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Ultra-endurance sports didn't just change me physically,
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they actually gave me a brand new life.
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Throughout my 30s, I was climbing the corporate ladder,
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very intent on achieving
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the traditional idea of the American dream.
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But deep down inside, I started to question
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this path that I was on.
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For well over a decade,
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I really hadn't been taking care of myself.
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I had become a junk food addict,
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I was 50 pounds overweight, kind of semi-depressed,
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and shortly before I turned 40,
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I was climbing up a simple flight of stairs
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to go to bed one evening, and I had to pause halfway.
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I was winded, I was out of breath,
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I had tightness in my chest,
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and it was a very specific moment in time
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in which I realized that not only that
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I needed to change my lifestyle habits
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but that I had the willingness that I truly wanted to.
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I realized that vague ideas of eating better
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or working out a little bit or going to the gym
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weren't really going to work for me.
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I needed something specific, something definitive.
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I'd played around with a bunch of different diets,
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to no avail,
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and I sort of attempted this
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experiment in plant-based eating as kind of the last
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thing that I hadn't explored.
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And I didn't have a big expectation
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that it would make a big difference,
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but within about seven to 10 days
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of eating nothing but plants,
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nothing with a mother, nothing with a face,
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I experienced this extraordinary thing,
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like I had this resurgence in vitality,
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my mental acuity improved, my sleep improved,
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I had this sense of well-being and energy
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that I hadn't really felt since I was a teenager.
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And I didn't really know what I was doing,
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but I knew in that moment that I was onto something.
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And it started getting me thinking
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about human potential and my own potential,
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because if I could make such a simple, basic shift
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and experience such a dramatic result,
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where were there other untapped reservoirs
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of potential that I could explore?
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And that's what got me interested, ultimately,
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in the world of ultra-endurance sports.
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At the peak of training, I would say
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I was training about 25 hours a week,
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so it was really almost a second job,
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and at the time, I was still a practicing attorney,
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I have four kids, I'm busy doing a lot of things,
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and in order to make the time that was required
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to appropriately prepare for this race,
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I had to make some significant cuts
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and really look hard and fast
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at how I was spending my time on a day-to-day basis.
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I had to get rid of late-night television
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and sort of business meetings that could be
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pushed to a conference call or an email chain
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to free up the time that was required
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so I could show up at the starting line and know
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in my heart of hearts that I could complete this race.
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I started training, which really connected me
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with myself in a very profound way,
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and to the surprise of myself and many other people,
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I ended up showing some prowess in this field
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and ended up competing at a very high level,
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specifically a race called Ultraman,
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which is a double Ironman distance triathlon.
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Over the course of three days,
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it completely circumnavigates
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the entire big island of Hawaii.
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(playful orchestral music)