¶ Running Coach and Training With Wren
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 . Welcome back to the second part of our discussion with Tamsen Birdland . If you haven't heard our first chat , then please do have a listen .
In the second part we started talking about how she came across her current running coach , andrew Wren . I really do hope you enjoy our chat . How did you find out about Andrew Wren ?
Yeah . So , as I mentioned , I pretty much stopped running because I was having this pain in my ankle and I just thought you know what ? I don't enjoy it . It shouldn't hurt to run . I'm not one of these people who's going to run through the pain .
It's hurting for a reason , but it didn't hurt all the time and I was pretty convinced that actually my running form was probably I just probably wasn't running properly . Something had gone wrong . So I thought what I need is not a strength and conditioning coach , it's not a remote coach . I need somebody to watch me run and tell me what I'm doing wrong .
So then I just went to Google and I literally typed in running form coach near Tickenham .
Oh , let's see , and he came up . Good SEO for Andrew Wren . Yes , tick .
Not at the top . I had to scroll down a bit , but so I found him and then I did nothing about it . And then I did it again about six weeks later and then I read it , read his thing again and I thought , yeah , now I'm going to give this a go . That's how it happened .
Yes , I mean yeah , I said I've interviewed him and he's a really passionate and lovely guy , so it was just a first session , like first session , so he does a free introductory session . Yeah .
So that's mainly just going for running , giving a potted history of where you are and what you've done , and he has . He quite likes to say that he's got amazing peripheral vision so he can study your form while running alongside you .
Oh , I see , so he's sort of .
I think he'd probably be sussed within about the first 10 minutes of running , and then just at the end we did a few sprints as well , because he wanted to see how I ran at high speed .
Yeah .
And , to be honest , bless him . I think he pretty much fixed my issues at the end of that session . He just said you just need to do , you just need to change a couple of things , right , and this is what you need to do , yeah , and then we could have potted at that point and I could have got all I needed without paying a price .
Should I say that or not ? I don't think .
But he left you wanting more he left me wanting more .
Yeah and yeah , I liked him . We seem to get on well and I just I'm going to give this a go . So , we've been working together ever since . There's still plenty of other things that can be worked on . In my form , I'm not perfect yeah .
I think the fact I was looking down and not looking up and my shoulders were around my ears were probably the two major things that were hurting me . But since then we've worked on other things like my cadence and relaxing through the whole body and things .
Yeah , because I am hoping to , at some stage , that they have agreed a gate running a nice guy who's across the road . So hopefully we'll be talking to that a bit more detail .
But I would like to like just to drill into the cadence thing because I know it's something that they various apps and because now the apps can tell you what your cadence is and mine's like 160 and I can't seem to get it up . Did he give you a figure what it should be ?
I think . I don't think he did really . I think the thing is it's another thing you have to be really careful with the apps because it is an individual thing .
Yeah .
It was really more about , I think , for me I was overstriding with especially with my left leg and being just doing different drills , it made me feel like where I should be placing my foot .
Right .
And the fact I think one thing that I've done with him that I've learned a lot about is that actually you get faster by putting more power through your foot , not striding further forward .
That's interesting .
I like that so stamping down , especially if you're doing sprinting , stamping down into the ground rather than actually throwing your legs further forward in a longer stride is going to give you much more speed , and I've found a lot of the work we've done now that I can go out running at quite a low speed but keep a really nice steady cadence , whereas previously
my cadence went all over the place . It would be up and down and everywhere . Now I can do a nice easy run and it will be basically about my easy run is about 166 . to be honest , it's quite low as well . But I can keep it consistent , which is yeah , you know I think that's definitely an improvement .
But did you find you were put in here Somewhere that I was trying to ? Because when I Was read up about cadence like kind of thing and I tried to go out running and trying to improve the speed of the cadence . I was trying to shoehorn myself into something that really Didn't exist and I just felt really comfortable .
Yeah , I think this is . I think this is one of the issues . I think as a species , we're born to run . You look at small children and they're just running around . They're nobody's worried about their form , they're just running . But I think as adults , we are really especially ones who are sitting down all day .
There's so many difficulties and I think I wouldn't say that that what you find on the internet or in a book is necessarily should be ignored . But I think If somebody watches you run , they can see where your issues are . They're an article on Runners world can't do .
Yes .
And so what I found with Andy is it's just a cues . He gives me the cues . He should be looking at the tops of the trees . He should be try doing it . Think about this . Yeah , I think that's probably a much better way of learning to run . Yeah with better form than just reading an article and then trying to translate what they've said .
Yeah when you're out on your own and you can't see what you're doing .
Yeah , so you can watch . It's like you can watch other people . When I see them out running Especially if you get the wife and and you just see them . They're not professional athletes , but they just look , they're very at peace and running Relact I said , oh , I can't .
I've been overtaken by a kid , one of the Kenyan runners and pushy , pushy part before .
Ah , and it's just you , just stop , just stop .
And just say wow , it's , it's , yeah , yeah yeah , there's that famous book .
I think is it born to run , which came out .
Yeah , quite a few years ago , yeah .
About , about these particular runners , and they just run in yeah . Sandals or something like that . Yeah , ultra runners and runners . So I think . Was there anything else that he that you felt that he , he provided you with , in terms of that was quite different to your previous coaches .
It's just having having a run buddy to be . I know I have plenty run buddies , but I just really enjoy the sessions . It's very different to be doing hard sessions with somebody else who could give you really good feedback and you have a laugh along the way as well . It's not that , it's not always that serious and so , yeah , it's just a really .
It's just a really positive experience . I always come back from a session with him on a real high and even if Even if the feedback is this needs to be improved , it's never done in a way that makes me feel like I'm Failing or I'm rubbish or anything . It's always a really positive experience .
Because I thought when I'm talking to him was turning into the Andrews . Now , when talking to him , he seemed to be quite imaginative . I'm sure there's other coaches that like that . In terms of today , we're gonna be running like a gazelle .
Yeah , you know that kind of thing .
Yeah , with his sessions or whatever , and the other feedback I got , or the other thing I'm called Glean from discussion was that he had a kind of like a Goal for everything .
I'm going to be doing , I'm going , I've set myself a goal of having a standing jump of .
So , what I'm going to be doing . This and that was quite . That was quite important to him . To set yourself Different goals doesn't have to be about running , but it would be about other types of physical exercise thing . So he was .
I don't know if that's something that's that's have been helpful to you to be quite goal-orientated In terms of your running or other things .
I think maybe I was once . I Think I'm much more . I Can say I do set myself goals . Every year I set myself goals . I have a list of them , yeah you write them down ?
I do yeah .
I have the web community that I remember of . I put them on there and I report back on my blog every month About my progress .
Okay , but to me it is the process .
So , rather than I've got this goal , but actually how am I going to achieve it ? And am I ? And if I'm not going to enjoy the process of achieving it , then there's no point doing it . I I'm not prepared to set myself a goal that means that for the whole year , or for two months or whatever , I'm going to be really miserable .
Because it's just not worth it , because when you have a goal to achieve a goal , actually achieving that girl's only about 1% of your time and 99% of that time is doing the process so that you can achieve that goal .
¶ Community in Park Run and Heroes
Yeah , so I'm a very much a focus on the process . Person , nowadays you know it's all about the process .
Just turn up , do what you need to do and don't stress about the goal and and would you agree that kind of having that variety is as important as part of that process ?
Yeah , I guess it depends on the gold . So I have a goal to try and do a unassisted pull-up by the end of this year .
So I'm doing lots of exercises for that , but they're all pretty similar because I'm just every so often I progress to a new Phase of that , but that is literally just Working the muscles to get them strong enough so that I can do a pull-up .
So , yeah , I wouldn't say there's a lot of variety , but obviously running base goals if they're based on I want to do X number of miles in a year , then I would definitely recommend that you don't just go and run around the block Three times a week and never do anything different .
Yeah .
I think it's very gold-dependent .
You're still with Andrew .
I am yeah , yeah , okay .
And so how often do you have ?
to shop once a month once a fortnight , yeah , but we're not . I'm not .
So what I'm not doing says what's different from the last time is I'm not working towards anything right , and we play with a few ideas about what I could be doing and we've actually found that that I really enjoyed doing the speed work rather than so , and what I'm talking about there is sprinting .
Yes so we're actually working on 100 meter , 200 meter sprints and maybe moving that up to the mile were possibly working towards me trying to get a good age grade for the mile .
But , to be honest , with the , with injuries and things going , going backwards and forwards sometime , and I've had other stresses this year , so , yeah , I'm not poking myself on any pressure . Yeah , we just meet up and have some fun .
I was reading on the blog when you turned up he said are we today ? We're gonna run the perfect 800 . Yeah .
It's a strong start yeah and then a float yes and then a push at the end . That's it . So it's basically yeah , start off with purpose , then keep a steady pace in the middle and then Go for it at the end .
Okay , and so was that you did that in one session , or was it something you've done ?
We've done it , and we've done that a few times , been working , yeah , but when he may say we're gonna run the perfect 800 today may not be that I do end up running the perfect 800 but it's a goal for the for the session , rather than we're just gonna learn about what the ? Best way to run an 800 would be . Okay let's move on to park run , okay .
Now , we were talking prior . Then I got it wrong that you weren't . You didn't set it up . No no , but you were one of the founder , yeah so we got from sort of day one .
There was a call out for people who wanted to be on the core team and maybe train up to be run directors and that kind of thing . Right , yeah , so I step forward at the beginning from that , yeah .
And so what's what ? So what was that sort of ? Was there any training involved in terms of being a course director ? I think ?
gosh , not really . I think a lot of it was just Doing a lot of volunteering , so we had . It was set up by somebody who's always already an event director Right locally at a different part run right so he did it .
I think he committed to run directing for something like the first eight weeks or something Okay , while the team came in and we were just I just remember doing a lot of volunteering , doing lots of different roles and pretty much by the time we started , each of us Started being a run director . We , we knew the drill pretty well .
Yeah and we were looking at very low numbers in those first we were getting I think that I think the inaugural one we got a hundred but after that yeah , looking at 30 people , 40 people a week , so it just it wasn't . We could run it just about on three or four volunteers .
And I just want to add , for international listeners because we do have international listeners from you , from America to Australia that it is the Crane Park rug .
Crane Park , which is near Tuckinham , yeah , so .
Not very far away from where it all started .
No , no , it's only a couple of miles .
Yeah , yeah , so you started off with , let's say , about 100 people and how many years ago was that ?
It's 2012 2012 .
yeah , oh , we see so in the big year . Yeah , oh , wow .
Yeah , I . The reason why I remember that is that Duncan , who was the first vent director , missed one of the weeks because he was part of the opening ceremony . Ah yeah , so that's yeah , I remember that very clearly .
Okay , and what do you get out of it ? What's being part of ?
I think it's the people , obviously again , and I think For me , I Get as much out of volunteering as I give . Yes , it is , it's something I really enjoy doing and it's something I think . I , something I can do , something . I'm knowledgeable , I know , I know what part runs about and I can , I think , make a significant contribution .
Contribution , people's enjoyment of the event , hopefully , and yeah , it just it's Park Run has given so much to so many people and brought running to people who may never have done it .
You just enter my next question as to why has it been so successful ?
Okay , so this is really interesting . Actually , I'm almost certain it's the community aspect , and it's the same for the Running Club and also , I think , for the online community I'm a member of .
There's a guy called I'm going to butcher his name Eli Parrysir , I think , who's studied online communities and compared them to community in life communities and wanted to find out what worked and what didn't .
And it seems that in real life , outside of the digital world , a community needs a built space , a programme and a benign overseer leader , and if you have so , the built space would be the Park Run or a park . The programme is a time where everybody could meet some sort of programming .
So in a park it could just be that there's a band playing or something , so everybody takes their kids to them . And then there's sort of benign overseer to make sure nothing gets out of hand . And all those three actually are the same for Park Run . You've got the course .
You've got the 9 o'clock Saturday start and you've got the event director and the run directors just making sure that everything happens smoothly . So I think it's the magic formula for a community to be built , and that's what's happening .
And it's like running or the exercise part is just a byproduct .
It's not necessarily , because it could be something else you could be knitting in a circle , something , like that you could be a member of a church group . It's exactly the same thing . Because , I know it's not quite the same thing , but that's what I enjoy about doing .
The podcast is when I interview people , you get the story and also that which we have . Like you said , it's something we you know because we have our jobs , which are either online or whatever we don't get , and even more so after COVID because people are working from home , they're not getting that face to face interaction type of thing .
But that's quite an interesting point and I don't know , maybe this is a bit left field sort of thing , but I don't know whether we as an English community I don't know . I know I have Latin American roots , quite family , and that community is very important , but I'm not sure whether us in the English community were that good at that . I'm not sure .
Let's say that we used to be yeah .
Okay , that's good . My gosh , we've done 50 minutes , wow . So that I was really interested to know . As to one of the last questions is what was do you have any sporting heroes ?
I do yeah , I didn't think about this one . I think the first person who always comes to mind since she did this couple years ago is Jasmine Paris , who ran the 268 mile Spine race and won it .
Wow .
So that's up the penine . There's a race through the penines and she , so she be beat all the men . On top of that , she had to stop every couple of hours to express milk . That is one Hard lady . I just can't get over . I think at the moment , all the these generation of women athletes , footballers , crickets , yeah it is .
You know , they're just stepping up and owning the space and just getting on with it with , just ignoring any kind of Sneery remarks from from the sidelines and just getting on and absolutely smashing it out there . I just think they are an amazing generation . Yeah , I .
I Totally agree with you . I just think the entertainment value is is just there as well . Yeah , and it's . They've bought through grit , determination , administration .
Whatever it's .
Definitely Become the norm . Yeah , you don't even think about no , it's . Obviously with how well the England team did in the World Cup , but it wasn't . Maybe 10 , 15 years ago you would have noticed that disparity or it's women playing football .
Yeah , but now you don't yeah there is to come that far , whereas maybe the men's game took a lot longer To come that far in terms of professionalism , to a to stadium of 80,000 . That's just . It is phenomenal .
And watching the athletics last week I've I found myself realizing that I was actually enjoying the women's races , watching them , more than the men's . Just what was going on in there and the personalities it just seems they're very different , but I'm just so pleased that they're getting . They're on an equal footing now .
Yeah , their achievements are being celebrated just as much . Yeah , exactly yeah .
I think , yeah , a lot women over the . We mean even from the name . That escapes me . But the woman who did the first Boston marathon , yes , yeah , actually she was on my long list . Oh yeah absolutely .
I mean just the . I'm quite a timid person when it comes to dealing with authority and the balls . She had to do that , yeah .
Yeah , there's a very good one to promote , another podcast on BBC sounds about . So they had an interview with her and and it's quite interesting podcast about her doing it . So and it was just like quite , she's quite non-slip . She said , yeah , I can do that , yeah , I .
Want to be like her when I grow up .
But so you're still enjoying running , although you did say you've had a bit of an injury .
Yeah , my back's a bit dodgy at the moment . I've just got to see that through . I'm sure it'll get better . But yeah , I'm just taking a bit of time . I can run . I probably will run tomorrow , but I just thought I had some sports therapy yesterday so I just decided not to . I just go part runner miss today .
Yeah , okay , also known today . If you're not being the race director , you run it as well .
I do part run most weekends . Yeah , not always crane Right , sometimes go , there's so many in this area .
Yeah .
I quite often go to other ones as well .
Yeah , yeah it's like it means to go to another one . So Is there ? If there's anything else you would like to say ? I keep talking , oh good .
Nice things yeah .
I think the message , that the main message that I've got from my chat is about the community and it's about if you were ever hesitant about Because I know maybe some people , maybe especially women , who aren't , and I know there's a big push for to get women involved and maybe they Are you comfortable with going out on their own which , either for whatever reason
, is to maybe to be part of the community and is and there's some great ones around here .
There's the clubs , there's Park Run , there's I know you've interviewed Caitlin the Bearcat Running Club . That's a wonderful fit for somebody who's really nervous . I'd really recommend that . They are an amazing group of people .
Yeah , she's an amazing , she's a bit of a force of nature .
One thing I'd say actually on this community thing and the work of Eli one and other things that I've read , that you can't just turn up and expect to be part of the community People in general . There's been studies that people don't .
Even if you pass the same people in the street every day , you have to see them about five or six times before you then start nodding and saying morning to them .
That's fine , true yeah .
So don't . If you want to join a community , there's a bit of work that you need to do as well , and you need to turn up a few times and maybe . So I really hope that if there's anybody who's feeling nervous , that they will do it .
Yeah .
But it may not be the magic transformation in one day .
It might be especially if you go to the Bearcat .
It probably would be , but to persist as well , if you find something that you think you might like then , go a couple of times before you make up your mind .
Yeah , and , like I said , I choose my daughter as an example . This is that I just did not . My wife and I did not think she would be into exercise , but suddenly , I think she got the inspiration from somewhere else Maybe it was a peer group thing or something like that and then she just took it up .
And then she's not immediately found the benefits , or just like , and obviously I suppose it's the lesson there just give it a try and you never know , you might like it .
And there's more things out there than running if you don't Exactly .
¶ Power of the Fetch Community
And what was the online community ?
Oh , so fetch everyone .
Fetch everyone .
This was set up by a lovely man called Ian Williams on his own , it's not , it briefly flirted with the commercial providers , but he's running it on his own again now and yeah , so it's been going nearly 20 years now and it is the I think it is the online equivalent of some way like park run . Because he's built this space . People turn up every day .
He is a benign sort of overseer to make sure nobody starts getting too nasty on any of the forums , and it's just a really lovely supportive space and people can turn up and again post on a few forums people start recognizing their names and within a couple of months they fully integrated into part of the community and everybody's welcome really .
Great If there's anything you'd like to promote . Well , apart from that , I don't know if you're on social media or anything like that- Actually I really not on social .
The only social media I do is fetch everyone . That's great .
Tamsen , I just want to say I really enjoyed today . I hope you did .
I do .
Thank you . Oh good , but thank you very much for coming today and I hope you carry on running . Thank you .