 Hi, it's Dean Karnassas, author and ultramarathoner. You know, they looked at me and they said, but you're not even a runner. You're drunk. And I said, I am, but I'm still going to do it. But it's going to involve about 5,000 miles. He was named one of the top 100 most influential people in the world by Thai magazine. He runs 300 miles non-stop. And the answer is run faster. My whole life is built around attending live events, you know? And those kind of went away. Are you getting younger? It looks like you get younger instead of older. I think because I haven't been traveling as much. You know, I don't have that jet lag and fatigue of, you know, multi-day flights and travel. Yes. And we're here to talk about your wonderful career, friends at home. I'm just going to tell you how I got to know of Dean. And Dean's probably had no doubt sick of hearing these stories, but it's more a lesson in always believing yourself and always dream big. But let's just give Dean's book a shout right from the start. This is Dean's latest book, A Runner's High. Absolutely thoroughly recommended and we'll put a link below. But here's the thing. There was I, I think I just started my writing career about 2008. Might have been 2010. And I got a Facebook message from my friend Jim. And he said, Chris, check out this guy. And up until that point, Dean, I had been in the Marines. So it was quite challenging stuff that you do in the British Marines. But the hardest thing I think that I ever did was run a marathon. And because I didn't let myself walk any of it, I managed to just get in under the four-hour barrier. And as I say, I thought it was like the hardest thing I've ever done. And I genuinely believed if you ran one step more than a marathon, you just dropped down dead. I mean, you know, this is how it was back back then. And so I'm checking out this Facebook page that Jim sent me and it's your page, Dean. And there's this guy. He doesn't just run a marathon. He runs 300 miles nonstop. And I thought, I want to do that. OK, not 300, although I did manage 200. Probably not in the times that Dean would do it in. But I did around 200 miles in six days. And I ran the length of the country in 36 days, so 1,000 miles. But I remember, immediately, Dean, I grabbed a copy of your book. I read it, I loved it. And yeah, like I say, I thought, I want to do that. And off the back now, I'll probably run, you know, I run, I literally run every day because I love it so much. So thank you. Well, I mean, I appreciate the thanks. And I think people read that book and they do one of two things. They say, I'm never going to do anything like this. Or like you said, God, I want to try this. So I think my book just kind of opened people's eyes to, you know, what's possible. And you certainly, you know, you drink the proverbial Kool-Aid, if you will. But it's good to have spent some footsteps alongside you. Yes. And one thing, if I remember rightly from your first book, it was a long time ago, I read it. But were you not in a bar celebrating your birthday with your mates? And then you just said, screw this. I don't want it. My life's not going the way I want. And you just went running. I mean, I was, yeah, I was drunk on my 30th birthday. And at midnight, I, you know, I said, I'm leaving the pub. And they said, you know, where are you going? Like the night's young. Let's have another round of tequila to celebrate. And I said, no, I'm going to run 30 miles to celebrate instead. And, you know, they looked at me and I said, but you're not even a runner. You're drunk. And I said, I am, but I'm still going to do it. And I walked out of the bar and I'll never forget. I didn't even own running gear, but I had on these comfortable silk underwear, like these silk boxer shorts. So I peeled off my pants and threw them down the alleyway and just started stumbling off into the night, heading south, knowing there was a town called Half Moon Bay that was 30 miles away. And that's where I set my sights upon Half Moon Bay. Was that the same night you ordered a pizza or was that a different? It's a different night. But food is always a major theme in the middle of the night, as any ultra runner knows. Yes. And that's a whole interesting thing. And I think all of us, as we're getting older, we're trying to refine our act, which is, I think it's good credit to our generation. Everyone seems to go more and more plant-based. And I remember what I took from Ultra Marathon Man. Again, folks, link below. So it was that just eat anything on an ultra. Just cram it down your face, get some calories in. If you can stomach it, then it's fine. And then it's more questioning as you get older. Actually, should I just be shoving anything in my body? Am I on the money, Dean, there? So much so. I go back and look at the book. And in fact, I think I put a food log at the back. And it's just repulsive. I just thought sheer calories. Just get in as many calories as you can. Kind of fuel the engine with junk. And that has changed dramatically. And maybe it's a function of age. Maybe it's a function of the sophistication of the sport. The sport has really grown up. When I first got into it back in the early 90s, I didn't know what I was doing. I mean, I didn't know what a training block was. I was surfing as much as I was running. I didn't take it seriously. And nowadays it's much more refined. So I think that we've all evolved. And to your point, I'm more interested now in longevity and showing up. And to me, that means optimizing everything that I do to be the best animal I can. And certainly putting that kind of junk food in my mouth is not going to help me. Have you struggled at all with diet or alcohol? I know in your book, you stopped drinking from a young age. Was that right? Yeah. I mean, after that drunken foray on my 30th birthday, I said, I saw the writing on the wall. I said, do you want to turn 50 and be bald and overweight and miserable? And miserable? Or do you want to choose a different path through life? And I chose that different path. And so I really, I cleaned up my diet tremendously. And like you, because I mean, you're a serviceman and an athlete, we're very disciplined. So I pretty much just wrote a list of acceptable foods and unacceptable foods. And the acceptable foods were all the things that are kind of in vogue eating now, which is mainly plants and things that grow. And you can pick from a tree or dig from the earth or catch with your hands. And I just eliminated all junk food. I just said, there's no such thing as a cheat day in my life. It's just, it's black and white. You just do not eat these things you used to eat. Dean, what would you, my issue is I snack in the evening. So I think it's probably like a comfort habit thing to get rid of the stress of the day. It was alcohol for 30 years plus all the other stuff. So I've kind of refined it down. But what I'm often thinking, I mean, Scott Jurick, he's really into diet, isn't he? And I would imagine he could just knock up a snack and it's going to be very healthy. What do you do? Yeah, I, you know, I snack primarily on fruit. Most of my carbohydrates come from fruit. So I'm pretty picky about my fruit. You know, I buy organic. It's, yeah, it's more expensive, but it's what I'm putting in my body. So I, you know, I choose to do what I do. And my go-to is an apple or a pear or something like that. I don't, I don't really eat, you know, like, I mean, Scott is, he's very, he's more into, like I'm more of a kind of a raw diet person. So I just, I don't refine my food where, you know, he eats vegan, but it's, a lot of it is, is, you know, processing the food processor or kind of made in a certain way. You know, I don't drink smoothies anymore. I just would rather eat the raw fruit. So that's kind of my snacks. And, you know, the other thing is that, you know, I see that when I used to snack, it was usually, you know, when I was reading the paper or watching a program or something like that. So I tried to turn off the stimulus. And, you know, now I kind of decoupled the two. So I'm going to have a snack. I'm just going to sit there and eat the snack. And it's going to be independent of reading the paper or reading a book or whatever. Oh, wow. I'm going to try that. We're really far in this family because we like to eat in front of the TV. It's, yeah, these dilemmas when you're a parent, I mean, you would ever want to be one. It is tough. And I'll tell you what, you know, the kids are so quick to spot her pocketry, right? If you say, hey, don't eat in front of the television and then you do it. Your credibility goes right out the window. So, you know, the one thing we did when my kids were younger is, you know, we just had family dinner. It was kind of a tradition where we just said, no screens, you know, no phones, nothing. We're going to have fun. We're going to make a really good dinner and we're all going to sit together and eat it. And then we're going to do the dishes and then we can all go our separate ways and get back in your screens or whatever. You know, that's why I've been really, one of the things I've been cross about with all this lockdown is it expecting people to work from home that, you know. So my girlfriend, she works with youngsters with drug issues. So it's quite serious stuff. And there's a lot of, as I'm sure everyone listening can imagine, there's a lot of nasty stuff that goes on in that area historically for these youngsters. And, you know, she's had to bring that into our home now and work from our food table, you know, our dining table with our little one running around. And we just ignored the school and we just, you know, we're both in professions where we just sent him to school still. But these parents that had to homeschool, I mean, I think you homeschool anyway, Dean, didn't you? We did for periods, yes. And we traveled with my kids. So my mom was a retired school teacher. So she came along with us and she would road school, as they used to say, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I was just, you know, our dining table is still, even though my girlfriend's gone back to work now, half of her work stuff is, you know, it's kind of like, a bit of you stays behind, you know. She'll now take half days off and say, I'll just work from home now. So we haven't got our dining table, dining table back. It's a tough period of history to be living through, isn't it? And for all of us. And, you know, on the back end of this thing, there's going to be a lot of issues still to work through. And, you know, your wife or anyone is, you know, having to bring their work home. And yeah, I say bring their work home. But if you work from home, as you know, your work is kind of there 24 hours a day. And especially in a vocation like hers, where it's hard just to flip the switch off, right? I mean, some of these stories, I'm sure, are so personal that it's hard not to internalize those things. Yes, I hate to think of the, I mean, domestic violence. I mean, people are just not used to being on top of each work as you break from your partner. And yes, I think we don't even know what's in store for us, do we? Well, I think, you know, on the flip side, more people have discovered the outdoors because of the pandemic. And so at least here where I live in California, you know, trails where I used to see one or two, you know, people a day when I was running on them. Now we're like filled with people. And I think that's a really healthy thing. I think that when you get outdoors, you know, you appreciate the environment more and you're more environmentally conscious as a result. I think that it's healthy. You know, I don't know if you've been tracking on the rise of the, quote unquote, the metaverse, but personally, I prefer the real verse. Like, you know, I had this guy telling me, yeah, I mean, look at like the trees look so real in the metaverse and listen to those birds. They almost sound like real birds. I'm like, buddy, just just walk outside and listen to the real birds. You don't need to put on a headset and be in the metaverse. So I think spending too much time, you know, in this digital world is not so healthy. No, it's also, I mean, in California, when you're out running and someone runs the other way, do you say hello to each other? Most people do or at least not or acknowledge. That's had a real effect in the UK, I think. I think everyone's just, the whole way society's been, it's made everyone so self-conscious that people will run down with their head down and everyone on their way to work, they're just staring at the screen and you run by and it almost makes me quite crossing. This is our, you know, this is our children's lives that we're just destroying. Yes, sorry, Gona. Yeah, I mean, we're two old farts talking about the problems of the world, but, you know, I guess, you know, as you age, your perspective on, you know, your worldview changes as well. And there's certainly, you know, a lot of things culturally we could talk about that are not going right, you know, both in the UK and here in the US. But, you know, one thing that we've really got wrong here that rarely gets discussed is that we're, we're the most age-segregated country on earth. And to me, that's really unhealthy. I'm Greek and when I go back to Greece, you know, you see multi-generations of families living together or at least nearby. And, you know, on the weekends, when you go to a park, there's kids running around, you know, there's their parents, there's teenagers, there's, you know, the grandparents. It's ages, you know, it's the whole generation. And it just has a, I think that's good for everyone. It's good for the young people and for the old people. So that's one thing in America that is, to me, is really very unhealthy, is that we're so segregated when it comes to putting people together of different ages. There's a lot of talk about, you know, being more racially non-segregated, but as far as age, that still is a topic I, you don't hear a lot about. And I think that's going to become more and more a topic of conversation moving forward. Yeah. Have you had the Frappe coffee in Greece? I hate it. Oh, really? I like the little black Greek, traditional Greek coffee. It's like a really strong espresso. Yeah. Yeah. I drove to India once from Norway. I drove a bus to India and back. All right. We got to unpack that one a little bit, but go ahead. Yeah. Well, we were doing volunteer. Well, we were volunteers. I'd just been working in Africa with street children and this organization asked me if I would drive a bus of journalists to India and back. So we could write articles about people living in poverty, communities in poverty. And when we got to Greece, we all became addicted to these Frappe Frappe coffees. And then I found that it's only Nescafe spooned into this shaker and you, you froth it up. But one night we parked at the Acropolis. And so we all grabbed our sleeping bags and we all went and slept on the, on the, there's like a bit of a rocky mountain sort of thing going on there, isn't there? We all slept out on the rocks one night and in the morning when we woke up, we were these little snakes all around us that had come out on the rocks to warm up. What year was that? I'm just curious. That was the millennium, might have been 2001. Yeah. You spent quite a bit of time there. Yeah, I do. I really love Greece and it's kind of like, I didn't discover Greece until a little bit later in life, even though I'm 100% Greek. Generationally, my grandfather came over to America in the early 1900s and they thought of Greece as a poor country. They wanted to get out of Greece. And every time I say, I want to go back to Greece, they say, why do you want to go there? It's dirty and everyone's poor. And so I had this kind of tainted view. And then when I went and experienced Greece myself, I thought, wow, it's a, it's a beautiful place. And it's, it's, it's not these things that they described at all. So once I, I, you know, started going to Greece, I just, now it's all I want to do. The running there is phenomenal. And you know, it's just, it's kind of undiscovered. It's like the, the best known secret in running, you know, Greece is the birthplace of long distance running, but you go around on these trails and you don't see anyone. Yes. The, the, the crazy drivers there, Dean though, hey, geez, never seen anything like, I was hitchhiking there and I got picked up by, I think he's an 80 year old man and he was, he was driving like in Formula One or something. Yeah. It's, it's, it's juxtaposed because most Greeks are pretty mellow, but you put them behind the, the steering wheel. It's like a different, different personality comes out. And yeah, the first time I ran there in Athens, it was, you know, I was running on the sidewalk and I saw a red light ahead of me and I thought, oh, that's fine. You know, I'll just stop. And all the, the motorcyclists to get around the red light just drive up onto the sidewalk. And all of a sudden I see 15 motorcycles, you know, tearing my way. So I've gotten used to the Greek driving. Do you prefer running in the heat? I do. I mean, I've, I've run across Death Valley in the middle of summer, which is the hottest place on earth. And I've also run a marathon to the South Pole, which is the coldest place. And to me, I'll take the heat any day. Yeah. So I'm, I'm a bit the same. So that's bad water, right? Bad. Yeah. The bad water ultramarathon. See, we're in the UK. We hear all these names and we can only aspire to sort of being there one day. It's a, it's a, it's a place worth experiencing, even if you don't do the race, just because it's, it's so, it's so much, it's, it's so otherworldly. You know, you just, it's like being on earth, but not on earth. It's almost like you're on Mars. It's, it's the heat is just, it's hard to describe, you know, the way it just warps, warps your perception, warps time, just changes everything. It just, it just owns you in a way that you, you know, you're, you're so in tune to the environment because you have to be. Dean, is it true that you've run on the white line so you don't melt your running shoes? It is absolutely true. I've had my running shoes melt at bad water and the white line stays cooler than the black tarmac. Yeah. You've won it, won it, haven't you? Well, I don't say I won. I say I survived the fastest. That's, that's, yeah, that's pretty humble of you. It's, it's, they don't call it the world's toughest footrest for nothing. You know, it has changed a bit. You know, when I've done it 10 times and it was always running through Death Valley in the middle of the heat of the day because it started in the morning. But the National Park Service where the race is held, they don't allow races when the temperature gets above 120 degrees. And it's almost always above 120 degrees at bad water. So now the race starts at night. So you're running through the kind of the toughest section at night. So it's kind of changed the dynamic just a bit. How long does it take you to finish? Is it 120 miles? 135. 135. Yeah, it was around 27 hours. That's insane. And for the Western States, what's your fastest time there? Because you've won that one as well, haven't you? No, I've never won that one. I've finished in the top 10, I think five or six times. And I've run that in just over 17 hours. Wow, that's incredible. That's incredible because the sort of holy grail for 100 miler, they say it's 24 hours, don't they? If you can get under that, you're really doing well. But to think... At the Western States, about 25% of the field finishes in sub-24 hours. Yeah, and you get a different buckle. You get a belt buckle prize. So you get a different one, a silver buckle. If you finish in under 24 hours and a bronze buckle, if you finish under 30 hours, which is the cutoff is 30 hours. Did you get into it this year? No, I gotta be honest. I've done it 13 times and it's so hard to get into the Western States nowadays. The odds of getting accepted to Western States are lower than getting into Harvard. It's something like 13,000 to one. And I kind of felt guilty that I was putting my name in the hat because I thought, you've experienced it so many times, let someone else have their turn at it. I'm going to go and support the race, like I have the last couple of years, and potentially pay someone, so help them get to the finish line. But I think when I turn 60, I'm going to do it again, just because it's kind of a milestone. But until then, I'm just going to kind of let others experience the magic of Western States. Hmm. It's one hell of a race. What with YouTube, there's quite a lot about it on the internet now. Yes. When you wrote about it in a runner's high, it really seemed like it was getting hard work for you. Has that become a thing, or was this a one off? The thing that's become is that when I have a bad race, it's bad. In younger years, when I was having a bad race, I just kind of put my head down and grunt through it and still do half well. As I said with the Western States, I went from hoping to break the age record to just hoping to finish. So things went bad, and it took a lot out of me. I had to dig really, really deep to reach the finish line. But in a way, I chose to write about the Western States in my most recent book because it wasn't a good race. I think a tough race makes a better story than a good race. So that's one of the reasons I chose that particular event to write about. Do you say you've significantly lost, I don't know what we're going to call this, strength or conditioning as you got older? I'm 52 now and I honestly feel fitter than I've ever been. But then again, I was never a competitive runner when I was young like you were. Well, I think the subtitle of my book kind of states it. Which is older, wiser, slower, stronger. Yes. Though I agree with you. I think I have better endurance. But what has gone out the window is my leg speed. I have to work twice as hard to keep up the same pace that used to come easy to me. So I've really noticed my speed is what's compromised as I've gotten older. But not so much my strength or my endurance. Do you think this sport has changed since you started out? Oh, very much so. Like I said, in the early 90s when I got into it, there weren't a lot of trainers around. There wasn't any information on the court of internet. You could do research. So you just kind of threw yourself into these things and kind of learned as an experiment of one. And now everything is so quantified. I mean, people train and I know people when they run, their run on a daily basis has got to be about something. They can't just run for the joy of running. And they've got to stay on their schedule on what their coaches or their trainers outlined. We're obviously tracking every microstep we take, every breath we take, every heartbeat. The rhythms between our heartbeats, so it's changed so much. And the level of competition has increased incredibly as well. There are decorated collegiate athletes and Olympic qualifiers that are running ultra marathons and they're crushing it. So it really has changed a lot. I think one of the most interesting dynamics is the new records that are being set, they're incremental gains on old records. So they're not just smashing old records. And I think it speaks a lot about the resilience and the toughness of racers of bygone days that for them to be able to run those times now that are being surpassed, but not remarkably surpassed. I think that speaks a lot to how runners have maybe softened up a bit over the years. Yes, there's one thing that's sort of, I wouldn't say it doesn't bug me, but when I wrote, I wrote my runner's book, there you go, we have something in common, state of mind. And I think I open it by saying if you want to find a book about calories and hill sprints and laps and this isn't the book, this is not the book for you. What was I going to say? I've completely forgotten. Oh, yeah. I try to get across to people that the elitism in sports like this doesn't, it puts so many people off from wanting to give it a go. You know, if you watch the UK media, you'd think that running a half marathon was like the hardest thing in the world. It's only for the privileged elite, you know, you've got to have the gym. And I'm like, come on, what are you saying this stuff? It's just to put an old pair of trainers on doesn't, you know, don't have to be good. I don't even carry one of these water bottles that everyone seems to not on, certainly not on a short, you know, short, like a half marathon distance or something. And I don't know, do you get that in America, this sort of elitism that people who run ultras want to be held in this kind of esteem? I don't get that vibe so much. I'm a columnist for a magazine called Ultra Running Magazine. And it's, you know, kind of a leading voice of the sport. And, you know, one thing I love about the magazine is it's still funky. You know, it's not super rip people, you know, with their shirts off, you know, in record breaking times, you know, their pictures of people with body types, you'd never suspect to be running an ultra marathon. And they're smiling. They're, you know, their picture of people running with their dogs. So the magazine has tried to keep ultra marathoning approachable. And that's one thing I really advocate is to get away from what you just described. I think that it can be off-putting and intimidating for people. Running itself isn't intimidating enough, let alone, you know, having the media saying, wow, this is, you know, is only for the most elite of the elite. So, you know, one thing I also advocate for is longer cutoff times in these races. Any race I'm involved with, I have really liberal cutoff times because some of these races, these races, like the Western states for someone, you know, they're so intimidated by the idea, like I would never be able to run 30, you know, 100 miles in under 30 hours. I'm not going to enter because I'll never be able to finish in that long. So I say, you know, for these 100 mile races, let's have a 48 hour, let's have a two day cutoff. So people that think I can never do it can get into it and actually have a go at it. So that's one thing that I, you know, I promote and I hope you do the same. Yes, I can remember when I was about 35 Dean and I had somebody then trying to talk me out of running, they were saying, you're too old, you're going to hurt yourself, you're too old. One thing that I don't do anymore, I don't have any Strava or or any app on my phone anymore. I don't know how you feel about this, but I was, I think I was, when I was running 200 miles, I did, I gave up last Christmas, not this one just gone, but the one before to run 200 miles around a running track for Christmas. And I remember people who messaged me goes, Chris, what's your Strava? What's your Strava? And I, I just thought like, I don't want to share that with you, you know, I'm not, I'm not hiding anything. It's just running is a personal thing for me. It's not, it's not. And now I just think when you, when, when your mind is on that thing, it's not, you're not being as spiritual as you, you can be. And I just love to love running. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I always say to people, you know, running is worthwhile in itself. Just the act of running and, you know, viewing running to me as play, it's, you know, it's adult play. I like to go play on a trail. And yeah, I'm, you know, I'm in my fifties, but it's rejuvenating and it keeps me young. So, you know, once in a while, I'll quantify a workout and very, very infrequently I'll share it. And I get the same thing like, Oh, you know, what, tell me what's your Strava address and this and that. And I just say, you know, I just, I don't even, I don't have a public Strava. Like I just, I don't want to get into that rabbit hole because it takes away the joy of running just as you said. Yes. And do you listen to music, Dean, when you run? I don't. I have the time I listen to audio books. So sometimes when I do what are called LSD training, so long, slow distance, I'll listen to an audio book. Because, you know, when you're training for six or eight hours a day, sometimes you don't have that much time to read. And I love to read. So I think I have more than 500 books on my audio book playlist now. And I listened to maybe three or four books a month. Yeah, I like listening to running audio books when I'm running. Is that maybe I'm a glutton for punishment? No, I enjoy that as well. In fact, I mean, because you're UK based, I can say this, I was not too, not too happy with the narrator of my most recent book, A Runner's High, in the US. And I was going to do the narration myself, but it was right in the midst of COVID. So all the recording studios were shut down. And the guy who read my book is a professional narrator. And he had a recording studio at his house. So he read it. He just didn't get the connotations right. And we don't speak, you know, the same way. But the gentleman who read the UK version, I think did a really nice job. So A Runner's High is available on audiobook in the UK. And I really like the way he read it. Oh, that's nice to hear. Yeah. I've still got to do all my audio books. I just keep putting it off. I'm just going to do it on. I've got a few microphones, but seems to be what a really popular thing now. It's they're tough to record. I've recorded a couple of my books and it's like an ultramarathon. It just goes on forever. Yeah, but I do. I very much enjoy listening to like adventure stories when I'm running, you know, like Into Thin Air and The Worst Journey in the World, you know, in Shackleton. And they just seem to resonate really well when you're running. Yeah, I think we've got similar taste. Well, we've both been in Antarctica. I went on one of these expedition ships down there and scuba dived. Had I in hindsight, I would have asked them if they could set me up for a marathon like yourself. But I was too engrossed in the scuba diving at the time. So yeah, I've been to the exterior as well, like which you just just described. And it's very different than going to the South Pole. So the interior of Antarctica is a very different experience than the coastline. Yes, I bet. I mean, it's a fascinating continent. I never believed I would have had such a wonderful experience down there. I thought it was going to be barren and boring and a few penguins. And oh my God, how wrong was I? I agree with you. It's an amazing place. I'm so happy to have visited a couple of times. I look forward to going back as well. And Dean, probably get fed up with being asked this, but what's next for you? Well, I'm planning a big adventure that's been pushed back because of COVID. But I'll tell you, it involves two places on earth that are the most extreme. And it's the... I don't want to tell you what it is because I don't like saying what I'm going to do next until I've actually done it. I'd rather talk about what I just did than what I'm going to do. But it's going to involve about 5,000 miles of running and also paddling across a bit of ocean, about 800 miles of ocean, to complete this trek. And hopefully it was going to happen at the beginning of 2023. I wish you luck with that. It sounds... Yeah, it sounds hairy. Yeah, no, I think I'd love to have you crew for me because I think you just love everything about this. Yeah. Yeah, well, feel free to invite me. I don't know if they'll let me travel because I haven't gone along with any of this stuff. But we'll see. Yeah, that's... Yeah, I mean, traveling these days, we could spend a whole podcast about that. But I've had all this stuff more than I ever wanted to, but I did just because they don't let you board an airplane for an international flight unless you show them all the proofs of all the needle sticks you've got, all your jabs. And that was the main reason I did it just because I want to be able to travel. Yeah. But one final question for you, Dean. Do you... I was going to say, do you run every day? But what I really mean is, do you still sort of hop out of bed looking forward to going for a run? I'm still pretty self-motivated. Yeah, I am. I don't run every day. I probably run five or six days a week, but I never run the same route twice. And I'm blessed where I live because I have access to great open spaces right out my front door so I can run on a different trail every day. And I can run 300 or 400 miles on these trails, literally, all the way up to Seattle for my house in Northern California. So I still look forward to it. I look forward to it more now than I did pre-COVID because now it's kind of like I need it. I really need it. Yes. You mentioned one thing in your book, the post-Ultra come down. Has that been a big thing for you? I think, I mean, I've never been analyzed by a psychologist, but I think that I definitely suffer from some level of depression. And I think it's more... I question things so much. I'm an existentialist. I'm Greek. So I kind of sometimes question the meaning of existence. And if you ponder that question for too long, it's always going to leave you in a kind of a quandary psychologically. So I think that that's one of the reasons I run. I mean, my wife always says, why do you even think about these things? Like, don't think about it. You'll be happier. And I agree with her, but I just can't stop it. Yeah. It's not a bad thing to be a thinker. Probably better than being a non-thinker. Yeah. I don't know. My wife and I are very different. I think she's a dentist, so she's learned it. But I mean, I think her take of ignorance is bliss. There's something to be said about that. I mean, she doesn't watch the news. And I come in steaming like, oh, God, this is happening. And this is happening. She's like, why do you even watch that stuff? I think there's something to be said about it. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't watched the news for 20, 20 years now. And I can't say I can't say I miss it. So, Dean, listen, you're a busy man. I'm humbled that you've come on my show. I have to massively thank you again for what you've added to my life or what your example triggered off for me. I'd encourage anybody watching, get into running. When I train for the London marathon, I think they ran a quarter of a mile around the block. That was all I could do. A quarter of a mile and a week later, you're running a mile. And then before you know it, you've clocked up some distances. And it's just an incredible sport. So, thank you for your book, Dean. That was really kind of you and wonderful read folks. As I say, I'll put a link for Dean's books below. So please go and grab one. And Dean, stay on the line so I can thank you properly, but massive thank you again. And I hope we can chat again at some point in the future. I think I hope we can share some footsteps together at some point in the future. Oh, yeah, that would be. I would enjoy that much more. Yeah. Yeah, that would be magnificent. Thank you. And to our friends at home, massive love to you all. Please look after yourselves. If you can like and subscribe. Hope you've enjoyed this as much as I have. Thank you.