Josh Sprague (Orange Mud) - "Stay positive and focus on the goal"

Host Alison Gilliard interviews Josh Sprague, founder of Orange Mud (started January 2012) and Seven Clay. Josh explains building Orange Mud’s hydration packs and the transition wrap/seat cover as “innovation from frustration,” recounts his background in endurance sports and adventure racing, and emphasizes training less to avoid overtraining, family-first balance, warming up slowly, and breaking big efforts into small, measurable goals while staying positive and caring for feet and gut.

He describes racing a 12-hour adventure race with his 14-year-old son, shares nutrition strategies using Infinite Nutrition custom mixes, favors audiobooks over music, and details launching Seven Clay after poor local embroidery service, growing it into a larger customization business.


Josh Sprague - https://www.facebook.com/josh.sprague.96
Orange Mud - https://www.orangemud.com/


Races Mentioned
Rock N Roll Marathon Phoenix
Leadman Series
Jailbreak
Cannonball 550

Shout Outs
Aunt Sherry
Marvin
Mike
Jack

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hi, Run Your Story family. This is Allison Gilliard with Run Your Story, where every story needs to be heard. And our friends from Run Tall are making sure that your stories get heard this month. Run Tall is a running and lifestyle brand built for those who move with purpose, those who stand firm under pressure no matter what life throws at them. This isn't just about running. It's about discipline, resilience, growth, and the mindset that keeps showing up every single day. So whether you're chasing goals, overcoming setbacks, training for something bigger, or simply becoming a better version of yourself, Run Tall represents you. What began as an idea has gone into a movement and a mantra to live by, a community for people who are able to quit. Every design, every product, and every message is created to inspire strength, consistency, hard work, and perseverance. Whenever possible, tall chooses sustainable and recyclable materials because taking care of places we run is just as important as the miles we wall. So true. So run cloud, run strong, and run tall. We love Run Tall. Thank you so much, Carls, and Runtall for believing in Runner Story. You can find out more about Run Tall at shopruntal.com. You can also find out more about the On the Runner Story website. And Run Tall has a special discount for book, which is Runner Story15. That is Runner Story15 for discount. We have special collab hats that we've done. Also, you can use that on anything that you purchased at the Run Tall store. So thank you, Run Tall. Talk about being inspired. Talk about seeing a need and filling that need. Talk about innovation out of frustration. Guys, we have the job spray who is Orange Mud. If you've not heard of Orange Mud, please stop reading. Or don't stop talking about it, but go and look them up. Orange Mud, I knew them as years and years ago when I started using craft on and they had the two towels. And then you may not want to need them after this minute or like afterward or whatever, but I would go use them after getting the gym. I would put the towel on the car. I still do that to this day. So we got to talk to Josh from Orange Mod. Absolutely amazing. He also has a business called Seven Play, and you guys want to hear more about that. Again, he got frustrated and he created another business. So you're gonna be inspired by him. I love talking with him, and we're gonna talk for hours and hours. He says, run slow, run easy, have a positive mindset, small, measurable bowl, and always have something. I love how he talks about I always have a running pack, which now I've started doing that. Always try to make sure I have something with me I can put my stuff in. He does such a great job of explaining everything. An absolute amazing individual. So if you do not own a piece of orange mud, please go support him. He's done such an outstanding job and he tests everything. Love what he does. And the most important conversation that I had with him is that balanced family. Family is part of the most important. So I've actually talked to a lot of people after his story, and I was like, guys, this is what he said. So absolutely amazing. Josh, thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for creating such great products for the community. And thank you for being somebody who sees the meaning and builds a need. And definitely for all the stuff that you gave us through this podcast. Stay positive, focus on the goal. Just amazing. Like our just so many nuggets of knowledge. Did such a great job. So thank you for that, Josh. And for taking the time to be on running story. With that being said, guys, ladies of those running cubes, get ready, get set, and go run with my friend Josh in the Run Story. Well, thanks, Josh, for being on the podcast. So excited because I am a huge fan of orange mud. I've had, I think I have three of your towels. I mean, I've had them since a really long time.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Perfect. That's what I like to hear.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

One of them probably needs to be replaced.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

It can happen. That's all right.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

I'm so excited because for those that don't know, you are Orange Mud. Holy smoke. This is so cool to be talking with you who created orange mud. And if you've never heard of this brand, highly encouraged because it's also a great transition towel, which having done trathlons or having changed in the parking lot or even in my car when it's hot and sweaty, that towel is 10 out of 10. So clutch on that, my friend.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Thank you. That was our my second product. And it's the one I spent the smallest amount of time designing. And it's just so cool to see where it's gone all these years later.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Amazing. Oh my gosh. So I'm again, thank you for being here. I'm pumped to just pick your brain and hear your story. So what is your story, Josh? And then how did you come up with Orange Mud? Like how did all this happen? How did we get here?

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Sure. Well, yeah. So see, I started Orange Mud in January of 2012, 14 years ago. And I did it. Innovation from frustration is our tagline. And it kind of came about because ultimately that's why I started Orange Mud. I was frustrated with the waistbelts would squeeze your waist and often cause GI distress. And we're just uncomfortable. And then handhelds I've just never been crazy about. And then all the backpacks at the time were too hot and they moved around or they just were uncomfortable. They'd chafe you or didn't have pockets in the right places. So after uh Iron Man training block, I was just frustrated one night and I went into my garage and I ripped apart a gun holster, a ratchet strap, and a waste pack, and a one of those free hotel sewing kits you have sometimes in your hotel room that I had. And I sewed this little crude concoction together that I had in my head for a long time. And it was a water bottle-based hydration pack that goes behind your back and is just small enough to hold the bottle, your phone, keys, cash for the beer garden after a race, and your nutrition. And yeah, I told my wife I said, hey, we're gonna spend 50,000 bucks probably. Worst case, we're gonna have two backpacks worth $25,000 each, perfectly designed for us. But yeah, hopefully we can build a brand. And then yeah, 14 years later, we're still kicking it. So I've grown into marathon and trail Ultra, mountain bike, gravel bike, Iron Man, OCR, pretty much anything endurance sports is our jam. It's always been my jam. And so it's been fun to all these years kind of refine packs for these spaces and take what is a passion of mine, which is endurance sports, and turn it into a passion-based brand.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

That is incredible. Absolutely. I love that you saw a need for yourself, and you're like, and then obviously somebody else is gonna need this as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Yeah. Yeah. Well, even like the tally you mentioned, my buddies in I used to run a manufacturing company, a medical device, semiconductor DOD stuff in SoCal. And my buddies at the shop, we used to go out on a Tuesday or Wednesday night after work and we'd go ride up the Cleveland National Forest. And one night I was out there in every ride, we finished dirty, bloody, sweaty, maybe all three. And every night we would go out from work and we would change right there at the trailhead from our business clothes into our cycling kit. And there was just a parking lot next to it for a while. But all of a sudden, one day I was changing, and this was a few hundred yards away. But I'd just taken my pants off and I was getting ready to put my kit on, my bibs, and I see this little girl pointing in her backyard, and I'm like, oh shit. So I turned real quick and I'm like, man. And meanwhile, at that time, my son was about four months old, and I my whole life flashed forward. I thought, that girl's gonna tell her mom she just saw some naked man standing out on the trail. And then mom's gonna call the cops, cops gonna come arrest me, and I'm gonna be a registered sexual predator, and I'm not even gonna be able to drop my kids off at school. Now, none of that happened, but all that flashed through my head because you know I have people all the time like when we're at events, they're like, I change in public, I'm not afraid of anything. I'm like, you don't have to be afraid of anything. But when Johnny Law pulls you over just because you changed in public or you know, gives you a big fat ticket, it can change your life. And it's that type of stuff that is scary and it's it shouldn't be that complicated in this world. But for me, I'm like, I'm not gonna go through that risk. I'm just gonna build something that is a necessary tool, especially if you're in a parking lot after a race and you want to get out of your nasty cycling kit or running clothes. It's at least a tool to change your bottoms without mooning the whole parking lot. No one, not everybody needs to see that sweaty butt. So now maybe it's nice, right? But not everybody needs to see it. So that's why I thought I'm gonna do this. And so I built that, but then the other key part of it is that I'd already had a towel that I used in my car that I sewed a bag to, that I would put it over my headrest so when I'd sit on the seat, I wouldn't get my seat all sweaty. And so that's why I thought, eh, I'll build some sort of pocket that can slip over the headrest and keeps the towel from sliding off the seat so you keep your seat nice and clean. And so, yeah, that's where that product came about. So it was fixing the necessary evil that was a nasty car seat or a moon in people unnecessarily that I had ran into with my own tool and then which is the transition wrap, and then from there, hopefully other people would buy it and they have. So it is really neat to have the ability to build things that I want to be able to do, whether it's a big long race or a short training day or whatever it is. And again, I take all the feedback from people around me and I hopefully build it into something other people will like as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

That's amazing. And also the other side of that is what I appreciate about the transition towel is that so I live in South Alabama and it gets really hot. And so being able, like our seats, even cloth seats can be hot, but buddy, when you have that leather, yeah, it like burns your skin. So it gets you. Having that towel just to be able to put over your seat and just even when you're not hot and sweaty, like you're like, I'm getting in my car, and now like I'm just putting this here, just because like the towel's been cool, and then you can just put it and you're like, okay, we're good now. So I appreciate it on all the fronts.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, it's awesome. I love that thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

So, Josh, how did you get into running and becoming a tri athlete? And how did you get into all of this?

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Sure. Yeah, so I mean, I've competed in about anything you can think of. I mean, I've done it all OCR, marathon, iron man, tri, trail, mountain, gravel, adventure racing, swimming, whatever. But I just have always been an experiential guy. I like to try new things and I love endurance. I just always have enjoyed pushing the limits of the human body and seeing what it can do. And so I ran cross country and I played sports in school. But once I got out of high school, I started dabbling with mountain biking. And I really found that was one of my true loves. But I've always been a runner since the beginning. But I started with obviously shorter stuff in cross-country, and then all of a sudden, the five, three, three point one miles turned into 10 and 12, and then hey, let's go run a marathon. And my first road run was a marathon, and that was neat, but I still always found myself going back to dirt. And you know, mountain biking, it was it still is a huge passion of mine, but it's because I get to explore dirt and it's just it brings an awesome level of adventure. Trail running is in that same parallel, is that you get out and you it's harder to cover the same amount of ground in the same amount of time anyway. But yeah, so I've always been big in the trail run and mountain bike side. And when I found the sport of adventure racing, that's really what gave me the big split into both more seriously. And I mean, I've done over a hundred adventure races, and those are six hours, 12, 24 hours of multi-day events. And when you do that, you really get the best of both worlds. You run until you're sick of running, then you bike until you're sick of biking, then you probably paddle, and then you're probably back to running again and maybe biking again, and you'll bounce around. But that's where I really found the love of sport of endurance is through adventure racing. And from there, it just after a while, you're like, all right, well, coordinating these teams is a lot of work and a lot of expense. Maybe I'm just gonna go do a bike race. Maybe I'm just gonna go do a hundred-mile bike race. Maybe I'm just gonna go do a 200 mile gravel bike race. Maybe I'm just gonna go do a 50-mile run or whatever it may be. So it's funny how your brain shifts over time with what it when like the marathon. I still remember that when I signed up. It was a 2002 rock and roll marathon, I believe, in Phoenix. And it was like, this is an incredible distance. I was really nervous. I was really excited training for it, and I was really nervous going into it. And it's funny because after I've done all the stuff I have now, it's like, gosh, that was only a marathon. But when you've never ran a marathon, it's pretty freaking frightening. And every distance you go up, it gets more and more scary. But then all of a sudden, you hit these big distances. And I see a lot of my friends that have done this in Durant Sports, all of a sudden they hit all these big distances, and then you're like, now what? I mean, you do you now you kind of hit a point where you're like, well, what is my purpose? Am I a racer or am I a person that wants the experience? And so now I've kind of pivoted more to the experience where I don't care about racing as much. For me, I want to go out and just explore and just do big things and just on my own and try to slow down a little bit and maybe enjoy the ride a little bit more than normal.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Oh, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Wow. So Josh, there have got to be some lessons that you've learned from all of this. Do you mind sharing some of that?

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Oh, sure. The number one I think is overtraining and worrying too much about training. I can't tell you how many times I've I used to have butterflies. I'm talking like for the first hundred, two hundred races, I bet I did, I would show up to the start line with butterflies in my stomach. And it could be a 5K. It didn't even have to be long. It was just you're always nervous, you're always feeling you didn't train enough. I can't tell you how many times I've showed up to the start line and been talking with other people and just saying, yeah, I haven't even rode my bike for the last week because I've been so busy or whatever. And it's like it doesn't matter anymore. I'm so busy anymore. I show up to the start line. I'm lucky if I've rode my bike in the previous two or three weeks, and I don't even care because it's gonna be fine. You know, and ultimately it just will. And then I can't tell you how many times I've shown up to the start line where my body is worn out. I'm injured or I'm exhausted because I finished two hard of training blocks and I didn't get rest. And so the funny thing about getting older, I don't know if it's old man strength or what, but I don't seem to get any slower and I train a fraction of the amount. And you just it just makes you sit back and think, well, did I do this wrong all along? You know, when I was training four, five, six days a week consistently for years, and if you're wanting to be at the tip of the spear, sure, you gotta put in the time. Probably. I mean, I don't know, maybe you could still train three days a week. It's so rare that anybody ever tries to reel it back a little bit. That everybody always feels you gotta do more, you gotta do more, guy, you have to do more. But I will say this look at a marathon. How many people are super fit that are running a marathon? And I've been the same, I've been one of them people. You're out there running, and you're like, Well, I remember my grandma once after I did an Iron Man and my Aunt Sherry. It was both of them so nice to say this. But they were like, You just did an Iron Man, where's your six pack? I'm like, I don't have a six-pack, grandmother. I mean, it's in there, but it's just it's hidden. And they're like, Well, how can you do an Iron Man that you don't have a six pack? I'm like, Well, I don't know. How'd you drink a glass of wine today? I mean, you just did, right? It's just like I just ran a marathon. Or I did an Iron Man. And so I think there's too much pressure that's often put on this. Let's train, train, train, train, train. But are we eating properly? And are we doing maybe a little bit of weight workout and maybe a core workout? Do we need to stop doing we have to run five days a week? We have to train seven days a week, whatever it is. Yeah. So yeah, my number one, I think, is look at your training schedule and could you do a better job by training less? Will you feel a better reward? When the best coach I ever had, when I signed up to work with him when I was doing Leadman, I said, I'll give you four days a week and the fifth day is a bonus. And like, you can put a fifth day in there, but I'm not gonna commit to it. I said, I'll give you four days a week. That's all I got. And this was training for a hundred-mile bike, hundred-mile run, fifty-mile bike. I think there's like a trail marathon, and there's a 10K you have to do after you'd biked 100 miles. And it's all the it's called the Leadman series. And I did that for two years with Marvin. And he's like, Yeah, sounds great. He's like, that makes sense. Let's do it. And I loved it because I could win. Every week I could do four weeks, four days a week. Achieving five days a week wasn't always possible. And I know you'll have your David Goggin style people in the world, they're like, it's always possible. Just wake up at four. I'm like, okay, well, when I have little kids that never sleep and I run two businesses, I don't always have the time. And many of us are in the same boat. We just don't always have that time. So yeah, I believe in doing less, the older I get, the more I find doing less is for me able to do more. And I think many people could benefit from that.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

I love that you brought that up. One of the things that I have found with conversations, and it's something that I'm so proud of our running community as new runners are coming in. And that's one of the things that we talk about with them because it's like you said, they're just one, they're so gun-ho. They're like, oh, I've got to do it all. And you're like, well, wait a minute. You might have that family obligation that you're not gonna be able to sign up for that race that you need to go take care of that, or you might be like like what you shared, like a new parent, or you might be there it just you fit running into your life. You don't fit your life into running. You don't just say, Okay, here's running, and then we're just gonna cram everything in there. It's like, no, you take it day by day. And I love how you told your coach, I give you four days. That is amazing. That is so cool.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Yep. Yeah, and that's where you just have to do it. And because otherwise most people are going to default to a five or six-day week. The first time I hired Iron Man coaches, I really liked my coaches, but I failed in the very first week because they gave me a six-day week training program. And most of those days we're working out twice a day. I worked on average 80 hours a week, and so fitting that in, especially with every week, I was usually on at least three airplanes, and it was just almost impossible to keep up. I literally failed in the very first week. And then what did I do? Because I knew I failed, I'm like, well, screw it, I'll just do what I can. And then I'm like, what am I even paying for? So ultimately I failed all the way around because the whole program I didn't do completely. It was too much for me to fit in my schedule, and I didn't feel rewarded about the process. Whereas when I was trained with Marvin, I was like, each week I was able to dive into things. I'm like, hey, okay, I see my power numbers this week are up, or I see my fatigue is definitely not looking as good as maybe I was hoping it would be. What should we do? Oh, okay, let's adjust those numbers. But if you're not putting in an accurate plan and you're not following it, the whole plan gets thrown out of whack because it's like, well, last week you only did three of your six days, so I hate to change it. But if we just say, hey, we're gonna do four days and I'm for sure gonna make it, or even three days, at least that you can have bonus material to work on top of that, and you can put better math into, you know, if you're really trying to move yourself up in the pack, it gives you a better mechanism to measure that more effectively because you're doing one plan 100% and you can measure accordingly.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

That is great advice. I love that. So, out of all the things that you've done, because you've done a lot, so do you have a favorite race? Like, how do I even ask this question of you?

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Well, and I've answered this many times over the years, actually, and because I but I hate to tell the same one, and so I often mix it for people that maybe heard me on other podcasts. I'll throw a new one in today because I have done so many, I've done over 500 endurance races, and and so there's I will say it in this way all my favorite races, almost all of them, have been done as a team, or I've done the race with somebody else. Maybe it was an individual, but I ran a race with someone. But I'll say the most current one was really special. And I did it this year with my son, and he's 14, and he'd never done this before. But there was an adventure race right here in my backyard in February in uh Georgetown Lake and called Jailbreak. And so it was a 12-hour race. We probably ran around 20 miles, give or take a few. We probably biked around 20 to 30 miles, give or take a few, and then we paddled probably 15. And this is all map and compass, a lot, some on trail, but a whole bunch of it not on trail, especially well on the foot portions. And this was a week before the race, I'd signed up to do it by myself just because I couldn't find anybody else here locally to do it with me in February. But a week before the race, the weather was looking to be 70 degrees. And so I told my son, I said, Hey, the weather's looking good next week. And I think this would be a good one for you to come do. You want to come try it? And he's like, What is it? And I was like, No, it's an adventure race, it'll be fine. And he is a really good athlete, but I really didn't know if he could do it. I mean, it's no one, you don't know if you can do these things if you've never done it. And I know if I was 14, I don't know that I would have tackled something like that. But here, he's like, Yeah, sure, why not? Because he probably is like, I'm way faster of a runner than you are anyway, Dad. Which is true. I mean, you can run a 514 mile, and I can't. But so I was like, all right, well, let's see. And so we went out and we went to the start line. I think we got eighth in the race. I technically we got a little bit higher because some of the people took a short course, but anyway, but we ended up going out and he ended up doing fantastic. And we put a lot of miles on our feet that day, which was above and beyond what some of the other people did. Because we actually made a decision in the race. There were two different kayak sections, and the winds were really high. High and he just didn't have the muscle power to be able to do what we needed in the kayak. And I was worried we were gonna get stuck out there. And as I was noticing he was struggling, I was like, hey, you know what? Let's we only made it like a half a mile of the first kayak. The second leg was big, but but this first leg, I was like, man, this wind is too dangerous. Let's go beach the boats and we're gonna run this whole course. And I was like, it's gonna be a little bit gnarly, but we'll be fine. And he's like, All right, and we just finished running a whole bunch, so and biking. And so we go off and we ran the whole kayak course, which had a bunch of points. You had to kayak two, but we're on land. And we ran well, more than anybody else did in that race because there was no rule saying that you couldn't run it. It's just it didn't necessarily seem logical to a lot of people, but ultimately I don't think it hurt as much at all. And so yeah, we went out and we fully crushed it. I saw him go through some highs and lows in the day, but the number one piece that he did a great job with is staying positive, which is all I can ever ask for. With anybody I ever race with, that's all I ever asked for, is just we stay in a positive mindset. And otherwise, it's no fun for either one of us. But yeah, he stayed in a positive mindset even when his legs were cramping and I was forcing him to eat electrolytes to keep up and reduce the cramp. And next thing we cross the finish line. And after a solid 12 hours of racing, I assure you there's not very many 14-year-olds out there that would do it. Not to say they can't, it's just there's not many that would. And so that was a really special time to be able to do a race that I've done so many of, always with adults, but to drag a 14-year-old through and your son, of course, for 12 hours of a high output was pretty special. So I'll put that up there as one of my top.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

I love that. So I gotta know when you crossed the finish line, was he like, I'm done, I'm never doing this again? Or was he like, you know what? I'm ready. Like, I want to do this again.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

No, yeah, he, yeah, he was he and we even talked about it towards the finish because I was worried about that actually. I was worried he was like, I'm glad I did this and I won't do this ever again. But yeah, there was a couple things. I mean, it was neat to see, you know, because he is a much more faster athlete than me. And I think sometimes as a kid, you know, you look at your parents, you're like, oh, you're just old. But it it's different to where you see that strength that us adults have and tenacity and perseverance. And you can tell at times where he's like, Okay, like when I was like, You want me to carry your backpack, buddy? And he's like, Yeah, please. I'm sure he didn't like it. But there were pieces like that, I'm sure teach humility, which is really important. And and then yeah, he was like, Yeah, we should do another one. That one that the other teammate was talking about sounded great in Arkansas. I'm like, Well, cool, yeah, we'll do that. So, yeah, no, he's definitely in. And I mean, I actually just took him on a man trip with me with a bunch of my buddies, and we did a 48-mile mountain bike day, and that was the same thing. Not all my buddies were able to handle that, and he handled it better than some of my other buddies did. So it's neat to see, especially as a kid, or even just a 20, somebody in their 20s. When, and speaking even of my own self, when I first did, I'll never forget the first time I rode my road bike 50 miles. My boss at the time, Mike, he was like, Hey man, you want to go riding with us? You're doing triathlons now, right? I'm like, Well, yeah, but I mean, I literally got my road bike two weeks ago. I'm like, I'm a mountain biker, but even then I was still barely a mountain biker. And so he they took me out, took me on 50 miles, and that scared the death out of me. And I cried, I bonked. I mean, it was a miserable day, but I was really proud of it. But it's something that I just had, I'd never done that distance, so I didn't have the nutrition discipline and the mental discipline to wrap my head around it. And I think it is the different part about racing with somebody like me that's done so much is that I know how to tell you're gonna drink every 15 minutes, and here's what you're going to drink. And if you do this, we can do this all day. You can, it's not a big deal. And they see me, I'm not stressing about it. And we're out there, we're having a good time and telling stories and whatever. But I think it's a lot of people get intimidated with endurance sports because they haven't had somebody to steer them with proper nutrition. And if, and I tell everybody, if you consume approximately 200 calories per hour, and if you keep up with your electrolyte requirements on an hourly basis, you can do pretty much anything, untrained or trained. You can do an incredible distance if you do those two things. But most people don't. Most people, they just whatever, they drink whatever's on course or they don't have a nutrition. A lot of people just don't have a nutrition plan, bottom line. But with a nutrition plan, you can do anything. And then with somebody that's positive that wants to just push everybody's limits, but stay within bandwidth for everybody, you can get anybody to a finish line.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

That is incredible. Wow. Let me ask you on the other side of that. Has there been a race that has stuck with you that, or maybe you've already done it and you've gone back and you were like the first time I did that, it was a horrible experience, but I want to go back and do it again. Or is there a race that you're like, I'm never doing that again?

SPEAKER_02 26:57

Yeah, I've swore off marathons. And no offense to people like marathons. My foot, my right foot specifically, doesn't like pavement very much. And I have fractured my metatarsals now a few times. And so I have swore off marathons just because it's the pavement side that beats me up. I can run almost any distance on dirt and I enjoy dirt, but I think I would probably put it more as a category. On roads, I'd still run a hack marathon. That I think I would enjoy. I haven't done it in a while just because again, I focus so much on dirt. It's just my passion on whether it's on feet or in rubber tires on a bicycle. But yeah, I would say after doing a lot of them over the years, I don't get the same psychological experience by hanging out with other, say, trail runners, which is just fun. And mountain bikers, which is fun. So yeah, I and marathoners, of course, I mean, it's a great crowd, and it's just you often aren't for most people, you're not running with somebody. It's you're running with eight millions of people usually around you. But I really enjoy doing endurance sports with other people. So I guess I would say I decided I just don't need that piece. When I have so many other tools at my disposal to chase, I stop that. But yeah, no knocking on them. I mean, it's great because you can you see so many people put in the discipline and the time, and myself included, when you're training for them, it's a really exciting piece. But then after a while, when you've done a bunch of them, you're like, okay, now what? And that's when you start pushing those limits and start going up. And I just think that's I found my tribe, I guess is maybe the cleaner way to say it. Sure. I found my tribe is always been trail and dirt and people that like to go out there for really long periods of time.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

That's awesome. Okay. So let's shift a little bit because you talk about adventure racing and I mean being out there for 12 hours, days on end. So this is gonna be like a two-fold question. How do you prepare for that? And how does your pre-race routine how has that evolved over the years? Because obviously, the more you've gotten, the longer distance you're gonna be or multiple days, that sort of thing. It's not gonna be like a regular, hey, I'm gonna go do a 10-mile bike ride or a 50-mile bike ride. Like how has that changed?

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Yeah, I would say for the longest time, I make a list and I ahead of time, I think about really, I know all I need to do is drink and put in electrolytes. And my formula is actually pretty simple. I drink, my drink mix actually has calories and electrolytes that I need. So all I need to do is drink a two-liter bladder of water, which is gonna last me about three to four hours, and then however many of those I'm going to need. So over the years, I've learned and I try to do this a week or two ahead of time. So I'm not stressing the night or two nights or whatever before race day, and I don't have to think. I try everything I do to not really have to think on race day. So everything is just a system. So I lay everything out and I label it all. So I like for me, I mix up all my hydration mix in little quart baggies and I write on their straw, you know, lemon lime bag one, bag two, bag three, bag four, bag five. So I know the sequence that I'm gonna drink because I mix up the flavor profile depending on heat, thermal change through the day, or maybe just the duration. Maybe I want something different. And then I always pack a salt and a sweet because your brain always craves one of the two. So I pack salt and a sweet, maybe pickles. I always have pickle juice or pickles with me because they will strip sugars off my tongue. And I've learned that through time. That's one of the easiest ways to clean up a sore belly in a race, is have pickle juice or eat a pickle because it'll strip the sugars off your tongue, which makes you crave your mix again. And then it also helps to stabilize out the stomach. And so I always have that, but I also have a sweet because sometimes you're just like, man, I could really use some sour gummy pears or whatever it is. So, but and your our bodies are they're always gonna crave one or the other. It's always gonna be a salt or sweet. When you think about what you're hungry for, it's always salty or sweet. It's just that's what it is in durant sports. So I always have that, and then from there, it just comes down to making sure all my gears are ready. I've always got a spare pair of socks. I mean, if I'm doing something long, and if I have a TA or whatever, I'm gonna have a spare pair of socks just in case things go wrong. I check my shoelaces to make sure they don't have tears in them and I make sure if I'm on my bike, I have everything, everything's tuned up and ready. So when I show up to race day, there's nothing that I should be surprised by. And then I can run my exact strategy. And I used to write down it, and I still will write down what needs to happen if it's an adventure race, because those can be quite complicated. Hey, when you finish leg one, you need to go off with your climbing harness and your biking helmet, even though this is a run because there's a repelling section, and on that you must have this mandatory kit and so on. But you know, in most trail runs or cycling races, it's like you start and finish with what you got, or you're just switching out fluids, and so that's where I label the baggies, and that's about the extent of it. But I yeah, I've I have my always that I'll have, which is a spare little bag of one of my tricks. Whether you're a cyclist or a runner, one of my tricks that I use is I carry a spare bag of chamois butter, or sometimes if I'm out of that, I'll just throw some Vaseline or something in it. Bag, normally chamois butter. And I've used that in a Ziploc bag, obviously on your butt. If you're a cyclist, if you're long into a race and you need a little extra lube, put it on your butt cheeks to make it more comfortable in your bibs, or it works great on your feet if you've been getting in a lot of water and you're starting to have any water swelling. You put that on there and it seals up your skin so you don't get blisters. And then the other thing on a bike, it works great to lube your chain. And I've used that in races where I ran out of lube and I had to switch to my chamois butter and that Ziploc bag, my hands don't even get dirty. I put it on my chain and spin it. So, but those are really the basis of my system is just making sure I have the right nutrition, the right the right hydration pack with me for the distance that I'm doing and the right refills for everything, and I have the right socks and shoes. And then everything else, the way I see it is I don't need it. It's always just something to make me uh more comfortable. But but every time I leave, I mean, I just did this last week. I did a five-hour mountain bike ride on Sunday for my birthday, and I was like, you know what? When I left that morning or real early, because it was two hours away to go to this place in Comfort, Texas. I was like, all right, I got my shoes, I have my helmet, I have my bike. And I don't need anything else. As long as I have those things, I always look at what do I have to have? Anything else is a bonus. Anything else, if I need a rain jacket, well, hopefully I can wear a trash bag or whatever it may be. But I do like to always look at it. What's the mission critical that I have to have? And then anything else is a bonus once it's race day.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

That is such a good perspective. So you've already kind of talked a little bit about it. And so I'm curious to know because you said that with the calories and electrolytes, but what you have already has both of those. So what is that?

SPEAKER_02 33:41

I use a product from Infinite Nutrition, and I've been using it for 12 years, and I had struggled with some other brands, and I found these guys, I don't even know how I found them, but I called them up and I told them that I see when I finish these races, I'm always starving. And I liked how they asked me questions. They're like, well, okay, so when you finish a race, what do you feel like? I said, I'm always hungry. I'm always craving a hamburger or tacos or something. And they're like, okay, that's good to know. That's a lack of phosphates. I'm like, well, what do you mean? And they're like, we'll come back to that. And they're like, okay, well, do you have a lot of salt on your skin after a race, or do you have GI distress? And kind of walk me all through all these things. And what they were trying to get to the root of is what is it that my body needs that they can adjust? And they have a like, imagine a stereo equalizer. And that equalizer is your calories per hour, your magnesium, your sodium, your flavor profile, and a bunch of other stuff. So I dialed down my flavor profile because I told them I don't like a real sweet drink. And they say, well, the lemon lime is the least sweet, and then we can dial down the flavor for you to like, and I took mine to I think it's 30%. It's been, I've been drinking the same thing for 12 years, but I don't look at these settings and I haven't forever. But I believe it's at 30% profile. And then I did a sweat test, and the sweat test found that I burned, I'm pretty sure it's 11, it was a thousand or eleven hundred milligrams per hour and so of sodium. And so I have my concentration maxed really high to where I'm not going to run low on sodium. So I don't have to take electrolyte supplements during the race, unless I screw up nutrition, and that would be the only reason. And then from a caloric intake, we set my mixture to 270 calories per hour. And a lot of people will tell you that's too much. But with their base, I it's maltodextrin and I don't remember all the hocus pocus behind it, but ultimately for me, it works and I can drink that much without a problem. And I have for hundreds and hundreds of hours of training, thousands of hours of training and racing. And so, yeah, ever since I've been on that, I oh, and it has a mix of protein. And so there's really two key elements that I learned from that conversation that I've never forgot. And one is that, and I'm not a nutritionist, but this being said, they said that it's a reduction in omega-3s that often causes this hunger and want of Coca-Cola to finish line. Because that was one of the questions. They said, Do you ever crave soda to finish line? I'm like, yeah. Like, always. Like I, and they're like, Do you drink pop normally? I was like, never. But after a race, first thing I wanted was Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper. And they said that it's a reduction in omega-3s that makes your body crave phosphate. I guess omega 3s break down into phosphate or something. I don't know. Like I said, you have to talk to a nutritionist on this. But when they told me that, I said, hey, that sounds great. And I guess their formula has some omega-3s. And I can tell you, after 12 years, when I finish a race, I'm good. I'm not hungry and I'm not craving soda. I just am like, oh, you know, if something's there, maybe I'll eat something. If not, maybe I'll wait until there's something better to get. So just those two changes alone were a huge difference because a lot of times in a race, I would finish and I just was like, before the race was over, I was starving. And just having the little bit of protein like they have in their formula makes it to where I'm not hungry. And then again, I like your craving a soda, but it's I know it's not maybe the best for me after a race. So it was nice to eliminate that want because I kept my chemical balance better. So yeah, I'm a huge fan of their stuff and they're good people, small business and yeah, I think in Illinois, somewhere like that. And but they have a custom formulas that are great. And then I have a strawberry lemonade that I just freaking love. And I don't do a custom, I just buy their off the shelf for it, and I will mix it late in a race if I know that I'll be like, say if I go to if I'm doing a big bike packing event or something, if I know I'm gonna be eating at gas stations, after I get a bunch of food at a gas station, I'll switch to it and I'll have a lower calorie profile. Where because I probably just threw down a pizza and a Coca-Cola, and you're biking for days on end or even a full day, you're gonna eat whatever you're gonna want and it's gonna be nice. And so you don't want to overdo your gut, though. You don't want to have a thousand calorie meal and then be running full steam on your calorie mix. So I'll go with the reduced version that's kind of off the shelf and then wait an hour or wait three hours until the next refill, and then I'll top it back. So there's a bit of strategy I use with that, and it saves me some money too, because my customs formula is a little more expensive than the other ones. So that helps too.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

That's awesome. That's really cool. That's even out there. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

Yeah, yeah, it's they make good stuff, and I love it.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

So you get done, like you cross the finish line with your son. What does post race like you're finished? What Josh, what do you do next? How do you recover?

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Yeah, I have never been no, I can tell you what you should do, and then I can tell you what I do. And I can tell you what I do is usually I throw the backpack in the garage. I'm like, I'll see you after a while, buddy, and maybe I'll clean you tomorrow, but maybe I'll forget for a while. And then I get to practice the bioweapon experiment of detoxifying a hydration bladder that hasn't been cleaned for a week. But you know, sometimes after them big races, I try to relax a little bit. Okay, play my guitar and chill out and take a few days off. I try to go out and walk and move, like people say, but sometimes I'm like, you know what? There was a lot of lead up to go there. And I will be the first to admit I'm not the best at doing that. You know, the run, the morning run after. I'm always so amazed at the people that do that. I'm like, wow, good job. You did a marathon yesterday and you ran five miles this morning. Good job. I'm not doing that. I don't think I've ever done that. That just seems crazy to me. I'm like, I'm gonna go do something else. I'm gonna take a break. And I mean, some of my biggest races, I've done some really big races back in Kansas. And when I'm back there, like the very next day, I remember when I did the cannonball 550 the first time it's 550-mile bike race. I finished, and you know, it took me three days and eight hours, and then I went back to my dad's and he's like, Well, hey, I mean, are you feeling okay? I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I'm good. He's like, go grab the chainsaw. We gotta go cut a bunch of trees down. I mean, because you're leaving tomorrow, right? I'm like, Yeah, that's fine. So I spend five hours on a chainsaw after that. So I'm a big fan of let's do something different. It's a new sport, and that sport may be relaxing and just letting your body have some time to heal. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure it'd be great to go out and do what everybody says and go for another run or a bike ride, but I don't normally do that. I get myself a break, eat some good food.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

I love that. You went, you're like, we're doing a chainsaw, we're going.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Yeah. Something different. Yeah. It just sounds terrible. I just ran a whole bunch. I don't need to run again today. So yeah, I don't know. I think people get way too serious into some of this stuff. And I look at things as I even look at food. The older I get, the way what does a coyote do? After a coyote eats, they take a nap. They don't go immediately say, I need to go eat another steak. If they run a long ways from danger, they're probably gonna take a break. They're not gonna be like, hey, I gotta go shake this off and go run another long ways like I did yesterday. They're gonna be like, I'm gonna go eat something. And then I'm gonna sleep under a tree. I really think we're not that complicated. I think all of us we go down these rabbit holes of complexity, especially for those of us that are just enjoying a race to enjoy it. You know, if you're at the tip of the beer and you're a professional athlete, sure, you should probably be doing something different. But I still question if that's even the right science. I mean, we constantly are seeing, right? The science is always moving. So maybe we all should be relaxing more.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Oh, that's a good I love the coyote perspective. Oh, that's genius. I love that. That's how I eat. That's how I I love that.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Yeah, I mean, I may not eat all the berries they do, but yeah, and rats. But I mean, aside from that.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

I love that. So, what is an item that whether it's you're hitting the trails on the bike or you're hitting it for a run, what is something that you will not go without?

SPEAKER_02 41:32

I always take a hydration pack. And the reason why is obviously, I mean, I want to have something to carry my fluids, and I don't always take fluids. And so if it's like an hour or less, I probably am not going to take fluids unless it's really hot. Or unless I think that I am on a new trail and I may do something stupid and turn that hour into a five-hour run, which happens sometimes. But that being said, I like to take my phone with me. I don't use a watch near as frequently as I used to because I just don't care. You know, I used to be like, oh, I I've turned around and drove 20 miles home and I realized I left my heart rate strap at home in the past. And now it's like my $1,000 phone is fully capable of doing the calculations that I need. I don't need to know that heart rate data. It's fine with Strava recording from the phone. So I like to carry my phone, and of course, you hurt yourself or you want to take a cool picture or whatever. And so I carry a pack to be able to carry largely the phone and then and the keys, and that way I don't have to have something flopping around in my pockets. My no-go is I was somewhere the other day, I don't remember where I was. I didn't have a pack with me for some reason, and I wanted to get a run in, and I put my phone in one pocket and my keys in the other, and I about lost my freaking. Oh, I did the Murph challenge with my daughter. That's what it was. My truck was like 100 yards from me, but I didn't want to go get it. And I was like, all right, I'll just put my phone and my keys in the pocket. And because we were at this outdoor gym by my shop, and it was just the mile run, that's what it was that during the Murph challenge that I had my phone in one pocket and keys in the other, and that made me insane. And I almost broke my brand new phone that I had for like oh, as it was, I bought it the day before. And I almost it had it came flying out of my shorts at one point. No, and uh, and I happened to catch it right before it hit the ground. But it's just that same thing. It's like if I would have just put on a pack, it could have held my phone and my keys securely and no bounce, and I wouldn't have bothered me, and I still could have completed the challenge without any issues. So, yeah, always a pack for sure.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Always a pack. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

That's really cool. Yeah, so let's talk trail shoes. Do you have a favorite pair of trail shoes that you like to run in?

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Yeah, I recently switched to the Brooks. I'm pretty sure it's the Cascadia, it's the yellow ones, and I'm pretty sure it's the Cascadia's. I was running in the Salmin S2, I think it was forever, and I loved that shoe. And then they shut down, and I was really bummed. And I went down this whole rabbit hole of trying to find a shoe that worked for me again. Um The trail side. Uh, I love ons for road running, and I I still run an odds for road, and a lot of my runs, like in the neighborhood, I'll throw in my ons for that. But I don't like them for trails as much. But yeah, the brooks, I have been a huge fan of those brooks, they're light, breathable. I think I'm on my third pair now in the past two years. And man, I beat them up and they're great and they're super comfortable. And I was never a big Brooks guy. Being in the specialty retail space, I was always like ultra or whatever, some with a lot of the smaller brands, although ultra is not small anymore. But I personally just I don't like for me. I don't, I'm not as big of a fan of the giant toe box thing. And that's where I found those Brooks and the ones are kind of my sweet spot. But I always have 10 pairs of shoes. I've got a lot of shoes, and I like to have them look pretty. I mean, I'm in the sporting kids business, so my dress shoe per se is a road running shoe. But yeah, so that's where on my side I wear only shoes that are nice and comfortable for my daily wear. And then once they start to get a little scuff on them, then they turn into my road running neighborhood shoes. So yeah, it's a fun thing. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Okay, very cool. Josh, you've had a lot of memories, and so I want to kind of pull from them. So do you have a favorite memory that when you think about it just gets you so excited, whether it was a biking memory, an adventure race running, or a funny one that you were like, I can't believe that happened all those years ago, or anything like that. When you think about that, you're just so excited about all the finish lines that you've crossed.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

Yeah, I so we had this race. I've had a lot of these, but one that I thought was really neat. We were doing this adventure race out in north of Big Bear. Well, we finished in Big Bear, but we started out north of Big Bear. And we started with this giant run in the desert at I think four in the afternoon. And this was only supposed to be a 12 or 16-hour adventure race. And when we took off, I just remember telling my teammates, and I told the race director, who was who had become a friend of mine, I was like, hey, I don't understand how we're gonna finish this race at the top of Big Bear when we're heading north at four o'clock. And this there's no way this is gonna be a 12 to 16-hour adventure race. It's gotta be more of a 24-hour race. And he's like, nah, nah, you don't understand. And I said, Okay, well, sounds good. So next thing we took off running. I told my teammates, like, pack all the water you can because we're gonna be out here a while. And so we take off, head north away from Big Bear. And next thing it's like two in the morning. And we start, I'm pretty sure we started at four. So here we've been out there for 10 hours. We only started with, I think we started with three liters, 100 ounces of water, and we've been out of water for freaking ever. And there were teams lost all over. A lot of people were rescued before we even headed towards the mountain, which was funny. I mean, it was that race was gnarly. And as we're going along, I see this blinking light out in the desert. And I told my teammates, I'm like, hey, I don't know what that is, but I don't know where we are. It was a very complicated topography to navigate via map of compass in the dark. And I was like, I'm, I'll be honest, I'm lost. Let's go over there and see what that is. Maybe we can get a reference. So we, as we go over there, we're walking up to it, and it is freaking pitch black, and all we see is this little dot. And as we're coming up on this place, I was like, guys, I don't know about this. This looks kind of spooky. And as we get up there, it has this giant chain link fence. It's like 10 foot tall. And at first I thought it was just some little outbuilding or something. And then all of a sudden I realized it's like a compound. And as we get up to it, I'm thinking, man, where the heck have we just gotten into out here? And I was like, you know what? We need water. I don't know where we are. We're gonna freaking die if we stay out of here all night. And let's just go, let's just see if maybe somebody's there. So we all three walk up there and we get up there by the fence, and I was like, hello, I kind of yelled that there's this trailer out there. And all of a sudden you see the light come up on the porch. And I was like, all right, well, get ready to run, guys, if they come out with open fire. And all of a sudden, these two guys come out. I swear to God, they look like a skinny Santa Claus, both of them, and big old white beards and white hair, and they come stumbling out of there, these two old timers and probably in their 70s, I'd guess. And they were like, Who are you guys? We're like, I know this is weird. We're only clad in spandex, we've been out here racing, we're lost, we don't know where we are. And they're like, no worries. Hey, go around, run down here about 150 yards, and then head east, and you'll be able to come in through a gate down there. And so we go, we do, we go down there and they open the gate and we come in. And then they take us and they're like, Well, you guys are thirsty? Are you hungry? And we're like, Well, yeah, that'd be great. So they're like, Well, come over here. So they go and they open up this metal storage container. I'm like, This is it. It's been nice knowing you guys, we're gonna die. And then they go and they open the container and we walk in there, it's dark, and all of a sudden they flip on the lights and close the door and it's air conditioned, and it was really hot at that time of year. Uh, and I remember thinking, like, oh my God, what is this place? And it was a spray foamed storage container. They shut the door behind us, but they were in there with us, and they got us food and ice cold water. And it turned out these guys were off-grid miners and they lived there for a year. It was a gold claim that they had staked out. Apparently, there's some rule, at least this was 20 years ago, but there was some law or whatever you want to call it in California that you could still stake a claim on certain land. And they had staked this claim and they'd been mining there for a year or two years or something crazy. And when they ended up sitting there telling stories for it, wasn't too long, maybe half an hour. But we went from thinking we were gonna die to thinking, yeah, we still might die. And then all of a sudden we're like, these guys are awesome. We'd kind of rather spend the night here. And then, yeah, next thing they sent us on our way fully topped up with water and some food in our bellies. And then yeah, we ended up racing until almost sunset the next day from there and got us, they got us our bearings back right, and we went in the right direction from there. So, yeah, it was a wild experience that I wish I'm sure if I drove around this was a long time ago, and they were pretty old then, so they're probably not around anymore. But I wish all these years later, I would have gone back and just thanked them for not killing us and being so nice while we were there because it was a pretty special experience and something just really weird. Enough to where the next day we're like, did that really? I think we didn't even really talk about it for the rest of the race because there was such a huge amount of miles between us and the finish line in that race that we just focused on that in high altitude. I mean we had climbed back up to nine, 10,000 feet from the desert. And then it was like a week later where I was like, Jack, did we really run in? Did I hallucinate? Did we run into two Santa Claus people in the desert? You think they were even real? You know, it's just something you just wonder what even happened. But it was awesome, and yeah, I only wish I would have gone back and looked them up after the fact.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

That's an absolute nutty story. That is bonkers.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

It was nutty. Yeah, yeah. That was wild. Yeah, that's the fun part of endurance sports. You run into just the neatest things. And I mean, I've had people just like you know, I had a guy buy my lunch when I was doing a bike packing race once, and I was at some bar in South Dakota, I think it was, yeah, it was in South Dakota, and he was like, What are you doing? And I was like, Oh yeah, I'm doing this bike race. I've been racing for three days, and I'm going to the other side of the state. And he's some cowboy country guy, and he's like, and I'm in Spandex, which typically that's kind of a little bit of cultural divide. And the guy's like, dude, he's like, that's insane. And then I went to pay, they're like, Oh, Mr. Such and Such bought your it was breakfast, is what it was that day. And he's like, such and such bought your breakfast. And I was like, Really? That's awesome. So you just you meet the neatest people in these type of more experiential style, longer endurance races. That's really one of the coolest parts about it.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

I love both those stories.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Oh, thank you for sharing those are I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you're like, This is how we go, this is it, this is how we die. And then meeting a cowboy. So cool.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

Yeah. Yeah. There's weird things that happen, but hey, it's winning every day. Every day.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

I love that. It's awesome. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

Do you ever listen to music at all? Like when you're out on the trails or on the road?

SPEAKER_02 51:55

I listen to audiobooks. If I listen to anything anymore, it's generally an audiobook, and I've been like that for many years. If I'm going for a short run in the neighborhood, sometimes I listen to music just because it helps to motivate you a little bit for, but I over the years, I've listened to hundreds of audiobooks. I find that when I'm running or riding, one of the nice parts, especially when you're doing endurance stuff, is it passes the time and it engages my brain a lot better to where I forget about the level of time that I'm committing to. Because sometimes you're like, okay, if you're gonna go on a five-hour run or ride or whatever, it's like, man, this is a long ways. But you put a little bit of music in your ear, you can get tired of the music pretty quick. But you put an audiobook in your ear, and next thing you're like, oh my gosh, I just finished that book. And man, I've been out here four hours already. Because your brain gets wrapped up in whatever it is. Wait, maybe it's information, maybe you're learning, or maybe it's just entertainment. And but I like listening to adventure stories and stories of endurance and just people pushing their limits. But sometimes it's like something weird like sci-fi, or maybe it's something on business to run my business better. And so I ebb and flow. But yeah, the long story or the short answer is no, I don't hardly ever listen to music anymore, but it's generally audiobooks or nothing at all, and just enjoying the peace.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Okay, awesome. Let's shift a little bit to recovery. Do you have a favorite recovery tool?

SPEAKER_02 53:17

Yeah, eating real food. You know, for years I used to drink this stuff that uh Infinite makes called Nocturne. And I tell you what, I was pretty impressed with that. And even prior to that, I used to use a product that a brand called CarboPro. I don't know if they're even still around, but it was called Recover. It was some pills you took. I don't even know what was in it. I probably should have looked into it years ago, but a friend of mine that was a really amazing, there is an amazing endurance athlete. She told me about it. And I could go out, and the first time I did it, I ran an Iron Man. I took the recover pills immediately after the race, and I wasn't sore the next day. Like, riddle me that. Something about that stuff is magic. And so I did that for years. And I think it was a bunch of amino acids that were in there. But back then I didn't understand nutrition as well as I do now. But yeah, that nocturne stuff by infinite was great. And it's the same thing. It's mostly a protein, and you mix in with uh it's a protein powder that you mix in with milk and you drink it at bedtime. And it really makes a big difference with not being sore the next day, whether it's a big training block or a race. But anymore, I kind of keep it simpler and I just drink some water and and I try to eat a bunch of protein after exercise. I really make a focal point of getting as much protein as possible and some veggies and whatnot, too, of course. But yeah, I do find that it seems to help for me to not really be very sore the next day and probably helps to rebuild muscles after beating yourself up, but plus it tastes good. So there's that.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

That's awesome. Okay, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

Yeah. Yeah, a lot of chicken.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

So you've mentioned obviously you cycle and you run. Is and you kind of mentioned a little bit about strength training. So are you also in the gym a lot as well?

SPEAKER_02 54:55

No, I haven't had a gym membership for years. But what I do have, so this week I am 20 push-ups away from finishing 500 push-ups for the week. And this is 52 weeks straight of doing 500 push-ups or more. And this week I'll probably do around 700 or 800 before the Sunday's out. But I started this 52 weeks ago, and it was some friends of mine, they have this push-up challenge group. And there isn't like a set number to do, but I followed them doing this for quite some time. And I was like, these guys are crazy. And then one day I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do it. Um so yeah, last year in the summer, I just started it, and next thing, yeah, I'm a year straight of doing it. And to me, it's what I like about it are a couple things, and I think a lot of people in endurance sports will appreciate this. It's about a small achievable goal that you can achieve daily. And so I have a clipboard that I drive my weekly task from every week. I print it off on Sunday night and I drive from that all week, and I have it divided between both businesses' goals, and then I have a personal goals. And the top of the page are my push-ups, and I do them in sets of 30 and I cross them off as I do them. And like Tuesday, I think I did like 300 push-ups this week just because I knew I had a bit going on Wednesday and Thursday, and I just felt good. And so I just knocked out a bigger chunk. But generally, I try to do 120 a day until I'm done, but there may be a day I don't do them, and that's why I like the 30-piece block. And so at the top, I just cross them off as I go, and I have 30 left to do, which actually put me at 510 for the week. But I have found that to be one of the biggest rewarding goals ever. And where I finish every day, I can spend five minutes doing push-ups and do, I don't know, 100 push-ups. I don't time it, but it's probably about 120 push-ups and four sets of 30 in five minutes. And and anybody can do that. That's something that there's no reason anybody can't squeeze that in. And sometimes I'll even wake up and I'll knock out 30 or 60 push-ups, and I won't do the other 30 or 60 more until the evening. Or maybe I'll do three minutes before a conference call, knock out 30. And then in the end of the night, I'll be like, I'll do one more set of 30. And I just cross them off on the list. And it makes me feel that I got something productive in for the week, and I know that I'm winning every single week by doing that. As opposed to like, hey, I want to go on a run today, but next thing it's eight o'clock, you're like, you know what? I didn't get in this run today. I don't have enough time to go get that 45-minute run in. Maybe I'm not gonna do that tonight. But a push-ups, it's anybody can do them. It's very simple. And then what I found the first four to six weeks were uncomfortable. Well, the first up to six weeks were uncomfortable. And then after that, it really has been pretty easy. And even so now, like the first 30 is always harder than those after. First 30 in the morning is like you're more stiff, but then after that, I could do, I mean, hundreds, it's not a big deal. But what I've noticed from this is psychologically, I feel good that I did that every week, even though it's only maybe an hour of total exercise. If I got nothing else done in the week exercise-wise, I wouldn't be super upset because I at least got that in, and it has translated to a lot of core strength that I didn't realize how much core strength I would get from that. So now I'm running faster than I have in years. I'm cycling more powerfully than I have in years. My arms feel great, my back feels great. Overall, my whole body feels great. And it's I genuinely blame it on the push-ups more than anything else that I'm doing. So I love the small measurable goals that translate into something with a more well-rounded body return. And then on top of that, I do have a whole bunch of dumbbells, and I do like to use them here at home just to do a bunch of free weight exercises, which feels fantastic. You can do leg and full body workouts with those. I think one of my biggest mistakes of after all the years is not doing enough strength training. And the older I get, I'm starting to realize that's something I really regret. I wish I would have spent not necessarily more time in the gym, but more time at least doing body weight exercises. And then, of course, yeah, if I had gym time, that would be sweet too.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

That is fascinating. I'm just like, that's the coolest thing to hear that you started on this journey and now you're like, now I've seen all these gains, which you weren't expecting that.

SPEAKER_02 59:02

No, I didn't even know what I was gonna do. I didn't even know how long I was gonna do it. Okay, I just started and it was like, this is a good habit, and it's neat to have these other guys. I post in the group maybe once every month or two months or something, like, hey guys, just so you know, I'm still doing this. Thanks for the motivation because they're in there posting all the time, and it's just the neatest thing to see all these people and they're kicking it.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

That is fascinating. Wow, okay. Yeah, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 59:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:27

So you kind of hit on this a little bit, but let's say that you could go back to brand new getting into writing Josh. What advice would you give to him? What is something that you wish somebody would have told you as you were starting this journey, this story, with being as active as you are? And then also with Orange Mud and with Seven Clay, which we haven't even talked about. So, what is something that you wish somebody would have told you?

SPEAKER_02 59:51

I tell you what, my coach Marvin years ago taught me was, and I'd read about this, but I never really did a good job of it. Is he wanted me to run in level one, which is basically a super slow pace, very easy to breathe for the first 15 minutes of every exercise. And or cycling, same thing. Warm up level one for 15 minutes too many times, and I'm I'm pretty good with this. I may shortcut it sometimes running. Maybe I'll only do it for 10. But cycling, I try my best, but it's hard to do it. But if you just warm up more, I was amazed with the results that made me feel better long term. You just you have to kind of plan for it because you're like, okay, I'm gonna do this trail and this everybody, this is the Strava segment, so I gotta make sure I'm hitting it fast. You know, if your brain thinks like that, then you probably need to start 15 minutes away so you can warm up before you get there and then go hammer on whatever trail it is you want or whatever your PR is time you're shooting for. But I loved once I learned to run slow first, it allowed me to run more efficiently and cycle more efficiently when I'm in the training schedule. And I think it's just healthier for us. So the biggest problem a lot of runners face is injury. And why do they get injured? They're either training too much or they're not warming up, or they're not cooling down. And so I think that it's that same piece is that yeah, if I had to do it over again, I would tell people warm up slowly. And when you finish, just walk it off for 10 minutes after you're done and just allow your body to kind of reset a little bit. You don't need to go running into the house with a full-on sweaty mess. Let's go, let's cool down a little bit and give our muscles a break and chance to recover. Yeah, I think that's a really important piece that a lot of people are terrible about. And it's when you if you're only gonna run half an hour, it's hard to say, hey, go easy run for 15 minutes and then cool down for 10. We're like, well, that means I'm only gonna be running at a faster pace for a very short period of time. But maybe you should. Maybe you should just run easy and even run it easy. Most people don't do that. So yeah, I think you got to get in your long, slow runs. You got to get in your long, slow rides. And the other perk of that is you get to, aside from building up that base endurance, you're able to enjoy the ride more or enjoy the run more. So yeah, go slow. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

This is what I was so good, so good. What are goals looking like these days for you? Because I mean, you've done a lot of stuff, Josh. So what are goals looking like these days?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:22

Well, I've always done things based upon what I'm afraid of. And this year, even last year, it's kind of the same thing. I mean, I there's only a handful of races that I still want to do that I'm afraid of. And they're on my radar, but my kids are 13 and 14, and they take up a lot of time, and I enjoy it. You know, be we're very active and hunting and fishing and all their sports that they're in school and club. And so I'm trying to just do better about having a little bit of balance time for one. But rather than just Josh has to go race just because I feel like I have this need to go race, which I don't have anymore. I mean, every since COVID, I got a little bit of a reset. I don't care about the racing as much. I want the experience. I want to go out and endure. And so the big thing I've been planning here for a while actually is next weekend. I'm doing a 500-mile. This is a dirt bike. It's a Moto adventure bike route that I planned from my cabin. And I'm really excited about this new discipline or whatever you want to call it, new hobby that I added to my mix last year is the adventure bike. And again, it comes down to experience. It's all on dirt. I don't ride on pavement hardly at all, unless I have to get gasoline. But it's it allows me to cover the amount of ground that I want to, but I can often do it in a smaller time block. So I'm gonna do this over two days. I'm gonna do 250 miles each day, and I'm super stoked because it's two things. A, I ride my gravel bike up there in this part of the country a lot. So this allows me to get my reach further out and learn areas for new routes for my bicycle, but I also get to go explore and I can go to a local bar in some small town and have a good hamburger and then keep going. And then when I hit a big hill, I just have to give it gas rather than pedaling. So that's been my most recent. Well, last weekend my big five-hour mountain bike ride was awesome in Comfort, Texas is Flat Rock Ranch, one of the coolest mountain bike trails I've ever ridden on. And I've been wanting to do that for seven years, so I just did that. But yeah, the moto side has been something that I you feel like you always have to train, but you got to do things that make you happy too. And it's not that training doesn't make me happy, but it isn't the only piece of me. And I do feel like that is sometimes you make sacrifices based upon, well, I have to train or I want to train, but I only want to do it on run, I only want to run or bike or whatever. But I've always been a guy that likes a lot of to experiment with new adventures, and that's where this is a fun one. So that's a big one. And then I do plan on doing another 12 and 24 hour adventure race here over the next, well, the 24 will be next year, and then probably another 12-hour adventure race this fall. And I think I'm gonna do a gravel bike race at Gravel Worlds next month. I'm a vendor there, sponsor of the race. But while I'm there, I figure I might as well go at least go ride 75 miles or something. So yeah, I'm more into adventure rather than I'm training for some giant whatever that I'm gonna go suffer from. I'm just exploring to have a good time.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

Awesome. Very cool. Yeah, so you've hit on the psychological side of things and when things get hard. Do you have a mantra? Is there something that you do tell yourself to get through to the next leg or the next segment or to finish?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:30

Yeah, I mean, the number one thing that I do is I've always had a positive mindset. It's never been something I have a hard time with. I seem to look at the harder things get, it's like, hey, all right, let's figure this out. It's like I enjoy the new problem. And so I don't have a mantra, but I do have a mission. And the mission is to stay positive and focus on the goal. And that goal is broken down into smaller goals. I don't look at it as, okay, I have to bike 200 miles right now to get there. I look at it as it's 30. 35 miles to this next town, and I just need to get there. And then from there, I'm gonna figure out the next step. And so I like to break things down into small goals that are attainable goals that I just need to isolate to that, and that's it. Otherwise, you look at the whole thing and you're like, there's no way this is gonna happen. Because I've had that happen in races where maybe my body is and my knees locking up or something's weird is happening, and I'm like, there's no way I can finish this. I have 300 miles to go. There's no way I can do this. But then you just deal with it, and then next thing you're 200 miles down the path, and you're like, gosh, that was crazy. My knee was acting up 200 miles ago, and I didn't think I was gonna finish, and now I'm only 100 miles out. No, it's but it's because you break it into small goals. I need to get food and water. That's it. So yeah, positive mindset. Where's the next food and water supply? Is everything working properly? Am I taking care of myself? Are my feet good? Your feet are the first thing to take you out. And in any endurance race, whatever it is, the feet are one of the first things that are gonna take you out. If it's not, is your gut or your feet? And so I take great care of if I have a hot spot, I stop and fix it. Because it's probably a rock or there's something off, there's a sticker or something in my sock. But I yeah, break everything into small goals, stay positive and take care of your feet and your gut, and you can do anything you want.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

And you get to that goal, keep that positive mindset. That is such great advice. I love that, especially we're getting ready to go into marathon training. And so that's been one of the things is I was talking with a friend and she's already started because she she has a race in October, and she was like, I'm just so nervous about this. And I'm like, but don't be, because if you're already nervous about it, you're not gonna enjoy the training. So I love that you were like, just break it down into I'm gonna tell her that. Just let's break it down each time. So that's such great advice.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

Yeah. Yeah, zero to eighteen. After 18, everything's gonna be uncomfortable. That's the way it is in the marathon. They're always they're always the same, at least for me. Yeah, yeah. Worst case, you can always walk to the finish.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

That's right, yeah, absolutely. Josh, when you are not being active when you're recovery, when you get time to yourself, what fuels you? What keeps you going? What gets you up going to the next day?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:13

I'm a big outdoorsman. So I have a ranch an hour from north of Austin, and I build a cabin on it. And I've got an acre and a half pond that we built out, and I've been building trails up there actually. We've got about five miles of trails where we're working on hoping to get to seven or eight by year end. And I love going up there and working on stuff. My wife's always like, Do you have to go up there? I'm like, Yeah, I have to go up there. I've got to go do some work. And but it's not work. I love going up there. It's my favorite thing to do. I mean, I'm up, I built a cabin up on a hill, so we look out, and the views are pretty awesome, and and you can see 30 miles, and it's just it's truly God's country up there. When you our cabin, the pavement ends about a quarter to a half mile past where my driveway is to my cabin, and then it's dirt as far as you want to go to Arizona, New Mexico. I mean, a long way. And so it's my base, my home ground for adventures, and that could be biking, it could be running, hunting, fishing, it could just be doing some work. That's last week, like I said, we were building trails. I mowed for four, I think it was four hours straight on a riding lawnmower, straight, just cutting it. My neighbor actually cut in a lot of the stuff with the tractor first, and then I was kind of fine-tuning it with the mower to get the flow right, and I never stopped. It's just an incredible distance. So but I love it, it's my happy place, and it's cutting trees and just mowing and trimming and cleaning, organizing, building something new. And I never get tired of it. I like to be busy, it's just in my DNA, it's the way I grew up, and that's for sure one of my happiest places.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

That is incredible. So we kind of touched a little bit on it of obviously we've talked about orange mud. Let's talk about seven clay. What is this?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:54

Yeah, so I started it seven years ago. Come September, it'll be seven years. And I started it because we customize a lot of our transition wraps, the changing talent seat cover, and with embroidery of stores and clubs and teams. And we've done this for years, and we're in we brand them all the time. And when I moved our business to Texas in June of 19, I struggled to find anybody to do a good job for me. And over the years I'd always been frustrated with the embroidery shops that I'd worked with, where there was plenty of logos that we got that weren't to the level of quality that I thought a machine should be able to do. And then they often left loose threads. So I almost always had somebody, I did always have somebody full-time allocated to trimming threads and cleaning up the work, another embroidery shop did. And so when I moved here, I hit my breaking point because the shops were rude, the price stain, if I even got anybody to quote me, and the quality was crap. And so I came home at the end of August and I told my wife, I said, Hey, I just spent 58,000 bucks. We're buying an embroidery machine, and I'm gonna put a couple of these people out of business around us. And that was my sole purpose in life was hurting them because I did not need another business. I was mad that I had to start another business. I find it morally offensive when people do a terrible job of customer service and quality product. And maybe it's I don't know why, but I just I get offended when it's like I'm trying to pay you and you're being rude and or the quality sucks. Man, I mean that's this is insane. It really was insane. So anyway, yeah, I did. I started this business for my own selfish needs, which were you know it was self-serving for orange mud, but at the same time, I genuinely wanted to hurt some of the local guys because I just couldn't believe how terrible their prices were. I mean, they were ripping people off, and to boot, their quality was terrible. So we have we've had three different businesses go out of business around us over the years, and I can't say it's because of me. I mean, as far as I know, they're just bad business managers, which according to what I would look at, given I was outsourcing a quarter million dollars a year and I couldn't hardly get them to take my business. It was fascinating. But yeah, now seven years in, we have become a major brand in the custom cap business and t-shirts and coffee mugs. We've got a 16 embroidery heads and screen printing and heat press and lasers and sublimation and direct film and debossing, and we actually have full cut and sew. We do medical some medical device and commercial products on the cut and sew side because we've got all kinds of sewing machines from the orange mud side of things, and so it's become its own monster. It's actually bigger than orange mud now. Uh it actually beat orange mud by year three, which was crazy to have that sort of trajectory, especially going. We started it right before COVID, and then all of a sudden we were doing really well in the race side, making patches for races and hats and shirts and all this. And all of a sudden, the COVID hit and wiped out all the races. And we had zero advertising, we were 100% full in business, and then we had nothing. I was like, oh, this kind of sucks. And so I had to switch gears into my digital ad, put my digital ad hat on, which I know a lot about from the Orange Mud side. And yeah, we just pushed hard on that pedal, and now we worked with major brands. We build stuff for Red Bull and Fender guitars and just all kinds of awesome stuff. So we've been very fortunate to do a lot of incredible big brands, and yeah, it's been its own monster. It's a beast.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:23

Again, I love that. I mean, I hate it for you, but I love that you saw a deed and you said, I want to fill this need. And I just I love that concept. I love that you did that with Orange Mud and with Seven Clay. Yeah, that's amazing. Absolutely amazing. Josh, this has been such a blast and such an honor to know your story and to learn more about Orange Mud and Seven Clay. Do you have any final words of wisdom to share with everyone?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:51

Yeah, I would say if you are trying to figure out what to do this weekend, ditch your training schedule every once in a while and just focus on going outside and doing something that is fun and easy on dirt and just focus on the experience and not your Strava time or not beating somebody else. Just focus on going outside and trying to see some animals while you're on a trail or look for some fossils or do something that breaks the need to always be racing. And we all, I think there's so many of us that struggle with that. I mean, my wife knows she likes to go on walks. I struggle to go on a walk, it's just not my thing. And if I'm on a walk, I'm like, why about we run this piece? How about we run to the stop sign? To me, it's like if we're on a walk, I feel like we're in the last six miles of a marathon where I'm like, okay, we're gonna run to that stoplight, then we're gonna walk for a minute. That's how my brain works. But I try more and more to just enjoy things and not get caught up in the rat race of I'm training. Because when you really look at it, does it really matter if you're not experiencing something special? And I would argue that it doesn't. It's you got plenty of time to train and do all this stuff, but just make sure you're enjoying things and doing it with a purpose of experience. Yeah, that'd be that would be whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:12

So good. So good. Josh, this was absolutely amazing. And again, just thank you for seeing a need and filling that need and being creative with it. It's absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:21

I appreciate you having me on. I love talking fun adventures.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:34

I am incredibly grateful for Dr. Story because I got to talk to him a little bit about it because this was right before our training was starting for this marathon. And one of the things that he just kept saying is make your training plan work for you. And how important rest is train smart, but don't overtrain. Like just all these things. I was like, I gotta remember this, I gotta remember this stuff. Josh, you have no idea how much you helped me in preparation for this. You have no idea, just mentally, how much you prepared me for this. So I just want to say thank you so much for your story. And again, the words of wisdom that you dropped, and again, for creating a brand like Orange Mud. Absolutely incredible. So thank you, Josh. Thank you for your story, thank you for who you are. And I can't wait to see what you and your son do again, like in endurance sports. That's absolutely crazy and amazing at the same time. Speaking of crazy and amazing, that is our friends from Run Tall. Guys, run your story 15 for a discount at shopruntall.com, or you can also find them on the Run Your Story website. We love Run Tall. The hat is amazing. I love this brand so much. I have one of the tanks too, super comfy. You guys are going to love Run Call. So if you haven't checked them out yet, please do. Charles does such a great job. He gives back to the community so much already, and it's pretty amazing to see. And I'm incredibly grateful to partner with somebody like Charles from Run Tall. They do such a great job. So that is shopruncall.com, or you can also find out more about Run Tall on the Runner Story website. As always, thank you to the man behind the screen. That is Greg Gilliard from Blair Tech Services. He makes all of our screen dreams come true. That is from the app to the website, anything in between. He does such a great job of making sure that Render Story is so well represented online and we're incredibly grateful for him. He does so much for our Patreon family, up to Del Stats, and all the things. So thank you for Your Tech Services. If you need a website guy or an app guy, he is your guy. Your tech services does such an awful job. Thank you to Dave, Stefan, and Scott. We appreciate you guys. We love you guys. If you haven't read Dave's vlog yet, please go and do so. Such a great job writing is such a great way with words, and I'm incredibly grateful for him. And if you ever get contacted by Scott and Stefan, they do such a great job of reaching out to people. They're such big dreamers. And I love those guys' demos. I really appreciate them. I'll go into God because I know how important it is to them. And as always, thank you to our Patreon family members. We would not be where we are without you. We hope that we make you proud. We hope that this month, especially, that you, wow, they've been some really great stories, that you're really proud of this podcast. This is yours, and you believe in it, and that just makes five. So thank you so much for believing in us, for believing in our story. It's George, and we just thank you for being a part of it. Thank you to everybody who likes, shared, comments, who listens to the podcast. It's so important. These stories are so inspiring, and just sitting down listening to them, I walk away, hopefully a better person. I always take something away from me. And like I said, Josh just came right at the perfect time. It was such an incredible experience because you're just an endurance guy, and he was able to give me so much nuggets of knowledge to get ready for this marathon training for Rockies City. So it was really cool to be able to have that conversation with them. So I really grateful for somebody like Josh to be able to dump me out. So I appreciate that. With that being said, thank you to everybody who believed in Runner Story and meeting the world. So until next time, go run your story because every story needs to be learned.