¶ Paul Piper's Marathon Champion Journey
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 Brian's Rompod and I hope you're having a great week . I've just recently joined a gym New Year's resolution and all that and it just happens to be where I used to work .
Anyhow , I bumped into a friend of mine , mark , and told him about the podcast . Mark is a golf pro and said I know just the person to have in your podcast . He'd be a great guest . His name is Paul Piper and is the man behind the perfect splits and folks .
Paul has been in the running game for over 12 years and his journey from a 320 marathon debut to a mind-blowing 222 personal best by the way , that's 17 kilometers per 17 kilometers per hour on the treadmill is nothing short of inspirational . So Paul is not just a speed demon on the roads , he's also a fully certified UESCA running coach .
And get this he's conquered 24 marathons to date , including all six world marathon majors . Now that's some serious gloat-tropping for the love of running . He says , and I quote I have launched the perfect splits running because I'm incredibly passionate about running and the positive impact running can have on people's lives and the wider community in general .
My goal is your goal . My passion for running can help you achieve your running potential . So let's give a very warm Brian's run pod . Welcome to Paul Piper CHEERING . So how are you doing , paul ?
Very well , brian , thank you very much for having me on . It's an absolute pleasure to be here , great great .
What I do with most of my guests is I kind of go back to right at the beginning . I just want to know as to at school , were you kind of really much into exercise ? Were you into running ? What's your kind of your story ?
I was very sporty and we used to do cross-countries occasionally , but it was nothing more than that . And the summer sports day I used to have reasonable mobility . I'd been the top three or four , but nothing outstanding . So , yeah , it was later on in life where I found my passion . In running particularly distance running .
So you were sort of quite average .
Pretty average yeah .
But you didn't do any sort of county sports or anything like that . No , not at all Now .
I didn't qualify for any county cross-country races Within my school . I was normally in the top handful of runners but , nothing that really stood out particularly .
And then at university was the . I don't know , did you do anything ? I didn't go to university , I went to college , yeah .
Yeah , I didn't get into any sports teams there , I think . My focus was slightly leaning away from sports at that point , when I was sort of like growing up and stuff and I went to Australia for a year and a half and that was like a backpacking .
Okay working holiday and I watched a lot of sports and in pubs and stuff and drinking but yeah , I'm not actually partaking in any sports , so it seemed even further away that I'd be taking up marathon running at that stage .
Right , right . So I know from looking from , from liaising with you and looking at your notes . Here is said , basically you started at age 29 , so why so late ? I mean , was there ? Did you kind of wake up one day and you caught this kind of like you know epiphany and you know suddenly , oh right , I need to start running . Or was there any health ?
I mean , I think it's like you know Concerns or anything like that .
I think I mean looking . So much has gone on since then . It seems like 34 years ago . Oh , right , that's yeah , I think it was just the case of Doing a marathon and ticking it off and having that on the CV sort of thing and then moving on . But right , it never quite moved on .
It was , uh , it just stuck with me and uh , trying to progress with quicker times through the years and I had quite a big jump in times from my first marathon to my second marathon and then on to my third marathon and then , before I knew it , it was all about heavily involved in getting quicker marathon times right , yeah , certainly when I was hitting 31 , 32
, then I was taking my running quite seriously really .
Okay . So what was the time for your first 3 hours 20 . 3 hours 20? . Yeah , london Marathon , so you must have had some , you know , you had some verbility , because that is , that's quite a quick time .
I guess it's a fairly quick debut . I know of people that have debuted under 3 hours , which is quite exceptional .
But yeah , I guess 3.20 is quite good .
My goal was anything under 3.30 on the day .
Yeah .
And generally , if it had been another half a mile in distance I don't think I would have made it . My brother was there at mile 25 .
Yeah .
And still , to this day , he talks about the look on my face . I was completely out of it .
Oh really , I'd hit the wall , I was really clinging on at that stage and yeah just obvious areas .
Eras of not consuming any gels .
Yeah , throughout the race I was pleated . Oh , I see , so you hit the so-called wall . Yeah , I hit the wall in the first marathon , which is not uncommon .
Yeah , and yeah , obviously I went off too quick and when I've done London Marathon since then , I remember times of going around the Cutty Sark with the crowds of the deepest you know 10 deep sometimes . And that's around about the 10-kilometer mark and just like increasing my pace and the buzz and pleating my energy stores early on .
Yeah , yeah so just order use your mistakes really yeah .
Do you ? I mean you're ? I mean , we'll take a photo of you later before I forget , but you're quite a slight build . Do you think your body lends itself to endurance , running , you know , and for marathon , or were you quite ? Did you look quite ?
different then , like I was just going to say , if you'd seen me in my 20s , I don't think many people would have guessed that I'd be running sub-230 marathons . Yeah , oh right , ok , I'm training for my first marathon , I effectively lost about four stone in weight .
No yeah .
In the space of three or four months , which is probably not recommended to lose at that . Yeah , I'm not obviously the perfect build , but I think . I'm on the sliter side . Yeah , that does help , certainly yeah .
So in your opinion , do you think with a win reason that you know there is sort of like the perfect , you know , sort of build for doing marathons ?
Yeah , I mean lean muscle , the key in race as well . I've been lucky enough to be fairly close to the start . You see the East African runners and it's just incredibly lean muscle mass .
Yeah .
And obviously very light on their feet . Some of the elite Kenyan ladies or Indians will be , you know , 45 kilos and the men 55 to 60 sort of things . Yeah , so it's very minimal actual fat .
But then there , I mean , I've heard that their kind of power to weight ratio is kind of yes , yeah , yeah , absolutely yeah . So that's brilliant . That's brilliant . So did you ? I mean , you kind of set the goal as being the marathon , but did you go to any other sort of distances at the time , you know , doing 10K or even starting off doing like 5K ?
Then it obviously wasn't a park run , then no .
Even in my first few marathon training blocks I'd throw in like a half marathon a month to six weeks before , which offers a really good indicator of how quickly you can run the marathon , the target time , and also it's nice to target PBs within the marathon training block , which is perfectly feasible , including 10Ks for an Indie occasional 5K as well .
So , yeah , so my second marathon , the target was to get below three hours and obviously I knew I needed to run the half marathon low 120s to 125 maximum , probably to give me , put me in that kind of shape to know that I can hit a sub three hour . So I think . I ran Ealing , which is a fairly tough course , in about 122 .
So I thought a decent day in Chicago , I can go under three and I did just 259 .
So that was quite a big barrier to get . So you weren't a full time athlete at the time . No , I've never been a full time athlete . You've never been a full time athlete .
No , all right , no . So I do a full time job as well at the airport . All right , yeah , I always see , yeah , and also I run my coaching business , so yeah , it's quite a heavy schedule to work around .
All right , but you I mean not wanting to jump ahead , but basically because you've done the time that you've done for the marathon can you register as an athlete ?
If you put a title on it , I'd say it enters me into a lot of races as an elite in early commas but . I sort of like qualify them more as sub-elite . Really , I think elite times . I don't really qualify my times as elite times as such , but in a lot of categories . They'll say I'm elite places at certain times and they'll throw in these times .
Because sometimes I follow this guy on YouTube and basically he had to put his either UK athlete number to get into the London marathon because he did a qualifying time or something like that Championship time .
So you need to qualify for a championship time . I think for men it's under 2.40 now , I think .
It's to be 2.45 .
I think it's 2.40 . We can double check that , but you also have to be affiliated with a running club , so you have to be registered under UK athletics as well . That's quite a big target time to get a championship place in London .
I've talked about . You've done quite a few marathons around the world . Which one was your favourite ?
It's so hard to say , I'd say you've done Valencia , that must have been quite nice . I think that's been my favourite . Probably is my favourite , but that's one that I've come into in the last three or four years .
I've pretty much done it every year in the last four or five years , barring Covid , but won the clock a little bit further back and the main target was to complete all six marathon majors . So that was obviously .
I had London and then Chicago where I went sub-free for the first time .
Then I followed up with Berlin , which was probably my biggest jump in performance . I jumped down to 2.35 . There was a 25-minute gap in between my second and my third marathon .
That's where I thought .
I might actually be able to go somewhere with this . Then obviously I had three other majors and then I had to tick off the other three , so Boston , new York and then finished with Tokyo Right .
Oh , wow .
Yeah , so it's a lot of lucky . I worked for an airline . That always helps , but yeah , a lot of travelling , a lot of logistical planning , particularly Tokyo . I remember I got there on the Tuesday night or maybe the Monday night before the marathon .
And by the weekend I was still struggling with jet lag a little bit , so that's something to bear in mind for anyone who's on that six major marathon journey with Tokyo .
It's tough , okay , I mean , we'll get into your business at the moment . But because you've kind of progressed in times , what do you think has been the secret for you to kind of getting faster ? I mean , has there been anything ? I mean because obviously you've avoided injury .
I mean , has there been anything that you're doing , you know , which is kind of meant that you are able to avoid injury and also able to improve your performance ?
Yeah , well , and firstly , I am very fortunate that I've only had really Two injuries . I wouldn't even call them major injuries , more sort like issues with hamstring and a clue . Yeah , so that's in the space of what we're talking . 13 years is incredibly fortunate really wow and have .
So being able to train block on block consistently is a massive advantage , because injuries are so prevalent in training and especially marathon training . You know such a high impact sport yes .
¶ Running Goals and Starting a Business
I think I look back and I think my jump from sort like three 20 to Three hours . Obviously there was a lot of so like natural progression and fitness , but I corrected a lot of things that went wrong in London so I made every mistake I probably could make with fueling and pacing and yeah , yeah . Any other equipment .
So I corrected that in Chicago and got below three hours . So I eliminated a lot of mistakes and learn so much from first marathon and for Berlin . So making that jump from three out or two fifty nine to two thirty five .
I think it was just a structured training plan really , to be honest , the real focused , dedicated session and like building a training week and join the local running club West four Harriers , all right , so pretty much just doing that and running with people of a high ability than myself .
So we do something like Hills on a Tuesday , intervals on a Thursday and a long run on a Sunday . And I raced a little bit more done readying half in .
I think it was the first time I'd gone under two fifteen , so that immediately made me think in Berlin I could be on , or should be on , for a big PB here , yeah , yeah structure training week was the big jump there for sure , yeah , okay , is that sort of like you know it's both that transitioning into you know your business .
then is that kind of a piece of advice that people who are kind of not kind of the beginners but kind of intermediate intermediate that they are to structure that week , you know to help with a running . So I said would that be , you know , good piece of advice .
Let's say you would give to people yeah , to help to structure that week , maybe using you know intervals yeah , runs that kind of thing He'll work in the endurance phase
yeah of a training blocks , like the first six to eight weeks of a training block , depending how long your block is , of course , building strength in your legs yeah base , foundation of fitness is really key . Yeah and then we tend to move on to events specific training .
So for a marathon you'll be hitting marathon pace workouts right , but that's also not to say that you neglect your three to five K pace , because there's there's definite advantages and you should definitely get that sort of pace working into marathon training as well , if not once a week , maybe every ten days right , so yeah , so moving on to your business .
So what made you start ?
I think I've been thinking about it for quite a few years actually , and I just love the atmosphere going to races and everyone's on the same page pretty much . There's a lot of nervous tension at the beginning and then , invariably , at the end , there's not hysteria but elation .
Yeah .
Getting the event done and masses of PBs and people breaking new barriers and , yeah , I just wanted to help people achieve that really , and people to get the all my coaches to get the same benefit out of running that I clearly have in the last 13 , 14 years . So , yeah , I'm very passionate about it .
Okay , and the benefits of running , yeah , the mental aspect and just general wellbeing . Yeah , yeah , so you have a coach yourself .
I used to oh right Up to about two years ago . So I was coached by David Chalfen , who coaches at Highgate Harriers Right , and he is a long-term coach 10 , 15 , 20 years probably .
Okay .
And a lot of my philosophy comes from him , naturally . But yeah , I started my business when I was coaching for a year or two and I was also being coached by David , so you do often find that coaches are coaches by coaches .
Yeah , and so on , yeah , yeah .
It's like a second eye accountability .
It's not just right in a training plan , right , yeah , yeah .
¶ Start Coaching Business, Attract Clients
So you started to take the plunge and started your business with coaching business . So how I mean basically , how did you sort of like get people to let you know that you were doing this and what was it like ? You know , what were your first clients Like ?
Were they people who were kind of raw beginners , or were they people who were sort of who had been running for quite a while ?
I'd say they're more on the beginning side . Yeah , and that they'd have done a few races before , which is good . I don't . I wouldn't take on someone who just starts out with a marathon and says look , in three months time I'm doing a marathon .
I want one is to train for a half marathon previously ideally , because the injury risk is so high for a marathon If you've got like a base level of fitness of training behind you .
How did you go about the marketing yourself ? Yeah , yeah .
So social media is a massive help . These days you can obviously set up all your accounts for free and you can advertise your business to . You know limitless and answer people in theory All over the world . So , yes , I've got coachees not just based in the UK but in Europe as well .
Work overseas and the advantages you know , oh , you do work overseas as well .
I've got coachees that that work overseas .
Oh , I see , yeah , ok .
And so mostly they'll be based in the Southeast because it'll be based on Google Adverts and stuff . Oh right , I've got a few coaches in , like the Midlands and and further north . So yeah , it's some .
So coachees , what's coachees , clients , clients , oh , ok , yeah , ok , yeah OK .
I don't know , is that a word ? Coachees .
Yeah , I know , maybe in the running , yeah , in the running wild it is yeah . So , yeah , athletes , yeah , all right , oh , ok , ok .