Behind the Lens and Beyond the Finish Line with Alex Wagner

Now some of you are probably thinking what's the big deal ? You have had 100 mile runners on your show . What is the big deal about a marathon ? Well , it is a big deal when the idea behind the run is a way for you to set goals for yourself and know you can accomplish anything .

We all have those moments where we feel things are too hard to overcome and sometimes all it takes is that goal . In this case , for Alex , completing a marathon has given him the confidence he needs to move forward . Welcome to Journey with Jake .

This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way . While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you . Each episode will feature a different guest or guest , as they share experiences and stories from the different adventures they have been on .

Not only will you be entertained , but you will also hear the failures and trials each guest faces and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way . My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you will be entertained and inspired to overcome your day to day challenges .

After all , it's not a lot about the destination as it is about the journey . Welcome back to another episode of Journey with Jake . My name is Jake Bushman and I am your host for another inspiring episode . We are on episode 94 . Wow , 94 . We are getting closer and closer to episode 100 . I'm really excited about that .

Part of what makes doing Journey with Jake so amazing for me is you , the listener . I cannot do it without all of your support . The best way to support me is by listening to the show and also sharing Journey with Jake with all your family and friends . I really appreciate that and that would mean a lot to me .

I am excited for everyone to hear about Alex's Journey . Alex is a filmmaker . He is someone great to follow on social media . You can check him out on Instagram at AlexRWagner . That's where I found Alex On his most recent post , just after he completed his marathon . Alex said you have to love yourself . It's the best connection to the Journey of Life .

I do love myself now and never turning back . I was in a deep , dark and very angry place before this Journey . The marathon has shown me anyone can turn their life around if they just focus and believe in themselves . Let's go ahead and get to my conversation with Alex . Well , hey , I'm excited today because I have Alex Wagner on the show with me today .

Alex , welcome to Journey with Jake .

I saw you post about running in a half marathon in Orlando and I just loved what you were all about and overcoming trials and moving forward . So I thought let me look into this guy a little bit more .

And then I found out all kinds of cool things about you and so I'm like excited to talk to you about it Before we dive in all that little background on who you are , where you're from and all that good stuff , if you don't mind .

The only people that I knew that I was graduating with that were going to New York were fashion people . Actually , they were like semi into video , but they're more into like the fashion world and stuff .

And then I just went for a weekend to see a friend and then I just ended up getting on a show and then was opened to this whole world inside of New York where there was tons of TV shows and operations and I'm like , oh wow , you know , new York has everything .

my eye to how small my world was before I went into the cities .

And of course then I watched both of those things and made sure I could get into that late night cable and I just I always loved the that these guys were just like kind of sending a video and it wasn't necessarily that they were doing stunts or anything , it was just that it was so independent and that it was just kind of like on their own .

And so me and a few of my friends in fifth grade we actually took out my mom's old camera that was like huge camera and there's there's I think it's online now , but it's about a 20 minute little short film that we did .

Where we were , we were pseudo acting like we were members of Jackass , running around and you know , tripping over this , the one inch plywood of sidewalk and being like , oh no , just small , funny things like that .

So I started with that and then in high school I did my very first short film , called the blackout files , as a senior in high school for an English thesis project .

That was when I noticed that I loved collaborating and that I was kind of good at this and so , like we got to do a screening it was me and then there's another filmmaker and there's two big projects at the end of the year and so they made this whole like screening event where we got to go into the auditorium during lunch periods and everybody in the school

got to watch the films , and that was exciting . And then for the next year and a half I just spent on the festival circuit with that horror movie as well . Also was starting a business , before I even went into college , of just doing viral sports clips . So I had a clip on ESPN for my high school go viral .

They used to do like a ESPN top five like send in thing every like Friday . I think it was like Friday at two or three PM on Sports Center and I had one of the one of my videos went number one on that and so then it got like almost a million views and it was on the front page of Yahoo and stuff and so I started doing that for a while .

But then , of course , obviously , as I got into college , I was like I kind of like telling stories more than filming other people doing things , but I still have a passion for sports , well in Chicago , great town for sports . Right , exactly it's . Yeah , it's ingrained in us .

It's kind of interesting because it's semi like running or like training for this marathon really , where it's like at first , a year and a half ago I was , I was running , you know , just a mile , maybe a day Because of the pandemic and stuff , and just like get healthy , stay healthy .

But then , like now , it's like if I don't run a 5K , I'm oh , okay , well , that's , that's not really a night , that's not , that's not even a training day now . And so it's same kind of thing with filmmaking , where it was . At first you're like , oh no , all these things are so overwhelming .

I'm trying to put together this horror film but we only have 100 bucks and it's a bunch of my friends from high school and finding high schoolers and time during like graduation for them to actually be interested in shooting or knowing what they need to do . So it's hardly with that .

But then you do like I did my first short film in college and you start to realize you're like , oh okay , like , if I do these certain things , or I make it fun in this way , or by a potato chips on set , or whatever it may be , you start to slowly be able to like rain those things in , and then everything just becomes more natural .

So there's a comparison there between like running and filmmaking , where it's just you get better at it as you see that it was easier to do .

When did you make this ?

I had seen that that movie had been filmed over 12 years and I'm like oh that's . you know , if I do it once a month , that's easy .

I could make the film really cheap and easy and simple with my friends , and so then I kind of came up with the concept of I was like all right , well , if I'm the main character and I lose weight , then it doesn't really matter what the story ends up becoming , because at least you'll be able to see that You'll see the kind of transition , the same kind of

thing you see in that movie boyhood , where you see this like kid grow up . It doesn't matter what the story is in between , it's just fascinating to be able to watch something a minute , hour and a half later . They're all grown up . So I was like very inspired by that to just be like all right , I'm way overweight in college .

How do I lose weight post college ? All right , I'll force myself to , because every month I have to drop a little bit of weight . Or when I show up on set with these people , they're going to be like what kind of movie are we making ? It's kind of like a little bit of pressure there .

But yeah , but I recently started to promote it because when it finished filming in 2016 , november 2016, . The last scene of the movie was the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series . From there we had optioned it off to a few different distribution companies , but nothing in the United States .

So we weren't able to get one in the United States and kind of held out hope . And then after a while it just kind of didn't happen . And then , running this marathon , I was like wow , this is the only film I ever made and I lost so much weight and did so much with it . Like how have I not shown everybody this ?

And so it's been kind of crazy seeing how many people have joined that journey or watched that podcast and seen what that movie is and kind of connected with it so many years later .

And I know in the movie , you know , it goes like each month you see each month kind of pop up on the screen like okay , now it's October , now it's November , now it's December and there's Christmas stuff , and then it's a new year and and all this . So you went in with the idea like , hey , this is gonna force me to lose weight . What was your ?

Do you remember what your starting weight was when you started this ?

Yeah and he peaks over , he's like , oh , that's bad , and we kind of built this whole thing around it . But when I was staying on that scale , I was 289 pounds , so I was almost 300 at that point . Wow a little bit away and I felt really skinny , but I had a lot , of , a lot of way to go and you went down to what ?

But and and that scene actually takes place in New York , the Blackhawks scene , the last scene in Chicago . I think my end weight was 185 , 180 , so I was , I was down there .

I'm a little bit heavier now that I was at the end of that , but I think I think I was very inspired those last two or three months to just continue to Give as much as I could , because I knew that that was gonna be the last scene , that I wanted to look as skinny as possible .

I forgot what the name of the book was , but it was basically on sugar and it was saying how the whole world is kind of revolved around sugar and it started to explain these things that were like the reason that you think that you need to take fat away Is because of the sugar lobby , and it like became this like conspiratorial thing to me where I was like ,

wait a minute , it's all sugar's fault . Oh my god , knowing that and then doing a little bit more research outside of that book , I was like , wow , actually sugar will take off a lot of this way .

And so I actually set a Reese's king-size candy bar in the middle of my bedroom at the beginning of shooting and I told myself that's the only piece of chocolate or candy or anything Additive sugar besides , like fruit directly , that I'm not , that I'm allowed to eat .

I'm only allowed to eat that in May when the movie's done , and other than that I can do whatever I can work out . I could do it ever , like , but I shouldn't have a problem as long as I don't ever eat that candy bar and then I never did Wow , so it's kind of just taking sugar away .

It was very painful process of just getting completely off of sugar and the addiction to sugar . So yeah , and felt much better afterwards .

That one nice additive as well is that like because I was on screen so much , you really got to see like the drop in weight on my face and like the hydration and just like an overall person Just getting healthier , because it went from cupcakes to just nothing .

Just , even recently I feel a lot more active because I'm training for this marathon and everything I'm like , oh , I can act as well or I can put myself in stuff again , and it overcomplicates it for me because I like sitting behind and I like picking a person apart , the aspects of being able to find the best moment for themselves , or how genuine it can be .

That's something I noticed that I did even when I was an adolescence . I would watch a TV show and be like this is so Bob Ross fake . Then you watch a movie or a Martin Scorsese movie or a big film or something at a time like Goodfellas or something like that . You're like these people that's real .

Then it's probably the most fun I have on set Besides just laughing and just improving and figuring things out when it's comedy is being able to have a scene call cut and then just examine it and be like right , how do we make this so that it's even more authentic ? And just trying to find authenticity .

So when the 312 was filming in May of that year when we are , yeah , may , and then coming into June , when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup , when we were finishing the film , there was still supposed to be a little bit of a narrative that wrapped up with our side characters Like we had David Drake and Rachel Shapiro and a few others .

Like there's a blonde girl , shayna Benning . She was at the beginning of the movie and then we saw her in the middle of it and there's supposed to be a scene at the end with her .

But I got on that plane to New York and so I ended up working 12 hour days and was on a TV show , and so I kind of felt like this transition needs to happen , especially post college . I was just like , all right , this is what I wanted with my life was to work on film , and so I kind of have to accept that .

And so I had to finangle a little bit with my co-director , phil White , to go back to Chicago , shoot that last scene with the Stanley Cup , and then the next year , when the Cups won the World Series , we were like they might actually do it .

What was funny about that whole process was that I was actually I went to Chicago and was flying home , I believe , just because , like , I was just visiting or I had a job or interview and we remember why . But I was flying home from Chicago when they won the pennant to like to actually get into the World Series .

We got off the plane and there was like banners everywhere and they're like congratulations , chicago , you did it . Finally , a hundred years later , like everybody at the airport was like clapping for us , just like normal folks getting off a plane at LaGuardia . But we got our own little cheer .

And then I remember I was on the phone with Phil right then and I'm like all right , so what are you getting ? Your plane ticket , because you need to get here this week so we can shoot this last scene . We wrapped that whole film up . I then nosedived deep into just like working in production again 12 hour days , so 60 hour weeks .

I started to do a sketch comedy TV series called the Egos , which I would just shoot on Saturdays , and that's still going now .

We're on our ninth season right now , but we did six seasons in Central Park in New York and so basically for the next three to four years I was doing that , built a relationship , got engaged , came down here to Florida and then that relationship kind of fell apart , as well as the company itself and just all of that mess , and so I was kind of left out in

the wind being like all right , well , what do I do ? Now ? I'm a filmmaker living in Florida . It's post pandemic . Everybody in the industry is saying like it doesn't matter where you live , just do whatever you can be anywhere . Now Everybody works remotely . And so I just had to like kind of refocus .

I heard and I know it's kind of cliche , you probably you might have heard this a lot , but I heard a quote from David Goggins , and so then he said like the only way to have a belief in yourself is to have self-discipline . And so I was like all right , well , I got to find self-discipline . And so I told myself I think it was 102 days .

And I was like all right , well , if I announce it right now , then I have 100 days .

And if I treat it like the 312 or I pressure myself by just unloading on social media and being like I'm doing this every day , it's a countdown , like we're going to actually do a marathon Then when I get into these days , like 10 days , tell I can't back out , I can't do it now , like I actually have to follow through because there's too many people that

have been following or clapping along or seeing things going on or running themselves . What am I going to do ? I'm going to just delete the profile and be like , nah , I don't want to do it anymore . Just kidding , I'm going to put myself in the position where I have to finish this marathon and I think that once I do , I'll really have like a full reset .

The whole experience of the last 100 days has been amazing because it's given me so much clarity every day that I am frustrated or that I'm like all right , do I ? Do I just do podcasts ? Do I just do reels ? Do I work in marketing ? Do I do my own thing ? Do I go to another show , like I was on before ? Do I go to LA or Austin or New York ?

And every time I have all that in my head . It just comes overwhelming and I just start to kind of have this deep anxiety . And for a lot of people they'll relieve that with either food or drugs or whatever .

But being able to have the run is awesome because I'm like , all right , I'm just going to go over a run and then , if I feel this way afterwards , then I'll figure it out and then I run and then I'm like , all right , now I'm good , and then I'm like , you know , back to reset , back to normal .

So and then I kind of find through those runs all of the issues that I was dealing with Talk about some of those , some of those issues a little bit .

And we came down to Florida because there was all of this controversy over Florida's just letting everybody go and we need to do all of these things here . And so we were like , well , I don't know what's real , what's not , what we do , what we don't Like . Everybody kind of falls in the middle . Let's fall in the middle , let's go see what's out there .

And so we went to go visit our parents . We filmed all the different

theme parks during COVID and stuff . Like we still had to wear masks , there were still protocols . It was just that things were open . You just felt more alive , a little bit more presence and stuff . And we went down to Key West and all that . We came back to New York at the top of January and they had reclosed the restaurants and stuff .

And it was just this sort of emotional bipolarness to us , especially in the heat of winter in New York , like , if you know New York or Chicago or Midwest or Eastern winners , they can already be depressing , and so just having all these kind of things stifle us , we're like , all right , let's just go back down there and we'll figure it out later .

Got down here and spent a year just kind of trying to rebuild the company or rebuild what we were doing , and just kind of fell apart .

Yeah , we had to walk about two miles outside to a thing called the Green Zone to eat and in retrospect it was kind of funny because we were going in an indoor tent to eat , but we didn't know at the time . So I was walking two miles out , just go right back in the same thing , got through all of that , got through that show .

It was extremely fun , super amazing to work with Andy Fickman . I was his assistant . He's a director . He did Paul Malkop too . He did she's the man a bunch of different things on Broadway as well .

I was doing all of that and then got on unemployment , and the unemployment system was like there was a lot of bonuses at the time , things like that , because it was just it was really hard for anybody to work , so there was a lot of just like sit and figure it out kind of time for me .

She was working from home at the time , so for her , she was just kind of still in the same group and I was in this world of like , what's next ? Well , how do I figure out what's next ? Just trying to explore a thousand different avenues of it .

I mean , I still haven't totally figured it out , but I've definitely figured out enough to like be able to know that I want to stay independent and make independent projects , and I think that Florida , florida , texas , chicago are great places to do so . There's like Atlanta is great as well . So is Miami .

It's just it's really hard in New York and LA to get yourself out of the political zones that happen . When all of this kind of went down and I was transitioning back into my own single life , I wanted to go back to New York Immediately . The political conversation switched from like we were in the heat of BLM protests and stuff .

So we were like we're going to all those , going to all the COVID stuff , like that whole summer of 2020 .

And then , when I was getting ready to go back this year , there was all this Middle Eastern Palestine conflict , all this stuff going on and I was just like I can't , my brain can't , make creative decisions in that environment where now every and that was the thing that I was noticing , even with , like the egos or things that I was making , is everything was a

political commentary . Even the Christmas in Florida it was .

It was like it was our opinion on like what everybody else was telling us to do , and so I just wanted to be done with that and be able to like re-center and refocus on myself , and so I was just like anywhere but the coast , because the coasts you just kind of all have the same conversation and at the end of the day it doesn't really help anybody .

You just all kind of fight amongst yourselves and you lose friends and gain friends , and then the next conflict you gain the friends back again and it's just really hard to mentally facilitate .

So it's great to be able to have that self-motivation there . When I first started I wanted to get a trainer and just kind of go through it , but then I kind of felt like it was a hack or a cheat to me , because half of my process here was mental .

It was the mental strife of having to do it , and so I kind of just wanted to have to go through that on my own . It's been great having those run clubs as balance , because there's definitely been times where it's like Friday , saturday , sunday do I run ? I don't know .

But then when Monday rolls around , it's like all right , well , I have to go on Monday night . And then you look at the schedule and you're like , all right , ok , I should run an hour , I should run this or I should do whatever the training is saying I should do .

Besides that , I just I use the Nike Run Club app and they have a 26 week program or I think it's like a 12 week program and a 26 week program or something like that .

But basically I just follow that every day and just kind of pick the ones that were working and just kept working them down , because I really like that , because there was a lot of different other plans and schedules out there , but they tend to be too simple for me and I kind of like that .

It was all random or all over the place with the Nike one , where some weeks you were operating based on how long you were running and some days you were based on how , like the time that you ran , and so it was like , all right , you're going to run 30 minutes .

Then , like the next week , it would be like all right , now you're going to run four miles and then eight miles .

And so it was interesting to always open that up and there's a little bit of excitement to be like , oh OK , well , my price today is oh great , 10 mile run , or like , oh good , I only have a 25 minute easier , whatever it is , but it was so just all over the place versus the other schedules that were run on Mondays a 5 K run , on Wednesday a 15 K .

Make sure that every three weeks you're doing like a 10 mile run . It felt too too much of a pattern to me . I just kind of wanted it to be like all over the place but constantly running , and it's worked out so far .

I can't back out because everyone's going to know , and so that was held me accountable , Just like you're doing . You know , you're putting it out there , you know and you're . As we record this now it's coming up in what ? 10 days ? I don't know how far away is it ?

All the sudden he'll pop in and be like , hey , just do a systems check , let's see . You know just little things because a lot of my runs are on my own . I can relate , relate to that .

When you did made this decision , you said there's an excitement that you have like what's tall talk about this journey You're coming up now I mean I know you did a half along the way Like what's kind of part of the excitement that you feel and maybe some experiences that you've had as you've prepared for this ?

reasons , just to be like , oh , wow , I'm gonna actually do this . Oh man , you know I'll be able to check it off , it's . It's something that I can say I did . That was very exciting , I'm gonna , I'm gonna finish this marathon , I'm gonna . And then , like , probably 10 days into doing it , I was like , oh no , what did I sign myself up for ?

And I kind of felt that way All the way through , even through the half marathon , really , because the day of my half marathon oh , you see , half marathon in downtown Orlando it was the top of December and the whole week leading up to it , over Thanksgiving , it was 50 degrees , and so you're training , you're getting that .

And then the day of the race , I wake up it's 5 , 30 in the morning . I've come outside , there's son hasn't even risen yet and I just a lot of humidity . By the time the race started it , I think 7 am , it was 81 degrees or about 80 degrees and it was crazy humidity .

And then the Sun came out and then it was beaten down on us and so it was intense . There's these people when you run a half marathon or a marathon , for a lot of a lot of them .

They'll have Pacers , which are people that they kind of pay to that work with with the marathon or with the race , and they'll hold the sign that kind of tells you if you stay with them , then you're gonna finish the race at that time .

And so for this half marathon I was like , all right , well , for the full marathon I want to be under four hours , so I'm gonna get two hour run , I'm gonna finish this in under two hours and I'm gonna stay with them .

I stayed with them for maybe 15 minutes and then I fell back and fell back hard and then , you know , probably mile eight or nine I stopped for a minute , was walking and it was intense and hard .

And then I saw the three mile pacer , which was a on-off pace , where basically every minute they would jog , then they would stop , they would walk for 30 seconds .

Because then I like got the whole conversation and and met a few people that that are gonna be at celebration as well through that Finish the race I think three , ten or something like that was was my half mile half marathon time and Was completely discouraged , did not feel excited or felt extremely overwhelming from that point moving forward All the way through the

new year , really , you know , transitioning from being in the relationship , being in in that dynamic with the company , with the app , with everything , and then that year ending and then that year ending with me not meeting my goal Of being able to get this half marathon . It was hard to like revert .

But then I had to just keep telling myself that that was the halfway point . If that's the halfway point , like that's only 50% you , once you get to the hundred percent and you're on the day of the marathon , then you can worry about , like whether you're gonna finish it or not , like who cares of you if you and I kept telling myself I didn't finish ?

And I actually had people at run clubs . They were like , well , I had friends that dequeued . I had friends that just walked back to their car . I had people that were like , forget that day .

Okay , I guess I didn't quit , but , like , I feel like Such a such a slow time to me , it was probably the last two to three weeks top of January through about now that I started running and getting 10 miles in 12 miles , in 15 mile run , not stopping at all and stuff , and being okay , I can do this , I can do this , and now I'm like I'm excited

because I'm just like , all right , I can push through , I can make it happen . I am a little bit nervous because I'm seeing the weather and I'm seeing that it's supposed to heat up again , that , but hopefully it stays a little bit cool .

For me , it's been exciting the last two weeks , just starting to see myself like basically , though , the only way that you can gain the confidence is just once you've finished it . Until then , it's extremely overwhelming , and so it was like I put all this pressure on myself and I told myself I would do it and showed everybody that I do it .

But I didn't feel like I could do it until I actually really started to see that like okay , I ran 15 miles , I didn't stop , I can do this .

One of the things you said after that you ran that half marathon and you talked about Just kind of overcoming things and challenges . And talk a little bit about that , because that's where I got inspired , watching your videos , you know , and even though you ran in with the three-hour Pacers or whatever you know , you still did it and I think that's awesome .

So tell me a little bit about that and kind of overcoming things .

So it's just like anybody that's in my personal life whatsoever is definitely seeing that , and so I've done that every day that I've ever trained , and so I was like how am I gonna do this one ? Everybody's gonna know that I'm a fool , that I Took me this long to run this thing ,

that like I'm falling apart , like I . You know I had ice packs on me afterwards . They were like are you okay ? I just felt like there's , there's no way up from this . But then I had a . I had two friends of mine text me and they were like Congratulations you , you finished the half marathon . I can't wait to see . And I was like , oh , I guess .

And that was just the slow draw towards like the realization of what I really did , which was like , alright , I did complete a half marathon . There's still a lot of people that are watching this not only watching this , but also just in the world that haven't done that .

And Then I had to kind of fall back to my own memory , where I was when the pandemic hit . I would want run one mile a day and I would feel awful Every day and be like , why am I doing this ?

And I and I remember that I actually had started doing that because I had watched the Fauci documentary on Disney and he said that part of his routine since the 80s Was to always run a mile a day and he was a healthy , like 88 year old guy . So I was like , alright , well , that's how you do it , just run one mile a day .

And that was really hard to do . Then you , then I start to pull back and I'm like , okay , well then , what about this year ? Like , what did you do this year , alex ? And you're like , oh , in April you ran your first 5k ever in April .

And it's like , okay , and then in May you actually jogged all the way through a 5k and then you felt confident enough Towards the end of May , top of June , to actually post what your time was for 5k . And then you're like , okay , well , I did all of those things .

The the thing that I'm discouraged about today on this half marathon is Something that I'll look back on , the same way that I look back on all those things on running a mile , I'm running a 5k on , etc . And that's even how I feel . Yesterday like I PR , so I did my fastest time ever out of 5k and so I'm like , yeah , so I'm always improving .

And so if you're always improving , and that's what's awesome about running really is that it's just no matter how much competition you want , it's not a team sport , so there isn't really that sense of I beat them , but there's also not that sense of they beat me , and so you kind of have to like reprogram yourself to be like I have to beat myself , and if

you can't beat yourself , then you can feel discouraged . But once you do beat yourself , you feel like you just won the championship and you feel that way every single time , and so it's it's incredible Individual sport Psychologically .

Because of that because I love being in a championship game when I was in high school or even when I like filmed sports like Such an exciting feeling to be like , oh man , we might win it all .

And then , when you do , you like yeah , but to be able to do that any day of the week by just being like alright , today I'm gonna run the fastest I've ever ran , and then just Pushing as hard as you can , and then once you do it , you're like wow , and you feel like a champion . You feel like it was a championship game almost every time , and so it's .

It's much , much more fun .

But to other people they're like alright , I don't know the difference between two and 10 , anything past one is . And I'm like , oh , I remember , trust me , 10 miles , amazing .

And then I have Other people , like , just recently , zach Frisch , who just goes up and runs the trails in the mountains and signed up for a few races but hasn't got into it . It's amazing for all of us and I love it and I think it's adventurous . I mean , the things you're seeing , the people you're with what , what's the adventure

of it for you ?

But when I was running the half marathon and I'm jogging through the streets of Orlando and I'm seeing the beautiful scenery around me and everything and just Every corner , people cheering or like all the setup , just all the camaraderie of like a race day and stuff Damn , this is really fun , this is awesome , it's really cool to experience .

And then since then , almost all of my runs , I'm like looking up , looking around , being like , oh , where am I , oh , where can I run , you can pick different places to run .

It actually sent me back to this place when I was maybe 8 or 10 years old , like elementary school , and my parents one summer they got really recreational and they decided to buy these mountain bikes with like attachments , like my brother , I think , who is three at the time .

He had to be in like the car seat for the bike , but we would , we would ride these trails . And it brought me back to that because it reminded me of that summer where I was like so excited as a kid to ride my bike and be like when is the end of this trail ?

I need to see the end of it and then come back and I remember my parents all the time being like we're not going to the end of the Because then you have to go back . So it's just like always like trying to get him to go as far as I could go so I could see as much as I could see .

And now I feel the same way , like everywhere that I run , where I'm like I see why people travel the world and do this . It's not just exercise , it's it's a way to like kind of experience nature , experience life , just everything and be ingrained in all that all at the same time what is the future look like for you ?

I spent my Six , seven years inside the film industry as an assistant . I've , you know , done the thirty , forty thousand dollar feature myself , with a few extra bucks and stuff from finance years , and I think now I just see that I know how to control the elements .

And I noticed that through my own running , where I'm like if I can run a marathon , then I can produce a feature and why not ?

I've done this before , I'll do it again and to just constantly have fun with it , to also share that experience with people because I think that that's something I noticed with the running is that I was trying to just share where I was so that I could get pressure back to do what I needed to do .

But in doing that it was like , oh wow , like people are paying attention , are encouraged by me . I thought they wouldn't be , because I'm like there's enough content out there Of people like running hundreds of miles every day and they inspire me . So like I'm not inspiring anybody , this is just my little personal thing .

But then seeing the people were connecting with that it made me realize that I can do that in relating to film now for a lot of people as well . Why not tell people about your , your little feature film that you did seven years ago ? Why not talk about that moment on set where it was fun ?

There's no difference in this experience and a movie stars experience and sharing how their film came together . And I've seen a lot of different fans come forward , different people come forward from through into and be like , wow , I want to lose weight now . Oh , wow , this , this .

Oh , I didn't realize that you can make a movie like about the things going on as they went on and I just I never thought to share those experiences . I always was like , ok , how do I talk about whatever is pop culture right now , whatever is going on in the heat of the moment , so I can get the most views , get the most notoriety or whatever ?

And I'm like no , the niches is just making movies and then just sharing the process with everybody else because that's more interesting and something that I kind of hold on to that's near and dear to me , versus other people .

Also , you can , you know , check me on social media as well , but basically everything is there if you just Google my name .

I know by the time this comes out , you'll have already done your half marathon or your half marathon , your full marathon You're right , your full marathon . So it'll be fun to kind of see where you're at with that and kind of keep in touch with as far as that goes . So Thank you so much for coming on journey with Jake .

Fantastic , and also just his journey of being in filmmaking , just this journey of life that we all go on together , the adventure of it . I appreciate having Alex on . Check him out on Instagram at Alex R Wagner . He is a great follow , a lot of fun . He's entertaining . You'll really Enjoy it .

Thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in and listening to journey with Jake each and every week . It means a lot to me . I would love for you to be part of the journey with Jake community . Follow me on Instagram at journey with Jake podcast . You get to see my guests a little bit .

Here for me as well , I like to post a lot of stories and things about what's happening in my life . So check it out . You'll get to know me , but also get to know my guests a little bit better , see what they look like , see their faces , kind of see some pictures of things . It's a lot of fun , so check me out on Instagram at journey with Jake .

Just remember , it's not always about the destination as it is about the journey . Take care everybody .