Phil Sesemann - #44

0:00Phil Sesemann, welcome to the podcast. Yeah, cheers for having me on. For the people that may not know who you are, would you just be able to sum yourself up? I am a 33-year-old marathon runner from Leeds. Just like that? Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I guess there's a few more strings to the bow, but yeah, that's effectively in the fewest possible words. For the people that, just to get a picture into how good you are, you're not just a marathon runner. You're a great marathon runner. What's your PB at the moment? uh two seven eleven two seven eleven and you've also been to the olympics right yeah paris olympics so paris olympics so the fact that you're an olympian and you've got that incredible marathon time just shows like you're one of the best especially like in the uk yeah if not the world when it comes to the marathon um i want to take it kind of back to where you started your kind of like love for running because i know there's been a couple of sports yeah but yeah where did I'll start uh I was a swimmer at a young age kind of pushed in well just directed that way and did okay made it to nationals when I was 11 years old but didn't make it when I was 12 um so that was kind of my standard uh and at that time I was also doing some schools cross country races and I was loving these I was they were like the highlight of the year twice a year I finished 13th in my first one won the next one um and then I was kind of consistently maybe the top in my year group during those races um in like the london borough of bromley so yeah that was definitely what kind of gave me that initial love for the sport and going down to blackie from bromley kind of once i hit secondary school my local athletics club and just being involved in that uh that atmosphere that uh kind of community being competitive was you decent about them i was pretty good i kind of i think my best performance would probably be a four for the national cross as an under 15 um made the english school uh final in the 1500 in my year 12 and year 13 years at school um but i just loved it i just loved being kind of involved in this thing uh that was kind of more than just me and uh looking up to the other guys in the club and learning from them socializing with them kind of really kind of uh like core memories for me of like kind of growing up in london yeah so you you grew up in london yeah you don't live there now no no you're at leeds based now yeah um that's cool no i like that and we'll move on to that a little bit later but um obviously like you said you you made nationals yeah and you was like national level uh when you was year 12 year 13 which is what that's like 17 yeah 17 18 um how how does that kind of like progress and does it progress or i know that you've done like a bit of studying you went to university and stuff like that so talk to us about that uh it didn't progress to start with kind of came to university and i was doing a medical degree in leeds so i was going to be at university for six years so i kind of made the conscious decision that i've got six years in a really good training environment here i can afford to kind of give up a year and live a your normal student lifestyle i can go on the ski trips i can go camp america i can do all the weekends away i can go out for five nights a week and just really enjoy myself and kind of always planned to then come back to sport and endurance sport and yeah did that so i had a year and came back to lees in my second year and said where better place to try and become a triathlete and gave that a go and to be honest I despise cycling through a Yorkshire winter it was really really tough and I think doing a medical degree like your timetable is fairly heavy and there's not loads of time in the week to fit your training in especially the bike hours so I was out on the bike in horrible weather and just not really developing a passion for it at that point and fortunately the aerobic training that I was doing meant my running was going pretty well and I was starting to run better than I had done at school and I was really enjoying that and it was quite an easy decision at the end of that second year to say this is clearly what I want to do and I want to throw myself into it and I was back competing not on a national level but just below but I was seeing some of the lads that I'd ran with at young ages at school and I'd been at their kind of level and I was seeing them progress and reach that national level I was seeing them pick up Great Britain vests on the cross country maybe on the track at age group championships and I was thinking well I'm as good as them I can have that and I'm a long way from it now but that really kind of like lit a fire under me that this is definitely what I want and what I want to strive towards and that was yeah like a really big goal for me then is get a gb vest and just start working towards that interesting so you said that you actually perform better within your running when doing triathlon yes at the start yeah compared to before you took the year off and you just kind of hitting pbs and being like a national like a junior yeah um so do you think have you took kind of any learning and any advice from that like do you have any advice from that like uh for the people that may not be able to run all the time but you can still do all the things like i don't know it's one of them you think if you're not running you're not making progress yeah uh specificity matters but overall volume is king is where i my training volume in running of volume in running but still overall training volume is going to make a big difference so yes if you can run 130 140 miles a week you're not going to have much time or energy for much else but if you can't run that much if you're suffering with injuries if you're breaking down then if you can get some aerobic stimulus elsewhere then 100 throw yourself into that devote some time and energy resources into those uh other training methods and yeah i think you can get almost to the same standard that you would do um uh with just running alone and i i through my teenage years i went back to competitive swimming like twice and every time i went back to the competitive swimming my running would go better and i would then be like well i love the running I'll back off the swimming again and I would then my running would go worse when that was my full focus because my training volumes at a young age was so low and from running that just doing running alone just wasn't providing enough of a stimulus to be able to kind of compete and perform at the level that I wanted to and I'd just go back to the swimming I would enjoy that again ramp up the training volumes and lo and behold like weight would come down I'd lean out and I'd just be much fitter and compete much better in the running races and yeah it took until probably that second third year of university to kind of realize that um that actually i respond to training i just need to do a lot of it yeah no that is interesting with the swimming do you think there's any other benefits like a lot of people say oh because you've got to hold your breath uh when you're swimming that that carries over to running and it kind of like controls your breathing would you say no no i don't think so that was bullshit yeah i reckon yeah i mean that's a bit of bro science and yeah i think uh yeah i don't really see kind of how that would how would that help i mean in running basically dealing with like having carbon dioxide build up in your system yeah able to get rid of it uh i mean potentially i haven't looked at the science um but it's not been advised to me by any physiologists and they're usually the ones who are looking at the research and trying to find the small little margins of improvements and would be coming to me with that so yeah i'd probably say yeah the more running you can do and the faster you can run like the better you can you're always going to do and um i remember like when i was a sports scholar at leeds university there was a fellow who was an ultimate frisbee player who was also a sports scholar competing nationally and he came in with one of these altitude stimulation simulation masks um which effectively just like cuts off some of the air it goes into it's not uh simulating altitude uh in any other way um and he was oh should i just use this and the strength and conditioning coach in the gym's oh what do you endurance boys think of this and we were like just just run faster like just yeah if if you're limited by injury and that's what's stopping you running quicker um then yes some of these other tools or methods might help and provide a training stimulus uh but if you're not and your training volumes are low and you're fairly robust uh then just running more running faster is going to provide a great specificity and that's going to kind of get you fitter yeah definitely what's your opinion on that subject on the treadmill and using inclines because a lot of people i know it's up for debate at the moment like either just like use a 0.5 or 1 % or that'll mimic kind of like the wind resistance or whatever that he would be if he was running outdoors or just run at zero and run faster.

9:34That's kind of like the argument at the moment. I'm zero and faster. Yeah. Okay. I did see a thing Jakob Ingebrigtsen saying about, yeah, up until maybe like 22, 23k an hour, he would stay at zero. and then he would say that actually going faster than that to get the biomechanics and the energy demands the same as it would be outside he will go up to 0.5 or even one percent when he's doing fast work so i can slightly see that and this winter is the first winter where i've done a decent amount of treadmill training i got one for my garage and started using that for quite a few sessions through like february and um march and i had to check it was calibrated properly because i was like this is kind of too easy this feels a lot fitter i'm feeling a lot fitter on this than i am what treadmill was it uh i've got a woodway oh you got woodway and you thought it was easier yeah i found it easier that's insane because i've got a woodway and um a friend of ours a mutual friend uh alfie manthorpe says that it's so far off the other way like really that's what i found it a lot easier but then i've i went from training on one of the techno gym treadmills yeah um slatted treadmill in the gym and that's a warm gym uh i think it's air conditions but just not that cool and then i've gone into my cold garage in february with the door open a little bit of wind coming through and you're warming up in tracksuit and uh just to be warm enough to be able to do it um and then you're running with your top off in february like yeah the kind of being able to dissipate your heat uh made a massive difference and i think that was probably the biggest reason why that those sessions started feeling easier and i think i was also probably a bit fitter than i kind of thought i was at that time yeah no no it is interesting so when you was doing the triathlon and you said that your running was improving how many miles a week were you just running probably like 40 yeah maybe 45 so pretty long especially compared to what you're you run nowadays yeah which is uh crazy when but we'll get onto that um so you thought obviously like you said going well you're almost at the level of the people that you ran with when you're younger yeah they're getting gb vests um what was that the thing that made you go all in to running uh I think I just loved it yeah yeah I don't think it was ever to get anything from it and yeah to have that kind of external validation it was just like I really enjoyed the process of going out running training analyzing my training seeing where I can make improvements um and just being engrossed in the sport and uh revolving my day around when I'm going for my run and not just fitting it in and um making that as good as possible was yeah probably what made me kind of go all in and uh i was just very fortunate that there's loads of people who love running as much as i do um that i was good enough that i was able to turn it into kind of a profession and at this point you're at leeds yeah it's pretty good uh running roster in leeds right yeah it's not bad yeah and just endurance athletes as a whole yeah like uh it's insane the the amount of like talent that's come out there yeah um what do you think it is um i think the environment makes a massive difference there's obviously like the brownie effect and uh just the two of them training there spending most of the year there training um kind of showing people that you don't look at them and think they're this like otherworldly kind of different species they are just two normal blokes um who have quite a lot of grit and train really hard for a very long time and yeah just kind of seeing that and having that effect on the other athletes around them um and kind of building that kind of center uh i think makes a massive difference and then there's also the effect it's like a one club city so really most runners in leeds run for leeds city and there's a few others but most of them it's not like manchester where we spread fairly thin so a lot of the top athletes are um concentrated they're training together pushing each other um and then yeah when you walk into the university gym on a friday morning and there's uh olympic medals kind of around and there's athletes who are training at real high levels and competing professionally and competing on a global stage uh it just makes you think that that's kind of possible but you just see what they're doing and you think well i'll just do that and you may not reach the same level but you'll get pretty good yeah do you think it's one of the best places in the uk to kind of train yeah yeah yeah i think so pretty lucky yeah because otherwise if i thought it was better place i'd be training there yeah would you you obviously got to that level now where you you would sacrifice moving in your home life to to train with better people probably uh yeah i think so yeah i think so i think i'm very happy me my partner and my daughter were really like where we live but i think if there was somewhere better then um yeah i think i would be there but i think yeah we've obviously been there you kind of make it as good as you can make it and you look for the positives and um yeah i've made my own home training environment as good as possible now um but uh yeah i still think it's yeah as good as any place in the uk that's uh that's cool so moving on to like when was the so at this point you were still running 1500 meters yeah yeah yeah what is your time 1500 340 340 that's quick when did you achieve that 2018 2018 yeah so still did 1500 at british champs that year um that was actually my best best position um and then yeah kind of started stepping up the distances fairly quickly after that who who was it was it yourself that wanted to step up the distances or was it someone else like your coach or um my coach had mentioned around then that he saw me being a marathon runner in the future which i was fairly surprised at which was you kind of offended i said that or like uh yeah slightly yeah i was like are you sure like what about 1500 and 5k and um i think i always knew i didn't have the fast twitch necessary to be a really good 1500 meter runner i could be pretty good and I think I did okay nationally because I think back then there was kind of the top top guys are very good but there just wasn't the depth that there is now so you run a 340 and I was sick for the British champs that year um you run a 340 this year I don't think you qualify for British champs so it's a massive difference uh so I capitalized and made the most of kind of those years um and was able to do okay uh but uh yeah i just never had the never had the fitness to be able to run away from people and i never had the speed to be able to kick away from people at the end on a national level so um yeah it was always clear that i was gonna have to go somewhere else and that was just gonna be up do you think it's true that they say you can't teach speed yeah yeah i think so you can definitely work on it and you can i say you can maintain it um but there's guys in the 1500 and the 800s who've ran like 10.8 10.9 second hundreds and things like um the fastest i ever ran basically sprinters yeah yeah they're basically sprinters they're effectively they're failed sprinters and they've moved up um and yeah that's that's you can't if you haven't got that you haven't got that so you're saying you start at 100 after that you'll move to the four yeah two four yeah eight and you just keep going up just keep going all the way to the marathon and then you're you're left at the marathon yeah yeah you're just doing that and then you're still trying to keep a bit of speed in because otherwise the pace starts feeling really quick and you've got to start moving up to comrades and the 100k champs and stuff um so yeah you still have to do your speed work uh it's just different speed work yeah it's crazy it's crazy the level for for uh for the people 207 what's that average i think 2711 is three flat point nine three somewhere around running three minute k's a full marathon yeah yeah so um yeah there's some days a three minute k feels really really hard and there's some days it feels okay so um you hope that one lies on the yeah falls on a marathon day um i'd be interested from your perspective with like high rocks training because there's obviously like a massive endurance element but then there's a lot of power that you're producing um and a lot of fast twitch and explosivity um with some of the exercises have you found that speed has got better or would you say speed is you're just maintaining uh my when i focus on it it gets better obviously like anything else um i speak to i was speaking to andy this morning andy butchardt about this this morning so i was training with him and that's one of the reasons i've been training with them boys just to try and get a little bit of speed yeah to be exposed to what real speed is yeah um and he was saying like it was like it was literally at the track and he was like uh there's a couple of girls running around and they were doing the the lc1 or slash lt2 at um or their threshold session at 320s it was like look these girls are running faster than you at their threshold than you than your threshold yeah imagine if you're like a high rocks athlete's threshold was like a three minute k yeah um how how much more efficient you'd be like running because at the moment we're running probably in a high rocks singles probably like 325s okay so like for you that's like walking but if you say you were doing that on a track because like the indoor at like the XA sometimes it's not fast it's a 325 but you're weaving in and out of people it's like literally like a sports hall so like you're going around sometimes there's five loops for a K so sometimes it's like 200 meter track but like sharp edges and stuff like that so it's one of them like there's a trade off like you accelerating decelerating and accelerating it's better just to go a little bit slower I think save yourself and then just put it in the stations so there is that as well yeah you're always kind of thinking so i don't know what it'd be at the track i think it'd probably be like 315s at the track okay if you were to do like a high rocks yeah with an outdoor event so but still there's still room to work there yeah and but the thing i find is like training for it all like it's very hard to be doing the heavy leg stuff to full range of motion whereas like your gym sessions you're probably going to half range or runner's range yep and that might be a half squat um and you'll probably realize like if you go to a full squat that's when things start like pulling and tightening up and stuff like that and i think that's one of the things that the challenge is maintaining the mobility to do like full squats yeah uh doing lunges and kind of going heavy with them yeah and then being able to run as well and it not like basically you're not breaking yeah so so my issue is not the motivation to train not the my my problem is always my body just breaks down before like yeah i feel like i've got a body working against me if that makes sense yeah i feel like a lot of hierarchies probably can relate to that and it's just about finding the balance i don't think it's been a lot around enough yeah for people to have like an ideal like perfect training block or our training week do you think there's going to be like high level runners who maybe haven't quite reached the level they wanted to in running or been quite good enough to be professional but they're running like 215 maybe even quicker for a marathon or yeah 28 minute 10k guys do you think they're going to be able to come in and challenge I think it might be the 1500 meter guys really I think I was speaking to Jay the other day Jay Whiteman and he was he was saying that he fancies giving it a go.

21:45I saw him ripping it around that track. He holds a bit of muscle as well. They're not far off the high rocks physique, if that makes sense. I think if he spent a year or two developing his strength, going to full range, then he'd be decent. Because again, I was trying to explain this to Alfie, because Alfie was like, he wants to try and help me with like the coaching side of high rocks yeah i was like it's so different to like a say for example a 10k yeah for the first four or 5k you're relatively comfortable would you say so yeah you hope so yeah you hope so it's bad that you cannot yeah yeah whereas like a high rocks from not from the goal but you do that first run and then you're on to the ski and then you've got this thing called blood shunting where you you know you're going from a ski erg then to running and then back and it just takes your breath away because you're moving from exercise to exercise so you're you're feeling like you're in the bin yeah early and it's kind of like you're just fighting that for a full hour yeah so that's what i was trying to explain where uh like a 10k for example you're you're fighting for it might be 15 minutes yeah out of the 30 that you're running or whatever uh so whereas like say hyroxy it feels like from the off really just first exercise maybe second exercise probably from like 10 minutes in as soon as you hit that sled push there's no way anyone's doing that sled push and not feeling it after just because it takes the lactate to move it and it's building up in your legs obviously you can get used to it but yeah would you ever consider one?

23:26I'd be intrigued I'd definitely be intrigued but I'd only want to i'd only want to do it if i was like i wouldn't want to do it if i was retired and i was just like okay i'll just like do this for a bit of fun and then just yeah just not do very well and not put loads of effort in i what fascinates me is if you took someone who was really serious about running very good at running uh who did carry a bit of muscle and then they before they retired and when they're at that peak then they applied themselves to high rocks and it wasn't just like i'll just do this for a bit of fun it was like no i'm going to become a professional high rocks athlete and just seeing how good they could be um that that's interesting and that won't be me because i love the marathon running and i want to be better at that uh and the two things um they can work you can be very good at both but you can't be um like world class at both at the same time yeah definitely not um i'd agree with you there so yeah it's interesting the first person to do it who like like you say is like a um an 800 or 1500 meter like doing well like say like british champs level yeah and then they potentially convert into high rocks i don't know why they would though i don't know yeah yeah i mean the closest would be like holly archer you say because she's obviously and there's a luke graded quite a bit i think he's got like a but still he's like 14 45k or something yeah he's probably like the fastest guy in high rocks at the moment and what level is he competing at in high rocks he's coming to high rocks and like yeah he's killing it yeah yeah so he's in world champs level elite 15 level okay um yes it's super impressive what he's done so yeah but he he was exactly the same as you he was like just wait until some of these guys come in yeah we're all done we're all out of the job no i don't know if you are i'm just yeah no i'm just interested yeah it's a good argument if you if you speak to the high rocks as the bird no did not have a chance but i think i'm a little bit more of a realist i think i think yeah but it's it's like the triathlon like runners can go and do a bit of triathlon think i'll sit in the wheels like i won't have to do too much work yeah uh and i like i had this idea in my second year of university i thought no this this could be me i could be really really good at this like i've swam at 11 years old at a national level i've done a bit of cycling i've ran at a national level um surely i'm the perfect um like uh i've got the pedigree to go and give this a go um and i think i did the elite girafflon national girafflon you run bike run um maybe 10th off the bike off the first run went into the bike just got shelled out the back shelled out the back of every group that i've gone to the back of um and then i ran the second slowest um second run split um because my legs were just in the bin like absolute bin like Like I was one of the slowest cyclists and it ruined my legs more than anyone else.

26:23So yeah, it's a bit naive to think, yeah, this runner is going to come in and take over. But it's exciting to think that potentially there's people out there who could be, take the sport to a new level. And I always feel like maybe with athletics and especially marathon running and sprinting, I feel like there probably isn't too many humans on the planet who could be uh Olympic medalist level who aren't in the sport yeah like if if you know if you're really fast like everyone has the opportunity to test whether they're the quickest kid at school um and if you are you just you do just go down that sports route and you have the opportunities usually would present you and maybe marathon running slightly different because it does take longer to build but I feel like maybe high rocks there's potentially some guys out there guys and girls who could be at the very very top of the sport who aren't in the sport yeah no I definitely believe that just curious when you was back at school was you like the fastest in your year no no no I uh definitely not speed wise yeah i probably was not in the top 25 30 sprinting i would say out of 230 kids i was yeah probably around there 25 30 um so i wasn't slow definitely not slow um but i wasn't one of the i wasn't a fast kid um i was pretty good at the longer stuff but like one of my best mates from school like he did a bit of physique stuff at university and and he beat me in cross country races like not often I beat him more often than not but I wasn't always winning um these were probably the years where I was focusing on running and I wasn't focusing doing any swimming and doing any of that extra training um and I also had a lad who was a year above me in the local club at the same school who won the national championships um so I was always kind of yeah very aware that I was pretty good but I definitely wasn't the best yeah no I'm just Just curious because you, obviously with the tans that you're putting out now, like even you sprinting now, like it's pretty quick.

28:40Like I'd say that you're pretty quick. Probably for like a 33 year old bloke. Yeah. But then I genuinely, I'm like quite fearful of when my daughter's at primary school and I have like sports day. 100 meter sprint. Yeah. Cause there's definitely going to be like a bloke or two who's thinking like, you know, I'm pretty quick. I do a bit of gym or like I've played rugby or I've got a bit of explosivity and this straight's only 40 meters and uh that bloke's been to the Olympics and I'm going to show him up and yeah definitely and my brother's a primary school teacher uh and he's told me he's like you got to do anything you can to make sure you win that race because uh he says the kids go absolutely mad for whoever wins and if you don't win they just forget you and that's brutal yeah would you say that's uh that's on the top of the priority it's pretty high up yeah yeah so a little bit of fast twitch some more running drills a bit more mobility um and yeah turning up to a school sports day with spikes on i think it's in my future that's class hopefully not pulling a hamstring yeah hopefully not yeah so after um let's say 1500 meter world jumps you then uh take it up and do you go straight to the marathon or do you gradually kind of increase it was fairly gradual obviously i know that you do all the other stuff now like you don't just focus on the marathon but uh no like five and 10k yeah i did 5k one year at british two years of british champs um got a fourth um in a relatively weak year um i think but sharp won that year kind of everyone um or maybe yeah i think he did um and then uh the next year 2020 it was like the covid year um and covid was actually really good i don't know what it was like in i guess high rocks wasn't as big back then but uh for a lot of distance runners it just meant that no races just full focus on training just load up as much training as you can and kind of people reached i feel like a new level um because of that and i definitely noticed that my long runs were starting to go really well and it was after that that i was like i need to get in a marathon yeah and then when was your first debut 2021 london marathon so that was one of the october years um when it was in october for a few years um so it was on my 29th birthday um so that was pretty good and that was that was tactical because i knew that uh the olympics had just been so the top british guys would have just done the olympics so they wouldn't be coming back seven six weeks later and doing london marathon um so you're automatically taking the top three british guys out and then i felt like i could be competitive amongst the next level of brits and fortunately i was and i was the first brit home and also that year the organizers didn't invite a huge international field they pretty much just had some really top east african athletes ugandans kenyans ethiopians and then they just didn't invite anyone else they didn't have top europeans any americans canadians in and because of that i was able to finish seventh um so despite it being one of like a 212 58 um which would definitely not get you seventh for the london marathon now um i was able to kind of get kind of my 15 minutes then and uh that was really what kind of was the catalyst for me launching my professional career as a marathon runner did things get more serious after that yeah yeah i was able to secure a sponsorship um with adidas and i picked up man cave or a sponsor right then and um yeah slowly i was able to kind of get into better races and uh yeah just had the opportunities to earn from the sport which made a massive difference because i was able to reduce my hours at work um really kind of give my full focus on the running and um was able to kind of focus on it and prioritize it for the next few years yeah what was it like balancing uh the work with the running like was it so much easier after you went part-time uh i was always part-time oh so i studied six years and then from day one of working i was part-time working three days a week um i was really fortunate to kind of have that opportunity and to be able to still prioritize the running um i do think it's doable with work um but it's so much less fun like i was just able to uh when i was full-time i was with the running i was just able to enjoy my running more i wasn't fitting it in like running was okay i'll go running when it's best time for for me best time for my training best time for the fitness that i'm trying to gain and um yeah that made a big difference what are the key things from someone say for example going from part-time to full-time people just think oh you train more yeah and that's not the reality so what does change like what what are the keys to getting better yeah from like say being part-time what do you do with that extra time uh probably sleep a bit more yeah um so i might go for a run at 10 or nine rather than seven and that's part of a run commute um i just enjoy it more i think i'm yeah i wake up on a monday and see who's about for running if no one's about it doesn't matter i've got my two dogs and just go out from the door go for a run and come back don't stress make my lunch um yeah go to the gym if i've got gym or um yeah get some stuff done that i need to do and yeah I don't have that fitting it all in and not being able to do other things and yeah I can pretty much say yes to most social things family occasions because I know that I've got the flexibility in my schedule to be able to move training around whereas if you're working you don't have that so then that's probably where yeah some of the bigger difficulties come but yeah from a performance point of view I feel like Just the extra recovery time is probably the main thing.

34:53What's the main thing that you do in between sessions for recovery? Do you try and optimize recovery every minute of the day or you're not really too forced on it? Try and rest. Try not to do too much. Do you nap? Not loads. Probably like one nap every... One a week at most. If I'm on a double session day, I always make sure I get half an hour to an hour. um but yeah napping's relatively difficult when you've got like a toddler at home and stuff and um my partner's working so it's not like fail on her if i'm just always like no no you do the parenting and um and i want to be doing that i want to be part of that and so yeah there's some bits that uh yeah i'm optimal but i feel like if you're happy you're gonna perform better you're going to get greater adaptations to your training um i was chatting to one of the other athletes in the elite field um at london marathon this year and he was thinking about maybe having a kid and asking me my advice and what what i thought and i was i used to really stress about sleep before i had a child and i used to think i have to get like eight nine ten hours i want to get naps in like it has to be unbroken um and that's the only way i'm going to progress and i've got fitter and pb'd over every distance since having a daughter like 20 months ago and my sleep is terrible like it's really bad like we're what we're talking uh how many times you're up in the night on average probably like twice yeah but on average so yeah there'll be some nights where yeah you're up for an hour at 2 a.m and then you're up again at four um and then you're up early uh or yeah you you're going to bed late so yeah we're not too good with the whole routine with my one so we're uh she might not go to bed till quite late and then you still need some time afterwards to um just chill out and relax so then you're going to bed late and um yeah it affects things and i've been quite surprised just how much training i can do despite waking up and needing two coffees um to kind of get going um so yeah i would definitely say sleep uh isn't overrated it's a massive thing for recovery and performance um but don't stress with it like if you're not getting the sleep stressing about it isn't gonna improve the situation it's going to make it worse um so yeah if you've had a bad night just maybe adjust training um but otherwise just forget about it don't think about it and just carry on yeah i want to touch on your your training what's a week kind of look like because i know you do quite a lot of miles it's um yeah so when i'm not injured so uh yeah i'm just building back up the running now um but in normal marathon training uh probably i try and usually hit around 140 miles a week um so i actually i do all my training in kilometers but i count the total in miles it just i tried counting in kilometers but it just had no significance to me it just didn't there was no number to chase that i liked chasing and so i found the 140 was just really clean and simple and that's kind of what i aim for and um so that usually means that in classes what like 220 or something like that yeah that's what i mean it didn't mean anything to me so um i couldn't have that as my target each week i couldn't be looking at strava and seeing the the number go up towards that um because you just stop at 200 or something you just be like oh that's a nice round number um so yeah for me it's it's pretty much session days are tuesday friday and sunday and that usually is a tuesday will be like some kind of double threshold um so usually like 15k five by three k off like 90 seconds um around marathon pace it's like three minute per k if you're feeling great it might be 258s if you're building back up it might be 305s um so yeah just kind of go off feel and then the afternoon will be um something a bit quicker uh so either 10 to 12 by k or like 2400s are usually um my kind of go-to sessions and i'm not someone who needs a lot of variety i'm quite happy just doing the same sessions week in week out and just feeling the improvement um they don't even have to get quicker they might get a bit longer um and then i would on a friday do something quite specific so depending on what race i had coming up if that was a half marathon that might be three times 5k and that'd be pretty hard maybe a little bit quicker than half marathon pace or around there um so like two 53s do 52s something like that um and if it was a marathon coming up then i'd be doing 30k long run maybe further maybe a 40k long run and there'll be some fairly heavy stints in there at marathon pace usually off like a float recovery a steady recovery so um just non-stop and they'll be warm up and warm down as well so they can be pretty big days um and then like a sunday would be like a long run maybe 30 35k uh but steady so kind of 320 per k 322 325 depending where i do it yeah i've seen it I've seen that.

40:34I've seen that sometimes you build up to kind of like 40 kilometers. Yeah. That 320 person. You're like, that's crazy. Yeah. There was a couple of 45 Ks in the last year. What was that? Obviously, let's say a lot of people when they're training for a marathon, they don't like to go above the marathon distance. Obviously, you're going above the marathon distance and as well like time, like because you're running a lot slower than you would in the marathon. Do you feel like that benefited you? I think so. yeah i think there was definitely there's something to it i definitely felt like my training moved on afterwards um difficult to know for sure um what any one session does because you don't just do one session in isolation um and yeah there's lots of different factors that affect your fitness but uh yeah i felt like it was good conditioning definitely mental um and physical and really good to practice with the fueling um and just take on as much as possible um how often are you taking non-fuel usually every 5k i'll be doing that so you hopefully if i'm doing something as long as that i'm got some bike support and uh the issue is yeah sometimes the sunday runs are because they're not really intense if i'm going out on the canal in leeds then i'm usually just with my dog and we're your dog runs 30k yeah she'll do yeah one of them the other one won't no way yeah so she'll be doing that and um yeah she actually gets tired by the end so i quite like that because you get people kind of shouting at you on the bike and on the towpath kind of saying like oh like she looks really easy or kind of thing and i'm kind of like well and they're like i bet i know who'd win in a race and i'm like you probably don't because i actually uh she looks more tired at the end than i do yeah so i'm not surprised doing 30 kilometers yeah yeah she's pretty knackered and stuff um but the mad thing is yeah the second you like if you stand up in the afternoon after you've had a nap or you've chilled out uh she's there she's ready she's like what dog have you got uh she's a pointer German shorthead pointer okay uh and how old is she she's five nice yeah like prime age yeah prime age just loves it so um just make sure that same as me I make sure that she's sleeping afterwards and she's getting lots of food and things and um it's quite a funny one sometimes you train in the morning and this would be like my easy days uh where i pretty much do 20k easy in the morning 12k easy in the evening um and that's yeah so 20k in the morning 12k yeah okay and that's like your easy day yeah yeah that'd be my easy days just to help accumulate the volume yeah um and she'll be doing both of those runs and in between i won't see her she'll just be asleep on the sofa just might bark at a postman delivery driver but that's it like and you're i might be doing things or i might be scrolling social media or i might be on youtube or i might be um doing a podcast like i could be doing anything uh and you always find it quite like it's good to remind yourself like she's done some exercise and now her body is telling her she's knackered and she is not doing anything else she's not sniffing around she's not out in the garden she's not trying to uh fill her time with anything else she's just resting and recovering and yeah it's quite a good like lesson to kind of take and just be like okay like have i actually achieved much in this like six hours between these two runs like could i have condensed that and actually just slept or just chilled and um yeah big one for me and i always remember how lucky i am when i'm doing this but if i'm sat on my sofa not on my laptop or on my phone and i'm watching on my big telly i'm watching like a film or a box set in the middle of the day and i'm almost embarrassed to have like my curtains open that i'm just doing that in the middle of the day and my neighbors can just see that i'm clearly just doing nothing uh i know that that is like prime recovery and i'm actually doing a good job of what i'm supposed to be doing so yeah i kind of strive for that when i can and always like remember how lucky i am to be doing that as well yeah no i'm exactly the same like you come down in the middle of the day like someone knocks on the door it's postman or something like that and you just get up and you like you say you've just got up for a nap or you've just got up from the sofa you might be in your box or whatever and they're like oh do you not have a job yeah yeah it's embarrassing yeah you feel like a bum yeah and you are a bit of a bum but yeah yeah and you want to tell them and your stuff but then you're like no obviously you're going to start telling the postman like but i do yeah i do work yeah i do work yeah i was working this morning or whatever but yeah you just uh yeah you have to remember how lucky it is to be able to do this and stuff and that's what i was saying like before we came on here i was saying i was impressed that you're flying out today to the world championship uh and you're here and yes you say you enjoy this and but this is work this is like something that you're doing um that you don't have to be doing i actually started this as a distraction so i could spend more time sitting down and chilling i don't know we're kind of cognitively thinking and stuff like that and not stress the mind but otherwise i'm just so like obsessed with training i just want to train more and more and more so that's one of the reasons i started this yeah but like i say it's still work but again do not think sometimes it's how you perceive stuff yeah so say for example the bad night's sleep if you think oh shit i've got a bad night's sleep the day is ruined before it started like i'm a hypocrite of doing that like i do that all the time whereas like my girlfriend she'll be on five hours sleep but she's having the best day ever and yeah whereas i could not function if i was yeah um i think it's same with things like like work if you or even if you're i had this phrase the other day like um instead of you have to do it you get to do it yeah that's good and it kind kind of just gives you this like endless amount of energy yeah that's good because i was saying like before the london marathon like that week um like media or sponsor commitments will come in and requests and i just say no i just say no i'm fully focused on this and yeah um yeah i don't want that distraction i don't want to use that energy and um so what are you doing instead because for example uh the the week of race world champs coming up i don't want to be thinking about that race because like i'll just be reliving it in my head over and over again before it's even happened and it's kind of almost bringing on anxiety yeah yeah stressed about it and stuff so like do you take your mind off it you do other things what do you classes like downtime if you're not sleeping yeah like what what you're doing i guess i'm watching a film or a box set in the middle of the day so like all all the week of like a deload week obviously you're running less miles yeah you're just filling that up with box sets uh i'll go to cafe but i do that anyway i would like spend time with my daughter spend time with my partner um i want to be at home for as long as possible ahead of a big race like i want to be flying out last possible like moment i can would you would you do that what about if it was say in the u.s or would you try and avoid races over there i think in the u.s yeah you definitely have to go like five days beforehand they say for like every every a day for every hour yeah change do you kind of stick to that uh i haven't had to do that yeah i haven't raced over there so um that's a good one to know yeah for when that does come around so they say so say for example if you was going to australia it's 11 hours difference or whatever you go there 11 days before that's quite a lot isn't it i know it's a long time yeah for us it's probably like a week yeah when i did the houston marathon i went out like a week before but they say like after like three four days you kind of went on track did you find that all right because they start really early there don't they it was unbelievable like the best thing ever yeah because you don't like we was done for like we started at quarter to seven in the morning yeah that's just 6 45 and i was done by nine yeah awesome like just after nine yeah it's wicked yeah so seven seven minutes past nine done yeah oh yeah like your day went and had some like barbecue like because we were in uh texas it was good yeah that's actually waiting for it to open i think it opened at like 11 so like we couldn't actually go and get food straight after really yeah but then you have your full day whereas like obviously london yeah um a lot of people suffer with the heat i think that's like a huge talking point at the moment right about whether they should change the start time yeah honestly because you like this year obviously it was it was okay and there was a bit of a tailwind at the end but for the masses who are running three four hours like five hours they got pretty hot uh but the year before like we got hot and it was tough and you're on the bus to the race in the morning it's like 8 30 and you can see there's almost like a bit of mist in the air and you're like wow there's no winds you're like why are we not running now like that is perfect and then you get off the bus and you're like i'm taking my track he's sort of jacket off because it's warm like i always think in in a marathon if you can warm up uh with a with in your t-shirt without a jacket on it's too warm for like optimal like performance yeah you say like six to eight degrees do they yeah it's going to be like perfect perfect um and even like valencia this like last year in december was like 12 13 degrees and i'd gone from amsterdam where the pacemakers are wearing t-shirts under their vests and they're wearing gloves so when you see that you start like oh here we go this is good um and it makes you feel better and i remember thinking at 10 miles like i'm not sweating here um whereas at valencia and at london i'm four miles in and i'm drenched and i'm already starting to feel it a little bit yeah so yeah it makes a big difference so if yeah if london moved it forward a couple hours that'd be great um and it what it is what draws me to uh like chicago and some of the marathons in the us is they do start at 7 a.m so you're really reducing the chances that conditions are going to affect your race i think it works better for everyone because i think the reason the big reason why america do it is america's a business yeah and all the roads are shut yeah so and obviously they've got to pay for the roads to be yeah and stuff like that so like uh if they get it earlier then they're open quicker yeah yeah and it helps us run faster yeah exactly so it benefits everyone um but uh no super super interesting so um with your so you've got your tuesday session you've got your friday session you've got your sunday session and then everything else is easier and you're just doing doubles every day yeah is there any rest days that you take or any cross training days no no cross training days so no you don't touch any like a bike or no cross training or anything i haven't until this injury okay six weeks ago so whether i continue um with uh implementing cycling into my training going forward when i'm back at full mileage or or even reduce my mileage slightly and uh have some cycling in there remains to be seen um yeah i haven't kind of worked that out and kind of speaking to my coach speaking to other athletes who i know have done this and asking their advice and kind of reaching out and yeah trying to kind of understand whether this might help me with performance but also longevity in the sport um but i've i've kind of been a high level high volume trainer for like 12 years and this is my first kind of major injury so i kind of don't want to change too much like yes this injury's happened um and you need to address that and work out yeah what to do so that it doesn't happen again um but also you don't want to kind of say i've had one thing in 12 years so suddenly i need to change my entire approach um that'd be foolish so um yeah i want to yeah just kind of get back to that full training and then decide whether to keep some cross training in yeah you've done pretty well up to now so yeah i wouldn't change anything yeah exactly and the big one is i have definitely slacked on strength and conditioning um so i've probably been in the gym before this injury this year like three times five times in the entire kind of like what four months five months yeah yeah i wasn't in the gym very much um many just sometimes it would hurt my foot um and uh but also kind of off the back of valencia marathon i said okay i'm gonna do all the little things gonna to make that step up in performance and that included doing gym um and i was back in the gym for a few weeks uh and then just like winter bugs nursery illnesses just kind of ripped me off and i just said to myself okay like running is the main thing here and uh time and energy needs to go towards that and outside of the running if i'm too knackered i'm not going to go up to the gym and do that and that's hence why i've trying to set things up for myself at home so that uh gym is no longer a two-hour thing it's a one-hour thing it's a finish a run whenever i want to do gym i'm still warm straight into my garage do some work um do what i need to do to take off my session um and i don't have to kind of take time out my day later on in the afternoon and do you always do now do you always do gym after a run uh well i'm not i'm not full running yeah but that'll be the plan going forward okay um just so that yeah although 20k runs are relatively fatiguing even on an easy day so um yeah you finish those off and you're a bit knackered and so that was my other question because i feel that like even the easy runs sometimes they're a slog yeah are you exactly the same yeah yeah some days if you're training well you feel rubbish on your easy days okay because you're fatigued from your hard days and you are not trying to run quick you're not trying to feel good you're just trying to tick off the miles and get some volume in so you don't have that kind of a trend you don't have that like mental um optimism to kind of get you through um but you should then wake up on your hard days and feel pretty good because you've gone easy enough um and yeah it's i must have made the same mistake a hundred times when you're feeling great on an easy day push things just a little bit and then the next hard day actually doesn't go very well so um yeah always just kind of yeah try and learn the lesson how do you know whether an easy day so your easy day at the moment 20k in the morning yeah 12k in the evening how do you know that that's benefiting you and you're recovering from that And you're positively going to go into the next hard day.

55:25Well, or if it's kind of like breaking you down. Yeah. Do you ever know? Because like you say, if you feel like crap on that day, are there any kind of like signs that you're actually doing more harm than good? Or do you just kind of push through? It's in your training program. A little bit of both. Yeah. I do think you want to be aware of how you're feeling and you want to um yeah take that on board and make small adjustments and you might get out and just feel like yeah I feel like death today so I'm just going to run a bit slower yeah I'm not going to run less I'm just going to run a bit slower um and I do that on an easy day um and then yeah you wake up on there's been many hard days where I've woke up and my legs have felt like trash and I've warmed up and they felt like trash I've done the first rep and I felt rubbish.

56:16And then I've had a brilliant session. Like I've had a really good one. And it almost may be like the mental, like de-stress of that. You lose all that expectation of how good this session is going to be. And then you're actually quite fit. So you're able to do it. And I do find sometimes like, you know, you're really fit when even on the days where you're feeling pretty rough, you still can hit your splits. And that's not a problem. You just don't enjoy doing it. And it feels a bit rubbish. um so yeah i found like you do have to make some adjustments but you also do have to just get on with it some of the time and yes that's quite easy or it's easier for me to say when i don't have a job and uh or another job and i don't have to fit training in around um a nine five and a commute and uh i can't just not enjoy my running that day and that's fine um so yeah i think it's a privileged position to be in but uh yeah you do just have to kind of get on with it some of the time do you ever run through niggles yeah yeah yeah like kind of like running running them off for example i don't know that's like just a phrase within running that off yeah just uh just run it off if it doesn't hurt after three kilometers then you find yeah i think uh my physio thinks i'm like a little bit of a normally uh because yeah things hurt we're a bit worried about it we usually just say okay let's just run a bit more um and just back off the pace a little bit and just keep training and uh generally yeah the next week um that pain is gone and we've got another pain that we're worried about and all right let's run a little bit more and yeah usually that kind of goes away and uh this is the only one that yeah has been bothering me for a relatively long time um i think i first felt some pain under like my second mtp joint back in like august last year um obviously got through Amsterdam and Valencia marathon blocks with that and then it's pretty painful through the London marathon block but uh yeah just kind of kept training and um knowing that yeah I might be taking some time off after the marathon um and I probably should get a scan pretty quickly afterwards and uh yeah that's what I had to do so uh yeah I do think if you never run through any niggles then you won't ever do any training um and you have to have that experience of running through some and potentially making a mistake or two to get that understanding of your body and knowing what is i would call a niggle and what is a pain um you can't run through a pain um but running through a niggle um i don't want to be telling people that this is what you should be doing it's just like but that's been real my experience is uh i would struggle to tell you the last run i went on when i wasn't hurting somewhere yeah but that's yeah maybe not an entirely healthy thing to do but i do think if you want to reach the top levels of this sport then um a little bit discomfort um is okay um especially for someone who's robust and this is my first serious injury in 12 years um i feel like a big part of that is knowing my body and being able to understand my body and yeah learning what you can train through and what you need to back off with and um have I've modified training over the years where I've had to do it.

59:53And yeah, some sessions have been painful and difficult, but generally tendons and ligaments warm up as you run. So yeah, unless you're having bone stress injuries, obviously you can't run on those. They're going to get worse with running. Whereas tendons, they actually need force and they actually need load to get better. Yeah, exactly. So resting doesn't do you any good. And we learn over the years with my coach, I've been with him, Andrew Henderson, for, I don't know, 12, 13 years, something like that. And we've learned that if I have a break after the season, like a complete time off, two weeks, then I would pick up so many niggles and pains as I return to full training over the coming weeks and months.

1:00:41And we soon realise I need an active break. I need to jog five times a week, even through my one or two weeks off at the end of a season or after a marathon. And that's where I felt like I've been able to really maintain good training averages over the years and been able to keep that volume really high. but what I would say is since the Olympics I've been better at taking like two weeks of really chill training and maybe three or four days off at certain points in those weeks and I do believe and feel like I've adapted to training much quicker than I have done in the past in the block since then so you definitely do need rest and that helps your body kind of reset your hormones kind of reset and um yeah you can't be stressing your body the entire time um because it will just stop adapting yeah no that definitely makes sense and do you struggle with that do you struggle with like actually taking time off or did you uh yeah i was probably pretty obsessed with running um addicted you could say uh the dogs still need to go out um so i started to like resent walking the dogs um so yeah i never had to do it i was just running them so yeah i kind of didn't really enjoy that in those times uh whereas now actually this last six weeks of being injured and having some time off on it helps that the weather's a bit better this time of year but definitely enjoying that a lot more and um can kind of see being able to do that in the future um easier definitely yeah no talk to us about the olympics yeah yeah what was your experience um it was wicked yeah it was weird we were competing on the second to last day and the olympics had been going on for 15 days so did you fly in when did you fly in uh the race was saturday morning and we traveled on wednesday so you had you could experience the olympic village a little bit but you couldn't do it after no no because yeah we left on the monday morning so race on the saturday and did a little bit in the village and went to the closing ceremony on the sunday and then just left on the monday and that was it um so it was kind of weird kind of being at home watching the olympics and then just yeah kind of watching it for 10 days and then just getting on a train and just being there and being in that village um the village is cool yeah it's like a toy town uh go up to loads of vending machines everything's free uh food hall was all right there's lots of food and uh you're driving around on little golf carts that they give you a lift on whenever you want to go around the village um so that was good but like you're so focused on your performance i've been up a mountain for five weeks beforehand in italy to prepare um so it was yeah it's quite intense and you're definitely trying to enjoy the experience um but I didn't want to go there and be like like you need to make the most of these situations and you need to remember how lucky you are and um yeah have fun doing it uh but I was there to compete like I wasn't there to make up numbers I wanted to do as well as possible and I really felt like I could kind of run through the field a little bit in the second half and hopefully finish around top 20 and maybe slightly higher up than that but I wasn't able to do that and I think in hindsight my fitness going into the race was good but it wasn't great and I think maybe I made a couple training mistakes kind of just in the build-up what were those if you don't know I think I went to altitude with my training partner Emil and trained under his coach then still kind of with advice and and stuff being set by my coach but um we just modified things but effectively it meant i was just training on my own because these guys who i was training with were so well adapted to altitude and they've done so much more altitude training over the years and they were so much fitter that i was just doing huge amounts on my own and the sessions that i was keeping up in i was just burning myself completely so then i wouldn't have a good session the next two three days later um so i probably just wasn't getting the like volume of quality in that i needed to um so actually in hindsight the reason we chose to do that was um if i was in the summer at home in leeds there wouldn't be many people to train with like marathon at that time of year um but yeah in hindsight i probably should have stayed at home and just sat behind my coach on a bike and used the treadmill and um just accumulated the volume and the quality there and i think i probably would have had a better performance yeah well do you uh do you rate altitude i do um i had been at altitude a lot uh in the years from starting my marathon career until having my daughter just after the olympics um i can't remember how many trips but it'd probably be like nine trips across like three and a half years um trying to kind of do that as much as possible um but i wasn't someone who was always happy there i was getting homesick a lot i enjoyed being at home and training in leeds so i was finding that quite difficult and uh yeah you go there and some athletes just love being at altitude camp and it's what they look forward to whereas for me it was a means to an end and since having my daughter i just decided i'm not going to go on altitude camps for a little while and see what happens and kind of took inspiration from like johnny meller um one of athletes around this area and he is a marathon athlete and he had a daughter a few years before i did and he just said he just stopped doing altitude camps and he's running better than ever so it really kind of showed me that actually if i make my home training environment as good as possible i lean into that um i'm a high volume trainer so i felt like i could actually just train even higher volumes and higher quality than i could do going on altitude camps and losing that time to acclimatization and the travel time and increased risk of illness i just felt that i could progress without the altitude um and i feel like i have done that i've yeah taken a minute off my marathon time since then and uh feel like i'm performing better at other distances 10ks and half marathons than i was uh prior to the olympics when i was doing more attitude training so i do rate it um i don't think it's 100 necessary for uh maybe the lower level of elite um marathon running um but i am i think the i was 16th at london marathon seven weeks ago and i'm fairly sure all 15 of the guys in front of me prepared at altitude so i can't overlook that and when my coach and i discussed the race result and what we learned from the block and what we're going to implement going forward um that was one of the big things for me and him to discuss and think about going forward as do i need to go back to altitude do we need to do this and um i kind of bring my partner the last couple years of partner jess she is part of my like coaching setup effectively um and whilst her like knowledge of running is fairly limited uh she obviously knows me better than anybody and what's really important is that now decisions are made with family in mind it can't be just performance driven um and i don't think if it was performance driven you perform at your best anyway because if you're not happy at home um if you're not being a good dad uh you're not going to perform well and the pressure is too much on those races so there needs to be some balance and uh yeah that's that's part of our conversations um so i was planning to go to altitude again this summer um but the injury meant that that wasn't really um necessary or doable um or beneficial so decided to kind of can that idea and just focus on recovery and building things back up yeah is there anything that you do to mimic altitude so do you do a lot of people say about heat training and things like that do you do any of that or yeah yeah i've got a sauna you've got some so definitely we'll be building that more into the training schedule um in the block ahead of london was using the sauna a lot um was using it quite a lot last year at the local gym um but i just got fed up this winter going to the local gym we've got this big sauna uh but in the winter when everyone's got sniffles and colds and you're sat next to people and you know they're in there trying to sweat it out like a lot of people do that don't they yeah a lot of people go like a poorly and then go to the sauna to try and sweat it out it doesn't work no it doesn't work there's science basis yeah yeah maybe there's a placebo and you think it's working um and maybe you're at that point where actually you're probably not ill anymore but you just got a bit of a runny nose still then that's when you pass it on yeah yeah uh and i was i was getting sick and i was just like no i can't be doing this this is ridiculous that was when i was i'm getting my own sauna so i can do that um when i want and uh yeah implement that into my training um so i was doing quite a bit which yeah not too scientific with it just get in stay in as long as possible get out for a minute cool off get back in and just do it until i've done 40 minutes total um and yeah try and kind of get that core body temperature up um so i was using a tympanic thermometer um to measure that and I found yeah I think it is beneficial it messes for me it messes with my sweat response so I wouldn't do it the day before a session so sometimes I would find if I had done it the day before a session I'd do the warm-up and I would already be dripping and it was like February and I was like well this ain't gonna be a good session and yeah I feel a bit rubbish so yeah that was kind of my role of doing it was just yeah if I've not got a session the next day then get in the sauna yeah no interesting because i know a lot of people kind of swear by it yeah um a lot of people think it's just like a next fad yeah i don't think it's a fad i think there's science behind it um like i've seen you done some like um is it like what's the machine salt like yeah that's the one um i was i was speaking to you know uh head and wild yeah so i was speaking to his athlete manager at red bull and he was like yeah he bikes in the sauna so that's right that's what i'm doing yeah getting a salt bike in the sauna so that's what i've been doing um i think obviously there's the the red blood cell production and all that kind of stuff the benefits but i feel like my events indoors yeah i just don't get dry mouth anymore so i don't like feel like i'm gasping for a drink i feel like yeah i just what what's your protocol like How much are you doing on a monthly basis?

1:12:14Try to do it five times a week. Okay. And I'll do anywhere between 20 and 45 minutes, depending on how hot I've got the sauna. So obviously I can't, if I've got the sauna on full whack, I can probably only do 20 minutes because it's active. Staying in the sauna for 20 minutes anyway is hard, isn't it? And I'll just be ticking away, keeping my heart rate below 150. Okay, so just easy. Yeah, 140. it's yeah not going hard um like i said this is not part of my training it is part of my training but it's not like i don't want it to be a super like stressful thing like that's not my fault because like me being on a salt bike yes it will help with high rocks yeah because it's a great full body movement but it's not very specific no so again it's just something that that i use but um yeah and then sometimes i'll i'll have a sauna set a little bit lower and i'll do 45 minutes on the bike on the bike yeah do you know what it's um i used to do sweat sessions where you just put loads and loads of layers on yeah and i'd either cycle or i'd run um but the amount of washing that you create yeah yeah it's me yeah it's literally the most unhygienic thing ever yeah and i was doing it in my kitchen the worst place that you could literally do it yeah so yeah we don't have a garage or anything so uh yeah i've just basically converted my sauna my sauna is not a sauna anymore it's just yeah it's a cardio yeah so that's where it is but at least now i don't have that much washing yeah i i've prepared for two championship summer marathons yeah uh the first one in munich in 2022 and that was an 11 30 a.m start because it was a bank holiday and they wanted it for the tv and the crowds uh and that was hot and then for the olympics as well so there's a fair bit of like heat training what time did the olympics start it was 8 30 i think so that wasn't too bad because the sun was fairly low it was summer still yeah it was summer but it was only like the final 10k it got pretty hot the women's race was the day after and it was way hotter like they got a bit unlucky where we were much more fortunate but with that training like I've done some of the swallow the thermometer pills measure your core body temperature do the training stimulus see what it is and I would do that I would put like tracksuit on go out and run and you'd be hot and you'd be uncomfortable comfortable um but it was doable and your core body temperature just wasn't getting up that high you want to be in like the 39 degrees i think it is um in order to get the benefit and hold it there as long as possible and it'd be 37 high or 38 um so you really had to like leggings track suit thick socks like three layers on the top hat hood up gloves and this is in the middle of summer and I'm going out with like the Lee City guys and there's 10 of them and no one's wearing a top.

1:15:06Everyone's just in their shorts and I'm wearing this like full clobber and absolutely dying. And literally like they were harder than any of my hard long run sessions. They were just like, yeah, you're just trying to have a social run with the guys and your dog's looking at you like, what the hell is going on here? Kind of thing. And you're like dizzy. Yeah, dizzy. And yeah, so yeah, just stripping it all off. Did you manage to hit the cold temperature? Yeah. yeah so your core temperature would go really high with those um so yeah that just showed me how uncomfortable you need to be to actually get the uh the stimulus um so yeah it's it's sometimes it's uh better to do passive yes yeah yeah the sauna is so much nicer like you invite your mates around and you just chill out and um yeah just chat some rubbish and yeah it's it's way more enjoyable yeah class no moving on to like last year yeah you did two marathons quite close together yeah started off with Amsterdam yes yeah and then you ended up doing Valencia yeah and they were like six weeks or four weeks apart seven seven maybe seven weeks six or seven yeah you ran two incredible times for that would you just be able to explain what you did I ran two seven seventeen at um amsterdam and then i ran two seven eleven um at valencia so i only took six seconds off um i got dropped on the group like 7k to go and i realized then that oh this sub two seven's probably not happening here like i'm just slowing down a little bit too much and was that the aim for both races yeah uh the goal was to run like a two seven high at amsterdam um but i had a really good group um effectively it was three pace groups but group two and three i was in group three group two didn't go quick so we basically just got on the back of them and we just had this huge group and it just meant that i was running with better athletes who did the work at the end when the pacemakers dropped off and the pacemakers stayed in further and the conditions were great that day so it was just overall brilliant experience um and with a big negative split as well so that kind of allowed me to kind of feel good for most of the race whereas Valencia was trying to run a 2.6 believing that sub 2.630 might have been possible um and I really I've never trained better than I had done in the final kind of three weeks ahead of Valencia so I really felt that okay I could do something special here um I was really excited and yeah it just wasn't that day for me um not sure yeah why i actually was whilst i'd probably say amsterdam was a better performance um yeah and i did run quicker at valencia that was like mentally so much more challenging like i'd probably gone out a little bit quick just didn't feel as good the whole race i was battling mental demons the entire time so to still kind of come my way with a pb there I think showed that my fitness was good so I was pleased with my preparations um but it was just a much more satisfying performance um from like a mental aspect just being able to kind of grit out a marathon whereas I didn't really have to grit that much at Amsterdam it was just maybe the final 3k was hard but otherwise it was just a great day uh whereas yeah I'd probably say Valencia was like 40k of gritting and 2k where it felt nice um so yeah that was yeah that was pleasing to kind of get out and definitely gave me belief that i can make another step forward and get down to 2.6 and hopefully get down to 2.5 in the future as well did you feel like just having like seven weeks because people probably wouldn't do that they probably have like a bit of a break and then like another build yeah into a race but racing back-to-back marathons like how did that take at all on your body or did it um i think it probably did quite resilient i feel like because of the high mileage every single week yeah i think i am resilient with the high mileage i do high quality sessions i run fairly close to marathon pace in 30k 35k 40k long runs so i do push the body and test the body in that way but um yeah now that i'm injured now and i kind of had a bit of an injury through disinjury through the london marathon block um i'd be a bit foolish to kind of say that yeah i got through that unscathed um so whilst it i got through it at the time maybe i was feeling the after effects and that was maybe the root of this injury um like that i'm feeling now so yeah i think if i hadn't got injured then i potentially would be doing even sillier things and doing marathons much closer together doing more and just doing as much as possible whereas I'm just having fun and uh not really planning too hard and just yeah seeing what I could do whereas yeah this injury has probably been a blessing in disguise and that it yeah makes me look at the London result and those two marathons and I've done three marathons in six months effectively and probably the best one was the first one so yeah it clearly shows that that's not the way to do it going forward and what would you say like the optimal is racing twice a year three times a year yeah probably twice a year realistically and you might squeeze a third in but then the next year you need to kind of back off a bit and drop down your distances to target the 5k and the 10k for a bit um it's just difficult as a like a marathon runner when you're fairly resilient and robust and you can do these things and you can go and run these times that you kind of want to, yeah, you want to experience it.

1:20:55You want to go and do that again. And it's hard to say, I'm going to spend the next nine months focusing on the 5K because it's just not as exciting to me. I want to focus on the marathons and I want to do as many as possible and have those great days. And I do think that conditions make a massive difference to what you might be able to run. and conditions as well as the field that you're in so like i've said this before if you're 99 ready for five marathons you might come out with a better top performance than you would do if you're 100 ready for two marathons um just because the conditions can make and the field can make that big an impact on what you're going to run um so yeah it's a balance just choosing kind of which ones to do which ones to target and um yeah how many to do in a year there's just so many factors that are out of your control right yeah yeah exactly and you can play the odds and you can go to valencia you know there's going to be a really good field um but you can just get into the group that there was just a bit too slow for you or was too quick for you and then suddenly you're just going backwards like like valencia and seville always they have like the best depth out of all the marathons but they also have the most guys who don't run well as well so yeah you can't they're not just a magic bullet they're not just a free performance yeah what's next for you so obviously you're currently injured at the moment yeah recovering from that but what are you looking forward to I want to go back to Amsterdam yeah this year yeah hopefully so it's not too long to go I think it's like 17 and a half weeks so yeah a bit of a countdown I'm contradicting myself I don't want to rush my recovery I'm back up to 20 minutes of running now and hoping to just gradually build that up over the next few weeks so I don't want to rush that and the key for me is putting myself in the best possible position to try and qualify for LA Olympics in the next couple years so yeah I need to think long term um but i also want to get back and i feel like having a race already penciled in or planned um is going to be quite important uh to help me with the motivation with the training and uh i just enjoy working towards something so um yeah ideally i'll be doing that um it might be chicago uh but it's a lot harder to get into chicago um so yeah well amstan have already um said there's a spot so um and i had such a good experience last year i kind of yeah i feel like going back no that's uh that sounds good i think it's always important especially when you're injured like you say to have a goal yeah because otherwise you just kind of drag everything else out you don't you're not on point where you rehab you're like oh i'll just rest i'll just not do anything yeah i'll just get better but that's not really how injuries get better they get better by doing your rehab yeah and then recovering from that and repeating that process like much like training it's almost just like a training program yeah it's different it's worse yeah yeah yeah because it's so it's so boring but uh like they say you've got to be regimented with it yeah you've got to focus on your sleep and stuff and having a goal especially a goal that like is scary that they're close yeah like it kind of makes you do everything in your power to do it yeah and even if you kind of like set the goal and then you've figure out in you know two weeks before the actual goal oh you're not ready yeah at least then you've done everything that you can yeah yeah exactly yeah and then you just do a yeah the injuries are quite um uh they're tough because they take more time and effort into your rehab than you probably do in your normal training like 140 mile a week takes like 15 hours it's not yeah that's what i was actually going to ask about that which i didn't want to sound stupid but let's say it takes 15 hours yeah you've got some triathletes training 25 to 30 hours yeah do you have you ever considered like doing a little bit more cross training to get because you said that you're like you adapt with volume yeah so have you thought 140 miles running and then maybe another five hours on the bike yeah have you ever thought that or do you think that's kind of like stupid it's definitely something to consider um let's say like this winter when i'm up at 140 miles and i'm maintaining that the way i'm looking at it then is okay hey, volume's good.

1:25:30The volume's pretty high. But once you adapt to that and that starts feeling comfortable, then I want to bump up my easy running paces or I want to just hit higher quality in my sessions. That's the first thing I want to start thinking about. I feel like volume is pretty good then and I'm not sure how much more benefit I'm going to get from upping that. Do you think$15 is kind of like the sweet spot? Well, let's go a range. So a range would you go like 10 to... 18 hours somewhere around there it's really difficult because it's so yeah because you hear about some of these track athletes and they're running amazing times off fairly low volumes um and yes the the aerobic component is lower but 1500 is still a like majority aerobic event and there's some guys who are competing at really high level i think jake says that he does like 70 miles a week yeah yeah and you look at that and he gets better through the season as well he doesn't like have this huge base and then you just see him just tape start really well and taper off he if anything he starts a bit gradually and then just ramps up for the championships and some of these guys are running their best in september when the season's finishing so you're starting to like wonder where are they getting this like aerobic um uh stimulus from um so yeah i do feel like yeah the volume is important um but if i can just up my intensity that's like the next thing that i want to do with my training um but yeah maybe if if i'm feeling really comfortable on the bike after this layoff time and uh spending more time doing that then yeah i can see myself just keeping a little bit of that in yeah no it's interesting do you think the bike carries over to running uh not hugely just just literally aerobic stimulus yeah aerobic I was told that like runners like climbing and they like being out of the saddle, like standing up because that mimics running in a similar like pattern, a similar gait.

1:27:30So, yeah, there's definitely maybe some crossover with that. But yeah, when you're just, there's guys I'll go out for riding with and they're amazing on the bike. But yeah, the running is not quite as strong. So, yeah, there's obviously some crossover, but it's not complete. Yeah. And then you've got the likes of, is it Jimmy Whelan? yeah he's come from a background into running and just doing insane times yeah he is um he's coached by my coach as well yeah andrew henson so um yeah it's interesting to see that but oh isn't it's the same with like alex yee like yeah you can't just look at what one person is doing and just say like that works that works i must do this um you people get yeah a bit of bias um towards the stuff that is available and people look at the guys who are in strava or the guys who share their training and start molding their training or taking influence from that.

1:28:25But they're not thinking about the 100 guys in Kenya who are better than them kind of thing. So, yeah, you have to look at the numbers if you're really trying to get an understanding on like that training philosophy and what might benefit you more. Yeah. No, it's super interesting because I look at running and I look at it as like everyone's got it nailed. Yeah. Everyone's got their training philosophy nailed. but when you actually like take a dive into people's training like it's still so different yeah and everyone does train different in high rocks where everyone's everyone's training completely different but there's there's almost an excuse for it because everyone's coming from different backgrounds yeah and everyone's got different strengths and weaknesses so you've got in the elite 15 you've got uh professional ex-runners yeah cyclists swimmers you've got uh triathletes uh you've got footballers yeah you've got all these people that have come in and they've been pretty decent at another sport yeah so they've got the strengths from there and then they're coming in and then they're focusing on their things yeah and their weaknesses so my training program would look completely different than someone else's and then you've also then got like injuries yeah into it as well um so some people might need to focus on their strengths some people might need to focus on their running a lot more yeah their erg work whatever it is so it's quite an interesting kind of realm at the moment i'd say an interesting space um but it's really cool the amount of knowledge that we're learning yeah it's kind of like every day is a school day yeah um but you've again you've got to be cautious about that because you see some people and they're in the gym and they're slogging it for for five hours at a time yeah and you're like oh maybe i should do that yeah maybe i shouldn't yeah it's like one guy's doing that yeah it yeah yeah but they're in the elite 15 and they're doing well and they've you've seen over the last six months that they've gone like that yeah and it's all down to the volume or you know other things and so it's kind of let's say it's very hard to not copy what they're doing yeah um and just stay true to yourself but yeah i think with high rocks there's been a lot of like talk on what's the optimal like amount of training hours yeah there's some people doing 25 hours there's Some people do in 12 hours.

1:30:35Yeah. And they're both in the Elite 15. And you... Me personally, I'm probably in the middle. I'm probably like 18. Okay. Yeah. And do people share their training, like High Rocks athletes? Yeah. Yeah. So they'll share their training. Like entire, like everything they're doing. Not like... Well, they'll share most of the things. Yeah. I think. I always feel like with training is like... You don't see the point picture. It has to be all or nothing. Like you can't have like, oh they do this exercise in the gym but like what have they done before that and what they done after that and how does that fit into an entire training week uh because you can't just take one little thing and say well clearly like that that's an amazing training method um because yeah it has to fit into a whole training philosophy yeah and um yeah if you're not sharing everything it's it's like pointless in a way no it is an interesting space and just the demands of the sport like you running is one component yeah you've then got eight other components of the sport you could say you know obviously the skiing there's there's rowing in there yeah say oh you could get a professional coach for either of them to coach probably on just them two yeah and then you've got other things like you know your wall balls your uh which are more kind of like crossfit movements so it's one of them to have a coach that is an expert in everything yeah there is none yeah there is simply not a coach that's net that is an expert in everything um i think your closest would be someone who has been a professional running coach and then moved into kind of like crossfit yeah but then yeah it just doesn't exist does it yeah i watched the world champs last year on youtube yeah like a while back and i was like oh this is interesting like and it was a really good race he's like a german guy an american guy yeah i came down to the warbles and stuff and their physiques are quite different yeah like different and but they're both running at a fairly similar level as well so um they were two like the two best runners but so you're talking about tim and hunter there um tim's much quicker is he but you'd say hunter is probably one of the most impressive 90 plus kilo guys running yeah for his running yeah yeah that's but he wasn't a bad runner.

1:32:44Yeah. And to be running, because he was a big guy. Yeah. Over, probably 95 kg. Yeah. So it's massive. To be running at that, like, like even like the runners are like, fucking fair play. Yeah. I don't know if I could run that pace at that or whatever. So it's, yeah, it's a really interesting space. Yeah. And let's say, I think people, all the time though, I think the athlete is going to get leaner and leaner. Okay. If they keep the weights the same. Yeah. I think the weights are heavy, but they're not that heavy yeah so i think you're um yeah probably um yeah it's gonna be kind of like a kind of like a mixture between like a 1500 meter athlete and then someone who's like muscular i don't know what would you what about a decathlete no no do you not think they'd be good at high rocks no they there's so much power like is it too much because there's only one endurance and it's 1500 right yeah it's amazing have you watched it i've i've actually spoke to uh the catholic before um and he he mentioned that like his key session is like six by 600 meters yeah and like he'll very rarely go for a 10k run yeah they won't yeah it's so good when you watch them they've done nine events all to maximal ability uh they're like muscally trashed and then you make them all run a 1500 at the end and you've got the guys who are like real power-based decathletes and then you've got the slightly leaner ones so the difference could be like a 4 10 4 5 1500 up to like a 5 10 and which is for a 1500 that that's like yeah not not embarrassing but like it for for but for the olympics to be watching it on tv like you're like that's like a do you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah like yeah a few guys what five and a half minute mile mile yeah there's quite a few guys down the park could do that yeah kind of thing uh but it's just chaos like it's just a brilliant event to watch because they just all absolutely spent at the end like they've given absolutely everything um and yeah it's one of my favorite events to watch just for like the brutality of it because the women's the hetathlon is an 800 so it's it's not the same like they yeah they can get away with that with fast switch fibers um from the power events but uh yeah these decathletes like it's it's brutal on them but um yeah it's so fun to watch so i just don't think they've in general got the endurance um because their events are uh like long jump and hurdles and um very very like skill-based isn't it yeah really skill-based and huge amount of power that they're generating and um whereas i assume in high rocks like you're doing these exercises for quite a long time like it's high reps yeah you don't actually need it's 100 meter walking lunge so it's 100 reps of a walking lunge yeah if you think about like a single lunge is probably a meter yeah um so yeah you're doing 100 reps or 100 wall balls yeah it's basically like you're doing three minutes of work yeah yeah it's not as heavy it's not it's not yeah like ridiculously heavy like yeah but it's enough to send you on anaerobic yeah so but not from like a breathing point of view from like a lactate building up point of view yeah it's why you see um uh when you watch 400 meters like these guys don't usually convert to the 800 meters very well and you'd think well surely they'd just be really good at the 800 but but they're sprinters they're 100 and 200 meter sprinters who have just got a bit of endurance because if you look at the final 50 meters of a 400 meter race they're all spent like they are like absolutely swimming like in lactic treacle and they get uh they can't then just step that up to the 800 and just beat everyone in that because of they just don't have that lactate tolerance um and the aerobic component that the 800 meter middle distance guys do and i think that'd be the same in high rocks yeah you you need that aerobic component and be able to do the high reps and then be able to run off these exercises um and yeah the decathletes i think would be written off yeah what's a what advice would you give to anyone that's looking to not start running but they run but they're they're looking at the marathon distance uh they're building up mileage what would you give them i think long term yeah like obviously have an event if you want to motivate yourself and have that um but i've had a few friends over the years who've got into the running and they get the bug and they do the 5k they do the 10k three months later they signed up for a half marathon it's gone okay they've got through it they've already signed up for a marathon because they've enjoyed the training so much um and yeah it's happened more than once that then they've got themselves injured or they've not been able to sustain it and they've basically not run since and might have run a sub three or might run a great time um and really enjoyed their running but uh yeah i just say you want to make this something that's long-term sustainable and part of your life um all the way until yeah you're in your old age and even then continue in doing it so don't just see the shiny thing that's six months down the line and the event that you see on instagram or your friends have entered um build things up gradually make it sustainable or be consistent um you can avoid injury uh hopefully like they are going to happen at some point um most likely um but yeah just be sensible and you'll be able to kind of get a lot lot further than you could have just with 12 months of really aggressive highly motivated training if you just give yourself three or four years you'll get way way further um and that's the biggest thing i've seen in my career is uh i'm i'm a lot better at running than i ever thought i would get to and i believe more than ever that i can get even better than this and i can reach an even higher level and these levels were just completely alien to me like 10 years ago five years ago um so yeah if you think long term then you can really kind of take your running quite far is Is that what you'd tell like your 16 year old self?

1:39:06Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of stick at it. Maybe don't get so heavy in first year and spend so long building things back up and maybe do a little bit more training when I was at school and through those early years of university. But yeah, definitely just kind of give it a good go. and then what does life look like for you after the running like i say like you know 10 10 20 years time do you think you'll still be running i'd definitely be running it's definitely yeah yeah i'm gonna be that guy in um the veteran age group ranks at the london marathon trying to win my category every single year um so yeah quite looking forward to that and still being involved any other hobbies or anything that you'd want to take up after running i definitely want to coach um okay that really like excites me yeah uh and i want to coach a high level like i enjoy the mass stuff i i think people making running part of their lives is brilliant and if i can help or inspire in some way then um yeah that'd be really special but my passion is definitely going to be in coaching athletes similar to myself in the marathon yeah i think so um but i am still interested in other distances and uh i try and get as much information as i can when i'm talking to other coaches other athletes at different distances and uh just the athletes are at a high level i'm trying to understand like what are they doing not just on their mentality but what training are they doing that is different or what training are they doing that has been successful and what's not been successful and i want to learn about their mistakes and take that forward not for me now um but for when i'm coaching when i'm a bit older a bit more time and that's my focus but uh yeah that's definitely it excites me like to think i'll do that and um i need to yeah make sure my full focus now is on my own running um but i think the second i stop uh that'll be where my full focus will be no that's uh that's really nice you know the thought that you'd you want to give back as well i think uh it means it means a lot because so many people i suppose have given to you as well yeah like your coach and like i even see like on your youtube videos like just the guys out like cycling next year yeah or in front blocking all the wins yeah make sure he's in front yeah yeah but um yeah it must uh i always think oh that's that's what i need i need someone yeah cycle yeah i keep uh i keep offering it up actually so anyone in the uh bolton horwich area fancies to come to come uh cycle next to us yeah good yeah yeah honestly it's uh it makes a massive difference you just know you're going to get a great training session out um and you've got someone there keeping your company and um going through it like with you so yeah um yeah i definitely want to be doing that when i'm finished that's class thank you for today Phil yeah it's been good I appreciate it yeah honestly big good luck this weekend on Friday yeah no I appreciate that I'll be watching I'll be rooting for you because yeah that's exciting that's really cool no it's gonna be fun and yeah hope the injury you know heals and it all goes to plan and then yeah see you in Amsterdam yeah yeah that'll be good