Chris Case: Scientist, Author, Endurance Athlete + Founder of Alter Exploration
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Entrepreneur, scientist, and author Chris Case knows how to design a challenge. His company, Alter Exploration, curates intense, application-only custom cycling and trail running trips. Alter's experiences are built to test physical limits, foster emotional growth, and encourage mental evolution.
As a former cycling journalist and lifelong endurance athlete, Chris has spent countless hours exploring the world by bike and on foot. He has degrees and research experience in neuroscience and clinical psychology, a master's degree in journalism and photography.
His research led him to write The Haywire Heart, an insightful investigation into heart problems that affect endurance athletes. Chris was also the COO of The Paleo Diet, co-founder of Fast Talk Laboratories, and former editor of VeloNews.
Chris joins host Andrew Vontz to speak about the genesis of Alter Exploration, what it takes to build a business like this from scratch, and why he believes that hard things can transform us and the people around us.
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Choose the Hard Way is a podcast where guests share stories about how hard things build stronger humans. Sign up for the newsletter to get the story behind these stories updates and more. If you’d like to suggest a guest or say hello, DM @hardwaypod on social or send an email to choosethehardway@gmail.com.
Host Andrew Vontz has spent more than 25 years telling and shaping the stories of the world’s top performers, brands and businesses. He has held executive and senior leadership roles at the social network for athletes Strava and the human performance company TRX. His byline has appeared in outlets like Rolling Stone, Outside magazine, The Los Angeles Times and more.
Today he advises and consults with businesses and nonprofits on high-impact storytelling strategies and coaches leaders to become high-performance communicators. Find him on LinkedIn or reach out to choosethehardway@gmail.com
In This Episode:
Chris Case Instagram | LinkedIn
Alter Exploration Instagram | Website
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Andrew Vontz LinkedIn
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Choose The Hard Way is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production
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Andrew Vontz 0:00
But yeah, thanks for getting serious. I am going to take this sweatshirt off. And I'll have a more serious top on. I've got a crop top. Now but before we get rolling, so I wanted to do invite Chris, uh, you know, I saw your thing when you rolled it out back in the fall. It sounded super interesting. I'm also I've been reading your work forever. I almost took a job at VeloNews in 2000. I think Ted Constantino was the managing editor then John Wilcoxon. Was there Kip Meckler. But instead, I decided just to remain in Los Angeles and freelance for a decade. But you know, I know Scott's been on fast talk a number of times, and I've had Scott on my podcast and all you can do on in the world of podcasting is have podcasters talking to other podcasters. Right. Like that's the whole thing. But no, I thought it would be great for us just to get on here, chop it up. I always do. I'll do and I'll record a separate intro telling people about you who you are same thing with Scott. So people will have that context coming into that the conversation will record for about, you know about 60 it may end earlier. I doubt it. And what tends to work really well on my show is just talking and sharing stories. What I've found, from my experience, listening to podcasts, like this actually happens to me all the time with fast stock, I'll be out mowing my lawn which takes a while. I'll like pull over the lawnmower, get out my notepad write something down that I want to go research further dig into later, which I actually have done successfully with your podcast. But most of the time, even when it has a lot of really useful information. It's in one ear and out the other I forget about it. So what I like to focus on with my podcast is like yeah, there's going to be probably be useful information here. But it's more about my guests getting to know you, Chris. My guests, my listenership. They're high achieving highly motivated people. This I often have guests on related to cycling and endurance sports. But that's not entirely what the show is about. Over time, it's become clear to me that what my podcast is really about is how hard things build stronger humans. And the idea that the most fun things in life are typically the hardest things, right? And so anyway, yeah. And as it relates to you, I'm a fan of your work. I have afib. So that's why I didn't want to have the AFib conversation unless we were recording. And and I think what you're doing now is super cool. So this is just kind of going to be a fun conversation. Scott, feel free to jump in. Whenever with whatever questions you might have. I thought you would have a you know, given specifically what Chris is doing right now that you might have some cool context or questions related to that. And I'm gonna take this sweatshirt off, hold on
Chris Case 3:03
Can you still hear us, Andrew? All right. So just to be clear, I actually have never interviewed Scott after you were to talk, but
Scott Frey 3:18
that was yeah, I and I've spoken. Trevor and I have it turns out some coincidental overlap from friends in Ithaca where we both went to school and all that good stuff.
Chris Case 3:32
Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Scott Frey 3:35
We don't we don't know each other. So this will be fun. No, this is great. I know of your work for sure. So, Chris, I used to Yeah, anyway,
Andrew Vontz 3:43
are you still doing fast talker? Is that are you not part of that anymore?
Chris Case 3:51
I'm not part of that anymore. I occasionally.
Andrew Vontz 3:53
Are you involved in the business? Oh, are you done with fast talk? Yep. Is it complicated?
Chris Case 4:04
Not too complicated. No, basically, the answer's no. I was for a while. Then you get into that. Yeah, the stuff that I want to talk about, like financially. Okay.
Andrew Vontz 4:16
So the answer is you're not part of fast talk anymore. Got it?
Chris Case 4:24
Correct. I guess you could say I'm, what do they list me on the web? I'm just a contributor. And at this, okay.
Andrew Vontz 4:31
Yeah, whatever. It's cool. Whatever you do or don't want to talk about it's totally cool. Are you cool with talking about the decision you made to transition from that to like, what you're doing with the company now or not? Okay.
Chris Case 4:47
Absolutely. Yeah. I think that that in some ways goes
Andrew Vontz 4:50
yeah, no, that's that's great, man. I love it. And yeah, so let's just start talking and then like, we'll kind of get into it but I think And we Scott and I were just chopping it up a little bit before you jumped on here, Chris, and then we're getting some really exciting details about Anthony, taking his 12 year old daughter to a Taylor Swift concert. So yeah, so are you out there in the People's Republic of Boulder or?
Chris Case 5:19
Okay. I'm just outside of that bubble. And I'm in. I'm in another bubble even smaller. But I think more pleasant in a town called nyuad are currently about seven miles outside North of Boulder, little train, train, stop,
Scott Frey 5:37
stop, spend a lot of time in Fort Collins, I have a place there. So
Andrew Vontz 5:42
yeah, and I can't help but notice, Chris, you have some maps on the wall behind you definitely thematically fit, I think with what you're doing now exploration. Like, tell us a little bit about the maps.
Chris Case 5:57
I just love maps, I've always loved maps. When when other kids when they were, you know, 12 or 14 would say they wanted to grow up to be doctors or engineers, or firemen or whatever it was. I was like, I want to be a cartographer mom. And she said, What's a cartographer and they just make maps and they explore. I mean, it was simplification, of course. But since I was a little kid, I love maps. And I've got a small collection of historic maps. And just
Andrew Vontz 6:31
similar to the Nicolas Cage movie where he finds the map, the Declaration of Independence, no doubt. Yeah, that's perfect. And when you think about maps, there aren't always maps that guide us to the next phase of what we're doing in life and sport in our careers. And you of course, last fall launched a new endeavor, can you tell us a little bit about the origin of what you're doing now?
Chris Case 7:03
Yeah, I launched alter exploration last November, October, November. And that was, in some ways, a long time coming. I've been guiding people for many years, I've been guiding my parents for their whole life, I would like to stay to say, but no fret groups of friends, colleagues in the in the cycling industry, I've been doing that sort of one off here and there. And it was always meant to be these trips that were just on the cusp of I like to say that there's a moment, on any trip that I do, whether it was prior to the start of the business, or now where the people are going to be cursing me somewhat, dramatically at times, because they might be friends. But later that same day, they're going to be thanking me for what I've just put them through. And that has always been in the back of my head of creating an opportunity to do that safely, of course, with no intent to ever crack somebody so much that they never want to ride a bike again, or go for a trail run or whatever. But teach them through the lessons of challenge. And that's kind of what the business is all about or intends to be all about. And it took a took me a long time to get there. The boring stuff, or the boring side of that story being well, I didn't know if I could run a business by myself. And I never had you know, I was I had a journalism background. And I had some science background, but I didn't have any business sense. So there's that side of it. But then it was also how big is the market for people who want to go out and hurt themselves like that in the in the hands putting their trust in someone else that they don't really know. And, of course, lots of people like to do hard things. In endurance sports, we're doing them all the time. It's just the the trust piece and having somebody else
Andrew Vontz 9:15
in Scott, can you talk a little bit about what is it that draws people to these types of challenges generally, is there like an evolutionary psychology origin of why people I guess, in particular, people who are drawn to endurance sports want to put themselves through these, these self imposed or deals, whether it's going on a bike race, running a 5k You know, getting off the couch and going running or going and doing an exploration or an adventure. Why do we do this?
Scott Frey 9:44
Well, I'm gonna have to say that the answer I'm going to give you is partly based on intuition and experience and maybe a tiny amount of data that gathered in my head somewhere along the line, but there's a really long and rich history of people doing this kind of thing. You know, you can look at practices of ascetics right? Going way back into spiritual practices where people did ritualistic things that were hard, right? They they would go out into the mountains and go without food without water and, and wait to have a kind of transformative spiritual experience now for most of us, right, we're, we live pretty safe lives, right? I know I get up in the morning, I gotta get my cup of coffee or the world, you know, it'd be a complete disaster if it's not a good cup of coffee, we're, we're pretty, pretty safe, right? I think about friends who do mountaineering. And often they're coming from a world like I do. And then once a year, they hire a guy to take them into some kind of predicament that might be a little bit above their comfort zone. But they put their trust in someone to guide them through that. And Chris, what you are describing really reminds me a lot of the model that's been alive and well, and in mountaineering for a long time that really is just making its way to cycling, I think we grow from these experiences that push us a little bit outside of our comfort zone. And having someone to guide you and knowing you can put your trust in them and get back is wonderful thing, even as individuals like we are who do that for ourselves on a regular basis. How wonderful to be able to have somebody to to help to show us the way to do that safely and in a structured way.
Chris Case 11:37
Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned the mountaineering aspect here, because that's, that's how I like to frame what I do. Whether it's mountaineering or big mountain skiing, or heli skiing, that professional guy that has a reputation for doing things safely, taking people to a place where they're, it's it is just beyond what they know before, and they wouldn't do it otherwise. And that's what I'm trying to bring to the cycling world. Whether it's a bikepacking circumnavigation of Iceland, or, you know, a week of really hard riding in a place like the Dolomites that, bringing that discomfort, but also holding their hand just somewhat Chris,
Andrew Vontz 12:24
what experiences did you have as a practitioner or athlete that helps you create the model for the specific experiences? Have you had kind of crucible moments yourself? wherever you've been, you know, push yourself beyond whatever you put yourself in an environment where you're deeply uncomfortable, the people around you have pushed you into it? What's that been? Like for you?
Chris Case 12:52
Yeah, absolutely. Throughout life, I've done things that were intentionally beyond what I knew I could do. And this is all relative, we must say, because what I do on a bike is, is, in some ways, a lot smaller than what Ultra, and some bike like what Lachlan Morton does pretty much every day, or are gearing up to do three times a year. I mean, he does big stuff. So putting that aside, I've had these moments in life, where I've, it's usually when I've been alone. And I took a chance. And either it was I was on a VeloNews trip, and I had a few extra days and I said, Oh, I'm just gonna go ride, I don't have a lot of time, I'm gonna go ride to those that to those passes that I've always wanted to ride to. And I'm going to link this thing together, took out the map, and I made this gigantic loop or route. And I didn't exactly have the time. And I didn't necessarily have all the interest in the world and knowing exactly what I was going to do. I was making it a little bit up on the fly. I was also intentionally in the this is some would argue maybe this is dumb, but I was intentionally not researching exactly what type of terrain I was going to get into. I wanted to give myself that sense that I was out there exploring that I was doing something that somebody else hadn't done before. Of course, people have done pretty much everything at this point. But in those moments, you learn who you are a lot more than if you stay in your house every day and sit at a desk and I'm not picking on that lifestyle. But I'm just saying that out in those moments when you're exposed. You have to either tap into skills that you didn't know you had or you have to make them up and you have to improvise and you have to problem solve and you have to tap into whatever resiliency you might have already or grow it or hone it. These are all things you can't really do. When you're surrounded by comfort and convenience. You have to challenge yourself, you have to expose yourself, Chris, I
Andrew Vontz 15:12
haven't had Lachlan ordered on this podcast yet I imagine, I would like to at some point in the future, I think that's an interesting example, though. And something that I have reflected on quite a bit and I've talked to a number of guests about is whether pushing ourselves in contexts where we've done something a number of times, or we have we have an analogy, or a framework for what we're about to experience if we just do that thing over and over whether it's going and doing a gravel race. For some people, it might be, hey, I'm a serial entrepreneur, I'm starting another business. But once you've done something and you do more of the same thing, you do your 14 tire man, your 15, tire, man, you do unbound 200. For the fifth time, is that actually still hard? And is that actually pushing you into new and different spaces. And when I think about someone like Lachlan, he's going out and doing stuff in a lot of different contexts that are way beyond what I personally, I think, would find to be enjoyable, and definitely would not find to be comfortable. And it's what the guy does all the time. So I actually have no idea whether I imagined that for him. He's pushing his boundaries. But to actually get this effect that we're talking about and and to put yourself in a space of growth, you can't be in that comfort zone or in a familiar space, or can you like I'm throwing that out there for discussion?
Chris Case 16:44
Well, I don't think you can, but the person that does in Iron Man, time after time after time or unbound time after time, I think they're looking for something different. They're just they're trying to improve in maybe small and more subtle ways to go faster, for instance, or maybe they're, in the case of an Ironman trying to own one of the three skills and working on that within the context of a bigger event. I don't know the reasons they're, they're working on something I would imagine. Or maybe that's just doing, they're just doing it purely for the joy or the fun of it. Or conversely, maybe they're doing it because they're masochist. That's, that's exactly what they need. But I tend to believe and I, having ridden with Lachlan quite a bit and had lots of conversations over the years with him, I feel like he believes what, what I believe, which is, you will gain so much more and grow in so much in different ways, by doing things that you don't know whether you can do them or not. How do you know if you can do something until you try? Right? And that's why he's always he's a I mean, he's on a world tour road team. And when when's the last time he raced a road bike? I haven't written with him on a road bike in five or six years. He's always on a mountain bike, or sometimes gravel bike, and yeah, he rarely raises road now. I'm not I don't want to like get on the lot about Laughlin and he definitely. Because he's, he's, he's a really smart. He's a really smart guy. And he and would have a lot to share.
Scott Frey 18:42
Yeah, well, I just have an idea. So want to jump in. I had a time where I was in the midst of raising kids, I rode my bike, but I didn't embrace any new technology at all. And that probably went on for 15 or 20 years. And then I came back is the kids got older, I got more time came back into doing a little racing. And everything had moved on power meters became the thing that everybody on a club ride has everybody has a head unit that has endless maps and guidance systems and things. It's very hard to get lost in everything is weighed and measured to such an extreme degree now that I think we in some ways are turning our recreational outlets where we have these opportunities to get lost. I mean, I've gotten lost plenty of times on my bike, but it's almost impossible now with a head unit. I can come back and I know exactly how many watts I put out and this and that. There's a way in which it can become so incredibly structured now right and so driven in some ways by metrics and data, even for recreational cyclists that I think I'd love to hear your thoughts on that and how what you're doing might be in some ways an antidote to that.
Chris Case 20:04
I'm, I'm a bit of a Luddite, I think I don't use power meters, I don't even use heart rate monitors, or I don't wear a whoop strap, I do nothing. When it comes to data, I don't even write down a number of hours RPE after any ride, now, that's just where I'm at. I'm not really racing anymore. But to be to be fair, or to be totally honest, I didn't really train with power and heart rate. That much when I was racing at my best, I occasionally worked with Trevor Connor, the, my co founder of fast talk labs. And somebody I worked with that VeloNews on some of these projects, he would train me and he would make me use that stuff, so that he could use as a coach. But personally, I love not having data around me when I'm out on these journeys, big and small. I don't want to be distracted by numbers and data. And I also feel like, without those things, I have to be much more. I just have to look inward more, I have to know myself better, I have to take account of all the sensations I'm feeling legs, head, heart, the whole body. That way I know because because within me I know, quote, unquote, know, the way I should be training or want to be training the data, the data is great. It can lead to amazing progress in athletes. But if you don't have it, or you choose not to use it, and you still want to, you know, peak for a race or, or improve, then you have to use your body, you have to use your own senses, to be that gauge of what you're doing, how hard you're going. And we all know that it's subjective. And it's really hard to get that accurate. But the more you do it, the more you practice it, the better you can get in and maybe you're leaving something on the table by not using data, or maybe you're, you know, it's not the pinnacle. But it's what I prefer, I don't want the distractions, I don't want the clutter of the data. And I also feel like I benefit from knowing myself better as an athlete. And so
Andrew Vontz 22:29
it's interesting how there have been a prolific looking proliferation. As you've highlighted Chris, and Scott of wearables of devices that track different things. There's all of this data, and it has its place, it can be useful. And I think it's a world tour level of cycling, it's indisputably part of why we are seeing athletes at a younger age than ever before perform at a higher level coupled with I think advances in Nutrition and Exercise Physiology. And at the same time, Chris, I think what you're highlighting is that interoception or experiencing real embodiment and connection to what's actually going on with your mind and body, which in many ways, technology and society today are designed to make us not do if you think about most technologies, particularly social media, they're dissociative technologies, we have this illusion of connection to other people. We have this illusion of action through consumption. And in reality, it's often anxiety provoking, passive makes you feel worse, and makes you lose connection with who you are and what you're doing. This will sound probably totally unrelated to what we're talking about. But something that I experienced this weekend where I was putting in a position of being a total beginner and had to really come back into contact with my body and mind and a new way was I have my buddy Kendrick Anderson over here. He is a master craftsperson, woodworker, and he very graciously offered to help me resurface halfpipe that I have. I'd never done this before. The halfpipe was here when we moved into this house. My four year old daughter and my six year old son are really interested in skateboarding. It was a fantasy of mine as a young person growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, that I would have a ramp which I never had. It sounds like okay, Kendrick wants to help. We're gonna resurface this thing. He did all of the really hard parts of getting the new surface on there. And then I did just kind of the really basic tactical stuff, and driving in 400 screws with star heads with my impact hammer. And then by doing all the different parts of the surface to try to get it smooth. This is all stuff that I'm terrible at. And I had to like really go into this space of this is a great opportunity for me to reconnect to like my mind and body in a new way to do this thing I've never done before, and it was really uncomfortable. I mean, there are probably a lot of people out there thinking, you know, like, really, that was hard for you. But it was pretty, you know, it's just not something that I do every day, you know. And that afforded me this opportunity to have to be present, or it just wasn't going to get done correctly. So it might might seem pretty far afield, from endurance sports and kind of what we're talking about around coming into focus, presence and reconnecting to your body. But when I read about what you're doing now, Chris, and these adventures that you're taking people on, that I think is actually a new frontier of where humans need to go, it's a return to something we used to do before, like looking at the maps on the wall behind you. It's an adventure and exploration of the mind and body.
Chris Case 26:04
Yeah, there's so much that we could talk about here so much that could be said about why this is good for you. There's no doubt that being good at something, being a master craftsman is also really fun. But, and I think this is the hard part for people, sometimes just that initial step of saying, You know what, I, I'm sick kind of sick of being comfortable all the time, I want to do something that challenges me, that's where people get stuck. Because it's, you know, it's easy to be comfortable, right? But if you, if you consciously, deliberately make that decision, I want to do something that I'm not sure I can do, or I want to do something that makes me uncomfortable. I want to do something that challenges me so that I grow so that I learn a new skill. Once you take that step and you do it. I find that most people, again, if you have a safe place to do it, if you have a guide, you did in this instance, Andrew, somebody was there who who could say oh, no, that you know that maybe that's not the way to do it, or try this or try that. And if they're a good teacher, they can lead you through that and you gain so much. You realize, first of all, why was I ever scared of this? I shouldn't have been this is this is enriching. This is fun. I'm not good at it yet, but I want to be. That's the hurdle that people have to get over with over and then too. Yeah, taking on a new like being a being a master is fun. And but learning is also a lot of fun expanding, what you're capable of doing is a lot of fun. And I think it's actually addictive. Once you do it once you want to you know, you want to try other things. Oh, I can be a woodworker I want to be a musician now. Oh, I want to be maybe you can take that too far. But it just liberates you to say this isn't there's no reason to hesitate.
Scott Frey 28:05
If Yeah, I think we all have this need for sure. Try a sense of competence, right? So you look at like self attribution theory, one of the things that we all need is a sense of competence. But once you've got a competence, then what do you crave you crave novelty, right? You want more in different stimulation. And you're not going to get that you're only going to get that up to a certain point. If you ride the same routes every day, which probably most of us do. I know I do. And having a way to, to really breathe some new life into that activity. Sounds amazing. And you see that that experience has this kind of broader transformative impact on the people who go on these trips. So then they're like, what's next? I want to, you know, do this or maybe it's outside of cycling, like you're saying even
Chris Case 28:59
Yeah, that the I definitely see that. And not to sound. We're not to get into too much of the business side. But that's kind of my hope, too, is they go on one of these trips and they love it so much. They want to repeat something similar but in a different location perhaps, or maybe a little something a little bit bigger or more challenging. So that hopefully creates repeat customers. It's about being able for somebody to push their boundaries while respecting some apples absolutes. And somewhat ironically, I think is what I'm affording is convenient, somewhat convenient opportunity for people to do this in small doses. I have over time and effort sort of created. The ability to go on a lot of trips for myself have these experiences now I want to take the I take that and turn it around and give it back to people. Not everybody can do this all the time, not everybody has the ability to plan a trip to understand what's involved. And so again, like I come in, and I conveniently placed that in front of them and say, here's what I think you're capable of, here's what I think we should do. Let's let's, you know, bat this around, go back and forth, customize it to you, you're the experience you want. And they can get on a plane, come here, or meet me somewhere in Europe or wherever the case may be, and have that experience. It's absolutely, it's a convenient to go
Andrew Vontz 30:46
back for a minute. Because I know over the winter, you train for some cross country ski races, and I believe that was kind of a new and different thing for you write the distances you were doing.
Scott Frey 30:56
I had done a lot of skiing, but it was earlier in my life. And I hadn't competed in a long time. So it was a way of freshening it up and getting getting something different in my life, it required going to new places to find snow. And it was many, many tastes of maybe what people are getting, and you're doing, you know, I wasn't off piste, or anything like that. But I think we all need to freshen it up, right.
Andrew Vontz 31:23
Got to keep it fresh, fresh and clean. And Chris, as you you know, you talked about this a little bit, you've had a couple of different phases of your career, if like me, you were a journalist for a long time. And also like me, and like a number of other guests I've had on here, you decided, hey, I'm gonna move in a different direction. And part of what strikes me about what you're describing is, the process that you're taking people through is very analogous to Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, number one. And number two, I think one of the superpowers that people have who have a foundation as a storyteller or as a journalist, is they understand the power of narratives, to shape culture, to shape products, to shape outcomes, and society and life. And with what you're doing, you're creating a narrative experience for people to go have, why were you drawn to doing this specific thing at this specific moment in time?
Chris Case 32:25
Hmm, that's a that's a big question. And I'll try to keep it short, relatively short answer. There is also another component that I'd introduce here, which is I had a former life as a scientist. So there's the scientist in me that loves an experiment. There's the journalist in me that loves a story. And there's the kid in me that has always wanted to be an explorer, and a guide and chart new paths for myself and others. And so you take all those together, combined with a little bit of like this satisfaction of working for others in a lot of ways in different capacities. And you bring that together to the point where I'm at, and it was time to launch this thing. And I think you're
Andrew Vontz 33:19
kind of dodging it. Let's get more specific. I'm not gonna let you hide on this one. That's why you're on the show, man. Okay. Yeah, yeah, totally. So when you decided to start this question, you indicated, hey, this was gonna require doing and learning new and different things and like you're doing the thing. And if you think about hypothesis, test, learn, iterate. Where did you start with this idea? When did you make that leap? And say, Yeah, this is the thing that I'm going to do and what fears did you have when you made that commitment?
Chris Case 33:59
Hmm. I've been thinking about it. For years, I've been running this experiment in my head for many years and having lots of conversations with friends that know a lot about business, a lot more about business are successful in in entrepreneurial in ways that I never thought I could be. It was again, it does go back to it was this combination of I was in a situation where a job that I thought was going to be a quote unquote, dream job. I thought it was going to be amazing in some ways, didn't work out that way. But I had always had this idea in the back of my head and I had been having these conversations. And I just decided to say, Well, why don't I live? The story that I'm wanting to tell the people like I'm wanting to say you can and should take on challenge is to grow as a person. Well, here's one for me. I'm not a business person. Okay, I'll figure that out. I don't know how to better an LLC. I'll figure that out, too. There's little stuff and there's big stuff. Yeah, and you just, you know, we all have we all have with lots of things. And, and again, it goes right back to that point about the first step is the hardest, the little hurdle of God, there's so many of these little things that I don't know how to do them. And I don't want to ask Ben Delaney, who just started like, how do you do it? Well, I'll just figure it out. And you take the first step, and then you're on your way. And then of course, you're like a deer in headlights holy. What the hell have I just done? I don't know how to do this. And then you'd call it Ben Delaney. And you asked him for some advice. But no, you figure it out. And it's absolutely a an experiment, a business experiment, a personal experiment, a storytelling endeavor, like what? What do I have time to do as an individual to spread the word to create a brand? Again, that's, that's a whole other part of this thing, too, is within a business, of course, marketing is a huge thing. And I've actually always been somewhat averse to marketing as a concept. And as a thing, probably because I'm not skillful at it, probably because I'm not built in a way that I think a marketing person should be built. I'm not. I'm not very vocal about things. I'm fairly quiet. I'm very observant, I've got some of those qualities like I'm that storyteller, that's taking it all in and looking at it, and then going back to my own little comfortable space and writing that story and, and then talking to people one on one, and that's my comfortable place. But here we are talking about taking on challenges. And so I'm fully in it, doing things that I never thought I would do, doing things I'm not at all comfortable with. But doing them makes me more comfortable to do them more. And of course, always knowing that I get to ride my bike in beautiful places around the world. And that's what I'm really comfortable doing and what I want to be doing. So it's all a means to an end. And it all comes together and it all and it won't work if I don't do all of it. Right now.
Andrew Vontz 37:40
Yeah, no, that's fantastic. Better that. Someone?
Scott Frey 37:45
Can I ask you a question? So all right, being someone who loves adventures and getting out there loves you are, it's a different thing to be going off on your own. And riding around Iceland having this amazing adventure with all the uncertainty versus taking, however many other people go on a trip out there and having to be responsible to some degree for delivering a certain kind of experience safely to them? Are you finding that this is checking the boxes in your own personal need and satisfying your own personal need for adventure steal? Or do you have to get that some other way? Or?
Chris Case 38:28
I would say both. I mean, it that definitely does. What it does is it allows me to take people to places that I love, which helps me explain to them why I love it so much. Show them why I love it so much. And that opens my eyes and reminds me why I love it so much. I've written around I've written around Boulder, all these roads, all these famous roads, some of these non famous roads 1000s of about hundreds and hundreds of times. And they're great. But I don't really appreciate them that much. You get blind to the fact that how of how good it is. And then a group comes here, and you take them to that spot and that other spot and you're like, wow, I I took this place for granted, this place is amazing. And the joy and satisfaction you get from showing people who have the same adventurous spirit you do. Or if it's friends and family loved ones, people that you love, showing them places that you love just helps you appreciate that place even more. So I can get adventure from it. But I also get this other reward from it too. And of course I am definitely going to fit in my own personal solo challenges or challenges, just friends not paying guests at times because yeah, I need that too. I want that too. And Chris, how far
Andrew Vontz 39:55
ahead did you think your plan for the business before you actually took that first step and said, Yeah, this is what I'm doing. And then, you know, jumped into the void of I'm forming my first LLC and figuring figuring that out
Chris Case 40:16
you really want to expose my limited business experience. I would say that, if I'm totally honest, I thought about one year ahead, I said, I said, I've just have to do it. And I'm going to do it this way to start, and I'm going to, and I'm going to take in some data, and then I'm going to assess, and I'm going to make some changes if need be. And I know I'm not going to nail it from the start. You know, I've worked with Trevor Connor on this, this podcast for many years. And he's a brilliant guy. And he's a scientist. And he taught me a lot of things over the years. He always has, he has a lot of these sayings. And he has a lot of sort of aphorisms and principles that he lives by. And and one of them is the the most important decision you make is not the first decision. It's the second decision. So the first decision was, let's do it. The second decision is, of course, this is like a simplification. And there's, there's 47 decisions you have to make, actually. But the big second one is, did I do it, right? And if you did great, you probably didn't, though. And so the second one is, how do I change it? What do I need to do to take that next step? And then that's your decision. And then the second one comes after that. So there's always a second decision, you're always kind of assessing the situation based on again, going back to my scientific roots, sort of based on data, there's some intuition here, I'm going into this a little bit blind. I have this strange habit of trying to do things alone and by myself, rather than always asking for someone who's maybe done this 1000 times before, because I want the challenge. And I kind of I just like figuring stuff out on my own. So. So yeah, I'm, I didn't think that
Andrew Vontz 42:18
that mean, that makes sense. That can actually work in your favor and is I'm hearing you talk about going through this process of forming the business, the different steps that you have to take the first decision, the second decision, something that I'm thinking about is working with writers, which we've all done. And in particular, when I work with younger people who are new to the discipline of being a professional writer, or communicator in whatever capacity, and something I've seen a lot of people struggle with, who are entering those fields. And this is probably axiomatic in any field is that they're kind of crushed when they find out that they're not a first draft, last draft writer. And I haven't met, I haven't met a lot of human beings who can produce perfect copy journalism, whatever out of the gate, there might be a few out there. In my experience, it's a lifelong learning experience. And you're always going to be able to improve your work. And whether it's something that you're writing, whether it's an article, a blog, posts, some marketing collateral, or you're making these decisions to form a business, going back to that scientific method, the Agile method of hypothesis, test, learn, repeat, is really how you can start to have some velocity and get the ball rolling. It's only when you're stuck and you don't make that jump because you're afraid and won't be perfect. That nothing actually happens because you're just crushed by the burden of expectation, right?
Chris Case 44:02
Absolutely, yes. Yeah. Another lesson learned from a good friend who's got a lot of has done a lot of business creation is very entrepreneurial, as he puts it more bluntly, he's just like, do the effing thing like do it. You can't you can't sit here and think it out forever. You'll never perfect it in your mind. You have to do it. So he just got sick of hearing me talk about it or it or run through iteration after iteration in my mind of what it should quote unquote, should be or could be, he's like, Just do it. Just effing do it. Stop talking about it. So there's some of that too. And and yeah, he he wasn't the only one saying that. He wasn't the only one pushing me to do that. But that was always in the back of my head is yeah, he's right. Have there been other things So you can tell when joy has nothing until I do and you've had
Andrew Vontz 45:03
to stop doing so that you can make space to focus on the business.
Chris Case 45:14
Hmm, I wouldn't say so. No, I've, I think the reason, or part of the reason why I had a one year plan, if you want to call it that, and I'm in treating this fairly casually is my, and I don't want to sound selfish here, but I, my life, my family, my daughter, my wife, are as important as anything to me. And so I didn't want a business to take over my life. I've seen that happen with other people. And it honestly, it just makes me sad. Like, I don't think that I know this is maybe maybe some people will say this is silly or whatever. But I don't think working so hard to create something is worth sacrificing family happiness, health, mental health. The burden of stress is incredible. And I didn't want it. So I'm i You could call what I'm doing baby steps. We're just practical, reasonable and healthy. So so no, I get back to your question. I don't really feel like I sacrificed anything or gave up anything or really tweaked too much, in order to do what I'm doing. I feel much happier now than I did a year ago when I was doing something else that I thought was going to be an incredible
Scott Frey 46:46
So does this mean we shouldn't expect physician alter explorations franchise anytime soon?
Chris Case 46:57
Now, you know, the one year plan didn't involve hiring anybody. I want it to be me, this is my vision of what it should be. That doesn't mean it can't grow. But not this first year. And I'm gonna it's it's young this year is young. And I don't know where year two is going to take me. No franchise is definitely no franchise. I do have kids with my brand on it. That's part of the power of that LLC right there.
Andrew Vontz 47:31
Not that many others, to Chris, to go in a slightly different direction. Your book, The haywire heart was a highly highly influential book. For me and for many other people. And like a lot of endurance athletes, I've gone through the process of you know, very long history of training, competing with mixed results. And then when I was training the most I had in my entire life and doing the longest hardest events. You know, if lo and behold, I started having some heart problems, and I had AFib Chase everything down. I didn't end up having a cardiac ablation. I have many friends who have. But your book was incredibly important in my life and kind of helped me to navigate that process. And something that I'm wondering with the work that you're doing and with your personal relationship with endurance sports, to going through the process of writing, researching that book, and connecting with so many people who'd had these challenges with their hearts, because of endurance sports, impact your personal relationship with the sport that you love or how you approach it?
Chris Case 48:50
Yes, absolutely. When I first heard of Leonard's in my co authors issue upon Flagstaff mountain in Boulder, I was not really aware of the the condition nor the prevalence by any means. And I wrote an article and it snowballed into the book because so many people, colleagues, friends, former racing companions. I don't want to say they came out of the woodwork, woodwork, but that just the volume of people that we started hearing from was overwhelming, and we knew it was a much bigger thing and more prevalent thing. And, yeah, I had a somewhat scary incident. I was writing the book. I was training for a really big challenge. Some of these challenges. One of these challenges that I used to take on when I worked at VeloNews. I was you know, essentially an experiment of one. I was going to do this ever sting thing I was going to Do it up Mount Evans. Because if you know, which is the 14th, for those who don't know, as a 14,000 foot mountain here in Colorado with a with a road to the top, I figured just this silly way that I'm built, if you're going to do an average challenge, you might as well make it a really hard one. It's just a run of the mill everything challenge. And I had just, probably three or four months prior to this become a father for the first time. And then I was hit with weird heart, issue a heart symptoms, what the hell's going on, I had no idea I'm writing this book, like, oh my god, the worst comes to mind. I've done it to myself, How ironic how sad, how tragic. I'm reading this book about her with me as an I've just created one inside of myself by taking on all this stress, and train overtraining and et cetera. It turned out that it was simply a benign manifestation of the stresses I was putting myself through, and I stopped doing what I was doing in terms of the training. Recap, you know, knowing the information, having a stress test helped me say, okay, maybe I haven't done this to myself. And of course, in that, in that way, calmed me down and led to the palpitations and the abnormal symptoms going away. But it was a, it was an eye opening experience, your heart, and having issues with your heart is incredibly frightening. Especially if you haven't read a book that says it could be this, which is not really something you should worry about. Or it could be this, which is something you should very much worry about. If you don't have that guidance, anything going on in your heart is pretty frightening, very frightening. And having spoken with people who gained so much joy and so much just endurance sports with where their life, it was their outlet, it was their therapy, it was their source of joy. And, and some of these folks that I spoke with, honestly couldn't do it anymore, they had trained to the point where they had developed an arrhythmia, and that it was dangerous for them to do what they used to do. That is a hard hitting message. And I didn't want that to happen to me. And so, again, sorry for wandering around a bit. But to get back to your question, writing the book, doing the research, speaking to people greatly impacted what I do and how I do it. And I think it really just made me that much more aware of paying attention to my body, listening to the signals it sends me. I think that a lot of people who are endurance athletes, in fact, I know, they push through painful situations, by their very nature, they often ignore little issues. They're driven, determined to, to train and they set goals, and they want to and they're very stubbornly fixed on attaining those goals. And oftentimes that blinds them to the things that their body is telling them for better or worse. Sometimes it works out in their favor, they push through a little injury, it goes away, they win a race, awesome. Other times, their heart starts acting funny, it starts fluttering, they ignore it. It does damage and it leads to something life changing. And so what I'm getting at is, all of the information I learned and gained from writing this book in this process, just taught me to listen more, listen very closely to what's going on in my body. Now again, does that prevent anything from happening to me? happening to me? No. But being in tune with what my body is trying to tell me is is extremely important. Those those signals are there for a reason. Right? We have to get
Andrew Vontz 54:41
better. You better listen to the messages or this is this has gotten a bit somber but yeah, I mean, when you get the message, you need to listen and then you need to hang up the phone and you need to do something with that information. And it sounds like what you experienced Chris was pretty similar to what I experienced which mine also started happen after I'd had my first child, my son, Sam, who I love, and I was like, you know, I want to be around for Sam as long as possible, I want to be healthy. And we've all spent time with world class endurance athletes. And I think people who are not on the inside don't understand that the lifestyle, the training, what these people are doing, is it's not a healthy thing, actually, in aggregate. And the way a world class athlete trains is not what's going to set you up for long term health. And there's, you know, there's something in the middle, and there's so much that you can get out of competition and camaraderie, community, everything that comes with endurance sports, and all other forms of sport that people enjoy doing. And the longer you can do that in life, the better but yeah, it's it's pretty scary when those things pop up. And for me, that meant, you know, I hit this point where I was like, Yeah, I'm not sure taking my heart rate from resting heart rate to like 190 beats per minute, minute and 10 seconds at the beginning of a cyclocross race and then pinning it there for an hour. I'm like, I don't know if I need to, I don't know if that's the thing I need to do to my body anymore. I don't know if I need to go race for six, seven hours at a time and try to win a big gravel race. And by the way, if I tried to do that today, I'd be racing like Alejandro of Alberta. So, right. Good luck to me. But, you know, I also was curious, Chris, you did you know, you were the host of a podcast for a very long time, you got to talk to all kinds of amazing world class athletes. Same thing. on the research side. This is a big question. But what did you learn as someone who was hosting a podcast like that? What did you take away from it?
Chris Case 56:53
I took a lot away from it. I spoke with some of the world's best physiologists, sports psychologists, neuroscientists, nutritionists. Every episode was a massive lesson, honestly. And it taught me You know, I really bought into the you don't, you don't really need to go fast all the time to be fast on race day, you really don't want to do it that way, the polarized training method, and Dr. Sylar is research and work. It hit home, I think, because it's somewhat how I trained naturally. And it just said, Oh, well, I'm it, it felt good to think that I landed on that. Maybe by instinct. And the data in his research was supporting that. So I don't ride I don't do a lot of interval, I'm not racing very much anymore. What I'm doing now is I'm doing the occasional bikepacking race or something like that. I'm, I'm training to be fit, because I'm guiding. And so I, I want to be able to, obviously, I have to keep up with every guest. But I also want to be strong enough that I can occasionally say, Hey, guys, I'm going to ride up the road a minute or two and get some great photos of you. So I have to like Dart up the road. And so I have to be fit and I want to be fit for them and for the for the profession. But I am very strategic about how I do it. I'm not a person that's going hard all the time. I'm I'm I live with my wife as a chef, we eat very well. I don't go to extremes in any sense, whether it's training or supplementation of any kind. We just eat really well. Nice, wholesome meals. It's, it's not I guess it's not I don't think it's very sexy or glamorous, what I do, but I think that if you were to talk to Dr. Sylar or some of these other very experienced physiologist, physiologists and coaches, the best don't do that either. And sorry, it's sorry to go on a tangent here. There's yet pro athletes, there's honestly there's not a whole lot that's healthy about them. They performance and health are far, far apart oftentimes. But you have to remember this is their profession. It's for a finite period of time. If they were to seek performance for 50 years, there'd be they they'd have lots of problems, but in their 20s and for a finite period of time, maybe a decade. That's okay. But their training, a lot of it isn't incredibly sophisticated. It's time it's, it's you know, persevere. rents discipline, eating, eating well, you don't have to do a lot of fancy stuff, in a lot of cases, to get really, really good. It's just a volume thing, how much they're able to do, how, how much they're willing to put their body through and but then also allow themselves to recover. I think, as a final point, that's one of the one of the other really big things I learned from all the episodes we did at fast talk, it, you hear it, I think you hear it a lot. Most people don't let themselves rest enough. They do all the hard work, they train really hard, but they never rest really hard. And you can't reap the rewards of super compensation and the the whole load training load. Concept, if you don't give your body time to, to recover and come back stronger. That's the whole principle there. Right? If you're constantly just beating it up, it's going to slowly decline rather than improve. So that was a huge lesson,
Andrew Vontz 1:01:09
that we, that's another over and over difference between someone who is passionate about endurance sports, perhaps even trying to compete at a high level as an amateur, and a professional athlete, a professional athlete, generally, they're gonna have that rest day where they're sitting around on a couch with their legs up, they're not doing anything, they're sleeping eight to 10 hours. They're not on their rest day, like, oh, yeah, I have to go chainsaw, the pine tree that fell down in my yard. You know, watch the kids dig a ditch, like, whatever, that's not what's going down on their rest. And I think that's how a lot of amateur athletes treat the rest day, they're just substituting in high stress, physical activity they have to do to manage their household or something that's highly mentally stressful, that's injecting a bunch of cortisol into their system. And it's very hard for them to find a way to balance that. So that's, you know, that's a really good point, Chris. Yeah. And these
Scott Frey 1:02:07
athletes also are far outliers genetically to their that they're even with all the rest and things if they're still able to recover. And so when we start trying to model what we're doing with all the rest of life, even a little bit after what they're doing, we can really get in such a lot of trouble.
Chris Case 1:02:30
Yeah, I think every amateur athlete has to remember that the body, the body doesn't really know or isn't able to differentiate training, stress versus work stress versus marital stress versus professional stress. It's all stress. So if like back to your your, your point, Andrew, if you're, if you're trying to build a training schedule, and you've got intervals on Wednesday, and a big ride on Thursday, and two big rides on the weekend, and then Monday, you have a gigantic presentation at work and Tuesday, you have a you're serving on a court case, as a juror, I don't know, whatever the case may be, you have to take all that stuff into consideration when you lay out that training plan. Because those stressful things don't allow you to recover like
Andrew Vontz 1:03:22
Absolutely. And Chris to go back to and you need both new business, when people want to work with you. What are the mechanics of the process? How do you design these experiences?
Chris Case 1:03:38
Yeah, because of the nature of what I'm doing, it's an application online. And in that application, they tell me a bit about what they are looking for in terms of the terrain, the duration of the days, their experience, the destination, of course, and any other things they want to do off the bike. And that's for them. And it's for me, and it's for other people on the trip, because it's because it's meant to be challenging, it's goes back to the model of whether it's mountaineering or big mountain skiing or heli skiing, you wouldn't want a group that contains a beginner and an elite skier with a ton of experience on the same trip. As dangerous for for everybody involved. And it also will impact the experience and the fun they can have. So I need to, to some degree vet these people that they're of a certain caliber to and that my trips are right for them that they're not looking for something luxurious. And that should be you know, evident from from the website and how I explained the trips but yeah, they they they send in that application and then I just we have a conversation I have might have some file follow up questions. If they want to go to the Dolomites, a place I've been to many, many times have many connections there have written a ton. No, all this roads, whether you want paved or dirt or everything in between, I can quickly shoot back and itinerary. This is what I think you would love to do. What do you think? And from there, we Off we go. If if they want to come to me and say, Hey, I saw that, that film that came from your bikepacking circumnavigation of Iceland? Well, geez, I can't do that. But I want to do a portion of that. Okay, great. Here's some options, and I'll go back to them with a, we could go south, and we could do these roads. And the itinerary would look like this. Or we could go up north to the West Fjords or something like that. And again, it's a place I know, I'm only guiding, I only want to guide in places I know, I do not want to get into the business of being a person that charges money to take them someplace, I don't know anything about Sure, I could look at Instagram, and figure out the nice roads to be on I could go on online, but that's not guiding you know, like I'm that's, that's cheating. I only take people to places, Colorado, the Dolomites Iceland, some other places that I've been to a lot and I have connections there. And I can can open people's eyes beyond what they see on Instagram, you know, like culturally, historically open doors, that they wouldn't be able to open them open themselves, take them places they didn't realize existed because they're not on Instagram, you know, move beyond Instagram as a source of of travel inspiration. And that's, that's that's sort of the process. But it
Andrew Vontz 1:06:48
What have you gotten out conversation running these trips? What's the feeling that you get when people have this experience? On the other side of it?
Chris Case 1:07:04
Yeah, I, it's, it's an amazing feeling. Like I was saying earlier to take somebody to a place where I've been so many times, and it has opened my eyes to so many things and then being able to turn around and, and get, in a way sort of give back to the to the life that cycling has brought me in endurance sports has brought me show them. If they're if they're not that experienced in International Cycling, travel, show them how it can be done. Show them what why it's so amazing. Introduce them to local people that will have conversations with them about and they'll have these connections, whether it's over food, or bikes or place or time or history, or maybe they have a little bit of Italian heritage in them. And I take them to the Dolomites. And they, you know, there's just always opportunities for these little connections. You know, the when I was earlier speaking about the I kind of provide this convenience of creating these experiences, these challenging experiences for those who can't create it themselves. What I want is when somebody is approaching December 31, and they're thinking back on the year, and they're thinking to themselves, what were the highlights, you know, they're talking with their spouse or family or something at a party. What were the highlights of your year? Everybody does this. I do it a lot. And I look back and I look forward. I want them The first thing to say is, well, that trip I took to the Dolomites with alter exploration that was absolutely blew away everything else I did work, who cares? You know, that presentation I gave on May 31. About blah, blah, blah, doesn't matter. But that trip to the Dolomites that eight or nine or 10 days? Oh my god, that was amazing. You should do it yourself, or I can't wait to do another one. That's the sense that I want to bring or that's what I want to bring to people. And that's what I've seen. People. It's it's, it's crazy. I actually can't believe it. But I've had so many people on trips, say that was the A either the best ride I've ever taken in my life. Or B that was the best trip I've ever taken in my life. And obviously, that just makes me incredibly happy to hear. That's what I want to do. It's hard to do.
Andrew Vontz 1:09:32
I think that's a sure sign the experiment has been a success.
Chris Case 1:09:35
I'm doing something right, right.
Andrew Vontz 1:09:39
Yeah, fantastic. Well, Chris, thanks so much for being here for sharing about your new endeavor. And Scott Yeah, and Scott, thanks for being here as well. Always appreciate your insight on everything. And I know you both have businesses to go run so do I. So let's, let's get back into exploring in the domains outside of podcast endurance sports and travel and wishing you guys both the best.
Scott Frey 1:10:05
Yeah, you too. Good luck, Chris.
Andrew Vontz 1:10:08
All right, I'm gonna hit stop. Hold
Chris Case 1:10:09
on so much. Thank you very much