The Big Run

Hello and welcome back to TBR, last week the London marathon took to over the capital and many people watching im sure have felt inspired to start, further or even improve their running journeys off the back of it. Well, the first port of call typically for anyone looking to improve is a coach and a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of sitting down with Vince Wilson. 

Vince is a former GB 800/1500m runner and a successful athletics endurance coach with the likes of Sam Harrison, Calli Thackery and Ronnie o Sullivan under his watchful eye.

In this conversation we journey through Vince's entry into the sport, managing a growing business whilst also competing as an athlete, working on bottom-end speed to improve yourself across other distances and how he works with periodisation and his athletes to track their progress and programme successful athletic performances.

It’s a great conversation with lots of insight. If you are interested in contacting Vince to discuss coaching and get some advice you can find him on Instagram @runcoachvince or alternatively drop him an email at [email protected]

The podcast Cover photo of Vince and Sam Harrison was taken by @mattmoranphoto on the Night of 10,000m PBs/

Welcome back to TBR.  Today's guest is Ben Clement I know it’s less than 24 hours till the London marathon and plans are afoot for an audio response to that race in the meantime Id like to turn your attention to another marathon happening below the equator and how today's guest is curating an event powered by run crews to sit alongside it. Ben is an artist working with photography and film. Over the last 15 years, Ben has self-published books, showcased work through exhibitions, and published globally in print and online. His commercial clients span from Adidas to AirBnB and editorially from Monocle to Strava. He is one of the founders of AM PM RC based out of Melbourne since 2014, this weekend AM PM will join forces with Kings Cross Track Club and Grave Runners to present Subspace:  a temporary clubroom and hub with the intention to create an epicentre of individual sport merging with art and lifestyle with four days of events (some have already just been!) in parallel with the Melbourne marathon.

Thanks for joining me for an impromptu mid-week special of the show with Eluid Kipchoge's bottle man - Claus-Henning Schulke

Schulke, 56, is an amateur triathlete and works as a project manager for a Berlin-based construction company. He was a marathoner himself but switched to triathlon in his twenties. He, however, remained a fan of the long-distance event for years. He has been volunteering at the Berlin Marathon since 1998.

When Kipchoge arrived at Berlin Brandenburg Airport on Tuesday, September 20 ahead of the marathon on Sunday, September 25, Schulke surprised his dear friend and discussed their bottle-passing strategy for the event. Schulke’s technique is to wear a Kipchoge nameplate on his forearm, which allows Kipchoge to know where his water is and therefore he does not have to break stride or lose focus.

The two first knew each other when Schulke volunteered to be Kipchoge’s water passer in 2018 at the Berlin Marathon. He was instrumental in Kipchoge’s world record performance at the event.

I called Claus yesterday to learn about the historic world record run and his crucial role. 

A huge thank you to Claus for taking the time to talk to me

Hello and welcome back to The Big Run. 

The Berlin marathon is 24 hours away and a few days ago I caught up with Nike Coach, former pentathlete and biomedical engineering student Andrea Goceva.

Having grown up in Berlin after moving from Macedonia at an early age Andi has known and enjoys the process of training and sharing it with others and has been helping 20-plus runners get ready to toe the line in Berlin tomorrow. 

In this conversation we look back on her time as a pentathlete, how she fell into that sport, her struggles with long covid, where she's at with running at the minute and so much more! 

You can follow Andi @the_andi_g

Podcast Cover photo courtesy of @heuserkampf

Hello and welcome back to Blackheath Village in South East London, approximately 16 days from this episode's release 50,000 runners will pass through the heath as the London marathon starts on October 2nd. 

Today's guest is Lorna Mann. Lorna has run London, it was her first and has since gone on to run 6 in total and an ultra. 

Running previously hadn’t been on her radar with a successful 20-year career in film and entertainment PR occupying her life. 

But the combination of a trip to the V Festival with an action movie star and a challenge from her boss kick-started the journey into movement that ultimately led to her changing career paths and rediscovering her purpose.

You can follow Lorna @lornamann_ to learn more about her work

Podcast cover photo shot by @simonrphoto

Welcome Back To The Big Run.

The London Marathon is fast approaching. 

A few days ago I caught up with last year's first Brit home Phil Sesemann who crossed the line in his debut marathon in 2:12:58

In this conversation we chart his early entry into sports with swimming, trying Triathlon, knuckling down to running in 2013 whilst studying to be a doctor, running with Kipchoghe and Haile and why for most of us it's good to keep things simple. 

Podcast cover photo courtesy of Matt Moran

check out Matt's work @mattmoranphoto and his recent zine collab with @adam_ridgeway and @soar_running

Today's guest is Maggie Montoya 

Montoya ran Division I track while attending Baylor University leading the college to the NCAA Championships in her final season placing second and earning the All-Region honours at NCAA South Central Regional in a season-best 6,000-meter time of 20:21:7. Following college, Montoya moved to Boulder, CO to join the Roots Running Project, training with fellow Salomon athlete Noah Droddy. Within five years of training with the group, she has hit several personal records, including a 32:06:87 10K that earned her a spot in the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials and a recent 15:19 5K at the MT SAC Relays in April 2022. Montoya has her sights set on the Chicago Marathon in 7 weeks' time. 

Maggie has been on a profound journey of healing after surviving a mass shooting at her place of work on March 22nd 2021 where tragically ten people lost their lives. She has been sharing her experience of what happened in order in order to help shift the narrative about how people feel about gun laws. 

In this conversation, we talk about that period in her life, her journey into running and her recent signing with Salomon.

Today's guest is artist, writer and runner Daniel Marin Medina. 

Daniel is a Colombian artist who now lives in Berlin. 

He co-founded the Wayv Run Kollektiv which empowers Black, brown, queer, female, trans, Muslim, different & underrepresented bodies in motion.

In this conversation, we chart his journey into running, discovering his sexuality and the power of his body. His life in New York and his extraordinary final year art thesis there and co-founding Wayv out in Berlin. 

If you like to check out Daniels Art you can at @danielmarinmedina on Instagram and follow Wayv @wayvrunkollektiv

Podcast cover photo courtesy of Florian Kurrasch // @fln.krs on Instagram

hello and welcome back to the big run. I hope you enjoyed last week's conversation with Fabricio. It was a pleasure to do. 

You may remember at the start we talked about AI generative art. Inspired by this and encouraged by another artist and listener out in New Zealand (shout out to Logan) I was inspired to use a generate to create this week's podcast cover art.

 To create AI art, artists write algorithms not to follow a set of rules, but to “learn” a specific aesthetic by analyzing thousands of images. The algorithm then tries to generate new images in adherence to the aesthetics it has learned.

for this week's guest, I entered the keywords breathe free run strong and applied a cubist filter. It turned out pretty cool I think. You can see the results on IG.

so why breathe free run strong? Well, today's guest has had an exciting journey to arrive on an obsession with breath and its power to change you. After heading up denim at Diesel in the 90s as it had its metoric rise, he changed tack and became a teacher. 

Running had always been in his life after being inspired by Zola Budd to run the 1500m at his school barefoot. But when he came across breathe work and nasal breathing things really stepped up.

Ladies and gentlemen Im delighted to welcome Kevin Mcquaid

Found out more about Kevin's work here: www.breathetomove.org 

try out some running breath work exercises here: https://breathetomove.org/2021/08/21/running-breathing-tools/