EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,000 words- 0:00 – 15:00
Five, four, three, two,…
- JRJoe Rogan
Five, four, three, two, one. Boom, and we're live. Thanks for doing this, man. I appreciate it.
- DGDavid Goggins
Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate that.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're the only guy I've ever had in the studio where when I showed up, you were working out. (laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
(laughs) That's what I do, man. That's my life.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
That's my life.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's pretty crazy, though. I mean, how much time did you have when you got here?
- DGDavid Goggins
I got here about an hour early.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay.
- DGDavid Goggins
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DGDavid Goggins
We got a little early.
- JRJoe Rogan
So I got here, shirt off, doing chin-ups.
- DGDavid Goggins
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It was hilarious. I didn't get my camera out in time before you saw me. I wanted to take some pictures.
- DGDavid Goggins
Well, maybe next time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Next time. Well, I'll catch you after the show. Um, you are a guy that, for a lot of people, you sort of embody the idea of hardening your mind-
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and figuring out a way to do things that most people think are impossible.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's... You've sort of become that guy over your life and you've become that guy for a lot of people, including me, online. We've talked about you on the podcast a ton of times.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
So having you in here has been, uh, it's very exciting to me.
- DGDavid Goggins
I appreciate that. Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd you become that guy?
- DGDavid Goggins
You know what? I, I grew up not that guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
So a lot of people put a title on me. They want to, uh... They see me now. They see me now as the guy that, with his shirt off, who can do 4,030 pull-ups in 17 hours, who can run 205 miles in 39 hours, who can do all this crazy shit. But what they don't understand is they don't understand the journey that it took me to get to this point. And what got me to this point was I was just the opposite of what I am today. I was that guy who ran away from absolutely everything that got in front of me, but not many people knew that. I had two people. I had the f- I, I, th- uh, like, the real me was, like, this very scared, insecure, stuttering, got beat up by his dad, all this kind of stuff. And then I, I built this fake person that walked around like my shit didn't stink.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
You know? You know?
- 15:00 – 30:00
People need to hear…
- DGDavid Goggins
my job, left my canister in that restaurant, my, my spray canister, got back in my Ecolab truck, and I went home. And I started working out like somebody... I was... I became the most obsessed person on the planet Earth. And I was basically... I had to invent a guy that didn't exist. I had to invent a guy that can take any pain, any suffering, any kind of judgment, uh, be called nigger, be called whatever the fuck in the world and be able to stand in a fucking room and say, "Go fuck yourself." I had to built th- I had to build this calloused mind, and I built it through suffering. I built it through downright fucking just crushing myself. If, if it was raining outside at 3:00 in the fucking morning, if it was snowing, the first instinct is, "Don't go out there and do shit." My instinct was, "We gotta fucking go out there." Anything that was fucking horrible in my life that I would normally say no, that was inhumane to most people, I had to go do it. And I started callousing my mind at this point in my life, and I lost the weight. I lost the weight, and I went back to the recruiter. I got into that class, and I went through three Navy SEAL Hell Weeks in one year. Only guy to ever be in three Hell Weeks in one year of- to my knowledge. The first one, I didn't make it through. The next two, I did. And, um, that... I just didn't s- I, I, I didn't stop anymore from there. And I started realizing through this, through this process that the fucking mind is what you create it. And I started opening different doors that I didn't think were even there, that I didn't think even existed. And the more doors I opened up, the more I started realizing that my potential is damn near endless. And it, and it changed my whole mindset. So I went from David Goggins, and I created Goggins. And that journey is a priceless journey that is hard for me to even explain to people, 'cause it sounds so quick and easy, like, "I s- lost this weight, and I went through three Hell Weeks, then went to Ranger School, and went to Delta Force, Select Central," uh, whatever it is. It was brutal. It's a brutal journey every fucking day, and everybody says, "Wha- are you happy?" If anybody knows my life story, and I'll try to give you a, uh, just a snippet of it, where I'm at today is in front of Joe Rogan telling you my life. To get through where I became, to get through where I'm at now, there's nothing but pride I have for myself that I can't really, I can't really show people, 'cause I have this face. I have this face that they see, like, "Are you happy? What's wrong with you?" I'm driven. I'm obsessed. And that's what you see. That's it.
- JRJoe Rogan
People need to hear this story. This is a, this is an exciting story for people, because there's a lot of people out there that feel trapped and they feel stuck and they feel like they can't do anything and this is who they are. You're a guy who felt that exact same way, but figured out how to not be that person and be a person that you would admire. How did you... What were the first steps? Like, you had some slips before, right? Because you, you quit because of the water thing.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
But then when you went back the second time, you decided you're gonna lose all that weight and you quit that job. Did, did you, was it just straightforward from there, or were there some days where you just failed and then you picked it back up again?
- DGDavid Goggins
So my first run, when I decided to lose the weight, I was, like I said, 297. I was about 32% body fat, and I went... my idea was to run four miles for my first run. I didn't know how bad it was gonna fucking hurt me. I used to run before I was fat, and I was like, "Fuck it, I can do this." I ran a quarter mile and walked home.I walked home and sat on my couch and cried. I went to my mom's house who was about 40, about maybe 20 minutes down the road and cried again on her couch, saying, "Man, I can't fucking do this shit. I, I don't know what I'm gonna do." I, uh, just got somebody pregnant. My life was just fucked. I was making $1,000 a month, my rent was $810 a month, and my mind just kept fucking with me. It kept, "Fuck, you're not good enough, man. This isn't for you, man. These guys are the baddest motherfuckers on the planet Earth. You're not that." And, um, what it was, and it's kind of funny, I was obsessed with Rocky, Rocky I in particular. And when I was a kid, I'd come home every day and I watched this fucking show, Rocky. And I would fast-forward with the little VHS tapes to round 14. Round 14 fucked me up like nobody's business. Why? The song came on, right? So when I bought the Pull-Tup record, I listened to the song for 17 hours, it's two minutes and 13 seconds. And I'm able to visualize and dream like nobody's business, and I know that I can create a vision that many people can't, and I worked for it. So the vision I had was when Apollo Creed beat the fucking shit out of Rocky, beat the shit out of him, he kept fighting. He was a dumb fighter, couldn't read, couldn't fuck... That was me. Couldn't read, couldn't write, just punchy, everything about him. And Rocky beat this... or Apollo beat the shit out of him. He was in the corner and everybody was saying, "Stay the fuck down." And him getting up, him getting up, Apollo Creed raised his arms up in the fucking air, turned around and thought he won the fight. He turns around and sees this guy getting up, and it was the face of Apollo Creed that changed my life. The face of Apollo Creed. It was like, just by that motherfucker getting up, not winning, just by him getting the fuck up, Apollo Creed was... He was, he was champ, he was the best. Rocky had taken his soul, had literally taken his soul. His, his head goes down, he looks at him like, "Who... What the fuck are you?" I wanted to be that. Not Rocky. I wanted to be the guy that people looked at, I don't care if you liked me or didn't like, I on- I don't care. But I said, "This motherfucker is gonna keep coming after whatever the fuck is in front of him." I wanted that. I wanted that. I wanted that worse than anything in the world. So that is... I kept picturing me falling down and getting up, and every motherfucker that called me nigger, I was done. Even myself, even myself. I wanted to feel something besides defeat. I wanted to just go the distance, and that going the distance pushed me to a point of where now I go way past the distance.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you go the first day, you, you run a quarter mile, and then you walk back home-
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you're, you're upset.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
How do you, how do you move forward?
- DGDavid Goggins
So basically what I did was I came home, and I (laughs) I had a Chuck E. milkshake.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
I sat down and I gave up. I said, "This ain't gonna fucking happen, man. I gotta lose 106 pounds and I can't even go a quarter of a fucking mile." I started being able to take negative shit and be happy. And this whole... I say what if a lot, it sounds corny and it sounds weak, but it's true. One of the recruiters said, "There's not many Black Navy SEALs." As a matter of fact, I was the 36th African American SEAL in history. It's in... over seven years-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy.
- DGDavid Goggins
... because of the fucking water, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DGDavid Goggins
I mean, people get mad at me. It's fucking true, just get over it. And so I was like, "Man, what story would it be if my fucking fat, dumb, lying to be friends with people, insecure ass can overcome this shit?" And that what if mentality, like, that, that, that dreamer mentality just would always fuel me. It would just fuel me. "Man, what if I can be, what if I can be a SEAL, man? What, what if I can go from running a quarter of a fucking mile?" Now I, now I run 205 miles. "What, what, what if I can go... What... Just what if I can go and, and, and what if... How would that feel if I'm graduating?" Because I don't know if you got... At the graduation thing I was talking about, 2/24, the, the... like, like the video I sat down and watched. This commanding officer stood up and he said to, to the graduation, um, guys who were graduating BUD/S, like 18 of them, he said, "We live in a society where mediocrity is often rewarded." And he went on to say something about these men detest mediocrity. And I wanted to be a man that detests mediocrity. It all... it got me in a lot of trouble in the SEAL teams and going forward with my life because I just, I started looking down on people for not going hard as fucking shit, and I started to create different things. But that's for a different day. But I just believed in it. You know, my whole mind changed.
- JRJoe Rogan
That is a problem that a lot of people who work hard do have. You get angry at people who don't work hard-
- DGDavid Goggins
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to the point where you, you know, you wanna insult them, you wanna, you wanna smack them, and it's really 'cause you're scared of seeing that in yourself.
- DGDavid Goggins
Yeah. That's probably the truth.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
That's probably the truth. So I, I guess a lot of times in my life, I would see people and it probably was a direct reflection of who I was.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DGDavid Goggins
And I would get mad at them, but in reflection it's probably just me getting mad at myself.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's... for me, 100%. When I, when I see people that are half-assing things, I get terrified of seeing that in myself and I get mad at them.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's, uh, it's not a good way to handle it-
- DGDavid Goggins
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you know? But it's, it's natural 'cause you're just terrified-
- 30:00 – 45:00
Did- did it fuck…
- DGDavid Goggins
you up. I didn't-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did- did it fuck you up?
- DGDavid Goggins
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah?
- DGDavid Goggins
That's one reason why I went through three hell weeks. So I don't talk about it a lot, but, um, the stress in my life getting to 24 caused me to have some serious psoas issues. I- I didn't know anything about this shit. The psoas muscle is what we use, it's your hip flexor muscle, and basically, under stress, it starts to tighten up. And I was ... I stuttered for ... from the time I was in third grade, till I was in seventh grade, white blotches on my skin. I was just ... I was a nutcase. And so the insides of me are- are also getting fucked up. So in this process, um, my psoas muscles got real tight to my T12.I can show you the bump on the back of my head after this show is over, but I had- I started growing this fucking, like, large tumor-looking bump on the back of my head from my body compressing. So I'm six foot one, but my muscles are like five foot nine, because I just started sh- just the muscle tightness from my psoas going to my T12, I was just getting tighter. My quads, everything getting tired from just stress, just stress in my life. So the more I stressed my body with the workouts, my lower body became out of balance. So, I had a bunch of stress fractures, bunch of injuries going through BUD/S. And how I got through BUD/S was, they gave me my third time, was my last time going through hell week, I basically put a black sock on at 4:00 in the morning and I would get duct tape... I had- I had numerous stress fractures on both of my legs because my, 'cause my body was literally like coming in on itself and my legs were like, I was- I wa- I was pronating it really bad and putting stress on my stress, on- on- on my shins. And so I would put duct tape. I would duct tape my feet and I will show you the top of them where I have pressure ulcers that are the size of quarters from, you know, how the ankle joint... So the foot goes to the shin and how you move this, where the tape was so tight, it just created a nice ulcer right there and, um, I just, uh, just kept going through it.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you just used that tape to just support your ankles?
- DGDavid Goggins
Right. So I basically cast myself and for the first 30, 45 minutes, the pain was excruciating, but then it would go numb.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- DGDavid Goggins
And I would go numb and then that's how I got through.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. Did that do any long-term damage?
- DGDavid Goggins
Uh, I've... Yeah. I've been out for five years, so I retired from... I did 21 years in the military. I did a time in the Air Force and I did about 16 years in the Navy.
- JRJoe Rogan
How old are you?
- DGDavid Goggins
43. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
You look like you're 30.
- DGDavid Goggins
That's good. That's good.
- JRJoe Rogan
You really, you look very young for your age.
- DGDavid Goggins
Whenever I'm stressed, I get after it.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
I, uh, fix, I fix what's ever bothering me. So I, um, basically over the last five years, everything I've done in my life, I did it being very unhealthy. I- I'd never talked about it, I just kept going. And it cost me, pretty much, I was choking my insides out. Adrenal issues, tons of adrenal issues, thyroid issues, anything with endocrine system pretty much shut down on me. Um, a lo- my organs were pretty much shutting down and I went from a guy who could run 205 miles to a guy who couldn't get out of bed. And the doctors were trying to search what was wrong. That's why I figured out the psoas muscle. No one had figured it out and I- I hit it by accident. So, I've- I've missed two days of stretching out in five years. And so what happened was, all the shit I did to myself, the stress I was under physical, mental, all kind of shit, it just choked me out from the inside and doctors put me on kind of medication. And the medication started doing the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like what kind of shit?
- DGDavid Goggins
I was on, um, DHEA, I was on, um, some different things to, for my estrogen, different things for my, um... I was on anything to do with your, with like- like with your endocrine system. Uh, thyroid medicine. Um, good God, I was on cortisol, all kind of shit to get my stuff... And I- I's- I had like this lump in my throat from like the heart was always... I couldn't run down the street. My body was just jacked up. Couldn't sleep. My whole body was just down, shutting down. I could give you a lot more than that, but just to give you an example, I was fucking dying and so I couldn't do anything. I went from a guy who was this guy to a guy who can't do shit and the doctor's like, "I don't know what's wrong with you man. You- you know, your labs are this. Is it PTSD? Is it... What's- what's going on?" I knew it wasn't any of that shit. So I sat in the bed one day and I realized, "Man, my life is over. This is it." But I- it gave me time to reflect on everything I had accomplished, 'cause I had never taken time to reflect on the kid I was to the man I am now. So honestly, at the time I wasn't working out, it was the best time of my life because I got a chance to really reflect back and be proud of who I became. 'Cause I never took time to do that. It was like one after another. "Get the fuck after it. Get after it. Get after it. You ain't good enough, motherfucker. Get after it. Get after it." And, um, I got halted. So anyway, this process went on for a while. More medication. "This isn't working. That's not working." No doctor can figure it out. I'm like, "Fuck it." I saw this doc about eight years before this happened and he was like, "Hey man, you're so fucking tight. I've never seen anybody in my life as tight as you. You need 50,000 hours of stretching." He threw out some crazy number. I was like, "Whatever. Stretching, you know, stretch. Stretch is bad for you." So-
- JRJoe Rogan
You thought stretching was bad for you?
- DGDavid Goggins
Yeah. That stretching's bad for you, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Why did you think that?
- DGDavid Goggins
I read some article, you know. I don't... You know, oh man, fucking fuck stretching, man. You know, 'ca- I worked out so hard. I didn't have time to stretch, man. I was- I was running-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DGDavid Goggins
... 150 miles a week.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
I was biking to work, man. I was- I was getting after it, man. I was working a full-time job and, um, stretching's... I ain't doing that. So my body was literally getting tighter and tighter, not just from what I was doing but they say, "Oh, 'cause you ran this." No, it wasn't that, man. And, um, so I said, "No, I'm gonna try to stretch out." So I don't do anything for like 10 minutes or, you know, I don't do no six minute abs bullshit. So I started stretching out one hour, hour and a half. Long story short, man, I shaved my head almost every morning and that bump that was on the back of my fucking head, I started realizing it was shrinking for some fucking reason. I don't know why because I- I shaved my head back and I was like, "It's getting smaller." The smaller that bump got, the healthier I got. The smaller that bump got, I was like, "Oh. Hold up, motherfucker. What- what- what's going on?" That psoas muscle started getting more and more stressed out and more and more relaxed and over a period of five years, I'm in the best shape of my damn life right now from stretching out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
(laughs) …
- DGDavid Goggins
just connected. And my mind knew I wasn't fucking around anymore. It knew I wasn't gonna quit. It knew that guy was dead and buried and gone, and I was gonna die out here on this fucking run, for, for whatever reason why, I was gonna get through this motherfucker. I didn't give a damn. It made no... there, there was no fucking crowds, there was no trophy at the end, there was... I, I wasn't even in a race, in my mind. There was... it was nothing. It wasn't about nothing. There was no nothing. There was a bunch of people who didn't know who the fuck I was, and it was me against me. And I used all these different dark places to start bringing out light, and just fucking going deeper and deeper. End up running the next 20 miles, 'cause I, I ran 101 miles, and I ran the next 20 miles, ran, at about a 10:30 pace. And I did it in 101 miles and 18 hours and 56 minutes.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
Sat back down in that blue Porta Potty, now my chair that I got from Walmart, and that's when the body realized I was done, and this great feeling came over me, but also the worst pain in my life. I, that's when I took a humongous shit on myself.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
Literally, like, I... like a fucking log up my fucking back. Pissed so much blood down my... and my wife was... she was a nurse, and she was freaked out. I couldn't get up, I couldn't stand up. She backed this Camry on the knoll of the grassy area I was at, and we were both lifters at the time, so she was decently strong. I put my arms around her neck, she got me into the back seat of the car, let the windows down, kind of smelled like horrible shit. And I had this poncho liner, 'cause it was November in San Diego, so I'm sitting there jackhammered in the back of this car. And she was terrified, "I need to take you to the doctor, I need to take you to the doctor." So I said, "Just take me home." So we lived on the second story or, or the second deck of this, uh, apartment complex in, in San Diego. I got to the first deck, so I, I get out of the car and I could stand up, but, but with my arms around her neck, so I was just leaning down 'cause I was gonna pass out. Got to the sec- or got to the first deck, went down, just couldn't stand up anymore. Got her around her neck, worked up my way up the, uh, railing, got her on my, you know, you know, got my arms around her neck again, walked to the kitchen area, which was right in the front door. I was laying on the poncho liner, crap was everywhere. I managed... she helped me manage to get into the toili- into the tub, and it was like dirt was coming out of my penis, just looked horrible, just, just the grossest thing in the world. It was the worst pain I can ever, ever, ever be in in my life. And the craziest thing, I tell you this story because it's right now, I'm not sadistic, I'm not crazy. People may think that. They might... they may want to put a title on me after hearing me because it makes them feel better, because they think, "Wow, this guy must be some special or just fucked up crazy dude." No, I'm a guy that came from nothing than anybody's capable of doing shit like this, anybody. And I sat in that tub, she s- put the water on me, she called my mom up. And my mom was dating a doctor at the time, the doc- the doctor said, "You need to get him to a hospital now." She came back in, all I wanted to do was call Chris Costan on the phone, the race director of Badwater and say, "I fucking did it." So she said, "I'm taking you to the doctor." I said, "No, let me sit here and enjoy this pain." She said, "What are you talking about?" I said, "You know, I go... I need to go to the doctor, I realize that, but I never thought it was humanly possible to do what I did." I went 70 miles, and at 70 miles, I was dead. I was at 100%, what I thought, what I thought was 100%. And I went 30... I, I went 31 more miles after being in the worst physical shape I've ever been in in my life. And all the... all that pain and suffering and thing was going through my fucking body, as I sat in that tub and, and, and the water was hitting me, and it was the most amazing feeling of accomplishment. And I went to be numb.I didn't want people to give me drugs and to, and to numb this fucking pain. I wanted to... I did this. I over... And as crazy as it sounds, it was the most amazing moment of my entire life, to overcome such... To come from this kid who was mentally torturing himself and was tortured... It's all to this kid, to this guy now, who was able to overcome such amazing odds and obstacles. And I called Chris Kossmo, the race director of Badwater, and he said, "The idea of a 24-hour race is to run 24 hours. You only ran 19." And he put doubt in my mind that he would let me into Badwater. So, a month later or so, about a month and a half later, I went to this race called the Hurt 100. It's a 100-mile race in Hawaii, 26,000 feet of climbing-
- JRJoe Rogan
That was all he said? (laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
That's all he said.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's so crazy.
- DGDavid Goggins
He... I mean, he, he's a hardcore dude.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DGDavid Goggins
But he didn't know how fucked up I was.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DGDavid Goggins
And he said, uh, he, he didn't say, well... You know, like, he didn't say, "No, I'm not gonna let you in." He put enough doubt in my mind and said, "Man, I gotta do more." So, I was broken f- I was broken bad, and like-
- JRJoe Rogan
How long did it take you to recover physically?
- DGDavid Goggins
The funniest thing about this, I don't tell this story very often. I had signed up for... Uh, I'm getting to that answer, is right now. I went on deployment, and me and my wife and my mom signed up for the first Las Vegas marathon down the Strip of Las Vegas, and that incident happened, so I ran 100 miles before I ran a, a marathon. Two weeks later, roughly, December 5th, was this marathon that we all signed up for. I couldn't walk. I could not walk. I was fucked up. So, t- ten days or two weeks after this 100 mile and one race I did, um, this marathon, December 5th in Las Vegas. I said, "You know what? It's the first one I can't run. Maybe I can walk with my mom." So I tried to go out to this little knoll around our grassy area in San Diego. I tried, I tried to run. Legs were broken. I said, "Fuck, I can't even... Uh, I'm, I'm jacked. I can't do shit." So, I said, "You know what? Maybe I'll watch you guys do the marathon and then I'll cheer you guys on, whatever." And I said, "I'll try to walk with my mom." December 5th happened, that gun went off. 2005, 14 days after I broke myself off, and I qualified for the Boston Marathon. I ran a 3:08.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) That's... (laughs) That's crazy.
- DGDavid Goggins
And what's funny about it, I know people are here that say this, but fuck it. Even when I tell you the story, I drop n- I, I, I wanna drop so many names. Google it, look it up. I don't give a fu- Like, uh, it almost seems like I'm making my own story up. It does.
- JRJoe Rogan
It almost seems like it to you?
- DGDavid Goggins
It, it does. But like, like, like, when I tell it... If I were to hear somebody, like, let's say I was listening to, you know, listening to your... Joe Rogan's podcast. I heard some Black dude from fucking Brazil and he ended up talking about, uh, "This happened, this happened. Three 0 weeks ranger school. Ran 100 miles, broke my feet, broke my body." I'm like, this mo- He's the biggest fucking liar on the planet. Ain't nobody do that shit. See, even when I tell my story, it almost sounds like, um, some made up shit. So yeah, 14 days later-
- JRJoe Rogan
What sounds so crazy is you ran 100 miles before you ever ran a marathon.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Then you didn't run again at all, and you still qualified for the Boston Marathon. So, you ran a 3:08-
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... for the first marathon you ever did-
- DGDavid Goggins
Ever did.
- JRJoe Rogan
... two weeks after you ran 100 miles-
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... with no training and nothing in between.
- DGDavid Goggins
But it gets better than that. You can see my training log that I actually posted up. So, that's when I started training for the Hurt 100. So basically, what happened was, after that, I had about four weeks-
- JRJoe Rogan
What did it feel like to run that 3:08 if you c- could barely walk?
- 1:00:00 – 1:09:37
Jesus Christ. …
- DGDavid Goggins
later. Then you look at less than a month, another 50 miler. 53 miler in June. July was another 100 miler.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus Christ.
- DGDavid Goggins
Badwater was literally... Badwater was a month after I did that 100 miler, 135 miler. Leadville was less than a month after Badwater. The Plain 100 was three weeks after Leadville. Um, Angelus Crest was-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
... two, uh, 10 days a week after that 100 miler. The Bear 100 was, uh, what, 13 days after that 100 miler?
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus Christ. (laughs)
- DGDavid Goggins
And then I ran the 200 and... It says 203.5, but I didn't ran 20... It's 205 miles I ran there, but what's not in there was that McNaughton race I did in 2007. That 150-mile race, I also did in 2007 that wasn't listed. So that was just my 2007 year.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's insane.
- DGDavid Goggins
Yeah, so...
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think that is what fucked your body up?
- DGDavid Goggins
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
No?
- DGDavid Goggins
No. 'Cause I- I still run the same mileage now. What fucked my body up was Hell Week.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- DGDavid Goggins
Oh, yeah. You don't go through three Hell Weeks in one year. So I- so what happened was when- when I realized that my body was really jacked up, was I went... I was a big time squatter. Love squatting. And...I went through the first Hell Week, got messed up. Second Hell Week, I got all the way through. Then third Hell Week, I got all the way through. And my third Hell Week, we, we had a guy die on Thursday. And then that Hell Week ended it and I graduated from-
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd he die?
- DGDavid Goggins
Pulmonary edema. It was a cold... his name was John Scopp. It cold as fuck, Hell Week, the Pacific Ocean's never warm, and it rained the whole time. The whole time it just rained and he, um, pretty much just drowned in his own fluid pretty much. We were in the pool doing some evolution, he sunk to the bottom. Um, his temperature was hot. He, he missed a lot of Hell Week for getting pulled out for different stuff. He wasn't gonna quit and, um, he ended up dying in Hell Week. But, um, yeah, so anyway, after Hell Week ended, um, I wanted to go back to the gym. You know, so second phase happened, diet phase. Like I could get back in the gym, start jacking my weight. I love jacking weight. And I realized I couldn't squat. So I went from squatting a lot to where I couldn't even squat the bar 'cause my lower back was all fucked up and I was like, "I don't know what's going on." It was 'cause this, this muscle... So in Hell Week, your hip flexors are so... and I went through so many of them so fast. And so the hardest part of BUD/S I went through three times. Not, not the Hell Week part. Yeah, that's one of the hardest parts, but it was the initial part of the... what everybody sees on TV; the log PT, the surf torture, the dadgum boats over your head, lo- all that shit. I went through that portion three times in one year. And, um, over a period of time, my hip flexors got so tight that, um, it just jacked me up. It jacked me up from my hip flexors, so, so always being so cold and so stressed out and everything led up to it, but this really was the part that... 'Cause I noticed I could squat before Hell Week or before my first time going to BUD/S. After, after BUD/S, I couldn't, I, I couldn't squat anymore.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you just think it might just have been 'cause your body was exhausted?
- DGDavid Goggins
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
No?
- DGDavid Goggins
'Cause I, I... For 12 years... So I would, I would go back and tough it out, like, like with Joe Burns. He was squatting, so I said, "Fuck, I'ma, I'm gonna squat with Joe Burns." But I just couldn't squat 'cause that, that muscle was attached to your T12.
- JRJoe Rogan
So what was it doing too? Is it locking up or-
- DGDavid Goggins
It was just, it was just pulling.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
So it made my hips feel like I, I y- I just couldn't sink my ass.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay.
- DGDavid Goggins
I couldn't sink, so it was this i- incredible pain and then with the weight pushing me down and then trying to push up, the pain was just... it was just too much.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it was all... this was all range of motion issues?
- DGDavid Goggins
All range of motion issues, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. That, that's an important thing for my friend, Cam Hanes, who doesn't stretch. He's another friend of mine who runs ultra races. He ran that Moab 240. He's run the, uh, Big Foot 205. He's run a few of those.
Episode duration: 1:54:23
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