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
#30: Navigating the World of Adaptive Obstacle Racing with Jamie Gane
What if overcoming life's toughest obstacles could be as exhilarating as conquering a six-foot wall? Join us for the 30th milestone of Accountability Corner, where we bring you the incredible journey of Jamie Gain, an outstanding adaptive athlete in the obstacle course racing (OCR) community. Jamie's story is nothing short of inspiring as he delves into the evolution of the sport, the strides made in categorization and fairness for adaptive athletes, and the unique set of challenges they face on and off the course.
Throughout this episode, Jamie opens up about the rigorous training and meticulous planning required to navigate the demanding terrains of OCR. We discuss the complexities of classifying adaptive athletes, considering their various impairments and how they influence performance. From personal anecdotes about tackling six-foot walls and water-filled trenches to the mental resilience needed to overcome physical limitations, Jamie's insights shed light on the remarkable adaptability and determination of these athletes. The conversation is enriched with shared memories from the European Championships, capturing the camaraderie and spirit of the OCR community.
We round off our engaging discussion by exploring ways to promote accessibility in adaptive sports, from tailored training centers to the idea of creating elite athlete trading cards that celebrate outstanding achievements. Jamie's journey serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of community support, visibility, and recognition for adaptive athletes. Tune in to celebrate our 30th episode and gain a deeper understanding of the triumphs and challenges faced by these extraordinary competitors.
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 red light is on. This is Accountability Corner, episode 30. Hit the big 3-0. And to celebrate the big 3-0, we have got a very special guest today. We have got Jamie Gain. Jamie, welcome to Accountability Corner.
Speaker 3:Hello, thanks for having me. I'm number 30.
Speaker 1:You are.
Speaker 3:That's a good number 3-0.
Speaker 1:I remember 30, being 30. That's a good number. That's a good number 3-0. I remember 30, being 30.
Speaker 2:It was a good year. It's a good age. What 1990? He's calling you old chips, don't worry.
Speaker 1:No, I'm doing the maths, I'm doing the maths.
Speaker 4:That'd be quite young, wouldn't it?
Speaker 1:I think I was, it was. So it was eight years, no, seven years ago. What year was that?
Speaker 2:You're a maths teacher, aren't you? You're a maths teacher.
Speaker 3:Jamie, aren't you? Yeah, it's about encouraging other people to do maths.
Speaker 2:Oh right, okay, that is actually why we brought you on this episode today is to teach us all how to do maths, especially Shipley. So yeah, that's the main reason. No, um, we we had a few bits of feedback at the weekend about the waffling as well. I think we've, uh, we waffle quite a lot, jamie, I don't know if you uh hear us sometimes a bit on our episodes. We don't get into the topics as quickly as we sometimes should, but people assume that we have topics to hand and ready and organised, but we're not. We like to just have a conversation.
Speaker 1:We're wafflers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, waffling. Yeah, we essentially just wanted you on Jamie, because obviously the Euros just happened and obviously the British champs there is that we can chuck in there as well.
Speaker 1:Because we've time-walked well and we've time walked again we've time walked again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're well, we're in the future or the past. Now, we're in the past, future, we're in the future. We, um, we, obviously we were a teamie, we raced on the same team, the power team, team, dream team and it's just it's. I tell you what it's just eye-opening and or inspiring to be on a team with you to understand how adaptive athletes get around obstacle course racing, because it's just incredible and so inspiring. And yeah, and I know, mo, you were chatting about obviously the training as well, like, how do you specifically train for different obstacles? So, yeah, it was just a conversation around about that, if that's all right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah Sounds good yeah, so I just a conversation around about that.
Speaker 3:if that's all right, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Sounds good. Yeah, I know one thing about that. Go on. I said I know one thing about that race that we did with Jamie. It was bloody hard to keep up, wasn't it?
Speaker 4:We thought it was going to be a walk in the park.
Speaker 1:I remember your faces when he said what he'd actually be trying to run at on that first section Nine minutes, I think yeah. Jamie goes. It's too slow, isn't it? I was like that's very fast.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'll slow down for you next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well this is going to be a reoccurring thing, because every year we do the Euros. Me and Shipley are on the same, or no or no. All the worlds, we're on the same team and he's always, he's always struggling to keep up with someone, whether it's yourself, jamie, or if it's emmy house ah, okay, I'm the weak link, aren't I? Mo, you're in. Oh no, mo's on the uh elite team. He's too good for us now hey, your team's just as elite.
Speaker 2:Um, I do want to plug the uk ocr podcast that you was on, because obviously you've already been on that, haven't you? And you chatted a lot about how you got into the sport, what the sport's done for you, and then where you, where you're going now, didn't you?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, that was a really nice kind of long, long interview which was really lovely to get into into the nitty-gritty bits, yeah, which is really nice. That seems like an absolute age ago now, though.
Speaker 2:September come on so was it really yeah, september, oh, wow, okay, and yeah, because it was just before worlds when you come off them episodes sometimes you've you feel, ah, wish I said something like that or got into a bit more. Is there anything that maybe people should know more about adaptive athletes now, or yourself?
Speaker 3:well, I think I think in the last kind of six months or eight months, adaptive athlete progression has changed massively. You know, I think that podcast I did just before the world championships and I talked about the different categories and we had these categories in place but actually when it came to podiums there was no categorization whatsoever. So it was almost every single adaptive athlete against every single adaptive athlete. And while that was great for a little while where we had kind of less people, actually what we're finding now is there is a natural advantage with some disabilities over other disabilities, and that was huge at the World Championships. I mean, the chap who won, he had a disability where he's missing a couple of fingers. And we look at the long course and he won by half an hour and of course it's like a running course by half an hour. And of course it's like a running course and if you can run really fast and if you don't have as many adaptations needed on the obstacles, of course you're going to complete really fast.
Speaker 3:And with the team and I looked at that result and went actually we need to make it more fair across the board. So I think euros was a massive first step in. Okay, let's actually categorize now. Let's get people on the podium, where you know we don't have podiums, just so people can look at them. But I think it's important. When you look at the podiums, you go well, that seems like a fair fight. You know, can you imagine a podium, an able-bodied podium, with like a 13 year old, a 60 year old and a 30 year old? You'd look at that and go what is going on? And that's what people did at worlds, whereas I think at euros, at least, people can look and go oh, those guys look like they'd compete together, which was really nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so hard for you as well, because the thing is, people don't even know what OCR is. Some people don't know what OCR is or what we go through, and you're now trying to even delve into more of a niche of getting more adaptive athletes in. So just for our listeners, like, what is an adaptive athlete? Maybe that's. That's maybe a question they might be wondering.
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, it's a big question. I mean in in simplest terms, an adaptive athlete is an individual with a permanent condition which affects either or both, the ability to run or and the ability to complete obstacles. That's like the really basics of it. And then you go into it. Most adaptive athletes will have some kind of upper body or lower body impairment, whether that be missing a hand, missing an arm, missing a leg, um, or we're getting a few others kind of come through the woodwork with, say, coordination issues such as cerebral palsy, um, or a visual impairment, obviously, um. And then you also have wheelchair users, which is a smaller market because that's even more challenging to go into as well yeah, you can imagine that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, obstacle course racing in a wheelchair. That would be very tough, but not, not, not doable. We can. We can find a way.
Speaker 1:Where there's a will, there's a way well, there is people that not necessarily compete but complete, that are doing, absolutely course, races in wheelchairs.
Speaker 3:So and we've all seen it on the instagrams and things, so it's definitely there it's happening and and I'm I'm hoping I'm maybe I shouldn't really say this, but I'm gonna say anyway um, for next year, for the british championships, I'm trying to pledge for a wheelchair category and like what? What I'm thinking at the moment is the wheelchair users use the kids course and, depending on your impairment, depends on how many people you can have support. So, for example, if you have a severe impairment that affects your trunk, your legs and kind of everything um below your waist, then you can have more support versus. You know, someone like myself, for example, I'm just a baloney amputee with spinal cord injury, but I could use a wheelchair, but I can stand up for myself and I can do the obstacles myself. Therefore, I'd only be allowed, say, one or two people in my team, so it'd be a team-based obstacle race, um with a wheelchair user.
Speaker 1:That's, that's the plan for next year we should get that guy to do it. You know the uh extreme sports guy from Nitro Circus.
Speaker 3:Wheels.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, aaron, Aaron, yeah, I know which one you mean he is amazing.
Speaker 1:He'd be amazing at that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, that's how it started originally. You know, Spartan put on a wheelchair team or power race and you had I think it was four. It was four members per team and it was great. They paid all of us to go out to las vegas and compete in the desert vegas.
Speaker 1:What happened over there then?
Speaker 3:wait. Well, we won prize money. That was. That was awesome.
Speaker 1:That was back in the day wow, and every person do win money again in vegas yeah, yeah, completely.
Speaker 3:That'd be the dream, wouldn't it? But no, they um, you had four people in your team and every single person your team had a disability and you were allocated a certain number of points depending on your disability, and you had to have one wheelchair user, so you could only have a certain amount of points to try and even out the team, and that was like absolutely incredible, and it started off as team things. And then, um, myself and john the hand, who is another an advocate for para sport over more in europe, he kind of said, right, okay, we need individual races now, let's, let's go for that. And hence all these races are starting to be formed, incredible yeah, it was just.
Speaker 2:It was just so inspiring to see and and it's going to be more inspiring for people to see as well Like the fact that you're doing the whole course. Like everyone out there might think that you're doing a different course, it's the exact same course that you're doing. That everyone else as well, which is just amazing. We had some questions. We chatted when we were going around the course and maybe we'll go into more of the races a bit later but we were saying things like your training, like how, how are you getting people in into? The sport is the hardest thing in the first place, because we're trying to grow OCR for able-bodied but and it's still not into the place we want it to be. So how are you, how are you getting people in, like especially when training is kind of it's low already?
Speaker 1:isn't it pardon training, training's still hard enough, yeah we're still trying to develop training. So then, for for yourself, and trying to get other people into training and develop the skills that we're still developing and we don't even have a clue about ish, how are you getting them to develop these skills on obstacles that are even more of an obstacle for adaptive athletes?
Speaker 3:it's tricky, isn't it? And I think I think even able-bodied boys. The marketing of ocr is a really tricky place to be because races want to go. You know what, every single person going to go to an obstacle race or some form of obstacle race, whether that's a tough mother, whether it's a european championship, if they qualify ocr is accessible to everybody, right. So brands kind of go hey, look at our really easy race that you can go to. But actually brands aren't really doing that, are they? They're saying, oh, look at this really hardcore, really muddy, really gritty race. And then they're trying to find this kind of like middle ground, of like it's really easy, you can access it, but it's also really challenging. So, I think, for able-bodied athletes, where is that mix? And then, obviously, you add in an adaptation on top of that. It is really challenging.
Speaker 3:So what I try and do is is show how accessible obstacle racing can be. You know there are obstacle races out there which are inverted commas easy, right, in comparison to others or easier. So, um, you know, I sort of introduced people to that. I've got a few people on the sidelines who I'm trying to get to a ninja gym just to show them what kind of obstacles could exist. I'm working with pentathlon gb trying to boost their para team at the moment and and uh, oco is going to be introduced to para pentathlon next year.
Speaker 3:So actually, how can we completely create an obstacle course for wheelchair users? You know, um, and a lot of people with disabilities will often have combinations of disabilities. You know whether that be an upper limb impairment and a lower limb impairment. You know I'm talking to a lady in scotland absolutely incredible, ran up, tough who's a leg amputee and an arm amputee as well. You know we think about how, how do we access these courses? Which category does she fit into? It's? I mean, I love the challenge, first of all, trying to help and try to support and encourage these people, um, but yeah, it's about just offering people a helping hand and saying let's get you to the race. This, this idea that you have in your head of it being really, really difficult yes, it is, but let me help and guide you to, to give you the best training that you possibly can. I think a lot of confidence as well yeah, you're paving the way like mo.
Speaker 2:When people come to you to coach for ocr, they're probably able, body are looking for that, looking for a challenge. They were looking for that physical challenge. But the entry point there is looking for a physical challenge, but adaptive athletes might be a mindset barrier straight away. It's like I can't even do it, like I can't even sign up for it because it's not, it's not accessible to me, but I think that's what you're trying to. You're trying to burst the bubble there, aren't you that it's not accessible to me, but I think that's what you're trying to. You're trying to burst the bubble there, aren't you that it's accessible for everyone? We, we actually what was the one we did about how fit do I need to be to do OCR? We actually probably missed the mark there as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because what? What did we say?
Speaker 1:We said all you need to be able to do is walk but that's wrong, that is wrong, yeah how?
Speaker 4:so how do the categories work like? So you know you said there's loads of different categories. How do you actually what is the process behind making them categories? So I imagine you need to obviously have a stop in.
Speaker 3:Okay, this category is this and this, but it must be really difficult it is really difficult and I think that's something that has evolved in the last couple of years. When I wrote the classification criteria for world obstacle three, four years ago and where it is now my mindset, I think it needs to be changed again in a broad sense. You've got those with visual impairments. They're in one category wheelchair users, for now in one category. Then you've got those who are, um, limited with the ability to complete obstacles, those who are limited with the ability to run or the distance between these obstacles. That's kind of the basics of it.
Speaker 3:And then, within the uh, obstacle impairment section, you're mostly talking about upper body impairment. So we separate for those who can grip under the armpit and those who can't grip under the armpit, so basically those that have use of both arms maybe not both hands, but both arms and those who have only use of one arm. And then, in the lower body category, we then split into it's not officially this, but it's effectively those that can run and those that can't run. So, for example, if you're an athlete who uses crutches to complete the course, um, you would be in one category. If you are able to walk, run without an aid, even if across with a prosthetic. Um, you would be in one category. If you are able to walk, run without an aid, even if across with a prosthetic, then you would be in a different category.
Speaker 1:It's kind of in easier terms how it's separated is that kind of how they do it with the olympics as well?
Speaker 3:kind of kind of yeah, I mean the olympics is.
Speaker 3:It really depends on the sport. It really depends on how it impacts you, um, and I think in some respects it would be great and it wouldn't really work with ocr to look at a specific course and go right. This course is incredibly um hilly. For example, those with the leg impairment are going to be far more impaired than those with an arm impairment, or actually, this course is completely flat, it's all road terrain, which is perfect for a leg impairment, um, but every single obstacle is really, really technical. Therefore, those with an upper limb impairment are more impaired than those with a lower leg. That would be the ideal um thing, but you know the nature of obstacle racing. It's just not going to happen and I think if you're an able-bodied person looking at a course and looking at the terrain, you'd go oh, yeah, yeah, this is fine, when actually, in reality, you know there could be lots of dips and divots that you might not see or might not think would be an issue. That actually would be a big issue.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, it's good fun, but this is a sport that loves to throw us up at the most ridiculous terrain and through the most challenging things as well. So I imagine again, even able-bodied people look at that and get scared and think, how, how can I do that? So I can?
Speaker 3:only I can't even imagine how, like yeah, the mindset of trying to bring them other people in as well yeah, and I think, I think it's not only the course itself, it's as an adaptive athlete you've got a higher risk of injury because you depend a lot more on you know.
Speaker 3:If you're missing a limb, the other limbs that you have or the other limbs that are are not affected, um. But also you know, you think about british championships that we all just ran this weekend. You guys are probably getting up on monday morning going oh look, you know a bit I'm a bit stiff, but I'm okay, I can walk around, whereas an adaptive athlete like my stump is absolutely covered in blisters and that's not, you know, that's not muscle soreness, that's not because I've run particularly long, but the terrain and I just had a slight socket adjustment last week means that I've got loads of blisters. That means then I can't go for a run for three or four days because I need to heal it up. So it's not only the race itself, it's how you recover afterwards and the impact on your body and work we are disproportionately affected by know we're not as likely to get higher income jobs or have a job in the first place. So there are other aspects the financial barriers to obstacle racing there's quite a few of them.
Speaker 2:That's definitely a big barrier. You've not picked the uh, the cheapest sport to try and get athletes into sometimes. No, we'll be fine, we'll be funded right, exactly, we'll be sponsored athletes and everything. Yeah, well, yeah, it'll be great. The best thing about the sport is that, from the Euros and the British Champs, what we saw is that the community is just so strong and the fact that you've got us as a podcast. You've got UKOCR supporting. You've got just everyone is podcast. You've got UKOCR support in. You've got just everyone is there just wanting to grow the sport, and you're just making sure that every aspect and intricacies of the sport goes along at the same pace, and that is that intricacy is adaptive. Athletes come along on the same journey that us able athletes are doing when it becomes a sport.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're on that boat. Yeah, you're on that boat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're on the boat, but you've got a bigger job, I think, because you've got a lot more admin and descriptions and course corrections and, yeah, lots of different things that need to change that. Yeah, that will need to be done to make sure the adaptive athletes get the fair chance when they're when they're going on a course. That's actually, you have to be honest, it's always going to be built for the, the mass market, which is the able-bodied athletes, isn't it?
Speaker 1:the trouble is as well in this country and in other countries it's still really hard for accessibility with people, accessibility with people with disabilities. That make sense. Yeah, thank you. It's still not brilliant, just in the real world terms, you know. So getting it for obstacle racing I can't even imagine that I think.
Speaker 2:I think you're going to do an incredible job with adaptive athletes and getting them into the sport. And just obviously, us racing together sparked the conversation of obviously we wanted everyone more listeners to hear what you had to say about getting people into sport. But, like, euros just came, came up and we all, um competed in it. How did you? How did you find? Because for us personally, we found, maybe you know, there could have been a few more obstacles, um, the placement of the obstacles could have been a bit more dense, the density could have been larger, the terrain wasn't really properly released, what it was going to be like. So, all of these things, for us to be able to to be athletes, we need more time to train. For did you get enough information? Do you feel, or what? What was your involvement in the euros? Because I know that didn't even realize that you was well, how involved you were with the adaptive athletes yeah, so.
Speaker 3:So, based on on last so last euros, I was the kind of vice captain or vice um, vice, what's it called race vice, race director, so I was doing shipping and um and so I kind of helped with the rules.
Speaker 3:It was john zahan, another fantastic adaptive athlete, was kind of leading the way and I helped him with. We kind of bounced off ideas how do we think about this adaptation? Um. And then, based off the back of that, I was then given the role of race director or para race director for all four para races. So I've been planning with with the european championship team kind of well from from the last european championships. So part of that planning was a bit of I didn't want to get involved too much because I don't want to have a competitive edge of knowing what the obstacles are. I I feel like that's that's not fair against the other adaptive athletes. So what they did was they released the rule book, um, I don't know, four months ago, let's say, none of the, none of the actual obstacles have pictures to them. So they say, right, okay, write the adaptations. And I'm like, oh, okay, all I've got is a description that says use the horizontal pole to get to the end of the obstacle, in really broken english, okay. So, uh, based off of those descriptions, I wrote the adaptations.
Speaker 3:I then looked at the adaptive athletes who had registered for the race and I then looked at the medical documentation, working with a local doctor that I sourced um, then allocated the classifications based on the evidence that we had. We had a couple of athletes where it wasn't particularly clear, so I had meetings with them and looked at, you know, range of movement and power etc to see if they classified. Um, we ended up not classifying some athletes. They weren't particularly happy with that. So then we looked at the rules around around that um and allowed them to compete on the different basis and then sort of around the actual race event. It was actually I need to look at the obstacles to see if the adaptations are correct so beating with the tos, making sure all of the tos were aware of the adaptations, um, basically just making sure that all of the athletes had all the required information that they needed on the day of the event or day of the events.
Speaker 3:And I think Euro's was really, really great. From an adaptive athlete perspective, I think you're right from me, I think there could have been some more technical obstacles or some more obstacles. That's what I like, but I think from an adaptive athlete perspective, you know we had three other UK guys. This is the first international race that they've done at such a technical level and I think it was a really great kind of challenge, but realistic in the same respect. So I absolutely loved it. I think it'd be interesting to see what happens next, next Euros, in terms of difficulty level. I mean, the terrain was horrible, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was Disgusting. 600 metres straight up, that's what everyone dreams of, don't they?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, and it's weird because I think I love, I love to get to an end of a race going. You know what I gave that 100. You know that I raced my heart out. I felt like I was going to be sick the whole way. You know, I absolutely love that feeling. But then I got to the end of of the course and I thought the terrain was so difficult that I didn't feel like I could race it 100. I was. I probably raced like 60 of what I'm capable of and, um, it's quite a difficult thing to overcome mentally to go. You know what? I still raced, I still got my gold medals, but I didn't race anywhere near the level I wanted to hold it a nice fast out sprint. But maybe that's what worlds will bring maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we felt like that because the cells actually, because it just felt like the first part was a bit of like a stamina survival, like hold a little bit in the tank, but don't over excel yourself. So keep your heart rate down. And then, once you got to the top, it was like okay, I need to go, but I also need to make sure I'm ready to for the downhills. So, and then usually in the euros, you wait till the end and it's like I need my arms to be feel good because I've got a gauntlet. But it was only like two obstacles, so yeah, it was a very different experience, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I think the other question is obviously like training. You mentioned like you don't have like an obstacle gym around you and and trying to get adaptive athletes into it, it's kind of like you need to showcase them, like what are the skills you actually need? Mo question that for you. Have you ever trained an adaptive athlete? No, never yeah never had one down at rumble.
Speaker 4:No not, not me personally. I don't know if dave's worked with some um, but yeah, never. So I can only imagine like the challenges that would be. And I mean I'd love to, because thinking on your feet and trying to think on the spot and trying to overcome how even we were at the barn, because obviously Rumble's not necessarily probably the best set up for that, because we don't have adapted athletes in all the time. So it'd be really cool to even Jamie, if you want to pop down and we can see how we can kit it out a little bit and change it.
Speaker 3:I was speaking with Dave. Actually, I'm planning on coming down in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:Oh nice, oh yeah when.
Speaker 3:I think it was a Thursday night.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, always a Thursday night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, three or four weeks' time, something like that. I'll let you know the date.
Speaker 4:I will be there. Well, I'll be there, I don't know, about them two I won't be there.
Speaker 2:Mo, we were chatting. I was gonna say we were chatting when we were going around, mo, that I just didn't expect how much jamie uses his arms. I know that seems like the most stupidest thing in the world to say, but that rope climbs and and even like other obstacles where you just don't think you need to, because when you adapt certain rope obstacles, jamie, you, then you you traverse the bar at the top. So you've got. You've got to use your arms again, like more so than we would, because we can footlock and that allows us to actually relieve some stress in our arms. But, mo, you'd you know, when you train, like for the lock off and things like that, you'd have to, you'd have to think about how can Jamie conserve as more energy, as as much energy as possible?
Speaker 4:yeah, I think that'd be a great challenge, like Diane said, watching you race, especially the Euros, because I've seen you, obviously, at other races and things, but I think, because you're running the team with them as well, I was paying a little bit more attention than maybe normal and it was just so impressive, like how you were getting through obstacles.
Speaker 3:I think even on that rig, the one with the kind of hexagon, at the end the. Ferrita Nero archery yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, you had a bit of a mishap on your swing with that.
Speaker 1:Your leg bloody. Hit the side, hit the side, yes.
Speaker 4:But the way you was able to come back, I thought obviously I coach a lot of people obstacles and if they have one little hiccup like that, there's no, they're just going to let go. But the way you were just able to carry on, I was like, wow, like, and obviously you know what you're doing. You've, you've done, you've been at races now, but it's just still quite impressive, yeah I mean, you get used to it.
Speaker 3:You know, last year at euros on the firefighter, my leg fell off. So well, you get used to it. And I was like is my foot on the firefighter? My leg fell off, so you get used to it. And I was like is my foot on the ground? Is it not on the ground?
Speaker 3:I hope not, there's a technicality there you can carry a foot scrape yeah, I've got a great picture of it facing completely the wrong way at the weirdest angle, um, but yeah, you just, you know, you just get used to it. And I was talking to Harry, who's another adaptive racer in the UK fantastic racer and we were saying, actually, I think, as an adaptive racer, or just an adaptive person, everything is an obstacle. Before my amputation, I was in a wheelchair for 14 years and just going up a curb is an obstacle and you get used to. Okay, I've got to assess the ground before I go up there, I've got to think about my acceleration before I get up there. So I think actually, in some respects, adaptive athletes have an advantage because we're so used to adapting and overcoming just general things in life that you know, when it comes to obstacle racing, it's just like oh, yeah, oh, there's this hold. Yeah, okay, I'll just do that. Yeah, okay, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's a log in the way, okay, I'll just jump over it, you know I think it's just part of racing you've already built up that armor to tackle obstacles, because your whole life's been an obstacle yeah, I love that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think that actually was quite apparent, especially like watching you at the euros, because it was like, like, I say, that little mishap on the rig and obviously you still got through the rig, so it didn't really mess up your race. But if that was another like able-bodied athlete and they kicked it most I'd say nine times out of ten just that little bit of frustration, they would just let go, even if mentally they've got the strength, they just don't quite because of that little thing throwing him off. Then start to struggle and it's like, oh, I'll just let go thing is he's used his arms the whole time like he hasn't yeah, no, it's insane, it's that that's the last.
Speaker 1:This is what I still baffle to get my heads around like I've got really, really good grip endurance, but no way in the world would I want to be doing every single like. You try and go through the obstacle race conserving as much energy as you can, but you've got so little tools in your toolbox that you've only got like the one hammer and that's all you can use. And it's just like how do you just get through everything using that same hammer? Because that hammer is going to get blunt. I should have used a knife.
Speaker 2:Knife would have been better I like it I love where you're going with that, oh yeah you're, you're right, ships even even comes down to the fact that mo, you train momentum, getting through obstacle, obstacles at times, is using your body's momentum as a pendulum and to raise your knees up, raise your knees down to get that swing back. Jamie, that was that. That momentum and that pendulum swings a different way for you. It's so hard to think okay, hang on, I'm lighter here, I can't get that weight pushing me up to this obstacle?
Speaker 1:Didn't you say that your other leg weighs more than your normal leg?
Speaker 3:Yeah, depending on which running blade I'm wearing than your normal leg.
Speaker 1:Yeah, depending on which running blade I'm wearing. Yeah, because I mean, like I mean, some people are lucky enough to have things swinging about all over the place down down that way. But it's obviously exactly, but most people like myself, my legs probably weigh the same. So you, you know, you don't have that odd weight flopping around yeah it is a crazy concept, isn't it?
Speaker 2:you're both your legs way different, differently.
Speaker 3:It's just yeah, because that would really throw you off yeah, and it's, and it's, it's silly things like that little bit of extra energy that you use because I because I don't have any feeling in either of my legs when it comes to an obstacle and I've got a drop anything kind of more than a foot I've got to look at the floor before I drop to know what my legs are going to do. So, therefore, if you think you know 30 obstacles in a race and you're holding on for an extra two seconds, that's a minute of holding and it's not much really in the grand scheme of things, but on top of all the obstacles, um, it's the silly little things that you don't really think about.
Speaker 4:You don't want to fall off in a funny way how often do you train obstacles and train like that skill of falling off properly and things like that?
Speaker 3:I'm trying to get better with it. I think a lot of it is confidence. Um, in in terms of technical obstacle stuff, I tend to do about three sessions a week just purely of I've got a suit coming, I lug around to the gym and my gym's got a set of monkey bars and I just set them up and I probably look completely ridiculous. But I just set them up and, um, you know thing, things like trying to do fine flying squirrels, whatever they're called now um, with no bar, to go to just working on that landing, um, that's what I've been trying to do just get a little bit more confident. And you and you massively see that on the 100 meter course.
Speaker 3:You know, obviously, upper body strength, no worries at all. But getting from one obstacle to the next and having the confidence to land and jump, um, you know, if I, if I jump and I fall, I'm landing on one ankle, which is pretty bad anyway. But then if I screw up that ankle, I I don't have anything. You know, I can't drive, I can't work, I can't do anything. So that gets in your head and the moment you stop thinking about that, it's probably the moment you start becoming a good racer is that why you like doing it in the gym as opposed to maybe going out somewhere and doing it?
Speaker 1:do you feel as if it's a little bit more safer to to practice these obstacles in like a little bit of a vacuum and where you it's it is potentially a lot safer to do it because if you do have an accident, it's it could be a game over for a lot longer. We don't look at. We don't look at when we injure ourselves. It's like I might, you know, roll this or just tweak that a little bit. You don't really think you're going to be out for that long. You can still train other modalities, but you can't if you are injured. You are injured yeah, completely.
Speaker 3:And if I can't wear my leg, I can't really cycle, I can swim, that's the only option. You know, I can't run, I can't. I can wheelchair push, but then your upper body anyway. So I've really got to look after what I've got. And you know my ankle that I can't feel. Actually, if I fall on it, the only indication that I've hurt it is it swells up. I'm kind of like, well, is it really bad? Is it a little bit bad? I've got no idea. And then when your back starts going, you go, oh okay, maybe I should, maybe I should get x-rayed and it's broken. You know that happened to me a couple of years ago. Um, I broke my ankle.
Speaker 2:I had absolutely no concept, but just because it was really swollen uh, that's how I knew I was about to ask you you just said a minute ago that your ankle's bad and I was gonna ask a stupid question that how do you know it's bad? Because you can't? He says you can't feel it, so is it? Is it matter of just going and like it's, looking at it and it maybe it looks bad.
Speaker 3:I need to get an x-ray basically, yeah, I mean, I I do have some feeling. A lot of a lot of the time it's it goes through to my back or I notice how I'm working or the control. I don't have that much control in my ankle, but the control that I do have just is different to what it would normally be, or my range of movement is less than I normally have. Um, otherwise, yeah, it's just, it's just looking at it. I I take a long time after each race to look at a lower body and go, okay, where are my cuts, where are my bruises? What have I hurt? Like how, how is everything going?
Speaker 2:wow, jamie, we're meant to be talking about the euros, but you're just too interesting. No, no, it's absolutely fine. I'm loving it, like because it's so, so interesting to us that we, we just take things for granted. And taking things for granted in a sport that is already difficult is just, it's just baffling, like how you, how you're getting through it, but it's in, it's just trying to do in a race, just like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just imagine being an adaptive athlete. Just think right, if I can't use my legs, if I can't use my momentum on any obstacle, how you do it. Just like pick up this, you know a, b race or c race that you don't care about. You just want to like, you know because I know in your last podcast you were talking about um, I forget what you call it your long run ocrs, yeah long run.
Speaker 1:We should, we should do, we should do an adaptive imitation ocr long run without we try it without no leg.
Speaker 2:We'll try it about no we've got jamie on there so we can ask him how close to the mark would be if we tried to do that. If that's a good, would you see that as like a as a good publicity thing for us to showcase how hard obstacle course racing is?
Speaker 3:yeah, definitely. I mean, I'll join you for one, if you don't? Yeah, that'd be great actually, and I'd say you can't do this on this obstacle.
Speaker 3:You know, things like a six foot wall, for example. I literally you know a lot of athletes will run up to it, put a foot on the wall and use that to go up. I can't do that. And then another thing that athletes will do is they'll stand at the bottom and they'll jump. They'll use their tiptoes and push up to grab the top. I can't do that either. So how do you become? How do you get over a six foot wall? Okay, six foot, you can just. You can just grab and pull yourself up. But you know, eight foot or ten foot wall, how do you do that if you can't jump?
Speaker 3:think about it. That's, that's for mo.
Speaker 2:That's for mo, that one mo you go because he could jump. Mo could jump over that wall.
Speaker 1:How do I do that? I don't think he could with one leg. No, I'm just asking.
Speaker 2:I don't think he's still got some spring in him.
Speaker 3:Would you use the side sides to climb up? I wouldn't, obviously, with a six foot wall. No, I would try, and yeah, it depends on the wall Sometimes I would try, and yeah, it depends on the wall sometimes I would yeah if there's a step there, I can get onto the step. That's the thing. If I can balance onto that, then I'll try and use the step if I can. But otherwise, yeah, just try, and if I can grab hold of the top, I'm absolutely fine what obstacle do you find the most difficult?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think, when you've done euros and you've done worlds, you know uk race series that they're not quite at that level, are they? You know, difficulty wise, um, I'd say you know what I find?
Speaker 3:you said it yeah, we're getting trouble for saying we're in trouble for things like that, but you're saying it, so it's all right you know, what I find surprisingly difficult is stuff like the um, when you have like a trench that's that's dug out with just water in it and you have to walk through that and you can't see the ground sometimes it's really uneven or there's potholes in it or that kind of thing. I know it's not really an obstacle, but that is like the most difficult thing for me, or no, you know, like um, like nuts race, when you're going in into those water bits and you're going through sort of need deep water, that is the hardest thing. I'd say that's harder than going up those hills at euros.
Speaker 1:For me it's mad yeah, we take that so much for granted that we can just run in that with ease. But really, because you can't see the you can't see in front of you, can't see the ground. Yeah, it's the same with really long grass.
Speaker 3:I really struggle. I can't run through long grass no, I can karen he loves that fact that karen is allergic to
Speaker 4:grass yeah do you want to add some context to that? People are going to be like why can Karen not run through grass?
Speaker 1:He's allergic to grass. I don't know. I just thought it was so funny. Sorry, karen.
Speaker 2:I imagine things like the hercoist would be also difficult.
Speaker 1:Not with Jamie.
Speaker 2:Not with Jamie's arms.
Speaker 3:No, that's fine, that's absolutely fine. The other one that's quite hard is I forget the name of it is it armour? The big weight between the legs? Yeah?
Speaker 3:because, obviously the natural way for you to do that is to put the weight in between your legs and hold it and then your feet go out maybe 45 degrees. But then when I do that, my blade is basically underneath the middle of the center of my legs, if that makes sense, because it's going back towards my body. So that means that the the weight is then crashing against my running blade, which obviously makes it really difficult to walk. That's another one. That's quite difficult. So you end up having to go either a wider stance or just do it one-handed and try and just really awkwardly grab it, because you don't want to break that leg, do you?
Speaker 2:No not really.
Speaker 1:That was another thing you said to us as well when you were out there. You are actually giving some sort of input towards the uh, the newer designs of them legs as well, aren't you?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, I mean, running blades are not designed to put them anywhere near through kind of what I put them through. So I'm very, very fortunately sponsored by an amazing brand called blatchford, who make my running blade and they make my walking leg as well, and I'm basically just pushing it to the limits and going okay. Well, when this happens, this happens, and you know I need a new sole for this. I need new designs for that, and they're really great at looking at other options and adapting where do they come up with some of the art today?
Speaker 1:do they have a like a scientist in there thinking?
Speaker 2:Because obviously the blade Do you want a job? Is that what you're going for? Yeah, that's what I'm on.
Speaker 1:I'm interviewing myself. No, I love things like that because it's engineering and to get. I mean, the human body is engineered to be like the way it is and it's an incredible machine, but you've got to take design from that or try and improve on it. So, like the guys who are building these blades, they are under limitations because the body doesn't do. No, hang on a minute. The legs that they're making don't do the same things as a body does, and it's attached to you. It's not like part of you. So there's quite a lot of engineering that they need to think about and then to get it to do these bits and pieces.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, what we're finding is the legs are often engineered like towards certain actions.
Speaker 3:So, like you know, you think about how much power, how much range of movement you've got in your ankle joint and what it does. Actually, when you've got a prosthetic leg, you know you can either walk really really well, really really well, or you can run really really well on road, or you can do uneven, but it's not very fast, or you know. So what I've got is just lots of different legs for lots of different things, and that's why my suitcase is so heavy, because it's just like full of legs. It's like, oh, what's the terrain going to be?
Speaker 2:like oh, it's actually good, it's a good thing that you, uh, are in the gym actually, because I think if you're in a normal obstacle gym, people would know what you're doing. But does anyone come up to you in the gym asking what you, what you're training towards? Because I used to get it when, even when I was putting a sandbag on my back running up the treadmill yeah, yeah, mostly kids who come up to you, or I say kids, people my age, uh, come up to us say, uh, you know what on earth are you doing.
Speaker 3:But but quite often I do spartan simulation stuff. So I'll do, you know, 400 meters on the treadmill and then I'll go on the monkey bars and then I'll do some more treadmill stuff and then I'll do some sandbag works. I'll be kind of in and out of the gym on full pelt for sort of 45 minutes. So I think people are maybe a bit scared to come up and talk to me because I'm just I'm probably going to sweat all over them, if nothing more yeah, we noticed that you are a sweaty guy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you are very sweaty yeah, but you've worked harder than you used to it.
Speaker 1:He really was, it's true, actually, yeah yeah, and he has got.
Speaker 4:yeah, actually, I don't know, you were trying to keep up with him on the runs.
Speaker 2:Damn right, I was trying to keep up with him on obstacles. I'll tell you what, Jamie I've never felt pressure more so than you going on.
Speaker 1:It was horrible, wasn't it yeah?
Speaker 2:Everyone watching us in the, the uk, so I'll put all listeners out there. I'm gonna put this in perspective. We ran the para team race at the european championships. We did the same course as everyone else. We ran up the mountain, did all the obstacles and the. The strategy was that jamie would go first on the obstacles and then then jamie would carry on and we'd catch up. Catching up wasn't what was the word that we needed to do, because jamie was finishing on the obstacle and we were trying to get through. But when we got near the event village, all team uk were watching us and and cheering us all on. Jamie's there smashing through the obstacle and then me and ships at the back being like oh, I'm actually quite tired, we can't fail in front of everyone because jamie's just down. I've never felt pressure like it.
Speaker 1:No, that was horrible, but we did have the best finishing run to that, though. That was probably one of the highlights of my athletic career. Running along that back bit, that was a cool moment, do you not think? What was it? What was it about it? I don't know. It just felt like I was there with a couple of dudes. One of them was a lot faster than us, I don't know. It was just decent. It was just a decent moment. It was even better when Darren did that video of it and put some decent music to it.
Speaker 3:I'll put it slow-mo, I'll do a slow-mo next time. It was cool no, I don't even think you realized at that point that we'd got gold, had you no, probably not.
Speaker 2:No, you didn't. I think the distraction distraction was the fact that we were just me and shit. We just kept like we just didn't realize that obviously yourself could get through them the way you get through them. I think we just you're just ignorant to what you don't know, aren't you? And you haven't seen before. And to put a spotlight on it and to see it was amazing. And that's obviously why we wanted to chat through today as well, because obviously you're trying to get more spotlights. But but it's like, how can athletes like us in these podcasts help? Help with the sport?
Speaker 4:because with you with the sport, because you you sound like you're wearing a lot of hats and legs trying yeah, and lots of legs and it's such a hard sport as well because it's not like there's a massive spotlight on it anyway. And even at races, obviously, jamie, we've seen you at races through the last couple of years, especially European champs and world champs and things, but we don't see you race because there's no. It's such a hard sport to spectate, really, so it's like obviously, I saw you at the end of the race a bit more as well at this Euros, but I'm only going off. Hard sport to spectate, really, so it's like I don't know. Even. Obviously, I saw you at the end of the race a bit more as well at this Euros, but I'm only going off what these two said and it sounds like, actually, if we had eyes on that, it'd be incredible you need like a Leon Kofu film camera following you, don't they really?
Speaker 3:that'd be good. We need one of those drones that just follows you, but you don't have to, don't have to have a person, it just follows you the whole way. That'd be good. Yeah, maybe I'll get the prosthetic center to start working on some automated drone camera. It's completely not in there in it. What's?
Speaker 2:well when you're talking. When shipley was talking about the leg and about science, I thought he was going down the. He's always scared about AI overtaking. I know he's just he's always wondering about it. Robocop's not real. We should ask.
Speaker 3:AI. How do we get more adaptive athletes?
Speaker 1:I'm just going to correct Darren quickly, but RoboCop's not AI, he was a cyborg. So he was a man, a man inside a robotic body.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Mo, what do you reckon training centres could do more of to help?
Speaker 4:Probably just accessibility. Like I think it's hard because we actually we found it a lot when we started doing more with juniors, because obviously we built our centre pretty much for adults in a way and then we started doing a lot more with juniors and it was like, oh okay, we really now have to think how do we adapt things for their size and height and what age are they and things like that, and I imagine it's just the same process. It's just then trying to work on how do we adapt this to be the best for particular people? And obviously, because you haven't got them people in the center, you don't even really pay much mind because you're like, well, it doesn't even cross your mind until it's there, so maybe just getting, even like when jamie comes down to rumble, have a look, see what you think, and I'm sure dave won't mind you saying what could help?
Speaker 3:yeah, because I was talking to Dave about trying to do almost like an adaptive athlete open day, where you know you have like 20 adaptive athletes who are actually from pentathlon or that have got in contact with me. Just say, look, come and give it a go. Come and, you know, have an understanding of what it's like, see what the terrain can.
Speaker 1:Can, you know, be like um and giving them a shot yeah, that'd be nice, because if you're an athlete doing another sport, you want to try new things, don't you? You want to try? Oh, let me, let me dip my I was going to be really bad. I was going to say but they do you do? You want to do, you want to try new things? And I suppose reaching out to all these athletes that are doing and in the uk I think we have got quite a good adaptive um sports foundation, am I right? Like yep? So it is pretty good.
Speaker 3:So reaching out to them, well, what great thing to do, because then they can come and try it out and then spread the word as well and, if they like it, we can build this sport and make it a better sport all together yeah yeah definitely yeah, I think we need to show what, how accessible it can be, and show actually it's not all about competition, it's about completion, getting people, you know, foot through the door, um, and then you know, once we can do that, we'll just get people hooked. I think adaptive sport is strange because you have people who look at sport as in I'm never gonna do any sport, I've got this disability, or I'm not interested in sport, I'm never gonna do it. And then you've got people who are competing at an elite level or competing in you know, wheelchair basketball, which will rugby, whatever it may be, and actually they're already so invested in those sports that they don't.
Speaker 3:They don't want to venture out because they don't want to injure themselves and hinder their ability in their other sport. So how do we capture that sort of like middle market of people who want to try stuff, um, but then, in the same respects, actually, how do you get like a whole wheelchair basketball team to come and try the sport, because that's, that's a massive thing? How do you get, how do you kind of get your hand into all these pockets of communities and bring them in? That's what I'm doing at the moment is trying to reach out to communities and get them. Get them in you do.
Speaker 2:You've done other sports in the past. You, you, you did judo, didn't you did you, I did, yep, I did you know, represented great britain at judo, didn't?
Speaker 2:you did, yeah, yeah. Why did you then change to go to ocr? Because I think maybe the thing is that once it feels like it because you've seen the community, once you're in OCR, you don't tend to leave OCR, if I think you're in it because you've found something that's very niche for you. But in as an adaptive athletes, do you feel like they're always trying to find something that is fit for their body type, that's, that's happy? Like they're trying to fit, find a sport that is going to be accessible to them or fits them in a different? Like we're looking for something that fits our personality, but maybe they're trying they're also trying to find something that fits their, their body type or or adaptiveness of what they're trying to achieve?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think a lot of adaptive athletes are also really attracted to the opportunity of paralympics okay, big competitions. You know this, this either you know I was, I was born with a disability or I acquired a disability and I'm going to overcome it and I'm going to do this amazing thing and be in the paralympics. I think the fact that our sport is, you know, the very, very early stages of development in terms of olympics, um, I think that there's no, given that there's no, paralympic potential. It puts off a lot of people, or or they focus their time on more about how to get that recognition glory hunters but you're creating.
Speaker 2:You're creating more opportunities for recognition now, though. So, mate, is that, is that the path to promote that there is recognition in this sport, or is the path to promote is that it's accessible? It's hard, and it's like double-edged sword. Which one do you promote? Because you're gonna you're gonna annoy some people either way yeah, yeah, completely, yeah it's.
Speaker 3:It's hard, isn't it? Because it's like, do you, do you want people who you know, you need race directors, who say, hey, we're doing an adaptive race, to then promote it and be like, oh wow, there's an adaptive race. Wait, adaptive ocr. Okay, yeah, cool, I'll go to that. But then there's so many misconceptions about needing to adapt to the course, which of course is not the case whatsoever, or needing to adapt or have massive changes. So you know, do you get more racers, racers, people that are going to race, or do you get more races in opportunities for racing, and actually like, obviously you kind of need loads of races to go, hey, all these adaptive races come across them, come along to them.
Speaker 3:And I think I feel the pressure somewhat because you know there was. There was a race um the wild forest one in march and it was a great 3k race. And I said to um, the team at nuclear forest, and I said, hey, do you want to put on an adaptive race? And at first they're a bit hesitant and then they absolutely took it on board and they said, right, okay, you tell us what we need and we'll just get it done. So I wrote the rule books and all that other stuff, like, do you feel the races? And I think they were quite surprised at how easy it was.
Speaker 3:But of course, because I'd set it all up, I felt like you know what?
Speaker 3:I need all of the adaptive races to be there. We had seven, seven races there and actually that was the biggest category out of all of the other. So you know, and I feel the pressure to go to those races because of course, I've set them up and I've said right, you know, we need to justify having an adaptive race and to justify it we need athletes. So that means I end up going to all of these races, um, which is quite, quite challenging, and having to pay for them all, but, um, but yeah, I think I think we need more race directors who are willing to run adaptive races and promote it through their own channels, and then you'll get the joe blogs that goes along to ocrs, who is also adaptive, who sees an opportunity yeah, and then and then it has a recoil effect that, like you know, this person with an adapt, this adaptive athlete, goes to work or goes online and that and says, look, I've done this obstacle course race, I've got one leg, I've got one arm, but you know, I've done it.
Speaker 1:And then you've got all these other guys at home thinking hang on a minute. I'm sitting here all limbed and all fitted and I'm perfectly fine, and I'm sitting here on the couch eating a bag of doritos and drinking coke all day. I need to get off my lazy ass and go do this obstacle race and get fitter and start doing something more productive in my life.
Speaker 3:It's yeah, yeah, they both fuel each other yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I do also think the the the an easier route is obviously the facilities, isn't it? Because the facilities are always going to be there, just showcasing those. Like the British obstacle sports is starting to create affiliated facilities and maybe it's having like an affiliated adaptive facility I don't know what it is but just something else to get them there, because then it's a comfort zone place. It's not exposing like an obstacle course race where you've got everyone around you. You could go there from an individual point of view and just try it. And and yeah, like you said, like having an open day for adaptive athletes be incredible. You, mo, how many times you do the juniors day and you, you get loads of juniors there because it's purposely put on for juniors, isn't it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think there's probably quite some parallels, but that worked to really. I mean, the junior numbers at the minute are growing and growing and growing massively and I think that not just Rumble but all the training centres putting a lot more time and effort into juniors I think really helped grow that and there's probably a bit of a parallel there with also the adaptive athletes. If we can find a way to kind of put on training days, put on things, you'll probably find that that's a good way to get people in because they can, like you say, try it. And it's almost that try before you buy, before you pay this big money for races, you can actually pay 20 quid or 30 for whatever it is for these training days. So it's a little bit cheaper and then also you get to experience the sport and also if you're around people in the sport you're more likely to stay yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:I think if you get a bite of the, the community and the community is there to support 100 I think we'll get loads of people like can you imagine a big adaptive day where we have, you know, all of the, the big members of our community, the really supportive members of our community, come along and go hey, I'm not here to train, I'm here to help these adaptive people get into the sport and share what it's all about. Can you imagine how awesome that would be? You know you can have like barbecues and like make it a big community event. That'd be awesome, amazing.
Speaker 1:I sold me with barbecue yeah, food on.
Speaker 2:There it would just be. It would be incredible the nuclear used to do actually which was like a summer party and that was really really that was good, like they. The community aspect is it's got bigger, but from a group regrouping point of view it has got a bit smaller, like we used to have mud I don't know if you was in it when we did had mud seven um and this seven was like a like it was.
Speaker 2:It was amazing because it was like a celebration of seven different obstacle course races in the uk and they just created a kilometer each. It was. It was really good. We don't have anything that brings everyone together anymore Apart from our.
Speaker 2:Christmas special got the podcast, but it doesn't have to just be adaptive, does it? It could be a junior adaptive, everyone together, even like Talking Dirty their podcast, getting all the female athletes that want to learn from other female athletes that are in the sport. It could be a celebration of like every single niche of OCR together. Call it like a festival of OCR or something.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you remember this, darren but, I, did mention about the OCR camp.
Speaker 2:You did Accountability camp. Accountability camp.
Speaker 1:Let's just throw that back in there, do you?
Speaker 2:remember all these good ideas I have don't say that on here, because people actually think we're going to do it. This could be. That would be tough no it wouldn't, what would just say? It'll come down to nuts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, camp there, that's got camping camp, yeahability camp, yeah, accountability camp. Anyways, enough of my great ideas.
Speaker 2:Right, should we do the most important thing that's going to promote you, jamie, and other adaptive athletes? Would you think this most important thing is Mo?
Speaker 4:Not me. Well, there's only one thing it can be, which is we're going to open some packs and get you your card let's let's create our first elite adaptive accountability card I don't know, I just made that name up.
Speaker 2:You can, jamie. Since you're making everything up for this uh, getting adaptive athletes in the sport you make up the name for the card as well.
Speaker 4:You can make your pack what your pack's called.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what my pack's called. You'll be the top of the pack, you'll be the big shiny.
Speaker 1:No, you're like like a rare. A rare one, aren't you?
Speaker 2:The ones you land on, it's like oh. It's only like 70 in the pack it's only like 70 in the pack. Yeah, in a bundle you'll be on ebay straight away people selling it.
Speaker 1:I've got a quasar, is it?
Speaker 2:I've got a jamie I've got a jamie jamie. It's actually, it's actually really interesting because we actually we haven't done, we haven't thought about this, we haven't talked about it like the three of us, but your card is actually like, from an adaptive athlete point of view, is going to be the the best of the best because you've proven, you're paving the way for the sport in adaptive athletes and you're like this let's, let's not beat around the bush here you, you win golds and everything you're doing so far, and that's incredible for the sport, but it's also incredible for yourself to show the attributes that you need to be good at the sport. Maybe we'll go through the attributes and let's rank you right now and see what we can get. Are you ranking?
Speaker 3:me on adaptive, or are you ranking me comparatively?
Speaker 4:What do you?
Speaker 3:want.
Speaker 2:What do you reckon? What do you reckon? We should do have your own pack.
Speaker 3:I don't know, it's tricky, can you imagine, though, because you just did your one for Leon, right, yeah, so I would feel bad if I scored higher than him, because I mean he's incredible.
Speaker 1:The thing is, you are going to score higher than him on certain things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, You've probably got more gold medals than him.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I can see Leon doing the arms only on the rope climb, mr Grip. Yeah, you need Jamie's grip program, leon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get a Jamie grip gain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1:The Jamie gain, the Jamie gain. Yeah, there you go. The Jamie Gain, the Jamie Gain. There we go, we named it what do you?
Speaker 2:reckon, jamie, do you reckon start your own pack, because these cards are going to go places. They're going to be viral in a few weeks' time, exactly like we're going to put hoctour on it. So do you want your own pack or be in the pack? Oh, I'll be in the pack, in the pack. Okay, that that changes. That changes the ratings, but we, I'm here for it, it's good it's fine yeah, you could give me like an extra boost.
Speaker 3:You can have like a boost an adaptive boost line. Yeah, an adaptive boost that brings me like a red line and then a blue extra line, just in case I like that.
Speaker 2:It's like a power card yeah, yeah right first off, moby's speed, isn't it?
Speaker 4:yeah. So I mean, I'm actually gonna I'm not gonna say specific numbers. I think you three are better to discuss, especially because you two have raced with him and obviously jamie knows himself, so you've got a better understanding of this than me. So I'm just gonna go through, I'm gonna say what they are, okay, and kind of give you guys the floor to argue amongst yourselves a little bit, um. But yeah, first one is speed. All right, I'm going to go to our website which is accountabilitycornercom Do you want to know Immy's speed?
Speaker 4:I was going to look at.
Speaker 2:Do you want to know some?
Speaker 4:ideas or.
Speaker 2:Immy's speed. Yeah, what's Immy's speed? 85.
Speaker 4:Ooh, speedy, she is very speedy.
Speaker 2:Ooh, I'm going gonna go for a 79. Oh, what's your?
Speaker 1:reckon ships. I'm thinking because what we're gonna do is we're gonna have like yellow and then like blue, so like yellow for.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then goes to like blue for like speed, speed, what do you mean speed, speed? Because, like yellow.
Speaker 4:All right.
Speaker 3:It would be terrain dependent. It would be like speed 10, speed 80.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no. I know how to do this because, like, let's, let's put it, let's put it down this way if you was running normally, as it would be for speed, you you're actually quite fast because if you think about it, with one leg you're fast, so technically your speed is fast. So I've got to go in the middle seven. This is hard. I don't know how you do. I love it. I love it when Shipley tangles himself up. Jamie, have you got any thoughts? 76.
Speaker 2:Jamie, what do you reckon? Because, like right, immy's speed is 85? Yeah, got someone like Alan is 50 oh, you're quicker than Alan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're way faster than Alan.
Speaker 3:I would have finished. Fourth age group able-bodied, based on British champs.
Speaker 4:Oh, wow, okay.
Speaker 3:I don't know if that's.
Speaker 1:That's where I came. What did you run it in? No, because I did it in like 130 something. No, no, no, sorry, no, because I did it in like 130 something.
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 1:No, sorry, no, I didn't, I came 118. Let me get with Strava. You talk to yourself 118,.
Speaker 2:I think you did Shivs. Yeah, what did you do, Jamie?
Speaker 4:139. I think 79 is about right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Although Matt Roberts is 75. Oh 70.
Speaker 3:70 then.
Speaker 2:It's 72. 72? Yeah, right, yeah, this is the only one that that might might bring you down a little bit, jamie.
Speaker 3:Next one, but Mo what is it Agility Number, flex yeah.
Speaker 4:No one's got a score of one. Don't worry, you actually win because you're the only one that's got that score.
Speaker 2:Hey, oh, he did judo, pretty agile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll come from a bit of a jiu-jitsu background, jamie, where it's not like Brazilian jiu-jitsu background. Jamie, where it's very not like brazilian jiu-jitsu, a very traditional jiu-jitsu, where it's a lot of judo throws and I have no idea how you do that one leg. So yeah, close to that, we should have a little roll around a little one time sounds good, as long as I take my leg off.
Speaker 4:So yeah, no, leave it on, just hit him with it is it a kick yeah okay are you ready?
Speaker 2:alan's agility was 30 okay we really didn't. We're not nice to alan um, will's agility was 74, okay, mine is 79, maybe like 6 6, 69 69 69 yeah, we haven't had a 69. Alright, we'll have a 69. What do you reckon, jamie? Yeah, happy with that, I'll be at 69. Yeah, go for it, you've got some big numbers coming up that that I'll be at 69.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2:You've got big numbers coming up. That's all I'm saying. Don't worry, oh gosh, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:Right Compromise running. I actually think this could be quite high because I feel like you're always compromised yeah.
Speaker 3:What is your definition of compromise running?
Speaker 4:Well, we have it more like a traditional OCR kind of jumping over walls and then how's your ability to get back up to speed and run under duress.
Speaker 2:Okay, you was consistent with pace for the whole hour and a half we were out there. Jamie, there wasn't a time where it. Compromise running is is the ability to keep a consistent pace while hitting certain challenging obstacles. So when you're coming off the wall, you're running to the wall. You're coming off the wall, you're running straight away. You have the ability to do that. So I think it is quite high. Obviously, when you factor in everything, it's not the speed of your compromised running, it's how can you maintain the same effort, your effort?
Speaker 2:doesn't change yeah.
Speaker 3:I see yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was going to say it's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely a 80 score. This is hard because I'm trying to think of you as your own card as well, but you're in the pack.
Speaker 4:Right, should we move on to endurance?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, this man did every bloody event over the weekend, so he's got some endurance.
Speaker 2:You've got more endurance than me 100% and I've got 77.
Speaker 1:What did you get Mo?
Speaker 2:Mo got 78.
Speaker 1:I'd say you're like 84.
Speaker 3:Seems pretty high.
Speaker 2:I don't think it is.
Speaker 3:I mean I've come from a tough, mudder background so I'm used to doing things like Europe's toughest mudder, world's toughest. So I did. I think 60k at Europe's toughest last year how long did that take?
Speaker 1:10 hours, how many?
Speaker 2:10 hours and a half hours maybe yeah, you're high on the endurance I'm I'm gonna gonna put it out there 91, because that's too high, surely? Because the fact that you did all the races and we we're going to completely forget that your, your, your endurance and your engine needs to be much higher than everyone else's.
Speaker 1:So it must be awesome you did say that you are using more effort. Yeah, using the. Yeah, I'll stand by that 90. Is that what you said, mo? Is that?
Speaker 2:too high. You're, you're always, you're always cautious of the 90s Mo.
Speaker 4:Yeah, 90s are a tough ask, but I can say today. I'm not in control, I'm going to let you three have the control.
Speaker 1:It's not good that we're in control.
Speaker 4:This is where some cards get silly. We need you. We need you.
Speaker 2:Ships is 89.
Speaker 4:Why don't we go 89, then why don't we match your ship? Okay, match ships alright, yeah, okay, sorry, jamie, I've just taken your 90 away from you. I feel a bit yeah, no, you're fine you're fine we haven't had a 90.
Speaker 1:You was going to be our first 90 endurance to be fair, he probably has got a 90 coming up somewhere though.
Speaker 4:yeah, oh, I've already got a 90 in my head. Yeah Right, should we move on to power, power. I feel like this is pretty high.
Speaker 1:What did we base power on? Again, I always forget, like moving through.
Speaker 3:Explosiveness.
Speaker 4:Explosiveness through obstacles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like power through obstacles, so like power can also include if you're getting the Atlas ball on your shoulder, those sort of things as well Getting through walls, pulling yourself up, the power to do that.
Speaker 4:I mean a legless rope. Climb is pretty powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What are we comparing against? What other results have we got In me? You've got 81. Yeah, what are we comparing against?
Speaker 4:What other results have we got? Emi got 81. Also very powerful.
Speaker 2:I got 87.
Speaker 4:Russ got 85.
Speaker 1:It was probably a bit low for Russ.
Speaker 2:No, it's too high. No, I saw his tyre flipping. Yeah, it's too high.
Speaker 4:No, we're not changing his card ever.
Speaker 2:What did I get? I'm going 87, 87 yeah, good good with me that's the same as me in power you two are the same height.
Speaker 1:You're like 5 foot 6. Here we go again.
Speaker 4:I can only talk from what I've seen, but we're going to technique or technical ability, and I think this is in the 90s.
Speaker 1:So this wasn't the one I was thinking for the 90s, oh really.
Speaker 4:No See, I was thinking this because, technical-wise, everything you have access to you do very well, obviously, to get through these courses, and you're getting through tough courses.
Speaker 3:You know, I know, something really funny that I discovered this weekend is you know, spartan have the um posters and they're starting to do this like how to do this and how to do that, how to tackle balls, how to tackle this, etc. Um, my mate harry this weekend was like, oh, I've seen a poster of you. I said, oh yeah, that's really cool. And they've got a picture of me doing rope climb and apparently I am the how to do a rope climb. That is great. I'm like I'll take that, that's fine.
Speaker 1:To be fair, that picture looks like you're about to do a footlock. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 3:I think you're probably just stuck on the rope instead.
Speaker 2:I love Spartans marketing. Yeah, Go on, Mo. You can rate this one then if you've got something in mind.
Speaker 4:Well, I was thinking 90. I was thinking for everything. For, like you are technical, Obviously you don't lock a rope, because that doesn't make sense. To lock a rope for you, you can't. So using your arms is the technique that you should be using. So I think, with everything and I say watching you on that rig, especially when you had a little bit of a hiccup and you still managed to get through it you're using everything that's accessible to you.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Can I?
Speaker 4:I don't want to intervene. No.
Speaker 1:I'm going to intervene because I think it it will go higher on another one, but I think this one should be. And I don't want to be horrible or anything, because that's not usually me, but I'm going to Because you've got, because you only do one way of getting through things. Your technical ability isn't that high because you've only got one method of doing it, but then I do think that brings another strength up. Is that fair?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 3:So you're looking at it from the other angle.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, I can see that.
Speaker 4:You see where I'm coming from. Yeah, I can see where you're coming from.
Speaker 2:I'm going to meet in the middle then 85.
Speaker 4:Okay, but then the next one has to be 90.
Speaker 2:I do feel like you're only scratching the surface with technique when it comes to adaptive athletes, jamie, and you're the guinea pig to test it, and I think there's probably hundreds more different techniques that you could probably be doing to make it easier for yourself. Yeah, and that's only through failure and learning that you're going to find those out. And more, more accessible training centres yeah, Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the way you're getting through everything and doing the whole weekend is why Shipley is thinking the next one is going to be high. What is the next one? Mo Strength, Go on Ships. What do?
Speaker 1:you reckon 91.
Speaker 2:No, he's got a first 90, first 90 on strength you are oh no, you're as strong as me.
Speaker 2:92, 92 he was definitely stronger than Darren yeah, the thing is we don't ever get a chance to actually have a clear comparison. There is no way on that course, on the team race, that my arms could have done what you were doing. I would. I was just going to be way too tired because you could see on my the obstacles, at the end I was um 90 degree in quite a lot of the obstacles because that's because I was tired, right. So if I could do more than what I did, I think I would have actually almost failed some of those obstacles. So, yeah, strength is high.
Speaker 2:I've gone for it. A higher strength 91? 91., 92.
Speaker 4:Did we say 92?, 92. Are we pumping up to?
Speaker 1:92? Yeah, we've gone for 92. All right, it's going to be a high card.
Speaker 4:It's going to be a good card.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, going to be a high card, it's going to be a good card. Yeah Right, the most important one.
Speaker 4:I haven't got anything for this, so you hit it down.
Speaker 1:Is this a special ability?
Speaker 2:This is a special ability.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is a difficult one. Yeah, you can't have cats, because that's me.
Speaker 3:Okay, how about taking my leg off? Anyone else do that I?
Speaker 4:mean that?
Speaker 2:how about taking my leg off? Anyone else do that? I mean that, that is, that is pretty special, I think. I think that's an, that's an easy win, that one we knew you was going to probably say that with me yeah, legless being legless no what are the people's special abilities?
Speaker 3:give me some.
Speaker 4:Well, my only objection with that is what about if we get another adaptive athlete on to do the same thing? Then is it just one thing?
Speaker 2:Exactly so. We've got Instagram. We've got. Alan gets everyone's names wrong, so it was names we had. Matt Roberts couldn't pick up two sandbags, so his special ability was sandbags. Our president, james Burton, is singing Wonderwall. He loves that. Becky loves a map, so her special ability is map. Will Chung's intros on who's Hot always redone, so it was intros. Russell Walsh is always trying to be Scottish, so his special bit is Scotland yeah quite funny on this episode that Mo's is punctuality um I'm always on time.
Speaker 2:I thought it was punctuation what I got it wrong, then, what do you reckon, jamie, what other special abilities you got that you'd like to be forever cemented on your card that's going to be circulating the world and be so popular?
Speaker 3:You know what I always do when I'm bored on course. Which is really weird, is I always talk German to myself in my head. Oh, that's it Talking German.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that. That's the oddest thing in the world.
Speaker 2:You're going to confuse Shipley. You're going to make him explode.
Speaker 3:I was once doing a race.
Speaker 1:First of all, German accent or German German, german German, can you speak German?
Speaker 4:Yeah, a bit. I would hope so I'm much better in there than I am Out the mouth.
Speaker 1:Can you speak german? Yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 3:If you speak it, yeah, because that'd be mad if you're telling yourself I'm much better in there than I am out the mouth that's crazy yeah, but I think it's because I ran this like spartan or tough mother once and I came up to this german guy and I was like I was I'd only been learning german for like five months at this point and I was like, oh, do you speak german? And he was like, yeah, I do, because he was german. And then, uh, we ended up having this like little german conversation in the middle of a race, and I don't know why, but now my head, in the middle of a race, just starts having random conversations with myself in german, thinking like, oh, can I say this or can I say that?
Speaker 3:it's really weird because I do maths give him the germany.
Speaker 2:Thing german, maths german maths does maths in german.
Speaker 3:The thing is right, do you not think? Oh, I've got this many miles and if I run at this pace and I'll do this and this many miles at this pace would be this pace I do, but I struggle enough in english simply does that he thinks he's got a marathon left.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:I've never heard anyone speak a different language in their head. So yeah, that's definitely is a special ability. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you?
Speaker 2:know? Do you know? Some people don't even have a head voice. That's crazy, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's, that is weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:When I think of other people talking, I always think of their. No, sorry when I read no, whenever I read someone's post, like say, someone posts something on instagram about how they say I always. I always hear their voice saying it. Yeah I get that, do you get it yeah?
Speaker 2:I don't get that no, I don't.
Speaker 4:I can almost imagine them writing the message, because I'm like, yeah, how they've said it in their accent only for people.
Speaker 3:I know, though, broken English. If a conversation is like broken English and with no punctuation, I'm like oh yeah, okay, I can imagine them doing that.
Speaker 1:If you don't want to read anything, I'll write then.
Speaker 2:Jamie, how do you want to end this conversation today? Because it's we've got got to end at one point. But we, honestly, we could go on for forever talking about OCR and adaptive athletes and just how amazing the Euros and the British champs went. But, like, what do you want to say? Like, how can we help, how can the community help, how can listeners help? What do you want to happen to OCR and adaptive athletes?
Speaker 3:I think we are coming on so far at the moment. I think community is really starting to engage with that adaptive athletes. What I'd really encourage the community to do is to reach out to adaptive athletes, reach out to anybody that they know, trying to get people involved. You know whether that's you know, your, your brother-in-law, or someone or a community that you already know about. Um, we need more athletes. The athletes we've got are fantastic, you know. Try and get yourself out on course, understand how adaptive athletes get themselves around um, because I think the sport is wonderful and accessible to all, but we need to prove that to the rest of the world and that's a challenge we've got amazing.
Speaker 2:So prove its accessibility and prove it's that it's an amazing sport to do, because we always go on about that as well. Life-changing absolutely it truly is. Go on. Any questions for you guys, anything else you want to go through?
Speaker 1:no, I just I. I actually really enjoyed today's one. I was really tired before I came on, but it's been one of my most enjoyable podcasts and, yeah, we could have actually talked endlessly, I think. I think we could talk about a lot more things, good.
Speaker 2:Mo, it's probably one. You want to catch up, jamie, just on training and things.
Speaker 4:When you come down, jamie, give us a shout, a shout, a whole load of stuff that we could go into, but I feel like we'll be here for another like 5 hours, so maybe we'll do that during the day.
Speaker 3:Got some time off from work now until September, so we want to meet up during the day.
Speaker 2:Basically yeah for me just send Mo a message. It's fine, you'll get back to him.
Speaker 4:I'll try right. Thank you so much for coming on. Just send Mo a message. It's fine, you'll get back to him.
Speaker 2:I'll try Right. Thank you so much for coming on and thank you for listeners that have listened to us. Hopefully not. We haven't gone on waffle too long. We've gone into quite a lot today. We didn't go into like the Euros and the British champs, but I feel like it was a really good conversation about adaptive athletes and it's a good expansion on the UK OCR's episode that you did so definitely go. I'll put that as a link as well in this for people to hear. Thank you so much for having me. No, thank you. Anywhere we can find you, Jamie, or you want to direct people to.
Speaker 3:Actually, yeah, you can see me on Jamie Gain, Adaptive Athlete Instagram, facebook or jamiegaincom you do have a fancy website.
Speaker 2:I was very impressed by that.
Speaker 1:I checked it out as well, yeah thank you so much, jamie.
Speaker 2:Thanks a lot guys bye you.
