Theo Baker - #35

0:00Theo Baker, welcome to the podcast. Hello. Good to... Oh, no, I've messed up already. I was going to say thanks for having me. You wouldn't think I'd do this for a living. We're going to keep going anyway. For the people that don't know who you are, would you just be able to sum yourself up in a couple of words? I am primarily a YouTuber. I have been doing it for like 12 years. 12 years? Yeah. Fuck, that's awesome. It's been a long time. And then I guess also a podcaster now, but I always just go as YouTuber. Yeah, but how long have you been doing podcasts? Podcasts will be about seven years, I would say.

0:36Wow. Yeah, I think we started our first podcast in 2019, so just before... COVID. Yeah, just before COVID, which seems a bit nuts that far away. Yeah, yeah, that's a long time away. Yeah. For you, how far does COVID seem away? Does it seem like it was like... Because now, what is it, like five, six years? Yeah, that's nuts. I feel like I don't even remember life before it. I feel like there was like me as a kid and then 2016 to COVID sort of doesn't exist in my life but I have no memory of it and now ever since COVID I've like this is now my life I know it sounds really weird but I have a bit of a weird memory and like yeah I really I can't remember anything prior to COVID that's mad so maybe a bit disturbing obviously you've you're into fitness yep and we're going to delve into that a little bit later but I just want to kind of ask like how did you even get into the youtube scene um so essentially so do you know joella yeah yeah so we went to we went to school together we grew up together he was doing youtube in like year eight year nine but it wasn't youtube as you know this is like 2009 so he was doing it would have been yeah 2009 so he was doing like little short films that get played in assembly and we're like oh that's really sick like he had like one called the jacket that would like he put on a jacket it disappear how the hell is he editing that which was like amazing and then he sort of progressed to doing that he went to college for a bit dropped out of college to do youtube full-time had like 15 000 subs and at this point at college i was helping make his videos and when you say helping like help filming them i'd pay i would appear in his videos as well like he'd play like different characters and we'd sort of like act out the scenes and whatnot so from that point people started to know me in his videos like bear in mind he had 15 000 subs like i think he did like a 50k q a it was like 50 000 sub q a it was like a thank you and i dressed up as malfoy from harry potter and then that just like hit and people are like oh malfoy and that's why i sort of developed the nickname back in the day and then they sort of it comes to about 2013 2014 they basically were like you need to make your own channel and i sort of bullied into making my own channel in 2014 and then i got a camera for christmas and mum was what camera was it oh can you remember some little point and shoot i cannot remember that but um i then upgraded to the canon 700d i want to say are you still like a canon guy now i use sony a lot of all my cameras now okay yeah sony the beast um but yeah i started making youtube videos at the end of 2014 start of 2015 and that is and i was working at mcdonald's at the time so i sort of like balancing the two and then first year i sort of didn't really roll at mcdonald's sorry uh so i was crew trainer crew trainer yeah i got up to four stars i uh i turned down a few promotions i said don't worry lads i'm not going to be here for much longer i'm going on to the bigger leagues here um no i was going to uni so i didn't i didn't have time to come with a manager or whatever like that what's your opinion on mcdonald's now that you've kind of like worked there love it love it i honestly it's as a kid it was the best place to work at don't get me wrong like some of the overnight i did a few overnight shifts like were grim and some of the shifts were horrible did your mcdonald's love like a drive-thru drive-thru so six seven mates and i love window one window one was like when i'm taking the order and like doing the money so like you'd you'd it's actually quite a hard multitasking job because you're like talking to someone taking their order whilst taking someone's money whilst doing the cashier as well and like confirming then someone's complaining at you and then it's weird that was one of the best times of my life because all our boys from college worked at that mcdonald's so like every shift you'd be doing with like three or four your mates that's mad and what if you don't mind what wage was you on back then i was on uh i think i started on four pound five p an hour and by the time i left after two and a half years i was on like 435 an hour come on four quid yeah sick right yeah but i was sick i'd get like 150 200 pound every two weeks fuck baller it was unbelievable how old was you at the time 16 17 yeah man that's uh that's some serious dosh it was sick it was sick so i was balancing that and um youtube which wasn't earning like any money at all before we go on to that have you got any crazy stories from like what's the maddest thing that happened at mcdonald's because there must be some like sites people off nights out everyone always says like this but ours was like quite a quiet mcdonald's so like you'd get to know people's orders at like 5am like some bloke because you don't know if you know but when you pull up drive for you we can see you can you yeah yeah you can you you're like seen into the car yeah you can like see the person yeah it's like a full-on camera so like at 5am there's bloke that always just rocks up you just like he looks at the window like that and then just goes because you know his order so you know who it is who's coming in you used to like sort your mates out with like chips and whatnot all the time i've got a scar on my arm uh you might not be able to see it but it's around like here i was basically like we're on like an overnight and like as you do you're just like cooking a few months or delivers for yourself allegedly you can't prove it and um our manager was like our mate but he was like you're sort of taking the piss here and you're like cooking up your own food and whatnot what was your like did you make something like mad we i did a different do you remember the chicken legend yeah so that was like my favorite the salsa chicken legend just adding a few mozzarella dippers just like a cheesy chicken legend it was brilliant it was really good and uh we were just like me and my mate were just like eating these mozzarella dippers like behind the behind the camera so you couldn't be seen and then mate the bloke just whipped So you cook the chips and everything in a vat, which is like 200 degree oil.

6:24And there's a metal prong that you put in to measure the temperature of the oil. And he took it out. It's like chasing me with it. I was like, oh, this is... Like the manager? Yeah. I was like, he was my mate, but at the time. I was like, okay, yeah, funny. And then he hit my arm with this 200 degree metal prong. Oh my, I had a massive bubble on my arm for like two weeks, like third degree burn. Did you sue? nah because i was i was stealing technically i was eating mozzarella dimmers yeah but i don't think that's uh in court i think i don't think that's valid it was funny it was funny it was funny but the next day the like big boss she was this like scary lady really nice but she could she had a side and she called me and was like she was like some northern i'm not gonna bother doing in the middle of an accent go on try it she might have been like she was like she basically was like who did that he was like who the fuck did that to you

7:27and i was like oh i don't know i fell over so i didn't want to grass him up and she was like if you don't tell me who it is i'm gonna fire you and then i'm gonna look at the cctv and fire them so i was like okay it was i don't want to lose my job and uh yeah i told her who it was and he got two weeks suspension shit yeah so he was pissed off well he should not he did third degree burn my arm so i think he's a bit annoyed but like snitches yeah game's a game sorry son uh and then the only other thing was uh mcdonald's monopoly like all the all the cups you get you know you peel it off and you get like a free donut and whatnot um did you used to steal the role now did you do that no i wasn't that bad but if you if you if you drop a cup on the floor you can't serve it anymore because obviously it's contaminated so when you put it in the bin there's no point there's no point like that's a wasted sticker so you put it in the bin peel it off and get yourself a free day enough that's classic but they do just have like the rolls right for like the oh yeah the big max and stuff like that like they don't come with it on you're not just steel yeah hey snitches get stitches i don't know there we go there we go it was a good laugh there did you ever know anyone that actually won something decent because you could like win like cars and stuff nah but I always think do you think it's a scam no it's not a scam but the people who win are always from the middle of nowhere so I think your highest chance of winning on the big prize is going to like a McDonald's literally in the middle of nowhere like the north of Scotland or somewhere like that in the Highlands so if you want to win Mackeys go to the middle of nowhere yeah do they still do yeah they still do yeah I think so yeah yeah yeah 100 % that was like literally like growing up as a kid like that was my favorite time of year oh monopoly's the best i love going after school every day and mozzarella dippers always back from monopoly and they're my favorite things are they mozzarella dippers i love them with a salsa dip oh phenomenal class so we'll move on from mcdonald's yes let's get back to youtube yeah i was doing that both uh both at the same time and then i go to uni in september and literally as i start university that first month i think it might be in the first weekend i'd earned a thousand pound on youtube and like going into uni like i've just been paid a thousand pounds like i was like this is it like shots on me this is like my life has changed did youtube pay more back then for like per view no far less far less yeah far less yeah so a thousand pound was just i'd never i'd never see i'd never had like four figures in my bank account in my life so this was like the best feeling ever and then I just started I was doing like four uploads a week I think whilst doing YouTube at the same time editing everything filming it all so I was like putting in a graft and then things just like get getting bigger and bigger and then I dropped out in the second year just because it was like a I was earning a lot of money and b I had no time to do uni like I was I remember staying at some of my mates up in up in London um what was you studying at uni sports development and coaching sciences okay but i want to be a PE teacher basically yeah and um i stand as mates in london after an event it's like a youtube mate and i was just like man i gotta be back for a lecture at like 10 in bournemouth and i was like this is shit so spent like three months trying to drop out of uni and convince my tutor who was like you're gonna regret this you have seven years to complete your degree we'll be seeing you soon and then i never went back that's class what did uh your parents say about that they they're supportive they are the most supportive people now yeah but at the time obviously i think this was this was this was completely like youtube wasn't a career really it was very rare like this was like 12 years ago so this was like back when like it's like the wild west like only i think like ksi was big um like obviously weller was big this was like pointless blog alfie days kind of don't know if you know them like zoella yeah yeah like this is like their sort of like prime era so it wasn't it was like definitely a thing but it wasn't you know everyone at school now wants to be a youtuber whereas like back then it was like looked a bit weird yeah you like you want to be a doctor yes yeah footballer yeah yeah so um yeah they they got on board of it after sort of um we had i had a long chat with spencer spencer owen who owns hashtag yeah here his brother's actually my manager has been since and um he sort of like because he was doing it full-time at the time and he's the one that sort of made it happen and i'd done a few things with him for hashtag like we'd played at Wembley and stuff and so like they could see like things were working out and then they just like yeah just put the trust in me and I did it dropped out uni that's crazy when you uh when you realized like things were like blowing up how did you manage that because you like you say you was editing everything yourself you were filming you know three to four YouTubes a week yeah um what was that first step for like potentially like getting in some extra help uh i didn't hire anyone i didn't get any extra help until i hit a million subs no way yeah i did it all myself but that was that was to have an editor back then was actually weird like yeah it was youtube for a reason like you did it all so we all did it the only i literally the only person i knew who had an editor was cal freezi he's the only person i knew had an editor but he's always been a little bit ahead of the game so yeah it wasn't until i had a million subs where I thought I can justify paying someone to help me and like obviously that was the best decision I ever made now because you free up so much more time to then input into stuff you actually want to do like and make more videos so it makes going back would you have done it before if you could 100 % yeah but then also the fact that I was editing everything myself and filming it all probably the reason why I got to that position because I was like yeah I had a lot of drive also like you have you learn to have like an eye for what you like and what you don't like exactly that like if you're just throwing it straight to an editor like at the moment i don't know how to edit yeah tom does all my editing yeah so i can't like have an input really i think that's that's the thing now like when i did hire an editor well ben he necessarily wasn't necessarily the best editor out of all applications but he was the one who was willing to learn the most and put in the graft and he's like he's the the best editor now like he's brilliant but we sort of worked together over the years to sort of develop this like he understands me and i understand him and he's putting such a shift now he's grown into just like an incredible person yeah i think that's just like a trait that i don't you need to have in life yeah just to be willing to be able to learn exactly have that like drive yeah 100 because you can learn everything yeah but if you don't have the drive then like you're not gonna do it useless yeah yeah no that's uh super interesting so you you get to a million subs you take on an editor what happens next uh just dude it's funny like the the level of so i also had a second channel where i was pretty much uploading daily for like four years on for feet i was like fifa like a gaming thing and that sort of kicked off during covid actually which sort of worked out well i've definitely had like low periods on the main channel where like i haven't uploaded for a few months and even now like we're uploading less than i was back in the day but the quality of the video has gone up so now i found myself make every main channel video i want to upload is the quality is that the highest of high and then i don't do the gaming channel anymore but then it was all about quantity over quality whereas the main channel is quality over quantity and then the second channel i've got now is more about just being consistent with it and how do you realize that do you purposely go off kind of like views the comments reactions uh you I guess is it just like based off how you feel and what you want to do now I think especially over the last five years anything upload for me is how what is stuff I want to upload and stuff that I'm interested in whether it be fitness or football or whatever but I think you just look at other people what they're doing and you you see the quality being raised around you and you know if I'm not if I want to continue doing this and be in the space I have to raise my quality because there's definitely stages where I was like getting really large like like really bad views and all this but and you've seen so many people in the industry just like disappear and like not become not not doing YouTube anymore so if you wanted to stay with it and be at the top you just got to adapt you got to keep pushing otherwise you're not going to be here for 12 years yeah no no like say 12 years you're definitely an OG in the game of youtube but uh it feels like everyone especially like within the fitness space everyone's started a youtube now which i think is like one of the most positive things i agree to come out of the fitness space like you've got professionals like sharing their training yeah and their knowledge and you've never had that before normally it's like especially like within like the running space and stuff like that normally like you've got pro athletes and you they're so mysterious you don't know anything apart from like when they turn up to competition and then they beat everyone yeah and that's it whereas i feel like that's probably part like that's part of the cause why you'd say these running influencers or people that are like sub-elite are getting so close now to the elites yeah and that gap and that margin is now um shrank yeah so the likes of kind of like hugo fry he's uh he's up there almost elite like yeah He ran like a 103 half.

16:54Yeah, I saw his London performance as well. It was insane. Was it a 103 half? Yeah, I think it was. It's like a 217 marathon as well. Yeah, 217 marathon. I think he's also done a sub 30 10K. It's insane. It's bonkers, yeah. But he also trains the majority of the time on his own. He's basically a professional. Yeah. Basically a professional, but being able to output this content that makes it engaging. but I think you're right about the you mentioned about the athletes now doing all like YouTube channels and whatnot you even see in football you see all like James Madison like Yamal like the biggest football in the world had a YouTube channel Neymar's got a YouTube channel so people will be able to get closer to these athletes now they just come across a bit more personable quite more likable now as well because you get to know these people whereas before these superstar athletes you're right they're like mysterious didn't know who they were yeah and I think it's kind of almost it's going to be a part and parcel of being an athlete yeah instead of just being a full-time athlete i don't think anyone especially within sports that are less paid can be just a full-time athlete unless you're at the top yeah you've got to have some form of like storytelling um social media and stuff like that and yes that does take away from the training a little bit because you've got to now focus your energy maybe 25 on content and then 75 on being an athlete instead of just being an athlete so it'd be interesting to see where the top level goes yeah um but uh yeah i think it's cool and it like say so many people are interested and if you're not doing it then potentially get left behind i guess as well it's like athletes they do have a certain lifespan i guess like especially like footballers and sprinters like you know you can only do it for so long until like a sprint like usain bolt i know he's a different level but you can only sprint that fast until you're what early 30s mid-30s so it's all about building your brand outside of the sport so you can continue to do something that you want to do long term yeah i i always think of it like with steve cook in fitness yeah like forever he'll be like an og yeah and that's because he documented his training and he documented everything on youtube same with like christian guzman yeah uh and people like that like no matter like that they're a little bit older now yes they've moved on they don't do like professional lifting anymore or they don't um do professional bodybuilding yeah but they're still like an og yeah and everyone will think that they're a legend and it's all down to like say youtube and stuff like that um okay so uh moving on podcast how did that kind of come about so we i've had uh i've had a fair few and and why like why podcasting did you because from what I gather like you was doing podcasting like when it was just becoming kind of like it was yeah it wasn't no not everyone had a podcast at the time let's put it that way like so the first one we did was called waffling that was me wella and luke who also went to school with us and um that launched 2019 so just before covid and that I think that did so well because we would we were like we'd all grown up together so it wasn't it wasn't like a chitty chat we genuinely had like the best time with each other on camera and the peak of that was during covid where everything else had stopped we could do it over zoom and still have that same connection or then we could do it outside like at a beach we'd still have that still be able to output the content i think that really helped a lot of people during covid when they didn't have a lot going on so that that was the first one that really blew up and that came about um we were actually just playing football up the downs which like our local astro and like we both sort of knew we wanted to do some form of podcast because we spent a lot of time with each other it also allowed us to see each other a lot more like i think when you grow up you do sort of tend to not see your mates as much as you normally did when you're a kid so this allowed us to meet up once a week and just have a chat yeah it seems like sounds sad this but like it saves going to the pub and doing it yeah 100 100%, absolutely.

21:02So for us, it was a chance to have a chat, laugh, and we were very open on that, like probably too open on that podcast. I think it's why it had its success. And there were definitely things we shouldn't have shared. I was just about to ask this. Obviously, times change. You've been doing podcasting and YouTube for quite a while. Yeah. Is there anything that's come back to bite you in the ass? there uh not not particularly but there were moments where we overshared and affected like our personal lives like off camera like someone said like you why have you said this like you shouldn't have said that that's too much information not necessarily anything that's come back to us now but at the time it was awkward and then for example i this was before this is not like a non-football thing i i messed up we were talking about liverpool's Champions League final and I said the wrong goalie's name and then I was going to the Champions League final and the clip of me saying the wrong goalie's name like went viral on Twitter because I had a ticket to the final and all these Liverpool fans were like, how does this prick have tickets?

22:04He doesn't even know our goalie's name. I just made a mistake on camera saying like Jamie Carragher was tweeting abuse at me and I was like, and then people were coming up to me in like in Madrid saying like, Jamie Carragher not got anything better to do with the time. At the time, He's sound now. We've squashed it. But this was also only three years after we had a football match at Wembley and he was on the other team taking it really seriously. Me and Weller were nibbling. And there was a few words exchanged. And he tried to break Joe's leg at one point. And then he elbowed me in the neck. To break his leg.

22:41Essentially, yeah, on the game. But me and Weller liked it because we were playing against Jamie. It was banter. Like we were playing against Jamie Caron. He was like giving it back. And like, to be fair, we were giving it to him as well. We got blown up. And then it was just a bit of a touchy time between us and Caron. But it's all right now. But yeah, so I had a bit of hate with them. But now, honestly, nothing's really come back to me now. It's like it's just been a bit awkward personally sometimes. So you started that podcast. Yep. And then obviously, like you say, you've had quite a few. Yep.

23:15In your time. What comes next? so waffling sort of stopped i guess we how did it stop just it stopped a few times i think like joe wanted to do his own thing i was quite busy you just i think certain things just come to an end it restarted again later but we had like two two years off two three years off and in the meantime i started a football podcast with reeve who we originally wanted to do like a fantasy football like fpl uh we quickly realized that no one really cares about that so he changed it to football and that took a year to sort of get going and then we started uh like getting other people on board and we like found a new producer lewis who's a brilliant brilliant hire and then we got this other guy tom and they both work with us like they're full-time now and they're amazing they've helped us take the show to like the next level and we did that with cow and fellow studios when they chip and cow launched fellow studios and their podcast the fellas they were sort of wanting to like turn it into a producing thing and uh we were like we'll do it with you so we were the first podcast under the fellas umbrella and then we sort of helped grow it all yeah they've got quite a few now they have loads now yeah and they they have our other one backside which is the spin-off to pitch side which is like a non-football version but us four um is that the same studio uh proddy yes yes yeah yeah sick studio yes not anymore he doesn't work there anymore oh yeah it doesn't work there anymore but like that he still uses the room right no he doesn't he did though he did when you went on it yeah it was uh it was a sick yeah it's unbelievable setup yeah and it's got that that their whole thing has got even better and they've just been bought by global last last year right okay so they've they've got a bag yeah nice yeah uh with uh with podcasts like you say you've had a couple yeah do you think there's do you think it's okay to stop a podcast like is there a like it's because i feel like a lot of people like just like you see it like they don't enjoy it yeah just keep on doing it i think that's when you should stop a podcast is when you've stopped enjoying it and the viewer knows you've stopped enjoying it and and if you find yourself so this is partly reason why waffling this stop is we found ourselves it almost became a burden yeah like we didn't want to go record for whatever reason and i think we that is when you have to realize like this just isn't working like not everything has to go on forever like things are allowed to stop and people may not like it and it may be a bit weird at first but you just have to sort of accept it and like that stopping allowed us to then come back two years later and have another year of like great success but some things just like do come to an end and like you've got to move on like it's and it's not the end of the world yeah like you're gonna find something else to do yeah it's gonna be all right i feel like uh and i'm guilty of this like just adding more and more and more yeah because like you say you've got this podcast you could start another podcast and then another podcast or you could like say still do the youtube yeah and before you know it like you you've just burned out i'm definitely guilty of that have you ever burnt out oh yeah yeah like major burnout a hundred percent and you just you just feel like destroyed like you have no motivation to do anything i've definitely i find it quite hard to say no because i always think i'm not going to be doing this like in five years probably will be but i feel like you've got to take every opportunity i legit probably am but i feel like you you've got to take every opportunity but then you find yourself having no time to do anything like i we we relaunched waffling the same month we launched our spin-off show backside and it was just like i went from doing one podcast a free podcast to main channel to then our golf channel then the other golf channel to second channel and just became too much so now it's all about a lot of time management and i think pick and choosing what you say yes to especially other other people's stuff as well yeah so fast forward to kind of like now yep what's your week look like are you are you slammed like yeah talk us through what you what you've got you play at the moment uh i'd never like like it's such a weird one because like i have such a privileged job do you know what i mean i like yeah i'm busy but I'm not busy nine to five but like I had so Monday Tuesday I normally pitch side and backside uh and then we'll have a live stream at the weekends sometimes midweek for Champions League so that's like three four days of the week and then I got main channel filming usually well we're trying to up it now like a lot so once a week second channel filming once a week and then a lot of the time it's actually like other people's stuff as well like appearing at other people's youtube channels and like collaborating with them um that's that's a hell of a lot for for someone that doesn't know like the content game like that is insane the amount we also have our golf channel as well which obviously like i absolutely get to play golf for a living who wouldn't want to do that but that's all day um so i'm not complaining about that that's a great thing but it is it's very much like the cat i now like if it's in the calendar that is like gospel like you can't go against the google calendar right now yeah yeah i feel like that that's another thing like with the job that you have if you're not feeling it you've still got to do it yeah 100 like like no matter what i feel like i got quite good at that as well yeah like almost turning it on essentially you just got to firm it and be like there's a pretty privileged position like i can't smile for an hour like it'll be fine but it's very much um a time management game now trying to trying to just manage and i think that brings us nicely onto your fitness goals because everything that you've just mentioned there like it seems like you've got a pretty full on life and then you've been doing some crazy things over the past couple of years yep when did your first like obviously like say i assume that you've always been kind of like into fitness like say you wanted to be a teacher yeah i'd say it's football that like growing up football's always the thing yep which I guess you do a bit of running but what position I was a forward so winger 10 striker just anywhere anywhere at the top yeah not not defending for me who did you play for uh just my local clubs so Seaford and New Haven and then had a couple trials at Brighton and then I got offered a scholarship at Palace which I said no to because I would I would basically like moving to Croydon doing like the Palace Scholarship and doing the BTIC at the same time.

29:41And I was just like, realistically, like, I'm not going to make it as a professional footballer, so I just went to uni instead. Yeah, yeah. And I probably achieved more in football doing YouTube than if I tried to do the Palace Scholarship. Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Which is kind of nuts. So, yeah, it was always football growing up, and then you do a bit of running, but I don't really remember going on many, like, runs. I feel like back then, like, running was a chore, or it was like a penalty or like a... Yes. If you fucked up in training, go for a run. Yes, 100%. It wasn't like it was today.

30:14Yeah. But I'm sure people went for runs. Like, there was definitely like a running club. But it was always like a chore. Yes. Yeah. Like, you played bad at the weekend. We're doing laps. Yeah. Or it was always like... I did actually get scouted once for running. For running? For running, yeah. I did. What distance? The 4x100. All right, okay. Yeah, so we were at District Sports. And I knew I was the fastest kid at our school. I was back to back 100 metres champion in year eight and nine. I had certified factual information that I was the fastest. I went to District Sports and I was like, why am I third leg?

30:50I should be the fourth leg. I'm quicker than this guy. And I was fuming. So I ran the third leg. I took us from last to first on the bend. And I think we still came second. I was like, what are you doing? And there's some guy from Eastbourne Running Club who came up to us, oh, you should come down and run with us. Never did. Just turn it down. I just, yeah, I didn't want to do it. Yeah. I was like, I don't think I would have had the hamstrings for sprinting anyway. Yeah, fair play. No, it does take a lot, I feel like. Yeah. But yeah, you were fast. I was fast. That's why you was a forward. Yes.

31:28That was actually one of my major things, which people may not believe now, but I was actually pretty fast back in the day. Are you pretty fast now still? I feel like you never lose it, right? I've had quite a few injuries, which has slowed me down a little bit. I'm not... I could probably be fast, but I'm a little bit scared to sprint at top speed in case I could tear a hamstring or something like that. Do you think there's any podcaster in the world that would beat you at a 100-meter sprint? Yes. Do you think? Could you name him? Tobe Gizzle. Toby from the Sidemen. He's fast, yeah. He's rapid.

31:57Yeah, he's rapid. He's very fast. but I would like to think I'd give them a good go if I had a bit of training and like warmed up and if my hamstrings promised me they wouldn't snap maybe you could uh set that up 100 meter race yeah 100 meter race up for the longer distances now yeah less chance of injury yeah definitely definitely so how did you how did you like what was the first kind of thing that brought you to I assume distance running yeah I'd say probably similar to a lot of people is like I picked up running properly again like around COVID and when I moved to London yeah and I started cycling and COVID as well I think like a lot of people wanted to use their hour outside to get moving did you stick it to just one hour did you abide by the rules I think I did I don't think I could run for longer than an hour anyways I think I stuck by the rules how mad is it that we all just like stuck to i was such a weird such a weird time so weird you're only allowed out for one but how is anyone gonna prove that you've ran for longer than an hour but he's on strava so i guess people will have their proof yeah yeah um yes i picked up running on that in in lockdown and then i because of the cycling i think i wanted to start like i watched uh nick bear's iron man documentary on youtube like the first one yeah i was like this guy's sick like this documentary is like unbelievable um and i know he's meant he's made like three of the series since but that first series and the second series was like it got me gassed i'd watch it like every night this is like the best thing ever yeah he uploaded regularly oh it was amazing yeah it was so good it was so good yeah he like say going back to like ogs of youtube like i remember when he first started and he was like rocking 100 miles and stuff like that yeah it was back when like things like that weren't the norm yes and now like everyone's doing it exactly that 100 mile you're like i'm normal yeah it's normal to do now you guys are like weird this is like amazing yeah it's crazy but um yeah so you was watching nick watching him and i was like you know what i can do that so i signed up to a sprint triathlon so that's 750 meter swim 20k bite 5k run and i remember i made you a pretty decent swimmer oh no i had to i had swimming lessons like i couldn't i knew how to swim yeah i thought i could do front crawl but then where did you go for swimming lessons like i went to virgin active it was like a local gym to me so they had a couple lessons and i i remember doing like my first session i think i swam like 400 meters like total be like one length like you can't breathe so I was like okay this is going to be hard work and um yeah I did the sprint triathlon I did a whole looking back it's so funny like how things like just get bigger and bigger like I did a whole YouTube video documentary on this sprint triathlon and at the time it just felt huge and now I'd go do that without even like batting an eyelid it's almost like a parkrun yeah literally that or like just be it's less than a training day for sometimes but at the time it felt so big it's just weird how things to sort of snowball but um i remember getting in the community in seaford like my hometown and it was so cold and i remember i just couldn't breathe and i was just like this is just awful i was like panicking i was like someone get me out of this water got through it and i did a decent time i was like this is a lot of fun and the next step is um well next step was the olympic triathlon but i went straight from sprint to half ironman and then right okay so that's a huge jump yeah what time did you do your first half in half ironman was six hours 40 right impressive i think i think that's impressive your first first first one yeah but yeah you know i was really gassing like i trained i'd i thought i at the time i felt like i trained hard for it but i look back at it now and i thought that is you haven't actually like you definitely put in a shift but there's so much more you could have done yeah and I I didn't follow a training plan I didn't know what I had no run I didn't nothing I just made it up as I went along so I was like looking back now I was like okay yeah you you were gonna learn a lot from that almost like almost impressive that you finished it yes I guess so yeah and it was like 30 degrees in the day as well I was like cooked in France um but it was it was yeah it was really weird I had no training plan I think the only training plan I had was like I would just go on away if just click i'll do that ride today like running wise i that was when i started to learn about the 80 20 rule and i got like obsessed with it like 80 zone 2 20 zone 5 not that i don't even know if that's even like legitimate but i was just like so adamant like this is what i got to do with my training and then that helped uh don't think so i might have done i don't really know i yeah well I came back a year later no two years later and I did I did an Olympic triathlon and that's when I started really getting into triathlon I really enjoyed I found it was like really fun to do then I did another half Ironman but this time I had a training plan and I did five coach or did you know I did like I bought it online like a like a Phil Mosley one and um I did that's when I started using runner so I had runner for the run plan then I used his swimming and cycling plan and then uh i did sub like the high i made a whole like youtube series by going like sub six and that i did it in 5 48 5 50 so i did it i completed my like goal um and that was like amazing so i actually i actually trained for that and i i put in like four months and really worked up that's the fully the first event that i really i i had proof that if you actually put in the work you actually get an outcome so um it's addictive isn't it yeah it was brilliant it was like that whole weekend was just amazing did it down in weymouth and like every day was rainy and windy and then the morning of the race was just still and like sunshine i'm like this is perfect this is like amazing do you think putting it out on socials and like say making a youtube um series documenting it all do you think that like held you accountable a little bit or do you think that you just had the motivation yourself I don't know if it held me accountable I think it it maybe it did because I knew I the first two like the sprint athlon and the first half Ironman I was making a bit of content on it and like the video went down like exceptionally well people loved it found it very inspirational so I guess by the time it came around to doing the second half I had a bit more pressure on me but I knew that this was going to inspire a lot of people so I wanted to do it to help them rather than me if that makes any sense but i mean like it was so it was pretty amazing like when i was racing the one in weymouth i was like people were running past me saying like your video got me into this race i was like that was pretty cool it was quite an emotional race but i definitely felt pressured to go sub six hours because that's i had put that goal out there so i guess i did feel a bit yeah it was holding me accountable which is pretty cool is that what you was thinking when you was actually doing the race as well yeah thinking shit i need to get yeah under sub six because what are people going to think yeah and a hundred percent and i think i realized i'd done it when i'd start like at the start of the half marathon so i want to finish the bike i was okay yeah i've got two hours ten to do a half marathon i was like i can i know i can do this and then like a couple of caves to go i had people talking to me on it like this is six i'm six like people cheering i was like this is actually amazing and then across the line just like started crying like this is amazing and then uh two weeks later i was like okay now we want to go for the uh go for the big one go for the full iron man that's incredible that's uh that's some some going when did you get into uh running so it probably was lockdown again lockdown again so yeah but you're doing uh that was just like 5k here and there okay and then i started i want to say three years ago i need to check my phone text messages but i saw like an ad for runner on instagram this was before this was like before so i put my phone on silent this was before um runner was like a thing they had nine employees at the time eight employees so very very small company and i saw them and i thought you know what i could i'll give it a go i saw it fell for an instagram ad and it started to teach me about structured training which i had no idea about because like i think prior to this a lot of people just go here and there 5k there just every run was like how fast can you run a 5k um and i started talking about them on actually the fellas podcast so i've just started using this i'm training it for sub six like it should be sick and then ben who owns runner reached out to me i was like do you want to go for a chat and then that's when i started really like learning about how to run properly yeah and having that hold me accountable if that makes sense yeah i think the guys at runner are great i think uh you know it's worth a shout out because uh they're incredible like i've met them as well yeah good lad um just the the whole kind of app and stuff like i feel like it really means well i feel like a lot of people have like give it give like runner and like other apps like criticism yeah it's all like ai and it doesn't know you and most of the people that are saying this are coaches yes and obviously it's putting them out of business but i also i understand their point of view but then i also i so i i invested in runner like four years ago and i saw how much work they were doing to make this the best possible app for people like me and people like just everyday people who want to learn how to run and i saw how much they cared and then it's just an ai app it's just not that at all like there's so much work that goes into there are actually coaches behind it as well exactly that like team gb coaches as well yeah i think uh steph ran for team gb so she's she's she knows what she's talking about um but honestly like i don't want to talk runner too much because i know it's your podcast but like they have helped me in terms of running like exponentially yeah like i would likewise like yeah i think they're uh they're really really incredible especially if someone just starting out yeah um because i hold you it gives you accountability it tells it takes away the stress of oh what am i going to run today it tells you like having someone like that's why people get coached right to be told what to do and having this app to just tell you like oh this is what you're doing today so much easier it helps you like create a habit of running yeah i found it was also good because you put in like your predicted marathon time yeah whatever and if you do it correctly and if you don't say something stupid like you know something stupidly fast yeah then it keeps you accountable to just doing the mileage required yeah rather than go doing more yeah because i feel like like in today's age you go on instagram and everyone's running 100 mile weeks and not everyone should be running 100 weeks but like runner keeps you accountable to doing less than that yeah just doing like the the minimal effective dose as you'd like to call it where you're doing the minimum you can to get the most benefit and i think that's what people should be looking at especially with running because it's just so taxing on the joints like for i think for every step that you take it's like three times the force of your body yeah going through each leg you're doing a 10k run that's you know 8 000 steps or something like that like it's a lot of impact and that's like you say just for a 10k yeah if you're training for a marathon it's even more so um i feel like it's good at keeping you accountable to just doing enough and not going like and and now you can they've built it in so you can adapt it to reduce the mileage or reduce the intensities like some people find maybe it's too intense you reduce the intensity you can go on holiday I think they're building in hopefully something for women for like periods and stuff like that so there's a lot of stuff happening but that's that that also coincided with me working with do you know Alex Morrell physio yeah so he used to be March on yes yes so I had hip surgery sort of in 2021 I want to say 2022 like quite major hip surgery and that was like a long process getting back I had some like really bad like I had the hip surgery a year later I played foot much tore my hip again in front of like 60 ,000 people and like stretched it off so I had like three years of like really bad stuff from that surgery it's all works brilliant now because of him and he's the one that sort of taught me to do the strength work as well as the running so he was like the plyometrics the isometrics like he got me back to being in a position where i could now go do a football match pain free or an iron man pain free and all this and that so i think you need to be able to balance the running but also the strength work yeah yeah otherwise you're gonna get injured alex is a great guy he's a huge advocate of uh just building a strong resilient body yeah yeah uh over over anything else and uh actually he's a fan of like yes you need to do all like the activation exercises and things like that but he's a bit i've spoke to him and he said uh getting strong is one of the best things that you can do for for any sport um so so yeah shout out to him that's pretty good um so uh obviously you did your half ironman what comes next the full ironman the full ironman so so you went straight into that before i had a couple like olympic distance ones but i was doing that sort of just because i loved it yeah I genuinely like fell in love with like the sport of triathlon and I just wanted to to continue it and I did a few high rocks I got into high rocks that was a lot of fun I absolutely loved that um so I sort of balancing the triathlon with the high rocks and I feel like like me that even throughout my whole life I've never been like except football I've never been like amazing at one sport I've sort of wanted to do every single sport like a a jack of all trades exactly like an average sort of level because i just love playing all these different sports so balancing the triathlon with the the high rocks was like so much fun i've really enjoyed that but then i i you know i was a actually weird enough in australia i signed up to the full ironman in october and that was for august the following year so i had eight months and which ironman was that ironman kalmar up in sweden yep so it's incredibly flat course but the bike course is very windy so everyone says oh it's flat you can be nice and fine it'll be it'll be fine but I knew that the island is just like it's like it's like a hurricane over there so I knew I had you know seven or eight months to train for this Ironman and in I did a couple marathons and um uh during the training for Ironman I got IT band syndrome you know the IT band issue on the right knee yes oh i think was we were in paris yes that's what i pulled out of paris yeah i pulled out of paris because of it yeah and then i i've had it for quite a while like it's come and gone quite i was i had it for like three months i reckon okay and then it was just because my glutes were so weak so then alex i got got me stronger and it went but it meant i had to pull out of paris then i ran boston with the it band around like a 352 i was like the first that's the first time i've gone like sub four it's like amazing but it destroyed my knee i was in absolute agony for that so then that was in end of april so i had what may june july to train for the iron my three months train for the iron man just relearning to run again essentially a lot of people suffer with uh itb it band syndrome and how did you fix it so obviously you went to alex but like was the specific exercise that you were like i feel like there's a lot of like it's so easy to go in a hole when you've got itb and just look at so many different things there's so many options of how to fix it i did a lot of foam rolling but i've been told that actually there's nothing in terms of fixing itb because it's the fascia not actually the muscle so it what i've learned is that it's it is entirely just your your your weak you're doing like with shim smints i guess you're doing too much and your body can't handle it so i found just absolutely just blitz your glutes just like glute bridges um what's the when you like a something hold as glute bridges hip thrusts did you do any like banded like clamshells clamshells yes there's one where almost like the single deadlift but like the legs are together RDLs a lot of plyos so there was one where you put the bar on the rack but the bar's under the rack and you lock up into it and like hold like an isometric yes yep uh just a lot of calf raises it's just building your your quad glue and calf strength essentially and then you just have to have patience with it as well like it's not going to fix overnight it's going to take six to eight weeks to actually get better if you commit to doing the strength you can't cheat it it's not going to heal yeah no it definitely makes sense so the reason um id band syndrome comes along is because your hip flexors normally overworking a lot of people think it's because their hip flexors are weak and that might might be an issue but normally it's because they're overworking because of the muscles are weak my glutes were not firing at all if your glutes aren't firing yeah then your body's going to find a way to run yeah so it uses the hip flexors they overwork they then become tight yeah and sometimes you can release it by like foam rolling like the outside like almost like where your pocket is yes yes you kind of do pressure points trigger point therapy there foam roll like your it band to itself and it might go for you know a couple of hours but then next time you go for a run it comes back yep so strengthening like you say the glutes uh hamstrings quads calves it's just going to take pressure off yeah the hip flexors itself um did you find like one side was worse than another as well i only had it in my right knee i only had it in my right knee yeah so so normally that's because you're are you right footed right footed yeah so you're dominant with this side yes so your hip flex is working even harder on this side because your left side's weak yes but then you've got to think about like even in each leg up so doing a lot of single leg stuff as well so i'm guessing that alex made you do you know maybe bulgarian split squats yeah things like that and the even the more even you can get your legs and like you say the stronger you can get all the muscles and then that'll kind of like relieve yeah but i feel like i'd probably say this is just a off the top of my head but i reckon at least 50 percent of runners get it band syndrome sometime yeah 100 % um yeah I know I know Tom and Emily's both had it over there it's horrible but uh yeah no it's just interesting and like I say it's good that you you know spoke to physio about it yeah went to it and haven't had any issues with it since as well which is good yeah that's good you've actually got a little bit of a scrape on your knee yeah that's that from uh I so I played a football match in Paris last week and then I got back and I had a shoot like uh 1am till 5am so I was pretty exhausted and then it was dribbling a football in the streets of London and I just stacked it.

51:47I was so tired, my feet weren't lifting up and the rest of the shoot was on camera and my knee was just dripping and wouldn't stop bleeding. So it was about to being a kid. Yeah, and then I got a scar here because three weeks ago I did the same thing so now I've got two massive gashes on my knee and I've got to say, I haven't had a cut on my knee in years. Yeah, I was about to say, like you've been playing football in the street or like skateboarding or something yeah football in the street literally literally that um so yeah yeah no no that's class so um you go on you do your full out of your mind yes so i had three months of i'd say three months of like lock in for the iron man how locked in were you uh probably the most locked in i think i've ever been was there like any sacrifices that you work work was i think i only did like my podcast i didn't do pretty much any main channel stuff none of my own stuff i basically wanted to i like don't get me wrong i did and i would have to like get up it's like super early to do stuff or like do like running at like 10 o 'clock at night just to fit stuff in but i definitely had the privilege of being able to like do a lot of my training during the day which i don't like i don't how people train for full iron man who have a full-time nine to five on your hats off to them it is that is the real deal i i couldn't especially when they do decent yeah well doing it at all to be fair but like you say when they get a decent time and like they're working a full nine animals job i don't know how they do it genuinely so impressive so i i like i i probably had a taste of that like a taste of trying to fit it around my schedule but for the most part i basically treated like we're making a huge documentary on this i need to train for this so i bought in the big guns i got the brownlee brothers involved they became my coach and um i had run and do my run plan and then they would incorporate it with the brownlee brothers to do my swimming and my cycling and when i that was a game changer for me because having a one-on-one coach i could chat to them like every week they could adapt my plan if i was going away or if i felt a bit ill they'd put it all in training peaks and those three months were like I look back at it now and it's so weird how you you probably find this as well it's so weird how when you're in it it seems so normal what you're doing like the training you're doing but it's not until you look back at it a few months later you're going oh that was actually insane some of the stuff you were doing it just it became so normal so fast and like I remember we went on holiday but I called it a training camp for tag reasons yeah maybe and like you're up at Like 6am, like you mentioned on holiday with your missus.

54:24Where did you go on holiday? Mallorca because of the cycling. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful place. Whereabouts did you stay? We stayed in a place called Canyon Mel, which is, so normally I would stay up in Alcudia, which is like the home of cycling. Yep. But we wanted like a fancy hotel and like, it was a holiday at the end of the day. Yeah. You got to treat your missus a little bit. Yeah. And we, I chose a hotel which had a sport club next to it so I could use their 25 meter pool. I bet your missus was fuming. No, she knew. She knew it was like, yeah, we knew it was like a planned thing. the deal was like I have to have it all done by like 12 right that's the deal yeah and then you can chill for the rest of the day then we can chill that's a good one we can start doing that Emily yeah have it all done by 12 I don't know to be fair I'm a good procrastinator when it comes to training I thought I had no choice I was like I've got to be done by 12 that's it otherwise yeah had a few drinks afterwards though pretty cool and there was a paddle course as well okay so but then I remember one morning she jammed me to like some High Rocks fitness class at the leisure centre and it was like the day after I'd done like 120k ride like a 10k run I was like I've cooked that's probably like the most I sweat all weekend like an indoor Spanish sweaty high rocks class so I was destroyed um but that that made a lot made a lot of fitness gains in that trip that was well worth it taking my bike out there um so yeah I spent three months locking in with them and how many hours roughly was you training a week 16 16 that's some going yeah I'd say 16 on the top end probably 12 on the low end how would you split that like between that would be three runs three bikes two swims one to two strength okay and then we're just taking like a full rest day at all in the week uh not really not really no no i think i'll take a rest day once every two weeks but my rest day would be like a 2k 3k swim yeah that'd be my rest day it sounds weird but i've got a question for because i am unlike it seems to take over your full life like you said you have a full-time job yeah it's full-time job like how did you deal with the people around you like how did you kind of like communicate to them like this is what i want to do and how did you get them to kind of like accept it rather than just give you shit all the time because i know a lot of people go through it and it's a it's a real thing like dealing with like relationships because like i guess with running you could be gone an hour maybe two hours like cycling you'd be gone all day it'd be like five six hours you're just gone and then you come back you have to do a brick workout a run so they just see that you've been at a coffee shop eating cake yeah just sneaking in the lemon drizzle cake oh my god but um i think the thing that benefited us was i said jody my girlfriend she like i had a lot of pressure from sponsors to do it like i it wasn't i wasn't just doing this because i was a bit cracked i was doing this because i wanted to also make a video I don't get me wrong I wanted to do it for myself as well but I really wanted to do it for the video make a good video so she understood but there were definitely moments like I think it's just finding a balance so I continued to drink during the training not I'm not a big drinker anyway but I'd still go out and then I think three weeks out I was like okay this is it I'm not drinking but I'll still come to events so like I remember being in a in a bar like 2 a.m someone's birthday I just like stood there like sober oh no and i was like i was like and then i remember down in bournemouth we went to a family party until like half one i was up at like six to like go swimming and a run i was like what am i doing so so when you're in the club you're completely sober like people coming up to you asking what's up what's up with you yeah it's like because you automatically look like you're in a mood even though you're not a lot i'm not and the worst thing is like oh is everything okay it's like yeah everything's fine i'm just in a club sober at 2am i'm trying and have a good time but it's not working um but i also went i went to a festival three weeks out and like got steaming like three days in a row that and then that that was it that was absolutely it so i i definitely during the ironman training and the build up to another marathon i think there is a balance like a lot of people just go completely a hundred percent this and a hundred percent they're like you either to go no drinking locking it i feel like with ironman training you sort of can get away with actually not being 100 uh all the time all the time i say probably locking in three four weeks out yes 100 but the rest of it like you can go have a couple beers and the great thing about ironman training is you can eat shit like i pretty much don't get me wrong you make sure you're hitting your carbs and your protein but other than that like i could have two donuts and it's not going to affect me because i'm going to burn it off 10 times over so i found the eating was great because i'm a bit of a sweet tooth so i i eat go to where do i start so say after a big bike ride what are you eating after a big bike ride i'm always getting an orange fanta straight off the back yeah full sugar uh yes and then maybe a pack of cookies like have you tried the uh the mns milk chocolate button everyone keeps banging on about mns and i i found it crazy that you live in london you've got all these cookie shops that are actually like designed to be the best cookies puffy cookies but i try everyone's still going to mns it's so good it's so good i don't know i don't know i've tried them oh that class like mns is different gravy now i'm telling you now is that a little bakery don't get me started on that you know they've started sponsoring people as well um i think there's a couple of people in high rocks that are sponsored by M &S.

59:45Sign you up. Guys, I'm your biggest advocate. What are you doing? Please. Please. I even followed the M &S lady on TikTok. She's like head of like M &S like food. She's just started a TikTok. She's class. She's unreal. So yeah, I could do. Do you reckon you could do that? Like start TikTok dancing in M &S? Yeah, 100%. Would you do that with some cookies? With some free cookies. Yes, please. But it's sick. I could eat whatever I wanted. Like I love sweet potato fries. Not that that's really relevant, but I love sweet potato fries. Every day would be porridge and banana. Oh, let me talk to you about a honey, peanut butter and banana bagel.

1:00:26Okay. This is Emily Street. I'm not the biggest fan of peanut butter. I don't know why. I just can't get on board with it. I'm a bit of a freak. You get the New York sesame bagels from like Tesco's. Okay. Layer of peanut butter, sliced banana, honey drizzled over the top. That was the breakfast I had every day for three months. Every day? Every day. that's classic are you toasting the bagel yeah it has to be toasted yeah you can't have a dry bag well i was having this conversation the other day um actually uh sam griffiths i'll uh shout out he was just eating raw bagels and i just can't get on board with eating raw bagels like why don't you put jam on it or put like you say peanut butter on it yeah but mine might be nice mine might but yeah i was tracking everything for three months just making sure i was anything i'd eat and as much as it it'd be like 5 000 calories a day i reckon i was eating right okay it's probably So you're not too far off.

1:01:13Yeah, to be fair. People think, oh, that's so much food. And when you're dieting and you're on 3 ,000 calories, how can you feel hungry? You're eating 3 ,000 calories a day still, but it doesn't matter. 2 ,000 calories a day. Yeah, it doesn't matter. You eat like a horse. Exactly that. And it's probably the best thing about being an athlete, I think. Yeah, the eating. Especially endurance sports, I think a lot of people would be very overweight if they didn't do. Well, that's the problem with when you finish an Ironman. You still have the appetite of an Ironman, but you're not doing the Ironman training.

1:01:48So that is when there's a bit of a dangerous thing to happen. But yeah, so anyways, three weeks out, just locked in, no drinking. And how did the Ironman go? It was probably one of the best days of my life, if I'm being honest. So we travelled up to Sweden, took the whole filming crew, loads of my family came. What was your life the night before? Do you know what? I think what helped me was that I've done two halves. I've done a load of sprint triathlons, Olympic triathlons. I've played in all these like huge football matches. So I had experience of like sleeping before like a major event. So I was weirdly quite calm.

1:02:28I had a really good night's sleep and I took, what's the one? It's not a sleeping pill, but it's like the natural. Melatonin. Melatonin, yeah. Yeah. So I'd take that if I had a big event the night before just because I wanted to make sure I had a well-rested sleep without feeling shit the next day, which the sleeping pill does. They do work like magic. You go off to sleep like... Yeah, it's incredible. I don't believe... When you look at the negative side effects of melatonin... Are there any? It doesn't really say any, but it's kind of too good to be true. But that's why you need to be careful because you don't want to have it every night.

1:03:01Yeah. So I only use it for special... Or flights. I use it on flights. Yeah, travel, that's when you use it. it and that's it so uh my well the only the only tough it was probably the eating like the three day carb load was i think i did like repeat 800 grams of carbs the day before so i struggled with that a little bit um but like the morning of like i ate really well i felt great the you know i chatted to the brownlee brothers they were brilliant and everything had just come i'd done the work so i felt confident going into the race i knew i hadn't really skipped any session for three months so i was like i if you if you do the work you know you're gonna hopefully go out and exercise execute the only thing that was stressing me out was if i got a puncture so i don't have to change the tire i don't either i don't know so i've got the tubeless tire so if i do get a puncture it just just gotta pump it up and hopefully it fills the um tire automatically you speak in spanish so tube so tubeless is so you know like a tire yep there's like a tube inside the tyre so when you burst your tyre you have to you don't actually replace the rubber you replace the tube on the inside the inner tube yeah whereas tubeless is it's just the rubber and then there's this liquid inside so say a puncture happens the liquid goes to the puncture fills it up like a gap like a stop okay and then you just pump the tyre up and you continue cycling oh so if you get a puncture it's way better unless you get a mega puncture where it's it's too big for the the liquid to do it it's very unlucky if you do that but touch wood i've not had a puncher in any race um so that was the only thing stressing me out i just other than that like the morning of have you been to an ironman event uh i've watched the start of one did you like a man bolton have you heard of that yeah yeah so that's where i'm from at least there's a there's a little flash called pennington flash and that's where the swim is that's sick um so it's bolton ironman bolton it's actually gone to a half Ironman now, so they don't do the full.

1:04:56But when you watched it, it was the full? Yeah, back in the day. And it's actually happening this weekend. Oh, is it? Yeah, yeah. Actually, I know that. Yeah. I met someone on a plane who's racing it. Yeah. Yeah. And so it starts in Lee, and then the bike ride goes up to where we live, which is Rivington, up across the hills. It's quite hilly. And then the run finishes in Bolton. So it's a pretty good course, I've heard. is it hilly yeah it's hilly especially the bike yeah um it's quite hilly the only thing is the flash which is is where you do the swim looks like the most unhygienic place ever to swim yeah a lot of lakes and yeah yeah i think you would get some sort of disease yeah no surprise there i'm not but do you so watching the start did you see like the talk they do and yeah and i think i think a Iron Man start is one of the most intense things ever oh I think it's just like it's amazing and like because when we did up in Sweden like the sun was rising so we had like the golden sunrise all on our faces you all stood next to all these people who spent like months training for this event and they they have the music and the guy and the the guy the famous voice who does the speech and you just sit there like fuck this is like actually about to do a fucking Iron Man this is sick what's going through like your head when you're just i just want to get in there now i just want to start like i've waited so long what is the start like because there's a lot of legs and arms it flailing in water yeah so they've now they see like what's what was it like i feel like overwhelming so staggered start is they now send in six at a time okay but it you still get like a bit of a one yeah i think it's so important you've done a triathlon before you do a full ironman okay because otherwise for anyone who's not used to doing open i've done a lot of open water swimming to get used to it and in my wetsuit a lot of people just panic because there are legs you're getting kicked in the face like people are swimming over the top of you so it is it's definitely an intense thing it's all about get through that first hundred meters and then you just find yourself in the pack try and sit on if you sit on someone's toes it'll make it easier for your swim and thankfully like drug yeah like exactly like exactly like um cycling exactly that so it's just find yourself in there and just settle in the quicker you can calm down your breathing the better because you've got an hour and a half hour and 20 swim to do you've got 4k so it's like you're going to be in the water for a long time you just need to settle in like just sort of know that your heart rate is going to spike at the start but it will come down and you you just just stay calm and you're going to be all right the only the scary thing about the one we did in Sweden was, it was the, what sea was it?

1:07:42It was like the Arctic, I think, not the Arctic Ocean. Not the Arctic Ocean. Can we check though what that is? It's like Kalmar, it's like the sea, it might be the, well it does sound like it. The North Sea. The North Sea. Let's just go with the North Sea. They'll check it. They'll check it, yeah, but mate, there's like millions of jellyfish, like millions. No way. All you could see underwater was these pink jellyfish and we were told about it before the start. They were like, don't worry guys, they're non-stinging. Fuck that hat. I'm not risking it. All you could see underwater was just this layer of pink.

1:08:15Terrifying. Have you ever been stung by a jellyfish? No, but I've heard it's not pleasant. Yeah, I've not either. You've just got to piss on... Oh, you've got to get someone else to piss on you? Yeah, someone else will piss on you, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Baltic Sea, that's the one, yeah. Baltic Sea, yeah. So, like, it was just like, at least, it sort of made you concentrate less on the race and just like, I don't want to touch any of these things, but they were coming at you like they were like you just there's so many people that you could every now and again you'd like feel one you'd be like oh this is minging but then there was one crackhead just doing the iron man swimming in speedos what temperature was the water i don't know it weren't too cold was it not but the thought of jellyfish just like hitting your body non-stop at least it must have been like some like wim hof kind of guy who just like i just you're a strange guy like fair play like no because wetsuit obviously gives you buoyancy yeah like but you're a strange person like having all these jellyfish hit your body and you're just like swimming through them awful but the swim went um like better than i could have ever expected i'd i'd beat my time that i wanted um i felt really good in the swim it was a really cool environment to do it because you'd swim out into the ocean then you come down and like people on the side of the...

1:09:31Is it like a calm sea? Very calm, yeah. It was a bit wavy, but it wasn't like... What's it like swimming in the sea compared to like, do you know, open water, like a lake? It was more choppy than a lake. Like it was a bay swimmer, technically, I think it was. Do you know what I find mad? Like, and this is completely off topic, but remember when Ross Edgley swam around the UK? Yeah, and that's... That's fucking crazy, isn't it? What that guy's done is just... I think that is the, like literally the most impressive feat like ever some of the some of the straits that he went through as well like up in the scott the scottish islands and stuff like that i'm like yeah how's this guy done she the the stings that he got from the like didn't he swim for like six hours just with one on his face yeah he just didn't know it was on his face just like he's like yeah i was hurting for like six hours stinging quite a bit he got out the water it's just a jellyfish attached to his face he's built he's a different he's a different gravy that guy he's done an iron man with a tree on his back hasn't yeah in like yeah somewhere in hawaii caribbean yeah yeah yeah but uh yeah yeah uh swim went really well um came out of the water in the time that i wanted and then yeah it was time for the bike and that was um that so the plan was did you you don't really do you cycle a little bit a little bit i've been out yes my goal was hold 180 watts for like basically i wanted to do it under six hours that was a goal it was like 30 k's an hour are you on tt bars tt bars yeah which i don't all the gear i'd only i had all the gear no idea i had the bike from a month so i'd ridden it four times five times and if you've you've never ridden tt buys it's a far different position to a normal bike so you have to train your like shoulders to to essentially hold you up because otherwise you're going to just get you're going to ache after like two hours and after about four hours of cycling my shoulders just absolutely cooked but the the so the way the course works is you're on the mainland and then you go over this five kilometer bridge which is only open once a year for the race for cyclists for the race so it's like a pretty special thing to do go over the bridge they've got a bridge that's not open for cyclists so you go into this island where you do 60k up like 20 across 60k down 20 across and then you do the last little bit on the on the mainland and um i remember doing that it's literally just a straight road for 60k so it's quite a tedious race so you have to like sing to yourself and you just go a bit mental for a little bit and you're not allowed music no music yes he just sort of so what was you singing um i see my video now i think it was like a britney spears song but i just said the same i think it was britney spears but i said the same line it's over and over again um but i didn't know any other lyrics i could only say the same line over and over again just pick a song that you know don't know i just didn't i i so i i don't really have like an internal monologue so i don't really think about anything when i'm cycling so i was just doing the same thing so it's i guess it passed the time pretty quick which was quite nice uh but i was met i was that first 60k i was like flying i was like oh my god i'm pushing 180 watts i'm going like 40ks an hour like this is gonna i'm gonna do this in under five hours it's amazing um and then you come around the corner come back oh shit i had a tailwind and now i'm like trying to push the same what's going like 27 kilometers an hour so there's a huge difference so sort of by the time i got back round i had uh i sort of balanced out to the time that i wanted so yeah did the bike in 550 i want to say so just over well about 30 k's an hour um that's pretty quick though i was happy i was really happy with that i was really happy with that yeah so i've been going for about what seven hours at this point no seven and a half hours probably and it's crazy the fact that you've got to do a full marathon after that yeah like when you think about it it's crazy yeah looking back on it now it's it is pretty bonkers to be honest but in in the moment you're like oh i started i remember i started the run and i feel really good like my legs feel class like i've i've nailed my nutrition on the bike i'm feeling brilliant like the sun's out and um this is this gonna be easy like obviously because of the training you sort of tricked your mind into thinking a marathon is like quite short but obviously it's it's 42k it's a marathon and um the first 18k i was like this i actually feel good i actually feel really really good and then it started to sort of fall apart a little bit sort of caught up on me i think i'd gone out a little bit too fast um but the course itself was like exceptional they have they have one street which is basically each house is like a competition with each house to who has the best support so there was like so they brought in like festival speakers so it's like a big party street and then at 22k i think i just had to go to the toilet so i spent like three minutes in the loo that was like trying to get a tri-suit off that was always a fun one um i wouldn't even bother putting it back on just shit yourself some people do to be fair uh so i had to go to the loo and then yeah just got through i was like walking every aid station and um it was pretty you so you go through so many emotions when you're doing that because it's like 12 hours long right you go through so many emotions it's crazy isn't it though like after every low patch that you go through yeah like you then go oh i feel all right yeah and as long as you know that then like you can manage the low patches 100 but they do get gradually worse and worse and worse until you get It's so close to the end where it's a free lap course.

1:15:29So every lap you get a wristband. And do you know what's quite helpful for me? I had permission to take my GoPro out with me because I'm making a video. So the race director gave me permission, which you're not normally allowed. And I actually think that helped me because it gave me sort of a distraction to like just chat to a camera. Yeah. So that was quite nice. But you got it. So when you get your third wristband, so you go for an athletics track. so i've been like walking at this point walking every station run walk i was like dying and um you go through get your last you got 2k left and that's when you're just like okay now you just go send it absolutely send it and i remember the the home straight in that race is so sick because it's about 1k you're going through the streets of the town and they're just lined with people and i remember like turning the corner and just seeing the finishing line and i was like i overtook this person because i didn't want anyone in front of me for the we had a camera crew right and i was like i need to get in front i need to get in front of this person otherwise they're not going to capture it and uh yeah i just remember getting on the red carpet and just like made that so that that that iron man has been voted the the best iron man to do in the world because of the crowd support so these have these huge stands either side of you of like music playing just so sick so how do you feel like crossing that line um so in the two halves i was quite emotional and i felt like just like everything came pouring out this one i crossed the line i genuinely just had nothing left like i had no emotion just numb yeah just absolute numbness because i think i actually had given everything um obviously i was like i was gassed but i like i did it in 12 hours 16 like that's a long time like you started the race at 7 a.m and you're crossing the finishing line just after 7 p.m like that's like you've had a long day so I was um I was just yeah just completely empty completely empty just like my family was gassed we were sick and it was I didn't really appreciate it until a couple days later but um that was like the best thing I've ever done it was like just genuinely amazing and then you you come back later that night so at 10 o 'clock they have the hour of power i think it's called where the guys who finish like 17 hours are are coming in and obviously it's dark at this point so they put the spotlights on they have like a festival and you just like clap these guys they've been out for 17 hours i just couldn't even imagine doing that so that was probably one of the highlights for me is like watching these people come in it's after 17 hours yeah that's cool that's really cool it shows that you know the the amount of sport that goes into it's amazing iron man the community there is like absolutely incredible it's quite sad that there was one guy who didn't make the cutoff so each each so during the race there's certain cars you've got to make obviously and there was one guy who made the last cutoff but didn't make the actual cutoff so when i think it's seven i think it is 17 or maybe 18 hours for this one when that clock strikes zero all the lights go out the music stops and the crowd just like puts on their torch and we waited five minutes for this guy to come in because you know when you cross line you go Theo Baker you are an Ironman so everyone crosses the line and as you cross the line um there was just silence I was like this guy's like he's finished an Ironman and any other course he would have done it under the time but this race is 17 hours I think or 18 hours so he's not he's a technically like a not an Ironman not an Ironman yeah I just thought this is fuck that's fucked to miss out on like by three minutes that's pretty oh it's brutal but he still finished an Ironman yeah do you reckon he's classed himself as an Ironman would you class him as a 100 % I class him as an Ironman yeah he just didn't get the name read out which i saw that's that is gutting yeah that is gutting i kind of i kind of rate that there is a cut off though there has to be a cut off right yeah otherwise they can't close the event there has to be a cut for all the race organizers they've been going probably at this point do you know they're probably getting up two three hours yes for the event exactly they've been going for 20 hours yeah they're probably a little bit knackered and they want to get i will say does that not tickle your fancy i think in i say in another life after after maharach's career i feel like i'd love to do it i'd want to get like really good at swimming yeah i want like like you did i'd want to get an instructor yeah you kind of like nail it because that's that's one sport which is like so technique driven yeah um but you are time is on your side though because like your endurance gets better with age so like last year's world champion was 39 i think it was yeah yeah yeah no you've got plenty of plenty of years i am uh i do watch lionel sanders a lot he's brilliant he's my favorite youtuber yeah my favorite youtuber i love the guy yeah he's so good isn't he yeah just just the mad stuff that he comes out with like he's he's a proper character yeah which is good does he have a coach does he not have a coach who knows now he does who knows yeah yeah changing what he says every week but uh no he's great um and so you do that at the moment you finish that line you're probably not thinking about it but is there like any thoughts going through your head like i'm never doing this again i've done it and that's it or is it like oh i'm hungry for more um i was i i remember being like i never want to do this ever again like someone get me food but then like two weeks after you're like you almost feel like you've got no purpose in life now.

1:21:13You've just done it, now what? How did you deal with that? I went straight into New York Marathon Block. Okay, so setting another goal. Do you think that's like for them people that don't really feel like they have no purpose after being extreme with something, do you think it's, if you do feel a little bit lost, do you then go straight into another goal? I think you have to. I don't think I would do... I'd find it very hard to train without a goal. I think I've always had to... You have to have a goal of everything. But it's important to... So, for example, I took three weeks off from the Ironman.

1:21:56I don't think that was enough. Yeah. I think I should have taken way more time off. And I think that caught up with me after New York. So I went straight into Ironman. I took three weeks off and then straight into New York Marathon where I had, like, this... I wanted to go sub-330. and for me that was like that i didn't know whether i was actually going to hit that goal so i really wanted to like i put like everything into that um but post new york i think i sort of suffered for not taking a proper rest yeah which i'm sorry i'm sort of making up for it now i guess i'm doing a lot more now yeah resting let's talk about the marathon majors yep where how many have done and uh where was the first one uh london was the first one in 2022 or 2023 i think it was basically i did i had the surgery hip surgery six months later i wanted to run the london marathon so i used that as a sort of a goal to like get back into sport i did that in four hours 52 incredible i did two or three training runs for it i think it was so uh if you are watching i wouldn't recommend doing a marathon with barely any training i would recommend especially after surgery yeah they told me not to do it i was like i didn't listen uh probably should have listened so that was the first one and then i i'm very lucky with runner because i work because obviously i'm invested in runners i get special access to these races which so i did london for charity through a charity like as anyone else would do and then i i'm very lucky to get access to a lot races so the next one was um maybe i've done hang on a minute what have i done i've done london boston new york japan yes the next one was boston boston so yes which i saw you before this right yes you did you was prepping for boston yeah that's when i had the itv yeah uh we was in paris I was running with Cal.

1:23:58Yes, which was sick. Yeah, it was a good day. It was a really good day. Surprised that I thought Paris would be a lot flatter. But we decided to make it hilly by sending us under tunnels and then over tunnels. Yeah, my brother found it was a bit tough because of the hills, actually. Yeah, but it was an incredible experience. So you was currently dealing with this issue, but I think you was like, in six weeks' time, I'm running Boston. Yes, exactly. And so that one was actually with Adidas. And I've seen a lot of people talk about when influencers get gifted spots at Boston and whatnot. And I completely understand that.

1:24:34But also, realistically, I don't think I'll ever get the qualifying time for Boston. So in my head, I'm never going to get this opportunity in my entire life to run probably the coolest marathon in the world. and if i can inspire one person to take up running by making a video on me doing the boston marathon i said it's worth it but if anyone wants to give me hate for running the boston marathon i do find it pretty mad because like influencers like if you want to call them influencers you want to call like the reason they're called influencers is because they have influence on people and they're they're inspiring people they're just getting their name out for people who may not not be into running yeah they're getting the name out for the boston marathon they're great advertisement for the boston marathon like why would as a as a marathon brand why would you not give out tickets to to these people that can inspire more people to do your race and get inspired into running like i think it's a great thing that was that was my that was my sort of thought process and actually i think i'm quite fortunate i didn't actually get any hate for running the boston marathon i know i think partly because i'm not necessarily a running influencer so i get seen differently compared to say well you know we all know a lot of running influence i think if someone of them took it they probably get a bit more stick yeah whereas i'm more of a traditional youtuber sort of doing a bit of running and iron man stuff here and there so uh i mean that made the boston marathon other than my knee like one of the best things i've ever done that support just the iconic finishing line Also, the city's like amazing.

1:26:09Yeah, it's sick. I feel like it's sick that it's done on a Monday as well. It's so cool. On a Sunday. Yeah, it's honestly one of the best things I've ever done. That was genuinely insane. I like Boston. It's kind of like a, it's like London. It's quite gritty, quite like the weather's not always very nice. Obviously, it's a little bit further north than New York. Quite hot in the day I did it, actually. Got sunburned. Did you? Yeah. They're handing out free sun cream at the start. I was like, I don't need that. Rookie era. but that was so iconic that was one of the best things I've ever done that was brilliant with Adidas um so that yeah that was my second major yep a third major was New York New York free have you done it I've never done it but I'd love to that's rough that was a I always say to me that New York marathon was harder than the Ironman I did three months before because of the time goal and the last so i ran it with have you met dom he's like the co-owner runner yeah i ran it with him so i had the goal of 330 he wanted to do 320 so we're like let's just run it together and he will and we'll go at 320 pace and i'll just like hopefully i can hang on and um so he'd come off the back of like two weeks of partying or whatever so he was a little bit cooked i think but um the support on that is i've never experienced anything like it you I had my shocks in, not that I couldn't hear anything.

1:27:34You couldn't hear a thing. It was just phenomenal. And we went out the pace, and then around 32K, he started to suffer from the partying, I think he'd been doing for two weeks. I was like, I'm not leaving you. I'm not leaving you. I'm never going to leave you behind. 35K, I was like, mate, I've got to go. Sorry. So I was like, Dom, I'm so sorry. He was like, no, he was pushing me to go. I was like, okay. Yeah, sometimes it hurts more running slower than it does. I was getting stuff. And I was like, if I continue at this pace, I'm not going to break 330. So 35k, I was like, fuck this, we've got to go.

1:28:07And then for those who have run the New York Marathon, they'll know that the last 6k is basically just uphill. It's like a steady incline. And then you get into Central Park, it's just like that. That last 6k was the hardest thing I've ever done, without a shadow of a doubt. Just trying to hold the sub 330 pace and just trying to... Oh, mate, it was rough. It was so rough. I've never been in such a hole in my life. And then I crossed the line in 329.32. So I said 28 seconds to spare. So talk about nailing the pace. Yeah, you nailed it there. Especially, like you say, accounting for that uphill as well at the end.

1:28:42Yeah, that's horrific. That must have took some grit. But as soon as I stopped, as soon as I crossed the line, I couldn't move. I had to come over. Yeah, I was like, that's it. My legs, I started shaking. I was like, I thought I was going to pass out. You know, you see people cross the line that just like collapsed that was you that was almost me that was almost me so I crossed the line I was like shaking I had the guys from Strava like come over like it's alright everything's gonna be okay and then Dom came across the line like five minutes later and we walked through the finishing line together like the exit bit and then he got like a 2k walk just like get round they need to sort that out every single marathon like the walk after is so far so far I was like, lads, I can't even move my legs at this point.

1:29:32They're just like, they're giving out like pointless. They've obviously got all these sponsors, and they're just giving out pointless crap to you. And you're just like, I don't want any of this. I just want a taxi rank. Yeah, literally, get me in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. To get me to my hotel so I can sit down. I was cooked. Go to the pub. Yeah, I was cooked after that one. I was genuinely like, I was destroyed. I was like, Ironman block, New York Marathon block, I got the sub goal, so I was gassed, but that was the hardest thing I've ever done. But it was so sick. I love New York so much. Yeah, it's such an amazing place.

1:30:08I feel like every time you go there, you're just like, wow. So good. It's so much bigger. It's like the films. Yes. It is. Every single time you look up when you're in Manhattan and it's just so big. It's wicked, isn't it? The scale of things. I absolutely love it. It's so good. Just the vibe. And then, final one? Yeah, I did Tokyo this year. how was that probably the most disappointed i've been in a marathon i how did you cope with the travel really really tough like genuinely really tough it's going that way for for us um obviously going east like it's quite hard for us i really struggled with it like new york was fine because you're getting up at like 6 a.m 5 a.m you just feel like you're getting after it exactly whereas tokyo i was cooked i think i made the mistake of so we went out like four days before and the three days leading up to the race I was doing like food I was doing videos for my channel so I was like working a lot I was eating crap so my carb load was rubbish um and I felt like I really really was struggling with the jet lag I just felt like bad and then woke up a bit late on the race day didn't have breakfast so I was like trying to cram load of carb gels for breakfast which is not smart and I just knew like at the start of the race I was like yeah I just you know when you just feel like this is going to be a long day oh fuck it i'll go out i'll try and i'll try and go out pb pace and then hit 22k i was like that's it it's not happening today yeah i hit 22k i was like i was on pace and that was it i just destroyed and what what keeps you like going at that point i'd i had pulled out i want i really want to get my six star major medal and I thought I've come all the way to fucking Tokyo to what pull out of a race so I was like I just have to keep going and I found myself um when there's sort of reality hits where you're not going to hit your goal I feel like I'm quite good at changing the goal so I was like okay my goal now is uh a 335 and then I realized that's probably not going to happen so my goal now is I want to finish it and can i get under 340 that was my goal so you're staying like positive you still go you're not just like fuck it i'm gonna yeah i don't like that's it it's kind of like changing your goal as you but change your goal where it's still a little bit tough it's but it is achievable yeah and being okay with that and i got like i walked a lot that race and i just felt destroyed but i got 339 and i remember crossing the line thinking like i'm so disappointed with how this race has gone but i've got my second fastest marathon time i've ever done yeah and i was like okay you've and i remember what shows how far you've come exactly that and we when we started editing the video like the following week and i was doing like a bit of voiceover that's when i was like okay this is actually really cool like i've i've i've got 339 two years ago i never would have dreamt to do in that and i think that exactly what you said that i showed how far i've come to be disappointed with my performance of a 339 so i was i was probably the most proud of being out of all of them to be honest because i kept going and the most i've learned i've learned make sure you carb load make sure you properly sleep and not be jet lagged and i did a um so i had a bit of a back injury like a month out so i missed my long run like the 32 34k run so I thought I'd like I won't go I'll go against the plan that morning I'll do like a 32k run like a week and 10 days out of the race and uh I I shouldn't have done that that was not part of the plan and I just I went into it and my legs were just like cooked I think I just overdid it yeah but I learned a lot from that race which I think is the most important yeah and next so you just mentioned that the aim is to get the six major medal yep so what's on the calendar so I've got Berlin Chicago I want to do you can do any this year well I wanted to I wanted to but weddings man my friends are getting married I've got a stag do on Berlin and I've got a wedding on Chicago so I think I'm going to have to postpone to next year yeah yeah next year do you reckon you could get out for the Sydney oh when what do you know when that is is that this summer no I don't think I could yeah sad times so there we go it'll have to be for next year is that kind of like the ultimate goal the ultimate goal is to get the 6 stars yeah I think it'd be really cool I'd really love to crack London again I'd love to do London again I went to go watch it obviously a few weeks ago and it was so inspiring London Marathon Weekend is the best weekend to be in London ever it's just so it's incredible I've been like literally the last 2 years I've been here not around the marathon but just been doing and activations and stuff like that and just the vibe just everyone running around like it's it's so cool i'll spend three hours on my own near big ben so like 38k i think it is so when people like in the pit yeah and just seeing them come past just like was just incredible when i saw the pros that come past i was like this is sick yeah that was like amazing tired yeah yeah it's mad so yeah the goal is probably the two marathons next year and then ironman copenhagen as well next year wow okay yeah that was a big big year next year yeah so this year's a bit more of a i think it's important to have your sort of quiet times yeah um do a few hyroxes which i love yeah yeah you've been smashing the hyroxes at the moment yeah so fun got a nice little pb the other week yep 103 doubles come on get in there now you're getting quick is that do you think uh sub 60s on the cards i think that's what i'd like to work towards by the end of the year i think like i would love to do like a november race yeah and then try and go for a sub i know there's manchester birmingham and london yeah birmingham i think we did we did last year birmingham we didn't go to plan but i think we'd like to give birmingham another shot in november um and actually so a lot i found myself with high rocks um i've never really trained for high rocks again like i've done like obviously you train for high rocks but i've never done a block yeah for high rocks do you think you'll do that this time i think i'd like to yeah because normally i i've done it in between a marathon always part of a marathon training block so i'd like to really focus in on training for a high rocks have you got a good uh partner that you can do it with uh yeah my mate from home yeah okay but he needs to train as well well that's the thing yeah yeah so you've got to you've got to both train and you've got to be both going into it like equal i think then that's the fairest way to do it yeah um and then like you say you you can but at least now that's the guy that you got the 103 with yes so at least then if you do it with the same partner you know that you've improved and you both got fitter it's just about running and that was two days after the 107 with JJ yeah yeah so you did one with KSI yeah that was great to watch that was sick that was fucking so funny just watching you all watching skipping a lap of accident yeah skipping a lap you guys like the Mexican guys at the end yeah they're so good yeah yeah there was the Belgian guys.

1:37:20Yeah, Belgian guys. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, the Aussies, the big rugby player. Yes. And Dom. Dom Tamato. Yeah, yeah, the parkour guy. It was so funny watching you all go. That was such a good day out, I will say. I thoroughly enjoyed that. That was a brilliant day out. Yeah. And then who won? Was it the Korean guys? The Korean guys. They were on that fitness show on Netflix. Yeah, I can't remember what it's called. And then, who's the French dude? Oh, that was cheating. That was unfair. That was bang out of order. He got Reeve to a sub-60. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, yeah. An Elite 15 guy was in your race.

1:38:01Doesn't seem fair. He's not a YouTuber, right? No, he's not. Reeve didn't even do any of the exercises. He did, like, two exercises. Yeah, yeah, I saw that as well. Bullshit. He was just running around. Yeah, he went for a run. But, no, that was class. That was amazing. um but yeah have you got any advice for anyone that's like getting into fitness that wants to um i feel like you summed it up perfectly like enjoys doing a bit of everything like the jack of all trades yeah um because i feel like that's one of the ways that you can just i feel like you do fitness for enjoyment you do it for like you've got these goals that you set but the bigger picture is because you want to improve on yourself but you also want to enjoy it and like experience these things like a lot of people trade and do this stuff for like aesthetics and don't get me wrong like i definitely don't want to be like i'm trying to cut a little bit now because i realized i let myself go a little bit but i don't train at all for aesthetics i train for fun and i guess performance because i've had a few like i don't worth a few i've had a lot of injuries in the past and a heart thing so i'm like the fitter i am the more well prepared i'll be like going forward in life that's my whole thing and then any advice for people is i think just goal setting that has to be like create your short-term goals your medium term goals and what do you want to achieve like longer term because without goal settings you i find myself a lack of drive and purpose yeah do you think you would have done the things that you've done if you didn't set goals nowhere way and how do you even go about setting those goals like what do you do you go as big as you can do you kind of go within reason like are you talking to your friends when you're setting these goals like are you just thinking right this is what i want to do next i think you have to ask yourself like first of all like what do you actually want to do like do you want to do an iron man or this and that if it's a no then you change that if it's a yes be like okay what's the next steps like do i go you're not going to go from zero to like a million straight away you have to do certain things to sort of raise it so for example like the thought of going to a half iron man after doing a sprint was just berserk like it i couldn't even i was stressed am i going to finish this in time like how am i going to run a half marathon after 90k but as soon as you've done little steps everything snowballs and then i actually it was it got to a point where i looked at the iron man i thought oh it's actually not that bad even which is insane yeah but you sort of trick yourself into convincing oh actually it's it's it's fine it's normal but that happens through these mini mini goals that you work towards yeah yeah no i like that and do you kind of like set a goal and then plan back from that goal or do you kind of just set the goal like fuck it i'm gonna that's the goal and that's what it is i'd say probably that yeah i say my lack of planning has taken me so i think kind of like ignorance is bliss yeah a little bit yeah but I think now I'm trying to prepare a lot more more with coaches and more planning whereas in the past I've definitely sort of winged a lot I think the more planning you have the easier it will be to achieve your goals yeah 100 % yeah there is a there is kind of one bit piece of respect that I have for people who do just wing it though because I just think you're you're you're a dog you've got it you've got it and like you know these people that just rock up to things without training and they just like get through it no matter what yeah they might not get the best time ever but like the fact that they've gone and done it and you just think well like when it counts you've got it for the day like no matter what your mindset so many people like overthink so many things right and I'm a chronic under-thinking which I think helps me quite a lot yeah so when I do rock up to things everyone goes oh well you're not prepared but what's what's worse what's worse gonna happen yeah like what I don't get the time I achieve alright yeah it's not the end of the world it's not I'm still gonna have fun doing it yeah so and also like i have done an iron man so anything else now i'm like yeah man it's fine it's calm what an hour of hyrox how hard could it be yeah the worst one nighty heart rate for like an hour is not fun yeah it is the worst and like you say it it's interesting isn't it like you say you've done no man but hyrox is still fucking hard likewise you go do a 5k all out again cooked yeah some people would prefer to do an Ironman than an Ironman 100 % because like the level of pain is just different I know it's for shorter but like the pain that you've got to push to also I've realised there's like so many levels to everything as well you see these guys rocking like 8 hour Ironmans I'm like wow you've got a different grade or you lot doing like 50 minutes in a higher rocks on your own Bloomingdale's got a VO2 max over 100 first guy ever to have it's ridiculous yeah it's maddening but as long as you're going out and setting your goals and having fun doing it I think man you do you just crack on yeah crack on no that's class and like you say I think enjoyment is the most important thing 100 % otherwise why are you doing it exactly that there's no point in putting yourself in the bin if you're not enjoying it yeah you gotta get something out of it at least have a bit of fun yeah I think we'll leave it there perfect mate that's been lovely thanks a lot for having me I appreciate that yeah have you got anything planned this week we go to America on Monday for six weeks oh right okay seven weeks yeah for the world cup yep and then i'm going to run home now run home yeah because i've got a i've got a shoot which i might have to get the train might be quicker but obviously just run fast oh i just run fast yeah all out 5k there we go there we go thank you the all i appreciate that um hopefully see you soon yep nice one jake