Benjamin Randall — known to most of the internet as Triathlete Benny — is a professional triathlete and a staff writer at Colorado State University. But his real story isn't the run splits people argue about in the comments; it's the shy only child who just wanted friends, and the years he spent training close to 40 hours a week trying to outrun something he couldn't name. What he's built since is less about fitness than about finally being a whole person.

We talk about being labeled "just a runner who does triathlon," the strange math of having your worth measured in three sports, the high school journalism teacher who lit the fire that still drives his writing, and the coaches who found him at his lowest and asked what he was actually doing. Ben opens up about his eating disorder and the inpatient treatment that followed, grapples honestly with what recovery looks like when your sport rewards the same obsessiveness that nearly broke you, and shares the mental reframe that pulled him out of black-or-white thinking — plus why shoving his watch in his pocket made him faster.

This is a conversation about what happens when you stop performing your identity and start living it. If who you are depends entirely on what you did last Saturday, what's left on the days you don't race?

Benny’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/triathletebenny/

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup