Brian's Run Pod Interview Compilation

So the interviews are with Stuart Hayes , olympic triathlete , caitlin Limmer , the founder of the Bearcat Running Club , andrew Ren , a local running coach , and not forgetting Colleen and John , who are both keen runners and who are friends of mine . So anyway , let's start

with Caitlin , who's founder of the Bearcat Runner Club , and basically how she got the running bug . She had a really interesting story .

I was told that my bone density was going to be a real issue in my life and in my naivety at that time I thought bone density , bone density , what does that mean ? How can I help myself ? And I thought running , running that's what people say build your bone density . So that is how I literally started .

I had a year to try and change my bone density before I was going to have this next scan and I wanted to prove to this wonderful woman that had saved my life that we could counteract it and I could make it better . So that's how I started and I hated it . I still do Love , hate .

So all of those things I definitely replicate in running . So yeah , beyond that , well , there are quite a lot of similarities anyway , but they're the immediate ones I can think of . But obviously , opera singers in my day , which was 25 years ago now , were not fit , not into exercise necessarily .

I could be making a rather sweeping statement , but in my day I never saw many people that were really into exercise . And now , of course , I'm sure that actors and opera singers have to be far more health-minded . And the stronger we are for everything , for shows , all , for running 5Ks , the better .

But as far as running goes , I was doing quite a lot of running , but I actually wasn't running on a school team or anything like that , so it was completely outside of school that I did running .

So it's as , I suppose , got more mature and the more I got into running , the more I realised how important it would be to me and how much I really really enjoyed it . So I think for me it was kind of I associated sport at school with PE lessons . For me that wasn't really what motivated me . Let's put it that way .

It was just like I was . Kids got too much energy . What do we do with him ? So they took me to the swim squad and I remember swimming one length and if I could swim one length I could join the club and I did my own length and then that was it . They said , right , you can come in the mornings and the evenings .

So I think I was around seven or eight years old , so in twice a day every day the next like 10 years . And then I got to a point when I was about 15 or no , about 13 , 14 , and I just wasn't growing . I was quite small , but at the time I was quite good at running , because at school I was good running . I did cross country and stuff like that .

And then we had a guy in our swim squad called Spencer Smith and he was a world champion and he was about to be world senior champions and I was like , oh , I'd like to have a go at triathlon . So I decided , let's try triathlon .

I joined twicken them cycling club , I joined Tim's Turbos triathlon club and I was also a member of Ram the Harriers and , I think , richmond twicken them . They were like linked together as running clubs . I also trained with that Houndsville running club as well , where Mo Farah trains and sometimes a go ahead be there .

At that point I was like putting all the pieces together and I did my first triathlon , I think at Market Bosworth in early mid 90s , and then I just went from there .

for the podcast , and very exciting , as I was a little nervous and just wanted to know how this might go , as we recorded this just on one microphone . So John tells us about how he got into running .

Just give it a go , because it's cheap and you don't need a membership , you can do it anywhere . And I can remember my first . You know I had run at school . You know , obviously in sport you run as well , but I can remember my first sort of proper run and it was probably only a mile .

I think it was about a mile and about two thirds of the way through it I tripped over a bit of Ray's pace . Ray's pavement and scrapes all the skin off my hand . And then I got back and I was actually sick . Oh no , I was that unfit . So yeah , about 10 years ago , but bizarrely , about a week later , I thought actually I enjoyed that and it was .

You know , what I found is that quite quickly , you know , I was able to , you know , get up to 5K pretty easily . And then , about a year after that , I did a half marathon . I've never done a full marathon , but I've done about four or five half marathon since and various other runs . So , yeah , that's how I got into running , trying to lose weight .

That was really the main motive .

And I've always had you know sort of various smart watches and things like that , you know , testing your resting heart rate , and definitely if I'm in a good you know run of running , my natural fitness is a lot better .

Not only have we had runners and an Olympian , but also you've had a racing driver turn commentator , and I wanted to have Tom Gameron , who works for Sky Sports and does commentating for IndyCar , and he has a really interesting story about his rehabilitation from a career wrecking back injury and here he talks about how he got into motorsport . Yeah ,

it's a really good question .

So I was always looking out the window and longing for break time and PE and games and then when the rain came , that frustration of having to play Hangman and being forced into not leaving the classroom was my pet hate . So you know I loved being active as a young kid and you know I'm 41 now .

But even when I was younger we had computers and you know the same mega drives and the Super Nintendo's of the day and the Commodore Amiga who's old and I don't remember what a Commodore Amiga is . But you know I didn't really have any games , consoles .

I was always outside and you know , from a young age I always had a bat in my hand , love cricket , love rugby . And then , as I got a bit older , motorsports came into my life as well .

He was the honorary RFU doctor , england Rugby Doctor as well . So I grew up around that professional sporting environment and I used to get picked up from school and sometimes go to Twickenham and watch the England team train , captain's day and that kind of stuff . So I you know I had that and you're probably wondering what the link is .

But he also had a very good connection , a chat called David Price , who we've just lost , actually 14 weeks ago , and David was a big name in the motorsport world . You know he ran Brabant for Bernie .

He was instrumental when it came to success at Le Mans for various different manufacturers and had his time at Benetton and various other things in the sport and I was invited along with my granddad to go and visit David at the sort of tender age of 10 .

And I never look back because you know we all have , or the majority of us had , the opportunity to play those grassroots or those sports at a grassroots level that I mentioned Football , cricket , rugby .

But motorsport isn't something that many people come across and I was very fortunate to have that experience and from that day on it just the smell , the sight , the sound . It was so special that it was a great experience and it was a dream of mine from that moment to try and progress .

But speed and strength two of the five . Right Now . People might not necessarily think that speed is In fact , a lot of people will try and self-deprecate themselves through the floor when I speak to them .

I'm not very fast , I'm not very slow and I think people are overly defensive about that , because a large makeup of your muscle fibers will be fast-twitch muscle fibers . So learning to actually use those muscle fibers is going to be extremely useful for every type of runner . Otherwise , you're only utilizing a proportion , whatever portion that is .

Some people will have more slow twitch and do a lot more fast twitch , et cetera . But from a fundamental perspective , it's a more rounded way of using your muscle fibers . So that's on the micro level .

But on a macro level , the way that you move your legs when you do speed work or sprint work or tempo intervals , whatever they are is slightly different to the way that you use your legs and your body when you do your long runs .

So if you're a new runner especially beginners actually , this is especially relevant to beginners if you're a brand new runner and you're just plowing the same movement through your body , you're using your calves , you're likely to be massively overusing your calves and , all honestly , your calves , your quads , your hamstrings , your glutes , using them in exactly the same

way , over and over and over and over again .

That's the kind of thing that can cause issues with your body , whereas if you start to do some slightly different movements , by which I mean either running super fast or running a little bit faster , it's going to change that , the way that you use your body , meaning that you're not just making the exactly the same movement each time .

Like , for example , if you were going to the gym and you were going to train arms , you wouldn't just do the same exercise for an hour , right ? You wouldn't just just sit there and do sort of bicep curls for the same hour . And there's a similar number of muscles in the arms there is in the leg .

So it's about utilizing the body in slightly different ways so that people don't get issues .

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You know how the benefits of running have been different for me over the years and you know , I mean I started running late , so I was in my 30s . You know the benefits . Then I was a young mum . You know I had to do it really early in the morning . You know the benefits were different .

They helped me cope with just being a mum and keeping me strong and happy and fit . You know , then it became sort of the challenge , you know , marathon after marathon after marathon and wow and empowering . And you know , the children got older and it running gave me this confidence . You know more of a confidence .

And now running , I use running to spend time with my favourite people . I use running . I mean , you know I've , you know , menopause , but I'm very lucky I don't have major issues with that . But yes , bones and joints . You know really thinking . You know I can feel the difference in my body .

Therefore , I need to keep doing this , I need to keep oiling the cogs and you know thinking about that . You know right where I started thinking about that bone density again , because that is all changing age .

But you know , when you get difficult , challenging times caring for various people , you know you it becomes , you know it's just , it's like one's saviour in many ways , isn't it ? You know it's hard and people , you know it never , never gets any easier to get out of that front door , though that's that's the fascinating thing to me .

We turned up one day at Gunnersbury 10K and there were loads of us and one of my runners won the female event , which was amazing , and we all went to the pub afterwards .

People said we want to be part of something , caitlin . People keep saying who do you run for ? And we can only just point at you and go yeah , it's that loud ginger bird over there . That's that that's who we run for , we're on for her and , and you know , they said we want to be part of something .

And you know , and again I speak about this , and I , you know it's I . You know the words running club fill me with fear and you know , and not that they aren't brilliant , but there's a , there's a terrible assumption that I even myself make about running clubs and you know , I thought , well , I don't know several running club , you know I ain't got .

You know , I've avoided that kind of thing all my life . Really Well , I just thought they weren't for me . And of course , I thought , well , I hang on , I could set up something a little bit different .

That's not just about league tables and competition and and please don't get me wrong , I have the utmost respect for that area , but it wasn't my forte , still isn't my forte , isn't my passion . My passion is the every man I'm just teaching the person . You know , I would say it's the sort of the London marathon of running clubs .

You know , for everyone , for the person that wants to , you know , just do that first marathon and run , walk it . For the person , yes , for the person that still wants to kill three and a half hours . Yeah , we've got that as well , but it is . I wanted to sort of fill a possible gap I saw in the market .

I mean , to be honest , I wasn't as clever as that . I wasn't thinking that specifically . I just thought , yeah , I want to provide an environment that was nurturing .

But I wasn't actually speeding this time and I went down and a deer literally ran across the road and full blast into me and it just sent me flying so completely side on . Yes side on . It just came out . So I think it was being chased by a dog or something , and it just happened , you know , when you see something coming .

And I thought , because I know that I couldn't slam on my brakes because I'd crash anyway , so I thought I'd just try and dodge it Like headbutt , we headbutt , I headbutted the deer , oh , no , my eyes . But then I tried one clip and as I unclipped I slammed my foot into the ground and then my pelvic my leg got pushed up into my pelvis .

I think it's because it is shattered all in one piece . That's why I was much pain right Hospital and they scanned it and said oh yeah , it's shattered you . And then and then and then I stayed the night and the next day the dots came in and said Like 50 , 50 , do you know ? Do you , would you like an operation ?

I went oh , am I supposed to fit a coin here or something ? I Got excited . The doctor was a friend and I said to the doctor guy I said this is a situation in what would you do ? And he said ask the guy , if this was you , what would you do ? If this was one , your children ?

And he said I would leave it for a couple of weeks and see how it heals . So I left it for a couple of weeks and the funny thing was when I went back there I wasn't booked in . That's like forgotten about me and , because I'm a paper lady , came up to me because , oh , you're the guy that got hit by the deer .

I went , yeah , I'm here for , like , my , my x-ray to see if I need an operation or not . She goes , oh , I'm quickly make a phone call . And then they made a little phone call and they x-rayed me and I was fine and it just healed . And , yeah , I was in a wheelchair for 12 weeks and Michelle to push me around like little Britain .

You know , that was an experience they had . I hope he didn't secretly . I mean , it wasn't that . The thing was it was just like it's , the boredom really is quite hard . Basically do nothing , just watch television , just right . And also getting around was difficult as well .

Like going to the toilet in the night was really hard and in the bath I had to put like a little plate so I sit on like a little chair and I shout myself and stuff like that . So it was challenging and I could crutch .

But the problem was I thought , if I fall over and bang it again from crutching Because when you it's wet , it's very slippery and also they teach you to crush up the stairs , which I thought was ridiculous . I used to just like . I used to like sort of like , like , sit on my bum and sort of pull myself upstairs .

No , I'm crutching up the stairs because if I fell back , that'd be .

Murray Walker , by the way , for those who don't know , was a very , very famous commentator for the BBC over here in the UK . Anyway , over to you , tom .

You're still very much in love with somebody , but but but they're not in love with you and and away they go on another journey and and that was the sport for me , it was , it was too raw and so I went and worked with Getty Images for a bit and then , you know , I had the realization that know your lane in life and also don't walk too far away from

from from what it is that you know . And so I went back to the sport and found a niche in coaching and working with younger drivers and I worked with the national governing body and the various different things around coaching qualifications . But bubbling away in the background was was the commentary ?

So TV gave me a lifeline and it's the TV that's grown and grown and grown over the last sort of 10 or so years and I've been incredibly fortunate enough to sort of forge a career in TV and broadcasting . No one teaches you how to do it . You are the single swim .

Everybody tells you when , when they don't like you and when you've made a mistake , but no one pats you on the back when you've done a good job , especially in today's day and age of social media .

Yes , yeah , yeah , and it you know it's it , but I wouldn't change it for the world and it gives me that opportunity to be involved in a sport that that I fed in love with as a 10 year old as a 10 year old child , and my goal was always to get to Formula 1 .

I've got to Formula 1 now , albeit with with a microphone in my hand and not a steering wheel . So it's a funny lesson as to you know , life is is a journey , and you never quite know where you're going to end up , how you're going to end up , but you know , for me , I've got to where I wanted to get to , just in a in a in a different guys

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