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
#27: Celebrating One Year at Accountability Corner
Celebrate with us as we hit our one-year stride at Accountability Corner, reflecting on the twists, turns, and full-throttle leaps we've taken in the obstacle course racing (OCR) scene. Get ready to revisit the roots of our passion and the "why" behind our mission, with a sprinkle of our aspirations for the next lap around the sun. From innovative penalty systems and brand identities to the personal obsessions that fuel our race day strategies, we're peeling back the layers on a year's worth of gritty, mud-drenched tales and the lessons they've taught us.
Have you ever wondered how penalty systems shape the competitive spirit of OCR, or how brand identity molds the sport's culture? We don't just skim the surface; we dig in with both hands to uncover the evolving nature of OCR event planning and discuss how the integration of athletes from other disciplines could electrify our beloved sport. Plus, we'll shed light on the impact of media in promoting OCR and the potential transformation of events that could change the racing landscape.
As we gear up for another year of racing, training chatter, and community-building, we're throwing a nod to OCR culture and the unforgettable race moments that have fueled our growth. From the adrenaline of the Titan Warrior event to the strategic musings post-race that have refined our approach, we're sharing it all – the good, the challenging, and the hilarious gym antics that might land us in a compilation video (we're looking at you, towel grip challenges). Join us for an episode of reflection, learning, and a dash of future-gazing, as we celebrate our one-year anniversary and the evolution of Accountability Corner.
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 is growing around the world, with your hosts Morgan Maxwell, chris Shipley and Darren Martin.
Speaker 2:Okay, we are about to record a humongous episode of Accountability Corner. It is one year since the day that we agreed that we chat a lot of crap in a race and we thought we might as well make it into a podcast. We are hitting our one-year anniversary of staying consistent. How do you guys feel about that?
Speaker 1:Pretty awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think I've ever committed to something in my life for this long.
Speaker 2:Kiara will probably disagree with that one.
Speaker 4:No it's fine.
Speaker 2:Apart from women in.
Speaker 3:OCR Right.
Speaker 2:I need you both to bring the enthusiasm that Finlay brings to pint-sized OCR. Okay, that wasn't as enthusiastic as much. Come on Right, one year we're done. We've done it.
Speaker 4:Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
Speaker 2:Tick, tick, year science it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:It is pretty cool. I mean, this podcast has lasted longer than my marriage did, just goes to show, doesn't it? You know priorities about good things, good people, good shit. Yeah, no, that is that is good, yeah, moving on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, moving on from that Yep disciplined, and we've also made sure that we put an episode out every two weeks. We actually have we missed. I think we missed once.
Speaker 3:No, we didn't miss the episode. We did it on a. It was uploaded on a different day.
Speaker 2:Different day.
Speaker 3:yeah, but we didn't miss an episode.
Speaker 2:Do you know what?
Speaker 1:that makes us what Accountable.
Speaker 2:Why I thought you were going to say human, yeah.
Speaker 1:Normal. That makes us accountable, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:We are accountable for our actions and we're taking responsibility for it right now and saying sorry we weren't as consistent as we'd like to be, but we are here, one year on, still thriving with our very limited listeners. Sorry we weren't weren't as consistent as we like to be, but we are here, one year on, still still thriving with with our very uh limited listeners. But no one needs to know that. Everyone thinks that we've got thousands. So all them sponsors out there that want to get involved in our podcast know that we've got thousands of people in ocr. Listen to us.
Speaker 3:Come and give us stuff to send to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want anything.
Speaker 2:No, no. What do you want?
Speaker 1:Nothing, nothing at all Nothing. Do you know why?
Speaker 4:Why.
Speaker 1:Because I've got everything I ever wanted.
Speaker 2:Nice, a little reflection. Yeah, gratitude, what would you?
Speaker 3:want. Come on, what sponsors do we? Want for the next year well, if we had, if we actually could have a sponsor, yeah you can only have one go on or no, you can pick a couple, anything you got to mind do you know what?
Speaker 1:just for laughs and giggles. Athletic greens why?
Speaker 2:because everyone's got them. Everyone's got it. Hugh have just released some, haven't they Greens?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, what would we like? Personally, I would like some motorcycle sponsors clothing.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:It's got nothing to do with OCR, but it would really help me out.
Speaker 2:What we should do. We should go back through all the topics that we've spoken about how we felt that, if they've hit the mark or missed the mark, or if we want to redo them again. I think we've hit quite a few topics that are either really relatable to OCR or actually just relatable to anyone pursuing to be athletic or pursuing any goals in life. I think some of them have been really really, really good in that way. So let's go back through how things have gone this year and is there anything we want to change or do better? And how can we grow this podcast, and is anything we want to change or do better? And you know, how can we grow this podcast? Because we're still here, we're not going anywhere and we want to make sure we want to grow this even further. So how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1:I can dig it yeah yeah, let's reflect, let's reflect again, let's reflect again, let's reflect again, let's reflect again.
Speaker 2:Let's reflect with our audience and, hopefully, new listeners. This is a good episode for them to listen to as well, really to give them a content list of things that they can then listen to and go back and hear, because we don't really talk about previous episodes that much so we can do that today. Mo question for you Start kicking us off episodes that much so we can do that today. Mo question for you start kicking this off? The who, the what, the why the first episode we ever released. Do you feel that that hit the mark in terms of actually explaining what, why would, why we started this podcast?
Speaker 3:I mean, I haven't listened to it for a while, but I'm gonna say no yeah I feel like that's out of all the episodes. We could redo that one why do you think?
Speaker 2:do you think it's because our purpose has changed, or do you think we could? Just we're much better articulating it now. We could do a better job at it I think both.
Speaker 3:I think we started to find more of our kind of lane, if you like, and what we enjoy talking about a bit more and get passionate about, but then also we're just better.
Speaker 2:And we stumbled on words and we didn't really explain what the why was?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were just figuring it out, weren't we?
Speaker 1:It's a good episode and also our sound's better now as well, hopefully. My nephew said that what's that? Well, he said cause, cause he's a very musical and has a very key ear for music. He was like on that episode he's like the sound goes up and down quite a lot and you've got different, different volumes and things. Yeah, not anymore.
Speaker 2:No, we've got most, most magic.
Speaker 3:I still got some issues but do we? Yeah, but this doesn't matter. We're working on that. I need a new mic. I've. I think actually your, your two, are doing better than me at the minute a little bit, mine can be a bit echoey, but we can go.
Speaker 2:We can go on to the improvements.
Speaker 4:That's let's do this.
Speaker 2:don't want to hear this, no let's do reflection first and then let's go on to improvements or things we want to do different. So, ships, what did you think about the who, the what, the why? Do you think your reasoning has changed?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so, because I think we wanted to make it at the beginning not all so much about like a helping podcast, and I think we just wanted to talk about stuff and not be like coaches or be that kind of role. But I think we've slipped into it because, well, slipped more into a helping basis, just because we're helping ourselves more than anything else. It's not that we're intentionally trying to help others. I think we're intentionally trying to help ourselves and get through things the way that we can by talking it out. I don't think it was intentionally meant to go that way no, I think we've.
Speaker 2:We've really developed into spotting the little conversations that we have or topics that come out of conversations after races, and then elaborating further on them and spending an hour actually talking about them.
Speaker 2:Because when you're at a race and you just finished and you're talking about core, that that a rig was really difficult, I didn't know how to try, I need to figure out how to train for that, and we meet us like think, ah, that's a topic we can talk about that for an hour, that that actual thing you've just said there, and that when people ask me like, oh, it's really great, I love listening to you guys and people actually do say that just, just, just. But I'm not not lying. But it's really hard to sometimes define why we started it, because I was like, oh yeah, we just started it because we were just chat, we just took the sport really seriously and we take ourselves seriously, that we want to get the best out of ourselves and we also want to get the best out of the sport and it's and because it's so niche, no one's explaining it in that layman terms. Everyone's trying to explain it from a coaching perspective, but we're trying to explain it from like a conversational down the pub conversation, aren't we?
Speaker 3:yeah we're not using big fancy words and trying to make it well sorry, shivley is yeah yeah, me and darren aren't, but we're just yeah, it is that conversation and, like we've always said, these conversations we have on a daily. So it's nice just to be able to have these conversations with people listening, as creepy as that sounds, and they can take something away from that.
Speaker 2:But people do listen to this, our conversations, and they take more out of it than I think I ever thought they would do. Like just things that we say they relate to or they go. Oh yeah, I think like that as well. Or I was wearing those trainers and I was struggling with them. Like people are actually like listening to this and and relating to it and then helping them to to stay disciplined, to race um appropriately with your like your pace, to to really figure out what you're doing in your home gym or at home when you're doing pull-ups. Like just pull-ups won't help. You actually need to change your grip attachments, those sort of like little tiny things that people don't think about we're just chatting about and hopefully it's helping everyone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, yeah, maybe maybe we can uh redo that who, the what, the why. But I think we've. We've kind of like helped to summarize it a little bit further. And do you know what, do you want to know? The best thing about that? The who, the what, the why is our most listened to episode it should be.
Speaker 1:It's the first one that comes out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's the oldest, yeah, so if we think, we can do it.
Speaker 3:I don't know how I feel about that, actually, yeah, because then they're probably not listening to the others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a weird one, isn't it? But then it should come with a warning, shouldn't it that this is, this is the. That was the start, not the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe we do redo it. We remove it and do it again. Do you want to know our second best episode?
Speaker 1:let me guess go on then what was the one we did the other week?
Speaker 3:consistency or failure no, no, no.
Speaker 1:The one that the one that had the most niggles. I reckon niggles is up there.
Speaker 3:I'm going to go with the Christmas mashup. Mo gets a gold star, yeah.
Speaker 2:I reckon Niggles is up there. Well, I'm going to go with the Christmas mashup.
Speaker 4:Mo gets a gold star.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our Christmas mashup was our second best most listened to, but I think that's cheating though. Yeah, because we involved so many different podcast hosts. That was innovative.
Speaker 1:That was or oh no, no, wait, wait, that was Hang on a minute. Not innovative. That was or no, no wait, wait. That was hang on a minute. Not innovative, it was what's the word you'd use when it's festive Jolly Nativative.
Speaker 3:Nativative. Nativative.
Speaker 2:Pause for big word Nativative. What about? So let's go back then. So who, the what, the why is our first ever one, you know what, the one that opened up to quite a lot of controversy, and it's changed. We should redo this, I think, because this has changed further now and I know that megan's talking about on her podcast, spartan racing, open age group or elite.
Speaker 1:That was a good episode there, that was a good episode, but they changed it, didn't they? Yeah? Yeah literally just after the episode well, it's basically because of our episode. They obviously listened to it and changed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that I feel like that's still we should still apply.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we should redo it because ultimately, we were just talking about helping people understand the categorization of this, this sport, because and where to categorize yourself, yeah, and then how to put yourself in that spot in the sport, because sometimes you can be, you could be amazing though I have seen we saw at the weekend. Actually, that's a really good point is that we actually saw it at the weekend. Because this, because open a um age group and and Elite doesn't exist on Spartan, it's competitive. We'll ignore the controversy over the series because it still does exist. It's so confusing. But, mo, you said on the Sunday last Sunday, that people that don't necessarily appear on an Elite podium were appearing on an elite podium because everyone was together well, I'm pretty sure the guy that won came from didn't come from the pro wave, came from the wave like behind, yeah.
Speaker 3:So and that's the thing now we're you're kind of budging all these people together. People aren't making a choice. Obviously, when it comes to this championship series it's different because they've kept the elite and age group kind of split. But on the normal races you're either competitive or you're not, and if you're competitive you find yourself close to the top, probably with a bit more confidence than you've ever had before. So I do think it's good.
Speaker 2:So if anyone is confused about what to go into, then go back and listen to that episode and just think now if you were thinking about doing age group.
Speaker 3:You just sign up competitively and it's still age group, but you're just racing everyone yeah, but ultimately you're only racing yourself I prefer it when it's all together, because you did that ocr series, that's.
Speaker 2:That's just all competitive, isn't it? Everyone together?
Speaker 1:well, you did that challenge cup challenge cup as well yeah, oh, the thing is, this is what happens when people race age group and elite back in the day. Anyway, as soon as the races are over, you look at the times and you compare your times with the bloody other waves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's all it is. But spartan were making people choose them. There wasn't a roll down to like age group. If you didn't get into the elite, there wasn't a roll down to age group. That's why I do I really do like the challenge cup concept is that everyone races together, the elites get the elite trophy top top three and the rest get rolled down into age group trophies yeah I like that, just put it which is what spartan are doing now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, on their standard races. Obviously championship race a little bit different. But then I also think it makes sense why they're doing that. Because if you're trying to make a league, you can't have the winner of the series, you need a top 10 of the league. So how do you know who wants to still be in age group and who wants to be pro? So it makes sense. I know it's causing some controversy.
Speaker 2:We can talk about it, but I think ultimately we'll just be agreeing with what we've said on that episode is that we did agree that we would like everyone to be together, didn't we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you know what's funny about this? What? This isn't even a topic and we're just getting into a topic.
Speaker 2:Right okay. I'll move swiftly on then. Right number three and number four were post-race blues. I loved this episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah. To be fair, that was healing as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I mean. I think that was a real episode that connected us three as a unity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't usually talk about those things a lot, do we? When we race, we always talk about training, we talk about what you sign up to, how you get in there, all of like the normal things. But this really opened up. This is kind of like a therapy session of opening up how we feel about going towards a race, how anxious we feel, how do we feel in the start line Then also, how do we feel afterwards? Start line then also, how do we feel afterwards. Reflection of like, even if we've done really well, we still can get quite. You can get depressed in that, in, in that environment. So, yeah, it was quite. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:It was very, very open of the three of us yeah, and what I quite liked about it was feedback people give us from it was. It showed that everyone else is vulnerable as well. You know kind of like it kind of got. It was like um, it was like one of them group therapy sessions where you finally have a moment where everyone just knows that they're all in the same boat and it isn't isn't wrong to feel a certain way and it's quite normal too.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, people took safety out of us expressing our emotion and it's ah, okay, I can well. People took safety out of us expressing our emotion and it's ah, okay, I can feel like that, I'm not weird which I think was needed that is the running theme for our podcast and I absolutely love it.
Speaker 2:Is that you? That's the main feedback we get, is that, oh, yeah, okay, so you do. Everyone thinks like this, like, yeah, they do, but they just don't talk about it. It's, it's the running theme thing in life in general, with everyone at the minute, everyone in the world, being more open with what they're thinking internally, they just think that they're weird, when actually no, you're not, you're just completely normal. Everyone's weird.
Speaker 3:Everyone thinks they're weird yeah.
Speaker 2:Everyone's strange and weird, but we all just get along and we need to just talk about things a bit more. Like you could do amazing, like even even what we did after the Euros. We spoke about it, we did an amazing. But you come back and you're like, yeah, but it was only like competitive. We got a silver medal in in, and you know it wasn't in the elite. Maybe I still need to be better. I'm going to sign up for this, right, it's like you. We just yeah, we're just human and we're negative creatures, negative nelly's yeah, we are.
Speaker 1:yeah, we need to force the positivity, which is something we all could learn, and that's what we talked about, because well, the trouble is, I suppose, with modern society you only show the positive things, but you don't ever show well, actually it's changing a lot now. A lot of people love a bit of negativity, but, um, hang on a minute.
Speaker 2:No, I'm confused now which way I liked where you're going yeah, are we being positive, starting strong? He did, he did start really strong. Then I was like go on, that's a clip, that's a clip he's doing now, which I forgot which way we're doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people are more positive now, or are they negative? No, you're right.
Speaker 2:Do you know what? That is? The running theme in this podcast Ships. I know exactly what you're trying to say and then I'll go away and I'll say it for you. You're trying to say that people show positivity on their Instagram and social media, but in reality, there is a lot of negativity that goes on 90% negativity, or doubting yourself, or thinking you're rubbish, or thinking you're not training hard enough and people don't talk about those things, and that's what we've tried to really pick up in this podcast. Everyone thinks that way.
Speaker 1:That's what I was meant to say.
Speaker 2:That's why we're here. What about? So that was that was. That was two parts. That was really good. I think we did, did well, and that two part since then have we no we should do that more often. I quite like that. Do you know the best? Do you know the best thing about the two-parter? It had equal number of people listen to both. So clearly people went from one to two. That is amazing. Yeah, every single person went from one to two.
Speaker 3:That means one must have been quite strong then.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What about? Next one was all about penalties. I don't think we. Yeah, that was a good one about penalties. I don't think we, yeah.
Speaker 1:That was a good one, I thought.
Speaker 3:I enjoyed the episodes for us because it really kind of had the conversation that we were supposed to have. I can imagine not everyone enjoyed that as much. That was a selfish episode. We occasionally do these episodes where they're just a bit selfish and they're for us, and that was one of them.
Speaker 2:I don't think anything's changed in the penalties really since then.
Speaker 1:Well, it has and it hasn't because penalties are still evolving. Yeah, so yeah, which is quite, which is quite good, because all things are evolving. We could probably like touch on the same subject over and over again sometimes, just because of the way the nature of the sport is, and it is constantly changing until we finally get that, that diamond in the rough kind of race.
Speaker 2:I am interested to hear what the feedback was on that. The trial of the different penalties, the system that they did at the free care rumble, that was kind of like a common, a hybrid approach, wasn't it of? I know it was different, it was so it was. Yeah, it was very different. It was like you could earn back your band, couldn't you? You had like, yeah, it. Essentially, if you lost all your bands, you then get time penalty, so you don't appear as a dnf um, you appear in there with a penalty of time, so you're going to be further back in the rank. So it means that you can forever compare yourself against the best. So that's quite a good way of doing it.
Speaker 3:How did the time penalty work?
Speaker 2:Every time you failed an obstacle, you get a mark on your last band, and that was then a time penalty. I believe that is the way that it was done.
Speaker 3:So you only had one band no, you had, you did.
Speaker 2:Have you had the same about three bands. So you, if you lost two, you did a put, you did the penalty at the end at the end. But if you lost another one, you then started to get marks on it, so you started to get time penalties okay, so it was.
Speaker 3:Do you know what the time was? Per mark.
Speaker 2:Five minutes, I think it was.
Speaker 3:Oh Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's brutal, but yeah.
Speaker 3:I like that though, because it means you can't just think, ah, this obstacle's a bit long. I just take a mark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did actually have a different penalty system at Tartan Warrior. That was hybrid, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:approach. I think that's a good way, because they sort of did that at OCR Series as well. That was very similar in terms.
Speaker 2:It's getting there, the sport and the penalties. I think they're not easy anymore. So it's not a cop-out Even at Challenge.
Speaker 1:Cup. They weren't easy anymore. So it's not a cop out, even a challenge cup. They weren't easy, I don't think. But then I think also the obstacle build and the way the obstacles are planned now are a little bit more thought out. So the penalties are more like uh just in case you failed, sort of thing sometimes now. So you, I think completion's getting a bit more on, and then the penalty is like the last resort to keep you in the race.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're keeping it a bit more simple right, so number six is just outside our top five at numbers. It is actually sixth best number six, because it was the controversial one of are you a Spartan racer or are you an obstacle course racer?
Speaker 3:I loved this episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah because this is the one. We found out that Darren isn't who he says he is.
Speaker 3:He's a Spartan racer and he hasn't raced one. Spartan this year.
Speaker 2:I just love knowing what's coming up. That's why I love Spartan. You can consistently train for it, day in, day out, and it's not going to change.
Speaker 3:Yeah we had a new obstacle there big build.
Speaker 2:That was. We had that in Denmark in 2014. Sorry, that was negativity coming out, positivity, brilliant, new obstacle, exciting thing is right.
Speaker 3:Spartan actually used to have challenging obstacles like that yeah yeah, I mean it was weird they actually had obstacles of that nature well, I remember I think it was a beast in windsor once they had like an olympus, but it wasn't no, not an olympus, sorry, a zed wall. It wasn't a Zed wall, it was just like ropes on a wall and that was quite tough yeah, they used to do those.
Speaker 2:They were like really small knots at the end and you used to go yeah, that was quite tough. Yeah, bring back, bring back the bucket carry.
Speaker 1:That was brutal what carrying it out front yeah yeah, my back, my back can't handle that I hated coming up to that that is now a bucket carrier.
Speaker 3:I just don't care, it's now, it's just like a sandbag carry yeah, so do you think we?
Speaker 2:I think we did rattle some cages in that one a little bit, because not anyone, not everyone, talks about that kind of like the definition of spartan racing versus obstacle course racing, because it's a very hard one to define. Yeah, because obstacle course racing is Spartan racing, but Spartan is just a brand. It's like are you a Tough Mudder racer? Well, if I only do Tough Mudders, then no, because that's obstacle course racing. But I think we were just trying to hit the mark, saying that, look, spartans be trying to create the, a brand that is labeled as the sport, but we still believe the sport is obstacle course racing, not spartan racing. It's like, you know, when you say things like, oh, you need. You know, when you say you need to get an action cam or something to record something, you say you want to get a gopro, but actually you might not even get a gopro. It's like they've just owned the brand. Or like hoover, I'm gonna get the hoover, yeah. It's like, no, it's actually a vacuum cleaner, the hoover's the brand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's what spartan have done spartan like what you. Oh what'd you do spartan racing when actually you've gone off to do OCR series?
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just marketing. What about next one Obsession Now? I enjoyed this one.
Speaker 1:This was a good topic.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This was another one of them. Deep dives into the brains of three obsessed people. But I think this because because Raph liked this one as well.
Speaker 2:What did we get out of this one, then? What was the conclusion? That we're not obsessed, we're passionate. I like that. I thought the conclusion was we're obsessed.
Speaker 3:I think we're passionate, but just a bit mental.
Speaker 1:I think we're just passionate about something which leads into, just like, trying to do the best that you can do to do something that you're passionate about. We're not stalking obstacle racing, are we? I don't know.
Speaker 4:We're not baby reindeer in it.
Speaker 3:My Instagram feed is pretty stalker-like.
Speaker 2:I don't know. My emails to Spartan customer services seem a bit like a bit Martha.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised you don't just ring them up, just breathe it down the phone. Where's my code?
Speaker 3:Give me code.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a good episode. I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3:I think this is the start as well, of us kind of finding Our thing. I think all the episodes before that were good, but there was a turning point where we really started to find, like, what we enjoyed talking about as well yeah, found our feet a bit, didn't we that we didn't.
Speaker 2:We started to always write down and have a very scripted approach to the episodes, but then we realized, actually, that's, that's not the way that we talk to each other. We are very, uh, very educated on the subject of obstacle course racing and how we approach training and our mentality towards that, so we shouldn't try to limit ourselves by scripting it.
Speaker 3:We should just chat about it yeah, let it flow, rather than just we used to hold ourselves back a little bit, I think as well, whereas, yeah, this was the start again of us just kind of being like no, we'll just go down these rabbit holes and we'll just explore them and see what happens.
Speaker 2:Number eight is definitely one that I want to revisit, because there's a few people at work that are asking me more about obstacle course racing and asking me about how do I get into it? Am I fit enough? Because the subject that we tried to talk about wasn't it. It was like how fit do I need to be?
Speaker 1:I forgot, we did that one yeah.
Speaker 2:I think we should. We should revisit this one, Cause we we were very generic in the way that we approach it. It's like how fit do I need to be? You just need to be able to walk and you can get through an obstacle course. But I think we should collaborate with British Obstacle Sports in the next one and go through like, even like, what kit to bring to your first? You're my first.
Speaker 1:OCR. We can get more specific. Yeah, we could actually break that down. How fit do you want to be? How fit do we need to be? Broken down into segments?
Speaker 2:I was just thinking of like, even like my first OCR, like how do I find them, how do I sign, how much are they going?
Speaker 3:to be Like step by step guide. Yeah to OCR.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's how it could be. We could actually just do a guide to start on your OCR journey. Yeah, a hitchhiker's guide to OCR.
Speaker 3:What's that yellow?
Speaker 2:book Sharing your age.
Speaker 3:What's the yellow book your age? What's the yellow book where it's?
Speaker 2:like an idiot's guide.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like a dummy's guide or something like that.
Speaker 1:OCR for dummies yeah that's what we should do.
Speaker 2:James President, if you're listening, we should definitely do a collaboration and talk around about that, because we've all signed up for a race and not known how to even put this timing chip. Where does this thing go? Why have I been given these cable ties? You? Still do that now, yeah, has it got my ankle, my arm, my ear.
Speaker 1:Where does it go? I did that at the last Spartan race. I did last year. I put the bloody thing on my did I put it on my ankle? Yeah, I did, or did I just? No, what I did is I used that yellow thing and I.
Speaker 2:What I did is I used that yellow thing and I thought it was just a tag. I forgot the timing chip went on it. Even the confusing thing of the bag drop like what is a bag drop like? Why have I got a number from a bag drop? Am I meant to put this on my wrist? Or the bag like where's this go those simple things that people get confused about.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they really confuse it with just like not doing a bag drop.
Speaker 2:It's a key drop yeah just attach your keys to your bag and then it's a bag drop. Yeah, well, scotty barker's it's turned out to the start line of challenge cup, almost to the point that the countdown was started, and didn't even have his timing chip on, he had to literally like sprint to get it back on.
Speaker 1:Get it on, uh, I've been there I was going to say why are you taking me?
Speaker 2:At the World Champs. It was just a Velcro. This was the cable tie ones.
Speaker 4:Why don't you?
Speaker 3:put the shoe on.
Speaker 1:And they're a ball. Eh, to be fair, that needs its own episode on how to put that on, Because how many have you broke Because you haven't had it on right? I haven't broken that many, I you broke because you haven't had it on right. I haven't broken that many. I mean I've broken a couple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've broken a couple. I've got bigger feet than you two, though. Well, no, you wear oversized shoes.
Speaker 3:No, anyway, yeah there's too much space, it just snaps exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gets lost. Right, we definitely talk about that, I think, yeah, that's definitely something we should talk to British obstacle sports about number nine that's actually how fit I need to be was actually in the middle of like our best performing, so it's not not actually up there, which is a bit strange.
Speaker 3:I thought that would always would have been yeah, but it's quite a niche episode as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, number nine is in the top five. Why do we need a coach? Why? Good question.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Why don't we need a coach?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There you go. Subject New topic. I think that was a good episode. I don't think there's any more I can add to that. On reflection, I feel like we did it justice. But if anyone out there feels like there was more questions on coaching that we could answer, like, how is it to be coached? Like, how do you feel about being coached? How is it to be a coach? Yeah, oh yeah, we always forget, don't we Stressful.
Speaker 3:Mo's a coach. People don't.
Speaker 4:Don't listen, people listen to your coaches or no?
Speaker 3:don't even listen, just talk to them. Tell them you've got an injury, it's all about communication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, biggest that's actually the biggest takeaway of that episode is that if you don't tell someone that you're struggling with something they're not never going to know, just just tell them yeah, is that a lot that sounds like a life life coach lesson as well. Yeah, talk, talk, talk more um next one. Right, this one actually didn't perform that well. Why we need championship races, which is strange, it's in the, it's in the bottom, I don't even remember doing that episode oh no I don't, I don't think I think we rushed that one.
Speaker 2:To be honest with you, I don't think we did it as just as much as moley, probably eating, yeah, eating stuff what was that about?
Speaker 3:can you give me more? I literally have no idea.
Speaker 2:we idea I think we were about to go to the world champs and then we wanted to talk about like why do we need world championship races, why do we need European championship races? Like those sorts of things.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:So on the surface it sounds like a good episode, but I don't think we yeah, I don't think we did it justice.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Obviously, we know why we need them because we need all competitors to come together. But it doesn't need to be a championship race. You could label something as the world championship, just to market all the best athletes to come together.
Speaker 3:And as long as all the best are there, then that's all you ever need do you think we should do more stage racing in ocr, kind of like how alula was?
Speaker 2:what do you mean? Stage racing?
Speaker 3:like rather than championship racing, do it like alula, like, have these races where it's like they don't actually, but you're not a champion, a world champion, but they're just a very well attended event just because of prize money or because of some form of like history around the event yeah no, you need it.
Speaker 1:Well, you need it. You need a pinnacle race though at some point, even if it was like every four years, like the olympics see, I think we should scrap all the championships and leave one.
Speaker 3:You have your like european championships, or your North American championships or whatever kind of American championships, whatever you want to do, and then have your world championships. But then you should just have, rather than calling it the trifecta world championships, like in Greece, it should just be called trifecta weekend, and then they should just put all the prize money on that.
Speaker 2:We're so niche, aren't we our sport, that you, if you had a race, say let's think of like mud monster. No, mud monster is a great race. I've done it before, but you wouldn't have all the best of the best, turn up to mud monster. However, if mud monster tomorrow said I'm going to give £1,000 to the first place, £700 to second and £500 to third, mud Monster would become the UK Championships because every single athlete would turn up to Mud Monster. That is true. We don't need championship races, we need champions, champions to turn up to races stage races, yeah, ok races we need champions champions to turn up to stage race.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, we've, we've, we've, uh covered that episode the one thing we struggle, though, I think, with this sport is we don't have the history, like you think, of all the big trail races, and you have these like the barclay marathon. You have, like historical events that don't necessarily give out big prize money but I think Four Laps and Nuts is a little bit like that in the UK but you have these kind of historical races that people turn up to. We need more of that in OCR that people just turn up to because of the name of the race.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it means something to win. The only reason I did Four Laps and Nuts was because of the likes of Connor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it means something to win yeah, the only reason I did four laps of nuts was because of the likes of Connor John Albom, like but it was like it's a very in the UK especially, it's quite a renowned kind of race well it was voted.
Speaker 1:Uk's toughest obstacle race year upon year, not so much the summer one. You can get away with that, you can get away by saying it, but anyway You're right.
Speaker 2:This sport, at its core, is adventure racing. So if the event brings adventure and spectacle, then that's more what we need than a championship race. So any US listeners or anyone listening outside the UK, get yourself to four laps of nuts and try and win that, because that is a tough race. You can't. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3:I'll be there.
Speaker 2:No, it's gone. You can't, it's I know, so I'll be there, no it's gone.
Speaker 4:You can't. Oh yeah, it's gone, it's gone. Just realise that.
Speaker 3:I reckon, if we say to Wayne, come on, we're going to get all these races over and make it as hard as possible.
Speaker 1:Wayne would do it if he had the what's the word, the support he needs for that. It's the timing of having people on site for that amount of time, for not necessarily the competitive people, but the people who want to try and complete it, because it's that long. It's that long of a race, it's a tough race to put on.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you who's doing. Well, now I feel like, is building this sort like spectacle is the farmyard jam?
Speaker 3:did everyone watch that today?
Speaker 2:yeah, I watched it, I loved it yeah, yeah, but I do think he's building it. He's building that, isn't he? Yeah, he's building the barclay of ocr yeah you're gonna want to go to that I I I know you probably don't now, but I guarantee you that you will once we will race that one day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if it's still around he's already.
Speaker 1:He's already gone and done one move that makes it better and moved the date to august, which is more accessible for people to do an endurance race because it's in august now. So you've got more time to not be not destroy you for any uh, championship races or a races bringing spectacle like it was a spectacle today.
Speaker 2:Seeing that and it das did a good job because he updated his instagram all the time. Huh, pumpkin, pumpkin, sorry pumpkin updating his instagram and seeing it was brilliant, so hopefully that yeah, good live feed on that as well, yeah we've never talked about that, but we should talk about that as well.
Speaker 3:I think that's another thing that we need to do more of the sport, and Das did a good job today, but I think we don't always take as much ownership on trying to grow the sport.
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 2:What are you on about? We're sitting here.
Speaker 1:In all fairness, this is actually a topic that I wanted to bring up at some point, and that is media. We were going to do an episode on that. Yeah, because it is something that's Say, for example, like your Red Bull videos, everyone knows like mountain biking because of red bull videos. They like know all these crazy sports that red bull do. No one knows what red bull actually sells apart from red bull. But that is all just. You just need snippets. I reckon if you just had like training videos or training camps, like a Red Bull video for OCR, think how much growth that would accomplish.
Speaker 3:Even, just like what Daz did today, just basically vlogging the event on your Instagram story. Anyone can do that, I can't. You can.
Speaker 2:You absolutely could.
Speaker 3:You're just a technophobe, yeah.
Speaker 2:That isn't the issue, like from a marketing point of view and I wanted to talk to British Obstacle Sport about this and they're probably thinking this anyway, but that isn't the issue. Content isn't the issue. We do have content.
Speaker 3:There's loads of content.
Speaker 2:But we don't have the audience. We aren't reaching the larger audience we're reaching, like we see from our stats, we reach a very unique level of audience base. We don't go. We have a very small circle in marketing. We call it, like it's called, crossing the chasm of crossing from one audience to another audience. And at the minute, the first chasm you go get to is early adopters people that will latch on to anything and adopt it and love it and and absolutely run with it. Like you know, if the new iphone came out, the early adopters are the ones that absolutely loved it and you had lagger laggards a lot right at the end and they're people that just hate it, won't like it, will need to be convinced the nth degree. So we are the early adopters because we we joined ocr, what back in 2010, 2012, but we still haven't got the other audience base. We still haven't got them like into it. So, yeah, it's a struggle. So that was an explanation of where we are yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3:It's an interesting like how do we actually bridge that gap, I think, and looking at sports recently darts, for example, like Luke Littler, having that story line, Great sport man. Well, no, but like in terms of people watch darts, obviously for more of a jolly, but recently darts has been blowing up and mainly because there's a story line with Luke Littler in it and it's like this 16-year-old and we need to find some kind of story like that and that's how you can push to the next level.
Speaker 2:We should sponsor and coach a famous athlete of a different sport to come into OCR. That's what we should do. Someone with an audience base of something else, and then we'll get them into OCR's what we should do. Someone with an audience base of something else, and then we'll get them into OCR and we'll like take them on a year's journey of OCR through accountability corner who would be a good person?
Speaker 1:right? You got any sport in the world, right? What athlete would be good do you think to go from their sport into OCR?
Speaker 4:Kylian Jornet.
Speaker 1:No, that's Too obvious, Too obvious yeah. I'd take a rock climber Alex Holland or something, yeah, but surely?
Speaker 3:that's the same as getting Kylian. I feel like we need to go a bit more out there.
Speaker 2:No, I'm thinking audience base. I'm thinking like who's got loads of followers on instagram and tiktok, bring them in.
Speaker 1:I would say, I would say I'm thinking still all right, okay, cut this out cut out the steak. Uh, who would be really good. You'd have to have something like um, I reckon a fighter would be good.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you know what we? Should do, I think it's going to have to be a runner. We should steal back the audience from High Rocks. So have the High Rocks athletes coming back to OCR and then have a collaboration between High Rocks and British obstacle sports.
Speaker 1:It was good what Spartan did that time when they had the Spartanartan games and they brought loads of different athletes together. The first series, not the second series, because that was a little pile of poo.
Speaker 2:British obstacle sports could do it, couldn't they?
Speaker 1:yeah, they could. Yeah, that'd be awesome just do?
Speaker 2:we do have that. It's called the ocr games that rumble. That's true. We should get other athletes there. Right, this is a call out. Any other athletes click. Well, they don't listen to this because we haven't crossed that chasm yet, as we were explaining. However, if they did listen to this OCR games rumble August perfect opportunity to have a go at OCR, but also to own your, your strengths, and there's opportunities to own your strengths yeah, then right.
Speaker 1:Your strengths yeah, then right. How can we get more? Because the only way you're going to get people there is if you give a prize. Right. What prize could we give out? What prize? Because we're gonna have to be accountable here and take matters into our own hands. Basically, what could we?
Speaker 2:do? What a prize? Yeah, we, we should uh discuss this on a topic, I reckon, because we've just gone into a topic of growing ocr right, okay, a pin in this, yeah yeah I'm gonna go back.
Speaker 3:So stay tuned, people, because there'll be a prize being announced yeah, but you have, I'm not going to tell you what episode it's going to be in, so you have to listen to every episode until OCR Games to find out.
Speaker 1:This is like a trailer, isn't it? For the future.
Speaker 2:So we've got growing OCR media in OCR. I think we've hit a lot of different topics here and we're also at number 10 of a recap, so I think we should move a bit quicker, or else people are going to get switched off.
Speaker 3:Let's just go through the next few quite quickly okay, what's next?
Speaker 2:all right, that was 10, was that? Was that really? We were talking about why we need championship races. How have we gone from why we need championship races to media and?
Speaker 3:I didn't even know that topic existed. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:The FISO OCR World Championships review and the inner voice.
Speaker 1:Oh, this was our first guest as well.
Speaker 2:It was.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Emmy came on.
Speaker 3:I like that episode. That was a strong episode.
Speaker 2:Same again. I don't think we did the inner voice justice, because the amount of stuff that I was talking to myself for Challenge Cup at the weekend was not what we spoke about on the inner voice.
Speaker 1:And I think also we're being it being as it was our first guest, and I think this is something that we still struggle with and we need to work on, and improving is when we have guests on, so I don't you know. Be quiet about that as well.
Speaker 2:No, no, you paused, Did I? Yeah? What? So I don't you know. Be quiet about that as well. No, no, you paused, Did I? Yeah? What was the punchline? Go on.
Speaker 1:Which bit did you get to?
Speaker 2:When we have guests, we need to focus on what yeah no, I'm only joking, that was a great pause face.
Speaker 1:I like that. Um, we need to work on just our having guests on. I think I think a few of our later ones we've had guests on we've been a bit about, because I think when we started we never wanted to be interviewers, but it's really difficult to have guests on and not ask them questions. So we're getting there on that one with guests, yeah.
Speaker 3:I think they're the ones we need to structure, because we're great as a three, just kind of rambling, but then the guest kind of gets a bit lost if we ramble too much, yeah, so maybe as a side note we'll go back to structuring on them days Until we find the guest that rambles as much as we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, We'll bring Megan back on again. Yeah Right, 11, 12. Do you know what? Sorry, I should have said that was our third best episode ever.
Speaker 1:Oh nice, yeah, Well done Emi.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, emi dragged us along on that one Carried us, Same as she did with shipley on the race as well yeah, in both senses. Yeah, number 12 was having competition in obstacle course racing.
Speaker 4:I just think the ripples, the ripples yeah, this is where ripples came out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we can just safely say that, yeah, it's always good to have competition in ocr, even even if it's yourself right, I'm skipping that one. Then that was that. That's uh, number seven. So that's quite. It's quite higher on the list. Here we go. You like this 13 is obstacle skill series, mandatory obstacles. So we just talk about the skill series, because that was 13, 14, um, 14 was obstacle skill series, strength obstacles. Then we went to 15, which was technical obstacles yeah, and then they end on us putting it all together.
Speaker 1:We built an obstacle course, didn't we we did well, no, you did I did, yeah, but you know, I was running around there today and I kept saying, well, we went for a walk up queen elizabeth today and I said to raffi, I said it would be so perfect around here an obstacle course that I thought that was really good for us to just try to categorize and put things together on like what we expect and what you, you can expect, people can expect to see on an obstacle course.
Speaker 2:But it ended with the most inspirational thing that is now a reality. It is a reality. Jake child's big shout out to him he has created. What has he created? Ships, ball gong, ball gong. It is it, mark ball gong. Mark one is is in, the is in in reality and it has been created.
Speaker 3:I love that if you want to do ball gong, it'll be a challenge cup good luck.
Speaker 2:It's not fiddly enough to be a challenge cup. You'd have to like balance on it a little bit the other one uh, yeah, there we go yeah that's quality we need to sponsor it. We need to get, so we will be getting four more of them. Ball gong will be an obstacle. One bong and then you're gone.
Speaker 1:I like that. I love that Quality yeah.
Speaker 2:And you get three. Goes at the bong Nice. I think that's how we do it.
Speaker 1:That works actually, because you can actually have just a bucket full of balls.
Speaker 3:No, we'll put the ballers on a string.
Speaker 1:Don't worry.
Speaker 4:It's like with everything.
Speaker 2:It's like with everything Shipley comes up with an idea and then we we perfect it and make it reality, like the podcast and the attribute cards. And yeah, we actually didn't talk about that. Yeah, we can talk about the end. Attribute cards when was the first time we did those in me? Was it in me? Yeah, no, we talked about an episode that we did, didn't we no?
Speaker 3:yeah, we did. The first ones were our first iterations were all like 98 99 people have loved those.
Speaker 2:I I still think that we should do do trading cards of them, but I've been trying to figure out a way that we can make it work that people can create their own. We we like to use chat GBT sometimes and AI can create, can take in information and then create the attributes for us, and so I'm trying to think of a way that people can upload their times of different races. We then put in the back the background, say how hard that race is from a technicality point of view, from a strength point of view, from strength point of view from a week, and they upload how quickly they did the race and then that gives them points towards their attributes. That that's my head thinking that we could create online attribute cards for everyone you wait?
Speaker 2:yeah, someone's gonna listen to this episode and do that yeah you can put that in if you want, or we can leave it out, but there is, there is at the minute. There is mo. You don't know if you're aware of this. There's. There's loads of ai apps now that are being developed for personal training, so they create wads for people and then, once you've done that wad, you upload how long it took you and then it will give you another program, which is it will. It starts to evaluate over time how good you are based on what?
Speaker 2:your previous work your performance and weight you did in that wad, and then it would start to script more accurate wads, foot at your level, and then it would yeah, it would keep doing it because it'll keep learning you, it learns your ability and then it'll kill you.
Speaker 3:Then it takes over.
Speaker 4:So I just think it'll make you.
Speaker 1:It'll make you put on like a hundred kilos of the bench press and you die.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. How to wipe out the human race yeah.
Speaker 2:So there, there you go. We could do that for, we could do them for OCR, we could do. We could do OCR long runs adapted for individuals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Burton actually said to me he wanted to come back on and change his Did he yeah.
Speaker 2:Why Does he think he's got worse because of his gammy shoulder? Now His gammy?
Speaker 3:shoulder.
Speaker 1:I can't remember what the reason was. I think it was because we had a better attribute than he did on time. Oh, right.
Speaker 3:Well, his card's just collecting dust because he's not racing in a minute, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, he's actually he's got, he's getting minus, he's going down right, 17 was planning your 2024 season. I think we don't need to do do much about that. That's just us talking about what we were going to stay accountable to. Well, oh, I lie. Actually, there is a point in that we need to revisit, which is how have we stayed accountable to our um, to our, our plan? Have we stayed to it? True to it, because we said we were going to be very specific in our training, very, very um, thoughtful in what races that we actually attend, and I think we've done it so far. Little, little sense. Check mo, you didn't. You didn't race challenge cup, stayed accountable there yeah yeah, we've been good this year.
Speaker 2:I think we've all been taking this a lot more seriously. Hit, hitting good performances as well. I'd say all three of us. You had a bit of rust at the beginning. Ships, we'll let you off yeah, but then that goes to the plan anyway, yeah yeah, you knew that was happening, yeah yeah, but your, your post-race blues weren't good, so we need to we need to work on those because you knew it was the plan, but your brain was not telling you that afterwards yeah, it's easily done, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, that little hamster is like that, yeah squeak, squeak, squeakak.
Speaker 2:Shipley goes to bed early, but I've never seen him go that early to bed before Right number 17, that was and that's bang in the middle of one of our best 18. What was 18? The attributes of an obstacle course racer. So actually we revisited the trading cards here and then we did them for ourselves.
Speaker 3:We did our own ones, didn't we? Yeah, that episode we explained what the attributes are. So if you're interested in the attribute cards and you're looking at the attribute cards, go back to that episode and it explains actually what each individual attribute means.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 19. Small steps.
Speaker 1:Small steps to personal greatness and life balance. Oh that's.
Speaker 2:That's when we started to use a bit of uh ai to help us with our titles, because that sounds professional, doesn't?
Speaker 3:it. Yeah, we've taken a jump.
Speaker 2:this is, this is the introduction of us up in our game a little bit. So we, I think we we started to introduce our website here as well. So, accountabilitycornercom, we're worldwide. Do you know what?
Speaker 3:Since that website I think we haven't missed, since we've done that website, our episodes have been good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, small steps to personal greatness and life balance. So that was all about failure, wasn't it really Like failing is not the end of everything. Failure is like the you course correct towards it, but you never actually hit it, because once you've failed you then, once you've made a mistake, done something wrong, you learn, you adapt, you overcome, you change your direction. That was good. I actually really like that episode. I feel like that. I do. You know what I'm sad and I really listened to our episodes and I've listened to that one back as well. I thought that's quite good, nice, nice, good. Do you ever do that? Because I I sometimes forget what we said.
Speaker 1:How conversations we've had yeah, no, I never all right, okay, I don't even know as narcissistic as me, yeah sometimes, when I um, when I haven't heard from you guys for a little while and you haven't answered my whatsapp calls, sometimes I just put an episode on, just so I can hear your voices. You never call us on whatsapp message does he call you?
Speaker 4:I'm jealous hang on.
Speaker 1:I call Mo when I'm in the bath.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not about the podcast.
Speaker 1:No, I just want to show him something on video chat?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's got like a rubber duck in the water. Yeah, Did you have a rubber duck in your ice bath? While we're making things up, no, I got a dragon. Is it a dragon?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because I thought it was different, because you can get all sorts. You can get frogs, you can get ducks. I think everyone had a duck, but I got a dragon.
Speaker 3:That really like is the one reason I would get an ice bath is because I want to like collect like the rubber ducks.
Speaker 1:It was actually a thermometer.
Speaker 3:Oh, I've got a rubber duck thermometer actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:Where do you put?
Speaker 2:that All right, I'm moving on to number 20. We're getting there Embracing setbacks, the secret weapon in obstacle course racing and life. That is when we had old Walshie on.
Speaker 3:Russell Walsh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mr Winger, congratulations.
Speaker 3:Mr Russell, on your farm, your jam, he looked strong.
Speaker 1:He's after the clogs, isn't he?
Speaker 2:Das wants the clog as well. Das wants the clogs, isn't he? He wants to? Yeah, he wants. Das wants the clog as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, das wants the clog. They want a clog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll get it engraved For them. What would we put On Das' one Pumpkin? He's pumpkin.
Speaker 1:To our pumpkin yeah. And then on Walsh's, we just have Rumble Walsh yeah, because he was in the Did. And then on Walshies, we just have.
Speaker 2:Rumble Walsh. Yeah, because he was in the picture. Did you see him? He managed to get in the picture at Challenge Cup.
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That was a good episode. We talked about all about how you obviously embrace setbacks when you can't get things done properly, but also we talked about how he trains, how he adapts his training to when you can't get things done properly. But also we talked about how he trains how he adapts his training to when he doesn't have facility to go to, how he uses his like any sort of like bit in his garage to hang things from and he does that obstacle long run but adapts it daily.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was quite good real, good insight to the, the minds of a, a russell, a russell a rustler and we learned that he changes attachments every time, which, if anyone could pull anything away from that episode, that is a good thing to pull away. If you've got a home rig, don't just leave it on the same attachments next one was 21, 21, which was Afflic, Afflic, Athletic Ingenuity.
Speaker 2:How OCR Champions Train Anywhere.
Speaker 3:I don't. I think you title these and I don't even see them.
Speaker 1:Why I mean I does it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I had no idea again what that episode is.
Speaker 2:Maybe that was Russell. I'm getting confused myself now.
Speaker 3:What was that episode about? That was actually how people train everywhere. Yeah, I'm not really selling our podcast, am I?
Speaker 2:No, you're not All right Moving on 21, 22. What was 22?
Speaker 1:It's UK Obstacle Series. Oh yeah, this is actually quite good, that's where we said about the clog.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, this is quite a good time to celebrate the fact that the first ever endurance race happened today. So the series has kicked off. The clogs are now in motion.
Speaker 1:That was really good.
Speaker 4:You didn't even mean to do that I didn't, I didn't at all, I love that that was perfect so we talked about the 3k series because that that started this year and that's been going well.
Speaker 2:We actually had this weekend we had the update of the of the results and how it'sings are looking at.
Speaker 4:It's tight, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it looks good. Uk OCR series that's started, that's well underway, and then we also have the endurance series and then other series. We've talked about Spartan series which Mo you kicked off?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the season's at full tilt, isn't it?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And why we need series and what they mean. I think they were quite good. They're like yeah, I like building points throughout the year and having the opportunity it's not just one race one and done you actually get involved in the community a bit more with series. I think, yeah, that's what keeps OCR races coming back yeah it's good and listen to that if you haven't got a clue about any of the series that are going on 23.
Speaker 3:23.
Speaker 2:What was 23? I can't see 23 on my list.
Speaker 1:It was Titan Warrior.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Conquering Titan Warrior Insights and strategies from the Scottish OCR Battleground. That title is one of the best. That was just us talking about Titan Warrior, wasn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Let listeners know that we don't just use AI because we're lazy. It's because it's so much better than what we'd write.
Speaker 3:It's because we're illiterate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've got to train, 've got, we've got time to train and work. We don't talk about that. But the time it actually takes us to do this podcast is can take quite a bit of time away, especially the background, like adding a title now, putting that title onto the episode on instagram now describing the episode. That's quite difficult sometimes. But, yeah, that big, we wanted to talk about that, specifically that race, because gavin has created a gone from having a training facility now to having a racing facility similar to brumble. But this was a very, very like large-scale race and it was just perfect, it was brilliant. And yeah, we gave that a bit more time, didn't we?
Speaker 2:to talk about it yeah, and because we were all there as well and he deserved it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, we was all there, yeah yeah, again, that was another episode where I was kind of just seeing into the minds of how we think right next one was one of the best things that has come out of this, this podcast, exactly the same.
Speaker 2:Again, shipley comes up with an idea and me and Mo just run with it more. What, what is it? Can you guess what it is? We love talking about this, oh this is.
Speaker 1:This is the best episode ever. This is about OCR long run.
Speaker 4:OCR long run.
Speaker 2:Everyone refers to this now, don't they?
Speaker 1:This is really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I love it. I'm waiting for a training centre to host an OCR long run.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's when we know it's done, it's coming soon. They kind of do it. The thing is as right now I've started doing OCR intervals.
Speaker 2:Wait until you talk about that one. I tell you what I was speaking to you two before this. We started recording that I couldn't get to Rumble on the weekend and I did old school OCR long run. So old school OCR long run Anyone who started OCR back in the day will know this.
Speaker 2:It is when you're jumping on a treadmill in the gym. You've got your sandbag next to you, you've got your dumbbells next to the back of the treadmill, you've got a bar there, you've got all the, you've got a box to jump up, you've got your sledge waiting in the corner hoping no one steals the weights or takes anything from it. And you're trying. You're jumping on the treadmill doing, then jumping off the treadmill doing weights, then jumping back on the treadmill, then jumping off the treadmill, and you're there for like two hours just on and off and you you need to clean that treadmill afterwards. It's, it's. It's a lot of hard work going on there grinding it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was quite fun. It was. You know, it was quite nostalgic going back and doing that because I obviously we look, we have the luxury of going to all these venues that we go to and not everyone knows where they are or or how to get to them. But everyone has a gym, everyone goes to the gym, and that's actually we've spoken about it, haven't we? You can still get an ocr long run done in the gym as long as you've got something to hang on and you're changing your grip a little bit and you're, you've got something to carry, you've got something to pull, got something to?
Speaker 1:yeah you know what? I can't wait for someone to turn up on Joey Swole's bloody Instagram feed. You ever seen him? No, someone's very swell where, like, he helps people in the gym where someone's been filming him and taking the piss, and then joey swell was like you need to be better than that. This is ocr long run. This is a genuine ocr training thing that people do. Be better than that I haven't seen that.
Speaker 2:What is it so?
Speaker 3:he like reviews the videos like where people just take the piss gym.
Speaker 2:You know, when you see the weird things happening in gyms yeah, yeah, he shames the gym shamers, oh right, okay, yeah, because it does look a bit strange. I've, yeah, you've had people like try and take your dumbbells away from you and or try and clean up after you're at the back of the treadmill, and they're like you're like no, no, no, no, need all that, and it looks. It looks really weird because you look like you're hogging all the equipment, don't you? Yeah, yeah, we I wish we were more, um more like influencers, though, because these sort of things are the things that actually we need to promote and have. Like, you know how everyone's jumped on the bandwagon wagon of high rocks, like, oh, how I got from open to elite in high rocks and this is my training program. There's everyone's on that now, aren't they? It's just we don't see my instagram's weird, I think.
Speaker 2:I just get the parodies of things do you not get that mo of all them people?
Speaker 3:yeah, you know what I've noticed actually and this is also from working the gym the what we you'd probably see as gym shame before are things that people would film to take the piss out of, happens more and more now because people are training for these weirder events like high rocks, like ocr. You'll be in the gym sometimes. You'll look at what someone's doing. You're thinking that's not a standard gym move.
Speaker 4:You're training for something and then you talk to them.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah I'm doing a high rocks. Yeah, yeah, I'm a hybrid athlete. Yeah, yeah, I'm a hybrid athlete yeah, yeah, I'm a hybrid athlete.
Speaker 2:What are we? We're the OG hybrids. No, we're just the runner-the-litter.
Speaker 3:The trail runners that aren't trail runners.
Speaker 4:The runners that aren't runners.
Speaker 3:The weightlifters that aren't weightlifters.
Speaker 2:Climbers that aren't climbers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you know the?
Speaker 2:weirdest thing things when you're bringing your towels into the gym. Now, I've done that before you. Have you ever done that like?
Speaker 4:your little sweat towels, just to hang on yeah, everyone's like what is he doing?
Speaker 2:someone actually asked me what. So what are you doing? I know people probably um back in the day, if they, if that did exist of recording, I'd be recorded like what is this weirdo doing? What's he training for? Yeah, no they wouldn't ask that I just post it Like what is this? Weirdo doing. What's he training for? Yeah, no, they wouldn't ask that, they'd just post it up saying, oh look at this weirdo, he doesn't know how to train and then, and then you'd be on Joey Swole, oh, okay. Maybe I'll make it one day.
Speaker 1:Because then, joey?
Speaker 2:Swole. We need to be more, more like influencers, don't we?
Speaker 1:to help that helps the sport why can't we have some influencer friends?
Speaker 2:well, I should try. I should try a bit.
Speaker 3:You run through mud influencers like to run on concrete and stay clean yeah, well.
Speaker 2:I've got hair now, so I might, I might video myself a bit more, yeah to be fair, you do all my instagram I do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's basically a media man, you just messaged me the other day do a real.
Speaker 2:All right, okay, I'll do a real start. It's only. It's only weird when I look at it too much the people at work right.
Speaker 1:It's funny, though, because the people at work are like oh, you're getting really good at instagram. I'm like I don't do any of it, I have people for that.
Speaker 2:I've got people I actually did your reel the other day before I did my own. I actually spent quite a lot of time on that one that was a good one the black and white one, oh yeah. I was like oh yeah, that that looks good. No, I need to start doing it. Mo, you're better at it than me, but you don't even do it yeah, but I'm lazy, exactly.
Speaker 3:I wasn't going to say that if I do it I'll do it properly, but I think that then puts me off yeah right 25.
Speaker 2:We're nearly there, conquering the niggle. I love talking about the niggle.
Speaker 3:That's one of my favourite episodes. Yeah, I think we've done a really good job as well as much as you can, because it's so much content that we could have talked about as well, and maybe that's going to have a part two one day, but I think we did all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was good. I think we won't talk about that too much because that's still still fresh people should go back and look at and listen to that, and then the last one we did was mastering pacing strategy and I thought that was a really really.
Speaker 1:In fact, that I really I think that's our best self-help not self-help helpful episode. I think that's a really good episode that you can get a lot from.
Speaker 2:Yeah and we went out to try and prove it as well. Well, I did at the weekend, Mo, you did at the weekend as well. Shipley had a little niggle. He's nursing a niggle. He doesn't want an injury. But yeah, we went out and tested it. And do you know what? It's nice when you talk about something and you don't feel a bit like a fraud of telling people how to pace, because you actually go out and prove that you can do it if you really want to. The Challenge Cup. I couldn't have paced it more. I paced it exactly how I described it on our episode and it paid off. Mo, did you pace exactly as you said on the episode?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly how I said. And again I said on the episode yeah, exactly how I said. And again it I said on that episode it's going to go one or two ways. I'm going to be on the podium, I'm going to blow up and I did blow up. But at least I knew going into it that that was right. So I paced it correctly for what I was trying to test, but but not necessarily correctly.
Speaker 1:Surprised me that you blew up towards the end.
Speaker 3:I don't, I don't really do much training over 90 minutes.
Speaker 1:Hmm Interesting.
Speaker 3:We haven't, we haven't needed to.
Speaker 1:All of our races have been so short. Well, you say that, though, but Well, this year we've needed to.
Speaker 3:It's helped me. Yeah, oh, it does help. It's well, this year we've needed to it's helped me yeah oh, it does help.
Speaker 2:It's easier to race down than race up. Yeah, yeah, the. I think you're just going out at a pace that was over it was over.
Speaker 3:It was over your threshold, over the distance yeah, but then that's what I said on the podcast. I said I'm gonna go out like it's a 10k and just happens, yeah, and just see what my body can do later on. And I mean I lasted longer than I thought, I got to like the 10-mile mark still in a good position, feeling good, and then that is just the last 5K where it just all turned to a bit of a shit show, but I was pretty happy with that. 10 miles good work.
Speaker 2:Take everything from our topics and literally go back to all our topics we've just spoken about. Like, you failed, but you're going to learn from that because you knew it was a learning curve that you needed to do and you tested out a pacing strategy that you haven't necessarily done in the past. Yes, you do go out hot, but I think you went out more hot, yeah more hot.
Speaker 3:I didn't actually go out as hot as I think we went out for a 10K, so I kind of lie when I say I went out 10K pace, but it was more. When it turned into that, actually the first mile was fast but I felt comfortable. I was like, yeah, I could do this, but then it got a little bit quicker.
Speaker 2:What was your position before you blew up?
Speaker 3:I think I was back to like sixth. Yeah, around six seven.
Speaker 2:So you was cruising at six, seven?
Speaker 3:Well, no, I was working, but we were all kind of having a battle, and there was one point I was in four for quite a while and then a couple of people got me, but it wasn't because I slowed down, it was because they were speeding up.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Which, since looking through Strava, showed that I wasn't actually really slowing, it was more that they were speeding. And then I went from about sixth to eleventh all in the last 5K and I was slowing. Then I had to walk every hill, yeah.
Speaker 4:So it was a big blow-up.
Speaker 3:It was big and I was I was in the pain cave and it hurt a lot. My obstacles were still so good though, like even though I was in pain and I looked awful, my obstacles in that last bit still felt really good well, you spoke about that on the pacing as well.
Speaker 2:Like you had to attack the obstacles at a Spartan race because you know, you know you, you're going to gain time on them, but there's very little of them, like you're not going to get those opportunities and the video that you saw.
Speaker 2:What I saw of you on your instagram influencer it was, it was, it was amazing. You jumped straight into it, jumped out of it. The transition the people don't like. If you do, if you're in this game a long time, you realize where someone's done something really, really well. Like the transition of that, that step, since you hit the ground after you've done a hanging obstacle and it's like, oh, is he gonna do a little walk or is he gonna spring straight into a stride? And you sprung straight into a stride and that's, yeah, like you know, you know when you do, you know this sport so well and you know, you know where someone's done something really well. That was, you just know it.
Speaker 2:What that is, that's, that's someone who's really trying to push yeah yeah yeah because we all do that little walk, don't we that little, like that little stride, like that's the stride?
Speaker 3:and that was me. At the end of the race I was still doing the actual obstacle. Well but, but I couldn't really run as well, so I was having to take then extra breaths, Especially on any incline. I was just whittled down to a walk.
Speaker 2:I couldn't physically run a fish ride but I would just cramp straight away Ships, you get to test your racing strategy at the simulation that we're going to do at Rumble.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I've got to be careful, which is so annoying. I've had to be careful on some training runs as well, and it's really pain in the ass. You should just do the road. That's what I was going to do. To be fair, that's what I was thinking. It's so annoying, though, because I want to be, I might use the hill but just gently run down and just come straight back up. Yeah, because I can't.
Speaker 2:I can't risk, I can't, especially on that field don't remember one of the other things we said a lot in this, this, uh, this year is is ignore the noise. So what will happen on that day? You'll get a lot of well, you get a lot of people. You get me to go in. Oh, I'm gonna do it all, I'm gonna do all the field, I'm gonna do this. And you think, oh, okay, maybe I'll do the field, ignore, ignore me, ignore the noise.
Speaker 2:Do something that is going to make you better. I can do that, you know I can do. Yeah, I know no noise, but a lot of people can't. I'm. I'm definitely one of them, and you. This podcast has definitely made me more accountable. I think this I I was joking around that said something quite nice about my performance at Challenge Cup and I was like, oh, I was just staying accountable. But I do actually believe this podcast has made me a better athlete in the last year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, I think it's helped other people to train. Yeah, which is good, which is really good, because that's what we want to get out of it, that's what we want to give out of it.
Speaker 2:It's such a if sometimes I think I do think we maybe named it wrong because we're not getting, we're not. We're not talking about account like accountable. Accountability corner is such a generic name but it deep down, deep rooted in everything we talk about, is being accountable to our goals, what we say being accountable to failing, being accountable to right you said you're going to do that race, or or you said you're not doing that race, or you said you was going to go out in the morning it to train. It just deep-rooted is being accountable in general to everything we talk about.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, do I do think it's named correctly, something like when you really really think about it. But it's just, it's, it's a name that you have to, kind of, you have to learn and and and. Then it becomes clear to you, doesn't it? It doesn't come, it's not. It's not clear straight away, but as soon as you start training and start doing something, start applying yourself, you think, oh, yeah, I actually my accountability corner makes sense I know what these guys are on about yeah, yeah, I, I.
Speaker 2:I keep thinking about different race like how can we, how can we get our name out there of like corner, how can we create a corner on a race course, the actual accountability corner?
Speaker 1:that's where ball gong will be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it'll be on the corner yeah, I think you need it on the corner so it matches our logo as well. So we can literally have it like our logo yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:Welcome to accountability corner with ball gong. Yeah, shipley's showing us our merch oh, but it's not, it disappears right, let, how do we want to wrap this up? Because this is this. We've gone through all of our episodes and talked about like, yeah, it's definitely a recap of everything that we've gone through. There's been so many fun parts there and so, and it's going to continue. How do you, how do you think we're going to continue this, or do you?
Speaker 1:there's so many other things we can talk about I think we just I think we're just getting started to be fair. Yeah, I think that's one year anniversary just marks the beginning, and now we're going to continue to grow into something more accountable this was our learning year.
Speaker 3:This is us just figuring out. Can we actually do this? Can we do a podcast? How does this work? And I think now we're going to be a bit more media focused and a bit more just, we're gonna have fun with it as well. We'll get out there, do the stuff we enjoy doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'll see us everywhere my yeah, I agree with you. My focus, I think, for this podcast is how do we get out out of the inner circle audience? How can we help other people? There's people that I talk to at work that want to do a race and they're like what do you do? How do you do it? And I feel obliged to say, well, I'll help you, I'll talk to you. But actually I want to say, well, just listen to our podcast. It's a one-stop shop for learning how to actually don't need to get into the sport and spend as much money as we do and be obsessed with it. But if you fancy giving it a go or one ago, then there's a few episodes in here that are going to help you.
Speaker 1:Should we give um give uh Dixon a bit of a well done yeah.
Speaker 2:If there's anyone outside of OCR who's had a niggle, well, now let's go back. He's had a niggle. That niggle turned into an injury. He still then went out and became the first double world champion in age group. He had to, sadly, retire from the sport. But the most accountable person out there who is so determined at being an athlete and pushing himself is still pushed and people don't really realize this. That yeah, he was. He was such a big name in obstacle course racing in the uk and and still is to us. But since he hasn't raced he's been out there absolutely smashing the running, the trail running. He goes up and down box Hill early in the mornings with a rep bag, just by himself doing it. And what did he do at the weekend? Ships?
Speaker 1:He competed in his second ever marathon, where he flew over to China. That's right. Mark Dixon went to China and he ran the great wall marathon and somehow he bloody won it. The thing is right. And we, we gotta give mark kudos, because we train with him and we know how much effort he puts in. But every time he does something he always blows my expectations about what he is actually capable of doing out the window and it just shows it. On that one again, just massive congratulations to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you need to speak to him, though, because back in the day he was just training loads and literally putting everything into OCR, but he's. He somehow found another way to to up his game like he. You would never think this, but his nutrition is absolutely on point now as well, like he's done everything you can see it on him?
Speaker 3:you can. Yeah, he looks like a different athlete to what he did when he knows in.
Speaker 4:OCR, it's madness.
Speaker 3:If he obviously, unfortunately, because of the injuries and stuff, OCR's not the best place for him, but he would scare me if he'd come back, he would be the one person you'd think, well, actually having him back on the race course would spice things up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely you still don't like him. No, no. He's still enemy of the show well done. Yeah, that actually that's a good way to end our one year, because obviously there's so many people out there being accountable to their training and getting stuff done and doing some remarkable things, but to us personally, that's someone that has been truly accountable to their goals and and gone and won the great wall of marathon this weekend. Great wall of marathon, great wall of marathon.
Speaker 3:Have you seen his videos?
Speaker 1:yeah, we love China. Have you seen his run run? He's just like ni hao ni hao Classic.
Speaker 3:Brilliant.
Speaker 1:Anyway, well done Mark.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 2:Well and then let's end just thank everyone who has come up to us and just said that they actually like the podcast, because, tell you what, we never thought anyone was going to listen to this in the beginning. So thank you so much to everyone and, like we said, feedback is welcome. Share this to anyone who's new to OCR and wants to get into the sport. Yeah, thank you. This is a thank you and celebration episode, so, yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you guys.
Speaker 2:You know guys? No, yeah, thank you Shipley. Thank you Mo. Hopefully we've helped each other as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2:All right, cheers to the emotions, Mo Great.
Speaker 3:Thanks guys, I'm trying, I'm trying. Oh, he's going to cry.
Speaker 4:He's going to cry Give me a speech?
Speaker 2:No, he's going to cry. He's going to cry. Do you want me to do a speech? No, no, you're right, you saved that for my wedding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, can I do an Accountability Corner speech at your wedding and we'll live stream it.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, I love it.
Speaker 3:What do you think if I get an Accountability Corner tie?
Speaker 1:No, I was going to. Yeah, what do you? What do you think if I get an accountability, call a tie? No, I was gonna get shirts made. Yeah, so it's got like little like the logo but written loads, so it's like really small, but you, you'll see it when you get close you, you do whatever you want to do.
Speaker 2:I I won't be wearing that because I have my own outfit, outfit suit for Suit.
Speaker 3:What would you like? Slip you Soaked to wear.
Speaker 2:A girter, a garter, garter, one of those things that go around your. I don't know what a girter is.
Speaker 1:Go around your leg.
Speaker 2:Yeah, accountability corner garter.
Speaker 1:Then Lorna can see it when you get naked at night Great.
Speaker 2:She'll love that. Right, we've gone back to rambling and people don't like our ramble. Right, let's leave it there then. That marks our one year anniversary. Back to proper topics, next episode.
Speaker 1:Cool beans.
Speaker 2:Thanks guys, bye guys, see you next time. Bye, bye guys. See you next time, bye, bye-bye.
