Three Days Of No Sleep – 250km Ultramarathon Q&A | Fergus Crawley

In this episode, I answer the questions put to me by my Instagram audience before I take on my biggest challenge yet – a 250km ultramarathon from our office in Edinburgh to the bottom of Ben Nevis (after going up it first).

The episode focusses on various topics, including my nutrition plan for the event, how I’ll manage blisters, my sleep strategy, how fast I want to do it, what my training has been like and much much more…

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Okay so 250 km as an ultramarathon at the end of March starting from the office and finishing at the bottom of Ben Nevis key detail being the bottom I will be elated at the top hopefully and very disappointed on the way down the irony of me filming this in a studio

Down in London is not lost on me given that we have a studio up in Edinburgh that we use but we did have a guess unfortunately have to change plans last minute which means that this slot was available and paid for so here I am recording solo answering your questions

Which I have right here so let’s kick off with a question from Dicky Greenleaf there’s actually a few from him so how will you avoid blisters this might upset a few people and I am sorry but I have never ever in any Ultra endurance events struggled with blisters if they develop I’ll get

Some comped on them quickly I have managed to have quite wet feet in the past and never really developed them whether that’s genetic whether it’s the fact that I wear open tobox shoes whether it’s the fact I found socks that I really get on with I’m not quite sure

But terms of blisters it’s actually not as much of a concern for me with this event as it might be for somebody else from an ultra endurance point of view but that’s low on the priority list of concerns if I’m being entirely honest so that’s probably a fortunate Lottery that

I’ve I’ve drawn there but again it could be down to socks open toebox shoes resilient feet I don’t know I don’t know but blisters are not as much of a concern as they might be for others so I hope that doesn’t disappoint you Dicky given that you might have been looking

For some insights that you could practice yourself but alas question from Morgan lore fit is food quality Paramount or is it just get the calories in during training and the event so training food quality is Paramount as is all training and sort of my life in general I I try and focus on

Macronutrients calorie intake first and foremost I also make sure the micronutrients are focused on as well and that they’re quite dense in consumption but the bottom line is during the event it is a case of getting in whatever I can as often and frequently as I can because if I focus

On getting High micronutrient quality food then there’s probably going to be a lot of fiber that comes with that which could wreak havoc on wreak havoc on my toilet considerations and pet fatigue flavor fatigue is going to set in and what I want to be able to make sure that

I’m doing is is fueling the tank and if I focus too much on foods that are not as enjoyable then it might become more and more difficult progressively for me over time to actually get food in so that’s going to be Paramount everything I’m doing is trying to make sure that

I’m cumulatively and sustainably able to get fluids sodium and food on board so realistically it’s going to be a case of get the calories in during the event I’m not going to be moving so quickly that I can’t eat solid or bigger meals and things like that I mean training runs

Recently I’ve been doing exactly that to prepare for this I got a double 99 flake which is about3 pound these days inflation and ate that whilst I was running I had a cheese toasty and a latte Midway through a training run very recently so yeah get the calories in as

Paramount during the event but that doesn’t mean that my training nutrition is just YOLO it and see what happens food quality is very important currently but come event day that’s just going to be a case of getting the calories in Josh Sky will you be testing your total

Around the time to do the run to see how much strength you have kept yes that is going to be the week beforehand I’ve been doing a lot of sort of 85 to 95% work recently because that’s what I always found is most effective for me holding on to strength whilst really

Ramping up endurance volume I’ll probably test the lift separ I might do Squat and deadlift on the same day um but as it stands in training the only thing that’s taken a bit of a hit as is always the case just because of the volume focus and the slight loss in

Specific training is upper body work so my bench press have taken a little bit of a hit but as it stands my Squat and deadlift are still feeling fairly solid I pulled 500 under a fair amount of fatigue yesterday for a set of two and it was pretty reasonable positioning was

A little bit off due to stiffness from a big day out in the mountains but all in all feeling pretty solid I squatted one front squatted 160 kilos earlier in the week so yeah everything’s feeling good as it stands but we will see come testing ahead of time not too much

Emphasis being placed on that because at the end of the day the the training I’m doing at the moment is to focus on retaining my strength work or incrementally increase it from a deadlift and a squat point of view that is essentially the nature of hybrid training in manyways so what I looking

To do is to get a feel for where my strength is but acknowledge that I’m going to be under a lot of fatigue from the spike and endurance volume so therefore it’s not a true representation of my strength within that context if that makes sense so I’m going to Chuck some heavy weight

About as I’m tapering in to the 250k itself so yeah in short I guess question from Ben on theox Ben on the Rocks actually I can imagine that is how can you eat enough to maintain volume but also drop weight required to move fast I’m not aiming to drop weight at all

Over 250 km me going into a big calorie deficit to try and get lighter in this training period is not going to be very effective what that’s going to do is just compromise my training by not allowing me to recover effectively I’m going to feel groggy I’m going to feel

Cognitively drained so what I’m doing is basically eating at maintenance currently sometimes eating a bit of a surplus just to facilitate recovery and adaptation to the train that I’m doing but yeah for something like this if you’re going to try and drop weight it needs to be over a very very long period

Of times you can get used to that if you’re trying to sort of plummet your weight down for the sake of being a little bit quicker your body’s not going to be able to adapt to that reduced weight it doesn’t just immediately translate to speed because you’ve got to

Adjust biomechanically you’ve got to adjust aerobically and physiologically so yeah I am not focusing on trying to drop weight for this I’m focusing on effective training and that’s kind of a general recommendation for everybody unless it’s being done sustainably over a long period of time because you can be

In a small deficit and still make performance gains but if you’re going into a large deficit to try and Rush weight loss for the sake of running speed you’re actually probably better just working on adapting to being quicker so yes that is my main consideration and ultimately the body

Weight that I’m carrying I’ll mitigate a lot of that as a lot of ultra endurance strategy often entails by walking the uphills and running the flats and the downhills question from Patrick Tatum how do you keep the internal dialogue positive well I would be lying to you if

I said that I always did there’s going to be es and flows I often use a psychological method that friend of mine called Doug who is currently doing a PhD in sports psychology taught me and Johnny on Project vertical in 2020 which is the ABC method I think it’s called

But essentially using ABC as a frame of reference a you’re feeling fantastic on top of the world everything’s great B you’re sort of steady and cruising see you’re in an absolute hole and you’re having a terrible time and what we need to acknowledge is that you will EB and

Flow between those it’s a bit of a sort of seesaw or a pendulum as time goes on so you’ll spend most of the time at the B just cracking on you’ll spend a lot of time in C and you spend a lot of time in a and what you need to acknowledge is

That when you’re in the C no one feeling lasts forever when you’re in the B try and get used to it and just keep moving forwards when you’re in the a don’t get into a false sense of security and think that you’re now over the hump because

You will probably drop back down at some point so the more experience and the more times I’ve had OPP had the opportunity to expose myself to that feeling over time gives me more and more confidence that I can deal with the pendulum swings as they come and

Ultimately as long as I I rely on dark humor and support from those around me and the support crew whilst really holding myself accountable to the fact that no one feeling lasts forever this two Shall Pass whatever cliche you want to throw at it that is the best way for

Me to keep myself moving forward but the dialogue is not always going to be positive internally but that’s a part of something like this ultimately and that’s kind of where the lessons about yourself are learned so I think it’s important to not pretend that there is

Any mindset trick or hack out there that is going to allow you to be completely positive through something like this cuz that ultimately is not the point question from Samuel Lloyd 2 how badly are you willing to get injured to finish it not even a consideration for me I

Mean yeah I’d have to fall or trip or snap something or go with my ankle or something for for an injury to occur there’s no real way through training volume that I’m just going to get injured I think there’s a bit of a misconception with just doing events

That you’re exposed to injury again if you’ve done adequate preparation then you shouldn’t be exposed just through doing the event itself to but if you fall off your bike or if you snap your ankle that is kind of a trauma related incident injury which I’m obviously going to try and

Avoid but I’m not really accounting for that we’ll have contingency plans I’ll kind of hand over to Johnny to manage as a as a plan but yeah plan a is to not get injured and snap anything or fall over and smash my face or anything like

That but if we do then we’ll take each case as it comes because it would be a very long Excel spreadsheet of listing out every option off the back of every possible injury that could come but as it stands I’ve been managing any niggles very effectively throughout this

Training prep I had a bit of an issue with my hip early doors so it’s just a case of managing that as we go but what I’ve done is effectively build my volume towards being able to manage this without it being such a significant Spike that I’m going to get beaten up

Or yeah just snap anything through high volume which shouldn’t really be the case so in short not really a huge consideration for me at the moment but yeah I’ll take it on a case-by Case basis if I’ve got something that’s really bothering me I can often tell the

Difference between this is an niggle or this is an injury and I’ll have to assess that as and when it comes but I’m very much planning on finishing it and we’ll do whatever is required to get there so we shall see Josh Brennan 99 what’s the thinking behind the choice

Of location did you consider other places no the idea for this came from me wanting to run the West Highland Way in one go and then I thought you know what that’s 100 miles you’ve done 100 miles before maybe you should go a bit bigger and then I thought you know what I’m

Going to see what it is from the office to Ben Nevis and it turned out to be 251k to the Ben Nevis in at the bottom of Ben Nevis so I thought you know what really proud and excited about our new office in edver City Center going to go

Along the canal which has a lot of nostalgia for the YouTube channel watches and a lot of my training over the years and then onto the West Highland Way which is Iconic in Scotland finishing at the most iconic mountain in Scotland arguably the UK given that it’s

The the highest peak within the UK and I thought that’s a really neat way of tying all of the things that are important to me and kind of represent the adventure that comes with Scotland in one run so it’s going to be beautiful scenically it’s going to be harrowing

Overnight because it’ll be cold and miserable because we are in Scotland and it’s going to be really quite nice for me to reflect on every time I’m in and out of the office every time I’m on the west highland way every time I’m driving from the office to Fort William which is

A good three-hour Drive which is ridiculous to say out loud but no I didn’t really consider anywhere else to be honest this all started from me wanting to run the West Highland Way in one go and that idea developed because I am a question from Tor

D/p poad why are you only taking three days to train surely you’ll need more than that don’t really understand the question but I’m assuming this is what a lot of people like to do which is assume that everything all my training is logged on straa it is not I do a lot of

Running without my watch currently because I kind of desp devices at this point because there’s tooo many of them in the world um I’m tracking bigger runs and sort of recreational runs that go up on straa but I’m doing a lot of sort of Am Pm just list work um

But as a hybrid athlete you can’t just rely on mileage and volume as your key metric because that will affect strength work and body composition so much so we need to be a bit more selective and creative with how we achieve the stimulus desired to be able to take this

On but you can’t just exponentially incre increase volume and demand as race events get bigger and bigger great example is the guy that recently won the spine I can’t remember his name but he set a new record for it his volume and mileage per week his highest volume week

Will be a lot lower than people expect because there’s a certain point you just need to be aerobically fit enough and well prepared to be able to take on the Beast that is the long long long long long one because that’s where your resilience and the ability to keep

Moving forward is going to step in but you can’t do that in training otherwise you’re not going to be able to recover to be able to actually take on the event itself so just a PSA straver is not a a sort of gospel for all of my

Training um it’s when I have my watch on and it auto uploads so I think I assume that’s what you’re asking um but yeah I get this question a lot from people saying oh I see you only R 20 kilometers this week I’m like well what do you mean

Oh you probably looking at my St the mileage well no I do a I do a lot of stuff outside the front door outside the office I just know how far it is and I just go out and enjoy it because work’s very busy at the moment so I like to

Just completely disconnect from any sort of Technology whatsoever and because everything is so aerobically dominant at the moment data isn’t as important for me as perceived effort so it’s just a case of ticking things over as we go question from madzore gen time goal question mark or just finish question

Mark so I’m starting on Friday morning on the 29th of March and I’m hoping to finish by the time the sun goes down on Sunday the 31st of March whatever time that is I don’t know there are far too many variables at play for me to really set hard and fast time

Goals the aim is for me to fight my way through it and learn some lessons about myself along the way and there’s some there’s some ballpark time goals I think 48 Hours as a sort of two-day cut off is a good place to look but I need to take

Into account how long Ben n is going to take to finish I’m going to be absolutely hanging out by the time I get there I’m going to stare up the 1,342 m that is involved and think oh my goodness how am I going to do this and I

Think best case scenario I’ll be up and down Ben neice in 6 hours which for I think it’s 14 miles or 50 okay oh I’ve confused my metric and Imperial there basically Ben neis the time taken to cover that distance will be a lot longer relatively than it would be were

It flat especially at that point so what I’ll probably do is I’ll set myself some a B and C sort of tiered goals for getting to the bottom of Ben Nevis and then I’ll just have to take that as it comes I can’t predict or plan too effectively obviously we can plan based

On a tiered system but I can’t really make an estimation as to how I’m going to feel or what it’s going to look like when I get there and at that time of the year there could be some pretty horrendous weather conditions there could be snow at the top I might even

Need to get into crampons there’s a lot of things to consider which could add a lot of time but the focus for me on this one is the journey and doing my best to bring that to life for you guys to feel like you were right there with me

Through the through the camera crew so I I haven’t actually set them yet because I’ve got a big training weekend this weekend which will really help me understand those parameters but yeah the aim is essentially to finish because if I can say I’ve covered the distance of

250k on foot I’ll be very proud of myself question from Toby EMT are you planning on sleeping at all recovery strategy during event so I’ll address the second one first there is no recovery strategy during the event it is continue eating continue drinking and continue getting sodium on board there’s

Not going to be any compression boots Mass Massage gun stuff you’re kind of pissing in the ocean at that point because the cumulative fatigue is going to be so high there’s nothing that’s going to really bring me back far enough to Warrant the focus where I’d be better

Spent spending five minutes just eating a bit more food or getting a bit more of a psychological break than I would be lacing myself up in some compression boots or anything like that so I am just going to make sure that I keep eating keep drinking and keep moving forwards

And sleep plan a is to see if I can go the whole thing without sleeping plan B is to sleep a little bit at the bottom of Ben neice before going up it because as I’ve just said I could be pretty destroyed by that point plan C is to

Sleep for a little bit 15 minutes or so half an hour or so when I really need it in the night sections but speaking from experience getting through a full night and seeing the sun come up is like the most powerful caffeine in the world the feeling of Rejuvenation and energy that

Comes from that that I’ve experienced when I’ve gone a whole night without sleeping on Ultra endurance events in the past is crazy so it’s around the sort of 4 5 6 in the morning Mark where I’ll really be struggling and then as the sunlight comes up that’s where I can

Take a big hit of caffeine and I can really just power up get my Mana bar back full for a full day and then being able to engage with the environment engage with the scenery which is a huge part of what this is all about will be so ref freshing versus the

Graveyard shift overnight that I’m confident that from a sleep point of view it’s getting through the night because the aim is to just keep moving forward as quickly not as quickly as possible but as as consistently as possible rather because pacing the difference between going 630

Perk and 7:30 per K if you’re taking long breaks is is marginal the difference in those pacings if you’re taking short breaks and just trying to keep constantly moving forwards will be quite significant so what I’m trying to do is is make sure that I’m only really stopping stopping when it’s needed I’m

Just going to try and keep moving forwards as much as I can minimize breaks like I do in triathon when I’m on the bike I will try and not get off the bike for a full iron distance bike sort of race and I’ve got quite effective at

That in the past so I’m going to take a similar attitude to this whereby I will only stop when it is absolutely necessary if I’m eating I want to be walking so I’m still moving if I’m drinking I want to be walking so I’m still moving if I’m talking to camera I

Want to be walking I’m still moving there might be a few sections where we just say you know what take half an hour here for a bit of a decompression but we are in the process of figuring that out at this point question from William Adrian Odin lots of A’s Double A’s there

Um how many kilometers do you run during a training week leading up to the ultra I’m not tracking it too much but my biggest training week will be 120k and that is this week so again volume and mileage isn’t as dominant a metric as it would be wor I

Just training as an ultra endurance athlete because I have strength training to consider and what hybrid training is not is simply just abandoning the training that you normally do in place of something else that’s just seasonal training and sort of focusing on one thing and then focusing on another I’m trying to

Maintain or even progress my strength whilst building up to this so if I’m doing 150 kilm weeks back to back to back to back the amount of food I’m going to need to eat the amount of fatigue that’s going to accumulate it’s going to affect my strength work that’s

Going to affect my body composition and the years and years of work I’ve done to build those things then we need to be as I said earlier we need to be a bit more creative how we get there and for us that’s about confidence in when I can get to a point

Where I’m just aerobically conditioned enough to keep moving forward if I can run for six hours at an aerobic Pace without being destroyed at the end of it then I’m in a good position to be able to move things forwards aggressively if I exponentially increase my training to

Eight hours to 10 hours then all I’m doing is adding risk and fatigue that’s not actually going to bring any benefit so once I feel I’ve got the aerobic conditioning required to take this on which I’m I’m I’m basically hoping will occur Friday Saturday this week that

Confidence will be there then it’s just the case of slogging through it you can’t just as I said earlier you can’t like the double brute was a great example I was off the back of the kelman and the logical thing to do is you take the kelman training and you double it

Because it was a very similar environment hilly windy horrible National Park in snowdonia versus the highlands of Toran so you therefore just double your weekly training but that just doesn’t work because one I’d be training for 40 hours a week and two I’d be so destroyed physically that the

Exponential relative growth of volume and training that would go for the double would have killed me before getting to the start line so the key thing to do is to get yourself to a position where you’re ready to take it on but without getting to a point where you’re actually doing massive massive

Events in the runup because those are going to punch you in the face and you then need to recover really aggressively from to keep training to move towards the actual event itself so kilometers and volume and mileage isn’t as much of a metric for me and for people that we

Work with with this sort of thing as exponentially building tolerance to longer and longer list sessions is for example we’ve got the wintering intake that are doing 12 hours max distance on their feet at the the same weekend we’ve got 70 75 people around the world doing

That which is really really exciting a lot of them are some of them are planning running the whole whole thing someone planning on walking the whole thing some of them doing a balance of both one person’s doing on a track some people are doing in the Hills some

People are doing a backyard Ultra style but they their biggest training weekend within the context of our programming which has been very very successful over the years to get people to balance these two things is three uh four hours Saturday and two and a half hours Sunday so it’s

Basically 6 and a half hours over the weekend and if they can get through that and it doesn’t absolutely put them on their ass then they where they need to be to reserve the putting on the Arness for the actual event itself if you keep overspilling your mrv on a weekly basis

In the pursuit of increased mileage in volume then you’re not actually going to be able to turn up to the start line rested recovered and with a good understanding of how to approach it if that makes sense again that wouldn’t apply as specifically as I’ve referenced there if somebody was just training for

This as an ultra endurance event in and of itself but when you’re taking into account strength training lifting work and other disciplines then you need to look at things a little bit differently which is why we’ll so often say with Omnia that you can’t take one training program and

Another training program and just splice them together it’s often not effective to if you’re coming from a strength training background or bodybuilding background and you want to keep that up to just get a triathlon coach because they won’t necessarily understand the interaction between the strength training and the triathlon and those two

Things need to interact and work together otherwise they’re just going to keep bashing heads so yeah anyway I think I made my point on those two elements there um but yeah a question that comes up a lot so thought I’d be thorough on it joseph. Robson how many calories do you

Expect to burn um good question I haven’t thought about this but realistically it’ll be about I’d assume in a 24-hour period it will be around 10 to 11,000 so between 18 and 25,000 inclusive of my daily TDE I’d suggest but we’ll find out we’ll find out because I have lots of data points so I look forward to eating them all back put it that way question from Paddy 847 what did your nutrition plan look like I’m going to make a dad joke here

I’m going to employ a seafood diet where if I Seafood I will eat it and that is kind of the simple approach I will try and focus on eating what I enjoy as I go I will try and get cars and sodium from liquids I will then try and make sure a

Lot of my food is coming from things that I can stomach quite well which is pretty much anything at this point to be fair I have developed a stomach of iron during endurance of touchwood touch wood I don’t want to yeah be on the side of the road regretting that statement on a

Podcast but essentially sustained carbohydrates from multiple sources aiming for about 60 grams of carbs every hour that I am moving as a Baseline and making sure that my sodium and fluids are in line as well I’ll have it a timer on my watch that will be giving me a nudge every 15

Minutes to get some fluids on board and then I’ll aim to eat every 30 to 60 minutes maybe every 60 minutes I have a bigger bit of food every 30 minutes is a bit more supplemental but my fluids will often contain carbohydrates and sodium as well so it’s a balance of keeping

Your stomach happy and moving things forwards but what’s good is that I’m obviously going to be moving aerobically so my actual expenditure isn’t going to be that of a half marathon per se where I’d probably need a higher carbohydrate per hour intake to be able to sustain

Sort of effort and I can eat on the move I can drink on the Move I’m well practiced at that so it’s a balance of practicality flavor enjoyment and digestion and a lot of those things I’m going to be entering a bit of an unknown Arena the longer into this we get but

During the double I was nailing crispy creams pre-cooked oven pizzas because of the sodium the carbohydrate and the just the accessibility of all those things but I’m burning through calories and I need it’s basically what can I what G what reduces the friction the most for

Me to continue to get calories on board as effectively as possible and that the answer to that will not be gels the answer to that will not be purely fluids with carbohydrates and sodium because my pallet will be destroyed and I’ll probably want a steak bake or a yum yum

At some point and those things I will have question from Joseph bbear how many turds do you expect to do where do you do them and then a question from Chow ding are wet wipes the move when you got to go so I guess that’s multif in fact there was another one as

Well um question from anuma where do you go and take a number two especially if it’s snowy bad weather question mark any more fascination with this specific topic no no that’s it that’s it so thanks for the interest guys essentially I am more than happy doing that outdoors

And we’ll have a classic camping tra and doggy bag situation so that we can alleviate that to the nearest bin but there are stops along the way where I will have access to bathrooms and I will try as best I can to prioritize those moments I have never in the past found

Myself getting massively caught out where I’ve kind of been in a panic situation I think on the 100 Miler that I did in 2019 I had to go rough once but it was early in the morning on a crisp Winter’s day so I wasn’t there was no risk of

Stage fright let’s say it was a very nice peaceful setting and a lot of where I’m going to be doing this is quite peaceful as well so unless I’m caught off guard I will well if I am caught off guard I will be prepared with with wet wipes bag and

Everything required which isn’t that glamorous but you know what this is this is an authentic insight into how I’m approaching things but I will try and prioritize the the um areas of civiliz civilization that I’ll be moving through to to go there so if you’ve watched my

Most recent YouTube video The Green Well in tindrum for example really good stop there’s a lot of uh check-in points along the west highland way where I can jump in and out and things we were going to have a big RV which had a toilet in

It we are downgrading the RV and I’m not actually 100% sure whether that will have a toilet in it or not but if it does then we have a roaming toilet as well which is great but knowing myself in the past I should be okay based on the

Distances between stops but if I’m not I will be prepared and the shame and embarrassment that comes from doing that I’ve probably overcome by sharing this with you on this podcast today so there we are question from Charlie Cameron 19 what is the thing you are most looking forward to for this

Challenge it being over no the self-discovery that comes with the training process and getting to the start line first of all and then the unknown that will come with doing my best to get to the finish line so by that I mean the difficulty of getting the training done and working through

The challenge currently is changing me as a person for the best it’s for it’s pressure testing me and forcing me to find solutions to things that I wouldn’t have to find solutions to were I not training for this which is great for a business point of view a

Personal point of view and is moving me as an individual forwards so then as with all events I can be very proud that I’ve got to the start line whatever happens next is whatever happens next I think the stories that will come from this I think the fact that we are

Chucking the kitchen sink at it in terms of documentation will be great as well because I’ll have a memory that I can look back on whatever the outcome and the reflections that come from an event like this whether everything goes to plan whether everything goes completely titp will be

What makes me better as a human being makes me better as a husband as a future father potentially as a business owner as a podcaster as a YouTuber as a all these things I’ll be better off for it and the only reason I get to earn the

Right to be better off through this thing is by taking the leap and committing to it so I’m most looking forward to and most excited about the lessons that will come from the experience as a whole it’s been very difficult the past couple of months training balance Wise It’s a

Big hairy scary thing to to prepare for and if we go back to um I think it’s Tom Pollard and the other mileage question from vam andrean onal I think I’d assume Scandinavian um it’s difficult to not think wow I should always be doing more because

That’s not feasible I am not a full-time athlete I need to fit my training in out with working hours and that is very very demanding which means that weekends are kind of gone Sundays I try and protect as a day but Saturdays are very much working days running in the morning and

Then back in the office most of the Saturday afternoon and early evening for me as well and that’s not something that I’m loving um but needs must I’ve committed to this it’s my own choice nobody’s making me do it so going through that process is very very valuable for me because it’s

Forcing us to learn things and change things on the move and then the more profound Reflections that can come from the back end of our excited as well question from Tommy Reed coach how do you deal with the emotion of suddenly being very slow quote unquote sub Five

Mile to 250 km um but the emotion is positive within a October November December January February March yeah within a six-month period I should be able to run a sub five minute mile and 250 km at over 200b of body weight so the emotion of that will be

Very positive I think there is such an emphasis on performance metrics and going fast in the running Twitter sphere at the moment that I I I think the again I might be misreading this but essentially the the emotion I I’m guessing that you’re implying is negative whereas for me

That’s very much not the case it’s a pride thing whereby if I can do that within a six-month period I I I don’t think there’s many people that would be stupid enough to attempt either end of the spectrum that much especially whilst balancing the strength stuff too so yeah

I’m looking forward to doing some Pacer stuff over the summer but I very much enjoyed the longest slower stuff over the winter very very different demands and by exposing myself to both of them I am learning different lessons from different ends of the training Spectrum which is ultimately why I love training

Like this and why I encourage other people to do so so yeah that’s that’s that essentially um the emotion is very positive if I can do that and I can still run reasonbly quickly relative to body weight and relatively considering for my myself there might be 14 minute 5K is watching

Your bloody slow mate fine probably relative to you definitely relative to you in fact but you’re probably a bit slow relative to the world record so it’s all the scale my friends I’m going down a let’s run.com thread Rabbit Hole here I I’ll dive out with this one but yeah

That’s that the emotion would all all be positive um so how do I deal with it with pride hopefully but I haven’t done it yet so that’s the key detail uh question from Tommy Reed coach again what’s the longest training run you’ll get in the leg so Friday today is

Wednesday and Christ on Friday hell no um Friday and Saturday I’m doing 50k on concrete on the Friday I’m doing 50k on Trails on the Saturday and that will be it that’ll be my biggest training weekend and it should in theory leave me feeling not destroyed on Sunday so the

Hope is that I can get through both these things confidently it will give me the confidence that I need to get through it and then it’s just a case of cracking on and seeing it through I have another big run planned after that that will be around the 60k mark But the

Biggest volume week is this week um no it’s another 50k it’s not 60k so yeah 50k is as high as it’s going to get for me from this point onwards I did a few longer longer runs towards the end of 2023 but that was kind of just me

Getting to feel with my aerobic capacity and whether I just had the ability to keep on going which which it turned out I did so yeah Friday Saturday this week will be the office to with the office along the canal 50k and then Saturday will be the bottom of the west highland

Way for 50k and that’s a bit of a wrecky as well for the camera team and Johnny from a support crew point of view Alex Bishop Adventure what’s the current training week look like for you so Mondays I don’t train because I’m generally in the office for about 15

Hours it’s kind of the way the week needs to work with the Cadence of everything because obviously there’s a high output of of stuff that kind of resets week to week from a social content point of view from a programming point of view with omnio from a Communications point of view so I’ve

Just learned over the years to prioritize that as a workday I’m normally in the office for 600 and I’m normally leaving about 9:00 p.m. um which is is actually not that great for me at the moment I I feel pretty emotionally drained at the end of those

Days but it means I’ve just started my training week from Tuesdays which is off a lower body and an easy run not one that I track on my garment I just get out and and sort of go with a perceived effort um Wednesday will be upper body

And easy run Thursday will be a sort of met Connie accumulating fatigue style session that we’re taking from the wintering group and that will have some Sprints or some assault bike or some rowing work in it as well Friday will be upper body sorry full body stuff and maybe some assistance

Cardiovascular stuff and then Saturday will be my long run which is kind of anywhere from four to 6 hours at the moment 3 to six hours at the moment kind of the Baseline it’ll be is about three um and then Sunday is rest that I protect for psychological reset and you

Might be thinking wow that’s not a huge amount of volume but that’s all that I can manage sustainably at the moment around the work demands personal demands and everything going on so I can’t create time time out thin air and I think it’s important to reference that I

Am making these things work out with managing the team within working hours because that’s the only way the businesses can operate I can’t just off at midday on a Tuesday and run for four hours that doesn’t work um so I need to make these things work within the constraints of of those hours

And yeah I think this Friday Saturday is going to be important for me to just really have that final confidence that we’ve made it work with less volume than ostensibly people might expect for something of this scale but the experience I’ve got in dealing with the demand and the unknown once you’re just

Purely relying on your ability to keep going I’m confident will be what allows me to see this through and for context looking back to 2019 for my 100 Miler which I did in 22 hours and 15 minutes which is my first 100 mile pleased with

That as a time um about 2,000 met of elevation 2 and a half th000 met of elevation for memory um my longest training weekend for that was a um 30k Friday night 36k Saturday night as a weekend so that is probably less volume than somebody might expect training for

100 Miler but I got through the 100 miler in 22 hours and 1550 minutes at over 200b body weight so essentially we know what works for me we know what works for others when it comes to balancing things along strength and that those are the principles that we’re

Using but confidence building is key which is why I’m really looking forward to hopefully building some confidence on Friday and Saturday this week question from Joseph gun trip any specific training for running at night or just relying on past experience um bit of both bit of both there’s nothing planned in

And the main thing to consider is the double whereby I’ve gone through that in that sense um in the past and I know what that feels like and that’s where I really entered the unknown I say again the nighttime is tough and I would ideally like to do my Friday Saturday

50k 50k overnight but practically speaking with the support crew with the work demands at the moment and everything we’ve got in the runup to game day can’t happen so I think for the most part I’m actually just going to rely on the past I’m going to do one of

My one of my last 4H hour runs which is going to be on March the 15th the Friday I think I’m going to do that overnight and that’ll be just a bit of exposure to that but it’s kind of just the peacefulness the focus and the demand that I need to get used

To you can’t really train that effectively for sleep deprivation it’s just a case of of of riding with the waves and I will have some power naps up my sleeve as and when required um along with being very selective and careful with caffeine but also knowing what comes on the back end of

Getting through that graveyard shift and seeing the sun come up because that’s very very powerful so no hypers specific training there’s a few things that had time been a little bit more on our side with current workflow and everything that we would have worked in would have

Been this weekend but that just can’t happen from a practical point of view so yeah I think actually to to answer your question I have one run that’s going to be night focused before game day other than that I’m backing my past experiences so I’m going to call out

There I feel it’s quite a comprehensive overview of everything that we’re working to so I will say thank you very much for listening and if you do have any further questions please do drop me a DM or I might even record a YouTube video on exactly this in the next couple

Of weeks so I hope you’ve enjoyed that there’s some insights for you and it seems that you’re all very fascinated with bathroom activities but I don’t blame you because the practicality is concerning so thank you very much for listening and I will see you next time