Tonight's guest is our fellow Team Scotland, and the UK
backyard team that I've had the pleasure of running with is Dr.
Ian Bethune, normally known as. One of the half.
Hi, Mikey, Good to be here. Thank you for coming on.
So I met you at Glasgow to Edinburgh as well when you were
sweeping. I'm sure we'll get on to that as
well, but we always start off with our guests.
How did you first get interested on them?
Yeah. So actually, I mean, it's kind
of goes back to 2015, I think. So the little bit of a story
here, which is literally a shaggy dog story that we had
this this dog at the time. And the one night she basically
got spooked and ran. And when we were out for a walk
and I had to sort of chase her for about maybe a mile or so up
a hill, up a road, and she was basically running up the middle
of this main road, like dodging cars and stuff.
And in the end we managed to catch her because two guys
basically corralled their cars across the road and three of us
cornered her. But basically I'd had to run up
this up this road and kind of after it got back with all I was
like, I basically couldn't breathe.
I'd like properly like, so like kind of asthma attack thing
going on ended up with like a chest infection.
I was in bed for a week and that was like my kind of like wake up
call. This is 2015.
I would have been in my mid 30s, early 30s and kind of still
believe in that I was fit like I was when I was, you know, 18.
And I was about a wake up call for me.
So yeah, at that time I was working behind a desk commuting
from Selkirk and the Borders up to Edinburgh.
So like about an hour and a bit each way.
And we had young kids. So like any form of exercise was
just not happening. And that obviously showed.
So I kind of thought, well, what, what can I do?
And just all right, fine, I'll take a pair of trainers and go
for a run in my lunch hour. And so I literally started, I
was working at an university at the Kings Buildings campus, and
the perimeter loop of that campus is about a mile.
So I started up with one loop, you know, did two loops, you
know, found that there was a little group that did a four
mile race once a month. Did that for a bit and, you
know, just got hooked on it. It just died as a necessity and
became something that I, you know, love to do.
Would you say that that was your your first ever race or is that
just a informal thing? Yeah, I don't remember which one
came first in the first official running race I did.
I did the Great Edinburgh Run, which was a 10 mile run like
round Hollywood Park in 2016. So that was about the year after
it kind of started running. I suspect I'd done some of
those, like it was called the KB Dash.
It was like that's an informal thing.
I probably did a few of them before and I also did in the
winter of 2015, there was a like trail duathlon, so like mountain
biking and trail running series that they did in the local kind
of country estate. Did those over the winter 2015
as well. But yeah, that great Edinburgh
run was like the first time I did like a proper like turn up
at the race, get your bib number, all that kind of jazz.
So it was like summer in April, May 2016.
So when you done that race, was it from there on you thought
that's I'm a runner now? Like how long did it take before
Strava, the garments trainers? How long was it before you
started buying things running related rather than just going
out on a lunch break? Yeah, I mean the the whole kind
of, I guess the obsession kind of grows.
I mean, I remember quite early on, even when I was just doing
my runs around the around the campus, having a little
spreadsheet that I recorded my time on, but I think I was just
like recording my time. This probably dates it.
I think I was recording my time on an iPod rather than on a
mobile phone. And so that that is kind of, you
know, how it was then. But I think maybe a year or so
after that, I did get a, a watch, AGPS watch from a
birthday. And I, I for a long time I was
still running and just like, like a cheapo pair of like they
were like tennis shoes that, you know, not, not running kit and
you know, cotton socks and like gym shorts and all, you know,
all the stuff that nowadays like how to get into running article.
We'll tell you like don't do all this.
You you need all the proper, proper fabric, proper shoes.
I just kind of threw myself in and figured out.
So I went along I guess. So you went from there from
getting your first GPS watch? You've done a fair few races
since then. Have you got a favorite one and
why? Yeah, that's, that's a hard
question. Like can I?
Can I have a couple maybe? Of course.
For for different reasons, right?
Just to keep the race directors. Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think for there's lots
of different aspects of races that, you know, make you think,
well, that was a great one. I really remember that one
really well. I mean, I think one of the ones
that's always got like a kind of special place in my heart is
it's GOB use as a God's own backyard ultra in Leeds.
And obviously this is much further on in my running sort of
history from 2016. I think I first went there in
2022. There's something, I mean, you
know, you, you know, the kind of backyards have a have a
particularly, you know, tight knit community.
Well, I would say that was one ones where really the people I
met there like kind of became my friends in a way.
Like there's loads of people from that race.
I met the first time at that race that, you know, I still see
loads of events, not necessarily backyards.
So I'd say that one from like a kind of like community aspects
and just, you know, I'm going back again this year for the
third time and I don't often go back to races.
Sometimes I'll go back to races if I feel like I've got a point
to prove or like underperformed unfinished business.
But quite often I'll just do a race and never go back to it.
That one I'll be going back to for the third time.
So that would be that would be 1, not one of them.
Then I would say for in terms of like just an amazing route was
the the Byway of the Glens, the bill from Rocket Fence on two
years ago. So that was basically the on the
weekend. It does the Great Glen Ultra
having like a bolt on option for if you really want to, you can
start in Glasgow and do the West Highway first and then join the
Great Glen Way pretty much as the Great Glen Way runners start
and run all the way up Inverness.
And like, that was just, yeah, a phenomenal kind of like journey.
Yeah. I really love those.
Kind of like long distance point to point stuff, especially like
seeing different parts of Scotland.
I mean, done the West Island, we all hiked it back when I was a
student, kind of new bits and pieces of the Great Glen.
But you know, to link them all up into one run was just pretty
darn epic. So yes, I'd say that that's my
#2 but for my kind of like roots or like kind of thing.
And then I think for my kind of like what's my best race from
like my own performance would be my third one, which is quite an
oddball one. It's another looped course,
which is Loch Ness 24. So this is like, you know, 24
hour looped trail race, which is, I did it two years ago and
it's, you know, it's on a trail, it's very routine, it's quite
hilly. It absolutely bucketed with rain
for the 1st 12 hours. The weather was absolutely
horrific. But somehow and it was actually
like, it's quite a good race. And there was someone who was
out in front and I caught them in the second-half of the race
and ended up winning it by like 3 whole laps of like 12 miles
and set my 100 mile PB. So I did it in 100 miles, like
19 1/4 hours. So that one was like, and it
just like came from nowhere like as a performance.
Like I was obviously in good shape, but I don't think I kind
of knew it was so like, you know, I think when did I do a
race where I did really well and I was really pleased with my
like performance. That one would have to be it.
So yeah, I know you white one, but you got 3.
Was. Loch Ness Was Loch Ness 24 just
one of those races where just everything went right with
fuelling performance? Just the perfect race you would
say. I.
Mean it was it certainly wasn't perfect.
I mean, obviously, like I said, the the weather was pretty
horrific and the conditions on their foot and stuff were were
pretty grim at times. And as it's kind of normal for
me on most races, I was ended up throwing up at some points as
well. And yeah, that So I think I
mean, there's probably if I went back, you know, there's
definitely things I couldn't be all whether I could, you know,
beat that time again, I have no idea and I probably won't go
back and because I maybe don't want to just despoil it, you
know, by by trying to beat it. So they've actually that.
So that event was kind of on a pause this year.
So I don't know if they will bring it back next year or not,
but maybe it's hopefully they'll come back because these are good
Funny Ben, actually. Yeah, the, by the way, the Great
Glen race, that is one that I've always been tempted by, but it
just never seems to fit right in the calendar.
It's for that length of race you have to have recovery afterwards
as well. Yeah.
I mean the Great Glen Ultra, I think it's about 75 miles or
something like that, 73, the half one.
Yeah, so you say it's a chunky distance, obviously.
And it's, you know, there's a good amount of climbing and
stuff in it as well. But yeah, I mean, that's always
a problem, right? There's always more races than
like, either like you don't have the time or the time to recover.
And and, you know, because I kind of like to go into a race
like feeling like I've been well prepared and give it a good
shot. I mean, let's not say I haven't
done a few races stupidly close together and just kind of like
dragged myself around them, but yeah.
Yeah. Have you done the West Highland
Way race, Ian? No, I've never done any of like
the the race, the challenge, the fling, the devil.
I haven't ever done any of those.
I mean I've talked to a lot of people that have and most
people, you know, seem seem to really love it.
I mean for for me, I know like like the West Highland way race
is obviously it's a massive race.
It's like 300 people or something like that.
So I don't know, I, I'm, it's not like a massive bucket list
thing for me to do. I'm not sure.
Maybe I will one day, but I've got lots of other things I want
to take off 1st. And I guess having done West
Island Way and then the Great Glen Way in a Warner, then
that's that's those two ticked off the list.
That's huge. And a different type of race is
a race that I know you from or a style of race that I know you
from is a backyard octopus. Yeah.
When did you start running them? Yeah.
So the first backyard I did was relatively recently.
It was 2022 cow shed backyard ultra.
So like Eastern Time three years ago pretty much.
And since then I have done a total of 7 backyards including
Russell Walk last weekend. So I'm.
Yeah. Koche That would have been the
first time that we run together. I think so, yeah.
Because you were on. So it was the year when they did
the Four Nations Championship. It's like 4 races in the year
and so the Scottish team was there.
I mean, I had no idea really who any of you guys were, I don't
think. Or really, I mean, I was like
aware of backyards as a thing and I'd wanted to get into them
for a while because they sounded kind of interesting.
And I think, I'm trying to think so.
I mean, I know Orkney backyard was one of the very early ones
in Scotland. Obviously Suffolk could be going
for a bit and the Northern Irish wouldn't be going for a bit.
And there was, there was a male somebody, I think it was maybe
Sammy or Bill maybe. I've been talking about putting
the Highlander on for a while and I was like, I put my name in
the sort of interested parties for that.
But it never come about, you know, until I guess maybe it ran
that year. I can't remember.
Anyways, so I've been, yeah, sniffing around at backyards for
a while, but eventually, and I guess with COVID and stuff, it
was all about a funny time. But yeah, Kosher 2022 was the
the first one that I did. So 2022, that's pretty recent
for getting into Backyard Ultra's and doing 7 in total.
That feels like quite a short space of time for squeezing as
much in. What is it about the format that
is appealing to you? I mean.
When, when I started the, the thing that got me into it was
the idea, OK, it's the way to like find your personal limit
because there's no end to the race, right?
So, and that, that's something that definitely appeals to me in
the Ultron and genuine, like finding out what can I do?
And the background is kind of quite a sort of pure format for
doing that. And, and I've said this to, you
know, it hooks you in as a, as a format because no matter what
happens in the race, So for, you know, everyone else apart from
the winner, the DNFS, you've always got a little kind of itch
to scratch. You know, what did I do wrong?
How could I improve? And then if you're lucky enough
to be the winner, then, you know, you've still got an itch
to scratch because you could have gone further.
You had to stop because someone else stopped.
So it's kind of, it's addictive. I mean, in a good way, right?
But I don't want to stop doing them.
But if you did, you'd like, oh man, like I've lived in
unfinished business here. So.
So I guess then yeah, I mean, the the cow shed, that's my
first one. I kind of didn't really know
what I was doing. I'm obviously I've done quite a
few ultras by that point, but I've never done the backyard.
So like did all the kind of rookie backyard mistakes of
going too fast and then like as I started to slow down a bit
going Oh my goodness, it's horrific.
I'm coming in at 55 minutes. And then I think I actually quit
when I was like in at like 5556 minutes, something like that,
which now I'd be like, wow, that's fine.
You've probably got another 8 hours in you sort of thing.
So I think I did. I did 27 laps at that one.
And then, yeah, that was in the spring of 2022.
And then I went to my first God's own backyard in November
2022. And kind of obviously it seemed
to have learned quite a lot from the kind of shed 1 because I
actually managed to win that one and did 37 yards there, which up
until this last weekend was my PB.
And you know, I hadn't hadn't been that.
That was my second backyard. And then at the end of 2022.
You you just said that you've won that one and you've won
other ones that we know about without giving any spoilers for
what? We're just about to talk about
product placement. I've got a Russellbach T-shirt
on. How how many others have you
won? OK, so, so, so prior to
Russellbach, so the six backyards are done up to
Russellbach. I had, I'd won two of them and
so I when that first got God's own backyard, I won the pig on
the hill last year, which is the one that got me the silver
ticket to get on the UK team. And then God's own 2023, me and
Julie went there and we doubled DNF as the last two runners.
So we, you know, decided not to go against each other for the
for the win. And it's a, do you want to
explain, maybe even to Nikki? But the listeners, why was it a
double DNF? What's the the rule that causes
that? Yeah, so, so in a backyard, for
someone to be the winner, one person has to complete one more
lap than everyone else. So it got down to me and Julie
were the last two runners in at Cold Zone and at some point
around the loop we had a bit of a chat and decided that we
didn't want to race each other for the win.
And so we got back into the corral at the end of I think it
was 31 yards from memory, maybe 32, can't remember.
And we just said them we're done.
We're not going back out. And so therefore, because both
of us finished on the same total there, there's no winner.
And so that that was the, I think the one year they've had
no winner in that event. So there was no winner at all.
Like you both didn't get like, oh, it's a draw, it's a trophy.
It's just. So there's no way they give you
a little DNF momentum. It's like so I've got 1 winner's
mug from 2022 and both of us have DNF mugs from 2023.
Oh wow, we and you've got a strong marriage.
It was funny because we kind of thought, well actually, you
know, we'd work together, the whole type.
Like we'd literally run the whole race, like side by side.
And you know, we'd had a great time.
And it was, you know, we, we obviously could have gone on
further, but you know, we kind of decided that actually, if we
were running together as a pair, what happens in a backyard when
everyone else has stopped, you have to stop.
So that was kind of like the, the sort of thought process that
if we, if we were running it as a, as a, as a team of two, we'd
do the same and stop. So, you know, I mean, it'd be
different, right, if there would be a silver ticket involved or
something like that. But you know, it was just that,
the normal backyard race. We've done a whale of a time and
we were more than happy just to call it a day.
So just out of my own interest for the backyard side, just
going slightly off pace with the world champs and the Belgian
team, the three of them finished at the one.
So was that a treble DNF and the world champs?
Yeah. So, so before the for bigs this
year, there's no Belgian winner qualified for bigs, but of
course the three guys that set you a record, they're all
qualified off the large list. So.
Oh. That's amazing.
So back to you Ian on basketball this year.
When I looked at the start list, I had a couple of friends that I
was following and I was quite surprised like when I seen you
and Julie on Just Hearing about You is from the World Champs and
I was quite excited to add you to my favourites list.
Can you talk us through when did you sign up and just talk about
the experience from your perspective?
Yeah. So I, I don't remember when we
signed up, probably late on last year, I guess.
So certainly. I mean, normally I kind of try
and plan out roughly what I'm doing events wise in the year
towards the end of last one. And I think definitely, I mean,
Julie wanted to come back in it. So she ran it last year.
She went down and did it like solo unaccrewed.
I was at home with the kids and she had, I think she came forth.
I remember it would be Mike, Sarah, Keith and then Julie
maybe. Something like that, yeah.
Something like that. So and I think she felt she had
unfinished business. She felt she could do better and
that, you know, since she had APB of 48 from the UK
Championship race, I think she had her eye on good further at
Rattleblock and everyone I spoke to that been there said it's a
great event. And I definitely had like
personally speaking, a sort of point to prove myself from the
team championships. So I kind of felt like, I mean,
I did 37 yards there in October at Thetford.
Very definitely. It was like mental stroke, sleep
deprivation, quitting the next morning, like physically I felt
fine, legs felt fine. So I definitely you had more in
the tank if I could manage myself properly.
So I was kind of like, that's fine, I'm going to go and go
back, do a solid training block over Christmas and work on a few
things about how I manage my sleep and things.
So for example, I've done, I did a 12 hour like backyard
simulation run from my house this end of January, beginning
of February to practice like some sleep strategies that, you
know, because I had totally like failed me and blown up in my
face at at Hertford. So yeah, definitely for me,
Rasta Block and it's a very, but it's not a totally pancake flat
course, but it's a very runnable course and it's definitely
conducive to the long distances. And obviously it gets a good
crowd out as well with lots of other good runners.
So, you know, definitely felt there's a chance to, you know,
push my PB, which was kind of, I mean, me and Julie have a good
friendly competition. I would say, you know, she had
40 yards posted from the team championships.
I'd been stuck on 37 as my PB since that since the gob you
2022. And I kind of always thought,
especially after the team championships, I thought I had a
good much longer total than that in my in myself and what a
chance to get out. So that's what, for me going to
Razzlebach was about, yeah. I mean, it was a loads of people
there, lots of friends that we've made from other races,
lots of other people from, you know, who'd been on the UK team,
you know. So we kind of had a little bit
of chat before going back the space.
People who want to go along, that's good.
We can all kind of keep an eye on each other, you know,
checking on people and you know, not necessarily work together,
but just, you know, have people around you there go in the same
sort of distance and and support each other a bit.
So that was all that was kind of the aim going in.
And did it work out? Did it when you first started?
Were you running with people? So one of the things that, I
mean, I mean, me and Julie had decided was that actually we
weren't going to run quite as closely together as we had done
at previous races, especially during the first day when
there's loads of people around. We're like, OK, fine, let's just
go and hang out with some other people for a change, maybe not
use up all our chat on each other for the first day.
So yeah, I mean, like the first for me, the first day was just
like a massive kind of like party on legs.
We're all just like wandering around.
The sun was shining. Everybody feels good on the
first day, you know, loads of people that meet for the first
time, some people that I'd seen before events.
And you know, we just like I say, it was like a kind of party
atmosphere at least. I mean, at least for me.
Yeah, I was feeling great, like my legs were fine.
And yeah, obviously by the time you run lights on like 50 miles
or whatever, you feel a bit, but it like wasn't getting any
worse. I didn't have any major issues.
Like at one point like my feet got a little bit sore.
I put a bit of tape on them and you know, I was just keeping
going. It was, it was, it was really
good. Managed to get through the, the
first night without too much sleep issues.
I had a bit, a couple of fast laps, which is one of the things
that I'd never done before at backyard, but I'd practiced, you
know, coming round. So normally I try and get around
in about like 50 to 53 minutes, but a couple of times during the
first night I got riding like 4142 and then got like, you
know, 15 plus minutes of solid sleep.
And that that worked really well.
And then I think when it got to the second night, you know, it's
kind of like the second night for me was like what I thought
was going to be the sort of crux of the event, especially where
I'd fallen apart at the the team champs in October.
But actually, weirdly enough, the second night was like easier
than the first night. And I had I distinctly remember
this like really weird feeling of like, there's a bit Michael,
remember this on the bit that was kind of through the woods,
fly a little traily section through the trees.
Most of it's on kind of like forest roads or like fire
tracks. And there's a little tree
section. Remember, they're like going
through that on the second night and like everything being in
sort of like heightened focus. It was like I had like HD
vision. It was really like, like, I was
really just like, I don't know, it's like massive adrenaline
rush or what it was. But that second night, I just by
that point, I was kind of on my own because so Julia dropped out
at the end of the second day or the beginning of the second
night, 33 yards, I think. And so I was on my own by that
point. And.
Yeah, didn't like slow me down at all.
I was just like flying through that second night, really.
So on you're saying about the first night and the second night
when you first start on a backyard, is it, is it easier?
What I'm trying to say is when you start, you've got a lot of
people starting in the corral and then obviously people drop
off. So although you're tired as it
goes on, does it make it easier that there's not as many people?
Yeah, I think it's different for different people.
If you like, you know, running with other folks, then for sure
having the people around you can can help.
And I mean, I, I did enjoy that in the first day.
Just chat with people. It just makes time pass and
that's all good. But for me, I think because I'm
quite like kind of competitive as the numbers start to thin out
and, you know, you're getting towards the sharp end of the
race. And I think that's kind of
partly why I was kind of buzzing in the second night because
people were starting to drop. I was like, yeah, this is
getting real. I'm doing well here, you know,
So it sounds a little bit kind of cruel, but like, as other
people are dropping out, you're like it's a drip feeding into
you that you're doing well. And that's that gave me like a
real boost, I would say. Brilliant.
And then when Julie dropped out at the end of the second day,
how was that for you mentally? The I would imagine when you
were socializing at the start with different people and then
as the event goes on, then you come together, you have a chat
about whatever you're chatting about and then that's your, you
know, on your own. How was that psychologically for
you? Did that benefit or how was it?
So I think actually that the harder benefit for me was like
in the second afternoon where she was really having a hard
time and kind of like you're really struggling.
And I mean, she won't mind me saying this because it's like
this is how it was. In actual fact, the thing that
basically torpedoed her race was that our period came on like
during the race and it just like it's a mental, physical, whole
body like crash basically. And she really struggled during
the whole second afternoon. I was kind of trying to help her
a bit and it turned out, you know, I wasn't helping.
So she actually asked me, you go off and run on your own for a
bit and she ran with some other folks and she she pulled herself
out of the hole for a couple of hours.
But then, you know, by the by the time it got tonight, and
yeah, she loves night running. So it's kind of hoping that that
would pick her up, but it really didn't.
And, you know, and that when she's like, no, OK.
And he stopped trying to force my body to do something he
doesn't want to do. And, and, and so the lap that
she dropped out, I, I was ahead of her on the loop and she
turned back and went back to the start.
So I didn't know she dropped until I got to the end and I saw
that she was sitting in the marquee.
So that was like the first time I knew that she was out of the
race. So obviously I was like, you
know, a bit worried and, you know, worried that she'd be
really upset about it. But by the time I got there, she
was totally cool about it. She was really happy with the
decision she'd made. And then she'd also like flick
the switch. She was now in crew mode.
I mean, she'd run for 33 hours and the first thing she want to
do is crew me. So like that was actually like a
massive a that she was happy with the decision.
And then I had somebody in my corner because we'd been kind of
self creating each other for the first day and 1/2.
Then go. Actually, I can rather than, you
know, come in in the 6-7 minutes I've got.
I've got a couple minutes of faffing around getting stuff,
sorting stuff, eat a bit. Can't really shut your eyes and
properly sleep because you don't want to both oversleep and miss
the bell. Now, I could get in within 30
seconds of crossing the line. I could be asleep from a hood
over my face and she'd wake me up with two minutes to go, shove
some food in at me and off we go.
And we just, you know, the second night was just, you know,
the theater. It went really well.
And part of that was because, you know, I had crew and she was
supporting. Me.
Yourself and Julie, it's one that fascinates me and I'm sure
it does fascinate other listeners that are into the
scene. Just out of curiosity, did you
both start running out with backyards?
I mean, we both run us. Did Julie start with you or did
Julie always run? No, no.
So she kind of came into after I did as I said.
So I started about 20/15/2016. I'm trying to, I mean, obviously
she's seen me running and you know, was kind of interested in
it because I've been doing it. But then she very much had plans
of her own, you know, she wanted to do a marathon.
So I think it was maybe 2019. We ran the Edinburgh Marathon.
That was kind of her her first big race goal.
Like she's done a few halves and stuff before that.
And if she did that and basically didn't run again for
like a year and then she only started ultra running.
So I think it was 2020 she ran an ultra on her birthday.
Like not an event, but just ran an ultra distance on her
birthday in 2020. And I kind of went to a day of
work and, and ran around with her for, for almost all of it
that I had to cut it short because the kids are coming home
from school and I come, we're getting getting back, meeting
the kids. And then we all got on bikes and
went out to see her finish the, the her ultra.
So yeah. So she, she, you know, she came
into it a little bit later and I did.
But yeah, certainly in terms of the Super long distance stuff, I
mean she's done, I'm going to say probably three or four 200
mile plus races, you know, certainly the Super long stuff
and in the backyard format. And you know, she got up to 48
hours ahead of me. So she's a phenomenal runner in
her right. I just think it's brilliant that
you both run and you both support each other.
And I don't even know if there's any other married couples in the
world that do the backyard. Maybe there are.
Are you aware of anyone else that does that?
But I don't know about backyard specifically, but so I mean as
as you know, so we've got our own little blog where we kind of
do our race reports and stuff. But we also do like I've done
some like Q&A's with other people.
So like we did AQ and A with a couple had done the spine
together for example. So there are obviously other
equally committed stroke crazy people out there and that do
some of these events. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we love
running together. Absolutely.
One of the things I think we've learned over the last few
particularly backyards is, you know, our styles are a bit
different and it doesn't necessarily help us both get the
best out of each our own races when we're racing together.
So, and when juicy this like, so when I, I, I dropped before what
she did at the UK champs at Thetford and she said after I
dropped, she suddenly felt much better because she, she's, you
know, it's in her character to be supportive And she, she had
that for she absolutely was carrying me for a few laps
because I was like completely losing my mind and didn't know
what I was doing. And she was just like, you know,
she'd tell me to run, I'd run, she'd tell me to walk, I'd walk,
she'd tell me to turn left, I'd turn left sort of thing.
And once I had actually dropped, she got big boost because she
like didn't have to do the mental workload for two people
anymore. So I think we've kind of learned
from, you know, the, I think we've done maybe 4 backyards
together now. And I think in future, I mean,
if we're both on like the Scottish team or the UK team,
that that's fine. And I think that'll be OK
because also there'll be other people to crew.
I think that going together, trying to self crew each other,
it doesn't work so well because she'll always try and support me
more than looking after our own race that you know, it's not
really fair in that sense. Yeah.
And when you didn't have Julie crewing for you, did you have a
sleep strategy? During the first day and a half
of of razzle ball. Or and then the other races when
when you're running with Julie normally or if you're both in
the same race. What's your kind of strategy for
sleep? Yeah, so I mean, it's basically
that the two of us aren't going to fall asleep on the same lap.
So there's always going to be, you know, if one of us needs to
sleep, the other one's going to wake you up.
I mean, the other thing I did practice on that 12 hour
backyard practice I did was I proved to myself I can wake
myself up from my wristwatch as well.
So I've got that as a fall back, you know, set to go off 2
minutes to the hour. So because I'd say if you're in
the marquee at Razzlebach and you can hear the whistles, but
they're not going to wake you up, yeah.
And I think you said something or you, you said that Julie was,
you were going a bit stir crazy because you've been up for too
long and she carried you. I can't remember if it was in
Russellbach, but. I know.
I was at Thetford, yeah. Yeah, have have you had
hallucinations or just going a bit crazy?
So Razzlebach, no, Razzlebach, the, the sleep management, I
think because I had a couple of decent sleeps in the first night
it was all good. And the second night I was, you
know, firstly wired and adrenaline and then eventually
went to caffeine for the last few hours of darkness.
And at Thetford, you know, I was totally sleep deprived.
I was losing my mind. I was seeing all kinds of stuff.
There was like one bit where I was like, well, we can't go down
here and just like, why not? I was like, because there's this
big ornamental rockery with like a water feature and like all
these kind of like colourful stones in the middle of the
path. It's like, no, it's not there,
It's not there. And I was seeing like, kept
seeing like, you know, like there's kind of like barrier
gates you get at the entrance, the forest to stop people coming
in. I was like seeing them across
all the fire tracks and stuff. Like they just talk stuff that
totally was not there. So yeah, Thetford, I totally
lost my mind and I've definitely had like big hallucinations and
all that light on that by way of the Glen, you know, which was
two whole nights again, staying awake, you know, Absolutely.
So all kinds of crazy stuff. But at Russell Park, not, not at
all. It's all all good.
And something. Sorry mate, can you go?
But in here, something that you've told me before is you
struggle to eat during the night.
Have you gone past that or have you got a strategy for that?
No, I've kind of just learned to manage it.
I mean, I think it comes from, I think my body just works like it
follows its circadian rhythm, and that's how I try and feed
myself at a backyard. So I'll try and have something
more substantial round about breakfast time, round about
lunchtime, round about dinner time and snack in between.
But then, yeah, when it gets to about various 8910 o'clock, the
body starts with, no, it's not the time to be eating.
And if I keep shoveling solids in there, I just start throwing
up. And I've kind of learned there's
not too much I can do about that.
So basically both nights at at razzleback.
Yeah. Once it gets dark and I don't
feel like eating, I just switched to gels and and an
energy drink, and that gets me through the night.
I mean, I suspect it's a slight calorie deficit.
You know, I'm going through like one or two gels per lap in the
later laps. I was doing a caffeine gel at
the beginning of the lap. Halfway round I was eating a bar
of like the, the KMC and Kendall mint cake.
And so get get kind of sugar boost halfway round.
So I'm, I think probably I'll be slightly in calorie deficit, but
it's fine because it gets you through, you know, 8/10/12
hours, whatever it is for the night.
And then when it comes to morning, my stomach like just
goes rabidous. It's like right this morning,
where's the food? Where's the bacon rolls?
Feed me and and you start the process again.
So I I think I've just learned not to fight it and, and you
manage it that way. What I was going to ask was you
mentioned when you first started running in the lunch hour you
kept a spreadsheet of your times.
Have you got spreadsheets for your ultras?
Or they even make notes of glaps at events so that you can keep
up with what you've had? I would say I'm I'm not like, so
some people like preparing for backyards are like total mega
spreadsheet geeks, right? And they'll have literally like
on this lap, I'm going to take in 40 grams of carbs and it's
going to be this food. And I don't do that.
I very much go by by fuel and I kind of know I'd like to think
I've kind of done enough ultras and then just the right enough
backyards. I kind of know what's about the
right amount to have. And if I'm, if I'm getting
hungry, I'll eat more. You know, if I'm not, then then
that's fine. I mean, you know, I do like kind
of geeking out over my stats, you know, my Strava, looking at
all my splits, seeing which laps always fast, which laps always
slow. You know, I've got, you know,
got a few screens set up in my garment that tell me exactly
what I want to know while I'm doing in the backyard and things
to manage my pace. But yeah, so I'm probably more
obsessive than most, but I'm very far from the extreme
extreme spreadsheet ultra geek. I believe I admit I'm the the
spreadsheet ultra geek. I mean, it's just, it's just
what works for different people, right?
And I think for me, especially on the backyard, like in fact,
in all terms, generally I think it's good to have a plan, but
the plan needs to be adaptable. And if the plan becomes too
rigid, it becomes a thing that stresses you out.
And when you get stressed out, you don't perform well.
So, so like, yeah, I mean, if I'm running like a point to
point race, I'll have an idea of roughly what pace I want to be
doing here, roughly what time I expect to be at this checkpoint,
that kind of thing. But, you know, without it being
planned out to the, you know, the grams of carbs per hour kind
of level of detail. Not having ran a backyard
myself, yeah, and I'm sure I'll be doing one in the future if
Mike has anything to do with it. This is actually a question for
both of you. When you complete a loop or a
yard as we call it, what do you do with the watches?
Do you reset the lap or like do a new lap?
Or do you just leave the watch alone and just leave it
continuous? So leave it to you who wants to
answer that first. I'll tell you what I do and then
it might kind of start. So I've got I've got a Garmin.
If you set Garmin in ultra run mode, then what you can do is
when you hit the lap button, it goes into rest mode.
So it's still showing you the timer, but it's it's in a rest
mode rather than run mode. And then also have to set on
auto lap of one mile. So that's the way I keep track
of my pace. So and Rasta bought the courses
that it's undulating, but there's no massive claims.
So I was keeping a 13 minute mile pace, you know, per each
mile on my watch. And I just keep track in my
head. If I was slow on the first one,
I know 30 seconds is over, simply pick up the pace a bit.
So I imagine that way and usually it means I end up coming
in within about a minute of my target time.
And then, yeah, I lap the watch one across the finish line.
You can still see the timer on it.
So you know when it's 575859 minutes.
And then when you cross the line again, you hit lap again and off
it goes, resets to, to start to. You're getting the same mile
markers called out at the same point of the lap, which I think
is a disadvantage. Some people just leave their
watch running. Then because it's a 4.16 mile
loop, you know your your your mile markers are going to be
staggered. OK, that's good advice.
Mike, what do you do that's. For me.
Yeah, I, I, I know some people, they actually create new Strava
activities per lap so that they're recording that.
Too much hassle for me. I press go at the start and end
when the race ends and I go by the the hour.
You, you've got the arrow. So for my pacing, I know that I
need to be at a certain point for, for in, in the first lap.
I'll say, OK, this, this point here, this tree makes one mile.
This fence post makes 2 miles. And I'll just say it myself,
right? I need to be at that tree in 10
minutes. I need to be at that fence post
in 20 minutes. And that's how I do it.
Keep it simple. Yeah.
That's interesting. Require requires too much memory
for me. I rely on the watch because I,
I, I think, I think I'll be like, is this tree by the time I
thought I was losing. It well see, I I I think exactly
the same thing about your one because I I'll forget to press
the button when I cross the finish line.
Yeah. So is whatever works?
I, I, I, I, I did do that once. But then at least you remember
and you're like, oh, hang on, I'm in the corral and the watch
just to run in quickly, laugh it, quickly start it and you're
kind of off again, so. See, I like Ian's way.
I definitely. I think I prefer Ian's way
because if I do it Mike's way, if I ever get to a point where I
run so far in a backyard and surprise myself, that tree will
probably turn into a person during the hallucination for
myself. Like in the Highlander, it's for
me it was I need to be at the top of the hill at the halfway.
Time wise. If I know I can be there, I can
be at the bottom in enough time to finish that.
It was as simple as that. I had one marker.
I just needed to be there. So the the next thing I was
going to ask you, Las has got a famous saying it's easy till
it's not. The Russellbach gets not easy.
No, it it never did. So I I know you, you're telling
me not not to spoiler it so I know if.
You want to on you go. I was absurdly.
We started to talk, talk the result.
And so, yeah, I mean to, you know, just just throw it all out
there. So I won the race.
I did 51 yards, right? And and I absolutely felt at the
end like I was still. So basically, like as I said,
when you get to about mile 50, things hurt a little bit, right?
Your legs feel like they've worked a bit.
I mean, maybe some people that do really high volume don't, I
mean, I, for me, but the first afternoon everything was a bit
worked, but nothing ever really got worse.
And it was the same by the end. You know, I'd slept well on the
first night. I slept OK in the second night.
I was kind of buzzing. I got to, it'd be 1:00 on the on
the Monday that we finished and I felt like I could have done
another ten 20-30 yards. Like, you know, like literally
felt like my legs felt 3-4 hours in the race.
So yeah, I mean it like that Loch Ness 24 race was talking
about sometimes like a race just comes out of nowhere where you
just feel great. And I would have said like the
preparation for Aspock was pretty good.
Like I wouldn't have said I was in the form of my life, but you
know, like 90 to 95% of the way there sort of thing.
And everything just clicked. I mean, you know, obviously all
bets are off once you probably get into the third night and
things get a bit crazy, you know, and think the wheels can
fall off very, very quickly. But, but for me, you know, I
mean, there was a couple laps that said that I did quickly,
but the rest of it, I was just hitting the same pace markers
again and again and again. I wasn't getting bored, I wasn't
getting sore. It wasn't getting hard.
I was just really, really enjoying it, which is like
certainly, I think I probably had that experience like once
before a backyard as well. And it's just, you know, you
just like ride it while you can and, and hope there's some other
people that want to go with you and see how far you can go.
I don't know if it's maybe it's Russell Box that's got the the
sort of aura about it, but that's exactly how I felt the
year before. It just seemed like a perfect
race to me. Yeah, I think it's a really nice
coarse light. It's it's got a good variety of
terrain. You know, it's undulating, but
it's not steep. You know, things give your feet
a break, some soft forest flurry bits.
It's not all just hard fire track.
Yeah. And, you know, the, the camp
vibe was just great. You know, there was a lot of
people because one of the things that kind of naturally happens
in a backyard, obviously if people DNF is the campsite
empties out. And I mean, I've experienced
this like Pig on the Hill, for example.
When I finished it, even the race organizer had gone home.
So like it can be like a bit of an anti climax at the end.
But at Russell Block, like people had come back on the
Monday to see the end of the race, which is really cool.
So yeah, it was, yeah. It was a really, really nice
enter and but yeah, yeah, who knows, but I definitely felt
great and you know, even now like a week on so when I went
for a walk yesterday, my first one back today and you know,
just just feeling great so. And the trophy is absolutely
beautiful as well. Have you found a nice place in
the house for it? Yes, so it's it's sitting in the
hall at the moment. It's fantastic trophy actually
saw it on. So we came down on the Friday
night for Rattlebach and they they order and you know, we can
pre-order pizzas and they do Domino's run.
So we all had pizza in the marquee on Friday night and the
trophy was out and I was like I want it.
And then yeah, by by Monday I was able to get my hands on it,
which is very cool. And how has your week been like
right after you travelled? Did you travel back on the
Monday? No.
So we. So yeah, we came down in the van
and we'd slept on site in the van on Friday night, Monday,
because we kind of finished midday.
I mean, I was. It's that kind of thing.
You feel like you can run forever and then as soon as you
stop, everything just seizes up. So I was basically like sitting
in a chair, very slowly getting myself dressed while Julie was
packing everything up around me. But we stayed in like a Premier
Inn just down the road, like slept like we were dead for like
12 hours. Did a pretty good effort of
trying to take them for the all you can eat breakfast.
And then we got on the road and drove back home on Tuesday.
And then I think we, yeah, we both booked off 3 days from
work. So we don't have to work on
Wednesday either. So like Wednesday, we could
pretty much, you know, unpack her, then do all the laundry and
then sort of stagger around like zombies and then we're both back
at work on Thursday. Back to the family life and the
bubble busts. Yeah, yeah, that's it.
I mean, this is one of the other things.
It's something quite nice. But, you know, we've probably
managed one or two races a year where we get to go both go away,
you know, And this weekend, you know, my mom and dad can't look
after the kids from Friday until until Tuesday as well.
So yeah, we don't have anything to worry about from that.
I mean, sometimes when, you know, we crew each other, we'll
have the kids in total as well. But this one we're able to just
get away by ourselves, which is great.
So you mentioned that you feel that you're feeling during
Russell Bock. How would you feel for different
events? For instance, when you done the
West Highland Way Great Glen one, how did that one work out
for feeling? Yeah.
I mean, in terms of the kind of stuff I'd eat, it's, it's fairly
similar. So you know, trying eat as much
as possible of, you know, foods you know during the day.
Backyards. For me, it's kind of easy.
I don't tend to carry food on the lap so I'll just sit and eat
something in the 5 minutes and then let it digest once I go
around. I mean sometimes if it's really
hot I'll take a flask of like juice around with me.
So generally it's what I use is the KMCKMCNRG as it's called,
which is the Kendall mint cake companies thing which is like
mint and mint and lime or mint and Raspberry.
But that seems to work for me if I'm doing long point to point
stuff. It's just generally more stuff
you can stuff in a race vest, so like the bags of nuts, dried
fruit, you know, sometimes kind of crisps and stuff like that
and then just restock it at checkpoints and then again, you
know, in the night having a stash of gels with me.
So like on that by way of the Glens.
The night section was pretty much from Bay Park, car parking,
Glen Nevis through till somewhere around like it's about
lagging sort of like the kind of first lock section on the Great
Glen. And that was just like, yeah,
cruise through the night slurping gels.
And I remember Julie met me with a bacon, a sausage sandwich in
the morning, which is, yeah, breakfast time.
Time to start eating again. That's a perfect crew member.
Oh yes. And what about on a sort of
day-to-day basis when you're not running?
What kind of diet do you follow? Yeah, it's an interesting
question actually, because so since the start of this year,
I've switched onto a low GI diet.
So it's it's not quite as extreme as like a keto diet, but
it's basically what somebody who's a type 2 diabetic would
would have. So basically you're, you're
cutting out sort of refined carbs.
So like sugar, you know, white bread, white pasta, potatoes,
and it's basically stuff that will quickly metabolize into
glucose. And so the idea of it is that
you basically don't get big spikes followed by big troughs
in your, your blood glucose. Because certainly that, that I
mean, for, for me, I sort of, I like to eat and I habitually
tend to put on weight if I don't watch it.
And actually since the start of the year, I've probably lost
about 5 kilos just being on that, that diet.
Because I think basically when, when your, your blood glucose is
high, my body says, great, let's store fat and it crashes and go,
oh, I'm hungry, I need to eat sugary stuff again.
And you go through that cycle and now, you know, I don't,
don't get me wrong, like the first week is really, really
hard. And you do get like that, the
key to headache kind of thing. And you feel really rough for a
few days. But then after that, your body
adapts quite quickly. And now, like, if I need to
snack, I'll have like nuts and cheese cubes or something rather
than like chocolate and sweets. And, you know, not having, you
know, substituting whole grain for like white bread and stuff
like that is not, not very difficult even when you've got,
you know, family and stuff as well.
It's not like you're having to cook separate meals.
It's quite easy to adapt. So that's really the only thing
I, I mean, apart from that, you know, I just try to eat a
healthy kind of balanced diet. But you know, that's really,
really worked for me in the last couple of months.
And you know, I definitely recommend it.
But I mean, aside from that, you know, I'm omnivorous.
You've talked, I've talked about bacon sandwiches and pork pies
or another go to for me as well. I don't know.
There's a lot of a lot of my friends are vegans as well.
So. So you like to, That's fine, but
it's not for me. That's definitely something I
might look into because sugar, pasta and white bread is my
staples. It's a funny word because like,
you know, the traditional wisdom from like endurance sports
nutrition, I mean, I guess it maybe comes from like 10K and
marathon training and stuff. Like it's like carb load, get
your gels and eat lots of carbs and that's what your body needs.
But where I actually got the idea from.
So you know, Christopher McDougall did the born to run
book about all the barefoot running.
You know, I've been 10 years ago.
So I mean, he brought another book couple of a year ago just
called Born to Run 2. Not very original, but it kind
of talks more about like the, the the diets and stuff of the
the Copper Canyon Indians. How like you know, when him and
the other guys went down there and we're running huge distances
with him and they were all stacking pancakes and porridge
and stuff with those guys would hide in the morning, they'd have
like meat and broth and kind of very like like fat heavy stuff
and that. And that was the how their
metabolism works. So that was kind of where I got
the idea to try the low GI diet from.
And as I say, it certainly helped me lose some weight And I
hadn't apart from that first week where you feel a bit rough,
I don't think it affected like my energy levels for training or
anything like that. Going back, we seem to have
gotten off topic. Russell Bock.
Julie dropped out. She crude for you.
And then all hell broke loose. Or didn't.
You kept calm. You kept on going.
What happened So get get get back on the story from this
massive level that's. All.
Right, we don't. Mind.
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, so basically what what
happened was, so by the end of the second night at Razzle
Block, we were down at 2:00 and I think the last I think was
maybe 8 yards, something like that.
There was myself and Lizzie were the last two runners going.
So, you know, we were just kind of doing our own things and they
got to. So I mean, some milestones I had
in my head, you know, I really wanted to get to 48, partly
because that light was done two whole days, 200 miles.
I'd never done 200 miles in any event before.
And yeah, Julia had done 200 miles.
So that was a little, yeah, it's a little little extra motivation
for me there. And then I also knew that the,
the Scottish record that Thomas Hugo had, you know, I could beat
that at 50. So those the kind of things that
are in my mind as we went through the morning.
But yeah, it was, I was just, you know, in my little zone,
banging out those laps, the same kind of pace.
And really, I mean, I didn't really sometimes when there's
like a couple of us in the in the down at the end of the race,
I like to play a few games and stuff.
But I didn't really didn't really do that until it's like
Loop 51. I went past Lizzie on the sort
of first long downhill and I could, I looked back at one
point and I could see she was going quite slowly.
I thought she was maybe on her phone or something.
I'll make sure. I thought, OK, fine.
What I'll do is I'll do a real fast first smile, get all the
way down the first gravel road and try and be outside by the
time she comes around the corner.
And then then I would slow down for the rest of the loop
because, you know, obviously I still was prepared that the race
could go on for, you know, 24 hours or more because she wasn't
showing really any signs that she was struggling to be honest.
So. And then when I was in the woods
set, when I came out with the woodland sessions just for dead
a mile to there was a Marshall there and he says, oh, she's
dropped it. Had a radio call from the HQ to
say that she dropped and turned back.
So it's literally thought just before halfway through that lap,
pretty much out of the blue, you know, I find out that actually I
was on the final lap and just had to run it in.
And I mean, you know, like you, you, you've won these races
before as well. I mean, I think that the, I
mean, it's the same as a long point to point, I guess that a
lot of for the backyard is because you don't know how long
it's going to go on. You're just trying to be as
efficient as possible and minimize the amount of energy
you're using. So you're always holding
yourself back. And then that last lap, you're
like, yeah, I can run. And I literally like all the
bits where I'd be walking normally.
I was just literally ran the last two miles in and I'm like,
you know, whooping and hollering and all that kind of stuff.
And just like you get this massive buzz and obviously it's
a key, you come round into the corral and there's, you know,
there's a good little crowd of people there.
Yeah, it was just just fantastic.
So and that that was how it how it happened.
I've found that the last lap that last year Sarah Perry had
dropped and I knew I had to complete the lap.
So I'd been told before I started it.
And it it was probably the most stressful lap that I've done
because I had one thing to do and that was just finish.
And I was so paranoid that we're going to trip over or do
something that wouldn't finish. It was just get around there as
fast as you can, but don't go too fast because then you might
not finish. So yeah.
Yeah, yeah, the the the only thing that can possibly happen
here is that I screwed up. Basically.
And then it would be my own fault.
Yeah. What was your I mean, because
sorry, what was your time in that last lap then in the end
up. From memory, I'm going to say it
was about, I think it was about 4445 minutes, something like
that. So it's like, you know, a good 5
or 6 minutes faster than I think somebody told me it was my third
fastest lap. So as I said, I did 2 fast laps
on the first first night so I can get some sleep and then the
rest of my laps were all in the 50515253 range except the last
one. I didn't 4045 somewhere.
That's incredible. It's the consistency when you
look at the actual stats and the data, as you say on Strava and
just how consistent each lap is and you keep going at that pace
for that amount of miles it, it really does blow my mind it.
Was 4448 for the last lap. There you go, close enough.
And yeah, you're probably you. You did 142.
Yeah, I think the thing was they, I think, I think it was
around about 11-8 something maybe about lap 13 and then
maybe lap 1819, something like that. 20.
I'd one yeah, I'd one sleep just before midnight and then one
just before dawn. Yeah, it was your third, third
fastest lap. Yeah.
But then that's it. I mean, you could, you can burn
all your matches at that point because you know you don't have
any, you know, you're not having to hold back for, for
potentially an unlimited number of laps.
Yeah. But it's funny because I mean, I
know some like, like I think at the UK Championships when Sarah
Perry won it, I don't think she, I mean, in fact, yeah, she
finished the lap and and Alex, who is the assist, I think he
got lost or he's timed out or whatever.
So, you know, she completed the lap thinking she had more to do.
And then you have that wait for him to see if he DNF D or not.
Whereas all the the three races I've won, I've either found out
from a Marshall that somebody's turned back or like a pig on the
hill. The guy who is the assist, Paul,
he shook my hand in the corral and said I'm not, I'm not going
out again. So I had the whole lap to do.
But you know, I knew that was it.
And so I've never had that like surprise finish, which would be
an interesting 1, yes. So having won that, would you
say that that's your biggest running achievement or what?
What would be? Yeah, As far as the numbers go,
yes, it probably, I mean, it's the longest I've done in terms
of distance. It's the longest I've done in
terms of time. I've heard you different races
be compared to say, you know, like if you're holding your your
hand to a flame, some races you have to hold your hand closer to
the flame, but for less time. And some of them you have to
hold it further from the flame, but for longer.
I mean, that Loch Ness 24 run that I talked about that one in
terms of, you know, really being pedaled to the metal for like 24
hours, that's probably the hardest.
And I mean, by the end of that race, I could barely stand.
Like I remember going out to get my little trophy thing, a little
plaque and having to walk out from the crowd at the prize
giving going like, I'm making a serious effort not to like pass
out and kill over here because I literally like had burnt
everything I had over 24 hours. And I think you can do that if
there's a time or a distance limit.
So, but yeah, I mean, but in terms of, you know, putting a
mark out there, you know, the, the I, I guess probably that
razzleback run would be my biggest achievement to date to
date. Let's see what the future holds.
But yeah, that's, that's of course the frustrating thing,
right. As I said, you know when you win
the backyard, you always know you had at least one more lap in
the tank than everyone else. Another next, next time you
might not have the perfect day, so you might not be capable of
it next time, so. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Yeah. There's there's so many factors
that have to, you know, the weather was absolutely perfect
and you know, it was like 1012° your day.
I mean, if you really want to nitpick, you could have done
with like, a couple of degrees warmer at night.
But, you know, it wasn't by any means unbearably cold, you know?
Yeah. Hadn't rained for, like a week
before. So that even the, the trailer
bits were just nice and soft. They weren't like slightly
squidgy mud. Yeah.
He couldn't have asked for a better race weekend.
So who knows? I mean, maybe I can maybe I can
go much longer than that. We'll just have to see what see
what events I go to and then who's there.
Yeah, you, you took my my course record for Russell Bock, but you
apologized and. And your course record for
picking the Hill, Mike, just just just to mention it, yeah.
What do I say for both of them backyards?
I don't think that course records matter because Sarah
dropped and I knew that I was capable of a lot more.
If if what you should be sorry for is not turning up on the
last year so we could have actually had a proper race.
As I said, the course record, I'm happy that you can't
separate. People's achievements from
whoever else or whatever else happened on the day, Yeah,
absolutely. So another question that we like
to ask SCN is why do you run? Yeah.
That's you like asking hard questions, don't you?
No, it's, I guess there's kind of two things.
I mean, I did say, you know, when I got into running, I mean,
I've always been one of these kind of like, you know, type a
competitive people, right? You know, whether it's
competitive against others or competitive against myself.
And that was from certainly when I got into running, I was always
like, oh, I can do a half marathon or I can do a marathon
distance. Oh, these ultras, oh, they get
longer. Oh, like, like how far can I go?
So there's that. There's there's definitely a
part of me that wants to explore and push what I can do and to
race and to enjoy racing against other people as well.
And so that's definitely a strong thing for me is like the
competitive side. Absolutely.
I think the other the other part, which backyards don't
really do is I really like the kind of so I came and I told you
how I came into running, but my kind of background growing up
was more like an outdoor sports person.
It's like, you know, we used to do like a lot of hill walking as
kids. You know, I did whitewater
kayaking. That was my first sport.
So I was like some people come into running through athletics,
like through track and stuff like that, whereas I very much
came to it from being happy out in the hills.
And so like doing these long point to point races for me,
it's like a it's exploring and like, without sounding all kind
of hippie about it, it's like you kind of connect yourself to
the place and, and, and to nature.
And I mean, like one of my kind of bucket list things to do is
like to try and run or walk all of the Scotland's great trails
at some point. So some of them we've done this
like hiking holidays as family. Some of them have done as races.
I'm sure some of them I'll do like, you know, a solo
expedition. So, but that kind of like, yeah,
connecting yourself to, to the place you're in, you know what
you can do when you can run for a long distance.
I remember I used to do hill walk and like, yeah, 10 mile day
with a couple of enrolls was like a big day.
And that's as far if you're, you're leather boots, big
backpack on. That's what you can do in a day.
All of a sudden, if you you've got the fitness and the
abilities and you know, can manage yourself in that
environment, you can certainly do like 20-30 mile big link OPS
and and see all these fantastic places are one of the best
things in the last year I did I was in the arc Alps and I think
it was October or November. Yeah, it must be November.
It's after the, I think it was after the the backyard chant and
like spent a base slogging through crappy claggy, soggy
ground and then climbed up above a cloud inversion where you
could literally see all these little peaks popping out, all
the like, that kind of thing. The ability to get to do that
because of all this running I've done, it's just like a massive
privilege and a fantastic thing to be able to do.
So even if I couldn't race, I'd still be happy doing that.
You mentioned about the family holidays, like with the great
trails. Are the kids quite enthusiastic
with the outdoors as well or is it reluctance?
Yeah, that's a delicate topic. Probably.
No, I, I, I like to think they will have good memories of the
things that they've done. I wouldn't say it's necessarily
Type 1 fun for them all the time.
But I mean, you know, we, we, we've, we've done, we did the
entire way, which is of 100 Miller with them.
I think it must be in summer 2021 still kind of COVID times.
And you know, that that was, and it was in the heat wave in July
and we were having to like knock on fuel doors and beg for water
and stuff. That was pretty crazy.
But yeah, this summer we're going to go and do the the Iron
Coast Path, which is a bit shorter, I think.
I think it's about four days. But you know, we carry our own
tent and stuff just, yeah, have a good time as a family.
And when you're out, it might relate to backyards or just out
in the hills running in general. What do you think about?
Yeah, it varies a lot. I mean, I think one of the
things I get out of running is it's a good headspace.
I would say the majority of my running I do by myself and quite
often it's time to kind of process and sort through sort
through things. I don't so much do it anymore.
But when I was working in an office, I'd go off and run my
lunch hour as I said. And sometimes you'd be chewing
over a problem that you're you hit a brick wall on and you have
a sort of flash through inspiration where you get away
from your desk and get out into the into the fresh air.
So yeah, that's definitely an element like you.
And I guess you may be experienced this, that you go on
a run and there all of the world's problems seem clear and
obvious and everything feels right with the world doesn't
always last till you get back to reality, But it's, it's, it's a
good feeling, feeling well, it's lasting.
But so sometimes it's like that, but sometimes it's, I would say,
especially if I'm doing like a, like a hard training run, like,
you know, like intervals or like like a hard temple run or
something like that, where you're like really working hard.
Then all of a sudden you just focus right in on what you're
doing. And that's like quite a fun
thing in itself. Like you're totally in in the
activity and just like completely focused on it, which
is also cool. So it's definitely like, I'd say
like a, the word like a counterbalance to all the kind
of complexity of like work and family life.
And you know, you get on the trail, things are simple.
You put one foot in front of the other, you navigate and you
enjoy yourself. They have a dream race on the
bucket list. Yeah, absolutely.
So I mean like many people are, you know, well maybe not for
many people. Actually the the Barclay
Marathons is my absolute bucket list race.
I have been applying for now for about probably 10 years, ever
since I started running when I had absolutely no clue about it
and what it was and was completely incapable.
And probably I'm only slightly less than capable of doing it
now. But you know, maybe one of these
days I'll get lucky or unlucky and get in.
You never know, I mean. Here there's been plenty of
people that have been less capable that I've got in and
realized that they were less capable.
Yeah, no, I mean, it's, it's, it's massively oversubscribed
probably. It's hard to get into the London
Marathon, so. And hard to find out how to
apply for. Yes, indeed.
But no, I mean the the idea of it like, you know, being
self-sufficient, you know, out in the forest with very little
navigation leads. And so that totally appeals to,
you know, my kind of sense, like exploration, adventure.
You know, I think I like to think I'm quite a good
navigator. I've actually done a couple of
races. There's a race series around the
UK called The Drop where they they take you like normally it's
10 or 15 miles, but they once did an ultra edition where they
took you 30 miles from the finish.
But you know, the blindfold, you drive you in a van and drop you
off with like no GPS and you have to find your way back.
Yeah. That kind of stuff, like.
Yeah, crazy navigation stuff does really appeal.
And you said that we always ask hard questions.
So this is actually a question that I find difficult to ask
sometimes because it could be upsetting.
But is there anybody that you would love to run with either
Somebody, you know, fictional, alive, Not.
Yeah, so I mean, I'm going to kind of squirrel out the
question a little bit because I mean, I'm not, I mean, there's
lots of runners I'm aware of and like, you know, that I follow on
Instagram and stuff like that. But I'm not really big into like
having like a big inspirational hero that I want to be like this
person. And, you know, I'd love to run
with them and just, you know, understand their take on life or
anything like that. So that's not like a big thing
for me. And in terms of like who I would
like to run with the times I really enjoy running with
somebody, it's when I'm taking somebody and like showing them
something that they like. For example, if somebody who's
only ever run the road and you take them on trail for the first
time and they're like, whoa, this is amazing.
Or like, you know, there's some like if somebody's come to visit
and I get to take them out for like my little local run that I
do all the time, it's totally boring and routine to me, but
they love it. It's that like, you know, I
guess it's like sharing the joy of what you do with someone
else. That that's so it's not a
specific person, but that's, that's the, you know, if I that,
that if I have to answer the question of, you know, who would
I run with? It's that person that I'm taking
and showing something and that that I've helping them share
what I'm getting out of the run. That's a great answer.
Did all right then on the hard questions.
Now Razzleback has been ticked off for 2025, have you got
anything else booked this year or in the near future?
Yes, so I have got a stupidly busy year of big races coming
up, which is either going to be fantastic or at some point I'm
going to crash and burn. So basically the plan is so in
May I'm doing the Cape Rath Ultra.
So that's so that's going to be completely different because
that's it's a 250 mile race, but it's an 8 day stage race.
So that'll be, you know, again, that totally ticks the boxes for
like amazing parts of the country to explore.
We're really looking forward to that.
Then as that's me, I'm hoping to run the Highlander in July and I
know the the Scottish team hasn't been officially announced
yet, but I hope I'm on it so that that would be July.
Then in August, again, long distance point to point race.
I'm doing race across Scotland. And so that's the stubborn
upland way. And so that's 250 miles
continuous rates, which which Julie did last year.
I could run like totally love that because I said before I
used to live in the borders. I grew up in the borders, so the
southern way with like my kind of childhood stomping grounds of
those hills. So totally looking forward to
that. I said before, I'm going back to
the Gobby God zone in October. And so that'll be my third
backyard of the year. And then I'll probably throw in
a couple of things. I did also enter the Ben Nervous
Skyline, which is like it's only a short race.
I think it's like how long it is, maybe 1617 miles, something
like that. But it's like from the
Anakimorski Center up there, Nervous over the Carmel Jarrett
and then back down again. So again, that's like I've
always kind of had an idea. It'd be fun to do one of these
like Sky running type races, see what that's like.
So. That's in September, so
basically if I can get between all those, I'm just going to
spend the whole year in race recovery and then taper for the
next one and we'll see see if my legs still keep moving by
October. God's own is Julie crewing you,
running with you, or not there at all?
I don't think we've totally finalized.
I think at the moment I'm planning to go down by myself.
I don't think she's going to come to that one.
But yeah, we'll see. Might see if I can rustle up a
crew for that if she's not going to come.
Right, that's taking us. I guess it's a, it was a 50 hour
race that we invite you on for. So it's been a bumper episode,
but we're OK with that. And all I've got to say is thank
you Ian for joining us. Thank you Nikki for being Nikki
and it's goodbye from me. Goodbye, thank you.
Bye guys. Thanks for having me.