Exercising in 80-degree heat for 12 hours a day for 5 straight days requires a focused mind, a sound pacing plan, fortified confidence, and targeted nutrition. While we’re not likely to exercise 12 hours straight anytime soon, we all face epic challenges on various fronts each day. How do you plan for the inevitable stresses, challenges, and obstacles that life brings? Ultra-endurance athlete Christian Isakson learned much from his incredible effort at the EPIC5 Challenge in Hawaii. These lessons have direct application for us and our families. This is our subject for today’s great episode of LivingFuelTV.

Audio Transcription

KC: Welcome to Living Fuel TV. I’m KC Craichy with Christian Isakson back for another segment.

Christian: Thank you.

KC: Great to have you, brother.

Christian: Yeah, thanks. Nice to be here.

KC: Christian is Mr. Ironman. If you haven’t been following this story, he just accomplished one of those great things. You’ll remember last year, Lori Schneider accomplished something fantastic. She’s a woman with MS who was not accepting her condition and climbed the top seven peaks in the world at over 50 years old. She told us that she was the only one that had nutrition when you get above the cloud line because you can’t eat or drink at that level because of the way you feel. You understand this in exercise.

Christian: Yep, yep.

KC: So, Lori was telling us that she put Living Fuel in her water and everybody else just had water.

Christian: Yep.

KC: And so she literally was having nutrition from the time when the oxygen levels would not allow them to eat to the top of the peak, and she was so excited at the top of the peak she put the Living Fuel flag at the top of Mount Everest. . .

Christian: That’s awesome.

KC: . . . with 60 mile an hour winds. Why I’m telling you this is because when you tell your story, it isn’t just a cool story for people to think. I remember we had a testimony from one of our customers, and she said she had multiple sclerosis, and she would give anything to climb the highest mountain and put the Living Fuel flag at the time of the mountain.

Christian: Right on. Congratulations on that.

KC: So, I’m saying that your story helps others overcome things in their lives. So you having accomplished five Ironman Distance races in five days on five islands, it seems impossible to those of us who have tried long distance running, and even on a 10K a lot of times there are times when your mind says, “That’s enough.”

Christian: Yeah.

KC: That is enough. You can’t go anymore, and then people overcome that, and they go to 15Ks and so on. So we’re going to your story now, back to your story. Christian: Uh-huh.

KC: We’ve got five Ironman. We talked about training. You had a disciplined training regimen where you figured out your nutrition, you understand your body, you got feedback from your body, and now you go to the race. You get up in the morning in Hawaii. What’s the first thing you do?

Christian: The first day at Hawaii, the Ironman was reversed. It was a run, then the swim, then the bike, so we could end at the airport, get the planes and go to the next island. So, that was kind of a challenge in itself. Starting at 2:30 in the morning, all of us got around together and said a prayer which was really cool. Then we took off running and then went from there. The first day the swim had to be moved because the water and the rain over the course . . .

KC: Now you’re telling me you took off running before you had breakfast?

Christian: Well, no. Of course, I had Living Fuel first. Seriously. Specifically speaking, the Living Fuel product for me was a great segue in between not only each event but each event within the event. So, I was able to run. I was able to do a nice, steady 4-hour marathon, which is pretty slow, pretty consistent, with a full belly of Living Fuel. And I do Fuel normally before a run. My nutrition is pretty dialed. I’ll have a bowl of oatmeal, maybe, and some coconut milk. Something that’s light on the stomach, because remember, on the Epic Five, my heart rate isn’t getting into my higher zones where I have to start worrying about fluid shunting and shifting and osmosis, so I was able to constantly keep nutrition in my stomach. Had it always been solid food, there’s no way I would have been able to do it. I would have been able to do it, but there’s no way I would have been able to feel as comfortable as I did knowing that I had a CocaChia Bar in my stomach or the CocaChia Sprinkle or snack mix. It was satiating. It made me feel good, and you know, your mind and your stomach neurologically are closely interconnected. You know that better than I do. So, there’s a peace of mind there, for one, knowing I always had a bar with me, and number two, knowing that after the run and before the swim I was going to down my protein and my Super Berry. Then, during the bikes on most days, I figured seven hours on the bike which is about two hours longer than a normal Ironman, so around three, 3- 1/2 hours I would have my recovery drink, which would be Living Fuel mixed with my malto. I use maltodextrin, and then it would be accompanied with avocado sandwiches, bananas. Sometimes, I would have pretzels. I would just need the shifting of texture in my mouth along with my water. The salts were taken care of. I think sodium is a big misnomer in endurance sport. We don’t need as much as people say we do, and people usually overdo that.

KC: It could be dangerous.

Christian: It could be very dangerous.

KC: Particularly on five races like that.

Christian: Yeah, and that’s a whole another subject in and of itself. Specifically speaking from my fueling needs throughout the course of the five days, I think the other cool thing is it helped me sleep. I mean not that I needed any help sleeping during the race. I went from the first night was five hours, to four hours, to two hours, to two hours, to two hours.

KC: Sleep?

Christian: Yeah. Three hours, to two hours, to two hours. Before Kona, which was the last Ironman, I had just over two hours of sleep. I know there are many pieces involved, but I have never felt stronger in my life on Kona. Put it this way, with Epic Five I’ve done a total of ten Ironmans. The last Ironman that I did in Epic Five was only 20 minutes slower than the first Ironman I did in Florida back in 2006, and that was going into it solo. So, I did . . .

KC: The fifth Ironman was . . .

Christian: . . . was only 20 minutes slower. Granted, I wasn’t hammering all five days, but the last day in Kona I had so much reserve, when I hit the bike, I’m like “I’m gonna see what I have.”

KC: You know, learning to pace yourself in life is a huge lesson anyway.

Christian: Yep, yep.

KC: Because surely you couldn’t have blown it out every race and made all the races.

Christian: No, no.

KC: I mean, you’ve got to pace yourself.

Christian: Yesh.

KC: And you’ve got such a huge task ahead of you.

Christian: And the training leading up to that. I trained in a certain heart rate, with a certain speed, with a certain nutrition plan. If I would have taken that once I got to the race and let my emotions get the better of me and jacked everything up because I felt great, all that 3 or 4 months of solid base camp training with my nutrition would have went out of the window because I would be racing at a different intensity which would not utilize my nutrition as well, my sleep patterns. It’s a very, very intricate planning process.

KC: You know it interesting, there’s a scripture that says, “He who rules his own spirit or soul” . . .

Christian: Yes.

KC: . . . “is greater than the man who can take the whole city.”

Christian: Nope, I hear you.

KC: So, the mental control that you had to put your body under subjection to your mental control, is absolutely phenomenal.

Christian: I think the thing that I had going on in my mind over and over again is, “God equips the called.” He doesn’t necessarily call the equipped. For me, when I got the call, I’m like, “I’m not ready for this.” Despite my endurance background, this is an undertaking that I can’t do, but my wife was like, “Yeah, you can.” My son was like, “Yes you can.” God is like, “What’re you talking about? Yeah, you can.”

KC: Believing in yourself.

Christian: It is, and not believing the lies. As an endurance athlete, you have to get to the line and you have to tell yourself, “I am fast enough. The training is done. My nutrition is set. My bike is dialed. I have the proper gear. I’m ready to go.” In my spiritual life, it’s the same thing. When you get on the computer, be strong. Don’t wander on the mouse pad. Make sure you’re a good father. Make sure you love your family. Make sure you love your wife as Christ loved the church. It’s not believing the lies that kind of intersect with my life and endurance racing, and I think that’s why it’s such a good fit for me.

KC: That is terrific. Well, again. Awesome information.

Christian: Right on.

KC: We’re going to get into the details, more details of the race. Here I did this part of the swim, and I did this, and here’s the bike, and I did that, and so on, in the next segment.

Christian: OK. Right on. All right.

KC: I hope you enjoyed it. God bless you, and have a great day.

Christian: Thank you.