7: Rob Jones

Hey everybody welcome back to the Impossible podcast. Today I'm speaking with Rob Jones, who's a former Marine who on his second deployment got hit by an ID, had a double amputation, and has come back to sense bike across America when a bronze medal to Paralympics and runs 31 marathons in 31 days. He's an inspiring guy, he's an incredible athlete, and you're gonna get a lot out of this one. He has some really insightful things to talk about mission, about pushing through when times get hard, and how to do some of these impossible challenges that he faced up to, went after and got done.

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All right, and we're live. Today, I've got Rob Jones, a man of many talents. Rob, thank you for being here today. Thanks for the opportunity, man.

It's good to see you. You were with me in San Diego. Yeah, so you've done quite a few things. You've deployed to the Marines.

You've faced out an ID. You've got a bronze medal in the Paralympics. You've rode your bike across America, and you've done 31 marathons in 31 days, which is where I recently came across you. That's a lot of things to go exactly where to start.

I ran across your stuff when I was hearing about the month of marathons, and you came through San Diego, and I was like, oh, this guy's done running a bunch of stuff. I want to go see this guy doing this. I showed up, I think, just as you finished, and you were about to bounce to the next state, and just doing 31 of those back to back. That was really impressive.

I was like, I have to get on the phone with this guy, and talk to him about what he's up to. Yeah, thanks, man. I appreciate you coming out and showing me some support in San Diego. I had a big group that day.

Well, you had big groups all over the place. That was the crazy thing was you had, it was what, 30 in the States, and then you'd won in England. Was that right? Well, technically, one in England, one in Canada, and 20 in America.

And you had people at almost every race, right on with you? Now I have people at every single one. Most of the crowds were at least, over the course of the day, at least 50, usually, would come out. But there were a few, but yeah, sometimes people have to work or whatever.

Yeah. I'll just be running all day. But I want to get into your story a little bit and dig into how you got started with all this, and then also talk about the different challenges that you faced personally, both after deploying, after facing on the ID, and then getting right back into athletics and finding that as an outlet for what you've done. And so do you mind, I did a little bit of an intro already, but I'd love for you to share your story of how you got started in the Marines, and then we can go from there.

Yeah, I was a junior at Virginia Tech to set a point in my life where things weren't really working out. How I envisioned I was a computer science major, and I determined that I wasn't really cut out for computer science. And so I was looking for something that was missing in my life, and I read a book about the Marine Corps called Brotherhood of Heroes, and yeah, it struck a chord. And so I decided to join.

I went to the recruiter the next day, and I was probably signed up within the week, I think. So right away. Yeah, pretty much right away. Did it, you know, right after I read that book.

That's a good book done. They got to get that out there. So you, I have from your bio that you graduated school in 2007. I think it was high school, right?

And then 2008 you deployed? I graduated college in 2007. I joined the reserve, so I was able to finish my last year at college before I deployed. Okay.

And so then you deployed a couple times. Is that right? Yeah, my first one was to Iraq in 2008. Papua New York, Iraq, mostly did.

It was seven months, mostly doing cash sweeping, just using metal detector to try and find buried munitions. And then my second deployment was 2010 to Afghanistan. And we were trying to find IEDs over there with metal detectors instead of the buried munitions. Gotcha.

And what drew you to the Marine specifically? Was it just the book, or was there something else about, you know, the actual, just the way everything is run in the Marines versus school and a traditional route of a nine to five? It wasn't the book itself. It was the people that were in the book and the characters that were on display in the book.

So, you know, courage, brotherhood, altruism, selflessness, all those kinds of things were displayed at the Battle of Pelelu, which is the Battle of the Book was about by the Marines. And it's, I determined, you know, that was what I needed at the time. I, you know, it struck a chord. And, and so, you know, those characteristics that drew me to the Marine Corps, and primarily the brotherhood from it.

The, it's interesting. One of the things we talk about is pushing yourself to live a better story and doing the things that you don't think you could do. Was there any part of joining the Marines where you're like, you know, this is going to be like really, really tough? Was it, I've talked to kind of two sets of people who joined the military.

One was like, okay, it was really tough. And it kind of shaped and molded them over time into becoming that type of person. They wanted to be in the other types, sort of the jocko type that was born, you know, born. And two years, two years old, they want to just jump in and play commando.

And just, it comes really easy. Where was it? Which one of those did you fall into, do you think? I was molded, I think, but yeah, I was molded by bootcamp and everything.

But, you know, I obviously had to have that drive to begin with. And the reason I joined the Marine Corps, well, part of the reason I joined the Marine Corps was because it was going to be tough. So, you know, I was looking for that kind of thing. And then because I was open to it, I think, you know, I just, they were more successful at molding me into a Marine than if I, you know, wasn't all that interested.

Yeah. There's something about those hard things that shape and mold and transform people. And it's interesting to see. It seems like I've had a bunch of different military guys on the podcast recently.

I'd actually, Nana Vati, I think who featured you in his book or his trailer about his book on a couple weeks ago. And it seems there's something about specifically military that it's this really, I mean, it's sports played to 100 playing to like, it's all the characteristics that you learn through athletics, but in real life with life or death consequences. And they really force you to build the characteristics that a lot of times I think everybody wants to have or they wish they had, but they're not willing to go through some of the hellish challenges and circumstances that forge those characteristics and the things that are interesting about those characters in the book. Don't come from living a normal life.

You have to get out into the battlefield to experience those and to have those kind of molded into you. Yeah. I mean, if you want to chisel a statue, you got to hit it with a chisel and pound the rock with it. So it's not going to be, it's not an easy.

It takes a lot of force and it takes a lot of adversity in order to become a lot stronger. But, you know, I would say to people that say they want to do it, but aren't willing to go through what it takes to get it. They don't really want it. So I think they really need to reevaluate what they actually want in life.

I 100% agree on that. And it's kind of harsh. Sometimes people don't really like to, nobody likes to like take that message. But when you lay it out like that, you're like, this is the price of it.

This is what you have to go pay up in order to go forge those characteristics or to become that type of person, either put up or shut up. A lot of people walk away. And that's a message that I don't think a lot of people are, they don't necessarily get and a lot of people need to hear it. And I think there's a segment of people that are starving for hard challenges that are worthwhile and pay off for something awesome.

Well, I'm not criticizing the person that doesn't want to, you know, teach their own. But to say, I wish I could, I wish I could play harmonica and then actually buy harmonica or even take a lesson. You know, do you really wish that you could play harmonica or do you just wish, you know, what do you actually wish for? So, you know, I'm not criticizing you for wanting what you want and not wanting what you don't want.

But, you know, just be honest with yourself. And getting clarity on what that is and what you are willing to go after. So something happened on the second appointment and kind of, you know, life-changing. Can you kind of share with us what happened?

Yeah, like I said, my job was to find IEDs in Afghanistan and the way it would work would be we'd patrol up to a place where there was a high likelihood of having an IED, namely a bridge or something like that. Some kind of terrain feature that required us to go across a narrow area. So it'd be a high likelihood there would be an IED in there. So what we would do is I would cross first with my metal detector and make sure it was clear.

And then everybody else would follow my path that I laid out. And on July 22, 2010, I was in the process of going through that and making sure there was a clear route through this danger area. And I missed the IED and it hit me before I found it. And that resulted in double above me amputations.

So what's that like after spending two years in the Marines and you said you were in the reserves before that, you've kind of got your working towards this brotherhood that you're a part of. And then this goes at what was it like a couple days after? I mean, I don't even know if you remember parts of that, but what was it like in the immediate aftermath of that? I was unconscious for maybe 20 seconds and I remember the rest of the day or not the day, but then maybe then until they put me in the tank to take me to the Cassey back helicopter.

Then after that, I was unconscious for about five days and then I spent a week in the intensive care unit kind of high on morphine going in for surgery. So the first 12 days, I don't really have a whole lot of vivid memories. But then when my senses did start to come back, you know, I realized that my life mission remained unchanged, even though I was a double amp UT. You know, I still wanted to have a life that I could be proud of, a life that made a difference and one that I could enjoy.

And I still wanted to spend time with my friends and my family. And so all that really changed was how I was going to do that now. So, you know, I was doing it with the Marine Corps before, and I just needed to figure out what my new path is going to be to contributing to society. So first step of that was to, you know, learn how to walk again and heal up.

Yeah. So how do you even start that process? What does that even look like as far as the one thing as I've gone through, you know, some of your videos and the interviews you've done in the passes, it seemed like you got back on the horse pretty quickly. Like you just, you didn't spend a lot of time feeling sorry for yourself.

And that sounds almost crazy. But it seemed like you just applied yourself to the task at hand. But even something as simple as walking again, how do you, what's the, what's the training process look like? Yeah, you know, I have a knack for just kind of accepting the situation and doing what I think needs to be done.

And you know, you only have a certain amount of energy you can expend during the course of a day. So if you spend 10% of that energy on feeling sorry for yourself or wishing something that happened, you know, didn't happen, then you're only going to have 90% of your energy to put towards something that you actually can't have an effect on. And so, you know, it kind of makes sense just to skip all that stuff and energy on, on what you need to do. And so, you know, the first month was literally just waiting for my body to heal and just not a whole lot I could do besides eat and, you know, just get enough rest.

And, you know, there was a little bit of physical therapy, you know, just kind of getting used to moving my legs around or remember, residual limbs around, learning how to get into the wheelchair, you know, just moving around a little bit. But it wasn't, you know, a whole lot of technical stuff that I had to learn. It was, it was taxing. You know, I could barely lift my stumps at first.

But yeah, it was pretty much just waiting, waiting for my body to heal is really what the first month was all about. Okay. And then what were the following months after that, like? Yeah, after that is where the tricky stuff or the, you know, the skill learning happened.

And so I spent the next year, about a year and a half learning how to use the prosthetics. So they, you know, they give you the leg sockets and you start as a double bit above the amputee, you start short on little midget legs and you basically just learn, get used to how the sockets feel and how your body moves around again and, you know, get your center of gravity, get to figure out your balance and how to move with prosthetics. Now as you get better, you get a little taller and taller. And then eventually, they'll give you the, the bionic knee, which is the most advanced recreation of the human knee that is available.

And it has all sorts of weight distribution sensors and algorithms that recreate the way the human knee works. And so, you know, it's quite sophisticated at the same time. There's a lot more chance to fall down. It takes a little bit more skill to learn.

And so then you work on learning that. And now when I got good with that, I started to move on to other stuff like learning how to ride a bike, learning how to run again. I got into, you know, rowing and then, you know, just going up and down stairs, you know, kind of learning the advanced stuff. Yeah.

What's the toughest part about relearning all that is there's specific area that's, you found to be the most challenging? I think if I could go back and do anything else I would have gotten rid of my wheelchair a little bit earlier. I think what happens is you kind of become dependent and comfortable in the wheelchair. Or with whatever stage you're in and to go to that next stage takes a little bit of a push because, you know, it can be embarrassing to, well, it's embarrassing for anybody to learn something new and not look, not be good at it.

And so you kind of look stupid when you fall down and when you're not good at it. And so if I could go back, I would have gotten rid of my wheelchair sooner. And I think I would have progressed a lot faster because I was relying on the wheelchair. And I needed what I needed to do was, you know, force myself to, you know, rise to the occasion and just get rid of that wheelchair.

And then, yeah, and then, you know, just like I said, each stage, you tend to feel a little bit embarrassed because you're a new guy again, you're like starting up. And, you know, you fall down and everybody, you know, forks drop and everybody looks at you for a second and then you get back up. And so it's a little bit embarrassing. But, you know, everybody goes through that over the course of their recovery.

Yeah. Do you end up getting good at, like, doing the recoveries out of the falls? Or is it just like, like, you know, when you're skiing, the first thing you have to do is learn to fall well. Is that was that kind of thing that you kind of picked up on after a while you kind of just, okay, I rolled it in and then, you know, pretty soon you're running and biking and running all over the place.

Yeah. That's one of the first things you do learn, actually, because if there's any guarantees that you're going to fall down at some point, so we did spend a good amount of time on techniques for standing up after a fall with the knees, with the short legs and everything. And, you know, you get good at that pretty early on so that when you do do the advanced stuff, you don't have, or if you're out and about, you know, and you fall down in public or something, you can get back up without any help. Yeah.

I like how the two things that you mentioned about that were one, you would take away like the dependency, like earlier on, like anytime you're learning, you just go like take away the dependency that, you know, might feel comfortable, but it also might be holding you back. And then to also be prepared to fall all the time, just in case and figure out how to put yourself back up because those two things are going to happen regardless. So, you know, you have to get rid of the safety net eventually. Otherwise, you're not really going to achieve what you, your maximum potential if you, if you're always there with the safety net.

Yeah. And so you got to get rid of it. Cool. So that's middle of 2010 was the ID 2011, you're honorably discharged and then you immediately decide to jump into rowing.

Yeah. I decided started, I wouldn't say full-time training for rowing, but I was training maybe five times a week. I could mention the therapist in the clinic to let me bring a rowing machine, a concept to into the clinic because they didn't have one and I needed to start practicing my rowing because I wanted to try and make the Paralympics. And then near the end of my recovery, you know, I met my rowing partner and we, we decided together, you know, we sat down and said, well, do you want to try and make the Paralympics or not?

And she said, yes. And I said, yes. So when I actually, before I was officially retired, I went on terminal leave and then I drove down to Florida and started training right away twice a day, you know, six days a week. What was it about rowing specifically that you jumped into so quickly with it?

Was it, did you have any previous experience or was it just something that you're like, okay, I'm going to do what I can with what I've got? Yeah, well, pretty much that. You know, I didn't have any on the water experience. So the only experience I had was I remembered before when I was able to body that, you know, workouts on the rowing machine were always really tough.

And you know, it just so happened that rowing was in the Paralympics. And it also just happened that there was a place where I could learn how to row near the hospital. And then it also happened that there was a partner for me that was a female and was skilled in good shape. So all these things kind of fell together.

If I looked at rowing and there wasn't a place for me to learn how to row near NDC, then I probably wouldn't have done it because I wouldn't have, you know, I had to be in the hospital. And I might have tried something else or I don't know what would have happened. But yeah, so you know, a lot of things had to fall into place just in the right spot. Have you, you're familiar with the Jim Jones guys?

Yeah, yeah, you know, Rob McDonald, the former training director over there. He wrote my strength and conditioning program for my 2012 training. Oh, really? I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah. I was going to ask you if you've done their tailpipe workout. As a disabled person, I did it as an able body though on my own. Okay.

That thing sucks. Yeah. Anything. I mean, the wrong machine is tough, but it's only as tough as you make it.

So, you know, that can be tough or just sprinting can be tough, you know, walking can be tough as long as you do it, right? Yeah. So you, you, you, you get discharged from the Marines, then you drive down Florida and you're just going full tilt towards this Paralympics goal. Is that right?

Yeah, I mean, full dedication to it. That's what it requires. If you want to be the, you know, if you want to have a chance it went in gold at the, on the world stage, you have to fully dedicate yourself. So I, you know, I know I needed to go to a place where I could train every day on the water.

And so, couldn't really do that in DC reliably. And so we went down to somewhere where it was going to be warm and we'd be able to get out of the water just about every day. So, you know, you have to, if you want it, then you got it, you make it and you manifest it. So, you know, I wasn't in the right place for me to be able to train like I needed to be able to train.

So I moved. That was just that important, huh? Exactly. Yeah.

I lived in a hotel for five months down there in Florida, and then moved up to Charlottesville, actually, starts over to Virginia after that. And then spend the rest of the time between May and September, training up there. I think that's something that some people don't always grasp is actually moving your physical person to a lot of times people will talk about, hey, I'm not able to do that because I'm not close to XYZ or I can't, you know, pursue whatever I want to go after because it's not, you know, there's nothing conveniently located to me. Yeah.

Like, I, like, I'm moving to Florida, like for five months, living in a hotel, because this is the thing that I'm going to prioritize the rest of my life around and go after it in a way that you're aiming to succeed and not have a built-in excuse to fall short. Well, it just boils down to that whole thing we were talking about earlier about whether or not you actually want it. So if you really, truly want something, like I wanted to be in the Paralympics and win, win in the Paralympics, then you're going to do whatever you need to. So if you don't really want something, then you're going to let something like not being in the right location stop you.

So it all just boils down to what's most important, where you live or what you want to accomplish. What was the training regimen like? You said Bobby wrote that out for you and then how did that all play out? So he wrote the strength and conditioning.

So we were in the gym three times a week and we decided, I went out to Jim Jones and talked to him maybe a week before I went down to Florida. And, you know, he just did an assessment at him and became friends and did an assessment on, you know, what movements can I do, what's going to be beneficial for the trunk and arms rolling. And, you know, what I needed, we only had nine months, so we had to kind of focus on a couple things. And what we decided to do was, you decided that I could use a little bit of mass on my body.

So most of the workouts that I did were about mass gain in the gym. So a lot of 10 by 10 pull up and bench press back and forth. And then a lot of, yeah, tons of, I mean, really, a lot of tons of pull ups, lots of pushing and pulling and then lots of dead lifts. But mostly just stuff that was designed to add some muscle into my body.

And then, you know, the other stuff, the cardiovascular and the power endurance that came from training on the water. And then obviously we had to spend a lot of time learning the skill of rolling. And so you said you had nine months to train for it? Yeah.

So I mean, we got down to Florida, essentially January of January of 2012, and the Paralympics were September 2nd, 2012. So I mean, I guess eight months really. But you know, I had been training for it before then, just not full time. So I probably started, you know, doing a workout a day probably in September of 2011.

But you know, I wouldn't call that full-time training, I would call that just training. Okay. Repertory training, I guess. But yes, I wouldn't call that full training.

And then you go out and do it, you go get the bronze medal. And how, how, how, we're at that, what were you aiming for as far as, seems like you're aiming for cold, you know, you don't really do the plane to, you know, participation, ribbon doesn't seem to be your thing. Yeah, we wanted to win. You know, that's, that was the whole, you know, the whole purpose is to win the race.

Obviously we didn't, we got third. And I was, you know, I was sad, I was proud of it, you know, because we, you know, you take what, where we came from, you know, nine months or eight months of training and, you know, being a new double, a new pair of people, you know, learning how, how each other works and stuff. And, you know, based on the fact that I was pretty much a skeleton of myself two years earlier, you know, so it's proud. And we worked as hard as we possibly could.

I can't imagine doing anything differently that year that could have got us any faster. So, you know, I was proud of us, proud of our coaches, proud of the sport network that we had, but you know, just not satisfied because we didn't win. And we set out to win. You know, this is how it is.

But you know, I'm not going to sit there and beat myself up over it or, you know, I'm not going to have a thousand yards stare over a beer, reliving that race for the rest of my life. You know, so I just have to, I have to live with the fact that I wasn't fully totally satisfied, but you know, proud of our achievement. So, so the next year, I literally going through your bio on your website and it's like every single year since like 2010 or 2011, you've got like a new adventure or race you did. And so in 2013, 2014, you said you rode your bike across the U.S.

What made you want to do? Was there any part of you that said, okay, you know, bronze is pretty good for, you know, training for nine months. If I sat down and, you know, reloaded for a full year, I could, you know, make another run of gold. Was that a consideration or were you just like, okay, I did that.

That's an overview mirror. I want to do something new. Yeah, we did. We did try and do, we did World Championships 2013.

But you know, that season didn't go quite as well as the 2012 season my partner spent a long time. She switched over to skiing for the winter. And so, you know, that doesn't totally translate. It translate a little bit to rolling, but it doesn't fully translate.

And so we didn't actually get back in the boat until maybe March of 2013. And so I'd been training for rolling. She had been training for skiing. So, you know, we that season just didn't quite go as well as the one before.

And you know, I have to take my own personal responsibility for that as well. You know, I should have insisted that she keep rolling. I didn't do that. So that's on, you know, that's on me.

That's extreme ownership. You know what I mean? There you go. So yeah, we did that and we still placed fourth.

I really thought at the end of that season that we based on where we had finished the year before we should have we probably should have won that race and maybe even been close to breaking the world record or something. So, but you know what, yes, again, doesn't always work out like you want it to, but you got to be proud of what you did. There you go. So right after that, then you decided, okay, I'm over this boat.

It just seems like you're moving through the different various forms of transportation over time. So you move from your boat and then you say, Hey, I'm going to ride my bike across America. Yeah. So did you did you have to relearn how to ride a bike?

Did you relearn that specific skill at this point or were you just like, I'm going to go for it and figure it out as we go? Yeah. So I had relearned how to ride the bike when I was at Walter Reed. It's kind of just started because I had heard that nobody had ever done it as a double above the amputee that came through Walter Reed.

So I figured I might as well try and be the first and then see if you know, try and show people that it was possible. And that's what the bike ride was all about was putting that to use and trying to show what was possible for wounded veterans so that they could see it. Whether the injuries, psychological or physical, you know, I'm out there and I had a traumatic experience and I was able to, you know, relearn or relearn how to ride a bike and figure out my way that I was going to continue to contribute to my country and to my fellow veterans. And so, you know, that was just the way that I decided to get that message across and I figured I'd ride my bike across the country in the winter, diagonally across and you just make it as hard as I could and it's kind of blow people's minds with how difficult it was and just add that insurmountable evidence to what I was proving.

Yeah. So most people when they do a bike ride, they do it over, you know, May, June, July or April, you know, summer months you go from I think was October, basically through the winter. Yeah, October to April. So, yeah, through the winter and a little bit of that spring and fall time.

But, you know, I wanted to do it. I didn't want to do it in the summer because the heat really affects me badly. So, I want to do it in the winter time and it wasn't too bad for the year of the Polar Vortex. So that was, you know, we did luck out as far as, you know, getting caught in places with snow and everything and I.

So, we only got caught a couple of times for a few days. So, it kind of worked out pretty well, but it was very, very cold. Did you have a time schedule for what you wanted to do it in or do you just say, hey, we're going to, we're going to, because biking roads in the winter is way different, especially if you're, you know, starting up in Maine and coming down through. That's a whole different type of challenge than, you know, riding perfectly paved and clean roads in the middle of the summer.

Yeah, I kind of calculated that I was going to take about six months to do it beforehand. And so, I kind of had that in my mind and I ended up being 181 days. So, pretty much exactly what I predicted. And you had a sport vehicle hold time?

Yeah, my little brother drove a little brother drove a U-haul that we had kind of retrofitted with cots in the back of it. Yeah, he just followed me along and kind of protected me from vehicles that were coming up behind me and, you know, to support, support truck. Luckily, we didn't have to sleep in it too much because there are a lot of generous hotels that would put us up for the night. So, we didn't sleep in it all that much, maybe three weeks total.

Do you have a part of the ride that stuck out to you as the most difficult or the most challenging? Do you have the whole thing? Yeah, it's hard to say. Any kind of mountain past or any kind of mountain range that I had to cross.

So, I had to cross the Appalachian Mountains, Cumberland Mountains, Ozark Mountains, Rocky Mountains, all that stuff. Yeah, the toughest part. Yeah, so. I just asked because sometimes I'll talk to guests and I know for me, it's sometimes when I do one of these races or whatever, it's just there's not in every race, but in a decent number of them, there's like a specific point where it feels like the race is challenging you or the event or whatever it is, it's like personally challenging you and like daring you to back down.

Like as you're going up a mountain and all of a sudden a gust comes around and you're like, I could see how it could be very easy to give up right now. And then you have to double down and remember why you're doing it and then keep going forward. Exactly. I mean, I couldn't say any better myself, man.

That's cool. So, you finished that bike ride and before we keep going, because you've got a couple other things that you've done. And what's the main drive? Why put so much effort into all the athletics?

Where's the drive coming from? Well, I guess the reason I picked sports was because that's just what I had a talent for and I had an interest in it. Like I said, I was into Jim Jones but when I was in the Marine Corps and just from being in the Marine Corps, I learned that physical effort is a great way to grow as a person and learn about yourself. And so I took to that.

And that was my skill set. And so, you know, it's what they said is that saying is do what you can with what you have, where you are. And so I had these skills of just being able to endure crappy situations. And so I applied that to trying to prove that, you know, wounded veterans aren't broken veterans and that they can still contribute to society.

And I did that by raising money for charities and spreading the word about veterans. And so that's how I chose to do it. There's plenty of different ways to do that. But you know, that was my skill set.

So I used the almost impossible task of running across the country as a double above the amputee on a regular bike to do it. And then, you know, the marathon challenge as well. Yeah, I was, I like the way you said the ability to endure and you listed that as like a talent because that's actually a talent. And a lot of times I'll tell people I'm not really the fastest person in the world.

I'm not the most skilled runner or anything like that. But I can suffer pretty well. And the ability to like get beaten down by race or get beaten down by like a certain situation and then take it and then keep going is something you can learn. And something that is, I think really undervalued as far as a a skill set that you can actually build in a type of resilience that over time you can improve and really add to any other skill that you have.

Yeah, it's well, it kind of is a skill, I guess. But at the same time, again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier where, you know, I cared so much about getting the word out about veterans and raising the money that I was able to endure whatever I had to. So it's, I guess it's more about mission accomplishment than anything else for me. And then so because of the importance of the mission, the endurance kind of goes hand at hand with that.

But you definitely get good at being able to endure anything through being in the Marine Corps and having that sense of mission accomplishment. Yeah. So with that mission, what is, so you just did another, you just did 31 marathons in 31 days. And that was all for this mission.

And this overall mission, we kind of talked about it in glancing, but we haven't talked about it specifically. Do you want to share what your overall mission with all these different projects that you're doing is? Yeah, you know, it's just what I said before about, you know, proving that wounded veterans aren't broken. I don't care if the injury is mental or physical.

You're still able to continue fighting. You still have that responsibility to keep fighting. So just got to remember that you're still a warrior and other veterans are depending on you, America's still depending on you. So you have to fight on.

So, you know, that's just what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to show that to veterans that may be struggling and I'm trying to show it to civilians that may not know exactly what it's like to be a wounded veteran. And so, you know, so they have a better understanding of both sides of the coin in terms of, you know, veterans that come home. Yeah, the one of the one of the things that you've said before is that you're raising, you're trying to raise a million dollars for the various veterans charities.

So, when they do come home, they have a they have ways to get plugged in ways to still feel to see areas where they can contribute and participate and live a life they're proud of. Yeah, exactly. And then that's, you know, veteran charities are play a big role in that. They provide opportunities.

They provide counseling. They provide training and therapy. So, you know, part of that does come from, you know, part of that, all that does help people to find their new path, is, you know, having all these different opportunities to explore different options. And so, that's what these people do.

And they help people when they're, they may be in a precarious position financially or what have you. And so, it's important that they keep going. For veterans, it's important that they they're still, they're still around for as long as we can manage. Yeah.

What do you think about your situation or what do you think you did differently? Or maybe your mindset or whatever it might be, you know, you mentioned a lot of veterans do come back and they have this, you know, they're trying to figure out how to fit back in, trying to get back on to, you know, a normal, normal life away from war. How do you think, you know, what did you do differently to be able to kind of bounce back, you know, from a pretty, you know, pretty major injury and get back to doing, you know, all the stuff you're doing before and then, you know, way more. What was the, what was the difference?

Do you think? Yeah, I really couldn't tell you. I somehow I just have that knack for accepting my situation. And I think it's mostly just a combination of, you know, what you're probably born with a certain amount of resiliency and ability to do that.

And that combined with the life experiences that you face, you know, that develop your habits and your reactions to things. And so, it just so happened that, you know, those two things combined for me led to, you know, what I'm doing. And I can't really say that I did anything. I didn't have a different method.

I didn't have a different approach than anybody else. I don't think it's just a matter of, you know, I was in a position where I could, you know, I had these things ingrained in me and I could see different opportunities for myself, that other people might find it a little bit trickier to discover. And so, you know, I was able to find those things quickly, you know, probably as a matter of luck and partly, you know, who I am and know what, you know, based on my experiences. Do you think like throwing yourself into the rowing thing?

Like as soon as you know, you physically could was was a piece of kind of reclaiming that story of, Hey, I can, you know, I can still compete at a pretty high level and still go do these things rather than if you just sat around doing like physical therapy, but you know, watching TV and like, man, I wish I could do, you know, something else, but kind of not waiting on anything and just jumping right into, you know, the next thing right away. Yeah, I think it's definitely important to set goals for yourself pretty quickly. Give yourself something to work towards. Because yeah, if you're not working towards something, then you're just kind of sitting there stagnating.

And I don't care what the thing that you're working towards is for me, it was just, you know, it was rowing in Paralympics. And it's somebody could be learning how to play guitar or whatever. But as long as you have to set some kind of goal for yourself in order to prevent stagnation. And so, you know, I did that, I'm not really, I'm articulating this after the fact, you know, I did it.

And you know, it's also important to see what you're made of, you know, challenge yourself, enforce yourself to rise to the occasions and find out what you're made of. Because, you know, when you get injured so catastrophically, it's, you know, you're not exactly sure what you can do. And so the only way to find out what you can do is to test yourself. And so, you know, once you know, once you test yourself, and you know exactly where you are, then you can figure out what you need to do in order to get where you want to go.

No, I like that. So, so after going back to like all, you know, all your different goals that you've got. So you finished this bike ride in 2014, and then you decide, Hey, you know, okay, I did rowing down, I got biking, okay, I got biking down. I'm gonna do triathlons next and you spend the next couple of years going after and training triathlon is pretty hard.

Yeah, I was trying to make the Paralympics for 2016 and triathlon, you know, sadly, spoiler alert, I didn't make it. And, you know, I think I probably overestimated, you know, how overestimated how much ground I could make up just through, you know, working as hard as I could. I figured I could outwork everybody and catch up. But I was pretty disadvantaged in the triathlon in the category.

But I was in, I was, I had to race against a single above the amputees and I could never catch them on the bike enough. They would always just blow me out of the water on the bike. And I would start to reel them in on the run, you know, I was the fastest runner, but I could never, I could never make up enough time on the run in order to be competitive. So I never, I was able to make it to the Paralympics and triathlon.

But you know, I'm glad I went for it because I learned that I had a talent for running. And, you know, I put that talent to use for my next, you know, for the marathon challenge. And, you know, I think doing the marathon challenge was probably had a better effect or a bigger impact than me going to the Paralympics that we could have. Yeah, let's talk about that.

Because that's how I got into marathons too. I tricked myself into liking running with triathlons. I don't think I want to marathon. So I was like, oh, I can, I can swim a little, I can run a little, I can bike a little.

Okay, that's fine. And then I got in a longer races. But so when you're doing triathlon, you found out you're, you know, pretty good at the run. What, when did this 31 marathon 31 days start to kind of formulate in your head as something that you wanted to do?

I ran the Marine Corps marathon in 2015 kind of on a, I don't want to say, I guess on a whim, I had only been training, you know, for 5k, that was the distance that I had to run for the triathlon. So I only ran 5k's. And I don't know, I just was getting a little bit bored, I guess of what I was doing in that training. So I figured I just kind of wanted to run a marathon, you know, to see what it was like.

And so I ran it and then I continued training for, you know, for the rest of the time until I didn't make the Paralympics. And I remembered that that I could run a marathon. And after I had failed to qualify for the Paralympics, I was pondering, you know, just thinking of different things I could do next. And I figured maybe another big challenge, like my bike ride, except maybe a little shorter this time.

And you know, what, what have I done before I've rode, I've, you know, I've rode my bike cross. I've never actually, I've never done a big, you know, running challenge. And so that kind of led to, you know, what could the running challenge be? And then I, you know, I was aware of other people that had done similar formats to 31 marathons in 31 days, you know, 50 and 50 and 50 different states or 50 Ironman's and 50 different states.

So, you know, I just kind of took that format that other people had already pioneered and applied it to, my own, you know, put my own little spin on it doing it in different cities. I figured that would get the biggest amount of, you know, the largest number of eyeballs on it as possible doing it in 31 of the most populous cities in the country. And doing it for, you know, full month, because I figured that was a good, a good like the time that, you know, it would be long enough that I could get some momentum and then kind of carry that momentum for a while. But not so long that I'm out there for, you know, 50 days or whatever.

And people are, you know, they kind of lose interest after a while, and then you know, they forget. So people can follow along for a full month. Yeah. So what was the, as you kind of kicked that off, what was that like?

Did you, did you train up to like a couple, you know, weeks where you ran back to back marathons? Were you just kind of getting up to like a marathon distance a week and then you're like, okay, I'm just gonna go forward, or what was your training like up to that point? And how did you get to the point where you're like, okay, I feel, I feel quote unquote ready for, you know, a month a month a month of back to back to back marathons. Yeah, you pretty much nailed it, man.

I would do six weeks chunks of training where I had one certain stress that I was applying. And then I would do a little test. So I, in 2016, I did a six weeks and I ran the Marine Corps marathon again. And then I did another six weeks and I actually attempted two marathons and screwed up the post marathon fueling after day one.

And I didn't actually complete the second one. And then, you know, did another six weeks where I changed the training again, basically, I'm just kind of getting longer runs and closer group runs during the training blocks. And then so, you know, then I bounced back from that six weeks later, did three marathons fine, you know, finally nailed in that, there's all just tests, you know, practicing going back to back, you know, seeing what I need to eat, what I need, how I can pace, and how I can break up the distance. And then I did five, maybe I think I did 12 weeks and I did five.

And then after I did five, I kind of figured that was, you know, if I kept going, I might as well just do the full 31 after that. So, you know, I just kind of every six weeks, I would just, you know, change the training, get longer, get closer grouped until eventually in the last, you know, probably 12 weeks, I was running a marathon every Thursday, followed by, you know, two hour or two hour run, Wednesday marathon, Thursday, two hour run, Friday, and then two hour run Monday as well. So, you know, just blocking that up. And, you know, obviously it works.

So, so the people that I've talked to that have run like, I don't know, you're the only one that I've known that's done that many back to back. I've talked to a couple of people done maybe, I think they did maybe a week of marathons back to back. I've done a couple back to back on weeks, but I've done any back to back on a day back to back days. But once I've talked to that, I've done over weeks, say that after like the first two or three days are the hardest, like the second day, I think it's like the third day is the hardest, but day four, your brain kind of turns off and it says, okay, I guess this is what we're doing every day.

I guess part of our daily routine is running a marathon every single day. And they said it got easier actually like day four. What was, what was your situation like with, you know, running 31 of these in 31 days, did you get used to it pretty quickly? Or you're like, okay, day one, day two, oh no, this is going to get tough.

And then was there a point where, you know, was there a point where it got really tough and then a point where it got easier? I was running at such a submaximal pace that it never got to a point where, you know, any of one of the marathons was, you know, maximum effort. But yeah, it kind of did follow that same pattern where the first maybe four or five or maybe three or four, I was getting, I got a little bit slower, a little bit slower, and you know, it was a little bit tougher. But then my body did start to adapt.

And you know, by the 10th one, I actually ran, that was my fastest one was my 10th one in Chicago. And then after that, I kind of just maintained that same speed, you know, somewhere between three hours and 15 minutes and four hours and 10 minutes of running time. And you know, yes, actually surprised me because I was kind of expecting, I was expecting London to be my first one and my freshest one. And then after that, just kind of, they would just get slower and slower and slower.

And I would just kind of try and be hold off holding off a deterioration of my body, you know, even the person that's adapted to a lot of stuff. And so I know what the body is capable of. And you know, even I was surprised with this. So, you know, I was happily, happily surprised.

But then actually by the 31st one, the wheels were starting to fall off a little bit. And I was starting to get sore and sore. And I kind of just wondered whether or not that was because I decided to do 31. And I was getting close to the end.

So maybe if I decided to do 50, that 31st one wouldn't have been that bad or, you know, whatever. Yeah, the what we mentioned, like all you're getting sore. And this is one of the questions I think I asked you and when we met in San Diego. But what a specific area is begin to hurt the worst when you're running with the bionic knee.

Because I imagine it's, you know, the similar muscles you're using, but you're using them probably in a slightly different way. And just what's that experience like? The stuff that hurt the most for me was just the bottoms of my residual limbs. No matter how much preparation, how comfortable I get my legs, I guess there's always going to be a little bit of friction in there.

I would lubricate and I would do everything I could possibly do. But there's always going to be some friction. So there was some skin breakdown and there were some abscess going on. And so that would be painful.

But you know, usually after the first mile or so, you know, we kind of go, we kind of get numb down there. And so, I don't really only have to put up with it for the first mile. And then after that, you know, in my back, we get a little bit sore. But that was about it.

You know, I felt pretty good. And you're surprisingly. I was, I remember being surprised when you mentioned that to me with just like how how you would fit into the into the legs, because, you know, usually when you think of marriage, I'm like, Oh, I'm sore because, you know, you know, my mind sounds terrible. But I was just saying my knees or something like that.

But for you, like the, like, actually, the things that are enabling you are the things that are also sort of uncomfortable. And I didn't even think about that until you mentioned it as far as something that would be, you know, anytime someone says bionic, you're like, Oh, that's like helping you out a ton. But like, it's actually actually uncomfortable. And you know, has its own set of problems that you have to deal with.

Yeah, I think some, you know, people maybe don't realize that. I think most people probably realize that, you know, I'm putting a whole lot of pounding on the bottoms of my stumps. But yeah, I did see some Instagram comments on from some people saying that it was easy for me because my legs didn't hurt. So I could not know if they're trying to be funny or if they're really that ignorant, but you know, you just got to ignore that kind of thing.

I guess my question was, or my, my, the thing I didn't realize was that there would be, that there would be pounding on the, on the, between your knee and the bionic limb. I guess I didn't realize that was like, it makes sense if you think about it. But like, when you're just watching someone run, it looks pretty fluid. So it looks like it's like, Oh, that's pretty comfortable.

But yeah, not knowing that there is actually a little bit of actual pounding on, you know, from, from, from the bionic knee to your leg. Yeah, well, you got to take the impact. Yeah, I know, that's why I was like, I don't know why I didn't think about that. But it's not all on the bottom, you know, the soccer setup.

So it's kind of distributed over the whole stump, but you know, it's a lot on the bottom. Yeah. So when you, as far as like, through this whole thing, you're, you're in an RV and you're driving around. That was the other thing I was impressed.

You guys had like a, like a, to the minute, not to the minute, but like, you guys had a pretty well scheduled out timeframe as far as when you needed to leave San Diego, you needed to get into Arizona, what the timetable was for making sure you hit all these different spots. You had a team helping you out and coordinating all this, right? Yeah, my wife, Pam was, was running the show. Basically, all I did was running, and do interviews and eat and sleep.

So she was in charge. She was running the show and handling all that. My mom was there helping her and then giving me massages and I had a driver. And you know, yeah, we had the itinerary and you know, we had our planned travel times and what time we had to leave.

And you know, we planned all that out ahead of time so we could just kind of run it as we went. And for the most part, it worked out exactly according to plan. Were there any points in the marathon that you thought or in the month of marathons that was particularly difficult for you? The last four days were pretty tough because I injured my back and Nashville falling down on a bridge.

And I had some kind of injuries fine now, but I don't know if I maybe I stretched something a little bit too far or something. I don't know. But yeah, so for the last four marathons, like every time I stepped on my right foot, it was a pretty bad pain. But you know, obviously it wasn't that bad of an injury because I still ran four more marathons afterwards.

So I just heard so, but you know, how much pain I felt was less important than my mission. So, you know, I just kept going with it. Yeah, well, it's funny once you go through some of these extreme things that take a lot out of you, that your pain tolerance, like your understanding of understanding what you can do physically, but understanding of what you can withstand too, is you know, it's a whole lot more, especially when you have that underlying mission to fuel it. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So that's one of the two. I got about five more minutes that I can do. Yeah, no, we can wrap this up.

But I totally agree with what you're saying there. It's the six that were coming full circle here exactly, but back to where we started, you know, well, if your mission's important enough, you're willing to endure anything. Cool. So what are speaking of missions and your goals?

What do you have anything on the docket here coming up? What's next for you? I don't have really any big events like this planned. I'll probably be doing the one World Trade Center tower climb.

I'll probably do the tunnel to towers 5k. You know, just a couple, you know, smaller events like that. Other than that, you know, I'm just going to keep spreading my mission, you know, keep fighting on behalf of veterans and spreading the word about, you know, what I've done and you know, how that can be used for other people as inspiration or whatever. But yeah, that's my main mission right now.

And I'll do some more pondering on whether or not that can be manifested in another physical endeavor. Cool. Cool. Have you ever thought about doing any trail races or alter races?

I can't really do trail races, to be honest. The trails are not set up for me. I have to have a wide, I have a very wide gate. So I wouldn't really be able to run on like that single track trail.

I'd trip and you know, it wouldn't really work out very well. But you know, there's plenty of ultras that are on pavement, but yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure if it's something that interests me enough. You have to have that little bit of interest as well, you know.

Yeah. Well, if you get interested, let me know. I'd be happy to talk you through some cool races out there. But yeah, I mean, there's a there's a lot of pavement right there for a lot of heat too.

So if you don't do well there, that's gonna be rough. So real quick, I want to get back to a couple of things you're doing. You said you're raising a million dollars for charities. You've raised a couple hundred thousand already.

I don't know the exact total that I found, but several hundred thousand seems like between my bike ride and this we're at 330 probably 330,000. That's great. So where can people if they want to find out more about you, where can they find you on social media and your website? Social media is at Rob Jones Journey for all the good stuff and Rob Jones Journey dot com is my website.

And yeah, you can donate there, find out what I'm gonna be doing next. Everything about me is gonna be on there. Awesome. One more question.

I like to ask everybody a lot of times we talk about our stories in the past tense something was tough. We got over it and we're on to the next thing is about a lot of times we don't talk about it in the in the moment. And in the moment, I was curious if there's anything out there right now or any challenges that you're looking at that either scare you or excitement is sort of the other side of fear. So either scare you or excite you as far as what's coming up next.

I don't know what's coming up next. So I can't say that. It's really scary at this point. But you know, if something doesn't scare you, that's you're about to do, then maybe you should reconsider whether or not it's difficult enough or pushing you far enough.

There we go. That's a good place to stop. So been great watching you run the month of Marathons and I look forward to seeing what you're up to next. Thanks, man.

I appreciate giving the opportunity. Awesome. If you do get any new adventures, let me know and we'll have you back on the podcast. Roger that man.

Thanks. All right. So that's today's podcast. I hope you guys got a lot out of Rob's story.

He's an inspiring dude doing some incredible things and I can't wait to see what he's up to next. If you guys would like to support the podcast, you can buy going to iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and leaving a review. It is the best way for us to reach more people and to have more people find out about us. I want to give a shout out here on a regular basis to different commenters who leave reviews, see Winters.

I think that's how you say it. It's got a bunch of numbers in the name. It says always awesome information from Joel and his guest serves as a much needed wake up call for people to push their limits every day. So if you want to be like see Winters or any of the other people that are amazing and leave five star reviews, you can go ahead on over to iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher.

A couple other things. We're starting our cold shower therapy challenge on Monday. If you guys want more information, go ahead on over to impossiblehq.com, subscribe to the email list and you'll get all the details there. I'm on day four of cold showers today and the challenge officially starts on Monday, but you can start getting used to the cold water.

It's about 10 degrees over here on the east coast in Boston and is pretty chilly. So the water's not warm. That's the point. 30 days cold showers starts on Monday.

If you want to know more, sign up at impossiblehq.com. Also, once you get out of the shower, you're going to need something to wear. So head on over to impossiblegear.com. Get the best hoodies, sweatshirts, whatever you're looking for.

We probably got it. Wear your impossible shirt. Next time you want to go do something, you think it's hard. You think it's going to be too difficult.

Put your shirt on. Look at it in the mirror and then go do the thing. Okay. Then once you go do it, send me a photo.

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All right guys, so that's it for the show. Cold shower therapy challenge starts on Monday. Cold showers every day in the winter because that's the way we roll. We're back on our regular schedule.

So I will see you guys right here next Thursday at 8 a.m. But until then, keep pushing your limits and do something impossible.