Latest / Easy Double podcast / Callum Elson: Closing the gap / The Distance Project & Team Makou

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Callum Elson: Closing the gap / The Distance Project & Team Makou · Easy Double podcast

• 0:35
  Hello and welcome back to the Easy Double Podcast interview
• 0:38
  series. Today's guest is one of great
• 0:40
  Britains finest middle distance runners with PBS ranging from
• 0:44
  1:48 in the 800 three 53 in the mile, 752 / 3 K and 1355 / 5 K.
• 0:51
  And I can see I'm just cross cross referencing those as I'm
• 0:54
  reading them out, so I hope they arise.
• 0:56
  He took a silver medal at the 2023 World Roadrunner
• 0:59
  Championships in the mile, finishing only behind Hobbs
• 1:02
  Kesler and more recently helped Team GGB to a bronze medal at
• 1:06
  the European Cross Country Championships in the mixed
• 1:08
  relay, going head to Welcome to Easy Double Podcast
• 1:23
  Carl Nelson. Thanks a lot guys, much
• 1:25
  appreciated. We've been trying to set it up
• 1:27
  for a while so I finally managed to make it work.
• 1:29
  It's good. Yeah, I I was laughing at the
• 1:32
  humor and the irony of you telling me that if you need to,
• 1:36
  if you want to make the pod work, you've got to go all in
• 1:39
  and throw it all the way, including your missus.
• 1:41
  Yeah, well, you said you were harder on four days in a row.
• 1:44
  I was like, mate, it's not going to go anywhere.
• 1:46
  You've got to be cut through with this.
• 1:47
  I was like, you're just going to have to do it.
• 1:50
  And then you you have to get signed off from your missus as
• 1:52
  well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:54
  I was like, well The thing is, is that Alice is so good with
• 1:56
  like just she organises stuff. I'm one of them people where
• 1:59
  like I'd do so little if plans weren't organised for me, if you
• 2:02
  get what I mean, Outside of like because I run with my best
• 2:05
  mates, I see my friends when I'm running anyway, if you get what
• 2:08
  I mean. So I don't really need to like
• 2:09
  to be fair, we go out for food and sometimes so I'll think I've
• 2:12
  got nothing on at the weekend and I'll find out like on
• 2:15
  Saturday or actually on Sunday afternoon we plan to do this.
• 2:18
  And she just knows not to tell me before because I'll be like,
• 2:20
  oh, I don't want to do it. Way to get out of it.
• 2:23
  So even though I said that, see I was like a crap.
• 2:26
  I better actually check now, but I'm going to be in trouble.
• 2:29
  Yeah, happy wife, happy life. As I am often reminded, we are
• 2:35
  also joined by Owen as well. So good to have you on board,
• 2:38
  Owen. I decided to tag along for this
• 2:41
  one as I'm a big fan of Callum, so yeah, it's good to have a
• 2:44
  chat. Yeah, I should say, before we
• 2:46
  get into it as well, you may otherwise know Callum as the
• 2:51
  shit Weber Blank, the Distance project.
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  It's the the online name, the YouTube channel, the Instagram
• 2:59
  page. Yeah, yeah, we've had that for a
• 3:01
  while. To be fair, when I started my
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  Instagram account, I never had Instagram like a personal
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  account like years ago. I just never really had it.
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  And then in lockdown or around COVID, I just got properly into
• 3:15
  running and I was like, oh, I want to like I'm quite
• 3:17
  entrepreneurial Anyway. I was like, I think I can like
• 3:19
  make a little thing out of this. It was supposed to be like a not
• 3:22
  a really about me. It was supposed to just be like
• 3:24
  a community driven thing. Hence why it wasn't like a name.
• 3:27
  It was like the distance projects.
• 3:28
  It was going to be about like the kind of everyone's progress.
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  Do you get what I mean? A bit like how everyone's got
• 3:34
  this thing? Because I had no idea I was
• 3:36
  going to get pretty good at running.
• 3:37
  And then the more I realized that I was sharing like my race
• 3:40
  results and they were getting increasingly better, like that's
• 3:43
  where the traction was. There was actually not really
• 3:45
  that much interest in other people being like, I want to
• 3:47
  share my thing or whatever. They're more like, oh, when are
• 3:48
  you doing this next thing? Or like, can you share a session
• 3:50
  that helped you get to this or whatever that just spiraled from
• 3:54
  there? And it'll be like you guys with
• 3:55
  the podcast or anything. It's that once you kind of got a
• 3:57
  bit of an identity, it becomes your little thing and you don't
• 3:59
  really want to change or deviate.
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  You're like, oh, kind of like my logo or the name or whatever.
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  So then you end up just sticking with it.
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  So yeah, I always have. And I find it funny now when
• 4:07
  like then if you saw Georgia Bell recently, which I thought
• 4:10
  was brilliant, is like her Instagram was always like
• 4:13
  Georgia Bell the duathlete because she just had it when she
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  did duathlem, whatever. And it took her winning like an
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  Olympic medal and a world medal to finally be like, I should
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  probably change like duathlete out of this now, like just to
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  Georgia Bell, however, so I thought she's not changing it
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  until she's 1 Olympics and I'm not changing my Callum Nelson.
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  You've got to stay, stay rooted to the cause.
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  It's funny that you touch on YouTube because although when
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  when did you start? Like 2 years ago.
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  Three years ago. 2023, I think yes, summer of 2023 is when we
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  like I just decided to like make some YouTube videos.
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  Yeah. So like in the grand scheme of
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  things, that's not that long ago, but I guess in the kind of
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  like rise of YouTube amongst the running community, you're
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  probably one of the earlier ones to the games.
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  It seems like a lot of athletes have their own channels now,
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  don't they? Yeah, I, I, I, I don't want to
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  be like, oh, we started this thing and whatever.
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  Like the people I would give it back to most is like, or who
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  inspired me to do it was the Tin Man Elite series.
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  That was like what I found as the first thing where it was
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  like proper athletes who took it really seriously, who clearly
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  like, not that they didn't want social media, but they were
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  using it as a vehicle to be like, look, we're not good
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  enough for us all to have our own individual contracts.
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  We're not like really established athletes.
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  A few of them did obviously, like Drew Hunter and stuff
• 5:30
  signed out of high school. But then they realized if we
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  make some content here that people like, then we can spin
• 5:36
  off ways to fund us being a team off the back of it, right?
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  So that all they had merchandise that had their coach in, they
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  built their own individual profiles that made people go,
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  oh, we'll sponsor read for a watch or we'll sponsor this guy
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  for a nutrition or whatever. And I was in a similar boat at a
• 5:49
  lower level where I'd just come back from America where I did a
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  year at uni and I was like all right at 1500, but I wasn't like
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  good enough to get anything. And I was, I'm very realistic.
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  Like I wasn't entitled enough to think like, oh, I deserve to get
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  something. It's like there's loads of
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  people better than me. But I knew I could get a few.
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  I knew I could try and leverage like a platform basically.
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  So I spoke to Saul running at the time, guy called Rob Wilson
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  who still works there, really, really nice guy who were very
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  like, even though people whine about the prices and stuff, they
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  are for grassroots athletics. We get, I mean, all the club
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  vests are made by saw that they really understand proper
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  running. I just said to him, I was like,
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  look, if you can give me like a little bit of money and it was a
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  little bit of money to fund a videographer who you guys might
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  know Charlie McCarthy who still does our stuff now if you can
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  fund. And Charlie didn't even do video
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  at the time. He just did it for fun.
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  He had like a full time job at Unilever, worked in like
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  corporate world. I was like, I want Charlie to
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  come with me on the weekends when I go to these races in
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  Europe that I'm going to pay for myself and we're just going to
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  film, like what it's like as like a subley athlete, like,
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  because I didn't know what it was like or what's the hotel
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  like? What's this like?
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  How do you get along? For me, it was like, you know
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  what Mo Farah and stuff do, and then you maybe know what you do
• 6:59
  at a local race. But the gap in the middle,
• 7:00
  you've got absolutely no idea, like what that was like.
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  So yeah, we got the money that funded or partly funded Charlie
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  to be able to come out with sharing rooms, doing all this
• 7:09
  sort of stuff. And luckily, I was just running
• 7:10
  really well. So the videos naturally picked
• 7:12
  up traction. So it was like, who is this guy,
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  like going on these races and I'm beating people that on paper
• 7:17
  I shouldn't be beating. So then they watch the videos.
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  Like, fucking hell, that guy. Like, I was like, you know what
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  I mean? Or like, got people who are
• 7:22
  naturally like, oh, you think you're better than you are
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  because you've got a guy filming you who, like, almost hate
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  watching, which helps you loads, right?
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  Like, that's why people blow up now.
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  Hate watching. I think it's like the number one
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  way to blow up. Just do things to piss people
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  off. And like, you get loads of views
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  if you can bring yourself to handle the hate.
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  Like, I think the best influences at the moment are the
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  ones that can take hate to be fair.
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  And yeah, luckily at the end of that season, 2023 around 3:35,
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  which is a good enough time to actually attract proper brands.
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  So then once I got signed, I was a bit like, you know what, I
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  don't really need this platform for myself.
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  It's it's worked for me to get the exposure I needed to get
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  what I wanted, which was like a professional contract where I
• 7:58
  want to knuckle down and focus on the running.
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  And so then we just pivoted the channel to make videos about all
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  sorts of a running related stuff to do with, you know, we've had
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  videos of people who have were Alcoholics and have used run
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  into that change of life. We've had one with, you know,
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  full time teachers that are competing at London Marathon,
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  which I know is become a popular thing at the moment.
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  Like we've had all sorts of different stuff really, which
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  has been fun and very transparently a more profitable
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  way to run a YouTube channel because you can work with a
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  variety of different brands that are willing to sponsor content.
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  So that works really nicely as well.
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  Yeah, it's cool. You've you've clearly been very
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  directional with it. Whereas like I'd say maybe some
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  people now kind of just start purely through like self
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  indulgence and because everyone else is like they want to kind
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  of stay on par with what everyone else is doing.
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  But yours was like for genuine reasons way back when.
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  I guess the the title that you went with at first was Closing
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  the Gap, wasn't it? Did you, did you ever say at any
• 8:55
  point I've closed the gap? I don't think, I don't think we
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  actually did. I think we just recognize that
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  like it had got it was less of a gap.
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  That makes sense. But like naturally you got to
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  remember I'm getting faster, but everyone else is also getting
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  faster that same year, right. So like I went from being no one
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  domestically to being one of the top domestic runners.
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  If you take out you Carl Whiteman, whoever, right.
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  And then obviously 2023 I won that world medal.
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  So technically speaking, I was elite I guess on paper
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  standards, but the same year you've got Jakob is going to go
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  run whatever he runs 327 and whatever.
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  So there's always like another version of it, right?
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  And So what like you're so that distance project, that's what
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  like your own YouTube, are you sort of like the mastermind
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  behind the Macau YouTube as well?
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  Just sort of two of them going at once.
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  Yeah. So that's why like on distance
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  project there's like not really many uploads.
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  And to be fair, we're working on a really basically, we've
• 9:46
  pivoted distance project. As much as people probably think
• 9:49
  I'm like loud and love talking about myself and whatever, which
• 9:51
  is ironic that I'm a podcast talking about myself.
• 9:55
  I, I can't stand the idea of having like 2 YouTube channels
• 9:58
  where you watch Callum new training on one YouTube channel
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  and then you watch Callum new training with his friends on
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  another YouTube channel. That would just be like 1.
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  You can't run a business that way because like a brand's not
• 10:07
  going to want it to be so sort of split up like that.
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  And second of all, it just for me will be no fun to be like,
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  oh, I'll film myself doing 10 by K and then I'll film myself
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  doing 5 by 2K. And you're going to somehow
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  pretend you're enjoying it. It's like not really a thing.
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  So for other reasons that we can talk about the team, McCarthy I
• 10:24
  thought had massive potential. Like I said, I was inspired
• 10:27
  originally by the whole Tim Man elite thing.
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  I thought we can literally do a very similar version here.
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  And then eventually obviously got the sport poker and
• 10:33
  everything, which is great. So on the distance project, we
• 10:36
  just pivoted to doing way less frequent uploads that literally
• 10:39
  probably do like a few a year, but upping the quality and like
• 10:43
  the prestige of them. So that we got 1 coming out in
• 10:45
  April, which is we filmed at the Arc of attrition, the UT MB race
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  that was at the end of Jan, which Gemma Hilly and Moses,
• 10:52
  who's a Hoker athlete won. So we filmed with her before we
• 10:55
  filmed that the event and all that.
• 10:56
  And that will come out as like a more of like a long form piece.
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  They'll be like a bit of a premier as a shit word, isn't
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  it? But like a bit of like a viewing
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  like the Hoker store where like people can come down and stuff
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  like that. So we've just tried to make that
• 11:08
  a bit more of like a prestige thing, and then you're like
• 11:11
  little Vloggy uploads or whatever you can have on Team
• 11:14
  Macau is like a little weekly watch and stuff like that, which
• 11:16
  I think is that's the way me and Charlie like to kind of do it.
• 11:19
  Is very good. The Macau once very
• 11:22
  entertaining. It's like visual storytelling,
• 11:24
  isn't it? You kind of like there along
• 11:25
  with the journey because especially the way the uploads
• 11:28
  come out so like quickly almost after the races.
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  It's sometimes the videos come out like weeks and months after
• 11:35
  the race and it's almost been and gone.
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  Whereas that like you kind of get an experience into the race
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  that was. Yeah, I think that my non
• 11:43
  negotiables with we did on the distance projects as well, but
• 11:47
  like my non negotiables have always been to sacrifice some
• 11:50
  element of quality for speed and Charlie so good that like people
• 11:53
  like still amazing what he does, but like he could take it to
• 11:56
  much higher levels if it wasn't like a lot.
• 11:58
  Can we have this out by Wednesday or whatever?
• 12:01
  The sport moves so quickly now where you'll have, I mean, we
• 12:03
  were just chatting before we recorded about the 10K that
• 12:05
  happened this morning. As of when we're recording.
• 12:08
  Megan Keith got European record by next weekend.
• 12:10
  I don't know what races are on the calendar.
• 12:11
  I think it's maybe like USA indoor nationals or something
• 12:14
  like that. Someone's going to do something
• 12:15
  nuts and everyone's going to forget in a polite way that
• 12:18
  Megan Keith just ran like the best ever European time.
• 12:20
  Like it moves so quickly. So if you're Megan's team and
• 12:23
  you've got something to shout about, in my opinion, you better
• 12:25
  make it happen like now, right? Like this afternoon, tomorrow,
• 12:29
  whenever you can to sort of make the most of it.
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  So yeah, speed, I think it's so important to get out.
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  And then the other thing is like the my other non negotiable has
• 12:38
  been like there's nothing that we don't put in.
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  And obviously there is from like, you know, a privacy
• 12:43
  perspective or like, you know, like we take we try to take out
• 12:47
  stuff if it's too inappropriate or whatever, because we have
• 12:49
  like quite a young audience and stuff like that.
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  But in terms of like, if you do bad or good, there's an
• 12:55
  agreement that it's like it's going in.
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  Like if I run crap, it's going in.
• 12:58
  If I win, it's going in. And that's the same for
• 13:00
  everyone. Otherwise, let's not waste the
• 13:02
  resource kind of filming you basically.
• 13:04
  And we're very honest with Andy, our coach, with that as well.
• 13:06
  What it's like, we'll chat to him before a big race sometimes
• 13:11
  and be like, look, how comfortable do you feel with how
• 13:13
  much of this going in? So like Ellis just did his
• 13:15
  marathon and Sarah just did the marathon.
• 13:17
  And we had a very honest conversation before about how
• 13:19
  Andy wanted it to be slightly more low key.
• 13:21
  Like he didn't want like a big series of like Road to Seville
• 13:24
  or whatever because he kind of wanted them just to get one
• 13:25
  done. But at the same time, I was
• 13:27
  like, there's no way we've come this far for him to just do a
• 13:29
  marathon like without telling anyone.
• 13:31
  Do you know what I mean? So we need to find a balance of
• 13:33
  like, what's an appropriate level of coverage?
• 13:36
  So yeah, it's it's not for everyone.
• 13:38
  And there's some athletes that would hate it, but there's some
• 13:40
  athletes that I think massively fuel off it.
• 13:42
  And like, you know, people like Phil Sesserman started a YouTube
• 13:45
  channel and running the best they've ever run, right?
• 13:47
  So it's definitely not throwing them off the game.
• 13:49
  So it's a no brainer. Yeah, I think the personalities
• 13:52
  in the group as well, they just like, I don't know that he's all
• 13:56
  just, you're so different. And it just makes it like such
• 13:59
  such a good watch. Like Alice is so funny, Rory,
• 14:02
  Scott, Sarah, yourself, like there's such a good like mix
• 14:05
  even after him every now and then.
• 14:06
  And it's such a good mix of, I don't know, on the way.
• 14:09
  Charlie just he's actually so gifted at what he does.
• 14:14
  And I was chatting to him after our ma.
• 14:16
  He's literally just crossed the finish line and I seen him and I
• 14:19
  was like, oh, here, I better just stem say hi because I
• 14:22
  really, really do like love what he does.
• 14:23
  And I was like, oh, well, Charlie, I love what you do and
• 14:25
  all. He's just such a nice person.
• 14:27
  So yeah, you really have a good thing going there.
• 14:30
  Yeah, I think with him like the OR not even with Charlie as such
• 14:34
  is like Charlie's had enough experience from what we've done.
• 14:38
  I think it worked well starting YouTube channel with one person
• 14:42
  so you can understand that, OK, this is the time to like leave
• 14:44
  someone alone or to chat to them or like whatever.
• 14:46
  And he could kind of gauge off me as to when it's like, you
• 14:48
  know, sometimes about I reckon we leave this one or like don't
• 14:51
  make a big deal out of it or like this is going to be worth
• 14:53
  it or definitely film this or whatever, which he can then
• 14:55
  obviously apply to other people. But we just have a really good
• 14:59
  group from a personality perspective of everyone
• 15:02
  understanding the reward that they can get from being
• 15:06
  themselves, which is just a big thing that I've pushed.
• 15:09
  And I because I've experienced it myself, I try to instill the
• 15:12
  same confidence in everyone else that like a level of
• 15:15
  vulnerability or level of being yourself for all the risk.
• 15:20
  The risk associated, right, is either you get really
• 15:21
  self-conscious, you think everyone thinks you're a bell
• 15:23
  end or you get some hate online or whatever, right?
• 15:25
  But the reward is like way more people go, this guy's so
• 15:29
  relatable. Or like, I really like the fact
• 15:31
  that she just like, you know, they showed her crying because
• 15:33
  that's actually how she felt or that she, you know, I love the
• 15:36
  fact they kept in an argument between the athlete and the
• 15:38
  coach because that's so realistic of what would actually
• 15:40
  happen. And I think people buy into that
• 15:43
  like authenticity a lot more. And it just sets you up, if you
• 15:46
  yourself, from the offset, it sets you up with a lot more
• 15:51
  longevity than if you, like, put on a bit of a facade or like,
• 15:54
  you hyperbolize a lot of things or you go down a certain path of
• 15:57
  comedy or whatever that I think you might get a lot of traction
• 16:00
  early. But then that must be quite
• 16:02
  demanding on your life to have to keep up that same persona or
• 16:05
  vibe. I have to, you know, go one
• 16:06
  better each time, which is something that I just wanted to
• 16:10
  avoid because, yeah, it's just hassle.
• 16:12
  Think we could genuinely spend all day speaking about the
• 16:15
  YouTube because one of our like on our weekly episodes, one of
• 16:18
  our segments is called YouTube Diaries.
• 16:20
  So we try and like bring to the listeners like some different
• 16:23
  YouTube channels that we've been watching in the week and kind of
• 16:26
  like elevate the the athlete stories through that.
• 16:29
  But obviously this is largely about you as an athlete as well.
• 16:33
  So we should probably get to the running.
• 16:36
  You are fresh off the back of British Indoors last week.
• 16:39
  So now there's been a week. How how is that sitting with
• 16:43
  you? And yeah, how have you reflected
• 16:44
  on that? Yeah, British and I didn't go
• 16:47
  very well. I mean, it wasn't terrible, but
• 16:49
  it's like just a kind of like math race.
• 16:52
  I just didn't feel great. It was just, yeah, kind of odd.
• 16:55
  We didn't run very fast. We didn't run very slow.
• 16:58
  And I just run the same pace the whole race to be honest, which
• 17:00
  makes it look far worse because obviously when people speed up
• 17:02
  they go past you. But yeah, I think just a mix of
• 17:05
  like, not an ideal build up for a 3K.
• 17:08
  Maybe in hindsight I've never like done it before.
• 17:10
  Built up for a 3K. The last one I raced was this
• 17:12
  time last year and I'd just been injured and we're kind of like
• 17:15
  O3K is probably better mile, let's just do it.
• 17:18
  So for this, the the logic behind it that I discussed with
• 17:21
  Andy was we'll do some mile races, which will be good, get
• 17:25
  some speed and then I'm naturally quite a strong athlete
• 17:28
  anyway. And then when we transfer over
• 17:29
  to 3K, hopefully when it comes towards the end of the race,
• 17:32
  you're going to have more speed, you know, speed compared to a
• 17:35
  lot of the people you can run. Well, that was the thinking in
• 17:39
  hindsight based on how my body felt.
• 17:41
  I feel like I almost put too much emphasis on the mile races
• 17:44
  earlier in the season and got really up for them to the point
• 17:47
  where like my attitude is just like I need to go out hard, like
• 17:49
  commit to them, try and run something really good.
• 17:51
  Which if you guys have done shorter distances, like before,
• 17:55
  you know it, half the race is gone and then it's just like you
• 17:57
  just fight into the end really. Like you get up for it, you're
• 18:00
  running. And then by the time you realize
• 18:01
  you're like, oh, we've done 2 1/2 minutes here.
• 18:03
  We've got a minute and a half left.
• 18:04
  Like you kind of just digging in.
• 18:07
  Whereas in the 3K, having to go off at a fast, slower, like more
• 18:09
  controlled pace, I think was something that I just not
• 18:12
  experiencing so long that I was a bit like, well, this feels
• 18:15
  like comfortable, like doesn't feel comfortable, but it feels
• 18:18
  like, like I want to go fast about I need to conserve myself.
• 18:21
  And I think I just, yeah, my body wasn't ready for it
• 18:23
  basically. So yeah, not a great run, but at
• 18:26
  the same time quite a nice learning sort of thing to work
• 18:29
  out how to periodize if I want to do a 3K again, probably to do
• 18:32
  more of like 5K training and then drop down into into a 3K
• 18:37
  rather than trying to do it the other way around where I have
• 18:39
  like lower volume mile racing speed and then trying to run a
• 18:41
  3K just for like what suits me as an athlete.
• 18:44
  So that was a good learning at least.
• 18:46
  So the 15. 100 was never on the cards for indoors not.
• 18:50
  Really not unless that wasn't the plan.
• 18:52
  Like I normally I've try and plan so far in advance with like
• 18:55
  a bit of a skeleton of what the year could look like.
• 18:57
  And I'd always had three K in there just because outdoors is
• 19:01
  my main focus and to run a really good 15 for me, it takes
• 19:04
  me quite a while to get going. You know in that year we talked
• 19:08
  about in 2023 I got faster every single race I did for a period
• 19:11
  of like 3 months. So if I was going to focus on
• 19:14
  the 15, I had two choices, either training really hard and
• 19:18
  do a lot of specific training, which would mean that lower
• 19:21
  volume, higher injury risk, higher intensity and get ready
• 19:25
  for some key races, which happened to be in America this
• 19:28
  time, but they could have been in Europe.
• 19:29
  Like wouldn't made any difference, which I think
• 19:31
  wouldn't have given me the strength and the base I need to
• 19:34
  carry me all the way through to May, June when I'm trying to run
• 19:36
  fast times. Or I could have done a lot of
• 19:40
  racing, which again I think just takes so much toll on your body,
• 19:42
  like the emotions of racing, the travel between different races,
• 19:45
  whatever. So I didn't think I would going
• 19:48
  to have enough opportunity to maybe go and run the World
• 19:50
  Indoor standard. If I'd just popped it out in the
• 19:52
  mile and I'd run 335, whatever it is, then great.
• 19:55
  I would have gone to the trial. Why not?
• 19:58
  And obviously you look at the Champs and you are only eight
• 20:00
  people did it or a great chance to get a medal.
• 20:02
  But you have to think about the bigger picture with this sort of
• 20:04
  thing. So yeah, oh, 3K was kind of
• 20:07
  always going to be the plan. I just didn't run very well on
• 20:09
  the day, annoyingly. With the way the selection
• 20:12
  policy is, does that mean Weld indoors is off the table now and
• 20:15
  you can switch focus to outdoors?
• 20:17
  Or is there still potential? Yeah.
• 20:19
  Yeah, yes, I was never going to be able to go to welding.
• 20:22
  Also 3K because the standard 733.
• 20:24
  So like pretty much no one's going to be able to get that.
• 20:27
  Like I think there's so little chance of people getting.
• 20:29
  I think that's why I don't necessarily have the
• 20:31
  intricacivism. I think that's why someone like
• 20:34
  could be precautious with his injury concern and not do the
• 20:37
  Champs because it's like, well, all right, I'm going to take the
• 20:39
  risk that two other Brits are not on 733.
• 20:42
  You can probably sit quite comfortably with that.
• 20:45
  So yeah, 3K was never going to be able to go.
• 20:46
  So I knew in the grant, in the plan, it was never going to go.
• 20:49
  It was just if when I did these 15 hundreds, maybe off the back
• 20:52
  of a great winter, it was all bloody.
• 20:53
  I'm really close to the standard there for 15.
• 20:55
  Like why not give it a go? But welding doors is not till
• 20:59
  22nd of March. I think it's something like
• 21:01
  that. It's like a month from now,
• 21:04
  which, yeah, certain athletes, they'll fit in that program
• 21:08
  perfectly. With me, I know I need a big
• 21:10
  strength block before the summer, so it doesn't
• 21:13
  necessarily work that well. But if you're in shape,
• 21:15
  obviously you don't turn it down, or I wouldn't turn down
• 21:17
  anyway. I was looking on your World
• 21:20
  Athletics profile earlier in preparation for this and seeing
• 21:24
  that you're in that race that where some roof run that 348
• 21:28
  was, was that just crazy to watch?
• 21:32
  Yeah, I mean, I went with it. I got some good pictures of me
• 21:34
  with him in the first, in the first K and then it all goes a
• 21:37
  bit wrong. Yeah, that was good.
• 21:40
  I mean, he was amazing. He doesn't like this is such
• 21:42
  like a classic thing to say when you've been beaten by a 17 year
• 21:44
  old. He doesn't look 17, you get what
• 21:46
  I mean? Then you but then you look and
• 21:47
  you're like he's there with his dad, like he is a kid, you know.
• 21:49
  I mean, but now he was a really, really nice guy actually.
• 21:52
  I know Sam Tanner really well. I've known him for a few years
• 21:55
  now and obviously he's been travelling around with a lot.
• 21:56
  I think he's like quite a good training part of like mentor
• 21:59
  sort of thing for him. They had a nightmare traveling.
• 22:02
  So if I was chatting to him and I thought I knew he was going to
• 22:04
  run my no one thought he was going to run 348, but everyone
• 22:07
  knew he was going to run low three 50s probably.
• 22:10
  I think they wanted to keep it super pressure free.
• 22:12
  That's why they were kind of pinning the thing of like, oh,
• 22:14
  I'll be the youngest sub four type vibe.
• 22:16
  They were, he was obviously going to go sub 4, right?
• 22:19
  But yeah, he ran amazingly. And I think again, like I said
• 22:22
  about doing the specific training, I don't know the
• 22:25
  insurance and outs of what they've done, but obviously
• 22:26
  they've come from an outdoor season in New Zealand to then be
• 22:29
  able to come over and do some indoors.
• 22:31
  So I think he's run some really fast, 8 hundreds already this
• 22:33
  year. It's kind of that stimulus that
• 22:35
  I think I need to then go and run really fast, which is
• 22:38
  hopefully how I'll approach the outdoor season is similar.
• 22:40
  Is that right? Really kind of get things going.
• 22:43
  But yeah, that was a crazy race. I am, yeah, fully went for it.
• 22:46
  And yeah, I started dying and he started picking it up.
• 22:48
  But what can you do? From your experience as well,
• 22:51
  was that on the inverted commas magic track?
• 22:54
  Was that on BU? Yeah, that was at Boston.
• 22:58
  I've raced Boston a few times. So I had to I only three indoor
• 23:01
  races. So I did British indoors and I
• 23:02
  had a mile in New York at the Armory and then a mile at BU.
• 23:06
  And it is a great track. I think there's there is more to
• 23:08
  it than the track I've raced there.
• 23:12
  I don't know. When I did a year in America, I
• 23:13
  was not too far from Boston. So actually raced there quite a
• 23:15
  bit. I've probably raced there maybe
• 23:18
  456 Times Now, something like that and it is a great track.
• 23:22
  But I think if you went there and it was, you know, 20 people
• 23:26
  there, dead silent, whatever, I don't think you'd step on the
• 23:29
  track and suddenly run something mental like it's the the whole
• 23:32
  vibe of the place is. I remember Charlie came with us
• 23:35
  last year. Was it last year?
• 23:37
  No, 2024 Charlie came out for the first time to film me doing
• 23:41
  a race. And Barry Manley loves
• 23:44
  athletics. He's obviously watched 1,000,000
• 23:45
  videos of BU and stuff. And he said he was like, it's so
• 23:48
  different being there in person to anything he's seen on the
• 23:50
  live stream. He said it felt like way bigger
• 23:53
  when he was there. Felt like more like a stadium,
• 23:56
  but indoors. That makes sense.
• 23:57
  And then the ability for just anyone and everyone to go on the
• 24:00
  infield is so unique. Like normally if you go to
• 24:02
  athletics, right, it's just reserved for like the the
• 24:05
  officials or like you have to have a accreditation or
• 24:07
  whatever, but there is just a free for all.
• 24:10
  So you've literally got all the people, the inside cheering you,
• 24:13
  all the people on the outside cheering you.
• 24:15
  And then obviously, you know, you're normally racing fast
• 24:17
  athletes as well. So yeah, it's a great
• 24:19
  experience. And for anyone who's like a
• 24:21
  sublet athlete, you should actually go like tie it into
• 24:24
  like a holiday or like something like that.
• 24:26
  But like, again, a couple years ago when I did it, there was a
• 24:29
  few guys out there from Hercules, Wimbledon, the club,
• 24:32
  and they're good, good athletes, like low 14 minute runners.
• 24:34
  But like in a nice way, like they know and they would say to
• 24:37
  themselves, I didn't need to go to BU, right.
• 24:39
  But they were like, we love athletics.
• 24:40
  Like what an experience if we get to enter and run at BU, like
• 24:43
  cool, cool thing to do. So yeah, I think if you love
• 24:46
  athletics, it's definitely a cool kind of 1 to take off like
• 24:48
  a bucket list place. Yeah, it's like.
• 24:50
  The the tracker equivalent of doing a world major or something
• 24:54
  in the marathon. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:57
  Well, that's kind of why I raced in New York, to be honest,
• 24:59
  because I was like, oh, chance to race at the Armory.
• 25:01
  The winner of the race also gets like a wild card into Milrose.
• 25:04
  I was like, again, why not roll the dice?
• 25:06
  Like if I run, well, everyone that runs crap, but you might
• 25:08
  get into Milrose kind of cool. But I was like, you get to run
• 25:10
  at the Armory, You're not going to be a professional runner
• 25:12
  forever. It's kind of a bucket listing
• 25:14
  to, you know, you just get off the subway in Central Park and
• 25:16
  then you get to do a race. It's like pretty cool.
• 25:20
  Yeah, for sure. As I said to you before, we're
• 25:23
  going to start with quick fire questions and we're 25 minutes
• 25:26
  in. We haven't got there yet.
• 25:27
  So here we go. Premier League club Leeds.
• 25:33
  Are you going to survive? And I think so, we conceded late
• 25:36
  against Aston Villa yesterday, which was brutal.
• 25:38
  I had to go and double as well. So I was like refreshing, like
• 25:40
  BBC scores and I was hard. We should do it now.
• 25:44
  And I thought I won't check till 90 minutes now and it's like
• 25:47
  88th minute conceded. But now I think hopefully we
• 25:50
  just need the lower clubs to stop picking up points.
• 25:53
  Do you put? Calvert Lewin on the plane to
• 25:55
  America I. Think you've you've got to wait
• 25:58
  and see because he could literally as we speak, be
• 26:00
  getting injured somehow because he's like like, you know, he's
• 26:05
  just so injury prone. But I mean, you got a who else
• 26:08
  you got? But then I feel bad for people
• 26:10
  like Welbeck, I think gets really slack and like even like
• 26:13
  Ivan Tony, as much as he's been in the papers or whatever.
• 26:15
  It's like probably are on paper a better shout than DCL, but you
• 26:19
  never know. Split these are.
• 26:21
  Hearts. Oh generally speaking, half
• 26:27
  tights for shorter distances and split shots for longer.
• 26:31
  But I've worn both for like everything.
• 26:33
  And this is your question here. I said if you could pick 1
• 26:38
  Winter Olympic event, what do you think you'd be the best at?
• 26:42
  Oh, I'd be terrible at most. So which would be best at
• 26:47
  different for which one I'd want to be the best at, if you get
• 26:49
  what I mean. What would it be the best at?
• 26:53
  Curling maybe. Yeah, I.
• 26:55
  Mean, I mean, curling does that hard, but I feel like if you
• 26:58
  practice enough, you could probably do it.
• 27:00
  But then sometimes I think about like bobsleigh, if I wasn't the
• 27:02
  person who steers, I could just like rag it from the start with
• 27:06
  the Sprint and then you just jump in down and put your head
• 27:07
  down. So yeah, maybe that.
• 27:11
  I wouldn't. I was watching ice hockey the
• 27:13
  other day, Boys and Genie Mac, they absolutely ladder each
• 27:17
  other. It is such a dangerous sport.
• 27:20
  Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy.
• 27:22
  Ice hockey. I've, I can't get on board with
• 27:24
  that. I don't think it even looks fun
• 27:26
  to watch. Like, I just don't get it
• 27:29
  really, you know? The is it like the speed skating
• 27:32
  where it's like on their equivalent of an indoor track?
• 27:35
  How is it like 50 meters? It looks tiny, Yeah.
• 27:41
  Now go ahead, go ahead. They done it.
• 27:42
  Was like a 5K the other day and the finishing time was like 6
• 27:45
  minutes 50 something. I was like what the hell?
• 27:48
  Girl got like her like faceless the other day as well.
• 27:52
  She's fell. It looked so nasty.
• 27:55
  Yeah, I think, I think with a lot of these sports, they make
• 27:58
  it all look so much easier than it probably is.
• 28:01
  Like, I don't know if you guys ever been skiing or anything
• 28:03
  like that, but like when you just see people skiing normally,
• 28:06
  it's already quite hard and people are falling over and
• 28:08
  that. And then you watch the Olympics
• 28:09
  and it's like they're going like 100 miles an hour, they're doing
• 28:11
  backflips and stuff. And you're like, the amount of
• 28:13
  times you've fallen or risk your life to get to that level is
• 28:15
  like, you know, makes running look like quite a safe sport and
• 28:19
  then. You see these like clowns on
• 28:20
  Instagram saying oh if you give me 4 years I'd be able to make
• 28:23
  it to the Winter Olympics and like not chance.
• 28:26
  My my. One of my favorite hate watches
• 28:29
  is a guy on Instagram and then if you've seen him who claims
• 28:32
  he's going to be the starting center forward for the US
• 28:35
  national team. So good, fair play to him.
• 28:38
  Like it's clearly a marketing thing.
• 28:40
  And like he's gone on like a crazy weight loss journey and
• 28:42
  like he looks so much better than when he started the
• 28:44
  account. But again, like I said, how if
• 28:47
  you get enough hate, you get enough views, right?
• 28:50
  And it's so many people been like you joking, like you don't
• 28:52
  even play for a team. Like the World Cup is getting so
• 28:54
  close now you start, it's like years ago.
• 28:56
  You've shown us no footage of you playing football.
• 28:58
  He just does free kicks and stuff like that.
• 29:00
  But it's a similar vibe, right? It's like people be like, no, I
• 29:03
  reckon I could do that. Like super male, I reckon I
• 29:05
  could do that if like, you know, if I had lived near a track or
• 29:08
  whatever. So not how it works.
• 29:09
  Do you have a twin? Brother, is there two of them?
• 29:12
  Oh. Maybe is that the thing I don't
• 29:14
  know with these accounts I can't bring them to follow, so I'll
• 29:16
  only see it when it pops in my algorithm and I'll watch it like
• 29:19
  a cut. I can't actually like invest in
• 29:21
  them. He's so.
• 29:22
  Good because he's in the gym and he's like eating like just like
• 29:25
  a carrot or something trying to be all healthy.
• 29:26
  And it's it's just such he's always on my TikTok.
• 29:30
  Yeah. It's funny because I seen a
• 29:32
  conversation on X the other day where someone was saying what's
• 29:36
  the equivalent mile time of 140K bench press in terms of like how
• 29:42
  impressive it is. And people were obviously thrown
• 29:45
  all these times around and it was, it made me feel quite good
• 29:48
  because I was like, there's not a chance in hell I'll ever do
• 29:51
  140K bench press, but I can run most of the mile times these
• 29:55
  people are suggesting. Yeah, there's a thing, isn't
• 29:59
  that, is it? If I've got, if I get this
• 30:01
  wrong, I apologize. I think it's like Spencer
• 30:03
  Matthews or someone like that who's doing this thing.
• 30:07
  Are you after Google? I think he's calling it apex
• 30:09
  athletes or something like that where he's basically trying to
• 30:12
  find like, I think again, he's just igniting like that macho
• 30:16
  alpha side of like Instagram where everyone thinks they're
• 30:18
  like really hard because they can like run and go to the gym.
• 30:22
  He's he's doing a thing where it's like, oh, if you think you
• 30:25
  can run this time and lift this and do whatever, like get in
• 30:28
  touch and you're going to be on our list of like apex athletes
• 30:30
  or like something like that. Think it's like the ultimate
• 30:33
  like hybrid, like leaning to the idea of being hybrid, if you
• 30:36
  know what I mean, Like the pinnacle of man sort of vibe.
• 30:40
  But yeah, it's a bit odd. Might be.
• 30:42
  Because I think Spencer like took to running in the past
• 30:45
  couple of years, hasn't he? And maybe he's broken 3 hours or
• 30:48
  run around there for a marathon and then he must have realized,
• 30:52
  oh shit, it's not maybe as impressive as I thought it was,
• 30:55
  so I'll have to add strength into the mix as well.
• 30:58
  Yeah, but that's like most things, really.
• 31:00
  It's like I've had a big thought about all this recently where
• 31:04
  it's like you just have to separate athletics as one thing,
• 31:10
  running in terms of brackets, competitive sport as one thing
• 31:13
  and then the running as like brackets pastime or like hobby
• 31:16
  as another thing. And you can't like if you try
• 31:18
  and treat all as one, you just end up getting so disillusioned
• 31:21
  and like annoyed with everything you see.
• 31:23
  You have to be like, right, this is athletics.
• 31:24
  This is like Mondo doing pole vault or Yacob running on the
• 31:27
  track. Then you have like competitive
• 31:29
  running where like you're watching the national cross
• 31:30
  country or something like that. And then you've got running as a
• 31:33
  hobby where it's like people going out jogging or doing
• 31:36
  whatever, or setting their own challenges or whatever, and you
• 31:38
  just can't get annoyed with them, right?
• 31:41
  The only time I think it gets annoying is when people try and
• 31:44
  like lean into one to monetize themselves.
• 31:47
  You get what I mean, And pretend they're doing one that they're
• 31:49
  not. That's where I get a bit
• 31:50
  frustrated. And it's just like, look, enjoy
• 31:52
  it for what you're enjoying it for, you know?
• 31:54
  Have you seen the account on Instagram?
• 31:57
  Like the official marathon time integrity unit?
• 32:00
  They're going round calling everyone's like fake times out
• 32:03
  and grounding a lot of people in The Who are new to the run scene
• 32:07
  it seems. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it?
• 32:11
  Because it's like think I think again, could be wrong.
• 32:14
  I think the ethos behind it is the idea is to like protect the
• 32:18
  competitive side of the sport and be like, no, no, we want
• 32:21
  people to think a 255 marathon is amazing.
• 32:24
  So therefore we're getting annoyed when you haven't
• 32:26
  actually run 255. Do you know what I mean?
• 32:28
  They're trying to like protect those people.
• 32:31
  But yeah, I'm, I'm a bit, I like, I like the idea behind it,
• 32:35
  but I'm a little bit kind of like unsure in the sense that
• 32:39
  there's obviously a bias from whoever runs the account, right.
• 32:42
  And I'm sure that they'll be like more submissions or like
• 32:44
  they still decide who they want to call out and who they don't
• 32:46
  want to call out. It's still not like an objective
• 32:48
  measure. It's just like, let me decide
• 32:50
  who I want to hate and who I don't want to hate.
• 32:51
  So yeah, it's, it's a lot of effort for someone to put in,
• 32:54
  put it that way. Yeah, Well, they've.
• 32:55
  They've gone to Patreon now, so you have to subscribe to be
• 32:59
  getting all these these things. Yeah.
• 33:02
  Anyway, back to the quick fire pre race mail.
• 33:06
  Always varies really because it's just wherever we're running
• 33:09
  basically. Like sometimes on depend on the
• 33:11
  timing of the race, like the hotel will put on food with
• 33:13
  which they do. It's always like rice with
• 33:15
  something, pasta with something, whatever.
• 33:18
  If I had a choice, I'd probably yeah, yeah, some sort of rice
• 33:20
  chickeni type thing or a bagel or something like that.
• 33:23
  But yeah, I've got no set thing with that really.
• 33:26
  Minutes. Per kilometer or minutes per
• 33:28
  mile? Miles generally, yeah, I always
• 33:31
  do mile unless it's like a kilometre Rep or something.
• 33:34
  But I'll still keep my watching Miles, so yeah.
• 33:37
  Favorite Macau team mates? I don't I don't think I have a
• 33:42
  favorite, but I do think I do think Sarah's underrated.
• 33:45
  No, Ephraim is underrated. Ephraim is so underrated.
• 33:47
  Again, I feel bad that we can't give Ephraim more coverage.
• 33:49
  He doesn't live in London, you know, like when we're on camp,
• 33:52
  but he's such good value. Like the stuff Ephraim we have
• 33:54
  like a joke where like because when we started Macau, I was
• 33:58
  injured. I just had surgery like pretty
• 34:00
  much like I didn't run for ages. And it was when I was really
• 34:04
  getting to know Ephraim. And like we were convinced for
• 34:06
  like a year that he just didn't think I was like an athlete in
• 34:09
  the team. He thought that work.
• 34:12
  The only thing I would do related to Ephraim is like
• 34:14
  Ephraim, like do you need anything from Carlos?
• 34:16
  So like one of our sponsors are like, oh, Ephraim, can you send
• 34:18
  me this voice note for the video or something like that?
• 34:22
  He didn't think I run. And then we went on a camp in
• 34:25
  the October. So it must have been a good like
• 34:26
  nine months later, I'm like, I'm just like doing reps of FM on
• 34:30
  the track. And I he was looking at me like
• 34:31
  what the I was like, yeah, I'm a runner.
• 34:34
  You know, I'm on the team. Like whatever on the teams are
• 34:37
  you're running today, I'm like ever it's me, you know, you know
• 34:40
  who I am. And now he's still, he's he like
• 34:43
  leans into it now and like whenever I'm running with him
• 34:46
  and be like, oh, good to see you like you're running like.
• 34:48
  But yeah, I think Sarah's underrated because Sarah's like
• 34:53
  we we're all like we Sarah's the brunt of the joke, but takes it
• 34:59
  better than you can imagine, if you get what I mean.
• 35:00
  She gives so back so much banner.
• 35:02
  We just capture so little, little of it on camera, which we
• 35:05
  need to get better at doing. But like Sarah will like put the
• 35:08
  boys in their place so much and I love it.
• 35:10
  I think she's hilarious. PB you're.
• 35:12
  Most proud of. Yes, probably my 1500 three 35
• 35:17
  then that's a good PB. That was BMC record at the time,
• 35:21
  so that was in 2023. So I hate talking about like old
• 35:23
  PBS, but I ran 1335 last year for 5K, which I think is pretty
• 35:28
  good. Like think when people doesn't
• 35:30
  sound amazing because people run really fast times.
• 35:32
  But when people try and go from like, let's say you're like a
• 35:35
  1350 runner, a lot of people are like, yeah, I'm going to run
• 35:37
  1330 this summer. And then you try and do it and
• 35:39
  you're like, all that is hard. Like that bites more than you
• 35:42
  can imagine taking off that like 1015 seconds.
• 35:45
  So yeah, hopefully run faster than both of them this year.
• 35:48
  But yeah, 1500 or 5K I'd say. Well, yeah, it probably we were
• 35:53
  speaking about that 10K race earlier before and then the guy
• 35:57
  who was pacing it, Mike Foppin, he's like one of the best
• 36:00
  runners on the European sea in his knee middle distance.
• 36:03
  And it looked like he was rarely that happened to extend to get
• 36:06
  through that 5K in 30 and 20, didn't it?
• 36:08
  So it shows that like it is ridiculously fast no matter kind
• 36:12
  of what you're up to there. Yeah, yeah, it's so hard and
• 36:16
  like in in that particular case, I'm guessing he didn't probably
• 36:18
  like taper loads and whatever into it, but it's still like
• 36:20
  you're on the red line for like, you know, it's 1320.
• 36:23
  Like the goal posts have changed massively, like in what people
• 36:26
  consider fast, but that's what championships used to get won in
• 36:29
  not that long ago. It's 64 seconds a lot, you know,
• 36:33
  to 40 a kilometer. Like it's when you 8 flat for 3K
• 36:36
  and then carried on for another 2K.
• 36:38
  Like when you break it down, it is, you know, really fast, which
• 36:41
  is why like the Commonwealth Games times 1325 this year.
• 36:44
  And I think a lot of people will have originally looked at that
• 36:46
  and gone like, Oh yeah, I should get that.
• 36:48
  And then you're seeing as people are trying to do it now, you're
• 36:49
  like, oh, it's pretty, you know, pretty difficult to do it.
• 36:53
  Favorite. Distance to race.
• 36:58
  I don't know, you know, I don't know if I got a favorite
• 37:00
  distance to race like cross country that's kind of unique.
• 37:05
  So like not really a distance, but more like I like the
• 37:07
  variability of that. Always think there's some good
• 37:09
  results. I like the fact that like the
• 37:12
  same people are not good. Do you get what I mean?
• 37:15
  Like you're the best miler in the world.
• 37:16
  You're the best miler in the world, right?
• 37:18
  But you can be like really good on one cross country cross and
• 37:20
  really shit on another. So I think it's kind of it's a
• 37:23
  nice sort of thing that you saw that with world cross this year.
• 37:26
  Like so many people got totally cooked on that Florida course
• 37:29
  that probably would have won in Belgium would have won in, you
• 37:32
  know, Australia would have run in all different climates.
• 37:34
  So yeah, cross country, probably a lot of.
• 37:37
  Australians don't really know cross country Callum, so they're
• 37:41
  used to like manicured golf courses like the Americans I
• 37:45
  did. World Crossing Australia, That's
• 37:46
  the only time I've ever been Bathurst.
• 37:49
  Yeah, yeah, they did. They made such an effort to make
• 37:52
  it like something different, a bit like I did in Florida.
• 37:55
  So they had like a little sandy section, they had this like
• 37:57
  Vineyard section, they had this swamp section or whatever, like
• 38:00
  some sort of mad thing. But that was a cool experience
• 38:03
  actually, like, and their fans and stuff were actually pretty
• 38:06
  good. So yeah, to be fair.
• 38:08
  The Aussies do love their running, you have to give them
• 38:10
  credit, but they don't know what real cross country is.
• 38:12
  Put it that way, yeah. I think it's going to be
• 38:14
  interesting because like when I did it, and to be fair,
• 38:16
  Australia from memory did really well this year, didn't they had
• 38:18
  a good team, but obviously it was in Australia.
• 38:21
  So they really let into me and like, yeah, that's, you know,
• 38:23
  let's win a medal like on our home course.
• 38:25
  Like that's a brilliant thing to do.
• 38:27
  I know that well, I don't think it's official, but I'm pretty
• 38:30
  certain in the next couple of years there's going to be either
• 38:33
  a Europeans or a world cross that will be in Britain.
• 38:36
  And I hopefully we lean into the same thing, like hopefully I'm
• 38:39
  there as one of the top athletes, but hopefully the well
• 38:42
  recognised names you curse your white man's, your Laura Mears,
• 38:45
  your whoever are also like, you know what I reckon we could
• 38:48
  like, should we just go and put our best ever possible GB 4
• 38:52
  together and go with the relay? Or like, you know, should we get
• 38:55
  a lot of these top marathon guys that can probably convert that
• 38:57
  strength into being really good at cross?
• 38:59
  I'd love to see them do it like in a meal, right.
• 39:00
  You won silver European cross behind Jacob.
• 39:03
  I'd love him if it is in Britain to be like, you know what, I'm
• 39:07
  going to forgo this or and marathon.
• 39:08
  I'm going to go and like properly have a go at the cross.
• 39:11
  I just think it'd be really cool in front of some home fans.
• 39:13
  Yeah, well, the the Aussie team at the mixed relay this year up
• 39:17
  until Cam pulled out later on. But it was Jess Hall, Linden
• 39:21
  Hall, Cam Myers and Ollie Hall, which is about the strongest
• 39:25
  mixed relay you're ever going to get, really, isn't it?
• 39:28
  Yeah, I think so. When I did it, they had Stewie
• 39:32
  and Ollie Hall with the men, and then Jess Hall and Abby
• 39:38
  Caldwell. She's got Abby Caldwell, right?
• 39:39
  Andrew Runner. So yeah, they.
• 39:40
  I mean, that's like, you know, two out of the last three world
• 39:43
  crosses, they've basically put in four, you know, top 10
• 39:48
  runners in their distance in the world.
• 39:49
  So yeah, a lot of countries can catch up.
• 39:52
  I think on that. Like Kenya basically put in AB
• 39:54
  team every year. They still do really well, but
• 39:56
  it's like never the full runners you've heard of, right?
• 39:57
  It's like the second tier runners.
• 40:00
  So yeah, it'd be cool to see the best ones.
• 40:01
  But that's why I want at the Summer Olympics or world champs
• 40:05
  or anything, especially this ultimate champs they're doing
• 40:07
  where they definitely got room to just add in some events.
• 40:09
  They need to make some like specific track.
• 40:12
  Relay events, right, for middle distance like in America, how
• 40:15
  they have the DMR and stuff like that.
• 40:17
  I think it's a no brainer for like to put in some 4 by 8
• 40:21
  hundreds or something because you're getting all the best
• 40:23
  athletes, you're giving them another chance to race, you're
• 40:25
  extending out your timetable a little bit more.
• 40:28
  And then if the top top athletes don't want to do it, it
• 40:30
  basically allows you to put in your next best, right?
• 40:33
  So let's say in the 800, let's say there's only three spots and
• 40:36
  it's Ben Patterson and Max Bergen.
• 40:38
  For whatever reason, if there was a 4 by 8, then your next two
• 40:41
  best men who might never get that chance, they like move up
• 40:45
  right? And then you get more people.
• 40:46
  There is like a thing. So God knows if it'll ever
• 40:48
  happen, but I think some sort of distance relays will be so good.
• 40:52
  Yeah. And it takes a bit of the
• 40:54
  pressure away from like, results being driven around time or like
• 40:58
  constantly, isn't it? Like everyone's obsessed with
• 41:00
  how fast you can run and stuff, whereas that's just more about
• 41:03
  like winning basically. Yeah, that that's the one like,
• 41:07
  I mean, it's easy for me to say, right, because I'm not the
• 41:09
  fastest. If I was the fastest, I'd be
• 41:10
  like, oh, brilliant, like let's keep it this way.
• 41:12
  But that is the one like sad thing about championships now is
• 41:15
  kind of just is the fastest runners that win.
• 41:17
  There's not really any sort of like there is racing.
• 41:21
  I don't mean that, but like you can almost narrow the field down
• 41:23
  now to be outlook. It's going to be one of these
• 41:25
  six people that went. Whereas previously it used to be
• 41:27
  like, oh, if it's run like this, then these six people might win.
• 41:30
  If it's run like this, then it could be these six people.
• 41:32
  There's, you know, a lot more like variety into it now.
• 41:35
  It's just kind of like the fittest athlete is going to win
• 41:37
  because you have to run 330 in your heat, 329 in your semi
• 41:40
  final, and then 327 in the final.
• 41:43
  In the space of about 5 days. There's probably only 5 people
• 41:45
  on the planet that can do that realistically.
• 41:47
  And you've seen them because they've just got the last three
• 41:49
  medals, right? Like the dare Hawker, the goose,
• 41:53
  whoever, whoever. So yeah, if I was one of them,
• 41:56
  obviously wouldn't complain. But as a neutral, you're kind of
• 41:59
  like, oh, I'd love a race where maybe this guy's the slowest in
• 42:01
  the field, might have a chance of winning and it's a bit of a
• 42:03
  Sprint finish. Or like it kind of used to be in
• 42:06
  2012, 2016 type times. Lastly.
• 42:09
  Owen's a bit of a shoe dog, so he wants to know about your shoe
• 42:12
  rotation. Yeah, So obviously I'm sponsored
• 42:15
  by Hoker, so that's just what I wear.
• 42:17
  But I think the Sky Flow is like a really underrated shoe.
• 42:20
  Everyone knows, like the Bondi and the Clifton, which are
• 42:24
  really good. But the Sky, I love the Sky Flow
• 42:27
  just a little bit firm, a little bit less cushioned.
• 42:31
  And he just feels that perfect to do, like you're steady,
• 42:32
  running your strides, whatever. So Sky Flows might go to neutral
• 42:35
  shoe as well as the Bondi feel like jogging about.
• 42:40
  We have a shoe called the Mac X3, which is like a hybrid
• 42:43
  between like it's got like a plastic plate.
• 42:45
  So it's not like a carbon shoe. It's more for like tempos and
• 42:48
  stuff like that. And in our style of training, we
• 42:50
  do a lot of steady running where you're running maybe like your 6
• 42:53
  minute miles, you 540 miles type thing.
• 42:55
  So you don't need something crazy, but you also want a
• 42:57
  little bit more than just a normal shoe.
• 42:59
  So wear that a lot. And then Rocket XI prefer the
• 43:03
  two to be honest. I think the official thing we're
• 43:05
  supposed to say is that the three, but like they're
• 43:08
  basically the same shoe that has changed the upper.
• 43:10
  So it's personal preference, but Rocket X2 or 3 is really good
• 43:13
  for racing. That probably my go to and then
• 43:16
  this new shoe that's just come out for anything that's like
• 43:18
  half marathon, marathon for me. I'd wear it for a 10K because my
• 43:21
  legs would definitely fatigue a lot over a 10K.
• 43:24
  It's called the CLO X13 Point O, which is not the greatest name
• 43:28
  in the world, but yeah, that's a really good shoe as well.
• 43:31
  So I'll probably wear four different models of shoe in a
• 43:34
  week, maybe something like that. So would you?
• 43:37
  You'd. Wear the rocket for like the
• 43:39
  shorter, like on the road distances and then there's
• 43:41
  yellow for the longer stuff. Yeah, I.
• 43:43
  Think so. I'm doing a 5K in April on the
• 43:45
  road and that's going to be a toss up between whether I wear
• 43:48
  the Rockets or the CL OS. I'm still not sure because the
• 43:50
  CL OS on feet just feels so good.
• 43:52
  But the fastest I've run in them is like like top end of
• 43:56
  threshold stuff or maybe like a 10K effort.
• 43:58
  I've not actually like, for example, I've never sprinted in
• 44:00
  them right, which is going to be quite important when I do the
• 44:02
  5K. So yeah, I might wear them, I'm
• 44:04
  not too sure. And then just with like you guys
• 44:07
  might be the same, but I was getting nostalgic with stuff
• 44:09
  that likes worked for me at a time.
• 44:11
  And like when I raced in Riga, I wasn't even sponsored by Hoka,
• 44:14
  but I wore the Rocket X2 and ran really well.
• 44:16
  And I'm kind of like, they're like a great shoe look alike.
• 44:18
  That must be the best Rd. mile shoe in the world.
• 44:20
  I'm like, well, this is the one I wore that time, you know what
• 44:22
  I mean? So yeah, one of those I'll wear,
• 44:25
  but for marathon and stuff, no brain of the CLL.
• 44:27
  Like Ellis just ran 210 in them and he loved them so.
• 44:32
  There must be a new rocket duo, is there?
• 44:35
  Oh, no, actually, actually, what should it be?
• 44:39
  Rocket? What would it be Rocket X4?
• 44:41
  No, I actually don't think there is, or at least not not in the
• 44:44
  immediate future because we just had a brand conference in
• 44:46
  January and I'm almost certain that didn't get mentioned.
• 44:48
  There's a loads of new shoes, but I don't remember Rocket X4
• 44:50
  being a thing. So who knows, We'll see.
• 44:54
  Do you think my assumption that Hoker may be gaining more
• 44:58
  traction recently is a fair thing to say, given we've been
• 45:03
  following Hap, Tom Samuel and he's been doing like crazy
• 45:06
  things in the US, hasn't he? And he's obviously with the
• 45:08
  brand now. Sinclair Johnson's just moved
• 45:11
  over as well. That's a big signing to take her
• 45:14
  away from Nike. Are we going to see them
• 45:16
  branching out more? Yeah, I think the growth is
• 45:19
  like, I think like numerically the growth data is there from
• 45:23
  like Hoker as a brand in terms of like market share that
• 45:25
  they're taking away from other brands.
• 45:27
  Same with like on and like, you know, even like much smaller
• 45:30
  companies like your Bandit, you satisfy everything.
• 45:33
  Everyone's getting a bit more of a piece than what is
• 45:35
  traditionally used to just be like Nike, Adidas, Puma.
• 45:38
  So yeah, I think statistically it's growing.
• 45:40
  I think Hoker is experiencing massive growth also in like the
• 45:43
  lifestyle side of things, probably similar to on, right?
• 45:45
  Where it's not just a performance brand.
• 45:48
  It also has that other side to it where it's like, you know,
• 45:50
  you can profit off that, which is great because the more
• 45:53
  companies grow like depending on the management, right, the more
• 45:55
  they put into their performance athletes, which is great.
• 46:00
  Yeah, I don't know how much I can really say, but this year
• 46:03
  slash start of next year, there is some big light things for
• 46:06
  Hoka as a brand, which is in line with like what some brands
• 46:10
  already have. So whilst I don't know exactly
• 46:14
  who's joining, who's leaving who, whatever, like they'll
• 46:15
  definitely be some changes I think, which will be exciting.
• 46:19
  And it's the direction that I think a lot of brands are going
• 46:21
  into with this like next wave of running where like it's not just
• 46:25
  as simple as being like which sign all the best athletes, give
• 46:28
  them our kit, let them do their races and like job done.
• 46:30
  You have to put a bit more of a step into like building the
• 46:33
  brand or like telling the story of the athlete and stuff, kind
• 46:35
  of stuff that we did on a smaller level with.
• 46:38
  Hoker like support in that team in the UK, like Team Macau, you
• 46:42
  might be able to answer this, but is there a certain like
• 46:45
  contract length that they have with Team Macau or like could
• 46:49
  Team Macau then move to like a different brand or?
• 46:52
  We, we, we're supported by Hoka. Like we do have a contract and
• 46:55
  it's kind of like, I mean, technically this contract does
• 46:57
  have a term on it. Yeah.
• 46:58
  But the, the caveat to it is, and I think, I think we've
• 47:02
  mentioned this in videos like there's no reason we can't.
• 47:04
  It's obviously everyone who's in the team has their own
• 47:06
  individual contract with Hoka as a brand, right?
• 47:08
  So I don't know actually how it would work because we've never
• 47:12
  really had to have the conversation.
• 47:13
  But like, let's say that Hoka dropped me as an individual
• 47:15
  athlete and they're like, Cal, I'm sorry, mate, Like can't
• 47:17
  support you anymore. I don't think that would
• 47:20
  necessarily come with. Oh, yeah.
• 47:21
  And also like, bang, see you, mate.
• 47:23
  Like you got to leave, like Team Macau and that sort of thing.
• 47:26
  I assume, you know, Chris Rainsford, who looks after us,
• 47:29
  He's like one of the nicest blokes in the world.
• 47:30
  I think he'd kind of approach that with a bit of sensitivity,
• 47:32
  right? So, yeah, in the same way, we
• 47:36
  all have our own individual contracts.
• 47:37
  So if you had no sponsor, I think you'd be cool if you chose
• 47:41
  to leave. If I'm like, oh, I'm going to
• 47:43
  get loads more money from Kipron or whatever, then obviously I
• 47:46
  can't just be like, oh, but OK, you'll still like, allow me to
• 47:49
  be here, right? And I look after me and we can
• 47:50
  go on camps and stuff like that, but I'll just wear Kipron.
• 47:52
  Like obviously that's not going to work, right?
• 47:55
  So yeah, he's he's kind of yes, I'm no to you.
• 47:58
  And so I'm sure you could, but would it be the smartest move in
• 48:01
  the world? I don't think we'd get as
• 48:03
  unfortunate as Hoker have been to believe in the project from
• 48:05
  another brand. But yeah, maybe I'm wrong.
• 48:09
  I don't know if any brands are out there.
• 48:11
  Just kidding, I think. We kind of touched on earlier
• 48:16
  your background and coming in to run and it wasn't just correct
• 48:19
  me if I'm wrong, it wasn't always like ingrained in you to
• 48:23
  do it through school. You would traditionally you
• 48:25
  played football or soccer as like the Australians and
• 48:28
  Americans would call it. So when was kind of like the big
• 48:31
  crossover and how'd it all happen?
• 48:35
  Yeah, so I did run like when I was a kid I did, I did do like
• 48:39
  the local schools, cross country and stuff like that because my
• 48:41
  mum like did athletics when she was younger and stuff like that.
• 48:44
  So always thought it'd be good. And naturally I was like the kid
• 48:47
  on the football pitch, it would run around loads.
• 48:48
  So I used to go and do it, but I'd do like however many couple
• 48:53
  of local schools cross countries and then like wasn't I was
• 48:56
  pretty good and it wasn't that competitive.
• 48:57
  So I could do like the English schools cross country.
• 48:59
  So like I did do some running, but like there was no training
• 49:02
  or anything, right? It was just like play every
• 49:04
  sport school do play football, whatever.
• 49:08
  And then when I, when I was in my last year of school, I did,
• 49:13
  for some reason, I just did really well at that English
• 49:15
  schools. I think I'd just grown basically
• 49:18
  a little bit and I was just a little bit better or maybe just
• 49:20
  like raced a little bit better. So I was like, oh shit, I'm
• 49:23
  actually all right. And I committed.
• 49:25
  I was like, when I go to uni, I'm going to stop playing
• 49:27
  football. I'm actually going to do
• 49:29
  running. Basically that was my plan and
• 49:31
  that lasted about a week at uni and I was like, hang on, all my
• 49:34
  mates are from football here. I like everyone infinitely more
• 49:37
  who plays football. I actually really like playing
• 49:39
  football. So I spent the next three years
• 49:40
  at uni just playing football and when I got home in the term time
• 49:43
  in the holidays, so like Christmas, summer, whatever, I
• 49:46
  would join the local running club and train.
• 49:48
  So I was basically doing like a bit of a hybrid thing where
• 49:50
  again, I was just like doing a bit more mileage, didn't really
• 49:53
  know anything about training, but kind of like got into a
• 49:55
  little bit and I would do a half marathon, a 10K.
• 49:57
  Like I've done a 20 mile race once.
• 49:59
  Actually I've got a mad thing on my power of 10 from like, I
• 50:02
  don't know what year it is. It might be like 2018 or
• 50:04
  something like that 20 miler, which is like nuts to think that
• 50:07
  now 1500 does like my job. But anyway, I just did it like
• 50:12
  traditionally a lot of people do.
• 50:14
  And then in my last year of uni is when COVID happened.
• 50:17
  So it was like football was like, you actually can't play
• 50:19
  now because you've got no one to play with.
• 50:20
  So I was like, oh, I just pick where I was training for
• 50:24
  football, but all right, I'll go and run more and just fell into
• 50:26
  the rabbit hole that a lot of people do now with like, Oh, I
• 50:29
  can do this training and who's this Tim and elite thing?
• 50:31
  And like, all right, they do these reps and like this is a
• 50:33
  thing or I'm doing my easy, I'm smashing every easy run.
• 50:36
  Like should probably slow them down and like actually started
• 50:38
  to train pretty well. And then like anyone who starts
• 50:40
  running from zero to doing some running, your progress is like
• 50:44
  infectious is like addicted. And you're like, I'm faster than
• 50:47
  I literally was last week and I'm faster than I was last
• 50:49
  month. And then some races started to
• 50:51
  open up and I actually ran pretty good times.
• 50:54
  And then it was like, oh, I can, I've done no training.
• 50:57
  I've done some training, but compared to the level I'm
• 51:00
  running out running like 14 Summit for 5K, I was really
• 51:03
  good. So a coach in America was like,
• 51:04
  do you want to come out like for a year on a scholarship?
• 51:08
  I was like choosing between a grad scheme, like getting a
• 51:11
  normal job or doing that for a year.
• 51:13
  And I was like, it's a year to try it out, why not?
• 51:15
  And then when I went there, you just live like a professional
• 51:17
  athlete and I was getting a coach who knew what he was doing
• 51:20
  and I ran really well. So when I got back, I was like,
• 51:23
  right, let's try and kick on with the running.
• 51:25
  You also ended up winning the the Division 2.
• 51:28
  Was it the indoor 1500 and the outdoor mile or?
• 51:33
  Something in in all the way around, Yeah.
• 51:35
  Indoor mile and then outdoor 15. Yeah, which is, which is good to
• 51:39
  be like 012 national titles in a year.
• 51:41
  I did get away with it in the indoor 1 though, because I
• 51:43
  actually finished second. But the bloke got disqualified,
• 51:46
  which is like, obviously that's one of them things, right?
• 51:49
  You don't have to tell anyone that, do you?
• 51:50
  But like it was so it was such the guy.
• 51:53
  Christian Noble, you can look him up.
• 51:54
  He runs professionally for New Balance.
• 51:55
  Now he's in New Balance Boston. And it was just such an unfair
• 51:59
  DQ as well. To this day I don't have a clue
• 52:01
  how he got DQ. Like he would took it way better
• 52:03
  than I would have. I'd have been fuming.
• 52:04
  But yeah, I won that. So that was good.
• 52:07
  But then the outdoor when I did win fair and square.
• 52:09
  So I can at least take that one, you know, as a real win.
• 52:13
  So then. Once, once you returned to the
• 52:14
  UK, then you knew like that your destiny was to go all in.
• 52:18
  I'm running. Yeah, kind of.
• 52:20
  I mean, I'd started. So I, I still work now to be
• 52:22
  fair, I don't just do running like when I was out there.
• 52:26
  This is a long story for like that.
• 52:27
  It's just boring for a podcast. But basically I'd started
• 52:30
  working a little bit in digital marketing, like started with
• 52:33
  some organic social media stuff and then started running paid
• 52:36
  ads for clients and stuff like that.
• 52:37
  So I'd started to build a bit of like a freelance portfolio and a
• 52:40
  bit of a business. So I was earning money remotely
• 52:45
  already. So I was like, you know, when I
• 52:47
  get back to the UK because I don't need to go and like get a
• 52:50
  nine to five job that's going to massively disrupt hours.
• 52:52
  I think I've got enough of a runway with this like freelance
• 52:54
  sort of side hustle thing that I've got going that I can be
• 52:58
  flexible around my training, still earn a living, but have
• 53:01
  the flexibility to be like, right, I'm going to try this
• 53:02
  race in France, this race in Italy, whatever.
• 53:06
  And luckily alongside my running that group, I've gained more
• 53:08
  clients and whatever. And that's still what I do now
• 53:10
  is like, you know, couldn't live off what I earn from running,
• 53:14
  put it that way. So yeah, that's just what I
• 53:17
  always did, which gave me the flexibility to try and make it
• 53:19
  work. And then as I said at the start,
• 53:21
  that story of like try some races, run fast enough and
• 53:23
  eventually then got a contract from Hoka, which is great, which
• 53:26
  meant I could reduce some of my like normal work, if you get
• 53:29
  what I mean. So I can still go on camp and do
• 53:31
  whatever and have, yeah, a bit more flexibility.
• 53:33
  So it all worked out in the end. And it sounds like a really like
• 53:35
  thought through and put together plan.
• 53:38
  And there was times where I really planned it out and I was
• 53:40
  like, you know what, I think if I do that and then do that and
• 53:42
  gain these followers and then try this with this brand, like I
• 53:44
  will definitely get there. But then there was also just
• 53:46
  complete elements of luck where it's like, oh, there's a racing
• 53:50
  to in back that I think I'm going to do.
• 53:52
  And suddenly just by chance, it turns out to be like the most
• 53:55
  stacked field ever with Australians and people who just
• 53:57
  happened to be in the area and we all go and run 330-5336.
• 54:00
  It's like that performance that she then, you know, gives me the
• 54:03
  confidence to win a medal in Riga at the World Rd. thing.
• 54:05
  And then that contract then changes the whole course of like
• 54:08
  what my next five years of my life is going to look like.
• 54:10
  So, so much of it is complete like look of things falling into
• 54:13
  place. You just got to be in the
• 54:16
  position to like capitalize on it pretty much.
• 54:18
  And hopefully it can work out is Macau.
• 54:21
  Now, day-to-day training and how?
• 54:23
  How much of training do you do together like you all do in the
• 54:26
  same sessions? Are you running easy runs
• 54:29
  together? Yeah, so day-to-day, so I live
• 54:32
  so Ellis, Rory, yeah, Ellis and Rory live together and Charlie
• 54:38
  actually lives with them as well.
• 54:39
  So they in theory can go out for everyone together.
• 54:42
  Scott lives only a couple miles away from them, so Scott joins
• 54:44
  him and all stuff. I live a little bit further
• 54:48
  away, so I normally only go in for like session days really
• 54:50
  like when we all meet up and train together a couple times a
• 54:52
  week if we're on camp. But then obviously we'd pretty
• 54:56
  much do every single step together apart from when
• 54:58
  sessions are slightly different. Like might be more catered
• 55:00
  towards me with like 1500 someone else for a 10K whatever.
• 55:03
  Ellis, obviously these marathon trainings look totally different
• 55:06
  to everybody else. So yeah, it, it, it greatly
• 55:09
  depends really. And one thing that we've started
• 55:12
  to be more careful with is trying to strike a balance
• 55:16
  between and a lot of groups will probably experience this between
• 55:20
  the benefit of doing stuff together, but understanding when
• 55:23
  we need to be kind of selfish with their specificity.
• 55:27
  So if in my case, for example, before we start a lot of
• 55:30
  sessions, we'll properly warm up with like a mile at threshold.
• 55:32
  But as your body changes and you're in different sort of
• 55:36
  fitness levels that thresholds different, right?
• 55:38
  Like me versus Scott's threshold or Rory versus Scott's
• 55:41
  threshold, it's going to be different.
• 55:42
  So we have to either compromise and be like, right, what do we
• 55:44
  think is an appropriate thing? Maybe if mine's 515 and theirs
• 55:48
  is 5 or whatever it is, I don't know exactly what it is, we
• 55:50
  might go, right, let's meet in the middle and do that or
• 55:52
  something. But I think the more that it
• 55:54
  kind of builds up, we have to be disciplined.
• 55:56
  Like, you know what, guys, we'll just do this mile separate.
• 55:58
  I'll just go a bit slower or I'll go a bit faster or
• 56:00
  whatever. And same with like if we've got
• 56:03
  strides and stuff like that, I tend, because I do speed every
• 56:06
  week, I tend to be a lot more aggressive with like how I run
• 56:08
  those strides. I'm sure if Alice tries to do
• 56:11
  that with his marathon legs, he's probably going to pull a
• 56:12
  hamstring, right? So he has to have that element
• 56:15
  of kind of individualization. Type of person, I don't know how
• 56:20
  you said it, but like, how does that look and moving forward,
• 56:23
  like for you, Like, I think you're trained a lot.
• 56:25
  What, McMurray or Murray? Yeah.
• 56:27
  Yeah. So, yeah, fortunately, where I
• 56:29
  live, just like oddly, is that Andy Coach lives not too far
• 56:33
  from me. James McMurray doesn't live too
• 56:35
  far from me either. Who?
• 56:37
  Yeah, he's run 337. He's like a great athlete.
• 56:39
  He's a little bit older than me, so if I need to do things that
• 56:43
  are way more specific, like in the summer and stuff like that,
• 56:45
  it works really well for me and James, who's also Coach Bandy to
• 56:48
  like do stuff together. Yeah, the group, the group is a
• 56:52
  long distance group. Like that's this kind of no
• 56:54
  getting away from it. That being said, Scott ran 337
• 56:59
  in the summer. So like if it's, you know, like
• 57:01
  it kind of depends the direction we're going in is that for those
• 57:06
  guys to compete at championship successfully, they need an
• 57:10
  element of the speed I can provide.
• 57:12
  And for me to be able to hang with people that are going to go
• 57:14
  run 330 where it's like I said, a fitness competition, right?
• 57:17
  I need to be able to train the guys that run 13101320.
• 57:20
  So it does complement each other.
• 57:23
  But it's a conversation we've had so recently, actually, me
• 57:25
  and Andy, like literally last week about how in the build up
• 57:29
  for this summer, do we need to do anything differently that you
• 57:34
  might add that extra layer of called it like 1500 meter, like
• 57:38
  mentality, right? Where it's not just a pivot or a
• 57:40
  change. It's more like, OK, we're
• 57:42
  actually going to properly do something.
• 57:44
  Fortunately enough for our camping from Ramo later in the
• 57:47
  year, Pietro re say, who's a 1500m runner from Italy who's
• 57:51
  also with Hoker that we we've mixed in and trained with him a
• 57:54
  little bit. But we've kind of agreed for
• 57:55
  this year on the camp. We're like, look, let's just
• 57:58
  align ahead of time on the sessions and then once or twice
• 58:01
  a week, let's just like I basically send to Andy and to
• 58:04
  Sylvana who's pictures coach, like I just want to go in and
• 58:08
  get like cooked basically. That might be the stimulus that
• 58:12
  I just need only once a week or whatever.
• 58:14
  But like, let me just go in and be like, look, you just do your
• 58:16
  normal thing because the last three years you've ended up
• 58:19
  running 3:30. You must be doing something
• 58:21
  right. Yeah.
• 58:22
  So like, let me just go in and we'll just see what happens type
• 58:24
  thing. And I think as I alluded to,
• 58:26
  with the developments of Hoker and different things that that
• 58:29
  are going on, I think there'll be more and more opportunity for
• 58:32
  people like across the brand to like train with each other and
• 58:35
  mix and match in different camps and stuff like that.
• 58:37
  So yeah. Or at the moment I'm not strong
• 58:41
  enough, which is like an annoying thing of starting
• 58:43
  running a little bit later really is like I've had to
• 58:46
  gradually build my mileage up every year and stuff like that.
• 58:49
  I'm not aerobically in a position to run 3:30.
• 58:53
  So until I'm in that position, I can't complain about like, oh,
• 58:56
  I'm not doing the 1500 meter work.
• 58:58
  Really. That's the way I see it.
• 59:00
  Yeah, it's. Only February as well, so.
• 59:03
  Yeah, well, that's why I'm doing a 5K in April because I'm like,
• 59:05
  well, I need to train like a 5K runner until then.
• 59:07
  And then once I've ticked that box and the 5K goes right, that
• 59:10
  looks like you're fit enough, Let's layer on the speed to go
• 59:13
  and run a fast 1500. You can't skip that step because
• 59:16
  I've tried it before when I rushed back from injury.
• 59:18
  Well, not rushed back, but when I came back from injury and I
• 59:20
  really wanted to race, felt the effects of having six months
• 59:23
  without any running and it was like, fuck you.
• 59:25
  Like I literally hit 337 and I was fully capped out as I can't,
• 59:29
  I'm not fit enough to run any faster.
• 59:31
  There's no other problem. I just can't.
• 59:33
  That's all I've got right now. I could probably do it three
• 59:35
  times in a row, but like that's all I can do.
• 59:38
  It's such a weird feeling. Once you get that level of
• 59:40
  fitness, it's like, you know, the year around 335I made the
• 59:46
  the European cross 10K team. So that shows you, it's like you
• 59:49
  make a 10K cross country team, which is like the pinnacle of
• 59:52
  strength event basically that we have.
• 59:54
  And that strength converts you to running 335.
• 59:56
  That's quite like, you know, big thing.
• 59:58
  And I ran pretty good over the cross this year, so hopefully I
• 1:00:01
  can do the same, you know, this summer how much.
• 1:00:05
  Input do you guys have with the training because it seems like
• 1:00:08
  you have an amazing relationship with Andy whereby you would
• 1:00:12
  almost trust absolutely anything he says, but he almost, he also
• 1:00:17
  rather respects you guys enough to take your opinion on board.
• 1:00:21
  Like that's how it seems from the outside.
• 1:00:23
  So how's it kind of play out? Yeah, it's like, I would
• 1:00:26
  describe it as like constant mini arguments basically, where
• 1:00:30
  it's not really an argument in the sense that it's not like a
• 1:00:33
  heated thing, but it's more of like a clash of opinions where
• 1:00:37
  like I speaking for myself, I feel a responsibility as an
• 1:00:40
  athlete to be like this is how my body's feeling.
• 1:00:42
  It's what I think I need or try and describe the feeling.
• 1:00:45
  So like if I've just done it like it, like I said to you guys
• 1:00:47
  about the 3K, right, I'm trying to to get across the feeling to
• 1:00:51
  the coach of like, this is kind of how I felt like I felt a bit
• 1:00:54
  like this or like maybe it was this or this is how I like I
• 1:00:57
  felt beforehand with the hope that he can translate those
• 1:01:00
  feelings to be like, all right. I think what was missing was
• 1:01:02
  this in the training and same with like, you know, if we've
• 1:01:07
  been set 10 by AK, this is an example I always give like let's
• 1:01:11
  say we get set 20 * 60 seconds. One time I was doing it in fun
• 1:01:15
  and after on the 16th fret, I was like, if he's told me that
• 1:01:19
  threshold is the focus here, I know every Rep after this is
• 1:01:22
  definitely not a threshold focus.
• 1:01:24
  I'm going to be like, I'll be able to do it, but I'm going to
• 1:01:25
  be like hurting to hold on to the group, right?
• 1:01:27
  So that's why I'll say to Anna be like, I think that's enough
• 1:01:29
  for me. 16 is enough and he'll trust that I'm not just being
• 1:01:32
  like that. I'm not completing the training
• 1:01:35
  because like I can't push through or anything.
• 1:01:36
  He'll he trusts that I'm like honest enough to be like, OK,
• 1:01:39
  cool. Like if your heart rate value is
• 1:01:41
  that or that that doesn't feel like it's the the stimulus we've
• 1:01:44
  talked about, then we'll leave it.
• 1:01:47
  And same. It works the exact same the
• 1:01:48
  other way where I'll sometimes push and I'll look at like this
• 1:01:51
  week, I looked at the week and I went and I was like, I know I
• 1:01:53
  didn't feel good in the 3K, but like that doesn't look like that
• 1:01:55
  much training. Do you know what I mean?
• 1:01:57
  I was like, can I do a bit more? And he'll equally then push back
• 1:01:59
  and be like, well, you know, I've done it for a reason.
• 1:02:01
  It's like this. And we'll compromise on, OK,
• 1:02:03
  maybe do a bit of an extra run here or like check in with me on
• 1:02:06
  Wednesday and we'll see how you feel and then maybe we'll do
• 1:02:08
  more. So it's definitely
• 1:02:10
  collaborative, but you can't argue with a lot of Andy's
• 1:02:14
  results. It's what I always say to him.
• 1:02:16
  I'll give my opinion. I'll be like, by the way, just
• 1:02:18
  do whatever you think is right. I'm just giving you my sort of
• 1:02:22
  opinion. So I feel better.
• 1:02:23
  But like you've coached 209210 marathoners, you've coached
• 1:02:26
  2730274010K guys, 13045 K, 349 mile.
• 1:02:32
  You've you've done it. So, like, I'm not saying you're
• 1:02:34
  wrong. I feel like I'll feel better if
• 1:02:37
  I feel like I've had an input, if you get what I mean.
• 1:02:40
  And Andy's quite good at like pandering to you on that.
• 1:02:43
  Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll look at that.
• 1:02:44
  And I'll just do whatever he thinks is right, which is how
• 1:02:46
  what he should do. He's the coach, you know?
• 1:02:49
  Well, that's. Cool.
• 1:02:49
  Thanks so much for giving us like a bit of an inside look
• 1:02:53
  onto your life as an athlete and with the team.
• 1:02:56
  I guess before we let you go, what does you alluded to the
• 1:02:59
  fact that you might be going away at the end of this week,
• 1:03:01
  whether you want to reveal that or not, but and you touched
• 1:03:04
  about this 5K race. So what's the next couple of
• 1:03:06
  months looking like for you? Yeah, if all goes well.
• 1:03:10
  So I'm going to Flagstaff on the well, like 4-5 days now from
• 1:03:13
  when we're recording and we'll be there for a month.
• 1:03:17
  And then there's the sound running 10K at the 10.
• 1:03:22
  It's called in LA that some of the boys will be doing.
• 1:03:25
  There's also a 1500 there, but I don't think I'm going to be
• 1:03:27
  doing it. Might do some pacing or
• 1:03:29
  something like that. And then the week after that
• 1:03:31
  there is Leo 5K which is on the road, which I'm not confirmed
• 1:03:35
  for, but that's the plan at the moment is like do a block.
• 1:03:38
  I've never been to Flagstaff that I've only ever been to font
• 1:03:40
  flags, like way higher altitude. So survive flag, hopefully do
• 1:03:44
  some good training and then drop down and see what I'm like over
• 1:03:48
  5K, not as like a make or break, but just try and have a, you
• 1:03:51
  know, I'll go for APB obviously, but have a good run out as
• 1:03:56
  April. And then from there we'll start
• 1:03:57
  like the specific, let's work up to trying to run a fast 1500, a
• 1:04:01
  fast 800, you know, if maybe even another 5K, who knows.
• 1:04:06
  I'm just yeah, see how it goes. And from there it's just racing
• 1:04:09
  all the way until whenever. I agree.
• 1:04:11
  My holiday is going to be with Andy in September at some point.
• 1:04:14
  That's in negotiations at the moment.
• 1:04:16
  Yeah, because there's there's so much opportunity this year,
• 1:04:19
  isn't there, with like a couple of championships and everything
• 1:04:22
  that's going on. Yeah, it's one of those.
• 1:04:25
  I just hope that everything's like EUR obviously different to
• 1:04:28
  commies, right, Because it's just athletics versus all the
• 1:04:30
  other sports. Whereas like the quota of
• 1:04:32
  athletes and stuff is, is done slightly differently and the
• 1:04:35
  qualifications slightly differently.
• 1:04:37
  I just hope they take good teams, like the right teams,
• 1:04:41
  right? Like commies.
• 1:04:42
  If you look for the selection thing, it is he mentions a lot
• 1:04:46
  that it's people who are going to win medals that are picked
• 1:04:48
  right? And there's only three medals.
• 1:04:50
  And in distance events you've got Kenya and people like that
• 1:04:52
  that normally win at least one of them, right?
• 1:04:54
  So yeah, it'll be interesting to see like what it takes to get
• 1:04:58
  there. Right now I don't even have the
• 1:05:00
  qualification time. So that's sort of Step 1.
• 1:05:02
  And that's the same for, you know, pretty much everyone.
• 1:05:04
  So yeah, try and get the qualification times for commies.
• 1:05:07
  EUR do well at British Champs and then if all else fails with
• 1:05:12
  that, there is still the world road running Champs in September
• 1:05:16
  this year. So you know, he's still have to
• 1:05:19
  run 334 or something crazy quick to get into that.
• 1:05:21
  But that'd be cool to go back because it's obviously the first
• 1:05:24
  one since 2023, which is, yeah, a while ago.
• 1:05:29
  Yeah, feel free to offer no comment on this.
• 1:05:32
  I know you've maybe touched upon it on your own Instagram before,
• 1:05:35
  but yeah, those selection policies often leave you baffled
• 1:05:41
  with like 8 different bullet points and you're trying to
• 1:05:44
  interpret what it actually means, but at the end of the day
• 1:05:46
  it basically just means they can do what they want.
• 1:05:49
  Yeah, I've had so many conversations about this and I
• 1:05:53
  don't think there's an answer that would ever please everyone,
• 1:05:55
  right. That's the first thing is like a
• 1:05:57
  lot of the a lot of the people who decide stuff are actually
• 1:06:00
  individually really good people and not really get along with
• 1:06:03
  them. And they know so much about
• 1:06:04
  athletics and they've made so many champions and stuff like
• 1:06:06
  that, or they've been champions themselves of athletes.
• 1:06:08
  So I never think it's like a individual thing.
• 1:06:11
  If you actually chat to an individual, I think the
• 1:06:13
  rationale they'll give you is probably sound like you just
• 1:06:15
  accept it and be like, oh, totally get where you're coming
• 1:06:17
  from. I just think communication and
• 1:06:18
  stuff is like terrible, which is the main thing is like, it's a
• 1:06:22
  bit like the way I comparatives, a bit like, you know, how
• 1:06:25
  referees don't do interviews after matches.
• 1:06:27
  So you just imagine why they've given a decision.
• 1:06:30
  Whereas if they came out and they just went like, oh, just to
• 1:06:32
  let you know, like totally missed that or like This is why
• 1:06:35
  I gave it, you'd be like, oh, didn't see it from that
• 1:06:37
  perspective. Totally get why you did or
• 1:06:38
  didn't give that penalty since I like well crossed I was going to
• 1:06:42
  not get picked. Thought I'd met all the
• 1:06:43
  criteria. Still 100% do still do don't
• 1:06:47
  agree with selection, but once it being communicated to me and
• 1:06:50
  I'd ask the questions and put forward my case of like, look,
• 1:06:53
  can I just have it explained? I was like, you know what, even
• 1:06:55
  though I don't agree with you, I get where you come in from Like
• 1:06:58
  good luck to everyone at the Champs, like have a good one
• 1:07:00
  type thing. I can like move on and
• 1:07:03
  understand why you've done that to get what I mean.
• 1:07:05
  And now I'm a little bit better informed the next time I do a
• 1:07:08
  selection of the similar kind. So when I'm doing my little
• 1:07:10
  connection thing where you have to write any other circumstances
• 1:07:13
  or whatever you want to put in there, have a better idea of
• 1:07:16
  what they're thinking of when they're picking A-Team, which
• 1:07:18
  was way more in depth than I thought they thought of.
• 1:07:20
  Like they were literally choosing based on tactics of how
• 1:07:23
  they thought the race was going to go versus other teams and
• 1:07:25
  what leg order it was going to be.
• 1:07:27
  And like all sorts of stuff that's not listed in the bullet
• 1:07:29
  points, that's just in that any other factors.
• 1:07:31
  But if you don't have a coach and Andy's great, but like, and
• 1:07:34
  he has a lot of connections, but like, you know, if you're
• 1:07:38
  Achille or someone who's earned the right to be on that level,
• 1:07:41
  Olympic champion, best to ever run an 800 indoors, like, you've
• 1:07:43
  earned the right to do whatever the hell you want.
• 1:07:45
  Her and her coach can probably pick up the phone to anyone in
• 1:07:47
  British athletics and be like, can you explain this or like,
• 1:07:50
  what's the vibe? I can't just do that.
• 1:07:52
  Or at least I don't think I can. Like, you know, I'd probably
• 1:07:54
  have to e-mail a generic e-mail, right?
• 1:07:56
  Like, and just be like, hi, come.
• 1:07:58
  Like, someone let me know, like, what this means or like, are you
• 1:08:00
  going to take this into an account?
• 1:08:02
  So yeah, I just think the communication is not great on a
• 1:08:04
  lot of stuff. And I sometimes just think that
• 1:08:08
  athletes are probably not consulted.
• 1:08:10
  Like you saw Mark Scott just got like, he put a bit of a campaign
• 1:08:13
  together to get their half marathon policy changed because
• 1:08:16
  he was just like, none of these dates make any sense.
• 1:08:18
  Like, think about it, you've told us this to prepare for
• 1:08:21
  this, but like, entries already closed for this.
• 1:08:23
  And then in the end, they just went like, oh, actually does
• 1:08:25
  like, yeah, didn't even think about that.
• 1:08:26
  And they've changed it. And I think everyone's probably
• 1:08:28
  a lot more happy with it. So yeah, there's an element of
• 1:08:31
  consulting athletes, but also there's 100% responsibility from
• 1:08:37
  athletes to like, unless you've hit all the criteria, don't
• 1:08:41
  complain. Like in my opinion, like you
• 1:08:44
  need to do your job first. So like the only thing I've ever
• 1:08:46
  complained about is that world cross one because genuinely, I
• 1:08:48
  think I did everything that I needed to do.
• 1:08:50
  But if you've not run the time needed, if you've not shown up a
• 1:08:53
  championships you're supposed to show up to or like you've got a
• 1:08:56
  medical examption or like anything that's not by the book,
• 1:08:59
  like don't, don't complain and be like annoying about it and be
• 1:09:02
  like, Oh, I think I'm better than this guy or like whatever
• 1:09:04
  you need to do your job 1st and then then you can go ahead and
• 1:09:07
  be like, OK, I think I've been hardly done by.
• 1:09:09
  And because some people complain so unnecessarily and then you
• 1:09:12
  look at it and you're like, Oh, you haven't got like to stand on
• 1:09:15
  there like he's run 4 seconds faster than you site.
• 1:09:17
  You should like, I'm sorry he's harsh, but like, you should have
• 1:09:20
  done your job, you know? I think you're being very good
• 1:09:23
  to put athletics there. I think it was a total farce
• 1:09:27
  that like they didn't pick like you and your group who qualified
• 1:09:32
  took at the time like 1 the Madeleine EUR and then they
• 1:09:37
  didn't bring it to the world's. I think it's crazy.
• 1:09:40
  But like even their selection policy, like I guarantee you
• 1:09:44
  Josh Kerr and umm, Georgia Bell, they no intention of running
• 1:09:49
  British indoors, but they got a medical exemption.
• 1:09:52
  I just like even yeah, I just guaranteed like Georgia Bell, I
• 1:09:56
  don't know what excuse she gave, but then for her to go out and
• 1:09:58
  run like 4 days later, five days later in the indoors in 11 or
• 1:10:02
  whatever, that French one where Keely ran.
• 1:10:04
  Like I just don't get that. Like, I think it's when you take
• 1:10:07
  a step back, it's clear as day that like they just had no
• 1:10:09
  intention to running. Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:10:12
  I can't speak about them individually because I don't
• 1:10:14
  actually know. Umm, I'm, I'm really big for GB
• 1:10:19
  being the best country in the world.
• 1:10:20
  I love supporting like before I was doing running myself, like I
• 1:10:23
  remember watching 2012 and whatever and like athletes that
• 1:10:27
  or like even in an event that I didn't care about, if you've got
• 1:10:29
  someone British in it, I'm like it with the Winter Olympics now
• 1:10:31
  I like won't care about it. And then I'll see a British guy
• 1:10:33
  doing the snowboarding, but I'll come on then let's see if we can
• 1:10:35
  win this, you know, like I'll get behind them.
• 1:10:37
  So I do think there's an element as much as policies and stuff
• 1:10:40
  need to be fair and we need to have like a good equal
• 1:10:43
  opportunity to stuff. I do think that if you get to a
• 1:10:45
  certain level, you do earn the right to kind of bend the rules.
• 1:10:48
  That's just for me. And I know it's kind of like,
• 1:10:51
  you know, it might be right, it might be wrong.
• 1:10:52
  But I think if you are at the top and you're such a shoo in
• 1:10:58
  and you're so good, you should be allowed to have some element
• 1:11:00
  of flexibility. I just think it should be way
• 1:11:02
  more transparent. And again, that's where I think
• 1:11:04
  like part of me wants to be like, is there a way where like
• 1:11:07
  British Athletics, there's some sort of like election to a
• 1:11:09
  committee And it's like, look, they're the selection committee
• 1:11:12
  for this season. And then they just do whatever
• 1:11:14
  they want and they just say, look, we're going to pick the
• 1:11:16
  team. A bit like our football manager,
• 1:11:17
  you give him the job, he picks the starting 11.
• 1:11:20
  If you're crap, it falls on him, right?
• 1:11:22
  And it's like, that was your fault.
• 1:11:23
  Like you pick the wrong players. Are you trying to you bought the
• 1:11:25
  wrong players or whatever? Maybe there's a way that where
• 1:11:27
  they just go look, we're just going to pick whoever we think
• 1:11:30
  is the best that's going to win the most medals, right?
• 1:11:33
  You just do your thing as an athlete and whatever race you
• 1:11:35
  want, run as fast as you can, whatever.
• 1:11:38
  And we're just going to pick, you know, the best people and
• 1:11:41
  maybe they have to give some rationale as to why.
• 1:11:42
  And then if the medal counts crap, unlucky, you're probably
• 1:11:45
  not going to get reelected to like the selection thing.
• 1:11:48
  Think obviously that's got loads of flaws, but it's probably as
• 1:11:51
  flawed as trying to write a selection policy that ultimately
• 1:11:55
  acts like it's objective. But then at the bottom it's
• 1:11:57
  really subjective. It's like, but if all else
• 1:11:59
  fails, we'll pick whoever, right?
• 1:12:01
  But like if you are Kerr or Georgia Bell or something like
• 1:12:04
  that, it'd be great to have you at British Champs.
• 1:12:06
  It'd be great publicity and whatever.
• 1:12:08
  But also like, would I rather you go to worlds and win a medal
• 1:12:11
  100%? I'm sorry.
• 1:12:12
  Like it's just, you know, that's kind of just how it is.
• 1:12:15
  Would have been great to race against Kerr and if you bought
• 1:12:17
  your £20 ticket and it inspires the next generation stuff.
• 1:12:20
  I do get it. Like I'm not saying that it's
• 1:12:22
  one or the other, but I would like him to go and win World
• 1:12:25
  Champs 3K because I think that's class for the country.
• 1:12:28
  But that's that's more just like the side I'm on with it.
• 1:12:31
  So yeah, I just think it it, it depends.
• 1:12:34
  It needs to be fair, but also a bit of common sense applied to
• 1:12:38
  it. I think at times I'm sure the.
• 1:12:40
  Listeners will be thrilled with this because I told you in the
• 1:12:42
  message when I was doing Mcravelin to get you on that
• 1:12:46
  you're the people's champ. They voted you last year and our
• 1:12:49
  end of year awards, so yeah, I'm sure they'll love this chat and
• 1:12:53
  we're thrilled with the time that you've given us as well and
• 1:12:55
  all the details you've shared. So we wish you all the best for
• 1:12:59
  the upcoming season. Enjoy Flagstaff and good luck
• 1:13:01
  and Laila and beyond. Yeah, Much appreciated, guys.
• 1:13:04
  Thank you very much. Chris, Carl, thank you.
• 1:13:07
  See you. Cheers guys.
• 1:13:09
  Thanks. The.
• 1:14:24
  The.