Ageless Athlete - Longevity Insights From Adventure Sports Legends

This episode brings together moments from conversations recorded across the first half of 2025 — voices from different sports, environments, and stages of life, each describing how they continue to train, move, and stay engaged as conditions change.
These clips span endurance running, climbing, paddling, cycling, swimming, and exploration. What connects them is more than performance level or accomplishment, but also the way each athlete thinks about adaptation — physically, psychologically, and over long stretches of time.
If a particular segment resonates, the full conversations are available in the Ageless Athlete back catalog. Below is a guide to the original episodes featured in this compilation.
Episodes Featured in This Collection 
Ray Zahab (Episode Name and Release Date)
 👉 Full episode: Impossible To Possible: Build That Toughness That Can Help You Overcome Even Cancer
 📅 Jan 7, 2025
Chris Bertish
 👉 Full episode: 93 Days Alone On The Ocean - When There’s Nowhere Else to Go
 📅 Feb 18, 2025
Travis Macy
 👉 Full episode: One Mile at a Time: The Healing Power of Movement and How You Can Fight Mental Decline
 📅 Feb 25, 2025
Ned Overend
 👉 Full episode: Chasing Momentum: How To Train To Win In Your 70s From A World Champio
 📅 Mar 25, 2025
Andy
 👉 Full episode: The Movement Optimist: Knees, Shoulders, Elbows, Hips, Bulletproof Yourself! Never Late to Get Strong!
 📅 April 8, 2025
Jerry Moffatt
 👉 Full episode: Jerry Moffatt’s Revelations: The Power of Obsession, and His Surprising Key to Success
 📅 May 8, 2025
Dean Karnazes
 👉 Full episode: Fighting Fit in Your 60s — Dean Karnazes Keeps Running While Everyone Else Slows Down
 📅 April 15, 2025
Bob Becker
 👉 Full episode: Unstoppable: The 80-Year-Old Who Runs 100+ Mile Ultramarathons—and Reminds Us Why Showing Up Still Matters
 📅 May 8, 2025
Bill Ramsey
 👉 Full episode: The Thinking Climber: What a Philosopher’s Double Life Reveals About Curiosity, Reinvention, and the Long Arc of Mastery
 📅 May 21, 2025
Lisa Smith Batchen
 👉 Full episode: Reversing Time: Aging Is Your Superpower To Break Through Limits
 📅 Feb 11, 2025
Bob Babbitt
 👉 Full episode: Racing Strong at 73: Daily Rituals For Recovery, Energy, and Clarity
 📅 Jun 4, 2025
Sarah Thomas
 👉 Full episode: Four Times Across the English Channel: What One Impossible Swim Can Teach You About Identity, Grit, and Starting Over
 📅 May 28, 2025

---
🚀 Love the show? Here’s how to support it
If something you’ve heard here has stayed with you, made you smile, or helped you keep going, I’d be honored if you’d consider supporting the show. 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/agelessathlete
📰 Subscribe to the Ageless Athlete newsletter !
1-2x a month, no spam. We share behind-the-scenes reflections, longevity tips, and athlete wisdom you won’t find anywhere else. You can sign up at https://www.agelessathlete.co/newsletter/ 📩
Support the show

What does “use it or lose it” actually mean after 60 — when recovery slows, strength is harder to regain, and stopping even briefly can change what’s possible?
Buzz Burrell is one of the quiet architects of modern mountain and trail culture, to talk about consistency — not as motivation, but as survival.
Buzz ran his first ultramarathon nearly six decades ago, long before endurance sports had language, infrastructure, or spectators. Since then, he’s lived a migratory life shaped by mountains, deserts, canyons, and long routes where commitment matters more than speed. Today, he’s slower than he once was — and more relevant than ever.
We talk about:
Why “use it or lose it” becomes literal with age
How consistency replaces intensity as the real long-game skill
Canyoneering and environments where commitment is irreversible
Why aging athletes can’t afford long layoffs — physically or psychologically
Staying engaged with movement even when progress slows
What it means to keep going without pretending you’re improving
Consistency isn’t glamorous. But it’s what survives.
Buzz Burrell
Mountain runner, outdoor industry veteran, co-founder of the Fastest Known Time (FKT) movement, and lifelong explorer of wild places.
Recommended:
🎙 Podcast — The Buzz (Buzz’s long-form conversations on trail and mountain culture)
🌐 Website — fastestknowntime.com
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bbolder/

---
🚀 Love the show? Here’s how to support it
If something you’ve heard here has stayed with you, made you smile, or helped you keep going, I’d be honored if you’d consider supporting the show. 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/agelessathlete
📰 Subscribe to the Ageless Athlete newsletter !
1-2x a month, no spam. We share behind-the-scenes reflections, longevity tips, and athlete wisdom you won’t find anywhere else. You can sign up at https://www.agelessathlete.co/newsletter/ 📩
Support the show

What do world-class athletes actually eat — not in theory, not on Instagram, but in real life, day after day?
After more than 100 conversations with elite climbers, ultrarunners, surfers, and endurance athletes, I started noticing a pattern I didn’t expect.
It wasn’t about optimization.
 It wasn’t about trends.
 And it definitely wasn’t about eating something new every day.
It started with breakfast.
On nearly every episode of Ageless Athlete, I ask a simple question:
“Where are you right now — and what did you have for breakfast?”
Over time, a clear through-line emerged across sports, ages, and disciplines:
 the athletes who last tend to build simple, repeatable defaults, especially around food.
This isn’t a nutrition lecture.
 I’m not a scientist.
 And this isn’t about macros or perfection.
It’s a human, experience-based conversation about how consistency, environment, and intention durably shape performance — especially as we age.
In this episode, we explore:
Why many elite athletes eat the same breakfast most days
What breakfast reveals about routine, discipline, and decision fatigue
Why consistency often matters more than novelty
How environment matters more than willpower when it comes to eating well
What I had to relearn about protein, micronutrients, and recovery
How my own diet evolved from gym culture to outdoor sports to a mostly plant-forward approach
Referenced conversations
Lionel Conacher — big-wave surfer, first surfed Mavericks at 59
Jerry Moffatt — one of the most influential climbers in history
Lynn Hill — first to free climb The Nose on El Capitan
Steve McClure — elite climber still performing into his 50s
Harvey Lewis — one of the most accomplished ultrarunners alive
Gary Linden — big-wave surf pioneer with six decades in the ocean, now surfing in his 70s
Kitty Calhoun — legendary alpinist climbing strongly into her 60s
Also referenced: my conversation with EC Synkowski on practical, evidence-based nutrition for active people.
Key takeaway:
The nutrition that lasts isn’t exciting.
It’s repeatable.

---
🚀 Love the show? Here’s how to support it
If something you’ve heard here has stayed with you, made you smile, or helped you keep going, I’d be honored if you’d consider supporting the show. 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/agelessathlete
Support the show

“When I tell people I started sailing at sixty, they’re shocked. We don’t see our sixties as a place to begin — which is tragic, especially if you’ve invested in your health. What’s the point, if not to do something fantastic?”

In this New Year’s Eve episode of Ageless Athlete, I sit down with Deborah Hammett, a former school principal who did something most people never consider — she learned to sail at 60, moved onto a boat, and now lives and travels solo by sea.
Deborah’s story isn’t really about sailing. It’s about what happens when identity loosens. When long-held roles fall away. When you choose to become a beginner again — not because you have to, but because you want to feel alive.
We talk about fear and solitude. About real consequences — like fixing an overheating engine thirty miles offshore with no help coming. About competence earned slowly, and confidence that comes not from comfort, but from adaptation.
This conversation explores aging not as decline, but as a long arc of learning. It’s about reinvention without theater. About staying open to awe. About asking a better question as we move into a new year: what would you do if the next chapter didn’t need to look like the last one?
Deborah shares the lived reality of life aboard a sailboat — the beauty, the friction, the quiet moments, and the hard-earned lessons — with honesty, humor, and humility.
If this episode resonates, I highly recommend her book Young Salt at 60, where she tells the full story of learning to sail late, making plenty of mistakes, and choosing a bigger, more meaningful life after retirement. 
You can also follow Deborah on Instagram for real, unfiltered glimpses into life at sea:
 📸 @youngsaltat60
And to you, the listener — thank you. For being here. For your curiosity. For supporting the show by listening, sharing, or buying me a coffee. These conversations exist because people are willing to show up honestly — and because you choose to listen.
Happy New Year!

---
🚀 Love the show? Here’s how to support it
If something you’ve heard here has stayed with you, made you smile, or helped you keep going, I’d be honored if you’d consider supporting the show. 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/agelessathlete
📰 Subscribe to the Ageless Athlete newsletter !
1-2x a month, no spam. We share behind-the-scenes reflections, longevity tips, and athlete wisdom you won’t find anywhere else. You can sign up at https://www.agelessathlete.co/newsletter/ 📩
Support the show

What does it really take to stay strong into your 70s — physically, mentally, and emotionally?
In this episode, I sit down with Steve Swenson, one of America’s most respected alpinists, to talk about endurance, aging, and the habits that have kept him moving for decades.
Steve has climbed Everest and K2, completed first ascents in the Karakoram, and summited Everest without supplemental oxygen — an experience that strips away ego and rewards preparation, judgment, and restraint. But this conversation isn’t about chasing summits.
It’s about what Steve has learned over a lifetime of extreme environments: why endurance matters more than talent as you age, why strength training becomes non-negotiable in your later years, and why staying uninjured is often the biggest win of all.
We talk about:
What climbing Everest without oxygen actually feels like
How Steve trains to stay strong and capable into his 70s
Why consistency beats intensity over the long run
Strength training, sarcopenia, and aging well
Partnership, judgment, and making smart decisions under stress
This is a grounded, experience-driven conversation for anyone thinking seriously about longevity — not just in sport, but in life.

---
🚀 Love the show? Here’s how to support it
If something you’ve heard here has stayed with you, made you smile, or helped you keep going, I’d be honored if you’d consider supporting the show. 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/agelessathlete
📰 Subscribe to the Ageless Athlete newsletter !
1-2x a month, no spam. We share behind-the-scenes reflections, longevity tips, and athlete wisdom you won’t find anywhere else. You can sign up at https://www.agelessathlete.co/newsletter/ 📩
Support the show