For Casey Neistat, life is all about motion. With his signature Ray-Bans and mop of unruly hair, the 34-year-old filmmaker and 3:01 marathoner treats the world (especially New York City) as his athletic and artistic playground. Almost everything he touches turns into an adventure, or at least usable content.

Neistat’s slice-of-life YouTube vlogs (about crashing his bike into cars parked in bike lanes, snowboarding down the middle of a city street, or running the NYC Marathon) get hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of views. His Instagram and Twitter accounts throb with hearts and stars, and his irreverent Nike ads are among the brand’s most popular. Fans wait outside his Tribeca studio office to snap selfies with him. This past July, he launched Beme, an app that lets users send short uneditable videos that then disappear. Within eight days, more than a million Beme videos had been shared.

In 2002, three years before YouTube even existed, Neistat and his brother Van made a name for themselves with their video “iPod’s Dirty Secret” (they stenciled “iPod’s unreplaceable battery lasts only 18 months” around the city). It garnered 6 million views in a month and led to Apple policy changes.

But back to that motion thing. Neistat has knocked off 22 marathons and three Ironmans—despite a titanium rod where his right femur should be, the result of a nasty Vespa accident when he was 25.

The father of a 17-year-old son and an 11-month-old daughter says the freedom of running combined with the city’s energy is responsible for his most significant ideas. “Running is where I get most of my work done,” says Neistat, who will run his fifth NYC Marathon on November 1. “I plot out the day, figure out the movie, write scripts. I came up with the plan to marry my wife on a run. I decided to start a tech company on my run. Every major decision I’ve made in the last eight years has been prefaced by a run. Where else do you get those uninterrupted hours to do nothing but think?”

Here is RW's full interview with the filmmaker marathoner.

Can you tell the story of your accident and how that led to your running career?

“Sure. So I ran cross-country in middle school and I used to jog when I could before the accident, meaning, I vaguely remember running across the Williamsburg Bridge when I had a boring night. But I would not, by any definition, call myself a runner. In fact, I used to party a lot, and physical fitness was not part of my life. Then the accident happened, which was crashing my girlfriend’s Vespa. A guy ran a red light, ran me over and I broke my right femur in 27 places. When a break like that happens they call it fragmented, which means there wasn’t a bone left in there, just pieces of a bone. They had to cut me open and remove all those pieces and replace the femur in its entirety with a titanium rod that goes into my hip. It's screwed into my hip and then it goes down and is bolted into what was left of my knee. There’s no hardware that’s connected to any joint. Hip and knee are real bones, but the femur itself is titanium. I was 25."

The doctors told you that was it for your fitness future?

“Yeah, well, even though I never considered myself a fitness-focused guy, I’ve been able to do a standing back flip since I was 12 years old. I was always the guy who jumped off the roof of the garage, who could climb up the façade of a building. I’ve always been an incredibly physically capable human being. I’ve always had good control of my body, walk a hundred feet on my hands, jump off rock wall and do a back flip into the sand. That’s always been who I am. My friends would describe me as such. My girlfriend would describe me as such. I can jump really high. So I was there in the hospital, now made of metal. They put rings above my bed so I could be moved to a cot. I would do pull-ups on them because I was so bored in the hospital room.

“But when I asked the doctor how long it would be until I was back to normal, he hesitated and said, ‘You will never be like you were.’ I said, ‘Well what does that mean? How long till I run again?’ He said, ‘Well, you’ll be able run after your kids and you’ll be able to chase down a taxi, but you’ll never be able to run-run.’ I remember hearing that and that was probably the first time in my life when I became conscious of my own mortality and it was really shocking. It scared the shit out of me. I did 18 months of rehab. And in less than a year I did my first standing back flip. I remember I primarily jumped off one foot and landed on the other, but I did it.”

Was part of it a strong reaction to being told “never again?”

“Well, look, it wasn’t just to defy the doctor. It was much more about the fact someone explained to me my physical limitations and me being asked—and this is all existential, this is me questioning me, all internal—being forced to consider the idea that I might not be 100 percent physically capable, and that was incredibly scary for me. That’s why I did that back flip on one foot, and that’s why as soon as I could, I started walking. And as soon I started walking, I started walking briskly. And as soon as I could walk briskly, I started jogging lightly. And as soon as I could jog lightly, I started jogging more quickly and eventually it turned into running. I ran my first full marathon two and half years later and did absolutely terrible and had my ass handed to me on a plate.”

Ben Rayner

What was your time?

“I’m a little embarrassed to mention my time, because most people would say that’s a terrific time. I try to be as humble as I can. I ran a 4:15, but the goal was a 3:30. I couldn’t walk for days after. My girlfriend had to help me down the stairs. I ran the first seven miles at a seven-minute pace and last 5 miles at a 15-minute pace. I didn’t hit the wall. The wall hit me in a way that knocked me onto my back.”

Was this New York City?

“This was in Richmond, Virgina. That really spooked me. I really always felt top of the heap when it comes to physicality and nothing makes you feel more humble than running your first marathon. Immediately after that, I was like okay, my body can handle it, I can’t use my leg as an excuse, and that’s when I really committed myself to running. Quite literally and figuratively, I have not looked back since. I have run 21 marathons to date. My PR is 3:01. My last five or six marathons have all been under 3:05. I’ve run New York City four times. Boston once. My New York City PR: 3:03.17. That was 2013. Last year, it was 3:03.34. But you have to give me those 17 seconds because there was a bit of vicious headwind.”

Do you have a time goal for this year?

“My time goal for last 36 months of marathoning has been the same, and that’s 2:59.59.59. I just can’t seem to break it. But I’ll get there.

“I’ve also done a lot of tris. This is the first year I’m taking off from racing with the exception of New York City, which I just have to after launching my company and having a baby. If I had committed to racing this year—I’m an obsessive person and I don’t believe in just limping into something, it would have meant sacrificing one of two. It’s like that triangle, the virtuous triangle. Work, family, and racing—pick two. For 2015, it was work and family. But I still get out there every day. I did nine miles this morning.

“It’s tough, but I really do believe in cutting my sleep short an hour and using that hour to run. And I do feel better throughout the day because of it. But removing the pressure that was racing and holding myself to standard that allows me to think of training not as a necessity but more of a leisure. It makes me enjoy it more. I don’t beat myself up when I’m unable to get out there for five minutes.”

In one of your videos you talk about how you don’t like to run in groups, so I’m curious why it’s important for you to run New York City?

“Well there’s a very significant gradation to make there. I don’t like to run, train, in groups. But racing, it’s the groups that are most inspiring to me. I love racing with 52,000 people. I don’t like training with any more than one person. Ever.”

Talk about the value of that community that you find on race day.

“Well, looking around and seeing all the people who are enduring the same challenge you are is something that’s tremendously inspiring. You're tired. You look to the left, you know that person is tired. But they’re still doing it so I’ll keep going.

“New York City, which to me is my favorite marathon not by a small margin; to me, there is New York City and then there’s every other race in the world. Part of the reason I’m so emphatic about New York City is you have hundred of thousands, maybe millions of cheering fans, every step of the way, and that is endlessly motivating. And the ultimate virtue of it all, the longer the day goes by, the louder they cheer. If you’re running a 4.5, 5-hour marathon, you’re going to hear it louder than Meb coming in at 2:10. That’s such a wonder.

“For all the marathons I’ve run, including the Ironmans that I’ve run, immediately after the race, I clean myself up, do whatever I need to do to make sure I’m okay, and I get right back out there and I cheer people on. Because it’s the people who come in late in the race I find most inspiring. A pro I get, I comprehend that they’re the greatest. But that women running her first race after whatever trials she’s faced... this is the biggest personal challenge she’s taken on in a while. You can see it in her eyes, there such inspiration in that and I love it.

“Every marathon I’ve run, I hang around the finish line. The New York City Ironman, I finished in 11 hours something and went home, showered, changed and went back to the race which was all the way on the other side of the city. I remember I stayed until the last person crossed the finish line in 17 hours and cheering that last person on. It’s incredible. Seeing someone busting their ass for 17 hours to me is way more an inspiration than these pros just burning across the finish line at 8 hours and doing another one a couple months later.”

I read somewhere that you get a tat after every marathon. Is that correct?

“I have a line line line line hash. What do you call that?”

Like marking time on a prison wall?

“Exactly. On my left leg, I have that. I only add a line if I break my PR. It looks like someone’s sketchbook. But I haven’t broken a PR in my last dozen marathons, so it’s in desperate need of an update. I only get it when I earn that update.”

”I have a line–line–hash tattoo with my marathon PRs on my left leg,” Neistat says. Ben Rayner

What’s your favorite tattoo parlor in the city?

“Scott Campbell is a tattoo artist and also my running partner. He’s at Saved Tattoo, which is hands down the best tattoo parlor in the world. He’s the only person who I run with and happens to be one of the greatest tattoo artists in the world. We’ve started the New York City Marathon together the last three or four years in a row.”

Take us through one of your typical training runs.

“I am absolutely horrible at training. I’m the least considered and impractical person there is when it comes to training. I give almost no thought to it. There’s almost no structure. It’s however much time I have in a day. This morning, I had enough for nine miles. So I did nine miles, came home showered and then went straight out the door. On a Sunday afternoon, the baby’s asleep and the wife says they’re going to stay inside for the day, I run out and do 22 miles. If I have 25 minutes, I’ll do a quick 3-mile sprint. But I don’t keep track. I’m really bad about it. It’s probably why I’ve never broken 3 hours. I want to be better at it. My training, as my little brother puts it, is reckless and irresponsible.”

What are some of your favorite routes in the city?

“I like repetition when it comes to running environments. I like to run the same route every single day, and I’ve been doing that for last six or seven years. The reason why is you can dismiss yourself from where you have to run, how long you’ve been out, how far it is, getting lost, directions, etc. Running becomes a much less cerebral process and becomes purely physical. And in that physicality, it frees up your brain almost in its entirety to think of other things. Crazy as it sounds, running is where I get most of my work done. I plot out the day, figure out the movie, write scripts. I stop a lot and take notes on my phone. But finding time in anyone’s busy schedule and having time just to think is incredibly elusive, especially finding time to think without myriad distractions. That’s probably the second most valuable thing for me about running; the first most valuable is what it does for me physically—keeps me in shape, keeps my heart running well.”

Neistat running in lower Manhattan. Ben Rayner

What is the route that you repeat all the time?

“It’s the West Side Highway bike path. I go up and I come back down. It also happens to be one of the most beautiful urban runs in the world.”

Coming back to ideas, plotting out work in your head, to what extent was Beme shaped during your runs?

“So much of it. What I've learned is that when it comes to shaping products that people interact with—it has so much to do with user behavior and user behavior is a challenging thing to define. And so when running, I’m thinking about how to address the ideas around that. A lot of Beme was considered and ultimately birthed from my runs.”

What other cool ideas were born during a run?

“I came up with the idea and the plan to marry my wife on a run. I decided to start a company on my run. Every major decision I’ve made in the last eight years have been prefaced by a run. A run where I really think about and indulge in what it is I’m up to, and the implications of that are. Where else do you get those uninterrupted hours to do nothing but think? That’s what the running is for me.”

The Nike “Make It Count” ad?

“A lot of that was. There was a Nike movie I made called Mind Games, which is about the metal challenges that are committing to a run.”

Any good anecdotes about running into the creatures of New York City?

“It’s more about interactions with cars and trying not to get run over.”

Obviously, everybody has bad runs from time to time. How do you bounce back from a bad run?

“For me, what I find compelling about a bad run is that there's always a reason for it. For example, Monday morning I had a terrible run, and I didn’t have to look that far to realize that terrible run was because I’d eaten nothing but In 'N' Out double cheeseburgers the day before. That’s okay, stop eating double cheeseburgers, that makes sense. When it comes to bad runs, I’m like, okay, why did this happen? It encourages me to skip whatever bad behavior predicated that bad run. Honestly, and when I eat really healthy and get some sleep I have great runs. It encourages me to eat healthy.”

Speaking of which, what’s your diet like?

“Terrible. I eat nothing but candy. My wife describes it that I am one of two extremes: I eat entirely raw vegan, which is what I’m literally eating right now. Or I eat nothing but candy and cheeseburgers. I wish I was more disciplined with diet, but mostly my diet is beholden to my being so busy that I lack the opportunity to pay attention what I’m putting into my body, and there’s no excuse for that. Then the first thing I do is overcorrect to where I’m eating nothing but raw vegan.”

What is your favorite burger joint in the city?

“When I’m in New York City, it’s non-stop pizza. Pizza is my favorite food. If someone said your going to be stranded on desert island for rest of life and eat only pizza for the rest of life, I’d be like: awesome.”

Where’s your go-to pizza joint?

“Joe’s Pizza in the West Village.”

What about the other extreme, vegan stuff?

“Juice Press is my go-to. They’re all over the city, 10 or 20 outlets.”

What about after a long run, what’s your appetite and where do you satisfy it?

“I’m usually not hungry postrun and almost never eat prerun. The morning of race I might eat a cup of fruit and now five hours later, I’m eating a smoothie. I’m really irresponsible. Running does not make me hungry at all. Lifting weight makes me starving, but not running.”

What kind of technology do use on a run?

“I use my phone. I have a baby at home and get nervous about being absolutely out of communication with my wife. But I’m not a big gear guy with anything that I do.

“Outdoor Voices, a New York City based company, makes pretty much the only shorts that I will wear. They have a fantastic product. Running shorts are a finicky thing and their shorts are the only ones I wear year round. I’m not hot in the summer, don’t freeze in the winter. None of those nasty, uninteresting things that happen with your shorts and your body when you run. I have three pairs. One that is dirty, one that’s in the wash and one that’s clean. That is the virtuous cycle of running clothing.”

Do you run with music?

“I listen mostly Spotify and its entirely mood based. I don’t have go-to run songs. I listen to hip hop mostly when I run and its based on cadence and beats per second when I run, that kind of thing. I’m pretty open. I usually get so trapped within my own head thinking about things that I usually just want music that supports that.”

What routes would you recommend to runners visiting the city?

“Stick to the water. You can avoid the traffic and the noise that is NYC and still be shadowed by the skyline. Without any of the negatives.”

Do you ever run with your son (Owen, 17)?

“I don’t, but he is a very serious runner, a competitive runner. We don’t run together. We used to race a lot together, which meant we’d show up together, high five, wish each other luck, and then see each other at the finish line, but not side by side.”

Is he faster?

“He’s getting there. I’m really not looking forward to the day when that happens, but I know it’s coming.”

That must fill you with a certain amount of pride to see your kid running in your footsteps so to speak.

“It does, and his relationship with running is similar to mine. We both tried a lot of sports, but the thing that we liked the most is the running part, so we skipped everything else and focused on that. You’re sharing something that is a mutual experience, anything like that, whether its climbing mountains, running a few miles, that asks a lot of a person and wherever you do that with some else, there’s a unique bond.”

For the New York City Marathon, is there a section that means the most to you?

“Coming down the 59th Street Bridge. It’s the only part of the race that is silent and when you get to the other side of the bridge, it’s a singular, screaming noise. There’s something about that that really puts things into context. You’re hearing screaming the entire race so it almost become ambient noise. But when you hit that bridge, it almost becomes silent, and then it becomes louder and louder and louder until it becomes this incredibly powerful motivating force that is the collection of so many people cheering you on, so excited for what you’re doing. That’s amazing. It’s a wonderful thing.”

How much of running is about redemption or enduring and fighting through pain?

“I don’t know. I don’t romanticize pain. If I could run without pain, I would. To me, it’s much more about the mental aspects of not being sure about doing something and doing it, than it is about confronting pain.”

Ben Rayner

What other parts of the city come to mind when you think about running?

“The one part that’s really underrated is the Manhattan Bridge. You have to wear ear plugs to do it because it’s so loud, and that keeps many people off it. When you run across the Manhattan Bridge, the whole bridge is yours, and that's a really amazing experience. It really feels like that you’re conquering the city in a way. Then on the other side of that, you’re in one of the most beautiful parts of Brooklyn, and you can run right along the water. Instead of looking across and seeing the outer boroughs, you can look across and see these stemming, towering skyscrapers that are lower Manhattan. So that’s a special experience.”

Have you done the baby jogger thing?

“We did one run together and it was tough. She wants to hang out after 10 minutes. If I was better at shorter runs maybe. But for now, we’ve had to shelve our daddy-daughter run ambitions until she matures.”

Any other New York City Marathon thoughts?

“I feel like maybe I didn’t praise the New York City Marathon enough and what an event that is. The magic of the New York City marathon is it takes place in New York City , but it feels like the world’s race. You’re racing with people from all around the planet, and they’re all speaking different languages, and they’re all there to celebrate this race, not just running. When you’re around that kind of energy and ethos, it’s absolutely contagious. And when you multiply it by 52,000, it becomes all-encompassing. Of all the marathons I’ve run, that is something that is unique to New York City.”

How does it compare to Boston for you?

“Boston’s incredible. It’s a marathoner’s marathon, and that’s what makes it so precious. But New York City is the people’s marathon. I phrase that carefully. I don’t want sound like I’m saying anything disparaging about the Boston Marathon. Boston was a dream of mine my entire life, and the main reason 3:05 had been my target for my first marathon was in order to fulfill the dream of running Boston.”

How has your experience of running the New York City Marathon evolved over the four years that you’ve run it?

“A lot of the security, which I absolutely respect the need for it (I was in lower Manhattan during 9/11) has affected it, especially last year. They didn’t allow people to cheer when you turn into Central Park, where you used to have people cheering you into the home stretch. Instead, last year, you turned into your home stretch, and it was silent and lonely. That was kind of heartbreaking. The inverse of that, particularly with Boston [bombings], is that the unity and unifying effects of the marathon has only been amplified. And with something as high profile as New York City, the appreciation of what a marathon is and what it is to people has only grown, and that I love.”

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