Ep 1. Tom Brazier – on the rational self and GODZone
Description
In this first episode, I interview Tom Brazier on his most recent adventure race – a 9 dayer in New Zealand by the name of GODzone. Tom is one of Australia’s best ultra-distance runners, having represented Australia in the 2016 World Skyrunning Championships and now one of our best adeventure racers, his team having finished third in the international division of GODZone.
You can find the podcast on iTunes and Castbox.
GODZone is as epic as the name suggests and so I pepper Tom with questions about willpower and mental toughness. We end up covering a lot:
Breaking points: trench foot and team tension
The pathway to such extreme tolerance: ‘How to boil a frog’
Motivation: curiosity, accomplishment, competition, comradery, FOMO
Pre-commitment: remembering why the rational guy wanted to do this
The social side of endurance: chicken and egg, feedback loops, Gonski and the ‘hive-mind’
Will power as ‘consistency of self’: reconciling all the differing parts of ourselves that want different things
Type 3 fun
Optimisation: Flirting with the boundary between enjoyment and the grind
Grit: Angela Duckworth’s ‘substituting novelty with nuance’
Tom has been having cold showers for a year and a half!!
Self-discipline and the attraction to feeling in control
Physiological fundamentals: volume and hydration
Trade-offs in quality of life.
Many thanks to Tom for kicking this off in such good form!