Danny Rae - #22 - The Jake Dearden Podcast

0:00Danny Rae. Jake Dearden. Welcome mate, how are we feeling? I'm feeling good mate, thank you very much for inviting me on. No, I appreciate it. How's the training been today? Yeah good, so I'm actually racing on Friday so just nice easy week, I say easy week. High Rocks that is, yeah. Yes, High Rocks on Friday. So today was an easy day, tomorrow a bit harder but less volume and then back to easy on Wednesday. Nice easy run with some strides on Thursday and then go time Friday morning. Where are you racing? warsaw nice so flying out thursday did you say yeah thursday uh with a view of watching the elites race and then um race myself on friday morning oh well i'll see you over there see you there no it'll be it'll be a cool i think uh warsaw is always kind of like a nice place to race have you done it before yeah poland for me is like a second home i've been out there with the army a lot i've raced out there quite a lot and i love it um but yeah racing at the national stadium I raced there last year didn't go too well but it's just so cool like I grew up playing football did you grow up playing football as well yeah yeah I grew up playing football but I'd never actually been like on the pitch in a football stadium but doing high rocks for the first time I'd been on the pitch just looking up at all the all the seats thinking this is really cool so yeah I'm looking forward to going back yeah it is mad like when you when you are in a football stadium like you just imagine I always think like it's actually crazy if you was an actual footballer that's exactly what i was thinking yeah i always think would you actually want to be in their position and their shoes after like you know being on the pitch or whatever and looking up and seeing all them fans and like you say half the fans aren't supporting you yeah they're saying horrible things to you yeah uh they basically want you to die i could literally take a small amount of grief playing saturday football and i remember walking around on that pitch doing high rocks and looking at how close the pitch is to the seats thinking if you've got like thousands of people here just hurling abuse because you've just put in the most dreadful corner kick or whatever yeah fair play to footballers yeah yeah they've got to take some shit i got the same amount abuse doing high rocks now i didn't really i'm joking no people people love you i've uh i've raced against you quite a few times and the amount of people that come out to support you it's just incredible it's quite cool isn't it because i bet because i can imagine it's probably the same for you as well um like i remember when i first got into the sport and obviously started following people like yourself um and everyone else who was sort of like all the big names in the sport and i used to like think i wonder what it's like to be like them i'm not saying that's where i am now but even when i'm out there racing i have all these people like cheering for me i think is this normal is this what like is everyone just getting like cheered right now but it's such a buzz i love it especially in the uk it's like it's unbelievable like when we was in glasgow i I can constantly hear just like, go on, Danny, go on, Jake, like the whole time.

2:51Yeah, no, it is cool. And I'm forever grateful. But I think everyone gets that to an extent. I think everyone's just wanting the best for everyone. I think that's the nice thing about High Rocks. I always see everyone who's spectating is just cheering everyone on, no matter if they know them or if they don't know them, which is pretty cool. But yeah, let's take it back. You mentioned that you've been in the military. Yeah. um i want to start with that like how has that journey been and congratulations because recently you just stopped yeah um so yeah just talk us through uh from kind of like the start of that journey yeah so the army for me was always going to be like a natural progression for me my dad was in the military um so i was born in germany because that's where we was based at the time no way i didn't know that yeah yeah i was born in germany lived there till i was four but uk citizen and have been since birth because i was born there um whilst my dad was there with the army that makes sense um whereabouts in germany cellar it's placed in northern germany um moved back to the moved to the uk when i was four years old and i just grew up around the military um but i think like growing up in the military then being in the military and seeing it is like was like a i think it's a huge part of me and my identity and that's why i talk about it so much now um but like just going back to being a kid we was on a was on a secure camp behind the wire like i had so much independence growing up so you know i used to be honest i used to play soldiers i would literally put my army uniform on put cam cream on and hide in a bush and i'd watch cars coming onto camp and i'd write down their registration numbers or i'd go and stand next to the gate the guy on the gate um holding a rifle and like i literally just lived and breathed the army growing up so i was always going to join the army um and then like we all do you get to like your teenage years and like you start kicking a football around and you think you're going to be like david beckham dye your hair blonde and did you dye your hair blonde i dyed my hair blonde yeah yeah i'll definitely find some pictures of that it didn't look anything like beckham but i dyed my hair blonde um i could take a free kick like him i'm not gonna lie i was i have a good left peg on me um oh yeah i used to practice free kicks all day and then i sort of converted from like the Beckham style of free kick of whipping it to like a Ronaldo knuckleball but that never went to plan to be honest remember when they released that certain ball that you could do with the Jubilani yeah yeah Jubilani I remember it well yeah dad get me this ball so I can take free kicks and it dips right at the end yeah when taking a free kick so I love our yeah what do you call that a knuckleball a knuckleball I used to think I could take free kicks like Cristiano Ronaldo but obviously I couldn't because then I joined the army and if I could take free kicks at Ronaldo I probably would be playing for someone else but um yeah um I joined the army when I was 18 years old so you went to obviously school in the UK yeah uh went to college yeah I went to sixth form six form um but I went to sixth form during a time in my life where I feel like this is like so many people can relate to this where your parents like go separate ways when you get to like 16 because obviously without going there's too many details my parents I think they really stayed together for me and my sister molly and then we got to like of an age where we was getting a bit older and um they went their separate ways anyway but that kind of meant that i joined the army earlier than what i was going to be joining because i don't want to stay in education my plan was to join as an officer a lot of people think i actually did join as an officer probably to do with the hair and how i speak um but i joined early so i could get away from home and start that start that early um so i actually only did sixth form for a year and then um i was i did a little bit of a job on the sides working in a call center and I started when I was 18 years old just turned 18 I was in the military wow and has fitness always been like part of your DNA like you say you played football was there anything else that you you did I think I think because like I say I grew up on a camp we would be out all day whether we was like knocking on people's doors and running away or playing football all hours of the day or like playing hide and seek I was always out as a kid that then progressed to me playing football and I'd be the sort of person I remember when Garmin used to have like a um a small GPS tracker which soldiers used to get my dad gave me that and I would attach that to the inside of my shorts and I'd run around on the football pitch and I'd try and clock as much distance as I could and I used to play in the center of midfield and I would actively try and make extra runs or overlap or like put in tackles like a clock more distance on the pitch um so that's sort of where like fitness for me started you know like school cross country or PE I was never like overly good I was just kind of like above average um but football for me was like what I did a lot of um what position did you play centimid yeah um and then as it got to me joining the army that's when I started to like have a bit more independence train a bit more run a bit more instead of you know getting in the bus i'd run to my friend's house it'd be a few miles away um but i didn't you know i didn't like didn't compete in anything so to speak i was just generally an active kid um which kind of then set me up for for the military now joining the military used to do a fitness test and it was really like basic um test like your aerobic fitness you do a mile and a half run um you would do two minutes of max press-ups and two minutes of max sit-ups so that's basically all i used to train for is like a 16 year old and what are the numbers that you need to pass that so So depending on where you went in the army, bearing in mind this was what, like 13 years ago now, I think I needed to run under nine and a half minutes for a mile and a half or under 10 minutes to be able to get into the regiment I wanted to get into.

8:33Okay, so you're moving, like you've got to train for it. Yeah, yeah. You can't just like rock up and do that. Well, some people might be able to, but you've got to be gifted if you can do that. Yeah, you've got to put a little bit in. If you want to get to the regiment when you get into, you've got to put a little bit in. So I used to go to football training a little bit early and I would do like six laps of the football pitch, which I think I worked out at the time like a mile and a half so that will need fact checking and then I would like do some press-ups and sit-ups and stuff like that and that's all I really had to train for was like try and get through that initial little test so I can get into the ministry so the press-ups and sit-ups like how many did you have to do?

9:03I think to pass it was 44 press-ups bearing in mind no one could ever really do that it was like you'd be doing half reps and your mate would be counting yes you'd be like yep two, four, eight, twelve so no one was actually doing like strict reps I reckon 44 strict reps at the time as a young sort of teenager with not much upper body i don't think many were doing it but you just about scrape through i thought it was like the test where does it go to like a beep beep test so that's the that was the alternative to the mile and a half in inclement weather so if it was icy or snowy outside you'd go inside to the gym you do your 20 meter beep test all right no i meant for uh for the push-ups oh that's marines right is that marines right yeah so they have to train even harder to get into the marines um so yeah that's that's sort of like from like a fitness angle that's that's why i started training and ultimately got into the army um when you when you start the army is the like i've had friends that have gone into the marines and they kind of have this six months to a year of like hell yeah when they first go in is it like that when you start the army like is there kind of like a um a phase that you need to go through the start yeah so you do basic training and i would say the first four weeks of basic training you don't it's good to go to basic training fit and i was always lucky because i was always fit i'd always be one of the first people on the runs and run it in like eight and a half minutes or whatever but you get people there that can run a mile and a half in like 12 minutes and that first four weeks just absolutely breaks people down and like you know brings them together as from individuals into teams but then you know really makes people fit people that have never trained their whole lives you get to the army they're training every single day so you see people go from like 12 minutes to like oh they've got this new secret fitness that they never knew about and they can run a mile and a half in eight minutes um so yeah the first sort of like four weeks are really intense and then they kind of start building you back up again you know noting that you're going to carry heavy kit um you want to be strong to be able to do that you don't want to get injured so then you start doing more strength training it starts off it's all like running and like lung busting and circuits and then it becomes a bit more like you know actually needs to build you up now um and yeah it's it's like going from like unfit civilian to a soldier that can be operationally fit and carry loads of kit when does it like get really specific into the role that you want to do um is there like a period of time that everyone has to do the same training and then they get like they go off and branch off into their own specific kind of lines where they want to go into the future yep so you do your 12 weeks basic training and that will get everyone to the same sort of minimum required standard of fitness and soldiering in the army you then go off into your individual um trade training we call it um after 12 weeks so for me i was a royal armored corps soldier i would have different fitness requirements required of me as opposed to say someone who is a chef for example and then that's when you become more specific in your training interesting and are there like times where they wake you up in the middle of the night you're like sleep deprived stuff like that yeah so it's probably not like what it might seem like in the films where or like you know sas who dares wins and they're just getting pulled out their bed all the time when you're on camp and you're there to learn you are more or less you know recruits are left to sleep when you're getting woke up in the night and you're under sort of like more arduous testing conditions of sleep deprivation and it's cold is when you actually go on exercise in the field when you go on exercise in the field in the uk you have to apply pressure to recruits and soldiers through things like sleep deprivation because clearly in the uk no one's like throwing grenades at you and shooting at you on a two-way range they've got to add that pressure by you know waking you up at two o 'clock in the morning to do a training serial then you go back to bed for a couple of hours and then you get back up again um but that kind of thing happens throughout your whole army career more so early to get used to it and then like whenever you're away doing the job in the uk and training for it that thing that sort of sleep deprivation and you know being fatigued that that happens quite a lot are there many people that fail the recruitment process yeah i'd say fail them first 12 weeks yeah i i would say like if you're going for something like the parachute regiment of the marines they'll have a a high rate of attrition for something like what i did which is you know just normal i say like normal army there's higher standards to join the paras nothing crazy but to join my regiment um or any other sort of regiment in the british army you know you you will get through more or less i would say there's probably like i don't know the stats but you know one or two three people that don't quite make the cut you know the army's not for them and they can leave within that first three weeks because if you go past a certain point you're in for four years so right and what is that certain point uh 28 days so after 28 days you've got to sign something yeah and sign your life away where like for the next four years you have to yeah turn up every single day yeah and you can't leave can't leave yeah unless you yeah and then after four years then you can hand your notice in and even then you know you've got to do an extra year that's not very long is it no 28 days so literally four weeks four weeks to work out if the army is really for you so that's why the first four weeks are really quite tough if you can get through that then the army's for you oh interesting and do you find anyone that kind of regrets signing the life away for the next four years and like they're kind of like oh i can't wait to get out yes and it's kind of like the the grass isn't greener like you you thought the army was for you and actually it's not that fun i see that more often with people that join the army straight from school right okay because they've not experienced what it's like outside of the military where you have to you know you're clocking at nine o 'clock and you're working for every single minute that you're in that office and then you have your lunch and then you clock out so to speak so i experienced that a little bit and plus i always knew i was going to join the military but guys and girls have been around a little bit done a couple of years they know what it's like um you know people that join straight from school they think actually no i can it's much better outside of the military for me and it's not always the case the other side of that is you get people that have maybe earned a decent bit of money being an electrician and they decide they want to join the army and the wages aren't as much and they may be looking at it from like a financial aspect because they've got kids and families they need to to to look after but yeah i think if people see the army as like a career and like a lifestyle um and you can see all the other opportunities you get from it it's such a great career i think there's a lot of talk about the army right now because the army put a post up saying join the army we'll pay you 26 grand a year and people are like you can't really survive in the uk on 26 grandier you know when you're paying all these bills and stuff like that but when you're in the military as a young you know single man or woman paying for a room that's 100 pound a month or 50 pound a month and your food is all subsidized and it's cheaper in a military cookhouse you've actually got quite a lot of disposable income there um so it's like you get lots of different perks from being in the army yeah no but people don't realize like you say the amount of stuff that you kind of get at a discounted rate and the opportunities the opportunities to learn yeah um like how how many different courses have you been on so many different courses and like so many different countries or like a prime example is like skiing it costs so much to go skiing every year like the army you know you'll pay your personal contribution of 100 pound and you'll go skiing in the alps for two weeks in the winter getting taught how to ski so it's like all these different benefits that people don't really recognize um is it is it as hard as what people think the army no no i would say there it depends who you are as an individual and how much you apply yourself you could go in the army you could coast um you know do the absolute minimum required standard of you or you can go in the army and go i want to do this course i'll do that course i want to go on special forces selection i want to go and do cambrian patrol i want to go and you know really test myself i want to be the fittest in the squadron and then the army can be a slightly different experience but you know rewarding in the same in the same light no it's interesting because like you always think of it as being super hard like you say how many people drop out um and then like you say it's a lifestyle rather than just a job like it's almost 24 7 right yeah yeah 100 and like um how much how much was you away like uh like you know working training quite a bit to be fair um and yeah i would say as my career went on and the army started to reduce its manpower we got a lot busier um someone came out and said you know we're the most productive army in europe we're delivering the same amount of output with less personnel everyone just got a lot busier um and there was when i first joined the army in my regiment we've got four squadrons right and those four squadrons pretty much on camp more or less at the same time quite a lot as i'm leaving the army you'd walk onto that camp and all those four different squadrons are engaged and doing something different and everyone's busy and everyone's off camp and i think it's sort of highlighted how busy we were as we went as as sort of the years went by did that make it like less enjoyable for you guys um i think like being brutally honest there was like a time where it was a nice amount of busy you know you'd go to kenya for three months have a great time come back you know sort of sort your kit out sort your sort your troops out and go on to the next task if a couple of months later but now i feel like the turnaround is a lot is a lot more um people are away from their families a little bit more and i would say some people probably like that some people probably don't like that in my personal case i loved the army right up to the point i left it and i think that's really important i left the army whilst loving it um but i was finding myself saying no to stuff outside of the army so it's kind of i got to a decision point of i'm loving i love the army right now but in two three years maybe when you know i'm trying to have a family or you know say yes to all these opportunities i can't maybe i won't love it as much so that's ultimately why i ended up leaving oh that's interesting and how long was you in the army for in total 12 years and one month wow yeah that's insane was there a reason that you went over that 12 year right um so uh my you sign an initial contract for 12 years you get to a certain point which i got to and the army offer you another 12 years so i was a contractor to do 24 years in the army but when you get to your 12 year point you qualify for a half pension so if i was to have to have left at 11 years and five months i would have lost out like more like financially in the long term with like you know when i reach 60 and getting a certain amount of my pension each month so it made sense to stay for 12 yeah that's some shift yeah i'm a bit proud of that like 12 years doing the same thing it's pretty crazy now honestly like i look back on that time um like hugely grateful for it um would never have changed a thing did some incredible things it's hard things i had to like fun times friends for life um and like it shaped who i am today and i always look back on that time like it literally reminds me every single day because i go into the downstairs toilet and all my military memorabilia is there you know 2013 to 2015 so um yeah incredible loved it when did you start training for hyroxen so um zoe told me all about high rocks in about may june of 2023 when the world champs was in manchester so zoe told you zoe told me all about it yeah um so someone um someone she knew was racing there um we just moved to manchester i had just been to kenya for three months and if anyone's been to kenya i was living at 2 000 meters altitude for three months right um i was very one-dimensional i was good at good say good at running i was okay at running and i was good at running with weight on my back so i came back from kenya feeling pretty fit feeling good went and watched the high rocks did you actually notice a difference from the difference from the altitude yeah just like living out there and i did like like when it came to training before high rocks i didn't have a training structure i just used to like go for a run i'd find a workout off of instagram and do that workout and just like just generally liked doing sort of hard training and even when i was out in kenya at the time we did the goggins you know like the four by four by 48 for a bit of fun um when i came back to the uk like breathing like just breathing normally it's like the air is like succulent it's like soup i can't explain it you spent three months at 2000 meters you come back to the uk and you just feel amazing um maybe that's where we'd have to go and train one day um so i came back feeling fit did like some 10k races and stuff and then zoe showed me high rocks and obviously it was like mostly running i was like i think i'd be quite quite good at this and it was really transferable from what we did in the army as well so yeah long long way around the question it was um it was june 23 when i actually discovered high rocks and then started training for it so you went to world champs yeah watched yeah from the sidelines then you did that give you a kind of like the inspiration then to go and train for it yeah so when was your first race warsaw did a mixed doubles with zoe um in the september shortly after and then like we all do just loved it and then booked another one to do it in copenhagen a couple of weeks after that and that was your first solo first solo yeah did you do open the first one that you did yeah yeah what time did you get uh 63 minutes wow so 104 44 something like that right wow pretty nippy for for the first race yeah yeah yeah it was all right yeah i was i was happy with that and because it was the unknown i went off nice and steady um but but it kind of like showed me like you know what you know maybe i could be quite good at this is that what give you kind of give you that snowball effect to then fully kind of focus on this thing because like from then like i've watched you let's say i've raced against you quite a few times i've watched you from afar and you've been kind of obsessed obviously you've gone and done other things whether it's ultramarathons uh whether it's last man standings things like that but like your sport has been high rocks i'd probably say yeah since then yeah so um i i like made an instagram account after i think my first race and i did that before that you didn't have an instagram no i was like private so i'd been with zoe for a few years and i was just like fully private and everything still and then i made my instagram account after maybe doing copenhagen and i just used it as like a platform to hold myself to account and that's what that first solo race really did for me it was like it gives you like a platform to showcase what you're good at and what you're not so good at and it puts you that way in front of everyone like dani ray you cannot do burpees and that's what i'd look at all my times i'm like yeah i need to get better at that i'd be like you know i'm not strong enough or i don't i don't look good i'm not happy with how i look so i used the instagram and like used the sport to hold myself to account so i made my instagram account who should i follow on instagram to you know help me on my fitness journey the amount of people that like follow jake did and because i remember the time i think you must have had like maybe 10k followers at the time and then yeah just grown rapidly so obviously i knew who you were i knew who like the big names were in the sport um and then yeah like you say i did become obsessed with it to be fair i raced a pro in dublin i watched you do the open that day and again you just flew around so i think i ran a 118 pro and uh that was your first pro right yes and i was like wow this is a different gravy i wasn't strong enough no i remember that because and i don't remember that and remember the improvement from that yeah yeah so what was the race following that so this is all like the timing of this is all really key so i ran a pro solo in dublin 118 in the november and i was just about to be deployed with the army for four months um for those of you for those listeners or watchers that are in the army they'll kind of know what i mean but when you go away that's when you get the most routine when you're on camp and you're on courses and you're training you're here there and everywhere it's hard to fit your training in like i had to get up at some silly times to make it happen but when i went away on operations i felt like i was on a four-month training camp it wasn't really like that because where i was in the world and the facilities i had at my disposal where did you go again sorry uh i was in poland poland right okay yeah i was in what's the food like over there like when you're on camp um i was out of a hotel so yeah as you if you can imagine like you know like lots of lean proteins and like grains and stuff like that like beige food very beige yeah beige um well not too bad if you're on a not too bad was you in the same hotel for the four moves around a little bit yeah moved around a little bit um i was for the last month i was in like a in like a big house where i was fully fully self-sufficient and could make my own stuff but there sort of like i was there to do a job but i had plenty of time and routine because i was in a location to be able to train so i sort of because i was one of the bosses really um i could manage my own time so i had like a treadmill hooked up to a generator powered by powered by power by generator all the gym equipment was in like an old barn house it would get to like minus two like really cold in the winter um but it was like rocky barbara stuff but i couldn't document it or show anybody because i was way of the army um and then there was one location i went to where i had no treadmill and my gym was half the size of this room but like i had ergs and just got it done so i was on a four-month training camp basically then came back and i think my first race was a solo open in copenhagen and ran a 59 so i was buzzing i got the sub 60 and then raced berlin a month after that pro and got 58 but it was berlin but still for me that's when i remember because uh did you do do you did a mixed doubles then as well right or did you just do a pro just did a pro so he did a solo in berlin i did a pro yeah yeah i remember that because uh i was there watching uh when it happened i was over in berlin because i think i was racing like the the relay oh yeah you did yeah you did i did doubles in the morning with neil and then uh did the relay in the evening uh but you was on like midday and it was uh yeah i know it's pretty good to see i was like obviously you know like you say become obsessed with the sport i thought that was like so out of my reach to run a sub 60 pro because i'd done a one hour 18 and how it felt it felt so bad like it generally was the most humbling thing i'd ever done you know to go from literally take 20 minutes off protein i don't know anyone that's done that i know yeah yeah that's pretty crazy and for me i remember you asked me you was like now what what is it what is it you've done lost a lot of weight and if you look back at me in dublin you'll see like people don't believe me like you used to be 95 kilo yeah i was like 95 kilo you should sit right here and that was my military lifestyle that got it got in the way of that going back to like the military lifestyle like what kind of culture of it what kind of culture is it because i've heard like there's a big kind of like drinking scene was you kind of part of that or was you not or did you stay away from it i was i was i was in command i was the leader i'd say for the early part of my career um having grown up around it and it's like my dad is very sociable i'm very sociable like i loved it you know i was one of the fittest people there but i could also you know go and drink 10 pints yeah yeah i could um and that was probably most of my army career to be honest until i met zoe um and i'd grown up a little bit and then when i discovered high rocks and got more serious about my training then that became like a few and far between thing um but yeah the culture is is big on that i would say it's more good than bad i think it's you know it helps but i was gonna actually ask you about this so like in regards to kind of like your mindset and your mental toughness like getting up with a hangover and going training and having to do the work day in day out but then still like you say working hard but playing hard yeah like does it build your strength and does it kind of like build this resilience that you probably people like me probably don't know like i would say when i was younger it was something i could do quite often and i thought that that was the norm and that was the right thing to do and it was the cool thing to do in the army you know go out till four or five and get up and then beat everyone on a run yeah that's that's great but well it is pretty cool it was back then it was back then but then um yeah i couldn't do it now i'm like you you don't expect me to go to the gym for 24 48 hours after doing anything like that um i'm not saying i don't drink i do drink but not too often um but like how it used to be was you know it's like being young it was like being in uni halls you know you've got 600 rooms in the block and people go out and you're young and sociable and but you've still got a job to do the next day i would never sleep in you know i'd go and do go and do my job and what i had to do um but yeah i spent i was i'm really like i'll say data driven i love strava we love strava love garmin love looking back at all old workouts and stuff there's a lot of time in my early years when i was doing certain training in the army where we couldn't log all of it couldn't wear a watch couldn't use strava and we were going out with like 30 kilos on our back in the welsh mountains walking for like five six hours you know you walk up the hills you jog the flats you jog the downhills and all this sort of stuff and like you know horrible weather with a heavy bag on that's rubbing all over the place that's the sort of stuff that maybe people don't see um from like being in the military might like my fitness journey and stuff because she wasn't really able to show it or talk about it i think that's where like the mental stuff comes from um yeah the drinking and like you know the working hard and the playing hard so that's just that is very much part of the lifestyle but if you really want to apply yourself you know you can really go and do some hard challenging stuff over the years have you seen that culture change within the army yeah i would say so like just like rules that got put in place you know like bars would close at certain times on camp and you know where you can and can't drink and like that kind of thing i'd say the army's become not saying it wasn't professional before but i would say it become more professional and also just like the fitness scene at the minute is like a bit of a buzz and that's definitely like echoed throughout the army as well like uh mike chadwick had quite a bit to do with this and the tactical athlete and like you know you're in the military your job is to be fit um you you are an athlete and you can be an athlete and you've got all the resources right there to be an athlete because you've got the best gyms you've got the best some of the best trainers um and i've the gyms and trainers like changed like over the years like yeah what did it look like when you first went in like was it like because i reckon when you first started in the army it was probably like gym culture in the uk was probably like either you ran on a treadmill or you did like an elliptical or a stairmaster yeah or you lifted weights yeah and that was but like i feel like the army was probably ahead of its time there were like you was like the original like hybrid training yeah no that's that's that's probably really accurate um it's funny right because obviously we have to be fit that is like number one priority you know you can be not a great soldier but if you fit that's half the battle when i first joined the army goes through different trends but when i first joined it was like all about running and then all about putting heavy kit on and moving quickly um and then like circuit training as well i laugh about some of my friends now because some of the things we used to do on circuits were like hilarious you know you get wooden hash poles and like twisting them until your arms start burning like what what is that training whereas now you know the trainers move so far forward um and it is like a real hybrid approach to training and all about injury prevention it's not about how fast you can run it's all about you know how much kit can you put on and how can you walk over arduous terrain whilst carrying that kit and then go and do a job at the end of it without getting injured and that's that's kind of the direction it went in and that was echoed through the equipment the gyms in the military are some of the best gyms you'll ever see um like incredible like huge amounts of money spent on revamping it to make sure you've got all the best kit in there and huge amounts of real estate um yeah it is really good that's pretty cool have you got like good like running routes have you got like track and field facilities or anything like that everything literally everything lgm added like a rock climbing wall in it and had like a 25 meter sled carpet yeah it's got everything for everyone so you've got no excuse basically oh yeah if you like if you if you're in a job which obviously in the army there's probably not many jobs where you're just on camp every day you could be an unbelievable athlete and there is some people in the army that are lucky enough to have those jobs um for me in my regiment you know we would be on camp say out of 12 months we was probably on camp for four right and the rest of the time we're out in different areas doing different training you know sleeping in the field or you're away or whatever yeah they have the army have a scheme at the moment i think or they might have always had this game where like if you make it as like a professional athlete yeah then you can still be kind of like sponsored and work for the army but then go and do your professional career full-time like as a professional sport full-time is that right yeah that is um i think it's called the professional um scholarship something along those along those lines and for that to be a thing you need the sport needs to have like a uk governing body um so that's where like hierarchicals goes wrong because it's not like that yeah so like there'd be professional rugby players um that play rugby full-time um i've seen it with triathlon kat matthews i think she's like she was a champion before she does that pretty much full-time um but yeah i mean hyrox is coming on the triathlon is it potentially or maybe it's made that transition that might be a good step in the right direction for people in the military to do it full-time but the army and the military in general hasn't quite caught up with that yet because like there's there'll be some incredible athletes there that the army just doesn't know about or they don't know about it yet um but yeah they could get the full support and we're able to go and do it full time yeah there'd be some great people come out the woodwork from that so maybe don't do that no no it's cool that the army do that um moving on back to high rocks so you got that 58 in berlin like we mentioned like we can allude to that being a fast course yes 100 yeah let's just admit that um i think everyone got pbs that weekend but yeah like you didn't let that stop you like you continue getting better and better and better um how did you find that like from berlin onwards because like berlin like i remember like you get that time and then people like shit danny ray who's coming you've seen this improvement like because he's improved that much he's got so much more potential yeah you're borderline like that's an elite 15 qualification back then yeah it was that you know you just need another race and that's it to qualify for the elite 15 um how did that make you feel did it transition like your mindset what did you feel like in terms of pressure stuff like that so um it definitely like it's the same now the same thing happens now if i ever have a good result it just makes me more motivated to like be more disciplined um and i did that and i was like riding this wave of people being really interested for a little while and then i just put loads of pressure on myself i was like right world champs is coming up i don't think i raced after poland until june yeah i missed missed a couple of months um i think i got sort of too pent up about that and then it like it was a huge confidence knock when i went to nice and raced there because i think i ran a 106 or something like that i came into the skier second or first something like that um which is like not what i do but i was so new to the sport so i went from a 58 to a 106 and i went from being like oh my god i've you know i've got this cracked to i am nowhere near good enough bear in mind i think it was like 30 degrees that day they had no air con yeah i think so many people collapsed yeah i remember yeah these world champs i think there was like a a full-on thing after that to make sure that the temperature of the rooms are regulated so like after that point i don't know if you noticed but like all the halls or expedition centers that you do hyroxine like they all seem a little bit cooler yeah and they like leave fire exits open and stuff and keep them well ventilated yeah whereas nice there was none of that i remember literally watching people suffer uh we raced and yeah it was horrendous but uh yeah so i think you can put a little bit down to that yeah it's time but uh yeah maybe setting off too fast as well set off way too quick i thought i was you know who was in your race because sean noble jake williamson um quite a few uh liam mccrory um yeah and like i should not be going into the ski erg second place but that's just you know my previous result in training led me to believe that that's how fit i was and i wasn't um so i found out that's probably like the second time i'd found out the hard way about not going off too quick so that huge confidence knocker that was um and i never raced pro solo again up until december that same year december 2024 in london right okay so that's how long it was i waited a few months yeah and did you just like what did that knockback do did it like just motivate you even more to like right that's not the result that i wanted that's not where i'm at like how do i push forward now it made me question how i was training at that time as opposed to question how i executed that that race because you know like when you're in training you get some fantastic results you know i'm flying i'm running really well the stations feel great i feel strong um but i could only ever look back at that one result and it made me think like am i am i training the right way for this it was only when i went and did a doubles race with my coach dan who's been coaching me for a couple of years was he coaching you then he was coaching me then as well yeah and we ran a 57 in birmingham uh and i just remember feeling really good running at his pace recovering virtually on the runs and then like attacking the stations thinking i've done that i've done that as a doubles but i feel like you know when you just know that maybe that's within reach as a solo that's how i felt after that in birmingham and this was like in october um so when i raced solo two months after i wasn't too far away from that it gave me like a bit of confidence actually you know maybe maybe that sub 60 in berlin wasn't a fluke and i probably can do that yeah no and then you've raised again london what time did you get uh i got like a 59 so i got over that like mental barrier which was a big thing for me and because i've got over that mental barrier i then entered stockholm last minute where you know there was like ronkovich and john win and um harry thompson there was a great like roster of athletes that raced there um and then again that was like another huge confidence booster for me that like actually you know i am the training is going in the right direction because i remember i came out of the sled pull in second and from sled pull all the way to lunges it was basically like like me and john win um and i was like a minute to 90 seconds behind Roncovich and I was I remember being sat on the rower and there's a video and I'm like looking at Zoe like what is going on like how am I in this race and there was like you know John Carlisle and Sebastian Ifferson and Harry Thompson and like all these great athletes around me that had been in it for a while and I was just like I have no idea and then I couldn't lunge and I couldn't warble so that was the you know that's where that ended but I came I got a 58 minutes so I showed marked marked improvement and I was able to hang with some great athletes for a little bit um so yeah big confidence booster yeah and that's that's just kind of rolled on into every event you've done since really um you was on kind of like the i'd say you was on the brink of the elite 15 for quite a while um how was that um it was it was great um and like again it was a you just constantly ride in this wave of being really high on confidence and like you know really believing in yourself and then also feeling like an imposter and that was the wave i was riding because after you know after i raced in stockholm um i ran a great race in maastricht and got a pb of 57 you know i was right up there with um thomas twierdick right behind him um some of the guys who are now in the elite 15 and then i think i raced in poland not long after that and was nowhere near that like i ran a 59th i ran in bilbao with you guys again You were up 58 then?

41:53Yeah, 58 minutes. Again, like I was happy with that, I think with the overall placement. And then it started to regress slightly, you know, running like a 59 in Warsaw. And then you ride the wave again and I get a PB in Cardiff at 57. It was just so up and down, up and down. And like you say, I was on the fringe, but then the levels this season just went like that whilst I was injured. And I was, you know, watching from the sidelines, everyone going from 57s to like 55s and now 54s and 53s yeah i know the level has got insane talk to us about obviously before you got injured you decided to train for a different event completely yeah so like basically we've been in the military and there was a lot of things i did in the army it was like really hard and like test your metal um a few different things i'd done over the years what i like to try and do is one thing each year that kind of like just brings me back down to earth you know whether it's the bob graham round or like a backyard ultra when did you do the bob graham round that was after nice in 2024 right okay and that was the second time i'd attempted it um it just deserves a lot of respect that thing i think you need to be putting together you know some decent like fell runs and events and races before even you know tackling that that's like fell running bucket list stuff so just just explain to people who don't know what the bob so the bob graham round is a fell running challenge in the lake district it's 44 fells 66 miles in 24 hours and this is like a long-standing event that's you don't have to pay to enter it you just say that you're going to go and do it you need to have a witness um and yeah you go and tackle these fells but the you start in keswick and in keswick yeah you basically circumnavigate um the lake district really um how how many meters or foot elevation is it same as everest i think i think it's like 12 000 something like that it's pretty yeah it's pretty punchy um like you say you deserve so much respect you know it doesn't need um some idiot soldier that likes training and likes fizz thinking they can go and tackle it multiple times i'll definitely scratch that itch again one day um but yeah um so i like to try and find something each year that i can go and do the last one was the backyard ultra timing of it i really wanted to do it and i really wanted to do it and be like yep i've got through i've you know i've got a certain amount where i'm not injured and i can crack on with my high rock season and i feel like i did that i ran 100k i definitely you know could have stayed out there but the cost wouldn't have been worth it because I was racing in Maastricht three weeks after.

44:30I then got injured about three days after that by trying to run too soon. I was ironically enough running to the med center for my final medical in the army and I got injured on the way to that run to the med center. So I'm leaving the army with a view of pursuing the sport properly and really put my all into it. And I'm like on the sidelines, I'm racing in that time, but I'm injured and I shouldn't be racing with a hamstring problem. So that's when I'm like, obviously watching everybody just crush it yeah i did uh i did wince when i found out that you was doing the backyard ultra because obviously it's very local to us you know it was in manchester you helped put it on and uh when i heard that your name was on the actual list and i was like oh i i know danny can push hard and that's half the problem like you've got the mental strength i know that you could push and you could have pushed like you say you could have probably pushed to 100 miles easy when i say easy it would have been a grind but like the detriment them things do to your body and how long it puts you out for after yeah i think you've almost got to think and you've got to prioritize one or the other either performance within sports or mental toughness and like resilience and this kind of how long you can go for so it's either how fast you can go or how long you can go for and by adult was definitely sitting there how long you can go for because at the end of the day you don't need to be running fast you just need to be moving not really sleeping and doing it for a hell of a long time yeah and uh and that is what is most taxing on the body um so so yeah i did kind of like just like oh i was like i just hope danny's okay after this and he kind of gets lucky yeah and i think you still probably did get quite lucky because the you know you could have got stress fractures you could have got other things but but like you say the the hamstring uh tendinopathy that came from that was a little bit of a problem for for this upcoming season that you erased going back would you would you have still done it would you have changed anything um yeah i probably would have like maybe not ran so soon um i wouldn't have raced in maastricht three weeks after um and it was so hard to like i was when i went to hamburg i knew that i had this hamstring problem because afterwards i was like it was so much worse i was limping afterwards i probably shouldn't have raced in hamburg either but for my first elite major doubles may just get invited to it i couldn't say no yeah it's hard to do that um so yeah probably if i could go back maybe just not have done the backyard ultra to to be honest um i don't know what i got from that outweighs the the but it's a at the time it's kind of like a risk you yeah but do it or you don't yeah and if you didn't do it you'd never find out like one how far you can push yourself yeah but two like you never knew if you'd come up with an injury or not like it's kind of one of the things like yeah it's a lesson learned from and we had the discussion before you was like oh well like i still want to do all that stuff yeah maybe it's just a little bit later in my career yeah after i'm done scratching the stitch with hyrox and i think that's a cool way to look at it that like your fitness journey doesn't have to be like everything at once it can be kind of like focus on this now focus on harrick now then let's transition onto other things and i think that's what we're like the the best athletes actually do the best is is when they're they're focusing on one thing and they're moving on to the pretty hippo what's it what's the word hypocritical of me i don't know just focusing on marathons and high rocks but uh it's harder isn't it because like we were saying before you know um it gives you so much credibility when you don't pigeonhole yourself into one thing because people are like wow you know he can do it all but then in the same light like if you want to get really really really good at something like you know it's a hard choice isn't it to make to go all right maybe i won't do that i won't do this but i'll stick to this yeah to go all in and that's the decision i've made quite recently like after the marathon i've said i need to get back into the elite 15 solos and my full focus is high rocks from now on um what are your goals for for the future um obviously mentioned there you had your first uh race in the elite 15 yeah how did that go and is that kind of like a goal for you in the future yeah 100 i am like i genuinely genuinely mean it i know it's easier like to sit here and say it but i know if i never got injured me and liam would have raced at the next major and maybe raced at the next major um you know we make we make a great pair we'd raced well um there was a pair that qualified in melbourne i think there's a couple of pairs that qualified to me and liam have you know we've we've beat on the day before so like we've definitely got the potential to do it um liam's a great guy as well he's unbelievable such a such a great like humble guy and an amazing athlete and so like disciplined and dedicated as well um so yeah like i you know i've got the t-shirts hanging up in in my wardrobe i still look at them and I watch all the races I keep up to date with what all the other athletes are doing and um like I feel like I need to prove like my worth to my own to my own self like for like for my own sort of like confidence but that's that's I want I want more of that I want to race I want to race in the elites I want to get back on that curve and keep improving um so yeah it is literally all on me so that's the goal yeah that's a good thing the the only hard thing about that is it's all on you but no matter how much you improve everyone else is improving as well and that's like the reality yeah and kind of like the the tough thing about hyrox at the moment but uh but it's good and it keeps us all motivated to do better and better that's pretty cool um other than that have you got any other goals like outside of fitness maybe other sports like you say um i know that you've just um you've just opened up a gym yeah how's that been yeah it's good um um so like i'm actively thinking what is it that you know is going to be my thing in maybe five ten years time when maybe i slow down and these aren't working so we've like we're trying to tap into the event space and run really good endurance events we've got the backyard ultra coming up next month which we're we're running um obviously it's a great big thing obviously the go on more ultra is happening in america at the minute and i think definitely like some of our successes come from that and the awareness that that's got people want to get involved with ours um so we're going gonna have 500 people on the start line next month for that um so just keep growing that space um part of me and my identity like a bit of me is missing from the military so like i'm even exploring going into the reserves to keep my foot in the door there so so when did you leave you left in september i left in handed my uniform in in september i was out in january and now it's april it's april and you're getting the age to go back yeah it's um it's like i know we've obviously spoke a lot about the military in this and i know that literally is apart from high rocks also a massive part of my identity um it's just a weird feeling like you're in the army for 12 years you get to sergeant danny ray and then all of a sudden it's like yeah it's gone like job title's gone your skill set all the skills that you learned over the years you don't need to use those anymore and it's like maybe i can do i always did say to my audience as well like when i've sussed out what my time looks like then i'll look at going into the reserves and now i'm getting to that point now where or only after three months only after three months i'm like right i think i can actually commit some time to the reserves and you know still be able to add value um into that and also keep my foot in the door so yeah i'm training i'm training full time uh i want to run sick endurance events um and yeah i also wouldn't mind a little bit of uh army uniform back on again i've not actually told anybody that so yeah you heard it here first yeah what's it like transitioning to out the army to train full-time like have you noticed obviously you got more time on your hands yeah have you noticed like any improvements um or is it not the reality like people think oh if i quit my job i could be a professional athlete like i have all the time in the world to train then right now i only have an hour to train and i've got to this point um how have you found it so that was you know that was exactly my train of thought i was like if i can do this and you know i'm having to squeeze sessions in at this time at night and this time in the morning and i'm sleeping in the field and i'm not eating the right food like this will be easy when i get out but i don't think that is the reality um i found it really hard to work out how to manage my time it's got to the point now where i block out times in my calendar i'm like that is when i'm training but when i go to train i'm still thinking about something else that I've got to do some of a commitment whether it's like a social media thing or a business thing or an email that I've received in the morning that I need to respond to like little things like that um so I feel like I haven't mentally switched off to going I'm absolutely all in and it hasn't really materialized like that I'm training and I'm recovering um but it wasn't what I was visualizing when I left the military which to be fair I think I need to kind of like I can't keep all my eggs into one basket because the levels are so good and if it turns out in a year's time that I'm just way off the curve, then at least I've kept some of the plates spinning in the background.

54:13But yeah, it's getting to the point now where like I'm bricking my phone so no one can contact me so I can just focus on to training. And then once my training is done, then I can switch fire onto the next thing and focus on that. But like the reality of it is, I thought I'd leave the military and I'd be putting together 25 hour training weeks, but that isn't the case. I don't even know if I could put those sorts of training weeks together with everything else. um what are you doing what's training looking like at the moment so i would say i average between two to three hours per day um if i was to follow my program by the book to the letter it's about 12 and a half hours that i'm programmed to me but then i supplement that with extra stuff and on a good week for me is like 15 hours of training um and like i'm happy with that at the minute because in the army i was averaging seven sometimes it would be three hours in a week and sometimes it'd be a little bit more but i looked on my strada and i averaged seven hours per week of training for a good couple of years so for me to go from that to like you know anywhere between 12 to 15 is a huge win for me um and that's sort of like what feels like a good number for me at the minute it's really like good quality sessions as well so um i'm like navigating this space where i don't really know what to call myself i've left the army am i a full-time athlete am i an influencer am i a businessman i honestly i feel like this year's gonna be really important for me and i'll be able to sort of work out what it is that i actually do what i want to do is be a full-time athlete and just you know be really great at high rocks um and i hope that materializes but at the minute i go for an identity thing a minute i don't know what to call myself probably like a hybrid fitness athlete influencer type thing ex-military wants to join back up again nah i love that uh if If I was to define you, I think you get paid full-time to be an athlete.

56:06Yes. From your sponsors. And that's the definition of a professional athlete. If you look at it by the book, if you can make your full-time wage off being paid, whether it's through prize money or whether it's through sponsorship, you're a professional athlete. Now, what I'd also say is every athlete has influence. So I feel like when people say, oh, are you an influencer or an athlete? like they kind of like the same thing like you're you're an influencer within the athlete space because like say everyone has influence um but i think it's cool that you've you've got all these different things and you're not you're just being yourself like you've chose what you want to do and you're like yeah i'm gonna go do that like you have an interest in creating events so other people can have a good time and that's your way of like sharing the knowledge and giving the experience that you've had and passing it on to them it's pretty cool yeah no honestly I think I needed to hear that piece about an athlete with influence because like I say it was like I wake up in the morning I don't know what I am today am I the influencer Danny am I athlete Danny so and I know what it is that I want to be and that's that's that's what that's what I'll strive for and I'll get to with that like how have you found starting YouTube obviously you've been doing it for quite a while now um but have you found like doing that you've kind of transitioned because i remember first watching your videos and they were great by the way but you edited them all yourself yeah and now you've took on a full-time videographer yeah um do you still have a touch on kind of like the editing and stuff like that or how does that work i love youtube um like it's my favorite platform and um like obviously i come from good stock in the youtube space because molly started it years ago and hers is just like you know normal day-to-day vlogging and then zoe does it and i watch zoe's i'm like zoe is so good at youtube um and i just kind of like emulate that style there's no real set agenda i'll pick up the camera and i go training and that is it um but then having watched like your youtube and i watch uh hunter mcintyre like you two that i think i came up on youtube the other day for my 2025 roundup who i watched the most and it was you guys um i love i love both of your styles but i brought josh in to try and like help better help me make better youtube so it's more watchable um but i like to do a bit of both so sometimes i still I still film a video and I still edit it um but if I'm going away and racing then I'll sort of like hand it off to Josh and it's nice seeing a difference but the feedback I'm getting at the minute is people are like every time Josh makes me a video they're like oh I love this video so much the music was great the editing was great so maybe like I'm just gonna like slowly go away from what I do and just let Josh do all of it I think I think it's good to have balance yeah you don't understand how many vlogs I try and do I'm so lucky I've got Tom there and but like i'll say this week tom you're not with me i'm going away to train or whatever i'm on my own i'm gonna vlog all this week yeah and i maybe do a little bit of vlogging monday tuesday i forget my camera yeah wednesday i'm out in public or whatever i'm like oh i can't do this like i i don't know about that overwhelmed feeling where you're like i can't speak to a camera like it's mad in it yeah yeah it's mad i can't just get my camera and start like talking to it so like Like, yeah, it never works.

59:39I think I've done two vlogs, and I think one was the speed projects and then one was the run across Iceland. And I basically just handed off my GoPro to other people and said, look, use that. Take some videos on that and stuff like that. And then I still then get it all together and then send it to him anyway for him to edit. So yeah, I'd be hopeless without Tom. But yeah, watching your YouTube, it's it's pretty sick and let's say I think it's very relatable as well which I think people like I um I was watching I watched your what I eat in a day I was thinking about this earlier on because um I remember when I put out like a what I eat in a day style video and I thought oh I was overthinking it a little bit like am I eating the right stuff like everything everything's different to other people and I watched another athlete in the space and I watched his what I eat in a day and i'm like i've got it so wrong like you know this guy's got like 17 different colors on his plates and all this kind of stuff and then i watched yours and it brought me back down to just like yeah you're just eating like normal food normal foods and when you made a bowl of cocoa pops fantastic that's me that's me for all my sessions like jake's doing it i'm doing it as well now that's so funny you mentioned that because we went through the same process and like i'm second guessing myself when we video and i'm like do should i should i show that i'm having this should i show that i'm like because like people like i'm just scared of like looking like an idiot but like it is what we eat like i like to eat cocoa pops yeah and like when i've been to like nutritionists in the past they all always say the number one thing they say is eat less protein don't care as much about whole foods and get your carbohydrates in no matter what form they are yeah like sugar is the same as rice is the same as potatoes like yes there are complex carbs and are simple carbs but like when it comes to training it doesn't really matter whether you have complex carbs or simple carbs beforehand yeah so just eat whatever you eat yeah i was asking the questions like with my nutritionist like should i be having sugar in my coffee or should i be putting honey in my coffee like down to this extent because i thought honey oh it's it's natural yeah For some reason, if you put tablespoons of sugar onto your Greek yogurt, you'd look like a psychopath.

1:02:01If you put honey on your Greek yogurt, you're a hero. You're this healthy expert. And I've got to explain that. It's exactly the same. Don't worry. It's fine. So after posting that, I've kind of relaxed on what I eat a little bit. And it's definitely made this difference. Like I'm not saying it's all down to this, but I get injured a lot less. I eat more and I focus on eating before, during training and then right after training. And you're kind of just generally happier because you're not stressing about food as much. I've like, from doing the sport and like training properly, I've like learned so much about nutrition and how like my body responds to different things over time.

1:02:49And I always used to think like, I need to be tracking everything. I don't want to be having, you know, too much of this because I want to gain too much weight. And I was probably under fueling and I felt it in my training. But now, like, I'm literally eating to fuel every session. And the only reason I track is to make sure that I'm having enough, you know, enough sugar, enough carbohydrates.

1:03:10And yeah, it's just like watching, seeing your YouTube and like I watch Hunter McIntyre's YouTube and it's like, he's telling people like you need to be having more sugar. And some of the people think that it's so unhealthy, but you genuinely need sugar to fuel performance. as Zoe said to me the other day right and I'm quite embarrassed about it but I got some Curiously cinnamon cereal low residue breaks down quick nice simple carbs I started putting honey on it and she was like Danny why are you putting so much honey on this I'm gonna go and do some like threshold running at the track I don't want to be having a big heavy meal I just need sugar and I know it's giving you the ick right now but that is gonna fuel me for this session um so yeah you just you just know what works it's funny because like people will see you doing that and then they'd see someone having like avocado and eggs on toast and they'd think the healthier option and it might may be the healthier option from like a micronutrient point of view yeah but for performance and for getting the energy in that you need for the session that you're about to do like what you're eating is bang on the money i i know talking about hunter i think he has uh peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ideal ideal yeah there's a there's a lot of americans that are doing that like yeah that are great uh in the space so it's um it's obviously working i think we should all switch to that um but uh no foods foods are really interesting one and i don't know about you but like when when you do focus on eating whole foods and stuff like that and being like really really healthy you probably do under fuel but in results of that your sessions aren't as good but you do kind of look better and yeah as an athlete especially one that's like like you say you're posting on youtube social media and stuff like that like you've you've got an image and you've got to look good as well as perform yeah and it's very hard when they they kind of counter to like counteract with each other like well they oppose each other in a way yeah um definitely uh eating for performance you're going to be in a slight surplus you're going to have a little bit excess fat whereas like eating healthier and uh maybe a little bit less you're going to look a little bit better so it's kind of like a trade-off did you find that 100 right so obviously got the emails to race in hamburg and the elite doubles i'm like wow you know i need to look good for this i think i raced in maastricht three weeks beforehand and i was watching videos of me um like resting having a gel um on the rower and i'm looking at and i'm like i'm not happy with my body image there like i've raced great that day to be fair bearing in mind i had tendinopathy but i wasn't happy with how i looked and i'll i'd admit that and i'll even you know admit that as someone that was aspiring to be like at the elite level I you know went against everything that I knew about nutrition and I was an under-fueled athlete on the start line in Hamburg purely because I wanted to look like an athlete I didn't perform like an athlete um because I wanted to look like it and it just the two things that didn't really go hand in hand you know I was eating foods because I wanted to be light on the start line and I wanted to look trim um whereas now like i've learned like i've learned the lesson um like i'm happy with where i am from a weight standpoint now and i know what i need to do to fuel myself and i'll never put myself in a position again where i go on the start line under fueled like even this week like i'm checking myself on the scales like yeah i'm a happy sort of race weight i need to make sure i'm well fueled when i hit the start line on friday i'm not doing any sort of like silly business of like you know trying to have less carbs during the start of the week i want to be fueled when i when i'm on the start line um and i've made that mistake before and uh yeah not good no it it is very important that you put across that point because there's so many people that are probably listening that like relate to that um moving on i get this question asked all the time and i think this is one that you could answer if someone is trying to grow their socials but also be an athlete like how would you go about it because it's harder than to me anyway it's harder than what it looks like um yeah so i'm just trying to think like i i like I recognize that my association with Zoe and Molly has definitely been like a bit of a catalyst but ultimately I could have stayed private forever and never had a single follower and that's what I had before but I think like credibility buys you freedom and if you've experienced tough things and you know you've gone out there and you've put your head above the parapet to go and do competitions and try and learn something so you can pass that information on somebody else I think that's really important then obviously comes like the execution of it like you know Instagram looks all nice and clean and aesthetic and there's some continuity in there so you know like just basic social media skills in that angle but it really is about like the person and what that person can bring um to an audience so my angle you know I had a narrative I was in the military but i was also trying to train to become really good in high rock so straight away is a nice little angle for someone there so i say the main thing is like have a have a good solid narrative which makes you relatable to that person yeah do you prefer longer form content so let's say youtube or do you prefer like instagram i i prefer youtube as a platform um and when it comes to uploading content onto instagram i love taking a segment from my youtube which sort of you know just encapsulates a whole moment like a whole moment so for me like a memorable one for me is like posting a 30 second segment of me finishing warbles and crossing the line my first race post injury like i love that um but then people like zoe who's much more successful on social media than me she loves posting is that long form when you go that way or short portrait portrait so long form uh short forms like instagram where it's like 60 seconds max right and then long form is like longer content so like in terms of duration so it might be 15 minutes or 30 minutes i'm learning something on the job i'm learning on the job here and then you've got you've got landscape yeah which is what youtube shot in yeah and then you've got portrait right got tom with his head in his hands over there i love short form then I love short form yeah yeah I like something yeah no something that sort of like tells the whole story but in like a short little segment I feel like that that does successful for me and you might be able to like know what does well for you like I put all this effort into a post and maybe I'm trying to get out some like information out there and it's just like no one sees it but then I go and do a park run and I get a good time and like everyone's buzzing about it yeah it's mad yeah that that is one I think it's just running at the moment it's so like in and i think it's here to stay i think um it's so good how many people are running like i'd say probably like 50 percent of people are running yeah i don't know if there's a statistic but like out of people the population i reckon 50 percent of people are running i'm driving around you know and just seeing people on their long runs every weekend lead up to marathon it's like crazy yeah it's sick obviously we've got manchester marathon um emily and zoe are both running it yes yeah what's emily's target time uh completion completion great yeah but without well i've put this target on her she don't know this yet but without stopping at all nice so like completion just running what about zoe um this is again we're in the same boat here i put a target on on cesare a couple of months ago but um she's gonna try and go for a for a sub four nice um she's been training she's been training more for this one than what she did for london so yeah hopefully hopefully all goes well for her yeah no that's cool that's uh that's really cool um but no i i love that i i i thought sticking on kind of the social media point um i thought you'd like like youtube a lot more ah right because you'd come across i don't know you you explain stuff very well on youtube and i think it just the kind of person that you are you're not kind of like trying to squeeze this into like 30 seconds you're like ah i'll explain it over time i think that's more valuable as well to to anyone like if you can get someone watching youtube yeah i think it's 10 times more valuable than someone watching just a 15 second clip of you and they're more engaged and they're more like they're watching because of you yeah so i think that's where yeah when it comes to like uploading content that's why i enjoy youtube more um It's funny, right?

1:12:13Because I don't think I know loads about like health and fitness and nutrition and training. That's what I think about myself. Cause I know there's other people out there that know more, but it's so easy to like assume knowledge of everybody else and think what I understand and know is, you know, nothing to somebody else. But I tried to explain things on YouTube and like the simplest terms possible about, you know, how they were taught to me whilst I was in the military or from the experiences that I've got um and I think I think it helps um but like I say I think I'm talking about stuff that everyone knows about but really people genuinely are interested and they want to know like the absolute most basic information you know what to eat when to eat what shoes to wear you know how to train what their running sessions should look like and all that kind of thing so I think I get more of a kick out of YouTube 100 % yeah no that's cool that's cool um have you got any pieces of advice for someone who's looking at starting or joining the army yeah um so i would definitely have a look at all the different options that there are um Um, do your research, you know, where are regiments based geographically?

1:13:34Um, what are they up to? What do they do? What do they specialize in? And it can, you can, you can join the army for many different reasons. You know, it might just be for stability and security. It might be because you want to go and learn a skill or learn a trade, or it might be because you just want to travel the world and you're not too precious about it. So definitely go and understand. Do you think you need a reason for joining i think i think rather than just like a means to an end no i think i think basic training is hard enough that you definitely need to have a bit of a why as to why you're doing it um you know the army is big there we you know there's no discrimination against who it is we recruit the you know obviously the army is legally able to discriminate against maybe like ages and disabilities because it has to um but doesn't care where you come from and what your background is so it's not like impossible to get into it with that said it is challenging so you do need to have a bit of a why to get into the military and no wallet is you you want to get out of it like i just loved the army and i wanted to be a soldier i wanted to put uniform on and fire rifles and travel the world and that's a strong enough why um some people you know they don't have much of an education don't really know what it is they want to do from life but they want security and stability that's enough of a that's enough of a why i think um but yeah don't worry too much about trying to be the fittest you can possibly to go there if you want to join a regiment that has better fitness standards then of course but the army will make you fit like you'll get fit in the army if you want to be fit the resources are there so don't get too bent out of shape about trying to be really fit to go and join the army because you see that a lot people message me like Like I need to get fit because I want to go and, you know, I want to join the army.

1:15:26Love the sentiment and fully appreciate that. But just go, go and do selection, then let the army make you fit. That's cool. What about recovery methods? Yes. Moving on to kind of like training and stuff like that. Like what are the best top rated recovery methods personally for you? Sleep for me, right? is that like i know we will talk about how game changing sleep is not like it's a game change we should all be doing it properly but i know if i've not had enough sleep because i don't feel great in training the next day or maybe have a knock-on effect to the next couple of days and it's like just simple things like sleep hygiene i was using my phone until 10 o 'clock at night and expecting to put my phone down and go straight to sleep but i'm not sleeping for you know until 11 half 11 midnight because my brain's overstimulated because i've been doom scrolling on my phone or watching other stuff on youtube so i've been bricking my phone which completely shuts it down from all these apps what is this brick and you've mentioned it twice i'm a dinosaur what is it brick is this little device which you put out of reach in your house you then scan it with your phone and it will block certain apps that you want it to block so for me when i you call it bricking but let's say when i scan this device it blocks whatsapp instagram youtube all this kind of different stuff that you would normally get you know if you're that way inclined you'd get stuck sort of scrolling and consuming other people's content if you don't want to do that on an evening because you want to sleep well which is what i do at the minute i break my phone about eight nine o 'clock in the evening put my phone down to one side and then i have the best night's sleep ever and i've noticed like my training and like my general productivity productivity in the day is so much better i looked at garmin again like looking at data and i'm averaging um seven and a half hours sleep um for months and it was showing me what i needed to be having and what i was having and there was like a huge gap for weeks and i i was like why am i always tired yeah i get it i'm training full-time but i just feel fatigued all the time how's everyone else training so much um and it's just i had poor sleep hygiene i then start bricking my phone i'm getting eight and a half hours sleep every night and that for me i like i felt like a new man i couldn't believe it i kept buzzing around to zoe's like zoe i can't wait to brick my phone i'm bricking my phone and i'm gonna be training tomorrow um can you not just turn it off I know.

1:17:44This is it. Just turn your phone. Or I'm throwing out the window or something. I know. That's literally what I should do. But I think it's like having a coach, this brick. It's just, to me, it's highlighted. So what is it? Is it like a brand? It's called brick. Brick is called the brand. Yeah. Sorry. I probably not explained it very well. And it's just like. The device is a small square, magnetic square, which you put out of place in your house somewhere. So I've got mine on the extractor fan above the oven. Yeah. I just go up to it, scan it, my phone. It says, are you ready to brick? Yeah. scan Bosch phone see you later but if someone calls me they can still get through to me all right okay because I'm only blocking certain things um so yeah a long way of saying like we all talk about sleep but like you know for some people how do you sleep well like why are you not sleeping well maybe look at your things like your screen time and your phone because the phone for me once I've stopped using it on the night time I'm sleeping eight and a half hours and for someone that hasn't got kids you know i should be getting that like anyway yeah do you know what i mean so yeah that's been a big big thing for me yeah maybe i need to start doing that how are you on your phone are you all right uh i think my my screen time is probably gonna be quite a lot but uh yeah i'm hard to get hold of okay so that's a good thing these guys in the room are all i'll say that yeah uh really hard to get hold of but uh i don't know i i go through emotions like it depends if i've got something on my mind that i need to do whether it's instagram or whether it's putting on a post or whatever then i'll i'll sit on my phone or if i'm like if i need if i'm texting someone um then i'll just be on it all night but i'm not like i don't think i'm scrolling too much unless it's like stupid stuff that i'm sending to people i do like to send i think i've sent you a couple but uh yeah uh yeah i like to send memes to people no mate we all love a meme yeah um but no yeah like more offensive the better yeah um i even like brick gym sessions and i found i wasn't scrolling just whatsapp whatsapp is that's that's that's the app yeah yeah just talking to people yeah exactly about double threshold days on whatsapp of people and i know who was having that discussion before like uh i think we're both alike in this regard that we love to think about fitness yeah about our training and think about and sometimes it can be a nightmare because you're absent from a conversation or you're not present and it's because you're thinking about fucking warballs or like uh doing warball should i say do you ever find yourself having a conversation with like your better half and saying like sorry no we will move up the conversation on in a minute but just going back to that high rocks that did the other day or just going back to that training session i felt so good doing that it's like you have to apologize because you know that you're just constantly talking about fitness and training yeah i think it's hard because you you want like you you want to be not talking about yourself but you end up talking about yourself yeah and that's the thing that you've got to be more careful of like i don't know that's like i think that's why i constantly apologize to zoe's because when me and Zoe first met, she said like, you know, it's so bad when people constantly talk about themselves.

1:20:57So I like actively refrained from doing about that. But I just want to talk about, you know, the run or the training. Is training alone? I think it is. I think that's what it is. Like when you're in your own head, so much of the time, whether it's training fire rocks, like triathletes you see are quite bad for it. And like people that are doing these long sports because they're in their own head all the time, they then get home and they can't wait to tell their other half or their friends about what they've been thinking about or what they've been doing. And it's like that main character syndrome, just kind of you get infected with it almost.

1:21:33Yeah. So you've got to tell everybody on Instagram about it, everyone on YouTube, and then you've got to go home and tell your family all about it. And no one gives a shit at all. And no one does. But yeah, moving back on to recovery methods. So we've got sleep. What else? What else do you rate? Because there's some things that people can either take i'll leave um so like i say sleep is like a big game changer for me what i've been finding there's a sauna helps just like increasing that blood flow um like i don't like to say i train a lot but i'm not i'm not getting hours and hours of like you know i'm spinning my legs out for a bit recovery i just love you know 15 20 minutes in a sauna i find really helpful for me you're doing that often yeah i'd say most days yeah i finish a session and go up 10 15 minutes have you got a sauna in your gym yeah yeah so yeah um i do it straight after a session as well because i've heard i've heard there's benefits to that yeah um i'm not like i i don't think i understand heat acclimation enough but when it comes to like say like chicago and when it comes to stockholm that's when i'll really i think get into that kind of thing with the sauna um assisted stretching so So I do a bit of stretching myself.

1:22:45I know I'm not doing anywhere near enough as what I should be doing. And we all, I think most athletes probably do say the same thing. Like, yeah, we know we need to be stretching more. So to mitigate that, I go to do assisted stretching once per week with like an actual instructor, which I find is great. Is it like very passive or is it more like, I don't know if you've ever read Tom Brady's book, TB12? no but it goes on about uh like the the original playability right so there's two things there's a playability that is an app yeah uh which they're like a stretching app and then there's playability where um basically someone's applying pressure and you're moving that muscle yes moving that joint yeah is it kind of like that or is it like passive say they're just lifting up your leg so you're stretching your hamstring they're both they're both yeah so i have to like apply pressure pnf stretching exactly that yeah um so it was something i used to do pre-injury i stopped doing it when i got injured and now i do it like every week um and i like walk in like at the minute i'm a bit banged up from doing that deadly dozen at the weekend um but when i go to when i walk in i walk out and i just feel like like floating in a way it's really bizarre but um yeah i find that really helps you find that better than massage i do a bit of both um do you know what it is with massage like i always feel better afterwards but it's hard to i i don't i don't know if like a couple of days on i've how much i've benefited from that because i think i have them quite often so obviously if i'm having them often obviously i believe in them um but like yeah general recovery i think i use a massage if i've got like an area of tightness that needs a lot of addressing and i get it quite often in my right hand side and that always helps so there's obviously a lot of benefit in that but like general like muscle fatigue i don't know it's hard to tell isn't it i think i don't know i'm always like either really for a massage or like i don't know if it works but like uh i feel like the more you have massage the more you need it yeah yeah almost yeah but it does feel good and it's kind of like an hour in the day where you feel like you're doing something good uh-huh like say if it's a rest day yeah if i go for a massage i'm like ah i've done something here whereas i just feel like a bum if i've not done anything no yeah so so like that's the thing but uh let's say like if i think you've got to be careful as well because like obviously the whole point with the massage is they're releasing muscles but the problem is muscles tighten for a reason so if you're not addressing the reason why they're getting tired and you're just releasing them and that's going to happen more and more or potentially you're going to get injured because your muscles then going to go into a range that it's not comfortable with and then you get injured so like there's been a couple of times where i've actually had a massage and i've got injured the next day um but i don't know that's probably just me and my fragile bones and body i feel like i get injured all the time so is that like what with with your coach john like i've obviously watched youtube and he notices like little movements doesn't he is that basically what he's saying like you know yeah i feel much better of doing like almost like physio and massage with movement yeah so if something's tight i will release it and then i'll address the issue that caused that so say for example if my hip flex is tight because it's been overworking then we will release the hip flexor but then we'll strengthen the glutes on the opposing side and we'll work them um or we'll lengthen and strengthen the hip flexor in a range so then it doesn't tighten up again and we'll kind of work with that that's why it's good working with john because he knows all that stuff um and he he'll just watch me squat and he'll know exactly what's tight and what's not tight and then we'll be able to address it if i'm in any pain we address it and then i get through my session pain free and then i'm then not causing like further damage so it's always good working with someone in person that knows the shit it's interesting isn't it like you as an athlete you do invest in different things it's like a bit of a layered approach isn't it it's not like a one size fits all or it's not like you know i'm just gonna have good sleep and that's it or i'm gonna put my recovery boots on and that's it it's like different little things isn't it to keep yourself injury free and make those marginal gains um have you you've been to the institute haven't your manchester institute yeah it's pretty sick there it's such a cool setup like incredible um you know i went there i did some like running analysis but then i did like biomechanics and then did some like maximal tests did you do it with chris no yes he's great yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah chris is amazing i think he works with a lot of runners and a lot of like pro yeah athletes but uh yeah he's a really good guy yeah really really knowledgeable as well um but like even that just found it so insightful and then you know you start noticing little imbalances and little areas and it shows like you know if you don't rectify this you know don't do some plyometrics or um some isometrics here you're gonna potentially get injured here so like it's like constantly layering all these different things to to stay in the game it's interesting yeah it's like problem solving on like a daily basis and just keeping the maintenance it's like maintaining a car like yeah that's exactly how it is um what car are you just like some banged up fucking volkswagen or something i'm for you i'm like a car that's like it's like it does the job it's not overly good at anything it's like it's all right at that it's all right at that but it's a little bit shit at that so i don't know volkswagen polo or something there we go i like driving a volkswagen polo it's reliable but it's not like anything special you know yeah german though yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah would you class yourself as german no no no have it you know if i was a professional footballer i could have played for scotland england or germany that's quite spoiled in that regard yeah there we go whoever whoever wants me can have me there we go i feel like that's still like a goal of yours football would you think you'll ever go back oh do you miss it do you do ever mate i miss football more than anything We walk our dog round, basically some 3G AstroTurf and it's like a couple of football pitches.

1:29:07And I see like people playing there every single day. And I'm just like, me and Emily are having a conversation and she'll be blabbing on about something. And my head's just like this, watching someone take a free kick or something. I miss it so much. I just wish I could go play. How many people in the High Rock space at a good level have probably said goodbye to football to do Hirox and that have probably played at a really good level. Oh, let's be honest. Hirox is just full of failed athletes. Hirox is just a failed athlete sport at the end of the day. And it can only be that because it's not been around long enough for people to train just for Hirox, if you think about it.

1:29:49So no one's been in it long enough. So everyone's come from other sports, but there's quite a few people. I know Jake Williamson. Yeah. Liam McCrory Liam McCrory Sadiq yeah I think Sean played a bit Sean Noble maybe we should just get a football team going in the off season like baller league style there we go a bit of FIFA street yeah yeah that'd be cool we should do like a High Rocks Elite 15 11 a side Kieran Parkinson says he's a good left back so yeah oh we'll just do 5 a side if we I don't know I think there's too many Americans in the in the elite 15 so we won't get a full 11 strong we've gone from recovery to uh high rocks playing playing football sorry that's my bad but there we go so you've got sentiment have we got any goalkeepers oh yes uh luke greer is he a goalie yeah he was a goalie which i was mind blown i listened to a podcast with him uh and he was talking about how he does like cross country and he was the fittest on his team and then he said he was a goalie which I remember every goalie being the most unfit person I'd ever met.

1:31:02We're getting somewhere then. We're literally getting somewhere. Yeah. We could make a full team. I think I'd be centre-back. Centre-back, yeah. Yeah. Shite at anything else. Who's the talisman? Who's banging him in? Who's putting him in the onion bag? I think you'd just have Sean Noble just because he's Irish and he's aggressive. Just everywhere. Yeah. I think he'd definitely kick off. You just need a nuisance, don't you? Yeah. like a bulldog yeah yeah and I think he'd he'd be that guy yeah okay yeah Jake Williamson I don't know where he played he strikes me as a winger yeah yeah step overs couple of nutmegs yeah you we could have Charlie Botterell with you in the centre yeah so what he's like the engine I think he yeah he's just a dog he'd just run for everyone yeah yeah and then legs as well that he's got just box to box all day yeah well there we go we've got a team sorted um have you got like any secret things that you do like if you say what's your secret is there anything that you do that like people either think that you're weird for you think this this is the thing that works and makes you a better athlete oh the secret um

1:32:19do you know what it is right like my motto i say my motto well stole it from my time in the army but I always just say like basics done well um and I do just like really basic sessions and I make sure I'm like they're good quality if they ain't good quality I'll like I'll know about it um but maybe like a secret is you know how also this is this is not really going to help anyone be a better athlete but I want people to understand that it's not easy to you know we're not just riding this wave of like I'm getting up at this time I'm training at this time like it is a bit of a challenge sometimes and I think it's worth noting for people that might be watching it that I'm not like this well-oiled robot that can get up at half seven, sorry, whatever time it is, go to the gym at this time, train at this time, leave at this time.

1:33:00I'm napping at this time. I've got my second session this time. I'm having my electrolytes here. Like it isn't really like that. Some days I'm really like, you know, I had a day on Friday and I was really like, you know, I know I'm going to go and do this session, but it's requiring a lot of me to mentally get myself there. And I think it's important to know that a lot of us probably have these days but we don't really tell people about them but this is me telling you now that is a bit of like a you know it is a bit of a thing that i'm not going to go and sort of like highlight to everybody but you could call it a secret but we're all going through it definitely 100 yeah i think the just getting it done though yeah that's it that's i said sorry like i know i'm gonna do it yeah i'm getting it done it's taken me an hour more than what i should have done to go and get it done but i'm having one of those days but i am gonna go and get it done i love that because uh like say everyone has them days where they can't be asked yeah like everyone so the fact that you're still going getting it done i think it is the main thing um yeah i'd probably say mine is just like being in tune with my body and knowing when to take a rest day yeah i think i'm i'm a bit of a one for like over training and like when i feel good i go for it yeah like i'll i'll do an extra session here when i feel good but then three days later i'm fucked yeah yeah and sometimes just knowing to take a rest day and not like being able to adapt to your program like if your program says you've got to go and do this thing like just analyze it and analyze your body and how you're feeling before you go and do that session if you're going if you've got a hard session or a hard day on the cards in terms of training but you're not feeling up to it then either take it a little bit easier and hit it hard tomorrow or potentially just have to take a rest day when you need it because i've done it too many times where i've just fuck it i'll just go hard again or i'll just do whatever my training says and then you you get a bit of an eagle or you you regret it later down the line because you're just like delaying that fatigue i think that's like so important as well like to be in tune with your body and and also So like be okay with change as well.

1:35:10Like I know exactly how you feel. Like I've done it before where I'm feeling great today. I'm going to do an extra hour of this or maybe I'm going to do an extra interval. But then the knock-on effect of that maybe a couple of days down the line, but being okay with actually like, do you know what? Maybe I've not eaten the right thing. I've not slept where I've got a bit of a niggle. The risk versus reward here is like, it doesn't outweigh the reward. I'm not going to get a great deal from it. And the risk is I could get injured. So guess what? You know, maybe I'm going to take it a little bit easier, but I am going to do this session, but maybe tomorrow when i'm feeling a bit better type thing obviously you don't want to happen all the time and i'm sure we're both in the same boat where it probably doesn't happen too much but the important thing is it does happen and you have to be adaptable and be able to change yeah man rest days give me motivation more motivation than anything before yeah because i'm like fuck me like i can't be doing with another day like that like i'm so addicted to training like give me one rest day i'm not like i never want to have one of them again so i'm like I'm training hard the next day and I'm going for it.

1:36:06But I was speaking to Alfie at the weekend and he just said something to me and it kind of stuck with me. Alfie Manthorpe this is. And he was like, it's scary how fit you can get by doing less. And it just stood with me. It's like, ah, like playing on that line where you've got a line of like overtrained and just constantly being below it. It doesn't matter if you're a little bit more below it. Like you're not right up against that line. You're a little bit more, but you're progressing so much more than if you was to spend so close to that line and then go above it every so often because you you kind of overdo it like and then you get injured or you get too tired or because before even getting injured or over training there's like this there's this part where you're just fatiguing yourself even more you're not even getting fitter you're just doing sessions for the sake of doing sessions and you're not getting fitter you're just adding more fatigue to the system and you're not going to recover from it so it's kind of like a sweet spot that you need to stay under the line of overtraining and the stimulus so you're still like being able to to train and get that stimulus but yeah it was just interesting that's what he said and yeah I think that's one of his secrets that's a good one because it's like it's so true as well um in the past when I've maybe not had a coach and I've done my own training I've sat there like like a notepad and pen.

1:37:28I'm going, right, this is what I'm going to do this week. And it all looks great on paper, but really it's just way too much. And then you get three or four days in, you ain't getting fitter. I'm just putting myself into the bin and I'm going to get injured. I used to get injured quite a bit before I discovered High Rocks because I used to do my own training and it'd always be too hard and too aggressive and too long. It'd be a workout I've plucked off of Instagram. And that's why I've got someone who knows a lot more than me, who is my coach and holds me to account and makes sure that that doesn't happen.

1:37:57funny enough when i don't have a coach to hold me to account then that's when little things start creeping in because you it's not like we have we have egos maybe i think i'm capable of more but it's never really the case you know you get a week two weeks in and things start to creep in yeah no no it's it is cool um just just having that approach like i say of just taking things back a notch yeah i think it's a good skill to have definitely in terms of nutrition how are you with nutrition and are you cooking yourself you're prepping what's the score with that this has been like a great little learning curve since leaving the army because in the army it's all there for you you can cook yourself or you can go to the cookhouse and it's there on a hot plate so what did you tend to do um in the army go to the hot plate just get a protein you know loads of veg rule of thumb in the army and nutritionists used to say this try and make your plate as colorful as possible so that's what i used to go and do you know there's endless amounts of veg endless amounts of protein so fine um then leaving the military and having to fend for yourself i'm trying to navigate that space and it's like um having meal preps and i would go overboard and meal preps to the point where i'm having a meal prep for lunch having a meal prep for dinner and then you underestimate how important it is just having a home-cooked meal with your partner you know at the dinner table you're watching tv and that's like a key bit of time spent together but from november till say january february you know even until recently i was on meal preps all the time so even like your evening meals yeah like zoe would be having her thing i'd be putting my meal prep in the hob you know i've got i don't know so jerk when's the divorce coming this is it so it was just like you know i really think we should be having you know home cooked meals together and i'm like you know i completely agree like i've got so fixated on nutrition and like scanning barcodes making sure i'm having the right amount of protein carbs fats and like yeah great you know i'm fueled for my sessions but you know like i'm at home now i'm not in the army you know this is like family time so we have like little traditions each week like monday we're having thai green curry but you know i'm getting the same amount of protein and carbs as what i was having with my meal preps and i'm also having a much better time with my wife watching tv so yeah nutrition is like um it was it's been a journey basically to sum that up so what we're saying then what so monday thai green curry yeah what are we going for tuesday tuesday's chili con carne okay um then wednesday's normally like a leftover chili con carne there's normally a nas um and then we're still building out the rest of the week like i say it's a bit of a journey at the minute um but it's a lot better than having meal preps every night i think there's a time and place for having meal preps and that is for someone that is busy you know doesn't have the time maybe and so that's why i keep a few in the fridge i've got i think i have four every week use them as lunches sort of in between training sessions and when i feel like i need something but um have you got better at cooking yeah mexican's my speciality right okay quesadillas yeah so um to be honest though like um i don't want us in any way shape or form to sound misogynistic is probably the right word zoe loves to cook like that's her love language she loves to cook me food so i'm you know that's that's great for me we have a little saying in how she does the cooking i do the cleaning um so yeah i haven't really got better at cooking since leaving um but if we want some quesadillas making you're coming to my house and you're always welcome yeah for the best quesadillas you ever had i'm excited is there any secrets anything you throw in there yeah secret ingredient is Nando's sauce.

1:41:36You love hot sauce. We've just been to Nando's and you have everything hot. Is it a hot sauce? I love it. Anything hot. In your quesadillas? Yeah. I don't think I'll be able to eat it. I'll have to have a kid's one separate. Yeah, we can do just like salsa, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I find it crazy how you have hot stuff. It's every meal. Honestly, it's relentless. Yeah. I grew up eating chicken madras and vindaloo at eight years old. You're mad. I'm on a chicken kama and tikka masala. Really? Tastes good, though. Tastes good. Yeah, it does taste good. To be fair, we never have curry anymore.

1:42:15But yeah, if I was, that's what we'd be going for, I think. A little trick, actually, when you go to the Indian, I like to get a mixed grill. That's what I do. And then just get a sauce on the side. That's what I do, yeah. A bit of lamb bread, you're fine. Then you've got all your macros. All those protein gains. You don't feel bad, though, do you? like all this like lean protein yeah you've got no veg though i don't know if you get a shash leek you have a bit of onion but they don't do much veg do they oh i love it but yeah yeah no i just i just found it interesting like say that that's something that we can relate to uh me and emily like to like to cook and we'll just share it so um either she'll cook or i'll cook um granted she's a better cook than me yeah what's your speciality oh steak i've got i'm gonna say i see steak on your like i barbecue quite a lot yeah i did just because i think cooking steak indoors like it just makes the kitchen very fatty obviously you have the extractive fan on you have that but like uh yeah so i just like to cook outside um what is it you what is it so like how i how i see it is all day we're eating like just sugar like refined sugar whatever it is we're just getting in sugar and at the end of the day that is like your protein time is that is that have i got an accurate assessment of that's why you love steak so much yeah yeah so like uh it's and for me that's been like a massive change because i didn't eat a high protein like whole food diet because i just wanted to be healthy i ate it because i liked it like i'd much prefer a bacon butty over some cereal yeah snap or like uh like when i say bacon butty it's not like it's still like healthy like bacon medallions and shit like that or like uh but i'd much prefer protein options yeah yeah i'd much prefer steak and eggs over toast right i just purely would but that doesn't help with performance so when it gets to an evening i'll just have steak on a barbecue or chicken and then we'll have that with like some rice and greens and then it's a yogurt bowl protein protein yogurt bowl so two scoops of protein uh a tub big tub of greek yogurt yeah and then some berries on top if i'm uh if i've got a big session maybe some granola and that's me for the evening nice what about you have you got any like supper do you have supper or do you like try and cut off your food do you know what right um don't say more cereal more cinnamon twists or whatever what are they called cinnamon cinnamon curiously cinnamon yeah oh no i like to be honest i will i will double tap porridge i love porridge at night i'll have porridge at night wheat abix i have wheat abix at night yeah yeah i love like i'm i I am quite bad for cereal.

1:45:09I do enjoy it. But the thing is, I'll wake up the next morning and I'll have something like super light and then I can go and train and I'm happy. But like I'll have porridge in the morning. I'll even have porridge at night if it's in a shake or if I'm having like actual porridge. Big fun. You're mad. Emily, you like porridge, don't you? Yeah. Just golden syrup sachets. That's sort of, that's where I lean to. Or like just plain rolled oats with a bit of honey. Fair play. For me, I'm just like, I'm scanning it and I'm looking at my fitness power and I'm like right great I've you know I've hit a good amount of carbs today like sort of like you know 400 grams of carbs or something like that I'm happy with that and then the next morning when I get up I have something like super like you know like a banana or something I can train um like I've I've done so many sessions without being too TMI where I've had to stop the session and there's nothing worse for me than having to stop the session because I've got it wrong with the nutrition yeah no no I get you with that um like I said that is an advantage eat the night before and then yeah the morning of you you're not too stressed um moving on what do you see your life like after being an athlete they say you want to be an athlete yeah you're gonna well you are an athlete let's be honest you're a professional athlete but it doesn't last forever so um i've done like fell running done a bit of backyard ultra you know going to do triathlon what i see when you go and do these events and you may have seen the same as it's always like older guys isn't it i do all the guys and girls that just love it and they're still there and they're not in shape either no they just they've all got big bellies yeah and they're all old and they smoke you like you get on that start line you think i'm gonna i'm gonna beat every single person here yeah and you come last they're doing like yeah yeah maybe that's just me on the start line you know to go and do a spine race or go and do the bob graham and like they're always older people that have been around the block they're hard and you know they're weathered and that's like the fitness space that i would love to do and revisit which i've done before um when i'm older i think that's what we need to do i think obviously like you said you're creating a backyard ultra yes you've got 500 people yeah i think you need some old folk in there as well just to like just to show um who's boss 100 yeah i think the record holder was he was at the go one more wasn't he and he was a he looked like an older guy um i might have got that completely wrong but there was someone there who i think got the record for five days and do you think it's just something about like having that hard and mental strength from years and years of suffering i think it's probably a big portion of it and just like you know all the years of endurance that these guys have and like specificity and especially with fell runners like it's such a skill to be able to run down those hills and if they've been doing it for so many years and just constantly acquired more and more and more of it i honestly they blow me away when i when i've when i'm on the fells going for a run and you see like a almost like a herd of like 10 guys you know galloping pasture down the hill and they're moving down that hill at some speed obviously they've got it upstairs but it's just like a skill they've just you know they've learned that craft for so many years it's genuinely like impressive you go to the lake district and you see how some of these guys move over the fells you know you got young nimble people you know i go to the gym every day train leg strength i can't do that i can't run down the hills the way they those guys do incredible so that's what you see yourself doing oh yeah i'm gonna be that old guy you know slick back gray head of hair shades on still wearing a vest might have some gloves on but i'd probably be too hard to wear gloves running up and down the hills yeah inspiring everyone along with me let's go throw that into ai and get a picture of that danny ray in his 60s with his walking poles yeah i think we'll do that uh no that's cool and from like a business point of view yeah i don't know if you're making money off maybe you're winning and you're making shit loads of money off being a six-year-old ultra runner but like do you see yourself like where do you see yourself like as a career yeah so um this is something that me and zoe like actively think think about now um like the fitness ecosystem is such a big beast and i think there's a little bit of space for everybody there if you want it me and zoe would love to have i've got obviously i've got a gym with the red on team in middle which you know we'd love to have 10 gyms but we need to get the first one right first um it's me and zoe have always talked about having a gym um we want to run fitness retreats wellness retreats what that looks like in 10 years time if we've got you know a lovely timeshare somewhere in the algarve where we're inviting people along to come and train you know that's definitely that's something we're exploring at the minute and also like in the event space with with the red on with the red on team we've got it is the biggest backyard ultra in europe at the minute obviously it's a fast growing sport 500 people on the start line you know we're doing them at iconic race courses and what i can say about the guys is when it comes to running events been doing it for years in the army you know hosting big divisional or brigade level events where hundreds of people maybe even to the thousands will come and take part in that event and you plan it for months um so we've got like skin in the game and experience in that and there's no reason why we can't continue to build that if we get it really right um so yeah that's cool thank you Danny no thank you mate honestly I genuinely appreciate it like I said before um since your podcast has started you've had like some incredible athletes come in here so like like I say always imposter syndrome for me is a big thing I'm looking and thinking you know I've uh I've got my work cut out definitely but so genuinely I appreciate you bringing me on um no genuinely you've been a pleasure to chat to and like you say it's cool because we are mates outside of this yeah and let's say we compete together and see each other events all the time we always go for dinner things like that so so it's good to just have a catch-up as always yeah it's good good catch-up i mean we've we've exceeded quite a lot today you know we've got a football team out of this and i know what car you are and you know what car i am so yeah there we go there we go all right thank you danny no Thank you, mate.