Charlie Botterill & Jonathan Bullough - #26

0:00Charlie Botterill, Jonathan Bullough, welcome to the pod. How are we doing? Good, thanks. Excited to be here, excited to chat. Same. This one's going to be a fun one. From my perspective, couldn't be lucky really to get on a podcast with you guys. It's been a long time coming. Yeah, I can't... When was it we first reached out? It was probably near the start. It's good that we finally got it in the books. Well, like I say, we've been doing a little bit of High Rocks racing together. For the people that potentially are watching this and don't know who you are, Charlie, would you just be able to sum yourself up?

0:38I'm Charlie Bottrell. I'm 24 years old and I'm a High Rocks Elite 15 athlete. And I think Jake and I probably have raced with and against each other about, must be over 10 times now. so if you've seen Jake race you might have seen me in the background somewhere or ahead of me winning um you've since actually getting into the Elite 15 which we'll we'll go back and talk about your full story but when was your first Elite 15 race? My singles first Elite 15 singles was December so five months ago which is insane and since then you've been smashing every major but not only every major every other competition as well um I think you've had probably the best season that anyone especially from the UK has had I think if not worldwide yeah it's been I wasn't expecting it to kind of go this well this season I was kind of hoping maybe to sneak into the London major is what I circled as my first like as my main goal for the season, not even to really compete or get a good spot in it.

1:53It was just kind of get to my first singles major and then try and qualify for Worlds and the doubles. And yeah, thankfully, we've done both. So it's been successful, but I'm just really excited now to lock in and get my head down ready for Stockholm. So as of now, I think we're seven weeks away from Stockholm. Is that right yeah seven weeks last thursday so just under seven weeks class um obviously we're here this weekend racing we actually raced this morning myself and you um you won i came fourth um how how was that race it was good the cardiff uh card of course is an interesting one i think the sleds were quite quite tough on that flooring um you're going to talk about your tactic we can talk about my tactic John what would you what's your opinion of this tactic I think you called it cheating before yeah we were joking at lunch and I did say that basically he cheated but my actual thoughts on it for someone like Charlie is that it's it gives him a bit of freedom it takes maybe a little bit of pressure away it stops you getting drawn in at the start and maybe doing someone else's race pace and I think then Charlie seems to like the idea of coming from behind, catching people, running past people, having that sensation of taking over and going quicker rather than the other way, which is potentially slipping backwards.

3:21And also an interesting comment from Charlie, which I think people will be interested to hear, is that for whatever reason, often the first couple of sled lanes seem to be potentially a little bit harder or heavier. so the way Charlie did it he was coming into the sled in I don't know maybe 8th or something 6th I came into the push in 5th I think yeah so he's just like more into the middle of the sled lanes as opposed to at the edge of the sled lanes so I think it's an interesting tactic well just explain the tactic yeah so before the race I got told that the first two sled lanes were really really bad and it seems I know High Rocks are trying to make it consistent but it seems the first two lanes are always a bit tougher like I had a really tough lane in Manchester and I was in lane one and then the same thing happened to a few people in London I'm not sure if it's just because it's the end of the lines of turf like when the turf rolls up further down it kind of causes a ripple effect maybe but I got told that so I was like I just don't want to go into those um like those lanes in the lead and then potentially like suffer with a heavy sled um so i just waited in the start tunnel for 30 seconds or so and then um ran out obviously you can't do that in an elite race because it's gun time but in a age group race it doesn't there's no ruling about like when you leave the start tunnel essentially a little tactic i thought you'd just i didn't even know i was expecting you to be with the pack um for reference in the race there was luke greer obviously shot out like a bullet as fast as he could then uh there was liam yeah and then i was just behind liam and i was like oh when i when i got into ski i looked to the left of me and i couldn't see you i thought oh where's charlie like what's he been doing um although that being said i did get caught in a bit of traffic coming out the ski uh because there was like 20 or so guys ahead of me so maybe it wasn't actually a great idea in that sense but then um like i don't i don't like doing it but when you get told before the race that the first two sled lanes are really tough you just don't want to be in them at the end of the day it's just you thinking outside of the box that's how i see it yeah like you're doing the extra work doing the studying of studying the actual cause to the extent of you know how each sled lane is and you're looking before the race you're analyzing other people and then if you know that, use it to your advantage.

5:56Like I say, you're not breaking any rules by doing it. You're just kind of like thinking outside the box. So fair play. Guess who was in lane two, actually? Was it you by any chance? It was me. It was me. So I'm the sucker that just went out there. And it was interesting because I didn't actually come into the sled push second. There was two people in front of me. and I did wonder why did they slow down and let me go past them and I think that might have been the reason so I'm a stupid one that went into that sled but I think it was a decent day out Cardiff seems like a good venue we have the luxury of racing tomorrow together we're going to do pro doubles we'll see how that goes hopefully just have a bit of fun try and get some points for next season but I think the course is actually I kind of prefer them courses even though like you said the sleds were heavy like it was good I think it's better than like a Warsaw where it's super super fast yeah or like a London XL where it's super fast and then people are like oh it's just a course or whatever like that was a slow course tough sleds and I think it shows who like the top dogs are and fair play to you fair play to Luke Greer and Liam who I'll take you out this question but definitely Liam and Luke Greer aren't the biggest guys and the fact that they can push them sleds when they are super heavy and then still run and get a great time it's insane, it just shows the work that they're putting in and the kind of dog mentality that they have which is pretty sick If you look at the coming out of the sled pool it was actually Mick Stevens who was in the lead and he's an ex-semi-pro rugby player.

7:48Big lad. So when he saw those sleds, he must have been licking his lips. And he came out and to be fair, when I left the pool, he was ahead of me and I was like, he's really done a good shift there. So it is interesting when the dynamic switches and it is a course where maybe things are a bit harder. Like I think in Spain, for some reason, I don't know if it's the air temperature, the pressure, whatever. But the sleds always seem to feel a bit tougher out there. But it's just, it's an interesting dynamic. And I think what I really enjoyed today in our race was how close everyone was and how the lead kept on shifting.

8:33Like at one point, I was in the lead. At one point, Liam was in the lead. Mick was in the lead. Luke was in the lead. Like it's not one of those races where someone bombs out in front and then it's a try and catch them job. Like it was close for a lot of time. That is good. I want to take it back because I mentioned there that you've been in the Elite 15 very recently and you've had a great season. But I think you've had the most races out of anyone in High Rocks ever, I think. I think I'm in the top 10 for races, but of the Elite 15 field, I've done the most races. And you've been in this sport for quite, not long, but like the time that you've been here, like you've been racing back to back, you've been really kind of like grinding away and it came through for you.

9:26I feel like you saw like a massive progress at the back end of last season. I think you said that you had like a big off season to focus and then you came back and like say everything was kind of like clicking and everything was working. Can you just explain like your full kind of like High Rocks journey up until then? Yeah so I've been coming I've been doing High Rocks for coming up to five years now. I think you and I both started at a very similar time so my second race for instance was the Glasgow men's open in 2023 in january time and you won that and it was like 5709 you ran there i think i can't believe you remember that that's crazy i was on the start line next to you just well just behind you actually um you're wearing some pink pink alphaflis i think it was um yeah don't yeah it was ages ago guys don't worry um but yeah so I did some open races that season qualified for the age group championships in Manchester race there got humbled because it was my first pro race and then really kind of caught the bug I um I just plugged away for the next season and then I came into the 2024-25 season and I knew that I'm not physically at the level yet where I can compete with the Elite 15 guys but I know that in a couple years I will be and I knew that from my cycling background I could do a race and a race and a race and a race and not lose too much in performance so I decided to kind of race as much as possible over weekends and make a bit of a name for myself in that sense so everyone kind of knew me as the kid who just raced a lot at the age group level and did quite well and then thankfully that kind of built up my experience and built up my race craft and built up my reputation in the sport in a different way to kind of just being an elite guy and then after Chicago World Champs I chose to miss the age group singles to focus on the elite doubles there and after that I kind of knew where I was physically um and knew that if I put in a god a good block over the off season that I could compete for the like elite 15 spots and I actually booked my flights to Melbourne in August before I'd even run a race because I was sure that like now is the time where I can actually start to deliver like I'd had four years where I knew I wasn't quite there physically to compete with the top guys and then yeah just going into this year I knew that I had a chance so I booked the tickets and then gave myself no option but to qualify.

12:32What a story how um how did that pressure feel like you said did you put the pressure on beforehand or did you just know that you was in form like to book them tickets for Melbourne bear in mind like you said you was in August the season hasn't even started yet you needed to get two really good times before the start of December to then go and race at the end of December in Melbourne like did you just have a feeling or did you want to kind of put that pressure on yourself yeah I think it's it's all well and good saying that you can make it there But then when you put things in place as though you are going to make it there, you kind of have that innate pressure on yourself.

13:17Oh, I've organized all this. I should probably go and do it. And to be fair, the first solo race I did in this season, I didn't actually tell anyone about it. I just bought the ticket. I didn't put it on social media. I didn't post I was going to go out to Poland. And then I just went and raced. and it was quite nice and like freeing to just go and race and you don't have to think about what people are going to think. Like I just went out there, raced, ran like at which ran a time that for like quite a long time was my PB. What time was that? I ran 54.49. and then um four days later I ran the pro in Valencia and ran a 56 there to kind of that got me into the elite 15 and then six days after that I ran the pro in Birmingham where you pipped me on the wall balls and um I ran a 55 31 there and that kind of got me in the elite 15 for Melbourne bear in mind I think you'd raced on the Wednesday as well so you raced for four times in like less than two weeks is that right from sunday to saturday so yeah four five times in um 13 days which is crazy john like how how do you see charlie's progression like from like a coaching point of view um seeing his progression over this time like is it just the the work ethic is it the constant volume is it the consistency of racing what like what do you think it's down too late so obviously for people that don't know me and Charlie speak a fair bit regarding training pick each other's brains and what I've seen which interests me quite a lot is I think Charlie has a really good understanding of what is good for him and what works for him I think we all get trapped by sometimes maybe looking at what someone else has done and what's made them strong and then just trying to copy it um i think charlie's aware and i think he's quite smart and he listens to what other people are doing but then i think he's actually quite good at understanding what's good specifically for his progression so he's quite good at and we speak about this quite a lot taking bits from here and taking bits from there but then putting his own stamp on it he i would describe him as a bit of a human guinea pig like he's quite happy to go go a bit rogue and try stuff that maybe other people are not doing um some of the protocols that he does um it is a little bit outside of the box let's say whether that be doing lots and lots of races and using them almost as a training stimulus across the weekend um some of the you know other protocols that we've spoke about which we may go into a bit more detail um i think he's quite good at just like going do you know i'm just going to try that and see if it works um one thing that a lot of people might not know and probably don't even understand is Charlie has and is tracking his data very closely and has been for a long long time so he's not just doing things and then being like oh that seems to have worked he's actually looking at the metrics looking at the data and having not only like a performance metric not only kind of how he feels from stuff but he's also got some numbers on a screen and some pretty graphs that tell him whether certain things have worked whether he's in good shape whether he's not in good shape and he's very kind of much a scientist and data analyst when it comes to to that side of things um and and a little bit different i'd say maybe the opposite to you jake in that sense where he's almost like kind of obsessed with um what his fitness looks like in in the form of a graph essentially um so i think that's probably one of his superpowers so a lot of people will be questioning his volume or how many times he races or some of the weird stuff that he does but Charlie's actually thinking about all these things um with a lot of depth collating a lot of data and factual evidence and then putting his own training program together in a way that he feels is going to progress him the the most and and the fastest that being said I also think Charlie's quite patient so a lot of people want to be able to get into the Elite 15 next month um and that's something that people will ask me i need to get in the elite 15 and i'm like cool let's get to work it's going to take five years and they're like five years like i want this now um whereas in charlie's last few comments there he's mentioning things like i've been doing it for four or five years i knew at first i didn't quite have the physicality for it like he's he's able to kind of see the bigger picture um across big time frames and blocks and periodization and maybe that's from his background athletically maybe that's just the way he is as a person but I think when you put all that together that's how you quite easily explain how he's gone from kind of like to us he was like kind of a guy who was like nearly there like he was getting 57s and 58s quite a lot and kind of not necessarily progressing every single race but then all of a sudden start of the season he just threw in 54s and 55s but then when you actually when I actually spoke to Charlie it wasn't that surprising and it's quite obvious that he was on that trajectory um when you got into a little bit more depth as to what he was actually doing and the way he was planning um so that's how I see it and obviously I'm privy to maybe a little bit more information about Charlie than other people but it's quite interesting that he's very much a self-automated guy like a lot of people ask me do I coach Charlie I don't coach Charlie I have some nice conversations and act as a soundboard for some of Charlie's ideas and let him you know kind of talk about what he's planning and and then just offer a slightly different perspective maybe and then he takes that and and kind of goes off and does his training and and that for for Charlie seems to be the magic formula I think yeah I think for like I'll I'm gonna I'll remain predominantly self-coached until I start plateauing and then I will probably hand the reins over to you the first time I ever met Charlie by the way properly like I think I'd seen him in passing in Chicago and I was aware of who he was but you actually came up to me in the warm-up for the pro the elite doubles in Hamburg and just kind of introduce yourself and that was the exact line that he said he was like I'm predominantly self-coached but in the future if I am going to get coached I'd like to work with you that was kind of our first proper introduction weren't it back in Hamburg yeah because I think you're you're very what's the word I'm looking for you're very measured with how you do things and i've seen it with jake i've seen it with liam i've seen it with the other guys where a lot of the movements you do like people would look at them and be like why is he doing that for hyrox but then it's kind of by doing this you strengthen this which in turn will help you push a sled will help you do warbles and it's a very measured progressive and like sustainable approach to training because yes if you want to get better at pushing a sled push a sled but if you want to get really good at pushing a sled focus on all right i need to kind of focus on engage my core a bit more how am i going to do that i'm going to do some kettlebell work doing this so i think that's that's one thing about your coaching that really stands out above pretty much every other coach i've seen it's like very system-based to get better at something rather than just doing the thing to get better at the thing?

20:55Yeah, I think we obviously speak about this a lot and we mentioned it on the podcast the other week. And unless I'm missing something, I don't see a great deal of information about it. I don't see a great deal of coaches that are really emphasising it. But as far as I'm concerned, you have to maximise what you have available to you as a human. If you are not able to hold the correct position, use the right areas of the body, move in the correct way, you could be the fittest strongest person in the room and get beat by someone who's just a little bit more effective than you who's maybe not as fit or not as strong and i definitely think it's a low-hanging fruit in the sense that sitting on a bike for hours on end doing sets and sets and sets of strength work it takes a lot of toll on the body takes a lot of recovery it's hard but just giving yourself a little bit of time to understand how to move properly or what the mechanics of the lunges or the the sled push or the wall balls are and working on them as a skill is relatively low impact it doesn't actually take that much energy you don't have to do a massive amount of power output it's just literally becoming more fluent with common patterns that you're going to see and i think actually the beauty of hyrox is the stuff that i think works best for getting better at running is not too far off the stuff that it takes to get better it's a sled push in terms of the basic movement patterns that you're working on and the basic fundamentals of being able to stand on one leg being a little bit more front foot focused with your strength work there's some very common themes that i think just go across most of what you guys are kind of doing in in high rocks but then i see people not doing it or in fact sometimes doing contradictory stuff and that's when I'm a little bit like why they're doing that um not I'm not saying I know everything but one thing I like to think is if I give someone a movement or a methodology or a workout or anything I could sit for five minutes and explain exactly why you know whether that's deemed to be right or wrong you've got to have that rationale behind what you're doing I think uh you also kind of like walk the walk with it like a clear example of that the other day you know you can it takes so long to build fitness it takes so long to build strength but just banging technique and making your technique better can literally within sessions you can start getting better and better and i think even when you look at the elite 15 like there's so many people that move bad and don't move optimally now these are them guys are still in the elite 15 because their fitness is just so high and they're just machines but like if they start getting better at their technique and they're just going to be like years ahead like you can see like clear example uh luke greer like insane athlete insane fitness like insane natural ability but he's only been in the sport a couple of months like when i say a couple of months a couple of years maybe but uh not as long as yourself or myself but he has got so much potential because he's not unlocked everything yet in terms of the technique in terms of like the war was in terms of everything else and like you could see him like progressing so fast and so quick if he starts working on these things a little bit more but like i say he's already amongst the the best but a clear example going back to us in the gym the other day um it's nice because you walk the walk as well like you you say something but then you can prove it as well and you've done it numerous times but the other day we were in the gym, we were doing burpees and we've got the slug carpet the centre slug carpet so we've got 12.5 metres and John was like basically timing me how long it takes me to burpee broad jump, then 12.5 metres now it's only like a sprint but like how fast can you physically burpee and I think I was coming in like 13, 14 seconds and John goes and he does it in 9 seconds and the fact that over 12 and a half meters he can beat me in an all-out sprint by four seconds is insane like yes it's um like john is more explosive than me um he might be better at burpees but like you say it's just that efficiency and then we start working on it and within literally 10 minutes i got down from 14 seconds to 12 seconds just by working on it and it's like that over time can pay off massively i think we actually ended up about 11 seconds but the the it comes back to the point that i always make it is like you need to be able to say i don't know but then when you do know and you understand the movement and how to get better at it you've got to have that authority i didn't actually know if i could beat jake on it but i saw some flaws in the way that it was moving and then i tried to explain it and then you see this look on jake's face that's like well show me then do you know what I mean or I don't believe you or fuck off like that's the sort of it like face that I'm presented with so I'm like so I just simply said to him would you like me to pace you on this next one and go side by side and then prove the point and then it's like how did you do that and then it's like well this is what you need to be doing this is what you need to be thinking about we started putting some coaching cues in but sometimes you do have to be able to step into the ring and kind of like give a proof a physical example and You've done that time and time again.

26:27I remember we'd been out in Austin and you messing around with Hunter. I think you just had a bit of a kettlebell competition. It was a complex that you could do with a kettlebell. Now, how much do you weigh, John? 75 kilos. You're 75 kilos. Hunter's bordering probably 95. He's a big boy. He's a big boy at the time, definitely. 20 kg, heavier than you. and you lifted the same kettlebell doing the same complex i think it was like a clean into a front squat into a thruster into something else and it just shows like with efficiency and with technique that you don't need to be the strongest person in the room but if you move better than anyone else you can show off in a competition you just need to be more efficient and you need to kind of like optimize that um and hunter is such a strong athlete such kind of like a he does move well but by the way like training with hunter which i was fortunate enough to do a couple of times because everyone else is following the program we're out we're out um i forget what it's called now uh correct fitness correct fitness so it used to be on it but fantastic gym uh and hunter was in town and we were kind of like all training in the vicinity and hunter just basically said like these little boring like because everyone's doing the percentages and the reps and the specific program he's like do you want to come and play about with some kettlebells like but he's so strong like just to put it into put it into context how strong he actually is like i was actually impressed like we were doing a clean and pressed with a landmine which i'm pretty strong i can do like um the bar with like uh 50 kilos on so 220 plates and a 10 and hunter was just like putting 20 plates on and i just taught him this exercise like five minutes before and he just kept going up in 20 kilo increments and i was like and he got well beyond what i could lift like because he's just like his grip strength was just really strong like just all the kind of like base strength is for him insane um but going back to jake's point like yeah i was actually able to do the same weight with um a complex but that was just all technique versus his brute strength do you know what I mean just on Hunter and I'll stop licking his arse and run it but I think this summarises someone who is physically strong in every element when they don't need to warm up you get a couple of people in this world and you'll come across them and when I say don't need to warm up they'll do one, two sets before him Hunter's warm up is normally just whacking every plate on the sled Hunter's warm up is lifting the plates up and putting them on the bar like literally he went in when we was in Austin and the lads were squatting and he went straight in 120 kg, 140 kg or something like that in his carbon shoes but you just show like for me that just shows that he doesn't need to prine the muscles they're already prined and ready to go and it's kind of that over years and years that confidence and that strength I think also though from a coaching perspective what that shows is what we're all trying to achieve which is like a balanced body so like if you're waking up tight in the same areas every day then that means you've got some form of imbalance where like something's tight on one side versus something that's weak on the other side yeah so i think when you're athletically balanced you do generally get away with like hunter just jumping straight into something a bit crazy whereas most of us are maybe fighting the effects of like having a quad dominance or left to right imbalance or you know whatever issues that we're kind of working through so i think that's actually quite a good place to aim to be i always say you should be able to jump out of bed and do a squat without anything hurting or cracking or crunching but most people need to move around a little bit and it is interesting that that like the the more so you are or that if you have got more of like a niggle or something like that the longer you need to warm up absolutely yeah for sure but that that's that's that sign though that you've not quite got the balance right i think and and this is another thing charlie races free three four times in a weekend like if his body wasn't in balance and his tissues weren't of a certain quality and he wasn't looking after his nutrition all these other things he would not physically be able to do that and often i'm sure charlie gets maybe criticized or questioned you know you're going to burn yourself out you're going to get injured you're going to do this you're going to do that but actually like if you're in a position of of being in a healthy state whether that's like muscle balance whether that's um just your health in general your body will support that you know and you're not actually risking injury because you're not pushing to the limit you're not going to the max weight that you can lift you're not running as fast as you can run and you know i see it time and time again where you guys race on a friday or a thursday and then you wake up the next day you may be a bit sore a bit tired because you've been, you know, maybe had disrupted sleep and stuff, but you get moving and your bodies look good, you know.

31:38Yeah. And that's a reflection of the state that you're in, the training that you've been doing and all these different things. And I think you've obviously used that to your advantage by getting a good training stimulus on these race weekends. Yeah, and people only see your race results. Absolutely. Most people don't see that I spend 60 % to 65 % of my training in a week in Zone 1. And everyone's like, oh, Zone 1 doesn't do anything. but it does if you use it right. But people only ever see the cool sessions or the races because nobody likes seeing the fact that I've gone on a treadmill or an incline with a weighted vest for two hours.

32:14And I can vouch for this because if I ever ring Charlie or a voice call him or anything, sorry, a video call him or anything like that, I want to say that every single time that he's answered, he's sat on the bike or on a Sturmaster or something and sweating which is interesting because he definitely is doing what he was what he says he was doing i think the zone one thing is very very easy to explain as humans even a hundred years ago zone one wasn't a thing it was just life we used to move around a lot we'd be on our feet a lot we'd be doing manual jobs a lot like you'd spend i'd say 25 hours a week in zone one just off living you know whether that was like getting food way back when or being some sort of laborer 50 years ago since we've become a lot more sedentary it's now become a training methodology um but i think it's completely normal for human beings to spend a lot of time in zone one even into a little bit of zone two um hours and hours and hours and hours and hours i think it's a base need me like i think it's something that all humans should do more of yeah and just quickly going back to the efficiencies that we're on about a little bit ago i at my gym i was talking to one of the guys there and we kind of went through so he he runs like a 90 minute high rocks and he wants to get down into sub 80 in like a year's time kind of thing and i'd recommend anyone watching or listening to this to go and do the same find a buddy and just go through every single movement and critique every minute detail of it and find where you can become more efficient without having to train harder and we looked at his burpees and he's a the burpee ball jumps are 80 meters long and he's taking about five seconds to each burpee and he's burping about two meters but his hands he's putting right by his feet and i was like do the same thing but put your hands 20 centimeters ahead of your feet because in the rule book you can put them 30 centimeters and then when you extrapolate that out two meters that's eight per jump that's 80 over 80 meters that's 40 burpee jumps you're doing if you take the 20 centimeters that you gain from every burpee that over the whole thing is i think we worked out as eight meters that you're gaining from just literally putting your hands a little bit further in front over the course of the whole thing and then when you extrapolate that out to time that's 20 seconds you're taking off of the burpees by just simply moving your hands a bit further and we did the same with the lunges it's like you feel comfortable lunging with your knees at like a right angle but now try and just push them out that little bit further add an extra 10 centimeters to each lunge you're doing a one meter lunge over 100 meters of lunges that's 100 lunges you're doing if you add 10 centimeters onto that that's 10 meters 10 difference in it and then you're doing 10 less lunges you're doing 90 lunges instead of 100 yeah and if your lunges are taking your two seconds each that's another 20 seconds so just by maximizing the distances you can do you're taking 40 seconds off of your waist arm and you don't even that's without getting fitter and i guarantee if you look at ronkovich or if you look at tim or if you look at hunter they're probably looking at that rule book and like seeing where can i gain every minute detail without having to get fitter or work any harder yeah where can i just be like smart and just use the rules to my advantage and i think it's it's very apparent now with the quality of the field like the in our race today there was i think 30 guys in the field who had run sub 59 and when you've got that competitive a field you need to be maximizing everything you can that is doesn't involve binning yourself and training and getting fitter.

36:21Yep. Totally agree. Even to the point of like, if you know someone's at the same level as you, like maybe just sitting behind them on the runs so you're not having to think when am I going in next? Like even the thought of thinking. Saving a few brain calories. Yeah, a few. Seriously, it does work. Like from the, from like running and doing the marathons and stuff like that, like having to be constantly looking at a pace of how fast you're running it does take energy whereas if you can just sit behind someone know that they're going at the right pace and then you can just pace off them and go in the inn when they go in it kind of works and if a course is busy and there's someone in front of you let them find the gaps and you just follow them through you don't have to think about that I think that's the same as following an ambulance down the road get ready let them put the blue light on and just sit in behind them the whole way through through that traffic but like you see like for instance Danny Ray free shout out here he did like a 159 burpees in Warsaw and when you look at his burpees like he is really maximising what he can from the burpees and like he practises them and like he's when he starts and when he finishes every burpee looks the same and they all look brilliant and it's like there's always going to be someone on every station who is just really good at what they do it's like Alex Ronkovich every sled pull exact same we've been studying the sled pulls this week haven't we and he does a couple of interesting things actually again though when you look at how he does it the way he places his hands the order of the placement of the hands the way he pulls he throws in a little shoulder rotation it probably adds to like you say like 20 to 50 centimeters per pull difference so that he's maybe doing that length with one less pull are you gonna you're gonna go through your secret on the sled pull because you've recently changed up your sled pulls are you just gonna keep this off my well one of my secrets is like i'm doing it more but whenever i'm doing it i'm really intentional with how many pulls is it taking me to get the sled from a to b so instead of just like the standard going for time or distance it's like i'm going to do x pulls for whatever distance yeah and then and then i'll do workouts where i am just focusing on how quickly can i get that from there to here so like one workout i did a few weeks ago that kind of butchered my hands it was a 30 minute every three minutes on the minute and it was a 20 meter sled pull as quick as possible into 20 warbles and then you rest until the three minutes and you just do that 10 times and every one you want to match the sled pull split with the same as the last one and as you fatigue you have to put more of an emphasis on am i doing this right you can't get lazy kind of with any single pull and it's like stuff like that just repetition but not just moving it from a to b like being very particular with how you do it like my running for instance i have and for years i've had a really bad anterior pelvic tilt and now every run session i do i'm very intentional with where are my hips at like where's my core at and it's helping me in like in my running today i think i was second obviously i'm not going to run quicker than luke greer but like if you find every small detail in your physiology and training that you can maximize do that i think putting a coach's perspective on that workout style that Charlie has mentioned there I don't think enough people are doing that particular type of workout in terms of the amount of volume so did you say you did 10 rounds of 20?

40:21Yeah 20 pulls and 20 walls. So Charlie there in a workout has done 200 metres of pull and then obviously 200 wall balls if I program for some of my clients like anything that's beyond the high rocks distance or load or the parameters of high rocks like why are you making me do 200 meters i don't have to do 50 and i'm like well hang on a minute like you're more than happy to do like 80 kilometers of running for 8k but you won't do 200 meters of sled yeah i think that's something that people don't do enough of and then that giving yourself enough rest so that you can be intentional and you can think about technique and you know like if you've done a four minute piece which has had your heart rate up towards like zone five and then you get one minute's rest there's not enough time or energy in the tank to be intentional with technique you want to get to the point where you're that good with the technique you've done it that many times that you don't even have to think about it and i think that's when you can do it under fatigue but i think you don't just go from like really struggling to just constantly doing 50 meters at race pace and getting significantly better with the technique and i think them are the people that are like plateau and they've seen a bit of an increase and then they just plateau plateau plateau so i think being a little bit um different with the training approach and the workouts in that sense going four times past what you're supposed to and having lots of rest in the grand scheme of things i would imagine you would have what half of that three minutes as rest almost yeah about one minute 20 seconds so like almost one-to-one work to rest right and then just being disciplined to just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

42:03I think from a coach's perspective, there's not enough people at any level actually doing that. Yeah, and just being honest with yourself, like am I actually doing this correctly? Yeah. I've not sat myself down, but I've looked back at myself and I'm like, I'm not doing that right. I need to redo that and make sure I'm doing it right because if you nail good habits as early as possible, it's going to help you longevity-wise for sure. And sometimes a new technique, so for example, literally it was only last week. It's good that you mentioned that because literally only last week we adapted my sled pull.

42:42And now that sled pull, that new technique that I'm going to do, it's not going to be faster than my old sled pull technique straight away. But over time with practice, it will become faster. like you say you get efficient with whatever you do so if you're doing shit technique you're going to get efficient with shit technique but it's still not going to be optimal if you get efficient with good technique then yes you might be slower the first couple of times that you do it but in the long run you're going to be more efficient a great person that I spend a little bit of time with George Martindale he's quite new into high rocks but ran a 58-30 today by the way he's getting some good scores isn't he yeah he's one to watch out for but George is a great lad but one thing that he does he'll do a sled pull and just video it watch the video back so in his rest watch the video back see where he's doing it wrong or right and then go again and he'll do that 10 times and he's literally just watching himself every single time thinking oh I did that well oh my foot wasn't in the right place there the rope might not have been in the right place whatever and then going back and then literally improving so that's probably one of the best ways that you can get better and it's a little tip i'd probably say um luckily like we do it in person so you're watching me and you're like ah jake just do this a little bit better or whatever but like if you've not got a coach there if you've not got your friend there criticizing you you can just literally video yourself set up a camera and then video how we do things we've kind of both explained the idea that sometimes you have to take a step backwards so let's say you've developed this like bad technique you're using it to to some success but you know that whoever's beating you's got better technique and slightly different technique you're gonna have to take a hit because you're going to learn a different movement pattern that's going to essentially make you a little bit slower in the short term as an athlete what's it like when you kind of are faced with that situation I like it I like knowing that even though I have to take a step backwards I've recognised or someone's recognised something in me that will help me go forward in the future so in the moment it feels like oh gosh I feel worse but then when you recognise that it's going to allow you to reach a higher level in the future it's kind of like it's just part of the process and it is something that I I I love finding out things that maybe I'm not great at and that if I do this instead and go backwards I can go further forward just like an easy win isn't it yeah an easy win and it's like if you're dedicated to something for the long run like it's like a no brainer what about you Jack?

45:37I think it's basically just the same as any instance in life where you get a telling off like John if you tell me off because I'm doing something wrong which I never do I don't tell him off then in the moment you're going to be pissed off but then later down the line you're going to see actually this is going to make me a better person make me a better athlete I think that's how you kind of I've got to look at it um like the other day with with the burpees I'm like I've been doing burpees wrong my whole life and that is frustrating because you suddenly go back and you think how many times have I done a burpee incorrectly and if I would have just done it correctly and learned the technique right at first how much better I'd be but you've got to be grateful that someone has corrected you and then you can then progress like I say it's a tiny win if everything's right all the time and everyone's saying you're doing everything's amazing and everything's perfect, then you're kind of fucked.

46:41That's a scary place, isn't it? Because that's you. That's all you've got, right? Yeah, that's it. And if you're still not at the top, then you're never going to be at the top if you're doing everything perfect. But if you're doing stuff that is incorrect, you've not got the best technique, maybe you can improve your fitness, maybe you can improve your strength, all these weaknesses. If you have weaknesses, then you can improve. If you've just got strengths, you can't improve. One thing I will add as well, and I think in my last podcast I spoke about never seeing anyone get injured doing a perfect movement pattern.

47:12I've never, ever, ever seen an athlete who does everything perfect. Every athlete I've ever seen, bearing in mind, I've been fortunate enough to be in and around Matt Fraser, for example. I was lucky enough to compete against him a couple of times and watch him move. He moves great, probably better than everyone else. But I could still coach him and be like, well, Matt, you could do that a bit better. you know and it's the same from what i see in high rocks i touched on it in the last podcast as well like ronkovich is clearly like a little bit ahead on most of the stations but i don't think his running form is as good as some of the other athletes do you think that's because there's so many different disciplines in both crossfit and high rocks yeah like but even in in any sport like i think no one's i don't think there's you get the odd like real genetic freak don't you like someone like usain ball but there'll be a running coach somewhere who recognizes the fact that he could do something slightly different with his with what his arms are doing or something to do with his start and and the amount of steps that he takes in in in the first 10 meters because he was notoriously like quite a slow starter like there'll be something in his game that could be improved um and like i said in you know almost 20 years of watching humans move i've never seen anyone and not been like well that could actually be slightly better and the margins change because you get people that i've got lots to work on and then you get people that have got only the finer details but I don't think I've ever seen anyone and thought well I can't actually add anything here because everything they do is perfect so I think when you are winning it's easy to be like I'm just better than everyone else and forget that you're still growing as an athlete and learning as a person and like your ego can almost convince you that you've completed it but like we said last time how many times does someone win the world championships and then the next year there's someone hungry someone's worked harder someone's looked at the weaknesses and maybe the world champions took the foot off the gas a little bit and you get a new world champion and then it's back to square one they start questioning themselves again like I think you two both have in common I think you've got a lot of differences there's people and athletes but you're both quite interested in kind of finding out what you're not great at and figuring out the problems and how to improve maybe that's why us three are sat in a room together now because we've all got that kind of common common ground but i think a lot of people because they're pretty good and they've had a bit of success are yet to recognize the fact that there's lots of things to work on luke gree is a good example i've spoke to luke quite a lot um i get on with him great we have chats um i see him a lot of events i see him as someone who's a little bit arrogant and i don't mean that in a derogatory way at all and i'd be very interested to see how he approaches getting better at the stuff that he's not very good at.

49:58Will he just continue to run faster and try and just hang in the stations or will he take advice from other people, start to break himself down and what his weaknesses are and start to work on it? He's clearly doing it a little bit, but it'd be interesting to see his progression in the future because I think you do get some people who maybe refuse or can't see that they've got room for improvement. But I think with Luke potentially, is he not just saying something different to what he's doing as well? Because like every race, from every single race that I've watched, looking back, he's got better at the stations.

50:38Well, all I can say is that the conversations that I have had that have included talking about how to improve on certain things, he has been receptive and attentive to what I've been saying and not the opposite, which you get a lot, which is like being dismissive or arrogant towards things that you say. So he probably is looking and, you know, he's got that arrogance about him, but behind the scenes he's probably critiquing himself to a point where he's going to figure out what he can't do and what he can do and how to get better. But it'll be interesting. I personally think that's the thing that holds.

51:17once an athlete gets to a certain point and has a certain amount of success, I think one of the biggest things that holds them back is a lack of humility, where they start to believe their own hype and start going in this little bubble and think that they're kind of the centre of everything and forget that they're still learning and growing and there's plenty of things that they can improve on. I think the best athletes that I've ever seen have an element of arrogance which you need confidence like a supreme confidence which almost spills over to arrogance but actually when you speak to them they're quite humble and very very ready to learn, Hunter is a great example of that you know Hunter's one of the most successful High Rocks athletes ever, everyone would agree with that, absolute beast he's proved himself in many different events I don't think we can do not even just high rocks just like the hybrid scene he's the OG and in my opinion number one hybrid athlete in the world in the world without a doubt I think he is the fittest person you could throw him into a crossfit competition and he will do better than any high rockster you know he's good at running he's very strong he's so rounded it's unbelievable but every conversation I've had with Hunter that's revolved around training would he'd be like a beginner on a beginner's course at my gym that's like dead eager to learn and and listens to every word that you say yeah like i mean i've spoken to him more obviously since i got into the elites but i met him once when i was at uni and obviously he has a persona on the internet like big macho man whatnot but he actually is that as well like he is a big macho man but like when he like he listens and he's attentive and he wants to, even like not just in training, but just he wants to learn.

53:15And I think whenever I've seen him in a room of people, he wants to learn and he wants to take knowledge from people. And I think it's such, I look up to him as an athlete, but I also look up to him in that sense where wherever I am, there's nuggets of information I could get from anyone. Absolutely. you could just be speaking to a random person on the street and you might learn something yeah and i think he like he's one of the best in the world at what he does but he a random guy could come up to him in the gym and be like oh try this blah blah blah and he'll actually he might not try it but he'll think about right he's told me to do this would that actually work yeah maybe i'll give that a go and then it might help so i think that's something we can definitely take from hunter a question for you guys which i think could be really helpful for for kind of people watching this is like if you was to give like a couple of pieces of advice to i think someone who's you know been doing iroxes and kind of getting better and you know wanting to get to that higher level what would it be

54:27learn just learn and listen like i could become world number one and i could win the world title and i'd still have so much more to learn from other people and it might not help me athletically but it might help me perform better as an athlete and i think that's the most important thing you can do as a and as an athlete but also as a human is learn and listen from people because there's so many people who have stories or advice or experiences that can benefit you and you just don't know it because you're not listening so i think that's probably my bit of the question i don't think it's necessarily either about you having to agree with everything either yeah is it do you know what i mean because i think a lot of people like only listen to things they agree with but all about you Jake what would you say?

55:20Just everything you do within training within life like do it with intent have a reason behind doing absolutely everything and do it to the best of your ability whether that's like say perfecting your technique whether it's doing a session like before you get into any session you need to know the reason why you're doing that session and the behind it and how that's going to benefit your performance there's there's some times where i'm pondering or do i do a second or third session that day um do i do an easy bike and i have to weigh up the pros and cons of doing that like is that sport specific is it going to increase my aerobic capacity or is it just going to tire me out even more so i can't recover and i can't absorb the prior training that I've done and it's all about kind of like weighing up everything and assessing everything even to the point of your nutrition and the the race the course like you say studying the course map beforehand like just going into everything with intent and like giving everything like 100 % and not like half-arting anything it's a really good point I want to spin the conversation and I want to take it back to you, Charlie, about what did you do before getting into High Rocks?

56:47So I first started High Rocks in early 2022. And then before that, I raced out in France domestically for a professional team out there. Was that your first entry into sport or did you play football or beer beforehand? Yes, I played football from the age of five, I think it was I started. And I played that for 10 years. I played in the academy level. So I played for Reading. What position, by the way? I was a goalkeeper and then I moved to a striker. What did you come up for a corner in one of the games? I didn't enjoy being a goalkeeper, but looking back at it retrospectively, and like this might sound arrogant, I would have made it to quite a high level.

57:36And a lot of people in my club knew that and that's why they were so like wanting me as a six, seven year old kid to just stay in goal. And all I wanted to do was play out for them. They're like, no, you got to stay in goal kind of thing. So yeah, I played football for 10 years of my life and then I got two really severe knee injuries. so I couldn't play any contact sports after the age of about 14, which was a shame. But in my rehab from those injuries, I took up cycling and I've always wanted to be a professional athlete from day dot. That's been my one drive and passion. So I took up cycling and then got quite good at that, went out to France and raced for a team called um ucube decept so we were sponsored by cubed uh cube bikes and that's kind of that level of racing is like if you do well there you then make it into like the world tour teams and the proper and the really good like the teams you see on the tv so that level of racing was hard and it was hard doing it in lockdown in France.

58:57So genuinely, I just stopped doing it because I woke up and I was like, does this actually make me happy? And am I fulfilled in what I'm doing now? And the answer was no. So I stopped cycling in September 2021 after doing it from about 2018. So you, like only three years? Yeah, so... You was doing cycling and you got to that level within three years. so I got was that road cycling yeah so I was a junior junior from 16 to 18 and then 18, 19 I kind of progressed into that that's insane that you can like you say build that level of fitness and get to the standard within like a couple of years yeah but I'm just any sport that I've done I've always been all in like I think Nick Bear's got a great quote that's all in and not all consumed but like I've kind of ridden the line between those two in a lot of sports that I've done and cycling was no different like I went all in on it and it didn't work out but it kind of gave me that aerobic platform to do well at this sport and I'm really happy that I found a sport where it it does kind of encompass my whole life but in such a good way like I race but then I can come and chat with you guys and then we'll go out for lunch together and then i'll meet other friends go watch other people and it's like it's kind of healthy i always see that harrocks is a sports goal like it is quite a healthy sport because the race itself is only anywhere from like say you're doing it for 54 minutes to you know some people doing it in two hours but it's a relatively like medium length race it's not going on for days and days and days uh that being said like you go and compete on a weekend you're not absolutely battered for weeks after it's not like doing a marathon or doing an ultra or you know going to the tour de france or whatever crossfit competitions used to ruin you you know for weeks you've done like eight events in two days yeah so it's not you're not battered from it the isn't like a power to weight ratio where you've got to be as skinny as possible yeah we'll probably touch on that with uh cycling and running but uh high rocks like you do need an amount of muscle which means that you need to train uh and fuel for training so that means that you can enjoy food and have like quite a balanced life and go out with friends and eat um but then like you say it does this is where it probably changes a little bit especially from athlete to athlete but you probably train up to 25 hours a week normally which is on the high end um some people are training 10 to 12 hours a week and again still being around that elite 15 but it still gives you time to have that bit of a balance where you can do other things and i think that's the pretty sick thing about high rocks and it's all over the world so when you're traveling you're traveling you're meeting the same guys so you become friends with these people you either meet up with them beforehand or after uh when you travel into new cities you you go do high rocks and then you literally on a city break after that it's pretty kind of it's a cool way to i think it's a lot cooler than other sports when you think of it like that yeah for sure but yeah going back to um like say you you found high rocks and you found like this is like more fulfilling let's take it back to cycling like what did cycling teach you that you think you've carried over into high rocks like you say an aerobic base yeah but is there anything else i think race craft so in cycling the best guys in the world aren't always necessarily the fittest guys they're the guys that know how to conserve their energy and race smart because like tado pukaccia like he's the best cyclist in the world at the moment but if you look at the way he approaches races he's very measured with every single thing he does and he'll always be in the right place at the right time and that's the hardest thing about cycling like he might be the fittest guy in the world but if you don't know how to navigate the group and get to where you need to be at the right time you're never going to win a race because when the race winning move goes you're at the back of the group and you can't get through because everyone else is in front of you so i think having that race craft and understanding that it's a dynamic sport and you need to be able to race smart and race effectively is probably the the biggest thing i've taken from it and Like, one of my go-to sayings is win every second.

1:03:51And it's like, how can you maximize every move you make to conserve energy to help you when it gets hard at the end? So I think racecraft is probably the biggest thing I've taken from cycling. And I wasn't great at racecraft. And that's how I found out, like, how good the best guys were. Because, like, I'd look at my race file afterwards and I was pushing more power than some guys. but yet they were finishing 10 minutes ahead of me. And it's like, you look at it and it's like, how am I doing that? That's because they know how to be efficient. They know when to follow a move or when to leave it.

1:04:27And it's kind of like being very measured from the gun. I think it comes right back around to what we've been speaking about throughout, which is it's not just about trying to be the fittest and strongest person in the room. When I see you guys in the Elite 15, you're all the same. you've got strengths and weaknesses and someone's a quicker runner and someone has a good race and someone has a bad race but you're all fit, you're all strong, you're all good at high rocks so what's the difference between 1st and 15th, do you know what I mean? What can you do that doesn't take, like you said any energy?

1:05:02I think that's key I think that's the difference between a casual good athlete versus an elite athlete that's one of the big differences Do you think you have any weaknesses? at the moment yeah like i could probably look at every single station and be like that is a weakness and i think no matter where i end up how good i get i'll always i'll always see weaknesses in where i do and that's maybe it's partly due to my mindset like i'm i'm not a very confident person in myself so like I'll always find those weaknesses and like I'll look at something and like but I won today's race and the first thing I did was look at like oh where did everyone else beat me and yeah so I think I've got a lot of weaknesses but it's nice having weaknesses because you've got something to work on I think you're in a very like we said earlier tough situation if you're finishing mid-pack in an elite 15 race but you don't know where you can get time and i'm like in the last few majors i finished quite far behind the leader and i know exactly where i can get time and it is just going and doing the work to get that time have you have you got any examples of like specifically where you feel like your weaknesses are at what stations or like is it your strength work in your legs is it upper body strength is it um your core is it your running like what do you think if you if you used to name just a couple off off the top well so i'm i could go on about this for quite a while but like we said earlier i'm very data driven and measured in how i do things and my after i qualified in melbourne like stockholm has been the race I've circled and that's the race that I want to go and do well in and my training is reflective of that so the last like four months have probably not done anywhere near as much pushing a sled doing burpee broad jumps doing warbles but I've done loads of movements around that that will help me when it comes to really honing in on that skill do them better and the last two weeks since warsaw have kind of gone into an eight-week block where i'm really honing in on those skills and i think that's where i can get better and improve um so for example there just for people that are thinking what does he mean other exercises like are you talking things like i'm doing squats and thrusters to get better at wall balls for example is it that sort of thing that you mean yeah and like high rep shoulder press and even certain movements around exercises like calf prehab like i do a lot of isometric work on my calves because i know that's going to stiffen them up and then when i'm running that's going to make my running more efficient things like that and then like trap bar deadlifts banded on their own heavy light with high acceleration like all of that stuff is going to help you in the sled pull and like other movements and it's very much like you don't need to be doing a movement all year round like obviously to get better at sled pull you're going to do sled pull we've spoken about that to get better at warbles you're going to do warbles but if you really circle like a bigger picture like six eight ten months down the line a race that you want to do well at you don't need to be super specific on those movements until like two months out maybe a bit more but then when you're there you really need to like make the most of that time and be very very measured with it and going back to hunter mcintyre he put an instagram post out a few weeks ago that was like the 90 day countdown to worlds and he's very similar like he he doesn't get too specific on high rocks too soon he's off doing all kinds of things.

1:09:11But then 90 days before World Champs, he's like, right, I've got 12 weeks here. I need to be measured in everything that I do and I know what I need to do to get where I need to be. And I think that's probably... He understands at that point in time, things might be a weakness, but that's all part of the plan and that weakness will become a strength eventually. hopefully that works for me and i can beat hunter but i i doubt i'll be able to do that this year but um yeah it's like that's kind of my approach i've kind of gone on a bit of a tangent did you um did you see that hunter has been practicing the sled push unbroken do you think either you could do 50 meters unbroken i think i could but it would destroy my race no you're saying unbroken like literally as soon as you get to one end of the third turn like grab or go uh definitely not today with today's slides yeah cardiff is a lot of different to do one unbroken i think everyone to be fair um but uh no i think uh like i say it's very strategic because like everything that you do in a race like comes at a cost so yes you could push hard and you could really really practice your side push um you could build your strength follow sled push but then you've got to think about when you get to our level that you've got to think about well i've just built that strength in my legs are my legs going to be as efficient at running now or is it going to take away from my running being stronger there's always a cost to everything that you do um and i think we've got to to this level now of where everything matters and you've got to actually weigh up you can't just keep adding in training volume let's say if you if you want to you can't just improve all eight exercises at the same time plus running you cannot do that like you physically can't do that because you will crash and burn and if to get better at for example the lunges it's probably going to take away from maybe something else or something else uh so it's it's difficult um it's interesting what's uh what's your current weight and do you feel like you're at like you're fighting weight for world champs at the moment obviously i know a lot of people like to talk about like the optimal weight for high rocks or power to weight ratio like do you do you believe in that well yes that was 86 kilos um admittedly like i trained a bit less and probably eaten a bit more just because like i'm racing twice this weekend um do you think you need to have that as well just on side note like for a race you peak and you're in perfect shape for a race but are you at that weight when you're training 10 weeks out and your volume may be a little bit higher or you you need to be a little bit more resilient like does your weight fluctuate at all the lowest weight I've been this season was 84 kilos like 84.1 and the heaviest I've been is 90 and quite a big difference then 6kg yeah and like it's very like it's very dependent on how well do you want to perform in a moment and how well do you want to perform in 6 months time like in Phoenix I was 89 kilos and I felt that on the runs but I know that like in that period of time I was really focusing on getting stronger and it's going to be very you can do it but it's going to be very hard to get stronger in like a deficit and I think having like suffered from anorexia and an eating disorder and being really light and skinny it's not like it's not optimal at all and like you don't need to be that light like if you look at some there's some guys like pushing nearly 100 kilos in body weight and they're performing at the top level of high rocks so i think yes you want to get into peak shape at the right times but um you don't always want to be super duper lean yeah i've um found that definitely a recent um since the marathon uh i did had like blood tests after the marathon that i did back in january and basically i was deficient in quite a lot of things because i'd done like a severe diet plus then like push my miles up to almost 200 kilometers per week um so i was like you say my output was super high my calories were super low and i did that for a period of time where it just made me like on the verge of like having red s uh relative energy deficiency in sport um so i was on the brink of like uh stress fracture stuff like that and since then we decided right you need to eat more john's told me to eat more like don't care about your image don't care about anything like we just need to focus on eating a little bit more and fueling performance with the kind of thing of fuel for performance but even if you want some more have a little bit more and yes I don't look as lean yes I'm a little bit heavier I think about I'm probably the same as you probably about 86 kg whereas like before the marathon I was 80 if not a little bit less so 6 kg heavier but one thing that has struck me is I've not had any injuries or niggles like normally every every couple of weeks my back would be hurting and now there's there's none of that i just feel like a little bit more stronger you would frequently say like why am i so fragile but then it's like you've been in an energy deficit for or even just like staying lean like i think uh in november or something and this was before i even started doubting um i was i was still quite lean and i went and got a dextra scan and i think it was like 7.6 body fat or something like that and i think even that was probably just a bit too lean and like my body telling me or or coming up with symptoms that you know injuries minor injuries or niggles or being fragile is probably just a sign that like i i just wasn't eating enough and probably always in that kind of like fight or flight state which for high rocks, I think because there's so many forces on your body throughout the eight movements and running and trying to like train for them all at the same time, I just think being a little bit more body fat is probably better for most people.

1:16:05There's like an athletic number in there, probably about 10 % in it, give or take. Yeah, 10.5%. I think that's probably like where most athletes should go. That's for males. You'd probably say 15 % for females. If not more for females. 8 % difference usually or something like that. But I think it's a massive thing. And then, don't get me wrong, you can improve your power to weight ratio, get leaner, but I don't think you can do it for a prolonged period of time. You can't do it for a full year or six months. You could probably dip into it for a month. Four to six weeks is probably the maximum that your body's going to be able to deal with.

1:16:47And then, like you said, stress, fractures, injuries, all these different things. It's interesting. You don't really see that much in high rocks, the deviations like that. But going back to CrossFit, if you look at most CrossFitters out of season, they are heavier. They're fatter, aren't they? Yeah. To be honest. Yeah, they're fatter. And then you see them at the games, and they're super lean. They're only lean for, like I said, a couple of weeks. Boxers. many different athletes, weightlifters mixed martial artists they often live and train most of the year probably 4 or 5 kilograms heavier than what they perform at I think it's quite common but they spend probably 10 months of the year living at a certain weight and then 1 to 2 months of the year combined accumulative at that lighter kind of fight weight, don't they?

1:17:44Yeah. What do you do outside of High Rocks, Kelly? It supports Tottenham Hotspur, which is unfortunate.

1:17:55You're not wrong. How do you feel about Tottenham getting relegated, mate? Spent two months living in an art. No, we won't get relegated. We won't get relegated. Have they got a chance? We might actually get relegated. Have they got a chance of getting out of it? Well, I mean, we're racing tomorrow at the same time that we're playing Aston Villa. I'll shout the scores out to you whilst you're on the track. You need to shout me the scores, and if we're losing, I'm going to be running quicker. You're going to run quicker? Oh, yeah, I'm going to be livid. Will you not go to that very famous kind of Charlie Bottrell face where it looks like you crying, dying, somewhere in between?

1:18:35Would you say that's famous? I think I get sent it quite a lot on Instagram and stuff so that's quite mean to be fair it's become a bit of a meme but all I'll say is at least you know I'm not sandbagging yeah that's true I look back at some of those photos and I'm like Jesus Christ I am ugly you didn't do that first today we must have been a bit more controlled I was relaxed and controlled it's been mate two weeks of specificity and I'm right back at it good man but yeah getting back into what you do outside of High Rocks Charlie yeah well I love football I still love cycling and I'm I'm finding a lot more balance in life now especially like outside of High Rocks this is my focus and will be for a long time but I'm like I'm finding how to become more of a balanced person and actually be a human as well as an athlete and it is making me better at High Rocks.

1:19:39And so, yeah, like I'll spend a lot of time at the gym that I train at, and a lot of it will just be chatting to people and then we'll meet up outside the gym. I'm, yeah, I'm massively into my football. So we're getting to the crunch part of the season where football's on pretty much every night. You do sometimes go to the stadium and watch the game, Michael. I've seen you on your story and stuff. yeah yeah so I'll go I'll go out to the stadium with like mates we'll go to any any real football match and um yeah like it's it's been my passion for quite a long time and it will always be my passion so my goal like for next year for instance is like try and qualify for the singles and doubles by the second major.

1:20:29Mainly so that in December I can just do a plain hopping tour of Europe and just go to all the, like as many football stadiums as I can. Cool. To watch games? Yeah, go to Munich, go to Dortmund, go to Milan, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona and just try and, probably cost me like six grand, but just try and go and watch four games a week. That'd be gross. And just plain hop for two weeks go on a run in each city like explore the city by running in it but just do that but I can only do that if I qualify for both the Elite 15 races so that's my training focus for that yeah there's a bit of a driver there, that's cool do you think I think it's worth noting, like you say there that you've probably changed your perspective or you've come to a realisation that if you're going to be doing this for the next 10 years you need to find a little bit of balance because i think like you mentioned before so many people come to you and say i want to get into the elite 15 but how are they looking at that are they thinking right i'm going to do anything that i can within the next year to get into the elite 15 yeah that might be all well and good it might not happen it might take two years but say if it does the next year you get into the elite 15 what comes after that you then want to stay in the elite 15 do you then want to progress in the elite 15 you want to go from being 15th to 10th to 5th because we both had it that first race in the elite 15 it is incredible oh yes but after that every race after if you're not placing in the top five you're like disappointed disappointed and like yeah my first elite 15 singles race I came third and I was like oh my god this is great my next race I came last and then it's like it's like a smack in the face and you're like damn this is like this is tough and it's going to be really tough so like yeah like you said it's kind of you really if you're not at that elite race and you're at 100 % you're gonna suffer so yeah but like if you're serious about it i think or any athlete that is serious about trying to get to that next level whatever you're doing right now you've got to picture that you're going to be doing that for the next 10 years or five years at least and if whatever you're doing isn't sustainable or isn't healthy or isn't you know you you can't physically maintain then it's not going to happen and i think you're coming to the realization now that like like you say having that balance where you do have football as a little out and a little escape and you do have socials maybe it might still be with the people from the gym but you're you're going out you have more of a social life and it's not just full-on high rocks and that is it that's actually going to give you longevity in the sport um do you would you would you agree with that yeah like and i think it's important to have people in your life outside of this bubble like i've got friends who they know what hyrox is they couldn't tell you what all the stations are or what order they're in and like i'll go and meet them and we just won't talk about hyrox they'll be like oh how's it going they'll be like yeah yeah i've got this race coming up and it's like oh wicked oh did you hear about this and it's like and then we'll just go and chat about not hyrox stuff and i think that's really important in whatever avenue you are like have people outside your life who just have no interest in it and i'm interested in you doing well i'm not going to watch your race because like i don't really know what's going on i want to what i want you to do well and i would watch it if i knew what was going on but like have people outside of it who will support you but like they're almost a little bit oblivious to it yeah they'd they'd like you crack on you do your hybrid rock starring we'll meet up take the piss out of you a little bit and keep you kind of like humble as well because like yeah it's good I bet a lot of people come up to you and they're kind of in awe that they either meet you or like oh that's Charlie like he's one of the best in the world at his sport but it's great to have them people around you that don't give a fuck and will still like just take the piss out of you yeah and it's great just like just being around those people that know you're pursuing this really well but they don't they just like you for you and they don't like you because you're doing well at the sport or you've got these sponsors they like you for just you and i think even in the sport that's an important thing like i get on with you because i like you as a person like you being a great athlete being sponsored by red bull yeah it's great but like we get on as just as people like if hyrox didn't exist i could go and have a drink with you it'd probably be coke zero i was just could have said that i could go i could go and like have a drink i think right now it'd be like caffeine free cog zero as well yeah exactly but it's the same if it's after 12 well like anyone in this room like i could if hierarchs didn't exist i'd still get on with you all of you and i think that's really important in relationships that even though you do the same sport have an interest in the person outside of the sport yeah man yeah like i've got a couple of questions i'm sure people will want to know what's it like switching between the dynamic like of this weekend for example of racing against each other and being in direct competition like you were today this morning and then flipping that switch and then becoming essentially a team to race in the doubles tomorrow evening what's that like how do you deal with it are there any problems like i'm sure people will be interested to know what it's actually like in real life from your perspective do you go first or no you can go first on this one i'm interested to hear i'm i love it like i know that if jake beats me he's in good shape for the doubles and i need to show up and make sure that i'm like doing my bit and it's the same advice on that does that bring so let's say like you know you guys know in advance that you're going to be racing against each other on one day and then the next day you're going to be racing together.

1:26:49Whoever wins, and therefore the other person loses, does that change the kind of pressure and how it feels? Do you go into that next race thinking, oh, shit, I need to make sure I have a good sleep and I can bring my A game tomorrow. I don't want to let anyone down.

1:27:05I could win an Elite 15 race and then I'd still go into the next race, the doubles, with the mindset, I don't want to let my partner down. And I think looking at you as an example, in Melbourne, both you and JK didn't have the races you wanted to have. But you both went into that race the next day with a completely fresh mind. Yet the day before didn't go well and you went and won that race. And I think it's being very, when you're in that moment in the singles, you're in that moment, you're racing great. But then the moment you finish, like the race is done. the result's not going to change and then just switching that switch to right we need we now need to focus on tomorrow and doing our job there do you think it's a thing and it's possible to be um the better solo athlete but then your partner so you're you know you're winning on the solo side but your partner's a better doubles athlete is there a difference between being a solo athlete and doubles athlete and is it possible to be kind of like on the back foot when it comes to solos but then stronger in the doubles yeah for sure like i think it's it's definitely as the quality of the sport increases it's definitely becoming apparent that there are some people that just are better that are doubles and there are some people that just are better at the singles quite often And it's like the runners will, or the faster runners will be better in the doubles.

1:28:44And then like the stronger guys on the stations will be better in the singles. Like that's often the case. It's not always the case, but. So your perspective is, is a little bit more pressure on the running speed when it comes to the doubles. Yeah. And being able to hit a station at the capacity you need to whilst maintaining a running pace that is fast enough to win the race. And what about you, Jake? How do you feel about the solos versus doubles dynamic? In terms of athlete, I think just the more exposure to anaerobic work. So your CrossFitters, your 800-metre track athletes, your 1 ,500-metre track athletes are going to be better at the doubles.

1:29:29I think training for singles and doubles is completely different. I think there's a lot more VO2 max work in the doubles, or potentially there should be a lot more VO2 max work in your doubles than in the singles. I think the singles are probably a little bit more base building, a little bit of aerobic work. Obviously, Harrochs is a new sport, so you can't just base. There is no exact science of what training method works for anyone, but if you see all the people that are doing incredible within the singles, they've either got a really big base or they're building a really big base of hours and hours and hours of work and then like I say they're just fine tuning which is more of like a it's more tedious it's more full on focus you need 100 % to be all in on the singles to be good at the singles whereas the doubles it's a little bit more anaerobic training hours potentially need to be a little bit less more recovery so say instead of doing four to five hour days you might just be doing one to two hour days but these ones two hour days are more intense and then you're recovering for longer um that's how i kind of like see it uh so there's definitely a kind of like a difference there but uh i think myself and charlie going back to your question like how does it feel like racing the singles and then racing the doubles i think we're both in kind of like a similar mindset like when we saw the start list this week you're not thinking well I don't know about you but right now in my athletic career I'm not like I'm going to fucking beat all these guys I want to beat them no matter what I'm like I see that start list and I see there's a lot of incredible athletes and I'm like yes we get to race together and if I can just keep with them I'm going to improve myself and then later down the line when i am at their level or beating them maybe that's when i'll be like oh i want to get first and i want to beat everyone but right now i'm in this stage where like i'm still developing as an athlete and i'm not at the top and i know that i'm not at the standard of some other people guys like charlie like luke greer but i want to get there so i just see it as kind of like oh it's cool to actually be in the same race as them rather than me running on my own and not having the competition there at all and then going to the the doubles like i don't know if something just changes and switches in my head like the mentality is like i'm willing to die for my partner suffer a little bit more i'm willing to do whatever i can for my partner and i think you kind of like need that and if you both have that then you you're gonna do better and at the end of the day like if you do go too hard if you if you've got a good partner they're gonna pick up the slack that you you if you did overcook it and vice versa like if if charlie says in a race if he turns around and say oh i'm i'm struggling then that instantly thinks in my head it like sends a signal and like I don't even feel tired anymore it's like and it might be a tactic we play on each other but if I if Charlie says that I feel tired I physically like I'm not hurting I find another gear because it's like you need to you need to step up for your partner well in Warsaw like for instance I was struggling with my stomach Jake did the whole farmer's carry and I offered to do it and he was like no just try and recover and it's like making that decision in the race in the moment is like yeah it's a really good sign of a good doubles partner but like I don't know, you've got to be willing to suffer for each other haven't you I think if you want to be actually successful as a pair, not necessarily like think about making yourself look good or maybe the outcome but more just looking after each other, picking up the slack, being humble to set your partner, I need help, do you know what I mean, I think them are the key things when it comes to the doubles that's a big one like today with the sled pull like I'm 15 seconds slower than Charlie in the sled pull he had an easier lane though oh yeah he cheated he cheated we were next to each other with the sled pull I'm joking I was fourth he was fifth he was fifth so 15 seconds quicker so Charlie's stronger on the sled pull that means that potentially Charlie will pick up the the harder half if that makes sense did you do that on purpose so that you don't have to do the first half tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow i'll start the sled pool and that was the tactic we had in warsaw just because naturally i'm stronger stronger at the sled pool what um so you've raced together now a couple of times is it three is this your third race together third one yeah third one uh obviously you had your issues on in warsaw but it was looking like it was going to be quite even though you're struggling all the way through like it was quite funny that race i was stood on the corner like in out the way on the what i call the dark end of the course every lap was like i can't do it and i was like you're just gonna have to like there's nothing you can do about it but literally from i don't know right at the start i was in the warm-up like i'm actually gonna be sick yeah and it was just like every lap i was like come on just keep going just keep going one more lap one more lap one more lap did you did you figure out what it was was it like a bug or was it like too much pie carb or too much creatine Creatine.

1:35:09So I can't take creatine. And there was a supplement I was taking, like just from my protein, like one of the ones. And I didn't realise it had creatine in it. And it had creatine in it. So I took it before the race. And that's why my stomach was completely... But getting back to it, that was even with them, them issues, that was looking like it was going to be like probably a PB for you guys. And I think Jake was stood waiting for a while in maybe fifth place or fourth place or something on the wall balls. and that's with a lot left to give right what place did we come we came like 13th something yeah but like even if I could have done more on the farmers we'd have been quicker for sure and like from the get go I was compromised and you picked up the slack but in the doubles it doesn't matter how good Jake is if I'm struggling to that point we're not going to perform at the top but it was really good signs that we came out of the lunges in like 5th place but before that I'd been like we had to slow down on the run yeah you were essentially like really struggling weren't you I'm so excited to see what I was going to say so like you know Jake's had a really good race today I think like bridge the gap between the likes of yourself and Luke and Liam who've maybe been a couple of minutes or more quicker over some of the Elite 15s this season and recent races like we're in a place with Jake's training where he's just kind of coming into peak for High Rocks now obviously So the plan is June's the peak, the big rules.

1:36:39But you look great today, look really fast. Back to your normal self, there was no famous Charlie face. What's your goal? What's your goal for this race? Times, I think, are a little bit naive to talk about because every track's different. And we're not moaning about that, it's just a fact. But what's the goal? win but win knowing that we executed the race how we wanted to execute and win knowing that when push comes to shove against the likes of your Tims, your Alex's we can hang and we can maybe even beat them I think main goal is win just because it's points on the board but being happy with how we execute the race.

1:37:30So like executing it a bit better than last time. Yeah. And like being, like I want to be in a dark spot by the end of it. Today's race is very measured. Like I knew where I was in the race. I knew where I needed to be. I knew getting into the warbles, what I needed to do. Tomorrow, I don't want to be able to think about what I need to do. I just want to be able to think about I just need to get to the warbles. And you guys, when you race together, like do you have like um you know you've just mentioned the that you'll start the sled pull for example do you have quite a um structured game plan so to speak or is it just kind of more a rough idea of what you think is going to happen but then being adaptable and communicating and and kind of picking up the slack when you need to like what what does your race plan look like john just go through it from start to finish yes like the ski will hit i think it's 125 meters each just eight rounds so four each who starts just whoever gets the first and then sled push I'll start Jake will finish but then because I'm starting the sled pull which kind of just evens out burpees tomorrow we're quite lucky in the sense that it's eight six lengths so we'll do a length each we probably could just do a length each it's like four or five big jumps I think that's one thing with with the burpees again when you don't have to focus on the switch over it makes it so much easier you're not counting you're not counting how many reps because i know some people do time some people do number of reps some people do distance like just having like a procedure where you know exactly where you're changing is like and that communication because even like the stuttering of like we finished like what we like to do is just go one more like yeah when you when you're about to finish your your rep whatever one more and then and and on that switch over do you have like a signal do you say i'm about like just let's just say something one more and then i'll let you go down do the burpee on the jump you land there out the way yeah out the way and like and then off of the burpees like it'll be a very short chat because you're both working hard like whoever's struggling more will do the big middle part of the rower so that and when you said struggle more maybe going off who's the back marker in the running on the previous run so for instance in Walsall I was clearly the one struggling more so Jake's straight in alternatively in Phoenix I was the one struggling and that's like because you get to push the run and maybe become really uncomfortable but then you know you've got like a minute's rest almost with that first chunk of row and then you know you're going to get a minute's rest before you've got to run again yeah and then like you do that two minutes in the middle but if you are really struggling you can pull it back a bit and if you're three seconds slower per 500 meters you're only losing three seconds yeah yeah um and then coming off of that it's kind of just like see what see how you're feeling i'm i'm probably stronger on the lunges so then like definitely i will try and work a bit harder on the lunges tomorrow i think i think this is good this because a lot of people that i see and speak to that are just normal people doing i-wets for the first time they have this like super rigid plan of how it's going to go and then we when we do partner workouts we have this thing called the hammer and nail and it's like inevitably like one person starts to suffer which then means that the other person's like maybe running slower than they're capable of and therefore getting stronger but because they're sticking to this rigid plan you've just got one person who's getting absolutely hammered and the other person's just getting fresher and fresher yeah so like would you say it's a good piece of advice for you know maybe less experienced people in teams to have a plan but understand that that plan may need to kind of evolve and change as the race goes on yeah for sure definitely you've got to communicate like throughout the full race um so after the row farmers carry i'd probably say i like to split it where the first person whoever's feeling like pretty fresh goes into the farmer's carry unchalked so you're saving time there the other person is chalking up so that they shut off and then the first person does either 100 or 120 meters because you know after that you've got to get out on that run and if you leave over 100 meters for that second person then they're going to be slow on that next run so if you can give them just 80 meters you've got enough time to recover and then you can go again um farmers carry doesn't take that much and i think stopping more is actually what slows down if you look at the data between the singles and the doubles it's not much difference because people are stopping to change so you're better off probably just having one change um and then like say lunges probably 25 meters yeah normally normally unless someone's struggling at that point.

1:42:33But it's just about stepping through on the lunges and then wall balls. The race is a sprint finish to the wall balls. It's that last run. Just get them wall balls going. That's all you need. Get the rep counter moving. Even the mentality of sprint finish, do 15 wall balls. If you do 15 wall balls, which doesn't sound like much, but then that's 30 seconds rest for your partner who then can bash out 30 reps or 40 reps or whatever. And then you go in rather than staying reserved like you would on the singles, going 20 seconds slower on the run and then getting in and being 10 wall walls behind. Just get that ball moving.

1:43:16And that's kind of the mentality. But going back to your question, the aim for me, and it is with every double's race, first and foremost, is no penalties.

1:43:29because it's so easy to get a penalty, but it's also so easy just to focus and perfect what you're doing so you don't get a penalty. Why do you think some teams seem to get a lot of penalties? Do you think it's because they're rushing? Do you think it's because they're just not very good at the movements? I'm going to call them out here. I think it's just laziness and like willing, like trying to cut corners in whatever they're doing because you do get a warning most of the time. You get a warning on every station for movement quality. If it's not movement quality, then something might be going wrong like littering, spitting, whatever.

1:44:08Yeah, that's just things that are in the rule book and it's black and white. You just do not do. But when it's movement standard, you get a warning. And if you get a warning, then you have, you just don't do it again. You get a telling off. You might need to slow down your reps or whatever but it's your fault because you got the warning it's as simple as that i don't know what you think about that jolly i think a lot of it is panic as well like you get one penalty and then you start overthinking it like on the burpees um in hamburg i remember i think it was the spanish lads they got like 60 seconds worth of penalties and i think they probably just like panicked and then you get that first one and then you're panicking like oh what would I do wrong and then you step again and you get another penalty and it's like oh I've now lost even more time and then kind of spirals almost so I think it is also a sense of panic for some people you two hardly ever get penalties I don't think we've ever got I don't I don't recall the time that either of you have ever had a penalty you've had one in Hamburg right I got in the doubles in Hamburg oh yeah we snipped them at the end because of that and it was it was a questionable penalty as well to be fair and I was like oh well but yeah like I don't have you ever had a penalty to be fair though you were quite giddy that night as well weren't you I think well yeah I was quite excited or over excited maybe and I got a penalty in Walsall when I fell over on the lunges you fell over yeah your sandbag is not allowed to touch the floor oh yeah so I stacked it on the lunges sandbag touched the floor yeah I remember watching that actually I was stood at the side of the track red card and I was like fuck yeah that's like a double kick in the seat right isn't it not only have I fell over I've got a penalty as well yeah to be fair I was so out of it and the thing was in war so I just stepped and I just rolled my ankle and kicked over it's quite amusing for everyone so just kind of I think rounding off this little bit which is really interesting to me so what's the plan for next season in terms of we're racing together which we're excited about we're getting some points this weekend are we going to be racing all the elite 15s is the aim to qualify for world championships as a pair win a race like what have we got to the point where we've kind of like quantified some goals race in every major if possible and end up as high at that leaderboard as possible do you think you can win it I think if you if you don't believe you can win it then what's the point in trying to compete at the world champs?

1:46:50I truly do. Next year more than ever, I think. And this is my advice to anyone that's trying to get in the Elite 15. And it's a little bit of a, probably not an unknown, but if you think about it, if you want to be in the Elite 15, focus on the doubles next season. Because if you look at most of the good pairs, they're all from different countries which means next season they won't be able to raise together they'll need new partners and they're simply not going to be as good for the first season and then it'll start getting better and better and better again so with the rule change of your partner needs to be from the same country that is going to be kind of like doubles is going to go down we're probably not going to see any records in the doubles for a while I don't think maybe from EU eyes but that's i think that's what our advantage is we've raced together we feel comfortable already there's only a couple more pairs that are like that that are very similar in that aspect um at the moment you know we've had two races and i think we're a low 49 if not bordering on that 48 already and i think with a bit of practice together with the training together like we've spoke about me going down to Charlie's Gym for weeks at a time.

1:48:14After hearing about Charlie's Gym today, I think we're all moving to Charlie's Gym, aren't we? We'll all move down to Oxfordshire, is it? Yeah, nice posh place. And we'll train down there. You'll come up to us and we'll do relative training camps and stuff going into each major as well. So just that ability to train together and thinking of not just about us being competitors but being us part of a team and we even though we maybe do compete against each other in the singles we're still teammates I think it is going to be a huge benefit and I think I think we do have a shot next season The most common question I've been asked in I would say the last couple of months not hi John how are you like what have you been up to this is at High Rocks events by the way has been uh had jake and charlie racing together um or who's jake racing with or whatever um obviously you both probably had multiple options as to who you know you could erase with what what made you choose each other so to speak like what what was the you know what what did you like in jake and jake what did you like in charlie what what kind of helped you come to that what was probably quite an hard decision it sounds like we're in a relationship this you can't see it but there's a candle in the middle there well I think well we saw it in Walsall I didn't even have to tell you I was struggling and you picked up you just picked up my workload and I know that you'll do that in every race if you need to kind of thing and I think that's a really important thing and I've I've only ever heard from other people like you say nice things about me and you be just a and you're just a genuinely like nice person and i think if you don't get on with people not that i don't i don't not get on with anyone in to be fair i feel like you get on with anyone more than anyone else if that makes sense you speak to everyone i'm never gonna hold a grudge or anyone like someone could say some like some people have said some pretty nasty things about me and i'm still friends with them and i'm never gonna hold to grudge with anyone but like I've only ever heard from other people you say nice things about me and I've only ever heard like I've never heard you from anyone else anything bad about you like and you're a nice person but you're a hell of an athlete and then you're also yeah just a good partner kind of rambled on there that's that's nice to hear let me cry yeah you have you're on the verge yeah you've lost your boyfriend sorry Emily getting jealous in the corner this is nice for Jake at least she's woke up Emily doesn't ever say anything nice about him so this is really nice for Jake this there it is maybe I do need to dump her get with you Charlie so what about you Jake what made you choose Charlie I think out of everyone in the UK High Rocks scene I think Charlie's the most all in person I think it'd be hard to argue that I don't think anyone could when you say all in you mean the way that he trains and leads his life and all that everything like we've talked about in this podcast like you can see how like I say how calculated it is how much he cares how much he is all in and Charlie's going to be something very very special within High Rocks outside of High Rocks as well but inside of High Rocks he's going to do great things and I I believe that like you're only 24 and you're right up there contending with potentially being world champion this year and you're 24 that's that's insane and it's not like you've you've just been gifted it like obviously you are a very gifted athlete and you're you're very talented but I've seen how many times you've failed and you've got back up and like I say you've raced more than anyone else within the space and that just shows that kind of like that dog in you but outside of that let me say you're you're really nice to actually be around funny to spend time with it's uh it's funny because we always get called uh myself john tommy my videographer and emily my girlfriend like we're a group of misfits that travel around together because we just don't look like we'd be together uh and we always have fun but i think you complement that kind of group and you fit right in with your own weird and wonderful ways being the nicest yeah basically you're a loser like all of us but uh no uh and apart from that like let's say we connect in a in a race format like i think let's say just you do exactly the same as what i did for you well in fact you have done it in phoenix um i was suffering and you you pulled your weight and i just think we'll click but i think there's so much more potential that's what i see i've raced with other people and i think oh oh we did everything great there but like how do we improve like jk is insane is an insane athlete and i'm gutted that i can't race with him like after maybe we might do some fun or whatever but i'm gutted that i can't race with him next season but because he lives on the opposite side of the planet I think we've kind of reached our pinnacle if that makes sense well hopefully you will in June well hopefully in June we'll reach our pinnacle and like I say him coming training over this side of the world training for us doing a bit of a training camp before Worlds is going to help but we can't do that after that whereas we have the ability to if we need quick points we can jump on a fight and go and race together I know you're willing to do that as well yeah so all of them things I'm going to start stop licking your ass now there you go but yeah I think it's going to be an exciting year ahead and years to come as well hopefully so that's definitely the plan isn't it longer term I think for me it was a good a good mix because I think and you get on with him John yeah and we we've spoke about that haven't we where like sometimes it can be weird where you know you've got an athlete who's got a coach and you've got another athlete who's got a coach and then one athlete and coach has a certain perspective on how the race should go and the other one has a slightly different perspective and you can kind of butt heads a little bit but I find it quite easy to kind of like tell you my my approach and how I see it and and vice versa and we're kind of aligned aren't we I think the most exciting thing is I think that you you will work really well as a per and I think from a physical side I think you'll actually do really well I think you've got potential to win which not everyone has final thing from me really a question that I've got that I'm sure people want to know Charlie do you think you can win world championships and Jake do you think you can win world championships obviously in solos and doubles respectively

1:55:49I'm at the point in my career where I need a lot of things to go wrong for other people to win and I'm not afraid to say that like I'm not as good at the moment as your Hunters, your Tims, your Alexes, your Dylans but I am at a point where if I have my day and a few people maybe don't have their day, I could get on that podium. It's not likely, and I'm not afraid to say that. It's probably quite unlikely that I'll get on the podium or even top five, but if I have a good day, I can get on that podium. I don't think I can win just yet. People might say you need to believe in yourself, and like I said earlier, if you don't think you can win, why are you doing an elite race?

1:56:39but I'm just not at that point yet. I've noticed with you that you can have a really, really good race, like today, Glasgow, there's a few other examples, and then sometimes from the outside looking in, you can look like you're maybe off the pace a little bit, like maybe Warsaw or Phoenix that springs to mind. What's the reason for that? Is it something to do with the fact that it's a regular race versus an Elite 15 and all the pressure and the different things that you've got to face? Is it something to do with the preparation? Because kind of Glasgow and obviously here, there's not as much travel involved, whereas the examples that I've used, you may be jumping on a plane, living in different places for a number of days or weeks.

1:57:30What do you put that down to? Or is it simply just because you're in a slightly different phase of your training block? probably different phases. I also think I do a bit too much around majors. Like for instance, yesterday I did my pre-race. I did a run. I did a bike. I came here and I kind of chilled out most of the day. Whereas like I'm always like running around the day before a major race doing things and obviously Warsaw, I was running around chasing my phone. And when you said doing things, you mean things that maybe people don't understand like media and sponsor commitments and all this sort of stuff and yeah and I probably don't I'm not as efficient like in like if you look at Alex Roncovich he gets his media done but he gets there gets in gets out and I probably should be a bit more efficient in how I do that and then also like I've had a few health issues since probably just before Melbourne and I had a blood test a couple weeks ago and thankfully like I've kind of on the up out of that so hopefully that kind of brings me back into form um in that sense so I think I think it is just a case of I just need to be more relaxed around majors I went into today's race I was relaxed, not too bothered, not too stressed and I went and performed very well.

1:59:00You almost didn't care. You didn't care. Obviously you care. I understand that you care but you came across as if it's just a race. You actually said I'm not bothered about this race. I'm bothered about tomorrow night because we need points tomorrow night. and that's true you didn't need points today but because you're in that relaxed space you probably went out there and performed your best yeah what do you think you can do to kind of bring that kind of sense of like stress-free relaxed attitude to the major races be happy like i i wasn't happy in myself or in and like I don't want to sound like soppy or anything I wasn't happy in life in Phoenix or like London or Walsall like our last few months even post Melbourne have kind of been quite tough but now I'm happy and like I just I enjoy every second kind of thing so I think if I If I turn up to a race happy, I'm on the front foot.

2:00:13If I'm happy and not just myself, but everyone in my life is doing well, I'm in a good spot. But then if things outside of the sport aren't where I want them to be, I'm thinking about them and I'm worried about them kind of thing. So I just need to get Stockholm happy. Easier said than done, but I'm sure you'll do it. Jerk? Elite 15 doubles, world championships, James Kelly being your partner. Are you going to win? I think doubles is a little bit different. There's always a possibility. It's more down to the actual night, isn't it? It's all down to the night. Penalties, what happens in the league?

2:00:58If we're up there, I think we have a chance. Well, we've seen how strong James is at the end. I think you're quite a strong finisher as well. if you're if you're within if you're within 20 seconds on the lunges I think you've got it going into lunges because you guys are so efficient when it gets to the wall walls anyway carry on that was just my input yeah I don't know there's just a switch and I think it's it's James that probably prompts it I I think it is coming out of the farmers carry he's like let's go and sometimes they have to argue with him I remember in I think it was Phoenix he was like let me do more of the lunges I was like James you can't do more of the lunges you've done almost all the lunges you can't do any more and I needed to like almost snatch the bag off him because I was like you're not done after this lunge we still need to sprint to the to the wall balls but like that just shows like how much he wants it and I think it's so cool racing with someone like that who's just like if James was here right now he'd be like too fucking right we're winning yeah he would very much be like that wouldn't he yeah he's very Australian isn't he in that sense yeah he thinks he can win everything he wants to win everything I love that about him and I truly believe he can win everything as well I think James is like especially this season like for world champs he will be considered a bit of like an underdog whereas like last year he was a favourite now I think but I think he's he's got it in him and he always has got it in him and the fact that like you say he can finish almost last in a race and then go and win the race the following day yeah like just shows like just the the confidence in himself and I I love that about him and I love racing with him and I think yeah it'd be it'd be pissed off with me if I said we can't win so I'm going to say we're going to try and go for the win I think podium's on the cards personally with that one but we'll see because there's a lot of strong teams there's a lot and everyone's getting better yeah shall we call it a day there guys yeah it was good fun so thank you for today guys thank you Charlie thank you Jake thank you John it's been a pleasure thank you guys we'll leave it there yeah