OFF-AIR 🔴 Ben Ruthe Full Interview

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Oh, no running eggs into the world

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Welcome to the morning rumbles not for next podcast

Here he comes Sam Ruth

Oh my word

Can you believe that the 16 year old just went crazy with 100 to go?

Sam Ruth, 342 on the clock. Here he comes

Bring it home, Sam Ruth

Sub 350 can you believe it?

348

0.8 Sam Ruth

Wow

It was too much for that commentator. He was losing his voice

Why not too Sam Ruth? We got his dad being Ruth

Get him out

Who actually went to school? Ben morning you went to school with Bryce for those i don't know if you know this thing

I might be the other way around

I don't know if I went to school

I'm dying to see his name etched on a wall somewhere maybe

Yeah well so the funny welcome to the show mate

We're gonna get into the unreal success of obviously your boy Sam who is lighting up the world at the moment

With his time is a 16 year old

But just back two school days yes

I believe we were at the same school same time once in college back in the day

But the thing was last year I went to the all black test against the box and randomly sitting in front of me was my old mate

Ben Harding from school and

We were having a chat and then in front of me was another cold boy

Cole Forrester and

And we were all in the same row which was random and so we started talking about Cole and then

Ben Harding said to me goes bro have you heard about Ben Ruth's kid

And so telling me about your boy Sam and so I was like nah that's unreal but of course I remember you being a weapon at school with running

And then lo and behold all of a sudden in the last few months for the greater public

It's just been all about your boy so it all made sense so man what's it been like in the front row front seat

You as dad watching how good your son's going

Oh man yeah I mean there are two parts really like one of it is just I as a fan

I just like I love the sport and just watching what's happening

It's hard to believe because it's some of the greatest that I've ever seen

But it's just my little boy and as a dad it's just you just want to sort of make sure that he's a good human

And that you look after him and nurture him well and he seems to be sort of coping coping quite well with it

But it's just the conflict between those two things but it's pretty it's pretty cool to witness some of the things he's doing

He's doing a session right now actually on the state of the art $20 million disability in North Carolina as we're talking

And there are pace lights and it's a bank to indoor track it's 200 metres and he's just ripping around following the pace lights

As we're talking and I mean it's crazy to watch

Just wild I mean apart from having good genes he must be incredibly driven to term and what are you putting his success down to?

Yeah I think there is some genetic methods maybe like on the weakest one on the weak link

But has now won a common game's gold as a game father broke the world record for debut marathon

And my wife Jess went to the world across countries and won a few national titles and things

Sorry who won the gold at the commonwealth games?

Here's Nana actually which was called Nana so she won the gold

But she had to run she's a Kiwi and she had to run for Scotland because she had to go to England

The Empire Games

What race was that?

She ran the 800 metres

Roger meme is a Kiwi

He's so old then

It's amazing

He's in the blood

Wow

So what time did she actually carry on?

I was just going to say she made the Munich Olympic final and she held the British record for 800 metres for 20 years

So she could run and when you stand code but we just didn't let him train at all until he was 13

Because you can put a lot of pressure on kids and we just didn't want that

So he just played rugby really badly

And we enjoyed going along following on Saturday morning watching him have fun with his mates but not play great rugby

He had the time of his life doing that

Yeah

He's only been training for three years is what you're saying

Yeah, three years

Ben that's incredible

It's Andrew Mulligan here at Smiles

Hey listen Ben I know that it's just the career pathway now

You're like you're even talking about commonwealth games and like you said I don't think it really was on the radar until very recently

What's it like going to the states and getting like I know there must be scholarships

Being thrown at you guys at the might is it is that is that on the radar is running professionally

Or is it going now it's professional with the NCAA college system? Is that an option?

What's it what's it going to be like over the next couple of years?

Yeah he's just kind of he's just tipped all of our plans at the window basically with what he's done

So he could have gone to the US on the scholarship but he's he wouldn't actually run his first track race for a US college

Until May 2029 because he's got two years here

I was over the last week

Yeah so he's got three and a half years until his first college race

And the time that he just ran only one US collegiate student had ever run that fast in his history

That's incredible

Yeah so if he went to college now there's nobody in the NCAA system that's run as fast as him today

So he's yeah it's a challenge

So you were young and would you put him in a system where he's on your racing people slower

Like it's not a good effortically which is crazy to think

Yeah the best effort at going to the system in the world

So what's he going to do?

What do you do?

Is he going to join the local Harrier's club?

What does he do?

I'll take tips from you boys

What do you reckon?

I reckon send him to Kenya

I reckon get him an altitude

And then go there

I mean for so long it's been north and east Africa until England

It's just like you need to

I guess you need to find where the elites of the elites are going

And find that progression and put him in a system like that

Yeah what we're thinking now is we're going to go

He's supposed to be doing World Junior this year and that's going to be a big thing

But the Commonwealth Games is the week before

So I think we'll go to the common games as our plan

You can still go to World Junior's two years

That they have them every two years

So you still go to World Junior's two years

And another couple of years time

So you can always do that

To go back to Scotland where it's now on the gold

That would be pretty special

So he'll go there

And then we'll go when we're in Europe next year

This year he's still going to do school

He's going to finish that off

But next year we'll spend a bit more time in Europe

Some of the top athletes in the world

Have reached out in the Kenta

Have them along to training camps

So we'll work in with Craig Gerkwood

His coach and figure out

How are we going to develop that?

So if you're just drawing us Ben Ruth with us on the show

Father of Sam Ruth who obviously is an absolute weapon at the moment

Younger sister and your daughter Daisy as well

We're going to hear her name soon enough as well

That's another thing too I guess with her being younger

And the pressure put on her

You guys have got quite a balance

Bit of a juggle going on at the moment

I guess just with keeping everything in check

I guess that's almost the toughest part

I imagine for you guys at the moment is it?

Yeah I think I got a little bit of grief actually

When I, because I, before we broke four minutes for the mile

I put it out there that he was trying to do it

And we got a bit of media attention beforehand

And so there's a bit of pressure on him to try and break four

But the reason that I did that

Is because he was in a really safe environment

Surrounded by a whole bunch of friends and family

And I'd rather my kids be under pressure

And really good positive environments like that

Rather than later on when they're in an Olympic stadium

Surrounded by the competition

So I actually don't mind that there's a bit of pressure on them

While they're in good positive supportive environments

So I think learning how to cope with pressure is probably the key to

Yeah of course

I just, yeah, my own little personal experience of being a reporter at the Olympics

And seeing New Zealanders in the qualifying stages

Because obviously you've been to a bunch of Olympics

So yeah, those distances obviously

Have heats and semi's and stuff like that

The qualification process just to get, it spooks athletes

Like a couple of them got spooked

Like a famous one is Hamish Kerr

Like he had to qualify in his last jump

He was cooking the qualification

And he knew it

And then he goes in one's gold

So dealing with that pressure early on

Is probably a good thing in an environment that you can control somewhat

Yeah, I think that's exactly it

I like you

What those tough environments that make you stronger

Don't they? And I think if you can create them a little bit

On your actually, it feels like

It feels like it's a tough environment

Actually you've got heaps of support around you

To help you through it then actually you just get stronger and stronger

But New Zealand is just an amazing community

And we all have had his support

And even though there could be the feeling of sort of pressure

I think that actually can overwhelm him

That just feels like people are really supporting him

And he just wants to go out there and race anyway

And we've never actually celebrated the results so much

It's more the journey

And working and trying as hard as you can

And if you've done that and you've succeeded

And it just turns out that when he's doing that

He's ending up towards the front

He's got such a kick-on on like that

That Boston race on the weekend and the indoor one

He just, he mowed that guy down

Like he's like how much older was that runner in front of him?

It's like Jonah Lomu rugby

And we used to better do the turbo boost

Yeah

Peter Sisk, that guy Peter Sisk

He's from Belgium

He broke the national record for Belgium in that race

Wow

Peter's 26 years old, so 10 years older

He's run a 143-800 which is faster than any New Zealander in history

So he's got the best, you know, he's got an incredible kick to Peter Sisk

And Sam put one and a half seconds on him and a half

Who was amazing?

Incredible

Oh yeah, Ben, if he goes to Glasgow to the comm games

Because he, Sam can run 5,000, 3,000 miles, 1,500, 800

What's he best at?

What's he going to race at? Or is he going to do a couple?

Well, it's a mile this year, so it's quite cool

They've shifted it back from a 1,500 to a mile

He'll do that

He'd race the mile

Yeah, he'd race the mile

But I think it's a long term, he does seem to have a little bit of range

But there's Ingebritzen's the gold standard of athletes that have come through

And then we're coming on Olympic gold medalist

And I got a call from the Norway national media

And they said that they'll worry that Sam was coming

I don't think that Sam's got a little bit more of the Ingebritzen as speed

Ingebritzen's very, very, very strong

And Winder's race is running from the front and pulling away

Yeah

So having a little bit extra speed will hopefully help him long term

Goes without saying Sam Tanner has been obviously crucial

And massive part of the journey and the success

And he seems like such a great dude as well

When I was 16, you won't remember where I was said before

Where it wasn't in cod say time but I said loser

At 16

And then you have your son

Your game numbers are growing by the thousands by the day

And you obviously guys are you and your mum doing a great job

With you and his mum doing a great job

You got a lot of people coming towards you with, you know, bloody sponsorships

And all of that sort of stuff

Because I imagine that's also a big part of this

Yeah, I think if you, it's hard to explain how crazy that is

Yeah

How many emails a day?

You come to the, you come to the US

And it's suddenly explode

And, you know, New Zealand might be two

And the US is 200

So it's just, yeah

But it's just filtering through that and

Yeah, because that college

Take that load away from him

That college systems change now like the scholarship being paid for

Will used to be the hook

Now it's the NIL stuff where they pay you

Not just the scholarship but actually you're getting paid to run as a collegiate athlete

But as you said

It's like, yeah, he could get a little bit slower if he's running against guys

Who's times he's way ahead of

So yeah, it's cool

You've got the world's as oyster as yours been

It's awesome to see

He seems a great kid too

Yeah, I'm biased

But I quite like hang out with him

Actually he's a good mate of mine

And just a good guy to hang around with

And I'm over here with Tanner as well

He actually hit that poor Sam Tanner

Strain is actually a little bit in the race

It wasn't a running injury

It was that somebody

Somebody chopped his stride

And he had to catch himself

So he should be racing

And a week and a half they're racing here in North Carolina

And yeah, the Olympic gold medalist is lining up

Our Cole Hocker

And the race to race the reigning Olympic champion

Wow

Which is next level really

And that's in the mile

That's sort of hilarious

Because he will race him

Want to do his best against him

But then also I probably won't like a selfie afterwards

As a superhero

Thirdly

It's crazy that he

Like a fan's attitude to it

He really reads on the line

What he just wants to race

To win

And that's how he'll go into every race including this one

Which is crazy

I think as soon as you start being scared of whoever it is

That you're racing

Then you start losing that battle

So it's much better that he goes into that sort of attitude

And yeah, I mean I've

He's done so many unexpected things

But I'm always worried that

You know, he could be able to roll up and fall the pieces

But that'll just be another lesson

He can learn along the way

And add to his collection of stories

That will end up creating this career

So rare

Ben Ruth, the father of Sam Ruth

The 11th all-time fastest mile

And he's only 16

And he's got another one next week

And maybe the com games too

Amazing

I know you must be inundated with people wanting to talk to you and Sam

So thanks so much for your time Ben

Thanks Ben, yeah, appreciate it bro

Go well

Yeah, brilliant too guys

Unfortunately for you bro

We're now in each other's DM

And you're gonna

We're gonna see if you just left us on scene

So we're gonna have to talk to you again

Yeah

Ah cool, cool

No good man's been there

Good man bro, yeah

And we're loving watching it bro

Brilliant, that's awesome, cheers guys

Thank you, thank you, have a good one