Super-Trouper with Anna Troup

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Tribathlon podcast, finding out how ordinary people do extraordinary things.

You're 210 miles in, you've got whatever it was. 200 miles in, you've got 60 miles to go. You know you're okay on the time. Do you just give up?

That is Anna Troop and this episode is Super Trooper. For this episode I wanted to welcome back Kerry Sutton as my co host or guest co host. So if you haven't listened to Kerry's episode, I really suggest you do. She's absolutely incredible when it comes to ultra running, having started at the Marathon de Sables and then she led the Jungle Ultra in Peru and she was also leading the spine race until she had a near disaster in the darkness. She also runs perpetual motion coaching. So welcome back, Kerry Sutton. Kerry, it's great to get you back onto the triathlon podcast. How the devil are you?

Good, very good and it's lovely to be back. I very much enjoyed our chat last time and this will be no different.

I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure. I know we'll have loads to chat about. So tell me what you've been up to since we last spoke on the podcast. And I get the feeling there was a long run across Scotland that was involved, wasn't there?

There was, there was a coast to coast.

There was.

It's called the Ultra Great Britain. That happened last August. It was a bit touch and go to be honest as well. I was going to get there. I've had quite a lot of problems with my hip and we were, I was backwards and forwards to consultants, some saying I shouldn't run anymore but I didn't like that so I didn't want to hear that. So went to found somebody, went to find somebody who would agree with me that I can still run and. But yeah, not without pain. And so we were just trying to uncover what it is that's the main problem. But that obviously, as anyone knows with pain in hips, takes lots of scans and lots of time. So we decided to pop a steroid injection in which, if only it was as easy as that was rather unpleasant, I have to say, because I have to go right deep into the hip. However, I had that 10 days before I was meant to go on this 215 mile ultra and so I didn't know quite what was going to happen. So the reason for all this big lead up was that it wasn't my goal. Had to be changed a lot of times in that one. At the beginning I didn't think I could do it. Then I thought I could do it, but maybe it would just be an impaired back. And then I thought I would compete and then the pain came back. So with 10 days to go, I had this injection and I was just waiting for it to take effect, which it did with sort of two days left and I was like, right, I am pain free. This can happen. I'm gonna go. And I am so glad I did. I had the best time. It was a, an amazing race. I didn't know much about the southern Dockland way, which is the way that you follow. You start on the west coast in a place called Portpatrick and then you go, you travel all the way across to sort of underneath Edinburgh if you like, place called Cocksburn Path. And yeah, I didn't really know that it's sort of mid, it's mid ground, you know, I didn't know that what they would be there, what sort of terrain would be like. But it was beautiful. Absolutely stunning. Plenty hills, but some amazing vistas in a big open spaces, lots of windmills. Yeah. And I just had the best time. It was brilliant.

Brilliant. That's not a part of Scotland I've explored so much. I've done sort of more of the northwest and obviously the cities and a bit north of kind of around St. Andrews and that sort of area. But so what? It was hilly but without being. Would you say it was mountainous or is it just.

No, certainly no, you'll get high, you get bigger hills further north. But it was, it was, I felt there wasn't much flat. So there was, there were some big inclines, big. I mean, you know, it's also subjective, isn't it? Nothing like the outskirts, nothing like Ben Nevis, but, but, but nonetheless when you're going for, you know, 214 miles, you feel them, you feel those hills. And so yeah, it was, it was lots of heather, lots of up and.

Down.

Lots of wooded areas. Not a lot of, not a lot of road or really graded trail. So you really felt remote. I was on my own all the time. Lots of little bothies which were fantastic.

I love them both.

Oh, and beautiful bothies. Really creative bothies, you know, ones that were sort of little dome shaped sort of hobbit like little houses. It was, it was, it really was truly stunning. We were really blessed with the weather as well, which I know this race has a reputation of being very boggy, which it still was in parts, but we were, we were really lucky with the weather.

And how long did it take you to Complete.

I took around 88 hours, ish, thereabouts. So three days, something like that. But as I say it was for me because of my dicey build up. For me it was a completion to the best of my ability at that point. So I decided that I wasn't going to go and race because I put myself with this unknown hit into too much of a jeopardy. So I decided to complete at to the best of my ability on the day. So that's what I did and, and therefore really, really, really enjoyed it.

Brilliant. And how's the, how's the hip being since?

Yeah, it's a bit painful. It's a bit painful. It is wearing off. I'm still not at the stage where I have to sleep sitting up so it's not as bad as when I left but I think I'm. I think I'm going back again. I don't know what the long term prognosis is, you know, that's. That remains to be seen but up until that point I've still got things in the diary that need to be completed. So it's a management exercise.

And does it. Is it the sort of thing that kind of is okay for the first 50 miles and then starts getting angry or is it just angry the whole time?

No, it's angry. I went to the cinema last night and I just could not sit still because it's this painful.

Yeah.

And that's part of the arthritis thing, you know, that I know I've got. So yeah, it's a bit of a boring story.

Frustrating. But you said you've got these other things planned, so what have you got planned? Because I know knowing you that there's going to be some, you know, they're not insignificant challenges, I suspect.

No, I've got some, I've got some fun stuff next year. Having had a sort of quiet Covid period. Although it was all sort of based around the house. I've now I've got the marathon to Saab in March which I'm going to do with my son, which he's eating 21 the month before. And we'd always said because he supported me through my ultra running and when he was very young would cycle next to me and hand my nutrition to me as we were, as I was doing my long runs. He sort of always been involved and he said that one, you know, one day we will do it. And things just conspired to making him available in March. MDS is 10 years since I first did MDS which is where all my coaching and everything all started, my whole life changed. Yeah. So it felt like it was sort of almost a closing of a chapter for me, but an opening of one for him. So it was going to be quite poignant, really.

Oh, brilliant. And is he doing quite a lot of ultra running at the moment or is he just building up towards it?

Yeah, well, this is trouble. I mean, I am. Well, I'm trying to. He's at university, he's got a one rather than one of these degrees where he only sort of shows his face once in a while. He has actually got a full time degree which is taking up a lot of time and he's placed rugby, handball, squash competitively. So his sort of dynamic movement, his sprinting, his short stuff is great and he's very strong. But actually finding time to make him do anything longer or ask him to do anything longer is a bit more problematic. And that's what we're going to try and do a bit more over Christmas when he comes back.

Fantastic. Yeah, but it's unusual for people sort of of that age to be getting into ultra running really, isn't it?

Oh, it is. I mean, it's a huge credit to him that he wants to even entertain the idea. I'm, you know, fully respect him for that. We've got the MDS Expo tomorrow. No, not tomorrow, on Saturday in London and he's coming down for that. So I think then he will really start to get the reality of what's involved. But no, he is really up for it and we will get there. And what people don't realise about the MDS is that there is considerable amount of walking. So as long as you are strong and capable of carrying your pack and you manage yourself really well, you will be able to complete it. Yeah, that's not to say we are entertaining the idea of walking the whole thing, but certainly we know that's a fallback.

Yeah, well, that would be an amazing experience to do that together and for you to go back and kind of reminisce about your first trip there, but also just to witness his first ultra experience, that would be amazing. And so other than MDs, anything else planned?

I'm. Yeah, I'm gonna do. Well, I'm thinking of doing Kate Wrath. I'm about to sign on the dotted line. Always wanted to do Kate Wrath and I think next year is going to be the year, so. Looking forward to that. That's the one where you run from Fort William all the way to the furthermost point of Scotland.

Have you seen the documentary with Beth and Damien when they did it.

Brilliant. Yes.

It just looks stunning.

It is stunning. I've got a client who's also running next year and she was holidaying up there only a few weeks ago. And the photo she sent back, I mean, it's an unbelievable wilderness up there.

Well, that's the bit that I have explored a bit around because I used to go up for Duke of Edinburgh with the school up to Lochinva and around that area there. And it is absolutely stunning. And I often said if you saw photos of it, you'd be saying, well, that's New Zealand and it's an amazing place. You know, actually it's. It's Scotland. It is stunning. So that will be. That will be awesome. Remind me, how long is Cape Roth?

400Km. Unlike Ultra Great Britain, which is one of these. A bit like the spine, you know, the clock starts and ends when you do. So you manage your sleep and your. Your time on the course. This one is. Is a stage race.

Okay, so how. How many stages?

Oh, that's a good question. I think there's eight. It's a longer stage race than usual. So it's sort of, you know, you vary between sort of 40, 60, you know, you're up and down in those areas. 40 to 60 kilometers a day sounds.

Like a brilliant experience. That sounds a whole lot more appealing than just setting off and doing it all in one go. I mean, obviously great if you're like Beth and Damian and you that can go off and do that. But for me, that breaking up over the course of a week sounds like a. That sounds like a far more sociable experience.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, really sociable. And. And I think they've got this sort of camp life really down pattern if you get in with enough time to spare, which you have to. Cause there are cutoffs. Yeah. I definitely would suggest putting it on your bucket list for sure.

Well, that sounds like. Yeah, that sounds like a good way of adding that to my bucket list because when I watched that documentary, which I can't remember the name of it, but, um, it's probably called Cape Roth.

Yeah.

And I can't remember, um, yeah, I looked at it went. That looks stunning. But that is so far outside of my current comfort zone. Um, but I'm. But another thing that you've got in the diary, which I know is you may compete in but you may not, is of course we're going down to do. You're coming to join me down in Cornwall for the ARC 50, aren't you? I have to say, I feel a total fraud having somebody that runs 215 miles across Scotland and does all the amazing things that you do. Coming to support me on my first organized ultra. I mean, I've run 50 miles before, but not in an organized event and not, you know, that's going to be far more challenging. So, yeah, I feel slightly daunted by getting you on my support group.

Oh, no, but don't. Absolutely not. I mean, that's, you know, it's all about celebrating the individual, isn't it? And you, you know, this is, this is your moment. You're putting yourself in your space and I have only utmost respect for that. That's, you know, what, what I do is, is never in comparison to anybody else. It's about you and your, your moment. I mean, there are just, you know, it's going to be a really wonderful weekend watching you make your way around that, that course, which is, which is pretty, it's pretty tough.

Yes, well, I am slightly daunted, but I'm also really excited. But it would be brilliant if you do feel up to it that you, that you can, I don't know whether I say run with us because then you'll be, you'll be disappearing off into the distance and we'll be keeping up with you. We're trying to keep up with you, but, yeah, it would be awesome if you can race.

Yeah, no, I'm very looking forward to it. Let's see how this next couple of months go with the hip and then we can plan it out. But whatever happens, we certainly be popping up every 10k or so or wherever, however often we can, and cheering you on.

Well, it is a stunning stretch of coastline, so we'll make sure it will definitely be a worthwhile trip.

It is. And it's all sort of a stomping ground, isn't it? So that helps that you do know your way around there, particularly in that sort of, what potentially you might have bad weather. So it is good that you know where you are, where you're going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and you'll never, it's not like when you're doing Cape Roth, where you're kind of a million miles from everywhere really, aren't you? Whereas at least in Cornwall, you kind of never that far from houses and the like, are you? So it's not, you know, I, I, I'm really looking forward to it. And how's the coaching going? I mean, what, what have you been doing? You know, is that going well?

It's going very well yes, I do lots. I've got lots of online clients who I sort of set their monthly plans for. All very individualized. There's an awful lot of chatter and I really enjoy getting involved with them and many become friends ultimately which is always an added bonus. So yeah, lots of stuff going on. Lots of marathon to Saab which as I mentioned I'm going up to and I'm giving the training talk at that expo as well. So. So lots, lots in that world, lots of other types of ultras. I've got someone going off to Costa Rica and a couple have come back from Jordan. So those sorts of multi day things which obviously I sort of can help them with and understand and then, and then other things. We've got 100Ks, 100 miles. So if there's an all. There's a lot of variety of things that are going on. Enjoying that. I'm also putting on a few challenges I've got later this year actually instead of a Christmas sit down dinner. How boring is that? We're going to do a six hour looped event and there is an invite to you, were you to want to come down and oh, so when is this happening? 28th of November.

28Th of November and we have to run for six hours around a loop. Is there turkey and mulled wine involved?

Possibly the mulled wine, yeah, maybe a turkey sandwich if you're lucky. But yeah, so that, that's that sort of thing for clients to keep them all engaged in the community. I'm also hoping to do a few sort of organized events where I take them on the Three Peaks. A number of people are really keen to go and try the three peak challenge in 24 hours. So organizing that I might need to.

Put my wife onto then because she's, she's really keen to organize that for a group of friends or something similar. So I will, I will introduce her or mention it to her because I know that. But that's. That again that sounds like a brilliant challenge to do in terms of, you know, for those people that want to push themselves but maybe don't want to run, you know, don't feel like they can run miles and miles. So that'll be a hyped Three peaks, will it? I assume rather than.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely. And it's, and it's all about, you know that I'm going to be supporting them in the months before. So it's about building the little group that we will be going. So it's going to be quite a small group. So you build the support network around you, understanding what they're doing. Training wise, obviously I'm there to support that as well. So you sort of feel very nurtured and then obviously when you get out there, you know, it's up to you and you don't need to put the energy in to get yourself up and back. But, yeah, there's lots of people that are really keen to this sort of. This sort of event and keen to put themselves out of their comfort zone, but it's just accessing how to do it and sometimes if someone can organize the back end for you, then, you know, there's a lot of willingness to go and partake.

I think that's absolutely right. There's a lot of people wanting to do these things, but it is actually really daunting. Organizing it and having somebody's experience that knows what they're doing, just to hold their hand and make sure they've kind of thought of everything in advance and got themselves on the right track is brilliant. So fantastic. Right, well, we'll dive now, dive into the interview with Anna Troup and then I'll catch up with you shortly. Ultra runner Anna Troup overcame hideous weather, injury and sickness to set a new female record on the iconic 268 mile Pennine Way this year. But it was only weeks after triumphing as the fastest female in the Lakeland 100 and less than two months since she won and set a new female course record for the Summer Spine Race, which was she did in 80 hours and 28 minutes. So 2021 has been a pretty incredible year for a lady in her 50s that, by her own admission, came to ultra running pretty late on. As well as this year's successes, she's also won the Lakeland 102 years ago and had other wins at the arc of Attrition 100, the Wendover Woods 100 and the Exodus 100. So I wanted to learn more about the secrets to successful endurance training in your 50s. I wanted to understand more about the best equipment for ultra running and the secrets to the sort of success behind that. And then also finally, how you fuel these races, particularly when she uses scones and marmalade sandwiches. So I know you're going to absolutely love what is a fascinating conversation packed full of brilliant advice with ultra runner Anna Troop. Today's show is brought to you by Precision Hydration, who help athletes personalise their hydration and fueling strategies so they can perform at their best. They work with a long list of elite athletes like three time Olympian and former guest of the podcast Eilish McColgan as well as many other athletes. PH tested my sweat and it turns out I'm a much saltier sweater than average and I would benefit from drinking a much stronger electrolyte drink than you'd normally get off the shelf. They also tested Sid, who actually loses about half as much sodium as I do when I sweat, which just goes to show how much you can personalize your approach approach to hydration. Check out their free online sweat test@precisionhydration.com to get some personalized advice. Or like Sid and I, book yourself in for one of their advanced sweat tests. As a listener of the show, if you use the discount code TRIBATHLON15, you can get 15% off your first order at the checkout. So, Anna, welcome to the Tribe Athlon podcast. Really, really looking forward to chatting to you after what has been an incredible year for you. I know. So I always like to kick things off. For those people that don't know that much about you, can you tell us a bit about, you know, how do you get into ultra running and tell us a bit about your journey towards the year that you've had?

So. Well, my, obviously, as you know. But for those who don't know, I got into ultra running very late. I got into ultra running in my 40s, but I would say my journey to ultra running has always been via different endurance sports. So I started off at school as a classic netball player, but once I got to university I was a rower and you know, rowing gave me that, that basis for understanding how to train, I suppose the big, the big endurance base which just takes years and years to build and it also provided that platform that then took me into triathlon once I'd had the children and given up rowing and obviously with triathlon I'm just much better as a long distance athlete. So the triathlon then ultimately took me through into sort of long distance running and long distance events and being out for long periods of time. And once the triathlon just got too big in terms of time, you know, as a mum, as a working mum, then naturally you gravitate towards the running. And the ultra running really came about because I was looking to have something to do an event that I could do with my partner. So the two of us did the ultra running together and we embarked on that as a, as a real adventure because we wanted to race utmb. So that, and it was then, how do we get to race utmb? What do we need to do and back then, and still now you needed points, you needed to do races, you needed to have sort of a proof statement that you were capable of racing that race. And so we set out in 2012 to do that. And so it was a couple of years and then we raced UTMB in 2014. So that's a long way of saying I got into ultra, but via doing a lot of long distance training and racing just in different sports over the 20 years before.

And it's interesting actually because there's quite a few people I've interviewed that do originate from a rowing or a swimming background. It kind of seems to, it seems to help with whatever you choose to turn your hand to later on, I think in the ways that perhaps you describe. Is it just the understanding, the training or why do you think that is? Why do you think rowing helped you so much in those early days?

I think, I mean rowing, you just, you have to turn up. Number one, you've got seven other people or eight other people waiting for you on a bank. You know you have to turn up, you've got to put in the base miles. Yes, it's a 2000 meter race or a boat race which might be slightly longer, but ultimately you are having to put in lots of steady, long, low mileage, partly because you are constantly working on technique, but also to build that base physiology. And I think we see, and you see this in running and ultras a lot. You have really fast runners who don't have any base. So I've seen that with friends of ours, for example, who would absolutely trash me over shorter distances. But the minute it goes slightly long, even say 20 miles, they don't have that base just to be able to maintain it. And they've gone out to try and do 50 miles and they actually, they don't complete and it's because they haven't gone back and done that really big deep based training. So I think rowing gives you that really big base of your sort of, I feel like your physiological pyramid that you can then constantly sort of work and just top up and do the harder stuff if you like the harder intervals. I think it also gives you real discipline around training. You go out and you're going to do six five minute pieces. Well, you go out and do six five minute pieces because you've got seven other people doing six, five, you can't just stop. So I think it teaches you a mindset of yes, it hurts and it's going to carry on hurting, but it will get to five minutes and it'll stop hurting and then we'll recover and then we'll do it again. And one of the things that they teach you in rowing is about making that first five minutes as good as the last five minutes. So you also, I think, inexorably just learn how to pace training and racing as well, because it's about, you know, making sure that your effort levels are appropriate to whatever you've got to do in that session. So I think it gives you a set of tools to work with. The rowing particularly, maybe.

I think it's really interesting. So getting into. So we're into triathlon, what sort of distances were you doing in your triathlon stage?

So when I was rowing, I was. I ended up being a lightweight rower and I'm quite a tall person. So I used running as a way of managing weight, because the maximum you can be in a boat is 59 kilos once you're lightweight. And you have to have an average in the boat of 57, which either means you have to have someone who's tiny with you, or you've both got to aim to be 57. And for me particularly, I was carrying a lot of rowing muscle that. That was quite, you know, that that was quite light. So I used running as a way of. Of managing that. And obviously the more running you do and the lighter you are, the faster you go. And so from there I started to get into marathon running. So in terms of distances, I'd already started running marathons. I wasn't very fast. My first one was a four, four hours 20 or something. But then they quite quickly came down as I learned how to run and how to pace and just generally got better at it when I was doing the try stuff, I suppose because again, I was working and the kids were really little. It was very hard to fit in all three. So I used to. My way of doing this was I'd been taught to swim as a youngster. I was never a great swimmer, but I kind of did the maths and went, well, you know what, the swimming is actually a very small percentage of an overall ironman. So let's basically forget the swimming because it's going to take me a ton of effort to get from an hour and 15 or an hour and 20 to an hour. So let's, let's ditch that. We'll do one swim, make sure I can still swim before actually racing, and that will do. Let's get through it. And then I used to concentrate on the bike and on the running, but then really, you can't around a full time job, do much more than an hour and a half session, you know, every day, that or even, you know, two or three days a week. That gets quite hard. So then you'd have to try and fit in longer rides and runs at weekends. And I use the Sportif system in the UK to try and get those 100 riders in and make sure I was doing that. Longer distance distances, it was always easier to do the long distances running than it was on a bike because you just got to go out for such a long period of time. But while we didn't, you know, so from the triathlon there, I suppose I learned how to A, use a bike and B, then we'd taken that into ultra world and we still use what bikes all the time as part of our training and as older athletes we think they're absolutely critical.

So, yeah, and I was going to come back to that actually, because I picked up on the, by listening to you on other podcasts, the importance of that Turbo trainer, which I know you're not a massive fan of, but you still find it really useful.

It's really tedious, isn't it? I mean, it's like asking a rower, how much do you love sitting on an Ergo? Not many of them are going to go, oh, I love the Ergo. It's just a really good training tool. But I mean, so, yeah, the Turbo trainer. So when the children were tiny, one of the ways that I could still train was Richard set me up with a Turbo trainer and I would literally, they'd be doing their sort of nighttime TV and I could watch TV with them and train on the bike as they got a bit bigger, I'd go on a Turbo for an hour before work every day and we'd literally get on and I would multitask. I'd sit up and I'd be doing my emails because it was before work, so I'd get on top of the day. So that turbo became a really crucial part of our training. In fact, for that first utmb, five mornings a week was an hour on the Turbo. We were only really running at weekends and then we just added in some very specific longer back to backs as we got closer to the event. But so the Turbo has just been fundamental and we can't do as much running as we would like to do now. I mean, we're both now in our 50s and Richard has a view that 70 miles a week is about the max in terms of running and we will fall apart. So we supplement that by doing all the hard work really on the what bike? So I'll sit there and it will be an hour of quite hard heart rate training and you can do that on a what bike. You can have your heart rate up at decent levels without doing destroying yourself. Whereas if I go out and try and get my heart rate to the levels I do on a walk bike running, I am broken for two or three days because the impact through my legs and just the muscles and the stresses, it's just too much. So I think for me it keeps me physiologically really, really fit without being too structurally destructive, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense and I think it's. I know I've interviewed other people in the past where they've found that cross training has really, really helped them, particularly for ultra runners. But it's. But yeah, I think, I suppose the problem with ultra running is that it's lots and lots of miles which means that you end up damaging bits of your body and, and so that's a way of delivering it without putting strain on the joints, isn't it?

Yeah. And we're just older. I think if I'd found ultra in my late 20s, I mean, you know, you have the benefit of hindsight and with the benefit of hindsight I was always a long distance athlete but when I was growing up you didn't do the physiological testing to say you'd be far better as a long distance athlete than a shorter distance athlete. Actually I was physiologically not that well suited to a 2000 meter rowing race which is why I love the rowing head races which were 20 minutes and you know, that felt great and why I naturally gravitated to doing marathons and ironman. I didn't really bother with Olympic distance try. So I think if I'd found ULTRA in my 20s I would have been able to do the back to back high miles, high miles outside, on the road, in the hills. It's just an age thing for me. We've just come, I think we've come to it too late to do the big huge ultra running miles that others can do. We just can't do it. So I think it's just learning to manage your age if you want to stay injury free and competitive still. The what bike, the weight, the S and C, all the bits I find most boring and unfortunately the ways that we manage to do the things we really like to do and what's.

What stood out to you. Something you just said was that you started off going towards ultra running by saying I want to run in the UTMB now as somebody that is just kind of scraping the surface of ultra running, that seems like a million miles away from where I'm going to be ending up. Was it different getting into UTMB years ago and also, you know, was that just a really big psychological step up?

So you haven't met my partner, Richard. Well, of course we can do it. He just doesn't have. It's sort of a. Does not compute. Well, you know, clearly it's just an endurance event. If we train properly and sensibly, we'll of course be able to complete. So there was a, you know, so when you have someone with that sort of level of just straight confidence, you don't really question, you just go, well, of course we're going to do utmb. Why wouldn't we? We'd both hiked it. What's the difference? I mean, it was a very big challenge, clearly. But then, you know, there was also a plan to get there. To your point, 2014, we just put in an entry and automatically got a place. I don't even know if there was still. They were needing to ballot back then. They might have been, but then your odds were so good you were probably going to get in and we both immediately got in in that first year that we applied. So I think the other big difference is the races that carried the points for UTMB you could just enter. Now you do need to be far more structured. You need to know which races you're going to do. You've got to have a plan to get there and then, you know, you may not even get into UTMB for two, three years or you've got to do the whole running stone piece, which I'm still struggling to work out how the whole process works. It's all got very complex, but I would still say UTMB is a fantastic experience and everyone should do it once, whatever. So it was a big step up, but we did it in stages. So, you know, we'd both run marathons and done, you know, the long distance tries. So the first ultra we did was the London to Brighton, it was 100k. Now, I know it's long and it's two marathons effectively, but it's relatively flat, it's quite accessible. And because it was an event that was for walkers as well, there were aid stations every 10k, you didn't really need much kit. So actually that was really accessible for us. So that was where we started. We then got it really wrong and went and did hardmores, which Was a sort of full on 60 miles in the middle of nobody giving you anything. Aid stations, did they exist? I don't think they really existed and carrying far too much kit and that was a real learning experience and that was a huge real euphoria moment when we actually finished that one. I think if any of them, that's the one that always stands out. We were so euphoric. I mean Richard had been up Everest and we'd all done, you know, we'd done all of our other racing up till then but that is the one that stands out as wow, we just did 60 miles. It was so exciting. It was so, so exciting. So when people are embarking on their first 50s, you know, I so get that excitement of crossing a finishing line in your first ultra. It is just massive the fact that you've gone that distance on your own two feet. So that was the next one and then we did one in the lakes which was 70 odd miles but it was so different. And now when I think about ultra I was thinking, and obviously our children did ultra so we, you know, we had to go through this thought process with them, this competing which we now do and there's completing which we were doing and they're really different things that Lakes Ultra. I remember we sat there and we had chips in the new Dungeon Gill Hotel because that was the aid station they were providing chips. We just sat down for 20 minutes, half an hour. It was a totally different approach. It was a lovely approach and actually it was a really enjoyable way to, to do these races. But it's a different way of racing, it's completing. So up to utmb we were really, it was all about completing, collecting those points and then going off to do what we really wanted to do which was utmb.

And when, and when was it that you did that first UTMB, what year was that?

2014.

Okay, so you've, you've had a reasonable progression since then, haven't you? And you've had an amazing 20, 21. What's been your, you know, you've won races, you've set FKTs. What's been your highlight of this last year?

Oh, there can't be one highlight because you know, so that the lake. So I think, for me, okay, so doing the spine race was just such a step up in terms of my own learning and my own knowledge because most of the big races I've done, Richard and I have done together, we'd always done them not as a team but we'd always had each other alongside and it was an adventure and it was, you know, we both racing together and he got ill in that summer spine race with 100, about 100 miles in and it was the middle of the night. Shona Fell was next, he was ill and I was suddenly on my own. It was either stop and stay with him or carry on and do all the things that I don't normally have to do, charge my watch, manage the nav, actually physically think about all the things that we usually share. So that for me was a huge learning experience. And I'd always been in awe of these ladies who are out in the hills in the middle of the night on their own, because I was so rarely ever out on my own in the middle of the night because he was always there too. So, yes, I was racing, but he was there. And suddenly I was that woman out on my own in the middle of the night, up on shelf out. And so I think for me that was a huge step forward to have to do that. So I think there's going to always be a special place for me from that race because it was sort of. I'd raced on my own, but I've done Lakeland 100 the year 2019 on my own. But that feels a sort of less, you know, less on your own environment somehow. The spine race is particularly towards the front. You're completely on your own, hours and hours and hours where you don't see anyone and you're just in your own head. So I think that's special. I think in terms of confidence, going back in 2021 and winning Lakeland 100 again has really mattered because in 2019, when I'd done it, Sabrina vergey dropped out at 60 miles, so she had her first DNF at Dalemain and that was highly unusual. I doubt I would have won if Sabrina had carried on. You never know. You can only race who turns up. But ultimately I would have said Sabrina would win in 2021. It was a good starting field, but I actually won that on my own, if that makes sense. So that mattered to me too, in terms of a straight confidence. And then the FKT just showed me that I can do different things and it wasn't a one off in the spine and there's more to come. So this whole year has. Has added to my own personal armoury, if you like.

I think it's added a lot to your armoury. What was the difference between doing the spine race and doing the fkt? Because obviously, essentially same thing, but different experience. What were the differences? And how did you do you go about them differently?

So the biggest difference for me is I didn't have to carry a pack in the fkt, so I think packs for, you know, in the spine, because of the aid stations being so far apart and it was the summer, so we were having to carry quite a lot of water. It's a lot of weight. So for me, just being able to run normally, I would say that was the biggest difference. In the fkt, I did have people there, but ultimately they weren't people who knew that course inside out. So I was still nabbing and I was still on it. There were legs where people were on it who did know it really well and then I didn't have to worry, which was nice. I think the Spine race was a much nicer race for me than doing the FKT because I didn't get injured, number one, but also because I think I was probably really fresh when I started the spine and I thought I was still. I was fine to start the fkt, but you don't end up really injured with a torn quad if you are completely fresh. And I think, again, with the benefit of hindsight, the spine race and the FKT couple of weeks, including doing rounds with my younger, My younger daughter and then doing the actual fkt, it meant I probably started tired and so it never felt as easy. There were real differences between the two. I think the aid station environment of any race, where you come in and there's people and that's just really lovely, instead of just being sort of out of the back of a van, all of us in a van, sharing a van, that was, again, quite different. And, yes, it's nice to have your own food and people there to look after you. And it was. But that aid station warmth and no pressure, because the first Spine race, there was just no pressure. I had no idea where Ian was. You know, Richard, again, is the person who keeps an eye on where we are in the field. I never know, so I had no idea how close he was, how far. And I wasn't racing Ian. In my mind, Ian Keith is someone up here, you know, he was someone I was ever going to be racing and I had no clue where I was relative to everybody else, so I could just do my own thing. Whereas the fkt, you're constantly against a clock that. That feels much more pressured than racing a human being. Human beings slow down and things change and things go wrong. Clocks just keep going. And for me, it reminded. It was more an fkt, for me was more like a Bob Graham round where you are constantly against that schedule. So. But they're quite different things. I really loved both, but they were, they were different.

Do you think that you, with an fkt, you're solely racing yourself, aren't you? Essentially because you're against the clock. Whereas with, with a race you are, you are racing other people and therefore there's, there's. That. That's totally un. What other other people do is totally uncontrollable, isn't it? So do you think there is a psychological difference in that sense?

So, I mean, I don't know about others, but certainly for me with any ultra, I find it really hard to remember. I'm actually racing most of the time. You do off the start and let's, you know, the first, you know, X number of miles, everyone goes mad and it's, you know, it's actually trying to control the pace is key, but then at some point you just go into your mode. You have to just go into my race, my pace and, and try and forget that there are, there's obviously people you meet and you chat to and that's been great in races, but I think it's really. I don't know how people race, race for a hundred miles. Now. I know in Lakeland 100 this year for the first time I really thought about racing. So I hadn't thought about the Lakeland 100 as a race this year. I'd just gone in and I'd agreed with the physio up front that I was just going to go in and just have a, have a good day out and not worry about it at all. It was never meant to be an A race because of knowing we were going to go for the fkt. But as things happened, I started to realize that the lady I thought I was sort of seventh or eighth got told in an A station, actually I was in second. Ignored that because I was like, well, you know, we're not even halfway here and until you get to Delmer, you don't even think about it. But I got there and realized that actually I wasn't that far behind and started to feel much better. And then within six or eight miles, I suddenly was right behind and I could see Elaine, who was in front of me in first place. And then I had to make a racing decision, which is the first time I've ever had to do that, which is like, I've got 60 miles to go, roughly, sorry, 40 miles to go. Do I now overtake or do I hold back? I know there's another set of good ladies just behind me. If I hold back, they may overtake me. But if I go ahead of a lane now, I'm going to have 35 miles or so of constantly being in front, feeling chased. What's the right thing to do? So that was a moment of having to make a racing decision. In the end, I just decided just to go for it, nail it, and use the rowing metaphor, where we always used to talk about you just had to sort of break the rope and so you just had to go far enough away. That boat, once you've gone through the boat, there was no way that boat was coming back at you. And for me, that was exactly the same thing that I approached the Lakeland 100 from that. So I just had to go, go hard, get completely out of sight and make sure that Elaine just didn't feel that there was any way she was coming back. Now, I knew then that everything else, all the wheels fell off about 20 miles further on for me, and I was throwing up and the whole thing was awful. But Elaine didn't know that. So I think that's where you're right. It's the clock versus racing. But, yeah, that was the first time I'd taken a racing decision in a race. For me, it doesn't often happen. I'm just generally doing my own thing.

I remember hearing you talk about how quickly people often set off in these races, and you tend to be much more disciplined at setting off at a pace you know you can maintain. Tell me a little bit about that. And how do you work out what that pace is that you should start off with? And also how do you resist the urge to go, hang on, they're all chasing off ahead of me.

Well, AI very rarely resists the urge. Richard generally resists the urge for both of us. He's like, slow down. So the way we work it out is, I know from the Watt bike, actually, on a what bike, you'll often do sort of an aerobic threshold. What can I hold for an hour? My heart rate won't move. That number, which will be obviously individuals for everybody, is a number. I know that basically, as long as I'm fueling and as long as I'm doing all the right things, I can just hold that number for forever. Basically, I'm not going to fade because that's my number. So I use that as the number and then I just try not to go above that number, because every time I go above that number, I'm burning matches because I've now Gone into a zone which I'm not going to recover from. So that's how I work the pacing. So I have my heart rate on at the beginning and try and use that as a way of holding myself back. Because the problem is if we're all tapered and we're all fresh, we're going to go off like racehorses. And that's inevitably what people do. And then I try and sort of say, okay, would I run this hill with 70 miles in my legs if I wouldn't run it with 70 miles in my legs, should I be running it now? I suppose the difference is that now I can run things that five years ago I wouldn't have run and it's not having the impact. So I am improving. But generally if I see a big steep hill, I'm going to hike it and that's really hard because people are running past me and I'm thinking maybe I should be running. But then you look and you go, well, they're all on record pace. There's no way that this is sustainable. Not everybody here is going to break the records. It's really, really difficult. In the spine race particularly, everybody just disappeared up the road. Rich and I were like, oh my God, they're going so fast. You know, they were off at 8 minute mile pace. And bearing in mind you've got big rucksacks on and we watch them disappear and literally disappear. Then you see them come back to you and then you see people drop out aid stations and then you start having to remember that you don't know what other people are thinking and doing. Some people are just planning on getting to an aid station, stopping, and they're going to sit down there for half an hour, an hour. Then when you do the math and work out what that means in minute per mile pace, half an hour sitting down, you think, well, I'd rather spend two minutes in the A station and go a bit slower and then I will end up going further faster. So it's, we do, we do really care about pace. Richard had a big debate, well, a debate on email with John Kelly actually ahead of the Pennine Way, because we just watched the 24 hour record go on the track and the pacing was absolutely consistent. We think, well, why would you not apply the same to ultra if the pacing can be consistent on the track for 24 hours, why wouldn't you apply that up in the mountains? John's view is everybody's going to fade. Rich's view is that you'll fade less if you're consistent, the person that slows.

Down the least, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. And everybody's going to have issues and that's how you manage those issues. But if you take out all the other variables, our view was that if you can sort of relatively evenly pace it, that's got to be the way to go for us as athletes. And certainly in the spine, when we looked at all my splits, because we used my spine splits to look to build the FKT schedule, there was virtually no fade. And I think that's just because it was very, very evenly paced. Not fast in any way, shape or form, but just very, very even.

So what sort of minute miles are you kind of setting off at, roughly?

It really depends. So Lakeland 100, you've all got a dash for a gate, so you're running out and straight uphill. I mean, they're never faster than eights or nines. I mean, just because with a pack, for me, that's going to push my heart rate right up immediately. So a little bit of adrenaline plus a pack plus a bit of speed and already you're going to push that. I mean, we rarely train off road at anything faster than eights. The minute you hit road, it's a bit different. And this is something, you know, I've had to keep reminding myself when you. If you ever go down a strava sort of rabbit hole, if you're training on pavements and roads, the pacing is just so different to if you're training off road. And so I've just learned to let that go, not really worry about it. And so again, that's where I find the what bike so helpful for our training because that's the really hard heart rate training. And then off road, it really doesn't matter. We just run and some days will be great and some days will be rubbish. And that's just running. So, yeah, and some days we'll walk the hills and some days we'll run the hills.

Well, and you keep referring back to the importance of heart rate and I remember listening to you talk about how you use heart rate because you've raced quite big races with relatively short gaps this year, haven't you?

Yeah.

Can you explain how you use heart rate to help you? Well, firstly, is there anything other than heart rate that you, that you keep, you use as a strategy to make sure that you can race as quick, you know, quickly after. After a race. And secondly, you know, how do you use heart rate?

So I mean, we use heart rate on. On the what bikes as you know. But that is much more around doing intervals at certain levels and finding our levels. So that is just a much more. Just a way of training well and sensibly and having some physiological goals, if you like. Heart rate in racing initially is very much about pacing to hold me back. It's really just a tool to stop me going mad in the first 20 miles and then going, oh, now I've got nothing left for the next 80. That's a bit of a problem. So. So heart rate at a point in time in racing becomes irrelevant because, as I always put it, your heart gives up. It doesn't literally give up, but you'll never see it won't go up and down anymore. So at that point, you know, you just take your heart rate monitor off and you don't look at it ever again. It's irrelevant. Heart rate for recovery. Some people use heart rate variability. I don't. I know there's lots of science around that. What I tend to do is I'll go out and after. After racing, I'll go out too quickly, always. I'll take two or three or four days off and go. I feel fine, no problem. I'll go for a run and my legs will feel awful and my heart rate relative to where I would expect it for going, running at an easy pace on easy trails will be high. And I'll go, okay, so I'm just not recovered. And then I'll go back and I do this every single time, by the way. Go out four days later and go, oh, I'm fine. And then actually, no. And it's always a good week. I think what was really interesting from the spine was it took longer than that to recover. I mean, the first few days you just can't really walk. Your feet are sore and everything sore. But even then, I think it took another few four or five days before I really wanted to run, which was quite unusual. So that was quite different to 100. And I think that was the lack of sleep as well. It was just that complete combination. So I think I could be much more scientific with heart rate for recovery. I'm just not the way I tend to then use it is, am I? What are my watts on a bike versus what I would expect for that sort of heart rate. And. And then, you know, in the same way you would if you were ill or thinking you might be ill, you'd have a quick check and. Is my heart rate up? Hang on. That doesn't look quite right. You know, I'll take a day off or I'll go easy or whatever. So. So that's how I tend to use it for recovery. I think I'm generally lucky. I recover quite quickly. Although I did end up injured in the third one. So maybe I wasn't recovered at all or maybe I was unlucky. You just never know.

And with that injury when you were doing the fkt, what was it that made you think, I'm okay to carry on? Because you Obviously you'd had 2020 that, as you said before we started recording, it was a good year to get injured because of COVID.

Did you.

Were you tempted to stop the fkt, thinking, I'm going to do myself some long term damage here, or was there something that made you confident that you could get through that?

Oh, definitely thought about stopping and definitely having. So in 2020, just as background, I had a broken foot, but that is, it's genetic. My, I have a coalition. My bones don't move as they should and my right one broke 10 years ago and my left one just decided to break you. It's not, it's not a too much mileage thing. It's not a too much anything thing. It's just one of those things. Usually they pick it up in teens. Often they'll operate. For me, it just happens to have come through and my daughter has one too. Funny enough, it tends to come through as ankle instability, but. So I've had these two broken feet. So when it broke again, the left one broke during COVID It was a case of, you know, that's really tedious and I hate being injured, everyone hates being injured. But at least I could be on a what bike? And it took a very long time to heal because it was Covid and it wasn't diagnosed. And, you know, I came back too quickly, as most runners do. So when I got my quad got really sore during that fkt, the first thing in my mind was, how long am I going to end up not being able to go running for if I carry on? How bad is this? And I think so. One of the things I've learned, we had no medics on the team, no one who was a physio on the team. So we were like, oh, I don't know. And then there's a safety element because you're going into high mountains and we're about to head off into the Cheviots and are you going to be safe up there? It was terrible weather. It was really gusting. It was starting to get really cold. It was starting to feel much More sort of autumnal winter without the snow and, you know, should I be allowed to carry on? So all of this assessment was going on and so we put sort of safety measures in place with different teams coming up. So two of the boys came up one way. They found a way to get a van. So if I had to get off, we could get me off quite quickly. So there were different ways we assessed it and it just really, really hurt and it was really quite miserable. And so there were several times where I just was like, this just isn't worth it, it just hurts so much. But then you're really into it by then. I mean, this is where the psychology. You're 210 miles in, you've got whatever it was 200 miles in, you've got 60 miles to go, you know, you're okay on the time. Do you just give up? And that was the huge debate. It's safe, we've covered the safety. Okay. It hurts, but frankly, lots of things hurt in ultra. Is it going to damage me forever?

No.

Is it structural?

No.

I can still bend my knee. It's definitely muscular, but, you know, can I get down off mountains? Yes, but I have to go backwards. And I think the worst bit for me was the frustration of just not being able to run. It hurt a lot and then I couldn't run and it just. So it just. Yeah, that's why I want to go back and do it again, because I know that there's hours to come off if I can run. But we did have a big debate about carrying on. Definitely.

And how's it recovered since?

Well, it was probably recovered a lot faster if I'd given it a lot of rest. It's now got to the point where I can run again. I wouldn't say it's fully recovered. Winter Spine is not that long away and it's now a case of is it going to be fully strong? Because otherwise I can't start Winter spine. You don't want to start something with something that's not fully strong. It's back to being strong enough to do proper watts on the turbo. So it's obviously recovering. We did some fast running this week for the first time and it was really cross for 24 hours afterwards. But maybe that's just. It was cross because it had had to do some faster running, which it hadn't had to do. We are doing some big stuff now. We've been doing big stuff with big packs, mostly hiking and we've been doing longer sort of easier runs with Smaller packs, you know, we will spend some more time again in the Lake District over the next few weeks where it will get tested and then, and then we'll make a decision. So is it 100%? No. Is it getting there? Yes. Am I doing heavy weights on it yet? No, but I'm starting to feel I could if that. Does it say it's that psychological piece like, oh, is it better? Oh, I don't know. And it could rip again. Unlike a bone, which will then mend and be done. If it does go again. It will, it will go again. So I need to be a little bit cautious and careful. It's really dull being old. I know if this is one of the children, they'd be better by now.

And you mentioned hiking within that. You actually do quite a lot of hiking, don't you, as part of the training? So why do you do so much hiking as part of your training?

Because we figure that one of the key bits to finishing any ultra is time on your feet. And you can never run or, you know, that sort of back to back time on your feet. But what we discovered was you can hike back to back to back to back. And because there's no impact, actually you can just constantly, you can put in those miles day after day after day. Now you need the time to do that and actually it's quite boring because you don't cover nearly the terrain that you do when you're running. So there's two sides to it. Um, but what we can do there is weight, the hiking. So it becomes a mix of strength and time on our feet and it slightly pushes up the heart rate. So then the hills get easier when you've got lighter packs on. And we've just found it a really effective way. Again, I suspect that's us managing being older athletes because it's taking the impact out, it's allowing us to get the big training miles in and it's allowing us to train with weight, which we need to do because we're going to have to run with packs. So that's why we do. Also means your feet are really hard. So actually we generally don't get quite the same. I mean, Richard did have issues in the spine, but generally I've been quite lucky with my feet and I think it's because we're trying to do those big miles in the shoes we will be wearing on the terrain. And so your feet just get used to it and get hard.

Okay, so you're hiking, you're not hiking in walking boots or anything. Like that you're still in your running, your trail shoes. Yeah, but okay, that's interesting.

And on the terrain.

Yeah, I, I, yeah, when I heard you talk about that in a podcast, it the, the weighted part of the, I mean, I totally get what you mean in terms of the distances, you know, you're used to covering when you go out for a three hour run or whatever, you cover a lot of distance when you walk it, you're like, God, this is taking forever, isn't it? We're not seeing much but, but doing the weighted one particularly, I was because with my daughters are quite keen on their, on those sorts of trips up to the Peak District and things like that. My eldest just started her Duke of Animal award, so going out with them and a weighted pack seems to make a huge amount of sense to me. And yeah, it means I can get training in whilst having good family time.

So it's, it's huge. I mean we did the UTMB walk before TDS and we carried all the children's stuff. So we had these massive packs. But you're going up those massive hills with massive packs. It's training. Yeah, it's really good. And if you go out, I mean the other way we use it is if you go out for an hour run in the morning in the Peak District, for example, and then you do the family with the pack. So you start with slightly tired legs and then you put the pack on. That's really hard.

This sounds good, except for the fact that I'll have my children moaning, I'm going too slowly at some point.

Well then you have to try and keep up. The other serious reason as well is that you also learn the muscle structures, learn about having that weight on your shoulders all the time, which again, nobody ever talks about this, but as a female who's wearing a bra, most females wearing sports bras. And then you've got the weight of a pack on a quite a narrow band. It actually creates quite a pressure point across that. So again, all the muscles get used to having weight going through the whole sort of neck and shoulders and I find that quite helpful. It just muscularly, you just get used to it.

Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. And you also talk about the importance of being on your feet. I remember when I interviewed Nikki Spinks, she was, you know, she's out on the farm all day, isn't she? And she credits that a lot to helping. And I can see you're like me, stood at a standing desk. So how have you got on with the standing desk. And are there any other. I mean, that's clearly a tactic to be on your feet more. Are there any other tactics like that that you've. Other than hiking that you use?

I mean, the standing desk has been a bit of a game changer. But again, because of COVID and moving to a virtual world, it's meant I can do all of my work sort of standing up. It also means, as you've seen, I fidget around, I have my chair behind and I end up stretching my hip flexors, which is really bad to end up shifting around.

You haven't installed a treadmill yet underneath?

No, no, no. I have heard people have done that though.

Yeah, I've been tempted. Or a wobble board.

Yeah, I know, but then I think, oh, that would be so distracting. There's sort of. At least with a stand up desk you can sort of look professional. But I think if you, once you're onto a treadmill, then I anyway, I don't understand quite how much people get away with that. But. So for me, yes. But it was also about the fact that we found we're doing the what bikes and the running. Your hip flexors get really tight and if you just do lots of sitting, they get even tighter. And then we felt that that was a part of a cause for starting to feel a bit injured and a bit tight and we were never able to loosen them off. So the standing desk actually for us I think really helps with hip flexors, lower back, everything staying in a much better place when you then start loading it with all the running. So that's one thing we've really learned. The other is uphill treadmills. We use uphill treadmills a lot because you're not loading the down. But we put a weighted vest on and we walk uphill fast. It's horrible. It's really effective. It looks really easy. And you think, how can that be hard? But we're not running, we're just hiking. And it really, really knackers you. And once you get out on the hills, it's really good training. But to Nikki's point, she gets to work on the terrain she's going to be running on all the time. And actually I'd say that's as valuable as standing up. So our other big thing is try and get onto the terrain we're going to race on whatever that looks like. And if we can't, try and replicate it so we'll neurotically look at the data and go, okay, how many hundred meters Per mile. What do we have to try and fit in? How are we going to do that? Plan routes to do that. Sometimes it means doubling up hills because we live down south. I think you can't knock getting onto the terrain because especially where we live, you know, you think you're on a trail, but actually compared to the Lake District, you're on a flat ground. It just is so different. So I think it's. It's just knowing where you're going. We always try and recce. We do always try and recce the big races.

Brilliant. And actually that. So that makes me think I'm doing the arc 50 in. In January, my first organized ultra, I have done. I've done a staying local ultra when I couldn't do the Ark 50 last year and I've done a couple of other 50Ks. But.

The.

You've done the arc of attrition, haven't you, which is 100 miler. Now. I spend a lot of time down in Cornwall. Love, love being down in Cornwall. But how was the arc of attrition and how should I be training for that? I mean, I know the Cornish coastline pretty well, so. But in January it worries me slightly. So any advice on that?

So the 50s a bit different because you get to start in the Minack Theater, don't you? And you get to have daylight and you. You get to do that last 20, 25 miles, which is relatively flat. Relatively. But you will have to do the Boulders around St Ives, won't you?

And.

Yeah, so you'll have to do that relatively gnarly piece. So I think there's a couple of things for the architecture and the weather's always key. I mean, we've been. We've done it three times now and you know, one, when three storms hit at once, we've had sort of minus temperatures. We've had. It's always wet and boggy. It. So it's learning to manage the weather. You won't have to go through, you'll go into the dark, I assume. Yeah, probably.

Yes, I assume so, probably.

So it's about learning to. I think knowing the course really helps because the back end of the arc of attrition, you think you're nearly there and suddenly you have some awful ups.

And downs into that. That lead into Porth Tower has got some really steep bits, isn't it?

Yeah. So for us in our practitioner, it's always about conditioning our quads because those steps really take it out of you. So the eccentric loading through your quads is going to Be key. So work out how you're going to condition your quads. And then the ups are really nasty. So if you're going to. I don't know if we always run with poles, but I particularly. I mean, we hit this at the end of 100. I always need sticks for that. For those last, you know, ascents, they're hard. They're really hard. So knowing they're coming psychologically, I think makes a big difference. And I don't know where they're finishing it, if they're still finishing it up at the top, because they used to finish it at the bottom and then last year they. Or two years ago, they moved it to the top.

I don't know. I didn't. I assumed it was down in Porth Tower at the bottom, but I don't know.

No. So Ferg had put in a really nasty last. Last bit. Know about that last bit. It's really horrid because you think you're there and then suddenly you've got to go up a very, very steep, little, nasty, gnarly ascent. More Lake District than southwest coast, to be honest. So worth knowing about that. So that's where Reccean comes in. Because you know it's coming. I think if you don't know it's coming, it'll be like, oh, my God. Really? You've got to be kidding. Whereas actually, if you know you've got 15 minutes and you're done, it's sort of a manage. Psychologically sort of manageable.

I know the exact stretch that you're talking about, because. So you have a place down in St. Agnes, which is a few. Couple of. Few bays on and that. Yeah. So I do run to Porth Tower and back and that. Yeah, that bit out of Porth tower and towards St. Agnes is. Yeah, it's pretty. Pretty nasty, isn't it?

So have a good look on a map where it's actually going to finish. That's a top tip.

And do you think. Would you always race something like that with poles?

I do, but that's again, because I just find if it's really, really boggy and horrible, I find the poles give me four wheel drive. I find they just take it off my courts because even though they always say that that one's only about three and a half, 4,000 meters of ascent over the hundred, I think it's more, actually. And the coastal short, sharp ascents and descent are horrid, but also it can be really, really slippy at that time of year. So again, I find the poles just a bit helpful for stability. They're not so helpful when you do hit those big boulders. And that's another good bit to go in recce if you haven't done it already. Because knowing your line, we definitely got lost. It's really hard to get lost in the boulders, but there's pictures of us not quite sure where to go in the middle of the night. Knowing where to find the best line in and over when they're slippy, muddy is pouring with rain and windy is quite helpful. And then I think knowing your kit for that one really helps. So we've always got away with lightweight waterproofs because we know we're moving fast, so know how fast your light need to be moving. Sounds like, you know, the downs, the dunes of doom, as you know they're called. But, you know, if you know that sort of sandy, the sandy dunes, then you're laughing. But getting lost in there would be really dull. So, again, we've always recce those. So being confident on your nav is quite helpful.

And would you. I remember hearing that you nav through your watch. Do you? Why would you nav through your watch rather than through your phone, for example?

A couple of reasons. Especially if you're using poles and your phone's in your hand, then that's a problem. Phones get wet. Richard's already got through one iPhone. Even though they're meant to be waterproof, they are definitely not. And then Apple will say, we don't claim they're waterproof, we just say that if you take them to a certain distance. And so British weather destroys iPhones. That's the thing we've learned. Also, once they're wet, they're really hard to use the touchscreen.

Yeah.

So in. In. In the spine, when I start to get lost on my watch, I did get my phone out and then it was a case of. I do agree that using the maps and having it on the maps makes a big difference, but if you've recceed and it's just a quick check, having it on your watch and you see if the weather's bad as well, you're going to get really cold hands if you start to get phones out. So that again, is where the watch scores. Although I don't know if you've had the podcast, you'll know that because I. I'm old and start to go blind. I actually physically couldn't see the blue dot. Where is it?

I did hear you say that and I had my eyes lasered last year. I was Going to say, actually, that might be a better solution. That's been very good. You mentioned things like gloves and cold hands. What are the biggest successes you've had with equipment and what other kind of disasters that you've had along the way?

So for me, I mean, I do get really cold hands. I think it may be a bit of a female thing compared to a male thing. I think a lot of men don't seem to suffer quite the same, but certainly I get really chilly hands. Those hand warmers that you get to skiing, I always have them in my pack, always. I shove them in my gloves. Sounds really stupid, but if it means I do have to get my hands out, they get warm again really, really quickly. So I really like those. In terms of kit, I mean, we've just ended up loving the Salomon rucksacks. We just find they are the most for us, so far, they have been the most flexible pieces of kit that we found and we tend to use the 12, the adv 12 all the time. You can get smaller ones. It's not going to be big enough for the winter spine, but it has been big enough for everything else that we've done. So we're actually struggling to find a pack that we really like. And the reason we really like those is that we've got access to all our food and everything ourselves. You don't take it off, you'd have to craft with it. So I'm a big fan. We've become. Well, I have become a real fan of those, of the new Innovate shoes that the trail flies the three hundreds, that for me, they have become the best mix of something that is cushioned enough. Because no trail race in the UK is ever. Is ever constantly on mud. Yes, the fell races might be, but the ones I do are, you've always got big rocks and. And then some grass and then, you know, a limestone slab, whatever. And I find they're the best mix of having some cushioning but equally enough grip. So for me they've been a real revelation. And they're wide, so a wide toe.

Of them is really, really good, isn't it? That does make a difference over distance, I think.

I really like it because your feet don't grow in length, they grow in width. So over a course of a race. And also it means I can get waterproof socks in them. So that for me, a waterproof socks have been an absolute winner for us. The ones that come up to our knees, we love really.

And what. What brand are those?

We use Dutch Shell and I really love them. I do look like, you know, the wicked witch of the west in my stripy socks. But they, I mean, what they've allowed me to do is just run through puddles without thinking about it. And the other thing is when you're doing really grimy, grim sort of boggy stuff, you take your socks off and your feet are filthy and it was a constant battle to try and get your feet clean, whereas you take your socks off and it's like, oh, clean feet, that's brilliant. So for something like the spine, that's really helpful because if you need medics to do something to your feet, actually your feet are clean enough to do them just like that. Whereas otherwise you're into quite a long period of time. And then the other thing I've discovered for feet is I use the ass off shammy cream that you would normally use as a cyclist. Oh yes, yeah, I put it on my feet. I put it on my feet before I put them in my socks.

What like between your toes and on the soles and everything?

Yeah, down the sides. Because I mean when I find it the sort of rocky terrain or the gnarly sort of, you know, elephant grass type terrain, the clusters of grass you end up with, I don't know, your feet are constantly doing this in your shoes so they get rubbed on the side. So I assos, I found has been brilliant. I put it all all over before going out. It just seems to give a, a friction proof layer. And then I suppose the other thing, the final thing I've discovered, so as a female, the Wahoo heart rate strap for me has been brilliant because you don't need a strap here, which means that you haven't got yet another piece of band around your middle where you've already got a bra strap, you don't have another strap and a rucksack strap to rub. So it's just. So I just have that and you'd.

Rather have that than the risk based heart rate, would you?

Well, I think the risk based heart rates on our watches are just rubbish. You know, the tests we've done, they're just not. Whereas that is proper heart rate data, but in a way that's not causing a problem. So there's often pictures with that black band around my arm and actually that's my heart rate monitor. So the Wahoo one is just the one I found works really well for me. And then I suppose the final piece of kit the kids hate, which I love on my. The sort of Oakley lenses in My glasses that. The photographic. I love those. I love them because my eyes with lenses dry out now, you'll stay because they're lasered now, but in wind and bad weather, it's brilliant because it keeps your eyes feeling okay. And if you're up for two, three nights, your eyes, by definition, are starting to get a bit tired and dry. And so I found where I now wear them all the time.

So what you're talking about are the ones that change dark to light.

Yeah.

So you always. I had a pair a few years ago and, yeah, I got abused because, of course, when you walk into a room from outdoors, you're still wearing sunglasses for the first sort of five minutes, aren't you?

Yes.

Yeah, but I can see outdoors, particularly, you know, on the ultra. Why that would be. That would be really useful.

And you're running into woods and it's suddenly dark and you can't see the roots and they then change and so you can then continue just to wear them. And I think, I'm pretty sure in the spine, I actually then put my head torch on and I left them on because again, with wind and things overnight, it made a big difference not to have it going straight in my eyes.

More good advice. Thank you.

I don't know if it's advice, it's just things that have worked for me.

Well, that's it. You've got a lot more miles than the most. So I mean that in a nice way, by the way. And moving on to nutrition. I know you mentioned earlier that you suffered from nausea.

Yeah.

Are you. You know, I remember Beth Pascal being very keen on the spring energy gels, which I've actually found to be really good since. Are you a. I think you're not a gels person. I think you're more of a scones person, aren't you? Talk to me about your approach to nutrition.

So racing, it's really hard. I'm a real food person. But this is where the heart rate piece comes in and this is really where we started with the heart rate stuff, which was if I go out hard and my heart rate's really high, that's when you turn your stomach off. I don't know if you've ever trained and you start off hungry, but if it's a hard training session, you're actually not hungry at all. You stop being hungry. Whereas on some of those long, low endurance sessions, you end up absolutely, absolutely starving. And you do have to. So if you then sort of extrapolate that, I think if I go off really Hard in a race, my stomach gives up and then anything I try and eat, I feel sick because actually it's already in that sort of I'm working really hard mode. So by keeping the heart rate low, it allows my stomach just to continue to operate normally. And we picked up on this because when we were hiking, I could eat anything and everything and loads, loads of it. So I was like, well, why can't I do that when we're sort of running longer? And then it was because, okay, maybe we're going off too hard. So we experimented. So that, that's, that's where that started. But in terms of the true nutrition now I can't do gels. I've never really been able to do gels. Even on bikes, I was never able to do gels.

So.

And bars, I can do bars sometimes, but you know, frankly, I'd rather eat a piece of flapjack just because I quite like the Bella Forte bars, but they're very full of fruit, so they're a little bit dangerous if you're doing long ultras in terms of what might upset your stomach over a decent period of time. So I tend, if I do take them, but I tend to have halves or small amounts or make one last quite a long time, not just go one. I do do the home baking because it just again, it's just easy. I know what's in it. If I want more raisins in it, I'll have more raisins than. It's just an easy way of getting the things I want in. But I can't ever guarantee that it will be what I want. And the summer's fine. I ate loads of scones. Come, come the fkt. No way. So every race is just. And it was highly frustrating for the pacers because they got all the stuff that they thought I would want and it was like, no, but I'd love a marmalade sandwich. And they were like, why would you want a marmalade sandwich? It's like, because I just fancy a marmalade sandwich. So for me, nutrition is just a constantly evolving. And I would love to be Beth. How that would just be amazing to know that I would be able to stomach that. And those are quite light to carry, etc, etc, so it'd be brilliant. But I just constantly struggle. The key for me is being just don't worry about it. When you're hungry, your body will eat and it will just eventually you'll get something out. If you throw up, you throw up and you carry on as long as you're not throwing up blood or brown or black or any of these other things. That would be horrible warning signs. Just crack on, you're generally fine.

I think that it's quite refreshing, actually, because people, and I know I do get quite stressed about what type of nutrition to use and trying different gels. But the. But the idea that just, you know, if you fancy scones and a marmalade sandwich, that's what you should have then, then I suppose that's perhaps why ultra running is different to triathlon, I suppose, because you wouldn't necessarily take that approach to a triathlon, I suspect.

No. And in a triathlon you're constantly, for a big chunk of time, operating at the level that sort of just threshold, aren't you a perfect race? You would be just on threshold the whole time. You know, you would be. You know that if you tip over, you're going to go into the red zone and it's all over. But that's. So that's where you want to be at that point. You just. You are just needing to operate almost on meat, sugar, something that isn't going to upset your digestion. And it's fluids. And so that's where I can see the gels come in. I can operate on. Not very much once I get to that point. I'm not, as someone who's ever been able to put, I don't know, whatever the powder are in bottles. I've always just done it on squash. But again, that's a weak squash has got some sugar in. I suppose that's what I would choose to put in a bottle. But even, even in a race and an ultra race, I can get to a point where I can't even have squash. It'd be like, oh, but then I hate plain water, so it gets all quite tricky.

So you wouldn't use electrolytes?

I don't. But I don't think I'm a particularly salty sweater. Whereas Richard really does need to and needs to throw salt on everything. But I know some people will talk about going up to aid station tables and going, I just must eat crisps. I'm not that person. I just look at them, think, that's just not what I need right now. That's just so I think I've just learned just to let my body choose, rather than my mind telling my body what it should choose, if that makes sense. So I think ultra is different. You are going far longer and you are going to be at a lower intensity than when you are doing a try. But Then it's what works for you and everyone's different.

And do you find that you strategically eat on the uphills because that's when you're hiking or it's just whenever I don't.

Because if you're going uphill and you're going relatively hard, it's a horrible thing trying to eat. It's actually really hard. The minute your heart rate's up, it's really hard to eat. So I don't enjoy doing that. So I tend to just put in a break and just eat. And you know, if I have a walking break and shove some food down, great. Sometimes I can eat as I run along and then I'll do that again. Benefit of the packs. Oh, I'm a bit hungry. Oh, I'll grab out some crystallized ginger. Or I'll just grab something. You know, you've got something and you can just grab it and go. So I, yeah, I think in an ultra, I don't get too hung up again. It comes back to this pacing thing, you know, it'll even out. If I need to walk and eat something now, that's fine. I'll just go faster later. Yeah, if it's a technical downhill, I'll tend not to eat. So I'm really concentrating. Yeah, I think, I think you just automatically eat when you've got some sort of brain space to eat. And I certainly don't look at my watch and go, I must eat.

Right.

I probably should and probably, maybe I'd go faster if I did. But I just know that we tried that in the FKT every half an hour she has to eat, has to drink and I ended up being really sick and I'm. It's sure of I ate too much and drank too much.

Yeah, I think, I think having. Having chatted the precious vision hydration guys on the electrolyte side of things, I think on the, on the cooler temperatures and the kind of, I suppose less extreme events, you can work much more to thirst or taste. Whereas the more extreme the event becomes, particularly the hotter it becomes, the more you have to be more structured in terms of, you know, how much electrolytes you, you, you get each, each hour or whatever. And so one question I always ask people, just because I like to expand, continually expand my reading list is, can you. Do you find yourself, you know, did you have you found books over the years that you found to be particularly helpful to you or you find yourself recommending other people?

Yes, I have actually. So I always recommend to all, actually all runners, female Runners and male, particularly female runners, but also husbands of female runners. The book Raw by Stacy Sims by Dr. Stacy Sims, which I think is absolutely brilliant on female nutrition. It's a really good book. So there's that book I really enjoyed, Ali Brownlee's Relentless.

Yes, good book, isn't it?

Really enjoyed that. We read Joe Friel's fast after 50, even though it's aimed at cyclists, just to see what we could glean in terms of understanding. Understanding the physiology of older people, because he just is very good at the physiology and the training. So we looked at that and again, taken bits of that. So I really enjoyed that. And I have to admit, I'm a fan of David Roche's Happy Runner book, the Happy Runner, just because I think it's really good at putting things in perspective. I think it's really easy to let running get completely out of perspective. And I recommended that to one of my children. She read it and loved it and still goes back to it on a regular basis as something that she just enjoys sort of picking up and taking nuggets from. So those would always be some of the books that I would think about. But we do. We voraciously read everything and anything to do with sport. In fact, on the what bite this morning, we were actually watching the Kipchoge documentary. So, you know, again, the what bike is a great place for us to get so many different sort of perspectives from so many different sports. And we really enjoy just picking up how others are doing it and thinking about it and the processes and. Yeah, yeah. And then we pick out the bits that we like and try them and use them and.

Yeah, so, but the Kipchoge one I haven't watched actually. But it's because I find that, yeah, through the winter I consume lots of stuff like that because I'm on the Turbo Trainer that wet. As soon as the weather's better, it's like, right, I'd rather be out on the road, then I'm listening to books or podcasts or whatever. So the Kipchoge one is a good. That's another good recommendation which I had seen, but I haven't watched. But that's brilliant. I haven't. I haven't heard of Raw or fast after 50, so I'll definitely be checking those out. And the Happy Runner I had seen but haven't read. So I will be also, also checking that out.

I mean, David Roche is an acquired taste. You know, he is like that, you know, enormous puppy that you can't hold back, but yeah, we think he's really fun and he clearly coaches some amazing athletes. So something he's doing is right.

Absolutely. And relentless. I totally agree. I thought there was.

It's.

I just love the way that you're kind of looking at so many different sports. Being a sports fan, you know, whether it was Ronnie o' Sullivan or Dennis Irwin or, you know, just. There's just so many different ones in there, isn't there? And there's something to learn from each and every one. So, yeah, brilliant recommendations. And then final question. What are you most looking forward to in 2022?

Oh, most looking forward to. I'm most looking forward to going for a run without my quad going. Actually, I'm still not better. That is what I'm most looking forward to.

Is there a specific run that you're looking forward to?

I'm really looking forward to the winter spine and terrified at the same time.

Right.

Terrified because it will take me into a zone of all the things that I am probably not best equipped to deal with, which is cold, really bad weather. I can do it in 100 miles on an arc of attrition because really, how bad is it? And you're actually always near houses. But on the spine I think that's going to be really interesting. It's going to be such a self management exercise. It's going to take me into a whole new level of learning. It's not really just about the running, it's about how do you manage yourself for that long in those conditions. So I'm really looking forward to that because I think it's going to just be another sort of, I don't know, a set of information to take into future races. I've got the northern traverse in the diary in April, which I'm looking forward to because again that was postponed because of COVID So it'll be interesting to see on a sort of coast to coast 180 miles. What I've learned from the spine that I can take in to that. Um, and then it, you know, you're into the summer of racing and I'm desperate to get back to the Alps. So I think for July, well, I don't know when, but we will try and get back into the Alps next year. Um, and not necessarily to race, just to spend some time. I've missed those big high mountains. Um, so that's something I am looking forward to in 2022. Sunny Mountains as opposed to British mountains, dry mountains.

And you said you're going to go back and have another go at the, the spine fkt but the other fkts that you'd like to go after.

Not that I've said, said out and said I definitely want to go after but I look at the southwest coast path and I think I look at a double Bob Graham actually and I think that might work. You know, I look at things like the southern upland way and think I should be able to do that. So there's quite a few. My problem is, as you know, I tend to then go, oh, let's do this one, this one, this one. I'll do them all back to back. I need to try and work away fitting things in and spreading them out. But equally, you know, I'll be 52 in March. You're like, how long have I got to spread them out? You start to go, you know, the clock is ticking the wrong direction. So it's, yeah, it's always that sort of balance between injuring myself and doing all the things I want to do.

Well, I think judging by your performances over the course of the last 12 months, I don't think you need to worry about age anytime soon. I think you've got.

I hope you're right.

I, I'm pretty confident that you'll be okay. But Anna, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. There's so much good advice in there for me and for, for other listeners. So I'm really grateful and I can't wait to see what you get up to in 2022 and, and watch the success continue. So thank you so much.

Oh, it's been lovely chatting, Charlie. Thanks for having me on.

Anna's not so engaged in social media but you can find her on Twitter @Anna Troop4. She's on LinkedIn, Anna Troop and she's also on Instagram @TroopGirlsRun if you want to track her down there. So what did you make of that chat with Anna, Kerry?

Well, I just, I mean for one thing her energy is just leaping out at you, isn't it? I mean she is, she's so fizzy and bubbly and excitable. I mean, how can you not sort of get excited about ultras listening to Anna speak? But just so many salient points. I related to her immediately on many things, certainly in the training aspect, you know, just to bring out one, for instance would be that, you know, when she was first started training she had children and young children at that and so she, you know, she made good use of time when her children watching tv, cycling on her static bike. Very similar story to me, you Know, I had four young kids when I first started and I had a treadmill which as soon as I put them to bed, I would go on to the treadmill at night. And I think, I think sometimes there's a. There's a sort of sense that, you know, Ultra Runner Somehow have another 10 hours in the day to everybody else when it's not. It's about your priorities and it's about, you know, making the most of your. Of your moments and working quite, quite creatively with your time. And I thought that was just, you know, that's quite an important point that, you know, we all have the same amount of hours in the day, but it's what you do with them and how you know what your priorities are.

Well, and I totally agree because I often talk about. I've written about my books before now about kind of how can you combine activities like, for example, I often listen to audiobooks that, you know, I want to learn from whilst I'm cycling. And, and she, she also talked about how she was watching the Kipchoge documentary and kind of learning more about running whilst. Whilst the training. So, yeah, absolutely. Whether it's kind of the child care piece, whether it's the learning piece, using your time effectively, we all have 24 hours in a day, so it's about making the most of the time, isn't it?

100%. Yeah. I just. Yeah, I thought that was quite a good, A good point to raise. But I also. It did have me smiling when she was talking about the beginning of races where everybody dashes off at the start? And I mean, that is so true. And if a runner of her caliber finds people rushing off at the start, then you really got to laugh because ultimately she's picking them all off and ending up at the front of the pack. So is there not a lesson in there for everybody that the start is not where you go and gain places, it's what you're doing at the back end of a race that really matters.

That concept of. It's the person that slows down the least, isn't it? Maintaining that. Almost having exactly the same pace for the last few months miles as the first few miles.

Absolutely.

And it takes a lot of mental discipline to do it, but I can. It seems to work phenomenally well.

Yeah, it is. You know, what it's meant to this one. It's also letting go of your ego because, you know, you've got to not let your own sort of pride come in the way when you see people all dash past. I Mean, I. I think. I don't know if I mentioned on my last one, but there was a. There was an event. It was one of these looped things, a 10k loop, and I was supposed to be running it, but I had got flu the week before, and I thought I had a lot of clients in this event, and I didn't want to let them down. I decided that I would do it, but I would only walk because I know that I've developed quite a strong walk that, you know, if I am consistent and I don't waste time at checkpoints, I'm actually quite efficient in that walk. And if I maintain it all the way through, as we were saying, I'll be all right. So I walked the entire thing. Can you imagine? At the start line, everybody dashed off the field, scattered, and there I am with my poles. And I felt like a complete idiot. I really did. And I'm the coach, you know, I do feel like a complete spanner in this. In this. In this situation, but I came third. And that just shows you that, you know, being. Being careful with your time at checkpoints, which is another point, but also just being consistent with your pacing, you will actually rein everybody in and just, you know, just be. Know that. Sit with that knowledge.

Yeah, it's great advice, isn't it? It's just kind of.

Yeah.

And also, I didn't actually get to chat to her about it because I kind of run out of time, but that her and her husband are very. Husband in particular, very analytical at the data and really kind of drilling down into. Right, okay, well, if this is how we did the spine race, this is the pace we do the fktr, and this is, you know, we're not varying from that and that having that kind of foresight to really look into the data and then be able to go, right, this is the time that we're going for, therefore, this is the speed that we're going at. And that sounded like, you know, very sensible strategy.

It did.

And, you know, aren't we lucky that we, you know, and I say we have got people in our camp that can help us with that. Certainly, Chris, I sound like I sit more on her side that I'm, you know, she. She doesn't sort of care what she eats. And, you know, she's. She's much more sort of. She goes with the flow a bit more, whereas she. Her husband is the one who is drilling into all of the detail and the analysis. And I am very fortunate to have a partner who does exactly that for Me, you know, I'm lucky that he's an ironman is whilst not doing and we met running ultras, but he's now an ironman. But he loves all the stats and the figures and the data and I'm truly blessed to have him on my side because he definitely influences my races and how I approach them. So it sounded very similar that, you know, if you've got someone that would do it because if you're not that naturally, you're not that way inclined, you really sort of forcing your square sort of. What is it around peg and square hole, if you know what I mean. Or the other way around. You know, I'm not mathematical and stuff, so I don't find that as easy though, interestingly, I can do it for my clients. I just don't do it for me.

Oh, okay. That is interesting. I mean, I think it's. That is another similarity between you guys is that you've both got a partner that's very much engaged in the same sport as well. And that that means that you can delegate tasks and say, well, look, this is, this is the pink job, this is the blue job. And this is. I mean that's not necessarily, you know, it's just what works for each of you, isn't it?

And that's drawing on strengths. Yeah, this is all about drawing on strengths. But also is there they understand, you know, we are lucky. I meant, look, I'm speaking for Anna. I am certainly lucky that I have somebody who totally gets it, understands the emotional aspects of training, the emotional aspects of racing, why I do it. And there is never a sense of really, you know, do you have to go out this weekend or, you know, you're missing that again or whatever. There is, of course there is a lot of understanding and give and take. And again, I feel very lucky that I'm in that position.

And was there anything else that stood out for you from Anna's interview?

Well, actually, to just. Yeah, it relates back to what I said there. Walking. And I sort of have to reiterate this to clients quite a lot of the time. And some when they first start a sort of bit really, you know, is that you will walk in an ultra. Everybody walks, you know, even the elites when they're, when the, when the gradient gets to a certain percentage are walking. So let's, let's not, let's sort of get away from this idea. And I do think it's becoming more commonplace. People realize that. But how you have to train that we do all walk naturally and it's something we do every day. But actually to get a good power walk on, it needs training and it needs to dial in a good pace. I love the idea that she uses a weight vest. I use a weight vest all the time on my walks, actually. But also the fact that she tied in family. So, you know, she said go for a run for an hour in the morning and then go for a weighted walk with the family in the afternoon. And this again, it comes back once again sort of full circle into the time thing, you know, where you sort of think, oh, I've got to go for, you know, I've got a full dog walk now. Well, put it, put your best weight vest on. I've got to go for a walk. The family put your weight vest on. Or carry the rucksack with all of the, you know, the food and the supplements or whatever, jackets or whatever they need.

Well, funnily enough, when I told Carol about that, she said that's great. You can take even more flasks of tea.

Excellent, whatever it takes.

And scones as well. Everyone's happy.

So, yeah, so I love the fact that she was talking and again, a woman of her caliber is saying that she is going out back to doing back to back walks. You know, that obviously gives everybody the reason to go and do that. And certainly with things like the mds multi day ultras, you do not want to finish every day wasted. You know it, you know, you do have to get up again the next day. There has to be something in reserve in the tank that you can then draw on for the next day. So, you know, a walking element of that. Which actually again is another thing to go back to what she said, the difference between a competitor and a completer. And I would even say there's three stages where there's probably more. But you've got the ones that want to be this I'll be saying to the Marathon de Sabos on Saturday. You know, you've got the ones who want to come in the top 50, you've got the ones who sort of are probably the sort of the top 200. You've got the mid packers and then you've got the Completers. And so it's really about understanding where in that picture you fit. And whilst you might want to be a competitor in the first ultra you ever do, you might want to readjust that and just say, look for this one, I'm going to go for mid pack. And if anything, if, you know, if I, if I come further up the field, then that's great because there's so much learning to be done. And so with that, you know, if you're, if you're going to be a completer or you're a mid packer, you will be walking. And again, I mean, I say this is sort of more on sort of the 80k and above. You know, you can, you could probably unlike not, maybe not in the arc because of the terrible conditions that you might have to be facing with modern stuff. But you know, you probably could train yourself to get to a 60k without walking, but the majority of completers will need to walk that, some of it as well at least.

I've got every intention of walking. I know what those Cornish hills are like. I've got every intention, particularly at January it's blooming boggy and flippy. I've got every intention of walking up them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but it's, but it's allowing people to feel that that still means they're a runner, you know, and that still means they've completed it to the best of their ability, you know, everyone else is doing it. So, you know, make sure you can walk quickly as well and quickly uphill.

Yeah. Brilliant. Harry, it's been fantastic to catch up with you again. Thank you so much for, for coming on as guest co host and for also picking out those points from the interview with Anna. I can't wait to see you down in Cornwall for arc 50 and I hope the hip continues to recover.

Oh yes, a bit of positive mental attitude and we'll see. It will take me a long way but it's been lovely. Good luck with your training.

Brilliant, thank you very much. And for everyone else, keep on training too. If you've enjoyed this Tribathlon podcast, please do go to Apple Podcasts and rate it and review it. It massively helps us to deliver a better podcast. It helps people find it as well. So yeah, go to Apple Podcasts, give us some feedback, give us a rating and a review and please share it with your friends because ultimately that's what allows us to, to keep delivering more and more of these podcasts. 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.