Rebecca Rusch: The Queen Of Pain | Rich Roll Podcast

[Music] I'm so happy to talk to you thank you for coming out here absolutely you are an unbelievable badass but you also have this really captivating compelling story emotional story and I look forward to digging into it with you yeah me too yeah but before we even do that you just came from Alaska right you did the dinner odd I did mushing yeah they have a human-powered event so yeah I did 350 miles Iditarod Trail on a snow bike a fat bike did you do that as part of an organized race or what was the situation it is it's the Iditarod Trail Invitational has been going on about seven this was 18th year and you can bike ski run it and just human powers however I want to do it but on the same trail is the dog as the historic dogsled race dogs start about a week after so it's right how long did that take you I was almost four days on the trail to cover 350 miles so it's it's slow going and it's full survival mode where you just carry all your gear all your gear on the bike I think my bike weighed 65 pounds well sleeping bag stove navigation equipment batteries lighting you know basically everything to survive in the Alaskan wilderness so that was that was tops of you know in all of my years probably one of the scariest most intimidating most committing expeditions I've ever done because of the elements because it was survival and honestly you know if you're tired and you have to stop you know you freeze it's minus 25 and night there so it was one of the few times where I've really feared for my safety mm-hmm which is why it took me this long to actually do that event I've been an intrigued by it for a long time but cold is is one of my sort of primal fears you've been cold so when it yeah it took me a while to get to Alaska and the winter in the wilderness I had kala no Brady in here the other day who just traversed Antarctica and one of the interesting things that he was sharing about that was that when he's pulling this 375 pound sled behind him the most important thing is to make sure that you're not over exerting yourself because the minute you start sweating that's death so is that a similar thing that you had to deal with absolutely and I reached out to Colin and some explorers and some people I knew who had spent time in those elements to just try to educate myself and ask about equipment and safety and yeah absolutely sweating is is death you know in sub-zero temperatures and so there's this constant management of what you're wearing what you're taking even if your hands are sweating my hands are sweating thinking about it right now but yeah simple things like eating drinking taking care of your skin taking care of your body those become paramount and the the physical exertion is almost the last part of the equation right was there a moment where you were really in danger or did you manage it all well I I was super I had this heightened focus because I was really scared about getting wet you're crossing open water all the time you're on ice that's cracking underneath you your foot falls in you know and gets wet that is a done yeah that is a nice shot phones or were you able to communicate with anybody if you got into a problem I had a Garmin inReach satellite tracking device that I could send text messages out and yeah my husband was aware of what I where I was you know I had the race directors number but even so it's gonna be hours or days so somebody gets to you but I did have I did have that as a you know Garmin device as a safety backup because yeah I I don't do sports to risk my life it's not my motivating factor and so I did try to have all these kind of bailout plans but um yeah moments of fear and terror and being worried for myself absolutely every night when the Sun went down the temperature plummets and I went to pretty dark physically an emotionally dark place just because it's Alaska in the winter and the dark and it's gonna be -20 and if you make one mistake it can be very costly and probably the scariest night was the last night I was out I had to sleep out in the field and I had planned to there are little small huts every 50 to 80 miles or so and my plan was never to have to sleep outside and really use my equipment but I was in a point where I was too far between and stumbling and falling over and you know would sleep deprivation and so I did sort of have to grapple back and forth I don't want to sleep outside I have to sleep outside and spend a couple hours doing that and I did sleep out and you know in the snow - sub-zero temperatures and you know put tree branches down as a like full serve I'll put tree wrenches down as a insulator from the ground and my sleeping pad and put all my clothes on and got inside the sleeping bag and and passed right out and fell asleep and got some great rest but I think that was a breakthrough for me to learn to trust the equipment and and trust that you know it was gonna work and I could use it appropriately so I'll be back I'm already planning oh really yeah of course well I can do it better it was a little messy I finished I was the first woman I was 10th overall but you know I I waste I was inefficient so now I want to go back with some efficiency and confidence and it probably was other than Idaho where I live the most beautiful place I've ever been on earth Wow when you say 10th overall is that across all different disciplines like people yeah people there I think 40 49 or 50 started and in the bike in sort of my division 20 finished 14 got evacuated for frostbite on the first night lots of people drop out and then you have to if you drop out at a certain certain spots where you basically have to pay a bunch of money and hire a bush plane to come in and get you so so site people are riding bikes they're cross-country skiing are people just doing it by foot so do it on foot and they're they're towing a sled you know behind them it sort of tends to be that the cyclists tend to finish first and you know as far as a human-powered and then ski and foot are the sort of the next right the next fastest people but you know it takes a while you know if you're moving on the bikes five miles an hour average is a really fast speed for a snow bike so you take the mileage and you you have to totally change your sort of I mean Road Cycling anything else where 15 20 miles an hour's yeah that all gets thrown out the window your perspective on what it is to go fast well and then you're like I only have ten miles for the next checkpoint but that may be four hours right Wow and what did you do about hydration and nutrition like wouldn't your water bottles just free would you have to stop and and you know melt snow for water or how did that work yeah the food and the water and that's the that's where I feel like I failed myself I didn't do very well with it and I had talked to Colin and all those other people about what kind of foods don't freeze out there and of course no gels no you know anything like that and the way it is you carry your first you start with a bunch of food and then there were two food drops that we had sent five pounds each that you that were air dropped into certain spots along the course and in there you could have food batteries hand warmers basically just consumable things so I had pre-made all these stuff like little peanut butter balls and date balls and cut everything up really small lots of cheese and fats and high density foods and basically I hated all of it I didn't I didn't want to eat it I couldn't digest it you know it's all frozen you can't take a bite out of something people whose fillings cuz you can't so everything was cut bite-sized but food and water was a real problem for me so Colin had told me you need to eat four to five thousand calories a day like in the Arctic that's what you have to do and I wasn't I was probably getting in 1,500 oh and so I'm eating myself basically you know I'm you know burning my own fat and the energy levels were really low because I didn't do well with food drink and then Camelback is worn underneath your clothes all you know the hoses in your armpit and so even to take one drink you unzip 17 layers pull your face masks down and so I got lazy and it was just like I don't feel like drinking anything hmm and so I would change that and I would carry I did have a thermos and that was kind of my saving grace where I get hot water and then that was easiest to drink but you have to stop to eat and drink it's not like on a bicycle where you can grab something out of your Jersey and and stuff it in your face and you're alone in the whole time right the solitude of that yeah and you know there's I do a lot of training alone and it is a bit of my meditation my therapy I don't I don't mind being alone but this was truly there like wow I am really out there I mean I know I was howling at the moon literally what did you have friends predatory run it run ins with predatory wildlife I saw lots of evidence of it wolf Prince as big as you know a saucer along the bike tracks and tons of evidence I saw probably 25 moose I don't know what the plural of moose you don't know the moose and you know I saw him and there on the trail and they were walking away and moose can be really dangerous so yeah wolf moose but I wasn't scared of the animals as much as I was I didn't feel that kind of fear or the fear of being alone it was more the fear of the elements and yeah you know if your bike breaks or something happens you really do have to be super self-sufficient so that was my biggest fear and when you finish then the traditional Iditarod is getting ready to go right yeah exactly you got to see them off we did see them off and I was really intrigued by um I was pretty intrigued by the dog-human relationship and I could read about that on Instagram yeah I went and visited Martin Buser is one of the most famous Alaskan dog Sutter he's just completed I think his 38th Iditarod how long have we been going on 50 about 50 years something Wow you know and he's done almost every one of them I mean that kind of longevity is pretty amazing so I actually went to his kennel hasn't visited and met the dogs and I'm reading his book now because it's just such an interesting historic one the his history of that trail is intriguing to me but also the relationship between an animal and a human as athletes is fascinating yeah it's like symbiotic thing right I mean you have dogs I have dogs when I put on my running shoes or the dogs my bike they are just jumping out of their skin and they want to run and it's my trail runs are elevated by their joy and you know it's just seeing a being that just is like I want to run like I don't always feel that way when I head out for a run I don't know if you do there's like I'm trying to be good to go they're like up in the morning happy good to go from zero to 60 no warm-up needed mm-hmm it's it's kind of a cool energy so when I remand out it's like you know what would diesel do one of my dogs and there's that race takes off and there's people that are still finishing your race right so they're passing each other yeah so I did the short version of the Iditarod Trail so I basically did you know the 350 mile version the whole trails start to finish and this is what the dogsled to do is a thousand miles and so I think only four riders or have completed so far the thousand this year they they've have finished and yeah they get caught by the dogsled teams if you're doing a longer course and so then you're all intermixed together and there's a lot of respect from what I understand between the mushers you know seeing someone human-powered out there they're just like wow you do that without dogs a lot of respect yeah yeah that's interesting wow what a cool and now a charm California warp did you when did you get back I got back yeah recently like 11 or 12 days ago so I'm still kind of I think my temperature regulation is a little bit off waking up with like now sweats and I don't know if that ever happens you after a really big event I think my body is still kind of cleansing but I'm not surprised that you're like okay I'm going back here's what I'm gonna change here's what I'm gonna do better you know I'm surprised I'm surprised myself because of the cold but I have the confidence now that that the gear works and I have the mentality for it and so yeah I can do it better I don't doubt that you have the mentality for it I want to you know really get into the Ho Chi Minh Trail story but I think the best way to do that is really to just tell your story from the beginning you know growing up in a suburb outside of Chicago and what that was like and the relationship that you you know had and didn't have with your dad that kind of informs you know this adventure that you know you're perhaps best known for absolutely yeah Midwestern kid well my dad was in the Air Force he was a navigator and f4 phantom but he was shot down when I was just three so mom sis and I grew up in suburbs of Chicago you know three girls and at that time you know mom is a single parent that wasn't really as common as it is now and so she was at work all day and my sister and I were you know really kind of left to fend for ourselves you know no fault of my mom she had to work but we really did develop an independence and she's your sister older or younger she's a couple years older she's in the Air Force now she's a general now Wow yeah general banister Isis two badass women your mom did something right I think a lot of what she did absolutely and I think a lot of my sister our paths are I think because of my mom seeing this example of really hard-working independent you know working in computer programming in immense feel there was never like oh girls don't do that or it was just this example of you work super hard and go do what you want to do and I took a Sportster out you know my sister took you know the military and more intellectual route in some ways but I still do feel like we picked up the same skill base from my mom just by her leading for example through example but you're you're very much you're your father's daughter you know you you really seem to embody a lot of the characteristics that kind of defined his character being this adventurer and this explorer well thanks for saying that I didn't know that until recently and it has brought up an interesting question of nature versus nurture and you know is your upbringing what shapes you or or you know your genes and what's in your DNA and and I do believe it's a combination of both and my sister and I had the impact of my mother being there day to day to learn those traits from her I didn't realize and my sister as well she's followed in my dad's footsteps in the military and service and she and I obviously both inherited a big piece of him I inherited the wandering you know living out of your car guy and she inherited the this service and and dedication of the Air Force and I didn't realize that until until I did ride the Ho Chi Minh Trail and blood road and you know well into my 40s decided you know my adventure lifestyle had finally brought me to go search for something a lot bigger than a podium mm-hmm well we're gonna work our way but it begins you know on a track in in Illinois right you started out like as a runner yeah I found I found running you know it's really interesting it you know you have kids and high school and junior high for girls is a tough time yeah I mean it's nine-year-old daughter yes anyone you're trying to figure out what do you wear to school how do you fit in you know who are my people and you know I was in the band it was kind of band geek and some of that stuff but I found I found athletics and I really do feel like it was and continues to be a savior for me I had body image issues as a young girl and you know my neighborhood is kind of funny story my neighbor who was in the cross country team she's like well you know if you joined the cross-country team and I didn't know what it was you get a free tracksuit it's like those Cotton's matching you know hoodie sweatpants and yeah pop they're pretty cool they're coming back around now so you get a free sweat suit and you'll never get fat and is a you know junior high school girl going into high school and like oh that sounds pretty good and motivation that was the motivation tracksuit mmm-hmm stay skinny yeah and it's not the wrong not the right motivation but it definitely put me in a place to find a community and friends and confidence and you know work ethic and all these things that I've carried with me my whole entire life yeah did you distinguish yourself as an athlete at that age yeah I was ended up being Allstate and you know had had success in the cross-country running team and it was great I loved it it was kind of what I live for and the sense of freedom and running around in the woods that was fed every part of me that that is still alive and well was there a conscious sense that this is what you wanted your life to be about at that early age it was the first thing in my life that I found I belonged to and that it it was fun it was super hard there was the reward of you know working in a team and winning something and having a metal put around your neck and probably even bigger than that was the exploration and the cross-country trails you know it's different than a track right so you go to a cross-country meet and every meet is in a different place a different Park that you haven't run around in and I think that's a really primal need for me is to explore and so yeah there was a sense that I will always do this and and college sort of put the stopper on that because I had a coach he was a real [ __ ] and just didn't it didn't work no so I quit and you know that was the first of many times where I felt lost in my life but then you know found cycling at that time road cycling and and eventually rock climbing you know it's led to multiple sports right well you're you're best known for your pursuits on a mountain bike but what's crazy about you is that you've distinguished yourself in all manner of sports from you know adventure racing whitewater rafting cross country skiing like you you pretty much do it all but it kind of began with you deciding that you are gonna go into this adventure world right like what was first like how did this whole adventure begin and you're you're right there is a common thread of all these sports that feed the same kind of need in me instead of just sticking to one support but where it all began I I believe was I mean Chicago I was working at a health club I had a marketing degree in Kinesiology and was like I'm gonna work in sports fitness or something that seemed like a logical transition and they had an indoor rock climbing wall and the guy down at the wall was kind of cute and the wall looks sort of intriguing so I went and I learned to rock climb and that was really the beginning of me feeling like I needed to leave the Midwest and I needed to climb up rocks and right and so climbing really was the outdoor that my invitation to the outdoors and understanding like the dirt bag lifestyle I lived in my car I stopped shaving my armpits you know I became a super bag for a while this epic Bronco I don't have it anymore those things cruise around Malibu there you know like they get they get renovated and sell for ridiculous amounts of money that's my only regret in life is selling the Bronco but we gotta let it go well if that's your only regret yes I'm very good so my car in your early 20s and just head west in the Bronco I didn't have the Bronco at the time I headed west and an acura integra was where I left Chicago it's okay that you don't have that one any that recall and slept and looked out of it and you know went to see somebody went all these places and I landed a climbing job in California where I you know got a job at adventure 16 which I think it's around anymore no it is oh yeah there's a cut there's two of them yeah Costa Mesa I worked at a 16 and you know taught and taught rock climbing at Joshua Tree and that was really you know that was really life changing for me to just sleep out in the desert and and and have quote-unquote a job doing that and then I helped found recreation which is our climbing gyms there's one in Costa Mesa one in Santa Monica and so I was part owner and founder of of those climbing gyms in the late 90s and so that was okay here I'm using my business degree I'm managing and running gyms and it's like an outdoor sort of sport right so that is the dream job there there probably weren't that many women in this world at that time right no so what was that like being part of that culture I've never considered you know it's really only I've never considered a from my upgrading men or women don't do this job I mean you can definitely look around the room go there that many women climbing instead of me sort of being like you know well that sucks it would be well let's invite some more in and so that has tended to be my mentality was cycling oh this is your whole thing now right the inclusivity and and trying to you know Rodney's broaden the doors you make those doors swing wide open for more women to get involved it's pretty great I mean you see it now you go to a climbing gym and there's tons of kids and girls and everybody's climbing and riding bikes and having fun and but yeah at the time there weren't a lot of women doing it and you know I didn't really think about that rich I wasn't like oh I'm a female climber I'm a female this I'm just you're just doing doing right yeah yeah well this is the year of free solo so you know climbing is on the cultural roadmap in a way that never has been before like the awareness of it it's just exploded because of chai and Jimmy and Alex and Tommy and that whole community which is really cool to see people you know at the supermarket tucky yeah El Cap yeah and stuff like that but I think the film that really paints the picture more adeptly in terms of the culture was for me was Valley uprising where you really got a sense of like what this community is like and how it kind of percolated up and has developed over the years so when you know when I see that and you're sharing with me about you know living in your car and this dirtbag lifestyle I mean that's what I'm envisioning kind of like this rogue pack of people that just kind of go where you know the season blows them and where the you know where the next wall is it's a pretty special community if you think about I mean one you're you're you're connected by people in place and you go to a place like Joshua Tree or you're cemani and even if you just stepped out of your car and you're the average tourist you can't help but be moved by the nature of those places and yeah the dirtbike climbers are now they're cyclists doing it as well by packing it's people who have this need to be in that place whether you live in a city or you get to live in you know Idaho or in the mountains where you live of California there is a healing factor in nature and people know that it's just you know people living out of their car or committing to that lifestyle they've just made a bigger commitment that they need that in their life just like somebody needs to go to church yeah well there's something primal you know in our human makeup and our in our base DNA that I think yearns for that that we've moved too far away from we have you know I mean it's why I think if everyone wrote a bike I went running or did something outside for five minutes a day our world would be a better place it's why people put plants inside their house you know as a grasp to have part of that nature therapy so yeah lucky for us we can do it you know as much as we do and I think we can all embrace more of that in our lives i mean i think the the discussion the conversation ends up being around like these crazy feats whether it's you know some of the things that you've done or alex free soloing or the slack liners and you know wingsuit people and it's about chasing this thrill but that's not really what it's about I think it's about what you just mentioned which is just living more in alignment with nature and being connected in a very tactile way to you know this world that supports us that's spinning around in space I don't know too many extreme athletes and I know a lot of all those people that you've mentioned they're all friends and I'm sure yeah it's a small community it's a small dedicated community but I don't know really anyone I mean Alex even he accepts the risk for what he's doing but none of us go in with the intention of wanting to yeah there's a sense that there are everyone's an adrenaline junkie and I don't think that's fair or accurate no maybe endorphin junkie it might be or I mean for me I didn't choose to go to Alaska and try to survive sub-zero temperatures just because I wanted to risk frostbite and see what would happen it was that I really wanted to experience Iditarod Trail in Alaska and to to howl at the moon with the wolves and to be so deep into you know the last frontier and wilderness but your Y is bigger than that overall do you know your Y a little bit yeah but you're the one hot to you I know I am I'm working on it and it isn't really until I mean your TED talk was about your Y it was and I was just gonna say it wasn't until 46 really when I rode the Ho Chi Minh Trail that that you know I've been an explorer all my life but that was the first time that I started to explore inside instead of outside and that that trail riding that trail really did make me instead of running and looking for a finish line and and grabbing the next adventure it it made me slow down and and stop and look inside for a minute and that was really hard for more than a minute right but that was a big transition for me to understand why I am doing this and you know people asked all the time you know why do you torture yourself or you know it seems painful and awful and what are you doing and yeah I hope Minh Trail and the subsequent four years that have followed in that journey of have helped me understand and that's why I went back to Alaska to is because I can finally articulate what I stand for and what I'm doing and and the why but it's still that kid in Downers Grove Illinois who wanted to dig around in the dirt in the backyard the the impetus is the exploration but now it's a lot more awareness of the internal exploration instead of just the physical and and I think also and what I get out of you know your journey is this discovery of how you can take these adventures and these experiences that you've had and and translate them tell stories around them in a way that can be of service to other people whether it's opening that door for more women to get involved or you know really to be of service to the people of Southeast Asia you know which we're gonna get into I think it's an amazing transition and hopefully all humans get there you know it's part of the aging process perhaps when we realize that that the more you give the more you get back and that it really just isn't about us anymore or yourself anymore and that has been a really exciting revelation for me then yeah I'm still super competitive I was afraid when I got back from the Ho Chi Minh Trail that the competitive nature and spirit was gone and what am I gonna do now and and what does this all mean and that really is where I I spent probably a couple years and what you might call depression I'm trying to evaluate well Who am I now and what does this all stand for and and is the athlete competitor and me gone and if she is what's next well I think how you define competitive an athlete evolves right so now my sense is that what can drive you is a more sustainable fuel which is to continue to do what you do but do it in a way that really does provide service to other people you know and that's like a sustainable fuel source that you can continue to rely upon as opposed to I'm going to chase another podium ultimately it's like who cares anymore right yeah you know 52 it's like does anyone really you know do another race like you've done every race you've dominated you know all the most you know crazy competitive mountain bike races and adventure races out there you don't have anything to prove to anybody so what will continue to propel you and it's only by finding like purpose and meaning in in these adventures that can you know be a way for other people to clean insights about their own lives it's powerful it's I mean it's what this podcast is about is sharing and I think blood road showed me the power of sharing a story because I'm pretty introverted you know I go on long rides and runs behind myself and I mean and it's like a selfish thing right you're like how long can I do this is this really what I should be doing which I'm sure questions you've you know wrestled with their questions I ask all the time I mean I don't want people to think race is a four-letter word because I do feel like events organize events like that really help help somebody push themselves beyond what you would do alone and absolutely I you know would push myself harder in an event like I did a rod and it's organized its laid out for me even though it's super remote and so I'll probably race my whole life even though people who ask when are you gonna stop racing or adventure or whatever you want to call it and you're a race director you have your own races I do that we're gonna try to convert you to the wonderful nervous I will get there are your hands sweating yeah you're gonna sweat that's good yeah that's the kind of wire here if your hands sweat then that's that's your yes sign of like I should do that yeah sometimes not always so you're you're the next chapter as you start getting involved in these adventure races you do like the the rate Galatoire's right an eco challenge and all these crazy races that Mark Burnett kind of put on the put on them on the road map that were on television and all of that and that's really what took you to Vietnam the first time right yeah adventure racing was kind of my education in teamwork and doing lots of different sports and like you said there weren't very many women involved and that was the time period where I was running Rakesh in and running a climbing gym in huh these people came in who were kind of least dorky they didn't fit in with climbing vibe there in like tights and you know tank top you know really tight clothing and the climbers are all wearing baggy stuff and people come in and like to the rock gym and they're like we need to learn how to rappel Michael like people don't repel they climb like the rappelling is just like the way down it's like taking an escalator or whatever and like yeah we need to learn to rappel for Adventure Racing and I didn't know what it was but does it manage your oh the gym I'm like sure I'll take your money you know we'll teach you how to rappel and those were all people who were getting involved with adventure racing and so they had to learn the Rope work and that's how I got pulled into it because the team makeup has to be co-ed so at the time it was traditionally three guys one girl and so I got roped in they're like oh you look pretty strong you're a girl you want to be on one of our team so my first adventure race here was in Malibu oh wow and it was a qualifier for the Australian eco challenge and it was 24 hour race and I was just like I can't sit on the couch for 24 hours let alone do an activity and I wasn't a cyclist I did sort of two out of the five sports and how old were you then Oh probably early thirties and I was rock climber and a paddler and I had run in high school in college so that was good enough and they threw me on a bike that was too small and into the you know into the hills in Malibu but we end up winning the whole race uh-huh like uh you know this is terrible we've just won a trip to go do this for seven do it again yeah for longer and I actually was like well that's great we won there's no way I'm going and doing this for ten days but we went I figured well it's a free trip to Australia I'll go so that was kind of were you still living in your car no I was managing the rock gym and living here and and the adventure racing is really what moved me into my car because I kept getting invited on these cool trips to go travel the world and fill up passports and only way I could financially make it work as if I didn't have rent and so I quit my dream job moved into the Bronco that I had at the time and headed to Moab and just headed out into the desert and became a dirt bag right and so you did these adventure races and like kicked ass at them for like a number of years right ten years are socially a professional athlete professional athlete that didn't make any money in your car yeah yeah no health insurance you know eating ramen ramen noodles and two non you know mooching off friends and staying on couches and but it was it was my travel experience it was you know my PhD and travel and seeing the world and and and really team dynamics of what people are like when they're cold and hungry and lost and yeah and you were in Vietnam for one of those right yeah Vietnam was pretty powerful 3i yeah I think that was 2003 and that was my first really big jungle race and it was really the first time that I started thinking about the soldiers of Vietnam because we were getting trench foot and we would at night we'd take all of our clothes off because we had heat rash yeah and just hiked with our clothes off because it was physically pretty miserable nothing in comparison to obviously foot soldiers and people being on the ground and and living in that atmosphere got a taste of the day might have been like without getting you know ammunition right without being shot at or anything but a taste of the the brutality of that landscape and how hard it is to travel through that landscape and also seeing the remnants of tunnels and you know bomb craters and seeing the history of what happened and that was the first time that I you know all growing up I never asked my mom questions about my dad there were always people who'd come up and oh I feel so sorry for you grew up without a dad but it's hard to mourn something that you don't know and I don't have any memories of him and so as a kid I was just sort of like I didn't know how to feel sad about I didn't really know what I was missing basically and trip to Vietnam was the first time when my mom came with me so after the race we took a little tour and went around and that's the first time I really asked her or talked to her about him in my whole life Wow and I think it was therapeutic for her to finally be like okay we're gonna talk about this and stand on China Beach and stand in the places that he had written letters home from and she saved all those letters I never looked at him I never asked about it so it was the beginning of an opening for us that would take still another 10 12 years to continue to open that wound but it was a cure it start it's piqued my curiosity of what is the Ho Chi Minh Trail and and what's it like and what's Vietnam like and what did dad really go through right and there was a lot of mystery around his crash right like they hadn't you didn't know whether he survived the crash or there was no confirmation of his remains or anything like that for a number of years yeah they didn't find any of his remains until 2007 and and unfortunately that's pretty common that the planes go down there are tons of you know people still missing who have not yet been identified his copilot was never identified even though they found the crash site they didn't find any remains to be confirmed uh-huh so was there a sense that he could have been a prisoner of war and you just didn't know yeah absolutely I had I I will say you know I did have nightmares as a kid I dream about my dad I dream about meeting him in a coffee shop telling him about my life and that was a reoccurring dream that I had for a long time that that I would meet him and you know there were thoughts of duty of a family was he living in Vietnam did he did he leave us or did he abandon us and start over I mean we've all seen those movies and you've seen the films and and it does happen and so there was as a kid of you know what did really happen and he know it comes and goes it wasn't a daily part of my existence but it's obviously that's infiltrating my dreams there's something deep in my soul that had questions to be answered you know in 2007 they finally found two teeth at the crash site it was the second or third excavation of that site and ironically my sister is a dentist and in the Air Force and she was able through clearance to actually go and and look and identify the teeth and and and bring the background yeah and confirmed so it was a really interesting tie to her chosen profession and career has there never been a general who's also a dentist well she entered through the dentist there hasn't been there are many generals who come in to the Air Force through the medical and so yeah her path has been a little different but yeah she came in through the medical side but she doesn't unfortunately the higher you get in the ranks the less you actually do your practice right yeah if you're a general you're not why he's filling cavities she's not doing that in heart no she's making decisions for ya the whole military medical system now at this point so the adventure racing thing kind of runs its course and the rug gets pulled out from underneath you because those TV shows all kind of go away right they do go away although he's bringing them back yeah Mark Burnett apparently is bringing back eco-challenge ah about the interesting yeah you want to race on a team I don't know oh man you're crying me today maybe we'll see start with a gentle mountain bike we all heard it yeah but that kind of created a little bit of a void for you right like a oh man what am I gonna do now like a little bit of a dismantling like I had this good thing going what's the next chapter gonna look like for me now that I can't continue to you know make my way yeah I was playing I was playing along dune adventure racing traveling the world and came to a screeching halt with the death of a friend and with adventure racing you know losing sponsorship and not just kind of dying out and yeah there was a period of again a dark sort of time of what am i doing with my life you know what is this college degree or what am I really gonna do and and it's really interesting but that's where I found mountain biking and that has been and really I just went the reason I win on this I went to a 24-hour race a bunch of girlfriends as a therapy and it kind of goes back to the cross-country running days you know when when I'm in my deepest darkest holes it's it's usually physical activity and a few a very small group of friends that people that pull me out of it if I'm left to my own devices I don't do well but it takes me a while to reach out so I reached out to some girlfriends and let's go do this mountain bike thing in Moab I just heard of it 24 hours in my lab and you know it's October so it's not a great time to be in the mountains because it's just muddy and not ski season yet and so we went to Moab and slipped out in the desert and rode around in circles for 24 hours and to me it had all the ingredients that I've been missing which was community and working hard and challenging myself and we did really well and I ended up I was running most of the technical sections was a lousy mountain biker so I just keyed off and run and then ride super fast on the flat sections just try to make up for lost time and Holy's people saw me just jumping off my bike shouldering it running down the technical stuff don't be back on but it was it was therapeutic and I ended up having the fastest laps of all the women in the race and you know we won the sort of intermediate and or whatever division I'm lucky being your weakest discipline yeah terrible hair this becomes your greatest strength it's kind of weird ya know it has been and you know at 38 basically decided okay well I'll lose mountain bike thing for a little while and it was really the endurance that I was good at the 24 hours was kind of like that's no big deal you know Eco challenges were seven days so 24 hours was one night you be in your bed the next night you know there's you don't really get into sleep deprivation in 24 hours so it was fine so it was good at that part of it and that was but I just wasn't any good at writing about yeah well because you essentially win every mountain bike race that you enter after this you end up dominating Leadville winning it many times in the long run it's not the short ones you know not the you know super technical undersell yourself probably loved thank you but I will say I'm and I found that the longer it is and this is you know a different it's kind of a mountaineering mindset you know or I feel like Mountaineers and ultra endurance athletes are very similar and that it's not necessarily how how really technically skilled you are I mean of course you have to be at a certain level but it's it's more can you keep going this sort of slow burn consistent mindset to do really long things like that mm-hmm yeah it's not about how fast you're going it's just you're you're persistent forward motion and not slowing down right so and taking care of yourself and having the mental the mental sort of agility or whether it's it's this sort of detached focus it's hard for me to explain of what I think about when I'm in really long events and I heard you talking about how you listen to podcasts and music sometimes and I'll go back and forth between that stuff but there is a you have to take yourself out of the moment of the pain at the moment but also be focused and in the moment and I'm not I need a term for that but it's a very interesting it says form of meditation yeah I mean focus but losing track of time yeah your relationship with time becomes very malleable like it it's not linear and when you can get in that state where you're in that aerobic zone where your hearts beating and your lungs are heating but not too hard there's this weird thing that happens where it's not that time speeds up it just become your perception of time is altered and so hours can go by but it doesn't feel like it's like if you're driving your car across country by yourself like the first day is the hardest day because you have ants in your pants like not used to sitting down but then like day two-and-a-half like you'll be driving for hours and hours and it's like a blink of an eye and you don't even realize what you've just driven through it's like this weird flow state that you get into I had a kind of a revelation after I came back from Ho Chi Minh Trail and I think I mentioned I was I was in kind of a dark place and that was the first time I started dabbling with still a meditation sitting still and trying to meditate you know it was really great for me to experience that and to have the revelation that I've been meditating all along but in movement and not sitting still and it was the same exact feeling like you said of of time takes it on a different meaning and for me to be able to find that while I'm not moving was pretty eye-opening for me during my activities to go oh yeah I've been doing this so long I had no idea you know why I've been doing that and that was a big like I said at the beginning sitting down and looking inside instead of being in constant notion but it was reassuring to know that the ultra-endurance stuff has been fueling me in that way as a soul searching and as a therapy of sorts yeah I think it works that way for a lot of people but I think it is you know if you it's important to point out that there are like I know people that are part of the community that I think are deal with their pain or their trauma by training and racing a little bit too much and they're they're kind of running away from what they really need to look at and as long as they keep moving they never have to look at that thing and work through it because stopping will force them to do that that's too painful so it's easier to just keep moving forward and then there's the healthier relationship with it which is to leverage it and use it as a means of therapy to work through those things those things that we all have you're exactly right and that revelation didn't come to me until after the Ho Chi Minh Trail of stopping for a minute and stopping the racing and sitting still and then realizing I could take my sport you know the next evolution of my sport might still involve racing but it was going to be with a very different mindset of not necessarily chasing a podium and if a podium comes along the way great but that wasn't the initial goal anymore it it's deeper and bigger than that and and it it has taken me until now to figure that out and and I did wrought trailers one of the first big expeditions I've done since the Ho Chi Minh Trail where it was a personal really big personal challenge it's the first one since since then so it's taken four years since I went and did the Ho Chi Minh Trail - I think come around - how can I feed my competitive spirit but also feed my soul and I did ride is the first one of those where I am taking what I knew be fleet I was before to the human that I am now well that's a mature dart and it's a it's a roller coaster ride absolutely so let's get into it so in 2007 your father's remains are discovered and and you know I gather from your story that this was kind of like okay now I need to go and like really explore this relationship with my father I've been to Vietnam before I have a sense of it but now with knowing where he crashed like I want to go connect with that it was not as articulated that clearly there was a curiosity about him my sister obviously you know when the remains were found there was a whole military you know arlington ceremony and frankly i didn't want to go I didn't want to celebrate the war and this is where it's been hard on my family you know I didn't you know they do a 21-gun salute right and did you not go then I went for my family and for my sister and mom and I felt it felt so ironic to me that we're shooting guns to celebrate the very tool that killed him I really struggled with that and if you've been to Arlington looking across all those white headstones and it's not a peaceful place for me to hang out I could rough there yeah and that the most impactful part of that day was not the ceremony itself and I mean I'm glad the government and we celebrate when people come home and their remains are found we have to and we have to keep looking but for me the most impactful part of the day was behind the scenes off on the side away from the ceremony were all these Vietnam vets with Harley's and their jackets on and patches from the war and I was sort of drawn to that group of people more than the people in uniform yeah this kind of yeah the outliers and the people who kind of didn't quite fit in and that's a little bit how I felt that day did some of his his friends from that time show up yeah yeah the Joe Leone and some other people you know came up and said I knew your dad and you know we're glad he's home and you know showed us pictures and you looked just like him and you know that was I was a I think I was in shock but that really was the beginning of I can look back now eyesight is 20/20 and go yeah I have been on this path to go to those map coordinates for a long time and meeting those people that was impactful for me I felt like that was more of a connection to him than then I'd ever felt because I knew him and they were there and they experienced the same thing and my adventure racing career and you know sponsorship and all that has been this really interesting circuitous journey that I do believe was leading there all the time and you know I needed skills and Matt Backus and all this expertise done all the things they had done in order to be prepared to handle that it's true I couldn't have gone it's like my 30s or 20s very easy looking back how like every Domino lined up perfectly to put you in a position to be able to embark upon that adventure I'm glad you notice that because I notice it and it seems clear as day like of course right you know but while I'm in it leaving out on my car and doing all these things and then changing a mountain biking and none of that would have seemed like it was lining up if you had just been a mountain bike racer you wouldn't you I've had the skill set to be able to do adventure racing and the rock client like all of that whitewater you know all of it so when does it crystallize as okay the Ho Chi Minh Trail that's what I'm gonna do it crystallized and I I mean I have to thank redbull for this they've been a partner for almost 20 years with me and every year and stead of you know telling me what I have to do they ask me well what do you want to do and they've pushed me to think of new and creative ideas so I just started thinking about what are the cool what cool places could I go ride my bike that I could ride a long way and you know a lightbulb finally went off that was like the Ho Chi Minh Trail this iconic Trail I don't think anyone's done it and oh by the way that's where my dad is and you know I could the sort of two parts of my world could come together for the first time in my life of my personal life and and my career but really it started as a bike adventure and maybe I could go do that and I pitched the idea for two or three years it didn't didn't stick to Red Bull and got denied and I'm I'm kind of glad that it did because I wasn't ready yet I was still racing Leadville and still in you know chasing podiums and doing all that and they weren't ready as a company to tell this kind of a story and it's not your typical Red Bull film and basically I went to them because I knew I needed help the maps alone the logistics just saw daunting and so yeah the magnitude of trying to pull this thing off his massive so I didn't go to say let's make a movie I went and said will you help me with the logistics of this we helped me try to do this expedition fully thinking I was just gonna do it by myself maybe with my husband or a friend who's a cyclist and and just go do it and have a personal journey but it grew into a big story in a documentary film and really grateful that it did because it's you know I'm not wanting to tell my own story really even though we're here talking about it well it seems like it happened very organically like it it wasn't like we're gonna make a movie like oh maybe we'll shoot something just the story kind of got bigger and bigger bigger and you know you had Red Bull there to document everything and then the realization that like hey this is this is there's a bigger story to be told here than just some adventure clips and a short little mini thing yeah the the cycling almost became it was the vehicle and it was my tool to explore but you know the bike really wasn't the main part of it it was the way I got there it's my process to ride twelve hundred miles like people asked why didn't you just go to that map court you had them out quarters why did you just go there which I could have but for me I needed to do it in my way which was physically stripping away getting tired traveling a long way immersing in the culture you know riding with a Vietnamese partner and being part of it and but really stripping away the emotional layers and the the sort of force field that we put up around ourselves I needed to do that to be ready to you know I'm not a really open person the vulnerability was totally new for me especially being documented and the bike was like okay at least I know I can put my head down and ride for ten hours a day and and knowing now that I needed that as a therapy and a processing and to take my time getting to the mountain coordinates to take a month I didn't know that much about the Ho Chi Minh Trail I mean I thought I need a road you know you're going it's 1,200 miles go through you know beginning in North Vietnam with light goes through Laos Cambodia and was there traditionally to Shepherd weapons artillery and supplies from the north down to the south to the Vietcong right but I had no sense of just how difficult and technical and I mean it's really barely a trail at all it's yeah and some places it's not a trail there's not a sign that's like this way the Ho Chi Minh Trail you know it's not so we put together a historically accurate route and it's really there's a spider web of of trails and when you know the US would bomb the trail they'd rebuild it again and so there are places that are paved there's places that are under reservoirs or places that are you know in the jungle or using machetes there's places with original cobblestones still hand laid that are still there and footpaths that the villagers still use I mean Laos is very undeveloped and a lot of those paths and trails are still just used for daily life yeah moving around I mean given the difficulty of you traversing it by mountain bike imagine you know all these people like carrying you know giant loads for that entire distance like on the trail was I mean people died all the time along the trail you leave on that journey to move rice and ammunition down the trail and not come back yeah the striking thing in the film is just how obliterated you know like there's just the the landscape is just lined with exploded artillery craters the entire way yeah it is right I didn't know that either that was that was probably my biggest surprise along the trail was one how kind the people are and how they could welcome the daughter of someone who was bombing their families how they could welcome me in and help me and the second big surprise was the amount of devastation that is still there every day and the unexploded ordnance every day that people are still living with people who were never weren't even born during the war there's kids that have known nothing else than having unexploded ordnance in their village that's a huge part of the movie that is what it's called uxl unexploded ordnance yeah I didn't know that term either yeah it's just everywhere and that's become a big part like that's a you know kind of a tangential outgrowth it goes back to the service thing a way for you to be able to be involved in you know support these people that are you know basically you know combing the entire terrain to try to unearth these things and explode them yeah mines advisory group is the organization I work with but that is I mean not just clearing in Laos or clearing in all the war-torn countries and sort of everywhere we go we leave a wake of explosives long after the war is gone and done and we leave that you know as our parting gift to the the locals that live there and thankfully there's organizations that that work and go clean up that mess and and I couldn't really have to do go over it with a fine-toothed common and they cover it again right just to make sure yeah the process is very labor intensive extremely labor intensive that is metal detectors and then fine-tuning the metal detector and then hand digging out that unexploded ordnance and in a jungle place like Laos you know it's harder to clear in a desert environment they can send instead of it happy to be human clearance you know they can send machinery and you know other ways but not in the jungle terrain you can't do that in Laos and so it is by hand and the that allowed people it's actually a really good job in Laos to work for mines advisory group and to have a steady paycheck to help clean up your country yeah there are those scenes of you with that organization in that group and you you explode you know ordnance it's crazy it the sound of that I mean it makes me cry every time because you feel it reverberate in your chest and your body and you imagine we don't hear that as Americans you know we don't hear or feel that noise and when you hear it and it shakes the trees and it shakes your chest it's hard for me not to feel guilty and imagine living there and hearing that every day raining you know you know 24 hours a day hearing that noise and the fear and I mean you've you've talked to people come back you know for more with PTSD and the sound of the bombs is something I don't think anyone will forever forget and I had never heard it before I went to help you know with the clearance and I I feel like that's part of if if we go to a place we hear a sound we smell a smell there's you know you see all our senses are involved when you actually immerse yourself in an experience like that and it goes a lot deeper when you smell in here and see and taste something versus seeing it in a movie yeah I mean I've never experienced that my whole relationship with that is is on a movie screen yeah we're on a television it's it's powerful and it it is why after leaving there it was so clear to me that this ride was no longer about me and my journey and it was so clear that you know my dad brought me there to father me and teach me and say hey well you take what you have with your cycling in your career and and help clean up this mess yeah I mean I feel to the core of my soul that I was meant to be there and he brought me there too to father me and teach me and you know tell me what the next steps were with my bike you know still with my bikes still adventuring but to to have a different a different purpose on it that's a lot bigger than me that's that's it's such a beautiful sentiment and and truth I feel like it's true I don't know it's it can't not be true there are too many things that you could can't chalk up to coincidence and you know meeting people that served with my dad and learning map and compass and just all of it that's lined up it can't be coincidence I really do believe I was brought there yeah so how does that kind of inform your your on this interior journey now right like you know how do you think of yourself as a as a spiritual being like what is your spiritual perspective on this I mean it just seems like it couldn't be any other way what's been really apparent to me is the connectivity of humans and how these threads of people you've never met in your whole life that but you still are connected and I don't know the terms to explain it you know but that the the village man that I met who is the son the father who buried my father and you know meeting him face to face and we'd met a lot of Lao villagers along the way and I didn't know that we were pulling up to his house you know I knew her near the place and this village chief was gonna take me there and I locked eyes with this guy you know the million not a hundred law villager who we'd met along the way I locked eyes with this person and there was something about him I couldn't stop staring at him and he smiled at me and I smiled at him and then found out later that his dad buried my dad and and he was gonna take me there and he even his mother was pregnant at the time of the crash and so his dad had told him this whole story growing up and the village shaman had said to the mom you know when one soul dies another is born and you know this soldier is basically in your belly in you this is part of you and so mr. air when he's telling me this through a translator he reaches down and shows me and he has it's kind of a funny story he has six toes and he pointed to his six toe and said see this is proof that we we're brother and sister you know we're a part of each other and I've never met this man he lives in a hut in the middle of the jungle and yet we're connected and when I went back the time again a year later you know I've taken trips back there now three times and I asked him you know were you surprised to see me and he's like no and then the last time I went and I you know I kind of asked again I said did you know we were coming back and he said yeah I had a dream I saw you in a dream a month ago I knew you're coming Wow and I believe him these things like the connectivity of humans is just fascinating to me and people that have served with my dad we've become good friends my sister and I become closer because of it all and there is there is a reason behind it all and and so yeah what are you using call it spirituality or connect connectivity but it's to me reinforces how important it is that we find community in our lives whether it's through your running club or your family or through a charity or whatever it is that humans have to make connections that's really amazing it is it's it's like it doesn't need a label you know just the telling of the story is enough well not so much there's so much on wonder and beauty in that story and I think if you really take it to heart and listen there's so much that we can learn about purpose and finding meaning in our lives like you know big thing with you is learning to trust your instincts and follow your guts and like chase that curiosity and it's found its way you know in all of these athletic pursuits that you've done but you know honing that brought you to that place and to those people that came from within you you didn't need to go back and retrace these steps and try to find your father you didn't even remember him but there was a calling you know deep within you to do that and you know what blossomed from that are these amazing relationships and that serendipity is just unbelievable unbelievable you made a really good point of listening and I don't think I was listening for a long time and what I've learned yeah is is to listen to my gut I mean I listen to my gut living on my car I want to go rock climbing and I I have listened but I feel like I'm truly listening more now and what's the difference between then and now the biggest difference is that I'm not just listening to me I want to go rock climbing I want to do this do that I'm it's like a horse with blinders on the blinders are spread out a little bit past my eyes then then just straight forward and a big part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail riding with my Vietnamese teammate who was slower than I was doing a film which is slower you know I could have done the whole thing a lot faster Rebecca style by myself and there was a part of me that was really frustrated along this journey by having to slow down and but that is truly what was the one of the biggest frustrations for me truly became the biggest gift because slowing down made me sit by the side of the trail and look at the butterflies or journal or voice record along the trail I was waiting for the film crew or human and it was the slowing down that allowed me to take the blinders off and listen not just to my heartbeat and this and what's going on with me but to listen to what's going on and see what's going on around me so that's the biggest difference in you know me versus looking outside and what's bigger a bigger sphere human has her own amazing story she's awesome and she that she's also grown from this trip and now has a cafe in in Hanoi and has rediscovered cycling and has cycling groups now and I think it was a real it was a really healing process for her as well what is the you know if I'd like you to kind of describe the experience the life experience of some of these villagers that you connected with along the way there was a woman who like lived in she was a girl and was in like basically lived in a cave for six years to come out and find her village gone and you know what is it that you kind of gleaned or learned from spending time with these people along the way it's it's really the fact that they live in the moment and I touched on this a little bit there was no animosity towards us I fully expected to go in there as an American looking for a US soldier to you know imagine if someone came to your house knocked on your door and said can I dig around in your backyard my dad was bombing here you know and want to go look for him would you would you say come on in you know and oh by the way you know I killed you know your family and I was part of that would you open your door and welcome them in or would there be this part of you that's like wait you're coming from the Vietnam War and there was never a moment of blame or looking back and he went even says it said it to me she said the past has passed and we can only control now in the future and I really felt like the villagers there you know they have a different life perspective they're just trying to survive so what tomorrow is or what yesterday was is not what they're thinking about they're thinking about right now and spending time with their family have enough food and farming their land and that living in the moment and not holding on to blame or grudge or what happened is pretty powerful I don't I'm not particularly good at that I don't think Americans are particularly good at letting go of that and yeah the woman that I met a visitor every time I go back and she speaks no English ice on the cake no Lao yeah she lived in that was her life she lived in a cave all of her children are born in the cave and they were there and they have grandchildren now and she's sitting happily in huts around surrounded by bomb craters but she's she's home and that is her home and it's sort of a just it may seem simplistic you know I took one of my mountain bike friends that I took on the first MTB loud trip you know she met the woman with me and this is a friend who lives in Idaho with me and has two kids and a zappiti and you know and she's and I said the woman you know I see her every year and she's wearing the same clothes and she's sitting in the same place in her hut uh-huh making rice and Caroline said to me God she must be so bored well it's easy for us to have a lot of judgment about that well I'm not so I said I said she might be happier than we are yeah she might be she seems perfectly content and it's that perspective it's why I keep going back to refresh myself of the simplicity of the perspective but also what I'm working for to help them live a peaceful safe life there's no reason that they should have to worry about an exploded ordnance well Americans are weird because we live these fast-paced hairy you know complicated modern lives and we all know or we've had direct experience with other cultures that have things down and are more integrated with their community and live you know quote unquote what we would call simplistic lives but they're undeniably happier and they seem to be you know have joy and love in their lives and the important you know boxes seem to be checked but their lifestyles so foreign to us that we have trouble relating and as much as we kind of intellectually understand like wow they're happier like I could use more of that in my life we kind of return home and then just go about doing whatever it is we were doing and like I question whether we really learn anything from this well how do you bring that back home and it's one write that into your life or layers of that into your life I've not been totally successful yeah that's why I need to keep going back and learning the lesson and it's why I keep writing well I'll never stop going on adventures because apparently I need to keep learning lessons over and over again yeah well one of the things that you're involved in that I think is really cool is this organization or what is it article 22 that makes beautiful jewelry out of the scrap metal from the ordinance yeah you actually brought like probably some bracelets yeah take this out they're really cool also tell me about this yeah I can't when I came back feeling this strong sense of purpose that I need to do something about the unexploded ordnance and the bombs and you know I'm looking around online and they came across article 22 out of New York and this woman Elizabeth who she had a similar experience tied it to not similar but she had travelled in Laos and she was looking for textiles and she came across we've got some different sizes or gay she came across this little village Navia village in northern Laos in the plain of jars area where the secret war went on and where the US CIA base was where we weren't supposed to be and this this small village one village and all of Laos they were making spoons out of the Unabomber's though aluminum from the bomb casings and airplane parts and they were they had homemade kilns melting down making spoons and she went to this village and was just like if they can make spoons out of them you know they taken they'd made something useful and she's like well what what else could they make and so she started this company article 22 that that makes bracelets earrings jewelry from the bombs from the unexploded ordnance and they employ the lab villagers she runs a business you know basically through facebook messenger with this one village and there they're all sold here in the US and across the United States and so I partnered with her I asked her the the words on there be good my dad he signed all his letters home from the Vietnam War with the words be good every single one said be good Steve and so I asked her you know and really that's the purpose I took from my trip from the Ho Chi Minh Trail is be good and interpret that however you want for me you know there is from a bomb that was dropped from yeah this guy yeah and hopefully eventually this company will close and you know they won't have any more material to work with eventually because it'll be gone and I'll be used but but yeah it's taking something devastating and horrible and making it into a beautiful reminder and the bracelets really mind me remind me of the MIAA bracelets do you know what those were no so missing an action is what am ia is and and their I think it was a US Postal Service they did a big campaign during the Vietnam War with bracelets of you know that you could wear an aluminum bracelet with engraved with someone's name who was missing and their their rank and their and their the date they went missing and people would you know wear these bracelets for strangers I've had people reach out and be like I wore your dad's bracelet until the day he was found and it was a really amazing program and these new sort of happier aluminum bracelets they kind of remind me of that is is it's kind of taking that a memento with legacy of that yeah and to look down and and look at something and have her remembrance it's kind of like we talked about how do you bring back those memories and what you learned somewhere and and have it in your daily life as a reminder and to me the bracelets are you look down at jingles you yeah you think about what is this made of and and who made it and and can we clean up all of it so that it's gone and a portion of the proceeds goes to that organization that's clearing yeah every bracelet clears 12.5 square meters of land in Laos in my dad's name through my foundation I now of a be good foundation just became official oh wow 501c3 so it's been a process but I'm taking my bike in this film and these bracelets um as a way to to use my bike to make a difference and that can involve adventures or bracelets or movie tours but it's it's actually super exciting that my business you know I sort of give air quotes when I say but my business has evolved into still feeding my soul with adventuring and cycling but now this this whole bigger part of it which is to help people heal by riding a bicycle it's crazy like what your life has become like living in a Bronco - because you do so many things like you're not just an athlete you're a race director and you've got this nonprofit and you're doing all these things to empower women and you've got you know the brace it's like it's it's like how do you even have the time to Train I don't really it really complicated it does get complicated but I mean I have to do these things it's I was 8 when I came back from blood road I had a down period and I really wrote down would always stand for like how am I gonna make choices I don't know where I'm going but how do I do what are my core values not and I wrote him down I went through that exercise and and I have a bit of a road map thanks to dad I don't know so what are those core values what does that look like it's a set of equations and I can look back to the Bronco days and all that and they all kind of fall in line but the the later ones have evolved a little bit and touch on not having enough time for training but it all starts to me with risk equals reward that's the first one passion equals payoff give equals get which is part of all this foundation sharing and then the final one that you just touched on that less equals more and that you know if I fill my life up too much you know kind of back to that simplicity is it better to do more and that's I think probably where you live and I live now in it spaces in our life of what do we say no to inundated with requests or invitations to do lots of cool stuff I am and again going back to Iditarod that's that's why I need to just go ride alone for long distances mmm you know because that is the core of who I am that's that kid in Downers Grove Illinois who wanted to go camp in the backyard is I can't lose sight of that through everything else and now this movie this movie that you made won an Emmy it did win and I'm crazy it that movie tour and I you know Jimmy and chai and all those guys are going through that right now it's it's a hard road to it's harder to share your story than not share your story but the gift of that film and blood road and and the hard work and no training of the of sharing the film it touched so many veterans and families and kids and people write me still every week of like thank you I saw this you know my dad was in the Korean War or my family did this or and it's been a really it just shows me again how important it is that it's not just about me it's it's not my film anymore it's so it's actually a way to help people and to touch people and to to heal from the atrocities of war is it still are you still touring with it I'm using it now as a fundraising tool it's not an official tour anymore but I'm using it as a tool for my foundation so people can request to host a screening they can you know request to have me and so it's a great tool to go and give a speech to a film and and it's a it's an evergreen story unfortunately the bombs aren't cleared up yet they have a long way to go they do and so so yeah it's um it's a tool that I have to do my job which is amazing right so let's talk about your 50 now I am right yeah I can say it now yeah I know you're smiling well Aaron 49 I was all like haha what am I gonna do when I turn 50 what I'm gonna say when I turned 50 and you know it's like I'm 50 I'm killing it you're crushing it so I guess my question is likes are you how do you think about aging and how has your training and your racing evolved with time and age like in a very like physical way like like you have to do things differently are you still feeling the way that you did a 40 like how is it different how do you adapt and evolve the biggest thing I noticed is I do all the things that we all should do anyway I have to stretch more I have to sleep more I have to drink more water I can't be lazy about the whole picture anymore uh-huh all those things as we know when we're 20 30 40 you know you're supposed to do that stuff you don't right there's no there's less there you have to be sort of more complete in the preparation which is fine it just it requires more commitment more time you know it's you've got it a lot more time to go stretch you gotta take longer to warm up you know this was stretching like do like foam rolling and what other kinds of like foam rollers a big part of it um lots of little balls and toys and rubber bands and things I have some great body workers at home that I see a little more regularly than than I would have when I was living out of my Bronco I don't really see you a body worker foam rollers weren't around at that time [Laughter] yeah and and I six it up a little bit more - I do I do a lot of trail running with my dogs I swim a little bit because I feel like it's really good for you I you know do yoga just becoming a little bit more well-rounded the biggest challenge I'm finding and you you already talked about it is as I get older and I get busier and there's more demands on my time it's harder to carve out and really be diligent about protecting my training time and probably that is my biggest challenge right now is not that I need to stretch more drink more water is I need actually really dedicate time to myself and and that's part of my job and nobody can touch that so I I could learn maybe from you on being diligent about I don't know my boundary is a little too permeable you know I I should I think I can learn from you about you know being more protective of that time will and honestly this it's hard in a daily routine but this is why I will continue to sign up for events because when I'm in Alaska nobody can touch me when I'm out on the trail and I really am in an event and I say I'm gonna be off the grid for two weeks then truly nobody can get to me and that really is precious time for me so so now I'm in in sort of the the mode of planning really big adventures so at least you know a few times a year or once a month I'm going in doing a big ride and scary enough to keep you honest scary enough to keep me honest and then also really be off the grid and you know where I live there isn't cell phone coverage when I'm mountain bike riding and I think those are those are my ways of protecting the boundaries yeah what does the training look like like how structured are you with it do you work with a coach coach Dean are you listening I guess you do work I do work with a coach Dean College he's he's awesome he's he's uh I've worked with him for years and I was really about to you know I need to call him today and be like hey I need more structure I need you to kick my butt a little bit because he was patient with me as I it's really after you know my trainings been a lot less structured since I came back from blood road and I've done a bunch of stuff and I've dabbled but it's time now I've had the evolution and the processing that now I do want to get back to some more serious training so typically when I'm on track it will you know the the basic core of it is is a couple really long things a week and then a few days of intervals a week I mean it's it's really that basic you know short or long short and hard or long and and and slow and everything else and so this helps you kind of conceptualize that and then it says okay here's is it like a here today you do this to Mario or is it just like here's the kind of core work workouts that you got to get in and you figure out how it works with your schedule he'll put it on a calendar and ideally that accountability is really important for me it's just like somebody saying you need to show up and do this interview with patrol at this time and it's like okay I'll be there right and so in a best-case scenario he'll put it all in a calendar and I see it and I look and I plan my day and go okay tomorrow's a big day I need to schedule around that I haven't been that great at it you know admittedly in the in the last couple years so that's where I am asking him to to get back and crack the whip whip a little bit because I think we all need we all need someone to keep us accountable whether its family or coach or boss or whatever and he let me take a break for a while he was he's very understanding of that but yes time to get back to work I like how you phrase that like he let you like he's the boss and what's your relationship with you know training devices like our rate monitors and power meters and you know the human optimization you know whereby we're all using technology to learn more about how our bodies function like are you more of a naturalist or do you rely on those things how you know how does that work for ya I'm middle-of-the-road I think a power meter is the best tool ever designed in the face of the earth because it is very direct immediate feedback that you are either progressing or you're strong today or you're not and it doesn't lie whereas a heart rate monitor can lie if you're sick or you're tired or whatever that's less accurate yeah those are listening that aren't super gearheads a power meter measures the amount of force that you're exerting on the pedals basically yeah and if you're pushing down you're pushing down and if you're not you're not and to me I use that in training a lot as a measure and and for me it's a reinforcement of you we all have days where you think I'm kind of sucking today and then you look at the numbers and say oh no really it wasn't that bad or oh it's time to take a rest and for me I like that direct feedback however I will I will say I never use it racing it's on it's recording so that Dean can look at it and we can look at the metrics but I always race if I feel and perception as if you're looking at those numbers it will unduly influence like if you think oh wow I'm above my threshold I better dial it back even if you're feeling good I think it holds people back yeah and I also think it keeps them from being really in tune with how they're actually feeling in the moment and reading your body instead of reading a number on the screen and it also you know if your eyes are down glued glued to the Garmin you're not looking around I think that that it's important the tools are great but they work best when you're using them to develop that intuition like you're so experienced I'm sure even though you're not looking at the the data or the numbers he could probably say with extreme precision oh yeah I was these were the watts that I was at today and it would match up because you're so connected and well that's what's cool is I was an athlete long before those gadgets were available and so I developed a sense of how I'm feeling and intuitively how I'm feeling and then when the gadgets came along it was like oh yeah reinforcement like oh okay you know so yeah I do know what 200 Watts feels like I do know what this feels like but they're also they're a great measure that because we are all busier they're a great measure that you know you want quality time versus quantity and it's a measure of like I'm getting the most out of this workout I have an hour I'm gonna get it done and I'm gonna do the work and then it's like cool so as a training tool I think they're amazing as a tool to know your body or to make decisions in racing I don't you know I'd rather use my brain yeah I'm with you and now at 50 is there a shift in like the the balance of how your training goes like do you feel like you need to do more strengthen interval stuff like that that that is more important or less important like how has it altered to kind of you know correspond with the aging process or do you not think about that or that that uh I think about it um I feel like I have such a library of years of doing endurance and long stuff that for me I get the most benefit and pop from doing intervals doing strength doing short hard things because that's not my natural state it's less fun but it's over faster but yes if I do the hard work in that way mm-hm it pays off in it yeah you know so I was so huge and for years and years and years of having done that you can tap into it I do I feel like I can tap into that pretty easily I can't tap into speed unless I'm unless I'm really working on it but but one feeds the other and part of the reason I I suffered so badly in Alaska is I I went into that race kind of unfit and I know it sounds sort of weird but I knew I could finish the distance the distance wasn't intimidating to me but I would have felt a lot better if I'd gone in with with more intervals and ER my belt and and you know the bike was 65 pounds so you know just heaving it up and over some of these hills and stuff was was pretty intense so I could have used a training camp I know I exactly exactly and what is your relationship with suffering you know when people say like oh you know why are you you know keep why do you keep going up back to the pain cave like what is it what is it that you're getting out of it what are you learning about yourself what is your relationship with suffering I feel like the pain cave or suffering or I feel like there is a ancient I mean this is nothing new as where we're physical deprivation or you know whether it's a you know fasting or whether it's going into a sweat lodge you know affecting your physical body for me is a way to to kind of reach inside my soul and access the inner body by sort of some may call it torture or her suffering or going into the pain cave physically that actually allows me to access Who I am emotionally and it sounds a little strange but but I said there's examples through history of people accessing their mind by you know changing their body and we talked about mind-body connection or you know you know it's all one thing but often people are busy they're thinking they're on email they're doing this that their brain is so hyperactive and their body is is inactive so for me I have to flip it around and make my body extremely active in order to to quiet my mind and to calm my mind and and really think about it Who I am as a person so it is a it's a therapy it's an aesthetic practice like you're it's a stripping away and I think in that there's you find truth I mean you found it running I've listened to a really great episode you did about running as spirituality and Oh with Sanjay for a while yeah yeah and it was really amazing you know here is a beautiful guy hearing the stories of yeah people running or you know in the the Tara Mara Indians you know and just as a spiritual practice where self-transcendence right so this is nothing new I don't think to it go because I want to feel pain mm-hmm I go because I want to feel joy and enlightenment and and learn about myself let's talk about how you think about yourself as this you know role model for female empowerment do you like how do you navigate that I mean one thing I've said it many times on the podcast but yeah we don't do a very good job in our culture of championing the many powerful women out there that are doing amazing things we tend to shine the spotlight on you know female quote-unquote role models that that are perhaps not you know the best and I think there's a lot of women out there yourself included who are doing amazing things that I think you know give me hope as a father of two daughters but is that something that you are like conscious of and I mean I know that you're out there trying to foster you know empowerment's in the athletic community with women but like how do you think about these issues I I think about it the same way as my mom did I'm just lead by example and no one sets out to be you know when I grow up I want to be an inspiration yeah nobody doesn't have or well if you do there's something wrong with you I mean that yeah I've made my choices organically and this is how it all happened and and I do feel like the the you know I've had mentors in my life and and perhaps I am one for other people but it's really just by leading by example and you probably know this with your kids you can tell them something you know brush your teeth before dinner or before bed but if you don't do it yourself your words don't have a lot of meaning to them as a teacher and so for me I feel a responsibility to speak up and to speak out because I I do see this shift and this change with more women in politics and government and you know in sports and CEOs it there is a change happening slowly but it's happening and and I'm part of it and it's exciting and more I feel a responsibility then you know anything else but but it's fun it's so great and rewarding to see my nieces you know going to college and playing music and art and getting into government and that's part of that give equals get it's super evil I get more back from you know even hosting an event where I see other people crossing the finish line with their arms in the air and they're smiling like I'm as happy helping facilitate that then I am racing myself yeah YouTube camps too right yeah do you want to come to camp you're gonna give me in your world some way you can I [Laughter] I do in the campsite yeah I'm doing a more work at home in Idaho one because as part of my balance of wanting to stay home more I love where I live and I live in a great place too right bicycles so why not invite people to come to me and so then I get to ride I get to stay home and I get to share with friends the beautiful place that I live so the Academy and and Rebecca's Private Idaho are all part of me combining what I need but also with a way to give back to somebody else aha and what is the the message like let's envision in your mind there's a young woman listening to this who perhaps is flirting with the idea of getting active but is intimidated and you know doesn't live in a place where there's the kind of culture that you have and catch them like how can you inspire that person to you know engage with their physical being a little bit more I think women and girls especially are intimidating and I certainly was to get involved with mountain biking I was super intimidated I didn't understand the equipment tell you won the first race you ever entered well I was running you know um but you feel you feel like you don't know enough and there's an intimidation factor that I might not be good people might make fun of me I'm not wearing the right thing I don't know the right gear and and really I think that's why I do try to host women and girls camps and things because I think of you you've got to just invite somebody in to start with and as soon as you feel comfortable enough to step out on your own then you know then the floodgates are open and so for anyone male or female I think finding a community that is supportive and whether it's your bike shop or whether it's your friends or whether it's a high school sport you know they have high school mountain biking in they have in school now high school cycling League but it's hard to do alone and I even find that now at 50 you know and we were talking about this my if my training is not consistent if I do it alone and so I've got to find some people and I got to get Dean you know to whip crack the whip a little bit but none of us can achieve any of it by ourselves when you're at home are you doing most of the training by yourself or do you have group rides that you do Oh combination yeah no just by sort of timing to factor in my day and a bunch of my friends work you know regular jobs I'll do and I'm not a morning person so I'd do a lot of afternoon training and sometimes that'll be alone but then I do need to I do need to pepper it in with some groups and I have a you know a group of three or four good buddies that it will go do anything with me at any time I won my friend I called the wart because she's like oh I'll always be there with you so I can give her any like I've got to go away Venus workout you know will you go do it with me and she will you know she doing that sounds terrible okay I'll go yeah that's cool you gotta have that person yeah and to keep you honest right looking at thinking about your core values that you just shared a few minutes ago how does that line up with how you think about like what's next when you're pondering what your next crazy like are you will you share what you're thinking about doing that yeah I will I know I mean those core values and the lesson from the Ho Chi Minh Trail my dad and be good I mean it's it's basically a trail map for me you know it's it's kind of a little checklist of you know when I'm making my choices do they do they meet those criteria and what's next that I'm super excited about and it and it is a evolution from the Ho Chi Minh Trail is to and through this foundation it's it's to to kind of tackle more of the famous trails in the world and tell the stories of them and I think next on the list I did her a trail fell into that I think next would be Lewis and Clark trail and Silk Road is on the list and the ideas to get to ride through history to tell the story to adventure experience the people along the way and talk about whatever the current social issues are you know whether it's public lands whether it's unexploded ordnance and so there's a big part of me that wants to use that model of the of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and blood road go explore some of the other famous chances well that could be like a Netflix series just bang these things out I mean it could feed my soul and you know for the next 50 years or maybe not that looks 50 but that's what it alright that'd be great and then could come along I would love that that's my kind of deal where would you want a rival Silk Road would be unbelievable yeah there's I've been sort of on the internet looking at trails are so many great store what are these other trails I mean there is the Trail of Tears is a you know American there they're all migratory or war or you know exploratory like Lewis and Clark and the Oliver's story or a religious pilgrimage you know there's there's so many great trails in the world so that is kind of what I'm trying to form as is the next next projects for me very cool well uh awesome to talk to you we're gonna get you in a bike ride yeah for sure on the dirt I know I wish I had more time today to ride with you yeah busy lives man well camp in Idaho rush Academy starts in early June early June yeah look at my calendar it's the best month in Idaho as the wild flowers start blooming yeah alright we'll talk okay cool thank you you are an absolute inspiration it's incredible what you've done it's super inspiring so thank you for sharing with me thanks for talking about it and get me back on with my coach Dean hello appreciate ya Dean get me back to joining this girl did your help it's official now if people want to check out blood road it's available on a multitude of yeah rebel TV iTunes Amazon Prime and then blood road film calm if somebody wants to host a screening and be part of the be good foundation or my website is Rebecca rush just Hama has everything there yeah and the book thank you for bringing this I look forward to reading this Russia glory this is awesome so maybe you come back and after I read this come back we can talk more okay that sounds really good all right cool thank you all right peace plants mount bikes [Laughter] [Music]

Channel: Rich Roll

Views: 30,356

Keywords: activist, Article22, athlete, author, be good, biker, Blood Road, champion, cycling, Emmy, Eco-Challenge, endurance, fitness, gratitude, health, Ho Chi Minh Trail, inspiration, Laos, meditation, mindfullness, mindset, motivation, mountain biker, MTBLAO, nutrition, pain, plant-based, podcast, Queen Of Pain, Rebecca Rusch, rich roll, Rusch Academy, Rusch To Glory, self-help, spirituality, sport, vegan, veterans, vets, Vietnam, Vietnam War, war, wellness, sports, mountain biking, adventure sports, vietnam

Id: 8KUvn7NL234

Length: 104min 42sec (6282 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 23 2019