¶ Tamsin's Running Journey and Coaching Experience
Welcome back to Brian's Rampod . I hope you are having a great week . Well , this week I'm interviewing Tamsin , who is currently coached by Andrew Wren . Now , you may remember , I interviewed him some time ago . If you haven't come across the podcast of Andrew , then please do go and have a listen . Anyway , I've split our interview with Tamsin into two parts .
The first she talks about how she got into running and her running achievements , plus some of the other coaches she has used . In the second part , I'll ask her about how she discovered Andrew and some of the training she is currently doing . I really do hope you enjoy our chat . So you're thinking about running but not sure how to take the first step .
My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help . Welcome to Brian's Rampod . And welcome back to Brian's Rampod . And today we have another guest with us today . Now you may remember that I did have an interview with a local running coach called Andrew Wren and I was very keen on someone who has or was , is or has been coached by him .
Today I'm very lucky to have Tamsin Birdland , who has agreed to be on Brian's Rampod . Thank you very much for coming . And she said her experience of running happened First .
Experience of running happened in the first year of secondary school , when she entered a 1500 meter race on sports day and she says , and I quote I had no running experience , no inherent fitness , and I came last by a long way , but everyone was lovely and it was because on each lap I was waving and smiling at spectators and that so reminds me of many
intraschool races that I had went up that I entered into . Anyway , thank you very much . Thank you very much , tamsin , for coming to the podcast .
You're welcome . I'm happy to be here . I should just say that I entered because nobody else in my class would step up . Everybody was looking at the wall or the ceiling and I was the only one who said , oh , okay , I'll do it .
Oh , okay , okay , that was your first experience , but had you been quite active at school after that ?
In terms of no , I was a typical adolescent girl who really didn't want to do sport because it was too embarrassing , really . So I really by the time I was 17 , 18 , I must have been so unfair . I just I did nothing , to be honest .
Okay . So what was that sort of that pivotal moment where you thought maybe I'll give fitness fitness a try ?
Yeah , I think I did . I had two elder brothers who were really sporty . So , sport was very much a part of my life , but mainly just watching other people do it .
Oh right .
Okay , so I think really it was . I was much older , probably in my mid to late 20s , I found myself very drawn to running . I used to always watch the London marathon . Right , For some reason . I just found it compelling . Yeah people could do that . Yeah it even occurred to me that I would ever run one marathon , let alone five .
I just done five my gosh . Just gradually I was drawn to it and I and in my early 30s I did just start trying it out on the treadmill . I didn't want anybody to see me do it Okay late at night and run up and down the road when nobody was looking .
Oh , I see .
And then I had my son and I was quite ill after having my son After about a year . It was just a friend of mine who also wanted to get fit after having a baby . We just started doing , started running going out together , just we were both really unfit and really excited that we could run a mile .
Yes .
And it really snowballed from there .
Do you ? Do you find that sort of the benefits escalated quite quickly in terms of , let's say , you're running to the end of the road and then the next time you ran it was , I don't know , two streets ahead or something .
Absolutely .
I think that early , when you're either starting running or coming back from injury and run for a while , those first few months where you can see some really tangible improvements , that is very highly motivating and it's actually quite hard when that starts pattering , I think oh yeah , and because I noticed my daughter who's at university at the moment she started
running , but he was quite , totally unheard of that .
We never should have , I think , of taking it up . But she found , say , running to the bus was really , you know , beneficial as that kind of general all around fitness yes , absolutely . Yeah , but when was the point when you really thought , oh , I'm going to start taking this a little bit more seriously ?
I think , I think we did a race for life . That seems to be the sort of required entry into running and then went up to 10K and I just started .
It was just becoming more and more of my life and I started training regularly and I found the Runners World smart coach , which I think has been discontinued now , but that's a training plan where you can put in a recent race type and it gives you a training plan based on that . And I followed that .
I'm very good at following sort of orders and I followed that absolutely to the letter for a 10K and got a really good result that I was really happy with . And I did the same with my first half marathon and actually the times that I got on those two . So this is late 2000s the times I got for those two still remain my PBs .
I've never got back to those times again , ever . By that point I was hooked and after the 10K I did a local 10K run by a local running club , and after that they wrote to me to say we saw you were unaffiliated , so I didn't enter the race with saying that I was a member of a club . So , if you are unaffiliated , would you like to join us ?
And that's how I joined Ran Leharriers .
Alright , which Harriers ?
Ran Leharriers . They're based in Peachtum in the region . Alright , okay , so the run of the world website you just say oh , you need to be doing it three times a week , yeah , so it would have a four week block and each week you would do a long run , an easy run , and a session , a sort of quality session , which would either be tempo or speed work .
And then the fourth week was always an easy week , so you'd only do easy runs . I just found that structure really helpful and it was really effective .
Was there a session that you preferred ?
I quite enjoyed doing the quality sessions , being able to do a tempo run it's usually a three mile at a certain reasonably challenging pace .
You'd come back from that thinking you've really done something , sort of done some work , yeah because I usually found that sometimes , even though they're shorter , if you're doing like a speed session , you feel a lot more hey , it's harder and you feel a lot more invigorated .
Whereas doing a long run , it's a bit of willpower just to get . Absolutely yeah .
So you did that 10K and you did the half marathon using that , and so you obviously got the bug . So what made you to progress ? Maybe taking up , maybe using a running coach ?
I think so . When did I first ? I then did a marathon and actually , to be honest , joining a club . If you go out on club sessions , you're almost using a coach to a certain extent anyway , because there's a lot of more knowledgeable people there , but I think so . I did the Brighton marathon . I followed a different training plan for that .
I followed a training plan that incorporated a lot of cross training in as well , because I was concerned about getting injured by doing too many miles . It was a Furman Institute of Science and something , a Furman training plan , and you can get those online as well . And so I was doing . All my runs were quality sessions .
And then what the equipment of the easy runs was done using cross training I could row quite a lot of rowing and swimming and cycling as well .
Oh , really yeah , so they included that .
Yeah , they have a number of suggested cross training plans that you can follow . And again , that marathon is still my PB as well . Starting to learn , maybe I should go back to practice .
Yeah , you should be getting faster and faster .
After that I just did a lot of stuff with the club and , to be honest , I wasn't training very hard because I joined the club and I just liked running and chatting with people . Yeah , so I think I'm the only person who joined a running club . At my times got worse because I just enjoyed the social aspect of it .
But the first time I engaged a coach was when I decided to do the Tokyo marathon and I decided I wanted somebody who , first of all , it was more about core strength , so who could do me coaching in that respect . But she was a runner .
Right .
So she actually wrote me a plan for Brighton Marathon as well . So that was the first time I engaged with a coach .
Okay , so what sort of things was she giving you on the core strength side ?
We just did a session once a week in a park , so it was all sorts of different sort of mainly body weight exercises . It's a long time ago now . I can't really remember what we were doing , but I'm sure it was things like squats and those sort of things . Yeah . So he was the overall strength body strength time for the sake .
Oh , by the way , what is your PB's for you Marathon ? Oh , do you want to know ?
They're not very impressive , so my 10K is around 53 .
That's very good , Sam . Yeah , that's about mine .
My half Marathon is 158 , so it's the only time I've gone under two hours for half . And then my Marathon is 421 .
OK , ok , I'll be just quite interested in people who've done Marathons , because I've never done it . I tried to enter 1,000 years ago . But what was the biggest obstacle compared to , let's say , you've done a half sort of thing ? Yeah , it's done that much . Is the Marathon a different beast compared to doing ?
I think . I mean , you can get away with a half . I don't think a marathon will let you get away with cutting corners , to be honest . So you have to be prepared to put the time in , you have to be prepared to run at places that you wouldn't necessarily want to be running out .
So you have to put your ego aside , I think , and run slowly for a long time and you really just have to be yeah . So I think it's avoiding injury .
¶ Marathon Training and Running Community Benefits
I think the biggest thing with Marathon training is because the long runs are so important , you have to do everything to avoid injury . So that means not doing silly things , yeah . Not running too fast , not jumping up your mileage too quickly yeah . I think they're probably the two things that I would think has come to mind .
First of all , you have to be really disciplined and just not get ahead of yourself .
But also putting in the time , the time is really important .
You've got to do the miles . Yeah , you've got to do the miles , but if you get injured , don't try to carry on , because You're just going to make life worse for yourself . It's all right to have to take time out if you're injured . It's better to than try and move on , and it's certainly not worth trying to catch up .
So if you're meant to have a 25-mile week , don't try to do 50 miles the next week .
Do you ? I don't know . Sometimes people argue that it's the . Are there any health benefits for doing a marathon ? Because obviously it's , there are health benefits and doing running , yeah , that kind of thing . But when you're doing a marathon it has a lot of stress in your joints . Yeah and like .
I don't think there's a black and white answer to that . To be honest , a marathon for one person Can be relatively straightforward and for another it can be a massive strain on the body yeah . I think I wouldn't . I really don't think I'm in a position to say yes or no .
Yeah .
I think you have to . I think you have to make a decision to do a marathon with a lot of thought , and don't think it's something that you can take lightly .
Obviously go to a doctor GP if you have any concerns .
First of all , yeah , although you have to , you would have to see somebody who understands , who's a rather friendly . Yeah , I think you could see better people than probably a GP . In respect of that , possibly , it really depends . If you're worried about your heart , then obviously yeah , if there's fundamental health issues , then yes , absolutely .
But I think it's also Worth getting a good sports physio or sports therapist on your side as well . Yeah , help you through it .
Yeah , yeah , I tend to agree with you on the GP side because they are Jack of all trades , master of none sort of things . Maybe someone is more sport specific . Yeah , he said your first coach . She coached you prior to do you doing the first man .
No , that was Tokyo , so that was my . It was my second and third because I did Portsmouth in the run up to Tokyo . Yeah , so she would coach me through those two , yeah okay okay , and then she decided to give up . I I'm sure , they I'm sure it wasn't connected .
So tell me a little bit more about Tokyo . Was Tokyo marathon ?
Tokyo was amazing .
I'm totally jealous .
My brother lives . My brother has lived in Tokyo since 1990s . But the reason why I actually did it was a friend of mine from the club was trying to get all the marathon majors , so she wanted to do Tokyo and I said oh , if you go to Tokyo , I'll come with you because I can see my brother . It's one of those easily .
Flip and remarks that that's what transpired . But , the course was fun , that the support on the course is absolutely amazing . It's crazy . You know , the Japanese people are so lovely and it was just cheering all the way through and yeah .
It was a great experience from start to finish and what was it like doing it in a different country ? Did you feel there was less pressure ?
Pressure . Pressure is very internal , isn't it ? I had been a bit injured at Shiko to Tokyo , so actually being on the start line for me was the . With that I'd achieved what I wanted to do , because I Thought a couple of months before I wasn't gonna make the start line .
So I really although when I started training I thought this is , I'm gonna smash this , I'm gonna go for my , my , my , bright and time , but by the time I was on the start line I was just like I'm just going to enjoy this and I just I just jogged all the way around and I was just on a High or the last three miles are always awful and they were tough
, but up to 22 , 23 miles , I just had a ball and I had a dead even split and it was just the way to run a marathon , to be honest , to just not have any expectations or pressure . Yeah , and I ended up doing it . It's my second fastest . I did it in 436 .
I don't know how that happened , but it was just yeah , well , I can say , do you obviously really enjoy yeah , yeah , yeah .
It must have been a wonderful experience other plate countries have you run ?
Where else have I run ? Yeah , I've been to a few . I did the Marrakesh half marathon a few years ago . Yeah , I've and I've done . I've been to Germany and to France . Yeah to do part runs .
Oh , really yeah .
Yeah , I think it will probably occur to me again . I think they're the only place of I've actually done events in .
Yeah , okay , and Do you think there's ? There's something special about running Somewhere else which isn't like your back doors .
I think all these things I've done as part of a group of people right and it's . For me , it's always been just Just spending time with people I enjoy being with , doing things that I enjoy doing so . For me they are special , but they're special because it's a Sociable thing .
Do you find just going , just just tapping into that , do you find that , as say , running with other people is , it's not just more enjoyable , but I just think it's more motivating ?
Yeah , I think it is motivating , but for ? Me it is more enjoyable as well , I think , nowadays .
I started running and Before I joined the club , it was all about what I could achieve , and since really joining the club and then maybe talk about it later with part-run and other communities that I'm a member of is actually running his second and the community that I'm part of , his first now .
So what would you say to someone who is hesitant about joining a community ? And what would you say ? Would you say that those are the benefits and being involved in that kind of thing .
Yeah , it worked for me . I wouldn't like to say that some people have different goals and at one point I had very strong goals around what I wanted to achieve as a runner . And now actually , if I could never get a PB again which I probably won't do this , but if I could never get a PB again , I would still be part of these communities .
If I got injured and I could never run again , I'd still be part of these communities because I'd still turn up and support and that kind of
¶ Running, Coaching, and Ultra Marathons
thing . So running has enabled me to just meet some of the most wonderful people sportive people and friends that I could ever meet . And so it's given me so much .
At least from a mental health point of view , and there's no judgement .
I think we all have expectations about ourselves . But , actually nobody else cares .
If .
I miss if I can't get sub 30 at a park run . I'm the only person who cares about that . Nobody else in front or behind me cares . I think it's important . Everybody's fighting their own battle out there on the course and nobody's judging other people .
Yeah , I think that's the beauty about it . So you did the like . I said we'll talk about the park run later , but so you had that one coach , great . And then I understood then you've had , apart from Andrew , you've had one other , I had one other , yeah , so that came out of .
We went to some friends and I went on a running weekend in Morocco in the Atlas Mountains , which I'm very worried about the people we went there . Now I saw that picture on your phone and it was run by husband and wife , although the wife wasn't there . His name is Tom Bond Payne and he's actually a competitive ultra runner in his own right .
Actually , he's very very good . And he runs . He does remote coaching as well , so we had a lovely long weekend there and I spent quite a lot of time talking to him about his coaching . And I'd had this seed in my mind about really wanting to do comrades .
Tell me more . What's that ?
Yeah , ok , comrades is an ultra marathon in South Africa . Oh gosh how far is it ? I honestly sorry I've blanked , I don't .
I can't remember how long it is , but it's a very long ultra run that runs from Peter Maritzburg to Durban , I think , and then the year after it runs from Durban to Peter Maritzburg and there's a one year it's up , net uphill , one year it's net downhill .
But it's a very grueling marathon with ultra marathon , with quite a tight cutoff Right , and my grandparents used to live in Peter Maritzburg and I'd always had this idea in my mind that I would like to do it .
Yeah , yeah .
And so I was talking to Tom about it and I decided to take up his remote coaching package .
Yeah .
When I came back and we started working together , but that was in 2019 and very soon after Covid hit . Oh , yes , of course , and I kept with him for probably about another year and actually the first year in 2020 , when everything started moving , opening up again .
I was getting some and and on my own doing my training , I was actually getting some really good times and it worked really well . But then I started getting injured and I started started thinking I don't really know if I want this anymore . Suddenly , I think Covid and the lack of travel and just very different atmosphere .
Suddenly , the my idea of wanting to do common race just dissipated and I just suddenly thought actually I don't think I want this anymore . And at the same time I was getting problems with my ankle and I just thought I'm just going to stop running for a while .
So I just said to Tom that I was going to take a break and I didn't know what was going to happen . Yeah , so that's how that ended , but I'm very amicably and I would really recommend him if somebody's looking for that for a coach .
Yeah , what sort of what ? Did he differ wildly from your first coach ?
The difference , I think , is so that the first coach was very much just doing the weekly sessions strength and conditioning sessions and then she wrote me a plan and I spoke to her every week about that . Tom was more . It was actually in some ways it was similar that he would give you a plan , but it's totally bespoke . I'd speak to him once at fortnight .
He would change plans around , just change it around , depending on what had happened the previous fortnight . It was probably a little bit bespoke and a little bit more hands-on than Helen , but probably reasonably similar .
So with Helen , did you get an opportunity to work together ? Yeah , we talked a lot because I saw her once a week .
She wasn't a coach . She didn't look at my running form or anything like that . Although she did see me on the track because we did a time mile together once , but face-to-face it was all about strength and conditioning and then she would write the plan for me as well .
And Tom wasn't it yeah . And did you see similar patterns between the two coaches in terms of the program that he run ? Obviously he was prescribing for an ultra . We were just doing base training really at the time because I felt he would tear my fitness up , but .
Tom had quite a large repertoire of different sessions that I'd never seen before . So I would say he was probably a bit more I don't want to say imaginative , but he seemed to have a lot in his repertoire to pull out and which kept it interesting and they were all challenging .
¶ Challenging Float Sessions in Running
Obviously not the easy runs , but the quality sessions were all pretty challenging .
So what an example .
The float sessions I thought were amazing .
Float .
Yeah , so you basically over the course of I can't remember now probably about 15-20 minutes , but you cycle between quite a hard pace and slightly easier pace , but not an easy pace , so you're never actually getting back down to recovery . And I mean , when I saw that session I thought how am I going to do that ?
But actually it's one of those type 2 fun , isn't it ? Once you've finished , you think oh , that was really good .
Yeah , you do get that a lot .
So what I ?
like about doing those kind of speed sessions is you find with that elevation of your heart rate and kind of the endorphin rush once you've finished ?
you feel ?
yeah , I was all right , but I wasn't looking forward to going up to the first place , oh yeah , so basically COVID kind of put the caution on it . Caution on that , and then you didn't think so .