A lot of people see the headline. They see that I completed 50 or 100 full-distance triathlons and they’re like, ‘Dude’s different, gifted or some type of spider bite must have happened to him.’ It couldn’t be further from the truth. My journey was actually started by my wife. One year we were celebrating Thanksgiving, and she said, ‘Hey, let’s go do this four-mile fun run.’ I was like, ‘That sounds stupid,’ but we ran it and I totally suffered through it.
After that she signed me up to the Salt Lake City Marathon, which was a big jump. Then we found triathlon. We loved the community. And then just started doing all the sprints and Olympic distances and just had so much fun. We progressed through the sport over time. But, man, it was a very, very humbling beginning to this journey.
Nowadays, I get something in every single day. I try to do my running on the road, and I run and strength train while I’m travelling. Strength training is huge for me. Before it became popular, I was screaming from the rooftops, ‘Endurance athletes have to do strength training.’ I attribute it to my success in the big challenges that I’ve done. I was more durable. I’ve been in massive bike crashes, breaking collarbones and bouncing off the ground. It’s because of the muscle mass that I’ve been able to carry on.