Transcript
WEBVTT
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Folks welcome back to the ageless athlete podcast.
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This is a host Krish Condell.
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Well, Broadcasting from San Francisco, California.
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Bringing you stories each defining genre, defining adventure athletes.
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Doing extra ordinary things in the outdoors.
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It is gorgeous out.
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I did my physio this morning.
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Stretched.
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And can't wait to get outside in a couple of hours.
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Are you ready to be inspired?
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Today we have an ageless Mount biking, phenom.
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Matt Eggleston.
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At 59 years, young, Matt is defined age stereotypes by sending it harder than ever.
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On the gnarliest, downhill and Enduro courses.
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But here's the surprising part.
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He did not even start mountain biking until his forties.
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From bracing, the pure stoke of very new phase two cultivating mindset, the laughs and the face of suppose H limitations.
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Throughout our talk.
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Matt do from his military discipline to drop wisdom on the mindset, training and habits for achieving mastery lead real life.
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We will tap into his deep develop, visit him on.
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Everything.
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From Mon biking, safety to training.
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At an elite level, despite the late start to habit stacking for continued self-improvement.
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To savoring each moment in the wondrous outdoors.
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And hate.
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What's harder.
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Uh, running marathon or a modern bike marathon.
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Do unit.
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Whether you are a diehard Strader, or just looking to get more active maths, hard won insights, like spark your inner flame.
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And motivate you to get after it.
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Lace up those boots and get stoked.
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It's time for an inspiring download from the ageless.
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Mountain biking, phenom, Matt Egerton.
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I really appreciate you tuning in France.
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If you like the show.
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Please subscribe so we can.
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Continue to bring the goodness right to your Favorite podcast.
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Matt, great to have you on the show.
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To start off, can you please tell us where are you right now?
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Where are you from?
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And, uh, what did you have for breakfast today?
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Hey, Kush.
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all right, Matt Eggleton.
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I live in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside D.
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C.
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in the D.
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C.
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metro area.
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This morning I had the same thing that I have almost every single morning for probably the past seven or eight years.
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I have some form of oatmeal.
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So today's oatmeal was a third cup of organic rolled oats with half a banana and a handful of blueberries and a little dab of maple syrup and a cup of coffee.
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With a scoop of collagen.
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got it, I have a very similar breakfast myself.
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I'll sometimes, instead of the maple sort of thing, I'll, uh, add some kind of nut butter
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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All of us need a good breakfast to fuel our day.
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So let's jump right in.
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Now you have tackled some pretty brutal endurance races.
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What's the craziest thing you have experienced out on the course?
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gosh, I think, you know, crazy things.
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I might have to come back to this if something later on, uh, sparks, but I think that the craziest thing is, you know, I've been in several races where I have mentally quit multiple times in the race.
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And then ended up finishing and doing very well.
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for example, in a hundred mile mountain bike race, you might have five or six aid stations and I'll get, Not even to the first aid station and I'll say today's just not my day I'm not feeling it.
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I'm not feeling motivated.
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I don't know why I do this to myself and I said, okay I'm just gonna get to the first aid station and you know and then I'll ask for a ride back or something and then I get to the first aid station and Take a breath.
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Okay I'll go to the next one, and then I'll go to the next one.
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So there are, I can think of probably 10 races or more, but this is probably half the time this happens, where it's a mental challenge, more so than a physical challenge.
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Um, and so I think that's probably a familiar scenario for people who do ultra endurance, uh, racing.
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Um, But it's it's what makes it especially interesting and especially rewarding when you complete it.
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I'm just learning about the, the, the world of ultra endurance mountain biking.
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I've, I've heard about it for many years and I'm, I'm completely fascinated.
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Would love to.
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Learn a little bit about what is the mountain bike race world all about, what are perhaps the different kinds of races out there in terms of, uh, distances, categories, which ones might be the most sought after, and then, yeah, also what is a, a normal mountain bike race versus let's say, uh, Weather.
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endurance race versus an ultra endurance race.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Um, so I would say there's probably three, Yeah.
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Three primary forms of mountain bike racing.
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Well, I should say three primary forms of endurance mountain bike racing.
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Of course you have outside of that, you have, uh, you know, like downhill racing, we call it gravity sports.
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So it'd be like downhill racing or, um, uh, Enduro where you do a downhill and then you shuttle to the next downhill and then you do another, and it's, Timed like those downhill sections are timed in between the shuttles, uh, but in what I would say traditional mountain bike racing, you have what's called, uh, cross country, uh, Olympic style cross country generally is an hour, hour and a half long, uh, mountain bike race.
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So you're, you're on red line the whole time, just pinning it, uh, full gas.
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For an hour, hour and a half, something like that.
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And that's, those are exciting.
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I mean, in fact, that is an Olympic sport.
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And so, um, one of the people that I would consider a friend and a mentor, uh, Tinker Juarez was at the very first, um, Olympics in Atlanta when, uh, the mountain biking was, was introduced as a Olympic sport besides, um, Olympic cross country, then you would have what we call, um, marathons.
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All right.
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So.
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Olympic XCO, Marathons XCM.
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Those are generally 50 miles, a hundred K, something like that.
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Um, each of these becomes.
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Kind of a gateway drug to the next.
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Okay.
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So people often enter, you know, these hour long events.
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They can visualize themselves doing that, you know, mountain bike marathon of 50 to 100 K is, you know, going to be a good bit longer, maybe, Four, five, six hours, depending on, you know, the, uh, the amount of elevation.
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And so you might have somewhere between 6, 000 feet of climbing to as much as maybe 9, 000 feet of climbing in a hundred K race.
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after that generally is, upper echelon would be the a hundred mile racing.
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And, uh, that's was really, really popular in the, um, like say 2010 to about 2020 COVID, uh, that took all racing.
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And in fact, all outdoor sports, I think really took a big hit from COVID.
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Um, but there's, it has recovered to some, uh, and there's still a lot of hundred mile mountain bike races, uh, every year, uh, primarily here in North America, And then there, there are some like epic events.
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There are some stage races where you might be out like, uh, like Tour de France is a stage race, right?
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like that.
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Yeah,
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Uh, explainer helps us, uh, helps me and others get a little bit of, to speak into this, uh, into this world of mind biking, racing.
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What is the type of racing, Matt, that you specialize in?
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Are you more of an all rounder, but my sense is you go for like the, the long, gnarly ones and, and maybe how did you find yourself there?
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this is a progression that a lot of people experience but how I got into it pretty much the same way most people get into it.
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my daughter, uh, bought a bike, uh, with her own money, saved up her own money.
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Bought herself a mountain bike, uh, thought it was cool, wanted to do it, uh, rode around the neighborhood, some local trails, and then encouraged me to join her.
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I had been a cycling commuter years prior, so I was, you know, I'd kind of stopped doing that and taken up other pursuits, but it was a great opportunity to spend time with her, so of course I did.
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I really fell in love with it very quickly and like everyth Like a lot of us adventure sports, people became obsessed with it.
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And while I was learning as much as I can and be on every internet forum group that I could find.
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And, you know, but then, uh, not long after that, maybe three or four years, she went off to college.
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We found ourselves as empty nesters.
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I had all this extra free free time, right?
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Because I'm not shuttling her to her activities.
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And, uh, I just filled the gap with, with cycling and then training and signing up for my first event.
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And I was living in Germany when, uh, in Stuttgart, Germany, when I just finally decided I'm going to Being my first mountain bike race, uh, did that.
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So not only was I, you know, exploring a new sport, but I'm exploring a new sport where the whole registration and everything is in a different language, but, you know, navigated my way into that.
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And, uh, And did my first two mountain bike marathons while I lived there also.
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And so that was, again, it was kind of a gateway into, um, when I knew I'd be coming back to the States and I, through YouTube and whatever, had discovered that there is this whole community back in the States for when I moved back, I want to get involved in.
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And that's exactly what I've done.
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Little did you know that when you introduced that, uh, bicycle to your daughter, that, in this, uh, brilliant turn of events.
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yeah,
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It will come back to you
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It's a big part of my life.
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I mean, it really, and I, I mean, it's a big part of my identity.
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You know, I made a post about that yesterday.
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I signed up for one of our, you know, very prominent races and I, the post was it's because it's what I do.
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This, this is what I do.
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You know, I, I sign up for things that are scary and hard.
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I mean, I, I've done this race many times before.
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I know I can do it, but.
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It's very, very difficult.
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It's, uh, it takes a real commitment to prepare for it, especially if you want to do fairly well or do better than you did last time.
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Great.
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Many nuggets out of that, that I want to tap into later.
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One thing immediately is, uh, it's just your journey as you progress through the world of mountain biking.
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I mountain bike a little bit myself.
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Uh, I don't aspire to race competitively, at least.
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What happened first?
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Did you start mountain biking recreationally?
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And at some point you realized you had the talent or is it that you were competitive in other sports in your life?
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And this was like some sort of, uh, uh, coming together of worlds.
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Uh, where does this begin?
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Mm
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uh, because I would, I would be very quick to point out.
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I don't necessarily come with a lot of talent.
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Uh, I, I did not, uh, I wasn't very lucky in the, you know, gene lottery.
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you know, uh, any success I've had is, I think.
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through, uh, you know, determination, um, maybe even persistence.
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yeah, I was competitive even as a kid, I was always competitive playing street hockey out front.
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I grew up in Western New York in Buffalo.
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You know, so, um, basically football and hockey culture.
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Um, uh, so played a lot of those kind of sports, uh, growing up.
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uh, again, it wasn't, Particularly good at any of them, but they really always interested me.
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And I think I was more of a frustrated athlete than anything else.
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competed in some other, uh, endeavors in, in between then in cycling.
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But, uh, I found that if I worked hard, I guess, again, this is, would have been the first couple of years.
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I found that if I rode regularly.
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And if I kind of put a little bit of structure and rhythm and routine into this, that I could, that I was quickly, um, quickly becoming more capable than some of the people I was writing with, you know, just again, through frequency of writing three or four times a week.
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and it's like anything you practice, the more you do it, the more you're going to get better at it.
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Right.
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I've found success, a little bit of, pride, a little ego boost, right.
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And, um, and started to formulate and integrate this into my identity.
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so that, right.
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We, we pursue things that, where we feel we're, we've been rewarded to some degree, right.
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If you get to your first gold star, I want another gold star.
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I want another, you know, and so I, uh.
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A little bit of success resulted in, you know, more interest, which resulted in a little more success and more interest.
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One of my favorite maxims is success breeds success.
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sure.
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And it's kind of like my favorite class in high school was history.
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And it was because I had this great history teacher and I had little, I think, interest initially, but she was just so encouraging and she kept complimenting me on, uh, how well I was doing at class.
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Somehow I just became really interested in history and I ended up like doing really well with the subject.
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So for sure, it's, it's good to feel one is getting some rewards to keep pushing us to the next milestone.
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How old were you, Matt, when you started mountain biking?
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So that's a fair, that's a good point, is I would definitely a late adopter.
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Right.
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So I was in my forties, I guess.
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yeah, I would've been, so this, it really took off for me in like 2009 or 10.
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I'd have been well into my 40s, maybe, you know, 44, 45, yeah, I just grinding away since, and again, no end in sight.
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can't envision not participating in this.
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So.
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Matt, I can just see the fire in your eyes as you.
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Said the last thing! And how old are you now?
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So I'm 58.
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I'll be 59 this season.
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As cyclists, we often refer to our, my race age.
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My race age is 59.
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45.
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you started biking your mid 40s.
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And it's funny how since I started this show, I am meeting more and more, let's say, remarkable seasoned athletes who, contrary to first impressions, Started their, their sports journey at, uh, at a later age by conventional, standards.
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The thing that is, I think, badass about what you're doing is, as somebody who's dabbled in mountain biking, I know how difficult of a sport it can be.
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It is an enthralling sport.
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And I remember taking a little class.
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I hired somebody to teach me some basic, uh, basic, uh, Skills, jumps, whatnot.
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This is, I started this over COVID and he was this young buck, you know, maybe, uh, in his late teens.
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I just found him on some forum and he was trying to be patient and helping me learn how to navigate this, uh, in my opinion, uh, blue black, uh, type of, uh, downhill and it was scary and it was hard and I realized I don't have A particularly extreme bent of mind, even though yes, in some ways I do conventionally extreme sports.
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I was talking to him and then I talked to other people and I, I started thinking that this is one of the sports like gymnastics.
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You have to acquire those technical skills and the muscle memory and some of those fundamentals early, but you are, you are, uh, breaking my thinking here.
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so if I were coaching you through that blue black trail, I would just take you through it three times a week, every week for 10 weeks.
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You know, it, just as you become more and more familiar with it, it's less and less scary.
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I was in a race this past Sunday there's a, what I think is a fairly technical downhill section, um, with, uh, a lot of loose rock.
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Uh, and if you didn't know what you were doing, you can get hurt really bad.
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Um, and the first time I rode that was during a race, which is just nuts to ride it blind on a race day.
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And it scared the, it scared the dickens out of me.
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And I ended up like walking down most of it.
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And other people that I knew that I was.
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equally skilled or experienced with when they came, you know, bombing through there.
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And the difference was they'd been down it multiple times before.
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And so I think for me, the development of those skills and, uh, overcoming of fear is, Is, uh, just through not necessarily repetition, but through experience, just doing it and things like it more and experiencing it over and over and making it become familiar.
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Uh, and, uh, right.
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We're scared of things we don't understand or we haven't seen before.
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And the more you become familiar with it, the less scary it is.
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And this hearing me say this to myself out loud is.
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Kind of coaching me to, you know, it, I have this constant reminder that I need to ride technical terrain more frequently so that I am more familiar with it, more comfortable with it.
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Uh, and I think like a lot of people, I end up, um, uh, resorting to what's most convenient.
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And, you know, that's just breaking out the road bike and going down the cycling path and, you know, going over to the park and whipping around four times and coming home.
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When, in fact, What'll make me a better mountain biker is to ride my mountain bike more.
00:20:17.130 --> 00:20:21.886
And so it sounds so simple, but, familiarity, I think the key.
00:20:22.565 --> 00:20:26.733
it is indeed true that, some of this becomes self fulfilling prophecy.
00:20:26.763 --> 00:20:33.203
As we get older, people tell us, or we start thinking that we shouldn't be doing something because we're older and we can acquire those skills.
00:20:33.203 --> 00:20:38.733
And then the less you attempt those skills, the harder it's going to become for us to get good at them.
00:20:38.743 --> 00:20:51.713
So I certainly do want to tap into some of your learnings as a coach now, but going back to some of your beginnings, Matt, did you find a coach for yourself or were you self taught?
00:20:52.479 --> 00:20:57.459
I would say I was mentored, um, by some very, very patient people.
00:20:58.028 --> 00:21:09.578
Um, and you know, the difference between a mentor and a coach is that, you know, a mentor will share what they have learned, um, whereas a coach will help you discover.
00:21:10.183 --> 00:21:16.253
I come from a very formal coaching background before outside of athletic coaching.
00:21:16.253 --> 00:21:20.544
I come from a leadership and performance coaching background.
00:21:20.544 --> 00:21:23.104
I do this at work as part of my job as well.
00:21:23.402 --> 00:21:31.311
when I say coaching, I think of it in the leading somebody through the discovery process and problem solving process.
00:21:31.801 --> 00:21:33.892
I had some really solid.
00:21:34.757 --> 00:21:50.240
Mentors and very patient people who were willing to teach me and go through that learning and, uh, familiarity, um, with me and, uh, early in my, my mountain biking.
00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:53.869
Um, and again, I think it was, it was slow, right?
00:21:53.890 --> 00:22:01.240
It was just a lot of just riding the bike on gravel paths in Germany, which are everywhere, you know, the.
00:22:01.750 --> 00:22:08.950
A lot of Europe is just laced with these, you know, uh, fire roads and how they manage the forests.
00:22:09.150 --> 00:22:09.299
Right?
