From Drinking Every Morning to Running 340 Miles

Key Takeaway

When a habit feels uncontrollable, create space by telling the truth to one safe person today. Tommy’s turning point began not with a perfect plan, but with admitting “not good” to his mother and honestly answering questions from a counselor. If alcohol, another compulsion, or avoidance is running your life, send one honest message, book professional support, or attend a recovery meeting. Put recovery first; use running or exercise as a complement, not a substitute.

Episode Overview

Tommy “Tommy Runs” shares how he moved from alcohol dependence, including morning drinking and repeated failed attempts to quit, to more than nine years of sobriety and an accomplished running life. He and Rich Roll explore the role of honest disclosure, recovery meetings, endurance sport, public vulnerability, and representation in expanding access to road and trail running.

Full Transcript

Transcript of From Drinking Every Morning to Running 340 Miles from Rich Roll Podcast. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

I don't know when the morning drinking started, but that was a standard and I'm just like I'm gonna die like this Like this is how I die. He's sober. He's an accomplished runner He's making a positive impact on the world prepare to be inspired because today you're gonna hear the experience strength and hope of Tommy Runs 17 years old senior year I think it was ran out of the classroom and then like passed out all of a sudden I'm drinking every day for two weeks That's like the most accelerated case of alcoholism.

I've ever heard Oh, you know the story hasn't even finished yet The meetings saved my life. There wouldn't be any running if I didn't get sober I did Osaka Marathon seven days before Tokyo six or seven marathons in a year the speed project from LA to Las Vegas 340 miles, how do you continue and how do you make that decision for yourself? Even though like everything's telling you to stop. So, how do you do that? All right, Tommy before we even get into it Dan over here dug into the archives and I want to share something with you Below rich roll podcast.

This is Tommy runs. I think it's important to mention that I'm a young black guy from Detroit area went sober Then went vegan that started running and sober vegan runner isn't normally synonymous with like the black community So it was just so much different for me to be going down this road And I was kind of like on my own with it, you know The veganism is just not a thing in the black community for real I mean, it's getting better now for sure But at the time like I didn't know anybody that was vegan that's black or that was in my circle even close to my circle So I was just kind of on my own looking for material and information Found finding ultra and it just spoke so much like to me I've been in a a and went through the program loved the program programs helped me so much in so many ways that I mean I just I feel like I'm indebted to those people in those rooms and those tables So hearing that rich went through the same process in so many different ways from a different side of the world to me But then also felt like all the same feelings and all the same like just troubles, you know it just made me feel at home reading the book and then so I started watching the show and It seems like every time that I was trying to make a new like direction in my life The podcast had a guest on it.

That was perfect for that moment perfect for the past the moments I just passed that I need to get over or someone that was inspiring me to move on to the next step and kind of reach forward my journey went from desperate to Thriving with running veganism now, I have a running company to have my own little personal brand on Instagram now I'm working with companies. I've been able to interview and have a podcast I've been able to interview some of the people that and have ended up on your show as well To help people just kind of navigate through these things and through these times I'm super appreciating how much time you spent on talking about the black community And the issues in 2020 that arose and came back to the forefront.

So I appreciate you Tommy runs. Thanks rich I So that was 2021. Yeah, so like five five six years ago. I Had forgotten about that and Dan unearthed it and it was so fun to listen to that today. I know I happily forgot about So, how does that make you feel hearing that now like so many years down the line from where you were at that moment Um, it makes it feel like sitting here feels so real because I know how much I know like what role that book in your podcast and the beginning of my sobriety in running I Just know how much it all meant to me to like see somebody thriving and working because before sobriety.

I just didn't know Like what life was on the other side of that and like who I would be so to get into it and be curious about Like self-improvement and all that stuff To catch all that, you know catch your your content in your story at that time. It was like a big deal for me So I was really happy to be able to like have a moment to record my thoughts and like send it to you You know whether you used it or not, so it's like surreal for me to be sitting here And I guess I'm proud of me then like it makes me feel kind of proud like it's kind of cringy hearing it But it's I'm proud that like I'm still Finding out like still were like trying to find out who I am in this journey But then also like trying to help people on the way.

Mm-hmm I'm very moved listening to that and knowing you now You're paying it forward like this is what we do You know This is what we learn in the rooms like you hear that experience strength and hope you put it into practice in your own life and then you Turn your head around you put your head on a swivel and then you pay it forward for somebody else And this is just an example of that and I think this journey that you've been on is So beautiful, you know, we first met at the running event.

How many went what year was that 2021 2021? So maybe it was was that after before it wasn't that it might it had to have been after right? We were introduced by our mutual friend Russell Maddow. Shout out Russell Russell. Thanks for making the introduction and I've been able to kind of watch from afar as you really embraced sharing your story your story of addiction and redemption And you're running journey and it just continues to blossom and it feels like you're really hitting your stride right now And you're connecting with people You're out at all the races.

You're creating content and you're inspiring all kinds of people particularly you know communities that are Unfamiliar with this world that you are now like very much a part of I appreciate that. Yeah Let's do a little walk into the past I want to take it all the way back to you know, growing up into in Detroit or just outside Detroit. Yeah All right. So when I was one year old, um, yeah Far back, you know, we're gonna we're gonna do what it was like what happened and what it's like now, okay Yeah, so like I grew up I was born in New York and my mother and father separated when I was five, so then we moved back to Detroit my whole mom's side of families from Detroit and Like my mom Was just like single mother kind of like from that point on my dad passed away when I was eight years old He died of a stroke at 39 years old And you're 41 now to be 42 not to be 40 Yeah, so like my 39th year was like I was my I was in my head so crazy, you know By the way, you look like you're like 26.

I'm pretty crazy. You're like ageless. It's insane I heard that someone like some some saying like black don't crack or whatever But I grew up without him, you know, and my mom did such a great job of like really hustling and trying to make Everything work for me and my sister, you know, like and it was really like a Great place to be, you know to grow up because there's just so much diversity in some of those schools But at the same time like I felt Lost, you know like and I'm not sure if it was, you know Probably because my dad passed and I didn't have like I'm the third so I have the same name as him You know and I just always was like trying to chase this or thought of chasing this person that I didn't really know that like people spoke so Highly of like it wasn't like oh your dad was cool or whatever.

It's like the people that talked about him. It made me feel Like I could never be that your kid growing up confused Not feeling great about yourself. Like what was your kind of journey through like Junior high school in the early years of high school like who are you hanging out with like what kind of kids like where? Did you fit in? I was not like the cool kids and I wasn't like suit like that's crazy because you're so fucking cool I took a long time.

I was like, I don't know fashion advice, but Yeah, I thought a lot about this I was like Tommy's coming in I gotta like I gotta I gotta take this seriously one thing I wish I could do is grow a beard and you know, every time I saw your video about that you look well Yeah, I guess I guess you're 40 Gaslight My beard is gonna go for those that don't know like you can see it on Tommy's Instagram He did a video where where he's like, I wish I could grow a beard So you had a look how so you up with a beard and I was like Oh, you look like Denzel Washington's son and tenant like it's pretty badass.

Yeah, like it look pretty good Yeah, so I'm gonna go to Turkey and get hair transplants on my face. I'm traumatized. Yeah Like you got so much on top of your head, yeah going on, you know, I get one or the other I think You know, I guess I guess I feel like there's people with both but whatever, you know We can't have everything so you really can't But yeah, so like I don't even know what was the question. I don't know either What are you weren't with the cool kid?

Yes. Are you who is your hang? yeah, so like I was kind of like I was I was like in the middle like I was Trying to I was like kind of watching the cool kids do their cool good things, you know Like because we just didn't have like, you know the school I grew up in cool meant you had all the nice stuff You know, you had all the you had the iceberg, you know sweaters and the whatever jeans And that was the vibe and and if you didn't have that you were just kind of like had to watch it happen So like I was friends with all of them, but I was just like on the outside cuz I just wasn't that cool You know like to them because of like what were but I was always everybody knew me I knew them and I just felt like I was just kind of meandering through this like, you know Middle school high school experience.

It was like watching what I wanted to be which Like just kind of like tore me up a bit because like I was friends with all of them but I just wasn't I didn't feel like I was okay or cool enough to come like walk to like the you know the heaters that they used to sit on like in the hallway in the school, you know, and it was it was like Strange but I've always had like a few friends I've never been the person that had like 20 friends at a time Which is kind of counter like what I was what I wanted I wanted all of them to be my friend but in reality, like I'm the type of person that has like two three friends that I rock with and hopefully till like death do us part type of vibe and So like middle school and high school was like a weird Thing for me like I was I wasn't great at school.

I Didn't like homework I could pass any test that you give me Just but because I was in the class like I could figure it out on the test day But I never really like applied myself like just ever at that point and Maybe it was good I was trying to not look like I was trying hard but it just left me in this like limbo of like are we trying to do this life or not and If if I can't be as cool as them, then maybe I don't want to try But I started golfing and like eighth grade or something like that, which is definitely also different at that time But that was like the Tiger Woods era So it was okay enough but that kind of gave me some like purpose through through high school, which was like make sure my grades are good enough to content to play and I was like pretty decent but I was also still pretty short at that point and so it just didn't allow me to like Like flourish in the way that I thought I wanted to but it kind of gave me purpose to kind of connect those years Making sure I didn't like flunk out of school So no track and field no cross-country.

No running basketball. No running. Yeah golf Yeah Like so like all the sports that I play were just all like neighborhood stuff Like we had a bunch of kids in our neighborhood and we play every sport like possible if somebody watched a movie about football We're playing football the next day for sure. But so I've always been athletic, but I'd never I didn't play any like high school sports except for on the golf team, so When does drinking enter the picture drinking enters in the hallway 17 years old senior year.

I think it was And my friend brought like these little nips, you know little bottles He like got him from his mom or something like that or stole him from his mom and he's like you want some? I'm like sure so the first drink I took it was like all of a sudden I didn't care About what I thought everybody else thought it was like the moment of like fake clarity like oh my god I can I don't care anymore I could be myself and Then once people start realizing I was drinking because then I just went from those couple little nips to like trying to find out like Next day like how can I drink more of this stuff?

Do you have more and then I found out ways to try to get some of my own So I went from not drinking at all. Really? I'm having a family of in my dad's side of families a drinking family Or at least that's what my view of it To like all of a sudden I'm drinking every day for two weeks just like that Just like that like a light switch God flip. Yeah, like it was like, I mean it was like fast friends like I need Tomorrow like or today I need this like now like cuz if I can walk into school and not like think that everybody's looking at Me weird cuz whatever then that's what I want And go immediately to drinking like before going into school like in the morning I was just looking forward to after no.

No, it was in school. Wow. I needed it right away. I had yeah Like right away like so that's like the most accelerated case of alcoholism. I think I've ever heard Story hasn't even finished yet. So like two weeks into the drinking thing This is the first time I've said this Microphone process funny so the first into two weeks into drinking there was a pep rally day and I had gotten whatever liquor that I thought I needed or whatever and I drank So much cuz like even in that first two weeks people realize like I had a drink up on me So they would be like wanting to drink all the cool kids with all let me take a sit Let me take a sip So like then all of a sudden I needed to have extra, you know And then so I'm drinking throughout this whole day this pep rally day It's only a half day by the time like before the pep rally It was only like two hours into school.

Like I wake up and I'm on the floor in the bathroom passed out with my mom my principal and like the security liaison like standing over me because I had like ran out of the classroom and then like passed out and that was two weeks into my Alcoholic like journey Wow Like I tell that like cuz it's probably my try like you did not have this other story but it's just like it just that just shows like how powerful like alcoholism alcoholism is because like in any other scenario that happens to you that fast into this thing, you're scared straight, you're scared away.

Like I can't, obviously that's not for me, I can't handle it. But what I did was like slowly, like okay, well, I can't drink liquor right away because I just can't even smell it because it's just too, it just sends me off. Maybe I'll just drink some beer, like as I got back into it. So I like slowly like weaned myself back into it because I just needed to have that feeling again. Yeah, a normal person would be appalled and say, yeah, no more of that for me.

But the reason that it happened is because you're not that guy. Like from the first drink, you're like, oh, this is the solution to all my problems. This just makes me finally feel comfortable in my own skin. And you begin to realize like how uncomfortable you've been all along as if all the cool kids had this operating manual for life and they're all walking around feeling great about themselves. And now you've discovered this elixir of life that allows you to feel the way that you assume everyone else feels all the time.

It was a cure to like the pain that I felt like I was going through every single day. And that's the thing that gets missed, I think, too often in discussions around alcoholism and recovery. Like it works. That's why you're doing it. It is a solution to a problem. It's not the problem. The problem is you feeling uncomfortable in your own skin and why that's the case, right? And until you heal that or find a solution for that, you're gonna continue to drink. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Whoop.

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Yeah. Yeah, and- Not that you're gonna do anything about it, but you're like, you make a mental note of it. I knew I was an alcoholic. You don't wanna be the guy who's passing out. So you realize, like, I gotta reel it in, but I gotta find a way to be able to continue doing this. Yeah, like you have to, it's like, okay, lesson learned. Instead of, lesson learned, here's how I can do this better and be, I don't wanna be that extreme because that's abnormal as well.

I'm not gonna fit into the cool kids if I'm laying on the bathroom floor. But how do I weave this into my life in a way that can allow me to be functional? And I think that like the functional alcoholic, the term, that's the most dangerous term that is thrown around like in society to me because that's the issue. Because if you have a job, if you're moving forward, if you're going to school or doing other things, you're not on the side of the road drunk all day.

You feel like you're normal in some way. And then it just lets you just pass time and continue to just like make these decisions or tear your life apart or tear your health apart. Well, the word functional is the wrong word. Like you're operating dysfunctionally. Yeah. Not so dysfunctional that anybody is gonna kind of force you to stop doing what you're doing. You can get by, but you're operating at like such a suboptimal level. I mean, but you think you're crushing it. Yeah. You really think you're crushing it.

Well, that's part of the denial and the delusion. Like nobody knows what I'm doing. They don't, you know, like I'm getting away with this. And then as it accelerates, then you have to start with all the lying and the hiding and all of that. But what was the conversation with moms that night after passing out in the bathroom in high school? She couldn't have been too happy. Yeah, so I don't even know. I think, you know, this was in like early 2000. So like parents putting their hands on kids was kind of, was okay at that point.

And I was like 17. So I think she like punched me when I got in the car. Like maybe in the chest or something like that. But like she never, like she wasn't a physical person like that. But I just knew like really her, the look, she's always, she has this like look that she's like a lot of like, a lot of parents have. But it's this look that just like tore me up. And I just felt so embarrassed and like ashamed and felt like I like disrespected her and disrespected my family.

And thing was like, I had a, the one thing I remember about that day is like I had a job at that point. And I had, I was supposed to go to work like later on that day. And she made me go to work, but she wasn't gonna take me. So like I had to call my grandma to come take me to work. She knew the whole situation. And she's like this, if you like, I hope you get to meet her. She's like this really like, you know, quiet, so kind.

Everybody, if you meet her, everybody's just gonna be like, they're just, everybody loves my grandma, just automatic. Cause she's just so kind, supportive and attentive. And you feel like she's like looking into your soul as you talk to her, as she talks to you. And so she got in, I got in her car quiet cause I'm trying to figure like how to not be drunk right now. And we're driving to this place out in like the suburbs. And she like, right before I got out, she like looked at me and like the first word she said was, or the only word she said in the car was like, don't let them see you like this.

Like to me that meant just, it was just so much. Cause I was just walking into this building with, you know, at that time it was a golf store and it was just, it's just gonna be all white people. And I'm just looking a mess. So she's like, just pull yourself together and don't ever let anybody see you like this. And I wish I took like the meaning of that, like right away and maybe just went a different direction, but you know, the addiction one in that case, but that's what I remember from that day.

And once I finally like came to terms with like my sobriety and started going on that walk, I knew more like what she meant. And I kind of tried to chase that, that like redemption of that moment. Like throughout my life, you know. With that rapid of an acceleration, it seems like it would be difficult for you to sustain any kind of relationship with alcohol for very long. But that was what year? 2000. 2002. 2002, you get sober in 2017. So you got a good 15 year run after that.

Yeah, yeah. Good is a strange word. Yeah, so from that point, like I got back into it just a little more tame. I thought I was being, and like I said, I eased back into it. And I just knew my, I kind of learned from my limit. You know, I thought I learned my limit at that point. Like I'll never, I'll never be that drunk in public ever again. I'll never drink that much in a short period of time ever again. Like I had set these parameters without like, without knowing it.

And it just allowed me to get to the point of, you know, okay, I need to go home. And I would just go home. And you were able to do that. I was able to do that. But then a lot of, but that also led me to like this really isolated life. You know, you had family and stuff like that, but I still was like, I would just be at home drinking. I wasn't the type of drunk or drinker that like would want to be outside and at the bars and stuff like that, like that.

Yeah, you're taking your grandma's advice. It doesn't, you're not interpreting it as stop drinking. Just don't let anyone see you doing it. Yeah, yeah. So like, and if you're in my house, yeah, it is what it is. Like, you know, so that was my thing was just like kind of hiding it as much as I could. And then just never being in a car, you know, absolutely just trashed or just, I just didn't want to be around people. Like I was very alone to myself, like drunk.

And that's, it was just part of like, I wake up every morning and finish whatever I didn't, you know, the day before. So the morning drinking started pretty early. I don't know when the morning drinking started, but it was, you know, definitely around like 2012 or 13, like that was standard, you know, and that was, and I just pulled from so many different like dumb inspirations. Like it was a dude that I remember being around like as after I graduated, I went down this whole like street, like rabbit hole where I just knew that I wanted to be out there or outside like that.

And as a dude, I knew that was like, he would drink every day before he'd go out, you know, into the world because I mean, he was living a much different lifestyle, but he just felt like he needed to have like an edge when he went outside. And I'm like, well, I'm going to work inside, but I could still use this like little edge. So I was just using all these little random moments to validate like how I was like moving through my life. And, but I just, you know, like they said, like there's like three phases of it.

It's fun in the beginning, in the middle you're just kind of maintaining, and at the end it's just like absolute torture because there's no chance of stopping this, this like train that's just is constantly rolling. And like every time that I would try to like stop, I was trying to stop for like a week and I couldn't make it a day. And so every time I'd wake up in the morning and drink, or every time that I would fail on these like little small, little stints of sobriety or like dry Januaries, it just felt like every day, like I was losing.

I'd wake up every day and take a L. And it felt so out of control, not because I was just like walking around the street, stumbling around, but I was just, I had no control over my next like 20 minutes. Every time that happens, it's like another deposit in the hopelessness, desperation piggy bank. Desperation was like, if I could have bought like two weeks of sobriety with every dollar I had at any point, I would have. Just to say that I did it. Did you know anybody that was sober or that didn't drink or you were just, it was like lower companion situation?

No, no, I mean, I knew people that drank normal, like regular, like people that would drink once every week or something like that. And they could control it. When you leave somebody's house, like you'd buy a bottle and you take it to the house to have a party and you come back two weeks later and that same bottle's there. Like those people drove me crazy. Like, how did you not drink this while I was gone? But no adult in your like orbit who was like, yeah, I'm an AA person or whatever.

No, no AA was involved. No one's checking in on you like that. Like, cause even the people like in my, people in my family, like on my mom's side that didn't drink, they drank every now and then, but it was no like, no intentional, you know, I go to AA. AA was a movie thing for me. That's the only time I saw it. And it was never really depicted in like this light of like, you should check it out. That wasn't an option for me. You worked for many years at a auto transport company, right?

Like now you're full-time running influencer, racer dude, but you had a pretty good job for a long time. Like you kind of worked your way up the ranks to like a VP level, I guess, right? Is that a job that you started like right out of high school or you know, like how did you find your way there? And then how are you kind of getting promoted at your job while balancing this secret life as a morning drinking alcoholic? Functional, bro. Nah, it was- Cause they must've on some level, there's no way you had to just smell bad.

I asked him after I got sober, I was like, did you? And he was like, nah, I didn't. As I'm at, he had to be lying to make me feel good. I don't know. So I started working for them in 2007. So like from the, like graduating high school to 2007, there's like this like little area where I got jumped into, like, I guess like street life in a way. And I found myself going directly in this path of like self, like actual self-destruction and like gambling, like my freedom and life, like every day.

Like, what are we talking about here? Like selling drugs or? So I knew people that, I knew people that did and I was around people that did. And like, I dabbled in it here and there, but I was much more like the younger dude. Around like people that were like 10 15 years older than me and they were just doing really well and I met them through through a girl that I knew at the time and next thing you know, like I grew up glorifying like that I guess the cars and the money and stuff like that, but it was really more of like that masculine like I Have it figured out energy and in that confident energy that I felt like I didn't have Like so I watch all these movies and it's like yo That's the guy that I that I think I should be like, you know I should be like running this or having you know money and doing what I want to do and so like all of a sudden to like run into some people like this they were They were Everything that I thought I wanted to be Which was you know confident took care of their families And people knew him, you know in in hindsight It was a very dangerous like decision for me to be like, all right And let's let's work and let me help and let me you know Make some money on the side here do all these things like it was it was a big risk But like I actually like to thank God that I met them and not like a different set of people Because it wasn't like I guess hand-to-hand like it wasn't like I was like standing on the corner somewhere Yeah, like it was much different than that and a little safer But probably higher the amount of years that potentially you could get if you got caught doing something would probably be a little little crazy But it was I'm just happy I met them because they kept they were had kept me farther away far away from that Daily energy as possible, but then they also like strangely had even though I looked at the drug-dealing part of it as You know, this is who I want to be because they're drug dealers It was really who I wanted to be because they were a lot of these guys are People that are just trying to take care of their families They look like they're thriving and they look like they're thriving but then a lot at least in the generation that I grew up in and looked up to they had morals and likes and and to us and to an extent and had Like a code amongst themselves like how they would carry themselves in the world and how they would take care of them fit their families like You know, this is all around about story to get to like 2007 When my my kids mom had our daughter In 2007 in 2007.

I needed to get I needed to make a change I couldn't be in the house. I was in and have her in the house with a baby so we moved to this other house and I Didn't see a dad Directly with with children until I saw these guys handle their kids. And so like for two three years I acted I treated my daughter how they treated their their little girls And I would say the same things to my daughter eventually that they were saying to their kids and they like taught me how to be like a Father and like a man to two kids and a man to a woman, you know and So it's like a blessing but it was it's a weird It's a dark moment in my life, but it's also this lesson that I ran to these people in general but so like to fast-forward to 2007 before you go there, I mean, I think the Point that stands out to me and in what you just shared is that These things are not black and white.

It's in the same way that we were characterizing Alcohol as a solution to a problem You know You could look at this community of people and now in retrospect realize like that was a bad decision That was a potentially dangerous environment for me. I'm grateful I got out of it But they were fulfilling a need like they were solving a problem for you by being a mentor in a certain kind of way That you needed and lacked and didn't have in your in your upbringing Yeah, and I'm like super thankful for you know to them and for them I'm not really in communication with them that much at all anymore.

But like they they Kind of gave me the blueprint of like how I can move in the world and how I can thrive in the world You know, I just got replaced, you know You know from drugs to something different, but like how do you carry yourself through these business interactions? And how do you like stand tall? I guess on your on your what you believe is true and right and how do you move forward with that like with some sense? of confidence and built So like that was just a that was definitely a blessing.

So you have kids all of a sudden. Yeah, how old are you? I'm 40. Oh at the time 23 23 23 in 2007 So I imagine that's a look that that was a catalyst or kind of a Recognition like hey, like I got a like figure my shit out a little bit Yeah So like I'm so I started looks like I'm gonna get a job now cuz like I can't I don't want to be like the movies Just doing one more little thing for a couple dollars here and then all of a sudden like you're in prison so I'm like, alright, let me get a job and I was I Said no to using like some of the cars that I had access to before because I just didn't want to have to be pulled In that direction.

So I'm like no, I'm good Oh, you know and I was paying for a cab just to get back and forth to this church that I got a job at there was the church that my mom like that kind of grew me up in and like for my like my high school years and So I'm working at this church and also sort of trying to play that lifestyle of trying to make money every now and then if I could But it was just like this hard thing to go from like having everything that I needed and making really good money to all of a sudden trying to raise another person and and Figure like this like life out and it was just my mom came to visit and Because she was living in Massachusetts at the time and she came to visit for a few days and I was trying to hold it together like as much as I could and act like this like $20 that I had was like enough and She like saw it didn't say too much her and my grandma came picked me up and took me to like Target or something like that to buy a bunch of stuff and they're like, oh We just want to help you with like a home a home warming type of gift and she called me like a month or so After visiting and was like I see that you're I don't know what you're doing or what you were doing I see that you're trying to make a difference or a change in your life and you're trying to take care of this little girl if you want you could come to Massachusetts live with me and you know, you can bring Iris or mom you can bring her too and you guys can start over if you want and She's like it's different.

It's new report, Massachusetts. It's like this is white as you can get. Yeah, you know and I'm like Let me talk to her and see what she said and she said yes like within like First conversation. She's like, yeah, sure. Let's get out of here cuz She everybody saw me like that cared I guess about me saw me trying to figure this thing out and not like resort to what I thought was the easiest way to make money at that moment at that point and So I moved my mom the gosh my mom was like really close friends with came picked me up on September 10th 2007 and we drove from you know through Canada to go to Massachusetts all my stuff was in the back of a pickup truck and we just like started this life over and I started working at like a Donut shop for seven days and then the eighth day I started at Lowe's like home home improvement.

Yeah worked there for two months and while I was working there I got hired at reload trains auto relocation for At the entry-level position like I was in the money I was making was like kind of laughable like but it was definitely my first desk job and I started at the lowest position you could get and just over those years I Just kept kind of climbing and kind of instilling like what I saw my mom and my sister and my grandma do in their lives which is just like Keep going forward and figure it out.

So how many years were you in Massachusetts before you moved back to Detroit? I moved back to Detroit. I think in like 2014 Wow, so I was there for like seven years. Yeah, so like a six or seven years I was out there and in that in that time like and I stopped working for a reload trans in 2025 and in that time I went from the Person that just talks on the phone about the relocation ads puts together to sales to creating a position for like director of sales and then just kept working my way up because I was just making a name for myself in the industry and really like Helping the company grow for it really quickly But all that time I was like my addiction was just there and it was just increasing And then I was drinking during the job.

I was had like liquor in red bull bottles, you know Just thinking that the smell of the red bull would like mask the liquor but I it was keeping me together I thought and Couple like root like scares like health-wise and just like decision-making but Somehow like I put this like string of of years together where I was really thriving The first time I saw an r2 in person I got it immediately This is the Rivian that a lot of people are gonna be able to enjoy driving it with our J only confirmed that All right.

So first impressions in my first new first experience in the art, too Nice all right now I'm getting the feel yeah feels really tight. It feels nice, right? Yeah Interestingly like from a first impression point of view when you see it from a distance Proportionally it looks very similar to the our want, you know, like the way that it is designed it looks kind of Integral with it's quite a bit smaller And so when you look we look at them separately Sometimes people be like is that no one or an r2 and they have a lot of similarities But I actually think our two ended up with a better set of proportions and it's that kind of thinking that just exists across Everything to try to deliver an experience.

It still feels really Rivian like but had a fraction of the cost of our one First impressions aside There's a lot more to the r2 than what you see at first glance To learn all about the r2 watch the rest of our conversation and book a demo drive at stories dot Rivian comm slash rich roll This episode is brought to you by freaks of nature I cannot even count how many podcast guests come in here sit across from me and espouse the wisdom the benefits the Necessity of being more immersed in nature the products we immerse our bodies in should also be natural Let's talk about the Sun stick.

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Everything is in stock right now, though So make sure you get it before it sells out go to freaks of nature Calm and use the code rich roll to save 20% when you order now So you're moving up in the job, but your quality of life is degrading you have a 10-year run Drinking as a parent also. Yeah, you know that has to be like looking now You know backwards at those times like it seems like you have a great relationship with your kids now I think so.

I try to you know, she's 19. My son's just turned 16 They I mean, I don't think they remember me drinking, you know, but she remembers me as a dad then so I don't know I just don't really know like how much of that life she remembers but I'm So happy that you know that I've been I've been sober going on I've been sober over nine years now and it's I Can't I'm so thankful, I don't even necessarily have the words of like how happy and grateful I am to be in their lives and be in and be a point of Inspiration in a way or and I don't hide, you know The fact that I used to be an alcoholic or and I am an alcoholic when we first met Correct me if I'm not remember remembering this properly, but when we were talking you You were still sort of struggling with whether to share your addiction and sobriety story I mean, obviously you were much earlier in sobriety at that point yeah, and now this is you know, it's it's sort of running first in terms of like how you communicate publicly, but The recovery pieces has has become much more prominent in how you think about you know How you share your life?

Yeah It was definitely like I didn't being in corporate for so long and trying to build Yourself your personal brand, but then also you're working You're representing a company like I didn't ever I never talked about sobriety even after I got sober I kind of was really quiet about it because I you don't want to You don't want to negatively impact the company, but I had to like come to terms with this is my part This is my personal brand. This is my message this is like could potentially be my purpose in the world is to share some of the things that I've learned and I got on a podcast Once there was like a live with believe in the run and he was like 30 minute little spot He asked me some questions and there was a moment that I could have talked about sobriety But and he like teed it up perfect for it and then I like pivoted and went back to running and I got off that that 30-minute live and felt so terrible like Like I missed an opportunity to potentially help one person maybe and I'm like, okay if I'm gonna do this whole time He runs thing and I ever get an opportunity to be on a podcast again If someone asked me that moment about that moment or there's a chance that I could talk about sobriety I'm doing it and I think that was when we met it was like kind of right before that all that happened and You know knowing that there's a you to out in the world that leans heavily into that story gives like other people moments of clarity in a sense or I can do that too and so in that moment, I'm like Probably reference to you and other people in my brain like they're doing just fine And there's no one like shaming them for being you know, attempting to be sober and stay sober and help other people so that's when I leaned in like I'm telling this story because when I got sober and The first day, the first meeting I went to, I went into a room with, you know, it was in a nice area.

There was nice cars outside. Walked inside. Everybody, you know, the average age was probably like 45 to 50. Everybody, no one looks like me in the room. And I walked in because the therapist told me that I should maybe check it out. And there was a guy that was going to be waiting on me to get there. So I'm like, okay. And I walked in. I'm like, these people will, there's no chance that they understand what I've been through. And then I heard- This is like a Grosse Pointe crowd.

Yeah. I told you this, you know, I was born in Grosse Pointe. Okay. Yeah. You remember? I think we talked about that. It was actually West Bloomfield. Okay. So basically the same thing. Yeah. Maybe even a little more shishy. Yeah. Definitely a little more. And it was like a Bentley outside and like a Porsche or something like that. I'm like, okay, this isn't going to work. But then I'm sitting there and all these people are telling their story and they literally in some way said how they've, in their stories, they shared how I felt, you know, about myself, addiction and all that.

So I'm like, this is, these are my people. Almost immediately before I even said a word, I'm like, these are my people and I need to be here. If I can do that randomly on a podcast or in some version of like a caption of a post that I share about some shoes and I mentioned something else that strikes like that chord of like, oh, I do, I resonate with this. If he can do it, I can do it too. And that's been my theme for like everything that I've done, whether it's, you know, these big races or just going after marathons.

It's not necessarily like, I want to inspire you to do this, but I want to inspire you to do some form of whatever that next step is for you. So that, that was really what I was grappling with was like, can I share this? And is it helpful? And then I had to think about like my life was saved in those rooms because people shared their stories authentically. They didn't cut corners. They didn't try to preach to the thing. They literally just shared some of their most vulnerable and scary and kind of like laughable stories.

But it was what I needed to, to know that like, it's not just me, you know? Yeah. Walk me up to your moment of clarity. Like how did you wake up one day and decide this is the day that I'm going to get sober? I'm going to go to my first AA meeting. The day was January 11th, 2017. That was the last drink I had was January 10th. And leading up to that was like just a couple of years of just trying so hard to figure out how to string together a week or a month or whatever.

And my friend Donovan, like best friend, brother, met him when I was like 12. And we just were like inseparable for so long. Rest in peace. Rest in March and March 2025. And so he was, he definitely was alcoholic as well. He didn't ever say he was, but whenever like I would say that I wanted to stop drinking for a little bit, he would be like, all right, cool, I'll do it with you. And it was strange how quick he would, I knew he needed it too, but he was doing it for me, you know, in his head.

But it like, it let me keep trying to do it. So every time I would try and fail, like I would tell him the truth and he'd be like, are you good, bro? Like, you know, you got a good job. Like we kind of played it off and kind of roll forward. But every time I would try to get worse and worse to the point where like my mom texts me one day in January 2007, like right after the new year, he and I were going to do this dry January thing.

And I got to like the third or fourth day into January, went over his house. Our wives at the time were, you know, were drinking and I made it through the whole night no drinking. And I woke up at like 2.30 in the morning. My kids are downstairs with his kids. Everybody's sleeping in the house at 2.30 in the morning. And I like went into the kitchen, found the bottle of vodka and just started drinking in the middle of the night. No one's awake. There's no reason why I would need to do this, you know, in my rational mind and then just got drunk and fell asleep.

And that was the silliest and dumbest and saddest that I've ever been. You know, it's like, at least like I could have caved while people were awake. You just woke up in the middle, you couldn't even sleep through the night. There's nothing going on. There's no benefit to me being tipsy, drunk or anything alike at that point. There's no awkward social situation that you have to show up for. Yeah. I just had to stay asleep. I could have just went back to sleep, but I'm like, let me go have this drink.

And then that was just I woke up the next day and days after that, I would just obviously write back to it. But I just felt that was the worst that I felt. And I'm just like, I'm going to die like this, like this is how I die is in a car or, you know, I'm already I'm 30, whatever, 32, and it's going to be blood pressure because my blood pressure is high. High blood pressure. Yeah. Like I was in the hospital when I was 30 or something like that, 29, 30 with a hundred and like 82 over like 120 something.

Wow. Like at this point from then on, I could feel whenever my blood pressure would get high enough, like if my hand was hard to go numb, like, so I was playing with like dying just like my dad did, you know? Yeah. And I have this, you know, father figure looming over. I got to beat him. He died so young. If I can't be better than him. I might as well die sooner. It's ridiculous, I guess, but so like that's, but that's where I was like, that's like, this is just how it ends.

You know, I have, there's no, I have, I cannot beat this. It will not happen. And it just is what it is. And my mom like texts me one day, she's like, how's my son? And this was like a day or so after that episode. And I'm like, normally I just go, I'm doing great. Kids are good. Blah, blah. I just told her not good and simply like, just, just that quick, not good. Didn't divulge what was happening. And she said, you know, you should call, you should reach out to EAP.

You have insurance, employee assistance program, reach out, they'll maybe help you. And so I did what she told me to do. And they called me like the next day and was like, Hey, you know, they do like a little screening thing to figure out what type of therapist maybe you need. I complained about family stuff and blamed everything. The reason why I was calling is not my fault. It's not addiction. It's just, you know, whatever. But she asked me how many, how many times I drink a day or a week.

And I'm like, it really just depends on like what it is. If it's beer, it's a ton. If it's liquor, it's seven, eight or whatever until I can't anymore. And I wake up in the morning, I drink and she's like, okay, no, no, we're honest in that answer. So like I told her the truth. I told this lady on the phone the truth and then they like, okay, we have an appointment for you on January 11th with this person. And she's a family therapist. And so I'm like, okay, cool.

January 10th, I drank at like 1030 PM. I'm like, I can't go there smelling like liquor. So let's stop here. So I walked in and she starts talking to me, I'm starting to complain about family and this and that works hard. She was like, well, how much do you drink? You know, or do you think that I have a drinking problem? I'm like, yeah, I drink a bit. And she asked me how much and I told her the truth again, she's like, okay, well, the cool thing is I'm a family therapist, but I'm also, I'm actually mainly a substance abuse counselor.

And I'm like, I almost walked out like you guys tricked me, you know what I'm saying? She said, well, you definitely have a drinking problem. I'm not going to call you an alcoholic, but you have an issue. There's a meeting that happens on Sunday. I know a guy that goes there. He's a nice guy. He's around your age. You should go with him. Just meet him there. And then, so I walked out of that office and was like, all right, well, how about I just don't drink from Wednesday to Sunday?

And at that point, that's like four or five days and that is a stretch for me. But somehow, because of, I say like those three truths, I was able to like, the weight of the addiction was lifted enough for me to hold and not drink from January 11th to when I walked in that meeting. Right. Also, you're a man of great integrity. When you say I'm going to not drink for these four days, like you're a man of your word. Yeah, yeah. I've been able to, yeah.

Yeah. I didn't tell her that. I just said that in my head. Like, I'm just not going to drink. It's that thing, that superiority complex, like I am, you know, like I'm stronger than anyone while also feeling like I'm the worst person in the world. You're simultaneously like inhabiting those two ideas about yourself. I don't know. Like, I don't know if I ever, I always thought that I could be really good at something, but I just didn't think that I was, I had what it took to reach like my potential, you know?

Like, that's just it. Like, I knew that I was like smart enough. I knew I could talk enough. I knew I could make friends with people that I needed to and talk to whoever. My mom, you know, my family raised me so well. Who else could drink as much as you were drinking and still move up the corporate ladder at your job and be a parent? You know, like, you know, you're like, I'm, I'm like crushing it. I mean, low key, like low key renaissance man type stuff, you know, but you know, like I think that I just never looked at myself well ever, you know, like even during that time working for that one company for 17 years, I was just telling somebody the other day, like I had job offers that were easily anybody else would have taken, but I can't take that job because you're going to, you'll find out.

They'll find out. You'll find out. Yeah. Cause if whatever, for whatever reason, this company, they don't, they're not paying attention to me like that, but you're going to find out that I'm an asshole or that I'm like just drinking my life away. So I'll stay here cause they're sort of blind to what I'm doing and I have a setup. They need me. They like, you know, like, and so like, I just didn't have the confidence at that time to like make a decision that would put me at risk of being like found out, you know, but leading up to that, like moment of, of like walking into her office was just, I think it's, it's just the truth part, you know, like I let you, we lie about our, our alcoholism and the things we're doing so much.

It's just, it's like second nature or first nature almost just to hide, lie, you know, how many drinks have you had to, you know, but it's like I finally was able to tell the truth about it to someone outside of Donovan, you know, in people that I probably wouldn't have told the truth to, and it just, it like loosened, it's like grip enough for me to see some space in between, you know, myself in this drink. And I'm, I just like, thank God for like, for whatever happened, like I was able to tell the truth at that moment.

Yeah. So you go to that first meeting, you hear a version of your story, something clicks in you. How do you go from being a guy who can't go three or four days without drinking to not drinking for coming up on 10 years at this point from that January 11th, 2017 day? You know, the, the meetings saved my life, not just like that day, but having a place to go that felt like home more than home did allowed me to just continue to work through some of those, those worries and issues that I thought were just so important to me.

You know, like when you go into a meeting, you complain about something or you're worried about something, like somebody that has like 15, 20 years says like the most simple, stupid statement that just means like, Oh, relax. That's one day at a time. I'm worried about three months away because I got to go to a conference. One of the endless aphorisms that are so annoying. It's like, it's like, bro, shut up, like, okay, though, I get it. You know, it's, but it was, it's all the things that I, like I learned in the program and as I worked through those like first few years of, you know, being able to bounce ideas or thoughts or worries off of people who weren't judging me, but like saw themselves or heard themselves in what I was worried about and responded in a way that was much more passionate and like caring than someone who doesn't understand who can have a drink and not drink for three, four days.

People like that don't understand like what your, how silly some of the things you worry about, but how large those issues can become if you, if they go unchecked. And so being in the program, those first few years was so I needed every, I needed that more than anything. And I also think that I'm blessed to not have the urge to drink and it kind of happened really fast. Like once I'm like fully made that decision that this is where I belong, I just haven't had that, oh, I think I need a drink or, oh, I should drink right now.

I've just, I just haven't had that. And I know people struggle with that like every day. So I know that I'm blessed and kind of rare in that, in that aspect. But I think it was just because of how, for me, how much I really wanted to be here, but just couldn't see a way and they, and they showed me like the way to it and I just accepted it like wholeheartedly. And yeah, it's probably still act like an alcoholic and process things in a weird way that only we would, but at the same time, it just doesn't lead me back to, to like wanting a drink.

Cause I know, I know, and I also know that I fully believe that I'll die if I go back to drinking. What do you think the difference is between someone like yourself who can walk into a meeting desperate, still not sure, not only like, am I going to be able to be a sober person, but do I even really want this? And yet building this foundation of sobriety and the person who has walked some version of your path who goes in and feel similarly about themselves and their relationship with alcohol and like, can't get it or is in and out all the time.

Is it something more than deeply wanting it? Is it a function of willingness? Like what is the differentiator between the person who really kind of locks in and like does the work and builds a new life and the person who just continues to struggle? I think, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind to me is like ego. I mean, we have, we have this like identity built in, like who we think we are. And, and the reason why it takes people to get to rock bottom, whatever your rock bottom is to make that change is because you're still attached to that ego.

to that identity, and anything that rubs against that, you're going to have some unwillingness to shift or make the change. So for me, my rock bottom doesn't look maybe nearly as bad as someone else's, but I was just ready to change. I wanted it bad enough to be willing to do all the things and say all the silly statements. But I think it really just comes down to maybe not wanting it, but just being open and ready to take the suggestions of this book or these people that are ahead of you in this journey.

And also just surrendering to the fact that you really don't have any control. Whether it's over alcohol or drugs or whatever, you just don't have it in life in general. The only control we have is just how we respond to these moments and to these opportunities or happenings in life. And if you can just get to the point where you just are okay with that, then that's the building blocks for whatever's next. But you just see so many people kind of holding on to their identity or who they think they should be.

They want to be sober, but there's also this thing that's holding them too close to what they built during their addiction. They haven't fully surrendered to the idea of powerlessness. And the idea that this has to come before everything else and there's no quick fix. You really have to just be like, all right, what's it going to be? I'm Odysseus on the raft, leaving Calypso behind in full surrender and letting the gods direct the current and hopefully I'll end up home, but it's really out of my hands.

So silly. I almost cried in that movie when he did that because it's like, I mean, that's how it feels. He's going through the 12 steps in that movie. We talked about this with Ryan Holiday. I loved that episode. On the podcast. Yeah. Thank you for that. And it's like, finally, now he's going to get it. The only way he's going to solve this problem is by relinquishing the idea that he can solve it himself. Yeah. You just have to let go. That's what it feels like.

It feels like you're just laying. It's not like they sent him in a little boat with a paddle. It's literally just lay on these couple pieces of wood and just float and see what happens. And that's what it feels like, even though we were probably on a makeshift boat with like 20 holes in the bottom going to sink anyway, we're holding onto this thought of we should be able to... This should be different. It should be a plan. It should be something more amazing to think about, like this better journey.

But we really just have to let go and follow the tenets of the program. But then also just relinquishing all control of what we thought we were controlling. Because that's one thing for me, at least, alcoholism seems like this wild thing that you're just so out of control. But there's this weird false sense of control within ourselves. We're like, we know what we're doing. We've crafted this master plan of how to be drunk around everybody. No one knows. It's this false sense of security that we still try to hold on to as we're like trying to step away from it.

Yeah. Well said. That was my goal, is to get you to say, well said, at least once. Well, all right. Goal unlocked. I have some goals also. I'll show them at the end. We're not there yet. When does running enter the picture? So running enters in 2018. So I was like, after getting sober, like two weeks into that walk, I could start to see myself in the mirror, like physically. I'm like, oh, I look like crap, like with my shirt off in the mirror. This is, I feel terrible still.

I look bad. So let me start going to the gym. So I was going to the gym six or seven days a week. I just started going and I got real buff. I was really into it. And my name, I forgot what my name was before, but my name was Tommy Guns on Instagram after I started getting real buff. You had some other stage name on Instagram before that? I mean, it was like- You can't remember what it is? No, I think it was something about cooking or something.

Okay. I was cooking because I could drink while I was cooking and I enjoyed that process. All right. So now you're- So now I'm Tommy Guns. Tommy Guns. I'm in the gym, like heavy. Guns with a Z, of course. Guns with a Z. Yeah, yeah. We stay branded right across. But then, so I was still working at the job. I had a client that was based in Chicago and he's like, in 2018, he's like, hey, you're fit. We run the Chicago Rock and Roll Half Marathon every year for my company, we raise a bunch of money for a charity called Move for Hunger.

And I was very familiar with the charity. I met the guy who started that, the same, my first business trip, he was on that first business. It was his first business trip, so shout out to Adam. But so I'm like, yeah, I'll raise some money for the charity. So I raised some money, but I'm training for this race, training, it was like six weeks of just, I jumped into a couple 5Ks to see what I could do. And then I ran this race in Chicago. And at that point, it was a little over a year of sobriety, but somehow getting on the line with all these people that I don't know, it was a big race, thousands of people I don't know running through the streets of Chicago, all with the same similar goal.

Some people are going to get there faster or slower, but we all did it together. And it felt like this, number one, felt a lot like the rooms to me somehow in sobriety. And then secondly, no disrespect to my kids or whatever, but it was probably one of the most proud moments that I've had in my life to be somewhere so far from what I thought was possible. Growing up, I didn't grow up seeing people run half marathons for fun. My mom did a couple of charity walks and stuff like that for breast cancer back when I was a kid, but I didn't know anybody that would run 13.1 miles in a row on purpose and pay for it and go do it.

So it was like, I'm so proud of myself at this point. And so as soon as I got over a metatarsal fracture that I had right before the race, I ran anyway, because that's what we do. I'm like, I like this running thing, let me just keep doing it. So then I would just run a little bit more and started training and started signing up for different stuff. And eventually my cousin was like, you ain't Tommy Guns anymore, you're Tommy Runs. And I looked on Instagram really quick, put the R in to see if it was available, and it was, so I took it.

And that's all she wrote. That's all she wrote. Now we're sitting- You were off to the races. Literally. From that point forward, you've gone on to, I mean, how many marathons have you run at this point? 17. 17. You did all six majors. Did you do that in a single year? I did run all six majors at the time when there was only six still. That was the last year there was six. 2024, I did all six in a year. I did Osaka Marathon seven days before Tokyo, which is the first marathon major of the year.

So I did all six in one year, but I had done multiple of them many different times. But I got my six-star medal thing in London that year. And your marathon PR is like 246 or something? 246. 246. So you're quick. You've matured into an excellent marathon runner. Now you're plying your trade on the trails. You've done the Javelina 100. You did 100K race also. You did the Speed Project, and you recently did Western States. Western States 100, yeah. Did I get all of them? Yes, you did.

Yeah. So you stepped into this whole other world. Along the way, at some point in your running journey, you decided to be kind of a content creator in this space. I'm interested in how that evolved. This thing that was a very personal kind of self-discovery relationship with running now becomes kind of a public relationship that you're having, and now it's like a business. It's like you're a running influencer, quote unquote, in the best kind of interpretation of that phrase that has a kind of pejorative connotation.

When I first started running, I was already making content and stuff on LinkedIn for work, so I was very familiar with just making content and editing videos. So when I started running, I started posting more. The cool part about the sobriety thing, going to the gym, and then the running was I would share just what I did. Some of the things that I was doing so far outside of what people that I knew would see on a day-to-day basis, people responded to it really well. It wasn't about influencing, because there was no influencers to me at 2019 or 18, but the people who gave me little kudos here and there, saying, like, oh, wow, this is really cool.

Keep going. Oh, wow, you're sober. Great. Keep going. That's what I needed. I needed some of that reinforcement that what I did mattered not only to me, but it potentially mattered to other people, and I just needed that nudge to keep pushing. So as that journey went on, I started just getting more, just a little better at making content and seeing people on YouTube do cool videos, so I tried to make my own little cool videos on Instagram. But then after, like during 2020, obviously, I mean, I was already working from home, because I had already moved back here, I mean, back to Michigan.

So I was, you know, I just had a little bit more time, because everything slowed down, work slowed down. So then I started, you know, really kind of leaning in and making some content. And then one thing that I felt like that was very prevalent in that moment for me is like after COVID happened, so obviously, like life is strange and weird and kind of scary, because you're like, what's next? But then Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, it's like, okay, like, number one, I, as a black man in America, I felt very just vulnerable at that time, that my job could be just gone because of COVID.

My life could be gone because of, you know, anything or racism. So I'm looking at my kids, like, if something happens to me, what have I left behind for them? The fact that I'm sober sweet, you know, but I'm like, let me start doing something that I feel like they can be, they can see, and something that's like a little more tangible than just like he was a cool guy, and he ran or something like that. So I started a, I heard this phrase said, run, run, eat, sleep, repeat, like years before.

So I'm like, I'm about to print shirts and make shirts that say run, eat, sleep, repeat. So that was like my like foray into like starting a company and having shirts for sale. People liked it, people were supporting it. And as I was doing that, like my social media presence was kind of growing, like very slowly. But then I'm like, okay, how do I sell these shirts? Like what can I do around that? And then watching your pod, I'm like, I could do like a podcast, right?

And so I started doing live videos of the run, eat, sleep show. So then I started doing live videos with people I knew, I would ask people to be on the show. And I started interviewing like really big names in the industry or in the running world as I kind of went on. So everything just started like growing at that time. And I was also doing the Tommy Runs thing, also doing the show, but I was making a lot of contacts with brands because of the show.

So I was just like, they were feeding each other. And then eventually I got to the point where Tommy Runs was just doing well enough where me doing this show interviewing other people didn't feel like my voice anymore, because Tommy Runs was my voice. And I could talk about sobriety and talk about the things that I'm feeling on the other side of the world. Like I was in Tokyo with my mom because she came on that trip to run the Tokyo Marathon. I was there the day that my dad, that I was the same exact age as my dad when he passed.

Because I was very familiar. Our birthdays are only five days apart. So I know like February 19th is the day he passed. So I knew on this day I'm the exact same age as he was. So I'm able to share that story directly through the Tommy Runs thing. And I can lean into what I think is potentially helpful, maybe very vulnerable, but helpful for other people in that position. And so I just kept building that thing, slow down on the show and lean more into the Tommy Runs thing and started working with brands because of those relationships.

That's just been my journey a little bit. What is the mission that you're on? What is the purpose of all of this? What are you aiming for or trying to accomplish in the public-facing aspect of running these races and training for them and sharing your sobriety story? Imposter syndrome going crazy right now. To inspire people through telling my story and doing these things in an authentic way. If I say yes to doing a race, it's obviously for me because I learned in the program I have to put a lot of my decisions with me first in mind to make sure that I'm okay and I want to do this and I can be of value to the people around me at least.

So I have my own personal journeys and this is why I'm going to do that because I want to do it and I know that it'll push me to work hard to get there. But then I share all this stuff and run all these races to present my vulnerable self to people and try to make it look good and fun and cool. But if I can go run six or seven marathons in a year or the speed project from LA to Las Vegas, 340 miles, if that thing kind of clicks somebody into being like, oh, well then I can do like a 5K or a 10K or whatever, or even a marathon, then that's what, you know, him doing that helped me.

Pass the drive-through on the way home or not eat a whole bag of chips. It doesn't have to be running. No, it doesn't have to be, yeah. Inspiration is transferable. Yeah. So it's like if I can just be real open and honest in this journey and do things that kind of light me up, then I want to inspire people along the way. And some of that, like when I started the company and selling clothes and stuff like that, that was also like in a way it's like, what can I do that makes me feel good enough that I can position this and share in a way that someone else can be inspired in some way.

But that also goes back to the sobriety thing, is just people sharing their stories. They weren't doing it for me. They weren't sharing their drunken story for me and their 20 years of sobriety for me. But them being real and open and showing the process that they went through, that's what inspired me to change my life and save my life. Let's talk about representation. When I asked you about your mission, a big piece of this is about representation. What is the black community's relationship to running generally, to the marathon space, and now more recently, the trail space?

So I'll just speak from my perspective. Most of us didn't grow up seeing running done as a hobby or for fun or for health or for whatever. We've always thought that running and jogging is a white people thing to do. Yeah. I listened to the podcast that you did with our friend, Zach Clark. And you're like, no offense, jogging's a white people thing. Yeah, it is. I mean, it was. At least that's what our perspective was on it, because we just didn't grow up seeing that in our areas and neighborhoods.

And if we did, it was definitely not somebody that looked like us. So as I started running in 2018, I'd go to some of these races. It wasn't terrible, but it was still very much an outlier thing to do as a black man in America to be running marathons. And I know that there's plenty of people that were doing it before us, but that's just like, you come into these races and you don't feel represented well. What's interesting about that is at the elite level, the highest level of performance from the 100 meters to the marathon, it's dominated by black people.

Yeah. But that's not trickling down in the participation level. No. I mean, okay, you're not jogging with Noah Lyles. He's not jogging. But then on the other side, when you talk about the marathons, I mean, there are black folks, but they're also just different. I mean, they're just from different countries. They're born in different circumstances. And that just doesn't resonate with people from Chicago or Detroit or whatever. It's not us still in some way. We're just like, oh, that's them because they're from Kenya or whatever.

So there's a disconnect there when in reality they really shouldn't be because they should be like, oh, that's obvious. We should be able to do that. But as I started to run and grow in that space more and then 2020 happened and then Black Lives Matter happened, then people are starting to gain steam. People are inside or not going to work necessarily, so they have more time to try to find recreation. So we saw that running boom and black people were involved in that. And then you have people that are out really pushing forward, like Allison Desir, shout out to her.

People like that were outside talking about these issues and how the running community or running industry needs to open and at least make space for this to be a path. And as that happened, you got run clothes popping up, shout outs like We Run 313 in Detroit and all these big, huge run clubs right now started around that time and gave black people a space to come and hang out and run two, three, four, 10 miles, whatever, that felt like this is our thing and we do belong at least in this spot.

And so the more you saw that happen, the more you saw that trickle into like 5Ks, 10Ks, marathons. And as I'm going through my marathon journey and sharing it intentionally, not being like, hey, I'm the only black person here, but it's like, hey, I'm here. And here's the process that I went through and sharing it in a way that I think looks cool. And then you start seeing more and more people gravitate towards like, okay, marathons next, unless what are we going to do? And as I saw that thing happen, now that I've stepped into trail, I just walking into a running space that doesn't mirror or even closely resemble the progress that's happened on the road, it feels intentional.

It feels like, how is this possible? How is this happening? I mean, the trail racing, running world is about as wide as it gets. Yeah. And being closer to it, from the outside looking in, it's like, oh, this is intentional, for sure. But then you get closer to it and you maybe talk to the right people and you start seeing what the actual intention is, but maybe there's not enough paths or whatever tools for this to change rapidly. So as I'm in this space, I'm like, what can I do to help this?

Because I helped a bit on the roadside just by sharing my journey and pushing forward and speaking on podcasts and sharing my perspective on what black running is and what the black experiences are at these races and traveling around the world. How can I mimic that or lean into that feeling of not only showing or making a statement that shows that there's so much room to grow here, but doing it in a way that's pulling people in and not necessarily speaking at the, not avoiding the issue, but all my focus is on how do I make connections for someone that's in Atlanta?

What if I post a video or a picture or a shirt that makes somebody say, I want to support that, but I don't run on trails, so let me go find a trail. Or, oh, if Tommy just ran Western States, I don't even know what Western States is or why it's important, but it seems like it's important. I could find a trail near me. And I'm not necessarily saying we all need to be out there, but the fact that it's definitely, it's just so much different than road.

You don't run for five miles on the road and then go, oh, wow, look at this. I was listening to Oprah Pod, as she did the other day. And she was talking about hiking is her favorite thing to do right now. And she said that you don't look at where you're going. You don't look at the top of it the whole time. You just head down doing your thing. And every 10 minutes or so, you can look backwards to see how far you've come. And when you run these trail races, if it's a long enough race, you could run for 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

And if you can look around, the view changes so often that it's so, you find yourself looking at things that you've never dreamed that you'd see. And I want that experience for as many people as possible, especially people of color that grew up that didn't think that they'd ever see themselves on a mountain. I said on a panel once, we did a little shakeout run for Trail Con last year. And it's a four mile run. It's not very far. It's just four miles. And you get to the top of that thing.

It's right up near the escarpment. And you turn around and you look and you see views that a phone couldn't capture the beauty of this thing. And so if I can share my journey that would make someone potentially want to find that in their way, that's what I have to do. Yeah. It's very much attraction, not promotion. It's kind of a recovery principle. You're not trying to convince people that this is what they should do. You're kind of modeling the aspiration of doing it yourself as a magnet to attract more people and demonstrate that it's possible.

But when I think about why the trail community is the way that it is, I mean, you use the word intentional. I mean, what are the barriers to access our economic? Obviously, there's proximity to trails for communities that are in urban environments, et cetera. There's not seeing somebody that they recognize or feel like represents who they are in this community. And now you're very much like serving that role for a lot of people. What are the other factors that you think have contributed to this? And beyond what you're doing individually, what are the solutions to diversifying this sport?

Because it started so granola. It's not like these were cheap races. Nobody was signing up for them. Now there's a lot of money in it. It's very different. But it's not like lacrosse or hockey or cycling or something that there's a huge capital expenditure involved except that there's having to travel to these places. And that's obviously expensive. Yeah. I mean, so I think it's just some of the solution is back to intention. I'm a brand guy, like worker brand. So it's a lot of my thought when I see some of these spaces, the community itself plays a big role in how much they're trying to extend that net or how much are you trying to show that this is an option and attract people in.

But then I also look at some of these brands. I mean, because you know how it works. You choose some brands. They go on a trip to Tahoe or whatever. They're making a choice of who they want to be there. And it seems really simple and little. But I'm not saying every brand invite me somewhere. But if there's people that are already in trail, and they may not be the biggest trail influencer in the world. It's a vote to be like, I do want trail as a brand.

I do want trail to look different. I do want trail to represent our customer base. I do want trail to feel like everyone should be able to experience something like this. So our vote as a brand is to make sure that we're finding authentic people that are really into this thing. But then they also serve as a catalyst or like people that will open the aperture of a community to be like, hey, that's an option too. Because I think there's obviously some economic issues of how or in proximity of trail and all that stuff.

But there's also a lack of or has been a lack of a communication of the possibilities of it, just period. Because two years ago, if you can see it, and you're interested, you'll make it happen. You can make it happen at least. So I think that it just has to be more of a vote and a real thought like, let's look back at road in 2019, 2020, 2021, and how much brands leaned in to making sure that road was more diverse, these races are more diverse in advertising and brand trips and blah, blah, blah.

That was a very strategic effort on them in response to a lot of pressure, but they responded decent to it. So maybe we should think about for trail, let's implement some of that and lean into as a community, whether it's brand, whether it's organizations, whether it's conferences, how do you lean into, we want this place to look like what we want a random trail race close to Chicago to look. Because this isn't about getting more people to one spot or one race and access to Western States or Trail Con or Broken Arrow.

That's a separate, that's an entity within itself. That's an isolated thing. But there is access to trails much closer than that and much cheaper than going to find a Tahoe California. Sure. I mean, most urban areas have some kind of natural preserve situation that isn't that far away, but it's also a mindset thing. Like the idea of like, I'm an urban dweller, this is my environment. I don't belong in those spaces. Before you even get into trail running, it's like, I'm going to go for a walk in a nearby forest.

It could be a leap for a certain person who was raised to believe a certain thing about who they are. When I came here, I see a mountain close by. Two years ago, I would have just saw a mountain. That just happened, whatever, I don't care. But as soon as I see it now, I'm saying like, maybe I should look on an app to find out if there's a trail or not. I think that that's like that little switch of there's a potential really cool view or a really good workout that could be had if I just find a trail.

A lot of people just don't have that. I don't even know all the trails in my area. There's people that have been in trail that would be like, yo, bro, there's a trail 15 minutes from you. Like, what do you mean? And that to me is just saying like, let's open up the direct line to like, this is a possibility. And even if you only run on trail once, whatever, or you don't, it should be an option or an unlock there. And I think that that's the way towards progress is opening that thought up to as many people as possible so they can decide how far they want to go.

When we push for more people, more black folks and brown folks to be on the road at these marathons, that doesn't mean, everybody that was inspired by that doesn't mean that they ran a marathon, but they might've started going to their local run club. They might've just decided to get to run by themselves and get healthy. But how do we just like get that rolling and get that momentum as a people and as a community? Were you the only black person running Western States? No, there was only a few, but I don't know all of the people, but I think there was at least two.

I was trying to remember if I saw any other black person at Trail Con other than you. Oh, okay. Well, Trail Con was a little different. I was the only person that was, I think that was like Speed that spoke at Trail Con this year that was black. And there were like a lady that I know that was there. She was black. She counted, I think it was like four of us at Trail Con. And then probably less than that. There were thousands of people that attended that event.

Yeah. The Trail Con part and some of the Western States part, to me, that's it. The brands have a lot to do with that, I think. They spend a lot of money to be sponsors to these things. Yeah. It's become a very commodified event. All the vendors and ACG had a huge presence there. Every brand was showing up at Trail Con. TrailCon, and they're investing money in this space. It's a very commercial prospect right now. Yeah, but in that, if a brand's a big sponsor, it's not just them.

They're bringing people with them. We know this influencer market is what it is. They've got 5, 10 people there just making content, having fun, running the races, being involved in the conference. So it's like, at that moment, I think what it was before, and it's missing out on what it could be by virtue of having a variety of perspectives. Yeah, because to the people that are romanticizing the old days and keeping some of these things so pure, I understand that. I get that. And there are certain races that probably will always stay that way.

Barkley Marathons is never going to change. Some of the progress and innovation that's happened on the road when it comes to run clubs and race, different types of races, different types of brands, making different types of clothes and apparel, all that came because just more people from different backgrounds were attracted to it. And we've seen the running boom because of so many different people. It wasn't because running stayed the same. So if you look at trail, how can we bring more people from some thought they would be there forever, some never even imagined it, but those two people come together, the possibility is kind of endless.

Sure. That was the topic of at least one panel at TrailCon. There's a lot of discourse around what's happening to the trail community. It's grown, obviously. But there's a romanticization of the early days where you would pitch your tent at the starting line, and it was a couple of guys in vans or whatever. And now it is what it is today. Is this moving in the right direction? Is it not? There are protectionists. We need to protect the purity of this culture. And then there are opportunists on the other side of that spectrum who are looking at the financial opportunities that are available here.

And in the middle, there's a variety of opinions about what this community should look like and what trail running should represent, et cetera. But the community is dictated by the people who are participating in that community. It's not dictated from above. This is who we are and what we are. The people who inhabit the ecosystem are the ones who get to decide that. And unless you are onboarding a diversity of voices, it's going to remain stagnant and kind of stuck in what it was before. And it's missing out on what it could be by virtue of having a variety of perspectives.

Yeah, because to the people that are romanticizing the old days and keeping some of these things so pure, I understand that. I get that. And there are certain races that probably will always stay that way. Barclay Marathons is never going to change. Somebody's like, would you run Barclay? Hell no. I'm not ridiculous. But to those people that are trying to hold onto that, the running boom has showed us that if you don't open the door to new voices, the way that things are going with social media, it's going to happen.

People are going to start running trail regardless whether you invite them or not or if they feel welcomed by you or not. And so if you feel like a real trail purist and you want people to take care of the trail and you want people to make sure that they're respecting nature and all these different things, you should openly be a part of the growth of the sport. Instead of clinging to, we can't do this because of all these reasons, open up a bit and realize that you could be like the generation or the people that help guide this growth in a way that stays and maintains this purity of it because we are in nature.

It's not like we're just running down the street and there's some rules and guidelines that you should follow just because we're running on borrowed land or taken land. And so we should respect these things. And if you decide that you don't want this group to come because they are different, then they're probably going to do whatever they think is best for them at that moment. And that may not be in line with what some of the things you're trying to save. And then so it's just going to happen anyway.

Is there anything else that we should talk about when we're talking about representation and inclusion? Have I even asked the right questions? Is there something that I'm missing? No, I don't think so. Like you said earlier, I'm very much on that. I'm going on my journey. And I know what I represent, and I know who I am. And so I intentionally just share because of that. And I'm not as well-versed on all the things that are the way to move a culture and a movement forward.

I just know that if I can use what I have and the leverage that I have with brands or the relationships that I have with brands, then I'll just try to push in that way. Because if I can maybe risk or maybe not jeopardize, but if I can use some of those things that I have to say, oh, hey, can we get a couple more people invited to this space that wouldn't necessarily be invited by you. But just the fact that there's this dude with dreadlocks who's running Western states, and every other dude looks like the same guy, a skinny guy probably with a mustache and, you know.

Some good mustaches out there. Yeah, and listen, nothing but love. But I think it's really powerful. It's like you don't, like just your being there is making a statement louder than anything you could put into words. And it's powerful. Like if I could say what I would love to recreate, I guess the feeling of or the thought of was like when I did the Speed Project in early 2025. Going into that thing, what I saw was who does this race if they do it solo is like white and super tatted and really cool looking.

But then there's a guy named Malcolm who was the second person to do like the OG 340 mile route. He's a black dude from New York. Explain what the Speed Project is for people that don't know before we get too deep into this. Speed Project is a unsanctioned race from Santa Monica Pier to the Las Vegas, the Welcome to Las Vegas sign in Las Vegas, Nevada. The original route that they did was 340 miles on foot. But there are no rules as well. So like there's relay teams that do it.

It's mainly a relay race. Most people do it by relay. It's 340 miles, right? How many people solo it? And when you say there's no rules, like it doesn't even matter what route you take to get there. People are taking all different kinds of routes. So there's only, I guess, technically there's only one route, and it's like the OG route. That's like if you're going to say you did the OG, this is the route you have to go. And the other thing is shorter, if you can find a way to do it while being safe, whatever.

You just get to go. So it can be as short as 200, like high, high 200s, or as long as 340, or unless you get lost, it could be more, I guess. But he had done, Malcolm had done the 340 mile route solo. And he was the second person to have done that OG route and not gone through some of the other ways that people have carved into this thing now. And he was really instrumental. Once he found out that I was going to do it, I'd met him before in the marathon scene, but he hit me up and was really helpful for me and my crew.

So he gave me the audacity to continue to push for this and make sure I showed up. One thing he said was, don't come to this thing and then just kind of fit in with whatever. B-Tommy runs all the way. That's kind of the ethos of the whole event. Like you said, lots of tatted guys. There's a panache to this event that's very different from the traditional trail world. This is like, it's very punk rock. Yeah, it is. It feels like, and he helped me by just being him and being useful resource-wise and knowledge.

But then when I went about it, I made sure I lived up to that part of like, B-Tommy runs this whole time. I did this on the road already. Just make sure you pull up and be you fully. And we captured it and made a little documentary and everything about it. The cool part. You're saying that with a lot of humility. That documentary is incredible. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I watched it for a second time this morning. It's really well done. It's beautiful. And it really illustrates the odyssey of this race and the highs and lows.

You just go to the depths of your capabilities and you're being tested to the fullest extent possible. And it's all illustrated and beautifully, beautifully filmed. So I encourage everybody to check out that documentary. I'll link it up in the show notes and stuff. And it was called, and I called it Hero. And I knew I was going to call it Hero before. But it was really just, it wasn't necessarily like, I'm about to go be a hero. But it was that moment of that storyline of like, we all have to be the hero of our own stories at some point.

And we all did it at some point, whether we decided to like, I'm going to lose weight, or I'm going to get sober, or I'm going to start a company. Those moments where we had to decide to no longer be the villain, victim, or guide for someone else, we had to be the hero ourselves. And me doing this and sharing my sobriety story and walk this whole time was just me deciding at one point, I had to be the hero of this journey. And that hopefully people would watch it and decide to be the hero of theirs in some way.

But the way that I shared it intentionally was like, I told the guy, this dude named Olu. He shot it. It was his first time making a feature length film. Oh, wow. He did a phenomenal job. Yeah, he did. It was crazy. I never had, didn't meet him until the day that we met in Santa Monica. Or I met him before at TRE. He took some pictures. I mean, that's how I knew about him. But spent six days, seven days with us. But I told that story like that openly and show, I may have said, please don't get all the highlights.

Show all the crap that makes it challenging. And then fast forward, the reason I brought it up is because this year, shout out to a young dude named Mitchie Paul from Boston. He's the fourth person to do the OG route, a young black guy from Boston. And it was like, he did it because he saw me do it. And I also felt like it was cool because I also showed everything that I had to show. So it wasn't like I vainly inspired him. I showed him all the shit.

And if you feel like you're watching what I'm doing and I share my story, whether it's sobriety or being black in space, content creating or whatever, I want you to be inspired by something I do, but for the right reasons. And the inspiration doesn't come from this idea that you're out crushing it. You're just so beaten up, dude. It's shocking that you finished this race. You're so far away from Vegas, and you can't even walk. And you've just got an insane number of miles left before you're going to get there.

And the inspiration is, how did he even complete this thing? You were just absolutely broken. That's what I wanted to show because that, to me, is the same story as us or me in sobriety because you're just shredded to pieces at some point. And how do you continue? How do you keep going? And how do you make that decision for yourself even though everything's telling you to stop or saying that you can't make it or can't do it? So how do you do that? To me, it's like that somewhere you've made some decision that you're willing to go as far as you possibly can and then a little bit more, partially because I feel like I owe it to myself to go farther than I thought and dig deeper than I thought I could because I don't think I'll ever be as low, even in that whole doc, I'll never be as low as I was in those last couple of years of sobriety, just never.

I don't care if I'm choosing to do this. I want to do this. It may be terrible in that moment, but I got to remind myself that I can go farther because this is what I decided to do. To me, what you did and the documentary that you made about that journey is a living, breathing document. It's the embodiment of this idea I believe in that we're all so much more capable than we allow ourselves to believe and that our darkest moments and our depths of despair and our trauma are actually engines of change and transformation.

Yeah. We can redo the documentary. You could narrate it. No. It's perfect as it is, dude. Yeah, it really illustrates. Those are the themes that come across for me that these low moments are not things to be ashamed of. They're things to be leveraged. And the way that you do that is the way that you get sober one day at a time, one foot in front of the other. What's the next right thing to do? What's the contrary action to take? And cultivating this familiarity, this relationship with discomfort as a friend rather than something to avoid.

Yeah. Choosing the uncomfortable thing to do when you know it's against your lower nature is like, if I could say that to myself over and over, I think I'd still even be a better person. If you can choose to lean into that thing that's saying you really should do this even though you don't want to. That's what I lacked for so long. And that's why I essentially hated myself and who I was gonna be was just because of this. My first thought was to always go towards what's comfortable now, even if it was the most painful choice.

That has to be the hardest thing that you've done. That distance? That race in comparison to Western states or are they all just some version of awful? They're all some version of awful. The Speed Project 340 was challenging, but it felt like all the pain was spread out over a few days instead of... Western States was challenging, really tough in its own right because it was such a short period of time and you have a thought of when I want to finish this thing. I wanted to finish in 22 hours and I finished in 24, 55, which I'm still happy about.

But it's like boiling it down to a day of movement and having a time goal in mind is to me just made the Speed Project feel a little easier in a sense. And it's all like some version of crap. What is the difference? You're a marathon guy, you've done all these marathons for a long time. You're like the guy who's always at every marathon and now you're in the trail world. How do you put to words the difference in those experiences? And then secondarily, how do you change your training to train for these kinds of races versus marathons?

I guess I've never looked at it differently, showing up and doing this. I look at it the same. Because I'm still me wherever I'm going to go. I just try to look at it the exact same and just share as I'm going along and just connect and bring the presence that I feel like maybe is lacking in the room and like that might be mine and just making sure that I'm truthful and honest in whatever answers or whatever questions I get asked. There's this idea, like a marathon is long and it's super hard, but in 240, whether it's 246 or four and a half hours or six hours, it's going to be over.

You're going to be on this trail for what is going to feel like a lifetime by comparison. To me, to be honest, once I did the Speed Project, I think I kind of started on the deep end. Yeah. I really... Your pyramid's upside down. I feel like... And then I'll be down to 50 miles. But I feel like I enjoy this low level of consistent discomfort in negotiating with yourself. Because in a marathon, it is over much quicker and it seems like to me there's just less opportunity to make a choice to stop.

During a 100 mile race or 100K, there's so many exit points. There's so many exit ramps where you could just be like, yeah, I'm done. You're negotiating with yourself for hours and hours and hours. Out of 24 hours, I probably wanted to... But I enjoy... It feels like my life. 100 miles feels like 42 years of trying to figure it out as I go along and trying to talk to myself the right way and not lean into every negative thought or thing that happens. And so when you get to a finish line, it's like you re-arrive and have shown yourself again that everything that just happened in that race and everything that's happened so far in my life all still can come together and be a success.

And I just don't feel like in marathons, there's just so much faster and it's just kind of not a blink of an eye, but it is essentially just over much... It's just over faster. In 24 hours, you're not running a marathon for 24 hours. So it feels very gratifying to do a 100 mile or run through these different races and see different scenes as you go through and views. You know what I mean? There's also the highs and lows that you experience the longer the distance.

If you're running a marathon, you're going to go and then maybe you're going to blow up and that's all she wrote. In an ultra, you can feel like it's over and then suddenly something shifts and then you feel good again. It ebbs and flows in a different kind of way. As you were sharing, I was thinking about Max Jolliffe's recent performance at Badwater, which is just absolutely insane. Let's all bow down at that performance. When you look at his stats, I don't know if you saw them, he's running 730s and then he's running 8s.

You're like, okay, when is it going to drop down to the 12 minute mile? He's at 8s consistently the entire time. I think it was, I don't know if it was mile 35, but pretty early in the race, he was like, this is not going well and he was having gut issues and he thought it was all over. Then suddenly when he gets to the hills or whatever, he has a second wind and he comes alive again. There are these kind of mini deaths and rebirths that happen along the way that you're not going to experience in a marathon and not for nothing.

It's 130 degrees out, his body temp is like, he even has his body temp metrics and it goes up to 101 degrees. He's essentially running a fever and his heart rate never goes over 138. That is a bananas performance. I texted him after that and was like, hey, congrats, bro. How are you feeling? He said, that race took everything that I had. I can't imagine. Nobody has won that race without doing some version of a run-walk method and he never walked the entire way. He only stopped to change his shoes or whatever.

That is just the next level and that's what continues to convince me that this is such a new sport. Even when we see these outrageous breakthrough performances, I think we're still at the beginning of seeing what's actually possible. The longer the distance, the bigger the delta between who's winning now and who's going to be winning, what we're going to see in five or 10 years from now. With UTMB coming up, I'm really interested to see what happens there. It just seems like since I just started watching and looking into trail even, it's just like advancements in the gains that have happened over a year's time, which is really crazy.

It's just fun to watch. These people are, including Max, these people are ridiculous people. The guy who won Western, what, he finished in sub-14 or something like that? Yeah, I mean, it's- Yeah, sub-14. Three people finished in sub-14. The pace at which people are running Western states now that are winning is just off the rails. I was out there. I know it's not like, apparently it's not the hardest. You're a 246 marathoner and it took you 24 plus hours to finish this thing. Some of the stuff that these people ran up at mile 90 something, while I was running, I'm like, this is ridiculous.

I got my friend, Ern, out there. He'd never been out there. He'd never seen it. He's like, I can't believe you're still moving. But yeah, these races are just, they're beautiful in their own right. If you are interested in these longer distances, it's a journey. Like you said, the highs and lows, the lows are long, and you have to manage your way through those. That's why I think I like it, because I spent so much of my life at this low energy, or not low energy, but low state of mind, that it's fun to be there and still have to negotiate through those, because you know it's going to change.

It's not life or death if it doesn't. You can stop if you need to, and you can DNF those. The one thing about trail that's really cool is DNF is not some big shameful thing. If you don't finish a marathon, the road scene is more like, oh dang, what happened? If you DNF 100-milers, it's like, oh, okay, well, next year. Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's just not going to happen. It just happens. But it's just been really fun, and I'm going to run marathons still. I'm actually going to be running Berlin.

I'm not going to be racing it, because I'm not fit like that, but I'll be running it, and I'm always going to be around the marathon scene, because it's still so fun. That's where my people are at, and that's where I feel like that's where I started at. I definitely want to keep pushing in the trail, and I want to see where I can go. Helping increase visibility is one thing, but then I also would love to see what me a couple years from now running 100Ks, 100-milers, I wonder what that looks like finish time-wise.

We left the training part dangling. Okay, training was cool. Big shout-out to my coach, Melissa Johnson-White. I got her before my first marathon in 2019. She's been with me all these years through all these different races, back-to-back races, TSP. She literally just ramped up the numbers and changed some of the concepts of a workout. A lot of it was much more instead of trying to hit this marathon pace for a 10-mile progression run, it's more about, okay, you're going outside, and you're going to be outside for four hours today, and just get outside and get moving.

The miles are much—obviously, the weekly miles are crazy high, but at the same time— Higher volume, lower intensity. Yeah, you're just out there. We still did workouts for turnover to make sure it's not boring, but she's done a really great job of hearing what I wanted to do, believing that I would put in the work to do it, and just giving me a plan and letting me do my thing. So, the training for it is just slower, longer, way more miles. I think for Western States, I think I was a couple weeks over 100, but a lot of just time outside.

I enjoy just not necessarily having to go be obsessive over a pace for 16 weeks of training. Similar to myself, you're influenced sort of crisscrosses recovery with running, and that means that, like me, you're also probably getting a lot of DMs from people with questions about these things. One of the things that I'm curious about that I've experienced is a fair amount of confusion that conflates these two things. In other words, the recovery is related to running in a way that misrepresents what sobriety is, like, oh, if I just start running, that's the solution to my addiction problem, versus what you and I both know, that it's anchored in working this program, and that's something that's very different and takes priority over the running.

The running is a byproduct of putting in the work in the rooms of recovery and participating in sobriety, but I would imagine that you probably get, oh, I'm struggling with this, but I've quit drinking, and now I'm running, but there's no program there. How do you respond to those people or try to be helpful for people who are either struggling with sobriety or sober curious and also running curious? It's sort of like, let's take care of the sobriety thing first, and then we can get to the running part later.

I think exactly that. I remind people that they wouldn't know who I am, or they wouldn't be DMing me if it wasn't for sobriety, period. I started running a year after, so a lot of times people like to, if you're doing a podcast or an interview or something like that, they'll try to go, oh, you're running to stay sober, and I make them change it. Or running is how you got sober. Yeah, I make them change that, because there wouldn't be any running if I didn't get sober.

I'll just try to remind people while they're trying to figure their thing out, I remind them what is most important to me, and most important to me is sobriety, because without that, I wouldn't be here. It's as simple as that. I can't necessarily, I mean, I can say check out a meeting or whatever, but at the same time, I just want to make sure that whoever's talking to me understands what I put as a priority, so that they can maybe look at that and think, okay, maybe I am using this as something that is unsustainable, because what if you get hurt?

What if you don't like running after six months or whatever? That means you're back to drinking or back to whatever. So I just say, hey, priority is the sobriety. Do that and everything else, and do that for yourself, not for anybody else. Be sober for you, and then everybody else benefits from that. And the running thing or the cycle or whatever it is, that's all second or third or whatever, but never first. It's complementary, though. It is putting the principles into action. You have to take contrary action.

You have to take things one day at a time. It's an exercise in humility, because you're never going to beat the mountain, and you're never going to beat yourself, and there's always going to be other people faster than you. And it's also an exercise in confronting yourself honestly. You can't participate in one of these races, especially the really long ones, or any race for that matter, really, and not have your denial upended, you know what I mean? Because you're going to meet yourself where you are in the truest version of yourself.

And that's an opportunity for growth, just like, how can I move towards this thing that is uncomfortable? It's going to teach me something, and failure is good because I can learn from that, and I can grow as a result of these experiences. So it's not that running is something totally detached from sobriety, and I think it's why so many people in recovery gravitate towards endurance sports, because it's almost like a spiritual practice on some level. Yeah, you just have so much time to work through these things in movement.

But if you're, some of these longer races, like you said, there's so many, you meet yourself, different versions of yourself so many different times in these races. If you want to finish and keep going, you do have to have that conversation with yourself. I mean, you're out there sometimes by yourself for hours, and you have plenty of opportunity to beat yourself up if you want, and talk crap to yourself, and or continue moving. Or change that negative internal narration. And then, but then that lasts for 20 minutes sometimes.

Like you feel like a high for 20 minutes, and you're back to that low again, because something reminds you of the thing that was bothering you before. Right. So it's therapeutic. I wasn't going to say it's therapy, but it's therapeutic in a way just to know that you are, you've signed yourself up for a task that is going to require you to dig so deep, you know, to continue at certain moments. That when you finish, it just, it feels like you, you're a different person on the other side of these races, if you allow it.

Because you could go through and kind of, you know, only look at the highs and go like, okay, I'm great. But I also, that's pointless. That's also like when people are sober, and they're only just looking at the fancy stuff that they get to tell people how many, like how long they've been sober. They are transformative experiences. Like each and every one of them is like its own hero's journey. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I'm just, I'm grateful that. Like I'm grateful that started backwards and did the TSP thing first, but I'm just like I'm so grateful to like To be out there like I when I was in at Western I plan on being done before the sun rose but like the one of the most beautiful moments of that race was after like coming to terms with like I wasn't having the day that I wanted to have around like 19 or 20 hours in That I was gonna miss this goal of the 22 hour thing I mean, maybe even the 24 hour the sub 24 Like once I like in motion, I was able to like keep moving forward But then also like grapple with that disappointment potentially and rephrase and reframe Like what life was at that second or that time?

Got to this point where the sun rose that I didn't think I was going to see and it was the most beautiful moment and like joyful moment of the race when I looked around and saw like this sun rising over the mountain and That to me is like we all thought we were going to be somewhere different or somewhere better at this point But if you stop thinking about like the future or the lack of the future that you thought you wanted And really stay like exactly where you are like be where your feet are and be in this moment It's so many beautiful things like right in front of us and we're experiencing so many things to be grateful for Even in the midst of like the most terrible or tough moments of our lives.

There's always something like right there that we can be eternally grateful for and running to me shows me that just in much more like physical sense and then I get to go home and try to figure out like how What I learned from that moment and then how can I actually like live that out in a day-to-day basis? And maybe even like impart some wisdom like I was my kids first and then maybe other people It's a very elaborate extensive gratitude practice, you know, but that opportunity to frame it uh You know having agency over how you you know decide uh, whether this was a good or a bad experience whether or not it went your way or not like another example of that is molly seidel who Olympic marathon like the elite of the elite who like is like, okay now i'm going into trail And you know, there isn't that much time or distance between when she was just like, you know, the world's best essentially Uh, and things didn't go her way at western states.

She ends up finishing around the same time you do I don't know exactly like in the same range, right? that could be chalked up as like a failure or like oh turns out like The olympic marathon like that doesn't translate on the trail but it's actually a story of triumph because Almost anybody else in her shoes would have pulled out and she's like I am finishing this thing And it was just the most kind of courageous, you know kind of statement that she could make and ends up Being this inspirational story rather than like an example of failing.

I mean to me it just shows it shows me where like Where her ego lies and her ego is is more so on the like i'm going to finish what I started Thing as opposed to like an ego of what people are going to think of of this time Because like you said if somebody in her shoes Was Pulling the plug and then just signing up for a different race, you know and just running as a professional but I saw that and like huge hats off to her because a lot of people that were elites and pros dropped out that day and No, like shame in that they made the decision that works for them, but she signed on it was like nope I'm gonna I'm finishing And who cares what everybody else thinks as long as she crossed that finish line And was proud of herself and felt like she yeah She was so it looked like a very cathartic experience for her.

Yeah, and and I I love that like that's I mean because that's more realistic to all of us. Anyway The perfect race day like happens for who you know, like very very rarely even on the marathon side You don't like strike a perfect race all the time Her having that moment and deciding to continue and push through and then share it And let it just be a thing and go on pods and talk about it That's like that's what we're doing is is living life and trying to do it to the best of our ability and In framing it or sharing it in a way that's like authentic true and like potentially inspirational.

Yeah Um, all right. Uh, I got a few uh lightning round questions for you. Okay tommy rich What are you running towards and more importantly? What are you running away from? um I'm running towards whatever's in the future It's like i'll leave it at that because I don't know what's out there um, i'm running away from The person the version of me that was scared of the future And Once an alcoholic always an alcoholic you can hide, you know in this world Uh very easily like and and and be shrouded in in praise and external validation for doing these races You know, we all have things that we avoid And we can use any device, uh to make people think that we're not avoiding them So what is the next mountain that you have to climb?

not running wise but like personal growth wise or like like spiritually or like in terms of You know your psychological well-being Because the work is never done, right? We know this Um for Just like my own personal like internal work It's more for me. It's about like For me, it's about like loving myself, you know enough to um Align like my actual decisions on a day-to-day basis and or even like some of the things that I am aiming for or want to do or share with the world or Like all of those things Are based in like how much will I allow myself to like be proud and love myself?

you know and because some of this stuff whether I want to like sit here and be cool or not is based in Validation in a sense, you know, like I would run these races. I think without people saying is cool. But at the same time That's also part of the thing that's like feeding like My will to do more and Somewhere under there Is this is like? Is this kid that's like? Not good enough um And I just want to make sure that like as i'm growing that i'm actually like checking That version of me and bringing that like up to speed to like Not just preach a story that's inspirational, but like Live a life that like that i'm actually proud of That if everything went away, like i'd still be really cool with it and I would still keep going forward Beautiful, man.

I love that answer All right. The rest of these are Ones that was that was a heavy one. That wasn't really a speed round question. I said, yeah. Okay. Thanks. I lied you What is the appropriate reaction when you wave at a fellow runner and they don't wave back The appropriate reaction of you passing a runner unless you're like in central park where there's like a thousand people running You wave back you wave or wave back or a nod or something like acknowledge each other. It's just human It's a thing, you know If you see me and I wave at you and we've made eye contact and I saw that you saw me wave and you don't wave I think that's just that's just that's just rude on what's just punishment for the person straight to jail So yeah, all right.

Yeah pr project we do we're talking truth here in culture. Um Are there too many run clubs that we maxed out on run clubs? No, I don't say that. I don't think we've messed on run clubs. I feel like maybe um, maybe we've maxed out on some of the same type of run clubs, but I think that if you're if you're into like zelda and you got a zelda run club great if you're a trail Guy or girl or whatever you want to run do a trail run club do it.

I think that um, we can't like police or People gathering for whatever reason they want to gather Training with carbon plated shoes. Hell. Yeah, or Super cringe. Hell. Yeah. Okay. Why? Why not? It's more fun. You run faster, you know, or just like I mean they're built for fast and speed But they're also built in a way that like saves your legs I mean, it may not be super healthy to always run in them. I'm not sure i'm not a scientist I've heard people talk about it different ways but I think that like some of the long runs that I have it's like i'll bring out some super shoes and Carbon plated shoes and figure out how to get through this run and have a good day and put the miles in And I see nothing wrong with it I was in new york, uh a little while back on did this podcast with chris chavez and malcolm gladwell And before we started taping malcolm was just talking.

He's like I love I love training and carbon plated Shoes because like also when you're older like, you know, you recover faster. Yeah All right. Good. You're on the record on that. Okay. Um What is a real runner? Somebody that runs if you run to me if you run once a month a week, whatever you're a runner if you can if you Have a practice Your movement practice is running no matter how often you do it or how fast or slow you do it. You're a runner Related question also related to the run club question what do you make of the Fashion explosion in running right now because i'm of two minds When it comes to this like I think it's cool Like i'm like excited about like some like flair coming into the scene.

Yeah and some interesting, you know brands that are Trying to do things a little bit differently um, it just makes it feel like more vibrant and fun, but it also could be Something that a new, you know, quote-unquote real runner might find intimidating Like it's a price of entry Like if I don't if I show up to my run club and I don't have the right socks or you know My kid is like, you know, not not quite there Like I don't feel like I feel insecure rather than like putting out a welcome mat where everybody feels comfortable showing up It's to be honest.

I don't think i've thought about it like that. Um that's interesting and I feel like that's Obviously happening somewhere but I think it's All good. Um, I feel like that's a person thing, you know, if you pull up to a run club and they've created a atmosphere of of like Being a super welcome and making sure people feel like they belong there. I don't think it really matters what you have on um, but if you've allowed yourself to be like more high school and you've there's clicks in that thing and they make people Inadvertently feel uncomfortable all the run clubs.

It can be that kind of like high school click It's sort of so I think there's a hierarchy and all that and that's just that just Relied that's that the weight is on the shoulders of the run club leaders, you know And and a lot of them know that and they work hard to make sure that that doesn't happen. Um, As often as it probably could if there wasn't somebody like kind of policing that energy and that's just like that's what I would just like never start a run club like Like I don't want to be responsible for all these different things Um, and probably if I started a run club, nobody would pull up anyway, but yeah, it it seems like it's starting to come look more like What cycling has always been like cycling?

Like I remember the first time I wanted to buy a bike and I went into a bike shop. Like I was so intimidated You know, it's like it's scary and it's sort of like if you don't really know You know, like you don't feel like you can even ask a question and there's these group rides and you know, there's a certain sock height and like You got it. There are all kinds of like unwritten rules. And yeah, are your are your Are your shades on the inside or the outside of which one is right the outside outside?

Okay. Okay Um, yeah, and it it's ridiculous, right? And I can see like running moving in that direction with all these clubs and that concerns me a little bit So while also appreciating that like you're taking your kit seriously in your presentation and there's a fashion thing to it And that makes it fun and interesting albeit An expensive hobby. I think that partially like the the coolness factor of it and like these new things I think that's also why we're seeing such a boom because it does look cool.

And I think for certain communities Look a cool factor is an invitation You know, like when I first started running I went into a store and they were I was asking for the right shoes And they handed me two pairs of shoes that I thought were just horrendous and i'm like All right, dang This is a real i'm like, oh man I left my wallet in the car because i'm too embarrassed to say that I didn't like them So I just walked out the store and this didn't go back into the store and I like ordered some shoes online I thought looked better And I think that like some of the the the the vibe for sure if you can make something look cool People will want to want to like come to it sometimes and yeah, that's an intrigue too Like oh I can I can run for my health wear that super lame stuff that everyone else is wearing I can wear this Yeah, like if I can get a fit off at the at the run club And i'm also healthy and meeting people that are doing the same thing That's kind of cool.

You know, like that's like not just cool but like that's fun and that's like that's positive so I think it's just really just someone needs to police or watch like that that That thing that could make people not want to be there and if and if that happens That's also why there's other run clubs like you come to a run club and you're like this is really fun and great But there's like 10 of us that just don't feel like this is our thing Then that's why you people have started other run clubs like down the street Two more this one is also related to the question of what is a real runner Are you following wiz khalifa's running journey Because this is the best thing to happen to running in a long time Like I am so in love like with what that guy is doing right now and the way that he's sharing it on social media I think it's fantastic.

Yeah, that's he's he's that's the next guest it has to be i'm trying you guys So, yeah, yes that is you've done it like so whenever i'm 10 times in a row now Yeah, whatever i'm talking he's he's like i'm in his groove with this i've been there bro I've seen the movie twice me too um I think i'm gonna try i'm gonna go for three nine hours of my life is a good investment I think you should just like this is my thing. I just always use this I always use this score every time i really make every time like all the videos that you mentioned like are the ones that like i'm talking, you know, I don't normally talk directly to the camera as much as like i might I've used to i've always just been like running and using like just different music, but I feel like it's a funny like score to like me talking about something silly like growing a mustache or like Do people want to see my toes and you have this like epic, you know?

Yeah So it's like I think i'm gonna i'll make i'll make a video and i'm gonna i'm gonna tag you I'll be talking about you know, the fact that like I just sat down with you, you know, I use the Is that cool? Yeah, as long as I can like post a meme in response, please. All right, I'll allow that All right, cool. This is great, man Super fun. I think we covered a lot. Wow. We've been going a long time You're amazing. I'm I've got nothing but love for the journey that you're on and I'm always behind your back Spit and wind in your sales my friend.

I appreciate that. You're a beautiful representation of Being a real runner and I think the mission you're on is is is beautiful as well in auditory So thanks for sharing with me today. Thank you. If people want to connect with you Instagram, obviously you got your podcast Where do you want to point people? Instagram Tommy runs on Instagram I'm sure tag it but T O M M I e underscore r-u-n-z on Instagram and Then a big thing that like we're pushing a lot. You'll see there as well as PR project.

That's me Gary and Aaron We sit down every other week and talk about all the things running and then we do some fun stuff but that's super important to me because it's like it's an extension of me and but it's it's my friends and we We represent different cultures that aren't normally seen that like podcast world and communicating for and about brands and about running culture So that's super important right now. I think those are the two places to find it. I've got a couple Short and longer documentaries on on on YouTube check those out and and hit me up if you want a shirt, too Cuz that's a statement that I want to continue to make and hopefully it turns into a movement that means something You can buy that on your website website Tommy runs calm yeah, and I appreciate this opportunity to be to sit here with you and talk and and do it in a way that like That just feels like the timing is right for it and I can't wait to see what's next so just ask everybody to kind of tap in and as I announce things if you Rock with me or you're you're liking where I'm going support in some way right on man.

Excellent Have a great time at UTMB. I will all right, dude till next time. Peace Place you say it still sweet. No That just feels like the timing is right for it and I can't wait to see what's next It just feels like the timing is right for it and I will I will Talk to you next time you