Hello and welcome to Run Till You're Done.
Today we have the owner of Physio Effects in Glasgow.
As well as having an incredible running resume of his own.
We will be chatting tonight about his running achievements,
looking after the running community with their injuries
and prevention, as well as being possibly one of the most active
dads in the East End of Glasgow. Welcome to the show, Johnny
Kilpatrick. Thanks guys.
What an intro. I'm excited to talk to you here.
So the first question that we ask every guest is how did you
first get into running? I'm an unlikely runner if you
look at the sports that they growing up never enjoyed
running. When I moved to New Zealand and
Australia back in 2008, you used the good weather to best effect
and got out at lunchtime and just did a bit of a jog most
days. So quite liked it then.
But then when I moved back to Scotland, moved away from it and
gravitated into CrossFit. Where I really enjoyed the
weights and and that side of things and ended up blooming up
to like 97 kilos and shifting fair bit of weight about.
But the honest answer where I'm getting to is actually I got
into running off the back of a drunken bet with another
Crossfitter on New Year's Eve of 2015.
So my words not his. Andy suggested I could never get
my muscular glutes around an Ultra course and yeah, a few too
many whiskeys in the hand went out and he nominated the Devil.
So 2016, the Devil of the Highlands was my first Ultra.
And of course I'd have, I don't know, sheer belligerence and
arrogance. I don't think I actually trained
for that any more than what I was doing anyway, of the
CrossFit. So there was a few 5 KS etcetera
going in over the course of the week.
But yeah, never really knew much about running training or
anything and somehow growing my way around that.
So do you go straight into like normally the progression is 5K,
half marathon, marathon and then ultra?
Do you go straight into the devil?
Was that the first race that you've done?
It was, yeah. For for listeners, if you don't
know, the devil being the Devil of the Highlands, the
second-half of the West Highland Way.
And for for what it's worth, grossly under prepared but
actually really enjoyed it and it got under my skin for a few
reasons. And how did you get on with that
race? What was the weather like that
day? I am thinking back, it's fairly
unremarkable. I do look at the pictures and
think I was quite overdressed for the occasion, you know,
multiple buffs and long layers and, you know, never wear that
now. But, you know, that was all the
rage back then. I guess I did OK.
Actually, I finished it, which was the main goal.
And yeah, and Andy that had made the bet with he was also doing
the race. And ironically, as times went
by, he's only doing CrossFit and weightlifting and I'm only doing
ultra running. So we've kind of changed lanes,
but on the event itself, you know, I can't tell you how happy
I was to come up over the top of the Devil's Staircase like a
burst couch myself. But the sea.
Andy sat on the grass with cramp and I was able to ask him if he
needed the hand with that. And most importantly, did you
get to the finish before? I didn't.
He had a yeah, he had a good last section, but we came down
and became lock leaving together.
And this is funny, thinking back to it now, in all my wisdom,
being the Crossfitter, it was back then.
One of the things I don't know if you've came across it was
Voodoo floss. You ever heard of that?
It's essentially essentially a rubber band that we'd all used
to kind of release sort of my fascial adhesions in the leg.
And you'd put it on you really tight, like a tourniquet and do
a whole pile of squats and lunges and stuff.
And it did actually really make it feel like a free job a lot,
you know, pre workout. So my my game plan was to hit
Kinloch leaving and do a whole pile of voodoo flossing.
So got to the back of a car stuck on this really tight
tourniquet and my quads and started doing loads of squats
and lunges. And 10 minutes later tried to
get onto the last section and realized that now I pretty much
couldn't run at all. But yeah, so Andy, yeah, he sort
of left me on the last section, but on the last section of that
race, and this is where I think it all got under my skin a bit
and coming through the lark more, I remember thinking,
right, physio, brain, get your form sorted out here.
You know, shoulders back, you chip away at this, you're on the
last section. And then, sorry mum if she
listens to this, three ladies that looked about the age of my
mum came past me and told me I was doing really well, which
which was nice. But then I thought, right,
Johnny, this is your moment. You know, you can't, you need to
take them over, get past them again.
So I tried with everything I had and they just kept getting
further away from me until they're out of site.
And then about another like half an hour later, I rounded a
corner and they were sat. I think one of their husbands
had came up and delivered them tea at Lundavra.
And as I was going past, there was a lot of whooping and you're
going to do this. And so I thought in that moment,
right, I'm going back to this and training properly.
And so that's where I started. How did you go back?
So, so I gave it a break in 2017 because our daughter Aria was
born. But they'd actually start a wee
bit of running then and just recognized that, you know, 90
odd kilos is far too heavy for this sort of distance,
especially, you know, if you're not regularly running.
So got the weight down and hired a running coach.
So Neil Mcnichol of Run Recover, who's a really good mate now.
And Neil got me into shape for 2018 where I did the Fling, the
West Highland Way race and the Devil that year.
So there was some good improvements.
And you're since the devil. You went through plenty of other
races recently. It's been the lakes traverse.
Tell us how you got on in that. So the Lakes Traverse was, yeah,
just about 10 days ago. It was a sort of curiosity race
for me. I'd never heard much about it.
And I love the Lake District. We've as a family gravitated
down to there in the last few years.
We're there every other weekend really, with the camper fan and
yeah, I just thought it looked a cool route going from the West
Coast right across it to the East Coast.
And yeah, she and only runs it and he's got plenty of other
events that are popular. So it was, yeah, it appealed.
Starts in some B's, goes to shop and I guess my race went well.
I got my best ever finish but I was forced to work hard for that
which was my own fault. How did you your training
leading up to that? How how was that?
How? How do you think being a physio
changes the way you train? So my training was different
this time going into Lake's Traverse.
So up until the start of this year, I've been consistently
trained by Neil and I decided to, as I'm coaching myself these
days, to coach myself from the start of January.
Nothing to do with his training, like there's no other coach.
I recommend more. It was just I wanted to try a
slightly different Norwegian style of training that I think
would be more applicable to ultra running than the sort of
more conventional stuff that we've all been doing.
And it was too hard to have somebody else trained double
threshold days for you and they don't know your schedule.
So training was very different this year.
It was very intense, but it worked a treat.
I've never felt better on her race and had a really strong
finish so. Norwegian style.
I think you were going to ask what I was going to ask as well
there mate. What is Norwegian style training
as opposed to conventional? OK, so Norwegian style, everyone
will have heard of, you know, the Yaka Binga Brixon and the
Inga Brixon's. They didn't develop it, but
they're probably the most famous, I guess like athletes do
doing it at the minute as well as a few of the top iron men.
But the take home headline is it's actually double threshold
days twice a week, but they do their thresholds sessions a
little different than most say marathon runners.
So I looked at like how they were calibrating that.
Now they normally use lactate threshold testing, so like blood
samples between intervals to keep it like below a level that
you can't really come back from where the horse bolts.
That's not practical for me or most people.
So like I sort of gauged what pieces they were going at and
for their intervals, which would be more like half marathon, 10K
and marathon piece. But what it allowed me to do was
accumulate like probably with hindsight, triple, maybe
quadruple the amount of faster running that it was managing
without actually feeling any tireder.
And yeah, that compounded up over the 12 week block.
And so I would do a double threshold day on a Tuesday, and
then on a Thursday I'd doom a double threshold session in a 2
hour plus trail session, which might look like, you know, 10 *
1 minute uphill. And then later on in the session
you might be doing like 8 minutes on, 4 minutes off times
4, but all on trail in your long run at the weekend and your easy
runs between. Nikki was doing me an injustice
so tell her off. I knew exactly what the
Norwegian style is or method. What I was actually going to say
was the normally base it on long distance track events, which is
what 1500 meters. So that's obviously different
than the ultra distance which you're talking thirty, 100 miles
something. Do you think it applies as much?
Well, you're obviously you just said how you've changed it.
Can you think of other things you change?
Going into the next block for Lakeland 50, which is sort of my
big race of the year, I'm going to do much the same training,
but I'm going to make my first of the two threshold sessions
much longer. So rather than doing something
along the lines of like, you know, 6 * 6 minutes with one
minute between, it's going to be more like 3 * 18 minutes at
maybe like marathon pace on a hill with two minutes between.
And just try to like make the duration longer of these
intervals, but maybe the intensity slightly less and just
get more tolerance to that. And a lot of people they say run
your slow runs slow. Do you think that you with doing
double thresholds you need to run the even slower or take more
rest days? I felt the tolerated running my
slow runs at my normal pace better than I normally do.
Then if if I did a normal like conventional threshold session
where I'd be like sub 5K pace, I'd often feel a bit burst for
days or like just just on the edge of a like an eagle.
So like it felt like my load management needed to be
addressed there otherwise I spun myself into a problem.
But with this style in this block, I just didn't get any
niggles at all and I got a much higher volume and intensity of
training over the 12 weeks. But when you set out at the
start of this block, was the main goal to win or to podium?
No, no, I'd never. I'd never have that goal and I
still don't really consider myself a competitive runner and
don't think I ever will. I don't know why, but yeah, it's
more it's more of a like a hobby that I just love the structure
and the discipline of. So yeah, I just get out there
and try and sort of do the blocker.
Like all the sacrifices have made with the training and I
need to do that justice because it comes at the consequence of,
you know, dragging the family around and things like that.
So. During the event, when you're
going from checkpoint to checkpoint, were you aware of
where you are, where you were in the field, and if you were
higher up in the fields early on, and I'm guessing, I'm hoping
you'll talk us through the race, did that change your psychology
as to push, push yourself? No, I wouldn't say so.
I the only time I sort of knew where I was in the field was I
ran through Harnister, which thinks about 28 miles or so in
and Neil Mcnichol, him and Matt were at Harnister.
So Neil said I was like 10 minutes behind the leaders at
that point, which I knew then must be rightly up the field so.
But yeah, not not so long after. That was where it all actually
went wrong for me on the race, briefly.
So I charged down the hill from Harnister and it's quite
organized for the next checkpoint or so of thought.
Had my powder in my water and our powder in my bottles.
My next sections food in my belt and was following a GPX.
Unbeknown to me that was last year's GPX so I guess I've
missed something in the previous emails and so on.
Turns out it did actually download the right GPX, but I
had two of them in my watch that were both labeled the same thing
and had no idea that course had changed.
So I was charging down into like we sort of village knowing the
checkpoint would be there. And in the GPX I could see a wee
teal that came off it, which turns out was to the school in
that village. But as I got down to the school,
there's it was shut up then went on to like where the buildings
were and there was no checkpoint there either.
So just continued following my GPX and realized it was on the
next section over to Grassmere that, and I thought I don't
really need water here, I'll get it on the course.
But it just occurred to me I'll get disqualified if I don't hit
the checkpoint. So I had the backtrack and Long
story short, I listened to a few locals who had some suggestions
that yeah, they, they, if there's a, if there's any race
or any checkpoint, it'll have to be over here.
So half a mile over that way, no checkpoint back to my GPX line
for I looked at my Strava. I added about four miles and 40
minutes on looking for it because it turns out the
checkpoint was in a different village and I'd asked.
Turns out Kim Collision and one of his friends were running
past, so I recognized who Kim was and thought he might know.
So he's pointed me kindly back in the right direction and I
bumped into the first lady at that point.
So just kind of latched on to her until I could get to that
checkpoint. And they told me I was on the
wrong GPX. And it did turn out there was no
phone signal in the Langdale Valley either.
I did. I did have a look there.
So Race control was trying to give me a call as well.
But yeah. How did that affect you
psychologically? Thinking there is no checkpoint,
I'm losing 40 minutes. Yeah.
In the moment, it was more just, yeah, you felt that sort of
stress of getting back on course and like you're losing places,
possession time. But ultimately, once I got to
the checkpoint, I just felt like, well, I've done a lot of
these things. I've went longer than this.
There's 30 miles left. I'm really well prepared for
this race. I actually feel good.
And, and they told me, I think at that point it was maybe 10th.
And I thought, well, I'll get back into the top five.
I'm pretty confident to that. And and heat adapted and it's a
really hot day. So yeah, just go through the
process of what you would have done anyway and just, yeah, make
it count. Now own it.
What an absolute comeback. And you said that you had
powders and food in your belt. What were you eating during the
race? So.
I had a plan. I was going to be between about
95 grams of carbs an hour and that was a mix of a few
different sources. So the powder I was using was
Voom and I've got a like half a mix, half their natural flavour,
like 30 grams of that and 30 grams of their apple and
blackcurrant because I don't like each flavour enough to do
60 grams in a 500 mil bottle and add a wee bit of extra sodium to
that. So that gives me a good 60 grams
of carbs in the bottles. And then it's just a mixture of
gels. So you know, I'm quite partial
of the Torque Energy gels and I like to sort of alternate
between they've got rhubarb and custard, which is quite tart.
And then the next Torque gel I'll have will be like a
strawberry yogurt, which is really sweet.
So I just like the contrast of that.
And then just one of the secret weapons always have for
training. But it doesn't seem to work out
for me on the race because it's got a wee bit of chocolate in it
is a Turkish Delights, just they're cheap and cheerful, 38
grams of carbs and through a winter training block, you're
hoofing them India. But yeah, you don't seem to feel
like them the same way on a race because of the wee bit of
chocolate. But yeah, that went really well
actually. Like, I felt no stomach issues
at all. I was probably more like, yeah,
closer to 100 grams of carbs by the time went down to that
checkpoint. And then the problem was I
didn't eat or drink a single thing for about an hour until I
got myself sorted. So then when I was coming up out
of Grassmere, I threw a 50 gram carb gel into me on the climb,
which is what I had planned to do, but it was quite a thick gel
and it would have needed a lot of water.
And then from that point on I just had five hours of gut bombs
the whole way over were just this stomach was nearly doubling
you over. But every time that settled
after about 20 minutes I had to get more carbs into me and it
just started over again. So it was just a real battle of
attrition to the end, but. And then when you came to the
end of the race and you'd realized that was where you'd
come third, How how did that feel?
When did you realize you were third?
I suspected I was. I only knew I was third.
About 500 meters from the end, some guy shouted it at me.
But I did pass him a young guy who he was flying in the race,
the guy Lewis bonus, I think his name was early 20s.
And I think just unfortunately for Lewis is his race was a wee
bit too long for him. He'd had got issues and just
passed him about maybe 5K from the end where he was walking in
the woods. So just checked he was all
right. And to be honest, yeah, it's a
shame for him. And I didn't take a lot of joy
out of passing someone in that in that condition.
But he ended up finishing fifth. And yeah, I see he's on the the
start line of the Lakeland 50s. So I'm sure he'll, yeah, he'll,
he'll, he'll show me how fast he is because I think he's got a
big future. And is that your?
You say that. The the race that you've just
done, is that your favorite race or was it your first race?
The the the lakes reverse my favorite race.
Mike is like without a doubt, it's either of the Lakeland.
So the 50 or the 100. I've done each event twice, but
just the the event. It's hard to describe if you
haven't done it. It's like it's like a festival.
It's just, yeah, I think you've nearly 3000 people on the course
and they're all camping at the school in Coniston and it's just
brilliant, the roots, great. It's the hundreds of different
beasts all together from the 50. It's very challenging, but yeah,
I just love it. And my daughter Arya, she's
she's now got friends that she sees every year at Lakeland and
she's done the Lakeland 1/5 times.
Mariam's done the 100. That's my wife, done the hundred
once and the 50 once. So yeah, it's brilliant.
I've done both the 50 and the 100 and I've volunteered twice
so I technically haven't paid for the place because if you
volunteer you get a free place next year.
Oh that, that's my plan from here out.
Mike emulate Neil, my my mate and old running coach, for he
seems to have went a good few years without paying for a place
because he keeps podiuming or winning the age categories.
Rubber Scotsman. Absolutely, Absolutely.
And you mentioned the family there, Johnny, you've, you're
all very, very active. How do you manage to keep each
other's plans in check and arrange childcare around the
family? Life that that seems to flow OK
for us. I'm sort of co-owner in the
business that we both work in and there's a lot of flexibility
then with how we, you know, organise our Diaries that way.
And then because Mariam's into it and like we're both
passionate about it and love the outdoors.
We just we just make make it work for each other.
Try usually not to have races at the same time.
But now Ari is a bit older, it doesn't matter as much.
You know Miriam doesn't work Friday so she can get her long
run and then. And you say you're a physio.
How do you find that? Does that help with injuries?
And you're saying your wife, do you help each other with
injuries? We can do, yeah.
I guess prevention is better than cure.
So I think we're both quite good at just navigating that as we go
along. And my specialism within the
professions actually sports physiotherapy and then like a
clinical interest in running. So if I can't get it right, I
think, yeah, there's something wrong with me advising other
people on it. So it's just it's making the
right decisions at the right time and just looking at load
management and that that's progressive overload in terms of
peaking for an event, but also like decreasing the load and
having the restraint when needed.
You know, we're all addicted to running.
And just personally, I think the mental toughness that's required
for these ultras is actually in the training and having that
restraint and not going out for a hard session when you've had a
niggle a few days in a row. It's just that stitch and times.
He has nine, you know. And one thing that I saw on your
website was something that I've never had before.
I'm going to ask about it. Dry needling?
Is that as horrific as it sounds?
Yeah, it's trigger point acupuncture.
So it's a probably a Western take on Eastern acupuncture, but
yeah, trigger points in the muscles.
So you're eliciting a local twitch response with the
acupuncture needle. It's really effective just when
there's a bit of overload in the muscles and they're just, you
know, a bit tight in the icky. I find it definitely works
better than just massage alone. I've had acupuncture twice, many
many years ago, but I found that it was a great painkiller.
Pain went instantly but as soon as I started doing the thing
that was causing the injury in the 1st place, it came back.
That might have been because it was a like it treated the
symptoms, which is what it's definitely useful for that.
But let's take a runner for example.
It's always more useful to address the the root problem.
So like I'm very big on like part of the business I run as
the Glasgow running Clinic and we do running technique
analysis, take that into account with people's injury history and
look at the running style. I firmly believe like if they
keep getting similar injuries and they're planning and sort of
like the plan they're following for an events, reasonably
sensible and they're reasonably fit, there's maybe something in
their technique that's overloading certain structures.
So we try to fix that and get them kind of like patterning
that and working on it in their training to fix the problem.
And there's someone where to about to start a new training
block as the run in clinic, Something you would advise
attending before getting stuck into that?
Yeah, I'm biased. I definitely would.
But I think it's there's loads of other sports out there that
like you go and get coaching before doing and you're running,
you're accumulating 10s of thousands of steps on every
single run with multiple times your body weight impact.
Now, if that's applied in the wrong sort of lines of force
structures getting overloaded and it's not a one-size-fits-all
either. So it's just, yeah, it's a very
bespoke thing. So I, I, I would suggest it's
good for everyone to be honest. And it's, you can go away from
the session. Your worst case scenario is I
tell you you're running great. Otherwise you're getting
softened to work on that's going to better you better you're
running in terms of injury prevalence and I guess like
efficiency and performance in the long run because you'll
accumulate more volume. That's definitely good to know.
And the clinic, Aside from the running clinic and the
physiotherapy, do you offer any other services?
We do, yeah. So Danny, my business partner
and I, we're both like specialists in sports
physiotherapy. We've done sort of university
masters level stuff there. And then the 2 girls that work
for us as physios, they're both specialists in Women's Health.
So that's a very, yeah, it's a, it's a very niche kind of
service that we offer that you, you don't see too many places.
And yeah, there's a there's a big need for it.
And going back to Lakes Traverse again possibly.
What is your biggest running achievement?
The lake, the lakes traverse probably wouldn't say is my
biggest, it's my best finish, but I just feel in a lot better
shape than it was a few years ago.
And like experience rode me through that and I had the
confidence to fall back on a really good training block.
And as I said, there was a few extra 1%.
They're like I did like 9 days of heat adoption before the
event and by luck it also turned out to be hot so I knew I'd
finished well on the back end of it.
My biggest achievements probably either the West Highland Way
race in 2018 or the Lakeland 120 nineteen, both.
I ended up with just like major issues on which were below the
knee at West Highland Way. I pulled my calf on the lock
side which just tightened it up. I could sort of limp run through
it, but yeah, that was a long way out to finish from.
But Lakeland 120 nineteen was a really wet year and I would say
it's a significantly harder race, as you'll know Mike.
And yeah, I rolled an ankle coming off the well, actually
the first bit of flat trailer got onto after the Mountain
Passover and from Black Seal Hut to Buttermere.
And then that was a bit limp, running for about 10 miles,
followed by me then snapping a running pole, which meant it was
down to no poles. And then at about 40 miles into
that, I'd never heard a trench foot in my life.
The trench foot kicked in and I wondered why I had a blister on
both feet. I've never had that before.
And that eventually developed into like the whole foot feeling
like a blister. Where for maybe the next 16
hours, every, every single step on both feet felt like the skin
was fully parted. So yeah, that that was a real
battle of attrition to finish that one out.
So I was proud of that. Finish and during West highland
way during the West highland way do you remember what color of
Jelly baby you got on Jelly baby hill I.
Can't say I do. I don't even know if I did have
one. I was, I was the person handing
them out. So that's why good stuff.
Yeah. So we actually have a listener
question for you as well, Johnny that followed you on the Lakes
traverse and they are actually interested to know off of the
back of coming third from that, would you consider doing a road
marathon or a flatter ultra? I would one of one of my goal
races in the next few years if I can move out with like races in
the UK would actually be the Comrades in South Africa, which
is 100K on road. I'd love to do that.
I'd love to go to a city marathon as well and just like,
you know, put in a good performance.
But at the minute I'm just, I'm just too interested in getting
into the outdoors and spent my weekends on trails and mountain
walking with the girls and so on.
So I can't see it in the next year or two.
Comrades is obviously going to need heat adaption, which you
said you have done before. What do you do for that?
So when I start my taper, I've done this on the last three
races, which like each race has felt like I had a better result
through training consistency. But I do think it's helped in
all of them actually. So Lakeland 100, Lakeland 50 and
now leaks traverse. So when I go on the taper about
two weeks out, I'll do 9 days in a row of basically one way or
the other profuse sweating for over an hour.
So the three, the three things I'll use are tend to be might go
to a gym and that's got a sauna and do maybe 30 minutes of fast
uphill walking. Just get a good sweat on
straight down to 30 minutes in the sauna, keeping the heart
rate high. May use the spin bike in the
house where I'm dressed for like, you know, a winter 6000
meter peak and do like 30 minutes easy on that.
Just say getting a good sweat on and a really hot bath for 30
minutes or just get out and do maybe an hour's running but with
like hot gloves, 4 layers in the top, two of which are non
breathable. Such as like, you know, cheap
waterproofs and then winter tracksuit bottoms and just yeah,
grind that out. Good on you, because that is not
for me. Do you know the beauty of it,
Nikki is I've had on all three races I've done a moment where
I've thought none of this is even close to any one of those
sessions I did on my taper because they're all absolutely
awful. It feels like the equivalent PN
of doing like a 5K for APB effort every single day for the
1st 9 days of your taper. So you can't.
You know I could be bad for left immune devices on a taper with
decreased volume. I'd be needle and quads one
night, needle and glutes the next, foam rolling.
You know you're looking for problems, so you don't have time
to think about that. And then you find yourself at
the race. Do you think that the the heat
adoption is actually like your taper, You're supposed to be
recovering so that you can put in a hard effort and race?
Do you think the heat adoption, do you would you possibly do too
much of it or is it is it more beneficial that you've done it
rather than how much it takes out of you?
I think you need to do it well. Like I've read around the topic
a lot so I am hydrating furiously between sessions, all
with electrolytes and so on. But yeah, you could, you could
make it quite detrimental. Like on one of my blocks, I
think I gave myself heat stroke twice in the 9 days, but mild
heat stroke and that was just a bit much.
But it felt fairly non consequential in the end.
And because I had good races and bounced back from it, because I
leave a clear three to four days before the race, you know, with
none of it going on. But the physiological benefits
of it, even if the race wasn't hot or massive, you get a
increase in plasma volume. I think six to seven days is
enough to increase it by about 20%, which is huge because
that's going to be an increased stroke volume on every
heartbeat. It's going to cool you quicker.
At the periphery, your sweat rate increases markedly and
you'll notice that about halfway through it you are absolutely
dripping sweat. It's, it's just ridiculous, but
it's a really watery sweat. And within that the sodium,
well, the electrolyte concentration decreases
massively as well. So you're actually sweating more
and losing less electrolytes per volume of sweat.
So, you know, one of the biggest reasons an athlete will
underperform is that they actually overheat, and that will
dictate skyrocketing heart rate and so on and so forth.
Part of the so a sauna theory that the Swedish and Russians do
is you have your sauna, but then you have a jungle shower or a
ice bath afterwards. You do that.
I don't yeah, it's don't have the facility there where I do
it. But also I'm a wee bit
apprehensive with the the the hot cold contrast.
Just I'm not sure it's true, but I've read somewhere about like
athletes being a wee bit more prone to atrial fibrillation
with it. So I don't know if that's true
or not, but I don't really want to do it either so.
But since your first ultra of the devil on a bet with a
friend, you've clearly came so far.
And the last nine years, why do you run still?
I just love being outdoors and it's like, it's a good structure
of getting that. And you know, the type of races
that I'm doing just, yeah, takes us in the campervan as a family
down to the lakes or up into Scotland.
And yeah, it's, it's pretty much just that.
It's the, it's the structure in the discipline of it.
I thrive. I think when I do have that and
I'm quite ambitious with stuff. I sort of, I like to have a plan
from a long way out and I don't know, it hurts.
Some guy did 100 Iron Man in 100 days and he, he used a phrase
that I really liked. It was like macro patience,
micro speed. We're just, you've got a big
overarching goal that you can't achieve now, but like every
single session is a small building block towards that.
So you have to do that to the best of your ability.
But that might also involve sometimes just making sensible
decisions and exercising that mental toughness I talked about
within the training and showing some restraint and not giving in
to that addiction of running or, you know, the Strava
performances or anything like that, you know.
And coming from your your bet in the pub now, now that the the
bets out of the way with and you're obviously enjoying
running, why do you run? I do.
I do like the sort of flow state that you get with running.
I just find that, yeah, it's a bit of time, my job and I do
like talking, but it is talking all day long and quite often
talking to other people about, you know, you're trying to solve
their problems. There's a lot of pressure and
time pressures associated with it, you know, keeping the
schedule going. And it's just guaranteed time
for me out in my own head. And yeah, I'd just like that
flow state you get with. And I like that it's building
towards something. To answer our next question is
what do you think about when you're running?
Oh, yeah. I think like most runners, if
you ever like, voiced it out loud, what you think about,
you'd be quite embarrassed about it.
You know, you've got all these great plans that are hatched on
a run on flow states, you know, but in, you know, in reality,
you're not going to write a book about being a dad after it.
It was a good idea at the time, you know.
I don't know, I had the idea to start this podcast when I was
out running and every, every time I went out for about 2-3
weeks, I'd come back and tell my wife, I'm going to do this, I'm
going to do this and here we are now.
So it's these silly things that you think about when you're out
running. Yeah, no, it is great for that.
And OK, if you do have it, if you do have something that's in
your mind, like, yeah, some, sometimes the answer appears,
doesn't it? You've mentioned that you would
like to possibly do a Comrades in the future.
Is there any dream races or bucket list races in the nearer
future that you would like to do before then?
I don't know where I sit on the sort of European races because I
love like there's loads of them that like immediately appeal to
me. The Laboretto for one, because
we, we've had some, we had a brilliant family holiday in the
campervan in the Dolomites. It's just stunning.
So running around that would be great.
But the flip side of that would be, you know, there is a bit of
altitude to consider that's hard to account for in the training
over here. So calibrate expectations and
then it's hijacking a family holiday and like I'm more
passionate about the holidays and travel than I am about my
own running and individual achievements.
And I love doing these things with the girls.
So heading over there and either having a race hanging over me
for the whole week or a few weeks that you're there, I don't
know if I'd fully enjoy that or commit to the holiday or if I
did it at the start of it. You just might not show the
enthusiasm that you should after it so.
But yeah, the Laboretto really appeals in terms of European
races. You ever thought about going and
doing your own adventure, like going on holiday and saying I'm
just going to run from this side of the island to that side of
the island? 100% like like UTMB for example.
I would rather run that with a few mates over like 3 to 4 days
at like, you know, it's not, it's not going to be easy
either. You know, you'll still be doing,
I don't know, 30 miles a day in the hills, but it'd be a lot
more casual and you can enjoy the huts and you know, the whole
experience. And in my experience, like, as
much as I've enjoyed the events I've done, I've actually enjoyed
more a few personal projects that I've done over the years
where I did a Bob Graham round in 2023.
Let me get that right, just to tune the legs up so that don't
fall apart in the Lakeland 100. But I absolutely loved getting
into the whole Bob Graham round and the history of it and the,
you know, they like, yeah, just getting down to the lakes and
all through winter getting on it and then on the day, best thing
ever, just going out and like having your mates coming and
supporting you. And later on the same year, Neil
Mcnichol, he, he did one himself.
And I enjoyed that just as much as my own or any, any event.
So, you know, similar with the West Highland way, when I did it
in winter, it just, yeah, it was just nice having friends turn up
and have a much more casual sort of day out with pals on a tree
on a trail, you know, and no one cares.
Like I heard Gavin Deal say it on your podcast and I couldn't
agree more. It's like no one will care what
time you get on something like a Bob Graham once it's done, you
know? So it's yeah, it's just about
enjoying the experience. So did you do that?
Sorry, Mike. No, on you go.
So did you do that, Bob Graham, just for fun with your friends?
You didn't set out to do a time with that.
I obviously wanted to get it under the 24 hours, which I did,
but it like I felt that was always going to be comfortable.
I what I didn't want to do was like make it a bit of a season
ender because my main goal was the Lakeland 100.
So I went out on like a 22 hour schedule.
I think I got 21 1/2, but it felt very casual.
And I don't, I don't want that to sound wrong, but it was
lovely to do something where I didn't feel like I was just
like, in a state of despair in the trenches, like having to
grind out these hills. So you know that.
Yeah, I'm just chatting away to each of my support runners on
the legs and getting to know them a bit more and then just
getting passed over to somebody else.
And yeah, seeing that, everybody felt like they contributed to
it. And you obviously love running
with friends, supporting people, them supporting you.
Is there anybody that you would love to run with?
Either fictional, non fictional, alive not?
Who would it be? Who it would be, It would be my
uncle Raymond that I grew up with.
He's my mum's brother. My whole childhood, like I lived
with him and he was disabled and so running with him is not
really viable. I don't think he would have
enjoyed me running them around in a wheelchair either.
But I haven't watched him my whole childhood and just seeing
the like, see the resilience of someone that didn't have all the
abilities that we do. And they can go and, like, it
takes them 45 minutes to get to and from a toilet, but they
still do it. And they still do it with a
smile on their face. And, you know, just, it just has
such a profound effect on your outlook in life.
You know, you just, we go to these events and, like, choose
to do them and, you know, you should enjoy them.
And, you know, you're going to get thrown up some challenges.
It's not the end of the world. Just get about it, you know?
Yeah, it was, it was brilliant. And yeah, he's.
Yeah. It's 10 years since he passed
away, so it would probably be him.
And yeah, there's a wee bit of a legacy within the family of him
where I've left some of his remains in the top of the buccal
and with my daughter, I'm not going to.
You might be able to see in the background that's Aria at 7
years old going up Curved Ridge. So I'm not going to harp under
about someone she never met. But that was her first ever
mountain and she was up at when she was four months old and
she's been up at the conventional route by herself
when she's 5. She's done Broad Buttress up at
which has agreed to scramble when she's 6.
She's done Curved Ridge when she's 7.
And yeah, we'll keep moving on from there.
And it's a special mountain for her to.
Well, she's done more than me. I try to go up Curved Ridge once
and the fog came in and we couldn't see a thing, so we had
to turn back. Yeah.
Yeah, sometimes the frogs your friend with these things, at
least if you're on the right bit of the route.
That was the problem. We were in the wrong place
anyway, so it didn't didn't matter.
Yeah, but no, it would be him. And just to sort of show him
some of the places that he could never have went because it's
inspired me to do the travel and the, yeah, the adventuring.
That's not tricky answer. Thank you.
Appreciating that I. Hope it wasn't too deep.
No, that's exactly what we're after.
Not at all. So I think we're almost coming
to the end unless Mike has any more questions.
I've got one more question and that was your your bet in the
pub right back at the start was fuelled by whiskey.
Is that still part of your training plan?
It's not, no. I had AI had a stage where my
wife, who's much more active in social media than me, stuck up a
whiskey cabinet that I didn't really have at the time.
I had one bottle and then almost everyone that owed me anything
ended up buying me a bottle. So that that New Year's Eve was
actually our house foreman and I tried to get rid of all the
bottles in one going through a whiskey party.
And look where that landed us. So you mentioned the Lakeland
50, is your next event. Anything else coming up post
Lakeland 50, whether it be running, climbing, adventures,
what's lined up for the Kilpatrick's for the rest of the
year? So.
In August we'll head out to Italy and with the the van and
we'll try to get Aria up our first 4000 meter peak on Grand
Paradiso. So that's the first immediate
plan after it. But then the whole of late
summer and autumn will be kind of scrambling and climbing as a
family and just dial the running back like midweek will be get
the speed up again and, you know, keep that ticking over at
weekends or set aside for that. No events the tail end of the
year. But yeah, next year I'd maybe
like to take a step back from races.
But you know, I'm sure you'll see me on the start line of one
but and look at more of a personal project again.
I'm not sure what that is. Maybe the Scottish 4 thousands
route. I'll look at that.
But don't know open the suggestions if anyone wants to
send them in. I'm just not.
I just thought one more question before we sign off without
naming any names, what's the worst injury you've seen in the
clinic? I've.
Seen a lot of bad ones to be honest.
Sometimes the ones you can, like I've seen a few guys really
smashed up with motorbikes and so on.
But yeah, sometimes the ones that you can really relate to,
you could just visualize it, are bad.
And I remember a few years ago, some guy telling me he's in one
of these sharp baths and he just slept.
And the first point part of them that hit anything was the middle
of his back on the taps. And he did, he did fracture a
few of the transverse processes in the back.
But do you know when you could just imagine that happening?
It just sent shivers straight up the spine.
Right, on that note, we're going to leave it there and I'm going
to say thank you Nikki for being Nikki.
Thank you Johnny for sharing with us.
Thank you for being here and it's goodbye from me.
Thanks, John. Thanks very much guys.