Fitness Freaks

Ben, George and Sam chat about the season, their biggest nuggets they took away, the guests that they had and where they want to take the show in the future. Season 1 is just the start....

This week we were delighted to have Chris Bird on to chat us through his own journey in running and also how he applies Canova training to himself and his athletes. Renato Canova is a hugely successful Italian running coach with a methodology that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. But as we've learnt time and time again, convention doesn't mean correct! With Canova training it's all about specificity. Training at around your chosen race pace and building up your tolerance over time. As Chris says, it's about feeding the baby! (in that you can't feed a baby a huge meal on day one!!). Thankfully Chris has agreed to come back on the show in a few weeks to put some meat on the bones! But for now, let's be happy we may have found a different way... that clearly works!

Have you ever thought about your purpose? Why you do the things you do? And how, if you can think it through, you can tie exercise in to your purpose? It's an extremely powerful motivator, especially when the chips are down. And factor habit in to that too. Can you create positive, easy habits that allow you to train and stay training for the long term?

This week the 3 of us talked about why we think we'll be exercising for the rest of our lives, whether we've given any thought to our purpose (or if we even believe we need to have a purpose), some of the habits we believe help us stay training and also some of the mistakes we see people new to exercise make regularly? All in all it was a mixture of factual answers to training questions and existential questions to push ours and your thinking!

This week we chat with the legend that is 4 time Paralympian; Claire Cashmore. Claire started at Athens 2004 and hasn't looked back since, winning medals in Athens, Beijing, London and Rio (where she won gold!!). After Rio it was time for swimming to take a back seat and triathlon take centre stage as Claire pivoted in to the wonderful world of triathlon for a crack at Tokyo 2020 (subsequently 2021). We talked through Claire's journey in to this new sport for her, what drivces her, how lockdown has been, her training schedule and so much more. She really is a lovely human! We hope you enjoy this informal chat as much as we did.

To find Claire on social media her Instagram is @clairecashmore1 and her website is https://clairecashmore.com/

To pre-order a copy of her exciting children's book "Splash" then click this link https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/splash-claire-cashmore?variant=32836557144142

Mary isn't one for mad spontaneity so when she decided to do her first ultramarathon, with 6 weeks notice, whilst in a speed block for a 5k PB, you could say I was surprised. But... we love a challenge and we love being scared by big dreams. SO Mary dived head first and I pledged to support her in her training and try to get her ready. So here we are, 3 weeks out. This week Mary describes what the race is all about, her plans to tackle it (both mentally and physically) and it was her chance to ask questions of George, Sam and myself. It's time for Mary to eat her own biscuits....

If you ever need a lesson on grit and determination then this is it. This week Sam and I walked to Alex Mathew. A friend of mine for a few years now (since meeting on Instagram!) Alex has been on quite the journey. I mean, what type of person does it take to beat the "lazy Alex" in their head only to have a heart attack whilst out running and then, once again, change their mindset from doing the minimum possible to doing the maximum allowable! And that's where we find Alex. A heart attack and 2 ultramarathons down (one of them the 4 x 4 x 48 David Goggins challenge) and now looking for new challenges because of his knee!! These are the type of people we love talking to and these are the people that redefine what is possible for us all. No excuses for us now!

Why not have a special guest that is actually one of the hosts of the show?! It's been too long without George and we were pining for him. So we made it happen and had a catch up, to see how he's training out there, what kind of sessions he's doing and why he has to take flares to avoid cheetah's!! We also all talked through a lot of our favourite run sessions that get us where we need to be, in case you were looking for a new session or two!