, I moved back to a small town and I like, tell all my friends that I remake, you know, all my dreams. And they're like, no, like, you need to go to the factory. We don't go to college, you know, because 3 a.m. was like 20 minutes down the road. That was the big factor. Yeah, yeah. And, Pella Corp.. Okay. Halo corporations. Windows. Pella, Iowa. Yeah. And Wyler, if you're familiar, Wyler is like big, big, road machinery. Okay. That's where everyone went. Those three factories like that, you graduated and you go work in the factory. Yeah. And I was like, I was, you know, I was like, oh, okay. You know, it's like my my dreams were crushed. Yeah. And so I went and I worked in the factory and I got fired from one, and I went to the other. I got fired from that one, I went to the other. Then I got fired from that one because I was just like, I was like, I didn't have any passion. Like I was like, I was like, I don't like this, right? And. Then I came across the military and I was like, this is my way out. And, you know, so I feel like I, I grew up with, you know, being in this small town. But I feel like that's kind of what has led me to where I am today, because I had I was I was able to experience like what the city was like. You had a taste. But my friends like like I have friends that have, you know, they went to high school together, they got married, you know, to people. They went to high school together, and they're still working in those factories that we worked at together when we were 18 because that like, that's all they know. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. To the counter of what I said to I think like if you are going to be in a small town like that, having an opportunity to travel out with field trips or something like that or vacations, if you're lucky enough to have that ability, then that's probably huge because then you do get like a dose of what it's like outside of there. And you don't necessarily like restrict yourself because you can go the opposite direction and just never progress beyond locally either. And then you're just kind of stuck in this mindset. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are farmers back home that are like my mom's age, right? My mom's generation that have like never left. Yeah. And then they're like, they're their dad's generation. So you know, my my grandparents, they never left. And now like their kids are staying and now they have this whole generation of just never. Yeah. Leaving because but here's the thing. That's what they want to do. Like I love that for you. But I'm like, I feel like if you would just take a step out, you would at least see what's out there. Yeah, yeah. So you know, but if you don't want to that's, you know, it's okay. Yeah, yeah. Experiences I guess. Yeah. And also like the, the biggest thing for me is. You go back and you look back. Let's talk about sports. You know, I mean, running even like, track. Yeah, right. You look back and I remember every year we sucked in every sport. Yeah. And they still suck today. Like, you know, I mean, like, they don't they don't go like, they don't win state. They don't, you know, like, they don't even go to the playoffs like they don't because there's like you lack the competition I think. Yeah. And you lack the, the coaching infrastructure. Yeah. you know, there's a lot of things lacking. And like for me, like when I was I played basketball and I played basketball. I mean, I sit on the I sit on the bench and, I, I played golf because I didn't want to go out for track. Yeah. I never went out for track. Right. Never went over track. I played golf, I didn't play football. I played baseball, okay. And but, like, I was not good at it at all. And I had no one to really teach me, right? Like. Like we were just bad at everything. Yeah. you know, so, like, when I would. Travel or like, you know, go around or like, see kids my age on, you know, the internet like, and I'm like, holy crap. Like, these guys are like, they're good. Like they're different, you know? But like, then you look at where they're at. Yeah. And it's like the Des Moines metro and you know, good coaches. Yeah, yeah yeah for sure for sure. So that's why I love to see like you know when I, when I see anybody on, on Instagram or wherever, you know, college athletes like college runners and seeing that they came from like a double A school. Yeah. Or something like that. Like that fires me up because I know personally how much it probably took for them to get there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They had to, they had to make some decisions on their own at a very young age that are hard to do. Most likely, yes. Whereas when you're in that real well structured environment, you sort of have to do what you're told as long as you do what you're told and you're really good, obviously too, then then you can get streamlined into things a little bit quicker. Yeah, because like being good at a sport at my high school meant like you, you went to a, what's like a smaller like a community college. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. If you like it, it was a big deal. Like, like I had friends that went on to play football at a community college and they were looked at as like, you are the holy, like the holy thing. And they would play, they would play, they would play. Yeah, they would play one year, sit on the bench at a community college and then, you know, dwindle out. Yeah. And you know, we had one kid. From my school, I was a track star. Went on to Simpson College, which is this private college in Iowa, and ended up setting a Iowa college record in, like the 400 or 800. and then, you know, dwindled out. But like he was the holy grail of, of, of the town. Yeah. That's actually interesting to say that because my best friend, he, went to a really small high school and you know, they just didn't have the resources to have coaches that knew what they were doing. So it's just whatever adult was willing to just be the coach. Yes, yes. Yeah. And he was a really good high jumper. He would jump on average like six 2 to 6 three during basically his whole senior year. And then at state he just went over six eight and was the second highest jumper in the state out of like the small division. So he ended up being able to go to the University of Nebraska's track and field team when he went there. And we're talking to the real jumping coaches. They watched him jump and they're like, we don't even understand how it's physically possible for you to get over six eight with that form. So, like, we're gonna have to like, like you will never jump higher than that, no matter how hard you try. Like, that is all the high you're going to get. And we need you to be progressing to like 7.5ft or whatever it is. And so they're trying to work with this form. It's just like it just wasn't like him, it was too much. Your freshman in college, he had been doing it just basically running up and jumping over as best he could manage intuitively. And you know, you're getting a D1 program like that. If you don't catch on right away, you're going to get you're done. You're going to get it. So he got phased out, but it was like, yeah, it's like what you said. Like had he gotten. Brought to like a big school with a former D1 high jumping coach or something like that. Yeah. Teach him the form right away. It's like, who knows how high he's able to. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the head football coach was the track coach. Yeah. Who was also the the social studies teacher. Yeah. It's funny how that trend who was also the assistant basketball coach, like, like, you know, he damn near, Coach Conrad was his name. And your. He coached everything. Yeah. And I, you know. And now where I'm looking at that, like, you know, now from my my real life perspective. That is so wrong. Yeah. Like like you can't you can't have a head football coach be the head track coach and, you know, great guy. But like, if you would have looked at him, there was no way he should have been coaching track. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. So you ended up in the Army then. Yeah. So I joined the National Guard because I was still National Guard. Is is traditionally one week in a month and two weeks in the summer. I was, like, terrified to leave home. Yeah. So like, I still had to like, you know, I, I knew I wanted to join the guard because I wanted to get a skill because I remember I didn't go to college. And so I joined the National Guard as a combat medic, and I fell in love with wearing the uniform and being in the military. So when I got home. Iowa actually has one of the largest National Guard bases in Johnston, a suburb of Des Moines. It'd be like, round Rock to, to Austin. Yeah. And when I got home, like, I got back to my unit and I was like, hey, like, I was like, I want to, like, I want to do this all the time. So, like, what do I need to do? So I got a job on, on the military base. And, you know, to make it as easy as possible, there's technician jobs, there's Adas jobs, there's AGR jobs. You have to, like, work your way up the ladder. So I started working my way up the ladder. Long story short, you know, I was in and out of Camp Dodge, you know, over about 2 or 3 years, but then, you know, ended up getting the, the AGR job, got stationed in Virginia for a year, came back to Iowa, was working as a recruiter. And, you know, that leads me up to Covid hits. And that's when I really was into fitness in 2019. But like once Covid hit, then I'm like, well, shit. Like I got to like doing this stuff in my house. Yeah. You know, and it was in the military, but like, I wasn't running yet. I remember once during Covid, I went out for like a five mile run and I was like, hell, no. Like, I was like, absolutely not. Imagine telling that version of yourself. You're gonna run across the state of Texas. I know, I know, I can't even I can't even imagine what that kid likes. Like what that kid would have even thought, you know, because at that time, like, I lived and breathed the United States military, like I loved it, and I loved everything about it. And I was married and like, you know, I owned a home, and I was living the simple Midwest life. Like Wednesdays. We went to the brewery and got tossed at the brewery right uptown, you know, like I was living a phenomenal life. Yeah, like I loved my life. And there was. But it was serious, like there was a pivotal moment. I still remember exactly where I was standing. I was outside of the front yard at the end of 2020. It was the fall. I remember I was raking leaves, and that's when I started to listen to Can't Hurt Me by David Gordon. Okay. Yeah. And obviously, you know, people have these stories like, oh, I listen to this and like stay hard, you know, like, no to me, like I listen to that first chapter and it was like, you know, I grew up dirt poor. It was me and my mom and, you know, my dad beat the shit out of my mom. And, you know, like so many things that, like, I can relate to deep, like I have deep traumas in my childhood of my mom and her ex-husband and things he did to my brother and I, things I've seen him do to her. And as I'm going through this chapter one and already knowing by reading the back of the book who this guy is, the first thought in my head was like, why have I just spent my entire life? Making up excuses for myself because I went through traumas and that's why I'm stuck where I am now. Like, that was my, you know, like my question to myself. So over the next, over that entire winter, I listened, I didn't read, I listened to that book probably five times. Okay. I mean, just just chapter one through ten. I'll tell you this. Chapter seven is on nothing but mindset. Go to that fact check because I listened to chapter seven. Whenever I needed something I would I've, I've listened to chapter seven hundreds of times. I'm not even I'm not even kidding. So what I would do is I would just, I would go to the gym and I would get on the treadmill and I would just start running and then like, I'm like, this motherfucker, like, did a hundred miles on saltine crackers. Yeah. So then I signed up for a six hour endurance run. I can do that, you know. Yeah, I made it 23 miles before I physically couldn't stand. And then I ran a half marathon the next weekend and, like, couldn't walk for a week, like. Yeah, you know, I just started doing these things and I'm like, you know that and that, that that's how I that's how I got started. It was late, late 2020. You know what the interesting thing about, like the Goggins effect is to me is prior to that, there was a lot I heard, a lot more people would just say, like, they'd be like really good runners. Yeah. And they would be like, oh, I can't do 100 miles. How do you do 100 miles? And now after Goggins, it's almost like people will come and they'll like, I'm going to go run 100 miles. I like it. There's a few steps you should probably take, because there was like this roadblock in people's minds as to what an ultra was and what it actually was. I think a lot of people overestimated how hard it was. And it's hard, but it's not hard. And I think the way they were contemplating it or they didn't realize like, oh, there's actually a lot of walking and hiking during this, or you can actually spend time at an aid station and recover and then go back out. And there's a lot of problem solving versus just like in their mind, they're thinking of like the five mile run they did, like, you know, years ago maybe, and how hard that was. And that's like what people like when I did the run across Texas. I don't want to stray too far off. But like, people do the same thing. They're like, you ran that far? Like, well, no, I walked like 90% of it. But, so moving into 2020 then, right, like, I get I get stationed in Virginia and we move out to Virginia, we get there, it's like we're rural, like we're we're in we're in Salem, which is by Roanoke, which is like 80 miles from North Carolina, 80 miles from West Virginia, like we're down there. and it was just very rural, like not even a bar in the town, you know, stoplight. Like, it wasn't that rural, but it was rural. So I just started I went to the I went to the store, to the running store. Crazy enough. I just I just ran into the owner of this running store at, the running event. Really? Okay. And she was like, I can't believe that you are who you are. Like like it was it was just, you know, it was it was so wholesome. It was cool because I walked into this running store to Trey Fisher. And I'm like, I can't remember what the hell I said, but I was like, hey, I was like, I need a pair of running shoes because, like, I didn't have I don't even know what shoes I was running in because there's A5K coming up in the town. And I was like, I'm gonna run a, I'm gonna run a 60 minute five K and he's like, you're gonna run a what? I was like, I was like a 16 minute five K and he's like, sure buddy. Like, okay, I ran 1616. Okay. And that was but and that was just like, that was just that was all hard, baby. Yeah. And so then like, he approached me after and he's like, he's like, when do you start running? I was like six months ago. And he's like, wow. So he kind of took me under his wing and like, you know, showed me the running spots. took me to the track, literally to the point 20, 21. He took me to the track because we're going to do 400. And I was like, what does that mean? Like, like that is how much I didn't know till you get faster at the five K. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. So we were doing like 68 seconds 400 times. He was a D1 runner times 20 you know with like one minute. Like it was just nuts. Like this stuff we were doing was crazy. And so what I would do is I would just like I'd wake up before work and I would run anywhere from 10 to 20 miles every morning on the trails. And then I ended up getting like, really sick because I was actually eating a plant based diet. Okay, not that that made me sick, but you know what? I'm not. Whatever I don't. You gotta pay close attention when. Yeah, yeah, whatever you want. So I hop on to Instagram or hop on to YouTube and I type in how to eat like an endurance runner. Or how to eat like an endurance athlete. Nick Bear. Yeah. And I'm like, this guy's dope. Yeah. And that was, you know, that was late 2021. I applied for his marathon. got into his marathon in 2022, went fourth overall, went 259. No training at all. Was approached by Natasha VanderMeer, his triathlon coach. And she's like, you want to do a triathlon? And I'm like, not really, but it sounds kind of cool. Yeah. So I signed on with her. That was my first time ever being coached. move back to Iowa. Still. You know, I'm now an ambassador with the Bpn program, and it was 20, 22 when I just started to kind of build my following. You know, after being down here and seeing, like being down at the marathon in 2022 and seeing everyone, like taking pictures and documenting and I'm like, this is cool. Like, like they're posting this. So my Instagram right now that I have is the Instagram that I started in high school. Okay. Yeah. I just started posting on that site. And you know, like my username has never changed. Like, like it's the OG. Yeah. And so I just started documenting, I started training for a triathlon, went down to Arkansas to run this 50 K and won it, went like a one or ran like a five, five something 50 K on the trails and I won. That went top ten in my age group at Ironman Des Moines a month later, and ran 40 miles of the American flag. Leadville called because they saw that on Instagram at about 10,000 followers at the time. And they're like, hey, like, do you want to come run Leadville for the Leadville Charity Foundation? And I had found out about Leadville through Nik. Yeah, just the year before. And I'm like, hell yeah, no training. None. I hadn't done any training. I'd never ran over 40 miles. And I'm like, When is Leadville? And they're like 29 days. I'm like, I'm like, you got me. I'm in. I go to Leadville. I couldn't, so I summited Hope's Pass. Got to, you know, got to mile 50 and under 12 hours. Dumb. First time. Turn back around. Come back over the mountain. Get into Twin Lakes. I sat down and I couldn't stand up. And my brother literally had to pick me up. Yeah. Who was the RV guy during the run across Texas and, like, had to, like, lock my knees back so I could stand and I walked from Twin Lakes to May Queen. So I walked 50km. Okay. and then I got cut off by time. Oh, yeah. So you were pretty far into it then? Yeah, I, I made it, I made it to 87 when they, when they cut me off. So I was, I was trying oh I was trying so hard I just, I couldn't run and so got done with Leadville and I knew and knew immediately I was like, I need to go back. and Leadville was something in the middle of the night during Leadville, it was raining. I was wearing my military Gore-Tex jacket, camo. Like, I probably look like an idiot out there to everybody. Like I'm wearing a camo military jacket, shorts. Like, I don't even know what shoes I was wearing. Like, I shouldn't have been there. trekking poles that, like, I bought at Walmart. Yeah. some Ozark trail. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was something like I remember looking down and I, I remember thinking in my mind I was like, I'm not gonna finish this race, like. I was like, I'm not like, I'm not going to like, I have to come back. And I, I, I remember I came out at May Queen and I, and usually you go down the road, my wife and my brother were in the truck right here waiting for me, and I just got in the truck. I never saw the finish line and that fucking, that did something to my brain in that very moment where, like, that flipped the switch. If there was a switch that was flipped, it wasn't Goggins. Like that was kind of the interest getting in my truck and not seeing the finish line of the Leadville 100 flip this switch in my brain where I'm like, never again will I put myself in a situation to feel like this. And it was game on, like it was, you know, then moving forward, that was all. Guest came February of 23, getting to a, you know, my wife and I separated, and I decided to move to Austin. Okay. And, and that's where it kind of took off, and that's where that's where it went. bang. I won the Bpn marathon. I went 252 at 254 bpn and won. That did Ironman Texas six days later and went like I poured my Iron Man the same week that I won, that I won a marathon. Yeah. And yeah. And then I was like, I was like, okay. And I just started pounding out content, learning from friends. I'm in Austin like, I am broke and like I am sleeping on the floor, I am grinding, I don't know, did you see, like my swipe post? I had this swipe post that went viral and it had literally a picture of me like my bed on the floor is me and my dog like I'm sleeping on the floor. I put my back against the wall like I don't have a choice. Uh Huh. And God is good here I am. Yeah, but that's. Yeah, that was the short story of how I got there. So was that post just like a huge catalyst for your Instagram page or was I'm sure you probably had a bunch of other ones. Yeah. That was the biggest photo carousel that I had ever posted. Okay. Even though that carousel went 150,000 more than my run across Texas. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. That was incredible. And, I didn't realize, you know, I'm never here to compare stories to people. Like, I had a rough life, right? Like, I watched my mom get her teeth knocked out and, you know, watched her. I had to pick her up off the kitchen floor when she tried to OD on pills. I'm never here to compare my story to others, but I didn't realize at that moment how many people have just as bad or worse of a story than I do. Yeah, and people that were like, reach out to you? Probably. Yeah, yeah. But they're like, no. They were like, thank you for sharing this. I needed it because in that post I said I, I was like, I, there was a pivotal moment in this, you know, it's probably a whole different podcast and we don't need to go deep on this. But what I said in this post is I was like, there was a pivotal moment when my wife and I separated, where I was sitting upstairs with a shotgun on my lap, and I was going to kill myself, and I would have never been able to see where I am today. Yeah. In what, in two years? Actually, you know what? I got to Austin two years ago today. Okay. Yeah. That's so so so yeah, yeah, I showed that to Amanda this morning. And so it would have been three days ago. I sat there three days ago. Two years ago. I sat there with a shotgun on my lap. And I was going to I was going to kill myself, and I didn't do it. That fucking blows my mind right now, Zach. Like, that blows my mind that two years ago, I almost took my own life. And I'm sitting right here today, right? Thinking like there's no way you. Yeah. I was like, there's no way I can fix this. And. And how many people said, thank you? I needed to see that. I needed to see where you're at today. I needed to be able to see. I needed to know where you've been because I didn't know that. Right. And and they're like, I feel like I am where you were, like, I needed this. You say you saved my life from somebody. And I'm like, you know. So that's why, like, sometimes, like, I don't get so caught up in, in winning races or doing, you know, I have a story to tell and, you know, like, while I love, like, I take pride in being this guy who I love to say that I'm an elite athlete. If anyone wants to tell me I'm not, that's perfectly fine. I love saying, you know, I'm this elite athlete, but I also want to, like, be this elite storyteller. Yeah. And, and and I feel like you don't see that a lot in our world. You either see the elite athlete or you see the content creator that does races for fun. Sure, I want to be the guy that can go top ten at Leadville and the guy that is an influencer. Yeah. You know, not I don't want to be an influencer, guys. I promise That's not who I am. But you know. You know what I'm saying? Like. Yeah. Like I have a story to tell. I want to stand on, I, I want to stand on stages and tell people my story because I want to save their life. And I want them to know that it's going to get better. Yeah, but I want to be an elite professional runner at the same time. Yeah. I mean, I think like with, with social media now, we've sort of just democratized storytelling a lot more where like that version of you two years ago with no social media, like where, where do you go, you know, like where do you go with that? Like, maybe you take your life at some point. Yeah. If not there, then, you know, down the road. But like, well, what I don't like is that I feel like there's this disconnect between the pro runners and the influencers. They hate us. They, you know, they like like like like there are there are pro runners out there that fucking hate me because I have an Instagram following. Yeah. You know, and then there are Instagram influencers that hate the pro runners. Right. And I can't believe it. They like that we all can't get along. That blows my mind. Like like I'll go to races and there will be people like that I know that are like talking shit, like pro runner's about me while I'm there and I'm like, because I have an Instagram following, like, like, you know, like that's where I get so caught up is that, you know. They don't like the influencer, and the influencer doesn't like them. And I'm like, we're all just running right. Yeah I mean I think my perspective with it has always been like when you get into that mindset of like, oh, that person has all this attention and they don't deserve it. Versus I ran this time I should have all this attention because I did that. I mean, they're missing the point. They're missing the point where it's like there's only so many professional athletes, right? Only so many, like the top tier. I'm on the podium at big races. So by default, that's a kind of an unrelatable type of person, right? Like they have an existence that is very rare. So when you have a movement like what we saw with the growth and the running, people want to see the elite athletes and see that, wow, they ran that fast. That's crazy. But they also like to see people who are just out there doing it themselves. Yeah. And kind of a little more relatable in the sense of like, oh. They're, you know, they're getting up in the morning, they're going for a run, they're going to their job. They're just storytelling, like you said at the end of the day. So it's like when I think if an elite athlete is going to get mad at influencers, then they need to accept the fact that they should be telling their story. Yeah. Like they could do that and some do, some do, but a lot of them don't. And I think it's like, I don't know if that's just kind of like the culture of professionalism where it's like, I don't there's a whole podcast in this right here. Yeah. Like, yeah. Charlie Lawrence, his girlfriend Allie, are both phenomenal athletes. Charlie is a good friend of mine, but she did a podcast just talking, literally talking about the athlete versus the influencer. And I think that there's a big problem. What's unfortunate. How about. I don't know if it's unfortunate. I don't know companies C followers. And the money goes that way. Yeah. Because. Because they C views. Right. You're CPV cost per view. Yeah. You know so when Nike is like hey, I want to pay this guy ten grand because he's going to get 10 million views. Yeah. Even though this guy is going to win the race, only 3000 people are going to see it, right? Nike's like, what's the better business decision here? Yeah I understand why this guy's pissed. Yeah. But at the same time I understand the business decision. But that's why I think that that is a major reason why those elites are upset. Because there's not there's there's not a lot of money being passed around in that lower area of like, not Courtney, not Sally, like in that. Right, that middle area of everyone else. Yeah, I think that's shortsighted because you don't get growth in the sport without attention. Yeah. And I think if you want to look at it through the lens of how do I get a piece of this pie, it's less about, okay, we need to get the brands away from the influencers. And so we need the influencers to grow the sport to the degree where these brands are making so much money, they want to support the sport. Which part of that is going to be supporting the elite end of it? Yeah. You know, brands are open to funding athletes when they don't necessarily have a great ROI on them. Yeah. And if they're profitable. Right. But if they're not profitable then they have to start looking at what is selling shoes here or what is selling gear here and what's not. So I look at it through, you know, the lens of how many people came into running because of someone like you or Jeremy Miller or Nick Bear or David Goggins. It's like tons, tons. So, like, for me, you know. Even from the coaching side of things. Like there's a ton of coaching clients I get because of influencers turning them on to the sport, them coming and realizing they have an experience like you did at Leadville. You know what? They think I need to hire a coach. Yeah. So. And who coaches my favorite runner, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So for sure. So you get a you know it's I think it's about that side of things too is like how are you reviewing this as like this finite piece of or pie versus is this pie getting bigger and bigger by having these groups together. And that doesn't even get into the whole thing of just like, well, collaborate with an influencer, become friends with them instead, because they probably have a skill set that you don't, and you probably have a skill set that they don't do. Yeah. So I think I talked about Jeremy when he was on the podcast too. It's like, you know, Jeremy is a way better content creator than I am. Yeah. I'm a better runner than he is. He's a way better content creator than I am. Yeah, probably a better runner as well. Right. So, like, we were just talking about before, like when I built this podcast studio, I asked Jeremy, he's like, hey, how should I do this? And he right away had a list of stuff here, get this, get this, set it up like that. Yeah, this is going to be better for this. And like, I had no clue. I knew I wanted to do it, but I had no clue. And he had the information. He shared it with me. So like if he has a question about, hey, I want to run a flat 100 K, should I be doing this differently than what I did for this mountain one? And I'm like, yeah, I know how to do that. I'll help you out there. So I think it's just like some of it's just missing opportunities by creating enemies where they don't need to be. Yes, yes. That's. Clip that so you can even be selfish about it if you want to. Like. Yeah. You know, like like you can I like the influence is I've met have all been great. So my perspective has been I just think that there's, you know, there are some cases out there where sure, people do dumb shit. Yeah. And and get a bad look at everybody and then, you know, everyone hates us and. Yeah, that's just the that's the crazy thing for me is that when people are like, you know, I don't like that guy. He's an influencer. And I'm like, I don't even want to be an influencer. Like, I'm like, like, this was never even in a plan, right? You know? But here I am, and I'm gonna adapt and then I'm gonna live the life, you know, like I man, I tell you what, like, I would love to be in in. But, you know, this is the human side, right? I'm like, I would love to be in David Ross's shoes. Yeah. Like, you know, right now, like to try to win Western. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. After after setting a record that we didn't think could be broken or like, I'm like, man, like, I sure would love to be the 100 mile world record holder. Yeah. You know, a hundred mile. Yeah, a hundred mile American American record holder or. And you're probably sitting over here and you're like, damn. Like. You know, getting a million views on a reel would be pretty, would be, you know, and it's like we're all just kind of like, uhhuh. But yeah, I mean, what is life in his life? Yeah. Yeah, I think yeah, I, I try to avoid looking at people, individuals in groups like whether whether someone calls himself an influencer or not. It's like, well, I'm sure there's some variance amongst that group. So, you know, yeah, maybe I'll bump into an influencer in the future and they'll just be like someone I just don't get behind, and then I'll just not engage with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty simple. But you're not going to set a, you know, an umbrella over everybody because of, you know, one experience. Yeah. For sure. I mean, I think that's just a good mindset in general is just like in life. Yeah. Just wait to get to know the person and then make your decision if you want to spend time on them or not. Yeah. After you've actually met them. But yeah. Yeah. So you've been awesome for two years. You've been back to Leadville, right? Or no Rocky Raccoon. No no no no. So yeah, when I like we went back to Leadville in 2023. Okay. That was a that was a big, a big thing is I had to get back there and I had to get my get my revenge. which I did. you know, the long story short, there is life was great. I had blister issues. Yeah. I ran the first 75 and 17 hours, and the last 25 took me 11 hours. Oh, and from blisters, all from blisters on the bottoms of my feet, my eye. Because my my shoes were too big, and I was I was rubbing like this. Yeah. so, yeah, the, the last 25 took me 11 hours. Finished it, finish in 28. Life was good. got done with Leadville, and broke my leg. I, I had well, I had a a closed fracture of the fibula and two grade four stress fractures in the tibia. because I went and raced the Bronx ten miler. And then I tried to go do a hundred mile race right after that. So I'm actually fast if anybody does. Yeah. Would you run the Bronx ten mile? 56. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Clipping along. Yeah. So, I have, I have some, I have some speed. but that that fractured that leg. Huh? and then I tried to go run a hundred miler with the fractures. With the fractures? Yeah. As in, like, I couldn't even, This is dumb. Don't ever do this. I couldn't I couldn't even shake out run the night before. Uhhuh. Like I couldn't run the night before, and I was like, I'm going to send it. And because I knew I had a chance at winning this race, it was very small. And I just wanted 100 mile win. Yeah. And I led the first 75 miles, and then I was like, my shit was broken. And I got passed by the guy that was going to win it. And I was like, okay, I'm done. Yeah. I was like, I'm done, I'm done. So I pulled out, and then yeah, that that was it for 2023, I was done. Yeah. To let that heal. Yeah. So X-rays, MRIs, which is what led me. To the Texas idea. Okay. That is that is, September 11th, 2024. so yeah, September 11th, 2024. The idea came about 2024. Yes. No, 2023. Right. I ran it in 2024. Yeah, but you're talking about it 23. Yeah. Time, time, time. I started talking about it that that's what came up with the idea when I fractured the leg, I had to sit and I had to think, and I was like, where am I going? And I got this idea, and I was. I texted drew, I was like, I have a sick idea. And he's like, oh boy, here we go. And I was like, I'm going to be the first person to ever run across Texas. And he's like, awesome idea. It's been done multiple times. And I'm like, shit. I'm like, I want to be the fastest person to do it. And he's like, okay. He's like, well, this is the fastest guy now. his name is Ken. He lives down in, in San Antonio. Okay. So I followed him on Instagram. I hit him up and, you know, I, you know, you never know how that's going to, you know, how that interaction is going to go, right? Yeah. Like so I hit him up and I was like, hey man. Like I would, you know, I really want to run across Texas like, you know, can you give me any insight? And he was instantly like, let's hop on a call. I'll have my whole team there and I'll help you. Yeah. Okay. Like. And I was like, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we hop on a call and I'm like, hey, like, I want to do this in April of 2024. And he's like, absolutely not. He's like, that is a terrible idea. It's it's November. Yeah. So that was like five months. He's like, no, dude. He's like, do it, do it in the fall. So, you know, you don't need the humidity. Yeah. So we go about our year. You know we I communicate with Ken. I did go to Rocky. You were there I think as well. Yeah. that Rocky 2024 because. Oh no you went you went the weekend after me. Oh because did you do the. I did the mud bowl. Oh that's right. Yeah I did the 50 miles. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah I did the mud bowl. Yeah. But the worst part was, is that was the very first race post. Like if you look back at pictures, you see I'm wearing a full leg sleeve for compression. Crazy enough. had a great race. I actually had a terrible race. Mile three. you know, left leg is the one that was broken. Mile three. I roll the the right ankle. Oh, and I'm like, this is fine, I'm fine. Get to mile 50. I roll it again. you get on that, get to mile 61. I roll it again. So now rolled it three times. We get back to the med tent at mile 80. And I'm done. Like. Like I have a picture of my ankle on my phone. It is, it looked like a fish. like, I mean, my whole, like, it was fried. So I was like, hey, like, I was like, I'm not going to walk 12 hours for this back 20. huh. I was like, we're done. Yeah. And I'm glad I pulled out because that led to me being able to let that heal up for a week and then hit training hard, went and ran a 19 hour 100 and lay one that which was like my first 100 mile win. Yeah. Super cool. It's only 19 hours. But like I was so proud of that. Like, which then led me into, immediate starting in March, run across Texas Prep. Yeah. And, I called up mike McKnight because I'm like, for me, it's like I have to trust someone. Like, I have to really trust someone in order in order to, like, listen to them. And and it was I've been like, I've in my past, I've been a terrible athlete. But I'm like, who has done this? Right? Right. And there's not there's just not many people. And I knew Mike had done the Arizona Fkt and it's like 850. So I hit him up and I'm like, yo, I was like, I need your help. Like I'm like, I don't need it. I'm like, I need somebody that. I'm like, because at that, at that point I wasn't confident in like him being like, hey, this is what you're going to do. And I'm like, okay, sounds good. I was like, I want someone that'll build me a calendar. And then we can kind of, you know, bounce ideas off each other. And because I felt confident in my in my own little area. So that's what he did. He he built me a whole calendar and we bounce ideas off each other. And, it was it was dope. It was. It was cool. He was. He's a great guy. he helped me out a lot. and. Yeah, you got across the state all summer. Dude. It was it was the most miserable. Like, it was the most miserable, coolest thing I have ever done. Because all my life was May, June, July, August. September was running my life, building up for it. My life was centered around running miles, eating food, and sleeping. What a blessing that that was to be able to have that be my life to where I create content as a job. Or I would literally run in the morning, I would come home, I would smash a bunch of food, I would take a nap, I would wake up, I would run again, I would come home, I would smash a bunch of food and I would go to bed. And in between that, I'm making content, right? And like coaching athletes and taking calls. But like, you know, that was my life. Yeah. 140 mile, 140 mile weeks, 20, 27 hours a week on my feet. It was incredible. Amanda, my girlfriend at the time, was living in Avalon. She wasn't living in Avalon. She was out there. She's a personal trainer. Avalon, new Jersey, down at the beach, down at the shore. And she does a lot of awesome work out there with with people in the summertime. So she went back there for two months. So June and July, it was me and the dogs. Yeah. And we were just. You could live like a monk. All we. Yeah, all we were doing is just. I wasn't leaving the house like my friends were like, where are you? And I was like, I happened to Matt. Yeah, yeah. Like I wasn't even like. Like I didn't have any, like, I was doing nothing. I wasn't like playing video games. I wasn't like like it was literally run, eat, sleep, run, eat, sleep. Yeah, yeah, it was incredible. Yeah. Those those are fun phases. I know, I remember when I really got into running after college for I just got into building volume. I was sick of workouts, so I just didn't do any speed workouts early. Yeah. And I just started building volume. That's so much fun. It is to like it is so much more fun. I tell everybody I hate, I hate running fast. It is so much fun to just wake up and just go. Just go for a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah. And that's that's what it takes to get across Texas I think is a lot of volume in, in, in preparation and things like that. So what was the biggest. Physical thing that you had to deal with that was like, okay, I got to stay on top of this once you got out there. the the pain in the feet. Okay. So that was that was the biggest thing. which lucky enough and I'm telling you, like, this is a a crazy blessing from God into, like, a blessing in disguise. I had a veteran that hit me up and he's like, hey, Matt. He's like, my name's. Damn it. His company is called Be Jolly, Be Jolly. He's like, I'm a veteran. I own this company. I make like, I make this CBD rub right now at home, at my house. And he's like, but I can make you a custom rub. Let the audience know this. A CBD rub is usually 1200 milligrams. Uhhuh. That's that's uppity, right? Yeah. 40,000. So you couldn't feel your feet after that? No, no. Well, for, what we found out is, is. So I would wake up and we would lather the feet up the calves and the knees in this CBD rub. I would have an hour and a half, but I. I'm not kidding. You. Like this company should be on Shark Tank. Like this company should be on every shelf. It is the the thing that the runner is missing and doesn't know about yet is his company B jolly. I'm not affiliated with them, I'm not I. I bought the product. Oh, so you can't I was going to ask you, is it something that he can sell like a. Yeah. Yeah. It's like they have like 40,000. But he said I think the 40,000 was custom but like they have 20,000, 25,000 milligram. yeah. You can buy it online. and that was I had him, he sent me like five jars. We were like, by the time we were at my mom's, I had to have him overnight. Some to my mom's. Yeah. And. Yeah, it was just. It was the bottom of my feet. It was the pain in the bottom of my feet. Everything else was. wasn't that hard. Thank God I did all of my training in Texas in the summer. because I don't know if you remember, but October this year or October last year was the hottest October on record. Yeah, it stayed warmly wonderful. Wonderful for me. average high was 89. the highest that we saw at Get was 99, with a real feel of 102. Yeah. That's warm. and that was like the day before Austin in the farmland. And that was. That was rough. but we did. We did a sweat test, like we were. We were pushing good sodium. Everything was good. I threw up, threw up a couple times, 2 or 3 times on the trip just from getting too hot. Yeah, but what I didn't realize, and another like, hard thing for me outside of the feet was, you know, you know Austin, right? We we usually run shirtless. Yeah. You know, early in the mornings. you can't cover up. You can't run shirtless. And so Rob, 70, shows up, I say his name right, Rob shows up, crew chief Rob, and he's like. Where's your sun gear? And I'm like, what? Sun gear? So by day two, I had third degree burns on my ears. Really? By day four, I had second degree burns on my lips. So the worst pain of the entire trip was my lips. Yeah. Because that night, what happened with those burns is at night. My lips would then stick together. Yeah. So the next morning, I would have to, like, slowly stick my tongue out and like. And, like, open my lips. Yeah, because they were bloody pussy nasty, huh? and so, like, we were trying, like beef tallow. We were trying, like, you know, just anything to to get the sun. So, Yeah, but, like, even if you look right now, like, like these wrinkles that I have right here, that's from the run across Texas. Yes. Yes. They were not. They were not. These were not. I need to get some like Botox or some shit. Those those wrinkles didn't exist. They only existed when I like, made faces. Yeah. And now they're they're. These are my. This is this is 850 miles across Texas because I had, like, I had bad burns, like, this was all burnt and it turned into it turned into wrinkles. Amanda and I laugh, I, I might I might feel a little salty if someone else says it. But Amanda and I laughed as we look at pictures of me from like, June and I look like four years younger and like they run across Texas age and age. Me and dog years. yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that stuff probably does age you a little bit, but it's it's also, I mean, I always look at it as like, what do you want to be doing? And then like be doing that and then whatever amount of time you get to do it. Yeah. I felt I've never felt more alive in my entire life. And, you know, like I had a lot of plans before the run across Texas of like, what I wanted to do with my life moving forward. And even drew was like, oh, wait till we're done. Yeah. He's like, you might not even like this. Yeah, yeah. And I and I, I'm not I'm not bullshitting. As soon as I was done, like I was like, I want to do it again. I want to do the same. I would do as bad as that was, as hot as that was, I would do that all over again. Just like that. If you thought about like, January and February or is it too cold? Maybe even too cold. I don't do good. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't do good in the cold at all. Like when I'm out here running, when it's 30, it's when it's 39 degrees in the morning I'm in tight. Long sleeve hoodie. Gloves. Uhhuh. I mean, and I'm from Iowa, but, like, I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I grew up in Wisconsin, so. So, Yeah. So that's why we came up with the idea of, I guess I really talked about it yet. The Texas 1000. Yeah. North to south. Yeah, north to south. Oklahoma to Mexico. That'll be fun. Yeah. That one's different though, because I don't we're not I don't think we're going to need an RV. I think no I think we're going to need a van because it's so populated. There's enough or enough. There's enough. Yeah, there's enough hotels. I don't think a lot of people know. Granted, the documentary is set to come out and, probably a little less than a month. Drew, I hope that's true. but a lot of people don't know. We spent we almost ran out of gas. Really? We spent four days from by the time when we left El Paso, we didn't see anything for four days. No. We rent, we were running. We almost ran out of water. So my brother had to drive 50 miles in the RV. While we were running with the van, he had to drive 50 miles into New Mexico to get us water because really, because we ran out of water. So we didn't actually like, you know, we mapped it, don't get me wrong. Like we mapped it, but like we didn't, we used a little more than we thought. I myself was going through, I'd love to hear Rob's podcast, but I think I was going through almost 3 to 4 gallons of water a day. I would imagine if it was that hot. Yeah, for some of those days. Yeah. Yeah, you'd easily be. Yeah. So we almost we almost ran out of gas. We almost ran out of water. Yeah. We had this really weird meet up with this ranch hand who, like, we thought was gonna, like, kill us that night. Like, Rob slept with a pistol on his chest by the door because we literally, like, I thought that this guy was gonna, like, come and murder us. It was the weirdest interaction ever. but, yeah, spending we spent, like. Dude, I spent five days in the desert. Yeah. Like, that was like, in the in the desert. Like when you watch the movies and you see the road that just goes. Yep. That's what it's like. What you were on. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah. How much, how many calories you eaten per day, do you know. So day one. And so we tracked the first three days. And then Rob was like, I got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rob was like, I got it. We, we did anywhere from eight to like 9500 per day. Okay. So did you lose weight I gained you gained weight gain. Okay. Rob, crew chief Rob made me gain weight when I got home. next time, we'll do a we'll do a body spec test before and after. Yeah, but when I got home, I had gained a pound and a half. Okay. Over 17 days of running. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm really interested in that because when the people I've talked to on the transcon like it's almost person to person. If they were able to get across the country and lose minimal weight, like just a few pounds versus like 10 or 20. Paul Johnson Yeah, the recovery is way different. Paul Johnson gained weight. Did he? Who was his crew chief? Rob okay. So he's the guy to rob the weight on. Rob. Rob is the guy like it was I mean Rob was incredible. And he became a very good friend of mine. Rob just like it was, you know, he apparently. And, you know, like I said, I should have my whole crew do podcast on this because I was able to hear it. but you're all welcome, buddy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but apparently Amanda said that he would be in the van and he would have a timer on his phone, like, every, like, seven minutes. Uhhuh. And when that timer would go off, that would mean Amanda would have to get out because Rob would drive. Yeah. And then we would have Amanda and Caleb as crew, and then, drew would be filming. So the first seven minutes, Amanda, Caleb, Amanda, Caleb. And they would just they would run, they would run food. So. Yeah. It was, it was amazing. Did you find, like, there were certain types of food where you're just like, that's what's going down? Well, I'm just going to keep hammering that. Yeah, it was donuts. Donuts. It was donuts. I think I saw some glazed donut. Really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah for sure. And I mean, they even, trail runners, is it Trail Runners magazine, the, the the.com. Yeah. wrote an article and it was Matt Johnson. Run runs across Texas fueled by donuts and pickle juice. And it was like my own conventional way of fueling, you know, like like it was because I've always, like you and I talked about right with with how we are training for Leadville. I said that, you know, we need to we need to do, like, fueling training. Yeah. And, because I've never done that. So like, as I'm, you know, a lot of like, we are the Millers driving out to El Paso. I get a text from Mike and he's like, you got this. You you know, we've practiced, you know, your fueling. And I'm like, la di da. Yep. We have. And then I'm like, no, I haven't. Like I didn't practice shit. Did you know donuts were going to be something you wanted or does that relearned on the way. I had no idea. Like like like this was just I mean that was probably the the biggest thing that people don't know is like, I just went out there and I was like, I'm just gonna eat food. Yeah. And we started. What happened was it started as a joke. So day one, drew came up with this idea because we had bought like the night before. We'd went into Walmart and there was a stack of like. $2 day old donuts. Yeah, but they were they were Dunkin or they were. Yeah. Like the Dunkin Donuts. And I'm like I'm like, I don't know how Walmart. What doesn't matter. Yeah. So we bought them and Drew's like we should see if you can eat all of these tomorrow. So it was like it was like 4 a.m. and we woke up and we're I'm in the kitchen don't it one don't it two don't it three. Then we're running mile ten. Don't it five don't it six. And I cleared almost a dozen donuts that day. Yeah. And so then the next day, like we had, we had bought two bags of donut holes. Okay. Those are perfect. Just pop them in. Yeah. Bang. So what it was, is and it was easy to go down because it would be donut hole water and you would just hurry up, you know, just like bread, you would mush it and it'd go right down. And the donut hole itself, we ended up thinking it was like 90 calories for one. So he just brought me to. Yeah, it's just bang, bang 180 calories every seven minutes. Yeah. That's all that's like that. What is that? Is that The Wolf of Wall Street where it's like a martini every seven minutes. Have you seen that? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's two donut holes every seven minutes. Every seven minutes. yeah. It was incredible. So then what we did is whenever we came by a gas station, they would buy it. They would buy out all the donuts. Just buy them all. Yeah. So. So it must have been like, what if I knew it was donuts. Peanut butter. Oreos. That was. That was like what? That was the majority of what was consumed as fuel. Right. As runners are taking gels. Right. It was like my gels were doughnuts, peanut butter and Oreos. Yeah. and fruit snacks. Now completely different is what I ate in the morning which was nasty. This is Rob. This is probably what got me fat around a third of a cup of brown sugar. Okay. a cup of oats and probably a half a cup of peanut butter. Okay. It was this sloppy, nasty, like. Anyways, he called it. He. He called it, like a thousand calorie breakfast. And I would just eat that as fast as I could get on the road. Then I would do all the donuts and peanut butter and all that, and then we would stop at 15 miles at around 10 a.m. I would have a cold, a cold sandwich. That's all I wanted. Cold meat sandwich. Then we would stop for lunch and I would have beef and rice and then for dinner, all I would have every night for dinner was beef and rice, one £1 of beef, and it was grass fed, grass finished, and as much rice as I could fit in. And my brother would use around a half a cup of grass fed butter. Okay. So like it was heavily dense with fat, I was fueled, I fueled this entire run. Yes, carbs, but there was. An astronomical amount of fat. This was a fat fueled run. Yeah, well, the intensity would suggest that that would be great. Oh, yeah. My heart rate was out there. I'm running at a 12 minute pace. My heart rate is probably like 119 118, which we found out now is like oh yeah, he's not even moving the needle. Yeah. It's not even doing anything. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's cool. Yeah. I find that fascinating. Just I think to some degree it's like your ability to tolerate that much food is probably half of what kept you consistent. Yeah. Which is actually really cool because I think we talked about this earlier about, you know, the guy where the guy that was doing the high jumping in. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, like, it shouldn't be possible that you're doing this. Yeah. So then in the genetic testing that we did, they're like, yeah. Like you can't utilize fat as fuel. That's what my genetics say. That's your genetics. Yeah. You did across Texas. Yeah. So I told him that. And they're like they're like, you know, this is science that like, you're beating your genetics. Uhhuh. which is just, you know, it's super cool to, like, see things like that. But, yeah, I mean, it was, you know, granted, like, you know, we did, we did it like, we just had so many options, right? Like we would do we took the, you know, the electrolytes with us like we had Jeremy switchback but like that just it kept giving me heartburn when I would take any and not not Jeremy. So I'm not saying Jeremy's just any type of powder would give me heartburn. So we switched to pickle juice, sucker punch, pickle juice, and, the 250mg salt pills. Okay, so I would take that. I would take the pickle juice, and I would shoot a salt pill. Okay. once every, like, hour and a half, and I never cramped once. Nice. Yeah. We did, we did good. Yeah, I know it sounds like you. It's. It's one of those things where I think, like, you kind of got to go in. Being prepared to lean into whatever you find is working. Yeah. So which is a little unnerving going into it because you're like, I don't know if I have a really good plan here. And it's like, I think you want to have options or be aware of the options. But then once something starts sticking, like the protocol that's working for you, just, you know, and I think it was like truly like I think it was the, the, the primal beef. Primal beef was the company, co-owned by Jocko Willink. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. And because Jocko Fuel was the main sponsor. Okay. so Primal Beef sent us this grass fed. Fruit finished? anyways, so it was that like I was having, like a pound and a half of that every day. The one day that I broke mentally and physically, like where I would just like the worst day of the run across Texas the night before was the only night I didn't have that. we had chick fil A, chick fil A catered and which it was amazing, right? Like. And I had like, six chicken sandwiches, like French fries. The next day, I couldn't eat. I couldn't get going. Took me hours. Really. Like like, I just I didn't have enough. And I don't think it was I don't think it was macros. I think it was macros. Oh, yeah, I really do. I really believe that. Like, we, I did fast food one time. I have an athlete that's getting ready to run, Michigan, north to south. Okay. Or south to north. And we were talking about that. He's like, you know, like, can I just get like he's like, there's a bunch of and I'm like, no, I'm like, I don't think that you should do fast food at all. I don't think there's enough nutrient value in there for what now can you. Yes. You know, but I'm like you. Yeah. Should you know, I don't, you know, I mean, because I was like, I was thriving off of butter and beef. I wonder if it was. And I'm not big on eating right. But, you know, I want everyone to know that, like, I'm not trying to push y'all, and I don't like playing. That's what was working for you. I wonder if it was just the change in routine where, like you, your body and your mind got used to that kind of repetition. And then all it took was changing it. Yeah. That one time to, like, throw things off a little. Yeah. That was I don't know if you remember or not, but there was a picture of me and I was sitting. Hopefully the listener knows me, but I was sitting outside of a hotel with a chick fil. A lemonade in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Have you ever seen that picture? I think so. I had on like the cut off that said, movement is medicine. My hat was backwards. I'm fucking burnt to a crisp. And I have. I have a chick fil A gallon heater, I have a gallon of chick fil A in one hand and a cigarette in the other. And I'm waiting on my chick fil A and I'm like, no one knows. But like, I couldn't even stand up on my own, but like, I gotta help him up. I'm like, I'm like, what can help me? I'm gonna drink this, this lemonade, and I'm just gonna rip a cigarette. And yeah, like, it was just that. Like, that was the type of fun stuff like that. I love being who I am, you know, and just not taking everything so seriously. Yeah. And, you know, being able to, you know, smoke a cigarette. I didn't have a beer out there. I there was one day we rolled up to a, like, podunk wooden gas station in the middle of the desert, and there was a Budweiser you were thinking of, and I was just looking at it, and I was like, I know if I have this, that like, it's it's coming out like I'm throwing out for sure. Yeah. But like, you know, just just having fun, like, and I don't like I don't remember the last cigarette I had. It might have been the run across Texas. Yeah. Like I posted me smoking a cigarette on Instagram before. And people are like, how many packs a day do you smoke? Like, like. And I'm like, no, I was like. I was like, I was like, I don't. I'm like. Like, if you see me smoking a cigarette on Instagram, that's probably when I'm smoking the cigarette. Like it doesn't just happen like it's, it's I think it's also with the engagement. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's just I just I'm just trying to, you know, just be cool. Have fun. Yeah. Well I think that's part of it when you're doing something like that. Because if you take it too seriously, you get in your own head and then you start over fixating and and just like running anxiety, essentially there's a guy, there's a guy. Excuse me? There's a guy running the route right now. Oh, really? Yeah. Is he going after your record or is he just. From what I can tell, he he never said it publicly, but from what I could tell where I looked at his, his, you know, manifest or whatever you want to call it, manifest his he's like journal. His. Yeah. Journal. It ended on day 18. Oh okay. So we ended on day 18. last I looked, he was he was going to have to he was like 12 days in, he started on the 14th. So, so he's almost almost 14 days in. Okay. He was going to have to average 50 a day all the way out. He was he was he was behind. Okay. but he's not like documenting it on Instagram. He's not just going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's just doing it. I can't tell if he's a kid or, it's chasing. Chasing dreams. He's doing it, I guess chasing 13, 566 miles is where he's at. Day 13, you said. Yeah, that's what he has like run across Texas. Day 13 560 6.2. Okay, interesting. I had no clue someone was doing it at the moment, but you probably spurred on interest in it. So he's okay. He's averaging 43 a day right okay. So he's a little under your he's a little behind your spot. So yeah I mean he's it's incredible. There's a female doing it in July or. No I'm sorry. February. She wants to become the first female to do it. All right. I'm gonna be honest. What? You and I don't want to. I don't want to say I did this right, but, like, I'm seeing a lot. I'm. A lot of people are messaging me, and they're running across their state for a charity. Yeah. It's incredible. The buff runner shout out to him. He completely shout out to him. He completely ripped Drew's because we had an intro where it was like, I'm Matt Johnson. And this is the run across Texas, 850 miles from El Paso to Galveston, raising money for veterans, huh? And someone sends me this random reel, and it was the buff runner. And it was like, it's like I'm so-and-so. And it was it was the same thing. And he had like, the fly over, like drew did and everything. And but yeah, man, he's getting ready to rip it across Utah, there's another kid that wants to become the youngest kid to run across Utah. You think he's 21? Okay. the two, the two people with Texas that did it. Yeah. there's another guy that's running across Colorado that has messaged me. the other guy that's running back home in Iowa, on, US 62, which is completely awesome. Yeah. It's just it's I, I love that. Yeah. Because it's like, man. And I'm not, I'm, I'm not saying anything about myself, but I'm like, think about all those charities. Yeah. That stemmed that stemmed like how many people, you know, because I was like how many veterans can I help? Right. Uhhuh. How many people am I helping? That I don't even know about, right? You know, like how many like like like if they raise 20,000 and they raise 20,000, they raise 20,000 because they were fired up off of what I did. Yeah. The butterfly effect is, is the most beautiful thing in the entire world. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like we were talking about before. It's like you picked up the David Goggins book. Yeah. you know, they maybe tune in to your Instagram page, I want that, yes, I want that. But, yeah, maybe, I don't know, I need to hire somebody. But I would love one day to write a book. Yeah. you know, I think once I do a couple more things. Yeah. you know, write a book and, you know, tell my childhood and you're good at storytelling, so it would make sense. Yeah, yeah. My only problem is, is like, you know, I don't like to read, and I can't write where the shit. You just get a ghost. That's the. That's the military. That's. I say in the military, I mean, I was like, I joined the military because I can't read or write. Well, the thing is, is like, you probably have enough content out there now where someone who's really good at writing could just sit down with you for a bunch of interviews and kind of write it for you. Yeah. And then, yeah, and then you could read it and say, hey, maybe, you know, you could collaborate with a co-author to. Yeah, I think it would be. Yeah, it would be incredible. So, yeah. Yeah. So that's that's my goal. Probably I think I would want to. I want to do Texas. I want to do another. I want to do a big one. I want to do one more big one. And, you know, Texas, North-South. when does this come out? Actually, I'll tell you. I'll tell you off. There's I'll tell you off. Okay, I have something. Yeah, I have something really, really cool that I think you'll you'll dig a little bit, but, Yeah. Sweet. But Leadville is next. Leadville is next. Leadville is coming up. That's us you got all summer. That's us. We're working together on that one. We're going to get you there fast. Faster than your last time, for sure. Yeah. What? What's the Leadville goal? We need a ten hour PR. the goal. The the goal is is sub 18. Sub 18. I would, I would love sub 18. I think that I am capable of sub 18. I think that we can do it. but I'm going to be honest, like, I'm just I'm just happy to be here. And, you know, I love Leadville. but, you know, I set this goal of sub 18. I so I don't know if it's, you know, I don't know if I get caught up in, like, I feel like I have to prove myself, but, like. Haven't been in the arena, you know, like like like like people know me, you know, people know me as this dude, that as this Goggins guy, as this dude that does crazy things to just dude that can do hard things. But I've never actually competed. Yeah, I ran in 1900. Cool. Like, that's not that's that's not that cool. Like it. Whatever. Yeah. You'd be in it with an 18 hour finish at Leadville. Yeah, in the thick of it. Yeah. We'd be sixth last year. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I mean and I mean, we'll be. Yeah, it'd be David Roche and everybody else behind him. Yeah. Yeah. But but yeah. You know, so we're Yeah. We're training. We're training differently. I mean I've never actually like, followed a structured plan with speed work. followed a legit build like how we've been building where we, you know, we're doing ten by one minutes and then like, ten by two minutes. Yeah. And then I think the one that I, I missed the ones last week. So we'll have to bring those back. But I saw something where it was like ten and ten by a little bit of a hybrid workout. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So I missed that one. So I got to get back on that. But yeah, it's been cool for me because I've been I've been, you know, like I said about my trust. Right. Like I just, I put my trust in you. And we've been running about 80 miles a week and I've never in my life, like, usually I'm like, one week I'll end up like, oh, I ran 110, and then the next week I'll be a little sore and I'll run 60, and then it'll be like, oh, 70, 100. Yeah. 8070, 160. Yeah, but for us, we were literally up until the Achilles. It was 80, 80, 80, 85, 90, 80, 80, 80, 80. Ten weeks of consistency. And just seeing me come from the run across Texas running, you know, in my training, running 11 minute places thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going to be slow forever. Because like, I have, you know, my fast twitch muscles are gone. Yeah, too. Like they're still there. Yeah. To like, you know, we started you and I at a, at an easy pace of like nine, nine, 29, 30. And now I go out this morning and it takes me a little bit to warm up, but like my easy paces are like 750. Yeah. Uh Huh. Yeah. And, and we've and it's only been, we started I think in like December I think so yeah. So December, January it's been three months. Yeah. And two of those months. Two of those weeks I had the flu. And one of those weeks my Achilles was acting up. So it's been nine weeks. Yeah, we've seen that nine weeks. Well, when I see runners with your profile from a training history standpoint, I love it because I just know like what we're going to be able to get out of that because really the hard thing to do or I shouldn't say the hard thing, the time consuming thing to do is have a massive foundation because that can just take years to do. But you did that already, so it was like, now you have this foundation. So it'd be like this. Like if I had this like amazing house I wanted to build, I couldn't wait to build it and I had to like, wait a couple of years for them to like, test the foundation or the ground and then put a foundation. And it's just waiting forever to be able to start building this house. That's what it's like if you're trying to start there. But you had that. So it's like I'm rolling up to this like perfect plot of land. With this great foundation, I can build anything I want on top of it, and you can start building. I can just exactly. Yeah. So like speed work is going to just pull like with your foundation, the amount of different things we can do with speed work is, is massive. So I also have like it's not like, okay, I've got this one tool that's going to work for him. It's like I've got a bunch of different tools that could work. Yeah. Which, which we have seen because I haven't done the same speed workout twice. Right. Yeah. We've done a lot of right. It's been like 30, you know, I think there was one that was like 20 by 30s. And I was like, yeah, oh my God. I just did those this morning. Yeah yeah yeah. It's like 20 by 30s. And then it's, you know, ten by one minute. Ten by two minutes. you know, but like, yeah, the, you know. I think in my opinion, if if I can stay healthy and I believe I can because I'm doing everything I can to take care of myself. I, I don't see how we don't go sub 18. Yeah. I think you have a good look at it. I think you've got you've got the speed which we've I mean you knew that from years ago when I mean, if you're running in the low sixteens just without any structure and then 56 for a ten mile, that's plenty fast. There's nothing about your ability that would suggest you aren't able to do that. So then it's just about getting fit specifically. And then with a little bit of luck on race day, not having anything go wrong that is like preventable. Yeah. Which, you know, that's the big. And we're going out to Leadville Amanda and I yeah. You're gonna get acclimated and. Yeah. So we're going out there. We're going to be out there July 8th through the race. Yeah. So we're going to be out there for almost five weeks. Perfect. So you'll get we're going to do our peak week in Leadville. Yeah. you know so getting speed sessions in Leadville at altitude, getting that sickness out of the way I always get sick right before the race. so getting that sickness out of the way, you know, doing speed, work, altitude, getting all. I mean, we're going to have three quality weeks of training. We'll be pushing volume at that point. Yeah, yeah. You'll be in heaven because. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then and then the cool thing is, is that, the, the house that we're staying at is a friend of Eric Hinman, and he's going to have a plunge and a sauna. he's, he's he's renovating a Leadville house right now. Oh, really? So we're gonna have a plunge. We have a sauna. Like, I'm going to be. I'm going to be in my own little heaven. Yeah, and in Colorado, you're not going. And we're taking. We're going to take the dogs. Oh, yeah, we're gonna take the dogs. Like, we're just. We're going. We're leaving. Yeah. And so yeah, we're excited about that because Amanda and I are both, you know. Outdoorsy, allowing her now to see Leadville like Leadville was. What? Like I told you, at Leadville is where the the the switch flipped. And, you know, she's never been there yet. And taking her out there to where? Like, like that was where it all began. Yeah. And, you know, having her out there, having the dogs out there, staying out there, drew is not doing content. Drew is is pacing me and having my, my best friend, you know, in my adult life, being my pacer and him knowing everything he does about, you know, ultras from Sally and from working, you know, working all, all of that type of stuff. And Heather Jackson and, you know, him knowing me inside and out, like, like he's going to be able to assist me there. We're still trying to decide and maybe you and I can chat about this, but we're still trying to decide if if drew takes me the whole way. Yeah. Because, you know, it's a it's a 38 miles. Yeah, you can pay. Yeah, but drew is fighting me. He's a little asshole, but he's fighting me on. He's like, well, if I start with you in Twin Lakes, I'm taking you to the finish line. He doesn't want to miss that like he doesn't want because I wanted, you know, I'm like, I'm like, Amanda's got to take me in. And he's like. He's like, if I. If I'm starting with you, I'm finishing the thing and I'm like, okay, dude. Like. But yeah, I mean also Matt, always a good friend, good friend of mine maybe have him, but I think, I think I was he was out there last year I think. Yeah, yeah. But I think, I think I want drew because Drew's just capable. He's a mountaineer. Like he's made the mountains. it also puts a fire under his ass to get in shape. Yeah. and. Yeah. So having a good crew and not overdoing it, and I'm not going to be fancy about it, like. Like you or you're not gonna I, I'm gonna have a team out like Kane. Footwear is gonna film it, huh? I'm not going to film like you're not going to see any content for me like I am. Go dark. Yes. You're not going to see stories. You're not going to see. I'm not. I'm not going to have any real making from this. If you see real, it's going to come from someone else that Amanda's collabing on my account. Like the phone isn't there. The like it's, it's it's go time and that's what I, that's what I've already told everybody, you know, within my circle is I'm like. I want people to see me at Leadville without a cell phone. Yeah. There's a different side to Matt. Yes, yes for sure. For sure. Awesome. Well, I think it's going to be fun to build up, the experience getting out there early and the race itself. I think you'll have a great time. So yeah. But Matt, thanks for coming on and sharing your story and chatting about running and a bunch of different stuff, I guess. Yeah, thanks for having me. We'll have to, chop it up afterwards. Yeah, absolutely. You'll come back on the full recap. Good or bad. We have to do it. We. We'll be stories no matter what. Yes. Yeah, yeah, you'll be the guy to tell them. Yeah. And they'll make good stories. So cool. Thank you so much. Yeah. Take care. Yep.