Joe Rogan Experience #1635 - Katie Spotz

(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Okay. Hello, Katie. How are you?

Hi, Joe. Good.

What's happening?

Yeah, not much. How are you?

Not much at all? This is very uneventful for you. It's funny that you're nervous to do this, but yet you're not nervous to row a boat. Well, you might have been nervous. Were you nervous to row across the Atlantic?

I definitely was nervous, and I think, like, that is a good thing to be able to channel that energy to, you know, make sure bad things don't happen, but that was definitely more my comfort zone than doing something like this.

Is that the cra- ... Well, obviously it's the craziest thing you've ever done, right? I shouldn't say obviously.

Um, well, I think that, like, the last endurance challenge, it was, like, running 33 hours straight and I think that hit my physical limit more than the row did. Like, after the row, I felt like my body could probably continue going, um, but it was just, yeah, more mentally challenging.

How did you get started doing these kind of things?

Um, so I would definitely consider myself more like an accidental adventurer. So, um, I had to take a gym class to get my, um, high school diploma, and through process of elimination, I wanted to find, like, the easiest A. Because at that point I was, like, a benchwarmer and I didn't really excel in- in those team sports. So, the easy A was a walking, running class, and, um, I did the ... I signed up just, like, trying to do the bare minimum, and it was during that class where it was like, "Okay, I'm already forced to be here. I might as well try to run." And I set that target of running one mile straight, and, um, I never thought I could do that. And so when I did run one mile straight, it was probably equivalent to people who run a marathon, you know? Like, just feeling, like, really elated and that's the seed that planted all the adventures to come. It's really just that one mile and realizing that I was limiting myself by, um, what- what I thought was possible, and one mile turned into two, two into three, and that was really how I did my first marathon and every- every event was, like, started from really that place, that one mile.

So you were sort of an athletic underachiever or a not interested in athletics person?

So, uh, in middle school, I- I, like most people, did all the sports, all the team sports, and it was m- ... The focus was like, "Oh, hey, let's hang out. Let's make friends," and- and it ... My priority was definitely, like, just hanging out with friends. I didn't have that, like, competitive sense about it, and, um, once it got too competitive, I kinda checked out because I was like, "Why are you guys making a big deal about this?" Do you know what I mean? Like ...