(upbeat electronic music) – Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I’m Link. – And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we are exploring the question what are our greatest physical feats? And I don’t mean like which of our feet are bigger, but my left foot is a little bit bigger than my right foot, in fact, a half size bigger than my right foot. – That seems like it could be a problem. – Yes, my greatest physical foot is my left foot. (both chuckle) It’s like a size 12.2 and my right foot is like a size 11.7. – Eight. Seven, okay. – Mm-hmm, so I just get 12 and call it even, call it a day. – Now actually one of my feet is bigger than the other foot too because back when we, along with the help of all of the Mythical Beasts at the time, we designed a shoe that we then sold. I don’t know if you knew this, called the Mythical Shoe, and when you start to make your own shoe, it was basically like, it was a fabulous Converse ripoff shoe, I mean. – Whoa. – It had a wing embroidered on the side– – ‘Cause it was canvas and had a– – We threw a lot at that shoe. It had a guitar pick holster. – Yeah. (Link laughs) – And it– – The Mythical Shoe, I still love the idea. – That was like a nice tasteful black and white but then there was also like a oh my gosh, look away blue and green. – No that was the fun pair. – Then we made all, anyway, I digress, but when you find yourself, just a heads up, whenever you find yourself making your own branded shoe as you will, you’ll find that you have the luxury of getting them to fit exactly how you want and I found out that one of my feet is bigger than the other one too. – Do you know which one? – ‘Cause I’m like, oh I wanted a 10 and a half in one foot and an 11 in the other one. – But which one, is it your left foot? – I can’t remember. I can’t remember ’cause once I ran out of those shoes I’m like, I gotta forget that happened. I don’t have that luxury anymore. – Mine is noticeable with any pair of shoes that I try on, that’s why I always just try on the left shoe at shoe stores. – And then wear two socks on the right– – No it’s not that big of a difference, it’s just like if the left foot fits, I know the right foot’s gonna fit. Also my left arm is longer than my right arm, probably by a quarter to a third of an inch, so much so that when I get measured for like a fitted shirt, they have to measure it differently. – Really? – My left, one of my eyes is a little bit bigger than the other, which one is it? – The left one. – The left one, yeah. My whole left side of the body– – I think that the eye opening is bigger. The eyeball’s probably the same– – The eyeball’s the same size. Yeah, I think there’s other things that, but interestingly– – You always look like you’re about to wink. – All injuries– – It’s not that bad. – All the injuries are on the right side of my body. My elbow, my wrist, my shoulder, my hip, and my knee. All right side, the weak side, man. But I’m right-handed. Isn’t this weird? – I don’t know if it’s weird. – So we are gonna talk about our greatest physical feats. – Oh and did you happen to notice– (metal jangling) What, what, a little, what? A little jingle around my neck? – This is not how Olympic medalists, if that’s what you are. You gotta learn to wear the prizes in style, Link. We continue to try to teach you this, to win with some sort of decorum but– – To win like I’ve expected it? – Yes. – Well, this is my– – Act like you’ve been there before as Josh Young told you after you scored a goal one time. – Two goals in one game. – Yeah. – I mean if you’re not watching the video version of this, I’d be happy to fill you in on the fact that I am sporting around my thick, muscular neck, the weight– – His 15 and a half inch neck. (laughing) – The weight of a hefty physical feat completed and that is, I ran in a Spartan Race. And I got a medal. I got a medal, I’m wearing it. I got a Science Olympiad medal once. – I will note that you just turned it around and it just said finisher on it, so I mean– – Yeah, I didn’t get a place. – But hey, you know what, you finished. I didn’t even do it. – I finished. You didn’t even start. – I didn’t even start. – Then on the back there’s a third of another medal that if I complete apparently two more Spartan Races in this calendar year, I get a big daddy trifecta medal. – That’s smart marketing, man. – Yeah. – Especially a collector, you definitely wanna get the other two pieces of that. – Right I don’t even know how but I’m probably already signing up. – So Link’s gonna tell us about his experience with the Spartan Race and then we’re gonna talk about some other physical feats but I do– – And I will say that I discovered, just a little more of a tease, something happened that I did not anticipate that I think is gonna have a forever impact on who I am. – Okay. My interest is piqued. – Is it? – Piqued with a Q. – Okay. – I’m going to answer some questions that been lingering out there. Those of you who follow my very dynamic Instagram account, RhettMC, also the same name of my very dynamic and awesome Twitter account, RhettMC. Shout-out to both of those accounts. I encourage you to follow both of them for enrichment. – Right and if you wanna complete the set, let’s just shout-out to LinkLamont on Instagram. – That’s right. – He’s very active. – Yeah yeah. – Very active. – Very, very active now. – Like when the Amish go and sow their wild oats, that active. – Whoa. – You know how they have a year they can do that? – Better protect yourself. – I don’t know what they call it. But it’s where they can sow their wild oats. – I think that’s what they call it. I think they call it the devil’s year. – I’m that active on Instagram now. – I posted this video to both accounts. I thought it deserved that kind of exposure. – Yes, and I haven’t gotten the complete download. Again I can’t– – You can’t download– – I’ve heard pieces– – Instagram videos. I’ve tried. – You’re talking about the cat. – Yeah. – Yes! – You may have seen that I posted a video, about a minute long video of a night vision camera focused on the couch in my living room which is actually a cropped version of the bigger video. – [Link] Oh nice, you did some cropping. – I wanted to draw your eye to the cat and I said something like, see this cat on my couch at 3 a.m.? Here’s the thing. We don’t have a cat. ♪ Dun dun dun ♪ – And I left it at that and apparently that was incredibly strategic because it was like my most-liked post ever. – How many likes? – I think at the time that we’re recording this, I think it’s been seen almost 300,000 times on either or Instagram or both, I don’t know, which is a lot for a video on those platforms for me. – I think I need to know an exact number if I’m gonna compare it to my return to Instagram. – Okay. – How many likes does that have, Alex? – 287,000. – Ooh! – 287,000. – Gah! I think you blew me out of the water! (Rhett chuckles) Okay but– – That’s views. – That’s views though. – Oh that’s view, no, no, no likes. – [Alex] 63,296 likes. – Okay, ha. – Yeah because people don’t usually like videos as much as they just watch them. – Okay yeah, that’s a decent number. It’s not what I got when I, you know, when I came back to Instagram. – Well I think that the real comparison should be your watermelon outfit picture to my watermelon outfit picture. So let’s– – Oh. Now something tells me– – Let’s bring those up. – Something tells me you’ve done this because I can see the glimmer in your eye. – No no I just– – Of course, I haven’t done it. I haven’t done it. – [Alex] Rhett, you have 117,085. – 117,000 likes on Rhett’s watermelon. – [Alex] I mean you’re close Link, you have 107. – Okay and by the time that this is– – Oh it’ll– – You will have surpassed me. – Oh yeah. – By the time that this is– – Blow it out. – On the air, air waves. – Yeah mine’s still on the upward trend. Okay but anyway, that’s all you wrote on your Instagram caption but– – There was more to the story as Paul Harvey, is that his name, used to say. Everybody loves Paul Harvey, the rest of the story. – Yeah he said the rest of the story, not there’s more to the story. (Rhett chuckles) – The real story is not as exciting as Satan manifested himself as a cat in my living room. ‘Cause that’s what I wanted you to think. – Mm-kay. – That did not happen as far as I know. What happened was, ’cause I also don’t make a habit of just watching my, looking at my couch all night long through the (chuckles) video, going back through the archives. – Yeah how would you even find it? – I woke up. I walked downstairs as I do when I wake up. – Was this the middle of the night? Or the morning? – This was the morning. And the front door was just wide open and I knew that I was the first person downstairs. I knew I was the only person awake. And so I was like okay, that means that this door has been opened all night. I mean like open and come on in, friends. – Agape. – Yeah. And so I did what we do in my house when you encounter a problem, I immediately tried to figure out who to blame. (Link chuckles) And so I knew that Locke had had friends over the night before and so I yelled upstairs, “Locke! “Did your friends leave the door open? “I think your friends left the door open last night. “It was open all night!” And he yelled back, “No, Dad!” – Healthy communication climate. – That’s how we communicate in the McLaughlin household. – Was he, was that point-blank range and you just yell like that or– – Yeah he was right next to me. – Okay. (chuckles) – He was upstairs. And then I said, “Well I’m gonna check “the video camera footage!” – You didn’t believe him. – So I went into the archives that I can access via my phone and I started to, ’cause basically, if you zoom out that image of the couch to the far left is the front door. It’s sort of the, it’s the living room and the front door camera that gets it all. – Okay yeah. – And I, kinda scrubbing through but I’m kinda scrubbing through ham-handedly so that I accidentally scrubbed all the way to 3 a.m. – Whoops. – And then I see this little dot. – Well, did you see the door had been left open or something? – Well yeah okay so skipping forward and then I’ll come back, I did see that it was his friends who left and did not close the door. (Link chuckles) So it was his– – Did you yell at him then? Or you were distracted by– – I was focused on the cat at this point. – Okay go ahead. – But they walked out and they pulled the door too but it didn’t close all the way and then it was like a windy night so it just blew the door open. – Okay. – But what I saw was that little black dot and then it took a lot, it takes a lot to get back to the specific little minute, you know. – Right. – Then I’m like– – ‘Cause this is like an eight hour video. – That’s a frickin’ cat. A cat came in and at first I thought, is that a raccoon, and some people still think that they see a raccoon in that. It’s very hard to tell and there is a family of raccoons that lives in the lot next to me. Like literally a family, one time I saw the mom, she was walking across the fence next to the pool and three baby raccoons were following her. – That’s cute. – And also if you listen to the video, you’ll see that at the end after the cat disappears sort of behind the wall, there’s like a repeated sound of like somebody taking like a cord and hitting against the floor, which that’s a very raccoon thing to do. (whacking) Cats don’t make that, cats don’t leave a mark. They’re like evil spirits that just float through spaces. They don’t step heavy and stuff like that. – So in the video you posted– – But I do think it was a cat. – The cat jumps off the couch behind the couch? – No no it comes to the edge of the couch which is behind the wall, kind of the corner of the room where there’s that light and then like– – The camera view was obstructed. Oh. – And he did something. I don’t know what it was, but I’m 90% sure it was a cat and it’s a black cat that I think is a neighbor’s cat that is kind of around and we don’t feed cats. I don’t believe in feeding cats as a policy. I believe that some cats should be fed. I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that I don’t feed cats. – You don’t believe in you feeding cats. – And it’s a neighbor’s cat that’s one of those roving cats. – Yeah, if you feed it, it’ll keep coming back. – And so apparently he just thought it was okay to come inside. Apparently he didn’t understand the disposition of our household towards cats. – Because you didn’t, did you see the cat exit, or if not, did you think the cat may still be in the house? – No I thought he had probably gone. I thought he had left. – At that point you were thinking about an Instagram post. – Oh yeah. – You had moved on from Locke being wrong and you being right and from a cat being there to how do I exploit this digitally? – Yeah yeah and that was when my wife and I had the conversation about, ’cause I think she was like, well I should tweet that or something. I’m like whoa, whoa, I should tweet that. (both laugh) – Oh really? (laughs) You guys are trying to out-tweet each other. – No ’cause I’m like well, you know, I think that my post has the most potential. – Ooh. (Rhett laughs) Did you give her the line, you can retweet my tweet? – No, she did. She did come up with some of the verbage. I think she came up with, here’s the thing, we don’t have a cat. It was a collective tweet. – She’s your ghostwriter. – Yeah she’s my ghostwriter. And so it’s also like, just the other day, it’s funny because now that she’s on Twitter, I mean she’s got an Instagram account that’s private, well she’s got one that’s like her design thing that’s public and then she’s got one that’s herself that’s private, but Twitter of course is just public for everybody, so she’s kinda gettin’ into the fray a little bit on Twitter. And so now when things happen at home, there’s a little bit of a race, like so, my most-liked tweet ever as of this weekend was my, I was like, Jessie asked Shepherd, she said, “What kind of eggs do you want?” And he said, “Pancakes.” It’s got like 20 something thousand likes. ‘Cause I just tweeted, my wife to my 10 year old: what kind of eggs do you want? 10 year old: pancakes. People just love that. – You had no role in that except tweeting it. – Yeah right and so and as soon as it happened, I was like, that’s a good tweet and it’s funny because Jessie was actually, she was part of the tweet but she didn’t, we recognized it was funny at the time, but she didn’t immediately think I gotta tweet that. – Oh and so she lost. – Yeah but she commented on it. – It’s an interesting thing because, what was the comment? Like, hey this should have been my tweet? – No she says she made a joke about eggs or pancakes, I can’t remember exactly. I liked it. – She glommed on and you liked it. It’s funny because I don’t tweet that much, you know, we’ve talked about this. I’m off of that now. I’m onto the new thing, the new thing called Instagram. But Britton who now lives with us, he started tweeting things that are said around my house. – Oh, so he’s doing that. – So he’s doing what you’re doing. He’s listening in to stuff in the Neal household and then tweet it, like stuff that Christy’s saying, he’s tweeting it. – There’s a treasure trove there. – Yeah but of course I can’t do that. I can’t be the one that’s like, here’s something my wife said, implying like you’ll find this hilarious. – I follow Britton on Twitter but I haven’t followed him closely enough to see these tweets that you speak of. – I don’t follow him either. No I do but– – I do follow him. But I’m just saying I don’t, I just look at moments and mentions on Twitter so I don’t see a lot. – He told me he did– – That’s another thing my wife says, she’s like, I walk home. I walk in home. (chuckles) And she says, “He didn’t like my tweet.” – Oh. – I’m like I didn’t see your freakin’ tweet, I’m sorry. I’ll go like it now. – Dang. – Yeah yeah it’s only if she thinks that her tweet was deserving of a like, and it often is. But I haven’t seen these Britton tweets. So how many times has he done this and does he say, my, how does he characterize it? – He’s trying out this catchphrase that’s like, he’ll give the exchange, and then he’ll say something like, another day in the Neal household or something. – #AnotherDayInTheNealHousehold. – Yeah something like that. – He gotta shorten that. – You know. I’m letting him do his own experimentation. Even though I am an expert in Twitter. Who am I? Who am I to give him advice on the tweeting? – Okay so that’s the story, it’s not as exciting as, I mean it’s still a little bit exciting but it was just as simple as leaving the door open. Fun fact, if you leave your door open, animals and/or people, I mean, I should be happy that it was just a cat and not a cat burglar. (chuckles) – And that the cat left. You could be taking care of a cat right now. – Well I wouldn’t be, I would have escorted it out. – Okay. All right we’re gonna get into my race and what happened and how my life was potentially changed or not. But first, we wanna just encourage you to buy some stuff from us. I mean let’s be real. We’re sellin’ stuff, you can rep it. Mythical.store. – Why don’t you grab that hat there Link? – Has hats. – ‘Cause I’ve got a hat in my hand. I’m not gonna wear ’em ’cause who would do that? Well Link’s wearing his. I have a tan hat. – Works great over a set of cans. Put it over your cans. That’s a euphemism for headphones. – This is a way the kids are wearing the hats now. It’s just lightly placed on top of the head. – Gingerly. – Wow, look how big my head looks when I do that. (Link chuckles) – Your head can look this big too. Go to Mythical.store. Get that and all types of other stuff. – Bigger head, bigger brain. – Bigger head, bigger brain. – Okay Link, tell us about your experience. – Spoiler alert, I got a medal. I don’t know if I pointed that out earlier but I got a, I mean it is a heavy medal. Like hold your hand up. There it is. – Yeah makes you feel like you did something. – Substantial, man. Reminds me of when we made medals for our Supernote competition. Arguably the largest YouTube collaboration/competition to date, to that date on YouTube. – At least that’s what we called it. – At least that’s what we said. – That’s how we marketed it. True or not. – It was a competition to see who could hold out the longest continuous vocal note (chuckles) on the internet. We should bring that back. – Oh gosh. It was a nightmare. – It’s a different world now. It’s a different internet world. Anyway, we made medals like this but this one’s pretty freakin’ cool. Oh you want this hat out, which one, Rhett’s fault. So I go to a gym and they’re doing things like, a lot of people at my gym, they’ll get on Facebook and they’ll talk to each other and encourage each other and there’s a, and of course, I don’t do that. – Encouragement. Encouragement’s for losers. – I’m there for the burpees, I’m there for the tonage. I’m there to just get fit. I mean the first thing that got me into the gym three years ago now, ish, was, I was having shoulder problems, I was having knee problems, I went to physical therapy, they taught me some exercises that then made me feel better but I was like, I gotta maintain my body. I gotta turn a corner here so I started going to the gym but I’m not one of these people that’s like, I’m doing this for me, I’m doing this for my health, I’m doing it for my wife and kids, you know, to be physically a part of their lives. You know? (chuckles) – I think I know what you mean. You said it differently than I would have. (Link chuckles) You wanna be around, you wanna be engaged, you wanna be spry. – Yeah I wanna be able to grab ’em and toss ’em. – You wanna be young at heart and in body. – Yeah, man, and not get hurt. Arm wrestle. That kinda thing. – Show ’em who’s boss. – But the social aspect of it was not really my thing, so I’m not really, I mean I know people, I have friends at the gym but you know, at the end of last year, I’m thinking there’s some things that, I’m trying to be more open to even more experience, especially when it relates to self-care. And I think those two things coming together led me very early on at the top of the year, as I was leaving the gym, the guy just mentioned, hey there’s a sign up for the Spartan Race. And I’d heard of this and some people had done it before and a lot of people sign up, they do it as a group from the gym and I really didn’t think about it, I was like, I’m gonna do that. I looked at the date, I knew we weren’t out of town. And I just signed up. It was kinda like I was observing myself make a decision that I never thought I would make. It was like an out-of-body experience. And I was like I’m doing this. I don’t know why, I’m just, I’m gonna give it a shot. I’m open now, I’m more interested in, I don’t know what’s involved in this race. And then the next time I got to the gym, I was like, maybe you should tell me a little bit about this thing that I’m gonna be doing, this Spartan Race. He was like, well we don’t train here, it’s like, you gotta come Sunday mornings first thing. We’re gonna meet out at a park and we’re gonna do special training for it. I’m like okay. You gotta run a 5K and there’s 20 obstacles all along the way and there’s a Spartan Race, there’s a Tough Mudder, there’s all types of things floating around that I’ve heard about. But I’m like okay I’m gonna go to the training. I’ll see how this shapes up. I didn’t really look on the website. I made up my mind, I didn’t wanna look at the obstacles or really try to understand what’s happening ’cause I felt like I would get nervous. So I’m just gonna go to the training on that Sunday morning. – But the obstacles that were gonna be, they weren’t gonna replicate the obstacles in this park. Not to an exact degree, right? – No when we went to the park, there was just a small group of us, like six of us, and the trainer guy, my friend who owns the gym. – Do the obstacles change each year? – They change from location to location, yeah. – So you don’t really know what you’re getting into, that’s part of it. – Yeah but I didn’t even wanna know like generally. I knew there was mud involved and they talked about crawling under barbed wire. Like well okay. And I get there and it’s just a park. There’s no obstacles at all, I mean, it’s just, there’s a dog park over here and then there’s a regular park over here and so we have to pair up and just start running a lap around this park, off, there’s no, just on the dirt. And then whenever we would come back around, we’d get down and we’d start crawling on the dirt and he had some bags and we’d carry some bags or we’d do burpees. But he was talking about, now, you gotta get low and this is how you do an army crawl. Just imagine there’s a barb wire over top, I’m like dang, am I gonna be bleeding at this thing? – Well if you don’t get low enough. – I think at Tough Mudder, Jenna was telling, they’ll like shock you and stuff. There was none of that for the Spartan. The Spartan Race is not– – The Tough Mudder gets up to– – It’s not as crazy as that. – They all have different levels but the most, the highest Tough Mudder, it’s like a Tough Mudder. – Yeah. So this, you don’t get shocked, but you do get dirty and you get down in it. So like I’m learning how to do an army crawl in the middle of this park and that’s not easy, you gotta have good hip mobility to stay low. And I’m crawling around on my belly and all of a sudden I hear somebody say, “What are you guys up to?” and then I said, “Oh we’re training for a Spartan Race,” and then I’m crawling up to this guy and he’s like walking his dog, heckling us, and he’s like, “You pay to crawl around on your belly “out here like that?” And I’m like, I wanted to say something very nasty to him. I bit my tongue, I didn’t say anything. – He was just trying to make conversation. – And then I’m like, his dog is crapping. – You pay for your dog to crap like that? That would have been a bad comeback. – So here I am crawling, I’m crawling, there’s like dog crap obstacles. – Oh, thank you, sir. – (chuckles) It’s like kinda humiliating. I was kinda second-guessing my decision and then we start running and I realize I am horrible at running. Like, I know how to move my legs like a runner but it’s something about the breathing part of it that is extremely difficult for me. I was out of breath, man, I was struggling. – I learned this when we ran the mile– – Yes. – In our old studio in a very small circle, and I thought that you were joking. I thought that the trouble that you were having with it was a bit. – I think I have asthma. (Rhett snickers) I mean I don’t wanna make light of asthma, I just can’t breathe when I start running. – I think it’s a rhythm thing. – Yeah, I mean I was asking about it, like, my trainer was like– – You’re not breathing deeply enough. – Yeah you gotta, you know, the breathe in through your nose, breathe out through your mouth. I remember back when we were in little league baseball, we’d have to run laps around there. It was like breathe in through your nose, breathe out through your mouth and I’m just like– (panting dramatically) So we paired up because, and there’s a woman who had a French accent whose name was Blandine. – Wha wha what? – I’ve seen her around? – She sounds like a graphic novel star or something, like Blandine. – Blandine the French woman became my workout partner so I’m running at– – That’s the best name. – Great person too. – That I’ve ever heard. – Great person. – I might have a daughter just so I can have a Blandine. I’m gonna get my vasectomy reversed. I’m gonna go to one of those specialists that can put your sperm in a certrifuge to make sure that only the female sperm or whatever you call it, get in there. I’m gonna have a girl so I can name her Blandine. You heard it right here. – And you need to set the spin cycle to French so she comes out speaking French. – Oh gosh. That could probably be done, it’s 20, is it 19? It’s 2019. – You know what? I never ask her to speak to me in French. – (chuckles) Well good. – But she has an accent. She’s a very nice person. Her and her husband own these gyms for kids, you know how when you take your kid to this place and there might be trampolines and obstacles and crap. So she was– – Oh like a jump center? – Yeah so she’s athletic-minded, and we start running and I’m like oh she’s setting the pace. (chuckles) – Blandine, gotta keep with Blandine. – Very early I’m like, uh, I’m not good at running. I don’t think I know how to breathe right. And then a few, like three minutes later, I couldn’t talk anymore so it was like I couldn’t object, I just had to really try to run to keep up with her. – She was your partner though so it’s just you and her. – It’s not that she was running fast, it’s just that she was running at a decent pace and I don’t know how to do that. – Right. – From a breathing point. – It could be in your legs too. Maybe your legs aren’t moving the right way. They have an inefficient stroke they call it. – I achieved fatigue pretty quickly but I pushed through just like it says on the back of my medal. Push harder. – Okay. Almost like it says– – I’m training, man. – On the back of your medal. (chuckles) – And when you get really fatigued, it’s hard to run and I found myself falling. We’re running on the dirt and– – Falling behind or falling? – Like falling on my face. Like falling, she was running a little bit ahead, it was a little bit of a decline, it was like dirt and gravelish type scenario and whenever she would hit a little dip and then it would go down and up, she’d get some momentum so it’d be like woo-woop and so she could get up the other side. I wasn’t great at that either and I fell, if it weren’t for my hands catching me, I would have fallen flat on my face and like my knees bleeding and she’s like, “Are you okay?” I’m like, “I’m not good at running.” (Rhett chuckles) And I get up, I’m running the rest, and then, so I had a war wound, so I come back the next week and I got a knee brace. – A knee brace. – Over my knee wound. – Okay. – ‘Cause my knee was also hurting after that. On the inside and the outside. And then I’m running the next time and Blandine’s not there ’cause she had to go to France for the holidays. – Yeah of course. – So I’m running with Lewis. – Quarterly trip to France. – Lewis is even faster than Blandine, I’m trying to keep up with them. (breathing erratically) Just like sucking air. We’re running up in the woods, we’re coming down from the woods on a decline and he’s well ahead of me so he’s stopping to do our burpees and as he turns around and looks, I give him a show. Like I splayed out and just (exhales sharply) fell again. On my hands and my knees, I’m just like tumbling down this hill. All because I can’t run, I’m that tired. I get so tired that my feet wouldn’t lift off of the dirt. And he’s like, uh. You don’t know what to say in that instance to the guy. It’s like you’re training with this guy and he’s like, “Uh, you okay, man?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I did this last week too.” – (chuckles) I did this with Blandine. – So then the next week I show up, I got a knee brace on both knees. – You need like a full body suit. You need like a Kevlar three-piece suit. – I need to look like somebody that you do motion capture– – Well what you need is you need a four-wheeler just to ride and follow everyone. (laughs) – I need to begin efficient. – I got a helmet and I got a combustible engine that propels me. – So I became, I developed this reputation amongst the group of being the guy who is gonna bleed every time. – The falling bleeder. (Link chuckles) – Needless to say, come race day, I was pretty nervous. – Right. – That didn’t affect my sleep because you know, whenever my head hits the pillow, I get stupid. I am a stupid sleeper. So I’m blessed with that but when I woke up I was like, man I’m kinda nervous. We had to drive out to Chino or Chico or what, Chino. – Yeah you gotta know which one you’re going to. – A lot of people out there. I’m like oh I get to see these obstacles and everything and– – There’s probably a lot of falling bleeders out there too. – I had on both of my knee braces. They gave us socks so we could all look the same so I got these tube socks on my shins and got a headband. I always wear a headband, by the way. That’s my signature. – I’ve heard about this. – Every time I work out, I gotta– – There’s always one in every gym. – I’m that guy. (chuckles) – The guy with the headband. – So– – I usually don’t talk to him, but I would talk to you. – Blandine and I take off, the race starts and I’m like okay, I can do this. I caught a glimpse of some of the obstacles. There’s a three-foot wall you gotta hoist yourself over that. But there’s like a five-foot wall that like I’m hoisting myself up, well, I put my foot out, Blandine jumps off of my thigh and I boost her over. – Right ’cause– – There’s a teamwork– – Mentality, and the rest of our team there, they decided to go at a slower pace, and you know– – Whoa whoa, hold on. You went Blandine pace? – I went Blandine pace. – The day of the race? – You know, I been training some more. – Hold on, but was this discussed ahead of time? – Yeah, yeah I was like all right, don’t leave me. Please. – Just you and her? – Yeah. And there’s– – So there’s no obstacles where you need, I’ve– – No. – I’ve read a little bit about it and I’ve seen pictures where you gotta have like three people minimum to get over these certain things or something. – Only if this is like your first race and you need help over things does your team rally around you to help you get over things. But for us we just had each other and a lot of people were just kinda paired up. And then there’s like, you’re climbing a net wall and when I get up to the top, I’m like man, this is, it hits me that like, if I were to fall from this, I could die. I gotta really be careful and I got more scared. And then we’re going over all types of stuff and then there’s a mud hill. I’d say it’s probably a six-feet tall, muddy hill and you climb this thing and you get on the top and you slide down into muddy water. – Mm-hmm. – It’s like three feet deep and you’re trudging across that. Another muddy hill, it’s taller. – Was it cold? – Conditions were perfect. I would say it was like 74 degrees in the air. – ‘Cause that would be, cold would be the worst part. – So I get up on the second hill and we’re sliding down, I’m like man, this is fun. All of a sudden I’m having fun. I’m not as scared anymore. And so I slide down in that mud pit. – Are you like saying woo? Did you have anything that you say when you get over a– – I didn’t have like fun exclamations like yeehaw or anything like that. I kept my redneck inner dialogue inside. – What kinds of things did you say? – I went down there and I’m like, my face didn’t get muddy but my shoulders did and I’m in up to my armpits and I turn around and this big football player dude makes a huge splash and when I turn around and look at him, he has gone under. He’s got mud all over his face. And I look at him and I say, “You look great.” And– – You encouraged someone. – I encouraged someone. – But you also seemed like kinda making fun of him a little bit. – And he looked at me and I noticed that he was struggling. He’s like wiping his eyes with his muddy hands and he was like, I got it in my eyes. So he thought I was taunting him. ‘Cause he was like having a moment. – Yeah well that– – I was like you look great. – He was like, I got it all in my eyes, man, and he was upset. And I was like oh– – You sounded like you were kinda making fun of him, just so you know. – I wasn’t trying to. – Right. – But I did realize that he was in duress in that moment. I tried to make up for it and I was like, my sleeve doesn’t have any mud on it. Wipe your eyes on my sleeve, man. And he was like, nah, nah, nah, I was like dude. – Was Blandine okay with this? Where was she? – She was trying to go up the next hill. – She’s like, quit helping the competition! – And so he was like nah, man. I’m like, no, it’s perfectly dry. Just wipe your eyes on my sleeve, man. And I basically made him do it and he did it and then he didn’t say anything to me. He just went up the hill. And then so I go up the next hill– – You Linked him. You totally Linked him. – I helped him! – You unintentionally– – I helped a blind man on the road. – You unintentionally insulted him. That’s Link step number one. – He looked great. – And then you forced him– – He couldn’t see. – You forced him into doing something that he didn’t wanna do which is Link number two. (chuckling) And then you told the story and didn’t realize that (laughs)– – Well it ain’t– – How he took it. That’s Link number three. – And then I get up to the next hill and I realize, oh I gotta slide down this third one into more mud and now there is an inflatable wall that is– – Well that sounds fun. – That is brought down to the surface of the mud and they force you to submerge yourself completely and go under, so everything I did to help that guy was immediately erased by the fact that we all just have to go under this thing. – That’s what he should have said. – And he knew that because he told me once we got to the top of the hill, he was like, this is a lot easier than it was yesterday. I was like, you did this yesterday? He was like yeah. Like oh so you knew that you were about to go under all, go under the mud and basically me forcing you to wipe your face on my shirt was pointless. – Yeah. – I didn’t say any of that, I just kinda– – Thought it. – Slinked along. – Yeah. – But we had to submerge ourselves completely in the mud and that was a fun moment. But then right after that, we’re running to the next obstacle and it is a, like a 45 degree wooden triangle that was probably eight feet tall and it had ropes hanging from it and it was soaked because everybody was soaked and your feet are soaked, your whole body’s soaked by this point and you have to grab the rope, stand on the wood and walk up this wet inversion obstacle. And that was– – Well how did you do it– – Nearly impossible. – If you can’t have no grip? – Well you could grip the rope but then your feet had to grip but you had to lean back in order to create more, what’s that called, in statics. – Friction? – Well you know, you gotta, that force back towards, if you lean back on the rope, your legs become like a moment arm and you’re sending your force vector back into the wood. So that you can get more traction and walk. But it was, people were getting halfway up and then falling flat on their faces and then sliding back down into all the people that were waiting. And I was determined– – Now if you get up to a obstacle like this, is there somebody there to make sure you go over? – No, well there’s people like on the sides saying, hey just go around. If you can’t do an obstacle, you have to do 30 burpees. – Oh. – But you lose a lot of pride when you gotta do the burpees. 30 burpees is actually not easy. – Not easy. – I was determined to make it up and I noticed that there was one rope that had three knots in it all the way up, some didn’t have any knots. I’m like I’m going for that one. I get halfway up and then the space between the second knot and the third knot was farther than I could reach with my fingertips so I would grab the rope and just slide back down and you feel like everybody’s watching, everybody’s waiting for you to get over. – Right ’cause one rope. – Well there’s, probably five people could go at a time, but there’s probably 45 people waiting– – Oh man. – ‘Cause people start backing up. – Embarrassing. – I was desperate to get over this thing and I was holding on the rope, I was leaning back, I was like really struggling and I’m like, I look at a rope over here and it has a knot on it and I’m like, belaying over and putting my foot on the knot in the other rope and trying desperately to push up and there’s a guy right up there who’s helping some people over but he’s not helping me over. He’s just like, and I don’t know if he was waiting for me to reach out– – It was ’cause of the headband. – Well we all wore headbands. – Oh. – They give you a headband with a number on it. – Oh it was your number then. – Yeah that’s why I trained with a headband. – Do you have athletic glasses? Like Kurt Rambis? – I was wearing contacts. I wasn’t wearing Kurt Rambis goggles. – Missed opportunity. – I did make it over but it was harrowing. And then I hung at the top and like grabbed Blandine and pulled her over, it was like a survival situation, I felt like, it’s like an adult version of don’t step in the lava kind of a vibe was happening. There’s a lot more obstacles after that but that was the most difficult spot for me. After that, there’s some rings and other monkey bars, I’m like carrying a lot of weight in a bucket around a circuit and all these different things. There was even a javelin toss. Like a Spartan, like a, is that what it’s called, a javelin? Like a stick that– – Yeah, javelin. – You could skewer somebody. – Into what? – Into a– – Hay bale? – Into people who were doing burpees. – Oh good. – Yeah it’s like oh you can’t throw the javelin, then you’re the target. – Kill the burpee-ers. – Like a hay bale. Turns out we ran the whole time from obstacle to obstacle. We didn’t do any walking, some people were doing that. If you went first thing in the morning, you were in the elite competition people who were like doing this time and that’s like American Ninja Warrior type vibe, but this was like the free-for-all, some people walking, everybody going at their own pace. So it wasn’t the competitive run to get across the finish line first. But once it gets to the end there’s like a rope you have to climb and that’s the first thing I could not do. I’d never learned the technique to climb a rope. Blandine was trying to show me and she was having a difficult time so we ended up doing the burpees. And then I saw– – How high do you have to go? – Probably 15 feet. – That’d be trouble. – It was intimidating. And it really, my hands were hurting. So I was like I’ll just do the burpees and then I saw Christy and the kids and they saw me cross the finish line. And we got our pictures taken, they gave me the medal and there’s people there at the end who hand you the medal, put it around your neck. And so I knew that my family was watching. I felt like the whole world was watching. So I decided I’m gonna run up to this guy who’s handing me the medal– – Uh-oh. – And I’m going to take a knee like a knight. So I went to take a knee. Nobody else was taking a knee. I guess the guy hadn’t (chuckles) encountered anyone taking a knee because as I took the knee, he tried to put the medal over where my head used to be and instead, slapped me square in the face with my medal. – That’s kinda what you deserve. – Which is a heavy medal. This is an impressively heavy medal and I know because it hit me square in the face at the end of my race. – Wow. – I’m pretty sure Christy got this on video. – I hope she did. – I haven’t watched it back but if it is, we can cut to it for the video version. YouTube.com/EarBiscuits, subscribe now. So that kinda put a damper on my ending, it’s just like wham right in the face. (Rhett chuckling) And then we ran, we got some pictures but then– – Oh gosh. – We actually ran, I was exhausted. I was absolutely exhausted but Blandine was like let’s run back and come through with the rest of our team. We can support them, we’re all in this together. I’m like, that’s a great idea but I hate you for thinking that is what I was thinking. I don’t want to run back, and then we started running back, and both of my calves cramped up, I couldn’t move, I’m like, I gotta, she’s running back. I’m like, I can’t do this. But we did catch up with them and we brought them back– – They ended up carrying you. (chuckles) Over the– – I recovered but we got to the rope climb at the end and Blandine wants to try it again, she’s like– – I like Blandine’s attitude. – Got this inner competition. And of course my family’s still there watching and then everybody’s like, try it again, do the rope climb– – Oh gosh. – I’m like I don’t wanna do this again. I didn’t do it the first time, and so, I had watched, and I just, the technique is you’re supposed to climb a rope with your legs, not your arms. – Not your arms, yeah. – And I started doing it, like I hooked my feet together and then I pushed up and then I reached my hands up and I grabbed again. Actually yeah, I pushed up with my legs and then, I did it a second time and then all of a sudden, I realize, people were cheering and I did it a third time and then I did it a fourth time and then I looked up and there’s the bell. – You got it! – And I’m ringing the freakin’ bell, I climbed the freakin’ rope, man! Right? – That’s awesome. – (laughs) I’m forcing Rhett to say that’s awesome. But it was unexpectedly awesome to actually hit that bell like when I got down, my family was cheering for me and then we crossed the finish line and we all took the pictures and then it was over and then we went to, there’s this– – Ruby Tuesday’s. – Well we were so dirty, like coated head to foot and they had rigged up all these garden hoses, I’m talking like probably 35 garden hoses under this cement slab and so I go under there and we’re all hosing off so then we can go into this changing place and change and I look down and somebody had left two hotel-size shampoo bottles– – Hmm. – In front of me, and there’s like probably 50 people at different stages of hosing themselves off, men, women, children. It was like post-apocalyptic except for me because I was lathered from head to toe in every frickin’ bit of that shampoo that nobody else had so I realized everybody was looking at me and laughing ’cause I was like, I was sudsed up like a dude taking a bubble bath. – They didn’t wanna use it? – I offered it to the people that I knew and like, Chad took a little bit and shampooed his hair a little bit, I’m like, man, I’ve never been, I can’t ever remember being this dirty. It was like the ram in the thicket. God gave me shampoo and I tried to share it but no one wanted to go full lather. Except me. – They were like, I’ll do a thorough shower when I get home. – Right, I was like putting it down my pants and then I changed and we– – Wow. – Went back to my family and ate some beef jerky and some bananas and headed out of there. But the thing that happened that I didn’t anticipate was, and it started at the rope climb and then it continued way into the evening and it was this. I felt good. (Rhett chuckles) I was proud of what I had done and I know that sounds kinda cheesy and a little weird to say but the thing that I realized was I in no way anticipated actually feeling that, honestly. I thought I’m gonna sign up for this thing, yeah, it’s gonna be difficult. I’m not surprised that I’m nervous about doing it. I’m gonna push myself physically and I’m gonna have a physical experience of completing something, as long as I don’t get hurt, this is a success. But I honestly, it didn’t cross my mind that there would be an emotional component to completing a race like this. You know, people talk about completing marathons and I totally get if you run 26 miles and you cross a finish line, I totally get that you might be in tears of joy. – Of course. – But I did not anticipate with doing a little three mile, 5K, jumping over some ropes and oh, this is no big deal that it would actually have an impact on my self-esteem. It was surprising to me. And it was kinda awesome and I– – Does this mean you’re like a Spartan guy now? – I’m a Spartan junkie now. No, I’ve talked to people after and they’re like, did you get the bug? And I actually know what they’re talking about ’cause there’s this thrill of achieving something. I’m not competitive at all so any of my many soccer exploits, I don’t know that I, or any type of sport, physical competition type thing, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced actual joy in doing it. – Hmm. – Because I was like, what am I feeling right now? This is so weird. What is the feeling that I have that my family just watched me climb a rope? I mean it’s kinda silly. I’m a 40 year old guy ringing a cowbell at the top of the rope and the answer was pride. You know, I was proud. I was proud. And it was like, it was so weird to then realize that it was the first time that it happened so now I gotta get my other three. That night, it was like late that night ’cause I went into the kitchen to get a pseudo midnight snack. ‘Cause I had earned it, I mean, let’s be real. – Yeah, right. – My watch told me I had burned 1100 calories. Took me an hour and a half to finish the race, that’s how long it took. I was absolutely exhausted. – And is it the same, ’cause you were telling me that your portion wasn’t competitive so people weren’t like going for time. – Nobody was shoving. – But the people before that in the morning are in the same obstacles? – Yes, same obstacles. – Give me the– – I think the record– – The best time. – 30 minutes, I think. Something around there. – Yeah. – That’s pretty crazy. I mean, for me to be running the whole time, jogging, if I’m not doing an obstacles, and only waiting at a couple of ’em, it was an hour and a half and I felt really good about that, if I haven’t established that already. So that night, lo and behold Lily comes in the kitchen. I guess she earned a midnight snack too and I’m like, hey Lily. What did you think about my race today? She’s like, well you know… After the rope climb, which the first time I didn’t do it, she was like you go up to the rings and you know how you gotta stand there for a second, it’s like, I kinda looked at your face and I could tell that you were afraid. (both laugh) And I’m like, I look at Lily, I’m– – I can see the fear in your eyes. – And I told Lily, I was like, I was. And she was like, and then you started doing it and you grabbed one ring and then you swung to the next ring and I could tell you kinda got the hang of it and then you felt better about it. And I was like, I did. And then after you did, and I was like, did you see me do the rope? And she was like, yeah yeah yeah, when you went back and did the rope, that was cool, and then there was a pause and she was like, I can tell you’re pretty proud of yourself. (Rhett laughs) And I’m like– – You think? (both laughing) – And I’m like, I am. I am, and I was… It’s the stuff that I’ve already said but it’s also this thing of being, don’t you feel like we were taught a little bit that like, being proud of yourself for doing something is not, it’s not a pure thing to feel. – Not in the McLaughlin household. (chuckles) – You think? Okay then maybe it’s just me then that I feel like if you’re gonna be proud of something you did, it’s like, yeah I’m proud of that. There’s a tinge of– – Well no I mean– – But you don’t wanna flaunt it. You don’t wanna be honest and be like yeah tell me– – Being proud of yourself and being prideful– – I understand there’s two different things but I guess it bled in my psyche. – Well yeah, yeah yeah. – So I think I will do it again. I encourage you to give it a shot. – Well I was reading that book. There’s a book about The Iceman Wim Hof– – Mm-hmm. – And the guy who wrote the book is talking about… I read this like a year and a half ago and he’s talking about Spartan Races. I need to, I should really do something like that, but they don’t do that at my gym, so I didn’t look at it, ’cause you gotta, I wasn’t gonna go there by myself. – Yeah you gotta have a squad. I don’t think you can be in my squad because– – Oh I’m gonna get another squad and beat your squad. – Yeah let’s do that. – Yeah, I’m gonna take the– – You’re gonna try to recruit Blandine– – You and Blandine. – To your side. – No, I’d definitely do it. I am legitimately, now, you know me, I am incredibly competitive. Like competitive sports were a huge part of my life growing up and so I think I definitely approach it very differently because I’d never, I didn’t think about sports and competition in the way that, I just saw something and it was like, I am going to win at that and I was just like, I put everything into how am I gonna win, so it was a different kind of approach. – But does that mean, can you quantify, can you pinpoint what’s your greatest physical feat? ‘Cause I guess I’m saying, I mean definitely in recent history, this Spartan Race was that for me, like a personal physical milestone. Last time I ran 5K was when I was on the soccer team, like we had to run a lot in high school, I’m talking that many years ago, 20 some plus years ago was the last time I ran anywhere near that. – Okay so speaking of 5K, so, I probably have told this story maybe way back on the RhettandLinKast or something but my basketball coach was the cross-country coach. Coach Gage. – Mm-hmm. – And still the basketball coach at Harnett Central. I don’t know if he’s still doing cross-country, but anyway, so he kinda got all the guys on the basketball team to run cross-country and I was an athlete so I was like okay, I’ll do this. I had never really done long-distance running but I was like okay, I mean people can do it so I will be one of the people who can do it. It’s the way I’ve always, if somebody can do it, okay I can do it. – And the course is usually 5K right? – It’s a 5K, it’s the one that went around the tobacco field and down the dirt road next to school and stuff and so they were like, okay well, day one, you guys are all just gonna run this 5K and we’re gonna see where you’re at. – Yeah, baseline. – And because that was a competition amongst just the people, someone who you’re now half related to, Brian. Lewis’s nephew I guess. – Oh yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I know who you’re talking about. – Was out there, he’s another tall guy like me. And so we start running and I’m like, didn’t expect him to be good. Now he’s tall like me but I just, he hadn’t played any other sports that I knew of. – Right. – And I’m like well he’s not gonna beat me. – Oh. – No preparation for this. – I don’t remember this story, by the way, so– – So I just, well I gotta keep up with him. I’m like good lord, this guy is flying. – He was Blandining you. – And I’m like out of shape. Basketball season was over and I guess I was in pretty good shape for basketball season, whatever, but you know, not this kind of shape. – He was your height. – Yeah he was, so I’m just running like crazy and of course, the way that the course… I kept up with him the whole time and the way that the course ends is it goes around one lap of the track, you come in and go around one, and I was like, he’s not beating me. – Ha. This is day one. – Day one, I ran. – Did you talk to him? – No, I ran– – You were just running beside him. – I ran beside him and then– – And didn’t say a word? – In the last like 10 steps, overtook him and beat him. – Were you sprinting at the end? – I ran the 5K in 18 minutes. (Link chuckles) – That’s pretty good. – 18 minutes. – Just to beat Brian. – And which incidentally is not even that good of a time in cross-country once you start competing, but it was by far the best time I ever ran because I was like, I beat Brian and that’s really all I wanted to prove and then the rest of the time, during the meets, we would actually run and then we would get around the corner and then we would stop running and walk. – Break out potato chips or something? – And then I would, we would get back into where the parents were watching. I had kinda just jogged along not too hard but I got to that place where everybody was watching and I started sprinting and I would pass like 17 people at the very end and come in and finish like in the middle of the pack. Just so I could come in like chariots of fire, just flying, like how does this tall guy have so much energy? – You say chariots of fire but I always picture that guy in slow motion. – Yeah but I do look very slow because of my limb length. (Link laughs) But beating Brian that first day– – In practice. – In practice, that may be one of my greatest physical feats. – You just wanted to let him know you could. – Yeah ’cause I was thinking about this– – Because I once did. – I was thinking about this– – That’s your greatest physical feat, like that’s the one you’re thinking about. – Well I’ve had a lot of success in sports but I don’t think of those as like a physical feat. – Yeah, it’s not. – You know what I’m saying. Just like a pure physical exertion. – Like pushing your body to the limit. Have you ever been, have you ever worked out at a gym to the point where you just vomited on your own feet? – No. I was thinking about this and first of all, it takes a lot for me to actually vomit. There’s the McLaughlin streak that me and my brother and my dad had for like, it was like 40 years combined, nobody had vomited and then within one year, we all three vomited. – Oh. – But anyway. – I bet that was quite a gusher. – But I never worked out so hard that I threw up. I worked out hard but– – Oh I came, when I first started going to the gym, I came close. – ‘Cause I used to go to the same gym that you do– – They gave me a packet like sugar water to drink. Had my head between my knees. – Well and it’s like the circuit training kinda thing and we wore the heart rate monitors and stuff and trying to burn a certain number of calories or whatever. I mean basically it’s like, a couple weeks ago, I go to a gym but I have a trainer and we go through a bunch of different exercises. It’s basically a mix of… It’s all strength training but it’s so quick and there’s a bunch of it going on together so you’re also getting a cardio workout at the same time and it lasts for like an hour, and I work out, like to the point, I have so much pride but the bad kind of pride. Like I never ever stop and say I can’t do that last five seconds or something like that. There’s just something in me. It’s the whole Enneagram three thing. I cannot– – You can’t admit. – Right, I will not– – [Link] That you’ve reached the limit. If they’ve told you to do something. – You have to do this plank with this weight on your back for a minute after you’ve done this thing, I’m like, okay if that’s what it is, I’ll do it. So she just pushes me as far as I’ll go, and then I was like sore for like, that was probably as much as I’ve pushed myself in my 40s definitely. Which my 40s haven’t been very long, but then there’s things like, I’ll have to run across a parking lot in the rain to get to my car. It’s just like, I got my back issues. There’s four different places that my back can get hurt and I’ve got my knee that’s got arthritis and my elbow and my, I’ve got tall guy issues, so I’m very stiff and very much thinking, don’t hurt yourself. Whenever I get going I’m like don’t hurt yourself. That’s the main reason I’d be scared of the Spartan Race ’cause I was doing like assisted pull-ups at the gym and my upper back thing snaps. The rope climb would be a problem. I think I could get to a place where I was physically capable of it if I figured out how to do it but I think I could potentially hurt myself but. – I mean you’re talking about running in the parking lot. I still have trouble, especially now, running in the parking lot because of this medal. Wearing this everywhere makes it a lot more difficult to exert myself. – Do we need to install obstacles, like in the office, in order for you to get to the bathroom, I’ll get Blandine to come in here and– – Yeah we can jump over stuff. – Yeah. – Sure, yeah. – I’m very much attracted to the idea of doing those kinds of physical challenges. Not Blandine, I haven’t seen Blandine. Because, well we started working out basically as adults at the same time. I used to, I would play basketball or do something and then you kinda just run out of time for doing that and then there was like the years of inactivity where we were just working really hard and I did convince us to get that elliptical machine that we had in the Lillington basement– – Yes. – And we used it every once in awhile but– – I never used that once. – Then we just ended up putting clothes on. – We would drink SlimFast. – But we drank SlimFast– – But not to lose weight. – Just because it was efficient– – Just an efficient mode of continuing to work but not have any sustenance. – In those days we would– – We would down two SlimFasts and just keep editing videos and sometimes you, one day you showed up with an elliptical machine, I was like dude. Don’t, that’s just a– – And I did use it. – A physical manifestation of my guilt. – I did use it. – No you didn’t. – Yeah I did. More than you did. – Well yeah, I never used it. – Yeah exactly. – You could use it once and that statement would be true. – I used it at least 12 times. But we would have a SlimFast for lunch and then sometimes we’d have a SlimFast for dinner as well and then we would keep editing and then we would– – I think that is the commercial by the way. – And then we would sleep at the office and then we’d wake up and do it again. When a project was due because we didn’t have any help. – And this is fresh in my mind because, I’ll turn this into a Mythical Society plug just because it’s near and dear to my heart. I was watching, we’re releasing on the Mythical Society, we’re trickling out the archive of the original RhettandLinKast show which was a live show every Thursday night on Ustream. Now it’s just something you can watch if you’re a Mythical Society member. And so we released the first few of those and there’s one that features that elliptical. ‘Cause I remember you got it and we did a whole show about exercise or something and I’m pretty sure that you were on the elliptical. That one hasn’t been released to the Society yet but just looking at that basement and seeing how we were setting up everything, it just reminded me of that. Basically just a shameless Mythical Society plug but– – No but I definitely have a, as you start getting older and you’re like, I gotta do something to counteract what is happening to my body. I mean the main thing that’s happening to my body is just annoying injuries and you don’t even know what happened, you’re like, I don’t remember doing anything to my shoulder, I think it’s just, it’s expired. – Well my, I was playing soccer over Thanksgiving with my nephew Nehemiah and the kids and I kicked a soccer ball and I messed up my hip flexor. – Oh yeah you can’t do anything like that. – I just, I walloped that soccer ball and I knew something had happened. And it’s still not better. – You gotta stretch. – I’ve been stretching. – You gotta stretch one minute for every year that you’re old. So you gotta do, I gotta do a 41 minute stretch. – Every morning? – No before any physical activity. – Yeah. – But I do like a 20 minute stretch, as my wife calls it now, the stretch and snuggle time with Barbara. – Here’s my next thing because the Spartan thing, I do recommend it, I think it’s, I don’t know, there is a lot of risk for injury so you gotta be, we need to be careful. – There’s less risk in triathlons though. – Well somebody– – That’s just endurance. – Is that where you swim? – Swim, bike and run. – Like an Iron Man? – But you could do short versions of those. – The swimming is the problem for me. I woke up in the middle of the night thirsty as all get out last night. And you know I keep a big thing of water beside my bed– – If you swim, you don’t get thirsty– – I’m a Neal. – ‘Cause you just absorb all the water. – And I gotta stay hydrated. No, I start drinking the water and I’m so thirsty that I’m like, I didn’t take a breath in before I started drinking the water, I had exhaled and then I started drinking the water. (slurping) And I was so thirsty that I was having this inner dialogue of I need to breathe now, but I’m gonna get one more slurp in of this water and I did that and then I nearly had a panic attack that I was gonna drown myself. I just have this fear of drowning. – Drowning in your own Thermos. (Link chuckles) – I was afraid. I don’t like holding my breath, man, and that’s why I cannot, if I’m gonna drown in a water bottle at 3 a.m., how am I supposed to get in the ocean and swim for a prolonged period? I cannot do that. So that’s the next thing I’m gonna do. – Triathlon? – I’m gonna be a Iron Man. – If you wanna do triathlons, I’m totally down ’cause I think it’s much less likely that I get injured ’cause I’m not pulling on things and crawling, it’s just running, biking, swimming. And I don’t know what the order is. I think it’s biking, swimming, running? – Biking, swimming, running. Oh, I’m not ready to do swim training. But– – Hey. Swimming. – That’s something you do when you’re like 80. – Is– – You can do that. – No, swimming is tough. Okay, so we used to live next to– – I’m talking about water aerobics. – The pool– – I’ve never done that. – In Sherman Oaks and I was like, I’m gonna get up in the morning and just swim some laps. I was a good swimmer, I was a competitive swimmer growing up and was good, should have stuck with it. But– – So that now, you would be what? A swimmer? – So that I would be Michael Phelps, no. ‘Cause I was actually good at it. I think I was actually naturally better at it than other things that I did but I didn’t like the Speedo. But I love Speedos now, that’s the weird thing. I’m wearing one right now. But I was like– – Not a sponsor. – I’m gonna go and– – It’s a brand. – And just swim some laps and I started out in freestyle, thinking that, okay, this is the easiest, this is pretty easy. A couple of back and forths and you’re like, whoa, this is not easy, man. Talk about gettin’ your breath right. You end up having to take a breath like every time, ’cause I was just a sprint swimmer so I would go under, I would dive in and I wouldn’t come up at all. You know what I’m saying, I would go, do a turn, maybe take one breath down and back in a 50 meter or whatever, right, but like– – You do a freestyle but your face would stay under. – Yeah, but this was like, I gotta come up every freaking time, I’m so out of shape. I’m in a little bit better shape now but then I started going to the breast stroke and I was– – Okay breast stroke. – Like ooh, gotta do breast stroke, I gotta keep my head above water the whole time or I’m gonna die. – Then after that you were doing like back stroke. – Then after that I got out of the pool and went home and never did it again. (Link chuckles) But it’s tough, it’s really tough. – If it was muddy water, it would probably be fun. – But with everything like that, you, like with your running, you get to a place where it clicks and you’re like, okay, I’m normalized. ‘Cause with every physical activity, you hit that wall, you get through that wall, then if you get your breathing and everything in rhythm and you’re not worrying so much about competing against somebody else but competing against yourself, you can kinda maintain it for a lot longer than you realize. I’d love to do that man, let’s be triathlon buddies and call ourselves the triathlon guys. Shorten it to tri guys, no, taken. – Well I already have a workout partner. – Blandine, well can we be a trio? – No but– – The triple tri people. – You can probably look up Brian. He’s probably still your height. – Yeah. – I think he works in an auction, he works for– – He’s an auctioneer? – Christie’s. Isn’t that the fancy auction place? – He’s like in New York City right now. – Yeah, yeah. – New York City. – New York City. Brian’s in New York City? – Working for Christie. – Working for Christie’s. Christie’s Auction House. Candelabras and such. Okay. – That might be difficult being on opposite sides of the country. – So there it is, my greatest physical feat and I have this to show for it, the thing that slammed me in the face. (chuckles) I’m a Spartan. I’m a Spartan. – I’m envious, man. – Kiko, I’m gonna give you all types of pictures. They were taking pictures during the race and so I tried to make a point to make faces. – Maybe I could be a Spartan photographer. – Phortographer. (Rhett chuckles) – Yeah, that could be my position. I can get quite an angle on things with my height. – Thanks for sharing in this physical milestone experience of mine. I’ll show you how to climb a rope if you ever wanna learn. I did it once. And there you have it. #EarBiscuits, if you got any questions about like pushing yourself to the physical limit, I’m here. I’m here for you. Ask away. – In the meantime– – Oh we need a recommendation. – Oh yeah I’m gonna give a recommendation. – Don’t forget that. – It’s a little bit thematic with what we’ve been talking about. – Recs and effects. Share it, baby. – I’m gonna recommend a book that I finished in two days. So it’s an easy read. – Is it ours? – No, I think, I do recommend our book. I definitely recommend The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek but this was actually– – Is it out yet? Have you had to– – Is it out yet? – Yeah. – BleakCreek.com is the website where you can pick that up. You can pre-order that. – Nice plug, Rhett. You just recommended our own book. – That wasn’t my intention. My intention was to recommend a book that is kind of, it’s a little bit of an older book, like 20 years or whatever but– – Animal Farm? – I read The Road– – The Road. – By Cormac McCarthy. So I didn’t– – Viggo was in the movie version of that, right? – Yeah he was, I didn’t realize how much, Cormac McCarthy, one of the great American authors has written a bunch of different stuff. All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, things that have been made into epic movies. But The Road is like, I mean you can, it’s short. You can read it in a sitting if you’ve got enough time. But it is so just, speaking of bleak. (chuckles) It is a just bleak book. Near future, post-apocalyptic, just gray, dull landscape, no people and the people that are around are just garbage. – You’re making it sound great. – It’s exactly the kinda thing that turns me on. (laughs) – Okay. – So if you’re like, if you like a book about– – If you’re aroused by the apocalypse. – If you’re aroused by a world where there’s no hope like I am, if that just scratches the right itch for you, and listen, I know you’re out there. I know a lot of you are out there, that’s why these books are so popular. Then I highly recommend that. And I’m gettin’ into, now I’m reading All the Pretty Horses. I’m gonna go through the whole collection because– – Hold on. You made your recommendation– – Listen. – It takes the punch out of the recommendation to just slather it out– – Here’s an interesting fact about Cormac McCarthy and I didn’t realize that this was, I thought that maybe it was just a stylistic choice for this particular book but he does not use punctuation. Nearly to the degree of other people so in other words, there’s no punctuation. There’s no quotation marks in the entire book. – Are there periods? – There are periods but there are– – Commas? – Very few commas. So one of the things that he did back in the day, he’s old, he’s like almost in his 90s at this point but his story goes that he was tasked with sort of cleaning up some writers’ work back when he was a young man and one of the things he did is he went through and he took out a bunch of what he called unnecessary punctuation including a bunch of commas and the guy was like I really like this, how efficient this is, and now his writing style is, he’ll just be like, why don’t we go do a Spartan Race period. Link said, period. – Oh. ‘Cause Link said is just, is a sentence. – Yeah. – It can be. – But usually. – That is odd. – It is, at first a little bit like, oh, am I reading someone’s thoughts? And then you’re just like no, you know what. Punctuation is unnecessary and then there’s these whole long exchanges which is like in The Road it’s a father and son talking to each other and he doesn’t say the son said or, and first of all, it’s just the boy and the man. He doesn’t give ’em names. He just completely forgets saying this person– – You don’t know who’s saying what? – No, you do know. You do know who’s saying what because of the way that it’s written. When it’s a two person exchange it’s usually just back and forth but– – But if you get it off, then you’re backwards. – But it doesn’t happen. I don’t know, it was kind of a trip. I love discovering something that’s like an American treasure that a lot of people already know about and then being like oh. It’s like when you find a new television show and you’re like there’s seven seasons of this. – Oh. – So then I’m like oh. – Good rec. – You know, so– – Good rec. – I’m excited about that. – All right thanks for hanging out with us this week. You know what, next week we’ll be here to speak at you again so, whether you’re listening only or watching on our YouTube channel– – You’re special either way. – There’s more where that came from, #EarBiscuits. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. – [Rhett] To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. – [Link] And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. – [Rhett] If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your Mythical best. (electronic music)