Welcome back, team! Our guest today is the unstoppable Jason Hardrath, emanating an aura of audacity and resilience that is sure to inspire. Picture this - you're at one of Seattle's most luxurious venues, the W Seattle, catching up with a man who previously reached his 100th Fastest Known Times (FKTs). his stirring movie, "Journey to Infinity." recently released and he's planning to do so much more.
What attracts someone to the thrill of the unknown, to the allure of the wildest peaks and valleys? This episode answers that question as we delve deep into the psyche of Jason, a man whose ADHD mindset fuels his adventurous spirit. His shared experiences provide more than just a thrilling story; they serve as inspiration for others to break free from societal moulds and embark on their own personal quests. From a gruelling 100-mile continuous push through Montana's backcountry to achieving the "infinity loop" on the tallest volcano on each continent, Jason's tales of triumph and perseverance are nothing short of awe-inspiring.
Lastly, let's not forget the community that builds us up in our most challenging moments. In this episode, we explore how the world of FKTs fosters connections among athletes striving to surpass their own limits. Hear from Jason about his training regimen, how he prepares for extreme physical challenges like high-altitude climbing, and how he supports and nurtures up-and-coming adventurers. Strap yourselves in folks, as we set off on this exciting journey into the world of mountaineering, adventure, and personal growth. This is not just another podcast episode, it's a call to arms to anyone who's ever wanted to step outside their comfort zone and reach for the stars.
Want to see more of the AP? Subscribe to the AP YouTube channel.
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Check out Jason's stuff:
Instagram
Journey to Infinity
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Check out Dave's stuff on:
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Twitter
LinkedIn
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Produced by Rise Virtually
Check out our Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Tiktok | Spotify | Apple | Google | Youtube
Welcome back, team! Our guest today is the unstoppable Jason Hardrath, emanating an aura of audacity and resilience that is sure to inspire. Picture this - you're at one of Seattle's most luxurious venues, the W Seattle, catching up with a man who previously reached his 100th Fastest Known Times (FKTs). his stirring movie, "Journey to Infinity." recently released and he's planning to do so much more.
What attracts someone to the thrill of the unknown, to the allure of the wildest peaks and valleys? This episode answers that question as we delve deep into the psyche of Jason, a man whose ADHD mindset fuels his adventurous spirit. His shared experiences provide more than just a thrilling story; they serve as inspiration for others to break free from societal moulds and embark on their own personal quests. From a gruelling 100-mile continuous push through Montana's backcountry to achieving the "infinity loop" on the tallest volcano on each continent, Jason's tales of triumph and perseverance are nothing short of awe-inspiring.
Lastly, let's not forget the community that builds us up in our most challenging moments. In this episode, we explore how the world of FKTs fosters connections among athletes striving to surpass their own limits. Hear from Jason about his training regimen, how he prepares for extreme physical challenges like high-altitude climbing, and how he supports and nurtures up-and-coming adventurers. Strap yourselves in folks, as we set off on this exciting journey into the world of mountaineering, adventure, and personal growth. This is not just another podcast episode, it's a call to arms to anyone who's ever wanted to step outside their comfort zone and reach for the stars.
Want to see more of the AP? Subscribe to the AP YouTube channel.
---
Check out Jason's stuff:
Instagram
Journey to Infinity
---
Check out Dave's stuff on:
Instagram
Twitter
LinkedIn
---
Produced by Rise Virtually
Check out our Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Tiktok | Spotify | Apple | Google | Youtube
in the particular situation, it's like if I started coughing up fluid seriously, then I would get left at whichever hut on either side and Nathan would continue on and finish the thing.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome back to the 203rd episode of the Athletes Podcast. Today we feature Jason Hardrath, the second time he's been on the show. We had the pleasure of recording at the W Hotels in Seattle in their studio, the first one ever built in North America. If you haven't been, head on over to Whotelscom, check them out. They have an incredible establishment. What can I say? Studio was amazing. Jason was amazing. We met in the middle. He's from Oregon, we're from Vancouver, british Columbia. We met in Washington. He was going there for an event. We were able to catch him for an hour. Chop it up, get him on the show in person. Improve the video quality that we had from his first episode where he dropped some gems. If you haven't go, check it out, let us know down below your favorite episode, whether it's the first, the second. We'd love to hear from you. You know what we'd also love to hear from you guys, specifically the males watching this Athletes Podcast episode what are you guys doing for your face?
Speaker 2:You guys are probably brushing your teeth every day, but are you washing your face? Are you applying the good every night to your face to make sure that you're hydrated, moisturized, making sure that your skin looks young, youthful glowing. I personally use Caldera Lab. I start off my day by washing my face with the Clean Slate. You can tell it's still wet. That's because I used it this morning. Then I follow it up. I throw on the nice little icon here in the middle underneath the eyes, keeps those black, dark spots away, and then, to finish it off, we use the beard product to make sure that the beard's looking nice and full. Check out calderalabcom. Use the code AP20 for 20% off yours. It's the best deal that they offer anywhere out there, and I can't recommend the products enough. I use Caldera Lab every single day. As you can tell, my skin's looking all right and I'm very happy with it, to say the least. I want to know, though, if you're using it. Let us know down below. Guys promise you're going to love it. You're also going to love this episode. Jason Hardrath uses the product. We're using the product.
Speaker 2:Can't thank you folks enough for tuning in, listening to this episode of the Athletes Podcast, whether it's on YouTube, spotify. Apple means the world to us. As you know, we have our athlete agreement. If you can hit that subscribe button, it means the world to us. We're able to keep doing this on a weekly basis, producing the best content for you to continue educating, entertaining and inspiring that next generation of athletes. Don't forget. Don't forget whether you're in the middle at the end of this episode.
Speaker 2:Check out Jason Hardrath's movie the Infinity Loop. We'll make sure to link it down in the show notes below. Give it a watch. It's amazing. Can confirm. I would recommend watching. Do it with your significant other partner. You'll see the difference and it's going to make you want to go out and hike. Hopefully this episode does too. Thanks so much for tuning in. Here we go. You're the most decorated racquetball player in US history, world's strongest man, from childhood passion to professional athlete, eight-time Ironman champion. So what was it like making your debut in the NHL? What is your biggest piece of advice for the next generation of athletes, from underdogs to national champions? This is the Athletes Podcast, where high performance individuals share their triumphs, defeats and life lessons to educate, entertain and inspire the next generation of athletes. Here we go.
Speaker 1:That is true, that is true Favorite place to be.
Speaker 2:You get to crush a couple of these after, or I guess you could crush them during your events too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can crush them any which way Fit for all times. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure to get you back on in person, jason. We chatted a year and a half ago, roughly after you had finished your 100 FKTs here in Washington, or in the state of Washington that is. We're fortunate to be here in. The sound studio of the W Hotel is the first one ever built in North America. Pretty legit setup, better than our virtual one last time.
Speaker 1:Way better than virtual, Way better than yeah, this is a cool vibe.
Speaker 2:You look a little bit better through this screen than you did last time. Yeah, the resolution is unreal, man, yeah it's amazing doing these in real life Carved out an hour of your time here to chat with us today while we're down in Seattle. You wanted to come back on the show. We had some great feedback last time you were on, so, yeah, I'm pumped to get you back on. Talk a bit more about what you've been going on the past couple of years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've done one or two things since the last time we chatted. I think we'll find something to talk about.
Speaker 2:It seems like every other day you're summoning some peak right.
Speaker 1:Pretty much I try to be. It's like in the classroom or in the mountains, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which one gives you the bigger rush?
Speaker 1:I mean, it's got to be both, it's got to be both, it's got to be I don't know. It's like it's as old as the hero's journey. Right, you go out, you go on the grand adventure, you conquer the, you slay the dragon, you conquer the objective, and then you circle back and you share that wisdom, experience, the riches with the community and it's like that's what makes the whole thing meaningful and lasting. If you just go conquer the objective and do nothing with it, then it's just a memory that lives and dies with you. And if you never leave, then you don't have anything really to share to enrich the community, whether it's stories or wisdom or knowledge, or you know. I'm actually, you know, getting money raised for a bike skills track for my kids to be built with showing my film back here at the Mount Nearest in December. So it's like circling it all back to enrich the community and I think that's what makes the whole thing meaningful and lasting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you had brought up that metaphor when we talked last time on the 129th episode of the Athletes Podcast and when Phoenix and I were listening back to it we were thinking we're like man, we got to get Jason to dive deeper into, like that, bringing back the gold piece, because you know you think about it when you leave flock the nest and you leave your hometown and you want to come back bringing back the riches, bringing back the wisdom, expertise. That's not an easy thing to do, accumulating that wealth of knowledge and getting the goal of the after slaying the dragon. How have you been able to do that over the past decade?
Speaker 1:Oh man, yeah, age me there. Yeah, I mean for me, luckily, I'm kind of neurodiversion, I'm an ADHD mindset, and so it's been very hard to ever focus on stuff just because someone else told me to do it, do this, because I said so. It's like I can't sorry, can't focus, and so like that's a huge drawback when you're in a setting like school or in modern society, working a normal job, where it's like all about other people telling you what to do without any real rationale or reason behind it, unless they're like a really good leader and they like can show you the vision they have. But the superpower to that is I couldn't just get sucked into the habits of just doing what I was told. What society, what my family, what my church, what my you know the business I was working for simply told me to do like be this, do this. It was just impossible Like I can barely keep myself doing the minimum necessities as an employee to be a teacher.
Speaker 1:I'm a great teacher in the classroom I'm able to lock into teachable moments and put wisdom into the experience and like reconcile differences between students in the moment. But as an employee, I'm like awful, like just barely scraping by, like minimum, like please start responding to emails. So it's like that has allowed me to be taken by, like to have the time and the focus right, the energy to be taken by my own visions of the dragons. I want to go, slay the adventures I want to embark on, and so I've been able to step out into those, and then that gives me a lot of time because I'm out in it, I'm not distracted with, well, this person wants me to do this and that person wants me to do that, then I need to do this for this person. I'm able to spend a lot of time thinking about, well, what is the meaning of having done these things beyond myself, because I don't ever just want to be like, hey, I'm a badass dude who did a badass thing in the mountains.
Speaker 1:It's like that's, that's not what I'm about. I mean, it's cool to get to do the thing and it's cool that it's hard and it's cool that people get something out of it and like, look up to it. But one of the things I've come to, now that I've been in it a little longer since the last time we've chatted, is the experience of our grand adventure. That's, for us, the experience and the memory we get to cherish that we stepped out and we were brave and we embodied who we hoped we were in those moments to go create a real experience for ourselves, to do the thing that was scary to us. But the stories we tell, those are for the people who come next and it creates this clear reasoning like why bother talking about what I've done and what I'm doing?
Speaker 1:It's like, well, the hope is I will invite others into their own grand adventure, their own journey, and it's like I think that, with who I am as a teacher, right so much of how I bring value to the world is what I have to say, what I have to offer other people. I can't really build a whole lot with my hands. I'm not skilled in that way. I'm not an artist or a builder. I don't get to manifest things out of clay or wood or steel, but I can bring ideas in front of people that give them clarity on why what they're doing matters and help them believe in the dreams and goals that they have. And I think that's the goal I have to bring back from from these grand adventures is that it gives me permission to invite others Into their own version of the same.
Speaker 2:So it's a deep way to start it off. I like jump on in.
Speaker 1:No, it's. It's sink or swim.
Speaker 2:As someone who's in their mid 20s, I'm like I still have buddies who are going out every weekend and that's that's the. It's the bin street and kids come home late at night, crush pizza, whatever, and, like you know, there's a time and place for that, maybe during school, but there's got to be that desire to seek out more, do more, achieve more. I think there's incredible people like yourself out there who don't get this Exposure from media that they deserve. Andy Donaldson, who just his episode dropped this week. He swims tens of hundreds of kilometers for mental health charity and it's like I Know, when there's no Netflix documentaries about swimmers out there right now, but there might be now because we've shot shine a bit of light on what he's doing. Same with you, right, fastest known times.
Speaker 2:Five, ten years ago weren't talked about. Now You're. Everyone who knows about an FKT knows who Jason Hardrat is, I'm sure, and they probably know. Hey, this is something that is within my reach now and everyone can do it, right, everyone can go, and I mean from the beginning, like you know some people misperceive.
Speaker 1:Like from the beginning, like my first podcast I was on, I'm like, yeah, I'm not an elite athlete, I'm not some some super athlete. I am a PE teacher who really loves to move his body and his way too stubborn for his own good and has this like creative mind that's just prone to Grand adventure and and open to new experience, whether that's good experience or bad experience. And Because of that I'm willing to go out and chase these things that other people maybe, sure, maybe they thought of it, but they weren't willing to step out and go give it a try. And it's like I do believe, like so many people could do the things, many, much of the things, many of the things that I've done. Maybe not everybody, all of them, but it's like so much adventure is available to so many people if they're just willing to start taking those little steps of well, this motivates me. And now this is something that inspires and motivates me.
Speaker 1:It's about those intermediate steps that carry us forward the the right size, you know. Yeah, it's like sure if somebody tried to think of, oh, I want to go do Washington boulders a hundred high speaks. It's like that might be Way too much as a first step. But if you took all the same little steps I took along the way to prepare for each of the obstacles that you run into While climbing those hundred peaks and to build the mindset to be able to break a project like that apart and see it in its chunks and be excited about those chunks the challenges each day will present, then suddenly it's like well, yeah, it is Possible to chase these big, audacious goals and to go live a wild and ventures and maybe has nothing to do with mountains. For them Maybe it's surfing or paragliding or chess or art.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But to believe that that process forward is this is as available to them as it is to me or you or anyone. It's being willing to do the work and step toward that next vision. That's possible.
Speaker 2:Providing you have a good partner also who's willing to trek in and out 20 kilometers to help you on your mission. Having a good partner in life always helps and you know partners like athletic brewing, viori clothing, keeping you all bundled up for these Adventures. But you just spent 39 days. That recent challenge ridiculous.
Speaker 1:You gotta explain to people, yeah so when I was actually doing the research for the, the bulgers, I Came across this other challenge by Eric Gilbert. Sent, a phenomenal mountaineer. You should actually have him on this, this channel, at some point. He's trying to climb the high point in every country, okay, and One of the things he did during COVID was Climbed the Colorado 14ers, the Wyoming 13ers Excuse me and the Montana 12ers.
Speaker 1:So that's the 14,000 foot peaks of Colorado, 13,000 foot peaks of Wyoming and 12,000 foot peaks of Montana, all in a single push. And and he named it the Rocky Mountain Slam. And I was like that's cool, all right, 120 peaks, 122 peaks, depending on you know how you. You know you have to tag a couple of double summits where it's still one peak, but they don't know which summits higher yet, so you go tag both of them. So there's a couple situations of that.
Speaker 1:So it's 122 and Like, as soon as I saw it, I'm like that might be the next chapter, that might be the next thing. Get to climb another great American mountain range, yeah, and just go have a wild summer. And yeah, the the previous time by Eric, and he climbed also the Centenials list in Colorado at the same time, just because he wanted to climb them and then it wasn't a part of the the challenge that forth as the Rocky Mountain Slam. But his time was 60 days. But I want to be fair to him that he didn't. He climbed extra peaks in there to like get that bonus accomplishment.
Speaker 2:You guys are always trying to In some capacity and yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was like, well, okay, I'm gonna follow in his steps and I'm gonna do just Just the peaks that are a part of the actual project. And so, yeah, did it in 39 days, 23 hours and 44 minutes, 16 minutes shy of 40 days. And yeah, it did come down to a literal finishing like wild sprint up and down the last peak and back to the trailhead with feet blistered and just in pain and Fatigued and sleep deprived, out of my mind, bleeding out of a few different places, and sprinted through to the finish to keep it under that 40-day mark. It's, it's wild how sometimes, or oftentimes, it seems it comes down to just like a, you know, even a 40-day stretch. It comes down to a finishing sprint for a silly, arbitrary time that only matters to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it does.
Speaker 1:Not have it say 40 in the front instead to say 39 in the front.
Speaker 2:Yeah absolutely. Well, I'm. It's making me think I'm like with was that one more important for you to get it under 40, or was the infinity loop more important to get it? Keep it under 24 hours?
Speaker 1:Oh man, I Think it's the same. It's the same same I mean. I Mean I carried a lot more pain and suffering and setback on the Rocky Mountain Slam Okay, with all the things that went wrong I'm. My van broke down, had a couple of key crew members bail out it like Terrible times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it was.
Speaker 1:It was tough. You know it was a tough snow year there. There's a lot of things that like stacked up got altitude sickness for the first time in the states, like that never has happened to me and for some reason I think I was just sick and stressed out from the end of the school year and it was just enough extra stress that my body, you know, going up to 14,000 feet so quick, which normally I don't have a problem with yeah.
Speaker 1:Just couldn't quite hang and so, like, spent the whole first three weeks, just like. Every time I was above 13,000 I was coughing fluid out of my lungs not a lot like, but it was enough that it's like. This is highly uncomfortable and is slowing me down a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm so much less efficient Cardiovascularly then I normally would be at these elevations. So it's just like one burden after another. I had a couple times where my feet completely melted down to just raw skin and just like finding a way to keep moving forward and keep moving Forward and keep moving forward. And so, yeah, racing that to that finish line was basically pulling all of that pain and burden Into one like finishing push to make it all worth it. You know, not that the experience wouldn't have also been worth it if I hadn't been able to finish, but you know, if I'd yeah here's.
Speaker 1:Here's one example. So when I started into Montana, the final 27 peaks it's like a hundred and three mile continuous push in the backcountry, just getting resupplies from support crew and you're just in it until you finish, like close the shuttle door and go and I'm climbing these peaks and like right away I just for some reason I decided to pull out a new pair of shoes and put them on. When you know it's like it made sense because like a fresh rubber for a hundred miles of like really rough off trail, only like three miles of it, four miles of it is on trail, the rest is just like boulder and rock hopping and like third and fourth class.
Speaker 2:Do you have a preference? What do you mean between boulder or like flat?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, obviously it's nice to cruise on a trail. But I don't know. I'd say I like.
Speaker 1:I like flowy trails and I like fourth and fifth class climbing where it's like enough that it's like intense and you've got to be dialed and focused and your mistakes have consequences and the in between stuff is a little less fun. It's just kind of like a lot of work to cover ground. So I had a lot of that the part that's hard work to cover ground. And yeah, I had to start right into the night the first night because the storms, like the monsoonal storms, were coming in and it was like, okay, so a thunderstorm clears and I had already gotten stormed off a peak earlier like an electrical storm. I could hear the buzzing inside my hood like static electricity that like lightning is going to strike, and had to go like sprinting off the ridge line, just like galloping down the side of the scree field, to get out of the electrical zone and get low enough, and so that kind of PTSD experience was still in my head a little bit where it's like oh my God, I don't want to get caught in the storm again.
Speaker 1:I had to like find a place to put that, that like strong fear response and like keep moving forward. And so, yeah, I start off into the night to try to capture this window of time until, like, the more major storms rolled in, and I still would have to like try to duck smaller storms all along the way each day in the afternoon while just being out in the back country. And so I know all of this is ahead of me and my feet go completely raw again because just throwing the unbroken shoes on. So, just like Rob listed feet, and I'm like starting to look at my time and it's like dark at this point and I'm trying to like move across this like loose tallacy rock that moves when you step on it sometimes and as solid sometimes you don't know what's going to happen and trying to navigate and every step is just like excruciating, like to the degree you know when you feel a sense of pain that you can't think about other stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah it starts to push your thoughts out of your head.
Speaker 1:It's like I need to try to think about what I'm doing out here, and so it's like this is the headspace I'm in and then I start, my brain starts like running calculations, like you're not moving fast enough to beat storms anymore. You're going to, and then it starts to just go dark, like like the doubts, like you're going to get all the way up to like four peaks to go and you're going to get stormed off and you're going to be the loser that wasn't strong enough to finish this thing out and you're going to have to sit around for three or four days and have three or four days added to the record time because you couldn't beat these monsoons. And you're already got negative and dark and like self-deprecatory and just was spiraling kind of a wash and like this mixture of doubt and pain and frustration and like trying to find a way to keep moving forward. And trying to find a way to keep moving forward. And I just remember reaching a point where I was just like okay, if this is how I'm going to feel, if this is, if these are the feelings necessary to finish, so be it. Like stay however long you want and just sort of like made space to keep feeling that way, like if I'm going to feel exactly this bad for five days, so be it.
Speaker 1:And if I get stormed off with three peaks to go, so be it. At least I call it the mirror check. At least when I look myself in the mirror every day in the future, I'll know that I went right up until the moment the storms actually ran me off the mountains and not a step before, and I can live with that. I can live with that that I took it all the way to the edge as opposed to just. This really hurts, this really sucks.
Speaker 1:I'm in a lot of pain and suffering right now and doubt, and so I'm going to go ahead and pack it in and come back after the storms and then always wondering could have I made it? And so like I'd gone through this and kind of the final crucible of finishing this whole hundred and twenty two peak push. And yeah, I beat the storms. I beat the storms and I. I raced to the finish line in under 40 days and that, that, that whole experience and all the other tough, painful experiences along the way I wept when I crossed that finish line, just laid on the ground and wept, and it's because it brought together all of these difficulties and, having battled through each one along the way and to still sort of victoriously reach that line, it was powerful, yeah.
Speaker 2:I can hear it in your voice part full-time athlete, part-time meteorologist throughout this entire project to a. You're having to like. You know most people, when they decide on going for a hike, it's hey. Is it nice out? Let's go, not, hey. I need to plan my waking every single minute based on storms that are rolling in and whether I'm gonna be able to complete this challenge real fast.
Speaker 1:I have to shout out Chris Tomer. He's a, he is an actual meteorologist who volunteers his time. Well, he, for me, he volunteered his time like I offered to pay him because I know for like bigger expeditions internationally, like it's something he does for for money, and he's just like not dude, it's a cool project like I'll send you weather updates each day so that you can make good decisions, and it's just like dude you're awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, chris Tomer, he's a super, super cool guy, super good at what he does what was the difference hiking in the US compared to Mexico, for instance? Like big changes, big differences oh man, I mean, it's just the. You know I was raised in small town USA so I'm monolingual. It was very little mental equipment to even uncode other languages. It's like really tough to try to figure it out yeah and so I have very limited Spanish or any other country.
Speaker 1:I go to the language there. It's like super limited and tough for me to try to figure it out based on cues and yeah, so going to going to a foreign country, it's like suddenly you feel so much more alone with every step of the way, because there's that just like disconnect even from someone who might be right next to you. It's just like, oh, I have to figure out how to, you know, do whatever it is on my own. So I have to be dialed and knowing everything I need to get all the way into the country and transported to the mountain and up the mountain and down the mountain and back, and luckily, I mean, I want to shout out David, and in Lachichuca he was a strong name. Strong name, yeah, a guy named David. He runs Glacier Climbers in Lachichuca and, even though there was a language barrier, we just like use Google translate and he's a great like logistic. He, he organizes trips up and down the mountain and he was a huge part of the infinity loop being a success.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, if you're going to go climb Pico de Orizaba, look up David Glacier Climbers. Yeah, he was just awesome to work with it was.
Speaker 2:We watched that video and like even just you guys having to take multiple buses to get there to begin that effort was something else, because you know there's a lot of things that can go on before you even start that expedition. There's a lot of time and effort into it. Explain the infinity loop for people who don't know and I'm familiar with what that is absolutely so.
Speaker 1:A beloved American climber, late American climber. He passed away in a climbing accident in Patagonia. He had dreamed up this idea before he, before he passed, of what he called the infinity loop. He thought a person should climb up one side of the volcano. It was for any freestanding mountain. He like dream this up and he was going to apply it to Rainier because that was his kind of home mountain tall speak here in Washington for those who don't know. And yeah, you climb up one side of the mountain, climb down on an opposing side, opposing route, then use the trail to come back around to where you started, then go up and over the mountain again and then do the other half circumnavigation, drawing like a giant figure eight or a giant infinity loop with the summit of the mountain at the center. And it was just kind of this cool aesthetic idea to experience a single freestanding mountain, very like intimately, like you get to climb over it once in the day, once at dark, which the same routes can have totally different personalities when they're glaciated, if it's like warm and sunny and soft and stuff is coming down all around you, or it's frozen, rock solid and you're like barely getting any penetration with your crampons or ice axe, and then, yeah, you get to see it from every angle, as you do these like circumnavigations, and so you like get to view it in ways that the people who just drive up to the trailhead and go up yep, that's a mountain and then drive off like they don't get to ever see it that way, and I fell in love with the experience.
Speaker 1:I did it on Rainier. I held the record for a bit on the Rainier infinity loop and I think that's actually one of the things we chatted about last time and I knew right then, let's like this is back in 2019. It's like I want to go apply this to bigger volcanoes overseas. Then, of course, covid happens and it's like, well, guess, I'm not traveling overseas, so, yeah, then the whole journey to 100 thing unfolds and then finally, I'm done with that and I'm like, well, what's what's next? What I want to chase after next?
Speaker 1:not really and I knew I wanted to do the Rocky Mountain Slam like we talked about, and I was like, oh time to dust off the books on on this whole infinity loop project. And then I discovered the volcanic seven summit list, which is just like the seven summits list but it's the tallest volcano on each continent and like, sat back and thought about this, it's like okay, extending Chad Kellogg's vision to larger volcanoes overseas, it's like well, if I'm going to extend his vision as globally as it can be, then the tallest mountain, the tallest volcano on each continent would be kind of like that's as big as it gets. So why not just aim? Why not just aim at that?
Speaker 2:just go, stars just go all in.
Speaker 1:It's like I don't I don't know how I'm in a fun day in Antarctica, I don't know if I can get into Russia, I don't know if I'll find a way into Iran, but yeah, it's this interesting, possibly impossible project that kind of feels bigger than me because there's other people who care about it too. They care about like Chad and his legacy and infinity loops. You know I wasn't the first person to do one. There have been other people who have applied them to different mountains. I'm probably the most vocal about them. But yeah, it feels, it feels larger than just myself to like take this idea and put it on to these different, these different volcanoes overseas, and I'm hoping that others will take to the idea and kind of fall in love with the experience of smashing together ultra endurance, running and and high elevation mountaineering and create this just crazy experience with a single mountain it's a it's combination.
Speaker 2:I mentioned Andy Donaldson. He just finished the seven, seven toughest channels thank you to the Phoenix behind the camera and it's similar. It's like these are insane feats that you guys are accomplishing and you're like for him, completely self-funded. Right, and I know you have some partners, but it shouldn't be that people who are going out and looking to achieve these incredible things are struggling to get by, figuring out ways that they can afford to do it, like trying to figure out ways to get into Iran, like that we should be again what we're trying to do here highlighting these incredible feats so that people down the road are like, hey, okay, what else could we do to your point? What other ideas can we inspire? And I know you've been talking about bringing a couple other people under your wing so that it's inspiring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no actually now, I mean when I first started down right, because we all have to go through our own trials and tribulations. We all have to go through our own gauntlet or a vision quest or a trial that allows us to test ourselves to the degree that we feel we need to test ourselves. And the early part of me pursuing FKT's and pursuing the things outside of FKT's that I did in the mountains and on rock and on glaciers, it was like me, for me, I just like I said it was you know it was the experience for myself.
Speaker 1:I needed that growth, I needed that memory, I needed to prove that to myself, just me, inside me and and round about.
Speaker 1:When I completed the bulgers list and, you know, made that contribution to the, the community or the Washington mountaineering community and and like accomplished that, it was like and it was really during it, I started caring, like as I was planning it, I started caring more about who I could bring along and who I could share some of the summits with, who I could share some of the glacier travel with and like those Skills, and who I could share some of the rock climbing within those skills and who I could share like this bigger vision of how Humans actually can, like, day after day after day, move in these environments in this extreme way covering big amounts of distance. And that was kind of one of my first experiences where Nathan Longhurst kind of came under my wing, just happened Stantially, he reached out to beat one of my other records. Actually it was the Rainier infinity loop and this actually sets up the journey to infinity film Pico de Orozaba really well. He had reached out to to take down to beat my record, okay.
Speaker 1:You wanted to best my time on the Rainier infinity loop and he had this great plan and he had a great resume in the mountains. I was like, yeah, dude, you should go for this. He was only 21 at the time.
Speaker 2:It's like man, dude, yeah you're just that like, is that what you do? Is your message to the guy who's got that record be like hey, just so you know I'm coming for you that?
Speaker 1:is kind of the, that is kind of the standard. It like keeps the community knit together, like some people now have kind of. It grew so fast during COVID that some of that culture was lost, of like reach out and connect with the person who currently holds the record, or even all of the people who've held the record and like, connect with them and learn from them, and then they get to relive vicariously through you as you try to take on what they took on right where it keeps all of us alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it keeps all of us.
Speaker 2:Inspired for sure.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, if you're looking to take on an FKT or climb someone else's route, it's like, yeah, reach out to the people that came before you, like it's meaningful to them, yeah, it matters, and it feels better for you. And then you have people who celebrate you when you win. Instead of feeling like, well, I did the thing, and now here I am, all by myself, it's like community matters. And so, yeah, he reached out. You know kind of old-school vibe he has the. You know, for being a kid, he's got a huge amount of connection with kind of the, the human element in that regard of connecting with people.
Speaker 1:And he reaches out. And then he asked me what I'm doing after, like we go through his plan for beating my record. And I'm like, dude, yeah, this sounds like it'll work and you've got the resume for it, go for it. He's like, well, what are you doing? I could use some training days. And it's like, well, I'm gonna start the boulders list. And then he comes out and joins me for day one and we hit it off and he kind of climbed intermittently for a bit, like taking some rest days when I was still climbing, because he wasn't like committed to the idea of like he was still gonna like bail and go Beat my record on the infinity loop once he felt fit.
Speaker 1:Okay and then, slowly but surely, he finally is like I just want to keep doing this with you because it's awesome to just Climb day after day and I can remember the day. He's like, yeah, I had no clue my body could do this. Yeah, like I thought I had to take rest days. And here we are on, like you know, 10 days or whatever day.
Speaker 1:Just like ripping out this insane terrain. Yeah, marathon a day or whatever, sometimes less mileage but way more effort than just covering like a flat marathon. And so it was like this breakthrough for him. And then he took that and went and did the entire SPS list the following year, which is the Sierra peak section list you should bring him on here and talk about that among some of his other experiences. And that's 247 peaks in 138 days. So he like took what he learned and went and applied it in an even bigger space something I couldn't go do as a teacher because I can't take 138 days off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then he went on to go climb Denali up the Cassine Ridge. He sold the Cassine Ridge was just like I like coveted mountaineers accomplishment and climate with partners and protection, and he sold the thing.
Speaker 1:So just this absolute crusher, an incredible kid, is like to have contributed to him having whatever amount right. I can't claim anywhere near all of it, because he had a lot of other people who lifted him up in his life, but if I nudged even a little bit to believe in himself more, it's like what a cool thing to watch his life unfold. And then I took him he's the one I took for the pico de arezaba infinity loop, mm-hmm, and you know, funded him to be able to come along. You know, reached out to some sponsors and got them to cover, cover his expenses so that he could be there and Getting to do something. We're like, okay, we're finally both putting our name on it and that led to some, some interesting things happening that we can dive into in a bit, that really make the film more than just a a couple of dudes doing a cool things thing in a mountain. But yeah, like Getting to invite him into that space. And then you know you're gonna ask me what's next at some point on the podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm actually putting together another team to go down to another volcano. I'll let us save it till the end. Okay, but gonna continue this. Obviously gonna continue. The volcanic, seven summits and same thing, another, another kid I have another young mountain here. It's like, yeah, okay, you want to go do this? Like cool, I'll find a way to get your flights covered for you. Come on down, let's, let's get you through. Hopefully we'll get you through the, the finish on the world's tallest volcano.
Speaker 2:What would be that? Like you mentioned training, what is the training preparation required for something like that? Like, what are you telling Nathan? You're like, you know you got to be able to do XYZ in this amount of time. Like, are you getting it down to that number?
Speaker 1:so I mean, you know, someone like Nathan is obviously you know the reason I would be positive toward his Rainier infinity loop time. Already a deep knowledge of life training for ultras. He'd already run a hundred miles, he'd already done multiple like 50 milers and 100 K's, so you had had a pretty deep understanding. So I could say something like Prepare for this like you would for a hundred K, and that would mean something to him right.
Speaker 1:And he would know how to put his body through the necessary volume and mileage and intensity To reach a state that he could. He could perform that on like a more normal terrain. So like for the pico de rezaba it's it's 40 miles, so it's not a huge mileage. Like the Rainier infinity loop is. The Rainier infinity loops 144 miles, so it's a lot less miles, but you don't go below 11,000 feet the whole time. Most of the time You're hanging out at 14,000 feet and you're going up above 18,491 twice. So it's just a different environment to operate in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm dealing with like half the oxygen probably, yeah.
Speaker 1:I forget the exact percentage at that elevation, but it's yeah ballpark of like half, and so you know, just kind of like, okay, you need to be a climatized to be able to sleep at, you know, at least 12,000 feet where you can sleep comfortably.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know that that also in a climatization process, has to mean something to a person I'm talking to, for them to be like at a place where it's like, oh yeah, you're ready to be invited on this and you know, I'm willing to teach stuff, but it's like they have to have some level of understanding of how are you doing, how are you acclimatizing to, to sleeping in those conditions? So they make altitude tents.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm using sauna right after a workout. Nice can, since it boosts blood plasma, has effects on a climatization once you arrive at elevation, and Then just taking weekend trips or whatever days you can like get up high, move at elevation, sleep at elevation. That's the best, that the best way is to just simply actually be at elevation.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And with Nathan it was easy because he lives the total dirt bag life like, lives out of a van, chasing ski lines and rock lines and all that. So it's just like park your van at 8,000 feet and go skiing up to 14 like every day.
Speaker 1:It's like cool, you know, with this other, with his other young fella, that I'm taking down to South America for the peak. There he's like in college right now, so that's not an option. So like I'm getting a Company that rinse altitude tents to send him an altitude tense, like, hey, we'll do, we'll do some media for you. You send this kid a tent so that he can be ready, we'll make it work, we'll make it, we'll make it a win-win for everybody.
Speaker 2:When is that?
Speaker 1:Coming up. December 17th, my Christmas break. Yeah, yeah, I'm a team through January 1st. Wow, coming right up. Yeah, I'm staring down the barrel of the gun.
Speaker 2:All right. So I've looked into the altitude tents to think about how I could, you know, potentially do something like this. We're looking at a 50k, trying to get into the ultra space while I'm scrawny and don't have all my muscle back yet. But in the meantime I'm like, hey, this you know, I want to see what I can do. People like yourself pushing we just had Zach Bitter on the pod. He's also ultra marathon, but I like there's something, there's another level and degree that's necessary to push yourself past that hundred K up at 18,000 feet. Like, how are you preparing this college student? What are you telling him to like? Because he can't train, he can't be exposed to stuff like that?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, the the key is for him is he's gonna be Doing a progression of sleeping and it for this one. I'm telling the whole team it's like, yeah, you need to be ready to sleep at 12,000 feet. That's where we'll go night one. So everybody needs to be able to like pass out like a baby at that elevation. If, like night one, we're at 12,000 and you can't fall asleep because your heart rate's too high or you have a headache, probably means that you're off for the effort.
Speaker 1:It's just is what it is. It's like it's. It's real out there. Yeah, the peak we're going to is called I look. Yeah, we'll just go and dive in. If you want to hear about the film, just go watch it.
Speaker 2:Well, it's honestly before you. It is worth it, like phenomenal film, incredibly put together. We'll, we'll touch on it. Yeah, we'll touch more on it, I'm sure the story will come up naturally through this.
Speaker 1:But yeah, we're going down to Oho Stel Salado, which is the tallest volcano in the world. It's 22,615 feet at the top. So you know, 6,800 meters ballpark for those who do, meters, don't, everybody except me, probably. And yes, another 40 plus mile push. But the crazy part, here's the crazy part. Right, you start to think like, oh, how's a mountain that big, only 40 miles to do the thing? It's because the high plateau there and when the elevation is, that makes sense to like do a circumnavigation, because that's where you drive to, to start the route and you know any infinity loop you look at it's like the trail is always at the base of the route and this one doesn't have a trail, so it's, it's off trail navigation all the way around. But the high plateau, the lowest point we reach During the circumnavigation 17,200 feet. So we're gonna go rip off an ultramarathon and the lowest point we get to go down to to recover is 17,200 feet is that not almost as high as what that other?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's almost the top. It's like, it's like 1200 feet short, so does that top of the code area Zaba that's gotta Put something in the back of your mind like, hey, I was struggling here at this height previously. Now I'm going above and well especially for me.
Speaker 1:Especially for me because I'm, you know, if you know, people have already paused this and watched the film you now know that I am one of the people in the population who has a predisposition for high altitude pulmonary edema and that's the swelling of the lungs, where your lungs start to develop so much pressure and swelling that it leaks into your airways and you start to cough up fluid. And if it gets more and more extreme, eventually you can't keep up with coughing up the fluid they used to call they used to think it was pneumonia and they called it the silent killer because he's like Perfectly healthy strapping young men in the past would like go to bed with slight pneumonia problems, still up at elevation, and not wake up. And so I've spent.
Speaker 1:I've spent many nights before, in fact, the first attempt on pico, darius Abba. I was gonna go solo and just do it myself, and On day three of acclimatization I, as I went to bed, I noticed I was starting to cough a bit and then it got worse and worse and I was coughing up fluid and I had to Basically message for a truck to come up the next morning and I just stayed up the whole night to bend over and cough fluid out of my lungs, and it's just like this clear, pinkish fluid that just starts to quickly accumulate, so like you lay down or sit down for like 30 seconds and suddenly you need to cough again, and it's just like that on repeat all night.
Speaker 2:How does someone who's got a pre-disposition to its hate right?
Speaker 1:Hape, yeah, high altitude pulmonary edema.
Speaker 2:So how does someone with high altitude pulmonary Hape and the messed up knee from previous Years right? It wasn't yep, yep, had that my knee rebuilt you go like From one end of the spectrum to the other right, because most people who have a pre-disposition, who have a bum knee, they're like I'm gonna hang up the cleats, I'm gonna take some time rest. You're the opposite, like Constant chatter in your mind. You're like I can do more, I can be better. Let's see what I can do, what I'm capable of doing.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, it's about. Oh man, I mean I've chosen to express myself through the, the physical domain. It's been something that's Filled me with passion since I was a little kid. Like I love to move my body. Again, you know, not the greatest athlete, I wasn't even the best athlete at my high school, but Definitely the most dedicated, like I was the only one at my high school that would go for runs during like zero degree weather to be ready for the next track season. And so I just have this mindset that's like driven and passionate and dedicated and I want to find that next challenge.
Speaker 1:It's very personal for me. It's like I want to find that next challenge, I want to try to push through that next limit and it's like, yeah, there is their real risk, a real medically significant risk involved with pushing into high altitude pulmonary edema and taking this next step on Ohoste El Soledo, absolutely. But that makes me want to like figure it out. It's like what? What is the process of preparation? I can put my body, even though this isn't my strength, and you know it's like no, it's not like I'm going to do this every day forever.
Speaker 1:But for this iteration of it. Can I figure out how to put together the right sequence to actually conquer this thing and pull off the W instead of just going? Well, yeah, I mean, I get hate, so I guess I won't ever go do these things. It's like that. That alternative doesn't sound that great to me. It's like way cooler to go, try to try to find a way, try to find a way forward and and figure out a way to pull this thing off and take some other people along for the adventure and like, even if you know, even if on this one it's too much, like I can't be, a climatization isn't good enough and I can't, I can't pull it off and I'm the one that's, you know, sick at 12 or 16 or 17,000 feet.
Speaker 1:At least I brought the other people there and organize the trip there that allowed the other athletes to come who do finish it. And will there be some sadness and melancholy on that? Like, absolutely, but also some some pride and some excitement that I actualized a thing for other people and it went beyond myself and that's yeah, I mean, if you can't, if you can't do it and embrace that an idea you're working toward is valuable enough for you to not be a part of it. Then it's just your ego in the first place.
Speaker 1:It's just I want to accomplish rather than this thing is a cool enough thing that people should do it and I think you know I bring this together and these other people are interested enough to put their own money on the line to buy plane tickets and all that and come down If they get to finish it and I end up bumping out to a support crew or having to get driven down by our logistics and support guy. Like Soviet like I'm, I can live with that. Hopefully that's not the story.
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking you probably have the coolest parent teacher interviews, Like you know. I just imagined some parents coming in and be like man, my kid's out working all weekend, I'm busy, you come back, he's got homework. I mean like I just went to four peaks over the course of the same time and I'm not sitting here complaining. I just think the perspective that you're able to provide is probably so unique and probably put some parents on their heels, I can imagine.
Speaker 1:I for one, as an elementary PE teacher, I tend to be the superhero of most of the students and I also be tend to be the least of the worries of any parent. So I actually don't get to have a ton of a ton of those conversations at parent teacher conferences. Usually it's a parent that's really excited with how their kid is doing in my class and like really thrilled that they're inspired and happy and having a good time, or it's the parent of like the kid that shows up and is a little shit and I have to crack down on them and be like we can't treat people that way and they're like my. My students said you were mean to them. It's like, did they tell you what they did? So yeah, no, but I mean it's tough. It's tough to translate in a kind way, right, because I would never want to come across as like well, I'm better than you because I go climb mountains, because then that's just going to make them hate me, but to to share things both to the students and to the parents in a way that it's an invitation and uplifting and supportive and acts in a way that they're going to be more likely to want to pick up healthy behaviors going forward.
Speaker 1:That is important to me, and it's always interesting to try to like break things down into digestible nuggets Like what is? What is the part of this that, regardless of which way this kid goes with their life, that they can take this and it's true and they can run with it, whether they, whatever they run toward, you know and they can then believe in themselves to to actualize some really cool things, and that's the part that's really important to me. I tend to I tell people it's like actually care very little about being a teacher, and like what grade a kid gets in my classroom, it's like I want to be the kind of teacher that I'm the one they bother to write about the impact it had. And now that they're processing things I said as an adult, where they actually have the reins in their life, they're like, oh my God, it makes sense and I've gotten that message.
Speaker 1:Sometimes just recently one of my students reached out and is like I want you to know that, like there are memories of you that live in my head rent free and they still inspire me to reach further. And then I go look you up and like you're still reaching further, and now you're this old guy and I'm totally ready to come kick your ass and like let's do something sometime. It's like okay, for one more time. I'll manage to beat you. You just, you just watch out.
Speaker 2:That's cool, though that's got to be the most rewarding part.
Speaker 1:Oh no, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. That's what it's all about. Like to me it's like because I mean right them putting themselves together to believe they can go do stuff and to go chase things and to be like positively oriented, to like move toward increasing goals. Like that's everything you could hope for. That's like that means my life mattered because their life is going to be better because they met me. It's like what grade they got in my class, who cares? And that probably gonna make. If there's any parents listening to this, sorry, my mom's a principal, right?
Speaker 2:I think we talked about this last time and like she was teacher for 20 plus years and it's part of the job that you have to give a grade, but they don't want to be giving a grade to a student at the end of the day, like it's a subjective letter that really, in the grand scheme of thing, just encapsulates what that four months you were with them for doesn't showcase what the rest of your school year will look like, doesn't showcase what the rest of your life will look like.
Speaker 1:Doesn't showcase what anything outside of the school paradigm right and what?
Speaker 2:hey? These are the four or five Boxes. I need to check whether you did well in or not and if you didn't, you're getting a bad grade doesn't mean you're a bad kid, bad student, bad athlete, just didn't satisfy those criteria. And once you get out of school, it really doesn't matter. We realize that it's crazy, but it doesn't matter. Like you, I could be getting sees all through high school, still get into university and crush it and no one's gonna reference the fact that in Like science 10, I didn't do well because I didn't care about chemistry. Right, it's crazy. Yeah, that's what you deal with, and parents are caught up with, students are caught up with, I For you. Where do you think you're? I know you. You said I was gonna bring it up, but what's next? You like, you've got the tallest volcano in the world coming up in December, correct?
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Is there ever gonna be a point where you're satisfied? Oh?
Speaker 1:That's interesting question. Um, I think what it'll be is More and more right because, unfortunately, we're all Fighting a foe that none of us can beat time.
Speaker 2:Time is unmatched time time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. Yeah, undefeated, yeah, for sure. And so at some point, I will continually transition from being the person who is the one in the adventure to simply being able to Speak into and coach and inspire and uplift those that are still able to have the bodies that are able to go do the big adventures. And I mean I'll still do stuff, like I'll always do stuff, until, like, my body literally won't let me yeah.
Speaker 1:I want that to be a part of my life, but, you know, for the time being, it's like it feels important to continue and, right, this is a little bit of that chapter turn that we mentioned before, where it's like I started off and it was just me, about me, like my own growth, my own pursuits, my own goals. And now I'm in this chapter of like I'm at this place where I have access to these resources and I can tell these stories and I can get people on board to help Tell the story and to amplify the voice. It's like who should I pull into that and give an opportunity? So now it's like already, kind of this, like who's next? Kind of experience of like offering opportunity, and then at some point it'll probably be that I'm only there as the support and logistics person and I'm just enabling a whole crew of all young people to go do something super cool and then, who knows, after that Maybe I'll just be the person sitting back and watching the the thing run without me.
Speaker 2:I don't know you'll be Kellogg, you know.
Speaker 1:Could be at some point I'll be Kellogg yeah the I You're training right now.
Speaker 2:What does it look like day by day as a school teacher? How are you incorporating the ability to stay prepared to go summit the world's largest volcano in a month?
Speaker 1:absolutely, um, pretty common. Let's just go with like a simple, like a day's workout. I'll arrive at school, I have a morning prep time, so I'll use that prep time to Lift some weights, either lower body, upper body. Usually is the split a couple days a week.
Speaker 2:Naturally you got to prepare for PE by lifting. Oh yeah, of course you know, gotta, gotta, gotta have a pump on.
Speaker 1:So I'll lift a bit just just the sort of key things that will help my performance in the mountains. I know a little bit of stuff for vanity to you look like you've gotten a little bit like little stock here. Yeah, I've been spending, spending a little more time on the baller bar.
Speaker 2:I love it. There you go.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'll do some stuff that's functional, do some stuff that I just enjoy, and then Throughout the teaching day, obviously I'm like playing with the kids off and on I'm doing modeling, push-ups, modeling sit-ups, whatever. So there's some exercise involved there, like playing tag with them. But I don't really log or count that anyway, because it it's for them nominal.
Speaker 1:Then after school it's oftentimes either I'll do between 2000 and 4000 feet of vert, so just find the steep local hill and lapse on it and kind of focus on time on I call it simulation train, where it's like, okay, like this face of this training peak I go on is about as steep as what I'll be climbing for a lot of the vert on a hostel Slado or on picodera's oba or whatever the peak may be, and sure it's not a Delevation. But I can at least learn to regulate my pacing and keep my heart rate in the right zone and put that stress in strain, because it's just a different Mechanical strain versus running on flat ground. What?
Speaker 2:are you tracking your heart rate with, sir? Is it, I'll wear a chest?
Speaker 1:strap and I've got a coros. Coros Vertix 2, which is a great mountain watch no longer on their team. I was at one point, but still, even even though I'm not, it's like still one of the best watches.
Speaker 1:No free ads no free ads cutting you off. But yeah, either that or I'll focus on like 10, 12 miles and now that it's starting to get colder, like hop on the treadmill, rip out 12 miles on the treadmill, like on an even pace, like even heart rate, steady state, and then go straight from that workout into the sauna. Like I'll crank it up for the last quarter mile up to like five minute Mile pace, rip hard, get the heart rate already elevated, get the body heat already elevated and then straight into the sauna and I'll do like 20 between 10 and 20 minute intervals in the sauna for like an hour, straight off the treadmill, nice, and then after that it's about time to like slam food in my face and pass out and get ready for the next day.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's kind of the like a day in the life of that describes like how the Weekday volume training works, and then I'll take, I'll take rest days in there, like right. So it'll be like two days of that and then a day off or a day where I do less or something different or lift again or whatever.
Speaker 2:You saw me smile and I'm a big fan of the sauna. I after every workout. It's a must, it's mandatory and it's like I'm I'm thinking about I'm I'm probably acclimated right now. I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1:Take you down to buy a flight.
Speaker 2:Man, I honestly I, as tempting as it sounds. If we hadn't been traveling for the past year and a half since our last conversation, I would be saying yes and like there's still a part of me that wants to say yes, and I feel like if you got another three, four of these challenges up ahead afterwards I'll have to take part in one of them, because a would be a six story. B we need another podcast recorded on the side of a mountain, because we did that in Utah with Tommy Lolley. But I feel like this one would be more meaningful if we were there in it yeah.
Speaker 2:And because I want to experience whatever the has you guys, whatever the heck you guys called it. It was like Something crust where you're basically Uncrust.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, screwing, yeah, you don't. You don't want to experience the dust on cruz. That's scary, but the part where it gets deep enough that you can really just sink into the, it's like deep gravel. Yeah, I know what people can think of it adds, is the loose scree on the side of a volcano and you just can like plunge, step into it with these giant strides and like slide and it's fun.
Speaker 2:That was that looked like the best time. I was like oh, I gotta go just to experience that drop, drop 3000 feet in like 20 minutes. Just do you have to worry at all going down, like about the acclimatization period, like any of that, stress you know, mostly on the way down, you just worry about not falling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I Do the whole like Actual journey of it doesn't seem real like. I think the best way is for people to go watch that video to see what you guys Actually yeah yeah, in the film I mean, yeah, you get to see what the terrain looks like.
Speaker 1:You get to watch as Nathan and I have this interpersonal struggle right, because it was the first time that we both were putting our name on a record together and and he's, you know, 23 at the top of his game, coming in really strong.
Speaker 1:I'm coming off like health problems and things being off in my endocrine system and like having already gotten hate and kind of like Like worried about that developing seriously again.
Speaker 1:And so I got, I get like these initial symptoms that are like the precursors to it becoming full-blown that I now can detect In my body because I've given it to myself and I'm like, oh, I felt this and then I felt that and then it happened, yeah and yeah, just the struggle that unfolded as we wrestled with our own individual Goals and ambitions and drives as to very driven outdoors individuals Up against this idea that we stepped in to do this endeavor together and it's like what decision do we make while Jason is here struggling and on on the edge of something that might become medical and Nathan is absolutely crushing and yeah, you get to see that unfold and how we handled it and how we felt about it at the end and, yeah, I think it tells a pretty cool story. I think it tells a pretty meaningful story about partnership in all aspects of life, not just the mountains it is.
Speaker 2:It's so true I did you guys have like a contract or a shotgun, claws or anything like that in place.
Speaker 1:You'd be like, hey, man, if I start crumbling, I want you to go for it, or like we did, yeah, no, if basically I was right, I was right at the edges of the rules we'd established. Like anytime you do high-risk endeavors In the mountains like this, there's always if, thens, like, if I'm in this state, then you make this decision for me, okay, or you know we evacuate me or we both go out, or whatever it may be, or if it's you know, in the particular situation it's like if I started coughing up fluid seriously, then I would get left at whichever hut on either side and Nathan would continue on and finish the thing if he was feeling good, right. And then, of course, you know, there was the option like, well, if Nathan, he'd never been at elevation like that before, so if he'd had the negative response, then it could have gone the other way as well. So, yeah, it's like you establish all those rules of like what happens? Like, oh, yeah, if I'm able, if I'm super clear and you can tell that I'm in charge of my own body and mind, like you, let me walk out on my my own and I'm fine, if you keep going and I'll get myself down to safety, that's fine.
Speaker 1:But if it seems like I'm not with it, then like, in that case you have to bail too Right, because obviously you're not gonna like let someone that's incoherent try to get themselves out, because then you would have to live without the rest of their life if they didn't. So it's like lots of specifics and nuance to like if this, then that, if this then that, if this then that, and you agree on that beforehand. And so I was like sort of right at the edge where it's like Nothing was medically significant. Yet I was having to move conservatively and slow to worry, because you know, if you increase the strain too much Then it can make the symptoms worse.
Speaker 1:And so I was like playing it conservative and that was frustrating and anything, because he was feeling like ready to just rip on the second Ascent yeah and yeah. So yeah, I'll let the people watch the film.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll let the people watch the film. That's a good way to leave it, the way we wrap up every episode. As you know, as we ask our biggest piece of advice With what you have upcoming the seven tallest volcanoes. You're gonna be summoning each of those. You've got a couple, one down, six more to go, one down, six to go. Is there anything you want to leave the AP audience with today, outside of, like your journey that's coming up in a month? Anywhere else that you can enact that change or that you want to share, spread a method message with, because I know there were a ton of People impacted by your last episode, number 129. For those who haven't if you haven't, go, go listen to that now first. After listening to this, it'll be pretty crazy, but I want to leave the floor for you here to share your last message with the athletes podcast listeners.
Speaker 1:Find the big dreams and goals that that you want to chase, and find all the intermediate goals that inspire you along the way and Start taking steps. Put the pen to the paper, start moving forward and when you, when you run into the hard setbacks when you feel like throwing it all away, you feel like Giving it up, packing it in, the storms are on the way and there's no way you're gonna beat them, just think. Think about when you're gonna look yourself in the mirror and Make the choice that'll make future you proud of how you handled that moment, not just how you feel in the moment. I think that that advice will Go a long ways to helping you along your adventure.
Speaker 2:There's a reason you're the only the second person to come back for a second feature on the athletes podcast. You left with something similar last time, with making your not only your eight-year-old self proud, but your 80 year-old self proud, and those are some very wise words. I can't thank you enough, jason, for coming on the show and Yo, we're gonna be falling along. Hopefully we're doing another one of these in the next couple months, with you talking about your next venture. Maybe we're doing it on the side of a mountain, can we say that so yeah, so I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it. We'll be crushing athletic brewing, wearing Biori clothing, whatever else. Anyone else, any other sponsors you want to highlight? Say thank you to those are. Those are the main ones. Yeah, appreciate your time, jason. Thanks so much, dude. Thanks so much. That was the 203rd episode of the athletes podcast. What a doozy, jason Hardrath second time being featured on the show. We're gonna continue bringing them on because that guy's got stories to tell, lessons to share. He's bringing the gold back every single time he comes to his village.
Speaker 2:I can't thank you folks enough for tuning into the athletes podcast. If you know of someone or think someone might benefit from listening to this episode, do me a favor, share it with them. I can't thank you again for coming in Phoenix, wayland, for producing and editing this incredible episode of the athletes podcast. As well as Caldera Lab, want to thank them, the clean slate and all of their products for keeping my skin and many other men out there feeling youthful, glowing and Getting the compliments like wow, you look younger. Hey, this has been the 230th episode of the athletes podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. Hope you have a great rest of your day. We'll see you next week. Peace you.