Imogen Boddy - #42

0:00Imogen Boddy, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, thank you for having me. For the people that may not know who you are, would you just be able to sum yourself up in a couple of words? I'm a British ultra runner, I'm originally from Yorkshire but now based in London. Incredible. I want to take it back to kind of like where it all started. For you, how did you find your love for running? i'd say i found my love for running through sport rather than directly kind of free running i've always been really sporty really competitive loved team sport team sport is definitely my like pride and joy i love love team sport um played hockey netball at school at county levels regional levels all that kind of um the progressions when i was younger and then in my last year at school i um went to a school in cumbria which was in the lakes which was basically fell running and was like their main main thing fell running in rugby whereabouts in cumbria sedba oh nice um so not far from like windermere and i continued team sport but like slowly started finding my love for running purely because the school was kind of that was the direction of the school and in my last year at school I a lady came to the school and did a talk um and she had done something called the arch to arc which is when you run from London to Dover swim the English Channel and cycle from Cali to Paris and at the time I had done competitive sport played it regionally paid um kind of national netball and never kind of pursued it any further and I think I had an itch I wanted to scratch and after this lady doing this really badass challenge I was like well if I can't get it through team sport and through kind of the what ifs I'd had previously through sport why don't I try and enter the endurance space and do something so I raised money for charity the school charity and ran from ran a marathon around Lake Windermere swam 10k in Lake Windermere and then cycled back from Lake Windermere to Sedba and that was yeah what I thought was kind of an itch I wanted to scratch raise money for charity do something while I was at school and then it kind of spiraled from there that's incredible and uh you said that like you know obviously like you've come on to achieve so many different things but like that's how old were you at the time when you that's insane was you into like triathlon before that no not at all and I actually hate swimming and like haven't been in a quarter since um so I think partially one of the swim was like the main thing and I used to do like how far was the swim 10k it was far it was far and i used to do two or three sessions a week my i was very lucky that my teacher used to drive me to the lake she'd sit there she had a labrador she'd like walk up the labrador up and down there um by the side of the lake and i'd be in there with a teacher and a kayak um swimming practicing head down the water honestly haunts me i hated it but it was one of those things that I think I was so scared of it that I wanted to like achieve it um but yeah well what is the thing that like kind of puts you off it I think it's what's underneath you I remember I'd like have my head down and then you'd have a boat that came past and you'd have like the oil fumes of that or you'd see like oh whatever's underneath the fish and the black eels and oh I hated it I hate water I'd wear these like little booties as well just to like make sure that i didn't touch the weeds i love that i'm not gonna lie i think i've been exactly the same yeah i've actually tried open water swimming a couple of times and i don't know swimming it's just what's underneath like you say could be a huge fucking monster you never know i think it's like all the like when you're younger all the tales that you get told it's just like haunts me yeah yeah open water terrifies me i feel like i'm uh whenever whenever i do it i feel like i'm in like uh have you seen harry potter no i actually haven't seen you've not seen harry potter although the fourth one like there's a challenge that they do it's like this cup thing and they go swimming under and like there's yeah it's weird they go swimming in scotland somewhere but um disgusting yeah yeah yeah completely um so i'm like still so proud of that achievement because it just like it haunted me so much um but yeah that's how i got into the endurance space that's pretty insane what like you say obviously you you had a role model but what like made you go so big so fast because that's like say it's pretty pretty big for a 17 year old to go and do something like that i think at the time it didn't feel that big and one of the things that i think previously i guess has been one of my biggest strengths is well i don't know one of my strengths but a strength that i've kind of played to is being like naivety and actually just not knowing what you've got coming up and also like not overthinking it when you're younger you have like zero fear and i think at the age of 17 i was still at the stage when i had zero fear so it was just like oh let's just put this idea together i'll train for it like i wasn't an academic i did a b tech rather than a levels so i kind of it was all coursework rather than what in sport oh cool um so i had the time to put training between lessons and like after school and i just kind of made it work and didn't ever think it really so from there what kind of happens uh i left school and didn't had a place at university but just before i went i was like what am i doing i went to a school that the kind of path was just like it was like go to uni or go to uni there was no other kind of option so i had a place at oxford brooks and was it was the summer before and I was like what am I doing I like don't want to go to uni I like I don't I had a place to do sports and exercise science but I was like I love sport but why don't I just use it in a different way became a personal trainer um lived for a bit in Newcastle of all places why Newcastle my sister was at uni there and I think I had this idea that like socially I wanted to be at uni to make new friendships and that was the way of kind of making new friendships after school and so I kind of went there thinking that was kind of a thing to do but it was the worst couple of years it was I was working in a gym trying to pursue my passion which it was my passion very much is my passion while also trying to pursue something that I thought was kind of like the socially thing to do and go to uni but not go to uni at the same time kind of managing that like guest situation um it was really difficult but did that for two years how was personal training loved it i loved it it was it's so funny and i was actually um so i do only run coaching now and i love doing that but when you are like immersed in it you i'd coach like clients on like whatever time obviously you do early mornings because that was what most that what's works best for most people you really like you then lose the love for your own training like your training becomes a burden because you're just so focused on training other people um so it was weird it was like two years of while qualifying and properly going all in on kind of being stuck in the gym I like lost a lot of love for my own training because I was so focused on like just being in the gym helping others but it was cool it was a it was a stepping stone I'm very like grateful for those two years before moving to London but it was um yeah weird why did you decide to move to London um why did I decide to move London I don't really know I think I didn't really know where I wanted to be next um I knew London was kind of great for work and it was a I'd been in Yorkshire kind of late district for school but Yorkshire kind of all my life and I traveled a bit and um done some time abroad but um I just think thought it wasn't you know a progression a progressional move to move to london um so worked at a gym called one london and fulham and that was an amazing like i'm so pleased i did that and it was a yeah definitely a big move in my career for kind of where i am now and meeting people was was that the the reason for kind of like meeting people uh i think i actually i don't know my sister was living in london and i was just kind of like it's good work opportunity i was a personal trainer and i think kind of back then there wasn't that many faces within like social media and the space and i remember looking out to a lot of personal trainers or kind of faces in the space and being like they're all based in london they're all being really successful maybe that is the kind of move to make um maybe that was an influence i don't really know why i did it but so was it was the aim to kind of like grow social media um kind of like personal training or just kind of like gain knowledge of these amazing people that were in the i think it's getting knowledge and i just initially I worked as a front I did half personal training half working as a front of house and at this gym in Fulham and yeah I didn't really I didn't really know where I wanted to go with it um I just kind of stopped running after I did this challenge back when I was at school and I was just doing exercise and enjoying exercise and I think there was definitely something a part of me that I missed because exercise and team sport had been such a big part of my life and kind of my identity so I was kind of using fitness as kind of like just a way of being rather than having it as my purpose and kind of a career I was helping people rather than using my performance as well and then yeah I don't really know and then it just kind of I have a really good friend called Josh Patterson and he was a member at the gym I remember seeing him training on the treadmill and I was like I didn't know that much about Josh before but I remember being really inspired about how he was just like head down on the treadmill and I went up to him and I was like you know what are you training for x y and z got chatting and I think at the time he was doing run for nations maybe he ran a marathon in every in England Scotland Ireland Wales I think that's what he was training for um and he was like I'm doing this and I was like I want to do something again I was like I miss it I was like I've got more to give like whatever and then I ran seven marathons in seven days in 2021 and then from there i was like okay maybe this isn't just an itch i want to scratch maybe it's actually something i want to just keep doing and keep seeing what i can do with it how did you find the seven marathons in seven days like back then it's funny i was actually chatting to um someone earlier about it because to that day like you always like i'm so proud of that achievement and at the time it was i thought it was so hard but like i guess my training age my like durability it was all obviously so much less so you're always proudest of those like you look then look like looking back now I'm like oh seven marathon days all relative I completely appreciate it if you listen to this seven marathons and seven days is an amazing achievement but like I look back now and I'm like oh that was easy because of what I've kind of gone on to do but at the time I was like it was brutal like it was so hard um I remember being like kind of whittled an injury um well niggles rather than injury but um yeah at the time it felt like you know like a huge achievement and really quite difficult but so that was like your one of your first tastes of like just doing like running specific uh multi-day things uh how did you feel after like you achieved the seven marathons in seven days and was it was there a time during in that seven days where you wanted to give up no not in that seven marathons in seven days um i was really proud of it and it's something that i'm massively working on now and i think within this space it's like doing what i'm trying to work on is even more important because we look at people we look at ourselves and you're always wanting to better yourself and to be proud for a couple of like even so a couple of two months ago just over two months ago I ran this B project from LA to Vegas so I'm completely jumping here and I was so proud of that achievement and I said I'm so proud of that achievement but then like three days later I was like yeah but what if I could have done that better or what if I could have done that better or that person had a 4x4 vehicle we didn't have 4x4 vehicles like etc and it's so easy to nitpick your achievements and so one thing I've massively working on is being proud of the achievement you've done and like not always having to think about the next like next further thing and I think it's difficult I think we're wired like that to you know it's the working of a sports psychologist and it's like the chimp in your brain wanting to kind of you know better or improve or nitpick at something but um it's something like one shouldn't do as we know definitely uh separate celebrate your wins yeah no matter how small as well i think i think that's important but um yeah let's uh let's move on so obviously since then you've done some tremendous things uh seven mountains in seven days after that was it joggle yeah yeah how was that amazing john o 'groats to land's end i ran from john o 'groats to land's end yeah i did 60k a day um at the age of 22 took me 22 days um that was an adventure of a lifetime and I think that still is like an adventure I absolutely loved like it was the bubble of being in like with your crew and in a bubble of like thinking about nothing in the outside world I'll never forget being in we went through the lakes and I ran past an office window I can't remember which town it was and there was someone doing some photocopying and I'm looking in the window being like oh my gosh that lady's just living her life normally she's just doing her photocopying at work and i have just run from john the groats and i'm now in the middle of the late district and it's so funny that like when you get in those bubbles that you think about nothing apart from putting one foot in front of the other and getting from a to b um yeah that was an adventure that was so cool it was um yeah a huge experience and huge learning curve but a real adventure and you got the record for the youngest ever female yeah still holds still stands um i'm sure it'll be broken soon but it still stands that's it that's insane so yeah and then after that what uh what came next what came next was the three peaks around the national three peaks um two years ago just over two years ago now um would you just be able to explain for the people because there's a couple of when you say three pizzas kind of like a walking one where you travel in between and then what what did you do yeah so traditionally you um do bed nevis scar and Snowdon you can do it from like Snowdon Ben Nevis so Snowdon Scarfell Ben Nevis or the other way around um via a car and you do it in 24 hours which um is an amazing achievement a lot of people do it and it's a big charity goal a lot of people um but I ran from um Fort William um kind of harbour pier um to Ben Nevis ran then ran from Ben Nevis to Scarfell from Scarfell to Snowdon and then finished in Carnarvon and Wales, one hand in the water there, which was just over 700 kilometres, 10 ,000 metres of elevation.

15:19So that's just the hardcore way to do it. You just said, fuck it, I'm not going to drive, I'm not going to be like normal. Probably the stupid way to do it, yeah. I'm going to run. And was it like a challenge before you did it? Like was quite a few people done it before? Yeah, a few people have done it. there's there was two variations doing it from the foot of Ben Nevis and finishing at the foot of Snowdon or doing it from the sea level variation so we did the sea level variation which is now kind of the known way of doing it and I don't think anyone will ever do the foot variation again um it was broken the last time it was broken was in 1970 by an Olympian called Anne Sayer um who um yeah which was quite cool she was yeah I mean an Olympian inspiring athlete and it was like an honor to break a record i guess i did it in six hours five hours six days sorry five hours 40 43 minutes that's insane so yeah

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