Coachinginterview

TRANSFORM: THE MAN WHO BEAT 5% ODDS & RACED ACROSS AMERICA | JAMES GOLDING

with James Golding

50:05·20 December 2023

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JAMES GOLDING

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CYCLING NUTRITION

James Golding was told he had a 5% chance of surviving cancer at just 28 years old. After spending six months in hospital, losing eight stone, and facing multiple life-threatening complications, he not only survived—he went on to cycle across America. His story is a masterclass in breaking down impossible goals into manageable steps and finding freedom through movement when everything else feels broken.

Key Takeaways

Break massive goals into tiny, daily micro-steps. James's first goal wasn't cycling across America—it was walking to the bathroom. Reverse-engineer your big vision into small wins you can achieve today.
Reflect regularly on how far you've come. We rarely give ourselves credit for the impressive things we've already achieved (like learning to walk as a baby with zero resources). Use reflection to build confidence for the next challenge.
Find your 'one step at a time' mentality during recovery or hardship. Your body doesn't plan when it's fighting for survival—it focuses on getting through the next hour, the next meal, the next small milestone.
Understand your 'before' and 'after' to recognize real transformation. James's pre-cancer life was driven by material status; his post-cancer life is driven by meaning. Know who you were and who you want to become.
A simple bike can unlock freedom and healing in ways therapy alone cannot. Cycling gave James back his sense of speed, movement, and joy after months of being immobilized.

Expert Quotes

"If I met the me before cancer, a couple of years before I was diagnosed, I probably wouldn't like that person. It was very money orientated—what watch are you wearing, what car are you driving. I was driven by the wrong things."

"Nobody ever said to me at the time you've only got 5% chance of surviving this. But when I got better, that's when they told me the odds."

"I remember looking at my best mate and just bursting into tears saying 'I can't do this, you could just let me go, I'm ready'—and that was as I got better, not when I was at my worst."

"You learned to walk at 8, 9, 10 months old with no internet, no coach, no Google, no knowledge. Yet you're now saying 'I can't do that' when you have all of this knowledge. You've already achieved everything you needed to get to where you are now."

KEY QUOTES

“I went to see my caropractor and he was like there's nothing wrong with you you're best shape I've ever seen you you're fitter than I've ever seen you your back's in better shape than I've ever seen like something's not right and want you to go to the doctors.”
James Golding — Cancer survivor and cyclist

“I used to be coming in at 6:00 in the morning with the sun judging saying you're a waste of life whereas now you're kind of waiting for the birds to start singing so you can go out and get a few extra hours in before everybody else is out and about.”
James Golding — Cancer survivor and cyclist

“Having read a lot of testimonials from people who are on their debt bed nobody's ever said I wish I worked longer I wish I had more cars I wish I had a bigger house everybody says I wish I spent more time doing the things I love spent more time with the people I love.”
Anthony Walsh — Roadman Cycling podcast host

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT2 SECTIONS

Life Before the Diagnosis

Found an 11 and 1 half CM tumor you've only got 5% chance of surviving this slowly and progressively got worse my abdomen blew up they put me on got 45 stitches I'd got two tubes in my my immune system was just I spent all of Christmas in there all of New Year can't do this I you could just let me go I'm ready James welcome to the RO man podcast good afternoon thanks for your friend yeah good yeah good good day today I want to do a little uh before and after on this podcast 28 is such a young age to have lifechanging events happen to anyone and as we're talking on the podcast I'm probably going to draw a comparison from a friend of mine I've had on the podcast as well Peter Ryan he lost his eyesight at 19 and when I try to understand his story it's always helpful for me to understand who he was before and who he was after because he emerged from that difficulty difficulties like totally downplaying losing your I so it reemerged from that situation it totally changed person so maybe to start off could you talk to me a little bit about what your life was like before your diagnosis um it was it was very different situation but it was um it was a big contrast to what it is now um I I you know um now I go out on my bike at 6:00 in the morning whereas I used to be coming in at 6:00 in the morning with the sun judging saying you're a waste of life yeah kind of you know when you're sitting you're sitting there and you hear the bird starting to sing you're kind of like yes uh this is this has been a late night um whereas now you're kind of waiting for the birds to start singing so you can go out and get a few extra hours in before everybody else is out and about yeah it was very different I mean I've um I've said in in numerous articles and and other things that I've done that if I kind of if I met the me if I met me before cancer maybe a couple of years before I was diagnosed and I probably wouldn't like the me that that I was meeting I probably wouldn't like that person it was very money orientated in terms of what I was earning it was very um earn as much as you can what watch are you wearing what um phone have you got what car are you drive in um it was it was a driven lifestyle don't get me wrong it was it was hard working it was um it it was driven but it was driven by the wrong things and it was and it was driven for the wrong purposes um it wasn't for the purpose I was um so I when I I left school at 14 and was told I would never really achieve very much um and I went into construction at that point so I became a plaster and I worked through construction for a a long period of time um and then I moved over into um state agency see is a loose terminology but that was more um property sales not as in there was residential in there but it was more focused on land and new homes and investment um so bu toet um big construction sites for the likes of David Wilson Westbury Etc um and then I owned my own company which again was um called round the houses which was a property Investment Company so we used to work with some um investment groups in the UK that would buy like a block of apartments and then they would rent the whole block out whether that was student accommodation or whether that was um sometimes Housing Association or or whatever but it was I I enjoyed it because I was brought up my dad um was in construction so I was kind of brought up on a building site in a in a roundabout way so I kind of understood houses um I can look uh I still get it now people still ring me now and kind of I talk to some of my old clients about stuff they're buying and why they're buying it and I can look at a property and and still have a good idea of what the values are going to be like within those particular areas so it was just something that I gotten really really well with um but and I had an interest in cycling but it um because I used to ride mountain bikes as a kid um but as I say my life was very much I remember picking up a brand new I remember there's a couple of scenarios which were were were turn well not turning points but there's a couple of scenarios which I remember quite vividly and there's one particular um moment which was a big turning point for me so I remember for example I remember when there's the cat we spoke about the star of the show cat um sorry um I remember um I went to pick up a new car um I've been wanting I've always been a Volkswagen fan so let's lay lay a little bit of context to this but I've always been a Volkswagen fan my granddad always had Volkswagen I've got pictures of my granddad with with my mom in their brand new Beatle so my granddad was always installed always installed into me that Volkswagen was was kind of the way to go um so I kind of grew up in the rise of the golf um and the rise of the Golf GTI um so I my one of my first cars was a Mark I um I had a couple of Mark 2s I had a couple of marvs and then when the mark 5 came out I was in a position to be able to buy one a brand new one it was my first ever brand new car and it was the fifth one into the country um and I'd I'd worked extra extra hard I'd saved I'd cut back on certain things to be able to buy this car and when I went to pick it up I was looking at an R32 that was in the showroom saying that's what I'm going to have next and it's little things like that that I look back at I'm being a bit C about how I'm talking about this really because I look back at it and I'm like I cannot believe that I was that person I can't believe that I took those things for granted in the way that I did so you know what what's right about going and buying a brand new car and then looking at what's next doesn't make sense you know it's kind of there's no gratitude there's no fulfillment in the things that you've achieved and one of the things that annoy even it's kind of annoys me a little bit now about cycling and the events and the challenges and things that we do is that as soon as you finish a race or you finish a a challenge somebody turns around she goes well what's next and you go just buried myself for six months to get here I'm not thinking about what's next I'm thinking about how much I enjoyed or what I can take away from what I've just done but also you can't be too hard on yourself you're a 28y old or you're even younger than that you're in your early 20s plus 26 then I think like you're a child like I can't even fathom what I was doing at 26 years old I was still in University because it took me seven years through law school so I'm still in University live in my mom's house like living off peanuts and you buying somebody's car so it's commendable in one sense but did you have a moment when if I'm listening to Lance Armstrong story and I know he's got dragged through a ringer and rightly saw over the last decade but I remember reading his book it's not about the bike and he had a moment where he was puking blood in the sink where he realized oh this isn't normal I need to go and get checked out here there's something up did you have a moment pre-diagnosis that prompted you to go and get check still no um I not not to that extent so I'd basically what happened was the when the two 2007 crash landed um we the the business that I owned at the time we had a lot of property which was constructed was Bill was ready to go um and we sold that super quick that went that went out the door and then we were we were left with a lot of Off plan property that was waiting to be built and nobody was buying anything nobody would go anywhere near it um so after two or three months I kind of went there's a reason for me saying this but I kind of went this this can't carry on we can't carry on like this we're going to need to kind of wind things down either pull them back for a long period of time and I rang a couple of guys who I used to work with and I was like have you got any plaster in work and they were like yeah so I always try and install into my kids now whatever you want to do in life try and get a trade first if you can get something of where you've got a trade you will always be able to fall back on that if you want to be a lawyer or you want to go and be a doctor or you want to go traveling or whatever that's fine but just try and do something that where you can get some kind of skill base to be able to take that forward with you and I I had plaster in I was lucky to have plaster in So within probably two or three weeks of making the decision to close the round the houses I was back on site and I was Plastering and then after a few months of doing that I kind of started to get this back pain and it progressively got worse it progressively um became a problem it started waking me up in the middle of the night I was waking up in the morning in absolute agony and I kind of didn't think anything of it because I just thought you know what you've gone from kind of sitting behind a desk all day to doing back into manual work you're the best way that yeah I mean I mean the best way that I can explain Plastering to people that don't have experience of it is it's like doing step aerobics all day every day that's I mean that's that's basically the best way that you can explain it to somebody it was my summer job as well all through University was mixing for a plaster in the days before they had the electric whisks where you were doing it by hand yeah some ever brutal brutal stuff yeah you know you you've thrown in I mean and you will remember that we used to throw around 50 kilogram bags of plaster now they're only 25 kilogram bags of plaster but you know you're carrying two of these things at a time off a back of a lorry or off out of a van and you and you're probably going through I mean I was probably going through sort of eight to 10 bags a day so again you kind of go in it's just because of the change of job so I kind of put up with it for a little while and then it got to the point of where a couple of days it was really really bad so I went to see my caropractor um I've told this the the story a few times but I saw him and he was like there's nothing wrong with you you're best shape I've ever seen you you're fitter than I've ever seen you your back's in better shape than I've ever seen like some things something's not right and want you to go to the doctors so I went to the doctors um and the doctor to look me up and down and went no you're fine you're okay don't worry we'll just give you some painkillers it's muscle it's muscle pain it's because of the change of job you'll be all right so I went back to the caropractor the following week and he said so what did the doctor say I said well nothing what do you mean he said nothing I said he didn't say anything he what no Bloods no checks nothing I said no nothing he literally has just told give me some painkillers and sent me home he says okay I want you to go back to the doctors tomorrow because I'm going to write to him recorded delivery now um with my diagn well my uh areas that I think he should check because of my concerns um went back to the doctors the following day we've not had the letter I said well you have had the letter because my Caro practice told me that it's been signed for it was sent recorded delivery yesterday no we've not had anything couple of weeks later I went back to the doctor to I was in the shower and I found um as I say in school talks I found a lump next to one of the generals now that always gets every 12y old boy in a school conversation absolutely in hysterics the whole a the whole the whole school hall will erupt with laughter um when you come out with that line um and um I told this doctor and he said okay let's do some do some checkups um we'll refer you to a specialist I got referred to a specialist and had an appointment made for me within eight weeks I rang through said to this lady why is it in 8 weeks she said you've been referred to uh the rugby Clinic um the the actual um the doctor's actually based in centry which is about 20 minutes away from where I was living you've been referred to rugby he's got no appointments on his next visit you have to go on to the next visit I well can I not just go to comentry it's like it's up the road if I'm taking an afternoon off work to go to rugby I might as well just go to cough she says well no you've been referred to rugby so if you want to go to centry you'll need to go back to the doctor and get them to refer you to centry nonsense um it's just crazy um so I um told my mom my mom did what any mom does and went nuts she rang this secretary and the secretary said if if he's that bad why don't you just take him to a& e and then about two days later um I rang my M and said I'm I'm in the worst pain I've ever been in this was early so normally it didn't kind of kick in until quite late on in the afternoon or the evening I could feel it but in the evening it would like really start to her and this was at about 8:00 8:30 and I rang my mom and said it's really it's worse than it's ever been tonight and she was like do you want to go to A&E and I said look let me just take a couple of painkillers just give it half an hour and we we'll kind of see we'll see how it feel and I rang B back within about 20 minutes and said can you take me to an so she drove me to centry and um I don't know whether we walked into we walked into an and it was heaving it was absolutely packed but there was a chair over in the left hand corner and my mom said you go and sit down over there I'll sort this out so I went over and sat down and I don't know whether I fell asleep or whether I just lost track of of time but it felt like I sat down and within a couple of minutes I looked up and there was a nurse there with wheelchair to take me through to the back room now whether my M had said I've got James golden and they put my name in and it brought some red flag because of the blood tests that we' had or there'd been some kind of note on the system or or what I don't know but I I I didn't sit in in A&E for nine hours waiting to go through and see a doctor I was straight through and that was the 11th of November um 11th of November 2008 and I spent give or take um the next six months in hospital Today's Show sponsor is pillar well we're all familiar with the importance of electrolytes and carbohydrates and our role in our race preparation pillar is taking a completely different route it focuses on micronutrition ensuring we're ready to perform even before we hit the start line it's all about promoting a good night's sleep facilitating effective recovery and replenishing those crucial micronutrients so you can perform at your very very best I've been running my own personal little experiment over the past month and I've been incorporating pillars triple magnesium supplement into my evening routine I take it about 30 minutes before bed and the results I've seen are absolutely remarkable the Improvement in Sleep Quality about 10% I've seen I've been tracking my sleep with my whoop Dev voice and the results are there in absolute black and white I've given this to friends they've tested it and they've all experiened the same results I wake up feeling refreshed having had a deep restart of sleep so I'm ready to attack work training and life the next day but don't just take my word for it the data from your Fitness tracker will tell you story so if you're ready to elevate your performance and your Sleep Quality like me just go ahead and give pillar a try head to pillar performance.

Mistaken for a Kidney Stone

Shop and use the code roadman on your local website for 15% off your first order if you're watching this in the US head over to the feed.com pillar and use the code roadman for 15% of that first order as well now let's get back to the show was there a moment there where cuz I guess guess for quite a while you're in A&E your as a 28-year old your head's not going to cancer your head's going to I've strain something or have some sort of virus maybe a menius at worst your head is unlikely to go to cancer unless You' have a family experience or a friend that's got it is there a moment where it's like the curon revealed and they say hey the prognosis is cancer yeah so originally um originally when I originally when I went in um they put me on painkillers straight away so the the 11th is when I went in and I was admitted on the 11th that night they took me straight up to the ward in the morning they put me on uh morphine which was oramorph and slow relase tablets they said we're going to do some scans um to see what's going on originally they thought it was probably um a kidney stone um that was that was the problem um there was no talk of cancer um and then we did a scan on the 13th and they'd actually pre-warned me they said we're going to do a scan we think we know what the problem is now if it does turn out to be um cancer of any sort if it's if it is testicular cancer because of the lump then we will take you into surgery straight away that afternoon and we will remove what we need to and it was like okay fine now one thing that's worth mentioning I think here is that a lot of people say to me but why didn't you think it was cancer why would you you know there's so much information out there about cancer and so much information out there about illness is and what a lot of people or what I say to a lot of people is we didn't have access to that information in 2008 now 2008 isn't that long ago but iPhones weren't around in 2008 we were still just using normal phones unless you were unless you were engaged on online with Facebook or I mean we only we had Facebook and a couple of other things so there wasn't the free flow of information of check this look at this this could be the problem are you having this symptom make sure you look into x y and Zed so really bad as like realizing that we are mortal like we realize other people are mortal and we look at our parents or our auntie and you know we know that it's not going to be forever but when we look at ourselves very few of us have that emotional intelligence to understand this doesn't last forever because if we did there's no way we would behave like we behav there's no way we'd prioritize trivial social engagements and chasing likes for dopamine hits over spending quality time with loved ones there's no way we would work 70 80 hours a week because having read a lot of testimonials from people who are on their debt bed nobody's ever said I wish I worked longer I wish I had more cars I wish I had a bigger house everybody says I wish I spent more time doing the things I love spent more time with the people I love we don't have an intelligence to recognize that mortality in ourselves despite the stoic teachings of that kind of momentum M you will die it's also the are I think there's there's a lot of that is the the kind of the culture and the areas that we come from I you've just jobed my memory on a on a story that I heard yesterday which was it it was on a it was on a podcast or uh and it was about the the Mexican and the American and the Mexican goes fishing every day and the um American says to him why don't you why' you go fishing in the morning he says well I'll catch enough fish for my f for my family so we can go home and we can cook the fish and sit around a fire and he says but why don't you fish all day and catch more fish so then you can sell the fish he says well why would I want to sell the fish he said well because then you can employ people to work for you and then you can catch more fish and he said but why would I want to do that and he says well because then you can start processing the fish and you can sell it to more people but why would I want to do that he said because then you can start canning it and you can create a corporation in America and sell it to other places he said but why would I want to do that he said because then you can sell the company he said but why would I want to sell the company he said because then you can spend more time with your family so true hold on a minute I spend I spend all this time with my family anyway so so so true that's just the mentality like I do try and live and every day I try to remind myself of my own mortality and try and use that lens to view things true but what's it like to actually be confronted with your own mortality in a very definite sense I think I reflect on that more I think I reflect on that a lot more now and have done over the past once I think I I reflect on that a lot more now and since I got better than what I did in it you don't you know I mean I was never nobody ever said to me you've got they said to me afterwards so nobody ever said to me at the time you've only got 5% chance of surviving this there was never I mean my so I was I was diagnosed on the 13th I had a biopsy a couple of weeks later then so on the 13th they told me that it wasn't testicular cancer but they' found an 11 and 1 half CM tumor wedged between my spine kidney and bowel which was associated with it so we would need to go down the chemotherapy route to be able to shrink the tumor and then later on we would look at what those options were um so they put me on to chemo the nurses even commented um that they' never seen such a strong concoction of chemotherapy in their history of being on that Ward I mean chemo is a really weird thing because you're sitting there in your bed or in the chair with this bag of clear War water looking fluid next to you but the nurse is using like heavy industrial gloves to put this thing up you know she can't come into contact yeah yeah she can't come into contact with it so and the best way that I can describe is if you ever seen a guy filling an oil tanker or emptying an oil tanker with these massive rubber gloves that's that's genuinely what they're like that's what she's put in this canula together with that's going in your arm and then by Christmas I wasn't in a great place um I'd started to lose weight I wasn't able to eat I'd got um I was on a um I'd been moved to a to a kind of a clinical Ward where nobody can come and see you and if they do they have to wear gowns and face masks and you're only allowed one person in at a time it's it's literally like an incubator room that you're in the you know it's it's quite it's quite freaky really um and I'd got all thrush and ulcers all down my mouth and all down my throat my immune system system was just obliterated I spent all of Christmas in there all of New Year um I then had a little bit more chemo so the original plan was that I'd have a week of chemo three weeks week of chemo three weeks week of chemo the idea was that I would go home in between periodization for Cho yeah so the idea was I'd go home in between those sessions um but that didn't always that didn't always work out because of not being able to eat properly or because of sickness and vomiting and then went in for my third lot of chemo and Andy Stockdale who uh was my oncologist did his usual checks over me and he said I'm not going to give you your chemo today um I am going to admit you and we're going to give you some fresh blood um and um we'll let's just monitor things there's a bit of fluid buildup on your ankles um and I I just don't want to do your chemo just yet um and then I never actually I never actually had my third lot of chemo um I spiraled from that point and slowly and progressively got worse my abdomen blew up um there were a number of complications they put a tube in the side of me to feed me direct off a machine 24 hours a day because I was losing so much weight um that tube eroded through the back of my bow so all the food that was being pumped into me was being pumped into my cavity everything that I was eating was coming out of the hole which was then laying in my cavity and then by the middle of 20 uh 23rd 24th of February um I'd gone from 14 Stone to six um and lost the ability to walk and was being rushed into emergency surgery where Phil barag granth spent him and and four surgeons spent six hours saving my life um and it was coming out of that that I was then in intensive care for two weeks I was kept in an induced coma for uh just under two weeks of that um I stayed in intensive care for a little bit longer but I wasn't sleeping at the time so I was then starting to go with a bit crazy so they moved me off that Ward and put me into uh onto onto another Ward which isn't um so you go from intensive care and they which is one nurse per bed and then the W that they moved me on to was basically one nurse per two beds it's like a high dep or something like that yeah kind of it's but it's it's a bit more open it's a bit more flowing there's lights there's Windows there's a food car there's there's more routine there's no routine in intensive care um it's literally there's a nurse at your end of your bed for 12 hours and that's it um there is no paper man coming past there's no visitors unless you can only have two visitors at a time at your bed so it that was where I started to kind of lose it I mean when I woke up in intensive care I'd got 45 stitches in my stomach my bowel had been brought out onto the surface I'd got two tubes in my left hand side two tubes in my right hand side one in my back I'd got one in my throat one up my nose and I'd got three tubes in my chest as well um and I had no idea where I was or how I'd got there but when they moved me on to the to the other Ward that was where I met Charlotte West and she actually she she wrote a segment for for a book that we were writing a couple of years ago and I didn't know this but her manager had said to her when she came in on the morning and saw me laying there and said don't get too attached to him he won't be here for long so I still wasn't out of the woods even though I'd come off intensive care it still wasn't uh it still wasn't a straightforward road to recovery now I didn't know that at the time I remember as I started to get better and they removed the tubes and my stitches came out and I remember one day that my my best mate Ross had come to see me who had just I don't see enough of Ross anymore or speak to him enough anymore just because of him being in different places um but he he would come and see me religiously and I remember looking at him and just bursting into tears one day and saying I can't do this you could just let me go I'm ready and that was and that was as I got better that wasn't when I was at my worst that was as I got better um and I'd said that and my mom was there at the time as well and um yeah I just didn't I didn't think I could fight on from that point but hey I'm I'm still here I know from your life now and this snapshot he gave me of your life before you got cancer you're very goal orientated even that story about the cars you're buying the GTI and you have the goal to get the next car when you're lying there in that hospital bed is it possible to have goals yeah um sorry um yes it is and that was so my strap line um as as as many will know is one step at a time because literally my I'm a Believer the I'm a believer that your goals should be enormous they should be massive um and there's no harm in putting them out there you have to be very realistic about where you are in terms of that goal so at that point in time again and and if I sat here and said to you or I said to anybody else before me or even after this conversation that I laid in hospital and I got a pen and paper and I came up with this grandm plan of how I was going to achieve all this stuff and everything that I was going to go and do I'd be completely lying to you and I also think that anybody that turns around and says to you that they had this Eureka moment in the middle of their illness I'm I would be skeptical of how you recre a moment that was because you just that's just not how the body works the body is in at that point your body is in defense your body is in recovery your body is in fight it's not in planning mode your body is going okay how do I get through today how do I get through the first hour of today how do I get to lunchtime and that for me was the lights would come on on the ward at 8:00 in the morning the lady would come around with breakfast and as soon as you'd had breakfast the medicine lady would come around and she would give you your tablets or anything that you needed that you had to have throughout the day then um the vampires as we all called them would come around and take your blood for the day and you'd sit there and it would be a different vampire every day and you'd sit there and I'd go f87 which I still remember my Hospital number to this day they take your blood and off they would go and then I'd watch Jeremy Kyle and then I'd watch homes under the hammer and then I'd watch something else after that and then it's lunchtime and they would come around and they would bring you your lunch and then as soon as you'd had your lunch somebody would come around and give you medicine for the afternoon and then my mom would turn up and I'd sit there and I'd watch Jeremy KL again because there was a double b episode on in the afternoon and I'd watch something else but these were all things of just breaking the day down into very very simple small st steps and you do it every day and then I'd eat a load of food my mom would bring bags of food into the hospital because I mean there's a whole another story about how I'd refused my feed tube and wouldn't allow my feed tube um in my stomach because I Associated that with being the reasons why I've been in intensive care but so my mom would bring food in and she was the only person that was allowed to bring food onto the ward but that was because my surgeon had said he needs to eat um so and that was my process and then you would have your evening tea you'd have any medication that you needed for the evening then turn the lights off and everybody would go to sleep and that was that was each day as you broke it down and um my goal at that point was to get to the bathroom I just wanted to go to the bathroom on my own I hadn't been able to walk to the bathroom but I knew that been a before I could get to the bathroom I had to be able to I had to be able to walk I couldn't walk so it's just breaking that big goal and reverse engineering it into smaller steps yeah yeah yeah completely and you kind of go okay I want to get to the bathroom um I need to be able to walk there but before I walk there I need to be able to stand up and before I stand up I need to be able to sit up on my own before I sit up on my own I've got to be able to get to the edge of the bed uh story I've told many times is that I used to I got into a lot of trouble with the nurses because what I'd do was I'd use the the bed to to sit up so I'd use the electric motor on the bed to sit up and then I'd let the bed go back down and I'd see how long I could sit up before I fell backwards and then when I fell backwards it itd make this great crash on the bed the nurses would come and running in and they'd go you're doing the bed thing again aren't you and I'd be like yeah be like stop it you know and and I was told that I was allowed to eat mashed potato and gravy because of the amount of surgery that I'd had on my stomach and um things were start I was starting to eat a bit more than that at one point I was allowed to have sausages and soft Meats but I wasn't allowed to push the boundaries and I remember my surgeon who I have a great relationship with and I'm still in contact with now um and he came in one day and said so how are we going with the diet then I said yeah yeah fine he said food's all right said yeah food yeah food's fine he said so still eating the soft stuff and easy to digest I yeah yeah yeah yeah he said so why is there a Nando's bag by your bed when you reflect on that whole period of your life and when you're looking back now at the benefit of hindsight is there lessons you take from that per your life that you still apply today yes yeah yeah definitely I mean I completely and sometimes um sometimes on social media when I I I vowed that I wouldn't um publicly celebrate a couple of anniversaries about 12 18 months ago I said this will be the last time I publicly celebrate this anniversary and that was because I just needed to move away from that particular time not the particular photo that I used or certain things around it but sometimes I post certain things and to be honest and it's not for it's not for the likes it's not for the comments it's for the it's for me um reflecting I think reflection is hugely important in everything that that we do I think there's there's a couple of things so for me the big things are Big Goal massive goal um but then also using reflection to be able to understand where you've actually come from because I don't think we give ourselves as humans enough credit of actually what we've been able to achieve in our lives to get to where we are now and do the things that we do so one of the things I talk about quite a lot is the most the the most impressive thing that you've ever achieved in your life and generally speaking people will look at you and kind of go oh it's um it's my kids or marrying my wife and you go okay like let's break that down a little bit more let's think about the most impressive thing you've ever done in your life and I'm sitting and they're going I know the answer to this question I don't even know you and I know the answer to this question and they'll go what is it I'll go walking you learned to walk at 8 nine 10 months old you had no you had your parents to Aspire to be like them but you had no internet you had no coach you had no strength and conditioning coach you had no nutritionalist you had no Google you had you had no knowledge and you had no way of absorbing that knowledge that you were being given yet you dragged yourself across the floor and picked yourself up on a bit of furniture and you walked you might have fallen over a few times and it might have taken a little while to get into that process but you did it and now you're sitting there at 25 35 45 50 saying oh I I can't do that but you've got all of this knowledge you've achieved everything you have to get to where you are now you've learned how to ride a bike to drive a car to eat your dinner to get dressed you've learned how to teach your kids you've learned how to do all these different things that you do every single day at one point in time that you weren't able to do but because something challenges you you sit there and go I can't do that where did cycl weave its way into your comeback story I spoke to Owen ver Mullan a couple of days ago on the podcast and he is the cousin of EX yo visma rer Alexi ver Mullan and his story is fascinating he was suffered some shocking childhood abuse and was made homeless at an early age took to the streets of Vancouver developed a drug habits addicted to heroin for the better part of his life and ultimately it wasn't any of the traditional counseling methods that got him clean it was actually cycling that got him clean and I'm fascinated by that role that's something as simple as the bike can play in the complex road to recovery what role did it play in your story um it was it was exactly that it was recovering it was Freedom it was being able to move further and faster than I had done I used to race mountain bikes as as a kid cross country and and downhill um it was the kind of the late 90s sorry late 80s early 90s just as what we would potentially call kind of proper mountain biking broke onto the scene in in the UK um you know the kind of the the the cona Marin kleene manatu fat kind of yeah you know that kind of that kind of prolex and that kind of era really um and um I always remembered the joy that I got on that and I there was a bike in the corner of my house which one of my Lodgers um owned and I kind of said can I can I borrow you bike and I took it to the local Reservoir and I rode five miles around the local resi and it was um it was the freest that I'd felt for a very very long time time it was the fastest that I'd moved under my own power for a for a very very long time um and I loved it I just I just absolutely loved it and I needed something I wanted to go back to work but I wasn't ready to go back to work when somebody turns around to you after you've been through that and goes brilliant well done all good back to normal you kind of go what's normal like I'm confused because Normal doesn't look like used to to me anymore um and that was that was quite difficult to get my head round and then through various conversations uh with a couple of people we came up with an idea of a charity event which was to cycle Across America um and I kind of went yeah let's let's do that let's go and ride across America and this was whilst I was riding 10 miles around the local Reservoir that's what I mean about this this big massive goal and B but understanding where you are you know you can have that Big Goal set that Big Goal tell you're going to do it look at where you are and then work out how you're going to get from where you are now to achieving that goal and and just to jump in there for a second James because that's so powerful for people listening to this maybe their goal isn't to R Across America and maybe their starting point isn't coming from cancer they could have a totally unique challenge but I'm thinking of a lot of our listeners that are 15 20 kilograms overweight and their goal is maybe to have a six-pack yet that's the north star that can guide your vision but just get the salad instead of the burgers and Ice you know it needs to start as small as you're saying starting from 10 miles and working up to 11 miles like what's the smallest action you can take today to start building that bit of positive momentum I think that's such a valuable lesson yeah completely if it could be you know it could be it could be a running goal it could be that you want to go and you want to go and run 5K well first off go and buy a pair of trainers and then second off maybe go and walk maybe go and walk 5K try that first you know before you before you think about running it and well find a 5k Loop go and walk it walk it a few times um walk it again and then maybe walk it and find little sections within it that you're going to run for a little while and then try and run a bit more next week and a bit more the next week but you know you have to and again this is where reflection comes into it and and I I talk about reflection because like we're we're preparing for Race Across America at the moment and and I talk about reflection because I'm sitting there going I've only done or I'm not going well at the moment or I don't feel very good at the moment or this isn't working out for me at the moment and you kind of go but hold on a minute five years ago you would have been happy going out and doing x amount it's a really bad analogy because I can't think of an actual particular point in time um where we we've so if I if I look at if I look let's take let's take that first ride across America as a really good example and you kind of going to go right okay we're going to have to ride 100 miles a day for 35 days the most I'm doing is 10 miles if you're doing 10 miles you can do 12 miles and this was how it kind of went for me when one lap of the local Reservoir was 5 miles two laps were 10 miles if I could ride 10 miles I can ride from my house in rugby to my mom's house in daventry and if I can get to my mom's house in daventry and have something to eat or something to to drink then I can get back as well and if I can't get back then at least I'm somewhere where I've got a bit of a comfort blanket to wait for a while and either have a lift or whatever now if I can ride 20 mil then I can find a 20m loop before I get back to my house and if I can ride 20 miles I can slow down and I can ride a little bit more than that and you start to add little bits on so you kind of go well if I go from here to my mom's house it's 10 but if I go from here to Dave's and then to my mom's that's 15 miles so you start to kind of think about these slightly bigger trips that you can make but over time you then get to 50 miles and then the next week you go out and all you can make manages 40 and you're really annoyed with yourself and you're angry and you're frustrated that it's not going the way that you want it to go so you sit there and you go I'm not doing this anymore forget it I've had enough what we should be doing is reflecting and going actually six weeks ago I couldn't even ride 10 miles like if I take a step back that's fine if I'm going to climb I was watching a um something on Netflix about um Everest the other day and this guy and it I've always talked about it but what this guy was saying was was perfect he was like so you start off at base camp and you go to Camp one and you stay in Camp one for a little while and you wait there and then essentially what you do is you come back down and then we go back up to Camp two and we stay there for a little while and we'll wait for a while and then what we'll do is we'll come back down to to Camp one and then we'll go to camp three and then we'll come back down to Camp two and then eventually somebody will go right Summit and we go right to the very very top but it's about a climatization on the way up and whether you're climbing a mountain or whether you're looking to lose 15 kilos 10 kilos or whether you're looking to do that 5K it's exactly the same way and instead of looking at losing that 10 kilos or that 15 kilos how long are you how longer period you want to be able to do that over okay well I want to lose for example I want to lose 40 I want to lose 15 kilos and I want to lose 15 kilos within the next seven months okay so that's two kilos a month that you want to be able to lose that's pretty Punchy but that's actually quar of a kilo a week so a guy rang me messaged me yesterday and said that he's doing a big of uh an off-road gravel event and he was like have you seen the amount of climbing that's in this and I I messaged him back I said yeah that's Punchy he said what would you do I said well first of all I try to make my bike a lot heavier whilst I'm training whilst I'm here I would try and make my bike a lot heavier um gave him a bit advice he came back and said thanks very much and I was looking at it again I went I said mate hold on a minute I said this is this is 1750 M of climbing over 750 km I said but what you've got to remember is that works out at roughly 23 23 meters of climbing per kilometer that he's going to be doing so now living where we live in training you're probably doing somewhere between 20 and 26 meters of climbing per kilometer anyway any went yeah had thought about it like that yeah it's an interesting way to break stuff down I was to finish up all of us know you from somebody these crazy Insurance Feats whether it's the most kilometers ever ridden in seven days was a crazy record I think first you first came onto my radar when you broke that record but also the Race Across the America stuff now that you're pursuing I just want to get a little bit of an insight into your training is it all long slow distance outside or are you mixing tough indoor sessions with outdoor rids or what's the breakup look like um there's there is a mix of that a lot of it some of that comes down to definition I suppose because um what people's perception of of a long ride and and a short hard ride um are are probably and and I'm I'm chuckling because for me a short high ride is three hours at threshold you know so um it depends kind of um I work very very closely with uh Dean Downing um and um some of it is indoor some of it is on zift some of it is on ruvy because we can actually ride this the similar roads um particularly through the Mojave Desert some of it is go out and do certainly by kind of May time next year it will be somewhere in the region of sort of 7even eight nine hours a day at sort of 275 280 Watts um looking at a heart rate probably somewhere in the region of about 125 to 130 um but then some of it will be go and do an hour and just if it's an hour in the garage just go absolutely as hard as you can for an hour so there is a bit of a mix in there um but again with it doesn't matter I don't think it really matters whether you're doing Race Across America or whether you're doing a sport e what's important is time on the bike that's the there is no there's no substitute for time sitting on a bike riding whether you're riding slowly whether you're riding super hard um or whether you're going short or whether you're going long um and Race Across America is is as much about um spending time being comfortable making yourself comfortable whilst being uncomfortable um as what it is is about every I mean there's so many different factors and I've got a I've got an amazing crew we've got some changes to the crew um this year um that we've we've had before some new additions to the crew this year than we've had previously who bring um a huge wealth of knowledge and experience with them and I'm I'm super excited to be working with them um I can't say anything at the moment because we've not kind of announced it of of who they are um but yeah there's pain cave set up like I'm bit kind of obsessed and and geeking out on my pain cave at the moment I'm want fans all over the shop what's your one like so um I've got a w bike in there um I'm very very fortunate that um as as as you are as well um I've been supported by wat bik for 12 years now so um we've got a a what bike also have obviously they have a huge amount of Connections in the Fitness business so um we've got a nice kind of weight set up in there as well um it's also my office so it's kind of my office stroke Workshop stroke um stroke pain cave TV on the wall fan in front of it um you can never if the Fan's on it's too cold if it's not on it's too hot it's uh it's one of those situations people say that accur number of bikes to have is that n plus one where n is the current number of bikes you have plus an extra one I found that's more true for fans than bikes when I'm riding indoors it's like I have two fans I need three I have three fans I need four I'm not sure where this is going to end I'm going to build a little bit of a wind tunnel in the apartment it's when you're it's when you've got it on setting number two and it's not given enough but you put it on setting number three and it's too much you kind of what do what do you do you know and I always blame the fans no matter how short I'm going I'm like oh no it's not me it's the fans I'm overheating that's why I'm going sh it's actually not my or you've got it you got it at the wrong angle and it's pointing at your head too much and you can't breathe properly because it's forcing wind at you but yeah I mean I I I I sorry I spend you know I'm on the I'm on the W bike kind of I'm on the W bike kind of two three four times a week um and then I'm out um blocks of four kind of four days on one day off four days on um and then what bike sessions in between that as well I've love this chat we'll have to get you back on and do a full Race Across America podcast where we talk about geek out on your equipment your training your pacing and talk about your inevitable upcoming Victory thank you yeah I'd love to that's that's the goal the goal is you know and just just to touch on that very quickly you know it's it's not that I feel because I have been um recorded and quoted as saying you know I want to be the first British Rider to win Race Across America um and that is very much the go and that's not me going there with expectations that I'm going to win Race Across America that's just me laying the foundations for the work that I know that I need to do and having the commitment to everything that we need to do and if we get there and we've committed to the project and we've done everything we've said you know training eating sleeping everything else and somebody there's better than me then then that's the way it is but none of us should be afraid to say that we want to be great at something or we want to be better than than anybody else at something I think that we should be we should be putting those goals out there we should be talking we should be talking ourselves up more than than we do I'm afraid as a society we talk ourselves down way too much of oh well I'll have a go I'll attempt that or I or we'll see what happens you know we should be saying you know I am going to go and run a marathon I am going to go and climb killer mjara I am going to go and do Race Across America and I am going to try and be the first Brit to Win race cross America because I think that helps with the level of commitment that we put into our challenges and it helps lose that weight it helps achieve those goals and it it embeds the right mindset in us as what we're doing but it also um it also adds conviction to the people that are around us who are supporting us that that is what we want to do you know and they kind of go well if that's what you want to do then I'll support you and I think that's really really important 100% I couldn't agree with that sentiment anymore James thank you very much for taking the time to chat thank you everybody thanks for tuning in to today's interview if you like this interview I'm going to put another interview up here which I know you're really going to enjoy and please click on that subscribe button talk to you soon

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who is James Golding cyclist and what is his story?+

James Golding is a British ultra-endurance cyclist who was diagnosed with an 11.5cm tumour at age 28 and given a 5% chance of survival. He spent six months in hospital, lost eight stone, and went on to compete in the Race Across America. He speaks about how that experience shifted his focus away from material ambition towards presence and gratitude.

What is the Race Across America and how hard is it?+

The Race Across America (RAAM) is an unsupported ultra-endurance cycling race covering roughly 3,000 miles from the west coast to the east coast. Competitors must ride almost continuously, sleeping as little as 90 minutes per day, and face extreme heat, altitude, and sleep deprivation. It is widely regarded as one of the most demanding endurance events in the world.

How does a near death experience change your priorities in life?+

James Golding describes his cancer diagnosis as the point where goals rooted in money and status lost their hold entirely. Surviving with a 5% prognosis reoriented him towards endurance sport and a life measured by experience rather than accumulation. The shift was not gradual but immediate, forced by the reality of spending six months in hospital facing the possibility of dying at 28.

Why do big achievements feel empty straight after you complete them?+

The reflex question "what's next?" immediately after finishing something hard strips the meaning from what was just completed. James Golding identifies this pattern as one of the central problems with achievement- focused thinking, where the finish line becomes a starting gun rather than a moment worth sitting with. He argues that practising gratitude and staying present with what has been accomplished matters more than accelerating towards the next target.

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Key Takeaways

Break massive goals into tiny, daily micro-steps. James's first goal wasn't cycling across America—it was walking to the bathroom. Reverse-engineer your big vision into small wins you can achieve today.

Reflect regularly on how far you've come. We rarely give ourselves credit for the impressive things we've already achieved (like learning to walk as a baby with zero resources). Use reflection to build confidence for the next challenge.

Find your 'one step at a time' mentality during recovery or hardship. Your body doesn't plan when it's fighting for survival—it focuses on getting through the next hour, the next meal, the next small milestone.

Understand your 'before' and 'after' to recognize real transformation. James's pre-cancer life was driven by material status; his post-cancer life is driven by meaning. Know who you were and who you want to become.

A simple bike can unlock freedom and healing in ways therapy alone cannot. Cycling gave James back his sense of speed, movement, and joy after months of being immobilized.

Expert Quotes

"If I met the me before cancer, a couple of years before I was diagnosed, I probably wouldn't like that person. It was very money orientated—what watch are you wearing, what car are you driving. I was driven by the wrong things."

"Nobody ever said to me at the time you've only got 5% chance of surviving this. But when I got better, that's when they told me the odds."

"I remember looking at my best mate and just bursting into tears saying 'I can't do this, you could just let me go, I'm ready'—and that was as I got better, not when I was at my worst."

"You learned to walk at 8, 9, 10 months old with no internet, no coach, no Google, no knowledge. Yet you're now saying 'I can't do that' when you have all of this knowledge. You've already achieved everything you needed to get to where you are now."

KEY QUOTES

“I went to see my caropractor and he was like there's nothing wrong with you you're best shape I've ever seen you you're fitter than I've ever seen you your back's in better shape than I've ever seen like something's not right and want you to go to the doctors.”
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“I used to be coming in at 6:00 in the morning with the sun judging saying you're a waste of life whereas now you're kind of waiting for the birds to start singing so you can go out and get a few extra hours in before everybody else is out and about.”
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“Having read a lot of testimonials from people who are on their debt bed nobody's ever said I wish I worked longer I wish I had more cars I wish I had a bigger house everybody says I wish I spent more time doing the things I love spent more time with the people I love.”
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who is James Golding cyclist and what is his story?+

What is the Race Across America and how hard is it?+

How does a near death experience change your priorities in life?+

Why do big achievements feel empty straight after you complete them?+

TRANSFORM: THE MAN WHO BEAT 5% ODDS & RACED ACROSS AMERICA | JAMES GOLDING

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Life Before the Diagnosis

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