Rewind: 2nd at the Unbound 100 Gravel Race 2014 with @vontz x @blakeotoday - from the Archives
Release Date: 05/30/2024
Friends, Sweat, & Tears: the Shocking AYF Finale LIVE from Pace Ranch in Tucson
Choose the Hard Way
The dramatic JK Normatec addiction intervention, detonating Mt. Lemmon records, the Dan Swenson World Tour 2026 bid, traveling with SciCon bike bags, and the applied high performance practices of aging parents going big in the desert. — Spencer Martin of WeDu / Peacock / Beyond the Peloton + Jonathan Kaplan of Riding With join Choose the Hard Way creator Andrew Vontz to debrief on their Abandon Your Family LIVE! training camp in Tucson, AZ at Pace Ranch. — Special thanks to Pam Alexander and Tucson cycling community legends Paul and MaryAnn Wiederhold. — JOIN US: — Andrew...
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Abandon Your Family 30,000 Roundtable - Spencer Martin, Andrew Vontz, Jonathan Kaplan, Paul Redmayne
Choose the Hard Way
Tears, chamois cream, glory. Carb slurry was downed by the gallon and tears were shed in garages and at dinner tables around the world as the community collectively gave everything to secure midpack glory at select gravel major and minor races in mid 2026. — This episode is a conversation about the Abandon Your Family 30,000 experience with Choose the Hard Way & One Real Voice founder Andrew Vontz, Spencer Martin of WeDu / Peacock / Beyond the Peloton, Jonathan Kaplan of the Riding With newsletter / pod & special guest Paul Redmayne in the UAE, a 4x outdoor Everester who drops the...
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Jens Voigt on East Germany, Parenting Six Kids, Crashing at 70 km/h and Life after 17 Tours de France
Choose the Hard Way
Jens Voigt raced the Tour de France 17 times, wore the yellow jersey, won stages in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia, and set the Hour Record on the track at age 43. He joins Choose the Hard Way creator Andrew Vontz how crashing at 70 km/h changes you in ways the world doesn’t see and the long arc of a life in sport. — This episode explores Jens’ childhood and upbringing in the former East Germany, his path through a state-run sports academy, and what it was like to build a career inside professional cycling without ever being the protected rider. — This is a conversation about...
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Patrick J. Murphy - 1st Iraq War Veteran Elected to Congress - Former Under Secretary of the Army
Choose the Hard Way
Patrick J Murphy, First Iraq War Veteran Elected to Congress and Former Under Secretary of the Army — Patrick J Murphy was the first Iraq War veteran elected to the United States Congress and later served as Under Secretary of the Army. He joins Choose the Hard Way creator Andrew Vontz for a wide-ranging conversation on service, leadership and responsibility. — This episode explores what it means to engage seriously with people who hold different points of view and why stepping outside an echo chamber is a necessary discipline, not a political stance. — This is a conversation about...
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The 10 Pack is Next - AYF500 Day 8 - Andrew Vontz, Jonathan Kaplan, Spencer Martin
Choose the Hard Way
On day 8 of the Abandon Your Family 500, Choose the Hard Way creator Andrew Vontz, Spencer Martin of Beyond the Peloton, and Jonathan Kaplan of Riding With share stories of deep fatigue, angry families, and the kind of indoor training glory you can earn but can’t buy. — They explore the strain this challenge has placed on their friendship, and why they can’t wait to do it again, slightly differently, in two weeks when they kick off the Abandon Your Family 30,000. — But first comes the second installment in the Choose the Hard Way Abandon Your Family Triple Crown, the 10...
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Frosted Flakes & Point Break - Chase Wark x WUKAR Fit x Andrew Vontz x Jonathan Kaplan - #AYF500 Day 6
Choose the Hard Way
pounds Frosted Flakes & puts in 4.5 hours on a single bottle of water in his in-laws’ 15-degree garage to pass the 760 km mark -- and Kip Taylor -- on the Abandon Your Family 500 leaderboard on day 6. — Art O’Connor, aka , strength coach to pro cycling’s biggest names including Chase, World Champion Keegan Swenson and many more, reveals why Patrick Swayze is the secret to high performance on the trainer. — Jonathan Kaplan of reveals the indoor / outdoor hybrid approach that is taking D.C. and the Abandon Your Family 500 community by storm. — Spence logs off to continue...
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#AYF500 Day 4 - Mad Watts: Carb Fury - Andrew Vontz x Jonathan Kaplan Reflect on the Event of the Year
Choose the Hard Way
Abandon Your Family 500 2025 Day 4 with Jonathan Kaplan and Andrew Vontz. Reflections on bad sleep, big carbs, and the skirmish between Front Range legends Andy Leach and Kip Taylor to top out first and complete #AYF500 in an FKT of under four days. — Day 4 sees the Kingpin, Big Spence, continue his secret training during the Boulder blackout. When will he switch his rides from “private” to “everyone” and deliver the big surprise sure to put him in the headlines? — Heads up. We have a full-length interview with Jens Voigt coming soon, and you will hear him in a way you never have...
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#AYF500 Day 3 - Boulder Storm - Andrew Vontz x Jonathan Kaplan - Abandon Your Family 500 2025
Choose the Hard Way
Abandon Your Family 500 2025 Day 3 brings big drama when 100 mile-per-hour winds mean the power grid goes offline in Boulder and Big Spence has to skip the daily recording to keep banking secret miles to upload later at an undisclosed location. Meanwhile, Andy Leach powers over the top and dominates the leaderboard while Meg Volz enters the chat and shows her family what commitment looks like. Jonathan Kaplan of Riding With logs another signature indoor / outdoor Norwegian method dual threshold workout day and continues his love letter to High Fidelity with hopes of getting Nick Hornby into...
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#AYF500 Update 2 - Kip’s Stealth Century Knock Out - Andrew Vontz, Spencer Martin, Jonathan Kaplan, & Special Guest Kip Taylor - Abandon Your Family 500 2025
Choose the Hard Way
A deep dive on the big action and family fallout from day one of the Abandon Your Family 500 in a groundbreaking conversation with Andrew Vontz / Choose the Hard Way, Spencer Martin / Beyond the Peloton, Jonathan Kaplan / Riding With, and the front range legend Kip Taylor (of Kip’s Corner fame) making his highly anticipated Choose the Hard way debut. Andrew, Jonathan, & Spencer press Kip on his 11th-hour upload of a 105-mile ride on day one. Get a look inside the high-stakes world of #AYF500 strategy from one of the masters of the game in this discussion of the obstacles challenge...
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#AYF500 Special Update 1 - w Spencer Martin, Jonathan Kaplan, & Andrew Vontz - Abandon Your Family 500 2025
Choose the Hard Way
Nothing says I love you like abandoning your family to get in shape for your endurance sport. The Abandon Your Family 500 is a challenge to ride 500 km on planet earth or on a virtual cycling platform over the course of 10 days brought to you by Choose the Hard Way / Andrew Vontz, Beyond the Peloton / Spencer Martin, and Riding With / Jonathan Kaplan. During the #AYF500, Andrew, Jonathan, & Spencer will be doing minisodes to share their experience participating in one of life’s most rewarding experiences: having fun doing something hard with your friends. Follow along here and at...
info_outlineDoing hard things with friends is fun and even when you lose, you win. In 2014 I took second at Unbound 100 and superstar creator and now BJJ black belt @blakeoftoday took third. This episode originally dropped in 2019.
I skipped the weddings of several close friends and trained 20+ hours many weeks for months to prepare for this event.
When we did the race and when we originally recorded this episode it kind bummed me out that I didn’t win the race in 2014 or in 2015 when I went back and got second again with a side of food poisoning that left me unable to hold down food for a week after the race.
Now I’m just grateful for the memories I have of training for and competing in this brutal event with Blake and for everything that happened along the way.
With Unbound coming up this weekend, I wanted to drop this episode again for anyone who is new to the show and anyone has an interest in Unbound.
This may be difficult to imagine, but 2014 was a time when there were zero tubeless gravel tires on the market and I ran 50 psi in tubed Clement MSOs and lived.
A lot has changed since then and a lot has changed since I created Choose the Hard Way.
When I started this project in 2017, I thought the point was to share lessons learned at the limits of human experience.
Over time I’ve realized people, including me, forget most of the specific details that they hear on podcasts--but they almost always remember how podcasts make them feel.
And at their best, the stories we hear on great podcasts motivate and inspire us to take action and be more present in other areas of our lives.
This episode is brought to you by The Better Lab. Sleep is the greatest performance enhancer on the planet and the science to improve sleep is straightforward. Putting it into action on your own can be challenging.
That’s why I co-founded The Better Lab to help guide active people like you to mindfully build conscious, science-backed practices to sleep better that stick.
We’re an early stage startup and right now the Better Lab app is free in the Apple App store. You can find the link in the show notes.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/better-lab/id6479452885
Check it out and as an early user, we want to hear your feedback to help us continually improve the product. Shoutout to Hard Way listeners Chris Scott, Jeffrey Nebolini, Shannon Jones and many others who have been using the app to get better sleep and sharing their feedback with us. Thank you! You can learn more at www.thebetterlab.io.