Brooks Bash is an entrepreneur and endurance athlete known for pursuing extraordinary challenges. In 2023, he ran a relay from Canada to Mexico to promote his natural energy drink company, Earthy. Later that year, Brooks completed 100 marathons in 100 days, equivalent to running from L.A. to New York. Just three weeks after his 100th marathon, he tackled another feat, running a 320-mile race from Santa Monica to Las Vegas.
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Brooks Bash:
What kept ringing in my ear was when I finished the tour, I had averaged 23 miles a day. And so everyone was like, oh, you ran a marathon a day. And in my head I was like, well, no, I didn't. I ran 23, a marathon is 26.2. And so then I was like, well, that's interesting. I will run a marathon every single day until we hit our funding goal. And that's where it started.
Shelby Stanger:
Brooks Bash is an entrepreneur and endurance athlete who's made a habit of chasing wild ideas. In 2023, he ran a relay from Canada to Mexico to promote his natural energy drink company. Later that year, Brooks ran 100 marathons in 100 days. For reference, that's like running from L.A. to New York. Three weeks after he finished his 100th marathon, Brooks took on another endurance challenge, running a 320-mile race from Santa Monica to Las Vegas. Logging so many miles in such a short period of time might seem extreme, but for Brooks, chasing these wild ideas has helped him understand the limits of his body and his mind. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living. An REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. Brooks Bash, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Brooks Bash:
Hey, thank you so much for having me.
Shelby Stanger:
So talk to me, you're not just like some average Joe who shows up and starts running marathons. How did you get into running?
Brooks Bash:
It was a long journey. I grew up playing all the sports. I was a military brat, so we moved pretty much every year almost. And so really the only constant for me was sports and fitness. And we would always every year go to this lake up in the mountains. And so that became my home was just being outside and moving. And my parents were very active. They were both avid marathon runners. My mom was a spin instructor, still is, and super into triathlons as well too, and would podium and still does. And so that was sort of in my DNA from the start.
So then played all sports, played college basketball, ended up then being a CrossFit trainer, and then CrossFit plus basketball equals not good for your back. And so I had really, really chronic back issues for three to four years after college pretty much, and it was really, really bad. I could barely pick something off the ground, like had constant pain, constant just discomfort. And then the flare-ups would happen and I'd pretty much be immobilized for a week at a time. And so the doctors said I needed surgery and I basically could not live this active life that I was currently living, and that was really soul shattering and not fun to hear.
Shelby Stanger:
How old were you?
Brooks Bash:
I was probably 23 at the time.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh man, a 23-year-old active male being told, "Don't keep doing this."
Brooks Bash:
Yeah. "And stop immediately and we need to cut you up."
Shelby Stanger:
Wow.
Brooks Bash:
Yeah, it was hard, but I've always been the one who says there's got to be another way. And there was. Really, I just kind of went on my own healing journey of like, all right, well, that's not an option, what you guys presented, so I'm going to find one myself. And so I basically just dove into everything, Chinese medicine, alternative healing, different yoga practices, and really just healed myself. It took three and a half years, but I changed my diet. I changed my lifestyle. I started taking different natural supplements, and that's when I first got into the endurance world. At first it was swimming because swimming was super therapeutic and helpful for my back. And that eventually evolved into triathlon. Like, okay, I'm feeling somewhat okay now and maybe I can start to try to compete again.
Shelby Stanger:
That's crazy. Okay, so you did triathlon and then you were good at it?
Brooks Bash:
Yeah, I was like, okay, I like this endurance sport. It's different than the bang bang of basketball and CrossFit, and I can really just push myself. And really, it was in that moment, a pain thing. I was like, this doesn't hurt, which is awesome. And so yeah, I sort of just started going up the reins of triathlon distance of Sprint, Olympic. I did a 70.3 and was like, this is the moment now I'm going to go for the full Ironman. And I was so fit and I was ready and I was just going to go for it. And then Covid happened and I was like, dang, okay. So at the time, I was like, "What do I do?" Because all the pools were closed, and I was like, I'm not going to swim in the ocean because I'm terrified of sharks. Okay, so no more swimming.
Biking, I don't know, it just kind of was boring to me. And so I was like, I'm not going to do that, so I guess I'll just run. And so that was really the birth of my running passion and career was just during Covid, I started to run and I really fell in love when I started to go up into the trails and just trail run and just lose myself. It was just such a beautiful, like, wow, this is amazing. And it really took me back to being a kid and just kind of getting lost in the woods and getting dirty and just being out there for hours. So I was hooked.
Shelby Stanger:
Brooks found his niche in triathlons and especially in endurance running. When he wasn't training, Brooks continued to explore alternative medicine and take the supplements that helped heal his back injury. In fact, his own recovery inspired him to get a job at a supplement company. Unfortunately, once Brooks saw the industry up close, he realized that a lot of brands weren't honest about their ingredients. This lack of transparency didn't sit well with him. So in 2023, Brooks launched his own natural energy drink called Earthy. In order to prove that his product is both healthy and effective, Brooks came up with a creative way to promote the brand with another wild idea.
Brooks Bash:
So I started this company called Earthy, and it's an all organic energy product designed to drink before you go work out. And so being a startup, we don't have a lot of money to get the word out. So I kind of took it upon myself to be creative, and I've always loved being outside and doing crazy things. And so there's this world of marketing where you can fall into the pattern of what everyone's doing, and I just don't like to do that. And so I started to think of creative ways of how we could show the product and use and really align with our mission of being outside and just doing fun things. And so people kept asking us, does it work? Can you prove it works? Do you have scientific studies? And we were like, "No, we're a startup. We don't have this yet."
Shelby Stanger:
You didn't have a scientific study of how it's been working for a hundred years because you weren't around a hundred years. Okay, got it.
Brooks Bash:
Exactly. And so we'd had this plan where we were going to go to these run shops and bike shops and sell it to them kind of all down the west coast of America. And so I had this idea of, well, you know, why don't we just show you that it works? And so me and somebody, we started at the border of Canada and we did a relay. He biked, I ran, and we went all the way down to Mexico relay style. So he would ride 30 miles, I would run 20, he would ride, and I would run. And over a 30-day period, we went from Canada all the way down to Mexico. And so we called that the West Coast Tour, and that was how we officially launched the company. And that's kind of the first wild idea.
Shelby Stanger:
How much did you run on that first wild idea?
Brooks Bash:
So that, I ended up averaging about 23 miles a day. And it skewed. At the start, I was only doing 15 miles a day, but by the end I was up to 40 to 50 miles a day. The average was 23, but it was crazy because we were literally just making up the route every day. So we had a van that we slept in, and we would wake up and pull up Google Maps and I'd be like, okay, I'm going to run from here to here. And then he's like, okay, well, I'll drive the van and park it, and I'll hide the keys under a log, and then I'll start riding. And then I would run up and find the van and use his little scavenger hunt thing he sent me to find the key, and then I'd get in it, and then I'd drive 30 miles ahead of him and do the same thing. And that was kind of how we made our way down the coast.
Shelby Stanger:
And in between, you're doing business appointments, you're showing up at retail shops, and I'm sure they're stoked to meet you guys because it's fun to meet someone who's in the midst of going for something that's kind of impossible and they're doing it anyway.
Brooks Bash:
Yeah, it was fun. We'd pop in and just, "Hey, is the owner here?" They're like, "Yeah, what's up?" Like, "Oh, I just ran here from Seattle." And they're like, "Whoa, what?" "Yeah, to promote this. Can I give you a sample?" And they were like, "Yeah, sure." So that was a really cool experience.
Shelby Stanger:
Any stories about that first wild idea in early 2023 that really stand out?
Brooks Bash:
There was the one day I ran through Orange County, and it was the first hurricane that we've gotten in, I don't even know how long, and that was the day that I was planning to run a 50-mile distance basically through the hurricane. And so that was a discussion of, is this safe? Should we do it? And in my mind, I'm like, yeah, let's do it. So I did it and it was intense. Yeah, it was just absolutely dumping rain.
Shelby Stanger:
You ran through a hurricane?
Brooks Bash:
I ran through a hurricane, yeah, a west coast-
Shelby Stanger:
I mean California hurricane, still-
Brooks Bash:
West coast hurricane.
Shelby Stanger:
Still, it's a big deal if we get a hurricane in California, Southern California.
Brooks Bash:
Yeah, it was fun at the start, because the rain was so warm and it felt amazing, but then towards the end, it got a little scary and there were things flying around.
Shelby Stanger:
I remember this.
Brooks Bash:
Yeah, yeah. The film guy who was with me, we had a safe word. I was like, if you feel like you're not comfortable, we can go in. But he was a trooper and he was kind of with me the whole time to make sure we captured it all.
Shelby Stanger:
Relaying from Canada to Mexico proved to be a successful strategy, and Brooks was able to pick up some wholesale clients on the West Coast. Still, breaking into the holistic beverage industry can be pretty challenging, and Brooks needed a wider audience and larger financial investments in order to grow the company. With that in mind, Brooks came up with his second wild idea to run 100 marathons in 100 days. He made social media content about his runs so that people could follow along. In his posts, he promoted a crowdfunding campaign that allowed his followers to invest in Earthy.
Brooks Bash:
I was like, man, how do I get the word out? I don't have a huge network. And what kept ringing in my ear was when I finished the tour, I had averaged 23 miles a day. And so everyone was like, oh, you ran a marathon a day. You basically ran a marathon a day. And in my head I was like, well, "No, I didn't. I ran 23, a marathon is 26.2." And so then I was like, well, that's interesting. I could run a marathon a day and maybe that is the marketing. And so it started as, I made a promise when we launched it of I will run a marathon every single day until we hit our funding goal, and that's where it started. And so basically, we launched the campaign and that first day, I ran a marathon and it all started from there. And so the hundred number was never intended. I didn't really have a end in sight when we started it, but it just kept going and going and going.
Shelby Stanger:
I love this because raising money for a startup is really hard. Going out and asking people for money is a level of uncomfort that not a lot of people are used to, and it's not always very fun. You're getting rejected a lot. So to do this while you're running a marathon every day I think is really brilliant because if you run a marathon and you do it, you have some success. So maybe you get a rejection, but you've had some success running serious success, but you've got to be exhausted. I mean, because asking for money takes a level of effort and energy and running a marathon takes a ton of energy. So how did you balance both?
Brooks Bash:
Well, I started an energy company, so that helped, but it definitely, it was taxing for sure. What was cool was that because I was doing the marathons is it almost acted as a way to, I wouldn't have to show up and be like, Hey, give me money. Give me money. It almost switched the position of like, I was asking them to help me, whereas it turned into, they wanted to join me because of the movement that was happening, which was really cool. I am not the guy who wants to pester people and ask them, and I hate when people ignore me. And so it almost turned into this flipping the script on them of like, join me if you want. If not, whatever. We're just going to keep going. So that helped a lot.
Shelby Stanger:
And I think there's something really powerful as if you say you're going to do something hard, and you do it, people start believing you and taking a chance on you. But back up and talk to me about the logistics of this. Are you running a marathon out your door every day and just going until it's 26.2 miles on your watch?
Brooks Bash:
What's nice is that it's not like I was setting a record or whatever, so I kind of made my own rules and it was just by the end of the day, my Strava has to say 26.2, that's it. And so on days when I had the time, I would just go run 26.2 and do it all in one leg. Majority of the days, I would split them up. So I would wake up, go run 10 miles, come back, work for five, six hours, go run the next 16. Literally every day was different because life is crazy and I'm still running the company and have a wife, so I had to make sure to try to prioritize other stuff as well.
And so every day was different, which that ended up turning into the challenge of just logistics of how do I make everything happen on top of running every single day, a marathon? I wasn't going that fast. And so they would take me five to six hours in total every single day, which was a lot, but what was really cool was I was thinking clearer than ever. I was happier, I felt extremely fit, and so I was in this crazy, blissful, peaceful state, which was cool.
Shelby Stanger:
In 2024, Brooks Bash ran a hundred marathons in 100 days posting on social media along the way to promote Earthy, his natural energy drink company. Most of his runs took place in Southern California where he lives with his wife and past Wild Ideas guest, Lauren Bash. He would often join local run clubs, and he became kind of a celebrity in the LA running scene, but Brooks' efforts were slow-going. For the first 30 or 40 marathons, the company was only receiving small investments.
Brooks Bash:
I wouldn't say it was necessarily working from the fundraising point of view. And so that started to daunt on me a little bit too, of, okay, maybe this isn't working. Maybe I'm wasting my time. So that kind of started to get tough, but then there was a moment where a video went super viral and really got the word out, and then everything changed and we started to get real checks. Someone came in and wrote a $4,000 check. Someone came in and wrote 10 grand, and then the word just started growing and growing and growing, and when that moment flipped, it changed everything, because I'm like, oh, it's working. It showed that being courageous and having a wild idea is working. And so then it was like, great, let's keep going. I'll run a thousand if I need to. Let's keep going.
Shelby Stanger:
What was that video that went viral? What happened during that video?
Brooks Bash:
My parents lived in Texas at the time, and so it was around the holidays and Lauren and I were going to go visit them for Christmas, and I was like, how am I going to run a marathon while we drive there? Because we were going to drive, and I was like, logistically, I don't have time to run six hours. It would take us two weeks to drive there to do that. And so I was like, all right, how do I figure this out? And so I don't recommend kids doing this, no one do this, but I still had that van, and so I rigged a treadmill in the back of the van with a portable battery, and I ended up running a marathon in the back of the van while-
Shelby Stanger:
While it was moving?
Brooks Bash:
While we were driving to Texas, and it was super gnarly. I got so-
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, that sounds so dangerous.
Brooks Bash:
Yeah, it was.
Shelby Stanger:
Do not try this at home if you're listening.
Brooks Bash:
Don't try this at home. Yeah, it was super dangerous. I was so nauseous. I had to hold onto the roof and the side so I wouldn't fall. I was bumping around back and forth. I was so carsick. But what's funny is that all these other ones, the videos I would make of each marathon, I would write a script. I would make it super heartfelt. I would have different B-roll and the whole thing, and they'd get a thousand views or 2000 views. And this van thing, all I did was take a clip looking down at my feet and then up at the road and it went nuclear. I think it had 12 million views. Just from the video, I think we raised 60 grand. Yeah, it was insane.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so during these a hundred marathons, did you ever experience like a niggle, little pain, like an injury? How did you stay injury free for a hundred marathons in a hundred days?
Brooks Bash:
There were definitely little things. So things would flare up and it was almost like, okay, this is going to be here for a few days, and it would kind of come and do its time, and then three or four days later, it would just go away. And so there were little peaks and valleys of different injuries or things going on. What was really interesting was it was around Marathon 90. We had gotten pretty close to the goal, and so I said, you know what? I'm going to stop at a hundred. That's a clean number. And the second I set that endpoint of a hundred, everything fell apart. I got fatigued, injuries flared up, I got super sore. I was not enjoying it anymore. It just all came crumbling down. So much so that on day 100, something flared up in my Achilles that I would not have been able to run 101, like I could barely walk the next day.
Shelby Stanger:
Luckily, Brooks was healthy enough to run his 100th marathon on March 3rd, 2024. Even though his Achilles was acting up, Brooks didn't take long to rest. Three weeks later, he was at the starting line for The Speed Project, a 320-mile race from Santa Monica to Las Vegas. Honestly, as a runner myself, I don't condone running long distances while injured. We only have one body and it's really important that we take care of it. But Brooks had committed to The Speed Project, so he decided to forge ahead anyway.
Brooks Bash:
I had signed up for this race called The Speed Project before I had this idea to do the 100 marathons, so there wasn't much downtime. And so I rolled into that thinking, oh, I ran a marathon a day for a hundred days. I got this. No problem. I couldn't have been more wrong, and I couldn't have been more humbled. On mile 6, the pain in my Achilles came back so big that I couldn't walk for a bit, and I had to sit and cry. It was hurting so bad. And that was the start of the 320-mile journey to Las Vegas. I ended up changing my running form, which I'm now a very run on my toes person, but I was like, okay, maybe if I heel strike that will help. And it took the pain away, and so I was like, great, I guess I'll just do this.
But then on mile 20, my knees, because of the change of pressure, were just like, no. And so they were totally giving out, and for a moment, couldn't even hold my weight, so I was having to just lean on stuff and sit down. I was like, this is a disaster. And what's a bummer was that in my mind, growing up and moving so much, being a military brat, I never had a chance in sports. I would always make the team, because I was athletic, but I never could play or I could never have a chance, and I was always the new kid and I could never show up. And even my career thus far was like I was in startups, but I was someone's assistant, and it was just always like I never had a chance or I was always at the mercy of someone else to give me a chance.
And so now here I was, I just ran a hundred marathons. I'm now in this super elite race that is worldwide known, and it was like I'm in it. I'm one of 30 people who signed up for this solo race, and it's like, this is my shot and this is my chance to show people what I'm capable of, and there's no way that I'm going to not go for it, and there's no way I'm going to drop out. And so there was never a thought of quitting. It was just like, this is going to suck so bad, but I'm just going to keep going. And we had, Lauren took the week off of work. We had a film guy, we had a video guy. We had so many logistics going into it where I just wasn't going to quit because it was there, it was happening.
And so then it just turned into how do we get there? How do we figure this out? It was the most painful thing I've ever gone through. My knees never really worked to their full extent again. My ankles by day three had swollen up so bad that I could barely even fit my shoes on. Then there was the sleep deprivation. We were getting chased by wild dogs. I didn't realize the intense damage I was doing to myself that would take so long after the race to recover.
Shelby Stanger:
So you did finish?
Brooks Bash:
I did finish, yeah. It ended up taking six and a half days, which was super gnarly, but I finished and it took everything in me. It took every ounce of everything I have and willpower and Advil and caffeine and everything. But yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
I hear this kind of incongruent voice in just the way you're speaking, because it's like you're happy about it, but I feel like, I don't know, maybe I'm reading into is there a twinge of not regret, but I don't know, maybe you wish you would've approached it differently?
Brooks Bash:
For sure, yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Well, talk to me about that.
Brooks Bash:
Yeah, that race took the fun of running away from me. I was in so much pain and it hurt so bad, and I had so far to go that it just sucked, and that was not what I wanted to come from it. Even in my content and videos, I post about me doing this stuff. I always try to have such a positive, happy tone to them. I think fitness can be so painful and scary for people. And so part of what I try to do is show how fun it can be. I wish I had done it in a different year, not right behind the marathons because that just didn't let me prep for it at all. It didn't really let me show what I was physically capable of as a runner. I think what was interesting was there was a moment in the race where I was so down on myself and I was like, I shouldn't have done this right afterwards. I'm injured. I can't do what I want to do.
I wanted to show people what I was capable of, but something flipped in me of, I was like, you know what? This race is teaching me something and this race wants me to show a different side of me and that I can do it and I can grit through something so gnarly and I won't give up. And so I realized that that's what it was teaching me, not how fast can I run this and how smooth and efficient can I be, but how I wanted to literally go through hell essentially. And I did, and I showed people that I could do that. And when I realized that that's what the race was trying to teach me and show me, it helped. I was like, okay, this is the battle now. This is the challenge. So yeah, I think if I ever did something like that again, I would approach it very differently. But that was the experience that it gave me.
Shelby Stanger:
Coming back from The Speed Project was rough. It took six or seven months for Brooks to heal his body and like so many of our guests, the transition back to everyday life was not easy. It took some time, but after a challenging recovery Brooks still wasn't dissuaded from pursuing other wilder ideas in the future.
How is your relationship with running now?
Brooks Bash:
I'm in the dating, sort of falling back in love phase, which is fun because there was a six-month period where I couldn't just go for a run for fun. I would have to go run a marathon, and it's not like I could just go run a casual three to five mile run and enjoy it. It was like, no, I have to run a marathon today. And then that rolled right into The Speed Project. So it was just never fun again. And so now I'm like, wow, I can just put on a cool song, a cool playlist, and go run for 30 to 45 minutes and just enjoy it and not really care how far I get. I'm starting to swim again, which has been super fun as well too. So it's in this falling back in love with these sports that I haven't done for a while. So it's been super cool.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have anything coming up for 2025?
Brooks Bash:
I do. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Can you share it?
Brooks Bash:
I can. Yeah. Here's the thing. Everyone now thinks of me as the runner. Brooks is the runner. And so I'm like, well, I'm actually not just a runner. And so I've been trying to figure out basically how I can show my fitness in other sports. And so I'm going to do a challenge that I'm calling Catalina to Whitney.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow. You're going to swim across and then climb Mount Whitney?
Brooks Bash:
So I'm going to start on Catalina and I'm going to swim across the channel 22 miles to Long Beach. And then I'm going to get on my bike and I'm going to ride from Long Beach to basically Lone Pine, Mount Whitney, ditch the bike, and then run to the top of Mount Whitney from there.
Shelby Stanger:
That's badass. And you're afraid of sharks and that channel crossing is not necessarily shark free.
Brooks Bash:
Yeah, I'm terrified of sharks, but there's a part of me that's like, I need to face that fear. And it's been my biggest fear for so long that I'm feeling called to run right at it. I can barely go in 10 feet of water in the ocean without being terrified. So this'll be a good mental challenge as well.
Shelby Stanger:
What advice can you give to people going after a wild idea? Because surely you have had plenty.
Brooks Bash:
Yeah, I think, and this is going to sound probably crazy of me, but make sure it scares you. And that came up yesterday when I was talking to someone where someone was telling me, I was like, "What's your big idea? What are you going to do this year?" And he told me it, and I was like, "Does that scare you?" And he was like, "Honestly, no. I know I can do it. It's very achievable. If I do this, this, I can do it." And so I was like, "Dude, go for something bigger. And if you're really going for a wild idea, make sure it's scary."
Shelby Stanger:
Brooks' next wild idea sounds exciting and a little scary. The triathlon will include an open water ocean swim, a 300-mile bike ride, and running up Mount Whitney, which is the highest peak in the continental U.S. Imagine running straight uphill for 11 miles at high altitude after a marathon ocean swim and a triple century bike ride. That is no joke. If you want to follow along with Brooks' next wild adventure, you can check him out on Instagram at brooksbash. That's B-R-O-O-K-S-B-A-S-H.
He's also pretty active on YouTube under the same name. If you're curious about Earthy, head over to liveearthy.co. Apparently it tastes like hot chocolate, but gets you even more amped. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hannah Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.