Could Luke Greer Become a World Champion? | Luke Greer | Ep 55

0:00Luke Greer, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. How has your travel been this morning? Easy, a little hour on the train. Where are you actually based? Northampton, so it's literally an hour on the train. I had to move because a couple of people want to sit down so I'd stand up for a little bit but you know that's just what you have to do. What's fitness like in Northampton? to be fair there is actually quite a big community more in more in ketrin there's like quite a few gyms in ketrin that are high rocks based um and then there's a couple in northampton but it's not i wouldn't say it's a hub of of fitness there's quite a few good runners that have come out there like josh lay who's run like 330 low jacob allen who's run low 60s for the half marathon so there's like a couple of good runners that have come out of northampton but a couple of good footballers as well um good rugby players good rugby team so like there is there is quite a bit of sport in northampton but i wouldn't say it's like people wouldn't look at it and go wow big sport hub interesting for the people that don't know who you are me personally i think you're one of the most naturally talented high rocks athletes in the elite 15 and i think you've got so much potential how would you describe yourself um probably a very laid-back kind of athlete who would you know like when when it comes to it i'm going to give it my all and i'm going to push and i won't look i won't be chilled out when i'm racing um but just someone who wants to be the best they possibly can be i think overall is is what i would describe myself as in in whatever it is whether it's sport or whether it's education or i think younger i didn't really have that mentality it was kind of like just scrape by and I was intelligent enough and I was good enough to always just get by or just be good enough and that was fine for me but I think as I've kind of grown up and I've gone you know what what's the point like you might as well try and be the best you possibly can be so that's kind of the mentality that I've gone in with with everything that I do now was there something that changed that mindset um let's take it back to kind of like the the start what did you do growing up so I always played football and then my first ever cross country race was I think it was year four and I'd always been good at running like you know in the pre-season stuff in football like I'd always won the pre-season even though I was a goalkeeper like I'd still I'd still win all the running and in year four the school went to to a race and I won the race like I remember being at the front and catching up with the person who's who's leading it like the hair if four's like what eight nine year old yeah catching up with the hair and then being like literally asking him can I overtake you is that allowed or or whatever so that was kind of the first time that I'd ever won a race or been involved in something like that um and yeah I mean it was I think that was kind of the first feeling of I've won like oh my god I'm I'm actually quite good at this so from there I kind of stopped running then we had another we did that exact same race in year six and I didn't win I think I finished like fifth or something and it was like what was going on why aren't I good enough and then secondary school was where it again kicked off like we had I went to a boys school and they had cross country team like they had track they had I didn't make the football team so that kind of moved me off that and it was like well I'm not playing football so I'm going to focus on on cross-country so from year seven to 13 always was just running racing wasn't again it wasn't my main sport because I was still I was still playing football and that was my focus like I much preferred playing football I much preferred being in that team atmosphere but I think because I was good at running it forced you to come back like I still wanted to win I still wanted to compete I still wanted to be the best but didn't really put the effort in so like my we were trained monday and wednesday at school monday after school and then wednesday lunch and then the coaches would be telling me or teachers would be telling me luke you need to go for a run on this day you need to go for a run on this day you need to do this and this like yeah yeah don't worry i'll get that done just never do it never ever do it um so but but that was because i was just good enough like i was good enough just off what i was doing to not have to do all the extra work and i think when you're younger you're kind of like who cares like it doesn't it doesn't matter like if i'm still doing well i don't need to do the extra work i don't need to do that stuff so i was i think it was just lucky like lucky in terms of genetics and and just having that kind of skill to begin with that i didn't need to put all the work in all the effort in and so i kind of lived by that for for a long long time up until what age even probably through like university i was i was still kind of just living off the talent so i moved to the us to play to play football and study ah so you got like a yeah i got a scholarship and the goal was just play football like i didn't i wasn't i wasn't running i wasn't doing anything so how old was you 18 18 um so i kind of made that decision at so 15 16 i was sort of on the books of and they essentially dropped me because i was never i wasn't gonna be tall enough or i wasn't tall enough at the time so they were kind of like well you're not gonna be tall enough at the time i think slightly changed the goalkeeping but at the time it was you have to be six foot five if you want to make it in wherever it was and to be honest was i probably good enough in goal maybe but i think in my own head i wasn't good enough so i think if you haven't discovered that at that point if you don't believe it then you're never going to make it anyway so decided that i wanted to carry on playing football but obviously wanted to get my education i knew i knew i wasn't going to be a pro so it was kind of like well this is the best of both worlds if i move to the us get a scholarship get an education play and then see what happens from there so 18 moved to tennessee kind of middle of nowhere was in the middle of the bible belt like you see it on their on their thing it was the university it's called carsten newman and underneath it says a christian university and you know like in england you've got church of england schools or you've got those kind of things and it doesn't really matter like it's not really very religious but this was like i had to take old testament and new testament like that was part of the curriculum that you had to take no matter what what you were studying old testament and new testament was something you had to do you had to go to they were called clw's chapel life and worship so you had to go to 10 of those a semester and essentially it was they did different ones but the main one was on like a tuesday and thursday you would go to the church you'd sing and then they'd have some sort of guest speaker that would talk about something to do with religion so that was everyone had to do that did you enjoy it did you kind of like lean into it no i didn't lean into it at all because Because I think the thing was, like, there was on the football team, there was mostly internationals.

6:23And like, there was a lot of internationals at the university anyway. So we all kind of like, this is mental, but we have to do it. So we all kind of banded together. You went to it. You didn't really get involved in anything, but you went because you had to. And it was cool. Like, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about religion. And it probably almost made me realize that I am not religious. Like, it didn't lead me down the religion road. It probably turned me away from it even more. um and so yeah it was literally the middle of nowhere you you're an hour away from knoxville which was a bigger city that's where the university of tennessee is but this was like 2 000 people at the university it was like it was like going back to secondary school but you were living there and but honestly i wouldn't change the world like it was it was amazing like it was it was so so good like the the friendships that you make the things you do the things you see the people that you meet was just yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't change those i was there for seven years and then I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.

7:19So that was like a much bigger city. There was much more things to do. But like I wouldn't change the seven years I had in Jefferson City, Tennessee. Like you wouldn't even be able to pick out on a map, but it was great, like very outdoorsy. There was a big dam, like you could go kayaking, you could go swimming. In the summer, it was an amazing place to be. In the winter, it was horrible. It was just miserable. There was nothing to do. But yeah, so I went there to play football and the goal was, well, the idea was that I was gonna, they were bringing in a grad student at the same time. so I was going to not play for two years get stronger get bigger understand the system do all of those things and then after two years I would then play so I was happy with that I was like fair enough whatever because you could redshirt too which meant you got an extra year at the end so I would have been there five years and so the first year I wasn't even on the bench so then after pre-season the cross country coach got in touch with me and said oh we've heard you did really well in pre-season do you fancy running like a couple of races for us because you're not on the bench you're not traveling you're not doing those things and I was like yeah fine whatever so I ended up being the best person on the team straight away just not even training just showing up doing the races and at this time was you still like continuing your running or was it literally just off that base of pre-season and then it was it was just off pre-season I wouldn't do my own runs I wouldn't do any of that stuff I think when the coach reached out to me he was like like would you want to be part of the team and I said yeah let me go on a couple of runs just just to see like where i'm at did a couple of 5k's whatever i was like all right i'm good you know my only stipulation is i need a pair of spikes like can you get me a pair of spikes so they were like yeah yeah no worries they got me a pair of spikes like these adidas horrible spikes but i wore them for every single race after that and so then the second year i didn't i didn't run on the cross country and i didn't do any of any of it because i wasn't the bench then so i started to get more involved and then the third year came around and it was like all right i'm going to start playing they brought in another goalkeeper and i was okay with that it was like you want competition you don't just want to be the number one you don't want any of that stuff so they brought in somebody else and eventually like the coach maybe promises yeah you're gonna play you're gonna play you're gonna play didn't play me and after i think i think we the season started in august i think we were about at the end of september october time i remember talking to my parents and being like this isn't what i came out to the us for like i didn't didn't come to sit on the bench like I didn't I didn't come to get a degree and just sit on the bench and do nothing so initially I looked to transfer and move to a different university so I did that and had a couple of offers but at the time was very I was happy where I was like I had a girlfriend I had a great set of people I had a had an apartment like had all these things I was like why am I going to move so I went to the cross-country coach and I said do you mind taking over my scholarship if I quit the football team will you take over my my scholarship pay pay for it and I'll run cross-country track and they're like yeah absolutely um so yeah i just quit the team i went back to football coach and i said i'm quitting he was like no he's like i'll take scholarship i was like i've already like talked to the talk to cross-country coach he's taking over don't worry um so yeah then then running was kind of the goal after that what was it like transitioning from like say playing football full-time training football full-time to then having to become a runner did anything change within your training was it a lot harder is this when it like kind of like got serious not even like i think it was it was i think the bigger transition was going from being part of this team in a football team with all my mates like all these people from all over the world like you had people from south america europe australia and seeing them every day and training with them every day to then going to the cross country team that i didn't really i didn't know these people very well it wasn't like it's different running in a team i was by far the best person so like let's say my my 5k at the time might have been 15 30 the next fastest person was like 17 minutes so it wasn't even like i'd train with like it was still i would just i was just going i was training by myself so it became more serious in terms of like i had to run a lot more i had to do a lot more but i still like i had a watch that i had one of those little timex watches that didn't even have distance on it it was just you go for around 40 minutes i've not idea how far i've gone i've just run for 40 minutes and we had a creek at the bottom of the of the university and one loop was a mile but nobody actually measured it or knew that it was a mile so you do train around there and it was like you run half like if we're doing 800 you'd run halfway like if you were doing a mile you'd run all the way around and that was kind of what my training was i i didn't i didn't have a clue what i was doing i was just doing what the coach said didn't understand why i was doing this session or what this session was or what that session was so for that first that first half a year or whatever i wasn't great like i didn't i didn't do amazing and then actually came home trained pretty hard over summer and was like all right in the uk yeah um did you join like a local athletics team or anything or just on your own just just on my own just um and then i got back and then the first race that we did i won that race by quite by quite a way and it was like all right like i'm i'm i'm doing all right here now like i've sort of arrived in in this space and won kind of like the next four races that we did and they weren't massive races like they weren't they weren't amazing people in it but it was still for the university they'd never really had anyone winning the races so it was like wow luke's now winning these races and then managed to qualify for nationals so i was division two so you've got d1 which is kind of the really big universities and the depth is massive like there's loads of let's say if you're looking for 30 30 there's probably 50 people that can run 30 30 in the 5k whereas in d2 it was like maybe one person runs 30 30 and the rest were like 14 or whatever it is so i managed to get to nationals and then the goal is to become an all-american which is in cross country you have to finish top 40 and i was top 40 the whole race and then ended up finishing 42nd so that was like a moment of i was i was pissed off myself almost because i lost i think i lost 10 places in the last 800 meters so it was like uh you messed up here luke like didn't go well and so from there that was almost kind of a moment where i switched and was like all right i'm a little bit more serious now because i i didn't do this i say that but then the next year we brought in a new coach and again i didn't know what i was doing like he he would tell me you're gonna go for a tempo run i didn't know what tempo run was it was kind of like just go and run at this pace and and even when we were doing track he was like i need you to run 70s or i need you to run 68 69s to be able to do to be able to qualify for nationals i didn't know what he was on about i was like just go out and run you tell me if i'm hitting the paces or not if i'm not then who cares um but that year a lot more successful qualified for nationals finished second in the region qualified for nationals finished eighth at nationals that year and then so it was all america and then in track did the same thing finished or i finished i don't know i think i finished sixth in the 10k that year um so it was like really successful kind of period and that was and then i almost again switched and i was like all right i want to get really serious about this i want to see if i can go pro like i want to see how close i can get because this was before like super shoes so around 14 16 in a 5k and around 29 49 in the 10k and i was like well if i keep working at this i can probably get low 29s maybe go in 28s i can go sub 14 all these things and i was like all right i'm gonna get serious about it like i'm gonna really follow what the coach saying this and the other coach decided to leave at the end of the year i was coming back to finish off my my masters and coach at the same time and essentially they said to me do you want to be the coach of the of the of the cross country team and i was 22 23 it was a huge opportunity for me i was like yeah of course i do so my training just went to the side and i just pretty much stopped running for probably about three years two three years after that i just still like would occasionally do i'd occasionally jump in the sessions with them but i wasn't seriously running didn't didn't really doing it was more going out having fun going to knoxville meeting people like drinking it was that like that like that was like that kind of period of my life of three years of i'm just gonna do whatever whatever i want i don't care about running i don't care about being the best i don't care about any of those things um so that was like a then a switch off moment again of right i've had enough of this don't the running the running was never like my love the winning was was was my love and like doing well but the training was never something that i was like oh my god i love this i'm so excited to go out and do my 15 mile long run it was like i wake up and go 15 miles today i i couldn't think of anything worse so when you moved into kind of like coaching did you have to study a lot like you said before that you was kind of just listening to coach you didn't really know what a tempo run was you didn't know obviously then becoming a coach did that like force you to actually gain knowledge of running 100 so i so when so when he so when they said i was going to be the coach i immediately went back to the guy who's coaching me and i was like explain to me everything that we did why we did it what it was for send me the training plan like i want to see all of it i want to know what what the purpose of everything was because it wouldn't have been fair on the people i was coaching if i was just blindly just giving them a training plan that he'd made and gone just doing the same thing I didn't I didn't think that was fair on anyone so yeah I talked to him like I was then buying books on on like running and information like Jack Daniels on everything and just trying to figure out okay this is what they do this is what I think is right this is what worked for me like looking back at it I could almost look at everything that I did and gone okay that was why we did that okay that was how that fit in there that was why we were doing this so it was quite a cool moment of realization of understanding the training almost and I think that has helped me long term in terms of like I still coach myself on the running side and I'm probably still following a lot of the principles that he actually instilled in me like that coach at the time so I think that's quite cool in terms of he's almost helped me get to this point especially with my running and just using the principles that he had because I knew they worked for me that I was like well I can continue doing this with myself and other people and it will help them grow from A to B but it also helped me now I can see that it's also helped me grow when did you move back to the uk 2023 i want to say i was there nine years i was in the us nine years and i got there 2014 yeah so 2023 what made you move back um so i i moved to charlotte and i was coaching i was a graduate assistant so essentially i was doing another master's the easiest way to stay in the us is just keep doing degrees stay a student so i was doing another masters and coaching there at the same time and that was like a step up in caliber of runners like i was then coaching people who were running 13 30 5ks like 28 minute 10ks so it was like a big step up in terms of the level so i was learning a lot more in terms of like what the people at the very top do um and i finished my degree and the decision was like i had some offers to go and coach at other universities and have my visa sponsored and do that kind of thing which initially had kind of been my dream of is great coaching out there like being a full-time coach is pretty hard in the UK it's not it's not just a job that you can go and apply for but in the US there's so many universities there's so many places that that is a full-time job and you get paid quite well for it so that had kind of been my dream but then the more I thought about it the more I realized that actually wasn't like I didn't cross country it'd be being cross country coach in in the U.S.

18:46is very different like if you're the soccer the football coach you have an on season and off season so like the fall is when you guys are on and then the spring is when you're off so you kind of have a lot more time to yourself but with cross country and track it was cross country was in the fall so that was August to November and then you had indoor track from November to March and then you add outdoor track from March to June and then from June to August you were finishing off recruiting or you were doing all these things so it was like this is now a job where you're doing it 24 7 because it was even on the weekends you'd have long run or you'd have your races or you'd have all these things so there was never any time off and I was like I actually don't love doing this enough to completely immerse myself in this whole world and that just be my whole life so I just made the decision I was all right I'm I'm gonna cut it here I'm just gonna go home and it was a tough one because obviously my whole life had like been out there nine years it was that was my whole life and coming home was kind of a risk because i actually have no idea what i'm going to do so what did you do initially i tried to start my own company of helping kids go out to the us that it was quite saturated but i had a friend from south africa and it wasn't as saturated there so me and her we decided to try and set up a company of helping people from south africa go out to the us doing track track and cross country and started to get some traction it was going all right and then i can't remember what happened i think she actually got pregnant and then like the momentum kind of slowed i lost interest i i started working for my friend who runs a student travel company and it was kind of like that that side of it just waned and i was like i don't know if this is going to work i i didn't i didn't put enough effort into it probably for it to actually succeed and kind of just let it go just just go all right what's next so then you're working for your friend and what was that student travel student travel so I was I mean I was essentially the the little tea boy that if they said we want a cup of coffee I wouldn't make a cup if and and so like they they essentially plan trips for societies and if a hotel needed to be booked or like a flight needs to be booked or I was like I was just utility man like like whatever you needed stick me in there and I'd go get it done and then what's next so I didn't didn't really have like a specific role it was kind of just do whatever i'm told and i think that that was kind of the time when i realized i can't i don't want to do a nine to five like i was i trained for i was training for london marathon and so waking up at five o 'clock to eat something and then you train at six and then my sessions were like on a wednesday sessions were like an hour and a half long so you're going from six to half seven get back eat shower and it was being in the office at nine and i was just just there like a zombie and i was just sat there and people were asking me to do things and i just wasn't there and and in my head i was like i'm actually trying to run quite fast here i'm trying to achieve i was trying to go sub 220 similar to you and it was like i if if i want to take this seriously i don't think i can like i take my hat off to all these people that a pet or and have a nine to five like and then still training because I was just miserable like it was it was so hard everything that I was trying to do and then you sort of start you start to get these little these little niggles you don't look after them they just become injuries and then you're just running through this constant cycle of pain um but I was training for that and that that was when I realized like I don't want to do I don't want to do a nine-to-five like I can't sit in the office I was like this can't this monotony of life I can't do this I don't I some people love it and I was like I just I just hate this whole idea of of sitting here in an office going to lunch at 12 and then back to work and then done at five and then going to the pub for a pint and then going home eating whatever it was i was like i can't see myself doing this so just quit quit quit after um world champs in chicago and the idea was to get a personal training certification and then train for at the same time and then hope that train for higher rocks hopefully get somewhere near the top get sponsorship deals or whatever it was but work on on the side doing doing the personal training stuff because it fits quite well um so yeah that's so i just stopped and that and that that was that was the goal and that was 2025 that's crazy because that's exactly what's happened right yeah yeah so like i i i was like this is almost a two-year plan for me it's like uh if this doesn't if this doesn't work like i'll reassess in two years and i'll see i'll see where i'm at like if i'm nowhere near it in my head i was like well i probably will have met some really cool people and have some cool job opportunities if i'm in the personal training space and move that way and then like even if the high rock stuff doesn't work out i'll still have met people or grown in a certain way that it can help me but i mean i i started properly training in august and then so going going back to chicago what time did you get at world champs 64 04 so 64 04 in the pro yeah that was my first pro yeah that's your first pro um and then was your next race after that birmingham yeah where i raced you and charlie where and you went out so well at the time i thought this guy's gone out so fucking hot and you did die off towards the end yeah i don't i on the burpees like i remember i remember getting i got to burpees first and then you and charlie put a minute in me on the burpees you you flew past me on the burpees i remember being like man i don't think i i don't think i beat that time since on the burpees you absolutely i got like 217 or something like that it was unbelievable but um and then i was thinking like after it was like one who is this guy because that was like the first ever time like i'd heard of you and then secondly i was like this guy's gone out so hot because a lot of people do that like prior to that a lot of people go out super hot and you never see him again and like they just keep on doing that every single race but then it completely changes because i think the next time i hear about you is london that was my next race so london was your next race and you pull out the bag like literally there's like a national record or something yeah it was a british record it was 54 38 and i mean at the time i had no idea like it was actually that fast like i remember the course obviously to me it was at excel it was at one lap and but i had no idea how fast i was running not not a clue like i knew graham halliday was behind me like i got to rowan i think i i was 400 meters in until the next person came in so i knew like i was doing pretty well and then i ended i only ended up being graham by like six seconds because he put like a minute and a half on me on the baubles so um but yeah that was kind of the next like i i came off of birmingham and i knew exactly what i needed to work on like i looked at the splits compared to you and charlie and it was like they're they're beating me by a minute here they're beating me by 40 seconds here they're beating me by whatever it was in all these different places so i just went back and i trained on it i was like a and probably can still run faster than what i was anyway but i need to be able to do the stations better and like the biggest ones they're still it's still the same struggles to me like it was sled pull it was was burpees at the time they've got better it was lunges and it was wobbles like those were the four four places i was like all right i need to put my finger out and those are places where i can find time so i don't to be honest i don't even remember what i did training wise like between between birmingham and london and i had no idea how fast i was going to run at london just went out and just had a go at it and then finish and saw 54 38 and i was like that's quick and then i think afterwards i was sat i was outside with my with my family and they were like you know that's like the ninth fastest time ever and i was like it and and that was a moment where it just kind of switched for me that was it wasn't this wasn't just a i'm going to give this a crack and see how it goes it was like okay i've actually done something that this this could work almost yeah i remember so at the time i think that it was london and then the following week it was melbourne major and i was out in melbourne and i remember all the elite 15 lads talking about you um and basically like i think shaking in the boots because they realized like how fast that time and yeah some people were like yeah but it's a fast course and it's this and it's that but the fact that obviously graham's been in the elite 15 now for um last like four or five years and the fact that you obviously beat him shows like do you know that you're serious about it and it's crazy to have thought that chicago you ran a 64 and that was your first ever pro just then six months later running a 54 yeah like it's it's crazy even now like that that's a crazy time uh and times have got so much faster but um i remember listening to you i think you went on the rocks life on greg's podcast and i remember listening to your training and it was like yeah yeah i run a couple of times a week and if i if i want to go to the gym i'll go to the gym and and he was like i don't really need to work on my ski and row um like i'll work on them later down the line but i don't really need to work on them i can get by on them and it was like it's just so kind of like chilled compared to like everyone else who's more than likely overtraining yeah you was kind of like yeah and it's just like it just showed off this kind of like raw and natural talent and it was actually just crazy to listen to has has changing trick has training changed at all now or is it still kind of like the same no i mean it's so so it's changed it's changed quite a bit now like initially so ups like the goal was after chicago's i knew we need to get stronger like i just knew i wasn't i wasn't strong enough to do the the pro weights so i was doing bits and bobs in the gym just the pure basics like your squat your bench press pull-ups like it was like who was you looking at for like inspiration for this or is it just no and i like to be honest i asked i put it in chat gbt initially it was like this is what i need to do this is where i'm at like give me some sort of idea of what i need to do and i and i would take little bits from i'd go and do it and then i'd say that was good that wasn't good like that didn't like that and then i just eventually got some sort of routine from what chat gbt had given me and like i added my own little bits probably like watching other people and seeing the more the higher ups workouts is what i was taking from people um and just seeing seeing what they were doing and then putting it together myself like you were probably one of the first inspirations i had because i saw you ran the that 229 in berlin and i'd run or 228 in yeah 228 in berlin and i'd run 229 in the marathon at the time like i'd run it stratford upon avon like i'd done some stupid marathon just to qualify for london so i'd run by the way that's insane like on you know not not the fastest course you're going running a 229 so but so i'd run that and you you were kind of the guy that i was looking at i was like well if he if he couldn't do it i was like i can do it too like i was like you're a better runner like and and i think and that was the thing for me i from from the beginning in high rocks i looked at it and i was like i can run way fast in these guys like i know i can run way fast in these guys it's just figuring out the stations so that that's that's all it was from from that's what gives you kind of like the confidence you're like yeah i can because even like let's have a look at your like chicago performance like what were the run times were they fast i had the fastest run time of the whole of the whole event um so like i knew the runs weren't weren't a problem but like my i think my my sled pull was five and a half minutes like my sled push was four my my farmer's carry took me three and a half minutes but you probably realized that they're things that you can brush up on quite quick and that's what i looked at running's the hardest bit i remember sitting down with my mate who was out there with me and i looked at all the times and i was like i reckon there's 10 minutes here like i was like i'm looking at this there's two minutes there there's one minute there i was like i reckon i can take 10 minutes off this by by just by just the stations and i was like and then i can probably even run even faster if if i put it together and then like i said in six months i had taken 10 minutes off and it was like wow like this is actually this has worked um but training training now is like i'm not coaching myself anymore so that that's something that's shifted so um just because who is your coach gus you know oh yeah yeah yeah so so he he has something he's has something called the hybrid racer and he's essentially after cardiff he reached out to me and he was like i reckon i can help with the stations like i think i think there's certain things because he he was big in crossfit and obviously those crossfit guys have obviously john i think yeah they move the best like yeah i'll have a i'll regularly have like a burpee race with john yeah and it'll beat me like even on 12 and a half meters yeah it'll beat me up by three seconds yeah and it's only like 10 seconds worth of jumping yeah so he's he he sent me a message and he was like i think i'm gonna help with these stations so after card if we started working together and i was like i don't have anything to lose here like i've made it i like i made it to world champs elite 15 even though finish last like still 15th in the world like it's not a big deal I might as well take this risk and see and see if it helps if it helps great if it doesn't then oh well um and it was just I think it was more like now it was more the accountability of doing the things that I don't want to do you know like for the warbles for me they've always been a struggle and I'm like yeah I'll do some warble work you do it five minutes and you go yeah that's ticked off don't need to do that anymore like finish finish working on that and so it was more and I was to get better at the stations i was just doing more of the stations like in my head like the same with running it's like if you want to get better running just do more of them and it does work but i think the stations is obviously a lot of nuance and there's like a lot of technique and there's a lot of efficiency and there's when you're fatigued it's it's knowing how to move and all those kind of things but i just wasn't doing i was just like okay now now i'll do an emom of of of warbles of do 12 12 warbles and then do that for 10 minutes and i was like okay warbles done so now it's like just the focus of making sure i am actually touching everything and getting better at things instead of just hoping that it would improve because that that had worked to me but obviously you've got those beginner gains essentially that when you first try these things obviously you're going to get better you're going to become somewhat more efficient on it and so now the training is it's more structured it's got it's like whereas before i was kind of just doing hard days every day it was like one day hard run then i'm going to go in the gym and I'm going to do something hard and then I'm going to run it's going to be hard and I was in my head I was like well I'm giving my body recovery because the running isn't that hard like it's it's pretty easy for me and then I'm going to the gym it's upper body so like they're different so I've got that um but now it's switched to like your hard days your easy days so there's more structure in terms of that and initially I pushed back on that because it didn't feel right to me because I hadn't been doing it and I was like no I don't want to do this I think I think that that's not gonna work for me but i am seeing the benefits of it it's it's it's different and i'm i'm gonna give like i'll give it a good go and i'll follow it and i'll see what happens and and i'll take whatever whatever works and just keep rolling with it and and see i mean i don't i don't personally think i'm that far away from being able to win the whole thing like i don't i don't think i'm that far away but it is i think i've said it before like there's there's not one percent that need to get better at like there's probably still 20 i can get better at in terms of the other guys at the top they've only got one percent yeah because one they've been doing it a lot longer um like alex tim even charlie like how many years have been doing it you know yeah i think tim's been doing like eight years i think i think he did the first event yeah yeah she's crazy um but like say you being so new into it like your progression like i'd say the first two years of getting into kind of any sport like you're gonna see the most progression and you're still in that two years yeah right so um so in terms of kind of like training now like you said it's more structured are you having a rest day a full rest day or is it that active recovery i'm supposed to have one but i don't sunday's supposed to be a rest day but i can't i can't not i can't sorry gus i can't not do the sunday um so like sunday's supposed to be completely off but there's no long run in in the program so i'm still i'm still writing my own my own running stuff um and i just think that long run like it's not that long i'm only running 11 miles so like it's an hour and 15 minutes worth of running like it's not it's not huge but i just think that long run for me is something that is important like in any running program there should be some sort of long run and i think it's probably one of the most important days of the week to be able to do it so i kind of include that and it's not it's not massively taxing on the body like i don't run that fast so it's it's something there is no complete rest day but i almost see that long run as a rest day like whereas before before i was running like 14 15 miles and i was quite taxed at the end of it and it was like i don't feel great the next day with the 11 miles so like sunday i ran 11 miles and then yesterday i did i had like gym work in the morning some sort of like like power stuff to get a little bit better at the stations and then in the afternoon i ran eight by 800 and it was like i can still run that eight by 800 i think average 225 for the 800s um so it's like i i'm able to do that back to back and it's not like the long run has killed me so no full rest day off how much rest are you doing the 8x800 uh it took a minute yesterday um like usually as the season progresses like i'll reduce that so it'll become 8x800 with 30 seconds recovery and hopefully i'll be running faster but like i didn't it's not at a track like i'm just i just run out of the park like up and down the stretch which is about 800 meters and um do you always do that do you ever go to like a track or anything i mean i mix it up like i try to i know you do most you're running outdoors right you don't you try to i don't i don't do any work on on the treadmill yeah um i i will go to the track occasionally and it depends on how fast i want to run like if i'm doing let's say i'm doing 20 by 400 or 25 by 400 i'm gonna go to the track because it's a lot easier like you don't have to think about it you can just switch off but like all my threshold runs never on the track like i'll never ever do i'll never ever do six miles on the track i just i I couldn't think of anything worse.

36:53Like I go find, I know like there's this one section that I go, the whole section is 18 miles if you want to run the whole way. But I go out, do my two mile warmup, then I'll do six miles threshold and then that's it. And it's just out and back and then my two mile cool down. Like that to me is much prefer it. Like I think almost one of the issues with a lot of people's training, the ice is like it's too controlled. Like everything is controlled in terms of like I'm doing on the treadmill. I know exactly like the pace that I'm running there's no wind like like I can control the temperature in the gym I can do all these things whereas I'm like I'd much I'd I'd like to have that adversity because in a race like it's not always going to be plain and simple it's not always going to be like hey everything's going 100 % right so I'm like if I go in my training like I'll even do it on purpose like sometimes if it's water like let's say it's going to be 30 degrees like I'll go at one o 'clock to make sure that it is as hot as it's going to be and I'll go and do my training session is like now challenge yourself to make sure that you can still run the paces that you want to but it's at 30 degrees so like it's pushing me that little bit further that i know okay if anything happens in a race if if something is slightly going wrong if i don't feel 100 i can look back on the training that i've done and i can go well i managed to do that when it was 30 degrees and still hold five tens for for my threshold like yeah your legs hurt a little bit but you can push through it like you know you can because you've done it and that i think that's one of the things that i will always do i think is if if you can make training more difficult or more complicated than what you're doing on race day then you're always going to do well like i think i tried i tried to pride myself on never having a bad race and i think i'm always pretty consistent in terms of like there's never massive massive lows where i'm running 58 minutes for higher rocks like that just doesn't happen to me because i've tried to put myself in bad enough situations that no matter what happens in the race like they're not giving up mentally yeah and and i'm not gonna go i'm not just gonna slow down so much that it's gonna be a terrible day um and i just think that's something that it because it looks good on on on social media it looks good on stride or whatever that yeah i did this session and it was amazing like i hit everything that i wanted to because you made it perfect like you made the whole situation where you almost couldn't fail and then obviously well like once you get into a race there are going to be things that are going to test you and if you haven't faced those in training so how do you expect yourself in a race to be able to push through and get and get through the other side so i just in my head i'm like make it difficult and then you reap the benefits further down the line yeah oh definitely and i think that's been talked about amongst all like kind of like athletes like make training as difficult as possible and then when it comes to race day like i mean i've seen i see you're you're doing a lot more outdoor running i think than you were previously yeah yeah outdoor running one because i've just found this like especially this off season i like training with people and i get that extra percent by like training with people so you can't really stand on a treadmill next to each other unless you go to the same gym yeah um you can but yeah you can't right yeah uh obviously the weather's been nice as well yeah and recently like i don't know i've just been noticing that running outside like you use different muscles you know you're using your glutes to propel you forward rather than stay in the same position um and i think it does help i think there's a time and place for both yeah like i've got a woodway treadmill back back at the gym i represent and if i run the paces on that and i'll run at 0.5 incline and if i run any pace on that i know i can do it on the road no matter what yeah because it's probably like 10 harder i don't know if it's just the treadmill but then i go to other gyms and i use the treadmill and it's so much easier yeah so if you're doing all your work on the same treadmill yeah then you can progressively get faster yeah and i'd advise to get a treadmill that's actually harder than the road yeah so then it doesn't give you like a false sensation that you're better than what you are because i'd much rather it be the other way around yeah me feel like shit in training unfit in training and then when it comes to race ah actually yeah you're not that bad yeah it's easier um rather than the other way around so i think like like you said there is a time and place treadmill like a lot of times i will if i'm doing some sort of hierarchy workout i will i sometimes use a treadmill but i'll put it even faster than what i would run outside so it's like yeah then you're forced to run faster and it's like okay you have to push on and then when you do then get into your running you go like i can push on because on the treadmill i've pushed to this so there's definitely i don't never ever run it but i avoid it as much as i can i've got a question actually so obviously coming from like a running background you're very comfortable running within high rocks do you think it's important to practice the kind of like blood shunting aspect of going from a station into the run or do you think your running is so good just because you're good at running like as it as it got better as your running got better by practicing saying doing station work into running and doing reps of that and getting more efficient at say you know shunting the the blood from an upper body when you're doing like a burpee to then needing it in your legs to run or do you think that's just fitness i think my runnings definitely has got better i think like the first one the first hyrax ever did was an open in manchester and i think around 50 58 low or whatever and that was again pretty much mostly off being good at the running and i remember after a couple of days like especially the push and the burpees and the lunges initially trying to run off the station was really tough it was like you could still get up to a pace i think you know that there's only so slow you can run almost like i know that like i've run a 14 low 5k so like i know 320 isn't that quick if you know what i mean like it's not i'm not running that fast so there's only so slow that i'm that i'm gonna run um but i do remember coming off those stations and for a long time it was the burpees were the worst for me like because you're doing that up and down motion and it's so unnatural in a running sense like in running you're just going you're just running in straight line and so like this whole getting down on the floor trying to stand up jumping forward like that was a huge issue for me then coming off it and trying to run off it i'm even in london i remember coming off the burpees and feeling like i was going to throw up and literally i stood over a bin for five seconds like expecting myself to throw up didn't throw up and then carried on running but so training that i do i i do a lot of initially a lot of it was off the sled push like push a really heavy sled and then run 400 meters essentially at i think i put the treadmill at like 20k like kilometers an hour and just go go at it and that was probably the biggest one for me that has changed in terms of yes when the legs are tied like in cardiff i remember the sleds were ridiculous i remember looking at you and just laughing because i was like i can't i can't move this sled um but still having capability to be able to run off it and run quickly off it and i think that is something that has just come from doing a lot of the like exact exactly what you're saying where you're doing a station and then running and then doing the station again so i think any runner has has that if you obviously if you run to a pretty high level and and you've run fast then you know that running in high rocks actually isn't that fast i think a lot of the guys that you probably train with they look at us and they go not even running that fast at all like it's like it's pretty slow um and so like there is this baseline level that you're you're not going to be worse than but training it makes you that one lap like that one step further and and it makes it that little bit easier when you get in the race that you go okay yeah my legs are slightly tired and you want to almost go off a little bit slower and build into it but you're just like no like i'm gonna go and it doesn't matter like the legs will figure themselves out i think that's almost something that you have to learn and i I don't know why, like obviously on the women's side, we've seen a lot of new runners coming in and doing well.

44:48I think the men's side is taking a little bit longer. I don't know whether that's just because of the depth on the men's side. Like there's already a lot of really, really good athletes in there. And maybe the women's side is taking a little bit of time to catch up. Or it's just that the weights are really heavy for men compared to runners. A lot of good runners probably weigh 60, 65 kg. Trying to push 202 kg is not going to be very easy. Did you struggle with that? like have you had to put on weight i never struggled with the sled push for whatever reason the sled push was was never was never a real issue the pull has always been an issue and i think that comes down to the weight of you i don't i'd like when i lean back the sled barely moves whereas like when some of the other guys lean back like it's already started moving for them so when i first started training i said i want to get to 80 kg like that's the goal i want to be 80 and i'm going to eat more i'm going to i'm going to smash this protein shakes i'm going to smash the gym and i did it for so from that august i think i was doing it for like two months and looking at scales 75 kg looking at scales 75 kg but and and then eventually i just i made the decision it was like i'm getting strong in the gym like my numbers are going up like my squat numbers are going up my my bench is going up my deadlifts going up i'm able to do all these things but i'm staying the same way so i was like you know what what difference does it make like i'm i'm able to push everything i'm able to pull everything and obviously i still want to get better but i'm able to do these things and me putting on another five kg is probably going to hinder my running way more than it is actually going to help me in the stations i'll probably lose more time relative so then i just made a decision like it doesn't matter like i'm not i'm not going to force myself to put on weight if i don't actually need it and then that's almost been vindicated like yes there's obviously the stations are still an issue for me and i think that that's just going to be a time and reps thing and i don't think that's going to be solved by me putting on weight obviously there is i think there's a baseline weight that you kind of have to be and it's probably between if you're i think if you're above 73 72 then i don't think you really have that much problem with the stations as long as you train it and you do it and for whatever reason it looks it seems like runners never like a lot of runners don't have any problems with the sled push for whatever reason i like most people are able to just get in there and do it um obviously the other stations the pull the lunges the warbles like you're doing 109 kg warbles like eventually that's that's going to hurt you because it's you you're just not strong enough to hold it up there um but yeah i don't i don't think i don't think the weight is is something that people need to massively massively worry about i think the other things that you're talking about in terms of the running and being able to come to stations and run that's way more important yeah i agree and uh i think we'll probably see a lot more slimmer hyroxes yeah breaking that elite 15 yeah then the big guys i always see like hyrox is uh sorry hunter is like he's someone else there's no one like hunter he's a he's a joke like the the size of him and the way that he can move yeah his weight but like if you take him out like if you look at like the top guys who um were in stockholm the latest world champs if you look at the top guys like they're all a little bit slimmer yeah and i think that's how it's going to go forward yeah and i mean like i say as long as you can move the weight yeah it doesn't matter you need to be the best runner you can be as long as you can move the weight yeah it doesn't really matter yeah it's it'll be interesting to see i think on the men's side there's probably more leeway in terms of like you look at someone like ronk and he's just an animal like when whenever But I run next to him and like, he's finished.

48:21Like he's done. Like he can't, he just looks like he's absolutely in the bin. And then he gets to the station and. Yeah, it's crazy. He's just an animal again. I'm like, where, where, where is that? When you're, when you're next to him, running next to him, like is he breathing really hard when he's running? And he's like stomping and he's like, he must be finished here. But, and then he gets to the station. I mean, even, obviously even in Stockholm, like he didn't have his best race, but he still got to the Warbles and only him and Dylan went unbroken. and that just shows like he's he's yeah it's just different yeah it's different up here yeah yeah yeah which is great let's touch on stockholm so obviously world champs how did your race go and were you happy or races should i say um solos obviously finished eighth it was i think i have to put it in perspective and coming from 64 chicago so i'm finishing eighth in the elite 15 is crazy is is is something that i need to be proud of and like you need to look at it and go amazing but then in the race i came to the lunges second like i i i was honestly like when i came to the i was like i'm gonna win this whole thing i'm gonna win the whole thing like i feel amazing and i knew they were gonna catch me on the lunges slightly but i was like i'm gonna send it off this run and then i'm gonna get to the wall walls and i'm gonna smash them out that obviously didn't happen like i think i it's good to be that far into the race and think that though like that's a for me that's a good feeling to have that far in the race because normally when i get to the lunges i'm just like i can't wait for this to be fucking over yeah i think that that's obviously i think that's one of the things that i when i was coaching i always tried to tell my athletes like everyone's like you need to get into this flow state you need to get into whatever it is and like there is there is some truth to that but i'm always like you need to be aware of what of what's going on because if you fall into this this trap of just being in this flow state or whatever you're actually not aware and it's so easy to slow down it's so easy just to not think about what you're doing and then all of a sudden the race has passed you by and you're at the lunges and you go well i'm 10th here because i decided that i was in this flow state and i didn't push on i didn't do these things so i'm always like try and be as aware as as aware as possible of like obviously you don't need you don't need to be aware of what the crowd's doing like that's not important but being aware of how you're feeling where everybody else is can you catch them like all those kind of things is is really really important if you switch off then you you probably you're probably never gonna gonna get there unless you're out front like that's that's quite different because then you it's just you versus you at that point but now that's true because i remember in cardiff you coming past me and you tapped me on the shoulder and you was like come on and i literally sat behind you yeah but like i sped up probably like 15 seconds a kilometer yeah and before that i would have been in that flow state where it's just like oh just just recovery yeah just chill and don't think about you think you're doing something you think you're doing it right yeah you think you're doing it right and then someone comes past you and then you realize you can actually push on yeah and you're actually capable of a lot more than what you thought yeah yeah and and i think it is so hard but i think that's that's probably one of the benefits of having trained by myself so for so long that it's just kind of like when you're tired you push on again like i know so many sessions i get to last if i'm doing that six mile threshold and i've probably gone out too hard like the first mile was probably 510 when i wanted to be 520 and then it's kind of like well i can't drop off from here and then it gets the last two miles and i'm like you got to go again like you can't you can't just settle in and relax back down to a 520 because that's what's easy it's like now you want to finish on a 505 like you can't just you can't just give up on this so yeah i got to lunges in second thought i was going to win the whole thing then got off the got out the lunges and i don't know what happened i think mentally like scared of the warbles like warbles have always been shit for me like they've I haven't figured them out yet and I think I was almost scared of the warbles so didn't run fast enough coming off the lunges then got into the warbles I think fourth or fifth at the same time as Louis and just before Dylan and obviously Dylan won and Louis came second so like that's that's where the disappointment lies because I know that if I hadn't if I hadn't been such a wimp on the warbles like who knows what could have happened so that's where i'm like that was a bit shit like it could have been it could have been a lot better but i suppose that's motivation for kind of the next year and um no i mean like i said it's clear what i have to improve like it's not it's not rocket science it'd be i think it'd be harder for me coming off the world champs going that was my best race ever like there's no way that i can do better than that but i'm coming off it and i'm going like still lost 30 seconds on the sled pull still lost 30 seconds on the lunges still lost a minute on the warbles like two minutes there that that if if i have a really great day then i win by a minute so it's like those are the positives i can come away from it from but obviously in the moment you're kind of like well i could have won the whole thing so it's it's it's it's a tough kind of mentality and then i think that that's also tough of like well you gotta wait another year now if if if you want to do that again you've got you it's not like next week you can go out and give it another crack in terms of trying to be the world champ it's uh now you've got to wait another year you've got to do a whole nother year of training you've got to do a whole nother year of almost staying healthy avoiding injuries doing the right things for another year and hoping that on that day it then comes together again so i think that's kind of the pressure of being an athlete and you probably feel feel the same thing it's like i've trained all this time like i look at some of the guys like cole and you're like he's trained this whole year and then his race is over at the ski and it was his own fault like i like it you know what they are but that kind of pressure of you've built up to this point and then it hasn't gone right now i've got to wait another year it is tough mentally he's kind of let it sink in and then actually getting back to training and actually doing it again is that next step of this is actually quite hard like i i don't know whether i'm i don't know whether i'm going to enjoy this i don't know whether whether everything's going to go great again i don't know whether i'm actually get going to get better like you could you could start again and you just hit this dip and you're not getting better and you're looking at stuff and you're going well why has that got worse like why can't i run as fast as i did last year why all these kind of things so that's like i think almost the unseen like tough mental part of actually trying to it's great being like being able to say that you're a professional athlete and this is what you do full-time i think that's amazing but it's not all sunshine and rainbows and um i was saying to emmy like i think this last year i was almost in the honeymoon phase of of being full-time because it was like ah this is great like i can wake up at 10 o 'clock and then i can go train for a little bit and then i can sit and eat and then take a nap and then i can train again and i was always missing like the important bits of doing the mobility of doing like the accessory work doing like all these little things because it's like wow i can i can do what i want at this point and those things start to catch up with you and and now it's like now i have to implement those things retrospectively to avoid kind of to make sure that i can train as hard as i did last year and or train harder and do more things and do the things that are going to make me go from finishing eighth at worlds to winning um so i think that's kind of almost been a mental shift for me in this second year of of this journey of like all right now i actually not need to be serious but need to be more serious than i was last year um so yeah we'll see we'll see if if that actually continues to to work no it is tough and i don't think people understand sometimes how tough it can be especially with results like i know quite a lot of people that have gone full-time and for the next year of them being full-time where they've got all this extra time they actually get worse as an athlete and to be in that position like must be devastating because one you've got to take the risk of quitting your job before you're relying solely on like sponsorship income or winning races or whatever it is uh coaching whatever and you've got to and that is all based on your performance and then how how do you then detach your own self to your performances and i don't know if ever struggle with that but um like you know you finish in eighth like that's that's not luke guia but like that's what you you attach your value yeah like like your value your value is how good you are doing as an athlete and i think that is that's quite tough but i'm i'm almost lucky in the sense that my parents care about it and they want me to be successful but i'm not luke the athlete to them i like i live at home so a lot of times i'm around them and it's not just i'm not luke the athlete i'm just luke as i am i think like a lot of my friends they care about it and they'll ask me about it and it's important to them but i've known them since school like i've known them known them since secondary school so i was always athletic and i was always doing things but that wasn't just who i was so i think that is quite nice that almost removes me from that sense of gotta do this gotta do this gotta get better at this gotta gotta like this is the only way that people will see me as as great it's kind of like no you just you actually i'm just just a regular bloke like just a regular guy who goes out and wants to have fun and then be successful on the other side so i think that's probably an important factor in my life that has allowed me almost almost to stay kind of chilled out and laid back because i know even if like this whole thing doesn't work out you're still luke yeah like no no one really cares at the end of the day like and then you've got i love what you said before as well about like like basically the worst thing that could happen to you is yeah it doesn't work out being an athlete but you just become a coach yeah and that's the that's the worst thing that i but you love coaching so like it wouldn't actually like it all fits together like my i think my whole life like i wanted i wanted to do something in sport and i was trying to find something to do in sport trying to find something that i really enjoyed and like the coaching was was amazing and it worked for me but there was always that kind of feeling of i want to be successful by myself like i i want to be the success i want to have that success and i think probably for a lot of guys like hyrox has been that thing that has allowed like i i was good at running like i i was a very good runner but that level of being very good and being elite is so big like that jump is massive that people don't understand like you get yeah i get asked like why didn't you continue like pursuing the running and it was like well i ran around 14 16 for 5k if you want to be relevant you need to be running under 13 like i ran 221 in the marathon if you want to be relevant you've got to be running 209 and that gap yet 12 minutes doesn't sound that far but 12 minutes is like 20 seconds per mile that you're having to run quicker like that's that's not a small amount of time and it's like a do i want to do that aesthetically like i had enough of being like weighing 60 kg for me and and looking like a runner and b it was like i didn't love it enough to want to be running 120 miles a week and waking up and just eating sleeping breathing running so and then i probably wasn't good enough anyway like i probably didn't have enough talent to be able to go you know what i can actually run a 209 like and still even 209 like you still you still like you you've run a 209 but they've just won 159 so you're still 10 minutes off like yeah being a new and near the top i say the top athletes what was um what's phil sussman running 207 yeah mad and and it's like that is an amazing time in the uk like like you're you're best in the uk but still so relative to the rest of the world like those guys at the front you you're still just another guy and i think that's that's the amazing thing about high rocks and like for a lot of the for a lot of the people i think in the 15 well they're all failed athletes like if we're serious about it like everyone's a failed athlete of another sport coming to high rocks and it's like the second chance yeah and it's give everyone the power to be able to to go potentially full time i think i think that's the great thing about the guys in the elite 15 like when you talk to them everyone's just a regular bloke yeah everyone's so humble because they've they've failed done something before they've never like come into it and never lost anything in their life like everyone's failed just happy to be there just happy to be like in this moment and be able to compete and how good it was how good was it um in in the lounge the elite 15 lounge all of us sat there eating um the bicarb and yeah just just just chatting shit no it was good it was sick and just you know talking about whether it's training stories and stuff like that but like everyone's everyone's just regular and the maddest thing is is how like funny dylan scott is as well oh he's he's he's he's an interesting bloke yeah that's for sure like i mean being able to do 30 hours of training you have to be a special special person yeah and dylan is like like dylan i don't know if you know the story about dylan and i like we we actually raced each other in cross country um and he he got absolutely destroyed by me like he he finished 126th i I finished fifth or fourth and then I'd seen him like I didn't know that we raced against each other and then I saw an interview of him saying like I'm a track and field guy and then I was like oh maybe we race against each other in cross country so I looked him up we had raced against each other and then like a year later I messaged him was like any chance you can help me with this and this like you probably don't remember who like who on earth I am but um any chance like you can give me a bit of advice on the higher rocks like anything that I can do that you think would take me and Dylan was amazing like he like we spoke for a little while then he took the time like we had an hour-long phone call and he was just listening to what i was doing training wise giving me a bit advice on what he thought i could do better and like that i think it was nice because you kind of think a guy at the top of sport he doesn't care about somebody else but like for me dylan dylan was was somebody who kind of picked me up and went you need to do a little bit more of this you need to do a little bit more of that but like i have no doubts you'll be able to make this step and i think i literally spoke to him in september and then that race in um or it might i think it was actually after birmingham i spoke to him after birmingham and then i had that race in london and then he messaged me like immediately after he was like amazing like i can't i can't wait to see you at like the elite 15 eventually so that's kind of like the guy that dylan is now he's world champ but i think a lot of the a lot of the guys in elite 15 are very similar in terms of if you were to send them a message they would get back to you they'd help you however they can um i think just goes to show like everybody's just normal bloke yeah yeah it is because from the outside it looks like everyone's got beef with each other everyone's got egos and yeah there might be some of that on instagram but then you actually get people in a room and everyone's just so normal yeah did you take an off season like did you have a couple weeks off after stockholm um so i took two weeks off like i think i went to the gym four or five times i and it was more i didn't do any running it was more a focus on doing the things i don't like so like ski row i couldn't think of anything worse of like i see these guys sitting on the ski or the row for an hour and like I couldn't think of anything worse.

1:02:58My ass would hurt after five minutes. I don't want to be there. So I tried to implement a little bit more of that. Just doing it. What did you get up to? What was the longest you spent on the roller? Consecutively five minutes. But then, I mean, like at one time, five minutes. But then I was doing like five minute row, five minute ski, five minute bike. And I did that for an hour. So how many times would I have sat on the roller for like four times, maybe 20 minutes. 20 minutes, five minute burst. it's an improvement though yeah yeah it's a step forward um it's like people will be watching this probably like how the hell is this guy so good at high rocks when he can't spend more than five minutes on a rower and it is crazy it's it's unbelievable but it just shows that there's not just one way to kind of go about training yeah like you say you've got dylan scott you've got botryl doing 25 to 30 hour weeks then you've got you on the other hand which how many hours a week are you probably training probably 12 probably 12 yeah and alex is similar yeah you know 12 to 14 i think he trained yeah um i think tim's very similar as well maybe a little bit more but um it just shows that there's either end of the spectrum and they both work yeah yeah and i think i think it also for me i look at it and i go well there is room for improvement in in the volume like if i was already doing 25 hour weeks i look at it and go where where on earth am i going after that like how do i do more but now i look at it i'm doing 12 like i can eventually push that up maybe to 16 and see whether that helps or i look at it and then go oh my body actually is fucked like i can't i can't do 16 um and that was something like that's something that i found running like even training for the marathon the most mileage i got up to was 60 miles so 100k because I go over that and my body was just absolutely destroyed so it's like finding those it's a lot of trial and error in terms of like finding those levels that you can reach and sticking with them and that's another thing like it's hard when you see these guys doing massive massive weeks you go you compare yourself to them you go maybe I should do that because that's working for them but it is sticking to what you're good at and and sticking to how you're going to get from A to B it's not somebody you're not following someone else's journey like it's your journey of in terms of this is working for me so i'll stick with it and maybe i'll sprinkle in some other stuff but if you start copying or trying to take everything from us from everybody else just not gonna work for you and and what about if you uh did sean nobles workout from the other day the row one that the row one where it was 30 by k or everyone's 30 by a k on the on the row up and then you did something else after followed by yeah i think it was like four by five on the bike yeah 30k on but like you see those people doing marathons on the road i think dylan did a marathon on the road and i'm just like how i couldn't i literally couldn't think of anything worse like i said i'm on there five minutes and i've had enough like i i don't i don't i don't want to be on there anymore like like so like sometimes gus will set me intervals of like you're going at 140 for 500 meters and then 100 meters of 210 and my ass hurts after that i'm like i actually don't think i can row this 100 meters because my ass hurts so much okay it's it's and i don't know maybe it's something that disappears if you do it more um maybe i need to like do you reckon if you wore the the cycle shorts that that it would help maybe maybe i know there's little uh kind of like cushions you can get for the seat as well but is it i think some people will call you out and it's gone if you started wearing them yeah but people are wearing wearing knee pads for lunges now so i think so yeah i think anything goes at this point true have you thought about getting knee pads not to race in not to race it i think i like i've actually said i think yesterday i said that i need to get some knee pads just for the training like i remember i did the mixed the mixed doubles at worlds with holly um and i was smashing my knee against the floor and then for literally the next so like since then i actually haven't really been able to do lunges that well because my knee like my left knee is still extremely sore from from doing that stuff so yeah i think knee pads as much as silly as you look wearing them i think training wise it's probably probably is the way forward yeah fair play fair play uh so after that you took two weeks off and then straight back into training what's the first race um yeah two weeks off i had a stag do let my hair down a little bit um had a bit of fun and then first solo race is bangkok on the 16th so that will be i need points like and i I don't love this new point system.

1:07:35It's not my favorite thing in the world. I don't want to race too much. I don't enjoy racing that much. I don't think it's beneficial, but I need the points. I think I'm on 520. I think I'm 13th or 14th right now. So I'm on the edge. Even with one more win, I'm at 523 and I'm still thinking I'm on the edge. So I might debate doing another one, but it's just so competitive now. It doesn't matter where you go. There's going to be people to race. And I think that's a good thing. and I think for me I have to back myself I finished 8th in the world where do I go? I've got to back myself that I'm going to win but I think that's another mental shift that I almost have to make that learning to win in terms of in these close races every close race that I've done I've lost on the warbles essentially it's always come down to the warbles and I've always lost the race and I think that's something that I need to learn by just doing more like how do you feel when you you lose like when it's close like that and you lose at the wall balls like does it aggravate you or is it not as bad as what people think because some like i don't know about you but like sometimes i have nightmares about losing on the wall balls going into the wall balls like do you know neck and neck with someone yeah and then and then coming out yeah like and obviously you've done that like is it as bad as what you i think is i think for me it is frustration because i don't know like in the race you you're like i'm fucks can't do anymore like i have to let this ball drop and i look at the screen i'm on 27 and it's like what what you're doing but in the race like that's just the overriding feeling of i'm knackered i'm gonna let the ball drop and i come i think every time i come away from it i'm like you could have done more like you you could have done more you know you could have done more like why did you drop it and i and i don't i don't really have like nightmares about it like i don't i don't it's not it's not something that i think about too much but it's it is something that obviously needs to improve and i'm still trying to figure out how how to how to improve it like it's it doesn't matter like if you ask me to go do 100 wall walls now i could do it like if you ask me to do 150 walls i could probably do it um unbroken but then for whatever reason when I get in the race and it's close I don't even know what it is like it's a mental feeling of you've done really well to get here so you can just let the ball drop now almost like it's like and and it's it's quite paradoxical because I've set like this massive desire to win and I really really want to win and like through every single station you're like you've got to push you through every single run it's like you've got to push and then almost get to the wobbles and I'm like you've done really well to get here Luke so whatever happens from here like it's okay like people are going to be proud of you because you got to the wall was first and everyone's going to say to you like you did amazingly because you did this isn't this um so it is a weird it's like a weird mental thing that i have to somehow get through and like and that's what i mean in terms of like i have to learn to win and have to learn to be like that's not good enough and for whatever in my training like in my running like i said earlier like i will never let myself drop off on on the running side of i've got two miles to go yeah i could let it drop to 520 because that's easy but i would never do that i would never ever ever ever do that but for whatever reason in the warbles i have i have this thing in my head of just let it drop like it's fine you pick it up and then you carry on and then you do like at the world champs i dropped it at 27 and then i dropped it again at 31 like four warbles like you you can do four walls in your sleep and and so so yeah i think i don't know i i don't know how i'm going to fix that but it's it's something that needs to be fixed if i if i if i want to take the next step the race almost always comes down to walls like it's so rare that somebody is so far ahead when they get to the wobbles that it doesn't matter um so the more races i get to do and like in bangkok i know there's there's going to be some competition the more races that i get to do with that competition and then come out on the other side and win and have a successful walls like that's only going to be good good for me so um Do you feel pressure going into these big races?

1:11:42My mum asked me this a lot. She's like, don't you feel pressure? Are you not worried that this and the other? And I think what I always say to her is I put the most pressure on myself. So literally, it doesn't matter what anybody else says. Like 100 people could say to me, like, you need to win, you need to win, you need to win. But I've already put that pressure on myself. I've already told myself that I need to win. I've already told myself all these things. So I don't feel the external pressure. like i feel the internal pressure of like i need to succeed and like i need to do well but all the noise outside of it i don't care like i think like there's there's so many people who have said yeah but luke you're running too fast like if you slow down your runs your stations will be better and i hear that i hear that point of view like i like i hear those things but i disagree by the way i've seen you run and you look by far the most relaxed runner on the field when you're running and i feel like you're just running at a pace where you can recover yeah and like you say you're in that flow state it doesn't look like you're grinding out the run yeah i don't think it'd benefit you by running 10 seconds yeah i genuinely don't think and i think it is just i just i just need to get better stations and that's and and i think that's the biggest pressure for me like i can no longer blame it on being new to the sport like i can no longer blame it on i haven't done that many races because i've done enough now like i've been in the sport a year like or year and a half i i can't i can't i can't use as an excuse now it's like i've almost i've got to back up the talk of because people are like oh he's a future world champion he's this and the other i hear it and that's fine but i've i already i already put that pressure myself i remember the first the first hierarch session i went to at the gym i go to now i went up to the guy and i was like yeah i've heard about his hierarchs thing like i think i'd be pretty good and he was like what do you mean like you think you'd be pretty good and i was no i think i think i could be like the best in the world at this he was like and you'd never done no no i've never done it before but but it was just based on looking at the run splits and going like i mean i was a bit naive to the stations it was kind of like yeah you figure out the stations but i was like i know i can run 20 seconds quicker than than like these guys on every single split look at the time like i think the running has improved quite a bit since then but i was like i think i can be the best at this because i can run a lot faster these guys um and so that so like that that pressure and like that idea i've had since the moment i started higher up it's like that like that's nothing new for me so now people talking about it i don't care like it's it's it's just now me i have to back it up for myself but it's sick like you believed in yourself from the start but it was kind of like believing with data and with evidence because like you said you know how fast you've come wrong and then like you say you've shown that you can do that yeah which hats off to you because i know a lot of people say they want to be world champion and they may never get there and that's okay and i may never get there and that's fine like that's that's okay but i think for me it's quite tough to well only one person can be world champion as well which is mad if you think in the next 10 years there's only 10 yeah and normally probably someone will probably take it there might only be four people that retake it yeah so yeah and i just like yes the goal is to be world champ but I think the goal for me is be the best that I possibly can be and come away from those races and say like I gave everything that I could and somebody beat me on the day fair enough like I think that is that is always a goal and if that ends up with me being world champ or me finishing fifth like I always want to come away from the race saying I gave my all and I think recently in the races that I've run like Cardiff I came away from it and I was like I didn't like didn't feel like I really really gave everything that I could and then at worlds it was like i gave everything i could up to up to the lunges and then that run after lunges always felt like i switched off and then the wobbles just blew up completely and so like that's more the frustration for me that i feel like i haven't given it my everything compared to i didn't win no no i get you in terms of your running now you mentioned your pbs before you know 29 minutes something for the 10k 14 minutes something for the 5k where do you think you'd be at now if you tested that 5 and 10k i've been thinking about doing it but i think i'm actually i'd yeah i don't know where it would fit my training and i wouldn't i wouldn't want to do it just just to do it but i think i think i'd be close to the 5k i think i'd be 14 20 i reckon i reckon i could go and my pb is 14 16 so i don't i don't think i'd be that far off it um because i think the higher ox training actually lends quite well to like the 5k i think i'm more like i'm more powerful and i'm stronger than i was when i ran it previously so like running at a quicker pace is almost easier i just don't have as big an engine like i haven't i don't have the same amount of miles behind me so i think the 5k would be fairly close to 10k uh i think 30 30 maybe um i think somewhere around there like i like i might be able to go underneath that um still fast yeah yeah yeah like i'd i'd like i'd like to think i mean this will talk like i could go yeah but i know like i've i've done sessions of 10 by k and i've held 250 like i like i know i know i can do that um obviously then you have to string it together and it's like i don't have a minute recovery or whatever it is um but i know like i can string those things together so i don't i don't see it as being out of the question but it's i don't know whether i'd do it like i did last year i did a half marathon in september around 67 there and that was the only that was like the only running pure running race i actually did all year um which is a shame like i would actually like to do more but i also feel like i'm carrying too many niggles to want to give that full effort on something like a 5k or 10k that actually doesn't mean anything to me or isn't going to get me anywhere um then save those big moments for the for the moments that actually matter for me and that right now is is is high rock so interesting yeah because a lot of people ask me that oh does does running help the high rocks or do you not think you're not running you're running too much for high rocks and there is a fine balance i think i don't know what what would you say the the ideal mileage is for a high rockster and we're talking like professionals someone that can train twice a day i think i actually don't think i don't think you need to go over 80k like yeah i'm at i'm at 40 miles a week which is what 65 70k um so i don't i don't think you need to go over that um it depends like where you are and kind of your journey if you know what i mean like and i think a lot of people almost get this wrong like the first thing you actually want to get better is you're running so you need to build up there you need to do higher mileage yeah get good at it and then you can bring it down yeah it's almost like you just like with with anything just start it and like you just if if you want to get better at running initially you just you just go out and run yeah and like maybe once a week you do like a fartlek or something where you can start as basic as like from one lamppost to the next like i'm gonna go fast and the next lamppost the next like i'm gonna go slower and that's and that's how you start to get workouts in and you understand okay this is how it works or like you walk one lamppost and you jog the next whatever it is um but you're just building that up with occasional sessions and then once what like once you reach a certain point of okay i can easily run four or five times a week i'm running 50 miles or whatever it is then you start to implement okay like now i can put one session in where it's going to be a threshold and it's going to be at blah blah like i'm going to do six by five minutes with a minute recovery and that's and that's what you're going to start doing obviously you probably start smaller and then eventually it then it's the intervals like a lot of people think there's a lot of talk that the vo2 sessions and the interval sessions aren't worth it like people like you don't need to do those because you're not running that fast anyway i disagree because in my head i'm like well if i can go and do a vo2 session where i'm running a k 250 then when i am running in high rocks and i'm running a 310 relative like that's going to feel so much lower knowing that i can run faster and i think that's one of like improving your ceiling in it yeah and i think that's that's one of the things that has massively helped me is like my top end has been a lot quicker in terms of like running a low 14 for for a 5k that i know that 310 is it's not slow but like it feels slow relative and i think that's probably one of the things that maybe a lot of people are missing if they want to if they want to run faster in the higher rocks they have to understand what running fast actually is and it's the same when i was training for the marathon like i still went and did the park runs and i ran a low 15 minute park run when i was training for the marathon because that then made me realize like my 320s is not that it's not that fast like i've just run three minutes per k for the 5k so it's like you just in your head you can then relatively go well i'm actually just exactly yeah i want to finish on this question um if there's well there's a lot of people out there that was in a similar position to you in chicago hitting around that kind of like 64 65 minutes they want to get into the elite 15 what pieces of advice would you give them i think the first thing is like look at your data and look at and look at the numbers that you've done um so for me i knew the running was fine and like for most people that's probably not going to be the case it's probably going to be the running where you're going to find the most time but for me it was okay i went through every single station and i and i compared it to the guys in the elite 15 and i went okay they're doing this i'm doing this they're doing this i'm doing this they're doing so like i had an idea of if i want to make it these like here here are the times where i need to improve like this is what i need to improve and then i just i it wasn't i don't know i think there's like a there's like a tendency to to not focus on the most important thing like people want to do everything at once and that just doesn't work like you can't expect everything to get better all at the same time so it's like focus on that one thing that you want to get better at and then implement it in your training really really go for it and then know that okay this has got better so like after Birmingham I knew that my burpees were a real issue like I was like I'm getting beaten by a minute on by these guys on the burpees so I broke down the burpee and I said okay where am I actually fatiguing like what what's actually worse for me and it wasn't the getting up and down that was making me tired it was the actual jumping like that was what was fatiguing me so I just started doing loads of jumping like it was like all right I'm gonna learn to be able to jump for 100 meters and understand that fatigue just continuously jumping and trying to jump not these baby little jumps but like try and jump further and so that was my focus and then the second part was I was like when I was getting up and down it was so slow like I watched you guys flew past me and I watched the video and it was like the time where you're actually overtaking me is because I'm taking three seconds to get on the floor whereas you're doing a burpee and it's taking you one second to get on the floor and then you straight back up and then you're on to the next one and so then it was like okay how quickly can i get up and down so it wasn't just like just doing more burpees it was breaking down the movement into its separate parts and going i need to get better here i need to get better here and that and then putting it back together and seeing whether it worked and so like that's that's something that i would say like if you see that you've got a weakness figure out exactly where the weakness is and not just because the whole movement isn't like you're probably strong at certain part of the movement but not not strong at another part of the movement so find exactly where your problem is same with the warbles like it might be your legs fatiguing or it might be your shoulders like for me it's breathing like i really struggle to breathe on the warbles i don't know when to breathe and then when i'm not thinking about it like i just stop breathing and then you get to 30 warbles and you've held your breath for 30 warbles obviously you're in trouble then so now i need to figure out how to breathe on the warbles so now i'm breaking it down into just doing regular squats like as quickly as i can and breathing at the same time so then it's like okay well now i can breathe and squat now i need to involve the ball and blah blah blah so that's kind of what i would say if you want to if you want to take that jump you want to take the next level most likely it's going to be running which is the more difficult side to come from like that's going to take longer to improve and that's and that's almost a patience thing of it's not going to happen overnight like you can't expect in six months to be able to go from running a 17 minute 5k to a 15 minute 5k like that that that just doesn't happen for most people um so yeah it's it's a consistency show up every day be patient and then if you know what your weaknesses are actually focus on them and don't just i mean what i have done in the past is like slightly touch them and then move on to the next thing because you don't like doing it because it's hard and like that is that's almost what discipline is it's not doing the it's not showing up every day and doing the things that you like discipline is showing up every day and doing things you don't like and the things you don't want to do and that's something that again i'm learning because i don't like doing the mobility i don't i don't like doing the stretching i don't like doing the walls i don't but the discipline is doing them even when you don't want to do them um so like that is if you can find that discipline and you really really want to be the best that's that's what you have to do and i think that that might be kind of the the step that a lot of people can't take that they can't do those things that they don't want to do or they they might be able to do them when somebody else is around and and they're like being told what to do then then it's easy because somebody's but can you do it when nobody's there and you've got to go to the gym at seven o 'clock in the evening you really can't be asked but you've got to go at seven at 7 p.m and you've got to do your mobility and then you've got to do 300 wobbles by yourself with no one watching do you have the discipline to be able to do that and if you don't then you're probably in trouble you probably you probably won't be able to make that step but i think i think everyone can figure it out everyone can it's just the question of do you want to and a lot of people say yeah i want to be the best i want to be the best i want to be the best but then it's actually making those steps so it's not easy that's sick i love that we'll call it there wicked thank you no that was a that was a great podcast thank you sick