rich roll

This whole MEN’S FITNESS “MF 25″ thing is starting to get a bit crazy. Check out this interview with the magazine’s editor that aired on ABC News. I’m not mentioned, but its giving me an idea of the scope of this deal.

How can I capitalize on this to help others? Starting to work on some ideas….

Endurance sports journalist extraordinaire Roman Mica was kind enough to post this story on me this morning on both his website EverymanTri.com and in his endurance sports column, which appears on Examiner.com.

Check out the story on EverymanTri HERE
Check out the story in the Examiner HERE

And check out EverymanTri on Twitter @EverymanTri

Thanks Roman!

If you follow my blog at all, you know I’m a huge fan of Rip Esselstyn. A former University of Texas All American swimmer and pro triathlete, Rip recently published his book THE ENGINE 2 DIET, which is tearing up the charts as a leading tome on plant-based based nutrition for athletes and normies alike.

His book has been blowing up — Rip has made numerous television appearances, including the Today Show and reviews in Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. He is performing and amazing service by educating us all on the benefits of a plant-based diet and the ills of animal product nutrition.

In any event, Rip was kind enough to post a blurb about me on his blog this past weekend.

Check it out HERE!

Wow.  That’s all I can say.  I am speechless.  Today Men’s Fitness Magazine just went live online with the “MF 25″ – the magazine’s annual list of the 25 “Fittest Guys”.  Previous year editions featured the fittest guys in America.  But this year they broadened their reach, making the list global — the “25 Fittest Guys on the Planet”.  The Planet!?!?!

And guess who made the list?  This guy.  Sandwiched between the athletic superhero legends like Rafael Nadal, Hugh Jackman, Usain Bolt, Lebron James and just below Sir Richard Branson, there I am, featured as the “Real Guy”.  Pretty mindblowing!

I have known about this for a few months, but was asked to keep it under wraps until they went live with the list.  Honestly, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it.  I am humbled to the core, as I truly don’t feel like I belong in such unbelievable company.  I’m just an average guy who wanted to lose some weight, get healthy and challenge myself by tackling something hard.  I had no idea it would lead to something like this.  But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I thought it was pretty darn groovy.  Actually, its way cool.

I just hope that this piece will serve to open up some doors that can lead to new avenues of service to others.  If there is anything I can do to help someone else out there, please let me know.

Here is the excerpt on me from the article:

RICHARD ROLL
Age: 42
Country: U.S.A.
Career: Entertainment Lawyer/Producer

Some guys buy a sports car when they hit 40. Roll was 30 pounds overweight at the time, so he decided to invest in his body, instead. Two years later the Calabasas, Calif., lawyer earned the honor of being the second “Regular Joe” on the MF25. “When I turned 40, I found myself the most out of shape I’d ever been,” says Roll, a former elite swimmer at Stanford. “I didn’t want to live that way.” He adopted a plant-based diet and used multisport training to achieve a base level of fitness. But “base” wasn’t enough, so he set his sights on the 2008 Ultraman, a three-day, double Ironman distance triathlon in Hawaii. Roll began 15 to 20 hours of training per week, eliminating “anything extraneous” beyond family (he’s married and has four kids) and work. He finished 11th overall in the Ultraman but first among non-pros. “Working out makes me adhere to a tight schedule,” Roll says. “I’m much more productive.”

Happy to report that I just received official notification that I am indeed entered in the 2009 / 25th Anniversary of the Ultraman World Championships this November in Hawaii.

Not that I didn’t think they would let me in, but receiving the notice just made it all very real. I am so excited. Its exactly the time of year last year when I began to think about doing Ultraman for the first time, and comparing my level of fitness and experience right now to that of last year is a joke. As long as I am able to train consistently, stick to my plan and avoid illness & injury, and barring any major race issues (crashes / bike problems / nutrition problems, etc.), I am very confident that I can perform wildly beyond what I achieved in the 2008 race. My lactate test numbers are already better than they were last August and are only going to improve from here.

Analyzing my 2008 UM performance, there are just so many areas to improve.

CYCLING: Looking at the numbers, cycling is my clear limiter, which means more intense focus on this — miles, miles and more miles. In addition, last year my bike was all wrong, so I’m looking to Lloyd at TriathlonLab to help me get into a proper TT setup that is fast, but more importantly, comfortable. I laugh thinking back to last year, as I was so uncomfortable on my road bike during training that I actually broke a cardinal rule and changed my bike fit 2 days before the race! I truly believe with the experience I have gained, some serious miles, more strength & speed work, and an appropriate bike setup I will be poised for some major time drops on the cycling legs of the race. In fact, I think I probably lost at least 30-40 minutes on the first day and possibly more on the second day due solely to having the wrong bike. Not to mention the fact that I now know the course and can train accordingly for the terrain. One more major area where I can improve on the bike? I really need to learn how to pee without stopping! Man, I lost SERIOUS time last year making WAY too many natural breaks. Guess I’ll have to find some remote areas to practice this sacred art:)

RUNNING: Per my coach Chris Hauth, I adopted the world’s most conservative approach to the Day 3 double marathon. His primary concern was that I finish w/o injury or nutrition / digestion problems. As so the strategy was run 4 miles, walk 1 mile. I admit it paid dividends over the last 20 miles, clocking in at 9 hrs exactly. But I can do so much better. I did a couple 40 & 45 mile runs in training last year and know I can do the distance faster. My goal for ’09? 7:59. I can do it.

SWIMMING: Because swimming is my strength and I knew I could perform well here, I didn’t focus on it too intensely in training last year, swimming only about 3-4 times / week on average. Don’t get me wrong — I was prepared for the 6.2 miles, putting in more than a few 10,000 yard workouts. But swimming only 3-4 times a week doesn’t cut it. Plus I NEVER did any longcourse workouts and not once did I train in the ocean. So with a few simple adjustments, and maybe 1-2 more swim sessions per week (plus coming off last year’s fitness), I will be much faster this year. Last year I was 2nd in the swim to Marty Raymond, who surged on me at about 3K in, opened a gap and held it, coming out of the water about 2 minutes ahead of me. Unfortunately Marty won’t be participating this year, as the Royal Canadian Army is dispatching him to Afganistan this Fall. Marty, you will be missed. So it would appear that this leaves the swim wide open for me to take. But not so fast. This will be the 25th Anniversary of the event, and I’m sure this means some ringers are sure to show who didn’t compete last year — guys like Jonas Colting (super studly former UM Champ) and perhaps Florian Kraft, who set the swim record at UM Canada last year. The list of entrants is not up yet, so I still don’t know who I will be facing, but I have no doubt there will be some fast swimmers.

In any event, my training is coming into focus and I am up and at it with renewed vigor and excitement. I’ll be sure to keep you posted along the journey, and thanks for reading!

Well its been an interesting few weeks. More ups and downs than I would like, but that’s life. God continues to place obstacles in front of me and my family leaving me with one very loud and clear message — surrender and acceptance! I have been forced to accept that I have no alternative other than to live completely in the moment. Sometimes not just week to week or day to day, but literally moment to moment at times.

My law business continues to grow and evolve and I am hitting a great stride with some very cool and interesting new clients that give my professional life an interesting vitality — and for this I am very grateful. But times are still challenging and the bills always seem to trump the income. Its getting better, but can’t say I’m quite there yet. Every day seems to bring a new and exciting unforseen challenge to confront — my truck breaking down, my bike falling apart, a new school (and tuition!) for my daughter, blah blah blah.

Things hit a peak last week when my truck was towed from right in front of my office? Why? I was late on renewing my registration and had a slew of unpaid parking tickets. Humiliating, right? This resulted in having to spend most of the next day visiting the DMV, the Beverly Hills Police Station and the tow yard, with a price tag of almost $1300. I suppose I could be mad, but why? It was all a result of my actions and I have to take responsibility for that. Yeah, I didn’t have the money to pay on time. But I had the money when I needed it to get the truck back. And for this I am also grateful. Plus I got to spend the day driving around spending time with my wife. An opportunity to clean up a mess that wasn’t going to go away, despite my profound ability to summon denial.

I have to look at this (and plenty of other setbacks believe me, including our electricity getting turned off for a day!)) as nothing more than growth opportunities. Yeah, it has been brutal, but this is the life I have chosen. If I were a single guy, I’d be rocking it. My business is sound, its just that my fixed overhead is massive — mortgage on my dream house, 2 cars and supporting 4 children. But the truth is that I have food on the table, a family that loves and believes in me, a career on the upswing and a lifestyle I wouldn’t trade for $1M in the bank.

But my training has suffered a bit — I’ve been focused on righting the ship and just haven’t had the ability to workout as consistently as I would prefer. I had to cancel my Wildflower trip and more training sessions than I care to remember. Then last Saturday I was meant to get out on a bike ride with my training buddies, but due to a broken derailleur, I had to call it off. I was infuriated — my Saturday rides are sacrosanct. Then today I got the news. Two of the guys I ride with were struck by a car early Saturday morning on PCH near Topanga. They were riding well within the shoulder around 6:15 am when a vehicle veered into the shoulder and clipped my friend Jeff Seabold on his Cervelo S3, sending him flying into Sean Whitely, riding just ahead. Jeff’s elbow swelled up like a grapefruit, his shoe in the middle of the road and his kit torn to shreads. Unconscious, Sean went straight to UCLA in an ambulance. It looks like both will be OK, thank God. But both were injured — a serious scare.

The point? I have no idea what’s good for me. Of course, I thought I was somehow being punished or wronged by the Universe. Why doesn’t God want me to ride today? Isn’t this what he wants me doing? And yet it couldn’t be more clear that I was spared. Had I been out that morning, I could very well have been the one hit. I prefer to look at it like I was spared. God doing for me what I can’t do for myself. Wow. What a trip. What a lesson.

And so again, I must surrender. Pay attention to the signs. Go with the flow. Stop resisting what “is” and know that there is a plan out there for me. My continuing attempts to impose my will on the situation only results in misery and frustration. Like banging my head against a concrete wall. So I need to just do what’s in front of me to do. Accept my situation and circumstances and do the best I can.

Today is a new day and I have so much to be grateful for. So much to look forward to. Good things on the horizon I can’t wait to share with you soon. And so until then…..its all about the “now”.