My Ultrarunner Hero - John Kelly

Up until the very first year that you finished it in twenty seventeen. Yep, and it started in the mid eighties.

Yeah, eighty six.

Eighty six.

Okay, how many people had finished it by by your first year of running it?

Fourteen had finished.

Fourteen humans had ever finished this race.

Tashha Tosh Show, Tosh Show Show, Happy, Happy Tuesday. It's your buddy, Daniel Tosh. Welcome to another episode of Tosh Show. Who I am relieved?

Why are you relieved?

Eddie? I done? Goofed?

I done, Goofed. I'm worried they're gonna back trace me.

Now.

I consider myself to be a top ten parent. True or false doesn't matter in my head. I'm a top ten parent. But what I did to my daughter the other day, if someone were to say, hey, we we have to take your child away from you for a week just so you understand how bad what you did was, I would be like that seems fair?

Wow?

Yeah, you ready for this?

Yeah, let's hear it.

Okay.

Every day of my son's life I walk them to school, but I walk him with his sister. His sister's year and a half a little bit older. We get there, we do a routine. We go to his class, puts his book back away. We play for about three or four minutes outside, and then we go in. We start on the first project of the day. They let the parents kind of assist, you know, with the first little writing activity. He and my daughter sometimes, hey, she participates with me.

On this day, they.

Were doing a little One of the classmates was doing a presentation to start the class, and my daughter is being a little loud, so I excuse myself with her. We go outside, stand by the window and watch from outside.

Got it nice?

Okay, you're not ready for this.

I don't think I am.

There's a metal bin about table height, you know, just slightly. My daughter's a little bit taller than it is. That they put all the balls in from recess. I thought it'd be funny. I put my daughter inside of it. It's right next to the window. I can watch inside. And then my daughter starts throwing the balls out. And then I picked the balls up, I put them back in. She's laughing. Now we've got a game. Okay, she throws the balls out, I pick them up, I put them in.

Father?

You've never let me get hurt? And I'm just like, oh no, I'm holding her, and you know, my wife, she I don't know where she was at the time. She just comes running out of the classroom. She's like, oh no, what happened. I I just tell the truth. I'm like, she was in this thing. She climbed, got herself up and flipped over, landing on her head. You know, do we need to go get a cat scan. I don't know what you're supposed to do. I don't know how hard you're supposed to hit in your head on concrete.

She was neither of those. Anyway.

She goes down for the nap. She sleeps for two and a half hours. I keep checking her. There's movement. Her personality seems slightly altered. But whatever, maybe it's for the better. The rest of the day, she's fine. You know, what are you gonna do? This happens? Yep, you feel so stupid.

You do feel bad, God.

You feel stupid. You're like, how can I let this happen? I never let it happen with my son. He never never took a spill under my watch. But my daughter, whoo, this was a real one. Anyway, I got a new game I want to play. It's called Peter Verse nine. What do you like better, Eddie, Peter or none?

I'm going none.

That's how you play.

No.

Give you guys an update about having my wife on the podcast now. The negotiations have hit a snag, partially because my daughter was dropped on her head.

It's okay, okay, but.

You know this year, calendar year twenty twenty four not looking good. First of the year twenty twenty five. I think I can make it happen. I think she'll be over it by then, and I'll be honest with you. Have my wife probably not gonna be that interesting anyway, You're gonna find out what my knight's like every day. It's like, yeah, you want to go to bed, Yeah, it's eight forty five, let's do it.

Now.

We have a wonderful relationship. It is riveting. So so many fun stories to share, all right, not as fun as today's guest. Today's guest may single handedly be the most impressive person physically that I've ever met in my life. Enjoy Pasha. There's a good chance my guest today ran all the way here from Tennessee. He is one of only a handful of people in the history of humankind to finish the Barkley Marathons, and he's done it three times.

Thank you. Excited to be here. Didn't come all the way from Tennessee, but I was tempted to run to the studio here.

Oh man, where'd you come from?

Santa Monica? Just down the read.

Yeah, Santa Monica, I thought he was in Tennessee.

You live in Tennessee, though, don't you.

Yeah, yeah, I'm right there on the North Carolina Tennessee border.

You guys got hammered. We did on this storm? Dude, you how did your neck of the woods do?

So? Our house was very fortunate. We lost power and water for a few days. Our road was washed out. But yeah, there are definitely areas that I've effectively been wiped off the map.

Oh that's awful. Oh well, I'm gonna get more in Tennessee. Let's start this with my first question. Okay, do you believe in ghosts?

John?

I'm ghost agnostic. Okay, evidence isn't there?

Your name is John Kelly. You worked under President Trump.

I get that a lot. I get lots of angry messages on social media thinking that I'm that John Kelly, But no, not me.

Were you on the track team in high school?

I was did track and cross country. I was good, definitely not great. Took about ten years after that before I started running again.

Can you be a great ultra marathoner at nineteen or does it really take experience? And like I mean, you can go till you're fifty, right or is that not true?

Yeah? The things that I do, the multiple day events, there are people still competing at the top end until about fifty. Some of the shorter events you could certainly do when you're nineteen and be extremely good. But the longer things get, the more time you have to have to build that aerobic base and to build the experience.

What's the longest distance you've ever run? A one hundred mile? You ever done one of those dumb races?

Oh? Yeah, that's I focus on the multi day stuff, and so one event I did was about three hundred and fifty.

Three hundred and fifty miles.

Yeah.

I love everything you're saying.

And when you average your time out, what minute miles are you doing for three hundred and fifty miles?

So that one took about five and a half days, but that's including sleep. I probably got about six staight hours of sleep over that period of time. So you know, in the mountains for that length of time, if twenty to thirty minutes a mile is going to be pretty solid. You look at Barkley and it's really all you have to do is move thirty minutes a mile to finish and you're good.

Yeah, all right, let's get into the Barkley marathons because now this I'm gonna I'm gonna ramble on it.

You correct me when I'm wrong.

Somehow something came into my feed I started reading about this, and then I just became fascinated, and then I just all I could do was look into this. So the Barkley Marathons are a multi day race of five five day race sixty hours, sixty hours, sixty hour race in the mountains of Tennessee, and it's basically every you're running a loop, which is basically a marathon. It's a little less than a marathon. Yes, twenty miles a day, is that what it is? Or twenty miles a loop?

Yeah, he calls it twenty miles. It's more like twenty six. It's all on marks, okay.

Fair enough, it's unmarked. You don't have like a GPS with you or anything like that. You have to run this crazy race. There's a book they get to rip a page out that coincides with your numbers, so that to verify that you actually went this.

People lose pages.

People's books have been occasionally mysteriously lost or misplaced, and if you don't get that page, your race doesn't count.

You know, you're not in the record books.

As someone who finished it and up until the very first year that you finished it in twenty seventeen.

Yep, how many people had finished the race? And it started in the.

Mid eighties, yeah, eighty six, eighty.

Six, okay, so you know no one can do that? Math, but how many years with that? When twenty seventeen, thirty one, thirty one? All right, so how many people had finished by your first year of running it?

Fourteen had finished.

Fourteen humans had ever finished this race. This is why I became fascinating. The first person to finish the race was a full decade after the race had been going on.

Correct, Yeah, and he kind of everyone thought it was a joke at first, like no one can actually do the first five loops, and this Mark Williams came over from the UK and wasn't in on the joke, and he went ahead and went out and did the full five loops.

How many people have finished to this day twenty now and this year twenty twenty four, the first female finished.

What did you think of that? Were you upset?

No?

It was incredible. So that was Jasmine Paris, a brit I lived in the UK for a few years and got to know her quite well, and it was. I mean, I don't know that I'll ever see anything in sports like that, definitely not in person. Everyone had given up. She had no chance. Time was running out and then running into camp and finishing like that with thirty seconds to spare.

If she was thirty five seconds wouldn't have counted.

Nope, there is sixty hours.

She was thirty seconds away from it, not counting, finished all five loops.

How many women every year do you see in the race.

I'd say it's about a quarter, so you know, eight to ten.

They only let forty people run, right.

Yeah, and it's math to try to figure out the number of total loops amongst those forty people.

And this race was based off of the assassination of MLK what's his name, James Arlwray James ear Olray, who escaped from prison and was caught sixty hours later and had only made it twelve miles away.

Yeah, I think it was less than that, just a few miles. Kind of curled up in the fetal position, and so Gary Cantrell, the race director, kind of said, I could go one hundred miles in that amount of time in those mountains.

That was the genesis of the race.

Yeah, By the way, the guy Gary Cantrell, he's the one that started this race.

But is he a runner.

Yeah, yeah, he's quite an accomplished culture runner back in his day, and also a heavy smoker. So there's where you get your mix there.

Okay. Has he ever finished the race?

Oh?

No, No, not.

Like not close. He's done a loop at least.

And by the way, does he own this land?

No, it's a state park.

And has the state ever been like, oh, you can't run on this Yeah.

In the early two thousands, the head park ranger effectively tried to shut it down and it took a resolution by the Tennessee State Senate to keep it going. And that's why things are so strict now on kind of protecting the land that we run, on limiting the number of entrants, limiting any sort of spectators.

It's not a spectator sport or is it at all? And no, can I come and watch the finish?

No, because it's in a tiny park that's really resource in space constrained as it is, just with the participants and most of it is off trail out in the wilderness.

I just want to see the final leg. Yeah, I mean, it's about cameras. Will he set up cameras.

Ever, he has had a few people on specific spots on course with cameras before, and he does have a few media people there each year.

Okay, why I'm so fascinated with you in particular is that you grew up in a neighboring mountain, and the odds of that are are ridiculous.

This is a tiny rural community that you know, the high schools don't even have track and cross country teams there. No one runs. The whole idea of running for fun is just a foreign concept to most people there. So it's it's astronomic laweds someone would want to do it, much less be capable of finishing it.

He probably has no desire to commercialize the Barkley Marathons.

Oh, there are no sponsors. The entry fee is still a dollar sixty.

And what's that the price of so.

Originally it was supposed to be one or yeah, one cent per mile with one hundred mile or plus. The fund you're on added together is where it came from.

To get in the race. This is all so fascining. You don't just like, oh, I want to show up for this race. It's not like the New York Marathon. You have to write an essay every year? Do you have to write an essay? Are you grandfathered in?

Now?

Yeah, I'm grandfather done and once you finish, so I don't waste my time or his with a big essay.

And what is he grading papers? What is he looking for in this essay?

He's looking for do you have the motivation and do you have the credentials to actually have a legit shot at this?

Well, what if you're like a famous ultra marathon or but you're like you don't want to pick up a pen and jot a few things down.

Well, if you're not motivated enough to do that, you're probably not motivated enough to finish the race.

John, I hate everything you're saying, and it's one hundred percent accurate. Okay, so you write an essay. He lets you in the race. Now, the race always takes place in April or May, March or April. Marcher, I don't I tried to research it. This is just all from memory.

You've done good again, much better than a lot of running podcasts that.

It's just it's just batshit bonkers what they're doing. Okay, he lets you know when the race is going to be how far in advance?

A few months?

Yeah, But then when you get there, the start time is tbd.

It can be anywhere between midnight and noon. And you're notified an hour ahead.

Of time, okay, And then when the race starts, he blows a conk shell or something that's that's your one hour warning. That's a one hour warning. And then when he lights a cigarette, start running. Yep, everyone at the same time or is it staggered.

No, it's it's everyone. It's a small field, so that kind of keeps things spaced out.

Your preferred time to start the.

Race an hour before first glide, I think for me is perfect because you start off on a climb, and on the climbs you don't really need light very much because you're going slow, so that by the time you start your first descent you have daylight.

Okay, and sure you're going through the mountains.

It's not a loop, but it's not like a trail that like every you know, tenth tree is painted red. It's you have to figure this out. He gives you a watch, like some digital crappy watch.

Yes, I get ten dollars Walmart Time.

Next I wear when I I only wear it when I go surfing, and then that way, I know it's okay, the kid's about to wake up. Time to get home and be a parent. But you have to navigate some new path through the mountains. And the elevation that that you're going up and down throughout this sixty hour race is the equivalent, uh to two up and downs of Mount Everest.

Yep, zero zero net elevation change.

That is ridiculous. So that's the race. Now, the first time you ran it, did you finish?

No? I got three loops?

Is that that's considered a fun run? It is so calls if you do three loops of fun. By the way, each loop, first loop one direction, second loop opposite direction, and then who's ever in first place for the fifth and final loop, they get to pick which way they go.

Is that an advantage at all?

It is generally clockwise direction is preferred and someone just might be more familiar with a given direction.

Have you ever been in the lead for the fifth loop?

Yeah? So I chose my direction both of my first two finishes, and this past year I kind of I'd already finished twice and I knew both directions pretty well. So I kind of just told the other people they could pick and I go out whenever look at you. Well, I also, you know, I wanted the finish in the other direction.

Let's talk about the years you finish twenty seventeen, what's the next one?

Twenty twenty three?

Oh, what a huge gap of failure in between there. Do you consider it failure if you don't finish?

I only tried twice in that gap. The first time I was in the lead after two loops and I just quit. I didn't want to do it.

Oh my goodness.

I was cursed with knowing what the later loops would bring and realized that I just didn't didn't care enough to go through that. And then twenty twenty two, I lost my pages. I had them in a little waist belt, and the waist belt came off. I spent hours going up and down a hill looking and by the time I found them, just not enough time left to keep going.

I mean, just horrible depression after that.

No, it's fine, And you know it's like you said, do I consider it failure? You know, maybe technically, but like those early failures for me in Barkley, like my first year, I did three loops the second I did four. Those failures were my quickest path to success. I really jumped in the deep end and had no idea what I was doing that first year. So sure my goal was to finish, but failing is what led to my

Was that the most rewarding race of your life?

The first finish, all I wanted to do was was get there. The second finish, I wanted to enjoy it, and it was. It was incredible. Like the final climb goes up a mountain that overlooks my childhood home, and it was a beautiful sunset, perfect conditions, and like I just stopped and enjoyed it for like twenty minutes at the top, and that was rewarding. And then this past year getting to see others finish, Jasmine finish like that was that was an experience.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but this has happened where I panicked when you said you stopped and enjoyed it for twenty minutes. People have tried to do like a twenty minute cat nap and then just fall asleep for eight hours.

Yeah, that's happened, and it's something that I'm always concerned about. I try to follow it. If I do do that on the trail, I try to find really uncomfortable spots to do it to where I know that my body will wake it self up after a bit of time.

I think I read about somebody that tried to fall asleep in like a tire rut that was full of water.

That was that was me?

That was you? Yeah, that was you.

Oh I read about that that was so put himself in a tire rut, just like what he's saying, because it was like, this is the most uncomfortable place. There's no way I'll sleep for a long time in here. How long did you sleep?

It was, you know, fifteen minutes if even that? And that was so sorry. This was this was one of maybe my craziest culture running story.

Wait wait wait there was a family. Yeah, okay, go on.

So I laid down. I found this muddy tire track, like, oh, that's perfect, and I laid down there for a few minutes and then I look up and here comes this guy and his wife and his two kids walking up and just without hesitation. I go, oh, hey, Kit, how's it going? And he says, oh, that's a John Kelly Nap if I've ever seen one, And I mumble something

Why did he say? Why did he say the John Kelly Knap thing?

Because he knew about Berkley, and he knew what I had done there, so, you know, because normally I would think if you see someone face down in a muddy higher track in the woods, you might be concerned and yeah, but no, you just kept going face down. Yeah, well, you know, I'm a stomach squeeper.

Well I meant to be uncomfortable. Do people in the area are they even familiar with this race? Do they know that people throughout the world care about this race? That are these elite athletes?

They definitely do now And that's been one of the cool things for me is seeing that knowledge and that pride and it grow over the years that I've done it. When I was a kid, my dad kind of knew that crazy people showed up in the woods at the park there once a year, but didn't know much more about it.

I mean, there should be a sign going into your city that says you live there. I mean, do people know who you are in town? Like, oh, hometown boy made good or no a bit? Yeah, that's my goal here. My goal here is to get you on a Wheaty's box. If anybody should be on a Wheati's box. By the way, we underrated Cereal it tastes pretty good if you dump a lot of sugar on it.

What about your diet? Are you crazy about your diet?

No, I'm pretty infamous for my sweet tooth and junk foods, so it's fule. Yeah.

How do you eat during the race?

A lot of its liquid calories and jels. Some of it is also in a race that length, You're you're missing actual meals too, So between loops in particular, might have a burger or pizza or whatever.

You're missing birthdays, missing meal the days. But by the way, has it ever fallen on anything where you're like it? You know, it has some pretty uh serious conflicts with your personal life.

That's something that I avoid. Uh, it's and it is a bit of a minefield now as the kids have more activities, there are only so many weekends per.

Year, endless activities. It's just NonStop. The every day with these kids a new thing I have to care about. You have four children, Do you like being a dad?

Yeah?

That's pretty fun.

Huh that's great.

Are your hands on father?

Yeah? Yeah, all right, it's I mean, now, I'm not a helicopter parent by any means. No, No, they've.

Got to learn Okay, well, I mean sure, but.

Got to have the freedom to screw up, all right, But.

You don't want to get hurt physically. You live out for me, not permanently. The best parenting anybody's out. You don't want to get it hurt permanently. I love that.

Wait, when you go for a daily run, what do you go distance? Or do you go time?

Mainly distance? But you know I don't go as far as everyone assumes I would. I really don't train more than a serious marathon runner would.

More than a serious marathon or you know that seems like a lot. So you're doing multi I mean five miles, ten miles?

Yeah, five tennis?

You ever run on a treadmill?

I do? I hate it?

You hate it?

But I did start doing I got a bike trainer recently and started doing this swift thing with the virtual kind of video game thing. That's fun. You enjoy that?

Yeah? Can you bring anything on your persons during this race?

I mean other than electronic devices?

Yeah, I mean, like you can bring some toilet paper if you felt like it. Do people do that?

Yeah?

How many times do you go to the bathroom?

And when I say go to the bathroom, I'm not talking about urine during this two and a half days.

This time, probably a couple of times. It's you know, one of the secrets of my first finish. It was zero none, zero poop run. Yeah, you held it the whole two and a half days. I just didn't didn't need it. I guess I was mostly on luck with calories and it never had the urge.

And then what do you do do you just go.

Yeah, find a nice spot in the woods somewhere, or hold it for between loops when you can actually have the luxury of a nice bathhouse and toilet.

When the year that you quit stopped whatever after two laps because you knew what was going to come ahead. Talk about the things that come ahead, your mind playing tricks on you.

Yeah, the worst for me, everyone kind of has their own strengths and weaknesses, and the worst for me is dealing with sleep deprivation. Like some people hallucinate, some people just can't think straight I will straight up, you know, I'll fall asleep on my feet and go down harder than the bad guy in a Rocky movie. I just cannot stay awake. And so that's that's the point for where for me it still gets pretty miserable.

So how long do you get to sleep after each loop?

Generally none? This past year, I was the only one of the finishers that swlept, and I went back to my campsite between loops four and five and slept for like twenty minutes, and that let people get out in the directions they wanted to go. And then I was on my way two.

And a half days and you had a twenty minute nap.

Yeah, I mean, do you realize what we're.

Talking about here? Guys? You understand why I was so passionate about this. This is just nuts.

I can't make it past lunch without needing an hour nap, and then I need one hour to recover.

But have you ever, really, have you ever had that motivation to just see if you could push through it? Well, not running, I think you could do it.

What are you talking?

No, I'm not cut out for this. I don't like running. Every step is awful.

That's fine, and you know, but any of these things you build up to them, and you know, starting running. If you told me I was going to finish Barkley or do half the things I've done, I would have said you were absolutely nuts and crazy.

I've ran about four times this year because I was like, oh, I need to lose some weight and you can't cheat running.

So I'm like, I'll just start running.

Every day that I ran, I like spent the next three weeks just telling everybody that I went running.

But you know, again, I think you could do a lot more than you think you could. Maybe you couldn't build up to finishing, like I'll never build up to dunking a basketball or running a ten second hundred meter dash.

Have you seen that current dunk champion is a short white kid? That's true, and out of Philly can just fly.

I can't even palm my kids like toy basketballs, so it's not happening. But you know, I could do better than I think I could. And you know, maybe you could do a loop at Barkley.

Who knows well I would, but I'm the problem is I won't be able to get in my strong suit would be the essay. I probably could pull that part off, but I just want him to know that I only want to try one lap and that's not going to interest him.

He's not gonna be well, you're not taking it seriously.

So there's people that try to get in every year as the Virgin sacrifice the number one BIB. But you know those are people that are still serious runners but just have no chance. And he kind of no one has ever gotten in by volunteering to be that person.

Yeah, it's not gonna I'm not. I mean no part of me would take it. Seriously, How easy is it to get lost on these races? Like how do you figure out where you have to go?

Most races you do actually have a GPS under route that you loaded into your watch or your phone. The Barkley you do not. You just have a map and compass. But also at Barkley it's in a fairly confined area, so if you wander off in the same direction too much, you're you're gonna hit a road at some point. And people who have certainly done that and had to kind of hitchhike back to the start finish.

Can you cheat and get to the book a shorter way?

They are laid out to where the course is pretty much self penalizing, like if you don't go the correct way, you're losing time from it. Now, as far as if you can kind of do the books in a different order and get a short cut that way, It is theoretically possible, but it's pretty well self policed out there because people are gonna notice, like, hey, how did you get ahead of me?

And you guys are so you care so much, it's like who are you cheating? You know, and that's my instinct is like how do you cheat to finish this?

Do you ever practice there? Actually at that mountain? Off season?

So you're you're actually not allowed to go off trail at the park other than during the race.

What a strict park?

Well, part of it's to protect some kind of some native species that are growing, coachers from coming in, and there's also open mind shafts from like decades ago that you could just fall into. But there is an on trail twenty mile loop around the park that you can go run.

Do you ever run that one?

Oh? Yeah all the time.

Is the terrain capable of continuing to get hard enough?

Yeah?

They could change things and make things way worse.

Yeah, it's it's definitely gotten to the point where it's converging on what is really possible. I mean, if there are other huge improvements in gear.

I mean, what other gear besides shoes.

That's one of the things I love about the race, is it the course keeps getting harder to try to keep it right at that edge where like one percent can finish, And a lot of that is in response to to gear improvements over the years. You know, in road running we have this big debate about super shoes. Shoes were a thing at Berkley. The course would just

To get a shirt that changes temperature to keep your body the same.

Temperature at all timebe that.

But you know again, he can start coming from the other direction and eliminating some of that stuff, like there's no gps, you can't listen to music, there's no altimeters.

So do you like to listen to music when you run?

I don't. It's kind of like my one time of day when I don't have to think about anything, and I can kind of just let my mind wander on whatever.

Supposed to listen to your body. Yeah, that's what people say.

Or nature taking nature.

Do every year, do you have a talk with your wife like, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna race it this year or do you does she just know that you probably will?

Now it's it's pretty much at a fault after that first year, Like that first year was gonna be a one and done sort of like my first marathon, and so that was a conversation going into the second year. But at this point, the way I approach it has changed a lot. I know how to train efficiently to or it's not a disruption and it's not this obsessive, unhealthy, all consuming thing. It's really just going out and having fun in the woods with my friends.

Would you have a job like you're not you're this It's not like you're like one of the best in the world. If not the best, you're you're you're in the conversation, right, Is that fair?

Within a tiny niche, within a niche, you know, ultra running as a whole, No, definitely not okay, But with elevation type of race like Barkley.

People would say I don't know if they would say this because it's so niche that it's like, well, if more people knew about this and cared about it and there was money into it, then there would be these apps athletes they could do it. But I feel like the only the people that can do this do this already. I don't think it's not like it's not like Lebron James could be like, oh I'll do this.

He would die.

Yeah, there are certainly some people out there that I would love to see do it whenever they have the desire just so they just they feel it tunity, Yeah, well to see what they could do. But you know a big piece of this is having to have that desire and that little bit of crazy in your head to go after it. And if they don't have that, then no, they're not going to finish.

Do you genuinely enjoy these races?

I do now, And you know, Barkley, like I kind of had this where I was over focused and obsessed with it and then dropped off to where now I just didn't care enough, and now it's just this. I genuinely enjoy doing it, even in the moment other than when I'm trying to stay awake and I have no stress, I have no pressure of trying to finish. It's just an adventure out in the woods.

Do you feel like you've accomplished like amazing things.

Yeah, yeah, I've done pretty well, you know, But that's not to say I don't still have goals. And that's one thing. The first time I finished Barkley, I was kind of like, well, what do I do now? I never want to get to that spot where I'm like, I've done good things, nothing left to do.

That's literally my goal in life is to get to a place where I'm like I'm done.

I mean getting there with my job and getting there financially would be fantastic.

That's where you got hosed.

You were cursed with being amazing at something that a lot of people don't care about. That's a rough one of this type of race. Is this the one that people care the most about? Or how many are there throughout the world.

Barkley is pretty neat unique. It's definitely a niche within the niche of ulture running. There are other multi day events like Tortoisian is one that I've done quite a bit, which is in Italy and I haven't been successful at it yet. It is one of the more well known ones.

At what age will you stop doing ultra marathons and go back to regular old marathons like some pussy Well?

I mean the thing is, the longer it gets, the more well suited it is for old age. So you know, if anything might go the opposite direction.

What about then the joints and the knees, everything on your body good.

Yeah, they're good. And I think that's kind of my biggest superpower as an ultr runner is I've managed to not have any major injuries the whole time I've been doing it. I fell off a ladder six weeks before Barkley last year and went in and did it. I just I haven't had anything that's kept me sidelined for a while.

Eddie fell off a step stool, can't do anything for four months.

You know, if you catch things wrong, it can happen. I was fortunate. I was bruised my ribs and broke my wrists.

How high up were you?

I was about twenty feet.

Twenty feet here that step toool's playing it on asphalt. He was up twenty feet on asphalt. Ran the Barkley Marathon six weeks later. Unbelievable.

He's way lighter than me.

I just kind of bounced.

He bounced.

Everybody's on the show.

I give them gifts, but it's all, you know, just so you know, it's just stuff around my house that I don't want anymore. These companies had been setting me a bunch of socks. I didn't like it, but I feel like they're probably not good. There's some bombas in there, there's some element. I just wanted you to have some fresh socks for your toes.

Well, thank you, that's that's handy.

The other day a person was just throw it on the floor, was on the show, and I gave them old Tosh point zero merch.

I was like, get rid of this.

Then I found another box of Tosh point o merch in my garage.

I'm like, son of a bitch.

So now you need extra T shirts for running and stuff like that. There might be sweatshirts in here. I don't know who knows. You wear a new shirt, then you send it to goodwill.

My wife and I used to love the show back when I was in grad school.

There you go.

Now you're you're gonna want all the shirts.

I can't stop giving you this. These are fun. These for your kids.

Since you have twins, you always have tip two of everything. Okay, this is These things are like electric boards. They go so fast. Now the joke with these, I gotta call I always get two.

This is gonna be interesting getting back on it, and.

I'll ship everything. I always think it's funny. My brother has twins. I always think it's funny to order him things and just have it sent to his house and then he just calls me furious.

He's like, what did you buy? What are these things? They're dangerous, they're too fast.

But anyway, he last time he came thought it was funny, threw them back in my garage and I'm like, oh, well played, buddy. But now I'm like, one of your kids will like these. They're barely used, we got charge.

They're heavy.

Yeah, they got real batteries in there. You're gonna have trouble with those. You'll like them. Thank you for getting that off the table. I also got got your kids. I always have these toatch point oh not tous point o.

These are from tours, stand up tours.

Oh wow, skateboards, just because I want your kids I want to make sure your kids get into something that's cooler than running.

There is a skate park, right, but right, they got to give them some skateboard. This is the perfect kind of thing where they can get hurt, but not permanently.

Right, well, you can get permanently hurt on a skateboard, but whatever. Those things are probably not even good skateboards, but at least they can have fun with that.

What's that up? Because because I was aware of, Oh no, what you do here? What is this hold on?

What kind of bag is this? Is this a running bag?

It is, it's a running vest. But they're they're kind of like Santa's.

With those weights.

Ever, No, when I see people walking around my neighborhood with that, I'm like, just walk longer.

No, I've never done that.

One of my friends put one on his dog, wait, like to burn off energy, and the vets like, hey, you're killing your dog's hips.

So, so you know my own set of hand me downs here.

I'll look at you tit for tat.

Here we go get my own Italian designer uh running shirts here? Uh huh. You know you're probably taller than me, so I definitely how those are going to work.

I like, I like jogging in the mid drift.

The things that you can fit in these bags. I got, you know, for your kids?

Here?

What is this?

Got evy?

Is this a pokemon?

Yeah?

My son is into it.

Got a dress for your daughter, I'll take it.

Look at this dress?

You watch, you watch, I'll send you a photo of her in this immediately.

That's adorable.

Here's the bet I actually look at you. I didn't even know this was in here.

This is it.

I don't want whatever that is limited edition. Just hold on to it and uh limited, Maybe sell it on eBay in a few years.

What is it?

That's that's some of the liquid nutrition for it.

Meant I gotta taste this just just kind of you mind if I taste this.

It's a powder. So you got to mix it under your drink. Yeah, I was just gonna pour it. That wouldn't end well.

But I don't even know the cost. So you mix this into your drink and then that that's your meal for the night.

Yeah. Yeah, it's probably half my calories off my desk. No, it's fine. I don't know if we fully so. The pages, so there are books along the course, and you have to rip out your page from each book.

What's your page? What's your page?

So you have a BIB number for each Loop, and so whatever your BIB number is, you have to rip out that number page from the book to prove that you followed the course. And so here is your very own page from an actual Barkley book in twenty nineteen, the year that I gave up. I thought you would appreciate that.

Year Loop too, you know. I actually.

This is probably my second favorite gift that I've ever received on this show.

First I was a hat that I liked that what's his next?

Fair?

But this this right here, has he ever is there any significance the in what book he puts out there?

Every year?

Usually anywhere from twelve to fifteen books per Loop, and they all have sort of mocking titles like this one I think has Lost Souls, and you know you'll have all sorts of them that the kind of poke fun at the people out there.

I mean, the importance of page sixty seven to you?

Or were you sixty eight?

It's all odd numbers. There are only odd number bibs because if you had someone that was sixty seven and another person that was sixty.

You could still you could space them out. It was only forty people.

Yeah, well, but multiplied times each group, so generally you know my final.

Oh, they're not putting different books out for each loop.

No, So like you know your BIB one, your loop one BIB might be thirty seven, and then your loop two bib like seventy nine.

And why can some people one loop everybody finds the book, and then loop four nobody can find the books missing.

Has that happened or no?

There have been a couple times where yeah, books come missing, but most of the time it's just by that point in time, your your mind is not thinking very clearly. You might be going in the opposite. No, you can have this too. I ha been used. Yeah it has, but I washed it. It's been washed. Have you drank those have been washed as well?

So it is disgusting.

Man, there's no world where I'm putting my mouth on that.

Ever. I'd rather just dehydrate. Has he ever used the Bible?

No? No, not to my knowledge, none of the years that I've done.

I bet you, I bet you there'd be people like you know, just boycotting the rays. They're not You can't rip these pages out and the importance that you were just just that right there isn't that silly? How much has he changed the race from from the very first time he had it to what it is now? You know things the book, the odd pages that was from the one.

Yeah, that's that's all there from from the beginning.

But yeah, did you ever read this page?

No?

I haven't.

It's kind of well, it's kind of like a little romance novel of sorts. There's there's some kissing going on in this page with Christy.

Do you get anything at the end? Do they give you anything? You get a ribbon.

So the joke is that the award for finishing is that you don't have to do another loop, which you know, it's it's nice in the moment.

There's no plaques, there's nothing is your name.

No, I made my own plaque. I took all the first finish I had. I took all of my pages and make kind of a little picture frame collage of all the pages.

After the race, do you guys all go out to a you know, a restaurant together or a party? Does he does he throw a barbecue for everybody?

No, we oftentimes will We'll pick a local restaurant and go there for dinner or breakfast some of us, but no, pretty much, Gary included is is kind of exhausted and you know he's he's old and smoking the whole time and not sleeping, and so yeah, he's he's done.

And how quick after a race do you catch yourself in normal life where you're like, you know, you're playing with your kid or you're doing something that you don't want to be doing with them, and you're like, you know what I was doing a day and a half ago.

Or is that like? Or do you give yourself a week to decompress?

Yeah, I mean that's that's the other thing. I've basically just put my life on pause for a few days, so I have to try to catch back up on things with with war and family and everything else that's going on. So there's not a big kind of just crash and do nothing for a week like people might think.

Right Like, it's not like winning the NBA Championship.

We're like, oh, okay, now I get to take a month off and just lay in Italy.

I do have a week where you know, there's there's no running and I eat absolutely everything, which I love, but.

And do you enjoy a week of not running.

Yeah, I do, Yes, I do it.

Could enjoy that, that's one thing every week.

I've never understood people going into these races. You have a taper generally where you decrease your training right before the race, so you go unrested, and a lot of people hate the taper, and I'm always just like, wow, this is this is awesome. You know. I enjoy having that bit of downtime and bit of rest and relaxation.

I'd like, I mean, I'm just letting you know. You could extend that instead of a week, you could make it. You know, I don't know, a lifetime.

You gotta have the balance.

Well, John, thank you very much for taking some time out and sitting down.

I'm you know, good luck to you.

Thanks very much, appreciate, enjoyed it.

Thank you, Casha. What did you think of that, Carl, John, it's impressive. Now, Hey, I want to say something. I thought this was a funny bit on the show where I give stuff away, but now too many guests are bringing me things and I needed to stop. Now, John, I want to say that giving me that page that I love, the other stuff, I don't want it. I don't want other guests to be like, oh he brought I watched this, he brought something. I don't want your stuff. Guys,

Just stop.

Thank you, but no, thank you. All right, let's do some plugs. Carl, where did you go? Come on, man, we're still doing a show. You only have to do the last act of every episode, and you act like I'm torturing you. Show some enthusiasm. There you go, let's go. Let's do this right, all right, let's do the plugs. Boyswearpink dot com, tossshowstore dot com.

There you go.

Put your head right back down. Eddiegosling dot com. Check out his tour dates. Hey Edie, I heard you're gonna work in a Key West coming up?

Yeah, Key West, second or third week of January.

Try to look at that. I love the Keys. Never been you've never been to the Keys? No, man, are you gonna fly into Key West?

I guess? So where would I go? I mean maybe Miami?

A lot of people flying in Miami and do the drive, but then they realize, oh shit, that drives two and a half hours.

Oh yeah, then maybe I gotta figure that out.

You'd also swim in from Cuba.

Huh yall fly into Cuba and then swim across.

Yeah. I like that.

That's kind of the cool way to get in anyway, was what was I talking? And then our tour and check out our tour? Oh Daniel Tosh dot com. Okay, best part of the show. Free plug? What struggling business? What mom and pop company or fundraiser are we going to.

Help out this week? I love that music.

By the way, this week's free plug is for Taylor Swift. She's performing in Vancouver, Canada, at BC Place December sixth through the eighth as the final show of the Airs Tour. Tickets are still available starting as low as one five hundred dollars as at US Yes, that's US fifteen hundred dollars. That's before fees. You're looking closer to nineteen hundred. That's said,

I don't know.

I don't know if that's still a thing. But it doesn't matter, pay full price. It's just a good show. Taylor Swift the airas tour. Is there somebody opening for her? Is that Gracie Abrams opening for her?

She is?

She is great, she's wonderful, little Nepo baby, right, yeah, that's all right. And she was taught by my kids music teacher music. That's interesting. It all ties together, guys, I think that does it, Carl, Until next week. I'm the captain now.