Jere Hartman | "RangeOars Row" | Ep. 1029

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2:02Wherever you go, whatever you haul, go with confidence. Visit TorqueWheels.com to find a retailer near you. Hey everybody, welcome to the Tom Rollins Podcast. Brought to you by Star Bright. We're brought to you by Star Bright today, as always. Star Bright is the maker of an awesome line of products to take care of your boat. That's where I use it most. Whether it's the salt off product or any of the boat cleaning products, Star Bright has you covered. Definitely check them out. They're not only a great company for the products that they have, but they also do a tremendous amount in conservation. And that is certainly important to us all. I am Jerry Hartman and this is the Tom Rollins Podcast. All right, Jerry, how are you, man? Pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. Just enjoying this nice weather. I know. It cooled down a little bit. That's really, that's really great. I, uh, you were recommended as a guest by one of my friends

3:02who also had you on his podcast. And I looked into your story. It's very interesting. There's a couple of different things where right before we started recording, I told you that I had a couple of other guests row across an ocean, which is one of the things that we'll talk about today that you did. They were all former military like you. And then I also have one of my favorite interviews of all time was, this girl, person lady who was an engineer out of Auburn. And she was working in an oil field and she quit her job and just decided she was going to go hike the Appalachian Trail. She was drawn to it. And I know that's, I know that's part of your, part of your story. And so can you, can you bring us up to speed to that point? Like you were a ranger. You go into the army, you're a ranger and you get out and you go to the FBI. And I know that's a very, very condensed story. But what, what made you go into the service?

4:04True story. I felt at a college. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I felt at a college lasted about a semester and it was either work at the local liquor store or join the military. Okay. So chose the military have, have some special operations background in my hit my family history. So I decided to go down that road and, yeah, became an army ranger. Spend some time there before getting to beat up and go into the regular army and finish my career out there. So 19 years total. Retired and then, and then, yeah, another passion was to continue to serve. So I went to the FBI and that's kind of where reality hit that I was not, not in a good place. And so what does that look like when you're, when you're not in a good place? Because you seem to be in a good place in there when you were a ranger and you were in service, right? Yeah. I don't know if I necessarily was, but you don't have the time to slow down to realize that you're not in a good place.

5:08And once all the, you know, the deployments and the constant training is over and you really get to look at yourself. And also there's no structure you're on your own. So you're going from a structured world to no structure. And I ended up by saying two years, putting on maybe 50 pounds and just and sitting in the dark. And that was my life. Wow. And that's working. What kind of work were you doing that you can tell us about it? The FBI, it's a smaller unit. It's called the terrorist screening center. It's up in Vienna, Virginia. And basically you just screen bad people to make sure. Get more information on them. And that's that's pretty much it. And so how long did you do that? Two years. Okay. So two years. And then one day, I mean, it probably wasn't one day. It was a culmination of many days, probably of realizing that this isn't what you want to do. What did that? What did that look like? How did you know that was that you just didn't want to do that enough that you're going to quit?

6:09Change your career. Do whatever. I don't know what comes next. Yeah. I was, uh, it was a few months, I would say, of looking for things on the internet. I would just look and I finally found the Appalachian Trail. And, um, and one of my supervisors had a picture of himself when he was in the service. And he was just, you know, Jack guy. And then I would look at him the way he was then and he wasn't that guy anymore. And that's when I had the realization when I looked at pictures of myself that I wasn't that guy anymore either. And I was, I was going down a dark road. So, uh, it was my two year review. And I, I went in, got my review and then told them I'm resigning it. And, you know, I'll give them till Christmas and then I'm out. And resigned from the FBI and bought all my gear for the Appalachian Trail and started hiking. Did you know that you were going to quit the FBI the morning that you went in there? No. I mean, I had thought about it, but, uh, I mean, you know, I never really got to talk to my supervisor.

7:13So I had him in a room. It just all just came to, to a head and decided to believe. Is that a big decision for you in your life? Or was it, was it a relief? It was a relief. It was a relief. And then, I mean, don't get me wrong. If I've been in a better place in my life, it was a dream job. It was, it was a very rewarding job, but I just wasn't, I wasn't in the right head spot, based to, to do the job. And how long did it take you to get on the Appalachian Trail? Um, I think two, two months after that. Okay. And you obviously had a lot of experience outdoors camping as a ranger. The story that I was telling you before Jessica Dixie Mills, who became a triple crowner, actually. And after she had become a triple crowner, I was asking her about her experience. And she said she had never once been camping. Before she hit the Appalachian Trail, and she said, you know, the funny thing is, I've only really been camping three times.

8:15One was the Appalachian Trail. One was the continental divided to trail. And one was the Pacific Crest Trail. And she just, um, she's one of my favorites because she, um, she just figured out a way to be a professional backpacker, which I think is like the most unlikely thing that you maybe you could ever do. I mean, if there was ever, uh, make no money, you're, you're literally carrying everything that you own on your back. You have no home. You're, you're, it's like the ultimate dirt bag kind of thing. And she figured out how to make money. I mean, people wanted to watch her learn how to do this on, on, uh, YouTube. And she didn't have any experience. It was made it even better. And people just really liked her and she just did a good job with her videos. And she was able to continue doing it. But it's a, it's a pretty cool story. And it's funny how something like that, like the Appalachian Trail is like a magnet for people. I've heard it from many people like, like yourself.

9:17And what was it about the Appalachian Trail that drew you? I think why I read an account of, uh, was a John mayor, who ever created, or made the Appalachian Trail famous. I can't remember his name back after World War II. He was, uh, lost and he went hiking to find himself. And I just thought about what about going out there, you know, with no music, no ear buds, no dis, you know, no distractions and just dealing with what you need to deal with. Um, and that didn't last long. A week of me not trying to deal with myself with no, no, I had to, I had to listen to podcasts and music. It was a road I didn't want to go down. But, uh, it's an amazing experience out there. It's hard to put your words. I did. I did. What was that? Well, the first one was Honeybun. So we had done an 18 mile day and I came into camp and had a shot of whiskey and crushed two Honeybun's and I woke up the next morning and my name was Honeybun. Okay. And then, uh, the name that served me, uh, after that, it was clincher.

10:23Um, and I get that one. I didn't like, um, I did not like pooping in the woods. So I would just hold it until I found a, uh, a privy. So clincher became my name. The clincher. Yeah. I like that. And did you see any trail magic on there? Uh, she was telling us about trail magic and what that was and a, and you, you, it would be great if you would explain what that is to people that don't know. Trail magic is an amazing thing. It's people that just want to give back to the hiking community. Um, it can be anything from, um, a cooler of coke that might be left on the trailhead and, you know, a hikers. Welcome to it. Um, there is actually a gentleman. I can't remember his name right now, but he has a van and every hiking season, he just goes down the trail and he cooks breakfast for all the hikers. Um, so he'll find a group and he'll just keep meeting up with them and just cook

11:24him breakfast every, every day. Um, and that's what he does. That's, that's his healing. So it's, it's pretty neat. A lot of people did give back just for that, that good feeling that they get. Mm hmm. And you could just, somebody might leave a candy bar on a rock somewhere. Something is simple. Is that? Yeah. And sometimes they're hard. Sometimes there are places where you're like, how did they get this here? It's in the middle of nowhere. They would truck it out there because they know it might be after a horrible climb. And you get to the top of that climb and there's a cold beer waiting for you. Wow. I say that was my, my favorite. There'd be random beers, six packs of beers in creeks tied up with ropes. And you would just grab a beer and sit down and enjoy it, throw the empty in your backpack and, and keep going. How long did it take you to, to hike the whole trail? About six months. Okay. Were you in any hurry or were you just kind of enjoying yourself? I was enjoying it. And what about the hard times where there's some hard times on the trail? There were. Um, so you get what's called a trail family.

12:26Um, and basically those are just people usually you meet off the bat. When everyone's kind of scared, not really knowing what you're getting into. So you bond. And then someone might run out of money. Someone might have to go back to school. Um, so eventually, you know, my whole trail family for one reason or another got off trail. So for the last month and a half, I was kind of by myself. Um, and that was, it was kind of, uh, scary. It's not the right word, but it was sad just being going from having this huge group of people to rely on to hiking by yourself. It definitely changed my hike. But you know, eventually I met more people. Uh, wasn't the same as the original trail family, but more people that I continue to hike with a few, a few veterans that we still talk to to this day. Actually, a lot of that's out there. Do you think it's, uh, was, was it good for you healing? Yes. In what way? Um, honestly connecting with, um, I don't like the word normal, but people who have never served, um, they don't have a lot of them don't have that weight that we carry.

13:29So just saying people just expressing themselves, having feelings that we might have pushed down for so long, um, just having conversations I wouldn't normally have. Um, just things like that. We're really, we're really nice. And just the nature itself is healing. Um, getting out there on a hill with the beautiful view and just reflecting on life. It's, it's a, it's a, so once in a lifetime experience. Yeah. That, that, that it's one of the greatest things we have in this country. We have three of them or maybe more. I don't know, but there's at least three, um, where you can hike all the way across the whole country. Basically, I mean, the Abel engine trail doesn't go across the whole country, but it goes across a good part of it. It's, it's really an incredible thing. Um, when you got out of the military, did you have? Did you go straight into the FBI and if, if so, you probably didn't have, um, was it, did you have a transition period or you kind of went straight into more structure?

14:30Great. Maybe, uh, maybe a week, um, a week off. I think that was it. Just to move to DC. That was, that was about it. And so what do you think? Um, that's not necessarily the, um, the story that you hear from a lot of people that have trouble transitioning out of the world. Military and, uh, and I think it might be because of what you're, uh, what you alluded to earlier that you go from structure and you go from a place where you, you have this group of people and then all of a sudden you're on your own with no structure. Um, that seems to be very hard for people. I think so. Um, also, there's a lot of, uh, things you can talk to with military people that I wouldn't want to talk to. Uh, someone who hasn't experienced that kind of trauma before. Um, so I think you lose that too. You might lose that daily connection of being able to just speak our language with people.

15:32Yeah. Um, on the vets, did you have any vets in your trail family? Later on I did. And a, uh, a marine and a, and a patchy pilot. Mm-hmm. And everybody's out there just kind of for the same thing. They need a little, a little time to reset and, yeah. And also it's incredible. I mean, it's really an incredible situation to be able to do that. Um, just take a little time off and, and just walk. You know, you just go for an incredible walk. Um, it draws so many people. It's crazy that that clutch and trail and there's, it's almost like, you don't even hear about it that much until you know somebody that's doing it. Or until you're kind of in the, the, the group. But some people will hear about it like, like Jessica. She, she had this crazy story where she, um, she went there as a young girl with her grandmother. And she, they pulled into this parking lot and they were going to make a picnic on the tailgate.

16:32And all of a sudden these people come out of the woods like strange looking people come out of the woods and she's like, Grandma, what, what are they doing? And she said, Oh, they're walking on the trail. You can get on that trail right there and you can go all the way to Maine. And that just stuck in her brain for her whole life. And she didn't even think about it. But then she finds herself in this oil field in Oklahoma. And she says, I'm done with this. I'm not doing it anymore. And she starts driving back and she says, I'm going to hike the Applesian Trail. Like it just drew her there. This is wild. Did you ever hear anybody else say things like that that you met with on the Applesian Trail? I've had quite a few people. They said they, you know, with their family, they would go camping on the Applesian Trail and run into people. My first experience actually was, I mean, I grew up in Maryland and we would go camping up in that area. But the first real experience I had I was in Ranger School and Dallanica where you do your mountain phase.

17:34The trail goes right through it. And I remember we were coming off this long mission and we're all just beat down. And you just see these people camping by a creek and I figured that's when I found out like what the Appalachian Trail was. So I knew it was just like she said, it was it was embedded in her head. And you know, eventually he was embedded in my head and eventually I knew what it would, it would come back. And I would, I would conquer it. And so that's one big thing that you've done. And the next thing, how do you get from hiking the Applesian Trail to rowing across the ocean? A Facebook post. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Who's who's great idea was this? It was it was in the Ranger community. Some guy said he was looking for a team to row across the ocean. And I, it was actually about 10 years after I did the AT. So I was kind of itching for something. So I just replied back I'm in and in the little community.

18:36People started saying, you know, Hartman's a good, my last name's Hartman. They're like, Hartman's a good dude. He's, he'll, you know, don't worry about him. So I had a call with him. I think later that week and then was on the team. And then about a year later we, we did the ocean. And so you did the Pacific Ocean, right? Yes. Yeah. And so where do you leave and where do you land? Leave Monterey, California, land in Kauai, Hawaii. Wow. And so what was that like? Oh, it's funny. You know, I knew I was going to cross the ocean until the day it was time to leave. And then it hit me like what in the heck have I gotten into all of our faces? You could just see this fear like of the unknown. And it was, it was pretty intense. Um, and then we just rode out. And, you know, 35 day, 35 days. I think it was a six hours and 58 minutes later we landed in Hawaii.

19:3835 days. There's no resupply at all, right? Thank you. There's, there's nothing. So you got to carry 35 days of food. Are you making your water? So yeah, we have a decalinator on board. Okay. And that provided enough water for everybody that might. It's supposed to be a lot better. They have. Did you have to get any problem with that? Yeah, ours. Our break day three. So we had to do some, uh, some rigging. We had to rig it up where basically you're supposed to go to run it whenever you want. We had to bypass the cooling system on it. So basically it was 15 minutes of making water 45 minutes of letting it cool down. So making water turned into a full time job. Uh, so for the three on we did not have, we did not have enough water. Uh, it was a struggle. So you take something that's already going to be very difficult and you make it even more difficult. Yeah, water. Um, so did you have who, who was the, the handyman, the engineer that figured out how to do this?

20:43Because it could have been it right there. It could have been it. It would have been horrible. JT and we have a guy. Uh, he's a former Marine who just knows everything about these boats named Alan. We called him on the middle of the ocean and he could between him and JT. They figured out how to, how to rig it up and make it work for us. Wow. So we got very lucky. So you do have communication. What, what type of communication did you have on this little boat? Uh, we, we're lucky enough we brought a starlink and that kind of saved us for the phone calls. Otherwise, you have a range global, which, um, I mean, I think you can make phone calls with that, but it's, um, it's more just for sending texts and things like that. Mm-hmm. Uh, the starlink out there was amazing. So life saver. Wow. And so do you have a computer too or like are you using just phones or what are you used to communicate? Just phones for communication. I mean, we have one iPad, but mainly just phones for communication. And then, you know, we have, um, VHF or you know, the radio. Um, and then we have a bunch of emergency equipment that we can communicate on also if need be.

21:47Wow. And so the, the one guy that, the first guy we had that, that rode solo across the Atlanta, his name was Tim Crockett. And he showed me his boat and there, they're kind of, um, enclosed on the ends, open in the middle. Yes. And you can get into the, you can, you can get out of the weather. Right. And I think the thing can roll. Yeah, they roll. Tell me about the boat. Um, so ours is RX 45. Um, the one we rode across the Pacific was an older boat, weighed about 2000 pounds. Um, it has three rowing positions. So three can row at a time. And like you were saying, there's a cabin in the front and the back. Um, the neat thing about these boats is they have so many little compartments that, um, are essentially airtight. That if that thing got solid and half, you would just have two shitty boats that, uh, that don't move, but they're, they're not sinking. So they're a really amazing piece of equipment.

22:49And they are designed to self-write. So if you do flip, um, for the most part, they'll flip right back over. You might have to pokes it a little bit by standing on like, um, the rudder. Um, but, but essentially they flip right back over. Did you guys try that out? We did not, we did not, uh, we're going to with the boat we have now, but the one then we did not, we just, um, decided to, the chance it. And luckily we did not flip. How many people went with you? There was five of us on that crew. Five. And did you know any of these people beforehand? Um, no. Nope. I mean, just the year, year prior, we became a team. And, and everyone just kind of, uh, joins out of that Facebook post. Uh, three joined out of that Facebook post. And then another team that didn't raise enough money to row that year, uh, ran into some of our guys at a farmer's house. And they were going to talk to our team because we're like the enemy.

23:51We're competing against them. So the wise went into action and, uh, started talking and, uh, within, I think a week, these two guys joined our team. We, uh, we had a guy who got injured who couldn't row. Uh, he, he got a hernia. So we were looking for someone and we just decided to join forces. Okay. And were you raising money for something or what, what event was this? Yeah. So it's called the world's toughest row, um, is the race. And to do that race, you need to raise money for a charity. Um, so we were raising money that year for a Garrison East foundation, um, brothers, keepers foundation and, uh, hard rock, Charlie foundation, which are all veteran organizations or veteran foundations, um, on different levels that help out with different care and different needs for veterans. And how did you choose those? Uh, we all picked a few we wanted and then just had meetings about it until we all decided, uh, or narrowed it down to once we all felt comfortable donating to.

24:56Okay. And did you expect that it was going to take as long as it did? No, we, uh, the day we left, who have said we'll see in 35 days. Okay. So we, we pretty much were spot on dead on. And so how did you plan, um, like the food and what we talked about the water, but I mean, still, like there's still electrolytes and other things that you probably need to have if you're going to have been. Drink and desalinated water that removes everything. Everything. So you have to have, you have to supplement with electrolytes. Mm hmm. So how did you, I mean, there's five people for 35 days. That's a massive amount of food that you have to have. Um, unfortunately, I decided to volunteer myself to do the food prep. Um, so I live in a, like a 1300 square foot cottage in Chattanooga. And my spare bedroom and living room for about four months was nothing but food.

25:57It was, uh, it was a nightmare. Um, you had to pack, I had to pack 6,000, 6,000 calories a day per person. Uh, and that was a mixture of, um, ramen, um, camping meals and then just, um, snacks. And it was 6,000 calories a day. Does everybody still lose a tremendous amount of weight? Yeah. Well, the thing is out there. It's so hot and the way the shifts work that you don't want to eat. Um, so you really have to force yourself in every free second. You just have to be shoving food, um, into your belly. Um, otherwise you do like we had a guy, we had a few guys who lost close to 30 pounds. Um, I lost maybe eight pounds. And then the other guy lost maybe 10 to 15 pounds. Um, so, um, if you let the, the heat and everything take over and, and just don't eat, it can really wear on you.

26:57So some of that stuff that you were talking about ramen and that kind of stuff that requires cooking. And is it too rough to cook at some point? Some days are, some, some days are, and then we had a, this company called RecPack. It's amazing. They are like, um, it's a powder protein drink. It has 800 calories, just shove water and it shake it up and you can down it. So those things were lifesavers, especially the first 10 days you're in anywhere from 10 to 30 foot seas. So cooking is pretty, um, impossible during that time. Wow. And how 30 foot seas. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, that's it. I mean, man, 30 foot seas in the dark. Yep. And that's when we hit them. That's when we hit them the first time. You're supposed to hit the 30 foot seas within the first day. We didn't hit them until I think day, well, day five is when he got real rough for us.

27:58And it was the middle of night. And usually you could see the white caps in the distance. And then you would notice that the white caps were like higher and higher and, and then higher. So yeah. And that's not all for a few days. That can be so scary. I mean, really, when you're out in a robot. Like, what was the scariest moment for that kind of thing? Um, it really, I don't think any of us really, since it was nighttime and you couldn't really see, um, the magnitude of it. I don't think the fear really set in then it was more of afterwards. We're like, holy go off, you know, how do we get through that? Um, we also got lucky like, um, we would ride the waves up perfectly. And then the boat will kind of once it can't climb anymore, it'll turn and just ride down the wave. So it did a lot. And then we just got lucky when the waves would collapse over. We just had a spot where it collapsed late. So we would ride over the wave.

28:59Um, so we, we came close to flipping twice, but we did not flip every other boat that year. There was four other boats they all flipped at least once. We just did not. Wow. So we kind of got lucky. And are you keeping in contact with the other boats? Are you, are you inside of the other boats? No, much you leave. You never see anybody else. Never see him to see another boat during the race is very rare. He just gets separated so quickly. I mean, actually boats in general, I think we saw one cruise ship and two or three freighters the whole time. So that even adds to kind of the deal that there are only way you're getting out of this is to make it do why pretty much like there's, there's, there's no, there's no exit. So door, there's no plan B. You have to, you have to go. Yeah. And what did you have any, any kind of moments where you, you have to have talk with the crew or the crew has to come together and understand that or everybody when they stepped on the boat did they all understand that.

30:13I mean, you're all operators. Yeah. But we also made the agreement that if, I mean bottom line, if someone scared, we're going to respect that. It doesn't matter what the rest of us think if there's someone who doesn't want to do the decision, we're going to at least talk about it. And we never got to that point, but I think it was great that the crew that everyone agreed on that. Because I think when you're out in a situation like that, if you're going to do make a decision that one person's not comfortable with, that's just really not fair to that one individual. So we all, we all made a pack beforehand that it's either 100% or we don't make that decision. What kind of decisions are you having to make? I mean, the most serious would be which we never had towards the abandoned ship, but then when you're tight in the race, or also if the storms are getting too rough, if you're going to hunker down and then pour out the pair anchor.

31:17And basically that was our main decision, which we never got to, but like, you know, if we're all going to keep rowing and then someone's too scared to row, and they're going to be in the cabin. It's not fair for us, but it's also not fair for that person because it's not their fault. You know, who knows how you're going to, how you're going to take the situation. So you don't want that person feeling bad about the decision they made. So like if one person decided that they want to hunker down, we'll hunker down. We'll pull out the pair anchor, we'll hunker down, we'll, we'll do it as a team. But luckily, you're sorry, the pair anchor. Can you explain how that how that works for people that might not know what that is? Yes. So the pair anchor is ours is 12 foot. So it's a 12 foot parachute. And instead of putting it out in the air, you let it out into the water. And that inflates into the water and keeps you going against the current. So think I'm saying that right.

32:18So basically if the waves are crashing, they're going to crash over the front of your boat, instead of the side of your boat. Or if you put it out at the rear of the boat, they'd be crashing over the rear of the boat. So basically it keeps you in the safest direction of the storm. And that's when you're, you're going to use that when you're going to take a break when you're going to not be rowing. So like for sleeping, do you use that for sleeping too? We don't, we don't. So that one individual that you mentioned who did the solo row, they would probably use that pair anchor quite a bit for short little intervals, put it out for a few hours so they can catch an app. We never stopped rowing. So we never lost ground. The only time we would put that out is if it was a major storm that we weren't comfortable rowing in. Now Tim told me that the thing that he had one of the hardest times with was chafing. And like he got to where he just felt like he just had to row naked because he was just chafing all the time.

33:23I mean, it was so bad. And you know, when you're around, I don't know, people have been surfing a lot or you're in the water a lot and you start getting chafed on a surfboard. And then the salt gets in there, the sand gets in there, it gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. Instead, and there's no getting bet. It doesn't seem like the only way it's going to get better is to get out of the water for a little while. Yeah, hopefully. But that's what he ran into. Did you run into that or any other issues that you didn't think about? So we found these seats they're called K and seats, I believe they're very expensive, but so worth it. So like we got no butt sores, we got nothing like that. And the first part of our journey was so cold, we were always in foul weather gear. So we never really got wet enough to get chafed until the second part of the journey. It's like the last 15 days, we started getting chafed, but it was enough where, you know, we could take a shower, we could wash, we had all the creams.

34:33So if we had to do a full row in the full adventure in the heat like on the Atlantic, I'm sure we would have been very chafed, but the Pacific was was a little bit different. Did you anticipate that you were going to be in foul weather gear most of the time? Yes. Did you train that way? That's a good question. We did not all our training was in the summer. So we did not we had a few, and we trained in December, but it still wasn't wasn't that cold. We were put it on at night, but that was about it. Never we did not train for it. No. Wow, that's interesting. Cause I mean, if that stuff doesn't fit right or I don't know, like you're going to be in it constantly. No, we definitely, we definitely knew it fit, but yeah, that's a good point. We did not, I'd say maybe 12 hours was probably the most we had, we had spent in it up to the row itself up to the race. So what do you, what do you do to train for this race? And how do you get five people? All to where everybody has confidence in one another, like what's the land based training and how much do you do in the water before you tackle something like this?

35:45Race, the world's toughest row, I think the requirements 140 hours together, I could be wrong in that number, but it's a good amount. But we for this year's right next year's race, it's 300 on our own is that we're going to do is 300 total hours on the water with the crew. We were confident in one another, but we just felt like we needed to be more confident the next go around. So with the new star on the water, is that any water or do you have are you going to go specifically to the ocean to the ocean, you can do a certain amount of water on a lake or a river, which is really good just to get confidence in the boat. But you have to go on most of your training has to be on the ocean. I think the minimum you have to do is three day 72 hours straight. So you get day and night time also included in this and tell them that you're doing all this. Yeah, like without that, they won't even let you just.

36:48No, so you have to have a captain's log and then we also log on Strava. So just drive them. We just send them the link to it. That's pretty much it. Wow. And there's tons of other courses you have to do. Of course, there's safety courses and there's meetings and courses you have to do through the world's toughest row itself. Some of your Strava records are going to be the least popular on Strava. I mean, I can't imagine that somebody's done this this eight mile stretch of the Pacific ocean very many in a rowboat. So you know, you go to some of these hills and you know, in town or whatever and it's like, you know, 50,000 entries on Strava. You look at yours and it's like one entry. It's my entry. Like nobody has ever been there before. That's wild, man. And so you're setting up to do it again. Yeah. You just love it so much.

37:48We did want me to change us. Each one of us changed and healed, which was pretty amazing that when we got done, I joined an organization. So instead of giving money to other charities, we created an organization where we take veterans out on weekend rows and then eventually we find veterans that are crazy enough to do an ocean row. And that's where we're at right now where we, we, about a month and a half ago, we picked our crew and now we're starting to train them. And what's that your organization called Corsair Racing. And what is the, what would you say the mission statement of that is or the or the goal? The goal is it's building community. So basically building community through ocean rowing and then just finding ways for these guys to heal. And like the Appalachian Trail, the ocean's just an amazing, amazing way to heal when you're, you know, completely beat down rowing for 35 days.

38:54You have no choice but to face, you know, what you need to face. And everyone is sorry everyone out there is so understanding because we're all in it. You know what I mean? So like you're going to open up eventually someone's going to open up and then everyone's going to open up. And it forms a brotherhood too that is there's no comparison in my opinion, not even to the military. Now it's tighter. It's a tighter. It's tighter. Yeah. Why do you think that that it becomes tighter than the military? I think it's a sh**. It's more. It's a smaller mission set. Our mission sets to go from point A to point B. And that person for 35 days straight. I mean, even in the military, there's some freedom for the B by yourself. Here it's not.

39:58You learn every bit about that person. So it is a. It's just a very tight brotherhood. So when you're talking about people healing and you're doing this through what I would call an endurance physical endurance event. Maybe the weekend rose aren't entirely what the big rows are. But certainly when you're doing this big row, that's an endurance event. You're getting beat down. You are calorically deficient. You're probably electrolytes are all off. You are. You are beat down completely. And that seems to be a really good time to evaluate yourself to be completely wiped out a total. You know, depletion workout or a total depletion event where you just you have nothing left.

41:01And it seems like a lot of people seek these type of things out for healing. And obviously it works because it's work for you work for your group. You said you you became even tighter than than you did with people in the military. And you always hear that the military is the tightest bond that anybody has. And so obviously it works. Why do you think it is that or do you think that there are other ways that people are having success healing getting out of the military. We've had a couple other. I have a friend Jimmy Armel and he's doing a lot of work with veterans and making some progress. He does it through fishing and other other means. I began and other things have been very, very successful for him. And he's helped a lot of people and just wondered like what what you're noticing outside of the endurance events. Are you seeing any other ways that are that are very effective.

42:03I mean personally I do the ketamine therapy at a clinic and that saved my life I truly believe. I've heard incredible things about the eye began I haven't gone down that road before. I have a bunch of veteran friends who are into the psychedelics. And they're taking veterans on trips for those. I think there's so many resources out there. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they do I think the Appalachian. They do Appalachian try to do all three trails and they've even got into like river trips. So grand Canyon trips and things like that. It's a pretty good one. I think anything where you can get veterans out of their comfort zone. We do breath work. We do yoga. And a lot of these guys have never done things like that before. So we do a lot of things to kind of get them out of their comfort zone and let them see their alternatives to what we were taught in the military. I think if any veterans brave enough to try just something that's out of the ordinary even if it is one of these fishing trips.

43:10I know I don't remember what it's called, but the one. There's a fly fishing one that's all throughout here. Where they take veterans fly fishing. Healing waters or yes, that is it. Yeah. Yeah. We did a show with them a long time ago where we we we took some people fishing and it's a great organization. Really great. I agree. I just think getting out of your vet, getting out of your comfort zone, especially when you're in the first dimension. Do you think that it is for to have the community? I think it's important. The right community. Like a community of other kind of people that are struggling with the same kind of kind of thing. Yes. And you get them together in a shared experience. I think it probably for some people it seems to help if it is physical. Like like what you're doing that. I mean that I don't know of any other way that you you bond people together between physical exhaustion and humor.

44:12It's it's outstanding. It's an outstanding way to make friends. But that's really cool. And so the next one that you're doing on this course or is it going to be the same course or you're going somewhere else? You're doing the Atlantic. Okay. Where does that take off? That's like a mirror. So all the coast of the northern Africa and the Spanish colonies down to Antigua. It's about 3000 miles. Wow. And that one should take about 35 days also. We're hoping. Do you ever fish while you're out there? No. Last time we almost took a hand line with some artificial squid. I think we're definitely doing that this time. I mean you're out there so long. Did you see stuff starting to collect around your boat? Yeah. You become you become the you know the structure. You're you are the floats that they like to get around. I would imagine you would have Mahi and all kinds of stuff around you. It was funny. It was so rough.

45:14And even when it wasn't rough, it was so windy that it was just a constant chop. So we could never see underneath the boat. We cleaned it once. There's definitely a particle build up. We saw a few sharks and sunfish and turtles. But we never got to see if there was a community underneath the boat. But on the Atlantic. I know on the Atlantic. I heard it's a different story on the Atlantic. You see everything. Well, there's there's I don't know about that part of the ocean, but there's there's a lot of stuff everywhere. Yeah. But when you're out there and you spend that much time, you become like that's what the fish are looking for. And they go and they're looking for any sort of structure and you're it. And I would imagine that you would he would collect all kinds of stuff on a handland. You wouldn't even need that's all you need is a you know one of the the yo-yo's and you just make sure it's nothing rips it out of your hand. Yeah, because there's some big stuff out there.

46:15I'm sure. But that would that would be cool. Then it's got to be calm enough for you to to fillet and eat it. That would be a nice break from the upgraded ramen. Oh, yeah. And just the mental reward of that would be outstanding. Yeah. Yeah. That would be a morale booster. Oh heck, yeah, it would be. Yeah. Did you ever have to have a morale booster? Or there's some where there's sometimes when either you or anybody else gets down on that trip 30 days in the in off seas. I would imagine that there's plenty of opportunity for that. Everyone got down a little bit. I won't talk about anyone else mine was the guy that I was wrong with just didn't talk. And so it was your I slept a lot. I was two guys had to sleep together. The other three guys got to sleep by themselves. So I would sleep by myself and then row and silence.

47:16So after about 20 days. I mean, I lost it. I was like, I need to row with someone else. I need I need human connection. So we just kind of shifted up the shifts a little bit. So that there was someone more talkative that I could row with. And then everyone had something. I mean, no one had that story, but everyone had a different story where they. They broke down a little bit or lost it a little bit. And I think just everyone else building you back up after you lose it is part of the reward. That it's okay to be weak that it's okay to break down. And your brothers are going to build you back up. Was there a time when you all came back when you all came together on event or anything that. That brought you all together in a way that. Out there. Yeah out there. I would say halfway through we had a pint of a rum. And I believe you're not a pint of rum can get five guys drink.

48:19If you are that dehydrated, that was definitely a morale booster. One day we saw it was closer to the end of the trip, but we hadn't seen any wildlife and weeks. And there was just hundreds of dolphins in the waves. I mean, everyone was on the cabin, just like little kids just staring out so happy and giddy. That was definitely a big morale booster. And then one of our shifts, so you usually get six to eight miles per shift, which is a two-hour shift. And the day we got one of the guys, the guys he was room with, they got a 10 mile an hour, a two-hour shift. That was pretty cool. I know it doesn't sound like much, but everyone was pretty geeked about that. Yeah, I bet. So what about the stars? How would imagine in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no other ships around, no other lights around.

49:19That has to be like the best place on the entire planet to look at the stars. Yes, amazing. I mean, I would honestly row half the time with my head back just staring up. I mean, you really need to do that though. You can just look straight forward. And it was just a show. It was a shooting star show most nights. It was so cool. Surprisingly though, we had what do you call it? The glowing algae. Oh, yeah, the phosphorescence. Yes. Polyphyrs three weeks. Really? Yep. Every night. That's a bizarre thing. That's a bizarre thing. And I would think it would make it even more bizarre that you have six hours or three, you know, four hours in the water, disturbing it, making it like do that every single time. Every stroke of a nasty phosphorescence, you know, maybe the fish in the lower comes through or something happens and it just derbs it, but we're not rowing that with something like it would be surreal.

50:19It was magical. It was magical. And there's little holes on the side of the boat, little gunkles where the water comes in and out. And they would even come in that after they were agitated. So we actually got to pick them up and see them. And they're like the size of like your pinky nail. There's just these little things that you just put them back in the water. They were fascinating. And every white cap would just break with the phosph, the, I can't say the word right, the illumination. And then there would be disturbances where definitely things were getting chased. And it was pretty neat to when fins would break the water. You'd see streaks of it. It was pretty fascinating. And now I say about three weeks straight almost every night. It would be out. Yeah. Incredible. And so, and now you're, you're coaching CrossFit. Yep. And how did you get started with that?

51:19How did I get started with that? I started in, I think 2009 doing CrossFit. I was earlier, you know, 2009, they came through the military and did a little train the trainer type thing. So I learned about it then and kept doing it and finally got certified to coach. Maybe six years ago. Okay. And being coaching ever since. And what do you like about coaching? The structure. I love it when someone comes into the gym and you can tell they're intimidated. And just making them feel welcome. And then if they stick with it, eventually though that light will, will turn on or you'll see them. They'll come in standing tall and confident. Just that positive change that I get to have on someone is really what, what keeps me going back to do it every day. Yeah, that's super cool.

52:19You coach one class a day or more? Three, three days a week. I coach three and then the rest of the week I coach one. Okay. And the three. What, what hours are those? That's 9 a.m. and then 4 30 and 5 30 p.m. Okay. Awesome. That's a good gym over there. And so how old are you? How old am I? 50. 50. I'm not. Okay. We're not in the same age group. No. I'm 58. I just start 58 this year. But the thing about CrossFit is that you, I've been competing in CrossFit for a while. And the thing about CrossFit is that it makes you want to get older because not until 55. I was so looking forward to being 55. And when I turned 55, I really went for it and I got some different coaches and I was like, if I'm ever going to make the games, this is going to be the year because I'm at the

53:22bottom of the age group. The weights have just dropped a significant amount. And I feel like I might have a shot and it was, it was great. It was a great run. And I really, I really liked it. And I learned a lot and it was great. But what I really liked the most is that, that it got slightly easier. Because at 54, you're doing the same thing that Rich Froning is doing in the games. It's like, come on, man. Yeah. Winds of the break happening. It happened at 55 and it is nice. It's nice. That's awesome. I unfortunately am not that lucky. I've had a shoulder redone knee replacement already screwed up back. So if I can RX one workout a month, it's heaven on earth. Besides that, everything is scaled now. Well, a lot of people that listen to this show have heard me talk about CrossFit. But some people haven't. And some people look at CrossFit as, well, it's for young people or if you're injured,

54:25you can't do it or it only causes injuries. And so you're saying that you have a lot of issues that you're not doing RX workouts. And an RX workout would be as prescribed, whatever's written on the board, however the workout was created, that's the way you're supposed to do. So maybe it says 135 pounds for a cleaning jerk. And then it might say 95 pounds for women. And a scaled workout would be when you do something anything less than that 135 or 95. And you can scale it back to whatever you want or you could change other movements in it. But can you just give your kind of idea of like why you like it, even if you have certain things that are bothering you right now? I believe CrossFit is for everyone. To what you were saying when CrossFit first came out,

55:25I mean, it was you did RX until you died. There was no substitution. You would just keep going to you fall out. Which is an awesome modality, but it's not sustainable for some people. So as coaches, I've become more experienced. There's some amazing coaches out there. And I like to say that I am one of them where I can you come into my gym. I can I can have you moving with everyone else. It might not be exactly what they're doing, but you're going to be moving pain free. You're going to be getting the same stimulus, which is my opinions the most important part of that workout. Because ideally it's to keep you moving. CrossFit's whole modality is to keep you moving until you're 70 or 80 years old. Right. Like every movement, honestly, it's picking the groceries up the off the floor, picking your grandkids up and throwing them over your head. That's what CrossFit is. So you just find a great coach who will work with you. And you can do any of the workouts at anyone else doesn't the gym. That might just look a little bit different.

56:25Yeah. And that's the thing too is like when you go into one of those classes, you might step into a class. And this is where it's always been with Greg Glassman at the very beginning. He was like, look, you got a Navy seal in there and you got a grandmother. And they're right next to one another. They're doing the same workouts. The Navy seal doesn't look down on the grandmother. Like, why are you lifting a broomstick? It's like, you're here. Like that's that's what I've always liked about it is the community and that that like the only thing anybody ever cares about is if you're lying about your your rest or like if you say, oh, I beat you in that workout, but you're like, not really. I mean, I was counting and you were there's no way you did the number, you know, 21 of something. But if somebody is like, look, I didn't feel it today. And now I, you know, I scaled back the whole thing and good effort. You know, everybody's like great. But it's the ethical violations of yes.

57:27I did, I did, I did this and I, you know, you didn't do it. That's the only place I ever see anybody get, get hassled. But it's a great, it's a great thing. It's in a funny state right now. Don't you think CrossFit? If there is, I mean, when I was going hard for the, the games, they were like, nah, we're not even going to do the masters anymore. And we're just going to let the legends competition do it. And so I was like, well, that's not what I was hoping for. And so I'm actually qualified for the legends and for the, um, there was another one that was in Oklahoma. There were like three kind of masters competitions, kind of battling it out for which one is going to be considered to be the, the biggest and the best. And then CrossFit just kind of like, they just kind of lost their way. They're a thing with all the different transitions and changes and the leadership and the changes and sponsors and everything. And they just kind of lost their way.

58:28But it does feel like they're kind of getting it back a little bit. Thanks. So all these fads come along like the high rocks, which is great. But I think CrossFit might be trying to like incorporate that to stay relevant. I'm not sure. All I can say is that, um, to what you're saying, asking earlier, like CrossFit, um, is what drew me to CrossFit was the community. It is like, it was kind of like the closest to military I had found. Um, and like you're saying, you could be the 70 year old grandma and come in and you're still going to all the events. If your guys are going out to dinner, you know, she's going out to dinner. I mean, the community is amazing. It's, it's, I haven't found an opening community that's so open to everyone like that. Yeah. CrossFit is. Yeah. I agree. And I could care less how popular it is or what people think of it. That's the way that I've been training for. It's like you since, since about probably 2005 or six, I found CrossFit.

59:35And then I just started training like that. I was running marathons and doing a lot of running beforehand. And I was, I was kind of bored with that. And I found, actually I found something before CrossFit. Ross Enemite, you ever heard of him? He's got something called RossTraining.com. And he's a boxing trainer. And you would look at his stuff and be like, that's straight up CrossFit. But he'd been doing it even before that. And who knows? Maybe CrossFit stole a bunch of his stuff. It doesn't even matter. But he was great. He's the first person that, that kind of told me what work capacity was. And then how you improve your work capacity. And just to have, it's just, he was on the same path as the beginnings of CrossFit. And I liked his stuff. But then I also liked the CrossFit stuff. But I actually ended up liking the CrossFit stuff better. Because you could compete in so many of those things in the comments on, on the website.

1:00:37You would go on there and there would be, like somebody would say, I did this in 1507. And you're like, 1507. That took me 35 minutes. How in the world did that happen? And then the internet got a little bit better. And you would see, like, oh, now they put a video up there. And now you could see them doing it in a video or a link to a YouTube video. Like, oh, well, I wasn't doing it like that. Like, okay, I'm doing it all wrong. Like, that's how you're supposed to do it. But they had such a good media department for so long that it was, it was good. I feel like that's where, that's where, kind of, when they, when they got rid of their media department, I feel like that, that was a change. Yeah. I had Mike Alley come over to the driveway one time. I heard about the driveway. We did a, uh, uh, thing four CrossFit here where they brought a couple of their athletes. And then, uh, me and Mike were, we're in the same age group. So we were competing, um, that day, but it was, it was awesome.

1:01:38I mean, I love those days. Who won? I think he did that day. Yeah. I really do. I think he did that day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've been able to compete a couple days, but that day, I'm a key one. Yeah. But it's, it's a good time because he's, we're in the same age group. Yeah. Yeah, that guy kicks my back workout with you guys. But it's not button most things. Yeah, well, he's, he's, he's good. He's good. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so what, what's next out after the, uh, after the, the next rowing, like, what, what are your plans with, with Corsair racing and what you're planning on doing and how you're going to help more people? We want to keep it grassroots. So we definitely are going to stay involved. We don't want to get too big for our bridges. But, uh, right now we have one boat. We would love to get maybe five boats. And then, um, you know, right now at the max, we can help in a weekend is five veterans and just multiplying that by, by four more would be amazing. Now, when you're doing these weekends, are you, you're going to a location could be on the

1:02:42Atlantic or the Gulf? I mean, you're in, you're centrally located. You could go either place probably. Usually it's Pensacola. If it's hurricane season, we go to Fernandina Beach, down by Jacksonville. But mainly Pensacola, we have a good community there. We have a, a yogi who will do yoga for us and just we're, we're building an awesome community there. And it's centrally low. It's, it's easy enough for me to drive down, you know, instead of having to fly all the way across the US to make this happen. So, uh, basically we'll find veterans wherever in the US we fly them in. They're Airbnb at all weekend, uh, with the other guys. And, um, then we just start teaching them about the boat and then we take them out. Based on how they're feeling, either for like a two day row or a few day rows. And then usually we get them addicted and they come back for like a week-long row and then then we'll pop the question. See if they want to, want to row in ocean. So when you do a two day row, you're going to spend the night on the boat.

1:03:44Mm-hmm. Yep. And, and that's how far off the coast do you get? Really, it depends, um, pretty light for the first. Yeah, yeah, maybe it really depends on the veterans. If we can tell their coffin, it will take them six or seven. We'll take a gestor that the coast is out of sight. Because that's a completely different experience. If you can't see the land, it's completely different. So we'll take them out where they can't see and then, um, you know, we might go down to, you know, go down to the destination and then have our pickup truck come and and pick us up from there. It really depends on what they want to do. We want to make it where they're running the show as far as what they want to do. And then we just, we make it happen for them. That's super cool. And you keep the boats down there? No, we have one boat. We have one boat right now. Okay. Yeah, we did down there, but now it's in Kentucky. One of our guys lives out that way. So we have it stored there right now. Okay.

1:04:44And then how do you get more boats? You say you want to increase to five boats? How, how do you plan on doing that? We're basically donation based. We get paid nothing. This is all for the five of us. It's just love. So basically all the money we make in donations. And we've, we're in the process of some grants, hopefully. You know, that's how we, we make our money. And that's how we, we get more veterans out and we get more, more equipment that we need. Where do people donate? That course erasing.org. Of course erasing.org. And then they, have you ever gotten a grant before? We have not. We're in the final process of a yes or no right now. We'll find out in a few weeks. Good. A few weeks. There's probably some, there's probably some, some people over there even at get built that probably know a lot about grant writing. Oh, yeah. Imagine.

1:05:44Yeah. That could be helpful. But good luck with that. That's awesome. Well, you're, you're doing a lot of really cool things. Not just going out and rowing across oceans and hiking across countries, but you're helping a lot of people. And that's, that's really good. And certainly the veterans need it. I want to hook you up with my friend Jimmy Armel, who is also doing a lot of veteran. He's helping a lot of people. I think you guys would have a lot to talk about. Awesome. And then maybe you can go catch a great white shark with him. That's what he does. That's his, that's his bag. He takes people, he takes veterans out. And then they, he has a tagging permit where he fishes for the great white sharks and tags them. And he has a company star bright. It's the title sponsor of this podcast actually. They are very into conservation and certainly, really like veterans activities like this.

1:06:46And so they have sponsored him to get these tags. The tags are kind of expensive. And they will satellite tag the sharks and they'll just regular tag the sharks. But then they'll name them after one of the fallen comrades that they, that they had. And so he's, he's tagged a bunch of sharks. And they're named after people that one of the veterans, you know, was, was in service with. Yeah, it's pretty powerful. It's pretty, pretty awesome. And then you just have that giant wild creature, a great white shark there also. But it's, it's a, he's doing, he's doing good work. Doing good work. So I'll introduce you to him. Anything else you want to leave us with? Just, I mean, support veterans, man. That's it. However you can support us, support veterans, just anything, anything anyone can do to help with veterans. An amazing thing. That's great. Well, it's cliche, but thank you for your service.

1:07:47I really appreciate it. And I really appreciate what you're doing for all the other veterans. And we'll have to get together and work out one of these days. Be fun. Yeah. Yeah, I'm down to come out, come out to the driveway. See what's going on. Come out. Getting a new driveway right now. There's, there's, okay. Yeah. Just wait, give me a bunch of it. And then it'll be some special. But you're always invited. All right. Thanks, Jerry. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you.