Scott Zagarino is the mastermind behind the โ1989TheStory.comโ project, a historical account of the greatest triathlon race of all time. In the aftermath of the wonderful interview with protagonists Mark Allen and Dave Scott, I catch up with my old-time triathlon training partner, sponsor, and mentor to reflect not only on the significance of the Mark and Dave story, but how this athletic battle can translate into an assortment of life lessons and peak performance inspiration.
Scott was a prominent figure in the triathlon scene for many years in the 80s and 90s. His entrepreneurial spirit ushered the sport into the modern era in many ways. He was the point man for huge sponsorship deals for the Hawaii Ironman, he dreamed up spectator-friendly competition formats and brought unique new events to life, and he was the first person to form a team of professional athletes under one sponsor and connected directly with his charity, Triathletes For Kids. His long career in sports marketing has recently returned him to triathlon for this ambitious multimedia project centered around the 1989 Ironwar. Even if you arenโt a triathlete, I think you will appreciate our discussion of how we can take inspiration from athletes putting everything on the line, dusting themselves off and carrying on after failures, and the need for all of us to pursue our passions and test our limits in daily life.
TIMESTAMPS:
Brad and Scott talk about the life lessons, the metaphors, and the inspiration that you can draw from the Ironman race itself. [04:08]
The well known 1989 Iron War with Mark Allen and Dave Scott is historic. [07:23]
There was no legacy in triathlon until the late 80s. [10:57]
Did Markโs marathon in 1989 set a record? [12:57]
Scott talks about how this even taught us about real human character. [14:59]
What was the level of Daveโs career at this point? [17:51]
The relationship between these two men evolved over the years. [19:48]
A demonstration of real human character is the way Dave Scott took his defeat. [27:56]
Some folks are happy with โone and done.โ [31:57]
Is it mental toughness that carries the athlete above the pack? [35:25]
The ability to focus has changed drastically in 30 years. [39:44]
Peer pressure can discourage children. [43:14]
Zagarinoโs message is about building character and helping others. [44:18]
Scott talks about becoming a monk. [49:17]
Thereโs no correlation at all between triathlon and health. [56:22]
LINKS:
- Mark Allen
- Dave Scott
- Scott Zagarino
- Steve Prefontaine
- Dave Wottle
- Frank Shorter
- Stories of the 1989 race
- Johnny G
- Alex Honnold
QUOTES:
- “You are never going to find anybody who won the Ironman who is well adjusted!”
- “You reach a certain age and just tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.”
LISTEN:
Get Over Yourself Podcast
Brad: 00:00:01 Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author and athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high-stress, modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balanced that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go.
Brad: 00:04:08 I’m here to introduce my old time triathlon friend, sponsor, mentor Scott Zagarino a free thinking, free spirited, high energy guy that had an incredible impact on the sport from the business side of things. He would just dreamed up these amazing, uh, ventures and brought them to life, putting on some incredible innovative races. He was the first guy to form a team of professional triathletes under one sponsor in one organization. That’s actually how I came to know Mark Sisson as Mark Sisson and coached this triathlon team. So zag arena was the guy behind the scenes making things happen, advancing the growth of the sport internationally, a had all kinds of fun. And then he left the sport for a long time, just as I did for a couple of decades. Uh, but it’s always been near and dear to his heart. And so he’s come back with his innovative marketing agency called the Scott Zagarino Agency with this neat project to chronicle the greatest triathlon race of all time, the 1989 iron war Mark Allen vs. Dave Scott on the lava fields of Kona with both athletes at the peak of their careers and this incredible showdown and the historic performance that goes down in history as the single greatest triathlon race of all time. Many observers call it the greatest endurance competition of all time because these guys raced side by side for eight hours, there was a final breakaway at the very end. Mark Allen got his first of, eventually six Ironman victories. Dave Scott had six victories coming into the race. And I did such a wonderful show with those two guys. I encourage you to listen to it, read the transcript. It was amazing. And then I wanted to get in with Scott too, to have some further reflections, uh, from a distance about the life lessons and the metaphors and the inspiration that you can draw from the race itself and from what the two athletes represented at the peak of their careers and the battles and the challenges that they went through to get to the starting line.
Brad: 00:06:09 So Scott does a great job tying in the sporting experience with the challenges that we all face in real life, the battles that we face inside our minds to get up every day and be the best we can be and not get discouraged and not let setbacks bring you down. I think you’ll like to show, of course you have the reference of triathlon, but really what we’re talking about is life lessons and reflections, especially from two old timers. I’m looking back at triathlon. That was our bread and butter so long ago. So enjoy this conversation with Scott Zagarino,
Brad: 00:06:43 Scott Zagarino, my long time, long lost Triathalon associate. We were there back in the very early days. And if anyone doesn’t recognize your name today, Oh, shame on you guys. Go, go onto Google. Spend a little time. But you are at the epicenter of many different, uh, attributes and, and growth properties of the multi-sport world. So I’m so glad to get you, uh, on the, on the podcast here. And we’re going to talk about some old times, aren’t we?
Scott: 00:07:12 Yeah, it’s good to see you. Even though it’s via Skype. We’ve been…
Brad: 00:07:16 We both look the same as when we, when we last left off on our last bike ride, uh, decades ago. I have to say.
Scott: 00:07:22 Yup.
Brad: 00:07:23 So let’s start off talking about your, this podcast project and this, uh, bringing back the, uh, maybe the most historic race and triathlon that’s had the most attention was this 1989 iron war with, uh, Mark Allen and Dave Scott.
Scott: 00:07:40 Well, the probably for, for 20 years, I have bugged them. You know, there’s a very limited history. It’s all built out of this. They said the same things in interviews over and over and over again. They stood up on the day and said the same, you know, the last 120 yards, the all of that. And I said, you know, there’s so much that people don’t know because Mark raced 12 times. Dave raced more than that. So he lost six. Now you picture yourself, cause this was my point of view when we were talking about it. I said it’s 1980. It’s the beginning of 1989. It’s January. You’ve been to the hospital and have a near death experience.
Brad: 00:08:19 This is Mark Allen’s a track record in Hawaii you’re describing. So now 89, he’s getting ready to do his, his seventh attempt in Hawaii. Uh, and he’s standing number, we should report that he’s the number one triathlete in the world. Undisputed, the absolutely dominant force at all distance, including Olympic, including nice France. And now, uh, there’s one hole in his resume and a, he’s O for six and then Scott picks up the story.
Scott: 00:08:48 Um, well yeah. Well they go back to what you were saying. We had a, we had a promotion we did a couple of years ago because nobody knew this Mark. And Mark didn’t even know it. He won 21 races straight over two seasons and he always said it was 20 and when we were going through it, he went. But if it’s a year, if it’s like if it’s a 12 month period of time and every race I did, it’s really 21 because I won Bermuda too. So his memory failed on the, on those things. But, but back to the Ironman story was that, so you’re there and if I failed to give context, just jump in and remind me. Cause I’ve been looking at this for so long, this story for so long. Um, so it’s January and you’re writing down your race schedule and let’s see, I’ve won least 10 times and that pays X. I won this race 10 times and it pays X. I can go to Japan, I can go to Australia.
Scott: 00:09:39 I don’t think I’m going to go to Hawaii. It’s just not my race. I just don’t really think I showed my family, my friends, my advisors are all against it. And then he, he, he thought about a month later, he said, do I really want to end my career in Hawaii walking? And he filled out his entry form and that’s how…, That’s just part of how 89 came to be. And, um, we’re trying to create a legacy, a lot of legacy items around triathlon because it never was supposed to have a history, you know, no one back then. Did you think it was going to be where it is today? 35 years later?
Brad: 00:10:16 I dunno. Where is it today? I don’t pay attention anymore. Oh, it’s in the Olympics. That’s right. It’s prominent in many nations across the world. Yeah. I think around this time in the late eighties, uh, it was still kind of a us centric sport. There were a couple, uh, select athletes from other nations that were mixing it up on the circuit. But you know, today the U S has kind of an afterthought in terms of the, the elite rankings and, um, the top pros hail from all over the place, especially Australia, Germany, uh, things like that. So it’s really grown that that’s what I’ve seen is the global growth from uh, this sport that was, you know, mainly going around in U S circuit and that was the end all.
Scott: 00:10:57 Yes. Well, like track and field, the Prefontaine stories are handed down from father to son. Dave Wottle we all know Frank Shorter, those, that’s where legacy, the legacy of track and field comes from. But there is, there was no legacy in triathlon and I’m coming from kind of a strange perspective cause I left for almost, I left the sport for almost 12 years where I just had nothing to do with it. Like I spent seven years studying as a Zen Buddhist monk and then I went into philanthropy after that for the next five years and it dragged me back in. It just was always supposed to be that way. And I would try to tell people about 1989 because I think that that’s probably to me the one of the most historic inspirational races of any kind, any distance I’ve ever seen it. And I was lucky enough to be on the course. So I wanted to reach him, remember it and putting the pieces together after 30 years. This is the 30th anniversary has been about job. You know, it’s not a job anybody’s paying for because put it that way.
Brad: 00:12:00 Uh, so what’s this uh, podcast, uh, effort that you’re bringing the, the two rivals together to speak at the same time and not interrupt each other? Oh my gosh.
Scott: 00:12:11 Well they’ve done, they’ve done a bunch together cause they’ve written these stories, these 10 stories that will be at the, it’s called 1989thestory.com and one new story every week through Ironman and what they’ve, they’ve come to know each other better by collaborating this way. Cause you know, they’ve been friendly. They’ve, over the years there was, there was never any animosity there, but now they’re remembering things that the other person is telling them that they didn’t remember. And the story keeps growing. It goes, you know, paragraph by paragraph. It’s, well I don’t remember it being quite that way. And Dave will say it was exactly that way. You know, they think Dave, he has the split for it. But, um, it’s really just an interesting story. I think it’s a, it’s a, there’s just never been anything like it that I’ve ever seen. And I don’t think that people consider that if not the longest, one of the longest records to stand it was Mark’s marathon in 1989. It takes 27 years to break it.
Brad: 00:13:09 Well, apparently there’s some little dispute about that cause it’s not really broken because they, they, um, we’re getting into geek zone. For those of you who are, um, borderline triathlon fans, you’re going to be fascinated and you’re going to do some background research to, to pick up the slack here. But, um, this the split times we’re including of transition back in Mark and Dave’s time. So they had a bite time and then they had a run time. They didn’t have a one minute and 47 second change out time in the tent, which they do today. So, um, and of course they’ve changed the course so you can no longer compare the exact course records. But I think the big point that I want to get into and we’ll get into it right now is like this is 30 years ago, Scott and these guys put up, they went 08:09 and 08:10 out on the lava fields in Hawaii.
Brad: 00:13:54 So they were performing at a level that is, uh, equivalent, maybe superior to today’s leading athletes. And we’ve had so much progress in sport in the last 30 years with technology and with a pharmaceutical intervention we see as now prevalent and especially in the endurance sports. And so you have to bring that into the mix as a potential variable. Not to make any comment on today’s performers, but this is a whole different world where there was no HIPO in 1989. So you can pretty much, uh, conclude that there was no, absolutely magnificent artificial advantage, uh, in the mix at that time. And so I’m going to set you up with, this is like a 10 question, a windup toy. I know you have a, uh, a windup key on your back anyway. So, um, how did that, how do those performances stand? The test of time with all this technological progress and you know, what’s the significance of, of what those guys did back then and also throwing in uh, the bike times of Mike Pigg in 1988 and Andrew McNaughton and Jimmy Riccitello arguably, uh, unequaled or you know, unsurpassed in 30 years.
Scott: 00:14:59 Well, well going back to what you said about the comment you made about triathlon getting non triathlon and geeks that we are getting a little out on the fringe. Really the whole point of my wanting to do this at this point in my life is it, that’s got nothing to do with triathlon that just happened to be the canvas that this was painted on. You know, Roger, Roger Bannister’s going under four minutes in the mile it’s unit. That’s a universal heroism. That’s not, and in this case, there’s a mythological component to it in that they both talk a lot now about that they could never have done that. What they did on that day if it weren’t for the other person and not for the other person on the course that day. But for the six years it took to get there and figure it out. And uh, so when you look at those times and you look at the records and if, if you adjust for, uh, the different course and the extra time, uh, a really great thing about that was that when Patrick Long, uh, broke Mark’s record after 27 years, the first thing he did when he crossed the finish line is he ran over to Mark and said, I’m sorry. You know, this is a record I really didn’t want.
Scott: 00:16:05 And that, that’s the point of this. This is it sport in my, in my opinion, in Y lifetime has always brought out the very best in people, the most courageous, heroic, you know, he’s brought out the bad in some too. Can you arguably, but the, the fact is that a performance like that, you could tell your child that it was done in race cars or matchbox cars or running downhill with a barrel. It, it doesn’t matter. The way that it unfolded was the very best that human beings are, are capable of. They stayed right next to each other for all that time. I don’t even want to be in a living room next to somebody that long, that long, much less, you know, 110 degree heat out in Kona. You, you’ve been around it that long, does it, does it strike you as being that special that deserves a place in history outside of the few triathlon people who watch the videos?
Brad: 00:17:03 Yeah, that’s very well said. A good point. And there was so much, uh, you know, backstory leading up to the showdown, uh, on Mark Allen’s side, you alluded to it a little bit where here’s this guy who’s dominating the sport of triathlon all over the world and then showing up at the biggest race and just crashing and burning and making mistakes. Uh, you know, errors in pace calculation, the smartest and most shrewd strategic race around the world. And just, you know, getting in, uh, getting so discouraged that he wasn’t even gonna sign up for the race. I didn’t know that story, but, um, it was amazing how much pressure was on his back for the duration of his career as the number one guy. It’s kinda like, uh, you know, uh, LeBron taking his team to the finals every year and then losing seven years in a row instead of winning one here for the heat.
Brad: 00:17:51 And one for the Cavaliers. LeBron’s legacy is slightly different now that he’s bagged a few titles rather than continuing to go all the way and lose. But that was Mark Allen and boy, that stuff weighs heavily on you when the sport is so small and there’s so much significance to winning the Ironman. And so man, you know, carrying that burden on his back. Remember you were probably involved in that Cheerio deal cause you were involved in every triathlon deal for about a decade there. But he was on the cover of Wheaties. Uh, or no, it’s called pro grain cereal. Uh, ironman cereal. And here’s this guy that’s, you know, has never won the Ironman and now they’re sticking them on a cereal box. It was like a historic moment for the entire sport to have an athlete on a cereal box. So that was his side. Uh, but I also want you to come in on where Dave was coming from at that point in his career in 1989 this because he had struggled for quite some time with injuries. And there was some, uh, looking at the sunset of his career and a lot of speculation that maybe this guy had had his day by that point.
Scott: 00:18:49 Well that’s the, uh, you said about, you were talking about LeBron and his legacy and that’s the disconnect. Cause nobody talks about day of Mark and their legacy. Even, even if they bring up the topic, legacy doesn’t enter the equation and that’s, that’s what we’re trying to do. But the, from Dave’s side is that, that Dave, was there any second or third Ironman, 1980. and he won. And he had it dialed in because his training was all about, uh, you’ll see in the, in some of the articles, something you already know, but, but something that might make all the garment wearing people adjust their attitude a little bit. He had a Timex and not a timer, stopwatch. Timex just around, uh, around the globe, Timex. And that’s what he used the time, his workouts. And he basically said, I’m going to go as far as I can, as hard as I can today. This is a new, you know, and he called him Dave Scott world records and he’d come home and he’d say, today, I said at Dave Scott, world record,
Scott: 00:19:48 But he got it dialed when Mark wasn’t there before, before other people had figured out that this is really going to be a race, not like the original, you know, everybody’s going to finish and we hope everybody gets there. And it wasn’t even a race there for first two times. Mark just showed up and Dave looked over at him. He didn’t know he was yo. Mark introduced himself and then Dave just put it in higher gear and rode away. And it’s hard to tell this story and not go into tri geek land, you know, into tropical Atlanta and bring it back to the reality of these guys. We’re thinking about each other all year, every year on for that one day, Dave, because it was the one race that he could win that made his year every year. And Mark because it was the one race he couldn’t win.
Scott: 00:20:34 You know? That’s uh, that’s it. Yep. It’s a burden to carry, to lose something six times and be leading it three times when you lose it. I don’t, people don’t know this, but in 87 when he got hurt, he was bleeding internally and at the hospital they said, we don’t know if we can find a way to stop the bleeding. His mom was there. And so again, we, we might lose him cause we just can’t stop it. And those, those are just little things about the relationship between two men that evolved over those years. And the result of that. Can you think of anything else in sport, a marathon, uh, anything in endurance sports or sports at all that has this much depth to it?
Brad: 00:21:15 Well, you’re, you’re bringing a lot of depth to it and our, our conversation about it as bringing light to it. And that, that’s cool because, uh, it was something extraordinary. It was so far out of the boundary of the previous record performances. And that’s where these breakthroughs occur, that, you know, unfold the next decade of elite performance as people seeing that this is possible. And the record could be taken down from 08:28 that was Dave Scott’s previous record to 08:09. It’s just, it’s ridiculous notion and then everybody has to recalibrate and break down our boundaries. And I think you were mentioning that and a little bit at the outset where, you know, we have these fixed beliefs in our mind. We decide that this way of eating is healthy and I’m trying to get healthier now. So I’ve cut out red meat. Oh, wonderful. And I’m eating more of, you know, I’m eating more a gluten free soy Cracker cakes.
Brad: 00:22:05 Oh, great. You know, and, and, uh, the beliefs form and they cement in the brain and then we, we, we carry along with our life where we think that, um, a hundred miles is a long ride. Johnny G educated me to that aspect when he took me out and took me on a few 200 mile rides and previous previous to completing a 200 mile ride, I thought a hundred miles was a long ride. But you know, this is kind of what Mark and Dave did on a big scale, uh, not only in, you know, beating the time on the Hawaii course, but also the training regimen and the overall lifestyle dedication. And you can pick some of that up from the, the magazine articles and the interviews at the time where, uh, I believe that was the year that, uh, Mark went down to New Zealand and pretty much, you know, today we would call it unplugged,
Scott: 00:22:49 right.
Brad: 00:22:49 Uh, but he went down there with, um, his, his training partners that the, the posse at the time, Julie Moss, Scott Molina, Aaron Baker, and they just, you know, went into this dedicated six week training mode where they exceeded all previous, uh, training thresholds that they had achieved in their normal routine, everyday home life. And so, and then all athletes have to pick up the fricking magazine and read how, you know, you say goodbye to your, hopefully it’s not your wife and kids. I know that’s happened at sometimes in, in triathlon, but you know, you say goodbye to these fixed notions and regimented life that you have that’s actually putting limits on you and you just start, you know, putting the gas pedal down and seeing what the body’s capable of. And I have to give a plug to Kenny Souza because he had a profound influence on Mark during those years when they were training together in Boulder.
Brad: 00:23:40 Because speaking of the Garmin people, I mean this guy, you know, he was the most uh, and non, you know, non-techie training human, but he was at the top of his world for many years too. And he would just go out there and F’ing hammer if he felt like doing it that day. And that was the, the end of his, uh, his thought process. And you know, that helped Mark to Mark. Mark said that it helped open his eyes to being able to, Hey, let’s go for a seven hour ride instead of a five hour ride and see what happens.
Scott: 00:24:09 Well, I think if there were a contact, if I had a context for this, it would be for everybody who’s listening now it’s that for anything to happen of any significance, first someone has to believe it’s possible. So if everyone believes that the four minute mile is impossible, it’s, it will never be broken. But as soon as the first person looks at it and says, I think I can do that, you know, once it’s possible, then someone will do it. But someone’s got to make it possible first. And what you said about their training and how far they went and how hard they went, they were so far past, Dave knew on paper how fast he thought a perfect race could be in Hawaii. And he’s that kind of guy. He thought he could run this, he could swim as he could bite this. But I really want swimming, biking, and running to be the minor part of this story. The major part of this story is that two people at the same time, Dave knew he could do it.
Scott: 00:25:06 So his progression with Mark was like a student. He’d watch Mark figure it out and fail. And he was not about to be the teacher. So the spanker maybe, but not the teacher. And he watched this evolve and he knew by 88 or 89 you know, neither of them Goodwill in 88 Dave didn’t even enter. But I keep rolling back into triathlon. But it’s not. It’s, it’s two people at the same point in history who went, Mark said is possible to beat Dave even though I’ve lost six times and it’s possible to go so fast on this course that no one’s going to touch this record for 27 years. Bob Beeman’s long jump only lasted 23 years and that was a flip. You know, when you consider the sport, the altitude and all of those things, and this is where if you’re I dunno if you’re a little a 50 60 year old man right now and you’ve lost your job, it’s a terrible time to be unemployed. It’s, it’s, and it’s very prevalent and you look at just impossible. I’ve sent my resume out everywhere. It’s going to go and you look at this story and say that two guys decided that it was possible to do something that’s so difficult to complete. Once you raise that, you know that if you just hang in there and you just keep trying another way that this, this is a story that can inspire you because no one can argue with it. You can’t say all, but they had this all that they had that they had nothing but an idea it wasn’t impossible to win the race. It was possible to do something on that course that no one did again for 25 years. So, but, you know, take the takeaway is that it’s courage and possibility and courage and creating possibility don’t happen when you’re on top.
Brad: 00:26:49 Wow. Right. I mean, you could look from the outside and think they were both on top, but we talked about Mark’s pressure of being 0 for six. And then we talked about, Dave, I should elaborate that he was the King of the Hawaii Ironman. Uh, but is overall track record and his presence on the circuit was minimal compared to many of the other highly ranked athletes. He would, he would basically peak for Hawaii. He’d be seen only at a handful of races rather than 15 to 17, like most of the racers. And so he put a lot of pressure on himself because he was really a do or die at Hawaii guy. And he had, uh, you know, he had, he had struggled in 88 with injuries. And so, you know, he was coming back the, the years are counting up on his calendar. I believe he was, what, 30, 38 or something when he raised there. So, um, he had his own, you know, they both had their own drives that were, uh, maybe easy to misinterpret. When you look at the, uh, the glory and the, and the fame that they had achieved at that point. But it was, there was a deep inner drive to, to uh, accomplish something and, um, you know, break that record in Dave’s case or finally win one. In Mark’s case,
Scott: 00:27:56 you know, it’s true. And, and what, what I think of the many things that go overlooked in this, about these guys in this race is that if you, if your entire career was built on one race and it was your personality and it expressed like an artist, you know, it was Dave’s painting was the Ironman. You know, he took a blank canvas and he made it his, and then he knows how it’s going to end with a quarter mile left. They’re going to go up this little hill and he’s going to push Mark over the edge and he’s going to win. And just as he goes to do it, Mark does it. And can you imagine living with that the rest of your life that that’s how, that’s what happened. And that’s how it happened. It was your plan and he took it away from you. And the thing at the point I wanted to make is that if you wanted to show your kids real character, Dave Scott had every reason to be bitter, to be angry, to feel bad about himself, to be depressed, to, you know, push to any limit.
Scott: 00:28:58 When somebody takes something that dear away from you, it takes it away that way. He never saw it as being taken away and he’s behaved with class and, and represented himself, his sport, his business, his family in a way that I, I don’t think it would be possible for me if I have him having a crushing experience like that. And then you have Mark who’s never gloated who’s never said, yeah, that’s when I got him. Or that’s never tried to make Dave small. What he’s always held to, and Dave too, is that if it was anybody else, it wouldn’t have happened. And the fact that it ended that way, it’s just how it ended. And I’d like to see my kid come home from losing a baseball game with that attitude,
Brad: 00:29:39 right? We talk about the importance of the process and the journey, and that’s vastly more important than the end result. But it’s so hard to embody that in real life when you were, uh, as Zuckerberg college roommate that had the idea for Facebook, and then he took it and became a billionaire, like, remember the Larry David movie, uh, what was it called, where he was, um, th th his partner kicked him out. It was, uh, John Hamm, you know, 20 years ago. And then, you know, the John Han becomes a billionaire. And Larry David just to, uh, you know, regretting this whole thing where he had, you know, $5,000 to split ways on this startup company. Uh, but it’s, you know, as athletes to man, we got our egos on the line, we try really hard, we put our heart and soul into it and it’s easy to get disappointed, discouraged, and even negative, uh, as the pattern continues where you’re not manifesting your dreams just as you envision them every time you take a nap.
Brad: 00:30:33 And so the people that can transcend that, I think those are the most powerful and well adjusted athletes. I know we have examples of athletes who have one, one, one and picking up all the, the money and the accolades, but they’re poorly adjusted to real life. And you see them in the news from a crashing their Bentleys at 2:00 AM and whatever else they’re doing to a, to, to mix up, you know, what seemingly as a, a highly successful person. So yeah, credit to those guys especially cool. Was, you know, that was Dave’s swan song and he was out for awhile and then all of a sudden he appeared back on the starting line with his veins in his, uh, many attributes of his calf muscles visible when he was, what Scott, was it 42 when he became runner up at 42? Yup. I mean, that’s one of the greatest athletic performances. If you want to go to the, um, you know, to the, uh, the age group, uh, inspiration in any sport at the elite level. You know, we have Tom Watson who was one point away from winning the British open at 59, the greatest age adjusted golf performance ever to be runner up, uh, you know, 20 years past his prime. And then we have Dave coming back, uh, well at 42, he was runner up and then he raced again and took fifth when he was, how old?
Scott: 00:31:43 I don’t, I don’t .45 yeah.
Brad: 00:31:47 45 or something.like that I mean that is, that is stunning. Uh, especially when you consider the training regimen necessary to be anywhere in the top 20. It’s, it’s ridiculous. Well, you know, we feel we’ve all known each other, each other for 30 some odd years now. And so you get a little benefit of hindsight. And one thing Mark said, always stuck with me. He goes, you’re never going to find anybody who won the Ironman who was well adjusted and, and it’s true, it’s a monumental as you’ve been saying, it’s a monumental thing to bite off even. It’s just like you want to knock off Everest or some something for the wrong reasons. Well do something hard for the wrong reasons. And there’s a lot of that going around lately. So [inaudible] so Scott [inaudible]
Brad: 00:32:32 yeah. Are you looking at your window watching guys jumped the waterfall so they can say they wrote a class six and wiping out with the sirens next?
Scott: 00:32:40 Yeah, with two GoPros on their head. So they can tell everybody back in Portland, they ran this this fall that’s in my backyard. And for them that’s, you know, but then as the accomplish or you sit around at, at dinner and you’ll hear him talking behind you. Like, I ran this thing once. Once doesn’t mean anything. You know, it means you got a picture, but you know, right things, wrong reasons. It’s not my place to judge, but there’s no character in that. There’s no character in somebody dragging you up a mountain or you know, buying the best of everything so you can finish the Ironman in 17 hours. and never do another one. And that’s uh, that’s actually a thing that’s happening is they call it one and done. Guy have puts a tee shirt up on his wall and his neighbor gets one. His neighbor gets a tee shirt. Pretty soon all of their friends got tee shirts and they never did a triathlon again.
Brad: 00:33:28 How about a tattoo at one had done with the M. dot. Right there I’d be, I’d be sick to get sued really fast. If you used the M. dot. With it.
Brad: 00:33:37 M. dot. One and done right around it in a circle, uh, tarnishing the, the glorious reputation of the M. dot. That’s the logo of the Ironman people.
Scott: 00:33:47 And it’s so, so you know, really I want to, I want to keep trying to pull this out of the context of Oh, even in sport it’s, it’s a, it’s a story that I think if people see it out of context, they read it out of context and they see what happened over those, over those two years that are mostly what they’re writing about. There are a lot of people on their ass right now. You know, there’s, there is, uh, these are difficult times, you know, people pitted against each other. People disagreeing violently about things. There’s no time for that kind of character check where you go, who you know, and who am I, who am I really have? I look down inside the abyss and seeing who I am at the bottom of it, you know, they were fighting over table scraps and I’m hoping that a story like this will refocus people. The idea that it’s character and character will always out. It’ll, it will always win out over bad words and bad speech and bad intentions. But if you don’t focus on it, the everything can just keep going the way it is and it won’t get any better when it’s not about character. And I know if I’m the one to say it, I’ve never met two guys, two guys I admire more and then I’m happier to be doing this sport and Dave and Mark because they carry themselves like that their entire career up, down, sideways. And you know that you’ve seen a lot of athletes who, who, you know, they were all over on their back and they quit one way or the other. They gave up or something bad happens and they quit. And P people, I think that it’s just my personal way of looking for the best in people is through sports.
Brad: 00:35:25 Well, speaking of, uh, taking the memory or the story out of context and applying it to, uh, all areas of life. Um, I’m, I’m going to throw this on you for an opinion cause when I read the, there’s a book, a accounting this race called Ironwar and it was of, it was, it was a, um, uh, you know, respectable effort by the author to go deep into the thing. He was not able to interview either athlete. So that was a greatly, uh, tarnishing the, the end product project, project product. Uh, but he made a lot of, um, conjecture that it was the mental toughness of these athletes that rose them above the pack and they were able to suffer more than the next guy. And I, uh, took strong exception to that as an athlete who was at that race and saw those guys when I was heading to the turnaround, I saw them coming back at me with all the scooters and motorcycles around them.
Brad: 00:36:15 And, um, was, was trying my hardest that day as well as well as, uh, the many other races that we all toed the line against. And some people won and some people were way behind. And the mental toughness aspect. My argument is that most people at the elite level of sport have a pretty respectable level of mental toughness. And I think, uh, maybe what separated Mark and Dave was more so the exquisite preparation and perhaps the belief system, uh, that went into, uh, getting themselves to the starting line, ready to suffer at that level and ready to make the correct decisions over the previous, you know, 10 years of deciding to go to sleep early or staying up and having some more frozen yogurt and all those kinds of things. Uh, so, you know, this is taking it to someone who wants to succeed in business, someone who wants to get a job, who wants that resume to pop a who, who doesn’t want to feel discouraged and snap at their significant other because their job interview didn’t go well. I mean, what are the attributes that we can pull out that’ll give us the most value from what these athletes did, uh, on that race day and in a broader context as well?
Scott: 00:37:21 Well, I think what you’re asking is mental toughness, like good genes. You know, it somehow, somehow you’re gifted with mental toughness or more mental toughness in someone else’s. If I hear you, and I have a lot of friends that I’ve worked with who are in the teams and uh, you know, they’ve made it through buds and they’ve been with the seals or some other special operations unit, uh, very good friends of mine. And they always say that it’s not mental toughness and it’s not any, he said it’s one thing, it’s the commitment to not quit. You make a commitment to yourself and you keep it and no matter what happens because that’s why it happened on that day. And it happens to everybody where you’re, you know, you’re sitting around in a bar and you’re healthy and strong and fit and the world is going your way and you got some money in the bank and a nice house and you talk about your commitment to doing this well, your house burns down, you lose your job and everything starts going South.
Scott: 00:38:15 Now sit in the bar and tell me how committed you are. Cause commitment only shows up there. Something from Gerte, and I’ll paraphrase horribly, but he basically said that once you are committed, the earth moves in your favor, and nothing happens until you’re committed. So it’s, it’s you put your name on the line like a Dave and Mark did you know they sign up the entry form. So I am committed to winning this race. Well it does. The commitment doesn’t just mean that you, that happens. You know, everybody’s commitment to whatever they want doesn’t mean they get what they want, but you get exactly what you deserve because you stay the course. What if Mark had finished fifth he’s, he’s taught me a lot over the years about walking away and going, was that my best race? Cause I was committed to having like best race, not beating somebody. So, you know, if you’re that guy that you were just talking about or, or a woman, you know, I don’t have to be gender specific, but you’re going through an ass whipping right now at whatever part of your life you’re going through, checking in with your, and it’s not me saying this, it’s two guys who did something really extraordinary and it began by making it possible and then they can get a commitment to it, to something that everybody else thought was impossible.
Brad: 00:39:32 And [inaudible]
Scott: 00:39:34 I’ve not seen that story told anywhere. You know, I, I’ve heard a lot of stuff, I’ve seen a lot of stuff. I’ve heard a lot of talking about the, what the footwear was what happened on the Hill.
Brad: 00:39:44 Yeah, right, right. The sexy stuff instead of that. And speaking of that, I mean, here we are 30 years later and you know, some of my favorite subjects to, uh, talk about reason with and, and try to improve my life or this, uh, this hyperconnectivity and the pension for distraction and dabbling and being constantly entertained by a screen, uh, as opposed to the life that we lived 30 years ago. And I think these guys represented that commitment and that ability to focus, uh, possibly like, uh, no other athlete, uh, in, in modern times because now these guys are monitoring their social media accounts and doing the, uh, the necessary engagement with all the technology, which as you made a small comment there, maybe it’s not the, maybe it’s not the greatest breakthrough that’s gonna make you faster to have all that technology on your wrist.
Brad: 00:40:37 Maybe, possibly it could be a neutral or a net negative. And that story about, uh, marketing over to New Zealand and, uh, Mike Pigg one day, uh, swimming in Arcadia where he trained by himself for the duration of his career. And one day he got home from the swimming pool and he announced to his wife Marcy, very understanding, wonderful. Then he said, you know what? I can feel my motivation slipping a little as I swim these laps by myself, I have to go to Arizona, goodbye. And he went for six weeks down to the warmer weather in the winter and train down there, uh, because he was a number one guy and that’s how the number one guy operates. And I compare and contrast it to my approach at that time where even though my advisor, Scott Zagarino was urging me to make the 55 minute drive in rush hour traffic to Davis, California to swim with a top coach named Michael Collins.
Brad: 00:41:26 Shout out, hope you’re listening man, but I needed to improve my swim. And you correctly identified that that was the key to my career and I was doing a lot of swimming on my own cause I had a cool lake by my house that was 200 meters and it was so fun to swim there. Or I’d swim at the local pool because they let me have a lane to myself. But it wasn’t the same as mixing it up and you know, escalating my approach to the next level. And I was too lazy to sit in my car for an hour just to go swim for an hour and then sit in my car for an hour again and compare and contrast a number one guy who was willing to drive away from his home. And you know, pull up roots somewhere else just because he felt as motivation slipping at a random workout. And Mark and Dave taking that example too. I mean, when Dave went into Ironman mode, uh, there was no, you know, there was no talking, connecting or even training with him because he was so focused for the, the, the six week buildup that apparently, I mean, we can let these legends build as much as we want, but you know, he, he was pretty much, uh, on his own program with zero distraction
Scott: 00:42:28 and also a zero company. I mean, they’ve, they’ve pretty much was by himself most of the time. And that’s how he liked it. But that sort of drags it back back into triathlon and Ironman. And what you were saying about being disconnected is, you know, being connected all the time. Everybody gossiping, everybody’s rumors, everybody. Everybody’s being distracted constantly. It is a constant distraction. I see people’s lives. I’m not immune and I find myself in it all the time. We’ll look in carrying my phone, looking at my computer and I, while you’re going off to class six or is this while you’re shopping at the store, you’re pretty focused, especially at my level. You’re pretty focused when you get there. Okay. Just check that out. Yeah. Yeah. No electronic devices. In fact, the places that you’re in are so remote that there’s no buddy there anyway.
Scott: 00:43:14 There’s nobody to get you out if you, if something did happen. Um, but it, it goes back to the same thing as if you hear a lot of people talking about the evils of technology, but nobody disconnecting. Then you have to ask yourself where the, what the commitment is to the commitment. Is that your commitment to be distracted and being honest about it? Like what you just said, what if you’re just committed to having a good life, a good, enjoyable life? You don’t, you’re not going to win the Ironman. You’re not going to climb Everett. Well, you’re not gonna climb Everest without anybody there to take selfies of you. Um, you know, what, what is it that you want to see? How do you want this to turn out and what are you willing to do to have it turn out that way? And I think sometimes we go over the edge when we point to examples like athletes, and then we make people feel bad. We make kids feel bad because they’re not going extra batting practice and they’re skipping the pool, the with their friends and things like that. A commitment to having a good, enjoyable, quiet life is just as important as having a commitment to winning the Ironman as long as you have something to contribute.
Brad: 00:44:18 No, wait a second, Scott, you sound like some guy that’s been off studying Zen Buddhism for seven years. Oh, who he has. Okay. Yeah. You know what, this is such a great point. And I guess the segue, right? We’re trying to stay away from the, the, the swim, bike run. Uh, but you know, I tell my kids all the time, you know what, there are enough physicians in America, there’s enough lawyers, there’s enough accountants, there’s probably too many, there’s enough, uh, politicians and senators and people on the democratic, uh, stage running for president. In fact, there’s too many, they should kick half of ’em out. And so you’re, you know, the, this compulsion to succumb to peer pressure and to think that you’re less than because you didn’t get on the podium if you’re a hard charging age group athlete or that you’re not in the same income bracket as, uh, the, the dude down the street that you play pickleball with.
Brad: 00:45:07 I mean, these kinds of things are, are escalating at such a rate that, you know, you and I had to had to kind of suck it up and through our adult life have to process all these, these failures and, and twists and turns in the road. Uh, since, since neither of us are a corporate material, right? We’ve had a roundabout journey where you have to come and, uh, summon the courage to look yourself in the mirror and say, what am I all about? And all those kinds of things. But Oh my gosh, today with the, you know, the social media and the communications and the messaging, it’s really, really tough to, um, extract those character attributes, like making commitment to something that you believe in and, you know, may or may not monetize or, uh, look good on, uh, the resume. But I think if we can, you know, discover our passions and just follow those and there, you know, now I think we’re getting to your, your big picture, uh, goal here is to take, take inspiration from, uh, two people that you know, that, you know, came together and accomplished something great that, you know, did leave a legacy in the sport.
Scott: 00:46:07 Well, we’ll let and clearly as we’ve gone through this conversation, you, you get it as well as anyone does that neither one won or lost because it wasn’t about winning or losing. And I don’t think they were out to set an example either. That just happened along the way, but they’ve lived the example all these years afterwards. That’s character. That’s, that’s character and commitment and without bludgeoning those things to death right now there are, there are so many people around us that I think we turn the volume up so we don’t hear their pain. Um, that’s my, that’s my belief is that it’s just too hard on us to feel their pain. So we just turn volume up and figure it all work itself out and that doesn’t end well. It’s never ended well for any civilization. And it’s not the way human beings are built.
Scott: 00:46:59 You know, when you see people taking advantage of a hurricane in Puerto Rico or taking advantage in any tragic situation like that, you gotta step back and realize you either part of the problem or part of the solution. And if your choice is informed by this event and what these two guys did, it’s, I think it’s a pretty good way to form. I think it’s probably better than anything that’s coming through your iPod, your television set, your computer screen on a daily basis, on a daily basis. It’s forming your character and you know, I may be a little over the top with it, but I don’t, if more people were doing it, I wouldn’t probably feel so compelled. But as long as you’ve known me, you know, it’s been off chasing things with kids with AIDS and women without some opportunities. And you know, we, over the time that we had had our foundation, we raised about $8 million in four years with a staff of three and then operate properly
Brad: 00:47:57 cancer or what are your ?
Scott: 00:47:58 yeah, I started in with the Prostate Cancer Foundation and then I was encouraged to do, build my own foundation that was called the Sports Grants Foundation. And the idea was that we raise the money and then we decided who got it. So it wasn’t raising money that was going into a pot. Well, the American Cancer Society and $1 million didn’t make a difference. Yeah. We helped them build, to buy the ground for a thing called Camp Patriot, Montana, where they bring returning vets in and they just let them live in the outdoors, learn those kinds of skills. We funded the, uh, the purchase of the land for it. We funded scholarships for the last 107 special operations warriors who lost their lives in combat and their kids’ education wasn’t paid for. So there’s a fund that exists with special operations where for Warrior foundation that creates, uh, an annuity that funds their all their college, no matter where they want to go, no matter how long they want to stay, close books, everything. I think that was a thing worth doing I think. And you know, I look back on our roads and how windy they’ve been and how kind of, how sometimes they’d been so hard because we chose that way. Sometimes I wonder if we chose them because they were hard or you know, just because they were hard.
Brad: 00:49:17 Well, tell me about that transition from, you’re in the deep in the athletic world as, as an entrepreneur as well as an athlete and it’s such a hard charging, intensely competitive environment. And then you report that you checked out for, uh, you were away from the sport for 12 years and seven of them you were in, you were in training. So tell me, tell me how that life transition went. That’s very interesting for people that are, that are deeply immersed in whatever it is. If you’re listening as an age group competitor or you have a really intense job that you’re trying to balance some athletic goals with and your, you, you’ve got, you know, zero, a free time and that kind of, uh, that kind of regimen. It seems like you were, you were able to spin out of the, uh, the routine, the rat race.
Scott: 00:50:03 You know, I, I don’t know, it’s, it started when I was a kid.
Brad: 00:50:06 I don’t remember. I don’t remember. What’s your story? Well,
Scott: 00:50:11 I was a kid and I read the artisan, the artisan and motorcycle maintenance and that started me down there was just as big light that went on for me that when there’s more than this, you know, and I’m not seeing it because I’m not seeing anything near the essence of things. I’m seeing things as they occur to me. And believe me, this was not my thought process at 12 or 13 years old, but over time it really nagged at me that, uh, I guess the easiest way to explain it is, you know, the only thing you have to do is breathe. The rest of the rest of it. You can make up on a blank sheet of paper. And it took, it took seven years. And in the shorter version of that story is that what happens when you’re ordained as you usually go, which is what happened for me at the end of seven years, is that you go on to teach. And America, Suzuki Roshi once said, getting Zen to take hold in America is like trying to grow a tree out of a rock. A little discouraging. But I thought, you know, if this is really supposed to be some form of understanding, you know, that that’s what your, you studied all that time, then how come there’s not a result of it? And I decided that the result of it wouldn’t be teaching. And we took off my robes and went to work for philanthropy for foundation and said, you know, this is, this is how you actualize seven years of sitting in silence. Not seven years every day, but pretty close.
Brad: 00:51:38 And how much did that robe sell for on eBay? It was some record. Oh. Oh boy. Did you sell it?
Scott: 00:51:44 Yeah. Uh, yeah, I think, I think a, uh, a girl who had taken a weekend certification. Oh, I’m big. It’s so bad here. I gonna be killed who taken a weekend certification for yoga and claimed enlightenment bought the robe on eBay. Ugh.
Brad: 00:51:58 Precious. I mean, that’d be pretty cool thing to sell actually. Like this robe was on for seven years on this guy and he was totally committed and you can put it in a plexiglass case and tell your visitors to your house there. I bought this on eBay.
Scott: 00:52:13 Yeah. Yeah. I definitely climbed Everest. Here’s the truth that, because I just spoke to my teacher yesterday and he, uh, we lost two, two monks to cancer, to female monks to cancer. And we performed. I was there to perform the service with the first one. And it’s a, you’re buried in your robes, but you’re prepared for being cremated by the other monks. No, nobody else in the room. So you take off her clothes, you put her robes on, you lay her out, and she’s in a cardboard box. So that’s where my robes go. That’s, you know that they have to go there. It would be, I don’t know, buying and selling robes, if that day comes, just put me in the box for you. Skip all the lines.
Brad: 00:52:57 Well, it comes complete with a cardboard box and a guy inside. Yes.
Scott: 00:53:01 What’s this thing about enlightenment, you know, is that, and it’s hard to be interested. It’s hard not to be a little cynical about it because that’s what it, you know, everyone at some level in their spiritual growth wants enlightenment. They want to see things a different way. And Suzuki Roshi, who was one of the first teachers to come to America, finally blew up at a retreat in San Francisco when he’d only been here a couple months. He goes, you Americans. It’s enlightenment, enlightenment, enlightenment. How do you know if you get it, you’re going to like it.
Brad: 00:53:29 Wow. I didn’t know amongst were allowed to blow up. That’s cool.
Scott: 00:53:36 Oh my gosh. The stories of things that monks have done is, you know, it’s a, it’s a very, very harsh existence. It is. For example, Gretta was came to service window and there’s a thing called a, uh, he Asako, it’s a long six foot stick that’s round at the bottom and is flat at the top and you sit facing the wall and the head training monk comes around and he smacks you on the shoulders with it. Full speed. You can hear it swing right by your ear and it makes a loud crack at what really does is loose, loosens the muscles in your shoulders. But the first time she was sitting next to me and didn’t know it was going to happen, she goes, Oh my God. And they beat you.
Brad: 00:54:20 Welcome.
Scott: 00:54:22 Yeah, that’s, it’s, uh, you know, there’s millions of different traditions, but if you think about, you, I think about commitment, think about the monks who sat down in the middle of the square during the Vietnam war and set themselves on fire. And you know, that may have been a good thing. It may have been a bad thing, but it’s, it is, you refuse to accept human suffering. And that’s the, the bowel is that you take are called the bodhisattva vows. And essentially they say that if there is a heaven or there is a place like that, that everyone goes through and you’re the last person, you can’t go till everybody else’s going. Okay.
Brad: 00:54:56 Unlike the captain of that ship that, uh, burned up on Santa Cruz Island where some of the survivors were the captain and crew that bailed early, it’s not funny. I mean, I w I, it’s, it’s ironic to think about, uh, where, you know, we’re, we’re seeing those examples so minimally in real life and we’re seeing so much of the opposite where it’s all, you know, self, self aggrandizing and self-glorification. And, um, speaking of that and bring it back to, you know, now you’re back in the sport and you’re in the mix and it’s no secret that, um, some element of these extreme endurance sports, uh, has a tendency to be unhealthy due to the self absorption and the extreme nature, uh, of the goal compromising, uh, general health and wellbeing. So I’m wondering your observations, having gone away, studied intently in the ropes for many years and now you’re coming back, uh, do you have some, uh, inspirational words to share that things are progressing and now people are doing it for the right reasons and it’s all about the journey? Or do we have a, a further battle ahead that you can provide some, uh, some helpful tips to the listener to take away and, and, um, maybe realize that? I mean, Scott, I, I titled my podcast, get over yourself for a reason. Cause that was the secret to my success was to, you know, take myself less seriously and, and focus on the journey and the enjoyment and the connection and all the peripheral things that you couldn’t write down on a spreadsheet.
Scott: 00:56:22 Oh, you know, I guess you reach a certain age and you just tell the truth and you let the chips fall where they may, but there’s no, there’s no correlation at all between triathlon and health. What, let’s knock that one, you know, so could you speak into the microphone? There was the little glitch on the ah,
Brad: 00:56:42 Zagarino pop and our pop on our bubble
Scott: 00:56:46 there is, there is the channel. I mean there’s a challenge, there’s a whole bunch of stuff about triathlon and during spinning during sports in general and even football tech because it’s become so technically violent, um, there’s nothing wrong with that if you accept the consequences of going in. But if you tell the story that I’m doing something healthy and good for myself and I’m running 60 miles a week and riding 300 miles a week, ultimately to do an Ironman eating more of stuff, you shouldn’t be eating because you need calories and this diet and that diet, there’s nothing about that story that sounds beneficial to your health. But if you take it reasonably and your [inaudible] PR where we covered properly and that was your commitment was to do something like that. You know, who am I going to help people choose their goals? It’s just to be honest, when you’re doing it, and unfortunately, commercially, there are a lot of people who want to take advantage of sports that are not healthy and not disclose the risks of the things that they’re selling you or you know you’re buying.
Scott: 00:57:50 And that was one of the things I loved about, I thought whitewater kayaking was like Zen in the water because you are totally responsible for yourself. You have a team with you if something goes wrong and you’ve got to trust them a lot. A whole at it takes a long time to become part of that community. But you are on your own and you accept all the consequences. Concussions, drownings, broken bones, dislocated my hip, resulting in it, you know, total hip replacement. But uh, but you, but every person I’ve ever paddled with a relatively high level has the same mindset as everybody else., I’m taking responsibility with someone that goes wrong. It’s on me. If I were doing this, I know this is making me healthy. It’s good for my muscles and it’s good for my soul to be out recreating here off of waterfall. It’s a little sketchiest the story gets a little sketchy. What do you think about that? The idea of health and
Brad: 00:58:42 um, well it’s also the, um, the absence of the public attention where we know you’re doing this for, uh, you know, personal challenge reasons. Where if you’re, you know, in a, uh, a prominent, you know, mainstream sport where you’re, you’re going for the podium and getting that recognition from your, uh, your training partners, it’s really difficult to separate the ego from the, you know, the, the internal challenge and the desire for self improvement. And so, you know, if I’m giving an interview to a magazine after winning a race and talking about how I’m successfully managing my ego and I’m really all about the process, you have to second guess that person, right? Because they’re giving an interview to a magazine and they’re saying whatever they, whatever sounds the best, especially today with the cultivated image of the athlete or the celebrity, you’re going to say anything that you know, that flies according to the latest poll of what people are, are late, latest, key words.
Brad: 00:59:39 So, um, when you’re accepting that level of risk and you’re going out there and, um, there’s not a lot of hands clapping for you, I think that that keeps the sport pure and, you know, the sports that have, uh, you know, change from pure to impure. I, I love that, uh, dichotomy and that, that, uh, dilemma that Alex Honnold faced when he was going to qlimb them wall and, you know, um, should we even film this shit or are we, are we messing with, uh, you know, are we messing with art and perfection when the guy does it all by himself and, and emerges at the top? I love his Quip. I don’t know if this was on the video or on one of his interviews where he submitted half dome. He free soloed half dome and he got to the top and of course he had no gear.
Brad: 01:00:20 And when the, when the mountain w the rock climbers come with all the ropes and the backpack and they, they emerge over the top of half dome. All the tourists who hiked up there, they’re like, Whoa, trip out. This guy just climbed half dome with ropes and care binders. And when Alex Hollond said, when he got up there and he just pulled out his sandwich and started eating, everyone was looking at him like he was one of the people that had gone up the trail. And it was so funny because you know, to get that reception when you’ve just achieved one of the greatest things, you know, the greatest achievements on earth. I think his climb of a El cap was the single greatest athletic feat in the history of the world. And I put that, uh, Usain Bolt a hundred meters and a few other ones close, but there’s nothing like what that guy did because, uh, of the, of the, uh, the stakes and like his friend said on the video, um, this is like going for the Olympic gold medal and, um, if you don’t win, you die. And no athlete has ever faced that.
Scott: 01:01:11 I couldn’t agree more. And I remember Jimmy’s J Jimmy Chin saying that it took him years of agonizing over whether to film it because he thought he was gonna die and he was, do I want to be remembered as the guy who shot, shot him dying? Um, and, and finally he had a really good answer answer for that, which was, if he believes he can do it, then I have to believe he can do it. And that goes back to, that goes back to, it’s sort of the thread I think that runs through catching up with you, is that, uh, we’ve, we’ve lost that. I think we’ve lost part of that idea that, that you, you know, we’re all in this together and all it takes is you say said the, uh, the making of a movement is always the second person.
Scott: 01:01:56 And I think that that’s kind of what this is all about is I can’t teach anybody anything, but I may be able to set a marker up that serves as a reminder that these are people that should be remembered. You know, Alex Hollond he show he should be remembered that what he did should be remembered cause you, you may not be doing that thing, but it may be just as hard for you is that was for him. It may take just as much for you to do it as it does him to do it. It just was remembering something Scott Molina said at the Ironman, he goes, why would anybody want to do this if they weren’t making money at it was a horrible way to spend the day.
Brad: 01:02:40 Whew. Telling it like it is. What a cool segue. We, we, um, we went right away from the triathlon as you and into the, into the rock climbing. So many interesting insights from Scott Zargarino this show sponsored by Garmin track your exact mileage and the elevation gain of every single run that you do and even works for kayaking. Uh, you have a great project there. Scott, tell me, tell me some more details about how we can plug in, uh, to this, uh, this, this remembrance that you’re putting together
Scott: 01:03:08 every Thursday so that we didn’t roll it out like a Netflix series where all the episodes were up at once. Couldn’t be edited every Thursday until the week after Ironman. There’ll be a new story and there’s videos with the story. There’s a, an introduction to put pre to the stories and context. But it’s been one of the most interesting things I’ve, I’ve ever seen is watching these guys get to know each other in a way they’d gotten, hadn’t gotten to know each other and I don’t think either of them were actually aware of what they’d done till till they got to talk about it themselves. You know, they, they know what it was like to be there. They’re the only two people in the world who know what it was like to be there and they’ve never told anyone and they live such different lifestyles and it’s not like they were going out for beers. I’ve had her revelation. Oh my God. Um, so you can get on one every Thursday at 1989, the story.com tried to make it a really easy site.
Brad: 01:04:04 Well that wasn’t taken by, uh, the fraternity that had the Epic parties in 1989. Wow. I was shocked to hear a how shows it was open URL available. 1989 one nine eight nine the numbers right, the story.com.
Scott: 01:04:19 That’s it. And there’ll be one, a new one every Thursday til the week after Ironman, which is October 12th.
Brad: 01:04:24 Thanks Scott Zagarino for putting that together. We’re going to go check it out.
Scott: 01:04:28 Thank you, Brad.
Brad: 01:04:33 Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback@getoveryourselfpodcastatgmail.com and we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars and it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves because they need to. Thanks for doing it.
