Exploring the Mind of Ultra Runner James Poole: Grit, Endurance and Evolution of Advent Running

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding.

And I'm claire fudge and this is.

The tribe athlon podcast.

I start to see things, rock formations start to appear as things that not not a crazy like pink elephants and things just your mind starts to. My mind starts to play tricks on me.

That was James Poole and this episode is Pushing the Limits Inside the Mind of an Ultra Runner. James Poole is the founder of Advent Running, an Ultra runner, ironman and lover of the outdoors. He's run some of the world's most prestigious ultra races around the world including Western states, utmb, tds, tgc, God, how many acronyms can we use here? And so many more. And he holds the FKT for crossing the Balearic island of Mallorca on the GR221. So Clare and I really wanted to get an understanding about what drives James and we wanted to chat to him about some of his strange hallucinations while he's been exploring the world through ultrarunning. The incredible locations that he visits for ultras, places like the Gobi Desert, dealing with the high and low temperature races and also the long term health impact of ultrarunning and insurance sport. So I know you're going to really enjoy this interview with James Poole. How would you like to grow your business whilst working less and enjoying your work life more? Well that's how we help people at the Trusted team. We do that through workshops which happen in person and online. We do that through regular online learning that you can just do from your desk at lunchtime and we do it through in person events that make fun tax deductible things like golf days, dinners, wine tasting, all of that fun stuff. They help you build stronger relationships and enjoy work more. So if you want to know how we can help you grow your business and improve your work life balance, go to thetrusted team to find out when our next free taster event or free webinar is so that you can find out how we can help you grow your business and get your work life balance back. That's thetrusted team. Come join us at one of our events.

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So James, welcome to the Tribathlon podcast. Really looking forward to chatting to you. Been listening to all sorts of podcasts with you in it and know we're going to have loads to talk about. So welcome and thank you for joining us.

Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Claire.

I love, I love starting these podcasts with the story. So how did you find your way into, I think, I think you found your way into the world of ultra running via the world of Iron Man. So let's start with the question, how did you find your way into endurance sport and how has that progressed?

Yeah, I mean, I think if you go back to first principles then my journey started when I was, when I was like 5 years old. And you know, one of the questions often comes out without leaping ahead is how do you train for ultra ultra marathons? And the answer is you start when you're five years old. We obviously don't have that in mind at the time. But, but when I was a kid, you know, I was always active, always outside. I remember my school sports day and having a, you know, getting silver or something in probably some sort of, it felt like a long way at the time, but probably was about 30 meters and loving running from kind of that age, 3, 4, 5 years old. And then over time just spent my, you know, my youth riding bikes and roller skating and running around and doing things a lot of kids do at did and do. And then those that period are sort of again, very similar to a lot of people. I suppose you go to university and you get more interested in partying and drinking and things. And I had a few years out from doing sort of sport back then, but then really got back into cycling initially through the bike to work scheme, which was a great way of getting a bike for not much money. At the time I was working in finance and it came straight out of your of my salary. So I got a bike road to work instead of the tube. And then again I kind of fell back in love with endurance sports by initially cycling and then mountain biking and 24 hour racing in mountain biking and then road biking. And then I went and saw someone do the Bolton Iron man, which if you haven't seen the Bot man, it's not necessarily the Iron man that you probably, it's not Kona, let's be honest. And it's not Lanzarote, it's you sort of the Run is through Bolton and the swim is in, you know, in the lake somewhere. I can't even remember and the roads. But I saw someone else do it and I was like this looks crazy. I'm brilliant and I've done. I can do the biking and I can do a bit of running and so how can this moon be. And yeah, and that, that one thing led to another and I did a few Iron man and then yeah ended up in just doing a single sport. Brilliant.

And so before we come on to the ultra running side, what was. What do you think? What was your highlight of your Ironman journey? What was the, what was the race that stands out most?

Well, wasn't very good at Iron man if I'm honest because I couldn't. I had to learn to swim. So and I and naively thought that, you know, running and cycling are. Are typically sports where if you. They're like hitting an. A nail with a hammer. If you hit that nail with a hammer repeatedly, the nail goes into the bit of wood. And in running and cycling if you want to get better, typically volume doing more of something gets. But gets. You get better by doing that. Swimming on the other hand, doesn't really follow that approach because it's very technique driven and if you go and with poor technique and you go to swim, you will get. Eventually I think it'll take decades to continue to follow the same approach. So this is around. There is a reason I'm going to get to your answering your question in a second. But I. So I'd learned to swim and in my early 30s which is really late to learn to swim properly. So I wasn't very good at it. But I did manage to go to some cool places in, in the meantime. So I did Frankfurt twice which I absolutely loved. The swim is beautiful there. It's in a really clean, pretty lake a little bit outside of Frankfurt. And then I also did Lanzarote which I absolutely loved but was my first ever. The, the day, the day before this, the, the race was my first ever sort of proper sea swimming swimming full stroke. So yeah, I kind of made it hard to myself and had an absolutely terrible swim because it was a lot harder than, than swimming in a lake. But I mean I love Dying man but it's very expensive and, and, and to some extent it's all Iron man is all about going faster and there's nothing wrong with that. But I, I think it's it for me it was a few years of enjoying that experience but I don't think it has longevity, certainly not for me. You can't go faster forever and it's. And whilst it's very social in its element of before and after, no one ever goes on a social Iron Man. One, it's really difficult because you can't really have a social swim while you're racing. And two, the roles also make it such that you can't certainly on the bike you can't, you can't draft and you can't ride alongside and it's a long way. So it felt like a thing that I did have, did five and that was my, you know, that was probably enough and I learned a lot during those five and you know, still part of me thinks maybe I'll go back and do another one one day but, but I don't. I always, I'm happy not to be in that sort of Iron man world of buying upgrades and spending a lot of money on I hope you know, bearings and, and wetsuits and things and I have been there and done that and there's nothing wrong with that and I wouldn' anyone else but it's, it is a, it is a, a different experience to perhaps the, the running and ultra running game.

Yeah. And I, I think we'll come back to this, this topic of kind of athletes doing, doing the same sort of things that you've done and moving towards the ultra world or kind of more extreme and kind of off the, off the beaten track endurance sport. But yeah, what was it initially that took you into. How did you first get into ultra running? Having kind of done the, the Ironman?

Well, I just. And the reason sort of mentioning Iron man makes sense is because I realized I was a pretty good cyclist and it's certainly from The Mountain Biking 24 Hour Pairs events where you run, you ride on a relatively short course for 24 hours and it's. With when there's two of you, it's actually quite fast and quite furious and you ride, you know, 24 hours and so and used to do quite well in the UK on those things and realized my biking was pretty good and my running was pretty good and obviously I had this swim deficiency which meant spending a lot of time in the pool which I was, wasn't against but I don't really enjoy going to the gym and I feel like going to the pool is like a wet extension of the same thing. You know, you go down there and you follow a black line and if you want to get better at swimming you have to do 20,000 meters a week or something. Realistically to get to lose the sort of time I needed to, to be more competitive. And so I looked at running and I was probably my strongest if maybe my biking stronger but running was, was I was a bit time poor. I was working in, in the city in London and I suddenly thought well if I can do you know, 10 hours Ironman, what if I just ran 10 hours maybe that can't be very hard, can it? And the answer is it's much harder Iron man but, but also quite addictive and quite fun and I've been doing it for a long time. So when I started doing them there was less races, the fields were smaller. Things like UTMB were you know, several thousand people, not 10,000 people. And so it was, it was a different world and I just enjoyed it and taking some of the things I learned from Ironman which was in Ironman racing I always preferred to be self sufficient. So when I would train I would train so that I would take nutrition from the course. I would have a very stripped down drop bag at T1 and a stripped down drop bag at T2. So I wouldn't, you know, I'd be like I don't need to think about lots of extra things. I would have a very clear mind about how I would, how I was going to race. I would take bottles from people holding up on the side of the road rather than worrying about my own nutrition. So one less thing to worry about. And if you take that approach into, into ultra running I think it can be really helpful. Just a very simplistic self sufficient. You'll take the food from the tables in, in your ultra, whatever there is, you will carry, you know, whatever you need. And, and that works pretty well for me.

And, and what, what is, what was your first ultra marathon and how did it, how did it go?

It was the country to capital which is a, which is. It's filled as Country Table 45, 45 miles. It runs from Wendover in the Chilterns and the first 22 miles or so are in the woods and it's unmarked and you get a bit of paper. It's pretty inexpensive. It still happens every year. It's in January, it's pretty expensive and it's unmarked. You get a piece of paper with some like directions on it. And pretty much back then because it was about 2010 there weren't too many of the GPS watches with mapping on so you sort of had to follow the paper rather than now where you just look at your wrist and it was good. I mean my feet hurt and the route is 25, 22 miles through the woods and then 22 miles pretty much along the canal path into Maida Vale. And as everyone. I think he's kind of over. You set yourself some expectations on, on how quick you do it and those went out the window pretty quickly and, but, but it was good and it was a, it's. It's pretty small. You finish it, you know, there's a couple of pubs at the end and just kind of a nice way to finish. And I think it's actually pretty popular as a lot of people who live in London, certainly it's a, it's a good first time ultra marathon. 42 miles is a, is a decent chunk of change more than a marathon. So it, you know, it's definitely more of a challenge but it, it's in. And it's in January so it can be cold and wet, but it is, you can get the train there. You can. You finish. If you live in London, you finish probably pretty close to home. It's a very, I'd thoroughly recommend it for about £60 or something. So it's a very inexpensive way to, to do a race and well supported and some really strong runners every year. The times are for. The winners are crazy, crazy fast.

Brilliant. I mean that, that does sound like a good race, I think. I think so. Claire and I did the arc50 last year as our first proper ultra and yeah, we, I think we should have picked the race that you just described as our first.

Yeah, I mean the same sort of time of year but not on the, not on the southwest coastal path which I mean could, could you could get anything in that. In January on that.

Yeah, we were lucky.

We were pretty lucky. I think if we'd done it the year before, I think it would have been snowing. So. But one of the races, I know you've done an incredible array of races and I don't kind of, I can't obviously talk, we can't talk about all of them but one of the ones that intrigued me most was racing in the Gobi Desert. You know, there's something that, you know, we've talked a bit about this on the podcast. Whether it's Namib Desert, obviously marathon day, Sables come up many, many times. But the Gobi Desert sounds awesome. So describe to us your, your kind of the, the amazing experiences you've had in the Gobi Desert. But also perhaps sew it in with, you know, this. There's obviously the, that prompts the safety conversation around racing in that sort of part of the world. So. So tell us about your experiences there.

Yeah, Gary does. It was as you said, was as amazing as it, it sounds and, and I was actually meant to go back a second time and it didn't happen. But if anyone gets a chance to go in. There's not many races there now given the changes of endurance sports in, in China after, after the tragic deaths of a number of athletes a few years back. But it wasn't, it was, it was 400 kilometers. That's what it was billed as from. From nowhere, pretty much nowhere to Dunhuang which is an ancient city. The ancient city of Dunhuang in, in. Well, I don't even know where it is really. It's hard to describe but it's sort of Inner Mongolia, very much on the Silk Road in China. I was invited to go. It was a very small, it's a very small race. I say small. It's about 150 people which isn't huge compared to some of the big races we have now. It's logistically very challenging. So I think there was probably at least one member of staff per athlete. I'm sure there was. There's a lot of people there to make sure we were safe. It wasn't my first rodeo into and I should clarify this single stage multi day ultramarathons opposed to a marathon desab say where you. The day ends when you cross a finish line and you go to go to a camp and sleep. This is. The clock doesn't stop if you go and sleep the time continues. And so in my mind certainly that's a more difficult approach than something like a marathon. There's a lot of versions of marathons to ultrax to a series of five day roughly 50 km a day on average type races in that model. But I think the single stage it does. The clock doesn't stop type thing is. Is in is a lot harder because it pressures you obviously not to sleep, not to. Not to spend too much time sorting out potential problems and, and that either costs you or it doesn't but it is incredible. It was an incredible race. It was very, very dry as you'd expect. It was very cold at night, much colder than expected. It was, it wasn't a sort of. You know, I think the pictures of marathon de Saab everyone knows the big sand dunes and the, the cockerels of sand as people jump off the standards. That is not like that in the Govi Desert there is a little bit but largely it's very, very rough rock sort of Fist sized boulders largely that, that are very, very rough. They eat your, your running shoes for a pastime. But yeah, the race started and we've, you know there are a few of us as a cup. There was another British guy Nathan who and I. And then mostly Asian Chinese runners. A few, a few Europeans. The women's winner was from Iceland but it was mostly Chinese. It's quite difficult to race in China even now. Back then it was equally difficult. You have to have invite letters and permission to enter certain places and that all takes time and obviously a visa. So it took a lot of organization but it was off the back of doing the Trans Gran Canaria 360, which is a 265ish kilometer race on Gran Canaria. So I did that in 2017 and then, and then raced the Gobi desert in 2018.

Brilliant. I mean it does, it does sound like an awesome place to, to go go race. And, and I can understand the, the pressure of that kind of not sleeping. What, what I couldn't quite get my head around was the swing of temperature that you seem to get there. And you've probably raced other places where the sw. But that, that, I mean you mentioned briefly how cold it was but do you want to, can you tell us how you dealt with that kind of, that swing of temperature whether it's the Gobi Desert or. Or elsewhere?

Yeah, well, I mean I've raced a few deserts now and they, they do have that same characteristic which is largely speaking very hot in the very, very cold at night. The Gobi Desert combined that with a lot of altitude. So that's the highest point and I think it was all above 2000 meters and the highest point was about 4000 meters. So you know, the scientific calculation is for every one 100 meters of increase in height you lose 1 degree centigrade. So you know there's going to be a 20 degrees difference between 2000 meters and 4000 meters plus. And this is true of other deserts is the wind. That is probably more of a problem than the altitude. Certainly in the Gobi Desert once you get up high you get not far. Well, not far, but some thousand miles from Tibet. From Tibet, but the Tibetan plateau with really big mountains in the 7,000 and 8,000 meter height. Those are covered in snow all year round and they pull cold air down onto the plateaus. So what you end up with is a situation where you're running. There's always a wind and that wind is always cold. And I can't remember which of the many famous Chinese prophets or kings or talked about the wind in the Gobi Desert. Cutting, cutting like a knife. And it absolutely does that. So in the day, in the daytime you can be running along and to answer your question more specifically I took. There was a quite demanding minimum kit for Gobi Desert. They were. They were very conscious about looking after us in terms of our health, our well being. But they did and we did should had to have very four season sleeping bags. We had to have down jackets with certain regulations around fill weights and trousers and all sorts of things. So we. I had a 25 liter pack but was absolutely jam packed with down of which most. I ended up wearing most of it most of the time as in the reality because even in the daytime and it was cold enough that two down, a down gillet and a down jacket was often, often what I wore and running tights of which I hate running tights and anyone who knows me knows that you know has to be absolutely minus something horrible for me to be wearing anything other than shorts. But yeah, four days in, in. In short in. In tights and down was pretty much what. What I used. And that's been the same for the speed. And we're gonna know, we're gonna talk about the speed project later on but yeah again the same thing at night in the Mojave Desert. Very much the same cold winds and cold temperatures. So and to add to the thing is you don't move very fast in a lot of these races or at least you don't move very fast after the first day or two. And often it's. And often it makes more sense not to move fast early on because you use a lot of energy but inevitably they tend to be more of a run, bike, walk, crawl type strategy. And the latter nearer you get to crawling obviously the less heat body a body generates.

Yeah.

And the more you have the need for. For down and technical fabrics. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's a, that's a good segue onto the speed project. So just tell us those people that don't know. I mean I did a bit of reading about this. Tell us what the speed project is and, and your experience around it.

Yeah, and there's lots of people won't heard this new project because it's intentionally kind of underground. And there's an article on the. If you Google my name and speed project there's a BBC article came out last month that goes into some depth about it but called it the. The Fight Club of running which I quite liked. It was. It was set up 10 years ago as a relay run by six people who decided to hire an RV. I don't think they may have not even had an rv. Might have just been a minivan or something. And they decided to run from Santa Monica Pier to Las Vegas which is their original route is 340 miles. And so he did this thing and it. I think it was a. It was pretty wild. It was a bit of a party I think I'm pretty sure some beer was consumed and. And they had a bit of a good time on the. On the roads running as much as they could and swapping over and with no rules and no spectators and those sorts of no rules and no spectators have continued to be a strong ethos behind the race now. So 10 years, seven years on they opened up the. The race became quite popular and it was full of relay teams. It's quite a. It's got quite a young following of people who get RVs and they 50 or so RVs might will race now in middle end of March from LA to Vegas. It takes them about the winning team usually about 30 hours for 300 miles which is pretty damn fast. The, the rules are that you can. You must start at Santa Monica PIA and you must finish at the last welcome to Las Vegas sign and you can choose any route you'd like. And there's a few sort of subcategories for the racing but in, in 2018 they approached me about. Or was it 2019? 2019. Neils one of the founders approached me about they were going to do a solo version and I was fairly keen. I didn't really know what I let myself into and I was actually saved by Covid and by there being a COVID pandemic and not. And although I was really about doing it in 2020 and I you know I hadn't really. I had other focuses and, and hadn't really given it a lot of thought but it didn't happen in 2020 and then it happens in 2021 with a only American fields because no one could travel. And then in 2022 I got myself to the start line in Santa in Santa Monica with. With very fortunately backing from the North Face who look support me in. In my running to make a film. So I ran three just under 300 miles, 299 miles from LA from Santa Monica over Mount Baldy along the Yermo Road which if anyone's ever driven it is a very long 75 mile road with no bends through Red Rock Canyon and into. Into the. Into Las Vegas. And I was fourth and that took me 19. I can't even remember how long it took me now, 98 hours or something to. To cover that.

Wow.

Which is pretty cool. And it was a very cool experience. And, and yeah, and I. It sort of opened up my. It's sort of renewed my, My love for ultra running and, and, and again, sort of perhaps reopened my eyes to what's possible in terms of moving on two feet.

I mean, I know parts of that, that stretch and it is, again, it's an amazing part of the world, isn't it? Would you put that as your, as the highlight of your ultra career so far? Or if not, what would it be?

No, not really, but I. I'm not sure. I feel like every race I've done at some point has been a piece of a jigsaw puzzle to. Which isn't an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, so it would be wrong. I couldn't say one thing has been better or worse than another is they're just pieces of, you know, pieces of the jigsaw. I mean, he's certainly been one of the, you know, one of the best pieces of that jigsaw, but it certainly isn't, I mean, alongside the goat. I mean, I wouldn't have dreamt of doing it if I hadn't done the go. I might not have done the Gobi Desert if I hadn't done a lot of these things are, you know, stepping stones from one to the other. But it certainly, I mean, it was to continue the story a little, I guess, is that it was good enough that I went back and did it again this year in 2023. And it wasn't my intention, wasn't to do it actually, but I was planning to. I'm a photograph photographer as my part, as my, as my employment, as my job. So I'd been planning to shoot photos of a, of a team, of a women's team, and that didn't happen because there was a Mexican team and they didn't get visas to enter the us so that. So I suddenly had flights and, and some accommodation in LA and nothing to do. So, I mean, I obviously could have probably jumped in a van or something with another group and just made. Made some my own luck and shot some photos. But I also looked at my training and was in a pretty good place, probably a better place than I was in 2022. So after some lengthy conversations with my girlfriend, who's always super supportive, but. But also what I was about to do was perhaps more dangerous. I said, I talked through Doing it self supported. So running the distance, a different route, just on my own with a backpack and no outside support that wasn't available to everybody. So there's a few different rules around ultramarathon, fastest known times. And one of them is that if you want to do self supported, you can't have outside support, but you can buy things from shops, you can use taps if they're public taps, you can stay in a hotel. Those things need to be available to everybody equally. So you can't do is stash water along the way. You can't take things from somebody else, friends or other competitors. It needs to be a fair level playing field. So I did that and it took me a little bit longer, another eight hours longer to do. To do it on my own with a backpack, sleeping in derelict buildings and under bushes. So yeah, it's, it's a, you know, a different way of doing without a film crew, without the, without the RV driving around following me or being up ahead and, and was. Yeah, it was an amazing experience.

Do you have a, a strategy? So when you. In terms of doing something self supported. So would you go out and think about where you might sleep or even like a strategy for your sleep or do you have enough experience to know when you need to stop, when you need to pick up foods? Like how do you, how do you even start to plan that? I guess you've got so much experience that you might know when you need to do things. But what's your strategy?

It's a. Yeah, it's a bit of everything to be honest. And you know, originally I talked about the Iron man being flexible and, and that's that I think was. It was a good thing for me originally because if you make things simple for yourself in Iron Man, I. E. You would go back to. You take the bottles from somebody handing them on the side of the road, use the. On course nutrition. You limit the number of things you need to think about in Ironman that typically you can. If you can stomach those things and you can train with them, you can go faster. You minimize things. You haven't got this worry of have I got it or haven't I got it? Have I forgotten it? You know, you very much simplify your decision making and long distance events and I would throw long distance cycling into as well are a culmination of making good choices and making good decisions. And if you can simplify those decisions as much as you can, then you have less opportunity to. To make a bad choice. So in a roundabout kind of way what that means is I plan what I can plan for. So for instance, when I did the speed project last year, 2022 with the film crew, I wanted to go and have the adventure of a lifetime and go over Mount Baldy and through the mountains and. And I planned that all because we had a COVID pandemic from. From where I am now in my flat in East London using Google Maps and Kamoot and Strava and anything and some people who lived there and I spoke to. But I pretty much plotted it without having stepped a foot on that route. And I plotted a route that I knew that there would be a vehicle along and whilst it wasn't there to support me, I knew there was some a get out jail free card if you like, where I could get water from them or they could help support me. And it was actually a very dangerous experience. And I went over Mount Baldy in the one o' clock in the morning and it was heat, ice for maybe two miles and I fell and slipped and had no mobile phone cell reception at that point. Spent a good half an hour working out whether that was, you know, potentially the end of my experience because there was no way around the. It was either go forward or go back and I obviously couldn't without cell reception. I didn't have a plan B for rerouting. Is actually incidentally the same place that I think his name's Julian Sands, the actor who went missing in January and they found him two weeks ago. That's where he went missing in January and and obviously sadly died. So he was in the same stretch where he was. I didn't know it was as dangerous as it is. It is high and icy and in March it was very, very treacherous. So it's a long way around saying you can plan for what you can plan for. And that's what I did this year. The difference being is I now knew that with that with the snow they've had in California was completely out of the question. But also I need to stay near some civilization for food and water. In 2022 it was 40 degrees in Death Valley and I was in again the Fortune. I had a film crew because there was. When they appeared there was a awning and I could get some shade under their vehicle. I obviously this year I thought it was going to be the same sort of heat and so I needed to find ways that were going to be relatively close to civilization. So I followed a route that was fairly similar to the route that most people follow. It's called the OG Route I followed something, a hybrid of that which meant I was only ever about 35 to 40 miles away from a gas station or a motel or a small town. So I could always. So in reality I would network be always be 7 to 8 hours away from maximum from somewhere to get water, assuming it would be open of course. So it's a very long winded way of saying it's a case of planning what you can plan for. And then in terms of sleep, I don't know if there's a wrong or right answer. And this year I was much more disciplined with sleep and my aim was to run 300 miles in four days and to run 75 miles a day and sleep. And what I did in previous times, both the Gobi Desert and Speed project last year was to run 75 miles and then realize I've done it quite quickly, relatively speaking and to push on and to say I'm going to do 105 miles today rather than 75 miles because I feel good and I don't think. And so I decided and then what happens is you get 140 miles in and you, you've had two hours sleep and you can't again going back to making good choices. You can't make good choices because you're so tired you can't use body stops functioning in a very, you know, in a good way. So my plan this year was to do 75 miles and then sleep and I did that and bizarrely I started at 4am and at 8pm I'd done my 75 miles. So I was, so I pulled out my emergency bivvy bag and, and I had, for this year I had an amazing down jacket and trousers that instead of a sleeping bag so I could wear them at night if it was cold and then I wouldn't have to carry extra. And I just crawled into my little emergency bivy bag and took a couple of hours sleep at 8pm So I think it's a case of trying things and, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't and learning from those experiences and also minimizing the things that you can, you know, you can worry about.

With regards to sleep. Talk to us a little bit about how you know when you get it wrong. I've heard you tell the story of a hallucination that involved a lake. I don't know if you've got any better ones than that to tell, but certainly that was a story worth hearing for people to understand the impact of not having enough sleep. So tell us a little about Hallucinations. And if you want to use that as your example, then.

No, no, I've hallucinated. It's a regular thing now and it's. I think the first time it happens it's kind of a bit. A bit scary. But now it's a kind of. It's a kind of accepted part of knowing that you. You need to sleep. And sometimes it's not. It's just plainly not convenient to do so it really. It gets. So I think everyone's different but I get to a point when about probably 40 hours in and I haven't slept that things really. The wheels really start to fall off. So you're getting approaching two days without sleep. I don't like getting to that point. But sometimes, particularly things like the Gobi Desert where there were life bases. But I felt that in that particular one I felt it was more competitive. There's a race. It was more competitive and I felt more pressure to. To not sleep. But it tends to happen to me at around about that point where I start to hallucinate things. Even in the daytime, you. I start to see things. Rock formations start to appear as the things that. Not. Not a crazy like you know, pink elephants and things just your mind starts to. My mind starts to play tricks on me and light and shadows and things start to create images in rock formations and. And bushes and things. Particularly as it starts to get darker, you know, and you start to. Shadows and things start to become. Make the. The terrain more interesting to look at but more. Gives it maps perhaps more depth of field, more, More texture. You start to see thing. You know, things appear. And I think sometimes it comes down to also a desire to see people. And if you. Especially if you've been on your own for a long time, the idea that somebody. That's somebody up ahead that you're one of your crew or something in case of. The case of Gobi Desert might be a tent or something in the distance or speed project. It was the film crew but it rarely. It really is but as you get into night it tends to get worse. The speed project last year I. I mean the part of the area goes through goes when you're about halfway along goes through. In my route last year was. Was through a lot of military US Naval bases. And there's always talk about it's like Nevada and the whole aliens thing. And so you have this kind of like loosely in your mind this idea of restricted airspace. And you know, there is on the road to Vegas there is alien jerky shops and things and you know, they obviously make a big part of this whole thing. And last year I saw lights and things in the sky and I was running along and I'm pretty certain that I was expecting to meet a police car further up the. I was on a bit of dirt road. A lot of the roads you run on the service roads for power and water out there. They were often the old roads, but now the freeways are in place that a lot of these roads are now closed to all traffic apart from electricity and water vehicles. But you do go through these things and there's big wire fences either side of the year on a sort of 100 meter wide sort of channel of bluff bushes and things. And I was convinced that I saw red and blue lights running perpendicular to me in, in the distance. And I would come to a junction and there would be a police car. And I was kind of expecting to see this because I could see these lights moving across in the distance maybe a mile away. And I carried on running, carried on running, started to think about what was going to say when I got stopped by these police. And I thought maybe it's military police. I am running with a head torch in a restricted space legally, but obviously expected someone to come and say what are you doing out here? And I ran and ran and then there's bushes and shrubs and then I got to this junction and I looked and no police car, nothing at all. And then five minutes later I swear I was being followed by lights in the sky maybe 50 meters above me. And maybe it was a drone, maybe it was, you know, but your bright brain starts to worry about different things and hang on, bear with me one second. So your brain starts to just were and you start to see stuff and I, I kind of regret in some of these things not getting my phone out and like filming this stuff. You don't think about it at the time but, but like that's probably why I should do. Because they would settle the answer. Was I seeing things or was it, was it actually real? And, and so, and then you have a little bit of a sleep and it tends to, tends to sort itself out and, and then, I mean certainly go be desert. The bridge version is I thought I was on a frozen lake and climbed over things and, and boats and things and, and, and I was so tired. I had asleep, I think about seven hours sleep. I actually had hypothermia as well at the time. And so, but when I came out in the tent I was 4,000 meters and there'd never been a Lake and there never been boats. And the whole idea was, had been that I heard in the briefing about this section of reeds that were somewhere along the way and that planted that idea that this is where it was. And when you're tired these little things work in your mind and you start to hallucinate stuff.

It certainly, it certainly sounds like a fun part of it, but also a scary and dangerous part of it because I suspect it's all happening at the point at which, you know, you're, you are sleep deprived and it can lead you take. I mean, particularly when you're talking about racing in some of the areas that you're talking about. It must create a significant safety issue as well.

Yeah, I think you're probably not aware there's so much of the safety issue until after the fact, which may or may not be a good thing. Yeah, I mean Gobi Desert was. It took me an hour to do a mile or something, at which point I arrived in that checkpoint with hypothermia because it was minus 15 or something outside with the wind chill. So yeah, it certainly isn't ideal. And the other obvious thing is that you don't make decisions around navigation and you go the wrong way. And in fact, in the Gobi Desert, the other you, the other British competitor, Nathan, he, he thought his GPS unit was, was wrong. It wasn't marked and we had handheld GPS units to, to guide our way. He thought his was going wrong and it was then. But he went maybe 15 km or something off, off the direction he should have done, which is when you're in the deserts and then 15km back the way you came. He probably added half a day onto his, onto his journey in the desert with not much water and, and not much food and so yeah, it can do. It's. It's certainly then that's why to some extent it's sort of, it sort of feels fun after the fact. But, but you. Things can go wrong and you know, fortunately most people live to tell it makes a good story. But that's why this year I wanted to try and be a bit more disciplined in the. In sleep and take. Doing 75 miles a day and taking an enforced sleep break seemed like a good way of, you know, of taking four. If you, if you can do 75 miles in 20 hours and you're trying to do it in 24, then in theory you can take four hours of sleep and still roll over the next into the next day and do another 75 miles. It's again, it's Easier to write it down and do it on paper than it is to do it in reality. But at least, at least you start from a plan of sanity rather than a plan of just running until you hallucinate and, and get yourself in trouble. Yeah.

It's actually the second time this series that we've heard. We were just hearing it earlier on from Ian Adamson who's the world champion adventure racer and obstacle course racer and he was talking about a race where his team only wanted to take half an hour's sleep but he didn't set the alarm and they got six hours and. But they ended up winning the race because of all the mistakes that people were. And it's like that old running adage, isn't it? You've got to slow down to speed up. Taking the sleep actually puts you in a better place to win.

Yeah, it's a definitely a learned skill. I think of being patient and, and it doesn't, the race doesn't. It's not the first person, in the case of Speed Project, it's not the first person to 150 miles is the first person to the finish line at 300 miles. It doesn't matter if you get to the halfway first. And in fact in 20 last year, 2022, two people ran very fast, went out running hard. I think they got to 150 miles in about 28 hours or something like that, something and then never made it any further than like 180 miles because they ran on the tough roads out there and got tendonitis and, and injury problems and that was the end. And it's a, it's a, it's a very heroic way to get halfway but if the aim is to get to the finish line first, it's not, it's a bit of a foolish, foolish way to do it and starting.

Sorry, sorry. There's quite a lot of talk, I've heard quite a lot of talk recently about the, the negative impact on long term health by missing just one night's sleep. Have you, have you had, you know, have you done any reading around this around, you know, I'd be interested to know your thoughts of kind of the long term health implications of ultra running, whether it's sleep, whether it's kind of your, you know, your joints because clearly there's a lot of amazing health benefits for doing lots of running. But by taking it to the extreme, to those kind of, you know, is it, is it worse?

I mean the problem with it, with all the scientific research around this sort of thing Is that the cake? You know, the pools of people who do it are so tiny that it's impossible to, to have any real peer, peer group assessed. I, you know, solid evidence that one thing does another. And I agree it's, I'm sure there's lots of life affirming improvement benefits from doing these things and, and conversely the negative as well. And, and I think, I think you can do a few things that, that make the, make the experience. I mean I, I want to go and continue to do these things for as long as I can. I'm in my late 40s now. I want to continue to these as long as possible. And so, you know, in my mind there's definitely a longevity idea in there. And as much as there is no point, could I run 150 miles and get there with the first front people? Yeah, probably could. Would it be a smart idea? Probably not. And so the more I do these things, the more I feel like, well one, I want to come back to them. Which, you know, come back from them. Which was one of the worries I had this year with Speed project and was, was a definite problem last year. I think last year probably came as close to, to not coming back as I've done on anything given how dangerous it was on Mount Baldy, which might sound like I'm being melodramatic, but it genuinely was very, very dangerous given the lack of equipment I had. I spent some time in the mountains moving in altitude with crampons and ice axes and things. So I'm familiar with how to move. What makes you very aware though is of moving when you haven't got it. And, but, but I think, you know, there's a few things for people who want to get into this longer end of the ultra marathon spectrum is that you just have to realize there's a lot of walking involved. And actually that's a very smart way of, of executing your race strategy. If you, even if you do some simple back of a bag packet maths and you realize that if you do five miles an hour, which in running standards is pretty slow 12 minute miles, you can cover 100 miles in 20 hours. If you're covering 300 miles, in theory, you can do it in 60 hours. If you just do a measly 12 minute miles for three, for 60 hours, it doesn't sound very hard. The reality of course is you've got to put in, you know, time for eating and time for, you know, sorting things out, problems out and five, but five miles an hour, it suddenly becomes in reality is actually very difficult. Eight kilometers an hour is suddenly quite a difficult thing to achieve. But you can get to 6km an hour, 7km out by just walking. And if you walk, you use less, you need less calories input, you expend less calories, so you need to put less in, you make yourself less tired. In theory, you need less sleep, you cause less dysfunctional damage to your body. You know, your impact forces are lower, you're not taking longer strides, you're not, you're not creating musculoskeletal stresses that you would do if you were running. So you can, it's a very tortoise and hare type approach. And I think the more you start to realize that you can do all right by running for two or three hours a day and walking for 17. I mean you need to learn how to walk in a meaningful, purposeful, quick way. And I can, I spent some time last year, not so much this year, but last year trying to get to, you know, walking up 8 kilometers an hour, 5 miles. It's a different group of muscles but getting to a fast walking pace so that when I was tired I could still do six and a half, seven kilometers an hour. And you eat on, you walk and you can do so much more when you walk. You can pretty much do it. You can pretty much function and walk. You can't really function and run. Yeah. And so you end up getting to a point where, you know, 10 minute miles, which again as for a lot of runners is easy, either their regular run around pace or is, is slow. It suddenly becomes actually quite a hard thing to achieve over such a long period of time. So it's just a change of mindset. It's I'm not going to run, I'm not going to, I might be able to run a six minute mile but I don't need to. What I need to be able to do is run 12 minute miles consecutively for 60 hours in theory and then I will do. And then you would win it by a day. You know that that's the kind, that's the kind of reality of, of how slow these things are. But, but even so, you know, being able to function normally at three miles an hour is still pretty hard.

Yeah, yeah, no, it really is interesting and it makes it feel a lot more accessible. And, and when we did, the immediate instinct was right, I've now got to go do, do the 100 mile arc of attrition. But was, yeah, actually if, if we walked more of that, it would, that would seem far more Achievable.

But, but it's a, it's a, it's a running thing. And like every, every runner, you know, when you start running you, you do some walking and your aim is to not walk. Right, that's running because walking is not running. So when you start running the whole function is I hear, I hear people all the time. And it's, and it's, you know, oh, I got round park run without walking this week. You know, that's the kind of beginners and when you do a couch to 5K it's a run walk strategy. So unsurprisingly walking is sort of the, is the thing you, you know, is banned in running. But the reality of ultra running is walking is a really smart way of, of conserving your finite energy source. If you, if you only we all have the finite energy source and when we train we, we can extend that, we can extend, we can be more efficient so that the finite energy we can take in we use by burning fat or burning glycogen or a mixture of the two. But we get fitter, our heart rate is slower. We can do more on, on the same amount of fitness and efficiency obviously of running mechanics works into that. So if you're an ultra runner, the smartest thing you should be doing is, is not running. Using is not fighting gravity. You know, if you're really strong, you're the world's best mountain runner and you know, you can run up a thousand meter hills, then go for it. But the vast majority of runners, and I include myself in this, don't, can't do that. So the smartest thing would be to use that energy reserve when I'm not fighting gravity either so much, either on the flat or on the downhill and actually conserve that energy to use it in a place where you're going to get more bang for your buck. Yeah. And so that makes a lot of sense. Not to say there isn't a skill in, in fast hiking, power hiking. And I think that's just the mistake that a lot of people, if you're going to go and do 100 mile race, an arc of attrition, then spend less time running on the flat, doing intervals and more time hiking at an effort level that's comparable, you know, an effort level where you can feel your heart rate rise and work on that as a skill. Well, because what happens is most people is they, they run and they go to a mountain ultra and they get to the first hill and they go, oh, I must walk. But then they're walking is so terribly slow that, that they, they lose so much time. So there is a skill set there in, in, in effectively like a military backpacking march. Yeah, like a proper. Not thinking of it as, oh, this is the bit where I, I ease off the gas and because it's uphill, it's okay, I'm going to work hard. The impact forces of going uphill are much less physically, so you can, so in your training you can actually do a lot more uphill work than you can downhill or flat, but make that a learned skill rather than just being. Well, when you get to a l, you walk and I'm going to be slow because you can make up a lot of places competitively by being a really good, a really good power hiker.

Brilliant. That's excellent. So one of the things that we do on this podcast is we get the last guest to ask the next guest the question without knowing who that is. So the last, the last guest was Evan, who was a, is a nutritionist and, and also a speed walker, actually. So. And his question was, when did you know what you wanted to do in life?

I still don't know what I want to do in life. So now, so next week maybe? I mean, I started, yeah, I mean, that's a good question, but I think it's a question I'm going to answer in a roundabout kind of way, like I have done all the others. I think it's a question that as the world changes, the more we don't have to make that decision anymore. I think when we were younger we went to school and you went to careers counts, you know, career advice. And there was somebody there who said, and you said, when I'm older, I want to be a fireman, policeman, you know, solicitor or whatever. And that's what we did for the next 40 years of our, of our lives. Now I think look at what happens in 10 years in, in all sorts of industries, but increasingly our lives are in technology and in that sort of thing and technological changes in 10 years. So to answer what, darling, I could have the question myself is I was in Finance for 15 years and at the time I really loved it. And you think that's what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life. And. But Lehman's crisis and various other financial crisis has happened over that period of time. By the time I got to 14 years of being in it, I was like, this is horrendous. I don't want to spend, I don't want to be living for the weekends and working 12 hours, I wanted to be doing, I was doing Iron man and things, but I was cramming it into 12 hour days and, and where I would be too tired the weekends to do the things that I wanted to do. And so you and I had good salary but spent the money on fast bikes and not riding them and holidays. That's no way to live your life. I don't think in the, in the long term. And so now I'm a struggling photographer and content creator and, and I do a lot of things in the North Face, but I've never been poorer. But, but also conversely, I'm my own boss and I spend my time as I want to and, and I'm certainly much happy. I would never go back to that, that world again. So in a roundabout kind of way, I don't think anyone needs to choose. I think you just need to be adaptable and willing to take some risks. Which I guess comes around to some of my approach to, to running as well, which is adaptability and managing those risks in a way that means you can come back tomorrow and do it again.

Fantastic. I think that's great advice and I couldn't, I couldn't agree with you more. I think, you know, gone are the days of getting a career for the next 40, 50 years and, and sticking with it. I think, yeah, I think that that trend is just accelerating. So we've also got a question from a listener. So this question is from Fee, which is which life event felt like a nightmare at the time, but actually shaped you into the person you are today?

Yeah, I mean it's probably a good segue onto if you change, if you do change careers, it feels awful. I mean, I was good at the job that I did. I just didn't like doing it. So when you then make the jump to go a job which was comfortably paying the bills and affording new TVs and 10,000 pound bikes and things to go and jump off, throw that all away effectively walk away from something that you're quite good at with you've been doing a long time. It felt like an absolute nightmare to be, to be. And I actually went back and thought this is the wrong decision. I took three months off and worked, went to work for an agency and I took a few months and realized that I hated that too. And it wasn't just the company I was working for, it was the whole industry that was wrong. So it felt terrible. And I spent a year earning less money than I ever, you know, the year after I 15 years after leaving university I earned less money and it feels terrible. I mean it feels money isn't. Isn't my driver but you know it wasn't enough money to, to really survive on in London. So it felt like the terrible thing to do and, and yeah and it was difficult for sure and but it, but it also was the kick in the pants that I needed to to go on and do the things that I do now. And I mean to add to that we had obviously Covid and being a self employed person who earns their income from being outside and group activities. I'm a qualified coach and at the time I was leading a lot of run community stuff and for brands and doing a lot of work in that space and and yeah and it all went out of window so I had the whole of Kobe where I think I earned nothing zero so those things but people everyone was in that boat and and I think that's you know everyone had the same challenges and we all and unfortunates have lived to tell the tale when many other people didn't. So you know there's silver linings in all these things and everything that seems like a nightmare and this is something I do think about when I when you go out and do an ultra marathon when you're on your own a lot of times we're actually in a very privileged place and and we can and there's. There's always lifelines fast even during COVID you know have family and my girlfriend is a teacher so she was still continued to have employment and there's. There was ways out but for a lot of people there there isn't, there isn't a someone to lean on and there isn't a safety line. They're escaping war torn countries, they have nobody and they're living on the streets. So we have ultimately whatever my personal privileged life challenges are I'm very happy to have those challenges compared to having some of the lives that other people in the world have and don't have any way of of escaping from. And I think there's someone said to me this week about what what it's like to go to the run self supported in from LA to Vegas and it was nearly five days of sleeping in derelict buildings and eating from gas stations and fast food joints. But ultimately even though I was a long way from civilization at times I still had a mobile phone. I could still ultimately call an Uber or something and pay a lot of money to get to escape my self self induced challenge. But there's people out there who. They don't have that. And, and it does. When you're out there on your, on your own and you think this is all going to be over in four days and doesn't matter how bad it gets during that four days, it's going to be over. Yeah, a lot of people, they don't have that. They don't know when it's going to be over. Maybe it never will be. And, and so it's just good to have that perspective. And doesn't matter how bad your, your worst day is, you know, one, they always get better. And two, there's somebody out there going to be having a, you know, you need to turn the television on. There'll be somebody having a much tougher time than, than we are. And so, yeah, I mean, no, brilliant.

I mean, it comes back to that sort of saying of, instead of saying, I have to do this, it's, I get to do this. You know, when you're doing these experiences, they're, you know, it is tough. It's bloody hard work, particularly mentally, often as much as it is physically. But ultimately we get, we are privileged to be able to do these things.

It's a choice. Yeah, it's a choice. And, you know, everyone gets those choices. So, yeah, putting yourself in those situations, people, A lot of people will understand why one would go out and, you know, run, walk across 300 miles for the simple reason that, because you can and because maybe it's good to get back to some, some simple, simplistic way of living for only a short period of time. But, but I think if you think about it long and hard, you know, it's a small price to pay for, to get to explore some of those things that people live on on a permanent basis. Yeah.

Now we also, the, the, the last tradition we have on this podcast is we always ask people for a book recommendation. A book that you found yourself that's helped you found yourself recommending to other people. If not a book, then something else like a documentary or something, but preferably a book. Are there any books that you found yourself recommending to other people?

I think if you, if people like running and we'll start. I've got certainly a running bit recommendation. It's. I need to just check it. I think it's called Always the Runner or Always a Runner. Let me just have a quick make sure I get the title correct. And it's a book. It's, It's a brilliant book. I think it was sold out, like all good things sold out. The boot of a car and it was printed out in. Back in the 1980s. It's actually.

Yeah. So this is a running book I haven't heard of before. So I'm. I'm intrigued to know.

Can I get. I think it's called Always the Runner. It's the author when you, when you don't get the title correct, isn't it for the book that you meant to be recommending but it's a book about high school runners back in the 1970s in America and just. It's a story but it's written very much from a running point of view and it talks about just kids in the 97th high school, kids who do. Who get into running and it talks about. It's just written with so much passion, so much joy for the simplicity of going out and. And in high school track and field running. So like the real suffer fest hurting type. Yeah. I think it's this book called Always. Always a Runner. Yep, always. But also I get. I guess the other option if Ultra Runners is I mean Born to Run which is, which is. Yeah if you've never read it it's just, I mean it's, it's. It's a fictitious book but it is based on largely on some, on some real facts and I don't think, you know, I don't think that anyone should necessarily take it as a. As a guide to how to run but it certainly is a great story and I think in terms of just getting people into the idea of running like the Tarawera Indians in Mexico and the idea of just simplistic basic running, running off of corns, you know, tortillas and corn beer and just the idea of that slow paced thing. It's a great, great story. Christopher McDougall is a great writer and I would recommend any of his books he's done subsequently as a great. As great reads and if you ever get a chance to see him present he is an incredible presenter of his books. Actually had the. The misfortune of talking about the Gobi Desert actually in Chamonix, Mont Blanc at UTMB a few years ago I was invited by a great running magazine again another recommendation if you like something a bit shorter like the wind magazine available likethewinds.com Great collection of generally stories provided by regular people alongside some great athletes. I was had the misfortune. I say this because I went on first and then Chris McDougall went on second to talk about his book and I was totally upstaged by someone who is a brilliant, brilliant storyteller both in person and written. So yeah, I go off and I was like, yeah, I was the warm up, definitely the warm up act. So. Christopher McDougall, born to run is a brilliant one.

It is a brilliant book and I can't help. I love that, I love that book. It was the book that got me into running actually. I started listening to it.

It's cliched and everyone's like, but, but honestly if you don't need to. It's a book that you could read without being into running. And that's what, yeah, surely that makes, that's what makes it a brilliant book. You don't need to be a running nerd. You don't need to have a cupboard full of running shoes and you know, no, no difference between your how many kilometers in a mile and how many miles in a kilometer and all those things and your cases and a watch. You just buy the book and just enjoy it for the story that it is. And the characters are real. So this is what's great about it is the characters are real. I had the pleasure of running with barefoot Ted MacDonald who came to London a few times and I was introduced to him and he is the colorful, crazy character that he comes across in the book and that is Barefoot Ted. And, and so, you know, it is, it is a brilliant book and I think the fact that it's, it's, it's created as a story adds to it rather than makes it not, not a viable read for serious runners as well.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And, and just one final question. You. So you've talked about some incredible races that you've already done. I've heard you talk about sort of, you know, the hardest races in the world. I've heard you talk about the most obscure races in the world, including one that involved like manga rabbit type races in China. It's absolutely crazy. What is the one bucket list race that you haven't done that you kind of, that you, you. That you would love to do?

I don't know, there's lots of spaces I wouldn't do. So I wouldn't do going to do marathons and I wouldn't go and do some of those things. I just, you know, running around in circles on a course that almost no one complete doesn't really. I mean I like a challenge, but something that you could, you can genuinely isn't designed so that no one can finish. It's not my, it's not my idea. There is a speed project new version this year in Atacama Desert which Looks. Looks like it could be pretty crazy. It is the same format. I don't know whether at this point I'm not sure whether I can be able to go just in terms of it's hugely expensive to get out there and the logistics are very challenging to do it solo because there is nothing and it is the driest place on earth. So it's a lot of challenges around. You can't do it self supported so you then need a crew and you need all that you've got to get people to Chile, which is not, not inexpensive. So I don't know it's going to happen for me personally, but it won't get. Will happen as a racer, that's definitely on my bucket list. But I think it's. I'm much more these days into creating something new myself or thinking about creating something than following someone else's idea. And I, and I'm happy that I know we're getting to the end of the podcast. So this is probably a really good place to sort of talk about my future ideas. But I do think that we have become and I include myself and lots of people into this idea that we can only do these things if someone organizes it for us. And actually the world is an insanely amazing place and that includes going out of your door and looking around at the place you see every day and starting to think a bit more about just using what we have around us. And, and, and I would. I said this the other day at a workshop that I talked about is adventure begins by going left when you always go right. And that is the simplistic way of thinking about things. And there's still some Covid. Definitely one of the positives for me was that I was, you know, we were so restricted to being able to own the areas that we, we lived in. We couldn't, you know, get, go travel long distances. So we tended to. I live in East London. We looked for things we'd never been to and amazing. All the little bits of trail and undergrowth and parks and things and that we'd never been to because runners in particular tend to be creatures of habit. And you run the same route, you run the same loop, you run out and back, whatever you don't tend to because you know that that's the. You can do this bit of this segment or, you know, it takes this long or, you know, it's exactly this distance. But just starting to think about looking at things and saying could. Is it possible. So is it possible to run, you know, the London to Paris as a cycle ride is, you know, it's, it's hugely popular. It's like a, a coming of age thing along with like the John O Groat cyclists going to brighter Paris. And you ride to Paris in three days and then ride to Paris in 24 hours and could you, can you run it? I mean that sounds like a great. There is, there is the cycling route there, there is the avenue there which runs from Dieppe to Paris. It's a cycle route. Something like that sounds more interesting to me than following and doing it on your own, your own, on your own steam at any time you like and, and just having an adventure rather than necessarily than, than being driven. I'm certainly not driven by medals and T shirts and, and, and the paraphernalia that comes with. And I'm not. I think I was and I think it's a very natural thing to be, to be motivated by ticking off boxes and having bucket list races. But also movement I think is a, is an important part of my life and so just doing things that make me happy but are challenging as an. I can rattle off some things I have done which I never talk about, which. We, my girlfriend and I, we ran around the circumference of Ibiza in four days as a holiday. We. I had the FKT for running the spine of Mallorca, the GR221. I. We ran around Menorca on a holiday of 50 kilometers a day for four days. There's tons of those things that you can. We ran around Isle of Man in three days. It's just those things to me are more interesting than the checkpoints and beating and coming 29th or 426th or taking 31 hours to do UTMB or whatever. They sort of meaningless metrics in the whole scale of things. If you don't, if you aren't going to win.

Yeah, yeah.

And you're. And you're living depends on it, then you're in a whole different, different space. And if you, you know, you need to win races or you need. Because you have sponsor requirements and you have income that comes from that, then you, then you need to do that. If you're middle of the back, back of the pack just making up the numbers but having a good time and you want that medals and T shirts and things is, is the drive of doing it absolutely brilliant. But if you've done a lot of them and those things are sitting in the cupboard, you never wear them. And then maybe there's other. You either stop doing it and you look to another sport or I think you look for maybe something that, that ticks, you know, that tickles the fancy, which isn't, you know, if you're no longer inspired by T shirts and medals then, then maybe that, you know, your own adventures is the way of doing it. And I want to put a couple of things. One thing if anyone's listening, it opens for sale this week and it's a brilliant idea which is called the Peak Divide. And this is a brilliant example of, of kind of what I've been talking about with a bit of help. So the guys who run the One Foot Forward Track Club and Outdoor Provisions Nutrition in March this year did a organized two day run from Manchester to Sheffield through the Peak District and they. It wasn't a race, there was no winner. What they did do instead was create groups of people to move together and they'd have someone who knew the route and who would do the pacing and they would then move people across from Manchester to Sheffield. They did in two days. They stopped in Edelweiss. This year in September, they're going to do it as a one day experience and people will start in Manchester and then they'll run to Sheffield. And I've wrapped my girlfriend and I revamped the route a couple of weeks back and it's an amazing route. It's super fun. It's almost, there's not a 1km of it. I would change, I would say is boring, is gray or you know, industrially industrial. It's all canals and hills and mountains and it's absolutely brilliant. And it's in my mind this, this is the, the future for a lot of new events is forget the timings, forget the winners, go and have a, make it a movement of people rather than a race and have a great experience and share that experience with other people and, and people learn off each other and they use each other to achieve something together that maybe they wouldn't be able to achieve on their own without the egos and the winning and the swag that, that people seem to need. So it's. It launches on the 5th of July, which I think is the next couple of days, two days time, maybe this podcast will come out. I'm sure it will after that, but I'm sure there'll still be places. But also it's a route that can be, is accessible and exists every other day of the year. And I would thoroughly recommend it for people who want to do a challenge in two days or three days. You could easily do. It's 80 kilometers. So brilliant. 30 kilometers a day for three days. And I think it's, you know, looking at those sorts of things is a. Is a really novel way for our industry to grow and flourish. I think.

I think you're absolutely right. I think one of the greatest things to come out of COVID was the fact that people start exploring and, you know, it was that drive towards the FKTs rather than organized races and all of that kind of stuff just allowed us to explore a whole lot more. In particular, you know, it's that classic case of, you know, you're chatting to an Aussie and I've been around more of Australia than he has, but he's done more of Great Britain than I have. You're like, well, this is crazy. We need to explore more of our own territory, don't we? So that's, that's awesome. And just on that note, I know you do a thing called Advent running. Do you want to just explain a little bit about what that's about?

I do. It's. It's. It's not something that I spend much time with anymore. But it was launched in 2014. In fact, it existed before 2014 as something I did with friends. It was. The idea was, when I were training for Ironman and other things, is that during December, we didn't have much spare time. We were all working and we would inevitably get caught up in Christmas parties and family functions and things, and we would do not much training and then get to January and be unfit and out of shape and regret all those December beers and big dinners. So it started off as like, just, could we do 25 days of exercise? 25 pieces of exercise in 25 days. Didn't really. It was largely running because it was just an easy thing to do. You could pack your shoes in your bag and we would. We had lots of caveats about if you did two runs in the same day, you could have the next day often because people have, you know, you know, big Christmas party.

Yeah.

So it was built of a sort of fun more than anything. And then 2014 put it on Facebook because a few more friends were like, oh, this is really good. Can we find a better way of. Of you doing it than, like, you know, just doing it? I think we did it on Strava and it wasn't very easy to. For people to follow, so did it on Facebook. And then a friend of mine, Kate Carter, who was at the time was the journalist for the Guardian running blog, said, would you write a piece for the Guardian on what this Thing is, sounds like a great idea for people who want to get a bit fit in January. So we simplified the whole idea and said you just have to run. In fact, over time it became an annual thing at Christmas. 25 days of, of exercise in December. You know, if you can create habit in December, you can create it any year of the month. That's the kind of logic because you've times you're time poor. But also this idea with, with any sort of thing that you're doing ex curricularly, particularly sports, you know, we haven't got extra half an hour, an extra hour a day in our lives. We have to do not do something else. So sacrifice if you like. And so the idea that you could find, you could not watch Coronation street on EastEnders during December so you could do an hour, half an hour's running would maybe plan that idea. You could do it all year round. And it went a bit crazy for, for many years and it turned out to end up being a 365 day thing in London where we had, we didn't do a run every day but we had physical group runs and we made events and it became a running community in London and it was very active. I coached that, that thing six days a week for five years. A lot of it was on, we didn't charge anything for it. So it was, it was unpaid and it was crammed into my busy day. And we were fortunate to work with a few brands, Tenzing and Camden Town Brewery who did pay me to do that to lead their run so it provided an income. But then of course Covid came along and we were restricted on what we could do in terms of physical groups and then, and but it was also a good time I did to look around and actually decide and make some decisions around could I continue to do six coaching sessions a week and, and earn a living and stay sane. And when we looked around, my girlfriend and I, who was very much part of it, we said this, this. Now when it started in 2014, there was very few running communities. And I'll just to caveat that I think running community is a group that isn't an, isn't an English athletics affiliated running club. And by that I mean it's just hasn't got the barriers to entry that it's not about to define it. I think it's less about winning and going fast and more about running as a lifestyle choice than being competitive. And if you look at in London in particular now, there's hundreds of these brilliant vibrant running communities of five or six, 20, 100, 200, 500 people who meet multiple times a week and go and use the parks and streets that we live in. And if you look in Bristol there's left handed giant running club which is doing a brilliant job and you go to Manchester and there's track one foot forward brewery running club that's got 100 people meeting on a Wednesday. And now there's lots of things, there's lots of, of these community groups and I've been running. I felt it served its, its role as a, as a regular weekly running group and, and frankly I think people were doing, you know, were bringing more life to it than, than I was in terms of just the pressure of me trying to earn being self employed and do these things. And I still, we still do it in, in Jan. In December. Now it's 25 days. It has a Facebook page. People still get involved and they. But. And it, but it exists now without. It was never meant to be a James Pool thing to raise my. It wasn't, it wasn't. It was much more selfless than that. It was meant to be about having fun and getting active in December rather than a thing about me or thing about that I had to do to make it continue. And I'm really happy that people in December I see on Strava people do Advent running day one without being part of the, without contacting me, without being part of a Facebook group. It's certainly that that's, it's now has a, it's organic and has a life of its own rather than it be forced, you know, pushed for people to come and visit, you know, to come and join us on a Thursday morning for a bagel run and, and I think that's good and I, I hope that. And I know there's running community groups that you. People who used to come to mine who now and it doesn't exist do their own thing with other people and I think that's the healthy way these things happen rather than it becoming someone's fiefdom and my fiefdom, my you know, kingdom that I, you know, you feel pressures about and don't want people to. And that's what tends to happen in these sorts of running communities is they become some 11 individuals. Yeah. Sort of claim to fame and, and then they get a bit, they can get a bit unpleasant and you know, and people don't want to join other clubs if you're not part of this club and that's life's too short and running just running at the end of the day, it doesn't need to be. People don't need to be getting so uptight about it.

Brilliant.

So thank you for asking. It's not one of the answer you wanted, which was, I would say, yeah, come and join us every week. Frankly, it's a good story and yes, it's given me masses and masses of opportunity and it's, I wouldn't be sitting here today if I wasn't hadn't been on that journey with the advent running and people that came and I couldn't be more thankful for the things that they taught me while I was coaching them about humility and, you know, and turning up and, and just the spirit of, of good people doing a simple thing. So it was a brilliant chapter, but, and it's not necessarily over forever, but I think why, why continue creating, doing something when there's so many better versions of potentially better versions of the same thing? Brilliant.

Well, that's fantastic.

I enjoy going to that. It's really great thing to go along to someone else's group now for it.

Exactly. You enjoy it without having to do legwork.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely brilliant. Well, on that note, James, it's been absolutely fantastic. Thank you very much for, for coming on the podcast. Loads of great stories there. Loads of really inspiring races, certainly races that I think are, you know, I, I, I, I definitely want to transition towards more of the ultra running thing. I've got a couple of ticks I need to, to nail first in the Iron man box and then, and then I definitely want to do more ultra stuff and so you can be a lot of brilliant. That's what I'd like to do. That's definitely on the list.

If you've got enough money, you just have to buy the, buy the 12 now, don't you? And then you can, and then you can, well, actually have changed the rules.

I've changed those rules. It's not quite so easy now, but, but yeah, no, brilliant. It's been fantastic. James, thank you so much for coming on and I wish you every success in, in the future.

Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Claire. I look forward to hearing it and I will. Yeah. And by all means, if anyone wants to reach out to me, I'll just say you can do so. Instagram is always the best way. And my Instagram handle is quite simply at James D Poole, P O L E and I happily give advice or someone's got a race that they think is. Or a crazy idea that I'm all ears. Brilliant.

Thank you very much. That's it for this episode of the Triathlon podcast. I hope you really enjoyed it. If you want to find more about James Poole or follow him on his social, the best place to go is to Instagram where he is JamesDpoole and that's Poole with an E on the end. And you'll get some great photos of him exploring the globe. Loads to take away for that from that episode for me and some really cool places to think about doing ultramarathons. So if you like the podcast, please download it, follow it, share it, tell your mates, comment on it on our socials. Yep. And in the meantime, keep on training. If you like what we do at the Tribathlon Podcast podcast, you've got to register for TribeTalk. It's an email that comes out every two weeks, packed full of everything to do with swim, bike and run, but also nutritional help, business coaching and a whole lot more. Whether that's books, videos, TED talks, apps or technologies, it's packed full of ideas that can help improve your sport, your life and your business. So register for it@tribathlon.com and you'll be sure that every two weeks your inbox is full of some amazing ideas and resources to improve your life. And remember, this episode was brought to you by the Trusted team and by fourth Discipline. So if you want to find out more about how the Trusted team can help you grow your business and improve your work life balance, go to thetrusted team. And if you want to find out more about how Fourth Discipline can help take your performance in sport and life to the next level, go to fourthdiscipline.com. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do review it and share it because it helps other people find what we think is really valuable learning lessons from amazing athletes. So please do that. You can also find the whole back catalogue@tribathlon.com and you can also find out about the Tribe Athlon app, which helps people find events, find people to train with and enjoy their events through their tribe. So check out tribathlon.com.

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