How I Came Back From RED-S | Jake Smith | Ep 46

0:00Jake Smith, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. How was your journey down here? Oh, it's easy. It's just this straight train from Central to Paddington. And then, thankfully, you guys got me an Uber. Otherwise, I would have had no clue where to go. Two-hour commute, though. Class. I was writing plans, watching Broad... There's a new Netflix thing I'm watching, a crime thing, which I'm quite into. So, yeah, it's quite simple. It's quite chilled. Class, class. For the people that may not know who you are, would you just be able to sum yourself up? Yeah, so I'm a professional athlete for, I can never really pronounce it, DSM Fermanect.

0:38They've changed the names from NN to DSM. And Nike, I've been a professional athlete since end of 2021. I don't live the most amazing life. It's quite dull. It's literally run, sleep, eat, on repeat. and I live in Cardiff. How is living in Cardiff? It's good. I will get into it a bit like because of my struggles before. I used to hate it because, you know, I don't know if you've ever had this, but you know when you go through like a dark patch in your life and you associate everything to do with it. But right now it's good. Yeah, they just had the card off High Rocks. My girlfriend competed there.

1:20I'm guessing you won the card off. Yeah, it was pretty good. It wasn't the best for spectating, I must admit, because you couldn't watch the farmer's carries or anything in the Cardfire arcs. I even have had that problem. Emily mentioned this. She was there watching, and because the farmer's carry was on the other side of the venue and there was a barrio in front, she was like, everyone just looks like ducks. They're just waddling. Because you can't see the weights. No. They just move in like this. And it was a bit carnage. We watched it back and it was laughing our heads off at it. But yeah, it was a cool venue.

1:53how did your girlfriend do she did well she's now she so she first did Stockholm last year and now she's doing 73 minutes she's not doing the pro weight um yet just because she's a bit nervous of the um sled pull and sled push um so I've had to get into all the names which I'm getting better at now but it is good fun to watch I um one thing I don't understand why the men all wear go topless at times I get it gets warm and stuff but um yeah it's quite good fun because she it's actually really helping her running I've now noticed just the strength work is insane um and I have wanted to do one but it's not not for a while yeah mate you've got priorities and you're doing pretty well in the running world so let's just talk a couple of numbers just for so people get kind of like a perspective of how good you are because when you say you're just a runner like go on go through the extent like um name off kind of like your your your either you know current pbs or current times let's say i feel like you've got kind of like two lives yeah so i could say like a pre when i like i don't really associate myself to the times i used to run because i just didn't do it healthily but when i was that it was like 13 38 for 5k 28 01 for 10k 60 31 for the half and 211 for the marathon um now which i'm a lot healthier it's 13 43 for the 5k about 28 46 for 10k 61 47 for the half and 211 high for the marathon so it's like it's getting closer and closer and like in london this year i wanted like that fairy tale ending where i've finally got pb but it just didn't happen so i'm just have to keep working at it and when you say healthier yeah obviously we can talk about like all the health benefits but let's just talk weight simply how much heavier are you now compared to what you was so i brought scales for me to uganda because this is when it really went you're allowed to swear on this right yeah of course it went shit shit really um i got down to 51 kilos so it was 51 kilos as a 23 year old guy and And like, I'm now 66, 67.

4:09And I made a train with Alfie in London. But I said to him, I think it was him I said to him, I bet I have the biggest BMI going into this race now. And, but yeah, so I've had to put on basically 15 kilos from the lowest point of my life in order to actually be healthy. But it's like, like I say to people, it's like running is, at the end of the day, see, even if I train for 16 to 18 hours a week, it's not even a day and day of the week if that makes sense and it was just ruining my relationship ruining absolutely everything whereas now it's like I've never been so happy bought a house with my girlfriend in Cardiff um and yeah it was a dark place I went into before but yeah let's uh let's dive into kind of like your background like growing up was you always into running nah so I was I was actually I was born in Bermuda and um grew up in Hong Kong wow yeah so I grew up in Hong Kong for 15 years um I followed running like my parents would take us over the mountains I mean I don't know if you've ever been to Hong Kong but there is actually a countryside to Hong Kong it's not just pollution and pollution and stuff and big buildings but so you'd go running on the mountains and there'll be like what wild cows wild monkeys wild snakes you just have to run through and everything but I played rugby a bit mixed netball and biathlon football football and rugby were my main two things i was actually um for one season i was a prop in rugby i don't i don't know how that happened because i'm only five foot seven and then i turned into scrum half which made more sense i was a center back in football for a while then when i was 16 came over to england i think i spent i would try it out for like the rugby team i spent 10 minutes i didn't realize the size of the boys like no offense to asian kids but they're a lot smaller than a 16 year olds white english kid especially from wales yeah well not because i was living in england yeah yeah so um moved back to devon and moving from hong kong to devon is a bit bit weird to be honest um how did you even take that have you ever heard of seaton or lyme regis yes so it's on the coast so it's like i've gone from the average age being like my age 16 18s in hong kong to like generally like 75 like there was there's it's a beautiful place like it's stunning to grow up nah it's like everyone talks about extra extra nightlife i don't actually think it's uh amazing now i live in cardiff but um it was weird it's like you lose all your friends and everything from school um i went to a private school i don't know if anyone else went to a private school i'm not a fan of private schools i feel like a lot of them up themselves a bit a lot of the kids because they're very rich um then i went to a college in exeter and that was really cool because it was just literally like oh just normal people really and you just crack on with them um but it was weird going from hong kong to seon to be honest really weird pretty pretty mad it's a pretty hilly place yes yes very hilly so i actually my first gb team i got into the um under 20 european mountain running up and down um so you started off actually like fell running trail running yeah so it was weird because again i just the problem with the like the asian community is they i mean you look at the japan right now the marathon they're just so good at the marathon they don't actually have a what's called like they don't really care about the 1500 and 3k and stuff so when i was growing up and i came to england i saw the longest distance you do on the track was a 3k i was it was beyond me because i'd run a 10k on the track when i was 14 15 just because that was the norm so I felt like I lost a load of speed when I should have been doing it just because but it's just a different it's a completely different world out there um so you was into running whilst out there yeah so it was like the thing is a lot of kids ask me like but I was never very good like I was when I came to England I never made English schools my highest position was 50th at English Cross I think last year in London Marathon it was the closest I've ever been to Alex Shee in terms of time and I've raced him over six kilometers across and that was a marathon but the the reason I was running in Hong Kong because my parents enjoyed it and but that when a load of like younger athletes ask me how to get better at running I don't really care how good you are under 18 it doesn't really bother me much it's you build such a big base from playing football playing rugby you actually forget so I actually wasn't running that much but like I probably wasn't the best midfielder but I would chase down every single football and um so that just built such a big aerobic base I didn't even realize it and then when I took on the running more seriously um it worked and me and my sisters we've always been quite competitive of each other so um they both run now and they're they're quite good so um yeah i have to keep keep improving i guess yeah no that's that's amazing so you come over to devon um like you say you you're still running yes how successful do you get in that time period so i went to like i said i went to a private school for a year and that's when i actually started seeing cams i don't actually know what it stands for but it's basically the food disorder for the normal person like for kids and everything and i hated it because i don't think they associate athletes they just like talk talk to the normal kid and like us too like if you're doing a sport we aren't really like to your level especially we aren't really that normal we are so different we need like for example when you do bloods our bloods need to be significantly higher and then I went to college and that was really good but I picked up two stress fractures just because I still had big food issues um the best year of my life was actually first year university because that's when you get pissed three days a week and I was actually without even realizing but I was having you know you go for a kebab or um burger or mcdonald's after night out that saved me for a whole year I was doing that still training every day but I was putting in actual calories into my body which it needed and it was the most the happiest I've been up until that point because I actually had the food and everything um I joined my coach my first proper coach at university James D and he took me on but at the time it's all complicated my mom thought triathlon was better and stuff but triathletes their training's a bit crazy my coach made me just do running so the first year at university I started get quite good but like I still wasn't there and then from there on I think I have that sort of personality why don't I don't give up really and it started getting better and better until I'm here where I am today but yeah it's been a bit of a wild journey yeah that's incredible if you don't mind me asking and like say you don't have to answer this um where did your relationship with food start to kind of say decline so it's actually probably back in hong kong so the worst thing is i saw i think i started weighing myself and i saw my times get quicker but not because i was getting fitter but my weight going down and then you see i came to the watched 2012 olympics i believe like the marathon and he saw the size of the boys i'm like how do i become like them like the africans leading so from then from then i've always always wanted to be like a marathoner yes 14 15 i started struggling with it and i didn't and my parents have gone through bloody hell because my sisters both struggled with it as well and i do blame myself for it a bit because like being like the older sibling and stuff um so it's not it's a bit annoying but I'd always struggled with it from 14 15 16 all the way up well maybe the last three years is the only time I've never really struggled with it and what did that like extent go to with food like could you just talk about like some of the bad habits that you picked up potentially or I had I was making myself sick in 2021 one um I actually did for this YouTube I did the 10 ,000 calorie challenge on because me and my um housemate we had um we had COVID so we weren't you know when the COVID you weren't really allowed out and it was during Christmas time and so my grandparents were my parents house and I was like look they're like in their 70s if they do get COVID at the time they could end up dead whatever so I did 10 ,000 calorie challenge and almost every meal I had I would make myself sick when i went to uganda i would make myself sick i would only be happy if i saw every i would weigh myself every morning and i would only be happy if my weight reduced the following day i would got to a phase where i was like looking at my fitness pal the you know tracking calories and i'd eat 2 000 calories burning four or five thousand every day i'd eat an apple for lunch also being sick being sick while being sick so you're consuming the calories but really no so you're probably consuming a thousand of them exactly i have i had a sunday ice cream day which is my like i don't know i still have it and but i would actually have to have so the only times i actually felt good were on a tuesday wednesday because i would have two whole ben and jerrys on a sunday night full of sugar because my body was so like i would look forward to it and then once i finished it i would get upset because i had to wait another week for it i wouldn't allow my body to have it i weighed absolutely every piece of food i oh the worst bit was i got to a phase where i would have a liter of water during the day and i wouldn't allow myself to have anymore because of water weight because of water water weight it literally and you'd you did know like the the science behind like yeah but i just wanted to get low like i just saw my time so when i was around that 60 31 i just saw my times go down and down quite quicker and my weight went down i did blood tests after i came back from uganda my testosterone was four so at the time women's testosterone had been below five i had anemia i had osteoporosis osteoporosis so basically my sacrum and my it was another bone type was in the mind yes i had that they said to me by the time you're 30 you'll be in a wheelchair if you carry this on i had anemia my vitamin d was like every little thing you'd think of i had i had a sacrum stress fracture i had a foot stress fracture at the end of 2022 so this was after uganda and then instead of actually recovering i would get to the gym if i didn't get to the gym i don't know why as well but i had like these little rules if i didn't get to the gym by 7 30 a.m i felt like a failure even if i got there at 7 45 i don't work i don't need to be there that early i did 20 hours a week of cross training my foot took an extra month to heal and then two months later i got a sacrum stress fracture and that was the start of 2023 so from 20 like 18 to 2022 i had four stress fractures i probably got ill every single month apart from and well the mad thing is my girlfriend stayed with me this whole time it like it's getting to quite personal your libido's down like like it gets quite personal but she doesn't mind me sharing this that i did not want to have sex like it was one of those things when i would almost get like a buzz if we didn't because my testosterone was so low i physically didn't have the energy to do it i wouldn't allow like a chore yeah literally um and now it's up to 18.3 she's a bit nervous it's going up the other way yeah um that's cool that's kind of like a really healthy range the range obviously that to measure testosterone there's different yeah it's nine to 27 i think it's like uh so you're kind of like i've increased it by 500 in the space of two three years um question going back to um like the bulimia um did you it sounds this is a very personal question but did you like learn that from anyone or did you see that or did you like why did you start making yourself sick like what i had read it about it and I think it got to a phase where it was so easy to do it was quite scary like now if I tried I don't actually think I could actually physically do it whereas at the time because I was so used to doing it all I had to do was basically I know it's a bit much but put my hands down my throat and it would happen um you could like yeah it wasn't but it was I just wasn't there for I lost a load of friends but i was never rude or anything to my girlfriend to my um yeah but oh sorry also at the end of 2021 so it was during the world cup i was 21 wasn't it oh 2022 um my parents took me and my girlfriend to like one of the i like fior triventura one of the islands canary island yeah it was one of them and we went out for a week i walked out three restaurants because the portion sizes were too big and stuff like that and i had stress fracture and I wasn't running um and it was a tough time to time and I basically had to I but I couldn't get out of it and that's why when people say they have similar things to me and you know a lot of people say oh just eat it's so hard to get out of that mindset um but then the worst thing was I actually went the other way around and had what's it called when you like eat so much at one sitting binge so for example every Sunday I was bingey because that would make me happy um but then you'd probably regret it as soon as you finished yeah but i had no energy to do anything else um another thing i used to do was i'll train say i'd do 13 miles in the morning i'd go for a walk straight after because i wouldn't allow myself to eat till midday so in the morning if i trained at say 7 30 that's 7 30 till 12 of walking or standing or doing something and my body was completely broken i remember in uganda i was i was training with chepta guy and stuff like that and it was they actually said to me but the ugandans said to me like they called me mzungo because that's what they do but they said you look too skinny whereas normally it's the other way around um and i physically didn't have an injury i don't know if you've ever had this i physically could not run up a mountain mount a hill like a small small gradient i'd say like four minute k's when i'd been running sub three minute k's two weeks before because my body had completely given up on me and as soon as that happened i called it like basically called a cab and went home the next day um but then the same sort of thing happened um my family said you need to just eat so of course you know the hotels they have buffet breakfast i was before i went on the flight had buffet breakfast what did i do after made myself sick so it's just like it was repetitive repetitive repetitive um the only reason why i ran semi-decent times in 2022 because what i was like there was no real training input or anything um so after uganda i had to move to a new coach you know joe and gavin baby yes so and they've been like family like i call them three times a day i went at the end of 22 before when i had my stress fracture i went to theirs and new christmas eve and started just bawling my eyes out explaining everything so it was like it was a tough tough time and then yeah was it when thinking about kind of like the the position that you was in obviously like you said you just wanted to be lighter all the time and you had this obsession to be lighter was there a lot of pressure because like you said you've been signed with people you've been out to Uganda you wanted to be like the other guys and you want to be as skinny as the other guys for example or was it kind of just all like internal pressure I think it was both it was like the worst thing I've ever done is run a 60 31 like the that's the worst thing I've ever done because around that time oh the 211 I did and I had one gel I was just pacing and I ran a 211 marathon but the problem is is because because I was I was so like I could manage to do those things but the worst thing is as soon as I did those two I don't know if you were following running running as much back then but it was like like headlines Jake Smith Jake Smith everything I would go to I came 18th the world half champ second European I'm actually getting higher up as more athletes get caught for doping but um as soon as I ran that it was just like I felt like not like the most far level but I felt like the next big thing um and so every single rest I remember going to a 1500 meters three guys beat me and they're like I can't believe I beat Jake Smith I'm like I don't do the 15 I've just run a bloody half and a marathon um so there was a lot of pressure on me it's like a bit like like a meal at the minute like a meal must be going through a lot of pressure because he is just he is the greatest one of the greatest ever british runners i've ever seen and it's hard to get out like i just did an instagram post two days ago proud pressure i literally said what is pressure like this year my the two main goal races i've went for london marathon berlin half london marathon went shit and oh when you say shit not not amazing yeah yeah but like you're you in for a 209 30 yeah you got a 212 right yes so in terms of how i felt yeah and then but the same thing berlin half i went for 61 30 sorry barcelona half around 61 47 but again i didn't feel amazing whereas the two best races castles i know it's just uh people probably haven't heard of castles i i felt like an animal like no one was stopping me that day i had jelly legs at the end my legs were shaking that much over the mountains and berlin half where i ran 62 07 is a hard tempo um or like bath half as well where i just went for it and those three races i put no pressure on myself the other two i put pressure so that's why i felt like the whole of 21 22 i put so much pressure on myself and i associated pressure with losing weight and that's when it just went hell yeah yeah so obviously So you decided the, well, sorry, you realized there was a problem, like you say, and you kind of came to the realization and admitted to yourself.

22:28I feel like you probably knew along the journey that this was a problem. Yeah. But you finally admit to yourself, you get a flight home, you get a new coach. Yes. And then do things start to kind of like change? No, because when I moved back to my new coach in the start of 2022, I admitted nothing to him. because I was I just I didn't want anyone to fight like know that I was struggling as well so my girlfriend knew I was struggling my best mate knew I was struggling and it was not until the end of 22 towards the end of 22 we're on a night out my best friend comes up to me with a few others and says Jake we need to get you help so that's when I went to my coach's house end of 2022 New Year's Eve or Christmas Eve and just bawled my eyes out just explaining every exactly what I've said to you every little thing what I prevented myself from eating how much weight I'd lost um and this is the time I had the stress fracture my foot and yeah and then two three months later when I got back into running have you ever done a session where after injury and you're like I shouldn't be running this quick I had that exact thought what happens two weeks three days later I get a sacrum stress fracture and I was actually in manchester i see um i go to the hospital up there with i forgot all what the doctor's institute of health and performance yeah it's one i forgot it was an old british doctor i've met him in london i always forget his name but john rogers yeah john rogers so i saw him and again another tears up but i was in manchester with a bag on my back two bags on my back just recovered from a foot one which took an extra month to heal and all he does is just like i've never seen someone look so sad he just looked at me and just said i'm so sorry and i just got given two crutches have a sacrum stress fracture and now have to take a train journey back down to cardiff um so that's when i mean it's like you know you see let's run you see all these comments about oh jake smith's done like i thought i was done like so did people get wind of this that you was yeah so i did a whole post about it i had to ask my agents had to say um i need to do a post because this isn't right like everyone knows something's up so i did a whole post about look it's with red ass like it's not easier for women but when women start missing their periods it's it's sort of like a sign sign yeah whereas with men it's it's a lot harder and i think the big culprit is when your testosterone is that low or you have the effect like the symptoms like i've mentioned i think i think for for a lot of people like the first trigger yes first sign is probably like you say libido yes yes everyone's probably had like training weeks where like they've you know the libido has gone down because trainings took over and everything like that but when it happens kind of like weeks on weeks and months on months that's when potentially you need to address it exactly i think i think that's probably like the biggest sign would you say that that is because you're not doing blood tests like every yeah that's like a natural kind of and like just feeling fatigued and feeling tired was there anything else that you felt i couldn't sleep um even though i was in big sessions i just couldn't sleep i don't know i think that's i don't know why i couldn't say that was the worst thing i felt like i didn't have dreams or anything i was just sat there um it sounds weird like did you sometimes did you try and train more yes try and get to sleep yes so it was like you can't sleep so you think oh i'm gonna tire myself out even more yeah it wasn't it wasn't the best um it's it's just yeah it was just every everything i did you would say what the hell are you doing almost um i don't know i don't even have a job when i was waking up at 7 a.m um i just had such a bad relationship with it all and I think the worst thing about it all is you lose you're not there for your friends and it's like I wasn't there for my family I wasn't there for my friends but I'm not being a dick I just wasn't there um because I literally had no energy to do anything else apart from train um so yeah and when I found out my straight sacrum stress fracture I actually moved back to Seton did some coaching for the local run club but I couldn't if I told you it was i had five weeks of zero if i told you to do five weeks of you can't run walk nothing like no training whatsoever it was tough and that's when i was like screw this like i'm not the brightest of the bunch like i i couldn't even tell you what my course i did at university i think it stopped um but my parents like they sat me down they're my biggest supporters but they go like what are you actually gonna do and i looked at myself i actually don't know so um they uh so that was when I made decision like after a week the first week I didn't want to do anything with running like I nearly completely stopped because do you know Pippa Wolven she's the head of Red App Project Red Ass on Instagram so she had Red Ass and actually came back to support and represented GB but there haven't been um Jake as another one is Jake Riley he represented America for the marathon in 2016 got Red Ass and he tried to get back unfortunately he couldn't so I was like you know what screw this I want to be that person that gets back and I made like like almost like a goal like a dream of mine is like I'm not doing this sport just for me now I'm doing it for even if it's one person on the side or a thousand people who are going through something similar to me I'm like I'm going on every single start line to help them and show them they can get back to it so yeah it was like five weeks at home and I spoke to five different psychologists until i found the right one i spoke to renee mcgregor she saved me as well um the nutritionist who she sent me like a literally a normal person's food i was like this is way too much it was like a normal person's i wasn't even yeah someone doesn't even train yeah i was like what the hell is it like this is way too much can you talk us through like a typical day i'm i am genuinely curious so like on a race day for example oh just normally like so for the listeners out there this is not what to do like please do not like this is this is i'll go on and go on like go on like on my life please don't follow this so like on what i used to do yeah what you used to do oh oh uh a typical day but how bad did it get it got that bad i would train um let's say train fasted train fasted when i was 16 i would wait until 12 to have an apple or in Uganda I would wait until 12 to have one little sandwich.

29:17Nothing else. Another session. Then I would have like just a normal meal. Then like a yoghurt and go to bed. And that's it? That's it. And I would only allow myself to have a litre of water as well. It got that bad. But then I assumed no electrolytes or nothing? Oh, no, no, no. Nothing like that. Maybe a vitamin C type. but I don't even know if that has electrolytes in it and then it when I then started to get little bit better I would say like I would have but no actually it wasn't actually getting better but I would have instead like a bagel but I would weigh my Nutella like how much Nutella is but let's just say the last three years I've messaged Nutella three times after sponsorship because I would finish like like a kilo in like five days I've actually had to my coaches I've actually had to get rid of Nutella this block just because I was so addicted to it but I would wait and I don't know if you've seen like Nutella like I think it's such a good source of energy and for like kids for any age 100 % have it but I'd wait how much like a serving was and that's all I would have so be a bagel and that and then maybe like a little bar before training so I actually got a tiny bit better but it was still nothing um and yeah i mean it's a bit different now i would say yeah let's talk about now so obviously you've made some crazy changes like all very positive now yeah um would you say that you're in like a healthy space with food so let's say let's just say the start of this year in a 12 to 16 week marathon block i lost one kilo that's it and i even tried to lose it if I couldn't um and my coach and my agent like I said to you I probably had the biggest BMI in London and I'm doing a marathon later this year and I said to myself uh my coach was like like now I can actually talk to you about losing a bit of weight because it will help the marathon it's a horrible thing to say and of course like this is only for my my doings like if you lose two three kilos you'll be on 63 64 kilos for my height is more than healthy so the only thing I've done is reduce Nutella and I'm starting to lose weight but I still have it's so bad I don't know if it's bad but I still have a Ben and Jerry's three times a week a whole one like I know people who have Ben and Jerry's every single night see I couldn't because I couldn't do it before session days just because it would kill my stomach but on session days and because we're doing so much um but I'm never going to get rid of that so I was like oh what can I get rid of it's a bit shit but I've got rid of Nutella and it's um so go on talk us through like a typical day of eating now so typically I have like I go through quite a few like a lot of square bars right before training because I wake up have square bars run almost and then straight away it's like a banana because I've run quite a lot later than I used to so I don't run at seven I run at like nine ten so you get back and it's basically lunch anyway are you are you waking up early oh no no no no just you're sleeping more yeah exactly that was a huge change that is yeah it's better so you're going to bed let's start the night before so what time are you going to bed i'm quite bad i don't know if you'll go about like 11 it can be 10 to 12 like it depends and then what time you you're waking up depends who i'm running with sometimes earliest is eight earliest is eight you're getting a solid like nine hours in bed and then go out for my run straight away come back have banana whatever and i've gone through i'm getting through a bit of a series of tortellini at the minute so i have a whole pack of tortellini two bags of crisps and a milkshake just for lunch i don't know how many calories that is but it's it's a decent amount yeah but it's all fuel all fuel um i've actually had to get rid of going to the local bakery because they made like the biggest chocolate tiffin you could think of it was like it was genuinely like a key i would finish that so i've had to like just for this matter i've got my coach i've just i'll allow it on like the weekends whatever um then go to i've like i've a two hour nap every day 90 minutes every night every day sorry every single day and then i wake up go down i'm quite bad with it i'll have like kit kats or about features anything i can get my hands on straight forward training um then um dinner um my girlfriend i've actually got into more cooking so i'm enjoying my cooking of course put more rice on and then in the evening it's either two magnums and a cornetto or a whole ben and jerry's depending on the day that's class which i love that like the fact that obviously the main thing there calories have increased yeah and that was like one of the main things that potentially caused the yeah you know just being malnourished like over a long period of time but what strikes me there is you're seeing everything as fuel oh yeah yeah yeah and you're not bothered too much about whole foods and like uh do you focus on getting your protein in at all like uh well one thing i need to still improve on is like how much i eat before training in the mornings because i think i eat quite a lot of the night i'm not fasting i'm having something but i that is still my sort of kryptonite and it's still something i need to improve and i know that but I'm still having something I I don't I'm not the biggest fan of because of my past and weighing and measuring things it put me into quite bad headspace so I don't do anything like that you don't weigh measuring um like I said I lost a kilo in 12 16 weeks and I was trying to lose weight so I'm quite my body's healthy enough now the last three years I would say this might be a bit ambitious but i would say i'm one of the healthiest british runners i make every single start line and i'm competing to the highest level well on a national scale um but i don't know it's i feel like i get enough and i feel like all my training because i was running 130 140 miles a week for the marathon block and unfortunately london didn't go well but i did three halves in the space of six weeks and ran 61 high um bath half where i came forth 60 30 and i let that out and then 62 07 in the space of six weeks so and all my bloods have significantly improved um so my coach makes me do that every two months now so i have to do like um the finger brick tests um i don't know it's i know people i i'm all for people weighing my sister does it as well she checks all her like all her how much um of each type of fuel she's having and everything but for me it's like i think they were doing so much is calorie like i just need to get anything down and i'm not gonna lie i'm not gonna have something i don't like i like i like yeah i was just uh obviously like seeing you like that like even like thinking about your five a day are you bothered uh like do you rate it do you try and get a variation in i do have a banana you have a banana um i prefer veg i have a quite bit of veg for dinner um where do you get your protein in because obviously protein is important ah see so tortellina i've now gone to spicy sausage okay okay sick nice i don't know if that counts and then or every meal um we have like some sort of like chicken um i'm really big into steak at the minute like really really big into steak so we go to the butchers to get steak and i didn't realize how expensive they are they're butchers but they are proper good um yeah i feel like i'm quite like now i feel like i i sort of needed to get out of the headspace of viewing food as like some food is bad and everything whereas now i'm just yeah i'll just have whatever yeah i'm not i don't know if i if i feel like i'm struggling in training or my race is going bad then i'll probably look into it but right now i'm actually having to get rid of the sugar intake just through nutella just because yeah it's really interesting like uh um um so let's talk about like obviously like you say you've talked about like going through red s um let's talk about the other side the more positive things like you said you're you're a lot better now but let's talk about your racing yes so i just did another instagram it was like so at the start at one of the nicest things i've ever seen was last year at london marathon there was a guy a european guy always i always forget his name and he came up to me before the race and it was quite a hot day last year but i was fourth brit ran 211 high um and it was it was a solid race because people were struggling that day and one of the guys he was called christian I think he's called Christian.

38:00And he came up to me after the race and he gave me the biggest hug because he was like, Jake, I thought genuinely when you came out with Red S, I thought you were done. And now you're running a 2.11 only two years back. It's pretty special. So the start of 2023, when I started running back after my sacrum injury, the first two months my coach would message me most days and say, you have to train like a 10-year-old girl. So it was like 30 minutes of cross-train every other day. My first run back was five minutes. my second run back was six minutes my third run back was seven minutes I didn't do any of the run walking my coach isn't a massive fan of that because I think it's he um he says it's a bit too much like not load but like it's I see people do run walk and I understand because you want more distance but at the time I my body just needed to just do a tiny bit of running so he said five minutes go home basically um so it's start 2020 at 2023 my only goal was to get to get to a race and I managed that and 2024 what was that race I did great self-run so I ran 48 30 and it was probably one of the most biggest highlights of my year because I came up of my life because I came eighth of course it wasn't anywhere near a PB but I was back on the start line and around 48 30 I was like wow um no actually the biggest one was my first ever thing I did back was a park run and I have these things called post red s PBs and I broke 15 again and I just I was buzzing um even though it's over a minute slower I just couldn't care then then 2024 I went back to start lines but again I didn't believe in myself but I wouldn't stand on the start of the front line like start at the start of the race whereas before I would put myself there the whole time and I had to speak to my um psychologist because I was still afraid to race and still afraid to get there because I remember one race um I did I came like seventh in a 5k and my girlfriend overheard these people talking say oh Jake Smith's done like this is 2024 he's completely done um in 2025 I just kept training had no niggles or anything 2025 I won national medals so I got like um third at Great South second well Brits but third at Great South second at Great North I was fifth overall behind Ben Connor that was another British champs around 13 43 for the 5k on the track just my first 5k of the summer um a one path half and then I did went to Nijmegen um Netherlands um my coaches wanted me to practice do more half marathons at the end of 2025 and that's what I did so I raced a lot more and yeah and then this year I've told you about the halves I've done I did and marathon and I so wanted that British vest I wanted it more than probably anyone and unfortunately didn't pay off I think um Alfie and I were a bit too a bit too aggressive at the start but I just want to say Alfie like I've heard he was talking on his podcast his training is unbelievable he doesn't really need to change much he's actually got my head I've actually started wearing pegs now instead of a mirror premium so um because and I actually you actually feel it a bit more in your car so he's I've told him he's got my head a bit but um yeah and now I'm back to like I got a call about um just missing like not making the European team for the marathon but at the end of the day when I got the call I was actually going to night out so I was actually quite tipsy when um they called it the selectors called me um but I didn't really care because I it was my first call from a British selector in six years and I couldn't like so what I didn't make it I didn't deserve to be there because I didn't run there quick enough time but I got a call again and it made me so happy so it's like every single year I'm improving and improving improvement of course I'm not running what Paddy Diva is running or meals running but I couldn't like come on my own like trajectory and I feel like I say to people I'm like three years old again because it's only been three years since I completely changed my body um and I aspire to like Johnny Mellor like 39 and that's what I want to do so um that's what I'm doing just doing it for the long game now that's incredible going back to the criticism that you oh yeah how how did you take that when when someone says you know Jake Smith's done like what's going through your head see I love it now I prefer negative reinforcement than positive um have you always felt like that no when I was see when I was struggling any time I almost that was another thing because I felt so low on myself anytime someone said something nasty about me I'll try to like I try to like speak to them to like me almost like that like you wanted everyone to like you whereas now if like someone doesn't like okay like okay I'm gonna put myself out there if they don't like me so what like I'm not gonna be nasty or anything but I let it get to my head too much before whereas now it's like like you only live one life you have to say your viewpoints and stuff and but it did really affect me before whereas now I think because I know I'm healthy and I'm no moving up and in both London marathons like just take screenshots of let's run comments and just put it on and be like look I'm closing you in and stuff and um ticking off the let's run um I do I do find it hilarious it is if if you are an elite runner or do you have a YouTube and stuff I wouldn't really go on it because it's not the nicest especially like like team Macau they do gets a quite a lot of hate on it and it's not very nice and my my viewpoint about like these influencers who put themselves out there is they're doing incredible things like every single one of them is putting out there and training but why is some guy typing about it like it's only these guys who are typing because they want to do what they're doing and i find it fascinating what they do and then i don't know if i could do it just yet i do put myself out there but just through the footage and stuff um but i'm it's all incredible what they all do and that's why i think that helps my head space as well because i'm like look they're putting out there so why can't i do what they do and yeah so anyone listening more negative reinforcement please give it to me because it helps that's good it's it's nice to see that you see it's all positive yeah like you know people are trying to put content out there and even whether it's like what do you think of like influencers coming into the space running space a little bit more and stuff like that like i feel like a lot of elite athletes may have in the past been kind of like against like influencers getting all the attention maybe in running i it doesn't really bother me like i watch a load of the youtube and stuff and i think it's sick i think it's really cool like it brings more people to to the party that's my exact thought it's like so if running is going getting lower why shouldn't jake barrowclough make japan big like he's made japan huge he's put it on the map like of course japan was on the map before but in terms of the training styles like running is becoming bigger because of these guys so why shouldn't they they should get the money they should get all the support because they're making running bigger um it's like him your hugo fries like they're all great people yeah so funny and like you say the fact that they can run these great times and yes they're they're subbly that they're not just there like with you guys but the fact that they've got such a personality and they're kind of uh bringing that to the table as well it's incredible i find it so cool but the only thing that annoys in a little bit is nothing to do with the running is when people some of these influencers who do post about food and everything when i know they're struggling that's when i get a bit funny because potentially the line to the yes because i if someone came up to me and said what do i eat i say to them that i'm not a nutritionist i cannot tell you what to eat so when you ask what i eat like you said it's what i eat now i'm not telling people to do like it's probably not the healthiest having three benjuries a week but that's what i do it helps me but i would never tell people to do it whereas there are some influencers who sort of push for it and i'm not the biggest fan of that but in terms of the running and they are just all making youtube like from youtube they are making it bigger and i'm all for it like I have nothing wrong with it.

46:18Maybe it's because I'm quite lucky because I get a base salary from two different teams. So I'm in a lucky position, but I think it's amazing. My young sister cheated by half and the first thing she said to me before, after race was, can you introduce me to Hugo Fry? I'm like, okay. And I put like three minutes on the guy. But she wanted to meet him and people are going to these races to meet these guys. So it's all good. It's getting more people into running. exactly exactly and yeah yeah there's more than enough for everyone but uh what strikes me is obviously you've had potential your whole life and you've got probably some of the best potential i've ever seen like the fact that you've gone through all the hardship that you've gone through and you're still like where you are like how much do you believe in yourself so that was the worst like i've always believed in myself but end of 2022 start 23 i had no belief in myself like like i said the first week i would move back home and i wasn't allowed to train i wanted to give it up like i was looking for other jobs and everything whereas now it's like like it's just little things but when i did castles on the weekends it just i'm just like yeah i can get i can get to these levels like can you just explain obviously you mentioned oh yeah castles castles so um well we just spoke about um it's 20 days it's 20 it's two days 211 miles you start from north wales and go down to cardiff ends in cardiff so every stage is different there's six mountain stages unfortunately salford took the win over us this year um but we had um clara so she went to the olympics for gb she was on leg six for um leg three for us so she was part of the open team um but harry wakefield came like so like people top top guys come leads come so i'm hoping if phil cessman's listening to this he comes next year and those boys but you get some top athletes and it's just my leg was leg seven so it's 10.2 miles 1300 foot of elevation and just running on roads like there's no health and safety we are running on the main a roads i think a few years ago someone got hit by car and died it's like on stage 18 it's like there is no just think of the most manic race you can think of like cars are going 60 past you and everything but most of the cars are the supporters so people know to slow down and yeah it's just you're there for the team and when you're running part of a team you go to another level like my legs were shaking at the end um it's it's an awesome awesome like i would honestly i would say if you're part of a club and you do it you have to do it it's one of the best weekends and you just go through all of north wales all the south wales have a few drinks in newtown not sure if you've ever heard of newtown it's not it's a bit of a dead place but never yeah it's um let's just say it's the the main place for the north walians to go for a night out um i think it's like three clubs um so you go there you have a few drinks you camp my parents came this time um you wake up at six the next morning because the first stage starts again at 7 a.m and it's just you're with all your mates so it's um it's good fun that's incredible i've never actually heard of it before really yeah yeah thank you for enlightening us on that it's uh yeah it's interesting so so like you said that that was like one of your highlights this year Yeah, because again, it was like, I put no pressure on myself and I ran that course.

49:52It was like 10 point whatever, two miles, an average sub five minute miling on it. I just threw myself down the hill. I ran a sub four mile down literally a mountain like that. And I ran a 1325 5k because it was so downhill. But I was just climbing so well. And I was so excited to do it because you're part of the team aspect because there's not actually many team aspect races. But yeah, it's the castles for you. I'm really intrigued on obviously like say we touched on nutrition that's so much better now uh you touched a little bit on sleep on sleep have you got any kind of other recovery methods that you use so I use my Normatex every day okay um so they're compression boots yes compression boots I have a massage once a week um what else do I do is that like religious every single week if I go back home and I can't get access to this guy called Alan I see um then I won't but now I go see him um literally once a week it's almost sometimes on a Thursday because it's like I do Tuesday Thursday Saturday session so Thursday in the evening because it's only like an easy jog it's works quite well and what else I do um I think fuel is the most important thing like at the end of the day like training is probably what worth like 10 % it's all the other things you do around it I probably should stretch a bit more but then it's like how much stretching should you actually do because you need like what's it all the i don't know all the terms of elasticity and i don't know you need you need stiffness yeah within calves like that that gives you that spring exactly um what else do you do much strength training yes see i'm religious two times a week every week i've now introduced more plyometrics um for the first two years i felt my body because my body was still recovering i couldn't add those in whereas this year is the first time i do it to i'd rather do strength training than an easy run like so for example if someone said to me if i'd only done one gym session or even two gym sessions someone said do you want to go for an easy run of um do strength training i would pick strength training over anything because that has been i've been literally religious apart i don't do it on race week but that has been religious for me um for the last three years um did you going back to like when like you said you uh you had red s did you ever get your bone density measured yes interesting how's it changed over the last couple of years so i need to do a new one soon but i think my best score was minus 1.5 all the others were minus so my back and something else was minus 2.1 or minus 2.2 i know like so far off positive numbers.

52:33Would you be able to kind of like explain the scale? So what does the minus two mean? See, I don't really... So a deck scan is weird. You know, you sit in like a... It's like a spaceship for like 45, 50 minutes. They do a bit... They weigh you before... I haven't done this for three years, but I don't really know... I think it's... You kind of want a positive number, but if you are to minus one, it's okay. Anything... below minus two is when you have osteoporosis that's what i had so i had it in like two or three bones yes so i literally had that in three different areas um and it's the worst thing is it's very hard there's no point doing a dexter scan three months later because bones take ages to actually um grow and get bigger and get stronger so i do need to do one now like i do need to do one my coach wants me to do the next couple of months just as you did i'd love to see yeah after after three years of strength work as well exactly because that's the fix and that's the prevention for people when they get older for osteoporosis is to keep strength training yes keep weight bearing because obviously you're doing quite a lot of that with running already but then adding in strength training like it'd be really interesting to see and i think osteoporosis i think it's actually like small holes within your bones is that correct it was it was that bad like Because I said to you, if I kept going, I would be in a wheelchair at 30, whatever.

54:01But it's one of those things, running is such a small part of my life. If I say get to 40, 50, and I'm running every now and then, why do I want to have those bones? I kind of aspire to be... Do you follow Ryan Hall? Yeah, yeah. I want to be like him. He's incredible. I just get huge after. Have you seen what he's doing at the moment, Ryan Hall? I haven't followed... No, I do follow him, but I haven't really seen him recently. Yeah, so he's gone big into ultra running. yeah so he's uh he's going back down like trail running ultras and stuff like that so he'll um he lives in flagstaff yes and he travels to the grand canyon he'll he'll run down and then back up and then that's like a typical session that he'll do like once a week or whatever um it's pretty interesting um but yeah he's a he's an incredible uh person for those that don't know ryan hall uh he was the american record holder still is i think too oh no no i think he's just beat it um yes but then if you can't boss but then boston doesn't really go right because you have charles hicks and that um starts with zed is that tab it is it tab here but they rank but boston because it's uh point to point net downhill yeah um but ryan hall he's actually got a great youtube for anyone that's like getting into running like he's got like some og videos on there and it's like how to basically get into running and it's really cool to watch um but uh yeah shout out he's a he's a great guy and uh he probably didn't help me because because he was so skinny i think i looked up to him and i was like i want to be him so ryan thanks and then and then after he kind of retired he went into uh kind of like hybrid training and strength training he went full strength training but i think he wanted to lift 500 pounds and run a sub five minute mile i don't think i don't know if he did it or not but uh i remember doing that but he like he was a stat guy to be a marathon runner and then go into lifting and do that like it takes some doing it just shows like he's got insane genetics across the board not just for like running i would like to use dexter scan now and from before that would be funny but yeah i think he now just just runs for like he was with uh killian johnette they were oh yeah yeah yeah so i think uh he's been doing a lot of running with him but um yeah we digress but um no it is super interesting i can't even remember what we're talking about um oh dexter scan yeah that's got so um and then like you say so they're kind of like recovery methods do you do kind of like hot and cold therapy or sauna or anything like that so or heat training that's another um i got so addicted to the sauna so i would do the sauna and you know when i was saying i would only allow myself to have a liter of water a day that was all for trying to get lighter and lighter so so you was in at this time you was only having a liter a day yes i would i'm sauntering i that's why i don't really go in anymore because i i understand the benefits of it like i'm doing some i have a garage right now and i have like a crossharing treadmill in there and i closed when it was 30 plus degrees i went in there for crossharing before heat benefit did anyone tell you that you're lucky to get out of this like seriously like having a liter of water a day you know training for what three four hours a day i i I genuinely don't know why.

57:15I think because I associated weight with water weight. As soon as someone told me, do you know the thing? It's like, you know, for example, if you weigh yourself on a random Wednesday, if you did a session and you actually drank more on a Tuesday night, you could be heavier, but it could be water weight. So as soon as I heard that, my mind switched. I was like, well, that means, well, easy. I'll just drink less water. It got so bad. Come on. I was in a bad phase. That's crazy. Please don't do that. So now you're just a little bit traumatized. You don't go into the sauna. I've spoken to people about it.

57:52So some of my good mates, Dan Nash, he has the physiology of endurance running. And he goes into all, there's so many stats and all these readings about hot baths, saunas. And for me, it's like, I understand it's the 1 % and everything, but I felt like when I was doing it as well, it was affecting my recovery so i was like especially now when it's well i would say especially now but the summer hasn't been too good the last couple the last week but it does get quite warm in the uk anyway and i've always been quite good in the heat i don't know that's whether it's like an upbringing from living in hong kong because like i remember when it got below it got to just below 10 degrees people were like scared out their minds um so i've always been good of the heat um i don't go on i haven't been to like for example altitudes since uganda i've haven't been touched altitude yet because that's more of a deem in my head um i only do one training camp a year in the start of january because the uk weather is shite in january i love that where do you go i went i would go monte gordo every single year that's the in portugal right yes but the weather was shit so because he had stormed dara and everything in january so it's terrible do you go out there with anyone no so it's that good um so one of my mates now um is frederick rupert you know he just broke the european steeplechase record and then ran three days later ran sub 13 he like wished me a happy birthday the other day we didn't know he was going the first week he was there i was the only um i just trained with him and then the next met him there just met him there off chance off chance and then we were like let's do sessions i did every single run with him and then he left after a week the next week i ran with an irish guy the next week ran with the french next week i ran with two italians the next week i ran with i think i worked out 12 different nationalities while i was there because i'm all for you know i don't know if you know people some people who don't like to like you know they keep it to themselves they want to train by themselves i was laughing before like runners tend to be especially like the top runners they tend to be quite introvert nah see i want to think no no no as in yeah i agree with you but for me i want to be your opposite no i want to meet like i'm in that headspace where i want to meet some of the sessions chaps i was doing was the filthiest thing i've ever seen in my life but i want to train with people better than me yeah and i do have a tendency to especially on easy runs i'm the person who doesn't shut up really and i think people do stay clear of me sometimes but um that's good though that's yeah you're the light in the room yeah so i'm a girlfriend i run with her um every now and then and she actually has to tell me shut up at times because i'm just asking how she is and everything and what's it going on um but i'm all for whenever there's an opportunity to run with someone i go for um of course like say for like this morning i had a longer session not no one it's no one's plans but um in portugal I think there was only two or three runs I did by myself every other run was and you just meet so every time I go to European race I know someone and it's cars yeah that's amazing when you uh so say for example your easy runs are you bothered about pace then because you're running with other people so like yesterday I ran eight minute mine for 10k like I'll run my girlfriend 520k 830 miling um there's a time and place like for those runs and it's like again It's horrible things today, but almost, you know, the more training load you do or slightly faster you run, you do get more benefit.

1:01:33But you can't sustain that. I know Sam Griffiths actually spoke about that. He said about his zone two, about his is from 3.45, 4.15, he was saying. But he runs five minute Ks. But look at his progression because he has been able to do that. And it's one of those things, maybe in the next block, he goes to 4.50 K for every other run, for example, to get that slightly, you know, 0.1 percent but there's a risk of injury so when I was struggling before all my easy runs were quite quick so I completely changed everything and went slower and the last three years I haven't got injured but some of my easy runs of course one I'm by myself you know if it's pissing down the rain you just want to finish and stuff but I don't do distance now I do time so my coach sets time so okay 70 minutes it doesn't you have to do 70 minutes so who cares if you're running 8 30 mining whatever um but yeah it's it's been a lifesaver and i love running my girlfriend i love running with mates and everything and just running down i think you ran on the taff in cardiff it's easy it's very easy to run on the taff but it seems to be uh right now especially uh someone's explaining this that the community in cardiff seems for running seems incredible but not those three guys who lived who stayed right outside your place you were saying oh did you did you explain yeah i think we stayed in quite a rough part of cardiff when we were at the high rocks um yeah so uh but uh no it seems incredible and like you say um do you like you you must value community so much like that's the thing it's like all my best mates are now like the the best thing about running is you know some people like who don't maybe don't do sport don't you're running you know they go to a pub that they can only meet say on a Friday evening after work and stuff because of our running like I say to people they're like oh when are you meeting your friends I'm like I meet them every day it's like what do you mean you're running with them I'm just like yeah we're speaking we're talking about everything so instead of meeting them only once a week I'm meeting them four or five times a week and you don't need to meet them much more apart from that so I'm building my like like communicating with them more than the average person um and in cardiff it's pretty cool like we have a load of events on you have like i'm gonna watch katie perry in a couple of weeks big fan of went to taylor swift and like it's a went to the went to the um all the autumn internationals and i'm not a big fan of that's the thing i live in wales but i'm not i won't support wales in anything i actually um when i broke the half marathon records i actually turned welsh because there's a rule if you live in wales for three years you can turn welsh and i'm still not the biggest fan of that because i have no ties with wales i broke their record and steve jones who was a world world record holder for a marathon calls me i don't understand what he says because he has the thickest welsh accent as soon as he called me i spoke to my parents like i have to give it up so i gave up my welsh sort of attempt whatever after a week so i still get taken piss out of but so yeah i it's just such a good great country but i'm sorry i will never support them in any sport that's funny that's hilarious no no it's really cool um and it's nice that like you say you you you run with people every single day i think that's something that i can take from that i like to i don't know why do every run on my own because i feel like even the easy runs i want to try and get the most out of them.

1:05:01Yes. So I'm like locking in. Yeah, yeah. Locking into a certain pace and I'm like, I won't deviate from that. Oh, okay. But now listening to you and listening to some of the best guys, the more and more are here, the more and more, it's just about, especially the easy miles, just make them enjoyable as possible. I know. And everything else will like look after itself and take care of itself. That's exactly right. And it's like, because I do like the Norwegian, I think you said about that. Yeah. Can we go into your training? yes so right now it's like some people like i did castles on the weekend and it's only five weeks after london some people might say is it too soon but so straight after london i took six days completely off and then i just jogged on the sunday and then the week after i went up to snowden and just did literally a jog in the morning but you know was drinking every day just enjoying the holiday i'm still when i was doing 130 140 miles a week for the marathon i'm now peaking at 100 miles for this little block because i'm literally focusing on vo2 and everything now and so if you look into that if i was my if my body's used to running basically 200ks a week i'm now at 160 i'm still not at the like at the level of training and that's five weeks later and i'm still not at 100 um but right now a typical week would be monday an hour run um and then in the evening and how a cross trainer i'm still really i still never double on a monday and it's it's always kind of like the cross trainer yes is that the only form of cross training you do um i'm not a member of gym anymore because i've built a gym in my garage so i have a treadmill um a cross trainer and now a squat rack so question when you do the cross trainer yes do you hold on to the middle bit or do you hold on to you're moving the arms as well because i see a lot of people like you you watch jakob ingebritsen on his youtube and stuff and he's holding into the middle he's just moving his legs and then you have other people that are kind of moving the arms like it sounds weird how do you use a cross trainer for running so i bought a specific cross trainer which actually replicates the rpm of running a bit more than than other ones okay um i don't know if that's a proper thing if that affects the running style i just um but i do hold on to i i understand i don't really understand why people hold into the middle but i just have never done it um and i feel like when you hold on to the arms you can really put an effort in um that's on a monday then on a tuesday is my double i'll get back into it i think from like next week or the week after um double session day so that can be anywhere from like 22 to 27 miles um depending on the session so in the morning i think alfie does the same i never do ot2 in the morning it's always lt1 in the morning so it's essentially what like to the normal person i almost say marathon pace but a bit slower slightly slower than marathon pace then in the evening is lt2 so it's very similar to what um alphine butchart do in terms like 400s 800s i only got to k's but what i do is i go to my local run club i'll start going back to them but there's like 100 people on the track but they let me have my own lane three but the guys every single person does my session so you get people who've run like 30 30 35 minutes for 5k and the other day i had 25 by 400 so they all did 25 by 75 seconds and one of the girls said to me the day abby she was like what the fuck was that like why did you make us do that but it was awesome because the guys who would say like 30 31 32 minute guys they will run in lane one and i'm in lane three and we're like next to each other and it's awesome um on a wednesday um i typically double so it's like just like an easy 60 minutes in the morning up to 75 minutes then 45 minutes in the evening so it's basically two hours of running thursday i've now got into more of a vo2 type type style session which i do with pierce copeland so he's a 354 miler and so the last few weeks we've been doing like 800s uh 400s 600s we've never had good for some reason the weather's been terrible what's the what's the typical session so let's say 800s so so many would you do with the vo2 so the last three weeks would be we did five eights off two minutes and we averaged 207 208 so it's like proper like not like full out but it's like vo2 one-to-one work rest kind exactly that and then the week after we did um eight six hundreds and we started 137 and around 128 last one again 145 so one to one last week we did 16 400s off a minute standstill and i averaged 63 flat but it was 64 down to 58 but it's but that's when i was in the marathon block typically on a thursday it'd be more of a marathon session so four by 5k three by 5k but now my coach which i think has really helped me this summer focus purely on the vo2 that's why my mileage is down the one-to-one ratio is amazing after marathon training are you just standing there waiting for the next ref is awesome um then i do gym as well on a thursday that's my first gym day and you always do gym after your vo2 max session or before no so i'll do vo2 in the morning easy jog and then uh gym session on a thursday for some reason works because my coach sort of i During the marathon season, I normally do it on a Wednesday.

1:10:36I don't know what. I might still move that to Thursday because my coach is more into, you know, hard days hard. So gym is actually because you are. Strenuous. Exactly. So I probably should move that to the Thursday anyway. But when you have to gym on a Thursday after about 25 miles of running, it's tough. But now it's a bit less, so it's easier. Then on a Friday, another double. a double easy run so it could be 16 30 or 16 45 again um all these easy runs in the evening typically be about five minute days almost every single one now in the morning on an easy run sometimes I'm by myself so I go a bit quicker but I always keep my heart rate below 130 on average for easy runs um and then on a Saturday that's another session day so it's more like lt2 sort of stuff so um it's like a mixture of a road session and i just go up and down the taff it's awesome it can be mild reps but my coach likes to make a bit more different so it could be like i don't know it could be 15 minutes of tempo then some 800 some four 600 400 he loves for some reason is it declining pay decline reps like they get shorter he loves that with a faster yeah he loves that absolutely loves that um then i'll cross train saturday evening and then sunday it's up to like two hours and it's just we're just going over the hills and whales so um yeah and that's that's why i typically do all my like i said all my recovery jogs are like 4 45 to five minute k's in the evening in the mornings they can be like 4 10 to 4 20s when i'm uneasy because my heart is still below 130 um and then purely go off heart rate yes do you wear kind of like chest strap or now so this i might get a big country i wear huawei right yep and the hurry on it and people might not agree is incredible because i wore my chorus for a whole week this is because we signed with huawei wore the korma's arm strap and it was one in it like one difference every single run so it's off the watch i know and people might take this but it's that's i go off that and it's it is i'm one of those people i'd rather know my heart rate than the distance or how far i've gone i'd rather just have heart rate and time on my watch and i'm happy um yeah it's all off but the work another thing about red s and right now i did some testing i got my heart rate up maxed like 199 200 in uganda it wouldn't go above 170 because i was at my I'm nourished almost.

1:13:21I wasn't eating. And I couldn't get... That was another thing. If people are struggling with red, if you can't get your heart rate up, that's another small sign. That makes sense. That's interesting. I can't... I struggle. The max I've ever seen is 181. No, but that's... But that's... No, no, no. That's... Because everyone has a different max. Yeah. But in terms of... So, no, no. Personal preference. So, if now I told you you did a whole block and you couldn't get your heart rate above 155. That's what I mean in comparison. Yeah, yeah, yeah. so like beforehand i could get above 190 whereas i couldn't get above 170 so that's 20 30 beats yeah yeah of course um but everyone has a different you know everyone has a different max heart rate so like you can't that's a really good max heart rate but if you did like a race like every race a couple of races and you couldn't get above 155 you'd be like oh yeah something's not that's it it's interesting you say that because um yeah alfie alfie doesn't believe my max is 181 he's like i thought it'd be a bit higher it should be higher and he says it's potentially because you're always fatigued and you're because high rocks is one of them things it's just it's just so easy to overtrain and you you do so much and more i don't know how you can race so often how you can do more than one high rocks a weekend and stuff yeah and then they're making it even more difficult is it which is fine it's just all part of the plan but so for next season you've got to qualify you've got to win five races win win five races and this is over a 365 day period so only in the last year you've got to win five races and that's for singles is that card of count uh so so that for my doubles it does but for my singles i came fourth so that means that that's an all got so for me to do uh to get into the elite 15 singles i'd have to win five singles races so for a typical person like me i might have to attempt eight or ten of them to potentially best chance scenario win five of them yeah so then you're already racing 10 times within a year then you're making into the elite 15 you're then racing another five five majors and one world champs so you're not racing another six times so that's 16 times in a year potentially and then running as well and then you've got no and then you've got your doubles so you've got your you've got to re you've got to qualify for your doubles and then so this year i think is going to be the year where we see people focus on singles or doubles yeah and that's kind of it because they just won't be able to maintain it all and if they do fair play to them hats off to them that's incredible but uh to to kind of have proper training blocks and to be able to peep for races i think it's going to be i think they're trying to make it more of like a season yes rather than like just you you race at the majors and that's it um which is cool it'll be interesting to see i have a question for you because um i have my thoughts but you know saskia yeah so um her boyfriend john have so i used to live with in cardiff because he lived in there was six of us yeah so so one of my mates has moved to australia he wrote before anyone started before she started high rocks and i you can even ask her why she started High Rocks.

1:16:34He did a ranking of the six couples and he put John and Saskia last. Saskia took that to heart and is now however well she's done. So we had this, not argument, but I want to have this talk with her. Should High Rocks be at the Olympics? Because apparently there was talk about it. There's talk, but it's just talk from High Rocks' side. Do you think? Do I think? Do you think it should be at the Olympics? I think it should be professionalised a little bit more. Yeah. but like i love nothing more than it being in the olympics because you would go for it would be awesome to be an olympian i think is the best thing oh it is like yeah i think i think that's the goal for any athlete like if you can get to the olympics that's like you've you've made it like that that is the the ultimate dream um so so that's why do you ask because i still think there needs to be like like like for example like i was in london at 7 30 a.m and the bloody dj's going absolutely crazy but it's like the bigger thing is the um there's no drug taking is there right now so the there's there are now yeah there's drug testing but it's only at competition oh oh okay i see so say for example you surely people just get caught still you do the elite 15 yeah and then you uh the how it works is top three out of the 15 all get tested and then two random people so five people out of every race get tested and these these two people can be random so how they do it is they have top three and then they can either choose before so if they if they think have suspicions that you're you're taking oh yeah yeah that they can choose you they won't tell you or anything or it can be completely random yes that's better because i thought there was no drugs so the first thing i was going to say was yeah if there's no drug session it shouldn't no offense it shouldn't really be in but now you've told me that i didn't i didn't know that yeah so for so for example for for the last kind of like rolling clock 365 days or a little bit probably the last two years because of the singles and the wolves because you get tested for both races oh i've i've been tested probably seven eight times i'd probably say within the last two years which when you kind of speak to runners like that's a lot yeah that seems to be quite a lot like runners don't seem to be tested that much the only difference is obviously you can sometimes be on the wider whereabouts list and i think that needs to be in before anything before it goes into the limbics before anything um because at the end of the day i think you could be cheating out of season oh yeah i have and then just come off and do whatever within season if if people in the olympics can get away with the whereabouts testing and get get get you know get around it in the olympics which let's be honest it happens like um i i don't know what to to what extent but you would you say the olympics is 100 clean no yeah so it's happening there like i think people are probably smart enough to yeah if they know exactly when they're going to be tested and or even like like the risk so it's um yeah that's my view on it i want whereabouts testing to come in and i'm like i cannot wait for that day like i genuinely can't wait for that day i think with the like the drug taking and stuff it's like people say to me until you find it unfair and of course it's a bit unfair but at the end they all just want to beat whoever and if they have to take something to beat us then so like at the end date like you're on say if you're i think some people might go with the mindset because you know a lot of people like speaking about the running world about drugs and everything but if you go into a race with that mindset you're already beaten if you think oh that guy's taking that guy's taking it like ending day so what just you've done all this training just try and beat them at their own game um so that's another thing i think about but about the wider thing is i got taken off it um my longest time was four hours because i went on a night out before and they caught to like at 6 a.m my housemate had to wake me up because i wasn't waking up and took me four hours because after a night out you can't pee anyway because dehydrated does anything and um i got taken off it in 23 because i wasn't performing so i think that's when i've like succeeded is when i go back on that on the water list so you're just waiting for that no it's interesting it's cool that they do that but like i say within the running world like i think um do you know a lot of people say like kenya and stuff is bad for kind of like doping and stuff like that i'm not too clued up on it um but what was your kind of mindset on that literally like just just race like no one's oh yeah and then yeah well a lot of people ask me about uganda so it was nuts like i stayed on like a little like not campsite but it was like in these little lodges because you would have checked a guy who however much money is made from winnings is staying in like like it was like the size of our cup like that room like this little big little beds just in tin they didn't have showers didn't have a toilet it was just a hole in the floor you throw buckets over yourself that's how they lived and he would go there for the whole week and then go back home on the weekends because he wanted to live life basic um i saw nothing i didn't live without i saw nothing and i i'm a big and of course like you have kip limo who's flying and stuff who's actually he's just signed for red bull as well i think yes yes yes um i'm a big fan like i've run with all these guys and of course i can't say hand to heart nothing's happening i saw nothing like nothing of the type um but i haven't been to like kenya and ethiopia and stuff um i understand why a lot of these guys do it because at the end of the day if they have a big breakthrough race that's their whole life sorted in terms of money um but like i said what if i go to a race start i'm never going to think about who's taking it but i don't care like you're all racing for one goal and so that's across the finish line first and i feel like with my mindset now that's another thing i need to get i need to get better at pressure that's the one thing let me down but um i'm not gonna let anyone get to me um whereas i think when i was building back up in 23 24 i allowed that to happen i allowed people to get to me whereas now like you put me in 800 meters against josh kerchak white man i'm still think i'm gonna beat them I'm not but I'm still I'm still I love that how how did you build back this confidence because like even even when you race like you race race quite aggressive you mentioned it before but you're the front runner yeah of the pack normally like you're you're going out hot and maybe it's not the most sensible no no it's not yeah but like you like to do that and credit to you for doing that like but why is that I think it's first thing is like the training stimulus you get from racing like i'm putting everything out there and like in bath this year like i'm not gonna like part so i won bath the year before and bath this year you have joe wigfield phil cessament and alfie i knew it was just gonna be a ton of four of it like no one else what ollie luckily came for a bit but it was just gonna be us for alfie no offense doesn't do any work um call him out he needs to hear that he'll just say he's smart he'll just say I'm smart I don't do any work I'm smart I'll just sit behind everyone but it is working annoyingly it is working it's classic Joe Wigfield is probably the and I said this another one is probably one of the strongest runner the style that he was the strongest runner and British runner he's got a great kick on him as well is that correct yeah yeah and then you have Phil Sessman those three guys if we did a 400 metres they're putting five six seconds on me in one flat out 400.

1:24:21What do you reckon you'd get for 400, by the way? I reckon if I went 56, I'd be happy. 55, 56. I don't have the money. That's why I'm trying to work on. You've not got much speed in you? No. You would put me away. I'm not putting you away. I'm Mr. Slow Twitch, but yeah. Alfie thinks he's got a 51, 52. I've heard this. Do you think he's got a 51, 52? Come on. Come on. I don't know. I'd love to see it. He's like, yeah, yeah. To be fair, I saw him sprinting the other day. I actually just watched him do like he is quick but did he wear those fast off reach I've heard all he doesn't wear them he had some he was doing like um and um yeah he's doing a race this weekend yes the London 5k so he'll be down this weekend but um yeah he was uh it was so interesting um I had a physio session he came to that and then I watched him do like his drills and stuff and it was just interesting to see like how how much he kind of like focuses on like running drills and stuff like that that's another thing i've not not from i'm not giving him but that's another thing i've always neglected i hate the warm-up i hate warming up i just can't be arsed i literally will go straight into it that's one thing because so i've done some treadmill testing and um when i was at my lightest a few years ago my i think the guys i was doing it with they were saying it was like one of the best he's ever seen like in terms of the guys who did the kip chogi sub two the paces and everything is this like running economy and vo2 so when i was at my lightest my vo2 was only 74 but my running economy was 178 it was as good as paula radcliffe's because i was 56 kilos because running economy is divided by the lighter you are the better your um running economy is so i did it this year again and my running economy was like in the 190s but my vo2 went up to 80 because i have more strength i've been more consistent my running economy the actual value is probably very similar but because i'm heavier it's not as good so that's why my coach said if we lose two or three kilos again this is just what i'm doing but in a healthy way so i'm doing a marathon i'll just say in september i think people can guess what that's going to be but if i can lose a kilo say every two months i will get down to that my running economy will be better um and those those are the two things that make it up so in order to improve my the way i'm looking at is i need to get my running economy better because i don't want to drop down to 60 kilos that's the easy way out i'm not doing that because it will i will get injured so i'm like okay what are the two other things i can do strength training plyometrics and running drills so i'm doing those two things first before the weight loss because i'm doing it in a much i've thought about it the most healthy way the most best way to do it and then if i lose two kilos three kilos get down 63 i'm still so healthy my running economy will be an all-time best so i brought in the other two things the easy way out is to drop weight and i understand why people do it but i have a lot of time on my hands to focus on the other two things so i'm like that's what i'm going to focus on yeah that's that's the last straw that's dropping weight is like the last thing exactly but we need to optimize everything exactly and do you feel like you've got everything optimized if you were to say uh the things that you've got optimized and the things that still need like a lot of work um let's look at everything so my speed for example like when i did bath half like i raced those guys and i just i led up to 10 miles and full took over for a k and a half then there was a whole vehicle and people on the other side of the road i was a bit yeah a whole incident but then i took back over at 20k um joe wickfield put 17 seconds on me in one kilometer phil and alfie had their own little race i i was but then again i'd race i paced for 20k and it was very windy so i had nothing but that's the thing i struggle on so that's why i've been working with peers for the vo2 stuff and when i was doing castles for example yes it was a very big downhill but you still have to run quick downhill and my just from doing the explosive drill um the explosive jumps that um running drills has allowed my body to actually i'm actually feeling more comfortable running quicker paces so right now it is all working but there's always something to improve on every block and i'll probably finish this block and be like i need to introduce something else so like for this next marathon block i'm going to i need three or four long runs so like this morning i didn't really do a warm-up or cool down i just did the warm-up was steady and the cool down was below lt1 so it all in all that's another six kilometers to the actual session um i don't i probably should cool down but i didn't but um um that's what i'm like it's i only need three or four of those long runs and i think alfie was saying as well um when he was talking about his training he does all his long runs like on the treadmill and stuff but if he did a couple outside he's running to a set like he is capable of running quick i think i think uh i'm gonna butcher this but i think alfie and andy were having the conversation and andy was like if you if you would have just been like a little bit more with the runs like did them outside or did them on like a hilly surface or whatever like it would just give you the strength a little bit more than you know choosing the treadmill i know it's obviously hard though like maintaining paces especially if you're on your own and i think that's that's one thing with um one thing that you probably do quite well but when you've got them big marathon sessions oh yeah and you're doing it on your own like it's so hard to be looking down at your watch and keeping pace yeah and keeping like the same pace um so i think you know just having a treadmill there and just kind of exactly it takes that thinking out of it but you've just got to keep up have you been to exeter before so it's basically like um it's just a canal right so gav my coach like blessing but he the next this next block I do I will go when I have a longer session I will go back home and he will just go up and down the canal with me I mean um one of my favorite training partners is Ines Fitzgerald like I love her to pieces she's one of my best mates and I've um she always needs to remember when she wins the Olympic golds who used to take her to training when she couldn't try like get her to training and get her the shoes and stuff ishibella and but i love like i've never seen i thought i trained hard and chaps guy trains hard she is a different beast i've never seen anything like it but look at the results she's had um so i'm going to go back home do more sessions with those two um just because i have that it's the canal is like you know when you go towards the sea it's slightly down like like tiny bit downhill and just that's how it works but that's what i need practice bottles and everything um but going off because i know those two are doing valencia i'm not doing valencia but i will be there doing a a different job so um oh incredible yeah so i can't i can't say that what too much but i've probably given away but i will be there trying to help so um no that's incredible no i think they're gonna smash it like them two have been training uh together quite a lot and i think they're gonna build this do this prep together um yeah so good just being in and around them just oh yeah you turn up to every session and like it's just a laughing job like you know it's just everyone's in a good mood i know like yeah credit to them boys their class um would you say you do anything different than like the typical elite runner yes so i actually had this conversation um so you know for example like a marathon session you know you keep it flat and stuff i will go over the hills like like the biggest hill i can find i'll just go over i don't know if it helps or anything and there are times and places i need to go on the flat are you bothered about pace or are you just looking at heart rate or heart rate and i take my lactate after i do i'm quite i was quite fascinated by alex ye's build up for valencia but i think that's what i neglected i don't know if you follow him but he did lt1 sessions he would just go in the mountains in i think wherever he left bro stuff around that sort of area but he then he would drive to leeds and do those hard sessions with phil i think i neglected those sessions didn't do enough of the actual the pace work like you know three zeros at three or five k's because it's all well and good to build up they're all t1 but on the hills you're only running like 310s 315 so you're actually not running at the pace you need um uh i think my diet's probably a bit different to most people um i don't know yeah what about your your long run sessions see that's enough like so last london build because i had a few more half marathons i went into a bit differently this year whereas last london marathon build i would do sandwich sessions so went up to 40k so my coach likes me to do like 10 miles steady say it's like 5 45 60 minute mining 18 so 12 to 13 miles at marathon pace and then afterwards six miles what equates to 25 miles steady again but there's six miles the end is like 5 20s so i remember i did it last year on average i ran 40k at 3 17s 3 16s but so like today i did 27 and a half k but of course it was part of like there were k a few faster k reps um a few hundred few 200s just to pick up the pace and stuff but i averaged it was 27.5k and averaged 316 so i'm slowly building it up um so if i can get to like 35 40k and average like three tens then i'm like i'm ready um but it's just like you know they people say like was it like 95 percent of marathon pace you run and stuff in these um i don't know i i don't i don't do like the typical marathon sessions i feel i just i don't know i think consistency is the biggest thing for me and have you got like a session that indicates how fit you are for the marathon no like will you base your time off the fitness or is it like a specific session or is it the build-up it's a build-up no no one session um so like the halves gave me a lot of confidence and like alphie and i we really wanted that two and nine thirty we had we did probably have to go in the group ahead just because but then like i was saying to my parents afterwards me and him got to 21 20 time miles under 209 pace even though it didn't call the way exactly even though it didn't pay off like that's a huge like not many people have ever done that like in britain especially um so i sort of base off the times but this year i'm going stripping everything back so when I do the one in September I'm going to try and break 211 like run a PB next one I go to break 210 next one I go to break 209 I'm not doing any more of those leaps just because I want to keep consistency there um and that's I think I sort of neglected this year because unfortunately there was the Europeans and everyone was going for it um I thought I had to get involved whereas I kind of want to be in charge of everything and just i mean i haven't run a pb since like five years so i just want to run a pb and it means like honestly it mean the world to me to do that so it's like i'm stripping everything back and almost just going for pbs now um but yeah that's my mindset oh that's cool that's really cool what's uh what's jet like outside of running do you have any hobbies i have a 1500 day streak in duolingo uh i love my spanish yeah my sister lived in went to lived in mexico for a year and became fluent in spanish and got quite jealous um i was doing spanish lessons but my um colombian teacher is quite bad like um actually got a new job so i was quite upset but i didn't pick i didn't i should have been carrying them on so a big thing for me is spanish i do a lot of spanish um i really enjoy the language but i then found out south american and Spanish is slightly different to like Catalana or Spain Spanish so when I go to like Valencia and stuff and like you know use like the different tenses and stuff and it's so hard but I really enjoy my Spanish so I do that every day um I mean peers have a little coaching thing going on so we only we like coach 21 athletes so it's like I really enjoy I wrote a few plans and um i really really enjoy doing that um katie her parents have six dogs spring spanish six dogs so we take one of he's coming back home next um next week he's called barley he's 10 years old so take him for walks and everything which i really it's actually really nice when it's like a nice like spring day before along when you take him out for like 20 30 minutes getting like just actually moving um but yeah i support reading fc in football which is not the best but uh i don't know i follow a lot of a lot of sport is normal but i probably should find another hobby but yeah that's no it's interesting you got quite a lot going on there i kind of yeah with my two hour and a half there's not much else to do i'm getting into cooking now how would you even do that so you sleep eight hours at night solid and then you sleep in two hours an hour in the day i don't put it's bad but i don't put alarm on so i'll just sleep like yeah and you don't struggle going to bed that evening no not really no no um i clean the house i don't know why i've i love hoovering it's so weird like i love like yeah it's so strange like uh yeah i need you to get that habit i love hoovering i've never heard that from out of anyone i don't know why i don't know why um yeah i have a lot of you you know i have a lot of time on my hands when i do that um but yes and then me and my girlfriend were actually watching all the avengers films in chronological order and actually makes sense when you watch them in chronological order so that's actually quite good fun um but it gets to a phase when she goes to work it's literally there will be days it's like i'm just speaking to the dog that's it and she takes a piss out of me because she says i'm actually because there's six of them i'm actually below him in the pack so he's in charge of me so it's um but yeah you know and then you mentioned that you and your girlfriend like to cook yes so i never i would be one of those guys who would cook you know you get the stir fry mix salmon boil boil um stir fry the veg put rice on bang um but i've been following all these cookbooks now and you have to the day it's like i mean it's like chicken chicken dish i had to get cream cheese um passata um double cream and put all these ingredients into it and it makes a really nice meal but it's like it fries like my old self when i used to just have stir fry mixes on so um i'm getting really into cooking actually so it's um it's good fun what's your go-to meal oh it's it's actually i forgot what it's called oh it's gonna kill me over the steak what's your favorite tab steak as well oh i do you know what this is quite bad but i always forget so whenever we go out Katie always has to tell the waiter what I want because I always forget I think it's well done no it's not so that's how you light your steak so you could have rare medium rare well you could have blue if you really wanted but blue rare medium rare medium medium to well done and then well done it's not well done it's like so that's like how you cook your steaks so what it looks like and then you've got your types of steak so then you've got your steak you've got oh sorry ribeye steak um so i don't like i'll just have one of them's more fatty isn't it that's ribeye so it's not that one it's the leaner one yes fillet steak it's normally more expensive that's the one that's the one yeah come on someone's living from a butcher's it's not good yeah no but uh yeah yeah no that's uh that's the that's the nice one yeah um to be fair ribeyes um just as popular now to be fair because it's a little bit tastier so the more fattier it is turns to be like the more tastier because the fat kind of melts and seeps into um the meat but yeah that's cool i also i also want to um get into um i want to get hot i want to be part of a steak of a horse so katie's brothers does it he's like only a small percentage but you know you can go watch them race and stuff oh like so you wanted to like invest in a race horse yes i want to get into that only a small because there's a load of um in wales there's loads of um i don't even know what they're called but there's loads of like where they train and stuff around us yeah but you can go see them and stuff so i want to get into that yeah interesting well you seem like you got a lot on your plate um no it's it's really interesting what do you think you see yourself doing like say in 10 years time 15 years time so i after running should we say um thing is i think like i still think like i can run like like you've seen the levels of the marathon game but i still think like when i was doing those testing when i was like i was really light but they predict like a 205 206 and off my half times i should really be running quite a bit quicker um after that it's definitely coaching well one of the things i want to do is i want to be the fitness coach of running fc because they just don't have any they're not fit um yes it's like there are so many so many individuals i see so like you know i went on to that point when 13 14 15 year olds who want to be as fast as possible and it doesn't bother me i want them to enjoy the other sports but there are so many times when i go to exeter for example so many telling the kids but they don't have the shoes they don't have the kit um my mum was saying she runs the like the junior run club and acts in seat and and she was like they so they're extra bmc so you have to pay like 15 pounds a lot of them but they don't can't even get travel to get there it's 40 minutes away they can't even support them and i said to my mum like you know they will have to wear spikes because it is the rule they can't even afford like they can't really afford it so it's like finding ways to support that's what i was saying about well now i know keely helps like keely's doing a great job but it's it's trying to find why are we giving these other people all this money because we can make we can become such a big force at the olympics if we have more opportunities and it's like of course it's brilliant keely will win global medals is amazing but it's like we need almost one year where we get you know because it's always like what one person in a final it's like the same names in the final but whereas we need imagine having three guys making the semis one year or three different guys making the final random final would be amazing even though they don't get a medal it will still be an improvement on the actual numbers um yeah so it's just finding ways to do that yeah oh that's incredible mate thank Thank you for today.

1:43:34Thank you very much. I appreciate it. It's been quite long. No, no, it's been sick. And we all look forward to watching you in your next big race. Do you want to announce it? Oh, well, I guess. Like you said, people will be a guest, but people who aren't that into running. I'm actually in British Champs 5K. Is Alfie doing that? Incredible. I'm not too sure. I'm doing that next week, so have a go at that. I've requested to get into Morton Games 5K in Ireland because it's the Irish. They know how to have a good time there. And then I'm doing a 10K in Berlin, big half, and then probably going back to Berlin in September.

1:44:13I think they were actually requesting me. I actually really get on well with the Germans. And then potentially, I'm not doing Valencia, but potentially Pacey, but it's all in the line works at the minute. But, yeah, there's another marathon coming up. Yeah, some big races ahead. Yeah. Big season. It is a big season. so quite a lot of racing but in the actually at the end of um in the end of august i'm in bermuda because it's my parents 30th wedding anniversary so it's like sort of a bit of heat training but also i'm i'm spending two days getting a bit tip like we're on a like a boat and we're like in bermuda i don't know if you've ever i was because i was born there it's like yeah it's pretty cool thing and i've nearly almost thought about representing going back and representing bermuda after hearing all about british stuff but i'm still british but um but Yeah.

1:45:02Incredible, mate. Thank you, Jake. Thank you so much for having me. And we'll speak soon. Yeah, speak soon.