They Told Him He Was Too Old. At 66, He Set a World Record | Joe Barr

Ageless Athlete Recording - Joe Barr
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Kush: [00:00:00] I'm in the northwest of Ireland, up on the, up in the west of it. N- Ireland is divided with Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, so we're literally just on the borderline in Ireland.

Joe: That's where we're currently located. And this morning, because, uh, this is my first week back of training after Route 66, I had a very basic coffee and toast, 'cause I can. I've been on a long regime of, uh, pretty strict nutrition for quite a while. So just hang-a- having a little bit of things that are nice and, you know, enjoyable and not really focused on the, the whole, uh, sporting thing, it was just enjoyable this morning, so I just had toast and coffee.

Kush: Lovely. Joe, you have just ridden more than 2,400 miles- Correct ... along Route 66. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: Santa Monica to Chicago, and you have just set this new record at 66. So firstly, congratulations. 

Joe: [00:01:00] Thank you. Thank you. Uh, it was a joy. It was the joy of an event to have the opportunity to actually participate in to start off with, but because this is a 100-year celebration, the centenary year of the Route 66 in the US, it's a very special year to have the opportunity to do it.

And we had d- decided, Jill had sort of asked me what I would like for my birthday, and I said, "I would like to ride Route 66 when I'm 66." That was my birthday present. it took us quite a while to put the event together. So effectively, I managed to finish it inside my 66th year, because the day after I finished, on the 13th, was my birthday, so I was 67 the day after I finished.

Yeah. That's- 

Kush: Amazing. 

Joe: Yeah. It was fun. It was a really fun race. Uh, not that ultra distance racing is, is fun all the time, but it was a very different type of race in comparison to what we normally do. [00:02:00] The, the support from the people, uh, along the way was incredible. And the support in general, even through the social media channels like we had almost two million people follow our race.

It was just, 

Yeah, the support of the people all along the complete route was just incredible.

You know, we, you normally don't experience that, especially at the level that we experienced. . It's hard to actually sit back and really understand what exactly created all of that, but I think that one of the things not alone just the fact that it was 100 years of Route 66, so the US government departments have been promoting hugely the celebration on many, many, many fronts many different types of events hundreds and hundreds of events.

We actually were very fortunate that we got certified as one of their official events, and that really assisted with our position, first of all, in the, the centenary year. But the fact [00:03:00] that almost everyone in the US is taught or told something in their upbringing about the, the very first highway in the US it has a special place in the history of, of the US, and it's only...

You know, we- I've spent a year trying to educate myself on all the back office history to it, and I'm still only at the tip of the iceberg of it really, but I've learned so much about the contribution of it. And one of the things I was very fortunate to meet a historian in a place called Kingsman, Arizona.

His name is John Hinkley, and, uh, he's a historian who's dedicated his, a, a big part of his life to, uh, documenting everything that exists about Route 66. And I learned from him that, you know, The first co- company that started to function around Route 66 was a bicycle company. It was started by a Scotsman who had emigrated, started a bicycle company, got together with an automobile guy, built an automobile [00:04:00] company, had automobiles in existence in California for maybe 10 years until the, uh, US government gave the go-ahead to start Route 66, to build it.

So effectively this whole, the whole beginning of moving and transportation started with the bicycle. So I found it incredibly interesting that that was the case and, uh, we tried to cover as much of the original Route 66 as possible. Most of the US citizens will understand and know that I-40 is built on top of certain sections of Route 66, not all of it, but in certain sections of it.

So for me, there was probably out of the, the 2,448 miles of its total distance, there was probably around 260 to 270 miles of that where we had to actually ride on the hard shoulder of I-40. Which is a- Wow ... whole different, is a whole different [00:05:00] experience. So I managed to do and navigate that safely.

But the, the rules for I-40 are different in every state, obviously. And in New Mexico, you are not allowed to ride on I-40. The state law is can't do it. So what we had to do was we had to w- I had a routing guy who put the route together and worked it all on that. And they chopped out the distance that I couldn't ride on I-40.

And in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, they built a spur to equate to the same distance on a road that we could ride on. So at, at Santa Rosa, I made a left turn and did this big spur that took me nowhere except to the beautiful place called Vaughn, which is the area of the Soaring Eagles. And it I'm so glad that it took me there because I've seen it.

It was just spectacular. Spectacular. So back to Santa Rosa, and then continued on. That's how we did it. So we still continued, [00:06:00] we still actually did the full two hun- 2,448 miles by behaving like that, and the rest we did on I-40. 

Kush: That is incredible, and thank you for sharing that background. Yes, I have heard about Route 66.

I mean, it's kind of been immortalized in pop culture to some degree, but I think myself and many other people listening did not have- Some of that history behind it 

Joe: Yeah 

Kush: Which makes me wonder w- how did the idea came about? Yeah. W- why pick Route 66? Why even pick a race in America?

You're coming from Ireland, I'm sure there's plenty of good riding. 

Joe: Yeah, you know, but, uh, I've been very, very fortunate. I started my... Like, I've had a long career and history in cycling. It's what I've done my whole life. It's been, A, my whole job, my whole my- my whole life. People ask me sometimes, you know, when I'm gonna retire, and my answer is, "Well, I've no, no reason to retire from the one thing I [00:07:00] love doing in my whole life."

I don't have a reason to retire. But when... co- going back to Route 66, two years ago you know, I've competed all over the world. We compete all over the world in ultra-distance races. So I've been all over Europe, I've been all over America. I've done Race Across America three times now, I think. So we have competed i- in it all.

I've seen it all from every angle. I'm at the stage in a career where I'm always looking for something that's very different something that brings a whole new experience, a whole new challenge to my skill sets. I like going to the start of the events, trying to figure out, do I have the capability?

Do I have all the skill sets that can actually, y- manage to get myself from the beginning of this to the end of it? And there's a lot of, uh, self-determination, I suppose, is probably the best word to use around that. 



Kush: Beautiful. 

Joe: And we managed to finish it, and, uh- 

Kush: Amazing ... 

Joe: I'm actually finished the race on [00:08:00] June 12th.

Kush: been more than a, it's been more than a month. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: are you finally caught up on sleep? 

Joe: Yeah, I wouldn't say caught up. I think, uh, when you come off a big ultra distance race like that where it's so intense first of all, there's the physical impact of that, first of all that you have got to deal with.

Most people think you wanna just sleep instantly. Unfortunately, your mind and your central nervous system is operating in a different timeframe to where your body is. So you don't actually sleep that well for quite a while. And there's a process that each individual body goes through, and they're all different.

Every- everyone behaves different. Like, m- my process, my experience is, like, that you go through difficulties. It's difficult to sleep. Then you do sleep, then your body almost releases a, what I refer to as a little bit of trauma, and, uh, there'll be a huge sweat for three or four nights where your body is still on this slow wind down because although you've [00:09:00] stopped and got, got on with your life or whatever, the internals in your system, because you've been, you know, pushing so aggressively, are still what I call on free fall very slowly.

So they're still doing different stuff at a different speed to what you are. So you, you have to be aware to almost try and be in life at two different speeds internally. Uh, and because, we crossed there pretty aggressively. Like, we finished that complete course in 10 days. It's aggressive by anyone's imagination.

And it, it's- Can you- ... it's why it... 

Kush: That was, yeah, fascinating. Um, excited to dive a little bit deeper into the race itself, and then we can also talk about some of the recovery that took place after. Can you describe to us, we know that the race was a bit over 2,400 miles. 

Joe: Right. 

Kush: And, and it took you...

Tell us how many days did it take you. 

Joe: Well, first of [00:10:00] all, um, the amount of time that it took us was completion from Santa Monica to... It's pier to pier. It's Santa Monica Pier to Navy Pier, Chicago. Uh, that's the 2,448 miles. We completed it in 10 days and X number of hours.

Driving a car at that speed is challenging. Uh, a, a normal day, you know, there's n- there's nothing normal in any of the days because every day is determined by how you, how the rider is, what the temperature is doing outside, the environment, how your body is feeling and recovering as the process goes along.

So there's a lot of variables as to how you perform on a daily basis. But a typical type day normally we would do a 24-hour window of the, of the day. We would probably do somewhere around 20 to 21, maybe 22 hours on the bike and a couple- Wow ... of hours, and a couple of hours off the bike. Now [00:11:00] that- Number shifts slightly because when you go through places like Mojave Desert or you go through Arizona Desert, we experience the temperature at 117, 121 degrees.

It's hot, very hot. So there's a limitation to how much you can push to be able to control core temperatures and to be able to control hydration. So the speed shifts. So the mileage that you're covering on a day-to-day basis shifts and changes i- in line with what those temperatures may be or the, the environment, like the desert.

And desert is incredibly difficult to navigate, especially at night because there's a lot of small particle dust that you breathe in, and it's very easy to ha- to have an infection in throat, infection in chest. So you have to manage that in the nighttime. So there's a lot of small detail that you make stops or shifts for to address something else.

But the main focus, keep [00:12:00] moving forward. So anything that's gonna stop you in the big picture from moving forward to, and getting to the finish, you've gotta stop and address it there and then in the moment. Because if you don't, your race is gonna be over in the very near future. Sure ... there's a lot of, there's a lot of variables that they're telling it.

But I had days where I had like 280... There was two days I did 285 miles back to back two days. And, and the reason I did that is I was trying to drag back time from that I had lost because I was forced off because of, we had really bad wind conditions in New Mexico when we were crossing the Great Divide.

It was almost impossible to hold the bike on the road with the velocity of the wind uh, just like storm force. So we had to go off the road till that died down and then change direction which we did do. But then I had a time loss that I needed to catch up, so within two days I did two big back to backs to close the gap again.

And you're [00:13:00] continually working off, you know, what I call, what we call like a, you know, a recalculated matrix that's our, one of our crew is running, so as we stop and we lose time, that matrix is recalculated on a spreadsheet, so we know exactly what we need to do to keep moving at the speed that we need to do to achieve the goal.

it's complicated in a simple way uh, when you know how to do it. But it's not easy to move a team of nine people, including a rider, continually across a country that big with those w- amount of variations like. But we're... I have a incredibly experienced crew and team and, uh, this particular race as well for, for whatever reason, I don't actually have a full explanation for it- Everything just worked.

It just flowed and worked- Sure ... and was and that's what made it a beautiful race. It we didn't have to get into side issues or side stuff that distracted us. We had a few [00:14:00] weather situations that we had to address. We had the one in New Mexico. We had a big storm that hit in Illinois just the night before we got to the finish, uh, where we had to take all the vehicles off the road.

Torrential rain, and we lost probably from about 7:00 PM until 3:00 in the morning, we lost that time 'cause we just had to stay off the road. But when we got going again, we left at 4:00 AM from where we were located, and we got to the finish around 5:30 in Chicago Pier. So there was a few things- Wow

few things like that. But in general, it was a pretty smooth and from a rider's point of view, enjoyable race.

Kush: Joe, myself and most people listening, you know, I, if I go out and ride, log a ride more than 40 miles, 50 miles, I have to basically rest the rest of the day. It's, it's, it's a long ride- Yeah

for anybody. And you know, if, if people complete a century, they wear that badge of honor for a long time. [00:15:00] 

Joe: Yes. 

Kush: You were covering over 200 miles a day for multiple, multiple days. And did I hear you say, did I hear correctly that there were days or many days you were on your bike for more than 20 hours?

Joe: Correct. That is correct, 

Kush: yes. That's... Wow. yeah, just gobsmacked. yeah, this is not just a long ride or a series of long rides. 

Joe: No. really have to think about what exact- what exactly, crossing 2,500 miles in, in deserts and whatever is in 10 days, first of all, to really grasp what that is.

You know, the world has, you know, a great group of ultra distance guys are, who are all capable of these kind of distances. It's a s- it's a small pool, but they're there, and they're across the globe, and they can do it. It's not easy. I mean, I start, when I started in 2009, I had the [00:16:00] riding of, the, the riding the bike capability really coming from mainstream, but I really didn't have the skillsets anywhere in order to where I have them now to be able to understand how the mind functions.

Because the body taps out, it maxes out at a certain point of capability. The driving force of the body is the mind, uh, and how you apply that. how you, how you work hard to bring the skills to manage the processes that you're confronted with, not to try to overcome them or override them, but to manage them.

And it's, to me, I can only relate to my experience, but I, from what I see when I race against all the peers that I have everybody has a different version of that, their own personal version of it as to how, for example, how you manage sleep deprivation over those multiple levels of days. And, we [00:17:00] talk so much to, different realms of life where you have healthcare workers who work through the night in hospitals and who struggle with night shift, and how do you manage that?

You know, how do you bring those skillsets in? What is it that you need to do in your off shift that assists your brain function to be able to manage the night shift and how you change your lifestyle to adjust rather than just say, "I struggle. I struggle with this." So putting work and time and effort into understanding the, each pillar of the components that make up all of the strategies that you have to put into place to be able to say, "I've just rode 2,500 miles in 10 days."

That takes five seconds to say, but it takes years and years to build the pillars- 

Kush: Sure ... 

Joe: to be to be able to actually manage yourself through all of that. Because every part of your being is telling you to get off and go home. [00:18:00] That- ... that's what it's telling you. So you have to have a very solid position in your inner dialogue where you can almost talk to yourself internally.

So you become two people, and you have one part of you who just wants to tell you to stop, and it's easier to go home and whatever, and you have self, a self-determined version of yourself who is saying, "I hear you, but not right now."

Kush: Wow. This is- That's- Yeah, I'm just trying to unpack, some of the things you just said. you know, I want to stay with the race for a little bit. 

Joe: Yep. 

Kush: And I remember hearing that you said that the early part of the race had you on the ropes. 

Joe: Correct. 

Kush: What was going wrong? 

Joe: I wouldn't say that there was anything going wrong.

What had happened was whenever I... We put a huge amount of change into our preparation for coming to this race. And it was change that we had never [00:19:00] experienced the result from before. This was a new approach. And we made the adjustments because we felt as I am moving through my aging process, it was it was time to start to look from experience that we had from previous races over the last two years, what we could look to change to try and not stop the process, but to allow me to continue to the best I could be.

So we changed a lot. As you know, Jill is a professional nutritionist, right? I'm very lucky, right? I'm the luckiest guy in the whole world, right? Because we just don't talk about it, Jill, we live the lifestyle of it in our home every day. Every day. So we changed a lot of nutrition and we changed a lot of training approach.

We cut a lot of the distance down. We inserted a lot more intensity, and we changed things around. And when I came to the race, [00:20:00] truthfully, I had done the, what I call the protocol for going to a race like this, where we did all the preparation. I did it all in Spain. I think we did three or four big training sessions down in Costa Blanca in Spain.

So we had a lot of time exposed to a lot warmer climate than we would have in Ireland. I did that, first of all, and that was to bridge the gap or to help to bridge the gap to the increase in the temperatures that we were going to be facing. When I got to North Carolina, which was May time you know, the plan was to do a little bit of altitude training there because where Mark, where we're located at, it's at 3,000 elevation, and I can train up to eight.

And I knew that I was only gonna be probably going to eight and a half max in this race, maybe just under nine. So I knew that that part of it was okay, but I was fortunate that the temperature in North Carolina in May actually went up into the mid-90s. So I also had the heat acclimation. So I got both there because our plan was to move across, drive across, [00:21:00] spend, you know, two, three days in Flagstaff where the temperature was up in Arizona a little bit, further out in the desert as well, we were gonna spend time.

I really didn't need to do that. So having gone through that complete protocol brings me back to answer your question. When I started the race- I wasn't feeling super sharp. I was a little bit off. Uh, and, but I realized that from my mainstream days when I was a professional mainstream rider, I was very good at stage racing.

Stage racing for those who don't know, like it's something like the Tour de France where it's a stage after stage after stage after stage. When I got to like the second week, I was always getting stronger, right? So I placed my faith that a couple of days of tolerating this, it was a bit like I was doing it, but it was taking effort to do it.

Huge effort, and too much effort almost. So I backed off. I, I backed off and I thought, "Right, I'm gonna... Rather than me force this, I'm [00:22:00] gonna wait for it to come." That was one part of it, and the second part of it that contributed to being on the ropes and me getting off the ropes was when I backed off, my body started to readjust and I could feel it starting to come.

So by the second and third day, I could feel this, I could feel my output just getting easier and easier and easier, even though I'd been on the bike for whatever amount of hours, but I knew it was coming. By day four, it just arrived, and I was just like- Wow ... I was just arriving. So effectively, when you're trying to prepare for an event where you're trying to get the peak to come just whenever you need the output it's always better that you can bring it at the beginning of the event.

Bring it in with you. If you arrive just prior to the event, right up there, usually you'll lose it in the first three or four days. It'll peak too early and you'll drop. This one, the peak came right in the middle, right? And it stayed for the whole race. Not [00:23:00] uncalculated, but without any evidence that, that w- all the changes would work, they did work.

That... When I said I was on the ropes, that, that was in reference to the fact I felt a little bit off at the start. And one of the things that was like a sidebar to all of that, that helped that period whenever I was on the ropes, because I had, I had no expectation or I wasn't expecting in any shape or form the support from the public, both on the side of the road and on the social media and everywhere that it was For want of a better word, distracted me away from, you know, seeing the negative.

I got distracted with this bit, so I think I said it to Pat, the filmmaker, we were speaking at one point, and I said, "You know, I've just let myself submerge into the race, whatever that is, because I know this is gonna come good. I believe this is gonna come good." And three days, by the time I got into Arizona, it you know, I was comfortably [00:24:00] riding 23, 25 miles an hour all the time.

Kush: I guess maybe one follow-up I thought I would ask here is this- this adaptation that started happening a few days into- Yeah

is it is it physical? Is it psychological? Is it some combination where, you know, your body is maybe getting more fatigued in some ways because you have already started doing these- Well- ... huge days? 

Joe: Yeah, I think, well, there's, I think there's three answers there. I think when you have a, a trained physical condition if you calculate the training load, you gotta remember that probably for the last 10 days, there's this, what we call a taper window, where you come off the training load and you taper down into the start of the event.

When you bring that down to a point where it's almost nil and there was a few days we just drove in the van, I didn't ride at all. I wasn't on the bike at all. Effectively everything starts to settle down. Even your central nervous system starts to settle down and [00:25:00] everything. So it, when you try to activate that to go again, it takes a few days for it to just to get back into the way of going.

So we had a couple of very busy days just prior to the actual start because, you know, you have the crew arriving in from all over the world. We were in a big Airbnb. We're trying to get all the cars sorted out. We're trying to get every, all the equipment into the cars, get everything done. It's a huge panic for two days.

Like it's eight people just completely busy for 12 hours a day. Uh, so it's, it's a very busy environment. I did ride a little bit, but not much. And you know, the first day when we left Santa Monica Pier that morning, it was 5:00 AM, you know, can't say it was cold, but it wasn't sunny. But like by 10 o'clock, like we it was 90 plus degrees.

So effectively there's a big shock that goes there. You've just gone from zero to riding at 25 miles an hour. There's a lot going on there. And I realized even before I got out of the suburbs of [00:26:00] LA that I was gonna have to force because it just wasn't flowing. I could feel it. But experience told me not to panic, but you can't ignore the fact that you're not getting it comfortably. So again, that was my comment. I'm, I feel a little bit on the ropes here because it's not flowing smoothly. But I was very confident as I say that it would come. Uh, and it did, it did come

Kush: Joe, I thought I would ask you to maybe break down some of these, uh, more material moments for the everyday person listening to this. Yeah. So one is just the idea of being on the saddle for 20 hours or more. 

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kush: Like, how were you eating? Again, like, just a few hours on a bike-

seems like a lot. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: No, w- How do you manage something like this? 

Joe: First of all, n- Jill was there. And Jill's job on the, on the race is to handle all the nutrition. So [00:27:00] we al- obviously have a very good working relationship with nutrition. We both understand it pretty well. Obviously, Jill is the expert in it.

And we also have a very good communication system where we are always communicating the correct message. We're not... We don't get lost in the language. So we have a very, let's call it unique and unique to us method in how we do that. And Jill's also incredibly experienced having done Race Across America, having done multiple events.

And the other thing that you must understand about what she does is she is the one person in the complete crew who does the complete sleep cycle that I do, right? So she does the complete amount of- Oh ... she does the complete amount of hours that I do. Exactly. So trust me, you're talking to experience that's on a different scale and on a different level when you talk about nutrition.

You're talking about nutrition for 20 hours a [00:28:00] day, and her job still doesn't finish whenever I stop, because when I stop, she's still doing things for me while I'm stopped, right? So it's taxing, tiring to a degree. It's, unless you actually physically witness it, it's difficult to understand. That's what she- So if 

Kush: I understand correctly, you are riding for 20 hours.

Yes. Jill is in the van behind you. She's- Correct ... uh, monitoring things. She's making sure that you're getting your nutrition, which I want to ask, how did you get your nutrition? 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: And then you end that particular day, and then Jill also... So basically she has timed- Yeah ... her, her morning, like, her, her sleep cycles.

Joe: Yes. And most of her sleep cycles, she will do, uh, what we call, like, snap snake sleep cycles in the van while it's moving for maybe two to three hours, where she's saying, "I'm off shift. I'm going to put my head down." She'll do that. We prepare for that gap that she's [00:29:00] away. I make sure, she makes sure that all the bottles are all ready.

So, you know, we have a lot of, carbohydrate mix that goes into bottles that's mixed in water. But when you're in an environment like the desert where that bottle has gotta be chilled to a certain level to keep it cold, because that's the only way we can tr- can control the internal core temperature, that is an ongoing process.

It's i- it's like an ice making machine inside the van just continually making ice, and we have auxiliary cars that's bringing ice to make sure that the bottles are always at the level they need to be at. And then there's ice then for chilling all their food and whatever. So managing all of the nutritional aspect in the direct follow vehicle is her job.

You've got a driver who's driving the van, and you've got a navigator who's handling all the navigation and all my radio in my ear telling me what I'm doing, telling me what's happening. I don't talk much because I don't have to. I just follow instruction. So effectively Jill comes on the radio, we'll have our dialogue in our [00:30:00] language.

She will either give me an instruction or ask me for my input. At that point, I give my input. So it's a very clear comms that go back and forward. Rarely does the driver talk to me other than when we're navigating a junction left or right. So the driver is then managing the traffic from the rear.

So if he's moving from an inner, an internal lane to an external lane, he will tell me he's taking the lane before I move out at the front. So there's a management process for traffic as well, because the rear of the van is instruction for the onco- the traffic that's behind, telling them that there's a bike there.

There's flashing lights, there's all of the stuff that are supposed- Sure ... to be there by the rules of the race. So effectively the, the driver's managing the road movements, the navigator is managing the navigation and the radio and Jill is managing all of the nutrition in the rear. So that's the direct follow car.

Then you have an auxiliary car, that is what we would also call a [00:31:00] gopher. So he's either going to check the route in the front, what's the obstacles? Is there something we need to know about? Off to get, provisions, mostly ice, especially when you're in the desert and whatever. So effectively, two vehicles, 24 hours a day are moving all the time.

The third vehicle has... We have a two shifts of 12 hours, drivers, navigators, auxiliary car drivers. So the other shift has gone off to a hotel room to sleep for 12 hours, and they'll come back and this shift goes off. So effectively it's nonstop. All the way. 

Kush: Wow. 

Joe: And my stop will be you had asked about my stop and my sleep.

This particular race we decided we would... I would normally sleep in the van. But this particular race, because the complete race was so hot all the way, managing my core temperature was a key to the success of the event. So we decided that we would get a room [00:32:00] and chill the body, feed it, sleep it, give it an extra hour, hour of time, 'cause I would normally take, like, a shorter break really.

If I was in Race Across America, the break would maybe only be two hours. But this one we extended it a little bit because we were looking at the bigger picture, and managing the onslaught of the heat was one of the key things that allowed my recovery to keep going at the speed I was going at. So when we got to the hotel room, Jill's preparing the, the food prior to me going to sleep because that's one of the protocols that assists us as riders to go to sleep quickly, because that's a key tool that you must be able to activate.

You must be able to sleep right away. And the correct food, the correct time, prepared the way that Jill does it, that assists me to do that. Within minutes, sound asleep. So because that sleep is crucial, y- you can only go, you know, maybe into the first REM and just tip your toe into the second REM, because if you go [00:33:00] too deep, you can't come back out again.

You struggle. So there's a management process for the sleep period as well. And you've gotta be getting on your bike probably within a 30-minute window, out of bed, dressed, on the bike, and go. And X number of miles down the road you need to be doing 23, 25 mile an hour. Sure. So there, there's a pro- there's a process for all of that.

But it's, it's, Jill's role in the nutrition aspect of it is arguably, and I think everybody agrees on the team, it's one of the most aggressive roles because it's so concentrated all the time. And the other thing you have to respect, which I certainly do, if I said to you, "You're gonna get in your van in Santa Monica, and we're only gonna let you out of that van at 20 miles an hour for two hours a day."

You can understand clearly what that is. That's very, very difficult to do. And in the middle of all of that, she runs a lot of the social media. [00:34:00] it's hard to fathom really. Sure. It really is hard to, so, uh- Yeah, 

Kush: I'm developing an appreciation for the support team. Thank you for adding some detail on what Jill's role is in this whole- 

Joe: Yeah

Kush: exercise. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: Because yes, being able to be nourished, being able to Stay healthy, some version thereof- 

Joe: Absolutely ... 

Kush: and, and be rested. Actually, just like some of these details. So you were sleeping not in your van, but you were sleeping in hotel rooms. 

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kush: And so every little bit of the, the race course must have been planned well in advance.

Of course. Like, like what would happen, let's say, if you found that, you know, you had planned to log in, let's say 200 odd miles a particular day, but then you were not able to meet that- Yeah ... for some reason. Yeah. Or maybe you were feeling extra chipper and you wanted to keep going. How would you- Yeah

[00:35:00] navigate the, uh- Yeah ... the accommodation logistics? 

Joe: The accommodation for the crew is all preset. Like the, there was probably not an exaggeration, but there was 10 months of intense work put into the route a- alone, just that one part. All the detail, everything that we needed to know about. And then we knew where we would have the 12-hour shifts.

We first of all had a big location based in San San Bernardino. And we planned that because two shifts don't need to go to the start. One shift went to the start, and when they came back to San Bernardino, almost to where the course was, they went straight to sleep in the Airbnb, and the next shift took off.

So effectively it was all planned like that. The one that wasn't planned was my stop, right? So to answer your question, if in a normal situation I was sleeping in the van, we just pull it over wherever and stop wherever. That's the reason we do that. But in this particular re- this [00:36:00] particular race, we decided not to do that.

And as I said, it's the heat. And one of the things I think that, probably to give the listeners a little bit of an understanding is year on year on year, my first trip to Race Across America was 2012. Back in 2014, back in '19, back in '23, every single year the temperature is getting higher and higher.

And the last experience that we had, we thought to ourselves, "If this stays in the mid-90s, we can use the van. If it exceeds out of the 90s, it's too hot." Because there's a small set of details that go with that. You wanna run the air con, you gotta run the van. You run the van, you can't sleep 'cause it's too noisy, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's all blah, blah, blah. So take all that out of the picture. We get a hotel room, silence, food, cool down, sleep, move. And that was the protocol, the reason that we did that, but those were booked- By the navigator on the flight as we moved. So whenever we- Sure ... [00:37:00] we decided we're taking the break in six hours or wherever the next town is or where the next city is or whatever, uh, or two cities ahead, we're gonna stop there.

They would get on the phone, organize that so when we, we roll down, no organization, no chaos. Everybody else is on their shift. They're either on shift or they're off shift. And if they're on shift, they wait till I'm finished and we go again. So those- Joe, 

Kush: Joe, sorry, not to cut you off, but yes, the, you have this team and the navigator's job is to plan these shifts.

But hey, end of the day, you are the one pedaling that bicycle and- Correct ... you are the one who's facing these conditions, you know, while the other people are in, in motorized vehicles, right? 

Joe: Yes. 

Kush: So, how can the people in the van know precisely when this is when Joe would need to take a break, and this is the specific town on the route where they would need to find a place [00:38:00] to stay 

Joe: Yeah, that's a good question.

Well, that's, that's the dialogue between the crew chief and me. The, the dialogue is, "How are you feeling? This is where we are. Our schedule is planned to stop here. That is X number of miles. How do you feel now in relation to that? Do we need to take a small rest now? Are you good to go all the way? Or how do, how is it that you, me, the rider, wants to manage that?"

So I'll give my version of what I think that is. And normally I would never really agree unless I was very confident to go all the way. I would always say, "Let's reassess this in X number of miles." So that gives them a feel, well, we're going for another 50 mile, guys. We'll take a look at it in another 50 and we'll see what we're gonna do.

But before we start the race, we set out what I call the landscape of what this should look like. And then if there's anything that comes along unexpected that needs us to make a shift or a change on that, then we make that for the best interest of the overall picture of the [00:39:00] race. But because the matrix that we're actually working from is a spreadsheet matrix, so effectively, you know, we put the adjustment in and it readjusts instantly in the van.

So effectively, we know exactly what the new set of numbers are based on what we've just done. If we've taken 10 minutes or we've taken 20 minutes, which could be, and was in this particular race in relation to certain times we had to pull over just to bring my core temperature back into control. You know, we had a few 10s and e- sometimes even 20 minutes, but I also did a couple where I started really late, like 10:00 PM in the evening, rode all night right through to maybe 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning.

And then I would've take what we call a cat nap, which was maybe 10 minutes sleep in the chair getting cooled as well. Just close my eyes for 10 minutes and then go again. So there was quite a lot of those that we inserted in purposefully to manage sleep and to also manage core. So it's a non- Sure

[00:40:00] it's just a c- an ongoing process of engagement, of managing, keeping forward. Because earlier you had made a suggestion about the race itself. I try to give the race life as, and treat it like a person, give it a, so I can build a relationship with it, right? And one of the things of, that the race brings, its job, the job of the race is to dismantle the rider.

That's the job of the race Right? It has to dismantle the riders, right? So when you get into situations where there's the unexpected arrives, one of the things that we always apply is, like, what you're looking at is what you're looking at. But if you, if you challenge that in a different way, then what you're looking at becomes something different, right?

So effectively, I'm always trying to look at, how can I look at this differently so this o- obstacle becomes a different challenge? [00:41:00] So that... And we, we carry that thread right through everything that we're doing. And you will always find another way to deal with the obstacle if you want to look at it a, a different way.

But if you don't, it'll continue to stay the same obstacle. So that's something that we do. So effectively, in relation to those all stops, w- we would say I'm get- I'm starting to get too hot here," or whatever. So instead of saying let's cool that," let's do two jobs. Let's give you a catnap and cool you as well.

That brings two things instead of one. 

Kush: So this catnap would happen in the van, or actually at the hotel or someplace that- 

Joe: Most places that would've been just briefly in the van, pop into the air con. Okay. 

Kush: Okay. 

Joe: There is lit- there is literally times, and I've seen some of the film footage, where I did it in a chair out and underneath a tree.

Uh, there was an image where it was taken where we pulled over. There was a, there was... It was in Amarillo, Texas. There was one tree. [00:42:00] And I, I pulled over under the tree, and Jill set the chair out, and we used cooling towels to cool me down under the tree. But then she also she also said, "Take a catnap."

And I fell asleep right in her arm, really. Wow ... woke up and then continued. So there was- Sure ... there's instances like that. But those, w- when you have to do that, it's when you apply the macho thinking of, "I'm gonna push through this," that's when it starts to go wrong, because- Mm ... macho doesn't win.

You know, that's, that, to me, that's poor thinking and poor decision-making. You c- endurance racing's not about being macho, it's about managing the process and submitting to the obvious that, in the moment, managing it, and then moving forward. So we have a, a, a team rule. Anything that you are doing, whether you are with the rider or not with the rider, that is stopping or going to stop the rider from moving forward, you stop doing that right now.

Everyone knows that [00:43:00] on our team. That's exactly how it works. So if you're off at a hotel doing something silly that's gonna impact me, you don't do that and the same for me. I don't do something silly on, on the bike or reckless on the bike that's gonna impact the complete race for all my team.

So it's a two-way street, like,

Kush: sure. Dude, this might be a dumb question 

Joe: There is no 

Kush: such thing. But I sense, no, but I sense that one of the big points of adversity you were having to manage were the hot temperatures as you were cycling across- 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Kush: this, across this route in June, right? 

Joe: Yeah.

Kush: This is almost peak summer. Yeah. So why not choose a more salubrious time of the year, maybe fall, maybe spring? 

Joe: There, there's, for us, there's two reasons. We're trying to manage the training preparation that leads into this. And the other thing was I had a window, if I wanted to do it in my 66th year, I had to do it before [00:44:00] a certain date.

So I said to myself, "W- you know, what is the familiarity that I have got?" And the familiarity that I've got is I have raced Race Across America through almost the same terrain, s- uh, maybe within 30 miles north or south. So I had a, let's call it a fairly good understanding what most of this was gonna look and feel like, uh, having been through that.

But I think that the, because of the increase in the temperature generally that's one of the challenges. But I also think when we look back to Route 66, the biggest, one of the biggest challenges for me as a rider was the pavement quality a- and in some cases no pavement at all. That was very challenging.

There was parts, the part through from, the section through from Needles, California, out through Oatman, Kingsman, and then New Mexico, incredibly challenging and so hot. The, the terrain, just so hard to [00:45:00] keep the bike at speed because the terrain is so... There's, the bike doesn't respond on the tar, on the pavement.

It's just like riding in trickle or, riding through oatmeal. It's, uh, yeah, it, it's very difficult to keep speed on and, uh, and it uses a lot of energy. And the other thing is- Sure ... there's no sh- no shelter whatsoever. You know, there's no shelter from the, it's just baking hot. It, there's so many things that's so challenging about it.

But then within all of that there lies the overall challenge. That was the challenge of Route 66. It was, to be the first person, it's, it's incredibly... I, it's made me incredibly proud, coming from Ireland, to have the opportunity, you know, to be the first person to document riding all of Route 66, you know, in that timeframe e- in history, ever in history.

So if you look at the history of- Route 66 as it currently stands, at some point this Guinness World Record, you know, as soon as the accreditation [00:46:00] comes through, which I know it will, it'll be through probably by October when it goes through all the paperwork channels. It's going to be a great honor for me to h- to be the person w- who will be this little grain of sand in the history of Route 66 of being the first person to actually document a record across it.

Sure. So I, it's, on a personal level, I, I feel very proud about that. 

Kush: Joe, thanks for walking us through some of these mechanics and logistics. Like, all the, all this thorough planning, all this experience with- Yeah ... all of you combined, and the execution. But my mind just keeps going back to the point that you are the person pedaling that bicycle for hours upon hours on end.

And- Yeah ... a little bit ago you mentioned the term inner dialogue. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: Because I wanted to, I wanted to get [00:47:00] into maybe some of those most challenging moments of the race. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: Again, you have so much experience that you're bringing into this e- into this event. Preparation, experience, uh, motivation. But it's like, you know, some, I think some famous war general said, like, all the preparation goes away, you know, when the, uh- Yeah.

Yeah ... the battle actually begins, right? 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: Yeah. So, so take us maybe into maybe a moment or a, a time in the race when- Being able to keep going became the hardest when this inner dialogue that you spoke about- 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Kush: was the loudest. 

Joe: Yeah. I think that the inner dialogue that I refer to, like the self-determination part of it the part that wants to tell you to get off, that started with me a long time ago.

Whenever I've been to two Commonwealth Games. I won a medal at the first one, and the second one I didn't perform as [00:48:00] well. But when I came back from the second one the sort of the arc of the

I suppose that the arc of the, the body that you were trying to function under, the functioning body, had wrote me off and said, "You're too old," right? And I started to look at the whole thing and say to myself, "Really? Am I gonna allow myself to be directed and, or not directed by this thinking that you're too old, you're, you can't do this?"

So I changed. Uh, there was a period in my life when I changed direction and said, "I'm not going to accept that. I am going to, build the best career that I can be because I love doing what I'm doing, and I'm not gonna stop doing it because someone else thinks it's a good idea." So that's where it started.

So the self-determination part, like, carried through as a, as a theme and, uh, you know, it's the arc all the way through. So whenever I got to ultra distance cycling in 2008, um- [00:49:00] I didn't realize the importance of what that was gonna mean in ultracycling because there was so much of it I didn't understand.

But really when I got into it and understood that, you know, I understood where my weaknesses were, I understood where my strength was in it, and then I started to say to myself I need to find a way to be able to talk to myself whenever myself is telling me to stop." So how do I bring these two people into the same conversation inside my head?

So I found a way to try to do that. So I introduced two people. I introduced the person who's telling me it's time to go home, and I introduced the self-determined person who's saying, "Yes, I hear you, and maybe that's a good theory in your world, but I'm not doing that today, and I'm not doing it right now.

I'm doing this right now." So you can offset the dialogue because one of the things that's for sure that I have learned over all the years I'm in ultra distance, how you feel in this [00:50:00] moment is not how you're gonna feel at the next corner or the next horizon. It's just not, right? Because time moves in such a way that you're never going to be in this exact moment ever again in your life.

That is never gonna happen. It's all temporary. And the other thing is, like, from some past experiences in, in my life, I come to realize that assuming things is a huge mistake. Assuming... We say it all the time, "I'll see you tomorrow," or, "Yeah, I'm gonna be there next week. I'll see you there." We all say it.

You're assuming that. You don't know that. I don't know that, right? So if you take that thinking and you put it into that moment, whenever you're, this person over here is saying, "Stop. It's too painful. It's too hot. It's too this. It's too that," I keep saying to [00:51:00] myself in Route 66, I said to myself, "In this moment, I will never be back to in my life.

I will never feel like this again." So if I get to the next corner and the next horizon, let's see what I feel like there. So let's ride from here to there. And when you get to there, that dialogue continues because you're not, you won't feel the same when you get to there. If the road crested off and started to go on a little descent, you're gonna feel differently instantly, right?

So it's talking yourself through the difficult parts, but having the self-discipline to say, "If I get off now, I can achieve nothing, and I will never get the opportunity to do this again." If you looked at Route 66 as, as the event, 100-year celebration, none of us in our lifetime can ever go back there again.

It's a one, one time shot There will only ever be the first person. You can only ever be the first person to do this. You, you can't go back a next [00:52:00] time and try it again. It's all first. So that's what you're prepared to throw away for this moment that you're never gonna be back in ever again. So it's temporary.

This is a temporary feeling right now. But it's how convincing you are to yourself, and that was the one thing in Route 66 that I found, that discipline was so strong in my mind. I already had told myself from the start, "I c- I will never, ever get another opportunity in any of these things that's available right now.

So what's gonna be better in my life, really, right now?" So that, that's the way that I looked at it. And and the most difficult part was probably in the section in New Mexico where it wasn't... It was the part where we had to do the spur where we couldn't ride on I-40. I did the spur. It was 40 miles uphill out, and then 40 miles back down to the same place, [00:53:00] right?

So literally we turned in the main street of New Mexico, went to Vaughn, and came back. And on the way out, it was 103 degrees on the face of... And the heat coming off the pavement I can't even start to describe it to you. And all I wanted to do was get off. And the negative thought that created it was I said to myself, "I'm not moving forward.

I am, I'm just riding into nothing here." All right? That was the thought that started me to start thinking, "Why am I doing this? I could just get in the van and go home right now. I don't really need all of this." That's where that dialogue started, and I had to talk myself through it till I got out.

And what shifted the, and stopped the conversation in myself was the fact that I realized what this place Vaughn was, which was the area of the Spirit Eagles. That's what it was. It's where the four regions of New Mexico come together. I didn't know that that was there until I got there. But [00:54:00] my interest in what that was completely shifted my whole person and thinking, and that was it all over.

That whole place was all over. But if I had have submitted to it in that way section on the way out, everything was done. And I know that. It's temporary, and you gotta find a way to, it's really about self-discipline internally in your mind and realizing that where you are in this moment can, you can never revisit it, and it is temporary.

It will shift 

Kush: Joe, this is brilliant. And there's just so much power in what you said for the rest of us because... for example, like I was mentioning earlier, I'm here in Squamish. I arrived here yesterday. Yeah. Hadn't slept well and, and really hot right now and- Yeah ... it was, like, about 90 degrees with some tree cover as I was trying to pedal up- 

Joe: Yeah

Kush: to get to the start of the, uh, the, this flow trail. Yeah. [00:55:00] And every part of me wanted to stop just because it's so hot. Yeah. Like, I was just trying to- Yeah ... think. So I... Do you have any simple practices that you can recommend to the person listening on, like, how do you How do you create that structure in your mind where...

And maybe in some ways this transcends sport. Like, where do you... It's incredible when you describe it. The moment will not come again. But is something else we can do to harness that power of that, that pressure maybe we are feeling- 

Joe: Yeah, I 

Kush: think it-

and be able to continue going? 

Joe: I think for me, like, it's really about taking charge and taking control of what you can control in your own life and adding a self-discipline to that. It, in my experience, one of the things that has been the greatest part of any successes that I have achieved and I don't even measure success anymore in results.

I truthfully [00:56:00] don't. I, I only measure success in my performance because I'm curious as to how I can get my body to perform, my mind to perform to the best I can be. And the best, if I can be better tomorrow than I am today, then I've achieved that. And one of the things that, you know, that I would say to everyone, that any change or shift that you make in your life has gotta be through consistency.

It has to be every day. You can't just say, "I'm going to do something for two days," and then expect the world to change and you to change and whatever. One thing and Jill is probably the greatest evidence to this, no matter how hard it is, and there is days in my job which I love to a degree that most people would not get their head around.

I love what I do. It's the only thing in my whole life I've ever wanted to do. I have never wanted to do anything else. And I've [00:57:00] had the experience of doing my whole life what I want to do, living my life the way I want to live it. I'm not pushed into it. I don't allow myself to be pushed into a box. If you asked yourself how many people Give themselves false evidence as to how they actually feel.

There's people who go to their jobs every day, and they will justify it by saying, "I gotta do this for the kids," or, "I gotta do..." A- a- and they have all these reasons as to why they're doing this, right? And they'll come and they'll say it for you, "I'm too old now." And you sort of go who set that window that you're too old?

Who's the person who said that? What's the evidence that says that you're too old?" There is no e- there is no evidence. But people are drawing on that to justify where they are at that point in time, and they will find... It's the second person. They will find any way to give you the reason why this was not a good idea.

So you've got, it's the same two [00:58:00] people having the same inner dialogue, right? But it's easy to submit. It's easy to do that. Jill will tell you, I go training every day. Even though there's days I would like to poke needles in my eyes, right? I go training. I do not miss. I do not miss. And if I have to miss, it's because I'm exhausted or I actually need to take a break because I'm over-training.

So there's reason and rationale why I take time off. But when that's not the case, every day. I show up every day prepared. I try every day. Jill works to a degree of trying to figure out all the detail in my nutrition that moves me forward day by day. It's nonstop. We live a performance lifestyle because I choose to.

I could choose to say, "Ah, it's too hot outside," or, "It's too cold outside," or, "I have this to do today," or, "I gotta see this person today," and whatever. [00:59:00] I don't do that, okay? And that's the self... I used to call it self-belief but s- slowly over time, we've realized that it's self-determination, right? And you're correct.

When I go to the start of an event, and I don't care how good the people who are in my world, my peers are, I think it's, if they tell you the truth, they will all tell you the same thing. No matter how well you have prepared, there comes a point prior to the event that you must take a leap of faith.

Because if you don't do that, you will never know. You have got to take the leap of faith, right? No one knows the answer. No one knows the outcome. You've done everything you can do to be the best that you can be. You show up, and then you try. And if it goes wrong, you take the evidence that you've currently got, you go back, and you try to figure it out, and then you show up again.

That's how you keep [01:00:00] moving forward. It's like the team. If you're- Sure. Whatever, whatever you're doing today, even though you are not with the rider, if that's stopping the rider from moving forward, you stop doing what you're doing. That's it. The... You know, the... I'm not saying this way of life is for everyone, but there's small nuggets that they can pull from in their day-to-day life in whatever job that they are doing.

Because I hear it all the time where people they make a comment to me, "It's okay for you." That's the comment they'll make to me. And I would go... My response would always be, "Really? Would you like to do all the sacrifices that I do to be able to do that?" Because they think it's all free, right? You must sacrifice things.

You must... we don't live a lavish lifestyle. We live a performance lifestyle, not a lavish one. And I think that that's one of the things that people get caught up in. And we live in a world today, in my opinion, where the materialistic [01:01:00] gathering uses so much time in its accumulation and its management that there is little or no time for the important things.

And like I said to you, this moment, this second that we're talking, we... other than watch the, the recording, we can never go back there. You've missed it. It's gone, and there is no bus or train gonna bring you back here to give you a second chance. This is it. So if you cannot make a success out of this moment in time that you're in by your own actions and your own self-determination, then you're gonna have a life that you're gonna look back on and you're gonna regret a lot of things.

Sure. You're just gonna, you're gonna regret a lot. Because also, it's also a saying, you'll hear people say, "Oh, you know, when I retire I'm gonna do this, that, or the other." Really? What is that? It's, uh, you've mi- you know, you've missed the window, and that's the problem. There's, there... I sometimes think that they think that [01:02:00] there's a train ride or a bus ride gonna bring you back here to a certain point, and then you can go again.

We're done. We're out of time. And- Yeah ... that's, you know, so that's the reason that we're trying to do what we're doing. We're curious. We're trying to find out. Somebody saying, "I'm 66 or 67," I- at this point, we shrug our shoulders and go, "What does that mean?" I- yeah, it doesn't mean anything. It, you know, it's just some kind of a number that has been dragged out of the sky by someone, and it's inserted into a box, and we're supposed to think whatever is in that box.

I'm sorry, but we don't. We don't believe that. And we're also evidence that's what our thinking is correct. We're evidence. You can't just do what I did, unless that's correct. It's not possible. It's not for everyone I don't think. But I think it there's...

Ultra-distance racing takes the human body into such a place that it a- almost starts to answer a lot of questions, if you're curious enough [01:03:00] to wanna know what that is. You know, I often am heard saying, and I get a little bit of knockback about it, but we function in a world beyond data, right?

But that's the world that we're asking questions in. That's the world we're curious about, and this body is still working. So where exactly does it tap out that it's gonna stop? There is... there isn't an answer to that yet, and that's the part that I'm curious about. I'm curious about how far, where is that, and what does the body do whenever it says, "I've had enough," or does it ever reach a point that it's had enough?

It's just we're not capable of taking it there as people, as human beings. So that's... I think that that's the area that I'm, I'm, and I'm just super curious about how I can achieve something. And I don't really care about the result. I care about how I perform. The preparation, [01:04:00] the f- the thought process to achieve this goal, was it correct?

What do we need to manipulate in it to make it better so the body can function better? What is that? 

Kush: you are incredibly focused, Joe. Correct. And it's obvious you think in terms of the long term, and you make goals, and you go out and try to achieve those goals.

But even then, what you are doing today at the age of in your upper 60s, is, is not something people expected people to be achieving. 

Joe: Correct. 

Kush: Yeah. So, you picked up cycling at an early age, and you have had this single- 

... 

Kush: This, this single-minded focus- Hmm ... at, at excellence.

Having said all that, if the 30-year-old Joe was to come today and see that you had just [01:05:00] completed this race, would that Joe be surprised? 

Joe: Yes, I think he would. I think he would. Uh, and the reason for that was because when I started the ultra distance journey I learned so much about myself, my own self, how I was as a person in the world, how I was interacting with the world, how I viewed the world, how the world viewed me.

The, the ultra distance journey, in my own opinion, It's probably the journey that has transformed my complete life really. I have learned so much about myself, how I function, how I need to function. And I'm a, I'm a work in progress. I'm still trying every day to be better than I was yesterday, not just in my cycling terms, but in my life in general.

If I had have listened at 30 years old to everything that I was being told in my mainstream life as a [01:06:00] professional rider I, I hate to thinking where I, I would actually be right now really. Because that level, that type of a sport is I sort of set it alongside between whenever you have a guy coming out of the military.

It's like being dropped out of an airplane and for some reason or other you think it's all going to be the same as to where you were. And the reality is, it isn't. It has no compartment and you do not fit in. That's the other thing. So you're in this no-man's-land, uh, and I was there. So when I found ultra distance, um, like I said to you earlier, yes, I c- I was able to bring the cycling aspect over to it, but then it opened up a whole different world about myself, my physiology, my thinking, my, how I deal with people, how I interact with people, how I treat people.

All those things have all shifted in me, and I still have a long way to go. I still have a long way to go with that. [01:07:00] But I'm incredibly proud of the journey that I've made from that transition. So the 30-year-old Joe would've been very, very surprised that I could have accomplished something like that.

And the other thing that I take huge satisfaction from is the fact that Route 66 was, for me in my early days, I had a, a, a very well-accredited manager who made his way to being the president of the overall governing body of the sport in the world. And he was Irish, and nothing to do with that.

At one of-- when I was representing my country in my first trip on my national team I was sat at the dinner table as the rookie, and he made a statement, this manager made a statement, and it was a generalized statement about another race where he said, I don't know why the cycling community think the public need to come to them.

The cycling community needs to take their sport to the public and demonstrate how interesting and [01:08:00] how great it can be even for family life. And it's, that statement stuck with me. In Route 66, the big thing that was different was we interacted with the general public about a bicycle race. And really what, what happened, that was the engagement of the public and the m- and the piece that I've come to realize from Route 66, what we really brought to a lot of people was a lot of inspiration that this is possible.

This is possible. I am a human being. I have the same functionality as any other male on this planet, right? And if I can do it, multiple other people can do it. And that's, I think the message of inspiring people through storytelling of probably the most famous highway in the US that's the piece.

So me being better than I was yesterday, achieve something like that. So there's this whole community of people in the background [01:09:00] who we've received multiple me- messages and messages saying thank you for letting me feel that I'm not done, let me, letting me, making me feel that there's things in life I can do.

So if you can change in some way or impact in some way that mental position I, I think it's a very good thing that, that we have achieved, and I'm very proud of it, to be honest

Kush: Jill used a phrase when we were exchanging messages that stayed with me. She said that you both work incredibly hard to protect the asset. So what is this asset? Is it your body? Is it your experience? Is it something else altogether? 

Joe: I, I think, uh, well, the asset I think is like, it's us. It's, you know, it, it's what we do.

We have a... You know, we have this incredible [01:10:00] capability in our sport because I see it every day, so I- that's the piece that I can actually draw from. The asset is probably Jill's, business head and m- my sporting capability, and we put that together. We have all the nutritional, she's got all the nutritional knowledge, like, and I've got all the race knowledge.

And we have this combined melting pot of experience that, you know... W- we met in 1993, and that was an instantaneous con- there was an instantaneous connection, uh, between the two of us, and that has just grown and flourished, not without its ups and downs. Like, the, it's like n- normal life. But we live a life that is probably a little bit unique.

But f- from my experience of it it's just the most wonderful place where it's a continuum of trying to be better and trying to find a better way and trying to [01:11:00] live as good human beings. And that's, I think that's, that's really what it is. It's, uh, it's the most en- it's one of the most enjoyable things in my life I have to say.

I love it. I love it whenever, And Jill will challenge me on multiple things. And I also like that as well because that helps me to rethink, and between her and I, we come up with a better way. So that's the asset, you know, that it's our combination of... And yet and all, we're very different people.

We are very different people. We like very different things. Uh, but when it comes to this it works. And it... And the other thing is it comes through. There's something that came up with the film crew where they were able to see it. It, you know, we weren't performing it. It, it's just happening, and they c- they seen that and could document that, like, and it's probably easier to see than it is to explain, to be honest.

But it's, it's been one of the greatest gifts in my life, for [01:12:00] sure. 

Kush: You and Jill have this rather unique relationship, if I may say so. Correct. She is your wife, she's your nutritionist, and perhaps also your performance manager. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: Are you ever really off duty? 

Joe: Nope. No. I'm n- I'm never off duty.

I'm always on duty, and I get accused of, of sometimes working too much. I'm always trying to move things forward, and that's sometimes not a good thing. You know, I'm, uh, I need more ti- I need to find my way to have more time. But but I'm never really off duty, and truthfully, neither is Jill. She will tell you she is, like, but she's really not.

If she's off duty, she's thinking about something. Uh, th- there's that aspect of it, like, but we live in a wonderful environment. And, uh, and truly, I, we don't have, I certainly don't have anything, you know, to complain about in life. And so I think [01:13:00] whenever you can get into that space accept the downs along with the ups and try to, and apply the same rules just to try to, to be better tomorrow and not carry anything along through.

I think that that's been one of the things that has really helped us to keep moving things forward. And I'm also gonna say the environment that, you know, we work in, the sport that we work in brings huge challenges to to both of us to be able to execute it because putting, putting together a big race like Route 66, that's a two-year project pretty much 12 hours a day, seven days a week for two years to put that together.

You know, it's, it's a huge project. And that one is probably the biggest project that we've ever put together. The rest of them, you can do it because they're pre-organized events and they're much easier to actually engage with. But this one, we actually had to create the complete event from start to finish ourselves.

So also a huge learning curve in [01:14:00] there for us, and some of it really enjoyable and some of it really challenging. And then we got to the start line. So it was, uh, it was what I call a three-phase start. Route 66 was, first of all, we had to find the sponsorship support that was gonna be interested in our project.

That was the first we had to get to. Then we had to, when we achieved all of that, we had to then get, a section of equipment and me and everything else healthy, prepared, and span three, four trips to North Carolina. Second section, had to get me healthy again from North Carolina to the start of the race in Santa Monica, get the team to Los Angeles and get them all hooked in.

Then we get to the start of the real start. So there's three starts before you get to the start. And then you've got the race to do So it's, uh, it's a big, big project and I think Jill and myself we step back now and we're really proud of what we've achieved, [01:15:00] and I think that whenever the movie comes out in fall, I think it's gonna have a lot of people as viewers because there was just a big viewership what we were doing anyhow.

I think they'll all want to see it documented. That, that was it. And, with my own sponsor, Hypershell, who's my main sponsor here now, like, you know, we've just had some fun as well. They make AI skeletal, so I've just been having some fun. Like, I can't hike. I can't hike, and Jill's a great hiker.

I can ride the bike, but I, my feet don't go back and forward, they go around. So my back gets sore and everything. So I can't climb up hills, so Jill's a great hiker. We tested the-- I've been testing the exoskeletal with AI, and I can go hiking with her now as well. So that's a big plus for us.

That's allowed me to be able to do something with her that I haven't been able to do before, really. So that's been fun. 

Kush: I 

Joe: was, 

Kush: yeah, I was gonna ask, I was gonna ask, uh, you know, you're so performance driven, if there's something you guys do to decompress, 

Joe: to recover. Yeah, that's it. That's it, and that's, that's [01:16:00] probably been our biggest challenge is to find time away from training and find time away for us.

Uh, you know, everything is so oriented around what we're doing. But, uh, since I've got the h- the exoskeletal from Hypershell, it's, I have to say, it's been really fun. I there's a, we have, we're very c- where we live is very close to the highest cliffs in Europe, and, uh, I've actually, Jill and I have actually been there to the lower section of it.

But to get to the tip, you've got to hike all the way to the top. I could never hike to the top, and last, just last week with the Hypershell I was able to get right to the top hiking, and I wasn't even exhausted, which was even, it was even better. So that, that has opened up a new window for us. So it's certainly something we're gonna pursue now that I know that I can go on a long hike and not, not destroy her day.

Kush: It's funny you mention, I, the, this exoskeleton device. I had not even heard about these things until- Yeah ... I was approached by some [01:17:00] company which is designing these things. 

Joe: Yeah, yeah. 

Kush: And it, yeah, it you know, my, I, my, my ears perked up because- Yeah ... I'm also not, I also have trouble walking long distances maybe poor biomechanics, and I know that a lot of people listening to, to this sh- Yeah

show could be interested. Yeah. But I think, I think people could also be maybe surprised, maybe shocked that somebody like you, Joe, who is, you know, doing unreal things- Yeah ... when it comes to endurance. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: And people would think, "Hey, if you can, bike thousands of miles in, in, in, in a few days, you can certainly be able to hike some."

But I, I think it's... Sorry, but it's almost, It's almost reassuring that, you know, you're a human too. Like, you are- Absolutely ... really excellent at this one thing. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: But something which could be, which is easy for, for Jill, who is- Yeah ... you know, not, not the, at least in this partnership, she is not the ultra athlete.

Joe: No. 

Kush: It's easier [01:18:00] for her. It's, it's- 

Joe: Yeah, abs- it's amazing. One of the, I think it's any competitive cyclist that I know anyhow, any of them will tell you that one of the, the most challenging things for you, you to do is climb a set of stairs, believe it or not. Oh, wow. It's so sore. It's so sore and painful.

When you have rode a big race, trying to climb stairs, unbelievable. And so when you go hiking it's a continual stepping up. Your back gets sore, your legs let go. Yet and all, f- as you said, I can sit on a bike for any length of time. No, but 

Kush: hang on. So I can see that, yeah, after a, a super long ride, of course, you know, moving itself is hard, right?

Oh. But are you saying like even when you're rested, you- ... hiking uphill is hard. Okay. Y- 

Joe: yeah. Well, hiking is up h- up a hill, any kind of a steep incline, especially, stairs is the w- is the worst for a cyclist. You'll actually see if you go on a big race, a lot of the cyclists go on the lift.

They avoid the stairs, right? And they're, y- you know, it's just, it's [01:19:00] painful. It's painful. Your legs just do not like it for whatever reason. And I've seen multiples, like I know many of the guys have the same problem. But I, in my experience as well, I also get a sore back. I don't know why that is because I don't have any problem like that on the bike at all.

But Jill is an, a very accomplished hiker. Also a very accomplished climber. Whenever, like we go like 500 meters, you know, I'm already going, "I'm done," like I need to go this way. And so her day's destroyed. She's gotta go by herself. And we tried that a few times, and I just couldn't do it.

And when the exoskelet- Maybe you 

Kush: need to be the one in a van behind her as she's hiking. 

Joe: Yeah. No. The, th- trust me, the exoskeletal thing has really fixed it. It, it really has. I actually had a really fun day, and I also- was able to achieve something I had never achieved before, which was to get to the top of those cliffs and, and have a look.

So which it was really good. So I'm, I'm very grateful that I was able to find that and have the use of it, to be honest with you. Uh, it's opened up a whole new dimension for Jill [01:20:00] and I, like, as, as partners. Like, so I'm, I'm really looking forward to the next 12 months of being able to pencil in a lot of that stuff, because also when we go to North Carolina, it's right on the Blue Ridge, uh, and it goes right into the Blue Ridge Parkway.

And ag- again, I've avoided the hikes because they kill me . But from now on, I can take the extra skeleton on my case and off we go. 

Kush: 

Something else that Jill had mentioned also gave me pause she mentioned that you were in your thirties when the concept of aging and the concept of building something that will last across decades Hit you and you started thinking on that. Yeah. 

Joe: And 

Kush: I was surprised to hear that because... okay, upper 30s, things are changing, but like when I was in my early to mid-30s, I did not think of time.

You know? Yeah. I still thought maybe until then that, hey, I will still have my faculties, my [01:21:00] all of those things. So w- what was it at that time? Was it the kind of person you are, Joe, that- No, 

Joe: I think- 

Kush: That early you started, uh, thinking of like planning for this? 

Joe: I, I think at that point, um, you know, I had come through a, I had come through this, the, let's call it the hierarchy of the sport because I got to the national to represent my country.

I was on the national team, so I was traveling around or whatever. So you're, y- you're already performing at an elite level in sport. But one of the, one of the downsides to that is there, there's all these sort of boxes that you need to fit into in that world, and one of the boxes is when you get to a certain point, regardless of how successful you've been and regardless of where your position currently is at that time, there is then the tendency to offer what I call, silliness to you as to why they wanna do something else, but that decision is about them and what they want to do, but you become the victim, right?

Y- you, [01:22:00] like basically they say, "Oh, well, you're too old," or, "We wanna take a younger team," or, "Yeah, we'll take you, but we really only want you to advise them," or w- you know. All of a sudden they want to push you into this box and tell you, "Well, you're really too old." And I started to ask the question, "So who decided that I'm too old?

You or the system or w- what is that, that ha- that decided that?" I knew in myself the capability that I had, and I knew that I wasn't done. The piece that I started to search for was, where do I position myself? Where do I navigate? Where do I turn the compass to here? Where is it that I need to go to?

And that's whenever I started to mo- remove myself from what I call the fishbowl because it's a very small place that you're in. Elite, yes, but a fishbowl. The language is the same. The thinking's the same. Everybody's trying to achieve the same thing. You're going to the [01:23:00] Olympics, there's six places on the team.

That's it. That's the fishbowl. So that's where my, self-determination mindset started to kick in. I started to say, "I'm gonna make my decisions about where my stepping stones are gonna go in relation to where I think I need to go." And what I did then was, was just keep showing up, keep racing I keep preparing, uh, to continue on that pathway, which I did.

And sometimes the pathway kept in a straight line, sometimes it veered off, it did whatever, but it always came back. And I kept riding. In, uh, in the world of cycling, there's like, in-- there's mainstream racing, and then there's what they call sportifs or Gran Fondo racing, which is supposedly non-competitive.

I did a lot of that in the interim period until I found ultra. And when I found ultra, then I [01:24:00] realized in the first race If I really worked at this and I really put myself in the lion's den, as it were, and said, "I'm going to really put effort into learning the pieces that needs to sit beside the cycling part that can make me an ultra-distance rider."

And there was enough of people who were experienced that knew enough and said to me you can do this, but you need to fix this, and this." So I started on that path with the mindset, I just want to be better than I wa- was today, and if I can be that bit tomorrow. And that has gone on since 2008, and that's where I have arrived at today.

That's the window of time from really picking my own route and getting to where I have to today. You know, we've... If you want to put it in winning terms, like in 2023, we won the World Championship, we won the World Cup all in the one [01:25:00] year. We've won and raced across America. We've, we've done all.

If you want to count it in wins, that's what it's all about. But for me, it's, at the moment, it's about just trying to bring a, a better performance in the next race and so on. And to R- until Route 66, my, we would've always held my, I won the Race Around Ireland in 2009, was my first ever ultra-distance race.

I went back 10 years later, I won it again, and I was faster 10 years later. And I held that as my best performance, not win- Wow ... but performance, until I went to Route 66. But Route 66 is the best performance I've ever done, ever, by far. 

Kush: That's amazing. At the age of 66, turning 67. Joe, it's been a few decades since you were in your 30s and you have been so well planned.

you likely have this very, uh, honed practice of looking after yourself. 

Joe: Yes. 

Kush: Right? And, [01:26:00] whatever, thousands of miles puts enormous strain on the body.

So can you give us- Mm ... a peek into how you recover, maybe how you cross-train? So what are some of those things that are, that you're doing allow you, or will continue to allow you- 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Kush: to hopefully keep being in the best shape you are? 

Joe: Yeah. I think that, well, that, there is, we do have a system for that. Effectively, after you finish every big event you know, you f- first of all, end the event.

You could arguably say, you know, you've created a huge trauma in your body. That, you could arguably say that and that would be truthful. But we only do that when we're in the race. As soon as we leave the race, the, we don't even leave the race, actually. We start the process of recovery the minute it finishes.

20 minutes after we've finished, we've already started. Because that's how, that's the protocol. That's how you look after your [01:27:00] body. You start to help it immediately because you already know it's in trauma. You've created it. Uh, and, you know, there's mechanisms and measurements. Um, we use data as well, to measure things.

But for me, I know my body very well because one of the very first things that I was taught at the very beginning of my career, and I'm talking like in my v- very early 20s, maybe even as young as 19, I was taught by a very experienced rider and coach to listen to my own body. Listen to what it's telling you.

Get the connection to listen to the message it's sending you, not what the data on the screen is saying, what it's telling you. So you get, over the years, you build a relationship with your own self. So and Jill will tell you, I'm not 500 meters down the road every day, and I could tell you what the n- the whole training session or the whole ride is gonna be.

I know exactly what that's [01:28:00] gonna be because I know how my body's responding to it. And when we were talking earlier, I was talking about, the physical aspect after a race and the mental part of it. R- recovering and traveling at two different speeds Right? They don't travel at the same speed. The, you know, you can recover the muscles and you can recover that stuff relatively quickly, right?

To get your mind away and out of the race is a much more difficult thing. Like I was f- my mind was focused entirely on the detail of that race for probably six months. Nothing else, right? Perfecting every piece of it, knowing what, understanding what the ask was gonna be, and understanding how I was gonna actually deliver what that needed.

But you can't just say, "Oh, I'm done in Aviper. I'm off for an ice cream. That's all done now. Move away." You can't do that. There's times in bed, I jump and I wake, I'm shifting gear. There's a process like when you start to [01:29:00] get really fatigued on the bike and sleep deprivation is about to really take over.

There's this place where sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes you're aware that the bike has shifted three feet on the road, and there's a blank space. You, you don't know what happened there, but that's the start of sleep starting to... so we stop right away. That's it. But you could be in bed a week later and for whatever reason, the mind travels to what that was, that piece of trauma, because that's a shock, right?

And it activates a new shock in bed and you, you jump up and you go, "Oh." So there's, the mind functions like that. Also when you get through day, like day four, day five, day six into day seven, day eight of a big multi-day event like that I've had it. I didn't have it in Route 66, but I've had it before where you hallucinate.

Your mind sees things that's not there. And when that starts to happen, you can only focus on the one thing that you know is [01:30:00] real. So the fog line in the middle of the road is real. That's not gonna move. That's the fog line. All right? So the cars behind you, especially at nighttime, it kicks in. There's the shadow, which is you.

So you put the shadow on the fog line and y- anything beyond the fog line, right or left, that could be anything. But the fog line is real and you'll talk yourself through, and eventually you either have to stop or you'll come out of it and you keep going. But there's m- there's ways to manage the system and all of those challenges and obstacles that come, there's a way to do it.

And, uh, and that's, that's really what I, I can say about that. 

Kush: Joe, coming to the last part of our conversation, I like to call it the ageless section. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: What still scares you? 

Joe: Oh, I think a, a big, big races like that still [01:31:00] scare me, like, because, first of all, we're not infallible. We ne- I never get to the place of complacency where I think things can't happen.

Anything can happen. So that's when I said to you, "I don't care who you are, when, when you're prepared and whatever, there comes a point you have to take a leap of faith," and that's what I mean by that. You're taking a leap of faith that the skillsets that you have got can navigate you and your team through this, this whole thing.

But that doesn't mean to say, so I treat e- I treat every race with the utmost respect, so anyone who's around me will, can tell you the amount of effort and detail I go to understand and build the relationship like I spoke about with the race itself, understand and respect what it is. Like for example, I'm going to ride on the hard shoulder of I-40 for 300 miles, right?

Do your homework and respect what that ask is gonna be. Do not blame the trucks. Do not [01:32:00] blame the other people who are doing what they're doing on their normal day. I'm the exception there, right? So effectively, pay attention. You know, understand what all of that is, and that's... If you bring that mindset and that thinking to how you're going about things it dilutes the fear.

I never go there thinking that I'm infallible and, you know what? I can just do this. That's the macho thinking, and I don't do that. So I'm afraid, I'm afraid of what potentially could happen because things happen. But I do everything absolutely in my power to ensure that those don't happen.

That's, And I think that if you get complacent and don't carry the fact that there is a fear attached to it, then I def- I think that can get a dangerous place, and it's not a place I want to ex- Sure ... it's not a place I want to exist anymore so I, I bring a lot of due diligence to it. But yeah, big races scare me.

Kush: Okay, fair [01:33:00] enough. Joe, what are you more at peace with? 

Joe: Myself. I'm more at peace with myself. Um, I, I lived most of my life carrying a rucksack of not good enough. I'm not good enough. I was never the best rider, I was never the strongest rider, I was never the fastest rider, I was never none of those.

But I have achieved a huge amount in my career. But a lot of that in the early days was driven by the fact that I was always trying to prove. You know, I'm 5'5", I weigh 54 kilos, there's not a lot of big impact. And I always felt that I was... there was a time when I felt like I was the nearly guy.

I just wasn't good enough. And I came from a background as well, a, you know, a background in my growing up as a child or whatever, where I didn't have a good childhood experience. So effectively, that had a big impact as well. But I'm not blaming any of that [01:34:00] for what I am. I'm just incredibly proud now that with the huge assistance from Jill, I've managed to get myself into what I would call the best place of my life ever.

I'm in the best place I've ever been in my whole life. And I don't carry that I managed to put that rucksack, if you want to call it, with a huge brick in it, down and move on, and now I am good enough. And, uh, and that's been, uh, probably one of the biggest wins, if you want to call it, in my life.

Kush: Love it. Joe, final question. What does being ageless mean to you? 

Joe: being ageless is the opportunity to be the best I can be tomorrow. Because if you, if you take ageless and you put a number on it, and you put it in a box, that instantly and the world assumes that this is how you should look.

And so for me, ageless, being ageless is being free. It's being free to be [01:35:00] whatever you wanna be. You make your choices in your life and you create your pathway to whatever you call success. It doesn't matter what that is. But self-determination and discipline. Show up every day and do the work 

Kush: Amazing.

It's been a true honor and a joy personally to be able to chat with you today, Joe. Thank you so much for coming on the show. 

Joe: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. Enjoy Vancouver. 

Kush: Excellent