Sam Griffiths - #33

0:00Sam Griffith, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me on. No, I appreciate you coming down and making the trip all the way from Cardiff. How was it? Yeah, it was good. A couple hours on the train, got some work done and we got here in no time. Amazing, amazing. For the people that don't know who you are, would you just be able to kind of like sum yourself up in a couple of words? Yeah, so I'm globerunnergriff on Instagram. I create content inspired from my weight loss journey three years ago. I was 125 kilos and today I'm a sub-elite runner and I'm a British Army officer as my full-time day job.

0:37And yeah, that's me. Sick. How long have you been in the forces? So I was a reservist for a little while before I joined full-time, but I've been full-time now for just shy of two years. and I've got a few years left before I think about what's in the future. Do you enjoy it at the moment? I absolutely love my job, yeah. I think what the Army gives me is the flexibility with the training as well and the discipline and routine that I need to be able to progress with the running and all of the other stuff. But yeah, I do enjoy the job. Interesting. And you mentioned there that I think a couple of years ago you had a completely different life.

1:15would you just be able to talk through that and what was like Sam growing up as a kid like? Yeah so Sam growing up as a kid I had a really really addictive personality and when I was kind of 16 to 18 I got into gaming and decided I wanted to be what like a leaderboard gamer so just playing to see how high I can get in the world rankings on the leaderboard and Was you always into gaming like before this? Not really. Like I think especially when COVID hit and you can't really go outside or do a lot, I think that's when it really escalated in terms of how many hours I was playing. And I was probably averaging 16, 17 hours a day on my computer gaming.

2:03No way. Yeah. 16, 17 hours. So literally, what was you doing for like food and stuff? Was you stopping to eat or was you like? my food habits were so bad it was um subway I would eat a lot of subways probably three subways a day um and then on the way back from subway I would just grab go into the shop and grab a pile of sweets chocolate whatever I can get my hands on monster enough to just give me energy to game through the competitions and stuff like that so yeah and you did this for a number of years you got pretty good at it right yeah yeah um when I was leaderboard gaming I was top 10 in the world um on the leaderboard for Call of Duty and then I played Warzone um and I managed to go to the World Series of Warzone which is kind of like the world champs um I went out to America um to compete in the gaming um but yeah I did lose myself quite a lot no I don't know I feel like you talk about it like it's uh like it's a bad thing but like you must have been proud of yourself at that time like that's some some effort like that's actually pretty cool yeah i mean i was proud of how far i got in the gaming world um i was competing with some of the best players on the planet um and competing at like the world level like the olympics of esports um which is really cool um especially like with the popularity of now like you see so many brands like jumping in like it's a it's a billion pound industry um it's huge like there's more money in that than there is in running for example there's so much more money in that um than there is running especially in like the streaming and the competitions like the world series of warzone the prize pool was 400k um when i competed um but it's crazy like the opportunities that that gave me as well like to go out to america whereabouts in america was it uh it was in the place called maine okay um in North America um and so yeah I flew into there um it was like a huge convention like playing on um the big stage how did it feel like not being in your room playing yeah so that was my first time like outside of my room playing and that was so hard because I don't feel the pressure when I'm at home um which is why like when it comes to running I like a lot of home races because you get to sleep in your bed you you have that own routine going to this place and competing on a stage was like the most nerve-wracking thing I've ever done um like sweating and heart rate through the roof like higher than it would be now on an easy run that's interesting and how many people are around is it just like the people competing and gaming or is it like have you got a crowd yeah so there is a crowd as well um no way yeah that stressed me out exactly Especially because the way the crowd works is the crowd have a different view as to what you see.

4:56So obviously you've got your headset in. So you and you're seeing your point of view, whereas what they see is kind of like a third person. So they see what your opposition is seeing. So they can see as you're approaching them, et cetera. And they're all getting all like riled up. but you're trying to focus because even things like listening to footsteps um which sounds minor but like they're the key indicators that would like help me like move my body target indicate like where i'm going um and how i position myself on the map is so very audio driven as well as visual so um yeah when you're on the stage and all you can hear is ah people screaming it's crazy so after you did the world championships of gaming what did you do after like why did you decide to stop gaming was that the point that you did stop by the way yeah yeah it wasn't too long after it um that I just realized I'd taken myself down such a big hole of in terms of like my mental well-being um I think a key indicator for me was I started losing all my hair um so I had really bad alopecia and um i just lost all my confidence so much to the point that i wouldn't like really want to leave the house i wouldn't want to see friends i'd only see very close people to me um and yeah it was kind of that point where i was like if i don't change anything now while i'm young enough to to make the change i'm just going to keep going down the hole um and that was the point where i was like i've achieved what i want to achieve in gaming i've got to the top level I've competed at the big stage you know um but it's time to to focus on myself that's actually like crazy that you had the balls to do that and not just give in to like you say you're good at something and let that control you and let that control your life and you could have just accepted it is what it is like I'm good at this and I've got to do what's required and that might be like let's say having this unhealthy lifestyle but putting yourself first I think that's something that not many of us do uh like credit to you for doing that because that's that's good so in regards to like you say that the health issues did you go and see someone about it um no it was mainly just myself and my family and one friend that really knew how bad i got um but i didn't actually go and seek any external throughout all this time like say the the two years where you was kind of like serious into gaming yeah what was the people around you in your life saying so i lost a lot of people around my life because i was purely online all my friends were online i didn't maintain those physical friends did you have like a good friendship before that with people yeah during school like i had loads of friends from school from work i did a undergraduate degree apprenticeship with Airbus um so worked there full-time for four years as an aerospace engineer um and I had I had a really good network but um yeah after that I kind of just neglected everyone because I was all in on the gaming so I had my like virtual friends um from the esports world and like one or two closer physical friends and family but it was only them that I'd really show kind of how bad I'd got um and that was kind of it and like your family were they were they happy for you that you was gaming or were they like concerned I think um my family have always been so so supportive in like every venture that I've gone down um and I'm very lucky with that I think they recognized that the type of person I was like when I was a gamer wasn't the best person to be around and I recognize that as well um because all I would think about is gaming um like like I'd go up to my parents house and I'd be thinking about the next time I can get online when the next competition is and I wouldn't take that quality time with the people that mean the most to me um so they were very very supportive um but they wanted me to move away from it they were also just trying to be supportive because I was so into like my rankings and how well I can do and how well I can progress that they just wanted to try and support what they thought was my dream in terms of maybe becoming the full-time professional gamer or etc so you have these health issues was it that that made you make the change and like scared you into making a change almost or was it confidence and like say could you leave the house feeling good or not really how bad did it get it got it got pretty bad like I had severe bald patches on my head I would always like if I look back at any photos of me I'd always wear a baseball cap backwards to like so that no one could see it um I would hardly go out the house um I'd hardly meet anyone um my life just became my gaming office and subway um like I would go go there drive there I wouldn't even walk there and it's like a 10 minute walk but the thought of having to drive that to walk there um I didn't really want to go out I didn't really want to get seen uh and I also was so focused on the gaming that it would be quicker for me to drive there drive to the local co-op grab all the shit and then come back and that was literally a 10 minute trip so that i can get back onto the gaming and i would sit there um and then dinner i would sometimes order two dominoes and a um cookies like the four cookies and i'd eat both full large double nose pizzas and cookies um and then energy drinks etc all while gaming for through the competitions that's crazy so everything was based on like efficiency so you could get back to the gaming pretty much yeah everything was ordered yep dominoes ordered to the house sometimes i'd have to like time it so that i could pick it up between games or between a competition so like the way warzone works is like it's kind of like 20 25 minutes of um you're in the battlefield kind of thing um and then you'll it'll end um i know that normally i would make it like me and my team would make it to 20 to 25 minutes like we don't get eliminated that early because we're quite good um and yeah so i would always time like the order of dominoes to arrive and the guy the guy knew me the subway person knew me when i was rocking up to subway because you can't pre-order where i live at the moment i pull up my car they would already start making everything that i order and that's how much of a regular i was in terms of they didn't even have to say it was just like normal and it'd be like yeah we'll have two foot longs and um a side of nachos and i would just by the time i've actually got out my car and walked in it's pretty much nearly ready for me um and then i just pay and go back to the gaming that's insane what is your subway of choice i went through a phase of um the italian bmt but i don't know that's one i reckon yeah you reckon i reckon best one so they actually brought out a um i don't know if you're going to remember it but they brought out like a pizza edition which had like marinara sauce chicken um it was like a special to me that was by far the best and whenever i go into my what was my local subway like even when it was not on the specials they would just make me it because that one was so good it was like yeah chicken marinara sauce um etc i love that i love that so um obviously did you clarify that the health issues were down to like just stress and the gaming and maybe lack of sleep and lack of sunlight and stuff like that did you like how did you know that the the health conditions like you say the alopecia and stuff was down to that i think it's definitely was down to stress um okay i think especially with the gaming it's such a high stress environment like every single game you're on on high stress high alert that's why i would have so many so much energy so many monsters energy drinks etc just because i wanted to like be alert um it's all based off reaction time right exactly yeah so did you ever rage quit i yeah there were a few times um what's the worst what's the worst scenario i i actually don't think i was too bad in terms of managing my rage like i've got like throwing your controller at the tv or anything like that no i think i get more frustrated um at the people I was playing with on my team, which I shouldn't do because like, I would often just like help them like get wins or something.

13:46So they're not like the level that I am, but I sometimes expected them to be the level. So where I would rely on someone to do something that I would be able to do, they don't do. And then I get, I get shot from the side and I'm like, what's happened here? Um, so I just get angry at them, but I would say, no, I don't have any other like tv through the screen um punched walls i think most of it was just yeah saying not very nice things to random people online i mean this there's always that isn't there but yeah what stays online uh those are the days where you can just get away with it i don't know if you get away with it now but yeah everything's recorded now exactly i love that um so yeah let's move on to kind of like say when you made the transition and what were kind of like the first steps okay so i noticed that my hair had gone my dad had pointed it out and showed me on a photo by the way what do your parents do for a living um so my dad was a police officer for 30 years um my mom worked in that they're both retired now um incredible but yeah they come from that background and um yeah so i noticed that my hair gone he'd show me a photo but it was on the back of my head so i hadn't seen it um as much and i was like i need to i need to get away i need to get away from this environment that i'm in right now and the only way i could think of doing that was booking a one-way flight to nepal and saying to my parents that next time you see me i'm going to come back a different person and i just booked the one-way flight to nepal and yeah the rest is kind of goes from there why nepal nepal um obviously so i was in the reserves as well and um being in the army reserves people that i looked up to the gurkhas um they're probably one of the most best soldiers you'll ever meet trained disciplined fit um you can always rely on them uh they come from Kathmandu and other places around Nepal and I was like if anything's going to change me as a person it's going to be surrounding myself with people that I think are amazing and the top of their game and I booked Everest Base Camp at 125 kilos and told myself that I'm going to make it up to base camp and that'll hopefully kickstart my weight loss journey which it did that's some going so every base camp is it four or five thousand meters yeah i think it's five thousand three hundred and something something like that so even just like being obviously your frame how much you're weighing at the moment by the way uh i'm probably around like 75 to 78 kilos okay so you're you're 75 kilogram guy and you had 125 kilograms on your frame yes so 50 kg heavy than you are right now which that in itself is just mind-blowing so hats off to you credit for you uh but the tall of that being like you say at 5 000 meters elevation i've never been at that i think the max i've been is like two and a half thousand meters elevation and you're breathing a little bit heavier being double that and then like you say carrying the extra mass and weight and having to actually get up there like how was that it was it was a real struggle i think i noticed it when i arrived in katmandu because katmandu um is like the main airport in nepal and that's at like 2 000 meters elevation or at least above a thousand and even just like walking up the stairs to my hotel room because they don't have lifts in the hotel i was staying in i was tired um and i was questioning whether i've made the right choice but um like i'm so dogged dogged determined to achieve whatever i set out to i said i'm going to go and walk it like there was nothing stopping me that was going to get to the top and get to base camp and back down um so you take a flight to lookla and it's the most dangerous airport in the world it's crazy it literally goes off the edge of a cliff um and i'm scared of flying um which is ironic because i was an aerospace engineer um before that but i yeah i'm pretty scared of flying in heights and um yeah you you fly into this and it's like 2000 meters and then you start the walk up i think it was around a 15 16 day trek in total um but yeah carrying the extra weight was really hard but when you look at the porters who are carrying 40 kilos on their head you're like if they can do it well so can i so that's what kind of like the motivation that got me to the top yeah and you got there yes yep got there um took the photos and was straight back down i think you spend the night at around like 5 000 meters altitude and like that that's quite like you you're really feeling it there um but because you're not doing exercise as such like you are just like i suppose like it's more like a leisurely walk because there were days in which like on the 15 day trek where you would altitude um like adjust so like you would walk up a few hundred meters extra in elevation and then come back down and then the following day you would go higher um so you're like acclimatizing yourself um but yeah we got there and i think over that that 15 day period i lost something like 10 kilos um because all you can eat is whatever's on the mountain so it was like rice and chicken occasionally but only at lower altitudes were you hungry yeah i was always hungry um and i don't think i've ever not been hungry like even that today yeah like like you fast forward a few years and you're lighter like i'm still i still got that appetite that the previous sam had as well so no it's interesting like it's almost like the the hunger sensors like never switch off um i've had that in a couple of marathon preps and i'm like will i ever feel full again yeah and it's just like obviously it's um it's all uh comparative but um yeah sometimes you're like you're just starving yeah all the time and like you say um that that must have been tough yeah I mean but a good wake-up call it is a good wake-up call and it was what I needed like I needed to get away from that environment to know that like actually there's more to life than me looking at a leaderboard and seeing where I was like there's so much more to life so much more to see and that was where kind of my traveling started so I've now traveled to 45 countries um being all over the world um I took kind of like that period then that one-way flight ended up being like a little world tour um all on your own yeah yeah all solo um and just going to different countries from there to experience the different cultures and learn um like it was kind of like a little bit of a healing journey you could call it um went through India um Asia spent a lot of time in Asia Australia South America um I kind of went all the way around and there were times where I would meet up with friends or family um for a few for a stint and then i would carry on on my own what were friends and family like like when when you met up and let's say uh kilos and kilos lighter were they shocked when they first saw you i think were they happy for you like yeah i think they always saw the journey because i kind of like had a private whatsapp with my family where i was keeping myself accountable like sending my weight in um on a scale like whenever i could get on one um and just sending them up like progress photos So they were always so pleased, but they're also so pleased that like I'm out there experience in the world and just seeing that there's more to life because I think they recognize that I just lost my life entirely to this one thing that I'd forgot.

21:45Actually, there's so much more enjoyment from doing other things because you can get such down in a rabbit hole. And I'm sure you're the same, like with the high rocks, like, and with the marathon, like watching your series on the marathon, like you are so all in on this time that you actually forget that there's so much more to life. like you know when you're 70 years old like you can say a 219 but that's going to be one number like what about all the other experiences you missed out on with emily or like things that you could have done and i think that was where it kind of hit home that like you only live once yes i want to go and be the best athlete that i can be now and yes i want to progress and do the other things but also i want to live my life and be happy and be proud and do everything that i can no that's that's cool obviously you've been to 45 different countries uh which was your most favorite slash interesting um i i really liked well i could i could see myself living in australia i mean everyone can whereabouts in australia i stayed in sydney for six months um it's just an unreal place and what i loved most about like sydney was the norm was being outside and doing exercise and i feel like in the uk the norm isn't that or isn't it as much like meeting down the beach and having a barbecue and going for a run is like a normal day whereas for us that would be like you know your golden standard day um so i feel like that's a really good place for like the health and well-being yeah i think the the fitness scene down there is crazy like i almost spent four days in sydney but uh we were staying on bondi beach i think it got bright at like 5 a.m.

23:29Yeah. And I remember we were jet lagged at the time. So we'd get up at like 4.30 or something just because we couldn't sleep. We'd look out and there'd be people in the sea. Yeah. And it'd be pitch black and they'd still be in the sea. I'm like, what are these guys just doing like all nighters? Like out here? Yeah. It's hardcore. Like you go out for a run, like half five, six-ish and everyone's getting back from their run. I know. Like it's just another level compared to other, here where it's i think it's cool it's a lot harder like them first steps of getting out the door it's a lot harder because the weather's not as nice and stuff like that um but i don't know i think there's positives and negatives but for both when it's like sunny all the time yes it's easy to get out but does it build the same resilience that living in cardiff gives you yeah of you know going out when it's freezing cold when it's raining when it's windy i don't know i don't know there's probably it doesn't because you become a fear weather runner i mean like you listen to people that just train on treadmills like when the weather's not good because they want optimal conditions like i'm always out like battering the conditions like 99 of the time um but i think what australia has is the access to like healthier things like it's more normal to like go down like bondi junction bondi beach and like pick a healthy choice for a meal than like if i was walking around the city center like in cardiff you've got the mcdonald's subways and stuff but you don't have as many options like you have to go searching for something healthy whereas like in there it's like given to you on a plate yeah i think we have one it's called nando's i think that's the only healthy option that we have yeah yeah like it's crazy the difference i think that's probably just the go-to for any runner um hyroxa or anything like you can't go wrong with the nando's because you know that you can hit your macros you can know that you can stay on track exactly and it's a good meal as well it's enjoyable i say um but no that's interesting so uh like you say australia you could see self-living is that you've done a bit of south america yeah this is where i'm interested because i've never been to south america okay how uh how was that and how is it different to the rest of the world absolutely unreal so i did um my probably my favorite if i was to pick one would probably be peru okay and i hiked the inca trail there no way yeah that looks unbelievable yeah i was there like seeing machu picchu and um like doing the world wonders and i think peru is crazy but there's so much to peru that like people don't realize is from like oases so like like uh well they they called an oasis but it's like houses in the middle of like a sand dune um and then the desert um and then you've got like high altitude you've got cuzco you've got the nazca lines i don't know if you've ever heard about them no one ever heard of them so they're like um i'm gonna get it wrong but essentially um back way way way ago that you've got like if you look from a bird's eye point of view you see these like shapes kind of like a roman wall but like within the within the thing that means something um again it's a high altitude the food is incredible um and just like the people are so nice like i think that's probably like the best thing that i did through traveling was like the amount of like different cultures and people that you surround yourself and probably a benefit of like solo traveling as well like you embrace in their culture a lot more than if you're like with a friend and um family you would just stay with them wouldn't you and you you'd stay close to them um but yeah south america um i did bolivia as well um i did something called death road in bolivia have you ever heard of that no that's that's pretty scary so it's like on a mountain bike um cycling down um sheer cliff faces like i'm not even lying like from here a meter you're like it's a drop and that's why it's called death road and you're like doing all the zigzags and meandering along the edge of a cliff and you like just willingly volunteered to do this yeah i paid to do it even better um but yeah i think yeah i was always of the mind like you've got to experience these things and go and see them um so yeah i think south america is like such a cool place to go and see and there's still so much more of south america like it's absolutely huge like yeah like you've got the like you say uh you've got the places you just mentioned you've got like even like really far down south like patagonia and stuff like that where the weather actually like turns quite nasty sometimes it can be quite windy and cold as well as obviously being warm and beautiful.

28:05Yeah, it looks unbelievable. Some of the landscapes. My question is, what's the fitness scene like in the places that you've been in South America? Is there much of a fitness scene? To be fair, when I was traveling, I was like properly staying in the wilderness, like staying with, so like, I don't know, like in the major cities, but like, I would go out and run and I wouldn't say there was lots of people where I stayed doing fitness but you only see what you see um i suppose in them landscapes fitness is more just like intertwined into their lives exactly like they're probably moving from a to b yeah and have to do that and the fitness is just part and parcel like what yeah like farming for example here like farmers stay fit just by doing the job exactly and i did that like i did a lot of like local homestays oh did you yeah we're like i would just be with a local family and stay there and just be with their kids as well and just see and just spend a day and two days living their life so i was milking sheep and herding sheep sorry and doing all the stuff that they would do um to experience like their full life like eat eat family dinner with them um they can't speak a word of english so like you're having to use your hands to try and like make a conversation you got no phone signal there it's like just embracing like what their actual life is and that's where you also realize there's so much more to life than like what we have in in the uk was there any interesting people that you met along the way and how long was you traveling for in total um i've done two years of traveling two years that's a long time yeah um so i think um i have like a really good video um but on the december i can't remember when but um my it was my mum's birthday in rome and i decided to fly back from the other side of the world to surprise her and she hadn't seen me uh in a very long time so she's seeing a completely different person um someone that's lost weight someone that's happy someone um and me and my brother decided to fly out to there to see her um and uh wish her happy birthday and then go into railing around europe but yeah i've met some amazing people on the journey and people that like i'll always stay connected with um and i think that's like the beauty of traveling as well like if i go to that country i send them a message and connect up and do some activities and yeah catch up one thing that did strike me is when you were traveling you started entering running races i think this is like one of the coolest ways to force you to see and experience like different parts of the world i always love to like wherever i travel just sign up to a 10k like it's so cool because you kind of get a bit of the culture you get bit like all the locals will be there because like i say it's just a local 10k and it's like it's pretty sick i've not had the luxury of doing it in places like you but uh yeah like going to america austin texas for example and just sign up for um random 10k it's pretty cool i think it pushes you outside of that like comfort zone because you're you're having to go to this race meet those people talk like that's where i actually met like a lot of people traveling um at parkrun okay so just on a saturday morning like i would just go down to the parkrun and just start chatting to the locals um like whether that be i did a lot in australia i did a few in singapore like it's it's a good way to ask them like oh like i'm new here like what you recommend seeing and they just like give you the the local answer like not the tourist answer the local answer and i feel like that's two very different things so being able to go and do that then is like so cool yeah yeah parents are i think they're so underrated like a lot of people think are they just a fun run and yeah they can be a fun run but they can also be a great just tester week in week out of whether you're getting fitter like i know um like at the front of a pack now it is quite competitive at park runs um i imagine you get some quick guys down here in manchester yeah yeah it's good it's good fun to be fair um it's hard to find and you know the one thing that i love about a park run as well they're not really that flat and fast you can obviously search them out and search like the flattest and fastest 5ks yeah um but some of them just feel like you're back in school and you're doing cross country yeah and you get muddy you finish and you you're not you're full of mud and i just think this is cool it's cool that 300 people are turning up for this week in week out and uh i think it's probably one of the coolest things to did it start in the uk uh it started in is it bushy park london it's one of the main ones in london i think it's bushy yeah i genuinely think it's one of the coolest things to come out of the uk that's like you say is worldwide now i think it's as you say like it's a good way to measure your fitness against yourself like rather than comparing to other people so like if you've got like your local park run and say for example like you do it in 20 minutes and then you do a training block and you do it then in 19 minutes you you can compare it at the park run because like comparing race times is never works really because it might be a hot day it might be but if you're comparing like the same course the same elevation like that's a good indicator for yourself like or anyone um who wants to improve just going down there and also as you say because it's so punchy now like apart from winning time where where i live now in cardiff like you've got to be running 15 something to win and like so if you're in that spectrum like slower than that like you'll always have people around you to run with and i think that makes a huge difference um in pushing yourself no for sure i think it's definitely like if you're anywhere in that realm of anywhere between 30 trying to break 30 minutes to trying to break 25 minutes or 20 minutes like it's perfect even like you say down to sometimes 15 minutes yeah um that you'll have people to pace you and run alongside you and and instead of like thinking oh this is super competitive just think about everyone has been pacers for you and uh it works out and the fact that it's free as well like people don't know that as well it's free i know all you have to do is sign up create a barcode bring your barcode along yeah yeah it's class nine o 'clock at whichever local race you got parkrun not a race Are there any really cool races that you signed up to whilst you were traveling?

34:26Yeah, like quite a few. I think probably like the coolest one, it was called Point to Pinnacle. So it's classified as the world's toughest half marathon in Tasmania. Oh, I've heard about this. Yeah, it's quite famous, right? It is pretty famous, yeah. So it's around, I think it's 1 ,400 meters of elevation over 21K. um so you are literally just from the front honestly from the go but it's a road race right it's road so yeah there's a road that goes to the top of the mountain and um you basically just follow the entire road up the mountain um and then you get this beautiful view at the end but um yes well it's a half marathon and it's 1400 meters of elevation it's brutal from literally from the gun you are going uphill and it doesn't stop in fact at 10k it gets worse like the elevation kind of like changes and it just goes up another notch um but that was a pretty fun race and that's how i actually ended up then traveling to tasmania because i saw that race and i was like that's a cool race i'll go there and then and then you visit the place as you're there yeah that's sick um what time did you get by the way uh i think i did 159 159 so you had got sub two i did but they actually give you out like a hat i think it was at the time if you get sub two like a sub two is like a really good thing i think the winner did something like 125 wow um but it's so hard like going up that hill um that's crazy yeah so obviously this was what she was traveling that seems like a pretty impressive time so how fast was this progression within your running career like where was the starting point and like say for example if we go off 5k times like what was you running a 5k right at the start to then like when you come back and finish traveling yeah so in march 2023 i signed up and did a 10k um and that was when i was going to nepal and i got to 9k and i there was no way i could run the last k uh it took me my average pace was six minutes 12 per kilometer so if i had finished the 10k which i didn't i would have finished in like an hour and two minutes something like that which is quite impressive for like say bigger yeah bigger lad and and not really much experience um i then flew to um nepal lost all the weight and by october that year so just six months later i'd broken 40 minutes for 10k that is insane um and then from there um in like the same time october 2024 24 then so a year on i'd run a 111 half marathon so the you've always been kind of like a underneath you've been a natural i think i just say i i think you know people will look at my progression and like look at my training i will always say i have some natural talent um i didn't know that i had the talent um but yeah i think there's definitely that because the progression i think the weight loss has massively helped that um do you think you kind of have you ever looked at it as if like you had the advantage because you once had the weight and you started training at that weight if that makes sense yeah so i do have a thing called like it's my own thing but it's called like fat boy theory okay so like there's actually a viral video of me running along the beach at 125 kilos with a good mate of mine called adam who is ripped six pack like doesn't have a number of fat and I beat him at the weight I was.

38:08Um, but yeah, my fat boy, my fat boy theory is basically because I've been carrying around this weight for so long, like in terms of like my strength and conditioning, like it's like, if I put a 50 kilo vest on you for a year, when you take that off, you're just going to fly. Um, and, um, yeah, I think it does work. Um, I don't have to do an awful amount of S &C to stay injury free. Um, I don't have to, my body recovers really quickly because like when you're carrying the extra weight, like every time you're losing a few kilos, it's just like weight off your shoulder, you're recovering quicker.

38:50So I think there is a correlation. Um, there will be a limit to that. Like I don't need to lose much more weight. Like I'm happy where I'm sat. I'm just now training for performance rather than aesthetics and yeah, just going from there i love that i think it's like how i compare that is like have you ever seen like a typical dad with a dad bod yeah but they've got massive calves yeah yeah like dad calves are like a thing it's the bikers calves as well you've seen yeah they're huge but with the dad calves like they've got huge calves and you're like oh i wish i had calves like him yeah and i think it's just from carrying around a pot belly yeah like the you know the extra weight yeah if that makes sense but uh yeah that's um when i when i kind of look at the data of yourself like i think it definitely helps especially from like the the strength and conditioning point of view like your bones and your joints and tendons and ligaments the things that take the longest to build you've been able to uh hold up more weight yeah exactly and then obviously when you dropped the way like you're flying now yeah so yeah that was october 24 i ran 111 at cardiff half and that was my goal because what that would get me is an entry into london marathon uh in the championship pen um so i qualified from london from that um and then 111 did that yeah so um if you haven't run a marathon and you ran a half marathon quicker than a certain time then you can also get a championship entry okay whereas if you've run a marathon then then it doesn't work um similar to like Elfie Manthorpe with the um elite stuff like if you've run a quick enough half marathon yeah you would get into the elite pen um at London so I got into the um championship pen at London I trained then through to 2025 and I ran London marathon in 2025 until I was 50.

40:45wow impressive and then what was that so that was it was a hot uh yeah that was the heat wave yeah um really really hot um i went out probably a bit too quick got humbled by the marathon and had to have a little bit of a regroup and a retrain um then in the summer that year i had um my appendix go um so i had a surgery got my appendix out and 10 weeks after my appendix out I ran the Berlin marathon um and I did that in 237 which was September wow so how sorry when you had your appendix out how long was you not running for uh so about four weeks four weeks yeah so four weeks where I was pretty much bed bound um walking when I could um but like as you introduce it and then I think I had around like six weeks then of building up my running again I'd gotten a lot to post London.

41:40Um, and then I had six weeks and then I got Berlin marathon in September, 2025. Um, and I ran that in two 37, 59 and two 38 was the cutoff for getting another London spot. Um, so I was like, sweet, I've secured that. Um, but I want another marathon. So I've, I did all the five Ks, 10 Ks. And now I'm just kind of like, right, I really enjoy the marathon, but it's not necessarily, I enjoy the marathon. It's that I enjoy the discipline and the training and the regime that the marathon training gives me because 5k and 10k aren't like that and I just love to have that regime um and then yeah so then December then 2025 I ran Valencia um and I ran 229 and then May well April I did London marathon um I did London I was going for 220 and it was just a bit too hot on the day and I ran 223 and I knew well I knew when I finished I was literally the happiest person crossing the line and that's something like my girlfriend said is that the person that she saw finishing in in a time that was off the goal that she that I wanted was so different to before like I was just so happy um but I did know there was more um and two weeks later I then did Copenhagen marathon this is what strikes me this is this is what I found fascinating the fact like say two weeks later go on explain so yeah two weeks later i i knew i had more in the tank it's from from an aerobic standpoint because all all of my training i trained to heart rate uh throughout all of my training okay and um on the day of london my heart rate was just so much higher because the sun was out and i hadn't trained in that and i knew that i had more to give especially aerobically because what failed me in london was my aerobic not my mechanical like my legs whereas so i was like i think there's more and what do you think that was on the day because like you say two weeks later like was that enough time to develop your aerobic system if that makes sense or do you think i think on the day it was just like illness or something or i think i was there or thereabouts it was just the sun right like the sun beating down on me as a ginger lad like i just don't i don't fit like give me five degrees cold day icy like i'm gonna i'm gonna go quick give me it was what was it like 14 to 18 degrees with sunlight and i think the difference is the sunlight that's actually directly on you i was just so hot um so yeah i just decided two weeks later i got an entry into copenhagen marathon and i'll go and give it a go um and no expectation uh no posting on social media just me and myself and a friend and we'll just go out there have a good weekend in copenhagen and if we do something great we do something great and if we don't, we don't, no pressure.

44:30Um, and then I ended up running with the elite women for 40 K 41 K. Um, Jonathan Escalante Phillips was pacing two 20, but she, as a pacer, he was pacing the lead woman and they fell off just a little bit off that two 20 pace. Um, I just stayed with him the whole way. Um, but yeah, at 40 K my legs kind of went then I think the other marathon caught up to me um so i had quite a slow last 2k but i still finished in 222 um and another pv just two weeks later so yeah i think i'm confident that like going into my next marathon build like a sub 220 is on the horizon and on the cards and that's i definitely think that mate the fact like you say that you can run a 223 then a 222 two weeks apart i think just shows that you've got so much strength strength within and a big base within uh your running that you'll be absolutely fine and like you say you've got more if you peak for the event and like you say you get the perfect conditions and stuff like that i find um from from experience myself i think uh that shows the difference between a runner that's built up correctly and built their base up correctly is how they are after the marathon yeah and i understand there's different things that can go wrong in a marathon say for example if you don't fuel correctly it can really impair your recovery for the weeks and months later um if you pick up an injury as well but for me i think i simply just ramped up too fast within my training when i tried and did that 222 in houston and it just wrote me off for like a month later yeah maybe probably more probably two months later uh and the fact that obviously you didn't really have that like you say you you don't feel as sharp as what you you felt but you're always going to feel a little bit fatigued but uh yeah i think there's a there's a big difference i think what people get so fixated about in any distance is the time and what i did for um london marathon and copenhagen was i let my fitness come to me so like because I trained to heart rate and I've now have enough experience to know like physiologically what my body will do.

46:53So for example, for me, my heart rate for a half marathon will sit at one seven two. And if I, if I sit and hold one seven two, I will finish that half marathon. And for a marathon, it's like one six, six, one six, seven. So when I trained, I trained to that heart rate because I know that that's what my marathon effort will be will be that um and at the start of the block I was running like 230 marathon pace and at the end of the block I was running 219 marathon pace but I let I didn't change my training I just let that fitness come to me rather than push it straight out the block so I wasn't fatigued I was very sensible with my approach to training um compared to like london 2025 where i was like dead set on a time and i would train to that time i was always tired always fatigued and it wasn't the right thing whereas this block i was like i'm actually going to do something different i'm just going to train to that effort and that i know now what that effort is and that does take experience but it then comes to you um and so like i wasn't hard fast on the 220 the 220 goal came in maybe two weeks three weeks before london because i'd realized my fitness had kind of got to that point but it wasn't it wasn't a goal yeah no that is impressive but it will be a goal it will be a goal now that i've run like a 223 and a 222 of course it's going to be a goal like that elusive 220 um would be my absolute a goal for the next one um and then pb and would probably be a b goal um and i think it's always important to like set those abc goals because you always want to see what you do as a success and like have that motivation like you don't want to finish a race and feel absolutely gutted like i've been there um and like that's all you can think about like what went wrong that are overanalyzed like at the end of the day like you did the best your body could do on that day no matter what what that time is so yeah and uh also so many things can go wrong within a marathon especially the marathon distance like there's so many factors that are uncontrollable like you say the weather um your stomach on the day the the preparation lead up sleep the night before like everything just needs to kind of like line up yeah for that perfect day and you've got to feel it as well you've got to be yeah just praying for a great day um internally but um no that's interesting so going moving on to kind of like your upcoming goals have you announced anything yet uh i so kind of yeah so i've got a spot in valencia marathon okay valencia so that's december right yeah that's december so that that is my goal but i would really like to do berlin again would you do them both i would do them both yeah okay yeah so two months apart right yeah september and december so they're actually probably just yeah two and a half months apart probably like um so i think over the summer i'd love to do a block for berlin then take a few deload weeks and then build into valencia um but i think either of them could be a really good attempt at that 220 berlin would probably be my main one i'm in september and then i've got left in valencia um i don't train as well during the winter i would say um like those december months i find them a little bit harder so i don't know why is that you think um i think like when you're doing like a marathon session um i don't have i don't know if i don't have the discipline but like the thought of doing a marathon session like uh three by 10k on a treadmill like just just not appeal to me at all like i'd rather do it outside and like in a december block like where you're in november december like if the weather's not perfect or like it's so bad you just can't really like fully replicate what you want um so i do find it a little bit harder in saying that like i still ran the goal time last year but i feel like a september october marathon would be the perfect timing wise for me especially coming out of the heat of the summer of the uk like if it's a cold day in that september i think or october that you'll be optimal because you've basically had heat training and there's so much so many benefits to heat training both active and passive like i do passive um just in a hot bath but i think yeah i think that would be like the goal race berlin if I get a spot.

51:13Interesting. I'm excited to see it. So what is your training going to look like over the coming months? Could you just go through kind of like a typical week of training for yourself? Yep. Um, so my typical week is, um, I do two sessions in the week. So Monday would be an easy double. Um, and I probably rack in, in the last block I was doing maybe 35 K on that day. um tuesday easy double again maybe 30 to 35k on that day so quite a lot of volume is it like two one hour runs roughly um a little bit longer maybe yeah quite a bit longer yeah so probably like i probably do like 20 to 25k in the morning all right okay so you you do and then you and then i do big run and then a small run yeah big run and then a small run um so um yeah i always try and get my longer one done in the morning why why is that why do you split it longer than shorter rather than say for example to one hour 10 runs where you could just be even um and run 15 16k i think for me it's like motivationally when i'm sat in the office in work i'm like if i've done the majority percentage of what i have what i want to achieve that day i coach myself so i've got the flexibility but like if i want to achieve 30k for that day if i've done 20k of that i'm like oh i've only got 10 to do whereas if i've got done 15 i'm like i've got another 15 to do and i know it's minor but like mentally for me i'm like coming out the back of the office and like you're mentally tired as well so it's like i've got a smaller run to do so that's just how i structure it whereas like if if i was a full-time athlete i would definitely split it 15 15 um but like coming out the back of work is like the smaller and then i can have dinner and chill and i have more time whereas like i try and maximize my morning like i'd rather wake up earlier that means i got more time with my girlfriend in the evening more time to do like recovery sit in the boots etc yeah more downtime for question um before obviously like say a big run like 20k um will you be eating before like what's your feeling looking like in the morning of these easy days um of easy days um i'm less kind of stringent i kind of like semi do a double breakfast but i don't um so like i try and optimize my sleep as much as possible so like i try to roll like from the moment my alarm goes off like i'm normally out the door within 10 minutes 10 minutes yeah at the door yeah yeah um so just so that i could optimize my sleep um so yeah i would go downstairs either scram bagels and honey or squares bars uh are a staple um i love a good squares bar before my run just enough to give me the carbs to go on the run and then like i would take my gels with me you having like any caffeine any coffee or anything i i don't drink coffee or caffeine now i obviously drank a lot of caffeine with energy drinks um but i don't drink coffee or anything kind of went like teetotal with basically but teetotal with caffeine so when i do have caffeine now i am wired like a white monster a red bull can i am absolutely wired um off just one um so yeah i don't you never feel like you need it in the morning like you say especially when you're you're literally getting open within 10 minutes you're out the door yeah do you feel like that wakes you up better than anything else yeah i think what i didn't want to do was like my mum drinks like 10 coffees a day and like you hear people being like oh i've got a headache in work because i haven't had my coffee and when i was like hearing stuff like that i never wanted to become reliant on something to give me the energy like i want to have my energy from whole foods from other things than like um an energy drink or coffee um so i just decided to stay away from it um so yeah i think if you can jump out it's funny like i will literally jump out of bed to like fully just like shock the system it's like you don't have an option now you're going for a run um i always normally have someone to join me just from that accountability point of view oh cool so you'd be you'll be meeting up with someone every morning yeah so but like there's someone that i meet up with might be like oh i really fancy 10k at 7 a.m i was like yeah perfect because that means i can get up at 6 do 10 12 15k beforehand and then you i'll join you on the last 10 do you always join people on the last bit of your own yeah yeah of course like i think motivationally that just like gets you to the end um especially when you're in a group because um let them chat and just like zone out um but i've actually really started enjoying so it was only recently probably in the last three months that i discovered what a podcast actually is um like i used to just do all my runs listening to like taylor swift on repeat and now i actually can't wait like i'm waiting to go when someone someone's podcast that i'm listening to releases an episode i'm like sweet my easy run sorted tomorrow and and now i just ever like save certain podcasts for certain runs and stuff like that oh i've got a real long run on sunday i'm gonna save that podcast yeah i literally do do that because you can see how long they are right yeah for me like it's uh like say like a joe rogan podcast when like someone big comes on like elon musk or something i'm like oh i need to say that for a long run it's three hours long i'm gonna i'm gonna be fine exactly so i think that's made a huge difference as well because like i'm excited because i want to listen and the run goes by so quick like because you're so engrossed and you're mentally taken away from the fact you're actually running it just goes by so quick yeah but yeah that's my monday and tuesday wednesday is my big session day so wednesday is 10k in the morning easy um just kind of like flushing the legs out and then we have what i like to call like my monster session like this is my bread and butter of the week and what that looked like was 10k at marathon pace into like 5k worth of work 5 to 10k worth of work on the track at 5k or 10k pace so like a typical session i'm looking at 10k in around i was doing them under 33 minutes and i would go straight from that into like 12 by 400s at two minutes 50 per kilometer off 60 seconds so a full vo2 session off the back of the marathon work and i think that was a huge thing that really helped me build that like fatigue resistance um because you're doing that like if i did either of those sessions individually they are great sessions but combining them gives me that like especially for the marathon like you need to operate on fatigue legs and you need to operate well on fatigue legs so doing the vo2 stuff after doing some work at that i feel like that was why where my mentality was going that that's really working well for me um but also then hitting the vo2 stuff enabled me to like also hit very good times in 5k 10k half marathon um because you're not just focused on the marathon efficiency interesting and that's the reason building that kind of like strength for the marathon is the reason that you do it like that and you wouldn't for example split them up and do 10k hard in the morning um at your marathon pace and then go into your VO2 max session at night?

58:30Yeah, it depends like what you're training for. Like for the marathon, like I feel like chucking them in on a one-er, just combine the fatigue. Like if you're doing a 5K, I could see the benefit of like doing a double threshold. So 5K, 10K training, you'd prefer to split them up? Yeah, yeah. Half marathon, marathon. I like to have the confidence that I can operate on fatigue legs. Definitely builds that dog in you. Yeah. I think I get anxious every week having a session like that. Yeah. I think what helps is I go to my local track club. And so I do the 10K on the track. Firstly, for a mental benefit.

59:05Like there's nothing worse than doing 25 laps of the track at marathon pace. But I'm like, this is going to get me mentally strong. So I crack that out before the track session starts with the club. And then because I'm then joining people on the track session, I then just go straight into the pack as if they'll think I'm fresh. but i know that i'm i've had five minutes rest between the thing so that's kind of like my bread and butter session um for the midweek and then thursday friday saturday just easy runs one i don't double on those days and then why is that um i think um i like to sometimes i do do the marathon session on saturday i don't i decide not to double because again i think just mentally i like to get either the run done in a one-er so that i've got the entire evening to do other things and just like have that balance in my life um but um it just i can hit my mileage that way and on how long are you going on so thursday friday yeah so thursday's normally like a 20k easy in the morning fridays like maybe like 15 20 saturday the same 10 15 whatever because my thinking is that like i only do two sessions a week i say only but like you you see a lot of these top guys doing like your tuesday thursday saturday yeah like newegian typical newegian training yeah uh methodology like that's uh what is it like five six intense sessions a week yeah a lot and a lot of double thresholds but for me like i want the confidence out the sessions so like if i recover now Thursday, Friday, Saturday, when I hit my marathon session on the Sunday, I will gain a lot of confidence from it because I've got fresher legs and I can really nail it.

1:00:51So like the purpose of the Wednesday session is like stacked fatigue. So I've done a marathon session on the Sunday, 35 K on the Monday, 30, 35 K on the Tuesday, and then 10 K before, and then the monster track session so like those those days are stacked and then i recover thursday friday saturday and then i hit my big marathon session on sunday and all i focus in that entire week is just making sure that those two sessions are optimal um and then the rest is just you know if i need to change a run and do an easy um in the evening or i'm feeling really tired so i double or whatever i do um i just have like my mileage what i'm gonna hit i know what i'm gonna hit that week i know the sessions i'm gonna aim to hit and then i kind of like make the rest work yeah that's super interesting do you ever do any cross training uh no so you you run every day what if um some things in particular so say for example you got a tight calf like it's just something that if you if you rest maybe a day and just have a day off the legs then it's gonna be fine but if you keep pushing then it potentially might build up what would i do in that situation yes um i don't or do you just kind of like run through aches and pains uh so if it depends on what day that i would get that like if i got that on an easy day i would just run through the easy there has been times in the block where i feel a niggle come in so i would when i feel something come in i just change it so um i had a session which was like five by two k at three minutes a k I changed that to five by two K at marathon pace because I feel like I'm not gonna you you get you get your proper big injuries from when you're like really pushing yourself and if you're within yourself you can quite normally do it so I would just adjust the session um and unless I feel like it's really bad I just go and see like my sports massage and he kind of like fixes a lot my niggles um get some cupping and yeah just crack on yeah i love that probably that military mindset just like crack on yeah carry on i feel like you need a little bit of that yeah i think uh sometimes we can be a little bit too uh fragile yeah um me especially yeah but um yeah sometimes so you never like just switch to a bike or anything like that not really if i if i want to i'll just slow it down like for me especially on my easy days like i've got the mindset that like my easy days are so easy yeah like okay heart rate 115 to 125 what you so so say for example you see 127 on your watch are you slowing down 127 no but if i see above 130 then yeah yeah the purpose of those runs is to recover and gain aerobic benefits like i don't need that run for any other reason so if someone says come and run with me at 520s per k i'll just go and run with them it doesn't i it doesn't matter to me i'm just getting the mileage in um and just using that as my recovery that the times where i do care about like the times i run in my heart rate is the two wednesday sunday interesting if you would give like any piece of any pieces of advice to people who are trying to build up the mileage maybe they're training for a marathon um have you got any kind of like key things i think the first one is like food and nutrition is really key um i'm very fortunate that my girlfriend's like a student dietitian and studies nutrition diet so i don't have to think about any of it like so what does she do set your calories or she does everything yeah so like she does all the cooking she does all the cooking she does uh and i think was it yesterday she was like you've eaten 25 plants today sam i was like 25 plants in a day i don't even think i could name 25 plants no either could i um but yeah so she just manages everything and like she knows like when i'm running and um like when i've got my track session for example so she'll like i'll come back from track and like basically when i walk in it's kind of ready um like and it'll be like high protein and i'll have everything i need so i don't really take into account too much about my nutrition diets now because she deals with it but i think that's so important to anyone training um especially like around key sessions so like on that sunday session where i've got the marathon that saturday night i will carb load i will every every single week i will take on do more eat more carbs i will wake up three hours before the run I will eat what I will eat on race day.

1:05:32And I replicate that because you need to have those carbs. You need to have those fuels. I take all my fuel out on, even on like a long, easy run, I will still fuel because I might not need it for the run, but I want to be feeling fueled for the next run. So I feel like that can make a massive impact on your training. Like you might not need it for that 20K, but you might need it for the 10K. So if you have that fuel now and you keep them topped up, I think that's really key. So I think my first tip for anyone would be like really like staying on top of your nutrition and diet. The second one would be like, I suppose like I have the mentality of like running your easy run super easy.

1:06:16I don't think people do it enough. I see like people running their easy runs way faster than I do and they're not my pace. um i often question like why um what they're trying to gain out of that so like my tip number two would be take your easy runs super easy remember why you're doing them because if you want to optimal opt be optimal and hit your hard sessions hard you won't do that if you're running them too fast um i think like on that front like if i trained all of my easy runs at zone two i would be mechanically so tired because like my zone two is like i don't know three sometimes like 345 per k to 415 per k like maybe in that region like if i'm running around four minutes a k like i'm gonna get mechanically tired mentally like down because you're like constantly pushing yourself so i think like everyone goes on about this like fad online of like zone two training zone 2 training it's an easy run it's something where you can genuinely have a conversation with someone and not be out of breath and do it i suppose that goes on to my last point do it with people like have those people that keep you accountable look up to people and go for runs with them ask join your local run club like it's the easiest way to get better and like i found that myself like i ran my 5k pb at parkrun there was no way i was gonna run that 5k pb on my own so i asked and someone came and paced me for a 1450 5k and like i wouldn't have done it alone definitely and all of my easy runs i do with people so like i would say join people they hold you accountable it makes it more fun you can chat have a good time and yeah that's probably like they're my top three no that's uh i'm glad that you said the last one especially running with people because i think that's even something i need to hear um because they're kind of sometimes sometimes it's easier just to head out the door on your own but i don't know i think even just you feel so much great so much more grateful coming back from a run with people because you're like oh you're kind of killing two birds with one stone you're going for your run but then you're also socializing you're also chatting about the day or whatever yeah and i think it's important especially like being an athlete that's in like a solo sport like running like you spend a lot of time on your own right and most people well a lot of people work from home now as well so if they're working from home and then they're going out running in the morning running in the evening and they're doing everything alone then i don't think it's healthy no exactly And as you say, like, all of these sports can be lonely.

1:09:07But if you put yourself out there, like... It doesn't have to be. No, it doesn't. Like, I think... So I was training, on average, 175 kilometers a week. So that's like 13, 14 hours? Yeah. A week? Yeah. And I would say I did maybe two hours alone. And the rest was with people. and I think on that with people like you can be so strict and like want to follow your coach's program or whatever and I think like a benefit of like me coaching myself was I know that I've got that marathon session on the Sunday but if one of my other friends was like I so say for example I had um five by five k and my friend messaged me and he's like mate I've got three by four miles i'm like sweet i'm going out and doing three by four miles and then if i want to chuck on an extra 5k at the end or i want to do something a little bit extra i've just done 28 kilometers of that session near enough to what i needed to do not quite maybe the pace is a tiny bit slower but you know what i've done it with someone i feel really happy and then i've gone out and bashed a faster 5k at the end or or or not just cut the session there i think you know um people like you see in kenya when they train they all train together and they train together for a reason and like it's so much easier to do that session with someone and then come off the back of that and feeling good and remembering that training isn't there to kill you like you want your training sessions to be hard but like your race day is your day where you want to shine like you want to be able to recover off that and then go into the next session like constantly thinking about the next session as well yeah no that's uh that's definitely valid in regards to your running career obviously you've not been running that long like in reality and in comparison to other people and you've done amazing things where do you see yourself going in the future what do you think you can achieve i mean if i'm going to be really bold go on be bold we like that i i want to make the start line elite start line of london marathon i would love to represent and just get there on the start line I think I've got to run like a 2.15, 2.16, which I don't think.

1:11:23I've been running, what, just over three years with the weight loss. I think it's definitely hard, but definitely possible. I would love to represent my country. And in doing so, I was looking like half marathons probably would be my optimal to represent Wales. What time do you have to run? Well, currently this year it would have been 1.05.45. um at antrim coast and what's your pb uh i ran 107 05 at bath half and that's not flat right no that that last um what is it now like 800 meters is just like straight uphill um it's pretty brutal actually um yeah i heard about it i think uh alfie lost his position i think he was going for uh i think it was top two made it into the gb squad or something like that that's correct yeah and uh yeah he he failed on that last he didn't fail obviously he didn't fail but uh yeah he got dropped on that last 800 meters yeah it's brutal and i think obviously the way i ran that day i probably was in like 106 mid maybe 106 low um so i feel like it's not that that far away um like not too much of a distant dream to wear a welsh vest and i think that kind of like goes into my whole story like I always like strive to be the best like whether it be gaming or whatever and I think it would be like a huge honor to show what's possible from like 125 kilos to then representing my country and I'm very fortunate that I don't I'm not English because probably a lot harder in England to represent but um yeah that would be kind of my pinnacle and then also i want to break the sub 30 uh 10k so they're kind of like my three goals um that i i want to do incredible do you ever see yourself doing anything shorter or longer within the running space what i mean by that is whether it's a track meet and you try and try like a 1500 meters or whether you want to do like ultra marathons in the future i think ultra is definitely not um i'm very like motivated and like by time and like running fast i'm not saying never but like i'm still relatively young i've just turned 27 um so like i don't feel like you're optimal in the running endurance space until you're in your 30s anyway so i feel like i've still got a good few years to come into it and already being late into the game i just want to kind of like maximize that um so i'll probably stay in and around that i'm not opposed to the shorter stuff though because I feel like there's massive benefits to doing your 800s and 1500s because you've got to be able to run a fast 800 to be able to run a fast marathon like you have to that's that that time differential between like the speed differential needs to be there like there's a lot of people that can run like a really quick half but it might not like translate into the marathons but you the bigger you make that gap the bigger you make your 5k speed to the marathon speed the easier the marathon will feel it's kind of like raising your ceiling yeah it makes this not as hard exactly exactly so like the week before london i did a 10k because i wanted to give myself the confidence that 318s wasn't my like half marathon pace it was like something that i can do so i yeah my previous 10k pv was 32 00 and the week before london i ran 30 0 7 so wow so almost two minutes off yeah yeah yeah wow so yeah like i say it's uh getting that sub 30 isn't far off not not far off i think i was definitely in really really good shape then like obviously a week out from london and i'm not recommending you race like a week before the marathon for me it was i needed the confidence like i'm currently sat on a 32 minute 10k and i want to be going through the marathon in like i think what is it like 32 45 yeah like that's way too close so it was me it was like a confident thing okay i've run a 30 minute now so i'm actually going two and a half minutes slower each 10k that's that's more attainable so it was just a confidence thing and timing of races but um yeah i think yeah that's yeah that's amazing i want to finish with a couple of quick questions yeah um first one being if you could choose one distance and you could only run that distance um race that distance should we say yeah uh what distance would it be half marathon half marathon why um i feel like with a half marathon like you still get the like pull of the enjoyment like you get a lot of people out to the races um there's so many you can do across the world um like the super halves um it doesn't take it out of you like a marathon does so you can race more of them like i could race a half marathon and probably through two weeks like be fully recovered to race another one whereas in a marathon like it takes so much longer you have to build you spend 16 weeks training for one day and like if the conditions aren't perfect or things happen on that day you have gi issues or anything like so whereas with a half or a 10k um like you can just keep going um so yeah probably a half marathon i like that um favorite post workout meal big big after a big session on a sunday or a wednesday evening what you're having pizza pizza yeah yeah is it like taking you back to like domino's times is it domino's pizza a little bit healthier it's a little bit healthier it's like what do you call them stone baked no uh stone baits yeah the stone yeah just like a local italian um a pizza i think when i finished london marathon i actually ate three pizzas within three hours of finishing did you go to the puma yes yeah yeah because they were handing out free pizzas yeah yeah so i had a few of them and then also went to a pizza place straight after oh ideal because like on that nutrition point like i put on weight after the marathon because like i wanted to i want to restore everything and put all of the calories back in my body um and gets back to some sort of equilibrium so like straight after the marathon i was like all over the fueling like just piling down calories and like also having a girlfriend that does the stuff she would literally be like right you need to drink that you need to have those electrolytes have this like and the next day i felt great i just went for a run yeah it felt amazing did you did you go for a run the day after yeah because a lot of people couldn't walk i assume yeah most people couldn't walk yeah i went for an easy 10k yeah you're crazy built different as you'd say um do you so uh in terms of like hobbies is there anything that you do that people don't know is there anything that you're you're kind of like like you say you've got an addictive personality is there anything like secretly you're a little bit addictive to um or you do in your spare time yeah it's like playing an instrument or something like that yeah i do have a little um guilty pleasure i love playing chess and um backgammon okay so like i'm i'm laughing because my girlfriend told me off yesterday um because i was just laying in bed playing chess before i go to sleep um i don't know so romantic i know right um it's just like mentally stimulating um i'm all i'm always like on the go mentally but yeah i love a good game of chess and a good game of backgammon yeah that's class i'm glad that uh tom's left the room because he's just got into chess as he yeah yeah yeah he wouldn't shut up about it if uh if you told him that yeah you'd be playing you're playing at lunch after um no that's interesting um after i don't want to say after your running career is over but is there anything that you see yourself doing like after running yeah obviously you're quite young now but like after yeah definitely like i'm actually in the process of setting up a coaching like page business because i i feel like i've got quite a bit of a different mentality to a lot of people um and i feel like because i've been on that journey from like your 125 kilos like not many people are like being in that position to like the i cover all of that percentile like i've been i'm somewhere along that line that someone's been on or is from there to there um so like i really want to like also be able to give back and like coach people through how i went through it so that i i can see the enjoyment from other people i get so much satisfaction and you'll see a lot of my stuff i pace a lot of people because seeing someone else achieve their goals is like just as rewarding as like like me achieving my goals so i feel like coaching would definitely be like an avenue like i really want to go down and explore yeah no that's cool like say it's giving back a little bit and um there's nothing more fulfilling yeah exactly yeah um have you got any bad habits yeah um definitely i i i can binge okay yeah like and it is quite bad because i just love food so much that i forget what do you normally binge on typically um i'm really into like percy pigs and those like like sweets and chocolate from mns um so like if my girlfriend's ever coming back from um town she'd be like oh do you want anything i'd be like yeah percy pigs um it's not like a bad habit but i suppose the bad habit is the fact that like i could eat like two bags yeah you can't stop yourself yeah that's kind of like the it's like the fat sam's still there and like if i that's probably the best way to say it if i open a bag of anything i will eat the whole bag i can't like put food back like if i open um a packet of rice cakes like i'll eat all the rice cakes if i open a packet of sweets i'll eat all the sweets if i open a packet of chocolate i'll eat all the chocolate and that's probably my bad habit because i don't need it i'm just doing it because it's there yeah i i kind of agree with you i do exactly the same as you i don't i don't believe in putting things back half half empty that's what i think my girlfriend will leave one rice cake like one rice cake and i'm like just eat it or the same with like a drink like putting like 100 mil back in the fridge so just drink it yeah just finish it yeah to be fair yeah i think i've got the same greedy mindset as yourself um yeah like i say it's it's good because in a way your body needs it yeah and i think you kind of like accepting that as well and i wanted to just touch on that as well are you still actively trying to drop weight um i think i actively monitor my weight um not necessarily drop but um have you have you been the same weight now for the last six months no no no no so like after a marathon i purposefully put on weight all right so after valencia i think valencia marathon i was like 77 kilos i put on nine kilos over christmas all right okay i went up to 86 and then purposely uh i probably just enjoyed yourself i was in holiday in new zealand and i probably enjoyed myself a bit too much but you know it's recovery it's part of the game um i think you know there's so much benefit in periodization in training um and like having those fluctuations um so yeah um i feel like i will then go back to the race weight which is like 77 kilos ish um and in london i got to 76 um question do you drop weight all the way up until the marathon i know you mentioned before about you know being super important to like fuel your sessions your main sessions yeah but are you dieting up until your marathon or are you kind of like going into a maintenance phase like three weeks out or uh i kind of will drop weight naturally up until the peak week okay so like then when you taper in then that's when you like put it back on because i kind of just like eat the same um but i will like drop but the way in which i drop the weight and the way in which i feel it's like i take on saturday night and like sunday like i'll fuel so much around the session and then i'm happier to have like a calorie deficit around my easy days because they're easy um and i'm still running like 30k or whatever so you still burn a lot of calories even if you're running easy so i'm just so key on fueling around the sessions and then because your mileage is high and stuff like your weight naturally drops off so yeah after london and copenhagen i put on weight again so i got down to 76 and then i went back up to 80 and then i will in my next block probably naturally go down but i think it's healthy to understand that it's good to put on weight after a marathon yeah it is good for sure to refill all those fuels not feel your most confident like i was so confident too except from london i felt so good but then as you start to taper as you start to carb load it might not feel the best but it's the right thing to do for performance um and i think that's where you kind of like got to shift that mindset from performance to um yeah oh it's interesting thank you sam for today no thank you for having me no i appreciate it that was a good chat um hopefully tomorrow we get your last minute ticket to the manchester 10k and hopefully we can uh potentially run it together yeah i look forward to if i get a spot to pacing you uh yeah i'll lend you some uh shoes like you say you're not I'll lend you some kit and then we can get going.

1:25:08But yeah, thank you, mate. Thank you for today. Appreciate it. Thank you. Cheers.