Latest / 12 Months to Marathon / Episode 119 — Marathons Are Easy? Spencer Matthews, Running Snobbery & the Comparison Trap

Transcript

Episode 119 — Marathons Are Easy? Spencer Matthews, Running Snobbery & the Comparison Trap · 12 Months to Marathon

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to the 12 months to marathon podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're me, John Hill, the running podcast for the over 35s with Marathon Dreams, episode 119.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Marathons are easy, and can we all stop losing our minds, please?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's going on with me at the moment?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's Hyrux Week for me.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: By the time you listen to this, I may have already done it actually.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but let's see.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I've trained as well as I can.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna taper as well as I can.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: The rest is in the lap of the gods, as the phrase goes, and then after that, I'll report back uh in terms of what I'm going to do next with my little fitness endeavours as I approach my 50th year.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about something that I actually missed in the context of the way it was taken online, which is something that Spencer Matthews said about marathons being easy, and for me, it highlights two problems.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, it highlights the problem with comparison, and I've done a podcast on this before, and I think a lot of runners get held back, including myself, because we compare ourselves to the wrong people, and we make you know the wrong comparisons, basically, keeping it in a simple language in comparison, as we know, is the thief of joy.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, I think it brings to the fore this problem with context online and people not taking things out of context and not reading things, like I did the podcast around uh the mindset of a champion.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was a good example of people just not listening to things and not listening to videos and reels and getting this snapshot of information and then just making sweeping judgments and going absolutely crazy online, which I think this fits into.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the first thing I want to say here is that you everyone's entitled to their opinion, of course, and this is not a critique of anyone individually, this is just a theme that I've noticed, but I think it will help people genuinely, particularly the people that I've come across in my professional career, coaching career, and also online as well.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The people have got to know.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't know who Spencer Matthews is, Spencer Matthews was in a programme called Made in Chelsea, and he got quite famous on that.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And now he's got quite famous actually for being in the running space and endurance space, including doing seven iron men in seven continents across 21 days, which is quite the achievement.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he's been chasing quicker marathon times, sort of he's in that sort of sub-3, 250, and I think he's trying to get faster, and he's been very public about that.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, he was doing a podcast interview with somebody, and the line that was snipped was him saying marathons are easy, it's running faster at marathons.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's the hard bit.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, not to put words in his mouth, but what I think he meant was that if you are physically able to and you train properly, then most people could manage a marathon, complete a marathon, right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, he didn't not in a specific time or not any of that sort of business, but most people could, you know, do a marathon if they put their mind to it and trained and followed the a plan.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, like I said, there's no rules here because you know a nine-hour marathon is a nine-hour marathon, or a two-hour marathon is a two-hour marathon, it doesn't really matter.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: But then a load of people lost their minds because they took it as it was said, marathons are easy, including people writing elongated posts around, well, my so-and-so time was me pushing myself to the absolute limit.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, that's absolutely fine.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then people sort of jumping on the bandwagon and saying things like, Well, marathons are easy, I can tell you that they're not.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course they're not, and because that's not what he meant.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think what we've got to do here is we have to put things into context so we don't just set fire to things, so they don't just spread like wildfire.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a is there a bit of hypocrisy there with me jumping on the bandwagon?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Potentially, but what I've noticed is that people use that as a stick to beat themselves up with, right?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So people will say, Oh wow, this guy's doing two four 250 and he's saying marathons are easy, but I did six hours and really struggled.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I feel bad about myself, and this is the problem.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't feel bad about yourself because you're looking outside of yourself, yeah.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: What we need to do as runners and individuals, I think, is look internally.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm doing high rocks in a couple of days' time as I record this, and I've got a particular target that I want to hit.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you looked at the state of me at 28 years old, just me considering that target is a miracle, right?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, well, I should be as good as him, and I should be as good as that person, I should be as quick as that person.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I see people around my age who are doing better than me, quote unquote, whatever that is, and I get into the comparison trap and I forget where I've come from and I forget that actually I've done pretty well.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was disappointed with the 305 marathon because of a 20 mile an hour headwind, and I'm not saying that to impress you because I sat there after it and thought, John, you're 48 man.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's put some context.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing an interview on this podcast with somebody else, and they were saying, Oh, I don't know if I can still go sub three, uh, because the last time I did it, I was in my late 30s, and I said, Well, I did my first one at 45.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I that's me putting myself into context to help you.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't talk about my times very much because it's kind of irrelevant because I'm not coaching and trying to help athletes.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to help people over 35 run their first or fastest marathon in the next 12 months.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I say that I do.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And to do that, you don't necessarily initially need to think about the time, particularly if it's your first one.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: You need to think about the structure and you need to think about how you approach it, and you need to think about your fueling, and more importantly, I think you need to think about your mindset and your flexibility around your plan, which is what other lot what a lot of the work I do with people is.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really about here's a plan, follow it.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's here's a plan, let's help you follow it, let's help you understand it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the work that I do.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that is about comparison, it's about saying, look, you need to remember that you're running your own race here, pun intended, and you're following your own journey, and you need to follow that journey and follow it in a way that works for you.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if we keep losing our minds about everything online, then we're gonna get angrier and angrier and angrier, and all we're gonna do is spend all the time online getting angry with people instead of looking at ourselves, and that's what I saw.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I saw people taking it as like a personal insult on them.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, is this guy personally insulting me?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, is this guy saying I'm slow?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're saying that, and that might sound harsh, but a lot of people criticize themselves as being slow, but it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're calling yourself slow, you're calling yourself a terrible runner, you're calling yourself a bad runner, and that's not a good way to talk to yourself.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me, I'm on a bit of a journey, I'm on a bit of a journey myself at the moment, which I'll go into, I will go into on this podcast.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: I will talk about it.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a mental health journey, I will talk about it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the problems that I have is catastrophizing language, okay?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So real catastrophizing off-the-scale language, which just is not necessary about factual things.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you are running a 40-minute 5K, you are not a slow runner, you're just somebody who runs 5k in 40 minutes.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's the facts, and you've got a choice to make.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can either stay at 40 minutes, get slower, you know, slower than 40 minutes, which is a factual statement, or you can get faster than 40 minutes or quicker than 40 minutes, whatever language you want to use.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Those are factual statements, those are data-driven statements.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: They are not about you as an individual, they are just it's just data, it's just information.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if somebody says, in their opinion, they think running 26.2 miles is easy, then that's their opinion.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an attack on anybody personally, okay.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to jump on bandwagons and it's okay to contest it, and it's okay to do content about it.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm doing here.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if you take that personally and think it's a an elitist comment, I don't think it was an elitist comment, I just think it's somebody saying, you know, if you follow a plan, then you can manage this stuff.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: But he you for me it was a faux par in terms of the language that he used, okay.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to be a better runner, particularly a better marathon runner, you can't take things personally, particularly stuff on the internet.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have to say, Okay, what do I want to do?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: What is good for me, yeah, based on where I'm at and what I want to achieve, okay?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And to do that, you've got to focus internally, not externally, okay.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So losing your mind online and getting angry about stuff online is is using your energy where your energy could be used to improve your own time, improve your own fueling, improve your own recovery, improve your own strength of conditioning.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, does that make sense?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I saw over the last six months, particularly in the running space, and I've seen it in the fitness space before, is bordering on people getting nasty, people getting personal about stuff that isn't really in that space, okay.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: There are two things you're never supposed to talk about online, which is religion and politics, because you're going to upset somebody fairly quickly.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're always gonna my thing about politics is you're always gonna upset somebody with whatever you say, whatever, wherever you sit.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the quickest way to upset people, and I think sometimes what we're doing now is to get likes, to get comments, to get shares, we're making running about that.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's about um controversy and it's about all these things.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can have controversial opinions.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've got controversial opinions on certain things that might go against the grain a little bit.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: My opinion on what happened at that Hyrux a couple of weeks ago, um, and things like that, and um perhaps my um opinion um about Tegus Cepha with with the with the with the Achilles to uh Achilles injury, you know, particularly the Hyrux one, some people might have seen that as controversial.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not going to listen to what somebody's saying and how they apply context to something, well, you really shouldn't lose your mind.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think losing your mind about what Spencer Matthews said, I don't think he's very productive.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's more productive to say, okay, I can sort of see a bit of a perhaps a bit of a faux par language, but I can sort of see what he means by that.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: How do I improve?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes what people do, and this is controversial, I'm gonna say this because it might help you, is they call themselves slow and do these things to give them an automatic barrier to not improving.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: They say, Well, I can't possibly improve because I'm a slow runner, which is almost like an a story or an excuse not to do the work.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when somebody says something like that, it can be well, he's saying it's easy and I find it really, really hard, da da da.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of saying, Well, actually, how can I improve?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: How can I get better?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want to get faster at this distance?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't, it's fine, but if you automatically discount the possibility of achieving it, you're never going to achieve what you want.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because somebody asked me on this podcast a few weeks ago, uh, they asked me a question.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Nicola asked me a question, and she says, Um, I want to learn from you in terms of how you get better.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I just made a point, I just said you've just got to be curious.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Getting better at running is about curiosity, and you'll get to your limit and you'll find a place where you might go, do you know what?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's it, I've achieved what I want to achieve, but be curious.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: But if we lose our minds all the time online and we and we and we take everything personally, you're going to go internally and you're going to convince yourself that you can't improve because you're going to make it about you as a human being versus you as a performer and you as somebody who potentially could get better and could improve.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with improving, by the way.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Said it before, and I'll keep saying it, and I'll die on this hill.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to get faster because people are going to attack you if you're quote unquote slow, and people are going to attack you if you're quote unquote fast.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you might as well do your thing.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are a social media person and you are documenting your journey, this is perhaps a podcast for itself, you are going to have people come after you.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've had people come after the most positive, inspirational stuff I've put online, people have had a problem with that.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So people are always going to have a problem with you, no matter what you do.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're documenting your journey, whilst I'm not saying this is the it's right, it just is what it is.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: People are going to come after you, and that's just the way it goes.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a bit of a tangent, but it all fits into me under the same umbrella of this it's good to have opinions, it's good to speak out, it's good to stand up for things you believe in, but don't take it personally.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because when people say things like that, they don't mean it personally, it's not an attack on you, it's just a it's just a comment, it's just something that somebody said that perhaps was a faux pas, was wrong language, but they didn't mean that you find marathons easy or I find marathons easy because marathons certainly are not easy, but they are contextual to the individual.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some people could run a four-hour marathon and find it manageable, some people could struggle to do 10 hours.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: What you can't do is allow anything to make you feel bad about yourself as a human being and overly compare because that is the route to sadness, and that is the route to quitting when you overly compare, because you will constantly be benchmarking yourself against other people instead of the person that you were yesterday, and that for me is the message to the individual.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: The message for me is a group.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the old Nietzsche quote about the madness of crowds and a very good book called The Madness of Crowds by um oh, I can't remember his name, his name escapes me, but you should read the book Douglas Murray.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: You should read the book Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray because we talk about this thing of how things spread and how when people jump on bandwagons, how it can get sort of nasty, especially online.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying this got like that with him, but it can go that way.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if we've got to stop losing our minds online about faux pas and about people saying the wrong thing, and the example that I gave a few weeks ago with a poor girl at Hyrux who got piled on and people being nasty and being angry, and you can disagree with something like that, but unless it affects you personally, which this didn't, there's no point getting this angry and just pouring petrol on the fire because it doesn't make the running community a better place to be, it makes it a toxic place, like the other things that I mentioned, particularly politics, and we don't want that here.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: This should be a release for us all to get away from all that and to just do our thing, okay?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my two pence on that subject.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I get quite passionate because I just think it's a waste of energy, and prove to yourself that a marathon isn't easy and prove you can do your absolute best at it, and that's the best way to fix anything like this is to just do your best and be confident in yourself and your own ability.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's my two pence on the subject.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much for listening.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: I do appreciate it.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: As always, don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcast from.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's Apple or Spotify.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a regular listener, please drop me a quick review on Spotify or drop me a comment that helps as well.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And share this with your friends, which is also useful if you want to share this to your stories, particularly on Instagram.
• 13:43
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• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you head to the link in my bio as well, you can join my free running community for the over 35 so we can take you away from the noise of social media uh and we can share some accountability and support over there.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And also, as well, you can find out details in that community or at my bio regarding my new marathon toolkit and strategy course, which I've launched for this year.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've got a spring marathon coming up and you've got a relative level of confidence and you don't need full contact coaching, this is the thing for you uh to give you the extra support you need to get run your first or fastest marathon in the next six to twelve months.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, thank you very much for listening as always.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I do appreciate it, and I'll speak to you all again very soon indeed.