Rhonda: Yeah. So once you actually decided to make this change and you started to notice these positive benefits on your mood and the way you felt and obviously behaviors probably started to change along with that, then you decided to kinda go full force. And you're now gonna be vegan for almost a decade. And not only that, you've taken on these amazing physical feats. I mean, you started to get into endurance training. And how did that start?

Rich: Well, what happened was when I was sort of new into this plant-based way of living and eating, I suddenly had so much energy that I literally had trouble just focusing and sitting still. Like my knee was going like this. And I was like literally vibrating. And I started going outside to exercise for the first time really with any consistency in well over a decade, initially just because I had to burn off all this added vitality that I felt was like running through my system. I didn't have any desire to return to becoming a competitive athlete, but what happened was the more that I did that, the more I just felt connected to myself again. Like well, there's all these amazing trails around here. And I'd never explored any of them.

And I was just sort of feeling like I was connecting with my body in a way that I hadn't in a very long time. Like I was a swimmer as a kid. I swam in high school. I swam in college. And that brought me so much joy. And in our culture, it's sorta like, "All right. Well, you did that in college, but now you're an adult. And we don't do these things anymore." And that just door shuts, but I was like, "This feels good. You know, like I like this. Just because I'm 40, does that mean that I can't do this anymore?" And I listened to your interview with Wim Hof. And he said something similar. Like he said that he knew like when he jumped in the cold water like this was his thing. You know, like he knew. And people were saying, "Oh, you should be a doctor or you should be a carpenter or all these sorts of things with your life." And he's like...He had the sort of spiritual wherewithal to go, "That's not for me. Like I don't know what my path is gonna be, but it's gonna be totally different."

And so I think there was some of that sense in myself. And I just became so struck by the incredible resilience of the human body because I'd abused myself with drugs and alcohol and a stressful job and terrible lifestyle habits and a fast food diet for so many years. And literally within a period of a few months, I felt like a different person, right? And so with that, I started to think about human potential, you know. And like, again, to Wim Hof, he's talking about the ability of the human body to do things that defy everything these scientists said was possible. And I started to think about what I was capable of. And because I had bounced back in such a dramatic way, it kind of led me to this...You know, I started to think about challenging myself, like, "What are my capabilities?" Like if I could rebound so quickly, what if I took myself and tested myself to my ultimate limits? Like what could I do?

And I think in part that was informed a little bit by this idea that I don't really feel like I ever reached my potential as a swimmer when I was in college and feeling like I had unfinished business there. So that's what led me into the world of ultra-endurance. Like I just became fascinated with these crazy races and these people that were doing things that I just didn't even think were humanly possible. And I just felt magnetized by it and just like a tractor beam was drawing me into that world. And I read an article about this race called Ultraman that I'd never heard of before. Most people know what an Ironman is but Ultraman is essentially a double Ironman distance triathlon that over three days circumnavigates the big island of Hawaii.

And it's a very cool race. It's been around for over 30 years at this point, but it kinda slides under the radar. There's no media attention. There's no prize money. They don't even shut the roads off for the cycling or the running. And it's limited to just 35 athletes every year. And it seemed like what Ironman probably was like in 1980 when it first began like very pure into its roots. And these athletes were doing it really just to have this like kind of journey that transcended the M-Dot and getting the tattoo of the Ironman on your ankle or whatever. I don't know. It just really intrigued me. And there was something that clicked inside of me. And I just thought, "I'm gonna find a way to do that race."

Rhonda: So you said it's like double Ironman. So what's the distance, just like your...

Rich: Yeah. So day one, you do a 6.2 mile swim. And then you get out of the water. It's a point-to-point ocean swim. And then you get on your bike and you ride 90 miles, the last 20 of which is up to Volcano National Park. It's this crazy 20-mile climb with headwinds. It's like insane. Then you go to sleep. It's a stage race, kind of like Tour de France. Like you do a stage. You go to bed. You wake up the next day. The second day, you ride your bike 171 miles. And then the third day, you celebrate the whole thing by running 52.4 miles.

Rhonda: What?

Rich: A double marathon back. And you end up where you started. So it's crazy, right?

Rhonda: Totally, like...

Rich: So when I first read about it I was like, "Can people do that?" Like it seemed amazing to me.

Rhonda: And you've done that.

Rich: And something I wanted to be part of. Yeah. So I did that race in 2008 when I was 42. So that would have been two years after sort of adopting the plant-based diet. And I did it in 2009 and also in 2011.

Rhonda: So you've done it three times.

Rich: Yeah. The third time didn't go so well. I DNF'd on the second day. I was like spitting out blood. And I had like a respiratory infection. So I had to drop out, but my best performance was in 2009.