Why Every Elite Athlete Has To Focus On Fuelling | Molly Caudery Pole Vaulter

0:07Molly, this is your first ever podcast. It is. You know, I've done a fair few online ones, but face to face is, it's nice. I like it. Pole vaulting. A little bit different. I'd love to leave this interview knowing far more about pole vaulting than I knew before. I can teach you something. And that would be great. So let's just go through the mechanics of pole vaulting. because I think it's probably safe to say that most people have never even tried to pole vault. Right. So pole is quite light, but obviously very, very flexible. Yeah. They probably come in varying weights. Varying sizes, weights.

0:42You can. So when I started, I was on a tiny pole, like three meters 50, like a meter less. And you just slowly, slowly increase the length of the pole. You can grip however high you, not you want because it's hard, but however high you are like willing to try. And the poles are made of carbon fiber, fiberglass, and it's your choice on which pole you want to jump on. And then there are flexes, which kind of correlate to your weight. And it is very kind of technical and very deep. And often it can sound like I'm talking another language when I go into pole vault too much. But I love this. And I think just for argument's sake, I'd love to just go into pole vaulting if we can.

1:19Because I find it really fascinating. Obviously, it's physics, really. Oh, absolutely. So you're, I'm just going to call it planting for now until you're correct. No, that's great. When you plant the pole, you're looking for, you know, all of your weight to essentially leave the floor and travel through just the pole and be propelled over the bar? Bar. Perfect. Look at this. Look at this. It's all perfect. Everything you're saying is correct. Thank you. And then, I mean, I can only imagine like sprinting, getting a bit of bend in the pole and then being shot backwards. that does happen you don't touch what hasn't happened to me in in a while you know I feel like I've figured it out a bit but yeah growing up if you are on too big of a pole or it's called taking off under and you're too close to the the box we call it then yeah you'll just get flung right back on the track and that's happened to me a fair few times which is never fun but you you just got to get back up and go again and it's also like the harder the more you commit the more you know propensity there is for danger I suppose although it also becomes safer at the same time This is something that I still kind of deal with on a day to day, like moving up poles and training on big poles is not my strong point.

2:29And it's like, I know that I need this pole and I know that I need to fully commit. And if you don't, then it's going to go wrong. But there's just like this thing in the back of your head that occasionally doesn't let you. And you can commit so hard that the pole can snap as well? I've snapped two poles. Yeah, they shouldn't snap. But if they're damaged or anything like that, and you go too hard, they will go. it's such a fine line between getting it right and it being really dangerous it's really interesting I'm like really quite fascinated by it yeah well I do think that and this is what my coach tells me all the time is that it's what I do for me it is kind of like walking I've done it since I was 11 years old and there is nothing to be scared of and you do have to believe that because the moment that you get scared that's when things go wrong so it is all about finding that balance.

3:17And if I could encourage more people to try it, I absolutely would love to, because it may look scary, but it really isn't. And everything is in a safe environment set up for you to jump as high as you can. How do you fuel for your training? And do you have to pay attention to that? Obviously, what you're doing is incredibly athletic, but to your point, you're running for 30 meters. And it's certainly a very specific skill set. Do you pay attention into your fuel? Yeah, absolutely. And I think any kind of elite athlete has to. For me, it's been a real learning curve. You know, like my younger teenage years, struggled with weight a little bit and, you know, finding the right balance of how to diet.

3:58And I've kind of found the perfect sweet spot where I just kind of, I don't track anything. I very much just listen to my body and what it needs. But I'm a very much everything in moderation kind of person. So I do still allow myself a little sweet treat pretty much every day. I love some chocolate, but you know, I'm delicious. Yes. But always, always fueling for my sessions, lots of protein. Like I said, we lift a lot of weight. So that's kind of a big kind of nutritional point for us. But yeah, and then carbohydrates, obviously, just period or periodically through the year, like around training sessions.

4:35So you'll scrap carbs at certain times of the year? not scrap never scrap them but definitely lower the intake depending on what my session might look like if I if I don't have a big session the next day I may have less carbs or I may have like a just yogurt for breakfast not not porridge just like small small swaps and small changes here and there and in winter we train much much harder than we do in summer because it's competition time so I guess I would I would eat more calories throughout the winter and then I when my training drops, I kind of dropped some of that intake.

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7:28So would you be paying attention to like your heart rates? And because, you know, anyone who listens to this show will surely know by now that when we're talking about kind of running economy and burning fuel, fuel comes from different sources, depending on your heart rate. You'll be burning fat, say, in zone two. If you're running, you know, in sub 150 to 155 heart rate, anything above, you're burning your glycogen. So if you're doing a hard effort, a sustained long effort, you really need that glycogen, those carb levels topped up. I can't imagine that's an issue for you. Not really. Like I said, so in training, the maximum, on my runway, I'll run 30 meters.

8:08That's my run-up length. But in training, the most we'll ever do is, I don't know, like 10 100s or something like that, or maybe 6 120s, 120 meters. That's all. Carbohydrates and that kind of, the high glycogen stores are never overly kind of needed for us. Like on competition days, I'll absolutely fuel because we'll be out there from like four to five hours from the start to the end of the competition. And for that, it's like, yeah, I really need to fuel up. But just for kind of day-to-day training, I wouldn't really look at my heart rate and stuff like that just because it's not super relevant in that side of my sport.

8:45You spoke about the seasonality there of your training schedule. Why is warm weather training helping you? it's a bit of an interesting one and we're very lucky to go warm weather training and i find it very beneficial because so i live in loughborough there's not loads going on it's very it's quite a small town i do the same thing every day and warm weather training just breaks it all up and and you know it gives us something to look forward to to focus on and when you're there you do some really good training it's not really any different to what we do at home but it just that intensity is taken up a little bit and it's like it's fully focused you're there for one thing and it can be you know anywhere between two to four weeks of just super intense focused training and you can get a lot out of that so we'll we'll do one in january and then one in april kind of leading into outdoors and yeah that they are a privilege absolutely but they they do make a lot of difference do you think just psychologically it's helpful that it's nice and warm yeah absolutely when you're in the middle of winter and you're just doing the same thing every day slogging training and then you get to go to South Africa for three weeks it's it's great and like it just the motivation is so much higher there's more of like a team camaraderie like uh because we don't get much of that in in athletics a very individual sport so like that side of it is really nice and just a bit different and you get to spend time with people that you wouldn't normally spend time with.

10:11Do you think that people underestimate how much of an impact their environment has on their performance? Yeah, oh, absolutely. I think like your environment is so important. And again, if we could train like in warm weather conditions all year round, I do think, you know, training would be different and we wouldn't necessarily be better. But just your lifestyle and your happiness and being somewhere that you love, I think can make such a difference. My coach every now and then sends me home to Cornwall just because he thinks like I need, you know, like a refresh and a reset. And just being in an environment that makes you happy has a massive impact.

10:48How important is strength? Massively. So strength training is your bread and butter. Absolutely. Yeah. It's the foundation for absolutely everything. I think in kind of all track and field sports, you need to have that really strong foundation. You know, in pole vault, I'm pushing every part of my body to the limits. there's a lot of upper body, but you also need lots of speed from the lower body. You need strong abs and core to be able to throw yourself upside down and control all of that. So yeah, we spend quite a lot of time in the gym just to be able to know that we've got that strong foundation to work on.

11:21Three favourite gym exercises? I love cleans. Like just standard clean, you can't beat it. Not like you would see other Olympic lifters clean. It's like really everything that we do is super short and sharp. Like every movement we do is fast. So on a bar? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I've got no interest in being slow. I wouldn't jog for more than three minutes in a warm-up because I don't want to train slow twitch muscles in any way. It's fine to get my heart rate going and heart rate up, but that's it. Like I am trying to be as fast as I can. Oh, the other two. I enjoy just like pull-ups, weirdly. I think I've just always done them and like to be able to do them is good.

12:03It's good and that's great. I think we came across a stat the other day that said that the average man can't do a pull-up. I've seen this, yeah. Yeah, I mean, how many pull-ups are you doing? We do them weighted most of the time and we do it on weight instead. So again, everything's short, sharp and fast and heavy, I guess. So we'll do it with a 20 kilo belt, but we'll only do three or something. But unweighted, I could probably do around 20, I guess. Wow. Yeah. That's epic. We do a lot of pole vault specific exercises using, it's called a K pulley. So it's kind of, I don't know the mechanics behind it, but how much you put in, it gives you back.

12:43So we do like overhead pullovers with those. Just, I don't know how to demonstrate it, but it's the K pulley machine. Any exercise with that, I think is really beneficial. Do you put any pressure on yourself to become stronger without losing any speed? and if so, how much of a priority is that? What's more important to you? I would say speed is probably the most important thing right now. It's like I know that I'm strong enough and my coach again, he always jokes that I could probably lift the whole gym. I'm quite naturally strong. So we never ever push the boundaries in the gym. We gym a lot but we don't ever lift super heavy.

13:24It's all about again, keeping it light and fast so that I don't want to put on loads of muscle bulk. I just want to be kind of fit and strong so that I can run fast and jump high. And that is 100 % the main priority. Are you always training for something? So is that always a goal? Is that always a target? Is there always a reason for a session? Or do you also just recreationally run or lift? Training on the track or in, we call it the high pack where I train, always has purpose. But I love sport in general. I've actually just gotten into paddle a bit because, you know, it's good fun. So that's recreational.

13:57but to be honest like recreational sport right now has to be fully put on pause because I can't risk anything it's like run the risk of injuring exactly and I am I'm quite fragile and clumsy so it's like I do not want to do anything that could put me at risk of injuring myself and not making competition so there there is absolutely that side of things but I think when I'm retired I would love to get into lots of recreational sport I'd love to try like high rocks and things like that and just try some different things. What's one element of your gym routine that we could all benefit from? Something that all kind of track and field athletes do is Olympic lifting, which is cleaning and snatching.

14:37And I just think it's so good for your whole body. You know, even like the long distance runners do it, maybe not quite so heavy, but they do it. And it just is, it trains everything. And it, yeah, I think it's great. Clean and snatching is? Two separate lifts. Okay. So cleaning is just when you have the bar and you just pull it and catch it here. And then snatch is when you pull it and catch it above your head. Oh, yeah. Okay. Quite cross-fitty. Quite cross-fitty. But again, we're not doing loads of reps and sets. We're just doing like, I don't know, four sets of three or something like that.

15:11Or we'll go four, three, two, two, one or something like that. And everything is about 110 % of like fast, like powerful movements. Do you think this is really random now? And I'm so sorry, it's been quite a long day. This is really random. So we had a Norwegian athlete come in who was on all counts, just like, I don't know, just all stats just off the chart. He was an Olympic kayaker for Norway and was, you know, very, very good. And he and his brothers are kind of, you know, almost like mutant style athletes who can just do, you know, all kinds of stuff. And he was saying that essentially stuff like the ski erg or kayaking that includes extraordinary cardiovascular ability, but also is very, you know, very muscular exercise.

16:05Yeah, yeah. You know, I had a go on the ski erg actually the other day. It's absolutely barbaric. It's punishing, isn't it? So the task was, by the way, like listen to how easy it sounds. The task was burn your body weight in calories on the ski erg as quickly as you possibly can. So I had to burn like 81 calories, right? And I was told it was like, you know, maybe two big pulls per calorie. So I was like, cool, whatever, like 160 pulls and I'll do it in three minutes. Burnt out halfway through burning my 80 calories. Could only get to like halfway. It's so hard, isn't it? It was horrendous. Like I failed, failed the exercise.

16:40I had to burn 80 calories and failed the exercise. But it is amazing because your heart rate, My heart rate spiked to like 183 or something. And my arms were just like shot. And it took 90 seconds to get to that. And I was like, that's insane. Yeah. So I was wondering if you use anything like that, because obviously it's really important for you to be fast and strong. Yeah. Well, not always. And actually it's kind of not a punishment, but it's only I've got a bad kind of relationship with the skier because we only use it. if we're injured. Same with the bike, same with the cross trainer. Like if I'm injured, if you know, I've been in a boot countless times and it's like, you're in a boot, go on the SkiErg.

17:25And then it's like, oh, and it's so hard. It's so hard. And I just got back a few weeks ago from a Red Bull fitness boot camp. I'm not really fit. I'm not really a fitness, like I'm within the Olympic sports. So I wasn't with like the daredevils, but I'm like, I'm not fitness. And these are all the higher-ox CrossFit guys. They were like, let's do a Ski Erg Challenge. And I was like, oh, no. And I was doing it. And it was just 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. And I thought, I've really got to prove myself here. And I just went, same as you, went for it. I did manage to complete it. But like... Well, you only did 30 seconds, so...

18:01Exactly, that's why. That's why. But by the last one, honestly, in between reps, I just, I couldn't move. And my breathing, like my lungs, for the rest of the day, were hurting. But it's remarkable, isn't it? Because like, surely, like as a curious athlete and someone that is interested in furthering, you know, my own physiology, a couple of minutes on the ski erg every day is probably like up there with stuff we should be doing, no? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a tremendously awful thing. But like when you get used to it, I can only imagine you'll be fitter and stronger for it. Absolutely. But I also think you can absolutely get fit in what you do.

18:40like I don't run long distance like I said but you know like I can run 150s no problem and when I used to swim I used to swim but that like you're either swim fit or you're or you're skier go fit and you can kind of adapt quite quickly I do I do think and you can't you train in what you train in and then you get good at it but yeah what would you say is the most important part of progress in a kind of useful training block versus just training? So I have to give a lot of credit to my coach because he does all of the programming. He is a scientist and just knows absolutely every rep and set to the millimeter, centimeter, second, whatever it's going to be and thinks everything through.

19:25And we have different phases. We have like three-week cycles and we will have a concentric cycle, an isometric cycle, an eccentric cycle in the gym. and then like on the track we'll have a tempo kind of cycle, a speed cycle. So training is always changing. But for me, again, like I said, I've struggled with injury a lot. So for me, it's keeping it very basic and just staying consistent with the very basics of training. That's all I need to do to get better because I've not really had the opportunity to do that much in the last few years. And every time I get a block of consistency, I jump well and then I might get injured and then it's like restarting all over again.

20:05But yeah, everything, every movement that I do has a lot of thought put behind it. And you find it easier to stick to a plan that has purpose? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think without purpose. If I had to just show up to training each day with no plan, I would have no idea what to do. When we have off-season, I've been to the gym a few times and I just, you know, I come to the gym and I kind of like potter around. I don't really get anything done. Like the difference between having a training program set in front of you and not is massive. I don't even know what it would be like to try and train without a training program.

20:40I think it's also just interesting in the sense that you're aware that there is a point to the session. Yes. You know, like there's an end goal in the session. Even when you run like a super slow recovery run, there's a point to it. Like, you know, it's baked into a bigger plan, a bigger picture. And I think we've got lots of components of training that keep it fun and kind of exciting. So we do this thing called multi-throw, which is just throwing, basically. But we measure it every week and compete against ourselves and within the group. And it might be going over a bar or it might be as far as you can go.

21:13And it just lets you track to see how you're progressing and just keeps it kind of fun and exciting. And there is always a purpose and a point to it, like you said. Do you think that in order to be elite, you have to be a bit more boring? Yes, unfortunately. And I am not this person. And I find it one of the hardest parts of being a professional athlete. I love the emphasis on that. Yes! I would love to be out doing stuff all day, every day. But I train for about three hours a day, maybe see a physio do an extra hour of bits and then it's like do nothing and that is so hard especially in like competition season like we're going to all these amazing cities and countries and stuff like that it's the day before competition I'm just like sat in my hotel room because I know that I can't go and do stuff I have to be boring although last year we went to Monaco for the first time and I didn't I never told my coach but I walked like over 10 miles the day before my competitions because I wanted to see everything.

22:18They didn't have taxis there, like, or Uber. So I just walked and I still jumped well the next day. But like things like that, you can't be doing that. It's you have to be boring. That's so interesting. Like I can, I can obviously understand why like, my friends and I wouldn't go and walk 30 ,000 steps or whatever the day before a marathon, because obviously you're trying to keep your legs fresh. You can sprint 30 meters whenever you need to, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like, it's amazing to me that at the top of any sport, there are these kind of parameters that coaches would want you to stick by.

22:53Yeah, absolutely. And I think I don't want there to be any stone unturned ever. So it's like, just say I went and jumped bad. I would hate for that to come from something that I've done. Yeah. If that makes sense. Or no, it does. Or like, you don't even want to give yourself the option of having something to blame. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. If I do bad, that's just got to be on me for having a bad day, you know? Yeah, it can't be because of the curry I had yesterday. So, and that would, I think, would play quite a big mental part of things. So it's like, and I definitely wasn't like this when I was younger.

23:26I've kind of grown into this person. And we get three or four weeks off a year at the end of the season. And in those four weeks, I would say I'm absolutely not boring. Like, I will use those four weeks to the absolute maximum and just do as much as I possibly can.

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25:57Are you able to keep personal relationships and friendships kind of, you know, going in full swing whilst you're training for, say, the world? Yeah, I mean, all of my kind of friends from home absolutely understand my career and what I have to do. And I hate to call them sacrifices because it's a choice and I choose to do this and I love what I do. But yeah, there's always going to be like you've missed a good friend's wedding or you can't go out and celebrate or, you know, you're not going to be out drinking late. And I'm absolutely fine with all of that because, again, I love my life and I'm so grateful to do what I can do.

26:33and then kind of where I am now, I just try and surround myself of like-minded people so that we all kind of, we're all going through the same thing. We're all supporting each other and I think that's really important. Are you close with your family? Super close. Yeah, yeah, really close. My dad was my coach until I was 18 and my mum and dad and actually my brothers actually like come with me to a lot of my competitions, follow me around the world and that's so special. I love that side of it. Was your father in sport before? Yeah, so he was just sporty growing up. Like he did decathlon, which has pole vault in it, which probably influenced me a little bit to try the pole vault.

27:10He didn't have like a coach as such in Cornwall. The facilities aren't amazing. You know, we're at the very end of the earth. There's not so much going on. But yeah, he had a lot of talent and yeah, he was sporty. I find decathletes just amazing. Crazy. It's incredible, like the range of skill that they have. Yeah, like you were saying earlier about being able to run a marathon and lift super heavy. Like they're not running marathons, but they've got to do it all. And it's so impressive. And I see that you're a whooper. I am a whooper. What's your kind of sleep and recovery like? Oh, it's pretty good for the majority.

27:47Like it's honestly, I wake up in the morning and it's the first thing I check. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like addictive. And I've got my little group chats with other people. And it's like, I like to see how everyone else is doing. Have you ever debated your scores with the AI? Yeah, well, I recently changed. I get angry with it sometimes. I recently changed, like upgraded my whoop and my strain's gone way down and it's saying not working hard. And I'm like, no, I am. And I've messaged it loads of times saying, I'm doing the same stuff, but you're like not saying I'm doing much. And yeah. Sometimes if I feel like I've had an amazing sleep and I wake up in the amber, I'm never in the red.

28:25But if I wake up in the amber, I will just like quickly fire off a message and start a thing going like why am I in the amber? It might be nutritional stress or this or that Yeah, you're dehydrated I'm not, I've done everything perfectly Have you ever been in the 1 % club? Oh yeah, you need just like a load of alcohol when they sleep for that Yeah, exactly, it doesn't take much I have to say that's pretty rare Yeah, for me too it's like you, I will never be in red without alcohol yeah no no so it is absolutely remarkable though isn't it it's like even if you can get away with like if i'm in one of the the phases where i'm having the odd drink yeah which is pretty rare nowadays it'll be like you can get away with like two three pints i was gonna say i can have two glasses yeah you get away with two three pints and then an early night you can get away with it It's so true.

29:21That is exactly it. You get away with it. And that is a good feeling. It is. That's when you wake up. I feel like I've been learning it and understanding what I can and can't do because I never want to not be in green. And it's like, okay, I can have two glasses of wine. It is horrendous. I woke up last night. Last night I had the most like, I had a really crazy, like vivid dream about time travel where my brother's business partner and I time traveled. we sky dove and yeah it's put me in amber today lots of training lots of working out at the moment but yeah it doesn't usually I was very upset actually yeah I had 10 hours sleep 10?

30:01yeah I'm a sleeper 10 hours how much do you usually try to get? I mean 8 hours is the absolute minimum but I aim for 9 and I like 10 like 10 is a bit of a rarity but like on average I would say I get 9 hours sleep that's just lovely isn't it? Sleep score 100 % every night in that case? Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Hundreds. Just lovely. Yeah, just every night. No sleep debt. What is the toll on your body from pole vaulting? So say you spend three hours training pole vaulting. I mean, you're obviously a young woman, but do you ever wake up with, you know, where is sore? Like what does it affect? The answer is just yes.

30:42Like the stress on the body is high, like very high. I've always got a bad back like I'm like an 80 year old woman getting out of bed and then I get a lot of Achilles issues so I'm like holding my back like limping out of bed right now it's quite good but I've been through some bad phases and it's like I rely quite heavily on like physiotherapists and using my team for manual therapy to kind of manage that side of things it's not something that I would really encourage lots of people to over rely on because I think you need to be able to manage it yourself self but I've definitely found like a good routine that works for me over the years um but yeah I also find Pilates really helps like I'm not a Pilates girl but I think it really is amazing for you is this what what's it this is terrible I don't know what's it what's it it's called reformer reformer Pilates I saw somebody on the beach recently yeah who I've known my whole life and I haven't seen him in a little while, but he's my godfather's son.

31:46And he'd lost loads of weight. And he looks just great. He looked fantastic. And I said to him, I was like, my God, how have you dropped all the weight? You look hardly recognisable. And I was expecting him to say, like, Manjaro or I gave up drinking or something like that. And he said, Reforma Pilates. Well, there you go. a matcher and some reformer pilates he gets the secret and i thought i'm that's a dubious response i think yeah in this case but i have also heard that uh the reformer pilates is like incredible from quite a few people i think it's really good for for me like all the small muscles that i don't use so much and just like again making sure everything's really stable so that when i'm i'm not like overusing other parts of my body so if i get a bad back my my physio will be like have you been going to Pilates?

32:39And I'll be like, oh, actually, maybe not so much. Just having like that core strength and stuff, it's the next level. I kind of feel like Pilates like used to be a thing. Yeah. And then it like died in a ditch. Yeah. And like people were kind of like happy about it almost because it was kind of like, oh, well, this was sick. And now it's just back. Yeah. It's all I hear about. I know. What do you think about Pilates? Well, so I also have a bad back, but I also, I tried to form a Pilates. You look like someone who would have a bad back just in passing.

33:10that's kind of the first thing I would think if I saw you in the street I'd be like he has a bad back I went to a former Pilates class and the it was quite a sort of crazy person running it and she did this thing where she went she was like I can tell she went I can tell this is in front of everyone but I can tell what's wrong with you just from like looking at you walks and she watched me take one step and just went like bad back and I was a bit like well I sort of wrote that on the form so like and then we did the class and she saw that I couldn't do it properly and I honestly nearly died on this thing like three times.

33:40It was pinging me around. I saw that I couldn't do it properly. You just left me to it. I was like in bits on this. I got flung off it at one point. The whole thing was mental. I've heard from quite a few people who are in like tremendous shape. Oh, that's the problem I had then. Because I was just not in good shape. Well, I think what they were saying was that they have used this method of Pilates in order to become in tremendous shape, I think is what they meant. I've gone like, wow, you're in like epic shape. And they go, yeah, I do Pilates. It's like, do you? Yeah, I feel like it's not just, the Pilates is like an add-on.

34:19It has to be. I don't think you could just do Pilates and... I'm going to call him out. My friend is called Gaston, right? And I literally said like, Gaston, come on. Come on. You've not lost like two stone from doing Pilates. Like there is, something else is happening here, surely. Yeah, for sure. must be but it is good it is great I have to give it some credit it is great and then back to recovery I guess the other forms the other like in between so if we do like a qualification and a final I'll like make sure I ice bath and just have a flush and things like that but on a day to day like I hate ice baths I hate anything in the cold so that's like reserved for like two or three times a year right sauna I do I do enjoy sauna yeah Yeah, yeah, that's nice.

35:06I even find a shower loosens me up. So when I get out of bed in the morning, like you, I'm like, oh my God, my hip hurts and my knees are buggered. And I feel like a kind of, you know, 80-year-old. And then I'll get in the shower and it's just, boop, on, you know? Yeah, no, I do agree. Showers are good, I think. I would recommend people to shower. I do think people should shower. Twice a day? I shower twice a day. Yeah. Because I shower in the morning, obviously, before doing anything, and then I shower after I work out, which is, you know, every day. There we go. Before bed, not necessarily. See, I would be more of a night shower than a morning shower.

35:47Because I get it. Start the old engine. But if I go to training, like, instantly, and I've gone to bed clean. But I know it's a controversial subject, so maybe we, you know. Well, I don't know. I just, like, it's just a quickie. I'm not that excited by a long shower with all the utensils. No, just in, quick bit of shower gel, bash, all of a sudden you're awake. Ready for a day. Quick run through of the utensils you're using in the shower? Well, no, just I'm saying if I did spend a long time in the shower, there might be a back scraper, whatever. Do you wash your legs in the shower? I do. There's a lot of controversy.

36:26You look like a leg washer. I do. Again, I think everyone should be a leg washer. Wash your legs. obviously the soapy water kind of goes down your legs but it's not quite good enough I think I think you should be washing your feet and in between your toes I've just realised something I sauna every single night and I shower after the sauna so I have I sometimes have three showers in a day not great for the environment but no but I don't like to be honest I just want to be clean and I also nowadays I don't think anyone like has any excuse for not smelling good I just like I there's enough products on the market there's so many things that you can do right to curb yeah like bad body scent yeah odor yeah it's you know do you agree someone looks absolutely like completely i just looked like he's like he's like he's like yeah no obviously we're on a tangent but i think this is important stuff yeah no i agree if you can smell nice please people yeah just just do it like honestly it's not complicated no it's not it isn't hard just make an effort yeah agreed when have been periods in your career that you've got recovery wrong and why do you hate ice bathing so much cold toes can't do it like it really I find it really hard yeah like I it hurts it hurts so much it does hurt sometimes and I know you can push through the pain but I just just just don't love it just don't want to yeah and there are now some studies that are coming out that apparently heat does the same so i would much rather go hot than cold when we first got the ice bath my wife would also kind of engage with it a little bit and now she just doesn't know she's gone she's gone i don't mind a cold plunge in the sea yeah again not not too much on the cornwall thing but the cornwall thing and like yeah the cold sea is is one thing but an ice bath not so much i couldn't imagine a nicer feeling actually than a cold dip on a Cornish beach and come out and have a nice, like, bacon and sausage samba or something.

38:29Yeah. Yeah. That's much better. I'm starving, by the way. I just love that idea. Yeah. So recovery. Yes. What else do you do to recover? So you get out of bed feeling like, you know, older than you are. Yeah. Bit banged up. Would you stretch? Do you do yoga? I do. I used to do a lot of yoga. Not quite so much now, But again, like if I feel something, I know my body so well, like I've got quite a few like hamstring or Achilles or back, the main kind of issues. And as soon as I can even feel something creeping, it's like I know exactly what to do. Most of it is like tendony. So it's lots of isometrics and that kind of side of recovery.

39:10But yeah, it's just kind of being really in tune with your body and listening to what it needs. And yeah, when I get to the track, I'll just kind of have a stretch. kind of I take now that I'm getting a bit older I take like 15 minutes just to kind of like get moving before my warm-up I think just generally as well paying attention to mobility is nice like you know if I have the luxury of like a really early night and if I wanted to watch something or read something I'll like sit on the floor yeah and just like like try and split your legs out a bit like just what just so that you're not like just laying down yeah absolutely in a bed you know just get like a nice stretch after long-haul flights and kind of I've learned a lot in that area and I think growing up again getting used to that would catch me out quite a lot but just like learning how to deal with jet lag how to deal with that side of things and as soon as I get off a plane like I'll definitely do kind of mobility and a yoga flow and all of that kind of stuff and make sure that I'm moving my like my sleep forward or backwards depending on where I'm going in the world and things like that so I've learned a lot over the years.

40:12That's something that they don't do very well, which is really annoying. Like, you know, well, if you travel and you suddenly go to bed in a different country, it will knock your, like where your sleep should be. Although it can tell the time. So I don't really understand why it doesn't just keep you in the same parameters. And then it says your consistency is off. I actually messaged Will Ahmed about that the other day. And I said, of all the things that I love about this, this is annoying. This is not my favourite. Because if you travel, it will, and your sleep score, it takes it three days basically to understand that you're not in London.

40:50In the same place, yeah. It should be, it should know where you are. Yeah, yeah, no, it should. What did he say? Did he say yeah? He said that he has passed the message on to the correct person and that they will investigate. Sounds like you've been blown off there. Well, being blown off would have just been him ignoring me. I think that's what he's done. it's not actually listen if he's anything like me he'd want his product to be even better than it already is there we go taking constructive it is annoying so like when I went to Tokyo it kind of like it took it like two days to realise oh you're actually on the same sleep it's like yeah but I've got two days of like 60 % performance I know and you get attached to it don't you very much so I'm very into it yeah no I am too nothing better than a big green streak oh yeah very few things actually excite me more than that but that is up there what's your longest green streak?

41:4712 days or something that's pretty solid it's not too bad only because like you do dip into like the high amber just at some point but a 12 day green streak is actually I hate getting I call it like amber jail like in the I just get stuck and the only way to get out of it is having a big night yeah no I'm not joking I'm not joking if I am in amber jail I'll make sure I go into red have a big night and then bounce back. And then HRV is like 110. Right into green. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you do have to fool it sometimes. I've not tried to trick it with alcohol, to be honest. Oh, it works. Not yet.

42:23But I might. There we go. Just in case you have a new tip. Thank you. Do you have any goals in the immediate future? Like what's next for you? So the outdoor season is starting at the end of May. So that's pretty high up on the agenda. Everything kind of kicks off from there. And we've got a big year. So we've got Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, sorry, Europeans in Birmingham. So they're both kind of home crowds. And then this new competition called the World Ultimate Champs at the very end of the season in September. Seb Coe has organised that, has he not? Yes, he has, yeah. World Athletics. Yeah, and that seems really exciting.

42:58So I'm kind of looking forward to, yeah, it's kind of like a fresh take on athletics a little bit. Like it's the same but different. Yeah, shorter, more competitive. Yeah, yeah. More like vibey for the audience. And it's just like in pole vault, it's top eight, straight final. As many as you want from any nation, just top eight in the world. So it's going to be really cool. Very exciting. Yeah. Molly, thanks so much for taking the time to come all the way down to London. Up, down, up, down, down. Yes, down. Yes, I'm sorry. You've thrown me with the Cornwall thing. Sorry. Up from Cornwall, down from Loughborough.

43:29Yeah, so much Cornwall. So much. So, but you were in Loughborough. So thank you so much for coming down and spending some time with us. Fascinating. fascinating stuff about pole vaulting. Thank you so much for having me. I feel enlightened on the matter. It was good fun, yeah. I'm glad you learned something. Thank you so much and good luck with everything you've got coming up and we hope to see you soon. Thank you so much.

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