The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
237. Andrew Glaze: On The Mental Health Benefits of Running 100 Miles Weekly
20 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
About 12 years ago, I was a firefighter at the time. I was dealing with PTSD issues like that.
Chapter 2: What inspired Andrew Glaze to start ultra running?
So I kept trying to push myself harder and harder to deal with that because my initial thing was, oh, if you feel weird in your brain, just exercise.
You look at the incidence of suicide in police officers and firefighters and our first responders, it's significantly higher than it is the general population.
Chapter 3: How does PTSD influence Andrew's running journey?
I had to start doing a little bit more to get that to calm down, and that led to the ultra running.
Because of the amount of pain and soreness in your brain really telling you to stop, that you actually feel the most alive in those moments, and you know there's no PTSD creeping in.
You need to train your brain to be able to handle a lot of very tough situations, and what better way to do that than in an ultra marathon?
that much wear and tear on your body. I gotta get into what you're doing to biohack yourself.
So I found that in order to not get injured, it's best to
Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brekka, where we go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And this is definitely another one of those everything in between podcasts. I don't know if I would call it anti-aging, biohacking, or longevity, but long runs for sure.
But our guest today, Andy Glaze, is arguably the most inspiring, you know, ultra endurance athlete in the world.
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Chapter 4: What biohacking strategies does Andrew use for recovery?
He's inspired my team.
Chapter 5: What is Andrew's supplement routine for ultra endurance?
He's inspired my son, who is now also becoming an ultra endurance athlete. And I'm glad that you guys had a few minutes to meet. But Andy, welcome to the Ultimate Human Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me. This is amazing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Chapter 6: What challenges did Andrew face during the Moab 240 race?
It's a, it's a real pleasure. You know, I, I, I have to admit, you know, I wasn't someone that was following your journey and, and the staff came to me one day, you know, my podcast team and, you know, cause I'm always impressed by, ordinary people that do extraordinary things. And I'm even more impressed by people that do extraordinary things over a prolonged period of time.
Like I, you know, I remember that old show, the one hit wonders, you know, like everybody can make a hit once, you know, but one time and, and, What I remember was I'd heard David Goggins talk about this Moab race, you know, the Moab 240. Yes. So many times about how his feet fractured and he taped them together. And I was watching him on podcast. Gosh, it's so brutal.
I've run one marathon in my life. And they talked to me about your story, how you had, you know, tried to do this race, you know, twice and couldn't finish it. And you had finally completed it. And they started showing me some of the videos of your journey along the way and how authentic and just visceral and very, very transparent and real you were.
And I was like, dude, this guy is a special human being. We got to get him on the podcast. I appreciate it. But you weren't always that way. No. And you solved some kind of problem in your life and running became your outlet. Do you mind giving us a little background on that?
Yeah. I mean, so when I was in my twenties, I was super anxious, uh, really quite depressed and, um, yeah. And this, I wasn't doing anything, you know, I was very inactive. I was overweight, uh, smoking a lot of pot, drinking a lot of alcohol, all the kinds of things you do in your twenties. And, one of my friends said, Hey, you know, maybe you should try working out.
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Chapter 7: How does Andrew balance running with his firefighting career?
Uh, it might, it might, well, this is before the internet, this is before the internet, before podcasts, you know, before anything, you know, this was, uh, like 25 years ago. So, um, there wasn't a lot of information on how to solve like problems. You know, if you went to a doctor and said, Hey, I'm depressed or like, Oh, here's some Zoloft or here's some Wellbutrin or something like that.
And I, I wasn't really into doing that.
Chapter 8: What motivates Andrew to continue running marathons?
So, I started working out and I started feeling better and I wanted to learn more. So I went to a community college class to learn more because again, back then you had to actually go to like school to learn about exercise. Yeah. So I took an exercise science class and in that class I had to run a mile and a half. And that sort of started it all for me.
And I really just never had that anxiety and depression problem again. Once I started working out, once I started losing the weight, once I stopped, you know, using drugs as a crutch to, you know, mask the problems that I was having.
Yeah. And. But when did it morph into the ultra endurance? I mean, I think there's a lot of people watching this podcast that have run a half marathon, that have run a marathon. I mean, I've run a marathon. I've done sprint tries and half iron, but that was probably... Ultra endurance is a whole different game. Yeah, it is.
It's quite different. And I mean, I think that happened probably about 12 years ago. And I was a firefighter at the time and I was dealing with... you know, PTSD issues like that.
And, um, so I kept trying to like push myself harder and harder to try to, to deal with that because, you know, my initial thing was, oh, if you feel weird in your brain, just exercise, you know, that's what I taught myself. So, you know, when, when the PT, yeah, well, when the PTSD started, you know, that's a weird form of, uh, like brain activity.
And so I had to start doing a little bit more to get that to calm down and, that led to me doing all sorts of other things like triathlons and obstacle course racing and all that. And then that sort of led to the ultra running, which has now become like everything I do pretty much.
Yeah. And I really want to unpack that, but You know, I think we throw this term PTSD around so often. I just want to drill in on that for a minute because, you know, we know our veterans get PTSD and we know firefighters and police officers have high incidence of PTSD. And we all know that it must be related to traumatic events, you know, stress, being overworked. I mean...
Honestly, I don't know how some people wake up, that's why I have so much respect for law enforcement, and walk out their front door not knowing whether or not they're going to exchange their life for a perfect stranger.
Right.
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