After losing world championships by 5 seconds I had a polarizing explosion of emotions. It echoes in my head still to this day. “What did you do wrong? You were so close to being a world champion again…”

Ultimately I came to the conclusion that I had my mojo back. It wasn’t my best race, but it was the start of a locomotive that would have unstoppable power behind it when it reached speed.

Finding the Spark Through Mountains

I did some research to make a training plan and find motivation on staying fit this summer. Both of my recent world records came after doing an Ironman in Fall 2022 and Summer 2023. So this summer, my goal was to host an ultra marathon “The Cresthooch 127” and climb as many mountains as I could. I was in the French alps, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and California mostly. Every chance I got I was going to climb something. My inspiration came from the famous Matt Carpenter, likely the highest v02 max ever recorded and the greatest mountain runner of his generation, holding records on Pikes Peak and the Leadville 100. He ran every day for 7 years straight at one point and had unique training methods that allowed him to dominate his races. I myself promised to do the same. So no matter what I would run everyday.

Doubling Down at Home

When I got home from my travels I decided to double down. I wouldn’t just run, I would charge to new heights with a record breaking running plan. I partnered with Rory Linkletter, the Olympian and record holding runner from Canada, to build up a plan to get crazy fast. It was working, my mile times were better than ever before during my training runs and my strava fitness score was the highest it’s ever shown, then tragedy hit. I was laid up with a hip over use injury. Initially it was very tender making it very hard to run back to back days. My sessions got sloppy, my left leg had 50% the drive it needed to run. But I kept going. Injury is part of sport, you need to keep finding ways to show up. Eventually it really fell apart when I ran with Jake Dearden while I was in Texas doing F1 with puma. I was excited to run with Jake. It wasn’t part of the plan but I can’t turn down a good battle with another Elite 15 guy if he’s in my neighborhood. The session was a six mile tempo at 5:30-5:25 pace. This wouldn’t be a problem for me normally but I was on that 50% leg. We started fast then I finished broken. Four miles in I knew there was a real problem but I wouldn’t quit. By the last 400m just took off, I limped in. I kept my cool but I knew I had messed up badly by doing this session. The next five weeks were a big drop off in mileage and a lot of overall pain day to day.

Murph, Miles, and Mistakes

Parallel to this running journey was my mission to set the murph world record again. Since my last real effort back in 2020, I have been professionally fitness racing. With dedication, I knew I could destroy the record. However I didn’t give my body enough space and grace between hard sessions of running and murph training. Rory was by no means at fault for my injury, this was all my doing. Thousands of reps per week in murph training piled on top of race pace miles each week. It was bound to be trouble for me or my competitors.

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Recovery, Reflection, and Realization

As I lay on the floor of my home in my recovery boots pondering if I had just blown my Fall training and racing season, I anxiously flipped through my options. After reading through my note pads I eventually noticed a trend. Mountains. The more the mountains showed up in my training the better I was at competing and the healthier I stayed. The other commonality to my successes was strength. Not too much, but just enough to continue to beat the bar rather than fold under it.

Rebuilding Through Bikes and Ergs

The next step was to pump up my bike tires and tune up my ergs. My favorite tools were the full set of concept 2 equipment and my watt bike, I was on them for 7-10 hours a week. I also got my road bike and mtb back together to start tearing up the hills surrounding my house. With two key big bike rides a week and hours built up everyday on the ergs I started to feel my confidence and fitness lift up even more. The pain still radiated in my hip all day long but I was able to manage the sessions regardless of the pain. All along the way I would continue to pepper in miles of running where I could to try maintaining running form.

Reawakening Strength

While this was going I was going to attack my fitness by moving heavy weight and fast. I spent hours everyday flipping through training manuals trying to figure out how to reawaken the strength I once had. My best path forward was a version of the Westside barbell methods that I used to use. A ration of movement patterns week after week, pushing my strength in dynamic ways was going to be crucial to adding strength while avoiding burn out. I decided half the week would be on my own while the other session would be done with a pro keeping eyes on me. I used to do weekly sessions with Jak down in Santa Monica but with the destruction of the Palisades fire, PCH now became a 3-4 hour round trip experience. So I went over the hill to the high performance center called Proactive. I teamed up with a beast named Carlos to tackle strength sessions that were full body 60 minute power sessions. I was crushed by them at first. These sessions were so dynamic with balance, power, and coordination that I was like a baby deer during most of it. But the motivation was there to improve. Most of the training has leaderboards with some of the top NFL players. Although these guys outweigh me by 30-100lb I didn’t want that to be a reason to say that I wasn’t on their level. I wanted my name on the board of champions. So each session I went to the redline to make the shift. Each week my body started to move differently, it held power like I used to. I am still very far off from where I want to be in this room but I can see a clear path towards success if I continue to challenge myself like this. I must admit, I’m often alone when I train. I don’t have people pushing me, I’m top of the food chain in my circles. When I walked into this gym I was at the bottom of the totem pole. Just me and Carlos vs some numbers on a piece of paper. Every session felt like I was shoulders to shoulder with these athletes trying to beat them. It was very encouraging and a great way to push the offseason efforts.

Race Week Confidence

By the time race week had shown up I was pretty confident in myself that I was back in world record shape. A few simple tests of strava loops in the mountains and moments in the gym were showing that the numbers were there. During this time I was doing no very little hyrox work, I had to stop doing murph training to let my hip recover. It wasn’t what I originally planned but rather than complain or fold under anxiety, I pivoted and did all that I could with what I had.

Race Day Execution

Before the race started Jake and I planned to let him lead all the runs and I would put harder effort in on stations. He has been racing more frequently with great success in the doubles season so far so he would know the pace we need to set a record better than I would. As the race started we went out hot but I quickly recognized that I wasn’t struggling, my heart rate stayed smooth as I pumped at record pace. Jake and I started to attack stations. My strength work made everything flow so easily while I was watching the others struggle. Leaving each station I had much less lactic acid in my legs than normal. I continued to dig deeper trying to find my limits but I never showed up until the row. Jake was having a hard day so I started picking up more work pulling sub 1:30 on the rower. I wanted to give it everything I had while giving him some more rest. The run hurt a bit after but the recovery came back quickly. As we closed in on the finish line, I thought we had the record. There are moments I look back on that might have helped make it happen, but in the end we finished 20s short of it. Everything from the runs, to the stations and the communication made it a perfect race. If Jake had felt better we would have been sipping champagne right now but it’s a long season so no need to rush the process.

Final Thoughts

In the end I will leave you with this:

No plan is perfect. Mindset and perseverance always wins in the end. Maybe all this was meant to be. Maybe an early challenge in the season will lay a stronger foundation for the championships ahead. Maybe getting out of my comfort zone, getting my ass kicked in that performance center primed me to be dominant back on my home turf.

On the Appalachian trail I learned the saying “smiles, not miles”. The last four weeks I have been smiling a lot lately. Maybe this is where the real win lies.