Hello and welcome to another episode of Run Till You're Done.
This week's guest has got a fascinating run in history and
as one of Scotland's finest ultra runners.
Not only that, he is a coach and a mentor to the next generation
and adults alike. Welcome to the show, Robert
Thunder. Thank you very much, Nikki.
Using my Sunday name as well. Enjoy it.
Hi Mike, how are you? I'm.
Very good. Thank you.
Get right to the point. First question to ask everybody
is how did you get into running? OK, so I've I've had a go at
this twice in my life as a as a teenager, the village I was
brought up and it was a small mining village in South
Lanarkshire and had a rodent and club.
All the adults that a lot of Rd. drawing.
You can imagine all the short shorts in the 80s as well and
they're really tight vests and the silver shadows.
I think the Nike silver shadows is what they all wore rather
than this Nike would you got nowadays the vapour flies and
alpha flies and all that. It's all silver shadows.
So if a guy set this up and I had so much energy, my, my
parents just said that when he kicked you along to the kids
section. And so yeah, I took it, I went
along and absolutely loved it straight away.
Lots of like, like now a lot of people with their own sort of
mindset, you know, So it was good for that.
And, and then we eventually the, the adults would go away to
races all the time, half marathons, 10 KS all across the
country. And they just take all the kids
with them and we'd all go and do the fun runs and things like
that. So there was nothing like track
or anything that involved. It was always just a bit of road
running about how running as well they did about how running
down in the Borders because we're quite close to the
Scottish Borders. In fact, actually one time one
of the coaches who used to take us to Broughton every year, the
Broughton Hill race, every year we would go for maybe 3 or 4
years and then it was the only time we ever got a minibus.
And it was only when we got older we realized that this
coach would put 1516 kids on a minibus, take them down and do
the hill race. He'd go off and do the adults
when we'd do the kids Hill race. But everybody got a bottle of
beer regardless of what age you were right.
Everybody, of course the coach comes out in the minibus at the
end. We're all like, we look at our
bottle of beer and you say, sorry kids, you have to give me
your bottles of beer. And so we all of us have to give
us this coach all of our bottles of beer.
So he he made that one for sure. And that was the only time we
ever got a mini bus anywhere. Every other time it was parents
taking us and things like that. So, yeah, I mean, it's good fun.
And then I started I started racing track at school and
things that as well, because I'd started running, I thought I was
about joining the particular high school as well, going and
doing the school sports and seeing how that works out and
end up, I don't know, winning, winning school sports races.
And I started doing sort of Lanarkshire schools side of
things, 815 hundred things like that.
And then I started, I was like doing quite well, podium at
Lanarkshire schools, things like that, you know.
And then the coaches at the club weren't really track coaches and
so they suggested that I try and reach out to somewhere else to
get a wee bit additional coaching.
And so I went to Falkirk, Victoria Harriers, a coach
called Willie Sharp from there. And from there on I just started
just going stratospheric. It was obviously completely
different training, completely different coaching.
I was training like 7 * a week, which is probably a bit too much
for a 15 year old when you think back.
I certainly wouldn't have my daughter doing that now, but
training was good, the coaching was great.
I ended up, I was under 2 minutes for 800, just just over
4 minutes for 1500, hi eights for 3K and things like that.
And but I've actually, funnily enough, I've had my identity was
a distance runner. I'm a distance runner, I'm an
800m runner. It was this time of Overt Cram
and Tom McKean and Cole and all those guys.
So that's where we all wanted to be.
But it's actually 400 meters that I won and the Scottish
indoor champs at the old Kelvin Hall in the late 1980s.
So yeah, it was a 400 meters. I can remember standing in the
podium and this we guy from main in South Lanarkshire main
village standing in the podium. All these kept on standing next
to two guys who are in full Scotland kits.
They'd obviously been selected for Scotland in the past.
I was like, oh, I've made it. Now these two guys are are
Scottish level athletes. But that was also the same year
that I completely gave it up. 1989, I completely gave up.
I've had the summer season. I've started working in the
supermarket. My pals were all going out at
that time. You know, you're 16 years old,
everybody starting to go out. So I was like fear of missing
out. And so, yeah, sort of starting
out drinking with pals, smoking, partying, you know, late nights,
all that kind of stuff. And then I gave up probably the
tail end of 1989, went to uni the next year and all of that
just got, went exponential. You know, it's I think for the
next, for the next 10 years, it was just party time.
And yeah, I'd always done a lot of, always done a lot of sport
Despite that. I mean, I still, I didn't run
anymore, but I'm played a lot of 5A side football, the martial
arts for about 5 or 6 years. So I tried to keep sort of that
despite my smoking habit, drinking habit, recreational
drug habit. But I think, yeah, I spent,
yeah, probably 10 years or just doing very little.
So that's, that's like #1 we got time for number 2 and then met
my wife in my late 20s and we got married.
Trying to settle down a little bit more.
And I've been putting on a lot of weight.
As you may expect, you can only get away with drinking lots and
what having eaten the wrong foods for so long, it just
eventually just sort of catches up with you.
And then I was also, I'm, I was a contractor for a lot of years,
like self-employed contractor. And I was working down in
Newcastle at this time. And there's a guy at work called
Joe massive hell runner from Yorkshire deals and he was
running every lunchtime. I think I remember one day
sitting in the office bragging about how good I used to be.
And he said, well, can it be me then let's go for a run.
And yeah, yeah, like on in, let's do that.
And so put on an old pair of trainers.
One lunchtime went out with Joe and this guy's a 35 minute or he
was a 35 minute 5K guy. He's not.
He's not slow at all. He's really quite sharp and a
great hill runner. But I remember we did 2 miles on
the old wagon way behind our work and I was absolutely
breathing out my backside. I was so unfair.
And I think, yeah, that was, that was a real eye opener about
how unfit actually was me thinking that I could retain
some kind of level of fitness over over the years.
But I was, I was, I was done. I was just, I was lying on the
ground and we got back and he said like, why don't you go out
again tomorrow? And then, yeah, OK, my legs
recover. I'll I'll come out with you.
So we did that and I just kept going to run in with him and
then started entering races down in Newcastle.
And, but we then eventually we'd get most lunch times and we'd
run from sort of long bent in the area of where my work was.
There's a little wagonway that runs to the, I think it's called
the Rising Sun Country Park, runs past the, the Newcastle FC
training ground and stuff like that.
So we did that every day and just started building up
fitness. As you know, as soon as you
start building fitness and you drop all the bad habits, your
energy levels, your fitness levels just all start rising at
the same time. And so yeah, that's, that was
my, that was my return to my return to running.
So I've got Joe to thank for that.
How long do you think that it took from being not not so fit
in however you want to put that to thinking I'm I'm getting back
into this now. Yeah, I tried to have a think
about that. I mean, I think it was probably
I, I entered a race called the Clive Cookson 10K and Whitley
Bay Joe was doing it anyway and he says come along and do this
race. And I think I'd been running
with him for about 6 months or running a treadmill in the gym
or doing a do not be a bit of work maybe four or five times a
week or something like that. He just come along and do this
10K. So I thought, yeah, I'll do
that, why not? I was so nervous.
I can remember standing in that line thinking how nervous am I?
This is ridiculous. I've done a lot of races in the
past. I don't know why I'm so nervous,
but I ended up running 40 minutes for that race.
I would say maybe about six months and to make probably 6
months. And was that your first race
back the second time round? Yeah, it was.
And actually I went back and did
that race a couple of years later after having got properly
back into running again, I think around 33 minutes.
So it shows you the a wee bit of commitment can return good
results. It's a great race, great fun.
It's like a Wednesday night 1, you know.
So I was down there Monday to Friday.
I used to come home at the at the weekends and there's loads
and loads of stuff going on down there.
There's a really big running community in Newcastle and the
surrounding areas. It's got really big run in
history, you know, get more path Harriers and or crams from down
there, the clouds and another family of runners down there
that are quite famous. So there's a real good
atmosphere for all. And you said it took you 6
months to get back to sort of fitness, but how long does it
take? We're talking about second time
round because you were obviously the first time round.
You're saying about your coaches and stuff that they were pushing
you to the second time round when you were doing it as an
adult, you were doing it because you wanted to do it by, I mean
running. How long do you think it took?
Or was there a moment that you thought I'm actually quite good
at this? Yeah, maybe I'm actually quite
good at this. Yeah, I don't like talking about
myself like that. You know, I actually, by the
time, you know, I did these races down in Newcastle and I
would race up here as well when I was home at the weekend, you
know, Glasgow Half Marathon and things like that.
But I probably just put myself in the bracket of averaged to
decent club runner and I probably still, I'm not going to
average the decent club runner when it comes to the sort of
shorter road race type stuff. I probably wouldn't class myself
as a decent runner until I moved to ultra, which maybe I could
speak a bit in a bit, but I certainly as a as a road runner
coming into 10 KS and what have you in my 30s, I just, I just
thought I was just, I was just kind of average.
I didn't think anything of it. But I have to say that, and I've
had some half decent results. I was never worried in the
podium places then. I was never worried then, never
worried the podium places at all.
And maybe in the top ten in races or what have you.
But around around 2008, yeah, probably about 2008, around New
York Marathon in 2007 and 2008. I thought something needs to
change here because I think I was just running myself ragged
trying to get fit or trying to get faster, and I was probably
doing the whole thing all wrong. So I started doing a bit of
research and sort of coaching methodologies.
So I started looking at, you know, the usual suspects after
Lydiard, Renato, Canova, Berman, Jack Daniels, all these kind of
people who were all, all there at the time.
So I tried to absorb as much as I could from them.
But then I used to be on a forum called Let's Run.
I don't know if you've been on it.
It's horrendous. You can go completely anonymous
on it and the stuff that comes out of there's awful.
It's like what X is like now. So I was on the air and I came
across this coach called himself had HADD, but his name is
actually John Walsh. It's a Maltese chap.
I don't think he's like, he's no longer with us, actually died a
number of years ago. But his, his methodology was,
was all around sort of threshold training before threshold was
fashionable. So it was all, it was like a
couple of, a couple of times a week, you would do a threshold
work and the rest of it would all be heart rate based, easy
running, steady running, but all within heart rate zones.
And of course we all know about heart rate.
It's a kind of latent thing. It's not something you can get
immediate response from, but it's, it's like a guide, isn't
it? It's not a, it's not a definite
thing, heart rate. And you don't really know what
your Max is really to be honest. And this is all based off your
Max heart rate. You can get a good idea what,
what a Max heart rate is, you know, for a hard 5K or a hard
male race or something like that.
And so I started training around what this coach was, this
coach's philosophy. And then in 2009, I've done a
lot within the train all over the winter 2008 and 2009 and the
half marathon season started and I went up to Inverness, that
Inverness half Marathon, I can't remember what position I was,
but I ran 72 minutes. I thought, Oh my goodness,
what's happened here? Like I was 76 before, 77 before,
maybe 75 at my best, but I just knocked 3 or 4 minutes off my PB
for, for running easy essentially for the whole
winter. And then again, just maybe early
April 2009, I went, I'd entered the Edinburgh Half Marathon and
that was, there's a company who used to organise the Edinburgh
One in the Dunfermline one. Now this year they called it the
Chris Hoy Half. Chris Hoy had just won 1000
medals at the Bhaijian Olympics and he's in Edinburgh, born and
bred lad, and he was coming down to do the presentation of the
prizes and all that kind of stuff.
Now I was also going on holiday the next day, we'd friends
staying with us and we were going to Norway the next day for
a skiing and snowboarding holiday.
And we'd kind of worked out that we'd need to do some like 75
minutes, 76 minutes so that we could get away back to the house
to get showered to get to the hotel.
And so it was all a bit tight and I thought we'll go do this
half mile, then we'll go go on the plane, we'll go away into
our holiday. However, after the race started,
I found myself at the front with a lad from Belgrave Harriers.
I'll never forget the best and sort of famous best, and then
another lad, David Lindsay, who's still running at that
time. And I think by 8 miles I was on
my own in the lead and eventually won the race back in
Musselburgh Race Course around 71 minutes.
And my pals were like, yeah, brilliant, well done.
We need to go. I need to wait in prizes, the
price presentations in like 45 minutes.
And they said we're going to miss a flight.
If you don't, you're going to just go.
We just have to pick it up later.
So I have to go and ask the I went and asked the the race
director. I said, look, we're trying to
get away in a skiing holiday and I need to go.
Could you go and drag us away from all the media stuff he's
doing? Tell me, give him, give him a
prize before I beat ahead. And to be fair, he did that.
So he went away and not got to meet Chris, Chris's wife and all
that stuff. Really good.
So yeah, maybe I thought at that point, maybe I thought I've made
it a wee bit here of 1, quite a big race I suppose and PB time
and I suppose maybe I thought maybe a bit decent now.
And something that Nikki doesn't know back in 20 must have been
about 2013, something like that. I used to be on a forum called
Fetch Everyone and hard training.
There was a thread on there that I used to follow and my heart
rate was all over the place because my history as I had to
have heart surgery. So I was training to my running
friends heart rate. But we used to go into this
thread and follow it religiously.
There was one guy on there that was the he wasn't John had he
was the next best thing. He was Bob.
I was Robert Turner. So there.
You go. I remember that.
Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.
I was quite evangelical about it back in the day.
Makes it works for me. I thought it should work for
everyone. But you know, and I know now
that's not always the case, but and it doesn't work anymore for
me, you know, it was a one time thing.
It's like I was building that big massive base is what it was
all about. And then even John Walsh himself
had himself said you could do this for a certain period of
time, but eventually you'll have a plateau and you need to start
bringing in the more specific stuff that we all know about.
You know what you're actually training for an 800 meters or a
marathon, you need to do that specific work.
But I did all that. I got really fat off just that
training. Yeah, it was good.
It worked for me as well, so. Yeah.
So with a time of 71 minutes, it is unsurprising the year went on
to represent Scotland. So with the process of that, how
did you qualify and what did it feel like to be asked to
represent your country? I mean, I mean, James Stewart
mentioned that on the on your podcast a couple episodes back.
Represent or just the last one? No, it's 2 episodes ago.
Yeah. Representing your country's like
the pinnacle. Isn't it really as the pinnacle
and pulling on that Scotland best for the first time.
So you just wanted to stay on. You don't want it to come off.
You know, it's, it's amazing, but it came a bit later in my
career. I mean, and about unexpected, I
suppose as well. It wasn't something that was
looking for. Well, was I looking for?
No, probably wasn't looking for. I knew it happened, but I
wasn't, it wasn't something that was targeting at the time.
Once I got the first one, I wanted more of it, of course,
but that first time I wasn't, I wasn't looking for it.
I think when I was a younger junior that was like the
pinnacle as well. And then the story I just said
about the standing next to two guys with a full Scotland kits
on, that was a kind of goal that everybody wanted then.
But you know what can life and family gets in the way and these
kind of things kind of drift off.
But I mean, yeah, I didn't really even got back into
running as an adult. I never really thought about
national vests really wasn't what was the front forefront of
my mind. I was just actually just seeing
how good I could get, you know, with training and racing I was
doing. It was just a personal
challenge. And then around 2010 eleven,
probably due to that fetch site as well, making part ultra
running started to become a focus for a lot of people that I
knew and I was still quite quick then.
I was still running fast for me, running fast for races on road
races and what have you and a kind of typical short road race
mentality, quite ignorant to the whole ultra scene, even at that
time. And I was just like, that's for
slow people. That's not for, that's not for
India like me. And and, and you know, and I may
and mine had been at me for a wee while to try altars and I'm
not not interested. It's just for those slow old
people that just leave it to them sort of thing, you know?
Idiot. And then but the same guy said
to me, the same guy said to me, he says look, I'm running the
best time and we in 2013, this was the year before probably.
And he said will you help me out?
Will you come and support me? I mean, yeah, why not?
Sounds like good fun. Sounds like a good day out.
I like that part of the world. And after being a few years of
fairly critical about ultra running, I watched Paul Giblin
and Marco and Sani run that race at 96 miles in, what, 15 or 16
hours, I think at that time. And I just thought you need to
swallow your pride here and you need to take another look at
ultra running because this is not for slow people.
If these guys can do, you know, this is a proper sport and it's
the one, right? And so my mind, you know, my
mind was kind of slowly changing to.
And in actual fact, that same year, probably just after the
West Highland Way, the GO-33 entries opened and my mate
Stephen says that's a perfect introduction to ultra running.
Why don't you go wrong and why do you just enter that?
So I thought, yeah, why not? So entered GO 33 that year,
Devil of the Highlands the next year had a couple of years of
injury and then I think, I think it was maybe 2015.
Yeah, it must have been 2015. I came back to run GO 33.
So I've been out injured for a while.
So it's obviously a good introduction again and that that
I also won, I won the race in 2013.
I also won it in 2015 and it was a different direction.
I think that time though, and and something that will always
stay with me. James was in that race as well
actually, and he was third, but also another guy make you know
quite well who I beat that day. There's another Rob, Rob
Sinclair, and I still say that for all the races Rob and I have
done together, he's never beaten me.
And so I'm proud, proud of that. Very proud of that.
Has to be. It's only that one race we've
been in together, and it was like a long time before Rob came
to his peak. So I've just put that that
caveat. And yeah, I certainly can.
Like he shows these days. My goodness, he's running so
well. I'm just.
Absolutely gobsmacked Rob but the you beat Rob like that.
Rob Sinclair has been beaten. I thought he was unbeaten on
everything and was the trail running Scottish gods of our
community. That was the very start of his
his running career that race and he just he just came out of
nowhere and ended up second in that race and was absolutely
closing me down in the last five or six miles.
According to James, the speedy went past James and I was
struggling, so he was. If the race would have been 35
miles, you might well have won it, put it that way.
I never. But he never he didn't, you're
absolutely right. And the race was only 33 miles
and I won it. Now Rob's a great lad.
But anyway, I think the ACP the following year was in Perth and
again I didn't really know much about it but Adrian messaged me
and said can we go for a coffee? So I went for a coffee across
from his old shop and he just said, you know, how would you
feel about running 100K on the road?
And I said no, I'll absolutely crapping it.
But yeah, why not desperately. It was like, oh wow, you've got
a Scottish best, you know, And that was that was my first one,
2016 Anglo Celtic plate. I'm sure most people have heard
what Anglo Celtic plate is your, your viewers and listeners.
But just in case you haven't, it's a international road race
over 100 kilometres between Scotland, England, Northern
Ireland, Southern Ireland and Wales every year.
And it revolves around different countries every year.
And that year, 2016, it was in Perth.
And so, yeah, I mean, I think to say that you've been called up
and selected for your country, but surreal at the time.
But I mean, it was absolutely hooked on it after that.
It was something that I had to do as much as I could,
especially. I was 2016, I was 44 years old,
4344 years old. I wasn't any young, young
whippersnapper anymore. So yeah.
I'm going to dive out slightly off the question set and sorry
if this is a complete cub ball for you, just the way that the
conversation works. On a personal note, had you had
your children by that point and if so, how did you fit in your
training around working, being a dad's, things like that?
Because that's quite high level. Yeah, yes, I had both kids by
that point. My eldest would have been five,
my youngest would have been 3-2 or three.
And my wife, I don't think, I don't think anybody who's got
young family like that, who also wants to do all well in sport
can possibly do it without a good other half.
And my wife is absolutely supportive of everything that
I've done over the years. And but the other, the other
thing as well, I mean, well, she's been very supportive and
family, it's always family first.
You know, it's always that's my motto.
And I said, I'm sure it's everyone else's.
But what I would do is I just got up early and I'll go and do
the training 6:00 AM. I'll be back by 7:00 or back by
8:00 and then be able to help out and do the dad but as well.
So I think, yeah, I think just arranging your time better.
And I've had to learn to do that much better over the years with
various other things I've been doing at the same time,
coaching, studied for a master's a few years back as well.
So I was trying to slot all that kind of stuff in at the same
time. It's just good time management,
which I've had to become really good at because I wasn't before,
it has to be said. So I think, I think maybe kids
do that to you though, because everything's in a kind of
routine. It's chaos, but it's like
organised chaos and so, yeah, but I think first and foremost I
think you've got to have the support around you, which for
me, luckily it was my wife Lisa. I think you're right with the
kids that although they are chaos, they need to be at school
at this time and there is no option to be late.
They need to do the club at this time and if they're not there
for the club will go on without them.
So you you have to work around their timetable.
That's right. Definitely, yeah.
So thinking about your races, whether you want to say about
normal, say normal races, non ultra races or shorter races or
your diet in general, what kind of thing do you fuel on?
Yeah, my diet is actually pretty good.
My wife again. I'll go back to my wife, her
mum, my mother-in-law is a former home economics teacher,
high school home economics teacher and so everything's made
from scratch and my wife has taken that mantle on as well.
So everything in this house is made from scratch.
There's very little process. Stuff gets bought on a week to
week basis. So our diet is actually pretty
good. Don't get me wrong, I can over
indulge on certain things, but in general it's pretty good and
it usually revolves around training as well.
So if it's a big week, I'll be taking on more that kind of
stuff. But in terms of like racing, I
think I've tried everything and I've never, I'll be honest, I
don't think I've ever gotten it right.
I've never gotten it right and I made I've made massive mistakes
as well. I think I wouldn't one of the
Anglo Celtic place in Wales in 2018.
I'd won it and I thought I'd nailed.
I won the British champs at you'll just say that.
So it's probably always time I'll get this here.
And I thought I'd nailed the the hydration and the food for that
race, which is just gels, probably something like active
route at the time. I don't know what the gels would
have been. Maybe the sort of old sis ones
or something like that. So gels and and gels and
hydration. I thought I'd nailed it.
Won that race by 7 seconds from Anthony Clark that year.
It was the closest that race has ever been.
But I then thought I could take the same, let's just show you
how stupid I am. Then I thought I could take the
same hydration and fuelling strategy into the World
Championships. So Anglo Celtic play.
It was in Wales in March, maybe early, early April.
Typical British weather. It was cool, it was windy, it
rained, probably snowed. And then you go to Croatia in
September and it's 30° and I just, these are the kind of
mistakes I've made throughout my running all the time.
I make these types of mistakes. I thought I'd take the same
hydration and, and fueling strategy and ended up dying to
death about 70 kilometers into the race because I just hadn't
eaten enough or taken on enough food.
And then in other situations, I've had problems with bloating,
toilet stops, being sick, and I've just never got it right.
And I remember James said something similar.
I think James Stewart said something similar.
He's never got it right. And I think I'm pretty much
similar to him with that. It's I remember when I started
out and doing trails and trail and go out for the day on the
trails. I've done an old Richie
Cunningham classic of Mashed potato and ketchup.
And that was actually really good.
That worked really well, or at least I thought it worked really
well. But if you're running it 6 and a
bit minute miles for 6 1/2 to 7 hours, ketchup and mashed
potatoes doesn't go down. You'll be wearing most of it.
And so it has to be gels, it has to be high sugar content stuff.
And I think I've probably got some kind of internal issue that
I can't take that. And I've tried training it, you
know, I've tried all that taking more and taking more and it just
makes me worse. My body doesn't get used to it.
So like I was out for a run today for example, and I had 50
grams of 50g / 2 1/2 hours of carbohydrates and that that
worked well. So maybe I just haven't found
that sweet spot. But yeah, I think I've had a lot
of problems with the stuff and I've tried everything.
I've been down the Morton Precision Hydration Active
route, Tailwind and all the other ones under the sun.
I've spent an absolute fortune. And I think I could, I think, I
suspect if I just went with table sugar and water, I
probably would have saved enough money to take the family to
Disney in Florida. And don't, don't even get me
started talking about shoes in the place of shoes.
Yeah, I've spent a small fortune in hydration and never really
got it right. So yeah, I'd be open to open to
any advice and anything like that with it.
Well, what a lot of people don't realize is table sugar has got
5050 balanced feeding sucrose and fructose.
So if you just put that in your water, which I have done quite a
few times, that is your perfect dual carb intake.
So yeah, why not just stick to table water?
Yeah, table sugar and water. Yeah, that's what I've been
doing for it, just only because a price as well.
Oh yeah, just much cheaper. You know, a bag of sugar is
nothing and water's free and something's a little bit of salt
and got Himalayan pink rock salt stuff that's all ground down and
put that back of that. And then I'll flavour it with
maybe like a little bit of lime cordial or orange cordial or
something like that, just to give it a bit of a better
flavour than just pure sugar. But yeah, it seems to be OK just
now. Certainly not.
I haven't had any problems. Well, I just have to dive into
the toilet today. Actually.
Maybe maybe it isn't working. Sorry, Mike, when you go.
No, I think that is research about how much like I know
people say about training your gut for the high carbohydrate
intake, but there's also is that carbohydrate coming from just
pure sugar because you get GI issues from that as well.
So I don't know the answer to it, but there is research out
there. And that research also, I think
read the research, is the more you take, the less of it gets
used as well. So you could be loading up in a
lots of carbs into the system, but using a less lesser
percentage of it. And where does the other stuff
go? Well, for me, that just sits
about waiting to come out the other end.
That's all that happens to me. And it all comes out at once.
Yeah, exactly.
So yeah, maybe I need to try and find that sweet spot.
And especially if I get back into ultras, which I'm hoping to
do, I'll definitely need to work out what the best way is.
Well, what I was going to say was Mashed potato and ketchup
you've brought. That's a new one.
I think I'd actually take makes to turn a soup over that, and I
don't think I could find anything much worse.
I actually really like that. I like that kind of soup idea as
well. That's a really good one
actually. Especially just get one.
You just pull the ring, you know, you're not having to open
it with a tin opener or you just pull it off and down.
That's a really good idea. I maybe have to think about that
one as well. Maybe waiting in the pack though
so. Yeah, maybe you've got a drop
age station drop. Yeah, a drop bag 1 here.
As Bob said, the mashed potatoes and ketchup, That's a Richie
Cunningham West Ham away special.
Yeah. I mean, there's the whole don't
knock it. So you've tried it, but it's the
thought that's a new one for me. So these mention about you had
the coach the first time round. For the second time round, have
you had a dedicated coach for the Scotland team or have you
been coached with the same person throughout?
So yeah, I mean, no, I was coached as a as a youngster, but
when I got back into as an adult, no.
And I hadn't really considered coaching, but I think, and it's
probably a bit of Barragan. So I suppose I thought I could
do it myself. You know, I thought I'm fairly
bright. I could read up and research and
understand and what I've been trying to apply it to myself.
But I think, I think I've always, certainly now, I think
there's a certain amount of accountability required and
there's you need someone else to look over what you're doing.
And for sure it's not, it's not as plain sailing as you think it
is. But in 2016 I got to the first
Scotland team on my own, just have a moment training and own
own self sort of thing. But I've been injured after
that. And then in 2017 I think I did,
I think I entered the devil and yeah, come back from injury,
entered the devil, pulled out a bridge of Orky, probably more of
a shack, quit. I don't know if you need to
cancel that out because it becomes an Ian.
It probably was more of that than anything else.
I probably just wasn't fit enough to complete the race.
And I thought I was or complete it in the time that I thought I
should be able to complete it. And, and I thought to that at
that point, I thought, I think I need some help.
And at that time and, and still who's the main man in Scottish
ultra running was Paul Giblin. And so he'd had great success
with obviously James and a number of other athletes.
And I thought, I wonder if I just give him a call and just
see what he's got to say and see if we can work stuff out.
And, and yeah, that's what I did.
So I signed up with Paul in late 2017, I think, and he brought a
new dimension, whole new dimension to training,
particularly around mobility work, strength and conditioning.
I mean, I'm in my 40s at this point, so it's probably a good,
it was a good, it was the right time to do it.
And I, I, you could probably ask Paul.
I, I went and did everything to, it's all on training peaks and
everything was green. There would be never a day or a
session that would not be completed by me.
I was absolutely hooked on it. And actually it actually worked
because in 2018, I probably one of my best years, I won the
British 100K champs. I got selected for the GBE 100K
team. I went to Croatia and running
the World Championships. I went to Comrades in South
Africa and did the Comrades Marathon and then I got invited
over to a race in China as well. Expenses paid, all expenses paid
race in China. That was a fantastic year and I
can only ever say I could never have done that on my own.
There was never no way that was going to happen if I'd continued
training in my own way. But by handing it all over to
Paul to arrange and for me just to follow it, I think probably
got to thank him for for all of that to be honest.
And then even in the following year, 2019, I ran in the Anglo
Celtic play again and ran 651 for the 100K again due to polls.
I mean at that point I know I've run 231 at Berlin Marathon when
I was 36 years old and I thought half decent marathon time again,
average club runner can do 231. I actually thought in 2019 I
was, what, approaching 47, and there was absolutely no doubt
I'd have smashed 2:30 if I'd done a marathon that year
because I'm in such good shape. And again, I've got to thank
Paul for that. I didn't do a marathon that
year, unfortunately. I was in too many altars.
But yeah, if I had done a marathon, I know I'd have done
well under 2:30. So yeah, yeah, it was great.
A great experience with Paul. He's such a good guy.
And I was around. I was with actually my whole
whole career up until this point was with, with the pylon outfit
and I became a coach in the pylon set up as well.
But then you know, maybe the tail end of 2024, beginning of
2025, I was just, I had so much going on.
I'd started coaching at my daughter's club outside of my
own coaching with pylon and sort of volunteer coaching.
I still try to finish a master's degree family, my daughters are
now both involved in the sport and other sports that they need
to be ferried around. And something had to give.
And I knew that I could give up the coaching side on the pylon
world because there's a whole suite of brilliant coaches
already there. So any of my guys that were
being coached by me could quite easily move across to the the
other coaches within the within the set up and and get as much
successes that I could ever bring them.
So yeah, kind of amicably parted ways with Pylon from a coaching
perspective and being coached probably about about you just
over a year ago now. But yeah, yeah, you got me in
some fantastic shape. I mean, I can't thank him enough
for that. So are are you still a coach or
is that end of a chapter? It's not.
It was actually the beginning of a new chapter because I started
doing a lot more with the local athletics club.
My, my kids are in different clubs.
So I would help out with my youngest daughters club whenever
they needed me. And I'd, I'd be down at my
eldest daughters club helping out once or twice a week.
And I'd be doing a lot of stuff around like cross country team
management and lots of other stuff, just all volunteering.
But my eldest daughter, she's actually much better than I ever
was, but she was quite good. She's, she is quite good and she
was because of that, the athletics club that she's in got
a really good sponsor behind them.
And they gave athletes who won national titles or schools
titles to give them a grant every year just to help out with
kit, help out with shoes, help out with travel, help out with
race expenses and all that kind of stuff.
And my, my eldest got that for two to three years there, but
she's recently moved club and that new club don't have that
set up. And so I thought, what can I do?
Like Imogen, my eldest has been really lucky and she's been
really lucky to get that grant and it's been so helpful for us.
And I just thought I wonder, I wonder something I can do to
help that not not just her, but help other athletes because I
see other kids that she's running with that don't get the
opportunities that she's had. And so I thought I wonder if I
can do some coaching, give a little bit back to the
grassroots and hopefully help other kids that are at imagings
level help with. Travel kit, shoes, race entry,
anything else, subsistence, you know, just for going away and
staying overnight, accommodation, things like that.
And so, yeah, I set up myself beginning this year, endurance,
edge coaching, anybody's looking for anything and, and it's been
really good. You know, I've got a good bunch
of athletes with me just now starting to build up a little
bit of revenue as well, which I'm hoping to start dishing out
at some point this year. And it's going really well,
getting lots of really good success with people.
So I'm back in that fold again. I no longer have the master's
degree that I need to worry about.
That's done and dusted now. And I've got a little bit more
capacity and I suppose I'm happy to be sort of given back to the
grassroots sports. It's given me so much.
So that's that. That's where I am just now.
So if somebody wanted to be coached by you, how would you go
about it? Just hit me up.
I think that's the phrase the kids use these days or any
social media you can find me on the the coaching outfit is
endurance edge coaching. So on Instagram Facebook haven't
ventured on a TikTok yet and I don't go anywhere near X
anymore. So that's the only two that I'm
on or even get in touch with me How no Bob on Instagram as well
or just any And yeah, that's that's probably the best ways to
get in touch with me. And with your coaching, those
two questions from the back of this what do you enjoy most?
And opposite to that, what do you find most challenging?
Yeah, this is a, this is a good point.
And and I'm probably going to go down the standard, quite the
standard answers for this because I think it's just so
true. But you know, what I enjoy most
about it is seeing athletes achieve the things they didn't
think were possible. And that's really good.
I mean, we spoke earlier offline about an athlete I had yesterday
doing the John Murray Ultra, not for 30 minutes off his time from
last year. He's absolutely delighted with
that. And there's much, much more to
come. So that that kind of stuff
really, really gets me going. It makes me really engaged with
it all and you know, it doesn't matter.
Maybe somebody just running their first race.
Also had a lad who's over in Paris today during the half
marathon. Not really a runner, that's what
he would say. But you know, got, we tried to
get close to two hours. I think he'd done 2 hours, 15
and 2O2 today. Absolutely delighted and I'm
absolutely delighted for him. He took a big chunk off of it.
We started to catch up with him, get a bit of a debrief, so I'll
get that hopefully over the coming days.
And then another, I had another athlete over in Paris today who
has had her problems with injuries and things like that
over the years. A little bit inconsistency.
We've had maybe the last four or five months of consistency.
Nothing too major either, nothing too fast or hilly or
anything like that. It's been Achilles problems that
she's had and then she's not 138 today, so not far away, maybe
5-6 minutes off of where she where her best would be.
But it's just fantastic to see that kind of stuff.
So yeah, that that kind of stuff really motivates me.
Definitely. But you know, like, and running,
running can feel like a really individual sport.
Like we're all that selfish when we go out and do our own
training and what have you. But when you're coaching, I
think you can realise how much project progress from other
people who's built on trust and sort of consistency and training
and good communication. And when an athlete buys into
that and really sticks to the training and, and can see the
results come together on like race day or what have you, or
even just for an adventure, that's probably the most
satisfying bet for me. And also enjoy problem solving.
Sorry, my backgrounds, computing science and my master's with
cybersecurity, I've got a real problem solving background.
That's what I do for a living. That's what I've done all my
days. And so when I get every athletes
different, as you'll know, everybody's different.
Everybody has different Physiology, different
lifestyles, different pressures outside of work, and so you're
constantly having to adapt and change and move and switch
around whatever everybody's doing to try and get it.
So that that kind of problem solving bit of it really appeals
to me. Yeah, sorry.
I'm going on and on here. Those.
Other questions? Challenging part or something
was it? Challenges What the challenging
about the coach? I think probably I think one of
the most, I think one of the things I find really challenging
is managing expectations of, of people.
I think we're kind of well in this kind of world now, isn't
it? So evidence quick when it's like
we all expect really quick progress.
And as we all know, endurance running just does not work like
that. It takes months of consistent
work to see any kind of real progress.
It just doesn't happen overnight.
And I think helping athletes to stay, stay a bit patient, a bit
more patient and trust what we're doing can be a bit tricky
because they want to say, oh, last week I didn't do that
session the same as I did the week before.
What's been happening? Oh, you've been in London for
five days, you've been working hard or whatever, you know.
So I think that that can be challenging, managing
expectations in that way. And I think maybe some of the
other things is actually just the balance of life.
People have so much going on. But like I say, I mean, I like
problem solving. So that kind of stuff.
I do find that I do, but I like a challenge.
I like these kind of challenges. And so, yeah, I think, I think
part of coaching, just them just making sure that running fits
into people's lives in a sustainable way.
And rather than to become a source of stress, another source
of stress, it needs to, it needs to fit into everybody's life.
So these are the challenges. But, you know, bring them on.
That's why that's what I enjoy. And you mentioned that you may
or may not have had some success.
And what was it the British Championships you mentioned?
No, I don't know. Would you say that that's your
your biggest running achievement or has there been something
else? It's right up there.
It has to be said. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was
unexpected and yeah, right up there.
And then filling on our Scotland vest or our GBE vest is, is also
really up there. But actual fact, my bigger run,
my bigger running achievements have actually been when I've
been with the pylon guys. And we've done, and I think
that's been mentioned before on your podcast around the
endeavours it took part in over a number of years.
They're, they're probably up there with the best things I've
ever done. But because they're not for
yourself, we raised an enormous amount of money for charity.
I think the first one was our double West Highland weigh in 24
hours was a really, and I think we raised something like 28,000
lbs or something like that. I mean, huge amounts of money
for such a niche sport to get that kind of backing from the
community. It was just fantastic.
Just the, the whole camaraderie of it as well.
The actual day that it's the day that it happened, you know, the,
the kind of logistics of it all, all that kind of against all
kind of problem solving, you know, and we're all, I didn't do
much of that. To be fair, that time was all
done at Paul and John Connolly and, and people like that.
But I just went, I just turned up and ran.
But I mean, I think those, those endeavours were brilliant.
The Scottish National Trail and that was just wonderful.
I mean, some of the remotest parts of Scotland were in
running. And in the middle of the night,
I'll never forget Marco and I had a section to do.
I think we started at 10:00 at night and we're finishing at
like 4:00 AM in the morning or something.
Like head torches on multiple head torches going over these,
what they're called cable fairies, the wire bridges, you
know, you've got a cable that goes across a river that's in
spate and then another cable up above to hold onto and you've
got to shimmy along these cables to get across them.
These kind of memories were just fantastic and actually had a had
a new the rave. The big, the big rage at that
point was the single skin gore Tex rainproof jackets right now
like £300 and we all got a deal from somewhere.
So we all had these Salomon ones on and they were cheaper than
£300, never paid that for them, but everybody buying these
Salomon ones and everybody was mourning that as soon as they
get in the wind they were getting the Salomon was getting
blown off them because they weren't sealed properly or
something like that. So all the other decals not that
were on these jackets were all flying off them.
Mine's was brilliant. Mine's was perfect, right?
So just as you say my man, wrong mind that mine is absolutely
perfect. Running down.
I don't you know where we were running The middle of nowhere,
trapped in a rock went flight, my face down in the mud.
My watch set off the alarm to send to my wife to say come and
get me because you thought I'd fallen off a Cliff and I looked
down. The only thing was boring me was
a massive RIP in this Cortex jacket.
I was gutted after me moaning their bragging to everybody that
means was stolen one piece and this was all falling apart.
But there you go. But the, the, the endeavours
were, was fantastic and it was all meeting up and, and all
getting together that cut you from the very end of it.
We all had red pylon T-shirts on running along the grass and all
that. It was just, it was a wonderful
experience and we raised a lot of money for charity.
So yeah, in terms of running, these are they're probably my
best experiences rather than any particular race.
And you mentioned earlier on that you were out for a run
today, so why do you still run? This question, you know, I think
it's, I'm trying to think about this today, actually, while I
was out running, OK, but I didn't, you sent me another one.
So I didn't get to think about it that well.
But it's, it's always one of those questions that like, it
sounds really simple, isn't it? Why do you run?
It's like a really simply phrased question.
But I think the answers probably changes a bit over time.
You know, I think initially, certainly as an adult, initially
started just to get fat and you realized how unfit I was and the
sort of bad lifestyle that I had and my 20s and things.
But it quickly became more than just that.
It quickly became more than just trying to get fat and gives you
a sense of structure and purpose.
And, and you've just said about my background.
My background is all about structure and it's all about,
you know, I'm a coder. That's essentially why I'm, I'm
not doing that anymore. I've off the tools these days,
but that's, that's, that's my background.
It's like problem solving structure and, and, and and what
have you. And I think running gave me
that, but also gave it to my other parts of my life as well.
So when I think when running's going well, other parts of your
life go well too and you can bring those skills in to other
parts of your life. And it probably needed it as
well. I think outside of work, I was
probably pretty chaotic, but chaotic self destruct type
lifestyle that I was, I was on. So I think that is really
important to me, that structure of training structures, that
having a habit now, it's not like running's a part of my life
now, it's not like a part of us, it's a chore or anything like
that. It's just something that I do
every day. But I enjoy the simplicity of it
as well. You know, you just stick your
shoes on, out the door, away you go, clear head.
That's what's also really good for.
But I think over the years it's just it's given me some
incredible experiences travelling to races, meeting new
people through the sport. I've got some great memories
from races, events, even supporting great experiences
from coaching, you know, it just gives me so much satisfaction.
Yeah, that's probably why I still do it.
And with you say you run most days, every day.
Do you have a favorite session of type of run that you like to
do it you enjoy speed or tempo? Yeezy Long?
You know, I actually love being on the trails as a Roadrunner,
which I probably am. I've had to define myself as a
runner. That would probably what I'd say
I am. But it's, I think it's a, that's
like because of the situation I'm in, like it's difficult for
me to get to the hills because I've got a lot to arrange
outside of that. And the hills are not close.
The Pentlands are 10 miles from here, so that is fairly close.
But again, it's a 15 to 20 minute journey and if you get
stuck on the bypass, it's three day journey just to get there.
And so I tend not to do that. But I, I think that's certainly
what I'd like to be doing a lot more of, of trails.
But no, I'd probably just define myself as a Roadrunner.
Sorry, I kind of lost the question.
What was it? I'm getting a bit sick.
What's your favorite kind of session for going out?
For sessions, that's it. So probably even come back to
the stuff we spoke about earlier in the hard side of things,
those threshold sessions I'm finding really useful just now.
And I think it's because I'm now a lot older.
Speed work doesn't come easy anymore.
Like really fast stuff doesn't come easy.
And the, the, the, the, the incidences of injuries on it as
well. My hamstrings have been dreadful
for the last couple of years. Just constantly niggling and
constantly injured. And as soon as I go up to any
kind of speed, I can feel it again.
And I just don't want to be out for any length of time.
And so I've kind of settled back down again to threshold work.
And sometimes I've been doing double threshold days and things
and seems to be working quite well.
So I think they're probably my best ones.
Like today I did 36 K yeah, 3637 Ki, did 12 by 2K in the middle
of that with an easy warm up and cool down.
It's my long run, part of my long run.
And I absolutely loved it. I was absolutely buzzing when I
came back last week. I think I did 5K in my long runs
during the week. There's no journey because I'm
doing 5K reps included 3K3 by 5K sort of threshold pace.
I just get a lot of enjoyment and that you get a lot of volume
and without the without the the injury ruinous that I seem to
have. So yeah, I think there's
threshold sessions. That's a short answer.
That's a very long way to say threshold sessions.
And it seems to be fashionable these days.
You know, I've been doing it for, well, since the hard days
make so, but yeah, yeah, they're my best.
Well, you mentioned there you did your long run with a tempo
session in the middle. Yesterday my run was seven mile
run to park run. Did a decent session at park run
and then run home. So yeah, same.
Thing. Yeah, yeah, I encourage my
athletes to do that as well, especially for close to a park
run. You know, within 5-6 miles of
it. I'll do the exactly the same
session. It's good, yeah.
So you, you said that Nikki sent you a question earlier on and
that interrupted what you were thinking about because you are
going to answer the the question that we so you were thinking
about coming on this podcast, obviously, because that's all
everybody thinks about. But when when you're not lining
up to be on here, what are you normally thinking about when
you're running? Oh geez, yeah.
Simple questions. I think of it when I'm running.
Yeah, it's probably, it's probably the same things as most
people, you know, it's like pacing or what session you're
doing have what kind of Rep you're on.
I actually got my arithmetic wrong today, so I counted wrong.
But you know, after two and about hours of hard work, my
arithmetic just goes out the window.
Despite having a background in maths.
There you go. And occasionally question why
I'm doing it as well. You know, I go through all those
kind of phases. I think everybody does.
But you know, I think an uneasy run.
I probably just let my mind wander.
You know, I think we've all been in that kind of zone space where
things just thoughts just roll into your mind and then roll
back out again and roll back in. It's almost like in a Zen, it's
almost like in a flow status that you get into.
And I can never really remember what I've been thinking about,
but I know I got home and I'm happy that the thoughts that
I've been having, I've been good.
So I think that's a lot, a lot of the stuff I do, I do a lot of
easy running. So that tends to be, tends to be
what happens most of the time. But I think, you know, like
during, during this sort of harder sessions, it's much less
philosophical than that. It's, it's usually about how
much longer or God, this hurts or whatever, or how many more
can actually cope with this. Why am I doing this?
I'm so old and so, you know, all those kind of thoughts come into
it. But yeah, it varies.
It varies just like everyone else I think.
I like how you think about your sessions and do run on math
because I think a lot of people do that when they're doing a set
session. Yeah, absolutely.
And you've done epic events. You mentioned Comrades as well
back in 2018. Is the is it a dream race or a
bucket list race that's still on the list that you would love to
go and do? Yeah, You know, I did think
about this one, but I don't need to think about it much.
You know, in 2019, after the ACP, I think I've done a couple
more races that you can't remember, but in November time I
entered the West Island Way and because I hadn't done it before,
but I'd ran up and down that route God knows how many times.
Like I know at the back of my like the back of my hand, either
been in a race or just in training sessions or what have
you. And I was so focused on it.
That's exactly what I wanted to do.
I wanted to do the best time and we wanted to compete.
I was in really good shape. I wanted to see if I could worry
anybody at the front of the race, that kind of thing.
And so much so that actually spent a fortune when it went did
Transgran Canaria 2020 as part of the training for it just to
get some real elevation and then a race environment.
And that was brilliant over there.
I absolutely loved that race. Didn't do particularly well in
it, but against all this mountain goats that blood over
that side of the world, but really focused on the West
timing way. But came back from Grand Trans
Grand Canaria, back from Grand Canaria.
And a week later we went strength to walk down and that
was that. That was a W timing way dream
over. And I was probably in the best
shape of my life. I was pretty gutted about it.
But I've never had the opportunity to go back to it.
I've either been owl injured or I've moved away from ultra
slightly, just temporarily, but certainly that's where I am just
now. And so it's not your Beauty and
Bees or the Barclay Marathons. You had the ladder on last week
speaking about them and then so other ones like Western States
and all these kind of Hard Rock and all that big ones.
I my bucket list is a waste time on me and one year I will do it.
When I get back into it, I'll definitely get fit enough to to
complete it. I might not worry the guys at
the front anymore, but I'll definitely complete it.
Sounds like you're getting back into it and that is your target.
Not at the moment, no. I actually so busy, mate.
I can't afford the time anymore to be out there for six hours on
a Saturday or Sunday or find the time to go away for a full day
just to go in a training session that lasts all day or whatever,
you know? And I love those days that were
absolutely brilliant. I'd love to be able to do it
again and I will eventually, but at the moment there's too much,
there's too much other strings being pulled elsewhere that for
me to do that. So I've got to come back down
the distances a wee bit and training is not as focused as it
used to be. But yeah, it, it will get done
and I will focus on it and I'll maybe go, I don't know if
there's any age group records in there or anything like that.
I might have a wee go out, but we'll see.
Maybe in the next few years I'll be able to get another
opportunity at it have. You done the fling as well, Bob.
I've not done the race, no, But I have done the route many, many
times, yeah. Do you have a favorite half then
because you mentioned about doing the devil, do you prefer
like the fling side or the devil side?
Oh, the devil side, Yeah, it's just stunning, isn't it?
I mean, Glencoe is just beautiful.
So yeah, the the fling, it's OK, isn't it?
It's just OK. That lock side's horrendous, but
some people love it, some people hate it.
I'm in the latter camp. I absolutely hate it.
It's just not my some people have our own knack for this kind
of stuff. You know, I'm not a natural off
road runner. That's definitely not me.
I mean my cross country is diabolical.
Even when I was at my fittest, my cross country's still
terrible and and my trail running is not much better, but
I actually love it more than I do the road.
So hence why that's probably my bucket list 1 and not like I
returned to comrades or some other big Rd. ultra.
Yeah, it would be the best time to me at some point soon.
Watch this space. And next question is, it can be
a difficult one, but we ask everybody, is there anybody that
you would love to run with, either fictional or real, alive
or not? Yeah, there's two people
actually, and they're both alive, as far as I know.
And the first one is Kylie Minogue, or the crushing Kylie
Minogue since I was about 14. And I know she does a bit of
jogging. And so I think it would be great
to get out for a run with Kylie and just see how she is.
But on a more serious side, I think Steve Cram would probably
be the guy I'd like to go for a run with.
And it's only because it's come from lots of people that I would
love to go for a run with, don't get me wrong.
But when I was a kid, Steve Cam was my hero.
And, and, and sort of still as I suppose, although his
commentary's pretty rubbish, he's running was absolutely
superb. Actually a funny story about
him. You know, when I worked in
Newcastle, my wife travelled down one weekend and we're going
to go to Nice on holiday for a few days and finding out a
Newcastle airport sitting in the departure lounge who's sitting
directly across from me about 6 meters away, Steve Cram with an
FT Financial Times paper. Anyway, he was sitting directly
across me. I'm going Steve Cram, Steve
Cram. I was completely starstruck and
couldn't pluck up the courage to go over and say hello or
anything like that. And then my wife said she says
you need to do the other end. He was on the same flight as he
was going. I think he lives in Monaco or
probably around that area or going to visit someone in
Monaco, which is very close to Nice.
And she said, but wait to get to the end when we're collecting
our bags, go speak to him. So the whole flight I was like,
right, right, we're going to see Steve.
How am I going to bring this up? What's my first words going to
be? I was completely panicking about
it. I'm not normally like that, but
it was for him. And he bloody off the plane with
hand luggage and just would stay at the airport.
And I missed him. So I was absolutely guilty.
I was all ready to meet my idol and it didn't happen.
So I'm kind of hoping I might do it at some point.
But yeah, Cam, Cam, all seriousness.
And Kaylee for a bit of fun. That's a fun answer.
I like that. And then if Haley's so slow,
she's she's only small, isn't she?
So you could pick it up. I just put a piggyback.
Yeah. Put in my ultimate direction
sack. Well, that's.
Wait, wait. Well, this is International
Women's Day that we're recording on, so we don't condone putting
people in sacks especially. Well, this week I was.
Thinking about Kylie there, about comfort.
That was all. This week we're introducing a
new element to the podcast, and you have the privilege of being
asked the first question. So this question comes from last
week's guest, Ian Bethune. And what he asked and he didn't
know who the guest was. That's coming on this week.
If you could invent a fantasy race, any course, any format,
any distance, what would it be? And it is up to you whether you
would run it or not. Yeah, OK.
How do we think about this today when I was out my run, because
it actually came through as a message while I was in the long
run in a warm up section. And I don't know if it's your
fault that I missed the one Rep off the end, Nikki, because I'm
still thinking about it towards the end of my arithmetic went
out or not. But yeah, I think, I think I
thought there's some kind of combo type thing.
That's a really good question, by the way.
I really like it. I'd probably start off with some
kind of mountain trail section, right?
Just up in the mountains, get up high, nothing too strenuous
maybe. But somewhere that big
landscape, somewhere, I don't know, for me it would be going
cool, torrid and somewhere like that.
Big landscapes, big mountains around you, something like that.
Maybe a few hidden waterfalls up there, the falls of glomer stuff
up maybe up that area. It's just beautiful.
So up there. And then somewhere in the middle
you have to go on a flat fast Rd. section.
So you have to think about shoes, you have to think about
kit that can attack that kind of maybe a slight downhill just
kind of tempt you going to be a bit faster than you should,
something like that. But I thought I'd also spend a
few obstacles. So maybe like that wire bridge I
was talking about earlier there, the cable ferry, something like
them. They were horrendous.
When we did that, Marco just breezed across it.
I thought I was going to end up in some Firth somewhere, like
getting carried away in the river because I was all over the
place. The whole thing was shaking like
that. So I mean, some of those kind of
things would be great. Nothing too ridiculous of
course, but just some maybe a wee bit challenging and a few
wire bridges maybe to throw in distance wise, maybe 50-60 Ki
think maybe some kind of adventure ultra.
Maybe you could call it an adventure Ultra long enough to
feel like a good day out, a good epic day out, but not not
impossible for for the majority of us and hot.
I think I definitely have age stations out there.
They'd be selling hot chocolate, not selling giving away cake.
Maybe a cheeky gel or two, some chocolate.
And absolutely I would run it probably be a piece that I could
enjoy the scenery and and things like that rather than it being a
kind of flat out race. But I think everybody, I think
it'd be great to have it so that everybody finishes roughly the
same time. I don't know how the handicap
system would work, but roughly the same time at a sunset with a
medal. It's actually like a small
compass or something, or even a bit of chocolate.
Yeah. And maybe have some stories that
they could tell for for years to come.
That sounds like a great race. Yeah.
And going forward for yourself, what's next running wise?
I'm running London Marathon in about 7 weeks today.
I think it might be so, hence why all this threshold, all this
marathon paste work I'm doing at the minute.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
I did Inverness Marathon and September last year and made all
the schoolboy errors that I used to do when I first started
running. So I've got a bit of a score to
settle with a marathon. Going to try and go for a new
age group PB, so we'll see how that works out.
Yeah. And then it probably just be the
summer of short Rd. races and things just to tick over and see
what happens later on this year and early next year.
You mentioned earlier by doing a race in China, all expenses
paid. How what kind of race was it?
How was the Obviously they've got cultural differences to what
we have over here. There's stories about you can't
go in the country without being watched all 24/7.
How? How was that?
It was interesting, interesting country, and it's enormous.
I don't think I'd appreciate it, the scale of it.
I mean, first we flew into Wuhan of all places, you know, where
the COVID-19 apparently started, allegedly started before you get
into trouble with the lawyers. I flew into Wuhan and then we
got into a bus. There's, there was always people
with you, right? There was, there was always
representatives from the the organizing committee around you,
all points or whether they were Secret Service or just normal
people have no idea. But they escorted you off the
plane, basically escorted you into the bus, escorted you to
the hotel, all that kind of stuff.
There was always people around to make and there was always a
lot of people that could spoke, speak really good English as
well with you. But the race itself was
enormous. It was absolutely enormous.
It's one of the big, it's like, it was like comrades.
There was for the amount of people that were in it and there
was a 50K and 100K. And there's a few other people
from the UK over that I knew. Actually Paul Giblin was there
as well. He, I think he was seeing New
Zealand at the time and came over for it.
He'd also managed to get himself an invite to as well.
So it was good to meet up with him of course.
But yeah, I think you were always watched.
The race itself didn't go particularly well for me.
I did the 50K because I've been doing so many 100 KS, my legs
probably wouldn't take another 100K that year.
But the experience was really good.
It's actually funny, we did pay for our flights ourselves and
all the accommodation and travel and food and all that was all
put on for you when you got there, but they reimbursed you
in in dollars, American dollars and an envelope.
That's how you got your fight fights money back.
I don't know what that means. I don't know.
I said I don't really thought too much about it, but it wasn't
like here's a bank transfer and I ban bank transfer.
It was like it was dollars you got back.
It's a bit odd. But anyway, the food was even
older. I mean, I've got photographs of
some of this stuff that you wouldn't, you wouldn't feed a
rat this stuff, honestly. And that's not to say all
Chinese food is like that. I'm not saying that at all.
The hotel we were in, we had aardvark soup, right?
Got images of this stuff. I mean, Paul, I think Paul's
vegan, so he wasn't touching the aardvark soup.
No one, there wasn't anybody else, by the way.
Nobody was touching that stuff. It was great.
It was like green watery. I just, I am not touching
anything near that. But all I saw Polly all weekend
was just rice that was never touched anything else.
There was absolutely nothing else suitable for him.
I don't think I actually much more than race actually, to be
honest. So I'm, I'm sure China has got
some fantastic food. It just wasn't in that hotel
that we were in. But yeah, it was a it was a
definite experience. I think we're definitely always
had company, that's for sure. Everybody you went, it was
company. It was you were never on your
own and the race was super well organized, lots of support out
as well. People lined the whole route.
So it's similar to Comrades like that else was odd about it.
Yeah, I think that's probably about it was an odd race, yeah.
And get to the last question, unless Nikki's got anything
else. The only thing I'll say is I've
got a really good friend that goes backwards and forwards to
China for business and some of the pictures she sends me of the
foods, as I'll vouch for you, were like, what is that?
And then sometimes it's like, Oh yes, that's clearly a butt
cloth, like how are you not? And the fish have still got the
heads on them. I mean, that would actually be
more normal probably. But no, it's not for me either.
Yeah, I remember the fish ship had full fish in it.
That's right. Yeah, yeah.
See my soup is is OK straight out of the 10, right?
If you were, if somebody was starting out and it might be
yourself starting running again for the second time, what would
be the thing that you would tell that runner?
Yeah. How do we think about this today
as well, actually. So I think probably the most
important thing is like starting again, which is what I've done.
And it might have seemed like at the time, it's not the same as
starting from scratch, starting from nothing.
So I think if you, even if you have a time away from the sport,
even if it's a prolonged period of time or it's through injury
or illness or life just getting busy and, and you've lost a bit
of motivation. And you're still going to bring
all the experiences you've had before, all the stuff that
you've built up before. You know what training is going
to feel like. You know how the races work, you
know, you know, have healing and works.
It works. And you've probably got a good
understanding of your own, like strengths and weaknesses much
better than you did the first time around.
So it's never going to be, it shouldn't never be as daunting.
And maybe people should maybe not think about it being as
daunting as it maybe as to someone who's never done it
before. But I think the key, the key to
it always just to be patient, focus and rebuilding some
consistency and go back to that again, rather than going out and
just hitting it hard because you're just going to it's a one
way road to injury, illness or both.
And so, you know, fitness will come back surprisingly quickly
if you just build a bit of consistency into your training.
Don't do anything too overwhelming.
Pick some races as well, maybe in the future, just to give
yourself a little bit more extra motivation to aim for and, and
start to build your program or your your training around that
sort of race. Most runners go through phases
like that, you know, and, and some people have a lot of time
away and, and sometimes you just need a bit of a reset from it
all as well. And I totally get all that.
Well, I think, I think it's part of that.
I think it's part of the sport. I think if you stay consistent,
keep things in sort of perspective in that as well,
you'll often come back much stronger.
And I think that's one of the things that probably does happen
quite a lot. And with that being said, Bob's
not not out of running at the moment, but he's out there.
He would say that the ultra scene, he's going to come back,
he's going to take it easy. He's going to focus on one race
and that's going to be the West Highland way.
It's all fat again. Let's make a.
Yeah, it's almost like we planned it.
And when that happens, all we can say is good luck whenever
that happens. And thank you very much.
It comes from me to say thank you, Bob, for coming on.
Thank you, Nikki, for being Nikki.
And it's goodbye for me. Thanks, Bob.
Thank you very much.