The Sevan Podcast - #109 - Sam Briggs

Episode Date: August 22, 2021

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Who's a legend? Sam Briggs is a legend? I love when I catch a live. Legend. Who's a legend? Sam Briggs is a legend? I love when I catch a live. K-Star. She'll be the first ever 40-year-old female to podium in the games. Man. Man, oh, man. That would be amazing. I wonder if there's anyone who doesn't like Sam Briggs.

I mean, there were people who didn't like Jesus or people who didn't like Bob Marley or people who didn't like sam briggs like i mean there were people who didn't like jesus or people who didn't like bob marley or people who didn't like bruce lee right i mean these are all good people there's got to be someone who doesn't like sam briggs probably but maybe curious you know maybe just because they're not as good as her or something. Jealous. wouldn't take offense except one thing. And someone finally said it and it cut right to my soul. They said, Oh my God, please. The first four minutes of this podcast are horrible. Can you just cut it out and start with the meat and potatoes? Basically I'm paraphrasing. And that's like been my problem with like any podcasts I listened to. If I'm listening to them and it's just like commercials or nonsense or small talk in the first four minutes. I want to blow my brains out.

And then finally someone accused us of doing that. So I'm just like, that hurt. That hurt. A specific podcast or conversation or they meant in general? I think it was the one I did with Rich, I think. I can't remember. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

This isn't a good sign, guys oh oh this isn't good sign guys this is not a good sign did you see that text just coming from sam riggs oh no can i do via phone uh sure is it an iphone i think when people use their phone they're only disrespecting themselves right i mean sam's old enough to have a computer. Come on, Sammy. Come on, Sammy. Maybe she's on vacation after the games or something. Who knows?

You're a good dude. I'm just straight to being critical, and you are giving her some leeway. We've got to find out where she is. But if she's home, yeah, she should probably have a computer. I just texted her back. I going i said is it an iphone she has to download the riverside app right okay download this app and open the link. ASAP, we are live now. What do you guys want to talk about?

You guys want to talk about vaccines? You guys want to talk about critical race theory? Is that why you guys came to this show? Is that why you're here? Or did you come to listen and hear about the great Sam Briggs? Because we have some dead time to fill now. Damn. The one good thing, though, I want you guys to know is we actually did start on time today. Iris John's daughter podcast foreplay is the best warm-up iris was i supposed to return an email to you that name looks very familiar brian needs to turn up his mic great pick quality but too quiet to hear compared to what if i turn mine down i don't know if he can turn his mic up he's not talking actually right now maybe that's why no i'm not sure what to do uh he's all he's always been no it's a new computer it's a new computer it makes him look

more handsome than he really is craig white i'd love to hear your take on vaccines. Uh-oh, don't get me started. Don't get me started. You know I'm shadow banned, right? You know, you want this YouTube station to get shut down too? The thought police are everywhere, people. Am I going to Dubai? No. Brian, are you going to Dubai?

Oh, you mean for the fight? Is that what you mean, for the fight? Andy Walker, am I going to Dubai for the fight? Is that what you mean for the fight? Andy Walker, am I going to Dubai for the fight? Don't turn your mic down. Talk about the athletes getting invited. Oh, look, there she is, guys. We can see her before you can because you're on a 30-second delay. There she is.

Hi, Sam. Hello. before you can because you're on a 30 second delay there she is hi sam hello try and figure out there we go that was a bit better you think she's just gonna pop up on the live feed i'm watching it now i wonder what oh there she is there she is. Sam. Hi. I'm Savon. Nice to see you again. It's been a while. Nice to see you, too. I know who you are.

Do you know Brian Friend? I do, yes. I have moments that stick in my mind about both of you. Oh. Maybe we should just leave it at that. Please, tell me about the moments that stick in your mind about Brian. 2018 DFC saying that I was too old to win it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Oh shit! Coming in hot! Coming in hot! Hey, my glasses just fogged up a little bit. And there's some like sweating shit on there. man oh man i'm glad i have this beard so i you can't see me blushing right now uh sam what country are you in right now

uh america i'm in ohio and is that home home for you yeah we bought a house uh last year uh just during during lockdown got a little bit bored during lockdown so i bought a house last year, just during lockdown. Got a little bit bored during lockdown, so I bought a house. And who's we? Me and Nicole. Okay. And I see her. Boy, my memory is so foggy because as I was going through your Instagram, like the first 10 photos I saw of her, I didn't recognize her. And then as I went deeper and deeper, I'm like, oh, I know her. She was a games athlete. Yeah. She was individual 2014 and 15 and then was at the games 2019 on the Central Beast team. Man, sports.

What have you done for me lately? Sports. That year, that 2019 year, they competed at Strength and Depth and they had a – I don't think they won the first event, but I think they won the next six events or something. Yeah. That was the first and maybe only time that I met Nicole, but they were incredibly nice. Their whole team was very happy to have a conversation and hang out. Very cool people. Yeah. They had a cool dynamic, and they put a lot of effort into training together.

And I think that showed, uh, obviously they, they made it through all the cuts, uh, in 2019 and we're in that, that final. So.

Watch what? Against you since you didn't make all the cuts. Uh, different. Yeah. Uh, Sam watch. Now, every time you say something brian's gonna say something positive to try to dig himself out of the hole you mentioned nicole's team and he's already like talking about how great that team is um uh before we go um there's something i want to get off my chest real quick here um the your book did you choose the person who read the book so uh that was just

circumstances because as they were recording uh the audible book uh lockdown happened so the only way we could get somebody to read it was somebody who had a recording studio in their home. And so we were pretty limited on like who we could get to read it. So the feedback that I've had of people say that it sounds like a professor from Hogwarts. I'm like, well, surely that makes it more interesting. We've got a little bit of CrossFit meets Harry Potter. So Sam has a book. It's called Start Your Engine.

I didn't realize your book was that new. For some reason, I thought it was older than that. No, it came out. So the hard book came out probably a couple of months before that. And then the Audible book got done kind of like April, May time last year. And the paperback version has actually only just come out now, which has like a bonus chapter kind of like catching up on what's happened since the the book was um like finished and does the paperback version also i heard it has a huge

poster in the center like the old playboy magazines like you get a giant poster of sam briggs you get just like that's that's actually a good idea i should thank you thank you suggested idea. I should have suggested that. Thank you. I think the person who reads your book is great. They obviously have an accent. I'm no linguist, but it sounds like a very strong English accent to me. I would say for the first five minutes that I listened to, I had to listen very carefully because I'm very limited in my American-centric listening scope. So I'd listen very carefully to understand every word. But actually, it's great. And after listening for a couple hours, I actually start to forget that it's her and I think it's you. Right.

You know what I mean? Because she has an English accent. Did you choose someone specifically because they had an English accent? So they tried to pick somebody who was from kind of where I was from to get that authentic dialect. So maybe if you go back to early 2010, 2011 interviews, then maybe I've got a thicker accent. 11 interviews, then maybe I've got a thicker accent. Over the time, I've developed to speak a little bit more slowly, kind of neutralize a lot of my words, because especially in the early days, a lot of people couldn't understand me as clearly. But obviously, 10 years down the line, it's become a lot easier.

So you actually worked on that? Yeah. I mean, part of it became more natural spending more time over here because I'll go places and if people don't understand me, I'll have to keep repeating myself and repeating myself. I mean, I still get it now when i go somewhere and i get asked my name and they ask me to spell it i'm like s a m i'm like it couldn't get any easier

those are my initials actually sam seven on sam uh yeah when you have a name like seven you're used to people saying huh what but i guess yes sam should be pretty um i'm like that's fairly easy yeah i don't think i've never i can't recall ever um you do have a strong accent but i can't recall ever not understanding being able to understand what you're saying um i did listen to the podcast uh you did with Julie Foucher. And it was kind of funny because Dave was, you know, CrossFit Games started a podcast, right? No, I didn't. Okay.

Well, they did last week. And one of the things Dave said that was so special about that podcast that they were starting is that it wasn't going to be personality driven. Right. And I was like, well, I just listened to the Julie Foucher podcast and that wasn't going to be personality driven right and i was like well i just listened to the julie foucher podcast and that fucking thing is definitely not personality driven but that's a that's a different subject that was supposed to be funny um okay my first joke failed um before i got distracted by your book you're in ohio you bought a home with nicole yep um why ohio uh that's where she's being based and um it would just made more sense at the time she was working at a gym in Cincinnati.

So she was managing the gym. So she had more ties here and it's easier for me to travel. As long as I've got a gym to train in and a bed sleeping i'm pretty happy so it was a lot easier for me to come here than for her to uproot and come to the uk was that an option uh we like we talked about a few different things because obviously from the end of 2015 until the end of 2019, I was struggling to get my green card. So that was a long process. So we had a long-distance relationship for all that time.

So there was talks that if things didn't happen, then obviously Nicole would have had to come to the UK. But in the end, I got my green card and we started looking for houses and we ended up finding the right house here. Couldn't you guys – sorry, I know this is going to be pretty presumptuous on my part, but couldn't you guys have just gotten married and that would just be that? this is going to be pretty presumptuous on my part, but couldn't you guys have just gotten married and that would just be that?

We did. And it was just kind of unfortunate timings of everything because Trump came in just as all my application was being processed. So he put a ban on all, all immigration. So nothing was done for all that time. And then obviously when they resumed looking at immigration papers and stuff, there was such a big backlog that everything took so long to process. Even if you were married?

Yeah, it didn't matter. It was just the whole process to process to to get anything done. Wow. OK. And then do you think she was really considering moving to the UK or that was just being nice? Oh, well, maybe we could live in the UK or the United States. And then she just bites the inside of her cheeks. Maybe she was just being nice because she finds it really hard to understand a lot of the people as well like like i said i've softened my accent when she would come to manchester it would take her a while before she could understand what everybody was saying you were um what inspired you to write the book did someone talk you into it or did it was it something you wanted to share yeah Yeah, I thought about it a few times,

but I never really knew how to start the process. And then it was somebody who actually approached me and they did it as a ghost writer would interview me. And then he put together like the meat of the the book so the hardest part for me was after that it was more editing it and making sure that everything was in the right order the way I'd said things had been interpreted correctly and just like little things like that so that was kind of the hardest part. Yeah. I haven't finished the book. Um, I had actually forgotten until a few days ago that you had actually written a book

as I was digging around. I'm like, Oh yeah. And then I went to go buy it on auto on, um, in the Apple tunes bookstore. And I realized I must've already bought it. That's how shitty my memory is. You know, when you see a book and you're like, oh, I'm going to read that. And so you buy it. And then next thing you know, you're not reading it. It sounds like you, it sounds like you had a great upbringing. It sounds like life you've had a, at least to the portions of the book that I've read, you were, you had a, you had a mom that loved you. You had a very supportive family, supportive brother, and that you were just, you were, you've always kind of been this grounded person who you are, who you are. Yeah, I think, like, my mom has always been very supportive. And as I was growing up,

she always wanted me and my brother to kind of like try everything and experience everything. So even when my dad left and she was working full time as a supporter, she still made sure that we were taken to football or we were taken to swimming. We had music lessons. And luckily, her parents were both teachers. And luckily, her parents were both teachers. So summer holidays and after school, if she was still working, there was somebody there that was making sure that we were still wanting to do, if we were pursuing, I used to play the piano and the cello. So it was like we always had somebody that was very supportive

and making sure that if we wanted to pursue something we were able to to do those extracurricular activities did you did you was your dad i i in the book it says oh then my mom remarried but i don't ever remember reading in the book about your parents getting a divorce was that before you were old enough to remember or yeah no um I was uh 11-ish when uh when they separated so I kept in touch with my dad and still saw my dad for uh probably another year another two years until I was kind of at the age to realize he he would try and play my mom offers and stuff and my mom was busting her ass off to like provide everything for me and my brother so I was kind of like you know what I don't need you in my life to feel whole like my mom's doing

everything she can to ensure that our lives are just as good as anybody with both their parents in there so I kind of made that decision that it was more toxic with him being in it than it was without him so that was kind of like my decision to make. And then a couple of years down the line, my mom remarried and my stepdad. Unfortunately for him, coming into our lives as teenagers, probably the hardest time to all of a sudden become a father. But he did a good job. So wait a second so uh you were smart enough to know at 11 or 12 years old that like hey i'm you're done there was there was just little things

that that would happen and um i was at the age where i could then see uh like what he was doing, how it was affecting my mom and how he didn't necessarily have mine and my brother's best interests at heart. He was kind of doing things maybe out of like out of feeling like he had to do things as opposed to trying to do things to better mine and my brother's lives. Did your brother give him the straight arm to make him keep his distance? opposed to trying to do things to better mine and my brother's lives. Did your brother give him the straight arm too and make him keep his distance? Or did your brother take a different route? He saw my dad for longer than me. And he's now back in touch with my dad. I think my dad tried to get back in touch with me when i joined the fire service my first station in fire service was actually next door to where he used to be in the police force

so um i think rumor got to him that i joined the fire service and he tried to get back in touch but i was kind of like hey i'm like now. What happened to the last 12 years? If you really wanted to get in touch with me, you would have done kind of like sooner. So I was like, I'm good. Thanks. Wow. How many people lived in your town? Oh, I don't know that.

The reason I ask is what a small world that you would end up getting a job right next door to where you're. Yeah. And it wasn't even in the town where. So the brigade that I was is kind of like county based. So you could have been anywhere in the whole of West Yorkshire. And it literally was I got posted. My first posting was in Mali. And his, I think it was his last posting before he retired was Mali. And they are literally like side by side. There's a wall and a gated fence separating the two.

Wow. What a trip. What a small world. You played like, you played everything, huh? Yeah. And you say in your book that basically, it kind of reminds me of myself, you want to do everything in life. The only thing you don't want to do is sleep because that means you can't be doing shit you want to be doing.

That's changed a little bit as I've got older. Now I've realized how important sleep is. But definitely as I was younger, I just wanted to be always doing something. And how did you get into triathlons? So when I was younger, I used to run cross country. I did some mountain bike racing. I did a little bit of swimming when I was younger, younger. And so I was already in the fire service I retired from playing football or soccer as you guys call it I was looking for

something to do and I already used to run or cycle to and from work so the guys at work were all like well why don't you do start doing a few triathlons a few of the guys were doing some local triathlons so they were like we're gonna swim in between nights and stuff come and join us and just kind of like fell fell into doing it it just filled that void that uh was missing after i retired from playing football so it's not because when i think of people who do triathlons i just put in iron mans and think of that i think of them as just people with crazy pathologies like people with serious issues and they need to run swim and bike them off but yours wasn't like that yours was just like a place to express your yeah it was more the fun element as well uh and kind of the

even though you race as an individual the group element of training with the guys from work uh so in between the night shifts we'd either go mountain biking or we'd go out on the road bike we'd go swimming so it was kind of like a group training thing with the guys that i spent half of my life with at the time because we do two days two nights far off so you spend a lot of time uh with with your shift so it was kind of nice to do something outside of work with them and you were you were a fire chief uh so i think it's what you guys call a captain a captain fire captain and so you and how long were you a firefighter at 10 years wow and why did you stop was it because of crossfit yeah i won the crossfit game so it it was uh I was having too much fun to go back to the fire service.

I kind of took a sabbatical in 2013 to concentrate on training. And obviously that paid off and I won the Games. Congratulations. Thank you. It's pretty, it's pretty amazing. Were you, were you, did you surprise yourself that you won it? Um, we, so 2011, I came fourth. So, uh, coming that close to the podium, it was kind was kind of um kind of clear that I had the

potential to podium it wasn't like we knew that I could win the aim was to like train to podium it was never kind of like said that we're going to the games to win it was like we're going to the games to podium and it was a two it was two years in the making because I got injured in 2012 so that's why I made the decision in 2012 if I was fit enough to compete in 2013 I would do it properly and obviously at the time there wasn't as much money in sponsorship and stuff like that so I started saving worked extra shifts for the fire service and we'd already opened up our affiliate in Manchester so started running some training camps and training seminars just to financially be in a situation that I worked my last night shift the night before the Open started.

So I got my first taste of being a professional athlete through the 2013 season. You're talking there and you say we. Who's the we? It was like a joint decision between my uh coaches and myself so it's never an individual that gets onto the podium it's not it's always everybody uh everybody around them and in 2011 you already had a coaching team with you yeah it wasn't um probably as high tech or as developed as what coaching teams are nowadays but uh i had i had a main coach that programmed

all my crossfit stuff and then i worked with a guy called james jousey who at the time uh programmed he was um at the time like a movement specialist so he would program me stuff to try and address any like imbalances or weaknesses and stuff so he worked very closely with my coach who was Carl Steadman at the time no way um and and then full circle yeah and full circle, I'm still with James Jousey, but he's actually my full-time coach now. He takes care of everything, not just the movement side of things. Oh, shit. I'm having flashbacks of when you came onto the scene now, Sam.

Yeah? Now, as soon as you mentioned Carl's name, now I remember you came on the scene and it was a it was a huge explosion with you you were you had were doing incredible shit but there was some what was your first year at the games 2010 it was there was like some sort of deadlift event or some event and then that and I remember talking to you afterwards because basically your back was you were a you right i think that might have even been at regionals in 2011 and it was that in bolton and it was the it was the deadlift uh high box jump workout and me and annie were going back and forth in the lead and ann Annie was obviously perfect technique deadlift.

And I had a traditional strongman deadlift, I like to think. Wow. I forgot all about that. That was crazy. Holy cow. I remember that. That was out in that field, right? And like the Italians were smoking cigarettes.

It was the Wild West back then, right? Yeah. Out yeah outdoor regionals and then it rained when we had amanda so we were all doing ring muscle ups in the rain yeah that was amazing and and i think i think i think miko is there that year that was a crazy year yeah i remember boy you really cleaned up your form since then huh i wonder if you'd be dead if you hadn't if you would have kept that up i don't think i'd still i don't know if i'd be dead but i don't think i'd still be uh competing at this level but when i started and i said i have a memory um of you both so my memory of you was from the 2011 regionals and it was after doing the amanda and uh you said if i continue doing muscle ups like that that i'm gonna uh my biceps are going to explode did you keep doing did your biceps explode they didn't explode and i definitely cleaned up my technique um bearing in mind i'd only been doing crossfit for two years

yeah and i was like i'd just come out at regionals and i'd won the amanda workout after not being able to even finish the uh workout the previous year at the games so i was all happy and then you're like keep doing muscle ups like that you're to tear your biceps. I was like, I just done really well at that workout. I don't remember where we were. We were somewhere, and we were in a bus together, and it was me and you and, you know, 15 other people. I want to say it was Vegas, but I have no idea why we would have been in Vegas. We had an open announcement in Vegas.

Okay. And that was probably the closest, and I didn't spend a lot of time with you but i just remember thinking holy shit sam briggs is the only one around here that's not an uptight fucking knucklehead just everyone was so uptight in the bus and it was like and you were having a blast and i was like god sam briggs is fun the rest of these people need to fucking take a page from her book and you and you and then as the years went on throughout the games i noticed that about you just relatively to everyone you know and and it's it's interesting

that um you were was your firehouse mostly men uh yeah i was the only female um in every station i was the only female on my recruits and then every posting that I had I was only ever the the only female there yeah that's interesting because I you know I've said this before and I don't mean it to sound sexist I just mean it to sound like an observation but at the CrossFit Games it seems like the women are more uptight and it seems like that there's less um banter or jovialness or it just seems more uptight and there are of course exceptions to that and that's definitely you and i've spoken about that just forever and i wonder if that's because you've had more time um hanging out with men or or what um and it's not always like that it's not i wouldn't say it's a perfect science like that, but you just seem to not let the

stress of the CrossFit games affect you as much as the other women, the women get really, really like, uh, intense, more intense. I think, uh, it's probably, uh, just the experience of being able to relax and perform under like stressful situations. So whether that's something that was always in me, which made me a good firefighter, or if it's something that was developed in me throughout my career as a firefighter, I don't know,

but I think it must carry over into the CrossFit world because as stressful as it is competing, it's still not life and death. It's not no one's going to be killed if I do something wrong. Nobody's going to burn if I don't get one more rep, whereas I've been in situations where it matters what you do and you have to like keep going so whether it's that experience that allows me to be more relaxed and allows me to be a bit more uh like full of banter and just enjoy myself or whether it's just something that's kind of innate in me. I don't know, but I definitely prefer being more relaxed and having a laugh in competition.

You talk about the Spirit of the Games Awards in the, I think it's even before the book starts. Since I'm listening to the audio book, I think i got the impression that it was in the introduction it's like yeah um was it really that special to get the spirit of the games awards was it better than winning the crossfit games i think they're different i have like i have certain things that kind of stand out in my mind through the crossFit career. Obviously, the first highlight is making it to the first games, doing the first workout under the stadium lights. That was when I fell in love with CrossFit, the sport. I was already in love with the CrossFit training methodology, but doing the first workout was when I fell in love with the sport

and was like, this is what I want to do. The next highlight is they're obviously winning the 2013 Games. Is it worth taking the time off from the fire service and doing that? And then another thing to stand out in my mind was actually that year in DFC. After all the changes in CrossFit, like coming out and being the first athlete to qualify for the CrossFit Games under the new structure. It was something that even I didn't think was possible I was going up against like Sarah and Jamie and it was like there's no way that I can go out and beat them so then to like top that year off of like qualifying and kind of the disappointment of not making the cut to finish

the games was there was kind of like a light at the end of that with getting the spirit of the disappointment of not making the cut to finish the games was there was kind of like a light at the end of that with getting the spirit of the games kind of um like everything that i'm doing all the hard work that i'm doing um to to still compete at the games and to be kind of the best role model that i can be to new competitors coming in, new people starting CrossFit. It was kind of like confirmation that I'm doing something right, that people have noticed me and kind of think that I'm doing something good, more than just my performance, but actually encompassing the spirit of the games.

Well, I have something. Thank you, Sebastian. Sebastian says he's the number one fan and has given us $10. That should cover my dog's dog food today. Thank you. I have something. Boy, I don't know how you're going to take this. The spirit of the games doesn't mean shit.

You know why? Because if it meant shit, they would have given you the award every single year. And I've been saying that since the first day you came around. I saw you take people's vests off as they crossed the finish line in the stadium in Carson while people were fucking acting like they were dying. And some people may have been dying. Annie Thor's daughter, Kara Sanders. There were people who were crossing that finish line who could not get their vest off. They were basically screaming in agony and you were there taking people's

vests off while other people were like running for cover like that, like for shade because they were being fired upon. Do you remember that? Yeah. That was the 2015. And 2015 Murph or 2015 Mess 2015 Mess and I personally

think it's great that they test the athletes like that that is not a dig at anyone man make it so hot I'd love to see them pass out I mean make it life or death for them fuck yeah that's why I want to see it but then and over the years I would just see you like if the spirit of the games was supposed like if the spirit of the games is supposed

to be the spirit of the games and someone who keeps it light and someone who remembers like hey this isn't life and death and hey this is fun and hey there are times when you have to put other people ahead of you i just have always said that and i said it this year going into the games we're going to find out um if the spirit of the games is a real award or not because if sam briggs is there and she doesn't win it then you know it's bullshit and by the way they made a new award this year and i don't know if you saw it but it's like it's you got the good one the one with the rings is the good one they gave scott pan and scott panchik's a great guy he deserves the rings one too but they fucked that all up they gave him like a noble twin towers looks like it's a it's a homage to the bombing of the twin towers but anyway um

then this year i find out and and i'm probably going to tell the story to to over glorify you but i find out that daniel brandon's going to be running one of the we asked daniel brandon about this and we asked dave castro about this when they were on the podcast and basically in a nutshell they were going to have her run by herself in one of these events, the 550 meter sprint. And as you know, that, that,

you know, that wouldn't have been ideal for her. She needed someone to run against and everyone knows she's fast. So why the fuck would anyone want to run against her? It's like, ah, Danielle's going to have to run by herself. Instead,

they asked for a volunteer. And the very person, first person I hear who puts their hand up is Sam Briggs. I just try to picture myself in that situation, and nobody wants to run alone. It's kind of like if somebody said to you, you've got to go and do Fran right now. You've got to do it by yourself, or you've got to do it with two or three people. You're always going to pick to do it with people.

You always find that extra push than to go on your own. Doing that sort of thing on your own is like miserable so I was like there's no way that I would want to sprint 550 yards by myself and so in that case it's like there's no way that somebody else should have to do that by themselves that's it's like it was an unfortunate situation for them all with Bethany and Carrie. Danielle shouldn't be punished. It's already, things were already against her, this Games, with having to be kept away from everybody else, having to have her own lane, mask up before the events, mask down. It's like she's already been like kind of like i don't know

there's already a disadvantage to everybody else um one of the most like fun parts especially for me about the games is you get to see other athletes that you've competed against you get to like say hi to people you get to make the memories backstage, not just the memories on the competition field. And so she's already, all her memories of being off field are going to be by herself, masked up. So I'm like, there's no way that if we're allowed to run with her that I wouldn't volunteer to do that. I like how you said masked up and then masked down.

Masked up is when you walk up and they're like, Danielle, put your mask back on, mask back down. But Sam, one of the themes of your book is that you're freaking competitive, that you want to win. And running, why would you offer up yourself when you know she's one of the fastest runners out there? It's only going to benefit her. Why not just be like, all right, tough call, Danielle. You shouldn't have trained with. Because if I'm going to win, I want it to be on fair terms. I don't want to win because somebody else has been at a disadvantage.

Or I don't want to win if somebody else is kind of like failing something. That's one thing that got asked of me in 2014 after I'd failed the handstand walk. And then one of my biggest competitors was obviously Catherine. And she was failing on the legless rope climbs and I went over to try and help her and try and like talk her through like a pacing strategy to get the rope climbs and everybody was like you're not in a qualifying position why are you helping Catherine get this workout when she could like knock you out of qualifying for the games it's like if i qualify for the games i want it to be because i've done everything i can to get to the games

not because somebody else failed a rope climb i'm like i want to be there because i deserve to be there everybody else has been on their a game and i've beaten them. Spirit of the game, Sam Briggs, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. What year didn't you go to the games? 2014? I didn't go 2012 and 2014. Fuck it. 2012. Give it to her.

2014. Give it to her. Fuck it. I'm serious. I mean, it's crazy. I don't want to. And you're very very complimentary of nicole carroll um when she read off your spirit of the games award at the

games and i don't want to i don't want to like i know she's integral in in in picking the spirit of the games award and i don't want it to be a dig at her i've bashed the spirit of the games award so many times and i i it's really not a dig at her and you talk about how I'll say something extremely nice about Nicole that's very honest right now too you talk about how articulate and succinct she is in her presentation and one of the greatest speakers if you've never had a chance and probably most of you haven't to hear Nicole Carroll speak in front of a large crowd especially the trainers at the trainer summit the CrossFit training team she is one of the most amazing speakers and probably has done more for fitness than most people alive i remember one time she was on this list like

100 most influential women in health and fitness and like she was like 79 i was like you fucking idiot she should be number like three of men and women together i I mean, she is remarkable, but I just, I just, I've watched you at the games for so many years and you are in a league of your own. And, um, I think you accidentally proved that just in the few stories you just told just now. Oh, thank you very much. Thank your mom or your dad or whoever. I'm just making the observation. You are who you are. So, so, so you're, how did, there's so many topics we have open. How did, so are you and Nicole married? So you and Nicole are married now?

Yeah. But she doesn't compete. So she, after 2019, she was going to try and make it back as an individual for 2020. Did all the training, but unfortunately the sanctionals that she was meant to compete in were later on in the season. So they were all canceled. So after... Please don't use that word. it makes my skin grow thank you go on just burned yeah thank you thank you thank you um so uh gyms were closed everything like that

and kind of that that was her um her financial uh like way of supporting herself was managing the gym so just had kind of like a decision to make and she had two major back surgeries that's why she didn't compete between 2015 and 2019 and so made the decision after pushing that hard that maybe try something else. And she did, during COVID, she did her real estate exams and became a licensed real estate agent and has been doing that for the last year. Holy shit. So I've taken her competitiveness into the realms of the home buying market. Has she sold a house yet? She has sold houses.

She's sold houses, helped people buy houses. They've done some property flips. When she gets her teeth stuck into something, she goes fully in. That's awesome. Is it fun watching? Are you stoked for her? I'm stoked when things go right. There are some very stressful situations, but for the most of it, she's she's killing it and um and actually after a year off doing any crossfit

training um during during our build-up for the games uh emma mcquaid and adrian mundwalder were staying with us and training she got the itch to start training again so she's actually doing CrossFit again. How old is she? She is 34. Oh, my goodness. She's a child. She is a baby. She's a child. I found CrossFit at 34.

Holy cow. She's a child. I think that's the story. I remember when the lockdowns first started. It was an opportunity. If there was something you wanted to do and you didn't think you had time to do it, now you have that time. You can reinvent yourself. Unfortunately, a lot of people got lazy during that time,

so it's nice to hear of someone who took that opportunity to move themselves. Oh, far from being lazy. As she was studying, she was also working for a landscaping company so that she was getting money coming in. She kind of looked and saw what jobs were still working through the lockdown. And it was like you either worked in a supermarket or you did landscaping.

So she's like, right, okay, I'm not going to have time to train. So if I'm doing physical manual labor, that's my training. And then on an evening, she was revising and studying for her exams. Wait a second. So you could someone, this sounds like some sort of like internet fantasy shit. You could pay money and Nicole Holcomb would come over and mow your lawn? Yeah. She'd be she'd be

wearing like her crossfit gear mowing your lawn holy shit crazy that's actually that that actually might be a business that actually might be a business you have like you pay a thousand bucks and, and, and, and Royce Dunn and Tia Claire Toomey come over and they're, they're both wearing booty shorts and they come over and they're mowing their Tia's mowing the lawn and Royce is in the back with the rate, getting the clippings. Oh my God. Thousand bucks. I think, I think we could hook it up. So feel free to just tell me, no, you're not going to answer this, but what happened to her back? What happened to her back that she needed back surgery?

So she had, the disc was fully protruding, so she had to have a disectomy, and they didn't get everything out the first time. So when she got back into training and kind of tried to rehab after the surgery um the pain came back and um basically it was shutting everything off to her left leg so um a disectomy yeah so they took basically they've taken everything out now. So there's no disc left or anything.

It's just bone on bone now. She will have to have it most likely fused in the future. But because she was still relatively young, they didn't want to fuse it straight away because obviously that in itself can cause a lot of problems. Oh, man. straight away because obviously that in itself can cause a lot of problems oh man i think i need a disectomy but i refuse to have anyone look at my back are you in any pain sam are you healthy i'm actually pretty good at the moment with some wood knock on wood i'm actually pretty pretty healthy at the moment so uh yeah came out of the games this year feeling feeling good so

when you look when you think back on your career which injury was the most difficult for you because i think you know sometimes it's totally different when you're in it than when people think yeah um so for me there it's more the elbow because it's never going to be the same. I still have problems with that from 2018. I still struggle with extension. And so the tricep on the right side is a lot smaller and weaker than the left side. And a lot of the times if the elbow is under fatigue, the shoulder is trying to compensate. so i get a lot of trouble with the the right shoulder now so that's an ongoing battle and it's kind of it's never going to be perfect and i knew that when he went in to do the surgery he's like it's never going to be the same but it will allow you to get back to lifting and get back to doing CrossFit.

What happened to the elbow in 2018? I had multiple fractures in the joint and ruptured the medial collateral ligament. Snatching? God, you're making me wince because as soon as I hear elbow, I think, you know, Brooke Wells. Yeah. So Brooke's actually having like a similar surgery to it's kind of a combined surgery of what I had and what Lauren Fisher's just had. So she's one up in us both. But how did you hurt your elbow? Was it just years of? Yeah, I started having problems with my elbow in 2013

so it was just kind of like a ticking time bomb I'd go through stages where it was fine I'd go through stages where I was struggling with it and um it just eventually went and I was talking to Brooke after the games and she was saying it was kind of similar situation. She's been having trouble with her elbow. I want to say 20, I think she had PRP in it in 2018. So she must have been struggling with it before 2018. So I think it was just kind of like a long time, long time coming. When you competed the games, like this year when you competed the games, are you feeling injured?

Are there parts? Are you dealing with injuries? Is everyone dealing with injuries? I would say most games that I've been to, I've been dealing with something. This year at the games was probably the healthiest

that I've been in in a long time are you the fittest you've ever been no uh and that's hopefully gonna change coming into 2022 now that's interesting so check that out so you're you weren't the fittest but you were the healthiest and is that because you dialed back your training because it was more important to be healthy than fit yeah so it's finding the balance especially as you get older um it's like trying to fine-tune your training to get that fitness and get that um level that you need to be at without being too too sore or too injured to to compete um i mean there's the body is a wonderful thing and um adrenaline gets you through a lot i mean mean, 2016, I competed and I had no labrum. So in between every event, I was getting treatment

and then I wouldn't be able to do things in warm-up. Three, two, one, it'd happen. I'd complete the event and then my arm would switch off and I'd be carrying my arm off the field and then and then we'd repeat it we'd have treatment we'd get it like going i'd like then get through and then that's why after the games in 2016 i had to like go and have shoulder surgery i had like my bicep tendon he said was just hanging on. And I like completely removed the labrum. You have stated that you're going to compete next year, right?

You're going to try one more? Yeah, I'm like going all in for one more year. We'll see what happens. And when you say you're going all in for one more year, could that be two more years? So after next year, the focus won't be on competing as an individual anymore the focus i'll still be in crossfit because i love crossfit but i want to do some other things uh i want to spend some time with nicole without like being stressed that i'm not getting my training done

um i would like to do a little bit more traveling. I've been doing a few different like charity events. The end of last year, I did the 100K challenge to raise money for cancer. So I want to try and do kind of a few more things like that. So I can still use my fitness, but trying to benefit more than just myself did you did you um get a chance to talk to scott panchick at all this year uh yeah i did and he he was pretty articulate and quite um not emotional in the traditional sense where like like you know like crying but but there was a lot of like emotion pouring off of him when we interviewed him and almost like he was high. You know, when you meet someone who's like,

just really, really happy, like just, you're like, wow, this person's really high right now. Um, and he said that he sort of achieved that mental state by acknowledging to himself and the world on his way while he was driving to the games this year, that it was his last year. to himself and the world on his way while he was driving to the games this year that it was his last year and somehow it was like this like mental dump right like he took a shit and he was free holy shit i can just let it all go now i don't care full throttle um that's why i asked do you think this really is your last year or you're just using that as a tool to tell yourself to sort of like set yourself free uh no like we made that decision um the after the games last year um obviously with it being online and stuff i definitely didn't feel

kind of that my like career was over i didn't want to end on an online season um so when I was talking to my coach and like talking about the future and kind of the plans of what we're doing I was like I didn't want to end like that so we were definitely gonna do this year and then with me being 39 I was like well kind of like, why not? Let's just go. We'll commit to two years and let's see if I can get back as a 40 year old. It would be like pretty epic, like to kind of like have one more season at the age of 40 and then be like, OK, now you 17 year olds can come in and like have your fun. I mean, you're old enough to where you could have had Mallory and Emma as children.

Both of them. Well, yeah, because they were both 17, so I would have had to have them at the same time. Oh, my goodness. There was an event at the Games this year that I picked you to win and you really let me down and you were doing and you were doing so good. You were doing so good. Yes. Yes. And the other people I was on the show with were kind of like, like they didn't pick you.

They didn't pick. I'm like, you guys are out of your fucking mind. And I think, tell me what happened in that event. Cause you were doing so well. And then it was like, all of a sudden you started doing like the chris spieler or the pat barber like where you start going like this when you're running you know what i'm talking about yeah no um so i made myself dizzy doing that um i've not been doing a lot of running in my training uh like conscious decision it was um trying to weigh up like lifting and the effects on my

knees and other joints of doing a lot of lifting and then the impact of running so trying to kind of uh like outweigh which which is which are we gonna to try and focus on? And then going into that event, I was in 27th. So I was talking to my coach before. It would have taken a lot of things to line up for me to make the cut, but there was still just a small chance that I could. And I was like, okay, so I wear my watch and like set a pace that I need to like run at. And he's like, no, you've got nothing to lose.

Just go and give it everything you've got. Awesome. I love it. Because of the learn assignments, I was like at the front where you ran out. So I had nobody to gauge any running at. I literally had to go and run as hard as I could. Whereas the rest of the guys were kind of together and could like then pace off each other and then pace off me. And then that felt fine for the first lap the the toes to bar were like easy and then going out for that that second um second run especially that fourth lap

i like wanted to stop and walk with every single ounce of energy. That would have been awesome. That would have been awesome. Nothing in my body wanted to keep on running. And I spoke to Tia afterwards, and she said she could see me. She said, I looked like I was trying to use my arms to try and run because my legs weren't working anymore. Yeah. It looked like you were using your head to me.

I had only seen like Spieler and Barber do that. At least, at least if I wasn't gonna like make the cut, I could actually say that I actually gave it everything on that workout to try to try. You took 21st yes oh my god that's crazy and and brooke wells the who took 20th right above you she did she she tapped out the the two events later i know she could have been her elbow on the chest of bars. Oh man.

Um, is that, did that, did that piss you off? Were you like, like not at anyone, but at yourself, like,

I really want to go to the end or were you kind of stoked? Okay. Time for a beer. Uh, no, like I was kind of at peace. Um, there was a few places where I felt okay I should have done a

little bit better than I did but I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed this year's games and on a lot of events like I gave everything um and I had some like pretty cool cool moments um obviously getting the last power clean on the first run uh clean workout and finishing under the time cap on that was a huge like big win for me um i still took fourth on that run to to bar one yep i um i actually managed to flip the pig it might not have been the best uh placing for me but i actually managed to keep the pig. It might not have been the best placing for me, but I actually managed to keep moving on that pig. So that was a big win for me. So there was definitely some really good moments in there. And I felt like I had a good run. It wasn't like 2019 when I didn't feel like I'd done anything.

I didn't feel like I'd had my games. I didn't feel like I was finished. It was very, very different feelings from the two years. That was the year where just like all sorts of people like Vellner and Fikowski and all those people, like everyone just was like, OK, you're done. like all sorts of people like velner and fikowski and all those people like everyone just was like okay you're done well i want to i actually wanted to ask you about that because you've obviously been around for 10 years experiencing the games and there's been a variety of different situations where there have been cuts not been cuts then cuts early on cuts later on it's it seemed to me and you know i of course want to get your perspective perspective that this, like they wanted to have cuts, but all the athletes still had a fair amount of opportunity and events before that happened.

Yeah, I felt like this year was a lot better. And I think that a lot of the athletes felt like they'd at least had a good run at things before, before any cuts. Brian Butch Carpenter says your mic is low. I don't know. I don't, I don't know what to say about your audio anymore. You sound great to me. Sam sounds great.

I like it. Except she, whenever she hits her hand on that, on the cable, sorry, than that. No, no,

no, whatever. Fuck it. Uh, yawn. Point out one thing that she said there, because I think it might've been, please.

Yes. But she was talking about the pig workout. And the athletes that we've spoken to about the pig workout before have had the opposite experience of Sam, where it was the muscle-ups that were the problem for them. And Sam's out in the world at muscle-ups. And people have been asking a question. But actually, I started struggling on the muscle ups and i think that's because i'm not as explosive as some athletes so i couldn't just kind of like pop it up and jerk it i was very much kind of like in this pressing position so by the time i was on the

last 12 ring muscle ups my triceps had gone so like i could i was fine doing the kip to get into the bottom of the dip i couldn't i was struggling to dip towards the end of the muscle ups and that's that's um like i think perfect for people to hear that because the question people have been asking was was the workout only a muscle-up workout and here we see that it well it really depends on the athlete and for some, that pig was heavy and was a problem. Oh, definitely. And the sled. The sled was heavy too. Someone says here, first athlete ever to answer the question, are you the fittest you've ever been? Question with a no. And that is really true. I've asked that question probably, I don't know, a thousand times and no one's ever said no. And, you know, probably half of them are lying.

So someone said refreshing. But on the other hand, she did say that she's the healthiest she's been. And it's kind of refreshing also to hear that that's the tradeoff, right? Like, hey, at least I'm not I'm not training sore. Also to hear that that's the trade-off, right? Like, hey, at least I'm not training sore. Do you like Ohio? Yeah. Like if you could live anywhere in the United States,

like why did you choose Ohio? Why didn't you guys choose? I know we kind of touched on this, but why not choose somewhere where there's an ocean? So, I mean, like. Like Florida. The Gulf. I lived in miami for uh six months um in 2015 um and is that crazy uh so i mean there's different parts of miami i wasn't like

raving it up on miami beach so it was like very very different um but i think one place that i always loved was uh costa mesa um so like san diego costa mesa like southern california yeah yeah um so that was always kind of in my mind uh like if i moved to america kind of like where I'd be but this suits us right now it's not to say that we'll live here forever um like at the moment uh Nicole's working with a great team here um I have I've found a great gym where I'm training so things like suit us for for the moment that's not to say that five ten years down the line we wouldn't want to move somewhere that's a little bit warmer maybe has uh the ocean something like that but right now it definitely definitely suits uh where we're at in our lives what's the most unbroken um

number of push-ups you've ever done um i don't know there was a challenge i remember like a few years back like when i say a few years back i remember it was i was training at my first gym so it's probably like 2011 um and it was a crossfit challenge and i think you had to like keep a tempo for the push-ups i have no idea I got, but I remember being sore as hell the next day from keeping the tempo that they set. Can you do like 50? I don't know. Like I said, from my elbow,

my tricep's not as strong as what it used to be. So maybe if I lean over to my left side, I might be able to get close to 50. When's the last time you've done 10 push ups look at it then we're gonna have you're just gonna have to dig oh um yeah no 10 push-ups is fine we did uh reverse jt uh last saturday so and when's the last time you did 20 push-ups so i did it in reverse jt i did 21 21. Oh, reverse. What, what? JT.

So we, Oh, right, right. Yeah. Instead of 21, 15, nine, we did nine,

15, 21. Okay. When's the last time you did 30 pushups? I wouldn't be able to tell you that. Okay. Just checking. I did 40.

I did, I did 40 the other day. Well done. I'm broken. Yeah. I was very, very proud of myself. You can,

you can see it on my Instagram. If you want to see like me do. Okay. I'll go and look after you. Just go over there and go over there. And what's funny is I'm shadow banned. So it's very, very difficult for me to get eyeballs. So I have like 90,000 followers. And if I post something, I get, you know, like maybe like 400 views, right? It's like, I'm really, really shadow banned. maybe like 400 views right it's like i'm really really shadow banned but when i posted this old 49 year old short armenian man posted himself doing 40 push-ups unbroken i got 55 000 views it's very weird yeah yeah i like i don't understand social media i'll like i'll post something that i genuinely think is interesting and that I think somebody will like, and I get my least amount of activity.

And then I'm in a rush. I'll take a photo, post a stupid caption, and it'll blow up. And I'm like, I don't know what I did. I know, right? Every time I think, people hate me. I should just do dumb shit. Sam?

Go ahead. I'm curious about your perspective on Kristen Holter's retirement and her career overall. Of any athlete that's competed with her over the years, you're about as close as an athlete and maybe a friend.

Yeah, and I've spoken to her about her choice to retire and stuff. I think it's always going to be hard for any athlete, but I think she just got to that moment in her life where she's had a serious boyfriend for a couple of years now so it's kind of like time to not be just thinking about how much time you have to commit to training and to be competing at the top level and kind of like enjoy enjoy being with him enjoy being with her family and um have a break from having to be 100 focused on training and competing fair to say that's like someone like kristin has been a part of your evolution in the sport like

you're always competing against her you're always trying to keep up with her stay ahead of her oh yeah definitely um and i got to know her quite well because we did uh two of the open announcements to together um and we've done a couple of the different uh like a reebok tour and one of the athlete gatherings and stuff. And obviously always being in the European regionals together. So I'll definitely miss seeing her on the competition scene. Although she has already said that this is her last year. So hopefully we'll still get to compete against her at the Rogue Invitational before she stops training full-time as a as an athlete oh yeah that was here there one more time yeah will you get invited to that sam do you

know i've been invited i've accepted i'm going um has everyone sent have has everyone who's supposed to be invited been invited sorry what's the deal with that, Brian? Do you know what the deal is? I don't know. I'm assuming that they've sent the first wave of invites out and then they'll see who accepts and go from there. And that's close for you. That's in Ohio, right? That's in Columbus? No, they've moved to Texas.

Oh, wow. Yeah, it's bigger and better this year. They're going like full on there's a strongman strongman show going on they're doing the record breakers there's a huge like capacity for um spectators what's the venue what city uh austin wow okay interesting um are you wearing a glucose monitor these days? I am, yes. Can you tell me about that? Just trying to do the little things that will hopefully make my nutrition to allow me to train just that little bit harder, that little bit longer, then that can only benefit me in this competitive season. So for you, it's more about timing when to eat than to watch how much sugar you're consuming,

because they've obviously become very popular these days because people are trying to lower their blood sugar levels, right? Yeah, but also about that because obviously different things will affect everybody slightly different. So it's taking note of what you're eating and the effect that has on your body so you know kind of the best things to eat before bed so your blood sugar is not going to rise and stuff through the night and keep you awake.

You know what's the best thing to take on before you're doing a high intense workout. You know what to take on before you're doing more of a steady state workout. So it's just getting a greater insight into the effects that what you're consuming has on your body and then ultimately your performance. You started CrossFit in 2009? Yeah.

And so it's 2021 with like 12 years. Yeah. And how has your diet changed? I guess specifically around your your competitive years yeah massively uh coming into crossfit i had no real idea about nutrition uh i kind of just ate like a bowl of cereal for breakfast a bowl of cereal for lunch and then my first kind of like proper meal would be on a on an evening um so getting into crossfit and obviously doing my uh level one uh i like got introduced to the zone diet so i did that for a while and then

got onto the paleo bandwagon did that for a while i've been vegan for probably 18 months and then slowly reintroduced meat back in. What year were you vegan? What year were you vegan? It was probably 2017 through 18. What a cool experiment. Did you enjoy the experiment? Yeah. And I like, I found that I responded really well to it I didn't like crave or miss anything and it wasn't until I was actually out in Australia staying with Cara Saunders that I actually wanted to eat something again she was like cooking like fresh barramundi and stuff like that it's like

I'm not gonna pass that up that looks amazing so i reintroduced kind of fish into my diet and then it was probably another few months before uh i reintroduced chicken and then one day i just really fancied a burger i was like i could murder a huge burger right now and then that's there you go beef was reintroduced. What's barramundi? That's a fish? Fish, yes. Barramundi. Barramundi.

Barramundi. Do you know that fish, Brian? Nope. I don't know it any better after listening to you say it. And whose idea was it for you to go vegan? Was it your idea um i was just like finding that uh i was finding it hard to uh like process some of the foods and digest so i was just getting a few problems so it was kind of okay let's let's try clean up the diet

and just kind of like trial a few things. And I just responded really well to it. And I think it was a really good learning curve. So even now, I'm like not frightened that I have to have meat with every meal. It's like I know that I can still perform well and still get the right nutrients and balance in there. That's a great takeaway. What you just said, you're not afraid if you don't have meat with a meal, it's weird because there are people who are like that. Like they feel like they have to have meat with every meal. What was your go-to food when you were vegan?

So there was a lot of like lentils, beans, quinoa, just try to like vary things as much as possible. I would like sometimes get the tofu, tried a few times with kind of like the meat substitutes. Some were definitely a lot better than others. But like I said, I didn't really miss the meat. So I wasn't craving it. So I didn't feel like I had to have like a fake chicken in my meal because I wasn't that bothered to have chicken.

And then and then now what and then now basically what you're saying, if I'm hearing this right, you're 39 years old and you just want to maximize every bit of recovery. And training time you can yeah just trying to um like i said like go all in on this last year so why not try and maximize everything that i kind of have like open to me have you yeah your disposal in the process of trying to do that, reached out to or taken a look at any of athletes who are trying to do similar things like in particular, Roger Federer or Tom Brady come to mind as they're like at the end of their careers trying to get as much out of it as possible? Or are you kind of just doing what seems right for you? I never really thought about it. I'm just kind of doing

me. I don't know if they'd respond to me. I could try. It'd be quite interesting to have a conversation with someone else like that. You should tell them that just like they're in the top five of their professional sports time, so are you.

Yeah. Why why thank you. You're going to make me blush. Tell them if you're going to reach out to Tom Brady and Federer, make sure you tell them Brian sent you. That'll probably... Just to get that extra, yeah, Brian friend. I think Roger Federer and I actually have the same birthday, so he should

respond. There we go. Okay, I'll mention that. Sam, tell me about the roger federer and i actually have the same birthday so he should he should respond there we go okay i'll mention that uh sam tell me about the spartan thing i didn't watch the event i've seen the preview all over the place where basically you competed to be the fittest woman on earth via the spartan spartan event what was that how do you get involved in something like that were you scared were you like hey i already compete in the fittest on earth like what are you talking about joe something like that were you scared were you like hey i already compete in the fittest on earth like what are you talking about joe um i think it was uh obviously 2019 um the cuts i didn't really feel like i'd had my games um we did a half iron man on the sunday to uh feel like i'd earned my uh

off season i had a week of downtime wait wait wait a second so sunday of the games when the athletes were competing you're like fuck you i got cut i'm gonna do a half iron man and she wasn't yeah there was a half iron man um it was like 20 minutes away from the venue so we like on the saturday we managed to uh get some uh find some bikes get a last last-minute entry, and, yeah, we went and did the Half Ironman on the Sunday. Wow. I think there's some coverage of it because didn't Heber come out there? It was Rory McCann. Oh, it was Rory? Okay.

How did you do? It was – I think I actually came third. I think I did. Wow. I did okay. I didn't win it for sure, but it was definitely fueled on a little bit of anger of being cut from the games.

I was hurting on the run. I blistered my feet. And so the whole, well, half of the run that my feet were blistered was definitely like, it was the run that my feet were blistered was definitely like, it was more anger that like kept me running. Who else did it? Did anyone, any of the other games athletes do it?

Yeah, Sarah did it. Emma McQuaid did it. And then there was another one. Carmen Bosman did like a team of it as well. She did the bike part and Sarah's coach did the swim and my coach did the run. Crazy, crazy. You guys are crazy.

Okay, sorry. So 2019, the Spartan thing. Yeah, and so I had a week of downtime and then got approached if I'd be interested in doing this Spartan, like I can't even remember what they called it, like the Spartan Games or something. They said it would be multiple events, four-day competition.

I was like, okay, like let's do it. This could be my games. This could be kind of like pushing pushing myself and feeling uh accomplished and finished which i didn't feel like the games in 2019 i'm like this could be this could be that for me and how'd it go uh it went well it was definitely it was definitely more engineered for uh endurance athletes and when i say endurance athletes everybody was like oh well you're gonna be good because you're the engine i'm like yeah i'm the engine in the crossfit terms not in the ultra marathon terms yeah like so so i i haven't watched

it yet maybe i should watch it but some of the people that they showed who were entering it um look like you could carry like four of them on your back and run five miles i mean there looked like some people who had no business being in a fittest competition so we had like a five hour max distance mountain bike there was i think a max distance swimming i think it was like three hours I want to say something crazy like that maybe an hour just my memory is going three hours but there was a six hour max distance mountain run and that was the most miserable I have ever been in my life that was bad and was there an event where you had to wrestle other women or push them out of like a circle? Yeah. So we got a wrestling event.

And I'm like, yes. I'm like looking at all these like ultra runners. I'm like, I can slam a few of you into this sandpit. I am ready. And then we had one like Olympic lifter called Faith Cook. My first draw was her. Oh, man. Seriously?

I was, like, looking at all these, like, skinny marathon runners. And then, like, I look at Faith. And, like, she could, like, pick me up with one hand and just, like, throw me out of that pit. And, like, that was my first draw. I'm, like, no, this isn't fair. Was it single elimination? So it was, like, brack like bracketed so i like uh obviously

lost that so then i was in the losers bracket and um so i actually got a few fights then well i'd say fights i'm like i got a few wrestles then wrestles then the last one was pretty much a fight there was another crossfit emma chapman and neither of us wanted to give up we we were like it was i think it was like four points win and i was like three points up and she came out like she must have seen red she came out hot and she took those three points back and then got the fourth. It was, like, incredible. Is there a video of that? There's a photo of her, like, punching me in the face. I don't know about a video.

I think I got her a good one as well. So she'll definitely tell us the story. I think we definitely gave as good as we got. And she was on Nicole's team in 2019 games, right? She was, yeah. She's a feisty one. Oh, so I know what happened. She was probably wanting to marry Nicole

and Sam got Nicole so she's like, oh, I'm going to fuck Sam up now and give her a straight arm to the face. No, no, no. she's got a husband she's a happily married too so that's all good that's all show husbands are just for show husbands are just for show um and then how did you place in that event i came forth and did it scratch that itch or just make things worse oh no we were definitely like, I had no more desire to do any sort of fitness. After that?

Yeah. I remember the next day, there was me and Connell. We'd driven back. So we were staying in a barn on like cots. We were like sleeping. It was like being on a school camp. So like at the CrossFit Games, when you can go back to your nice hotel and have some privacy and have a nice bath we had outdoor showers like porter showers and we were staying in like a dorm on cots it was like

survival of the fittest not just the fittest games so we'd driven back to vermont on the last night um and i went to go see uh danny haran's um gyms out there so i went to see her the next day and she was doing some training she was like oh if you want to go on a bike or do something something i'm like no i am not doing any fitness i'm like i'll sit and have a coffee with you i'll have some food i'll like chat i'm like i am not doing any exercise of any sort um someone just it's leslie smith says ask her about doing the spartan challenge will she do it again what do you mean ask that's what do you mean leslie that's what we're talking about is the spartan challenge aren't we? This thing is called the Spartan Challenge, right?

Yeah, it was different to Spartan Race. So part of the Spartan Games, you did the Spartan Races. And while I was doing the six-hour run, I was like, never, ever, ever, ever again. A couple of weeks after the Games, if they invited me back this year, I probably would go. Oh, so you've forgotten how bad it is and you'd go back? Yeah. It's like, oh, maybe it was fun. Maybe I enjoyed it.

Are they going to do it again? Did they do it again? I have no idea. Okay. I don't know. It was kind of, I want to say October, November. It would be November time because the games was October. So, yeah.

And Spartan races, that's Joe DeSana's event, right? Is that the guy's gentleman's name, the owner? Yeah, so we were staying at his ranch in his barn. Okay, that's cool. I think I met him in 2019 at the CrossFit Games. I think he had a meeting with Greg and I was in that meeting. And then I think I reached out to a friend to try to get him on this podcast. Did I tell you that, Brian?

I don't think so. And someone sent an email connecting us and it's one of those emails that like, you know, do you do this, Sam? You get an email and you put Mark is unread because it deserves your undivided attention later and then forget about it and then you forget about it yeah yeah text should have that too you can't once you read a text you can't mark it as unread right um i don't know i've not tried yeah but it's also a bad feature because like then you forget about it and i have like emails the same that I'm like, I'll go back to that. And then I forget. Oh my God, I really like this person. I'm going to mark this as unread. And tonight I'm going to give them 40 minutes of my undivided attention. And instead they think you hate them because you know.

Five months later, you're like, I'm really, really sorry. And they're like, yeah, that old excuse. you're like I'm really really sorry and they're like yeah that old excuse um Sam has so your performance as an athlete has basically been a viable source of income you haven't had to have a job in 10 years um 2013 was when I like stopped working for the fire service. I'm still part owner of, we have two affiliates in Manchester. But other than that. But those cost you money. I'm talking about things that make you money. Yeah.

So pretty much full-time athlete. Do a few kind of like training camps and stuff to supplement that. But other than that, it's just competing and being me. And when you say training camps, meaning people can train with you? Yeah, so I don't do the like train with which idea. I'll actually like coach them and like try and pass on like things that i found have helped me um to get to a competitive level right so the the train with rich you basically you work out next to him and then you get to drink a cup of his sweat and that's the end of the weekend with

you you actually talk to them and say yeah so i so I say some stuff like, hey, don't deadlift like that. You'll end up like me. I had a pretty good. Oh, wait, wait. Why is even though the technique. Yes, your weight was incredible. Incredible. Yes.

I agree. The weight was incredible. But yeah, no, i try and get so i would normally go in before coaching and then in the hour lunch break i would normally like train again so that the time that i was spending with the people i'd be like trying to actually like coach them and lead them through stuff could they stay and watch you train a lot of them did yeah because it's kind of cool for them that, especially the camps that I've done and stuff, I've been over in Europe,

so not everybody can get out to the games and watch. So if somebody's at the opportunity and they're on a camp to kind of like watch me do a workout and stuff, I would always as well offer for them to do the workout with me and uh i think in the whole time i've only had maybe like three or four actually accept and do and do the workout with me pussies um you you tried to get on a rugby team as i have this whole list of things i know we're never going to get through any of them, but there are through all of them, but there was a,

a rugby team. You tried to get on. I think you called it in secondary school. I don't know what that is, but it was an all boys rugby team. Yeah. It's like high school. And they said,

Sam, sorry, you can't this, you have to have a penis to be on this team. And you're like, well, that's bullshit. I just want to play.

There's penises. I have nothing to do with this game. This game's about. I went to boys brigade as a kid because like my mom tried to get me to go to brownies and my brother went to boys brigade. I'm like the brownies just sit around and play with dolls. I want to go like to boys brigade. And so I kicked up a fuss and I had to go to boys brigade with my brother.

Oh, and you went and you went, I did. That's awesome. Did you ever beat anyone up for your brother? Like someone picked on your brother and you beat and you went. Yeah, I did. That's awesome. Did you ever beat anyone up for your brother? Like someone picked on your brother and you beat him up? I think, not that I recall of.

I used to try and beat my brother up, which kind of worked for a while until he grew to six foot odd and I stopped at five, seven. Yeah, my sister did both. She would beat me up on occasion and then she would beat up the the person who tried to beat me up too and then so what i'm curious is is when you tried to um you said that when you were a fire you worked your way up to becoming a fire captain yeah that there were you were the only female in the ranks did you have any of that pushback there or was that just after rugby that was done it was like yo if you can do it you can you can do it i mean like not like not fully there was uh obviously the fire service especially when i joined was very much a male dominated uh workforce it has like improved and there's a lot more females in the in the job now um I'd never say that I kind of got discriminated against,

but there definitely was times, especially in some stations, where if it's an older station and the crew are a lot older, they may have never worked with a female. So I know when I went to my first posting, ever worked with a female. So I know when I went to my first posting, there was a lot of kind of skepticism. And I suppose it was more uncertainty of what it would be like to work with a woman. But I never went in trying to be trying to like, change everything. I wanted to be kind of one of the guys in the sense that I didn't want them. You wanted to be one of the firefighters, not, not the female firefighter or not the male

firefighter. You want to be one of the gang. So I always made sure that I was able to pull my own weight. I was, nobody ever had to kind of like babysit me or anything. I was capable of doing everything. And I went those extra miles to make sure that I could prove myself as a worthy firefighter so that if we were going into jobs, they weren't worried that they were going to have to look after me. They were happy that we had each other's backs. It was an even playing field i'm i'm guessing that there were teams you were on where not only was not only were you not the weak link but actually you were stronger faster and more capable than every single man on the team is that true i definitely worked hard uh especially like in my early career to prove that I was like fitter

and stronger than a lot of them. Yes. So humble. You always hear about men who like the stories, the cliche stories are always about men who like, or situations where like you're saying that you didn't necessarily experience where there was a prejudice and i think you couched it in a very humanistic way yeah it's not so much prejudice or not wanting women around it's just the uncertainty right they've never worked with a woman they're freaking out a little bit what i wonder also on the other hand were there guys that were like cheering you on like who were like rooting for you because you were a woman like fuck yeah let's see you know what i mean like like kind of like how I feel about like, kind of like how people feel about, um, uh, Josh bridges or Chris Spieler or like the smaller or Dan Bailey,

the cross smaller CrossFit athletes where you're kind of like, yeah, I hope this little guy or Corey, um, Corey Anderson, uh, Cody, Cody, Cody Anderson. Sorry, Cody. Shit. Um, was there, I know, I know, I know. Oh, it. Shit. Was there... Bailey. I know, I know, I know. Just showing off and it bit me in the ass. Dan Bailey just gets all the big bicep support. He's taken all my bicep love. Were there a lot of guys... Did you feel the opposite of that by any chance? That there were people cheering you on like, oh yeah, get some, Sam, get some.

I think it definitely came from the more younger generation of the firefighters because um they'd obviously um a lot of them may have had females on their recruits course or they may have done courses with other females but also as well they they'll have done sports in school and stuff with other females some of the older generation may have even gone to segregated male and female schools. They'll have never played on a football team or rugby team with another female. So definitely, like, things changed just in the timeline of things. So the younger generation of firefighters already had that female influence

kind of in their upbringing. So it wasn't so alien or so unusual for them. I would think nowadays, I don't know how it is in the UK, but you wouldn't give a shit whether someone's a man, woman, fucking dog, what they were, as long as they weren't a threat. Sorry's a man woman fucking dog what they were as long as they weren't a threat sorry a piece of ice in my mouth yeah as long as they weren't a threat to the

rest of the team because they were so fucking out of shape that they're a danger to everyone around them which unfortunately most of our oh careful seve many of our firefighters and police officers are these days they're basically a danger to themselves and everyone around them because they're so damn out of shape and i don't blame them for it i blame us all of society for it for lowering the goddamn bar so low no i definitely think like it um i mean just in the time in the 10 years that i was there there was a lot more kind of like females in the service and also that was kind of like looked at in the UK was the standard of fitness among firefighters and the kind of the last few years that I was working there actively they were bringing in a lot more physical training and they were bringing in in-job fitness tests every six months. So firefighters had to maintain a basic standard.

Even those firefighters that had gone into kind of the office roles had like fitness standards that they had to maintain because they were still going to be representing the brigade i i have a friend who's a fire captain here in california and he told me the number one injury amongst firefighters is a hurt back and i go oh why is that and he said it's from picking up obese people in like weird situations like they fall behind a toilet or fall behind like a closet and then he basically said that since he's worked there every firehouse has a machine that's like a motorized forklift fork motorized forklift for picking up obese people i mean this shit is

crazy like they didn't have like i mean you're 40 i'm 49 like i remember like if you saw someone who weighed 300 pounds as a kid it was like holy, holy shit, I've never seen anyone that big. And now it's just like a dime a dozen. But hopefully things will change. You mean like they'll get to 400 pounds? No, hopefully it'll start going the other way um i think like everything became the the norm that like everything became supersized everything became like convenience fast foods processed foods and it's now that it's becoming more aware to people and people are starting to get more educated that this isn't the right way

and it doesn't have to be this way that hopefully we'll see things changing. More people are getting into fitness and the more that we can promote CrossFit and the healthier lifestyle, then the more people we can hopefully help and hopefully save. I agree. I totally agree. I hope you're right. I'm not as optimistic as you, but I hope you're right. And I'm so glad that there are, you know, lifeboats and there are people like you who own affiliates and there are people who are spreading the good word. And, you know, you don't even have to do CrossFit. You can just stop putting poison in your mouth, right? I mean, if people just stopped that, they would be. would be thank you for your time sam is there anything you did that we didn't cover brian that you're dying to cover i have a whole bunch of notes for for the next time we have her on if she dares i have i have many many questions for her of course but there's just one if limited time i want to one in particular i want to ask do you did you notice how how European women are always dominating performances at the games? Yes. There were 11 of you. 10 of you finished 24th.

7 of you finished 13th or higher. 2 on the podium. 3 on the podium. And you're only getting 10 spots at the games. I know. Oh, Brian's favorite subject. Let's do it no definitely and i think that's always been uh kind of uh an issue that's um i don't know like how to how they could address

it or not but it goes right back to if you look at the back in regionals when we had like Annie, two-time champion, I was a champion, and then Catherine, two-time champion. If it was like the old traditional way of just like three people qualifying, it kind of like neglects a lot of high caliber athletes. I think back in the day when past champions didn't take a qualifying spot would be like a possible route or even if they did it on just the podium from the previous year so like tia uh annie and laura horroff wouldn't take a spot next year. They still have to go through the qualification process

and prove that they're still fit enough to compete, but they wouldn't take a spot. They'd go down, they'd take instead of the five from, say they were competing in the German throwdown and Laura Horroace was there they would take the top six and that's just a way of like possibly allowing a few more high caliber athletes like to compete at the at the games yeah it was you you know her well of course karen frayova but it was like a big bummer for me not to see her at the games this year when the oh

like she's yeah she's she's incredible like come for forever i don't know if she uh was uh had an injury or was like struggling with something but um i think the first day i'm not sure which event it was but she had like a bad place in on an event and like she climbed all the way back up to just narrowly like missing missing out it's like there's some phenomenal athletes that are not able to make it to the games yet and compete on that level because there's just so many like great athletes like fighting for those spots out of europe well that's cool yeah you know i see this from my perspective but i but I never really have had a chance to ask one of the women from Europe how they how they experience it being one of those in that spot. And if they still had the rule of past champions didn't take athletes to the games, then both me and Catherine would have been at the games in 2014.

So Sam has thought about this you can get sam's book on boy any platform you can listen to it uh the audio version or you can buy the hardback version you know go to amazon itunes audible wherever the name of the book is start your engine right sam yep start your engine and it's sam briggs that's s a m sam thank you sam this was great no problem it's been fun it was fun yeah wasn't pain in the ass no it's been good time flew as well i just looked and i was like man we've been on a while yeah that's good are you late for your next appointment uh i'm just late for eating that's my next appointment okay you want to say bye to the people watching thank you for watching guys 1986 people at one point or another tuned in

that's cool yeah i think that might be some sort of record for us yeah hopefully i didn't 1986 people at one point or another tuned in. That's cool. Yeah. I think that might be some sort of record for us. Yeah. Hopefully I didn't bore people too much. I mean, we we've obviously had fun.

I had a blast. It's never, it's never a guest fault. If, um, if the show is boring, that just means I'm not interrupting enough. Okay.

I got your jerk then. I got the jerk then. And we're...