Gold Winning Team Dynamics with Crista Cullen

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding. And I'm laura siddall and this is the tribathlon podcast.

Yeah, you're kind of creating a risk taking environment, but then getting people to understand where the parameters are within that and that is the sweet spot. And it's not always easy to achieve it, but if you can, then it can be super special.

That was Krista Cullen and this episode is gold winning team Dynamics. Hey, Sid, how you doing?

I'm very good. I've just had that classic fun of trying to work out in a foreign supermarket what the ingredients are that you need. I don't really bake. Let's put it out there. I don't bake at all actually. We could go back to Claire Fudge podcast and talk about that. But we are coming up to Easter and traditionally, as I think you probably do with your family. My family go down to Cornwall for Easter and on Good Friday they walk from the flat in Karbis Bay round the coast to St Ives, stopping at the Portminster Cafe for a coffee and a blondie.

Beautiful.

Yes. Now, to be fair, I haven't actually made it down to Cornwall, having lived away from home for the last several million Easters. Last year was the first time I was in the UK at Easter with that chance of going, we could actually do this. And of course the reason I was in the UK is last year at Easter was of lockdown, so we weren't going anywhere. But my sister made blondies, which was very great and we had mussels and chips and lots of rose wine and pretended we were all in Cornwall. So I decided I was going to make because I'm now in Spain this year on my own. Don't need the violins. I'm quite happy here for the moment. No sympathy needed. But I thought, I'll give, I'll try and make these blondies, but trying to find like plain or the equivalent of plain flour and caster sugar and then I'm going to, I'm just going to give away all the horrific ingredients like white chocolate, white chocolate buttons in the Spanish supermarket when my Spanish is still pretty poor. Was an interesting trip this afternoon.

So have you, have you managed to make the blondie or is that. That's.

That's yet to be baked.

That's yet to be done. I still forgot to get the butter and I still need to find the caster sugar. I think I. I think it was going to be icing sugar that I very nearly picked up. So I decided that wasn't the best option. And I'm going to ask one of my friends where I can get the more baking ingredients. There were no white chocolate buttons, so I got a couple of, you know, the lint white chocolate bunnies. I thought, you know, that's Easter and they're bunnies, so they might be the replacement chocolate.

So you're going to be melting down Easter bunnies, is that what you're saying?

Well, I'm going to. No, see, I think you melt down the white chocolate and then the. The chocolate buttons go somewhere else in the mixture. Yeah. So I thought these bunnies might be kind of smashed up to.

Yeah, that sounds very. Sounds very festive. Smashing up Easter bunnies.

Exactly. It's Easter, isn't it? God knows what they'll taste like.

Excellent.

Well, I. That walk from that stretch of coastline from sort of Carbis Bay down St Ives is just absolutely beautiful. In fact, it's my favorite stretch of cycling in the uk, just the other side of St Ives. So that stretch from St Ives down to Land's End is. Yeah, absolutely stunning. Cycling and walking. We had a walk down there once where we had about nine dolphin. We were sitting and having our lunch and we saw nine dolphins just wandering, you know, diving down the coast. But that. That stretch down there is. Is just stunning cycling. So. So, yeah, great part.

Yeah. I haven't had that much opportunities to actually explore it down there on a bike. I remember one year or 2013, and I'd raced London Worlds, and then actually the week later, my sister got married in Cornwall and we were driving down and I think Mum and Dad, like, kicked me out halfway down the A30 and I rode the last bit to Karbis Bay, but that's pretty much all the cycling. And of course, now with me being in Spain and Europe, it would, in theory be a lot easier to get back and go down to Cornwall when the family goes. But of course, we've not been allowed for the last however many years, so.

And if you want to do some hill reps, Karbis Bay is a pretty good place to be doing that. That is cycled up. That is brutal.

Yeah, that. The. The road up from the beach. And also. And the other thing at the moment, it's very exciting because the summit is there in June. The G8 summit.

Yes, that's right. At Karbish Bay Hotel.

At the Karbish Bay Hotel, which, for me, just. Well, and our whole family, we thought was mildly amusing because we, like. I've seen it from being a kid with the beach huts on the outside and this sort of fairly smallish hotel that's now hosting these huge political nations.

But it is a great part of the world. And that stretch, it's like its own little microclimate, isn't it? It is a fantastic part.

Like whatever the weather down there, it's amazing. But on a blue sky, sunny day, the colors are just. I mean there's a reason why so many artists and painters go and live down there in a painting. And then I love it when it's like howling a gale. As long as I'm inside that is, you know, howling a gale. And the rain's going, the waves are crashing. But yeah, it's, it's great.

Fantastic. So. So I think this week the most interesting thing that's been happening in the world of kind of running, cycling and swimming is this virtual race. Now last week's podcast guest, Beth Potter had took the win, didn't she? But she did talk me through what was going on in that virtual real thing because I, I thought the bits that I saw those really interesting. Watching people race on Zwift.

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about what was happening there.

So, yeah, so it was the Super League. Super League Arena Games is what it's called. So it started last year, I guess, with no real life racing outside. And the Super League had launched, I don't know, a few years ago with this sort of short, sharp triple mix of swim or you know, mixing up the distances and all that sort of thing. And they. Anyway, they brought it indoor last year and it was the second round of that this past weekend and it was in London. So they did it at the Olympic park at the swimming pool. So it's basically a 200 meter swim. And then they have the bikes set up on trainers on the side of the pool. And so you ride it's a 5k crit city loop in Zwift. Um, and then the treadmills are set up next to the bike as well. And there are these self powered treadmills which makes, adds another element as well. So you can't set, you can't set the speed as we would probably know as normal treadmills, but actually the speed is set by you running and powering the treadmill yourself.

Does that make that more, is that more tricky?

Yeah, I think it. Well, it can be more. Yes. I've never been on one of these, but I think there is a bit of a knack to it and I think it can diff. It can benefit some runners more than others in terms of technique. And style. And you've obviously takes a bit of a knack once you jump on them to kind of get, get it up to speed. It's not like you've set your treadmill going at whatever, you know, four minutes or three minutes 30 a K pace and then you just jump on and it's already at that speed. You've got to get it going to ramp up to that speed. And that's a 1k, a 1k run on Zwift as well. So it's kind of this combination between you've got real life racing of you are the athletes are in the water, swimming in the pool and you're seeing them on the bike and on the treadmill, but at the same time you're watching their avatars race in Zwift. So it's kind of this really weird, bizarre format. The other interesting thing is it's they do three rounds and they mix up the order each time and they only have about two minutes in between each round. So if you win you get slightly less, you get slightly more recovery before you go into the next round than if you're the person at the back and a bit behind the pace. So what did they start with? I think it was swim, run, bike for the first round and then they did run, bike, swim and then it would have been bike, swim, run to.

Finish and swimming later on in the sequence after those other. After being on the bike. And that must be quite challenging.

Yeah, I mean I think it all is an interesting mix of high intensity. But also, yeah, we're. You tend to be conditioned to swim, bite, run in that order. So to then do a high intensity effort and then having to though go from running and then diving into the pool kind of thing and then getting, being able to execute that and do it three times through certainly adds to it, you know. Yeah, I think so. Beth Potter won. So last week's podcast guest, I think she really set herself up for the win in the first race. In the first round, um, it started with a swim which we saw kind of head to head battle between Lucy Charles Barkley and Sophie Caldwell. This is in the women obviously. Um, but actually Beth Potter, no one really spotted her during the first race cause they were focusing on Sophia Lucy. And yet when they jumped onto the treadmill, she'd come out the water with not that much of a deficit and a lot less than people were expecting. And then she was able to, she actually just ran past them all on the treadmill and she was able to sort of solo bike. So Won that first round and set herself up. Then for the rest of the rest of the other two rounds, I mean it was really those three, it was Beth Potter, Lucy Charles Barkley and Sophie Caldwell. They went into the final round all on equal points. So it was kind of up to grabs then. And you know, we were talking about it off air, it was, it was fascinating to watch the long course athlete versus the short Olympic distance athletes in Lucy and Beth and Sophie.

I find it amazing that Lucy can go and do so well at Kona full distance. Then she's doing amazingly in Miami at half ironman distance. And then she's still coming second in the super sprint type stuff. So I mean, how does, what is it about Lucy that puts her at that?

I think she is definitely at an advantage with her swim. So the, the, her swim ability regardless of distance just gives her a massive advantage in whatever race format she's doing. And she's got, from being a swimmer, she's got such that massive lung capacity and engine, but for 5k and 1k, she can still tap into that top speed and high power. I mean she's still pretty young. And if then you think of it over the three rounds, it actually probably kicks into the endurance. But I would just say that it's actually her swim was the difference for her. And I think you could see, you know, Tim Don in the men's race, his swim just wasn't as quick as the itu. Um, and so especially in that first race if you're behind, and we saw it a little bit with Ruth Astle, who's great, you know, a really solid long distance athlete, but she doesn't have the swim to compete. So she's already behind out the water and then you're riding on your own and you're running on your own and you don't get any of the gaming effects of being able to ride in a group. Um, and Lucy can just like there were some of the rounds where she wouldn't enter the water first, she'd be maybe fourth or fifth. And she was pretty slow in her transitions. But she's just got such a swim motor on her from years and years that just erased any deficit.

And it does seem that swimming is the most, is often the thing that impacts the athlete the most. If somebody swam as a kid or as a youngster, then it's a huge advantage. When I remember John McAvoy talking about this, actually saying, you know, because he didn't swim when he was younger, but if, but you can kind of, yeah, Yeah, I remember you saying the same thing when I interviewed you on the. On the podcast. Whereas Beth did swim when she was younger, didn't she?

Exactly, yeah.

And so that kind of foundation, it's just really interesting. And I think, actually, I seem to remember when I interviewed Malcolm Brown, he was saying, you know, ultimately, if they can be getting. If they could be swimming, really the other stuff is about fitness and you can kind of pick it up from whatever.

I think you can. I think just you never maybe be that top cyclist or that top runner, but you can to a degree. I think it is easier to train and develop as a cyclist and a runner than to develop late on as a swimmer. Yeah, I think that does. Those people that did grow up swimming, it is ingrained. And I think, you know, I remember saying after the Beth Potter interview, I hadn't realized she'd got a swimming background because she's written off in every. Oh, she's not written off. That's too harsh. She's never given the credit of being a swimmer in an ITU race, she's known as the runner. And I think then we saw that. And when you're talking about swimming in it, it's all relative. Like, she's still going to kick butt of any regular swimmer in a pool, but. But she's just not classed as a top swimmer against her peers, which are the top 20 in the world sort of thing. So when we put it in a little bit perspective, um, but she. And I think that was a difference as well. She. They were, you know, in the pool, in the super. In the Super League games, they're all in their own lane. And she, you know, again, that first race, it's 200 meters, you haven't quite got that fatigue. You're not fighting for space, you're not fighting, you know, elbows and stuff flying at the start and you can just. Yeah, you can just have a. She had a great swim. And I think, yeah, that was surprised everyone from that fact, but it probably didn't, you know, it didn't surprise her.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I've just finished a book, so talking about swimming, I just finished a brilliant, brilliant book called man vs Ocean by Adam Walker. And he has. So he swam the seven significant straits around the world. So started off with the. With the British Channel, then he did the Gibraltar straight, then the Molokai straight, then Catalina, then one in Japan that I won't try and pronounce because I'm going to get it horribly wrong because I've Only read it in a book. I didn't listen to the. There's no audiobook for this, so I.

Actually had to read it.

You had to read it.

Shows how good it is.

When was the last time you physically read a book and didn't listen to it on audio?

Well, twice this in the last couple of weeks because John McAvoy's book's not on audible. Neither is this. So I'm feeling slightly put out at the moment, but I've really enjoyed them. And then he did the Cook Straight. Now, I know you spent a lot of time in New Zealand. I've been on the ferry across the Cook Strait before and I think that is incredible. But what I loved about that bit was his interaction with dolphins, his. And how he. So he had a video on there of him swimming with dolphin. They stuck with him for about an hour and a half. And yeah, he posted a video on YouTube of it and it had about a million likes in. In about 24 hours. But he also got interviewed because at the same time he saw a shark and they thought that. And he concluded that the dolphins were hanging around him to protect him from what was probably a great white shark. So totally amazing. And then the final swim was the. Oh, the North Channel, which I've interviewed Sean Conway who did that, which is swim from Ireland to Scotland. And that is. Yeah, that's a tough, cold, cold swim. So really good. And I'm really hoping that we can get Adam on the. On the podcast at some point because he ended up having to go through a very different. Learn a very different swimming technique because he'd had so many problems with his shoulders. So hopefully we can kind of get some swim tips so that we can both become a little bit more efficient in the water.

Isn't it funny though, we were talking and people all here later when we interview Christa Cullen, but we were talking about doing the Lewire Marathon and all these kind of ultra running events. And I'm also kind of quite keen. I do like, you know, the extreme triathlons or the ultra triathlons or even the staged road like cycling races. I have no desire to swim the Channel to swim. I did one long swim when I moved to Australia and with the triathlon group I was with, we. There was a swim in Fiji, you can see, and it was an 18 kilometer swimming swim and we did it as a team. So I was. And I was definitely the weakest swimmer at that point for sure. And because I'd only really just started swimming, but my view was I was going to go there and for most of the time I'd be sitting on a boat sunbathing and then every now and again they'd put me in the water to swim, you know, 500 meters or something, and then they'd pull me out because I would be too slow anyway. But, yeah, I have no desire to swim in any of that. Like anything long distance or in those channels where you can't see. Like if I can see if it's beautifully blue, tropical, it's warm but nowhere and I can't see anything and it's dark.

And actually, even on the nice tropical swim that he did in Hawaii and on the Molokai Strait, he got stung by a Portuguese man of war.

So, Well, I mean, again, those sorts of things, I wouldn't pick where there's going to be anything that's going to hurt me. I'd be swimming. That's the problem.

As soon as it's warm water, there's going to be sharks and.

Or cold water jellyfish.

And then. And then, yeah, then you go, yeah.

So anyway, but we'll stick to Karbis Bay. We'll just do laps of Carby Spee.

Yeah, the worst that we'll get there is some basking sharks, I suspect. Anyway, on that note, let's dive into what is an absolutely brilliant conversation with Christa Cullen. Christa Cullen won gold and bronze medals in three Olympic performances with a total of 197 international caps and three as a world all star. Having grown up in rural Kenya, Krista spent her teenage years boarding at Oakum School, same school that I went to. And over the next decade, she progressed through the ranks of elite hockey, and that included the incredible London 2012 performance and also scoring the crucial goal in the final of the Rio 2012 game to win gold. She now spends her time helping out the corporate world, but also growing her incredible charity to FAUTI that helps support African wildlife communities. So in this fascinating interview, Sid and I got the opportunity to chat to Krista about the power of the team, about finding a sense of belonging through sport and also creating a purpose beyond sport. I know you're going to love this interview. It's one of my favorites since starting the podcast. And it was also the first one that Sid and I managed to organize where we could interview together. So I hope you enjoy it. Foreign. So I'm really excited to welcome Krista Cullen to the Tribeathlon podcast. Really looking forward to chatting to you. And for the first actual interview, we've now got Sid as as my co interviewee. So I'm really looking forward to getting into this conversation. So welcome, Krista, and good to see you again. Sid, let's kick things off for those people that don't know that much about you. Krista, do you want to tell us a bit about your story? Where did you come from? How did you get into hockey and how did that success in hockey kind of pan out?

So thanks, Charlie. I was really lucky actually, because I was born in uk but brought up in Africa, which is quite a little bit of a hybrid. And then my early years based here in Africa and was brought up as somewhat of a feral child. And by that, by that I mean in all good ways. Brought up out on conservancy, sort of camping, you know, in and amongst wildlife 24 7. And then suddenly I arrived at a boarding school in the Midlands, somewhat disappointed in my parents for having sent me away. And I was just really different, both culturally. You know, I showed up in a pair of shorts and a T shirt, had scraggly hair, never worn makeup, never sh.

My legs.

None of that mattered in Africa. And suddenly I was sort of thrust into this world of appearance and what designer clothes you wore and I really didn't fit in at all. So I kind of. I was really lucky. That sport was kind of a really nice neutralizer where it didn't matter where you came from, what you did, all that mattered was you were part of a team and you're trying to win. So, yeah, so sports kind of sort of was my journey, as it were. And then I was lucky. I sort of got into this environment where I was either going to be an athlete or a hockey player potentially. So I had to make a bit of a decision. At 12, I sort of would have really liked to have pursued athletics, but obviously hockey worked out, so I went down that pursuit. I ended up playing regionally and then internationally as an under 16. Athletes had some real setbacks really early on in my career and I think that's really important for any young listeners. You know, I had those coaches that said, you know what, you're just an athlete. You're never going to be an international hockey player. You know, we've all had them, we all have injuries and things that happen to us, so don't lose sight of what you want to do. And so my journey went under 16, under 18, under 21. And then quite quickly, at the age of 17, I got pushed into the senior international Great Britain squad in the preparation for the Athens Olympics then. And that journey was really Tough, because I was sort of the youngster. I mean, the next person in the group was six years older than me. And just because I was physically capable, I was able to compete. And then actually, Great Britain didn't qualify for the Olympic Games for Athens in the women's discipline. And so we went from. I thought, oh, my God, I'm gonna go to an Olympics at the age of 17 to like, oh, my God, are governing bodies going bust? So you talk about highs and lows and emotional roller coasters. I went through them quite early, but then was lucky enough to go to three Olympics. Beijing, we didn't actually do that well. We didn't make the semifinals. London, we were lucky enough to win bronze. And then finally we got the shiny gong we all really hoped for as a pretty special team in Rio, as the GB women's hockey team and that and that match.

So I suppose let's focus in on. Let's start at the start, then. So how being a. Being an old Okamian as well, how much did Oakum boarding school influence that, that journey? And how did you kind of settle in in those early days? Having come in from Kenya, I think.

The settling in took me a long time. And I know you want me to say it, I did try and run away and it didn't go well because it's quite a long way from Oakham to the A1 and then to Heathrow.

I find, I want to know, because I'm getting the impression you're a pretty resilient person. Anyway, what would you have done if you'd have made it to Heathrow?

Phoned my mum and said, send the tickets because I couldn't afford it on my pittance of what I got for pocket money. But, you know, Oakham credit where credit's due. I do think boarding school does grind into you a resilience that, you know, that independence, that fierce independence which I actually had quite naturally. And boarding school just brings that out and I guess being different as well, that's quite a learning mechanism that kind of. Everybody doesn't have cultural experiences that are all the same in the way they're brought up. And different isn't always bad. I just, you know, I alluded to the fact that sport gives you that lovely balanced equilibrium of everybody. Suddenly you get stripped back, don't you, almost to like, let's see how you perform. And that immediately takes, you know, culture, creed, all of the elements out of it, and it's just about deliverables. And so I eventually made one or two friends Charlie, you'll be surprised to know, and then was able to sort of thrive in a. In an Oakham school environment. And I do feel it was a springboard. I do feel the opportunities that I were given were second to none. And I do feel hugely privileged for having that.

Fantastic. And how did that then progress through to performing at London 2012? You know, what was that experience like being, you know, being a home Olympics and doing so well?

I think, Charlie, that Olympics was the best Olympics I think any Great Britain athlete would be lucky enough to go to. I mean, being hockey players, we're used to a man and his dog coming down on a Saturday afternoon and he's normally your dad and you've almost paid him to come down and watch. That is the reality, unfortunately, of a sport which seldom gets on television. And I know there's a lot of sports out there that really struggle to get. To get the profile lifted on their sport, and hockey genuinely is one. And so suddenly you go to a London Olympics where you've got 15,000 people shouting for you every single time you walk out on the field, and that liberating feeling of suddenly being like, oh, my God, I want to pinch myself. This is actually real of something that you've genuinely grafted for. I mean, non qualification for Athens and a disappointing performance in Beijing to then become a host nation and play in front of 15,000 people. Every time you walked out, I mean, it was an extra man, they're shouting for you. It really helped us grow. And I think that was what was so special about the team, is sort of that ability to harness that pressure of expectation and manage that in the way we did. But we didn't get gold and that's what we were hunting down. And that semifinal will live with me for the rest of my life. Because we lost 2:1 to the Argentinians and we hit the post and they didn't. And we hear about it a lot in sport, you know, marginal gains, the differences in the business end. It's the same in business as well. You know, you've got to deliver when it counts. And that's where we let ourselves down. We'd done all the hard work, we prepared incessantly, but we didn't deliver when we needed to. And that was massive learning. But I had a lot of respect for my team. You know, in 24 hours turning on its head, your Olympic gold medal dreams are over and you've got, you know, 24 hours to get your head back on, to go out, and I say, win a bronze medal because that was the likelihood of either keeping funding for our sport or not losing. If we did not win a medal, the men's and women's game would have lost funding for our sport. And that's. I guess that's the cutthroat ruthlessness of sport at the top level. There are deliverables that you have to hit. And thankfully, we won bronze, and the rest is history.

And then. So then, obviously, then going on to Rio, you then won the gold, which. I was watching the videos again last night, just getting absolutely. I was as nervous, even though I knew the result. And I don't know if you get the same. If you refloat, what was that? What did the team take through then to Rio? And I know you. You were out of the team for a bit. And I want to come back to that bit later. But, yeah, what did the team take into Rio? And then can you describe a little bit about that final and those and that match and then the penalty shootout?

Yeah, it all feels really surreal. Like, you know, when you. When you almost think, did that really happen? And it. And it's still. You know, it still feels odd sort of talking about it, because it was such a long old journey to get us there. We took a lot of learnings from London, and there was about half of the team that got picked who were bronze medalists from the previous Olympics. So there was a nice balance, I guess, of old birds who had kind of been there, done that, and then, you know, some of the younger, fresh blood, you know, amazingly untouched athletes that just were so skillful and had nothing to lose. So you need a nice little mix of both. But what actually, the truth of what happened is that we stripped back hierarchy. And we see it a lot in business, especially where there's so many voices and so many valued opinions. But because I might have been capped 200 times and somebody's only been capped once in their life, they don't feel like they have a voice or are able to articulate what it is that they want. And. And they just as much have a right. So we strip that back within our culture to enable everybody out the squad of 31 athletes to contribute equally. So that there was that we sort of killed the hierarchy and within that sort of a very refined in our cultural adaptations to be able to both challenge and nurture around how we wanted to be remembered, which was what the challenge was. So we came up with our visions, values, and behaviors, and there were things like, we are one team. We are, you know, we are winners. Etc, etc, but it's general jargon, day to day language. And so we challenged and nurtured around those. And that was actually the athlete body that did that. So that was one element. And then our coaching environment was one of which we were given a lot more freedom. And in that, the freedom that we had was that they basically went out and said, this is the framework. You're allowed to go and take intelligent risk. So we weren't necessarily now robots that were just doing the same thing all the time because it was all predetermined. We were able to be reactive off a structure that we had in front of us. And so Danny Kerry categorically said, you know, I selected intelligent hockey players that played off a framework which I offered them and then we were given the flexibility. So I do think that was a very different tact to maybe what we had in London, which was a little bit more rigidity. But it took us, you know, two or three Olympics with the same coaching team to be able to get there.

Is that when you talk about that ability to take risk, is that about kind of having. Giving the players the confidence to take that risk and that they may fail and then learn from that? Because often you find there's this. There's such a fear of failure or of doing something wrong within a team, then it also restricts, it almost restricts what you can be as players.

Yeah, you're totally right. So how do you create an environment, both in the world of the corporate industry as well as the world of sport, where people feel psychologically safe, for sake of a better word, to be able to have a go. And there has to be parameters to that. So you're obviously in an Olympic final, not going to be doing the most risky thing you've ever tried, apart from.

You ran the length of the.

I was just going to mention that.

But if you're able to create an environment in a training in environment where people feel there's consequence, so consequence of selection or whatever there may be, which was purely a photograph on GB's women's Instagram account, which is what we did, which became a selection tool. So now there's a consequence on the training environment to get your little muggins on that photograph. So what we basically had to do was to track that all the way back and then, and then say, right, here are the parameters of the game. Go out there and win it and it's your problem. And because there's consequence attributed to it, now you're taking risk because there is output that you need but at the same time learning the hard way. So you're almost fast tracking people through this process because there's a little dangly gold medal that's a mini one to get selected and get your bum on that seat to go to Rio that he's putting in front of you all the time. So, yeah, you're kind of creating a risk taking environment, but then getting people to understand where the parameters are within that and that that is the sweet spot. And it's not always easy to achieve it, but if you can, then it can be super special.

And so talk us through that approach in actual, in game time. In terms of how that led to you scoring, was it your only outfield goal for Team gb? Is that right at a slightly crucial moment?

Yeah, yeah, you've done your homework, Charlie.

So talk us through that.

Yes.

So, yeah, I'm a right defender, so I kind of, if I get into the attacking D, other than a penalty corner, I normally get a nosebleed. So basically I don't end up in the attacking circle. But when you get these opportune moments, and I guess if you're able to create that in training where you are, come the Olympic final, you are one all. Sorry, two one down to the Duchies, who just are all over us. If any of you guys did actually watch the game as defenders, we were pretty busy. And then we get this moment where my attacker seems to have seemingly disappeared and we're advancing down the left hand flank and I see a huge amount of space in front of me and just wander down the flank and into the space because that's a natural move. And unbelievably, the left defender crosses the ball. It takes deflection and I'm in the circle, the attacking circle, that is. I'm very used to being in the defending one. I'm in the attacking circle and all I could think of is when I coach people, a bouncing bomb because the ball's taken a deflection, one of the hardest things to hit first time. So you're supposed to trap it and then try and put it towards goal. So what did I do? I took a like double hand swipe at this ball as it's progressing across me, which is categorically what you don't do. And thank God, I just about connected with it and almost blew it over the line. But that did get us to 2 2, which then gets our tails up, of course. And it also just, I guess reinforces that message of nine times out of ten, I've left myself and my teammates exposed at the back by advancing. But sometimes there has to be that little bit of risk, which you just think we are two one down and we're heading into the third quarter and it's do or die now either we're going to win that contract or we're not. So I got to go for it, which is exactly what I did. So I just thought let's try and. And on this occasion it worked out. But it doesn't always do that, of course.

And then what was that moment like? So for many people, we obviously, or maybe just me, we dream about the Olympics as a kid and that was kind of like watching, watching it on TV and the sports and stuff. What was that moment like in the penalty shootout when I think it was Holly Webb scored that final penalty and it just erupted. I mean, was it? Yeah. Talk us through that.

Well, I think the first thing is that we, when we went to penalties. So we first went to penalty shootout at 3. 3. We basically, we have the best goalkeeper in the world when it comes to penalty shootouts. So I, and I was Maddie's roommates, we're ex clubmates, et cetera. And so I know the homework that that girl does. I mean it is unbelievable. I'm sort of sitting there watching some rom com and she's on her laptop like doing avid research on which way everyone goes on penalty shootout. So you know, she knew implicitly every player. And we had met the Duchies in penalty shootouts before and come up trump. So the psychological advantage in sport can never be underestimated. So thankfully that was on our side. And so when we went to penalties, I was sort of quietly confident that we'd managed to hold them and they were definitely all over us. So we managed to hold them to a three. Three. And then the psychological advantage of course came in. But when Holly slot, I mean Holly is such a cool, calm customer anyway, naturally personality and the way she delivers. So when she stood up to go and take that penalty on and her little schoolgirl bound into the air on actually scoring it, I think that just epitomizes how much the journey we had been on as a squad, how much commitment, like blood, sweat and tears, like nearly losing our funding capabilities. I mean this is a four year old, four Olympic cycles, should I say journey for some of us. And so that that complete, you can't even describe it actually Sid, you know, that complete and utter out of world experience where you're sort of like, has this actually just happened? And the only thing we could all do. Especially the three of us who had kind of been through the mill right from the start was just cry. We all just cried. But happy tears for those of you that were a bit concerned there. I think it was just this overwhelming sense of. I can't believe we've actually been lucky enough to experience what we thought was, as you rightfully said, was a childhood dream.

Yeah.

And was there a bit of a party afterwards?

Just a little one, Charlie. Players for a reason.

I was about to say. You know team sports, don't you, Charlie?

Well, this is new territory for this podcast. This is the first team sport person in 30 odd interviews that I've been chatting to. So I'm keen to know more, I think.

Well, wasn't it your birthday as well that night? Or you got double, double hits?

Yeah, so I got double whammied. It was 19 August that we won gold and 20 August is my birthday, so. And being in a team, obviously there's the deliverables on a birthday that a team member has to do. So let's not go into the detail, but unfortunately I had a really, really good night and I think, yeah, what was really lovely was actually our families all went to this rooftop hotel that GB hockey put on and sort of food and drink. We were still basically in the clothes that we had been playing in and, you know, just had, yeah, an absolute ball to celebrate. To celebrate, I guess, a game changing moment for women's sports and for hockey specifically to, to sort of put, put us back on the map. Which was, which was just a very, very special thing to have played a small part in.

And was there much of the Olympics left? Because obviously the tournament goes on for a fair chunk of it, doesn't it? Was there much of it left for you to enjoy or.

Well, we made the most of what was left, but it's. Yeah. So we're. Throughout the duration, we're one of the fewer sports that actually we have one game on, one game off. So we're eight matches in 13 days. So it's pretty relentless. And that's why being a robust athlete is so important. We can't stop, obviously, impact injuries, but our abilities to have robust bodies to be able to get us through that sustained challenge is really important because you've got 16 athletes and a 17th, 18th and 19th player who sit in the stands hoping that they get the chance, if somebody were to get injured, to take the field. So, yeah, I think it is one of those sort of. It was just one of those really really special, special journeys. And that's just the best way to sort of allude to how to put it into words. It's just one of those things that it's just you can't still. And it's weird because it's five years later. But super, super special time.

You spoke a little bit about kind of that nature, nurture element in the team. But after 2012, 2012 and London, you retired. So a couple of questions like how, as an athlete do you know when to retire? And then, and I think maybe no, but then what brought you back into the team?

So I don't think there's, I mean, there's no ideal case obviously, if there's career ending injuries or things like that. I mean, I did. My heart bleeds for people who have to succumb to that kind of reason. But in my case, people forget. I mean, I became a senior at 17 and I retired the first time at 27. So I'd done 10 years as a senior international. And then you take the element of my home's never really been England, my home is. And all my family live in Africa. So I'd gone through a decade of hardly seeing my family, who are a massive part of me and what I do. And so I was really struggling with that concept and the commitment to sport. I mean, if you're committing, you know, to a four year cycle, it's relentless, it's all or nothing. You're all in. And I didn't, I thought the London Olympics was the best thing I was ever going to compete in. And it was in some ways. And so I thought, retirement, yeah, let's go back home, let's get working in conservation, let's do some of the other things that I'd been so passionate about doing. And I was just one of those really lucky people that had other things other than just sport. And I'd had a career alongside my sporting ambition as well, working in London. So I was kind of trying to keep both endeavors running alongside. And then I didn't play hockey for three years, which is kind of this really odd part of my story because I retired, moved back to Africa, became a pilot, was working full time, was working in airline surveillance, like doing a whole bunch of different stuff that's wildlife orientated and I'm sure we'll go into that later. And then one fateful April afternoon, my phone rang and it was the Great Britain women's head coach. And I was like, I definitely thought it was Bellamy in his pocket. I just was like, I haven't spoken to this guy in three years. I mean, what's he going to say to me? So it was like one of those real awkward conversations where I was like, hi, Danny, what's up? And he was like. He was like, I don't really know how to say this. I'm just gonna say it.

I'm picturing you as well, like in the middle of, like elephants and.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was in the middle of nowhere. Exactly. Like I would be by the nature of what I was doing. And then he said, you know, would you consider coming back? And of course, you know, I was kinda like, well, I haven't played hockey in three years. And so it was kind of a really odd conversation. But the great thing is he gave me time and he sort of said, right, the girls need to qualify, you need to get yourself in shape if you want to consider this. And then maybe we all have a conversation at a later date whilst you sort of deliberate. And so that was exactly the process I went on. You know, it took me six months to make a decision. And that's a really important, important part of the jigsaw puzzle because, you know, the girls had committed for four years to go to an Olympic Games and there were girls who had filled my boots in that period. And so being a disruptor in that kind of environment needs to be really, really well managed because, you know, it's just like you're going through. You're in a corporate industry, you've got your eye on a promotion and suddenly they externally appoint somebody. Are you a team member or are you not? It's just a really horrible position to be in and, and I was putting my team members in that position, so that needed to be managed really well. So I was really insistent as to the process of my re. Engagement and then I. I did some ninja workouts to make sure I was in decent shape and I wasn't that old bird coming back for a position, so I kind of controlled the controllables. And let's just say my hockey skills have deteriorated a little bit over three years and we'll leave it at that.

Did you, did you move back to the. Because you in. You were at home in Kenya at the time, so did in that process, you moved back to the UK to get back up and running and back to speed playing again?

Yeah. So the real truth is I joined as the 32nd athlete in the squad of 31, where 16 players are picked and I was not funded. So those. There were two criterias that I had to basically Suck up if I wanted the opportunity to, to just get my little toe through the door. And then the rest was up to me. So I was in no better position than any of the other athletes were. All that I had under my belt was having played in two Olympics beforehand with the same, with the same coaching staff who obviously knew what I was potentially capable of.

What was it specifically about your playing or your experience that the coach was calling you three years after retirement to drag you back in? And that might be a difficult question to answer, but yeah, I'm going to ask you.

You've gone for it. The, the, the truth of the matter is, I guess I'm, I approach for a bit like a business, you sort of look at, well, what's where the gaps, what's your offering and then how can you attribute something that might help the team? So from a close kill perspective, specifically Charlie, in, in hockey, it's a bit like football for those listeners who don't know there's corners. So in a penalty corner in hockey, if you score one in three at an Olympic Games, you win medals. And so if you're the lucky person who's potentially nominated to be the drag flicker who puts the ball at goal and has a relatively decent probability of scoring, you get your name on a team sheet and it's quite a tough skill to hone and it's, you have to have a very robust physical capability. And I was lucky enough with the levers I was blessed with to be able to do that. And so from that, from that perspective, the skill acquisition elements, I also was able to throw aerials, which for those of you that don't know is chucking the ball in the air and sort of going a relative distance. So if people press you so put a lot of pressure on you at the back, you're able to be one of those athletes that can just alleviate that pressure and just chuck it, you know, 60, 70 yards over the top of them. And not many women are capable of being able to do that skill under pressure in the moment. So I kind of had these two little quivers of potential in my back pocket. That might have been the reason why Danny might have called me because it might have been just one of those skills that were kind of missing in the current training group.

Fantastic.

So then after 2016, you retired again and now I'm just blown away by the work you are doing now and everything you've achieved since. Not just by the sporting success, but how has that transition been then a second time from an athlete to the work you're doing now and life after sport, I guess. And also, I mean, we spoke briefly before we started recording about now. The work you're also doing with other athletes and athletes with a purpose.

Yeah, so I had two bites at the cherry and the first time I didn't do it very well, which I think is just an honest reflection. I kind of went a bit mute, lost my, lost my sense of purpose and kind of didn't. I was always used to having a very target orientated person and I didn't have that target. So, yeah, the first time I was kind of a little bit lost. The second time I was a bit more organized. I kind of knew what to expect. And through that I obviously, in my three year sabbatical was able to sort of drive a little bit of an agenda as to where I thought I might operate in. And so I use the time pretty well in trying to upskill myself within the arena of sustainability, which is kind of the area that I operate in now. And I am, as you rightfully said, really passionate about trying to support people with some consistency. I think that's the key here because in our journeys as athletes you kind of, you're kind of on this upward trajectory and then suddenly you fall off a cliff which is either you're successful or you're not, but your career is ending for whatever reason and suddenly there's this element of reinvention. And I just think, you know, the world needs to appreciate, especially in the current climate, the natural world, quite considerably and how much impact we're actually having on the natural world. And so through that, I think there's definitely a voice here which we can support athletes with. It doesn't matter what you're passionate about. There's so many things that are genuine game changers. If we all just think we can do a little something. And that does give opportunity, whether it's plastics in oceans or whether it's wildlife conservation or whether it's planting trees. It doesn't matter what it is. It's just directing that passion in a way that can help the wider group and that can stem to opportunities and employment, that can stem to you having a consistent message throughout careers. There's so many different ways that we can support athletes. But now that I was lucky enough to be a relatively successful athlete, I thought, how do I utilize this opportunity? Now that you've got a shiny gong, people listen to what you have to say. And so I thought, well, if I can leverage that and start something and see whether I can get Some followers behind me. And so te fawdi, which is my charity, was born and te fawti means difference in Swahili. And even from my younger years, which I alluded to earlier on, I was different. So maybe why not call the charity a bit different? And I guess my mission has been, or te fauti's mission, should I say, with my very able team supporting me, is to immerse. And that I think is a really important point. I think Africa historically has had a handout mentality of always wanting support and support has been gifted historically. And now there's a dependence and a reliance on that gift and it's not sustainable long term because we got to learn to be able to look after ourselves and look after our wildlife. So my, my ambition is in small bite sized chunks because I can't change the world, but I can try and in little bits and bobs is work and immerse myself within communities and wildlife, understand the complexities of the problems and then start coming up with small solutions and ways. I can use our donor funding to reach these remote places that can have impact and can help communities and wildlife prosper. And it's been honestly one of the most liberating journeys the last three years to just try and leave an impact, but in a way that is sustaining and has longevity affiliated to it.

I think what I loved about the work that you're doing with your charity is that I think we're not, you know, I've been lucky enough to go on safari a few times and it's such an amazing part of the world, the world that you live in and I. But so when you want to support this world, because you see, I mean, certainly when I was in Tanzania and actually, you know, in South Africa as well, you see a lot of poverty and you think, well, I want to support the wildlife because that's the bit that I'm here to see and it's amazing. But equally, I know that to support the wildlife we've got to support the communities around it. And you're trying to blend that approach, aren't you? So do you want to give us a bit of a few examples as to how you're achieving that with the type of projects that you're focusing on?

Yeah. And it's so variable, Charlie. So please those listeners that are interested. We do so many different projects for all different reasons, but I'll pick one or two that I think get a nice little synergy between those two. Because if the people do not value the wildlife, they're the ones that have to cohabit with them. So that is the biggest message here, is that we go in Shiny Land Cruises, and I'm talking Europeans and Americans and all the people that come to visit our beautiful country, we go and we visit these environments. We don't coexist in those environments. The people that are on the boundaries or are within conservancies have to live with these animals, wild animals, every day. And when your currency is livestock and you've got lions eating your walking bank balance, you understand why there is retaliation and frustration and all the things that in our first world, sometimes we can't comprehend. Poisoning a lion or, you know, shooting or spearing a leopard or whatever, because we don't see their losses. But the truth is, when you immerse, Charlie, you start to understand some of the hardships that these guys are struggling to even, you know, get something, just subsistence food to be able to provide for their families because of the remote locations that these guys live in. So my job here is to understand the people. And being a Swahili speaker and understanding the ground, as a third generation Kenyan, I think that gives me an insight. Should I say I'm not perfect, but it gives me an insight and then I can start working with these communities. So to give you an example, we work with one of our partners who borders Tsavo East national park. And there's a Kumungi Conservancy, which is the other side of the national park. Now, everybody would think a national park is fenced, but this national park is the size of Wales. You cannot fence this national park like it would be such a cost. So what happens is elephants, of course, see this delightful maize plantation, walk through a dry riverbed in the night and come in, and one night can take away somebody's livelihood that's supposed to last them a whole year. So what we do is we now go to the community and their board and their chiefs, and we sit underneath the coconut tree and we discuss with them what their hardships are. And then we talk to them about, right, if we come in with a solution, a renewable energy solution that can solve your problems, we are doing it because of the elephant, because of the wildlife, so that now they understand that the value is attributed or the values they are gaining is because of the wildlife, then the solution is a fence. But what we do is we offer a fence for 10% of their land. And in that 10% parcel of their land, they have to grow all their crops. Their livestock has to be there by night, and their homesteads that is in a three tier electric fence, right. So it stops elephants hurdling it because it's got a projection one so it can't get over the top and it stops mongooses going underneath it. So we're talking about a holistic solution to stop crop raiding and livestock theft. So it's a solar solution. So by the sun, obviously battery operated. And then we put in 10%. The important bit here is the 90% of their land is left to fallow, so they are not able to harvest any wood or charcoal or anything. They have to leave it open to wildlife by day and night and allow their livestock to actually cohabit with wildlife during the day. We've seen in some of them a 280% increase in yield. And these fences have only been in for like six months, if that. We're already seeing the impact that this can now have. Now there's a positive response, okay, to wildlife because they're understanding the provision comes because of wildlife and we want to share that with the rest of the world in our national parks. So we don't want them retaliating. And now there's a positive view of wildlife. Now all the communities are writing to Te Fote saying, how do we get one of these fences? Because they're amazing. And so now there's rather than this negative connotation of human wildlife conflicts or more specifically human elephant, because that is what we're actually talking about here. We're now getting a positive drive on it, but that's only through immersion. That's only through understanding and taking the time to try and build a solution that will suit. So anybody that borders national parks now, or any national park on the continent, this can be something where rural communities who are living on the bread line can benefit from throughout through a wildlife provision. But it just has to be well thought through. And that's just one of our projects that we work on.

It's ironic that I think it's absolutely brilliant. It's ironic that it's. You can't build a car. It's too big an area to build a fence around the animals. So instead we build a fence around the humans and the livestock. But it allows them to live in, in harmony, which is brilliant. I loved in your podcast I was listening to this morning, you were interviewing a marine biologist. I think he was certainly a marine specialist. And he was talking about how educating people that the value of a shark in the sea is worth. I can't remember what the figures were, but 17 times to the community the value of it being on a plate, for example. And it's that education process which must be really challenging because it's not worth 17 times that to a community who want to sell it, you know, food, as opposed to tourism.

Yeah, this is a process, isn't it? It's a process for partnership, it's a process to support and a process for just purely us to sort of handhold environments, whether that's, you know, marine, which is obviously what David Abura was talking about in that podcast. But they're all these unique cases, Charlie. And this is where I call it fortress conservation. It doesn't work where we assume, as a Western society, we assume we have solutions for African problems. And I'm not saying they don't give solutions to a certain extent, of course they do. And some of them work really well. But we can't assume anything here. We have to almost strip ourselves back, immerse in, take the time to understand and then actually build something that is long term, not just a quick fix. Glossy magazine cover that ticks boxes for donor funding and then says, right, we send more money now. Which is historically, unfortunately, the reality of some of the environments that I've come up against. So it's a very different model. It takes a lot of time. It can be frustrating. You need a lot of patience. But I do genuinely believe it'll give us the biggest traction.

You talk about that immersion and understanding their pain points or their needs. Is that part of the reason why you were a porter climbing Kilimanjaro? I've climbed it as a tourists. But you, you, yeah, you got stuck and you were carrying the, Carrying the load up there.

Yeah, I think, I think, I feel I have a responsibility to only have an opinion on something when I've tried it. And I, you know, I, I seldom. I was trying to understand how the plastics here on the coast of Kenya works and. And I went to three different plastics sort of circular economies, and then now I only feel like I'm in a position to have a. Have an opinion. And I think a lot of the time we sort of skirt over a topic and then we think we can tell people what it's like and so on the Porter program. So it's. There's actually a film about it on, on YouTube with Exodus, who's who I did it with, which is really good, by the way.

I was watching it with my daughters, who are also Oakham last night, and it's a really brilliant documentary for, for telling the story, I think.

Yeah. And it's called ngumu, which means porter, basically, in Swahili. So it's basically like hard nuts of sorts, because, honestly, carrying 20 kilos on your head for eight hours a day, for eight days, I would genuinely not recommend it to anyone. But that's how women carry things in this country or in Tanzania and Kenya. And so I felt that it was important that I shared their story through immersion, through putting myself through what they go through. Now, I do not have developed neck muscles. That is not a hockey trait that you require. So I came away with a very sore neck for months that followed. But I wanted to be able to show that there is an inequality issue around opportunity. There is a gender inequality issue around the lack of opportunity for getting a job based on strength and capability. And so I wanted to prove not that another muzungu, which is what we're called over here, another mzungu, was capable of actually being able to do it. Now, the really funny part was I speak fluent Swahili, and a lot of the porters, when I first was starting out, didn't realize I speak fluent Swahili. So, I mean, some of the things they were saying was just like, oh, God, another Muslim guru trying to come, Trying to be. Trying to do. And thankfully, I completed the task, but I wasn't. I'm not saying it was easy, but phenomenal. What all porters do, men or women, supporting people in, you know, in some of these challenges. Adventure tourism. I'm hugely passionate about it as long as it's done ethically. And, you know, I think it was a great little showcase of capability and what some of these women and men go through on the day to day, trying to grind and get these clients up Mount Kilimanjaro.

Have you seen. Have you seen a change then in the acceptance of women as porters or that opportunity for them to get the jobs?

Yeah, it's been a process, they said. And one of the girls on the film with me, one of the lionesses, as we called them, she'd been through the whole 10 years. So from point of absolute outcast, women do not do this job as a cultural thing they were not destined to do, to do that job all the way through to acceptance. And I kind of went through that in fast track over eight days because I was completely victimized initially until I actually was getting high fived on my way down the mountain because none of them could believe a female muzungu was actually capable of completing it. So I kind of fast tracked their 10 years in my basically eight days. So, yes, they are on a journey. And through the Exodus foundation, we actually support women to become just not just porters, but guides and get proficient in English and some of the things that are things that hold people back because education is obviously a massive part of being able to support people on their way up the mountain. So, yeah, we're sort of upskilling. So some of these women to be able to do the job and then, yes, they are given the opportunity, more walking companies need to use them and open it up. Absolutely. There are only one or two that kind of naturally go to women as an opportunity, but we're sort of slowly changing that directive, which is super exciting.

Yeah, brilliant. And were there any things that you took from your hockey days with regards to the power of the team that really helped you when you were in that, you know, helping, you know, as a porter carrying 20 kilos up Kilimanjaro?

At times in hockey, you're in full survival mode and it's just about like grinding through certain bits and bobs to get to, you know, you've got 15 minutes, you're absolutely backs against the wall doing everything you can. And the Olympic final is a perfect example of that, that, you know, the Dutch got in our circle 38 times or something ridiculous and scored three goals, and we got in their circle six times and scored three goals. I mean, talk about stats stacked against you. So you've got that from a sporting context of showing that sort of dogged mindedness that is ingrained in us Brits. And then of course, you've got that monotonous plod that happens at altitude trying to climb a mountain that is just mind numbingly boring and no one tells you about it. And you can't go any faster because you can't breathe. There's not enough oxygen. So I think there's these moments where, you know, I would turn to the girls because I was doing it slightly separate. I was carrying all of the clients stuff. We had 18 clients with us and something like 70 porters. And I was one of them. And I remember like a real moment of I had like a sweet box that I would sort of dip my hand in at those serious low moments. And then I'd share it around the team. And that was kind of this ability to sort of uplift everybody. And they have this like, they're always smiling, which is so liberating when it's hurting so much. And then they start singing Charlie. And honestly, it's like inspiring. They're so in tune. I Can hardly breathe. And they're, like, singing along and just getting on with their job and talk about team members, you know, pulling each other out from the depths of despair. And that's exactly what they do. And I found it so inspiring, just sort of being in and amongst it and just carrying my little bag of 20 kilos, trying to negotiate with the chef to make, I don't know, some sort of soup of whatever it was I was carrying so I didn't have to carry them the next day. But, you know, they are incredible, incredible men and women that deserve a job opportunity of that nature. I mean, it's relentless. It's a really tough job.

I remember the singing was just incredible. Like, on that final ascent to the summit, and you're starting at, I don't know, 2:00am in the night, and it's pitch black and it's freezing cold. And like you said, you are walking so slowly because you can't go any faster yet. The athlete in me was like, come on, let's get this. Let's get to the top kind of thing. But you can't, and you know you can't. And you're just watching the horizon, waiting for that first beam of light of the sunrise come over. And you're in this darkness. And then suddenly all the porters and everyone started singing.

Yeah.

And it was just amazing. And you can hear it kind of like echoing up and down the mountain of all the other groups. And it was just. Yeah. Just phenomenal experience.

Yeah, they are super, super cool.

We ended our trip around Tanzania at the base of Kilimanjaro. And we were looking up at it going, oh, my God, that's amazing. We're gonna have to. It was on our honeymoon, actually, and we'd have to come back and climb Kilimanjaro at some point. And it's been on my bucket list for a long time. But after a while, it was like, well, we've got to do it as a family. So how. Given that both of you have climbed Kilimanjaro, how appropriate is it to take kids up there and kind of what, you know, what stage would they get the most out of that? And obviously, physical ability aside, I think.

What fascinated me more. I don't know about you, Sid, but what fascinated me more about it all was that it actually depends on. It's not your sort of how fit you are. It just depends on how altitude affects you. I think a lot of people assume when you're super fit that you're going to be absolutely fine. But actually I really struggled. I had really, really bad headaches, things like that through my journey up there.

Was this when you had 20 kilos on the top of your head?

Yeah, pretty much. No, for the summit. I actually only struggled on the summit. I have to be honest. I was quite lucky with altitude sickness. But some people in our group really suffered. And that's the really difficult thing, Charlie, is that you don't know. You don't know whether. And it's not attributed to your fitness because there were some really elderly people who were absolutely fine, went a little bit slower, but were absolutely fine and nailed it. So I do think it's about it being memorable. So I go, when your children are of an age that they can really, really experience it and remember it, because I do think it's one of those bucket list things to do. But I would definitely say that unfortunately you can't predict how people are going to react. So. So yeah, just, just take all the precautions and just follow the diligent guides sort of way of way of dealing with. With you guys on the mountain.

Brilliant.

And I think like I went with my sister and we did one of the longer routes around, so he took extra days to get up. So hopefully kind of trying to manage the altitude sickness or altitude the best we could, rather than. I think there's some routes that go kind of fast track and obviously you get to see more doing it the longer way. I found. Do the porters get altitude sickness as well, though, or do they. Are they sort of acclimatized or accustomed to it?

No, they also suffer, actually. In my group there was three porters that got sent back down the mountain because they were really struggling. And sometimes they say some trips they go and they're absolutely fine, and then other trips they'll go and then they suddenly feel terrible and have to go back down the mountain. So I think, I think it just. It's some people, it shows up at certain times and doesn't others and it's just a little bit of one of those things. It's just not very comfortable when you're at the top of the mountain for very long. I was. I had to do a lot of filming at the top and then I was like, I need to go now. I'm really not feeling great.

And growing up in Kenya, I can't help but relate back to the most. A lot of the running books I've read lately have been about Kenyan runners, whether it's Shane Benzi or Adharan Finn. I can never quite get that name, right. I hear that you're taking some steps into running a marathon, is that right? Talk me through this venture.

And also, Monstrosity.

It would have been over by now, wouldn't it? You'd have had your, had your marathon done.

Honestly, this is the most prolonged training for a marathon, but I'm only ever going to do one because I don't really like long distance running. I am a quick death person, so I would prefer to do a sprint than a marathon. So, yeah, I kind of was really lucky because I got nominated to do it on behalf of somebody. And so there was an honorable side to sort of taking on the challenge, albeit I don't pretend I enjoy it or I'm very good at it. So I am in survival mode and going to try and get myself around the London Marathon at some point, hopefully in October if it goes ahead. But I had done loads of training, which is now really annoying because I did loads of training, assuming it was going to be when it was. And I got myself up to 32ks and I thought I was actually going to do all right. And now I'm back down to my 10Ks kind of every so often and just kind of just going through, plodding through. So I'm in. I'm literally going to go around and try and survive. I by no means think I'm a, I'm. I'm a Kenyan runner, but they do have an amazing reputation and they are pretty insane and Aetong is amazing and I'm obviously very proud of our heritage from that perspective because they are amazing and a lot of them do run to school and things like that, which is just really normal here with no shoes on and they make some absolute insane athletes out of the process.

It is fascinating how they have. And it's not even just Kenyan athletes as a whole, is it? It's one specific tribe that are right at the very top of the sport. I think there's more. I can't remember the stats, but there was something like more people in this, in this tribe had run a sub, whatever it is, marathon than had run in the States from the, from America ever. I mean, it was absolutely incredible. I was surprised when I heard you, by the way, I'm supposed to be doing the London Marathon, so I see you there, mate.

Excellent.

I was surprised that if it was going to be about raising money for your charity or something like that, that it wasn't the Lewa Marathon, which is infamous in Kenya, isn't it?

Yeah, it is the Lewa Marathon is amazing. I've done the half before, which is really cool because you're running in and amongst. Well, Lei was very well known for both black and white rhino, who are obviously on the danger list. So it is pretty phenomenal from that perspective as you're kind of running through these wide, untouched, beautiful terrain. But you are at extreme altitudes and that does not help when you are running far. So, yeah, it has its pros and its cons, but yeah, I mean, TUSK are an incredible organization as well. And on my podcast I'm interviewing Charlie Mayhew MBE, who is actually the CEO of Tusk. And we're kind of a little mini version of basically some of the concepts that Tusk do. And they run this lower marathon and, and it is. If you are on the circuit and you do enjoy running, it is a pretty special one to come and see and do. But yeah, I've kind of done the half of that one. And then the London Marathon holds a very special place in my heart. So I ain't going to do it unless there's a lot of people shouting because otherwise I won't get across the line. So I wasn't going to do the virtual option.

Oh God, that sounded awful. I don't know how anyone did that. I mean, I mean I do, I do marathons in triathlon. I do like the long endurance events. But the thought of doing a virtual. Yeah, virtual one does not appeal.

I did it because I thought I might as well do it. And then they didn't even send me a medal or a T shirt. I got Nothing for. Paid 35 pounds to run a marathon.

You also did an ultra 50 odd thing on your own as well, in laps around your house pretty much. So you have. No, you can't.

Have to say that. The Leywire Marathon is on my bucket list. I really, I love the sound of that. And yeah, I'd definitely be up for getting out to Laywire and doing that marathon at some point and maybe even raising money for your charity in the process. Maybe we could drag Sid out there and all three of us could do the Lewa Marathon.

I've just put it on my bucket list. Well, I want to come out anyway and visit because I just think it's fascinating what you're doing, I guess on that as well, because I'm conscious of time now with what you are growing with Teflati and everything. What does. And having come from that athlete background, what does success look like to you now and what you're trying to achieve?

Yeah, I think it's one of those things that impact and assessing impact is obviously very diverse against what I mean, I just explained one of our projects now put that across the fact we're running eight projects this year of that kind of nature. It's very broad. So impact genuinely or success is around communities feeling fulfillment and wildlife thriving. So we have very specific projects around species. Like the Rhone antelope is nearly endangered in Kenya and so we're doing a rehabilitation project for the road. I mean, there's 13 of them left in Kenya. One, three. So what we're trying to do is do a genetic gene pool, do a rehabilitation, so a specific species that's on the endangered list for us and then so we go from that sort of element to sort of community. So I think success for me is leveraging networks, leveraging environments and being able to build a case that is a bit different and a different approach, which is exactly what my mandate is, and then sort of getting consistent backing to be able to make a difference over a journey. So embroil people in the emotional journey of what te fawdy's on. This is not like something that's going to be sorted out overnight. This is like a long term commitment to embracing a number of different partners in order to get output. But very specifically around say a fundraiser that we're doing because a lot of people in UK say, well, what can I do to help? And I'm just like, well, what we can. I'm. We're just about to launch in partnership with her spirit. I don't know if you guys have come across them, but Tefalti is in partnership with her spirit and we're going to be doing a big promotion of trying to get people more active through the summer months about. And it's anything run, swim, move, cycle row, whatever it is that you can do, all inclusive, contributing to a distance which is actually between UK and Kenya, so 6,000 miles. And we want corporates to take part, we want schools, we want clubs and everybody will all sort of go on this little journey of sort of their little way to Africa and all contribute, you know, this, this lockdown mentality of having been stuck on our own. Let's join communities, let's get together, let's do something. And the initiative is called Together for Water. And then the idea is the proceeds will then come to te fawc. And what we're looking to do is through partnership for Women's and Girls Rescue center that's based out in Wamba in a really rural location. They travel up to six hours a day in order to fetch water and the water's saline and the children wash and drink and eat using that water. And they're all, you know, terrible stories but really authentic. Now I'm, I'm quite hard about Africa and poverty because I've lived it and I've seen it my whole life. But these guys, these guys are different. They, they actually are trying their little hearts out to survive in kind of a really tough environment. And so what we're looking to do is put in a water resource which is most likely going to be a borehole, and then do a circular economy. So they sell water to the local community in order to pay back for that provision. So it is not a gift, it is a long term engagement where we try and make them sort of commercially savvy and build up a slush fund for maintenance or adaptations or other things we can do to the rescue center. So that's kind of our plan is kind of get people involved in this really cool activity initiative with her spirit and then utilize the funding for something that actually can bring, you know, real impact in an area that's so remote.

I think what's amazing is, is not just the work that you're doing, but what I'm going to come back to the whole post sport and reinventing yourself thing that we talked about a while, a little bit a while back, because clearly you have found your purpose now for most athletes, their purpose, that is their sport, isn't it? And it's that finding their purpose outside of, in a different world that's probably the most challenging thing. Just by listening to you speak. You've clearly found your purpose now and that is why you've kind of excelled in life beyond sport. Is there any advice that you can give around kind of how you, how you found that purpose or was it always there?

You know, that's kind of, I guess, that athlete's piece. And you're absolutely right. I think I've fallen into a niche spot where this is just the pro bono side of what I do. But actually naturally what I'm doing for work is actually impact investment, sort of finance sector of helping sustainable projects. So I'm naturally finding myself across this whole plethora of how do we build that better basically within this world of environment. And I guess everything's been really organic for me, Charlie. So I have a lot of fruitful conversations. I've been lucky enough to build a pretty decent network. I've been able to leverage the success through sports in a way that is tangible, to get the outputs that I'm really passionate about and been surrounded by an amazing network to support me in that ambition. So there's a lot of luck in this journey, and I think that definitely needs to be pointed out. But what I would definitely say to anybody who's aspirational or passionate about something is that you have to be relentless with it, and you have to have a really good attitude. Those two things. The attitude thing is it can. You know, when you coach somebody, if you can see the fire in their eyes and their willingness to learn, I would pick them 10 times over the Ronaldo in my team because I know I can work with them. And that is exactly what I was when I was little. I was not actually that good at hockey. I just learned to be better and trained and trained and committed and worked really hard. And so I'm almost utilizing that skills, those skills which are naturally and can be learned. A lot of people says, well, sometimes you're born with this. And, yes, there are springboards that some people have. I absolutely agree. But I do think if you commit to something, there is also an element of just go for it. Like, you have to be ballsy. Eventually you have to give it a go, and it can be really daunting, and that's a really natural thing. And please, please believe me, when I had that phone call, every part of me wanted to say no, because I was suddenly putting my neck on the block again, and I was going back into that world of performance and judgment and all of those things and competitiveness. And there was a high likelihood I would not get my bum on that seat to Rio. But because I was ballsy and because I. I tried. And the worst that would happen was that a better team would have been picked with my inclusion or not, I thought, well, I'm only risking my pride here. And sometimes we have to risk our pride in order to be a game changer, to be able to achieve things that are a little bit unique. And so that would be my advice, is just have a go and you'll hit a cul de sac. And it won't always work out, but Rome wasn't built in a day. You've then got a turn and then make another plan. And that's just kind of part of your journey and part of life. And sometimes we just got to take the rough with the smooth and commit to it. But I do think if you are an athlete with aspirations, I do think getting a purpose or getting a drive that is external to your sporting ambition, I think can make you a bit more of a balanced individual as well. And there's value to that too. I'm all up for being committed to your sport. Don't get me wrong, I did it for 12 years or whatever I ended up doing. But I am also really ambitious about having that balance and kind of having other distractions which makes you perform better in my world.

Fantastic. I think that's. Have you got any more questions you want to ask Sid? Because I think that's a great time, a great place to wrap up. I think it's one.

I have hundreds of more questions to ask but I'm not going to go there now because you like. I'm really appreciative of your time. I've been scribbling down notes and I'm like I just want to ask about this and this but I'll come back another day maybe.

No, no problem, no problem. Anytime.

Krista, it's been an absolute pleasure to chat to you. Thank you so much and I look forward to kind of seeing how to faulty evolves in the years to come.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

You can find out all about Krista at kristacullen.co.uk and tfalti.org is the place to go for her charity. That's t o f a u t I.org tfalti.org and then YouTube is the best place to go for Ngumu the Women of Kilimanjaro documentary. But I'll put all of these links in the show notes. So what did you make of that interview with Krista?

Oh God. I mean just epic, like just amazing to. Oh, I could have. I wanted to chat for hours with Krista. I had so many more questions. I was furiously scribbling notes and things and trying. It was. I felt like I'd been through like a one up. Well, you know, one on one or the three of us like just self help's the wrong word because it wasn't but like a learning and educational seminar of just listening to like her stories but the things she's picked up from the different elements in her life. So when it was going to boarding school as that Mowgli kid kind of thing and not fitting in and how she responded to that and then how she found sport and you know, we've all been told that we don't have talent and we're never going to make it. I was told that I don't have talents and it's just hard work sort of thing. So those kind of things. And then that resilience of just working hard to achieve the goal. And then, you know, you go into the failed Olympic bids, going through to winning the gold in Rio and how they turned the team dynamics around or the values, you know, they took out that hierarchy, they created their own, I guess, set of rules and values and it was the players that came forward with that. And so I think that's when you get that accountability also to creating that environment where you feel safe to fail within the boundaries as well. So there is that element that you are given the opportunity to thrive and to give it a go and that at the right time, in the right place, that is, that is supported and things like that. Then, I mean, gosh. And then you go into what she's doing now with like the charity work to felty all the projects there. Just. Oh, I mean, yeah, it's. Yeah, I've listened again to the podcast. I will go back and probably listen again. I would love. I can't wait to get out and you know, if we can get out there or meet her in person or go to more, more seminars that she, she gives or more talks. I think she was just amazing.

Yeah, I, I agree. I thought it was, it's one of my favorite interviews so far and I, I think what was cool about it was we hadn't, you know, so much of what I've been talking about on the 30 odd interviews we've done so far have been about an individual sport. So getting an opportunity to chat to her about the team and the team dynamics and actually, as you say, how that team framework allowed her to score a goal that she shouldn't have been anywhere near at the most important time. So that was really cool, I thought. And also the dynamics around the squad and how when she was brought in, as she was the kind of the extra person and. But that dynamics around squad to get, to get that final, that, that seat on the, on the bus, as it were, I mean, that would have been.

That would be massive. And we could have delved down that path as well. The fact that, you know, she, she had that phone call out the blue to ask if she wanted to come back to the squad, but was told, you know, but they need to qualify first. So it's kind of like, okay, so the team's putting in all this work and effort now as a team, as a squad to qualify, which they think is then obviously going to take them. And then I'm just going to take a seat and kind of take somebody's Spot and have no. And so it was interesting listening to that aspect as well of how you then come in and I'm not sure nurtured. I mean she used nurture, but not in that sense to the extreme, but like built that relationship again and got the respect and you know, they were able to see she was brought in for a reason. But also you've got to be careful with that of not putting out, putting other people out of place sort of thing.

But you also wonder whether that motivated or even more because she knew the cost of her being on there was going to be potentially, you know, taking the seat of somebody that had been working for years to get, you know, that three years to get to it. So maybe that just made her even more accountable and kind of delivered the results.

But it's still, but it's still. It shows. But that then shows or even more so the strength of team and the dynamic of the team that they had that they could work through that. And that's where I get fascinated with sport in terms of then taking and I think those learnings and everything she talks about is so relevant in business as well. And she spoke about it and some of the work she does and then. And how you can learn and develop those team dynamics to create a high performing business and unit at work as well as that team aspect on the sports field.

Yeah, yeah. And of course bringing it to the charity as well. Which, and I like you definitely want to get out there, see the projects because they sound amazing. They're things that are very close to my heart. But I do like the idea of that Lewa Marathon as well. I'm definitely, I'm going to keep chipping away at both of you for that and hopefully we can make that happen at some point. And in fact, actually on her social media, a couple of days after we interviewed her, she was building a. She was learning how to build a mud hut.

I think I know. And I can't believe we kind of missed that because I think that would have been amazing. So she, that was, I think one of the projects she did in kind of in lockdown since she went back to Kenya and. And she learned those skills, learned all the skills from scratch and has built this. Yeah. A mud house sort of from. From the ground up, literally. And it would be fascinating to kind of hear about that.

I think this is. This definitely podcast part two that needs to be done in person. I think in Kenya we need to get on the ground just to kind of get the most out of the, out of the opportunity. But yeah, no, just an absolutely brilliant, brilliant interview. And I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure everybody else will enjoy it as much as we enjoyed being a part of it.

I hope so. I hope so, really. I really hope that, yeah, the listeners get some good points out of it and maybe they can feed back to us what they picked up. Maybe they should drop us a note to say what they found valuable and useful from it.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Some feedback would be great. And also what would be fantastic is if they thought, if, you know, if you guys think that it was as good an interview as we thought it was, then please share it. Like it. Review the podcast because you know that we really appreciate it if you can spread the good word. So on that note, I hope you continue to train well and until the next time, yeah, keep on training. And remember, this podcast is brought to you by Brits Superfoods. You can find out more@britsuperfoods.co.uk but if you use the link in the show notes or you use the Referral code of Tribeathlon, you'll get 10% off your orders. You'll get a free bag of juices worth £15 with every order. And those will happen forever. As long as you buy from britsuperfood we with that having started with that referral code, you'll get those forever. In addition to that, you'll also benefit from that 110% money back guarantee. So if you don't see the value in it, then, then you can. They'll give you your money back and an extra 10%. So go check out the link in the show notes or go to BritSuperfoods.co.uk and use the referral code Tribeathlon and you'll get that 10% off free shipping, free juice on every order. And don't forget to download the Tribathlon app for more amazing podcasts, but also to help you train, compete and to build your tribe.