Rob Pope: Real Life Forest Gump Is Back!

0:00Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun, an army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana to as a lovely SUV and inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it! Tonight, we feast! And offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees, may I buy. This is a global production. I genuinely thought I was dead because it bit me and I was so far away from anything with no phone reception and I'd been all sorts of trouble. He's actually the man who ran forest gumps route across America five times over 18 months. This is HCDC, that's you. And they were the nicest human beings. If anyone's a fan of the band going, I wonder what they're like.

1:00They are wonderful. So I ran for Peace Direct and the World Wildlife Fund to tick all of those boxes. And my motivation to carry on was to honour a promise I made to my mum who died when I was young, and to make a difference in life. Hello there, welcome to Rumport, the Rung Club of the podcast world. I'm Jenny Falkiner and today I'm joined by someone who's kind of got used to being described as the real life forest gump now, not just because of his bushy beard, but also because when he starts running, he just does not stop. He's actually the man who ran forest gumps route across America five times over 18 months. Was it like something 15,600 miles? And he's just wrapped up another genuinely epic challenge. I'll let him tell you all about it. It was in Britain, but first, welcome to Rumport. Rumpoop!

2:00So good to see you. It's good to be back mate. It's good to be back. I know how are you doing? I'm good. I mean, remarkable shape considering like, the 10 days or so ago I was in bits. So yeah, spirits are high. I mean, I've got to say, the challenge you just did was huge, but compared to some stuff you've previously done, it feels like it was a walk in the park. Well, you say that the one thing is I remember quite often when I was on the America run and I did the Boston Marathon on route during that. And people said to me, like, oh, mate, that would be so easy for you doing the marathon after all this. I was like, absolutely not. So I'm dreading it. So it's like doing a marathon when the gun goes and you are off and you're under pressure. I said, it's war, so what I do with it. It's said, like, you know, I'm going to run this Boston route again in a few weeks time. And I'm going to have snacks midway through, you know, it's why Ultras are so much fun, you know, because you can stop when you want. So the difference with this, the taste trail was the fact that we had

3:00very specific objectives and there was an element of time, pressure, couple with the fact I'm now 10 years older since I started the, I actually finished the taste trail in Brighton and the exact same day that I started the gun run completely coincidentally. So in 10 years, especially after there's been about an other 30,000 miles in those 10 years, yeah, there's, there's been a lot of changes. Nothing's easy anymore, do you any? I know it sounds, I love that we all want to just call it the gun run. If you don't know about the gun run, by the way, and halute you wherever you are today, if you don't know about the gun run, there is a book all about it and it's really, really good. So I really recommend, is it called becoming forest? Is that what it is? It is indeed. It's a solid 7.3 out of 10, I'd say. I'd give it more than that, personally. So this is, that's when Rob went and did his epic run across America, but now he's decided to do a run from kind of north to south in Britain.

4:00And how did it go? How are you feeling? You said your 10 days on from it. Are you recovered? Yeah, it was brilliant to be honest, because we're currently, like I said, I'm sure we'll touch on Australia later, but we're currently in the midst of a move. And I was a little bit sort of heartbroken that I'd never, I'd run across England. That was kind of just a bit of a weekend adventure. And, but I'd not done a real long distance UK sort of journey on foot. And I'd kind of written it off as it wasn't going to happen. And then suddenly, basically, I hear that there was a campaign to support British farming, British manufacturing, sort of led by Nestle, and all supporting the incredible Felix Food Readers' Tributions heritage. And they were like, we think that you might be the guy. And I'm like, if you think you are, then I'm gay, you know? And then, yeah, we started in Gervan on the West Coast of Scotland. And then we went through, so that we visited some real key sites.

5:03Like we've been to dairy farms, we've been to the chocolate factories, the coffee factories, Carlisle, York East Midlands, showing how everything gets everywhere, which it wasn't lost on me, seeing as I was having logistical difficulties of my own, you know? And then all the way down to Brighton, where of course the Magnificent Felix were based. And so it's been boss. Hang on, so you did, right? So it's 569 miles. You did it in 14 days. I did my maths. I worked out that was about 35 miles a day. But you were stopping on the way. So actually, that's quite busy days you've got. Yeah, there was about 11 days of actual movement. Now, the movement got slightly curtailed. So, you know, you said, oh, this is definitely easy, well, it was proven not to be. So we set off for making incredible progress going through Scotland. And like I said, I don't know the word for a, for a scotter file, but I'm one of those, you know?

6:03And I just love being in Scotland. It chuked it down the whole way through. I was running through the Galawaii. That's like the ultimate challenge. That's just scoring for you though, to be, or the West Coast of Scotland especially. I know, yeah, have that Englishman, you know? Here we go. And I was going through the Galawaii National Forest. And I was listening to the cure when like a forest comes on. And I was just, and of course being, semi forest, pound shop forest, you know? And so it was just so brilliant. And I loved it. And I was flying through Scotland, got through Greta and my problem started in Penrith. So the A66 is not designed for people on foot. And so... Did you have to run down the main road? Yeah, like sort of, I thought, basically I was trying not to be a menace. So as avoidance stuff like that, whenever I could. Scoping the whole route out, looking for sidewalks, looking up, you can tell I've been in a medic for too long, looking for pavements.

7:03You know, trails, everything like that. But there was a segment, especially because of the road works, about 13 miles from Penrith, Head and East on the 66. And it was, I would say the worst time I've ever had in running. I hated it. You know, genuinely, not like, oh, it was awful. I genuinely hated it. And I was having so, it wasn't a danger to traffic. I was getting on the road, sprinting as much as I could. Then when any like sort of car came, if there's anything behind me, or if it was a truck, I would jump onto the grass side in, which is really rough and rooted. And when one of these jumps happened, I felt something popping my car off. But I was just like, eh, yes, alright, it's alright. And I carried on to this lovely little village just before the penine starts. And I sat down and you know me for elite nutrition. I had a sausage roll and I had a gorgeous, it was a peppermint, aero brownie,

8:04right with the pictures, handmade in this little sort of bakers and butchers. And I was like, I am off that road. I am overjoyed. I'm going to go over the penines, which is one of my happy places. I'm going to stop for lunch at the Tan Hill Inn pub. And you know, I am going to have a cheeky half when I'm up there as well. I had a gorgeous chili and I was coming down the other side. Suddenly I get this niggle and it wasn't even in my calf because I kind of altered my gate subconsciously. It was in my Achilles and I stopped at a little village called Reath. Feel it. That feels perfect. Go to the local corner shop. Get me some paracetamol, I'd be profan. Go to the local pub, two pints of coke, a massive apple crumble and then I just said, right, I'm okay. It feels okay. But then the hack I developed to protect my Achilles ran out with four miles to go. And I had four miles of just absolute felt like it was going to pull off the bone. And next morning I couldn't really walk much. So I'd walk like six miles and then I was just like, oh my God, I had to turn that in.

9:11And I was like, I don't know what's going to happen because this run, like, and you know me, any run that I do isn't about me. It's about what's behind it, you know, an America peace direct world wildlife fund Australia, world wildlife fund, Dennis PC, and a Smith family and here. Even though we represent in the wonderful Felix, you know, as a charity, we're actually standing up and going, isn't British farm and amazing. Look at all this stuff that's getting made in our country. We think we don't make any anymore. We make loads. And I felt like I was going to let everyone down and was dreading calling people up tomorrow to say the next thing. But my wife and a dean and my little girl, they were accompanying me in a little camper. Well, a fairly big camper van. The fantastic red line camper van. So sort of sorted us out with. And yeah, basically we there, the bikes in the back. And I was just saying, I'm going to have to borrow your bike. I had to take the toe clips off because I couldn't ride on my toes, change the seat height.

10:11Every night I had to buy myself a bike helmet, buy myself bike shorts. And so then it was a bit of a race against time to see if I could make the distance up on the bike doing those things. Of course, it's still fairly hilly. And even on the last day, I was just like, right, I'm running this. But yeah, the Achilles was still in bits, you know, so I know how is it now? The Achilles is feeling okay. You know, because I've not done I've literally not touched anything since the end of the room because it's in the inflammatory phase. It needs to calm down. But then you know, so I've had injuries before I need to start then strengthening things like that. But the upshot of it is the rest of the bodies recovered. You know, nicely, you know, it's the saddle sores because I don't ride me by really, you know, any serious way. So never mind people asking you about blisters on your toes. Saddle sore. Did you have, oh, how was your back side? Bad saddle sores on the inside. And nice to have a look at them in the mirror, but then I was frightening myself.

11:12So I stopped. I could have said, well done, well done on doing it because this is a thing and anyone listening now who's been out and felt that niggle when you're running and you're like, do you know what, the wise part of you would go stop rest, let it recover, don't get it worse, but you had this deadline. And so you had to kind of keep going and as you say, you weren't running in necessarily the safest spot. So probably sprinting every now and again wasn't helping it either. Yeah, I know it's like there is a world's most arranged interval session and like the cool thing was with one I told the team about it. At the factory in York, they're trying to become completely carbon neutral. And so they've got these incredible electric proper, you know, HGVs that do their runs for them now. And they were like sort of, oh, you know, we can do this and you know, if you're traveling in the electric truck, you can just go from place to place. And you know, we can still do like a little run or a walk there. It still fits with the ethos of what we're trying to put forward, but that just not me.

12:13It just couldn't suit me. And I said to them, I said, listen, I have to, you know, if you can't run them walk, if you can't walk, then crawl. If you can't crawl, then get in the electric truck, but I was prepared to crawl a long way before we did that. And when you mentioned the factory there in York, is this the Kit Kat factory? Oh my god. It is glorious. Like they've just built some like sort of a lovely like apartments in the in like sort of one of the older factory buildings. And I don't know how you could live there and not be hungry all the time. It is glorious. I've got such a sweet tooth and we're there, you know, so of course, like sort of on this run, one of the things I wanted to do was the whole ethos of it was, you know, ultra runners were menaces. We're like sort of, oh, it's 120 grams, 120 grams per hour now. And then you know, people are stuffing all this stuff down. It's not food. It's just literally chemicals. You know, just chucking it down here to just get going. And the problem is that ultra-naz almost representative society as a whole, like we don't think about where food comes from anymore now.

13:17You know, that's what I'd be way so much of it, right? Because you're eating something. And you don't think about for I'm who's got up a two in the morning, somebody who's driven like four hours to get that to your local shop and stuff like that. And so we just chuck it away, which of course has got to own issues, especially when people can't put food on the plates these days. Yeah. And but to see the scale of it being sort of made. And I just like, right, can I get some samples because I need some, I want proper food on this run there or proper food. You know, I think what was interesting on what you've done. And I do know what I haven't really thought about it before, but how much food that we eat is actually made here, not imported. And I think that that was one of the points of what you were doing. Wasn't it to highlight that as well? Absolutely. And I think is we've got potential to make even more as well. That's the thing. And of course, in people talk about trouble times, you know, stuff like that. That's super important that we focus on that, you know, instead of looking after ourselves, you know, looking after each other in a number of ways, but certainly making our food and not chuking it down the drain is paramount, you know.

14:24Rob, are you pretty good? I know that you've talked about how you've eaten sausage rolls and you obviously went to the Kit Kat Factor. I'm sure you had a great time there. But do you do genuinely kind of really consider what you're eating doing all these amazing challenges and epic runs because there are so many ultra runners out there who have their secrets, what they eat to fuel them. I mean, do you have to be quite careful or can you just eat what you want? Yeah, ask yourself two questions. Am I Tom Evans or B am I Jasmine Paris? If you answer no to any of these questions, you don't need to be hammering all these supplements. Live yourself a normal life, right? So like going out and doing a training run for six hours, like, let's just say, right, sit down. Honestly, advocate Kat, you'll be fine. Like, you're putting a load of sorts of electrolytes that you've got no clue whether your body needs or not, you're just being told to do it, right? Go out there. If you then do a race and you come in a top 10, you're thinking, hang on, I might be quite good at this. Then start tweaking things.

15:28If you then get to the level where you're starting to like win backyard ultras or, you know, sort of, or, you know, B in GB's team, then you can start going, listen, I'm going to optimize it. I'm all up, reading healthily outside running. I used to have a shock entire, I really did. And it was augmented by being in America and just literally having so little money and being in the middle of nowhere. So fruit and veg, what, you know, weren't the things unless you went to a well known brand of sandwich shop that you can choose what salads you get. Like, here now I'm getting a lot better, but don't be going out on training and spending 20 quid smashing a load of stuff. You know, sort of, you can eat healthily, you can recover afterwards. And if you're showing your elite level, yeah, there you go. Go for a beer and then like, few yourself, get your small gains then, you know, it's like me, you know, I could now, like, I've got it definitely so that I could do it, losing a little bit of weight. I decided to be an elite cyclist and went, I'm going to spend £10,000 on the bike. So I'm just goes, Rob, why don't you just lose three kilos, mate? And you use your normal bike, you know, that's a thing you don't need your marginal gains until you're at the top.

16:37So box off. There we go. Well, that's good though, because I think that makes running cycling, whatever you choose, it is accessible to everyone. And yes, you can spend cash on getting all the gear. And sometimes we all quite fancy the latest GPS watches and the snappy trainers, but you don't need those in order to take part and do the sport. Treat yourself. I love gear. Absolutely love it. You know, what is the right? Okay, how much stuff have you, are you all the gear? I mean, you are, you do have an idea. But are you have you got everything? Have you got the watches, the hydration verse? So all that have you got the carbon shoes? So yeah, the things I have, I get the carbon shoes, never don't, I just don't use them because like, so I can't just like, you know, what I like and stuff and other. I've been running in high lows, mostly because they are super comfortable and they are environmentally mega friendly, you know, so you can recycle them afterwards or made from natural materials. And they make no bones. They don't say, listen, we are a vapor flying stuff like that. But I go out and I'm enjoying my running, you know, and that sort of thing.

17:44You can go and leave when you want to and as somebody just goes, oh, I've just subscribed to this platform that does it. I just go, do you enjoy it? And they'd be like, yeah, but don't feel compelled to do it because your mates on it and stuff like that. You know, explore and go is deep down the wormhole of gear and kit as you want to as you wish to. I'm not saying anybody who does gels on the training as an idiot. Of course not, but don't feel compelled to and don't think it's going to limit your potential. You'll know if you've got that potential and once you get higher towards the peak of that pyramid, throw the kitchen sink at it. Yeah, do you know it's funny because I think nowadays where we feel that we need to compete with our peers or like, oh my god, they've got that. I need that. Maybe it'll help me. And if you're coming up to a race, you get nervous that you've not got the right kit that's not going to get you there. But I mean, I guess there aren't many people competing with what you do. I mean, you probably are quite unique in your field, but it's interesting that you don't see the need for all the gadgets and everything else. You as you say, you don't need it. No, exactly. And like one thing is like, if I'm a big fan of like little weekend adventures, right. Now, let's just say, I said, remember once I went from Liverpool over to a hole, you know, that was my little weekend adventure.

18:56What do you do? You ran that Liverpool to hold just for fun and a weekend. Yeah, as you do. As you do. Those penins again can't get enough of them. And but like the one thing is I'm not being like sort of naive enough to say, oh, everybody should do that. Now, let's just say you've got you live in the forest of Boland and you've got a lovely trail that's this. You six miles long that you just thought I want to do that. Right. Go out. Take your little you're going to invest. You got your water. The water is the important thing. Just literally go to your little local corner shop, get some snacks that you want. And you know when you're tired, killing Jorni isn't half a K behind you about to overtake you know, Damien Hall's not going to be there. Sabs isn't going to be like laughing at you when you get there two hours after a sit down literally, you know, to quote the kick at have a break out of kick at sit down, look at the scene around you enjoy being outside. And then you know, you can have your moment of exertion, but don't have yourself from start to finish. There's a time in a place going explore. Yeah, I love that. Can we go back a little bit please? I know it was 10 years ago. You did your forest run. But what was it that made a vet from Liverpool decide to go and take on the forest gump route across America?

20:10What was it that inspired that in the first place? So I wanted to run a across America for about 10 years. I read a book about somebody who'd done it and it was just so like the way they describe moving across the country slowly. You know, people say Kansas is boring. It's not if you're doing five miles an hour to us. Me, you know, you see everything. You know all the little things. And so that was on the bucket list. I'd moved to Australia for a job and that's kind of where I got serious about running because I joined a run club because I was too old to play foot. I was probably too mouthy to play footy as well. They would have probably snapped me into. I was too short for AFL. So I joined a running club got good and ended up. I came 10th in the Sydney marathon and became Australian marathon champion as a result cause I'd been in Australia long enough. Qualified for Rio. Didn't get to Rio because I came fifth in a three horse qualification race. But I definitely got the standards.

21:13And it was then when I thought, oh my god, late in the day, I was 37 at this point, right. And I thought, wow, I should have concentrated on this. Maybe I could do a Steve way, you know, sort of e-mail the Olympics of 40. Let's go back and see if I can do this. But I think the long and short was I didn't have the break next speed, you know, too. I've always likened the things like a run in the marathon. There's a bit like a pyramid. And on top of the pyramid, like I was very close to the top of it. But on top is a needle. And it's the needle that the Josh cares the most far as you know the polar round close that they get to. And that's a sort of thing. Very few people can climb the needle. A lot of people can get to the top of the pyramid and do it and enjoy the view when you get there. But it didn't work out. My job that I came back for didn't work out. And my wife said to me, why didn't you run across America? He'd been talking about it for years. And then the idea that I've been kind of fleshed out was we knew about forest.

22:14Come everybody knows about forest. Come we like, well, let's start where forest did will run to Santa Monica. And then that's that's the thing. That's you know, if I only get to there, that's it ticked off. But then when we get to Santa Monica, then we turn around and we keep going on the route. Do it going to do it for two incredible charities. They asked for us to be as running for women's rights, well, peace the homeless, the environment or animals. So I run for peace direct in the world wildlife fund to tick all of those boxes. And my motivation to carry on was to do the best I could for them. And also to honor a promise I made to my mom who died when I was younger and to make a difference in life. And that those three things made sure that matter how bad I felt. I don't know how injured I got. I was always going to make progress. And I like to think it's that experience there that helped me in the tough times, both in Australia last year. And of course on the test trail now, you know, and so I just kept on going. And you're still going right. Okay, hang on. So we're heading back down under. I can't believe you move going down on.

23:20Yeah. Is that because you've found another challenge you want to do? Is that really the reason behind it? It's to get away from the challenges. I don't believe it. I reckon you go down there. I mean, that is a big country. And there's a lot of places to run. There's a lot of east to west north to south. There's a lot. I mean, has anyone done the whole way round? Yeah. I know of at least three people who've done it. I think I think a few people have, you know, and stuff. And it's one of these sort of things where what I liked about America was I found there's a sweet spot. Anything between 35 and 50 miles I found okay to do. You get to 55. It just stops being fun anymore when you get to like 60 plus doing that every day. I wouldn't have been able to talk to people. So if I want to do a fast race, or you know, if I want to like push myself, I would much rather do a half or a full one when it feels like running. Like people who set the records on this, it isn't really running. It's a kind of a mixture of running and trekking.

24:24And even when I was doing the America run, I quite often would walk a big chunk of it just to allow me to run at eight minute mile pace for a bit because I wanted to feel like I'm going to be a little bit more. I wanted to feel the movement, you know, the wind through my beard. But I did do a little Australia, little Australian challenge last year, which of course was the highway to help. And that was when we went over to do a recce to see if we wanted to move back to Australia for a bit, you know, so let's see what it's like with their little B. One of the big motivate factors in America for me was music. And I had a rule that whenever AC DC came on, if I wasn't running, I had to be running. So if I was having a break, I would pause it, I would get up and I would go. If I was just slowing down to the walking break at the bottom of the hill, I would run up that hill. So when we went to Australia, I found out that AC DC were touring in Melbourne when we were there. And I was like, well, this is too good to be true. Now I was like, what other shows could I catch? And I saw that we're finishing the touring Brisbane. Now a normal person goes, well, how many days after after Melbourne was that?

25:30Well, I was like, well, how many days and how far is it? And so it was just under 2000 kilometers and 28 days away. And so I just went, well, it would be rude not to. So I set off on the highway to help and. Oh my goodness. So hang on, what's your other half think? Because this we're on a family holiday and off he goes. Well, the good news is we got the bulk of the holiday done. You know, there's only two days with the wild story was I did America mostly dressed as forest. I wanted to do the AC DC run dressed as one of Scotland's finest, Angus, you know. So I got the school by outfit. I didn't shave the beard off. So it wasn't full Angus. And I started running, but of course he's a guitar man. He runs really plays a Gibson SG. I wasn't going to run with a real one. So I put a request out on an AC DC forum. Is anybody got an inflatable one of these they used to sell them the shows? Nobody did. I get an email from somebody claiming to represent AC DC's management. And I'm thinking this is either a scam or a season deacist.

26:36You know, as in like don't say you're running for the band. You're not it's not nothing to do with us. They said we want to put you in touch with someone and high up. I can't say who is but I got put in touch with basically the brains behind the band. And they basically said we love what you're doing because I was doing it for WWE again. The wonderful wonderful NSBC and an Australian equivalent called the Smith family. And they said we like what you're doing. Not only are we going to give you a guitar to run with. We're going to sell them at shows. We're going to sign a hundred of them. We're going to sell them for 10 times as much. So $250 those ones and all the profits are going to go to your charities. And we'd like to present you with one. And I was like when you say we do I get to meet a member of the band and they were like you get to meet all of the band. Thank you all for that. I mean if you're an AC DC fan that is wicked. It was wild. I've got the greatest family photo of little B wearing a metal battle jacket showing to the band going this is the Rolling Stones.

27:40This is the Sex Pistols and this is AC DC that's you and they were the nicest human beings. If anyone's a fan of the band going I wonder what they're like. They are wonderful. Angus is quiet, gently spoken but he's so funny. Brian larger than life and a heart bigger than the time bridge. So there he's just a wonderful guy. The newer bands in the band they couldn't help themselves enough to be involved with it. And the management crew unbelievable. And then I got injured on day one with that. Oh no. But it was fine. I ran through it. I wasn't quitting. You see even in Australia you were finding challenges. If you do a park run on a Saturday by the way Rob has also done I don't know anyone else that's done 24 park runs in a day.

28:40Where did you do them all in the same area? Well I started in Blackpool and I had a support crew. I went all the way down the west coast including my home park run. I believe I did Southport was the actual 9 a.m. run. So did Southport then got to Liverpool. Then I got to Warrington about eight o'clock at night but the fund didn't stop there because I didn't have a support crew. So I carried on on my own. So I was doing one hour but from Warrington I was driving myself through Manchester over the Pennines. Of course when I went to a second day, when I went to a second day because I was originally going to quit after 24 hours. But I ended up doing 45 and 48 hours and eventually finished in Bridlington on the east coast. So that's what gave me the idea to run across the country in a more orthodox fashion later on. Do you know what? It's kind of like a really unusual backyard ultra where you run on the hour, do you have 5k an hour every hour?

29:43Oh my god that's impressive. You are literally a machine. There was a lot of caffeine. A lot of caffeine to get me over the Pennines. But you know I mean Rob does all these challenges but ultimately he is a vet. I'm so impressed with everything you do. It's so good. Is there anything that's still on your to-do list that you haven't done? The big one is I would like to go from the point where I start finished in Monument Valley where I was amongst the wonderful Navajo people. In fact I've got to shout out to the people of America here because everybody thinks America is so divided at the moment. And that's just what we see on the news. The individual families and people you know all up and down the land are wonderful kind humans. And they still are like that. I want to go back and experience that talk to people and then get myself to see the ocean one last time. Just so I don't have to tell people they run across America 4.7 seven times.

30:45Rob, no. I know that you've had a little injury recently and it sounds like every now and again like everyone you are susceptible to injury. It's not like you are completely superhuman and you avoid that altogether. What does recovery look like for you? You know like I'm asking this basically for anyone else who's doing a lot of running at the moment. What do you do at the end of a day's run to make sure you're in prime condition to go again the next day or a couple of days later? Yeah so there's a great little yoga session on the yoga for 15 minute yoga and there's a lovely little running version of that. That is a great it's fairly linear. There's not much side to side stuff in it but when you're doing really long. You have to fight whatever fires are burning you know and usually at that time it's linear stuff and so that's really good. So it's all about the stretching and you know recovery. That but also the stretch because a lot of the injuries that you actually get isn't because your muscles are stiff. You know people go on my killies is tight so I'm going to stretch it.

31:45Normally that's a cry for help either weak feet or weak calves you know and so it's about having strength in your dynamic range. And as you get to sort of you know like start approaching 50 you your strength drops off massively. You have to take more attention to you like I'm not a big one of looking at macros and stuff like that nutrition wise. But I am trying to now make sure I get you know 100 grams of protein in every day you know to make sure that you get all the protein that you need to get. Is me yeah and I do think people should not feel guilty about using shakes and stuff like that but you know the other thing is as well you know I just drink an actual load of milk. People forget you know some of it you know in the morning when you happen to see real just have an extra glass of milk as well it's dead easy and you drink it whereas you think oh God another protein shake that's not natural. Well we got nice natural to there you know that that sort you out in there yet looking after that trying to you know I'm doing the whole. You know lunges you know there's lots of good dynamic things you know so that you're seeing on them like sort of running physio SJC.

32:50It's got loads of five minute routines on Instagram easy and Australian now and stuff and they is routines are fantastic. And yeah just make sure that you have a good physio don't self diagnose for four weeks before you finally raise the red flag not don't always use dog to Google doesn't always doesn't always answer yes absolutely and listen I'm a vet so theoretically I should be able to interpret that want a bit more accurately and sometimes I go there just go yeah I think I might have this and then you know a good physio won't go you haven't make but they'll just go let's go through your things at the end they just go you actually haven't. You actually haven't you've got this and you know I was sure after my island run so that was cross island in a day I taught my meniscus two weeks before that so it wasn't a good vibe. God and you still did it is not so yeah it wasn't it wasn't a locker so it wasn't a painful one you know and so I was lucky but I obviously damaged it more. And then I thought I would 100% need surgery on that and I had a great physio and they would just said please please please hang off as long as you can and yet it's fine and I avoided like sort of having one.

34:00Let's be a cartilage which you know we need all the stuff we can get and host the beer doing it looks as bushy as ever is it's wild at the moment you know so I felt the sort of running sort of you know through Scotland and down the penions I should maintain a wild man look but I might get a little. I might get a trim when I get to us and I might get a little mini mullet as well maybe I'll go maybe I'll go for their Brock Manooners. I know well I think I remember last time I was in Australia the place I stayed there at mullets were very much on trim so it good luck with yours. Listen it's been amazing to chat to you today are you going to are you going to go back to doing fast marathon's again ever. You know what we talked about before about competing with your peers and what I'd like to do is I'd like to have an all out training block where I just going to go yeah and 80 90% happy with this see where I am you know I did my best when super shoes didn't exist on an up. What was what was your marathon peepie to 27 and that was that was in Liverpool which is a plus three or four minicore so I would say and I didn't have a watch on that day I ran on feel.

35:08Yeah I know well to be honest I'd like to say it was an honorable gesture but I just forgot it you know had a panic just ran as fast as a code and it was with just normal sort of running shoes on a think had some peggies on and and so I would love to have a go with all the gear on some more of an idea and if I don't get to 27 I'm not bothered I'm going to embrace agent and I'm going to have that as my 45 to 50 pb and that's a thing that's what every. Everybody should do age group eb's the second you get to 50 your 236 doesn't exist anymore doesn't matter put it in a photo frames ticket up on the wall that's it gone now when you do your 50. At marathon time I deal I do still want you to be beaten that when you 55 okay right so that's that's the game for five years of continued excellence and then when you 55 repeat the cycle okay so I am 50 this year I couldn't do the marathon because it got blooming injured typical so whatever if I'm going to do it again I'm going to do it again. So whatever if I can do a race I'm doing a half marathon soon so that I have to now maintain that for five years basically that's what we're saying.

36:14Exactly well as not know it well if it's if it's before you 50 then it's dead to you but your next run after that it's a pb okay so whatever I do this year as a pb woohoo amazing I love that idea I'm going to go with that right I've got the not that quick quick far around are you ready for it? Okay well I mean we have touched on this but what are your favorite trainers to run in Rob? Mike Pegasus probably oh high lows okay I've mind you the night Pegasus do you save them for your race day is that what you do? No I can't train in them like I do I'll dig out the carbon plates one day. Okay let's see how you get on with those as well and what's your favorite time of day to run I mean you have run that every single time of day. About two o'clock in the afternoon but this stupid thing called work keeps getting in the way. So inconvenient do you hate it when work interferes with your fitness schedule? It's out of order I know that's the problem that the three three pillars work family and running you can only do two of them well. I know it's so frustrating isn't it.

37:15Unless you're Jasmine Paris and then you smash all three of them then you can do them all and the favorite time of year to get out there for a run. Summer August heatwave yeah love it. I'm sure that you have run in the hottest places on the planet so for you running in the UK in a heatwave is still not actually as hot as some of the places you've been. Injected the year I did the London marathon record as the fastest film character it was the year where everybody was saying oh my god it was way too hot and I was just like this is amazing. What was it about 24 of that day? Yeah it was 24 yeah and so I was just like this is ideal and what is the hottest place you've actually running up in the wild north of America which I thought I will visit there in summer. I thought it's probably going to be on the same latitude as Scotland incorrect it's on the same latitude as like Churren and it got to 44 degrees running 44 a few times and which is 108 Fahrenheit if you listen to this across the pond and cold as was 90 minus 19 see or

38:18minus two Fahrenheit 65 degree swing. Where was that in Alabama and how what what time of year were both of those January in Alabama and then July and August and there's no trees up in North Dakota or Montana until you get to the mountains in Montana which isn't much of Montana. It's a myth. It's just all flat and I'm talking about music my song motivated me through North Dakota was rage against machine no shelter because I'm pretty much what it was. I mean how amazing to run in all these places. Where is your favorite place to run? Three most magical ones I really enjoyed that Scotland forest the other week but I loved Joshua tree National Park this magic glacial national park up in Montana might be the most beautiful place I've ever been on earth. And in five years time there will be no glaciers left as a poignant reminder of climate change and I once had the honor of running around the base of Ula Rue obviously didn't climb it but it's about 10 K.

39:21What's your own road is it really yes I didn't expect to be that big yeah it but there's magic in the air really is it's like Joshua tree it was spiritual of course it's a spiritual place and so that one might so the American ones don't argue with each other that might take the top right what time of D did you do that so I was imagine the sunrise the sunset there is spectacular I haven't been so have no idea midday you know me. It was a 34 degrees that day and I only took a I don't recommend this I only took a think a liter of water with me and I did not did not last long because it was actually part of a 20 mile ago in back to our hotel as well. And that wasn't fun but I did manage to rehydrate and get there for sunset which is yeah it's all the world. Do you know are they're not led to like bugs and creepy crawlies and sneaks and reptiles. Wow this is this is a story right so on the highway to help I was pushing my stroller Rosie you know so the whole lot of Rosie it was as well going up the hills and I'm navigating with Google maps walking directions.

40:26So I'm on a gravel road that's fine it's not fun for the hands but here we go and then I go into a grass track and I'm a bit like oh no because this that means one thing in the middle of the day in Australia that means snakes right so I'm in there and I'm pushing along I'm listen to the cricket and I'm trying to make a load of noise what's going on suddenly I see something about the corner of my eye Rosie's wheel had gone over one and a half meter brown snake snake that's like the second most deadly in the world it world like a corkscrew bit the wheel of Rosie I saw the inside of its mouth. I can't say what I said because this is a public audience you know but you've never seen as many high pitch swear words in a shorter space at time. I just I generally thought I was dead because you know because it bit me and I was so far away from anything with no phone reception I'd been all sort of trouble I go back pick up a rock not to ideally squish the snake but to try and I sort of throw something near it and when I got back to Rosie which I left about 30 meters down the line it gone.

41:32The only safe way out was to actually go onto a live train track and push that for two kilometers I favored death by train versus death by snakes. But that that whole grass area would have been riddled with those snakes and riddled with them you know but I was so far in and it's too big headed to go back because I figured I'm halfway in now there's probably as many behind me as there are in front so I just just like a scene from Indiana Jones it is all for yeah I handled it with a lot less grace well well done oh my goodness I'd have been absolutely terrified I'm glad there were no trains exactly at that time as well. Yeah exactly I know you know what what a way to go out it would have been good for the fundraising but not not good for the family. Oh my goodness and when do you get a runner's high Rob? You know what I think it's basically the first run after an injury and you know it's okay not not the not the feeling of it because then you know you're back in the game you know and so I sort of don't necessarily get the euphoria until I see something I'm a very visual runner you know and stuff and so I actually do a lot of training on the treadmill I don't mind it you know so then so there it's all about me hitting numbers you know or you know gradients as I've been mostly training on reason.

42:46But yeah when you see something like Oola Roo sort of and yeah that's the one you know. Beautiful and I've got to ask you why is it that you love running. Wow I think it's just because it is easy a lot of people say to me I'll Rob I'm a runner but not like you and I'm like why wait in what way like do you not like sort of go like that you know and you know but yes I said there's no faster and there's no slow runners only runners and that applies for long distance sure to get the ball. Long distance sure distance and so if you ever get a snobbery directed towards you ignore it if you ever think about snobbery towards someone else keep it in ten or you know so that that's not what we are we're all runners an example of the accessibility of it I went to Australia with no no mates joined a run and club to get some friends. What in the Australian championships and got to the Olympics now no that's not everybody's journey but why not you hold the pen remember you can write your own story and you're running stories important is anybody else's I love that that is such a good answer it has been honestly amazing to have you back on run pod and it's been a while since we last spoke but look good luck with them Australia well done on your recent runner hope the injury sorts itself out and yeah it's been lovely chance.

44:06I'm going to go back to you and listen for anyone listening Rob who's about to come up to a hill how do you get to the top of the hill without stopping motivation and believe. Believe the you can get up there but remember like stop and all right you don't have to run up the hill like when I did the mouth and they saw I think I was just the exact cut off everybody in front of me was the ones who could run everything and everybody behind me with the ones who we're needing to walk a lot you know and I felt no shame being the marker in the sand you know so don't worry about getting a chance. I'm going to go back to the hill without stopping you know just get it and enjoy it while you're there as well great stuff massive shout out to the wonderful Felix as well making sure food is getting to families that needed the most absolutely you did an amazing job with them with your recent run as well and then we'll put the link to where anyone can read more about it in the notes for the show as well but well done well done and doing it and good luck in ours thanks so much mate see you next time yeah indeed.

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