00:00:00
Speaker 1: I mean, I was so focused on, like, I don’t care what anybody tells me to do. I don’t care what you want to do. This is what I’m doing every day until I get asked to go leave, Like you know, the Navy’s going to like, hey, you’re in now. But I ran so much and I swam so much that when I got in, I knew that my times were faster than what they expected. On the high end, I was like, I’m going to beat the fastest times that they want us to do so that I know when I’m just exhausted that way, my body will still be able to do it. So I knew when I got in, I’ll be prepared. You’re still in the shock and you get there like, oh shit, dude, this is rough out here. The stakes are real. Effective preparation starts with fitness, but it requires so much more. This show explores the tools, knowledge, resilience, and skills needed to be ready when it matters the most. Join me Rich Browning as we apply the decades of wisdom I’ve gained through training and competition to hunting in the back country. This is in Pursuit, brought to you by Mount Knops in collaboration with Mayhem Hunt in Pursuit Media. We don’t really have a true like intro, do we Huh I guess the one that plays Yeah, Ian Shanelli, good, happy man, Sure, thank you. We had the discussion offline because we didn’t title the Trent Ellis X Marine thing. So you’re former Navy seal? Is that then if that’s going to cause controversy just there we go? Yeah? Yeah, So you live in Franklin now, just got off of a marathon. Did a marathon. We did New York City Marathon for the Seal Foundation. All right, you do the you do the swim thing too. There’s a every year you’ve done this five of the last six years. Where’s that at Hudson River, New York City? Which cold? It’s great, dirty, Yeah, it’s disgustings. It’s about what we’re used to do in cornett Aum. Oh okay, it’s not not too bad, but corn Autum so yeah, pretty pretty nasty, just grimey. You just assume there’s people below you, yeah that are dead from the eighties nineties, So you have some drug kingpins don’t just over there for sure. Okay, So that’s a is that three mile swim. Yeah, about three miles swim, we get out and do uh uh twenty two pull ups hundred push ups every mile. Basically there’s three sobbing points and the kind of run through the city, so that it’s pretty cool.
00:02:26
Speaker 2: It’s cool you actually like that.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was about to say I would do that.
00:02:29
Speaker 2: You’re more I think you’d enjoy swimming more than.
00:02:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, than an actual marathon. I couldn’t. My knee just won’t handle it. That’s what I’m That’s where I’m at right now. Yeah, it’s like it’s just I don’t I don’t like it. Yeah. No, I did it for for the Seal Foundation and my fiance loves running, so I was like, let’s go do it again. Yeah, man, I just yeah, I don’t want to do that now. I’m good. No, but you do get to stop and do some some form of upper body huh. Yeah. It’s fun. Yeah, that it’s good. When was that? Uh, that one was in August when we do the swim and then the run was last week? Last week? Did you train for the marathon or did you I did it last year. I ran four miles of my longest prior to that, mostly like sprint stuff. But this year, since my fiance really likes running, she’s like, hey, let’s do my program. We’ll get into it. I was like, all right, I’ll do the long runs with you and we’ll try to enjoy it. I just I zone out. I don’t wear any headphones. I just kind of just go to your thoughts, a real dark place. So wow, yeah, not me, my add I’ll so. I trained for Leadville a couple of years ago, the mountain bike, not the run, and I would listen to uh or I listened when I go on long rides to presidential biographies. Oh nice, Yeah, really you learn a lot. Yeah, at least gives me something. I feel like, I’m you know, using my time valuably. I did that for I trained kind of for an iron Man. I didn’t iron Man. Let’s see, like two years ago, and I would listen to podcasts or audio books for like a four hour bike ride. You can really zone out on h Yeah that was good, but that was fun.
00:03:52
Speaker 2: The training for iron Man is just so time consuming, right, that’s.
00:03:56
Speaker 1: It’s so much volume to really be proficient at it. The swim, I don’t have an issue like I can I can go do that any day of the week, but getting off one hundred and sixteen mile bike ride into the marathon, you’re kind of like, I’m going to train things a little bit. Yeah, rough, a little back fired up. Yeah. I did a couple of sprint triathlons, and that was the shock of the first one that I did, was hopping off that bike and getting on the run. I surprise, oh, man, I surprise. Yeah good. I enjoyed it though, and he Leadville. Did you see Himan? You know him? Man Eric Eric Hnman. I think he did the mountain bike this year? Did he? Okay? That was it this year that he did?
00:04:32
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean he’s done it several times. I saw him there this year.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Kah awesome. Yeah, I believe it looks like a fun one. He’s trying to go sub eight hours and he just missed it. Yeah, yeah, sub eights. I sub nine twice because you get the big belt buckle. I did it. It was one of my buddies summed it up the best because he he did it the previous year and was like nine It was like nine thirty maybe the first year, yeah, something like that, and then he was nine forty something this year, No, eight or eight forty it was some nine and I text him after because I didn’t go, and he said, uh, I said, how to go? He said, took all the fun out of mountain biking, because it really does. Man, that’s just a you know, it’s it’s you go through. It’s just a bike. It’s just a mountain bike. Yeah. Yeah, So our buddy Curtis, David Curtis, he did all of the lead Bill series races and if you finish them all within the time cap, you’re a lead man in the same that in the same year.
00:05:21
Speaker 2: Sorry, the other there’s there was a trail well, it’s all trail marathon, fifty mile bike, fifty mile run.
00:05:28
Speaker 1: Would you get to choose if you want to do the bike or the run on the fifty but he did both out.
00:05:33
Speaker 2: Of principle, and then a ten k run at the day after the one hundred mile bike and then one hundred mile run.
00:05:38
Speaker 1: Oh well, okay, yeah, it’s a full event. Yeah, it’s it’s over like seven weeks. But the I think it’s like four separate weekends.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: All of that happened. Okay, yeah, it was four separate weekends.
00:05:48
Speaker 1: And he could almost do the bike with his eyes closed. The sub he just he just sub nine pretty easily. Yeah, real good biker. How big does the bike make a difference in this?
00:05:59
Speaker 2: Uh?
00:06:00
Speaker 1: Because the substantial difference in because when you do an iron man. Oh h it’s a big difference in the bike. Yes, and no, I mean you can’t. You can’t go out there with a Huffey for sure. You need you need a mongoose. Yeah, you will make a mongoose. Sure, you definitely want to, you know, stick to a specialized for a track, buddy. I mean, obviously carbon’s the lighter it is, the better it is, it makes, it makes a difference. It’s volume again. Oh yeah, it’s just volume y Yeah, I mean really volume and riding out here. Yeah. Yeah. So I’ve got about six miles of trails here. And then if you saw the hill that you have to climb, dude, I must have climbed that one hundred pet time, just up, down, up down, in the middle of the summer. It’s it’s a good time. The first time. The second time, I think, I the first time I went into it with like ignorance is bliss. Absolutely. The second time I knew how daunting it was, and it was a good gut check, a good mental test because every twenty miles, every aid station, I was trying to figure out ways to like kick spokes out of my bike so I didn’t have to finish. If you did it sub twelve, it would be a fun race. Sub nine is not fun. You don’t need a ton of mountain bikes. You need some descent skill. Uh there’s a couple of pretty gnarly descents, but you can’t just vomb it. I do. Yeah, probably out reckless, Yeah, full reckless, stupid. I had some guy that, you know, I would pass him on some climbs and descents, and then the flats he would just blow by me. That’s what frustrated me most about Traslons is I’m just not arrow, so on the freaking bike, I would just I’d be pedaling downhill and I just had a lady like, you know, tucked so fast right by me. I got passed by a lot of famails on the Iron Man, especially especially the flats. I’m like, what a little bit of a little bit of head wind, Like come on, yeah, I can’t get through this.
00:07:44
Speaker 2: The crazy thing at Leadville is it’s a mountain bike race, but it’s close enough. I would say it’s like a gravel race that the pros will use drop bars.
00:07:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, some will, and uh there’s a big you know, probably eight to ten mile stretch in and out that you can kind of form up and if you get with a good group, you can draft a little bit. So the first year I got to do that and got in with a group that’s allowed. Yes. The second year I couldn’t find a group. It was either they were too fast or too slow friends, and so I was just headwind out, headwind back, and it was you know, it was like, if you get as good wind, you’re just iron Man. They make you ride alone, right you Yeah, you can’t draft as legal they’ll they’ll kind of flag you for it. I think certain events might be different, but iron Man specifically, they’ll I think they flag you or something like that. There was no chance I was drafted off anybody. I mean there was watching these little women oh yeah post pass and I was like, this is embarrassing. You know. At the time, I did not have a really nice bike. I had a pretty mediocre bike. I was like ignorance bike. That makes a huge difference. Ignorance is bliss. I was like I could do this, you know, I wrote eighty nine to mile rides by myself out and you know where we live in Williamson County, and uh, getting out there, I mean they’re just pedaling and they don’t look like they’re doing anything. They’re so fat. Where did you do yours at Chattanooga? Oh, I saw some of the Mayhem guys. Let’s be like one of the hilliest. It’s awful. You can swim down river, right, Yeah, the swim. You did that one because swimming you’re great at. But the reason most people do that one is because the swim is like the easiest. But I had I had no idea. I had a buddy asked me, like, he do you want to do an iron Man? I said sure, And then two months in like my ankle hurts, I’m not doing it. I’m like, I already paid a thousand bucks to go do this. I’m gonna go do the Iron Man. And then oddly I’d done a TV show in South Korea, of all places, so I came back. I had a month to really get some volume whatever, and I was like, the swim, I don’t care. The bike, I’ll get some miles in the run, Surely I can do it. I’ve done plenty of runs in the seal teams and just so humbling. Yeah, like I got worked by some people and I was like, this is embarrassing.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so Jake, a guy that works for us, he well, he picked that one because it was the easiest swim.
00:09:51
Speaker 1: Okay makes sense because I it was a joke. Honestly, yeah fast, I went right, Yeah it was. It was like forty minute swim for me. I just coasted through. I was like, all right. I honestly didn’t realize. I looked at my watch while swimming and thinking I got plenty of distance to go, and all of a sudden I was at the spot to get out. I was like, what did I just do? Yeah, this gonna be a great race today. And all of a sudden, this seventy miles into the ride, I’m like, oh man, this yeah it’s terrible.
00:10:16
Speaker 2: So yeah, you should have you should have picked the like hardest swim and the easiest course.
00:10:21
Speaker 1: After that, we’re gonna do a half, so my my fiance wants to do and we have some some other friends that are like athletic, but they want to get into a half. Iron Man. We’re trying to find a nice place I think we’re gonna do like Idaho or something like that, which has like some flat flat We’ve done a couple off road triathlons and that’s where it’s at. You know. You obviously swim doesn’t matter, but the bike is a mountain bike and as a trail run, and those are different, it’s way better. We did this odd We did one in England on the Jurassic Coast. We’re all like dinosaurs ands up are oddly and it was against the British special Forces, like the navyc foundations sent you know, had a couple of us go out there and compete against them, just kind of like athing. But it’s on this guy’s property. The swim is in his own private kind of beach area. But the entire run you would think is uphill both ways. Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense. And the bike right itself is like you get one bomb down the hill and then everything you’re backtracking back up the hill like this is terrible. You got so bad, it was so wet, didn’t have my bike. I had to dismount and get off my bike to walk it up the hill because the bike that they gave me just wasn’t gonna work. I couldn’t get up. I was like, this is awful again. So it was like reliving the worst nightmare and dire man. So we’re gonna try to do another half and have some fun with it. But how do.
00:11:35
Speaker 2: You like balance in the Because we didn’t talk about this yet, but you and I talked to you mostly do CrossFit, So how do you balance in that training with the endurance stuff.
00:11:44
Speaker 1: There’s no balance for it. You just do it. It’s kind of one of those which obviously you know, you guys know. It’s it’s more of like a I don’t really have an option because you do mostly crossmen, especially if you’re like a strength portion of whatever you guys are doing. I train with my buddies in my buddy’s garage every morning like four forty five, and it’s like, well, I got an eight mile run later, I got a fifteen mile run this weekend. Like whatever it might be, I’m just going to try to eat as much as possible. I guess and know that I’m going to burn a ton of calories and suffer through it. For the most part of it doesn’t get easier when you get older. Yeah, I’ll to be forty, so are you how old you thirty nine? I’ll be forty in two weeks. Okay, heck you you know we’re about saying, maje, I’m thirty eight. So yeah, I mean everything hurts. If it doesn’t hurt, something’s wrong, Yeah, something happening, and just let you know you’re alive most days. Yeah, yeah, I would you know, to peeyback off that. I think for the most part throughout the year, I used CrossFit to stay in shape and then add on. You know, if we’re doing side Quest, three of us in here are going to do the twenty four hour four man relay on the row in a couple of weeks, and so I’ve added a little extra rowing just because in the years past we’ve I’ve started to add some rowing. What about two or three weeks in.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: I usually do it the day or the day before.
00:12:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So I was like, ah, we know we’re going to be doing it this year, so I’m gonna, you know, six to eight weeks. I’ve been adding some volume. So yeah, I think you just use that as your base of training and then there’s just twenty four hours of how long you can go where you can go. Yeah, basically between we do a four four men really you can yeah also come join round Christmas. We don’t have a date per se yet. Yeah.
00:13:13
Speaker 2: Rogue Fitness puts it on to benefit the Big Fish Foundation. And you can do it as a team of alone or a team of two, team of three, team of four. Okay, So those are the four different divisions.
00:13:24
Speaker 1: We won the three man division two years ago, two years ago US three, and then last year we fell short of the four man division. We think we had a slight malfunction on our equipment, and so this year we’re back for redemption and we do even break it up. We have kind of a weird kind of quasi system we kind of adapted. When we were doing the three men. We started out with just five k’s back and forth, or all three of us in a row, and then at about what at nine ten o’clock because we started at six or seven in the morning, Yeah, something like that, so we’re about thirteen hours in. Fourteen hours in. We quickly realized our pacers drop. So what we did was we paired up kind of and we went twenty five hundreds. Basically, you went four on and then the other partner would kind of overlap into two and then the other partner would overlap into two, so you had a pretty extended rest. So last year what we did was we started out that way with ten minute intervals back and forth. Basically me and Scott paired up and other group paired up and we would go four sets of ten back and forth. They would do four sets of ten and we just keep that going. So you get about you’re on for about two hours, off for about two hours, and so that was you taking a nap, and you get to the middle of the night stuff and I mean, you know this from doing the seal stuff. You just like it’s I hate it, you know, the not sleep part of it. But it’s just we do a twenty four hour mountain bike race in Amarillo in June and it’s a four man relay, and you just you’re so hyped up, you know you might Last year, I don’t think I even got close to sleeping for what twenty four hour row. I think the bike actually for the first time and we’ve done it three or four times, the first time I’d actually fallen asleep for like maybe thirty minutes. I know. It’s almost like a worst makes it works worse. I will say there’s a and I tell this to anybody that I mentor for, like this healed teams. There’s a point in hell week where they let you sleep. But I always tell guys try not to. Try not to because a lot of guys quit when they go to sleep and their body starts to try to recover and you wake up and you get shocked and it is the worst feeling in the world because everything is way more miserable. So I’m like, if you can stay awake, I kind of find it’ll make it through. I kind of peer pressure everybody to stay awake because then it’s more fun. Because if somebody starts to fall asleep, and everybody starts to fall asleep, then you’re like the only one away rolling effects. Yeah, it’s not as much fun. So yeah, I always I’m always Notably, Rory gets pretty upset because Ory can sleep anywhere. Yeah, and he gets pretty mad at me because I’ll just start giving him crap about going to so many teams to do it. We had like eight or ten last year. Yeah, it was probably muster up some old guys to do I’ll do that. Yeah, it’s a twenty four hours near Christmas. Near Christmas we’ll we’ll put you on a group text. I would love to start that out. It’s going to depend on when Ben can do it, really, because we’ll see it. I think usually they open it around December twentieth and then it’s closes at the New Year, so we try to find a week in there. We did it between that, like weird week a couple of years ago, between Christmas and New Years, and then last year before Yeah, last year we did it before kids come and hang out, camp out, you bring your daughter.
00:16:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we did it. We I showed you the gym. We set it up in the athlete facility and so we’ve got a TV. So we’re all set up and you’ve got this TV. So we’ve got football playing or movies or whatever. And then basically the gym once it’s like closed, depending on the day, it’s just a madhouse in there of like kids destroying things.
00:16:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, love it. It’s a good time gym. First year we did Marvel movie relay and it got kind of burnt out on. Last year we did Christmas movies. But then we had foot couples of college football playoff games came on, so that that was pretty and I was it was Notre Dame and I was pretty happy. Yeah, but yeah, it’s a good you know, we always talk about having something to train for or a target or something because or else what’s the point in training, right, you know, like it gets hard. There are good obviously just working out is good, but to have a target or have something to aim for makes training more fun for sure. Yeah, I totally get that. We it’s it got to a certain point when I especially when I got out that I missed that I think honestly, and I know we kind of talked a little bit about what I do for training. The crossfits out of It’s like it gave a little bit of a purpose. Especially when you leave the military. It’s the worst feeling in the world. Which you played college, college baseball, are It’s just one of the things that you leave it. Yeah, or even firefighter, especially fire fires, there’s such a brotherhood and s just a don’t know what do you guys call it? We have our brotherhood and it’s it’s when you leave that and you have nothing, especially moved to a different place, like what do you have? And I’ll be honest, I have a group of guys we call them datur Days, like Saturday morning. We have dads that show up, which I don’t know if you guys do anything here or not. We have probably about twenty five guys that are all dads, a lot of like ex military ry, pro football players, baseball guys that all show up and uh suffer together. Yep. It’s like that’s the camaraderie that we get. That that definitely got missed a lot when when leave the military. Okay, I think that’s what you know. We always I always push people towards CrossFit or and well, and the methodology is great, but also that camaraderie, that community side of it, and just train them with other people and suffering together. Like you’re saying, is you just we were talking about yesterday and the Brisbee podcast. It was like, I, you know, obviously you can do CrossFit by yourself, but it’s not really even CrossFit until you’re doing it with at least one other person, you know, because it’s like you get that shared suffering, you get that push. I’m not gonna go as hard as I would if somebody else is right there one Either I’m you know, don’t want to let them down or I want to beat them either way, and so they’re always a competitive always for sure and going on and so that just that just drives why we do what we do. Yeah, I love it. No, it’s it’s been uh, it’s been really uh refreshing to have guys that want to suffer with you, especially guys that even guys that weren’t military just regular dudes are Like it’s the same mentality I think at a high level, especially for you guys, what you have here, it’s you know, those guys would be willing to suffer with you for a common goal I guess to like obviously be better, but you know, be good acrossmen for the most part. But but having that is is awesome.
00:19:16
Speaker 2: So I feel like we’ve found that a lot with hunting as well, Like the groups will hunt with not to compare to the military, but it’s.
00:19:24
Speaker 1: A similar thing where we hunt.
00:19:26
Speaker 2: It’s a similar people, but like you’re up against the elements or whatever the deal is, and you’re all in the shared suffering.
00:19:36
Speaker 1: You’re all doing it together. So it brings you a lot closer together and builds those bonds and those friendships I think faster than how like if if you and I hadn’t hunted, I don’t think we would have the relationship we we do at the same like speed. Right, So we talked about that on a different podcast. I was saying it was like dog years, you know, like one day is like a week. And because you don’t, you don’t have these distractions, right, You guys have a common goal. You’re working towards something. You gotta you gotta have each other’s back.
00:20:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for you, like when we’re hunting, it’s it’s different, but for you it’s life and death. Like you have to roll like you’re you’re banking your life on those guys.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: Correct it. You literally are making sure the guy next to you on both sides is like that guy is gonna, you know, take care of me, and I’m gonna take care of him kind of thing. But there’s a lot of there’s a lot of intimacy with hunting, with with the military, but especially hunting too. It’s like, like you said, you’re not distracted. It’s like you really are getting bonded with somebody else going out there and suffering for the most part, but like you have that common goal. And that’s just the military in general right there. Now, how long have you been out I’m still in the SIEL reserves. Okay, but what is that? What? Like, what what do you the reserve units more of? Like, honestly, for me, his retirement. So instead of being on active dude anymore, I show up once a month, do some administrative stuff. There might be some training going on. I’ll I used to go out to San Diego more than did Virginia Beach because we have we have two seal reserves of teams, but also the active duty side in Virginia and San Diego. And you do some training, just stay somewhat proficient. The reserves used to be something where they call you up to go active duty that they’re not called We have enough active people that they don’t need us. But for most part for me, it’s retirement benefits that kind of stuff. Yeah, ok so what was your day to day look like? Uhan military stuff? Definitely nothing training though to stay ready. In case for me, it’s just it’s a I actually just saw this thing with Arnold Schwarzenegg where he’s like, I don’t I don’t have a reason to really do it because it’s an addiction. And so now it’s just I’m not a good person if I’m not working out that’s it’s just a fact. It’s like if I don’t do it, I’m kind of a dick. Honestly, It’s like I just need to go do it, and then it’s like okay, now my day can carry on. But I just like being you know, in shape and honestly a lot of it, which obviously our kids are relatively close to the same age. Like I want them to see me. I want them to see my fiance Sam always working out, because then they follow us. It’s like they want to be in the gym. I take the kids to are CrossFit gym. It’s a I’ve ever been to Trivium or not, you know, James uh Free Jamie, and so I go there and bring the kids and it’s like they want to be a part of that kind of stuff. And so for me to see so the house working out, it’s like I want them to have that kind of structure growing up because my dad was military, he was Air Force, but like I didn’t really see him a lot working out the house. It wasn’t you know, there wasn’t house gyms right back then, so they were gone doing whatever they were doing. But now it’s like it’s kind of uh giving them a good amount of structure for what they see growing up. And obviously you know your kid was in here swinging around saying I want them doing that versus like sitting inside playing video games. Like we don’t have any video games. They just aren’t allowed to have them. And so that’s kind of why for me. Yeah, train for stuff. We’ve done some high rocks events, iron Man stuff, Marathon’s that kind of thing, CrossFit events. But it’s like I want the kids to see that kind of stuff and just stay physically ready all the time. Ye love that. Well, where’d you grow up? Again? Dad was Air Force? We moved on all the place I was born in, uh Dayton, no Ohio. I think I lived there for nine days, not positive. And then we moved mostly suburbs of Chicago, Naperville if anybody know where there is. But and then went into college at Belmont Nashville, played soccer there, and then went out to San Diego for for Navy for a decade and then came back to Nashville. What years were you at Belmont? Oh? Four to eight? Okay, a little bit after uh before My buddy you know Judah Judea the line you ever heard of? Them. He went to Belmont he played baseball there. What years he play would have been probably oh nine to probably just missed him, Yeah, missed him. Probably.
00:23:38
Speaker 2: How do you, uh, how did you end up going the Navy route with your dad being air Force?
00:23:43
Speaker 1: Like?
00:23:43
Speaker 2: What made you decide to go a different route than him?
00:23:45
Speaker 1: This is not one of those like patriotic things, to be perfectly honest, I was supposed to play soccer, so like I was in the I got put in the draft my junior year to go play MLS, which I would have been all right, I would have done a few good years, but heart wasn’t in it. I oddly had my college roommate, who was a goalie in our team, have a seal recruiter come to the house and not at the time, I had no idea what that was, but except for like, it’s pretty specialized, Like it seems pretty hard, and I said, I don’t think you can do that, dude, I don’t think that’s like your your thing, and he goes, why don’t you do it? So a year later and it just kind of stuck in my head and I had a buddy of mine, justin who who I think he’d give me a book or I’d seen a book on seal stuff. I’d read it on some like soccer road trips that we had gone to play some other schools and started reading up and I was like all right. And then I’d gotten picked up for like an accounting firm to go work. There didn’t accounting internship, and I was like this sucks, dude, Like accounting sucks. I’m good at numbers. I’m really good at math. Major in accounting, and I realized very quickly, like this is not for me. At twenty one year twenty years old, twenty one years old, I was like, what is the one thing that nobody can give you? Know, like parents couldn’t help you with it, any of that kind of stuff. I’d never thought about the military. And then all of a sudden, I was like, well, seal program seems like the hardest thing I could think of at the time. And that’s when I was like, I’m just gonna walk into the recruiter’s office and and go tell them I want to be a seal. That’s kind of how the whole thing started with there’s no like lifelong ambition to be a seal. And then like blowing stuff up when I was a kid. That’s why it’s a shooting thing. Don’t well?
00:25:12
Speaker 2: And then like did you have to shift? I guess your training and goals then to prepare for that or how did that go down?
00:25:20
Speaker 1: The running aspect was not an issue. It was running sub five minute miles, you know, consecutively four or five miles, and was no issue. I mean that was great. And I was also about forty five pounds a lighter. I mean college I was the same hype, but one hundred and seventy pounds, like just could run all day, could not lift a thing. I just wasn’t a strong person. Never grew up lifting, and uh once I got out of college, done with soccer. Oddly, my senior year I played college tennis just I walked on, which is so random. So I technical claim in two sport athletes, but I don’t. I don’t ever really claimed the tennis part. But it just turned into like I need to learn to swim. I was good at diving boards, doing flips and stuff, hugging myself off cliffs and everything, but not long distance swimming. And I had to watch YouTube like figure out how to swim the seal way, like combat side show breaststroke all that kind of stuff, and uh, I think it was Stu Smith had a video and if you ever heard of that guy, but he was like one of the original Seals to run or do like a video. I followed his thing, had to figure out on my own. Worked at a gym in Brentwood or Franklin, whatever it was, and uh, I would spend like three am before the gym opened. They’d let me go in and swim. I would. I worked at the gym for about eight months, didn’t drink, didn’t do anything. I just I trained all day long with some like UFC guys, some of the National Predators guys all went there. It’s like, what are you guys doing that will make me stronger? And figure it out? And then it just turned into like thousands of push ups a day, thousands of flutterkicks, swimming, running. That was about it. And I like CrossFit wasn’t a thing back then, back in eight oh nine, Like I didn’t know about it, and uh, but guys were doing like functional fitness and I was like, Okay, well, surely that’ll help. I don’t know anything about it, didn’t know any seals, didn’t know anything about it. And uh, and then I just had to, you know, keep practicing the test to get in. So yeah, just kind of shipped that did you feel prepared? I mean, I’m sure no matter what, it’s a system shock, But did you feel prepared at all when you started doing things? I? Yes, I did. I got super addicted to it. I mean I was so focused on, like, I don’t care what anybody tells me to do. I don’t care what you want to do. This is what I’m doing every day until I get asked to go leave, Like you know, the Navy’s gonna like, hey, you’re in now. But I ran so much and I swam so much that when I got in, I knew that my times were faster than what they expected on the high end. I was like, I’m going to beat the fastest times that they want us to do so that I know when i’m just exhausted, that way, my body will still be able to do it. And so I knew when I got in, I’ll be prepared. But you’re still in a shock when you get there, Like, holy shit, dude, this is rough, Like it is very hard that they surprise you very quickly. It’s just complete. It’s chaos. There’s hundreds of people there. God, but you’re like everybody that shows up is the best person from where they’re at, the best high school football player, baseball player, soccer player, college, whoever it might be. And then you get humbled real quick because I was fast, but then there was like Naval Academy officers who are like triathletes that weigh one hundred and forty five pounds. You’re like that kick can run, you know, like I was always top three to five for everything we did. But being on the slightly bigger side and taller side, it’s just your little disadvantage. But I but I definitely felt prepared to sip. But also when you get like hunting, you get cold, things change. Yeah, when you get wet things and cold, things change then and you’re completely sandy from head to toe in everything and wet all day long, things change. My hell week was in the wintertime, so it oddly snowed in San Diego. Our shaved heads were like slightly crispy from like get icing over and everything. And I do remember at one point, because I had done this living in Franklin, day like today were it’s cold. I remember sitting in the water by myself at like three in the morning and looking up in the sky, dead ass quiet out there, and then that flashback happened. When I got to training, I was like, I do this by myself, Like, surely I can do with other guys that are suffering. So that shared suffering that you have with other guys when you’re hunting, it’s the same thing. Like that guy’s miserable too, but he’s not quitting, so why would I quit? So that’s kind of where I knew what I was prepared for because I had done so much to get ready for it. By yourself, by myself.
00:29:28
Speaker 2: Is it hard during that week because there are people quitting to see, like does it motivate you to not quit?
00:29:33
Speaker 1: Or are you?
00:29:34
Speaker 2: Like, man, that guy’s going to.
00:29:35
Speaker 1: Be controversial, But I loved it. I would listen for that bell to ring. It was the best sound in the world, because you’re like, that means I’m better than another guy, And I would pick somebody that was close to me, right like I pick you, And I’m like, that guy’s so good at everything he’s been doing up to this point, but when he quits, I’m like, dude, I’m better than that guy. And I’ll pick you, you know, like he’s better than me and all this stuff. Okay, well if he’s still here, why would I leave? I know I’m pretty close. But then you quit, I’m like, who’s the next guy to watch to make sure that I don’t quit because I know that I’m close to them, or they’re suffering, whatever it might be. So I love the bell, it’s the best. But I’ve never rung a bell since I got the Navy, and I won’t won’t do it no ever, No PR Bill, No, I don’t do PR bells because that’s the sound to quit and buds. Yeah, yeah, that’s what I figured. Yeah, yeah, well night PR and anything anymore. Yeah.
00:30:25
Speaker 2: It’s like the ultimate gathering of like alpha males and then some of them are breaking.
00:30:30
Speaker 1: I mean it really is. Again, you have a lot of guys that show up that are the best from where they’re at, and they have that in their head, and then they get humbled quick because of how bad it really is what you’re doing.
00:30:44
Speaker 2: It’s kind of like here, like when you get close to the Games and you’ve got ten, twelve, fifteen Games athletes training and they’re all the best in the world that CrossFit, but they have different things that they’re good at, and it’s great for them to train together because you know, different people are winning each workout such.
00:31:03
Speaker 1: A virtual too. Yeah yeah, well maybe training together exactly, but it’s yeah, same concept and everyone’s getting better from that environment. But you can see some people start to break people.
00:31:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, there’s definitely a limit.
00:31:15
Speaker 1: You know, like yeah, oh yeah, for sure, Yeah, you can that last probably six weeks leading up to the games. A lot of people, you know, I wouldn’t say they physically get burnout, but mentally they get burnout. Right after the games, you can just tell, or right at the games, you can tell. Does anybody here ever not, I would say, how do they say? Is not win all of the workouts when they’re training, when they get to the games, they do better than they expected. Yes, yeah, yeah, there’s definitely game day athletes like Angelo is like one of the I would say, like, you’re a game day athlete, but you’re also very fit in training, which he’s not not fit in training, but but he’s substantially the difference between practice and playing for him is a huge difference. It’s crazy, he’s an Alan Iverson, But yeah, you have some practice. We just have some people that completely they get in get under the pressure situation, they either go out too hot, they they feed off everybody else. They well, there’s a difference in feeding off everybody else and else. Yeah, I’m gonna yeah, there’s like a there’s a fine line right where I fed off of everybody else’s competition. Some people feed off of everybody else and they get either you know, scared, or they they just make stupid mistakes where they go outside you know, what they’re either capable of or what their strategy was, and it’s just you just you find a lot about like I’m sure you did in high pressure situations, you find out a lot about people. And then once you really like you know, after you’ve been in those real life life or death situations, you know when not to say, you know, I had a couple of firefighting incidents that were life and death situations. Those were so far removed from when I competed that, but you realize that, oh, it’s not really that big of a deal. You know, it’s a competition, which is a huge deal because some people, you know, it’s their livelihood, but it also isn’t life and death like the situations you’ve probably been livelihood makes a big difference. And yes, it’s not your life or death situation, but it is your livelihood. If you’re relying on competing as your livelihood, that pressure can eat you alive or fuel you, which seems like it’s fueled you a little bit, but it’s also eating people alive. And it’s the same for us where guys have so much immense pressure under themselves because you’re in the military now you don’t have any rights, you know, like you’re at the mercy of the military. So whether it’s green berets or seal teams or anything or any specialized stuff, it’s your livelihood. It’s also your life. So it’s like, well, if you don’t make this, you’re stuck in the military. For the most part. Some guys are able to get out, which I don’t know how, but I don’t think they should. I think they should suffer the attach if you quit, especially if you get hurt. It’s different, like they might let you out. Well, don’t you sign up and have a separate like job that you can fall back to. Yeah, mine was mine was Corman. Well, I told my recruiter this is odd because my recruiter found me years ago. And I think I was the first person out of Brentwood, Tennessee to actually make it and he’s like, no one’s ever made it here. He found me years ago and he’s like, you’re the only person that you know. I think there’s more now. Yeah, but uh, but a lot of a lot of guys was a question saying I got off track on that one.
00:34:26
Speaker 2: I don’t remember.
00:34:29
Speaker 1: It was livelihood, livelihood. We were talking about livelihood. We were talking about high stress situations and guys kind of cracking under the pressure, right, And so you had a recruiter that found you. You had a recruiter that found I got off the track on that one. I don’t remember where we were going, but either where you were going, yeah, but the high high stress situations that you’re talking about livelihood and how the parallel I picked Corman, But at the time I told the guy said, I don’t have another reason to get into the Navy right now. I just want to be in the seals. But a lot of guys fall back, That’s what it was. So a lot of guys fall back on, well, I can go do this instead, And that’s already what screws you over because you’re like well I’m safe on this part. And I told the guys like, I don’t want to pick anything else. You’re like, well, you have to to sign up for the name because you can’t pick seal. I think you can now. I think you’re allowed to pick seals, like the reason you get in. If you don’t make it, they send you whatever they want wherever the needs of the Navy are or army of whatever you’re doing. But for me, I was like, I don’t I don’t want to plan B Like this is the only option that I want to go in. I had so many guys that were elite junior Olympians that quit because it got too cold. And it gets cold, it’s visible. But a lot of guys are like, I’m gonna miss my family. Well, no shit, you’re sealed, Like you want to be a seal, Like you’re gone two hundred and eighty three hundred days a year. Yeah. On average, it’s like, well, of course you don’t miss your family, but now you’re gonna be on a ship the most part, Like you’re not even gonna be around them at all. It’s like, at least we come home every now and then and we see our families. But when guys had that plan B, it makes it so much easier for them to quit. But then their life is just completely shifted. Word for CrossFit for competition. I don’t know, because I haven’t been to your level. But you shouldn’t have a plant be, like, you should go all in on this and don’t think of, well, if I just don’t do as good as this one, it’s okay. It’s like I have a plan B. Like, don’t have a plan BE for go all in on it. I didn’t have a plan B competing, you know. My plan B was like, oh, I’ll go back to the fire department, you know, and get a real job and so. But my goal was to win the crossweak And we always joke that people have their plan B or their their pocket excuse for oh, well I went into this competition and had this injury and whatever. You know, everybody has an injury, always has their excuse. Everybody has an injury, right or.
00:36:41
Speaker 2: Everyone wants balance.
00:36:42
Speaker 1: Everybody wants balance. Yep, you gotta have balance. Another one. Yeah, balance isn’t if you want to be the best in the world at anything, there’s no balance, right, you know, Like you have to be obsessed. You have to be all in, you have to be hyper focused on that one thing. And that’s the only way. There’s no like, I’m gonna balance my family with you know, my work life and competition or my you know, my headspace or you know, my you know, there’s just just a different world. What’s the biggest thing that suffered for you when you got to your like initiate, I’d say relationships for sure, you know, like you know, I’m not I wouldn’t say that, I’m not proud of it. You know, my relationship with my wife. You know, there were times where we wouldn’t go to like we wouldn’t do extra family stuff because it was before I had kids. And that’s why I stepped away, was because I knew I couldn’t couldn’t be a dad and a present dad and still compete as an individual. You know, like family gatherings, I’d either sneak out early and go out and hit the rower or you know, whatever machine I was doing in the barn, or you know, we wouldn’t go on trips, or I would take equipment with me on trips or just different things. And yeah, relationships for sure. And then yeah, you’re just hyper focused on that like every day I woke up, it was when the Crossby games, Like, I’m sure for you is be the best seal. Yeah, relationships suffer. Yeah, I mean I think we have the highest of arge rate of any of the military’s is because because we’re gone so much, it seems great on paper, but then you’re gone so much when you’re saying it off if you are I again, same thing mentor kids, I’m like, if you’re a relationship, it’s not gonna work. Don’t be, especially if you’re young. Don’t be because if you are truly committed to what it entails for seal or high level anything, it is very difficult. Something’s going to suffer if you really want to do it, because if you have this mindset of like, well I can balance it all, you can’t. It’s not possible, especially in the seal community, because you’re just not there, not a present dad. And that was another reason why I want to step away at a certain point, because I had my daughter, let’s see, in twenty sixteen, and then got out in twenty nineteen, so there’s no way to be present. You’re there for a couple of days, a couple of weeks. Maybe training might be in San Diego training, but usually we’re gone somewhere else. You’re just not there, and so you have to have either a somebody at home that can completely live her own life and be comfortable with that, truly comfortable or not. There’s no in between gray area with that. It’s like if you want to be at a high level, especially in a specialized community in the military, because you’re just not around, it’s it’s very difficult. Suffers a lot. So what are you doing now with Navy Seal Foundation official team? Maybe the Seal Foundation. Yeah, so they put on a lot of events and it’s kind of one of those be one of the faces for it. Try to look good for them. Yeah yeah, yeah, and uh race kiss babies. Yeah, absolutely. So there’s a lot of functions, golf, golf outings, marathon type stuff. My grandparents ran a country club when I was a kid, and so I spent a lot of summers golfing. I don’t do it as much anymore, but the Sea Foundation puts on good golf events, and so I used to go to quite a bit of them to not embarrass them. I can. I can play, just don’t do it as much anymore, but I but I do enjoy it, just hasn’t been as frequent as it used to. But again, they’re putting on you know, the running events and swim events all that kind of stuff, so it’s fun to go do those. It’s gonna be a phase for it, and he’ll braise money. Yeah, do you hunt much it’s been a while in a while. Yeah, I got my my buddy logan. I think he’s trying to get us to go out a little more often. He’s he’s a big elk hunter. Okay, just did uh, let’s see three forty six x seven. That’s just got that. Yeah. I think he took his wife their anniversary the first time she’s gone on it, and she loved it, so got her. I don’t know if she’s addicted to it yet, but I think he enjoyed. So he’s trying to get He’s got some land a little bit south of us that he brings us out to some dove hunt and something like that. But I think we’re all going to try to do a big elk hunt. You’d love it, manly, yeah, if you like obviously like suffering and being miserable, but also but it’s fun, it’s it’s core memories. Yeah, core memories with the with the boys for the most part of girls if you guys bring them along, but it’s just core memories of that kind of stuff. It’s super enjoyable. Yeah, especially too if like we’ve talked about this before where I both of us fall in this category where archery is like more fun to us, and like I think we nerd out a little bit more on bows than guns. But maybe with your background, like rifle hunting might be your thing and you’re just nerd out on the aspects the rifle hunting. Man. I just I think I like elk hunting so much because even archery is a group. You know, you got you work in a team. You work, you know, you’re got to interactive too. It’s interactive, you’re gonna have somebody call for you, like guys do it calling for themselves. But it’s way more, way higher success rate when you’re working in a team, and it’s just more fun. Man. I A lot of these guys going these pure solo hunts and it’s just not It just does not sound fun to me. And so you know we were talking about yesterday, I was gonna go out and just sit in the tree and the bow hunt, archery hunt. It is muzzleoder hunt season here in Tennessee. And so the fact that Trice, you know, was out of school and didn’t really uh, him and Hillary weren’t getting along great. So I said, hey, I’ll take him out, and me and Trice just sat out there and ended up getting a dough right before dark. And he was fired up, you know, and so just having him, yeah, he he’ll he’ll sit with me. He he loves squirrel hunting. He’s like a little squirrel dog. He’s afraid of the We have a crossbow. I bought them a crossbow this year just so they could go sit archery season. He just didn’t. Uh, he’s afraid of it. Like the way it kicks. He’ll shoot twenty two. But that man, that crossbow is aggressive. Yeah, and I’d never shot one or seen one shot and uh, man, that things it’s rowdy. Have you seen it shoot yet?
00:42:24
Speaker 2: I shot it?
00:42:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s it’s for Is it for kids? No? It’s an okay, but you know, as you set it up on something. My my youngest, she’s seven, she loves shooting it, but my older two are afraid of it. So Trice, I think he would shoot rifle seasons in two weeks and so I think I’ve got ah yeah, and I think he’ll shoot him and Lakeland my oldest in Violet too. So Violet is not afraid of anything. And my daughter’s got a little twenty two that my my best friend’s got her for Christmas. And I set up in the back of my tahoe or I had a little hide sight, like old sniper hide side whose shoes. I was like, is what daddy used to kind of get involved because she didn’t know for a long time. When I what I used to do and everything. I was like, all right, we’re gonna drop this down, like you’re gonna behind cover and all that stuff. And she’s I got steel set up for hanging it. So he started pinging. She’s like, I like this. I like this for something else. Some squirrels kind of thing she really enjoys. And we try to do that because we’ve got some my dad got some land out and closer to where we live that uh, there’s turkeys out there and there’s squirrels that run around, so like we go out there and have some fun with it.
00:43:25
Speaker 2: So yeah, probably have some deer there too.
00:43:28
Speaker 1: A lot of deer.
00:43:28
Speaker 2: There’s there’s like an overpopulation of deer in the whole Nashville area.
00:43:33
Speaker 1: Like you need to have a Navy Seal foundation out there and an event we’ve been talking about. We’ve been talking about. Yeah, we’ve got a group of guys up here, probably an hour from here. We went out to their farm and they they do some wounded warrior heads hunts, and man, it’s it would be awesome. He’s gonna I think we’re gonna like Guide one in December at some point. My guide You just take them out to the blind and sit there and talk. But it’s all winded. Were Yeah, he forget which one they work with, but one of the wounded vents groups. That’ll be awesome for sure. Yeah, it’d be it’d be cool. So it’d be a lot of fun. We’ll have to get involved with it. Yeah, that’d be awesome. Elk hunt though, I think you’d love especially you know, it’s very white tail hunting is an acquired taste of We finally kind of acquired the taste for it. I guess needs to be some high traffic, needs to be more of a meat hunt than anything. Like I’m not super selective. I’m pretty bad at that out to you guys hunting, Uh, archery, we were. We went on two archery elk hunts, so six seven days each and then we went on a five day rifle hunt back in October. In October, so we we hunted quite a bit. You guys, I think you asked me earlier, do you shift your training for Yes? And no? Yeah, yeah, So I mean i’ll uh once again, I stayed pretty pretty well rounded throughout the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll do you know, I’ll peak for a CrossFit event. I did three events this fall, all summer, one in July, one in August, one in October, and so about six eight weeks out, I’d just kind of specialize on what the movements we were going to be doing there or just CrossFit pure stuff, and then i’d add StairMaster at a lot of sled pushes. But I mean, some of the best years I had in the mountains and still are the years that I competed at the CrossFit games. You know, there’s a high level of crossover. You just got to get a little bit more time on your feet, get your traps used to carrying a rock. So I’ll do lower back, lower back gets lit up calves now, but we got the stair Master’s. StairMaster is great, but I’ve heard good things about Jacob’s ladder just hours on that.
00:45:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, how uh what kind of equipment did you guys have at your disposal when you’re on deployment?
00:45:42
Speaker 1: Oh, it depends on where we are. Yeah, if if we were at a like a bigger fob that somebody else owned, like the army or something like that, or at least we’re flying out of there, they would have a full set up road obviously, you know, Yeah, take care of it. Places that we were stuck in might be fifteen to twenty of us in a location or piecing together. There some uneven you know, platforms and and some bars that don’t spin at all. The neuralinks can pally gone. You’re you’re working out next to a conn X box kind of thing, so just out on gravel. Sometimes we’ll make make shift stuff that we’re making, but for the most part, you can you can get it in. So guys are usually too tired. Yeah, which is tough, but you’re at least doing a little bit doing any kind of high level CrossFit’s tough.
00:46:27
Speaker 2: Were you trying to train a lot to like pass the time or stay ready or anything, or is it mostly.
00:46:31
Speaker 1: When I was in Yeah, so be perfectly honest, we don’t. We don’t have a test when we’re in. They tried to put a program in at one point, like a SEAL standardized test, but it didn’t really it didn’t really work because for the most part, unless you’re sitting in the office in your high level admiral or something like that, like you’re constantly working out, especially when you’re home, especially when you’re getting ready for deployment. On deployment, a lot of mobility stuff, if you can. Everybody’s tight everbody’s got torn shoulders, everybody’s got torn labor rooms, ankle are busted, something like that. Knees are are wrecked, hips are wrecked. So you’re trying to just get through some movement, do a little bit of crossway type stuff. But there’s not like any kind of real competition stuff between guys most of the time. So it’s it’s tough for that.
00:47:11
Speaker 2: But it’s trying to stay healthy.
00:47:13
Speaker 1: It’s best you can, Yeah, it’s best you can healthy. Yeah, probably a bunch of mobility, yeah, yeah, you’re just on your feet all the time, you know, and how much weight do you carry around like normal day, Oh, I mean super dependent on what you’re caring, whether you’re carrying a scar, if you’re carrying your rifle, what you carry first deployment forty eight, so you got the most weight. It’s usually the bigger guys. And by that time I was I was around at the time six two three. Yeah, you’re carrying most of the most of the weight. Guys will carry some boxes amo for you, but you have the load. And so basically like the patrol is dictated on you or who the slowest person is is typically the the a up guys, the pig gunners. And so you’re just sitting back there with you know and carrying weight and hugging or rocking it along, and uh, guys up front are just cruising, you know, pointing and just coasting along. It’s like gonna sloot out of buddy, you know, deal with that. The big guy just gets screwed. I mean, the little guys are gonna be even slower, you know. It’s we have our advantage. I’ve always noticed it, which is odd. I always feel like the Green Beret guys, the SF guys are always like more of the same size for some reason seals. We have one of my officers who’s one of the the best seals I know, was like one hundred and forty five pounds cross country runner. You’re just not going to carry weight. Yeah, it’s like, I’m I’m almost a foot taller than this guy. You’re carrying the weight, buddy, you know, like, especially a new guy’s like there’s really no options a new guy, You’re carrying the weight unless you’re a corman, then you can do all the medical stuff. But the bigger guys always gonna get more weight, and it’s like just deal with it. So then you’re usually the one, especially in training they put down first, like all carry the big guy now, so right. We had one kid, we called him hod Or. He was six foot nine, two hundred and sixty five two hundred seventyounds. I put him through training. I was like, you’re a disservice to us, you know, like you’re too big, bro, Like you gotta get out here. But you made it. He wouldn’t do it, but no, he was. He was a great, great asset of the teams. But he’s just such a big dude. Yeah, it’s tough.
00:49:11
Speaker 2: So I love the game of Thrones inspired.
00:49:14
Speaker 1: This is funny. So I was a buzz instructor for two years. I loved it. I loved everything about it. I’m not a I don’t scream, I don’t yell, but I definitely like hit people’s heads. I’m very subtle, mostly monotone, and and and and kind of get in your head. And I was a dive instructors. The second phase your past Hell Week, all that kind of stuff, all the mess around games, but you’re in the water all the time, which is a whole nother mind game. I would rather do Hell Week over again than pool comp I don’t know if you pol I know enough like I went. It’s where we try to We don’t try to drown you, but we get you very close, we get you very uncomfortable in the water.
00:49:47
Speaker 2: What’s the like, how does that go? What’s the process for that for for the.
00:49:52
Speaker 1: Water suffer buds in general? The pool Once you pass first phase of like six or seven weeks, Hell Week the main So for reference, I had two hundred and twenty guys to start. We finished. We graduated with thirty six of that. Five of us. It was our first time doing it. Everybody else had been to buds before rolled quit, gone to the fleet, come back, and so there’s only five of us that have made it through the first time. Once you pass that, you go to the dive phase where you learn water competency, so like they put you on scuba tanks twent eighties. You get comfortable with it, learn how to breathe underwater, die for stuff, all that kind of thing. Then you go to our dragger system, which is a rebreather and so there’s no bubbles. That’s how we sneak up on ships and all that kind of stuff, and you learn instructors are just tying your hoses up, trying to strangle you underneath the water, getting you hypoxic to where you’re just not thinking straight. And so underwater it’s way different because on land you’re fine, but once you can’t breathe, your life flashes before your eyes. Just like what do I do? Either freak out or I have to figure out a way very quickly, like in a competition, like I am at my red line right now, what do I do? But you pass a series of tests in the pool where you follow certain just structure like order right, check your straps, check your jvalve, turn on your air in a certain sequence, and if you don’t do it, and it’s like, okay, well, I’m gonna test you again. You got to do exactly what you’re supposed to do. If you don’t do it again, okay, well it’s another HiT’s like while panicking while not breathing. And so I used to watch the kids. As soon as they would breathe out I can see it, especially in the twin eighties, and as soon as they would breathe all their air out ready to breathe in, I would close off everything and tie them up, flip them around, take off all their straps and everything, because that’s when you see the panic set in. It’s like, how long can you operate underwater with no air, which is not pretty long without freaking out because if you bolt to the surface after breathing that you get an age, which is arterial gas embolism. You’re gonna be sitting in a chamber ride for six hours and decompress you to bring you back down because you get basically an airboble on in your brain kill you. So that’s the real dark side of like the pool stuff. But it’s to simulate being in the ocean and diving in there, which is a whole different beat. It’s the worst thing. It’s dark, scary. And then the sea state when that starts fluctuating you and bringing up and down, that can also do it if you’re not breathing properly. It’s like you have to learn to control that. But I but I love the buds side of it’s like train the kids to like learn to be really uncomfortable and see how they operate, because then you’re like, Okay, this kid can handle some stress. Because first phase is working out. It’s a it’s the best boy scout camp in the world. Like you learn some cool stuff with somebodies that want to suffer. But it’s just a workout all day long. You get to eat, you eat as much as you possibly can, and then you’re back to working out. There’s no in between time. But then it’s like once you pass that and you get a second phase, how well can you stay uncomfortable and control it. That’s where then we start to learn, like who’s who’s ready for this so well?
00:52:47
Speaker 2: I feel like some people when they’re in that situation, they panic. It’s just like hunting when you’re about to kill something. The situation arises. Some people, they panic some people. When that moment comes, everything slows down and there’s like a moment of clarity almost sports, yeah, sports, hunting, those situations and the people where everything slows down, they’re the ones that are going to excel in any of the situation.
00:53:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, thrive in it. Yeah, I think for it might be for hunting as well, but for us, it’s like the guys that really control that are very good operators. It’s like that’s kind of their calm. The chaos is call me. So, whether it’s hunting or competition, it’s like there’s it is chaotic right now. I know I’m in a bad place, but how well can I control this? And that’s that’s how he knows who’s going to control what you can control absolutely as you can’t. And I think on a different level, but having gone through fire school and then done some training, different training, whatever you want to call programs or stuff, we do confined spaces training and breathing air and all that, and he’s a smoke trailer and guys messing with your stuff or you’ve got all these entanglements or whatever, and you know it’s it. You really find out who who can kind of chill out, like you’re saying, and slow stuff down, or who just goes straight to panic? You know, because we used to have well we had the SCBA, and it like when you’re down to about I forget what percentage, it start dinging, right, so it’s letting you know, hey, you only have a certain amount of alarm be alarm bell and it’s just ding and that starts creeping in your head. And you’re going through this maze trailer and then there’s one point you got to get through like a I want to say, like a sixteen inch tube, So you got to take your seba off and it goes in front of you and then you’ve got to like slowly go through this pipe. And I remember a guy he ran out of air in the pipe and it was like full panic. You know, what do you do in that situation? Because this is training, right, this is training, and we’re outside and we could kind of hear it and then you hear him go I’m stuck. I’m stuck. And so luckily on that part of the confined spaces training, there’s like a little latch that you could pull that tube out. So we like pulled the tube out and pulled him out of the tube. You know. Luckily it was completely controlled situation, but it was a yeah. But we had a guy just in fire school, and you know, it was a maze trailer but you know it’s it was wide, you know, it like it wasn’t that confined space, and he just would not go through it. And they were like, we’re gonna fail him if he can’t go through it. And he was one of our guys from our city, and so me and another buddy one he was ex military Air Force, and uh, it makes sense he would get no. No, my other buddy that getting other buddy that helped he would get He was in front and I was behind, and anytime this guy would get hung up, he’d pull him and I’d just like just push him with my head and we got him through it. But he was that close to quitting fire school, which nowhere near the same, you know, but just could not go through. Some guys just get hung up on just one certain thing. And I’m sure you saw it where it’s just like you just you can’t have that in those situations though, because then you become a liability, not only to the people you’re trying to like help or save or protect, but also your your team. It’s it’s one hundred percent you being able to make it through, which seemingly is a simple task. Yeah, if they can’t handle that, what else can they not handle? Yeah, and it’s it’s very scary for that. I remember one Air Force guy, he was a PJ so Special Operations Air Force, but he tried to come through a seal program smartest can be, super smart guy, perfectly fluent in Spanish, just to slightly overweight, you know, regular white guy, and yeah, lights out on everything. But we get to the CQC house. This guy could not figure out how to operate in the house quickly, live fire at the tempo that we needed him to, and he got dropped from the program as a as a PJ. Like he’s one of the smartest dudes in the military as a PJ Medical Side, Special Operations Air Force, but could not keep pace on a very simple set of tasks for like it’s just a floing rooms. Especially when he got to like four man, six man, eight man teams are like, dude, what do you do? Like what’s going on? Rolled him back because they wanted to get him in, couldn’t handle it, got at like, dude, do you.
00:57:01
Speaker 2: Think people that can’t handle those situations are Is that something you’re just born with or not? Or do you think it’s like a learned thing, like whether it’s panicking in competition or panicking in those moments? Can you can you get better at that?
00:57:14
Speaker 1: I think maybe exposure to it, Yeah, I think it. I don’t know if you’re I don’t know if you’re born with that, because I know plenty of guys that are in the teams that are just definitely not born with anything. Yeah, but I mean dumb as rocks. However, they learn it. And I almost think if you’re a clean slate and have no prior experience on things, you can be taught how to do well. There’s plenty kids that come out of high school, especially back in the day for the seal teams, that don’t have any life experience, but they’re taught how to shoot, how to move, how to communicate, all that kind of stuff, so they learn it. But I think if you have any kind of like preconceived notions of how to do things, you’re already kind of messed up on what you’re gonna do. Yeah, those people don’t have to relearn Yeah, there’s there’s that, and I think guys that know too much that can’t learn, especially the PJ guy. It’s like he had his set of operations for what he was doing with the Air Force, but like he couldn’t get past a certain way of doing it with us, which is a lot faster and a lot more difficult. I think he had a difficult time too, So like you can I don’t know if you can be born with it, but I definitely think you can be taught it. Because when you screen for Damn Neck or Green Team, they’re like, hey, we’re gonna crawl walk round like we do with everything else the sealed teams, there’s gonna be a lot faster. But if you think that you already know how to do it, they’re saying, just do this. If you do anything outside of what we’re telling you to do, you’re not gonna make it. Just do what we tell you to do. Don’t think of anything else, Which is why I’m like, if you’re a clean slate, you’re good to go. Yeah, you can just be taught. So your guy that can’t get through it’s like settlem now, dude, Yeah, just do this procedure. It’s all you gonna do, relax, I think about anything else. If you can relax, you’re gonna be all right. But most guys cannot get out of their own head.
00:58:45
Speaker 2: Do you think that’s the hardest part of getting in?
00:58:49
Speaker 1: Is that? Right?
00:58:50
Speaker 2: There is there something else that holds a lot.
00:58:52
Speaker 1: I think most of it’s mental because most guys come in physically ready. Some guys might be under But for the most part, if you can’t get out of your own head, you’re screwed. That’s that’s really what it comes down to. Like again, we talked about this, you’re you’re all suffering. Just keep going. For the most part, for the most part, you’re not gonna die. We’ve had some casualties in training, but you’re not gonna like we’re there to make you survive or just gonna get you really close. You’re gonna know like this is not great. The guys can’t get out of their own head, and they start thinking about other things like what if it’s like, well, you’re screwed, you’re done because we know that, we can see it in your eyes.
00:59:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that probably translates over to actual deployment too. It’s probably more mental than physical deployment. Itself, deployment itself.
00:59:41
Speaker 1: You’re a robot. You just you’ve trained so much that it’s it’s almost calculated, Like I’m not gonna compare it to AI, but like you just know what you kind of know what to do. Now there’s situations that you’ve never planned for, but you’ve done so much training that it just kind of kicks in. You kind of get into that zone of like, one, we don’t we know how to pivot from whatever we’re doing. A workout goes wrong, how do I pivot? How do I make this more advantageous for me than just suffering my own head? Yeah, like making it worse than it actually is. So yeah, it’s it’s thank you. You gotta get him on an elk hunt. Yeah.
01:00:18
Speaker 2: I would seeing our buddy Matt when he sees it out and like the panic that sets in. It’d be so funny to like put that up against like you in that situation or anyone that’s you know, done some real stuff and then it’s like probably like a like a robot, right, like you’re talking about being prepared. It’d be it’d be so interesting to see.
01:00:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you guys use Harry monitors. I’ve got whoop, but I don’t really. One of the coolest things ever we do, and I’m sure they still do, is that we go into when they take us int the CQC house, especially depend on where your training. We have a facility outside of close to Memphis. I was gonna say Memphis Bridges used to come up and hang out when he would go there. That place. They would put Harry monitor heart rate monitors on us and they would watch your heart rate as soon as you enter the building, and for the most part, a lot of guys their heart rate would go down because outside of it there’s no chaos. Inside of it, there’s chaos, but they teach us, for the most part, to lower your heart rate. You’re not like consciously thinking like I need a little heart rate, but that’s where your calm is. It’s like, I’m going in and I love this stuff. I love seq s like it’s the best. It’s so much fun. If you love shooting, you love clearing rooms, you love shooting at people, whatever it might be, that’s the best because you get in there like I love this, Okay, now now I’m in a good place. It’s like you just go through your flow. Whatever you’re doing. It’s like they would watch your heart rate get lower because you’re in the chaos, and so it’s kind of like being able to control it. That’s insane. It’d be awesome, it’s cool, but I’m curious, your buddy. Put them on a heart rate monitor and see what happens when.
01:01:50
Speaker 2: You it’s probably two five yeah, man.
01:01:54
Speaker 1: Which is funny because he was a firefighter for a while too. Good friend of mine. But we get him in any type of stressful situation.
01:02:01
Speaker 2: I mean last year, we were out hunting and it was me, Rich, one other guy, and this guy, Matt, and we saw this bowl, what a thousand yards off maybe it’s.
01:02:11
Speaker 1: Probably a mile, yeah, and then we closed about twelve.
01:02:15
Speaker 2: We were together because we hike a little quicker, and we closed the distance down to like four five hundred yards, but we had to go up on this finger. And by the time he gets there, he is so worked up and out of breath and panicking that the bull’s right there. He’s like riches, Riches, like.
01:02:31
Speaker 1: Set, I set up the tripod, I got his range, I told him his ma, and he’s trying to talk to him. He’s like, I can’t hear, I can’t hear you. My heart’s beating in my ears, like he just could not what’s my range? What’s my range? I wish we could put the full video out because the time a time at least of the full thing. Yeah, because it was just chaos. It was awesome. But yeah, I mean Hunts has been on a bunch. He grew up out here whitetail hunting. He’s just never he signed an ELK three or four times, only been in those situations.
01:03:01
Speaker 2: I guess, Well, that’s why I was interested to Well, that’s why I asked about, like if you can train that, because there’s a lot of people that listen to this podcast where they have target panic, so maybe they’re bow hunting and what comes out and or target panic or just the jitters where they start shaking so much like Jason, the arrow is literally about to come out of the rest because they’re shaking so much.
01:03:22
Speaker 1: At that bucks, I get the shakes before, but as soon as I draw, I’m fine. Right. Yeah, Like for you, I think you’ve been in so many situations with high level athletics or firefighting or whatever, like well like the rich Chada Bowl and Idaho last year, and like didn’t even the last like minute or two minutes before you didn’t even remember what happened. I don’t remember, like I black out a little bit of Like, so you go just fall back. You default to what you know exactly what you’re saying you’re training. You just default to those For me and archery, you know, I find my anchor points. Yeah, I find where I’m gonna shoot, and I shoot and then I forget about it.
01:03:56
Speaker 2: And he’s like, I don’t even know what the range was. But then we I have video of it and he ranges the spot. You see him like move his sight around whatever. So he’s doing all the things, but after the fact has no clue. But you’re in a flow.
01:04:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, you default the training. So it’s like, how hard is your training? Are you training the right way for it? And are you training past what you think is going to happen on deployment, on operation, on a hunt. It’s like, are you training past are you training past that? For crossway games? Yeah? Are you training harder than what you expect to happen in the games, Because if you are, your default will be better than most people, which is what you want. Do you train any like tactical game type stuff? I don’t do a ton of tactical games. We’ll we make up our own stuff here. We do a lot of like high heart rate shooting archery, which is where I think you can heavy weight stuff buddy, for sure, like you can learn. We could give him a moving target, you get him to work out or just throw like a clay across the ground or something like that. He not, but I mean he’s a good shot, like some like one of the best shots I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t work out a ton, which is a huge or at all, and so that’s a huge detriment to it. I mean, I think it’s just that hard, right, he gets that right up. He can’t bring it down. He doesn’t. He’s outside of what you know. He shoots a ton, but it’s calm, well you know, kind of no rangy. Yeah, yeah, exactly, And so he just grew up around it. But you see stress courses. Stress do a ton of tress courses. Yep. That’s that’s really what it is. Like I just can’t get him to stress, but we I mean, you get him out here working the buffalo, he’ll stress and front We race cars every once in a while, and he’s full panic in there too, where you’re just like, dude, calm down. But it’s good. You race cars. Yeah, that’s a long story. You heard of twenty four hours of Lemons. So basically, take a crappy car and you go race it at a racetrack for eight hours on a Saturday on Sunday. It’s it’s like beaters, like old ish you can you’re supposed to like isn’t anymore. It’s an LS swapped early two thousands BMW. It’s it’s bad but uh yeah, so the idea is that like their crowd. I’ll show you a video, but yeah, it’s awesome. It’s good high stress right here, for sure. They do. They do them all over but we’ll go we go to road Atlanta in December, Okay, so that’ll be fun. Yeah, I’ll show you. But it’s something you’re good. Good activity with the boys. Dude, are you crashing at each other? You’re racing, you’re like, you know, couple mid low low hundreds in some of the straightaways it’s road course stuff. You’re not allowed to make contact. They do a good job of like keeping it uh safe ish as safe as you can be going that fast and doing that. Man, it’s a ton of fun. So well, dude. Appreciate you coming out. Man, you want to do some stuff more often comes on a little bit absolutely up sent not far down the road. We’ll do some stress courses. Here you go, heck, get from the awesome. Appreciate it, man, Thank you
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