The Survivorship Project
The Survivorship Project is a podcast dedicated to sharing inspiring stories of cancer survivors and thrivers who have defied the odds, expert insights from leading health professionals and holistic healers, and practical tools for thriving beyond a diagnosis. This show is a beacon of hope, resilience, and empowerment for anyone navigating the survivorship journey—whether in recovery, treatment, or supporting a loved one.
The Survivorship Project
Phil De Gruy: From Stage IV Colon Cancer to Ultramarathon Runner
What happens when conventional cancer treatment fails you twice? For Phil, the answer wasn't more medicine—it was running shoes. After being diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2015, undergoing surgery and chemotherapy, Phil faced a devastating recurrence when the cancer metastasized to his lungs a year later. Standing at a crossroads many of us fear, he made a choice that defied conventional wisdom: he declined further medical treatment.
The decision came with a bold commitment—Phil would transform his entire lifestyle, focusing on endurance training after reading research suggesting it could strengthen the immune system against terminal diseases. With half his left lung removed and doctors offering little hope, he promised himself he'd go "from stage 4 to 140.6"—the distance of a full Ironman triathlon. What followed was nothing short of remarkable. Phil completely reimagined his life, embracing a Mediterranean-style diet rich in vegetables, eliminating processed foods, and pushing his body through increasingly challenging endurance events.
Eight years later, Phil stands cancer-free, having completed two 50-mile ultramarathons, a 50K, a marathon, four half marathons, and four sprint triathlons. His journey through the darkness of cancer diagnosis led to the creation of the Running for Dreams Foundation, which supports children who have lost parents to cancer. Phil's story challenges our understanding of healing and reminds us that sometimes the most powerful medicine comes not from a prescription pad but from within—from our willingness to completely transform how we live. Whether you're facing your own health battle or supporting someone through theirs, this conversation offers a powerful reminder that even in our darkest moments, there's always a path forward if we're brave enough to forge it.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
• Phil's foundation Running For Dreams
• Phil Phest 5k
• Connect with Phil on Instagram or via email at phil@runningfordreams.com
• David Goggins - Can't Hurt Me
• James Clear - Atomic Habits
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If you want to be a guest on the show, email Carsten directly at ckpleiser@gmail.com
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In 2015, phil was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. After surgery and chemotherapy, the cancer returned and metastasized to his lungs a year later, leading to the removal of half of Phil's left lung. Phil opted out of further conventional treatment. He embraced massive lifestyle changes, including endurance training, to prevent the disease from coming back. Phil transformed into an endurance athlete and has, for the last eight years, completed two 50-mile ultramarathons, one 50k ultramarathon, one marathon, four half marathons and four sprint triathlons, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:After becoming a two-times cancer thriver, phil turned his passion for running into a purpose by starting the Running for Dreams Foundation to raise money for kids who have lost a parent to cancer. Today, his doctors tell Phil that he should share his knowledge with the world because it's clearly working and Phil has been cancer-free for nearly eight years. In this conversation, we explore the raw reality of survivorship, the mindset and the tools that carried Phil through, and the practical lifestyle changes that helped Phil heal. Without further ado, let's go, phil. It's amazing to talk to you again. Thank you so much for joining. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Before we start, can you run us through your journey from a healthy restaurant owner to the shocking cancer diagnosis and the treatment that followed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was pretty healthy. I worked out. I didn't work out near as much as I do now, but I was always kind of exercising. I grew up, I was an athlete. I wrestled through school and then I was in the army and I always kept in shape. I would go through bouts where I wasn't very active but, because of work, ate pretty well. We always had a balanced plate, but I had a lot of stress, the business and ultimately it wasn't really doing well. So I was struggling and even though it wasn't really doing well, I'm opening more restaurants, which is just crazy thinking back on it.
Speaker 2:But for probably about the better part of the first half of 2015, I was dealing with significant abdominal discomfort to pain, and there were mornings where I would just lay on the bathroom floor because I felt like I was just burning up and I really couldn't stand up. And then there were days where I was in and out of the bathroom all day long. It was just the symptoms weren't consistent. I was in and out of talking to my doctor, running tests, doing blood work, a couple of trips to the ER and they couldn't find anything. They just kept chalking it up to stress and in June it was Saturday morning I went to work and I was really just miserable. I was pale, I had fever, couldn't really stand up straight and finally I just told my wife I need to go to the ER. So we went to the ER probably midday and when I got there my blood pressure was approaching stroke level. It was like 195 over 100.
Speaker 2:I had WebMD open and I was ranting at the nurse trying to triage me that my appendix ruptured and she's like how long have you had this pain? And I said five months. And she rips my phone out of my hand. I got your appendix, your knucklehead, and they kept running tests. They did blood work. It wasn't cancer. We did x-rays, ultrasound. It wasn't a baby.
Speaker 2:And then they pulled me in. We were there probably about nine hours and we decided to do an ultrasound, I mean a CAT scan, and all day long the doctor had been. It's a teaching hospital, so there was always a resident in tow, if not two, in and out of the room. And this time she comes in by herself, closes the door and pulls up a chair and my wife and I just looked at each other. You know, you know it's bad.
Speaker 2:At that point my wife said this isn't good and she said that's when we had the talk. She said we found a mass, it's big and you're not going home without surgery. I had an eight centimeter tumor in my colon that had perforated the colon and was choking it off. So that's a pretty sizable tumor. It's about the size of an iPhone. So two days later I had surgery. They removed it. It was into my lymph nodes already. So that's what made it stage three. They removed 20% of my colon and as the longer you wear it, the wetter it gets, the heavier it gets, and that's chemo. You tire more and it's so stressful. And I think, looking back, I had a pretty good mindset. Outwardly I would post on Facebook or whatever. I'm at the gym on the treadmill making cancer my bitch. But really I was completely stressed out about it. It was miserable.
Speaker 1:Did you share with people and friends or did you keep it for yourself initially? Now you mean the diagnosis? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I was really open with it right out the gate. Actually, one of my sons was wrestling at the time and we had this huge off-season tournament that teams were coming in from around the country and we were hosting it. So we had to be, you know, as parents, very involved and I got out of it. That was kind of a big joke. Oh yeah, phil gets out of all the work, but I was really in the hospital so we were very open about it, never shied away from posting about the journey. Actually, I shy away about it now when I probably shouldn't and that's just out of, I don't know, humility.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I go through six months of chemo and then I thought we're just done. That was supposed to be preventative because they removed all the cancer. And six months later we're rolling and stage three colon cancer affected me. It's the third leading cause of death in men. I knew I had to make some changes. I owned burger restaurants so I didn't make really big changes. I was still eating a lot of red meat and again, still, we ate healthy. You know I might eat yeah, I might eat sauteed vegetables with that burger. We'd go out to dinner at somebody else's restaurant. I was eating salmon or fish or whatever, so I wasn't unhealthy.
Speaker 2:But then my original oncologist left and I was doing routine scans every 90 days and so I had routine scans in November. Everything was fine. And so I had routine scans in November. Everything was fine. And then I have a routine scan in February and I get a phone call. She says new oncologist. I'd only met her one time and she said it's back. We found a tumor in your lungs, it's spread, it's in a really bad spot, it's up against some blood vessels right close to the aorta. So we can't just go in with a needle biopsy. I'm going on vacation. We'll talk in nine days, the worst nine days of your life. Right, I'm like what? And I have no relationship with her.
Speaker 2:That completely threw me off, because the first time I felt sick, like we knew there was something wrong, this time I felt fine, like I had. No, we had no earthly idea that there was something going on. We started while she was on vacation. We actually started talking to other oncologists and getting other opinions, and the outlook for it now being in your lungs is really bad. Right, they're talking about cracking my chest and going in that way and that's just I'd probably be on disability now, eight years later, they were just we can't do this.
Speaker 2:And so then I had, just within a couple of hours literally, of getting that phone call, I got a phone call from a friend of mine who's a broker and he said hey, I've got somebody that wants to buy the last restaurant. So I tell my wife and she immediately says this is the sign. We made a decision. We didn't tell anybody that we make a deal. We're getting out of the business Now. We don't know what we're going to do. Right, getting out of the business Now. We don't know what we're going to do. Right, we don't know what my health outlook is going to be.
Speaker 2:But if it's stage four colon cancer, again third leading cause of death in men. 95% of those deaths come from metastasis. It's not good. I'm looking around. I'm at this point. This was I was 48, but I've got an eight-year-old. My dad died at 52. I was 12. And if I've only got four or five years to live, he's got the same fate as me. In addition to that, I have three other boys and now I have my first grandson too.
Speaker 2:So we had about six weeks and a couple of different failed procedures of trying to get to it and a lot of consultation from diagnosis to surgery, and in that time we closed the business, which was like going to my own funeral. Fortunately we had a great reputation. The business wasn't doing well financially but it still has a legacy, so people were coming in from hundreds of miles away to come get a bird or one last time to come see the family, because it was Phil's Grill and everything's spelled with a PH. So the family people were coming, literally driving from Memphis and Pensacola and Houston and so going through your own funeral too and then thinking maybe you actually will be going through your own funeral. So it was a pretty stressful time and during that time I did a lot of research and I knew that I wasn't going to do chemo again. It just it didn't do anything for me the first time. It was miserable. Your body only has so many rounds of chemo in it.
Speaker 2:So as I was interviewing other oncologists they were talking about immunotherapies and clinical trials and I didn't qualify for any of those. They didn't think I was going to survive. You got to have good numbers in those clinical trials and stuff. So stage four colon cancer is not a very good outlook, I would get the most out of the rest of my life. And I read an article that was done and I wish I would have kept this article now because I've talked about it all the time. I haven't been able to find that specific article, but it was done at UCLA in 81.
Speaker 2:And it was about basically what I pulled out of. It was endurance training builds the immune system against terminal diseases like cancer, and when you're a cancer patient you need hope and that was my hope. And I just said fuck it. With a PH, by the way I spell it with a PH. I said fuck it, I'm going to go from stage four to 140.6. I said fuck it, I'm going to go from stage four to 140.6. I'm going to go do a full Ironman and my now new oncologist she's treated me for eight years. She's never treated me with cancer she said, okay, but you're going to have to change a lot more than your exercise. You got to change your diet too.
Speaker 2:So we changed our diet, our lifestyle. I don't really call it a diet, it's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. It's a Mediterranean lifestyle Heavy vegetables and seafood and we could do much better with seafood, but heavy vegetables and very low you know, very low meat intake. I don't think we eat any processed foods Very little. I've never really had that much of a sweet tooth. I'd rather snack on pretzels than cookies or, you know, beef jerky. I actually do struggle to get protein, especially when I'm training, because I get a lot of carbs from vegetables or fruit and I need some more protein. So it was a lifestyle change. I'm fortunate enough I have friends and contacts that are dieticians and nutritionists and coaches and they would just feed me information and that's what I did.
Speaker 1:Imagine that, like you just had half of your left lung removed, you all of a sudden have this mindset shift to say I'm going to stop treatment, I'm going to start running. This is unbelievable, Like. I wonder, first of all, like what kind of mindset shift does it require for someone to go through this? And the second question is how did your friends and family react to you saying, hey, I'm not going through any more treatment?
Speaker 2:My wife was the one that said the chemo didn't help. Right there she was the most supportive. I know that a lot of people were questioning it, like they have conspiracy theories. They're not trying to kill you with chemo, they're not trying to keep you sick. I don't know. Man, it's designed to kill. It kills good cells with bad cells, like that's by design. I'm not saying that there's not some good to it, but I don't know. Man and doctors get paid for prescribing chemotherapy. So is it a conspiracy theory? I don't know.
Speaker 2:But people, you know, there were some people who were like phil, come on, you got to do the standard protocol, even my doctor, and we ran into my original oncologist. We were getting ice cream. She pulled my wife aside and she was like he has to do it and my wife's like he ain't doing it. That's just sorry. And had she still been there, I probably would have. I probably would have done whatever she said, just because I had a relationship with her and I had that trust. But this new doctor who is really sad because I talk bad about her and I really don't even know her. I should probably meet her again because I tell her I talk bad about her all the time. But this new doctor I had no relationship with and it's like the third time we're even having a conversation. It's just hey, you got cancer again. I'm going out of town, I'm going to Disney World and I'm like what the hell See?
Speaker 2:Most people were everybody's supportive, but I'm sure that there was a lot of people that were like, oh, holding their breath, gosh, should he be doing this? And maybe my wife was too, but she was absolutely supportive and I think what, probably what aggravated her the most, was like today I get up and I'll go run for two or three hours and she's like, oh, come on, you got stuff to do here. But very supportive as far as mindset, I don't you know. I feel like, and I told my doctor this two years ago almost.
Speaker 2:We met and she said that she thinks I'm cured. She goes, you got to start telling people what you did. She goes, I don't think you're in remission. I have done this. I have been an oncologist for almost 40 years and I don't say this lightly. I think you are cured, you need to tell people. And I said, well, honestly, I'm getting ready to start this foundation and I tell her all that and she's, you know, and at the time I was starting a podcast and everything I told her. I said man, I think I took the easy way out. The hard way would have been going through all the treatment, because to me that was so much harder. And she said no, a lifestyle change is incredibly difficult and I see that now. You know it is difficult to go through, to change what you do.
Speaker 1:I worked with a yoga teacher when I got diagnosed and she said to me initially she was doing yoga therapy especially for, like, cancer patients. And she goes. You got to get this patient mindset out of your mind. You got to think. You got to believe you're healthy, you got to believe you don't have any of this, Not like completely pushing it away, but actually doing the right things, doing these activities, doing these lifestyle changes and not thinking about, hey, I'm a patient, I'm a victim, I'm going to go down the rabbit hole, die or whatever. It's very important to have that and I think in your case it makes total sense. I wouldn't talk about this either.
Speaker 2:I would just say.
Speaker 2:I'm healthy now I'm really good. I'm going to stay this way and let's go. Let's go full speed. Yeah, I think cancer is such a head game. It is so. The weight W-E-I-G-H-T of cancer is the weight W-A-I-T.
Speaker 2:You wait for everything and waiting is stressful. You want the answer right now. You got to wait. They tell you hey, we found a tumor, you got to wait nine days and I'll come back and then we'll wait some more when we do some more testing and we'll wait for results and we wait for a plan and it's just a waiting game and so it is very stressful and it's stressful on everybody. To me, I think it's more difficult I don't know if more difficult, but I think it is extremely difficult on the support system. So, on your family, your loved ones, your colleague that work, because it's almost like a stigma, like, yeah, cancer, everybody gets cancer nowadays at some point. Right, everyone is at least exposed to it a family member, a close friend, whatever but there's a stigma to it. Oh no, you're a patient. And it's so stressful. I do think. I agree, there needs to be some therapies, like some mindset therapies and whatever exercise or yoga meditation. There has to be some mindset training that goes into it because it is such a head game.
Speaker 1:Totally, and the moment you stop chemotherapy you feel like a thousand times better. You feel like you're getting normal, you can run again, you can do more endurance stuff, you're not tired, you're not sitting on the couch, you're actually moving. It must be better for you too, just doing these things all of a sudden. How did you get started with the endurance training? I can't imagine having like half of the left lung removed and then I'm going to start eventually I'm going to do a triathlon.
Speaker 2:So I almost immediately regretted saying it that I was going to do an Ironman because of the swim Cause. Now I'm missing half a lung. How's this going to work? It took me probably about seven or eight months to really start feeling strong enough. I was going and walking on a treadmill or on a stair mast or whatever, getting back in shape. And then there was the rock and roll marathon and half marathon coming up. And there was the rock and roll marathon and half marathon coming up and friends of mine, double-dog, dared me to run the half marathon and I said, all right, and we started training and talking smack to each other as we went along and then the night before they tell me they're not coming. Oh yeah, we're actually not running. So I go out there and I run a half marathon and I actually did better than I thought I would do and I did it with shin splints. So you know, if there's another mindset thing, I just I'm just going to run through the shin splints, who cares? And I felt better and I just didn't stop. I ran, I found another race and I did another half marathon and there was a.
Speaker 2:You know in between that there was two or three sprint triathlon I did. It was an 800-yard open water swim in this big lake that is used for deep water survival training, like for offshore rigs. It's in Lafayette and I'm standing there looking at the lake before it starts and I am just sweating. I'm listening to people talk about how deep it is and how there's alligators and I'm like texting my wife, oh my gosh, and she's like I told you you have to do it. Yeah, she wasn't there and I did it. And probably about 25 yards into the swim somebody swam over me. I started panicking. Oh my God, I did most of that on a backstroke and a side stroke just getting across the lake.
Speaker 2:And then I was leaving and I called my wife. I tell her it's about two hours away and she's like all right, so you don't have to do another one. And I'm like, oh no, there's another one 30 minutes down the road. In four weeks I'm going to do that one too. And I signed up for that one. And then you know so it just kept finding the next thing and all of those training miles, whether that was running or cycling or swimming. It was a real penance. You know that they're punishing myself and feeling guilty that I was able to do these things and I didn't do any treatment the second time. And I'm going through those 90 day scans and they're all clear and I'm like man. Then I run a marathon and then the pandemic hits and all the races stop and I go. I do this four by four, by 48, the David Goggins, you know. Get into some really mindset training, real hard stuff.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like the four miles every four hours. For how many?
Speaker 2:hours, 48 hours, wow, 48 hours, yeah, and I do that and that actually that that was spiritual. At a point I'm in the middle of the night and I'm running and I ran the same four-mile loop through the neighborhood and I would pass the church and my mom had just passed away, and at one point it's the middle of the night and I'm running past the church and I'm praying, and then it, and I'm like bitching and moaning that I'm doing this right, I'm literally complaining about something I chose to do and then all of a sudden it just opens up on me, just starts pouring down rain and I just started laughing. I was like that was my mom, like throwing water on me, telling me just toughen up, just do it, you pick this. I'm sure you said tell me that with wrestling I'm cutting. You chose wrestling. I think I get it.
Speaker 2:I think my mom had a real hard, a real tough mindset and I guess that's just how she raised it. She put your head down and you go through it. My wife's a lot the same way, you know. She's like you don't complain, you just go do it. And when the pandemic started, it's really mindset training really kicked in, right, because I was worried about losing my job, I'm worried about cancer coming back, I'm worried about getting sick, just everything. Now you're like, oh God, and you know. So I'm like really digging into, like you know, navy SEAL stuff and David Goggins and Andy Frisella I do 75 hard a couple of times and just all those just hard things.
Speaker 2:And but again all of those things were leading up to, hey, there's something. People kept telling me there's a purpose. And then the races start again and I do a couple more. Half marath, ultra marathon is I never heard of it. Lo and behold, there's an ultra marathon in New Orleans.
Speaker 2:So you run through the city of New Orleans and I signed up for the 50 miler right out the gate and it was just this the whole time. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I know there's a reason that I'm healthy. I can feel it, there's something and people keep telling me that. Then I'm running that race. And the last I saw my family, because my wife had lined up like this crew of support through the whole day, unbeknownst to me. It was about mile 20 when I realized this is a setup If people were just popping up on the race, friends and family and with signs, and cheering me on and other runners are like, who are you? But I left them at probably like mile 44 or 45. And I'm just scuffling through the last five or six miles and they hit me like, hey, I think this is it. I think we should start a foundation based around my endurance journey that raises money for kids who have lost a parent to cancer.
Speaker 1:Because you lost your dad when you were 12.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my dad at 12, not the cancer, but I lost my dad at 12. My mom had to go back to work for the first time. All of a sudden I'm qualified for free lunch. I'm like. It's not that I ever grew up feeling poor, but I knew that there were things that I couldn't ask for. And we weren't poor, but I knew that there was things I couldn't ask for. I wanted them but I couldn't ask for them.
Speaker 2:And going through the mindset of when I had cancer, there was a lot of dark times where I thought I am dying, what is going to happen to? And I would go through the list and say, christina, what happened to Corey, what happened to Jackson, jude, and I could, almost I could write it, and I did. I was Jude and I could, almost I could write it, and I did. I kept a journal for a long time and what I thought was going to happen to each one or how they would come out of this, and that's not a good place to be when you're. I don't think I was planning my death, but I was planning what happened after my death and kind of writing like what I thought the script would be. And it wasn't fun. There was a time when I was going through treatment and it was. It wears on you. So this is like treatment three or four, and I'm getting more tired and more tired because the chemo is doing its thing. And I would go in on Friday morning the last day. I would go in, so I saw the boys in the morning, and then I'd be at the hospital for six hours or so and then I'd come home and I would go in, so I saw the boys in the morning and then I'd be at the hospital for six hours or so, and then I'd come home and I went to sleep and then so I didn't see them again. I slept for 28 hours and then the next afternoon I remember I'm just laying in bed and I could hear things going on in the house and the door opened and it's the boys who at the time were like 14 and 16. And one of them says is he breathing? And that's what they're thinking about and that has stuck with me the whole time.
Speaker 2:A few days after the race, I texted in a group text with the four boys and my daughter-in-law and I said hey, what do y'all think of this? And they all love the idea and we bounced around names and running for dreams is actually my daughter-in-law's suggestion, and so then I gathered some friends that have done some nonprofit work, started talking to them and, I guess, recruited them to be part of the board and got some seed money and I just started putting the whole plan together. It was just like putting together another business plan and then I ran another 50 miler and that was the launch of it. It was it was actually two years later from it was two years after the first, my first 50, and I'd run a 50 K in between there. So I ran my second 50 miler, launching running for dreams. You know, announcing it and I don't know. It's a.
Speaker 2:To date, I think it's six kids that we have supported in some way. You know, the first was she lost her mom. She was in the sixth grade, lost her mom to breast cancer and she's graduating high school and wanting to go to school to study oncology, and so we gave her a grant. It's a grant-based foundation. You give us the story and what your ask is and then we present a grant for that. So she got a grant for that. So she got a grant for college. Then we had another.
Speaker 2:It was actually a classmate and friend of my youngest. He lost his parents. Both parents were then 90 to 18, so 15 years old One. His dad unexpectedly threw a heart attack at his mom. Three months later she passed away of lung cancer. That was a big battle. They were preparing for that. They knew that all of a sudden dad dies in June. I can't imagine what this kid's going through. His dad had promised his grandmother that he would take her back home. She grew up in New York and he would take her back. She hadn't been there in decades, and so they were planning this trip to go and he wanted to fulfill that dream. So we sent he and his grandmother on a trip to New York. So we sent him and his grandmother on a trip to New York, and afterwards I got a thank you card that said that was the beginning of the healing process. So some pretty powerful things.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, and do you feel that running for dreams, starting this and getting these messages from kids that you've really helped do you think that had some influence on your own healing journey and, if yes, in what way?
Speaker 2:I think it all it just comes full circle for me. Just hey, you got to keep this lifestyle. You've got to keep driving, you got to keep grinding to be healthy. You got to keep doing these endurance events. This is what you do Like, this is your identity. Now, I think the difference with this identity and being, let's say, a business owner feels because I was a little bit, of, a little bit of local celebrity when I had the restaurants was that was more about me, more about other people, and that's certainly more fulfilling?
Speaker 1:Yeah, is that what you do currently, full time. You're running the foundation or do you do anything else?
Speaker 2:no, I work. I'm still in the restaurant industry. I'm I'm in distribution now, though just the other side of that now, actually, one of my sons really runs the foundation we're still at a very low, small. It's obviously part-time for everybody, but, um, we have our our big events called Phil Fest. Yeah, it's a 5K evening run on a Saturday, and we have a band and food and games, and so it's really kind of time and it's in our community and it's really playing off of the restaurants. We're named Phil's Grill and it's just kind of off of that and people love it.
Speaker 2:We come out and we have a lot of fun, and this is our third year doing it. It should be the biggest one yet and it's next week. I don't know if this will air before or afterwards, but it's been our biggest fundraiser. And then we've raised money other places. I attempted an Ironman in 2023, a DNF the Ironman Coeur d'Alene in Northern Idaho Can't really prepare for elevation like that in below sea level in New Orleans, but I tried and we raised money. That so some different events we raised money at. And then we have Phil Fest is the big one and people just donate.
Speaker 1:Anyone listening. We definitely share the link in the show notes. I'm not sure it's going to be coming out before the I think 4th of April next week isn't it yeah, april 5th, april 5th. But anyway, next year is another year. Yeah, it's going to be March 28th.
Speaker 2:We already have the date for 2026.
Speaker 1:So March 28th next year, if you're in the New Orleans area, or even if you're not in the area, you can just travel there. But yeah, I'm going to share the links and hopefully we can raise lots of money for the amazing charity. I'm also going to share the links to the charity and to the foundation in the show notes. So if you want to make a donation, help Phil, help the kids. The money doesn't go to cover costs like mortgage or anything. It goes really to help the kids right, and I think that's the hardest.
Speaker 2:It's hard for two reasons. One, because there's always the business side of cancer and death. Right, mortgage needs to be paid, tuitions need to be paid, medical bills are ridiculous. It's not for that, it's for the kids, and it's really for the kid to have some normalcy in their life and do something that maybe it's something they talked about doing, Maybe it's something with their parent that just passed away, or it's something that just want to go do and honor that parent or whatever. It's to have some normalcy and it's yeah, so it's for them.
Speaker 2:And I think people, everybody's always trying to raise money for somebody who's just passed away or has cancer or whatever. It makes total sense. So this is a little bit different. And then the other difficult part of it is somebody's had to die and finding those kids has been hard and you know families are so affected by this and people are like give it to somebody that's in need. It isn't necessarily about a family that's in need, it's about a kid, because that kid's got a need. And so getting people to understand that and I don't want to feel like the grim reaper, I'd much rather just be sitting on money that we can't give away because nobody's dying of cancer. I would much rather that we'll figure out how to celebrate that, but that's not the case. Somebody's dying and they're leaving behind a kid or kids.
Speaker 1:that we can help. It's a wonderful foundation and I hope it goes beyond the borders of America one day, worldwide hopefully, because I can still relate to this as a father of a six-year-old, and it is-.
Speaker 2:And you're battling cancer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and it's haunting me. Just like you, I have these dark moments where, literally, I prepare for death and I basically have these really dark moments. And do you have the stuck moments still today, even though you've been completely healthy for the last eight?
Speaker 2:years. No, no, even now I think let's just say, if it came back which I just don't think it's going to do I just I was like, man, I'm doing, I'm doing all the right things Not that it wouldn't, because you know, it happens to the most healthiest people but my mind is not thinking that it's coming back. It used to. I used to really stress about it, but now I don't. But yeah, I don't Now I just think I'm going to live forever.
Speaker 1:And, if it happens, you're just going to double down on running and double down on the things you're already doing.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you're not going to go back to chemotherapy or radiotherapy or surgery or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Now I feel like I'm yeah. I feel like, yeah, this is the reason I'm just going to keep doing this. I'm going to. Okay, I drew that card again. I'm just going to double down. There's a quote that is attributed to Winston Churchill and my buddy texted it to me the night before I started chemo. And it's when going through hell, keep going. And then he drops me off at 4.30 in the morning for my first 50 miler and I'm getting out of the car and he goes hey, when going through hell, keep going. And it's just so appropriate. I share that quote with everybody. I'm the cancer guy. Somebody gets diagnosed, they reach oh, you got to talk to Phil. Yeah, you got to talk to Phil. And I tell them that man, listen, this is going to be a mind game. It is so stressful. You got to be strong, you got to. You know, when going through hell, keep going. It gives you reason to want to quit, especially when you're going through treatment like chemo. It gives you reason.
Speaker 1:I'm like garbage. I don't want to do this. Just being in hospital I've seen so many colon cancer patients. They could really benefit from talking to you. I don't want to have everyone just call you. Is there a way for people to reach out to you? Not that you're going to be a coach or anything, but do you welcome people reaching out to you if they have any questions about your lifestyle or just want to talk to someone to give them hope or a bit of motivation or a bit of energy?
Speaker 2:When I was first diagnosed, a friend of mine told me you're going to get tired of talking about it, and I don't. I don't. I feel like I owe it. So obviously you can reach out to me on. You reach out to me on social media, right On Instagram. You can reach out to me through the website. You know, phil, at runningfordreamscom, and I'll just give you my number. Then. That's usually what I do. Let's get on the call. I don't want to be a coach for you. I don't want to profit off of this, but I do want to be part of your support group whatever that means, you know.
Speaker 2:And I do. I get called a lot. It's very emotional for me because that's when the guilt really wells up again. It's like here I am, why am I healthy? There's no rhyme or reason to it. There's no healthy people. Healthy people get diagnosed with cancer, unhealthy people get diagnosed with cancer. It doesn't discriminate. And then the same thing with the health bar. I do work really hard at being healthy, though, and I'm not saying that somebody that ultimately doesn't need it. They're not working hard, but I do work hard at it. You know, what drives me crazy is there's this guy. I don't know if I should call him out. He's finally out to listen to this, but it's a Chris cured cancer and he's three colon cancer. And oh, he'll help you as long as you sign up and pay him for it. Shoot me an email, fill it. Fill at runningfordreamscom. We'll connect, we'll talk.
Speaker 1:I don't want to profit off of this, but I do want to be part of your support group, Absolutely. I feel totally the same the moment I got diagnosed, like all of this stuff about scaling the business. I run a business myself, making money out of this. I have no interest at all. I just want to share the good stories with people, the healing stories that help people, the tools, the mindset, things they do, and you're going to give so many people so much energy and so much hope. There's always survivor's guilt. We talked about this earlier. Like I had during the year I was doing chemo, I had six people from my chemo friends. They all passed away and you get this message. You send them a WhatsApp message and all of a sudden, there's no double checkmark on it. It's heartbreaking because you know they just passed and you probably had the same. How do you deal with this? I think last time we talked about the story where you were running past the treatment center.
Speaker 2:I ran past it today. Yeah, and it's an upswell of emotion Like who's in there? It's a Saturday morning. Who's in there getting treatment? Right now it's on a river levee, so it's a bike and running path. Are they standing there or watching out that window saying, man, I'm going to do that one day? Or are they saying, man, I'm going to do that one day? Or are they saying, man, I wish I could do that again, or I can't ever do that again? And that's the worst feeling is that people that just give up. I want to run by with a big sign that says, hey, I was up there, because then they know, oh, there's a running by right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess, like the first tip you would have to anyone that's coming out of this treatment protocol and starting something good for themselves, is just start running, because or start walking or start hiking, drink more water, get more sleep all the healthy things, laugh more, get out in the sunlight more, like all those things, because the rest of it man works gonna be there, you know yeah it's you gotta do healthy things right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how much of this was your intuition? Like your, okay, this feels good. And how much did you learn from books, courses, peer groups, friends, whatever you mean, just like them, like lifestyle changes, changes Common sense, or just no, literally.
Speaker 2:So when I said I'd throw it out on Facebook, hey guys, this is what I'm doing, we got the word. It's stage four. I'm not doing treatment, I'm going on a healthy journey. I think what I posted, people immediately start oh my God. And this friend of mine he's a registered dietitian and nutritionist she was like what are you doing? And I said I'm going to do the Mediterranean diet, no worries. And she started feeding me with recipes and information. And then my wife is just she's, you know, starts grabbing books and reading and we start just no-transcript, that's all right, it's just hard. I still have times where I'm like, oh man, I'm just not, I'm just not doing. Well, that's just when it's hard and you just keep going.
Speaker 1:I would say, nothing's as tough as going through this journey of cancer. All of a sudden, things that you think are tough or that you thought were tough before, all of a sudden they become like piss easy, really exactly.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's like, and that's how this could be terrible so yeah, that's just kind of my wife has always said that to me what's the worst that could happen? No, exactly, and the worst hasn't happened. It isn't that bad exactly. And that's kind of how I look at it now and I try to tell my boys. One of my sons was like dad, everything's not navy seal training. Like I hear you, I get it. Really you got to do hard things. Because you do hard things, because life's going to get harder than you. Just, yeah, and cancer is hard, man, cancer can't hard yeah it's so stressful.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:I think because it's a waiting game, there's no real cure for it. No one has the answers. It can attack any part of the body.
Speaker 1:Anytime, anyone, at any age, exactly.
Speaker 2:I just met a guy the other night that at three years old he was diagnosed with brain cancer and he should have died and then at 10 years old he got hit in the head with a baseball. Again he said should have died. Now he's like 40. He's run like multiple Ironmans. He's training for another Ironman. I met him at a running group I was pitching to come get people to recruiting for Phil Fest.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm like dude, you're amazing and he's like and he's, I never thought of it that way. I'm like you need to tell everybody your story, because he had this amazing story. And America I know you're not here, but we're not a healthy we're not healthy people. We're fat, we eat like shit. Um, we go. It's a lot of stress, man, you got to do healthy things, you got to take charge of that and and I feel I can feel good about that I took charge of my health and have benefited from that. But I have a. There's a lot of guilt to it. Yeah, I don't think I cured cancer by any means, but no, I think I fight it off with what I do yeah, it's your mindset, it's your attitude to life.
Speaker 1:You have also started a podcast called making it count. Right when you come to our diagnosis like dealing with cancer stage four you basically have to make everyday count because you don't know how to do it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to.
Speaker 1:So every day is important.
Speaker 2:And I think I've done a good job of taking the hard things in my life my dad dying and it hasn't all been planned but I think that I've had things like that from a very early age my dad dying, teenage pregnancy, bankruptcy, cancer twice and coming out better and I think I have done a good job of that and I think that is a credit to, yeah, kind of my mindset. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Often it's a sign. It's actually. This is an awakening wake up call when you get this and it's an opportunity to change something in your life and often it's turning out to be better, it's becoming a better life, funny enough yeah, amazing phil. I love this conversation. These stories are out there, like in the first episode. I'm not sure if you heard this. Jennifer dickinson she had 14 years ago. She was diagnosed with like grade four glioblastoma brain cancer.
Speaker 1:She was like 12 months, 14 years later, she's thriving. Yeah, literally she is there yeah, I'm a thriver exactly yeah, and that's.
Speaker 2:I don't take that lightly. I am very fortunate, but I do work hard at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it doesn't come to you. You can't be. You can't be like a victim. You can't be having yeah, having doctors tell you what to do and then not being like a self-advocate and redoing these things Because, as you say, the lifestyle change is harder than anything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you have to have that support group, people that do specific things like you have to have an advocate, because when you're the patient, you have to have a scribe. You've got to have somebody that comes with you to those appointments and takes notes, because you're not paying attention, your head is reeling the whole time and the doctor's talking and it's oh, you're thinking about it, how do I get through this? And you got to have somebody there for that. You got to have somebody that's going to advocate for you and say what about this? And question those doctors because they're practicing an opinion. It just is what it is. They're practicing an opinion, so they don't have facts that this is going to work or that's going to work. They've got obviously they're smart people and they study and they've got, but they're practicing an opinion.
Speaker 2:You got to have people that are going to pick you up when you're down for a walk or go for a run or go grab some ice cream or a beer or whatever. You got to have that guy. And you got to have that guy that's going to sit and cry with you too, because sometimes that's you need a few minutes to do that too. You know to get it out. So you need that support group. I think it's very stressful in that support group and I think when the support group includes kids and they're your kids and they're watching you go through stuff like that, most of the time they don't talk about it. Most of the time my youngest was talking to me about it because he was eight, nine years old. So he was like, daddy, I'm going to take care of you. What hurts? Do you need me to massage your feet? Whatever the case may be, yeah, I think he looks okay. I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's a good day, you know, or day, dad, that looked good. Yeah, kids take it completely differently. One time, after chemo as well, I was lying on the couch and I was not feeling really well and my little six-year-old came in and he was like daddy, are you dying yet? Oh, it broke my heart, man. I was like wow, these kids are actually processing this as well, and so god broke my heart and then you go and afterwards he goes.
Speaker 1:I'm playing like normal, it just yeah yeah, they're hearing conversations, yeah, yeah yeah, that's hard I feel I'm so grateful for your time like for sharing this. I really hope a lot of people will listen to this, and especially colin cancer patients stage three, stage four. Hopefully they get some hope from this. And it's amazing, talking to you, so much energy. You're giving me so much positive vibes and hope it goes through to the other people that listen to this. Before we go, just a few like quick fire questions maybe, if it's okay for you, so morning run or evening run morning okay, cool favorite recovery snack post a heart race, that's hard pancakes, I think.
Speaker 1:surgery, chemo or ultramarathon what was tougher? Ooh, what was tougher. Chemo the best book you would recommend for anyone going through cancer.
Speaker 2:Atomic Habits- Because changing your habits and getting consistency in this lifestyle change that book. I would suggest that.
Speaker 1:And the last thing before we wrap up is there anything that you want to just share with the audience or with me, or anything you want to add to this conversation?
Speaker 2:It always. I never really prepare for these things, we just talk about it. I know that my story gives hope and I mean it when I say you can just email me and it's still at runningfordreamscom and I'll be part of your support group. I mean, from there I'll just, we'll just exchange phone numbers and it'll be a quick call. But honestly, I think people need it, they need hope, they need to know that you're not alone. I think a lot of times in the cancer journey it can feel like you're alone, but you're definitely not alone. It affects so many people and then and if you just look around your circle, there's a lot of people that want to help, and I think that's a hard part for the support group is that they don't know how to help, and I'll be part of that support group.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, wonderful. I think you're a fantastic man, fantastic human being and I'm just so happy I met you through this conversation and got to know you better and, yeah, I hope we keep in touch. And I want to hear how PhilFest went and I put the link in the show notes, of course and I hope your running training goes well and I hope every dream comes true for you and your family and you stay healthy for a long time, and I wish you all the best man You're a great inspiration for many.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, phil. All right man Thank you Take care?
Speaker 2:Bye-bye.
