Sir Chris Hoy - ‘There’s no cure but I still find hope’

0:00This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

0:29When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th, and never miss a meme or milestone, all protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com.

1:05welcome to how to fail the podcast that truly believes that in every failure there's a lesson that we can learn to make our life more meaningful before we get to the main event i wanted to mention our subscriber podcast failing with friends where my guest and i answer your questions and offer advice on some of your failures too here's a bit of sir chris hoy to get your wheels spinning. The aim has to be, be better than you were yesterday. That's the only thing you have to do. And then that's an actual measurable thing. If you want to send me one of your failures for us to give advice on, follow the link in the podcast notes or look out for my call outs once a month on Instagram for quickfire questions.

1:44Thank you so, so much. The retired cyclist Sir Chris Hoy is one of Great Britain's most successful Olympic athletes. During a stellar career, he won six gold medals and one silver, scooped 11 world championships, and was knighted in 2008. His passion started age seven when, growing up in Scotland, he was inspired by the cycling scene in the film E.T. After graduating in applied sports science from the University of Edinburgh in 1999, he competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where his silver medal marked the beginning of a Renaissance in British track cycling. So Chris retired in 2013, but not content with one impressive sporting career, he promptly took up motorsport racing, finishing the world's most demanding endurance race, Le Mans 24 Hours, on his debut in 2016.

2:42An elite athlete then, by any measure. But last September, he encountered a challenge of a different magnitude when he was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer. His condition was terminal and he was given between two and four years to live. In the six months following his diagnosis, Sir Chris wrote a book, All That Matters, which became an instant Sunday Times number one bestseller. Living with terminal cancer, he writes, stops you taking things for granted and makes you understand more about love because you suddenly know what it costs. It has enriched me. I love like I've never loved before.

3:30So Chris Hoy, welcome to How To Fail. Thank you for having me. It's an honour to be here. It was my wife who first put your podcast in front of me many, many months ago, actually. And so when we had the chance to talk about the book, yours was very much at the top of the list. So thank you for having me. Well, thank you, Chris. And thank you, Sarah, who emerges as a real hero through the pages of your book. And first of all, I want to say, your book is written so beautifully, and it doesn't shy away from the savagery of what you've been through. And it also has this extraordinary hope running through it.

4:06And I wanted to end with that quote about love, because it seemed to be really the most important thing to take from all that matters. Can you tell me about love and what you've learned about love through this process? The terminal diagnosis or any serious health diagnosis that brings into focus your own mortality, it really does help you to strip away all the stuff that's not important and to focus on all that matters. You know, that was the reason we chose that title for the book. It's, you know, stepping back, looking at the situation and realising actually it's the people in our lives that matter.

4:44and the intensity of that love it just it goes to another level when you suddenly feel like it could be you know it could all be ending at some point yeah i think in the last year i have a whole different perspective um the stuff that i used to get worried about the stuff that i used to stress about this the small stuff you kind of look at now and you think what what was i wasting all that time for and most of the time the things that we worry about the things we we have you know anxious thoughts about the things that wake you up at two or three o 'clock in the morning they're not going to happen yeah writing the book it's helped me process it all when I started writing the book I was in a very different place to where I am now physically and mentally and and I believe that the writing process has helped me to get through that and now genuinely feel incredibly incredibly positive um the number of dark days are few and far between now and yeah I think you just kind of think I wish I could have had had this perspective you know a few years ago and and but you can't look back you've got to you've got to look forward as you mentioned there you're a year and a bit on from your diagnosis how are you feeling physically right now remarkably well um i mean you look fantastic well thank you it's just it's it's a hard one because you you know i was still exercising fairly you know intensely i retired in 2013 so i was still riding my bike regularly i was still lifting weights in the gym I still had that kind of athlete's mentality of pushing myself hard when I was exercising you know I had maybe half an hour or an hour a day to squeeze some some training in if you can call it training so I would I would push myself hard in that in that time and that was just the way I did it and therefore when you start to pick up aches and aches and pains you assume it's because you're getting a bit older and it's just the body's you know way to tell you to slow down but in reality it was actually secondary cancers it was it was tumors all over my body which were had got into the bones and and so that that instinct to push through pain was was was a bad one really but now having had you know i've had chemotherapy radiotherapy various medication you know i'm not on any painkillers now but i've got no pain but feeling really good like by far the best i've felt in the last year and probably the last two years really um and and as i say mentally i've got through that initial grief and shock and and horror of a diagnosis um you know and you just realize that it's it's not unique this is happening every single day around the country around the world countless families are going through exactly the same thing um so my thoughts are with them because it's there's there's no there's no way to fast forward through it you have to to basically accept it and and grind your way through and it feels like it'll never get better but yeah i hope that well the book was written to show that even when you don't believe it you can find hope eventually it takes time but it's you've got to be disciplined with the way you approach things you've got to choose to not engage with the negative which is impossible sometimes impossible some days but on the whole if you can keep leaning into your family into your friends the people that are there for you your loved ones then then you can you can get to a point where you can laugh again you can enjoy music you can you can have fun again and it's I couldn't even listen to music um you know it was too triggering I couldn't nothing was a relief you couldn't escape it it was just this constant thought it was the first thing you know thought about in the morning when you woke up you dreamt about it it consumed every waking thought and sleeping thought so to get from that stage and glad to be here and you know in the here and the now that book It does take you very much on that journey as a reader.

8:32And I mean this as a compliment. I had to put it down several times when I was reading it because the emotions that you provoke are so overwhelming. I can't even imagine what they must have been like actually to inhabit for the person going through them. and you describe the moment you got the diagnosis and sort of squatting on the floor just not being able to breathe because there was just this boulder of grief it felt like and then by the final chapter what I love about the final chapter is that you talk about how sorry your wife has started hearing you hum again that shift that imperceptible shift over the space of those few months to going from this just absolute shell to to coming back to being myself again and so stage one two and three there is hope that you can cure it stage four it's you're told this is incurable but it is treatable you know those words stick with you in the space of a sentence your world has changed you know everything that i had done in my sporting career mentally you know the the tools in your toolbox to cope with pressure or to deal with difficult situations at the heart of it was the notion that this isn't life and death this is riding bikes in anti-clockwise circles this is you know this is fun and if you win or lose this race nothing's going to change you know no one's going to die this is just this is just basically um a hobby and that's what you lean what i always used to lean into but here was a situation where it very much was life and death and then that you're kind of scrabbling around trying to find some solid ground to grab onto to think well how do i process this how do i cope with it incredibly lucky with the support i've got i mean sarah is well she's a she's a samaritan so she's a listener so she's she is an amazing listener in general but she has the skills to to kind of let you vent to let you express your your fears and not offer solutions but just be there to take it all but at the same time you're you're realizing this isn't her talking to an anonymous person on the end of a phone this is her husband that's talking to her and so she the strength that she showed during that time was was quite incredible um and yeah you know i had well steve peters our psychologist from the cycling team We'll get on to him.

10:56Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, he was, he has and always has been, you know, since the first time I met him, has been a really important person in my life. Yeah. He was very quick to try and help me stabilize the ship. And Sarah's support is all the more extraordinary when you consider her own diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, which you reveal in the book that she kept from you for a month because she wants to protect you. and yet she seems to embody so much of what you're talking about that sense of being lucky can you explain yeah or she had this tingling on her face and this numbness which had been there for a while and she'd been to the doctor and the gp and back and forth and she found out that she she has multiple sclerosis and she she didn't tell me about it because for that first month it was just i think her logic was there's nothing that i can do or we can do at that time um she was going to you know receive treatment and but telling me that at that stage where i was absolutely hanging on by a thread i think she thought this this you know there's it's not going to help in uh you know in in telling me the news so yeah i think it was late december or mid december when she told me and that's the point where it felt like hang on a minute what what is going on that it felt it felt nightmarish even when she told me she never had self-pity or there was no poor me or you know how how awful this is she was just like this is what's happened this is how you know i've got an appointment with the doctor for this we're going to find out treatment options her strength was what kind of kept me going at that point um and the fact that she says you know she constantly reminds me how lucky we are because we both have a disease which there is a treatment for you know you could so many other things could happen where there's nothing you can do there's nothing you can treat it with and it's going to be a very quick and you know a quick and sudden end and when you have those dips you remind yourself the here and the now you bring yourself back to the present you don't think too far ahead you don't try and predict the future you just go well right here right now when it was awful in the first few weeks and you'd wake up in the middle of night or you couldn't sleep in the middle of the night you know it was just this feeling of the kids are next door they're warm they're comfortable they're sleeping they're fine they're safe we're in a warm comfortable dry bed we're okay and i think that was it was just this feeling of kind of grab on and hold tight and it'll it'll settle you'll get through the turbulence but yeah it was uh it was a tough time but reminding yourself how lucky you are how we all you know how lucky all of us are it's not about being positive and every day jumping out of bed and saying everything's great but just trying not to engage with the negativity and choosing you know not choosing that that kind of mourning complaining worrying just steering clear of that now your first failure pertains to cycling and it is losing at the world championships in 2003 in stuttgart so you were performing the kilo yes that's right which no longer exists it exists in a world championship but not in the olympics okay so i was training for my i was aiming for the 2004 olympics as my first aiming to become olympic champion for the first time in that event and i'd won my first world title the year before in 2002 in copenhagen and i think in winning the world so i was 26 relatively old to you know it was a very long and steady sort of chipping away to get to that point and became world champion and we also won the team sprint as well in Copenhagen so a double world champion in 2002 amazing you know achieved a lifetime dream two years to go to the Olympics it's all looking great I had the winning formula or so I thought this this you know the training program to win the worlds all I've got to do is replicate that in 2003 and the same result will come so I was obsessive about doing exactly the same thing as I did in 2002 and I prepared for the worlds in 2003 in Stuttgart got to the worlds and two things well first of all copying exactly what I did the previous year and second of all I reacted to the people around me I was the last person to go in the kilo it's done in reverse order one rider on the track at a time it's a time trial event just you got one ride 1000 meters as fast as you can and and as I was waiting to get on the track and I was watching all the rivals all my rivals post their times i was reacting to their performances so i was looking at the times they were doing there were some incredible times that the c-level world record had been broken and i thought i've got to change my game plan i've got to come out the start gate like a scalded cat i've got to i've got to get up on the time and i've got to really attack this and what happened was well first of all i went around and every checkpoint you get a time split you don't hear or see what it is but the crowd see it so every checkpoint as I went around it was a massive cheer and I remember coming around at the last lap thinking they're cheering really loudly you know I must be doing well here across the line I looked up at the scoreboard and I was fourth and the reason they were cheering was because my time was down on the German riders time so they were cheering because I was failing and I didn't know that and you know I reflected on that world championships and I remember thinking, well, I reacted.

16:25Instead of sticking to my plan and focusing on what I needed to do and focusing on the process of trying to do the best performance, I was looking at everybody else and not focusing on myself. And second of all, I thought that if you just replicate what you did previously, you'll get the same result. You'll get the same performance, but you don't get the same result. Because everybody else is constantly trying to find ways to improve. And it was an important lesson because I think if I'd won that year, I would have absolutely stuck with the same formula the following year going into the really important one, which was the Olympics.

16:59And I would have lost there. But instead I thought, well, you're not the best anymore. There's nothing to lose here. You have to change parts of this program to find a way to squeeze a few more hundreds or tenths of a second out of your performance. So yeah, it's understanding that you've got to constantly change to improve and focus on yourself. um you know it was such an important lesson and it it the other thing was when you get to that age when you get to sort of mid to late um 20s as a sprinter whenever you know that's the kind of the optimal age is really early to mid 20s so when you're in your late 20s every time you lose journalists were saying so is this you know have you peaked is this the is this the start of the decline um which seems ridiculous now looking back but at the time you're always questioning yourself and yeah it was it was a really difficult time but it was the kick up the backside that i needed and ultimately led me on to to success in in athens and was it that experience that also led you to steve peters exactly that so steve was brought on to the team because of one rider who um was looking for that kind of support and he was a a really high profile rider within the team but even with that rider sort of being brought on for him there was still a stigma attached to seeing a psychologist which seems ridiculous now because every professional sports team in the world has a a psychologist to help get the best out of the athletes and from the mental side of things and you know if you had an injury you go and see the physio if you had a broken bike you go to the mechanic so why would you not go to see if the the psychologist if you were looking to try and optimize your mental side of your performance.

18:41But there was still that stigma. So it took a few writers to go and see him. And then eventually I started to engage a little bit with him, but there was definitely a distrust or just a, I don't know, it was this fear of, I don't know, what are we going to do? What are we going to talk about? Is he going to try and read my mind? Is he going to hypnotize me? All these ridiculous things. He's going to try and blame my parents. He's going to lie on a leather sofa and talk about my childhood. But actually, Steve, when I first met him, and once I started working with him, he's so incredibly practical, very logical, very applied.

19:21It's just really simple things and tools and ways to recognise how your brain or the default setting your brain is going to in certain situations and trying to change that and trying to move away from reacting emotionally, being able to have a plan in certain situations, not becoming a robot and not living life and not enjoying your emotions. Emotions are great, but in certain situations, you don't want to be hijacked by your emotions. So it's recognising A, how you want to behave and how you want to operate in certain key situations and B, having a plan for how you make that happen. There are two things that I find really interesting about Steve Peters' technique that I know you applied to your cancer diagnosis, that idea of controlling the controllables and the helicopter technique.

20:11Could you explain what they are and how they've helped you? Well, the helicopter technique was something I used a lot leading up to London in 2012 because I felt huge pressure and huge, mainly for myself, but also externally. This was home games way more media attention than ever before you know I'd had a really successful Olympics in Beijing so as an individual I was high profile within the team so there was this expectation you have to you know it's win or lose you know a silver medal is not going to be enough here I was 36 in London so that was perceived to be way past my best physically so dealing with that expectation that additional attention and pressure steve was like look you know imagine yourself in any situation but for me at that time it was about you know in the track center on the day the pressure imagine yourself in that situation getting into a helicopter and just going up and up and up and looking down on the situation you're stressing about and the higher you go the smaller the further away you are from that problem but the smaller you become and also the more you see around you, you start seeing the buildings and the streets around you, and then you keep going up and up, and then you see the whole town or the city, and you see how many people there are, and you realise actually, I'm a tiny, tiny part of this much, much bigger thing, and my problems are insignificant in terms of the world that's happening around us.

21:44It's really nothing at all. And to gain that perspective and to understand, most of the things we worry about are genuinely pretty irrelevant but we blow them up in our minds they're they're bigger than they or they seem bigger than they are controlling the controllable is just focusing on what you can genuinely control anything that's out with that people's opinions or you know other riders what performances they're going to do the weather the media anything anything at all you can't control that so so why worry about it focus on what you can do focus on how well you do it and focus on the process of you doing that.

22:23Don't think about the outcome. Don't think about the fear of failure. Don't think about what it might be like to win. Don't think about the gold medal. Just focus on what you need to do and how you need to do it. And how has that helped you with this particular challenge of living with stage four cancer? You know, when you have a cancer diagnosis, one of the first things you'll find is that there's so many people giving you advice, you know, eat this, don't eat this, do this, don't do that you know go for this medicine don't go for that medicine a friend of mine did this and that helped etc you know everybody has they're all it's coming from a place of kindness they're trying to help you they're trying to offer you advice and support but actually it's overwhelming and you get all this conflicting advice and conflicting information so to have somebody like Steve who would go out there and he would try and filter through it and and obviously you've your oncologists and the people who this is what they do on a daily basis they know what they're talking about but actually it's trying to to combine everything together and have a plan for you that's right for you that optimizes you know everything you're doing and trying to give yourself the best possible chance to have as much time as possible it's so interesting that so much of your cycling career was about beating the clock racing to the end and now you're embracing the same mindset that helps you get there, but almost slowing time down and being in the present.

23:51I wonder if I could ask you if that mindset, has it helped you feel, this is such an odd question, but I know that you'll get it. Has it made you feel more positive about death? I genuinely haven't thought about, in the early days, I thought about death a lot and that was that was terrifying but then actually you sort of realize well it's not here yet it's an inevitable thing for all of us nothing has changed and you know i remember well there's a friend of ours who had had his cancer diagnosis a few years ago and he's doing really well now thankfully he's doing fantastically but it was a scary diagnosis and when he when the doctor told him he said well what's you know give it to me straight what's the worst case scenario here and the doctor said the worst case scenario is you're going to walk out of here and get hit by a bus and uh and he said i'm i'm being serious and he said i'm being serious this is a scary diagnosis and it's not what you want to hear but anything can happen at any time none of us are going to live forever you know we're not all going to live to 85 or 90 or whatever it's about bringing it back to the here and the now you know you can't live as if this is your last day you know you You still want to plan for tomorrow.

25:05You still want to have goals in the future. You still want to work towards something. But it's also remembering today is what counts. Today is the only thing we actually have. A good friend of mine, David Smith, who I mention in the book, his favorite line is, you know, be where your feet are. That's his mantra. And I've tried to be where my feet are more. You know, this is something you actively have to work on. And it's not easy. And it doesn't happen overnight. And it's not like a switch is flicked in my head. and I'm able to do it easily, but I'm working at it and I'm getting better at it.

25:37And it has helped me immeasurably. I could not, there's absolutely no way I could have sat here six months ago and talked about all this without completely folding. So it's, you know, I can see a difference in myself and I believe that's come from, first of all, the support around me, but mainly because I'm choosing to kind of appreciate the here and the now. Just finally on this failure, the thing that I find so amazing about it is that the year after this defeat in Stuttgart, you competed in Athens 2004, and you were in a situation where you watched three riders go ahead of you, each of whom broke the world record.

26:17And then what did you do, Chris? Without that experience in Stuttgart, where I got it horribly wrong and reacted to everyone around me, I don't think I would have necessarily had the concentration, the mental focus, the strength to deal with that situation and again it was Steve Peters who helped me so he about three weeks before the the Athens Olympics he sat me down and he said I just you know I wanted to pose a potential scenario to you that might happen he said you know what what are you going to do if somebody breaks the world record before you get on the track and I said well I just won't think about it so he said okay well if I say to you right now don't think about a pink elephant what's the first thing that pops into your head so of course this image of a pink elephant popped into my head and he had my attention and i said well what what should i do then and he said well you can't say you're not going to think about something because you're actively drawn towards that thought he said you have to choose what you want to think about and that will displace the distracting thought or the negative thought or the anxious thought so he said basically just visualize that perfect race whenever you feel anxious whenever you have any negative thoughts between now and the race itself focus on what you need to do and what you want to do and how you're going to do it don't think about the outcome just think about the process and that will displace you know that that distraction and so on the night i was able to to basically press play in my head on this this video of how i wanted it to to to play out and the race itself was so like that visualization that i'd i'd gone through so many times before I wasn't focusing on winning the gold medal and I wasn't focusing on these three guys that had broken the world record because I had no control over that all that matters and all that I can have any impact on is what I'm about to do so that technique that one little little trick really I believe helped me to win that gold medal yeah it worked out well

28:23eczema isn't always obvious but it's real and so is the relief from ebglyss after an initial dosing phase about four in ten people taking ebglyss achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing ebglyss libri kizumab lbkz a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection is a Prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies.

28:59EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBCLIS. Before starting EBCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about Epglis and visit epglis.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979.

29:45All new Thursdays on FX. All episodes now streaming on Hulu.

29:53Lowe's knows how to help make your home holiday ready for less. Get Select Style Selections vinyl flooring for just$1.99 per square foot and have it installed before the festivities begin. Our team can help you every step of the way. See a Lowe's Red Vest Associate or visit lowes.com slash holiday install to get started. Lowe's. We help. You save. Basic install only. Date restrictions apply. Subject to availability. Install by independent contractors. See associate for details. Contiguous US only.

30:26Your second failure is turning around halfway up the hill to the Big Buddha after chemo. Yes. So you were in Thailand. You'd completed your chemotherapy. That's right. Yeah. Tell us about the Big Buddha. I was just keen to get out on the bike. I'd been on the indoor bike every day in the gym, just doing very short, very gentle sessions, just turning my legs over. But this was the first time I was going to go out on the roads, fresh air. You know, I was going to get back to fitness and I was really looking forward to it. I find myself at the bottom of this big hill and there's a Buddha on top of the hill.

31:02It's called the Big Buddha, this big, white, massive big Buddha that sits on top of this fairly high hill, about 350, 380 meters, I think it is, above sea level. and i set off trying to get to the top i thought this seems like a sensible option you know first day back on the bike i'll go right up a massive bloody great hill you know um i mean just come out of chemotherapy and i was struggling i'm really struggling at the bottom of the hill i thought maybe i'll settle into it but as i got higher up the hill it got worse and then you know i was getting chased by these stray dogs and it was just everything was just stressful and I got halfway up and it got so steep that I literally couldn't keep going I was I was just the heart rate was at maximum I felt like I was just you know utterly deflated and I stopped and I turned around went back down the hill and I've never I've never quit halfway up a hill before I'm not a mountain climber I'm a track cyclist but we still did a fair bit of training on on road and on hills and it was so symbolic that I'd given up and I just felt utterly deflated and I came back to the hotel at breakfast.

32:11The kids were up. We were going down to get breakfast. Beautiful day, beautiful hotel, lovely pool, sitting and eating breakfast. But my head was down, my morale was down and Sarah obviously could tell and she said, what's up? And I said, oh, nothing. I just didn't have a great ride and I had to stop on this hill. And she said, oh, you know, you'll be fine. But she could tell that I wasn't. And then for the rest of the week, I tried to just get out every day keep riding and knowing that I wouldn't it wouldn't change anything physically I'm not going to get fit in a week you don't change your your physiology doesn't turn around in a week but as I was throughout the week and as I was doing more riding I reflected back and I looked at the the data on my little computer on the bike and it shows you your gps and it shows you the route and I realized that on the hill to the big buddha I'd stopped at the steepest part so there was basically a hairpin that i came i came to and i stopped but if i'd got around that hairpin i would have realized the hill would have gone from a really steep gradient to a slightly less steep gradient but i might have been able to hang in there so it gave me the just the confidence i think i'm gonna have another go at this i'm gonna come back on the last day and see if i can get up it so i did and i came back and it was exactly the same my heart rate was through the roof i was struggling i was suffering it was awful the stray dogs were barking and chasing me and i got to that part where i gave up and i just thought i don't need to think about the rest of this hill i just need to get around the corner here and it'll ease and i got around this this hairpin corner and it went from you know a one in five or whatever climb it was to a one in six just enough that it was bearable and i kept going and i made it to the top and so insignificant there was no medals there no cries to cheer you that didn't mean anything but to me it meant everything and ironically it's called mountain acrid i mean that is the best payoff ever i was i was i was knackered and it was it was mountain acrid it was amazing and yeah don't think too far ahead focus on on you know right here right now can you do one more and one more minute one you know it's the same approach i had during chemo when i had the ice cap on my head and i was suffering with that you don't think about the fact it could be four hours you just think can I do one more minute and if the answer is yes then you do one more minute and then you repeat that over and over again and then before you know it you've made it to the end and you realize I didn't you know I didn't think I could do that but I did.

34:38That mindset that you approached both to the bike ride and to the chemo the mindset of an elite athlete I would love to hear a bit more about that because again in your book I think it's the first time I've read what the reality of chemo actually is I mean you're very open about the fact that you're someone with a high pain threshold you've won all of these gold medals but chemo was one of the toughest battles you had to set that mindset to to get through it today people listening to this this podcast may well be about to go through chemo themselves or one of their loved ones i don't want to scare people off and there's so many different types of chemo the different methods of there's tablets there's infusion there's different strengths or different toxicities you know everybody's different um and it's necessary and it's and it does work well for me it's worked really well you know so it's important that you know i don't want to put people off in essence chemo was was difficult but it wasn't necessarily the infusion of the medicine that was the hard part it was this ice cap this bloody ice cap which I didn't even have to wear so it's essentially it's there to try and freeze the hair follicles and then minimize your your hair loss or risk of losing your hair and then you also have ice mittens and ice of socks that go on to try and freeze your your fingertips and your toes and then that reduces the risk of neuropathy and losing the sense of touching your fingers and toes i can't remember what the temperature of the ice cap is it's minus 27 i think celsius for the hands and feet which is pretty grim but there's something about the ice cap which it's it's not just the temperature it's the the tension that was strapped on then really tightened up so it feels like your head's in a vice and immediately it's it's not just uncomfortable it's kind of painful and then they switch it on and this this gel gets pumped through the whole cap and then out the other side so it's kept at this into machine which is then refrozen back in again so it keeps your head at this minus whatever and as soon as it switches on it's like oh my god this is awful and you're just trying to right okay they say the first 10 minutes are the worst so just hang in here it's you know it'll settle and it doesn't really it just it's just really uncomfortable um but the reason i did it it wasn't you know it made as i say it made no difference to it was not it wasn't for treating it was purely to keep try and keep your hair which for two reasons first of all if you lose your hair suddenly you know and it was one of these things that we were trying to keep it out of the public eye initially and that would have been an obvious indicator that something was up that was being treated for for something but most importantly it was Callum so my little boy we had a couple of friends who'd been through cancer treatment already and he'd noticed that they'd lost their hair and he was interested initially about that when it happened and I think a little bit scared about it as well.

37:29So when we told Callum and Chloe about my diagnosis and that I was getting chemotherapy, that was the first question he had was, are you going to lose your hair? And it became quite a big thing for him. I think he was worried that it was going to suddenly disappear. I'd have it in the morning as he went off to school and then he'd come back from school or I'd pick him up at school and I'd have no hair. And I said, well, you know, there's things we can do. And so he was very keen that I did use the ice cap and um but it was tough it was really tough yeah that was one of the lowest points i think sitting in the chair just feeling utterly miserable feeling the pain of the the hands and feet and the ice cap and just feeling really sorry for myself and it was um but at that point again like you're saying the the kind of sporting mindset you have to snap out of that and you have to choose how you're going to approach it and i thought about my uncle andy my great uncle andy who was a prisoner of war in Japan in the Second World War.

38:29Some of the horrendous things that he went through and he endured, it just made me think, again, snap out of it and realise, I'm sitting in a hospital with, we've got the right medicine, we've got amazing treatment, we've got amazing nurses and doctors. I've got treatment for this condition. I'm lucky to be here. You know, I have to get through just one more minute. and then when that seconds hand went round and got back to 12 one more minute and before you know it you know there's bits within that four-hour period that were you were gripping the chair and it wasn't pleasant at all and you were grinding your teeth but by the end of it you you know the cap comes off and you think you're grateful that you got through it and you didn't give up i know that this is partly why you are so passionate about early detection and i think it's a measure of the respect and love with which you're held by this nation, that when you chose to go public about your diagnosis, the number of men who sought a PSA test for early detection was up 700%.

39:35There's been a near eightfold increase in NHS searches for prostate cancer symptoms over the days after your diagnosis, after you went public about it. Why is this so important for you? Because I think lives can be saved. It's that simple. In this country, if you're under the age of 50 and you go to your GP and ask for a PSA test, the chances are they'll say, come back when you're 50. There's reasons for that. And I understand it. And it's, I know it costs money. And I know that the tests aren't always conclusive, but it's better than nothing. And if you have, particularly if you have family history of any prostate cancer.

40:09So I had, my grandpa died from prostate cancer. My dad's had it. So it's, it's a genetic thing for my family. So, you know, I, I should have tested myself earlier. I should have gone in for screening earlier. It's not about me. I'm not saying poor me or blaming anybody for my situation at all. But I just feel like you look at France. In France, the age limit is 40. Once you hit 40, then they start screening. I just feel like we could save countless lives. And also, if you catch it early, like a lot of cancers, it's actually quite treatable. But if you leave it until it's gone too far, there's nothing you can do.

40:45So it seems like an obvious solution. It's not just prostate cancer. It's just taking care of yourself. And instead of prioritizing, obviously we prioritize our families and work and other things, but put yourself on that list and make sure that you put time in your week or month or year to go and get checked out because it can take an hour or a few minutes. I mean, a blood test takes literally a few seconds, but it could change your life.

41:21Imagine fast hydration combined with balanced energy perfectly flavored with zero artificial sweeteners introducing Liquid IV's new energy multiplier sugar-free Unlike other energy drinks, you know, the ones that make you feel like you're glitching it's made with natural caffeine and electrolytes so you get the boost without the burnout. Liquid IV's new energy multiplier sugar-free hydrating energy. Tap the banner to learn more. The new Popeyes and Hot Ones menu is fire flavor. Trust me because I'm about to eat it. That hits right away. Attempt the Popeyes Hot Ones menu in stores. Love that chicken from Popeyes.

42:03Limited time in participating U.S. restaurants.

42:10your final failure so now we're moving on to your second sporting career is crashing the nissan gtr into the hay bales at goodwood 2014 and yes listener i did have to read up on what this actually meant there's a great video on youtube oh is there i didn't actually i shouldn't have said that yeah yeah basically so i took up motorsport after cycling not because i felt I had to replace cycling with anything but I loved driving cars on track it became a hobby of mine I had a little track car that I took on to Alton Park at the end of every cycling season you know do four or five track days in the off season and then I'd get back to my training on the bike but when I retired from cycling there was an opportunity to start racing which I did and then Nissan after they'd kind of they'd heard about this they then approached me and said you know we'd love you to be an ambassador for the brand for this olympic partnership for rio and we could give you some racing opportunities in the car so i did a test at silverstone and they said we think we can get you to le mans in three years which was ridiculous it's like saying i don't know it's like you know we'll get you to the olympics in three years and you've just taken up a new sport that's you know that le mans is the it's the highest race you the highest level you can get to as an amateur and you're racing alongside formula one drivers you know the top level professional racers and it's 24 hours it's incredibly arduous it's for the car for the drivers for the whole team the mechanics everybody but it's wonderful and it's an amazing historic and and just iconic motorsport event it's the it's the biggest one out there so when they offered this chance to me i was like i don't think it's you know even if it doesn't happen at least i can try you know i'll see how far along the line i can go see how far along this this journey i can make and drive some great cars and have some great experiences but you know whether i make it or not i don't know but let's let's go for it so that first year i was racing in a nissan gt3 gtr um in the british gt championship and that's the biggest gt championship in europe straight in the deep end and shortly after the start of that season i was at the goodwood festival of speeds which is a one of the biggest showcases of new cars and for all the manufacturers as they come down there.

44:27It's one of the biggest in the world on this driveway that goes up through the estate, through the Duke of Richmond's estate. And there was these two new cars, the Nissan Nismo GTR, two in the whole of the country, one of which belonged to the CEO of Nissan, Andy Palmer. And that was the one I was driving. And it's a non-competitive thing. It's just a demonstration. You drive up the hill. It's on this really narrow track. It's not a race. and there's like 100 ,000 people watching and there's this famous corner called Molcombe which if you wait until you see the corner before you break it's too late you won't make the corner having done it four times already throughout the week on the Saturday afternoon I came up to Molcombe going way too fast and I saw the corner before I braked and I was like oh no and that was it i was off the track i went through four rows of hay bales um which was a record and um completely smashed the car apart i was absolutely fine you know it was it was a road car so it had air bags and i had my helmet on and you know i hit the you know that moment before you hit the hay bales thinking oh my god i've never done this before i don't know what's going to happen in a crash you know you time slows down and you see the barrier coming towards you and you realize you can't do anything the brake pedal is doing nothing you're on the grass it's you know you're not slowing down so you just brace for impact and think this is going to hurt and thankfully it didn't but once once the dust settled i sat there i just thought i don't want to come out i don't want to get the car i went i'll happily sit here until everybody's gone home i just can't face the embarrassment and i was so ashamed and i just felt like people would think that i was just being an idiot and not taking it seriously and I just trashed this beautiful car you know why are you letting some idiot cyclist in you know driving these amazing cars and yeah it was awful awful and I got out the car and I sort of gave the little wave to the crowd and just cringed for the rest of the weekend and as I went back to the driver's club I saw Andy Palmer walking towards me and I was just I'm so sorry, Andy.

46:35I'm so sorry. You know, I can't, I can't apologize enough. He said, you know, we can replace cars. We can't replace people. You know, it's absolutely fine. And we've got some great publicity. He said, you know, it's all over social media. I was like, it's not really helping, but thanks Andy. So I was at my lowest ebb then. And I thought, do you know what? Maybe this isn't for me. Maybe this is, you know, I've been a bit silly here trying to bite off more than I can chew. You know, this really steep learning curve to try and make it to Le Mans in three years i was feeling the pressure to to maybe just skip certain stages and try and get into faster cars and and jump up through championships too quickly and then i went the next week i was out to spa for this this the next round of the british gt championship and spa is one of the most fearsome tracks in the world it's an iconic one it's amazing but it's terrifying and i'd never been before and we turned up and it was a wet wet week and so the track was soaking wet i remember just looking at this really famous part of the track called eau rouge and it's this it looks like a wall when you look at it's this hill that goes up but it's a corner on a hill and i remember standing there looking at it and just thinking this is utterly terrifying you know what am i doing here maybe i need to have a rethink and i went out and basically got no practice in there was a problem with the car i only got like five laps in had no confidence everything was down i was almost ready to pull the plug on the whole thing and then we had this race and it was a two driver race so you take you do half the race yourself the pro driver starts the race he jumps out you jump in and you finish the race and together with wolfgang wolfie we ended up coming second we got on the podium my first ever podium at the most terrifying track in the world and it was just the ultimate bounce back from a complete you know the complete self-doubt the complete failure at goodwood to making it onto the podium at Spa if you're going to pick a track in the world to get on the podium that would be it it taught me not never to get too down myself but also never get too high you know always keep that perspective you're never too far away from your fortunes turning either way so um it gave me the hope that maybe Le Mans could be a possibility but that you're going to have ups and downs along the way that's motorsport that's life I want to do that embarrassing journalist thing where I quote what other people say about you now.

48:51So Mark Cavendish, your fellow record-breaking cyclist, has described you as a hero of a human being. Ali McCoy, the former footballer and TV pundit, has said that you're a superstar in every sense of the word. What does it feel like having those words, hero, superstar, spoken about you? yeah it's overwhelming really and it and it's hard to you i don't think you can really take them on board because it yeah i mean hero when you people call you a hero it you think oh come on heroes to you are the people that you looked up to when you're growing up and you can never see yourself in the same vein as them i've kind of made it a rule with social media certainly that i try not to to get too involved in in praise because if you take on the praise you've got I also take the criticism and you tend to focus on the criticism so if you get one negative comment out of a hundred you won't think about the 99 lovely comments you focus on the one that was negative so so I try not to the ego wants you to go in and read nice things about yourself but equally I think it's it's not always a useful thing to do but when it's from somebody like you know people that you have massive respect for then um then it is a lovely thing to hear typically modest of you and i i said in the introduction that you were inspired to start cycling because you went to see et age seven i wonder what sir chris hoy sitting here in his 40s would say now to the seven-year-old chris about how his life's going to be well i don't think the seven-year-old me would have been just absolutely staggered to think that I'd been able to do my passion for my whole life really you know I went straight from university into to riding full-time sliding doors moments national lottery funding started just when I finished uni so I was able to to become a full-time cyclist and not have to get a full-time job the support along the way everything seemed to slot into place so when I started racing BMX age seven to think that would be the first step on the route towards becoming an Olympic champion was it wasn't it wasn't like it was a pipe dream it was just it wasn't even a dream it wasn't even a possibility because you know nobody was winning medals at that time in in sprint cycling in the UK it was a there was no pathway there was no like now if you're a teenager with ability and talent and drive then there is a clear stepping stone that leads you towards that ultimate goal but back then it was there wasn't we're talking just before christmas and i wonder how christmas feels to you this year and what your plans are with sarah and the and the kids last christmas was pretty grim to be honest it was just trying to hang on in there and try and you know live it through the kids and you know try and just we're doing it for them whereas this year it feels more normal it feels more settled again you know still looking forward to seeing if santa's going to come down the chimney and all the presents for the kids and all the usual routine.