The Running Life of Indie Rocker Ben Gibbard

Michael Roberts: From Outside Magazine, this is the Outside Podcast. 

Rockstars are not always who we think they are. In fact, they might rarely be what we expect. As evidence, I submit the fact that Alice Cooper is an avid golfer. And Metallica's James Hetfield is into beekeeping. Also, Rod Stewart really digs model trains.

And then there's Ben Gibbard, frontman for two bands, The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie, and one of the most successful and influential indie rock artists. 

Ben Gibbard: Doing a two hour show, as a forty-seven-year-old, would probably be a lot more taxing if I wasn't in ultra shape, you know, if I wasn't spending my free time running up and down mountains. 

Michael: Over the last decade, Ben has become a passionate and committed distance runner, training even when he's on tour, like he is now, to celebrate the shared twentieth anniversary of two groundbreaking albums, Death Cab's Transatlanticism and Postal Service's Give Up.

Just before Ben got on the road, Paddy O'Connell tracked him down at his home in Seattle, Washington to try to understand the connection between his twin loves of music and sport. 

Paddy: Are you excited? Are you nervous? Is it kinda like pre-race jitters? Do you feel like you're like the racehorse in the stall?

Ben: You know, there's a little bit of, you know, pre-tour jitters, but it's like going into a race that you've, you're, you're prepared for.

It’s kind of that great time at the end of rehearsals where you almost are like, ‘do we need these last couple days? Like, I think we kinda got it. You know, we could do it again, but I think we kinda got it.’ 

Paddy: You guys just wanna go get some pizza and coffee, or what?

Ben: Yeah, I'd rather just hang out and bullshit for the next, like, you know, couple hours if that's alright,

Paddy: That's gotta feel pretty good.

Ben: It does, yeah. And, you know, it's like, all these songs are kind of tattooed on my heart and soul. So, you know, it's gonna be fun to go out and share them with people.

Like, of course, anything can happen out there. But I think that one of the many things that ultra running has taught me is problem solving in real time. You might hit a bad patch but if you just keep moving, you'll get through it.

Paddy: Just keep moving. That's how you get through a long-distance run, and also, apparently, 26 shows in 35 days. For Ben, these two kinds of endurance challenges are quite literally intertwined.

Paddy: My assumption isn't that you, like, have a running vest, with goos and runner's lube at the ready for you, like, while you're melting faces. So do you think that running helps you prepare?

Ben: Well, yeah, it really does. I run on tour. I train on tour. I think it's really good to get your heart rate up earlier in the day before you go out on stage and have that adrenaline rush. Because I find the days, like, let's say it's, I'm taking a day off of working out or running and then I go on stage.

I'm basically going from like a very sedentary existence to like feeling like I got shot out of a cannon, you know. So I think it's very helpful to kind of get the heart rate up, kind of get the body moving in the day before you perform.

Paddy: As Ben explains it, for him running isn't just a form of exercise. It's a way to connect back to the playfulness of childhood.

Ben: I grew up in a town called Bremerton, which is across the water from Seattle. And we spent a lot of my childhood going out to the Olympics and hiking and camping. Exploring wild spaces and scrambling and climbing up cool shit. You know, as adults, most people who are interested in fitness, you know, they go to a gym and they lift some stuff and they get on an elliptical or a treadmill or a bike and they just kind of like read a magazine or watch the screen or watch their phone.

And they do that for however much, however much time there's, they think they have to do it and they stop. And I think that one thing that we've really gotten away from as adults is this kind of sense of play. Trail running is play for me.

Paddy: What's funny here is that Ben got into distance running almost by accident. A little over ten years ago, an "occasional jogger" at the time, Ben was leaving for an international tour, flying out of San Francisco. He was in the Bay Area a few days before his flight when he heard about a trail race happening north of the city called the Golden Gate 30k.

Ben: And I was like, ‘Oh, I kind of feel like a race could be good.’ I'm like, ‘I don't want to do a marathon. Half marathon seems like, you know, not worth the time.’

And I was like, ‘Oh, a 30K. That's between a half marathon and a marathon.’ And I signed up for this race. Then I like, I drove out to like where the start was. And it was like at Rodeo beach, in the Marin headlands, outside of San Francisco. And I was so confused. It's like, what was happening? I've got my like Brooks Adrenalines on and like a, you know, Camelback or whatever. 

And I asked some guy, like, where is this race going? And the guy looked at me like I was an idiot. He's like, ‘we're going up there.’ 

And I was like, ‘but that's steep.’ 

Paddy: But that's so far away. 

Ben: That's really far up there. And, you know, I kind of, I was like, while I'm here, I might as well do this. And I just fucking loved it. I just fell in love with it. And I was so sore. And I was so confused. And it was really fun. I was one of those people who didn't realize that people ran farther than a marathon.You know, I didn't know that was a thing. 

And, you know, I kind of, like, I think a lot of people, they kind of, you get the bug and you're like, Oh, I'm going to try 50K. It's like, Okay. I'm going to do a couple of those. I'm going to try 50 miles, see what that's like. Okay, 100K, 100 miles.

Paddy: According to his Ultra Sign Up account, Ben has run 49 races since his first confused racing experience in the Marin Headlands. Suffice to say, the guy loves ultra running. Which is why he has, at times, had a coach join him on tour.

So what was your like official title?

Nick Triolo: I think it was like trail running coordinator or something.

Paddy: This is Nick Triolo, a super duper ultra runner himself and the senior editor for Outside Run and Trail Runner Magazine. But back in 2013, he was Ben Gibbard's on-tour running guru.

Nick: We ran five to fifteen miles every morning and then I like dropped them off at soundcheck and I just like start hustling for them doing the VIP lists and Anything I could to like help out the production.

Paddy: Nick fell into this unique job in the most authentic way. Ben had come to Baja, Mexico, to play a concert. He wanted to get some running in but didn't know the local trails. So, he started asking locals if anyone has advice. Soon enough, he's put in touch with Nick, who was living in Baja at the time. They go running, and have a great time. But Nick figured this was just going to be a one-time deal.

Nick: A few months go by and he calls me and he's like, ‘Hey, my girlfriend and I are coming down there. We're about to start this big Postal Service reunion tour. And we want a little R&R before it starts.’ 

And I said, ‘yeah, I'd love to show you around if you, if you're coming down.’

We spend a beautiful like week together and we hang out every, like most days, lots of running, lots of hanging out in the sun, go to some beaches, take him to the farmer's market. 

On the drive back from the farmer's market, his girlfriend was basically like, ‘gosh, you and Nick get along so well. You guys are like, bromancing right now.’ 

Paddy: Were you like, oh my god, it's true, yes I am!

Nick: Yes, correct. Actually. Correct.

Paddy: I’ve been holding a candle, a special candle, in a special room in my heart for Ben for a long time.

Nick: Totally. Ben's like, why is your hand on my thigh? 

Um, and so, she was like, hey, you always complain about never having time to research trails, have partners or running on the, on the road while you're on tour. Why don't you just hire Nick? Like, you know, people hire yoga instructors and stuff. Nick can come on tour, he can help with the tour logistics, you know, anything backstage, and he can also, like, get the car and take you out to trails while you're on tour.

That sounds awesome. 

And I, she was, I thought 100% she was joking. But then, basically, a month later, I get an email from Ben with the, you know, the subject line sort of being like summer tour or something.

Paddy: Nick trained Ben for a 50k in Squamish, BC during that tour, and the two have been friends and running buddies ever since. And according to Nick, Ben's not just some famous dude going for long jogs. He's a talented athlete.

The idea of running a half marathon and then going to play Lollapalooza in the same day is mind shattering for me.

Nick: I don't think we ever did more than twenty before a show. But still like, you know, fifteen miles before playing in front of, you know, 30,000 people is a thing.

He's very like dynamic on stage. So he's not just like sitting on a chair after having run for four hours in the morning. it almost brings him more energy. It's not like draining his tank. It's actually filling his tank.

Paddy: Was he ever like. Oh, I feel like I blew it today. My IT band is really, like, really hurting. I'm not gonna be able to, like, melt the faces of all these people in Cincinnati.

Nick: Honestly, I've known him for 10 years, and like, I've never heard him say that once.

I've never even like felt that from him, which is a testament and just a celebration of this dude's, sort of like bottomless energy to deliver as a creative person, as an artist.

What I know about Ben and his process as a musician, and as a songwriter, is that he's a workhorse. He's got this, like, sort of blue collar approach to the work.

Like, he goes in the studio and he writes for eight hours a day, sort of thing. That also really grafts on really well to the sport of ultra running.

He knows that to deliver the right quality of performance, whether it's on stage or on the trail, he understands very deeply that that, that is not a magical thing. That is not something that you can, like, just cowboy into. To be able to, like, headline Lollapalooza, like, you do not cowboy into that. To, like, run a hundred mile race, you do not, you can't cowboy into that.

And he, he deeply understands that and respects that.

There's this level of inertia that Ben Gibbard holds in his body. This level of like, I'm a freight train, right now, and I've got plans, and I've got stuff to deliver in this small little life that I have.

Paddy: As Ben tells it, this Rocky Balboa-like level of commitment and perserverance runs in his family

Ben: More times than not, there's that thing that kicks in my sister calls it grim determination. Like we have this Gibbard grim determination where it's just like I'm going to get it done, even if it's like, even if I shouldn't.

And that has lent itself well to being an ultra runner where you're like, there's no reason to finish this or even keep going. But there's something in there that more times than not, you know, tells you like, you know, come on, let's keep going.

Paddy: But then, there are those moments when even a determined freight train runs out of steam. This summer, that happened to Ben in a very dramatic and painful way.

Ben: I'm like eight, nine miles into this and my quads just went on me. And it was this thing where it's like, this is really, this is really unusual. Something is not right,

Paddy: But it was more than just his legs giving out. According to Nick, who knows Ben's running best, something else was at play.

Nick: I've seen Ben have challenging moments. I've paced him at several races. And saw him in some pretty low moments. But, this was the new low for me and I think for him. I think it was a new low for him.

Paddy: That story after the break.

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This past July, Indie rocker Ben Gibbard did what all rock stars do, he entered a 100-mile ultra marathon. But not just any ultra. He ran the Cascade Crest 100, one of the hardest 100 mile races in the US.

Ben: I felt super fit, super confident going into Cascade.

Paddy: So confident in fact he even told longtime running buddy Nick Triolo, who'd signed on to crew the race for Ben, that he was ready to rock.

Nick: He told me before he started that this was like the most training he's ever done for a race. He felt very sharp. So he showed up physically like the best that I've seen him.

Paddy: Ben planned to run the entire race with his friend Ellie and they were aiming to finish in under 24 hours, which is super friggin fast for an event like the Cascade Crest. From the start, they were pushing hard.

Ben: Ellie and I were making really good time. I think we got to the halfway point around 12 hours, or a little after. And we were like, man, we're like, we're cooking with gas here. You know, we're making good time.

Paddy: But speed was only one indicator of how they were doing. As excited as they were about their pace, Ben wasn't actually feeling great.

Ben: Like 10 days before Cascade, I'd hung out with my sister. And the day after we hung out, she tests positive for COVID. Now I'm paranoid, so I'm anxious around that. 

And, we were doing the first, chunk of Cascade is like a four, forty five hundred foot climb over like six miles. And you go down this valley and you climb again. And you have to, there's a lot of The front half, the front half of that race is pretty tough. And, we're descending off of this first climb. And my quads just went on me.

Then the anxiety around like, what's going on with my body starts to kind of like, build. You know, it's hot. I'm having stomach problems, like not vomiting, but my stomach's just queasy.

When things start going poorly early, it can be incredibly difficult to dig yourself out of that hole.

Paddy: The Cascade Crest is a brutal course. There's more than 22,000 feet of climbing and sections so steep runners need to crawl on their hands and feet. There are also technical exposed ridge lines and extremely rocky terrain. And this summer, runners had to do all that twice.

Typically, Cascade is one giant circumnavigation of the Wenatchee and Snoqualmie-Mt Baker National Forests. But this year, due to a permitting snafu, it was an out and back, which may not seem like a big deal, but according to Nick it is.

Nick: There's a few select hundred-mile races that are out and backs and they're treacherous. Like treacherous on the mind.

And I saw that in his kind of energy at mile 30 we're getting text messages, updates when they had service, that things were kind of going off the rails.

He was like on the side of the trail, just sort of like, collapsed. And just sort of like, had nothing in the tank, nothing in the quads.

Ben: Things in my body went on me way earlier than they've ever gone on any race.

Not even just a hundred miles, like even like a 50k, like, I don't know what is going on here. And then the anxiety that I started to kind of feel around my ability to kind of finish or even get to the next aid station started to really overwhelm me.

And that's not something I've really dealt with before.

Paddy: The physical effort was of course a major struggle for Ben. But what was really new to him was the extreme emotional upheaval that he was experiencing.

Ben: From 50k on to the turnaround point I was just having some, some pretty, uh, pretty violent, um, kind of like, I wouldn't say panic attacks, but just like I was starting to have some very visceral feelings about, um, you know, a lot of things.

And, you know, I’d been dealing with some very kind of, uh, difficult things in my personal life. And, that's all bubbling up as well. And, you know, by the time we got to the turnaround point. 

All of that anxiety, all of those, like, little kind of moments of, like, little mini panic attacks and me having to pull off the trail and kind of trying to pull myself back together it had just exhausted me.

And the fact that it was an out and back this year, I think one of the difficulties for me was, like, I know exactly what I have to do again.

Like, I just went through that and, like, and there's nothing new now and I don’t want to do that.

Paddy: Yeah.

Ben: I don't want to do it again,

Paddy: I'm wondering if you feel comfortable telling me what was going on emotionally for you.

Ben: I prefer not to get into specifics. 

But I will say this. I've learned, in my experience in this, uh, sport that, if your body is not working, but your mind is strong, you can keep moving often times.

And if your mind is not strong, but your body is, you can keep moving. But if your body and your mind are not strong, it becomes incredibly difficult to continue putting one foot in front of the other. 

And that's the point I got to.

Paddy: In the running world, there's an idea of the two bodies of a runner: the physical body and the emotional body. And when Ben got into the midway aid station, Nick realized that Ben's emotions were sabotaging his physical body.

Nick: The physical self was prepared, but the emotional self was compromised heavily and therefore it tugged a lot on the physical demands of the 100 mile race. That's hard. And he made that very clear.

He was looking at me and being like, you can't run a hundred miles on sadness. And, like, you fucking can't.

It's at a certain point we all knew, we looked at each other and were like, this is, this is over.

Paddy: Anyone who has ever undertaken a grueling endurance challenge has experienced the powerful interplay between their emotional state and physical performance. If we're lucky, we emerge from these events with an enhanced understanding of ourselves. And if you happen to be an artist who's prone to exploring your feelings in Grammy-nominated song lyrics, you might be especially capable of explaining how what's in your head can either fuel or stifle your body.

Ben: We find motivations in sometimes strange places, right? The easiest ones are like running on joy. Just like, Oh my God, I'm so happy. I'm so happy to be out here. This is exactly where I want to be. 

You can run on anger. You can be like, fuck that shit. I'm out, I'm fucking, you know, my fucking job or like my relationship or this person did be wrong. I'm just going to just like, you can, you can rage run. Like I ran a whole, I ran an entire 100K on rage one time. You know, like it can be done.

And you, you know, there are these elements that you can kind of find in yourself that are very motivating.

I find that when life is going well, I'm much more open to suffering.

Paddy: Hmm.

Ben: And when life is not going particularly well for whatever series of reasons, I kind of slide into a bit of a self preservation mode and the idea of inflicting added kind of stress onto my body or to my mind is not something that I particularly find enjoyable.

I just had to learn the hard way that like, when you are dealing with things that are painful, I found it incredibly difficult to try to turn that into like a motivation to do something like this. It just, it just didn't work.

Paddy: It's like trying to start a fire with wet logs. You can try and try and try and it's just, it's not going to work.

Ben: And then to continue that analogy, which is a great one. You know, you're like, God damn it. Like, this is a log. I know that, like, if you light it, 99 out of 100 times, it goes up in flames. And it's not doing that, and that's frustrating me, but now my mentals are now even more screwed up, because I'm seeing this log that usually would be on fire, and it's not on fire, and I can't get it to light on fire, and then, then it's like, what did I do to the log?

You know? Did I do something to the log? What did I do? Now it's, I must have done something to this.

And, you know, and that's incredibly draining. That's emotionally very draining.

Paddy: If you're familiar with Ben's music, his reflections here are going to make you think about his song that explores the body-soul connection. It's one of the many fabulous tracks from Death Cab for Cutie's 2005 grammy-nominated album, Plans.

I just can't help but feel like you're out there running the lyrics to “Soul Meets Body.”

Ben: Yeah, I mean, you know, to kind of quote myself. You know, like, running in nature, running in the mountains and on the trails is like, is a real embodiment of this soul and body kind of meshing. 

There's the kind of joy of kind of frolicking in the woods or on a ridge line somewhere. And there's also just the connection to one's body and the feeling of being young, even though I'm a 47 year old man. You know, just like to be out there and kind of feel free. I think that running is the ultimate freedom. 

Paddy: According to Ben, even when things break down during a race like the Cascade Crest 100, that sense of freedom and connection to the trails and mountains is still there, though it may take a little hindsight to realize it.

Ben: It's one of those experiences that became a positive one after it was done. I didn't have those pangs of regret of like, oh man, if I, I really should have kept going, ah, damn it, I really should, if I just would have kept going like, hey, man 51 51 mile day still a good day, you know. 

Of course I'm disappointed in a DNF. Who wouldn't be, right?

But at the same time, this was like exactly the experience I needed to have.

I needed to feel all the feelings, almost like vomiting it out of myself. I needed to experience those lows. I needed to, like, experience the frustration of my body giving out on me in a way that I specifically told it not to.

There are certain things that we kind of spend our time doing that we enjoy them in the past tense because they're hard.

All this syncs with the ideas in Soul Meets Body.

Paddy: Especially in lyrics like these:

"In my head, there's a Greyhound station

Where I send my thoughts to far-off destinations

So they may have a chance of finding a place where

They're far more suited than here."

To me, the song acknowledges the hard parts of life and how we can move with them toward something hopeful, ultimately embracing everything, the good and the bad, and feeling fully connected. Which, when you think about it, is the essence of endurance running.

I have a theory about you and your music and your running. I think that you run and you write music because of curiosity. I believe that you are always asking a couple of questions. What is the meaning of all of these experiences and relationships that I have in my life, who am I, and what am I made of? And you write and you run to find the answers, am I right?

Ben: I mean, yeah. I mean, I mean if you're not entirely right, you're really in the ballpark, you know? I mean, that's a pretty 

Paddy: That makes me feel pretty good.

Ben: It's like, I feel like I think you know the not knowing is part of the, is the exciting part to me.

And I think for a lot of people, the not knowing is the scary part. And I've just kind of always been fascinated with not knowing, and just kind of, the ruminating on the not knowing is very interesting and inspiring to me.

But I think for me, the moments that I'm always chasing are those moments where everything in your life falls away. All of your concerns. All of your, you know, day to day life things, and you just become a being in space. Your only goal is to put one foot in front of the other. And it's just this incredibly blissful state that, you know, people use psychedelics to get there, they meditate to get there. And, you know, unfortunately for me, it takes running like at least 40 miles to get there.

We are built of unbelievably powerful and strong things. You are so much stronger than you ever would, could imagine you could be.

I have learned that lesson in my own life. I've certainly learned it as an ultrarunner. And it's like, just when you think you can't take another step, you can put, you can put another foot in front of the other foot.

I think often, we sell ourselves short. We don't recognize, you know, what multitudes we contain, and, and the kind of things that we can accomplish or that we can get through, you know. I mean human beings are fucking amazing and I think that it behooves us all to kind of, from time to time, take a moment to recognize that. And that, there are very few things, arguably nothing that we can't persevere through. And it's, it's a matter of just finding that strength within ourselves physically or emotionally.

Michael Roberts That was Ben Gibbard, speaking with producer Paddy O'Connell. Ben is on tour now with The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie. Find show dates at giveuptransatlanticismtour.com

Nick Triolo is a senior editor for Outside Run and Trail Runner Magazine. You can find his work at outsideonline.com/run

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