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From Former Detective and Elite SWAT Operator To Entrepreneur and Ultra-Runner w/ Adam Boyd
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Adam Boyd, stands as the visionary founder of Soleful Training. With a background forged in the crucible of law enforcement, Adam's journey from a former detective and elite SWAT operator to the beacon of holistic health and wellness is nothing short of inspirational.
Connect with Adam:
Website: http://www.solefultraining.com/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soleful_training
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Transcript
From Law Enforcement to Wellness
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome back to the Connected Minds podcast. Today's guest is Adam Boyd. He stands as the visionary founder of Soulful Training. He has a background forged in the crucible of law enforcement. Adam's journey from a former detective and elite SWAT operator to the beacon of holistic health and wellness is nothing short of inspirational.
00:00:23
Speaker
He's also an ultra marathoner, I'll just add. And we were already talking about that. And maybe we can talk about that a little bit more. Adam, thank you so much for joining us today, brother. Thank you for having me. Yeah, your full bio, Adam's full bio will be in the show description guide. So if you want to read his impressive bio, please do. But I actually would prefer if Adam, if you want to share some of your story, let's hear it straight from the horse's mouth, bro.
Policing and Wellness Program
00:00:55
Speaker
Sure. So I started as a police officer in 2011. I was having a really solid career. I got promoted to detective. I spent several years on our SWAT team. I was one of our physical fitness team weeds. I created the department wellness program. I also created the PT standards for our SWAT team. But like something in me just wasn't
00:01:23
Speaker
Something was missing, if that makes sense. So I started to venture off into this entrepreneurial journey. And I actually had a friend of mine who, like a jumping castle, like bounce house business for like kids birthday parties. And that's actually how I got started in the business world before I left law enforcement, to kind of get a taste of like, what it would be like, what it all it
Entrepreneurial Journey Begins
00:01:49
Speaker
entails. And what I realized is,
00:01:52
Speaker
I really like being an entrepreneur and I created a skill set in my time in law enforcement that allowed me to like create Soful Training, which is a health and wellness based company that focuses on four pillars.
The Four Pillars of Soulful Training
00:02:07
Speaker
I saw a lot of trainings that focused on just one thing, you know, whether it be like physical health or it was mental health. And what I realized in my own health and wellness journey is that it's really a holistic approach.
00:02:21
Speaker
So our first pillar is physical resilience, which encompasses sleep nutrition and physical fitness. And a lot of companies when they say like holistic wellness, they're referring to just my first pillar. Our second pillar is mental resilience. Third pillar is social resilience, which is encompasses like communication skills and leadership. And then the third one is, or the fourth one, excuse me, is purpose and goal setting. So like,
00:02:50
Speaker
I really try to work with my clients and organizations to define their purpose. What is the bigger vision in your life that keeps you driving forward when things get really difficult?
Retirement and Full-time Wellness Focus
00:03:02
Speaker
So about 11 years into my law enforcement career, I decided to retire my badge and focus on my health and wellness business full time and try to give back to the veteran and first responder community that I came from.
00:03:17
Speaker
Awesome. So would you consider yourself a Type A personality or laid back? I don't really try to categorize myself. I think in some aspects I'm Type A and some aspects I'm laid back. I don't know. I just try to be me and do what I feel like is the right thing to do.
00:03:40
Speaker
I like that bro. So tell the listeners more about Mom Army, how you got introduced to them, Dad Army, and what the work you do there.
Joining Mom Army for Child Protection
00:03:51
Speaker
So after I left law enforcement, I was trying to make some connections in the health and wellness space. And a friend of mine was like, hey, you have to meet this person. And then that person was like, hey, you have to meet this person. And that person was Seek Smith, and she's the founder of Mom Army.
00:04:08
Speaker
And she was looking for a law enforcement professional to join the board of the organization. And what their mission is, is to protect children and to protect the values that allow children to grow up in a world that allow them to be happy, healthy and successful. And we talked for quite a long time and we agreed that I think my skill set was right for the organization.
00:04:32
Speaker
Um, and they kind of tackle that problem on, on a multiple fronts, whether it be the legal side or the activist side, or, you know, giving back to the, to those in need. Uh, I know right now mom army is working on what they call a hope box. Um, and we've partnered with it.
00:04:55
Speaker
a family advocacy center that deals with sexual assault victims. And we're going to have a box of resources that we're going to be able to give each victim.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, like you guys are doing some pretty powerful, pretty important work that I think a lot of people, they don't even want to hear about what, what is really some of the things that are going on in the world. Nevermind actually, you know, help to address those. So, you know, we really have to commend you what you guys are doing. Yeah. And we, I mean, that's, you know, we're all in this together and I think, um, far too many times we look at,
00:05:34
Speaker
the government for help or we look to somebody else for like, what are you going to do about this? When the reality is like we need to start in our own homes and we see to start giving back on a local personal level. And I think that's really how we make a difference in things. And one of the, that's one of the reasons why the dad army offshoot kind of formed was because mom army was doing all these great things. And, um, the organization was founded by, you know, a bunch of women who were,
00:06:03
Speaker
over half the organization is a survivor led organization. But there were a lot of men and dads out there that were like, hey, we want to be involved in this too. So that army was formed kind of just out of, you know, the men in the world seeing the necessity for their contribution. And when you say survivor, what exactly do you mean?
00:06:24
Speaker
So whether they were victims of trafficking, sexual assault, child abuse, really any type of situation like that, you know, we kind of refer to those children that come out of those situations as survivors. So over half the organization has actually experienced the things that we're fighting. So it really comes from this, you know, personal
00:06:53
Speaker
area of like not wanting to see other children having gone what they went through. Yeah, yeah. Yesterday or the day before I interviewed a lady that was born into basically a satanic cult and she was one of the victims of the MK Ultra Mind Control experiments, you know. And what really struck me is when she said there was 2 million Americans and Canadians that were
00:07:23
Speaker
involve, you know, basically victims in that program that we're being experimented on. It's pretty shocking the scale on which this is actually happening in the world, isn't it? Yeah, I think that's probably the scariest part. I mean, you can see if you watch any of the news within the last year or so, like the movie Sound of Freedom just came out recently.
00:07:52
Speaker
and really kind of highlighted the horrors of child trafficking. It's not just a Hollywood movie. That is the reality of what millions of children are dealing with throughout the world today. And what we need to do as a society is figure out how to combat that the best we can. And we need to expose
Understanding Child Trafficking
00:08:17
Speaker
it. That's the first step. And the second step is
00:08:22
Speaker
We really need to start putting these people that are controlling all these rings. We need to remove them from society. Yeah. What do you think is the root of it all? Do you think it's poverty or something different? I think it's really based around money. Unfortunately, that industry is very profitable. It's a billion dollar industry every year.
00:08:49
Speaker
I mean, I hate to say it, but that's what it kind of comes down to. And these, these people that are perpetuating the violence against women and children, whether it be trafficking or abuse, you know, they're, they're evil individuals, and they really only care about themselves. And they care about how to line their own pockets. And that's a big problem.
00:09:14
Speaker
And I suppose a lot of it, this sort of feeds into other industries like prostitution, porn, probably drugs, and it just goes deeper and deeper, right? Yeah, I mean, if you really look back at most of our
00:09:35
Speaker
most behavior like prostitution. So like, we never like to use in my household, we never like to use the word prostitute, because my wife also worked with a lot of survivors and in her former career, we refer to them as prostituted women. Because those, those women didn't get there by choice. They were usually they were trafficked or they were recruited, you know, at a young age, like you have people that are looking for
00:10:04
Speaker
young kids that have broken homes, that they can gain their trust, and then they get them hooked on drugs, and then it just kind of snowballs from there. So a lot of those women that are in those positions don't want to be in that position, but they were forced to be in that position. And I think that's a lot of what a lot of people don't realize, that prostitution generally isn't a choice. It's a situation that they're forced into by their pimps.
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's the same with a lot of people that are, you see like, let's say, homeless people or junkies on the street and you think those people, oh, they just couldn't control their urges and this and that. But a lot of those people, they're coming again, like you said, from broken homes, either
00:10:46
Speaker
severe stress or severe trauma was largely the precipitating factor. And a lot of those people, they just start out maybe self-medicating, and then it just turns into a vicious circle that eventually causes them to lose a lot of social standing and lose their home or job or whatever else. Yeah, and we can really trace back most of our societal problems to childhood trauma.
00:11:15
Speaker
One of the visions of Mom and Dad Army is to break that cycle of trauma and to get those children that have experienced it the help that they need so they can be productive happy healthy members of society instead of going down that road where they become gang members or they become prostituted or they become drug addicts or they become you know they have mental health issues and then we have we have a whole host of problems because of childhood trauma and
00:11:45
Speaker
we just need to, you know, kind of nip that in the butt and, and start getting to these kids early and often. Yeah. And I wish that wasn't even the case. I mean, the reality is like, as a parent myself, I want to make sure that my daughter never goes through any, any type of trauma that's within my control. So,
00:12:10
Speaker
We should be doing our job as parents to alleviate a lot of these issues and we can kind of mitigate some of the problems we have in society if we did the right things early on in our child's lives.
00:12:23
Speaker
Oh yeah. I mean, it's so important to be ready to have a kid. If you're just out of the blue, have the kid and you're not ready for it, or maybe you're a bit on the younger side and you're still struggling to make ends meet, it can get really tough for the kid and through no fault of its own. A lot of these things are minor things. So let's say if you have a good home and there's, let's say one day you kind of lose the head and you scream at your child or something,
00:12:53
Speaker
That's not necessarily going to impact them for the rest of their life. Most kids are able to bounce back from trauma pretty well, from cuts, scrapes, falls, bumps, but when it's sort of systematic or very extreme, that's where we can have the literal splintering of the personality and other deleterious effects.
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up that point. I was not trying to attack, you know, parents and like, we don't have to be perfect as parents. We just have to give our child like the love and support that they need. We're all going to make mistakes. I'm going to make mistakes. You're going to make mistakes. It is what it is. Like we're human beings. But you're right. When it becomes like a systematic problem, the child that's, you know, the three year old that's left in the living room because mom and dad are passed out with a needle in their arm, like,
00:13:45
Speaker
Jesus. Yeah, that type of behavior is what's going to cause that child to grow up and have the issues that we're talking about. I'm not yelling at them because you lost your cool. Um, but like serious, systematic, long-term prolonged behavior. Uh, one of the most interesting things that I learned, I got to go to this fantastic class when I was a detective and it talked about child brain development and people don't realize how important
00:14:16
Speaker
your behavior is when that child can't speak or does not appear to be able to communicate with you. And it makes sense from a logical standpoint that when they're born, their brain is completely empty. And so everything that happens in that environment starts to get implanted in that brain because their brain's like a sponge. So you may not think that it's a big deal that you argue while your newborn is sleeping in a room.
00:14:45
Speaker
But if that newborn can hear you, that's starting to form those neural pathways into the brain and it starts to affect your child from a very, very young age. That's true. It's true. All of these things have an impact and the environment is so important. That's why I'm trying to
00:15:06
Speaker
We don't have a TV. In the living room, we have a projector that's never really open. And we don't have a TV. We don't have some stuff blasting in the background just to enamor you or to suck your attention in. So just the environment we've been trying to cultivate, an environment that what we value and also books and
00:15:31
Speaker
You know, today we're going with my daughter to have an orange juice nearby restaurant. And so she knows the habit we've created. She knows that she needs to pick some books that she's going to read. And she picked up a few books, made me put them in my bag. And then she's like, and Papa, as if, as you know, did you get your book? Of course. I'm like, of course I got my book.
00:16:01
Speaker
We're going to go read our books together. And yeah, it's a beautiful thing. But let me ask you, like, this is actually, I've always wondered, and I mean, it's kind of, it's probably, my suspicions are probably true, but is it, do you, I'm not sure how much you can share, but for yourself or for your colleagues when they were, you know, detectives and stuff, did you notice then your colleagues and your,
00:16:29
Speaker
People dealing with this sort of side of things getting traumatized or finding non I suppose non healthy ways to express that we're seeing much of that. Oh absolutely I mean there's a big reason why.
00:16:46
Speaker
Police officers in our country have a shorter lifespan, higher divorce rates, higher alcoholism rates, higher suicide rates than the majority of professions out there.
Wellness and Law Enforcement Stress
00:16:58
Speaker
You can't see that stuff day in and day out without it affecting you in some way, shape or form. It's just the reality of being a human being. I mean, you're immersed in a negative environment day in
00:17:12
Speaker
in day out, it's absolutely going to have an effect on your physical and mental health, which is one of the biggest reasons why I started the program that I did because I want to be able to help officers in this country combat all the negative things that they see by choosing to get healthier early and often in their career. It's basically, it would be like adding body armor
00:17:43
Speaker
to yourself. Now is the chances, is it going to give you 100% chance of not dying in a combat situation? No, but is it going to give you a better shot at it? Absolutely, right? So I want to make sure that our that our men and women in blue are taking care of themselves from the day that they get hired. So that way, when that inevitable bad thing happens,
00:18:09
Speaker
they're going to have a little bit more armor to deal with those negative situations when they're constantly battered with them. Yeah, I like that. And I think a lot of listeners, they might say the police are perpetrated. They're just enforcing the governments. They're doing the grunt work of the government, which is oppressing the people.
00:18:36
Speaker
That can be true, but at the end of the day, these people still, they at least initially went in with the right intentions. Like the same intentions, like a doctor, a kid wants to become a doctor. That's why you want to be a police officer. You want to do good for your country, for your community. And these people seeing what they're seeing, especially with less resources over the years, it's bound to ruin you. I was actually reading that
00:19:07
Speaker
So after doctors, I think the police officers were ranked third highest suicide rate of all the professionals and doctors were number one. So that was pretty staggering. Well, what was it like, whatever you can share, what was it like being in the SWAT team that say that's a fairly high octane environment?
High-risk Policing vs Family Life
00:19:32
Speaker
I mean, I received a lot of good training in that team. There's a lot of great camaraderie. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it's it's you're really the last line of defense. So like, if the if patrol is calling SWAT in like nobody else is coming to save you, you know, like you're supposed to be that elite unit that does the most only deals with only the most serious situations.
00:19:59
Speaker
So a lot of the situations you go through are very exciting. A lot of them are very dangerous. A lot of them are very eye-opening of how cruel the world can actually be.
00:20:18
Speaker
one of the reasons that I actually, you know, left the team was because of my baby girl, like I, it just coincided. She was born right before COVID. And then I remember working in op, this guy had shot someone took his brother hostage. And I think we believed at the time that his girlfriend had been taken hostage as well. And we had we were been on like a four day manhunt for him and
00:20:45
Speaker
you know, everybody was exhausted. We were in Arizona in the summertime, it was 115 degrees and we, we had been working super long hours to try to find him and you know, eventually we got him down to his location and he came out of the house and he had, he had stated that he had a bomb on him and that he was holding like a detonator in his hand. Jesus. And his, his girlfriend was, you know, had her arms wrapped around him.
00:21:15
Speaker
kind of walking right behind him. And it appeared as if it was gonna be either suicide by cop or they were just gonna blow everything up. And I just remember looking down the sights of my rifle and just, I picture my baby girl in the back of my head and I said, it's not worth her not having a dad. And now I commend everybody that puts on that uniform and wants to go out there that has children.
00:21:42
Speaker
But I was already kind of in that mental transition and that was one of the things that kind of propelled me to do something a little bit different because I grew up without a dad because my dad passed early with cancer. And so I know what that feels like. And I want to make sure that if I can control it, my baby girl is always going to have a dad around.
00:22:05
Speaker
That's heavy. So what happened in the end with that situation? Well, it actually probably had the best ending we could have asked for. It turns out the bomb was fake. The detonator was fake. We ended up taking him into custody without incident, without anybody getting hurt, which was
00:22:30
Speaker
always the way that you wanted to end a situation like that where nobody gets hurt. Yeah, of course. Imagine like he's got some guys on like PCP or something and he's like, I have an elaborate, what is it called? Suicide clock. If you shoot me, this thing will set off a chain reaction. You hear this elaborate story, I'm like, no, you're bullshitting. You don't have a bomb, are you?
00:22:59
Speaker
You know, when you're when you're sitting 30 yards from him, and you have to make that snap decision, you know, do you think he actually has a bomb on him? Do you not think he has a bomb on him? Are you going to take the chance that it's fake? You know, you start thinking about neighbors and your team and everybody. There's so many factors that go into a split decision to pull that trigger.
00:23:24
Speaker
And you know, I said, Luckily, that day, it wasn't a necessary thing. And we were able to end it without incident, which is always the way we want to do things. I hope, I hope you go ahead. You know, and I can tell you from firsthand experience, I was involved in a shooting in 2015. And I have several law enforcement friends of mine that have been involved in shootings and
00:23:50
Speaker
Um, I can tell you that it's nobody, none of us want to pull that trigger. It is one of the most unnerving, unsettling things that you have to do. Um, because we, we always hope for a peaceful end of the situation. So it's really difficult to see the media like calling us trigger happy and you know, like we just want to murder people. And I've never met a law enforcement officer that wants to murder somebody that wants to harm the public.
00:24:17
Speaker
It's just unfortunate we get put into very difficult situations that frankly, a lot of the public can't understand nor should they. They shouldn't be able to understand what it's like to be in that position because there's a reason why we are. And there's a reason why I want you to go to your office every day and not have to worry about these things because the world can be ugly and there are bad people in this world. And we are trained to deal with these situations.
00:24:47
Speaker
And it's, it's on the one sense, it's not fun for the law enforcement community to have to deal with the lack of understanding of how things work. But at the same time, like I don't want you to ever understand how, what that feels like to have to make that decision. Yeah. I think a lot of that stuff in the news or whatever in the media, I think it's just another one of those divide and conquer.
00:25:14
Speaker
tactics used by social engineers where they want the public to be fighting with each other, different parties, genders, ideologies. And then of course, that's just another divide and conquer strategy. At least that's my kind of view on it. I agree, especially from analyzing a lot of the high profile officer-involved shootings that have really made national or worldwide news.
00:25:41
Speaker
They really seem to pick scenarios that are justified, but look really bad in the public eye. And it's, I feel like the incidents they use are very strategic to create that divide. Because I've looked at a lot of scenarios that have come out that are high profile that seem very obvious to me that it justified, but also seems very obvious to me why an untrained person would think it isn't.
00:26:11
Speaker
Except and there have been one or two scenarios where it has been unjustified. And it seemed like the courts took appropriate action and prosecuting those officers in situations where like, they did make the wrong choice. Yeah, now then that becomes the argument like did the officer have hate in their heart? Were they racist? Were they this? Were they that?
00:26:34
Speaker
You know, I don't want to get into a huge political debate over that. And that's up for the public to make their own decision. But I personally have never met, and I'm not saying this doesn't exist, but, and cause I only worked in one part of the country. Um, I've never personally met an officer who was out to get a specific race. Um, and I'm sure that is probably untrue in some areas of the world and areas of the country. I'm just speaking from my own personal perspective. You need to go to Alabama for that, bro.
00:27:05
Speaker
I don't know. No offense to any Alabamians listening. I don't know where it's at. But no, I think a lot of again, it's like look, we know doctors or let's say the medical system perpetrated by many unwitting doctors is the third biggest killer, third biggest cause of death. And although I believe 99.999% of these doctors
00:27:34
Speaker
went into medical school with the most beautiful, wide-eyed, naive intentions of saving lives and all that stuff. It's just the system has created what it has created. So I believe it's the same with police officers. These people have the right intentions, but it's like you go in and you realize the system you're working for may not exactly have the public or even your
00:28:03
Speaker
best intentions at heart. So anyway, without turning into, you know, fodder for a more heated debate, let's talk about how did you get into ultra running?
Ultra Running Passion
00:28:17
Speaker
And was that like, how many years ago was your first race actually, to start with? 2006, I believe was my first ultra race. Okay. So you've been doing it for a while.
00:28:30
Speaker
Yeah, off and on for a while, I would say, um, 2023 has probably been the year that I dove in the most, but I started to be more consistent in 2018. So for the last five years, I mean, I would do one, maybe two races a year, most likely one. So I really wasn't even really, like I would, I loved the sport, but I wasn't like into it. Cause I saw a lot of my friends that were racing five, six times a year or even more. Um, so.
00:29:01
Speaker
This is the first year I've done more than two races in a year. This will be my third race coming up in October. So I'm really starting to gain some more experience. So I wouldn't, I would say that I experienced ultras in the past, but like now I feel like I'm actually an ultra runner because I'm doing a little bit more frequently. My training's a little more adequate and I've dove into the sport a little bit more.
00:29:28
Speaker
What's your average weekly training and in terms of mileage and what's the average speed you go at? Speed varies quite a bit. I'm looking for like a sub 24 hour, 100 mile or an October. So that's around 14 minutes a mile. I don't know the kilometer conversion right off the top of my head.
00:29:52
Speaker
as far as pace goes. But my my training runs will be quite a bit faster than that depending on if I'm doing intervals or if I'm doing a fart lick run or I'm doing tempo run or whatever the the training modality is that day. I typically run around 50 to 60 miles a week. And then you throw in strength training and mobility work and yoga and swimming and
00:30:23
Speaker
And then recovery. So I'll do some hiking for a recovery day. I'll go out for like a three mile like just leisurely walk on the trails. Definitely helps with like a mental reset and allows the blood to keep flowing and help that recovery process without putting stress on the legs.
00:30:44
Speaker
for sure, bro. Have you considered that to be attracted to something like triathlon or still Ironman, this kind of stuff outrunning? Do you think some type of trauma in the past may have caused this? I'm not ruling out that possibility. I know a lot of ultra runners that have some trauma in their past. I know I mentioned earlier that my dad had passed like real young
00:31:11
Speaker
It wasn't until real recently, I was reading a book called The Body Keep Score. And I had thought that I had worked through him passing earlier in my life. And after reading the book, I realized there was a lot of stuff that I had not worked through yet. So I think that could definitely be a good possibility. I also had an uncle of mine that was an ultra runner. And he's been kind of a mentor for me for
00:31:39
Speaker
You know, my whole life and as somebody that I looked up to and part of it, I think is just kind of following in his footsteps as well. Yeah. Let's talk more technical stuff because I'm a bit of a nerd on this stuff. Have you, have you measured your, have you measured your cortisol and your sex hormones, adrenal hormones recently to see if, if they're anywhere close to the middle or the top of the range, out of the range, so on.
00:32:06
Speaker
No, I really haven't like dove into the physiology of my own body during training yet. It's definitely something I want to explore because I want to see how I can, you know, always improve performance. But right now it's kind of been going by, by my feel like if I, if I feel like I need recovery, I take recovery. If I feel like I can train hard, I train hard. Um, I, of course I follow a schedule, um, as a strength and conditioning coach, like,
00:32:35
Speaker
I kind of I understand like how to structure a training program. So that's always helpful to have in my back pocket. But I also I mean, a program is a program like I use it as a guide. Yeah, instead of like, I use I say guide not governor. So if I need a day off, or I feel like it's becoming a little too intense from not recovering good well enough.
00:32:59
Speaker
I can back it down or I can take an extra day or maybe I'll hit the pool instead of the trails one day and have an extra day of easy work and so I can come back stronger.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah. I think when, when, when you kind of get to our age, you just don't have the luxury of powering through. I have this, this neighbor here, he's like 31 and he tells me what he does, like one meal a day and an hour and a half of like running and all those, all this other stuff, wakes up coffee, work all day. Like, bro, you can do that now. When, when you're my age, I'm not sure if you'll be able to do that, you know, or, or that you even want to do that.
00:33:43
Speaker
I found as I got older, I want to push myself mentally a little bit more. So like, but the first ultra race I did was a 50k. So it's like the opening the door to the ultra world. And now, you know, the became 50k than 50 mile and then 100 mile. So I think the older I get the more like I just want to like push my body and mind to see like, really what I'm capable of.
00:34:12
Speaker
Whereas like when I was younger, it was like, how fast can I do this? Now it's like, how can I push myself further? How much torture can I do? That's incredible. Well, what about in terms of tracking, do you use a watch or the aura ring or any of those things? I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. For tracking like your mileage and do you use the, have you heard of the aura ring?
00:34:40
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I don't I just use my watch in my app on the phone. That's right. It tracks my recovery for me. So it gives me like a decent idea of how hard I push. But the reality is I know like I know what my workout was like. I know that I know when I need recovery. Like I don't need a watch to tell me that I'm I'm depleted. I have a pretty good feel for like how my body is.
00:35:08
Speaker
So yeah, I don't, I don't have, I'm kind of a minimalist runner in that, in that sense that like, I try not to, I don't have like a ton of gear. Like I like put on my shorts and my shoes and just going with the minimal amount that I need on my body. Nice, bro. I like that. So what about your wife? What's sort of her, her view on, on your athletic endeavors?
00:35:36
Speaker
Well, she's she's been my main crew member so for those that aren't familiar with the ultra world usually like your crew is like Think of like a pit crew and car racing where like somebody needs to change your tires and fill the gas
00:35:50
Speaker
So she comes to a lot of my races to help crew so like if I need a new pair of shoes or I need my water bottle filled or you know, hey, grab me I need to change out shirts because the weather is changing. You know, she's there for all that. So she's been really supportive of this journey. She's super excited to run her first ultra in the spring. So Wow, for
00:36:13
Speaker
For about a decade now, I've been trying to get her into the sport a little bit more. And now she's like, I think I'm winning her over. I think I'm finally breaking her into signing up.
00:36:24
Speaker
That's incredible, dude. I hope it goes well. I see I had a broken leg about, I guess, 12 years ago. I had a tibia and fibula broken and a piece of my, I think my tibia flew off. So that splintered off. So I have 10 bolts and two plates. So any, anyone, anytime anyone says, you know, Iran, you know, you know, 30 kilometers a week, even I'm always like, damn, I couldn't even dream.
00:36:54
Speaker
about doing that. I'm always pretty impressed, but I forgot what I was going to ask it down. For a 24-hour race, let's say it starts in the morning and then the next morning you want to finish. Do you actually take
00:37:15
Speaker
Any breaks whatsoever do you take a nap do you take like do you do like a sleep schedule or is it just going try to get it done and then collapse for two days and sleep after that. It depends a lot of the races will give you like.
00:37:33
Speaker
a 30 or a 36 hour cutoff. A lot of racers don't sleep, like your rest is basically coming into an aid station and sitting in a chair and like kind of regrouping with getting some food or hot soup in the middle of the night. Now I have seen people that, I mean, 100 miles is going to push you pretty far as far as like, you know, what your body can take. So
00:37:59
Speaker
Some of the less experienced athletes may take like an hour to nap, especially if they're running faster than the cutoff, just because they'll allow their body to like kind of regulate a little bit and get a little bit of rest. But I think the vast majority of runners just kind of like push through for the entire distance.
00:38:24
Speaker
And do you actually need to pee while running? Because I guess you're evaporating so much water, utilizing so much internal water. I'm guessing there's not really too much to pee out, right? Yeah. One of the most important components of ultra running is making sure that your electrolytes and your hydration is squared away. Because if you're not on top of that, you can actually go into kidney failure.
00:38:49
Speaker
or if your electrolytes are way off, it could put you into cardiac arrest. So making sure that you're hydrated and having the electrolytes so your body can stay alive is extremely important, which means that yeah, you're gonna have to pee. So sometimes you just hop off the side of the trail and go when you need to go. Yeah, bro. This is gonna prompt me.
00:39:15
Speaker
to look if there's any scientific research on in terms of biomarkers or physiological stuff on ultra marathoners. I'd love to, just the scientist in me is like, right now, I would love to run some lab tests on you, like a hormone panel. Have you heard of the Dutch dry urine test for comprehensive hormones? Yeah.
00:39:39
Speaker
You've heard of that one. If you want, if you're, if you're into it, I can order it, uh, direct to you. If you feel like running it, let me know. I'd love to, I just, just for in the name of, I mean, I can, I can, sure. If something is a little bit off balance, we always catch something on these tests. I can definitely help you or give you some tips on, you know, some strategies, but just in the name of science, I would love to know what, what is going on with your.
00:40:09
Speaker
within your body is just, I'm fascinated, bro. Well, I know the research is out there because they do a lot of this testing on the professional athletes, but for my own personal knowledge, I think it would be awesome to figure out where I'm at before and after a race like that, just so I could see like what effect it has on the body and what effect has on my hormones and everything else that goes into your physiology.
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah, well, right off the top of my head, I'm guessing your stress hormones will be through the roof. Your probably your androgens will be depressed for probably a while. A while after that, it's a big
00:40:52
Speaker
We shouldn't mince words. It's a big stress to the body. That's not mince words. It is. And we know, as sports people, when I did my Thai boxing fight, you sign, this was my first fight. I went there. We drove a few hours. I went there. And the first thing they slapped me, I was the first fight of the night. And they slapped me with this form. If I die, I'm not going to hold the establishment here or anybody at the club.
00:41:19
Speaker
freaking responsible. I'm like, pretty sure I'm going to be dead. How am I going to hold you responsible? Or it's if you get injured or something that someone breaks your nose. So we kind of know the risks we're taking. And I have heard that actually a lot of
00:41:33
Speaker
A lot of marathon runners are finishing races with acute kidney failure, and it's not lethal. Kidney failure doesn't actually have to be lethal, but you can be in that state and then as you sort of calm down, start replenishing, fuel electrolytes, et cetera, it can get better. But occasionally people are just not prepared for that shock.
00:41:58
Speaker
which is the whole point of training. But yeah, if you want, if you want, we can, because like, for example, maybe the Dutch test is probably more of a, it's for the science of it, just to see, to see your hormones, it would be interesting. But there's another lab test we, we actually run it pretty much on most clients is
00:42:20
Speaker
It's an organic acids test, so we can check for B vitamins and antioxidants and candida and things like that. And actually, what you can actually tell on that test is if you have a B vitamin in sufficiency or deficiency, it means your energy production basically pipeline, if you want to call it that.
00:42:39
Speaker
there's some type of either build up or something is blocking the full cycle from going in. So I know people, clients that we test them and they're taking an amount of vitamin, a very high quality amount of vitamin, it costs like $60 a month or whatever, and they're still deficient in certain, like let's say B2, riboflavin or whatever else. So adding those
00:43:04
Speaker
it can be very prudent in and around race, time, peak, peak, when you're peaking in the cycle. And then during the recovery, you might do certain, certain B vitamins you want, you might even want to take three times a day to, to keep, to keep the level right. So you're not going into mitochondrial dysfunction and so on. So there's a lot of, we can discuss it after, if you're interested, I can, I can give you kind of the full suite of tests we can run, bro.
Exploring Physiological Testing
00:43:29
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. I think it would be really interesting experiment on myself. You know, I generally get my normal blood panel done every year to make sure like everything's in order. But as far as a sports specific, you know, just to see what type of effect this has on my body, I think it would be a really cool thing to learn about myself.
00:43:53
Speaker
You know, especially because this is the first year where I feel like I've recovered pretty quickly from races. So I'll give you an example. I did a, I did a hundred K in April and then like three days later I was back to training. Like it, well, I'm curious. I'm curious to what internally, what was going on in my body three days later, like how much recovery should I have? You know, I did, I did 80 miles in, in July.
00:44:24
Speaker
And that one took me a little bit longer and then we'll see what this hundred mileer does in October, so.
00:44:30
Speaker
What would be really awesome is if you have health insurance and it's very cheap is if you get, I can give you acute phase reactant markers. I can give you a bunch of like, you know, all the, most of them are fairly standard tests. So like homocysteine, uh, CRPC reactive protein, and then your liver enzymes. If you, if you can do it ideally before and after, but even after the race, you can actually see if let's say your liver enzymes are high. That means, you know, liver damage has been going on. If certain other things are.
00:45:00
Speaker
or high or low, it can actually inform a recovery supplement protocol. For example, we know that a lot of activity creates a lot of oxidative damage in the body. In fact, yesterday or the day before, I was looking at a study, because I started writing a new book actually this week, so I was looking at a study that vitamin E ameliorates
00:45:30
Speaker
exercise-induced muscle damage. So we'll talk after, but there's a lot of little tweaks. And the other thing is I've also seen research recently that long endurance athletes, they have basically a lot more dysbiosis or leaky gut, as you know. That's why
00:45:51
Speaker
A lot of marathoners have the quote-unquote runner's diarrhea, as I was explaining earlier, the serotonin released by the chromophin cells in the gut, that creates the sort of the peristaltic movements that get the gut emptied. That creates
00:46:09
Speaker
intestinal permeability, and then any endotoxins created by your bad, not bad, but gram-negative bacteria, that can, what is known as translocation, can happen. So it can get inside you, so that can cause immune reactivity and inflammation. So little strategies, like for example, what I would think is a good way to counteract this is
00:46:32
Speaker
If you're going to be taking in a lot of mostly easily digestible carbohydrates during the race and stuff that's gonna be getting
00:46:44
Speaker
what you call it, absorbed in the upper small intestine. You may want to actually, I mean, you always try these things in training, but taking activated charcoal or zeolite can actually mop up a lot of these endotoxins. So instead of them getting into the bloodstream, activating the immune system, you're getting them mopped up. Now that can slow digestion down, so it can actually be a bit constipating. But if you're not going to be taking in solid food, that's something you worry about.
00:47:13
Speaker
the day after the day after that after the race or or you know but you always experiment with these things you never obviously do them the week of of the race or the race day but there's a lot of little things like that where if you look at the research it's athletic pursuit is an unhealthy business and most people that are not they don't have a coach and a chef and a nutritionist and everything else
00:47:36
Speaker
They are leaving a lot of, they're leaving a lot on the table in terms of recovery and performance. So it will be fun to give you a few tips, bro, if you want. Yeah. And I'm always looking at learning and figuring out new things of like how I can do better and recover. Uh, one of the things that I'm doing, cause I had such a short turnaround between my last race and this one is, uh, my, I've drastically lowered my weekly mileage and I'm focusing a lot more on.
00:48:06
Speaker
mobility training and a little bit of strength and just really trying to use different energy systems versus just that oxidative system. Yeah. And I'm curious to see how this is going to pan out because I felt like I have a really good base of aerobic mileage built up. And I want to see like in this last six weeks before race day, how changing up my training
00:48:35
Speaker
is going to affect me on the day of. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. I'll try to share that study with you. I know I have it somewhere in my notes. Vitamin E is so important because you look like a pretty lean guy, but it's generally going to be a problem for folks that are less lean. But when you're running, when the cortisol, when you kind of deplete glycogen or the body starts to kind of raise cortisol in tandem,
00:49:03
Speaker
will always rise adrenaline sometime after. And adrenaline stimulates lipolysis, so breaking down, or the release of fats from adipose tissue. And those circulating fatty acids, a lot of them are polyunsaturated, so they can actually damage endothelial cells, the blood vessels, organs. So excessive lipolysis is associated with diabetes, obesity, and a lot of disease states.
00:49:31
Speaker
Card exercise if you if you take vitamin E and other antioxidants can actually be quite protective and that actually can add This is where I think a lot of these even amateur athletes, but even like semi professionals They're leaving a lot on the table in terms of the longevity of their sport. So I I was talking my Pilates instructor and
00:49:53
Speaker
her son-in-law is like 33 and he's a professional handball player so she's like I'm trying to I'm trying to get him to to you know become a client of yours I'm like yeah because like he's already thinking about retiring soon I'm like you kidding me like 33 like you you there's dude you're running
00:50:13
Speaker
you're running 80 miles, you're, you know, you're older than him. You know what I mean? There's no excuse. If you've got the right people doing the research for you, there's no excuse that you should be retiring at 33, 35 or even 38 for that matter, depending on the sport now, of course. Yeah. Cause we know that we lose, you know, muscle mass. Like, you know, we kind of peek out around 29, 30 or so when it comes to athletic performance.
00:50:43
Speaker
Um, but I think when it comes to like endurance training, we can actually hold that. We can hold the line on that a little bit longer because of just of how we're built as humans. Yeah. You know, I feel like I'm just coming into my own in this sport and you know, I'm really trying to learn as much as I can. And I was just talking with a strength and conditioning friend of mine this weekend.
00:51:08
Speaker
And we're, you know, he was asking about ultra running. He was very curious because he's a professional power lifter. You know, he trains power lifters. And he was like, well, tell me about your nutrition during the race. And like, and like, that's just an art in itself. To learn like through trial and error, like how do I eat? And how do I feel properly for
00:51:30
Speaker
20, 24, 30 hours to make sure that my body's still performing the best it can given the stress load. Yeah, bro. One of my favorite podcasts, the guy that runs it, he's
00:51:49
Speaker
bike racer. And they do a lot of work with endurance racers. So I used to listen to that podcast so much. And just listening to them talk about fueling during the performance is like you said, it's a it's a science. It's an art. And it seems like it's a never it's a never changing thing as your physiology and the way you adapt
00:52:13
Speaker
to the training stresses, that can actually change. And your physiology changes, like I think they've done, I forgot what sport it was, but in certain sports, I think it was in the thigh muscle, there's more adipose tissue in the muscle. So there's more fat in the muscle because it's an adaptation where the fats are there because they will be, you know,
00:52:39
Speaker
burn for fuel during the activity so you don't see that in a untrained individual so it's quite an amazing thing. I can see why people get addicted to it because not only are you
00:52:53
Speaker
tinkering with, with, with art, with science, but you were like, you were, the sculpture is the art, the piece of art is you and your performance. And I think we're all, most of us are quite, we love ourselves, we infatuated with ourselves, and I mean, in a healthy way, and we want to be the best we can be the performance wise, you know, in our,
00:53:16
Speaker
in mental, spiritual, physical endeavors. So I can see why people are into it. And that's why I always love to see any way I can help to increase that performance or the longevity of that performance. That would be fun to work on.
00:53:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's a sport that I enjoy. There's a curiosity there that just keeps driving me to like, what else can I do? Like, you know, I was just talking with my wife this morning about this, like, I don't want to have any regrets of like how I don't want to leave anything on the table of like,
00:53:53
Speaker
what could I have accomplished in this life? Whether it be physical fitness or business or whatever it is, I just want to keep pushing limits to see where's that limit, where's that boundary. And I'm hoping that I just keep pushing and pushing and never find it. And that's kind of the goal. Yeah, I'm starting to think, is there any chance your start sign is Aries? No, it's a Gemini.
00:54:21
Speaker
Okay, because usually, because I'm Aries, a lot of people I meet, I'm like, dude, are you an Aries? You sound pretty ambitious. Usually, I'm right, you know, if I'm thinking that. That's awesome, bro. Well, listen, one that wants to sit on the couch all day.
00:54:36
Speaker
But you see that, I think that's another thing that you're doing in a healthy way. It sounded like you're doing a lot of the mobility, the recovery and the other stuff, the more concentric, like swimming stuff like that, that's concentric, but there's none of that sort of damaging, eccentric part of the motion, which can be very, which really the most damaging part of the sport really is the eccentric
00:55:04
Speaker
whether that's running or weightlifting, whatever we do. So it's good that you have
Self-improvement Philosophy
00:55:11
Speaker
a balanced approach to it and you understand all the, it's like what you were talking earlier, you know, you were talking about social resilience, physical resilience, resilience of the mind. So it's, I like that balanced approach. I think that those are, those are really
00:55:27
Speaker
leadership quality. So I'm glad you're doing the work you're doing. And you're spreading your influence, because, you know, we need guys like you to shape the men of our society. So for the many reasons that we covered kind of in the first half of today's episode.
00:55:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's just trying to be a good human for, for myself and for society. I, you know, I heard this a long time ago, and it just kind of stuck with me that said, like, you, you have to be a good individual before you can be a good teammate. And, you know, I kind of took that to heart, like, if I don't work on myself and work on getting better as a person every day, then like,
00:56:11
Speaker
I'm not going to be able to help anybody else. So it's kind of like the whole thing with the airplane mask. They tell you to put the mask on yourself before you help everybody else. Well, if I'm not doing the things that I need to do to be happy, healthy, and successful, then
00:56:28
Speaker
I'm not going to be able to help the others that need my help. But if I'm doing all the things that I'm capable of, then I can start lending a hand to those that maybe need a little assistance. And that's kind of like my philosophy on how I'm going forward with my life right now. Love it, bro. Love it. A couple more questions now. So for my solution stock question,
00:56:52
Speaker
Adam, what are you doing that others can do also to increase their freedom, self-reliance, autonomy, and or resilience to the challenges that we face this decade and beyond? It's doing the little things. Waking up and doing the difficult things that might be a little more challenging. I mean, I always start my morning off with something
00:57:17
Speaker
that can be challenging, whether it be an ice bath or a workout or just expressing gratitude, which doesn't seem like that difficult of a thing to do. But remembering to do it every day can be a challenge. And all those little things and those little skills that you acquire over years and years and years of doing them are going to forge you into the person that you have a potential to be.
00:57:45
Speaker
So really paying attention to all the details of how you do things. And I heard this a while ago too, and it's made a lot of sense to me how you do anything is how you do everything. So, you know, what that means is like, if, if I do things in an efficient manner, that's kind of like my personality. Well, I do everything in an efficient manner. And the con to that is sometimes I leave out some details because I'm efficient. Now I have a business partner.
00:58:15
Speaker
that does things very detailed, but he's not efficient. So there's always a pro and a con to the way that you do things. So understanding what your strengths are and pushing yourself in a direction to just get better and do the little things, I think is gonna help people get to their goals and build that resilience they're looking for. Beautiful answer, bro. Thank you so much. And last thing, how can folks connect with you?
00:58:45
Speaker
You can get me on Instagram. So it's soulful. So le f ul I paid homage to my running background underscore training. You can also reach me at soulful training at gmail.com. I offer free consultations for one on one individuals. I have a signature 12 week program to build resilience using my four pillars.
00:59:09
Speaker
But I generally work with organizations, corporations, groups like First Responder, police fire departments, things like that where I have programs built out to come into your organization and build organizational resilience. That's really the direction that
00:59:29
Speaker
I'm taking my company, but for a few select individuals, I will work one on one. I also have resources that if you were not a right fit, so let's say, for example, I don't do weight loss. If you want to come to me for weight loss, I'll refer you out because that's not what my program's about.
00:59:50
Speaker
Okay. Sounds awesome. I do also have a website www.soulfultraining.com. So you can, there's a space in there to contact me and set up your consultation. Sweet. We're going to have those things. Appreciate your time, Adam. Thank you so much for being on the, on the show today, bro. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was a, it was really a pleasure to be here.