If you told Cody Kolodziejzyk (Call-o-jessick, you’re welcome), a year ago that he would be gearing up to compete in one of the world’s most grueling endurance races, he likely would have laughed it off.
Like many of us, Cody Ko found himself in a rut post-lockdown and was looking for something to bring him back to his better self. The answer, for this all-or-nothing creator, was to complete a 60 kilometer ultramarathon in August of last year, posting the experience to his main channel of almost six million subscribers.
Though Cody had stayed productively creative in many different avenues with his main channel, second channel, and his podcast empire TMG Studios, Ko decided to start yet another YouTube page, Cody Trains; dedicated to documenting his preparation for his most difficult challenge yet.
To clue in the uninitiated/sane, the Ironman involves a swim of almost 4 kilometers, a 180.260 km bicycle ride, and a full marathon (42.195 km) to finish.
On Cody Trains, he would keep his fans updated with posts on the meals he was eating, cycling drills, ocean swims, and running vlogs, that encapsulate the prep that goes into an undertaking as ambitious as this.
In spite of how mundane this type of content may sound to his core demographic of humor-loving, sarcastic fans, perhaps the most impressive thing Cody did over the past year is actually making triathlon training immensely interesting.
The channel took a tongue-and-cheek approach that showed Cody being fully self-aware about the absurdity of this pivot in videos. With taglines such as “energy is everything”, something he read on a hat he found in his attic, and “choochoo” (get it- cause “trains”), Cody was able to motivate hundreds of thousands fans, all while keeping them chugga-chugga-chuckling (sorry).
Though he kept things light on the page, he also wanted to be honest in that this strenuous process was far from frictionless.
What this created was a united community of people who “ascend together”, with Cody vehemently motivating his fans and vice-versa.
This encouragement and Cody’s determination is what allowed him to become an Ironman, and raise over 50 thousand dollars for After-School All-Stars, a non-profit organization working to expand the learning day for low-income children across the United States.
Along with the fundraiser, was a pledge to run yet another 50k ultramarathon, proving to fans and the nay-sayers that the train just keeps on moving.
Read our conversation with Ironman Cody Ko below.
Cody Ko sits down with Esquire Middle East
You’ve previously been an endurance athlete and famously a Diver at Duke University. Did you re-enter that “athlete” mindset when you started to train like one again? Were there any tips or mantras that you went back to?
Cody Ko: I definitely think that is a real thing. I feel like it’s not as obvious with work and stuff where you’re gonna have good days, and you’re gonna have bad days. It’s way more obvious with athletics, because you’re doing the same thing. You’re repeating the same thing every day. And some days, it sucks so bad, and some days you feel amazing. I feel like that’s so much more obvious when you’re pursuing an athletic endeavor that it reminded me of being in college. You know, being a diver, it’s even more exaggerated. Because you’re very much dependent on coordination. You’re flipping in the air, right? So if you’re having a bad day, then pain is involved in that, because you get lost in the air and you smack on the water and stuff like that.
Cody Ko: And if you’re having a great day, it’s very obvious. So practicing day in and day out, that was always something that you have to grapple with, you know? When it sucks, you have to realize its just part of it. And when it’s really good, you have to realize that it’s not going to be like that forever. The point of training is to be able to find that place in the middle where you’re trending towards “greatness” that you can do on race day or competition day.
Your parents both have always been people who “celebrate their fitness” right? I mean, your dad broke the world record for the greatest distance travelled on a human-powered vehicle in 2006.
You said that they were a big reason for you taking this on. How did having them both there affect the actual experience?
Cody Ko: Oh, man, it definitely was a special thing having them do it with me. It made me feel better about it because they’re obviously experienced, so I got a ton of tips from them. I felt like I could lean on them for advice, and it just made me feel better. It’s like, my parents, who have done this plenty of times, are now doing another one and they have confidence in me. So it just was a special, special moment you know? It was just cool to go through that with them.
Cody Ko: Growing up and seeing them do these incredible feats of athletics and fitness, I always in my mind was like, “Oh, that will be me someday”. But I don’t know when that’s going to be because an Ironman is such an arduous and intimidating goal that it was always like, “someday in the future, that’ll be me”. But it always seemed like it was more distant than I thought. So to be there at the finish line with them and to think like, “I did it”. Now this thing that I used to see you guys do and what just seemed like sort of a distant pipe dream for me has now become a reality. And that was like a really cool feeling. It was very fulfilling.
You’re an extremely busy person and it seems like you’re always doing something. You do two podcast episodes a week with Noel, your own podcast Insanely Chill, three YouTube channels, and you just started DJing.
Cody Ko: I feel like it definitely has its goods and its bads. I feel like I’m learning this more and more as I get older that I am the type of person that’s like “I always need something to work on”. That’s when I’m the happiest- is when I’m pursuing something, and kind of in the middle of the learning curve, or like, just actively working on something creative. I need that otherwise, I kind of start to revert to self-destructive habits to pass the time. I’d rather be passing the time productively than doing destructive things.
I can’t just do nothing. You know, I just feel like I can’t really “relax” because that’s not relaxing to me. So yeah, it’s like I’m the type of person who always needs to be working on something but I definitely don’t have that partitioned nicely in my mind. It’s like I’m constantly at war with myself over what I should be spending time on because I’m working on so many things. Which probably works against me, but that’s just the way I am.
Back to Ironman, I know there were some tough spots in the race like the difficult bike terrain, the run, how’d you get through those? Mentally, what kept you going?
Cody Ko: I mean, this is something you’ll hear from a lot of people that do endurance races, but you just trick your brain by cutting it up into really small pieces. So, you can’t think at the start of the bike that, “okay, I have 112 miles to do”. You just have to think “I have 10 miles to do before I get to 10 and that’s a great achievement and that’s huge”, because then you’ve made it 10 miles, and then you know, you make it 10 more, and you think “oh, what would it feel like to be at 20 miles?”.
That’s what I kept telling myself, “God! Imagine being at 20 miles, that’s going to feel so good”. And then you get to 20 miles ten minutes later, or fifteen minutes later, or twenty minutes later, or… whatever like, 45 minutes later, whatever it took me to ride 10 miles [Laughing]. And you’re like, I did it- I made it to 20, but it’s going to feel so good to get to 30. That’s literally what I did for 112 miles.
And then same thing with the run. It’s like, mile by mile on the run more-so I just kept looking at my watch and telling myself, “You are so much closer, so much closer now than you were 30 seconds ago to five miles” and just did that over and over. You just trick your brain into thinking about the short term and if you do that enough times, eventually the pieces all come together as the distance that you meant to travel in the beginning.
Did having the Cody Trains channel hold you accountable in training, waking up etc?
Cody Ko: It definitely did. When I was really, really focused on training, obviously, it was easier to document and be very public about my training. But it was like the last two months before the race, and I kind of fell out of the really dedicated mindset because the mind was on other things. I moved, I was DJing in Vegas, and so I kind of fell out and probably didn’t train as hard as I should have for the last two months. And it was hard to be honest about that to the camera. About how I wasn’t really training as much as I probably should have been, but I did and it definitely made me kind of more self-aware about the things that were going on with training. And it held me accountable too because it’s like, no matter what, I have to finish this thing you know? I’ve been posting these videos for eight months, I’ve got to finish this race. So I think I maybe could have fell out of it even more if it wasn’t for the channel.
So being a creator, reading comments you hear the thing of like, “read 10 great ones, only care about the one bad one”. You’ve been on tour with Noel for TMG so you’ve met your fans in-person before but did the support you got from fans recently change your perspective on how loved you are?
Cody Ko: I feel like I was definitely surprised that how many people were into it, and that were into the style of content, and how many people were vocalizing the fact that I motivated them to also, pick a race and do it or train for something.
Cody Ko: I didn’t really expect that to the degree that it’s resulted in. Every video I post [on Cody Trains], there’s so many comments of people being like, “wow, these are so motivating, these are my favorite videos on YouTube”, which I definitely didn’t expect. I mean, I love it.
It’s incredible. And it motivates me to keep doing things and making videos like this but I definitely didn’t expect it so that’s something that was really a pleasant surprise. I feel like when my previous online persona has been sort of like goofing on things and picking fun at things it’s hard to be vulnerable, then, you know?
It was hard to do content that’s sort of more vulnerable cause every time I’d do that people would pick me apart, which is fine. Like, they have full jurisdiction to do that because it’s kind of what I used to do. So, I feel like it was I expected more of that and less of people just being super on board with it. So it’s been a really nice surprise.
You’ve inspired a lot of people lately. Who inspires you?
Cody Ko: One of the main catalysts in me signing up for the race was that my sister did it. My parents obviously, have been a huge inspiration to my sister and I both. So when she signed up for an Ironman, trained for it and finished it, to me, I was like ‘Oh, that day has come where this isn’t a pipe dream anymore’. It’s like my sister just achieved it. And now I know that it’s realistic and is possible, and it just became real, you know? That was hugely inspiring to me, like the fact that she did it. She’s younger than me!
And then in terms of public figures, obviously, people like David Goggins, there’s this one guy right now his name is Nedd [Brockmann] he just ran across Australia. People like that. And there’s another guy right now, he goes by @hardestgeezer and he’s running the distance of the continent of Africa. Right now, he’s running 360 marathons in 240 days or something like that. People like that I just, I love following their journeys, people that set out to do these inhuman feats. It’s just so impressive and inspiring.
That was like watching my dad growing up doing the 24-hour record, you know,? That’s something that he had to engineer a bike for and then train for like, years and then attempt multiple times. I just think that stuff is so impressive and motivating and inspiring.
You have your hand in like eight different pursuits. What about from a career standpoint? Who do you think is doing it right?
Cody Ko: This might be kind of a weird answer but recently the stuff I’ve learned about Ryan Reynolds has been really impressive. Like, he’s one of those people that like you said, have their hand in multiple different “pies” or whatever. But his entrepreneurial journey has been really fascinating because he had Aviation Gin, and then he bought a huge stake in Mint mobile and became the face of it and just recently sold that.
And then now with the soccer team, it’s incredible the amount of things and how smart he’s being about capitalizing on his platform and his celebrity. I don’t know, I find it pretty motivating, or just fascinating, I would say.
You said jokingly that you wouldn’t recommend doing an Ironman. A couple weeks removed now, would you tell the average person to start training for one?
Cody Ko: : If you asked me right after the race, I’d say I’m never doing that again, I don’t suggest anyone do that, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, for sure. And it’s probably like the worst I’ve ever felt right afterwards to just be in that state of pure exhaustion and depletion.
But now that it’s two weeks later, I’m already thinking about maybe doing another one. Because you just forget about the pain, you know? But what lasts is the impact on your life.
I think that you can’t really understate just how many benefits training for something like this has on you and your life and your habits. So, I think it’s always good to have something to train for. I realize now that I need something on the calendar that’s coming up that I can use as motivation.
So you did it man. Completed the ironman, raised 50k for After-School All-Stars, what’s next? (Apart from the Ultramarathon)
Cody Ko: : I mean other than, you know, the stuff I’m working on… Surfing (Laughing). I couldn’t surf for like six months because I didn’t want to injure myself after I injured myself surfing and couldn’t train for like a month. So, I went out for the first time a couple of days ago and it’s kind of reigniting my passion for that. But also, you know, just like being here with Kelsey and settling into the new place, and starting to think about maybe building a family and stuff like that. That’s also really exciting to me. So yeah, it’s a combo of those things.
Watch Cody Ko’s recap of his Ironman attempt on Cody Trains here.