61 | Injured & Alone in Alaska, a Coach's Journey w/ Scott Johnston

The mountains will try to kill us and yet they have no malice.
. 
They freeze us and yet warm our souls. 
.
They fill our lives with joy and yet have nothing tangible to give. 
.
The mountains deserve our respect. 
.
They require meticulous preparation, mentally, spiritually and physically.

Today we are sitting down with a master of preparation. Scott Johnston is a world renown Endurance coach. Some of the athletes he has worked with over the years include Killian Jornet, Steve House, Alex Honold and Tom Evans to name a few. But Scotts true legacy and contribution to the climbing community lies with the everyday climber who he has equipped with the knowledge necessary to improve their health and wellbeing and to live a life full of adventure. In our conversation we discuss the allure of endurance sports, the nuance of endurance coaching, the future of ultra running, the importance of life beyond sport, the fragility of life and finally we discuss an accident that left Scott stranded and alone on the vast glaciers of Denali 

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Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
Email: theclimbingmajoritypodcast@gmail.com

Resources:

Evoke Endurance

Training For The New Alpinism (Book)

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:22:15
Unknown
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Climbing Majority podcast, where Collin I sit down with living legends, professional athletes, certified guides and recreational climbers like discuss the topics, lessons, stories and experiences found in the life of a climber. If you haven't already, please subscribe rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:24:10 - 00:00:49:12
Unknown
The mountains will try to kill us. And yet they have no malice. They freeze us and yet warm our souls. They fill our lives with joy and yet have nothing tangible to give. The mountains deserve our respect. They require meticulous preparation. Mentally, spiritually and physically. Today we are sitting down with a master of preparation. Scott Johnson is a world renowned endurance coach.

00:00:49:14 - 00:01:10:07
Unknown
Some of the athletes he has worked with over the years include Kilian Journey, Steve House, Alex Arnold and Thom Evans, to name a few. But Scott's true legacy and contributions to the climbing community lies with the everyday climber who is equipped with the knowledge necessary to improve their health and well-being and to live a life full of adventure.

00:01:10:09 - 00:01:26:23
Unknown
In our conversation, we discussed the allure of endurance sports, the nuance of endurance coaching, the future of ultrarunning, the importance of life beyond sport, the fragility of life. And finally, we discuss an accident that left Scott stranded and alone on the vast glaciers of Denali.

00:01:39:02 - 00:02:01:01
Unknown
All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Climbing Majority podcast. We're sitting down here with Scott Johnston today. First off, Scott, when we when we spoke earlier, I didn't really realize that we had decided to meet on the holiest of days on February 14th on Valentine's Day. So I just want to apologize to your wife that you're here, you know, having a recording with us.

00:02:01:01 - 00:02:03:21
Unknown
But we're very appreciative to have you here. And how are you doing?

00:02:03:21 - 00:02:18:02
Unknown
I'm doing great, thanks. And yeah, it's I don't think it's a real. Not going to impact our relationship. We've been together for almost 40 years. So I think. Yeah.

00:02:28:18 - 00:02:59:21
Unknown
No marital stress. No.

00:02:59:21 - 00:03:32:03
Unknown
gosh. Well, I had my I. That's a good question. I can tell you. I'll give you the short story, which is that, you know, I had a a bit of a professional athletic career myself as a cross-country skier. And short and rather not very illustrious at the World Cup level. But when I quit racing, I moved to a little place in North central Washington that had a really active junior ski program.

00:03:32:05 - 00:03:51:19
Unknown
And the woman who was coaching it was pregnant and about to have a kid and she knew that I had this background. She said, Hey, would you coach the team? And I said, You bet. Sure, I'm happy to. And then for like a lot of times when we say things, we often realized later, God, what did I get myself into?

00:03:51:21 - 00:04:26:22
Unknown
And I realized later I didn't know you know, much. I didn't know anything about coaching kids. I had kind of had a casual layperson's study of exercise physiology and endurance because I'd been involved in endurance sports since I was a child. And I swam at quite a high level when I was a kid. And so I had some understanding because I'd been involved in two Olympic development programs that I was exposed to sports scientist and I got a lot of testing done on myself and that sort of thing.

00:04:26:22 - 00:04:52:09
Unknown
And I was curious. So I, I read a lot, but I didn't know anything about coaching kids. And so I bought a couple of books about coaching kids. One of them was a Norwegian coaching training manual. And Norwegians, of course, are famous for producing top cross-country skier. So I figured they would know what they were talking about. And the other was written by a Hungarian guy, but it was kind of general coaching for kids sort of strategies.

00:04:52:11 - 00:05:36:02
Unknown
And I dove into that. And what I realized I really enjoyed learning about that stuff. And so I made a pretty deep dive into it. And we had a big program, about 120 kids in the program, and I was more I was responsible for the high school age kids that were pretty serious in their racing and and it manage over the course of a few years to produce several junior national champions who went on to world junior championships and performed well and then moved on to the U.S. ski team and went to several Olympics, produced a number of national champions and world actually world champion podiums, you know, people.

00:05:36:02 - 00:05:58:10
Unknown
So I, I realized I was doing something right, even though I had no official training in that background. I didn't have an exercise science degree or anything like that. And so a couple of those kids that graduate left my program or left high school. They continued to work with me as a coach and I coached them at a higher level.

00:05:58:15 - 00:06:40:08
Unknown
And then I started to attract other young skiers to the program that I was coaching, skiers that were competing on the World Cup level. And so I was traveling to Europe a lot and being involved in that. And so that's sort of the short story. And that's actually during that time is when I began to coach Steve Steve House, who I co-wrote that first book with training for the new Albinism and but, you know, like I alluded to a moment ago, this goes back to, you know, childhood really when I started swimming and then I had a high school coach that kind of instilled this curiosity about exercise, training, physiology and training science.

00:06:40:10 - 00:07:13:13
Unknown
And he we turned out to have a very good high school team, and I competed in college. And then, as I said, I was part of this Olympic development program in swimming. So I guess it goes back a long way for me. And even though I don't have, you know, any any letters behind my name that would suggest I know anything about coaching and training, I have managed to put it together kind of learning on my own, I suppose, and, you know, educating myself.

00:07:13:13 - 00:07:37:05
Unknown
for competency. And obviously your your resume and pedigree kind of speaks for itself. I'm wondering for yourself, like growing up, did you ever suffer from anxiety, depression? Like, of course, everybody nowadays talks about like mental health and they pathologize everything. But like, like it's such a common theme. We talk to people who are mount athletes and there's almost like this, like that.

00:07:37:06 - 00:07:41:15
Unknown
The pain cave. It's like they're running from something, you know? Is that something that characterized

00:07:45:07 - 00:08:13:06
Unknown
I don't think that was, you know, not really, no. I don't think I had the normal insecurities that most of us have. And I think, you know, I was driven to try to perform at as high a level as I could. It was, you know, one of the reasons I pursued the studies I did in school was I thought, okay, well, I'm this is stuff I would never pick up a book after I got out of college and read about.

00:08:13:07 - 00:08:38:20
Unknown
So I'm going to try to learn things in school that I would have known that I wouldn't be able to I wouldn't have the discipline to sit down and read, you know, a book on differential equations. But whereas I'm curious about a lot of other stuff, and I think there's a lot you can learn from books, but this was stuff that I knew I wouldn't do, so I kind of had that bent in most of my life, which was, Hey, this looks challenging, let's try it.

00:08:38:22 - 00:09:03:18
Unknown
It was kind of what actually got me involved in climbing when I was, you know, into climbing when I was in high school. Same sort of thing as well. That looks pretty cool. Yeah, it looks hard. Looks scary. I wonder if I could do that, that kind of thing. And so but I don't think I had the, the, the any sort of other than like I said, like I said, probably the normal self-doubts and whatnot that the most people have.

00:09:03:22 - 00:09:05:20
Unknown
Yeah.

00:09:05:20 - 00:09:28:08
Unknown
I'm curious in the way you spoke about your progression to coaching. It was almost as you were, you were kind of thrown into it in a professional role right away. And you said that you immediately realized you didn't know how to teach children. It was almost this roadblock you had to overcome. And so I'm curious as to what about the difference in children and adults?

00:09:28:08 - 00:09:39:07
Unknown
Was like, what caused that awareness? What about children was different? And then how does that and if it does apply back to how you coach adults,

00:09:39:07 - 00:10:04:11
Unknown
Well I think them, you know, I didn't really know I should preface this or go back and amend what I said perhaps earlier that I didn't know how to coach anybody. I mean, I had been an athlete myself and I had been coached. But until you actually have to apply a coaching theory to people, you know, you just there's a big difference between being on the receiving end and, you know, the administering end of this stuff.

00:10:04:11 - 00:10:26:05
Unknown
So so I guess it was a double awareness that I had one that I know I really didn't know that much about coaching, but I certainly didn't know anything about coaching kids. And so the difference with and this is I think a common mistake and something I've actually lectured about quite often now to people is respecting the unique ness of children.

00:10:26:06 - 00:10:57:20
Unknown
There's that there are certain developmental stages that kids go through during which their bodies are more accepting of and adaptable to different kinds of training stimulus. So for instance, speed and power and agility and skills and that sort of thing are much easier learned in the, say, 7 to 12 year old years when, you know, you're starting to develop enough coordination and that you can control your body the way you want it to.

00:10:57:20 - 00:11:36:06
Unknown
But your nervous system is still plastic enough to learn to, you know, to learn new skills, physical skills. And then then as the as you get older, then being able, there's a point where you can begin to increase the loading on the body. So strength training becomes more appropriate. And once the and then in the early to or the say the through puberty especially because when kids are specially adapted are easily adapted to endurance training and strength training as well, but especially endurance training, it's when your heart is growing the fastest and so you can make huge gains.

00:11:36:08 - 00:12:02:10
Unknown
And the mistake that I think a lot of coaches that I've seen over the years, coach kids, is they try to mimic or try to apply a an adult program to a kid. And so they try to train they I'm going to speak specifically about skiing here because that's where my expertise is. But, you know, they'll they'll look at some World Cup 27 year old World Cup Norwegian skier and think, well, look at how good this skier is.

00:12:02:10 - 00:12:24:03
Unknown
And what he does for training, volume and all that. Well, why don't we have our 14 year olds do the same thing? And first of all, that that 27 year old world Cup skier has probably been progressing through his training since he was, you know, nine or ten years old to get to that stage. And he has a much higher work capacity than a kid will have.

00:12:24:05 - 00:12:48:21
Unknown
And I see it often that, you know, when you try to train a child like an adult and don't train them through these appropriate stages of skill building. And and I think the number one thing for kids is it has to be fun then, especially endurance sports. They're not really fun. They're you know, they're repetitive, they're boring as hours and hours of time by yourself.

00:12:48:23 - 00:13:07:08
Unknown
And if you're a 12 year old and your friends are in the gym in the evenings playing volleyball and you're out skiing around in the dark with a headlamp for 2 hours, you know, it's going to be hard for that 12 year old to stay focused on that sport unless there's some elements of fun that are involved in it.

00:13:07:10 - 00:13:19:22
Unknown
And so if you start again trying to flog them like a 25 year old and they're they burn out, I've just seen that happen a lot, especially in junior high school, is where the big burnout in endurance sports with kids comes.

00:13:19:22 - 00:13:38:17
Unknown
I think, like, on to further the topic of something you're talking about in youth is essentially like not having a flame burn so bright that it burns out. You need to keep things fun. You need to keep the person kind of active and engaging in that. And then also have these late developers, you know, have their chance and not burn out the early developers.

00:13:38:19 - 00:13:52:00
Unknown
So like a question we have here is kind of, you know, and this could apply to the youth, but I think it's more so to the adult realm, you know, like what is the allure of endurance sports for an individual such as yourself?

00:13:52:10 - 00:13:54:12
Unknown
that's a good that's a great question.

00:13:54:12 - 00:14:43:13
Unknown
And I think a lot of people that are attracted to endurance sports failed at team sports. They they didn't have the innate athleticism perhaps to, you know, become, you know, on the varsity basketball team or whatever. And so they gravitate towards the high school, cross-country running team. And I mean, there's a there's an old saying by that's made was famous years and years ago some I don't know who said it with some running coach and that was that sprinters are are made you are born with that athletic talent to be a sprinter distance runners excuse me sprinters are born with that talent distance runners are made in I'm I have coached people who had that

00:14:43:17 - 00:15:08:06
Unknown
sprinter athleticism you know the the very athletic you know people who can do double back flips on cross-country skis off of a you know, a big cliff jump. I mean, I've coached people like that, believe it or not. Well, those people, I can take anybody and turn them into an endurance athlete. But you can't take somebody who doesn't have those athletic genes and you're not going to turn it.

00:15:08:06 - 00:15:33:15
Unknown
You're not going to get that person to be able to dunk a basketball or be a running back in the NFL. So I think that I think our evolutionary process has genetically predisposed us towards endurance. And so it's it's kind of it's kind of a last resort for people who like sports but can't or aren't athletic enough to do some of the real some of the real athletic sports.

00:15:33:15 - 00:15:58:09
Unknown
They're not going to be, like I said, NFL running backs. But I think it's a different mentality, too. I mean, you know, they they call those those team sports are called games for a good reason. I mean, you play a game, these endurance sports, they're not games. They're you know, it's an individual test of yourself against, you know, other people against yourself.

00:15:58:11 - 00:16:24:07
Unknown
And for, you know, I think for most people who are involved in team sports, they by the time they're out of, you know, high school or maybe, you know, most people aren't even going to play those team sports in college. That's the end. You know, they're 18 years old and that's their end of their sporting life. Whereas people who get into who are involved in endurance sports, it's a lifetime activity.

00:16:24:07 - 00:16:38:10
Unknown
It's something that those because they don't need a team, they don't need a hoop in a basketball court. They just need to put on some running shoes and go out the door. So I think it's a different motivator, really, that drive people in those two different directions.

00:16:38:10 - 00:16:40:22
Unknown
I haven't heard the athletic drop out theory

00:17:07:03 - 00:17:10:20
Unknown
no, that was I think that was in my case.

00:17:11:02 - 00:17:29:17
Unknown
You know, maybe I'm biased because of this, but I was one of those kids that in junior high, I mean, I think I probably tried out for every team sport that our school, you know, baseball, basketball, football. And I got to be so bad that the coaches would recognize, okay, here comes that kid. Don't even bother giving him pads for the football practice.

00:17:29:17 - 00:17:53:05
Unknown
We know two days later he's going to be cut off the team. And yeah, so luckily I found that I had a penchant, you know, for endurance. I ran in high school and swam as well, and I really thrived in those sports. So and I'm I think I'm kind of like I would say column like you in that for me, I mean, life isn't a spectator sport.

00:17:53:07 - 00:18:16:17
Unknown
And yet for most people, the appeal of team sports is to be a spectator, to watch other people do those sports. I mean, they were maybe they played football in high school, but now they're spectators of other people playing football, whereas that has never held in appeal to me. I've always been the person who I want to be doing the thing, not watching other people do it.

00:18:16:17 - 00:18:36:17
Unknown
I mean, I don't even watch, you know, even when I was coaching cross-country ski racing, I've I've, I probably rarely watched a televised ski race. I mean, I would watch the races. I was standing on the sidelines of, of course. But, you know, and even now, I can't I don't keep up with who's doing what in cross-country ski racing anymore.

00:18:36:17 - 00:19:04:03
Unknown
And just because that it's like, okay, well, it's not as intimate to me as it once was. And what do I benefit from it? Yeah, that's yeah.

00:19:04:06 - 00:19:27:22
Unknown
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting, like, thought to chase out a little bit there. I find myself, I don't really watch team sports or anything, you know, the occasional hockey game or something I'll go to if there's cheap tickets or whatever. But most of the time, even in relation to climbing, I'm incredibly inspired hard by the content I watch and I do watch a fair amount of climbing content, but it's almost through the lens of motivation.

00:19:28:00 - 00:19:46:03
Unknown
Like as I'm watching it, it's just getting me like psyched and like totally driven to go out and climb and I'm envisioning myself like, of course it's preposterous to like, envision yourself in some of these positions people are doing, but you can still grab that kind of motivation and and that like osmosis of it almost in a way.

00:19:46:07 - 00:19:57:13
Unknown
It's really not from like a spectator's perspective, you know, it's almost like putting juice in the tank to, like, get me to go out more, if that makes sense. Like, do you find yourself when you when you spectate anything

00:19:57:13 - 00:20:11:01
Unknown
yeah, I think, you know, when I watch, let's say, you know, a World Cup cross-country ski race on YouTube or I watch a climbing, you know, someone climbing, it's for me, it's often like I want to learn What are the what are they?

00:20:11:03 - 00:20:30:20
Unknown
How are they doing that? You know, what is it they're doing that makes them so good at this thing that they're doing? Yes, certainly motivation. I mean, although for me, it's I'm quite the armchair athlete these days. I mean, I'm 70 years old, so I, I mean, I'm not I'm not going to be I have no dreams of being able to do some of those things.

00:20:30:22 - 00:20:41:14
Unknown
But it is exciting and motivating to to see what people are capable of. But it's often for me looking at, okay, what what is it that is enabling them to do this thing?

00:21:02:00 - 00:21:12:15
Unknown
wondering though, like in relation to grit and like toughness, is this something that you feel like you're either born with or can you cultivate it? Does that make sense?

00:21:12:15 - 00:21:36:07
Unknown
Well, it's certainly the number one most important characteristic for an endurance athlete is the perseverance, because, you know, by the very definition of endurance is suffering mean it's that it's every contest of endurance is a contest of who can suffer the most for the longest.

00:21:36:09 - 00:22:03:19
Unknown
And so it's it's a kind of a perverse activity in a way, I suppose. But again, I think that I truly believe that we are evolutionarily predisposed for that. I mean, that is what enables Homo sapiens to rise to the top of the food chain. And it's still in our genes, even though, you know, today we do not go have to go out and chase the antelope for two days until it exhausts itself so we can kill it.

00:22:03:21 - 00:22:26:03
Unknown
But we still have that in us. And and it's been it's it's been detuned. It's been you know, it's not it's not necessary for people to live that way anymore. But I think people like the idea of going out and running a 100 mile race, for instance. I mean, why on earth would someone run 100 miles these days?

00:22:26:08 - 00:22:53:04
Unknown
I mean, it's absolutely, you know, but yet all of these ultra endurance races, they have huge waiting lists. It's very hard to get into them. So there's something that is innately appealing to people in about this type of thing. Now, I think that it also might relate a little bit to it for the for most people, it's like, okay, they're not going to these are more contests of the ability to finish.

00:22:53:04 - 00:23:16:14
Unknown
You know, for many, for most of the participants, I mean, obviously there's an elite few at the front for who are running quite fast and this is a contest of speed for them. But for many, it's just a contest. Can I can I actually do this thing? Can I run for 28 hours? But so I do think that it tends to take a certain amount of grit.

00:23:16:16 - 00:23:40:05
Unknown
But I think perseverance is perhaps a better word. It's, you know, the ability to and this is one of the things that I always stressed with the kids that I coached is and I think this is one of the most valuable lessons of individual sports is the learning to fail. And because in a team, you know, when you win or when you lose, there's a whole other part.

00:23:40:10 - 00:24:10:17
Unknown
There's everybody else on the team that either suffers the disgrace of losing or shares in the adulation of the victory. But when you scroll down the finish list of the race and you're down there in 48th place, then there's no dodging that. I mean, you have to face up. I mean, maybe 48th place was a really good race for you, but whatever it is, you have to come to grips with your own performance on that day and how you how you did.

00:24:10:18 - 00:24:33:20
Unknown
There's no excuses. And I think that, you know, for for the kids, you know, you as adults, we know this now that one of the most important things I think for in it to have a successful life is to be robust enough that when you fail, you can pick yourself like you guys did with your ankle injuries. You know, it didn't just roll over and give up.

00:24:33:22 - 00:24:57:05
Unknown
You know, you pick yourself up. You said, okay, what do I do? How do I get better know, how am I going to live with these limitations that from these injuries? And I think that that's such an important characteristic that if kids don't learn that to fail and then to try again, you know, failing well, I think is a really important skill in life.

00:24:57:07 - 00:25:20:02
Unknown
And so that was one of my big you know, when we when we set goals for the kids, for their races, it wasn't it was often not a performance goal. It was some sort of personal thing. You know, I had a girl who was, you know, scared on the downhills. And I would say, okay, your goal, this race is to not snowplow on any of the downhills, you know, And I didn't care.

00:25:20:07 - 00:25:45:15
Unknown
She's still dead last in the race. Didn't matter to me if she achieved that. Her own little personal victory there. So I think there's a lot to be learned from endurance sports in terms of, you know, you have a lot of time to think about what's, you know, you're yourself and how you're coping with this. The suffering component that we talked about earlier.

00:25:45:15 - 00:26:12:08
Unknown
you know, there's the side of the mental aspect of of grit or perseverance, as you said. But there's this also this other side to the mentality of sports where I think it can kind of you can become too invested in your outcomes or your performance. Have you had experience with athletes dealing with this where too much of their ego or too much of their identity is wrapped up in outcome based judgment or performance based judgment?

00:26:12:08 - 00:26:12:16
Unknown
And

00:26:17:03 - 00:26:45:12
Unknown
Yes, I do see that or have seen it. And, you know, for professionals, that's that is a problem because this is their you know, their stated profession is to perform at the elite level in whatever these sports are. And what I've seen is that the most I'm not sure I can coach that honestly, but I have seen them the most successful ones that I've worked with.

00:26:45:14 - 00:27:09:19
Unknown
They had something else going on in their life that, you know, their certainly their identity is heavily tied to their sport, but it's not it's not everything. And so, you know, it could be you know, it could be some charity work. It could be school. I've had athletes who, when they were competing on the World Cup in skiing, were also in school.

00:27:09:19 - 00:27:28:03
Unknown
So they were studying and they had to do long distance sometimes from, you know, taking classes in the middle of the night in Europe from, you know, the U.S. set to be online classes. And so I think that they're having that. And another outlet is a good thing because and it also can help with,

00:27:28:03 - 00:27:32:14
Unknown
you know, everyone's athletic career comes to an end at some time, you know.

00:27:32:16 - 00:27:58:06
Unknown
Well, not I would not say that every elite athlete career comes to an end at some point. You know, they are going to be faced with the reality that they're no longer at the top of the heap and they better have a backup plan. Or the transition back to being a normal civilian is going to be very difficult for those that don't have some kind of exit strategy or backup plan.

00:27:58:08 - 00:28:33:19
Unknown
And so I try to, I think cultivating some other skill set and or and certainly other interests is a is an important thing. And you do see it probably some of the worst cases of it is with the amateurs where they they think that what makes a professional a professional is this 100% dedication and focus. And so they become completely obsessed and 100% dedicated and focused on what they're doing.

00:28:33:21 - 00:29:03:02
Unknown
And they they think that that's the goal to that's the route to, to, to success. But in fact, what it can do is it can make what they're doing turn into more of a compulsion. And that, you know, especially in endurance sports, because of the the monotony and the huge amount of huge volume of of training time that's involved, if it's a compulsion, it's not going to work out.

00:29:03:02 - 00:29:26:04
Unknown
It's not going to last. I mean, you have to you have to love being out there, you know, spending hours and hours by yourself doing this thing over and over again every day. And if it in if it becomes a compulsion, then you see it manifests itself in unfortunate ways, whether it's eating disorders or, you know, overuse, injuries, that kind of thing.

00:29:26:06 - 00:29:35:14
Unknown
So I don't have a great answer for you other than my just my observation that I've seen the most successful people have other things going on in their life.

00:29:35:14 - 00:29:59:14
Unknown
that's that's right along the narrative that, you know, I personally believe and found after my accident was that I needed something else in my life to be more of a well-rounded individual. And I think it's just an important narrative to share, because, like you said, that dedication is like, you've go live in your van, go live at the Crag, go climb all the time, do nothing but climb and be a homeless

00:30:03:07 - 00:30:05:16
Unknown
Yeah.

00:30:22:15 - 00:30:42:15
Unknown
Yeah. I think just to add a couple a few things to that is like, I think in anything in life, just throwing every single one of your marbles at the sink, at a singular, you know, problem is problematic. Like anything you over identify with. It doesn't matter what it is if you're just a 110% and you haven't diversified the things you want to do.

00:30:42:17 - 00:31:02:11
Unknown
Well, you know, for exactly as Kyle alluded to, when you shatter both your ankles or your father gets cancer or, you know, something terrible happens in your life and and the number one thing which you have, you know, invested every single inch of yourself and, you know, a little bit of time when you don't have that anymore, it's taken away from you.

00:31:02:17 - 00:31:34:07
Unknown
You're just completely lost as an individual, you know? And so I think in life, you know, like being lazy is going to be really difficult. Being too busy is going to be really difficult. You kind of have to choose your difficult. But if you have a lot of different projects and a lot of different things that you're investing, your time and your energy in that are fulfilling and your, you know, operating within this balance, like, you know, you need to have your your family and your your spouse or, you know, all these other things are super meaningful parts of your life that you have to juggle appropriately.

00:31:34:07 - 00:32:01:04
Unknown
And anything too much into overdrive is going to you know, you're kind of racing towards a red light essentially at some point, if that makes sense. You know, I'm wondering, because you were talking in relation to like a lot of your athletes and kind of pursue excellence essentially, you know, you know, in your career, both for yourself with your youth athletes and the professional athletes and just normal individuals you work with.

00:32:01:06 - 00:32:06:12
Unknown
Do you find that satisfaction and accomplishment are strongly correlated?

00:32:06:12 - 00:32:22:07
Unknown
I think the speed depends on what you mean by accomplishment. It's a little bit like my little girl I was telling you about with a snowplow. You know, if she accomplished that race without snow power, snow plowing on the downhills, then she was going to be satisfied because we made sure that was her.

00:32:22:07 - 00:32:52:07
Unknown
It was an attainable goal for her. And it was one that when she achieved that, she would have it, she would be satisfied. And it sets her up for the next goal, the next sort of process goal that, you know, would make some that we can set up for her. I think that one of the mistakes and I think this is so common now because of the easy access we have through social media, the Internet of seeing these elite performers.

00:32:52:09 - 00:33:15:16
Unknown
You know, it didn't used to like when I was first started climbing when I was in high school, you know, it was we had a couple of climbing magazines that came out monthly or bi monthly and if you wanted to find out what happened in climbing, you had to wait a couple of months and you certainly didn't see real, real time, you know, GoPro videos or whatever of people doing their thing.

00:33:15:18 - 00:34:04:16
Unknown
And so we weren't exposed to that level of of excellence. It was I think it's been a good thing in terms of almost all these sports of elevating the level of of more people. There's more people climbing hard now because they can see how other people climb hard. So that would be it's a good thing. But at the same time it can, you know, not there's a tiny, tiny you know, 1/1000 of 1% that it's going to be an Alex Honnold or an Alex Miguel's, you know, And I think it can be very if we can we can set ourselves up with a lot of sort of unfortunate, unfortunately unrealistic expectations that, too I

00:34:04:17 - 00:34:23:17
Unknown
too could do that. Well, there's a very slim chance that, you know, that you will ever be able to do that. There's a reason there's only one there's only a handful of people that can perform at this level. It's because it's an incredible not only does it take a lot of time and effort, but you have to have the right genetic makeup.

00:34:23:23 - 00:34:54:18
Unknown
And unfortunately, training, training can only go so far in terms of, you know, making up for that lack of genetic talent that that we that's again, one of the nice things about endurance sports is in general there's a little bit more level playing field. People aren't as there's a broader there's a wider array of people that can succeed in endurance sports, I think, than than, let's say, a high skill, high, high strength, high power sport like, let's say, rock climbing, for instance.

00:34:54:20 - 00:35:28:20
Unknown
You know, when when Steve and I were lecturing or traveling around with our first book tour, I mean, one of the things I said, and I know he repeats is still Steve is not a particularly good athlete, but Steve had an incredible amount of perseverance and grit that allowed him to achieve the things he did in the mountains because they were predominantly, you know, endurance feats of endurance with some fairly demanding climbing, but not, you know, cutting edge like, let's say some of the top climbers are doing today.

00:35:28:22 - 00:35:55:07
Unknown
But so I think that we have to keep our keep it in perspective that, yes, you may go live in your van and you may do nothing but eat, sleep, train and climb. But, you know, if if in four or five years of doing that, you are still climbing 513 You know, then you probably the problem is that you probably just don't have the genetics, sadly, you know, and you're going to at some point you have to recognize that

00:36:03:20 - 00:36:18:02
Unknown
like to just I don't know if push back would be the right term, but like, I just categorically I completely agree with everything you just said on, like, the genetic level, especially when you're talking of, like, the silence. 515 you know. Adam Ondra Great. And stuff like, that's just like, insane.

00:36:18:02 - 00:36:36:15
Unknown
But in relation to Steve, I've kind of wondered this and I wonder what your opinion of this is. What do you think would have happened if Steve never did any endurance or albinism or anything and all he did was dedicate all of his time to rock climbing? What kind of a grade do you think Steve would have reached?

00:36:36:15 - 00:37:10:19
Unknown
13. Well, I know it. I know it because there was there was about a two or three year period where Steve moved to Terrible in Oregon, you know, right next to Smith. Right. And pretty much exclusively focused on rock climbing. And he what was I think of the name of that climb he read pointer to 13 after like two plus years of you know focused climb training.

00:37:10:21 - 00:37:25:21
Unknown
So it's a good grade. There's nothing that just nothing to sneeze about. But you know, it was it wasn't going to be a 515 climber. I'm you know, I'm pretty sure that his legs or his legs are too big and heavy for that.

00:37:25:21 - 00:37:42:01
Unknown
just 100% solidified. I think what you said earlier, that's a really that's really interesting in relation to genetics. This is maybe a little tangential, but two things, you know, first off and ah, did you hear about Kelvin? Kept him

00:37:42:01 - 00:37:47:03
Unknown
I did, sadly. Yeah. That's terrible. Terrible news. Yeah.

00:38:18:16 - 00:38:25:01
Unknown
It's money. You know, you win a major road marathon in this country.

00:38:25:01 - 00:38:44:01
Unknown
And, you know, if you're, you know, I don't know much about the living standards in Kenya, but I have read a bit about it that some of these guys win one big race and then they retire and they're done and they go home by that, by a farm, get married, have kids because they're set for life where they win $100,000 and they're literally set for life.

00:38:44:03 - 00:39:04:13
Unknown
So you're not going to win that kind of money. There's no you know, I don't know that there's any prize money in these mountain races. I think that what we might see and I think we are beginning to see a little bit of I've seen some of it on the the the Golden Trail series. There are some African runners coming into some of those races.

00:39:04:15 - 00:39:35:08
Unknown
And my is it's it's a little bit like so this used to happen in cross-country skiing that so it Norway again I'll reference it because it's the kind of the dominant country in cross-country skiing so the these young men in particular this was getting scholarships for college. His kids would make the national team and they'd have a year or two in Norway where they would try to make it onto a World Cup, the World Cup level.

00:39:35:13 - 00:40:01:11
Unknown
And they don't make it. They're not quite good enough. They don't have the material. So what did they do? They came over here and they got full ride scholarships to go to school in this country and get an education. I mean, that that started happening in the early seventies when I was racing. And, you know, the college teams filled up with Norwegians and these were all like B-level Norwegian racers, guys who had tried in but couldn't make it at the World Cup level.

00:40:01:13 - 00:40:28:17
Unknown
So I'm wondering if we may not see some of that trickle over in in running now where some of these Africans who aren't good enough to win the Chicago Marathon and win in 100,000 or whatever they pay, but they want to have a career as a runner and they can probably, you know, through sponsorship deals and endorsements and that sort of thing, they can probably still make a decent living and maybe we'll start to see more of that.

00:40:28:19 - 00:40:44:10
Unknown
Some of that crossover from these B level African runners coming into the mountains. I think there are a few that are already on that circuit. I haven't I haven't personally watched them race or see them race, but it wouldn't surprise me.

00:40:44:10 - 00:40:56:16
Unknown
No, I think that's going to be really fascinating to see and and years to come and maybe some of the facets individuals are just the fastest because, you know, the talent pool is isn't pulled there fully yet

00:40:56:16 - 00:41:08:19
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, it's a young sport, honestly. The mountain running is still a young sport and you see this often in young sports is that, you know, the the fields are just aren't as thick or as dense.

00:41:08:21 - 00:41:33:18
Unknown
You know, the the spread between the we just watched a really interesting race this last week and it had an athlete in it the black Kenyan 100 K in in right outside of Phenix and this year there's only been there's only been ten people ever to break 7 hours and 50 minutes in that race. And seven of them did it this year.

00:41:33:20 - 00:42:26:12
Unknown
Yeah. So this just a week ago, the top seven people were all under 750. And so it's tightening up. I mean, the sport is mature and you're beginning to see that happen more and more. And mountain running.

00:42:26:12 - 00:42:27:10
Unknown
coach?

00:42:29:06 - 00:42:34:19
Unknown
If you've been enjoying the climbing majority, please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.

00:42:34:19 - 00:42:37:23
Unknown
Yeah, I think like

00:42:37:23 - 00:42:49:10
Unknown
like it was for you, no doubt. Or anybody who has a serious accident there, you know, it's a life changing moment, you know, an instant that your life changes.

00:42:49:12 - 00:43:15:18
Unknown
Yeah, I was climbing at a quite a high level then. This is I was mostly interested in winter alpine climbing and I've been training quite hard. Winter friend of mine and I went to Alaska. The, the North buttress of Mount Hunter had never been climb this is now it's several routes on it but at that time had not been been climbed.

00:43:15:18 - 00:43:41:10
Unknown
It's about a 4500 foot rock and ice buttress and we had our sights on that. We happened to get there. Well, actually, this was the year I graduated from college and I stayed the day of my finals. I, I didn't even I was supposed to stick around and take my professional engineering exams, but I had no real interest in being an engineer at that point.

00:43:41:13 - 00:44:01:22
Unknown
I just thought, well, I'm going to be a professional climber. And I had these like most 25 year olds who had these delusions of grandeur. And I thought, I'm just going to be the I'm going to be the next Reinhold Messner. And so I didn't stick around and take my professional engineering exam. I just right after the last final, I was on an airplane to Anchorage.

00:44:02:00 - 00:44:37:10
Unknown
And it turns out that it was a very big avalanche, heavy snow year and a lot of avalanches in that north buttress. The most famous route on it is called the Moon Flower. And that then the route that that we ended up attempting and getting partway up on Mark twice later climbed and named it Depravation. Well it was getting swept by avalanches pretty regularly and we made three attempts on it each time turning around because of almost getting swept off by avalanches.

00:44:37:10 - 00:44:58:12
Unknown
Having we were lucky that we happened to be underneath a rock band or what not when these sparks would break loose and come tumbling down. And so we we turned tail. And finally, after I think three attempts, we just decided this is not the year, this thing's not going to happen. And my friend laughed and said, Well, I'm if I can't climb that, I'm I'm going.

00:44:58:14 - 00:45:22:22
Unknown
And I thought, well, heck, we're here on the glacier. I'm going to do something. And so I, I packed up my ski or my backpack and I screwed up. I was on these little, you know, three pin lightweight, three pin, just touring skis, you know, a little skinny skis, no metal edges and I screwed up sort of skiing up the glacier towards Denali and wasn't sure what and what I would want to do.

00:45:22:22 - 00:45:46:21
Unknown
I was just looking for something to climb up there. And and I ended up skiing all the way up to about the 14,000 foot plateau that day and which is where there's right now that's these days there's a there's a camp there and there's a the Rangers have a like a medical facility and all that there. That particular year there was there was a couple of tents and there was no one there.

00:45:46:21 - 00:46:06:01
Unknown
There were up there was another team. It was up higher on the mountain, but there was no one at 14 when I got there. And I looked up and I saw this beautiful looking cooler and I thought, Well, that looks fantastic. I'm going to try to climb that thing. And so then a big storm came in and it began to snow heavily.

00:46:06:01 - 00:46:34:21
Unknown
And I thought, well I'm just going to wait until that thing avalanches and flushes out and then I'll go climate. And sure enough, you know, they had a big avalanche. And so I started at about midnight and I took I had a fanny pack, I had a water bottle and two Baby Ruths. And I started that. I had one ice ax, and I was trying to go as light as I could and climbed this thing and got to the top.

00:46:34:23 - 00:46:53:15
Unknown
And that morning it left at midnight. It's pretty much it was probably mid-May by then, pretty light net all night long and got to the top, came back down and was pretty stoked about this whole thing. I mean, I just at that time I had no idea if this thing had ever been climbed or not, but it was just a beautiful looking line.

00:46:53:19 - 00:47:20:12
Unknown
It's about 4500 feet of average angle, about 50 degrees, and it was perfect. Anyway, Styrofoam ice to go up. So it was quite moderate. Anyway, I got back down and I thought, well, that was very successful. Wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. And, you know, go over now and solo the cutscene and so I thought I would just ski back down to the airstrip and rest up a few days and get some stuff.

00:47:20:14 - 00:47:41:14
Unknown
Go back up the southeast, Fork North excuse me, Northeast fork of the Keltner and climb the casino. And it turned out that route was climbed, I think the year next year by someone more famous than me. When we when I climbed in, I called it the hourglass cooler and it was on it was in Mountain Magazine, it was in Climbing magazine.

00:47:41:15 - 00:48:03:15
Unknown
And then Reinhold Messner climbed it and they call it the Messner Couloir. Now a little more status than I had. So anyway, I. I got back, I started I waited until the I rested up after I got back down. It was about 10:00 in the morning when I got back to my camp and it was quite warm then.

00:48:03:17 - 00:48:20:03
Unknown
So I thought, I'll wait and ski down till it cools off and things freeze up again. So I started about midnight and started skiing down and had quite a heavy pack. As you guys know, when you go by yourself in the mountains, your pack is often a lot heavier than it would normally would be if you had a partner.

00:48:20:05 - 00:48:39:20
Unknown
And I was on these little tiny skinny skis and I ski down to, I don't know, around 11,000 feet or so. And I was because these skis, I had these little soft, low top leather boots, they look a little bit like a running shoe. They were like cross-country racing shoes at that time. And so could only telemark turn with them.

00:48:39:23 - 00:49:05:22
Unknown
I couldn't do a parallel turn, otherwise your heels would just pop off the back of the ski and lose control. So I was in the midst of a big sweeping telemark turn to my left, so my right foot was out in front and I broke through this thick crust and I went into it up to about my knee and I went right over the top with my knee stationary and I made a lot of noise.

00:49:06:00 - 00:49:26:15
Unknown
And so I reached down and reached down in the hole and released the binding and pulled my leg out. And when I did, it looked like my lower leg looked like my knee was a universal joint so I could move around, but my lower leg was not attached. It was like it wasn't. It looked like my pants were the only thing that were holding my lower leg on.

00:49:26:17 - 00:49:48:10
Unknown
So I had to pick, I had to pick up. I did grab like I had some gators and to grab the gator and kind of moved my leg back to where it looked like or anatomically correct position. It didn't really hurt that much, but it was pretty scary and I was all by myself. There was no one on the mountain besides these guys that were up at 17,000 feet.

00:49:48:11 - 00:50:14:09
Unknown
We were the only ones on the mountain then. And so I thought, okay, it's midnight. What am I going to do? So I started to set up this little tent that I had thinking, okay, I'm going to crawl in the tent, sleep and gather my wits and do something in the morning. And as this was one of the very first tents, now everybody has a tent that has these polls that are held together by little bungee cords that snap together and then you slide them into sleeves.

00:50:14:09 - 00:50:39:18
Unknown
Well, I had one of the very first poles of tents that was made with those kinds of polls, and he had to slide them in the sleeves. So I had just gotten the pole bundled together and I dropped it in. It slid down and bridged this crevasse about 100 meters away. And, God, I had to drag with his leg down to there, fish it off, trying to catch it, get it from the edge of the crevasse, bring it back up.

00:50:39:20 - 00:50:59:06
Unknown
And it was kind of an ordeal. And and then I in that night before I went to sleep, I tried to go to sleep. I made notes. I thought, I'm going to be delirious with pain tomorrow morning, and I'm going to write down everything I need to do so that I can get out of here. And so I made all these little things that I had to do.

00:50:59:06 - 00:51:20:03
Unknown
And the next morning the pain wasn't that bad, but my knee was the size of a soccer ball. And, you know, and it luckily it was sort of frozen. It was almost like it was in a splint. So then I took my skis and I lashed my pack on top of the skis and I lay on top of the pack and pushed with my good leg.

00:51:20:04 - 00:51:41:16
Unknown
And I basically spent the next two days dragging myself down to get to back to where the airplane landed. And there was no planes flying in because the weather was so bad. But I had in with this guy that I knew from Boulder, this guy Jim excuse me, the pilot was a Bush pilot. He owned Talkeetna Air Service.

00:51:41:17 - 00:52:00:19
Unknown
Yeah. And his name was Jim Sharp. He was from Boulder. And my my, my climbing partner and I had Doug, his the ditch from his suit, from his septic tank to his house in exchange for him flying us on to the glacier. That was how we got in there. But anyway, I knew Jim a little bit from Boulder.

00:52:00:21 - 00:52:23:02
Unknown
The the lady who ran the landing strip then had a radio. They had a woman there who was kind of the the all the flight service companies had paid for this lady to be in there with a a radio to tell them what the weather conditions were like on the glacier. And she called Jim and told him I was there was hurt.

00:52:23:04 - 00:52:49:03
Unknown
And so every day for five days, Jim would fly in and fly around just above the clouds there. The clouds were almost down right on the glacier. And so he couldn't land, but he'd come in every single day. I could hear him flying around and looking for a hole that he could drop through. And he finally there was one day where there was just a tiny little hole and he dropped through and landed and turned around and ran over and grabbed me and all my stuff and threw me in the plane.

00:52:49:03 - 00:53:13:23
Unknown
So we got to get out of here right away before that hole closes up. And then he took me back, took me out back to Talkeetna, and I ended up going home and having surgery in the back in 1978, Orthopedic surgery was nothing like it is today. You know, they the guy who did the surgery was a fellow who worked a lot on some of the Denver Broncos.

00:53:13:23 - 00:53:35:11
Unknown
So he was quite good at knee injuries, but he'd never seen one quite like this before because when I had finally it, when I finally got my leg out of the hole in the snow, I was looking at the sole of my boot like, you know, I could it was it was as if like the sole of my boot was right about chest level up, pointed upward.

00:53:35:11 - 00:53:58:09
Unknown
So it was kind of a creepy situation. And so he put it back together as good as he could. And he just said to me, You are never going to run again. You will probably need to walk with a cane the rest of your life. And I'm in this, you know, peak of fitness, 25 year old going to be the best alpinist in the world in my head.

00:53:58:11 - 00:54:16:01
Unknown
And it was a crushing thing. Yeah, it's huge to hear that. And of course you know, that made me like probably with you too. And you just became more when you hear that kind of thing, you say, Well, fuck that, I'm not going to let that happen. That's not going to be me. I'm going to I'm going to do everything I can to to get fixed.

00:54:16:01 - 00:54:28:20
Unknown
And I did spend a lot of time rehabilitating and training and all that. But, you know, it is something you can live with this bum knee for the rest of your life. Basically.

00:54:28:20 - 00:54:43:13
Unknown
I tore all I severed all of the ligaments except the medial collateral. And so they were only able to reattach the lateral collateral and the anterior cruciate.

00:54:43:15 - 00:54:59:14
Unknown
So I just had I was I never had a posterior cruciate after that. And my anterior cruciate was only about like 25%. And I also severed the the patellar tendon.

00:54:59:14 - 00:55:02:22
Unknown
Was your was your meniscus damaged at all

00:55:02:22 - 00:55:19:15
Unknown
the meniscus was damaged a little bit. But what we and I didn't know this until years later when I had I had after that I had seven surgeries to try to, you know, over that year, over to the next 35 years until I had that knee replaced.

00:55:19:17 - 00:55:46:02
Unknown
I had seven surgeries to kind of patch, you know, to patch it up to make it go for another couple of years. But in one of those surgeries I got to watch when they were doing it, they they discovered I had about a quarter sized piece of articular cartilage missing off of the medial condyle of my femur. So that that had broken off during that fall, no doubt.

00:55:46:02 - 00:56:05:12
Unknown
And it probably just got pulled out by the surgeon and thrown away into a garbage can somewhere. But later on, this other surgeon, I had had some surgeries done at the Steadman clinic in Vail, and they said, yeah, you're missing this big chunk of articular cartilage here. And which is eventually what wore that knee out. I just didn't have enough cartilage.

00:56:13:02 - 00:56:37:15
Unknown
It did. Well, that surgery was open. fully open surgery in 1978. They don't think they even had arthroscopic surgery back then. So I had this well, the subsidy of the other seven, some of my yeah, no one of them was open and the other six were done arthroscopic. But that first one was, you know, I've got a huge long scar on that knee where they laid it open so they could get at everything.

00:56:37:21 - 00:57:02:14
Unknown
And then, you know, now they don't do this at all. People would think this is really crude. Orthopedic surgeons would say, this is nuts. They put me in a full length cast from my ankle to my crotch for six months. Yeah. To let to try to get all those ligaments to heal back together. So of course, they have to keep changing the cast to make it smaller and small because my leg was getting skinnier and skinnier and skinnier.

00:57:02:14 - 00:57:21:23
Unknown
I looked like, you know, someone who had been in a concentration camp or that leg did. Actually, the only time in my life I've been able to do a one arm pull up was when they took that cast off me. That leg was so light. But it and then of course, it didn't bend because I had six months of this straight cast.

00:57:22:01 - 00:57:42:22
Unknown
Nowadays, of course, they try to they get you moving the very first day of surgeries. You're in a machine often that tries to make you keep keep things moving. So it was a little cruder than that. It is now. But it you know, it served me well. I did. I'm in a ski, raced on it and ran a lot of miles and climbed a lot of mountains on that bum knee for a lot of many years.

00:57:46:00 - 00:57:53:04
Unknown
I'm sure I'm sure there's some unpleasant memories for both of you. And you hear stories like that? Yeah, but

00:57:58:13 - 00:58:22:07
Unknown
yeah. I mean, and I was feeling like I was on top of the world. I mean, I thought, well, that was a cool thing to do, and now I'm just going to go climb the casino and. And, you know, the next thing you know, I go from being at that mental state to, you know, I mean, it took me I think I was it was six or so, seven or eight days.

00:58:22:09 - 00:58:47:09
Unknown
I even was able to get to see the surgeon and he said, this is not good. You don't want to be waiting because the whole time you've got losing blood flow to those those ligaments and they just start to atrophy and die. And and so when I came out of he, he said to me when he finally got to see me, said, I don't care if you don't want me to do it, but you have to have surgery today or you're going to lose that leg.

00:58:47:11 - 00:59:10:05
Unknown
And I said, okay, do it. Do it right now. But, you know, it's such a shock to go from when you're at that height of, you know, your own personal pinnacle of, you know, mental and physical state to then be told that you may never run again, you can be walking with a cane the rest of your life.

00:59:10:07 - 00:59:12:23
Unknown
That was pretty tough.

00:59:12:23 - 00:59:32:04
Unknown
the reasons behind the accident? Like, for for Max and I, it's pretty cut and dry. Like, I was climbing over marginal gear, and it failed. You know, Max has his own reasons, but it's. It's easy to digest. It's like, Yes, okay, I made a mistake, in my judgment. And here I am on the other side.

00:59:32:06 - 00:59:39:20
Unknown
Like, what was that experience like for you in terms of justify what happened or understanding and coming to a point of acceptance?

00:59:39:20 - 01:00:10:10
Unknown
Well, probably a lot like yours. It was an error in judgment. I mean, I waited until 11 or 12 at night before I left to ski down because I wanted the surface of the glacier to freeze up so I wouldn't break through. And I didn't account for the fact that, you know, dropping from 14000 to 11000, that it was going to be warmer down there and that the crust at some point I'd reach a place where the crust wasn't supportable anymore.

01:00:10:15 - 01:00:42:06
Unknown
And these little skis are narrow. I mean, they're they're only about 65. I think that probably what I had was 65 millimeters wide. So there, you know, what's that? Not even three inches, two and a half inches wide. So they don't they don't float. They don't float very well. So I think it was again, like in like in your case, you know, it just a momentary lack of judgment or a mistake and not calculating things, Right.

01:00:42:08 - 01:00:45:21
Unknown
Yeah.

01:00:46:11 - 01:01:15:14
Unknown
Well, I think it it made me more I think that was the first time and I'm sure you had this same experience. It was the I'd never been hurt badly in my life before that. And I had been doing a lot of fairly hard, dangerous. I mean, this was the seventies now. We did not have camps, you know, we were climbing with pitons and hexes and stoppers maybe.

01:01:15:14 - 01:01:43:00
Unknown
And, you know, we were using what they call coat hanger screws for ice screws. You know, you probably have seen those. They look like corkscrews. I mean, it was climbing was pretty dangerous and I was managing it fairly well all those years and thinking, you know, and you can begin to feel a little invincible. I think that, I'm I'm so good that nothing bad can happen to me.

01:01:43:02 - 01:02:10:10
Unknown
And then something like that happens and you realize your mortality and just what a fragile what a narrow line there is between being in like my case, I was at this, I was ecstatic with the climb and, you know, the potential. Now to go solo. The scene at that point, the scene had not been soloed was later when Leg Stump was the first one, I think, to climb it solo.

01:02:10:12 - 01:02:41:12
Unknown
And so I was at that pretty much euphoric state and physically really, really fit. I mean, even climbing that, you know, moderately technical route. I was roundtrip from 14 to the summit and back in, you know, less than 8 hours was moving pretty fast and I wasn't well acclimatize I hadn't been above about 8000 feet so it wasn't like I'd been and I only spent a day at 14, so I wasn't particularly well acclimated.

01:02:41:12 - 01:03:07:17
Unknown
So I was quite fit. And so I think it, it threw in my face this realization that, you know, this life is pretty fragile. And I'm I wasn't I never felt like I was going to die. Yeah. I mean, I realized I was in a rather difficult situation because I'm alone a long way from help. But I never once thought I can't get myself out of this.

01:03:07:17 - 01:03:31:16
Unknown
I thought, okay, it's going to take a while. I'm just going to crawl down the glacier for the next two days. But it wasn't. I was never feeling desperate, but it did make me kind of, you know, all those other close calls that I'd had in the mountains that they had just been, you know, a rock fall had been one inch different than it was or avalanche conditions were such or a fall had been different than it was.

01:03:31:18 - 01:03:58:00
Unknown
I could have been killed. And I don't think I've ever really you know, I was 25 years old. And at 25, you unless you've had a near-death experience, I don't think you really have an appropriate, really good appreciation of just how delicate we are. You know, we're not I don't care who you are, You're you're still still mortal.

01:03:58:00 - 01:04:21:04
Unknown
I resonate with that just so much. I run a P.O.V. channel and I feel myself climbing, and I just place track gear and I look at who I was as a climber before my accident, and I just. I'm just like, if I fall here, I would have died. You know, like, there's just so many moments where you look back and you just realize how close you were to the edge and you were completely oblivious to it.

01:04:21:06 - 01:04:45:04
Unknown
I'm wondering, other than having a near-death experience, how, if at all possible, can we convey that to someone who has not? Like, how can we convey the seriousness and how close we are to the edge of catastrophe without having to put someone through it? Like, is there a way to to translate that for somebody?

01:04:46:09 - 01:05:22:02
Unknown
Boy, I wish there was. I, I think we especially the people who do the kinds of things that we have like to do or we like to do. I think you don't you're not attracted to doing those kinds of things unless you have some sort of sense of invulnerability to start with. Because if you're I mean, we're all we all are afraid when we're in situations, you know, like that, you you know, when you're 25 feet above your last piece of gear, you're to be afraid.

01:05:22:04 - 01:05:47:08
Unknown
But it's how you handle that fear. And, you know, the people who are who manage it and can handle it go on to have, you know, to be able to enjoy the mountains that way. But the people who can't, they quit. They don't do that kind of thing anymore. And so I think that until actually, you know, experienced it, I just don't think it it's not real for you until until it happens.

01:05:47:08 - 01:06:24:02
Unknown
And, you know, and by you know through my climbing career, I had a number of friends that were killed and had, you know, quite a few close calls. And one of them actually was with Steve. He and I were descending a peak in Tibet that know I was behind him. In short, we were on a rope and I was short roping, as you like, like you would do with a guide where and so Steve was maybe ten feet in front of me and we were in a light out and we were descending the summit of it off the summit of the 7000 meter peak and the slope fractured between us.

01:06:24:04 - 01:06:47:09
Unknown
And it was about a meter deep fracture. And, you know, if I hadn't had that rope, there's the short rope on him, he'd gone and we wouldn't I didn't even know where he would have ended up as we couldn't see anything, you know, and those kind of things happen, you know, and you just unless until you've actually been there and had that happen to you, you just don't realize how.

01:06:47:11 - 01:06:51:15
Unknown
Yeah. How close, you know, death is sometimes.

01:06:51:15 - 01:07:12:09
Unknown
to how, you know, people like us have, these experiences, whether it be a close call or an actual traumatic injury. And then there's the whole barrier of having to cope back with that realization and still have fun. I think that there's a level of fear that creeps in and a level of understanding of how much peril you can actually be in.

01:07:12:11 - 01:07:35:02
Unknown
Like, how do you, you know, before with ignorance? Ignorance is bliss, right? You can have fun. You can you're in control. You're king of the world. You're you're you're you're a master of nature and a master of your physicality. But when that reality is taken away and you realize how close you are now, you have to be like, okay, well, I'm almost like, I'm managing death this entire experience and I still have to have fun somehow.

01:07:35:04 - 01:07:35:22
Unknown
It's an interesting

01:07:35:22 - 01:08:02:21
Unknown
And it, and I have to say now that 70 that mortality is a lot closer for me than it was, you know, when I came back from that, I mean after that accident, I think I did some of my hardest and more risky climbing later my life after that, I was and I'm not sure how or why.

01:08:02:23 - 01:08:28:00
Unknown
I don't know if that I was I don't think I was more cautious. But I can tell you that after probably probably when I turned about 60, that the risk of injury became a much bigger factor in my climbing and doing anything outdoors, because I know that the older I get, the harder it is to recover from injuries.

01:08:28:05 - 01:08:52:15
Unknown
So I'm much more concerned about not getting hurt anymore because if I get hurt it may be the last time I go climbing. You know, because by the time I recover, I'd be too old to climb. So I think that that has been for your audience is getting up in the years. That's something I think that we all will deal with, is that your risk tolerance will go down.

01:08:52:17 - 01:09:18:00
Unknown
I climbed with Colin Haley when he was about half my age and it was quite clear. I mean, I really like Colin and we were we had we were good climbing team, but I realized my risk tolerance as a 50 year old was nowhere, nothing like his as a 25 year old. It was just it was unreasonable. So we I mean, we we just didn't we didn't climb.

01:09:18:00 - 01:09:31:14
Unknown
We went we had one trip to Pakistan together and had a great time. But it was just apparent to me that I'm not a good partner for him because our risk tolerances are so different now at those different ages.

01:09:31:14 - 01:09:38:13
Unknown
Well, I think we're starting to get to the the end here and definitely want to be respectful of your time stuff skied.

01:09:38:13 - 01:09:55:02
Unknown
But, you know, you've kind of alluded to this as yourself, you know, through this process of, you know, aging and your risk tolerance. I'm kind of wondering. What do you feel your legacy is in the climbing community or what would you like that to be like?

01:09:55:02 - 01:10:04:14
Unknown
Well, it's certainly not as a climber, I could tell you that, but I don't think I didn't really offer anything to the climbing community in terms of my own accomplishments.

01:10:04:14 - 01:10:47:21
Unknown
So I can say that. But I am quite proud of what I've accomplished with these books and with the businesses I've started. And in terms of helping climbers perform better, especially in the, you know, on the endurance end of the spectrum, I never considered myself like a rock climbing coach or technical coach of any sort. But so I'm quite proud of that accomplishment, maybe more so than almost anything else I've done in my life, because I feel like the lessons that I've been able to explain and hand over in these books are, you know, it's a lifetime worth of knowledge.

01:10:47:23 - 01:11:18:10
Unknown
Some of it some of it based on, you know, my experiential, what I learned from either from coaching people or being an athlete myself and others from studying a great deal. And because I didn't have, you know, a schooling in the exercise sciences, I had to read a lot to try to figure this stuff out. And I and what I think I was able to do that process was I connect a lot of disconnected data points.

01:11:18:10 - 01:11:42:17
Unknown
And, you know, I had never read in one place what I've tried to put in those books in terms of an explanation of how endurance works. I read a little bit one place where I read a study that talked about this thing, or I'd read about some coaching principles that talked about another thing, and I tried to bring them together and go, this is why it works that way.

01:11:42:20 - 01:12:20:09
Unknown
Then explain it to other people in a language that's not so technical. I mean that you don't as often say to people, We don't need to know every step of the Krebs cycle in the mitochondria to understand the, you know, how important aerobic your aerobics system is to endurance and how that needs to be stressed. I mean, it's kind of interesting and fun to know some of that stuff, but if it can be explained in a way that we can get the point across to people, then I'm I feel like and I feel like I've been successful with that to a large degree because I've gotten a lot of feedback from folks.

01:12:20:11 - 01:12:45:18
Unknown
So I'd say that that's my legacy is really is that because, you know, when when I wrote when when Steve approached me about writing this book, after Steve had his bad accident on Mount Temple in 2010, I think, and he wrote the memoir that he put out called Beyond the Mountain, and he was on book tour with that.

01:12:45:18 - 01:13:06:10
Unknown
I think maybe it was 2011. I was in Norway coaching, World Cup skiers, and I was on a Skype call with Steve one night, and I asked him how the book tour was going, and he said, It's going great. But people are asking me, how did you train to do all that stuff? And he finally kind of developed this glib one liner and said, Well, I could tell you, but it would take a whole book.

01:13:06:12 - 01:13:31:23
Unknown
And he said, I think we should write down what we did. And was quite resistant. I said, But who could care? I don't think anybody's going to care about training for nobody trains for mountaineering or Alpine ism. And I said we'd be lucky to sell a few dozen copies. And finally he convinced me to do it. And we ended up writing that book and it's sold, you know, many, many, many thousands of copies now.

01:13:32:01 - 01:13:59:08
Unknown
And so I credit him for pushing me into doing that. And that was quite a learning experience as well because I also was no, I was no author. I'd never written anything a few articles, some training articles, and I'd given some lectures and talks, but nothing as substantial as a whole book. So it was a great that was a great learning experience for me and something that, you know, I cherish now that I've been able to put together.

01:13:59:10 - 01:14:12:21
Unknown
And I realized that it did actually change the way people approach the mountains. We see more and more people that are interested in training, more like an athlete before they go into the mountains.

01:14:20:05 - 01:14:50:04
Unknown
No, I mean, I think topic wise were there. I think, you know, I just. I second that with your with your legacy here, Scott. I think that you've added something extremely valuable to the community that people can use for a lifetime. So, I mean, I commend your effort. And, you know, I own your book, and whereas I, you know, taking my athletic potential seriously as I could, it has shaped how I view entering the mountains and I'm sure it has for lots of people.

01:14:50:04 - 01:14:51:18
Unknown
So, yeah, just I thank

01:14:51:18 - 01:14:54:22
Unknown
Well, thanks for that compliment.

01:14:54:22 - 01:15:16:02
Unknown
Yeah. You know, in general, you know, not to beat a dead horse too many times here, but yeah, absolutely. You know, Scott, I like I said at the beginning of the podcast when we were talking originally, I really do accredit you and this individual, Terry Louis, who kind of mentored me in climbing as the individuals that created this spark in my life.

01:15:16:02 - 01:15:42:06
Unknown
And yeah, training for the new albinism absolutely transformed my life. I actually met you in a Patagonia store. I mean, you were signing a million bucks, so I don't really expect you to remember, but it was this really, really just unbelievable influential journey for me. And and think you you express really well. The book disseminates a lot of very, very complex principles in a very concise way.

01:15:42:06 - 01:16:09:04
Unknown
And it's all in one place. And so for anybody looking to just improve their fitness, their health to get better into to endurance sports or the mountains, I couldn't recommend that book enough. You know, I've got my copy here. You know, it is really an amazing body of work. And so, yeah, to anybody listening to this show here, I highly recommend you go buy a copy, check it out and check Scott's website out evoke endurance dot com.

01:16:09:09 - 01:16:30:15
Unknown
They've got tons coaches, lots of athletes, tons of resources, blogs, training plans. It's really just an unbelievable resource to go learn and and once again to reiterate if you're not purchasing things it's still an amazing resource they have tons of great information there so please go check them out and yeah Scott, I just want to say

01:16:30:15 - 01:16:48:08
Unknown
Well, thank you very much for having me. It's been a wonderful conversation with you guys. I wish you well. I hope your you know, I hope your ankles can provide you with a lot of locomotion and the rest of your lives.

01:16:48:08 - 01:16:52:01
Unknown
we'll have to go find that Bronco surgery and hope he has a son. He's been doing

01:16:52:23 - 01:16:58:04
Unknown
I bet you there's going to be ankle replacements before before you need them.