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
#33: Brakken Kraker - OCR Challenges and Inspiring Stories
Join us for an exhilarating conversation on the Accountability Corner as we welcome the insightful Brakken Kraker from the Running Public podcast. Ever wondered what separates top obstacle course racing (OCR) athletes from the rest? Brakken shares his profound knowledge and personal experiences, highlighting resilience and the ability to overcome initial failures as key attributes. We'll also reflect on how Brakken inspired our own OCR journeys and discuss the sport's global growth, from the passionate UK scene to the professionalization and financial pressures faced by US athletes.
Our discussion takes a unique turn as we compare the Savage Race’s technical challenges with Spartan Race’s rigorous demands. Brakken provides a behind-the-scenes look at the collaborative efforts of British Obstacle Sports, contrasting them with Spartan's dominating TV presence in the US. We explore how UK racers are driven by genuine love for the sport, while US athletes navigate the complexities of professionalization and dwindling financial incentives. Discover the nuances of OCR strategy, including equipment tips and pacing strategies, as Brakken shares expert advice on the best OCR shoes for various terrains.
We also shine a spotlight on the European OCR scene, highlighting underrepresented athletes and key races that deserve more recognition. Brakken and I discuss the mixed sentiments within the British obstacle sports community and propose solutions for better race organization and athlete representation. This episode is packed with insights, personal stories, and a celebration of the OCR community's passion and dedication. Whether you're an elite racer or a weekend warrior, there's something here for everyone passionate about overcoming obstacles.
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, episode 33. It is an even bigger day than when we had our small European on Leon. It is a huge day with a huge guest, but I'm not going to intro this guest Ships. This is a passion project for you, this guest, so you intro it.
Speaker 1:You've passed the flame on to me to do the introducing, which is quite a big step. It's quite a big step for me, because I don't usually do any of that, but we've gone all the way across to the united states today and we've got brack and cracker, which I'll probably pronounce wrong cracker, cracker cracker I've never do you know what I'm. Even the times when we used to work together, I never actually knew how to pronounce it, so I never actually said your full name.
Speaker 3:Very few people in my life know, and Kirk finds it very entertaining to say it incorrectly so that people continue to not know how to say my name.
Speaker 1:Because it's spelled cracker.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's German, it's that cracker, cracker.
Speaker 1:At least the cracker.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, was that was a pretty okay introduction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he does okay sometimes I'm hoping not to get asked to do it again we don't.
Speaker 2:we don't do outtake. Yeah, we never do outtakes here, um, but we should actually intro you because a bit more, because obviously you're on the Running Public podcast, which we've been listening to for forever. But before that, when we were well, one of us was younger, we were still adults, me and Shipley but we used to watch you on Spartan and watching Race Hobie and everyone. It was amazing.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely yeah, you're a celebrity in these parts.
Speaker 3:What part says that? Some small pocket.
Speaker 2:Well, the UK is quite small. So, yeah, maybe it's just the UK. No, but definitely it's funny.
Speaker 3:A friend of mine moved to Thailand and he said that they were running in all the bars they had like this obscure ESPN channel and the Spartan show has just kept running and they're like I didn't realize. You're like the number one ranked guy in the world, Right, I'm like, no, that was like it was like nine years ago, but they all thought it was current so they thought I was like actively just crushing it and racing.
Speaker 1:So I assume, just crushing it in racing, so I assume you're in some village. That's like eight years behind the times.
Speaker 2:we're ahead of the times these days. Yeah, we definitely are. Yeah, that's what we can discuss a bit more of as well, because, like we always and we also listen to race brain quite a lot and obviously there's, if there's, quite a lot of topics that you guys listen to. I'm on my run and me ships and mo are kind of like messaging each other like, but we've got that in the UK, like we do that, all these things. Yeah, and it's really interesting because we started this podcast, because the three of us are just trying to do what you were doing now, what you were doing when you were at Spartan. We're just trying to be the best we can. We're trying to raise hype, yeah.
Speaker 1:Raise hype. Raise hype in the UK hype yeah race.
Speaker 4:Hype for race. Hype, yeah, uk. Oh, it's your hype man well, it worked.
Speaker 3:We flipped. Now our sport's dying over here and you guys are flourishing that's all because of us, by the way yeah, yeah, you guys are winning worlds and european. Every european racer smacks us around when we come overseas.
Speaker 1:And that's, that's you three yeah, I think that, yeah, mainly they're doing.
Speaker 2:They're doing the run and we're just doing the talking I can't do one without the other yeah well, ship said the other day that he's having a bit of a bracken moment, that he's on too many podcasts and he's not doing too well.
Speaker 3:He's racist I don't know how to take that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a curse.
Speaker 3:It's accurate though Ships?
Speaker 2:what was it going? You wanted to. You had a bit of a topic you wanted to talk about. What was? What was one of your questions? You wanted to ask Bracken.
Speaker 1:Oh, the questions, which one?
Speaker 2:About obstacle. So obviously this, this podcast.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this podcast is all about keeping us accountable, making sure that we're doing the right things at the right time, and obviously we all listen to Running Public because of that and we do. I've listened to it way back when you even had Hobie on and then Hunter like the first episodes, but that's like inspired us to keep accountability going of our training and racing. But have I hyped you up ready for your question then?
Speaker 1:yeah, because we wanted to uh find out what the sort of the best ocr races that you've interviewed I know you haven't interviewed that many nowadays, but the ones that you've interviewed in the past, the really good ones, the ones that sort of shaped the way that we wanted to be obstacle races I know they're mainly spartan races, but how, what is the thing that you found that they all have, you know, like that sort of special thing that they all seem to, they seem to like have and go with we briefly touched upon this on race brain the other day, talking about who would make a great high rocks athlete and it's not necessarily like someone with other worldly skills.
Speaker 3:That's who's going to come back after just getting annihilated the first time. And that's kind of what they all had. The best ones all had this experience where they did their first race or their first workout or whatever it was, and they got excited by what they experienced rather than depressed or angry about it. We've had we've had several Olympians. Joe DeSena was big for a while on just trying to find random famous or high level endurance athletes in other sports and he'd bring them over to world championships. So we had steeplechasers marathon.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you remember Herman Silva. He was a two-time New York City marathon champ and Olympia like a 208 or 206 marathon, like something crazy. He brought in all these people like that and none of them ever came back and at the finish line they either complained about the race itself or like this stupid, why would we run on that terrain? Or they complained about how it was just not for them. Whether it's albin atkins, hobie, you know, amelia, anyone that we brought on that's been dominant. They all. When they tried it, it lit them up. It's like, yeah, we could talk their physicality or their traits or their capacities, all that, but they all wanted more of it, rather than feeling like, oh, this is, this, isn't for me yeah, it's kind of like that because we all have that bit of buzz, don't we?
Speaker 1:when we race. I know we're like not the best in the world, but we're, you know. I think that's what keeps us going. And a lot of the obstacle races in the uk when we're racing and you can tell over here because we got like a real passion for it, and I think that's what's sort of keeping it going. It's because there's this like real passion for like the races and the way that the races are, and it's not necessarily sparring races, because we got these sort of other races that are different. That's why I think people get really excited because it's not, it is not, it's not always the same yeah, mo, you've, you've tried.
Speaker 2:You like you. You coach people in the uk. You've seen it like. We've even seen it here, bracken. We've had a fell runner last year who was like this guy's coming in, he's going to change the game, he's going to be the best. We only saw him at two races last year and, yeah, he did well, but he failed every obstacle. But he was just phenomenal at the running but just never came back because I think he failed all the obstacles. Mo, you were more closer to him, so you can probably comment on that a bit more.
Speaker 4:I watched him fail in front of me. I was like, oh yeah, nice.
Speaker 3:I'm in front now, yeah, we've had a few of those. And you look at them afterwards and we all kind of talk like if they just gave it eight months or six months, we're all in trouble. But most of them don't. We've had guys who are leading the world championships or leading a national series, race effortlessly and then something goes wrong and then they drop out or, whatever happens, finish 20th and we they look at it like this is not for me and we look at it and realize, like you are, you are like 30 pull-ups a day away from winning a world championship. You know like it seems like insurmountable, terrible. But if you just ran off trail once a week and did a few pull-ups, you'd be the best. But if you're not lit up and fired up by that feeling, it's just not your sport.
Speaker 4:Especially now that there's not much reward for winning. There's not much prize money anywhere at all. Now it used to be. We've never had prize money as much, but like the us, there'd always be a lot more prize money and you'd think, oh, that they're getting something over there. But now it looks like everywhere that's dropped off. So there's no real incentive for these pro athletes to be like, oh, let's just try another sport, or and stick at it yeah, and that's our problem.
Speaker 3:Early on we had very little prize money. Like it's my first podium at Worlds, I got $1,000. That's not a lot of money. No one considers trying to go after that money for $1,000. It's not worth it.
Speaker 3:But we got to the point where people started leaving their jobs to pursue this and that became what people thought of as being an elite racer over here, someone who could supplement or replace their income off of it. And so as soon as you couldn't do that anymore, people just stopped racing entirely, like there was no in between. It was either I'm in all in over here Looks like move out to the altitude mountains, quit your job or start coaching and go all in on sport. And we forgot about. Early on all of us worked full time and just raced because we loved it. But since it became a way to support yourself, as soon as that was gone, people just gave up entirely and it seems like because you guys had such a slow build towards that amount of money, very few people ever consider going all in meant quitting your job, yeah yeah, even the best in europe are still working.
Speaker 4:There's not right that many european athletes that don't have at least a part-time job well this podcast was born from.
Speaker 2:That wasn't? It was the fact that we're just trying to voice the the opinion of people that are working 40, 50 hours a week and trying to trying to be at the top of a sport. And what does that mean? What do you give up? Would you sacrifice? Would you prioritize? How do you stay like accountable to what you promise yourself? It's, it's so hard to do, but and yeah, we've never, we never had um, we definitely have never had prize money, but I would say what it has done, like you said, it's built the passion in the UK. That means that the passion is completely the thing that drives it, not the money. So it's like we've got this very deep field of athletes. But one thing we failed to have and this isn't a dig at you, mo, but I'm just saying you could need to be there we don't have that top level like yet, do we? We haven't got that like elite level races. We've got a very big age group contingent.
Speaker 3:And it's tough because, like you listen to race brain and you know what we do after every race. Now we complain because they made it like we're going to become a professional sport, we're going to go to the Olympics, and we all just believe that. And we decided we're going to become a professional sport, we're going to go to the Olympics, and we all just believe that. And we decided we're going to embrace that. And now we have no grace, no tolerance for anything If they mess up the course. That is unacceptable. Where in the old days, when we weren't trying to be anything, if the course was 5K long or a swim was 600 meters or they screwed up the sandbags, it was. That was so epic. And now it's like that's unacceptable for a sport. And so we've kind of lost that, that love, that joy for the unexpected. Now we want there's money, I need to cover my costs and, and now there's no, all we do is complain uk love complaining, though, so I think that went away with us yeah yeah
Speaker 2:we're always moaning yeah, love a moan bracken, do you? Do you honestly think that ocr is dying in the, in the us then? Or is it? Or is it just being? Or is it just being dragged along by spartan?
Speaker 3:uh, the, it's both, yeah, all of it. I believe that the pro side is dying quickly, but the numbers at events. If you look at Spartan as an event company, ocr is alive. They're hitting numbers. They weren't hitting pre-pandemic in some of their venues. They're having great turnout.
Speaker 3:There was an athlete I work with sent me a picture after one of the southern california races a few months ago and he said there was a one hour and 30 minute wait at a frame and it's just a picture of just hundreds of people strung out at like 3 pm during the open waves. That's. That's a great problem to have. So no, the, the sport's there, or I should say the event is there, but the sport. We just had our best turnout for our national series race because three people showed up day of race that no one knew was coming. We just had three people show up and suddenly it made the race and it was this flashy. You know we had our pro athletes there, but all three were unannounced.
Speaker 3:Prior to that we were talking on the show like we, we're gonna find out who the next wave is now, because we haven't seen any of these people ever at the the front of the national race before because they've never. We I don't think we had anyone who'd ever finished top 10 in a race on the declared list. So from the top end pro side, it feels very, very on the edge and tenuous right now, because all like you talk about who's famous in the sport, they're not coming out. The big names aren't. They've just moved on to other things and that's. It doesn't mean it's dead. The next wave could carry it, yeah, but it feels very bizarre and what.
Speaker 1:What about on the? What about on the, um, sort of independent race side of things? Because I saw on the other day on is it running obstacle media, whatever it is called, that, is it viking race or something? It was its last one and I saw some videos that he put up on that and that looked banging. I don't know if you guys saw some of the videos and that, but some of the technical obstacles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, technical obstacles, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it looked dense. It looked like there was loads of really cool obstacles. It looked like something that we'd really love to see over in the UK, but that's their last one over there, so you know, yeah, we lost that Mud, Guts and Glory is another one of our courses.
Speaker 3:It's at the old the King's Domain event.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah where we had.
Speaker 3:OCR worlds way back in the day. It's a fantastic technical. You know little mini Midwest valleys and ridges and and real obstacle dense Vijay got beat there by like seven minutes one year by this guy. We have Logan Broadbent over here who's a ninja warrior guy Like it's. It's, it's the type of stuff everyone would love, but the hardcore followers go and do it and there's a couple hundred. You know we don't our our exciting, incredible obstacle races.
Speaker 4:Don't get numbers well, I thought savage last year we're starting to really build something because, I mean, obviously we're in a different country so we're just looking at you guys from afar. But it looked like savage race was actually starting to gain a bit of momentum and get people there and they created some real excitement. But this year I've heard nothing from like over here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they have been probably the steadiest brand that we have, going back. I mean, even when I was racing. They just always had their loyal followers and every event, if not selling out, was close to capacity. But what they did, which was great for them, is they never tried to overextend. They had like four or five areas they went to and they stuck there. If, like this screen is our country, they just stayed right down here and they didn't try going out.
Speaker 3:Like Spartan, expan expands like crazy and in the us it kind of hurt them at. Well, you know, when covet hit and savage, savage just had their events that they hit and they knew they'd sell out always, and so what they tried expanding was a pro series and I don't think they had a lot. They did it again this year and they had some production on it, but the top pros didn't come out Like the people who used to have met. Uh, Ryan Kempson was all always doing their stuff. Well, he, he tours Achilles this year. And then Sean Roberts moved across the country to California, which is 3000 miles from their closest race, and some of the other people still did it, but the top big names didn't, and as soon as that happens, it just doesn't get shared on our socials yeah, do you think?
Speaker 1:do you think some of the guys struggle for, like training for those sort of obstacle races? Because over here we got quite a lot of training facilities and I think that keeps especially as we're in a small country, it keeps everyone sort of together. But we've got quite a few training facilities where people can train obstacles and I think that keeps a lot of momentum going because people post a lot of things on socials at those training facilities getting people on board for the races.
Speaker 3:I don't know, it certainly could be. Savage Race is more technical than Spartan, but it's not a crazy nasty obstacle course race. I would consider myself someone that never touches obstacles and I don't think I've ever failed a savage obstacle, whereas if I came over to your 3K course for ocr euros, I'd be in trouble like I wouldn't this year.
Speaker 3:No you know you'd be fine this year, but I've seen the courses and savage is not that they're creative, they have some cool obstacles, but it's the kind of thing that if you watch it watch a few people go through like you you get what to do. You're never on an obstacle for longer than probably 10 seconds. So, like, by the end of the race, your grip can be pretty taxed, but you're not unless you keep missing like a lache or something over and over again. It's it's not a euro style course, it's our, our, our version of that, combined with spartan. It's a fast running race with a hint of pretty technical obstacles, but it's not dense. It's not your style.
Speaker 3:So, uh, most of the guys that do it are just good obstacles that don't have to do a ton of OCR work. So I don't know. I mean, it's maybe, yes, but I can't identify like where we lost that? Like everything grew, everything grew. Everyone was passionate, passionate and at some point it I think we lost faith in spartan's brand more than in ocr in general. We people just got tired of spartan intentionally choosing business over them, and I think that was the biggest issue but you suppose when you got going down I'm buttoning all the time it's like with any marketing employee that spartan became the sport.
Speaker 2:Rather than so people when they fell that they fell out of love with spartan. They, they, they knew that as the sport in the in the us, but we've had so many different brands in the uk the spartan has never owned it. It is, it's tried to obviously why would?
Speaker 2:it not, but it has never overtaken and right now british obstacle sports, our federation, is almost on par with the spartan name. So it means that spartan have to fall in line with british obstacle sports and british obstacle sports need to collaborate with them, so they're kind of like together, which has created this great environment where you've got other brands. Now spartan are actually helping other brands get into like a series of races in the uk. So obviously I don't know if they're happy with it, because spartan probably wants to own all of the series but they can't because the voice is is larger and everyone wants diversity in it.
Speaker 2:So we've got like a series of races in the UK, all around the UK which culminate into a league and Spartans just one of them races. So yeah, it's, it's work, it's working really well and it's all the races, different skills as well. One of them but I wouldn't even turn up to cause Mo would beat me by like 15 minutes because it's purely running, maybe some walls, but others, like you say, more like your free K technical races. So you get a choice as well, which is quite a cool, cool concept.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that that's that sounds ideal, and we don't have that. Spartan was the industry and people would do other races because they're training for a Spartan. Now you had some people who are savage loyal or other brand loyal back in the day, but it wasn't enough to to make its own like seat at the. No one else had a seat at the table ever, and spartan had this genius situation going for a while. Where they had, they were always on tv in some capacity, and so not only would that bring in new people, but it gave fame and notoriety in a small dose as this carrot dangling in front of the athletes. So, like you all, didn't ever really have a great televised version, and so that was never your reason for it.
Speaker 3:All of all the people on here who are newer to the sport, it was. It's the same story. I was watching you on tv, or I was watching atkins on tv, or ryan, or whoever I Kirk, my own co-host on our show. He started because at Christmas, one year, spartan race world championships was on TV and he was watching it. Like I've got to do that. And then the standard was set that if you're good at this, you will be on TV and they will promote you and you will get sponsored.
Speaker 3:Like we went after the materialistic side so hard that when it wasn't there, like no one wanted what was left, yeah, and you didn't have the tv side, so you can have. You can go out and do all these other races. We have so many cool small races and no one does it because it's like one of those things if you win an ocr forest or race in the forest and no one's there to record it, did it help your career? That's the way our side of the pond looks at it, which is inherently bad for growth because we don't get out and do all these crazy fun races. The other types you said test different skills. They don't get crowds because no one's seen you test it. You're not getting famous off it.
Speaker 2:No one's seen me fly through the air in like a lovely rig or anything like that, but they are going to see you at the end of the spartan race because, right, but we even found it on this podcast. We, the other day, mo, you did obviously awesome at the spartan series in the uk and you went on the podium with your t-shirt and straight away we get 500 new listeners from the us. Right, that? That's just. That's exactly what I have.
Speaker 3:That's why spartan see how it starts that was it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah seem to love spartan.
Speaker 4:I think that is. The difference is you even see on social media, on instagram, like, I post a picture of me on the podium just holding my little triangle and that compared to like and just smaller well, not small in the UK but smaller to a US audience a picture of me on a podium at this kind of in a field somewhere the interaction from the US on the Spartan post is so much hotter than obviously the little UK post. But the UK post in the UK gets just as much attention from the UK and European kind of contingent yeah it's.
Speaker 3:We just have a totally different goal. And why we're doing ocr at this point. When spartan stopped paying, it removed everyone's like dedication to go and put yourself through, because you have to train so uncomfortably to be good at ocr or hybrid. It's a very it's every bit as uncomfortable as running, plus other things. And so to go through all that, you need to have a very, very important reason, and our reason was materialistic, and when the materials stop showing up, only the diehards are left.
Speaker 2:Training. Training for all these different races around the UK, which is so complex and so different, just makes so much more confused of how we train. Do we peak for that race? Do we train through that race? Do we taper for this one? Do I do do a bit of skillset before this race? Do I? Do I not worry about these? This is it's brilliant. It's really changed it. It's it's brilliant. It's really changed it. I turned up to the spartan the other day and I'd been training for the euros and we spoke about on here that just totally out of depth, couldn't. Like you, you don't know, I didn't have the speed to race at spartan, but I had the speed to do well at european championships. It was just so. It's that's why I love this. That's that's where the passion comes from is to confuse confusability of the sport.
Speaker 2:You never what you're going to get, and you never know what to train for.
Speaker 3:And that was part of the reason our nation didn't take other nations seriously. It's because our version of OCR was Spartan, which is very much running dependent and terrain dependent. For a long time our terrain was that was the only thing that varied. Were you going to be in a mountain? Were you going to? Only thing that varied Were you going to be in a mountain? Were you going to be in a swamp? Were you going to be in a forest? But the obstacles were the obstacles.
Speaker 3:And then Europeans would come over and they put a few in the top 10 or 15 at worlds. But it was like outside of John, you know, you get an Albert Solaire or someone. But it was like we'd always be convinced See, it proves we're the best at this. And then you guys host OCR worlds one year and we put one in the top 10. Cause they do this. That's not OCR and we just always took comfort in that. But now it's like the world doesn't care anymore. Our sport's not leading the way anymore. We can comfortably say we're not the best anymore because it's been proven at spartan worlds that we're not. And now all those other skill sets and facets, suddenly we're like, yeah, maybe we. They were just always better at this kind of thing.
Speaker 2:We're just hiding behind our, our spartan shield yeah, but mo's a spartan racer this year, aren't you?
Speaker 4:mo yeah, yeah predominantly that's what you've been training for, haven't you? Yeah, I've been a spartan boy. Do you know what? I think I found the sweet spot between training for a spartan and still being good obstacles and trying to marry the two. And I'm I think I'm just figuring it out, but, spartan, you just have to do so much more running.
Speaker 3:There's it's just a lot more speed work involved because you just have to operate at a higher running level than any other type of ocr yeah, for the longest time it was just heavy carries mattered the most and that's so closely linked to mountain running anyway, is that the obstacles were just like. It was a three to ten second rest break during your interval workout and then it was back to carrying our mountains yeah, how do we?
Speaker 2:how do we bring back uh bracken's passion for ocr? Do we need to get you over to the uk and uh race one of our races?
Speaker 3:problem is I'd I'd be spit out the back end yeah, but that's like us every weekend yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 2:We, we still love that. Yeah, it's fine not me.
Speaker 3:My passion for ocr was success. Like I'm the problem, I'm indicative of the general athlete over here. I stayed in ocr because there was there was a way for me to be good at something and get the recognition mattered a little less to me. It was more about standing on a podium or the opportunity to compete for a podium. If I came over there, even back in the day where I think I was at my best, I'm not on your guys' podiums, it's a different skill. Now, if I lived over there and immersed myself in the life, I'm cocky enough to think I would learn how to be good at obstacles. But it doesn't change the fact that my love for OCR wasn't pure. It was a love of competition. Ocr was the vehicle.
Speaker 1:That's the thing, isn't it? You've got to. You've got to find that We've discussed it on this podcast before that. You've got to find that that drive that keeps you going, and whatever that drive is is what keeps you going to do whatever the hell you like to do, and it's got to be something, because there's no, there's no other reason that anyone gets up in the morning to do any of the other stuff on top of all the other crap that you have to do in life. You just want to. You just want to just do things because you love it.
Speaker 3:There's no other reason, and whatever that reason is for you to do, it is the best reason, what's been such an issue for me since I I don't I don't know what you want to call it aging or having the new people supplant me in sport, or injury, whatever it is like all three combined it's been the biggest issue with me trying to regain fitness. Is that my thing that drives me is an opportunity to compete for the top. Now, what the top is is defined by the sport. Usually, like for a while in the Spartan Spartan, it was top three. Then they started doing those top five podiums and top five was great for me. I was excited. I got to be seen on camera standing on top five. That's great, but now it's still. That's my motivation.
Speaker 3:But if I'm not as good and the rest of the sports better, I don't have any desire to show up and do something I used to love. If I'm at a reduced finish position and that's a terrible mindset to have, but it doesn't matter. Like that's the way I'm wired. I can't unwire it. So that's been one of the biggest issues and I'm not blaming on spartan for fostering that environment where all we care about was podiums, because if you didn't podium they didn't promote you and if they didn't promote you you didn't get sponsors. Like. That's not me passing the blame on them, that's me.
Speaker 3:I was addicted to that yeah but now I don't know what to do without that, other than find a different event or style that I could maybe be competitive at that's definitely kind of where I sit, mindset wise yeah, I think you guys are a little bit different to me, but my, my mindset is that of I'm in the sport because I love standing on the podium and I won't lie about that.
Speaker 4:It's nice. It's a nice feeling to feel like an athlete. But as soon as you that's taken away, I can imagine that's.
Speaker 3:It's a hard pill to swallow there were always these athletes that you'd see in the finish line, corral area, and some would come through and you could just see on their face what position they took, whether they're happy, blank or sad. And then some would come through and you'd swear they won, no matter what position they finished in. And I never could understand that. I wished for it but it didn't compute with me because I couldn't. I couldn't separate the two. There's this guy we used to race with or he had a blast, on course. He would smile to you, shout for you in the middle of races because he was genuinely excited that you were out there racing well, and if he was in first, he'd cheer for you If you. And if he was in fifth and you were in first, he'd shout out like hey, you're doing great. And I thought like I wish I had that, but I don't get it. I just don't get it. And if you don't have that, what do you do when your competition days run out?
Speaker 1:that dude sounds cool. Yeah, I don't have the answer to that, but I know that that sounds like you used to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are a bit like that me, me and shipley, do actually shout for each other when we are in uh, on a course mo, I did for you when using what? Chasing down um uh, your podium at spartan, didn't? I don't know if you heard me?
Speaker 3:no, I noticed it yeah and the only time I ever talk to anyone on course is to try to show them that I'm hurting less than them I want them to give up.
Speaker 3:I'm not, I don't mean it, I'm not encouraging you. I want you to know I have oxygen, so it's, but there's that thing I hope we one of the very first interviews we ever had. From the beginning, that was him. He just wanted to find out what he could do on a course and if that was third place or fifth place or first place, fantastic. If I competed hard and if the course was gnarly, I loved it. That was his mindset and I probably spent a decade chasing that man in that mindset and neither really ever happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's how it is nowadays, cause the more and more I race, the more and more I realized that you know what. It's just damn good to be out there and damn good to be using the body that I've got, because it's doing. It's doing some pretty cool stuff, even though I haven't had a a decade of well, like a sporting background from growing up done like bits and pieces of things, but growing older, and then you come into this like realization that you're doing something, you're using a body, you're, you're, you're fitter than most people that you know. All right, you're not the fittest people in the race, but you're, you're working and I love that feeling that keeps me accountable well, that's all it should be.
Speaker 3:If we're not making the olympics, we're not winning a world title, if we're not making big money off of it, then third place doesn't mean anything more than fifth place. Fifth place doesn't mean anything more than 10th. If it's a representation of something that doesn't matter. If we get paid $0 by Spartan, whether we win or take 10th, then it should have no bearing on my enjoyment of my performance. If I go out and compete hard and get every ounce out of myself and enjoy the course, that should be the same whether I win or take 20th. Right, that's the goal. But so like what? Why do we? Why do I? Why do we let that impact it when there's not life-changing fame waiting?
Speaker 2:yeah, I don't know, but I I was I actually have been being a coach this year about changing that attitude though. Like being more, like mo being more, because I think that for it as I don't know if you agree as a coach can actually hold you back like me, shouting at mo is a wasted time, like why am I doing that? I should be focusing on like what, what? Pushing more, pushing for the next person. But yeah, you're right. Also you can counter it with like with our positive possum shipley over there, like just enjoying yourself and using your body. But I think depends what you want out the race, isn't it?
Speaker 3:and also it depends how upset you want to be afterwards I know for a fact that the way I'm wired has won me competitions in the past, because you get to a certain point in the race and you're willing to.
Speaker 3:I mean it sounds dramatic, but you're willing to die if that's what it takes. Like you're so far into it. It's so important to you, you're invested so deeply that you're willing to do something to get every ounce out of yourself that someone who's maybe just joyful won't. But at the same time, if you're racing off pure joy, you'll never get cracked by someone because they can't take that from you. If you're racing off pure excitement and happiness, your position on course won't change your effort level. So you may not get that boost with 800 meters to go where you can see the podium, but you also won't give up with three miles to go when you can't see the podium. It's like there's some meeting ground in the middle where you can race off joy but be a killer when you need to be I like that be a joy, be a joyful killer yeah, even in my joyful times, I still find that that, that because you have your rivals and things, so when you are having that fun, you still want to beat them.
Speaker 1:There is still that drive and I think that's what gets you that little bit further. I think we can all agree that no one wants to be fourth or eleventh. That's like two. They're the two worst places. So if you've got that chance to be third or or in the top 10, yeah you really want to push it yeah we had la Weeks on as a guest.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you're familiar with her.
Speaker 2:She's ripped. We're obsessed with America in the podcast, don't worry we know, everything.
Speaker 3:She's just such a freak of nature and she just won our national series race in the mountains at altitude after being the best high rocks athlete on the planet. It's just like mind blowing. But her big takeaway and if you heard her episode you know it was that she doesn't think she's ever had a bad race, because her only indicator of whether she's racing or not is if she's trying her hardest. And so, like at world championships, when she got dropped and she was back in eighth place, she tried every bit as hard as when she did when she was in first, where I know for a fact, if I'm in eighth place in the podium is gone. I am not going to turn myself inside out. It's not going to happen, and she does, and there's there's some power to that that I'll let the race go. This isn't my day. Suddenly, if I find myself back into it suddenly I realize, oh, I can be tough again, but I can't be tough without something dangling right in front of me, and athletes like her don't need that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mindset. Maybe we should do an episode on mindset Don't be nicking this Bracken, but maybe we should do an episode on mindset, because it is yeah, it's so different. We're three different races. Well, four different races. We all have completely different mindsets, but what creates that mindset? We'll get to get science on that oh yeah, ship, shipley and bracken.
Speaker 2:And shipley's our dedicated science director. He always comes up with something amazing or science related, so we'll wait for that I know for us for a fact.
Speaker 3:Mine was college track and field because I was a. I was the type of athlete in ball sports you know American soccer, baseball, basketball that I didn't care if our team sucked, if I played well, if I was just having a great game, I could have enjoyment on that. We could lose 6-1 if I had the one, and I was still a good teammate. It's not that I didn't care, I just loved playing so much that I could take joy in whatever was happening. As long as I got to compete hard. Even if our team was awful, I was fine.
Speaker 3:But college track people often are like I wish we ran collegiately or a university like you guys did. You have such a leg up, and that's true. We got four to five years of really intense high level training and we got to race and learn how to race in many different styles. But we also became a slave to the stopwatch and to finish position and your hierarchy is in black and white and even your social status on the team was based on how fast you'd run and whether you earned all-american status or all-conference, and and so for sure, my relationship to competition changed by being in a sport that only cared about the stopwatch and being coached by people that gave you time and attention, according to what the stopwatch said.
Speaker 2:So for sure, my life changed competition wise during college running yeah, and that's probably built more because in the uk you've had it on all your guests from uk that we we never we don't have that. We don't't have that competitive edge that we're driven into from maybe like a college or school aspect. We have to go out looking for it in the UK. You have to be like, right, I decide I want to be competitive at this and that's it. You choose it. But yeah, so we have to choose everything. It's very different, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I felt like I got that from or racing, ocr, so young. But the thing I didn't get? Because it was quite easy for me to get all these junior podiums and in the uk we have quite a good junior system when it comes to ocr so it was good because I was winning things and I was, it was competitive ish. But then I didn't learn how to race properly, in which, as soon as I stepped up to the elite levels, just a smack in the teeth because it's like I'm so used to winning and now I'm not winning and I don't really know what I'm doing to gain that win because I didn't learn it it shouldn't matter if you're, if you're fast enough, like winning should be, just you just run out and race.
Speaker 3:But it there is that weird concept of learning how to win, yeah, and you'll see veterans beat people who are better than them, and it should. Endurance should be one of those things. It's just a metric thing. If your metrics are better, you just do it. But it's it's certainly not, especially a sport like ocr, where it kicks you in the teeth so many times throughout a race. You can't just like sit at an effort level and just say, as long as I can keep it here the whole time, no one can hang like.
Speaker 4:There are too many things that jump in the way and there's so much race tactic that come into it yeah, that's exactly what I found is when, especially the last few years, going to more european level, world levels and trying to race elite, like trying to actually deal with problems that you happen in a race whilst racing I didn't have to deal with before because I'd make mistakes, but because you're ahead still, it was like, ah, this is all right, the mistake didn't matter. Then it's like making mistakes and thinking, oh, now, actually this has just cost me the podium or whatever it is. It's a hard sport to learn.
Speaker 2:You've learned it from the beginning, though, mo. You're a very rare breed. You grew up. Ocr is your sport. As a kid you were the first sort of generation of OCR, like the VJ sort of generation of like. You've grown up through it so you've learned your competitive edge through OCR. So it must be because I've learned it through football, being on a team sport. Ships I don't know how you learn it run into cash points.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, just yeah, I don't really I think, that's why I like it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, just happy.
Speaker 4:I love that.
Speaker 2:Just bringing a positivity. But, mo, do you reckon that's changed it then?
Speaker 4:Cause you played basketball, but do you think your competitive edge comes from OCR? Yeah, because I'm similar to kind of what Fracken said. Because basketball is such a team sport I got a lot out of when I was playing well, well, but it didn't matter as much, because as long as I've had a good game, I'm happy. Obviously you want to win. But also in the uk we don't have the system for basketball. That's that good. So if you're a good team, you were winning quite a lot.
Speaker 4:So made that like a little bit easier but yeah, and then I got into OCR and it was like, oh, now I'm doing this individual thing and I'm relying just on myself. And then you start getting podiums. It's like, oh, this is great, I'm podiuming this time. And then you just come to love it.
Speaker 3:OCR requires some of the most diverse toughness, I think, and competitive edge of any sport I've ever done, because there's so many peaks and valleys compressed into a tiny time frame. Usually peaks and valleys are reserved for long races track all it was about is riding an edge and never tip and then blast towards the end. Ocr. You may have that feeling six minutes into a race and you might feel it again 12 minutes the signs that your track race or cross-country or marathon race is going off the rails. You're imploding.
Speaker 3:You can't get around that in regular running, but in OCR you might hit that and be fine a few minutes later running. But in OCR you might hit that and be fine a few minutes later. You have to go in and out of that so many times that I think that runners are some of the toughest athletes on earth. But it's a one directional toughness, it's just enduring and it just stacks up incrementally a little bit more and you just get tougher every few seconds throughout your race. But you know it's going to be a bit till it gets bad and then it's about holding on a bit where ocr gets bad really early they can get bad and it's just any moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah, and it may not last, or it might, but it requires a diverse toughness, not just a one-directional toughness we.
Speaker 2:we spoke about how to pace for OCR, which was quite a cool concept, because how do you pace for OCR?
Speaker 1:We all had three different sort of views on it, which was quite weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say. My one was the like what Bracken was saying you've got to build confidence, and build confidence in little micro doses throughout the whole race and then that builds that. That keeps building that confidence. Like, yeah, I got past that wall quick. Oh, yeah, I got past that rig quickly. But it's also the opposite. It's that you can keep knocking you back at certain micro places in the race.
Speaker 3:It's horrible, yeah, it's horrible, but fun at the same time we've had that conversation for 10 years and my answer changes a little bit every single time because it's the only sport I've ever seen, other than maybe triathlon, where you're rewarded for getting out harder than you should have because you can just get away in OCR and there are times on course to recover or certain things may recover you. If you're great at heavy carries and you get out hot for a few kilometer, you may come off the carry regenerated.
Speaker 1:See, I think that when it comes to a really technical in like dense obstacle race, it's completely different. I think you can come back from the back so much better, which?
Speaker 2:is crazy. And technical running. Yeah, you can run this, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Cause with the with the free K. I always start at the back and that's in the free K race. And for some reason. We're not quite sure how it happens, but I just seem to when it's obstacle dense. The way that I flow through obstacles just seems to pick my way forward and forward in the race. It's weird.
Speaker 3:And it's different smooth running versus technical. If you get on technical terrain, you can run as hard as you want and you're not sure if you're running your fastest. But if you're with someone simply matching their line or their technique, you may be 10 seconds per K faster without any more, any more effort. And so whatever it took to get those extra 10 seconds early in the race so that you're in range for technical terrain versus not, may just pay off and be worth it. Or in a marathon, you go out 10 seconds per K too fast and you will die. There is no way around it. So yeah, I think you're right that every version of OCR has a different set of pacing rules. Like mountain running, you cannot get out too hard, you will die. Technical terrain maybe you need to obstacle dense.
Speaker 1:You blow out your grip, you're done yeah, it just shows that there's so, so many different variations of the sport and I think that's missed quite a lot because you got all these new sports like high rocks and all these fitness things like decker and they. They do seem to miss that. It's the variety that keeps people coming back. I think sometimes and it's what's lacking in in in a lot of sports, not just like the ones out, but like lots of sports just don't have the variety of stuff the mystery's gone.
Speaker 3:If you know the results before the race starts, it's not quite as exciting that's it, bracken we.
Speaker 2:Um, we have a most important question from our. We did a q a, asked to ask people q a questions and one of the questions that always comes up and we've got the king of shoes, yeah. So one of the questions is that what shoe would you, what's the best shoe you'd use for ocr and I know that these days I'm running public, you've been more. You have ocr is a distant cousin these days. Yeah, but what, what, what shoe at the minute would you recommend? If you was jumping into say, what course do you want, ships, what sort of course are we thinking? Because we need to train.
Speaker 2:We need to think about that. Is it technical, is it not?
Speaker 1:Well, I think we should choose a foresty course, because we like forest over here.
Speaker 3:Yeah we do this is how I know I'm with some people who know the sport, because when you get asked the shoe question, when I go on people's podcast, they always ask the shoe question because it's like expected of me, right, but they'll say what shoe is best. That's it. When you have the qualifier best for blank, then I know we're talking with some racers.
Speaker 3:We're here we're here for it, so yeah all right so foresty I think the safest all-around option that will work for the most people currently is the vj max 2. They widen the forefoot a little bit. It has new, really nice foam but it's not too squishy. You're not rolling your ankle constantly. It has enough grip to it that you're going to be fine in almost anything, not the really nasty mud, but it's going to grip to all the obstacles. It's relatively comfortable. It's not super high or super low drop. I think the best all-around ocr shoe right now is the vj max 2. That being said, if I'm running forest I'm in this shoe right here. Solomon s lab pulsar soft ground. Now they just have the new one came out, the pulsar 3. It combined the soft ground and the non-soft ground. They just make one shoe, but for the first time in like a decade.
Speaker 1:I love a solomon shoe see, I want to help whilst you're on here as well. I want to help people as well, because choosing shoes is actually as hard as choosing paces, because I've learned this over the years and over. In the UK we don't actually have a lot of places to try shoes on and we don't have a lot of information, especially with, like obstacle racing. There's no information on shoes for obstacle racing. But to choose a shoe in the first place, what do you think people need to look for first? Because we've gone through loads and we all have completely different foot styles and feet and things like that. So if you're, if you're basically coming into obstacle racing, how are you going to choose a shoe without being able to go to a shop as well and try these shoes on?
Speaker 3:so I get really nerdy about this stuff. Uh, what I tell people to do is you have to look up the stats, the specs on all the shoes that have worked for you in the past. So what shoes do you like for the roads, do you like for road racing? What shoes do you like for high rocks? Whatever it is? Is this a narrow platform shoe? Is it high drop, low drop, mid drop? If you can narrow those things down, I mean, there's more trail options than there ever have been, but there's still less trail options than road. So if you can get it down to, let's say, I like a medium width platform with a four to six mil drop and I like my shoes a little more firm, you're probably looking at five or six options out there and then, from there, order two, try them both on, send one back. But that's that's where I start. Identify what's worked for your foot first yeah, yeah, top two mo, what did?
Speaker 2:what are we trying at the minute? We, I think we've you asked. You said foresty trails, because I think all three of us have done a tempo or a run today. No, it was you in the forest today.
Speaker 4:I actually wasn't. I was on the road today, but it was the most stupid decision of my life because it was so hot and I was like that shade would be doing absolute bits of me right now. But it didn't.
Speaker 3:I was on the road. I was on road shoes. What's my?
Speaker 4:go-to at the minute.
Speaker 2:No, no, being you're obsessed currently with our, I forgot what they're called.
Speaker 4:What the Endorphin Edge that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Endorphin.
Speaker 4:Edge, I'm liking that shoe. Yeah, I'm really liking that shoe. I didn't think I would either.
Speaker 3:People love it or hate it.
Speaker 4:Yeah well, I've heard a lot of bad things about it, so I was like a bit hesitant to give it a try. But then I tried it and I was like actually this really works for me, and if it?
Speaker 3:works for your foot, like there's a guy. The first review I ever got from it was that you cannot lock it down. You will snap your ankle on that shoe. And the next, the first athlete that I work with who used it, used it for the trifecta in greece and said he wished he'd wore it for all three. He only wore it day three or day two for the Beast. He said I'm wearing it for everything now. So it's like if it works for you, it does it all, and if it doesn't work you can't do anything in that shoe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the lock is an issue. I would agree with that.
Speaker 3:But as soon as you get it locked down-.
Speaker 2:I think, if you're prone to heel slippage, it doesn't work. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't work, yeah, so you get your lacing system correct.
Speaker 2:That is a good. That is a good shoe. Um, yeah, I wore it for the euros and it got even even it going up, ascending. It was really, really helpful. It really um took me, it gave me a bit more of that spring going up. But it's weird because we like that shoe but the other one we we like as well, the terex 190s, the aliexpress 90s are totally all you guys, I hate these shoes, all right sorry me and mo seem to love 190 yeah, it's a very specific shoe.
Speaker 3:It's a ginger shoe I've lusted after that shoe for years. We get the terex speed, but we don't get the 190. They don't make that one for us, so we get one above that it's like 240 220, whatever, and the lugs are like two or three mil. Uh, you guys get the gnarly like x talon looking. Yeah, it's like adidas made an x. Yes, we get.
Speaker 4:We get the there's the 190 soft ground and it is literally like the old innovate. It is so good and especially for like a muddy course, it's perfect If we had access to that, I'd be ripping in that shoe?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it reminds me of that. Go on Ships. You know what it was called. It wasn't that shoe, wasn't it? No?
Speaker 1:it was an Asics.
Speaker 2:Asics. Yeah, what was it the Tributo?
Speaker 1:that's it that's exactly it that was the most Fuji.
Speaker 2:Fuji trailblazer or something I was called.
Speaker 1:I can't remember the one with the orange and it had like a sock fit and yeah the gator, yeah the gator, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I wish that was still around the grip on it was shit.
Speaker 1:It was so slippy. But the shoe comfort and I think comfort's the biggest thing with shoes. I think if you can put a shoe comfort and I think comfort's the biggest thing with shoes. I think if you can put a shoe on and feel comfortable straight away, that's the first sign of a good shoe. But yeah, that that was a such a comfy shoe. I wish that was a good.
Speaker 4:They're still around, but with a different bottom see, I hate that shoe, but I only bought it because everyone in the UK scene had it and I was like, oh, let me try this out. And then it just. I was like this is heavy and it just didn't feel good, it wasn't heavy, it was light when you, if you wasn't in the uk back when ocr started out.
Speaker 2:If you had that shoe, you would. You would recognize someone as like ah, they got the passion they're taking this seriously yeah.
Speaker 3:Ours was if you had the X-Talon 212 or 190. Like, all right, they're here to race.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I started with? The first obstacle shoe that I bought was a Solomon Felraiser.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I had to go to a camping shop to buy it.
Speaker 3:That's the best where we had to go buy shoes from camping shops that might have been what atkins for his first, uh that second place in killington at world championships that year. I think it might have been a fell razor because you couldn't.
Speaker 1:You couldn't buy like shoes, just didn't, didn't exist in shops, like like that. It was weird, I. I would have probably turned up in a in like a, just a train. Didn't someone come to your house, darren, and bought some trainers? Oh this is this is a great story.
Speaker 2:So we we sell things. We've got marketplace on facebook and I had these adidas like casual white trainers, like they're just, they're casual white ones. I sold. I only sold them for like 20 pounds. He came to the house he was like oh yeah, I'm doing one of these mud run things at the weekend, so I thought I'd just get some, get some trainers off of it. I actually I felt like I was stopping him, Like hang on, no, you don't you don't need these.
Speaker 2:He's come with a free roll of duct tape yeah, yeah, come into my house, I'll show you the trainers you need right, you don't wear these I like that oh, it was I. I was. I actually felt like I wasn't going to sell into him. In the end I was like no, can't have these.
Speaker 1:But yeah he bought the right size.
Speaker 2:I just imagined him doing a tough mother slipping everywhere you know, trying to get up that's a rite of passage for tough mother you have to come out with your shoes in your hands, realizing in your big baggy shorts like I made a terrible mistake. Yeah, yeah no, well, actually I've got a question. Is anything you want, anything that you're curious about from uk point of view, like anything you oh?
Speaker 3:yes, yeah, okay. So I always wonder, when we talk race brain anywhere, what is the real opinion of European athlete People who are in the sport? When we try to talk about worlds, oh, euros, trifecta, anything like that, is it like, hey, they're trying or these people have no idea what they're talking about?
Speaker 1:You miss. You miss so many people out. In fact, it's race brain especially is it's not like out of order, but sometimes, especially in the obstacle side of things, you're pretty on point with the high rock stuff, but when you talk about the european athletes on the ocr side, you miss out such good racers that have real talent, who are really good, and they, they, they need a voice. I mean, you got that, you got jesse, you got stein and you got like um the rhino, what's his name? Darren, uh, forget all their names.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're terrible with names like yesterday, hair and stein like stein, legrand, yeah, phenomenal race and things, and they just don't get the recognition for what they're capable of. So here's what I would ask I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you guys homework if you're, if you choose to accept because we've had people request.
Speaker 3:Recently we did a few episodes on. Here's your starter list for races to watch. If you want to get into watching races, I would like like your european starter kit races that we at race brain need to watch to be want to get into watching races, I would like like your european starter kit races that we at race brain need to watch to be up to date on who to talk about across the pond yeah, well, funny.
Speaker 2:You say that we um, we did, we've done an episode on that um where to race in the in in europe. And also me and shipley are going to do one European tour next year because we know being in the UK is great but we train obstacles Me and Shipley train obstacles so much and I think all our audience would know this that because we're from a team called Rumble in the UK and we're very much known for being very technical with our obstacles and there's lots of teams in the UK, which is amazing. Like it's a team sport in some regard as well. So you've got like rumble racing, you've got nuclear Phoenix and you've got teams in Europe as well.
Speaker 2:That's the other thing is also quite important. It's like you've got hang on. You've got other teams that are forming around, so it's becoming more of a team sport as well, which is is so important for getting more and more people into it. But we we missed the mark sometimes because the uk is not as technical but europe is. So we need to travel to europe more to be competitive and so, yeah, there's, there's races out there, like I don't know if your ocr series has been no around europe.
Speaker 3:Shipley turned me on to the OCR series. Actually back in the day I did indeed.
Speaker 2:Well, I see how there's like medieval race is meant to, is meant to be a like incredible race, inferno race Inferno, the one in Hungary.
Speaker 1:I forget the name of that one now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the tough, obviously tough, viking Tough, viking Tough Vikings yeah.
Speaker 1:That's going to be where the it's annoying, but that's where FISO next year is going to be tough Viking and if they don't get it right then there's no hope.
Speaker 3:All right, so then that's my next question. You led me into it. In the United States, we have made no secret of the fact that we have no trust for these ocr federations. Over here, they are untrustworthy. Uh, we, we people at the very top we're talking like the people with the olympic aspirations have shown no ability for us to, uh, trust them. What is it like over there? You, because you, you have a federation that seems to be doing things well. So what? What is the relationship with the federations over there?
Speaker 2:do you want to go shifts, or should I go?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'll start and you can correct me, so our federation.
Speaker 1:Our federation is run by ocr races and their agenda is completely different from FISO. And James will say that he is trying to grow the sport in this country because of his passion for OCR and he wants it to be big and make it more of a sport and he doesn't really care about FISO but it is a means to an end because it's part of the federation and having that allows him to get funding for the UK sport yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it.
Speaker 2:The, the British obstacle sports, has done nothing but positives for the sport. Um, since it started, and because it's all run by volunteers and all the volunteers are very much passionate people for obstacle course racing from a grassroots point of view to a community, getting people off the couch who only could do it twice or once a year as a challenge to also the competitive nature of the sport. They've got eyes on each aspect of it, which is the most important part. Because if you've got eyes just on the competitive part, people are going to get annoyed from her and like, oh, what about me? I just want to know where I train because I've got a tough mother coming up. They're they're focusing on all of it, which is the most important part.
Speaker 2:And now, one thing we do get frustrated about is obviously because we're part of team uk and we represent the uk at these national championships. Is that where? When's the sport, like you say, when's the sport going to get more recognition? When are we going to get maybe our team kits paid for those sort of things? But I think that will come. We need to wait for that. That's something that will come in the future, but I would say that it's overly positive.
Speaker 1:But we do get annoyed with how can we say it? The decisions that are made a lot of the times, and I think, think I mean, have you guys listened to um? Oh, bloody hell, what's her name? Yeah, we see you back on um. On um, matby davis. The other day he had um, I forget her now. I'm completely blanking. You know who she is? Blonde Blonde there. No, denmark, come on, help me out.
Speaker 3:Ida, ida.
Speaker 1:Ida, thank you, why was I blanking? But, like even the top people in Europe and other federations, they are so disappointed with some of the decisions that get made by the other federations because I don't think they're run by racers, they're run by people who, I don't know, just make bad decisions yeah okay, yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's, it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:I think that the agendas everyone's always got an agenda but you can't, you can just, you can guide the agenda, but you can't control it, and I think that's, that's hopefully what we are guiding it in the right direction, but you know, like, what's your opinion is faisISO's agenda?
Speaker 3:Are they? Are they good for the sport? Are they to be trusted? Do you think they can turn into a net positive Should they be running the championships? And I don't want you to speak out of speak on things that are going to get blow back on you because you're over there. But, like in general, are you on board or no?
Speaker 4:I don't know. Yeah, I'm very so the one thing I'll say about like that whole thing happening has been great for the uk, which I don't know if you just spoke about, but, um, the creation of british obstacle sports have really helped us over in the uk, but on a world level it's still. It just seems to all be going to shit, basically. So I'm not, I haven't, I can't make up my mind because we've had such a positive experience, but then from my friends over in europe, it seems to be very different yeah yeah, we're, yeah, we, just we.
Speaker 1:I think I think the trouble is we really, really want it to succeed, for how? How it could help us in our sport and make our sport a bit more thingy, but you just, every time you're just like, oh, and I don't think it's, I think there's just a handful. You know what it's like. It's like when you got a bad system, it's not because of a whole group of people, it's usually because of a few bad eggs.
Speaker 2:I'm hopeful, positive, that it's anything that we're pushing towards to have a governing body, to have proper events, everything. They are doing things wrong but hopefully we're learning from those things. I don't know if you heard about the toilet situation at the world's weird that was. That was the most horrendous thing ever. They had like four cubicles for everyone. That was. That was just poor planning. Like you can get, you can get. You can get the course wrong, but you literally cannot get toilet situation wrong. But they got got that wrong, but the course is actually decent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's controversial at the minute with what's going on. I think we're all focusing on our own governing bodies and what's happening in the British obstacle sports, especially with our partnerships that are happening at the minute with pentathlon. I don't know if you obviously pentathlon is such a big elephant in the room, isn't it? It's like we are. We do partner with them in the uk, but through like an agreement of what's it? What's it called the agreement of memorandum or something like we just have an agreement with them that we can use bath university and things like that. So, yeah, it's what is working quite well with that, because we have seen some of the pentathletes coming across to our training centers to like now to that try to understand obstacle principles and techniques and proficiency. So hopefully that will help help our athletes for the next olymp Olympics as well.
Speaker 3:So another thing we rant on me in particular is the use of semi-time trial in the championships.
Speaker 2:What is?
Speaker 3:the European view on that.
Speaker 2:It needs to go.
Speaker 3:Okay. Yeah, because that's one of those things I make such a big issue about it and I always wonder do the athletes that it affects even care? Are they like, stop going on about it, it doesn't matter. That's one of those things I make such a big issue about it and I always wonder do the athletes that it affects even care? Are they like, stop going on about it, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:That's. That's the thing the athletes, which is weird because all the you get all the athletes in the same room. There's so much agreement, which is crazy because these federations are meant to talk to them.
Speaker 2:They talk to them, everyone's meant to talk to the athletes and make it for the athlete, but somewhere along the lines it goes back to someone and they don't do it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we agree, we agree with that one.
Speaker 2:That shouldn't be the case. We were talking the other day that you know if you can't get everyone in, because what the biggest issue was happening was queuing. Queuing was just horrendous People pushing each other out of the way. You were like what? What the biggest issue um was happening was queuing. Queuing was just horrendous people pushing each other out the way. You were like I'm a front runner and then pushing through, but we don't get that anymore, which is amazing. Like you don't get any, any cues, which you're, so you're racing your race, but you there is sometimes more people that could be in there, so maybe you could have two waves at least, like not five, six, six waves which they had at the euros, which stopped like yeah.
Speaker 3:Second a second between each other yeah.
Speaker 2:And and imagine seeing that stem to that spectators. We need to bring the spectatability back to the sport, Like, let's get Jess Yessa stein racing that second between each other, but right it's it so what would you rather?
Speaker 3:have one big field or two waves, or biathlon, nordic style, with one to two people every five to ten seconds go off and it's pure time trial. What, what's what's preferable for you?
Speaker 1:it's course dependent.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I was gonna say, I was gonna say 3k, I'd go biathlon style, so, like you're, two people go off at a time, so it's complete time trial. 3k because it's all about your own individual proficiency over that course, correct? And then? I'd say your longer courses is everyone goes together. It's a complete race between. It's a cross-country race between everyone but, but then you can do things in the race to spread the field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so many things you can do to spread the field or make a big group go and it's it's baffling why they're not done. We've discussed it on the best OCR race course to make. We've done it.
Speaker 3:Was it Cloverfield? Oh, the, the, yeah, the way that it goes in and out so so, like the, the obvious one is uphill right, instantly uphill running. What are the other things you want to do that you could get rid of all queuing and waves?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, you could put a couple, like we even said, like if you put four walls in, everyone's different and walls, and then a strength obstacle and then a crawl, you've, you've practically done mandatory obstacles that do fatigue you but not technically hard to put on, and you've spread the field completely because we're talking about the band system as well then yeah, yeah but then that that can also.
Speaker 1:but so if you had so, should we go go on to that, like the band system, the one that they have at the moment with Fizo, the free band system, which is a bit. That's controversial as well, but that's what stopped the queues. But then to spread that out, then you have different obstacles before and after that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Well, like you said, a crawl scales well. It doesn't take much more money to make a crawl 20 meters wide versus 60 meters wide. It just takes a bit more wire. So that's the kind of thing where you could have everyone wide through a crawl rather than waiting for people to duck down, and that can spread a field out. But these are the kind of things right, you get three racers, four racers, in a room and they can solve it real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when the federations miss that yeah, that's why we've been overly positive about british obstacle sports, because the president is, uh, of our sport is, yeah, well, he's well, he's a racer, he knows what it takes sometimes yeah and we went to.
Speaker 2:We went to a lot of the race directors in the uk. Not all of them are our races, but we went to a race in sc race directors in the UK. Not all of them are racers, but we went to a race in Scotland in the start of this year and he's a racer.
Speaker 3:He's just going to have to send you his list.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know he is yeah, he's a racer and the course was so good, so good. Like when a racer puts on a course, you definitely tell the difference.
Speaker 1:Thing is right. Right, we interviewed we did who's hot last night darren and we interviewed the operations manager for spartan, and it is very clear that this is this is just using spartan as example. He is not a racer. So when we was talking about how the obstacles needed to be dense and how, you know, it's going to really spread the field, he had a completely different view on how that right. He's like oh so you can do a rope climb with no problem, and it's the running that's the problem. Like though it makes you puffed out. They don't have that. They don't have that. That that race, in mind of how an obstacle course is, it's not like just running a race, it's different yeah, yeah, and they don't all have to have been racers, but it helps.
Speaker 3:but they at least need a racer on their staff. Yeah, and we saw it with like more zine and they took someone who's been a racer and a rabbit and help. Let them help design the course.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's, that's common sense, and it worked great, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm going to see. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to see what's going on with him. Yeah, I used to race against him. What was his name?
Speaker 2:again, I, always forget it. Oh, I know, yeah, I know you mean Thomas Blanc, yeah. That's it, Thomas. Yeah, yeah, Thomas. He used to be over here doing the courses as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I used to race, I used to look ahead of me, but he was a decent guy, you're uh, you're realizing how small this sport is now, even though we're across the pond there.
Speaker 2:I think everyone knows all the names that are in ocr, don't they that?
Speaker 3:is it's. Uh, yeah, that's what makes it beautiful, though? Right we, there's that instant kinship anywhere we go. I've done a few international races, and every time we're there it's like we kind of know each other no, I am, I'm gonna I've already teased this to bracken, but so bracken.
Speaker 2:We do this to all of our guests. Every guest gets an accountability card to make sure that we can, um, keep your attribute points accountable and you can come back to us and be like I'm gonna be better at that attribute point. So we, we've done this based on your ocr attributes, because now, are we talking peak or current?
Speaker 4:uh are we talking current I think it's a mixture, I think it's got to be current yeah, I think it's kind of like we still feel like you're this, but I feel like the way.
Speaker 2:Well, you can't then.
Speaker 4:You are.
Speaker 2:No, you there, I'm nervous. Attribute points are going down.
Speaker 3:I love attribute points for OCR. I love it and I just talked about it on a race brain recently, I think.
Speaker 2:No see you're listening to us.
Speaker 3:Look at that, I stole it from you guys.
Speaker 1:I think they came up with it. Yeah, do you know what?
Speaker 2:Do you ever listen to Running Public and think, ah, that sounds familiar to one of our episodes?
Speaker 3:We've been sniping your topics for years.
Speaker 2:No, I think probably the other way around, that we've been like organically listening to you and not realizing it.
Speaker 3:That's one of the things that's part of why I stopped listening to podcasts early on was you hear something? You think about it on a run, you spend an hour thinking about it and then it's like, yeah, this is a good idea, and you forget where it even came from in the first place and by the end you're just flat out repeating an episode you heard someone else cause they did a great job on it, and it's again no, I came up with that. Yeah, but that's what that's. Coaching. That's everything. You read a book, you use it exactly.
Speaker 2:You regurgitate it in your way of thinking that that's exactly your idea, so done, so take it all the compromise running, obviously we can't, we can't take, we can't take that, that that is an attribute of obstacle course racing what a guy.
Speaker 4:One thing I'd say, bracken is, your instagram is very hard to get pics from and I didn't want to ask you because I didn't want to be like. I wanted to be a bit of a surprise, but trying to find a picture to use was quite tough.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's tough when, a you don't do much instagram and b you haven't raced in like 15 years yeah, so we're bringing back your ocr ocr pictures to life.
Speaker 2:They're really analogies that that's what I need right there, so mo go and you uh, do you want to go through the first one?
Speaker 1:so, because obviously listeners won't be able to see this and if you feel bracken, if you need to change any of this, you need to debate it, and then we'll just tell you no yeah, we have.
Speaker 3:We have some things here we can, we can change all right, go on, mo start us off have you explained to bracken kind of the score system?
Speaker 2:oh, no, do we have a system? I didn't realize the loose system.
Speaker 4:So I don't know if you've played much fifa in your life, but we base our cards basically off of that and it's out of 100 um and obviously the better you are, the closer to 100 you get, but 90 is where you start to. That is like top. No, no one really gets 99. So even no one gets 100, apart from their special ability. But 99 is kind of you are the best in that category of all time.
Speaker 3:Okay, so what is Albin's descending?
Speaker 1:We haven't done Albin yet. He would be up into like 97 to the high high 90s. Like I say, 99 is hard to get. That's good to know.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:I would say Albon would be like 97 on descending 96 or 97, because he's not the best in the world.
Speaker 2:No. And then also another comparison like someone like Leon, his like technical ability was very high. I think it was like 90.
Speaker 3:Oh, I thought that was technical terrain, not technical obstacle.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. We're all about the technical obstacle, ability. So Leon's is 98, just to give you an example of that. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:We were generous, weren't we?
Speaker 2:We were very generous, right.
Speaker 4:We'll explain exactly what each one means as we go, and some of the titles for things are a little bit kind of I don't know, not wrong, but looking back, maybe we could change them in the future.
Speaker 2:It's not wrong, it's fine. We've made this up, this is our IP. This, it's not wrong, it's fine.
Speaker 3:We've made this up. This is our IP. This is perfectly right. Did you get permission to use the running public logo?
Speaker 4:Do you want permission?
Speaker 3:You'll be receiving a letter.
Speaker 4:That's fine, we'll ignore it. Yeah, we've got a pile for that sort of stuff. Right, we'll start with speed, then so speed. We've gone with pile for that sort of stuff. Uh, right, we'll start with speed, then so speed. We've gone with 90 and this is overall speed. Obviously, with your track background as well, you're pretty quick, but this is current speed as well. So we wasn't sure if you've dropped any speed, how, how that kind of looks. So we've stuck you at a 90 um.
Speaker 3:It feels generous, but I accept you're a fast boy you're still.
Speaker 1:You're still cracking five minute. Well, less than five minute miles in the mile, aren't you?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, that's quick yeah I think 432 is my last one yeah, yeah, that that deserves a 90, yeah but it drops off very quickly as the distance rises. So we're going to have to lower endurance here in a little bit.
Speaker 4:So agility Now we've given you a 91. And I've been watching some of the old Spartan footage and you're probably one of the most athletic US athletes I've seen, definitely up there. So I think this deserves to be quite high and I've seen you dunk recently. I hope it was recently, and I feel like that gives you a little bit more of that as well.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 4:I feel like your agility goes into that element. So, given you're 91.
Speaker 1:I was ruthless. I thought that should be lower.
Speaker 2:Agility is also. We also like to classify like obstacle. Agility is the ability to cut, go in and out of, like mandatory obstacles. You know, like you're crawling. You we've we've heard things about your crawling in the past. You're a very good crawler and like not low crawler and like walls and things like that, not low crawler, but bear crawler. It's a very specific type of crawling.
Speaker 3:I'm a tight window.
Speaker 2:People can click into this card and see the extra detail. They'll find that.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 4:Right, so next one, compromised running. So your ability to run under duress.
Speaker 2:Oh, actually, what is the? Um? Sorry bracken, what's the uh? How do you work this out again? What is it? We've got the uh, the equation, what is it called? Oh, I can't remember what did you which one is that? To work out compromised running. Oh mod max.
Speaker 4:That's it.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you meant Bauer's objective optical obstacle-based system, which is my favorite, maud we haven't used Maud for a while.
Speaker 2:No we haven't referenced that.
Speaker 1:Bring it back.
Speaker 3:In fact, jack just messaged because we said something about HIROX. He's trying to come up with two new acronyms, since boobs doesn't work well for high rocks because there's no obstacles what's what's boobs for? Bowers objective obstacle-based system I love that I love uh, he has uh bowers updated top times, which would be butt, and jack's adjusted scoring system, which would be jackass.
Speaker 4:I like that. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 3:We have some new acronyms in the oh perfect. You're the first people to hear about it.
Speaker 1:Oh, out of the press. Out of the press.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, compromise running. How do you feel your compromise running is these days?
Speaker 3:Lower than it was, but it's still my top attribute. I think of all things, that's the one thing I did best was compromise run in technical terrain my speed like five, even once you get up to 5K. I was rarely top 10 in a race for a 5 for a 5k time, but compromise I stayed at a high percentage of it so do you think we need to bring your compromise running up?
Speaker 3:well, I mean, I think it all should go yeah, yeah, I think compromise running was always like head and shoulders my best, and then speed could probably drop. Endurance is going to drop oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm interested about that one. Let's, should we, we take that offline, mo, we might, we might but this is your.
Speaker 3:This is yours. I'm not reducing it might not.
Speaker 2:No, no, you, you, you have to. You have the right to argue your case. That that's fine.
Speaker 3:The reason I say that is Hobie was a 1402 5k, ryan Woods was 1350, mark Botris 1440, chad Trammell 1440. And I was 1540. So I was a minute and a half minute to a minute and a half behind most of my competitors 5k but on a core side to run with or ahead of them. So the compromise aspect was certainly better than my speed aspect yeah, you argued that case.
Speaker 2:Well, we will agree, we will make it agree yeah, what do they?
Speaker 1:what do they say in a jury?
Speaker 3:well, I don't know it's either sustained or overruled.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sustained.
Speaker 4:So are we going to talk about what we're changing it to? I feel like let's get that down.
Speaker 2:Let's go to.
Speaker 3:Should we bring?
Speaker 4:that to your highest 92?.
Speaker 3:Oof, that's getting up there.
Speaker 4:What was Leon's? Leon's was actually quite low, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:What is what?
Speaker 4:It's compromised.
Speaker 2:Um, bear with me, caller. I have them here. They're on our website, accountabilitycornercom.
Speaker 1:Um, so Leon's the shop is now available.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Need to do an advert for that 95.
Speaker 4:Actually we did leon's, so that is controversial because maybe bracken's up there with the 95 96 well, yeah, because we spoke about on that episode as well how actually, when you get really good obstacles, you're not actually as compromised. Yes, the obstacles almost become a little bit of breathing.
Speaker 3:I was super good at getting compromised by things. Everything hurt me 92.
Speaker 4:I'm saying it, we're bringing him up to a 92.
Speaker 1:Okay, sustained, sustained.
Speaker 4:Right, let's move on to endurance then, the one you've been talking about lowering. So we've got you at an 88.
Speaker 3:It would be my lowest, whatever that's gonna be what's shit?
Speaker 2:okay, yeah, no, my endurance is high. Lower than me, you walked around england I ran.
Speaker 1:Now yours is 89 ships. Drop him down a couple.
Speaker 3:I think that my recommendation would be an 80.
Speaker 1:That's quite a bit.
Speaker 3:In our national series. I never made a single podium at a beast distance. It was all supers and sprints. I drop off a cliff very quickly with my speed endurance.
Speaker 2:That would align with yours, Mo, because that's your issue as well.
Speaker 4:What was mine on my card?
Speaker 2:78.
Speaker 4:So 80 does sound yeah, we could, I'd argue an 82, I wouldn't maybe not an 80. Yeah, you got more years in the legs than me old man, strength now, yeah 82.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we put will chung, who's the one of the hosts of uh, who's hot was 80 endurance as well. So yeah, yeah, he can run though he can got lovely legs all right 82 no one's debating the loveliness of my legs, they just tire out well, mo's actually made him look quite smaller than they are in this, I think yeah, he's not that fair.
Speaker 1:Just don't do your cords any justice. Does it, you've got better cords than that I appreciate that, gentlemen it's all right. We're here for the love. We're all about compliments all right we're moving on to power, power.
Speaker 4:So when we're talking about power, we're kind of talking about raw power in obstacle racing. So the ability to be explosive for obstacles, but also things like getting carries done quickly and things done powerfully.
Speaker 3:Give me some player comps here. Who do you have on the cards already?
Speaker 2:Well, mo is an 87 power and Mo is the most springiest person in the world, probably similar to self-brack and moza dunker oh yeah, look at that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's quite incredible.
Speaker 2:92 seems high to me yeah, but mo's jumping is ridiculous. Um and we've had people compliment that quite a lot of times before um, leon is a 94, though, but we do see Leon is like an explosive squirrel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he has to use quite a lot of power to jump up. That might have to be taken out what was that.
Speaker 4:What explosive screw.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if I do a herk hoist or a plate drag or a heavy carry, I'll be better than Liam, but if it's exploding through an obstacle he's going to be much better than me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then they're two heads of the same coin, aren't they?
Speaker 3:I'd like I'd say 90.
Speaker 2:90,. Okay, are we accepting? Accepted? No, what was the word?
Speaker 1:Sustained, sustained.
Speaker 4:Alright, so this is what we believe your worst stat is. You can argue your case um your technical ability through obstacles. Now, obviously, we're on the european side of racing, so we know technique when it comes to racing and you are one of the better us athletes that I've seen. But out of your whole US contingent, I don't think there's many pushing that high.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 4:No, and I don't use it in races. Yeah.
Speaker 3:In OCR I survive. In Spartan Race I survive in advance In stadiums or short course. Then I take chances. But I stay at 90 in our OCI, which cannot make me good at technical. So I think of anything you'll ever see on camera. I think 82 is about as high as it should ever be. I do not try to do anything on obstacles unless it's in a short race or a dry race, so I'm not going to argue this one bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Nice, love to see a foot lock from you a foot lock.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we'd love to see the. We'd love to see uh, do you know that actually is one for race brain, controversial opinion we'd love to see foot yeah, foot locks, rope work from us athletes being able to lock a, lock, a rope and go up it and hold it.
Speaker 3:Uh, do drag back, yeah yeah, so I have a j and an s at my disposal, if need be all right.
Speaker 1:Okay, we don't see them that often in uh from the us if you, if you want to do some homework of yourself, go look up survival running and hang on running and you will see foot locks used in such a unique way. It's that, that is technical ability in obstacle racing. Yeah I.
Speaker 3:I think what you see over here is that it doesn't matter if you squeeze onto a rope 50 harder in a spartan race, it doesn't matter. We we don't need to save our grip for anything, we don't. We don't need stability. If you took all of us and put us over into ocr euros, I think you'd see us use a different technique on almost everything. We don't need stability. If you took all of us and put us over into OCR Euros, I think you'd see us use a different technique on almost everything.
Speaker 1:Do a Dixon and just use brute strength to get through everything. Yeah, that's what Mark used to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm happy with an 82. I don't fail obstacles and I don't take risks on them, unless it's at the very end of a race. I was a gymnast for 13 years so I can do those things. They're just almost never worth it in a spartan race yeah, yeah, okay right strength.
Speaker 4:Now you could argue higher or lower on this one, but this is similar. Similar to power in a way, but not so much on the explosive side of the rigs and stuff. More just, can you get the Atlas stone from the floor to your shoulder or can you do a double sandbag carry without crumbling and dying?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm happy with that.
Speaker 1:And the Herc hoists and those things 88, happy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that seems plenty high.
Speaker 1:Here's one for you as well, for race brain and running public. I think you need to start talking kilograms a bit more often, okay you can do that I'm always. I'm always trying to compare and I'm like am I, am I lifting a decent amount and I never know it's probably not, probably not but probably not lifting enough.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it took him a while that we, we can all, we can all speak metric is that what we use?
Speaker 1:metric?
Speaker 3:oh my goodness yeah ships.
Speaker 4:You know you can just do the conversions when they're talking yeah, you can just.
Speaker 2:You can use google. You can just google it.
Speaker 1:It's an amazing tool amazing, have you even now? Even that's too much. You've seen me try and count to 10 you're losing some light over there, shipley yeah, it's getting dark now I want to turn the lights on carry on right, you're gonna miss the best bit oh, and then they'll be like but we're moving on to the last one then.
Speaker 4:So we can actually discuss a bit more in depth about this, because there's a few options. Analogies is what we've gone with because you're very good at analogies car analogies, yeah, but we also Shoes, I think is up there for a debate. And was there another one, darren? I thought you had.
Speaker 2:No, the special ability actually came from Shipley. I'm going to let Ships do this one.
Speaker 1:Looking like Robert Killian.
Speaker 3:I refuse to let that be one. We are pale and bald and that's it.
Speaker 2:If we stand next to each other, we look nothing alike. That would be I don't know. Yeah, but you have, we haven't. You haven't had an analogy today. We don't tend to do them, uh, on this, on this podcast. We leave that, uh, yeah, leave that for you, but you're happy with your special ability well, I, I appreciate that and I accept it.
Speaker 3:I would request in 98 for two reasons. One 100 would mean only I could accept 100 if it was in the ocr space in general. There are better out there. In two, I want something to shoot for. I refuse to think that I've peaked.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, that's the whole point of the accountability card, isn't it Always to have? Something to aim for. We had another host of a podcast on a few months back and he struggled with the double sandbag. So we give him a low score because he really wanted something to strive for.
Speaker 4:He got a minus 100, didn't he? He did.
Speaker 3:There's only one way to go from there Exactly.
Speaker 4:You're either 100 or minus 100. So you've got to Okay.
Speaker 3:See, fifa is big over here, but Madden NFL is bigger. And if you ever have a 100. Now, now I haven't played in several generations because I'm a old person now, but if you had someone with a 100 or sometimes a 99, by the end of training camp, they were down two points, no matter what, like the game didn't let them stay there and I I don't want to backslide yet, so I'd prefer a 98 with some room to improve yeah like that mo.
Speaker 2:Does the uh special ability count towards the overall score? Is that or is that outside?
Speaker 4:uh, not really, no, okay it's just there.
Speaker 3:It's just there, then definitely 98, otherwise I want a one-on-one yeah I don't want that go yeah, we're, yeah, we're, we're a.
Speaker 2:Just your card. There you go. You have an accountability card For attribute points.
Speaker 3:I am Delighted.
Speaker 4:And we'll be waiting for that Paperwork about the running public logo. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's going in the bin. You can. You can talk to our lawyers.
Speaker 2:As soon as we get one A lawyer on our end, we'll send one to yours yeah, yeah, we'll be waiting, our lawyer is shipping yeah, yeah, we'll accept the fine no, our lawyer will be mo because you can never get hold of him. Send my message and whatsapp.
Speaker 3:You never get hold of him well then, we're gonna be a a good match, mo and I yeah, you two should organize the next, uh, the next hookup, then yeah, we never, we never get, we never get one.
Speaker 2:I think, uh, kirk might be a bit um jealous of your card, so yeah especially when he's yeah.
Speaker 3:He would have argued his power and his speed a lot more than I would have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he'd want a shirtless picture as well, wouldn't he?
Speaker 3:I don't think he has any pictures with shirts on.
Speaker 1:I'd find one just to make sure. We'd give him a bachelor photo. Give him one from that.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah, shipley and I are on team racing shirts.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We keep the singlets on.
Speaker 2:Oh no, he takes them off these days. Oh, do you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't even know you anymore.
Speaker 1:The thing is right because, like I say, I'm a butterfly. Now I need to show my wings.
Speaker 2:Oh, alright, anything else, I think you've gone through quite a lot there haven't we.
Speaker 1:Do you want to plug the running public or do any sort of that sort of stuff? Me or bracken I'll start with bracken obviously all right, are we gonna plug it.
Speaker 3:Oh, we could yeah, this feels natural listen to the running public yeah, yeah if you never get tired of hearing about running, you're gonna love it yeah, well, it's new.
Speaker 1:It's new catchy uh dating theme music. Yeah it's quite good these days, yeah so we used to have a tv show called in the uk called blind date, and the music's a little bit similar.
Speaker 3:It's quite funny oh, I didn't, I didn't know that. I'm gonna have to check that out. We had blind date over here and we also had fifth wheel or third wheel, one of the two okay very good shows.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, well, no. Thank you so much for coming on and obviously let's do this more organically. If people do actually want to listen to your podcast, it is the running public and also race brain. Anything else, I think you also obviously, you, you, you and Kirk do amazing job at training as well. The training plans that you have I've seen them there. They're solid. Like it's amazing for people that are getting into the sport to be able to get something, just to give them that little bit of a boost to know what they're doing. Because we've spoken about that. We struggle sometimes to people that are just signing up for a race or signing up for something like a Tough Mudder or anything and they just don't want to reach out to a coach because they feel they can't reach out to a coach or not good enough to reach out to a coach.
Speaker 3:It's nice to actually have something online they can just quickly download. That's been quite easy for them to follow. Well good, I'm glad to hear that. That's been the goal with those from the start. Is is make them stupidly cheap. Yeah, no reason not to try it yeah, no, they're are we.
Speaker 2:I've had a look at them they're really good.
Speaker 1:And not only that, the actual episodes of the running public are super helpful. We, we, we go back to him countless times. We mentioned we, we say lots of things about what you guys say and we we try and implement it in our training and obviously I I had you as a coach and I still use the same sort of guidelines as what we had then as well. So I think we believe in a lot of things that you say, so our listeners should listen to them for advice, because we basically take the same advice in some ways. Thank you, I think you you.
Speaker 2:You probably don't know how involved you are. The community in the uk as well, the running public it's. It's probably that's. The biggest insight I can tell you is that everyone knows the running public from an ocr community.
Speaker 3:So we're gonna have to get over there, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:It is honestly like it has built. It's built, it's made like. I've noticed my even my training, everyone's training has improved because they're listening to insights from you and I've even noticed it from us starting this podcast that our competitors are listening to this and getting better. So the more voices telling people about the trials and tribulations we go through as athletes, it actually makes it more real, like it's just normal life yeah, the amount of time yeah as a coach.
Speaker 4:I hear oh yeah, I heard this on running public, what do you think? And it's like, oh okay, let me look into that again and or I heard that too, yeah I agree it's uh yeah, so you're definitely involved in the uk scene massively I like hearing that.
Speaker 3:The other thing, though, is makes me nervous is when people do the opposite kind of the same, but the opposite and they come up and say, oh, you said this one thing on a podcast, and then they say something that I have no recollection saying or ever believing. Yeah, well, normally, because I listen to the public podcast as well.
Speaker 4:I can kind of fact check and think, did they actually say that? And then, oh, yeah, they did, or oh, I don't remember that.
Speaker 3:But well, the more info we can get out there, the more people can just take the reins of their running. Yeah, some people will always need a coach, but between ours and a couple of the other podcasts out there, there's enough info that people can take it on themselves that they would never need to spend a dollar if they don't want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but sometimes they need to hear it from someone they trust or believe in, and I think that's definitely what they do with your podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, awesome, advice is good and advice is always free. Yeah, sustained.
Speaker 3:Sustained, sustained. Well, boys, thanks for having me on, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 2:No, thank you so much. No, it was awesome, great stuff. Right, let's end it there, all right, see you guys later, bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye, bye, bye you.
