Why Pro Athletes Struggle After Retirement – Shocking Insights I Justin Gatlin DSH #474

Where arena's talking about this, how tough the transition is from being a pro athlete to just a you know a normal dude.

No one tells you.

Yeah.

I hope these athletes out here tell the next generation what it is to retire, man, because especially if you are an athlete who has gone your whole career and your whole life doing one thing and then that one day is going to stop.

I read an article from Brett Carr when he said when he retired, it felt like a piece of him died.

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Ladies and gentlemen, the fastest American sprinter of all time, it is an honor, my friend, Justin Gallin, in the building.

Appreciate it, man.

Thank you for having me on the show, man.

Absolutely.

Are you still running or did you officially retire?

You know, I run my mouth a little more now than usual.

I officially retired in 2021.

But I'm actually still active training.

It's so hard, man.

It's so something I've done for 27 years of my life, woke up every day to do, and then all of a sudden one day it was just like, boom, it was gone.

Like, I didn't have to wake up to train no more.

I had to wake up to go to track, had to wake up and go to the gym unless I wanted to.

So it's been an experience, but I'm still at it because I'm working on a, on a specific project, actually.

Yeah, we'll dive into that project.

I actually saw Gilbert Arenas talking about this, how tough the transition is from being a pro athlete to just a, you know, a normal dude.

No one tells you.

Yeah.

I hope these athletes out here tell the next generation what it it is to retire, man.

Because especially if you are an athlete who has gone your whole career and your whole life doing one thing, and then that one day is going to stop.

I read an article from Brett Farr when he said when he retired, it felt like a piece of him died.

And I remember for years after I read that article, that's what stuck in stuck in me.

It was like, one day, this is not going to happen for me anymore.

And how am I going to react to it?

Yeah, because that's your identity.

You said for 27 years you were running, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

I mean, the lifespan of a professional sprinter, uh male sprinter is about eight eight years so it's two olympic cycles and i went for 20 years in the sport at elite level so they consider me a dinosaur i like to think of myself as like a velociraptor you know what i mean if i'm going to be a dinosaur but yeah i mean that cycle is very aggressive and it's like it's a toll on your body unless you know how to be able to kind of acclimate to it right so you're like the lebron james of track and field I am.

LeBron James, Tom Brady.

Yeah.

I like to think I'm one of those guys.

I love that.

So what do you think gave you that extra 12 years compared to the the average eight-year cycle?

The want, I think, for me was trying to make sure that my name and my legacy can live on through my kids with honor.

I wanted them to make them feel like, be proud to be a Gatlin, you know?

And also, I just felt like I just had unfinished business.

And every time I won, it was never the gold for me.

It was never like winning the shiny medal.

And now I'm like, oh, I'm done.

I did it, accomplished.

When I got to the Olympics in 2004 and I won my first Olympic gold, it was like, I looked at it.

I wrapped the ribbon around it.

I put it in the side pocket of my check bag.

And I was like, let's get back to work.

So ever since then, it was always the obsession of just getting better, stronger, faster, trying to conquer.

I love that.

Is there any races that still haunt you or have you come to peace with all of your races?

2015 was probably the best year of my life.

I ran the most 9-7s humanly possible by anybody.

I ran about five or six nine sevens.

I was crushing the world.

Usain was on the other side where he wasn't having the best season of his life.

And going into that world championships in Beijing,

it was just such an eerie feeling because people were walking up to me and whispering like, we want you to win.

We want you to win.

Now, mind you, Usain has been dominating for the last couple of years.

So me showing dominance, you know, like it was,

it was such a weird feeling because everybody wanted me to win but they weren't saying it out loud right you know what I mean so they'll come over to me like hope you win hope you win so when I got to the starting line that's all I could think about think about being the best and when the gun went off instead of like competing as a professional athlete would compete knowing your race strategy your plan your execution all those kind of things the gun went off and I just ran so I'm riding stride for stride with you saying in like the last five to ten meters I folded I started stumbling trying to get to the finish line first I thought I was gonna blow his doors off right and then that didn't happen and then when he came across the finish line he he outlinked me and I remember like it felt like it felt it felt surreal it's like it was like a dream I was like man I can't believe it was like the most one of the most embarrassing moments of my career because then he struck his pose ah and then he looked back at me and the look on his face was bro you supposed to win this

this was yours to win

but that was probably like the worst race that I can remember throughout my career.

What was your relationship with Bolt?

Were you on speaking terms or were you super bitter rivals with each other?

No, no, no.

We was on speaking terms.

I think what happens when you are

two of the top dogs, you create this kind of veil that you have to like, you can't get close to that person because if you start getting close to him, you like him, you start hanging out too much, it's going to be hard for you to want to beat that guy.

into submission.

Right.

You know, so I think there's been times where we've gone out, we have ordered bottle bottle service together he's been djing we've been the clubs together things like that and it's always been love it's always been respect you know a hug dap whatever like that so we never talked bad about each other and even on camera even on record he's never talked bad about me when he had the opportunity to do so right but i think it always was a gentleman's rivalry and when i won in 2017 i beat him at the world championships He was the first one to come over and congratulate me.

Wow.

So that showed a lot of honor and respect.

And was that his last race?

It was his last race, his last 100 meters, his last world championships.

And as an athlete, you want to kind of leave off with a fairy tale ending.

You want to ride into the sunset, you know, nice.

Kobe Bryant.

Exactly.

So, but for me, I'm that dog.

It's the same with him.

If he lined up and it was my last race, he wasn't going to let me win.

You know what I mean?

He probably would have paid homage to me as well.

Like, hey, man, you know, great career.

but I'm here to win.

Like, he's there to win.

I'm there to win.

So afterwards, I paid homage to him.

You know what what I mean?

I made sure that he knew that not only did he make me a better athlete and made me work harder, but he also made me a better human, become more patient, more hungry for things.

Yeah.

When he set that world record in the Hunter, what was your initial reaction?

Because most people were probably like, that will never be broken.

But did you feel like you had a shot?

I was at a bar.

I was at a bar in Atlanta.

I was looking up at the screen like I'm looking up now.

And I remember him coming across the finish line.

I was sitting with a couple of athletes and they were like, their mind was blown.

I was like, I was like, yo, that's crazy.

But the first thing that came to my mind is, I want to race that guy.

That competition was so deeply rooted in me.

I want to race that guy.

I want to get back into shape good enough to where I can race that guy.

And that's what I work towards.

I work towards going through the gauntlet, beating everyone that could get me to that level so I can stand shoulder to shoulder with him at a starting line of a world championship or the Olympics.

And I made that happen.

Right.

Racing in the Olympics versus any other race, is it a lot different because the crowd is bigger, the stakes are higher?

Do you feel different in that environment?

Absolutely.

You know,

it's like being in the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals.

It's still the same game, but it's so much more stake.

You know what I'm saying?

You have to be able to execute the best race you've ever had.

And you know that you're about to make history.

Either you're going to make history or you're going to be the closest one to witness history.

That's how it's going to come off looking.

Wow.

So with those stakes that high mentally, was it really tough that first Olympics in 04?

No, I thrive in it.

I didn't realize I did.

It's just a natural thing in me where I walked into the stadium.

Instead of being scared, I could feel the energy of the crowd.

It's almost like you can smell it.

I can inhale the energy.

It was like electricity.

It was like humming.

That's what it felt like.

And when I walked into that stadium,

all eyes are on you because between the mile, whatever popular event that is that year and the sprints, people want to see that.

People want to see who's the fastest man in the world.

So when people see those eight guys walking onto the track getting ready to run their their race people start standing up in their seats like oh i can see him there he is oh yeah because it only lasts for nine seconds our roll call lane one lane two lane three all the way down it lasts longer than what our race is

so you have to witness is almost witnessing a shoot a supernova or shooting star like you have to be able to not blink right because this is about to go really fast and it's about to be amazing yeah the buildup always that anticipation is insane because it's minutes you're on the track, like you're saying, before the race starts and the race is 10 seconds.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what it was in 2004.

They actually let us come out from the warmth area maybe 15 minutes early.

Wow.

They started playing like real authentic Greek music.

That's cool.

And the crowd was like clapping and like engaged while we were like warming up on the competition track.

And it felt like a heavyweight bout.

That's what it felt like.

The buildup for it was just epic.

That's super cool.

And as a human and as an athlete, it's easy to find yourself comparing yourself to others, right?

So when you're on that line, are you even thinking about the other racers, or are you just focused on yourself?

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You know, I would tell other athletes, just focus on yourself, focus on your technique.

But me being who I am,

I am the kind of person that I'm going to dissect everything.

Like how LeBron has court vision.

I have track vision in a way where I know all of my opponent's weaknesses and attributes.

I know where they're going to kind of, I know their race strategy and their pattern.

I know their habits.

So I can know how this race can unfold a hundred different ways.

Wow.

So usually if you watch my races, I'll walk down the whole hundred meters before it's time for us to get in the blocks, you know, and I'll let the race unfold in my mind.

I'll be like, this guy is going to start really well.

I got to make sure that I, you know, I take him out early.

This guy's going to finish really well.

So I can make sure I got to hold him off.

And some guys on the outside might be sleepers.

So who on the outside?

And then as I walk back to the starting line, to the starting line, I want all my opponents to see me.

So as they're trying to focus and dial in for their race, they see their lane, but they also see me.

Wow.

And then I get in the blocks last.

I didn't know there was this much strategy in spring.

You got to have, yeah, mental warfare is a thing.

It's a real thing in track and field in sports period.

It's a thing.

People don't want to acknowledge it and people just think, train, train, train, train.

You're ready.

Your body's ready.

Go out there and do it mindlessly.

Doesn't work that way.

I think that's why you crushed it because not a lot of athletes, like you're saying, focus on that mental side of the sport.

Absolutely.

I mean, I learned at an early age that mental is going to get it done.

And I had to in 2017.

I actually had to change my whole race strategy because of an injury.

Wow.

But I had to keep it secret that I wasn't trying to come out to be the best starter, what I was known for.

I had to be a top-end runner.

And I was a top-end runner in college, but I had to bring that back into effect.

But no one knew.

So in 2017,

as the race went on in that 100-meter finals,

at the 50-meter mark, halfway through, I was in fifth place.

Damn.

As soon as I kicked in that next gear, I was able to win that race.

So you were conserving a little bit.

I was conserving a lot.

Throughout the rounds, I was trying to make sure I didn't show that I had top-end speed because when you were dealing with smart individuals like Usain or his coach, they're going to combat that in real time.

They're going to be like, Well, watch him, watch him in that second half.

You got to make sure you're stepping in that second half.

That's what his coach is going to tell him.

But if he doesn't know, he's not aware, they're going to think that I'm going to stick to what my habits are, which is get out hard, get out fast, and try to hold on and maintain.

Yeah, relays are so fun to watch, man.

Did you like the relays more or the individual sprints?

Relays made me nervous, man.

We're known for those baton drives.

Relays made me nervous.

Not because I thought we were going to drop the baton.

It's the fact that, think about it.

I know we're using LeBron a lot in this podcast episode, but LeBron, Kobe, all these guys play with their team day in, day out.

Every season, they're with that team.

Now, imagine a relay team, Olympic relay team, comprises of the best sprinters of that country.

Our best sprinters are the, we all race each other year in, year out around the world.

So in actuality, we're competitors.

We're some of our closest competitors at that.

And now within a moment, we have to be able to be teammates to get this job done.

So whatever angst you have or whatever you feel that you have like bad blood with another teammate, you got to be able to put that to a side and say, all right, I got to pass the baton to you and you got to get this baton around the track and pass to the next guy.

And we got to win this race.

So it kind of confuses your mind and your emotions sometimes because now you just got to shut all all that off and say, all right, it's time for us to go to war together.

Right.

And you guys won a bunch of medals with the relays, right?

We have.

We have.

We dropped a couple batons in the past as well.

But 2019 was the most special one for me because I really opened up to my teammates at the point in time was Noah Lowes, Christian Coleman, and a couple of guys.

And

what happened was I just told them straight up.

I was like, look, man.

I've never won a gold medal in the relay in my whole career.

Not from high school, not from college, not as professional.

I said, I want to end my career with a gold medal.

Can we get this done together?

Just like that at a roundtable discussion.

They looked at me and said, we can get that done for you.

Wow.

And they got it done.

Yeah, I can totally understand that because you're literally competing with these guys.

You don't want to share your strategies.

It's kind of an awkward situation, right?

It is, man.

You feel like you're being exposed.

You feel like, hey, if I tell you or I show you my emotions, my feelings, you're going to use that against me at some point.

Absolutely.

I've seen you talk about the importance of a good coach, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, a good coach is somebody who is going to emotionally be there with you.

You know, like there's, there's normal coaches that can say, I can train you up and then your moment comes and then you go into that call room and you do your thing.

Or some coaches say, I train you up at home.

You fly overseas somewhere and I just stay at home and you just handle business.

But a good coach is going to be with you every step of the way.

Every step of the way.

Even if he can't physically be there, he's calling you to make sure you get your workouts in, calling you, make sure what you feel like.

And then my coach used to walk me to the call room.

He'd be the last person I see before I go in the call room.

And he'll tell me, it's time time to go to war.

Let's get this done.

So he would make us feel like right now matters the most than anything else in the world, and we got to get this job done.

Yeah.

And that being said, a good coach is probably expensive, right?

And track and field is similar to tennis, where only the top athletes make a good living.

Is that true?

Yeah, it's true.

It's true.

We have the one percenters in our sport who make a good living,

especially above average for just a normal person, period.

and i try to tell people like

track and field is a benefit you know because at a young age of 20 years old i was already seeing the eiffel tower seeing the great wall of china going to greece i was traveling around the world i was seeing everything you know and i was just barely able to drink you know what i mean yeah But as my career went on, I became so cultured because I was traveling the world every year.

I was seeing different things, meeting different people, and I was making good money.

Because you can make, as an elite 1% or athlete, you can make six figures off of just one race.

Wow.

Easy.

And then if you add that up, if I'm going to five, six, seven races, that's money in your pocket right now.

That's not, exactly.

And

that's not even money from your contract that you're going to get from Nike or Adidas.

Oh, wow.

So you're making good money.

So they don't take a percent of that, Nike and Adidas?

No, they don't take a percentage of that.

Oh, interesting.

You go out there,

you get your bonuses in your contract, you get paid even more money.

Now, if you do bad, you get reductions in your contracts as well.

Interesting.

Yeah, you got to make sure you make that Olympic team.

Some contracts are about time and some contracts about podium.

I changed my contract to podium because I know that I'm the kind of person that's going to win and get on top of that podium.

And then I was competing against a Safa Powell.

Asafa could go run somewhere in a small country on the other side of the world and drop one of the fastest times in the world.

And now I'm chasing that time so I won't get reduced and I can get a bonus.

So I changed my contract.

I love that.

Was money a big role?

Like, did it play a role in your mindset when you were sprinting?

Sometimes

what the money could bring.

Okay.

So I would always have like little,

I was always have like little things.

I'm a car guy.

Yeah.

So throughout my career, I've had four Range Rovers, two Maseratis, Porsche.

Balling out here.

I ate.

Yeah.

So those are my things.

So if I did really well at a championship or throughout a career, a season, I would say, this is my treat to myself.

Got it.

So I was able to obtain those things because of the large amount of money that I was bringing in.

That's cool.

A lot of pro athletes go broke after they retire.

Was that something you were thinking about?

No.

If I was going to go broke.

Like, did you have good people around you to like guide your financial decisions?

I did.

One person in particular, my mother.

Nice.

My mother, high school education, but she went into the banking world.

She worked her way up from the bottom to the top.

And she's helped sustain my financial life to a level to where it was amazing.

When I was four years away from the sport, when I was suspended, I had no income at all.

And I was living off my own earnings for four years.

Yeah.

Right.

And I remember mom tricked me.

She was like, I'm going to give you $20,000 and don't ask for no more money, you know, like that.

So at the end of my suspension, when I started making money again,

I was like, here, mom, here's that 20,000 back.

She's like, what are you talking about?

That was your money.

She lied to me.

She tricked me and said, that was her money to make me feel like I wasn't going to spend money.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So, so I was like, I realized she did, she was so influential on my financial gaining and stability that I don't think I would be who I am today without her.

And the first thing we did when I first got my contract is I put it into stocks.

So I'm talking about 2003.

We're talking about Starbucks, Best Buy, Nike,

like

big juggernaut companies.

You're chilling, man.

Exactly.

So that helped me become more comfortable on the back end because in track and field, there's no pension.

There's no retirement fund.

Whatever you leave the sport in, whatever's in your pocket, that's what you leave.

Right.

It's a very individual sport, right?

It is.

Other than the relays.

It is.

It's a very individualized sport.

You know,

it's hard because

you go out there and there's always going to be one winner.

And there's going to be seven losers, depending on what race you're running.

Right.

So you got to make sure that how can I figure out how to be that one winner compared to these groups of losers that's out out there?

And even through the losses, you'll still gain some kind of success because then now you know how to be able to react and approach the next race.

So then you have opportunity to become the winner next time.

Did you gravitate towards it because it was an individual sport?

Did you play team sports growing up?

I did.

I did football, basketball, basketball at a young age.

When I lived in New York, I fell in love with basketball.

And then once we moved to Pensacola, Florida, it was one thing that I wanted to do.

I still wanted to play basketball.

Fractured my ankle.

It left me kind kind of disenchanted.

I was like, man, you know what?

I wasn't about breaking ankles here.

So then I actually found track and field and fell in love with it.

I knew I was fast, but I didn't know there was an organized sport for so long.

And then I joined the team.

I saw there was hot girls wearing short shorts and I can eat pizza and hot dogs.

I was living a life.

I can get out of school early.

And then by the time I got to high school, I realized that I can take this to another level.

I can go to college and get a full scholarship for this.

I don't have to pay no college tuitions.

Then, after that, I was like two years in after winning everything that I could win.

I was like, oh, I can turn pro.

I can get paid for this just to do what I love to do.

Cool.

Let's do this.

So that's how life has been.

That's crazy, man.

That four-year ban, I was listening to you on another show.

You said it was one of the lowest points of your life.

You were an alcoholic, had a near-death experience.

I want to

talk to you about that moment because that could have made or break your career, right?

Absolutely.

And I think the

adult decision I made was one night I was in Pensacola.

We was partying on the beach.

I was in my Porsche and

I hit a rock.

Rock was probably like big as almost like a watermelon, right?

And I rolled over this rock.

And I remember the police came over to me and he kind of tapped on the window and said, hey, man, did you not see that rock right there?

I actually thought it was a plastic bag, you know, like a brown bag or something like that.

And I hit it.

And I was like, no, officer, I didn't.

I know when I rolled the window down, I probably reeked of alcohol, you know, because that's what you do.

You go to the beach to to party.

That's what you do in Pensacola.

And he's like, all right, we'll be safe.

He let me go.

I was like, cool.

So by the time I got on the bridge, it was like probably two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning.

And the bridge is a three-mile bridge.

So you're driving over the sound, water, and almost pitch blackness.

And I remember my eyes, my sight was so blurry.

And I just was like weaving from lane to lane, right?

And I'm just like, oh man, it's crazy.

And I told myself, man, if I get off this high, off this bridge onto the other side i'm never going to drink like this i'm never going to act like this again because i'm spiraling out of control i can tell because i could have went over that edge of that bridge and no one was no one's going to know i was missing they didn't know where to look for me at

and

once i got off the edge of this other side of the bridge i changed my life i got back on track i kind of just kicked the booze i stopped partying as much and i really focused in what was i wanted to do which is get back on top on top of that podium that's so inspiring because you became world champion after that yeah yeah it was it It was a hard climb, bro.

It was really hard.

Not only was I suspended from the sport, but also once I got back to sport, I was blackballed.

So I couldn't go to like Diamond League championships.

So I had to go to like little hole-in-the-wall meets, like in Finland somewhere or, you know, the Middle East somewhere.

And they didn't pay as much.

And they didn't pay as much.

You know, I'm paying more money to fly there than I am earning from winning a race.

Wow.

You have to pay for your own flights?

Yeah.

Damn.

Yeah.

I thought the meets covered it.

One percenters.

One percenters.

They're gonna they're gonna fly those individuals who are going to put butts in seats.

Right.

You know what I mean?

So those people are going to get those flights.

Those people are going to get their own rooms.

They're going to get catered to as they should.

But if you are trying to make it and you're at the bottom of the barrel, like everything is going to be a sacrifice to you until you make it.

Wow.

So that's why I tell athletes all the time, if you seize the moment, it can change your life.

That one moment can change your whole life.

You just got to keep going when that moment comes and keep being successful after that.

Yeah.

There's actually a lot of politics in sport.

You see it where the better athlete doesn't get time or whatever because of politics.

And it sucks to see that.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

I mean, and you also realize that sports are always going to favor who's going to help them sustain their sport and be successful.

You know?

So that's why you have people who are always going to get the nod.

How long did that black ball last and how did you get yourself back into those races?

Man, that black ball lasted,

to be honest, that black ball lasted the rest of my career in some situations.

So, yeah, I my agent always told me, He said, If you get back running fast, a lot of these people and a lot of these me promos can't deny you.

You're running fast.

People are going to want to see you, it's going to force them to pick you up and put you in those races.

And that's what happened.

So, by the time I got back in 2011,

blackballed,

really blackballed all all the way through probably about

2013 2014 yeah so every race you could all the big races all the diamond leagues you could sit at home i was watching so you were losing millions of dollars yeah yeah damn so you were you were in that dark time for even more than four years then it was absolutely i mean we're talking about probably eight years geez yeah so

but what happened was

I took my agent's advice.

So I started running some of the fastest times and they couldn't deny me.

And then a meat promoter came up, which was probably the one who I at least expected because he was all about just getting his money and having his success for his meat.

He came to me and said,

I'm going to take a chance on you.

I'm going to let you come and run.

And I ran the one and the two in the same meat, which is unorthodox for a professional athlete.

You usually pick a race and you stick to that race.

So I ran the one and the two.

And I ran the fastest 100 and 200

in history on the same day.

Damn.

Yeah.

That is insane.

Yeah.

You set meat records?

I did.

9-7, and then I came back with a 1971 or something like that within like an hour, less than an hour time period.

Did you like the one or the two more?

They're like kids, man.

I don't know if you have any, but I mean, like,

in your mind, in your heart, you may have a favorite, but you really can't choose a favorite, you know?

And you got to take your hat off.

When it comes to the 100, It's a more ballistic, more aggressive race.

And for the 200, it's more of a strategy style race.

like you don't got to get out the fastest the hardest but you got to make sure that once you get to a certain point of the 200 you have to be filing all cylinders and ready to go did you ever try the four

no

i know it was gonna hurt man it was gonna i did i did we usually like in our early part of our season we'll do like little small exhibition races yeah and i went to like uh tampa to race like at US USF, right?

Yeah.

And

there's these two guys who were tearing tearing up the NCAA, Air Couple A World.

They're like, they're from Ruckerts and it was already running 44 seconds.

Damn.

I never ran 44 seconds in the 400.

Yeah, that's nuts.

Right.

And I'm used to having like guys come up and just being starstruck and like, all right, like they may not go as hard because they think that I'm going to give them a challenge.

Yeah, yeah.

This generation now is totally different.

They don't, they, they respect you, but they see you with a target on their back.

They're like, I'm trying to beat you.

You know what I mean?

So when that gun went off, by the time I got to that backstretch on the 400, I was like, all right, cool.

I'm running a good pace.

And all of a sudden, Zoom, Zoom.

They both ran past me and just kept on moving and kept on running.

I was like, well, that's it.

So I read.

That was my only 400 I ever read.

I feel that.

And those are college kids running.

Those are college kids running.

Speaking of the younger generation, anyone you got your eye on that could potentially be the next Hussain Bolt or the next Gatlin?

Man, you know what?

You can't deny Noah Laos right now.

I mean, he went on to do an amazing job at World Championships.

This previous world championships, he won three gold medals.

He won the 100, he won the 200, 200, and he won the 4x1.

Wow.

Which is a rare feat in itself.

So then he just finished having a great indoor season and he's getting ready for indoor worlds.

So I'll be commentating also that race.

Nice.

And someone like him,

he embodies the next generation.

You know, he's heavy into anime.

He's heavy into thinking mind over matter.

If he has the opportunity, he's going to seize the opportunity.

He's thinking like that.

He had the tattoo of Icon on his ribs before he even really made it.

So he's really knowing who he is and having that confidence, and that's going to take him to the next level.

Yeah, it's going to take someone who has that same confidence who's going to come out and want to fight him to be able to really beat him.

Yeah.

And I like how Nightin, that young kid, I think he's like 20.

Ariana.

He's motivating him too.

Arion is such a young talent.

Arion came out with his open race one year, and he ran like 19-4,

which is like, well, that will put him like top three of all time

with an opening race.

Now, I like opening races are usually like, let me just get my legs, you know, going, see where I'm at, get all the jitters out.

He ran 19-4 in his open race.

And I'm going to tell you the difference in what makes Noah a special athlete.

The story goes, Arian ran that time, 19-4, 49, to be exact.

And then Noah's personal time at that point was 1950, not that far away, right?

Hundredth of a second.

As soon as as Noah found out what Arian ran, he found out later on that day at dinner.

He pushed away from the table and said, I'm going to work out.

That's what Noah did.

That's Kobe Bryan mentality, man.

Kobe Bryan mentality.

And then that tells you what the season held for him.

He went out there and just dominated the season from that point on.

Wow.

I love that.

I want to dive into the company you mentioned at the beginning.

Now you're helping NFL athletes train, right?

Yep, doing speed consulting right now.

Fast Unlimited is my brand and my company, working on making sure that they know that they have someone who understands how to become faster.

I know angles.

I know power output.

I know how to get the job done.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, running backs could definitely use that and wide receivers too, probably.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I'm working with a couple now.

I've worked with Najee Harris in the past.

We're a couple Cowboy players, Israel as well.

Number 24 for the Cowboys.

And working with Taysir Mack, who played for the 49ers for a little while, had an injury.

Now he's coming back.

Nice.

So a couple of guys that I'm working with, I went to the Combine last year just to check the guys out, see what they're running.

Also helped out Keaton Mitchell, who played for the Ravens.

He got injured this year, but he was turning up right.

When he was like turning up, he got injured.

And man, to see these guys like understand angles, understand how to run, and then also having confidence with it again, you know, it's foreign to them.

And now I'm able to speak their language and help them with that.

Yeah, that's cool.

I love the two sports because there's a lot of similarities.

A lot of NFL guys are super fast.

Like Tyree Kill, man, he can run.

Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely, man.

Definitely.

I mean,

he's built to run.

He's short, muscular.

Turnover is crazy.

You know what I mean?

Watching him, like

change angles and positions on the field and just, he

looks like you're watching natural geographics.

You're watching the cheetah in motion.

No, for real.

I played in a celebrity basketball game with him.

Bro, on the court, he's out.

You can't even catch him on the court.

Even on the court?

Yeah.

So it's like breakaway speed is crazy still.

Yeah, he could dribble.

He could play basketball.

Yeah.

Oh, wow, man.

Which is rare.

It's rare because most athletes, when they specialize in one sport, they're usually not that good at other stuff.

So what you're telling me right now is

I need a

second thinking about even challenging him then.

Yeah.

Okay.

I would.

Did you ever run the 40?

I have run the 40 before.

Okay.

I ran the 40 kind of throughout my whole

career in the way.

You know, like in high school, I ran the 40.

My high school coach, who was a football player,

he wanted me to run the 40.

I ran 4-2 in high school.

Damn, in high school.

Brawl.

Yeah.

That's nuts.

Yeah.

So I'll lay it out to you.

When you look at 100 meters, right?

And meters are longer than yards.

When you have an elite athlete, let's just take away blocks.

On an athlete like you saying, myself, any of those elite athletes, when they're coming through theoretically where the 40-yard would be through a race,

we're clipping off 9-3, 4-1,

you know, 3-7, 3-8.

So we're running times that's amazing compared to like football players who are running a standard 40 yards.

Wow.

You know, so if we, if I know I'm already doing that, I can be able to train myself to be more ballistic, more explosive, and I can be able to taper my workout to streamline to four or 40 yards instead of 100 meters.

That's so interesting.

I never thought of it that way.

But yeah, you're pretty much running a four-second 40 in your races.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

And still moving at top end speed to finish a race in nine seconds.

Yeah.

I want to talk about false starts, actually, and your opinion on those because I remember last Olympics, this guy was supposed to win.

He got a false start.

I forget his name, but he was supposed to win the race.

Probably Devin at the Olympic Trials, Devin Allen.

He plays for the Eagles now.

Yeah.

He got DQ'd and everyone was super pissed.

What was your whole opinion on that situation?

So to break the rules down, what it's supposed to be is that if your hands, your legs can have a twitch, right?

Because there's sensors on the blocks, the starting blocks.

And if the sensors kind of go off from you moving just a little bit, you know, that's considered a false start.

But I've seen athletes argue because you're able to kind of like voice your opinion and kind of like argue your point.

And

one athlete had her hand still on the ground and she said, my hands never moved.

So it shouldn't be called a false start.

She won that argument.

She got back in the race.

Someone like Devin, I felt like it was so bad because he just came off running one of the fastest times in the world in his race.

And to have that false start left a bad taste in the mouth of, like, I think all the spectators and people watching because we want to see Devin Allen go against, you know what I'm saying, Grant Holloway.

That would have been an epic matchup, you know, and we didn't get a chance to see that because

the rules of a false start,

they just rob the athlete of all their hard work they've done.

Yeah, it was 0.01, I believe.

Yeah, man.

It's just ridiculous.

Have you ever gotten any?

False start?

Yeah, I had a false start before.

And you get DQ'd off one false start, right?

It has grown it's evolved from my era from where i first came into sport everyone in the field gets one false start and then there's also a false start that's charged to the field meaning like if the if the gun malfunctions or something like that then that is charged to the field wow so what happened was that tv came into effect and tv was like no no no We can't have all these people have the opportunity to false start.

That's going to cut into our TV time.

Right?

So there's like, you need to change that, guys.

Change your sport needs to change that.

So now no one can false start.

Damn.

So you're talking about the people who have worked their whole career or for four years for this moment to happen and then their calf twitches.

Yeah.

And then now they're out the race.

That is nuts because your nerves are uncontrollable sometimes, you know?

Exactly.

I don't agree with that rule, man.

I think you should have one strike at least.

I think that should go back to where it should be at least one strike to the field and then everyone can get settled back into the blocks, and then we get going.

Because you're training for years, and imagine you don't even get to race because of a false start.

Exactly.

I mean,

that would really destroy some people mentally.

Oh, this was a question I had because you ran a lot of 9-7s.

Can you notice the difference when you run a 9-7 versus 10?

Like, do you know during the race?

Because it's such a small amount of time.

Once you are familiar with what a 9-7 feels like, it's a big difference between a 9-7 and running a 10-flat for sure.

Definitely.

now there's not that much difference between running a 10 flat and a 9 9 you know i mean there's some people who come across the line even myself and says okay that's sub 10 and they look at the clock and it's like 1005 or 1001 or something like that dang that's crazy but a 97

to run that fast feels like you're in the matrix you ever watch the movie the matrix yeah so when everything slows down That's the feeling you're having.

So when you're aware and you're conscious and you're running at those super speeds, like everything is slowed down.

You can like see the crowd, you can hear the crowd, but it's like a haze around you.

Wow.

You can see the opponents running next to you, but everything is moving super fast.

Like I said, you're going like 27, 28 miles per hour.

So nuts.

Right?

So to run that fast and everything slows down for you, it's a crazy feeling to have.

Absolutely.

Justin, it's been super fun, man.

Anything you want to close off with or promote?

Well, you know what?

I'm getting ready for, like I said, this project where we're doing.

I'm not only teaching and training athletes to run the 40 and get ready, you know what I'm saying, for their combine or for just to have speed for their, for their position,

but I'm going to get ready to run the 40 myself.

So at the age of 40, I'm going to run a 40.

So I know that I can get it done.

I've already tested myself.

I've used not only watch stop watches, but I've used like.

the high-end technology.

I've used McLloyd.

I'm using Catapult.

It's tracking my data system.

It's tracking how fast I'm moving through certain areas of the 40.

It's showing

my mouse per hour.

I'm hitting between 23 to 25 miles per hour.

You know what I mean?

So, and that's not even being finished and polished and getting ready for this project.

So I know that I can go out there and run something that's going to be crazy.

What time are you going for?

4-1, man.

Nice.

I want to hit a 4-1.

I know it's not going to stand in the record books of the NFL because I'm not an NFL player, but I think that it's going to shake up the world a little bit to show them that, you know, I can teach you something.

Oh, they'll take you serious if you pull that off at 40.

Hey, at 40 years old with the right angles, i'm competing against guys theoretically who are getting ready for a combine who are half my age damn you know what i mean so i want to be able to go out there and use that as competition and show the world like hey just because i'm 40 don't mean i don't know how to run a 40.

i want to get down there and get it done i love that i can't wait to see you pull it off man i appreciate it man and also check out that i'm having a book come out before the olympics um it's going to be talking more about my experience through my journey from emotional aspect also having my inner circle my parents be a part of it they've been to every championship with me they've been through all my ups and downs and they're they're going to have a piece in the book that's going to be segmented for parents because there's a lot of parents out there that says, my child is super talented.

I don't know what to do with them.

You know what I mean?

So look out for that as well.

It's coming as soon as it's come on the rise.

Beautiful.

We'll link it in the video.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Appreciate it, man.

Thank you.

Yup.

Thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you tomorrow.