Hello, friends,
This week’s podcast episode is a special one.
I’m joined by my friend Travis Macy — endurance athlete, coach, author, speaker, podcast host, and Alzheimer’s advocate.
Travis and I first connected through Mind What Matters, a nonprofit that supports families navigating Alzheimer’s and other dementias. We also share something deeply personal: both of us have been adult children of parents with Alzheimer’s.
Travis’s father, Mark “Mace” Macy, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease at age 64. Since we recorded this conversation, Mace has passed away.
Mace was a husband, father, grandfather, attorney, endurance athlete, and adventurer. He was one of the few athletes to complete all eight original Eco-Challenge expedition races. But what made him so inspiring to the Alzheimer’s community was the way he chose to live after his diagnosis.
He did not hide. He spoke publicly. He let people see what it looked like to keep moving, keep connecting, and keep showing up.
In this episode, Travis shares the first signs his family noticed: word-finding difficulty, visual-spatial changes, and moments when Mace became disoriented in familiar places. We talk about the difficult conversations that led to diagnosis, and why families should not ignore early cognitive changes.
We also talk about the father-son adventure that became Travis’s book, A Mile at a Time — their journey through Eco-Challenge Fiji after Mace’s diagnosis.
That title says so much. You do not get through an expedition race by thinking about the whole course at once. You get through it one mile at a time.
Families living with Alzheimer’s know this too. You get through the next conversation, the next appointment, the next decision, the next role shift, the next small moment of connection.
Travis and I also talk about caregiving, grief, role shifts, his own brain health, and his recovery from serious concussions. Near the end, he asks me how busy families can eat for brain health when cooking from scratch every night is not realistic.
This conversation is about Alzheimer’s, but it is also about how to live: say the hard thing, spend time with your people, take care of your brain, accept help when it is time, and keep looking for moments of meaning.
Mace Macy taught a lot of people how to keep going.
I’m grateful to honor him here. And if you are so moved, please join me in donating to the Mind What Matters Caregiver Relief Fund in honor of Mace and his legacy.
With Love,
Annie and the Brain Health Kitchen Team
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Finisher of more than 130 ultra-endurance events in 17 countries, Travis Macy is an endurance athlete, speaker, author, coach, and host of The Travis Macy Show podcast. He is the author of The Ultra Mindset: An Endurance Champion’s 8 Core Principles for Success in Business, Sports, and Life and co-author of A Mile at a Time: A Father and Son’s Inspiring Alzheimer’s Journey of Love, Adventure, and Hope, which chronicles his family’s experience caring for his father, legendary endurance athlete Mark Macy, after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
A former Leadman record holder, Travis has spent more than two decades helping athletes, executives, and organizations develop resilience, navigate adversity, and perform at their best. In recent years, he has also become a passionate advocate for brain health, Alzheimer’s resilience, and concussion recovery, drawing on both personal experience and emerging science to help others optimize cognitive performance throughout life.
Travis lives with his wife and two teenagers in Salida, Colorado, where he continues to coach, write, explore the mountains—and occasionally run with donkeys. You can learn more at travismacy.com.
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In this episode of the Brain Health Kitchen podcast, Annie talks with Travis Macy about Alzheimer’s, caregiving, endurance, concussion recovery, and what it means to keep showing up when life changes in ways no family can fully prepare for.
Travis is an endurance athlete, coach, author, speaker, podcast host, and longtime Alzheimer’s advocate. His father, Mark “Mace” Macy, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease at 64 after a lifetime as an attorney, adventurer, and elite expedition racer.
Together, Travis and Annie talk about what his family noticed before diagnosis, why early conversations can be so hard to start, and how Mace’s openness helped other families feel less alone. They also discuss A Mile at a Time, Travis’s book about racing Eco-Challenge Fiji with his father after Mace’s diagnosis.
The conversation moves beyond diagnosis into the day-to-day realities families face: shifting roles, caregiving decisions, accepting help, staying connected, and finding meaning inside a disease that asks so much of everyone involved.
Travis also shares how his father’s illness changed the way he thinks about his own brain health, and he opens up about his recovery from serious concussions — including what helped when screens, stress, light, sound, and even ordinary conversations became overwhelming.
This episode is about Alzheimer’s, but it is also about resilience, family, friendship, advocacy, and taking life one mile at a time.
00:00 — How Annie and Travis met through Alzheimer’s advocacy
02:44 — The first signs Travis noticed in his dad
05:24 — Mace’s early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis
10:16 — Why hard family conversations matter
12:03 — How Mace chose to speak openly about Alzheimer’s
14:37 — The Eco-Challenge adventure with Travis and Mace
20:57 — “Never quit”: what Mace wanted people to know
23:15 — When adult children become caregivers
29:34 — How Mace’s diagnosis changed Travis’s brain health habits
36:43 — Travis’s concussion and long recovery
44:13 — Nutrition, creatine, ketones, and brain injury recovery
51:22 — Meditation, connection, and slowing down
55:46 — Moving Mace into memory care
1:00:54 — Travis’s books, podcasts, and where to find him
1:03:22 — Annie’s practical advice for brain-healthy eating
1:08:21 — Why phones are for calling friends
A Mile at a Time: A Father and Son’s Inspiring Alzheimer’s Journey of Love, Adventure, and Hope
Donate in Mace’s memory to the Caregiver Relief Fund: Mind What Matters
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BHKEVOO: our recent harvest of extra-virgin olive oil—organic, high in polyphenols, and sources from family friends in Tuscany, Italy
Better Brain: Use code AFENN50 for $50 off your assessment, which brings the cost of a full brain health biomarker panel down to $39; most people pay $0 out of pocket for the coaching sessions. Check them out at BetterBrain.com/annie.
For the last time
What if you were doing this for the last time?
This thing you love, with your being, heart and mind
Would you want to know you’d never see or do play or love again?
Or prefer to remain naive
Until the bitter end?
And if it was the last time,
Would that feel just fine?
Gratitude, appreciation, presence…
Immersive stoppage of the time
Or would sadness and loss prevail
A grievous scramble to control
(And force Fate to chase its tail)
For the last time.
Everything we love:
Inevitable decline
AND
Grateful for the time
How about we do just one more?
Rainy repeats with Dad
ALZ Stage 6c:
Means you need help just to pee…
But Dad still can hike with me
“I’m doing Leadville again, Dad”
“Well you sure as hell better since you won last year”
He’s always believed in me
Biggest fan
Never doubting
How to be that confident in myself without him?
Pushing hard like we do
No time or count or tiring
But cold wet is coming through
Back home for warm and watching Tadej
I’m ready to go in
(How’d Dad do so many?)
“How about we do just one more, Bud?”
Smiles and tears
“Hell yeah Dad!”
I’m so grateful to Travis Macy for sharing his personal story. I’m now joined by my co-host and producer, Jenny Shilling.
Jenny: Travis is an amazing role model and friend. I’m so glad he is advocating for families facing dementia.
Annie: And I’d love to hear your takeaways.
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