Episodes

Ageless Athlete Newsletter. Weekly longevity insights + behind-the-scenes. No spam ever. 🚨 Most athletes know how to train hard. Far fewer know how to go truly easy. Matt Fitzgerald is one of the most influential writers and coaches in endurance sports. After developing severe long COVID, Matt lost the ability to run for nearly three years. Then, despite the risks, he committed to running a 100-kilometer ultramarathon through the Arizona desert. For Matt, it was about much more than rea...

Ageless Athlete Newsletter. Weekly longevity insights + behind-the-scenes. No spam ever. 🚨 Sleep is not just about feeling tired tomorrow. In this episode, Stanford sleep researcher Dr. Martin Kawalski explains why sleep often gets harder after 50, why older adults do not simply “need less sleep,” and why getting the basics wrong for long enough may affect how well we age. One of the biggest ideas from this conversation: sleep regularity may matter more than total hours. Martin explains why c...

Bob Becker didn't discover running until he was 57. Twenty-five years later, at the age of 80, he returned to Badwater 135—one of the world's toughest ultramarathons crossing California's Death Valley in temperatures exceeding 120°F—and became the oldest official finisher in the race's history. This is Bob's second appearance on Ageless Athlete. In our first conversation, we explored how he discovered endurance sports later in life and the remarkable story of missing the Badwater cutoff by ju...

Ageless Athlete on Substack - 1-2x / month. No spam. Longevity insights + behind-the-scenes. 👌🏾 Ethan Pringle has climbed some of the hardest routes in the world. But this episode is about the kind of strength climbing does not train you for. After his father suffered a devastating stroke, Ethan found himself living two lives: pro climber on the road, and son/caregiver back home. We talk about grief, fear, failure, aging parents, turning 40, becoming a father, and what strength means when lif...

Most of us think aging happens slowly in the background. Dr. Bill Andrews thinks we may be aging faster than we need to. Bill is a molecular biologist, founder of Sierra Sciences, and a longtime researcher in telomere and telomerase biology. He has spent most of his life asking whether aging itself can be slowed, reversed, or even cured. He is also an ultra runner. At 74, Bill still runs every day, has completed 100-mile races, and continues to test what the body may be capable of as the decad...

Beth Rodden is one of the most influential climbers of her generation—known for major Yosemite free climbing, multiple free ascents on El Capitan, and routes that helped push standards forward. I came into this conversation expecting more about training, aging, and climbing goals. Instead, Beth took us somewhere rarer: the inner work behind the highlight reel. She speaks with a kind of directness that’s almost unfamiliar—about self-doubt, insecurity, injury, and what it feels like to be seen as...

Some guests make you want to train harder. Mike Wardian makes you want to live wider — and stop postponing the things that matter. Mike is 52, a runner, adventurer, and lifelong “yes” person. What stood out here wasn’t a race résumé. It was how he builds a life where training fits inside the day, curiosity stays lit, and progress keeps happening even when time is tight. Mike’s story has that real-life Forrest Gump energy — he ran 3,200 miles across America on Running Home. But the reason he be...

A few weeks ago, I attended Vitalist Bay in Berkeley, surrounded by scientists, doctors, founders, and researchers exploring the future of longevity. A few days later, I was in the Eastern Sierra, recovering from ankle surgery, mountain biking instead of climbing, soaking in hot springs, and thinking about a different side of healthspan: the lived side. In this solo episode, I share 7 lessons from 70+ athletes on what it really takes to stay strong, curious, and capable over decades. I also in...

Joe Friel is 82, still training, and still paying attention. In the last five years, he felt the shift—power fading on climbs, muscle disappearing even with a lifetime of lifting—and he’s not sugarcoating what that feels like. This episode is about the mistakes that quietly accelerate decline after 50: training like your recovery is unchanged, letting ego run the plan, and waiting too long to adjust. Joe’s approach is simple, honest, and earned—adapt early, stay consistent, and keep your identi...

Astronauts come back from space describing the same strange shift: a sudden connection to humanity, compassion for living things, and this visceral understanding of how fragile Earth really is. They call it the overview effect. Caroline Paul has spent years thinking about a version of that shift closer to home—through flying, through attention, and through awe. And her new book, Why Fly, is built around that question: what changes in us when the world suddenly feels bigger than our problems? ...

Ed Viesturs was a childhood hero of mine. When I was younger—dreaming about mountains—his story helped shape what I thought “greatness” actually was: more than bravado, but also patience, judgment, and the discipline to come home. In this episode, Ed takes us inside an 18-year mission: climbing all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen—with Annapurna as the final, most dangerous obstacle. We talk about the real risk near the end of any long goal: when attention, press...

Greg Benning is a masters single sculler outside Boston — and at 64, he’s still finding ways to get faster. I came into this conversation not knowing much about rowing, but that’s exactly what made it powerful: once Greg translates the sport, what emerges is a universal framework for longevity performance. For the last 15 years, Greg’s question has been simple: can marginal gains in efficiency offset age-related decline? In this episode, he shares the practical systems that keep him sharp — f...

Amelia Boone rose to prominence in the early 2010s as one of obstacle racing’s most dominant competitors — known for thriving in long-format, high-suffering events and earning the “queen of pain” reputation. But this conversation is less about grit-as-identity… and more about what it takes to stay capable for decades. We talk about the hidden cost of over-optimizing, why Amelia stepped away from tracking sleep and HRV, and how longevity often demands a shift: from proving toughness to practicin...

What happens when the moment that changes your life doesn’t come from the “dangerous” thing… but from an ordinary day at home? Cedar Wright has spent decades in the vertical world—professional climber, storyteller, and filmmaker whose adventures helped bring climbing culture to a wider audience. But in this conversation, the sharpest lesson isn’t about climbing at all. It’s about how quickly capability can disappear—and how “next year” is never guaranteed. In this episode The freak accident t...

Amy Appelhans Gubsers (56) is a nurse at UCSF, a mom and grandma, and the first person to swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands—nearly 30 miles and roughly 17 hours in cold Pacific water, in what many consider shark territory. This is more than an epic swim. It’s a practical conversation about how big goals actually get done: patience over years, calm under pressure, and the ability to keep moving when conditions stop cooperating. In this episode: The long-game reality behin...

Overhead motion is everywhere — in sport and in life. This episode is a practical deep dive on shoulder pain with Dr. Tyler Nelson, who works primarily with climbers but applies the same principles across overhead athletes and active adults: build tolerance with smart progressions, manage volume, and avoid getting trapped chasing “perfect fixes.” What to expect This is more technical than a typical Ageless Athlete episode — but it stays grounded. You’ll get: a clearer way to think about overhe...

What if staying athletic for life isn’t about doing one thing really well — but learning how to start over, again and again? Susan Hunt has spent the last four decades doing exactly that. She describes herself as “very average” — yet she’s completed Ironman triathlons, raced the Eco-Challenge in Borneo, run the Marathon des Sables across the Sahara, and summited Mount Everest at 53. Now at 68, she’s still competing — recently winning her age group at a Half Ironman and qualifying for the World...

What does it take to stay capable through the years? Jason Hardrath is one of the most creative endurance athletes in the mountains today. An ultrarunner, climber, and mountain linkup specialist, Jason is known for massive single-push adventures that combine running, climbing, swimming, biking, and even paragliding. He has completed the Bulger List — the 100 highest peaks in Washington — in record time, along with numerous Fastest Known Times (FKTs) and ambitious multi-sport mountain projects...

What happens when the thing that defines you is suddenly taken away? For legendary American alpinist Jack Tackle, climbing wasn’t just a sport — it was identity. For more than five decades, Jack has explored remote mountains across Alaska, the Himalaya, and the Karakoram. He spent decades guiding in the Tetons and helping shape an era of bold American alpinism built on patience, partnership, and resilience. But in the year 2001, everything changed. Jack was struck by Guillain-Barré syndrome, ...

It’s March. The January energy has faded. The motivation posts are quieter. And this is where the real long game begins. In this episode, I lay out 10 non-negotiables for athletes who plan to keep performing — not just this year, but for decades. This isn’t about hype. It isn’t about biohacking. And it definitely isn’t about chasing trends. It’s about durability. Drawing from over 100 conversations with top athletes, as well as, coaches, and scientists on Ageless Athlete,— I unpac...

Why do we avoid the very feelings that might help us grow? In this conversation, Jerome Rand shares what it’s like to spend 271 days alone at sea—crossing oceans with no easy way out, no distractions, and nowhere to hide. But this is more than just a story about sailing. It’s about what happens when you sit with discomfort long enough for it to change you. We talk about: why real growth often feels like resistance, not progress what prolonged solitude reveals about your mind&...

What does running feel like inside one of the most controlled countries in the world? Johan Nylander entered North Korea shortly after it reopened—joining a small group of foreign visitors to run the Pyongyang Marathon. At 52, he found himself on a starting line few outsiders ever experience. But this story doesn’t start there. After years covering geopolitics across Asia, Johan was burned out—physically depleted and struggling to run even a single kilometer. What followed was a quiet rebuild...

This episode brings together moments from conversations recorded throughout 2025 with athletes who have spent decades working inside uncertainty — in the mountains, on open water, on the road, and in daily training. What connects these excerpts is more than accomplishment or outcome. It’s how each person has learned to operate when conditions narrow, when simplicity, judgment, and restraint matter more than force. Every clip comes from a full-length episode in the Ageless Athlete back catalog....

What if the story you’ve been told about aging joints isn’t the whole story? In this episode of Ageless Athlete, I speak with orthopedic surgeon and researcher Dr. Kevin Stone about what’s recently changed in orthopedics — especially for athletes over 40 who’ve been told to slow down, live with pain, or prepare for joint replacement. Dr. Stone shares how modern approaches are shifting from simply removing damaged tissue to repairing, replacing, or regenerating it, and why many people referred...