Mastering Your Running Performance with Eoin Everard

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding.

And I'm claire fudge and this is.

The tribe athlon podcast.

I honestly believe runners are like one of the most mentally tough like sports people of all time who conversely always think they're mentally weak.

That was Owen Everard and this episode is Mastering your running performance. Owen Everard is a former international runner with impressive achievements including being a sub 4 minute miler and a 5 time national champion. He's also won the 3K European Indoors Masters Championships, but as a PhD holder in biomechanics and a Chartered Physio, he also has a wealth of knowledge to share about injury prevention, including the most common causes of running injuries and key steps to avoid them. He also highlights the importance of preventing back pain when sitting and how it can affect our training. So Evan Owen Everard which is spelled in the Irish way so it keeps me on my toes constantly. Owen Everard and by the way, in case that's not clear, E O I n Owen Everard if I keep saying it, maybe I'll get it right. Owen Everard provides insights into the nuances of training such as why running too hard is the biggest mistake for distance runners and how to how a simple three minute routine can improve your running stride. So Claire and I wanted to chat to him about how we could avoid injuries, the importance of shoe choice for both race and training, plus the art of marketing your business as the expert. So I know you're really going to enjoy this really interesting chat with Owen Everard. 33 fuel produce award winning natural sports nutrition and everything they do is led by their philosophy for performance, for health and for a fitter future. 33 Fuel's awesome products have been fueling triathletes worldwide since 2012 as well as many of the world's best athletes. So from the England football team to Tour de France winners and triathlon world champions, including four times Ironman world champ Chrissie Wellington who's been using 33 fuel for years. 33 fuel also leads sports nutrition sustainability with plant focused formulas for reduced environment impact, recyclable packaging and carbon neutral delivery on all orders which also got them rated by Runners World as one of the top 50 ecohero companies worldwide. Another reason why I love what Warren and Erica are doing at 33 fuel. So to find out more about 33 for go to 33fuel.com and if you use the code tribathlon or click the link in the show notes, you'll get an extra special discount when you purchase your amazing stock of 33 so Owen, welcome to Tribe Athlon podcast. Really looking forward to chatting to you. And I really want to start with your story because I know a bit about you, but I really want to start with something that I don't know about you, which is how did you get into running? And so tell us a little bit about how you got into running and then your progression through the world of running.

Yeah. Hi. Thanks, Charlie and Claire, for having me on. Well, I just started running when I was younger, about like 12, 11. No. Maybe even like 11 or so. Would have played a lot of sports. It's actually funny, my mom would have brought me down. There was a local, local race, a little cross country race for the under 11 boys. And I missed that race. We were just late, so unperturbed. My mother was like, well, you can just do the next race, which happened to be the under 12 girls race. So I just got thrown into that. So my first ever victory was like an under 12 girls race. Yeah. And then just wasn't really. I didn't take it that seriously, which is not a bad thing. Until 16. Then my brother, who's younger than me by a year and a half. So we're quite competitive, like best friends, but competitive. He. He qualified for Ireland to run and he would then like just rub it in our faces, like, you know, come down to breakfast in his tracksuit, just randomly not say a word, go back up. So that just inspired me. It's like, I need to run for Ireland one time. So started training harder and then got the love of it. And we're basically here 20 years later then, you know, by the time I ran for Ireland, as it was like took like three years, I was kind of really hooked into it then and would have done well at 800 and 1500, would have broke the four minute mile, would have won five national championships that kind of 1503K. And then as I got into my like late, like kind of late 20s, 30s was kind of like, well, I want to kind of go up the distance and see can I break 14 minutes for 5k, 8 minutes for 3k and then 30 minutes for 10k. And I was lucky enough to do that. And then recently, then like two weeks ago, I won the World Over 35 3K Masters Championships and I was the current Over 35 European Masters Champion. So that's a whistle stop tour there.

Fantastic. And is, is there one highlight that stands out for you in your running career?

Oh, probably, probably two. Two main ones would be running for Ireland that first time because like it's not easy but like top six for cross country go and I order Kemp seven a few times and then that kind of stops underage. So the next thing is like the European juniors, which is actually quite hard to make and I, I missed out on that by like point one of a second and then I thought the chance was gone and they opened up the, they opened up the. At the time for like one more weekend, went over to the AAA's over in the UK and broke the PB. And that was just such a. You know, I've been really trying for that. So the time to do that and then the second one would be the, the 4 minute mile. Breaking 14 for 5k was lovely as well. But that 4 minute mile I had ran 4 minutes dead the year before and you don't know if he'll get another chance to do it or will he be in that type of shape. So yeah, breaking that was such a big relief. That was like one of the big things I wanted to do and yeah, such. I did it at home in Ireland, in Dublin and friends around, we had a great night and yeah, I always remember that one.

Fantastic that, that, yeah. The four minute mile is something that, that is very iconic, isn't it? And it's. But it's what I love about the four minute mile and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this given that you, you've done it is obviously it, it took. Roger Bannister was the first person to do it and nobody had done it before and people were saying it was impossible and then several people did it very quickly afterwards, didn't they?

Yeah.

So tell me about the psychology around that.

Yeah, there is, there is a, there is a bit of psychology like that. You just ignore it. I'm not big on this thing of psychology. I think it's so overrated, it's unbelievable. I think if you're in shape like different now, if people actually physically think they can't do something, that there's a pathway. But runners, I honestly believe runners are like one of the most mentally tough, like sports people of all time who conversely always think they're mentally weak. I think it's way. If you're doing a distance race, the way it naturally occurs is that you'll go off in the start in the middle, you'll be tired and you'll, you might slow down a bit and then at the end you muster everything and you sprint and then people think, God, if I didn't give up in the middle. But that's Like a physical thing. The amount of times I see people beating themselves up about like, oh, I just wasn't mentally tough enough. And really they're not like physically fit enough for the pace they're doing or they haven't tried that type of training. And then there's this like, you know, even like with Kipchoge with the like the sub two hour marathon where it was like, impossible is nothing. And you know, because that's the slogan like Nike wanted to use like in his training. Like, I knew people who were over there, like off his training, they thought he could run 158. So it's like, you know, if impossible, like this thing.

Oh, impossible.

Why didn't you run 130 then? Do you know? Like, it's just, it's just this thing. It's like we're, it's like runners are very like, if you're out there trying your hardest. I had a year where I ran terribly and people were telling me it's in my head. I went to a load of like sports psychologists. I'm not. There's still really good value in it, but I think we need to be way less harsh on ourselves and just acknowledge, okay, that's where the shape is. And sometimes you're unwell, sometimes you're on. You don't run as weight. Great. And if you just persist over time, you'll get there as opposed to. I feel like it's such an injustice for such a kind of tough sport where people go out and train regularly and, and try hard to just think, oh, I'm mentally weak when it's the exact opposite is the case.

Interesting. Very interesting. And, and obviously part of the reason we wanted to get you onto the podcast was your professional expertise. So tell us a bit about how your, how that has migrated, how, you know, what you started, how you created a business out of running. And tell us a little bit about exactly what it is you do for people.

I'm a chartered physiotherapist, so like a physical therapist for American listeners. So I would have started in that kind of arena. And then I, I went over to Canada with like physical therapy and I just saw over there about this movement screening and I just really hit that. It's like it's not the area that you always need to strengthen. It's like everything is part of a bigger chain and it's just, you know, when something really just hits you hard and you're like, oh my God, this is it. This really makes sense to me. So it started really, like, diving deep into that and. Yeah, really diving deep into that and then got my. I have a PhD in kind of human movement and biomechanics. I would have had a lot of, like, kind of niggly injuries myself in my late 20s. So I would have developed, like, sports Pilates, which is kind of a iteration of Pilates where plates is very on the ground. So I didn't feel it was that specific to running. So just taking the best of Pilates and then moving it more to like, to a running aspect or sports and. Yeah, so. And then we offer kind of like sports Pilates with like, sample training and stuff like that currently for runners.

Brilliant. And so I wanted to sort of dive in and talk about the benefit of Pilates versus, you know, when should we be using Pilates? When should we using traditional strength and conditioning? When should it be yoga? Or is it a combination of, of, of the three?

Probably a combination of the two. And then you could do strength conditioning over Pilates if you wanted. There's two reasons for this, right? The first is running. All running injuries are passive injuries. Okay? So they're like, they're. They're injuries to the ligaments, the tendons, or the joints of the body. Plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, knee pain, hip hip pain, hamstring tendinopathy. Nobody gets like, a muscle tear calf sometimes because the calf gets overloaded again. But so all these injuries really are like the passive structures taking too much load because the muscular system is asleep. Like, we're sitting a lot. We're not really having active jobs that, like, activate these muscles. So when you're younger, like, I didn't do much of this, you get away with that a lot more because you just have a lot more regenerative capacity in your body. But as you get older, you need to wake up the. The muscular system. Like, the analogy I use is like, if me and you, Charlie, were in a bar and someone starts a classic Irish person in a bar having a fight. But if we were in a bar and someone, like, say, starts a fight on me, you can be there to help and defuse the situation. If you're asleep in your bed, I'm on my own. And that's essentially what can happen. It's like, if I'm running and my muscles are asleep, they can't be there to help. Where if I have something like Pilates or like strength conditioning, what we're trying to do with it is just wake up the muscles so that the muscles then take pressure off the Joints, the ligaments and the tendons. And if they're a war, if we wake them up with that, they'll naturally do that. The body doesn't want to be breaking down, so it's not something you have to like contract or squeeze on it. Excuse me. When we run, it'll naturally do it, but we need something that wakes it up. Now why the Pilates then? Alva male has this like hierarchy, which is like how we develop strength conditioning safely. So on the bottom of the pyramid is like good movement so that you're able to move through your full range of motion in a controlled manner. So that's where the Pilates is going to work because it has, say, the three elements of that are mobility. So can you move freely? Stability. Can you like activate the right muscles of the glutes and the core? And then motor control. Can you like do your squats, your single leg deadlifts, the different actions correctly. Once you have that good base, then you can move on to like, what we call like, then you'd be in the gym. The next best layout layer is like, you know, work capacity. It's the ability to tolerate load and resist fatigue. So you're looking at like 3 by 10, you know, 3 by 12 reps, that kind of rep range with weights. And then you can develop strength, which will be like a 5 rep range. Then you can look at power and then plyometrics. And you've done it like safely and effectively, building strength and the speed. Most runners, kind of, myself included, don't want to. They just want to like stay injury free and then enjoy their running. So if I was talking to someone on a podcast about like just good development, it would be like maybe sports Pilates for that movement base, then like strength and conditioning for like strength and work capacity. And then maybe a bit of plyometrics or speed would be like ideally for a human. But if it's just. If it's just for runners, do either strength conditioning or Pilates. But make sure if you're doing strength conditioning, you have a base. If you're used to those moves, brilliant. If you don't, maybe start with your sports Pilates, get the base and then just decide which one you enjoy more.

Brilliant.

How much? How much sport Pilates. So for people that. And I guess we come across people this quite a lot when we're talking about Pilates and yoga. Those of us that do those kind of things understand the difference.

Yes.

Yeah. But for people that maybe haven't done Pilates and I know and Certainly I, I thought this originally I was like I don't have time to do Pilates. It's not going to make me feel out of breath. It's not going to make me sweat. I don't want to do it. So for those people who kind of haven't really tried Pilates yet, how often should you be doing plate moves or going to a class or go or seeing somebody individually to actually get that baseline that you were talking about?

Great question. Yeah. I find for runners like, like once like we do a 45 minute class and then sometimes we have like little like additional 10 minute videos they can do. But if people are doing 45 minutes once a week, be that 10 minutes, four days a week, be that just I like just doing it just get done that usually has it and now again but dependent our our sports Pilates cheeky it's ever our platies.com if people want to try it for a free trial cheeky plug. But it, it you want something that is intense like Claire saying there because I was always the same. I used to hate if I came out and I'm not, not sweating, not, not sweating but not feeling like Jesus, that was a work. So sometimes I, I go a bit too fast but it's like try get as much as we can done in the 45 minutes and you need to get these muscles burning. I have people come to me with hip pain who sit in a job for maybe eight hours, who drive an hour back there and back from work and maybe have back or hip pain and they're like, yeah, I went to a physio and it's still sore and it's like okay, what are you doing? Like exercise wise. And they show me this figure four glute stretch that they do like 30 seconds every like three times a week. Like you sit on your ass 10 hours a day and you're thinking some 30 second glute stretch is gonna put it all right, you need to get these muscles burning, burning, burning, burning. So it is like 45 minutes is perfect but it needs to be like that doesn't mean the complexity of the move has to be hard. It just means that we need to get these burning and that's what we usually do. We'll have on the ground when the, the simplicity of the exercise is there, burn it. And then in standing if we're working on coordination we'll kind of slow it down and not make it as hard.

Brilliant. And and so so in my own I had a bit of a, I've Had a bit of a troubled start to the year. So when I got your email, I was like, oh, this is, this is. And I started listening to the first podcast I listened to as research. I was like, right, I need to get this guy on. Because I'm literally saying it. Seeing I was, I think the podcast I was listening to, I was on the way back from a ski trip where I'd got tendinopathy in my knee and my ankle. And that killed Ironman South Africa for me. So what I've learned since having gone to see a physio is a specialist physio is that the straightforward strength and conditioning workouts I was doing, it was a great workout, but it was basically not a great workout for me. And I was, by doing my strength and conditioning stuff, I was actually exaggerating the, the problems that I was, you know, I was kind of triggering the problems with my knee.

Yeah.

Ankle it. Talk to me a little bit about how it sounds to me. Like I probably what you, from what you've said, should have maybe started in Pilates and gradually move through the strength and conditioning. But is that what you mean it like somebody. Yeah. So you build up to it once you've kind of got more strength.

Yeah, exactly. Like. So I said we have good movement, will be the base, then like the like three by ten, like kind of work capacity, then strength, then power. I also hurt my knee doing jumps because I don't have the layers underneath that. It's like a hierarchy. You can't really. You can do it, but as you said, over time you'll have. Have an issue. The thing is also with tendons is gotta be careful. Like, especially if you're a runner. There's a thing about. There's a thing called being functionally dysfunctional. What that means is you can get away with stuff in that little small wheelhouse that you do, but once you start moving into like doing other things and especially being aggressive with them, it's like you mightn't have the function to be able to maintain that. You know, if you get what I get saying there. Yeah. So that's one thing. Like, like with tendons, appropriate load is a massive thing. Like we don't want big spikes. So even if it's like a gym, that's why I'm saying make sure you're used to it or you're building up to it, because if it's a sudden spike, plus you're getting ready for an ironman, which is a big, big stress, plus you're doing like Say skiing, which is a totally new, different stress on the tendons. That new, different stress plus a new different stress and strength conditioning can just overload attendance. So we just. And then rest doesn't work. It's like you just want kind of that like, you know, 2 out of 10 pain if you're coming back from it, that you're still stressing the tendon. But just remember, if you're ever. For people who have tendons, if you're on your rehab, there's a couple of key things you need to remember. Research now would show that you should be putting a load through the tendon. You don't just rest that, you know, you maybe give yourselves like four days off, but you don't just rest that because it won't improve. So what you need to do is put a load through the tendon. That one doesn't change the way you move, so you shouldn't be hobbling or limping. Two doesn't make it worse the next day. So you can have a 2 to 3 out of 10 pain. And that is like, it shouldn't be sharp or it shouldn't be that noticeable. So if it's a dull ache that once you finish the next morning is kind of the same as it was the day before, that's an appropriate level through the tendon. And then if I can just say last thing on that is running injuries. Now, I don't know as much research on this. This is just more practical experience. But running injuries are overload issues. Even when I said the calf or the Achilles, like, they're overloaded, like the knee is overloaded. So a lot of times my first protocol as a physio, if someone comes to me with knee pain or Achilles pain, is not to do heel drops and heel raises, is not to do lunges and squats. I'm not loading up an area that's already overloaded. My first protocol is like, say for Achilles pain, I don't do heel drops or heel raises. I do like isometric holes. So I'll do like single leg deadlift. That's putting attention through it, but is really working the hamstring, the glute, it's really working the, like, the foot muscles. And I would have someone that had like Achilles tendon pain, as long as it's not like chronic. If they've had it for, you know, four months, three months, I'm going to go and do a heel drop, heel raise program. If it's early, it's just standing on that one leg, bringing the leg behind and holding that till you literally cannot stand on that leg. Same with the, like the knee. I'm not going to. Then someone comes to me with like. It's not like just repetitive squats and lunges. It might be like a hold we call one call a running man. So you just hold like a kind of slight bend on the knee. Again, not going above the trio 10 a lot more like glute work and ankle work. So that we're not. So we're moving smoothly at the ankle and moving smoothly at the hip, which allows the knee to have to do less kind of that movement. I find that fine. That's my first protocol. Clean up the whole pattern and then we can start attacking the tendon if the tendon still needs to be attacked. Because a lot of times then the running is putting that load through it. They're moving smoother, which is taking the load office. And it kind of cleans up itself.

Oh, interesting. And actually that's. That seems to have been what's happened. One other thing got that got thrown at me during this time was, oh, well, I was trying to get. Get to the bottom of what was causing. It was somebody said to me that I was using the wrong shoes to do my strength and conditioning. So I just wanted. Wondered your thoughts on that. I was just using my normal hokas, which have got your massive deep soles, which were my running shoes.

Yeah.

My strength conditioning. And one person said, well, you know, then if you. If your technique's not quite accurate, that can exaggerate the problem. And then another physio said, nah, I doubted. Any thoughts on what shoes. You know, I'm currently wearing barefoot shoes. Like what shoes you should be using for. For your strength and conditioning stuff and your Pilates stuff.

I'd be kind of bluffing this answer. So it's like, don't take this as. That's gospel now. It's not an expertise of mine, but just instinctively I like variation, like varying up. So if I'm wearing like chunky hokas, as long as I'm starting gradual, I would like a kind of barefoot kind of more of a shoe there because it just changes up what I'm currently doing.

Right.

But I think that's like, personal. I think the one thing they say with shoes more than any, like gate analysis or anything like that the key thing, like for injury prevention is comfort what feels right and trust that.

Okay. And is that. But is that the same for when you're doing your strength and conditioning stuff? You think it doesn't really matter what shoe you're using, I get for running, it's, it's, it's different but for the actual. So when you're in the sort of gym work, you think whatever feels comfortable is fine?

Yeah, I think that like the research I was mentioning is, is route running, but I feel like I would either vary it just to have something slightly different. So it's like, you know, like it's allowed and like lent that would allow length on your tendons to kind of restore it. So even though you're doing like strength conditioning, you're actually, because you know in a Hawkeye, you're up a lot now if you're doing like strength condition in a smaller shoe, you've lengthened your Achilles so you're even given a little bit of a stretch there. But a lot of it I still think would be like comfort for me. It's like what feels comfortable when I'm squashing or lunging or doing a single leg deadlift. We do the same. I do a lot of the, all my platters I do barefoot because I kind of just want to wake up those feet muscles.

Right, I see. Brilliant. And while we're on the subject of shoes, the introduction of carbon plated shoes. What are your thoughts on that in terms of is that likely to increase or decrease injuries long term and what's its impact, if any, on the way that we train? If you're going to race in them.

I think it will decrease. I think it is decreased in the amount of injuries like massively lower limb injuries. Like if you have Achilles pain, I'd be wearing like those shoes all the time. It will change the type of injury we see. There's been more knee injuries, there's been more like hamstring tendinopathy type injuries like high hamstrings. It does move it up the chain. But overall like a lot more of the injuries that runners would have got will be like lower limb injuries. They're absorbing a lot of this, the force. So like, you know, that's why people aren't, people aren't falling off as much at the end of races as they used to because they can just kind of maintain a certain level where usually when you would have got tired, that's when you would have seen massive blow ups. You don't, you don't see those same, same type of blow ups as you would have seen before in the past. Regards training, I still think the variety is important, but you need to practice running in them if you're going to run like the first Time I did a race in the carbon fiber plated shoes. It was a 10k and usually after a 10k, you know, your calves would be really tight. I did it the next, next day my, my quads, I could barely come down the stairs, you know, like the DOMS was and because I hadn't worn, I was like, you know, these are like the brand new shiny shoes. Wear my normal like very small sole racers to all my training. And then next day, as I said, I did the race in them. Quads were in bits for about a week and that just got me thinking straight away. It's like, okay, well that's impacted my performance in some way because I have, excuse me, I have a DOMS now in my quads that I didn't have. So at some stage in the race I'm using muscles that haven't been used before and I don't want to just be using them for the first time in a race. So if I was doing them, I'd be doing at least one workout or training session that would. If I was going to do a 10k, I would do my 10k specific work in them and then I might try another shoe or at least during the week. I wouldn't be wearing them all the time. I would wear some other like just your normal like say like Pegasus or Keanu's. Try get some sponsorships on, on this whoever, whoever. But yeah, just that wouldn't have a carbon fiber plate or something like that. But definitely like they're improving. Like I was even chatting to my friend, I have a few friends over in, in America and they're running quite well. But we were saying, I think that's getting undervalued even for how much the times are improving now is that people are training in the shoes. So it's not even though it's performance benefit in the races, which is massive. It's now people can get away with like harder training sessions. Like say a half marathon type training session that would have had him soar for like a week and they'd have to run easy now they're back and they can kind of train heavy in like next two or three days. It's not affecting them, you know, so there's a massive training effect as well as a racing effect.

How much do you look at? Kind of. So your background obviously is it as a physio, but you've also got your PhD in biomechanics, haven't you? Yes. Right, yeah. So when you're doing an assessment on somebody looking at kind of injury. How much do you look at? I guess the external factors, like their running shoes, but also maybe sort of changes in weight. And I'm also thinking about kind of where somebody has been pregnant or is pregnant, had a baby. Like, how will those biomechanics change? So could you tell us a little bit about what you do in an assessment, I guess what you take into to account?

Yeah, I would definitely look. I look at their movement assessment. So I see if. If they're doing a squat, if they're doing run, is there something like, you know, an E buckling in? And then as you said, the internal factors are massive. You know, people are safe if. If they've been pregnant or are pregnant or after. It's like there's such a change in hormones. Like if they've given birth, say, like the pelvis has had to open up so high, you know, that you can't just assume everything's gone back the way it is. So I always check how the pelvis is moving on both sides, and then a lot of that will be like, you know, trying to like, tighten up that area or as well if someone lost a lot of weight. Can be differentials in the core. So it's. It's kind of a mix. It kind of depends on the person you're looking. Like, that's a great question. Okay, you're looking just for outliers. So it's hard to say, like, if there's no outliers, like the load. So like, say when Charlie's saying there, if I. If he came in, to me it's like, okay, he's doing a new strength conditioning program. That's like a red flag. And he went skiing. That's a red flag. So those things are coming. And then I'll have it. Then the. Then the assessment is checking that. But in the. In the guise of like, okay, he's got these poor mechanics that probably were okay for running and then he overloaded here. So we'll kind of correct. We'll just more like rehabilitate the area because I know he's okay. For the Ironman and then the improved mechanics and the strength should help in general, as opposed to going, okay, we really need to correct the mechanics. You know, same with pregnancy. Same. Another thing, if someone comes in and there's like, there's no real change, but they're constantly breaking down. You know, like, I might see someone who is like repeated, like tendinopathies or repeated things. Then I'm looking at the mechanics way more to try. See, is There something like fundamental they're doing. Maybe it's like the amount of training they're doing. Maybe it's like the way they're moving. I don't know if that answers the question.

No, it absolutely does. Actually, just thinking along the lines of. We've interviewed more recently a number of women who have been competing at a professional level, having had children and, you know, on. On the podium and there is some, if I'm. If I'm right in saying there is some research around pregnancy, having a child and actually because of children, changes in biomechanics, or is it changes in biomechanics actually that they're improving their technique and they're actually running faster or racing faster than they have in the past? I don't know what your thoughts are on that or what.

I don't think that is. We see that a lot. I don't. That only asks mechanics. I think it's the, like the hormones and like, I. They think that's more. They call it like baby EPO after. It's. Yeah, yeah. They think it's like a change in. It was a change in the hormones and then obviously I don't know enough about it, but we would always talk about that where someone comes back and, you know, within six months or eight months, you think they'd like once, once their body like once they're like strong and they've like rehabbed effectively. They think it is the. More like the, the changes in hormones and having like either. Yeah, they call it like baby epo. I don't know what the technical term is, but that's what they think. It's like those things. It could either work two ways. It could either work because you were like, say active beforehand, but you're also having to like supply all the like, energy, nutrients to the baby, which would be number one priority that you can imagine. It's nearly like, you know, nine months at altitude that then when you come down and it's just you on your own, it's like you've got. For a while you've got like so much extra, like so much extra like benefits in terms of like, you know, you would have had the, you know, the red blood cells for two. For a running. A running mother or running mother to be. And the child. And now it's just you're getting the benefits. But yeah, I've seen that loads. And I think it's not the mechanics, I think it's more the, the. The chemical things.

Could it also be linked to the fact that they Might be more pain.

Tolerant of pain because, like, I'm bluffing on this stuff as well. But we would have noticed what Claire is saying. We. We call it baby epo. It's like she's on the baby EPO at the moment.

I just find it really interesting and I think maybe with more research that is now being done in females, which is becoming now.

Yes. Yeah.

More dominant, which is really great. It would be interesting to see if there is any. Is there, you know, is there anything else that we don't. We don't know. Sort of playing into that. But no, thank you for that.

Yeah. I think. And it's really fascinating because it's one. As you said, I think hopefully with the research that'll come into that, because it's something we would have noticed a loss once they're not breaking down. It's like, geez, this girl is like, you think out for like a year or not being able to train hard and they're like, they're flying. Yeah.

And you talked about. So that one. In that instance, it wasn't so much about biomechanics. But I. I've been watching some videos recently knowing that I need to improve my running efficiency and kind of. And I think you've got a routine that can help you with your running str, haven't you? Can you tell us a bit about that?

Yeah, well, yeah. Okay, so the best thing, the three minutes. So there's really good studies showing that people who did like, like jumping rope or skipping as we call it, skipping for three minutes, like two, two times a week, versus people who did the equivalent amount of extra running that the group who did the skipping had loads of increases in plyometric performance, like arch stiffness, tendon stiffness, like even like bigger jumps. So, you know, you're only hopping. But like their cmg, where they like drop down into a squat and jump, they could jump like 50, like a 50 improvement in squat, jump 50 improvement in dropping off the box and jumping higher with no improvement in the running group. And then that led to a 3% improvement in 3K times versus in the control group, a 1.55% improvement, which is massive in. In running when we're always looking for those extra 1%. What I love about that is, you know, like, you got in trouble there, Charlie, because you're probably doing stuff in the gym that you're not ready for. Why I love skipping or jumping rope. I was talking to a American podcast about skipping. Like, what are you talking about? So they call him a Jumping rope. What I love about that though is it's a self limiting exercise. What that means is you can't do it unless you can do it correctly. Like I've given it to friends, so I always keep my skipping rope in my car. So like just I'm doing an easy jog and I come back, I grab the skipping rope, I'll come back a few minutes early and I'll just do the skipping. When I give it to the guys, I'd have a spare one and they'd start as well. They are like donkeys skipping over it. They're jumping too high, they're smacking the ground, but they're hitting the rope every second time. If there was no rope there and it's like, let's just hop. Like they're going to get themselves in trouble. But you set the timer for like three minutes, taking a minute, you know, take 10 seconds off every minute. And you might, if you're only starting, you have no experience. I might get like three, four times the amount of skips done that. You will. But over time, as your technique improves, the tendons are also adjusting to that appropriately. So that's why I love that it's a way to add plyometrics in without adding in jumps or landing, which we've kind of all already established with you, Charlie can just be that overload that's going to like cause an issue, especially if you're training hard and something else. So it's a nice way of adding and that improves the running economy, like your stride efficiency. The other thing with that is strides are great after runs, you know, come home five minutes early even, even if you don't want to stop 20 seconds, just intentionally pick up the pace, looking down where you're going and then 40 seconds really slow. That's gonna, you're gonna get so much more out of that five minutes than just doing five minutes extra running. What you don't want to see with running economy is this stuff of like, I get on your toes, like, like I'll, I'll give you like head steady, maybe like look down the road. But you don't want to be thinking internally about what you're doing. It's like we've, we're developed, we're here millions of years. You know, you've developed over like however many years you are in the thing. It's like you weren't waiting on a frickin. Like when a, when a baby's learning, they don't need to go on YouTube to see what's the best way to walk. You just work it out and like, yeah, you know, but this is the thing, people are like, oh, I need to be on my toes. I need to be thinking this. There was another study that looked at three groups. One watch tv. And what they do with running economy studies is you run at a certain speed and they just count, like to see your heart rate and your breathing rate, to see like how much oxygen, how hard you're working. So they all had to work at the same levels. One group was watch tv. The other group had to be concentrate, concentrate on your breathing. The last group had to concentrate on their strides. You know, like, think about your stride, be open your toes. The best economy was the people looking at the TV because they're not thinking about things, they're doing something into a natural zone. So the key thing is like do the skipping, do some strides, do say your Pilates or your gym work or your yoga to like, you need good movement, good, like stability, good motor control. Do your drills. Perfect. Concentrate on the drills. And then after that, never think about it again. Don't think I need to be doing this when I'm running. Just run. Your body, your subconscious is so much more powerful than you thinking about something.

That's brilliant advice. And so obviously the strides would be at the end of the run. Are you suggesting the best time to do skipping is at the end of the run as well? Or is that something anytime?

Anytime. Even with the strides, you know, I think that I never try give people barriers. Like there's probably best times and worst times. It's like with static stretching, a lot of it's just getting it done, isn't it? Like I just like it. At the end of a run, I'll come home a few minutes early. That's why I don't go into the house, because my skipping rope was upstairs. I brought it in for some reason. I didn't skip for like a month. Just didn't bring it back out. It just didn't, you know, I saw, oh yeah, remember I used to do that. I got back into it recently. But you know, it's just like you need to do things that kind of work for you. So you know, obviously we do a warm up. If we're doing a workout or a session, we'll do three strides before it. You know, even if it's a tempo or something like, you know, if you're getting ready for an ironman, that's a great time to do some strides. When you warm up, you stretch, do some Strides. And then even you're doing like your longer work you've done, you've done something to kind of increase the. Increase this pace, get you a bit more efficient and now you can go back into your work. Yeah, or Maybe I'd say 4 by 15 second hills at the very end. We do that often where it could be a long session as well, like a tempo or something like that. And then we'll just do some strides. Never forcing him either. Just like should always. I always think the thing, looking good, feeling easy. It's like if someone's looking over, I want them to think, jesus, he looks smooth there. I don't want to think he's working so hard.

Brilliant. And as Claire knows, I love anything technology related. If I think there is a way that tech can save me some time doing strength and conditioning or improve my.

Yeah, I saw your aura r anything.

Whether it's gadgets or whatever. So a couple of pieces of tech that have been thrown at me in the OR that we've talked about recently, but one in particular that I was intrigued by was I was at a conference, a tech conference a few weeks ago and they were, they were demonstrating an EMS suit. So ems. I'm not sure how much you're familiar.

With ems, but it's like you sent it questions. I had to look it up just forehand.

So yeah, okay, so we've not got EMS expert then. But it, it's like tens, but it does 90 of the muscle rather than tens is very much the surface from what I understand. Have you got any thoughts on the value of using an EMS type suit to either enhance performance essentially as part of your strength conditioning workout, or to kind of, you know, improve stability or, or in recovery or anything like that?

Well, what I looked up, I was looking at like ischemia, like using these EMSs to nearly like contract the muscles and push. But actually the study I looked at, it said the. You don't have any sponsors on this. Just to make sure they're like, here, listen, cut that out. They said like, like your compression socks were the most effective for that change in blood flow. That was just the one I looked up just, just beforehand. So I haven't really studied too much. I just wanted to see what the research was saying. Usually just from a physio perspective, EMS would only be used really if a muscle is like very dormant. So it's like say, I would probably try like, say like a month of the platies and say it's like glue clam. You should feel it on the side. If you're like, I never feel it there. That's then when an EMS can be kind of helpful, where you can place the pad on that muscle and just get it used to, like, triggering. So you would do the exercise and then like, while that's triggering and that idea being like, this should be switching on as I do this.

Yeah.

But apart from that, I think in healthy individuals, I'm the opposite. I'm not really big into the technologies. Yeah.

I'm sensing.

Although saying, that I'm working on this new product. I'll have to send it to you, Charlie. It's called the Back of Whereabouts. So it's like we're doing gym work and it gives you feedback on your back position. So if you know you're incorrectly, you're in the correct position or not.

I would be very happy, happy to try any gadget or idea. Yeah. I'm all over trying things.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll send it to you.

All about marginal gains.

That actually does sound good, Charlie as well.

Yeah, it's. It's. But it's so funny. People are like, it's funny. Like, it's like the. I have a friend, he's a doctor, and we went for lunch and it was great. He's a school friend and I hadn't caught up with him in ages and it was just brilliant to catch up. But he's. He's like, obviously he's busy. He's got two young kids. He's. He's running once every, like two weeks, and he's just going out and hitting his 5k as hard as he can, or 10k as hard as he can. So first I was like, no, no, man, you need to do like, like a workout session. You just don't go out and run as hard as you can. But now he's only training once every two weeks, maybe once every week. He was talking to me about, like, the double breath. Heard this on the Joe Rogan podcast. If I went, or does that help performance or my stride? Should I do this and that? I'm like, dude, you run once every two weeks. Like, the only thing that's going to help you is go out and run more like this double breath once every 14 days, looking for, like, the performance thing he's missing. I'm like, come on.

About consistency then, as opposed to.

Yeah, it's about running more than once every two weeks, I'll tell you that.

So one of the other things I picked up from your book, which, for those people that want to know about it is called is. It's called get to the line in the best shape possible I think and, and brilliant that you give it away. I'm a big fan of people giving away their book for free. I, I did that with my, I do that almost all of my books because from a business point of view it's, it's much more about how much impact that book can make. So, so big fun of that and I'm going to come on to that business concept in a second. Before I do, you talked about the seven training mistakes that people make when they're trying to get to a fast 10K. Can you quickly, can you remember what the seven training mistakes are? Because I know that I need to improve mine.

Oh God, I don't even know if I can remember. I thought that was going to be what the best ones to do. I'll tell you what the best ones to do are just okay, one, one is ignoring like you should be doing some kind of threshold every week. So that's like that 80%. So a lot of people like that guy who's like doing his hard, hard 5 year, hard 10k. Like that event is predominantly aerobic. So say essentially under 80, 85% effort and then as you get fitter there you can just up the pace as you're doing that. What a lot of people do is if you go out and run kind of hard as you can or hard efforts probably from like 7k on, he's gone into like anaerobic effort. So he's naturally slowing down because the muscles are now burning. But you're not actually improving because if you go anaerobic you're like, what you're improving is your ability to run anaerobically. But the thing that will improve you the most is running aerobically. It's like if you have a hybrid car. If it's like the race is how, like how far, how fast you can run using the battery only well then you need to practice like tweaking and improving in the battery. It you don't, you won't win that race by what most people think they're doing is like going harder and the, the petrol engine kicking in. Is that okay? Is like so one thing is having like an aerobic session at least once a week. The second thing that we said is 10k then is still, still predominantly like for a running economy having your strides because you still have to go quite quick. So you might want to do some kind of like race specific work again on the effort or feel so like having those like you know, once a week, having those like three minute efforts or four minute efforts, ones I like would be you might do like a mile or like don't do a mile, sorry, do it on minutes and then do it on your lactic threshold. But you might do like five minutes of lactic threshold, like 80%, take a minute off, do five minutes at lactic threshold, 80% and then do like, like 10 by 1 minute at 10K. 10K feel. Because now again the thing that in all the mistakes is that people say I want to run even like I want to run like I've run sub 30 for a 10k but say like sub 40 for a 10k, that's when you're tapered, that's you wearing the shoes, that's like you on your best day. But people then go well that's the pace I want to do. I better hit that in training where that effort would probably be, you know, Instead of like 4 minute K's, you should be probably running like 410 because a 410 in training will be like sub 4 in the race. No doubts about it. So just adding a little bit of that in and then a bit of threshold after it can make a big difference. I might actually look.

But one thing I am going to ask you about which I alluded to just there was you. You've. You've got, you know, you're a very successful runner, you're very passionate about running and you've got a business in the running that helps, you know, in the running world that helps runners. I, I think you're doing an excellent job of marketing yourself as the expert, which is a term that I've kind of used in business coaching for quite a long time. Both, you know, through podcasts, through the book, through websites, etc. Talk to me a little bit about how you've taken your experience and use that to market your, your business.

Yeah.

And like I think obviously sometimes like obviously I've won national championships but I think anyone could be an expert in terms of, you know, if you're trying to go from like while I think I can help people and I have helped people, you know, go sub 40 for a marathon if you are for a 10k or do a marathon if you have experience in that, you might be in a really good position. You know, I've taken like if you have experience of going for 50 to 45, like that's a, that's an expert there. Yeah, like one. I like this. I think I always go On. On things I enjoy doing from a business perspective, I think the thing that gets lost a lot is this idea that, like, you gotta sell. Like, but nobody likes to be sold. People like to, like, like to buy. And there's a thing I was just saying to you, Charlie, beforehand, where. What I keep in mind is that there's only two times, like, there's now and there's not now. And if it. If it's not now, you won't convince anyone that it is that time, you know, So a lot of times I. When I get emails, I was just saying to you, if you download the book, you get the articles, and then we kind of give like weekly emails that are like, some of the articles, some podcasts, some things where I go on email lists, and it's like, this is like the best reason for Pilates. Here's. Here's like 10% off Pilates. And it's just like, unsubscribe. It's like, I'm not ready for it. Where my. My thing is that you want to make people aware of you. Of you. You want to make people aware of, like, what, like, your ideas. Maybe they like them, maybe they don't. You know, like, some people love the running economy stuff, or we could talk way more about technology and, like, there's a space for everyone. My thing is that, like, if I'm showing, if I'm giving good value, it might be like, in six months time. If they're on the list, it might be a year or might be like 18 months. But if I'm, like, given, like, say, an article or they've heard me on a podcast, they might get some injury or they might, like, something might trigger in them that now is the time. Geez, I had this Achilles tendon problem. Never had it before. Never want to do Pilates, but I want to be the guy that they think of. If, like, I really liked what. What he was saying and now I'm ready, as opposed to me, like, say 18 months prior being like, they'll get on it, get on it, get on it. It's like, if they're not ready, they're not ready. And it's more. Way more important that you be the one they think about when they. When they have it. Like, that's what a brand is. You know, when people are like, when people mess around with, like, what a brand is, I think they just, you know, it's like this. It's not a brand is the. What is the thing you think of in that category. That's All a brand is. So it's like I was saying to you about Coca Cola. It's like, it's not about, like, why they're spending so much. Is that if someone says, do you want a soft drink? You think, coca Cola. That's the brand. Not all the. It's the logo, it's the. The feel or all the other stuff a brand is. When they think of that category, do they think of you?

Yeah.

And like, not convincing me to have a Coca Cola when I don't want one. It's when they want that, do they think of you? And that's like. So, like, that's why I like going on these. I gave the book and it's my. I do a lot of articles for people and on the email series, there's not one email. Like a low. Like, I think like week three is like seven habits of Highly effective. Like, seven ways to Sleep Better. The next one might be like, I think I have. It's like week 20. Before I mention, like, running, economy and sports Pilates. The rest is like, here's how to do a tempo. Here's how to do a thing. Because I know it's like they're interested in running. If it comes in their head for some reason, maybe an injury, maybe they want to try something new over the winter. Every so often we will send the ones. Hi, guys. We're doing a free trial for the sports Pilates this September. If you want in for a week for free, do it. If you don't, no problem. That. And that's it. It's like. Is it now? No, Grant. If it is. Yeah, like to try it. So I don't know if that answers it.

Yeah, no, it does. And I think what it. There's a. There's a term that I heard I'm trying to rack my brains for the marketeer that said it, but I can't at the moment. But it was Move the free line and essentially.

Oh, yeah, that's Evan Pagan. Pardon? Eben Pagan is that guy's name.

Oh, okay. Yes, brilliant. Thank you. And. But yeah, so essentially you give more away for free and you just add so much value that when people need your service, there's only one place they're going because they trust you, because of everything you've given them.

So, yeah, he's really good. He talks about the idea that, like. Because the way most people would do it is he uses pop stars. They put out their best song as a single and. But what the way most people would do is like, here's a crap enough song, but I got unbelievable songs on this album.

Yeah.

And he's like, no, no. If you just like let it on the radio, it's funny. They'll buy the album. Yeah. Like based on the good song as opposed to people thinking, I'll keep the best stuff back and then, you know, like, I'll give him this one. That's not that great. Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

No, I agree. Brilliant. So obviously we've mentioned your, your book, but I can't get you on the podcast without asking you for other books that have helped you. So have you got any book recommendations? Books that you find yourself recommending to people? Don't have to be running books. It can be anything business related or whatever.

I like audiobooks. I don't actually. I only read fiction and autobiographies. I just, I don't know, I feel like so. But one that I love, this is an audiobook is by a guy, Anthony Demello. It's called Awareness. The audio isn't great. That thing changed my life. Like it's this idea about like, don't be. Don't get like anxious about being anxious, just like kind of. Or depressed about being depressed. Just like be aware of your problems nearly like the way you would be for a concerned friend. And he kind of, he goes into that and yeah, I like, I actually ran really well. I was open Belgium around a PB and I was just saying, such a Zen state. I was like, we were, you know, it was before thing. I listened to like probably 20 hours of this, but every so often I need to just listen to it again because it's just that idea of like, you know, that kind of stoic idea that it's not, it's not the problem, it's how you think of the problem now. It's not always easy. You know, if a problem is hard, you lose sight of that. But it's that idea that like just observe the problem. Don't, don't like judge it. And then over time just be aware of how you're feeling. It's like, okay, I'm feeling crap. Why is that? It's like a bit tired. I got that like thing that's on there. Okay, that's fine. Like just, just be aware. Just like kind of get on with things. And over time it kind of does drop a little bit, but that's that. That aware. If it was just one, it would be definitely Awareness by Anthony de Mellow. Yeah, a lot of just interesting books like fur fiction or it's Kind of an autobiography, the Secret Race. It's. It's class. It's about, like, Tyler Hamilton. He's with, like, Lance Armstrong. And it's just like how, like, really in depth about, like, how they were doing the. The drugs and, like, the mindset of it. Like, I love that book then. Yeah. Trying to think over other books that I like then. I just love fiction, like, obviously Harry Potters and the Game of Thrones and stuff like that. So I think they all say fiction is good to read before bed, though, because you want to kind of, you know, that's what. I can't read anything. That's too, too there. My mind goes. I want to kind of just go somewhere else.

Yeah. But I'm a massive fan of audiobooks and those are two recommendations. I haven't had that. Two for the reading list. So. Brilliant. Thank you. And we always get the last guest to ask the next guest a question without knowing who that is. So you get a question from the ultra runner, Tom Evans. Claire, have you got Tom's question?

It's here. So what's one thing you wish someone had told you when you were going through tough times?

Probably listen to Anthony Demel and that's such a good question. I want to write a book as well, called no one. I don't. I'm cursed yet. So no one gives an S. Because when I was younger, I was good as a junior, as I said, and you have these, like, hopes of making the Olympics. And sometimes you can be very tense about your performances and that kind of occurs at any time. So, like, you think, oh, you know, I don't want to let that coach down. Or, you know, people know I'm. I'm running this race and you get. You can get nervous about it, but, like, nobody cares, you know, like, you can have someone who's, like, obsessed and they've run 13, 20 for a race and then you could have someone buzzing who's broken 20 have run their first 5k in, like, 25 minutes. So the time actually doesn't matter. It's like how you perceive the time. And sometimes if you think because we're upset, people are upset for you, and then you kind of sometimes can think they're upset because I ran poorly. But it's like, if you were happy I've done it, I can. I said, I won that World Championships the following week. I was a bit sick and I. I came forward in a local race and, like, I was just, like, always delighted because I was like, it was as good as I Could do based on how I was feeling. And every. And there wasn't one person going, yeah, we won a freaking championship last week. Can't even win this local race. Everyone's like, oh, yeah, fair play, good attitude. Do you know? So I wish someone had told me that, but sometimes you need to experience these things, don't you?

Yeah.

Brilliant. Excellent. Thank you, Owen. It's been really interesting chatting to you. There's loads of great advice there and I. I'm definitely going to be picking apart the book and I'll be watching. I'll be reading those newsletters and looking out for the first hint of sales. Given that you've told me it doesn't happen for quite a while, but. No, that's really, really good.

Look, look. Okay, I'll give you a really good one then. I honestly feel like I could run a course on that because I feel like the emails I get, they're all like, beautifully text. This is such a weird thing to finish with, but the only bit you do is you'll see in the ps. Whenever you're ready, here's how we help. We do a free trial of sports pilates@everairpilates.com sport free trial, get the book, you know, like, so. Because they've read it and then they're seeing that subconsciously. But again, it's not like, this is why sports Pilates is brilliant for you. You know, it's just like, when they're ready, we're here and that's your job. It's like I heard before, it's like, if it's like more, it should be like, of the hundred people who listen to this who want sports Pilates, how many actually, like, visit my website versus, say, the thousand or two thousand people who listen to this? How many did I get to to try Pilates? That's not the thing. It's like trying to get all the people who are actually interested as opposed to, you know, thinking you can, like, force this thing as you go.

Yeah, no, I think it's really good. You're absolutely right. People only you get a much better. More people read the PS than anything else. And the other bit is the star. I remember just while we're on the marketing subject again, there was a Frank Kern video, who's another marketeer, and I, I. He popped up on YouTube and the first thing he said was, I was kicked out of a strip club. I was like, I wanted to watch a film, I wanted to watch a YouTube clip on a Tesla. And I'm now going to sit here for 15 minutes.

Yeah, that's so true story about getting.

Kicked out of a strip club. Yeah, it's a good line.

So that is a good line.

Yeah, yeah, but brilliant. It's been really, really good to chat to you. Loads of good advice there. And I will be. I'll be checking out the, the Pilates stuff as well. But in the meantime, brilliant. Thank you so much. And yeah, it's been a great episode.

Can I just say, I have that book when we're talking about it. So if people want to go with that free book, they can go to Everard Ev or A or D Pilates. P I L a t e s.com forward slash book B. Okay. And then if people do want a free trial, they can just go to everardpalates.com sport free trial.

Fantastic. Thank you very.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed this.

Best place to find out more about Owen and to get his book for free, both the PDF and the audiobook and to get your free trial of his Pilates and to get onto his newsletter is everardpilates.com that's E V E R A R D P I L A T E s dot com. You can also find him on Instagram as Everard Pilates physio. And he's also on LinkedIn. So what did you make of the conversation with Owen?

It was great. It was, it was really good actually to hear his, hear about his background and also how passionate he is about running and, you know, his experience. So from a biomechanical perspective and physio.

Perspective was really, I thought it was really interesting and I think it's interesting how like strength and conditioning is clearly this part of the route to avoiding injury, but equally get it wrong or do it at the wrong stage and. And it can be the thing that causes you injury. So I think his conversation around using Pilates and that was, I thought was really interesting. I thought he's also. His conversation around the shoes was. Was really interesting. I think this might cost me a new pair of carbon shoes because I think my, my old carbon shoes are going to have to get relegated to training carbon shoes because. Yeah, I hadn't really thought about the fact that if you're training, when you're running with carbon shoes, you're using different muscles and then so actually you need to train that. Do you, do you train in carbon shoes?

I do if I'm running on the track and then when I'm doing like a brick run, I'll put racing Shoes on so that you're sit. Stimulating it. But it's these little things, isn't it? It's all the little tiny pieces that, you know, we forget about doing. But I, I thought it, I thought it was a really good way that he described kind of that pyramid of putting your basic movement at the bottom and getting that correct to start off with. And I think to a certain degree it sits in line with what we do with nutrition because people are often trying to put the cream on the cake the whole time, aren't they? What can I do to make me faster? I must have to, you know, go out and blast myself fast every single time or whatever. Or I need to go to the gym and lift really heavy weights. And actually, if you haven't got the basic movement at the bottom, you know you're going to get injured. And I think actually your example of you was actually really useful to kind of hear that because just to kind of hear, you know, is actually the basic movement then. Right. Or when you, you know, load coming from different places, like your skiing was a really odd or different load for you compared to what you do. Yeah.

And I didn't even, I wasn't even planning to mention the skiing. It was just so. Yeah, but he was absolutely right that had put an extra new load. But, but, and yet the advice I was getting before that was, right, okay, so you need to do these calf exercises. What? So I'm. So basically I'm doing calf exercises for strength work, which was making my knee worse, and then I'm skiing, which was also making my knee work. So, yeah, it was. I was definitely getting it wrong at that point. But yeah, so I thought, I thought he was really interesting. I also love what he's. How he's marketing himself. I think he's doing a really a great job of how like, I mean, he clearly knows what he's talking about because he can run. It can run very, very well. And. But he's doing a great job of using the book and approaching people to go on podcasts and giving away free Pilates sessions and the newsletter. I just think it's a really good, you know, it's a great approach and I think a lot of people could learn from that in business of kind of just putting attraction marketing devices out there that continue to generate leads. As he said, it's either now or not now and generating those leads when it is somebody's now in the future, you don't know when it's going to be, but you've got to Be in front of them when it is.

I think, I do think that's interesting actually, what he said about the now, not now, because, you know, I think there's some, there's some professions or businesses that actually you need, you need that service no matter what. But I think the services that he provides and actually the services that we provide are really similar that if that sometimes people don't know whether they need it quite now. You know, they're not, in his case, they're not injured or in our case they're not injured or they're not having problems or they don't think they do. But actually when they realize what it is that they need and they need help, they can, they can reach out. So I really like, I really like the way that he's working and the fact he say passionate about it, probably it comes with ease for him to give out that information because he's, he's got the knowledge and the passion.

Yeah. But also very similar to what you do. You're right in that people tend to, you tend to go and see a physio because you've injured yourself, whereas in, in the US you actually tend to, the pros tend to have a physio that they're seeing regularly to avoid getting injured. And I know you say people tend to come see you because they've got issues with nutrition. Like, like I did. Whereas actually it's better to have, if you want to race at your best, you're better to have a nutritionist in your, in your team because that person can avoid, you know, can. Can give you in improvements in your performance.

Absolutely. And I, I think, you know, looking at the, the baseline movement that he looks at and looking at baseline, you know, baseline nutrition to start off with, but I think, I think that way is. It's really interesting because it's also giving people value, isn't it? As well?

So, yeah, lots, lots, I think gives, he gives lots of value. And you know, and I think it demonstrates the fact that, you know, when we get him on the podcast, we're like, you know, we're getting lots of good value out of him. And then if at some point we're thinking, right, actually, I need Pilates, we're only going to go to one place, aren't we? And then these emails are going to turn up every week or whatever to keep reminding me for when I do, when I do need it.

So he's got the credentials behind what he's saying as well, because I think there are many people that may be Athletes that give very good advice, but do they have the credentials behind why their way of working works? He's got all of those pieces.

And I need to buy skipping rope by the sounds of things as well.

Yeah. Do you know skipping interesting. When he was talking about it, I was thinking, oh my God, I absolutely dread skipping. So I do that with my strength and conditioning coach and I am terrible. Like I think about what the Masai Mara like in terms of how much they jump spring, it looks like it's just I literally probably come about this far off the ground and it is so difficult and I'm made to do it. And that is part of that, that kind of plyometrics training and brilliant. So good just to pick up a skipping rope and like to have it somewhere where you use it because otherwise it's not going to happen.

Well, I mean, bearing in mind I was talking that that EMS suit is about $2,000 and he's telling me to forget that and buy a skipping rope. I could afford a new pair of carbon shoes at that point.

And a skipping rope.

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, no, I thought that was, that was really good. And the strides thing as well, I think, I think that's great advice. So. Yeah, brilliant. And how's your training going?

Yeah, all right. No, it's. We're building up to a couple of 70.3s in May and then just with the, the moving of my South African race, I'm just looking for a solid long distance race really. But I understand you're. You've got, you've got some things booked in the diary now for your racing.

Well, I haven't got anything booked. I. Yeah, because I lost South Africa and then I've had to drop the idea of doing Ironman Lanzarote for a number of reasons. My plan at the moment, whilst it's not booked, is I think I'm going to do the Outlaw half, which is 70.3 and then I'm gonna do Iron Man Vittoria Gastiz. Is that how we say it in Spain?

Sounds right to me.

Pretty sure that's what I'm gonna do. Now it's in the middle of the summer holiday so it's kind of logistically easy for my fee on my L list is doing a GCSE at the moment and Lanzarote was just gonna be a nightmare being in the middle of that. So, yeah, I'm gonna do that. And then I think I'm gonna do Ironman Chattanooga in Tennessee, which looks like a really cool race. I'M in the US around the same time, so I'll just bolt it onto that.

I was looking at. That actually looks interesting.

It looks like a nice race. It looks like, it looks like a really good race and that'll be aiming to qualify for next year's Kona, but being in the US that might be a tricky thing to do there, but we'll see. But yeah, so that's, that's all I've got planned so far, but I haven't actually booked anything yet and I need to get on and do it. And your long race, are you kind of any more decided on that?

Well, Kazakhstan has just opened, so I'd like to go to Kazakhstan, so maybe that's a good one to do.

It looks, it looks like a great race. I know the date's not very good for me, but it looks like a great race.

I think it's just now just that things have moved around as they do in life. It's just finding the right, the right timing of things as well around different things going on. So. Yeah, but I need to, need to find one before they all sell out. Basically. I thought I was super organized having having South Africa so early on, but. Yeah, but.

Well, as we were saying before, I think it's, it's historically because you had to put them up so far in advance, you, you had to be super organized. Whereas now because they're not booking up as quickly, you're kind of a bit more flexible and then it's like. Well, actually, you know, it's now a real hassle to do that only in two months time. And then actually when it does sell out, it catches you by surprise and it's. Yeah, so I do need to get on and book it, but. Right, another episode done and we're nearing the end of this series, so we're gonna, we'll. I think we're gonna do one episode more of this series which will be a catch up on, on the, on some snippets from the other interviews and then we're gonna have a little bit of a break and move on to. Onto the next series where there'll be lots of new things happening and lots of cool things going on. But good luck with planning your races, Claire, and the training. Keep up all the good work there skipping.

Let me know how that goes.

Thank you. I'll, I'll. Yeah, I'll be, I'll be like Rocky Balboa. And then. And for everyone else, keep on training. And remember, this podcast was sponsored by 33 fuel. So rethink your sports nutrition with 33 fuel award winning natural sports nutrition for your performance, health and a fitter Future. It's the 33 Fuel Fuelosophy. Get yours at 33fuel.com and if you use the discount code Tribeathlon or the link in the show notes, you'll get a discount at the checkout. 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 catalog@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.