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The Relaxed Running podcast is a behind the scenes conversation with the best athletes, coaches and professionals in the world of distance running. From training, hydration and nutrition to racing and recovering, we learn from the best in the world.
Relaxed conversations which are packed with actionable takeaways to help you take your running performance up a notch. Save yourself years of guess work and learn from the people who are doing it at the highest level.
Tyson (00:00.305)
I was starting to get irritated just looking at it. I was thinking, I wonder if he's noticing this or I'm glad you said something. No, sweet. All right. Now we're rolling. Charlie, I was actually wondering, I was going to ask you at some point during the interview, whether you'd spent much time in Australia and you're about to launch into a story about you just outside of Brisbane for a race, I believe. I thought that might be a nice place to start.
charlie (00:05.934)
Yeah. Yeah.
charlie (00:14.44)
Well, thanks for having me. And I'll tell you, it's a weirder story than that even, because I ended up in Australia at that time, and this is the mid -90s, so it's been a while, because there was a massive hailstorm in Brisbane. And at the time, I had...
biggest company in the world that was chasing hailstorms in order to repair hail damaged cars. And in Brisbane, there's a big auto auction with thousands of, at the time it was a Ford auto auction. So there were thousands of cars damaged in a hailstorm. And so I brought a bunch of guys over to fix these hail damaged cars. And of course, you're
Winter is our summer and vice versa. So for us, we got to leave the U S in the middle of the winter and come hang out in Australia for a few months, which was great. But I'd been there about a week. And one of the things that I always do when I travel, certainly back then is I would, uh, I would find an AA meeting cause I'd been sober for a few years at that point. And I would find a running group to run with. And so in Brisbane, there was a great running shop and I would every, you know,
Tyson (01:18.651)
you
charlie (01:32.526)
four or five days a week, I would go after work and join a bunch of runners. And, you know, we'd go run our, you five miles or whatever it was we were running. And we came back into the store after a run one day and, uh, there was a bulletin board, which you're a lot younger than me. That's one of those things that you put cork, uh, you know, you put pins in and there's paper, you know, I don't know if you remember that, but, um, there was a bulletin board that was advertising a 5k.
Tyson (01:38.857)
you
Tyson (01:55.257)
Vaguely.
charlie (02:01.102)
Uh, like out in the Nenango rainforest, uh, area, uh, that coming weekend. And I'm like, all right, great. You know, I'm going to take Saturday off. I'm going to go to this race, drive out into the, you know, the rainforest and get a t -shirt and have an experience. And so I get up on Saturday morning, super early. I was a little puzzled by that, but like, I, I got up and I hadn't, I had yet to see a kangaroo and Australia, you know, and of course.
Tyson (02:04.745)
you
Tyson (02:12.681)
you
charlie (02:30.35)
Uh, being a, a yank, uh, you know, that's, it's like, that's very exciting. If you're an Australian, it's like, Oh my God, they're like, you know, pests, but, uh, you know, I finally I'm driving along and I do see a kangaroo and I, as I run over it with my car, uh, the first kangaroo I saw in Australia. So I, I like, it's dark still outside. I get out of the car.
You know, I got my flashers on and I go, I look and in the ditch, there's this poor kangaroo and like he, it really looks like he's stunned. And I hear the sound behind me and like I turn around and just like deer in the United States, there's like 20 kangaroo cause there's never just one and they're all bouncing behind my car, you know, going across the road and in the red blast flashing lights, it looked like a, some scene from star wars, like a disco.
scene and I turned back around and of course the one that I hit is gone. So it was like a magic trick. So I called it a diversionary tactic. You know, they distract me as if I was going to, you know, take him. So anyway, I'm my animal lover. So it would have been hard for me to continue if I'd killed the kangaroo. So I went on to the race. I get there, go up to the registration table. I, you know, I sign in, I get my bib.
Tyson (03:34.435)
Hahaha!
charlie (03:52.874)
Kind of sun's coming up. I'm sort of hanging out and I'm stretching a little bit and I hear these two Aussies and they're talking off to the side and One of them's like going yeah, mate. It's gonna be a hot one out there. I hope I can finish before dark I'm thinking to myself like These Aussies must be really slow. What are they gonna do crawl? I mean, it's a it's a 5k Why are you gonna be out there till dark and I actually started laughing out loud and one of them looks at me and he said?
Have you run a 50K before me? And I'm like, no, why? And I started to sweat immediately. And so I go back to the registration table, very cute little blonde girl who I talked to the first time. I'm like, excuse me, do you have a, do you have a map of the course that I could see? And she hands me a map and like right on the top of the map, it says Nenango rainforest 52K actually.
Tyson (04:26.633)
You
charlie (04:47.886)
And like, there's a banner, 52K on my number on my shirt. It says 52K at that point in my running career. It had just never occurred to me that anybody would run farther than a marathon. Like I had run marathons at that point, but I'd never run any farther. And I didn't know that that was a thing. And so I didn't know what to do. So I decided to start the race. It was actually three loops of about 10 and a half miles. And so, you know, about 32 miles total.
Tyson (04:54.665)
Oh
charlie (05:17.87)
And loop one was gorgeous. You know, it's morning, the birds I've never heard before singing, we're kind of river crossings and it's cool. It's just beautiful. I come around, there's about 200 runners. I come around on the loop and come up towards the start finish line and I hear the announcer like going, here comes the yank. Here comes the yank. I guess I was the only American in the race. And like, he's like, he's in 10th place.
I'm like, well, shit. So I mean, like now I'm representing all of North America, but I am fully intending just to one run, run one loop. Like I'm done. Like I, I came to run a five K and, uh, I'm quitting and I do, I quit and I go, I'm standing next to the table. I don't tell anybody that I quit, but I'm standing, I'm eating Oreos and doing what you do after a race. And the cute little blonde lady comes up and she's like, you're going to keep going. Aren't you? And I'm like,
Tyson (06:09.065)
Hehehehe
charlie (06:16.174)
Oh yeah, yeah, of course, because guys are idiots. And, and, uh, and anyway, I keep going down the trail and I actually make a decision though, that I'm going to like, just run to my car because it's down the trail about a mile. And I'm just going to get my car to leave, which wouldn't have been a good thing, but, uh, they'd still be looking for me. And, um, anyway, I get into my car and I'm like, I don't have my keys. They're at the announcer's feet.
Tyson (06:20.681)
Yeah.
Tyson (06:37.769)
Yeah
charlie (06:43.918)
So I could either go back and humiliate myself or fake an injury or something. And, uh, I just decided I'd keep going and I'll, I'm still quitting though, but I'm going to do the second loop and then I'm going to quit. I get to start, finish. And it's like, here comes the ink. Here comes the ink. He's in fifth place now. Um, and, and actually to be serious about it for one second, that's when something changed for me. And I actually realized that I had a chance if I just kept going.
that I had a chance to do something that like was totally unintentional. The universe just puts you where you need to be sometimes. And I decided, I made a decision that I was going to do the third loop and I was going to try to finish this thing. Third loop starts, it's hot as hell. I'm sunburned. I'm chafed in every place you can chafe. Like I'm starving to death. I just, you know, I'm not prepared for this at all. And I come around on the last loop and.
Uh, and I crossed the start finish line and, you know, and I get this banner around me and like, it's this, it is this amazing, gratifying experience. And I ended up winning the race. And so, you know, the, the purpose of the story, I guess, is that, you know, very often the universe will put us in places where we did not expect and allow us to do things that we couldn't do for ourselves. You know, when you, sometimes you just have to keep going.
I didn't do anything heroic. I tried to quit half a dozen times. Like I meant to quit. I tried to quit. I did quit. And, and yet, you know, I managed to finish. And I think part of the lesson that I learned was that I was so slow and so steady throughout the race that, you know, I didn't even pass anybody on the last loop, but they fell out. You know, they were either sitting on the side of the road or, you know, whatever. And, and I.
Tyson (08:33.485)
That is a great story. Thank God for pretty blonde girls.
charlie (08:41.422)
I didn't cook myself the way they did. So anyway, there you go. There's my Australia running story.
charlie (08:50.888)
I know, I know. I still remember. I think I probably have a snapshot of her after the race, you know, and I thanked her later for, I wouldn't have kept going if it weren't for her ego and just being, you know, an idiot.
Tyson (09:05.441)
So at what point of your running journey are you in here? You said mid 90s and I mean 5k and 50k you already established you learned the hard way that there's a fair difference between the two events but I mean without a fair training block 50k is a challenge for anybody regardless of how new or old to the sport you are.
charlie (09:24.014)
Yeah. I mean, in fairness, um, to tell the, to tell the rest of the story there, by that time I had already run, I was sober exactly three years at that point. And in those three years, I had run, I'd gone to an AA meeting every single day for three years, and I'd run every day for three years without taking a day off. And I'd run about 30 marathons or so during that time. So I, I knew what it was like to suffer in a marathon.
Tyson (09:28.425)
you
charlie (09:50.67)
Um, and I would argue that marathon suffering might be worse than any suffering because, you know, you're trying to go fast. Probably. I mean, in that part of my life, I was, you know, I was trying to like, I was desperately trying to break three hours for the first year or so. And it took me a while to finally get there, but you know, if you're, if you know, if you're redlining in a marathon, it sucks.
Tyson (10:01.661)
Mm -hmm.
charlie (10:16.318)
Like that's a... Ultras are a piece of cake because Ultras are very hard, but they're mental runs. They're about monitoring your body and feeding and watering yourself and keeping your mind right and keeping the pace in a place where you're not over -exerting. Ultras are super long and that's what it's about. Marathons are about like, you know, just trying to...
Tyson (10:23.201)
Yeah.
charlie (10:42.478)
if you're still trying to set a PR or whatever, you're just trying to go as fast as you can the entire time.
Tyson (10:49.001)
Man, it's so interesting sitting down and just hearing people's thoughts on the ultras and the marathon worlds and just the running world in general. It's funny, whenever I have a guest on here, I come into the conversation with a bit of a plan as to the direction that we could take it, a little bit of a scaffold. And I look at your story and I said to you before I hit record that every article I read or every video I watch or any podcast that I listen to, I quickly realized that there's not only 25 different start points in some sense, but there's also 25 different podcasts, which...
charlie (11:11.31)
. . .
Tyson (11:18.313)
your story would be well and truly accepted on and that would make sense on every platform. And I thought maybe I could pass the mic to you for a couple of minutes, just to give a bit of an overview of how you actually found your way into the world of running. Because I think without exception, every article that I read mentions the fact that it played a big part in saving your life.
charlie (11:33.494)
Yeah, it did. You know what? So just to give your listeners a little background and I'll keep this part brief, but when I was, uh, my, you know, my parents were 18 when I was born, you know, my dad left pretty early in my life and my mother was like a perpetual college student and I grew up in this very adult world.
only child, so I didn't have any siblings. And her father, my grandfather, was the head track coach, track and field, at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill for 40 years. And so he died when I was young. But it's legacy. You have young kids, so you get this. Legacy is an interesting thing. We tell our kids. My grandfather was no longer there, but...
everybody in the family told me when I was a kid, oh, you know, you're just like your grandfather. You know, you're going to be a runner like your grandfather. I don't know what it was about me that, that they saw in me, but that seed of an idea was there for me. And I ran, you know, I ran track in high school, but I also, you know what girls didn't care about guys who were running track. So of course I played football and I.
played basketball and other things that I was mediocre at when I should have just been running, which I was, I was really only just mediocre at that too. But I think I could have been a little more accomplished. Uh, but I fell in love with running is what, what the truth is, you know, even when I was a kid and didn't know what I was doing, I think it's probably related to my addictive nature and.
What I loved about running is the freedom. Anybody who's ever run for joy, not for competition, but just for fun and allowed yourself to feel free. And today I went for about an hour and a half run in heavy rain here in North Carolina, but it was a warm rain and it was just perfect and nobody else was out. And I mean, it's so...
charlie (13:38.146)
I was so happy earlier today just because that feeling you get of freedom when you're running. So I lost that freedom when I went to college and I went there as a fairly accomplished student athlete. And weirdly, I played basketball at the University of North Carolina for a couple of years. And there was a guy named Michael Jordan who was in school then. And so I got to play every day with him for a couple of years. And...
Tyson (13:39.937)
Yeah.
charlie (14:06.062)
I was a good athlete. So I played JV basketball. It certainly wasn't on the varsity team, but you know, it was a formative experience for me to be around athletes like that for a couple of years. I also, when I went to college, mostly in the United States, the drinking age is 21 these days. Back then it was 18. And I got lost in being average. I like to say I went to college thinking I was fairly special.
and pretty much in the first week realized I was incredibly average. Other people had great grades, a great resume, and they were good athletes. What I figured out really quick was that I was a really all -American first team drinker and that I could just simply drink more than anybody else. Whether that was genetics or whatever that was, it served me for a little while. Of course,
Tyson (14:39.401)
the the the the the the the
charlie (15:04.75)
you know, that's not going to serve you very well in life. And inevitably I ended up flunking out of college by my junior year. And, you know, I spent the next 10 years, you know, really drinking and doing, you know, cocaine and it was the eighties. So it was the cocaine decade, as I like to call it. And, you know, and I just got lost in all that. But even during those 10 years, whenever I would clean up for periods of time, I
always turn to running. Running is what I would do when I'd make that decision for the hundredth time that I'm not going to do this to myself anymore. And then I got married and my first son was born and you have small kids, you can relate. You know, I'm like, surely a decent person, a decent father can stop this crazy behavior, you know, for my kids. And it doesn't work that way either.
You know, what I learned very quickly was, um, you know, the only, nobody's coming to save you. That's the short version. And the only person that can save you is yourself. And there's lots of people that can support you once you make the decision to make that change. And at 29, I made that decision, you know, through a harrowing event that ended with, you know, the police searching my bullet riddled car and.
Um, you know, finding drug paraphernalia and everything else in my, in my car and like, somehow that didn't lead to legal problems, but it did make me realize that if I didn't, if I didn't change my ways at that point, then I wasn't going to survive. And I went to an AA meeting that night, July 23rd, 1992. And I got up the next morning and I went for a run and the run was a couple of miles. And I think I puked in the bushes and you know,
probably in the bathtub when I got home. But I committed to do that for 30 days. And I think the lesson there is the mistake most of us make, me included, when we make big changes in our lives, we like to say, I'm never doing that again, or this is forever. And that's like a New Year's resolution. You set yourself up for failure. And I just said, I'm going to do this for 30 days and see what happens with my life. And 30 days went by in my life.
charlie (17:27.502)
incredibly better, I mean, compared to where it was 30 days earlier. And I continued for 90 days and for 90 days I ran and I went for a meeting every single day. And, and then I didn't put a number on it, but ultimately three years later, I had, you know, I'd gone to an A meeting every single day and I'd gone for a run every day for three straight years without missing a day. And I ran 30 something marathons in that time and.
Tyson (17:51.703)
Yeah.
charlie (17:55.79)
because clearly I had that whole addiction thing under control. And, you know, and what I learned in that period though, was that suffering with purpose, doing hard things on purpose has incredible value. And if you can do that and aim, I didn't need to get rid of the addictive nature that I had. I didn't need to no longer be an addict. I just needed to point my energy and my focus at things that were going to be positive.
And so that's why I do say for sure that, you know, running AA alone wouldn't have done it for me. Running alone wouldn't have done it for me either. I needed a sober community and I needed a running community. And you know, I mean, we all know how supportive like a running community is. And of course there was a lot of crossover. There's a whole lot of people in sobriety who have used, you know, running or CrossFit or cycling or whatever it might be, yoga.
Tyson (18:50.711)
Yeah, man, it is so interesting the amount of people that I've spoken to over the course of not just doing this podcast, but just my years in the sport who have come from a background of drug addiction.
charlie (18:54.798)
you know, to change their lives. And running was my thing. And so I, and so running saved my life first and then it actually gave me a life.
charlie (19:12.814)
Yeah.
Tyson (19:14.999)
Um, uh, uh, and alcoholics background from AA meetings. And you're right. You touched on it before. The idea of suffering with purposes is really rewarding. And it's perhaps no surprise with that said that so many addicts kind of transfer their addiction into that world of running. Is that something you've noticed? Because it's, I had a chat to a bloke called Mishka Shubali, who is a, um, obviously the son of, is that right? I wondered if.
charlie (19:38.126)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, I read his book years ago and I ran into him a couple of times.
Tyson (19:45.341)
Man, so I actually, I had him on, I host another podcast, which I had him on to speak about his running journey and his crazy story. Cause like you, I read his, I was trying to think of the name of his first big bestseller. I'll put it in the show notes for anyone interesting. Cause I spent about two or three of my runs. It's a quite short book out there listening to it. Just mind blown at some of the stories that he had to say, the background that he came from.
charlie (19:53.582)
I can see it. It's got kind of red or pink letters on the front and.
Tyson (20:15.191)
And he was a guy that spoke to this idea of just transferring that addiction from what is relatively unhealthy to at least what is much more healthier, at least rewards you at the end of it. He said that you feel with drug addiction, you feel good in the moment and terrible after, but with running, you feel terrible in the moment and really good after. But I was curious, like from a bloke with your background, it seems as though you'd have more knowledge around the inside or the correlation between people with that background into the running world. What do you think it is?
charlie (20:19.214)
Yeah.
charlie (20:45.12)
Well, it's more nuanced, you know, certainly for me, but some of this has come through 31 years of being clean and sober at this point. So, you know, I freely admit and some strange things happened in those three years. People would criticize me. Some people would say, oh yeah, you just looks like you just switched addictions. And I would always say, well, you know what? You may think that, but I'm, you know, I've never sold my car to enter a marathon, but I damn sure did that. You know, when I...
Tyson (21:05.207)
No!
charlie (21:14.99)
you know, when I was doing the deal. So I'm pretty, pretty sure this is better. And, you know, and there is a weird thing that I learned. Like I thought during those three years that if I ran hard enough, if I just ran my ass off every single day, that I could basically like scalpel that addictive part of my nature out of me, I could kill the addict in essence. And those three years taught me that in fact, the, the addictive obsessive part of my
personality is what makes me good at things. Like that is my superpower. In fact, it's the best part of me. So interestingly though, people, a lot of times, even people very close to me, friends and family came to me right after I got sober and in the months after, and they would say like, you know, dude, you don't, you know, you don't need to stop. You just need to like slow down some, right? And I'm like, have you been watching me? Like, what are you talking about? Like,
Don't you think I would have done that if I could do it? And what I realized, point I'm trying to make, their fear and their criticism was based in their own fears for themselves, not for me. They saw my getting better as the avenue for me leaving them. You know, because if I got better, I wasn't going to be their drinking buddy. I wasn't going to be their friend. I might not be their...
husband or cousin or whatever. Like, and people use that fear to criticize. It's the simpler version of this, I think is like weight loss. I've had so many friends that have lost weight sometimes in a, in a, you know, in a couple where one person is maybe both people have struggled with weight. One all of a sudden loses weight. Well, that other person becomes very fearful that that person is going to leave because now they've lost all this weight and they look different and they
different and all of that. So it took me a while to realize that not everyone has your best interest in heart. And I sort of jokingly call them anchors, you know, and you have anchors in your life and beacons in your life, you know, and you have to cut the anchors loose. And it doesn't mean they're cut loose forever. You know, a lot of those same people that I drank and drugged with early in my life, my core group, like two of them are dead, but five of them are actually
charlie (23:41.102)
over at this point and all of them came to me at some point. It took many, many years though for some of them to come to me and say, I'm tired of doing this. How do I make a change? And the one lesson you really learn in sobriety is, is this idea of attraction over promotion. I think running is actually the same. You know, if you're a person who is forever.
promoting your lifestyle and telling people how they should change and how this is amazing for them. Like to me, that's not effective. You know, my way of doing it and I think the, I'm not saying my way is right, but for me, just being transparent and being open and doing it publicly, those people who are attracted to what you're doing, they're going to come to you and ask, hey, can you help me do this? And the other.
people aren't going to come to you. And you know what? The right people will come and ask you about this. And I think that that's, um, that's a mindset that is really attractive. Now I'm going to tell you one other thing about addiction for me. You know, in those first years, it was equal parts, self abuse and growth. And, and I'm not afraid to admit that, you know, part of me felt like I didn't deserve happiness. I didn't that.
Tyson (24:38.935)
you
Tyson (24:56.439)
Hmm.
charlie (25:03.746)
That broken part of me still very much existed for, you know, wherever it came from is not even important right now, but like that part of me was there. So I felt like I deserved to suffer and my fastest way to physical suffering was running. You know, everybody who's run, you know, you can take yourself out the door and you can get to a place where you're hurting physically for sure. Very quickly. I mean, you know, you can do that. And I liked that. Um,
ability to flip that switch as quickly as I wanted to. Through the years, it not too many years, but it changed into the joyful runner that I became and the person who really looked forward to running. And I could take the suffering and turn that into really powerful personal growth. And what I like to say is chosen suffering like running.
gives you the tools that you need to overcome the unchosen suffering that is inevitable in your life. Somebody in your life is going to get cancer. Somebody in your life is going to have an accident. Somebody in your life is going to get divorced. Like whatever, you know, it might be any of us. And the more often you put yourself in a position of voluntary obstacles, the more equipped you are to handle those moments when they inevitably come along.
you know, out of the blue.
Tyson (26:32.983)
I had a friend of mine. Uh, he's actually in the world of coaching as well. His name is Brenton 40. He runs a business called effortless swimming. And I caught up with him recently. He just did a great podcast with the iron cowboy who, if you're familiar with him and the idea of suffering, he's got a great story to tell. But one thing that he, he called me a while ago and he said, Hey, uh, we've got to start doing some real hard challenges. He just finished this book called do hard things.
charlie (26:51.502)
Yeah.
Tyson (27:00.503)
and this idea that we live in a society now, which is pretty much built around the idea of eliminating discomfort, eliminating any form of struggle in any degree that we can. But like you, there's something that when you actually take the time to push yourself through it, whether it's growth or whether it's fitness or a combination of all of those things, you do somehow feel better at the end of it. And it's disappointing.
that in the name of comfort or I guess in the name of progress or efficiency or whatever it is you want to call it. So many of us have lost touch with this idea of actually pushing through. And I think for me, one of the draw cards and it has been for the 23 years that I've been an athlete or a coach or in and around the sport of endurance is that opportunity to constantly put yourself in a state of discomfort and navigate your way through it. Because like you said, life's going to throw some
curve balls at you in some form or another, like none of us are exempt. None of us are going to get away from it. And learning how to deal with that stress is a really interesting thing. I always find that in the last rep of a difficult session, I'm constantly shocked that psychologically, I still have to make some changes to the way that I'm running, whether it's mentally or physically, because that stress of the discomfort is, is really hard to balance. Some people seem to do it well. Elliot Kipchoge marathon or former marathon world record holder now.
Uh, he seems to be the kind of guy that regardless of the session, regardless of the distance, he, he navigates it, whether it's a good race or a bad race. But a lot of people are kind of, if you put that analogy onto the, uh, just daily life, a lot of people allow the struggles of life and the difficulties to make them cynical. Or maybe they don't even mean to let it happen. It's just the natural progress of events. If you don't do anything consciously, but the vibe that I get from everyone who are here talk about you.
is that anytime you've been put in a position with your back against the wall, where you should come out of that situation in most normal people's mind, a little bit bitter, a little bit cynical, a little bit angry, you come out with a smile on your face and as though you're carrying less weight. So I'd love to hear you talk to that a little bit because I think it's a skill that I would personally like to develop, but I know a lot of people, whether it's for their running or just day -to -day lives, would love to be able to understand.
charlie (29:19.534)
Yeah, I know. Man, I'm so glad you asked that. And I mean, there's a lot to unpack there, but I'll and I give way too long answers sometimes. But, you know, look, there's, there's a difference between the person. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, but like nobody believes. Can I curse on your podcast?
Tyson (29:42.183)
The police?
charlie (29:43.182)
There's nobody believes in the bullshit of like, I unfollow P I'm not a big social media guy anyway, but anybody whose life is perfect on social media, I'm no interest in following that. Like it's not, I know it's not real. They know it's not real. It's not. So to me, there's no, there's no authenticity. There's no vulnerability there. And, um, you know, as you know, I mean, I've, I struggle with addiction. I've been divorced. I've been to prison. I've been, I've had.
terrible and very public arguments with a few people that have been teammates and in really hard, you know, running events and things like that. And like, it's all been, it's all been growth. And I think the best way I can describe it is, um, I've run, you know, I've run a hundred miles. I don't know. I don't know how many times more than 50 times I've never run a hundred miles and I've never run an easy hundred miler. Let's put it that way. Like,
Tyson (30:39.639)
Hehehehehe
charlie (30:41.134)
I don't, it could be downhill and perfect weather with bikini clad girls handing me drinks the entire way, you know, and that is, it's going to be a dip. It's a hundred miles, right? Although I would like to try it that way sometime, but, but the point of running a hundred miles is to reach the place in that event where I can no longer continue. Like, like I'm done.
Tyson (30:46.519)
Hehehehehe
Tyson (30:55.743)
Hahaha!
charlie (31:09.23)
I can sometimes that's happened at 35 miles and my brain says, holy shit, I've got 65 miles to go. Cause that's where we go immediately when things go wrong. Our brain defaults to how much more we have left and how impossible it is to finish that vast distance. Um, and, and your brain is right. It's not, uh, it's not possible. It's not.
physically possible. It's only mentally possible. And so what I like to say is, you the reason I still run a hundred miles today is because I want to get to that place where I can't possibly continue. And then I want to take a deep breath and I want to find a way to get beyond it. And it mirrors the same thing that I went through a hundred times when I was this close to relapsing in my sober life, because you know,
Life's challenges come at you hard. And what I believe is we are all our biggest problem collectively as people is usually not getting through a hard period. It's getting through a hard moment. So whether it's a race, you know, and you've, and you've totally bonked and crashed and you're certain you can't go on, whether it's a terrible argument with your spouse.
And I don't know anybody who hasn't had at least a few of those. And you can't believe that you're saying these hurtful words to the person who's most important to you in the world. Yet here they are coming out of your mouth. And you take, we as humans, we take that moment, we project it into the future and we think to ourselves, it's always going to be broken. It's now I've ruined it. It's always going to feel this way. And it's just not true.
That's the thing. That's the trick in all of this. If there is, if there is one, it's not true. If you can take a deep breath, preferably three of them, you can give it a beat. Let that moment pass by and to put it back in race context, use the experience. I know when I'm at mile 68 and a hundred mile there and I've the wheels have come off. Yes. My mind says I have 32 miles to go, but then it says, you know what you need to drink.
charlie (33:30.83)
You need to eat, you need to walk. Like I experience tells me that if I do those three things, if I eat a thousand calories, I drink four drinks. I mean, you know, I may lose my place in the race. I may, you know, some things may shift, but now all of a sudden I'm just in this place where, you know, I know I'm going to get to that finish line. And the way to do that is to use my experience, try to get my pain level from that 10, you know, down to an eight.
which is not a big difference when you're in pain. Well, I'm sorry. It is a massive difference when you're in significant pain. When you're at a 10 and eight feels like you're on vacation. So to switch back to like the drug world and drinking world, you know, relapse is the biggest danger for anybody. And usually when a person wants to relapse, like they've had a terrible day at work, they've had an argument with their significant other, they've, they're.
dog got run over there. I mean, some, something has happened that has made them say, screw it, I'm going to drink and getting people past that moment, let it helping them realize that if they'll just go to bed, you know, get up the next morning, I have yet to ever see where that next day things didn't look better. They, they might still be this, you know, the problems are still there, but they do look better. And so, you know, using.
hardship as a catalyst to growth is the most important thing we can do. And look, I'm an explorer. I am an adventurer. I may pick your word, but what I am is I'm curious. And I think that, I mean, my sense of you is that you're curious. Curiosity means that you're also curious about the hardship.
You're not just curious about, oh, here's a science magazine. I'm going to read about, you know, uh, climate change or I'm going to, what curious is about, oh, okay. This is not, this is the thing I would not have chosen for myself, this accident or this big change in my life, but what can I do with it? What does it mean? And how am I going to use it to get to the next place in my life? And if you can get to a place where you can ask those questions of yourself, I think there's, you know, there's really unlimited growth to be had.
Tyson (35:54.807)
Yeah, do you know what's so funny? I love how this idea filters its way through every avenue of our life, whether it's running, whether it's prison, whether it's endurance, whether it's Everest, whether it's family. I remember when my first boy, Charlie, was born, one of the things I was trying to navigate was, okay, well, how do I get space in the day for the things that I know make me a better person? I used to have a routine in the morning that I was so proud of. It would have been YouTube worthy. You would have unfollowed me if you saw it on Instagram. It was that good.
I would get up, I would have my coffee, I would do some reading, I would do some prayer, I would do some meditation. And it was the perfect way to start the day. I would get up and I'd go, wow, who's done this by 7 a .m.? I bet no one. And it would take like this little psychological thing would happen where I would step into the day like, look what I've done already. Like it was a great thing to take in. And I'm not kidding. From the moment my Charlie is his name, from the moment Charlie came home,
charlie (36:27.446)
Peace!
Tyson (36:53.495)
It all changed and parents understand. I was waking up at 3 a .m. because he had shat himself and I had to change his nappy and he had vomited or he just wasn't sleeping or he had tummy pain. And I remember having this conversation to someone saying how frustrated I was about the fact that I couldn't. I go, I just know that if I make the time for meditation in the morning, I feel as though I'm better able to handle these situations. And he goes, oh, no, no, like Charlie's your meditation now. And I was like, oh, what do you mean? He goes, well, everyone's pretty good at meditating once they learn to sit in a quiet room.
charlie (37:17.036)
Yeah.
Tyson (37:22.807)
and just like contain that, that mental noise. He goes, but when you've got everything in the world, you'd rather be doing, but you got a kid screaming at you, learn to stay calm in that moment. And you're like, you may as well be a monk. And I thought, well, isn't that true? And, and that whole idea is, is really the attraction to me. And you just spoke to it so beautifully about just navigating your way through it, because there's something within us that just knows there's, there's a benefit to ourselves and to those around us. If we can learn to tame.
that dragon and sometimes I'm sorry to refer to my kid as a dragon but I mean in this story that's exactly the role he was playing.
charlie (38:00.206)
Man, well, first of all, good on you for picking a great name for your son. And, and, uh, yeah, well, you know, there's a saying, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna butcher it, but in sobriety, you know, that basically serenity, the definition of serenity is being, um, joyful in the face of unresolved problems, you know, because I think all of us are sort of built like you clearly are.
Tyson (38:05.365)
Yeah!
charlie (38:29.358)
by that routine you just described. We make our lists and we feel great about checking off all the things on that list. When you have kids and or you start a business or you so many things that we choose to do in our lives, all of those things go out the window and you no longer have control of your time. Or if you do still have control of your time, then you're probably making everybody else in your life really miserable.
Tyson (38:36.727)
Thank you.
Tyson (38:58.135)
Heheheheh
charlie (38:59.726)
You know, because that's just not, it's just not possible. You know, you have to be flexible and you have to be adaptable. And I think that's the greatest skill that any of us have is to, uh, one of the things I say about like, um, you know, I ran across this area, you know, years ago and I've done bad water a bunch of times, some big racism. I only have one, uh, stipulation for anybody that wants to come crew for me or be part of the team. And they kind of.
I don't mean they have to prove it. I probably know inherently if they have this, but the one rule is you can't panic. Panicking is not allowed. You know, that your support vehicle blows up. Well, I mean, it's the easiest thing to do to say, put your hands up and go, oh my God, you know, what are we going to do? We're all going to die. I don't want to be that person. And I don't want to necessarily be around that person either. Like I,
I want people who actually see like everything go to absolute shit and be like, here we go. Now it's, now it's fun, right? Now we're going to, now we got to figure out how to get out of this. And you know, your goals might shift and it may no longer be about winning the race or, you know, you're just trying to stay alive, you know, whatever it is, but like that's.
Tyson (40:06.807)
Yeah.
charlie (40:22.254)
My life experience has shown again and again, that's where the good stuff is. I've alluded to prison and it's a long story. Anybody can find it on my website or whatever, but weirdly, I spent a year and a half in federal prison in the United States and it ended up being, I wouldn't call it the best time of my life. I the worst time, I had two teenage boys and I had to be away from them and that was terrible.
Um, you know, I was there for a purpose though. You know, I, I got to witness true unfairness. What happened to me was unfair, but man, I was locked up with guys who'd been sentenced to 25 years, you know, for buying a single bag of weed or something like that. I mean, just insane stuff. And it allowed me perspective. And I, and I think that's why I came out of that experience.
and a whole lot of other experiences since then with this peaceful understanding of how freaking lucky I am. You know, and like it's, it's anybody can be an optimist when everything's going your way, but you know, who you are is truly revealed when everything falls apart. And, and I don't wish it on anybody. I mean, none of us, you know, ask for that, but it's going to happen at some point of.
you know, your life, my life, anybody's life. And that's kind of what we, I always say that we spend like 99 .9 % of our lives preparing for that other point one, when things go completely off the rails. And you know, that's what we're doing. I have one more funny comment about view cold blunge. Because like, that's a that's all the rage these days. Right? So I yeah, go ahead.
Tyson (42:12.087)
So, yeah, I was gonna say, sorry, Charlie, I was gonna say, we moved about three years ago to a little coastal town and speaking about all the rage these days, I think I've started swimming more in our winters than I have in our summers, because there's something attractive about the idea of being down there when there's no one else out there. Like I said about my morning routine, but you're right, it is all the rage these days, but sorry to interrupt, I just wanted to say that by default, I've made my way down there.
charlie (42:31.724)
Yeah.
charlie (42:37.422)
No, no, it's -
Well, it's super brief. I have a cold plunge and you know what? I hate it. I fucking hate it. Like I hate doing it. I don't, I'm not one who pretends like, oh, I just love this. I don't, I don't know. I just don't love getting into super like freezing cold water. Cause I've got it set as low as it'll go because of course, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to make it really bad. Right. But the point of cold plunge people ask like, is there,
Tyson (42:42.123)
Eh -eh.
Tyson (42:46.103)
Hehehe
charlie (43:07.086)
Um, you know, is there, what's the purpose of it? Like, how does it help you physically? I'm like, I have no idea. But what I do know is it helps me mentally. And the mental part of how it helps me is if I commit to getting in that thing for five minutes a day for 10 straight days, like this is how I tend to do it. I'll say, okay, here's what I'm going to do for the next 10 days. I'm doing five minutes a day.
I don't care if it's sometime between midnight and midnight, like sometime during that day, I have to spend five minutes in that cold plunge. And just the act of doing that is such a victory of committing to it and getting in the cold plunge and getting out. And I do, I always feel great when I'm done, but I still kind of dread actually getting in it. So there's this long buildup where I make myself suffer. Like I should go do it now. Oh no, I just ate. It's not like I'm swimming lapses.
Tyson (44:00.951)
Heheheheh
charlie (44:02.35)
And it, so I don't know what that has to do with anything, but, um, but you know, I, I think what I, what I encourage people to do is to find small incremental things that you can commit to and that you can actually be successful with, with running or whatever it might be. And, you know, if you can't smile about it and you can't enjoy it, then go find something else to do. Like life too frigging short to be miserable with what you're doing for your health.
because your mental health is equal to your physical health. And if you're not enjoying what you're doing, then find a way to be joyful in doing it.
Tyson (44:38.135)
Yeah. So well said. Charlie, I am super keen. I know I said to you at the start, I'm super keen to jump into some of the ultra running stories with you. If you're open to it. I mean, the Sahara, the bad water, there's so many endurance stories that we could. So if you're still happy to, should we jump onto the members podcast and I'll pick your brain about some of those. Cause I've got a feeling that a lot of the things that we've spoken about in this main podcast are going to translate beautifully into some of the experience you've had out there on the ultra trails.
charlie (45:07.918)
Yeah, perfect. Let's do it.
Tyson (45:09.847)
Awesome. What I would do tell that was so fun, man. That was so good. You're such a