Kori Sampson: On Sobriety, Ultra Endurance, and Reality TV

You hear it all the time with Lynx, the trauma to Ultramathons, you have to be able to take a punishment in a bit of a beating. So I think when you've had a certain amount of stress, you've built up this resilience. There's also a lot of science around doing hard things. How the brain actually grows and creates new neuronal pathways. And stress can be good or bad. Exercise is an extreme stress, but you strengthen in response. The harder the stuff that I do, and the more I prove to myself like I can do these things, to feel like I deserve credit for what I do. People put off exercise, who focus everything on their business. They don't realise that their superpower is still locked inside them. Physical feet can actually unlock that. You've got all this money and everything, and you're not doing what you need to do. That impact that I can have means a lot more than getting a medal in a race. So how do you maintain like an ultra-justine athlete training schedule and then still keep up for Z. I've lost my legs a little bit with the running, but yeah, I try to. (Music) Ultimate human. Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, Human Biologist, Gary Brekka, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. Today's guest is someone very, very special, so appropriate with the journey that my son is on. But he's ultra-marathonor. Has an amazing story. I can't wait for him to share it with us. Welcome to the podcast, Corey Samson. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on. Yeah. We ran an awesome little workout in London when I was there. Yeah. And it was crazy was this morning, 6.30 in the morning, I'm over working out with my son. Yeah. And his gym is under his house, so it's out of his house. Yeah, I was just running down the. And you just randomly ran by. And you're like, Corey, and I was like, no, we're here. Yeah, I didn't get my son's part. We were just trying to find a good spot for some filming, and we were trying to find the water, and we were like, oh, there's a little island there, like we're on that way, and yeah, we just passed ya. That was so, because I didn't know who he was yelling at. And he started screaming, "Cory," and then all of a sudden, that's how he stopped and I'm like, dude, we're running a podcast in a hour. Yeah, no, it's. So at least we know we practice what we've reached, right? Exactly. And I was meeting one person in Miami, and I bumped into you, which is quite crazy. So, I mean, this is one little house, I mean, and if you know anything about Miami, it's pretty dense. Yeah. One little house with one little gym under it, and you just. Yeah, the challenge. Game Cruise and Vi, right? Yeah. And we only met like a couple weeks back, right? But I wanted to. When you was like, oh, if you're ever in Miami, let's make it work, I was like, I'm very much like, this thing's don't get done unless you do them, right? So I was like, oh, I'm in LA next week, I'll just fly in on the way home. Like it's. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm excited. Well, I'm glad you came by. You know, I talk about this all the time on my podcast, and there's sort of a theme that runs through a lot of my guests. And I find that some of the most impactful, passionate, purpose-driven people, have solved some kind of problem. Mm-hmm. And you know, whether it's a mother that has a child that had autism or somebody with a crippling Lyme disease, or, you know, and they just couldn't find help in the normal medical system, or maybe somebody that overcame drug or alcohol addiction, like, like, Jell-E-Roll, you know, is calling them out. You think about the number of people that he's inspired, not just through his music, but through his personal journey, right? And he talked about how this sort of pain-depurposed journey that he went on, you know, where he was, you know, he had, it's for public information. I called it addiction, drug addiction, I had a marijuana addiction, and a music addiction, thankfully. And addiction in general. In general, yeah. And I just wonder if, you know, for you, because I don't think anybody wakes up one day and says, "I want to be an ultra-marathoner," or, "I want to be an ultra-endurance athlete." Yeah. And you just want the Amazon games, and kind of quarter million dollar. I fit contracts. Yeah. Congratulation. Yeah. So maybe I should charge you to be on the cash control. I'm pretty low-ded now. But it doesn't go very far out here. It doesn't go far out here. And I'm sure that you can take care of quite out of those taxes. Yeah. It wasn't prize money, so because it was a contract, it's still taxable, right? If you win some TV shows, if you win prize, you get all the money. It's unfortunatly. Because it's a contract, I got tax on it. Oh, man. I might agency that I'll work with Takes a Cut in the real world. Do you have a discount draw? Do they should have given you. Do you have a prize money? No, no, no. Yeah, no. Yeah. So to be fair, everything I've kind of done kind of built up to me being ready to be the best I could on that, which is quite nice. But yeah, I think there's like, you hear it all the time with links to trauma to ultra-mathens. And I think what the thing is, you have to be able to take a punishment in a bit of a beating. But I read some really interesting about this the other day. It was on how bad do you want it? It's a sports psychology book. Really good. And one of the chapters talks about this, but there was a guy that's like a top of his game in Tour de France. But he kept on losing near the end of each race. He ended up winning in the end, like 30 odd years. Like he lost the most amount of times. He lost the most amount of time. He lost the most. He like, he didn't win. But he'd come like second like twice. And he didn't win so many. He was the longest standing person to win after losing so many. But basically, like his thing was he had like the perfect childhood, the perfect like entry into sport, like really young on the bike, got scholarships, did all this stuff. He didn't have any like hardship to help build his resilience. So he suffered on the climbs, the like the pressure. That was his thing. And I think there's apparently there's, so in the book it says there's like, there's two sides of it. If you have too much trauma, it's like scar tissue and it's like sometimes it just completely wipes you out. But I think there's like a bit of a middle ground where I was like, I didn't have like a bad childhood. But I think like with the same as Jolly Row with Drinking Drugs, probably not at the extent he was. And I kind of checked myself quite early. But I had a very addictive personality and I went through all these different things. And I think that resilience I built up getting over that and what I went through with it is help me in sport. Because I mean, I think a lot of it is the circle that you're in. Right? I mean, at that time you were a male model, right? And in fact, you were on the show. Who was the show called the sexiest? The two hot stuff. Two hot stuff. Yeah, so I did have it. Yeah, reality. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, you're a handsome man. So, thanks. Yeah. So, I mean, you have, you know, you're young, you're handsome, you're on this reality TV show. You probably experienced some level of stardom and celebrity and then it's like, well, what's next? And drugs and alcohol there. They're very pressure and pressure very available. You get like, you know, you've got events Monday to Friday with after parties and free tables and clubs and all that stuff. So, where I already was fighting something a little bit, it was almost like a bit of a downhill spiral if you let it be. And yeah, I think that's what it was. But I was quite before I went on the show. I was still quite bad like back home with drinking drugs. And mainly drugs. I think I moved to London when I was like 18, did a couple years, like did a year, you didn't really get on with it. But started raving and partying then. And then went back home, kind of took them bad habits with me. Nothing else to do was a bit bored. Like, didn't really enjoy what I was doing with my work, wasn't satisfied. Was a bit like, I always thought out, like in my head, I was at this belief that I was a bit like destined for something greater than what I was doing. I mean, and I think that was the catalyst for what I wanted to do. I used to look at the YouTube bodybuilders or when I was bodybuilding. And like, I was looking at them people, like how can I get a lifestyle like that? Just like the freedom, financial freedom, the whatever it was, the respect or attention or money, whatever it is. And I think I was really unhappy with my situation. So I was taking it out on myself, trying to escape it on the weekend. And then it was every Friday Saturday. Then it was Thursday to Sunday. And do you know what I mean? And it got progressively worse. And then yeah, the same thing went on TV for it would change things. Now I had money, but it was more like more opportunity to do these things, which made it worse. So I was kind of like, trading a bit of a line. And I just kind of got sick of kind of being guilty and the shame that I like attached to it. Because I knew I was like, I could be doing something better with myself, even when I got to that point where at one point, I was like, that's like the greatest thing I have, like my pinnacle, whatever it is, like to be in that position. And then I was like, actually, I'm not happy still. Yeah. What's wrong? What's not, I do not. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I saw a documentary on the two-time Olympian snowboarder Sean White. And he talks about he won his first Olympic gold medal. He was happy. Or he was depressed afterwards. He won his second Olympic gold medal. And he was unhappy afterwards. Then he lost in his third Olympic games. And it was the happiest he'd ever been. And you know, he talked about just the pressure and that it was okay for somebody else to kind of move into that position. And I think so many people, because you get into a lifestyle like you had. And a lot of it is also who you choose to surround yourself with. So getting out is not that easy, right? Because you're leaving friends behind. You're leaving your sphere behind. I mean, I have a good friend of mine who used to say he's a billionaire and used to say, "You show me the five people that you hang around with the most. I will tell you exactly where you'll be in three years." Well, the five people I was hanging around with at this time are still doing the same thing. Yeah. Five years later. Yeah. Each to their own like, they're happy doing that. But like, yeah, I had to change my environment. I even like, I lived with friends and it was like easy to get caught out and going out and there's always an event or something happening, especially if there's three or four of you have different opportunities, then you drag each other into it, right? So I was like, right, first thing I was when I was going sober was like, I need to move out, get my own place like to be able to be able to change. Did you see people for like six months maybe? Now I can kind of like go out and see them and I'm like, I don't have to drink, I don't have to feel pressured to do anything and you just have to reshape your whole relationship with it before you can do that. But you made a choice to like really pull the plug, change your environment, change your friend circle, change what you lived just to put yourself in the best position to succeed and how did that translate into? Because I still don't think anybody wakes up one day and says, I want to be an ultra endurance athlete. Yeah. You know what? It took me a year to go sober, a year of trying to go sober to be like a month on. Yeah. Like a couple of months. I'd be like, so I actually did a charity boxing match like a bit of an influencer kind of of thing. So that was the start of that year. I did two, three months of just training and stuck to it, did the fight, then went out for the weekend and went missing for two days. And then it was like the same thing I'd do two months and then I had a holiday planned and then the holiday would be like three, four days and then it kept on being like that. But I signed up to do London marathon. So I started running in. Is that your first marathon? Yeah. So I was running lockdown. When I was a kid, I actually ran a half when I was 16 in an hour and 36 minutes and I trained for it, worked hard, did it and then I just stopped running. And I was really gutted, I did because I'd be so much better now. We've like another 10 years under my belt. But yeah, so I did, I started running lockdown because the gyms were shut, wanted something for my head, got quite addicted to it pretty fast. I was like, this is actually quite good. Like I'm enjoying it. I'm pretty good at it. Did like everyone was trying to run a 20 minute 5K and I did it like 22 minutes to the first 5K around and I was like, okay, maybe I should try get it and it was like chasing that progress. So I had two years of that and obviously still living the party last time I was doing. Then I was like, well, I want to run London. So I signed up for that. That was three years ago. And two weeks before I'd done this 16 week training block and I was so like regimented with it. I had a 30th birthday party in Ibiza, which is what? I bet he's a lot. Yeah. He's a dangerous place to go. Yeah. And I was like, right, I'm not going to drink with any drugs and it was like five days of like, carnage. And then two weeks later around the marathon. And I was like, and I did it quite a good time. I got like three 18 my first marathon and like I like enjoyed doing it. I push really hard like in training around 30K easy like pace. Like I didn't run anything near what I should have been doing. And I still did quite a lot. And I was like, instead of being like, oh, I can get away with still doing this. I was like, what happens if I go all in and don't and then it led to like one thing led to the other and kind of ended up where I'm not. Yeah. But I mean, and and then that marathon sort of set the hook to like ultra distance because you've done hundreds. You've done even further distances. Yeah. You know, my son talks about this sort of pain cave that he goes into. And I think at some point, if you're running a hundred miles or if you're running more than a hundred miles, even even in a marathon, you, you reach. That wall where like every fabric of your being wants to stop, you know, your body's telling you to stop your brain's telling you to stop. I've heard a lot of ultra, I've never run a hundred miles, but I've run a marathon. But I've I've heard ultra marathoners mo ab 240 guys. Yeah. We talk about how your brain like starts playing tricks on 100%. Yeah, 100%. You could just stop and sit down over here and just run. Even your body will like lie in a sense that it's really hurting like two hurting. That's what a lot of like pain reception, like if you get inflammation in your knee, it's like your body is just going, oh, something's wrong. Like stop to it. Yeah. And if you push through it, the pain goes away and it shifts somewhere else anyway. Yeah. You start running a bit different and then especially with the really long stuff. But yeah, I think I think the nice thing about running a hundred miles and stuff is you can actually stop. Yeah. You can have a minute. Yeah. But then you've got so much like opportunity to kind of push through that. I think so the first long thing I did was five days. I did 220 K in Africa. 220? Yeah. So it was just after I did London marathon. I went in round the trail race. I marathon in France. I did a fast, another fast one. And then I was like a year later, I ran 220. And every day was the longest I'd ran from day free. So I did 50 K, 60 K, 50 K. And I'd only ran 40, something K before that. And I blew up on the second day like my knee went in. And I was like really struggling. And I pushed through like this pain for like five days, like eight, nine hours a day. And the third, fourth day, I woke up, it was my birthday. 2 am in a 10 in Africa, hadn't slept well. Was like in so much pain, getting my blisters wrapped in all that stuff. And yeah, I got going and I was like crying while I was running. I was like on my own in the dark, I was going really slow. Like people were overtaking me. I hadn't seen because I was so injured. And I was just like crying. I was like, I don't feel like I can do this. I think I need to pull out like. Yeah. I can do all these excuses like, oh, it's fine. Because I can go back and do the last day and I still finish, but I don't get a competitive time or whatever it is. Like I've done enough like this is a forever son and then I remember getting to the first age station sat down and I was like, yeah, I'm checked out. I'm not doing this. And then I think like just sat there and I was like, do you know what? Let's try to get to the next one. And I was like, like, like is what is I walk for a bit and see what happens and took a painkiller, started running and then all of a sudden the sun come up, started feeling a bit bad. I was like, I like beat myself. Do you know what I mean? And now whenever things get tough, I was going back to that one moment where it was like I quit, but I didn't actually quit. Yeah. And now I'm like, if I can push through that, it's same thing is going to happen again and I'll just push through that. Yeah. If your energy is low during the day, the problem usually started the night before. Sleep affects focus, mood, metabolism, literally everything. And most people never learn how to properly support it. Our free sleep challenge is April 29th and 30th and it's designed to teach the basics of better sleep in a way that's realistic and easy to apply. If learning how to sleep better feels like the right place to start, we'd love to have you join our challenge on April 29th. Now, let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Yeah. I mean, he he talks about this primal state where all you literally care about at that moment is rest, food, water, and maybe shelter. Right. Like where you're the things that truly matter like you're your scope narrows. You're not thinking about cars and watches or you know, who's who's following your Instagram post. Like none of those things that like trouble us and stress us during normal daily life. And he's like, you know, I guess he only experiences it during that, you know, that pain cave what he calls it. And being able to like build a mind that's strong enough to go through something like that is applicable to so many other areas of it makes everything so easy. But I don't really get stressed out about much and things don't really bother me that much. I'm quite like generally at like a nice level. Yeah. And I even my partner like certain things you'll get really like upset about something called like react really like really fast to something. I'm like, it's not the end of the world. Yeah. And there was a Shaquille O'Neal had a, like a talk before like on a podcast, maybe in I remember seeing it and his dad, he said he was having a bad game and he was like throwing his toys out of the prime. They'd lost to someone and his dad was like, come see us, like fly back home and then he flew back home and he's like, right, we're going out at 6 a.m. And he said he went out and there was a dead silent in the car and he drove and he was driving and they parked up. And there was like a tent under a bridge and homeless people and then this guy got out, like they waited like a couple hours, some guy come out and then his wife holding a baby and he said, he said turn around to him and he was like, you think you're under pressure, like that's pressure, like that's hard. Like you athlete, so like you've got all this like money and everything and you're like, you're not doing what you need to do. Like it's not that hard. And that's what I always think now I'm like, I could be way worse in a way worse position than I'm in, especially with like social media and like if anyone's like, oh, do you like struggle with the negative comments or I'm like, come on, man, like, what do you mean? Like I'm like so grateful to be in a position I'm in which I lead with when I do all this stuff and I had a friend that broke his back a couple years back and he's in a wheelchair now and he's been in and out of hospital with, yeah, he had sepsis at one point and he's like best friend from school we grew up together. His job was cutting trees, we fell out, his tree surgeon, he fell out of tree, broke his back and you know, he's got like a bit of an insurance thing and he's like, can live comfortably, he doesn't have to like whatever, but he'd give anything to do what I can do with my body and even says it to me sometimes, I'm like, mate, I love you, but like sometimes I see some of your stuff and it like actually upsets me a little bit like I can't do that anymore. Right. So I always think now I'm like, I get to do this. Like when things get hard, I'm climbing them out and in my back set and I'm like, yeah, it's not that fucking bad. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's going to be over in a day. Yeah, it's, it's, there's so much evidence to for I used to think that this was really granola like tree hugger way out there in the cosmos. Shit, but like, you know, when people talk about journaling and practicing gratitude and reconnecting with your faith and and for me, that's one of the biggest parts of my day is I always will find like six, eight, 10 minutes. I get outside to do a little breath work. I let some sunlight in my skin. I look, you know, I just do some horizon gazing, but it was always really hard for me for years and years. years to sit in silence and just be alone with my own thoughts. And now I just do a little exercise of like, you know, what are two or three things that happened to me yesterday that I'm just grateful for? And now like my body like it's weird, it almost craves them. Like let's get out on the balcony and think about what we're grateful for. And I think that mindset matters. You know, I mean, you have the discipline to just cold turkey, eventually stop the drink and change your friends at, you know, your friend group, get into a new place, start training. Get into this addiction of training. I'm going to just call it that. That's what I, that's what it's another drug. Like feeling good is, yeah, feeling good as a drug, right? Like we talked about it when you got here. I was actually a little late to me because I was in a cold bunch. And I'm like, that's my drug of choice. Like nothing makes me feel better for longer. So I do it every time before I come on a podcast. But for you, like that shift in mindset. So now you're an ultra endurance athlete, quite a good one I might add. And I think that you're setting an example for younger generation. I love to see this like, you know, the Nell boys ran the 100K with mine. Yeah. Nell boys are like game, what game stream is? Yeah, game streamers. Yeah. And they still have Frank's, but like, have you into like the alcohol, the party scene. And, and as they got older, they, they, you know, their mindset is matured. But one of the things Kyle talks about, Kyle forgarde, who ran the 100 with my son. Yeah. Is the number of touch points in his life that have been positively affected by this, just doing this 100 mile race. And I'm under a few might shed some light on that. What, what are some of the touch points in your life? What else has improved since? Genoa's fun to sport. When I ran, so I ran 800K across England. 800K. Yeah. So I did, I did land end, which is the most south. So a lot of people do joggle, which is the whole country upwards, but because I grew up in Devon, which is down the south, and I live in London. I wanted to run through both. So I ran from south to south west to the most east. Okay. So two marathon's a day, 80K a day, 10 days. Two marathon's a day. Yeah, I did 80 kilometers a day. Every day for 10 days. Yeah, 50 miles for 10 days, so 500 miles. Wow. And it was hell, like two days in. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done onwards. And it was the longest. I think after that 220 was the furthest I'd gone. So two or three days in, I think I got to the furthest I'd ran and everything after that was just like a battle. Yeah. Every step is a big deal. Yeah. It was not easier as it went on, I think five, six days in, I kind of went over the hardest bit. Also, there was loads of elevation. But the one thing, so I did it for a men's mental health charity. And that was great, like raising the money. And there was a couple of things that I didn't realise that was happening, which kind of added to this, but I didn't find like the fulfillment I was kind of looking for doing it. I built it up to be this huge thing. Like achievement would like solve all my problems, would feel amazing. I had a great idea and it was just like kind of flat. I was like, I was done now. Not what's next, but like, I don't know, there was something a bit missing out of it all. And after like really reflecting on it and chatting to a couple of people, like different sports therapists and other people like that and kind of just like unpacking it a little bit more, I actually went on holiday like three weeks later. And it was the first time I've been on holiday. And I've actually just like not thought about work, not thought about social media, not like put pressure on myself to do content or to what's the next race or like I had no like expectation set about what I was going to do next. I cancelled something called, I was going to do later in a year because I was like, I had a bit of a, but I actually couldn't really bend both for my ankles fully. So like the tendon in them got so bad that like my big toe was kind of like stuck here because of the tendon. And it took a while to get that back. And I was kind of just, I found peace. That was the point. I found a little bit of peace in myself. Like you said about sitting still and like, I'm ADHD and all these things with the addictive personality and I struggle with that. And it was first time ever I've been like, I actually feel quite good. And who's going on holiday with? With my misses. We went to like, Mika Norton, in not party, we were in beds like they were doing the turn down service and we would already be in bed and they'd come into like, and everyone else is out like party. A bit of a different life. Yeah, like we've finished in a shower to heal out. It's great. You get a book in everywhere because no one goes out at like five, six o'clock when the restaurant's open. Yeah. It's so nice. So yeah, we was, we was just having this like really chilled out whole lane. I was just like, it's funny because I've actually reshaped my thinking about what I want to do next now as well. I was like, I don't want to run that fire ever again. Like that's way too far. It was miserable. I hated it. I almost already thinking like, actually, maybe I should do this next year or like, just I mean, and I think it was what I was really looking for along was that kind of piece. And I think that's what I've noticed from the harder stuff that I do and the more I prove to myself, like I can do these things, winning the show, like I had a bit of an emotional moment on there, like crying after as well. I was almost like, everything I do, I kind of don't feel like it's like, I've done enough. Like I feel like I have to really put myself through hell to feel like I've deserve credit for what I do. Yeah. And I think that's what I've kind of found doing it is actually like, I don't need to do it. Yeah. And it's you want to do it. Yeah. And now I'm leading with more like, I actually enjoy training and I enjoy pushing myself. I like, I'm actually quite happy when I have a goal to work towards. Like, even now where I've got this Achilles finger, I was telling you about where I'm like, I had a couple weeks of running less. I really, really this week. And even that, I'm like, I feel a bit lost like the last two weeks. I'm like, I want to be pushing towards something, but I don't feel like I have to. I'm almost like, it is what is like, it's going to work itself out in whatever happens, happens for a reason, and then we can work three things. But like, yeah, I found a bit of peace in life from doing this stuff, which is weird, because you'd think the most chaotic thing you could do is like the stretch you put on your body and your mind and stuff to do these things. Well, you know, there's also a lot of science about around doing hard things, how the brain actually grows and creates new neuronal pathways. And stress, you know, can be good or bad, like a hormetic stress, like a cold punch or sauna is a stress on the body exercises and extreme stress, but you strengthen in response. And I think we don't talk enough about what exercise does for the mental state. And I think that people put off exercise to focus everything on their business, especially young entrepreneurs. And they don't realize that their superpower is still locked inside of them. And maybe some of these, you know, physical feats can actually unlock that. So because there was something about whether like mental health is led with the mind or your body. And I really think like the strongest foundation for your mind is to have a fit, able to have a good body. And then you can build from there. And I think someone said it like Chris Williams said something like, you can't out sniff a cocaine addiction. You can't outthink mental health problems. But if you're struggling with your mind and what you're thinking about and you sit in the house on your own, light stuff or something, can you sit there and just think about it? Make it work. Yeah, yeah. But you go out and like, you go for a run and you release them and do things you feel great. And that's what I really think like it helped me with going so about 100%. Like I had half my effort to run on a Sunday morning. I couldn't go out. So and I went out and I felt amazing. And then I started making friends that also wanted to run half my effort on a Sunday morning. And then we'd go for breakfast and get coffee. And then I started a run club and then people would come enjoying just to run 10k. Yeah, you have a London run club. Yeah, yeah. How's that going? Listen, there's what I share on this podcast. And then there's what I share with my inner circle. If you've been following me for a while, you know how I hold nothing back here. 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It's like having a personal health advisory board for less than $100 a month. Your health is your wealth and this investment pays dividends for life. Join the VIP community at the ultimatehuman.com/vip and step into your ultimate potential. So we've kind of, I don't know. We went, it was doing really well and we did a couple years and it's kind of got to the point where I can't commit enough time to be there all the time and I've got plans to leave and it's kind of come to a bit of a natural end. Right. But I feel like I have such a more impact online and it's hard, like my audience is very spread out and it's hard to get everyone in one place. And I get messages all the time like, mate, I'm in London, when's the wrong club and I'll be like, oh, it's the end of the year. the month on Saturday. So if you're not here on that Saturday, you can do me a set anyway. So now I'm like trying to think like how can I have that like communal aspects without it being in person. So everyone can get a bit of a taste of it. And I think if it's going to we've got like a wrong club we're doing virtually where people can start joining every week and we're filming that at the moment. And so that's like kind of the next step. And then when I am in certain places like Boston Marathon, we're going to do an in-person one. Hopefully people can be there and the same with London. And so I'm going to do a little bit more like one off kind of. Yeah, I love seeing all these like a lot of like DJs and rap artists and yeah, Diplo is who's the rapper that has the run club gunna gunna gunna kind of run club and you know Diplo and and jelly roll has one now called the like the losers run club. Yeah, just just awesome because it's like now if you you know if if those are some of your idols or you know the you know some like some of the you know the celebrities that you look up to. Yeah, you know now you can get this communal sense with them by you know around physicality around something other than drugs and alcohol. I think it's amazing. In fact, I read a statistic. I think in Miami, you know alcohol consumption is down like 34% in the younger generation. And there's all these cool things creeping up like coffee and chill, which you know if you walked into one of these events you would think it was any other like South Beach rager, you know, you know, all the checks from bikinis, all the guys are in board shorts, but there's no drugs, no alcohol. It's just cold punches, coffee and yeah, instead of your calling card being like the Ferrari you pulled up in or the yeah, it's your physique and you can't fake that. Yeah, so you know, I just I love seeing that that that sort of shift especially in the younger generation, even a lot of the data around longevity, anti-aging and wellness. A lot of the stats are driven by Gen Z. And that's like surprising to me. I would think it would be my generation. I'm in my mid fifties. Yeah. But it's like it's starting in younger and younger. Yeah. You see a lot of like guys doing like older guys as well, they're doing high rocks and getting involved. I think like there's some sports like triathlon you end up being better even ultra running. I think you get better as you as you age because your body just accumulates more like compound and effect like of tolerance to yeah, especially with running I think. But yeah, nice. It's amazing to see and that's one of the reasons why as well like for me with sobriety. So like one of my values is integrity and like when I say something if I'm going to do it like I've got to do it like that's it's going to get done at some point. I might not be able to do it when I say I will, but it will happen. Yeah. And um one of the things like people was asked me now like are you going to be sober forever? And I'm like to be honest like the way I am as a person I probably should but I've also reshaped my whole relationship with alcohol definitely. So like if I was out for dinner, I could probably have a drink. I could have a beer. I have a zero beer now like that's what I'll drink like zero alcohol, but I could probably have a drink and it wouldn't be where's the party like after party and no sleep in all of this stuff. But what kind of example would are they setting to all the young guys, especially because obviously relate to me the most that have made these changes. I've gone sober themselves like I get messages all the time like I'm running my first marathon because I saw you do this and I'm so inspired and everything's changing. I'm mental health. I love the messages. But like imagine if I then went yeah guys I've done three years and now I'm like actually I'm a bit bored of it. I'm going to go back to doing what I was doing and everyone else would just go off like it like yeah and there's actually quite a lot like not in a bad way, but there is a few running influences for views and you can you can have a drink and like they would drink beer when they're doing a running. And it's like it's going a bit viral in like fair enough, but like I don't want to be a bad example. So like I wouldn't even work with say like a gambling company because I've never had a problem with gambling, never gambled, but I've got an addictive personality and I've got a problem with addiction and I know people do have that issue. So I don't want to be a catalyst in someone else's problem now. I feel like I have a bit of responsibility. So I think it's great that people are making these changes and I think so too. So how do you maintain like an ultra-distance athlete sort of training schedule and then still keep a physique like someone is yeah, trying to try and try to. I mean you're leaving. You look going back and you know, so I think you know when I was when I was doing triathlon heavy, I would say the vast majority of guys that I raced with, we were all skinny fat. So it's a little bit to do with stress you think on the body. So like when I first did the marathon, I felt like I looked a little bit out of shape like because my body was just so stressed out. My three brothers would come see me and they'd be like, bro, you okay man? Yeah, you get enough food and I'm like, what are you talking about? I just did a scene training. Yeah, because you're burning, but like it's inflammation and yeah, but I think so for me personally, I'd still eat like a bodybuilder and I'll train like a bodybuilder like in the gym. So I'm in the gym three, four times a week, at least every single week and I've always maintained that. It's like my first love because I did compete when I was a bit younger. But also like fueling with proteins a bit overlooked. So like a lot of the guys when you're doing marathon, so I'll be like, right, you need this many carbs per hour and so they look at all these different things, but they're like, but you want to fast digest your carbs. You don't want to eat protein with it. I'm like, yeah, but if you want to keep the muscle in your legs when they're like literally catapultizing muscle to work, you want to eat protein. So I'll eat like even this morning, like 10k easy run breakfast with protein carbs before running. What's breakfast look like? I mean, when I'm at home, I'll have a big bowl of porridge like 100 grams of oats with, I don't know if everyone knows grams, but yeah, I don't know how else is I. And then protein, protein, shake in it like powder, mix it up and then put like honey and blueberries. That'll be like every day, I have the same thing before you go out before I do any training. Yeah, because I just like, unless I'm like really trying to burn fat, like if I want to get lean really fast and like, I'm like, I don't know, eating a bit bad on a whole lathe or a week or whatever, like fast, like training fast did a high intensity. We'll just get shredded like when I was doing that kind of stuff, it would work. But for me, performance and keeping my muscle, but I've lost muscle in like, I always say this, like you can't have a high view to max and a high squat. Like, yeah, I've lost my legs a little bit with the running, but yeah, I tried to eat well and also feel even when I did the long ultra stuff, I was eating like, I was drinking like a like a skier yoga shake kind of thing for EK in, because a lot of people wouldn't do that. But I my stomach, I kind of trained it well to eat properly, but I think proteins like one of my essentials. If I have it every day anyway, if I'm running 100 K, I need it as well. You can't then forget about it. So how do you get it when you're running? Do you blend it? Yeah. So like that was obviously when you're doing the like the stuff where it self-supported and you have age stations like self-made out, we stopped every 10 K to eat. So I'd I'd have I was eating like a bit of anything, but like we'd have the shake and I'd have like two or three shakes. So I'd have breakfast like normal and then have two shakes throughout my training. Yeah. And I'd do the same if I did like 100 mile race. I'd get someone at an age station with like shakes and stuff. Yeah, you know, this next race for my son. So we just did the 100 mile and in November he's doing the 10 Iron Man in 10 days. That's going to be long days. That's going to go in days. Yeah. You know, full distance triathlons. I mean, it's a two, a 2.4 mile swim, 160 by 160 bike and 160 mile bike in Adam Arthony. And Adam Arthony. Yeah. So, you know, pro time is around 10 hours. So it'll probably be 12 hours. So that means it's literally exercise in 12 hours. Hey, and the idea is to try to fuel him entirely with whole foods. Yeah. And I know people that have done it. I mean, there's there are guys that are circumventing the country and yeah, on sweet potato and white rice. Yeah. Because if you saw the garbage that these guys were putting in 100 mile, yeah, I have 50 race crispy treats. I was getting a like a twitch in the van and I did a lot of gels when I did 100 mile. I did gels and not like the best food and they get to me by the end. Yeah. Yeah. But if you, I think you can do that for one day, one day's 24 hour period and then fast, you need it. But if you're 10 days in a row, because if you shut your got down, that's it. You know, if you can't process foods, I mean, yeah. In fact, I guess the majority of the reason why, you know, professional athlete would bark in one of those races is they just get their nutrition right. Yeah. I mean, they're conditioned. I did. So you can do a breath carb test. Have you ever heard of that? So it feels too Maxwell look at your carbs. So, so well, this one's like what the, the, yeah. So like the science behind it is you have like no C12 for a day before. And then you have gels with high C12 content. And then what they do is that you run C12 is like a type of caught something in the car. Okay. It's called C12. Okay. It's just like in it apparently it burns like, so when you put the mask on, it detects how much C12 you're breathing out. So if you have 100 grams of carbs over the hour and then you're breathing the mask, it will give you 80% accuracy of how much you burn because it will tell you how much C12 you burn out. So it's a guy in the UK that's doing it. It's like, I don't know if there's a new science, but he's like leading it, I think. And we did the testing. I was burning on an easy 60 minutes, 100 grams of carbs, which is a high end of carb. Like most average day says 50 to 60 at 80%. So if I'm doing a hundred at 80%, it's more like 120. Wow. So that's a lot of carbs to take down in an hour. So does that mean that you're more of a carbohydrate burner? So you actually need, yeah, I also, I also noticed from bodybuilding days, I could [BLANK_AUDIO] higher carb and sugar and not put on weight. But if I ate really fatty rubbish food, saturated fats and cheese and stuff like that, it would make me fluctuate more. So even now I've tried to avoid a lot of that stuff. But I think my body must just generally work better on carbs, which is a good thing when you're running fast. Oh yeah. Marathons and yeah. So do you fuel with gels and yeah, I use, yeah, when I'm running like races where you have to like carry stuff, I don't want to take like a lot of multi days or no. On the run across the UK, I did like a lot food, a lot of main main food every now and then we'd have like, I think I did the first couple of 10 Ks. I'd eat a gel in the middle of them. So I'd have like whole food, gel in the middle, whole food. By the end of the day, I'd have like a packet of sweets in the middle rather than a gel. Yeah. And just to change palette and because you get a bit sick of anything. Yeah, yeah. But everything gets I thought it was pretty wild when they were. But it's before in mile 93, it was like the middle of the night. And I think the pain was hitting and like the guys were going into the pain cave and finally the trainer Matt who ran this thing like a military operation. I mean, hats off to him for keeping these guys safe. Yeah. I know. I'm on Gabe for Oh, you do. He's one of the ones that drinks in the yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's hot. That's with him too. He's so funny. Yeah. What a great story. What a great human. You know, he was in the Coast Guard. Yeah. Didn't have a particularly, you know, good uplifting and same thing, you know, just turned all that pain into purpose. And now like he's just so intentional training. He's got my son would never finish the space. It wasn't for him. But the way they structured it was just so impressed. You know, like it was all designed to keep them safe. They had the support cars there. Wouldn't let them rest too long in the rest station. It was like in and out in five minutes. You know, I remember they were like on their backs. Get their legs rub. Eating, you know, pasta on their back on the side of the road. Yeah. And he's like time to go, time to go. But, you know, then, you know, three quarters of the way into the race, middle of the night, finally, let them have their first dose of caffeine and some Advil. Yeah. And to you, what I thought these guys found them as sia. But they started dancing, singing through the music, rap song, run in sideways. And they were like, you know, 70 odd miles in and just, you know, woke them up. I know it's a lot of strategy to that. So, yeah, you know, I'm happy to hear that you feel like with this. I did, I did similar with the first 100 miles I did as well. I had a like 20 minute nap at about 20, like 20 odd hours in or something like early in the morning, just like laid down 20 minutes, I'm asking and then straight out caffeine. And I was, and then started taking like painkillers and stuff for like a little bit. Yeah, because I woke up and I was like almost like, oh, actually now something's hurting. It's like, as if it settled, it didn't hurt until then. And then, but then after like a little while, I was like buzzing. And then the early that morning, I was like, felt amazing when the sun came back on like that morning. It was, it was pretty cool. If you want protein to build lean muscle, but without the caloric impact or need to cut, you need perfect amino. It's pure essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins in a precise form and ratio that allows for near 100% utilization in building lean muscle and no caloric impact. So we build protein six times as much as way, but without the excess body fat we normally get during bulking. This is the new era of protein supplementation and it's real. If you want to build lean muscle without having to cut, you need perfect amino. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. So what's next for you in that, you've got an eye fit contract. And is that where a lot of your focus is right now? I mean, what's next for you? Do you want to be an ultra-distance influencer? I mean, you want to just be very vulnerable about your story and lay it out there to inspire other people. Because I really find that what motivates people is what determines the duration that they're able to sustain something like this. I feel like a lot of athletes, you even talk about this, will peak with some big great race. Like for me, when I finished the Chesapeake Half Iron Man, I put my bike on the wall in my garage. I didn't touch it for three years. Yeah. I did literally, did not get on the bike, did not get back in the pool. And I think I just hit that limit of I've done that with my bike since my triathlon is. But I started running, but yeah, the bike I haven't been on the bike since the try, but also the weather is just bad. I didn't get to buy in November and back to London. Did you try to do it by? Yeah, I did 100 K. That was my first one. So I didn't learn to ride a bike as a kid. And then I learned last year, so I bought a racing bike and learned on the racing bike to ride it, put my cleats on for the first time a week before did 20 K as my longest outdoor ride. And then obviously has a ride like 80. But obviously, I just don't do things by half measures anymore. So I had to kind of like, I can't just do a hundred, I couldn't do like a short one. I had to go straight in on the 100 K like half, half Ironman kind of. Yeah. But yeah, no, I think to be honest, I want to, I want to dab a little bit more in like performance in these races. Like I did a race last year. I did 100 K and I placed in top 10. It wasn't like the most competitive race, but like, I know that I've got potential to do something with the sport in general. Like I want to go into that this year, I'm running all the major marathon. So more for just because like, I've got to deal with on as a global ambassador and then I fit with taking that base wants of some of the races. So doing wrong clubs around them and then obviously racing and kind of coaching some people into that. So this year's like, I'm going to get fast again, which is quite nice. Do a bit of speed work. How do I injured a little bit, but yeah. And then next year, I want to take on some big races again, like 100 mileer, maybe Moab, something like that. But I think Moab's, Moab's legit. It looks really cool. I think I'm pacing actually from I fit who's racing it with them a little bit for like through the night and I've got a couple of friends doing it. So it'll be nice to go there and see it and then I'll be like, right next year, I'll come back and give it a bit of a wally. But I think like for me, I've got the most fulfillment, not from just achieving things in like taking this stuff off is how, who I'm helping along the way and like the impact I'm having. So like with I fit, I've got more of an impact because they've got this community people that already doing so I filmed some run workouts in the Eln and Chad Meals. They released yesterday and I'm already getting messages. People tagging me. It's like, oh, did you 5k run at this beach in Cornwall today? That's so cool. And I know like the messages I get from kids that get into stuff. Like there's someone running, I had a call with him. So I got a message. Just guys like, mate, I want to run around Ibiza. So I did the whole island. It was I was like the fastest person to do it by far, but it was not like an official thing. But someone walked it in 10 days and they do this yearly thing and then someone ran it in Spain in like 70 hours. I did it in like 20, 30, 30 hours, 28, 30 hours. But he wants to go and do it now. And I'm like, mate, sick. I'll give you all my notes on what went wrong. Where was like difficult because some of it was like really bad. Like probably not safe at all. Had no insurance, had no permits, no safety versions. It was just me and a couple of mates driving me around and I was just running and they were like meeting me at certain points and then pacing me. It was really like, really kind of primal. Yeah, really kind of. But also like amazing. That's so fun. But yeah, I'm like, that's so cool that you can go do that. It works out. I'll go out and support it. But just some random random guy on the internet. But yeah, it's like that impact that I can have is means a lot more than just like getting a metal and a racing. Yeah. And also who you become doing the stuff is. Yeah. Cool. So yeah, I mean, do you feel like you've become a completely different person? I mean, how yeah, how about how are your goals and your priorities or relationships work? How how those things been affected by what I mean, like coming in for me, like my career is taken off with it anyway. Just in general, like the stuff that I'm doing now, I probably wouldn't be doing anymore. So like when I did the reality TV stuff, you kind of have this window of like working opportunity that you can get out of it and actually go and do more shows and keep the ball rolling. And I think a lot of the guys that go on these shows kind of just piss it away. Like I was doing in the beginning. And then a couple years later, the brand deals dry up and they go with new people that are on new shows or a new show comes out or like the new seasons out. So you're forgotten about. And I think that's kind of the you get like a little time frame of like do something with it all, like get left behind. And I'm really glad that I found like I love training and fitness anyway. Like I've been in the gym almost every day since I was 16, even when I was partying. I was always in the gym. That was my bare minimum. Like keeping me afloat was to look a certain way in yeah, training and just like feel a little bit of like lifting myself up from from the from the ground, right? And I think like I was really lucky that I made that into like my career. So now like things are going really well. Like I'm coming out here more and like just stuff just happening. That's wouldn't have happened if I didn't make that decision to go all in on it. But also just like like even with drinking and stuff, I think I was like lacking confidence. So I'd have to like I'd have bit social anxiety. I'd go out and I'd be at these like crazy events with people and I wouldn't know how to talk to anyone and I'd be a bit like didn't know I could do it. And then I'd have to have a drink and then all of a sudden I'm on my out somewhere like doing something stupid. But I think I needed that. But now I've like built up so much confidence in myself from doing all this stuff. Like now I kind of hold myself like I value myself more because I feel like I've been that respect to myself. Do you mean? Yeah. Which I don't think you have to you don't have to end the respect for yourself. You should be able to do it. But I think I need to see. Yeah. I think a lot of people do too. I think I think a lot of times it's it's the voices that we use internally with ourselves that nobody else hears. You know, I've heard some of the great thought leaders talk about giving yourself grace and speaking to yourself internally like you would speak to a best friend that was going through a tough time. Yeah, you know, because very often we were really hard on ourselves and it you know, we're our own worst enemy. And I think when you realize that you can accomplish really hard things and push through it, it reinforces the fact that you know what I am trustworthy. I can, I can set a goal and I can achieve it. I'm sure that that has touch points in other areas of your life. It, I mean, helps you in relationships, helps you in business, helps you as an entrepreneur. I think most entrepreneurs realize like sleep and how you feel as your super power. It used to be like sleep when you're deadmine set like you don't need sleepers for lose. But now it's like this, like if you look at all the, I read the why we sleep working like done all the I'm probably entry level on the biohacking in the health and wellness compared to like you. But like, yeah, I think sleep so massive and you like you don't perform if you don't sleep like especially in sport, like you don't recover and you don't like you can't train to your full potential without it. But even mentally like if I don't sleep, probably I have like a night flight in an economy and I'm like four hours sleep and I wake up like you just you on your ass like yeah. So I think it's so important. But that is funny. The the mental like the internal voice thing actually use it as fuel sometimes the negative voice. So like there's been times and races where I'm struggling and I go into this like this whole of like this person thinks you can't do it and like from remembering what someone said and I'm like create this like false image in my head of everyone wants to see me fail. So I use it as like motivation. So all like I'm very competitive in what I do when I race. I'm like always like I need to catch this person off and get this like someone's over to me. So I'm like trying to call back places and I do it mentally as well. I'm like I'll think about stuff and like other people's achievements. And I'm like, well if they can do that, why can't I run a bit faster in this thing and it helps me to push and I think it's a bit of a fine line to tread. But I've spoke to sports therapists about it and stuff but you can use it as motivation. I think and I think that's how I've kind of got to where I have with training and sport is to be a bit self critical because you can't give yourself too much. Yeah, but also like you can pat yourself on the back. Yeah, yeah, you need to be like all right. You've done that now like get up and. Because there's somebody else that's just as motivated as you and I work in Hoda. Yeah, they're working on. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I have this group of VIPs and I told them you were coming on. They're going to hold a bunch of questions for you. So in a few minutes, we're going to transition over to our VIPs. But I always wind down all my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. So if you've watched it, you know this one's come if you don't. Yeah, there's no right around that. What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? I think like I used to think it was a very internal personal thing, quite selfish thing, which is what I did a lot of my I did a lot of self work, but it was all about me. And I think to be an ultimate human, it's it's more than just use. There's a bigger picture like the impact you have in, you know, it's like no matter what you achieve and you're doing your life and stuff. There's what do you want on your tombstone? Like what do you want them to talk about? I mean, on your analogy, like who you were as a person, like I think imagine like issue funeral and they're talking about you and they're not going to go like, oh, he made this much money and he did this. He did this time in this race and like people remember you because of that. But I think like the impact you have in general is is what what's going to what how you touch people right. So I think that's the biggest thing for me to be an ultimate human have a good impact. You know your age to be thinking about legacy is a great place to be. And I, I, Cory, I wish you all the luck. I think you're going to impact an entire generation. Thank you. Love what you're doing. Sun's a big fan. He's excited to run a workout with you. So we'll head into the VIP group. If you want to become a VIP, just head over to the ultimate human.com/vip and sign up. I'd love to have you as a member of our community. You can see more from Cory Samson in there. Questions asked and answered. Until next time, that's just something.