Hello and welcome to another episode of Run Till You're Done.
This week's guest is someone who has gave me the privilege to
spend an entire weekend crew forum on the West Highland Way
Race this year. As well as chatting about that,
we will dive into how we got started with running and the
events that led him up to participate in in the West
Highland Way Race this year and what other things will lead on
from that. Welcome to the podcast, Stevie
McKenna. Thanks guys.
Thanks for having me. We'll, we'll start off with the
the question that we ask everybody is how did you first
get into running? Probably not the way that
everybody else seems to have got into running via COVID.
I, I actually started back in 2000 and end of 2012 two 1013.
I mean, I was never into running when I was younger.
That was my brother's thing. He used, he done it at school.
We went on to represent Scottish schools that kind of close
country and middle distance. That was his thing.
I just met him, got on with it and and I I came to fail and
television sports and then back in maybe God to late 2000s, I
blew my ACL. Didn't realize it at the time,
just continue snowboarding because I was able to snowboard
fine with it. But eventually over the years,
it started when he started to give away from the twisting on
it. And it turns out that I had no
ACL left, so I had to get reconstruction on it.
And as part of that the, the physiotherapy afterwards, the
goal was ultimately to get back snowboarding.
And so I went through a kind of 10/10/11 week physio program
period. It was just all really basic
movements. And then after, after that
point, they said what we want you to do now is we want you to
start putting some motion into it, putting some running into
it, but we don't want you doing anything.
Nothing can get like no cutting movements, no change in
direction, just forwards and backs, forwards and back, nice
and easy. And it was weekly appointments.
I was getting at the at the hospital.
And what they said to me was like, go off.
And by next week we want you to come back here and see if you
can see if you can get an Uptown meal.
So maybe me, I went off and I'd been feeling made.
I've been doing gym work, had been doing like work on the bike
and things like that just to keep my cardio going.
But me being me, I went off and on the first day I was like,
right, OK, they said I've got to run a mail by next week.
So I went out that night and I ran a meal and then the
following day I thought, well, if I've done one meal last night
and I got no reaction from it, can I do 2 miles the following
following night? And by the time I went back to
physio the next week, I'd done 10K.
So at that point I needed, I needed some sort of goal to to
keep me going. And God, this would have been
probably this late summer, maybe early autumn of 2012.
And I thought, well, what can I do?
I'd never, I'd never ran like 10 keys eventually got, but I'd
just done A10 key as as part of that, that physio.
So I thought, well, let's give myself a go.
Let's, let's look at the Edinburgh Marathon.
And I entered myself into the 2013 Edinburgh Marathon and I
just just focused on that. At that point, I had zero
friends who I would consider runners.
I had, I knew a couple of people that had done marathons before
and they'd said to me, you know, 4 hours, that's the make and
that's what you want to aim for. If you can do 4 hours, that's
amazing. But ultimately for me that the
goal was just to get back on the snowboard.
That wasn't to start running or anything like that.
And in April, May, May, between May, rolled down in 2013, turned
up in Edinburgh, went out and I finished in three, three hours,
4956. So for me that was like box tech
never have to do another marathon again.
You know, running is done after that.
Just from a kind of at this point of view, I would go off
and do the occasional kinky here or a half marathon like the,
the, the Glasgow half, the the great Scottish Run.
That's something that I would always came to do every year.
But you know, let's be honest, it was a day out with the boys.
You would go in, you would either do the 10K first thing in
the morning or you'd be going to the half marathon and then you
would go to the pub and then the day would just get me from you.
And it was just, it was a day out.
But yeah, there was no kind of concept of me considering myself
as being a runner or anything. It was just that, just something
I've done to keep keep fit at that point.
So was Edinburgh Morrison your first running event?
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I mean, to have got
all my medals on on the wall over here and I went through
thinking there might have been one.
I lived in Edinburgh, God, mid 2000s.
I've lived through there and I, I think there was potentially
one that I'd done round tomatoes, but I don't, I don't
have a medal for it. So 2013 I'm going to put that
down as my, my first one. And then I've also got a great
Scottish run one for 2013. So obviously I thought at that
point, but I'll just, I'll start doing that.
And I think, I think with the great Scottish run, it was just
that unique selling point of running over the Kingston
Bridge. I was like, that would be cool
to do that. Yeah.
Like I say, since then it was just kind of like a little runs
here and there to to keep fit. Edinburgh was my first as well,
but I was four years before you. Right.
I I hate it. I it was the wind.
It was hot that day. I think it was the first year
that they run out of water. But right, that's a hot topic.
Yeah, I was. I mean, I was quite fortunate, I
think it was. It was maybe only the last or
that the sun that the, the kind of the hard boat bumped off and
it got hot and but we didn't really get any, any wind as
such. But I came back for a minute and
I was like, well, that's that box text.
I'm not rushing back to do that at all.
But I say I hear that. I crossed the finish line and
said I'm never running again. And aside from the running you'd
built up to Edinburgh Madison, did you get back on the
snowboarding pretty quickly? Oh, yeah, yeah, No, So I mean,
like, like I say, the marathon was just a complete, that was a
that was a bonus. That was a kind of, oh, I've got
this fitness. So, you know, I've got that goal
to work too. But no, I was, I was back
snowboarding by the December of that year.
So they, they reckoned to, to have an ACL reconstruction, you
reckon there were about nine months, maybe 10 months to, to
get back to that level of, of fitness to be able to do that.
And I was back doing it within seven and a half, eight months
and. Did you feel the running then
complimented the your snowboarding skills like with
code and fitness and things like that it.
Definitely, definitely helped fitness wise.
I mean, definitely I, I lost a bit of weight when I was doing
that and that, you know, anything, any sort of mask that
you can take off your knees when you're, you're doing any sort of
snow sports was, was definitely beneficial.
A lot of people say that running is bad for your knees, but I
think what you're saying is what?
What the scientific evidence? It's not proof.
Evidence says that. It tends to be people that don't
run that say that because that's an excuse not to run.
But running actually builds up your cartilage and make it like
regenerates it because you're constantly wearing it down to
build it back up again. And that's how your body reacts
to it. So I would say that you getting
back to it is evidence towards that.
Yeah, no, I definitely see that. My knees are you compare them to
even 20 years ago, they're in much better condition than than
there were then. So obviously you're on the
Edinburgh Marathon. Yeah.
There's big gap between then and sitting with us today.
Now where did that lead to then? You ticked that box.
We'll never do it then. Ticked that, ticked that box,
ticked the marathon box. I went off and done 10 keys and
21 keys. I did go back to Edinburgh, so I
did go back in 2017. I also went to Sterling in 2017
as well. That was the, the kind of
inaugural year that they brought the Sterling Marathon in.
So I originally signed up for the Sterling Marathon thinking,
well it's been 4 years since I've run one, let's let's go and
do that. Ran the Sterling Marathon and
then the lead up to that, one of my friends had a place for
Edinburgh and he that he was injured the he was going to pull
out of it and he asked me if I knew anybody that would take
that place from him. So I asked about nobody was keen
for that. But then the seed was planted in
my head. It's like, could I run
Edinburgh? Could I run Sterling one
weekends and then just have a complete recovery week and then
go and run Edinburgh the next weekend.
They're working back on it. The signings were there.
The signings were there before I was going to go on and do in the
later years. But yeah, I took Eddie's place
off home, turned up at Edinburgh, ran it again, had a
horrific run due to sweating and nipple tape coming off and all
the rest of it. So my plans went out the window.
But yeah, but it was, it was good to do that and just do them
back-to-back and think, no, I can actually do things that are,
are hard here and then off the back of that.
So that that was 2017. So that would have been what,
again the end of May. And then I, I caught wind of the
run the Blades 50K, which happens, you know, like 5 miles
from my mom and dad's house. Like in my old bedroom, you can
actually see the, all the turbines from White White Lee's
wind farm. And I just had that little seat
in the back of my head of all I need to do is run like what, 4
point something miles more. And then suddenly I can call
myself a, a ultra marathon. You know, I've, I've done ultra
marathons and at that point that's, I don't need to run
again. I've done every sort of distance
you can do so. So yeah, that that July I found
myself up in Whiteley's doing the 50K and that was ultimately
the gateway that went to to everything else.
Your Edinburgh sterling double, did your times improve compared
to when you did it at Edinburgh before?
No, no. So I was, I was still under.
I can't remember my exact time. I was, I was a couple of minutes
under 4 hours for Sterling, which was a horrible, horrible
event. Like they, they started you,
they started you Blair Drummond. So you went out, went through
like Dune and Dunblane and that came back into Sterling.
But then when you got to Sterling you were only about 17
miles into the course. So they made you do multiple
laps of the city centre. So someday like me that was
aiming for sub four, I was coming into 17 miles, you know,
I can't remember off the top of my head, but I was like maybe
two, 2 1/2 hours or two 245 or something like that.
Meanwhile, I'm then getting caught up with the guys that are
going for sub three that are on their last lap.
So it was horrible. You're running along your pace
and suddenly everybody's flying past you.
But then as you progressed, ground your laps, you suddenly
became the first person as everybody else was was feeding.
And so yeah, that was that was just shy you forever for that
one. And then Edinburgh I think was
like 4/15, 4:20 because I was stopping at medical tents to try
and find Vaseline from people and welding lessons for future
events. And then you.
Got involved with Run the Blades as you say you've done your
first Ultra Run the Blade 50K. That then led on to other things
to do with Breaking Strain who had done that, didn't they?
So I again, for at that point, my experience in running was
road running events, you know, and you'll know yourself, you
turn up at some of these events and nobody will, nobody will say
hello to you. Nobody especially, especially I
find as you get higher up in these events or you get faster
than these events, it's everybody's in their own zone.
Everybody's in their own world. And God forbid you cut in front
of someday or, or get in their way or, or, you know, take your
time around the corner. We was, I went along to breaking
strains and instantly you were just made to feel you were part
of the entire event. And I, I came away from that
event with friends that I've still got today.
And it was just people that we were people that I was union
with or we ended up teaming up and we were both run walk in
certain parts of it. But it just, you know, again, it
was, it was just a sign of, of things that come in the ultra
community that just that inclusiveness that everybody's
in it together. See, after after doing that
again, for me, that box was tacked.
I had done all the distances. But I then realized that they
would do the, the offer like a 10K one on, on the Friday night
of the event. They offer A201K version on the,
the Sunday of the event. And then they also waiting on in
the year do a 10K night one where it's the exact same 10K
group. Everybody's got head torches on.
So just over over the next few years, I then got involved at
like for the main run, the Blades weekend, I would pick one
of the events and go and do it. And then whatever event I wasn't
doing, I would go along and Marshall at the other ones just
so I could be just be part of it.
And you said that that was you could see it from your bedroom
window at your parents house. Is that where you went to
school? Yes, so I I went to school and
and you school right here. And was there anybody involved
with that, races that you used to go to school with, that
people would turn around and go what?
Not now, but but the well, not not back then, but whereas now
there, there actually is. So I know like we'll come on to
it later, but I know that Run the Blaze is happening this
weekend. And there's actually a couple of
guys that I went to school with that are turning up to do their
first 50K and they are, they're absolutely buzzing about it.
But I'm, I'm excited to see them as well because some of them
have not seen for years. And yeah, it'll just, it'll just
be nice to, to catch up with them.
And I think not so much when I was at school, when I was at
school, I used to play rugby. So I was kind of in a decent
shape. But let's just say during my 20s
and 30s, I wasn't in such a decent shape.
And it's, yeah, I think, I think if people that knew me from 20
years ago realized what I was doing now, they would they
wouldn't recognize me. And I think that I'm going to
interrupt you there, Nikki. I think that that leads on to
Nikki. Why did you on the show?
Because she was involved in the the race that we're going to
talk about. But the thing that I wanted to
talk about was your Instagram name, which which is.
Is 100 KGS to 100 kilometers. And tell us a story about that.
So God, this 18 months ago maybe, yeah, this the the
beginning of last year. Up up until that point, I was
just I was a soul runner. I would say, you know, I would,
I would turn up at these events like run the blades would be
different because I would turn up and I would volunteer there
and I would get to know faces. But any other event I would go
to, I would just turn up, run the event, get my medal, go back
to the car, go home. That that was it.
I knew a few faces from events, but I wouldn't turn up at events
and feel like I was partly anything like that.
So for 18 months ago, I decided, no, I'm going to be, I'm going
to try and be a bit more social here when it comes to running.
So rather than bore my friends and family, I set up a separate,
separate Instagram account and I thought I'm just going to
document what I do more for myself just to keep myself
honest and accountable. And at the time I was 100 plus
kilograms and I thought right, what what goal can I do now?
I had already, I had already ran Glasgow to Edinburgh Ultra.
So that was about 5758 miles. And I thought the next logical
step from there is 100K race. So 100 kilograms, 100K, put it
together and that was my, that was my Instagram account.
And I remember you're setting that account up because you
first came on to my radar when you done the run the Blades
Treble where you do all three events on the same weekend with
Melbara and I knew Mel and Mel says, oh, you need to friend
Stevie. He's such a great guy.
And that's how we made the connection through your old
account. And I think that was just like
the natural progression. As you say, you don't want to
buy your friends and family with running chat and then just ended
up it was perfect that you'd made the account because it was
such a great way to document your done there.
Yeah. I mean, it's like you say, first
and foremost, it was for me, it was for me to keep, keep myself
honest. So whatever event I was training
for every day, I would go out and the whole thinking behind it
was just go out, do your run, take some photos.
You know, I'm, I Monday to Friday, I'm a software
developer, but I do a lot of freelance photography for, from
various things for mainly snow sports.
And that's why it was important for me to, to be able to get
back on the snowboard and, and be able to do some work over the
winter. But, you know, I also do events
and music festivals and things like that.
But for me, with my account, I wanted to just go out, have a
run, take some photos. You know, I'm a trail runner.
I'm going to stop and take photos as I go.
But then just be honest about how that run was.
You know, don't, don't sugarcoat it.
Now, if it wasn't perfect, it wasn't perfect.
You know, the likes of this morning I went out for a run
with the dog. I was too busy looking.
I went down a section of the Clyde walkway that's kind of
disused. I know better.
I shouldn't go down here during the summer because it all gets
overdrawn. So I'm too busy looking for
giant hawkweed that I don't want to get bumped on.
And I ran straight through a bunch of nettles without even
realizing. So, you know, there's no point
in sugar coating that. I'm just going to update my my
post for today and say, yeah, I'm an idiot.
I ran through that. Yeah.
I just wanted to to almost have something for myself to, to see
the progress that I was making as, as time went on.
And then over time, more people got interested in it, more
people started following me. And then the thing that really
started blowing my mind was you, you would get just random
messages from people saying, you know, I'm, I'm in the same
situation as you. You know, I've, I've let things
go over the years. I'm now 100 and something kilos.
How do I get from where I am just now to what you're doing?
And any, anybody that takes the time to send me a message, I
will sit down and, and take time to send a message back to them.
But yeah, like I said, that's that blows my mind that people
can be inspired by that and and want to go off and do something
yourself. So you had 100 kilometre event
in mind. Did you know which one you
wanted to do? I didn't at the time.
And then we the race direct to the breaking strain.
He actually send me a message and he was like, well, funnily
enough, we were going to be organizing the inaugural run the
Borders event last August, which was 190.
So straight away I was like, well, that's that's perfect.
It's, it's meant to be and I signed up for that last year,
but unfortunately I then developed plantar fasciitis and
one of my feet and I finally finished one of my, finished my
kind of B race last year in June.
And I thought, right, give myself a couple of weeks ease
back into it. And it was just obvious it
wasn't going to happen. You know, I still had another
6-7 weeks of training that I would have to do to then get to
that E race. And I went out one day to do a
50K into Glasgow and back out. And by the time I got back, like
I could have squeezed another 20 K out of it maybe.
But there was no way I was squeezing another 50K out
without properly hurting myself. So I had to be sensible.
I had to pull out of it. And you know, rather than just
completely miss the event, I pulled out of it and said,
right, OK, I've got that weekend booked off anyway, what do you
need me to do? When I went down and I
volunteered that. So I still felt like it was part
in the event, but obviously my goal then went out the window
and it took a little bit longer to get to the 100K.
And out of all the races you've done, you just said, you
mentioned Glasgow, Edinburgh, run the Blades.
Have you got a favorite? It has to be the one I've just
finished. It has to be.
And I'm not just saying that because it's it's the one that.
Bias. It's, it's the most recent one.
Yeah. No, it's, it's the West Highland
Bay without a doubt. I, you know, I've already talked
about the, the community within the, within ultras and trail
running. But all the way through my
training for the, the West Highland Bay, I had, you know, I
had everybody talk about the, the West Highland Bay family,
whether that was Ian Beatty or whether it was Keith Hughes or
Adrian or people like that. Everybody talked about this
family. And I didn't really get it.
I didn't fully get it until the weekend of the race.
I just, it's just that, yeah, it's not just the, it's not just
the the other races that you're in it with, you're in it with
all the other supporters, you know, point case.
And Nikki won't mind me saying this.
When I got to Ron Dennen, Nikki was sleeping in the car and so
was Karen quite right too. They had been up since God knows
when on Friday. So we, we had agreed that Nikki
was going to come up to the the entrance of whatever car park,
whatever checkpoint, meet me there and then take me to the
car. So I got there, Nikki wasn't
near and I, I pulled my phone. I wasn't panicking.
I knew I knew they would be there.
But I pulled my phone out, went to message them and within the
space of 60 seconds, I had three other cues come up to me and
say, is your support to here? What's happened?
What do you need? We've got XY and Z in the car,
come with us. And that was the moment where I
fully got it. I fully understood that it's
everybody is there to make everybody get to that finish
line in Fort William. Right.
There is any consolation to Nikki.
On my first West Island way I got into Glencoe and my crew
were in the cafe having lunch. So it it happens.
It's just one of those things, isn't it?
But before we do go on and chat about that weekend, I just want
to touch on as well throughout your Instagram account as well.
You do quite a few park runs, don't you?
Do you have a favorite? So I, I, I'm going to say I do
quite a few have, I think I've probably only done about four in
my entire life. But you're probably thinking,
oh, he's down in Strathclyde Park running again.
So he's doing a park run sometimes like Strathclyde parks
only God, what, 3-3 about miles from here if I jump on the
trails. So I'm down there.
That's the kind of default for me.
If I want an ACZ run ahead down there in terms of attending
them, I don't get as many as I would like to get to, mainly
because just for family reasons. If I'm doing back-to-back long
runs, Friday's a guaranteed day that my wife doesn't work.
So I can get up at whatever time in the morning, get out and get
however many miles I need to do. And then if I'm doing it
back-to-back then it's normally Saturday morning that I'm I'm
out. Yeah, it's, it's something that
I would like to get down and do. But in terms of I think I've
only done, I've done a couple of Stratified park, done one up at
Landmoore and I've randomly done one in Worcester down in
England. But yes, I'd like to do some
more. I would like to do some more.
What was Worcester like? Was that hilly?
No, it's flat. So it's on the racecourse, it's
on the racecourse drowned by the the River Severn.
It's, I was actually down for a mate's wedding and we went down
on the Friday. Everybody was in the pub on the
on the Friday night. And Ellie, the bride, she
normally goes along on the Saturday to do park run.
So at half eleven that night she announces to everybody, right,
I'm doing park run in the morning, who's coming?
And everybody was I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming.
I genuinely had my my shoes with me because I was going to go out
for a run on the Saturday morning.
So yeah, I dragged myself out of bed the following morning, went
down to the park run and it was me and Ellie.
That was it. Nobody else from the wedding
party turned up So but yeah, it was it was a was wasn't the
fastest 5K, let's put it that way all.
Right, we'll we'll get back on topic the the West Highland Way.
You've already mentioned about the West Highland Way family,
Yeah, but go back to would be November the December last year.
You've just been drawn out of the ballot and how did that
start? I I guess you must have had the
idea you wanted to do it, because that's why.
Yeah, so we probably go back to the weekend of the West Highland
Way in 2024. So I, I, obviously I knew about
the West Highland Way, but for me it was always like, you know,
that's like the panic or it's, it's up there as one of the, the
big ones. I, I'd kind of been dabbling the
year before and trail runs with a bit more elevation and
obviously Glasgow Eden does flat as a pancake.
But after doing that, I thought, well, what can I do that's got a
bit more elevation. So I done the Tweed Valley.
There's been about 5000 foot elevation in it.
And then went and tipped off Glen Ogle.
And then last year I'd done the GB Ultra Scotland 50, so that
had about 10,000 foot elevation. So at that point I was like, you
know what? I'm, I'm not the fastest, but I
can cope with hills. And then completely as a, it was
just a complete coincidence. I had decided myself I was going
to do one of these 4448 challenges and I thought the
best weekend to do that. But summer's weekend that we
only have to deal with one run in the dark.
And I didn't realize that that was the weekend that the West
Highland, maybe this happens. But what that meant for me was I
was going out, you know, I was starting at 8:00 on the Friday
night and then back out at midnight.
But then when I came back it back in from that run at
midnight, it was like, oh, the race is starting.
So I'm seeing a lot of chat on social media about it.
Went off to my bed, got up for the run at 4:00 in the morning.
And at that point, I knew, I knew a few folks that were doing
that, you know, Kevin Kage, Gary Dempsey, Kaylee Webster, people
that I worked up to wake up to in the way of these are everyday
runners that have stepped up and really started pushing herself.
And I mean, you look at what you look at what they're doing now,
it's not speaking and often do in the Cape Brass Ultra.
And you look at the the Kelly's hands up until she got injured.
But it just gave me a little bit of interest because I knew the
people that were tuned with him as well.
So when I got up from a 4:00 run, I would go out and do that,
come back in at, you know, 4:45 and I can start looking at
tracking and be like, all right, OK, they're here.
So as that weekend went on, obviously I'm getting my sleeps
in between all my runs. And then I'm getting to like a
4:00 run on the Sunday morning and I'm looking at tracking.
I'm like, these guys are starting and I'm like, that is
that is amazing. Like that is absolutely
phenomenal. And then I'm out doing my run at
8:00 thinking, could I do that? And, and it was just that seed
of, you know, could I, could I take that step up?
And it was a massive step to go from like 58 miles to go up to
to 95 miles. You know, it's not even just
like a comfortable step, you know, you're almost a double
marathon in there. But I think that was probably
what planted the seed. I got to September time when the
the entries were coming out for the the devil and for the
flying. And I spoke to my wife at the
time. There was like, I'm going to
these ones I can definitely get into.
I'm going to put my name down for both of them.
And then that way at least it's a better experience.
I can get to run on the West Highland Way and see what it's
like. And then I said, I'm just, I'm
going to throw my name in at the ballot.
You know, I've put my name into the London Marathon ballot for
the last 10 years, never even get a sniff.
So I was like, it'll be the same as London.
I'll put my name in. That'll be fine.
And then of course, I'll listen to you guys speaking with Keith
about the ballot process. And I was like, oh, wait a
minute, There's there's maybe a chance here that I might get
into this. So yeah, I think at that point,
I knew my name was in a mutual friend, Kevin Keg.
He'd also said he was putting his name in.
But we'd also at that point decided, well, if I don't get in
and Kev gets in, then Kev's gonna then I'll chew for Kev and
and vice versa. And Nicky was the same.
Nicky was like, I'm there, I'm there to help out, however you
you just need to. And then the emails arrived in
December and it suddenly became very, very real at that point.
We're going before, yeah, we know what the outcome is of the
ballot, but before you go into that, you're 4 by 4 by 48.
Yeah, the West Island way, the time limit is 34 hours I think,
or 35 hours. 3535 hours. But you were still running
afterwards. Did you ever feel I want to stop
now? No, not really, because again,
my my goal for that was to get those 12 runs done and that,
like I say, I was getting I was getting sleep in between it and
I was getting to to the axe in between it.
But yeah, that that that goal, it was, it was just the same as
any ultra. It was just like, just tick them
off as you go. Just get run one, run two, run 3
and so on and so on. But it was a good, it was a good
kind of insight of how I coped when I was tired.
And I think that's, that's ultimately why I was doing it.
Because earlier on in that month when I was doing Scotland 50,
you've got the Scotland 100 going at the same time.
And I got to the one thing I quickly, quickly land on that
race. See, everybody had the same
number. So there was no distinction
between who was doing the 50 and who was doing the hundred that
year. They've changed that now.
But I quickly realized you couldn't judge a book when it's
cover. So you're chatting to people and
the most unassuming people would be there to do the hundreds and
it would be like their 10s hundreds they were doing or
something like that. But it was great to run along
with these people and almost like minimum for information of
how do I go from where I am just now doing a 50 this year to
doing 100 next year? How do I cope with running
through the night? How do I cope with running when
I'm tired? And the obvious answer was you
just get up and you do it. You you go out at night and you
run during the night when you're you're tired and you run during
the winter with your head touch on when it's it's dark for five
months. So anyway, if you're running in
the the evenings or you're running in the morning.
So, so yeah, that that was that was good to do that.
And then also go on and then do the 4448 and realize, no, I
can't drag myself out of bed. I can get up and and just get
that for smile done when I'm higher than before.
You know it, you just ease into it again.
Well, 4x4, 4 by 4 by 48, a lot of people do that as training
for backyard altars. And what you just said there is
you, you just get on with it, just planting the seed.
Oh, don't worry, the seeds already there to the point that
I have said I'm going to go and volunteer at Bee Craig's next
year because that means I can't actually run it.
See, I'm being smart here. I'm being smart.
I'm sure Kayleigh will sort that one out.
Yeah, yeah. So your name gets drawn out of
the hat and you'd ask me if I could crew for you.
But even before, because you were, you were getting really
prepared actually. Which is great because I don't
think a lot of people realize when they do enter the ballot,
one, that they will actually get drawn.
And two, you do have to have two mandatory crews.
So already you were fairly organized with that.
What happened? As soon as the name got drawn,
it must have lit some sort of fire in you to get training.
It did and it came. It came at, it came at the
perfect time. It was the biggest proverbial
boot up the backside I've had in a long time for various reasons.
You know, first, first and foremost, at that point my mum
was in hospital and not in a good way.
Now she's absolutely fine. Now you wouldn't, you wouldn't
even know that she was in hospital, but I thank God the
day before the draw was made, like myself and my brother were
sitting in a room in the hospital having a very frank
conversation with the consultant about ADNR getting put in place
for my mum. So I was all over the place.
And also because I had had plantar fasciitis, I wasn't
doing as many meals as I had been doing at the start of the
year. So my weight was keeping back up
and I just genuinely just wasn't happy with where I was.
So my name came out the hat and straight away, like you say, it
was just that that fire got wet instantly because I knew if I
was to turn up at the start line in six months time, you know,
being 102 kilograms, I got away with that when I was running a
50 Miller. I got away and it was getting
away with it. There was no danger.
I was getting away with that over 95 miles.
So it was just a case of what what I actually done.
And again, I say it was, it was a bit up the backside at the
perfect time because it was right.
It started December. And normally, rightly or
wrongly, I have a thing. That's that's how you swear.
We get to December and we just say, I won't swear, but we just
say it's Christmas. Who cares?
You know, eat what you want, drink what you want, enjoy
yourself, be merry. But for me it was the complete
opposite. It was know what I'm going to do
is I'm going to give myself a wee mini four week block through
December and just shock myself back into doing 50 miles a week
and just just step back up to to do that.
That's the sort of destiny I was doing from a training at the
start of the year. So I knew it was capable of it,
but I just wanted to get my body shocked back into right, let's
just do this and at the same token, get my diet back under
control. I thought that meant was I
actually came out of December for the first time and God knows
how long waiting less than what I went into.
And normally it's the other way about when I come in January and
I'm like, oh, right, OK, I put a stone on over Christmas.
So I had that we many four week training block and then I sat
down at the end of December and I was like right 24 weeks from
the year to race day and I just sat down and and planned out
what I wanted to do over over that time period.
You lost weight, did you? Was that through running or
diet? Or was diet because you were
running? It was it was both.
It was both so obviously with with with just the amount of
meals I was doing. You know, I'm I'm bundling
through calories doing that anyway, But there was that
switch got flaked where it was food wasn't near for pleasure.
It wasn't near for I'm the world's worst.
I like you say, I'm a software developer.
I work remotely. If I get stressed through the
work day, the fridge is just downstairs.
The kids snacks are just downstairs.
It's so easy to get down and just and just grab something.
But what I was taking approach of well, if I'm getting up, I do
I do most of my training in the mornings if I can.
So if I'm getting up and running for, you know, 8 miles in the
morning, I really want to go and grab that mouse bar just because
I'm having a bad day. You know, I really want to start
undoing that. And then that kind of weighed
into you don't have a good week's training.
I would jump on the scales and I really lost a couple of pounds
and I'm like, OK, well, you know, that's that's vindicated
all that hard work. So then the following week, do
the same again. And it was just that slow, you
know, seeing the, the weight come off.
But then the flip side to that was I was my, my runs, you know,
my easy runs were getting faster.
You know, instead of, instead of being a, I'm trying to think
said to be like 9 1/2 minutes mile, 9 1/2 minute miles when I
was starting off, that's suddenly dropping down to like
915 one week and then it's 9 minutes the next week.
And you know, I was, I was really noticing a big difference
in that was because the way it was coming off at the same time.
And did you follow a certain diet plan?
Stevie, where did you get your dietary advice?
So years ago, years ago I had an online PT and it was a a friend
of a friend who was who who has APT but it was during COVID he
was doing like online plans. So I, I just basically took what
he gave me back then and adapted it and it, do you know, I wasn't
counting calories as such. I wasn't sitting down and
saying, OK, well, I need to make sure I'm normally taking in 2000
or 18 or 1800 calories. I was just thinking, OK, well,
this is what I used to do when I was training.
So I just kind of stuck with that.
Obviously if, you know, if I had a big run the next day, I would
make sure I was getting extra carbs on me the night before.
But it was just cutting out the cutting out the junk basically.
And you know like it might sound really bloven but my kind of go
to would be like chicken, rice and veg or mince and rice and
veg and my body just got used to that.
And you shocked your body back into the 50 mile weeks.
As you say for people that don't know Stevie, you have got 2 very
young children the to the point they're still needing a get
help, get dressed and things like that.
You know, they're that young. How do you get the discipline?
It's not even about motivation at that point.
How do you get discipline to go and do those runs or fit the
time in? Well, first and foremost, the
one, the one golden rule, whenever I sign up to any sort
of event and I speak to my wife Debbie about it, the one golden
rule we've got is it's family 1st and training 2nd.
And it's got to be that occasionally, occasionally
there's a bigger run. So occasionally, you know,
there's a. In your peak weeks, there's
maybe like a 35 mile or a 40 mile run that you know, like the
one you look down your training plan, you're like, that one's
going to suck when I get to that one.
But occasionally those ones, like I've got to do them on a
Saturday during the day. It's just not practical to fit
it in. But aside from that, it's just a
case of getting up early in the morning and getting out and
doing it. Now.
I was, I was really fortunate with this, this training walk
for the West Highland Way baby had to have some pretty major
surgery back in January, which we knew about and it was
elective and we knew it was happening.
So I kind of fitted my training and roundabout that for the
first month or so until she was fully mobile again.
But then she was off pretty much for the rest of my training
block to the cover, which for me it meant I could, I could always
guarantee time in the morning. It was just a case of how early
did I want to get up, You know, my base runs were about 8 miles.
So I needed just over an hour to do that.
So it's, it's not actually that bad.
And in my longer runs, I would just get up early in the
morning. And if that meant getting up at,
you know, 5:00 to be or half four to be able to do it at 5:00
to give me 3 hours to go for a run and then be back, get
Sherwood, get the dog, get get the dog out, get Sherwood and
then sit down at my desk for work, then that's just what you
have to do. A mindset wise, what got you out
of bed? There must have been mornings
that as you say, it sucks. The training's not.
It is not easy. What?
That's what I think. That's what people would be
wondering at. Something I wonder.
Partly, partly just the accountability side of it.
You know, every day I was posting up.
So all the way through the block I would have, I was, I was doing
six days a week for my runs. And so I would start on, you
know, let's say week 1, I would put up a post West Highland way
week one, day one and then next day, week, day, week one, day 2
and so on and so on. So there was that kind of
accountability of if I don't go up and do this, I'm not, you
know, there's going to be nothing there.
But then I guess the, the biggest thing for me was it
scared me like the West Highland Way genuinely scared me because
it was just so far into the what unknown that I didn't want to.
I don't want to turn up at that start line and get found out.
You know, I wanted to get to that start line.
And I know that, yeah, it's 95 miles.
It's a long, long time on your feet.
The stuff out, out with your control that could happen.
But I wanted to get there knowing that I deserve to be
there at that start line with everybody else and I deserve to
have a fighting translator. I think a lot of people say that
social media is bad, doom scrolling and all that, but I, I
think if you use it correctly and you're an example of that,
using it for accountability, making people aware of what
you're doing, and then you've got to answer for it even.
Nobody probably cares if you failed, but you care that you
don't want to show that on your Instagram.
Yeah, and that and that's, that's what I say.
If people, if people message me and say, oh, I'm thinking about
doing it. The one thing I say is, you
know, document what you're doing.
It doesn't have to be public. It doesn't have to be like I do
where you're posting stuff every day, but document it somewhere
so you can look back and you can be like, well, that day, that
day was hard that, you know, that was the rain was coming
sideways. But I still got up and I still
got out there and done it. And if you are, you know, if you
are doing it publicly, then the only people that are going to
judge you are the people sitting at home doing way less than what
you're doing. Nobody's going to criticize you
for getting up and going for a run.
And then one of the biggest transformations, I was gobsmart
when I seen you posted a real days before the West Highland
where they start. Your physical results of that
entire training block were absolutely phenomenal.
And people come up to me and say how wet, like they recognize you
from that real now of the transformation.
What was that like for you putting that together?
So that that and again that that was that was something that
before. So that video was taken just
before it was the end of November and I was just out for
a run one morning and I think I was recording some footage to do
a kind of end of month summary. And I put the drone out beside
me and just started running. And then I seen it afterwards.
And that's the point where I was like, I need to do something
here because I was, you know, in the nicest possible terms, I
turned back into a big unit again and I was just bouncing
along the road. But I had that video, and I
would watch that video on a regular basis throughout my
training because I would look at it.
And I was like, I don't want to be like that anymore.
And then as I got towards the end of my training, I thought,
I've still got those shoes. I've still got that T-shirt.
I'd thrown out a lot of T-shirts, but I was like, I've
still got that one. I'm going to go back and just
put the drone in the exact same position and run down the exact
same bit of road. And then just like between it.
Because, yeah, I mean, for for me, like I would, I would notice
all the differences. Like I say, I was getting
faster, I was getting lighter on the scales.
But I think for me, when I seen that transition between the two
of them, it was like, you know, you, you've put the work in
here. You deserve to to go and have a
track at this now. And going back to your training,
you were obviously restricting calories to lose weight.
Yeah, but during your training, you have to eat more.
So what? What kind of things were you
eating during your training runs?
And how did you balance the calories?
Yeah. So, so like during the training,
I, I always take approach of when it comes to an actual run,
I don't care about, I care in terms of making sure I'm getting
enough, but I'm not counting that towards what I'm eating
that day, if that makes sense, that that is fuel for them.
And then I'm going to bone through doing, doing that
activity. So for me, my go to as Tailwind,
that's I'll pop that in bottles. I spoke to a friend that was
doing an Ironman years ago and that's, and this was before I
done Glasgow to Edinburgh. And I was like, how do you fuel
for an Ironman? Because the thought of having
gels for like, you know, having 12 hours, I was like, that's,
that's not going to work for me. And they put me on the kale when
so I thought, well, I'm drinking fluids.
I might as well get some carbs out of that as well.
I do still have gels. So, you know, if I'm going out
on a, a shorter run, maybe I'll, I'll just whack a gel in and,
and take that. And then I've dug these out.
I'm really on board with these for for fuel loading though,
which for anybody not watching as nailed scummy clusters.
I am a complete convert to them though.
And again, it was another another friend who runs my I
think she's done the kind of 6 weather majors and she, she was
talking about them on a training run Monday and she pointed out
that a bag that size with 113g bag has got 90 grams of carbs in
it. So yeah, you didn't get to my
size without having a sweet tooth.
So for me that was that was perfect.
I got to run and I got to eat sweeties as I was running.
So try them on the training run. Haven't looked back.
Well, I'm I'm sure the question that everybody's dying to ask is
what's your favorite flavour? Oh, the berries one, the blue
one, the berries one. And it's The thing is, I'll go,
I won't, I won't take them all. I'll only take them on bigger
runs. So if I'm going out for a couple
of hours, I'll just take a bottle of Tailwind and maybe a
gel and some salt tablets with me.
But if I'm going out for maybe anything over 3 hours, I'll take
some. You know it's going to be
clusters with me. And you only realize that if I
don't finish them, as soon as I walk back into the house,
material comes bounding up to me asking for the candies because
he, he loves them. And if he sees me like I had to
go and sneak these out in the Cobb, he doesn't know where I
keep all my tail wind. And he doesn't know that at the
back of it there's a whole pile of nerds in there.
Because if he finds that out, they're gone.
Well, the collective noun a pile of nerds.
Yes, yes. Sorry, Mike, what gels is it
that you take out with you, Stevie?
SIS gels. So SIS beta gels, you get about
40 grams of carbs out of there and it's, it's like quite it's
it's palatable, you know, it's, it's not too, it's not too
thick. Yeah, it's quite, quite easy
just to stick one of them in your mouth and get on with it.
A lot of people were having them or not having them on the Great
Glen when I did it a few weeks ago.
So I I got to try them for the first time and yeah, I would.
Do do them. I I tried some vumbas during my
training and then I decided I wasn't going to go with them
just because I had I had nailed. So I think the good thing about
having an nails is you know, you can eat that over the space of
an hour. So it's just keeping your
stomach switched on over that. And also normally, normally what
I would do is I would go, you know, everyone would be
tailwinds and then our two would be something that I was eating,
whether that's nails or whether that's going into a checkpoint
and picking up almond fingers or something like that.
But it just, I felt that as long as I was alternating, then you
basically you're giving your, your stomach something to do.
If you're never, then you're giving it a break, then you're
giving it something to do for an hour and then you're giving it a
break. And it just keeps keeps any GI
issues away from me. So were you quite confident that
your stomach was adequately trained by the time you got to
the start line? Yeah, yeah, I knew.
I knew I had a bunch of bunch of things I could eat.
Like I say, I had almond fingers that I was going to have them at
checkpoints. I actually had them on the devil
and one of my my drop bags started running with them and I
thought I'll get, I'll get to the bottom of the devil's
staircase and I'll leave my almond fingers going up there as
I'm hiking. That all makes sense, but on the
day they were so dry that I thought I'm actually drinking
too much food here to to swallow these and that's going to
compromise the best of my rundown and it can walk leaving.
So at that point I decided no, almond fingers are definitely a
checkpoint thing where I don't have to worry about using water
that I'm going to take out on the on the course with me.
Keith Russell, well respected backyard runner.
Yeah, that. That's his secret sauce.
Apartment Keith. It was Keith.
It was Keith that put them, put me onto them.
It was Keith that had them at the Wild Heart runs.
Wild Heart Runners Run in Glencoe.
So you get to the start line of the West Highland Way, the rest
that you'd planned for for such a long time.
How did you feel? Nervous to start off with like
you, you, you would see me driving in the car.
I was kind of at that point, it was very real.
It was, I'd seen all the photos from previous years and the
videos from previous years. But, and I'd been there, I'd
actually been to the being at the start a couple of times just
to do like outbacks or even 2 weeks beforehand.
I'd I'd actually went over at 1:00 in the morning and I'd run
with a friend from there over to Balmaha just to simulate what
that's going to feel like at that time in the morning.
But when you get there and everybody else is melting about
and the banners are up and the startups is there.
Yeah, that was that was a bit different.
What was it what you expected? Yeah, well, I would say it was.
And I think the nice thing was because of the, because of the,
the online community, you, you kind of made friends with people
that either people you, you knew or names you knew you'd been in.
I've been in touch with him through a training block.
So when I got there, there was friendly faces that, you know,
we were all in this together and we'd all been through training
together and we'd all been sending each other messages.
So that kind of just settled the nerves a little bit.
I went off to the car to try and get some sleep, but it didn't
happen. Like I think in future for us to
do it, I would definitely take earplugs with me because
everybody's mopping about and it's just just that hustle and
bustle about about the car park. I think if I was to advise
anybody I would park somewhere else.
There's plenty of car parked throughout my guy.
There's only 10 minutes walk away and getting that peace and
quiet is probably worth it. Yeah, you know, I'll lay there
in my shop, but I didn't get any sleep.
And then we get you to the start line, give you a hug, say good
luck, Stevie, Away we go to go and watch world run off.
What was that moment like when you're in the pen, so to speak,
just about to go? Again, it was, it was, it was
good because I was there with my mate Kevin Craig, who again, we,
we'd shared a lot of training meals and Kevin had done it last
year. And Kevin was one of those
people that had inspired me to, to go and do it this year.
So it was nice just having Kev there and I just kind of calm
things down. And then before you know it, it
was just like, it's 1:00, let's go.
And then running up through the the Main Street and, well, guy,
that was unbelievable. Just the amount of people there
and the carpet and the cheating and and yeah, like, like I said,
I'd done training runs in the dark on that section and I grant
it in the day. But suddenly you're there with
what, 250 other torches all over the place.
It's just that it's hard to hard to explain what that feels like.
And when I was there, it's probably first time in about
maybe six years and that there seem to be a lot more people now
or this year than back then. It's it's especially compared to
like the first time that I did W Southern Lake.
It's just I guess like running in general.
It's just exploded, so that's what the atmosphere was like
there. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was
easily lined 2 or 3 deep the entire length of the the Main
Street until you you turned off onto the actual start point of
the West Island way. And and you get the impression
that wasn't just support those that were there, it was people
from the town that came down. It was people that came out from
the pubs to see or people that came out and then hung about to
see what was happening. It was just a really, really
nice atmosphere. So you get to the start point,
the official start, you all turn off, you go down the rewind a
bit and then you're on your way up to Mug Dock.
Is that when you can all then just kind of sort of settle
down? That's the excitement of the
start, it's done and you're just getting into your groove at that
point. Is that right?
Yeah. You see you're just trying to
settle into it. I was running with with Kev at
that point. So we kind of we both had a
rough time of when we were going to get to to Balmahar and we
were both in kind and rough ballpark each other.
So we said, let's just let's just go and run this section.
I'd actually, I'd run that section.
McCabe back in January, complete freezing conditions, 7:00 in the
morning, head torches on MEST and fog everywhere.
So to share that again with him when there was head torches
everywhere, like it was just it was severe, like you were almost
having to be super carefully where you where you were putting
your feet because there were just so many shadows and so many
lights all over the place. But yeah, it was just settling
into a groove and just try not to get.
I was determined it wasn't when you get sucked along at somebody
else's pace. And I'd said that to Kevin as
well, obviously, like if you're, if you're going a little bit
fast, and I feel this is a little bit fast, I'm just going
to let you go because I've made that mistake on the devil this
year and bumped into your friends between maybe like a
mile and 1/2 hour side of Taint Drum.
And I got sucked along to Bridge of Archie doing like 8 minute
miles, which almost wrecked my race before it even started.
So I'd I was very determined that I was running my own race.
But yeah, just, I think you could just feel the excitement
and, and everybody, even though it was a massive destiny still
to go, everybody was, yeah, just really excited about it.
So you get to there's a road section, yeah.
And then you get to Drummond. No, no, no major events during
that. Just.
No, no, just just being sensible, just just taking my
time on the hills up through, after, after darkness and then
through, through drumming fine and then up into the forestry in
the back of drumming. And I was actually feeling good
at that point. And I, I think myself and Nikki
had been near God for about a month ago, maybe before the
race. And we'd, we'd hate a fair bit
of those hills. But I was feeling fine.
And I thought, you know what, I'm just going to crack on here.
And it was actually going up through there.
I remember it, it was half three in the morning was it was, it
was about half three in the morning.
And at one point I turned my head torch off and I'm like, you
don't need your head torch anymore, but you could, you
could comfortably run with that. I put it back on just in case,
but you're just running along. It was just one of those
mornings where you could see a little bit mist hanging about
and it just, it felt good. And did you clock the creepy
figure that you and I had seen it?
Was it? Wasn't there?
So on on the day that myself and Nikki had run from Gartness over
to Balmaha, one of the baggage companies for the West Highland,
we had dragged this baggage cart out into the forest and set up
with a high vis vest on it and some zombie mask on it.
Now fortunately when we got there, it was for maybe half
seven in the morning, 8:00 in the morning, so it was light.
There was also a group from the West Highland B Facebook group.
There was also a group who had been out at one O clock that
that morning and had ran from the start over to Balmahasadiki
Mitchell start at like you know, 3 in the morning when it was
pitched black. I think their reaction was a
little bit stronger to her reaction to it.
So you're coming up over at CONIC, how was the the new steps
down from CONIC? It was, it was OK, Like I, I
knew I wasn't going to be running down them.
Maybe the maybe the top third until you get down to like that
reviewing platform that sits out on the on the right hand side of
the path if you're coming down. I kind of ran to the air, but
then the bottom 2/3 of it, I just took my time.
You know, I was, I wasn't here to compete.
I was here to complete it. I wasn't going to win my race by
running down there, but I couldn't indeed my race.
So I just took my time and then got off that and got down to the
checkpoint. And what wasn't the key waiting
for you? She was, she was there captain
and then went down and got covered in magic spray because
they were out and baiting. But it was a relatively quick
checkpoint. I was just, I was just picking
up some stuff from there and then heading off.
So it's pretty, pretty clean sailing.
Up the Robert Dennen, which we've already talked about
because something significant happened there.
But as I said, we'll, we'll move on.
We want. The the most significant thing
that happened there was my breakfast roll that the girls
had brought me. So they've got a roll, A roll
rolling sausage with potato scone and it was amazing.
It was something I wanted to do, just try and reset my skinny and
Riddle and convince myself that it was more than time.
So had that brush my teeth afterwards and I was like right,
OK, now it's now it's time to go out from a morning run.
And I was just trying to get that reset and and forget that I
just ran through the night. And for us, it's true, it was
important for us to get you ready because we were well aware
that from river then and. To Octa Tire, you had a
checkpoint in the middle of that at Inversnade as well, did you
not? Yeah, it.
Was inversnade in been glass? That was going to be the longest
stretch that you had of the whole race where you weren't
going to have a crew last year, so we really wanted to get you
set up and off you go and that would have been your longest
section. Yeah, Yeah.
No, it was, it was definitely. I know it can be a pain for
tours to go along that single track Rd. to get there, but it
definitely made a difference having having somebody there and
rather than just picking up a drop bag because, you know,
especially at the, the kind of the middle of the Pike when I
was running, you know, it doesn't really make a difference
to me taking some time to to set to have that breakfast roll.
But it made a massive difference to me to have that breakfast
roll, if you know what I mean. It just reset me and got me
going again. People have asked us as well
since like if you had like crew and advice, I would actually say
to them if you were really really bothered, you probably
actually don't need need crew at Balmaha.
But I would say it's probably more important as you're saying
if you're mid pack or near the back, I would say it's more
mentally important rather than to get.
I mean, you can come through Balmaha, you've got the water
tap, yeah, just at the bottom of the car park.
So if you know, if you do need to top up your Floyds, it's
something you could do yourself. You wouldn't absolutely need
somebody there. But then like you say, it's a,
it's a, it's not so much distance wise that it's a big,
it's a big section, but it's time wise because of the TV that
you're then running over once you leave, leave there.
I don't know where the mandatory checkpoints are.
It used to be Balmaha was a mandatory checkpoint.
That could, that could actually be a point.
That could be a point that you might have to have somebody
there. And I think Robert Dennon,
you've got the option or used to have the option of drop bags.
There, I think, I think you're right on that one, Mike.
I think you're right. So yeah, don't listen.
Don't listen to Nikki's advice. Yeah, best advice is to Jerry's
pack. Always follow the rules that are
written down, not the ones that Nick here telling you.
Yeah, don't do the ones that make up.
So we, I'm sure you were fine at River Denon, it said.
Off you go, Stevie, where you go.
What happens then? Yeah, headed off towards the the
Wool Road and actually bumped into another runner, Blair from
Edinburgh, and we pretty much buddied up for the next 30 odd
miles at that point. So he'd never been through the
Wool Road or through Lockside. So as it was, we just, we just,
we were just running within each other's vicinity.
And then he turned around and he asked if I knew somebody from
Edinburgh that was running on the devil when I did.
So at that point we realized with the mutual friend and we
just, we just ran with each other, just just chatting away
and we were keeping, keeping a good pace.
I didn't feel like I was getting dragged along and I didn't feel
like I was losing time. And it was just nice to have
somebody else there to get through that section.
Just take your mind off what you were, what you were running
through and must need, must need was fine.
I had a change of socks there, not that my feet were wet, but
they were a bit sweaty. So just changed my socks and
then off we went to to be in Glass.
And yeah, I think what walks either.
I had been through it beforehand.
I'd been through it before the race, but it was just
oppressively warm and muggy. But that point the sun was up
and I'd been quite fortunate because of the because of being
warmed and being on the East East bike, The sun had to, if
you imagine the sun had to get right up in the sky before it
was actually getting onto us. But by that point it kind of
clouded over a little bit. But then the flap sink and that
was, it was just sealing all the heat.
And so, yeah, it was muggy as hell going through that section.
And we, we had the discussion beforehand about lock side.
Yeah. How, how much of it have you
been on before or was it a surprise on race?
Day No, no, so, so, so the one thing I I've made the mistake
and that this is going to sound crazy compared to what we're
talking about just now, but I made the mistake on Glasgow,
Edinburgh of not raking the whole route.
And I know that sounds crazy because it's a it's a canal.
It's perfectly flat, but I hated I hadn't wrecked the section
from on left go to the finish and I hated coming round the
corner and not knowing what was next, just not knowing where I
was in relation to where the next checkpoint was and things
like that. So ever since then I've always
said if ever I'm doing a race and I can get to the course
beforehand and I'm going to go out and wreck it.
So I made a point of covering the entire West Highland way
before race day. And for for that section of the
walk side, what I actually done was I went to bean glass one
moment, ran S to end the state and then turned around and ran
N. So I actually got to see it from
both sides, which was beneficial because there's certain sections
where when you're going north, the obvious route, you know,
you'll maybe get to that way. That kind of the path splats
between some rocks and you you'll maybe go north.
You look at and think, well, the obvious route here is to take
the left hand side and go round. But then what that would
ultimately mean was you're maybe stepping up like half a meter or
75 centimeters at the five ends and you know your knees are
coming up above your hips to get to get up and over that.
Whereas running S we could actually see that the obvious,
the running S, the obvious pass with them to take the other
side. So if we just try to take these
notes off all right, when I get here, I actually want to take
this little step up here. That doesn't seem doesn't seem
like the obvious way to go, but what that's going to do is then
save me scrambling up rocks at the at the far end of this path.
Yeah, it was it was definitely beneficial to to go and do that.
And then just kind of knowing like once, once we got up to
Dario's post, knowing what was still to come and where you
could run to then get down into being Glass, that that
definitely helped. So being last, probably Midge
fest again. It it was, but I tried not to
hang about too long there. I did did take advantage of the,
the glorious toilets they've got there and then just grabbed my
stuff and got up. And you I knew that once you get
what couple of miles out of out of in glass, you then take that
out on open, open farm lands. And then that point, the
breezing then kicked in. So the midges weren't really an
issue at that point. And then you didn't, you didn't
have your support crew along that way.
But how were the volunteers? Volunteers were brilliant, like
you, you, you walked into any checkpoint and straight away
they were getting you to to tap in.
If you were grabbing a seat, they were straight over and
asking what they could do in terms of filling things up for
you. Yeah, they were just, they were
brilliant. But again, now having
experienced the whole thing, I would expect nothing less
because without even knowing the volunteers, I know in my head
that some of them will have done it or some of them will have
cured or some of them will want to do it next year.
And that's what we're doing this year, helping out everybody.
I think most of the volunteers, they've run it before and
they're doing what they want to be done to them.
If they were running, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
No, that's that, that definitely shown through.
I mean the likes of those checkpoints where it had drop
bags. I would have to get my tail
window to then fill my, put my Tailwind into my bottles to then
get my bottles filled up. And straight away, as soon as
people seem that I had to be funnel to do that, they were
like, oh, I'll do that for you. And they would just try to take
my bottles off and be like, right, there you go.
That's it. So just just not even having to
do that made a massive difference.
And then you're up there, the next midge fest of Oxford Tower
Farm. Yes.
And there are glorious toilets there.
I didn't fortunately, I didn't need to go to to those toilets
at that point. But no, that that was nice.
You know, just just to get to your to and know that you've
then got at that point in my head, it then became a series of
smaller, smaller social grounds. I won't try to explain it like
Nikki tried to explain it on the previous episode, but we had, we
had a plan laid out. And the, the one thing that I
was advised beforehand was take, take two runners with you
between each, each checkpoint, at least two runners with you.
Because then that way if you get, if I get myself into, you
know, into the pain caver, get myself in a dark place.
I've not then got a support runner who's talking to me and
getting 0 back from me. Because like, I've been there.
I've, I've been out with, with friends that I'm trying to pace
to a 10K time or a half marathon time and they're struggling and
I'm talking away. And you just feel like, am I
saying, am I saying too much here?
Should it be quiet? Am I going to, you know, so the
idea was if we had at least two other people with me, then we
can all chat with you. But if I didn't want to say
much, they could just chat and the conversation could go
between them and I could jump in and jump out of it as as I
pleased. So yeah, that at that point it
was just a bunch of a bunch of small social runs with my mates.
And then there's the the crew can park at Hindrum, but I don't
know if it's a checkpoint there. It goes a different way.
It used to go past the by the Way campsite, but it goes the
other way now. So you're not doing the river
crossing, you're actually going through the village has Brodie
store, which back in the day you used to always go and get an ice
cream from there or your crew wood and they would have your
your ice pole or something ready for you.
I think it was a day that you needed that.
Did Nikki provide one? Well, there was ice poles.
I don't know if it was Nikki that provided them but there was
ice poles when we got to Bridge of Orki.
But what I had said at that point, obviously the rest of the
crew were joining us. So what I said to my mate Stuart
was he, he was driving up in the afternoon and I'd said to him on
the Friday when when we seen the temperatures, I said look could
you go to the shops and get me 6 bottles of 500 mil, just 500 mil
plastic bottles of water and freeze them for me overnight.
And I said I don't care, he's got refresh in his car.
And I said I don't care if they melt.
The plan is when I get to to your car at a time drum, what
we'll do is we'll take that bottle, we'll slash it opened
well, we'll pour the water into my hydration pack and then we'll
slash it open. We'll just take that frozen core
of ice and we'll pop it into my hydration pack.
And I think that was the best call I made all weekend.
At that point, every checkpoint I got to, we just went through
the same routine into the whatever water had melted and
then popped the the frozen cloth into the back.
It served 2 purposes. 1, it froze the water, kept the water
cool in the back as I was running.
So you know, you would take the first, first drink of water that
would be in the tube that was exposed to the sun that was a
bit warm, but then it was proper ice cold water you were getting.
And then the second advantage was it was sitting on the back.
So it was killing my temperature down as I was running being that
that made a massive difference, especially at that point before
2-2 in the afternoon, half, two in the afternoon.
So the temperatures really starting to build.
And then through bridge of our key and up to the your 100K,
your big Yep, your Instagram name and of course the the the
best unofficial checkpoint of the whole race.
Yep, 100K. What did that mean to you?
It meant everything to me because regardless of what
happened at that point, regardless of how far I got on
the rest of the course, I had hit the goal that I had set 18
months ago. I did leave me with a dilemma
and I've still got it that I'm no longer 100 kilograms and I've
ran more than 100 kilometers. So I now need to come up with
some sort of new Instagram handle.
But yeah, no, just just getting to that point.
I mean, the Jelly Baby wasn't reason.
It was a purple vamp to Jelly baby, before you ask.
And it's I've seen the packs since then and I'm like, no,
they're sacred. I'm not buying them.
I'm just going to keep the memory of that.
But yeah, no, from that point onwards, it was like I said, in
my head, I'm like, I'm getting to the finish line.
But something had happened over the, you know, the next 60 KR or
50 KR, however far it was. Then I had, I had, I had, I had
went as far as as I, I'd not wanted to, but I'd, I'd take
that goal that I'd set last year.
So yeah, it was good. And.
At that point, still moving at a really good pace as well along
the the. That's because I hadn't got into
Ranakamura yet, and I think it was Ranakamura that then
destroyed my my heels over the next kind of 7-8 miles.
So was that just the the terrain, the constant boulder
field as you're going? To yeah, so I think it was just
the terrain where I was, you know, just with just with the
boulders, I was maybe putting my foot down and my heel was just
kind of landing on the edge of a boulder and then slipping off as
I was what, as I was then planting it down.
And I think it was just that rubbing on the on the kind of
outside of both heels. By the time I got to Glencoe, I
had always planned to change my socks save anyway, and my socks
came off and Nikki and Donna both kind of went, oh, and at
that point I thought, well that's, that's not good.
So so yeah, we had some running repairs at Glencoe to get me
patched up and get me back out again.
It was quite good 'cause we fed you at that point as well at
Bridgewater went before you'd got there.
We had a mini crew meeting to the side, right.
Glencoe does a cafe there. I wonder what we can buy you
because at that point it's going to be dinner time.
You'd said about pedian rhythm, so right, we'll try and get you
something to eat. At which point I then phoned
Stevies wife to say right, we are going to deviate slightly
here. What would do?
Would they like to do Bug girls going to be too heavy and Debbie
had to say absolutely not one or you know it won't go off the
plan and we ended up giving you silver noodles.
Noodles. Yeah.
And I'm glad you did because the combination of just having some
hot foods and just getting the salt from the the noodles into
my system, that that really helped.
And again, as as Casey as it may sound, I knew that when I
stopped at going home, my temperature was just going to
plummet. The sun was still there, but
there was quite a basic Glencoe. So, yeah, I'd already thought
about that. I had a wee puffer jacket for
me. But one of the things I said to
all the cure beforehand was, you know, nothing's out of bounds
here when it comes to checkpoints or whatever I want,
you know, take, take the photos. If I look in a bad way, still
take the photos, take the videos.
And I'm looking at a photo of me at Glencoe and I look like I'm
broken. At that point I'm just sitting
there with my hood up my my jacket on, just trying to get
these noodles into me. But it was exactly what I
needed. I'm glad.
I'm glad he's all bullied me into eating food from that point
onwards. What's fabulous about that photo
is, depending on who you show within the running community,
one person says, oh wow, that looks very Barkley Marathons,
and another person says, my God, he looks homeless.
A little bit of a a little. Bit of B, but going back to,
well, I guess it's Glencoe, but Runic, you said that you had
heel troubles. Was it blisters or do you think
it was to do with your plantar fascias?
No. It was definitely blasters.
It was definitely, definitely blasters because when I had
planter, it was on the inside of my arch where this was on the
outside of my heels. And yeah, I mean, it just, it's
just, it was just from that movement every time I was
putting my foot down. And then we put we put some
competing, some bandages on it. And I think from that point on,
once I was just very careful about where I was planting my
feet, which meant that some sections were slower than than
nobody like them to be, especially in the last stages
going to pull over by like more, you know, it's just a border
field going through some of some of those bits.
And I was just trying to pick my waist all the way through it.
But yeah, it was definitely Tibbing that caused the issue
rather than any existing issues. And then we got you all patched
up, good to go, got your back on your feet and you had three
support runners. I think we gave you a bonus
runner. And yeah.
Yeah, so at that point, Sketch was he was all in.
He was in from Otter Tire to the end.
He wanted to do that and he's the sort of me that in previous
events when I've been going on record and he's the sort of guy
that can send a WhatsApp message to say I'm thinking about going
for a long training run and he's in before he even knows where it
is or how far it is or how long it's going to take.
So when he said he was doing the full thing, it was like that.
That's fine. And then we had Donna Duncan
came and joined me at that point, which is amazing because
Donna's, she's completed it twice.
She's got that experience. She knows what I was going to
feel like at that point. And then the bonus was Gemma,
Gemma Holloway, who had already ran with me from bridge of Orca
over to Glencoe. But then on your way over was
think she was asking is it OK if I join you on this next bit?
And the whole, the whole point for me of, of getting everybody
involved was these are all all friends who have apart from
sketch, these are all friends who have ran ultras in 11 shape
for another one distance of another.
And at some point, whether you'll want to admit it or not,
they're going to think about doing the West Highland way.
They're going to think about stepping up to that distance.
So I wanted them to experience it.
I wanted them to be part of it. And for Gemma, we, we, the last
time we'd been running together was at the wild heart runners
running Glencoe back in March. And the weather was atrocious.
I think it rained for five out in the six hours we were out
there. And we'd actually ran over to
Ken walk even turn around, came back up the hill from Ken walk
even. And it was getting to the point
where I was thinking, depending how high we go, we go back up
here, we may end up in the snow lane because the the weather had
really set and Gemma was freezing.
I was freezing. It wasn't nice.
Had had there been a, a car at the bottom of the Devil's
staircase that day? We really jumped in it and and
drove back up to Glencoe Ski Centre.
So when Gemma suggested that she might want to run that next, but
I was like, absolutely, because I want you to have a positive
experience of going over that section again rather than her
lasting memory being it's cold, it's rubbish, I really want to
do that. So yeah.
So Gemma joined us going up, up and over the staircase.
And at that point, it was like 11:00 at night.
So it was something that dark and the head torches were on.
It was just, we just got around. It's one of my favorite views on
the West Highland Bay. As you're dropping down the
other side of the staircase. Was Kenwalg leaving you come
round? I don't know.
I don't know what the lock's called, but it's a lock off to
your. The reservoir kind.
Of reservoir, but it's off to your right hand side and then
you've got the I'm guessing what must be part of the mountains
that make up the ring of steel in front of us.
And at that time of night, it was just all these layers of
mountains appearing in front of us because the light was just
starting to go. It's.
Yeah. I love that section.
Absolutely I. Think it's Black Water Reservoir
and the pipes that you see going down to Kinloch.
Right. So that's where that feeds in
from. OK, OK.
So did you get the chip shop and Kinlochleven?
No, no, we were too late for that.
We were too late for that. But that was that was never on
the plan. But I think we get into
Kinlochleven, must have been close to midnight because I
remember my brother sending me a text message saying if you hurry
up you'll get lost all those at the pub.
So it must have been coming up on midnight by the time we were
getting down there. And yeah, got got in there, got
myself sorted and yeah, it was just a case of getting back out
and trying to get up on to Lavik more.
And how does Lavik compared to Ranek?
It was different in the dark. So I I've been through a couple
of times in daylight on record runs or in the devil.
I knew that I just had to get up the zigzags.
And then I also knew there was another couple of kilometers to
get up and get over the kind of the the top of that claim.
But yeah, the, the hard thing there was just the under foot
conditions, just the rocks and obviously it's, it's always wet
up there. It doesn't seem to be, doesn't
seem to be matter how many weeks ago it was, it last rained.
It's always, there's always water flowing, flowing through
there. So yeah, that that was good.
We got through the air, got to the final checkpoint that went,
I'd already said like we're just going to, we're just going to
keep on going. Just tap in, tap out, push
through this and let's just try and get this done.
And for most of the race so far, it'd been but 20 something
degrees. It was.
It was spot 19° at start and I don't think it dropped below
that after that. And how?
How was it for your last section?
So for the when we were in the checkpoint at Kenwalk leaving,
the staff had came over to us. The volunteers came over and
said, look, have you got wet weather kit with you?
Well, yeah, got a jacket. And you're like, have you got
full wet weather kept with you? And I, I remember saying that
I've got it in the car, but I'm not taking trousers with me.
Like, you know, I'm not going to run in trousers.
And you're like, you might need them because at 4:00 you're
going to get torrential rain. And I did kick in my head.
I'd made the decision that had they been telling us that about
Omaha, it would have been completely different.
Of course I would have taken it. But I thought we're so close to
the finish. We'll just we'll just crack on.
So we got up to the Atlantic more and we're just coming
through Windavra and it started to get light at like half three
in the morning and we're like I remembered actually, Donna said,
well, that's it. We've you know, we're broken the
back of the second night. That's us through it.
We're going to this will be good going forward.
So we get through Windavra, get up towards the Navis forest.
So kind of up about what is it about 1000 foot or something
like that 1100 foot. So you, you're fairly high up
and then it starts getting dark again and we're we're looking
about and we're like, OK, but we keep on running.
And then I caught something that called me my eye and I thought,
you know, I'd already had hallucinations, but that point.
So I didn't really, I didn't really think much about it.
I was just like, now just keep running.
And then about 1520 seconds later, there was just this
rumble that filled the Glen. And I thought I just had that
moment in my heart sinking thinking, Oh no, here we go.
But we just kept going. And then a couple of minutes
later there's another flash and we all stopped and wicked each
other. And instantly I started going
1234. And I'm counting to see how far
away this was. And it was 15 seconds away.
It's all right, let's just keep going.
And within the space of 5 minutes, it went from being like
15 seconds away to being like 6 seconds away.
And at that point we decided, no, let's stop.
Let's get a wet weather kettle and let's got jackets on because
this is coming. And we still had, we had what,
910, nine or 10K to go. And again, within the space of a
couple of minutes, the rain started.
And I have never seen rain like it.
We went from having a bone dry trail in front of us to not
having a trail, just having a river that we could run through.
On the plus side, it meant I picked up the pace like nothing
at all because I did not want to be there.
I I I'm perfectly fine with Thunder and lightning in a safe
environment, but I don't like it when there's exposure.
And for all that being nervous was not nearby and the hills
roundabout is where we're higher.
All I'm thinking is I'm running along with a stupid selfie stick
stuck onto my, my pack here. And yeah, I, I just wanted to
get, I just wanted to, I, I knew I had to get through the forest,
drop down, come up water mail and hell onto the fire road.
And then at that point it would start losing height
significantly as we as we got down it.
And it was just a case of get to the fire Rd. get over the chest
of that. And then I'll feel a lot safer
once we're starting to go down. But yeah, at one point you're
you're running along and you can actually see the lightning
strike and the the hell that we've got to run up on the fire
Rd. on there was a yeah, several words screamed that I won't
repeat on a family friendly podcast.
But yeah, it wasn't, wasn't, wasn't the most enjoyable
sectional section of the course. But on the plus side, I think
with the with the water running through all the puddles, I just
at that point, I didn't care about my blisters.
I just wanted to get down off. That hill and you, you just
brushed over that you had hallucinations.
Yes, go back. What were they?
So coming out of the Vendavra checkpoint, you kind of come up
here, there's a wheel that goes up, you go through a couple of
gates. Now again, I know this, I've ran
it three times this year. So through one gate, through the
next gate. And then you go up on one side
of the hill and I looked over to the other sides of of the hill
that's only like 100 foot away. And I said to sketching and I
was like, lick all those sheep. And they were like, what do you
mean, Steven? I said, look at that line.
The sheep. That's amazing.
How are they doing that? And in my head, I could see 300
or 400 sheep that were moving down the side of the hill in the
opposite direction to where we were going.
So I'm moving one way, they're moving the other way.
I can hear them. You know, they're all bleeding
away and sketching down. I say, wherever you seen these
sheep. And I'm like there.
And they're like, Steven, that's a stone date wall.
And I'm like, no, but I can hear them.
And I said, you know, look, look, 50 yards in front of us,
the six sheep by the side of the the side of the trail.
But in my head, this was 300 or 400 sheep, all perfectly in a
lane moving down the hill towards the checkpoint.
So, so yeah, at that point, I then didn't start to trust
things. So when that first flash of
lightning went off, I was like, no, I'm just imagining that.
That's fine. Just keep going.
I think Skecher called in a video and sending it to the crew
chat screaming we're all going to die didn't help either.
Yeah, I, I actually tried. I tried to get my phone out.
I wasn't keen to get my, my
selfie camera out. I didn't really fancy running
along holding something in front of me that that was definitely
not going to happen. But I tried to get my phone out
just to record how wild it was because at one point, even with
my head torch showing, I couldn't see more than 10 foot
in front of me. The rain was coming down that
that hard and the phone, the phone wouldn't unlock in that
those conditions. But it was wild, absolutely
wild. And.
You must have felt safe for having Donna and Sketch there,
because that would have been scary.
Yeah, yeah. So the boy, we, we actually
overtook a runner who was on her own just going up through Lavick
Moor. And we said to her, we're like,
are you OK? Like, have you got a couch?
She said, oh, no, no, I don't. I want to do this myself.
And you know what? I've got the absolute respect
for her for doing that, but I would not have wanted to be in
those conditions when that storm rolled in if I was online.
And yeah, down Glen Nevis, along the road, yeah, to the the Nevis
Centre. Yes.
Back, back in, back in the olden days, when I did it, you stopped
at the leisure centre. Did you even?
Do you even know about that? Do you give it a passing glance?
Do you even care? I I knew about it.
I knew about it and obviously it's now the finish.
It's the finish for the Devil in the Highlands.
So I must say I was glad when I got to the bottom of the
Braveheart car park and I didn't have to go up to hell at the end
of it. But yeah, no, we'd we'd said to
everybody on the queue, we were like, if you want to come and
meet me at Braveheart car Park. And then as a coup, we'll run
that last minute and a half together.
And again, that was me wanting to these guys had gave up their
their entire weekend for me. I wanted them to feel part of
that, that final, final minute and a half, you know, for the
likes of Nikki and Donna, not Nikki, Nikki and Gemma and
Sketch. I wanted them to experience that
and plant that seed of them, them being the runners when they
get to that point and how that how that's going to feel, you
know, run by the run by the leisure center.
And at that point, I'm not going to lie, I was more interested in
how we were going to get across the road because I had worked at
the traffic lights. And I swear to God, there was a
swimming pool of water either side of those traffic lights.
So we ended up jumping over the roads just a little bit further
further up from there and then drowned towards the towards the
finish. Line I can tell you that wasn't
a hallucination. There was actually swimming pool
of water. No, there was because as we were
running along, there was a car. We, we go, God, maybe just just
about a couple of 100 meter, 100 yards shy of the hospital and
there was a car coming the other way and I was like, Oh no,
they're going to completely soak us here.
Turns out it was my my friend Kev that was in that car.
So they gave us away bath and tooted the horn.
But yeah, it was just nuts. The amount of water that had
came down onto the on the roads and onto the hills and and that
short space of time. So next next step is you are in
the never centre through that archway.
How does that feel? Job done.
Job, job done. But also just trying to keep my
emotions in check. So on on one of my record runs,
I had deliberately, I ran over from Glencoe and I had AI had
Nicky and KFC and I'll go up Co hell, go up Co hell, go and do
that. And I was like, no, I want to
experience, I want to run this whole thing right up to the back
door of the Navy Centre because then for the rest of my training
block, I'm going to have that, I'm going to have that memory
and I'm going to visualize what's it going to feel like
when I get to do this Andres day.
So to come round and see those doors open and then suddenly go
through those doors and that that's it, it's over.
I'm there. I've done it all the four FS and
the butts and the maybes that could have happened over the
last 95 miles they've gone. I've, I've got there and I've
done it. And I went up to the the
finisher board to get my photo taken and sketched, whips out
his camera and starts taking the video.
And I look back at it now, I can see the moment where it could
have went either way for me. There was 1 moment where it
could have all came pointed out and I could have broke down just
in just in sheer happiness of it.
But yeah, I managed. I managed just to to suck that
back down and just just kind of take it all in and and realize I
got there. And then next day is another get
the crew involved. Everybody's there when you go up
and get your your little crystal goblet.
Yeah, yeah. Have you used it?
Yet. No, no, it is.
It's still sitting right here in my office where each of the
kids, may I add, but I've not used it yet.
And I, I think it's going to be, I don't know, it's going to be a
special occasion that I, I get to use it.
But yeah, just, I think, I think for the, you know, for me, it
was the last 20 hours. All anybody had talked about on
that course was getting your God what?
Get to the end and get the God what?
So, yeah, to get called up in front of everybody again, that
that was just kind of it, that the icing on the cake.
And it comes back to what I was saying about I didn't get the
the whole concept of the West Highland Bay family, but going
up and and doing that and having the entire hall going mental for
you and everybody cheating and clapping.
But it's just, yeah, it makes you feel so, so special.
And I love the fact that the way they do it, where it doesn't
matter if you are the first person to get your goblet or the
last person to get your goblet, everybody gives as much
enthusiasm for every single person that goes up there.
So same again next year. I have, I haven't decided what
I'm doing next year. I'm going to get the, I've still
got the, the fine to do. So ultimately the, you know, the
goal for me this year, once I get into all three, the goal was
the Triple Crown. So I'll get that out of the way.
And I have gone back and looked through my Strava activity and
I've looked at bits where I'm like, I wasted too much time in
that checkpoint. I wasted too much time here.
So that tells me all I need to know and I will be involved
somehow next year. And if it's not running it, if
it's not curing it for a friend, then it'll be volunteering
because I owe that to everybody that helped me out this year.
So yeah, I I'll definitely be involved one way or another next
year. And I, I think that the next
question that Nikki's got down now that we're back on the
question set is what is your biggest running achievement?
But I, I think, I don't even think we need to ask.
That no, no, same as same as my favorite niece.
It's the West Highland Bay, you know, in terms of, you know, if
you want to take it back to to basics.
It's the furthest I've ever run. It's the longest I've ever I've
ever been on my feet. It's the longest training block
I've ever done, is the hardest thing I've ever done.
So yeah, 100% W Highland Bay. And post event, just going
slightly off the question set, Sorry Mike, have you had any
post race Blues from this? I, I've not, and I think I've
been quite fortunate about that. I see, I see a bunch of folk
online and then the West Highland Way group saying it's,
it's hitting them hard. But again, for me, because I'm
doing the the Triple Crown, then I gave myself like a probably a
week of just not doing anything, just maybe went to the gym,
jumped on a bike and spun my legs once and then slowly came
to ease. Once my my heels had recovered,
the bristles had recovered. The slowly started easing back
into things The week after that, just getting some males and my
legs again. And then last week I started my
training plan for the fighting. So I've just, you know, I've
just kind of shifted to that push has been good.
God knows what's going to happen come the end of September once
the thing's out. I mean, I think at that point it
will just be, you know, there will be a massive hole there.
But yeah, it's been nice not to have have those Blues because I
could totally understand how that would feel if, you know,
you're building that big thing and then it's done and it's
like, what do I do now? And you?
Had your week off? Yeah.
Did the weight go up? No, no, my weight's continued
to, to go down, which has been good.
And I think that's just the, the habits that I've, I've formed
over the last six months. But yeah, I just, I'm, I'm back
into it now and just back into that kind of mindset of you're
getting up to do the meals in the morning.
So don't be wasting it throughout the day.
And the next question that we have on the formal set is why do
you run? Why do I run?
I run because of my daughter. So my daughter was this.
This is I say I don't run because of COVID.
Like a lot of people started running, but I actually got back
into running properly because of something that happened during
COVID. My daughter turned up 1212 about
weeks early, right at the start of COVID.
So she was born at 27 weeks and 60s and she was a wee tiny
bundle of skin and bones. She was 2 lbs six oz.
She spent what the best part of three months in the local
neonatal unit and without even knowing that she smashed every
single challenge. It was put in front of her.
Everything that she had to overcome, she's overcame.
If she she came busting in this door behind me just now, she's
just a normal B5 year old. But at the time, it made me
think, well, if she can do that without even trying, what can I
do if I start trying? And again, I was, you know, I
was way overweight. I was out of shape.
And I thought, let's, let's, let's do something here.
First and foremost, it was to raise money for the neonatal
unit. It was to raise funds for them
because they got us through what could have been a traumatic time
in our lives. And it wasn't just us.
It wasn't just Nova they were looking after.
It was us as well. We would got to visit them and
the staff would pick up on what we how we were feeling.
And before you know it, they'd be like, I think you should go
and have a word with Jess, who is the unit psychologist.
And he'd be in speak speaking to the psychologist who'd be
saying, OK, staff have noticed that you're doing XY and Z or
you're saying this and that, you know, are you feeling this or
you're feeling that. So they were looking after us as
well as looking after a daughter.
And so yeah, raise money for the unit.
In fact it was run the Blades. I went back to do at the time of
afternoon, joked it was going to cost me 26 miles.
But he's not going back and doing Run the Blades and raised
£1600 for the unit. And at that point I'd got myself
back into some sort of reasonable shape.
So I was like, well, do you know what I was?
I was an older dad, Nova was when Nova was born, I was 40.
So I wanted to think, well, what happens when she's 10 or when
she's 15, when she's wanting to, you know, when she's she's 10
and I'm 50 and she's saying, right, come on, dad, all my
friends are going to go wait, can I go go wait with her?
Well, in the shape I was in, I probably couldn't do that
because now it's like, why I want to be in that condition
that no matter what she wants to do or a younger brother wants to
do, I can go and do these things with her.
So yeah, that's that's my why for reason my why for for
running. And the the next questions
probably related and I think between your 100 KGS and your
daughter and might answer the question, what do you think
about when you're running? It's, yeah, it's, it's a mix of
things. Sometimes I go out and I just
don't think. Sometimes I, I go out and I'm
just, I just run to get away from, let's say get away from
daily life, but just to switch off.
Like running is my time that nobody can interrupt.
If I want to go out and switch my phone onto silent and I can
just run you for two or three hours, then it's, it's my time
to do that. And it can be the exact
opposite. Sometimes I can be, you know,
dealing with an issue at work, dealing with a problem, and I'll
give them at work and I can't figure it out And I'll, I'll
finish at 5:00, go off, not really think about it.
And then the following morning I'm out running and suddenly it
just, it just comes to me. It's like, why have I not tried
this or why have I not tried that?
So. It can be a mix of things, but
it's, it's not so much what I think about, it's more just
it's, it's my time to to process whatever I need to process at
that moment in time. And you mentioned that you have
got Fling coming up to complete your Triple Crown have.
You. Thought any other events that
you are either running or volunteering that we're going to
see? Well, I've got run the Blades
this weekend, so Friday night I'll be over at Whiteley
Marshall in at the 10K and then I'm back over.
It's their 10th anniversary. So I'm back over on Saturday to
do the 50K. And I'd put, I'd put my name in
for that on the basis of I'll see how I was doing after the
West Highland Way. And if I wasn't doing great, I
would drop out and let somebody else come in from the waiting
list and I would just volunteer all weekend.
So yeah, I'm going to be doing doing the 50K there and then
popping back over on the Sunday with the kids to see some of my
crew who are doing their half marathon, namely Nikki and Stu.
It'll be good to see you and definitely yeah.
And following on from that, have you got a dream race or a race
on the bucket list? For all that I have talked about
trail running and ultra running for God the last ever in a bit,
I would love to take off one of the World Majors marathons just
for the experience of doing it. I don't, I don't know.
I mean people say it's too busy and all the rest of it.
I'd like I said I put my name in for London 10 years in a row and
never get in. I'd like to do one of them in
terms of ultras, you know, something like the marathon, the
Saba or or something like that, like a, a multi day event.
And again, it's just that next thing of I know I can go and run
for 28 hours. I've proved that to myself, but
how could I cope with running for five or six hours day after
day after day with that built up fatigue?
I'd like to experience something like that, but with the cost
involved in some of these events, that would be bucket
list stuff. You know, it's it's hard to go
and justify that when I've got a young family and that money can
be spent on memories for them instead.
Well, you did joke about Kate Brath the other day.
I know, I know, I know. But I think Gary Dempsey hit the
nail on the head with that one. Go and volunteer at it for a
year and basically earned your credits to then go and run it
the following year. But the kids are way too young
to do something like that. It's, you know, you're away for
what, an 8 day event plus a day either side of it.
It's yeah, it's too long to be away from.
Them and the next question it it can be a a hard one to ask
depending on the answer. Who would you like to run with?
A live? Not fictional.
Not. That this one's easy.
There's, there's nothing hard about it.
I want Nova to get to everything's birthday and go and
do a marathon with her. So what we do just now is it's
completely her choice. But what we normally do Fridays
or the day that I always get to do my long run.
And whenever I get back from that, I always make sure I've
got time for her to pull on a rerunning shoes and a rerunning
top. And we just go just now we're
just going for a real lap around the street and we just go out
and we do that. Hopefully that's a bug that
bites with her. And I think the next stage is to
get her along to one of the junior partners and see how she
gets on there. And hopefully that's something
that she'll get involved with other brother as well.
Her brother's three years behind her.
But yeah, it would be my dream to go out and me be fit enough
to, to go and do a marathon when for I'll be 58 at that point
when she's 18 and hopefully she gets the bug that she wants to
go and do it. I mean, she's she's just so
supportive of everything I do just now.
She's always asking questions about it.
She she knew I was running the West Highland Way.
She was telling all our nursery teachers that her daddy was off
to run the West Highland Way. And I actually had to clarify
with them that, you know, I was running.
That wasn't just walking over the space of five days.
She had no concept how far it is, but she she knew all the
points on it. So I'm hoping that, yeah, by the
time she's 18, we can go and share 26 miles somewhere.
Well I think by the time it gets to her 18th birthday save and
the way your training is going, you'll probably still be PB and
by that point. Oh, yeah, no, I'm going like if,
if, if both of them get involved in running, I'm going to
physically dominate them for as much as, for as long as I can.
That's, that's the ultimate goal with my training.
Let's not lie about it, but yeah, no, if, if I can pass this
on to them and get them involved in it, that would be my dream.
And I think your daughter's obviously inspired by what
you're doing at the moment. So hopefully she'll keep a hold
of that until she's old enough to appreciate it.
But the the trick that I find with my daughter is make them
think that is their idea that they want to run, even though
you know, find that you're wanting them to do it.
Yeah, no, that's that. I mean, that's that's what what
I do just now with her Friday morning run and you'll be always
be. I come back from, you know,
Friday morning there it was 2020 miles and she's ready to come
out and then just plant that seed of right.
We're not racing here. We're just going for a wee run.
And then they go off and off she goes flying away.
And then we've got some trees, just the trees, and we play park
in front of us. And we came round on Friday
morning. We finished the road run and I
was like, you know what, Nova Daddy normally runs on trails.
And straight away she was like, I know some trails and she took
me into the woods round ground it.
So yeah, it's just planting that seed and letting the hard right
the hard way. To me, that's definitely the way
to do it. And I think that by the time
Nova's 18 and the way your training is going, you will
still probably be P being high that point because you're
absolutely smashing the training, the fitness that
races. So they're you're doing amazing.
Yeah, well, well, that's not like the only reason I'm doing
this is so I can physically dominate them out running for as
long as possible because it will the road come a day for they're
going to start beating me and I will happily pass that torch
over to them. So unless one no when you go
Nikki. I was going to say, unless Mike
has any more questions, I think that wraps up our question set.
Brilliant. I think it is and it just says
thank you Steve B for joining us.
Thank you Nikki for being Nikki and it's goodbye for me.
Thanks Stevie for coming on. Thanks for having me on guys, I
loved that.