515 : The Ultra Podcast

S1E1--Meet the legendary Steve King : Part One (The athlete) + Chad Bentley

• Steve King & Chad Bentley • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Episode Summary:

Welcome to the first episode!  I am starting it off with a bang.  I completed a lengthy interview with Ultraman race announcer Steve King.  So lengthy, that I decided to split it into three parts.  In this episode Steve shares stories of the life changing events he attended during his athletic career as a race walker, triathlete and endurance runner. 

You will also be introduced to upcoming Ultraman Canada 2021 participant Chad Bentley. Chad is a well-respected plant-based endurance athlete.  He is a marathoner, Ultra-marathoner, multi-time Ironman finisher, 2-time Ultraman finisher, 2-time Ultra 520 finisher, and the first Canadian to compete in the EPIC 5 Challenge. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Shout outs and mentions in this episode:

Show Contributors:
Host : Larry Ryan
Contributing Raconteur : Steve King
Announcer : Mary Jo Dionne
Production : 5Five Enterprises

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/515TheUltraPodcast



Support the show

Show Contributors:
Host : Larry Ryan
Contributing Raconteur : Steve King
Announcer : Mary Jo Dionne
Production : 5Five Enterprises
Music  :  Run by 331

For show notes and past guests, please visit the Podcast Website: https://515theultrapodcast.buzzsprout.com
Facebook: @515TheUltraPodcast
Insta : @515theultrapodcast
Youtube : @515TheUltraPodcast
Email : 515Ultraman@gmail.com

Intro

Larry

Hello everyone and welcome to my very first podcast. I'm not going to waste your time now telling you what this podcast is about and giving you a 20-minute biography on me. You'll get to know me through these conversations. And since you found your way here, you know what I'm offering. So let's get right into my first conversation.

Conversation with Steve King

Larry

Jay-Z and Beyoncé think that they are multi-hyphenated entrepreneurs, but have a listen to the list of our guests today. An athlete competing as a race walker, triathlete, and endurance runner, a race announcer, a color commentator, a voiceover narrator, a race creator, a race director, a publisher, an author, a book editor, a poet. He has played himself as an actor, a stockbroker, a private investigator, a motel manager, a registered clinical counselor, a creator and instructor of online courses. I think it is safe to say that he is a YouTuber, a musician, a justice of the peace, a bag designer, and a board game creator. Today I am speaking with the legend, the voice of Ultraman, coming to us from his home in Penticton, British Columbia, which coincidentally is the home of Ultraman Canada, Mr. Steve King. Welcome and thank you for being my very first guest. I am super appreciative of your time.

Steve King

Thank you, Larry. I'm totally honored, and thank you for that wonderful introduction.

Larry

I kind of wanted to start off at the at the end of that list. Can you tell us how you became a board game creator?

Steve King

Oh, well that that was uh quite a while ago. In fact, it was just uh pretty much uh right after the 1986 Iron Man. As you know, from 1983 we had had an Ironman Dissonance race here, but it formally became Iron Man Canada in 1986. And at that time, Valerie Silk was the head uh of the World Uh Triathon Corporation, uh looking after, of course, uh Iron Man. And uh so I approached her with the idea of doing so, but they had a very um difficult license uh because of Iron Man that's uh uh it's a cartoon, amongst other things, in Japan, and so they were limited as to what they could do in terms of licensing. Uh, but she said with a very restricted number I could go ahead with a board game. And so I produced a thousand of them. So it is a limited edition. Uh we gave about 500 away to kids in scores, and the others are out there somewhere in the universe. But it's interesting you'd mentioned that because literally two or three days ago, a lady phoned me up to find out if it was any of any value. I said, I have no idea, to be honest with you. So she was going to put it on eBay. Uh, I've had a few people over the years uh ask me about it, and I've found a few extra pieces here and there, but uh there may be one floating about on eBay, that's all I know. I've I know some people have uh found them in rummage sales, but hopefully some people have got them and still play them.

Larry

Yeah.

Steve King

But there's been amazing advances since that time. If anyone has the game and you see how it plays out, uh there's been a lot of changes in the sport. But I I was still very proud of the way it turned out.

Larry

Well, that's excellent. That's excellent. So do you do you swim, bike, and run through the game? Uh what how is there anything that it might be like that you could compare it to for the listening to?

Steve King

It was a multi-sided dice, as all dice are, but this was a very special dice use. We had the M dot players uh on a board, so we had a swim course, a bike course, uh, and a run course on there with a with transitions and everything. And it it was about the roll of the dice. There was some luck involved, but uh you also had to think it through. There was some strategy as well.

Larry

So like a real race.

Steve King

I think so.

Larry

One of the other things that you had on there is that you are a justice of the peace.

Steve King

I I was.

Larry

You were, okay.

Steve King

Yes. Uh that was for five years until uh things changed and everything became centralized. So I was uh like the magistrate would be in England or elsewhere, uh Justice of the Peace. People tend to think it was a marriage commissioner. In British Columbia, they're not the same thing. Yeah, I was a court services, so if someone got arrested outside of the hours of 4 30 till 8 30 in the morning, then I would be called in.

Larry

Yeah, I was I was wondering what w how that worked, what kind of powers you had as a as a JP.

Steve King

Yeah. I was sorry to lose that in the sense that um I enjoyed it because it's sort of interconnected with my job somewhat. Um but uh what what happened was all the JPs in British Columbia uh got centralized, so now people do not appear directly in front of a JP, they appear as we are doing online.

Larry

Did you did you perform any weddings?

Steve King

Uh I I actually have actually performed weddings, but anyone can do so as long as you have a marriage commissioner there as well to sign the forms. So I've had a number of friends over the years, uh, including some Ultraman couples as well. Uh Kevin and Bob uh Kutjar actually performed the ceremony there, and for the uh Beckers, Catherine Corderbecker and Kevin Becker. But they they had uh a second marriage uh in Hawaii after setting uh Guinness World Records for having done uh five together, including a couple in Canada and uh three on the Big Island.

Larry

They are an amazing couple. I had the pleasure of meeting them at Ultraman Canada one year, and then again at Iron Man Lake Placid uh a couple years later, and they they are a fabulous couple. Looking at you as an athlete, I know a lot of people think of you as the voice of Iron Man and the voice of Ultraman, but you've had a great uh career as an athlete as well. You've been a um a world-class athlete as a racewalker, a triathlete, and an endurance runner. Recently, um, I'm sure you heard the the IOC has uh decided they're gonna cut the 50K racewalk from the uh 2024 games in Paris because they want to come up with a more gender equitable race that they can do. Now, myself, I'm I'm a little concerned with that in that they think that women maybe can't do 50k racewalk. But they are gonna put breakdancing into the 2024 games. So maybe they've just like jumped in the DeLorean and gone back in time or something. I'm not exactly sure what's happened there, but uh I'm wondering what are your thoughts on on this? And uh did the IOC actually consult you for your opinion?

Steve King

Uh no, to the last part there, but thank you for thinking that they might have even considered such a thing. But uh no, and and just to clarify, I was never a world-class racewalker, I was a decent uh long-distance racewalker. Um, my greatest uh claim to fame was getting second twice at the Stock Exchange London to Brighton, which is about 52, 53 miles, and uh winning the uh uh NEAAU uh 50 mile championships in the States. That was in New Jersey quite a few years ago. Uh but the speeds they have today, I would be absolutely nowhere. It's phenomenal. But the women have proven themselves. There are plenty of women that are doing anywhere from like 412 to 430 at 50k, which is exceptional, absolutely exceptional, would have won many Olympic Games up until like the uh uh 68, 72, something like that. So we have to bear in mind just how fast these guys are. And when you consider the leading racewalkers now can go through the marathon in three hours and continue for another five miles. Uh and our own Evan Dunfey, one of the very best in the world with a recent third place at the World Championships. It's just so saddening that what was the longest uh race in the Olympic Games in terms of track and field is now going to lose itself, unfortunately. Um but there's all sorts of sports that are coming up with uh mixed gender events, and racewalking was hoping they'd consider that because women have proved their medal time and again when it comes to way beyond 50Ks as well, not just at racewalking but running particularly.

Larry

Obviously, yeah, that's true. Um yeah, and you know, I got turned on to uh the long distance race walk when I went down to Rio in 2016 to cheer on the Canadians and particularly Evan Dumfey. Listeners out there, if you want a good uh Twitter to follow, Evan has a great Twitter, nice and political around the racing world. So that's that's something to follow. And and maybe if you're listening, Evan, um, it would be nice for you to come out one year and do a uh relay team at Ultraman and we could watch you racewalk the the double marathon. I think that would be exciting to see.

Steve King

Well, he's also a f phenomenal runner, as you know. He's a 70-minute uh half marathoner, so um he's just a fabulous world-class athlete, that's for sure.

Larry

Now I know that um so you were saying earlier that you were doing some of these um longer races. You got first at the US 50 mile championship and that you did a centurion race, 100 miles in under 24 hours. What the heck does that do to a person's body?

Steve King

It depends on the person, depends how fit they are. I was quite young for someone doing a hundred mile. At the time, I think I was 23, and uh a lot of people were saying you're far too young to be doing 100 miles. They wouldn't say that nowadays, as we know, there's lots of younger people doing way beyond that and uh doing ultraman type races as well in terms of triathlon. Um, but uh the one I did was the Leicester to Skegness, and uh I I wanted to become a member of that club. It's quite an exclusive club. I think they're up to maybe 1,200 uh in the UK now, and it's around the world, but the Centurions Club is well respected, and so I'd wanted to do that, and no one in my uh club at that time, I was a member of the Ilford Athletic Club, I'd done it for quite a few years, so it was neat to be a person who uh got it going again. I think it was like 1972 or something when I finished it, and then we've had about five or six more club members since then that have completed it. Um, but again, you build up like anything else. There are plenty of people who have done a hundred milers nowadays, and uh and if you if you learn from the people who have gone before, uh then you can get through these things reasonably comfortably. But again, terrain makes a difference as well, weather conditions make a big difference, uh nutrition makes a massive difference. But certainly people are putting in the mileage and know how to train these days. Uh people didn't tend to have coaches. We had track and field coaches, but we certainly uh didn't have people who are coaching you for long distance races.

Larry

Yeah, yeah. And and obviously, yeah, the people listening to this podcast were probably gonna be um long distance runners and avid uh ultra marathonners. And I'm sure that they find that you know they get to that place of pain and then they can they can get through and endure. But uh I can only imagine with the hips going side to side uh that has got to be that much worse when you're doing a hundred miles.

Steve King

Well, it look it looks more um painful maybe than it actually is. It's actually quite a natural thing because it's a technical sport. So once you get into it, you realize it it looks funny, let's put it that way. I'll give you that. It does look a bit awkward, but uh it really is quite the technical sport.

Larry

Yeah. Um and then um so as a triathlete, um, obviously you've done a number of races in 1984. You were sixth at Iron Man Canada and second in your age group, which is just amazing. And then um 1994 you came second at Ultraman Canada. That was a little bit different race at the time. The distances were a little bit different. Um it was the first race outside of Hawaii. When you were taking part in UMC at that time, did you feel the Kokua Aloha Ohana that came from the island was part of the early days of Ultraman in Canada?

Steve King

I think it was, and I think it even began slightly before that. Uh as you know, it came here in 1993. Uh, but Lynn Van Duff, who had been very much involved, of course, in I Man Canada since its inception, uh, she also put on an event called Earth Journey. And there was sort of similar distances, and it went on the fabulous Kettle Valley Railway, which is uh a dodgy place to run at times, but uh it was fabulous according to those people who did it. And in fact, Gary Shields, who won the World Ultraman Championships uh three consecutive times, he came over from the Big Island to actually participate in that. Uh but in 1994, what had happened, the the first race was 93, but in 94 we had a serious fire as well. So we could not use Skaha Lake. Uh so we, because of the uh bombers coming down, the water bombers, and they needed to pick up water uh to utilize for the fire, so we had to devise a different course for the swim, and so we ended up doing uh 12 laps in uh Okanagan Lake, and that was going from the peach to the SS Sycamus, for those people who know that, it's just shy of a kilometer, and uh so we did that, and the reason we did that it was probably I would say 11 kilometers or something, was because we had put previously the Skaha Lake Ultra Swim as part of the Ultraman, and that's 11.8 kilometers, so we were trying to do something around that same distance.

Larry

That's um something that's very common in the summer in British Columbia. We do have those forest fires. Um back in 2019, we had to uh adjust the course again, uh, most recently due to a forest fire for the for the bike course. And Iron Man, of course, has gone on with some really heavy smoke from fires, and and that's something that's just part of the elements and part of the race when you when you come to Canada and are part of that race.

Steve King

Well, you remember well uh Brad Sawa leaping off the boat that he'd had to pick up to come from Pentikton, and he gets there and he he hears that there's a fire on the Rick to pass. So things were adjusted very, very quickly, and athletes and crews and organizers have to do that.

Larry

And and the crews were were just amazing to be able to adjust to those things, I think. And the athlete mentally suddenly they think they know the course and then they they have to you know adjust. So be prepared for that if you're coming to race at Ultraman Canada, I think, or our Iron Man Canada.

Steve King

Yeah, so now we have exactly the same format as they do on the Big Island and elsewhere. And just to reiterate, the reason I mentioned that again about '94 is because we split them up uh one discipline per day. So we had to swim on day one, and then the bike was uh a double century, 200 miles, as opposed to the 260 when you combine them today.

Larry

So yeah, the the the race has evolved and and changed a little bit. Uh you as an endurance runner, um, I I looked through the the resume again, and it looks like uh you were racing endurance races over four different decades. Um, through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s. Um you've done the 50 mile championships instead of Canadian record in 1979 in the US, the 1989 Western States, 100 Mile, um, 1997 winner of the inaugural Haney to Harrison 100 kilometer. That was a great race here in the lower mainland of uh British Columbia, that's unfortunately no more. The 1999 Comrades Marathon in South Africa, which I'm sure is probably one of your highlights. And then in 2001, fourth overall at Badwater in Death Valley. I don't know if maybe it's one of those or maybe something else that you've done, but what are one of the things that stand out for you as one of the life-changing experiences? Because I think the people who are doing these events and who are listening to this podcast, you're you're doing it to find out what's that life-changing experience that I can have in racing. And and one of the things I want this podcast to do is have people share what these things mean so that more people can be inspired to go out and try them. So so what was yours? What's what's the big inspiration in your endurance career?

Steve King

Well, I would say there were two that really stand out for me. Uh, the first would be um the Comrades Marathon. That was everything I dreamt of. In fact, on my website, I I wrote a story about that because it had been a dream for well over 25 years. I had heard about that race uh uh since I, you know, I was running. Um the history of it always amazed me, the the names that would pop up and the and the sort of speed these guys were able to run. But then hearing more about the course and like 33 hills, and every year it changes direction and the sheer volume of people. When I did it, I think there were like uh 14,000 people that were doing it, and now there's around 20,000. You were given 11 hours in which to complete it. Now I think it's 12 hours. Uh, but they're exact. I mean, there's some of the stories, not only of the winners, but the final person gets almost as much publicity because they have these guys, I think they're rugby team members, they they hold hands here and they block you. If you're one second off that time, they literally block you. So there's a lot at stake, but it was a fabulous event because um it's covered live on TV for the entire duration, which is stunning. You imagine if we had 12 hours of hockey going on here. I mean, people would love it, but it's uh it'd be unusual. Hockey desk, COVID conditions or something, yeah. Uh and that race turned out to be absolutely everything. We planned a big holiday around it as well. Uh, but I'd had some support from some i-Man competitors, a dear friend of mine, Rob Leverton, got stirred some people up to sort of support me there. So I really appreciate that because Rob was originally from South Africa and he had done the event himself. So uh I was thrilled to be at the start line. It was an ultraman uh um who uh was there, Brian Keeling was his name. He had come and done Canada, and he invited me to come there and uh stay with him and his wife, uh Merin, and we did so. Uh we got there to the race start, and we couldn't even get into the starting corral because it was blocked off. So we had to wait till a lot of people went past, and then they allowed us to jump over a fence and get going. My initial memory was also of um that by this time the uh colored people could do the race, and that was so stirring because they had been banned for so many years, and they played special songs, a Timbonanga, a Johnny Clegg uh song with Sabuka, if you've ever heard that. It was so stirring. And uh Nelson Mandela was there, so again, it was just fabulous to be a part of that. And then the good thing is I accomplished all my goals, but I never forget the million people that were lining the routes, uh 30,000 people in the stadium at the finish line. It was everything you could dream of. And my race was a good race. I was the top Canadian, I wanted to get top ten in my division, which I did, and uh and uh I broke seven and a half hours, and that had been my goal.

Larry

Yeah, that's that's amazing. Now, when you say a million people, is that an exaggeration?

Steve King

No, it literally is not. Um, my wife could not get to the front of the crowd in three or four places, she stopped because they were three or four deep. So she was waving at me, and I could hear her yelling, and uh that made the difference when I could look over it, but it was just a mass of people almost the entire way.

Larry

Amazing, amazing. I can only imagine. Um, and and I think one of the things that you you said there that that stood out for me is you were talking about how it was your connection to these other Ultraman and Iron Man people that helped you to get there. And and it it seems to me that that's what the whole ultra family is about, is there's always someone that you can that you can call up and say, Look, I'm thinking about doing this event. What do you know? And they will give you all of the advice that they have and a place to stay and a cooler or whatever you need, right?

Steve King

Like, yeah. Absolutely. That is the family, the Johanna that people talk about, where you've got a lot of people who have done the event before and they want to crew for somebody, or people who love to crew. Look at yourself. You you enjoy crewing, and then after a number of years, people have heard about people like yourself, and so you're in great demand, and it gives the ability for each of us to get to know each other in in our own uh communities, our own countries. There are people who've Traveled all over the world doing different events, and they're not necessarily going there to do a triathlon, they're going there to visit with friends.

Larry

Yeah, yeah, and yeah, the family I think is is such an amazing part of the whole thing.

Steve King

You also mentioned Bad Water, so I definitely want to mention that because um Bad Water was such a very special event for me. I was uh I was injured and things weren't improving, and I knew I was probably getting to the end of my career. So uh being a counselor, I sort of had to talk with myself about that, and I I sort of posed the question to myself if you if you um if you were to quit in the next little while, would you have any regrets? Would there be an event that you would regret not doing? And it immediately, literally within seconds, uh the bad water 135 came to mind. And uh I I'd known the the weird thing is I picked up a book uh by Rich Beno a couple of years earlier, and it was uh the Death Valley 300. He and another gentleman had been the first people to not only do Death Valley uh but to go back again. And he wrote this book, but I chose not to read it because I was scared that if I read it, I would then want to go out and do it. But the weirdest thing happened, I was commentating at the Royal Victoria Marathon as it was then, and Rich Beno was a guest of honor um along with his wife. And uh so uh Rich and Rhonda were there, and I said to him, If I were to do bad water, is there any chance you and Ronda would be willing to crew for me? So again, it comes back to crew. And he said, Yes. I so why don't you enter? So that's what happened. I entered, they were my crew, along with uh my wife and two other friends, and uh it was the most incredible experience ever. It was just something very special. I would say, as opposed to a race experience, to me that was a spiritual experience.

Larry

Oh, really? Yeah. Um so tell me tell me a little bit more about how that would uh play out then for you as a as a spiritual experience.

Steve King

Well, because I knew I hadn't been able to do the training I would have wanted, it was very limited uh because of my injuries. I had major knee problems. Um but I knew I had this history, this cellular memory, so to speak, from years of doing uh long distance events or training over the years. And I also love the heat. However, the heat down there is something different. We're looking at temperatures, you know, 125, 130 degrees. Um I was not used to that. And so even though I went out locally and did a few long walks and occasional jog, um it's hard to prepare your body and your mind. Uh, but I I knew I could dig deep if I needed to based on my history. And so I asked Rich, I said, Do you still have the clothing you wore from your 300-mile journey? He said, Yes. I said, Any chance you could bring that with you. So I ended up using this long-sleeve thing as well. Um, but during the nighttime, that's when it really started to open up as a spiritual experience for me because we all got lights and all you could see sometimes a stream of lights. Getting through the the um the first, I'd say 12 hours was the toughest, probably, because the heat of the day. But at nighttime, even going up some of the three major passes, uh, the the heat was still way up there. It was in the uh high 90s, even.

Larry

Yeah.

Steve King

And so, but what happens is you've got the silence, and that silence was amazing. And then out of the blue, I'm looking up and I'm seeing shooting stars. I must have seen half a dozen of those. And then there was a jets that were in training at night time, they come swooping down, and and it is mind-blowing at times.

Larry

I remember that as well, yeah.

Steve King

Yeah, it really is something else. And then, of course, the closer you get, and you you're suddenly uh maybe at Lone Pine and you're looking up at Mount Whitney. I thought I had it made in the shade as I was uh coming into Lone Pine. If someone had said to me, uh, what do you think you could do or how are you doing at this point, I would have said, Not too bad at all. I'm really happy. But then with um about 15 miles to go, I I sat down for a moment and could not get up. My knees seized right up. So I'd reflected on quickly, I'd seen a uh a film called Running to the Sun uh about the Death Valley event, and there were two sisters in that, uh uh Angelica and Barbara, and uh I'd seen them or one of them using ski poles. So I did I had decided to take ski poles with me just in case. And as as I tried to get up and realized I couldn't, I asked someone to get me the ski poles, and I managed to walk on them for quite a while until a friend of mine, as we're going up the hill, um, my friend Murray Coates said to me, Steve, you look like you could stand up on your own right now. You know, why don't you try it? So I handed him the ski poles and I was able then to racewalk my way as best I could to the finish line because it's 13 miles just going straight up there.

Larry

That last part is is killer.

Steve King

Yeah. Yeah.

Larry

Yeah. Yeah. I remember because I I was uh there again as a crew with my ex-wife Lucy Ryan. And um, yeah, some of those spiritual experiences that you're talking about. I mean, even as the crew person there, I maybe even took it in a little bit more than she did because she was, you know, hallucinating and having all those troubles. And she had a few troubles along the way. But yeah, I remember going into that one valley, and you you all you can see across is the the lights of the cars following their athletes up the mountain on the other side, and it's it there were some amazing times out there in the in the quiet and the and in the Star Wars set. I believe part of the Star Wars movie was out there in one of those little desert scenes.

Steve King

Just outside of Lone Pine, that's where they used to film a lot of the cowboy movies as well.

Larry

But in my day job, uh I'm a high school PE teacher, as as you know, and um I've literally had a chance to coach thousands of athletes uh in my in my time at both in school and in community um coaching. And I I found out that we have something in common is that um for about six years I was coaching in Special Olympics. I was coaching uh floor hockey in the winter and softball in the summer, and I saw on your website that uh you were coaching a special uh athlete named Fred Johnson who went all the way to the World Games.

Steve King

He did indeed.

Larry

And can you maybe share a little bit about uh what that experience like as being the coach now and not necessarily the athlete and and what can you get out of being the coach and uh and that particular experience maybe with with Fred?

Steve King

Well, thank you for bringing that up. Actually, I don't know if you can see on a wall behind me, but there's a photo I've got of him actually leading in the 400 meters. He ended up winning gold at the world championships. Uh but it was a fascinating story because um I believe sometimes that there's a reason for something that happens to us that we can't quite see at the time. And I was injured, and every time I've gotten injured, I've always thought, okay, um, let's work on the basis that maybe there's something else I'm meant to be doing at this time. Within a couple of days of this injury, I received a phone call uh from the organization that looks after Special Olympians here in town. And they said, Steve, we've got this young man, uh, his name's Fred Johnson. Um, we believe he has some running talent. Is there any way you would care to coach him or be willing to? And I said, Yeah, let me meet with him. And uh, wonderful guy. And uh we got along very well, went down to the track, and uh so we ended up going to the BC Games and he won there. Uh we worked, we focused on the mile and the 400 meters, and then we went to National Games, he did very well there, made the team and won again. But uh then we went down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for the World Games, and lots of members of the Kennedy family and all sorts of film stars were there. So it was a glorious time for them in the parades and everything. Uh, but the most exciting thing for me was the fact that um the local radio station had asked me to phone in uh with details about what was going on, about the experience. We're in the stadium, and I'm down at the bottom screaming and yelling, and uh, here's Fred. He wins the uh silver in the mile. Really excited because he knocked four seconds off his personal best. Then he does the 400 meters a couple of days later and wins the gold in a personal best. And uh so I was ecstatic, and I just after the events, I'm phoning the radio station. The noise of the crowd was such that I couldn't hear what was being said on the at the other end. So I just said to them, Well, look, guys, I can't hear you, but I'm gonna tell you what's just happened anyway. So I gave them the story. When we arrived home, and we had gone down with a group of uh uh about 20 people. Uh others uh were also special Olympians, but weren't necessarily doing the track and field, they hadn't made the team, but they came down with us to support Fred. And uh when we arrived at Penticton Airport, the mayor and about three or four hundred people were there to greet him.

Larry

Wow.

Steve King

And then that year he became the uh Penticton person of the year.

Larry

Amazing.

Steve King

Yeah. So a very special story, and Fred's still doing very nicely.

Larry

Well, this seems like a good place for us to take a quick break. And when we come back, I'll talk to Steve about how he became a race announcer. Actually, I decided to split Steve's interview over the first three episodes because there is such great content. So you can hear the rest in episodes two and three. And who out there doesn't love to hear a great Steve King story? Well, you're in luck. Steve has agreed to do a segment for me on each and every podcast, and I'm calling that segment Steve King Stories, of course. Steve has free reign to choose the stories he wants to tell. So in every episode, you'll be able to get another tidbit of ultra information from the voice of Ultraman. One more reason to subscribe to this podcast. Speaking of repeating segments, I also have a short called Crew Stories. What happens on the road gets told at the awards banquet. And now I want you to share those stories here. If you have a story from crewing or about someone who crewed for you at any ultra race, it doesn't have to be an ultraman. Please send it to me at 515Ultraman at gmail.com. And I will put it into one of our future episodes. All you have to do is make a voice recording on your phone, preferably using your headphone mic for good sound quality. Introduce yourself, introduce your athlete, what race it was at, and in what year. Then just go ahead and tell your story. You can also create a one-person Zoom meeting and use the recording there. If you send me that video, I can put that onto the Facebook page and help promote it. And here's our first cruise story. By

Crew Stories : Larry Ryan about Ross Welton (2016)

Larry

yours truly. I thought that I would be the first one to share a cruise story with you since that is my background in the ultra sport world. I have crewed nine 515 distance races and a number of ultra marathons. This particular story is from 2016. Myself, my recently ex-wife Lucy Ryan, and Katie Kebel, as she was known at the time, were crewing for UK athlete Ross Welton in the Ultra 520. Lucy and I had crewed for Ross in the same race the year previous, in which he unfortunately became ill on day one and just finishing became his goal. And he did barely. He had 16 minutes to spare on day three of the double marathon. So he had to come back in 2016 to get his revenge on the race. On day two of that one, on the bike course between Bromley Rock and Princeton, we the crew decided to hop out and get a shot on the GoPro of us cheering Ross as he whizzed by the crew vehicle. We were dialed in as a crew that year. The race was going great for Ross this time, and he was in the lead feeling great. I set up the GoPro on top of the van and we lined ourselves up to shoot a selfie as he flew by with a big thumbs up. We pile back into the van and get ready to drive ahead to Princeton to set up for a quick nutrition stop by the Petrocan gas station to prepare for the final out and back. This was going to be an actual stop for him with some solid food. Only as we're pulling away, I hear the sound of the GoPro rolling along the roof and falling off the back of the van. I slammed on the brakes as quick as I could, we all piled out, and we started scouring the shoulder of the road, looking for the GoPro. Unfortunately, a GoPro is about the same size as many of the rocks on the side of the road. So at first we ran back desperately searching the shoulder, no luck. We walked back toward the van a little bit slower, looking carefully, still no luck. And I started getting a little bit concerned, not so much for the GoPro per se, but for the footage that would be lost. I knew Ross would be peed. Maybe when it hit the ground, it bounced off the shoulder and into the tall grass at the side of the road. So now we start looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Five minutes has passed and nothing. Ten minutes goes by and we're still not having any luck. After about maybe 15 minutes, we decide we can't leave Ross alone any longer and we need to go catch up. We're heading back to the van when I see on the back wiper blade the little square GoPro sitting there. By the time we caught up with Ross, he was already through Princeton and we had missed that important nutrition stop, and his bottle was dry. The good news is it did not put him into any deficit. Ross went on to finish day three as the champion, and he ran the entire day three with my co-race director, Brad Sawa, who finished second overall in the race. Two years later, the four of us all reunited at the race to crew for Katie, now newly married and with the last name, Welton. Katie was the women's champion in 2018. I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to Ross's YouTube video channel, and then you'll be able to watch his video from that race and see the actual footage of the GoPro. In each

2021 Ultraman Canada Athlete Profile -- Chad Bentley

Larry

episode, I want to do an athlete profile on one of the athletes who is competing at Ultraman Canada in July. My guest today has gone from overindulging in everything to balancing nearly everything. He's gone from being rad to epic, he's gone from being an athlete to a coach, he has competed in multiple Ultraman distance races, and was the first Canadian to complete the Epic Five Challenge. Joining me from his home in Deep Cove, North Vancouver, Canada, a guy that I find to be incredibly positive and always a calming presence, I would like to welcome to the 515 podcast my friend Rad Chad Bentley. Welcome, Chad.

Chad Bentley

Thanks for having me, Mary. Yeah, thanks for having me. This is uh this is awesome. I'm glad to be here.

Larry

Yeah. Um, so I I'm gonna guess that it was your wife Mary Jo who came up with the moniker of Rad Chad as a way to uh brand you a little bit, or is that an older nickname from way back when?

Chad Bentley

No, it's actually uh uh a friend of hers gave her a shirt that actually said Rad Chad on it. It was actually the country Chad in Africa, and she just kind of branded me with that with that tagline, I guess, Rad Chad. So anybody that's listening to this that knows Mary Jo, she's uh that's she's uh she's in marketing and she's an ad copywriter, so everything has to be branded, and yeah, so it's stuck.

Larry

Yeah, it definitely has stuck, I'd say, yeah. Um so your your call to ultra is has come from a place that's not uncommon to a lot of people that are getting involved in Iron Man and Ultraman circles. As I said in the intro, in the early 2000s, you were overindulging in pretty much everything. What was your life like in those days? Was it was it totally rad for you at that time?

Chad Bentley

No, it my life was not rad in the uh I'm gonna say in in in the most of the 90s up into the early early 2000s. Um I was uh a heavy, heavy drinker. Uh you know, probably smoked one to two packs a day. And by 2004, I was up up to about 250 pounds. So it's uh um emotional eating and self-sabotage, you know, basically self-abuse, just to uh uh you know try to deal with uh certain mental health issues that aren't uncommon to people, um, certain levels of anxiety and depression. And uh so yeah, I had to had to make a dramatic shift in my life, and uh that shift was towards health and wellness.

Larry

Yeah, and and I think you know, when I look through the applications of people applying for Ultraman, uh even in the last year and a half, there's probably been four applications that have that same background of people that were way off the other side, and then you know, they they had to turn their life around, and then maybe they turned their addictions in a different way towards sport and and and things like that. Um, so I I think where you're coming from is not uncommon with the with the Iron Man crowd and and the people that have that same mentality.

Chad Bentley

Yeah. There was one evening I was uh uh my wife and I ended up on the east coast of Canada and we were at a wedding, and I noticed around this wedding that nobody would smoke, so I'd sneak away and have a cigarette, I'd be all by myself, just you know, too embarrassed to actually smoke in front of anybody. And that was the early 2000s where it was starting to, you know, smoking wasn't acceptable. But anyway, I was sitting there having dinner with a couple that I didn't know, and for some reason I had ordered a surf and turf meal, I had an appetizer, and I had two pints of beer. And this stranger said to me, He goes, Hey buddy, do you ever worry about having a heart attack? And that was 2004, and that's when I I had this extreme embarrassment that came over me, and I felt like I had just hit rock bottom. That was it for me, and uh that was that was the pain that actually got me to uh look at at finding a little purpose in my life and and shifting my life. It was uh in 2005, I did the CIBC Run for the Cure of 5K, and that actually changed my life. A 5K run changed your life for a CIBC run for the cure, downtown Vancouver. It was like wow, all these people running and the crowds and everything. This this is great. And then from there I never I never looked back. You know, I I wanted to meet new people, so I joined a triathlon club. I was living in the Tri-Cities at the time in Port Moody, and uh I met such a great group of athletes there. There's some amazing, some uh an amazing uh uh triathletes that come from Port Moody and Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, and all that area.

Larry

And and these these are these are areas that are the suburbs of Vancouver.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, yeah. And and uh so I met some new people and sort of training, you know, open water swim training and biking, and and I got the opportunity to spend the night in line signing up for Iron Man. I think that might have been the last year that people were doing that. It was for the 25th anniversary.

Larry

Yeah, so that was a big race.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, on my triathlon memories, I just absolutely loved uh that year leading up to the 2007 Iron Man Canada. It was just it was phenomenal.

Larry

And and obviously that also relates to the idea of what it's like to go to Penticton for for the Iron Man and the beauty of that course, and and our Ultraman course obviously uses much of that as well. And everybody's so happy that the Iron Man Canada has moved back to Pentikton again. And well, I'd say most people are happy that it's moved back to Penticton again. And you know, Ultraman's been happening there since 1993 as well. And and you just you can feel it in the city that it's a it's a tri city.

Chad Bentley

It is, yeah. Yeah, Penticton's the second home for me, so uh it I spend a lot of time there, and and when you pull into town, it definitely has this feeling. There's there's some like the athletes that are you know hovering around, and I know there are Olympia there are Olympians that live there and these unbelievable, like local traffic. It's just it's super impressive.

Larry

Yeah. And and you and I we we met in twenty Um, you were talking about all the great people that you met in the Tri-Cities Um club, and one of those people is my ex-wife, Lucy Ryan, and she was doing Ultraman Canada. And I don't know if you had signed up for the race at this point or you were just thinking about doing it.

Chad Bentley

I was, I think I was up in Penticton, and Lucy needed somebody last minute to crew with you.

Larry

Yeah, yeah, I was obviously there. Yeah.

Chad Bentley

I had heard of the race, but to be honest with you, I always thought there's no way I could do that race. That's what I, you know, that's I still had doubts about my athletic abilities, I guess, as far as endurance goes.

Larry

Yeah.

Chad Bentley

And uh, but I got the opportunity to come and crew with you and and witness firsthand uh what that race had to offer. And and uh, I remember how blown away I was watching Lucy. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, Lucy was the one that actually introduced me to the uh the ultra world.

Larry

So and and she will totally tell everybody as well. She wants to claim credit for what you've become in the ultra world by saying that she's the one who got you hooked.

Chad Bentley

I think she introduced Brad to it too, didn't she?

Larry

No, but Lucy and I crewed for Brad in 2012 when he did his first.

Chad Bentley

So thanks, Lucy.

Larry

There you go, Lucy. You got your shout out on the on the Chad episode. All right, so Chad, you you did four uh Ultraman distance races, including the worlds in 2016, and we've talked about the following year in 2014 after you crewed in 2013. Uh oh, by the way, for for anybody that does want to come out and do the race, that is the way to do it. Come out and crew first, see what this is all about, and find out the little secrets and tidbits that you want to do. Like, would you suggest that that would also be the best way to do it?

Chad Bentley

Oh, yeah. It is, it's it's you know, very insightful into the race, but it is a blast. And you walk away, and when you're done, you feel like you've made all these new friends from all over the world.

Larry

So yeah, you just get to enjoy it in another way as a crew member versus as an athlete.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, you feel sad when the weekend's over, that's for sure.

Larry

Um, so uh you you go through your other Ultraman races, you're you're building up, and then you decide that um rad Chad's not enough, you gotta be Epic Chad, and you sign up to do the Epic Five challenge in Hawaii. Um can you just give us a quick Coles notes or Cliff Notes on what that event is and and how it works?

Chad Bentley

Uh the Epic Five is it's five Ironmans in five days on five different Hawaiian Islands. So, and you've you bring a crew with you, and Lucy, she came over with me and she was my crew chief. And uh who else was on that crew?

Larry

Let's give some shout-outs to the rest of your crew.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. Um uh Dana Montgomery and Rich, her husband Rich, um, Rich Fraser, and Matt Hill. And uh it was it was it was a good time. I gotta say, there were some extreme highs and uh extreme lows, but it was uh uh it was the I I wouldn't change anything that happened because it it built I think it added a little bit of character you know to myself just from the things that we all went through.

Larry

Right. So in in a in a race like that, obviously just completing each day in the required time is a huge challenge, but because you're also island hopping and going to a new island every day, you also have a ton of race logistics that you have to take care of. These are major factors that will determine your success or not. So, what sorts of things do you need to work out, or does your crew need to work out as far as keeping all of that kind of thing in the background working so that you can successfully do your swim bike run each day?

Chad Bentley

Yeah, the the the crewing aspect of that race is is it's unbelievable. I mean, how hard the people actually have to work and the lack of sleep that they get. So yeah, you you you know, you're you travel over there with your bike and it's packed in your bike box, and you have all your all your gear that you need to do an Ironman in each of those five days. But at the end of each day, you know, you have you have crew support or bike support with the race, and at the end of the day, they rip your bike apart and you have to you have to take it with you from island to island. So and then you have to clean out your crew vehicle. So but when you're done uh one of the days as the athlete, you want to just eat as much as you possibly can, um, get ready to get on the plane the next morning, uh, and and make sure that you're restocked again for fuel.

Larry

Yeah. So then the crew is obviously un totally unpacking and repacking the entire thing. Yeah, that's that's quite the undertaking.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, you don't you don't get there and then check into your nice condo. It's basically you get off the plane, you go straight to the start, you you do your swim, and that that you know, while the swim's going on, they get organized for the ride, and then and then as the day progresses or as the race progressed, you uh you know, you tried the the crew members would try to kind of swap their time out so they could rest and and whatnot. So but it was uh it was interesting. It's it's a it's a major role to go over there and and crew for that race.

Larry

Yeah. Now when you make that jump from going from Iron Man to Ultraman, obviously you're gonna ramp up your mileage and your training a little bit to to handle those new distances. Is there another jump to train for doing these five Ironmans in a row? Is it is it the difference of having like one kid and then two when everything's exponentially harder? But then if you get to like three or more, it's really it's not any more work. Like, is it is it more training, or at that point you're like, no?

Chad Bentley

I just worked off of that existing existing endurance base and picked out uh I think I had three big blocks that I did. So I would pick a uh uh three separate weeks out of my training uh overall training plan, and then I would do some big swims, big bikes, followed by big runs. Always did big brick days.

Larry

Yeah, yeah. So those those brick workouts are are key to to getting into that kind of time and distance.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, and you know, when I look back on it, I mean the only thing that really got me through Epic V was probably the mind more than anything. I mean, the the body was so beat up you know, it's it's just you know, are you gonna quit or are you just gonna keep going? Right. The decision was just to keep going.

Larry

And and and that's and that's what happens with ultra athletes, right? Is the mind is the the most powerful tool that you have as far as getting through these races, and and the people that do ultra, they have that. And the ones that don't have that don't do ultra, you know, like so. Um now that you've brought that up, what uh what was what were some of those like opportunities where you had to use your your your mind to to get you've had a number of trials in this race, and hopefully we can get into a few of those. But since you've brought up the the mental aspect of it, maybe just tell us a little bit about where where you were with your your mental training and then how that got you over a particular hump if you had a story for that.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, I mean I could I I mean as far as the the the whole Epic Five started off on uh uh an interesting uh level with the with the weather.

Larry

Yeah, you had Mother Nature against you before the race even started.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, it was during hurricane season. So when I was leaving Vancouver to go to Hawaii, my my flight actually got delayed because Hurricane Lane was going through Hawaii. So we were I was concerned it wasn't even gonna happen. I thought they were gonna cancel it. And so I made I got my way to Oahu, and then by that time it was Tropical Storm Lane. So um, so we spent one night um in in Oahu, and then we flew to Kawaii the next morning. And by the time we got to Kauai, it was full-on tropical storm. It was there were flood alerts on our phones, uh, you know, pounding wind and and rain like I'd never seen before. It was insane. I was like, this is this is crazy. And uh so they had to adjust the race and they made it a pool swim. And uh we did nine 20-kilometer loops on the bike, and then we ran 5k loops around a golf course. So, right off the bat, that's that kind of messes with you mentally.

Larry

Yeah, trying trying to do those laps and seeing the same thing and keeping track of the laps and where am I?

Chad Bentley

And well, you this is not what I planned for.

Larry

This is not it's not the race that I mentally prepared for.

Chad Bentley

Everybody's like, Oh, you're gonna be doing an Iron Man on on Kauai, it's where they film Jurassic Park, it's gonna be spectacular, you know. All the all the you know, all the vegetation around Hawaii. Well, I I didn't really get to see that. I was riding through puddles that were like two feet deep, and like it was floods, like it was insane. I ripped my good pair of bike shoes in half, like they were so wet, they were old, I should have, but they were so comfortable. And right, and uh so anyway, by the time that day ended, and uh by the time it ended, actually the sun had come out, like it was it was drying up, and uh, but my feet were from the humidity and all that rain, my feet were like I sat in a bathtub for you know 24 hours, like it was you could have felt it, you could have taken the skin and just peeled them right off the bottoms of my feet. Yeah, it was crazy. So, right from day one, I was screwed with blisters, right? Yeah, and it was there was just I mean, what were you gonna do? I was it was just it was painful. So, you know, you wrap up your feet every day as much as you can, and you you just get over there and get them warm and just keep going.

Larry

So um it you you're having this one image in your mind of oh, I'm gonna go to Hawaii, it's gonna be beautiful, I'm gonna do these five Iron Man's, everything, and then it's completely turned on its head, it's pouring rain, you're going through the puddles, your feet turn into little stumps that are falling apart, and you got to get up and start race number two. Yeah, where where where do you get the mental fortitude then to say, I'm gonna power through this? Like, what's going through your mind?

Chad Bentley

Yeah, so so that so that too, when we were done in Kauai, right as soon as we finished day one, we only had time to go through a drive-thru at McDonald's, which I do not eat anymore. And we ran through McDonald's and and uh the only thing, you know, I'll eat uh I'll eat fish once in a while. And so you flay a fish to fuel you up for the next morning, and straight to the airport. That's it. So you you throw on your compression pants and you're sitting there in the on the on the uh you know, lying down on the floor of the airport, and then you get to the next island. By the time you check into your condo, it was, I think it was one in the morning. It's crazy.

Larry

And then you're this is why people call it epic, right?

Chad Bentley

Yeah, and then you're up at, I think we were probably up by the crew got up a little bit before me, but we were probably on the road by 4 30, 5 in the morning heading to the swim start.

Larry

Yeah.

Chad Bentley

So, you know, having that new being on a new island, that kind of gives you that motivation. Well, you're gonna have new scenery and the weather was better. So that was like, okay, let's let the let's get this going.

Larry

So you you you take more of a this is a fresh start attitude to it rather than I'm in the hole now because of what happened yesterday.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, and you're and you're also looking forward to doing a uh a nice ocean swim, and it was in a nice protected area. Uh, so that was that was really appealing as well. And that you know, you go for a nice swim and the salt water wakes you up and you feel a lot better. So but day two turned out to be super tough.

Larry

Like day one was actually easier because day two, I got lost for I've heard you actually got lost a few times during the race.

Chad Bentley

Oh, yeah, like completely lost, went the wrong way. I don't know how many kilometers I would have added on, but I think probably in total, probably got lost for I I'm if I can remember correctly, it was you know easily over two hours. So, and then I got lost coming right going back into transition to transition into the run. I got lost, didn't know where to go, couldn't find my crew. I had to go into a Starbucks, borrow a guy's phone, uh a tourist that was visiting away, phone Mary Joe in Vancouver and get, I think it was Matt Maddie's uh phone number and find out where they were. And they were literally like maybe 500 meters away from me.

Larry

But you had to do the the call to Vancouver to find out they were 500 meters away.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, I was I was uh yeah, I gotta say, I had I was a little bit down at that point. You know, I felt like what what the hell am I doing? This is this is crazy, and and the bike ride was really tough. Like it was just wind. Like, I don't know, people that have people be listening to this that have done you know 100 men in Hawaii and and whatnot. I mean, it's just it's a windy place when you're riding along the ocean. So it was it's just it wasn't easy. So yeah, but it it worked out okay.

Larry

Yeah, and and you get through your your your five days and you you have a few more trials, and but you get to the finish line, and it it's a it's a grand finish line, right? Like there's like thousand people there lined up and cheering, and there's like music playing. Like, what's the finish line like?

Chad Bentley

Uh two people holding uh like a finish tape, you know, up and you just cross it and there's two people there. That's it. You're just in the middle of the neighborhood somewhere.

Larry

So you're not doing it for the glory.

Chad Bentley

No, there's there's nobody cheering you on. So yeah.

Larry

I did speak with Lucy about your race uh prior, and and she said that you were like, you know, as you said, wrapping up your feet and and taking care of things after the race, and and and you were talking about how hard it was and that it was so hard and there were so many trials that you loved it, and it was like your most favorite race ever. Was that a fair statement? Did she did she get that right?

Chad Bentley

Yeah, you know, it it was uh it's interesting because on on the fourth day on Maui, I think I had like three flat tires on the way back. So it was a big out and back for the bike ride. So then it's pitch black. It's probably I think it would it was probably around 10 at night, end up getting like four flat tires. You know, you got lights, you got these big lights on your bike and everything like that. And I remember thinking to myself, I I felt like I was almost on a high stopping helping fix the flats, like I wasn't getting down or anything. It made me it almost energized me.

Larry

Yeah, you know, it was just so the more adversity you faced, the the better the race got.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, and you know, it's and and I had I was raising money for charity as well. So I picked a charity for a different charity for each Iron Man or each iron distance uh day. So I would think of you know, like Terry Fox, for example. You know, I was you know, I dedicated one of the islands to the Terry Fox Foundation, and it just you know it kept me going. It was it was a motivation, right?

Larry

Yeah.

Chad Bentley

I mean, the fact I could run across Canada, you know, attempt it with cancer in one leg, yeah. I can sure do this.

Larry

So and and for anybody listening from outside of Canada or might not know the Terry Fox story, is uh Terry was just a a young man who uh lost a a leg to cancer, and he came up with this idea that he he was pretty sure he wasn't gonna survive too long. Um, but he wanted to make sure that others would, and he wanted to draw attention to cancer, and so he came up with this idea of running across Canada, and it was called the Marathon of Hope because each day he would run a full marathon and then go find some place to sleep, and then the story is he would put down like a can or a shoe or something on the side of the road, and then the next day he would go back to that exact point on the road and continue his journey. Yeah, I can see how Terry Fox would be a great inspiration to just continue your journey no matter what you were facing.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, yeah, it was actually I I I had dedicated day five, so the final Iron Man to the Terry Fox Foundation. It was it was for I can't it was was it called profile, and it was actually for um uh uh for kids cancer. It was through the Terry Fox Foundation. I can't remember what what it stands for now, but it was like you know, I think 11 o'clock at night biking down the Queen K Highway. You know, it's you're all alone, all you can see are headlights coming up at you, and you're in lava fields. Yeah, you need something to keep you going.

Larry

And that was another time when you when your wife was supporting you and uh she kind of took care of all the the fundraising side of that for you, right? Like it's a little family affair.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, she did. She's she's great at that. So she, you know, yeah, she helped me get it all set up and and you know, helped me raise the the funds and you know, help throw a party and everything like that. So yeah, she she's spectacular, that kind of stuff.

Larry

Yeah, she she is a multi-talented woman. And I should probably point out at this point that I also appreciate her talents because she is the introductory voice of this podcast. So thank you very much, Mary Joe. One of the things I'm hoping to do with the podcast is to make sure that while we get to hear about these great races like you've done in Epic Five, we also get to know a little bit about you as a person. When we all meet together at Ultraman Canada, we have a little bit of background.

2 minutes in Transition

Larry

So I'm gonna go into a second part of this interview where we learn a little more about you personally. And in between, we're gonna do some rapid fire questions with rapid fire answers. I'm calling that two minutes in transition to get us to the other side. How many bikes do you own?

Chad Bentley

Uh let me see here. One, two, three, four bikes.

Larry

And and what's your favorite or your sexiest bike that you have?

Chad Bentley

Well, my my favorite bike. My favorite bike right now is my uh my mountain bike that I just picked up. But uh I haven't bought a new Rathlon bike since 2008.

Larry

Oh, you do.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I usually just go with uh try to get the legs in shape, but but I I love my bike, my my tribe bike. It's a Fiora caliber bought in 2008. It's now permanently attached to my trainer. But uh it's done. I have to get a new one this year.

Larry

What what is the last piece of gear you've purchased?

Chad Bentley

Last piece of gear I purchased. Um probably needs to Hokus.

Larry

That's that's what you go with the Hocus.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, okay.

Larry

Uh what did you go to work out in the customer?

Chad Bentley

I don't work out in this I put uh you both and uh last one yeah. We only released every episode, so I don't have watched so much lately. Like everything.

Larry

Alright, then we're down to the last question because we're out of time. Uh, what do you like to do for fun that does not involve swim, bike, run, or other training?

Part 2 of Chad Bentley

Chad Bentley

Uh well, lately it just you know, because we can't socialize, I like to kick back with Mary Joe and maybe have a glass of wine. Yeah, that's what I would say.

Larry

And and that leads perfectly into the second segment of our interview where we start talking a little bit about more of your family life. So I know that your biggest cheerleaders are obviously the ladies of your life, your your wife Mary Jo and your two daughters. So uh I just wanted to give you a second to give a little shout out to them, maybe do a little daddy brag, tell us what they're into, how you spend time with them in the home life right now, and uh tell tell us tell us what their names are, of course.

Chad Bentley

Okay, well, my wife Mary Joe, which I've been talking, you know, I've been talking about her, and I have uh an eight-year-old daughter, um Juju. That's actually a nickname. Her name's uh Magella, but it's her nickname Juju. Everybody calls her Juju, and uh and little burgess, and everybody calls her Birdie. And she's five. And uh we are kept very, very busy. So whether it's we're at the pool probably right now with with I think five times a week between swim team and diving for my eight-year-old. And then she's in gymnastics as well. And then my youngest daughter is in cheer and gymnastics. So it's it's every night of the week, there's something. And I can't say I'm the one taking them to everything. So Mary Joe's pretty busy. She's yeah, she's driving a lot right now. Oh yeah.

Larry

Yeah, that's the young child life.

Chad Bentley

Yeah.

Larry

So so how do you how do you balance those things? You know, like you're you're you're a real family man. You you balance your family, you have your your full-time training, you work, you have more than one job. So um how how do you find balance on all of those things?

Chad Bentley

Well, you know, there I as far as uh uh balancing everything out, I mean the kids have to come first. So it's kind of work around their schedule now. But mind you, we have a great schedule, so it's easily and and obviously and and communicating with Mary Jo is super important to make sure that we can get everything in that we want to do personally. Um and I'm lucky with my my my career. Um, I can sneak away during the day and hit the pool or go for a run. Um right.

Larry

And and yeah. And and what is it that you're that you're doing that allows you to sneak away during the day? What what pays for all these triathlons that you do?

Chad Bentley

Yeah, I'm I'm uh uh part owner um in a power line construction company. So I do project management. I'm an executive in in the organization. So that's kind of my day day job. So yeah, it it's it's getting busier and busier. So we've we've we have this business since my brothers and I, we grew it from you know, uh a small business to getting on the high side of the medium-sized business in the last you know, five years.

Larry

Oh yeah, you're a little upper middle class now.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, it's getting busier and busier, and and uh, you know, and the kids are getting old as they get older, and I mean you know you've you you've yeah, when the kids get older, it gets busier. So um, as far as training goes, I'm not one of those guys that pulls off these 20 hour, 25 hour weeks. You do what you can and uh you go out and you participate and you hope things go well.

Larry

So and and that's and that's a great attitude. That's that's a great way to uh keep your your balance in your life so that things don't don't get out of balance. And you know, we talked about at the beginning of the interview how things can get out of balance and you can overindulge in things, and and you've obviously come to a place in your life where you've got that balance now and you don't overindulge it anyway, other than maybe in your family.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, it's uh you know, when you're you could be out for those long bike rides and you start to have a little bit of guilt that hits you that you should be at home with the family, or then you know you gotta adjust. And I maybe it means getting up at five in the morning and doing your workouts, and you know, you get it done. I I do that too. I get up early and and uh you know, you get your workouts done before the family's really up and running.

Larry

And so and I I think that's that's a great tip. And uh probably a lot of people that are getting into the ultra distance are definitely utilizing that tip as well. And if they're not, there's there's one for them.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, there's definitely enough time to to get everything done. There's no doubt about that. Because like I did mention, I I do like to finish off my evenings with you know, nine o'clock. I like to be on the couch watching an hour of TV before bed. That's that's just the way I unwind from the day.

Larry

Yeah.

Chad Bentley

And uh, so there is a lot of time in the day where where you can get ready to or get set up to achieve all the goals that you want to do.

Larry

That's for sure. Yeah, and and that's part of what you do now as one of your other jobs that you're doing, and that is coaching people, not not in the physical sense. Uh, you're not a triathlon coach, like many athletes go into triathlon coaching, but you do have a coaching business as well. Uh tell us a little bit about that.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, it's funny. It's as soon as you bring up uh that you're a coach, people automatically presume that uh that I'd be a triathlon coach, but I'm not a I would consider myself uh you know leadership coach or mental coach, breakthrough coach. Um I'm a master uh practitioner of neurolinguistic programming and timeline therapy.

Larry

Hold on, wait, you don't you don't just throw out a line like neurolinguistic timeline therapy without uh giving a little definition for us there, please. So what what exactly does that entail?

Chad Bentley

I'll say neurolinguistic programming is is uh is kind of it could be success modeling, um, helping people communicate better with themselves, you know, as individuals, and we all face it, especially if there's a little bit of mental health issues in there, you know, maybe some mild forms of depression or anxiety or something. It's it could it could go back to the the stories that you tell yourself. Everybody gets down on themselves. I would say your mind can be your worst enemy or your best friend, right? It's if all these unconscious thoughts that we have throughout the day, a lot of them could automatically be filtered through your brain and come in in the form of negative thoughts.

Larry

Right. Yeah, and and a lot of people have those so regularly that they don't even realize what is going on as far as those neuropathways being connected.

Chad Bentley

Yeah, and and you become you become so conditioned to it, and you're you know, and then you all your your belief systems and everything take more of a darker side than looking to the bright side of life.

Larry

Right. And and we've already talked about how you got through Epic Five by just taking that path. So how do you how do you help other people find that path then? How does this therapy work? Well, it's program work.

Chad Bentley

Well, it's so so with uh neurolinguistic programming, there it's that communication with yourself, and then there's timeline therapy, which is um shedding negative emotions. So everybody carries um the five foundational negative emotions in your nervous system, which is anger, sadness, fear, hurt, and guilt. So it's just a uh a series of visualizations that help you get over those negative emotions. And then once you shed those, you can move into limiting decisions and limiting beliefs about yourself. You know, and really it's a matter of committing to changing your thought process. I think it's it's that it really is that simple.

Larry

So so with your um with your program then, is there is there a way? Do you have a website right now that if people listening wanted to check it out and learn more about it, where where could they check that out?

Chad Bentley

Yeah, uh, I have a website, chadvently.com.

Larry

Good name, good name. Yeah, that must have been branded by Mary Joe.

Chad Bentley

I've changed the name a few times.

Larry

So I'm gonna uh end off with one last question, and this is something that I think is really important for the listeners that when they come to this podcast, obviously they want to hear these stories about these great epic races like Epic Five, and they want to hear about some of the fantastic people that you meet and and stories like you've told us today, and thank you for that. And I think they also want to get some, you know, just tangible advice about either training or racing. And now that you've experienced as much as you have looking back for the Iron Man who's ready to move up now to Ultraman, what would be your best piece of advice that you could give someone about training or racing that you either discovered on your own or that you got from someone else?

Chad Bentley

Um I mean, I I've I've had uh as far as the training goes, I I've had the same coach for close to a decade. His name's Sean Callahan. He's he's a great coach. Um, so he he would guide me through you know these big heavy blocks and then you know the rest periods and everything like that. But you know what? I think when if you want to transition from Ironman into the ultra world, I think that people shouldn't overthink it. And don't think it's gonna take up that much more time than training for an Iron Man. And uh, you know, don't be afraid to just dive in there and test yourself. Um I've often said every I think every time I've gone up at the awards banquet and you have to give a little speech, I always always say that I don't care if I ever do another Iron Man again. I would just I'd rather just do ultras. Right. You know, and so if if somebody's thinking about making that transition from Iron Man into the Ultra World, you know, I just say go for it and uh you will not regret it. And you'll love it. I I guarantee you'll love it more than doing Iron Man.

Larry

Well, Chad, I I want to thank you very much for your your time today for doing this interview and and sharing your stories uh and being being nice and open with uh all of the things that you wanted to talk about and that I wanted to talk about. Uh it's been a great conversation, and I'm just still learning how to do these podcasts. So I'm willing to have you back and do this again when I'm really good at it and you've got some more new stories.

Chad Bentley

I've done a few podcasts, and uh this is right at the top. I uh I actually really enjoyed it. So and you're naturally good at it, buddy. Just like you're you're a freaking awesome race director, so okay.

Larry

Thank you for that comment. And let's give you a life.

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Larry Ryan

Host
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Chad Bentley

Guest
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Steve King

Guest