Podcast #89 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2010/04/podcast-

episode-89-how-to-use-your-mental-power-to-run-

400-miles-with-minimal-training/

Introduction: In this episode: using mental tactics for training, a high fat

diet for staying lean, eating while running, yerba mate, agave

nectar, strength training while endurance training, sugar

alcohols and passing a physical examination test.

Ben: Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield. I’m excited

about today’s podcast because there are some pretty cool

questions and some really interesting stuff that we’re going

to cover. There’s an interview today with a guy named Jon

Berghoff, who ran almost 400 miles and did so with very

minimal training. And he used a lot of mental techniques

and tactics to allow himself to do that. You’re going to want

to listen to his interview because you will learn a bunch of

stuff about how to motivate yourself and maybe even get

away with a little less training physically and a little more

training mentally. I’ve also got a special announcement

about a Mother’s Day contest and much more in today’s

podcast. So sit back and listen in and remember that if you

need to go check out anything that you hear about, it’s all

going to be in the Shownotes to today’s podcast episode

number 89.

Ben: If you have a question that you would like to ask, you can

email ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com. You can call toll free to

8772099439. Or you can Skype to Pacific Fit. And today’s

first question comes from listener Sarah.

Sarah asks: I have a question, I was recently reading how Hillary Swank

was training for her muscle while preparing for her role in

Million Dollar Baby. That was actually a pretty good movie.

Evidently her trainer had her on a very low carb regimen,

high fat – mostly from flax oil, and high protein – but her

calorie intake was upward to 4000 calories, training hard in

the gym plus a couple hours of cardio every day. Mandatory

that she got nine hours of sleep every night and they had her

getting up in the middle of the night to drink eggs. Anyway

my question is I’ve heard that type of regimen is almost

impossible to build muscle on, but apparently she put on 23

pounds of muscle. I could see how she got shredded but the

muscle? I was actually going to try this approach, I’ve been

trying to put on muscle forever, but I really don’t want to put

on extra unwanted fat in the process. But all the bodybuilder

and fitness people I know say that in order to put on muscle,

that you got to put on some fat and do some cardio. But then

I see what Hillary did and it makes me wonder. What is your

opinion and your recommendation for building but staying

lean?

Ben answers: Great question. First, let’s look at Hillary’s diet. This whole

high fat thing. So the idea behind fat is that your body

doesn’t directly take in fat and then use that for energy. What

happens is that the fat has to get converted to something

called acetyl co-A. And acetyl co-A allows fat to enter into

your body’s energy cycle the same way that a carbohydrate

would enter into your body’s energy cycle. So what happens

is you consume a fat and typically most fats are going to be

packaged in the form of something called a triglyceride. That

fat – that triglyceride gets broken down into something

called glycerol an fatty acids. Now if you’re consuming fatty

acids, like essential fatty acids or in some cases some of the

types of fatty acids you’re going to find in flax oil – you can

kind of bypass that first process of breaking down into

triglyceride. So a lot of times, the type of fats like the fatty

acids you find in a nutritional supplement are already going

to have that first step almost done for you. But the fats that

you get from food are generally going to be packaged into

that triglyceride. Now, what happens is once you’ve got that

glycerol and those fatty acids ready for being broken down

into energy, what happens is the glycerol is basically treated

almost like a sugar. It gets turned into energy almost

immediately like a sugar would, and the fatty acids are

actually converted into that thing I talked about earlier – the

acetyl co-A via a process called beta oxidation. Beta oxidation

requires a bunch of things. Water is one of the most crucial

components of beta-oxidation, that’s why if you’re

dehydrated or you’re not drinking enough water, you’re not

really going to burn much fat. But the idea is that these fatty

acid chains eventually get broken apart and turned into

energy via what’s called the Krebs cycle which is the same

thing that produces energy from carbohydrates or from

proteins that have been converted into carbohydrates. But

the idea behind that process that I just described is that the

body can do it very efficiently. You can burn fat all day long.

Most people do. But it doesn’t do it very quickly. And so if

you’re trying to rely primarily on fatty acids for energy, then

anything that you do that requires explosiveness or that

requires speed – you’re not going to do very well. So you can

go out and do cardio all day long on fatty acids and you can

even – if you’re not really lifting very hard and really

explosively – get away with working out in the weight room

at a little bit lower intensity, burning primarily fatty acids.

But it’s pretty difficult to do and the other thing is that it

draws a lot of water into your intestine, into your gut because

fats and proteins take a longer time to digest. And so, you

also tend to have gastric discomfort on this type of diet. So

while Hillary taking a high fat diet would allow her to

produce the energy necessary for exercise, it’s unlikely that

she would be able to exercise at a real, real intense rate. And

if she was, then it would be at the expense of quite a bit of

gastric discomfort. So I wouldn’t recommend the high fat

diet. I do have a little bit less of an issue with skewing the

diet towards a little bit higher protein. So you could be

looking at a 25, 30% fat; 25 to 30% protein; and then

anywhere from 40 to 60% carbohydrate intake and that still

is considered a high protein, high fat diet compared to the

FDA recommendations. Some people do take it overboard

though, and go high, high fat. There’s zero research that

shows that that’s going to give you any advantage over the

25,30% fat; 25,30% protein and 40 to 60% carb diet that I

just described. Now as far as the flax seed oil goes, the idea

behind using flax seed as one of the primary fats for a higher

fat or skewed fat percentage diet would be that flax seed oil

can decrease appetite cravings. It increases metabolic rate.

So it can actually improve cellular activity, improve

metabolism. It makes you feel a lot fuller after you eat and so

you tend to have fewer cravings especially if you’re exercising

a lot. It helps to regulate your blood sugar and your insulin

levels which can assist with sugars not getting converted into

fats and then again keeping your appetite levels satiated. It

can also increase oxygen consumption. There’s been some

studies that have looked at the enhancement of metabolic

processes by flax seed oil in terms of allowing you to actually

work out at a little bit higher intensity. So the idea is that in

moderation, something like a flax seed oil would be one of

the ways that you could get fat and still be able to exercise.

Now what you need to remember is that if you are looking to

get your Omega 3 fatty acids and get those in a good ratio

compared to your Omega 6 fatty acids, you’re probably going

to want to consider a fish oil as well. You just need to be real

careful with the type of fish oil that you use because recent

studies have indicated that lots of them tend to be tainted

with things like the PVCs, the mercury and heavy metal,

things of that nature. So you need to be really careful with

the fish oil. For the fish oil, I recommend you go with

Bioletics. There’s also a good company called Carlson’s that

you can get over at Hammer Nutrition, and for the flax seed

oil, definitely the EnerEFA from IMPaX. Those are two good

brands to get your oils and fats in. Now as far as putting

muscle on while getting lean at the same time, it does depend

on your body type. You’re seeing more and more

bodybuilders these days abandon the idea that you go

through the cycle where you get really fat and then you put

on a bunch of weight and then you lose all that weight and

get toned up for the show because they’ve realized that’s not

very good for your heart and it’s not very good for the

amount of free radical production that you produce for

example in the coronary arteries and you get that oxidized

cholesterol from all this fat that you’re consuming compared

with the hard exercise and it tends to kind of wreak havoc on

your internal organs. So what they’re doing now is they’re

eating a lot. Skewing it towards higher protein, not getting

their high calorie intake from 1000 calorie plates at IHOP

and big old hamburgers and French fries but rather they’re

choosing their calories a little bit more wisely. The type of

things that you would think of intuitively anyway. The whole

grains, the seeds, the nuts, fruits, vegetables, quinoa. Things

that are considered to be higher calorie, dense calories but

that also are not giving a lot of saturated fats, trans fats and

the types of things that would make somebody fat. It’s very

possible to do. The trick is that you do have to eat a lot, and

you typically have to eat more than you think you should eat.

Most of the people who are successful on putting lots of

muscle quickly are eating tons of good food and then

basically living at the gym. Meaning that they’re there either

for a two a day or they’re there for four to six hours during

the day. If you really are trying to put on tons of muscle, you

have to be moving heavy stuff lots of the time. You have to be

eating lots of food and then to control the fat and keep your

body’s fat burning process stoked. You’re also doing cardio.

So something very similar to what Hillary did. That’s one of

the reasons she was waking up at night to take those eggs,

was just to keep the calories coming in and in and in. But not

necessarily doing the whole high fat diet thing. I actually

think Hillary probably could have gotten even better results

or at least enjoyed the results more because she would have

had less fat sitting around her stomach if she would have

probably skewed the fat intake a little bit down. You tell me

that she was on a high fat diet. If she was doing much more

than about 30% fat, she probably would have had some GI

distress going on. So those are my recommendations. Great

question. Hopefully I cleared some of that stuff up for you.

And remember as you’re listening to my questions – if you

have comments, things that you’d like to add, things that you

know that I didn’t touch on, go to the Shownotes for podcast

episode 89 and leave a comment. So we have a question from

listener Jeff.

Jeff asks: Ben, you might remember I emailed you a little while ago

from England with a question regarding shedding a few

pounds before I entered my first duathlon. Well I thought

you’d like to know that after following your tips, I managed

to shed those pounds and beat my target time. In fact I fared

so well, I’ve entered another race in a couple weeks time,

which brings me to this question. I was listening to a recent

podcast and during the Listener Q and A, the subject of

nutrition and triathlons cropped up and you mentioned that

eating too much during a run can slow you down when you

make the transition between running and cycling. I was

wondering if you could just explain that in a little more depth.

Ben answers: It’s pretty simple Jeff. Basically the idea is that you can eat

more when you’re riding a bike than you can when you’re

running because when you’re riding a bike, you’re not

moving the upper body around so much. You’re not jarring

your gut so much with that up and down impact based

motion. So most people can take in 100 to 250 calories more

on a bicycle without GI distress than they can on the run.

They also tend to do a little bit better with solid food on the

bicycle without GI distress than they do on the run. So the

idea is that during a duathlon or during a triathlon, you want

to prioritize getting the majority of your calories in on the

bike and then kind of tapering off calories and getting away

with as few as possible on the run. You’ll get some pro-

triathletes – Andy Potts is a guy who does this – they’ll eat

like 300 to 400 calories an hour on the bike and then do

nothing but water on the run and just basically bring

themselves through. Granted a guy like that is running

anywhere from a 1:10 to a 1:20 and so he’s not out there as

long as somebody who might be running a half marathon in

two hours, who may need a little more fuel. But the idea

remains the same. You really want to prioritize fueling on the

bike, taper it off on the run and primarily choose a liquid or

easily digested fuels on the run like gels or flat Coke or even

the soup that they provide on some courses. So, those are my

recommendations Jeff. Great question.

Christine asks: What are your thoughts about yerba mate as a pre or post

workout drink? Most pre and post workout drinks are shakes

that have a lot of ingredients I don’t want to consume and

the healthier choices are very expensive. I’m looking for a

more economical option. I’ve read that yerba mate contains a

lot of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. There are also

many other claims of its benefits including improved

digestion and helping with weight loss. What are your

recommendations?

Ben answers: I’ve used yerba mate before and it really is a kick in the pants.

It does give you quite a bit of energy. It’s very similar to

green tea in that it has a lot of what’s called polyphenols and

those are phytochemicals that are very powerful anti-

oxidants. They help you protect yourself against cellular

destruction the same way that the lycopene in tomatoes and

the flavonoids in blueberries would, and yerba mate has a

very, very high polyphenol concentration. And so that makes

it similar to green tea in terms of its health benefits. It does

have even more anti-oxidants than green tea. And it has way

more nutrients. You’re getting vitamin A, C, E. You’ve got the

B complex in yerba mate. It’s got pretty much all the

electrolytes, calcium, manganese, iron, selenium, potassium,

magnesium. It does have some fatty acids in it. It’s got some

trace minerals in it as well. It even has a few amino acids in it.

The one thing that you’re going to be missing from the yerba

mate if you’re going to use that as a pre-workout drink are

actual calories. So what you’d have to do is find a recipe that

contains yerba mate but is also giving you the calories that

you need pre-workout. Now understand that yerba mate

technically does not contain caffeine. It contains something

called a xanthene and caffeine is a xanthene but it contains a

different type of xanthine – the yerba mate does – called a

mateine and it’s the South American term for caffeine but it’s

a little bit different physiologically and because it’s different

what I personally find is that the yerba mate tends to give me

a little bit more alertness than coffee does. It feels like it

works quite a bit stronger than coffee, and because of that I

also tend to get a lot more jittery when I drink yerba mate

and I want to warn you about that. That it’s a different type

of feeling that you get when you consume caffeine. I’m

always careful with people when I recommend anything like

yerba mate or coffee or any caffeine derivative just because

you can overtax your adrenal glands if you’re constantly

drinking this stuff, relying on it as an artificial form of energy.

If you’re telling your adrenal glands sitting on top of your

kidneys every single day to produce as much adrenaline as

possible and you’re stringing your body through the day,

when you finally do cut yourself off from the yerba mate or

from the caffeine from the coffee you may find that you crash.

You also find you require more and more of the yerba mate

or the caffeine on a weekly basis because your body

eventually becomes tolerant to that adrenaline that’s

produced by your kidneys. So you need to be careful not to

rely on it as an artificial form of energy, but rather as

something you use if you really feel you want to work out a

little bit harder. But it’s not something you use if there’s no

way you’re going to make it to the gym or exercise unless you

have your yerba mate. Then, you’re walking a fine line and I

recommend you use something that has a little bit less of the

central nervous system stimulant and use something instead

that contains more of the natural energy compounds like a

vitamin B. A thianine is another really good one to look for.

I’ve talked about the Chinese herbs and the adaptogens as

well as being some good alternatives to central nervous

system stimulants. Look into something like Delta E from a

company called IMPaX, or look at Tea and Chi from Roger

Drummer. I’ve talked about both of those on the show before.

I personally use Delta E almost every day. That’s my choice.

But it’s a great question and if you’re listening in and you

have a recommendation for an actual recipe for Christine

that contains yerba mate but also has calories for pre-

workout, then let me know. Leave that as a comment because

I haven’t actually seen any recipes that include yerba mate.

So going to move on to a question from listener Todd.

Todd asks: Ben, what is your true take on agave syrup? I heard from

your interview with Nancy Appleton that it’s about the worst

thing to ingest, close to high fructose corn syrup. Yet it is in

many things these days including Hammer Bars and the

CocoChia bars that you and KC Craichy discussed last week.

We’ve been making our own energy bars lately and have

been using agave syrup and agave nectar in them. However,

we also add a sucrose glucose source like honey or sucanot to

the mixture as I understand that a glucose fructose mixture

is a better combo for digestion. Can you weigh in on this

agave syrup debate? Should it be avoided like the plague or

used in moderation? With respect to the nectar versus the

syrup, is one better than the other? Am I correct in thinking

that mixing agave syrup with another sugar source is the way

to go?

Ben answers: This is a great question. Now, I have for a long period of time

recommended products and some of those products like the

one that Todd talks about do contain agave nectar as an

alternative to the high fructose corn syrup. And just recently

people in the health industry are starting to realize that

agave syrup actually isn’t everything that it’s cracked up to be

and actually could be worse than high fructose corn syrup. So

the idea behind agave is that agave is a Mexican plant. It’s

basically a flower stem. If it gets fermented, that’s where

Tequila comes from. But it also has a nectar or a syrup.

Basically, what you tend to think when you turn over the

label on an organic energy bar or drink and it says agave

syrup, you tend to think about this natural plant derivative

that’s getting essentially poured from the plant into your cup.

But that really is not the case. First of all, the agave syrup has

a higher amount of fructose in it than any commercial

sweetener on the market. And what we know about sucrose

is that the liver processes it much differently than glucose.

Specifically, fructose doesn’t actually increase insulin levels

and while most people would think “Oh well if it’s not

increasing insulin levels, it must be healthy.” But the idea is

that insulin is necessary. It’s the message to your body to

actually take storage sugar and put it into the muscles for

energy. If you produce too much insulin, that’s a problem.

But normal physiological amounts of insulin are a good thing.

But when you consume a sugar or a calorie and your body’s

not producing insulin and your body is not getting the

message to actually take the sugar and put it into the muscle

to be used as energy, where do you think that the energy

ends up? It goes straight to your liver and it gets converted

into fat, and it can also produce a lot of other issues with

your liver in terms of actual liver damage. So the idea is that

the stuff that they call agave nectar in most cases is not really

like a sap from the agave plant. But it’s actually a starch, kind

of like corn. And it’s made up of fructose molecules and it’s

actually converted into a syrup in a factory setting using

genetically modified enzymes and a process that involves a

high amount of chemicals, specifically acids, clarifiers and

filtration chemicals. And these chemicals include charcoal,

resins, sulfuric acids, something called claramex, inulin

enzymes and inulin is a completely nutrient stripped fiber

and something called fructozyme. So the idea is that

essentially the result – once you get this agave syrup – is that

it’s basically fructose syrup with some inulin added. That is

not really that safe of a product for you to be consuming.

Now before you get scared away and completely drop

anything that you’re consuming that has agave in it, you

should know that there are some natural food companies

that do provide healthy agave nectar. They actually work

with the indigenous people in Mexico. They use an organic

agave that hasn’t been chemically processed the way that I

just described. It doesn’t have pesticides added. It’s

processed at low temperature so it still has all the natural

enzymes in it that help you digest it. It’s usually closer to

about 70% fructose than 90% fructose and it’s actually

bonded – the fructose is – to other sugars which actually

makes the fructose a little bit less damaging. You get a little

bit more of an insulin response and you get a lot less of the

issues that I just talked about. Now Todd you talked about

mixing other types of sugars with fructose. That returns to

what I just mentioned, the idea is that you get a little bit of

an insulin response when you do that and so you do get some

more of the muscle uptake, a little bit less of the damage to

the liver. A little bit less of the sugar conversion into fat. Now

you asked me about the difference between agave syrup

versus agave nectar. Absolutely no difference. They’re

basically the same thing. You asked about the honey as well.

Honey – high fructose content but still only about 70%

fructose and if you use a raw organic honey you are not going

to be getting a lot of the issues with the mass produced or

factory produced agave nectar that I just talked about. So

ultimately, here is my recommendation. If you’re using a

product that contains agave syrup or agave nectar, look at

the package. Find the contact information for the company.

Call them up and ask them where they’re getting their agave

nectar and how it’s produced. If they’re unable to tell you

that, that’s a red flag right away but if they’re able to say that

they’re actually using an organic agave that’s naturally

produced, that is responsibly attained by them from Mexico

then you’re probably okay. You would still want to limit the

use of that fructose, but you’re probably okay. Now just like

any type of sugar based compound, it’s still candy. It’s still

sugar. So you don’t eat an energy bar when you’re sitting at

your desk in the middle of the afternoon. Energy bars are for

energy. It’s pre-workout fuel. It’s for fuel during your

workout or it’s post-workout fuel. So ultimately what it

comes down to is you need to watch the amount of energy

bar consumption from any source. Period. But it’s a great

question and hopefully that cleared some things up Todd.

Bill asks: I’m a 34 year old male whose typical workout routine

involves strength training. However influenced by some

friends’ attempts to train for a triathlon in San Diego, I

started training with them. I’ve been doing very well with the

biking and I’ve worked my way to jogging and running, but

I’m confused about how to balance with the strength training

I love to do. Currently I hit the weights one day and then do

cycling and spinning and running the next day, with one to

two days of rest. I’ve lost about 10 pounds in the past two

months. But is my current workout regime going to

negatively affect my ability to improve my biking and

running?

Ben answers: Well Bill, there’s been a lot of research done on what’s called

concurrent training which is what you described. Concurrent

training is when you’re training for both strength and

endurance simultaneously and there is a lot of debate in this

area because the research is inconclusive. Some research

shows that concurrent strength and endurance training can

be damaging to strength gains and some would argue that

the concurrent strength endurance training is damaging to

endurance gains. But in most cases, these studies were

looking at pure high level endurance athletes who took up

strength training and found either a deleterious effect or it

took away from their endurance training or very big strength,

power athletes lifting heavy weights who started jogging or

running or had some of the endurance training actually

reduce their ability to produce a force. The idea is that the

muscle fiber has the ability to convert. You can take a fast

twitch muscle fiber that’s designed to produce high amounts

of force and you can turn it into a slow twitch muscle fiber by

requiring that it do primarily aerobic type of activities. You

can also take a slow twitch muscle fiber, require it to produce

high amounts of force in short periods of time and convert it

into a fast twitch muscle fiber. Now, if you are not wanting to

be an Olympic or competitive power lifter or a football player

or somebody who needs tons of strength in a short period of

time and you’re also not trying to go to the Olympics for the

marathons or go win your age group in New York or Boston

for the marathon or go take first in a triathlon, then you’re

definitely not doing yourself a disservice by combining the

strength and the endurance training because you’re hitting

all aspects of your fitness. Now if you really, truly want to

specialize and you want to take your endurance training to

the next level, yeah you got to back off the strength training a

little bit. And if you do want to bring your bench press up to

400 pounds you’re probably not doing yourself a favor by

doing tons of swimming because you’re training the slow-

twitch muscles of your upper body. But ultimately in the

majority of individuals who I work with, concurrent training

utilizing both endurance and strength training is the best of

both worlds. Because you get strong, you get fit, you improve

bone density. You improve your cardiovascular fitness and

you kind of get everything at once. As long as your goals

aren’t really to take it to the next level and go pro as an

endurance athlete or go pro as a power lifter then you’re

doing just fine. Even if you were trying to take it to the next

level for triathlon, you’re still going to need to do core

training, rotator cuff strengthening, quad hamstring

strengthening to improve the balance in the legs. You’re just

not going to want to do a ton of heavy, heavy weightlifting.

So, great question.

Chris asks: I have a question about sugar content in carb control protein

bars such as the Myoplex bar produced by EAS. It has one

gram of sugar but around 20 grams of alcohol sugar. How do

they claim carb sensibility with that amount of alcohol sugar

and are there adverse effects of that much alcohol sugar that

we should be aware of?

Ben answers: Great question. Now alcohol sugars – some people think

those are totally calorie free. But they’re not. What sugar

alcohols are – because technically, that’s what they are, sugar

alcohols, not alcohol sugars. Semantics. They’re also known

as polyol. And you’re going to see these on nutrition labels as

maltitol, sorbitol, isolmat, xylitol is a really popular one. And

while sugar alcohols occur naturally in plants they can also

be manufactured. This is the case in most commercially

produced foods. Manufactured from sugars and from

starches. Now the idea is that they’re not absorbed by the

body – well I shouldn’t say that – they’re not completely

absorbed by the body. So the blood sugar impact of sugar

alcohols is less and you get fewer calories per gram in a sugar

alcohol. Now unlike some people would assume, the actual

sugar alcohol can’t get you drunk. But because they’re not

completely absorbed they basically can sit in your intestine

and ferment and a lot of people get bloating and gas and

diarrhea and have an actual reaction to the sugar alcohols.

Now that’s one reason that you need to be careful with sugar

alcohols. I want you to also think about the calories per gram.

Sucrose has four calories per gram. You take probably the

most popular sugar alcohol and that’s xylitol and that

actually has two and a half calories per gram. So you still get

quite a few calories per gram, but those calories are not as

completely organized as the calories in a straight up sugar.

The issue is though that there still is going to be a little bit of

an insulin response. It’s going to be a little bit less than what

you’re going to get, say, if they’d use sucrose instead of a

sugar alcohol. And there’s also going to be some bloating and

some indigestion and some gas, and for a lot of people that

can be uncomfortable. When people switch to health foods,

they switch to protein bars, they start to get these problems

and they blame it on the fiber, they blame it on the protein or

they blame it on whatever else – the increased exercise that

they’re doing, but in reality sugar alcohols can a lot of times

be the culprit and something as small as that can actually

keep someone from starting into a healthy diet or from

exercising. So that’s where you need to be careful, is

understand that that could be producing some symptoms. If

you’re having those symptoms, it’s likely that they’re coming

from that fairly large amounts of sugar alcohols that you’re

getting from that protein bar. The other thing that you

should be aware of is that there is a term used by the FDA

called GRAS. “Generally Recognized As Safe.” And all of the

sugar alcohols are basically generally recognized as safe or

the FDA has filed generally recognized as safe petitions for

most of them except mannitol and interestingly, xylitol. And

those are actually considered food additives. Now, what I

would recommend is that if you’re looking for kind of a carb

control or appetite control kind of protein bar, that you

maybe consider some alternatives to something with that

much sugar alcohol in it. While the only adverse effects are

going to be that gas, that bloating, that diarrhea – some of

the things that you may want to consider would be going for

a higher fiber bar to control appetite and control carb intake

as opposed to a high sugar alcohol bar. We just talked about

the agave syrup, but if you’re using these pre or post workout

anyways, look into the Bumble Bar or the CocoChia bar. The

other thing you could look into is a powder instead of a bar.

That tends to be a really good choice as well. Look into the

Mt. Capra Organic Whey Protein or Double Bonded Protein.

That’s actually what I use every single day. Also look into the

Living Protein by Living Fuel. Just leave me a comment or

shoot me an email if you have questions about those.

Chantelle asks: I am trying out for the SERE specialist position in the Air

Force. This is one of their toughest jobs. SERE stands for

Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape. In order to get into

SERE tech school, you need to be able to pass a physical

aptitude stamina test in which all the exercises are

performed back to back. The order is 200 meter swim, 1 ½

mile run, calisthenics, minimum of six chin-ups within one

minute, 50 situps within three minutes, 42 pushups within

three minutes and be able to carry a 65 pound rucksack four

miles in one hour. How do I work up to this in eight weeks?

Can you go from five pushups to 60 in eight weeks and 0

chin-ups to six?

Ben answers: Yeah, let me give you a few tips Chantelle. Basically, I have

trained some people for the PAST, and a few of the things

that you’re going to want to do is first of all understand the

importance of eccentric muscle activation. This is something

that a lot of athletes use when they’re preparing for an event

and the idea is that you can get a lot faster results from

eccentric or negative type of exercise. So what that means is

that rather than when you’re focusing on doing more

pushups, just doing pushups, you instead focus on lowering

yourself in the lowering phase of the pushup using cheating

or the rest of your body to get yourself back up in the original

position and then lowering yourself again. So for example,

what that would look like is you would start off with the five

pushups that you can do right now but then you would keep

going and while you may not be able to push yourself up

from the ground, you can focus on lowering yourself down

very slowly to the ground. It’s a lot easier to slow the body

against gravity than it is to push the body up against gravity.

But the idea is that the muscle still adapts and responds. So

that’s one little trick that you can use, is you basically do as

many reps as you can to failure of a regular pushup and then

you do those negative pushups where you’re lowering

yourself slowly and then just cheating to get back up until

you get to failure and you can’t lower yourself slowly

anymore either. So that’s one example of something you can

do. You can do the same thing with chin-ups as well. You

cheat to get yourself up to the top of the bar and then you

lower yourself very slowly and then you jump or swing or do

whatever you need to do, cheat to get to the top of the bar

again and lower yourself very slowly. By doing that, you can

systematically allow your body to actually get much stronger

at the pushups and the chin-ups. You could absolutely go

from five pushups to 60 in eight weeks. Generally for any of

these types of exercises, if you’re going to go to fatigue using

negative reps give yourself about 48 hours between workouts.

So you would for example on Monday, Wednesday and

Friday work on your pushups, work on your chin-ups, work

on your setups and then on your Tuesday, your Thursday

and your Saturday work on your swim and your run and your

rucksack carry. So there’s obviously quite a bit of

programming that can go into writing out an actual program

for this that we don’t have time to go into today, but the idea

is that those eccentrics could work very well. For the 1 ½

mile run, definitely don’t make the mistake of going out and

just focusing on running 1 ½ miles a few days a week and

trying to get faster. Use intervals. What that means is you

can for example do eight repeats of a quarter mile run. Of a

0.25 mile run. Where you’re running at your sub 11:30 pace

over and over and then giving yourself a 1:1 work to rest ratio

or a 2:1 work to rest ratio eventually focusing on the fact that

you’re going to be able to string together all those 0.25 mile

repeats into a 1.5 mile run which you might only practice the

full 1.5 miles four or five times before your actual event. 200

meter swim, same thing. Focus on doing 25 or 50 meter

intervals to get yourself up to the point where you can string

together all those intervals and do your full 200 meters. And

then finally for the rucksack, carrying a rucksack four miles

in one hour, you could for example do 10 minute intervals

with the rucksack or 15 minute intervals with the rucksack

and basically intervals are the way that everybody from

Ironman triathletes train all the way down to people getting

ready to race the 800 meter, whereas the 800 meter athlete

might be doing 50 to 100 sprints, the Ironman athlete might

be doing 10 to 20 mile bike intervals but it all returns to that

concept of intervals. So great question. Use intervals and use

eccentric negative training.

Finally, we’re going to move on to a comment from listener

Brett.

Brett says: Hey Ben, this is Brett Delson from Ceasar City, Utah. I’m one

of your CEO Dominator or the Triathlon Dominator athletes.

I just wanted to leave you a message about how my tune up

race – my half Iron tune up race went. It was fantastic. The

pacing that you prescribed was just absolutely spot on. I

stuck right to the nutrition plan, about 350 calories an hour

on the bike and then a gel every half an hour on the run and

my bike time was a little slow. I’m not really good on the

downhills but I ended up PR-ing on my half Ironman

distance and the last time I ran my half Ironman time was

about 2:30 and this time I finished about 2:30, 2:45. This

time I did about an hour and 57 minutes coming off the bike.

So 45 minute PR, can’t argue man. Awesome stuff. Great

material. I was a little skeptical at first about how the volume

was going to match up against my friends who are training

for the same race, but man I just owned it, it was awesome.

So anyway, just wanted to give you a shoutout. Awesome

stuff man. I’m looking forward to my Ironman. It comes up

in about a month. I’ll let you know how that race goes.

Thanks buddy, take care.

Ben: Brett, thanks for the positive feedback and definitely keep in

touch about your results with the Triathlon Dominator. I’m

getting a lot of word for people – because remember, that

Triathlon Dominator package just came out last year – and

now people are starting to hit their race seasons. They’ve

been using it for the past few months. It’s going to be great to

see the results that are happening. So if you want to check

that out for yourself, go to www.triathlondominator.com and

remember if you have a question, a comment, feedback,

whatever call toll free to 8772099439. Email me

ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com or Skype to Pacific Fit. And

now we’re going to move on to our interview with 400 mile

man Jon Berghoff.

Ben: Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and as promised

I have got an endurance athlete on the call today. And this

guy is not a conventional athlete. The type of training that he

does is basically just a fraction of what he actually goes out

and performs when he does some of the events that he does

and really he’s not an ultra-endurance athlete by trade, he

runs a sales training company but all the same type of mental

strategies that he’s developed through ultra-endurance

training are the same type of strategies that he uses to help

people in what’s called Peak Performance Sales Training.

He’s got tons of great mental skills and strategies that are

going to help you whether you’re doing an Ironman triathlon,

whether you’re just trying to get motivated to exercise a little

bit, maybe shed a few pounds. But his name’s Jon Berghoff

and as a matter of fact he has done a 400 mile run and we’re

going to talk about that a little bit today. But first of all, Jon,

thanks for coming on the call.

Jon Berghoff: Yeah, it’s my pleasure Ben. I’m excited to be here.

Ben: Alright. Well let’s jump straight into things. How did you get

into ultra-endurance Jon?

Jon Berghoff: Yeah, well I first – I’m glad you clarified I’m not really a

traditional athlete. I’m a big fan of all sorts of different sports

and I played sports as a kid. I wasn’t a runner. I didn’t run in

high school or in college but the short answer, Ben, of how I

got into these ultra-marathons is it was actually for a charity.

A buddy of mine started an organization called the Front

Row Foundation and then the way that he launched his

charity was by running 52 miles and it’s a funny story

because he didn’t train for it all and so of course a couple of

years later to support him and the Front Row, I thought hey

that sounds like a cool idea to try and run 52 miles. So that

was maybe four years ago. That year I ran the 52 miler and

when I finished I was still alive and I thought hey wait a

minute, I could actually do a little bit of preparing and

probably feel a lot better than I did after that first one. And

that was how it all started and I’ve only run five or six ultra-

marathons, Ben. But I’ve run three other 50 milers. Two

years ago I did my first 100 miler. And that was the Old

Dominion, out here in Virginia. On a hot day. That was a

tough one. And then last year, I ran this – we call it the 400

mile run – I ran 332 miles in about eight days. So that’s the

extent of my experience there.

Ben: Wow, so we got people listening Jon and they’re training two

years to go out and run 26.2 miles in a marathon or in an

Ironman. How did you actually go out and do 52 miles

without really training? As a matter of fact, you’ve done

multiple 52 mile runs. You’ve done 100 mile runs. You’ve

done this 332 mile run and you’ve used that same kind of

minimal training strategy for all of them?

Jon Berghoff: Yeah, well first thing I should come out and say Ben is I’m a

fan of your podcast and I have been listening to you for a

little while now and I recognize that many of you listeners –

my guess is they’re – I don’t know how to say it. They’re a lot

more knowledgeable than I am. They’ve got a better training

technique and that’s the right way to go about it. And I don’t

want to jump on your program here and tell everybody that I

believe the smartest way to approach an event is by not

training. I’ve got a good foundation in that I’ve always played

sports as a kid growing up. I’m only 150 pounds. I’m 5’9. So

it’s not like I’ve got a lot of weight that I’m moving and I

don’t have any major health problems. I had a lot of knee

problems as a kid. But my approach to these runs when I

first started was it wasn’t to accomplish them in any period

of time. It was just to get the distance in. So the only tool that

I had without being physically trained at the level that I

probably should have been was my mind. And I know that

can almost sound corny or cheesy but I’m guessing your

audience – you’ve got listeners here who… they understand

that completing whether it’s an Ironman or a marathon, even

a half marathon for the first time – it’s physical and mental.

So a lot of what I did for myself was using my mind and my

own psychology to get myself through some of these crazy

events combined with some training and some yoga. And I

eat really healthy. So I got to say that I am focused on my

nutrition a lot.

Ben: Gotcha. So when you talk about the mental training as being

one of the things that really helped you get you through these

ultra-endurance events that maybe you didn’t do a formal

training protocol for – what type of mental training

strategies did you actually utilize while you were out there?

Jon Berghoff: Yeah, well you mentioned something a minute ago when you

were introducing me, Ben, that I run a sales training

company – Global Empowerment. And we train

organizations and companies around the world at this point.

We’ve worked with tens of thousands of sales people and

entrepreneurs and a lot of what we teach them in my

business has to do with how to adjust their psychology so

they have what I could call a winning psychology. Because if

any of you listeners are either in sales or they’re an

entrepreneur, they run a business and they fully understand

that when you run a business you deal with a lot of rejection

and whether it’s someone rejecting your ideas or your

product or your service – and so you have to be mentally fit

to deal with that and to deal with the challenges that face

someone in that role. So when you asked me, hey what are

the strategies? It probably helps that your listeners have that

context and understand that that’s where it comes from.

Working with sales people. And when I ran that first ran, I’ll

tell you I ran it and I realized right from the beginning that

oh my gosh, so much of what I’ve been teaching my clients is

so true in this totally different arena but it applies so much –

the importance of managing our mindset. So that’s where it

came from if that helps to paint a picture of the background.

Ben: Right. What exactly when you talk about managing the

mindset during a run… let’s say you’re out there and you’re

at mile 30 or 35 and you’re really feeling tired or fatigued or

exhausted. Give me an example of what type of mental

strategy that you use that maybe our listeners could use in a

situation like that?

Jon Berghoff: Yeah. Well, you know your listeners might find this to be

interesting or maybe something that they’ve heard from you

or other training regiments. But for me, Ben, my training

mentally begins long before the run. And again I’ll paint a

picture for your listeners. Last year, I trained for – I did this

run where I ran about 40 miles a day for eight and a half

days straight. And we can get into what that was about or

why we did that, but I’ll tell you that leading up to that. I had

nine weeks in a row where I was traveling all over the

country speaking to organizations for my sales training

business. So I was training at hotel gyms which was a

nightmare a lot of the time. Sometimes just figuring out how

to work out just standing at the corner of an airport, just odd

situations. So a lot of my training had to be mental and one

key component of that, Ben, was visualization. I’ve done a lot

of work with my clients and now also in my running to

visualize what I wanted to see happen. We could get into the

science of why I think that’s so powerful but at the end of the

day, the more frequently and with the more intensity and the

more precision we envision ourselves accomplishing

something, whether it’s in a business or in running, I believe

it programs ourselves to overcome the inevitable challenges

that come up.

Ben: Now, when you say visualization, are you visualizing your

running form? Are you visualizing success at the finish of the

run? What type of visualization strategies do you use, Jon?

Jon Berghoff: That’s a great question. And I don’t know if I’m put a name

or a label to it, but I can just describe it… like right now, I’m

going to be running another 100 miler in a few months here,

and again, I’m not able to fit in a normal training regimen so

an example of my visualization, Ben, is when I go out on a

four mile run right now, which anyone else training for the

same race is probably running 20 miles or whatever they

might be doing – I envision while I’m running – I actually

envision like a movie playing out in my head that I’m actually

running 20, 30, 40 miles on that four mile run. And as I’m

watching that movie play out in my head, I actually practice

seeing myself go through all of the ups and downs that a lot

of your listeners can relate to. And what I found is that by

actually mentally rehearsing how I’m going to respond to

that moment when I got blisters, my knees are giving in, my

muscles are giving in, my lungs are giving in – that when I

rehearse that mentally and then I get to that moment, as

surprising as that could sound to some people, it’s a great

way to be prepared. Because as you know and many of your

listeners know, with more experience than I have, that that

could be the difference between finishing a race and not – is

being mentally ready for those moments when you want to

give in. To me, that’s my strength. It’s not all the physical

training that I probably should be doing.

Ben: Yeah, I think it’s a huge missed component in a lot of

people’s training protocols. Not realizing that it goes beyond

just hammering and hitting each training session. You

actually have to have your mind ready. Especially when we’re

talking about ultra-endurance events. The types of things

that you’ve done, especially the real long run that you did

that we’ll talk about here in a second. But just getting the

mind ready because – I don’t know if you’ve heard of

something called central fatigue before, Jon – are you

familiar with that at all?

Jon Berghoff: I think I’ve heard the topic discussed, yeah.

Ben: Yeah, basically the idea that the body will go just about as far

as your mind believes that you’re capable of, and then at that

point you simply lose it, your body quits. And so if you can

convince your mind or overpower your nervous system to

believe that you actually can keep going than a lot of times

your central fatigue takes a little bit longer to kick in.

Jon Berghoff: Yeah, can I make a comment about that Ben?

Ben: Yeah absolutely.

Jon Berghoff: Last year, for example, while I was – I mean I say while I was

training for the 400 mile run – I wasn’t really training, but

you just made a great point. The word is “believe” and one of

the things that I did was I made sure that everything that I

exposed myself to in terms of mental information was

supporting the belief that I could run 40 miles a day for eight

and a half consecutive days and so for example, I remember I

had the DVD with me, The Running Man. The story of – oh

god I’m losing his name – David Orton, is that his name? He

ran 40 plus miles a day for 65 days along the Pacific Coast

rim or whatever it’s called. And then I read the book Born to

Run multiple times where you hear about the Tarahumara,

these native Indians who run out of necessity 30, 40 miles a

day. So I was exposing myself to resources and information

that supported the belief that it was possible. I was very

quick to ignore the people and the doctors in my life that said

I shouldn’t be trying to do what I’m doing. So the word you

used, “believe” I think is just so important. I’m a huge

testament to that overcoming lack of physical training, that’s

for sure.

Ben: Yeah, well that kind of leads into the question I wanted to

ask you Jon. What exactly made you want to do this 400 mile

run, which I believe was from DC to Cleveland? Is that the

distance that you did?

Jon Berghoff: That’s right. Yup.

Ben: Okay, what was your impetus for choosing to do that?

Jon Berghoff: Yeah, well my family kept saying why would you run to

Cleveland? We don’t even want to fly into Cleveland. Well,

you know there are two reasons. Number one, it was for my

own gain in terms of my business. It helps to explain part of

the situation here, there’s an organization called

Entrepreneurs Organization. It’s also referred to as EO. And

EO has 7000 members around the world. They’re all

business owners that have successful growing businesses and

Ben they hire speakers to come in and talk to their

entrepreneurs and they typically bring in people who are

really well established, and at the time I wasn’t as well

established as a professional speaker – many of their other

speakers – and so when I pitched myself to them, I said hey

I’m going to run a seminar on Peak Performance Leadership,

which I’d been doing that for years but I told them… I said to

give you kind of a cool angle, what I’m going to do is I’m

going to run to the event. So what we haven’t told your

listeners yet is that I actually ran the 332 miles and then the

day after I got there, I then ran a seminar for 150 or so

entrepreneurs and we got to do it at Quick and Loans Arena

which was kind of cool, because once they heard I was going

to try this, they wanted to set it up at a cool venue. So that

was one part of the purpose, Ben. And another part was I

wanted to continue to raise awareness for the Front Row

Foundation and the same cause I mentioned earlier. So that’s

kind of how that came together.

Ben: And in terms of your preparation for that Jon, was there

anything special that you did – once you decided you were

going to run from DC to Cleveland – how was that? What do

you think was more challenging? The actual training leading

up to it or the event itself?

Jon Berghoff: Yeah, that’s a great question. The training leading up to it

was a different type of experience than the actual event. We’ll

talk about the training leading up to it for a minute. As I

mentioned earlier, my time was very limited. So – and I

don’t want to paint this picture that I’m this guy that just

woke up and started running. That’s not true. I did put in

probably about an average of an hour a day. I’m trying to

average it. There were days I didn’t train and there were days

I got two to three runs in. But my average wasn’t more than

your average Joe who likes to work out a lot. So the question

is how did I get physically prepared enough to fall apart?

Because I had to have something going on and part of it Ben

was making sure that a lot of my exercise was – and again

I’m not an expert on this so I might use terms that make no

sense but functional full body training where I’m combining

high intensity cardio and anaerobic at the same time, where

I’m trying to be really efficient. Most of my runs, my goal

would be to find a hill and I would just go sprint up the hill

for 30 minutes and for my body, I found that the results and

the benefits I would get from spring up a hill for 30 minutes

were better than when I’d go out on a two hour run.

Sometimes at least. So trying to learn to be efficient and how

to push myself to get the most out of the shortest period of

time, and I definitely did a lot of yoga. A combination of

bikram, power yoga and I found that that helped me to stay

healthy which was key. Staying flexible and aligned and

always focusing on the posture and my form. I’m a big

believer, Ben, that with the right form and the right posture

and some quality breathing that anybody can surprise

themselves in terms of how far they could go before they get

injured.

Ben: Interesting. So it’s basically a combination of the mental

training with some of these strategies, some of that time

management, and then the functional training combined

with the yoga.

Jon Berghoff: Yeah, that’s exactly right. It has to be noted that I am

nutritionally pretty intense. I’m passionate about eating

healthy. So I was staying healthy in terms of the food I put

into my body as well.

Ben: Were you following a special diet like vegan or

Mediterranean or anything like that?

Jon Berghoff: No. I mean I focused on trying to eat what I considered to be

a balanced diet. I tried to consume a lot of dark green, leafy

vegetables. I’ve got a VitaMix that I passionately use multiple

times a day where – I learned how to get a lot of healthy

quick meals that maybe didn’t always taste great but whether

it was just putting some water and some vegetables in a

blender and grounding it up with some nuts and then

throughout the day just munching on some seeds and some

nuts and some fruit, and I’d eat a lot of lean meat – fish – as

well. But it wasn’t one particular type of diet. Like everything

else I do, at least with running, it’s very intuitive for me. I

don’t know that I’m always making the best decisions but I

try and (inaudible).

Ben: Interesting. So in terms of the run, how did you break it up?

How many miles did you run each day?

Jon Berghoff: Well the way we broke it up is – the original goal was to

cover 400 miles in a period of nine days. And going into that

Ben, I was also well aware that I had no idea what was going

to end up happening. Now part of the challenge – although I

guess I could say this was part of my strategy for success – is

leading up to the run, I publicly pronounced to thousands of

people literally that I was going to do this run. I call that

leveraging your integrity. You tell enough people you’re

going to do something and you’re afraid not to do it. And for

me as a professional trainer, all I did was – it just became

part of the story that I was telling that summer, so I told

literally like five or six thousand people that I was going to be

doing this run. And so it was a very emotional experience,

Ben, because I knew I had a plan which was to cover

approximately 40 to 50 miles a day but at the same time, I

knew that I was going to be dealing with injuries and I knew

that it was just going to be a totally intense mental battle and

that battle, Ben, began on the second day when – the first

day we got about 40 miles in. The run – just to paint a

picture – we began at the steps of the Capitol building

because the run was meant to be symbolic. We actually called

it the Recession Rejection Run because at the end I was

speaking to entrepreneurs right? So we started at the steps of

the Capitol and because I’m a huge fan of nature and I just

believe there’s beauty in spending time in nature and there’s

a great connection that I can have there, I set it up so that the

entire run was along a trail. So I ran – the first half of the run

was along the C&O Canal. It’s a historic canal that follows

first the Potomac river, then it connects with what’s known

as the Alleghany Passage, where you cross over the Eastern

Continental Divide. It’s technically downhill from there but

it’s still through mountains and trails up to Pittsburgh. So

the point is it was along trails and I had a crew of seven

people. We also had a professional film crew, and Ben I’ll tell

you what I overlooked and what I didn’t plan for was the

challenge of not only having to keep myself moving but I was

also the leader of a crew of seven. And that was very difficult

because these trails were not all accessible. So I’m telling you

all this because you asked what was your plan? Well we

realized at day one that our plan was going out the door

because it was so difficult to stay in communication with my

crew, because they needed to keep me hydrated and keep me

fueled and with nutrition. We bought a massage therapist

with us. I think that was huge. I don’t know what you call it –

divine intervention or irony – that I met this guy three days

before the run started, because I had an injury right before

the run, someone recommended him. I’m sitting in his office

telling him what I’m about to do and he says “You’re nuts.” I

know, you want to come with me? And he said, “Yeah, let’s

do it.” And he ended up becoming a great friend and I don’t

think I would have made it past the second day without him.

But just on the second day, Ben, I had an incredible pain in

my knee and I had to stop 30 miles into it. I thought I could

have been done that night. I didn’t know how I’d feel when I

woke up so the whole thing became a mental battle right

from the beginning. It was a heck of a journey.

Ben: Wow. So you had that knee pain and did you run into other

things along the way in addition to that?

Jon Berghoff: Yeah. I’m not real proud to say this Ben but I went into that

run not physically where I needed to be, where I really

wanted to be. And I don’t talk about how I wasn’t physically

trained because I think that’s something to brag about, it’s

just kind of the nature of how I showed up to this event and

how my life was structured so that I could only get so far. So

what ended up happening, Ben, is I was dealing with a lot of

injuries from about mile 71 until mile 332 and what I started

to realize though was that many of these injuries, I could still

push through them and I tried to be very careful about

listening to my body and if something was hurting I would

pay attention and not just stop because I had pain, but I

would pay attention to “Is the pain getting worse? Is it still

getting worse? Okay, where it’s at right now, can I manage

this?”And so the run became a constant process of almost

redefining pain and pleasure. As sick as that might sound.

And taking that pain and asking myself could I keep dealing

with this if this doesn’t get worse. It was very surprising Ben,

that a lot of times the pain would get really bad but I could go

20 miles and it wouldn’t get worse. And of course the way the

body works, it would surprise you that the pain would move

to different parts of the body. Because even though I was

trying my heart out to have perfect form and to breathe

deeply and all that stuff, my body would still compensate so I

would wake up every day with new pains in new spots. And

by about the third day, in my right foot I had bones that

might have been broken. I had shin splints that our doc with

us – he was convinced were stress fractures by about the fifth

day – and someone might hear this thinking “Why would

you keep going?” And for me it was I had a cause and my

cause was that this was a journey of self-discovery, Ben. And

also for the Front Row Foundation which we didn’t talk

about this earlier when you asked but I believe that for many

folks getting through a super endurance event – the

difference between succeeding and failing is what’s your

reason? What’s your cause behind it? For me, the process of

learning about myself and what humans are capable of was –

that was part of my own inspiration if that makes sense. The

pain kept going, it didn’t go away. We just had to keep

managing it.

Ben: Wow. So in terms of advice Jon that you could give to the

listeners as far as how to achieve something that they want,

their own personal Mt. Everest – you talked a little bit about

the mental training, but do you have other tips or other

pieces of advice that you could give to people who right now

are facing something that seems pretty formidable?

Jon Berghoff: Yeah, well I’m sure everybody has picked up by now that Ben

is the one to be listening to for physical training advice, not

me. So what I will say, Ben, is in my experience, what could

help anybody is to make sure they get clear on why they’re

doing what they’re doing. I know that someone might say

well I want to complete an Ironman because it’s cool or

because want to. But I question that and what I would

challenge your listeners to ask themselves is “Why? What’s

the deeper purpose?” There’s got to be a meaning to it, and

what I found Ben is that a lot of the traditional training –

because I do connect with and speak with now to a lot of

different endurance athletes just because I’m so passionate

about it. It’s a world I’m interested in, and I find that a lot of

the traditional training focuses so much on the structure. It’s

almost like it gives people a map. Here’s what you do to…

follow this map and you’ll be prepared, but anybody who’s

completed an Ironman or any type of ultra event has figured

out really quickly that a map is only one part of an equation.

So when you ask me for any tips, I would say that when you

answer that question of “why,” when you get clear on the

cause or the purpose or the mission, that’s the key. It’s great

to have a map but we all know as soon as the run starts – as

soon as the race starts, everything goes out the window. And

what matters at that moment – and I have a friend who just

got back K2 a couple of years ago, he was actually with me on

the run because I wanted to have good people around me,

right? That’s important. One of the things he shared with me

before this run was he said, “Look, you’re going to do

everything you can to train, but you got to make sure that

you don’t forget your purpose.” Sometimes, Ben I think

people get too caught up in “Hey, is that my best time ever?”

That’s great and that’s important, and that might be valuable.

But it’s so important to have clarity in what’s the bigger

reason why I’m doing this. And I can’t tell your listeners

what that should be for them. It might be religiously based, it

might be a cause or a charity that they’re wanting to raise

awareness for. It might be that they want to set an example

for their kids or they want to set an example for the

community or they want to learn more about themselves. I

don’t know what it is, but that would be one tip I’d give, is get

connected to a cause. And the other thing I would say Ben is

make a decision about being committed and not just

interested. I think there’s a difference between committing to

accomplishing something and just being interested. And

sometimes we try and get ourselves committed by saying

we’re going to do something or making a decision, but to me

commitment is a way of living. It’s not “Hey I signed up for

the race, so I’m in.” All these runs that I’ve done, I make a

commitment that no matter how I show up to that event, I’m

going to complete it. The 400 mile run – it was kind of I ran

out of time. But when I did my first 100 miler last year, I

showed up. It was 100 degrees plus the whole day. Less than

half the people who started didn’t finish and my deal was I’m

going to finish. I’m going to be committed because that’s

what I’m about and that even ties back into my cause. I want

to learn about human potential and your listeners may not

care about that as much but getting that cause and getting

that commitment, to me I think is so important, aside from

everything they should be doing physically.

Ben: Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think it’s true for

everything in life from knowing why you’re going to do a

triathlon and having the commitment to that to knowing why

you want to spend more time with your kids and having

more commitment to that. I think the two things that you

just hit on are two of the most important things that people

can do from a mental perspective when it comes to achieving

something. So spot on, man. Well, we are getting towards the

end of our call but I wanted to ask you in terms of resources,

books, Web sites, anything else that you might want to point

people towards that have helped you in your journey and in

your ultra-endurance. Do you have any recommendations?

Jon Berghoff: You’ll be disappointed. I have so few recommendations

because I’m so untraditional, right? You heard me mention

the Born to Run, which I’m a huge fan of that book. I do a lot

of training wearing Vibram Five Finger shoes. I go running

on trails and I always wear my Vibram Five Finger shoes. I

feel that that helps my balance, and nutritionally I’ll give a

shout out to Hammer Nutrition. I have no affiliation with

them but I use all of their products and their fuel for my

trainings and my runs. I would encourage anybody who’d

like – actually here’s two Web sites of interest I’d love to

promote. One is just go to www.400milerun.com and you

can watch a video blog that we filmed during the run. There’s

like 20 different videos that were filmed during the run. If

any of you want to go check that out and feel free to contact

me through the site if you have any questions and of course

because I’ve mentioned it, you’re welcome to visit

www.thefrontrowfoundation.com. It’s a cause that I’ve been

supporting that has kept me fired up.

Ben: Awesome. Well Jon, thanks for coming on the call and

sharing your experience.

Jon Berghoff: You’re welcome Ben, it’s been a pleasure, I appreciate it.

For personal nutrition, fitness or triathlon consulting, supplements, books or DVD’s

from Ben Greenfield, please visit Pacific Elite Fitness at

http://www.pacificfit.net