Most ultramarathons are enough to push people to their extremes, but ultra-endurance athlete Robbie Balenger isn’t most people. After discovering running in his 30’s, Robbie became obsessed with the power of human endurance and quickly found that he needed challenges far exceeding standard races to test his limits. So, he started creating his own.
Since then, Robbie has run across America; completed the “Colorado Crush” (running the Leadville Marathon, 50-miler, and 100-miler; climbing every 14er in Colorado; and running the entire Colorado Trail, all in just 2 months); and he recently outran the distance a Tesla Model 3 can travel on a single charge. There’s a lot to unpack there, so we had Robbie walk us through each of these efforts before asking him about the mental side of endurance, how he uses neuroscience to recover faster, and a whole lot more – including, why he swears by a plant-based diet, the magic of potatoes, and what challenge he has planned next.
TOPICS & TIMES:
- Robbie’s background (5:19)
- Travel & settling in Austin, TX (6:05)
- Burning out in the restaurant industry (6:49)
- Robbie’s Trans-Con Challenge (10:05)
- How he trained to run >3,000 miles in 75 days (13:15)
- Using social media with intention (21:00)
- Robbie’s Central Park Loop Challenge (22:57)
- The Colorado Crush (27:02)
- Outrunning a Tesla (31:19)
- NuCalm & mental performance (35:31)
- What Robbie’s days look like now (37:15)
- Plant-based diets: the key to recovery? (40:57)