Luke Tyburski: I Believe I am the Toughest Person in the World - R4R 066

Motivational speaker, adventure seeker, and coach who has raced triathlons worldwide.  Luke Tyburski has pushed himself to extreme limits, in fact well past where his body could thrive. This interview shows us the limits we can push ourselves to but also shows us the importance of self-care and dealing with the issues that face us that stand in the way of our full potential. Luke is real and honest with us about the demons he faced, and what he had to do in order to heal his body.  We discuss how looking at the big picture and that our lives are more than our sport and that balance is important in everything we do is what should drive us.  But also that we should not limit ourselves and instead look to what is possible and how we can try to achieve dreams. Today’s Guest Luke Tyburski is an Ultra Runner, Coach, and Motivational Speaker who undertook a 2000KM, 12 day cross-continental Ultimate Triathlon that he designed himself in 2015.  Luke is always up for an adventure, and has done things like race down Mt Everest, learned to surf, ran (literally for his life) on an island in the South China Sea after a typhoon, and the Marathon de Sables. Luke grew up in a small Australian town where he dreamed of playing professional football (aka soccer for those of us in the US) and then achieved that dream.  Luke hosts the Kinetic Revolution Train Smarter Podcast. What you will learn about: How Luke declared at age 4 that he wanted to be a football player.  But how it took him hard work and asking for assistance as he was not naturally a “young phenom” and often never made the team in the early teens.  His journey to being a Professional player included moving to the US from Australia and getting his education here, and then on to Belgium and the UK playing professionally. How overtraining and being in a bad relationship added stress to his life and all ended up with him landing in a deep depression and eventual retirement from soccer at age 28. How as athletes we look at and review our training and nutrition but we also need to learn to review our relationships and how it is impacting our lives and what we need to change in ourselves or our relationships that help us reduce the stress in our lives and allow us to be our best. How he registered for the Marathon de Sables (6 marathons in 7 days) right as he retired, while he  was still icing a calf injury, 6 months out from the race.  So essentially instead of dealing with the big thing that had been taken out of his life, he “ran away, literally” to do a race. How he designed his own triathlon, the Ultimate Triathlon.  He blacked out during a segment and woke up in a hotel with no idea how he got there.  And then wanted to keep going.  Eventually he realized he was addicted to endurance sports and that was his drug of choice.  Rather than dealing with his depression and mourning the loss of his life as he had known it. How the Ultimate Triathlon almost broke him because all the overtraining and failure to deal with the depression all wreaked havoc with his body.  Even after the event ended he threw himself into promoting the documentary.  But he still had to stop everything for months in order to heal himself.  And how he learned from the experience.   Inspirational Quotes: I thought people who did half marathons were crazy and those who did full marathons were just on a death wish, people who do it are just nuts. And then my friend told me about this race in the Sahara Desert…..Marathon de Sables. I believe there is no one else that is mentally tougher than I am. I believe I am the toughest person in the world. Reflect on what went wrong and what you can do to fix it so you don’t make the same mistake twice. I realized the potential I had as a runner. if I opened my mind to what I was truly capable of, what else could I achieve. Resources: Last week's episode with Max Paquette Tina4Real Podcast  Running for Real Superstars Community Luke's website Luke's website Marathon De Sables video The double brutal extreme video The Ultimate Triathlon website Luke on Twitter Luke on Instagram   Buy a Running for Real T-shirt, Tank, or Hat Thank you to BodyHealth and HOKA ONE ONE for sponsoring this episode of Running for Real. I was nervous (and excited) to try new shoes out at the start of the year, but there was one brand in particular I knew I wanted to try, HOKA ONE ONE. I tried the Clifton 4 and LOVED them, now the HOKA ONE ONE Clifton 5 are out, and even better than the 4. Get yourself a pair at HOKAONEONE.com/running4real for free expedited shipping and become part of the family. It’s Time To Fly™. Now I am back to training, guess what was the first thing I did to start making sure I recover quicker (as coming back to fitness really beats your body up!), yep, you guessed it, BodyHealth Perfect Amino! Get 10% off at Bodyhealth.com using coupon code TINA10