Accountability Corner
Embark on an adventure with Darren, Morgan, and Chris, the dynamic trio steering the ship at "Accountability Corner." As passionate OCR enthusiasts, they're on a mission to share their expertise and enthusiasm for obstacle course racing with the world. From sharing insider tips on overcoming training plateaus to demystifying the complexities of race registration and gear selection, no stone is left unturned. Whether you're a seasoned competitor hungry for fresh perspectives or a newcomer eager to dip your toes into the muddy waters of OCR, these hosts are here to guide you every step of the way. Join them as they peel back the curtain on the electrifying world of OCR, revealing stories of triumph, camaraderie, and boundless adventure.
Don't miss out – tune in and discover why OCR is capturing hearts and minds around the globe!
Accountability Corner
#21: Athletic Ingenuity How OCR Champions Train Anywhere
Ever wondered how athletes prepare for the gritty endurance needed in Obstacle Course Racing? This episode, we're joined by Russell Walsh, a seasoned OCR competitor from the northeast of England, who walks us through the intricate dance of physical and mental preparation for this intense sport. Together, we dissect the essentials of grip strength, technical prowess, and the creative ways to train outside of specialized gyms, proving that a lack of resources is no excuse for an unprepared athlete.
Training for OCR can be as quirky as it is tough, and we embrace this wholeheartedly, sharing laughs over the sometimes comedic lengths we go to simulate obstacles. From repurposing children's playgrounds to utilizing makeshift home gyms, we reveal how diverse training environments contribute to an athlete's development, tackling everything from the basic to the unexpected challenges newcomers face. Whether you're climbing ropes in your backyard or hitting the local jungle gym, this episode is a testament to the sport's accessibility and the ingenuity of its athletes.
As we wrap up, we share personal anecdotes from the field, diving into the pivotal role of endurance, the camaraderie among competitors, and the thrill of facing off in international competitions. Join us as we navigate the world of OCR with tips, equipment suggestions, and stories that will inspire you to lace up your trail shoes and charge headfirst into your next muddy adventure. With Russell's insights and our collective experiences, this episode is your guide to overcoming any obstacle, both on the course and off.
Welcome to the Accountability Corner, where we talk about everything obstacle course racing, from staying disciplined in training, affording the sport, signing up for your first race and, more importantly, how the sport has grown around the world, with your hosts Morgan Maxwell, chris Shipley and Darren Martin.
Speaker 2:Right, let's start Episode 21 of Accountability Corner. Today is a very, very big day. We've got a topic that we wanted to talk through, but we couldn't talk through this topic without having someone else join us All the way from sunny Scotland. Oh no, sorry, sorry, not Scotland.
Speaker 3:We're welcome to Russell Walsh, to the Accountability Corner.
Speaker 4:How are you doing Russ? Yeah, I'm good mate. Definitely not in Scotland, oh, sorry, sorry. North northeast, as far as northeast you can get. Yeah, definitely not Scotland.
Speaker 2:Before we start, russ, I have to lay some ground rules, because I know that I need to mediate the conversation between you and Shipley before this gets a bit fiery. So just no swearing between each other, no comparing each other's arms, no arm wrestling. Obviously this is virtual, so you can't do any of that, but just throw it down at Titan Warrior. That's all I'd say. But yeah, no. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. How have you been up to today? How have you been going?
Speaker 4:We've been running a day, but I've been on my clad in the house, so that's the priority. Literally just finished and came to Jump Street on this night.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for joining us. I'm sure everyone gave us feedback. They liked having new people in, so, yeah, it's going to be exciting. How are you guys going?
Speaker 1:Most Ships Very well, thank you, is that it? I've got a joke for everyone. Go on then. What do you call a man in a bush Russell?
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:I've heard them all before. I've heard them all before. I don't know how. It's not even your real name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is. That's that baffle. That's going to baffle me for the whole hour that we chat through. You know calling you the wrong name, mo, what training have you been up to? How have you been doing?
Speaker 5:I've had a nice easy day today. Obviously, we had our run yesterday, a little long run and just recovering a bit of stretching, but that was about it. And then back to it tomorrow, still settling down for my holiday. So I'm like still just eating a bit of shit and I've drinking Pepsi as we speak, so I'm in holiday blues mode still, you don't look very tired, bad bird.
Speaker 2:You didn't come back, bad bird Ginger's doing tough.
Speaker 5:I've got a bit of tanning. Is that a tan line?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 5:No, okay, resceding. Yeah, I'm going to look.
Speaker 2:All you've got to say Not me, not me looking like me. As I said, I know a guy. Alright, If anyone wants hair, just come my way. I've got a loyalty code I can use.
Speaker 5:You officially look like a man with hair. You don't look like a man with half hair anymore.
Speaker 2:That's why we started the videos up. That's the only reason I started them. A man with comments, I've got with my hair. Now should we jump into today's topic? Because I think everyone's probably wondering what we want to talk about today, having Russ on, which is, yeah, it's amazing to have someone else talk through this so we wanted to talk through how where to train for obstacle course racing, how to train for it, and then also just to round about the training facilities.
Speaker 2:A lot of people ask me like sometimes, where do you go to train for obstacle course racing? Well, there is actually obstacle course training facilities that exist and people don't really know that. But I think the other side of the coin is that how do you get good at OCR without the facilities and we've got ships close your ears here, because I'm going to give Russ a compliment and I know just want to give him a big compliment that obviously performance is a metric that you have to track to say that you've been training well and training very specifically to OCR and Russ. Obviously from last year and the year before you have performed in obstacle course racing and had some really good top performances, so it's really good to try to pick your brain a little bit how, how you've got into it, ocr in the first place, and then what you kind of like. How did you adapt your training, because I'm guessing there's not many training facilities where you are up in.
Speaker 4:Just absolutely winged that a little bit. Really, it's the only way of doing it. If it's just a wing, like you might you know I am not not taking that one bit.
Speaker 2:There is no such thing as winging obstacle course racing, because we know full well that there's so many things that can go wrong, so you've got to have something in your back pocket that you get at.
Speaker 1:You would have to delve into his sort of personal sort of whereabouts and find out what, all the locations and where he, what he does in and around his home, whether he's like hanging off the the kitchen side or, I don't know, climbing on the balconies that I don't know what, even up in Scotland or not. So what?
Speaker 2:what was your first race, Russ?
Speaker 4:I didn't do a tough motor, but I was like with work, so it was just like a group of us. So my first proper race it will be 2021, which was a Spartan ultra the Scotland one in Scotland.
Speaker 2:Is it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, is that the one you creamed, james Burton at yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the only reason we kind of like her.
Speaker 5:Did you win the race or did you just beat burn?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was like, yeah, I won the race Because my first ever race, first Spartan I had to start an age group. So I started 10 minutes behind James and, yeah, ran past all the elites and creamed it by half an hour Abit Nice. And then from then I thought maybe I'm actually all right at this, stuck on and I only, I only failed one obstacle and I was is it the Apangra smart? It's like the monkey bars that were on the wire.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I failed that once.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he get a bit slippery that one can't it Like. If it's got a bit of do on it it can get a bit.
Speaker 4:I just I didn't know the technique.
Speaker 5:You're quite tall as well. So when that goes down you've really got to hug them legs up high. That's fair. So 2021,.
Speaker 2:you did a Spartan ultra, and what was you doing before that? What foundation did you bring into it? Because what we'd like to talk about obviously attribute points. What attributes did you bring into it? What was you doing before?
Speaker 4:Well, I used to compete in boxing. I had about 18 fights. Shapes he listening?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I know Barry Buchanan, so it's all right, I got back up.
Speaker 4:Also, I used to do a lot of mountain biking as well, and then, from then, running started and once I got into running I found that ultra just went into that leg. I did a lot of running, to be fair, before that, the first couple of years.
Speaker 1:You do a bit of the fells up there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, is there a fells up?
Speaker 1:there. Yeah, it's a bit of fell running.
Speaker 4:That's why I enjoy the Spartan ultra is because it's so rugged running. I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've said quite a few times that's the foundation to any OCR. So yeah, and then I guess with the mountain biking that's quite heavy on the grip strength. Anyway, I don't know if anyone else you know, when you ride a mountain bike it ain't easy, that's pain in the ass.
Speaker 2:We're connected. Weird, that's what we're doing today. We're connecting the dots between how have you got to the performances and what you've done to date without specifically well, correct me if I'm wrong anytime as well, Russ, but if you specifically gone to a training center and spent a lot of time there, like especially for your spending up once a week in obstacles, like I'm assuming you wasn't doing that at the beginning- Nothing. No.
Speaker 4:Nothing. So as far as at the start there was, I didn't know much about obstacle course racing, like obviously he's sport and was well advertised, but like only a couple of years ago, like find out, with all the rumble and the games and all the other nuclear races and that it's all just all new. Really, what did you do for a job? I work for Scotch Woodlands and I'm off to manage a like, so just a pencil push.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't expect that. I forgot a proper job. What a scaffold.
Speaker 5:I was going to say they gave me manual labor vibes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Chopping down trees.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I used to be a tree surgeon and an arborist, like. But there you go.
Speaker 1:That's all climbing, that's all ropes, that's all grip stuff.
Speaker 2:What did you focus on first, mo, when you came into it? What was your foundation you brought in? You just did everything. Every attribute you was focusing on, weren't you?
Speaker 5:Yeah, because obviously sports before that was football and basketball and then I, pretty much from 14, started training for OCR. So I never really come in with it with any non-OCR attributes because I was training OCR, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:But Ships, what did you come in with your role-playing in?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that was quite a long time ago when I was sort of like. I think I stopped doing that when I was 15 or 16, when I found other things to amuse myself.
Speaker 2:What did you bring into OCR beforehand, then? Just big arms, I think oh right, what leg flies, yeah, yeah, leg-wisps yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I think just years of scaffolding, and that's mainly climbing around and just lifting stuff.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's strange, it seems that we bring in different things. That actually means what we're doing now is we're training different attribute points, because I came in for football so I had an engine when I came in which was good. And, Russ, it sounds like you came in with an absolutely great engine and a compromised state of an engine, because football is stop-start, but not as much as, say, boxing that's if anyone out there ever tried to do any boxing training. That's brutal. That's really really hard on the old heart rate.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's hard work the boxing for a short period of time, so it's like a lot of fast-twitch muscles. But then again also when I do a mountain bike and you're out for a good three, four hours, so then you've got that big engine going to all of those. So it was a good mix. And then starting running. And yeah, that's why I started with the ultras, just because I preferred being out at long times.
Speaker 2:When did it come clear that you needed to focus more training towards obstacle course racing, or when did you try to adapt your training slightly?
Speaker 4:Pretty much after that first race, really. Yeah, I remember what race I did after that? Probably another Spartan Ultra, I think. Yeah, I think it was because I raced Jack Carpenter that time down on wheels.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, did you. I loved him as well.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 2:What did you change in the training? What would you do before? Come on, give us the details. People love the details.
Speaker 4:At the start I don't think I changed a lot, obviously because obstacle course racing is probably like 85% running, so as long as you can move through the circuit you're going to pretty much get through it. And then, obviously, from mountain bike, and I've got grip strength and I'm able to hold myself up. So swinging through obstacles wasn't too bad. When it comes on the native gradient technical, that's kind of where I was lacking and I'm a good technique. But I did end up finding a gym in Hoig, but that soon closed down after a couple of months of visiting it. So I was just back to square one when I was just back to winging it.
Speaker 2:That's what everyone does when they first start obstacle course racing. They won't know, I think the majority of people, even I did. I didn't know there was centres, I didn't know how to train specifically for it. So you start winging it. You start being innovative. You start bringing maybe a sandbag to the gym and start running on a treadmill those sort of random things. You start to do what was the innovations? Did you do anything? Did you build anything at home or create anything to help you with that technicality?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so yeah, I've kicked out my garage to a certain extent so I'm able to swing through. My garage now Got all different kinds of holds, but that's just what I've accumulated over the past couple of years. So yeah, but originally it was just basically doing pull-ups, doing a pull-up and run. You can just about get through an obstacle course race. Yeah, that's what we tried to do. If you want to be competitive, you've got to work on the, on good technique and build up that grip strength to different holds and things like that.
Speaker 5:So it takes a time. Do you, do my sessions where you're kind of running or doing any compromise works and then doing your grip stuff, or do you just kind of work on your grip and running quite separate?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I have started doing kind of like a run lap, like a K run, and then I'll mint the gym, do like an obstacle, and then back I'll do another K and then back in the gym.
Speaker 5:So I'll start doing that.
Speaker 4:They're trying to replicate an OCR race.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can always. You can always see if you know an obstacle course race. You can always see one in the gym. They're coming off the treadmill, then they're going up and down back at the treadmill, then they jump back on the treadmill, or they might be just such random things that we end up doing, but they to make us compromise.
Speaker 5:I remember in lockdown when obviously we couldn't go to rumble. So I was running up and down my street with sandbags and I was getting like weird looks, like what was this kid doing? Cause I was just going up and down the street with sandbags, going into my garden, going on my rig, coming back out and the looks you were getting like this guy's mental.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my old neighbors actually said that to me. He was like are you all right? He goes. I'm like, yeah, he's like you don't look all right, cause I was doing a double sandbag carry up the street and I was really struggling. And he was like you don't seem all right. I'm like, no, no, this is just part of the training. And he was like, oh weirdo, yeah, well, I live.
Speaker 4:I only live in the town, so you know quite a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you do run along with a sandbag, you're getting a funny look or you're with someone that you know and it's a right night man Like yeah, it's definitely the one that, the one that we all sort of have to deal with in it, the neighbors thinking we were all completely off our rocker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, running down, running down with like a Jerry cans up and down the street and then doing burpees and then picking them back up and then running back up again while people are getting Tesco shopping out of their car. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:People still do burpees. I quit them ever since Spartan took them out of the wrist.
Speaker 2:Oh, you got to get the burpees in. That's pure compromise, that is.
Speaker 1:I'm not, I hate, I always. I never do burpees, To be fair, it hurts my wrist.
Speaker 2:So let's start off categorizing this topic a bit better, then, because what we're trying to say, and what Russ is kind of alluding to, is that you actually don't need a training center. We're not trying to put Gavin out of business up in Scotland or rumble, but we are trying to say that the main thing about training for obstacle court racing, you need to have an imagination and you need to not be embarrassed about people thinking you're weird outside your house or the gym. So when you first started training, how did you, did you use? You've said that you went to a training center, but that's only when you started wanting to train a little bit more. You must have been doing something a bit strange and innovative for obstacle court racing before that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was basically the go out, run and do things whilst you're running. Stop, do a few press ups, run a little bit further, do some sit ups. You kind of almost make it like a little circuit. When you're out on, out on the on, your just do like your jog, I suppose. So when you're just going out for your like little jog at the end of the night and that you just whack some extra things in it and that's kind of like like what you expect to be doing during a race, isn't it?
Speaker 2:No, you weren't. You were proper on it straight away, weren't you?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean before we had the rumble bar. Obviously a lot of it was done outside, but we still had an outside of screen training silly. So we'd go there once a month normally. So the rest of it would be done in the woods and it'd be the same sort of thing. You'd be like doing like an interval and then going straight into like squats, jumping jacks, burpees, mountain climbers, that sort of stuff, and then back into your run. But then we'd also get the opportunity to train on the schools as well. So it was a bit more specific.
Speaker 4:I think if you're out running, instead of being a lazy walking through a gate, jump the thing like.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I still find it hard to just jump one gate and I'm like instantly out of breath and heart rates of the roof. I'm like I should be used to this, they would get it easier.
Speaker 1:I'll go out of a load of trial runners sometimes, and every time I'm out of them they all go through the gate and I always jump it every time Because it's just, it's just like the more you jump gates, the more easier it is when you're doing it in a race.
Speaker 4:I've raced out of race. Last weekend it was the beat the chasers and I was like the chasers, so it was like everyone set off and they got a 10 minute head start and then there was three of us that set off afterwards and that was good fun. But there was a couple of gates and that and I was like just just about hurtling them. And then the guy who was running behind and he says like every time you heard all day I was like gapping them like three, four seconds. So well, like after four gates, you know, I mean I've like I've gained like nearly 20 seconds on them just because I'm just jumping it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you could do it effortlessly, the amount of time you save is incredible.
Speaker 4:It's hard work, but it's like momentum and keeping them and you've got to be fully committed to it, Like because if you don't make that top bar, you're hit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've all done that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've all stacked one of those End of a race Thinking you've still got that bounce in your legs and you suddenly hit it. No, no, I haven't got a bounce. I I said I've said this before we did them. Russ, we did a session down at Rumble where he actually David took us into the specifics of plyometrics, jumping over and hurdling things, and I just to this day I'll see, I keep talking about it.
Speaker 2:It was just so innovative that someone thought an hour session just teaching us how to hurdle things would be a good idea. And you've on paper, you're like teaching me how to jump. That's not not turning up for that, but it was just so good Just trying to teach you how to keep momentum and actually hand placement when you're hurdling all those things. It's just so important. But so we're saying that anyone with any one of the facilities to to go out, jump over, hurdle things, go for a nice trail run, is on the, on the on the right trajectory to be ready for any obstacle course race. It's just when it gets into more the nitty gritty and the technicalities of things. So, russ, when did you, when did you first feel that you were not out of your depth? But there was.
Speaker 4:There was a few things you needed to learn technically was I was probably the first time I went to freestyle in Hoike. The guy took us in I think it was after I was because I just finished work and introduced us to a little rig and things. I was just like, how the hell do you get through that? Trying to learn like who can you fit in rings and that, and it was like that. I think I would only been there in half an hour. My forms were pumped up the hell and that was just like I've got so much to learn After a couple of sessions. You just pick it up, especially if you want to learn. It makes it easier, doesn't it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where's that, where's that one?
Speaker 4:That was in Hoike, but it's closed down now.
Speaker 3:Oh right.
Speaker 4:Back then that was about an hour away and because I worked in the board, as it was always like I could always get there pretty easily. But that's no longer now. So that tartle Moria, the little rig, that tartle Moria came from freestyles.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:The place that I used to train.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Where's your closest now?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we've got Ninja Warrior, which is an hour and a half away, or you've got Gav.
Speaker 1:Is that?
Speaker 4:Top Moria, and that's two and a half hours, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a long way. Is the Ninja Warrior just one of them? Sort of Ninja Warrior, sort of kids play part things?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's pretty small as well.
Speaker 1:The one up in Denver.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's pretty small. Is it a primal gym or something like that? I've never been there, but I think that's got a few monkey bars in there.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you got any calisthenics bars or anything in the village or anything like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, nothing Got the kids park. They sometimes work, didn't?
Speaker 2:they.
Speaker 3:Kids park.
Speaker 1:Yeah you have to turn up at a different time though.
Speaker 4:I just rock up a limb. Oh yeah, you're lucky then yeah.
Speaker 2:You just pushed the kids off, but you got your kids with you. It's fine.
Speaker 4:But yeah, there's none of them. Little park, gyms or nothing. Well, I've never.
Speaker 2:Because that was about to say that, ships, you was about to say it as well. The next step from not having anything around you, I think having that. It seems stupid because they are kids parks, but you turn up to them and actually you can get a pretty decent OCR workout done on them. Well, mo, we turned up to one in lockdown, didn't we? When there wasn't yeah, when you weren't allowed out, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's probably worse.
Speaker 5:Standing out there in my candy, my sweets.
Speaker 2:That was just to make sure I finished my set, wasn't it?
Speaker 5:That was an awful workout with the sunburn carry that just never end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they usually have like a path around them as well. That's circular in some respects, which is quite good for doing almost doing some pull-ups, monkey bars, even if they're like, literally, these kids parks after the smallism have like free monkey bars, don't they? So you have to keep going back and forth, but it's good to test your grip out. So, yeah, that's probably the next step. If there's one of those, get yourself to one of those, do some pull-ups and yeah, that's all you need to do, apparently, russell, do some pull-ups and win an Ultra. That's what. How easy it is.
Speaker 5:Have you got like a go-to workout, russ, that since you've kind of done your step into OCR? Have you got a workout that you do now that you think helps you for OCR, whether it's a run-based workout, whether it's just a workout in the gym? Have you got anything that you do constantly? Do you think this is the key?
Speaker 4:Quite honestly, it's ever since I've, like, took OCR on as my main sport. I literally don't do any workouts. That's what I'm saying. I did do a bit of a workout last week. I was on the row, I did eight minutes on the row and then I'd go off and I was doing like sled drags, but that's it OCR again. And then I was back on the row and I was back out doing I think it's a 30kg bag over the shoulder for about another eight minutes. So it was just like eight minute intervals, really just over an hour. But apart from that, my training is very much based on running and then very OCR specific. So just swinging around through in the garage trying different holds, seeing how long I can hold on for just that is it running in an OCR.
Speaker 5:Yeah, do any special run workouts, like individual or far leg sessions.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll go out and do far leg sessions or hard reps. He'll work as well. So, yeah, my running is. Yeah, there is hard effort in there.
Speaker 1:I've actually got some good heels as well then.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's a crack in one where I work. It's called the Eilden heels. In five miles I can get to nearly two and a half thousand feet of elevation.
Speaker 1:What's that in English, guys? Two and a half what thousand feet? Yeah.
Speaker 5:I mean just under a thousand meters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's seven hundred feet. Yeah, seven hundred.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that's proper heels.
Speaker 4:If you're not running upwards, you're just running downwards, that's basically what happens on a hill. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:It's very rare to ship the outsmarts on someone there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 5:I'll give him that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm well proud of that.
Speaker 2:Mo, you wanted to do Everest Inn. That sounds like a great heel to go and do some Everest Inn on.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it might be damn quicker than the hills we've got around ours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two hundred feet heel. We've talked around, we've done it before, we've talked to we've had an whole episode on that how fit do I need to be? And we basically said that you don't even need to train for an OCR, you can just rock up and just see how you can get round. But I think, russ, is good to have you on, because you're given a different perspective to how does someone turn up, realise they actually got a good attribute already, they've built for the sport, and then how do they develop further to make them even better at the sport? So it's really hard, especially when there's nothing around you, to train facilities. But I think, did you feel that when you went to that training facility that that was the best move that you made to develop in the sport?
Speaker 4:A hundred percent. Like I said, never been on a lower row before, so just having something there to practice on was just like a massive help. I didn't have anything in the garage, so when I was going to lad James, that was just my OCR training, had nothing else and obviously I've had to adapt since it closed and create my own. But a hundred percent helps having somewhere, a facility, training and have that coach to guide you correctly when you're doing things wrong. You can't watch yourself when you're training, so it was always great to have him there, point, as I would do this, do that, and it was just yeah, that brings on so much just in the short period of time I trained there. And now it's just yeah, I haven't got that anymore, but just make and do what I can.
Speaker 1:So you find there's lots of limitations with what you're going through in the garage then, compared to what you had at a training facility Because I mean, even in training facilities there's still limitations and you get kind of like one sided on what you're doing. But when you're just doing the stuff in the garage you can't do big stuff. And I think you really notice that when you come out onto the course.
Speaker 4:A hundred percent. Obviously it's still a garage. At the end of the day it's for the house we're going about trying to dodge things. You know I've got like all well, I did have all the wood in there for the cladding. So what used to be a high rig ended up being a mid rig. So you just have to make do what it is. You know, fun life. You've got life there as well and trying to train around that it's difficult, but it's just that consistency and just just keep plodding away, doing like you say, doing a little bit now and then spurt and do nothing.
Speaker 2:Just getting in there it's going to help like you said, an important thing that shocked me when I first started training at rumble, because I was doing loads of stuff, thinking I was strong, my grip's amazing, I can do like 20 pull ups. Look at me, go get to rumble and I'm pumped within 10 minutes. It's just such a different feeling going on. These. All these different rigs and different like attachments and way that you move your body just is just so different to training in Isolation in like a gym or or doing pull ups, isn't it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think if you haven't got any well, not so much rigs but different holds and able to swing through them, you are restricted because, yeah, it doesn't matter how many pull ups you can do. I think I can do about 12 pull ups in once, one go, you know, but that's just a static hold. I think you've got to be able to work your way through an obstacle and that grip to not grip to another grip, Like the on and off pumps. You pumps your arms quite a lot and I think you've got to be used to that. Yeah, and the breathing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the breathing, the on and off, is actually the most. It's the most difficult thing because then you over grip. Every time you're grabbing on something or reaching out to it, you grip it differently and then you can actually end up over gripping. And a lot of people actually don't realise when they get into OCR there is such thing as over gripping, like you're gripping too hard on an obstacle because they think they're going to fall off, but actually you could grip less on it to conserve your energy. Same way of holding a pace don't push on that pace because you can hold back and conserve energy. It's the same with grip, mo. Is that what you see when you're taking on new people on OCR? That the grip is the main thing, that they come in with some level of strength, but it's just the movements that we do on technical obstacles that just catches people out.
Speaker 5:Yeah, a lot of people you get in that have done a bit of OCR and have a bit of experience. They've normally got strength to hold themselves up. It is purely technique and because sometimes if they're self-taught on the race course they come in with some bad habits and they're actually sometimes the hardest people to coach because you've got to try and almost change their habits to make it easier for them. But trying to get someone to change their habits and a lot of these people like Russ, where they can only get to centres once a month because it's so far, so trying to change your habit once a month is a lot harder to do than if you're seeing them constantly. So you find sometimes they're the worst not the worst people, but the harder people to teach the ones that have the strength and have a little bit of knowledge of the sport and they've tried the sport before because they kind of have a bit of bad habits and a bad baseline in a way.
Speaker 5:You were a bit like that, darren, though I remember when you came in with strength and you just climbed. I'm one of the worst people I know. Great, one of the harder people to coach, because if you get a beginner, you can get a beginner to climb a rope and they don't need too much strength in the arms. They'll need a little bit. You don't need to be able to do a pull-up to climb a rope, whereas someone that can already do 10 pull-ups. They can climb a rope with their arms and they never use their feet because they can use their arms. But actually that makes it harder to learn how to use your feet because you're always using your arms, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you are almost. If you're going to these training facilities, you have to forget you're strong. If you are strong, that's from a personal point of view. That's where I came from. I have to almost think that I can't lift my body weight and then just go from there, do what the coach is telling you from that, because that's the only way I'm going to learn. You smiled when you said bad habits, russ, what bad habits did you have when you went to a training facility?
Speaker 4:I don't know well what's the good habit. I don't have that coach to say this is what you're doing wrong. I'm just here, rocking up, running as hard as I can, winging my way through these obstacles and just hoping for the best.
Speaker 5:Are you purely self-coached or do you have a coach that does your training?
Speaker 4:No, I'm self-coached.
Speaker 1:And it's difficult. However, how many friends that do OCR are around you up there Like, say, for example, what we've got with us guys? How many guys do you meet up with and run OCR-y stuff with?
Speaker 4:No, yeah, it's not easy. That's the hardest bit, because then you haven't even got anyone to talk through stuff and like bash heads together with I was in a good scene, a good club up here that we do obviously running, but yeah, no one, nothing for us.
Speaker 4:The people switch off and you say, oh see how to run us, because that's quite a few, they're actually quite interested in it, I don't know about what I'm doing and things out but, yeah, yeah, you try to cope some of them over get some friends in the sport. It's hard, though, isn't it Like when there's no facilities to train, they literally just rock and up to do the races, and not everyone's kind of keen to put in the effort, and, yeah, like I am.
Speaker 2:How have you stayed in it then, Russ? Because what I'm hearing is like I think clubs and training facilities retain people once they've got a taste of OCR, because you can kind of like keep going back into it getting a taste of it. But how have you retained it then? Is it just because you've had good performances?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, and it's good crack. You know I enjoy travelling around and there's yeah, there's no one nasty in the sport. So every time you go anywhere it's such a good vibe, such a good community and just yeah, good crack really. And it's different. I always enjoy doing something different. You know it's over like bike and I run and switch off, do anyways.
Speaker 2:Well, we say, we say all the time that, like we said, you probably heard us say that you just never know what you're getting with OCR, it's always different and there's no no same day, even at nuts, for instance, like we've ran it hundreds of times, yet every every time it's different, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, just to see them all as it hits.
Speaker 1:And you get to use your body in a way that you don't use in any other sport. There's not. There's not a single sport on this planet where you get to to move the way that you move in OCR. There's no. Like, you don't get to run, you don't get to use agility, you don't get to use strength, you don't get to use your brain. What else do you use in OCR? You made up the attribute points no, I remodeled it but basically you know that you get to use everything, that you don't get to use tech. You don't get to use technique. Endurance I mean climbing is technique, but you don't get to use endurance as much. You don't get to use speed. You get to use your brain, but you don't get to do all the other things. There's no fear factor. There's no. You know nothing. Nothing compares Nothing in the world.
Speaker 4:Once the boxing gym closed down, there was like there's no other gyms and I didn't want to become a full runner with runner arms and things like that.
Speaker 1:No, no one wants them arms. Do they. So I do do OCR.
Speaker 4:It's a good way of like keeping keeping a good top half as well as on top of the running as well.
Speaker 1:It does make you look good in the mirror.
Speaker 2:There we go. We found what kept Russ in it. It was ego. That's what kept Russ in OCR. What are big arms.
Speaker 3:He wanted big arms and gold medals. That's what he wanted.
Speaker 4:Just a few biceps curls in the gym. Two biceps curls.
Speaker 1:Biceps win races innit.
Speaker 2:You're going to be sun out for a high rock scene. You can see that he wants that image at the end innit.
Speaker 2:The fake tan images. Yeah, Okay. So I think we I think we this linked with our how fit do I need to be episode listeners. Go back and listen to that if you want to hear, like, the basics of how to get into OCR and what to do to get, what to train for to be good at OCR. We've kind of like really hit, hit on, like, if you haven't got a training facility, you need to be quite innovative. But as long as you're running and doing something compromised, you're going to be quite ready to take on any obstacle course race, but less. Now let's go into the nitty gritty of the detail because, Russ, I don't know if you agree, but you, the first time you went to is it, did you go? You went to Wells, didn't you? Didn't go to the Euros? Yeah, so the world's was that? Was that a bit of eye opening in terms of how technical the obstacles can be?
Speaker 4:To be fair, I don't think the obstacles were overly technical. The dip bar at the end. I got over the dip bar every time on that last one, but it was just grip strength and probably grip endurance letters down there, but I didn't find it overly too technical. I think the Europeans was a bit more technical, which I didn't do. But yeah, just the variety of obstacles was quite good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what did you? What was? How did your training that you've been doing yourself? How did that help you to worlds, do you think? Do you think you could have benefited from a bit more technical in a facility with a coach to like helping you with?
Speaker 4:those obstacles 100%, yeah, yeah. So you can't. You can't see yourself, you can't see what bad habits you're doing, you can't see what different movements you could do to make things easier. All them obstacles that I'd went on at the world's well. Majority of them. It's something I've never, ever, been on before. So the 3K that I did the first race was basically just an eye opener and a lot of the obstacles weren't too bad, like you could swing through them with us like a straight arm. So you're kind of using the skeletal, so they're not too bad. But yeah, if we got a bit more technical, I'd be be struggling a bit more.
Speaker 5:Have you trained anything? Changed anything in your training, since the worlds like to work on endurance, grip endurance wise.
Speaker 4:I have now, after the world and then the British champs, I kind of went into winter training so that was just a lot of like weight training, but now I'm kind of more OCR training and doing a lot more grip, so I'm building it back up.
Speaker 2:We changed ours after the Euros Me and Mo. I personally found it even my grip just wasn't good enough for even like the Euros. It's just a different world out there. When you start coming out of the UK to go obstacle course racing and we as athletes, especially if we're trying to be at different, the top level, we just need to be thinking outside the UK. And we say it so so often but because we don't touch those obstacles, we never actually know how far do we need to push the grip, endurance, how far do we need to keep training. We just look on Instagram and see all these other people racing in Europe and think, ok, that's maybe if I add a little session in here or there, that helped me. But coming from Euros, like it was just just different. The only person that I think knew how to do it as U ships, you kind of had been doing those long runs and those endurance ones.
Speaker 1:OCR long run. Ocr long run. I was on one of them today.
Speaker 2:What did you do today? What helped you with that? Then that endurance.
Speaker 1:So you work the obstacles under fatigue, so you don't do the obstacles fast, but you do them for a very long time. So you basically you just get to that point where your arms are fatigued but then you keep going through it. So you're going beyond that point, but you're doing it in a race, a race style. So you're going from run to obstacle to run to obstacle, but in a very race type workout. But you can only do that at a training facility that has decent facilities. I do it at Nuts, which is basically an obstacle course. So it's very difficult to get that training in unless you have an obstacle course. I mean you can do it because I used to do it at home when I had my own rig and I'd do the run section with a mile run and then come back and I'd have different sort of elements on my home rig. That was similar but it's still not the same as in the training centre.
Speaker 2:You can get 90% there, but you can't get a whole hundred Russ. How could you do that in your garage? Could you do a two hour run with different attachments here and there?
Speaker 4:You could, I suppose, but you'd have to put time to decide to change your holds and move everything around to get what you want. So if I was to do something like a circular art way to run rig, I'd probably get about four, maybe five One of those would be like a carry or something like that and a sled drag and then probably three rigs you do need a lot of material.
Speaker 1:Even when I had my rig I had a four metre monkey bar set with an inclined monkey bar, a rope on it. So it was a foz style, so everyone kind of knows those styles, and I was able to put ropes on one side of the monkey bars. I was able to put other bits going up the incline. I had a rope and wheel set up on the incline bit. Obviously the rope climb itself and then you could put carries and stuff alongside it. So even in that sort of small space you've got quite a lot of elements that you can use. But with a garage I mean garage is difficult you can't put lots and lots of pieces in there.
Speaker 2:Your version of training is like. I would say that's the best way to get the most out of a facility if you're going to drive two hours to two there.
Speaker 1:That's exactly why I do it. You guys go to Rumble once a week, I go to Nuts every other week, and then that every other week the session that I'm doing there has to be specific to what I can get out of the time there. So I think that's what you know. When you go to a training centre, it's really difficult to get the right session in for what you need to be doing there, Because if you can only go once every now and again, you either need to make it count or do stuff that's really useful to what your training is going to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when was the last time you went to one Russ?
Speaker 4:I was at Garves, I think it was before Christmas.
Speaker 1:Two and a half hours is a long, long slog to go. That's a long slog. That's two and a half hours there. And then two and a half hours back.
Speaker 4:Then two and a half hours back. You spent five hours driving just for two hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, Nuts is an hour away from me and I find that's on the limit for a training centre. I think it's so difficult. Two and a half hours is madness.
Speaker 5:But ten minutes away from Rumble, such a slog.
Speaker 1:Don't rub it in you guys.
Speaker 3:But the thing is when.
Speaker 2:Don't ask me. I didn't even know Rumble existed. I said to you at the beginning I was driving an hour and a half to Nuclear and then bloody Dave mentioned I found out on Rumble website and then he was ten minutes away. I've been doing that for like two years.
Speaker 1:You're off your head. But, russell, when you go to Gavin's, what sessions do you do when you get there? Whatever To make, wherever he's got on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he does quite a lot of Well. Most of the times I've been I think was it twice I've been it's just kind of like a short but very obstacle dense kind of run. I think last time you were, I think I was injured last time so I didn't do too much of it. But yeah, very short but loads of obstacles. A little bit of a rest as you walk back to the start and then you go again and then next thing, yeah, a couple of laps of that it's done like. But now I know, when it's so heavily packed with obstacles you're burning out so quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really hard to get that endurance, even on that short side of it.
Speaker 2:So do you get what you need out of that, Russell, or do you think you would like to change it a little bit? Because what I find sometimes Dave might listen I think he does listen to this sometimes He'll know that I'll go to Rumble and I want to do my own thing, because I'm such a different mindset and training and level that sometimes I just don't want to do a session. I want to do once my specific thing, which I know is a weakness, and I need to focus on it. Do you feel you get what you want out of those sessions or would you prefer just to rock up and do your own thing?
Speaker 4:No, I normally just jump in with what Gab's got planned because I think whatever I'm doing up there is helping Whatever. It is just my grip and just being on different obstacles. I do know them all, but it's just nice to be on there doing different movements, the one I'm used to down here, it's just being their helps.
Speaker 2:We've got the luxury of going to them that we can actually. We go there so often that we can change it because we can make it specific Like ships. Two hours just going around nuts is actually a luxury for you. Two and a half, two and a half, sorry, two and a half. Get his warm up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, part of it is warm up. It is a luxury, but it does have its limitations, because you guys know as well as I do that whenever we go to each other's training places when I come to Rumble, or vice versa, you guys come to nuts there is limitations to it because you do get used to them. One obstacle. So even for people that have their own training facility, you still need to float about a bit and get obstacles on other ones. It's funny to say it, but no obstacle is the same and every different movement is different. You guys are phenomenal around Rumble, but when I go on some of those obstacles they are a little bit tricky because you know the best places for them.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's the one negative, If there is a negative about living close to a training center. You can get a bit too comfortable with the holds, with the attachments, with the gaps, because even the main thing, I think, is the gaps and obstacles, because every gym has different gaps and every race uses different scaffold poles or different layout to put their attachments and things.
Speaker 5:And if you get so used to gaps it almost becomes second nature to reach out and grab the hold a certain way. And then, as soon as you go to a race, it's like oh, that was closer than I'm used to, that was a bit further away than I'm used to, or whatever it be. You need to be out training on different centers as well as your own.
Speaker 2:if you're near a center, how many times are you changing up the garage attachments? Russ?
Speaker 4:Every week oh okay.
Speaker 3:Really yeah.
Speaker 2:I wasn't going to.
Speaker 3:I think he's going to say that yeah.
Speaker 4:If I want to do like, yeah, swinging the ball, I've got to. I've got a few different holds now so I can change around. At the moment it's just like balls.
Speaker 1:I bet it is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm just thinking about that, and then next week I'll probably just change it again to like a lot of short ropes or down pipes or something like that. You've got to keep it fresh. You've got to keep changing it up offline, or you just get bored of it, you have to send a video of your garage.
Speaker 5:How often are you in there training? Is it just like once a week, or do you try and get in there more than?
Speaker 4:I do very often specific stuff once a week and then I'll probably back in there again doing a bit of a workout kind of kind of thing like sandbags or something like that sled drugs.
Speaker 1:You've got quite a big garage in. How big is your garage? Not very big. How big is your garage?
Speaker 4:Six meters long, six by three, I think it is.
Speaker 1:That's long though. Six meters is a long garage. I need to see a picture. I bet you got a chest freezer in there no. Washing machine, tumble dryer, lawn mower no, it's in the shed outside you can tell what he has got in there.
Speaker 2:Car there isn't a car.
Speaker 1:Who has a car in a garage?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Do you know this is actually. Do you know? You're being quite relaxed there. I was like saying about what you're training, but you're actually explaining the detail and if someone doesn't have the facilities, you're laying down quite key things that think people should be doing. I thought you was going to say you just have attachments in the garage and you leave them. You're changing them weekly. That's such an important thing for people to hear. You can never get stagnant with the attachments that you've got. You have to keep changing them up to actually stay fresh if you don't have the facility, because every time you go rumble, we've got luxury. Oh, dave, what's this rig? Oh, I've just changed that up. He changes it every week, but you can become lazy.
Speaker 2:I think I said it in a lot of past episodes about being complacent in your training. Don't ever come complacent, because that leads to either stagnation or decline in your ability. Where do you want to go next? Anything else you guys want to talk about from training facilities? One thing we haven't said is actually who they are and where are they. I feel we could be here all day and we get things wrong if we start to say where the training facilities are. How?
Speaker 1:do you want to summarize it? Should we cop it out again and say head over to the British Obstacle Sports? Website where you can find all the training facilities.
Speaker 2:You can't. Actually this is the only time that I'm going to say maybe a negative is that you can only find affiliated training.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that is true.
Speaker 2:So I had a little look. That's probably not a bad thing. Not a bad thing because affiliated ones will see how they've got the right insurance. They're all set up correctly, which is really good, but there are rogue ones out there. There's quite a lot of training facilities out there. I think what we said is that the top gold standard is go to an obstacle course training facility that is going to have everything there for you to train on, whether the coaches are actually putting on a session or they're not putting on a session.
Speaker 2:Getting on obstacles that Russ has said, is the most important thing. That is going to get you ready for a race. The other thing is that we need to take down. A tier is have a garage, put things in it, get an innovative, hang stuff up. Just do pull ups. Get some attachments, change it up. Go to a climbing gym. Climbing gyms are quite all over the place now. Even Ninja Warrior gyms are there, even down to the Ninja Warrior places where the kids are. Push the kids off, get on it. Don't worry about their ninth birthday party. Do some pull ups on those. That's another way. And then even further down. Summarizing it kids play parks. Maybe just choose your timing correctly. Don't go dark, like Mo said, and then get on the bars, get moving around, get that different grip attachments in and then, if all else fails, there is just body weight movement jumping over fences, jumping over gates when you're trail running, all those bits, anything else. Have I summarized it right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, as long as you have purpose to what you are doing. You can't just willy-nilly just be rocking here, there and everywhere expecting to get results, because we've all been there and that's not how you get results.
Speaker 5:Russ. We'll show three biggest tips for someone that doesn't have a gym near them.
Speaker 2:Someone like you in the middle of nowhere maybe Scotland, but not Scotland Sitting at home, not knowing what to do right now, middle of nowhere, no mate Listening to this amazing podcast.
Speaker 1:What do I do? Wishing you was with us.
Speaker 4:You've got to be hungry for him. You've got to be driven. Yeah, that's what I am. I train twice a day Tuesday, wednesday, thursday. I'm out there. I use a great phrase of just getting wintered. It doesn't matter what it is, I'm out the door by six o'clock, regardless of what the weather is. I enjoy being out when it's pissing down my rain or it's like a foot of snow and no one else is out. I enjoy that. It's just something a lot of came used to, but it's, yeah, motivation. When you get to your office, you've got to be driven to get out there and get it done like and if you want it, you'll do it and work around it and find something that's going to help you with what you want to do. That's what I've done. Yeah, like that, just got to get out there and get it done like.
Speaker 2:We'll put some rocking music behind that. Another quick fire question for you, then what's the best bit of equipment you've got in your gym that you use? Gym sorry, I keep saying gym, garage, garage, gym, slash, gym.
Speaker 4:It's probably like a big well, it's a long long scaffolding pool.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:That's just on on straps from the beams. So when you're swinging through that it spins and it rocks backwards and forwards.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool though. Yeah, if you want to.
Speaker 4:You want to dead, hang off it. It's kind of always wanting to roll you off it. What have you got attachments on it? When you're trying to go through it, it's rocking around. The the attachments are actually swinging around. So you've got to like, be dead on your high and coordination Nice. So it's just just make things difficult for yourself to, to get complacent.
Speaker 1:I think if anyone wants to know how they can get hold of a scaffold tube, right, if anyone wants to get hold of a scaffolder and they either offer them a tenner, a fire or a beer or anything else, the chances are if they've got the lorry, they will sell you one of their pieces. There you go, and maybe some fittings as well. You just got to. You just got to. You've got to show them a bit of cash.
Speaker 5:Fibre, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Well, no, probably a bit more.
Speaker 5:That's what I was going to say how many bars you got.
Speaker 4:Come to me at the right time. What else will you do for a tenner?
Speaker 1:Everything Just tenner.
Speaker 3:That's it.
Speaker 1:Got these cheeseburgers man.
Speaker 2:Mo, should we do it? Should we do it? The best part of the day. Everyone, every single person, is waiting for. What is it? Russ, can you guess what we're about to do? I?
Speaker 4:hope it's the card. Do you want to stop keeping him on here for a minute?
Speaker 2:He's just listening to us ramble for no reason. Just for this card. That's the only reason, isn't it? Go on, Mo, let's go through it.
Speaker 5:Right, so your card is already made and we've already well, I say we. I've given you stats, but we're going to you put them all low, have you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you just sent me for everything.
Speaker 5:No, I've been. I feel like I've been quite not reasonable, but fair. But obviously we only know you from racing you. We don't train with you. It's a bit harder to get an idea of what you think your strengths are and things. So we'll talk about it and then I'll tell you what I've put down and then you can kind of tell me if you believe you're wrong or right or all of the above, and then at the end I'll show you your card as well, so you get to see it. Today You're getting real king treatment right now. Most people don't see it until it goes out Right. So, as always, we'll go through the list and we're going to start with speed. I'll let you go first. They're out of 100, but if you're at 100, we tell you no, no one gets 100.
Speaker 4:I'll just say I won the speed work at the Rumble Games.
Speaker 3:You did that is true, you won the speed work. Wow, yeah.
Speaker 5:I've gone with 86, which is a pretty good speed score. That is one point below me. What? Because I reckon on an out and out speed on a flat. We're not talking obstacles, we're talking. We did 800 metres a mile. I reckon I'll have you. Is that speed?
Speaker 1:though, yeah.
Speaker 5:That's what we've done for everyone else.
Speaker 2:We're breaking down the attributes, aren't we?
Speaker 5:It's pure running speed top end speed?
Speaker 2:What's your speed? To be like your 5K, wouldn't it?
Speaker 5:Yeah, that would be the longest speed distance, if you like.
Speaker 1:I'll put Russell down as high as you mate.
Speaker 5:What's your 5K PV Russ?
Speaker 4:Well, my 5K, well, my park run here is in a field, so it's a cross country park run, and then that's, it's 18 minutes.
Speaker 1:I bet he's got like 7,000 feet of elevation in here. Elevation yeah.
Speaker 3:Just in a field it's hard.
Speaker 4:Do you know what Russ you need to join?
Speaker 5:our 200 metre dash that me and Shipley are going to do.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, that'd be fun. Yeah, I'm up for that.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe we should go out of that. I'm out of that, I'm out.
Speaker 4:I'll make you say but once I get good, I'm aware of my pictures of what I get up there. Yeah so I've got 86.
Speaker 5:You happy with that? Yeah, I might be with that.
Speaker 2:What were we saying? What was Dan? What would we say? Dan would be in the 90s, wouldn't he? Yeah, I would say Dan's probably just 90,
Speaker 5:maybe just underneath 89.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 5:Not quite like Stein Bethel. Yeah Beth, the closest in the UK.
Speaker 2:Cool, I'm happy with that as well. I approve.
Speaker 5:Yeah, do you know what yours is Darren.
Speaker 2:No, I can't remember what mine is, because if yours, was 86.
Speaker 5:You need to bump you down.
Speaker 2:No, mine would not be 86. I thought I was in the 70s for speed, so don't worry about me.
Speaker 5:Right. Next one's agility. Now, this is the only one I wasn't really sure on. So again, I'll let you if you've got a number in mind, I'll let you go first, and then I'll tell you what I've put down. But what do you think?
Speaker 4:What, what, what are you just kind of saying for agility?
Speaker 5:So it's more obstacle if you think about the mandatory obstacles in OCR, like walls, bolts, rather than just kind of sideways and movement agility wise. We're talking more kind of like the speed event at OCR games, then sort of obstacles.
Speaker 4:Quite good actually, because I think, because I'm quite tall, I can get over walls pretty, pretty quickly. I think height bandages is an advantage there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I don't know Numbers, Russell numbers. We want numbers man.
Speaker 4:I got 85 or something like that.
Speaker 5:Okay, I've given you 83, but I can bump you up to an 85. I'm happy with that.
Speaker 2:Be careful with this card. We don't want to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we don't want to Steady, steady.
Speaker 2:Don't agree with him straight away.
Speaker 5:Well, that was the one thing out of everything agility. I was up, I'm not sure, but he asked, just reminding me he did beat me at the speed event, which is pure agility, for what we call obstacle agility.
Speaker 2:Well, when we went beach ballistics and did space hoppers, it was pretty slow at those.
Speaker 5:Oh, okay.
Speaker 4:That should be by now.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we're all drying.
Speaker 5:Right. So next one, then your compromise run-ins, your ability to run under dress. I've gone high. With this one. I've gone 88. I think seeing you in action, actually, even though you don't have the training centers near you to really get obstacle compromised, you running under fatigue is pretty high, so I've gone 88.
Speaker 2:Up with that.
Speaker 3:How did they feel the world's?
Speaker 2:rough coming off the obstacles. How did you feel afterwards?
Speaker 4:I really struggled at the worlds, to be fair, I think I probably didn't warm up enough, especially on my grip, and I think over gripping I did a lot of that. That was Kenya the first time I actually realised, over grip almost, I think. I think I definitely did that.
Speaker 1:That would be why your compromise run-ins. Good then, because if you're over compromised and still able to perform, alright, that is your compromise running. I think we talked about before where we fall back on our strongest attributes, on our weakest Right. We do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:At our weakest moments, we fall back on our strongest attributes.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I was waiting for someone to correct me.
Speaker 2:I think I just said we use the friendships.
Speaker 3:So it sounds the same now.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I ran next to Russ. We were in the team race and we were, I will say it, we were an amazing team, to be fair, and watching Russ, he was pretty me and Russ carried Jack. I'm only saying that because Jack fell off the last thing, but Jack was pretty good as well, to be fair to him. But Russ looked good. I was very impressed seeing him up close and personal.
Speaker 4:That was my best race at the worlds. As the teams, I felt amazing for it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean to be fair. I think all three of us felt amazing, apart from the little plank incident on the little team workout bit, but everything else we were in.
Speaker 4:I carried that team. That was the case. I carried yous, yeah, yeah, because I didn't have any cock-ups and they fell off a bloody plank.
Speaker 2:No, but Jack made you compromised. That was your compromised state having those two. Don't ask Shipley about his performance at the worlds.
Speaker 3:Oh, just touched the side.
Speaker 1:It's my big hand.
Speaker 5:Right, this is your big boy stat. I've put this as your highest because you are Mr Ultra, so endurance. I've got you on a 91. Oh, you've gone higher. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you've been beaten in an Ultra OCR today. Is that correct? Yep, so I mean you've got to be up there. You're unbeaten in the English team.
Speaker 4:I've gone on. I've had some major football going on this weekend with Tough Mudder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I bet you did yeah.
Speaker 5:I reckon I'd like to see you out there.
Speaker 4:I'm back doubling it this year, mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are you doing the endurance series?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm only going to do three. I've picked my three.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which ones?
Speaker 4:I'm doing the formula jump yeah, doing that one, that'd be good. European Tough Mudder yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:Europe's toughest, isn't it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then probably Spartan Donald Wills.
Speaker 5:Nice. Oh, I can't wait to see Europe's toughest Mudder. Yeah, I've got 12 hours, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 12 hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you'll definitely be racing James again. I reckon he'll be doing the endurance one.
Speaker 4:He's not doing the formula jump. I know that.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 4:Well, I was about to say yeah, the Tough Mudder Infinity last year. Well, Sean Mayweller, he was in it, but he pulled up, so I beat Sean Nice.
Speaker 1:That's a good point. Chuck it in, James.
Speaker 2:All right, you can have 91, all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll give you that.
Speaker 2:What else you beat? You've beaten James. You've beaten it before.
Speaker 1:Haven't ran around the country, though, has he? No, he hasn't.
Speaker 2:Well, he walked around, but he knows.
Speaker 5:Try not to. He just needs to win a four laps of nuts.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, he do actually.
Speaker 5:And I'll race that one.
Speaker 2:That should have been in the ultra scene. I don't know why that Four laps of nuts is ultra, even if it's not ultra in the mile.
Speaker 1:Distance. It's in ultra in. Yeah, yeah, that would have been a good. I'd love to battle Us four and the battle on that would be really good, yeah, I think that's the longest race that I would feel comfortable racing you at, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:And I feel like I've got a chance. It's only 18, 19 miles.
Speaker 1:No, it's not even that. No, it's less than that 17 laps.
Speaker 5:So it's four 7K laps. Yeah, okay it normally takes about Three hours. Yeah, it's normally about three and a half to four hours time in pain, just because of the brutalness of the obstacles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got lucky, Russ, when we did it. We did four laps and it was just so dry and the legs were so empty that it made it actually worse because it was just so fast Usually it's a slot and I've been around three hours with such a difficult race.
Speaker 4:I think you can run it really hard, but it's a long time to run. Run on, it's right on the limit.
Speaker 1:Especially when you've got a lot of obstacles and your body's starting to feel things in different places, especially when you've got a lot of things to climb over Always, I'd always get cramped at nuts for laps Always.
Speaker 5:And it feels like it should be so short because there are only 7K laps.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:But it just feels like and again, I think that just adds to you going off too quick because you're like, oh, it's only four, 7k laps, it's not even that far. But yeah, that'd be cool to see you at Right. Moving on then Power, power. Now I've gone 85 for your power. You're quite powerful. I'm looking at your card right now. You've got some big shoulders in this vest. If he's a boxer, I'm a bar like 200 club for deadlifts there you go what, what pounds.
Speaker 4:No, I've got a kilogram, come on.
Speaker 1:That's actually really heavy. I haven't even got that much weight. My back would go right out of my 200.
Speaker 4:Have you? Really, I can't do it now, but I haven't done it, all right.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're in there.
Speaker 1:It doesn't count though, does it?
Speaker 2:I haven't seen Rusty look powerful.
Speaker 1:I bet he's got a good right-hander.
Speaker 2:What in the bottom for ACR?
Speaker 5:Boxing background.
Speaker 1:Boxing yeah.
Speaker 5:It's got to have some power.
Speaker 1:What weight class would you wrestle?
Speaker 4:Like well, I'll box at 68 kilograms.
Speaker 1:Bloody hell, did you get any knockouts? What Did you get any knockouts?
Speaker 4:Not on you, someone else standing count?
Speaker 1:Standing.
Speaker 5:Technical ability I've gone 83. We could go lower with this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need to go lower because his car's getting too good.
Speaker 2:Too good, yeah, I think it should be lower. I think Rusty's got a lot to learn, even though you have to put your foot lock.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen that.
Speaker 4:Foot lock. Is that how you tell your shoe list? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5:I've gone 78. We'll change it too.
Speaker 2:This is accountability corner. We need to make sure Rusty's got like we need to say here, got such good base foundation to be even better than you have been last year, and if you do a lot of more technical obstacles and get out there, you could have smashed the world. So let's put him down on this to make sure that you're always focusing on that. We're doing this for you. This is to help, yeah.
Speaker 3:You could be like Matt Roberts.
Speaker 5:I was going to go high as well. Yeah, just like it, we'll go 78, 79.
Speaker 2:I failed too much at Worlds, couldn't get through the parallel bars.
Speaker 4:I got through the parallel bars. He did get through them, though. Oh, he did, all right, okay.
Speaker 5:He did complete the rig on the team race.
Speaker 4:Every time I got over the parallel bars. Every time on the 3K and the 15K, I just filled it afterwards On the rope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's technical, that is pure technique. That's what we did. Rib strength- yeah getting that foot lock in without a hand and being comfortable with it being there. That's pure technical.
Speaker 4:I did slip on the foot lock actually there you go Getting down to rumble.
Speaker 5:Right Strength. Now, when we're talking strength and OCR, I know you're like you said, you're in the 200kg club for the deadlift, but we're talking more carrying. Yeah, probably quite low on that. Yeah, well, I've got a little story about this when we were racing the 8K at Sartamoria.
Speaker 4:No, I fucking came steaming past as, like a train, he had a leaner.
Speaker 5:And then we got to the carry, and I'm not the best carrier.
Speaker 1:I was about to say that, yeah, what's going on?
Speaker 5:All of a sudden, I was next to him. I was like I don't know what's happening here.
Speaker 4:That's a real low score.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I knew that would be my little one.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so 78 for that strength. I do believe you are strong and you could be better. I don't think it helps that you're long, because me and Darren have had this conversation before. Sometimes the tool you are, the harder it is to carry things. Darren's got little legs that just move quickly underneath him, whereas if you've got long legs I suffer with this problem, especially a long stride. It's just quite hard to move.
Speaker 2:I tell you what, though getting through those parallel bars is a good effort, because that was pure strength, that was pure grit and strength, wasn't it? It was just like I need to be locked in, completely tensed, everything, and just moving slowly, that was quite good strength. You're still 78, I'm not trying to put you up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, carries are definitely my weakest point.
Speaker 1:Which is funny, though, because that's the one you should be able to train for the best, not having a gym.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4:Easiest one to train. I hit running around with that bloody soundbag on my back.
Speaker 1:It's the neighbours, isn't it? Curtains are twitching.
Speaker 3:He's out there again, George.
Speaker 1:Well, that rustle, that rustle, that's not even his real name.
Speaker 3:He's picked up our bin now.
Speaker 5:Right last one then. So this is your special ability. We'll go round. All three of us will pick one for you. On your card I've gone with probably the most obvious, which is I've just put Scotland. You are the fake.
Speaker 1:Scotland.
Speaker 5:You won the Scottish series. You're not Scottish. Everyone thinks you're from Scotland. You're a good chameleon. We'll say that you blend into the Scots world.
Speaker 2:Rumours are that you're even in the Scottish WhatsApp group.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was in the world Scottish team and rustle.
Speaker 2:That's got to be the special ability then, being Scottish without being Scottish, unless Shippley's got one.
Speaker 1:No, I was going to say he said the same thing. You're like Meryl Gibson. What he's like Meryl Gibson? Because Meryl Gibson played a Scotsman with a bad Scottish accent.
Speaker 2:I haven't heard rustle Scottish accent, though.
Speaker 1:He's doing it all the time. He puts it on all the time.
Speaker 2:Russ, do you have any other special abilities you want to share with us? That might be good for the card.
Speaker 4:No, I don't think. It doesn't matter what I say. I think it's just going to be Scotland, isn't it?
Speaker 3:No, this is a good place. You can tell us what you like, you can argue your case, but Moe's just going to write down what he wants.
Speaker 5:I'm quite like in the, almost like special agent or secret agent with a hidden name. This is the thing that a lot of people don't know.
Speaker 1:I can't believe you've got a secret name.
Speaker 2:Don't tell anyone on this podcast. Just let them wonder They'd be sending rustle messages all week.
Speaker 1:I don't think he's going to be eligible for any prizes because he's going to be putting down the wrong name.
Speaker 5:So you're not eligible for any prizes. He's not very known about the name because at the Worlds on the results his real name was there. And I was looking for him and I was like, russ, where are you? And he said it's not under Russell. And I was like, oh, this is weird. And then he elaborated.
Speaker 2:I didn't turn to page 98.
Speaker 1:That's mean Sorry.
Speaker 5:I was on page 98. That's fine.
Speaker 3:That's the reason I was on it. Moe's there.
Speaker 2:Let's wrap this up because I think we've probably taken quite a lot of your time. Russ, Thanks for coming on. Anything else you want to say, Russ, from the training perspective, of the importance of going to a training centre or the importance of anything, you haven't said, but I think you've captured pretty much all of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think I'll have to be fair. But yeah, like I said before, just get on and do what you can. Keep going, do a little bit, a little bit higher.
Speaker 2:Yeah Now. Thank you so much for coming on. I think it was a really good episode, especially getting your perspective of training. I think it's a very different one to sometimes what me, moe and Shipps talk about. We've got totally different perceptions of how we train and how we get things done, and it seems like you're doing all the right things. Just yeah, like you said, getting to the training centres is so important but at the same time, if you can't get there, being innovative, making sure you don't get complacent, you don't get stagnant in what you're actually doing in your garage, in your garden, in the park, like you're doing the right things and you keep changing it up and you'll get to a good place. Anything you guys want to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just want to say you're always welcome to come down and stay. If you want, russell, we'll always have you down here.
Speaker 4:Appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, come down to Rumble. Sleep in a motelan. Actually, Darren's got a nice spare room. Well, your spare room Shipps.
Speaker 5:Well, I haven't come down to us.
Speaker 1:Russell's the right dirtbag. That's a climbing thing, that is, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:I thought you was ending it with an insult. Great.
Speaker 1:Do my insults face to face.
Speaker 2:No, all right, let's wrap it up. Thanks for listening everyone. I hope you got something out of this episode and thanks for coming on. Russ, Thank you. See you at Tartan Warrior.
Speaker 1:Three K and eight K Bring it yeah, baby. Bye guys.
