When you're dealing with people with drug addiction, something is missing inside of that person emotionally.

Even though we put down one thing that's bad, you can pick up what can seem to be a good thing as triathlon.

And that's still not the answer to the problem.

The problem is from within.

So just because I'm not doing cocaine and I'm running a bunch of Ironmans, something's still missing.

Foreign hello, and welcome once again to the January 10, 2025 edition of the Tridock Podcast.

I'm your host, Jeff Sankoff, the Tridock an emergency physician, triathlon coach, and multiple Ironman finisher.

Coming to you as always from beautiful, sunny Denver, Colorado.

It's a new year, and as much as that often brings with it a sense of hope and enthusiasm, I know that for many it also tends to right around now that the motivation for training kind of bottoms out.

It's cold outside, it's often snowy, and it gets dark way too early.

The news from around the world has not been particularly good or optimistic.

And we're in that period where there is no racing at all on the calendar for like, what, the next three months?

And all of this is a recipe for seasonal affective disorder and what I like to refer to as triathlon motivationopenia, which is just kind of a fancy way of saying blah.

Really wants to train right now.

Hey, I get it.

I feel you.

I myself had a really long season last year, and after the world championships in December, I was feeling kind of toasty, super tired, ready for a real break.

And you know what?

I took it.

I ate all the Christmas and Hanukkah goodies, I drank all the wine, and I trained very irregularly and then very lightly.

I personally think that the key to rediscovering your motivation at this time of year is to do the following things.

First, give yourself permission to have a break.

We all put in a lot of effort throughout the spring, summer and fall, and this can take a toll on us physically and emotionally.

We often feel guilty for missing workouts during the season, and that can have a negative effect on us also.

So letting yourself have a break over the few weeks in December and January I find can be really, really helpful.

Second, train without structure for a little bit.

As much as having a break is important, not stopping completely is also very valuable.

And I've talked about this in the past about how you make significant gains year in over, year out.

And if you don't take lengthy breaks of time off completely, that's really important.

It's okay to do things that aren't swim, bike and run, or if you are just biking and running, to do so in a very unstructured way.

But whatever you're doing, just make sure you're doing something, even if it's just a wee little bit.

And third, and finally set yourself a return date.

You might not feel completely mentally ready to get back to it, but I guarantee that the moment you get back to your regular training schedule in a structured fashion, things will click into place pretty quickly and you'll start to feel that motivationopenia begin to subside and be replaced with the newfound vigor and enthusiasm to tackle all the challenges that you have set for yourself this coming year.

Having that date on the calendar is really, I think, the most important piece of this.

So get it on there.

Take your break until then, but make sure that you get back to it.

And if you need even more help getting through this and defining your goals and how to reach them, I can't think of a better way to do that than having a conversation with me, the Tridoc.

I would love to help you through that nadir of motivation and maybe become the coach that you need and have been looking for to create the plan that works for you and helps you accomplish all that you've dreamed of.

So send me an email@tridocloud.com and let's chat about it.

No obligation whatsoever.

On the show today, Juliette Hochman joins me for a Medical Mailbag segment that looks at a new piece of tech that aims to help help athletes understand their metabolism in ways that previously were not that easily obtainable.

The calibre is a mask you wear that measures numerous metabolic and physiologic parameters and promises to guide your training and nutrition.

Now, can it do what it promises and should you consider the $500 price tag as reasonable?

We look at the evidence that backs it up.

And that's coming up in just a little bit.

After that, I'm joined by Todd Crandall.

Todd is the original sober triathlete who found an escape from a life of addiction and substance use in multisport.

Todd now helps others find the same hope and way forward through his organization, Race for Recovery, and he joins me for a fascinating conversation about how he has remade himself and uses his success to help others.

And that's going to be coming up just a little bit later on.

Before we get to all of that, I want to, of course take a moment to thank all of my Patreon supporters of this podcast who have for about the price of a cup of coffee per month, they could sign up to support this program and in doing so get access to bonus interviews and other segments that come out about every month or so.

Those bonus episodes are available on a private feed for all of my subscribers.

Plus, for North American subscribers who sign up at the $10 per month level of support, they receive a special thank you gift in the form of a BOCO Tridock Podcast Running hat shown right here on the YouTube video.

If you're listening on the podcast, you'll have to imagine it.

It's pretty awesome.

So visit my Patreon site today@patreon.com trydockpodcast and learn what it takes to become a supporter so that you can get access and maybe that cool gift as well.

And as always, you have my thanks in advance just for considering and finally, before we get to the Medical Mailbag, a reminder for those of you listening to Please consider leaving a rating and a review wherever you get this podcast.

I promise those really help immeasurably.

And if you're watching on YouTube, do me a favor, hit the like button and subscribe to the channel.

It's a new year.

It's a new episode.

It's time for a new segment of the Medical Mailbag, and I'm joined as always, by my friend and colleague Juliet Hockman.

Juliet from Hood river, how are you?

How has the New year treated you so far?

I am well.

Yes, it is a new year, excited to be in 2025 and all that it brings.

We are existing in the state of what the local weather forecasters have labeled the nothing because it has been nothing but fog here for about five weeks.

But other than that, all is well here.

How about out there in Denver?

It's been a snowy start to the year in the mountains, as always, although we are in for some snow here in town over the next couple of days, which means the entire city's gonna grind to a halt.

Yeah, it's amazing for, for a mountain sort of adjacent city, this place, their entire snow removal strategy is, ah, it'll melt.

So that's what I mean.

I could go on about this for an hour.

I feel like that's the way it is everywhere in the west.

It's the same where I am.

They don't plow here, they just close streets if it's too steep.

They're like, we don't want you going down there.

We're going to close it.

I come from back east where they plow every four hours no matter what.

And you can get out your driveway at 5:00am yeah.

Yeah.

I get pretty passionate on this.

I know.

Yeah.

And coming from out east myself, where snow was a common thing, it was.

It blew me away when I first moved here, I'm like, wait a minute, there's one plow for the entire city.

What's going on?

And yeah, it's bizarro world.

At least they do a good job in the mountains where they actually get a lot more snow.

And it is true it will melt, but it can sometimes take a little.

Longer than until it does.

I know, I know.

One of my athletes lives in Virginia and he told me they were getting about a foot of snow with this most recent system that was coming through.

And he was lamenting the fact that, oh, no, we don't get snow.

So this is going to shut things down for a little while.

Exactly.

I guess it's all relative to where you are.

Anyways, we have a listener submitted question yet again.

Thank you always.

To our listeners who are submitting questions.

What will we be answering on today's Medical Mailbag?

Julia, this question comes from our listener, Richard Waite.

Thank you so much for writing in.

He has written to ask about this device called Calibre.

Now, it might be pronounced calibre, we're not sure it's R E on the end.

We're going to refer to it as calibre because it just sounds really fancy that way.

But basically, this is a device that measures and analyzes various biometric markers, providing insight on metabolic and physiologic parameters.

I know you're going to talk a little bit more about it, but it basically sounds like a device that you strap on your face and you wear as you go through an exercise protocol and measures various markers as you exhale carbon dioxide, as well as your respiratory rate and other things.

So you wrote to me that you actually found this to be a very effective device in terms of measuring data.

And of course, what we need to discuss is whether we can use that data.

So tell me what your research team found out about this.

Yeah.

So I want to give a shout out to Cosette Rhodes, who was the intern that took a look at the literature that exists on this kind of device.

And there wasn't a whole lot, I will say, that Cosette started on the Calibre website where she found a study that they have linked to.

And this is a paper that has nothing to do with the manufacturers.

It's actually a paper that compares the calibre to a whole bunch of different ways of measuring some of these metabolic and different physiologic parameters and basically showed that, yeah, the calibre is actually really good at what it does.

So let's just talk a little bit about what this device is, what it does, and what the sort of theory is.

In medicine, we take care of patients in the intensive care unit, and when we are caring for patients who are critically ill, they're intubated, they have very high metabolic demands.

And the reason for that is because when you're critically ill, you're fighting off infection, you're fighting off whatever it is you're dealing with as a critical illness.

And so your physiologic systems are really ramped up.

And the problem is you're not eating because you're intubated.

You often your digestive tract is not working.

And so as a result of that, you tend to get what is called a critical illness, wasting.

And so you consume your own muscles, your protein, you have a lot of wasting away, and you lose a lot of weight.

And over time, we have learned and come to understand that kind of catabolism is very detrimental.

It actually leads to significant morbidity, significant mortality.

And for those patients who eventually recover, it leads to a very prolonged period during which they have significant weakness as they rebuild their muscle mass and rebuild their strength.

And a lot of effort goes in to trying and meet the metabolic demands of a sick patient.

But in order to meet those demands, we have to know exactly what the caloric needs are.

And over many years, we have developed these devices called metabolic carts.

And a metabolic cart is a machine that is brought to the patient's bedside.

It's attached to their ventilator, and over a period of about an hour or so, we're able to measure a lot of different parameters.

And most importantly, we can measure the amount of oxygen being consumed by the body and the amount of carbon dioxide being produced by the body.

Because the relationship between oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production is an insight to what is going on at the cellular level in terms of fuel being burned, what types of fuels, so carbohydrates, fats and proteins, as well as how much of those fuels.

And through various mathematical equations that are calculated within the metabolic heart computers, we can actually generate a metabolic rate, a resting metabolic rate, or rmr.

And we can then, with the help of our dietitians and pharmacists, we can come up with a solution of how we are going to meet the patient's needs in order to provide them with adequate carbohydrates, proteins, and fat throughout the day, because we can feed them on a minute to minute, we could feed them 24 hours continuously, either intravenously or through an NG tube directly into their GI tract so that they don't lose as much weight.

So that is the history of, of the metabolic cart.

The metabolic cart is an extremely expensive device.

It, it's a very clunky thing.

It has to be wheeled around on, on a cart.

But eventually there was a recognition amongst exercise physiologists that this kind of technology had merit and use for athletes, specifically high performing athletes.

Because when we are able to measure these kinds of parameters, both physiologic and metabolic parameters, we could determine very precisely and accurately what an athlete's needs are and how efficient their cells are working when they're performing work.

And then we could design nutritional plans for them.

And we could also better design their training levels because we will know when their cells are working so hard.

And we could design, basically, it's like a metabolic profile for an FTP test or a metabolic profile for a VO2 max test, that kind of thing.

The problem is, again, these machines are expensive, they're bulky, you would have to go to a special fitness testing lab in order to do them.

Calibre has tried to address this by shrinking everything down to the size of a small pocket mask which you put on your face.

It seals quite snugly onto your face.

You perform one of their exercise protocols.

And while you perform their exercise protocols, I'm just going to take a peek at my other monitor here.

You can then get a whole bunch of measurements.

Excuse me.

It measures how much you breathe.

It measures how deeply you breathe.

So what kind of minute ventilation are you getting?

In other words, what volume of air are you breathing every minute?

It measures the rate at which you produce carbon dioxide, the amount of carbon dioxide per breath, the rate at which you consume oxygen per minute, the rate at which oxygen is utilized within the cells.

And it comes up with then a whole bunch of calculated things like your resting metabolic rate, a respiratory exchange ratio, which is that oxygen utilization, carbon dioxide production, it's a ratio of that.

And it can then, through a companion app that's on your phone, it can also calculate things like how much fat are you burning, how many carbohydrates are you burning, and at what levels do you burn each type of fuel?

All kinds of different things through their protocols.

So the questions that Cosette tried to answer through looking at the literature is, okay, is the calibre good at what it does?

Does The Calibre provide information that is accurate.

And then finally, how do we as athletes make use of the information it's providing?

Right.

Those first two questions we could find answers for.

That third question remains very much an unanswered question that you and I are going to talk about, I think at length.

So let's just look at those first two questions.

The first one is, does the Calibre do a good job?

And the answer is unequivocally, yes.

In an independent study, unfunded by Calibre's makers, unfunded by the company itself, the Calibre was compared against vastly larger, more expensive devices.

And the Colibre performed very admirably.

It was among some of the most accurate, most precise of the types of these types of devices, called a cpet, a cardiopulmonary exercise test device.

It performed as well or better than devices that were 10 times as expensive.

The calibre markets retails at around $500.

The, the metrics that it calculates were also pretty much spot on compared to a lot of these other devices.

So it does what it does quite well.

It provides information that is quite accurate.

And I think for us as coaches and athletes, the numbers that we're most interested in are the two numbers that you can get from their protocols that they have published.

They have three protocols on their website.

One of them I think is not particularly useful.

And that is like a fat ox protocol.

It basically tells you how much fat am I oxidizing at different levels of exercise.

I personally don't find that to be particularly useful because I don't care.

I'm not going to be performing at levels where I need to metabolize fat.

We generally.

Well, except for post Christmas and all that cheese consumption, you might want to know that number.

Oh, she cuts me to the quick.

I will have that.

I utilize the Juliet Hockman strategy of cheese consumption this Christmas and I was very successful.

For those of you who don't remember, in 23, Juliet tipped me off to the notion of having a small plate and cut small pieces of cheese to fill up that plate and then never return to the large cheese selection again.

Exactly.

Put it in the fridge.

And that worked very well for me.

That worked very well for me.

My family complained though, because I usually buy my stinky cheeses and I usually consume them all.

But this year they did not get consumed.

So I was very good.

I was a good boy this year anyways.

So, yeah, so I don't really find that kind of fat X whatever thing they protocol to particularly use because we're all carbohydrate consumers as high energy performing triathletes.

But then they had two other protocols.

One was a VO2 max protocol and the other one was a RMR protocol.

So why would you want a.

We all have ways of getting our VO2 max.

Our Garmin indirectly calculates our VO2 max.

We can get a VO2 max by doing a threshold running test.

We can get a VO2 max for the bike by doing an FTP test.

But those are indirect calculations.

If we want a true VO2 max, we either have to do a lactate test by continuously pricking our ear or finger to get blood to get the lactate in order to find out where our lactate threshold and therefore our VO2 max.

Or alternatively, we would have to have one of these newer measuring devices that can actually measure lactate without doing the finger pricks.

This device will tell you VO2 max by watching your carbon dioxide production as you increase your effort over a ramp test that they do.

And then the other one they provide is the resting metabolic rate, which is particularly useful if you are interested in changing your body composition or losing weight as you undergo training.

Because knowing your resting metabolic rate means you can target your caloric intake to either be slightly under your RMR or at least match your rmr but then under under fuel for the amount of exercise you're going to be doing so that you're at a caloric deficit.

That's going to be beyond the scope of this whole conversation.

But I did want to point out that those are the sort of three test cases for which the calibre is there.

The last question that Cosette looked into, is there any evidence that knowing these numbers is helpful in any way that it can guide athletes in any productive way?

And we found nothing.

So Juliet, that brings us to the conversation that I think in the rest of the time that you and I can have, which is who do you think this device could be useful for and would you recommend it for anybody?

Yeah, we chatted about this a little bit offline, not only today, but on other occasions.

It's great to know first of all that this device is providing accurate data.

So yes, we can check that box.

So for athletes that are either really into the data and we both know athletes like that, and that's great, or I would argue for the athletes at the very pointy end who are looking for those marginal gains, this might be a good device.

But I would put out there that for the vast majority of Age group athletes in triathlon, there is so much to work on.

Swim, bike, run, strength transitions, nutrition, pacing.

There's so many things to work on before we get to being able to effectively use this metric that really we would encourage, I would say, the majority of the athletes that you and I work with to concentrate on all of these big things over here rather than this little thing over here.

I have had my VO2 max measured scientifically a couple of times in my athletic career.

One was when I was training for the Olympic team.

One was when I started getting towards the pointy end of age group triathlon.

And honestly, besides like getting a number that I was like, okay, cool, good number, it never really affected how I trained, what I did, et cetera.

So I'm not sure again that this is, again, if you really love data and you want to make this part of gathering the data and looking at the data is part of the pleasure of participating in triathlon, great, knock yourself out.

Go use this.

That's great.

In terms of what we as coaches can effectively do on a day by day basis using this data for the majority of the athletes that we work with.

Not so sure that this is where we should be focusing.

What do you think?

Yeah, and I want to distinguish the Calibre from another device that I reviewed a little while ago, and that was the Lumen.

The Lumen is a similar kind of thing.

The Lumen was this sort of almost like a vape pen that you blew into and also measured exhaled carbon dioxide and had these calculations that would then determine what fuel you were burning.

But Lumen advertised itself as a device that would help you, quote, hack your metabolism, end quote.

It was never clear to me how it was supposed to do that because it told you what you were metabolizing, but it didn't tell you how you could change your metabolism.

Because let's face it, we all know you can't really change how you metabolize things.

You are what you are.

Our cells have evolved a certain way and you're not going to be able to change that just by knowing what you happen to be metabolizing at any one given moment.

To the credit of the calibre people, that's not what they're saying this device is for.

What they are saying is that because you can get a more accurate determination of your VO2 max, and because you have the capability to measure it more frequently, you can track changes and you can more precisely develop your training zones around a more accurate determination of VO2 max, which, as you suggested, I think is potentially important for people at the pointy end of the field is not going to be particularly important for most athletes.

I think that for most athletes, the indirect determinations of VO2 max that can be obtained in other ways that I've already mentioned are probably going to be just fine.

Because we know from Garmin, having done a lot of testing of their own, that when Garmin tells you your VO2 max is 35, they're not that far off.

They're usually within a margin of error, about 10%.

And the calibre is going to be within a margin of error of 1 to 5%.

It's not that it is different.

Listen, it's twice as much.

It is different, but your garment's probably going to be just fine for most people.

We had a guest several months ago, Chris Bagg, who had the great metaphor of focusing on mice or antelope, that if you were going to put all your effort into chasing down mice as your food source, you were going to be putting in a lot of effort for not a lot of return.

And instead it made sense to do exactly as you were saying, Juliet.

Focus your energy on big things that are going to make a big difference to your results, to your performance.

And this is just not one of.

This is a mouse.

This is definitely this.

Look, if you've already done all those things, if you focused on, you've maxed out your transitions, you have an excellent swim technique and you're at the pointy end of the swim, you are one of the fastest bikers and the best runners.

This might be a device that can help you get that much better.

And it might be time to be looking for mice.

But for most of us, myself included, and look, this is not a prohibitively expensive device.

$500 given for everything else we buy and everything else we do, this isn't so bad.

So I am not, I am by no means saying that this should be a no go.

I think that this is.

If people want to consider getting this and they have a.

They're really data heads and they really feel that this can help them with their training.

It's very accurate and I think it could potentially be useful in that regard.

But how much are you going to get out of it?

I guess that's the big question, right?

I think you, you said it perfectly.

It's really, it's going to be playing at that fringe, right?

If we're thinking that this is going to dial down our heart rate zones, our power zones or threshold pace by a couple points on either end, if someone says go.

If someone says go, hold 230 for your 7.70.3 race your 230 watts.

225, 235.

We're playing around the edges quite a lot and so much, so many other things go into the day than then exactly where you are.

So many factors.

I'm just not sure again that this is the best place to spend time, energy and resources if you're an age grouper.

I think that one of the challenges is that a lot of triathletes love to watch all of the videos that the pros put out of pricking your finger.

They go and they do kilometer repeats.

We saw this in all the build up to Kona with all the guys, they're going and doing kilometer repeats.

They're pricking their finger after each one, they're doing testing, they're basing their necks rep on what they just saw, etc.

Those guys are at the very pointy and they're looking for every watt, every inch, every calorie, everything and their livelihoods depend on it.

So they're going to look for everything.

But I'm again, I'm not sure that's as useful for the rest of us.

Yeah, and I come back to Chris's point.

Like when you already have maxed out 99.5% of your capabilities, then yes, to get that last 0.5%.

This device, right.

When you're like most of us and you're probably sitting at around 65 to 70%, you've got a long way to go.

This device, which might provide you with 0.5 to 1% is probably not the biggest bang for the buck.

There's other things that you can do that are going to give you more return.

That is not to say that this device can't give you something, because I do think this device can give you something.

It's just that $500 is probably better spent on other things in terms of return on investment.

Again, I want to be very clear.

I actually think this is a pretty cool device and I think it does exactly what it says it does.

And I think it can be a certain amount of benefit, but just not the amount that it would make it worthwhile for most people to get.

The other piece that we haven't really touched on is the rmr, which I think is potentially useful for some people.

I asked Alex Larson, I reached out to her and I said, have you heard of this?

Is this something you would ever use?

And unequivocally she said, no.

And the reason being, again, she doesn't like her clients and athletes to really focus on the calories so much.

Yes, calorie targets are important and things like that, but she wants to make sure that her athletes are well fueled to perform.

And she worries about people getting so hung up on calorie counting and this would definitely push for that.

But again, if you are somebody who has maxed out 99.9% or 99.5% and you're looking for that extra 0.5, knowing your RMR this precisely can be of value.

Yeah, I think just to back up for our listeners who may not completely understand the concept behind rmr, you did a great job explaining it medically at the beginning.

But to personalize that from an athlete, if you are an athlete who's really trying to dial in their nutrition, either because you feel it's necessary to lose weight or if you just want to maximize your performance and you think nutrition is a piece of that, having a calculation of that RMR to start your resting metabolic rate upon which you can build and think about it in terms of calories taken in carbs, taken in, et cetera, that is helpful.

But a good dietitian should be able to establish that with you as a baseline and then work with you going forward on that.

Would you say that's accurate?

I know that's.

Yeah, I think that's.

Yeah, that's very accurate.

And I think that it's set because you don't.

Not everybody.

I could tell you, almost nobody who starts working with a dietitian goes to get a full metabolic card.

Mostly there are ways of determining your RMR just based on your weight and your percentage body fat and things like that.

Because we know that muscles consume this many calories, there are obviously going to be differences based on endocrine function, your age, things like that.

But all in all, you don't need that kind of precision in order to get these kinds of numbers to at least be an approximate value.

I think it's a really interesting device.

I'm really glad that Richard asked the question because I did not know about it.

The one thing I regret is that I did some research on it and now my feed on Facebook and everywhere else is just continuously inundated with advertisement.

But that being said, I'm really glad we got a chance to look into it because it is a fascinating device.

I think it's so interesting to see how technology is being pulled from medicine and shrunk down to such an amazing degree and being improved upon because I just think if this were to be made into.

Because they haven't made it as a medical device and I understand why, because there's so many regulatory hoops you have to go through.

But man, if this was made into a regulatory device, it would save so much money to our health care system.

But of course, the healthcare system doesn't like inexpensive toys.

They want very expensive.

All right, all right, all right.

Let's focus here.

That's a different podcast.

That's right.

Okay.

All right, we'll wrap up this discussion and say, say that the calibre is a very well designed, very interesting device that does exactly what it says it does.

It's probably not for most people, but it has a role.

And if somebody want had the disposable income and was interested in getting it, we would not say.

Not to double negative, but I think I was clear.

That's right.

Yeah.

All right.

Anything else to add to this before we finish up?

I don't think so.

I think they're aligned.

Yeah.

Okay.

Awesome.

This has been another great conversation about a very interesting subject and a subject that we would not have found on our own.

So we have Richard to thank for that.

Richard is one of the many listeners who submitted a question to the Facebook group.

That private Facebook group can be found on that platform by searching for Tridoc podcast.

Answer the three very easy questions.

I will be glad to grant you admittance and then you could join the conversation and submit your own questions about anything.

Devices, supplements, injuries.

We would be glad to research them and bring you the scientific literature that gives the answers you're looking for.

You can also send me an email@tridocloud.com and of course your question can be put into the queue and you will hear the answer here on the Medical mailbag until the next episode.

Juliet, thank you so much for joining me once again.

It was a great conversation.

I look forward to the next time we chat.

Thanks, Jeff.

My guest on the podcast today is Todd Crandall.

Todd says that his 13 year struggle with drugs and alcohol nearly destroyed his life.

Devastating relationships with his family and friends and shattering the promise of a professional hockey career.

Through his pursuit of physical fitness and personal well being, he found a productive outlet for his once negative energies, transforming himself into a world class athlete and champion for sobriety.

By sharing his personal experiences about the perils of substance abuse, Todd offers a positive alternative to those who are still struggling to overcome a life of addiction and self destruction.

In his pursuit of his own recovery, Todd applied his energy to pursue the Ironman Triathlon and since running his first in 1999, has never looked back.

He has since completed over 100 Ironman branded and Ultraman events and has chronicled his powerful mental and physical journeys in his books and documentaries.

Through his work as the original sober triathlete, a licensed professional clinical counselor and licensed independent chemical dependency counselor, he has dedicated his personal and professional life to helping substance abusers re channel their destructive behaviors into positive life affirming action.

By sharing personal stories about the perils of substance abuse, best practices in prevention, and how to lead a holistic lifestyle, TON offers a positive alternative to those struggling to overcome a life of addiction.

And we are going to dive into all of that in the next little while that we have afforded to us.

Todd Crandall, thank you so much for joining me here today on the podcast.

I'm honored to be here listening to that.

I'm like, who is that guy?

It sounds pretty, it's interesting just to hear all that.

Yeah, but it's good to be here.

It's often the response of people when they hear their own bio read back to them that they're like, wow, I've really done all those things and that's not a bad thing.

It's not a bad thing to, to get that sense of wow, wonderment at all of the things we've accomplished.

So let's begin.

First, I think for our listeners who may not be familiar with you, tell us a little bit about your own personal story, how your descent into addiction began and how you got yourself out of it.

I firmly believe that people who are battling self destruction of any kind, whether it's drugs and alcohol, food, sex, gambling, what have you.

90% of the people that we encounter at Racing for Recovery are they're coming in there for some type of trauma that they learned a self destructive modality to cope.

In my case, my real mom committed suicide when I was three from her drug addiction.

My uncle killed himself from his drug addiction.

My aunt killed herself from a food addiction.

So there's a lot of stuff in three, three out of four kids killing themselves.

Something was not going right.

And although as a young kid I couldn't comprehend what had happened, but I can look back now and say, I know I emotionally felt it.

My earliest recollection of being a child, I'm 10 years old, which again is a common characteristic from people who have endured trauma.

And trauma is up to the individual.

It's not something that someone else can tell what somebody else's trauma is or isn't.

Those are the brief explanation as to why I ended up the way I did.

Because nobody wants to end up becoming a drug user, but I certainly did.

And looking back, there's a crystal clear explanation as to why I did and.

How did that take form.

When did you first get into alcohol and drugs and how did it manifest and how did it derail your life at that point?

And I felt this my entire life.

I was a kid and I'm a man today.

I have everything, anything that any kid could want.

And right now, anything that any adult could want, I have.

But what I didn't have when I was a kid was myself.

I had nice clothes, I had loving parents, I had an abundance of friends, went to good schools, I played hockey.

I had it all.

But when there's a difference of materialistic, outside things and just having a gaping hole in your soul, and that's what it was like for me as a kid.

And I knew drugs were bad, I knew drinking was bad.

And I made a choice at the age of 13 to try alcohol.

For the first time, I didn't get drunk, but the second time I drank it, which was a couple months later, I drank an entire bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey and took some speed with it.

And it was like that every time I use drugs for the next 13 years.

It was not partying or hanging out.

It was self destruction from the get go.

And I'm just grateful I survived it.

We often hear from people who recover successfully that they hit this nadir, this kind of low point.

Something, some kind of incident or some event makes them look in the mirror and realize that they have, they've reached a fork in the road, they have to make a change or else they are going to find themselves basically dead.

What was that for you and how were you able to successfully get yourself out?

Great question.

Jeff and I have a tendency to rattle some cages in the recovery community because what you're talking about is the cliche of hitting a rock bottom.

And I don't believe we have to hit a rock bottom.

I believe we can create a new opportunity and a new beginning.

Because when you say rock bottom, you, the ultimate rock bottom is dying.

And we will take that, keep pushing it and pushing it.

And I had 13 years of, quote, rock bottoms, they don't work.

What works is when we want to change.

I didn't have to quit doing drugs.

I didn't want to do them anymore.

And I made a simple choice.

I'm done.

So I look at things as I created a new beginning.

I wanted A new life.

I was done with that old way of living.

And this is where my whole power of mindset and choice and empowerment come into play, because I do not subscribe to the disease modality.

I don't think people are hopeless and helpless and all that.

I think we are powerful, capable, amazing human beings that just need to have an initial spark that we give ourselves.

And then through a lot of work and a lot of support, we can achieve anything we want.

Can I just ask a little bit about that?

Because as a physician, I have been educated a little bit on addiction, and we understand that there are genetic predispositions to some of this.

So when you say you don't.

Don't buy into disease, I just want to.

Are you saying that you don't believe that there is a genetic predisposition to this, or what do you mean by that?

I, I.

And I'm going to look forward to your expertise as a physician, because I am not.

I do believe there's a genetic predisposition 100%.

I do believe there's a genetic predisposition to suicide, and that's evident with my history.

Right.

But in this case, if you don't choose to use, that disease is inactive.

And that's back to that power of choice and being empowered.

If you make a choice to use this stuff, yes, your quote, disease is going to be active, but if you don't pick it up, that disease is inactive.

So, yes, I believe there's a genetic predisposition, but I also don't believe that we can continuously go, oh, I have a disease, I'm powerless, I can't help myself.

And that was a.

Understand what you're saying.

Yes.

Okay, so I agree with you there.

I think that too often we fall back on this crutch that, oh, I have an illness and there's nothing I can do about it.

I do feel very strongly that the physiology of addiction is incredibly powerful.

Changes in our neurochemistry is very hard for many people to get over.

Clearly, you had success, and obviously a lot of the people you're helping have found success.

So tell me how you came to triathlon and how triathlon helped you find the success that you obviously have found.

This is going to be a great conversation, Jeff, because I, I didn't know this, and I've learned this in my years of sobriety and just reading and being a sponge of knowledge.

You're right.

That genetic component, when it's active, and specifically with me with cocaine, I had never had anything that took total control over me.

And it did change some wiring in there that you know more about than I do.

However, this is what's interesting and I know you're aware of this too.

We can rewire and recreate those new neural pathways in the brain.

That's what triathlon has done for me.

Some will say, oh, it's just a new addiction for you.

And it's not an addiction, it's.

Etc.

It's the best coping skill that I found.

Health is the best thing that we can do that will rejuvenate our genes, our minds, our bodies and that I noticed that right away, starting to do Ironman that I was not only feeling better physically, but I was feeling better mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

And that's what the hook really was for me back in 1999.

What you're saying here is something that I've been saying for a long time with reference to one of my heroes in the sport, Lionel Sanders.

I have tried for years to try and get him to come on this program to ask this very question.

He is a wily and elusive man.

I'm guessing you don't know him or don't haven't spoken to him, but I have wanted to know he himself was an addiction.

He found triathlon and I believe, like you, was able to cope and adapt and replace his addiction for drugs with what we are.

I don't think it's a bad thing to say that we all have this addiction to training.

We get the endorphin surge.

We.

It's a positive addiction.

We thrive off of physical fitness.

And I think that is okay to admit that.

But I worry for someone like Lionel when his professional career is done.

He's not an age grouper like us.

He probably won't find satisfaction training and racing as an age grouper the way we do.

Is someone like him at risk when his professional career is over and that continuous training addiction is gone if he can't find something else to supplant it or replace it with.

And again, this is by.

We are not experts in Lionel Sanders.

This is a hypothetical kind of discussion and I want to be very clear.

This is not specific to Lionel, but just someone in general who has a history of drug addiction, who has done very well in sport and now maybe they have an injury or whatever, for whatever reason, their sporting career now comes to an end.

Are they at risk of now relapsing into drug addiction because they can't.

Can't maintain their sporting addiction?

When you're dealing with people with drug addiction or sex addiction, whatever type of self destruction, something is missing inside of that person emotionally.

Even though we put down one thing that's bad, you can pick up what can seem to be a good thing as triathlon and that's still not the answer to the problem.

The problem is from within.

So just because I'm not doing cocaine and I'm running a bunch of Ironmans, something's still missing.

And I've been there.

When I founded Racing for Recovery I started to realize I found my God given purpose and I ran after it literally and used Ironman as a marketing tool.

The problem was I wasn't healing emotionally on the inside.

And eventually that came to bite me in the butt and I've.

I paid a price for that divorce and some other things.

However, as a clinician I firmly believe we have to heal on the inside to therefore use these outside external things, whether it's triathlon or education or spirituality, as a way to enhance the healing.

Otherwise you're still chasing something on the outside.

And you're right, and I've experienced this too.

What getting injured, being burned out and thinking oh my God, what am I going to do?

Which just causes more emotional and mental disturbances.

So now in the past, I don't know, decade or so I've done more Ironmans than I've ever done before.

But I've done them with a different mindset.

I don't need to do this stuff, I like to do it.

It's not, I'm using it to heal the inside.

I've done that inner work and now I'm using the Ironman to continue to promote a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

And that's what I hope that everybody who was like me and Lionel is doing these things for the right reason or otherwise they're going to pay a consequence down the line.

I think that is a fantastic insight and observation.

The point being that addiction to substances, partly a genetic predisposition, but often a reflection of a major internal struggle.

And while you can replace that addiction to substances with an addiction to something else, like we said triathlon or physical fitness training, unless you address that inner distress, you're still addicted and you're still an addict of some type.

And only if you can heal yourself from within can you then be considered less at risk of switching one addiction to the other.

I think that's a fantastic insight and one that obviously you are much better suited to provide.

So thank you for that.

Tell us about Race for Recovery because I think it's a fantastic organization and I'd Love to hear more about it.

I'm sure my listeners would as well.

Racing for Recovery was a gift from God and I'm going to put my dead mom in there as well.

I was going to New Zealand in 2001 and I did their race and our local newspaper ran a story about my life at that point and I think that was Ironman number four for me.

I had been sober for about eight years.

I was, ironically, I was a pharmaceutical sales rep and I was married, kids had it all.

And the newspaper article came out and the response from that newspaper article was overwhelming.

And I thought, wow, I can, I can do something with this because sidetracking just real quickly I was thinking that pharmaceutical job was going to fix me good money.

Wearing a suit, company car.

I was more suicidal as a drug rep than I ever was as a drug user.

So that's when I started to realize something's off here.

But when I found my life's purpose with Racing for Recovery, it gave me a whole new outlook on life that was based on empathy, humility and gratitude.

Racing for Recovery is the first program that ever combines substance abusers with their families.

We have a live stream so support group meeting every Thursday that people can join in on.

I'm now a licensed counselor.

We provide housing for about 80 people, clinical services, family, individual and group counseling services, plant based kitchen for people, two gyms.

We're taking a clinical approach to helping people to understand the impact of trauma and then helping them build their own balanced, holistic lifestyle to sustain sobriety.

And it's just a remarkable program that's been been in service since 2001 and I'm honored to be a part of it and I'm thankful for the life that I have today.

Tell us about the racing part of it.

How many of these individuals come into it thinking, oh, I'm here to do a race and what the heck is a triathlon and how am I going to learn how to swim?

How does that all come together?

Yeah, the name racing for Recovery and you can see our logo here with the running guy on it.

We'll get sometimes.

Oh, is this all about running?

Do I have to do an ironman to be sober?

And that's where like the marketing that I've used with Racing for Recovery and my own participation in Ironman's, it's been good.

But sometimes people don't quite understand that we're not about doing Ironman.

Yes, I've taken a few people from addicts to Ironman.

A couple of them work with me now, but basically exercise is a key component of that balanced holistic lifestyle.

And for me, running is it.

Running is the thing for me.

But people can do any form of exercise to get that endorphin rush that we were talking about earlier and specifically start to create those new neural pathways in the brain as well.

And at any given time, how many new triathletes do you have in this.

First of all, how big is the group and then at any given time how many of them are triathletes?

It I've.

And I don't want to hopefully offend anybody, but like sober triathlete and some of these little organizations are coming.

Those are a direct knockoff of what we're doing.

And I'm not criticizing them.

I'm just saying that people have found what racing for recovery is doing and are using it in their own way of doing stuff.

And I think think it's awesome.

I can't say that's not true.

I've coached online or counseled a lot of people who are like us and who are like me on the addiction side, but specifically triathletes walking into our facility.

Not many, but we have created a few triathletes who have stumbled into our facility and are now active in triathlon.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's really.

To me, that's what I'm interested in is the people who find triathlon like you did and then use it to facilitate their recovery.

I think that is the best kind of story because I've always found triathlon to be very life affirming.

It changed my life in a very positive way.

I did not come from a story of addiction, thankfully, but it still made a huge impact to my life personally.

And I can only imagine that for somebody coming from as dark a past as you and some of your clients, that triathlon can afford the same kind of positive and the same kind of the way we all feel when we cross that finish line is just reminding remarkable.

I do.

Jeff, can Let me.

I want to share this with you.

I was doing Iron Man Cozumel.

Iron Man Cozumel.

I don't even know when it was.

2006, seven, whatever.

And I'm standing in the water and I think it was a mass start still back then.

But anyway, this girl taps me on the shoulder.

You know how it is.

Everybody's anxious and everything, including myself.

And she taps me on the shoulder and she said, I just want to let you know I'm here because I read your book and it's.

And I've had that happen to me a lot of times, including Iron Man Hawaii a couple years ago.

But I, when you hear something like that, it's just a reminder from the heavens above of you're doing the right thing, keep going.

And that's all I've ever wanted to do.

I'm not trying to be some world class iron man because I'm not.

But I've taken a lot of tragedy and turmoil and turned it into something of service for other people.

And I think that's what, what we're to do.

That kind of impact cannot be overstated.

That is the kind of thing I've spoken.

I've had a few guests on this program who have told me similar kinds of stories in their own kind of lane where they get that kind of feedback from people.

If they just have one person reach out and say that it's made an impact on them to make them get up off the couch and start training and do an Ironman or something like that, it has a huge impact.

And it is so important, I think that we continue to spread these kinds of messages that it's a little bit cliche.

It is in fact a cliche that anything is possible.

Right.

That's the whole tagline for Ironman.

But it's true.

And I think that we are the embodiment of that.

And for you, especially with a population you're working with, it's such an important message and I think it's wonderful that you continue to, to reach out to that community and have the kind of success that you're having.

And if you get even just one triathlete every couple of years, you'll continue to have that kind of impact because it'll continue to percolate outward.

So tell us about the book you're referring to.

I'd love for my listeners to hear about it.

Well, I've written six of them and it's like I never thought I was going to be a author, let alone a six time author.

My first one was From Addict to Iron man man and I released this one is relative to what we're talking about.

My I released a book and this is the first of its kind, a coffee table picture book of 111 of my Ironman events.

And I'll send you one up, Jeff, for having me on.

But I like doing things that nobody has ever done before and that's one of them of being able to take 111 Ironman events and turn them into a coffee table picture book that tells the story and the journey of why I'm doing all these things in pictures.

It's pretty cool.

And then my other books are basically just clinical knowledge that I've learned as a counselor over the years.

Success stories of people who have come to racing for recovery and just things I've Learned in my 58 years on this marble that I put into some books that hopefully are resonating with people.

People.

That's fantastic.

I love it.

So what does the future hold for Todd Crandall?

What does it hold for your organization?

The future is going to be doing more of the same.

I'm going to do like you.

I'm going to do 10 or 11 Ironmans next year.

I'm doing mainly halves right now.

I've given up on the full stuff.

I've done enough of those.

But just I love seeing the world.

I love meeting new people.

I love spreading the message of racing for recovery.

I do have a cookbook, a plant based cookbook that'll be coming out next March or April.

With respect to racing for Recovery brings us back to the Livestream support group meeting.

I have some things clinically and technology wise that we're going to launch probably midway through next year that are going to be revolutionary in how services are delivered and I'm looking forward to bringing that to people.

Otherwise we're just going to keep doing our normal awesome services that we've been doing for 23 years now.

And how many clients are you serving at any given time?

And do you have a sense of what your success versus recidivism rate is?

We're running right now at about, I think there's 60 people with this.

It's amazing.

Not amazing.

It's interesting because I understand this mindset.

People are not seeking treatment right before the holidays.

So we're a little, our numbers always go down a little bit.

Bit before Christmas.

But.

And we should clarify because this will come out in the new year.

We're recording this just before Christmas.

Yes.

So right before Christmas our numbers go down every year and then right after January 1st we'll be busy as ever because that's when people want to turn it around and give it another shot.

So the success rate for us, I'll say it this way, when people do what we're doing, 100% people will be successful.

And a lot of our people who went through our program now work for us.

But if it's like a triathlon, you can't do an Ironman unless you swim, bike and run all of those distances.

You can run and.

But you can't call yourself or you can swim.

You can't call yourself a triathlete.

You can call yourself a swimmer.

So that's a metaphor for what we're doing at Racing for Recovery.

It's a hundred percent or you're not going to cross the finish line.

Todd, I can't thank you enough for joining me today and sharing the story of your own journey as well as that for Racing for Recovery and all of the great work that you've done.

I am going to include links for all of Todd's organizations and where you could find his book and his website, everything like that in the show notes.

Todd, I want to wish you the best for the holidays and thank you again for coming onto the Tridoc Podcast today to share your story.

It's really one of hopefulness and of what can be accomplished when we have the right tools and when we have the ability to turn things around and as we said, find the what's ailing us inside and fix it so that we can then use what we're doing outside to really continue to be healthy and mindful.

Todd Crandall, thank you so much for joining me on the Tridoc Podcast today.

It's been a real pleasure chatting with you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Denise Haslik and I'm a teammate of the Tridock and a proud Patreon supporter of the Tridoc Podcast.

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