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
#28: Leon Kofoed's Journey in OCR; From the British Racing Scene to Global Insights
Join us for the thrilling kick-off to Season Two of Accountability Corner where we feature the elite OCR athlete, Leon Kofoed, who recently took on the British racing scene. Leon dives into his firsthand experiences competing in the UK, shedding light on the unique challenges and the exhilarating moments that come with international competition. From comparing the technicalities of European and UK obstacle courses to the profound impact of good weather on his performance, Leon’s insights are both enlightening and inspiring. The episode sets the stage for future possibilities, hinting at an exciting influx of international athletes to UK races, promising a more dynamic and competitive landscape.
We navigate through the complexities of training for OCR across different regions, focusing on the importance of specific grip strength and access to technical facilities. Leon shares invaluable advice from networking with top athletes, especially those from the Dutch community, who are known for their exceptional hand and foot techniques. Through personal anecdotes of past failures and successes, we emphasize the necessity of evolving your training regimen and staying ahead of the curve in the ever-changing OCR scene. Listeners get an in-depth look at mastering endurance and running, key components for tackling demanding European competitions with confidence.
As we explore the evolving OCR communities in the UK and Denmark, we address the financial dynamics essential for the sport's growth. Our discussion ranges from the importance of grassroots initiatives to the need for incentivizing broader competition through financial support. We also touch on the future of OCR media coverage and the importance of community-driven events in sustaining interest and passion for the sport. Wrapping up with a heartfelt thank you to our guest, Leo, this episode is packed with rich insights and practical advice for both seasoned athletes and OCR enthusiasts alike. Don't miss out on this engaging conversation that promises to elevate your understanding and approach to obstacle course racing.
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:Right. Welcome to Accountability Corner season two. It is our second year in this, in this game. Now we we have done year one, now we're in year two and today, to kick things off in a very, very special way, we have got a very big guest.
Speaker 1:All the way, he's not very big.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah big in personality, small in stature. We have leon leon.
Speaker 3:Thanks for joining us of course, guys, I wanted to wait a few weeks after my uk to let you guys recover from getting your ass handed to you by the day. Okay, I didn't get my ass handed to me.
Speaker 4:Yeah you just ran away, though.
Speaker 1:Ships I was hiding.
Speaker 2:You gave your ticket up. That's the worst thing to do.
Speaker 1:I gave my ticket up so everyone else could get their asses handed to them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, chris, he wrote me. He was like you can come and do it, but, dude, you got to do it properly. And I was like, all right, chris, let's go is let's go, that's it.
Speaker 2:My, my tail is is well and truly, but in between my legs, but it's feeling a bit better now that it's been two weeks out. So, yeah, no, tell you what it was. That's the reason we wanted to get you on. It was incredible to have you over because we actually haven't had people like in in terms of like races, that your stature come across to the for to the uk and race against us. So and it's, yeah, it's good for comparison, mo, are you? Are you feeling a little bit sore? You, okay now?
Speaker 4:yeah, I'm, I'm pretty upset. I was. Uh. Well, my race went to shit anyway, so it's like even worse. Now we've got to sit here on a podcast with the guy that beat me, but I'll get over it.
Speaker 1:It'll be fine. Mo's not used to having people come over and beat him. And you got quite lucky as well, leon, because you had good weather.
Speaker 4:See if it was raining like it usually does over here.
Speaker 1:If it was raining like it usually does. I don't know.
Speaker 3:It would have been different. I reckon, dude, it's actually funny. I have this thing about praying for rain when I run. I don't like running in the mud, but as soon as the metal obstacles get a little bit wet, I I find that people they get they get proper scared of the obstacles and they start like messing up. They most athletes actually only have like one technique going into most obstacles and if it starts raining, that technique normally goes to the shitter. Um, so it's, it's good for me normally when when it starts raining. That's how I won euros in in 2019.
Speaker 3:But I was happy to come to the UK for some good weather. I couldn't believe it. I got over there. I was like, wow, you guys, you guys have sun here. I can't believe it. This is incredible and I can tell you it started a bit of a trend. Right now I'm talking to Jonas, tresha and Gustav about those guys coming over for the british champs in end of june in midlands and maybe jumping into the spartan race over there as well, and I heard a little sing song about a? Um, a swedish guy who's pretty fast as well, martin might want to come over and race as well, because the thing is like I talked to these guys about the trip I did over there to the spartan and the and the nuclear race for the challenge cup.
Speaker 3:It was just such a good weekend. Like I've been doing a few too many of these FISA organized events where things can get a little political and it's like you always have to read like a massive rule book. It's a bit of a complicated process every once in a while. So for these OCR events where you literally show up and you just have a blast and and shout out to um, to boss vos, you say boss, yes, um, for like making sure that the process, even as an international, was super smooth, like you just got over there for the actual racing, not for fiddling and diddling and not knowing what to do. It was really, really fun. So I've been, I've been preaching that trip quite a bit, so I hope to see more people come over and race with you guys. If you're up for it, yeah, we're up for it, yeah we're, we are, we are well up for it.
Speaker 2:You obviously you're not going to go back through all of our every single podcast episode episodes that we've done, but we really bang on the fact that we like to train different modalities, different technique, technical obstacles because we need to make sure that we're competitive in europe. And we, we three of us are always going on about it in the uk and and I feel like we do we we do try our best to make sure we're training in that way and that's the reason actually we started the podcast, because we talk so much about it. After a race, it's like, oh, hang on, we had. This is actually useful, useful information for people. Uh, and then, and then he, like this was born. And that's why we wanted to chat to you, because I wanted to get your perspective of the uk isn't that right ships? Because you you've been across the europe loads and you've always wanted to see how someone could come across to the uk and perform yeah, because it works differently our way.
Speaker 1:Because because we find it over here that the races aren't as technical as they are sometimes be seen in in europe, so we try and train like a european athlete. So then, when you got a european athlete come over, what's the like difference between the races that you're training for and the races that you're doing over here? It's different because we're trying to train technical, but you know, was that the same when you came?
Speaker 3:over.
Speaker 3:It's really interesting because I've done workshops, um, yep, so many different continents.
Speaker 3:Now that it's like you see, you see the different training modalities and it's really hard to develop something, to train, to train for something you haven't yet done or that you do only occasionally or very rarely.
Speaker 3:So for you guys to implement a training methodology that's supposed to help you in italy, or the euros in hungary, or you're coming to denmark for a race or something like that, it's really difficult when you don't you don't do it that often, um, whereas getting into a spartan race, once you've done the technical training and the elements there and you can power through with the running, you actually you have a pretty good opportunity of doing well, no matter where in the world you are. So when you guys say you do technical training, I'm just a little curious Does that mean you spend a lot of time on like ninja style moves, or does it mean you spend a lot of time on figuring out which grips to take with a straight arm or bend arm and working on the different isometric holes or dynamic moves? Like, how do you guys try to do it so that you can implement it, for example, in italy here in a few weeks at european champs?
Speaker 2:well, we'll leave our coach to answer that.
Speaker 4:No we're very lucky in this country that our training facilities mimic more european style racing rather than what we race, which is pretty much spartan and very basic obstacle runs. So I think that helps because we have a lot of access to technical obstacles, um, and then we've. So we I work for rumble, which is like a obstacle gym in the uk, and we've done a lot of like networking with the guys that hang on and learning their ways, and me and dave spent a lot of time talking to them and kind of we went. We've gone over there loads. We go over every year just to race the race as well and that was our way of learning.
Speaker 4:So reaching out to different, not just them, but other people as well. Reaching out to them just being like, how do you guys do it and what are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 3:and we just try and stay nice and open to the whole of the european scene that's amazing because the dutch guys they definitely nailed their skills from the survival running events that they adapted into ocr at a level where it's it's. I like to think of myself as being very efficient on obstacles. It's kind of I tried to create the entire obstacle persona around that and then some of the some very specific dutch inspired obstacles. I really feel like I'm getting my ass handed to me, like the way that, yes, senstein and frank are moving through things. It's just, it's pretty pretty marvelous and to understand how to.
Speaker 3:What they do really well is like they can use their hands and feet equally well, like the combination of those two. Things are so good, so you guys are inspired with that, like it's implementable in so many things for euros, for example, this spaghetti obstacle with all the little ropes that they're going to put up in italy. I think the dutch guys that can do a super, super fast and solid foot lock in in a split second are already going to have a little bit of an advantage or an obstacle like that, for example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we yeah, you couldn't, you couldn't have said it any better we.
Speaker 2:And also, I think the way that we've learned is I've gone to euros and I've failed a lot, like there's so many, so many times that we've gone abroad, and we have gone abroad a few different races, like european world championships, ocr series, and there's a few others that we've done as well and have failed so many times.
Speaker 2:And you come back and you think, wow, is that obstacle course racing, because it's so different in the uk, like nuclear challenge cup, for your perspective, is the most technical race that we have in the uk. So, and yes, there were elements of technicality in that race, but in terms of the modalities you had to use it during it, it wasn't that didn't test you as much as, say, a race in europe. So, yeah, it's something that we'd like to bang on about and we've we've made sure all of our listeners are like, we're telling them, like, just check what the guys are doing in europe, check how the sport is innovating and changing, and make sure you're go, you're along for the journey, or else you, you will be left behind. Yeah, it's?
Speaker 3:it's a question that comes up often. It either if we're doing a training camp somewhere or especially especially after I launched the grip training programs about three years ago am I still in the meet?
Speaker 2:I'm still here. Yeah, you was just about to plug your training, your your uh get grip.
Speaker 3:No, I was just saying that after launching that training program I got so many questions about like oh, is it? Like, to what extent is it necessary to train the strength element to complete obstacles, when in my country I never really get around to doing it? I'm like, okay, if you, if all you do is race spartan and you don't struggle with the monkey bar, the rope climb or the rings, you shouldn't spend money on a training program and spending three by 40 minutes a week trying to like improve this because you you don't need it. But the moment you leave your country to go race where they have very, very different obstacles and it's just you don't have your smooth moves anymore. All then you can rely on is strength and tenacity, then it's a really good investment to go out and like do those kind of training sessions and I can. I can see what you guys mean, like I.
Speaker 3:I'm lucky in the sense that I grew up in obstacle races. When I got into the sport, that had very demanding obstacles and they really took a lot out of me to do well at. So I was interested in training that from the get-go. What I was not interested in doing was like running at a high level. I remember doing my first spartan in 2017 or 16 and in barcelona, and first thing first, it's like they ride barcelona but it's like two hours away in the mountains had nothing to do with barcelona. I was like god damn it, boys. This is already annoying. Like this is not a very accurate description of location.
Speaker 3:I go there to run a super and it had like 22 obstacles, which is like what we normally have in like a 3k to a 5k race, and our obstacles not just like one wall is one obstacle, and I remember being so angry that I felt like not competitive. I I got a reasonable position, like I'm. I was fitish, but I remember feeling like this was like really stupid and it had nothing to do with obstacle course racing, and I can imagine a lot of people get a similar feeling when they travel and they try something that's so different from what they're used to. So it's been really hard for me to implement a training style that allows me to go to the UK and run a Spartan Beast and be competitive in that sense that I can still keep up with the runners that can do well in a course like that and not overdo that so that it diminishes my obstacle abilities.
Speaker 3:A month later in Italy, where you're just not allowed to do any mistakes and any obstacles, otherwise the race is done. You get one wristband cut. Racing for top positions. You're no longer racing for top positions. You might as well like uber order and aberral splits and pizza for the finish line because you're out of the race. If that happens, um yeah, I don't remember the question because I got a phone call I was just rambling here, but like yeah, you what you said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said something interesting though the fact that you're actually getting people questioning what am I getting out of this training program if we, if we release the training program tomorrow about ocr, people would think first question be like what is ocr in the uk?
Speaker 3:because it's so I know I released an ocr program a few days ago and people were like you're training for one? Why?
Speaker 3:do you try and do all these different things at the same time. Is that not really difficult? And if you had tried to sell me a program eight years ago, like a monthly programming as a coach or a fixed program, and said, oh, by the way, you have to run five days a week, I would have been like, no bro, I don't think so. That sucks. And then I wouldn't have been like onto it. But now I, like, I understand the need to build the endurance and do the running sessions and the alternative, cardio. But before I was like if I had a choice between like going out for half an hour run or doing like monkeying around for half an hour, I chose monkeying around for half an hour Cause at that point, like being capable of doing that meant doing really well at european championships and going to poland and doing the. If anybody thinks they're really good at obstacles, go to poland to do one race and you'll feel really shitty about yourself afterwards like they're so demanding. It is incredible.
Speaker 2:And that will put things a little bit into perspective it was quite funny, well, well, not funny because at Mo's extent, but it was Mo. You, obviously. I think Mo put his name in the group a minute ago saying that he's the UK Leon, and I think you say that because of your obstacle ability, mo. But then you went to the Euros last year and how did you find the Euros last year?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was tough.
Speaker 2:You don't mind talking about it, do you? No, start crying, but he's all right oh yeah, it was.
Speaker 4:I mean, I don't think it was more technical than I imagined or too technical. It was more just the running at the level that you need to to do well and then also doing obstacles at the same time. I think that's the thing in the UK we haven't mastered yet because we haven't needed to do it. There's too much space in between obstacles, so I think that's you can be really. That's another thing. You can be really technical in this sport. But as soon as your heart rate's high and you're running quick, that could just go out the window very quickly and that's what I found myself in well, you're so right.
Speaker 3:I remember also starting in the heat with you in hungary. Uh, last year you went out good. But it's like we both, we everybody knows a monkey bar is easy when you feel good, your heart rate's low and your hands feel dry. But if you do like a mild pp and then they're like, hey, try to do like this 20 meter monkey bar, you're gonna be like, oh shit, it's gonna be a real struggle.
Speaker 3:Um, and and setting those things up is something I, the past three weeks, have argued a lot with my coach about. Like how do I implement my training so that when I go to italy I don't bonk on that 3k, because it is my main focus of the race and bonking is like I'm I am worried about dying out, because I know the only reason, the only, no, sorry, the only way for me to podium is to risk it by going out with the fast guys and then you just end. You can end up not being capable of completing obstacles and mo, you're quite right, it's a very special training to make sure that you're ready to do it at that level, because doing any obstacle with a heart rate above zone four, like when you're anaerobic and you're just flushing lactic acid straight from your quads and glutes straight into your arms through your chest. Oh it is. It is a horrible, horrible feeling I've already.
Speaker 2:I've always said it when I race against mo in the uk, when I do a spartan, I like spartan races because you know what you're going to get, like you said. But I they are the most technical obstacles to me because I'm trying to keep up with mo and the others because I just because you're running so hard, so hard that I just can't, I'm actually, yeah, okay obstacles, but then when I hit a monkey bar racing at most pace, it's just, it's yeah, just feels like you've hit the most technical obstacle in the world and you guys hear gustav in the background no no, is he on the toilet?
Speaker 3:sweet, no, he's calling the best I did. Voice relation should be better.
Speaker 3:I'm on a tiny training camp with jonas dresser and gustav um, our young gun yeah, we know that, we know them guys yeah, those are also the guys I'm teaming up with for for euros, um, so we actually uh trying to set up sessions that make sense for for doing well in italy it goes.
Speaker 3:I was focusing on the 15k um, doing a lot of running. I was focusing on the 15K, doing a lot of running, I'm focusing on the 3K, and tomorrow is just one of those days where we're going to have actually double intensity session to try to get good at exactly what we're talking about, like being good at running fast and being good at hitting obstacles and finding out what pace can I actually still run while hitting these obstacles. And we are all a little bit too ambitious, especially at big events. You hear that countdown. It's a big stage. You've been training for this for like a long time, spend a lot of money going there and all that jazz, and yeah, I really, I really hope that, um, that I learn a little bit more about, like, what pace can I actually go out at and maintain. That's the goal of training. This week we're doing a little danish training camp yeah, sounds like one of my trainings for tomorrow.
Speaker 1:So I've got um tuesday session tomorrow, so I'm starting to do things a bit more specific in my training. So tomorrow's ocr intervals, which is basically just your, your basic interval session, but with obstacles thrown in, and it's basically like, say, just to try to get used to that sort of pace, going in and out of obstacles so you're hitting them hard and then coming out as hard as you can, but then having that recovery after that, just to try and get back to running that pace again absolutely.
Speaker 3:Are you going to structure that like you would do a run workout, and would that be distance or based? Uh, time-based, I always do time-based yeah, time-based.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah, but the trouble is we struggle because I mean I don't live as close to Moen and uh Darren does for getting to like Rumble and having a training place, so I've got to kind of like bodge it together in a place that's not far away from me and it's got like one sort of kids, sort of basic monkey bar system and a few other obstacles, and I've got to kind of like adapt it a little bit but that's the job now.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say here in the uk you need to kick the kids off of the uh park so we can.
Speaker 1:Actually I did last week yeah, two weeks ago I had to go there and there was a couple of kids playing. I was like, excuse me, and I had to chuck a rope over yeah, all these attachments and the
Speaker 2:kids are like what's?
Speaker 4:going on.
Speaker 1:They've got a warning sign in the woods. Now They've got a picture of me on it.
Speaker 4:Beware of this man. That's the sign you want.
Speaker 3:I think, doing your intervals and then putting them into an OCR setting and two and a half three weeks out. Whatever you normally do on Tuesdays, try to maintain that intensity and that volume because there's no need to taper yet, but then just squeeze in the obstacle things you don't even need to do that fast, like if you're doing a tempo or threshold on tuesdays. Try to remain in that heart rate not necessarily the same.
Speaker 3:The pace is going to drop a little bit, and that's okay. And then you, you got to be capable of being in that zone and then going in and out of the obstacle and then landing and still being kind of in that zone and then moving, because otherwise you're just, you're just a decaying algorithm of death throughout the entire race and that's uh, that's suffering good ships, introduce your, your thing.
Speaker 2:You've introduced to us the little magic source.
Speaker 1:I wonder if you've got it on your new system, which is the ocr long run oh shit, I actually I don't.
Speaker 3:I've never done this long run. Tell me more about, about it.
Speaker 1:This is the one, isn't it? So it's basically you just do a long run, but with obstacles, so it's not a hard effort. So it basically replaces your long run on a Sunday or a Saturday, and instead of just being a long run where you're just running, you just throw loads of obstacles in as well. So good, these boys nicked it off me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we stole it, but we, I think we've got, we've finessed it a little bit more now, haven't we?
Speaker 4:it's very pace driven.
Speaker 2:So you're doing your slow, maybe steady pace that you would do in the long run, but you're throwing in very technical obstacles at short duration and but you're trying to breathe. You're focusing on proficiency and breath and steadiness through them obstacles. But then what happens tends to happen at the to an hour and 40 minute mark. You actually feel like you're in a 3k. It's like suddenly hour 40 in.
Speaker 1:It's like I can't grip this, I can't get onto it, but I've still got to maintain, maintain, which is quite good, because that's when you start using those other techniques, you start having to go back into those tired techniques, which is quite cool so what kind of intensity do you guys run in here?
Speaker 3:Because I find that if I jog and then do obstacles, I my obstacle game also becomes really bad, like even hurtling a little hurdle. If you're not kind of running into the hurdle you're, you're just getting over it, kind of like you see old people trying to get over toys from their grandkids. Like it does not look very smooth. I kind of need a little bit of speed into the obstacle in order to still have my, my moves and the obstacles. So do you guys run into the obstacles and like increase speed a little bit, like on your long run there, or do you just maintain that like we?
Speaker 1:can reach out in feeling, so you know we don't have to jump.
Speaker 3:That helps dude that helps we do.
Speaker 2:We do, um, pick up the pace a little bit, and also that it's important to pick up the pace out outside of the obstacle as well. So, even if it's 10 seconds in 10 seconds, out, that little, that little bit of speed allows you to then feel like you're in a race. But then it's like actually hang on right back to the pace again and what we've tried to do is switch around. Who's in control of that pace? Because mo will just take us out too hot. He won a win, he wants a win. Training that's what happens tends to happen with mo. So we, we kind of like rein him in a little bit. But yeah, it's, it's, it seems to what it has done. It's increased, uh, the endurance obstacles, the ability to know what it feels like when you're absolutely fatigued, because one of the things we struggle with in training is the mentality to get to that place, because not a lot of people want to get to the place where they're fully fatigued and can't grip an obstacle.
Speaker 3:I normally have to go to training camp for that Like we host an annual trip to Mike's gym and it's like we got to get three, four days into it and then you're like, all right, I'm tired now, and the way you start doing obstacles then is is actually quite showcasing of how you'll end up doing if you crash and burn halfway through a 10k or a 15k or a beast or or something like that. So, all right, the sun, the obstacle, long run that sounds like a lot of fun. And also a lot of people who do ocr. They actually don't enjoy just going for like a regular long run, like an hour and 40 of just trotting about on like a soft trail or something like oh, that sounds like a lot of running.
Speaker 3:Um, I've started loving it, but a lot of people don't. So if you can add in the obstacle, I mean you can get people running, because we have a lot of people in denmark who are amazing at obstacles. But oh my god, if I, when they asked for like how can I get better, I was like, have you considered running consistently a couple of times a week? They're like, no, I don't want to do that. I'm like, dude, ninja warrior, then go for ninja warrior.
Speaker 2:I don't care like we to swap. We need to swap our athletes over for a second. I was going to say the.
Speaker 4:UK is the completely opposite at the minute.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of them want to be trail runners but they don't want to do the obstacles and that's because they find it hard. We do have a struggle having places for people to go. There is the training centres that are phenomenal, but then what's it like? In denmark, you've got quite a lot of places just on the on the side of the road haven't you?
Speaker 3:um, to be fair, that's like. Um, that's no longer the case. There used to be quite a few, but most have died out, like a lot of the gyms that had pretty cool facilities attached to their regular gym or their CrossFit high rock style things and have actually dropped those OCR facilities. So close to Copenhagen, I have, um, basically three places to go to in like a driving distance, which is not bad at all, um, but it also varies quite a bit in like how good they are. Um, I feel like I saw a story today from was it the pt barn? From dance um, and we don't have any place that look like that, that look great, and what I've seen from rumble looks great.
Speaker 3:Um, one of the best facilities we have is my buddy, michael, who's a carpenter, who built a bunch, build a bunch of stuff in his backyard of the farm and that's like he hosts events and stuff. But it's not like a, a business he doesn't want to, it's not set, it's more like a federational place. Actually, it's more for, you know, communities and groups and fun, fun times. So we don't have a ton of like amazing facilities just around. Of course you can drive to toughest lap, but I haven't been to toughest lap for three years, so it's not something people do that often yeah, it's still there.
Speaker 3:It's just that you never hear from the toughest. They changed their marketing. Um, I think the entire organization changed during the early stages of covid because they had liquidity issues. Um, I think somebody else came and that's why the toughest event when you run it, which I just did on Saturday felt the same, like it's the same amazing event fast lanes, 8k, tons of people, like thousands of people out there. It feels incredible. As an athlete, I can't recommend that event enough. It's the perfect amount of like technical, difficult running. It's like everything just worked out good carries as well, water stuff and slides. God damn, it is great. But their marketing team went down and under during covid, like totally gassed out. So they don't have a focus in the elites anymore. They do have an elite race and you get the best and you get to feel like the thing and you have brian out there like sending people off, like in his american accent. Everybody feels happy, but you don't get the.
Speaker 3:There's not like the cool after video, if you guys remember when john albin was doing tough there was always like a cool live or cool after video yeah, I was at home like a proper fan like watching these things I finished like I was lucky to break 10 in those races, I was like this is awesome, like sitting there eating my food having a good time watching those, and I still re-watch those toughest events.
Speaker 3:So even though they don't have that anymore, uh, and the training facility is like different from before, the races are good like I can only recommend going. If you're going international, you know what you're going to get a toughest, you're going to get a great fucking race. Sometimes when you go to like some countries where the organizer is like it's a little bit of some risky business sometimes, especially like I know. I know british people love spain. I've been to spain many times. I hear a lot of british accents. They're like people. You guys. You guys really are about spain, really about Spain.
Speaker 1:I think you're hanging around with Megan too much.
Speaker 3:If anybody likes to go to Costa del Sol and do it varies a little bit in. She loves Spain and yeah, in those countries where there's a bunch of smaller organizers, these obstacles can become really, really, really risky. You don't know, I've seen plenty of straps break from rings and stuff like that, but people are traveling something like. I've seen plenty of just like straps break from rings and stuff like that, but people are traveling something like Tufts is like it's a really good place to go.
Speaker 3:And if you want to know if you've nailed the technical training, the fast lane concept is just genius because it really awards whoever put in the work to do obstacles. Well, if Mo is like really good at obstacles, he can make up 10, 20 seconds on an obstacle now because he can do the fast lane. Because if you do the regular lane you also have to do like a crawl and stuff like that afterwards. So now, being proficient, you're now motivated to be not just a little bit better but like a lot better at obstacles, and when you're in an environment like that, your skill level just like goes through the roof. And that is applicable when you then go to italy or wherever you go for euro champs or other european races, uh, where there's a broad variety of of obstacles that require hanging it is a shame that the the focus on elites after covid and the competitive, the competition side of things is dulled down a little bit.
Speaker 2:But it's like the completely opposite. Um in the uk that we've started the uk ocr series and that came out of covid, that it. You know, when something collapses, something good comes out of it or something just gets left behind. And what's come out of covid in the uk is that the competitive scene is, I would say it's never been as big as it is right now it's with the uk ocr. Yes, it would, would you agree ships? We're back in 2000, say 12, when when john alban was probably at his peak in the uk.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was big, but the community I think we've got a more structured competitive scene. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's there, we've got the athletes that are good, and it's more structured. It could always be better.
Speaker 4:You guys have a deep field.
Speaker 3:Yes, you have a deep field and I feel like it came from another motivation than you see in America, for example, where the the top end is like it's a pretty deep top end of athletes and they're really, really great at what they do. But over there, when Spartans are like, oh, we can't really pay you guys out and we don't do this coverage anymore, everybody's like fuck OCR. And then they just head out and do trail running and do other things and motivated by money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're really get. I get it like this and over over here in england we're not motivated by money. We've never had much money we never had it.
Speaker 2:No, because it's not there.
Speaker 3:So what people are training to be good out of the re, out of pure motivation of being good, and that that isn't something that is community driven. So massive kudos to the people who have invested the time in creating all these things. That makes it fun to be an athlete, because, ultimately, the more you are there for the fun of it, the better time you're going to have. The moment you think, oh, I need to go there for the prize money, or I need to go there for my Instagram followers. I need to go there for the prize money, or I need to go there for my instagram followers, I need to go there for body, body blah, it's like it's not gonna work out. I know, because I'm the king of winning events that pays nothing.
Speaker 3:I remember quitting my job in 2018. I was wrapping up my master degree and I was offered this contract to work as an analyst, with everything a dude from business school would dream of right, like great retirement savings, an amazing job, I could learn a lot, ton of money, good food every day for lunch Like what else could you ask for? Right, and I won a thousand euros at European Champs. And I went to my boss the following monday I was like dude, I'm not gonna accept your contract. I'm gonna try to be an obstacle racing athlete because I have too much fun with it. And it's it's a thousand bloody euros. Like it's not gonna change anything. Like it's it's definitely not nothing, um, but it's not really gonna. It's not gonna pay your rent for a very long time, uh, disregarding where you are. Um, so getting into things for the motivation of being good at it and meeting other people who also are like-minded in the, in the sense of like, wanting to be consistent and being accountable and developing and growing and that should be the true motivation of things and the the.
Speaker 3:The moment that that dies out a little bit is when somebody start waving um like ridiculously sized checks and be like oh, you guys can come and get this, like what they did for john albon with that like million dollars one, yeah, throwing him around the entire world and he was just like you know what. I'm gonna quit this entire sport and become the best trail runner on the planet instead, because you guys treat me like a joke. And yeah, I think there should be money in the sport. I think when you go win, you should have an opportunity to make money. If there is money left over in the budget, I think it's going to make people better, I think it's going to get more eyes in the sport, and I think we should stop giving all the money to first place and then basically nothing to second and third. I think we should pay one to 10 because it's all 10 people are good and and it doesn't, it's. It's almost always the same couple of people on top anyway, like so they're gonna get all the stupid money right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost always the same people, yeah, and then.
Speaker 3:But the field that are chasing and I know because I I was in that chase pack for a long time and mentally I'm often still in the chase pack I don't come over like, oh, I'm going to win these things. Same. When I came to do the beast I was like, guys, stop teasing about me winning this race, because I'm just going to come and run. And then when I'm running up, I'm like, hey, I'm actually doing pretty good this feels great.
Speaker 2:This is fun.
Speaker 3:This is an awesome time and um, and that's awesome, but like we should do something to incentivize the deep field and in that sense that the danish top guys have won quite a few money two years in a row in gov games and, honestly, it has just enabled us to be so much more focused on ocr like those. Like it has nothing to do with obstacle racing. We went to do goofy games on TV in Dubai. It has nothing to do with obstacle racing. Of course, the skills we have here, we can apply them there. But the fact that we now all have money so that we can focus on the sport and we can go do the races we want to do, to a certain extent, you can't just go everywhere every weekend. It doesn't make any sense. But we, to a certain extent, you can't just go everywhere every weekend, it doesn't make any sense, um, but we can all just do more cool things now. The fact that ghost, our jonas and I, we have four days of training together and that, yeah, and I can, can go train with each other every once, a couple of times a week, honestly, it just makes a lot of bloody sense and that's where money comes. It's not like the oh the organizer, you have to give all these money to these people so they don't have to go to work. No, you have to enable these people to train together, to invest in themselves, to make sure they have a good pair of shoes so they don't like run in worn out shoes and get injuries, and that they can go. Support the community, support the people by going to all these facilities, and that is going to make the sport grow. And I feel like you guys have kind of nailed it by doing a series where there is going to be some payouts, but mostly there's an incentive to commit to racing a full season and having bloody fun with it. Yeah, and I think that's the true winning scenario there.
Speaker 3:And until, like, the money can enable that, everybody can, you know, get enough to maybe work a part-time job. I think full-time OCR, like what I'm doing it's a bit of a dream I wouldn't recommend a lot of people to pursue. It's really really difficult management-wise and it's only because I I'm not just an athlete, I do a lot of things to manage my finances next to this, that it makes things make a little bit more sense. But the moment you can have people say, oh, working four days instead of five days a week. That's now an opportunity, because I make seven 8,000 pounds a year, so I can cut out a day's work every once in a while, or I can take another week off, work unpaid, because I want to go in this training camp or whatever. Like the moment, like those things are happening, because the sport is is generating it. You guys are in a in a healthy place as well, and that should happen for the entire field, not just for james appleton and john albion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as soon as you see that happen, you can see competition at every at every major competition will be better because they're just they're just being able to train the way that an ocr athlete needs to train. It's not guesswork anymore. You're getting the right sessions in getting things right how?
Speaker 2:how is the community? Because you mentioned community there and, like you said about the pt barn, they put on a thing this this week and lit and then rumble have put a thing on for the euros and they put that on just because everyone was talking that we could do with a little bit more of a hints and tips for the euros. And literally dave's put that on and it's fully booked, like every person in the community is going to it, and they did to pt barn. Everyone was there. So this community is so tight in the uk that you you'll see us all at races. Everyone's there, but the field. That's why the field has got bigger. But we need to grow it as well, like it needs to, needs to keep, need to keep getting people in that sort of not competitive or trying to get elite, but at least just a little bit of fun, like training and racing against each other. Is that? Do you see it's increasing where you are, or is it? Or has it stagnated?
Speaker 3:to be fair, not in the same way. It's in a different way. The way you guys do it in the uk, where there are people who are motivated to do exactly what you guys are doing, start a podcast which has people listening and tuning in, trying to be more focused on their training and opportunities within obstacle sports. We don't have a Danish podcast doing that. There's one guy who does a media profile in Denmark. He's a boomer with capital letters, so it's always super shady quality. It has great intention, but it's not worth following. Always like super shady quality. It has like great intention, but it's like it's not worth following. Um, what drives it in denmark in in that regard of like media coverage is that we have a couple of high profile athletes that have had some influencer level success, so that eyes are in the sport through, but it's channeled through relatively few people. Um, but it's it. It kind of like stays there. So what? These people are not going to keep doing this forever like we. We need to also have it in the community-based thing so that the gyms that we have, the community-driven ones, they get the exact same reaction that you guys are getting, like when, when they say let's put something on for, uh, people who are going to nana, for people who are going to leo, whatever, um, people are showing up. You're putting it, we're putting events out. People will show up and they will do it all year round Good weather, bad weather and those things are really well.
Speaker 3:But where they're trying to make it into a pure business model, it it has a tendency of dying out really quickly and it's it's difficult because I've always preached and the reason I started OCR training Denmark in 2015 is that I wanted to be an opportunity for people to. When they're asked by colleagues and friends like, oh, what do you do? Oh, my sport is obstacle course racing. But you can only say that if you're training obstacle course racing, not if you race four events a year. Because if you say I'm a marathoner, it's like, oh, I'm actually training for the marathon, I'm actually doing marathon style workouts.
Speaker 3:Now I'm a marathoner because? But I want to. I want it to be the same with obstacle course racing and it sounds like you guys, you have communities over there that they're really into it. I can see on the instagram profiles of it. I got quite a few new followers from from racing that weekend. I can, I can see, some of them are like named like something somethingCR, and in the profile it says OCR athlete. So it's a thing People want to do it. You guys have a really good path going on for sure, and we need to be inspired by that in Denmark, because it's slightly different models, if you can see it.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 3:It's weird, isn't it?
Speaker 4:I wouldn't see that at all. We're always looking at the other side, though. We're always looking at Europe and going. I want a bit of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we always want to be Europe, we want to be more Europe, and you're saying, oh, you want to be more UK. It's crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd like for people to be more supportive support for the federation when they put on euro champs. But with any federation it's very people driven, so when the people in charge decide that they have other things to do in life, like the president back then, he got a kid and he was like I can't do all this volunteering and have this kid, so he chose the federation of the kid.
Speaker 3:Of course he chose the kid we would have chosen the federation but you guys, you have like some people who have like been doing it for a long time and yeah, I thought obviously you guys were.
Speaker 3:I thought the uk were dying out with like mudsticle was like disappearing and all those things, because the uk set a standard for like how to do coverage and obstacle race magazine and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:I was like you guys are rocking and it seems like post-covid, a new wave of that has started and the wave in Denmark is not as strong. It's just the people you see on that wave have incredibly strong profiles, but it's not the people with the big profiles that drive it. They motivate and create some things around it, but I'm not creating community workouts for almost free in a gym that I've built myself. That's somebody else and those are the people that honestly facilitate the true difference. So even if in Denmark you see Ida and me and some other people that are really riding that OCR wave and we're a couple of people who can do it full time, which is also super privileged, and we're a couple of people who can do it full time, which is also super privileged it doesn't necessarily mean that the masses is following on the same in the same direction, but I'm seeing the masses follow over with you guys and that's the thing I was the most inspired about. I hope that. I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think we're quite hidden, though, so we've well, like you're saying, media wise. I think in the uk is where it started to die.
Speaker 1:we haven't gotten the coverage like we used to, but then we did have the best we had, we did have, yeah, we did yeah, it's quite a big big pair of shoes to fill.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but it's like that's died out, but the community's got bigger, but it's not being showcased to the world. I think we need to find a way to kind of look what we're doing over here. But hello, look at me yeah, we're not very good at that and what we got is that everyone was talking after races.
Speaker 2:People still are so passionate about ocr and want to talk about how do I get better, where races do I go to? And then we have we end. I don't know if you had it when you were over. You try, you try and say goodbye and you're trying to leave an obstacle course right venue. You end up.
Speaker 2:It takes you three hours to get to your car because you're chatting about obstacle course racing until you get there and in you're late for dinner, and that's why we started like this, this podcast of chatting about. It was like all right, what topic did you get stopped in the car park and chat to for two hours about and how can we bring that to the wider audience? And that's the key thing is the audience. It's like reaching more people and that's where we, we see it from you. You've got an audience on social and that's where you've you've done so well at and but we, yeah, we just don't have that audience base yet, but we have passionate people.
Speaker 3:I think that's where we're kind of like the differences, yeah, but there's many ways of doing it and your model of saying all right, we start our own thing and we'll start building. And now you're on year two and honestly, we should pop a little alcohol-free champagne for that one, because that's a big bloody deal. Matt b davis has proven that it's not necessarily talent, it's tenacity that wins in the long run. I mean, I'm not dissing on matt b davis, but he said it himself. He's like he was there in the beginning and he's still here. So when when people like, oh, where do I get the news, they always like, oh, there's this matt b davis guy. But imagine he stopped, like three years ago, people would still be like, oh, there's this matt b davis guy. You got to talk to an orm, right? So even though his following is not still growing, when we had a guy in denmark who's like, oh, I want to do danish ocr media, I have been wondering from day one why didn't he reach out to me? Because I'm the owner of ocr training denmark, which I've been trying to like. Like I've been really making that a very minimal thing now because I prioritize being an athlete instead of trying to coach a ton of people.
Speaker 3:A year we used to have 1,000, 1,200 people come through a year before covid for training events, community building. There's a big instagram pro, big ish instagram profile. Why not just take over that and then build on it? And similarly in the uk. If anybody's listening here, they're like oh, I'd love to create my own thing, but it sucks, starting with zero followers, and I agree it's not fun to start from scratch with anything. Consider just revamping things that used to work. They didn't necessarily die because the things did not work, but because people got other interests. So there is still many things that could be done over there. Um, in the, in the uk or anywhere in the world. It's just do we, do we create and build our own torch, or do we go out and find a torch that just no longer has fire and then give that torch the fire of life and then we'll see if it, if it still burns bright or what? Oh, there's an analogy you've rocked about yeah, that's good yeah this is my second language this
Speaker 2:is my second language, you should hear me danish.
Speaker 2:That was pretty good that was nearly good as uh bracken's analogies on running oh yeah, that was a bracken one, yeah yeah when you say, like using other things that people probably don't know and maybe we need to be a bit more open that we are all three of us in a group chat with every single media outlet in the uk and we chat between one another. So like, yes, we work together. Yeah, like megan's um talking dirty, we talk, we talk together, we help each other. We've got british obstacle sports, obviously. Uh, build, trying to build more and more of a community base and also a membership, and we're we're trying to chat to them, being like what's the main questions you get? Like how do I put on a racing tag? Like how, how, how does timing work? Like people asking these questions and we're just here chatting obstacle course racing.
Speaker 3:We know this is good, this is a relationship yeah, you guys are doing the right thing and then occasionally bringing in people so that you both have your own thing going on with your kind of like race brain. They don't bring on people really, but they have their own little thing where they're chatting and talking and you guys should do that as well. Rock that core product. But in bringing in people every once in a while or bringing in an rd like, so oh, we really would love to talk to the rd of nuclear and hear his thoughts on it and actually share with him. Listen, listen to questions about why have you considered doing this? So why isn't this never happening? Why is this always a problem? Because there's always these questions from people. You can. You can add these tiny things in to like make it even more interesting because it's you have a good thing going on in the UK, Like I think.
Speaker 1:I think it's a good yeah. Well, you should listen to my other podcast, where we actually do have race directors. Come on and guests like race directors. You should listen to who's Hot.
Speaker 2:Have you heard about who's Hot? Yeah, yeah, who's Hot. Go on, ships, give us your elevator pitch for who's Hot.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't really do the elevator pitching, do I? That's Becky and will's job. Uh, yeah, so we, because that's the thing in the uk we've got, because, like darren was saying, we've got all these different things and we all do work together we've all got our own little, our own little sort of thing that we do. Help me out with some words yeah, side hustle, we're here.
Speaker 2:Yes, leon, I'm always here for ships, just to help him finish his sentences.
Speaker 1:To be fair, I don't even know why I'm a podcaster because I'm terrible personality. You're here for the personality but yeah, so we got that one going as well and that's good, because we do get the race directors on and they do come back with feedback. No, we give them feedback and then they do change things. So it is a real sort of give and take relationship that we have with everyone in the OCR UK community make sense that's amazing.
Speaker 3:And then some people are facilitating a place to train, some people are facilitating training programs, some people are facilitating attending, which is also really bloody important that you just you're there and you have a good time. And some people want to volunteer and some people want to do speaking at these events. There's people out there who like to do different things.
Speaker 2:You should bring them all together. Sometimes it's like herding cats together. Yeah.
Speaker 3:On race day, everybody goes together and that's why it takes three hours to go to your car.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do a tactical leave. Is that an Irish goodbye? He's gone.
Speaker 4:Mo does that all the time. Actually, mo is notorious. I'm good at disappearing just up in the shadows.
Speaker 2:I'll give him a call. Where are you? You getting a drink? And he's like no, no, I'm home. I'm like what, where you gone?
Speaker 1:I was meant to get in the car with you you took me dear ship is still waiting out there.
Speaker 3:Like dude mo, I've been waiting two hours. Where's?
Speaker 2:my car going the. The interesting thing we found that you said about race brain is that we didn't in the uk have any. Like I said, this is being a bit harsh, but we didn't have like racers in the current racing like scene talking about this comes these conversations in a very informal way and I think that's the most valuable thing sometimes is an informal approach because we can say that, yeah, british obstacle sports are doing a great job, but there are definitely things that we can do better. But we're all accountable for it. And that's where the name of Accountability Corner came in, because if we love OCR, we're all accountable for its growth.
Speaker 1:So you can't, you can't bitch about something and expect change yeah. And not expect anything to change about it. If you don't, if you don't want change, you've got to help make change happen.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and the easiest thing to do is bitch and do nothing. This, it's like any federation anywhere that I've done any workshop or racing. So it's like, oh, this federation doing shit. And then I'm like dude, have you, have you signed up to volunteer for your federation so you can, you know, try to make a positive change? Fuck, no, I'll never do that. And it's like, well, what do you expect anything?
Speaker 4:how are you gonna change man?
Speaker 3:how are you gonna do anything? I see I have this. It's actually really funny because exactly what you say here is like I am not a terror in my family, but I am trying to keep some of these fuckers a little bit accountable. So around christmas time, there's always somebody in the family, right, that's like, ah, leon, because I'm the fit dude, I'm the only like athlete guy in the family, right? Um, and there's always somebody who's like.
Speaker 3:Their guilt of not putting in work and losing weight triggers when I enter the room, which is super stupid because I don't. I don't blame anybody for living the way they live. It's just that they see a fit person and they're like oh shit, I'm heavier now, right, so, and then my family for some reason has a re. They like occasionally feel the need to comment on it. They've learned not to do it. Because the first year somebody's like Leon, I'd like to lose some weight. I'm mega supportive, I am your biggest fan. Hey, if this is your dream, let me know if I can help you out. Right, this is great. And you don't hear from anybody Christmas.
Speaker 3:Next year around Same person, same problem, similar weight, maybe heavier. I'm not saying anybody should lose weight at all, but the moment you start saying you want to lose weight, it's up to you to make that difference, and the problem of not doing it is that you constantly feel horrendous about yourself. So the second year when I get the same thing oh Leon, I still really want to lose weight I just I'm like, all right, I will send you a training plan in two days and then I'd love to hear about your progress. Right, for regular people, you don't need to create something magical at all. You just go out Google training plan to lose weight in eight weeks and there's like a thousand training plans online that are really shitty but they're free, all right, but you send that to your customer.
Speaker 3:Whoever said that? If I hear the same thing in the third year of christmas and nothing has changed, I am very blatantly honest about what accountability means, and I've ruined christmas once or twice before with comments like that. I'm like I definitely, I've definitely crossed the line, but I'm like don't triple christmas me with your, with your bad conscience. Just feel good about how, how, if you don't, I'm not, I can't change it. I, I we're at christmas.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna watch you eat food for the next five hours and the first thing you do is tell me you feel bad about being big, like we're all here to die, like the only way to show grandma we love her is to eat as much food as we humanly can without puking. It's like the ultimate way of showing grandma you love her around christmas time. So we're all in this together and you're probably going to beat me at this eating competition. But then don't give me the same thing next year, because we need to be accountable for it and the moment that we are not, we are literally taking a personal hole of shit to bathe in because it's not fun. It's really not fun.
Speaker 3:If I told you guys right now I wish I was a better runner and we did a podcast again in a year and I hadn't changed my training, I had done nothing, I hadn't improved my sleep, I hadn't done an extra run a week or whatever, you guys would all be like dude you're, you're doing absolutely nothing. You're just hoping and dreaming and getting older and those three things are just not gonna cut it to become a better runner. I mean, I don't know if I'm being straightforward here no, we love, we love, we love candid it's good we like that together.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my views on everything.
Speaker 1:That kind of just reminds me of my running. What's that? It hasn't got better over the last eight years. Well, we keep telling you. We have told you this Me and Mo are going to go right now we're going into this, okay With.
Speaker 4:Leon in here. This is going to get very heated.
Speaker 2:We have told you many times that you need to do more speed training.
Speaker 1:I do do.
Speaker 4:No told you many times that you need to do more speed training.
Speaker 3:I do, do I know you don't know, do a ton of threshold and strides.
Speaker 1:I do. I do put strides on the end now as well now.
Speaker 2:And do you know what liam we've? We, yeah, we have these comments. We had him at the weekend when we trained together, like we're always telling mo that he needs to sort his diet out and start see, yeah, training more that's.
Speaker 1:That's that's what we are here for. We are accountable to each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're honest, we are honest, we are another.
Speaker 1:And Mo told me the other community that we got in the uk because we keep everyone accountable. We have our rivals that we keep accountable because we just keep trying to do better and that makes them train hard. What makes me train harder when they keep beating me? You know it's, it's everything.
Speaker 3:It's everything that goes on, yeah and I feel like you guys do it in a way where you're not just like blaming or pointing fingers. It's like, oh, you keep telling me, chris keeps telling me he's not getting faster. So I recommend you implement stride, speed, sprint, whatever. So you give actual, here's the recipe, this is what's going to work.
Speaker 1:In three years, though, leon, I just won't do it.
Speaker 3:Then the only solution is bullying, of course.
Speaker 4:That's when we get violent.
Speaker 2:But they can't bully me because I've got bigger arms than them.
Speaker 3:No but Leon do you know the way that?
Speaker 2:I prove it right. Well, wrong for him is I just keep beating him this year. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1:I put you in the dirt. The last training runs we've had. Training, training doesn't matter, yeah, but still, I've raced three times this year. Did you guys hear Mo?
Speaker 2:say, training doesn't matter did he when he's the because he's the worst trainer, leon. That's the reason.
Speaker 4:I only win the sessions when they're there.
Speaker 1:When they're not around, it's terrible sometimes when it comes to races.
Speaker 3:The first year we did the GOV games, we actually hadn't been doing a lot of running together the top five dogs in Denmark and we had to go do six by 30 second strides. All together those were six by 30 seconds. Who the fuck is fastest? That had nothing to do with strides, we just went out to murder each other it's to see who's whose thing hangs the lowest, basically, yeah it's so stupid that's free train together quite a lot.
Speaker 4:So I think we've got to the point where rid of that now. Yeah, yeah, but soon as someone new comes in. Sometimes we invite like a new person from the uk to join our training sessions, and it always then just turns into a race straight away. It's like, oh, who's?
Speaker 2:winning today. It happened the other day we I don't know if you Ferg is a really good racer.
Speaker 1:And he's got a nice hair, yeah, and the great legs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:He came and did an ocr long run with me and ships the other day and um he started getting quicker and quicker and we're like hang on, we don't do it.
Speaker 2:That's not the session. Yeah, we were like should we tell him or should we just keep trying to keep up with him? Like no, we'll just keep up with him. Yeah, just, it was a totally different session then. It was more of like a uh yeah, tempo session than it was in the long run. Yeah, it just changed. Yeah, it happens, yeah a little extra tempo.
Speaker 3:I've been doing insane amounts of tempo all year. Uh, it's, it's really. I feel like it's. It's what's opened up the the doors of doing well in plus five kilometer, five plus kilometer races is getting in those temp workers. They're long and hard, but it works, boys, it's. Uh, it's sleepy time here, and um and ghost have gone to bed like one and a half meter away from me and I can see we're getting ready to sleep and I'm kind of busted and tired as well. So any last questions. Otherwise, I think it's night-night time Because I have a double monster session day tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Okay, If you have three minutes, we can quickly go through something really special we prepared for you and then we will rattle through it really quickly. Yeah, we'll be quick, yeah, yeah. So any guests that comes onto our podcast, we like to build an attribute card, so it's an, it's an ability yeah, it's a little trading card for them, so to be able to tell you where you stack up in the field. You ever played fifa or anything like that. This is your own.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so Mo show him the goods.
Speaker 4:Should I share the screen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, see where he stacks.
Speaker 4:I've got to make sure I don't mess this up.
Speaker 2:You're our first elite, so there it is. Look at the hair.
Speaker 3:Look at that, I love it, I love it. Oh, 100 points for Instagram. Yeah, yes.
Speaker 2:We usually go through this in a lot of detail, but I think we can safely assume you're quite a high number and we can leave this for our community to.
Speaker 3:Guys, I'm going to take a photo of this screen. This makes me very happy. This is really cool.
Speaker 4:This is incredible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll post this on instagram as well, but we can send it to you, so just let us know if you want it. Um, this is really really cool. Yeah, our first link card.
Speaker 3:So yeah, you're in a special bunch, it's dope because it actually for the, the concept of accountability, it's um, it's. I've been also thinking so what do I do really well? What do I do not so well? Where do I see the flaws happening? And for the past eight to 12 months I've been trying to improve on the things that you guys also scored lower. Except the strength element. I have done like occasional testing and it's like there's now this is a level that's like worth, like managing and holding. It's still an issue because I'm a skinny, tiny dude, um. But the endurance part I hope to impress you with a higher score in that throughout the year because the amount of endurance workouts I have done, scoring that throughout the year because the amount of endurance workouts I have done, um, and the amount of tempo threshold. Yeah, I hope to impress you guys more on that, but I would agree I like this a lot. It's a really, really cool concept see this is fun this is community building.
Speaker 1:I love it yeah, it's something you can improve on as well. So, yeah, you can. You can look at this throughout the year and think, right, oh, they've got it wrong, so send us a message and we'll uh see what we have to get next year and go through it, but your upgraded version, so we'll see how this year goes, and then we'll upgrade you just wait.
Speaker 3:You guys can add hide. We'll take off an inch every year, because this is how it's going to go from now on. It's just sad. I should get a girlfriend right now, because it's just all downhill from here. Okay, I love this, guys. Thanks, it was that. Uh, was that the three minutes or did you have more?
Speaker 2:no, that was that we usually go through, like the attributes, but I think, yeah, you've nailed it there, we can you. This is your accountable card. You stay accountable towards these and then in a year's time we'll come on and we'll see. We'll see where you've, uh, netted out with these.
Speaker 3:We'll see how it stacks after euros yeah exactly we want big things after that yeah, you guys did really good. Is this like some one who's really good in canva for like setting this up? This is a good setup this is all photoshop just all photoshop. That's professional. Yeah, yeah, we don't muck around around here. Yeah, we, we're science and we're up and coming here yeah I really I enjoyed this, guys. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much I'm yet to decide on midlands if I was going by for that. I'm honestly waiting for euros to be over, because I it's a big training block leading into it and I have found in the past that it's nice just to literally just like, have no plans happening after and then just letting the body and the mind tell you what it what it wants to do. So so far I'm not committing to race two weeks after euros, but if I feel good I'll, I might join the the gang that might fly. I'm trying to.
Speaker 1:I haven't booked it either yet, because I'm the same After Euros I like a nice, real relaxing, chill, and they put it at the wrong time. But if you turn up, maybe I'll turn up. That's the thing.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I'm just going to eat ice cream or go for a 5K PV because I'm in good shape. I have no clue Like any of those things could happen. I kind of want an open calendar for those things.
Speaker 2:Well, come down and show us your strengths, I'll try.
Speaker 3:I'll try.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you so much, leo Cheers, for coming on. Yeah, man, it was cool, of course. Thank you very much. See you later.
Speaker 3:Bye guys, See you later.
