7. Randy Kreill on the Joy of Running Ultramarathons

Patrick McGilvray
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.

Hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host, and I’m a life coach for runners. And I want to help you get better results from your running and from your life. And if you’re listening to this podcast, that means you want more out of your running and your life and I hear you. That’s why I created The Runner’s Edge. The Runner’s Edge is a community based coaching and training program where I share everything I know about mindset, building mental toughness, gaining confidence, getting your running mojo back, basically, everything you need to get the most out of your running and out of your life.

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All right, onto today’s interview. Randy Kreill is a cool cat. I’m just gonna tell you, I like this guy. He’s a passionate ultra runner. Last year he ran 13 ultras. So that’s more than one a month including 600 miles last year in 2019, and he does it all on a plant based diet. And he does it all running in sandals. And we talk about why he does all of this stuff.

And his answers are really interesting. And it’s not what most people say. So most people say they run because it’s hard. They want to push themselves. They want to see what they’re capable of. They want to challenge themselves. They want to move away from their past or who they used to be. And Randy has kind of a different take on this. It’s really cool.

And I’m gonna let him share that with you because I won’t do it justice by explaining to you here. But Randy and I are like fast friends and we could talk forever and just fair warning. Like we laugh a lot during this interview because it’s just so much fun talking with him. He’s such a positive guy and super fun and such an inspiration to me. So I’m going to stop talking now and get on to the interview with Randy Kreill.

Okay, today I’m talking with Randy Kreill. And Randy is an interesting character. I love everything about Randy and I first heard of him or met him out on a trail race. I was doing a 50k, I think. It was another day, another 50k. You were kind of passing me. I was passing you. We just kept kind of finding each other out there. And the reason I remembered you is because I’m like this dude’s running in sandals.

There was nobody else out there running and sandals. I’m like this is interesting, but I heard you talking to some people you’re running with about you know, eating a plant based diet and I eat a plant based diet and it was just like a cool you know, and and then I would see you around at other events and stuff and then I started following you on Facebook and YouTube and stuff like that.

And then a couple years ago I was running the Flying Pig. I think it was 2017 and I’m running down Erie Avenue and I just hear this slap, slap slap I’m on the pavement behind me. And I’m like, somebody’s running in sandals. I betcha that’s Randy. And sure enough, here you come running up behind me. We chatted for a little bit. That was really cool.

But that’s my introduction to you, Randy, the guy who runs Ultras, the guy who runs in sandals, the plant based guy, the YouTube guy, you’re just a cool, cool cat, you know that you really are. So I wanted to get you on here just so we could have a conversation and just talk about running, talk about Ultra running and whatever else comes to mind. So Randy, thanks for being here.

Randy Kreill
Well, thank you for having me. This is fantastic to finally do this. Not quite sure where to really start. I guess, going way back, I did absolutely no sports in high school. And I used to hear a lot from my parents about how I was a late bloomer, I was yet one of the youngest kids in my class. And in kindergarten and first grade, the teacher, I believe, in first grade wanted to hold me back, because they could not teach me to skip.

So my brothers were fantastic popular students in high school, great athletes, I did nothing. So I kind of felt like, I was not the athlete, I didn’t get that gene. And so that was kind of where I came from. But then in my 20s, I was fascinated by the idea of the Ironman Triathlon. It was becoming popular kind of back in the 80s. And so in my 20s, I started doing some biking, a little bit of running, and really had to overcome some fears and swimming, to be able to do open water, sprint distance triathlons, never got really good.

Maybe on my best day, I was in the middle of my age group, but I loved it, and then kind of got away from it, got into building some homes, I was busy with my job, I finally got married, had kids, and all of a sudden, I’m 42 with a cancer diagnosis, overweight, quite a few health concerns, there were there were a lot of warning signs. And that ended up being a huge turning point in my life. Because I had to become a lot more honest about what you know, what caused the cancer, how can I minimize the risk of a recurrence.

So after a whole lot of lost sleep, kind of some, a lot, a few years, really filled, filled with a lot of fear. I was trying to figure it all out. And it was a few years after that, cancer was in ‘04, the book Born to Run came out. And I was really ready for a lot of the messages there. And so I started changing my diet right away, I started adopting all those changes right away.

I ended up on a 100% plant based diet after going minimalist and barefoot with my shoes. And I’m not even sure when I first realized that people could run 100 miles, I thought an Ironman Triathlon was an incredible feat. And it might have been born to run where I learned that people could actually run for 30-40 or more miles at one stretch. And I was intrigued with it.

But again, I’m not an athlete, I didn’t get that gene I never would have imagined going from, you know, my deteriorated physical condition with flat feet and broken ankles. I had a couple broken ankles to actually be able to do it myself. But as I started adopting the barefoot and minimalist running, I noticed that my stride improved.

I was finally learning how to run properly in my late 40s and came off of a first marathon at the Air Force marathon here in Dayton and barely stumbled across the finish line, really literally hopping on one leg. But that was before Born to Run. Before reading Danny Dreyer’s book, Tai Chi Runnin. I like Tai Chi Running, that really taught me everything I needed to do from my head to my toes to learn how to run in a more natural injury free sort of way, efficient way.

And so you know that changing the diet, changing the footwear, I started noticing my feet getting stronger, the mid foot got thicker, I was running longer distances with less energy used, I’d say I was feeling better about it all and losing some weight. And I’ve even found out that my vision was actually improving.

And so, you know, when I initially went with this 100% plant based diet over nine years ago, I didn’t realize how many incredible unintended positive benefits there would be. But in my late 40s, I was told that my bifocals wouldn’t get thicker. It just happens. That’s life. But in fact, with these changes, I didn’t need my bifocals. I wasn’t using them anymore. And I still don’t.

And it’s so it’s been nine years of improving or stable vision, my eye doctor, she’s just kind of stunned. She doesn’t see 57 year old patients with the way my eyes focus in and out really quick and how healthy they are and not needing the bifocals that I used to wear. So it’s just been a fascinating trip into something I never thought I was capable of doing.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that’s cool. And I can really relate to a lot of that, because I had the cancer diagnosis back in ‘03. And at that time, I was in very ill health, I was really overweight, drinking too much, eating, you know, the standard American diet and was very unhealthy. That cancer diagnosis was my wake up call.

Yeah, I completely changed my life. And I started running, I started eating better. I went from like, eating every, you know, just the regular American diet to going vegetarian. And then some years later going plant based. And, and for me, running was the catalyst, you know, running was the thing that kept me on that path. You know, it kept me on the beam, so to speak, you know, so I kept I wanted to do more and more like I wanted to, you know, run my first marathon and then I wanted to do start doing the triathlons and I wanted to do an ultra marathon and then so it just kind of was this thing that kept me moving in that direction, that healthy direction. And so I can really relate to a lot of that and I wasn’t athletic in high school, either. I didn’t play sports or anything like that. I’m very surprised they wanted to hold you back because you couldn’t skip. That’s ridiculous. Like that’s their criteria of like an athlete.

Randy Kreill
When I crossed the finish line of the Falls 100 about a month and a month or so ago, only eight people finished out of about 28 starters. And I don’t know if anybody even noticed it was late at night but I skipped across the finish line which I also got an honor.

Patrick McGilvray
They’re like, you know, this kid smart and everything but the skipping I don’t know. I think we should just hold him back. So, tell me what was your year like this year for your ultras? Because this is something I wanted to kind of touch on and I’m just gonna like, prompt you here because I want to hear about your okay, what you did this year, what you accomplished?

Randy Kreill
It’s been absolutely phenomenal since 2011. Spring I guess running that first 50k another dam up in Inglewood. Really each year I’ve ramped it up. So in ‘18, I ran 11 ultra marathons, I can’t remember how many 100 milers and then in ‘19 I wasn’t necessarily setting out to run an ultra marathon every single month. But I ended up running 13 Ultras, finished all 13, ran at least one per month and ran 600 milers including three, which to me I considered really hard to resist and it was just unbelievable.

I just everything came together on how the weather was always just good enough to get me through. Got redemption at one of my hardest races ever. Injury free running for almost nine years. Everything just came together phenomenally and just a couple of weeks ago, ran a 50k in Columbus through lots of rocks and roots in the sandals but with some toe socks on and finished in like eight minutes under the cut off time.

And that made it that put me at 13 months in a row of running ultra marathons. So anyways, I’m not fast. I’m not out there to try to be on the podium or anything but the consistency of it and enjoying the time running as a person close to obsessing about the pace, my time is my focus.

But what’s become the real goal I think is to maximize the number of hours of runner’s high that I expect it’s over a lifetime. So it makes it a really long term goal, I would hope to maybe be running Ultras, at least that decades into my 70s, possibly beyond. So my race, I guess, as I think of it different way more than five years out, planning for that, and we’re hoping for the best.

Patrick McGilvray
Talk, talk a little bit about that. That runner’s high, like, what do you, you know, different people have different interpretations of what that means, tell me what that means for you.

Randy Kreill
Um, sometimes it’s pretty subtle. But obviously, there’s a lot of biochemical changes that happen. And I guess what I’ve noticed is, if I work hard enough and execute the plan, I can really increase my odds of a runner’s high, but it’s basically a euphoric feeling. And it can happen really any time during a run.

And it varies though. The 100 miler, but I think when I got truly hooked at 100 milers was my very first one. And I think we started about 7am. And by 7pm, it was dark. And the coffee was coming out. And I had gone past 50 miles. So I noticed, gosh, once I made it to 50, and everything was still working. And I’m counting down from 50.

So my mindset, mindset shifted big time. And so counting down from 50 was a big I don’t know it was a boost to my energy level. And as you know, I got some fluids in me, took care of a little dehydration and started feeling better than when the coffee came out about the same time. All these things were in deploy, the weather was good. A runner’s high kind of kicked in and it just went for hours.

And one thing that sticks out in my mind was I don’t know what time it was. It might have been 1, 2, 3 in the morning, running by myself on a course I’d never been to. No Pacer, no crew just walking around the 100 mile race near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. And I was just honest, crazy high come into this aid station, just kind of hooting and hollering.

And I remember one of the volunteers really thought that maybe it was not a natural high. I was just like come in there hooting and hollering, and said, you know, I wish I could bottle this up and sell it because I would probably be a billionaire. If I could just give this feeling to people, they wouldn’t have to work for it, they wouldn’t have to run, then I’d be set for life. But it’s not that it’s not that easy.

And I think what I’ve been doing kind of since then it’s just riding this way. Once I finished that 100 and a lot of pain. The last 5-10 miles were extraordinarily painful, but I didn’t care. I knew I was coming back. And I don’t know, I just got to the point where I realized everything that I can do in all areas of my life, that would make me a better runner. Kind of makes me a better person in general. And so kind of chasing that runner’s high as part of it.

Patrick McGilvray
Oh, man, I love that you just said that. Because I tell people all the time. So I work as a life coach, you know, and I coach people through difficult stuff, and through getting rid of the baggage from their past and helping them to just live the best life anyway, I focus a lot on runners. And what I say is, you know, it’s not about running. It’s about life, you know, the stuff we talk about the mindset of running. Running is essentially a metaphor.

You know, it’s a metaphor for the hard things that we have to do in life and the challenges and the things that make us stronger. And the things that push us outside our comfort zone are the things that make us grow. And I love it as a metaphor. I love just running in general too. I love that runner’s high as well. But it’s the same principles when we talk about the mindset it takes to run 100 miles, you know, the same principles apply to life in general, they apply to, you know, getting through that tough week at work, or that big project or, you know, starting a business or, you know, going through a breakup or whatever it is, you know, like we can get through the tough stuff with the right mental toughness, you know, yeah.

Randy Kreill
Yeah, there’s something special about running. Last injury I had was actually that first and now they’re damn 50k and 2011. I didn’t know that note at the time, but I ran it on a stress fracture, a tibial stress fracture and right ankle so you can run on that but it’s really a bad idea. I just had no, I was so green, I didn’t even understand what a stress fracture was.

So after the race, I can barely walk back to my car. And you know, after three weeks of soaking it in ice, I realized it hurt just as bad as it did after the 50k finally got an x-ray verified, it was in fact, a stress fracture. So I had 12 weeks or so to recover from that point. And I rode my bike from Beavercreek, Ohio to Cincinnati and back out 120-130 miles.

I did a lot of long distance swimming, but nothing, those things did not replicate, replicate what running does for my general well being and feeling really good. I was positive what I could when I couldn’t run, but it didn’t replace the running. So I became just laser focused on doing everything I could to become an injury free running, so I would never have to take a break from it again. And so not a knock on wood, I want to knock on wood, because every single step as a potential, you know, foot injury or leg injury or whatever.

Patrick McGilvray
So, especially running races, like roots and rocks or whatever, like there’s…

Randy Kreill
Yeah, cloud splitter, 100 mile route in Northern Virginia was the hardest one even harder than Superior 100. So yeah, to run that one in sandals, and Superior in sandals, it was a lot of fun doing in sandals. I guess I’m more known for that than anything else. But the real message behind the sandals is, we’re usually best served by wearing the very least we can get away with for any given application. So I preferred to feel the open air on my feet, and running the sandals, but a pair of minimal shoes can be even more minimalist underfoot than a thicker pair of sandals.

Patrick McGilvray
So yeah, and I’ve never run in sandals before. In fact, I was the Hoka guy for a long time. Thy were in my big, you know, as much cushioning as possible. But then I’ve gone back to the minimalist shoe and I wear like a pretty minimalist, you know, running shoe now. And I love it. You know, I feel it feels good.

It feels good to feel the the road and the trail under my feet. Yeah. Yes. And there’s this thing about like, just feeling the ground and like, you know, having that tactile sort of sensory connection to the earth. Like that is just kind of cool. You know, for you. I’m sure it’s even more. Very cool. Yeah.

So all the, all the ultras, all the hundreds, you know, how do you stay mentally? Like, here’s the word I’m going to use, like, how do you keep your mojo going? With the constant training and the constant showing up for these really challenging events?

Randy Kreill
Um, I don’t, I know a lot of ultra runners kind of glamorize the suffering and the pain and all that. And I kind of flip all that the other way. I do it mostly for fun and pleasure and adventure. Sure, it hurts a lot. But generally, I mean, for the 100 miler, the vast majority of those minutes, I expected to be feeling really good, if not phenomenal.

I like to think I joke with people semi joking that a 35 hour 100 miler is just a 35 hour free full body massage from the feet up, I’m gonna it’s just a body massage. And I think of it differently. You know, we’re going back to this whole mindset thing. And so I, you know, it goes back to what you think about and feel about you attract more of, and so if I’m focused with my running on, enjoying the time enjoying the place, enjoying the people being fully present.

There’s not much I don’t really need to keep myself hyped up and motivated. Although I’ve never really had a pacer crew at 19 100 mile attempts and 15 finishes at that distance. I think I part of the reason is, I enjoy the self motivation aspect of it, or even more, so if I find somebody out on a course that struggling, being able to maybe help them out. Helps me to feel better about what I’m doing and helps propel me along runners.

I was running with a wonderful woman who was doing her first 50k Roots and Rocks up in Columbus couple of weeks ago. And she was having a blast. She finished a couple minutes ahead of me too. But I said, you know, it’s, I just love what we do, because we we push and pull each other along. And that’s kind of what it’s all about. I don’t mind if a 70 year old woman passes me on the trail. I think it’s fantastic.

Patrick McGilvray
So, yeah, yeah, more power to them. Oh, my gosh, I hope I’m running trail, you know, ultra marathons at 70 years old. Yeah, so what you focus on you attract, I love that. I mean, I coach people and talk to people about that all the time, when you’re focused on how hard running is, or what if you might fail, you know, that’s what you’re gonna get, it’s gonna feel hard, it’s gonna, you know, your chances of failure go up exponentially, if that’s what you’re focused on.

So you sound like you have a pretty easygoing attitude about this stuff. You know, 100 miles is no joke. I’ve only done one. It was two years ago and, you know, I remember the training, you know, when I kind of started the training season for that, you know, I train maybe for a year or whatever, nine, 9-10 months. And I remember starting it and thinking, like, I don’t know how I’m gonna do this, I really have no idea. But at some point, you know, a few months later, I just got to this place where, where I was, like, I’m going to finish this, I’m going to do it, I can do it. I and I, it I shifted from, from I can’t to I can, and I kind of adopted this identity of like, I am 100 miler, you know, I’m 100 mile runner, I can do this. And it shifted things for me. And then I just, the training became easier. My thoughts became lighter about it. And I was focused on a successful outcome. Yeah. And it was, you know, painful at the end. But, you know, it was, it was successful.

Randy Kreill
Yeah, yeah. You’re probably familiar with the concept of VMR, or visual motor rehearsal. Have you heard of them? Put Olympic lates I collected a lot of high tech wires to them, and had them run through their routines just on their minds. And their bodies reacted as if they were really good.

And the race was about the power of the mind. And so I always try to use that in my hundreds. It doesn’t always work. I can go. I can visualize feeling the goal and finishing the race, but I still might not finish, but usually it does work. At C&O Canal 100 I met a guy at the pre race dinner, who had run the race the year before it finally happened to have his buckle with him. And so I was just like, oh, I kind of just check it out, because I wanted to feel it in my hand. Cuz I’ve been for months, feeling that knowing what it would be like to cross the finish line and get that hardware in my hand. It’s kind of squeezed and I got that feeling, I think even before the race started, which was nice.

Patrick McGilvray
So do you ever feel like during any one of your mantras that you said you’ve had like 19 attempts and 15 finishes of the 100? So let me ask you, I’m gonna ask you two questions. The first one is when you have to quit, you know, or you know, you’re not going to make the cut off like what’s going through your mind at that point?

Randy Kreill
Um, well, disappointment, but I don’t like to focus on the negative at every one of the 4 100 mile DNF. I’ve had extraordinary experiences. At the biggest race I ever tried to do at the time, Cloud Splitter, 100 mile or a tough time was based out of Elkhorn City, Kentucky, they had to move the race but for me, that was like my leadville.

It was a 40 hour race. 25,000 feet of climbing, super technical. I trained like it was the Olympics. I went out there. I was a little nervous. Beautiful weather had a great time with the runners, but I kept getting off course. And it just kept happening, whether I was running alone or with other people. And then in the middle of the night on a real long, lonely section in the most remote part of that course. I evidently went into the woods to use the bathroom and came out and went the wrong way for hours.

So while I’ve never quit a 100 mile race, I’ve timed out four different times. And you know, I gave it my best. I made about 100k on Cloud Splitter, but then got a ride. I was with him but he’s back to the finish and watched all the rest of the runners come in and talk to the volunteers and talk to the locals. I just had a blast there till the very last runners came in. And I’m still friends with some of those people.

But a few years later, I came back to that race in ‘19, and finally finished. So, I’ve had a case where I timed out at 32 hours at Mohican, I ran about 99 miles, and I was worried that if I kept going I knew I wasn’t gonna make the cutoff. I know it was a strict cutoff. So I pulled my bib off into a shortcut back to the start finish, because I didn’t want to maybe get in trouble and sit down. I’m trailed, dehydrated and have to be rescued by anybody. So I knew I couldn’t get back to the start. And that was a heartbreaker. But it was still a great story. And I was very proud. And you’ve heard a lot around those 99 miles.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, well, 99 miles is no joke. I mean, come on. It’s close enough. Let’s just say no buckle, whatever.

Yeah, so the second part of this is like, okay, so, because I’ve experienced this, like, have you ever felt like just quitting? You just felt like, I just, I gotta, I cannot do this. But somehow you mustered the mental fortitude to go on? Has that ever happened to you? And then like, what do you what do you like, do? Or what do you say to yourself to keep yourself going?

Randy Kreill
I’ve actually, I, I don’t think that’s ever happened. Many, many times where I’ve been very fearful that I would make the cut off. Or I’ve gotten very scared. Because I was off course. And that can be dangerous, whatever, who knows how long you might be lost? I’ve been through fearful moments of not finishing, but I’ve never wanted to quit any of them. Yeah. So I think part of my whole philosophy on this running is, and life is anything worth doing is worth doing less than perfectly. So I may not be the fastest, or important to be consistent. And, and, and that’s just what I’m chasing.

Patrick McGilvray
That’s really cool. I mean, that’s awesome, that you’ve never really felt like I just can’t go on anymore. You know, because, I mean, I think most of us have felt like that at some point. And then, you know, you gotta like, conjure up that I know, for me, you know, I ran the Hallucination 100, that was my 100. Yeah, sign off. Yeah, and that’s a 16 mile loop until you do six loops.

And then coming in, off off the fifth loop. Coming into the finish area, everybody was cheering for me. And they’re like, great job. And because they thought I was done. And I was like, I just got one more loop to do. And I just sort of felt dejected at that point, not because of them, really, but my feet were killing me. And just like I could barely, I could barely walk and I just didn’t know how I was going to do another loop and something.

You know, I sat down for a minute, I got some food or drink or whatever. And something just shifted in my mind. I was like, I am just going to just get out there and do the best I can and finish this thing. I’m going to finish strong. And I just started running hard. I was feeling the pain, but it wasn’t going to get any worse.

And I was just like, I’m just gonna keep going. And so anyway, it was just like I had to pull everything I had, everything I had. It was kind of like the training that I did for this thing helped me to build that endurance engine, you know, right, right.

Randy Kreill
Yeah. The self talk is critical. It’s like I said, I’ve had to dig deep a lot just just to try to finish. But I’ve always wanted to finish so badly that I’ve never, never considered quitting. Yeah, so I guess I’m lucky that way I’ve haven’t needed to have a crew and or peace or whatever to talk me off the ledge. It’s just been part of the challenge of learning to solve those problems more independently.

Patrick McGilvray
So, what does that look like for you digging deep?

Randy Kreill
I like how Eric Orton is one of those allegedly top running coaches in the world. The guy from Hawk from the Born to Run, book and store. He likes to say in his book, The cool impossible. I got some good training ideas out of that book. He likes to say athleticism is all about awareness, which you can obviously say that about just life in general.

So basically, when you’re so tired, you can barely walk. It’s just really a matter of finding some gratitude that you’re out there doing it. Taking a real deep breath, taking a full inventory of all the feelings in the body and emotions, and just doing whatever it takes.

Do I need hydration? Do I need food? Do I need to stretch some muscles? Do a little yoga out there in the truck, whatever it is. Be in tune enough with yourself and fully present to solve that problem. What is it I need to do to keep going and then just do it and keep moving? So like you said you wanted to do, do you want to get better and listen to Jim 100? Hallucination 100? Buckle.

Patrick McGilvray
Postnational honor.

Randy Kreill
Yeah, I still don’t have it. I did the 100k there. It was my first and only 100k. So I’d like to talk on that as well. But you want it bad enough and you weren’t going to get up on it. So you could do it. Just dig deep and get her done?

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah. So you’ve done a lot of amazing things, you’ve got a lot of amazing accomplishments. You know, you’ve got a regular job. And as this isn’t your profession that you just have this passion about running, but what would it have been what’s been like, your proudest moment as a runner? Biggest accomplishment? Well, however you want to say it.

Randy Kreill
That’s really hard to pinpoint. One, I mean, getting Superior 100 done was huge. That was like a five year bucket list goal. But then earning the 500 mile club buckle at C&O Canal 100 was huge as well. Now I’m going after the 10 year on the 1000 mile vogel but getting finishing the C&O Canal, 100, 5 years in a row, five PRs on the courts in a row for me, and five consecutive years and get there at age 55? All the stars just kind of lined up. That was pretty huge.

Had a phenomenal final 20 miles. So that race was just beautiful. But all those moments are fantastic. But one of the things I love has been able to help another runner who’s struggling? One case, I think it was the second C&O canal 100 There was a guy 67 or 68 years old who was a legend in the ultra rank community. And I can’t think of his name right now. But he was the final finisher at C&O Canal that year, I think it would have been 2015.

And I caught up with this fella in the dark was sleeting runners were dropping left and right. It was miserable. Luckily, I had just enough warm clothes on. And anyways, I got to talk with this guy. And right away, I knew who he was because I’ve read all about his comeback at Pine Creek challenge 100. And he had had Lyme disease. And so he was out of alternative for maybe eight or 10 years and have really bad news from it really horrible night vision.

And so I was like, Oh, well, I’ll listen to your stories for quite a while. And I’ll help get you up that we had to do like sub stream crossings on real steep technical climb to get up to the start finish area. And he needed help with it. It was kind of scary. But anyway, stayed with him. And on the way up the hill. He stopped at one point and said, well, I’m gonna have to drop off here.

And I was like, well, don’t don’t make that decision. Yeah, once we get up there. I’ll wait for you. We’ll talk again, I’ll get you back down the hill if need be. And maybe 15 minutes later, the race directors writing down names left and right, people drop and it’s cold, trying to sleep was just miserable. Colder than predicted. So people weren’t ready.

And I see this guy all of a sudden sitting there with no shirt on. And I was like, oh, what’s what’s up? He’s like, Well, they’re giving me some dry shirts. And I said, Well, it means we’re going back down that hill. Right? And it was an honor to help this guy. It might have been his last 100 mile distance at his age and ended up taking a long time to get him down that hill but we got him down the hill safely.

And then he was okay on the towpath. And the next morning I don’t know how he got ahead of me. I thought maybe he dropped out but the next morning, I ended up passing him on my way into the finish and he ended up getting last place. So that was cool.

Another time at St. Mary’s. I was talking with a young guy I’m doing his first 100 miler. He had the pacer get a crew he had a coach out west he was working with it was really into it. But it was like in the 90s that day, way it way higher than record high temps really unseasonable for the rest, and humidity, there was pollen in the air, it was tough. And he was really loose on the water, I was concerned for him. And we talked for quite a while.

And he was really interested in not only the sandals, but my diet, a whole plant based diet, and just asked him a lot of questions. And some put mine I thought later hours and hours later that he must not have made it. But then right before the cut off, maybe two to five minutes before the 30 hour cut off. He comes into the finish. And it was really cool to get to see him do that.

And what was even better was several months later, I was actually on Thanksgiving Day, I get a text from him, saying, hey, my family, we’re having our first vegan Thanksgiving day, we’ve been staying in touch, I’ve been coaching him along on diet changes and some lots of information. And so both him and his wife and his child were making this big diet change. So being a little part of helping people make those kinds of changes as a result of these adventures in this run. And yet again, another unintended byproduct of all these changes, is helping other people learn these things.

Patrick McGilvray
That’s awesome. You’ve got like such a great attitude about life in general. Randy, you really do like, what, what how would you like? How would you? Like what’s your secret? What is your like philosophy? How do you stay so positive?

Randy Kreill
Um, well, after going through the cancer surgeries and all that stuff, that was a pretty dark, fearful time, but I felt really lucky to get through all that I don’t know, I guess we usually use the word secret. And it kind of made me smile because one of my favorite documentaries is called The Secret or they talk about quantum physics and the law of attraction. A lot of the movie is pretty hokey. A lot of it’s focused on money, rather than maybe health or fitness, which is weird, right?

My thing is more health is wealth and so that at this time, that’s more my focus, but so trying to come back from that low point. I learned from Ruth hydric, who Dr. Ruth hardrick is in her 80s Now, but she was a key part of the Born to Run book. And she was really the person who closed me on going all in on the diet change.

I picked her brain for about a week online via email, and I was like, Okay, I’m gonna do this 100% Cold tofurkey I’ll go plant based. That’s mid December of 2010. So, you know, here’s a woman who in her 40s had stage four breast cancer and is famous. I’d say she’s probably the most world famous, self healed cancer survivor, brilliant woman, she’s now written five books. And you know, she’ll tell you the most important thing is the four letter word diet.

So I’ve been kind of approaching this thing from a mindset, attitude point of view, a healthy emotion point of view, and the nutrition. And those are kind of to me, that’s the three fountains of views but that they all work together. So your topic mindset really caught my attention right away today. I wonder, you know what’s really most important for Ruth to heal herself from the cancer with no chemo, no radiation. She signed up for her first Ironman. She’d been a marathoner. And she thought on this doctor, he convinced her to not do chemo, not do radiation, simply go to an all plant based diet of mostly whole foods, and it worked then three months or cancer was fading off of her body scans.

And then she went on to become one of the fittest woman in the world, and was writing books and so forth with a sponsored athlete. I think she got first place at the Japan Ironman years ago. And so anyways you know, but she had to change her mindset first. She had to sign up for an Ironman too, she was going to change her diet and execute on that and stick with it.

And she doesn’t learn how to use your body in a healthy, healthy way, healthy motion combined with the right nutrition and the right mindset. But the healthy motion and the nutrition definitely impact the mindset. I know that if I’m not taking them the right nutrition, I don’t feel as well. I have, if I’m not feeling well, I’m probably going to have less positive emotions, which is going to impact the power of the mindset. So, you know, there’s just that kind of that yin yang to the balance of trying to create an upward spiral. And using all three of the fountains of youth so to speak.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, like, that’s your three legged stool there, right? Yeah. Yeah. You kind of need all three legs in order for it to work. Right. You know.

Randy Kreill
Yeah, they all work together. There’s a synergy. Yeah.

Patrick McGilvray
So yeah, that’s really cool. Like, I’m a firm believer in that you can heal, you know, all kinds of ailments, you know, using the power of your mind using the power of diet, and it’s really cool stuff. What’s next for you? What do you got coming up?

Randy Kreill
Um, my instinct is to kind of back off a little bit this year, but I still have that streak go when of, you know, 13 months in a row, run an altar every month. All right now I’m thinking about maybe keeping that going. But Rocks Roots 50k is on February 16. Coming right up. Usually, I barely finish, but I’m hoping to get that double 50k finishers buckled three years in a row, which is pretty hard to get.

The success ratio on that is probably a lot less than at most 100 milers like proud of those, those buckles. I’ve signed up for the seventh year in a row at C&O Canal 100 in late April, and then the Canal Corridor 100 up in Akron, Ohio for mid July. But I haven’t really, really committed to anything else yet. Lots of ideas. I’m still trying to decide what I want to do.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, cool. Well, it sounds like you’ve got some things you’re committed to. So that’s awesome. It’s always good to have goals out there. Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I know, having a goal for runners is kind of key like keeps you mentally moving toward that goal, you know? Awesome. Well, this has been really, really amazing. I just love talking to you. And we’re going to do this again, because there’s a lot more we can talk about. But for now, where can people reach out to say hey, or thank you or whatever? How can we connect with you?

Randy Kreill
On YouTube, I just use my real name Randy Kreill, last name is KR E I L L. So if you plug that into YouTube, you’ll see my channel and people can comment and connect there otherwise, is I’m really easy to find on Facebook. My intention here is to get a blog going very soon and have another way to get my messages out to people. So hopefully that will happen very soon. I do a little bit on Instagram, not a whole lot. But I try to keep my real name and all the social media presences. Not hiding behind any aliases or anything like that.

Patrick McGilvray
Cool. A podcast is a great way to get your message out to there.

Randy Kreill
People have suggested this has been fun. And I hope to do more of these. I actually wrote down almost five pages of notes of things for us to talk about. So we can definitely get together and do this again. I think if I go through these pages…

Patrick McGilvray
Of those five pages, do we hit some of the stuff you wanted to talk about? I hope so.

Randy Kreill
My main message I wanted to get out to your listeners was that it really to humanity is to focus on what you want. We don’t do that. What you focus on you get more so most people will tend to be obsessed and focusing on what they don’t want in the world or inadvertently probably contributing to creating more of that.

And one of the good examples I was wanting to mention was before I turned when I turned 49 I decided on my 50th birthday I was going to do a full Ironman Triathlon, but on a do it yourself basis. It was not an Ironman event, but it was fun. Hold distance. And a few months later, I ran the New Year’s Eve Resolution run 5k.

And while I got up to leave from that I was in sandals, my heels hurt so bad. I thought maybe I had plantar fasciitis or a major running injury, I couldn’t walk, I got put it into a boot. And I realized maybe three weeks later, it still hurt. I was barely doing any running. And I had this huge 50th Birthday lifetime goal coming up. And one day, I just realized that I’m focusing on not being injured so much, I need to flip that.

And I focused on, I’m going to be a healthy happy runner, and I’m going to run my Do It Yourself Ironman, I’m not going to be focused on injuries. And almost immediately, everything shifted. And it’s been eight and a half years of injury free running. So it’s just a mental shift that paradigm shift to you know, not thinking, Gosh, I’m not an athlete. Flipping, flipping, flipping the negatives over and staying laser focused on that. Humanity would benefit from getting away from the war on drugs, the war on hunger, the war on terror and focusing on the opposites. What we need is a warming broccoli.

Patrick McGilvray
More, yeah…

Randy Kreill
More people consuming broccoli, I guess.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. What you just mentioned is a very subtle devil, you know, focusing on what you don’t want. Because we think we’re doing the right thing. We’re like, I don’t want to fail, I don’t want to quit, I don’t want to drop out of this race, I don’t want to miss the cut off. And you just keep focusing all your effort, all your energy on that thing that you don’t want. Alright, it sounds like you want the opposite of that. But you’re not focusing on that.

And the interesting thing is at the subconscious level, the subconscious mind takes in so much. And just, it does what you tell it to do, you know, and it doesn’t really process the negative in there. When you say I don’t want to fail, all it’s hearing is like, oh, fail, okay, let’s do that, you know, it creates a picture in your mind of you dropping out or failing or tripping or, or whatever it is. And that’s what you get.

And so that’s a very subtle, but very important distinction there. And something that I talk to my clients about a lot because, you know, let’s say somebody who’s, you know, they want to lose weight, they’re like, I don’t want to be overweight, I don’t want to be fat, I don’t want to, and they’re just focusing on, on being overweight and being out of shape and, and being everything they don’t want to be. And they just keep getting more of that and they can’t understand. So very, very subtle, but very important distinction there.

Randy Kreill
Yes. Cool.

Patrick McGilvray
I love that. And I love this conversation today. This is really cool. Thank you very much for coming on here and talking with me. And like I said, we are going to do this again.We’ll take a deep dive into some of those other topics you wrote notes about.

Randy Kreill
Sounds good. Thanks for having me. I love the music that you play at the beginning and at the end. So by chance, if I said anything really cool during the interview, feel free to splice on some music.

Patrick McGilvray
Put in a few little guitar riffs just to go along with what you’re saying. I love it. That’s a good idea. I should start doing that. Awesome, Randy, thank you so much.

Randy Kreill
Hey, you’re welcome. Great talking to you.

Patrick McGilvray
Did you know that most runners fail to reach their goals? It’s not because of lack of training, lack of desire, whether it’s running faster or running farther, I believe most runners just haven’t developed the mental toughness they need to get them across the finish line. That’s why I created a step by step training called How to Build Mental Toughness and Become A Badass Runner. I want to show you how to train your mind so you can tough it out when the going gets tough. And the best part, this comprehensive training is yours absolutely free. To get it right now just go to innerfiretribe.com/badass and get started today.