Interview: Ultra Runner Matt Johnson On What He Learned After Attempting 7 Iron Mans In 7 Days And What Comes Next

At 30-years-old, ultra runner and U.S. Army veteran Matt Johnson has already put more miles on his legs than most runners could ever imagine. In 2024, he ran across the state of Texas from West to East, covering 842 miles in 18 days to raise money for veterans. A year later, he would run North to South across the Lone Star State, another 891 miles.

Recently, Matt Johnson took on Project Seven which consisted of seven full-distance triathlons in seven consecutive days. For those unfamiliar with the distances, a full Iron Man-distance triathlon consists of a 2.4-mile swim (3.8km), a 112-mile bike (180km), and it is finished off by running a full marathon of 26.2 miles (42.2km).

I spoke with Matt last week about this challenge, about how his body has responded in the days afterward, what he has on the horizon, and his partnership with ALP Nicotine Pouches who are producing a documentary about Project Seven which will be released in the coming days.

Interview with Matt Johnson

We kick it off by discussing the partnership with ALP Nicotine Pouches and how that came about, then the conversation shifts to how he picked up speed during the swim for Project Seven, why Matt spends hours every single day responding to messages and comments across his massive social media reach, gear he cannot live without, why Austin has become a mecca for endurance athletes, and the challenges of adapting to everyday life after tackling extreme goals like Project Seven or his runs across Texas.

How Matt Johnson Became the Face of ALP Nicotine Pouches

Cass Anderson: So with ALP, how did that sponsorship come together? And what’s your favorite flavor during or after a run?

Matt Johnson: So the partnership came together, I think it was late 2025. Yeah, I think we’re pulling up on a year now. I think that they were just trying to find… Not like the ‘celebrity face,’ but like the face of the normal dude who can be the guy in normal life. Not like a Conor McGregor partnership with UFC stuff, and so, you know I think that they were just trying to break into the social media culture. And online I was known as the guy that is always doings. For me, it’s like I carry myself real. I did 10 years in the military. I’m a small town Iowa boy. I started I started chewing tobacco when I was young. And you know obviously you know not a great thing to you know nothing to be proud of there. But you know I don’t hide anything.

Matt Johnson: And I think that was a big thing with ALP. I’m me. I don’t hide that. I’m truthful with people. I am who I am, and you take it or leave it, I think that’s got me to where I am today.

Recovery After Project Seven

Cass Anderson: How’s it going? How’s your body? Feeling good packing on calories after the event?

Matt Johnson: Yeah, I’m feeling good. My body after this event was perfectly fine. It was just more of like the hormones and all of that type of stuff. So I think the biggest thing, you know, I’m getting ready to do. I’m actually going to Ways2Well. Have you heard of them?

Cass Anderson: I don’t know that I have. What’s their story?

Matt Johnson: Yeah. So it’s Waze, the number two, and then Well. It’s like a cash-only, super advanced medical clinic here in Austin, they do like Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn, all those types of people. I’m getting ready to go out there to do a plasma phoresis. They essentially take blood out and put it through a machine. Filter it. Imagine t like an oil change, a complete oil change for your body.

Matt Johnson: So yeah, I’m just getting getting back into it. Gonna get that done. I have to take next week off and you know recover. But yeah, kind of seeing how I feel this week. And there’s a backyard ultra in December that I’m gonna do here in Dripping Springs, just southwest of Austin. This one’s this one’s called the Longhorn Ultra. It’s the first, the first running of the event, but it’s a massive budget. It’s going to be live-streamed. I think it’s going to be really, really big.

Cass Anderson: That whole scene is just so cool right now. In the last like two, three years, Backyard Ultras just absolutely exploded. It’s wild. Even with our audience on Bro Bible, people love the content. I’m going to, I think, attempt my my first one in February in Lakeland. Joe Corcione from Everyday Ultra is putting one on, so I think I’m gonna I’m gonna give that a shot.

Matt Johnson: Yeah, I podcasted with Joe. Great dude.

Making Gains

Cass Anderson: I was noticing… I looked at your split times. Your split times on the swim from Ironman Texas to Project 7, you picked up a lot of speed in the water. What do you attribute to that? Were you spending more time in the pool leading up to Project 7, or what was going on there?

Matt Johnson: Time. I did no drills. I would go to the pool, I would get in the water, and I would just swim. I was averaging about 25-26,000 yards a week. And so you know the biggest thing with me is yeah you know I was spending about eight hours in the pool every single week and because I was just I was just nervous like I was you know I go ahead oh oh yeah I just I didn’t you know I didn’t want to spend an hour and a half in the pool every day. And you know it did help overall. It was nice to be able to just get in the pool and swim. Because to me, I mean, I surprised myself just as much. I think that I also attribute it to, you know, wearing the wetsuit because I didn’t wear the wetsuit obviously at all in the pool. And then training without it. It’s just like not training without carbon shoes, and then you put carbon shoes on, and you’re like, ‘Holy s—!’

Training Gear That Matt Swears By

Cass Anderson: So something that I’ve noticed the deeper and deeper I get into the endurance space is that like I can’t just walk out the door and exercise anymore. You know? It’s like I’ve got the hydration vest, a rotation of running shoes, I’ve got the ice hat because I’m in Florida and it’s hot as f—. I’ve got to fill my water bottles for the bike with electrolytes and carbs mix. I’ve got gels. Everything. What are some items that you simply could not navigate your day-to-day life as a full time endurance athlete without?

Matt Johnson: Oh wow! Are we talking during Project Seven or just in general? To be completely honest, there are these socks, and I can now say this because I’m not on a sock contract anymore, these socks called M3GA. They’re owned by Will and Meg, these two Hyrox competitor athletes in Australia, And I have now worn them since early 2024, and I have yet to find a better running sock. I mean, no bull.

Like I was with Hollow Socks, and I love Hollow Socks. They’re so, so comfortable. They’re alpaca fiber. They’re moisture wicking. But like the greatest running sock on the market, hands down, is the M3GA Socks, and I think that no one knows about them. And so I would say, a big thing for me is socks. Then obviously, you know, I have two pairs of running shoes depending on what I’m doing.

You know, I’m a big I’m a big headband guy. And everyone always asks me, ‘where do you get the headbands? Where do you get the headbands????’ I buy my headbands off Amazon. I think that is the funniest thing. So I think the greatest headbands that I can find are off of Amazon. Obviously, the second wind nasal strips.

Another thing, as a runner, the greatest. Running belt on the market, hands down, is the Raide Running Belt. I wore that belt every single day, 890 miles across Texas, and no chafing, no bounce, no issues at all. It’s the greatest running belt on the market.

Obviously the ALP pouches, they go everywhere with me, 24/7. I think I already said the Second Wind strips. I wear a Whoop, but I’m a data freak. Yeah.

Mileage Leading Up To Project Seven

Cass Anderson: What did the taper look like going into Project Seven challenge? I have to think you had to really dial in your mileage in the days leading up to attempting 7 full distance triathlons in 7 days.

Matt Johnson: So leading up to it, I was training 30 hours a week. Three weeks out, we dropped it down for a de-load to 16 hours. The next week I did 28 hours. Then the week before Project Seven I did 19 hours, and then we went right into it. So there really wasn’t much of a taper. But tapering down from 30 hours and you’re hitting 20. You know, that feels like a taper.

Cass Anderson: Those 10 extra hours during the taper are still definitley a lot of free time in your day, but to the average human being, training 19 hours a week is still unfathomable.

Matt Johnson: Yeah but you know the biggest thing is,an object in motion stays in motion. With how I feel like when you get to this elite of a level is that if you hit the brakes too hard, everything stiffens up. Everything gets hard. Same thing as when I ran across Texas. Like I ran 150 miles, 150 miles, and then I went down to 80, 70, and then I ran across Texas. So the week before I ran across Texas, I still ran 70 miles.

Running Across Texas and the Stories That Came With It

Cass Anderson: Have you ever considered wanting to run across Texas again in opposite directions, or if you ever did do it again, would you want to go West to East or North to South again? I guess my real question is, which part of running across Texas did you like more, north, south or west?

Matt Johnson: Wow, that’s a great question. I don’t know if I could choose. I loved them both. The really cool thing about that is Texas was the first place I got to choose as my home. And what a what a beautiful thing it is to be able to run across your state and experience everything.

When we went West to East, we started in the most brutal environment I’ve ever been in. It was 110 degrees in the desert. We didn’t see a gas station for five days. And then it got to the point to where we ran out of water, and my little brother had to get in the RV, and he had to drive the RV to New Mexico to go to a gas station. But I got to experience desert into farmland into ocean.

Then when I ran across Texas north to south, it was that Oklahoma type of brutal rain, 55 degrees down into the middle of farmland Texas. It was like that flat, disgusting type of farmland into the beautiful farmland into South Texas, whatever the hell that kind of land is, is into like dusty Mexico. So I would say, one day when I go to tell my kids about the stories. I think we had more stories about Texas 1 (West to East). Because it was like the desert, and West Texas is so special.

Matt Johnson On Building a Community, Not Just a Following

Cass Anderson: So you are a large creator at this point, you have a huge following across Instagram and stuff. You actually replied to a comment of mine the other day asking about no aero bars on the bike, and I saw you in the comments replying to everyone. Is that good for your mental health? Does it not matter? Like, is that level of engagement with your followers a necessary evil as a creator? Do you do it more or less now than you used to?

Matt Johnson: This is something that I started from the very beginning that I think I did differently than everybody else. I made a Reel about this and I was like ‘if your favorite creator is not responding to you, it’s because they don’t f—— want to.’ That was that was my that was my opener of the reel. And to me, with my military background, it was always like you always had a job and you had tasks that you had to get done, and as you did your tasks, that was how you completed your job. To me, I owe these people everything, right? Like I moved, I got out of military, went through a divorce, moved to Austin, and was sleeping on the floor of a duplex. And I went from the floor of a duplex to making my first million dollars because of Instagram.

And you know, to me, it’s like I owe my followers everything. They’ve given me my platform, and if I am not responding to them, what is giving them any reason to come back and still support me? And I’ll tell you right now, I have two unread DMs. And you can go through my messages, click on requests, they’re all they’re all read. You click on ‘hidden requests’ and I have three at the top. So to me, it’s part of my job.

And at the same time. With that being said, you know I started this platform. This platform blew up in 2024. I hit a million in March of this year.

To me, it’s like what I did is I cultivated a community. I have a community of people that come and engage with me because they know that Matt Johnson’s going to engage back. They know that he’s gonna comment back. And now what I’m seeing with living in this space is now I’m making the sales because people trust me, they people believe me, and people see me as an equal. Not as a creator.

And my fiancée works with creators so I see them now from the other side. When I had 70,000 followers, that’s when I first started making money on Instagram. I had 70,000 followers, and I remember I started making more than I made in the military. I was making $6K/mo from Instagram and as an E5 sergeant in the military I was making $5K/mo.

And now now fiancée has creators that come to her that have 200,000 followers and they’re like ‘oh yeah, I make I make a couple hundred a month.’ And it’s like, ‘what are you doing?!’ But brands don’t come to them because they don’t have a community. They just post the content. And I look at my one of my best friends, he has 400,000 followers and he gets 12 comments on his reels. People just don’t care because he’s not commenting back, he’s not interacting.

So when brands come to me and they’re like, ‘yo, we want you to be the guy’ and they look at my community and they’re like, “dude, you have 100 to 300 comments on every reel’ and I’m like ‘yeah, that’s my community, this is my job.’

But I’m no better than anybody. I know just what it takes.

Cass Anderson: come on, don’t sell yourself short. That is a massive time commitment. I’ve been in the publishing/media/creator space for my entire adult life, and it’s a huge time commitment. So you are at least doing your job better than other people when it comes to building a community.

Matt Johnson: I mean, just for reference, I was waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning to train during Project Seven, and I would come in here and sit right here at the computer. My red lights here, my devotional, my Bible, my books. I would do all my stuff, and I would sit here for a half hour every morning at 430 in the morning, and I would comment back to people on YouTube and Instagram. And then I do it at 11 a.m. because that’s when my training for the morning ends. And then I do it at 7p.m. too. I’ll pop in. It’s probably about an hour and a half to two hours every day I spend communicating.

The Drive to Keep Pushing the Limits

Cass Anderson: On one of your stickied posts on Instagram you talked about how you over-trained for your first Ironman and broke your fibula. In your life after leaving the military, when you begin to pursue endurance sports/running full time, and having complete agency over all 24 hours a day in your life, for the first time in a decade, did you find that you were over-training because you had so much freedom to make your own decisions and control over your time?

Matt Johnson: Yeah, I do because that’s something that I struggle with, time. Like all I have is time, and this is something that I spoke about in the documentary that ALP is presenting that’s coming out in October.

I started therapy a lot this year. There was talks of me having PTSD, OCD. I grew up with a very traumatic background and went through childhood abuse. But a big thing for me is, and I said this in the documentary, I feel like there is a mental disease that I have where 100 miles is hard, an Iron Man is hard, and I have this thing within me that’s like ‘how can I make it even worse?’ And you know, it is funny, but at the same time, it’s something that I’m ready to try to step away from?

We talk about this in the documentary, like there was a lot going on behind the scenes. I ended up in the hospital before Project Seven and no one knows about that until a documentary comes out. But you know there’s been a lot of health problems that I have, that I have been battling, because of putting myself through such severe stress for three years nonstop.

What Project Seven Taught Matt About Over-Training

Cass Anderson: I mean that’s an insane amount of mileage you’re putting on your body. Even just North to South, West to East Texas record, that’s more mileage than most people do in a lifetime.

Matt Johnson: Yeah, but it was from scarcity, you know. It was growing up so poor, growing up through childhood abuse, growing up through childhood neglect, to sleeping on the floor and having f—— nothing. Like all I had when I came to Austin was my dog and a bag and $3,000. I ran out of that money, and I sold my Iron Man bike because my leg was broken. I sold my Iron Man bike, I put a deposit down on a duplex, and I slept on the floor.

I have everything around me right now and I didn’t have it three years ago. I feel like in the last three years I have battled this. I’m scared, and I don’t want to go back to where I was. And I’ve done a lot. It’s been great. I don’t want to say I’ve done too much. But I feel like this is what Project Seven helped me realize because when it went so bad, I had just been like ‘I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared. I don’t want to go back. I have to one-upping every time because otherwise I’m gonna regress.’ It’s like, if I don’t progress, if I don’t have any progress, I’m gonna regress. There’s no finding happiness within the complacency or within the monotony, and that’s that’s what I want to work on.

Cass Anderson: Related to Project Seven, in speaking with triathlon/running coaches in the past, they always say ‘expect the unexpected on race day, something’s going to go wrong.’ You compounded that race day into 7 absolutely insane days with Project Seven. What hit you like a semi-truck that you were not prepared for?

Matt Johnson: The actual amount of time that it was going to take growing each day. Like when I went in, I thought I can do this by 15:15, 15:15, 15:15, you know what I mean? And day one it was 12:13, 14:16, 17:19. And it was like day after day it got longer and longer. I would get to the house and it was 7 o’clock and then it was 9 and it was 10 and then it was 11 and then it was 1145 and then it was 1230.

And you know, I didn’t think about that. It was something brand new to me, right? Not being a triathlete, not thinking about the three things, and then everything you had to do in between with transitions. And then there’s the crew, the team, the filming, and the brands. And was just so laser focused on ‘I have to train three discipline’s that all I did was just train the disciplines, and I didn’t think about everything in between.

Cass Anderson: That all makes perfect sense because it’s not as if you are not just doing seven times more. There’s definitely a compounding effect there that grows each day.

Losing Touch With ‘Normal’ Life After Extreme Endurance Challenges

Cass Anderson: Going back to before, you talked about complacency, doing hard things, and trying to to become more okay with that in life. Something that I observe in extremely high-performing people, the type who who attempt these challenges that most people could never even fathom. Is that people on the outside, they read a headline or see video clip and say ‘that person must be just insane’ because they cannot conceive of a life like yours, like running across Texas or Project Seven. Have you found that you’ve lost touch with an average Joe in conversation? Because Saturday morning you’re waking up at 4am, you’ve got maybe 12 hours that day of just straight training, you’re gonna pack in calories any time you can. Then you’re going to focus on recovery and like we talked about before, community building. Whereas the person seeing your videos is gonna get up, go to Home Depot, take a nap on the couch. Search for ways to fill the hours in the day. Have you found that you lose touch with that aspect of society?

Matt Johnson: Yes, 100%. And I feel like it’s very difficult to navigate because that’s been something that I’ve been struggling with post-event where you know, coming home and being at home, I wake up and to me to me morning movement, the daily warm up, it’s not fitness. It’s not like when I wake up and go on a run. I’m not trying to get more fit. I’m not trying to to get better. I’m not trying to be better than you or anyone. I’m moving because it’s the daily warm up. Right. So then what what would happen is I come home at 9am and I sit here. I post a reel, right? Like, when this is over, I have a reel ready to go. I’m gonna post it and then my day’s done. What do I do now?

That has been so hard to me because it’s like there’s so much time. And I had the conversation with a friend at the gym the other day, and I’m like ‘I need to find a hobby.’ It’s 140 f—— degrees out here in Austin, right? Yeah, I can’t go golf. Like I love golf, but it’s just too hot. So yes, I have genuinely lost touch with with what reality is. But you know what the cool thing is, we’re getting ready to fix that. Amanda, my fiancée manages creators, but we also we also own Made for More Wellness Retreats.

It’s a wellness retreat company that Amanda started, and so what we are actually getting ready to do is put an offer in on a 17-acre ranch right outside of Austin that we’re gonna run. My goal is to run a race series. I’m gonna have a loop on the land to run three races a year, and then we’re gonna run three or four retreats a year.

Finding a New Purpose With the Austin Ranch

Matt Johnson: So with the ranch, I can pull back from my charity events and helping people that way. I don’t need to hurt myself anymore.

But then having 17 acres… The property has horse stalls, it needs fencing that needs put up, and I need to find things to do in my life, and I’m excited to branch more into getting this property ready for these retreats.

It is hard to just sit here in the city, I don’t know. When I was in the military, it was like like I’d wake up in the morning and I’d train at 4 o’clock. I’d train from five to seven, and then I’d shower, and I’d go to work at eight, and I’d get off at four, and then I would come home.

And actually, what a lot of people don’t know about me, I used to race sprint cars. I used to race around the Midwest, even while I was in the military, I used to professionally race cars. So then I would come home from work and I would tinker on the car. I would work on the motor, work on the rear end, and then I would work on the house that we owned, and then I would go to bed and I would do it all over again. Like there were always things to do.

And now it’s all different. I’m not saying I have big head about this, I’m telling the truth. It’s like I have so much money compared to before. I have so much f—— time. I don’t have anything that I need. I’m just living this life of like, how did I get here?

Like I said before, I’m a small town Iowa boy. So we looked at this property, and we’re gonna look at it again, but the one that we’re gonna put an offer in on I was telling my fiancée that we need like a quarter mile of fencing and she’s like ‘yeah, that’s gonna cost so much money.’ And I was like ‘or I could just put it up.’ She was like ‘you coudl do that?’ and I was like ‘sure.’ I’m like, do you remember where I’m from?

And that’s that’s the fun part, you know, getting back in touch with the small town Iowa, the country boy roots, and just gaining gaining time to do things that I love.

Why Austin Has Become an Endurance-Sports Hub

Cass Anderson: So with the ranch and expanding your footprint on Austin, you’ll be bringing people there from all around the world for the wellness retreats. What do you think it is about Austin, Texas that has been such a draw in recent years versus Boulder, Colorado, Auburn, California. These traditional like meccas for athletes with altitude, trails, and four seasons without the suffocating temperatures of Texas summers? What is it about Austin that continues to grow and bring people in in the endurance space?

Matt Johnson: Yeah, Austin is a major city that is small town vibes. Like right now when I go downtown, like after this call, like and by downtown, this is because so that way you’ll understand. So I’ll show you. Like right out the window here (shows me his view) you can see the city, and I’m biased but I think we have the best view in Austin. But what you see when you see the city in the background, it is no bigger than that right there, so it’s a city with small town vibes.

So when you go run down there, we have a 10-mile loop. Long story short, you can run around the entire downtown and it’s 10 miles. And when I go run, I’m gonna see one of one of my friends doing something. Austin also has something that nobody else has, and that’s Lady Bird Lake, and the Lady Bird Loop which is the loop around the lake. So it’s the river that runs through Austin and anywhere that you enter the park, on the north side, south side, east side, west side, wherever you park your car, you can get onto this dirt trail, and you can run a even 10 mile loop around the river right there in the city.

And that’s where everybody is. Like with friends I’ll say ‘hey, meet me at meet me at Mopac Bridge, meet me at Auditorium Shores, meet me at Zilber, meet me at Fifth Street, meet me at the West Side,’ and no matter where you meet, you’re gonna go and and we have such easy access to this trail that we don’t meet for coffee. We don’t meet for beers. But it’s it’s meet me meet me at Mopac Bridge and let’s get a run in. We do our meeting while we run, and then we grab coffee after.

That is the Austin atmosphere because we have that 10-mile loop right there. And like this morning, my fiancée is doing the Waco 70.3 Iron Man in two weeks Today was her last long run. We left the house. We went right down to the city, we looped the lake, and then we stopped down at the bottom in the city, 13 miles because our house is three miles from the lake. We both got on on scooters and we scootered back to our house and I showered real quick and I got on this call. Like that’s how easy it is here.

Why Nasal Strips Became Part of Matt’s Training

Cass Anderson: It’s funny the the phrase you used before when we were talking about partnerships, ‘the face of,’ because I’ll be scrolling Instagram, and I can tell it’s it’s a Matt Johnson video before I even recognize what’s happening, who’s in the video, because your nasal strips have become such an identifying piece when you’re working out. Realistically, how much do you think they actually like boost your training?

Matt Johnson: The the nose strip itself? I truly think that it that it makes a difference because to me now. I partnered with Second Wind Nasal Strips when they first launched. It’s owned by Todd Anderson with Dream Recovery, and Todd Anderson, I had a group call with them in March of 2024. He heard on that call that I was running across the state of Texas the first time before I became anybody big on social media, when I just had the idea. He called me and he’s like “I want to give you $10,000 to be part of this’ before I was anybody.

And so when Dream Recovery came out with Second wind, I was trying it, and now I’ve used it so much that when I go out, I know if I forget to put it on because it’s become such a part of my training. It’s almost like if I wear socks that are too hot, I know that I’m not wearing the socks that I always wear. You’re so used to something as part of training. So truly, I do think it really helps, and it’s the only nasal strip that stays on. Like I wore the entire nasal strip during Ironman Texas. I swam with it, I biked with it, and it made it to mile 22 of the marathon.

What’s Next: Last-Man-Standing, Retreats, and Marriage

Cass Anderson: So it sounds like you have a ton to look forward to next after Project Seven, with the Wellness Retreat ranch and the Backyard Ultra / Last-Man-Standing event. Do you need to rebuild your body in any way?

Matt Johnson: No, I feel like I’m in such good shape. I can’t, I can’t really let it go. I’m gonna do this last man standing in December here in Austin.

One really cool thing for me is that the people who follow me, my social media following, they’ve never seen Matt Johnson compete. I’ve ran across Texas, and I ran across Texas again, I’ve done the Iron Mans, but this will be putting me in competition and people haven’t seen that before. I don’t have any goals for this last man standing. I would say going in, that I’m probably gonna be favored to win in the eyes of others but I don’t want to put that on myself. I know that as soon as the public finds out about it, that they’ll put that on me anyway. But I’m gonna do this last man standing, and then going into January, the whole focus is gonna be on the retreats and the races, and then I get married in June.

Cass Anderson: The live feeds from some of these last man standing races are truly incredible. I don’t know how much time you spent watching the the recent Last Soul Ultra in Germany but the time difference here in America made the viewing even better, getting to see the 24/7 feed of them suffering through the night with the infrared cameras and nonstop commentary. It’s so different from like the NYC or Boston Marathon aired on TV, or even other ultra-distance races streamed on YouTube.

Matt Johnson: Yea, there’s no suffering in those marathons. In the last man standing races you are watching humans suffer. It’s a whole different experience.

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To keep up with Matt Johnson’s extreme endeavors in the Ultra Running world you can find and follow him on Instagram, YouTube, and Threads. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

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