From Electrician to Elite HYROX Athlete | Marc Dean | #75

0:00Marc Dean, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me Jake. How have we been this morning? You trained? Good, trained this morning yeah. I did wake up a little bit more fatigued than anticipated so that session had to get cut short a little bit but we had a good session nonetheless. You are one of my most requested people. Really? Yeah whenever I ask my Instagram your name comes up more than anyone. I feel privileged that I'm number 60, I'm 60th on the list. I am actually with the podcast. I know you have to, you have yeah. It's always been me what's been too busy. I'm a man of demand sometimes Jake well you are for the people that may not know who you are would you just be able to sum yourself up yeah so for anybody that doesn't know who I am I am a dad of four soon to be five I can sell out now because it will be out on Monday when's this podcast going it's actually going to go out on Friday so you race that's sweet that's fine so yeah dad of five next year which is absolutely wild congrats thank you definitely going to have to get the snip after this one I'm having this again but yeah dad of five um I became a dad very early in my life I came at 20 years old which still sounds mad because I know 20 year olds now what can't look after themselves so to be a dad at 20 was life-changing um you have to grow up really quick um and I think that kind of molded me a little bit from being young into probably what's helped me now with regards to like structure and stuff like that.

1:23I then became a dad, stepdad to three, which was two more when I met Karina and she had two kids. So I kind of took them on as well. Then I became a dad of four, three years ago with Louis, which we had one together and obviously now five next year. I am probably known to most people as like a high rocks elite athlete. I say elite because that's probably what I'm looked at as, even though I don't feel like an elite athlete. I'd definitely say that you're an elite athlete. Yeah, I do think kind of within the sport, I think if you're in, there's a million people done high rocks, aren't there, in last year or whatever.

2:01If you're in the top 100, I think you can be classed as an elite and I am in the top 100, so. Yeah, but you've been in the Elite 15 before. Yeah. A regular kind of like in the doubles. You've made your debut in the Elite 15 last year, was it? Yeah, in Melbourne. But I just don't, I think it's because I don't feel elite. I just feel like I'm just a normal guy I've just trains and slogs every day obviously there's more structure to it now but I don't feel elite so I think that's why I don't class myself as an elite athlete and also I do high rocks coaching so yeah anyone doesn't know me, I'm a dad high rocks athlete and high rocks coach and before that you used to be a full time electrician right?

2:44yes, for 15 years I was an electrician which I hated for 14 years of it but I just kind of fell into it because it was a family business and didn't really know what else to do at the time. I did want to be a PT from leaving school. I've always been massive into fitness but it just was a little bit thrown upon. I think my dad wanted me to just go on the tools so he just gave me a toolbox and that was it and I think I just always tried. I think I did it for so long because I always just tried to just impress him. I always wanted to just impress my dad. I've had daddy issues pretty much all my life with things like that.

3:17So I wanted to impress him and I just did what I was told. But I've always wanted to do something that involves fitness. So when higher-ups came around and I got the chance to leave and actually do fitness, I jumped at it. Obviously, you know, because it was after we won the Worlds in, was it 2023? Yeah. And it's a bigger thing than what people realise. Like you said, you will have a career being an electrician for 15 years. to make that jump to go kind of like full-time athlete mode slash coaching, you know, to make up a little bit of money as well. Because everyone knows like it's an athlete's lifestyle.

3:55And it's one, it's super expensive, especially within High Rocks. Like you've got to pay for all your own travel, go into all these High Rocks events. You're probably competing 20 times a year, like 10 to 20 times a year. So at least now as well. Yeah, it's so expensive. And you don't get paid by High Rocks. you've got to either get paid by sponsors or you get paid by doing coaching and stuff like that. Which is funny, that, because people that, like, know me from school or old friends, they're like, oh, you must get paid by High Rocks. I'm like, no, pay for my tickets, like, pay for everything else.

4:26Like, it's, they can't understand the concept that we do still pay for all our High Rocks tickets and events. Yeah. I think it will change in the future. Yeah, I think so. It's more and more professional. But for now, that's kind of the landscape of it. And you've got to lean into it. or you don't do it. So no, it's been really good. But like you say, making that move, how was that like making the jump from being an electrician to going full-time athlete? I mean, it kind of, it probably sounds daunting to most people and I still get asked to this day by tradesmen, like advice. And with me, it was kind of, it did happen very easily.

5:07So like I say, I always wanted to pull away from it. I always wanted to be involved in fitness. With winning the world with yourself and kind of stepping up a little bit more within the sport, I did get asked a lot about, mainly, again, of tradesmen. My audience and who I coach, a lot of people, are full-time dads and full-time tradesmen. And they wanted to know how I trained around my job and kids and how I got to the level I got to. Obviously, it doesn't just come from us starting higher ox. It came from me starting running at 13 and training from being 13, 14. Motocross? Yeah, so motocross.

5:44I started motocross when I was 10, which was in primary school. Back then, it was just about riding the motorbike and you was that young, you didn't really make decisions. I didn't really want, I couldn't really go out at night, go running in the morning because I was 10, 9, 10. But motocross started at 10. When I got into high school and you become a little bit more independent and a little bit more free time and your parents let you go a little bit further, then I still don't know why but I just started training I knew that I didn't have the ability of a top motocross racer but I knew that you had to be physically fit to get better and since being 13 I reckon I just took the plunge on the fitness side of things to improve my motocross career from that point and I just always always trained from then so yeah going back to then it was I've just been obsessed with with fitness and that's kind of where it's all uh where i think the fitness journey started the first part of the fitness journey started anyway i feel like people that do motocross are built a little bit different as well i think the pain tolerance might be a little bit better than regular people what it is as well is it's the reason why i chose motocross is because i just didn't really take to football didn't really take to rugby i loved it love running around love being with lads but i wasn't 100 certain on it i loved the being on my own and racing motocross because i did not have to rely on anyone and no one had to rely on me and i think and that reason probably reason why i do enjoy solos more than doubles is because on a bad day you're letting your partner down on a good day you can be let down and i think that's the same with team sports nothing against it but for me personally i just always enjoyed just me and myself on the bike um and what it is with the motocross lads is it's that initial competitiveness to race the next, we used to be 40 guys on a start line, just like being in a High Rocks tunnel, but we was all on one line, trying to get to that first corner first, and it was just the competitiveness of it, and I think that's what High Rocks has given myself and motocrossers back, that you can get that same level of competitiveness by racing, but only you're on foot, and it's always first one to the ski in it, which is the same as first one to the first corner, so I think that's why the lads are into it, because they've got that drive back, from lads who have not raced for years again.

8:04And you get to a certain age in motocross and everyone's like, when you get to 18, you start drinking, you're going to quit. I was like, I am not because I've put my life into this from being 10. Obviously, you get to 18, 19, start going out and it does happen. It happens about probably to 90 % of motocrossers, only 10 % if less actually carry on and make it. So the lads that are into motocross now have done the same thing. They've all left the career after years and years of doing it. and Hyrox has given them that motivation and that drive back to be competitive again in something. It's interesting that it's similar.

8:38You mentioned that you wanted to build your fitness because that's where you could gain your advantage over other motocrossers. What was you doing? So the main fitness for motocross is you have to obviously ride the bike enough to be bike fit. It's surprising how demanding it is to ride a bike. People can't understand how hard it is. But if I was to kind of give you into context, If I gave you my bike, which is heavy, and I said to you, right, you go on that track in the same time as I go on that track for 30 minutes, it kind of makes you realize that it's a lot tougher than people just say, all you do is that, just rev the engine, but it's deep sand, it's rough, there's different terrain, there's jumps, there's bumps, there's whoops, it's really demanding.

9:21But not only that, it's the physical side of things and every motocrosser runs and bikes. probably another reason why motocross lads go down the route of high rocks and triathlon because we've all ran and we've all biked from being young swimming not so much i did used to swim a little bit when i got a bit older and i'd left school um i don't know why because i didn't enjoy it i just used to go and i used to like 100 lengths as well i'd be like i don't know why i'm doing it because i don't need to um but there was just something about the feeling after it i think it makes you feel good swimming afterwards um the benefits you get from it and you don't feel sore and everything and um but yeah so that's what that that was it that was the basic the principles behind motocross was the swimming and the bike sorry the biking and the running and i never even used to enjoy doing it again i don't know why to this day i did it i i would be running before school i'd be biking before school nobody i know to this day does that and has done that um and that's what I did I just used to just crave fitness and um like I said I knew that being fit would make you better on a motorbike and I just I went down that path what do you think it was do you think it was like the feeling after exercise or do you think it was the like the linear progression of you improving a little bit of both um like I say I fell in love with fitness and I did feel the improvements of the breathing, being able to hold onto the bike a little bit longer and attack corners a bit more from training.

10:54So like I say, I lent on that a lot more. But I did used to chase the feeling of fitness afterwards. How good is that endorphin you get when you've been for a run and you feel fresh and clean? It's that feeling what I chase and I've chased that ever since I was 13. Yeah, it's crazy. it's crazy when you do it it's so often you'll probably get this now where you have kind of like a rest day and you find yourself in a bad mood you don't know why and then you realise ah it's actually because I've not exercised I've not got them endorphins if I do if I start my day without anything say for example I don't know if I've had a bad day it doesn't happen often but if I start my day without doing anything whether it's training or recovery or anything and I'm just straight up straight into the middle of this chaos in the house with the kids I'm the worst person to be around the worst so you need to I've always just loved to just start my day with something training or more so recovery now because of how we have to be with Hirox but yeah it's literally it's just the endorphins I love it I remember when I first ever met you I was coaching at the Highview Performance Centre my last job and I remember hearing of you and it was like Mark Dean Ironman like this incredible ironman athlete and i remember meeting you actually in the car park i think we were having like a barbecue at the summer's day we were having a barbecue and you came along and i started like chatting to you and then i asked you so about your training i was like so how much zone two training do you do for a week and he was like what's zone two yeah he was like i just got all out every session that was it so this is like your ironman days yeah um would you just be able to explain like how you got into that and like yeah what your training was genuinely that's how I was brought up um I never got pushed I never got told to do anything so all the training I did was all just at my own effort and I used to just go hard because I used to like going hard when I started so like I said my training began from being 13 first part of my journey second part of my journey began I think when I decided to go down the Ironman route which was 2019 um i had a few years between that of going out too much and obviously drinking and being rough and i just woke up one new year's day and i felt like horrendous and i was like i'm not doing this again and i booked an iron man on the i think it was the third of jan because i was too rough on the first and second to look at a computer so the other third i booked it and i think that's when the second part of my fitness career began from then because that's when the extra work came in the real early mornings came in um and my friend at the time we was like if if i if high rocks came around in 2019 i genuinely know i'd be like so much better than i am now um just because of how i used to do things and and bounce back and recover and my friend used to turn up at my house every day at five o 'clock for six months or we'd meet at the gym to train and i just followed in his footsteps because he'd done Ironman before.

13:55Who's that? He's my friend called Ryan. Right, okay. He's the fittest lad I've ever met in my life and he just lifts weights now. But if he committed to high rocks, he'd be an Elite 15. He's unbelievable. He's got the mindset better than anybody I know and he just slogs himself out and that's the way he's always been. He's still at that now, but obviously he just chooses to kind of bodybuild a little bit more than fitness. What's his day job? He's a tiler. So obviously I was an electrician. he was a tyler i didn't meet through work i met through he's a he's a family friend um but he'd done iron man and he's first ever one um i think he did a 10 10 over 15 he's first ever one just trained on his own we had no nutrition we had no structure no nothing we just decided the night before right let's ride in the morning let's run after work we had no nutrition he took me on my first 100 mile bike ride with no nutrition i hit a wall at 60 mile and we had to stop and if you know yourself jake if you don't if you don't fuel properly or you do hit that wall it takes a long time to get out we had 40 miles to go and i felt like i was dying and this this guy is obviously teaching me like what to do he's not really teaching me he's just taking me because he's not teaching me the right way um but that's just the way i was i was kind of brought up just nothing at all like i said no diet no structure nothing it was just deciding the night before what he was doing and that was it and i think that's when i met you and as a hybrid i just always train like that i just went hard or i didn't i wasn't trained i wasn't going out i wasn't training um but it carried over like into everything that you're doing i remember like whether it was on the ergs we'd do like a mico's triangle and you'd always have the best score yeah it'd be like you i feel like you're faster adopting new training methods and kind of like new training just because you can go to that place where not many people can go yeah like you know I don't we've had the conversation before like people either have it or they don't and you can tell when someone's pushing to their limits yes they might not be as fit as you but you know if they're pushing to their limits and if they're not then like I don't know it's not that you feel you don't think less of them but like it's you can just tell yeah yeah like you say with Ryan like you say you know that he's got it he's going until the wheels fall off and that's the way it was and that's the way I was until I met you.

16:18And then obviously only since becoming a bit older and learning more about fitness and learning more about recovery and what you need to do to make the small percents is when I obviously took a bigger understanding into it. Well, exactly that. It was just literally, it was just go hard or go on basically. That was the rules. So when did you start to implement everything else? Like you say, you can train hard, but that's just one piece of the pie. it takes you so far 100 % um I literally again so this is the third part of my fitness journey now which started when I left work so the first part was being young and just starting training second part was when it took a massive um trajectory on um hours and these early mornings and then the third part to my fitness career is basically what what I'm in now and it was from when I left my job and I suddenly had all this extra time um picking out the weaknesses and you know what I'm like with kind of regards to mobility and how stiff I always have been and still am to be fair but once I had this extra time I then had to start adapting different ways to get better and it wasn't just training more it was spending more time recovering spending more time stretching doing mobility and doing all that nitty-gritty what I'd never done and I'd I'd not stretched for 33 years of my life.

17:39I'm still suffering from it now. I can stretch on a rest day and have DOMS the day after still. I have committed two years of it to my life now. But like I said, I still get DOMS off it and it still affects a little bit of my performance sometimes, but I'm 10 times better than I was. So it was definitely from taking the role of being full-time when I then had to start adapting new ways and new strategies of training and understanding the body more and especially with coaching as well. You need to obviously put that into people's plans as well and stuff and just make a better understanding of it as a whole.

18:15I feel like a lot of people say to me, if I was full-time, I'd be in the Elite 15. And that's what they say to athletes. And they say, oh, it's so much harder when you've got a full-time job. Would you be able to kind of... Is that true? Yes and no. It depends again. like I'm talking from somebody that had a full-time job and kids so people that have a full-time job now can still be really good and we do have some good athletes that are full-time and um every credit to them but there's kids uh 10 times harder having a full-time and having kids is is just like it's just the top tier of how hard it is like it's that's why I had to take the plunge on work because I like you say I hit my ceiling without the kids I probably could have carried on because it's surprising how many hours you've got from 4 p.m.

19:08till 8 p.m. where you can fit other things in. When you've got kids, you don't have that time at all. So when I had to literally give up the day career to pursue this, because I had to do that to take it to the next level, or I would never have done it. And that's why I'm pleased I've done it. I didn't want to look back when I was 40 and think, oh, I wish I'd done that. I wish I'd done that. You know, I didn't want to regret it. So yeah, it is hard because you have to be so much more focused and driven to, as we were saying before, to get up at half four, to get the session in before work, to get to the job for seven, eight o 'clock, whatever time you need to be there, it is hard.

19:46And it's demanding because you can be on, you're on site all day, so it's fatiguing. You're surprised in how much fatiguing it is and how much more steps you do and your expenditure. But you can still do it. You can still do it, but it does become much harder when you start throwing kids in as well uh hats off to anybody that's just doing it with kids and got a full-time job like it's uh it's that is commitment and when you quit your job like it wasn't just a instant progression no instant of i've unlocked the next level uh it took you quite a while to kind of like figure out what you'd actually do with this extra time right i went backwards mate so my first ever high rocks pro was after i think i won manchester and we did manchester worlds that was the first ever pro that was a an hour spot on right so that was an hour spot on on the open and then we went and did the pro and i'd never we have i remember at the time we didn't realize it was pro weights until two weeks before the event you know at the world so then actually that two weeks of just pushing heavy sleds i was like wow i'm gonna be in for torture here.

20:52But that was a 1-0-1. Now, granted, the judging wasn't as spot on as it is now or as hard as it is now. But then when I left and went full-time, bringing my first ever pro race 1-0-1, my first ever pro race as a full-time athlete, 1-0-2. Like, and I was so ashamed, embarrassed. I was like, what have I done? Like, people are expecting me to go, like, sub-hour was a massive thing three years ago for, like, probably us. Now, obviously, it's probably far off the bare minimum, but at the time, Subo was really good. So everyone was expecting me, oh, he's going to go Subo easy. He's a full-time athlete now, easy.

21:30I think I was six months into being full-time, and I went backwards, and I had to literally rebuild from there. How did that feel? Mate, I was like, I'm my own worst enemy anyway. I'm always too hard on myself. I kind of said don't dwell, but it's hard to not dwell. when you want to be a perfectionist and you want the best out of yourself, it is hard not to. And I felt horrendous. I'd just got new sponsors. They were all just like sharing my stuff. Like, oh, he's like potentially like the next big thing in the UK because of the results that I've had beforehand. And it was just, it was horrible.

22:09I had to literally rebuild, rebuild, start again. Just that's, I think that's where the best athletes come from. The ones that realize that they can start again and come back. and the ones that do come back, some lads probably would give up at that. But I just had to restart, start afresh and go again. And then that one or two didn't progress much quicker. It went to a one-on-one. Then it was an hour. And I think I was, I reckon I was into 12 months before I even got my first one, 58. I reckon that was 12 months after being full-time, which is mad, really. It's a long time to put in, a lot of effort to put in to just, I mean, to keep persevering together.

22:46Yeah, of course. what uh what did you change when you was like say you got that first yeah result and it was one or two yeah it felt like you've gone backwards you went back to the drawing board what actually did you change so i did start doing a few of my like old horrible sessions what i'm kind of did back in the day when i was working because i would only have 45 minutes or i don't have an hour to be in the gym train shower and get out to work so a few sessions were like slog at sloggy slogathons as they call them um and i kind of went back to some of them so i probably took a little bit of time where i thought i've got i've got two hours here i'll do a bit of stretching i'll have a chat or you know like the first initial few months of doing that you feel like you've got all the time in the world when you're in the gym the structure structure is a little bit harder to stick to because i've got three hours to to be in the gym um so i went back to that and then i decided to take on a coach to help me get a little bit stronger because it was obviously it was constantly pro weights then wasn't it and um i just felt that that i wasn't dealing with the strength side of things good enough because not only trying to get through the stations the everyone's now getting faster at the stations took on a coach and which was good um adam and then um that was it we just worked on weaknesses um and that was it yeah we just kept I didn't notice a big difference when you're talking Adam he was not only like you say getting fitter getting stronger but like he was moving better as well he had you doing exercise in the gym that like I'd never seen before and I'd never even done and on top of that as well I was still doing the mobility as well which was helping so outside of the plan I had with him was obviously the plan I had for myself to do mobility and I think I did say at the time I did say what I'm doing now will not show again for another 6 to 12 months.

24:41It will happen later on. And again, it did. It took so long, doesn't it, to kind of work on integrity, especially when you saw stiff. It takes so long to just keep going at it. And I only now feel that I'm benefiting from all that now, where I'm at a good level, where I can. I'm really confident at mobility. I'm much better. all the stuff I've done with Adam has kind of helped me along the way and made me who I am today within the sport but it just takes long it takes so much time this is my third season now going into the third season has been full time so to think that I've put two years into this now to feel good is long winded isn't it it's so long and people think oh you can just get that progression in kind of like three, six months you might be lucky you might find some progression but there is a few in the watch progressed very quickly within a 12 month period oh it's unbelievable like they just the Elite 15 if you have a look at the Elite 15 the current Elite 15 rankings now have a look at everyone that is in it now I guarantee half of that field wouldn't have been even doing high rocks last year no when I say they wouldn't have been in the Elite 15 last year this time last year it's crazy and it's some level of progression I think probably they're the ones that maybe even though weren't the best at High Rocks 12 months ago, probably had already done maybe the nitty-gritty before and then just needed to just like pick on the fitness a little bit.

26:12Yeah, they've probably come from ex-professionals. Yeah, a lot of them have, haven't they? Yeah. I want to move on to basically a topic. Obviously, you're a coach. Yeah. If I was to give you an example of a person that currently has kind of like a 65-minute pro High Rocks, and they wanted to get sub-60, because I feel like sub-60 is a huge thing at the moment. It's an incredible achievement, especially in the pro. Very, very few people do it, but a lot of people aim for it. What would you change? Say we had 12 months now for us to go from 65 to try and get sub-60. I know we've just said it might take a little bit longer than that, but now knowing what you know, what would you kind of put in their plan?

27:02I think people need to understand first thing with that is, like, for example, to go from a 75 to a 70 is doable, it's like easier. 70 to a 65 is easier, but it gets a bit harder. 65 to, I'd say, a 62 is, again, a little bit, from 62 to 59 is a massive jump. like you can knock five minutes off if you're at like a 75 or 18 minute athlete you can start people then think oh well i've not five minutes off there i can do it i can i can keep doing it and it doesn't work like that does it like they say i was stuck on 61 and 60 for a while um so first things is i would obviously look at what the training now pick out the weaknesses pick out the strengths obviously 105 everyone needs to run better and run faster so first of all is obviously look at the running, running hours that has to improve, pick out the weaknesses and the strengths within the last race, check the hours that they're training, check the lifestyle, because obviously most people do have full-time jobs and do have kids, things like that.

28:09So I'd look at that as a whole and then again, you'd have to just let them know that it obviously takes time but you need a bit of perseverance is that the word, yeah? Yeah, of course. And I just implement, I feel like you need to include all different types of running to benefit at running itself which okay so if it was to like break down just the running plan for a week what kind of runs would you say people would need to do if they want to achieve that sub 60 so to obviously improve at running you can't just run at the same flat pace flat rate every single run you need to increase the pace which then might obviously need to decrease the distance to be able to withstand you need to slow the paces down and increase the distance so you're kind of building that endurance up which then creates this middle ground and it's the middle ground as to where i think your race pace usually is um so that obviously like tempo runs i think even i don't think even beyond zone two like more zone three towards tempo so lower sub threshold to running vo2 max and like top end threshold i I think you need to include all different types of running.

29:17I have always done, and as you know, like hill sprints. Not like sprints, like max effort, but just a nice effort up a hill. I think it just builds great strength in the legs. And it's something what I would like to always include in someone's plan. Do you still do it now, that? Yeah. To be fair, Jake, I've not. I did go back to that. I did go back to doing that. Because we've got a hill near us. It's called Tanner's. Did you work it out? It was like 17 % incline or something? 14%. It's 200 meters from the very bottom. And I used to, when I worked full time, I actually had a run club and we would all meet at the end of my road at quarter to five, it was every Wednesday or Thursday.

29:54And we would all go Tannis Hill and we'd run up it for many times as we can for half an hour. And everybody used to love it. Like it was such a hard but rewarding session. I can feel the gains off that after four weeks of just doing it once a week. Like my efficiency, my stride, my everything about running, I just think. So I would always implement that into someone's plan, providing there's time. I think at the minute for us, it's hard because we're racing every four weeks. At the minute, I've raced twice in the same month. So I can't necessarily just go and do a hill session. You need to have time to recover and adapt and things like that from it.

30:28So training at the minute, the structure of training at the minute is just completely out the window because we race so many times. It's a case of ticking over. You're not really getting in what you need to get in. But I would always look at putting it in for someone else if they've got time because I do think you can adapt. it's not as fatiguing as you think I think once your calves get a bit more used to it going down is probably harder than coming up it's not that pounding on your joints going up so I'd always include that I'd always include some some faster shorter efforts some slower longer efforts which hopefully creates that better mid ground which I think is the race pace and then I do think I was including one long run which if you're a 20 sorry a one hour 20 athlete I think you should be able to run for an hour and 20 minutes whether it's zone one it's zone two how can you expect to do a high rocks in 80 minutes if you physically can't go and run for 80 minutes you know what I mean yeah so I would always include that um and then that's then just a case of putting that plan together and then just increasing it as progressively overloading it each week um not necessarily by distance but just by maybe rate of effort um taking away a little bit of a rest increasing the distance slightly and that's where the time comes into it if you're doing a one-to-one plan for someone you also need to let them know that i think the bare minimum to see a small improvement will be like three months bare minimum some people want me to give them a plan for a month and i just turn them away because it's just a waste of their money you're not going to get better in four weeks you can improve but you're not going to take your 65 to 60 yeah um so yeah so so running that's one thing strength work how important is it what should you be doing should you be doing kind of like a bodybuilding bro split should you be doing like specific hyrox movements all the time like what kind of stuff are you doing and what would you recommend so i've noticed a little bit of a difference in myself in stripping back a lot of strength stuff obviously focusing more on lower strength because hyrox is very lower strength dominant in a pro race like what is upper strength i think the burpees because you're pushing yourself off the floor and I think the wall balls yeah even even the sleds not even upper body you probably do need to still work on that form of pull but you don't just going to go into a gym and start just rowing loads because it is a lot of leg dominant um so I would prioritize leg strength over anything um and obviously I've always I've always done well since like I said training for Ironman when I was doing a lot of running and stuff like that just for aesthetic purposes and just to keep a good base of strength.

33:05I've always done pull-ups and press-ups. I just think it's brilliant. You can do it anywhere in the world and it just keeps a good level of strength. But even down to pull-ups, I've actually stopped doing them because we're in a race as a pull-up. Other than maybe this ski, where you can get that initial start to your ski. You'd be better off doing maybe a pull-over or a med ball slam or something like that. Yeah, just something like that. I've even taken that out of my plan. So I'm actually used to thrive off doing pull-ups now. I'm probably struggling to do five because if you don't do them for a while, but I just think like building up that lat and creating yourself to be built a little bit bigger is just going to affect your high rocks race.

33:44So everything personally, I do think should have a crossover to what's going to benefit you in a high rocks race. So be super specific. I think so, personally. I don't think, again, depends on your ability and where you're trying to take it. It's nice to include everything if you're just an all-round athlete that just competes in high rocks. But when you get into sub-60 level, I think you need to really be more specific, especially if even for us, like sub-60 to then 58 and then 56, like you need to literally drop everything what's going to have a negative impact on the race. So again, it just depends on the level of the athlete.

34:21But for them to get better, I would include majority stuff specific to the goal of high rocks. So you just ruined a lot of people's days. is like a lot of people are going to stop doing bicep curls now because it's not specific i never do bicep curls but you get you get such a good pump don't you off a ski and a row like you just turn the handle around and get a bicep off the row like don't start doing more to curls um i've never i've not done biceps for years mate till i was like probably 21 don't do biceps what about um what about kind of like overall volume obviously this is probably dependent on people's lifestyle and stuff like that but uh if you was like this was their only goal like they're all in like how many hours would you recommend someone that's wanting to go sub 60 do um i mean i do think volume is king okay i do think volume is king but that sounds a little bit contradictive to what i'm probably going to say next i do think you also need to know when to rein it in as well so volume being what you are capable of doing within like you said within your life so do as As much as you can, but also do the, what's the word?

35:28The minimal effective dose. And that's something that I actually do a lot more of now. The old me, for example, this morning, I trained in the gym this morning and I had this session in my head and it was probably going to run into about 80 minutes worth of work because it's my last big stimulus before the race next week. Got to like 50 minutes and I just decided to, I'd had a really good session. legs were a little bit sore and I just decided I'd had the minimal effective dose I'd create a stimulus I'd had a good session I'd had some good running and some good station work but I just had to just back off a little bit and just to save fatigue and save myself for the race the old me would have just kept going definitely kept going until the end of the slog and that would have had a massive knock-on effect on tomorrow which would have knocked on effect on Monday and then eventually you're hitting your race under heavily fatigued being heavily fatigued um so i do think that people need to look at that and and decide what time they've got and then implement what days and what sessions need to need to suit and and what volume you can fit within that um how much are you training roughly so my volume is 16 to 18 hours that's where i'm that's where i am comfortable 16 to 18 i would love to chase 20 and i have a whiteboard at home on a sunday night i I write all my sessions out on this whiteboard, purposely, mainly for myself, but also for...

36:53The Sunday before you do the sessions or after you've done the sessions? Yeah, so Sunday being the end of the week, Monday being the first day of the week. On a Sunday, I'll write out all my sessions on this board, mainly for myself, because I've got like, I'm riddled with something and I need to know what's on the board. But as well, just for like, obviously with our life and with Karina and the kids, like it's nice for her to just see it and see where I'm at and she can see just... So you're writing for the week, the following week? Yes, so on a Sunday, I write Monday to Sunday. every week and I do try to add those those hours will add up to 20 um like with mobility and all that I just very rarely get to 20 as you know like plans change and sessions never go to plan do they like again with the minimal effective dose and just sometimes I cut back a little bit um but yeah 16 to 18 hours is where I basically am comfortable and where I can fit in around life which is roughly three hours per day, six days a week.

37:46One rest day which I still will do like a sauna and some stretching and maybe just an easy bite but I'm between 16 and 18 hours. Obviously that's a lot more than what someone working will be able to do so I couldn't put that into their plan. When I was working I would be doing around like maybe 10 hours max so I think people can still do it on 10 hours if they're working full time. And I would probably, like I said, I'd look at... And what would change between, say, for example, their week, someone who's working, they're doing a 10-hour week, and then the 18 hours a week. Does everything increase, like, what's it called?

38:29The word where... Does everything increase, like, relative? Yeah, right, yeah. No, so what has increased for me as well is just so much more easy volume, so much more mobility. So you don't just add more intensity? No, to be fair, the actual intense training could have been more when I was working, if not the same, because all I didn't do then was I'd still do the hard sessions. I just wouldn't do the warming up, the easy bike. I wouldn't do the recovery day. I wouldn't do the mobility. I wouldn't do all that. When you add all that up on the end of a week, I think I looked at this the other day.

39:04I think I'd done about 60 % in zone one, just on a bike. or even like some easy running, things like that. That's a lot of the extra work, what I do do. And I do log mobility just because for me, it's as crucial as a hard session. So that's included in my 16 to 18 hours. And that's what I never had before. So the actual overall effort of the hard training probably isn't much different to someone that's probably working full time. And to myself, four years ago when I was working, it's all the additional extra and the all additional 1 % that add up to the extra hours. Yeah, it is. And it's kind of a bit of a hack to add in that easy volume is just having your warm-ups and cool-downs actually in your sessions and taking them serious, as serious as your actual session.

39:54Because I remember back in the day, we'd rock up, we'd do like a micos triangle, which for anyone that doesn't know, you pick a certain amount of calories per minute. For us, I think we'd regularly do 20 calories. so 20 calorie ski minute one 20 calorie roll minute two and then 20 calorie either bike or assault bike minute three and then a minute rest but we'd meet up and we would get straight into it straight in and we'd just do it and that'd be a 40 minute session because you do 10 rounds and then that'd be a session you go shower and then like you say you're out the gym in an hour yeah again when we went to the track we'd literally do two laps of the track yeah and two laps that was it and then get into it and then get into our whatever our session was it'd be you know eight times 800 meters flat out or whatever it would was and uh no wonder we got injured no wonder like we were so sore um but like even if you just add say for example now a track session i'll do 3k to start then i'll do all my drills drills yeah and then i'll do 2k or 3k to finish but that's an extra kind of like half an hour of aerobic work yeah yeah i mean i was actually laughing about this with um with karina it's i used to roll out of bed like obviously i'd have to be super organized but i would literally get out of bed half four i'd be in the gym in zone five by ten to five like just straight in and like i said no wonder i that's why i do feel like if hyrox came around in 219 i would be a different animal because i even though i probably more risk of injury I could withstand a lot more then I was a bit younger age is not on my side I know I'm not super old but from now 36 when I was 33 I've noticed a big change and having to do all this extra stuff like I was think I've clocked it in at like two hours of just warming up and cooling down in within the week as well every session on my Strava recently is like 20 minutes of just something easy because all I do before every session is warm up and then cool down afterwards but you never had that before it was just straight in straight straight in straight into the slog and straight out i actually remember picking your brains because i found that like crazy like say you wake up at half four and you'd be in the gym to yeah like she was in every day but i remember you saying like i've got to get out because if the kids wake up then i'm screwed and i can't get out so you'd have like did you have like all your kit downstairs everything ready everything's ready i just make a coffee and I go um sometimes I'd have to just cancel because if like say if if one of them got up then I couldn't really go um but I'd have to try and be I mean they're not not really they're up at half four um but you have to be super organized the night before and literally you're just rolling out straight into a to be fair it was that surprising how quick quick you get into it when you're thrown into that into that intense session it's surprising how quick you actually get into it yeah no no it is crazy um so so that's kind of like the training side of it yeah what else would you take more serious if you're someone trying to be a sub-60 athlete um what else so i'd probably say your nutrition um fueling your sessions fueling your races um how's that changed for like yourself and the people that you coach again i keep referring back to kind of working but when i did progress with high rocks like i said i was still working and that's when a lot of things started to matter more and i started to learn and understand a lot more and there's actually steve winrow who you had on here not long ago i listened to your podcast with steve big big fantasy um he opened my eyes to a whole new world of nutrition uh i used steve for quite a bit of time um with regards to recovery and being able to take that extra bit of energy into the gym after work being able to feel better during work because we was doing like i learned all about this like two-part recovery and i learned about fueling and like it's surprising how like you say i know you spoke about it before like sugar and just easy accessible carbs and whatever just absorbs quicker like how much that does affect your session in a good way um and again that's something what i wished i knew when i was doing the ironman because I didn't do anything I used to go we used to go out for a two hour run and win like two 20 gram gels like that that was literally it and wondering why I can't walk for days and you know what I mean it's mad I wished I could have took all this knowledge and and and had it all then do you still do your sessions fasted if you're out early morning so I if I do a fasted session I do make sure it's nothing high intense I always make sure that I will have had a carb heavy meal the night before so it is fasted in a way but it's not like fully fasted um if for example i think diet for me is probably my biggest downfall um it's so hard to maintain a a tight physique and and lean physique all year round and my big thing is food like i'll suddenly i'll find myself just literally craving food and once i have one biscuit i have to have 51 biscuits like i i have to keep go in until I'm being sick like it's that bad I've got an illness there's a devil in my head that tells me to keep eating um you're a fat lad that's found out honestly that's why I don't feel elite because I'm looking at all these elite guys and they're like I mean I'm not in bad shape but like but love handles on start line I'm thinking they've got love handles um but yeah so like I sometimes if I've got time to I sometimes might do a little bit of intermittent fasting where I can say I'll eat the night before I'll cut off at say whatever seven eight o 'clock I'll have a coffee I'll train it won't be intense and then I might have my first meal a little bit later in the morning um sometimes just to tighten up a little bit um but I mean going for an easy run in the morning on an empty stomach is sometimes the best time you ever feel you feel so light on your feet it's such a nice feeling to just feel bouncy and light in the morning without without full of belly full of food yeah no going back to kind of like the weight thing I saw the other day Dylan Scott put something on Instagram and he put his weight on.

46:03What was it? 75 kilograms. 75. I know. Imagine how fast you'd be at 75 kilograms. How much are you weighing at the moment? I weighed this morning at 87 and a half, which is, it's about average for me. I would love to be, I want to race at 85. So I can get down to 85. But by the time you fueled up, you curbed up, I'm never racing 85 because you never as, I don't get why you weigh first thing in the morning because as soon as you had a drink and something to eat, you're not the weight you weighed. So I don't get it. Like you should be the weight at like dinner time or something, which is always like two, three kilos heavier.

46:41So I would love to try and get down to 80. I'd love to get down to 82 to give me that two, three kilogram window where I can fuel up and race at 85. I think that's probably my next step in probably what I'm going to have to do because I need to try and chase your ass on the burpees. everyone's the burman now is like 215 for the burpees i know you're quicker but i think the minimum is 215 i'm getting down to a 245 i genuinely do think that for me to improve and to be elite is obviously technique and keep doing it but i think weight is a big thing if you was to do 80 meters of burpees with a three kilo vest on you're not going to be as quick would you agree with you yeah i know you're the same with your marathon training no i definitely say that but one thing that I'm actually struggling with recently is I've been eating a lot more I feel like you are a little bit heavier than usual which is good though, you look good for it and you're performing good for it so roll with that, you're doing the burpees and you're at the weight so I don't think you need to change the weight.

47:40Yeah I'm sitting about 8-7 kg so this is probably the heaviest I've been We've always been similar haven't we? Yeah so this is probably the heaviest I've always been like you trying to diet down for a high rocks or a marathon or whatever, just love food too much but this time I've just just ignored the kind of norm and i've actually just ate to try and recover yeah um so i'm eating like a lot of protein a lot of carbohydrates fueling every session and stuff like that and uh touch wood i've not been injured in the last like you you definitely i say you look better you you're obviously performing you're hitting the numbers you're feeling better your recovery is better it's all it's all good but you still have that like the day before race day or the day of race day you're like oh shit like i'm i'm not feeling as lean as i want to be yeah i'm not going to have a shit result because of that well to be fair the last two races i've done um one was with you in i'm not i'm not going to talk about tenerife because it was a sore subject for me but um the last race we did in geneva again i turned up i'm hitting the numbers in in i'm hitting the numbers in in sessions i i don't feel i don't feel good because i'm carrying extra weight but i'm I'm running well, I'm performing well.

48:48Again, it was just the burpees that I just, I was just scratching my head about it because like, how can I get 40 seconds on burpees? But my ergs are really good at the minute because I think of the weight. My sleds are always all right, but I'm running all right. Whereas I just think with the weight thing, I think the burpees will help, but I don't want it to negatively impact. But without trying, like, how are you going to know? I have tried to get down before. And like you said, this again, another reason why I don't feel like an elite athlete because I can't be that person that's moody and depressed because I'm dieting so hard because I've got a life outside where if you don't have kids and you don't have anyone else to answer to, I think you can put up with it a little bit more and try it.

49:30I'm not a nice person if I'm hungry. If I've not had coffee and I'm hungry, I don't want to be around me. I'm a horrible person. But I do think to get to the elite stage is I do need to try and get down the weight um I just don't want it to negatively impact like you say recovery and everything else that comes with it yeah I don't know when I'll do it because we're racing every I'm racing next Friday I need to race after that I'll be hopefully getting in London it's there's no good time because recovery is more important than you know what I mean no exactly and that's your trade-off obviously power to weight ratio it's probably the quick fix but like it's definitely it's probably not even a fix really it's just like a a quick way to potentially feel better when you're doing exercise but like you say the tolls come because it affects your performance for one i think hyrox is a super positive sport because you've got the heavy sleds yeah so you can't actually be super light no whereas like if it was like just running then everyone would be like borderline anorexic and no one would be eating and it'd be but yeah it's nice that you can eat and perform so we're a lot luckier than just runners yeah well that's it yeah that's like I said it's so good how much we can eat because I mean people know me as well for being a bit of a foodie so I do eat a lot but it's not all not all shit it's a lot of obviously good food a lot of sugar you just enjoy a lot of sugar because it's all that's all performance based but after a race, a lot of people know me for having 24 to 48 hours of just gaining weight just from eating.

51:12I actually found myself on some French, not a podcast, some French Instagram. Karina sent it me the other week. Some French nutritionist had made a reel about me, like scoffing my face. You're saying what? I don't know if it was in French. Did you not pull the translation on it? No, I did message her. I was like, I didn't know if it was, I don't know if she was having a go at me or I don't know. I was like, oh, sorry, I've just seen this video. Like, I'm just letting you know that I only eat like this after a race. This isn't my pre-race meal. And I was literally scoffing this buttery in America, mate.

51:45It was all over me. I look like a right dog. But that's what I love to do. I love to just have 20, depending on where I am, if it's a race coming up or I'm not anywhere too far, it's just that one day. I just love to get it in. I just love to get whatever I can in my system. yeah it's a bit of like a celebration as well and it's the best time to do it because you do need the calories of course yeah yeah i do feel like terrible after it um but obviously i was in america then and i was there for a few days after so i did everything i did like three i did three days of eating well you've got you've got to try all the food yeah 10 kilos oh but i got back but again that's normal that's like relatable that's yeah what everyone does do you know i mean you've like worked hard up to a point you've done your race you've got your reward of getting a good time and then you enjoy yourself for a couple of days but do you not think it's mad that we can eat 5 ,000 calories and still be in a deficit like some days it's mad isn't it yeah I remember did a day of eating and uh for my YouTube and I ate 5 ,000 calories and I woke up that night starving starving I was like oh fuck I want to do an episode for YouTube and I want to do eat 10 burn 10 and then eat 10 eat 10 burn 10 then eat 10 yeah that's what I want to do whether I'm going to be 24 hours I don't know but I'll try and do it or like I reckon I could I could definitely eat 10 and I could definitely eat 10 while I'm burning 10 you know through that day I think yeah I think you should do like a Friday Saturday Friday eat 10 Saturday burn 10 but put 10 back in while I'm eating while I'm yeah I'll have a go at that yeah i think it'd be hard like just for digestion like i'm in 10 000 calories and then in the same day trying to kind of like burn them off like after you've eaten them well i've tried to work out what i'd have to do as well to burn 10 because it's a lot harder than you think i burnt 10 which is mad i burnt exactly 10 on iron man right that was 10 i did iron man in 11 hours so that's 11 hours of work to burn 10 000 calories which probably works out a bit right but that's yeah quite high intensity as well yeah so I have yes it is quite intense oh that's 10 hours anyway so I'd have to work it out I'd have to probably try and get a 10 hour training day in obviously not all at once probably maybe like blocks of like two and a half hours throughout the day but it's it's an episode I'd want to do when I can fit it in just because I love eating and like I say I have got onto the YouTube hype so it would be nice to do something a bit different than just vlogging your race every week yeah that would be actually entertaining yeah I feel like vlogs are great but a lot of people are into the food hype aren't they on YouTube like it's crazy you've seen me I'm starving because I'm starving I'm watching someone eat like just nasty foods like there's a guy in America who just eats like packs of Oreos and whatever do you find that like when you're in like a dieting phase if you eat like watch people eating like it's yeah a little bit sometimes I'm kind of like feeling it through them I'm letting them eat it and I'm getting the enjoyment from it but I'm not actually getting the satisfaction from it to be further I do that sometimes when I'm out somewhere so let's say if we're at a restaurant or whatever and I'm dieting I'll make other people eat so then I can live through them I'm like try that no no no you can't do that if it's on the screen there's nothing you can do about it we've been out for a meal and I've been trying to diet Emily's ordered 20 cakes and I've ate all the cakes because they're there.

55:20No one's going to eat them. Yeah. If it's there, it's getting eaten. It's on the screen in America on YouTube. There's nothing I can do about it. So that's why I can withstand that. Yeah. But if it's in the cupboard or it's there, it's getting eaten. Yeah. To be fair, when I was doing my marathon, I was the same. I was getting into like cooking videos. I was like researching like how to cook steak perfect and chicken and stuff. Yeah, but I feel like you could make your own like that because you're definitely a steak is it a connoisseur is that the word in summer mate you have that barbecue every single day slapping t-bones on like the nothing like to be fair I do that's where all my money goes you must be able to cook a good steak like you know how to order a steak anyway but we don't do anything else so like why yeah you eat like a little tiny hobby don't you which is a bit of a hobby isn't it mine's to be a barista is it so yeah I've taken a really well I've always been into coffee since I started drinking it when I was first started working I was 17 and I got introduced to coffee first thing in the morning.

56:21So I've always been into it since being 17, 16, 17. And you're like a proper coffee drinker. People don't know, but you drink black coffee. Yeah, I'll drink black, but it has to be like a good bean, espresso shot. You know what I mean? I won't drink instant. That's what I mean though. For me, I could never be called a coffee drinker or a coffee connoisseur because I like milky coffee. Yeah. And if you like milky coffee, I feel like you don't like coffee. You're just trying to mask it. You can have milky coffees. Like my perfect coffee is a Cotaro. That's like a double espresso with the same amount of milk on top.

56:54So it is a bit of milk, but it's not like a massive latte which just ruins the taste. I prefer instant coffee. Do you? So does my dad. I always make him a coffee when he comes around. He won't take a proper coffee off me and I get insulted. He wants instant. Like, who does that? Orange cup of zero. Yeah? Orange cup of zero. I've got a zero decaf to be fair because I love coffee that much and I try to cut off caffeine after like one, two, so two o 'clock. But I do love to drink it. So I will have an instant sometimes at night if Karina's having a brew and it'll be the zero, but it's decaf. And is that just because it helps you sleep?

57:30No, because nothing else. I'm the worst sleeper ever. It's just if I just want a hot brew. But I mean like the caffeine cut off. Yeah, the caffeine. Is that to try and help you sleep? I try to kind of use it as an excuse, but I mean whether it does or not I don't know I don't sleep anyway even I cut off at 12 I still don't sleep great I'm the worst sleeper ever I think I'm just I'm riddled with something I'm always thinking my brain's always active what do you think about like when you I mean last night I didn't sleep because I was coming here to you and I had a hard session this morning so all night I'm thinking about this frigging session and then coming on the podcast I'm like my brain's would you like that when you was working full time yeah because I'd be so I would be stressed at work because especially through the later stages of my job because I would be like a what's called like a basically a site manager for the company so i would delegate the whole um electrical side of the job that is obviously that is a big a big stress you you can't you do try to switch off at home but then you know what you're going back into tomorrow and these jobs are going on for like 18 months so you've always struggled with kind of so yeah so i've always had always had something ticking in my brain what's kind of had a negative impact on my sleep so how How much sleep are you getting roughly?

58:41I know that when I was working and I was having to be up at half four, my average sleep for an hour was like just sort of six hours. So six hours a night? In a year, you know, on the Garmin app. All right, okay. So the year average sleep was like 559, something like that. That was average for like a year. Now it's probably about... I think 6.59, so I'm getting an extra hour, but that's over the period of a year. I may have one good sleep in a month, and when I've had that good sleep, Jake, I will cartwheel downstairs, mate. I will literally come here and I'll smoke anyone on any machine. Well, what's a good sleep?

59:12A good sleep for me is sleeping straight through without waking up. It could be seven hours, but as long as I don't wake up during them seven hours, I feel so fresh. Obviously, eight is what I would love to have. but I've just never been that person I could have at the minute I could have 8 hours but I will be up 4 times within 8 hours so it's just broken sleep and I just feel horrendous just waking up sometimes then it becomes a bit of a habit like your body starts just waking up and then you start thinking about something then you need to go toilet and it's just it's actually draining it's draining and I can tell after a few days of doing it I'll have to maybe just go on overdose on some night just to get a little bit of recovery back in me.

59:57But then you feel groggy the day after off it, and it's not good. I've tried all sorts. I was just saying before that Carina had a client in before I came here, and we was talking about... I forgot the bloody word now. I remember what I said. You were talking about... Cognitive something. Cognitive, yeah. Something about counting sheep. Basically counting sheep, yes. It's basically that principle of counting something in your brain to take your brain off what you're thinking about. So I'll try that tonight, and I'll let you know what that's like. But, yeah, I'm not a good sleeper. what did she say she said I bet you can't get to I bet you can't get to like Z in the alphabet for like thinking of think of like a fruit and A to Z think of a fruit I don't think there's probably a fruit for every letter but you'll never get to Z that's probably why but then you was like well no because I'll make sure I get to Z yeah you're so competitive you get to Z and I won't sleep because of that yeah you'd message her at 5am yeah I've completed it yeah but yeah so that's that's me on the sleep you're a huge fan of hot and cold therapy.

1:00:55Yeah. Talk us through that. What's your routine? So cold, not so much as it used to be. The cold was used to just, again, it's the endorphins. The cold exposure releases so many endorphins, you just feel fresh and you feel like you can attack things for several hours. But then obviously, realising that it wasn't the most beneficial for recovery, I stopped doing it so much. I still get in most mornings. straight out of bed, straight in. It's tough, but it's like when I'm stiff, especially when I'm sore, you don't understand how good you feel. I've got a hot tub in lockdown. So I've got like a little wellness center in the garden.

1:01:39So the ice bath gets used most mornings. I get straight up, get straight in that. Then I get in the hot. What are you saying? Are you staying in for like two minutes? No, not even that. It sounds pathetic, but... You're just dipping? You'd be surprised what 30 seconds can do in a morning. between 30 and 60 seconds. You're surprising what that can do for you in the morning. I am more down the route of hot for recovery. So since I've been saunaing, I have noticed recovery is so much better. I'll sauna so much more. I'll do probably, I reckon I'll do an hour and a half, at least a week of saunaing, probably two hours.

1:02:14The cold dipping is just to kind of reset, just reduce up a few aches and pains in the morning. Even after a hot sauna, sometimes I won't even get in. I like to, but I wouldn't because I think that can have a bit of a negative impact on the heat and what that's creating and what stimulus that's creating for you. But like I say, in the morning, I like me half an hour to myself at whatever time I get up between, it can be half four and half five. There's no one's up. I just have that half an hour to myself. Cold dip, coffee, hydrate, cold dip, caffeinate, get me hooked up. That then warms me up and I feel like a brand new one after that.

1:02:49But I have... Clothes on straight to the gym. yeah so then that'll be straight into something then so like another thing with what I said before about getting up at half four and getting straight into a slog no I do love that half an hour to myself in the morning it just it just sets me up better for the day I feel fresher um and it is exactly that it's it's the cold it's I always um what's the word um when you drink when you have you hydrate hydrate so I hydrate cold dip and then I caffeinate in the uh in the in the hot tub um i'll have my phone i'll i don't check it for the first 10 15 minutes as well i'll do that as well and i'll just catch up with people like i'm one of them people that when you see them their memes of eight o 'clock my phone goes off i don't talk to anyone because again trying to help better sleep and promote better sleep so i'll be the person that will reply to you at like half four mate that's exactly what happened this morning i sent you a message last night i sent you a video because you was like leave me a key to get into the gym i didn't want to see it so i sent you a video i think it was like uh quarter to nine last night one tick and then yeah one tick didn't deliver and then uh this morning i obviously opened my phone and like half four i'm like what the fuck's my day up at half four because i couldn't sleep because i was worried about the podcast jake i wasn't worried i was excited it was on my brain and it was making me just want to get get stuck into this yeah into the workout and then into the podcast but no like hot and cold is so beneficial cold for the mind and even a bit of even a bit of anti-inflammatory yeah after a long run i've sometimes will get it but other than that not so much recovery heat for recovery is and has been so good for me yeah do you get massage or anything like that i used to um again when i went full-time i thought it would be great to get a massage every every monday thinking it would help me i was like why am i getting so many niggles stop getting the massage stop getting the niggles mate exactly weird like I read my knees and stuff and I just they don't know what they're prodding they don't know what's fatigued what's so it feels good at the time and don't get me wrong I felt pretty good coming out of it but then I just found that I was just getting so many niggles after it so I might have the odd one now like I do like me and Queen I like to go on a spare day every once in Blue Moon so that I might get one there but as regards to recovery for performance I personally don't don't get them for that.

1:05:13Yeah, yeah, exactly the same. I find, like you say, doing a little bit more mobility or spending that time, like if you were to go for an hour massage, just spending that hour, like just doing more mobility, sprinkling that throughout your week. Or like you say, even just having an extra hour of sleep or having a nap instead of going for the massage. I think, I mean, they say it can be too, too traumatic for your muscles. Do you use any, actually you got me onto them, massage guns. yeah and we'll still use that yeah so i remember emily laughing at me as well because when we was at hybrid like that was my warm-up was like a quick 30 seconds blast what did you say i could never put my own socks on i was that stiff i used to blast my glutes and hammies with this gun quickly to get my shoes tied that's how bad i was and i would never have it in my hand mate all the photos at the end we used to all get together and have this gun um but then i did find that the more sometimes the more you use something the more you feel the need to use it so i did stop using it for a little bit um and now i don't really use it i might use the one downstairs just maybe just to like give my adductors a little bit of a little bit of a rub before i run but i don't use it too much anymore yeah um again it can be a little it can be a lot of trauma to the to the muscle especially if it's fatigued from a lot of training yeah yeah i think it's good to kind of like get you moving especially if you're sore but like it's something not to be reliant on if no yeah Yeah, exactly.

1:06:35I mean, you said it right. I think I wanted one of the podcasts, I don't know who it was with, but you just said about blood flow, even just going for a walk, getting on a bike for even 10, 20 minutes, it's just creating some blood flow. And I think that's the best thing you can do. You know what? It's the simplest thing ever. It's actually after sitting down here with Chris Brammer. He mentioned, he said, look, if you're hobbling down the stairs in the morning, if you can't walk straight down the stairs in the morning, yeah then uh then you probably shouldn't go out for a run but i like to this day i'll walk down the stairs and i'll hobble down the stairs but 20 minutes later of just like moving around moving around maybe you know even if like you just go for a little wonder and come back or whatever like you feel so much better you do yeah so and i never really understood it a lot of people would say like start your runs off never start your run off at your door right like just go for a little yeah walk first and then go instead of going to your run and i find it so much better yeah even if it's like i said just 30 seconds to a minute or whatever it's mad you don't think at the time like i've got handprints down the side of my walls in the in the because that's why i have to get down if lou is up i ask on my back because i can't get those doors and carry him but i just hold on to the wall getting down it's that bad but going back to the hot and cold is where you would go for a 10 minute little walk literally I'll get in the cold that'll just reset then I'll get in the hot that's blood flow and then I can go straight into a run I feel really good from that point it's the same theory just kind of probably just kind of cutting out somewhere and just using the hot water instead it feels nice sitting in a bath and going for a walk in the freezing cold new man yeah so this podcast is actually going to live on your race day it's going to go live on your race day yeah okay so Friday next Friday it's going to go live how are you feeling for it?

1:08:26I actually feel a little bit more excited to race now where I think I got a bit of confidence back from I obviously lost a lot and I knew it wasn't me again going back to Tenerife I didn't want to talk about it but it was a bad race for me I lost a lot of confidence it was like the first race of the season Was it a bad race or was it just because like let's say it was hot Yeah I mean there was all them factors as well which came into play but again like I'm a full time athlete more or less nothing like that should really worry me i do a little bit of heat training i do heavy sleds like that is not a problem to me being heavy sleds or anything it shouldn't occur it was i did feel like i just took the foot off the gas a little bit because i was on holiday with the kids that week um i did train i went to tenerife top training but i just didn't do what i would usually do i was in the all you can eat buffet not being bad but you don't know what you eating like i was trying to be healthy but it tasted too good to be healthy um and i just felt flat i had nothing in me um i've stopped i've stopped going to hotels yeah urbbs are the one yeah can you cook for yourself it is so much better and i did that uh my best ever race not best ever race but my fastest ever performance was when i first did that in phoenix and i got out of b &b in america first 55 i felt so good with alan and the doubles and i cooked for myself and i have had races still this year after that where i've had i've just gone back to a hotel and just not thought oh it'll be okay i genuinely haven't felt as good from eating the night out eating before the night before so it is the way forward probably something else that you should probably maybe advise people to do to get those small one percent is to not stay in a hotel and not definitely look when an all-inclusive with your kids yeah so obviously you gained a little bit of confidence yeah we're hitting birmingham yeah how are you feeling for it i love home races I genuinely did feel really good in Manchester last year because I was in the hot tub I was in the ice bath I was at home stretching eating my own foods drove to the race within 40 minutes felt so relaxed so I'm looking forward to it with it being a home race I'm just wondering I am on pros which is good I'm on in the morning which I love but I'm just undecided whether or not to just be stressed and travel in the morning or whether to just get something take my own food but just sleep somewhere the night before just because i don't want to get up and i try to reduce as much stress as i can me and since what time's the race 10 past it's 9 50 so you need to be there for nine because i do like to start warming up i i've written a post on it this today on instagram about my warm-ups like you say and i have to warm up more so i always warm up now before a race 50 minutes before um and just start moving so traffic to get to birmingham for most of these like two hours so then i'd have to get up at like what five six which is probably normal but just for example i have a good sleep that night and i don't want to get up i'm then going to start having a knock-on effect and i don't want to cause any stress so might go down the night before yeah and just somewhere close just so i can get up and just do my own thing especially like a two-hour drive yeah and then getting straight into it i know you've been warming up and stuff some are good on the train some lads are going on the train but i don't like relying on public transport get anxiety and stuff like that i just like driving there and getting it getting it um but yeah sorry going back to what you said i went up on a bit of a tangent though um i'm looking forward to it i think i've got a bit of confidence back from the last race uh with you in geneva felt good um training's gone as good as it can um obviously a little bit of an episode this morning which i like to come in and do it what's probably like a bit of confidence booster which sometimes it plays well sometimes it doesn't this morning i felt really good just didn't get to the lunges and wall balls didn't feel as good as they should so I just need to maybe just concentrate on recovery now just to make sure because I've had two good last races and they weren't that long ago?

1:12:22No they weren't so I'm going to I think it's just a bit of fatigue that's just ended the session today a little bit shit but I'm actually looking forward to it So what will your kind of plan be now? We're Saturday you're racing Friday what's tomorrow going to look like and then the following days yeah so tomorrow is going to be a full rest day it's very it's only once every other week me and Karina just get a day together with just us and Louis because Mason's with us but he goes out with his mates a lot Karina's kids go to Karina's kids are at the dad's and they stay like every other week so it's the only Sunday that we get together we like having like a brewing bed just to chill tomorrow's going to be a full rest day probably Will Sauna probably will do some mobility.

1:13:09Monday, I'm actually going doing some testing with Joe and Sinead, which is only going to be like a VO2. So Sinead bent. Sinead bent, yeah. It's only going to be like a lactate test. So it will be pretty hard, but it's like a 30-minute test, isn't it? That will be it. That'll be the stimulus for the day. It's at Loughborough, so it's going to be a bit of a drive. And then from then, I will just keep the momentum of easy, hard, easy hard Tuesday again will be more of a rest just some light movements and some more recovery and mobility Wednesday will be something similar I might even go to track might just do some 400s at race pace just get some speed in my legs so a bit of intensity but a little bit of intensity but not a lot I might do 10 400s that might be it for the day with a warm up and a cool down just so I don't feel flat Thursday again will be the same as Tuesday easy spin mobility full rest and then Friday will be the hard day so it does keep that structure of easy hard easy hard where I'm still getting intensity on the hard days but I'm just cutting back a lot of the volume just to stay sharp that's what I've done in my last couple of races and I've actually felt good on the day um so I have changed my um my tape a week slightly um at least then it doesn't change too much from kind of like a regular week as well yeah still doing that easy hard yeah yeah I just Obviously, I don't do as much volume as I would on a hard day, but I think you do need to still get some intensity on the mad days.

1:14:41So you keep the frequency the same, just reduce volume and intensity? Volume, completely, yeah. A little bit. And even the easy days will be reduced. So an easy day for me would be like two one-hour sessions, one easy run, one easy bike. This would be like two 20, 30-minute sessions, as opposed to doing like one. just do two because it just breaks the day up a little bit as well between school things like that I can move in the morning crack on with the day a little bit of movement in the afternoon just keeps you like you said blood flow like we said before rather than just doing it all in one and then having it's hard for the mind to them what do you do all day so yeah that's what I'll do especially like when you've got a race coming up you're just thinking about the race that's it isn't it have you got any competitions do you know yeah there's some good lads going there's some still good obviously a lot of the elites like yourself are going to be at Hamburg, but there's still some really good lads at Birmingham.

1:15:35I know George Martindale. He's phenomenal at the minute. Is he racing? Because he's just had a baby. Just had a baby, yeah. I'm pretty sure he's racing. Congrats to George, by the way. Congrats, George, yeah. I'm pretty sure he's racing. He's on the start list, and he has still been doing his sessions. I'm pretty sure he's going. There's a lad called... I've been speaking recently to Joe Skipper a little bit. Oh, yeah. Joe mentioned to me about a lad called Giles from the UK. who's a is he an Olympian or something to do with some GGB or he's got some mile record Elliot I don't know his name is it Elliot it might be Elliot I don't know so he's done a 56 in his debut yeah he's racing so this is the I think Elliot Giles yeah yeah seems like an incredible guy yeah I've been messaging him a little bit on Instagram seems really nice but he's got the mile mile on the road record I didn't know he was I just saw his profile 800 143 yeah that's insane he's got he's probably a really good he's obviously going to be really good at high rocks if he's doing 56 on his debut well he did 56 on his debut with a 6 minute water ball which is scary there's going to be people like him coming into the sport later down the line or there's going to be kids what's going to be brought up on it and it's going to get daft yeah he's definitely one to watch out for so he's racing so no doubt he's going to be well up front until I mean hopefully the wall balls and I can get him on the wall balls even the race that he was in like I saw him like on the sled push on the sled pull.

1:17:00I think he did like one and a half lanes on the sled push and no one else was there. No one there. No one was there. Because he was doing like three tens. I looked at some of his splits and stuff. And then you've got like Jesse Owen who's like coming on so strong. He's a 57 guy but his training's improving. He's looking really good. He's dropping weight. He's looking lean. He's definitely capable of 56. And you know yourself, if you don't turn up on the day, if I'm not 100 % on Friday, I'll get eaten alive by anyone. so they're the ones off the top of my head who I think are going to be challenging.

1:17:34There's going to be some more. There's always lads coming out of the woodwork. There's always good athletes. We don't even see much who will be good. So I do think it's going to be a tough race, but I want the overall win. I need that overall win, mainly for points. And again, I just want an overall win. If the time's going to be ever, it's going to be then when you're all in Hamburg. I love that. So obviously the goal for yourself is to get back into the Elite 15, especially in the next couple of months, get into the top 30 at the Challenger. How are you going to go about that? So I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing because I do feel like I'm on a good path at the minute.

1:18:19Do you think things need to change or do you think you're doing everything right at the moment? I'll try and do the, I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances that I'm in with regards to how many races I've got and like you said, my day-to-day life. I do think running, again, for everyone, everybody, needs to improve, even me. And I'm sometimes, I'm sometimes one of the fastest guys, like on a normal race. I can sometimes be in the top five. But again, I'm just not at the elite. I'm just not at that elite standard. So I do think running needs to improve. The weight thing, I'll have to weigh up when I get a chance to lose weight, but I just keep improving on the burpees.

1:18:57But I do think I'm definitely a challenger 15 athlete, 100%. No, I definitely think you're... I just think I'm just a little bit off the elite 15. So, challenger... But you'll get there. Hopefully, yeah. I mean, like I said, I've been putting effort in for three years, so I'm not going to stop. But the challenger will be good to get in. Just to be involved, get the experience again, be on the grid. and I feel like you're fully involved in it, even though you're not Elite 15, it's still great to be in that. I actually love that concept of the Challenger 15. I think it's good. Yeah, Challenger 15...

1:19:31It's probably going to be better racing. Well, first of all, it's earlier in the day. Oh, is it? So I think it's like... Are you in the Elite 15 for Hamburg? Because you've gone 16th. Yeah, I'm 16th, but I'm in the Challenger. But will you not get the role then if someone, for example, was injured or would you get in a place or what? I think they cut off us a little bit before. so I think if someone gets for example now somebody gets injured on the day which has happened before it would be it would be 14 racing so they've changed the rules I think it's four hours within four hours of the race if someone pulls out like say it's only two hours before the race if someone pulls out then there's only going to be 14 people racing so potentially 31st on the list could work well with me being there because they could get into Hamburg challenging yeah I think probably down to I'd probably say yeah a little bit further I'd probably say 30th, 34th like we've witnessed it with the Elite 15 where sometimes it's gone down to kind of like 20th position that's why I got into where was it Melbourne I think I was 24th 24th I mean I took it because like it could be once in a lifetime I literally found out it took before and I just took it bought the flight and took it and went and just risked it I wasn't I knew I wasn't the fittest I knew I wasn't fit going in as fit as the Elite's anyway but I just went and did it anyway and I think what an experience though oh it was unbelievable like like you say I've got the t-shirt I've got the memory I've got the elite 15 status a little bit like once you've been in it you've been in it you can class as elite for your athlete aren't you I mean I was I think I was battling for second to last but it it was a little bit I was a little bit bummed after it but like you say it was the experience I went for what time did you end up getting it it was such a stat 58 it was 58 but it's still a stat field oh 14th yeah no yeah it was like it was good looking back I would never want to change it.

1:21:21But obviously, it would have been nice to have been. Because after that, I definitely leveled up because my head went when I come home. I was planning my sessions on the bloody plane home. And then I went to... I went to Phoenix. But before Phoenix, I actually raced at Manchester. And that's when I said it was amazing. I got a 56 again. That was two minutes quicker. And that's when I felt like I put such a hard six-week block in. I think I was running so much. Went Japan to peak. this year god it's on next year i mean it's not going to happen but you know ideally i need to peak for every race at the minute until i'm in the challenger because i need to win as many races i can which is super tough to win in overall um but i need as many points as i can because at the minute every race i'm doing the points i'm gaining i'm losing from last year because all my points was in October, November, December before Melbourne.

1:22:16So if I don't kind of do well in these next couple of races, I'm not even going to get into London. I think it'll take six months for this system to kind of balance out a little bit. Lads, hopefully, that are in front of me will lose points when I need them to because I've lost a lot myself. But yeah, I need to peak as much as I can, but it's just not going to happen. Ideally, if I can just feel like I do now and I can get some good points on the board for now and if I can race again before London I ideally would love to peak at London in the Challenger series that I've been that was always my goal would be to to qualify for Challenger take the kids while it's in London because I never get to take them anywhere and although the board for every single hour outside of the race they'll love seeing the race and love seeing you run out and love seeing you being on the stage so that was my goal and that's what I'm hoping to happen for London yeah that would be incredible especially London like it's going to be so big this year good for us as UK athletes because I think it's brilliant that's why I'm looking forward to Birmingham it's just good to do the UK on home soil in it will the kids be coming to Birmingham or not no because it's in fact actually they're off school so I was actually going to Mason told you before about Mason wanting to get into a little bit of content Karina's too probably not into it enough where they want to come down for the full day like Georgie's obviously she's still young Louis would love to come but he's far too young and far too stressful on my own to take but I think Mason might want to come down so I'll take him he can get my DJI and he can be the content creator for the day because they're off school they broke up for school it's half term yeah no I love that maybe take Mason obviously for anyone like Hyrox is going to be a career that is pretty short lived for everyone do you know what I mean everyone's got you can't be doing Hyrox into your 60s well you can't but not at the elite level not at the elite level yeah so so what do you plan on doing after High Rocks?

1:24:08Have you ever thought about it? Yeah, I have, but I don't really have a plan set in place. It's just a thought for now. So I want to race for as long as I can, as elite as I can, like I say. And I do think 40 is maybe the cap. I know we've got a few athletes. You've got Thomas Tervik. Yeah, you've got Thomas and you've got Rich Ryan. Yeah. But like there are two people out of a million like what are still doing it at that level. And I don't know what my body's going to be like. Like I know I'm 36. I've still got four years younger, but I feel worse as most 36-year-olds because of how long I've trained for and what I've put my body through with regards to fitness and training since being so young.

1:24:47I don't know. I feel worse every year. That's why recovery has taken such a massive step. But you're getting better and better a year. Fitness is getting good, but then like I said, I do need to keep all this recovery in place for me to keep going. So I'd love to be in it till at least 40, which is another four years. my plan was always to get as high up as I can within high rocks and do the best I can because I love coaching but coaching isn't something I can commit to like a hundred percent because when you're on race day um you've got to be selfish and think about yourself um obviously I'm very busy outside of training as well but I'd love to go full-time coach I'd love to be involved in high rocks like it's meant to go to the Olympics in six years is it six years 2032 so I mean if I'm not racing I would love to be involved with Irox or with as a coach with an athlete that could be going there do you know what I mean I'd love to be involved in it I love coaching but I just think then would be the best time to be 100 % in and full time coach worst case scenario I've got my toolbox in the back of my van still I'm just back on site and back as an electrician but at least I'll be content because I've had amazing 5 of 10 years whatever i will have had doing what i love um so there'd be nothing that i could look back on and regret and so there's there's absolutely no regrets from like you you quitting your electrician job to go full time no no no no that makes me so happy ptsd from it mate i've actually had to do a couple of jobs recently to be fair because as we've said when we first started doing and i got a couple of sponsors and i got help we was only racing uk events in the odd a way one.

1:26:26Now, I think we've got at least 10 to 12 races in 10 to 12 different countries. One of them being Hong Kong in the world's next year. So, money is like a big part of competing now. And what was I saying before that then? You were saying that you've done a couple of jobs recently. That was it. So then I've had to do a couple of jobs recently just for like a little bit of extra money. So, when I was doing like full-time electrician, high rocks was my side hustle like my little side hustle coaching now that i'm a full-time elite athlete and electrician's my fucking little side hustle like i have to do little jobs little jobs here and there um but i hate it like i climb in a loft again for the first time like about two weeks ago i i just hated it i was like no at least not yet god not yet not yet but if i had to go back to it like i say then that is the worst case scenario i will be content with going back because I will have had all this time would you ever like have your own gym I imagine like you being a coach own gym coffee shop oh mate like I want to have Karina's a hairdresser so I would love to have her own salon I love my own coffee shop but like and I love bagels I want my own coffee and bagel shop like you see what would you call it I've already called it I feel like I feel vaguely into this now like it's I've actually thought about it I've got a logo everything and I love the name flat black because flat white was my favorite coffee and then the b can also stand for bagels and i've made a sick simple a little mint logo with an f and a b for like to put the print on the coffee like it's that so deep i've got into it uh i've thought about the bagels like what i want on them like instagram where you cut the bagel in half and it just looks someone's going to copy this now they're going to hear this and they're going to copy it um but yeah i'd love that but like how do you compete with coffee shops like am i going to make enough money it's like That's a side hustle, isn't it?

1:28:21You're not going to have a coffee shop that's going to earn you so much money. Same with a gym. Most of them out there are money laundering. Yeah, probably, yeah. Probably the same with gyms, but how do you compete with a gym? Wigan's that many gyms. I think you can do it all online and probably make more money. How do you compete with a gym? And I know, lads, I'm really good friends with a few people that have taken the plunge and gone into gyms and they're just so stressed. Because again, you have to be there for someone and there's more to it than just thinking or having a gym. There's a lot more to it.

1:28:58I don't know how you compete. I would love to do it, but I reckon I'd be content going back on site. You need a business partner, I think. So you can focus on your Irox and your coaching. I'll get the shop and she can just run it and do her own dressing and that's it. She's the business partner. There we go. I could do coffee from there if you want. Who's making your bagels as well? That's it. I assume when you're doing that, you're not making the flat whites, you're just drinking the flat whites and eating the bagels. yeah yeah when you say you want a coffee and bagel shop like a top chef yeah and then like you say you want all you want all the top meats and then Wigan are you going to be able to sell a bagel for 10 quid no like people pull the nose at spending 2 quid like no it's mad isn't it like on Middlebrook where we are Aria and Horwich there's a Costa and a Greggs next to each other yeah and the Greggs has always got a queue yeah and the Costa's never got a queue but obviously that's just This is good, though, to be fair, mate.

1:29:50If I can tell. On the day after a race, when I give myself that 24 hours... Greg, what would you go to? Sausage and bean pasty, actually. Sausage and bean? The unreal. Bit of that burn after it, but... I can't remember the last time we had a pasty. I know, yeah, what's your... I'm from Lee as well. Do you? I do a lot of pasties in Lee. Do you know how I have this thing where... I know you eat a lot of food because you train a lot, but do you have anything after a race? I feel like you just go straight into a protein bowl after a race, and you don't let yourself go on food anyway. On food. Do you?

1:30:21You know what? I've been eating like healthy food or like good food for so long that like that's what I crave now. Yeah. I remember talking to you and you took the piss out of me for this because was it my cheat meal? Would be like for heat. I asked you before, what was your cheat meal? And you was like, well, I usually only have two fajitas, but a cheat meal, I might have three. I was like, what? What about put some cheese on it, pal? or whatever like make it a bit more yeah no to be fair we've been doing homemade pizzas recently yeah I think I've seen that on one of your is that on YouTube yeah look good but again very small I would need another one yeah well I have one of them and then I'll have my my protein bowl and shit like that yeah that's that protein bowl you obviously is a monster isn't it yeah and even like going into nutrition and looking into like protein and I probably I feel like I over fuel um 100 % over fuel um but with you I know that like protein doesn't need to be as high as what I would have sometimes.

1:31:22But then I always think, well, Jake has a protein bowl. It's like a hundred grams of protein at night. So it's truly, it's all right for me. No, I do that because relatively like it's pretty low calorie. And it's just the one thing that actually fills me up. You've seen like literally a full big yogurt. And then it'll be like two, three scoops of protein. Is that a 500 gram tub? Yeah. Have you tried the kilo tub? I have done actually. I got that. When did I do that? we was on the way home from London on the train and we was at like the Sainsbury's just before we get on at Euston and I was thinking if I don't get this then I'm going to be starving and I'll end up like just raiding like the cart or whatever on the train so I got a kilo of Greek yogurt some honey and a pack of blueberries and I just went to turn on that yeah it feels bigger than you think I've done a kilo ball and it's like it's quite big Never ending it.

1:32:17Yeah, yeah. I actually got sick of it by the end. Did you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but no, it was good. All right, finish with a couple of quick fire questions. First one, what is your, not favourite, hardest high rock station? Hardest high rock station? Or the one that you shittest at? Shittest at, I mean, wall balls is never great, but I'm not going to say, wall balls, I'm going to say lunges. I've never been so good at, I don't know why, I've always been a strong cyclist, but leg strength is something I've had to really look into doing with lunges. Are your lunges slow? They're actually pretty good now.

1:32:54I think I got down to 240. That's not bad. I got a PB in Geneva because I've been doing more single leg stuff, but not just single leg strength, a little bit more plyometric work, things like that, what I think has helped me. But I've always struggled with it. I've always just seemed to get through it. where when the elites, you've got to race it. Every station after burpees is to be raced. Sorry, I think after rower is probably to be raced. Rower's a bit of a reset. People are racing burpees, recovering on the row, and then racing them lunges and racing to get to the wall balls. Do you think people race the sled push and pull?

1:33:32I do think sled pull's become more of a race. I think sled push is more of getting through it to your best ability. Whether you lose 10, 20 seconds, I think people are prepared to put up with that. but I think they're trying to pull it back on the pull because if you're getting behind, if I'm behind you going into burpees and I'm already 10 seconds behind you, I'm going to be too far behind you at the burpees because you're doing so well in regards to anyone else as well. So I do think people are pushing more on the pull but burpees is where people are breaking away a lot now. Like anytime you're seeing now under 55, the burpees are 210.

1:34:03So that's what people are doing in the race. But yeah, for me, wall balls are always tough but I think they can be tough anyway no matter how many balls you throw. for me lunges has been the one that I've had to really commit to and I feel now is definitely the best it's been and again three years later what do you think your strongest station is I would say my strongest station do you know what I hate it and I don't practice it but farmer's carrier is where I like to try and break away a little bit of the race um I think my strongest is probably ski just because I've always done ergs, but it's too early in the race to do anything with it.

1:34:40It's mad at all because like, obviously you see a lot of people on Instagram now with perfect ski technique or whatever it is. Like you don't pay, I know that you don't pay attention to any of that. Like you've just done the ski erg the exact same as when you ever started. Every single time. Exactly the same. Like five years ago, you was pulling the ski erg the same as you do now. Do you know what's funny? When I did my first ever high rocks, I was looking back at this, whether the rock zone was small, I don't know. but when I did my first ever high rocks you got a PB no all I'd done I don't know if it was a PB because it was the first ever one but all I'd done was run and ski and row I'd never done a sled never done a wall ball never done much lunges but I know that I did a 330 in London in 2022 first ever high rocks I did a 330 what was your overall time I've never had a 330 overall time 103 103 with very bad technique it would have been like a 123 now that so that was your open yeah open time yeah right okay so April 2022 I've got it here so is it 3.30 sure it is so ski 3.30 first place yeah like hoe which is that's faster than obviously you pace it a little bit different that's got nothing to do with judging where no my burpees and everything I don't know what they are but they would have been terrible technique so the time isn't really so your burpee bra jump was 3.36 right which is not that bad but the technique wouldn't be no the judging's so hard that would have been 7 minutes 36 but the ski is nothing to do with judging so how the hell I pulled a 330 on my first ever high rocks I must have been slogging that out mate that ski must have pulled what was that is that a 145 for the whole thing yeah 145 would have been quicker because you've got to get out the rock as well haven't you so you did a 4 minute for your row yeah 139 with 24kg kettlebells yeah I didn't love to do that but everyone used to walk with them yeah wasn't the thing to run with them sandbag lunges 310 which is pretty decent obviously 20kg but pretty decent wall balls 421 yeah but mate I've seen videos of them pal and again that would be a 1021 average run 409 that's yeah that was just off the back of like my 70.3 running so not really intense running but you won quite a good bit of running you won though didn't you I won yeah I came into the wall balls about 6th and I actually got to the finish first which was mad but yeah I was happy with that yeah incredible but yeah so going back to that mate I don't know how I did that because I would never pull a 330 now, ever, because I know that it would fatigue me so much.

1:37:09I think I looked at the first one that I did as well. I think it's because we used to... Just whack herbs. Being from, yeah, a hybrid performance centre. We used to do basically a workout where it'd be every Saturday, it was called leaderboard. And we do this multiple times a week, but on a Saturday, everyone would come in. We'd have like 60 people in there. And basically it'd be 10 calories, you go, I go, on all the ergs for an hour straight. So it'd be me and Mark just whacking it. One third. And then because, yeah, as fast as you can. And then because you're doing calories, if I do mine faster, you get less rest.

1:37:42So I want to punish you. So I go faster and then you do the same. And then like, but I remember like pulling and we'd be on the cal's per hour screen and we'd be pulling like 2 ,700 to 3 ,000 calories per hour. But when you actually work that up now, that would be like a 120 or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. definitely under 130 isn't it yeah under 130 and we've just been ripping that that's probably moulded us a little bit hasn't it those days of just slugging up I was thinking I've not done a MECOS in ages but I don't think I think I'd probably struggle to do a 20 cal now it's surprising isn't it that is so different really to what we do ours is more especially with the doubles I think it's a good it's actually probably a really good session for doubles singles it's good for you working for three minutes but it's probably too high intense isn't it like the pace is much slower in a race it's got to be to withstand but yeah it's mad how things are changing yeah no it's crazy it's crazy who is your favourite for the males this year to be world champion who do you like who do you think it's going to be do you know what I I think Cole is 100 % one of the lads going to be up there 100 % but I do think that based on his performance at the minute I think Charlie is incredible at the minute.

1:39:02I'm actually scratching my head. Not, obviously, he's put a lot of work in, but how good he actually has got. That is, he's a prime example there of, like you said, even down to ourselves, we've only got to where we've got to from putting hard work in for three years. Charlie's a prime example of that, of how much work he's put in. It's not overnight success. He's done this. whatever he's done 26 hours a week whatever it is for four years and it's now like showing so much well we was we was out with him when we did Bordeaux and when we raced the doubles that was his 100th race really we weren't celebrating a little cake afterwards but like a 100 races it's crazy but if you look he only the first ever Elite 15 race he got into yeah was last year October time yeah which is crazy like I say someone's just clicked I think with yourself Jake you've found that gear as well I think he's found that gear you found that gear and I think I do think I would back him to be I think he found his gear I think he found his gear last year so he did looking back at his training he did like a 12 week block in the summer yeah well I raced him at Manchester and that's when I felt amazing and he did me again by I think over a minute and he said that he realised how fit he felt then and that was then and he's just kept I feel like I've probably learned a little bit more up and down with it but again maybe it comes down to like your life and stuff like that like to be so zoned in I feel like and to progress keep progressing maybe you do you do need to just be able to be full time and not have the the kids and things like that you can spend extra time can't you in the gym things like that and all the top boys probably don't not many of kids Cole Lerner lives in a gym yeah Charlie has no life apart from the gym yeah and he won't mind me saying that yeah I think he regularly says that he's single and he can't get a girlfriend because all he does is training right here well I've got a girlfriend and I don't really see how much if you've not got one you're not going to get one yeah if I were you Charlie I'd stay single I would mate to be world champion I think he will be definitely will be so he's just alright see you later Emily we're locking in me and Mark we'll go buy an apartment together and we'll just lock it actually Airbnb so we can cook for ourselves to be fair I think we'll just live down here in the gym I'll do that I'll have to do that we'll set up here 247 gym but I do think that's a massive massive thing with someone at that level that they're at to keep at the top I do think that's a big big help is having all the extra all the extra time and less stress to spend training and travelling as well and everything else that comes with it yeah no that would be interesting but yeah I do think I would say Cole and I do think either Cole or Charlie are my favorites um advice for just one piece of advice for people that are in a similar position position to you you know they want to be the best athlete they can be but they've also got kids so um the best advice i could say is try to limit the time you have away from home so what i mean by that is i converted my garage into a salon for karina so that would have been a gym i'm fortunate enough that my dad's house is only up the road and I've got all my ergs in there so I'm only traveling two minutes to train but that's why I put the wellness center in the garden so as a parent you need to eliminate as much time away you could spend an hour of your time traveling to and from a sauna or traveling to and from a gym if you could have something at home whether it's some dumbbells a wall bowl a bike or I'm not saying everyone's gonna have a sauna but that was my choice some form of recovery you can eliminate that time away by spending the extra time that you've got by doing the training or the recovery so invest in something for yourself whether it's a bike or some equipment and you've got and you've got room for it um or a mat and some and a foam roller and just have something at home where you can just get a bit of benefit um without traveling i suppose it's pretty cool as well like your kids witnessing you working hard like are you putting so much effort into recovery because if you just say it right see you later i'm off to the gym they don't know what the gym is i mean they don't know what you're doing in that time yeah whereas like at least if you've got a bike at home and you're you know you're doing hard efforts on it they understand what hard work is and working out and they might be inspired by it i did have it in my front room for a while and i would put telly on but then i was trying to train with him there and I just, we've looked at Louis there and you can't sometimes get into that horrible mental zone when someone's around you.

1:43:50So I did take it up to my dad's and that's, like I said, the recovery is better for me. But definitely have something at home that will benefit your training and performance or recovery and eliminate time away. One bit of advice for parents. And then final one, death row meal. Death row meal. I know you're a foodie. Mate, God. we're going full free courses yep full free courses I love like buffalo boneless buffalo wings why boneless? do you not think they taste a little bit better? I can't be arsed what I'm rolling about I want to just get it in Jake I don't want to wrestle it especially if you're on death row yeah like I don't want to be you want to chill and I'm very funny with eating around like you know all the gristle and things like that I just like the boneless boneless buffalo wings with blue cheese dip.

1:44:42That's probably my go-to favourite starter ever. And then I can eat a lot, so I'll probably say like a Chateaubriand to myself, with all the trimmings, all the sauces that you get with it. You usually get three different sauces. So what are your favourite sauces? They always do a special sauce, don't they, at most places. It's always tastes the same, but it's special to them and it's special to me because it tastes so good. Again, maybe blue cheese. I love blue cheese sauce. and then maybe like a mushroom or a pepper sauce. All the trimmings, sweet potato fries, normal fries, even like a bit of veg.

1:45:15I don't mind a bit of veg in my state. It probably has to be more like fried veg than like a boiled broccoli. Or like the sprouts. Yeah, don't bring me all that. The honey sprouts. Yeah, at least put some pancetta on it as well. A bit more calories. That would be my go-to. Or chicken for heaters. I love eating with my hands. I love chicken for heaters. And I'd probably push the boat in and have four. So that would be dirty compared to you, would it? and then my main sorry my desserts um i'm a massive anything salted caramel probably down the route of cheesecake so give me a full cheesecake ideally salted caramel probably with some cream as well um and i think that would probably fill me up just nicely for death what kind of cream you got squirty cream or you know like both both both yeah um you can tell i'm a foodie can't you off that answer yeah yeah for sure yeah quality and quantity that's it pal yeah i love it thank you for today no worries mate thanks appreciate it best of luck uh obviously like i said this will come out the morning of your race yeah um so i will probably i will probably listen to it um but not after yeah afterwards yeah just to make sure it's but for anyone anyone that is listening um yeah go check out what mark did yeah yeah hopefully win and i keep saying 55 and all these pre-race videos but i do want to be in that 55 yeah that's every race now because I think that's where you need to be for the elite.

1:46:38Well, I think it's definitely achievable at Birmingham. It's a nice, cool venue. I think the studs are pretty good. You've got a whole crowd. Yeah, that's it. Let's go.