Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself

by Rich Roll

If my story stands for anything, it is that the human body, mind, and spirit are far more resilient than you can possibly imagine.

It’s never too late to change. You only have to do one thing: decide. Today I sing my song. I sing it proudly, and loud. My hope is that these pages will help you find your song. So you too can sing it with everything you’ve got. Because you deserve it. And because the world needs you to be who you really are.

I heard it all. But deep down, I knew I could do it.

I do what I have to do. I turn off that voice in my head urging me to quit. And I get back on the bike. My race, it seems, is only just beginning.

Yet in that precise moment, I was overcome with the profound knowledge not just that I needed to change, but that I was willing to change. From my adventures in the subculture of addiction recovery, I’d learned that the trajectory of one’s life often boils down to a few identifiable moments—decisions that change everything. I knew all too well that moments like these were not to be squandered. Rather, they were to be respected and seized at all costs, for they just didn’t come around that often, if ever. Even if you experienced only one powerful moment like this one, you were lucky.

Here’s the thing: I’m a man of extremes. I can’t just have one drink. I’m either bone dry or I binge until I wake up naked in a hotel room in Vegas without any idea how I got there. I’m crawling out of bed at 4:45 A.M. to swim laps in a pool—as I did throughout my teens—or I’m pounding Big Macs on the couch. I can’t just have one cup of coffee. It has to be a Venti, laced with two to five extra shots of espresso, just for fun. To this day “balance” remains my final frontier, a fickle lover I continue to pursue despite her lack of interest. Knowing this about myself, and harnessing the tools I’d developed in recovery, I understood that any true or lasting lifestyle change would require rigor, specificity, and accountability. Vague notions of “eating better” or maybe “going to the gym more often” just weren’t going to work. I needed an urgent and stringent plan. I needed to draw a firm line in the sand.

That kind of food was fine for Julie, and certainly fine for our kids, but I needed my food. My real food. To her immense credit, Julie had never nagged me to change my ways. Frankly, I assumed she’d simply given up on me. But in truth she understood a crucial spiritual principle I’d yet to grasp. You can stand in the light. And you can set a positive example. But you simply cannot make someone change.

Balance is for ordinary people. Why not strive for extra-ordinary? This had always been my rule—and my ruin.

Without any real study, thought, or responsible inquiry, I decided the first step would be to try a vegetarian diet, with a commitment to working out three days a week. Cut out the meat, the fish, and the eggs.

To show her support, Julie even bought me a bike for my birthday and encouraged me to exercise. And I held up my end of the bargain, opting for burritos without the carnitas, veggie burgers instead of beef, and casual Saturday morning bike rides with friends in place of cheese omelet brunches.

waters. I just remember feeling the need to up the ante, or throw in the towel altogether.

As my eyes began to widen, I was once again back to that familiar territory—weathering another detox. But this time, in a perverse sort of way, I welcomed the painful challenge.

Clearly, my desire to prove this vegan thing pointless had failed. Instead, I was sold.

Then came what I like to call the Run.

I didn’t just feel good; I didn’t just feel amazing. I felt free. As I ascended shirtless, the welcome sensation of the warm sun baking my shoulders, time folded in on itself as I seemingly lost all conscious thought, the only sound that of my easy breath and my legs pumping effortlessly beneath me. I recall later thinking, This must be what it means to meditate. I mean really meditate. For the first time in my life, I felt that sense of “oneness” I’d only previously read about in spiritual texts. That state the cool kids now call flow. Indeed, I was having an out-of-body experience.

I crested a small hill to see a fellow runner coming my way—the first person I’d seen all morning. As he passed, he gave me a quick nod and a gentle thumbs-up. There was just something about this tiny gesture that was profound. It was barely noticeable. Yet it was everything, some kind of message—from above, perhaps—touching my soul. It let me know not just that I’d be okay, but that I was on the right track—that, in fact, this wasn’t just a run. It was the beginning of a new life.

It wasn’t until much later that I’d fully appreciate the extent and impact of the morning. But as I showered the grit and grime from my worn legs that afternoon, my body hummed with excitement and possibility. And without conscious thought, a huge grin spread across my face. In this moment I knew one thing for certain: I’d soon be seeking a challenge—and it would be a big one. This middle-aged guy—who’d just run a huge distance, who’d just awoken something inside himself, something that was fierce and tough and wanted to win—this guy would soon be making a return to athletics. And not just for fun. To actually be competitive. To contend.

I enjoyed being part of a team, but more important, I loved the self-determination of it all. The idea that hard work and discipline left me solely responsible for the result—win or lose—was a revelation.

From that moment forward, I was in with 100 percent of everything I had.

“It’s because you’re a leader. You have a rare enthusiasm and a contagious optimism.

But I did my best to stand my ground. I couldn’t let them win.

Life changed immediately. From the next day forward, my alarm bell rang every morning at 4:44.

Determined to rise to the level of my swimming peers as quickly as possible, I rarely missed a workout. And improvement came rapidly. But I quickly became aware that I lacked a certain level of God-given talent. If I wanted to catch up and make the leap to the national level, I couldn’t rely on innate gifts. I was going to have to go the extra mile. I decided to focus almost entirely on the 200-yard butterfly; widely considered one of the most difficult and draining events, most people had no interest in swimming it. This gave me an immediate advantage.

I was forced to manage my rigorous schedule with extreme precision. While my classmates stayed out late, experimenting with drugs and alcohol and enjoying parties that I wasn’t invited to, with the girls from Landon’s sister school, Holton Arms, I maintained a strict regimen of studying, sleeping, training, and racing.

“Right this way,” a teaching assistant quipped with an unsettling smile as he walked my dad and me down a first-floor hallway to a door adorned with a label announcing the names of its soon-to-be occupants: Rich Roll and Ken Rock. The staff gathered close, watching for my reaction. It took a moment, but the joke finally landed. That’s right, “Rock ’n’ Roll” would be bunking together.

So I did what I did best, going the extra mile at every opportunity.

That said, I didn’t want what these attorneys had, a life that appeared to be misery placed atop piles of money. And I had no real desire for their approval. I simply didn’t care. I knew that a job well done would be rewarded with nothing beyond an increase in demand for my services. And so when my phone rang, I just let it ring. Then I’d wait an hour or so before returning the call, knowing that by then the attorney seeking assistance surely would have found someone else to do his or her bidding. On many an occasion, I’d nurse a hangover by locking the office door, turning the lights off, and taking a nap. Other days, I’d leave the office for hours at a time, lingering over long lunches, strolling the streets of Midtown, or catching a movie, no one the wiser. If anyone asked where I was, I could just make up some story. But nobody ever asked. It was just too big a place to keep tabs on a low-level employee like me. And I took every advantage.

But of course no matter where I went, I always brought myself with me, so it wasn’t long before I resumed my old ways.

Ironically, during the two-year period in which I shared an apartment with Gavin he competed as an avid Ironman triathlete and open-water swimmer. So while I lay passed out in the next room, Gavin would generally awake before dawn to train. On the weekends, he’d leave town to compete in this race or that, often winning or placing in a variety of long-distance ocean swims or other multisport events.

I was amazed to discover my friend John Moffet sitting in the window seat right next to me—the same John I was partying with that fateful night I cracked my ribs at Stanford Stadium. What are the odds? A happy coincidence, for sure. But nothing more, I thought. It wasn’t until years later that I would divine greater meaning in John’s presence not just on that flight, but in my life. The truth, I’d later realize, was that John was the only reason I was even on this flight to begin with.

Most important, when I eventually struggled through the most difficult time in my life, he stood steadfastly by me.

Yet I was struck dumb by how much I identified with what each and every person had to say. Not necessarily the facts of their experience, but the emotions. That sense of feeling apart. Different from.

Sloshing about my apartment in the wee hours of the night, I was half-committed to backing out on my deal with Garrett when that damn photograph caught my eye. The 1929 University of Michigan swim team photo of my grandfather given to me by my mother, recklessly lying upside down on the floor of my barren living room. It had sat there for months with nary a glance. But suddenly it was speaking to me, calling sharply through the glaze of my inebriation. Picking it up, I carefully rehung it on the naked wall above. And just stared. The sepia-toned maize and blue glory of my doppelgänger Richard Spindle peered back and spoke to me from the beyond: Why are you doing this to yourself? This is not who you are, Rich. The shame was unbearable.

And so I agreed. I became willing, ultimately staying one hundred days.

“You only have to change one thing, Rich. Everything.”

And you simply cannot solve this problem with your mind. So let it go, already.”

And as payback, I began helping others—because it turned out that a cornerstone of recovery was service.

Bridging the gap from fear to faith began with another irksome assignment in which I was compelled to share—out loud!—the entirety of my encyclopedia-sized moral, or should I say immoral, inventory. It’s one thing to concede the nature of your wrongdoing to yourself. On some level we all do that. But expose every dark corner of your soul to a stranger? “What on earth does this preposterous activity have to do with quitting drinking?” I asked Stan. “If you don’t haul the garbage out to the curb, your house is gonna stink like holy hell. And that rotten stench always leads back to using.”

Then, I did the unthinkable. I prayed. Not to the Sunday school God of my youth. Or to the God of any church I’d ever visited. Instead I prayed to a God purely of my own understanding, asking that I be delivered from the character defects that had precipitated my demise. After a moment of quiet reflection, I took out a match and, just like that, burned my inventory until all that remained was ashes in the sand. No, I didn’t just “haul the garbage out to the curb.” I fucking incinerated it. Finally, I let it all go. To this day, the funeral pyre of ashes that was my inventory sits in a Tibetan singing bowl on my bedside nightstand as a constant reminder of that day that set in motion a new way of living.

I’ve never felt more free—or more terrified—than I did that day.

It would be weeks before I’d summon the courage to even speak to her, but nonetheless, I boldly announced to my friend Mike Minden, “I’m gonna marry that girl.” I don’t know where my sense of conviction came from. But in the same way that I knew leaving Christensen was the right move, I just knew. It wasn’t hope, or some throwaway comment. It was fact.

Everything seemed to be clicking into place. And soon Julie became pregnant with our first child. With construction on our home finally complete, we celebrated by getting married on our land.

Too, I’d learned what it meant not only to love, but to receive love.

vegan, or whole-food plant-based diet. My program wasn’t devoid of just all animal products, but most processed foods as well.

I’m not a doctor. I’m not a nutritionist. I’m just a guy who started paying really close attention to what he was putting into his body. A guy who undertook some study to better understand which foods do what and why. And a guy who liked the results so much that he started taking on challenges that he’d never even dreamed of before.

In the most general sense, I eat and recommend plant-based, whole foods and advise staying away from processed foods.

Why? Because getting overly caught up in such minute details leads to burnout. And burnout always leads back to old habits. The name of the game is sustainability. And simply put, if it’s too complicated, it’s not sustainable. And if it’s not sustainable, what’s the point? Not only does it have to work, it has to be user-friendly, operating with relative ease within the framework of the modern busy family.

Don’t eat things with ingredients you can’t pronounce or that aren’t found in nature.

Try to eat organic and locally grown produce when at all possible. Stay away from refined sugar. And as for oils—use sparingly or avoid altogether.

Equally influential is Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s book Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.