¶ Exploring Ultramarathons and Setting Running Goals
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 Rompod . So welcome back to Brian's Rompod . Now the final part of my discussion with podcaster Dominic Brown . I started off by asking about his experience in entering his first ultramarathon .
If you haven't listened to the first two episodes , then please do have a listen in our back catalogue . I really know that you will enjoy our chat . So you said you did an ultramarathon . What was the distance ?
57 miles . It was meant to be 50 . The 7 miles at the end was a lovely present that we didn't expect . Didn't really expect January 2020 , mike , who spoke about the head of the running show , raccoon , growled to me at the end of an international running show and said I'll come with me . Okay , what's going on ?
I'm in trouble Took me to a stand and ultra event stand and said right , which one will be booking ? I said , don't worry , I'll pay the entry , whatever . Which one to be doing ? There was one that was about three weeks away and I said , no , I'm not doing that .
I thought I looked down and went oh , that one's in this would have been in January , this one's in November . Let's do that because that's 10 months away , I don't have to worry about it yet . And it was Glasgow to Edinburgh . I said I'll train from three months out . That'll be fine . Yeah , train from there . I'll train from two months out .
After six weeks , four weeks , yeah , that's all of a sudden I need to book flights in a hotel and I'm like four weeks away and I'm scared . I've never done anything past a marathon . I'm not going to be able to do this .
All those doubts that will come into cold feet that come into it whether you're doing any distance race or a new job or a new school , a new university , anything like that cold feet and flew up to Edinburgh and met him and I probably wouldn't have been able to do it without Mike .
He's run a hundred mile races before and countless 50 mile races and he's a mentalist machine . I mean that has been . He's got a great mentality . He's a little bit mental I'll say that himself . But yeah , managed to complete the Glasgow to Edinburgh , which is a beautiful race through GB Altrues , who were amazing . Everyone who ran it was amazing .
The people that set it up . I mean it was deathly flat , it was absolutely flat , which I thought fantastic . Flat ultra marathon , just what you want for your first one 50 miles , 57 miles , and which was great . But it means that with no incline , you don't know when you're going to walk . You have to really like .
A big part of ultra marathon running is timing .
Your timing , your walking to running periods , which we as people out I was going to ask you that , whether did you run that or were you , did you , was it kind ? Of a mile walking and then running .
I mean there are people that run the whole thing because they're unbelievable athletes . Unbelievable athletes , people that run a hundred miles without stopping pretty much apart from to eat and to go to the loo .
The role general role that I've kind of picked up over the last couple of years is that a hundred mile races is sort of 50 , 50 , average time and I would say that with the 57 , we , we probably ran about 70 to 75% of it and walked about 20 , 25% because the the the thing that I would have done is right .
I'm going to run the first 15 , 20 , 25 miles flat and then sort of do it bit by bit . But Mike was slowing me down at four miles and then said , no , we've run four miles , we're going to walk the next half mile , we're going to really .
Oh , he was , he was , he was with you . Yeah , oh yeah .
We ran it . We ran it together , pretty much side by side , for the entire 13 hours or 12 , a 12 hours I think it took actually managed to not get fired , which was great . It's been 12 hours and with your CEO chatting rubbish and eating loads of food .
Then there's probably I think there was a checkpoint that was 30 , like a 13 mile checkpoint , the biggest checkpoint between like 33 and 46 miles . Really , when you don't want a long stint to be that , I kind of had a bit of a meltdown . I went this is stupid . Why am I doing this ? This is ridiculous . I never wanted to stop .
I was like this is stupid and we sort of yo-yo'd each other . We thought we'd had enough speaking with each other . The key thing that I never would have thought about is when you are walking , don't just stroll , you walk with purpose . I mean he's six foot stupid , six foot 12 , so it's six foot five . So here's walking pace .
I'm six foot three but I couldn't keep up with him . But yeah , unbelievable experience . And you finish round an actual 400 meter track . I say you run round there and I did do a video about it which is on the YouTube . Last guy to Edinburgh . I mean I never thought I'd do a marathon that learn an ultramarad .
Is that the Merdo Bank Stadium or is it the ?
I'm not entirely sure where it was . It was just on the outskirts of Edinburgh . It was pretty much along the canal all the way from Glasgow to Edinburgh , yeah . But now I've kind of gone , like I spoke about that glass ceiling of oh , I never thought I'd be able to do a marathon than an ultra . Maybe I could do 100 miles .
I mean , I'm nowhere near that now , but it's something that is added to the bucket list that I never , ever thought two and a half years ago , demonizing my fellow K , that I'd ever want to do .
So yeah , that comes from chatting to the people that I've been able to chat to and fellow community people , and just being able to break through my own mental barriers .
Because I think it's a TV presenter , the news anchor Sophie Rayworth . I think she's done quite a few .
Yeah , she's . I don't think she's spoken at the show before , but she's definitely a friend of the show .
She's been through and yes , yeah , and I think she's right . Yeah , she's done a lot of talent is . Yeah , whether she'll appear on Brian's Runport is enough yeah . You never know .
Yeah , you never know , that's that's . Sometimes you just outloads of emails , people that loads of agents and some it will come back yeah . Casting a growing a podcast .
Yes , yeah , yeah , I can't believe you've done I don't know 21 minutes already , so but what are your goals for this year in terms of running ? I mean , are you going to keep up running ? Have you got the running bug now ?
Oh , 100% . The running bug is well and truly taken over me . But what I try and do now is actually break down my years into different segments so that I'm not just running flat out or playing sport for now or gymming for now or trying to do all three of them at the same time , although I was just burned out .
So at the moment my kind of focus is doing gym work and strength work and playing football and that type of thing . I'm still running once or twice a week just to kind of keep that going . And I kind of want to make sure I had to run every single week and I've kind of been in that mindset since about November .
And then when it gets to March , I mean it really just look , coincidentally goes with the weather patterns and the temperature , so the gym's inside and then as soon as it gets to March , I probably step outside a lot more and then go right , I'm going to look to get a marathon training plan going again .
Step up the running , step up the fitness , kind of still go to the gym , but use it for more strength work stuff . And the aim for this year is to finally do a marathon event . I'll probably run one on my own First and then look to do an event . The dream is to run London Marathon . Obviously , that's not going to happen this year .
I know people have been entering London Marathon for years and years , or fortunate enough to I say fortunate enough , but all running it for a charity . That would be the ultimate dream I'm going to go along and support . I have a few running goals . I'd love to do another 50 mile this year . I'd love to get under 20-minute 5K .
I'm 12 seconds away from that . That's my best . Little steps for me . I like to do rather than going . I'm going to run 100 miles . I'm going to do the little steps that get me there first . Just try to keep enjoying it . I don't want it to become something that I become bored of because I've spent the time transitioning into this love for running .
I think it will always stay there , but just finding ways to keep it fresh fun . I'm going to keep trying to get my mom down to park run . She's 16 . She does spin sessions every week and she walks the dogs every day . She can do it . Oh no , I can't do that . I'm going to drag you down to a park run on a Saturday morning .
That's probably the aim of the first quarter of this year . Let's get her down to a park run .
Do you have quite a few near you or part runs ?
We do . There's one , guildford Stoke Park . That's great . We've been there as a company before . We work with Park Run and Ipro , who I think work with Park Run as well , like a drinks company . I'd love to do more . I've only done about three or four park runs , which I'm a massive advocate for park run . I'm a massive . Yeah , what they do is great .
But purely because I play sport , most Saturdays I don't usually go and play a 5K and then go and play 90 minutes of football or a whole day of cricket or whatever . When I'm not doing that , then I usually do go down to a park run . I was fortunate enough to speak to Brian Fordeis , who was part of , who brought Park Run over to South Africa .
Right , I think that's quite popular there , isn't it ?
Yeah , massive . Although he told a story once of some reason the radio frequencies or something . However , the contact was working . The radio in South Africa had picked up the radio in a park run in the outer skirts of London . Really , they had paused the South African park run . I can't remember exactly where it was .
I think it was somewhere in South Africa , maybe around Joberg . We've got to delay it because there's a lion on the route . Oh no , this came through to the one in the UK and they're going . What's going on ? It's a funny story about that miscommunication . I'm not sure how .
I've probably told the story slightly wrong , but the essence is that In London they thought there was a lion on the route and it was actually just in South Africa . So , yeah , more park runs is definitely on the list this year .
¶ Podcasting Tips and Insights
There's a funny story I heard which is kind of about radio communication . It's to do with a bit of a Formula One nerd where David Coulthard was testing at Silverstone and how they have this two-way radio communication with his engineers .
He actually got a taxi firm that had actually somehow interrupted his or mixed in with his radio communication and they said oh , can we have two going to Chelmsford Police or something like that ?
You know he's going on the next one and he said really , yeah , he was like , hmm , I don't think they'll be able to fit in .
Yeah , exactly , so he was going like 180 then you know . So that's just an aside In terms ofI've got down here podcasting tips and what have you learned from doing your podcasting ? I know I've learned tons doing it . You know , for the past year or so You've been doing it for a bit longer than mine . So what were the tips about your podcasting journey ?
If you have something you've learned along the way , that's a great question .
Ask the great questions , that's a good tip .
No , I've always considered myself to be quite an empathetic person that can get along with all varieties of people , which I think helps I mean , you did it when we were having a chat before this podcast of just making someone feel comfortable or , you know , presenting them with the questions or kind of giving them a rough theme of what you want to talk about .
Because , ultimately , if you are going to have a chat with someone , whether it's an interview or a conversation , whatever you want them to give the best answers or to have the best conversation . So if you kind of create that , that if you create a habitat or an environment that's going to foster those conversations , then it's always going to help .
I mean , I've done a lot of interviews but I was nervous coming onto this because I've never really been on the other side , which is really really weird and probably why I've just chatted on for hours and hours .
But I think what I've learned over the last couple of years is really getting an idea of what I want to get from the conversation and how I can , yes , make this person feel comfortable , but how I can maybe create I've got half an hour , an hour with this person .
How am I going to be able to create this story or this piece of content that I think people are going to want to engage with ? And like I give the example of Sir Chris Hoy .
Again , he's been interviewed X amount of times , x amount of thousand times about the same things usually , and it's tough because it's trying to strike the balance of yes , obviously you want to hear about the Olympics .
If I'm tuning in to listen to an episode with Sir Chris Hoy , I expect some level of cycling in an Olympics , but then I'm thinking what I'm researching , what can I get from them ? That maybe is slightly different .
We ended up chatting about his cycling now and how sometimes people are cycling alongside him and looking at Chris Hoy and they try to challenge him up the hill . And Ray Mears I thought I'm going to chat to Ray Mears about wilderness and tips and stuff like that .
We spent the first 20 minutes chatting about social media and different generational view between social media and his viewpoint on that , and sometimes conversations come up that you don't plan for . I can write down . I kind of have a little thing in front of me of questions and topics and things like that , but I try not to make it question one , question two .
Sometimes you have to meander with the way the conversation goes and sometimes I end up talking to someone about something completely different . Chris Thompson , who's an unbelievable runner , who's the loveliest guy , just such a passion for running .
I really recommend you to connect with him , brian , who loves running and is a very , very talented runner , and we spoke for about an hour and 20 minutes . Nothing that I'd planned about , but it was all about the passion for running and the love for running , and sometimes you just got to go with that .
Sometimes you've just got to throw it and think , instead of going , hold on , I'm going to stop you there . I've got to ask you about this 5K that you did in 2012 of just having a conversation . I always say to people when we sit down in the Zoom call or sit down in person , I say this is not like .
I don't want this to be an interview , I want it to be as much of a conversation . Now , inherently with a podcast , it's going to be asking questions . It's that type of format . It's more investigative isn't the right word , but it's .
You know , it's having a chat with people , but I seem to be doing something right , because people such as Caitlin have been very , very kind and it's very humbling when people say oh , you know you're , you're you make me feel comfortable , like you make me you kind of .
I just want to have a chat and I'm not trying to get anything , I'm not trying to expose something , I'm not trying to get an inside scoop about anything . I'm just trying to make people feel comfortable , have a chat and hopefully people like to listen to it .
You know , which has been very much my experience here of just having a chat about things that we're both passionate about , that we think people would and , like I said at the end of the interview , it wasn't .
It was kind of off the end when I finished the interview and I said to Caitlin , I said I don't really care what anyone who else thinks . You know I enjoy , you know I've loved , I enjoyed our chat today and I've enjoyed chatting to other people sort of thing , and I think you know so long as that comes across .
You know it's just like chat with you know someone else , you know human being or , as it were , and you just want to . You know the things that will come out of it , which you don't expect sort of thing .
You know it's like , for instance , the one with Ailish with you know how she has a very small team and how she kind of lacks that self-confidence and how she wants to be .
You know get how that team is very important to her to help raise her confidence , to help her say well , you know , you can win at the Commonwealth Games , you can do the 10K sort of thing , you know , because she has some massive boots to fill in terms of her mum was a world champion , you know , and she got a silver at the Olympic Games , which I've
forgotten about . so yeah , it has to be , but she said , but also the thing that I claimed from me was that she said you know , her mum didn't maybe enjoy as much . You know , I didn't .
You know that bit about where she left after the sports personnel she's one of the few women to win the sports personnel to do the year and then she just left , didn't go to the party , you know .
But she's there to do the best she can and I think that's a lesson for everyone do the best she can and enjoy her running and everything that it brings to her .
Yeah , no , you said you covered it there she was .
Ailish was very , very shy and in fact when she was going around the show , I mean she lovely , absolutely lovely , and was great at the show , but you know , people coming up to her and having conversations and taking photos wasn't something that she had been particularly used to and it was quite new for her and she's kind of settling in with that .
But unbelievable , like you said , talent and the support that she said she had from her mother as well . But obviously both seem to be quite shy .
But yeah , I think like and you said there , just enjoying it .
Which kind of about what you said about the podcast is that obviously you've started this from this is you ? You do these conversations for you , which I think is the most . It has to be the most important thing and the driving point , and that's what I try and do with O&A .
Yes , okay , it's connected to the business , but actually I do these interviews because I get very fortunate to have the opportunity to do that . Yes , it's my job , but I want to do it for me and to learn more about these people and to inspire my own life .
And then the dominant effect of that is that it goes out and we reach more people and you know people want to be part of it and that's where the sponsorship side comes in . But the initial part of it is because I enjoy it and the content's there . So , yeah , we've gone through the podcasting tips and we've done a lot of it .
No , that was great , right , I think we've nearly an hour and five minutes , which is great so hang on , Sorry . I'm tagging on . It's been brilliant .
Okay , I think we'd sort of like to sort of bring it to an end and , as I said , any tips before we kind of go into you where we could get to you any tips for people who are kind of sitting on the fence about running or want to you know something that we haven't covered in the podcast , sort of taking that first step out the door .
I think I could offer practical and logistic advice that you'd be able to find anywhere , or you could get the right shoes or map it all out , or lay out your clothes the night before and make yourself do it .
I think so much of health and fitness and sport and life and stuff like that comes down to mindset and discipline and motivation and it's like okay , you want to run . Okay , you figured that out , you want to run . Why do you want to run ? Is it because you want to lose weight ? Is it because you want to get quicker ?
Is it because you've got a race coming up ? Is it because , xyz , you need to get out the house ? You're struggling with your mental wellbeing . You're mental health . At this point in time .
Don't think about the what happens when you know I post on , what happens when I post it , or what happens if I can't do it , what happens when the people often have these negative things that come in first , like I said about I had said about running the Ultra . I think was all the negative things come in first .
If you can train your brain to be disciplined and just take little steps at a time , just don't think about the end goal , don't think about where , what could happen , what couldn't happen . Don't worry about things that you can't control or that haven't happened yet . And that's not just running , that's anything with life . Or what happens if I fail this exam ?
What happens if I do the XYZ ? First thing get out the front door , walk to the end of the road . Micro adventures I think it's Alastair , alastair , humphries , alastair , humphries always about micro . Just get to the end of the road first . We spoke about this earlier . Boom , one thing ticked off . Already Get your bed in the morning .
Tick , already done before you've even got outside .
¶ Positive Mindset in Running
One positive thing ticked off , boom , put your shoes on . Two positive things , little things don't think about . I've run my 5K one big tick . I've put the clothes on , I've done the washing , I've got outside , I've done a little stretch , I've done a little warm up .
Fine , and if you get to the end of the road you think , well , I can't , at least you've got outside . Forget about the physical and importance of it first for it to begin with . Then train your brain to be positive about what you're doing , be positive about every little thing that you achieve during the day , and you'll find that that will come .
You know , the running and positives will come after that .
So mindset , think about mindset , be positive , believe in yourself and then all of the benefits that we've spoken about during this podcast are breaking through barriers and achieving things that you won't be able to see , you never thought you would would come from that and you'll never regret a run and firmly , firmly believe that .
Great , I just want to say thank you , thank you really so much for being on the podcast and we'd like to say as to kind of any links , social media where people can get , yeah , of course , I return the thanks to you massively .
It's great having a fellow podcaster and a fellow running enthusiastically asked to have a chat with and I again I apologize for rambling on for ages and ages it's quite nice to have this kind of chat .
Yeah , if you are kind of just starting or want to learn more about running and the outdoors world , then please join and come along outside and active pretty much YouTube outside and activecom and you can find the rest of the links from there . Be outside , be active on Instagram outside and active on Facebook .
I'm Dom Brown , 12 on Instagram in case you that's a find out a bit more about me , but more about the running and the platform is outside and active . And , yeah , thank you .
Thank you so much for Brian , for this opportunity and for having a chat about the outdoors and we'll see , we'll be looking forward to this , coming out and sharing it and cross promoting it and stuff like that would be great .