The Ultra Sound Podcast | Episode 1 | Getting into Ultra Running and Meet Your Hosts

Hello everyone and welcome to the Ultrasound podcast with me Tom Evans, professional trail runner and winner of Western States in 2023. I'm Brett Saunders, I'm chief crew officer and best man at his wedding. Hello and welcome to episode one of Ultrasound podcast. I am Tom, one of your hosts and I'm accompanied with Brett Saunders who is going to be co-hosting this podcast and yeah welcome to the podcast. How are you doing? Yeah very good mate, how are you? Yeah I'm very well, yeah looking forward to getting this out. It's been a long time coming and it's gonna be fun. So why are we here Tom? So I guess a couple of months ago I thought that it would be cool to have a podcast with myself, a professional trail runner and you my best mate and a very, very amateur ultra runner and yeah talk about life, training and absolutely everywhere in between. Yeah some nuggets of gold in there as well as yeah a bit of banter and yeah and a bit of fun. So I guess those who, those who are listening probably know a little bit, a little bit about me but probably don't know anything about you and if they did I'd be a little bit worried. So Bretty, tell me and tell the listeners a little bit about yourself. As you said I'm a very amateur, amateur runner but also here very much as a member of your crew, your best man and seeing the highs and lows that you've gone through on your career and stories that I'm sure I can share which you might not be willing to. And it's a big year. And it is a very big year obviously coming up to UTMB at the end of the year. Yeah big year, very, very exciting and yeah I think I guess I'm incredibly lucky to have, to have you as part of my team having like that different, yeah that different outlook onto things. Like for me I can get very caught up in the intricacies of being a professional runner and yeah sometimes you've just gotta take a little step back and you'll see things in a completely different way to me which I think is yeah is, is really nice. Yeah like you said like we met at school and how old do you reckon we were when we started playing? Before we knew each other, when do you think we first, when do you think our eyes first met? I reckon it would have been somewhere along the probably about 10, 12? No, no earlier than that. Do you reckon it was? I reckon, I reckon it was when we were sort of seven, eight years old. Fine yes it would have been. Well ashed out yeah I guess it would rugby, football, cricket and hockey against each other. Yeah. Later going on to play them all together apart from football. So I guess yeah from, from playing against each other to playing with each other. Yes. Is yeah it's quite nice and I think both back at school like we weren't, we probably never went running together like I just don't think, I don't think anything like that happened and I guess after school kind of as everyone does like we probably lost touch a little bit and the world of social media and at this point Facebook you feel like you know what everyone's doing just without chatting to them and I guess like things have did a 360 and came back together like when I started running and running properly. Yeah. Probably a similar point to when you started running as well. Yes for different reasons. Yeah. But like it's the same thing and running is running. So yeah I think it's, it's been a really fun like 360 degree circle and like I've crewed you at races, you've crewed me at races and I think it's yeah it's really nice to have like that different, that different blend in it. Yeah growing up like you were one of the best athletes, general sports people that I knew. I mean that's very kind of you to say but yeah I played a lot of sport when I was younger. I mean as soon as I left school I pretty much, my sporting career fell off the face of the earth sort of thing. I didn't really do anything. I think I, that was mainly down to playing so much sport at school from like you said when we first met probably like six, seven years old playing sport then the whole way through to 18 we were playing sport constantly. Yeah you weren't there, that's all you really did at school. Yeah yeah literally I mean I wasn't there to pass exams as such. What did you get in your exams when we left school? I can't exactly remember what that was but we're, I'll bring that to the next episode maybe. But you didn't go to university. I didn't go to university. Arguably not out of choice. No it was out of choice. I decided to go to Australia farming instead but we'll leave that for another time. What about you Tom, what did you get? I think I got two A's and a B. Really? Yeah. In what? Well I had to retake everything. Okay. And it was, it was enough, it was enough to join the army. I then went to Sandhurst. So I just want to jump in and say a massive thank you for Garmin for sponsoring. I've been using Garmin now for over six years and it was actually my first watch that I bought when I was in the army. Now as a professional athlete I use Garmin 24-7 to measure not just my training but my HRV and also tracking my sleep. For me I find the most valuable things about my Garmin is using the features such as Pace Pro and Climb Pro for when I'm racing. This really helps me to gauge the effort especially going uphill to make sure that I don't go too hard too soon and I'm able to finish the race off in style. Finally and I think the most important thing is the battery life. Having a watch that can last longer than you can out on the trails is an absolute game changer and looking forward to using Garmin for the rest of the season. Okay so obviously you just mentioned you went to Sandhurst. Firstly how did that come about? What was your thought process going to the army and yeah talk us through a little bit of that. Yeah I think for me I was a bit bored and fed up with the traditional educational route and I knew that going to university wasn't really for me because I knew that I didn't want to do a standard Monday to Friday nine till five. I remember at school having like the job fairs and people coming in accountants and things and like I've got nothing against that like that just wasn't that wasn't what I was into that definitely wasn't my skill set and the army was super appealing. I was sold on the get to travel the world, play loads of sport and actually like I look back at my army career now incredibly fondly. Having got to have done all of that and I think has definitely shaped who I am as as an athlete but more importantly as a person. I think the lessons that I learned in the eight years that I was in the army have shaped me more than any of my other years whether that was at school, studying for exams, on the sports pitch. I think this like really linked everything together and sort of knitted everything together and when I was in army I still played team sports but it was at the point in my career that it was a bit unprofessional rocking up to work on a Monday morning with a black eye from playing rugby. So I got into endurance and I wanted to find the hardest challenges that I could do to I think just to test myself mentally and physically. I can agree I think like you said I think from a friend seeing that as well like there's a lot of structure that came from the army and has shaped like the person that you are today and I think that is yeah all credit to the army for that. Do you think there was a huge amount of when you were in the army obviously I know you mentioned you wanted to push those limits and test was there anything in the army that pushed you to the ultra running or was that something from inside that you wanted to test or? I think it was just it was just finding the finding the hardest thing that I could do signing up to it and then trying to figure out how to do it like yeah being being naive enough to sign up and then stubborn enough to see it out like the first triathlon I signed up to was Ironman Wales. I had a road bike I did one long training ride I did a sportif in Sussex it was a hundred miles yeah gave myself achilles tendonitis did a couple of runs I did one open water swim and I'm not the I am not the best swimmer but ended up finishing fourth in my age group missing out on a space of the age group world championships by one place and out of everyone including the pros I had the third fastest run of the day and so I guess at that point I was like why am I bothering doing the swimming in the cycle yeah like I didn't enjoy it yeah I didn't even have a bike computer so I didn't know how far I'd gone I could not imagine doing anything like that now. Was there any specific training that went into that? Absolutely not really it was just I was just so naive yeah going into it I was like oh loads people could do it I'm sure it's hard but I'm sure I can do it yeah and then yeah I then had once that had done I have then decided oh maybe I'll start like I enjoyed the running more it was I think you it's it's very difficult when people are going past you but things become much easier when you're going past them and yeah on the bike and the swim I was just it was as if I was standing still and just being overtaken and then on the run it was it was the other way around so yeah I then I did a so I then signed up to Marathon du Sable that I had some friends in the army who did it in 2016 they did really well they finished in the top 300 and again I knew little about Marathon du Sable yeah I then what I'd watched the James Cracknell documentary where he finished top Brit and I think he was seventh or eighth but definitely in the top 10 yeah and again I thought wow this looks really hard this looks super challenging why not like why can't I give this a go and as all good ideas start in the pub yeah ended up betting my mates that I could finish higher up than they did and fast forward the clock 12 months first non-sub-saharan African man to finish on the podium yeah absolutely with with no coach with no specific training like yes I'm into sport science I spent some time in the heat lab beforehand yeah but it was all self-taught and I learned so much doing that that still to this day is like massively shaped the way that I do or do not do things like I learned so much in that and for me that was being able to make my own being able to make mistakes at that early stage I think was really important whereas I think a lot of people in professional sport come into it through a history of sport yeah whereas I was coming at it from a completely different angle so I didn't know yeah and I was prepared to not know and to make those mistakes and to be like actually screw it let's just give it a go if it works brilliant if it doesn't okay well why didn't it work yeah and then build from it and that's definitely like a mentality that I've taken forward not just in yeah not just in my running but like with my coaching yeah and I like well like why why are things going right or why are things going wrong and then just figure out okay well let's piece this all together and would you say after you did the mds you had that um well you had the success there would you say that was the transition that in your head as well as people probably approaching you being like this is something you can do this is something that we can push forward to like to actually make a career out of is that the time in the moment I think if I'm being completely honest like I didn't realize it was a thing like there were some people saying oh maybe you could do this but like I didn't know that this I could do this professionally like I guess what Martin de Saab did is it gave me it gave me a little bit of a little bit of a name um that I was then invited to a couple more races like Martin de Saab is so it's so specific yeah like a five-day multi-stage race in the desert like the Moroccan athletes who have typically done really well there haven't ever really broken into normal racing in Europe single stage racing in Europe so I felt like I needed to prove myself that I wasn't like this one trick pony yeah very good at multi-stage races in the desert because that's pretty niche huge thank you for Morton for sponsoring I started testing with Morton in 2017 and was one of the first athletes in the UK to use it and I've been using it every season since I use the whole range of products including the drink mix 320 the gel 160 and more recently sodium bicarbonate the hydro gel allows me to hit high carbohydrate goals with no stomach issues to make me feel my best on race day go and give Morton a go and fuel yourself for your next race okay so for people who don't know what mds is um a multi-stage racing uh can you give a bit of a background on that and what it exactly entails yeah for sure so Martin de Saab is mental okay it is and there is nothing quite like it yes there are other multi-stage races but this one is it is just unique in every way that it does I think the first unique thing is the race director chooses the time zone like you're not in a normal time zone he just decides this is Martin de Saab time okay which is wild and you don't know what that's going to be until you arrive so that's the mentality that you've got to get into for the start of the race and for some people who are used to like super professional this is how it's going to be run that's already a huge hurdle because I guess it unsettles everyone whereas for me I was just like well okay let's just roll with it when you say time zone that's different they they don't start it at say nine o'clock their time they start it whenever would you what do you mean no they started at nine o'clock their time but that's not the time zone that they choose yeah isn't the Moroccan time zone really he just decides decides okay now it's so that's that's that could be mid mid of the night Moroccan time but that is nine o'clock for the start of the race but thankfully it's only it's not that far yeah yeah but like that's the mentality that you've got to get into so Martin de Saab itself is a five stage over six days self-supported foot race across part of the Sahara desert so average distance for four of those stages is a marathon yeah and then for one of the stages the long stage typically it's a okay on my double marathon day that was the furthest that I had ever run in one go okay and that was after three marathons yeah so I'm sure a lot of people listening to this have they're probably either run a marathon they're aiming to run a marathon they run a half marathon and they can't they're working on their time and they're running on the road or the trails you're running on sand in the desert what sort of splits are you running what sort of times you do what sort of marathon times you running double marathon mate I bought a Casio watch at the airport I didn't have GPS I didn't know how far I was running how fast I have zero data oh really this was how this was how naive I was going into the race yeah and you see some people doing now Emil Keres has just raced London incredibly with the Casio in exactly the same watch in the same colour yeah that I had which I tell you what is actually quite it's quite interesting knowing the in-depth uh person that you are a thorough person that you are with everything you do to have approached that like that and I guess that's just I I didn't at this point in my life I didn't realise that there were garments or things to do this and like it's been a complete game changer now having all of this data yeah from other races to now being able to plan things like I think it just shows how naive I was going into the race yeah well and like I hadn't eaten like and you're carrying all of your own food from yeah day one your pack is like seven kilos plus water yes and I yeah foolishly thought oh I'm in the army I'll be okay just having the same food every single day I'm not going to bring a heater I'm not going to bring a little stove yeah I'm just going to eat like cold dehydrated food so eating like crunchy rice and I think it was yeah it was some sort of curry thing that I had rice and chicken but it was oh it was it was horrendous but I think going into it like really suffering with that making these mistakes yeah has made me the athlete that I am today had I gone in and everything being super easy and everything had gone so smoothly I don't think I would be here now but there was so many mistakes that I made learnt from them yeah that is I guess yeah I guess it's like shaped me into yeah the athlete that I am today and that's their knowledge that I can then pass on to yeah other people by myself so you talk me through so it's five days so you're spending four nights in the desert but no it's six days six days five nights five nights five nights in the desert of racing you go out you spend like two nights before the first stage in the desert fun and who's in your tent is it whoever gets to the tent first you fill up the first tent and is that how it works so I was with I was doing so it was I had a charity place with walking with the wounded uh military charities that provide support for ex-military personnel whether they're just transitioning into civilian life yeah or they've been injured um and it's jagged I'm still an ambassador for which is yeah it's an amazing cause and they do a lot of good work and it was sharing a tent with eight guys and girls from walking with the wounded and like they were excited to hear how I had got on from like the front of the pack but realizing that the same time that everyone going through it's got their own stories and being able to put no matter how bad you think things are and how much you're struggling at the time there is someone in that race who is finding it either as hard or harder than you are yeah and I think yeah the ability to be able to be like actually yeah even if I'm struggling it's all right okay so as you said that was the MDS is an uncrewed event but a lot of the running that you now do is crude so if you can give us a bit of an insight in how you pick your crew um what goes into that process for you um and a bit on that if that's all right I think crewing is and racing with the crew is it's almost like a different sport like yes ultra running inherently is an individual event but you need that team around you to be able to get you to the finish line as quickly as possible because that's what that's what racing is whether you're racing at the front trying to break course records or you're racing at the back trying to beat cut yes you're trying to get there as quickly as your body will will allow you so for me a crew is such an integral part of of the race and it's really important to pick the right people and that and for that crew to be able to make decisions for me on the go so I think there has to be like 100 percent trust with that and sometimes the person who you might have is crew might not be the best person and if you've got other people there they're then able to make that decision of okay let's change it actually Tom needs Tom doesn't need a hug Tom needs to be pushed out and be like right come on stop feeling sorry for yourself let's go or he might need that shoulder to cry on for a minute and I think it's that real like at some points you've got to take emotions out of it and other points you need to be there for the emotional support crewing is crewing is way harder than it is pretty tough yeah um well seeing what you're well seeing what you're going through understanding what you need and making sure that you deliver that sort of thing I think that's pretty tough yeah and there's but there's so much pressure like at least like when I'm running and you've had yeah two completely polar opposite different experiences of crewing one at western states yeah where it was easy because everything went really well yeah and then one at UTMB that wasn't easy and everything didn't go really well yeah and we didn't spend a day in a lovely Italian hospital yeah like you said I think the two uh complete polar opposites western states was um it went so well that there wasn't a huge worry I mean you've always got the worry behind behind you are we going to get there in time are we going to make we've got to make sure that Tom is uh he's he gets everything he needs to be able to continue um but like I said I think UTMB was a really stressful evening um we started off very exciting and whatever because it's such that it's such an incredible race but then we kind of well then what happened happened we had probably a nearly an hour and a half not knowing where you were um and obviously being with Sophie as well that was terrifying we're sat there waiting in the van um for you to come in um so there's a lot of waiting around there's a lot of kind of uncertainty because the live tracking there's only so much that so much information they can give you and we're not going to be talking on the phone sort of thing um so yeah no it's an incredible it's incredible to see like what happened at western states but then also the other side of it was it's incredibly emotional to have to go through seeing your best mate go through that um and as well as seeing Sophie be incredibly upset as well and then like you said spending however long in an Italian hospital you're kind of all over the place emotions are running high um but thank goodness everything was okay and uh all sorted now but yeah no it's a it's a challenging but uh and a very exciting um job to be done but I think from that experience like so many lessons learned like as with most of the pros at UTMB for example and we'll do an episode later on talking about kit like I bring a tiny phone that yes it passes but it's pretty difficult to actually get in touch yeah because the batteries life on it's terrible you don't get much signal because it's so small and actually thinking is it worth is it worth trying to save a little bit of weight for that yeah no it's not so actually like something that I will take into it is okay well actually let's use my iPhone yeah so I can speak to you guys so if something does happen what yeah at least everyone knows but then also at the same time like for me one of the things that I've learned and what I stress about when I'm running is what the time gaps are in front of me which is pretty easy to give because if I'm coming into a checkpoint afterwards it's very easy to say oh yeah I saw Jim or I saw Killian or I saw Zach they left here three minutes ago yeah but actually what's also really important in the race is who's behind you yes so the ability for 10 minutes after I go to a checkpoint to be able to get a call from the crew to say yeah this person is four minutes behind you they took two minutes in Cormier and they look really good they left running like that information is so useful so I think like even though it was a horrendous experience yeah I think it will set us up really nicely this year having the same crew but a really different protocol for it because you can't get things 100% right the first time and like yeah it was a it was a miserable couple of days for everyone yeah but I think it will make every literation just that little bit better like I learned I learned so much more from racing half of UTMB yeah in 2023 than I did from having the best race of my life at Western States eight weeks before yeah and I can I think from like a cruise perspective as well when things are going really well it's really easy when your runner feels great it's really easy because they know what to do whereas when the crew is then put in that stressful situation it's really tough well that's it you've got kind of like the night before both races you sit down and you say when I come into this station this is what I need etc etc it's so it can be so easy and be to the book and like you said before you've got a couple of options if I'm feeling miserable I might want Brett to come in and make me laugh if I'm needing a push on I will probably want Sophie to come in and you know give me give me a slap and like you meant pushing me on sort of thing but you know what I mean like it's so easy for those um for you to write out this is what it's going to be like but then the actual reality is completely different so you're kind of weighing up both options like yes he needs this but actually when he comes in here and he's feeling completely different to what he says he well he said last night it's just it's just dealing with reacting um yeah and for you and me it's very lucky and obviously with Sophie as well because we know you um so seeing you we can tell um what you might need what you might not need sort of thing for sure thanks to plasmaid for sponsoring the pod plasmaid is a complementary plant-based adaptogen that has benefits across performance and recovery as well as reducing travel stress it's only to be taken pre and or post race and training sessions not during fundamentally plasmid through its only active ingredient french maritime pine bark extract increases endogenous stabilized nitric oxide production a vasodilator that increases oxygen uptake in the bloodstream and better circulation as well as triggering powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects by plasmid preparing and optimizing the body the efficiency of your in race supplementation and hydration intake is increased so in summary you perform better and recover faster allow me to introduce you to plasmid by using the code ultra 20 that is ultra 20 at the checkout on the plasmid websites to receive a 20 discount and join me in using plasmid so with your experience with mds and and also other races um can you give a bit comparison to the prep before that i know you you touched it very briefly but um yeah a bit of insight into that as well it's changed massively and for every race it again continues to change and i think when you think that you've got like a blueprint for it it's it's irrelevant because each it's not like running if you're training for a road marathon let's say you're training for one of the majors yeah kind of irrelevant which one it is like you've got a marathon the courses are all pretty similar there aren't that many like external factors yeah whereas if you're running and like and i guess the race racing and ultra like is it 50k is it 100k is it 100 miles is it relatively flat is it 100 miles with 3 000 meters of climbing or is it 100 miles with 10 000 meters of climbing yeah and the way that you approach those is completely different so if i take marathon de sable for example i was so naive with it i understood the construct of the race but i didn't i didn't look at like the whole picture of it i just thought okay well i've got to run a marathon every day yeah when i get to the double marathon stage i'll do that and then it's just a marathon at the end like you'll be fine and it's all it was so naive and i was so like exactly like i said at the end just such a throwaway comment of being like it'll be okay yeah i'll just i'll just cuff it i'll just get through it i'll just i'll figure it out when i get along to it and i think actually going into my first race like it was really useful for me to see that side of things because now it's almost the polar opposite yeah of it like whereas yeah for marathon de sable i started on the first day and worked my way to the finish whereas now what i would do is i would look at the finish and i would look at the race as a whole and then figure out okay in order to do this race yeah what do i need to do before this race like what are the pieces of the puzzle that i've got to put together so for marathon de sable i think the only thing that i did with that was heat yes i knew it was going to be really hot so i knew that i needed to do some heat preparation whatever that was super i know for me it was super unstructured it was kind of just do a bit when you can nothing was measured nothing was anything yeah whereas i compare that now to racing western states in 2023 like i had an incredible heat protocol set up by from olav um with zantara tech i used uh core in order to measure my core body temperature yeah it was so structured and it was so it was so precise i look at both of those like yes i did heat training for both but they were very different like did it achieve the same effect like yeah it did to a certain extent yeah but i think with that like you just take the time that you have once you've identified what the risk is you then come up with a way to counteract that risk yeah and i think yeah for the more experience i've got the more the easier it is for me to identify different parts and different races and figure out what i need to do in order to be able to do that bit as well as i possibly can and i think it does it is sometimes very analytical with looking at race profiles how far there is between aid stations and everything with that has come through experience and working with my whole array of different partners to make sure that i'm prepared for all of those stages and if there is a part that a part of the race that is a real challenge for me and i know it's going to be challenging yeah i will then work out okay well i know this is going to be a challenge what can i do now in this training block to make that challenge as easy for myself as possible so i take running in the dark for one for example yeah and it's not fully in um but running with a headlamp is a completely different sport than running in the daylight yeah because if you're running in the light you can look around you can see where the rock big rocks are 20 meters in front of you but also two meters in front of you at the same time with a headlamp where you look is what you see yeah so you don't know what's yeah if you're looking 20 meters ahead you're not seeing what's two meters in front of you if you're looking two meters in front of you you're not seeing what's 20 meters ahead of you the first time i ever ran with a headlamp was in the long stage at uh at marathon de sable i'd never worn a headlamp to run it run with in the military if we were doing night exercises things at night you weren't allowed to use a headlamp yeah so i was like this was completely alien to me i'd done no prep for it and i just thought at the time oh i'll just i'll just figure it out on the deck yeah whereas now running in a running with a torch it is i have identified that it is it is an area where i can massively improve and get way more disciplined with my headlamp batteries for headlamps don't last forever yeah absolutely like you can't have you can't have it on full beam for the whole night time because you're just going to run out of you're going to run out of power or you have to carry way more spare batteries so you have to make a decision like what lamp do i go for what battery do i use what power settings do i have it on and if you don't practice these things you're never going to know on the race day so now what i would do in training is i'll figure out exactly what i need to do okay how long does this battery last how many batteries am i going to need to carry because how long is it going to take me to get from point a to point b and how long the night is like what time sunset what time sunrise okay so as an example if you're putting yes that's elite side of things into say an everyday runner who just wants to go and do the mds which there are a lot of people like everyday runners that do that um into or at utmb who also do that as well and they have families they have jobs they're unable to kind of as you you're an elite athlete you can kind of go are you looking for free tips a little bit of free tip but a bit of an understanding like if you were going to put like can you break down what you're saying as an elite athlete into someone who doesn't have the time that you have so if you were going to give say three key takeaways for someone who was going to complete an ultra like utmb um what would they be what would they be i think firstly it's to look at the race as a whole yeah and see what areas they think they're going to be strong on and what areas they're going to be weak on yeah once you've done that that would be point number one once you've done that point number two you can then come up with a plan to make sure that you are fully prepared for all of those different areas so if you know there's if the race is super technical yeah you need and you're not very good at running on technical terrain that's something that you need to practice and improve because you want to make life as easy as yourself for number three yes so for the race which then takes us on to number three that is the race itself and it's now okay well you've identified what the issues were you've worked on those issues and now number three it's just having that confidence that you've done everything that you can in the parameters of your life yeah to make sure that you're ready yeah and if you haven't done the work like that's okay but at least you know yeah where the problems are going to be and actually like we don't as runners it's not just you do a race and that's you finish yeah it then rolls on to the next race and the next one and the next one so never see a race as like an individual race a stepping stone it's a stepping stone and it's part of the wider plan so none of those three points is turn the lights up in the gym and run in the treadmill in the dark no i would not i would not recommend that at all maybe if my competitors i'd recommend that but uh no for anyone who i think wants to yeah wants to do well that's probably not the best cool so uh we've actually now got some questions from some of your followers um and the first one being what is the best thing about ultra running for me i think ultra running is just that ability to push yourself as hard as you want both mentally and physically seeing what you're capable of achieving in such a different uh in such a different way of life than your normal job yeah cool um how have you planned your season this year for me everything is revolving around utmb ultra trail du mont blanc um that's at the end of august uh and i'll do a hundred mile race there they say it's a hundred miles but it's not like 106 yeah and those extra six at the end are always pretty challenging um so i have raced uh transvolcania yeah i'm in lupama and i'm about to go and race the european mountain running championships in anisee then after what distance is that that's 56 kilometers fast race yeah non technical trail okay and then i will then do a couple of weeks after that go to zugspitz uh to the austria germany border and race an 85k race there at night to get some good practice with my headlamp yeah um and then i'll then just go into a big training block at altitude uh building up to utmb um so what do you remember the most about your first race i think the biggest lesson that i've learned i'm not actually going to take from yeah my biggest memory probably not from my first race it was at ccc in 2018 and coming into the halfway point at 50k i was in i think i was in fourth place and just feeling absolutely horrendous but it was in the aid station where i was told that actually the people in front didn't look good and they weren't having good days either and it was just that memory of basically just asking myself like how much do you want this how hard are you prepared to push how much are you prepared to suffer for 50k with a chance of being on the podium and just not giving up and i think it was that i have a really really strong memory of just something in my mind just changing going from i guess feeling slightly sorry for myself to feeling really strong and motivated to keep going and that came from my crew yeah and i remember that's that is how important the crew is that then ultimately led to my first major win on the trails and finally the last question that we have is what would you say is the biggest learn you've had from any of your ultra runs i think probably actually from i think when races go well you can learn a little bit but i think it's when races don't go to plan that you learn you learn the most so yeah i think for me utmb 2023 um the biggest biggest lesson that i learned um about the race itself was that you've got to respect the race you've got to put the work in and you've got to do things your way rather than trying to do trying to run someone else's race yeah and like i like to think that i'm very good at running my own race but in utmb in 2023 i got carried away i didn't run my own race and i think that's ultimately what led to yeah to my dnf um but it's happened i've learned from it um and yeah really looking forward to to building on it for for this year 2024 um as you said another stepping stone to this year yeah exactly and beyond yeah absolutely perfect thank you very much for that listeners um and we'll have some more next week so that is it for episode one thank you very much all for tuning in uh make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you hear about the latest episodes tell all your friends uh and yeah slide into slide into my dms ask some questions um and we'll answer those questions next week on the podcast but until then stay safe stay happy and see you on the trails see you out there thanks a lot