Cancer happened in late 2004, less than two years after Randy Kreill resigned from the work force with nearly 24 years towards a pension with the Dayton Daily News. After leaving the task of building his advertising sales “territory”, he dove into full-time parenting to his three daughters. Since then, building a family with his wife, Megan, has been top priority and the greatest gift.

After Randy’s second thyroid cancer surgery, he asked the surgeon how a relatively healthy male gets that type of cancer at age 42. The doctor’s answer was nonsensical; “for all we know it falls from the sky.” Randy smelled BS and searched high and low for answers, for years. Slowly his wellness improved. That years long search for the truth led him to “connecting most of the dots” after reading Born To Run in early 2010. While he’d already downsized homes in ’99, during the post cancer years, his interest in minimalism grew as he learned of the health benefits of the Tarahumara lifestyle. He was searching for the ideal “hobby” and found it to be ultra-running, minimalist. As much a lifestyle as a “sport”, Randy has completed 25 official 100 mile foot races, all in minimalist footwear, most in sandals sans socks, and all on a completely plant food fueled nutrition plan since December 10, 2010. He is currently working to finish building a home he’s been in for well over 20 years, hoping to downsize again.

As a full-time parent in the suburbs of Ohio, in 2011, Randy took up ultra-running and never stopped. “Born To Run, Experiments in Truth” began then, with no letting up. While the average ultra-runner is into it for about 3.5 years, he’s run over 80 ultra marathons, with just one early overuse injury requiring medical intervention during the summer of ’11. Randy has adopted the best habits of the Raramuri as a long term experiment. This includes their more cooperative and less competitive mindset, along with barefoot, ultra-distances, sandals, and plant sourced foods. Since that stress fracture to the fibula during his first 50K, he’s avoided spending a penny with chiropractors and orthopedists.

Randy has been a Xero super fan since the early days of “Invisible Shoes.” He took “Run Free” literally and has been actively helping Xero Shoes grow via their affiliate program. In return, his many race fees are covered via referrals without impacting his family’s budget. Not only does he get thousands of miles from a pair of Xero shoes or sandals, but he’s also a regular wearer, tester, and reviewer, so he has a Xero product for virtually everything. Randy learned quickly that if his financial investment was low for running, he could run many more races in beautiful places, meeting wonderful people all along.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Randy Kreill about transitioning from a couch potato to an ultra-marathoner.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How running barefoot makes you a better runner and promotes living a healthier life.

– Why you should only focus on getting healthier, instead of the disease, if you’re diagnosed with cancer.

– How easy it is to lose sight of your health when you’re consumed by your career.

– Why animal sourced foods mess with your body’s chemistry.

– How you need to have a good diet to have healthy bones.

Connect with Randy:

Guest Contact Info

Instagram
@randykreill

YouTube
Youtube.com/c/RandyKreill

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com
Jointhemovementmovement.com

Twitter
@XeroShoes

Instagram
@xeroshoes

Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

What does it take to go from being a couch potato to one of the most accomplished ultra marathoners you’ll ever meet? Well, you’re going to find out on today’s episode of The Movement Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet first, because, you know, those things are your foundation, and where we break down the propaganda, the mythology, and sometimes the flat-out lies you’ve been told about what it takes to run and walk and hike and play, and do yoga, and CrossFit, and Dance Dance Revolution, and e-sim racing, and Ninja Warrior courses, and power lifting. Anything you can think of, really. And to do it enjoyably and effectively and efficiently. Wait, did I say enjoyably? Trick question? No, I did, because if you’re not having fun, you’re going to not keep doing it. So, find a way to do something that you enjoy and keep going and have a good time.

I’m Steven Sashen, your host for The Movement Movement Podcast from xeroshoes.com. And we call it The Movement Movement, if you don’t know, because we’re creating a movement, and that involves you, I’ll tell you how in a second, it’s real easy, about natural movement, having your body do what it’s made to do without getting in the way with things that sound like they may be good, but probably aren’t so much.

So, the way you become part of what we’re doing is really simple. Go check out www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You don’t need to do anything to join. There’s no secret handshake, there’s no money involved. That’s just where you can find all of our previous episodes, all the ways you can engage with us on social media, for example. All the… What else, what else, what else? Well, oh, and all the things you can do to help spread the word, like thumbs up, bell icon on YouTube, leave reviews, give us a five star rating wherever you can. You know the drill. If you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe.

All right, let us jump in. Randy Kreill, do me a favor, tell people who you are and what you’re doing here. And first of all, welcome. But then tell people who you are and what you’re doing here.

Randy Kreill:

Thank you. It is great to finally get together. We have had a couple of false starts. I am just a dude who was looking for an affordable hobby. I had been down with cancer back in ’04, was overweight. I was a full-time parent to three beautiful young daughters. And in fall of ’04, about a year and a half into post account executive sales career, I was a full-time parent at that point, I had found out that I had thyroid cancer. And had a couple of surgeries, two surgeries. They took half the thyroid out one time, found out it was cancer, and took the other one out.

So, I found myself going several nights without sleep, very scared after I figured out how serious it was. And at one point, found myself trying to explain cancer to our two-year-old daughter. I had a drip tube that was really a pretty gory thing, and it was just a tough time with a lot of fear. So, I dug into trying to figure out everything that I could do to minimize the risk of ever being in that situation again. And ultimately it led me to read Born to Run in early 2010. And by late 2010, I decided to kind of go all in on this, what I now think of as my experiments in truth. I adopted the Scott Jurek 100% plant-based diet. I tried to eat the Tarahumara, who are mostly plant-based, organic whole foods people, the people who were on the primitive diet.

And, I also, in addition to that, wanted to really adopt kind of that cooperative mindset to where I’m going to try to dive into this, learn everything I can, share it all for free. And that kind of became like volunteer work. If I can convince other people to do this, I could have a real impact on at least a few lives. And so, similar mission to yours in a certain way.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Randy Kreill:

You’re trying to change the world. And I’ve been trying to do something similar. And the results have been phenomenal. It just still blows my mind how far it’s gone since December of 2010. I’ve done 25 official 100-mile runs. i’m probably close to 100 ultra marathons, although 80-some official. And at 60, when I come out of the shower and look in the mirror, I like what I see. And at 36, I couldn’t say that. So, 60 years old now, we’re about the same age.

Steven Sashen:

Yep.

Randy Kreill:

Life has become phenomenal. But what I have come to understand is that everything I do to become a better runner has helped me become a healthier, happier person just in general. And Xero Shoes has definitely played a role in that. So, kudos to you and your staff. Keep doing what you’re doing. Pass on my gratitude to your… seems like your staff is kind of your family there. I’ve been impressed with everyone I’ve dealt with at Xero Shoes.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s really sweet. Well, so I want to talk about the transition from where you were to running, because just making a transition to running at all is one thing. Excuse me. Hiccups. Transition to running marathons and ultra marathons, that’s a whole lot of the game. But can we dive into the cancer thing for a moment?

Randy Kreill:

Absolutely. Yes.

Steven Sashen:

And let me tell you why I want to do it. This is the first time I’m actually talking about this publicly. So, this will be really interesting. I, as of last week… as far as I can tell. I’m going to find out for sure this coming Monday. But as far as I know, as of last week, I am now done with what I refer to as the best cancer ever.

Randy Kreill:

Oh. Okay.

Steven Sashen:

And I got diagnosed at the end of December, and by the middle of February, I was all done. I’m not trying to say that I’m special, but I had a rare form of eye cancer. I had cancer in my retina.

Randy Kreill:

Really?

Steven Sashen:

Discovered it almost accidentally. I fact, here’s my favorite part. So, I go to my retinal specialist. I didn’t know… they were watching something in my retina, a little freckle, and I didn’t know they were watching it to see if it was cancerous. I had no idea. I just thought, “Hey, we’re just watching this thing.” And so, then I go in in December, and the physician’s assistant is checking me in, and he says, “So, is this your pharmacy? Are these the medications you’re taking? Is this your address? And do you have any questions about your tumor?” I said, “I’m sorry, my what?” And he goes…

Randy Kreill:

Wow.

Steven Sashen:

… “Be right back.” He runs out the room.

Randy Kreill:

It might be better you didn’t know.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, I mean, that was not the way that he was supposed to break it to me. Well, I call it the best cancer ever for two reasons. One is we caught it really early. The treatment was relatively straightforward. I didn’t have chemo. The radiation I had, they sewed a radioactive disc to my eyeball for a few days. And by the way, if you ever feel a little nauseated, but you can’t kind of get yourself to throwing up, but you feel like that would be helpful, just do a search online for plaque brachytherapy surgery video. And if that don’t make you puke, nothing will. I wanted them to record my surgery. And they said they did, but then somehow something didn’t work, and I’m kind of glad because if I was watching that on my own eyeball, oh, my.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

But the other reason I call it best cancer ever is that for whatever reason, and I’m not going to suggest that my experience should be the experience for anybody else, but I’m curious if what I’m about to describe was a part of your experience. And this was a very aggressive kind of cancer. If it starts growing, it basically grows slowly, slowly, slowly, and then wham. And once it starts doing that, it will have definitely metastasized, go straight to your liver, and there’s nothing they can do, and you’ve got about a year.

So, while I was waiting to find out basically what type I had and what the likelihood of metastasis was, from the moment they said, “Hey, this is cancer, and this is a big deal, we need to treat it,” till the moment it was… well, actually, through now, I have been a hundred times a day overwhelmed with a feeling of preciousness and gratitude and appreciation and enjoyment.

Randy Kreill:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

I feel like I’m almost like I’m a bit of an alien, like I’m walking around going, “Oh, wow, look at that,” or I might be leaving this planet that I’ve been vacationing on and going, “I’m going to miss that.” And while I know people who’ve had chemo and radiation, et cetera, and have children, which we don’t have, have many different experiences, everyone I’ve talked to, that feeling of like, “Oh, I know I could die,” creates something that when you’re not having the unpleasant part,” is unbearably delightful. That’s been mine. Did you have anything like that?

Randy Kreill:

Yeah, I guess I ended up becoming one of the stories where the cancer… or you ended up looking at it as a gift. First of all, I felt very-

Steven Sashen:

No, dude. Best thing that’s ever happened to me.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah, yeah. One of them.

Steven Sashen:

Well, yeah.

Randy Kreill:

I don’t think I would’ve ended up discovering all these things that I’ve learned over the last 13 years or whatever had it not been for that scare.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Randy Kreill:

And then takin that and flipping it into the total opposite has just been incredible. Quite a ride.

Steven Sashen:

I’m curious though, just diving in, just for the fun of it, and I’ll tell you why, because I’ve got a bit of a mission, an additional mission. Even while you were dealing with the treatment, were you having any of those, “Holy crap, life is really amazing,” moments? Maybe not. It’s okay. I don’t care.

Randy Kreill:

I would say some, but I was sort of overwhelmed with fear at the time. If I could go back and do it over again at this age, probably would’ve been different.

Steven Sashen:

And I know I’m diving in, so feel free to stop me at any point, but do you remember what specifically you were afraid of?

Randy Kreill:

Well, that it would spread and take my life, but I was mostly afraid of not being there for my kids in the future, and my wife, taking care of my wife, all of it. Just losing everything.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Randy Kreill:

That was the fear. When they first told me about this, I had this giant goiter that I hadn’t even noticed, and they thought it was benign, and they sent me straight to get it… MRI or whatever done to it, an x-ray or whatever.

Steven Sashen:

Biopsy, yeah.

Randy Kreill:

Well, before the biopsy, they took a picture of it. And my breathing tube did one of these. And once I could visually see how bad it affected my breathing tube, my mind just sort of went wacko. I went like three nights without sleep. I’d never done that before. And just kind of got into a deep fear stage that lasted for quite some time. So, that was one of the reasons I started the YouTube channel, was to hopefully get through to a lot of younger people that the diet is one of the key things to preventing and healing cancer and virtually any chronic disease.

Steven Sashen:

And we’ll definitely dive into that, FYI.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

The other thing, again, this is just my thing, is… How do I want to put this? When I would tell people, and I didn’t tell very many people, but I had to tell one person a day or my head was going to explode because I’m not good at keeping secrets.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

So, I had to do that. But if they said, “I’m sorry,” it’s like, “Oh, no, no, no. No, no. Stop. Cut that out.”” Because I’m not. I was really completely fine with any possible outcome. Now, I’ll confess, this may be because I’m weird, and it may be because in 1989, I was in China in Beijing and got caught up in the Tienanmen Square massacre and had guys pointing machine guns at my head trying to figure out who was going to pull the trigger. And the way that affected me, which was basically I had never been so lucid and calm in my entire life, and my predominant thought was… in Buddhism, and I can’t say that I was a Buddhist, but in Buddhism, they say your your last thought determines your next rebirth. And if that’s true, all I could think of is I want to know that I’m dying because I want to see if I can get a good one.

Randy Kreill:

That’s a different perspective.

Steven Sashen:

Well, that’s just what was popping up in my head for whatever reason. So, I kept having to say to people, “I’m not sorry. So, don’t say that.” Or I would say to people, “I’m going to tell you something, but whatever your natural response is going to be, don’t do that.”

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

“And let’s try something different. See what happens if you don’t do the knee-jerk one.” And same thing. Sorry, last thing. When they would say, “Well, you can beat this. You can fight this,” I’m not at war with anything. I’m not trying to-

Randy Kreill:

Yeah. That’s exactly right.

Steven Sashen:

You know? Yeah.

Randy Kreill:

You don’t want to fight it. My take on it is you don’t focus on the disease at all, and you put all the focus on a positive wellness goal. Whatever your positive goal is, you focus on that, kind of forget about the cancer, try to create the right conditions in your body to heal the cancer and get whatever treatments need to be done as well.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. And even with that, when people would say to me things about think positively, have good thoughts about this, I would go, “No, no, I don’t think you understand. I’m really okay no matter what happens.” Now, that said, we don’t have kids, as I mentioned, but the only thing that worried me, and Lena pointed this out to someone, she goes… I’m literally going into surgery, and she’s scheduling an interview we have with somebody. And she says, “Just so you know, he’s more concerned about this interview and making sure that our new shoes come in okay and on time than he is about dying.”

Randy Kreill:

That’s crazy. Well, that relaxed attitude probably helped you heal and…

Steven Sashen:

It may be. I don’t know. Yeah, either way, I guess I’ll end this little chapter with just, what was interesting to me was seeing how habitually people respond to this and how some of those responses seem so not helpful. It was just fascinating. Lena’s nephew had an inoperable brain tumor and died of that. And partly, I guess this is partly from being a standup comic, this is what happens, I said to him early on, “The most difficult part is going to be people going, ‘Oh, no, I’m so sorry,’ and just looking at you with puppy dog eyes. And if you get tired of that, call me because I love you dearly, but we’ve had 120 billion people on the planet and they’ve all died so far of something. None of us are going to escape that.”

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

So, I said, “So, let’s practice. What do you want for lunch?” And he says, “Dude, I’ve got a brain tumor.” I said, “I know. You’ve got a brain tumor. What do you want for lunch?” And he’s like, “Oh. All-you-can-eat sushi.” “Let’s go.” At one point, the family’s being very morose, and I just said, “There’s an upside to you having a brain tumor.” He said, “What’s that?” I said, “Well, it’s not affecting any part of your body you’ve ever used.” And everyone else, they were aghast until he just burst into hysterics, and then everyone relaxed and we had a good day.

Randy Kreill:

I am intrigued by the fact that you were a standup comic, and obviously, you’ve brought the humor to the business right from the start I thought, I think about somebody like Jerry Seinfeld. I like living in a country, in a world where a guy like him could basically be a billionaire… I looked up his net worth on Google, and it seems like he always keeps it just below a billion. He wouldn’t want to be considered a billionaire. He might have a billion dollars worth of Porsches. I don’t know. And then you look at a guy like Zelenskyy in Ukraine. He used to do comedy, and now look what he’s doing.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Randy Kreill:

I think there’s something to the ability to kill in a room full of people with your own on-the-fly remarks with critical thinking and creative energy, and just that, to be able to succeed as a comic, just be able to get up there one time and do it I think is amazing. But somehow you did that as a career for a while.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that was my day job for 10, 11 years. The thing about doing comedy is you basically learn to be able or willing to face anything that comes at you, and you tend to do best under pressure. And that shows up in different ways. Although, I will say watching Zelenskyy, boy, that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. And he gives comics a good name like no one ever has. So, yeah, it is a weird perspective. The thing about comedy is there’s nothing that’s off limits. There’s nothing you can’t make a joke about. Granted, a lot of those things only happen among other comics where no one else can hear us.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

When you have that sort of mindset that there’s something funny everywhere…

Randy Kreill:

Even with a brain tumor.

Steven Sashen:

… it comes in handy sometimes.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

So, back to this whole transition for you for the win. So, you got over dealing with this thyroid cancer and got this idea of, “Okay, so I’m going to start running.” Now, had you been doing any running prior to this?

Randy Kreill:

I did zero sports in high school. Well, kind of considered myself… I’ve got two younger brothers who were fantastic, popular guys in high school, were great athletes, state records and so forth. And I didn’t do any of that, so I kind of thought, I didn’t get the athletic gene. I was kind of the black sheep. But I just didn’t realize it was there and the running was my superpower. I just didn’t know it. So, after college, I started doing a little bit of running, and I got to the point where I had done… I was doing international distance triathlons, the shorter mini triathlons, and I think I ran maybe a half-marathon. So, I experimented with some athleticism in my early-to-late twenties.

And then I got into my job and my hobby on the side was kind of building and remodeling houses, selling them, renting out rooms. I kind of did real estate as a hobby and got super busy with my job. Basically, I ended up kind of getting married, having kids, got overweight, stressed out, and all that, and let my health go.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Randy Kreill:

And then, so having an appendix go bad, and sky high cholesterol, I had all these warning signs. I wasn’t listening to them. But my body was trying to tell me for years I needed to make serious changes. I didn’t really listen until I really felt like I had a gun to my head with this follicular thyroid cancer. It was an aggressive cancer. And I had just had a full physical just a few months before it was discovered. And when I went to see my doctor… My grandfather had just passed away. He was almost 96, and I was the oldest grandchild, so I got up, said a few words. Public speaking was not my thing, and something I really struggle with. And it wasn’t just the nerves. Something else was going on.

And so, I got back from home from Wisconsin to Ohio, and I see my doctor thinking I’ve got a sinus infection, which were common for me back then. And she says, “You’ve got this big lump right here. You haven’t noticed that?” And I’m like, “Well, you just checked me out. I was naked. You did the…”

Steven Sashen:

Well, she was distracted because you were naked.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah, she did. And she checked everything. And she didn’t notice it. So, it was a fast-growing goiter. So, that really finally got my antenna. I’ve always felt like I was just a lucky person and things were going my way overall most of the time, and all of a sudden, bam, it was like, it just hit pretty hard. So, I started just diving in, trying to research what was what, and…

Steven Sashen:

How how’d you stumble on Born to Run?

Randy Kreill:

Everything was kind of leaning that way. I started learning right after I had the cancer. First of all, the surgeon said something that made absolutely no sense. Generally, it’s women who get thyroid cancer, and it’s usually people who are older and female. And so, I asked him, “Where does this come from? I’m a relatively young, healthy guy.” And he just said, “For all we know, it falls out of the sky.” And I just thought, “Come on. That’s a total bullshit answer. I want the truth.” I was starting to become a truth seeker.

And I started learning things like… things that weren’t quite making sense. When you go towards the equator where there’s way more sunlight on people’s skin, cancer rates are lower. You get up into Canada where there’s less sunlight, higher cancer rates. So, I started putting together… Well, one medicine I have to take to stay alive is the Synthroid to replace what the thyroid… So, I see a doctor for that every six months to monitor that. And one of the risks of taking Synthroid long term is osteoporosis. So, I was interested in how do I minimize cancer risk, and how do I minimize osteoporosis risk?

And as I started learning about osteoporosis, I found out that animal-sourced foods mess with our body chemistry in such a way that it’s now illegal for the dairy industry to say that milk builds strong bones, because it’s a complete lie. And as we take in more and more animal-sourced foods, it essentially leeches calcium, minerals from the bones. It weakens on. So, it’s completely opposite of what they used to advertise. Milk destroys the bones if you drink a lot of it. And I don’t know that it matters if it’s meat, dairy, or eggs, but the consumption of certain foods messes with your… Oh, I can’t think of the terminology right now. Your blood chemistry has to remain at a certain level, and if your diet pushes it too high, you’re either going to die or your body leeches nutrients from the bones.

So, essentially, what I was learning was that if your diet’s not great, you’re essentially kind of pissing your skeleton into the toilet over time, literally. So, I started learning these things, and all of a sudden, I’m starting to think my diet, maybe it doesn’t make any sense. Maybe everything I’ve learned was mostly wrong. And so, I was already sort of leaning towards… I had given up dairy. I was thinking more about vegetarian/vegan diet, and I had done a 10-day master cleanse fast because I also knew that my weight was an issue. I finally got down into my healthy BMI range by doing a 10-day water fast. And you mentioned clearing your stomach. A salt water flush will do that really, really well.

Steven Sashen:

Yes, it will.

Randy Kreill:

Saltwater flush was part of my 10-day master cleanse fat. So, anyways, I started doing these different experiments and losing weight, started doing some running, back and foot forth, our private lane out to the mailbox. It was two-tenths of a mile each way. So, I’m home with three kids and I would run around the house and yard and out the lane, and slowly building up to become a runner again. And in ’09, I ran my first marathon, US Air Force Marathon, here locally, and barely crossed the finish line, hobbling on one leg. I was super excited and I finished, but I was in a lot of pain.

And then, read Born to Run. And in the meantime there, I had fractured my ankle, broke the tibia just messing around in the yard. That was ’08. And I had never had a broken bone. So, I’m thinking… there were all these different things. And I was realizing that my feet and ankles were really weak, because when I’d run with my overbuilt shoes, with the inserts, I was often twisting my ankles and messing around out in the yard. I snapped my ankle and had to pretty much crawl back to the house and go get a cast put on it. So, one day, it would’ve been early 2010, I was going out to buy one of those bosu ball… Not a…

Steven Sashen:

Bosu balls. Yep, like the upside-down half ball?

Randy Kreill:

Flat one that you stand on, yes. A round rubber ball. And then I went out to this place called Xenia Shoe and Leather that sells… you can go there to have your horse saddle rebuilt or to have your Birkenstocks resold, but they also sold nice leather shoes and work boots and so forth. It was a leather shop. And the guy there was an expert on orthotics. But all of a sudden, on this particular day, when I just happened to be looking for ways to strengthen my ankles, he’s got a copy of Born to Run, and he’s got the toe shoes, the…

Steven Sashen:

FiveFingers.

Randy Kreill:

The Vibram FiveFingers, yep. So, I pick up the book, and I’m reading this thing, and luckily, the orthotics expert, the owner of the store, was busy that day. So, I got two or three chapters in, and I was completely intrigued. I went straight to the bookstore to buy my own copy after that. But anyways, he sold me a pair of Vibram FiveFingers, and pretty much by accident, I had the book in hand. And it was a life changer. All of a sudden, all these things I had been learned for years, Christopher McDougall put it all together. He just connected all the dots and sold it to me in such a way that ultimately I contacted one of the people he featured, was Dr. Ruth Heidrich, who was a stage four cancer survivor who used a plant-based diet to heal herself decades ago. And she’s still going strong. She swims, bikes, runs. She’s written five or six books.

Anyway, I picked her brain, and then she finally got me 100% convinced to give up the meat and the eggs. I had already given up the dairy. And so, boom, it was 100% game changer. Within three months, I was finally off the cholesterol meds. And then, it was just a couple months after that, my first 50K trail race.

Steven Sashen:

Well, pause there. I want to get to that 50K, but I’ve got to stop and highlight something that you said that I love. The number of times that I’ve been in a doctor’s office or physical therapist’s office where they have a copy of Born to Run, and everyone is wearing some big, thick, stiff, padded, motion control shoe and recommending orthotics. And it’s like, which part of this did you not read? Because you seem to be missing the point.

And of course, in my life… look, I’m going to piss some people off, but again, it’s a joke, so if you get offended by what I say, not you Randy, but other people listening, if you’re offended by what I say, just know that it’s a joke. I think orthotics expert is sort of like saying astrology expert.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah. Well, what was fascinating to me was that this guy was a certified orthotics guy and he sold the stuff right there, but yet he was selling now the complete opposite.

Steven Sashen:

Right. Right.

Randy Kreill:

And how ironic that I figured it all out in his shop.

Steven Sashen:

It’s priceless. When I got back into sprinting, I saw someone who said, “Oh, well you need to be wearing this three-quarter orthotic to deal with the issues that you’re having.” I said, “But I’m a sprinter. I’m always on the ball on my foot. I would never actually use the orthotic. It never would come in contact with the ground.” And he was like, “Yeah, but…” Again, it was just like… I guess our theme is going to be knee-jerk reactions. It’s just this knee-jerk response. People come in, and if all you have is an orthotic for your hammer, everything is a nail that needs the orthotic.

So, that was interesting. So, anyway, that’s just a bit of an aside, but to your 50K. So, you had this unbelievably unpleasant experience running a marathon. What in God’s name made you think, “Let’s run more”?

Randy Kreill:

Born to Run just inspired me. All the different stories, I thought whatever they drank, I wanted a taste of that. And so, I don’t even know if I had seriously considered doing a hundred mile at that point. I just knew that I wanted to get up to the ultra distance and see what happened. Now, ironically, I over-trained. One day, I did a four-day workout. I ran eight miles four different times in one day. And so, about… it would’ve been five days before the 50K, I went out with my wife’s run group, did five, six miles. And on the way back to the house, out of the blue, it felt like somebody had hit me in the ankle with a baseball bat. And I thought, “Oh, well, I guess I better stay off it and just rest till the race.”

So, I get out there, I’m running, it’s aching a little bit, but it’s not too bad, but it’s getting worse and worse and worse. And I ran pretty well. But it got real slow at the end because the ankle was hurting, it was throwing my stride off. And after the race was over, I could barely walk back to my car. A long story short, it was a stress fracture in the fibia, my right side, same ankle that I broke the tibia three years prior.

So, that ended up becoming another serendipitous thing in a way because I learned so much during the healing process of getting that bone fixed. I figured out that riding 120 miles on my bike or swimming a couple miles were great exercise, I could do that with the stress fracture, but it didn’t replace what I got from ultra running, the feeling I got from it, because it wasn’t the same. So, that kind of got me even more focused on the running long term.

Anyways, healed up from that stress fracture and just kept going hardcore. I’ve had injuries since then. So, basically over 80 official ultra marathons, probably more like at least a hundred ultra distance runs.

Steven Sashen:

But Randy, that can’t be possible, running as hard on your joints, and it’s bad for you. And 50% of runners and 80% of marathoners get injured every year. So, that can’t be. There’s no way you’re not injured for all that time, he says sarcastically.

Randy Kreill:

Right. Yeah. And what I’ve read in Ultra Running Magazine is that the average amount of time ultra runners are into it is about three and a half years. And so, now I’m going on, whatever, 12, nonstop, just… I haven’t spent any money on medical stuff related to my hobby. So, that means I can just keep running more and more and more races, and it’s kind of crazy. I just never would’ve dreamt as an 18 year old that I’d be running hundred mile races at age 60.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, no, it’s brilliant. And one of our first employees was 65 at the time, and he was just running in our first sandal, our do-it-yourself kit, just a four millimeter piece of rubber underneath his feet. And he was doing about 120 to 140 miles like that. He was doing 120 to 140 miles an hour, 40 miles a week. So, he’d run from his house to the bus station in Denver, take the bus to and get off in Boulder like a couple stops early and run to our office, then repeat, reverse that on the way home, then go out for five or 10 miles with his dog. And then on the weekends he’d do 20 or 30 miles a day. And people say, well, that’s not possible. He’s like, “Well, I’ve been doing it for years, so I don’t know what you’re saying.”

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Same thing. And on the other end of the spectrum, as a sprinter, I haven’t really had anything other than a minor tweak that put me out for one workout in 13 years.

Randy Kreill:

That’s awesome. Did you see… I’m remodeling here. You might love what I’ve done with the place.

Steven Sashen:

Yes. For people who can’t see, Randy is showing off his collection of Xero shoes and many other things.

Randy Kreill:

Well, but the wall, I painted the wall here.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, the wall. Oh my gosh, I love it. That is great.

Randy Kreill:

Keep it fun.

Steven Sashen:

Keep it fun. I love it.

Randy Kreill:

Keep it fun. That’s what you’re doing with your…

Steven Sashen:

Keep it fun.

Randy Kreill:

… sprinting. That’s what I do with my ultra distance.

Steven Sashen:

So, for people who haven’t done an ultra, what would you say to someone who either is considering it or someone who thinks there’s just no way?

Randy Kreill:

I would say that for me, running is really just an expression of what we are at our core. I like to say running a hundred miles, some of my runs have been really tough mountain runs, all kinds of string crossings and rock gardens and just crazy stuff to go through. Lots of elevation change. So, some of the runs have taken over 37 hours, but only half jokingly, I say, “Hey, it’s like a 37-hour full-body massage.” To me, a lot of ultra runners really like to kind of sensationalize the pain and the bad-assery of it. And I’m kind of like the exact opposite. I’m like, “No, it’s a really long yoga session. The world’s going to spin all the way around. I’m going to see sunrise, sunset, maybe a lot more than one of those, of each.”

It’s almost kind of a spiritual thing, sort of transformative. It’s sort of a form maybe of enlightenment, maybe. I don’t know if that’s an exaggeration. But I can tell you that maybe one out of three hundred-mile races, I really am strongest the last 10, 20 miles.

Steven Sashen:

Wow.

Randy Kreill:

So, the first 60 to 80 miles is just setting the table. So, by then you’ve run all the way through the night, you’ve had to conquer the being sleepy and master the nutrition and the hydration and some caffeine management and all these different things, all the gear, everything. There’s a lot to think about. It’s a puzzle. To me, it’s mostly about strategy and conditioning, but it’s a big puzzle to solve, and you’re going to learn a lot about yourself.

One of the odd things was when I was getting prepared for that first hundred miler, I went no pacer, no crew, to a race I didn’t know anybody. It was over 300 miles away. And I had my daughter put some music on a little device. It was like a knockoff of an Apple or whatever. And I put all my favorite songs on there, and I had all out the gear, and I got it out there and I never used it. And I never have. I’ve never used music for any of these ultras. I love it when it’s there, but I’ve never played it.

And so, I learned that just to be tuned into the sound of your footsteps, the breath, the heartbeat, all the Chi running focuses that Danny Dreyer teaches, just to tend to be tuned into the other runners, the environment, the animals, all the volunteers, just everything that’s going on. Just staying aware of that is a treat. And I wouldn’t want to mess it up with jamming something in my ears and being distracted from all the basics.

Steven Sashen:

So, you did that first one without a crew. When you’re doing a hundred miler now, what do you do to prepare and navigate and manage that?

Randy Kreill:

Basically the same thing. After that first one, I did a video called 10 Tips for an Easy Hundred Miler. And it was all just kind of timeless stuff. And it’s still the same stuff I do. I use some of Eric Orton’s ideas, and I know you’ve gotten to know him well.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Randy Kreill:

The Hawk. And he’s more competitive minded, I’d say, then Danny Dreyer is more of a zen-minded, injury-free, focused runner, but both are phenomenal teachers. And Eric would say… a couple things from his book, The Cool Impossible. Have you read that?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Randy Kreill:

Okay. He talks about athleticism being all about awareness, which is 100% true. He also says that most runners have absolutely no idea of what they’re doing, which is kind of true too. So, I don’t know where I was going with all that, but…

Steven Sashen:

Well, it was inspired by my question, what’s sort of changed in how you manage a race from that first hundred miler to the way you do it now?

Randy Kreill:

Yeah, it’s just focusing on all the basics. One of the magic things that happened at the first race was… the first hundred miler. I had got dehydrated. I had to recover from that. But once I got to 50 miles in and everything was still working, and I’m actually trying to help some other people who had really bad blisters and things, and I’m showing them my socks and my sandals and my thin socks and body glide for the feet and all these different… giving them tips, like I’ve never done one. I’m trying to help other people.

Anyways, after getting through all that, sun came down, it cooled down. I got food and liquid in me, and then some caffeine. Coffee came out, and I had some caffeine. And I found myself just singing in the woods, running and just this blissful, joyful runner’s high hit. And it went on for hours and hours and hours. 2:00 AM, whatever time it was, I come into an aid station just hooting and hollering, and they thought I was on something. It was purely, 100% natural runners high. I was just giddy. I felt guilty because some people were just crashing and burning.

I told the volunteers at this aid station… I’m in contact with some of these people. I’ve gone back and done that same race seven times. And I said, “Man, if I could bottle up this feeling and sell it to people, I would be a billionaire.” And so, anyways, first hundred-mile race, I felt like I just caught this wave and I’ve just wanted to keep riding it ever since. And I think I’m still chasing it. I virtually always get a runner’s high at a hundred miler, but I’ve never had the intensity and length repeat again quite the same way as it did at the first time.

Steven Sashen:

Well, look, I’m not a drug taker, but there are various other things where I’ve had similar experiences. I think it’s just a neurological phenomenon. The first time it happens, you’re laying down some massive new neural pathway. Your neurotransmitters are doing something they’d never done before. But once you have that pathway, everything smooths out a little bit. So, I’ll say it even now, backing up to the beginning of our conversation, I can’t think of a better word that I currently use other than the preciousness that I feel on a daily basis. It was intense for the first month. Now, it’s still delightful, but it’s smoother. It’s just smoother.

Randy Kreill:

When I think back on the cancer, I tell people when I’m doing a hundred-mile race, or anytime I run, I think of every breath, every footstep as a form of gratitude. And the runners, whether they run for their ancestors in the sacred ground… And I try to bring out all those ideas into my running, and Danny Dreyer teaches about just trying to absorb the Chi in the air, bring in all the energy from the nature of the trees, the animals, the people, the volunteers, the runners, everything. I’d say one of my favorite mantras is energy flows where attention goes. Wherever I focus my attention, that’s where the energy is coming from.

So, my youngest brother was kind of a wild man, still is, back in high school, college. He had this thing where back when he was driving a dump truck for an excavator, he’d be out in the morning all the time driving country roads. And when he found a fresh skunk kill in the road, he would just take a deep breath and he would just learn to love the smell of skunk. So, I like to use that a lot. Whenever something is going badly, I flip it. And I quickly learned that when I found skunk, I would… “Ah, I love skunk. It smells like perfume.” I changed that neuro pathway to a pleasure thing.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah.

Randy Kreill:

So, that same thing comes into play, and say you’re 40 miles into an ultra marathon, it’s colder than expected, it’s raining for hours and hours and hours, and instead of whining about it, you just say over and over until you finally believe it, “I love the rain, I love all of this. Bring it on, bring me more.” And then, after a while, you start laughing about it, and then you believe it. And that’s like, just embrace it.

Steven Sashen:

After Tienanmen Square, to abbreviate the story, I ended up in Thailand, and I got there just as the monsoons were kicking in. And there was just no way to escape the rain. And so, when there’s no escape, you just go with it. I mean, you can argue if you want, but my experience was, it was like, “Oh.” And I previously did not like being out in the rain and getting wet, but when there was just no escape, for whatever reason, I started really enjoying it. And now when it’s raining, I get a total kick out of it.

Randy Kreill:

I love to go out and run in the rain or the snow. It’s some of the best. The negative ions from the rain, you probably are aware of that.

Steven Sashen:

Yep.

Randy Kreill:

Okay. I guess that’s a real thing.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I don’t know. Well, certainly, I don’t know how much of it is just the rain versus what happens when there’s a thunderstorm, which actually does ionize the air in different ways. There’s a lot of things that while something may be happening, it may not be what people think, but to your point, how you frame it is going to change how you experience it.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah, yeah. I like things like that, believing in them, like earthing. I think there’s probably something to it. I don’t know how solid the science is in that area.

Steven Sashen:

Okay, I’ll jump in on that one. Ready? And the idea being that there’s these magic free electrons. Actually, the simple idea being that because we’re not electrically connected to the ground on a regular basis, like our ancestors seemingly were, that’s leading to a bunch of health problems. I won’t dive into the story too much other than if you know anything about physics, chemistry, or biology, it all falls apart. And people may argue with me, that’s okay, but let’s just go for the simpler story.

So, I like to say sugar doesn’t taste sweet. Sugar doesn’t taste good. What I mean by that is that we evolved to like the taste of sugar because it gave us something that we needed then, which was hard to find, called calories. And so, we co-evolved, and then once we started figuring out how to cultivate things, we made things sugary-er because we need the calories. So, in a similar vein, we know that just being out in nature actually is stress relieving, and relieving stress is a valuable thing. It’s a neurological, neurophysiological thing. So, being barefoot, for most people, when they’re “electrically, negative, connected to the ground,” they’re barefoot in somewhere that’s natural.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

And, because we have all these nerve endings in our feet, that’s to let us know what we’re stepping on or stepping in. So, there’s no question that we evolved to learn that certain sensations are a good sign. There’s something nearby that we want, food, water, shelter, someone to sleep with, something. And so, walking around, we don’t need any of the magical physics, chemistry, biology story. You can just go, oh, we evolved to that feeling it. If nothing else, if you haven’t been stimulating your feet by letting them feel these very varied and variated surfaces… Your brain is wired to feel that, and when you let your brain feel that, that feels good, and feeling good is not just an emotional experience, it’s a neurophysiological phenomenon that is stress relieving, et cetera.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

So, in my mind, that’s the Occam’s razor answer, the simple story. We evolved to like that. You don’t need anything on top of that, that is improperly verified by seeming science. And I’ll stop ranting about this. One thing. People like to demonstrate this by showing, “Hey, here I am, I put an -ometer on my skin and that shows that I’ve got a positive charge on my skin, and that’s got to be bad.” It’s like, no, no, no, no, no. That’s protecting you. And the simple proof on that is, A, 99.5% of people who get struck by lightning survive without a problem, 100% of trees that get struck by lightning explode and burst into flames, because your skin is highly resistant to electrical current. So, the current goes around your body, through your skin, around you, into the ground. Similarly, if it was just about being grounded, being hyper-protective, then people in the third world and all of our pets should be totally healthy. But that’s not the way that works either.

Randy Kreill:

Interesting. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Anyway, that’s my counterfactual simpler answer. But that said, look, if it gets you out and you’re having fun, I’m not going to argue with you.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah. I don’t think there’s any downside to practicing it. It feels good to be out in the ground and having skin on the ground. It just started. Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

I spent an inordinate amount of time barefooted. I’m all for it. The challenge becomes when people are selling additional products to facilitate this and the evidence that they have for the benefit is, again, at best, very dubious. And that’s at best.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

My whole thing with Xero Shoes, part of what animates me, is that I find it morally reprehensible when people make a living by lying to other people. And that’s what the footwear industry’s been doing for 50 years. So, when people are selling products based on bad scientific ideas that are easily disproven, yeah, that just gets under my skin.

Randy Kreill:

Well, and that kind of summarizes most of the food industry. And I found it’s very similar what the food industry is doing to people as the shoe industry does to people.

Steven Sashen:

Well, the slight difference there is food is a really interesting one because I was at one of the first paleo conferences, and I noticed a few things that no one else seemed to point out, that there was 10 people on the stage who were the paleo experts of the time arguing about what Paleo was. And so, they didn’t agree on what paleo was. The whole idea that paleo people didn’t eat any grains and didn’t eat any… whatever else they were saying, has been proven to be not true over and over and over. And five of the people that were on that stage were morbidly obese. And what I found out later was that almost everyone on the stage had high C-reactive protein levels.

And I said to one of the doctors, I said, “This idea that there’s one diet for everyone, that seems a little silly, because I’m a genetic freak.” And the guy says, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Oh, for men over…” then I was 45, or 47, or I don’t know, somewhere… 13 years ago, so I was 47. I said, “For men over the age of 45, I’m one of the fastest Jews in the world. So, you’re going to suggest that I should be eating the same thing as someone who can’t run fast and just does totally different activities? It doesn’t make sense.”

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

And the last thing I’ll say about the diet thing, there’s a writer named Denise Minger who wrote a book called Death by Food Pyramid that you would actually love because it’s really about how the food industry has been misrepresenting things. And Denise was the bell of the paleo ball because she was a diehard raw food vegan in high school, and then her teeth started loosening and almost falling out, and she went, “Ooh, let me do something about that,” and then started eating a lot of animal protein, which helped. And she still predominantly eats a lot of vegetarian vegan things. But later, she did something about the paleo world that most people wouldn’t do, is she started looking for counter-factuals. Let’s see if there are people doing the opposite of what you’re saying, who are just as healthy, if not healthier, than what you’re claiming to be. And found innumerable examples of that.

And lately, and this is the last thought, she did a great article about high fat versus low fat diets and what they might be doing. But then she said, “I’m not going to be writing anymore about diet.” And I don’t know why, but my suspicion, because she’s a very smart researcher, is that she couldn’t find any correlation that applied across the board to that correlated diet and longevity. And I think she’s landed on the different strokes for different folks…

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

… bandwagon. Because look, you know this as well as I, if you want to start a fight, you either talk about politics or talk about whatever diet you happen to be on.

Randy Kreill:

Religion, food, politics. I look at them as all about the rules we’re all going to live by. Politics, economics, religion, and food kind of falls into that too.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Randy Kreill:

It’s just a tough conversation to have. But there is a lot of evidence to show that a more plant-based diet leads to a longer life.

Steven Sashen:

No question.

Randy Kreill:

That’s…

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, the difference is having a higher plant-based diet seems to be very, very clear, because that’s basically what a Mediterranean diet is, just adding some seafood mostly. But what’s interesting is when people who have discovered something that seems to work for them, at least for now, just getting really militant about it and assuming that what works for them works for everybody else, that’s where I think it gets to be problematic.

Randy Kreill:

Exactly. Exactly. I looked up something, I’ve been watching a few of your… I watch them on YouTube, your podcast. Do you know the name Walter Liesner?

Steven Sashen:

No.

Randy Kreill:

You don’t?

Steven Sashen:

No.

Randy Kreill:

I thought you would. He was 94 years and 268 days old when he did a back flip, oldest known human-

Steven Sashen:

Oh, man. Okay. All right.

Randy Kreill:

I heard you talk about it on one of your former podcasts. I decided to look it up and I thought, “I wonder if Steve’s going to know…”

Steven Sashen:

Oh, boy, you have just set the bar for me. I think I’ve already beaten my coach, my former coach, but now… Okay. So, first I’ve got to live to 96, and then I’ve got to throw a standing back. Wait, hold on. Standing back flip or on a trampoline?

Randy Kreill:

I didn’t look that up. I assumed it was a standing back flip. I couldn’t-

Steven Sashen:

All right, you’re going to have to send me his info. I’m going to look it up.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah, I just Googled it, and his name popped up as the oldest human to ever do a back flip.

Steven Sashen:

I’m definitely going to look that one up. There’s a woman, I don’t remember her name, who’s in her nineties who does gymnastics as well. And the whole thing about the master track and field circuit is that everyone’s goal is just to outlive their competitors.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah. So, anyway, I thought that was interesting. If you can live to 94 and still do a back flip, that would be a Guinness record for you.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. I’m definitely going to look it up. So, I want to wrap this up with this. Other than just, look, the unbelievably inspiring way that you talk about running ultras, and ultra running has become one of the fastest growing sports that people are doing. Actually, pickleball is now number one, but ultra running really, really grew dramatically. If you were going to give someone some advice for doing their first ultra, because I can’t imagine they’re not anxious as hell, what would that be?

And I’ll tell you a quick funny one, just as a prelude to that. I was at an event that Tony Krupicka was doing, a former very well-known ultra marathon from the early days. And someone said to him, “I’ve run a 50-mile race, but I want to run a hundred. What do I need to do to train for that?” And Tony’s answer was, “Nothing. You’ve already done everything you need to know.”

Randy Kreill:

Exactly. He inspired me to do my first hundred too.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really?

Randy Kreill:

He’d had his YouTube videos, and I’d watch them back in 2010, 2011. He’d be in the park running barefoot, or he’d take off his shoes and he’d have a knife, and he’d cut the bottom off and make them flat. And basically, him and others who were saying the same thing, if you can run a marathon, you can run 50, and if you’ve run 50, you can run a hundred. And now a lot of people I know are running 200 milers. I don’t have an interest in that personally because I’ve found that to run a 200 miler might cost two, three, four, five times as much as a hundred miler.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Randy Kreill:

So, for my dollar, my traveling dollar, my racing dollar, I can see more places, meet more runners, experience more things by doing hundred-mile races than 200-mile races.

Steven Sashen:

So, someone’s gearing up for that first ultra, what-

Randy Kreill:

I would point them to my wall, right here.

Steven Sashen:

Keep it fun.

Randy Kreill:

Keep it fun. And if you’re keeping it fun… I know you preach the same thing. If you keep it fun, you’re going to do it. And I’ve always kept my ultra… It was mostly fun. I still get nervous even before a 50K. I’ve never DNF-ed at a 50K.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Randy Kreill:

And so, I don’t want to start a new trend there.

Steven Sashen:

It occurs to me for keep it fun, this is going to be a weird analogy. So, I’m a 17 or 18 time member of the Polar Bear Club. So, on January 1st, they break out the ice, if there’s any ice, and you’re diving into 32 degree water.

Randy Kreill:

I’ve never done it, and I can’t imagine it.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, it’s a blast. But here’s the thing. No, no, here’s the thing. Going into a race, if you think it’s going to be difficult, if you think it’s going to be painful, if you don’t have that open-minded kind of curiosity where you can see, “How can I keep it fun?” then that’s going to be problematic. It’s the same thing with jumping into ice water.

Randy Kreill:

Oh, it’s the same, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

If you’re just curious, if you’re willing to feel it without your expectation of what it’s supposed to feel like, it will undeniably be way different than what you thought. And in very interesting ways. And so, I never thought of it as being analogous to running a 50K or a 50 mile or a hundred mile, but I’m going to ask you. It’s like if you go in with that, “I’m just curious, because it may not be like what I imagine or what anyone told me or what anyone else who’s done this has said, let’s see what happens and see if I can find a way to be fun.”

Randy Kreill:

Yeah. I’m kind of amazed I haven’t gotten bored with it at all. I don’t see any end to it. I just want keep in shape to be able to keep doing this. Hopefully the hundred milers… I’d like to be back on here when I’m 70 still doing 100 milers, but we’ll see. I’d like to at least be doing 50Ks when I’m 70 or 80.

Steven Sashen:

No, it’s my same thing. I know I’m not going to be the fastest guy in the world. I know I’m not going to make it into a finals in the world championships. I might make it into a quarter or a semi if it’s a really good day and there’s not a lot of people there. But my only goal is to keep hitting All-American times in my races as I get older. And if I’m really feeling good to hit an All-American time for the age group behind mine, one behind mine, if I can do that, I’m totally happy. And if I can’t do that, but I’m still having a good time out there, then that’s okay too.

Randy Kreill:

I was fortunate to be at the Barclay Marathons last year.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, wow.

Randy Kreill:

The second time I saw Courtney Dauwalter, who was just a joyous runner. He was just always smiling, happy, just like you see her on the internet. And then I’ve been to the Big Dog Backyard Ultra at Lazarus Lake, Gary, Cantrell’s house, the last two years, as a volunteer, of course. I’m not there to compete. But this past October, when the US team was competing with all the teams around the world in the Backyard format, one of the guys came in and he was just completely spent. He was in a lot of pain, but he went as far as he could until he just couldn’t go any further. And this competitor was telling Laz, “This is it. I’m never coming back. It was just not fun.” And Lazarus said, “You don’t have to have fun to have fun.”

And that kind of summed up ultra running. You just have to flip it. You persist through. I like to think of it… Well, Seinfeld had this great definition of pain. It’s a lot of information coming at you really fast. A perfect definition of pain. But when it comes to pain, when you’re doing an ultra race and you’re trying to do your best performance you can in terms of your best pace, whatever, you’re dancing on a line between productive discomfort, which is a form of pain, versus a real injury, which is a setback sort of pain. You have to kind of dance on that line, whether it’s a 50K or whatever. You have to be following Eric Orton’s awareness concept. You have to be aware enough to dance on that line without pushing too far into injurious pain versus productive discomfort.

Steven Sashen:

And I imagine, if we think about Tim Noakes and his central governor theory, which basically is that your brain, one of its major functions is to keep you safe and will pull you back from exerting yourself in various ways or having certain experiences because it thinks it’s unsafe, but it’s often a little hyper conservative. And I imagine over time, that line that you’re dancing between useful discomfort and actual problematic pain moves somewhat.

Randy Kreill:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Not to put you in a situation where injury is more likely, but just because you’re discovering that, oh, no, no, that line was actually in the wrong place, and it can move.

Randy Kreill:

Well, your condition changes, so you can handle a lot tougher line.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Randy Kreill:

Danny Dreyer, one of the things he likes to coach is relaxing into the competitive run and getting yourself out of the way, which is kind of the same thing. You’ve got to relax the mind and the body and just go with the flow. And then you get into a different zone where the mind and the body relax into it, and you can perform better.

Steven Sashen:

I’m compelled to throw out this story. So, when I was living in New York, I was doing Tai chi and aikido, and after an Aikido class, a bunch of us left, including the teacher. And it’s a blisteringly cold February day in New York, and it had snowed. It was still a little drizzly or flurries. And everyone was complaining about how cold it was. And I said, as we’re walking to the subway, I said, “I try to just pay attention to the sensations and just feel those without adding a story to it, because when I do that, then everything changes and it doesn’t feel quite so cold.” And then the teacher says, “Yeah, I did that zen shit for 40 years. It’s fucking freezing out here.”

Randy Kreill:

That’s funny. The people who do the diving into the cold water and all that, supposedly if you do deep, slow breaths, that puts more heat into your mitochondria or whatever… it sends more heat into the body to keep you warmer, or something happens.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, no, I tell that story not to suggest that, hey, we’re wrong, and no, when it hurts, it hurts, but it’s just that there are different ways of experiencing these things, however you want to play with it. And playing with it is the critical thing. I’ve got a cold plunge. We have a hot tub, I’ve got a cold plunge next to it. Yesterday, I had to chip away eight inches of ice to get into it. And I did not stay in as long. But once you’re in, it’s just, again, it’s just not what you think. And if you’re willing to play with the experience, it can be very interesting.

Randy Kreill:

I might have to try it sometime. I like a hot tub.

Steven Sashen:

Hey, I love a hot tub. But I also just find it… and it’s not like it’s pleasant, pleasant, but it’s just really compelling. I get a kick out of it. Anyway, we’ll do that sometime. You come out here, we’ll jump in the cold plunge.

Randy Kreill:

Sounds good.

Steven Sashen:

So, Randy, first of all, thank you for everything. First of all, thank you for doing this. Thank you for all the support you’ve given us over the years.

Randy Kreill:

Yep. My pleasure. Yep.

Steven Sashen:

It’s been a real, real treat. If people want to find out more about what you’re up to and follow you or maybe even get in touch with you, for whatever reason they might want to do that, I don’t know if you’re doing anything coaching-ish or whatever, how might they get in touch with you?

Randy Kreill:

Yeah, most of what I do is still just volunteer stuff. I’m trying to get our house fixed up and sold and downsize, and hopefully then we’ll have more time to do other things. But I’m on YouTube, so just everything’s under my name. So, a Google search will take them to YouTube.

Steven Sashen:

Then spell your name for people.

Randy Kreill:

R-A-N-D-Y K-R-E-I-L-L. So, Randy Kreill. And on YouTube, you can get a link to the blog. I’m on Facebook quite a bit, so I’m easy to find there, or on YouTube. And a little bit on Instagram too.

Steven Sashen:

Perfect.

Randy Kreill:

I’m easy to find and always glad to help people who are willing to listen. So, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Perfect. Well, once again, Randy, thank you, thank you, thank you. For everyone else, and thank you all for being here as well. Again, a reminder, when you get a chance, head over to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find all the previous episodes, ways you can engage with us on social media. You’ll find us wherever podcasts are findable, and wherever you can, give us a thumbs up and a five-star review, and hit the button, and hit the bell icon on YouTube. And like I said, if you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe, spread the word.

And if you have any recommendations or requests or you want to argue with me about something, if you think I’ve got a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, I’m open to that conversation, just drop me an email about anything. Move, M-O-V-E, @jointhemovementmovement.com. And until then, just go out, have fun, and live life feet first.