Kieren O’Hanlon
Kieren opens up about his health challenges, and how he is still perfecting the balance of being a loving husband, father and his well-being.
More Than Our Story
Ned Phillips
Ned Phillips shares his love for ultrarunning and where his mind goes when faced with the immense physical and mental strain that comes along with it. He also talks about how he will meet his hero, Lazarus Lake, at the World Backyard Championships, his goal to become the first person 55 or older to run 500 kilometers at a Backyard event, and the similarities between entrepreneurship and ultrarunning.
Highlights
In that little moment [winning the 2024 Singapore Backyard Ultra Team Championship], that little win in a sport I love... it was a good experience.
This one day... I'll never forget... This guy stood up in the office and said, "All right, I'm running a 100 K race. I need a team of four. Who wants to run it with me?" I wasn't even a runner, and I was just like, "Me."
From the age of four, I walked four miles a day. My family was into hiking. I was like, I'm sure I can have a crack... That's where it started. And we did okay. We came fourth out of a thousand teams on our first go.
So that was in the mid-90s, so close to 30 years. I started a love affair with ultrarunning... Ultra, then IRONMAN, now back to Ultra.
I love the physical, but I love the mindset, and I love what it does for your mind, especially.
Typically, Ultra is solo... but on [that] day particularly, I won this thing called Backyard... I needed a crew, a team to help keep me fed and nutrition and going. So, think of an ultrarunner as a bit like a Formula 1 car. You need a pit crew to change you, give you fresh fuel, keep you going.
The only one part I would say is truly solo is the exploration of your mind. That's, to me, the most amazing part of it is how you explore your mind while you're doing these events.
The team part is the whole experience of getting you to the start line and getting you through, and then the solo part is the exploration of your mind.
People ask me, don't you get bored? Oh man, like there's nothing further... I run an 80 to 100 K a week, I run to work, I do a ten, 15 K in the morning, but on a Saturday or Sunday, normally Sunday morning I'll get up at 4 a.m... and I pop out the door at five, and I am always home by 11. So, six hours. And honestly, those six hours... they're just the best.
It starts off the first few hours is just, scenery, running, getting my fuel in, just enjoying, nothing special. Just trying not to think too much about work or other stuff. Sometimes, I listen to musical podcasts, but not often, sometimes, half, half. I know this sounds strange [but] the downside for me is six hours isn't far anymore, so I never really get very far. When I do a six-hour training run... my brain goes to the race that's coming up.
I always believe in saying what I think. I believe if I took on Usain Bolt in a 100-meter running race, I would win. Now, obviously, I would not. You know, I understand that, but I have a phrase: “If you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.” I know I can't beat Usain Bolt, but why would I even walk up? He might trip up, he might have a bad day, he might pull a hamstring.
In Ultras, most Ultras, I won't win. But very specifically for this Backyard Ultra, I kind of knew I had a chance.
So, on that race, I ran 174 K. That's not my furthest; I've run like 230 K.
Each loop, where does my mind go? I want it to be in this place that I'm just thrilled to be in, what's known as the pain cave or the pain place... it's like going on a holiday; you can't experience Disneyland unless you go there. Sure, you can look at it on Google, but it's not the same. You can't experience it if you've never been to New York unless you go there. For me, the pain cave, the place where real suffering, and I mean, you know, this is voluntary suffering, right? The idea that you go into an endurance place of your own choice and each time you go in, it's kind of unique in there.
You may have heard of Courtney Dauwalter, one of the great ultramarathons of our time. She said when you get into the pain cave, look up, look around, smile, and don't think, "Oh my God, it's so hard in here, it's so tiring. Chip away. Make a new little [space] like you're in a cave and chip, chip, chip, chip, and have a look and smile.
Where my brain goes to for the first, say, 100 miles. It's all right. Just do everything right. Eat your food. Don't go too fast. Keep calm. But then, all of a sudden, I get into a place I've never been before. "Like, oh, wow, this is a new kind of hard. Then you just want to stay there. How long can you stay there? And don't think. It's not hard. It's okay. It's fine. This is good. Just keep telling yourself this is okay, [this is] what are you here for. Smile."
I've been doing ultrarunning endurance for 35 years. I know. So, I don't even have a heart rate tracker. But if I did a 100 K run, at the end of it, if I was asked what was my average heartbeat, I can tell you within 2 or 3, I just know, I know if it was a hard effort.
My dad's an absolute hero. He's 88. He's still racing 5 Ks. My granddad on my dad's side was the 400-meter and 800-meter champion in the British Army.
I've found I'm really good at not stopping. This is my special skill set. I think partly because I'm quite good at it.
Fifteen years ago, a group of people in a park in London met up, eight of them, and said, why don't we meet every Saturday and just have a little 5 K race between us? And then, before they knew it, 20 people came. They told other people, 50. Then they had a race in the next park. Today, there are about 15 million people in parks around the world. Every Saturday morning; you can run fast, slow. It's called parkrun. It's been awarded so many honors and medals for getting people moving.
So in Singapore [parkrun] is every Saturday morning at this park at 7:30. And you can just turn up. So I set myself a challenge. I said, I'm going to run 100 miles to the start of the parkrun, and then race parkrun, just myself... I turned up at that place at the same place at 7:30 a.m. Friday. There's no one there, of course, and I've given myself exactly 24 hours to run, 100 miles to be back for the start of a 7:30 a.m. race. And then I wanted to see if I could still break 30 minutes for 5 K after running 100 miles.
When I got to K about 120, my watch said 8:59, and I'm dropping, and I'm like, man, I've got 40 K to go... I'm not changing the world... It's now like one in the morning. I have six hours to make it back, but no one cares. My wife's still going to love me. Everything's fine. And I was like, absolutely not. I looked at my watch, I'm like, F you watch! We're doing this. Come on, Ned!.. I made it back in 23 hours, 56 minutes, with four minutes to the start of the 5 K race, and then I ran 29:48 for the 5 K because I was trying to break 30, and I hobbled off home. And that sense of the sense of fulfillment afterwards is kind of why I do it, because that, yeah man, makes me feel good.
I'm now going to the World Championships, you know, with the top 75 backyard people in the world.
Backyard is a race. It's a last person standing. We run 6.7 K an hour in a loop. So there's a little camp. We run a loop of 6.7 K on the hour, every hour. And if you run it in 51 minutes, you get 9 minutes rest. If you run in 48, you get 12 minutes. Your task is to complete the loop within the hour and start again on the next hour. That's it. If you run faster, you use more energy, and you keep going until it's the last person standing. So in Singapore, I was the last person standing: 26 hours, 174 K. Compared to the world's best, the world's best is 110 hours, 700 K. 110 continuous hours. Four and a half days. People getting 8,9 minutes sleep in their chair between loops.
I'm going to the World Championship to compete with them. Obviously, I'm not winning that, but I have a dream to go 500 K. I have a dream to go 75 hours. I am putting in the effort, and look, for a 57-year-old dude going to the world championship, this is all gravy, man, and this is all, this is all happy time.
Barkley is run by this amazing man, Lazarus Lake, this bearded dude from the woods of Tennessee who's done so much for the sport of Ultra. He organizes races like the Barkley, which is this unfinishable race in the Tennessee woods that only 17 people have finished. Actually, now it's 19, and the first lady finished this year, Jasmine Paris, which is five loops of the Frozen Head State Park in Wartburg, Tennessee. An amazing race. Just incredible to get in. There's no website. I don't even know how to enter. It's navigated. It's four times the height of Everest up and down. It's just it's incredible!
The same race director runs the Backyard World Championships. So it's Lazarus Lake’s race, and it's called Backyard. He lives in a place called Bell Buckle, Tennessee. It's called Backyard because it's in the backyard of his farm.
[On Lazarus Lake:] What he loves is races you can't finish... His feeling is this: You don't learn a lot by finishing. You learn a lot more by failing. And if you do a thing almost impossible to finish. And he says, in Backyard, there's only one winner. Everyone else loses... [He says:] The only loser was the winner because they didn't find their limit. Everyone else found their limit. And there's no greater feeling in life than finding your absolute limit.
When I go to Backyard, I will meet Lazarus Lake... Life teaches us a lot from hard things; they’re the hard things we want to learn from, and that's Laz’s motto. So yeah, when I go to Backyard... I'm going to be racing with some of the toughest mofos on the planet, and I cannot wait.
[On the documentary called: The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young:] Such a great documentary! And you know why it's great? It's that it wasn't made by runners. The people who made it had no idea about running. So what they made was a human story, not a running story... You could feel it. This sense of people going, this is not sensible. This is not recommended. This is not something you finish. Yet, the lengths that these people were being driven to greatness in their minds to do so hard.
[On the One More K Podcast:] I met Marcus because he's an entrepreneur... and we started this podcast. But we've both been through entrepreneurship, and we've both felt how hard it is. My startup failed. We had to liquidate it. I lost everything... I lost my mental health at the same time I found out how hard entrepreneurship can be. I didn't go into entrepreneurship wanting to learn the lessons I think I learned in Ultra. I go to Ultra to learn lessons of willingness.
I'm more scared of entrepreneurship than I am of Ultra. The difference is in Ultra; the more I put in, the more I get out. In entrepreneurship, you can work incredibly hard to still get nothing... So yeah, I think there's an incredible amount of similarities, the only difference is Ultra is way easier.
Somebody told me this phrase, Daniel they said: "The riskiest thing you can do is get a job. Ned, you’ve got to believe in yourself, back yourself."
I'm a sales guy. I've been a sales guy; I love sales. So I started a little consultancy showing people how to sell, talking about sales, teaching startups how to sell... called The Sales Movement, and you know in the last six months I've had 15 companies use it.
Somebody just literally ten minutes before this call said, Ned, this is your ikigai... Ikigai is a Japanese term that's very hard to get to. It is a combination of doing what you love. Doing what is purposeful and earning a living, all in these three little circles.
No 55-year-old or older has ever run 500 K at Backyard. But I want that to be me, man... If you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right. So I believe I can, and so I'm training really hard. I'm going to run 5000 K this year before Backyard; I'm going to do 50,000m of vertical gain. I'm going to do 500 strength, swim, and flexibility sessions. I'm getting up 5 times a week at 5 a.m., all to do 500 K at 58 years old. So that's my life plan today.
In my entrepreneurship journey, I sadly met some people who weren’t kind. Be kind, people. You don't know the shoes the other person is walking in. You know, I found some really fine, good people in Ultra. I cannot tell you enough. Be kind. You don't know that person’s story.
You can, it's not that hard, you can, you really can.
You know the phrase: “Don't reach for what you can; reach for what you cannot.” Don't reach for what you can. If you know you can run 10 K, go run 20. This doesn't have to be running. Let's say you have a startup idea. You can. It's okay. You can do it... I don't really worry what other people think because if you're a good person, they go together... Just try these things... It's really important. And smile, and sure, shitty things will happen... We're still here going forward.
“If you believe you can, or you can't, you're right.”
One More K
Weekly Podcast Hosted by Markus Gnirck & Ned Phillips
Your weekly show bringing you the latest news, insights, and chatter from the world of trail and ultra running. As passionate entrepreneurs, investors, and trail runners themselves, Ned and Markus delve into the latest business stories in this fast-growing industry. They invite fellow entrepreneurs and business executives to provide behind-the-scenes insights.
The Sales Movement
Sales is beautiful. It really is.
It is a wondrous art form.
It is confusing, if you have never done it, or can’t figure it out. So lets solve it for you.
I have loved sales for 35 years.
I am here to solve sales for you.
– ne:D
Daniel
Daniel is an extremely curious person, a wealth of random knowledge and facts. Extremely passionate about a vast array of interests ranging from health to history, science to athletics, everything culinary and the list goes on. Trust us, you would want to be on his team for Trivial Pursuit.
Daniel is also years into his battle with brain cancer. He experienced a seizure while on a Zoom call at work in late 2020 and quite literally, his life changed within minutes. After his operation he started to talk about his story but had always known it was more than just him. From then, More Than Our Story became a PROJECT that has evolved into the starting point it is today.
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Danielle shares her incredible story of survival against domestic violence and how she now advocates and champions for those who have lost their own voice and agency to this evil.
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Ned shares his love for ultrarunning and where his mind goes when faced with the immense physical and mental strain that comes along with it.
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The inaugural profile is none other than Daniel Hight, founder of More Than Our Story.
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