The Reality of Marathon Training & Overcoming Failure | Calum Goddard | Ep 47

0:00Calum Goddard, welcome to the podcast. Hello, mate. This is so weird being a guest on a pod. It's so strange. I know, it's crazy. No, thank you. For the people that may not know who you are, would you just be able to sum yourself up in a few words? Yeah, of course. I guess podcaster, content creator, shit athlete, I think. No, not shit athlete. What I'm saying is like aspiring, you know, someone that enjoys running, trying to kind of grow in the space and yeah, get better myself. yeah no um i think that i think you're a better athlete than what you just made out like you say athlete i think um isn't the case aspiring aspiring um runner trying to kind of take people on my journey with me i think that's the best way of putting it yeah i think you're very kind of like relatable uh to to kind of like the audience and a lot of people look up to you mate oh thank you well i put out uh like q and a's and stuff yeah um not q and a's but i say who do you want to see on the podcast yeah yeah and everyone says you oh that's sick to hear yeah it is sick it is sick and it just shows what an impact you're having like one with your podcast because it's incredible and you have some amazing athletes on there um i want to thank you actually for a shout you gave me on your pod one of the early pods you did with truitt and um he brought up my pod because he liked the name of it yeah and then um you boys were just gassing the pod up and i got loads of messages of people saying listen to jake's pod with truitt they're talking about your pod and i was like i listened to that and i think it was the start of when i was being really consistent so i think i haven't now missed a week since october and i think it was around i don't know maybe december time that you did that pod with him and i just remember being gas i was like this is sick like two absolute like massive creators in the space gas not my pod so yeah thank you for that man i appreciate it like every every run that i go on like when you've got a new episode out yeah listen to yours i'm not gonna lie it's just kind of like so easy listening to and like i love it when you have like repeat guests on yeah and you know that was like one of the reasons what inspired like part of the reason why it inspired me to start a podcast because like you it was just so good it's nice isn't it with the repeat guest thing because i always look at it and go if you're catching up with friends you're never going to just like only see the same friend once in a year and then not see him again it's almost like you're essentially catching up with a mate but they that mate has skin in the game and understanding of the space that you're trying to kind of i guess document yourself in for example like hugo me and him he's he's an hour quicker than me in the marathon but we both still live a life that's similar except he trains more and he runs up a faster pace do you know i mean we're still human beings we still got common interests we're still the same age we'd be mates if we were at school together went uni together so why not just like harness that in a podcast setting do you know i mean it's quite fun it's sick and i always like i always laugh at myself because like if for example me and you and you probably say yeah just because of the kind of guy that you you are but if i just said hey cal uh let's go for a coffee you probably say yes but like if i didn't really know you you'd be like oh why does he want a coffee with me or whatever right and then when we go for a coffee if i then start like asking deep questions that you ask like on a podcast yeah i oh what about your childhood and like what made what made you into this like savage that you are today you'll be like who's this freak like why is he asking me questions like it's literally 9 a.m in the morning yeah we've got a coffee like why is he why is he having like 2 a.m conversations that you'd have like in a kitchen chat yeah kitchen chat whereas like we can have that on the podcast and uh so i think it's pretty cool and like you say i don't know about you but the amazing people that you get to meet as well bro by doing so much yeah i don't know about you obviously like i feel like with you jake because you've come you're an athlete yourself and you probably have a lot of conversations with people in the kind of training world that you learn a lot of separate from the mind i'm learning as i like on the podcast i'll speak to people yesterday i recorded with holly we both recorded with her yesterday and just her talking to me and like hearing what she has to say about her training and you know her career I'm learning so much as I go, which I take into my own training or take into my own knowledge base.

4:03And it's quite cool because the audience can sort of see that journey as they go with me learning and understanding more about the space. Yeah. And you're going to be like a whiz when it comes to running. I feel like you already are. And I'm going to get into that and pick your brains on what you've learned from, say, other people. But I want to start this book by like going back to when it all started for you, like your fitness journey. Yeah. When did you first get into fitness? Yeah, so I think to be fair, there'll be a lot of people that from your audience that know me for when I was on the Fellas podcast.

4:33So I was there for like three and a half years and I was there on screen producer. So my first six months on that podcast, by the way, Fellas podcast, if you don't know it, it's with two big UK YouTubers, Cal Frizi and Chip. They had this podcast. It was really successful. Like first year of completion, they put an advert out saying they were looking for a new podcast producer. and I was working in that space. I worked kind of like some corporate podcasts and stuff like that. And then I went freelance, was working with the England football team for the Euros one summer. Like it was really sick.

5:04I loved podcast world and I was really kind of like finding that as my niche in life. And that was what I wanted to do. They were hiring, their producer left, top bloke, Alex. He, yeah, I got the job basically. A few people sent me the application and I applied. And then six months into my job, that was November, 2021, six months in, they were like oh so have you heard of the podcast um have a word it's the scouse yeah yeah i let you yeah this is like my guilty pleasure it's so good so cow went on have a word as a guest um and uh he loved the fact that carl the producer was like part of the conversation so he come back and he was like to me how would you feel about like having a microphone and a camera if we ever need to fact check anything or like ever want to just you to chirp in you can and i was like yes sweet let's do it i come from a radio background at uni like i love presenting and I was like, that sounds great.

5:54That's my two loves coming into one. And then we did that. It went down well. I mean, there were people that didn't like it, obviously. You're interrupting two YouTubers that they love listening to each week and there's some random geezer just piping up. I think on that, I think, have a word, I think Kyle got a lot of shit for some times. I remember looking back at the comments. Yeah. But now he's grown into it so much now. He's kind of like a main guest now. and then they've got another producer, like they've got someone else that edits and does all that work. Yeah, Finn and then they've got...

6:28Yeah, they've got a few and it's like, it's a format now. And so I was doing that and I kind of just like built my relationship with the boys where it just became, felt like almost like three mates chatting, especially when we didn't have a guest. It kind of was really, it was so fun because it was just the three of us taking like chatting shit and just, you know, chatting as mates. But then I was like on the side of it, I kind of like started making my own TikTok vlogs around my job and like day in the life's working in that industry people really enjoyed them and obviously like when people have the affinity to a podcast they're like oh I love to see this behind the scenes element did that and then it was January of 2023 you know how you get them like cold dms on um insta saying hey I'm a coach I'd love to like work on the transformation with you it was like the early days of that cold outreach that cold calling and this guy reached out to me called Chris and honestly like big thank you to him actually no Chris was the guy I ended up working with there was another coach that reached out to me and he's like I'm trialing a few creators to see which ones I want to work with had a call with him he didn't end up picking me and I was like mate I'm really keen to do this so can you let me know if there's anyone else keen to work with me Chris came into like came in touch with me and he basically did one of those push pull legs calorie deficit hit the gym try and shred down get a photo shoot booked in for six months time that's that um but it completely changed my life i kind of built new habits i ate better um i got into the gym more i started doing more cardio again like started running on the treadmill um i'd done like a half marathon when i was at uni but like it was almost like i didn't really know what i was doing i just followed a google images plan like literally typed in half marathon plan found one of google images and went off that um so then i kind of found the reload like the love for cardio through that process back in the 2023 started running again um was in pretty good like fitness I'd just done like a charity boxing fight and things like that and um yeah I just felt really good about myself and then 2024 I signed up to Manchester Marathon ran it with Adidas so that was that was my first dip into the marathon world that's that's insane going back to when you got that outreach on Instagram how did you feel as a person then in terms of like confidence levels was you like this guy that was like happy in himself and just wanted to improve or yeah definitely not happy mate I was I found like obviously with work um absolutely loved my job but because it was quite all-encompassing um when you're working in the YouTube world it's still believe it or not fairly new so everyone is kind of working out as they go along but because I loved it so much it was like I'm sure you know Tommy and people like that work with you it's sort of like you do just give your absolute everything to that space and it can take over portions of your life and like for me I massively discarded my health and almost mental well-being you know to no fault of anything it was more just me not knowing how to balance things so I think when that came along it was like right this is a really good thing where I can make sure my mornings uh accommodated to getting in the gym feeling good about myself and i had this like routine i i had this thing again so i'd wake up have my coffee go to the gym like fasted do my workout and then have my um my like breakfast afterwards and then sit at my desk and that was my thing every single day it was like groundhog day but it's the groundhog day that i needed to flick the switch and um yeah i just started becoming just a happier person as well man yeah that's uh that's really cool like you started that how how did you find like first starting was it tough was it hard to get i still find going to the gym quite a daunting experience like even as a content creator i'm terrified to whip my phone and like camera out of me film myself in the gym purely because i'm just like i feel such a novice at it and you know how everyone says you know i'm scared to go on a run and things like that and when you're in the space of running you're like you shouldn't be scared like it's it's an amazing thing but i complete when i do the gym i completely see why people have that feeling towards anything because you kind of have that not imposter but you're like i'm not i'm not really i'm not welcome but it is welcoming but i don't feel welcome if that makes sense no i think uh yeah that's definitely a thing and uh i feel like the more you do something yeah just the the easier it is like you say with running you don't have any any nerves or anything going out to the park or whatever um it's fine to run but like some people will get anxiety just by like going out and running like oh how am i running am i running okay how's my form like are people judging me like when i'm running um same in the gym i feel like uh especially if you go to a commercial gym i think it's probably a little bit tougher because you go in there everyone's got their earphones in no one really says hello to you yeah there's no camaraderie is there that everyone's just cracking on with their own thing and if you're comfortable in your own skin and you don't like speaking to people and you just want to get your work done like it's a perfect place yeah but like if you want in that sense of community i'd always tell people to you know try like a crossfit gym yeah you don't have to do crossfit but like try and just go to like a box or like a an old school gym because that's where people actually speak yeah and you you meet friends and you see regulars every single day and especially if you like say do a class and you go the same time every day you'll have like the same group of people and you'll build like connections and relationships or like i think the gym like you say is a daunting place but i just especially i don't know what it is but like london i feel like there's there are obviously a lot of gyms but like it's not got the same gym culture as like up north or birmingham or the smaller places where the gym culture, people go to the gym more than they run up north, in my opinion.

12:24Whereas down here, I think people run a lot more and I think it's just running is a little bit more accessible. Gym membership's a little bit more expensive here. Yeah, for sure. And like you say, when you go to the gym, it's new people every time. It's not like the same people. It does feel like in London, again, I could be wrong here because I'm not really well versed in the gym space, but it feels like with London gyms, you get either that antisocial kind of headphones in cracking on, which is more me, to be fair, or that community CrossFit, loads of attractive people, tops off, kind of like feels like a mini dating sort of situation.

12:59Yeah, like a run club, like an alternative to like a... Yeah, like an OG run club, how they used to behave when they were kind of like just for the really attractive people all getting together and meeting up, that sort of vibe. It still feels like, I could be wrong, but it still feels like I wouldn't go to a CrossFit class purely because I'm like all the blokes are gonna have their tops off and I would feel like a lemon that's that's still still my feeling and I got a message off a lad the other day which was really like it's great chatting with him and he was saying to me because I've obviously got my wedding in a few weeks I'm I'm stepping in the gym a bit more because I'm wanting to kind of like you know when I've got my top off on the beach I want to feel a bit better in myself like you know um and I'm doing these things that I don't usually do when I'm like running more often and he said oh mate from the outside looks like you're just in a really healthy shape like why are you why are you doing this like make me be a bit careful what you do I was like you know what mate like I feel great in my skin but that kind of relativeness changes over time like I'd look at myself now at the start of 2023 and go god good lad like you got in shape well done but now I'm in it I'm like right well I know I can improve further i know i can get in better shape that can help my running and it can help my overall mental health all of that stuff the line always changes the goalposts just keep moving exactly so yeah although to someone you might look like you're in fantastic nick to you that's might not be the case yeah and sometimes you like say it's good to look back and just be grateful for where you are and how far you've come and i don't think people do that enough no especially like yourself myself like you know like i did a marathon recently and when i crossed that line um didn't achieve the goal that i wanted but i uh i wasn't happy yeah were you disappointed when you got 222 i was disappointed like across that line like i think tom's got it on video like i was fuming really yeah i was fuming when i crossed the line that evening and then like the week after i was like you know what i'm actually proud yeah bro two minutes off it like it's not even like okay obviously to to people that are trying to break 220 that have tried many a time two minutes is like probably to them quite a long way but to you imagine saying to yourself when you've crossed the berlin finish line that you're going to run 222 in like a few years you'll be like yeah no way and even like before that i think uh i think four years ago i was running a 20 minute 5k and then i think the the time it was basically like a low 16 minute 5k for a full marathon that i ran it's insane bro what's your 5k pb now my 5k pb i've not actually run like an official one yeah my official one i think is 16 or 4 okay but i've ran a 10k in 31 minutes so i've actually run it faster you could probably do like your 15s but as you know online there's this thing called the running police and i know it very well off of late mate yeah yeah so you're not allowed to put official and i learned the hard way um of course sorry you mean the official unofficial time yeah yeah so you're not allowed to put your strava time or your watch time it's got to be chip time from a race yeah unfortunately i've not done one yeah so i'm gonna say my pb is 1604 but um fair enough yeah uh but uh yeah so uh continue like like say you uh you've got in shape yeah you started uh training for the marathon yeah uh did you say manchester marathon i did manchester marathon yeah i got it was one of those crazy moments like i spoke about this with holly and about where the kind of the brand stuff began for running and like where it really boomed i was posting videos the back end of 2023 getting izzy into running she had never run before hated the idea of it so i made like an instagram series just basically taking her on a few runs building up to a 5k when we were in new york together and uh the series was like one of these things where i can't remember it getting crazy crazy numbers or anything like that but for some reason it just pushed my page in a way that was like running um brands and stuff started interacting with me which wasn't my intention it was just I was posting something I thought was like quite wholesome and nice and it was a good thing for us to do together and Adidas reached out to me in February of 2024 and they said do you want to run Manchester Marathon with us I didn't have a manager or anything at the time Izzy had a manager because she was content creator long before me and I was like can your manager like help me here like what do I do because it's Adidas I'm like this is such a cool opportunity like let's talk to them and he got in touch with them I worked with Adidas signed up for the race I think I had nine a nine week block which probably wasn't long enough but I didn't kind of like I didn't put any pressure on myself until later on in the block I had Nick Bester as my coach through Adidas so Nick coached me I met up with him a couple times um learned a lot did a lot of my training kind of based off times rather than like um distances so he would set me my long run and be like right go and run for three hours um you know with whatever heart rate it was and it would be that would be kind of like my my training kind of posts and i yeah got over the line in 355 so i would set myself a goal late on of sub four nick was like i think you can do it and then classic i was like i'm going to do it i'm i'm going to make sure that i do it if i don't do it i'll be gutted and i remember hitting 32k in that race and i was like oh this is going to be long and i just remember zombie marching at home um went out at like 525 paces like 525 per k and felt great for like first 30 and then it just suddenly hit me but i look back i'm like got fueling all wrong so if i got fueling correctly i probably could have done like 350 or something but it was sick on that obviously hitting the wall yeah what what do you think hitting the wall do you think everyone hits the wall or do you think it's literally just a fueling thing well no because like exactly year after when you paced me at paris marathon i didn't hit a wall at all mate like it was like there was like 2k from home and you were like right stare at my feet and i felt amazing until that point um but that was the last 2k of a marathon and then you had yeah and then i remember um theo yeah being next to us and he was he was injured at the time yeah but you saw him running next to us fucking running he was injured at the time he was training for boston and uh he uh he was running and he literally ran the last 2k like he's filming us got an id van injury stop um but yeah no sorry going back to your question i think it's all about your prep and um obviously i'm not a nutritionist or anything i've just based off trial and error and what i think would work for me i'm now very much gel every 20 minutes like 24 grams of carbs every 20 minutes in a gel and that seemed to work for me i didn't hit the wall at london i just had a shit race i felt actually probably felt better in the last 10k than i did in like the second 10k i would say maybe um so i think it's all it's all just your personal experience and how you kind of sort of manage your own fueling in a race um again i don't from a from a technical perspective i'm probably not best placed to speak about it but i do think it is trial and error and having that race experience helps so much um yeah no yeah uh and i i think it's interesting that you say that because uh let's let's take it to this year with like the london marathon like the two guys that broke uh two hours which insane insane absolutely crazy but if you look they negative split yeah so when people say oh you know you're bouncing at the wall like well they clearly didn't they went faster in the second half and like say i think it's purely down to fueling i think the science behind it is it is when like when you bonk is when you run out of glycogen so if you stay fueled within the race then you're going to be good my biggest error that I made in the Manchester Marathon was, and the reason I hit the wall, the only reason I bonked actually in Chicago is because I just went out too hot for my fitness.

21:16My heart rate was too high. But separate to that, in Manchester, I didn't take on any gels the first hour. I just didn't start taking gels till one hour in. I thought that was the done thing. I thought, oh, I'll start taking them when I've been running. When you need them, yeah. When I need them, exactly. When actually that's too late so yeah it's almost like try to it's like almost like don't treat an injury when you get the injury like do the prevention stuff yeah to prevent you getting the injury do you take one on the start line a gel on the start line um personally i don't but i carb load like i'm i'm busting i'm so bloated on the start line of a marathon like i'm uh yeah i just i kind of use the days before a marathon it's a carb load but like i've probably been trying to make weight for the marathon so i'm starving so i just use them like two days just to like almost like carb up and i don't have a problem with eating yeah i normally carb up a little bit too much uh and then like say busting at the seams when we hit the start line and then like say every 20 minutes but like i'll have it off 15 to 20 minutes and i try and just have as many as i can without getting a stitch so i don't really think oh i need to get a certain amount of grams of carbs in like if you work it out it's probably anywhere between like 90 and 120 grams of carbs per hour and um i remember going on um ollie march on his podcast and explaining that and back then like i got shit for it because people like know where you can't absorb like 90 to 120 grams of carbs the maximum you can do is 60 to 90 like this is the the studies and now look at like cyclists they're taking on like 150 grams of carbs on the bike um so i just go off field and like eat as much and practice within training i think that's like the main thing as well i don't know if you do that um and then like say every every i work it out like every five kilometers so whatever that is for you that's whatever it's every 16 minutes you in a marathon yeah for me like i don't do it off k's just because i'm like realistically i know the time well yeah yeah i'm aiming to be running so I'm just going every 20 minutes and one at the start line.

23:24Yeah, and I kind of, I actually learned that off, I remember back in the day, I think I went out and did the LA Marathon with the 247 boys and we was pacing George and we were trying to get him a sub three and there was George, there was Olly March on and there's Will Gouge and there was myself and Will was like chief coordinator for everyone to like be having gels and he was so on point with it, like he was looking at his watch, yeah i think he had like a literally an alarm going off every 20 minutes yeah and he was like that on my watch to be fair yeah and he was like george take a gel and he was literally carrying the gels for everyone like george take a gel have a gel and like unfortunately didn't make it and with that marathon um but uh like i just learned from that like you've got to be regimented and you've got to kind of like stay on top and be on top of your one your hydration but two your nutrition and fueling before it gets bad i actually like i spoke about this on my pod i was like in my in the london build-up i was trialing different things and obviously i knew my fueling strategy of 20 every 20 minutes worked actually also in a half marathon this really rogue like few people have said this to me how rogue it is i do i take four gels during a half marathon so i so i did um 129 in barca in feb and i was like i'm just gonna try my marathon nutrition in a half and see what happens so i took one on the start line then every 20 minutes and then obviously you get to 60 minutes and i had half hour left so i then took one at um 10 minutes later so like 110 for the final kick um and yeah so i had four total during a half and it worked charm then did it again for hatney half and it was great um what was i saying what were we saying before that oh just i'm feeling yeah yeah so going back to your carb loading uh question actually um the thing for me is like because the start of 2023 I was 96 kilos and I was pretty overweight but I always have that kind of like I've always had that relationship with food where I'm always going to overeat if I don't stop myself so carb loading for me has in the past gone really badly because I'm like just eating every bit of shit that I can find and it's ruining my stomach because i'm not used to eating that badly but that kind of like excuse my language fat boy instinct comes out of me where i'm like fuck it let's have that donut like all of this stuff and it's quite hard at this london one i just sort of like right clean carbs only yeah no no i is i completely agree with that uh and i've done that in the past so for the advice that people that are kind of like leading up to a marathon half marathon and they're looking to carb load what would you recommend because i feel like that you just said their fat boy instinct but i think that's like the majority of people i'm not saying majority of people have have fat boy instinct but like i feel like after a prep you've been so strict with your prep like you want to eat nice food yeah i'm exactly the same yeah but like what would your advice be for someone who is like just the days leading up to a marathon um all right so obviously i want to preface this with the fact that I'm not a nutrition expert.

26:35However, what's worked for me is in the lead up to Paris, I said I had that issue where I ate kind of too much shit. It caused an issue with my stomach. So what I did was that was the Thursday and the Friday, I started like eating a lot. And then Friday at kind of end of the day, I was like, right, this isn't good. So the set of the Saturday, I ate pretty normally. And I didn't, I just ate more of what I was already eating, not like any extra snacks, really, and stuff. That's probably not great advice however i think it's more just going off what feels right for you and going right don't force yourself to i don't want to say don't force yourself but if you feel like your body isn't isn't coping with it well it's almost like it's probably a sign that it's not good for you i don't know that's just me personally i felt i got a sign before paris that this wasn't a good idea so i pulled it back and then ended up being absolutely fine on race day um whereas this year as i said i just focused on the clean carbs thing so just extra white rice um or you know a bigger bowl of porridge or you know an extra bagel things like that i was just doing those additions rather than getting cocoa pops are great but apart from that i wasn't really adding extra sugary stuff that's got calories in because isn't it calories doesn't always you shouldn't go for extra calories isn't it during carb loading yeah what's the for me i'd say like doubling your carbohydrate source in just the meals that you're already having and if you think about the week leading up to a marathon you're doing so much less volume than what you normally have but you're still going to have the appetite of what you had the week prior normally where you maybe you're running you know 60 70 miles or whatever it is uh that you're running but your your miles might have been halved the week of so if you just eat the same you're naturally going to carb up yeah because you've been eating like you would be if you was running extra volume but uh i think the calories shouldn't really change that much just your like your macronutrients should change so a nutritionist explained this to me and they were explaining that the on race weekend for like a marathon and the prep leading up to it it's probably going to be the unhealthiest period of your whole prep.

28:48Yeah. Because you're not, you shouldn't be bothered about whole foods. You shouldn't be bothered about getting healthy fats in high protein, all these things that we need. Like they were like for the weekend building up to the marathon. All that matters is we get our carbohydrates stores high and then everything else is just added weight that's going to be sitting around in your system. So say for example, the night before a marathon, don't go out for a big steak. Yes, it's high protein, but you've got fats in there and you don't really need them for the marathon. And that's just going to be laying around in your stomach.

29:18And steak takes a while to digest. Sometimes it can take 48 hours to get out of your system, 24 to 48 hours. So you want foods that are easily digestible. You don't want fiber, which again, you'd want fiber every day of your life normally. But fiber is just indigestible carbohydrate. So if it's indigestible, it's not usable. And yes, it's good for bowel movements. But again, you don't want that. You don't want your bowel movements to be that good. Yeah, you don't want them good. So we need like easy digestible carbohydrates. So I kind of just take out the proteins, take out the fats, and then just add extra carbohydrates.

29:58And then I think Hugo does a great example. I know he's like sponsored by them and stuff like this, but do you know, he just has rice and honey the night before. And that is just carbs on carbs. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I did. I did rice. I've been doing like rice a lot more this block. The only thing I will say is I enjoy the kind of volume you get from rice. If I'm just going off a statistic basis, the good sessions and good races I've had have been fueled by sourdough toast or bagel. When I've used rice in the morning of, I think for whatever reason, it might be too much carbs for me. because I've not had like a bad session, but I've not had a good session compared to the bread sauce, let's say.

30:48However, it could just be luck. I think as well, it's just something different from you. Every day you're not going, like that's the thing as well. And it's all, everything's a trade-off. Yes, you want maximum carbohydrates, but you also don't want things so different to what the norm is because that's going to stress your body out. And like you eating rice for breakfast, when do you eat rice for breakfast? exactly yeah yeah you don't really do it yes you could say rice krispies like that's made of rice but like it's completely different so like if you have sourdough normally and you might have like eggs on sourdough or whatever it is like if you just have the sourdough and maybe have some jam on or whatever then that's going to be more normal for you and your body and it's like not stressing you out i definitely think that plays a part of that because it almost feels like all this is an abnormal element that i'm i'm having rice breakfast whereas like as you said like you have for breakfast most days the um uh the thing with uh as well like pre-race i always feel like i get in my own head anyway so i'm like if i can just distract myself with normality that's probably the best thing um although like with the night before like rice without a shadow of a doubt like i'll eat loads of white rice the night before i just think having tried it over this block i think maybe the morning of a session or the morning of a race.

32:09I don't know if it works for me. I'm going to keep testing it, but I think maybe... Yeah, man. And if you look at the micronutrients between sourdough and rice, there's not that much difference. Yeah. They're both very high carb sources, low fat, low protein-ish. But if you look at all athletes and all the athletes, whenever they travel, the number one tip they have is try and make their surroundings like a home away from home. Yeah. So you'll see people, they'll take the PS5 away with them and they'll be playing games the night before. That's why footballers do it. Yeah, and they try and have this set up.

32:45Everyone says, oh, get an Airbnb instead of a hotel room if you can. If it's affordable, normally it's a little bit cheaper anyway. But if you can do that, then it feels more homely. You can cook your own breakfast. You can have everything that you'd have at home, but away from home and then that just like I don't know it's just a little bit more calming and that's like the number one tip that most people have so whenever traveling like that's that's one thing that I've started to do and it is just so much better like you just feel so much more relaxed and I think getting to the start line as relaxed as possible is the best way like you'll probably admit like the the races that you can walk to or like get a taxi to you probably perform better than if you've had to travel halfway across the world to compete or whatever and and that's just because like say you you you sleep better and stuff like that like the studies about sleeping um with like sleeping in hotel rooms compared to like uh you know your own home and like i don't know if you ever look at like i i wear whoop but uh i look at my hrv every time i I sleep in a hotel and like my HRV is in a bin.

33:58Really? I'm on. I was saying this because we were talking about the optimization stuff. I wear my whoop usually actually. It's just on charge currently. But the only stat I really look at when I'm outside of a block is just my recovery in the morning. That's it. So I'm kind of like I haven't delved as deep as I could. But like when I'm training, it's crazy how like when I've had like a good week and I feel on top of the world fitness wise, I look at my HRV and it's like sky high. and it's so strange how that kind of like that number directly correlates to my feeling and fitness uh almost in a way um yeah everyone's different yeah yeah it is sick it's just uh i don't like to look at it when i'm feeling like shit i know you should do and sometimes it's like a kind of backup for me like looking at the data if i feel like shit i'll look at my whoop and if my whoop uh is telling me like i've had shit recovery as well then i'll probably do some Am I right in saying before you did Berlin Marathon that your recovery was like red?

34:57It was like 14%. Yeah. Why was that, do you think? I think just staying in a hotel. Yeah. I'd done a big travel stint as well. I think the week prior, I'd flown back from Cape Town. Have you been to Cape Town before? No, never. So it's so long. From Manchester as well. So I flew back to Manchester, which there's no direct flight. So you've got to fly to Heathrow and then fly on. So it's like a 15-hour trip. and then I think it was overnight as well which overnight flying for me like I'd rather fly in the day yeah I know you waste a day but at least then you get a good night's sleep by the side and then I had to fly to Berlin and then so I think that was just you know too much travel travel fucks me up more than anything but you still like hadn't like racing your life though I think um so do you think it's sometimes it's like it's a bit more kind of mind over matter I think so I definitely think so I think within training you've got to listen to it I think when it gets to race day like potentially I know people I know athletes that just take it off and don't look at it at all like at the end of the day you've got to compete yeah like you're there if you're injury free you're competing no matter what you're not going to compete if you if you feel like shit you're not going to just like oh I'm not I'm not running today like you're going to do it no matter what next 5k full send I do I might do it without a watch I just wanted to see how I can do it or based off feel.

36:19Would you listen to music? During a five, like full send? Yeah. Or not? Or would you like just want to be like paced? I don't know because every 5k I've done I just hated my life for that 20 minutes. So I'm like, I don't know. What is your 5k PB at the moment? 19, well, okay. It's 1916. However, it's Parkrun. So I went through, my mate paced me, I went through the finish line before him but my watch wouldn't pause so I stopped faffing I stopped and faffed around with it so he walked in front of me and took the place card in front of me so he got 1915 right I got 1916 but I think we swapped but I mean it's a second difference so around 1916 but I think it was quite there was um it was in pool park so there was like a real big headwind off like a this pond and it just batters you for like 400 meters I remember being absolutely ripped after that and going I'm done and there's no way I'm even I'm breaking 20 today and then pulled it back.

37:16And I was thinking if I didn't get that headwind, I think I was in sub 19 shape. So yeah, I think now with my fitness, if I give myself a couple of weeks tune up, I think I could try and aim for like 1845, 1830 maybe. Are you going to get a pacer for that? Do you think? Yeah, I think so. But then again, I'm sort of like, if I've got a pacer and I know they're going to kind of ballpark me, if I don't wear a watch, I'm just going to just try and just go based off feel. Yeah. Having a pacer that if they, if you say like, look go out of this yeah and then you just try and yeah i haven't raced the 10k in years i actually got i a part of obviously that like the stick that i was getting for the london marathon stuff some people were saying oh he was trying to go for sub three and he's never even broke 40 minutes of the 10k i haven't tried to do a 10k since like 2024 so it's like for me i was like right next thing i do i want to like make a i've got now what like just under a just over a month until the Sokney 10k so I'm going to do that race and try and get sub 40.

38:16I should be calm but we'll see. Every half marathon I've done since I won the last well Barcelona and Hackney I've 10k PB'd in both half marathons. What is your PB for the half? According to my Strava actually no so chip time half marathon I think it was like 42 or something. So that's for 10k sorry for half? For the half 128.60 128.60 yeah okay okay cool okay cool and then obviously and we'll move on to recently yeah the London thing but I want to take you back to Paris yes because we ran it together mate that was such a fucking blessing I was so grateful for you for that no it was sick it was like one of the best experiences ever like I didn't realise how like fulfilling it is to be a pacer and I think there's so something like there's something about pacing someone and them getting the time that they get and you help them achieve that.

39:15It's just sick. And there was no better person to pace. Thank you so much. It was good. And you was locked in, so fucking locked in for it all. And I remember there was times where you were struggling and I was like, yeah, put some music in, put your favorite track on, listen to that and literally just sped up. Yeah. It was crazy. You know what it was? Because the day before the shakeout, I was like, I'm aiming for sub 330 and then you looked at my Strava and I look now knowing more than I, you know, what I do now, I look back at that Strava session that you would have analysed and go, yeah, no wonder he thought I had a faster time in me because these like marathon pace blocks that I was doing in my training, my heart rate was like 165 during those blocks.

39:59And I remember it feeling good. And looking back at that now, it's like, right, well, that felt good. So surely if my heart rate it was 165 I had more in me on the day and that's when you kind of like we ran together and you were like let's go out at 450 and see how it feels and we ended up like I think for the first 10k we were doing like 442s and we were so sound and you kept turning to me going are you good and I was like yeah I'm fine you one thing that stuck with me is you said your breathing sounds good I think you're good and um every race I've done since that I've always gone back to that little soundbite you said to me and if my breathing feels off or i kind of like sound visibly exhausted i'm like i'm probably not in a good spot right now um half marathon you can muddle your way through but in a marathon i think it was like 12k into london i was like my breathing's fucked i'm having i'm gonna have an awful day here and it was based off the fact of my previous experience with you where it wasn't until like 37k i think when i started struggling um during but even then that's when you realize is like, you've got the dog in you because you kind of like pushed through and you just dug deep.

41:08You didn't slow. You didn't do anything. Like you said, look, I'm struggling. And we just kind of went for it. It was like, literally, it's 5K to go. You've come this far. You kept eating cake, mate. You got a stitch from eating too much cake in the Paris Marathon. Yeah. I tell you what, that was the, it was the maddest experience ever. I've never been on a course, a marathon course, where all they feed you is cake. I don't think there were any gels. There weren't any, there was nothing apart from cake. God, the French are mental. Have you seen what they did this year? The water guns. The water guns.

41:39So daft. So, John, obviously in London. Yes. You, the aim was sub three. Yeah. So, I set a goal to myself at the start of January. I was doing London. I was like, right, I want to really push myself. And, you know, people can go and see this in the first video I made about it. and set myself a goal that is incredibly ambitious. And the chances of me hitting it are quite unlikely. But the idea was if I push myself, shoot for the moon, fall amongst the stars, and, you know, essentially push myself really hard and hope that as a result, I can get, you know, a good time off the back of it. I went through my training.

42:19I was for 16 weeks, I averaged close to 60 kilometers with a peak week of 90K. So my volume increase compared to Paris last year, even Chicago last year was massive for me. And I was pushing myself far beyond where I've ever pushed myself before. I was incredibly focused on my training and it was going really well. And basically what I do is because you know how with runner, I use runner for this block. I had you get your time sort of predictions. And my time prediction was between 2.59 and 3.07. So I knew that getting sub three was really, really top end of what's possible. It would require the perfect block and the perfect day.

43:03However, I just chugged along my block and things were going really well. And like I was gaining good fitness and the paces I was pushing were, you know, were good. But because I didn't have that previous experience of trying to go for sub three, I just sort of, you know, had that idea of I'll see what's possible. And hopefully something good can come off it, even if it isn't sub three, it's a sub three ten or sub three or five. But I would kind of still push myself to that level. And yeah, I started the block with a bit of an injury, had a IT band problem, which I navigated through, which shout out to my physio.

43:39look he honestly like it was a master class from him the plan that he gave me lots of incline running on the treadmill um you know sort of some outside um incline running all of that sort of stuff and that helped me he physioed me so well and i got back pretty much to full running was it kind of just uh i know a lot of people suffer with it but yeah what was the strategy like running on yeah what was the session so i i got it because i hadn't strength trained since chicago marathon which was october uh before october so end of september and then through december i was running trying to up my mileage to kind of build a base to go into the london block christmas happens everyone's drinking loads i got ill over christmas um was kind of continuing running here but my Strava graph was like that.

44:31So it was all fluctuating. And then 1st of January hits, I go on a 20K easy with a couple of my mates and my IT band, like my knee just starts really hurting. I'm like, oh my God, what is this? Anyway, I was like stretching out my like hip flexor and my glute would stretch, would go away. So I'd keep running. Then it would happen again. I was like, right, okay, I'm calling it here. Went home. And then I went to the physio. It's like, it sounds like your IT band, like it's IT band syndrome. so essentially he put me on the treadmill not on the treadmill sorry he he moved me about and things like that and then he set me some exercises in the gym there's a lot of quad focus a lot of um hip flexor focus strength work so i was doing loads of hip thrusts that's been my absolute like same working so it's a working the front side and then backside glutes yes yeah yeah and then uh single leg extensions yep um those were the two main kind of sort of like targeted weights that I was doing.

45:27And then single leg RDLs as well. Did a bit of Stairmaster in there as well, just to kind of get the glutes going, also a bit of fitness and things like that. And then he just set me kind of small short sessions on the treadmill where I put the incline up to like 3%. And then I'd try it with two. Would it be like running fast or would it like just easy running? It would be like an easy run at 3 % incline. And then the final incline session he set me was like a speed session on incline on the treadmill. That was, I say speed session, it was like a 4.30 pace sort of thing. So it was like... But incline, that's tough.

46:08It was so hard. My heart rate was like 190. It was mental. And that was that point I was like, to be honest, there's no chance that I was like in a good place to get sub three. so I actually kind of like sort of made kind of peace with the fact that I'm gonna still try it and still kind of aim towards that goal like I'm a huge advocate because I've done like literally exactly what what you've done where like again I'm a huge advocate of making your goals like stretching your goals so far that they become scary and you don't genuinely don't know on that start line you don't know whether you're going to hit them or not yeah and if that is the case then what is the worst that can happen you fall a little bit short but that's still potentially a pb yeah it's still going to be better than if you set a really reserved goal because if you set say what was your pb before this 323 right so 323 if you uh said i want to go three three three yeah 315 or 320 for example he was like i want to break 320 uh but you've been running for an entire year you'd be like oh i'll be able to do that in the back of your mind you'd be like i'll be able to do that that then kind of like snowballs and you're like ah well i don't really need to train that hard because yeah yeah i've i know that i'm gonna hit it for sure man and then when that happens you then relax on your training and then you don't have the optimal block whereas if you set a goal that's so like almost scares you and you put it out there online so like you're like shit, I need to do everything that I can possibly do to achieve that goal.

47:45For sure. And then even then, if I do everything, I don't know whether I'm going to hit it. But then, you know, at the end, you can hold your hands up and say, look, I've done fucking everything that I can to try and achieve this goal. And if I fall short, I fall short and fair play. Well, that's it, man. I was like, I set myself a big challenge and I ticked off all the sessions. I did all the sessions. I think my biggest detriment to my confidence going into the race and made me feel and also as well, the people that followed me and like people that know what they're talking about running, who all went on that journey with me.

48:16I had very few people during that 16 week period where I was posting onto YouTube every single week, 30, 40 minute vlogs of my training weeks going, very few people went, mate, there's no chance you're going to do this, pack it in, like, stop, stop, like set your, set your examples lower. I maybe had about three or four people over the whole 16 weeks say it. And then obviously I speak to people that know what they're talking about and they all kind of look at my sessions and go yeah you're moving in the right direction or whatever i then have my big indicator session which was three times uh three times 6k at marathon pace so i was aiming for 414 um and then was like a 445 paced float or something so along those lines for 34k and i did that did the first one 414 second was 412 third block was like 4.11 or 4.10 or something like that and I progressed I got quicker but my heart rate stabilized and I had Alfie on the pod and Alfie actually referenced this in another podcast recently and during that session my heart rate stabilized at like 1.73 so even in my quickest 6k block my heart rate leveled out and he was like that's a good indicator that your body was all right at that pace so if I was to have run that session that you did for three four weeks out or whatever it was to London I would feel confident of doing it and from that point I was like Alfie someone I like respect so much and he has such a knowledge base I was like that's really interesting I was like okay let's just give it a crack let's just go for it and so then I went and spoke to Anya obviously um one of the coaches at runner and I was like I don't want to make the mistake that I did at Chicago where I went out too hot and completely ruined my day so she was like right let's try and negative split this then and you just kind of work because the progression worked during that that long run session let's start off slow and trying to build into it and then i think the biggest bit of confusion and bit of biggest bit of grief i got was based off the fact that i didn't run a single kilometer at sub three pace but a lot of people are failing to understand that the plan all along was to not hit sub three pace until i was about 15k in anyway so it might have been a bit earlier than that but regardless i went out of the race and my heart rate instantly was like 182 and i was running a 425k and i was like well i don't know what's going on here i don't feel good at all and i think i had almost like in a way a mini panic attack from working myself up too much and my heart rate just skyrocketed i amped up myself too much and put a bit too much pressure on myself so then i was at that point i was like right let's just stick at this pace for 10k see how i feel didn't improve if anything started to feel worse and then i was just like right we're just gonna have to try and salvage it the way so we can and the fact that you actually just like you did you started a marathon didn't feel great and you got through it like that so much respect like i give you so much respect from that because at the end of the day like with a marathon and i say this all the time like there's so many fucking things that can go wrong yeah like it's not just uh one it's like a true reflection on fit like running as a thing is like a true reflection on fitness so yeah you've got your block to back it up you as fit but if you had an illness that you might not even know about like you know either the week before or on the day like that's going to affect you yeah the sleep the week prior maybe stress the week prior and these are all things that like you can control to an extent but then on the day london was super hot everyone bonked yeah like everyone was was off their time i do think i definitely wasn't sub three shape by yeah by a mile and i think i'd lured myself into this full sense of security and thinking that i not was but there was a chance if you got people people around you and like i'm not gonna lie if i if i was alfie if i was anya like i'd fucking big you up because the last thing that you need like a couple of weeks out even if even if that session you did worse that session to me like say i agree with them yeah but like right now yeah but like For someone to say you're not going to hit it two weeks out, that's not good.

52:26Even if they want to fucking big you up as well. Because you need confidence. Because if you don't believe it, then you've got 0 % chance. I do think there's an element of this almost recency bias, which we see so much in social media, that it's like you don't see something during the whole trajectory of it. Like forget, forget about my ability to run sub three for a second. I put myself on the internet, document the whole journey. By the way, my vlogs aren't even just about running. I'm showing my life. I'm documenting this whole process. And through that thing, you're not there for the journey.

53:03But then as soon as someone fails to reach a goal, you're there to jump on them and to basically just kick them whilst they're down. Like I actually felt fine the following day. I was like, it is what it is. Like, I'm just going to have to work harder. I'm going to have to get fitter. I've got to get a better race experience. I've got to push myself more. I've got to change my next block. I was very reflective and I was like, motivated. Yeah, I was like, cool, man. Let's do it again. I'm fine. It was then some guy made a video about me that like, I don't want to give it the time of day, but I commented because he called me a liar.

53:34And I was like, at that point, I was like, this is not what this is about. I'm here showing my journey from someone who has gone from 96 kilos working behind the desk of a podcast to document my running journey and showing this kind of, this gradual improvement that I've been doing, bringing people on that journey with me. And I'd like to think I've inspired some lads that have not believed in themselves and not felt great in themselves. I'm like, I look at that and go, this is just someone seeing one failure and forming an opinion off that failure and vocalizing it to the world. Other people see it and then use their platforms to chat shit.

54:11And they, you know, kind of build this sort of negativity echo chamber. And I'm like, it's just so counterproductive. Like, but you know what? It's, if anything, it's inserted the fire into me and I'm hopefully going to do Valencia in December. So, you know, whether it's sub-free or not sub-free, I still have learned so much from this block and I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about the space that we work in. And it's cool, man. Like it's part of life. It's learning. And you know what? I guarantee you've inspired so many people because with a marathon, like I say, so many factors can go wrong.

54:45I'd probably say, and this is just a statistic that is in my head, I don't know if it's true or not or whatever, but there's probably, if you think about it, there's probably 50 % of people that do a marathon, it goes their way and they get the time and they PB or they get the time that they wanted. And there's probably 50 % of people that probably fall a little bit short because there's so many things that go wrong. yeah um you're going to be so motivational and aspiring for them people that because you've just done it yeah like you did a marathon you ran a marathon and it didn't go your way but you're still going to get up and go and attempt it again yeah and one day you're going to get that sub three yeah like how motivated is that to them people yeah that are in the exact same position as you like it's yeah and at the end of the day like uh you know you you fail so much more than you win yeah for sure man in life in everything like it's just it's like when we ran paris together that race was literally like the perfect race like it couldn't have gone better for me and i look at that and go i learned so many great things from that amazing experience but equally i learned so much from when i went out in chicago and thought way too highly of myself yeah and set this self You learn more.

56:01I bet you learn more. I learn so much. And okay, people can say, oh, I didn't learn this lesson from Chicago. But I did. I honestly, like I found there's so much, there's so much power in like, being humbled and like being beaten down by something you're working hard towards, because it just makes you want it more. And like, for me, I'm not, I'm not an athlete. I'm not someone that's going to ever earn money from like, placing in a race. I'm someone that loves document the journey i'm a content creator i love making content man like that's the thing that's my bread and butter so if i can take people on that journey and show i was here and now i'm here that's like the the best thing for me and bringing the people on that journey with me and hopefully as you said it inspires a few people so yeah look it is what it is man i think it's sick so uh in regards to that what's the next goal for you so in terms of fitness goals i want to um I'm kind of trying to tick off like a few different bits during the summer I want to just improve a 10k time 5k time um and then hopefully uh Valencia in December so you're gonna try hit Valencia yeah fast course yeah feeling good you'll have like less crowds as well um that's something that I found really quite a lot I found the crowds a lot of London yeah there's nowhere to hide yeah it's hard yeah that's sick it's kind of good as well yeah oh bro but like Like people, I think Alfie was saying this, he was saying like how overstimulated he felt on that course.

57:29And it was like by like the time of like 35K, like he was just like fried. Yeah. Like with, but yeah, I feel like you can use the crowds to your advantage. And like sometimes maybe it is too much for some people. It depends what kind of person you are. I also as well, mate, like you definitely would have found this from your kind of like transition from the gym world into running. It's like you learn so much and every block you do is a good learning experience. And for me, the London block, I've learned so much of what worked and what didn't work. And I'm like, cool, now I know going to the next one, what I can do better, how I can kind of work on my own personal development as well as my running development and all of that, man.

58:13I think you get so many lessons in social media when things go badly. I say badly in inverted commas, you know what I mean. when things don't go the way that you'd want that it's almost like those lessons those negative lessons are almost as good as the positive lessons and I do genuinely like love it and I find it's super motivating when things don't go my way so yeah no it is good have you got any way of of dealing with like say the criticism on socials do you need thick skin to be a content creator Definitely. But I came from a YouTube world where it's like, you know, them YouTube audiences, they don't hide if they have an opinion of you.

58:55So to be fair, my sort of like baptism into the space was baptism of fire. Like I had, you know, working at Fellas and we had such a laugh, man. A clip popped up recently of like one of the clips that we did back in the day. And I just think back to like the interactions that we had between the three of us and how fun that was. And then how there were certain audience members that just like they loved it. but then certain audience members didn't like it and I look back at going like you know what that's fine everyone's gonna like you and it's like all that matters is the people who um who you need to kind of uh keep in like I don't know what's the correct way of saying it so for example the only two people that really kind of like mattered that you know I built a good relationship with at that time with cow and chip and then hoping that the audience were would grow with us and like they did so the negative one's almost like you see it but you're like it doesn't actually benefit anything because it's not going to change anything if that makes sense the negativity so i kind of look at it as now as if i get negative opinion about my content i just trust that i'm doing what i believe in and almost if you don't look at it it doesn't exist so there's so many people that go looking for hate about themselves and like i'm i if i don't see it like it doesn't it doesn't exist because it's not real.

1:00:12They're not real people. They are real people, but they're not real people speaking to you. They're just people on a screen. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's a good way of thinking about it. I think Theo Baker told me that one. I remember I got a stick for something and he messaged me. He was like, he actually voice-noted me. He was like, Cal, ignore it. Just remember, they're not real. He's the king. He's the king of dealing with hate, that guy. And I've got so much love for Theo and he's given me so much advice over time. And yeah, I remember him saying that to me and he was like, yeah, mate, it's not real.

1:00:42just pretend it's not there. I was like, yeah, cool. No, that's class. Yeah. So they're kind of like your goals physically and then obviously you've got some big things coming up. Getting married, man. How are you feeling for it? Mate, I'm buzzing. I'm kind of similar to you in a way. I've been with Izzy since I was at school. So how long have you and Emily been together? Yeah, so we first met each other in school, secondary school. So we was in the same year and stuff, same classes, but got together at 17. Yeah, so 17 exactly when I met Izzy. Well, I got together with Izzy. And yeah, 11 and a half years later, we're getting married.

1:01:19So that's going to be amazing. I'm just like sort of the final bits of planning now. I was yesterday writing my speech and stuff. The nerves kicking in? You know what? I was writing my vows and I was like tearing up and I was like, fuck man, how am I going to do this in front of like 100 guests? I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to do this without just like crying my eyes out. But so yeah, got that. Definitely want to, we've got our run club as well together, which is, we absolutely love it. We've built such an amazing community there. And yeah, stay in it, London, if you want to check it out.

1:01:52So stay in it, London. Where do you meet? In Hackney Downs, a place called Brunswick Coffee, which is a coffee shop. Is it a certain day of the week? Saturday mornings, 9am. And then we also, for the summer, bringing back track nights we did last summer, which was good fun. um might have to ask Alfie to set us a few sessions for that yeah but no love love the run club uh we're building it's great um and for me man just like with the podcast just keep learning keep getting new guests on that I'm I aspire to be like you know people that I can kind of take tidbits of knowledge to put into my own life and you know learn with the audience there's people I think the biggest thing for me as a content creator I love putting myself in the shoes of the audience and it's like i'm such a nosy person so i think imagine if i was listening on the other end what would you want to ask exactly and i like putting myself in that spot so yeah keep growing the pod um keep growing my youtube channel i'm like trying to be more as consistent as possible i've got my brother-in-law working for me now which is really good fun oh that's sick that's uh that's pretty good that you say you can take on that team around you exactly man um you have like that close knit keep growing the team in some way um and yeah man just keep chugging along and um hopefully one day we'll get that sub free no you'll definitely get that but um uh curious uh with the podcast obviously you've been going for quite a while now yeah you're smashing it come to a year i think now yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna probably steal this from like you could have done this on your podcast but i'm gonna ask you like what what are the three things that you've learned most from guests oh okay um or interesting things that oh okay so my good friend hugo one thing he's taught me and i'm gonna give him credit for this because i'm very appreciative of him for this for a while i thought that on social media i should try and be something that i'm not and that's when i left fellas because on fellas i was like just being myself on the podcast and stuff and when I was like left I was like right now I'm doing it on my own I feel like I need to potentially you know up the quality or be a bit more serious and a bit more kind of like against kind of move against who I am really and then since meeting Hugo like last summer and we've like you know spent so much time together and being on that content journey with him he's taught me that it's good to be yourself and I think it's really valuable to be yourself so i guess from hugo's he's taught me that being myself is a superpower and i need to just embrace that so thankful to him for that i would say um from who i think recently had dr mimi on i learned a lot about that's a great episode by the way oh thank you appreciate it it was um it was so interesting hearing from her about the kind of mechanics behind our bodies and how easy it is really to just work out what we need and to keep us ticking over.

1:04:49I think overcomplicating things is our biggest enemy in this space. And I think sometimes all it boils down to is keeping it simple and just working out that it's not the most complex of formulas or training methods. It's just showing up and, you know, doing things the right way. I think that's a big thing that I've learned. And also as well, from, I guess, just, I guess, from the audience as well, probably the most important part, what I've learned is having that human connection with your audience is the most important thing you can do as a podcaster like we see so much now of this pseudo intellect podcast world where they're all trying to kind of like perpetuate a view that they think people need and sometimes all people need is just like a voice in the area that sounds like their mate in a way and it's like we're all human beings we're all just living on the same spinning rock we might as well just be as normal as possible with each other without speaking down to people or trying to get them to behave a certain way just to make you money like ultimately we're all doing it for the first time let's just yeah we're all winging it let's just big each other up and just enjoy life man you know yeah no i think that's quite fulfilling and uh like i say i i'm the biggest fan of the podcast and i love like just the catch-ups you have with like hugo and like you just feel like you're part of the conversation yeah it's almost like uh like old school joe rogan how that used to be where like yeah you just you feel like you're at the table without dodgy guests yeah yeah yeah um but um yeah just in the running space and being obsessed with uh kind of like fitness which we all are let's be honest but i think it's a really cool space uh to be in i've got a couple of quick fire questions go for it um what's your worst habit

1:06:45I'm going to have to bring in Izzy for this, aren't I? Yeah. I'm just thinking of Izzy here. What does she moan at you for the most? Providing a solution rather than just sitting with a problem. She'll provide me something that she's unhappy about. And I will try and immediately fix it rather than just let her be angry about it. I'm so bad for that. So I'm getting better at that. I think that's just like a men's mentality, isn't it? It is. Just that fight. Unfortunately, yeah. But like sometimes you've just got to agree with them. Yeah. Like they're like, oh, this girl or this thing's like, this girl's a bitch.

1:07:21And you've just got to say, yeah, she is. And you can't just say, oh, like just make friends with them or do whatever. In our family, like my sister-in-law, she calls it hectoring. So there was a TV character or something where his whole personality was basically agreeing, playing devil's advocate almost and agreeing with the person that they're slagging off. And it's like, oh, he's hectoring again. so that's what we call it yeah no that's that's class um do you cook at home yes i know i know obviously izzy's yeah great yeah she's good cook but what would your meal if you was you know if you was in the bad books and you're trying to cook is he a nice meal well what we're doing so obviously she's like plant-based so like there wouldn't be any meat but like one thing that we love is like a fennel sausage pasta so obviously like made with meat-free sausages but like um like a really like creamy sausage pasta dish like rigatoni or something with like fennel like onions all that sort of stuff just like a really like hearty pasta dish i love cooking pasta stuff if i'm cooking for myself it's a steak without shadow without steak yeah yeah amazing well we're coming around for the first state night love it mate love it class um if you could do any running event in the world uh-huh like what's on the top of your bucket list now we're talking we're talking marathon majors it could be like a specific place or it could be like uh the speed project or it could be something crazy yeah i think i would probably do so my dad's side of the family are bermudian right um i remember anya did it last year did the bermuda marathon apparently it's really really hard but I just want to go over and try it because it's like you know home home sort of nation sort of thing that would be really cool um obviously the goal is one day qualify for Boston to run that that for me is like my Olympus for now is like get that sub three and then it's like targeting that Boston qualification like for me I just think to go from where I was and my kind of sort of physical ability to then one day running Boston Marathon would be like the greatest achievement that I could do in this space.

1:09:36That's sick. That's definitely the goal. Yeah, the goal, Boston Marathon. Yeah. That's a good one. I think that's a really good one. I've actually stole this off Sam Grith. He asked me this in the car the other day uh if you had a door in your house that could teleport you to anywhere in the world but it could only go to that place yeah and that place only where would that place be so say you walk through your your bathroom door and you you could be on a beach somewhere you could be in a city somewhere where would it be i think i would teleport myself to my dad's old porch in Bermuda overlooking the harbour because I that was my first holiday with Izzy that we did the first big holiday together we'd like gone like interrailing around Europe this was our first like transatlantic holiday went and see my dad and his partner in Bermuda I just remember waking up first morning sitting out having a coffee on his porch overlooking the Bermuda like the harbour where he lives I just thinking this is just like the best place in the world I think that's in this If you were to say right now, walk through that door, it would be to that place.

1:10:46Oh, class. And you can go back and forth. Yeah, I think that would be cool. It's sad because my grandma who lived in Bermuda, she's now living in a home near my dad. So she's no longer in Bermuda. So I've got no family over there now. But definitely need to go back soon. It's been too long. Is that a good place where you recommend going? Oh, mate, it's amazing. It's super expensive, but an incredible place. I remember Izzy was so taken aback. we went to the like supermarkets everything's pretty much imported and it was like 11 for a loaf of bread and we were like this is so stupid like you can't sustainably visit it and live there you have to work in it because the i think the salaries are higher for people that live there yeah oh no that's amazing yeah i remember speaking to sam about that and he was like trying to play the game so he asked that question he was like well what if i chose an airport lounge or something like that so then i can transport to anywhere a little bit quicker yeah you can't do that it's like cheating where would you go um we were talking about this i think hawaii okay so like a beach in hawaii just because it's like one of the first of all one of the best places i've ever been yeah it's incredible um you've got beaches you've got mountains uh beautiful weather uh but it's also like i think it's like four and a half hours from la then it's six hours from like japan and then i think it's like six hours from australia or new zealand or something like that so it's like all them places that like you'd love to go to and i know you mentioned that you're uh you might be doing a little trip yeah to for your honeymoon yeah to new zealand new zealand australia i think that's like a place where like you can get to other places as well but it's just like the most relaxed place on the planet but it's a 24-hour uh gig to get there yeah it's so far for us to go to Hawaii.

1:12:35But it is cool. And yeah, there's loads of like turtles and shit. It's just, it's just mad. Yeah. But yeah, that's a cool place. And then final question. What do you see yourself doing in like the next 10 to 20 years? Oh, right. Well, I definitely at some point want to first and foremost be a dad. I think actually that's, that's an interesting one because Izzy and I, we've spoken about kids and we've very much been we both have the same mentality is is he's not one of these people that's like i want to be a mom so badly she's very much like i want to start a family when it's right to start a family and recently we were kind of like we absolutely love our nieces and nephews but every time we spent time with them we're like that's a lot man that's a lot like it's great to give them back oh mate brilliant bring him in the back um but every time like i'm I'm a long way off that.

1:13:30And we both had this same kind of thing recently. It's like, what if one day we never feel ready to have kids? And, you know, there is a possibility that happens. But in this situation, let's say we both go, you know, we want to become parents. I'd love to be a good dad, you know, a present dad, someone that inspires my kids. I guess that's the first and foremost thing. I also want to know that in the podcast space, I imagine you feel similar. You feel like you've made an impact and you've made a positive one and I definitely want the podcast to keep growing I want to potentially think of ways that we can kind of do stuff off the podcast that goes back to my my day job of you know running podcasts and things like I'm working in production and thinking of ways that I can create that sort of as a as a new business I guess um content world I want to keep growing with my audience I want them to come along with the journey with me and not necessarily stay in the running obviously i absolutely love running but like um my content as well like you know showing a training series towards a race but also at the same time showing something a bit more kind of uh life focused as well and having that connection with my audience where i can kind of you know show show what makes me tick yeah that's cool man yeah thank you cal thank you for thank you for having me it's been a brilliant chat no i i really appreciate it and we'll catch up soon.

1:14:52Come on mine. Yeah, I need to come on yours. We'll organise that and we'll get that sorted out. Mate, thank you so much. Appreciate you.