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As many of you know, David, the founder of this podcast, was an incredibly insightful man. A lot of that was gleaned from the hardships that he endured, many that were self-inflicted. He also studied Eastern religions like Buddhism which helped him acquire a better understanding of the human psyche, and pointed him toward directing his energies inward toward improving himself in order to improve the world around him. Along the way, in his memoir, Out There: A Story of Ultra Recovery, he showed how he could attain a huge measure of that by showing his vulnerability, unashamedly exposing his mistakes and shortcomings, discussing the self-loathing he felt, and letting people make up their own minds about his efforts to make amends, and importantly, not harboring ill will toward them if they chose not to accept any of that. He understood that we all have done things we regret, and he was willing to accept others for who they were trying to be instead of judging them for past misdeeds.

The most interesting book along those lines I have read in a while is by Nick Moore. I found his book, Who Am I?, to be a real page-turner that I tore through in two sessions. Nick grew up in Texas among racism, violence, and parents who were unfaithful to one another. On the plus side, he loved to play football, and in high school received all of the adulation that football players get in Texas, and eventually got to play for Georgia Tech and Baylor. On the other, he had a mercurial, sometimes violent father. Nick discovered that his father had been molesting his daughter and granddaughter, leading Nick to call Child Protective Services, and causing an irreparable rift in his family. Nick struggled from that point with depression, substance abuse, mistrust of his religious upbringing, and finding a good direction to his life. Nick’s story takes more twists and turns than a rollercoaster as you share his bad luck, frustrations, and questionable choices. But he could eventually see how the Universe was pushing him in the right direction, even after losing his life savings – an envelope with $4000 in cash – that he’d planned to use to re-start his life in Amsterdam.

Interestingly, Nick had a psychological breakthrough while experimenting with psychedelics. He now lives in Hawaii, where he learned about the love and acceptance offered by Hinduism, and found some very wise mentors. He shares his poetry with visitors on Waikiki Beach, and like David after the revelations he realized, has become a leader in teaching others about vulnerability, self-love, and compassion, and most importantly, how people think about themselves. He definitely gave me some impetus for self-reflection, so I hope you enjoy this chat, too. 

Nick Moore
nicholasjordanmoore.com
His book "Who Am I?" is available on Amazon
[email protected]
Instagram @nicholasjordanmoore and @papa_infinite
YouTube @nicholasjordanmoore
X @NickJordanMoore
TikTok NicholasJordanMoore

Bill Stahl
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Facebook Bill Stahl
Instagram @stahlor and @coachstahl
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Bill Stahl
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Facebook Bill Stahl
Instagram @stahlor and @coachstahl
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A quick guide to how to use this very effectively tactic in your races to beat your competition and run faster. Please feel free to contact me if you have specific questions on implementing surges into your tool kit. 

Bill Stahl
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You might remember early last spring, an athlete who I coach, Julia Beckley, had her racing wheelchair stolen from her garage. We put out the word to every local media outlet we could, yet unfortunately it never turned up. However, the good news is that a GoFundMe that was setup raised enough funds for Julia to order a new chair and fly to Atlanta twice to get fitted for it and then have it fine-tuned. It should arrive just in time for a project that will begin on Oct. 26 that will highlight the needs of other adaptive athletes. Thanks in part to Julia’s efforts, races have added or enhanced their pushrim divisions, including the Colfax Marathon and the Bolder Boulder, and more racing chairs are available to other adaptive athletes in Colorado. During her project, which she calls the Beckley Marathons, an intention pun on the infamous Barkley Marathons, she will wheel herself through a marathon on consecutive days in various corners of Colorado, beginning in Fort Collins, hitting southern Colorado, the Western Slope, and ending in Washington Park in Denver. She figures she will be pushing herself for 96 hours. She will be posting details on her Instagram account, @artisaurous  I’m looking forward to following Julia’s progress while she balances the challenges of her complex health issues and pushing herself through these daily efforts.

Julia Beckley
Instagram @artisaurous

Bill Stahl
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Imagine trying as hard as you can to run, bike, dance, or hike and yet always struggling to keep up with everyone else. Worse yet, getting told by coaches, PE teachers, even friends that you were just lazy, or worse yet, that you plain sucked?  Andrea Ogg experienced that her whole life until she was 35 years old. Then she got the diagnosis that it wasn’t her, but a congenital heart condition called Left Ventricular Non-Compaction Cardiomyopathy that prevented her heart from developing normally. So this ever-cheerful and funny woman found joy in other areas of her life. Until one day in August, 2017 her heart stopped, and she keeled over and died. She didn’t even realize what had happened to her as she clowned around with the paramedics in the ambulance until she was informed that the defibrillator that had been implanted in her chest had kicked in to restore her heart rhythm and save her life. However, her heart was now on borrowed time and in July, 2018 she received a heart transplant from a stranger. Andrea’s amazing attitude is to show her gratitude by giving her new heart the kind of life that a parent would want to give to their child. She lost 50 pounds and dedicated her life to health and fitness. She has continued to sing and dance in musical productions, took a photo safari to see African mountain gorillas, and in June ran her first half-marathon! She is focused on showing others how you can be resilient and see beyond the challenges in life. If you go to her web site, andreaogg.com, you’ll also find that she is hilarious in how she chronicled her journey up to and through her heart transplant. She also has some absolutely awesome recipes on there, too. As she sums up on her web site: “Heart transplant patients can not only lead completely normal lives. They can lead extraordinary ones.” I think you’ll enjoy this energetic chat with this amazing woman.

Andrea Ogg
andreaogg.com
Facebook Andrea Ogg
Instagram and X @dfibkitty

Bill Stahl
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We are going to drop into a whole new kind of location on the WASP, the Turks and Caicos Islands, near the Bahamas. Drexwell Seymour was raised in this British possession into a family with very modest means but not knowing any different, he was a happy child. However, he endured quite a bit of racism while in school, which greatly affected his self-confidence. He threw himself into his studies and graduated high school at the age of 15. He got an incredible break when an American philanthropist awarded Drexwell a scholarship to attend Wilmington College in Ohio, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Business Management in only three years. He then precociously added on an MBA from Miami (Ohio) University by the time he was 19. Armed with these degrees before he turned 20, he returned to his home islands, hoping to get into the hospitality industry. We have all encountered this Catch-22 - he was told he couldn’t get into that industry because he didn’t have experience. So with his accounting degree, he created his own opportunity in that field, and later eventually started his own firm and became owner of a hotel as well. Suddenly the young man who had been filled with self-doubt was a respected community leader, and his success has springboarded him to become a civic leader in the vexing issues facing his small country, which still has not achieved independence from Britain. It has also led him to writing books and speaking gigs. His first book, Rise Up and Take Your Position: Don't give up. Find your Gift and Cultivate It became an international bestseller on Amazon. He’s just released his second book, Succeeding In Your Position: Ten Essential Ingredients for Success that covers how to build self-confidence, deal with everyday challenges, and live passionately and purposefully to achieve all of your goals by detailing the numerous timeless concepts that anyone can use. Among these he teaches is how to find your gift, search for meaning in your life, overcome your fears, how to look at failure as opportunity, and then cultivate your meaning, work on it, and rise up to share it with the world and make you successful. I think you’ll enjoy hearing how this dynamic man seized every opportunity given to him and used the gifts that he discovered only through hard work to change his life trajectory and be able to share it with others.

Drexwell Seymour
drexwellseymour.com
[email protected]
Facebook Drexwell Seymour
Instagram @drexwellgseymour

His books:
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Take-Your-Position-Cultivate/dp/B09JF3W26J/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

https://www.amazon.com/Succeeding-Your-Position-Essential-Ingredients/dp/1637653719/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Bill Stahl
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We have spoken on the WASP with a few of among the hundreds of amazing personal stories of how they got to the starting line of the Leadville Trail 100, and more so, to the finish line. I was rather impressed with the 18-year old guy we spoke with, Alden Iselin, completing the race as such a green runner, but the 18-year old division female winner, Lauryn Wojcik, really blows me away.  Get this, her longest previous race was 6K. Yes 6K, a bit over 3½ miles. She had never before run a trail race. Plus she had been injured and cross-trained for months until she was able to begin running again in June – two months before the race! Her longest training run in that span was 30K. Hope Pass was the only part of the course she’d ever been on before. Her finish time was a very, very respectable 28:19:50, and how about this? That made her the 29th female overall! Yet her understated reaction on her Instagram post was “Ouch.” Here’s a quirky stat, she was actually faster going up Hope Pass than down it!  So how did she do it? Believe it or not, she was spurred by a lack of self-confidence, which has likely markedly changed after this. I think you’ll be as amazed as I am hearing about the unique ways in which Lauryn pulled off this insane feat, including being a dedicated planner. She is a structural engineering student at Cal Poly-SLO, and that being in her DNA also shows up in her approach. I hope you enjoy, and even pickup a few training ideas, from this chat with this really nice young woman who has a ton of potential both on and off the trails.

Lauryn Wojcik
Instagram @lauryn_wojcik
Strava Lauryn Wojcik

Bill Stahl
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When I first ran the Leadville Trail 100 in the early 90s, and for many years afterward, there had never been a finisher younger than 23 years old. A few had unsuccessfully tried, but it was considered too much of an endeavor for a younger person to do the necessary training for an ultramarathon. But then along came Clare Gallagher and Annie Hughes, major race winners and record-setters in their early 20s. In 2019, I ran the start-to-May Queen stretch of the LT100 alongside college senior Harrison Hornung, actually named after the main drag in Leadville, who was attempting to complete Leadman, which he did. There’s no doubt the demographics in ultramarathons have trended younger, yet I was pretty surprised when I was up at the LT100 this year and saw that there were 4 or 5 runners in the 18-19 year old division. Alden Iselin of Newton MA just graduated from high school and impressively finished in 29:11:33. I was curious what made this young man tick, and what I discovered is an energetic 18-year old who is eager to explore new places and challenges, and who wants to help others seek similar goals. He is relatively new to the ultrarunning world, too, having only run his first 50-miler in NH in October. In February, he completed the rugged Orcas Island 100-miler, which was complicated by bad weather, precipitating a 12-hour start time delay. His time there was more than 32 hours. I greatly enjoyed hearing about what sparked his interest in ultrarunning, his training, the challenges he has faced in his nascent ultrarunning career, what he learned in these first experiences, and about his extraordinary focus for an 18-year old. Alden might be a future star, and you heard him first on the WASP!

Alden Iselin
Instagram and Strava @aldeniselin

Bill Stahl
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