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Joe Rogan Experience #1080 - David Goggins

David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL and former USAF Tactical Air Control Party member who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is an ultramarathon runner, ultra-distance cyclist, triathlete and world record holder for the most pull-ups done in 24 hours. http://davidgoggins.com/

Joe RoganhostDavid Gogginsguest
Feb 19, 20181h 54mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:01 – 1:09

    Goggins’ reputation: the “calloused mind” and extreme feats

    1. JR

      Five, four, three, two, one. Boom, and we're live. Thanks for doing this, man. I appreciate it.

    2. DG

      Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate that.

    3. JR

      You're the only guy I've ever had in the studio where when I showed up, you were working out. (laughs)

    4. DG

      (laughs) That's what I do, man. That's my life.

    5. JR

      (laughs)

    6. DG

      That's my life.

    7. JR

      It's pretty crazy, though. I mean, how much time did you have when you got here?

    8. DG

      I got here about an hour early.

    9. JR

      Oh, okay.

    10. DG

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      Okay.

    12. DG

      We got a little early.

    13. JR

      So I got here, shirt off, doing chin-ups.

    14. DG

      (laughs)

    15. JR

      It was hilarious. I didn't get my camera out in time before you saw me. I wanted to take some pictures.

    16. DG

      Well, maybe next time.

    17. JR

      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-

    18. DG

      Right.

    19. JR

      ... and figuring out a way to do things that most people think are impossible.

    20. DG

      Right.

    21. JR

      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.

    22. DG

      Right.

    23. JR

      So having you in here has been, uh, it's very exciting to me.

    24. DG

      I appreciate that. Thank you.

    25. JR

      How'd you become that guy?

  2. 1:09 – 4:26

    Childhood violence, fear, and the “two selves” he created to survive

    1. DG

      You know what? I, I grew up not that guy.

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. DG

      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.

    4. JR

      (laughs)

    5. DG

      You know? You know?

    6. JR

      Right.

    7. DG

      Yeah, so that was... That's kind of how I did it. And I... Through a process of time, I realized that I was lying to myself and lying to people.

    8. JR

      But that... It's a, a fascinating journey, though, because you are that guy now.

    9. DG

      Right.

    10. JR

      I mean, you genuinely are a legit badass.

    11. DG

      Right.

    12. JR

      At one point in time, you were a, a legit terrified person.

    13. DG

      Yes.

    14. JR

      So what was the process? Like, how did, how did you step forth?

    15. DG

      Well, it's a, it's, it's a long process.

    16. JR

      Right.

    17. DG

      Um, I... My dad beat the shit out of me when I was growing up. We... I, I was the first Black baby born in this hospital called Miller-Fillmore in Buffalo, New York. My dad owned skating rinks. He owned bars. He ran prostitutes from Canada to Buffalo, New York. My dad was a big time pimp, big time anything bad about a person, big time hustler. He was American... You know that, that, um, movie with, um, Denzel Washington?

    18. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    19. DG

      He was that, but not that bad.

    20. JR

      Right.

    21. DG

      You know, he wasn't that big, but that's what it reminds me of. He was that kind of guy. And, um, beat the shit out of me, beat the shit out of, you know, out of my mom. There was an incident one time when my mom got knocked out on top of the stairs and he drug her down the stairs by her hair. And at six years old, um, I'll never forget this. In my mind, I, I was always afraid. My whole life I was afraid, but I had this fucking voice, this, this conscience that would always be battling me, saying, "Hey, you gotta get up and do something." I didn't want to do shit. You know, 'cause I was just afraid. But I would... That, that voice would force me to get up. And my dad, you know, I tried to beat him up, whatever, at six, and I'd get my ass kicked. So this went on for several years. And I have a big time learning disability 'cause my dad didn't believe in us going to school. So my dad... It was about the business, the skating rink and the bar. So the skating rink opened about 7:00 at night. And this is when... time I was able to walk, so about f- you know, four, five, six years old, eight, nine. And I would go to this, you know, skating rink at 7:00 at night and I worked the skating rink until 10:00 at night. And then we would scrape the gum off the floors and we'd cleaned the whole skating rink up. And then my dad had a office, and my brother and myself would sleep in the office, and my mom would go upstairs and work the bar until 3:00 in the morning, and then they cleaned the bar up. So after all that shit was done with, going to school rarely happened. So when I went to school, I was all kind of... You know, my, my learning disability, I had social anxiety. I was just a jacked up kid from living in this tortured

  3. 4:26 – 5:57

    Move to Brazil, Indiana: racism, isolation, and academic dysfunction

    1. DG

      home. From the outside looking in, we lived in an all-white neighborhood, and then we would travel to the ghetto of Buffalo, New York where the skating rink was at. So we... You know, we worked around mostly Blacks and I lived around mostly whites, but no one knew what was going on in that house at... on 201 Paradise Road. You know, I mean, it's crazy. But, um, my mom got courage to finally leave him when I was about eight years old. We moved to a small town in Brazil, Indiana, and that's when the real war started for me. And Brazil, Indiana is a small town. Great people, a lot of great people. And I say that because a lot of people get offended, and I'm, I'm gonna get to the point why they get offended. There was about maybe 10 Black families out of about 10,000 people in the town. And in 1995, the KKK marched in the Fourth of July parade. So this was a... Not everybody was racist. There was a lot of good people. Some of the best people I knew was there, but there was also a lot of racism there. So me being one of the few Black kids in that, you know, in that area, you know, it, it kind of haunts you. I had stuff on my notebook, you know, "Nigger, we're going to kill you," on my Spanish notebook. They had that on my car, "Nigger, we're gonna kill..." This is early '90s. And, um... So even though I showed it didn't hurt me, it was jacking me up. So all the insecurities I had when I was a kid with my father, I moved into this area here, and it just got worse and worse and worse. And the shit haunted me. And that voice that I talked about, it kept talking louder and louder and louder, but I was doing nothing about it. And

  4. 5:57 – 7:27

    Air Force ambitions, ASVAB failure, and the first real push to change

    1. DG

      I decided to make moves. And I cheated all through school. And it's, it's kind of humbling to talk about my story sometimes in this, um...It's, it's also embarrassing, but, um, it's real. It's who the fuck I am. It's, it's, it's what I am. It's, it's, it's what created me. And copied from the fourth grade to the, to, to my junior year in high school on every assignment. And I wanted to get in the military, wanted to join the Air Force, and the guy gave me an ASVAB test, it's like a watered-down SAT, and I couldn't copy on it, because the guy beside me had a test A, I had test B, the guy to my right had test C, so I looked to copy on this test and I couldn't copy, you know, so I got like a 20. And I wanted to be a Air Force pararescueman. It's guys that jump out of airplanes and save downed pilots. It's a, it's a special operator in the Air Force. And my score was so horribly low, they had to retake it again, and he said, "Hey." And I got like a 18 the second time, even worse. I needed to get a 50 out of a 99. And so, my mom and I, for a while we lived in the government subsidized apartments, $7 a month, and also food stamps, and we slowly moved up to a $230 a month place, but at the time, you know, we were, you know, pretty poor. But, um, my mom afforded enough money for me to go to see a tutor one, one hour a week, so for four hours a month, and I had six months to study for my last test. I could only take the ASVAB, you know, the ASVAB test three times. And I, uh, studied my ass off and passed it, and I got in the Air Force and realized there was more things in front of me. I was afraid of the water,

  5. 7:27 – 9:58

    Special ops water fear, sickle cell trait, and quitting under pressure

    1. DG

      terrified of the water, and, um, I learned how to swim, but what gets everybody in this training, in all special ops training, is the water confidence where they try to pretty much drown your ass. You know, all of our lives we've been breathing, and they take that from you and they want to see how comfortable you are under water. And there's only 1% African Americans in special operations. And I didn't know anything about African n- like, a lot of them are negative buoyant, which I am, because the bone density. I d- I struggled. But, um, six weeks into the program, there was about 25 guys left out of about 150. I was there, and I was never ... I didn't go to sleep for six weeks of the program. And I wanted to quit so badly, but I quit everything in my life, I copied through school, I wanted to prove people wrong. And so here I am, in this Air Force program, starting to get a little more confidence, but this water was kicking my ass, and six weeks into the program the doctor gave me a blood test, it was, I have sickle cell. Sickle cell trait, not the anemia, but it still killed people. But, so they pulled me out of training for a week, and when you go from being very uncomfortable in that water situation and then now you're comfortable and I'm sitting back watching the guys drown, 'cause I'm not in the, you know, I'm not part of the activities anymore for this week, I didn't want to get back in that damn water again. So the fear overcame me, and all my insecurities from my dad, from this small town, from everything started coming back. And even though no one knew how fucked up I was, I kind of created this other person who was tough, I lived with this shit all the time. So, me not wanting to go back in that water, the doctor called me back up, I thought I was getting like a, like a medical kick out of the military, so no quitting for me, they'll kick me out so I can have some pride. The doctor said, "No, man, we're kidding, you know, we can put you back in the training." And I was like, "Fuck." But after a week, I'm like, "You know what? I missed one week, there's only three weeks left, there's a good chance, you know, I could tough this shit out and go on." But I went back to the CO and the commanding officer of the program, and the sergeant said, "Hey, you got to start from day one, because you missed, you know, that, that week of training." And I broke. I broke. I- I- I couldn't imagine going back through that again. So I made up a lie, and I said, "Man, this sickle cell thing is really scaring me." It was the fucking water, it wasn't the sickle cell. And, and I pretty much quit. Even though they gave me a medical, it w- I quit. So, um, from the age of 19 to the age of 22, I went and did a job called TACP, where you control fast movers behind enemy lines. Cool job, but there's no

  6. 9:58 – 11:25

    Comfort spiral: weight gain, avoidance, and the cockroach job wake-up

    1. DG

      water. I was afraid of the water, so I avoided it. And, um, I gained 125 pounds in that timeframe. I went from 175 to almost 300. To 297, was my heaviest. And I started finding things that was comfortable, and the more things I found comfortable, the more uncomfortable my mind was, 'cause that voice I was telling you about, it, it always was there. I was just trying to avoid that conscience. I s- I wanted to be left alone from that conscience, and it wouldn't leave me alone. So I got out of the Air Force and I started working for a job called Ecolab, where you spray for cockroaches, at 24, and, um, spraying at different Steak 'n Shakes, Red Lobster, whatever, from 11:00 at night to 7:00 in the morning. And what changed, I came home and watched this Discovery Channel show, um, Class 224. I came home from Steak 'n Shake, I sprayed down last, get a big old large 42 ounce shake, walk across the street and get a box of mini donuts from 7-Eleven, and I would drive home for 45 minutes, this big old fat guy who, yeah, I worked out, but I was fat. I didn't run, didn't PT, I just, I just hit the gym. So, um, driving home, turn the TV on, and what comes on was the Discovery Channel show, and that's when everything changed for me. I, uh, was taking a shower, I walked out and heard these guys, and I watched the show, and it made me reflect big time on the piece of shit that I am, and I'm exactly what people said I was gonna be. So...

  7. 11:25 – 18:08

    Discovery Channel “Class 224”: the decision to face every fear

    1. JR

      So what was on this show that really struck home?

    2. DG

      It was, um, I saw these guys going in the water, so I was, I was terrified of it. I mean, I can't even express ... Have you ever had a big fear? And I know a lot of fighters have fears and stuff like that, but they get over them, but a, a lot of us have these fears that you just don't want to fucking face, and, um, I have a lot of them. I had a lot of them. And that's what created the person who's in front of you today, and we'll get into that. But, um, just a scared bitch is what I was, and- but I was watching these guys going through hell week, Class 224, and these guys are ringing the bell, quitting, dropping their helmet down, rolling out, a lot of guys just leaving, and it made me reflect on my fears, my insecurities, and I saw-... real men, what I thought were real men who were staying, who were overcoming adversity, who were overcoming all these different things that I had blamed so many fucking people in my life, my, my dad, uh, the, my, my mom for not being there. When I was 14 years old, my, s- my mom was gonna get remarried to this great guy. He got murdered, and then I moved back to that small town in Brazil, and, and I, uh, uh, everybody was to blame, my, my learning disability, my, my skin color, you know, me, me, me being... everything. And so, um, I sat there for a while, and I was like, "Man, I got to fucking... I, I've, I've got to... No one's gonna fucking come to help me. No one's gonna fucking come to help me. It's, it's fucking me against me, period." And, um, so I had to man up, and I said, "The first thing I got to start doing is facing every fucking fear I have, no matter what the fuck it is, man." And I... and, and these things would keep me up at night. No one... pe- people who are hearing this shit, they, they will never really understand and grasp when you face these things and so many things, how they keep you up and haunt you at night.

    3. JR

      I think there's a lot of people out there that know what you're talking about.

    4. DG

      I mean, and, um, so that's what it did, and I, I had two options, to either be that 300-pound guy who sprayed for cockroaches and made $1,000 a month and... at 24 years old knowing when I'm 50 fucking years old I can reflect on this and think about what guy I never became, or I can totally just sack it up and fail and fail and fail until I succeed. So I started calling recruiters up. I said, "I'm gonna go be a fucking Navy SEAL." And every recruiter... So there's a weight and height, there's... it's... so there's a weight, weight and height limit to get in the military. And I was 6'1" and 297, and I had prior service, which was a big deal. So I called all these recruiters up, and all of them said, "Hey, how tall are you? Blah, blah, blah, blah." They got into conversation to see if I was even qualified, and by the time I got to my weight, uh, phone would hang up, pretty much, like, "Hey, you know what? Call somebody else. You know, try to get in the Reserves." So I tried to get in the Reserves, and I called this guy named Steven Salgio, a recruiter up, and he said, "Hey, come on in." He saw me, put me through the weight standard, all this other stuff, and to get into the class I had to get into, I had to lose 106 pounds in less than three months. So I was like, "Fuck that, I can't do that." I grabbed my chocolate milkshake and went back to Ecolab. "I'm going back to work, man. This is my life." So in this job, you look... you know, you're looking for cockroaches, looking for rodents and stuff like that. And this next morning, or this next night, I went to work, and I hit the... I don't like cockroaches too much. I hit the mother lode of cockroaches, and this restaurant got full of cockroaches and rodents and everything else. And I sat there and said, "This is my life." I said, "This is my life. You are exactly who the fuck... Thi- this is it." And I said, uh, "This ain't gonna be it for me." So in that restaurant, I quit 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.

    5. JR

      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.

    6. DG

      Right.

    7. JR

      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?

  8. 18:08 – 29:39

    Losing 106 pounds in under 3 months: obsession, suffering, and self-talk

    1. DG

      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.

    2. JR

      So you go the first day, you, you run a quarter mile, and then you walk back home-

    3. DG

      Right.

    4. JR

      ... and you're, you're upset.

    5. DG

      Right.

    6. JR

      How do you, how do you move forward?

    7. DG

      So basically what I did was I came home, and I (laughs) I had a Chuck E. milkshake.

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. DG

      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-

    10. JR

      That's crazy.

    11. DG

      ... because of the fucking water, you know?

    12. JR

      Right.

    13. DG

      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.

    14. JR

      That is a problem that a lot of people who work hard do have. You get angry at people who don't work hard-

    15. DG

      Yes.

    16. JR

      ... 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.

    17. DG

      Yeah. That's probably the truth.

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. DG

      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.

    20. JR

      Yes.

    21. DG

      And I would get mad at them, but in reflection it's probably just me getting mad at myself.

    22. JR

      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.

    23. DG

      Right.

    24. JR

      And it's, uh, it's not a good way to handle it-

    25. DG

      No.

    26. JR

      ... you know? But it's, it's natural 'cause you're just terrified-

    27. DG

      Mm-hmm.

    28. JR

      ... of seeing that trait.

    29. DG

      Right. And it cost me.

    30. JR

      So you come back.

  9. 29:39 – 32:34

    BUD/S injuries and the cost of ignoring recovery: duct tape, numbness, survival

    1. JR

      So when you're doing this, are you worried at- at all about repetitive stress injuries or the fact that your body's not conditioned for this and you- you're basically taking your body where you had abused it-

    2. DG

      Right.

    3. JR

      ... and now you're- you're forcing it to live like an elite athlete?

    4. DG

      Right. I didn't care. I didn't know any better. I didn't think about it.

    5. JR

      Wow.

    6. DG

      I didn't ... I- I- I didn't know that working out that hard would fuck you up. I didn't-

    7. JR

      Did- did it fuck you up?

    8. DG

      Oh, yeah.

    9. JR

      Yeah?

    10. DG

      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.

    11. JR

      So you just used that tape to just support your ankles?

    12. DG

      Right. So I basically cast myself and for the first 30, 45 minutes, the pain was excruciating, but then it would go numb.

    13. JR

      Whoa.

    14. DG

      And I would go numb and then that's how I got through.

    15. JR

      Wow. Did that do any long-term damage?

    16. DG

      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.

    17. JR

      How old are you?

    18. DG

      43. So-

    19. JR

      You look like you're 30.

    20. DG

      That's good. That's good.

    21. JR

      You really, you look very young for your age.

    22. DG

      Whenever I'm stressed, I get after it.

    23. JR

      (laughs)

  10. 32:34 – 37:42

    From unstoppable to bedridden: endocrine collapse—and the stretching/yoga breakthrough

    1. DG

      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.

    2. JR

      Like what kind of shit?

    3. DG

      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-

    4. JR

      You thought stretching was bad for you?

    5. DG

      Yeah. That stretching's bad for you, man.

    6. JR

      Why did you think that?

    7. DG

      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-

    8. JR

      Right.

    9. DG

      ... 150 miles a week.

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. DG

      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.

    12. JR

      Wow.

    13. DG

      That's all it was. I went from like I can't even count the medications I was on. Now I'm on a very low dose thyroid pill, period.

    14. JR

      Do you ever do yoga?

    15. DG

      All the time, man. All the time. And I- I... If I were to tell somebody one thing right now, man, that- that psoas muscle and getting that hip flexor opened up 'cause we're all stressed the fuck out. It was... It's so much worse than others. It changed my life.

    16. JR

      Yeah. Um, wh- how do you say, Nick Greg- Gregorius? How do you say his last name? The, uh, Brazilian jujitsu black belt from, uh, England, the Greek fella. He has a great quote about yoga. He said, "Yoga's a martial art you do against yourself."

    17. DG

      Yep.

    18. JR

      It's a great way of putting it.

    19. DG

      100%.

    20. JR

      That's what it feels like when you're in there, right?

    21. DG

      100%.

    22. JR

      And so, you... How many years ago was this? It was five years ago-

    23. DG

      Five years ago.

    24. JR

      ... when you couldn't do anything? And how long was there a period where you couldn't work out at all?

    25. DG

      There was about... So I always tried to do something, but I couldn't run hardly at all. I could run maybe half a mile and all that heart shit would happen and my heart would get afib and all, all kind of stuff would happen. And I started just stretching and also I tried to pull-ups every now and then, but everything was just... I, I didn't have the energy. I didn't have anything. I mean, nothing was processing right for me.

    26. JR

      So, did, did you think that you had just broken your body-

    27. DG

      Oh, yeah.

    28. JR

      ... 'cause you pushed it too hard?

  11. 37:42 – 49:57

    Ultra-running origin story: qualifying for Badwater through a disastrous 24-hour race

    1. DG

      100%. I, I, I sat back in that bed that night and I had a lot of time to reflect. I said, "You know what?" I was actually kind of proud of myself in a very sick, twisted way. I, I... Even though people don't understand it, I had to do what I had to do. And, you know, and I did it. Like, I didn't tell you how I got into ultra running. You know, there's a lot of things that... So I, I, I pushed it extremely hard. I, I, I went way beyond what I thought was capable. Like my first ultra race I did, I was, uh, I was heavier. I was in Iraq. You know the Marcus Luttrell Lone Survivor?

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. DG

      I was in BUD/S. I was in three hell weeks, as you know, as I said a million times. And I knew a lot of guys that died in the operation. I was at free fall school with Morgan Luttrell, who is his twin brother, during the Operation Red Wings, where Marcus Luttrell's the only survivor. I knew Marcus Luttrell well. And I was about 200 some odd pounds and I didn't run hardly at all at this time. I, I was a SEAL, but I was like a bodybuilder. And I did elliptical trainer 20 minutes on Sunday. That's all I did. That's all I did. I was, "Fuck that cardio stuff." I'm, I was, I was never about it until this happened. So that happened and I was like, "Man, I gotta find a way to raise money for these families." So I Googled the... I, I, I, I found a foundation, Special Operations Warrior Foundation, and I Googled the 10 hardest races in the world. I knew nothing about ultra running. The furthest I'd ever run was 20 miles at one time. And so what came up was the Badwater 135. 135-mile run through Death Valley in the summertime. I thought it was a fucking stage race. I didn't know people could run 135 miles at one time. I had no idea it was even possible.

    4. JR

      What do you mean, a stage race?

    5. DG

      Where you run, like, 20 miles-

    6. JR

      Oh.

    7. DG

      ... camp out-

    8. JR

      Stages.

    9. DG

      ... and then run 20 more till you get 135 miles.

    10. JR

      Right.

    11. DG

      So I wanted an ultra runner to know what ultra running was. I called the race director up, Chris Costman of the Badwater, and he said, "Are you an ultra runner?" And I was like, "I don't know what that is." He goes, "Have you run 100 miles in 24 hours or less?" I was like, "No," but I said, "I'm a Navy SEAL. I was in three hell weeks. I was a ranger." I gave him some resume. He didn't give a shit. He said, "I don't care. You gotta qualify for my race." And the deadline was up in two months for this Badwater race. And basically, he said, "There's two more races you can do to qualify, and I might consider you in my race. We select the top 90 athletes in the world. And you're not even an ultra runner, but I, I like your cause, like what you're doing." He said, uh, "I'll call them up on a Wednesday." (laughs) And he goes, "There's a race on Saturday in San Diego, San Diego One Day, where you run around a one-mile track for 24 hours. See how many miles you can get. If you get 100 in 24 hours, I will consider you in my race." I did the math. It's 14-some-minute mile. Fuck it. I can do that. Dumb shit thinking, I'll tell you that right now. It was rough. Worst pain I've been in my entire life was this race. So I have m- my wife at the time, she's now my ex-wife, we go to Walmart, get a blue lawn chair, Ritz crackers, and Myoplex. That's what I'm gonna have for a 100-mile run. So, show up at the start line this race. It was the AUA National Championships. It's like the best ultra runners compete against each other to see how many miles you can get in 24 hours. And I'm this big bodybuilder-looking guy with a shirt on.

    12. JR

      How much did you weigh back then?

    13. DG

      I would say I was at least 230, at least. It may have been more.

    14. JR

      You've been jacked.

    15. DG

      Yeah, I w- Yeah, I was ripped the fuck up. I wa- I... Big old chest. I was big. I, I was, I was jacked up. There's a picture of me.

    16. JR

      You definitely didn't look like someone who could run 100 miles.

    17. DG

      No, not at all. So basically, I start running, and I get to about mile 40, mile 50, and I'm feeling pretty good. I get to mile 70, and it was, uh, the, the worst pain of my life. I sat down in this blue lawn chair at mile 70, and my... The Ritz crackers after mile 20 became Ritz cracker balls because I wasn't hydrating correctly. I didn't know what to do. I was drinking Myoplex for my nutrition because I couldn't eat these Ritz crackers, had very minimal water, if any at all, and I was just dying. So I sat down in this blue lawn chair as I was watching all these runners go around in this circle, and I was all dizzy and lightheaded. Hadn't gone to the bathroom. It's been about 12 hours. I went 70 miles in about 12 hours, which is good. And I looked at my ex-wife now and I was like, "I am fucked." I started seeing, like, three of her. And once my body stopped, my mind just went off. And I had to go to the bathroom. And the bathroom's like f- It's, like, 20 feet away from me, if that, and I couldn't. And so I sat there and peed blood down my leg and started cramping up my back and... With 30 miles to go. I... And my feet were broken. I was just in the worst shape, because once you stop running, not running like that... I mean, I hadn't run in almost a year. I was just doing bodybuilding stuff and 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer.

    18. JR

      No running at all?

    19. DG

      I probably ran no shit, no shit, no more than 50 miles the whole year. (laughs) That wasn't my thing. I wanted to be, like, jacked, you know?

    20. JR

      Right.

    21. DG

      I, I didn't want to be cardio guy. I wanted to be ripped, big Navy SEAL guy. And, um...And the day before this race, it's funny, this guy named Joe Burns, who put me through my hell weeks, uh, a SEAL guy, he's one of the hardest guys out there, he was in the gym the Friday before I did this race. And he was doing the full body squats, deadlifts, power cleans. I said, "Fuck it, man." I don't, you know, he- he's the guy that approved me to do this race. He, you know, he, you know, he gave me the approval to go do this race, and signed off on it. So I'm in the gym, I went in there and did a full body hardcore squats, deadlifts, and everything with this guy, 'cause I knew he was gonna come watch me in this race. So I've always been about, "All right, man, you're gonna see me come in here and jack this weight, and then tomorrow you can watch me do a 100-mile run."

    22. NA

      (laughs)

    23. DG

      "What do you think about that?" So basically, I paid for it. So at my... so he came out there with my favorite thing, chocolate, you know, mini donuts, 'cause he knew my story of, of, of my past life, and brought six mini donuts out there, and I had my hat pulled down. And at mile 70, man, it was torturous. And with blood down my leg and 30 miles to go, I, uh, started reaching in the cookie jars, man. I started pulling off all kind of stuff. I reached in my mind, and a lot of us, when we have bad times in life, even the hardest person in the world, we forget how badass we are during that hard time. I have a thing where I take a couple of seconds to reflect on, like, "Hang on, man, you've been through, been through this, you've been through that, you overcame this, overcame that." I don't ever close my mind to the fact that this can't be done. And I knew I had to get up, I needed nutrition, I needed hydration, I needed to get... stop being dizzy. So that's the first thing I did. I didn't panic on it, I had 30 more miles to go to get 100, I just thought about the process. Slowly but surely, I was able to stand up, and I was literally hobbling around this track, just walking, no running at all. I couldn't run, my feet were in the worst pain. This is the worst pain I've been in in my entire life. Nothing in any training is even comparable to this last 30 miles. And what happened was, my ex-wife looked at me and she's like, "Man, you're just..." We, we agreed I'm not going to make the time. I was going way too slow. And at that time, at mile 81, something clicked that I'll never probably be able to do again, when my mind, body, spirit, soul, everything 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.

    24. NA

      (laughs)

    25. DG

      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.

    26. NA

      (laughs)

    27. DG

      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-

    28. JR

      That was all he said? (laughs)

    29. DG

      That's all he said.

    30. JR

      That's so crazy.

  12. 49:57 – 1:00:52

    Boston qualifier after 101 miles, then Hurt 100 and rapid-fire racing escalation

    1. JR

      How long did it take you to recover physically?

    2. DG

      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.

    3. JR

      (laughs) That's... (laughs) That's crazy.

    4. DG

      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.

    5. JR

      It almost seems like it to you?

    6. DG

      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-

    7. JR

      What sounds so crazy is you ran 100 miles before you ever ran a marathon.

    8. DG

      Right.

    9. JR

      Then you didn't run again at all, and you still qualified for the Boston Marathon. So, you ran a 3:08-

    10. DG

      Right.

    11. JR

      ... for the first marathon you ever did-

    12. DG

      Ever did.

    13. JR

      ... two weeks after you ran 100 miles-

    14. DG

      Right.

    15. JR

      ... with no training and nothing in between.

    16. DG

      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-

    17. JR

      What did it feel like to run that 3:08 if you c- could barely walk?

    18. DG

      When that gun went off, something went off in my head, and I didn't feel that much pain at all. Afterwards, I did, but something happened where I was like, the gun went off, and that thing came back. Like, "All right, man, what if..." 'Cause I, I, I wanted to qualify for Boston. That was my goal. But I was, I was jacked up, you know? And I, and I, and I, and I didn't run as much as I should have at all over my, uh, Iraq training. I hit the weights, and... But my job... But, but my goal was, when I signed up for it a year early, I wanted to qualify for Boston. This was a 3:10:59. And I was like, "What if you can qualify for Boston?" Man, used to run 100... So, what, what helped me out, I ran 101 miles. What the fuck is 26 miles to me now? So, the mindset going into it was like, "I ran 75 more miles than this." So, I, I used it to my advantage. So, after that happened, I ran, w- with feet pretty much broken. I would, I would, I would, I would go to the, uh, physical therapist, and they had this compression tape. Compression tape helped because I'm, m- my feet were pretty bad off. And I would run 70, 80, 100-mile weeks, and then I went to the Hurt 100 race in Hawaii, 26,000 feet of climbing over 100 miles. Probably one of the top five hardest 100-mile races in the world. I wasn't even a, a real runner. Yeah, I, I had banked a lot of miles by the last, uh, last, what, two and a half, about t- two months? But I wasn't a runner. Went out there and got through the race. Did it in 33 hours. Was the ninth place finisher. Not many people finished that that year. And I qualified for Badwater and got in, and I went on to lose weight and train hard, and I got fifth my first year and went back my second year and got third.

    19. JR

      When you say you went... You lost weight, like what were you eventually weighing?

    20. DG

      So, I went to the race about 190, 195.

    21. JR

      So, you lost quite a bit from-

    22. DG

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      ... your bodybuilding time?

    24. DG

      Right.

    25. JR

      That's over a short period of time.

    26. DG

      Right.

    27. JR

      How did you lose all that weight?

    28. DG

      Once again, I, I just worked out hard. I stopped taking my protein so much. I got off... I was on this stuff called, uh, Nitro-Tech, and I, I got off all the protein stuff, and I just started... I stopped hitting the weights so hard, and I just became, uh, a running fool. Became the Black Forest Gut Man, pretty much.

    29. JR

      (laughs)

    30. DG

      Pretty simple, man. That's what happened.

  13. 1:00:52 – 1:08:11

    What actually ‘broke’ him: Hell Week damage, mobility collapse, and the anti-civilized mindset

    1. JR

      Do you think that is what fucked your body up?

    2. DG

      No.

    3. JR

      No?

    4. DG

      No. 'Cause I- I still run the same mileage now. What fucked my body up was Hell Week.

    5. JR

      Really?

    6. DG

      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-

    7. JR

      How'd he die?

    8. DG

      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.

    9. JR

      Do you just think it might just have been 'cause your body was exhausted?

    10. DG

      No.

    11. JR

      No?

    12. DG

      '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.

    13. JR

      So what was it doing too? Is it locking up or-

    14. DG

      It was just, it was just pulling.

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    16. DG

      So it made my hips feel like I, I y- I just couldn't sink my ass.

    17. JR

      Oh, okay.

    18. DG

      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.

    19. JR

      So it was all... this was all range of motion issues?

    20. DG

      All range of motion issues, yeah.

    21. JR

      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.

    22. DG

      Right.

    23. JR

      Um, I know he's listening. Go stretch, dude.

    24. DG

      Yeah, support, man.

    25. JR

      Yeah. Well, espe- especially if you're working that hard, right? If you're doing that much.

    26. DG

      Yeah. You're, you're definitely locking up.

    27. JR

      He could barely touch his toes.

    28. DG

      Yeah, that's not a good thing.

    29. JR

      That's not good, right?

    30. DG

      No. No.

  14. 1:08:11 – 1:16:40

    Heart defect and two surgeries: living extreme with a hole in his heart

    1. DG

      Well, I had, I had two heart surgeries also.

    2. JR

      Whoa.

    3. DG

      Yeah. So, you know-

    4. JR

      What was wrong with your heart?

    5. DG

      So I had a hole in it. So, you know, you're not supposed to have a hole in your heart and be a SEAL. And it would-

    6. JR

      Were you born with it?

    7. DG

      I was born with it, it went undetected and me pushing so hard, so around, in 2009 I was training for this Race Across America and, um, I just couldn't go anymore. Another pitfall in my life was the hole and I was pretty much off active duty SEAL for three years. The- you know, I had two heart str- th- them trying to fix it, so the hole was significantly large.

    8. JR

      Like how big?

    9. DG

      It, it, they say it was as big as a quarter. I'm like, "How the hell is it big as a quarter?" Yeah, that's, that's a pretty big hole in your heart, 'cause they had two helix patches. I'm like, "That's impossible." The, the helix patches, they're in my heart, so the two stents.

    10. JR

      What is a helix patch?

    11. DG

      It is like a, a little mesh very...

    12. JR

      Like what they do for hernias? Like something like one of those?

    13. DG

      Maybe something like that. So they went up through my femoral artery and they placed this patch, but the-

    14. JR

      They go through your artery?

    15. DG

      Yeah, they went through my femoral artery. Yeah, they went through-

    16. JR

      Like with a camera?

    17. DG

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      Whoa.

    19. DG

      So what, what, no, the camera was down through my throat.

    20. JR

      Whoa.

    21. DG

      And they put this catheter through my femoral artery that went to my heart. They, they went and they took this helix patch, they, they placed it in there, and then they found out six months later that the hole wasn't covered up enough yet, 'cause the hole was just... I mean, and the helix patch was very damn big. So they, so they had put an- and they go back in there in 2010.

Episode duration: 1:54:23

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