Latest / The People Run Podcast / #3 : “The Marathon Owes You Nothing” - Ollie on the Joy, Pain, and Lessons from 26.2

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#3 : “The Marathon Owes You Nothing” - Ollie on the Joy, Pain, and Lessons from 26.2 · The People Run Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Berlin in 17 around 5, 13, 46.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: That sort of journey with Francisco last couple of years got me down to 324-34 last last um all-in in Berlin.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the People Run Podcast.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is your host, Fitz here.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have the pleasure of having a good friend of mine on today talking about everyday runners.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is why I had him come on.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is my good friend here, Ollie, uh based out of New York.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Ollie, thanks for joining, man.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is the People Run Podcast.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, thanks for hopping on, man.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: All good, Fitz.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Good to see you.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Happy to be here.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, looking forward to talking all things running with you today.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course, man.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, we we kind of joked about this before, man.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I can always talk running.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: We can always talk running even for free or non-podcast.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for hopping on, man.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: So um, as you know, I started this podcast and it's all about talking like everyday runners, people who getting it done, you know, with regular jobs, regular day job, or even not just, you know, getting run.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we have elites, but we have regular runners too getting it done, and that's kind of why I had you hop on.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Ollie's done all six majors.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I try to join it for one, but work in progress.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: But uh for the potter, you know, can you share a little bit uh first to start off with, you know, share by yourself, uh, what do you do for a living?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, tell us how you got into running.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I'm Ollie.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, live in Brooklyn, uh, been in the States for about six years now, uh, from London originally.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I definitely came to running a bit later in a bit later in life.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I'm 36 now, turning 37 in um in the summer, and yeah, it's been it's been a journey, and I've only really properly got into running, I'd say, kind of post-COVID, and I've been really kind of thinking about it differently and switching it on last few years.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say 2022, 23, 24, um when I started kind of picking up a few more of the other majors, and I'd um, you know, I I'd kind of fallen in and out of of loving over the uh of running past kind of 13, 14 years or so, and I I feel very lucky that I've yeah, picked up the the the six world majors as it was at the the time, they're obviously seven now and soon to be nine, but I also kind of it kind of happened by accident.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I'm from London and did London Marathon in 2012.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for a charity that I'd been doing some work with, and actually I sort of always had I've always had asthma and I was born with asthma, and I think for a long time I thought that was gonna hold me back in my running.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, it was kind of what first got me into long distance running, doing some volunteering with asthma UK, the charity and back home, and ended up going out to do the New York Marathon um with them in 2011.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, 2011 I was you know in my early 20s and I thought I was invincible.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: My main sport growing up was really football or soccer, as we call it in the in the States.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And for my first two marathons, New York 2011, London 2012, which was a special one because it was Olympic year, you know, a big year to do the do the marathon.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: For I didn't really take it seriously enough, and I I didn't really respect the distance.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, you know, I'm young and I'm fit and I'm playing football two or three times a week, and I'm doing workout classes, and yeah, I can do a couple of runs and and I'll be fine.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And such in 2011, when I came out to New York, I'd actually never run, it's a bit embarrassing, never run more than 13 miles, and then I got off the plane, and then you know, a couple of days later I did 26, and it obviously was uh had an amazing first half and had a very tough um second half.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I really learned my lesson, and then you know I think for a long time I thought, oh, I can kind of hack or or cheat the distance.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um then I took a couple of um couple of years out, and then I came back in in 16 after a friend of mine passed away and was was raising money for a charity in his honour did London Marathon again in in 16.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the year after that moved to to Germany.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually working with working for Adidas, and so I got the opportunity to run the Berlin Marathon that they sponsor in in 17.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I was very unprepared for that and undertrained and just have my times up here.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: That was a that was a pretty long day at the at the office.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Berlin 2017, yeah.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: My time was 513 46, and I only had two or three weeks to prepare.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: But again, uh I mean this is some years after my first, but again, I thought, well, you know, I'm I'm cycling to work, sometimes I run to work, I'm playing football, I was doing a lot of yoga at the time.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, oh yeah, I could translate that to the marathon.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you obviously can't.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, running long distances is a is a learnable skill and there's a way to properly approach it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I didn't really learn that or know anything about running until COVID.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd actually been I've been going to a physical therapy studio in Manhattan called Motive and Y Motive New York, and the founder there during COVID, um David Juhi took me out and basically taught me how to run because I had no idea how to run before that, put me on a treadmill, showed me the basics, taught me through some of the the ideas around cadence and breathing and form, things that I didn't even know were were possible.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that I'd loved doing before COVID, and I was doing a lot of yoga at Modo Yoga in New York, and I was playing a lot of football, playing a lot of soccer, and those things they went away, you know.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I just started running running every day, and then that's actually how I got back into it for the first time, and actually how I started to learn about it and and think about it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the idea of I had no idea that you know there were things like tempo runs and speed runs and tracking the idea of a long run and the idea of weekly mileage and building up your base.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: None I didn't know any of that for my first really the first three majors that that I got through.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in COVID, I kind of had I was just immersed to it more.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think two big things happened.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: David taught me the basics at Motive and Motive NY.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: They organise a lot of community runs, and so for the first time I had a community around me and David and the team at Motive.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: They organise five runs to Rockaway Beach from Manhattan every year to Polar Plunge in February, but then they hit them every month.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: You have May, June, July, um, and August.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of exposed me to people that were in the community.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um the the other thing that I think was a big step change for me is you know, for the first time at what I would have been only 22, 34, 35 years old, running around the track, phoning me at track fast for the first time, which I've never done before, and joining a track club, um, which still belonged to today called Threshold Pace, which is run by Francisco Belagtas, amazing runner and coach, and he was my coach for all of 23 and 24.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're to cut a long story short, that that when I went to Berlin in 17 around 5, 13, 46, that kind of journey with Francisco last couple of years got me down to 324-34 last last um fall-in in Berlin.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I don't think that I am naturally necessarily the most gifted runner, apart from the fact that I'm very tall and that and and that all humans ultimately we're we're born to run.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think, yeah, I think everybody has one marathon in them outside of like in your injuries and things that would prevent you from from doing that.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but after I met David and motive and started getting involved in the community, and I started running fast around a track with Francisco.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: That summer of 22, I was just like, well, I've got to do a marathon because I was like banging out these 18-mile beach runs or running fast for the first time.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I signed up for yeah, Chicago 2022 is really the race that I think changed how I thought about running and what I could do.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that was um 330-31, and I really went in with no idea about what I would um I would be able to do.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think two big things changed after that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: One, almost by accident, I had four of the six world majors, and then as as soon as I had that fourth, something just switched on, which like there's no way I'm not gonna finish this now because for a long time I said, well, I've got three, but you know, it's the path just looks um too difficult.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing is I ran on the shoulder of a friend of mine, Justin Miller, who you should get on here, amazing, amazing guy, amazing runner.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he's just like a human metronome, and he just banged his eight-minute miles on the dot to bring us in at 3 30 31.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I it's one of the mad magic things about running is if you can remove it, just all I had to do was stay on his shoulder, and I thought, you know, I'll just I'll stick with him for the first half, or stick with him for the first 18, or just get to 20, and then he basically pulled me through, and like that's been a couple of times where like I've had big, big results.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was one, you know, and then it actually took me two more years before I broke 330.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, you realize when you first get into it, you're chopping huge amounts of time off, and then it might take you two more years to like chop the the three or four minutes off, which I ended up.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, starting from five hours to to three thirty in a couple of years, that that's an insane amount of time, man.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean and it sounds like well I'll ask you, what would you attribute to that too?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like you shared some of it, but like if you were to think about it now in hindsight, like two hours basically almost.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Granted, no, no prep for a lot of them, but yeah, it's it's there's there's there's a lot that um I kind of finally figured out that I had to put to put together.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um I think that the the fundamentals of it from you know, you said you can't cheat the distance, you gotta running's gotta become your main your main sport when you're building towards a marathon.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think even the way that Francisco's coached me the last couple of years is like helping me understand that okay, the week, most of these weeks are gonna look the same.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: You recovery run on a Monday, you do tempo run on a Tuesday, easy run on a Wednesday.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's kind of like then you're in the business end of the week where things get serious because Thursday morning you're on track and you're doing speed work and you're really pushing, pushing yourself.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Friday for a long time, I was doing my strength and conditioning work, working with a personal trainer here in New York, yeah, called Anwar Carroll, who runs a program called Train with Anwar.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that has been a big unlock for me because not only did I get 35 years old and never run around a track, I also really never lifted any weights.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so adding that in in 2022, my strength and conditioning work.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now I mean now I do it on Sundays before I was doing it on Fridays.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now on a Friday, I actually see my my uh physiotherapist uh who's helping me with rehab a couple of injuries, Dr.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Bernard here at um studio in Brooklyn called Style and Strength Brooklyn.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then Saturday is going to be your long run.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I call when you when you're going to church on on Saturdays, and then Sunday would typically either be your rest day or now it's where I do my strength and conditioning work.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that that's kind of just your foundation, and I think you've a few things that have helped make me get my head around it.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Before you can add on tempo track long runs, you you need to give yourself try and carve out three hours a week of that easy foundational running.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and for me that's happening on really Mondays, Wednesdays, and you know a little bit that on the the long run on Saturdays as well.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I also um I think put some of the basics in place.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like I start to clean up my diet and just try and focus the majority of the time, make sure that I'm eating single ingredient whole foods and eating a wide variety of them and really focusing on things that I've just never done before.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, am I getting enough protein?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Am I getting enough fiber?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And but most importantly, fast, am I getting enough carbs?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's taken me a while to realise, you know, how many carbs we're we're burning as runners and how much you need as a fuel, and then you know, kind of training yourself for that as well.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think you've got to, if you're gonna do this, I think the idea is you want to you want to stay in this game for as long as possible, and it's about finding a way to do it and and giving yourself long longevity.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we've both we've both had issues with with injuries.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when I first started, well, when first things first clicked in 2022, I thought, uh, everything from here is like up and to the right, because now I've figured it out, and I'm just always going to be cutting down, cutting down time.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, it was it's just not linear.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's so many ups and downs around it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I had uh a couple of bad injuries, one in the fall of 23 in in Philadelphia, practicing for the marathon out there.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was uh fractured ankle, and then I had a bad fall last summer on my knee that ended up um finding, I ended up finding out because of that fall, I had a lot of wear and tear in my in my knee, and like just rehabbing some of these injuries that are a combination of, you know, uh freak accidents, both of those, but a little bit of overuse that that's been happening as well, and just having a bit more, giving myself a bit more grace around like how far I can push myself because yeah, you want to be in this for the long term, and uh you you can't always be um pushing.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's difficult because once you fall in, once you fall into it, you know, you you kind of fall into that rhythm.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I've kind of been in that 22, 23, 24, I was doing a marathon in the spring and the fall, and I think I was probably pushing myself a little bit too much.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of things have you learned?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious because I'm I'm kind of going through some of it myself with motive and why, like on cadence and and you know, running proper form, you know.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a highly underrated thing with like newer runners or or just your amateur runner, where like we just go out and run, and yeah, maybe you can bang out fast miles, but like unless you grew up with it in track or younger, you're not really running properly.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And granted, with overuse a lot of injuries come, like what kind of stuff have you learned through that?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this I mean this it's uh it's been fun coming to it, you know, a bit later in life, and you know, running with people that have been running for like 10, 20 years, and and um obviously coming in pretty fresh.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think the the biggest thing that surprised me that I've learned, and you know I've read about this in some of the the books like Rich Rolls Finding Ultra or Your Dean Con as yes, Ultra Marathon Man, the idea that you can get to a point where you'll make you don't almost need to look at your watch.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can almost tell how fast you're running based on how your heart rate, how your heart's feeling, the feel of the wind on you, the the the type of cadence that you're that you're racking in.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the big things I've learned is to understand what it feels like for that case for the cadence at certain paces.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I went to Berlin last fall, I could know exactly what it needed to feel like to be running at that cadence that it needed to bring me in at under three and a half hours.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or I had a bit of a have a you know, I haven't given up, but for a long time, one of my big goals was I kind of kind of get a half marathon, kind of get in under 90 minutes and and break 130, and actually got a few years back hit one thirty-three, which was a pretty crazy day out again.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had two paces that basically just stay behind and and they did a lot of the work.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um for me.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was trying to break that part of the training, figuring out you know, what is a six, five-minute marrow like look like, what we what I'd call my my threshold pace, which is the name of the track club, knowing what that feels like and what that cadence needs to be, and then what your breathing is like at that, it's kind it's a bit of a weird one to to explain, but only with practice can you kind of push yourself to that as well, even down to some of some of the smaller distances.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um, like I had a pretty I had a pretty crazy year last year where finally I broke 330 for the first time, but it took me two years, three years to get to to do it.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I also got first time ever under five and a half minute mile, 526 at a Brooklyn mile.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I had tried so many times to run under a five and a half minute mile, but when it finally happened, was Francisco at threshold pace.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Basically every spring summer, there's like a monthly time trial.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And like last year it was all mile.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I was trying in May, June, July, trying to get there and missed out a couple of times.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: But by the time it came to the Brooklyn mile, I kind of knew exactly what it would feel like to run to be running at that pace.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And just I can't have that kind of confidence in it.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm um, yeah, I'm not the most scientific person in terms of of what all the all that is, but a lot of it is sort of practice, this idea that you know, through repetition, repetition, you know, the magic is basically forced to rise out and you become more comfortable at it.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's all about getting yourself out of your comfort zone.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve Magnus wrote an amazing book about this called Do Hard Things, which is uh highly recommend.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea that you're these you you've got to be pushing yourself to a level that you might not be able to get to.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's part of the reason why I think we love love running.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a big part of the um psychology of it is this idea of unpredictable rewards.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're the marathon is this crazy distance, the marathon owes you nothing.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about it, the sport, it really comes down to like one or two days a year.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Two days if you're gonna do spring and fall, one day if you're just gonna pick one.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much that needs to come together for that one day to be to be right.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there's so much that goes into it, and it can kind of yeah, it's a big part of your life and it can take over your life.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important to kind of have perspective.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you know, at our kind of amateur level, you want to find that balance of you still gotta love it and you still gotta enjoy it for me.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: This whole breaking 330 thing, it was becoming you know, a little bit of a curse over me because it came, you know, Justin and I, we missed it by 32 seconds in Chicago.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then the following spring in Boston, I had a I didn't have a great race and I was on my own, and I the weather was not good, and um I started 40,000 people back.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for Boston I didn't qualify, but luckily having having spent six years at Adidas, I was I was able to get a spot in the in the race.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I didn't start until like 11 15.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was like right at the the back, and the weather was tough, and I was on my own, and I just think, well, I was just not ready to run a race that high level on my own, and I'm yeah, 33926.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, and it just completely and I'd done a lot of hill work, hill work here in Prosper Park, but it really, really took it out of me, and I think I just wasn't prepared for it.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: No pacers either.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Boston, they're not they're not messing around, and so when I realized there weren't gonna be pacers there, I think I knew I was gonna be in trouble.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um Stephanie, my wife, wasn't with me, she was um recovering from an operation, so also didn't have my crew as well.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas in Chicago and Berlin, you know, Steph was there and they small things like that make a big make a big difference as as well.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not gonna run Boston again until I qualify, and I think I definitely felt like a bit of uh felt like I didn't really belong belong there, but it's an unbelievable experience.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you had a great race at that level.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's in Boston, you know, you got heartbreak killing all that.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's funny enough, right around the time we met too, but like that's that's an amazing time.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when we first met, and this guy's like, yeah, I ran 330 something at Boston.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we must have met that summer.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was right around that.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was in Seattle for two weeks, so it would have been summer of 23.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so that was three, yeah, after Boston, and then I would have been getting ready for Philadelphia that fall.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is uh, you know, we talked about marathon a lot, but you also, you know, you ran the Brooklyn mile and a couple other, and you got your 133 for the half.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: What's uh your favorite like distance?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is it the marathon or is it something else?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's the half.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think the half is the distance that that I love.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I've just been distracted last few years by the the pursuit of of trying to get the the six world majors, and yeah, um yeah, as soon as I got that fourth Chicago 22, it just switched on inside me.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, right, I'm getting getting this done.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Boston 23, and then you know the dream was obviously we were planning to run Tokyo together in 204.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, because I had fractured my ankle in November of 23, you know, I went out there but and basically had to do it on one leg, and it was a pretty it only had a few weeks of running it after my accident in Philadelphia.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was in a boot and crutches, November, December.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't do my first run until Christmas.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was had a brace on, um, compression socks.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, 415, 13.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: But there was just like no way I was not gonna finish that race.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time there was a lot of uncertainty around what the seventh world major, what that means for the six, and now of course, you know, everyone's still going to be able to get their six before they move on if they want to to seven, eight, nine.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Logistically, Tokyo's the tough one to get into.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we know, like you're gonna play in this game under ballot, and you're trying to find a charity to support, and it will comes down to one day a year to get it for the race the the following year and it's a long way to to travel to as well.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: I do think we're we're lucky if you live in North America or Western Europe you're pretty lucky because you can pick up five of the six without doing any real travel.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Any real travel or crazy expansion yeah that's obviously going to change in the the future with Sydney and then what looks like Cape Town and and Shanghai and um yeah I think when I when you get to do your sixth they make you feel amazing when when you go into that six sixth race you've got a custom bib um front and back there are all these special events for you you've got a separate finish area obviously you've got this amazing medal and it is um special achievement you know for me it took me 13 years to do it from New York in 2011 to Tokyo in 24 but you also realize like you've got to you've got to be doing it for yourself and you've got to love it.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's I'm not saying it's not it's not special it it's it's one of the things I'm most proud of but now there's kind of like 3000 people getting their six star at every race and Tokyo the 3000 of us get nearly getting the six stars nearly one in every every 10 runners and I'm sure that's why you know the world major team are adding these other these the other thing is you know I pushed so hard to break 313 and finally got it last fall in Berlin.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it's really just for you.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah like no one else cares.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And even in like I've had to look up my times because you kind of have an idea but you forget the exact splits and like you've got to you've got to be doing it for yourself.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise it's you just got to realize no one like literally who cares unless you're doing it for yourself and it means something for you it almost doesn't matter and I never wanted to be in that place where I was getting really anxious or so focused on a particular time and it's it's kind of like now I'm dealing with my kind of knee injury but it's like you know okay so you get in under 325 and you start thinking okay well what does three um breaking 320 look like tomorrow I'm meant to be running um uh the marathon that I signed up for or Fort Collins you know that we'd I spoke through this tomorrow and I'm obviously not I'm not in Colorado for for the Colorado marathon tomorrow.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I just I'm at a point now where it's it's difficult time.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's taken me I'm doing three hours of kind of rehab PT and strength conditioning a week just to get my knee in a place where I can run four times a week and you know going out today and running 10 miles it's only the third time this year I've even really been able to a spot to to do double double figures or or something more like that.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of having to take it to take a step back and kind of what I was saying earlier the idea is we want to be doing this for the next 10 20 years and I want to be in a spot where I'm pushing an injury myself where I'm going to be causing longer term damage.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so this year has been very different like no no racing I'm actually running just for the the love of it and that has been pretty freeing as well and just you know not having to make sure I'm hitting my splits or or or whatever has been pretty freeing as well.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this has been more of a year to kind of reset and figure out what I want to do next in terms of goals that I'm chasing.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and those are important man like you said I I think about that all the time too like like yeah I want to run majors and run races and and there's other races not majors you know like the world's an amazing place.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: We get to run and travel countries and stuff to run but like I also want to do this when I'm 50 60 you know some people don't but so you kind of got to be smart and listen to your body um and and obviously you know you you're sharing it now and it sounds like you you love running and stuff um so I'll just ask you like what keeps you going with running you know what's this like love for running yeah you have over a decade majors you're still running you want to do it in the future and longer like what what made you love running so much?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah well it's uh you know I as a lot there's there's a lot of benefits that like not necessarily the obvious ones you know forget PRs and kind of records that you're kind of chasing down but I think foundationally you know when you realize that this is how humans evolved this is what we were meant to do we were built and and born to run as uh and there's obviously born to run was that first book that kind of brought that that concept in but I think when you realize this is what we were made for and this is how we evolved it it kind of makes sense that we should be doing it and not losing sight from it.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think from yeah there's there's this idea that it's just a great way to reduce stress and to kind of ground yourself and the idea that you can literally run stress out when you when you're out on a run.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think that to me one of the biggest unlocks is it's probably the only part of the day where I don't have my phone with me.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know I don't I just I have my garment but I don't listen to music.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that kind of one hour where I'm completely not connected to to technology and um it's it's uh everybody's different but I think for me if I if I have that up to an hour of running in the morning before I head to work I'm like a completely different person if I've had that run and that's how I've started my day versus if I if I haven't and I think that's um that's a big part of it for me.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm thinking more excuse me I'm thinking more about challenges in the future that are a little bit off the off the beam path or a little bit left field and like my friend of mine um Brian Miller for is his 50th birthday in January he ran 50 miles for his 50th birthday and nice um from Prospect Park and he finished upstate and I did the first 20 with him in January dropped him off in in Yonkers and that was just a very cool day like a group of us for someone for their birthdays he's doing ultramarathon you know I would have liked to have done more than 20 but I I had to kind of think through the limits of of money and and where that was and Justin Miller I mentioned earlier he's turning 39 there was an idea of like what does 39 miles for 39 look like now we're thinking okay maybe it's is it 39 kilometers just more stuff like that that is just a bit more fun and and a bit of Reverend and yeah Francisco um my coach it was his 40th last year and he put on a special track where we all did 40 400 meters with him for his 40th birthday it was just like it was just so good and you know it's still 11 or 12 miles of um of work but it's just way more fun and you know you're not yeah you're not having to yeah there's a lot of travel involved with chasing these majors and I think I'd kind of done my my share of that and there's also something to be said for smaller races smaller challenges where you know there's there's less logistics in involved and so um I'm looking forward to that and you know the the motive and why beach beach runs later this summer and I still want to be able to move I still want to be able to do do bigger numbers and keep that foundation but I haven't um yeah it's a weird one to go from doing two marathons a year for the past few years to to nothing but I'm also kind of calming up again and just building back my strength.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty challenging for me I have the two injuries the fractured ankle and then the the fall on my knee with the with the overuse that was found.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's all on my right leg and like the difference I kind of only have one leg really like the the difference between my two legs is significant and uh these two injuries the impact has built up and I'm trying to build up the the strength again but it's a it's a pretty long long road back and you know you're you're not gonna get very far unless you've got both of your legs you know at the at the same level and so just trying to give myself a bit more a bit more time to to ramp up there.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a big part of what keeps me going but um you know the once you find running it's not something you want to give up and like you're saying it's something you want to find a way to do it for the rest of your life.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like I want to be um like these people that that I've met and I finished Tokyo marathon last year I finished with a lady in her 50s and a guy in his 60s and I'm like yeah I want to be doing this when I'm in my 50s and 60s and I don't want to burn out or lose my love for it or get an injury that is going to mean um I mean that I'm not gonna be able to do it and you know we're at that time where the injuries are going to come in.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a couple of freak injuries um and I actually consider myself pretty lucky in general that I haven't had other injuries but you know you're not you're not gonna be able to avoid it with the amount of miles you need to put in if you're gonna be doing four marathons or or halves and it's about finding that balance I'm trying to try and get a bit um a bit better there and it's it's pretty freeing not always having a race on the horizon that you need to train for and just running for the love of it which is what I'm enjoying at the moment.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do you and I know you're going to like PT and stuff and you know your strength training but what do you typically do uh for like recovery you know even outside of injury the you know foam roll hot bath you know what's your preference yeah yeah what am I doing I used to you know when I was when I was truly in it 22 23 24 chasing down these majors and trying to break 330 I was definitely doing everything you know I was doing contrast therapy which is a mix of um yeah the ice bath and then straight into the hot sauna and moving between the two for an hour and a half or or sometimes longer the um we do have the thoroughbody recovery compression boots and spent a lot of time a lot of time in those but the the more I think about the more I read and learn the more I just kind of focus on the basics which is well actually kind of just made sure I'm getting eight hours sleep and kind of make sure that I'm getting you know the body battery in my in my garment up up to 100 and just focusing on focusing on rest as well and then making sure I've got the nutritionally I'm where I need to be in terms of like am I eat eating enough of food and you've got to put away an incredible amount of food and calories when you're trained for a marathon and it's not and it's not easy and you you need it and you you need the fuel and even nutrition as part of recovery is something that I've I've really tried to focus on cooking make sure I'm getting enough protein because you know like I was saying earlier I'm trying to focus on eating a wide variety of unprocessed single ingredient whole foods which sounds great and we're trying to get 70 80% of your calories coming from that well that's a lot takes you a lot a lot takes you a lot of time to eat a lot of whole foods more that isn't and that isn't easy and you know there's you you you gotta you know add that add to that with different um different supplements and you how are you gonna get your your protein in as well so but nothing like these I just try and focus on the on the basics now really which is you know uh yeah big focus on sleep and I've always been a been a good sleeper and what I haven't been good at is taking rest days and for a long time I just pushed in that kind of cycle because I was working with Francisco and so that meant you know I had the the the five or six days of running and then on top of that I'm working with Bernard at styling strength on my rehabilitation PT and I'm seeing my personal trainer and noir and so you know all of a sudden you've got a proper workout every day.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and there's no kind of rest day there and I think for a long time I thought oh yeah I don't need to take rest days but like now I now I definitely do and I'm trying to get that down to like at least one day a week where I'm not doing I'm not I'm not kind of doing anything.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think before I thought that was kind of a bit of a sign of weakness whereas now I'm like no I need to be need to be factoring in that that rest day and that might mean what it's kind of mean meant for me at the moment my focus on my rehab is yeah dropping down the the running and that has been difficult from going running five at least five sometimes six times a week to down to kind of just four has actually been pretty difficult.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: But my main focus now is getting my strength back and my recovery whereas before my focus was on the mileage and and the workout so that's but that's been a tough um a tough shift as well and you know I think you you lose it quick you lose the fitness quick but you gain it back quick as well and so now I am not at track every week and I'm not running out busting out long runs at the moment you know when I do go back to track like I did this week or a long run like I did this morning it's gonna be way it's gonna be way harder but I think another thing I learned is yeah nothing that I learned is you if you think about the marathon you know to quote Elliot Kipchoge a marathon is life and I do think marathon is pretty incredible incredible sport in general is really you you're just all about peaking the fitness for that race day and working back from that whether it's 12 weeks or 16 weeks or however you're gonna however you're gonna run it.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah then you're gonna need some downtime but between whatever you go on and do next and when you're thinking about getting ready for race day a lot of the fundamentals I think that are important are things that the sport has known for a long time which is your base the bottom of the pyramid is your your base weekly mileage and then you're adding on top of that with your tempo with your speed with your long runs strength and conditioning is really important.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's helped me around your either preventing injuries and and coming back in stronger in the in the future but also just think about the idea I think the marathon is the equivalent of doing something like 10,000 squats.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well if you're not doing any squats you're going to be in trouble.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I just building stronger legs in general because I think that the one thing I've noticed I think the ph the physique of of long distance runners has changed over the last 10 15 years and now the best distance runners are they are carrying a lot more muscle than maybe they would have done back in the day and they're spending more time in the weights room and on strength and conditioning whereas before maybe they were just banging out these these big hundred mile weeks or or whatever.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so um yeah it's an exciting time to be a runner because I think we we have access to a lot of the stuff that all the all the pros does before yeah and pros and stuff yeah tools food which is super exciting yeah if you think that the average amateur marathoner like us probably has access to better science nutrition and technology than pros would have done 10-15 years ago it's a good good time to be getting into it.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah it's growing big and I think that's a reason why a lot of the times are dropping you know on the topic there's something I want to ask you actually it kind of came up when you brought up Kichogi like something I think about often like you know you've moved around a lot you London you were in Berlin for a while New York right and and the more I get into running and coaching and follow different philosophies and look like you know we talked about simplicity like you look at Kenyan runners it's eat sleep run right you come to Western civilization you know the Americas UK and it's like fitness and supplements and lifting you know like we might get into details a little bit too much sometimes um you look at went to Japan recently and and went down that rabbit hole of Japanese runners and for them it's just high mileage and and to your point pace, pace, pace like what are some of like the differences you know you've run over a decade that you've seen living abroad London, Berlin, America like key differences you've seen whether nutrition running styles like you know some run really fast all the time uh Norway's very threshold driven nowadays which is all crazy because people are just pricking themselves for blood now.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah right great question yeah I mean yeah I think you can and I definitely was pretty leaned in for a while and you know I did my did my blood lactate specific testing um at a studio in Manhattan and yeah I was having my fingers pricked for blood every every four minutes to figure out you know what what my what my level is and the idea that yeah your kind of VO2 max is your engine size and then your blood lactate threshold tells you kind of the gears that you have and that was interesting for me and yeah that actually gave me a lot of confidence because it kind of found in my blood that yeah that I should be I should be breaking through 30.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: And actually even though it was I probably didn't need to go and do that just knowing and this is actually after Tokyo I didn't think I had a lot of fitness but it's just knowing that like I've got that in me with the in terms of what my you know my my lactate thresholds could be was was a bit of a step change.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of the the differences I don't know one of the things I love about New York is this is the city where running started in terms of jogging the idea that a lot of it came from from Manhattan you see that in the in the culture here and the running culture in New York and in Brooklyn is just on a whole other level to to anything that I've ever ever seen before and that's that's something that um that I've really loved and the idea that you know you can be a member of different different clubs and for me it's been a mix of you know join the community runs at Motive New York and um that's much more longer distance but all about the the community and MINK folks and then threshold paces you know it's down to business it's speed work on the on the track and I did a lot of I spent a lot of time with Prospect Park Track Club PBTC here in Brooklyn as well where where I live and that's where I've been doing a lot of my long runs because I think the the biggest thing for me is I can't get to the next level on my own.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can do my easy runs on my own recovery runs some of the tempo stuff but going the distance or really pushing the speed I need to have other other people with me and I think in New York there's just so many different groups and communities that you can get you can get involved with.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: In London where I'm from it's like starting to catch up now.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're in it's a golden age for joggers and runners and marathoners in in general because the the sport exploded over COVID people like me were pulled in properly for the first time and it's continued to get bigger and and bigger every year.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I love about running is it's free and you can do it anytime.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um I think there's like no barriers to entry from from that perspective.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really everybody there loves sport and loves their sport and just being in that environment is pretty inspiring and there's a huge focus on getting outside and doing your sport which I which I really love and there's like a track in the office and you know those kind of that's cool perks and benefits of things that you don't get in in most places.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think the coolest thing I did with Adidas in 2019 was that I was lucky enough to I had to worked on some of the major marathons and I got to go to I-10 in Kenya Homer champions and um was working with Mary Katani who won four uh New York marathons and Gladys Toronto who won three Berlin marathons um in I-10 known as the Homer Champions which is like a bucket list trip for a lot of runners and running out there in high altitudes yeah and I thought I'm kind of kicking myself because I almost didn't take it I kind of took it for granted because in 2019 I was in my one of these periods where I just wasn't running much.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: It'd been a couple of years since I had that really tough day in Berlin and it was pre-COVID and I had an awesome time out there but you know I wasn't a runner or running at that point and I went out and and ran a few times but I didn't realize that I was in one of the most special places on earth and spent time in Eldoret and saw where a little chogale is and this yeah I would love to go back and do a proper kind of running I don't know what you call it like a a retreat one one day is one day as well I don't know I think it's changing but the the demand for people that want to run marathons is there's kind of no ceiling to it and these races are getting bigger and bigger every year and I know that the records for the most finishers was broken twice last year once when I was in Berlin and then by New York a couple of months later looks like London just broke it again recently and so there's yeah the it's coming a long way and that one of the things I love about running is most people can do it.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: It can mean different things to different different folks you can be a runner and you don't have to race you there's so many different ways in and different types of running like I've never really gotten to the world of ultras and and trail but I can definitely see the appeal for that and why people would go from road racing to that because there's so many other challenges there as well and so yeah who knows what maybe I'll get get get stuck into that in the in the future there's a an ultra marathon in Prospect Park every year which is like one of the most inspirational things to go and see is 50 miles.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're doing 15 loops and that's insane I didn't know about that one.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah yeah so I don't one year yeah but yeah because you got zoo hill so you you do a lot of vertical climb there.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Two years back I was like oh I'd I thought about signing up for it this is it in my 2022 when I was I thought I was invincible after Chicago.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you realize going from 26 to to 50 is a big that's a big jump.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: But who knows in in in the future and um yeah we've spoken a lot about this about how there's a lot of emphasis on world major marathons but there's so many other marathons around yeah the states that are incredible and just because they're not majors it doesn't mean that they're not as cool experiences to to go and run and you know I'd I'd hope to to get to Colorado this year but didn't quite happen but maybe that will happen in the in the years ahead and you these are there's still a lot long marathons out there.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah man there's there's so many um like Big Circ comes to mind I was looking at it recently like it'd be cool to run around the coast of California and whatnot I believe it is like there there's so many cool races and obviously with these races getting bigger and full in the majors like for those of us that love running that's what it's gonna probably have to be because it's getting harder and harder to get into the lottery and whatnot and the times are coming down as far as like qualify like Boston's going down again now which for me is going to be sub three now.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well yeah yeah it's going now five minutes every year so it's getting crazy yeah it's gonna it's gonna be 10 years for me it's before another 10 years before I can qualify for Boston I think but there are some things I want to do like I'd love to run the London marathon with my brother um yeah he's never done done the full marathon that would be our kind of home city so we're trying to think through what that would look like um love to get my best friend involved in that as well you know I spend a lot of time in Seattle I love Seattle I'd love to run the Seattle marathon yeah which I think is a four is it a late four marathon so there are definitely some some parts that things that I've still got on my on my list um yeah I want to go back I want to qualify for Boston and go back and do it and do it properly.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah who knows I I'm not kind of ruling out looking at the other the other majors actually I was lucky enough to go out to China last year for work and I had an incredible time in in um spent time in Shanghai and Nanjing and in Shenzhen and looks like there might be a world major in Shanghai and I love running in running around Shanghai.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah so that would be that would be a cool experience but I'm also um just kind of not putting too much pressure on it and there's um that there's there's uh there is an ultramarathon this summer I think it's uh 20 it's just over marathon it's like 27 or 28 miles in in New York that some of my friends are running from Postlet Park Track Club that I might get involved in it starts at the very top of New York at and it's a night run so it starts at midnight and then as a group you've got to get all the way down to the to the rock a waves I think I think it's 27 or 28 um miles and it's all in fancy dress uh forget the name for now but there's things there's things like that that I'm kind of open to I'm open to doing but it's been kind of nice just to take a a bit of a beat I will say you know when you see your friends going out and smashing like last week big week obviously Boston Boston yeah Boston London back to Tokyo before that it's kind of hard not to it's hard not to miss it and you know there's that one of the best feelings is when you see someone every week either at track or the long run or whatever and you see them there for 12 or 16 weeks and then you see them go and do something incredible over 26 miles it's like it's a it's a great feeling and you you know exactly what they've put into it and what they've sacrificed to make it happen.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah you know there's always this is the thing with the with the marathon distance there's always there are always ways back.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you've got to keep your fitness tipped up the whole time.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is that you know you come back in and that's obviously what the the training's for to to help you get there.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: So trying to figure out what what's going to be next for me and and balance that with some of my some of my limitations at the moment.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was in a lot of the last five miles in Berlin in the fall I was in a lot of pain and I was like this isn't this isn't probably the best spot I wanted to be in but um you know at that point there's no way that I was I was going to stop kind of 21 21 miles in and um that was yeah special one because at that point I knew okay breaking 330 could be on here back in Germany where I used to live in Berlin my favorite city Steph my wife was there and yeah there are there are always going to be injuries I'd say most most of the runners I'm closest to in New York were all dealing with some kind of injury that is either you know on its way in or on its way out or or kind of needs to be needs to be managed and that's part of the name name of the game marathon is a cruel sport you know you can have perfect 16 week build and then something can happen the week before and that's your that's your whole race done and it it owes you nothing and I think when you you kind of realize that and come to terms with it so many different variables that can go go wrong.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: So much can go right so much can go wrong and a lot of it is outside of your control and that's that's part of why we love it as well.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah for sure man all all of it leading up to that one day of a great effort and sometimes it just didn't pan out but it's a it's an awesome feeling you know when you cross that finish line or even just in the moment you got the crowd cheering that's what I loved about the New York marathon.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: You feel like an Olympian on that man um what what do you um I what I want to ask is like how do you balance it all man like uh you know family wife work running you know you're not running two of them this year you know so like what are you doing off your off on your off time now or with more time and balance it all yeah it's definitely about I think the way that I approached it in 22 uh 23 and 24 so that kind of three year period I was doing kind of four yes I was basically in that rhythm of training for marathon in the spring and in the and in the fall you don't really have a lot of downtime in between and the the way that Francisco has approached that kind of downtime in the summer was that that's really when we're doing a lot of these kind of challenges on the track like 5k time trials and the um you know the mile um time trials and things like that.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: The the biggest thing that's helped me is like if I don't run get the workout in first thing before work then I basically don't don't do it.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was a bit of um an adjustment for me but I work with a lot coast and so I know the best time I'm gonna have to run is going to be in the morning and if I do it I'm gonna feel feel so much better about it.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: I do think the structure of working with a coach and I work with Fran in 23 and 24, you've got to find a way to like make it as easy for you as you can.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can work with a coach that can put together a plan for you so that all you've got to do is kind of acknowledge it and execute it.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you don't have to worry about what the workouts need to be that's a huge a huge unlock and then for the work that is really hard which for me is like the speed work on the track and then the long runs on the Saturday it's really hard to do it on your own.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's why I always try and try and be be with other people and you know there are only a certain number of hours that we will have in the day and so I'd rather get up early and get the the run done and get a head start on the day so that then I can spend the evening yeah with Steph and we can cook and we can watch a show or or whatever.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of like my downtime now I mean it's yeah it's kind of it's kind of a nice feeling not having to you know spend half a day on Saturday banging out 18, 20 22 miles.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not just you know the time you put in it's not just that run first things all the prep that goes into it being that you know being knackered afterwards.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: No I'm still I'm not training for anything but I'm still staying active and and trying to work out every day.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm enjoying you know the being able to sleep in being able to sleep in a little bit more and focus on some other kind of creative um projects that I've got going on which has has kind of freed me up for that and just spending more time in general more time reading more time writing more time cooking and nice steph and I we just moved we just moved apartments and like a obviously a big big deal and a big lift as well and so it's kind of worked out in in that sense of of things as well and yeah it's been a good most of my holidays last few years have been you know traveling to to very recognizable places for runners you know Tokyo Berlin Chicago a lot of my holiday time was was was spent chasing down the the majors and Steph was with me for a lot of those so um that's also been really nice like my holidays this year we're going on holiday to non non-world major marathon cities and destinations where you know I'm still going to be able to to run and be active but it's not all going to revolve around the enjoy the trip yeah yeah and you know Steph sacrificed a lot of of her holidays going to these places last few years and now it's nice to be able to kind of um do things a little bit do things a little bit differently as well.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit of a strange one because looking back the last few years when you're in it you you kind of don't realize how much you're putting in and I do think when you're in it that workout or that run it kind of needs to be the most important thing you get done that day and you've got to be selfish about it whether you're getting it done late or whether you're getting it done early but now looking back at the the training block I had for Chicago and then for Boston and then for Philadelphia even I got injured the week before and then even this compressed training for Tokyo and then straight into Berlin I kind of sometimes I'm like wow I have no idea how I did that.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: But you just do it you just get it done and it's a priority for you.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think like doing these hard things and pushing yourself outside outside of work it's it's great character building outside of all the the gains and the people that you meet and the the personal accomplishments as well and um this is part of the idea of marathons these I the idea that these are unpredictable rewards the marathon that owes you nothing like we were saying even if you don't hit your goal you can still take away so much.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah for sure of course but in general there seems to be saying oh if you don't hit your goal you're like super down about it.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it's necessarily the right way to to look at it.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's a a weird one for me.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: But agreed right I think it's the more you do them the more you start to appreciate like whatever happens whether it's not your PR, whether it's a goal race like my first one I was bummed as you knew about New York and then uh Chicago man I cramped up mile seven but I finished which to me was insane that I like finished for the next what math is probably gonna be horrible here but at least 15 miles and just cramped back.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah it was just horrible and then when I got to the finish man I felt like I ran two hours.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was like I don't know how the hell I got to this to your point.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah man it's like have we been sharing on this it's all about longevity for those of us that want it man you gotta learn to appreciate and you know the downtimes are good man that that's awesome that you guys are taking vacations and enjoying them.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've done that as you've seen on Instagram recently a lot lately you know because injuries and and stuff but uh my race is not to the fall so you know it's awesome that you're taking that downtime and you you'll get back to it I know for sure yeah you could even uh like this week I was back on track for first time in a long time and it's uh it's um you know my coach Francisco it's his 200th uh track coming up soon so it's he's he's run 200 sessions which is kind of it's free 6 a.m 7am sessions every Thursday East River East River track yeah threshold pace um so I didn't want to show up at 200 and not have any fitness so I was like I need to go I need to get get back on these to to be ready for the celebration so that'll that'll be a special one as well and you know the um yeah I know there'll be more more races ahead and um more challenges that will will push me in different ways but it's kind of nice just to just to reset and also you've got to know your own limits as well like you know I kind of made that call pretty early that Colorado just wasn't wasn't gonna happen and um it's you know after Berlin last fall I felt incredible after a couple of days you know I was probably recovered and when I joined my friend Brian for his 50 for 50 in January and I managed to get to 20 it it just wiped me out for like it was over a week and I was like well this is like this has been a big a big kind of reduction in my my fitness and my and my strength and so that's where I've really just been focused on on that as well.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: Building but it's tough because people you know a lot of people ask you about your races and what you're doing and you the the team of great people I have around me they kind of you want to see me pushing on and um I do think there's there's potential to you know to maybe could I break through 20 and in a full it would be unbelievable to break 90 and a half or one I'd love to do a sub 130 half and I had uh I had a big focus on that last summer but ended up I had a bit of a freak accident fall I pitted my knee injury just a week before the race and then it was in the middle of a heat wave and the race actually turned the race from 13 to 10 miles and so although I did it it wasn't even a half marathon.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and I'd go through this thing I was just like oh this isn't this is isn't gonna be the this isn't gonna be the one but there's this this idea that I um also borrowed from Steve Magnus around you know most and you hear this a lot most runners are doing their easy runs too hard and their hard runs too easy but the Steve Magnus take on that is you know it's only once very very rarely once in a while do you go and what he says go and see God.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when you have one of these days where you're just going to put it all out there and see what you can do.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: And last year I had a couple of those days like the 526 mile like the idea that I could run a 526 mile growing up with asthma when I knew nothing about race just like was it just unthinkable.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: Likewise with getting in in Berlin under 330 when the last time it took me over five hours and done some pretty special stuff with Fra my coach and did a sub 20 minute 5k with him just on his shoulder and you're just amazed at like what you can do if you like apply yourself and you focus and you commit and you you stack these wins very slowly did the other the other thing I say a lot um just from Alexi Pappas is this idea that big changes happen very very slowly.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the best example of that is the marathon you don't even realize how much fitter you're getting until you have like a tune up race or you get to race day and it's like well okay you just you don't see it.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: The changes are so slow you you just don't see it.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're in it every day too so it's also harder yeah to like sit back and go wait a minute a month ago I was running 30 seconds slower or whatever you know or it was hot in summer and now it's fall you know like boom the fitness kicks in.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah and that's part of the magic of it and that's one of the things I love about it is it's uh it's not instant gratification you're but you're building over time it's a long-term commitment and you know you could you can't you can't treat the distance like I tried to do when I was younger a couple of times because you know it sounds cool to say oh playing for a marathon I'm doing a marathon but you know the to do it properly it takes a takes a lot of commitment and you need to have a good group of people around you as well because it's uh of course running on your own could be a lonely lonely pursuit as well and you know I do a lot I do run a lot on my own but for the for the runs that are going to move the needle and make the difference you know you've got you've got to have people around you and um we both live in cities big big running cities you're always surrounded by people that have similar goals and you've got to kind of make the most of that but but now you can live in kind of any any city and there'll be like running communities that you can get involved in.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say is uh you know well first off I'm loving the journey for you uh obviously we're all on this journey together and obviously next time New York we'll link up but what would you say you know once you're healed up and you know let's say five years from now what would you want the continued journey to be like you know races or goals or you know I just want to be healthy whatever that is what's that for you Alex Wow five year plan yeah I don't know I I so I'll be 41 well you know I think I'm probably 10 years away from uh having any shot at um BQ I mean I'm I'm still gonna be I'm still gonna be running in five years whether I'll whether I'll be racing or not I don't know whether I'll still be you know road running versus be on the on the trail um I don't know you know I love I do love the idea of at some point I want to get a dog that I can run with a working dog.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it's like um yeah the the breeds that of dogs that I really like are like big big runners um Siberian husky Alaskan Malamut Belgian Malamwart German shepherd those those types of dogs yeah we love the same dogs.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah if that happened I would I'd uh I'd get it from um there's an animal rescue shelter here shortcase the animal rescue but if we get a dog in the future then it'll come from that shelter so it would be kind of a mix but but that's that's in general I do love the idea of like having a dog you can take out and run every morning and like that's not you're not gonna be doing you know intervals with with the dog right you're just gonna be doing it for the for the love of it so I do think that that's that's something in the in the future and you know like I said I want to there are a couple of like bucketless runs I want to do with with my brother and with my best friend in terms of getting them you're doing the London marathon with both of those and with Steph my wife you with the idea of of doing she's come back from you know quite a bad injury and the idea of like doing a 5k together and then a 10k together things like that you know there's there's yeah I want to that I want to focus on and yeah I mean five years I still want to be in shape that I can do you know 5k 10k a half or or a full most is the great thing about this sport long distance running marathon in particular is at our amateur level there's no reason why you can't still be improving as you as you get older and that's that's one of the most exciting things about it because the other sports I love you know it's the opposite I think about football and soccer you get that point is going to come where you're not gonna be able to do it at the the same the same level that you that you used to and it's all about yeah as uh Peter Atier talks about in his book Outlive lifespan and health span how can you find a way to do these things for a long long period of time and there's probably going to be a bit more a bit more balance in it.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think before you know I thought you know I needed to be knocking out 40 miles every week even if I wasn't um training for anything.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: But now you know if I'm only running no I could I've got only got four days a week that I can really even run.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I'm like okay well maybe it's 20 miles a week or I'm trying to get back up to to 30 and um I'm definitely less focused on some of those like running for the the sake of it goes or you know like I had a big last year I took on a big Strava goal that I probably shouldn't have which was to run 1750 miles last year and I managed to hit that on on New Year's Eve but nice didn't really do me any favours because it meant you know after I finished Berlin and I was still kind of six miles a day short of where I needed to be and I was like very committed to doing it and I was banging out six miles every day and that was like just not a good I should not have done that for the state that my knee was in and actually meant that I started this year and I was way further back than I I needed to be and I think things like that in the future I'm gonna be a bit more a bit more careful with but you know running is that's always going to be part of of my life I think you the other kind of lesson that that I've learned is yeah it can be a big part of your life big part of your personality but if something happens and tomorrow you can't run you've got to have more in your life you could you your whole thing can't be about running because suddenly if one day you can't you can't do it anymore.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have a big you're gonna have a big hole and there are obviously other sports that are kind of adjacent to it and other ways to to do it and stay and stay active and um yeah so five I'll be 41 yeah great question I haven't really thought about it I probably need to start thinking about it.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: No no worries man I I think you share a lot of like what it would potentially look like in a lot of gems man.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know I've been asking people tips but I think you've dropped a lot of books and also gems to learn from this one.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_01: So on that note man I'll I'll leave it at that and say well one first thank you for joining man I appreciate all the knowledge and nuggets you've shared man um obviously we'll get some runs and eventually at some point and recover from these injuries uh mine's a posttibial ankle thing.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm about 90% but I feel sore today because I ran yesterday but I'm hoping to finally be back and get back to base knowledge.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know Fort Collins marathon is always going to be there too so I will link up for sure but man yeah thank you for jumping on and uh this has been awesome man thanks for sharing obviously we'll talk some more and uh looking forward to the rest of the journey man everyone this is uh the People Run podcast thank you for listening if if this resonated with you or or you enjoyed it you know share subscribe drop us some comments if you want to jump on I'll have some notes emails and stuff you can shout out and we'll we'll go ahead and set it up uh people run podcast where we talk about the runs behind the runs uh thank you everyone and until next time cheers thanks Ollie