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In episode 11 of the progress pod, the hosts discuss how they achieved a sub three-hour marathon. They talk about their reasons for choosing the Loch Ness Marathon and their training journey leading up to it. They mention the challenges and the dedication required to achieve their goal. They also highlight the importance of having a training partner and seeking advice from various sources to improve their performance. Overall, they emphasize the commitment and hard work necessary to complete a marathon and strive for a specific time goal. Hello and welcome to episode number 11 of the progress pod and today I am joined by good friend and fellow coach Jamie McCready and we're going to chat through predominantly about how we have achieved a sub three-hour marathon. I'm going to give a bit of an intro to Jamie but when me and Jamie were both running regular training two marathons we've done over the last couple of years we were constantly searching for sub three marathon videos, sub three marathon podcasts so looking back I think if this was a podcast available then it'd be really really valuable to us so that's going to be the main part of the podcast but I'm just going to pass it over to Jamie just to give a quick intro on him first of all and then we'll dive into the detail. All right thank you very much for having me on here I'm actually known in my gym mate for being able to chat to everybody, chat a lot of nonsense and now I need to actually do it so I'm thinking to myself can I actually just chat here for half an hour but yeah so I've got a kind of sporting background, I grew up like most people in the west of Scotland do, loving football, taekwondo as well ever since I was little, about four year old I did taekwondo which I think I had a lot of natural talent for so I ended up being a second black belt and British champion at taekwondo and it was like all sports you remember if it was the school holidays whether it be the open golf would be on or the Ryder cup you'd be out playing golf if it was Wimbledon I'd be out playing tennis so growing up it was all sports and then when I left school I actually went to college and done an HNC in sports coaching and development and it's not until 15 years later now that I've actually became a personal trainer and yeah so I've been doing that eight months and I absolutely love it. Brilliant mate and in terms of the running specifically so I think you messaged me, it must have been about a year ago now just before you messaged me to say that you'd signed up for Loch Ness Marathon and I'd done the same and then we started getting training together and stuff but what was the kind of, what made you go for the Loch Ness Marathon? So actually before I'd signed up I hadn't, I'd done a 10k for the Great Scottish Run but it was mostly like football fitness that I'd done growing up or the odd 5k I would go out and run I hadn't actually done any sort of specific long distance running but I think when you're into sports fitness you look at the marathon and it's one of the things that you just think I want to take that off it's like if you ask anybody like what's the kind of pinnacle of endurance events the first thing people think of is the marathon so that's exactly what was in my mind because my dad, he'd done a marathon as well when he was younger, I've still got the picture I think he'd done 320 and I can always remember like my gran would say to me like my dad would be up running Fiscal Brent Eaglesham and back and I used to think like you're a haitman like who's coming around Fiscal Brent Eaglesham? Now obviously I've done it I can see why you've got to do that sort of training so that was like me it was just the kind of pinnacle of endurance events for somebody that loves sports and fitness. Yeah no definitely I agree like I've done a marathon Southern Marathon back in 2017, 2018 and so I hadn't done any sort of long run distance running since that and that was the same as you I just wanted to tick off a marathon originally it was like right I want to try and do a marathon because then that's one of these things it's a bucket list thing I wanted to tick off so I ticked it off and at that point I just went straight back I stopped running after that just went straight back to weight training and stuff like that so it wasn't until the start of the year sweat 22 it would have been and I was like starting to try to pick up running again and I was like I wonder if I could actually do a marathon proper training block like really go for it and see what I could do at the marathon so that's why I signed up so it was my second one it kind of felt like my first proper one because it's been like five years since I've done one before and this time I was going like a proper focus rather than kind of I kind of wanted it the first time and just had a proper wall hated it but yeah bigger bigger focus when we were heading to Loch Ness so that was the first one that I booked and it looked like it was a good scenic route like it was six months away from when I decided that I wanted to do it so it seemed like the kind of appropriate one you any reason why you picked Loch Ness specifically? No it was simply just as you see you go on the internet you have a wee scan through again like yourself you see the pictures you see the scenery I mean absolutely gorgeous you don't realise before you sign up but how hard the actual route is obviously I can remember going up the wind farm to do a training run and somebody been talking to you and I was saying about oh and the only mention was oh wait until you get to 28k wait and then obviously now we've done it there's a kind of three kilometre stretch and the only way I can explain like that three kilometre stretch at the back end of the Loch Ness marathon is like the end of the gladiators so yeah that was more the scenery but we didn't kind of bank on how tough the route was going to be for Loch Ness yeah no like as I said looked good you could sign up for it it was about six months away and bear in mind when I when I decided I was going to sign up for it I hadn't done a lot of running I was still picking off the odd 5k here or there every couple of weeks or whatever and but in that first marathon that's the other thing I did I still even though I didn't have a kind of wind I still got a pretty decent time for a first marathon I came out 3.27 that's still the marathon and I just decided when I signed up for Loch Ness I'm going to just try and push it and see if I can get sub three not realising like just how big an effort sub three ever does like I was just normally I'd say I've owned in the past like I'll get my head down and stick to it and I'll achieve it more often than not so I was like let's just do sub three and just thinking that if I just stuck to the plan I could do it but it wasn't until we started getting into training and realising that like it really is a next level goal to try and hit and I've mentioned to you obviously this was going to be your first marathon Jamie and but knowing your background in terms of like general fitness you already had like I knew that was definitely a goal that you could go for as well so it was really really good for me especially being able to have somebody that was going to be pushing for a similar goal who we could train together bounce ideas off of I think in the lead up to that marathon we must have messaged about 15 hours of voice notes to and from each other to discuss every in and out of it trying to just get the wee edge any wee nuggets that we'd got because like you'd said at the start like I went through Spotify every single running podcast and like YouTube videos Ben Parks like all these kind of people we were on like just trying to get that wee that wee kind of information that was going to take us like to the next level and there was so much to learn looking back now and you just can't believe like what goes in to running a superhero marathon and we're going to obviously touch on a few things that got us to achieve that goal yes no definitely I think what's even more really spectacular about yours is we hadn't really done much long distance running beforehand and it was more most people set up for a marathon originally to try and complete it but I think the fact you actually signed up for a marathon and not just the view of completing it going straight into a sub three attempt which is like phenomenal to be honest so that was like in terms of the training and get into it did you feel early on that that could have been a goalie I'll be honest mate no I can remember like before I'd done this marathon block the furthest I'd ran on a road was 15k so that was the furthest I'd ever ran and I can remember doing my first it was the first ever half marathon and I ran to the Busby hotel to Ibrox and then back to the Busby hotel and at the end of that run mate I was in agony my hip flexors were sore and I remember thinking I need to do that again with no rest and quicker and I'm thinking I've got eight weeks to go how is this going to be possible like you say mate sometimes you're thinking can I go sub three can I just finish this thing because you can't actually fathom how far that is you know I mean anybody that knows kind of the south side of Glasgow East Kilbride side you know I mean the Busby hotel to run the Ibrox and back and then go again and do it back you don't realise how far that is and so like the honest answer at the start was like no yeah like can I can I do this I don't think so yeah no it's a case of especially like completing a marathon and just getting over a marathon and then try to get sub three goals that are actually two completely different things in terms of what you need to take into consideration the edge that you need to look for absolutely no margin for error whatsoever and it's one thing I suppose I do really enjoy about running is how quickly you can actually progress if you put in the work and you'll see that that point that you just made you'd run that distance for eight weeks to go thinking I need to run double that I also need to run it faster like how is that going to be humanly possible and I've worked on a lot of running before I signed up for Loch Ness either so six months out I think I said right I'm going to start and do a 10k I did a 10k in about 50 minutes and I was blown I was absolutely wrecked after it and I thought right that's five minutes a kilometre like how much how fast I need to do to do sub three I was like 4.15 to a kilometre and I was like so I've got to run 45 seconds faster a kilometre and do it four times to what I've just done so I was just like similar to using the time I was like maybe I've kind of overstretched it here with this goal but with running I feel like if you keep stay consistent with it and you keep pushing doing the different style of sessions your tempo runs your interval runs your long runs and everything like that that you can progress quite quickly and we've kind of been shown but we'll kind of jump into the Loch Ness marathon specifically so obviously we went through the training block how was the kind of lead up a few wee niggles prior that there was a calf issue a few weeks before it was worrying yeah towards the tail end of kind of football and stuff I'd kind of had calf issues and um yeah it was one of the ones but it was it was naivety from myself that when I was going out doing my long runs instead of just doing them controlled um and getting your time on your feet I was going out and racing them like the bloody olympics finals at the time um so it would be like say a 30k long run I'd have 2k to go and I'd be smashing out the final 2k and then you'd pull a wee a wee niggle on my calf and I'd be like what are you doing man and that was it again that was just because I didn't know really what I was doing at that point uh so yeah but I think as well mate when I look back I had to spend a wee bit of time cross training because of the niggles um and I spent a lot of time on the stairmaster in the gym uh obviously because you don't want to lose that aerobic base so you want to keep it going and I think because of there's so many hills uh in Loch Ness doing the sort of stairmaster um on repeat was great for building my overall like strength which on the day helped to carry me through for sure yeah 100% and for anyone who does no cross training I suppose and in running terms it's basically anything other than than running so getting the stairmaster the bike and swimming like anything that's not not running and so I, Jamie, with a few weeks out had had to resort to some cross training just with the niggles but I think for myself and for you Jamie like I end up getting I end up getting a bit of a hip niggle um just down to like weak glutes um because what I've done is, Jamie's similar, is we've quickly ramped up the running like much more than we had been doing for years prior and then as a result of that your strength training kind of decreases but we're still both getting into the gym and still training but in terms of what we were normally doing it was a decrease so that combination of decrease in strength training plus massive increase in running there's going to be a lot of niggles there the body's just not used to it not accustomed to it so if you've got any weak areas there's going to be niggles and Jamie's feeling niggles in his calf I was feeling a hip pain and so yeah there was a I had the kind of opposite effect heading into Loch Ness so Jamie was cross training doing a lot of StairMaster which was really helping with his legs and like we didn't realise how hilly Loch Ness was actually going to be so that really helped him whereas I was the opposite for the last four weeks prior to Loch Ness because I was getting a hip pain I was feeling it worse on hills so running around Nisco Bride it's just constant hills and I was just like I need to try and find some flat routes just so I want to get to my start line so I ended up doing quite a few of my runs just on the track flat track running around so I on the lead up I had like four weeks prior to kind of no hills and I feel that kind of ended up hindering me a wee bit in terms of the Loch Ness because if you look to the Loch Ness elevation a lot of it looked like it was going to be flat but it was just because it was so up and down so the elevation gain on a kilometre might have been two or something that's because there was like a massive up for half it and a down so it was like it was constant up and down the full way so we'll get we'll chat through kind of Loch Ness then we'll chat through how we got in what we did in Manchester Marathon because we both went on to another marathon block and then we'll touch base and touch back on sort of what was our main sort of tips what was our main sort of because going through two blocks what we learned what our lessons are what we're going to do going into the future and just kind of like advising what's not only to do sub three but just in marathon running in general so we'll chat through sort of Loch Ness so that was the start of October and the race was in a sense we knew there was going to be a big hill we'd been told there was a big hill and about the 28 came up but other than that we thought it was going to be all right but it just it didn't really turn out to be that I think a lot of people when you look at the elevation and then you hear the rumours of the big hill and it's so funny as well not to spoil Loch Ness for anyone but when you approach a wee town where the hill is there's a big sign that says it's going to get a wee bit steeper from here and that was like the understatement of the year but I think a lot of people see it and they go oh well there's these like uphills you don't realise just how hard it is to run downhill because you're constantly trying to brake so I felt mostly it was my quads and my hip flexors from the downhill running they took more of the pounding compared to my glutes and my hamstrings for running the uphills so there's a that's the kind of factor when you see a lot of people say oh but it was part of it's downhill you really make up time you're constantly trying to brake when you're running downhill and it's just putting constant constant strain on your big quad muscles and your hip flexors so that was really what I struggled with at Loch Ness yeah I think as well like I had in my head that it was going to be fine until we get to this tiny 8k mark I just need to grind through that hill and then that'll be me but like you say it was just constant hills there was like there was one at 8k that was just so steep and just see when you get these hills out of the blue because your heart rate was never really settled you're going up a hill your heart rate's spiking and then you're going down the hill so it's going it's dropping quite quickly then there's gonna be a wee bit of flat for a tiny bit of time then it was down it was kind of constantly up and down so the legs were getting an absolute pounding heart rate wasn't staying the same and it was just like as well although the scenery and everything that was brilliant definitely recommend the if you were going just to tick off a marathon a great marathon well organized brilliant but in terms of trying to go for a PB it's maybe not the best there wasn't a lot of crowds at the site there was long long stretches where it was just like us basically and nowhere around you so that can be quite hard during the marathon especially when you know you've maybe got 20k still to go 15k still to go your legs are getting sore there's nobody about it can be quite i thought it was quite challenging in that aspect absolutely i think there was a podcast i've listened to with Paula Radcliffe and she'd actually mentioned a wee technique that she used when times get tough especially that final 10k because in your training block you'll typically run anything up to 30 to 32k so the final 10k of a marathon's actually no man's land you've never done it before and one of the things that she had said was she counts so she'll count in a rhythm in her cadence and to just like just take her mind off whatever it was and then towards that kind of end of that hill towards that kind of final 10k i was i'll be honest mate i was in agony and then my feet were sore as i say my quads were sore my hip flexor were sore but i was got to the stage where i remembered what Paula Radcliffe said and i would just start counting in a rhythm so it would be like one two three four and all my steps would be on the one two three four and i knew if i was running in that cadence that yeah my time's going to be because it's just keeping the legs moving um so that was something that i implemented you know my sounds can adapt over time but um you've just got to do what you've got to do at that point to keep the legs moving because if you stop yeah you just seize yeah and i think like breaking it down like what we would regularly do in training and stuff is rather than saying oh we're doing 30k a day or we're doing 25k a day i mean you would just break it into kilometers and just be like right we want to be hitting a four minute 15 kilometer like let's see how we go this next kilometer and we would just break it down into kilometers and you do it that way it just makes it much more manageable knowing right let's just focus on the next kilometer but as you say before you get into a marathon sometimes it's a case of let's just focus on the next step like literally like if i can just get the next step to especially get heading into that last sort of 10k and we ran together pretty much the full way up until that hill the big big hill jamie kind of took off in front of me i was kind of struggling at that point so fell a wee bit behind then it flattened out and i thought right there's less than 10 there's like 10k to go now final 10k we're over that big hill started to get a wee bit of a boost and kind of caught back up with jamie so at that point i thought right the biggest hills are over with and then before we know it we're like 7k to go another like it wasn't as bad as the one at 28k but another hill just came out of nowhere and i think just not even physically just mentally that feeling of like what i thought mentally i'm like right we're on the home straight keep going here just keep picking up and then a hill came and that just kind of finished me off essentially in terms of my self-ego just kind of run up that hill really really struggling i hadn't been doing a lot of hill work my legs were just in bits got over it and then like started getting a bit of a stitch and i saw there was a water station i literally like in any kind of running event i've ever done i've never like stopped to walk to anything but i actually got to a point i was like right there's like 5-6k to go here start to feel a wee bit kind of dizzy stitch like legs are agonising i was like i need to stop at this water station i still had an outside chance at that point of getting the sub three but i was like to stop at this water station get a drink let the stitch hopefully die down and then go again now i can still maybe do it but see as jamie said there if you stop it's like especially at that at that part of a marathon with 5-6k to go you're not getting anywhere near where you wanted to get like see even trying to get close to the required pace or the rhythm that was in it just was not happening at all i felt i was like trying to get back into it running as fast as i could and i was nowhere near it it's just that getting out of that rhythm you don't understand how like once you get it sometimes it'll take you 3-4-5k at the start of a race to to get into that rhythm but see once you're in that rhythm and in that flow you kind of just kind of you keep you get stuck in it don't you you get like you're in it but if you stop or something interrupts that like i was actually saying to someone the other day out running that even the thought when you're going for a sub sequence even the thought of going into your belt oil or to get a gel it's sometimes like i don't even want to do that because i have a lot of water because that's going to take me out of this rhythm you settle down to a rhythm you feel fine it's just like the slightest thing especially stopping it can really just knock you out of it and so i i ended up continued kind of trundled from the last 5k trundled in finished at 303 so just missed out on the on the goal and jamie like you tell me about your last 2k mate and how how we managed to get it so obviously you're looking at the garment and you're seeing like i thought it was slipping away from myself obviously i think it was the final 2k and i'm looking and i'm going i need to go under sub 4 minute per kilometer for a final 2k of a marathon and it was at that point it was like well gotta make it happen you know i mean you only get one shot here we don't get a rerun here like tomorrow this is like it's got to happen right now and i found my final kilometer when i crossed the line i think it was about 3.30 that i ran my final k and what i didn't even know when i went under the finish line i was obviously thinking jeez i've done it i was like kind of delirious at that point i was kind of an out-of-body experience and i remember going back later on actually to get a lift off one of the stewards back to my hotel because i couldn't walk within 30 seconds of finishing and i remember thinking like checking my phone have i done it have i done it when i got the video out after the marathon the announcer said congratulations to the runners going under the finish line now all sub 3 and i didn't even know i didn't even know what was going on round about there's a video from kirsten as well they're shouting and cheering yeah i didn't even know they were there yeah i was obviously just like that tunnel vision of i've got to get this done and thankfully i've done it by three seconds a few seconds like it was absolutely unfathomable like that last kilometer like just to let you know a sub 3 marathon you need to be running about 4 minutes 15 to a kilometer and it would get you in sub 3 so i think about 6.45 or 6.50 a mile and we worked in kilometers all the time but so imagine trying to after 40k then running under 4 minutes for the last two like i just like when david said he did that i can't i could not believe it the fact that normally at that point your kilometers are going to be slowed down because you're 40k in your legs are heavy after hills and to whip out a free 30 kilometer that last kilometer is beyond like it just shows you what the body is actually capable of and with the mind and like it's just it's absolutely phenomenal so i had jamie first marathon locked nest a very very hard course and getting that sub 3 was was absolutely phenomenal effort and so yeah we we did lock nest we both kind of agreed that it was a lot tougher than we we expected and that if we were going for any pbs again they probably wouldn't sign up for lock nest so for me i don't know at that point jamie was kind of undecided in the next sort of protocol in terms of event or whatever because obviously i've done the sub 3 set that i cheated to do but i know for me i was like when's the next marathon i need to sign up like i missed out on it and i'm like one of these people that if i set myself a target and a goal that i want to achieve i'm going to get it so i was like right in to get the next marathon when can i look and did a few people talk about manchester how it's a big event i think it's actually the fourth biggest in europe i think outwith london it's the biggest in the uk so it's a big event and it's meant to be pretty flat or so people say it's really really flat and i thought right if i've managed the 303 at lock nest with another block under my belt a flatter course got to give a good chance of getting sub 3 so i need to sign up for this so signed up for it sent to jamie and i'm doing this one and after a few days just got a message back to jamie with the same sort of sign up email and which is great news for me as well knowing that i'm going to have another training walk together and it does really help when you've got other people who are going through kind of similar and got similar goals trainings feeling the same and niggles feeling the same challenges it just it really really helps you bounce ideas off each other and then you're sending each other podcasts basically right in whatsapp just going through everything and so i jamie decided to sign up for manchester and already we knew i think manchester was middle april start of january like literally straight after christmas we had a training kind of intensity in terms of a running block it stopped after lock nest but we knew we were restarting in the year we went out to do a half marathon just at the start just to see where we're at and i think we both like start of january i think we did just about 1.32 1.33 half marathon that was before the block so we knew at that point the starting point was was a lot lot better oh but we're well ahead of where we were because i like i touched on when i done that initial half marathon for lockness and i remember thinking to myself oh my god how am i going to do that yeah but that one if we done we done it then it was very comfortable yeah and i think when we were able to do that yeah like you spoke upon like just that consistency of running you don't realise how much gain you can make in such a short time frame not mean that was only a matter of months yeah we were now getting out and essentially running like a one thirty half yeah quite comfortable at that point yeah um so that really built confidence getting a manchester plus manchester's um a flatter course a faster course yeah so all of these we found were just building confidence in us that when we go to manchester we can go through this yeah and in terms of the kind of manchester block for me the main difference that i made was just making sure not to neglect my my strength training especially in the lower body and just making sure consistently stretching rolling and my training block in the lead up to manchester was pretty smooth actually there wasn't too much destruction i think i'd maybe there's a week about february was quite tough to uh like the kids were unwell i end up getting a fit this public stuff other than that there was no real major kind of concerns in terms of the the block and going into it felt good to use similar i was just getting me just training smarter like on the longer ones i was running more on feel it wasn't the olympics final and i was getting out to compete no i mean it was get the miles in the legs get through the workout yeah and then let the body repair let the body recover um whereas as i say lock this was a bit naive where i was getting in every session i was going 100 miles an hour yeah um so yeah you just cannot learn from the experiences definitely i think in terms of we'll get on to some tips and advice and things like that uh just once you get through the the manchester marathon chat but i think what jamie said there about not trying to 100 all out maximum effort every run is something that a lot of people just get into running will be guilty of and it's just about making sure your easy long runs are actually easy the purpose of the long runs is really just to get yourself used to getting the mileage in the time on your feet the building that aerobic capacity with those long slower runs you're building that engine there you've got your interval runs you've got your tempo runs where you're going to be focusing on the speed but just making sure to keep those easy runs easy if you're giving maximum effort every single session every single workout you're going to really struggle with recovery it's going to impact the other sessions so it's just about as you say going through even looking at heart rate if you look at that like just making sure those efforts are less in terms of you're you're just about getting the miles on the feet and having those easy longer so we did we took a lot of kind of benefit from that Loch Ness block and really started applying that applying the lessons and so we'll head into Manchester and it was actually quite a worked out quite a perfect day I would say in terms of weather wise conditions atmosphere atmosphere like that's one of the biggest thing they'll just chat about the kind of differences in terms of Loch Ness and Manchester I think that the atmosphere and the crowds was the biggest thing oh completely like there was a juicy area Loch Ness you could be you could run for maybe 8k and not see anybody yeah um but at Manchester the crowds were literally all the way around the whole way I can't think of any part of Manchester where there wasn't anybody cheering you on yeah um so it was fantastic even in the start line the way that they kind of ramped up the music and stuff and like the atmosphere and the build up and everybody was so buzzing to get going yeah you know and that's people that sign up for these events that's why I say like go and do an event yeah it is it's that adrenaline it's the excitement it's the buzz it's been around like-minded people everybody's striving for the same goal you know and what's so funny is that I can remember like on going back to touch on Loch Ness but on the bus we had these sort of fears and anxieties like everybody does and then you start talking to the people on the bus you've never met them before and all of a sudden they've got the same fears and anxieties they've got the same worries they've had the same issues in their training block and you can start to relate and then when you're like on the track with these people and you're on the road you're like come on man let's go and you've got these people pulling you along yeah which at Manchester was a massive difference yeah I think the race day atmosphere like if you've never done a running event like I'd advise you to get it done like it's just excellent like the atmosphere as you say pushing each other along like you'll add a few minutes like you'll you'll take off a couple of minutes I'd say to your thing just purely off the adrenaline and the buzz of the of the event and the day but I think we went in pretty good conditions we felt good we were fuelled and we knew it was going to be a flatter course so we both felt quite confident I think the the biggest thing for Manchester for me at the start how crowded it was as opposed to Loch Ness, Loch Ness opened up quite quickly I'd say within an hour I mean you were kind of together on our way Manchester was you could feel the first kilometre or two it was it was busy it was that way you were like that first call was a wee bit slower than we wanted because just because of the amount of people that were there so that was a wee bit that was that was tough to begin with and then also the fact there was pacers at Manchester which there wasn't at Loch Ness so we were like right let's get around that three hour pacer we stick with him most of the way we'll get ahead of him we know we're doing it he was miles ahead at the start didn't he we were just we couldn't find him we were struggling what's going on here I think the pacer throughout the full race was just all over the place weren't you? It was and I think by the end up as well when obviously we discussed is he going to run exactly three hours what's the pacer going to do but I think the pacer ended up running around about 2.56 2.57 and I think it was obviously to pull anybody that maybe kind of just slightly fell behind him so all of these people behind still got some free there so obviously that was why we're looking at our watches and our splits going well we're on it where is he and you know we couldn't even see him and then obviously it was the pacers they carry wee flags on their backpack and then all of a sudden it would like in the distance it was like oh there's the pacer there there's the pacer group and I think later on in the race we actually well I know I did there's I kind of lost you for a wee bit and I ended up joining the pacer group and just running with that group and again we speak about like the cadence when you're running in that group you can actually hear the footsteps it's like and it's like that rhythm when you're all running in that rhythm yeah I think that makes such a big big difference that you don't because you're running in a big group of everybody doing the same the same as you say the exact same rhythm you just settle into it and you're there like I think it was just me and you for lots of spells so it was just like right with us when there was loads of people around you it kind of pulled you through and you're like right these guys are doing it right let's keep up with it and then when you're in that rhythm it makes it easier but for me the the pacer like we couldn't find them for ages at start then eventually at one point I passed the pacer so I was like I'm ahead of the pacer now I just need to stay ahead now and I was staying on my my split time was feeling quite confident all of a sudden they flew by me with like 5k to go and I was like how much I was like I'm I end up just having to ignore the pacer because I was like I'm I'm in line with my split now I was like I've got to try and speed up with him I don't know what what he's doing but obviously that's what you said he's obviously sped up a bit at the end to get a kind of 256 time so let the pacer go and at that point um I've lost you for maybe four or five here and maybe 30 came up and it was just like 35k I actually started to worry when the pacer went by me I was like is this slipping away from me again had a bit of a stitch again and my stitch I've had issues with stitches they are getting better I'm struggling to get to the bottom of it but at Loch Ness I had a stitch from like 18k like fighting it on and off whereas I didn't feel even the start of a stitch until about 30k at Manchester so definitely getting better but um I had that stitch the pacer ran by me I'd lost Jamie and I was just like this is not slipping away from me again because it was going so well and then all of a sudden there's maybe six seven k to go I hear Jamie's just shout dropping there's like back in line with Jamie mate and then at that point I was starting to feel the that way your leg muscles are starting to kind of twitch a wee bit and I'm like cramps coming on here man and then Jamie very much shaved me with a full packet of salt tablets that's another thing we'll get into with regards to fueling and stuff but yeah Jamie passed a salt tablet up too and that I think that really really helped me just getting there and I think with that last 5k as well if we definitely just kept doing what we're doing we're both going to get under it and we'll just like right let's keep one foot in front of the other let's just keep keep pushing it yeah like it was funny as well because right at the end I'm saying to Jordan look man we're well under here I mean I was looking at my splits I was looking at the time I was looking where we were and I'm going we've done it man like we just need to keep it going we're well under and I think because you had missed Loch Ness you were not taking any chances and like about a kilometre ago you just took off like I am not there's no chance I'm missing this again so you took off and I was confident that we were well under which obviously ended up being that we were and you kind of sprinted the finish and then I kind of trotted in just behind you and even but at that point you're still not sure and you're still not sure because so what happens is with your watch and what I think is the case is as we said at the start it's really really busy and you're kind of weaving in and out of folk so I think like if you're measuring a marathon it's probably from the very start line if somebody just goes this full straight the full way to the end that would be the marathon I think just because you're probably weaving in and out of folk you end up you must be running a bit more than a marathon and because when we were maybe like 400 meters away it both beat our watches like marathon mine was like marathon completed like 42.2k I think it was like 257 something more both about 257 and 258 something like that I was like right the finish line's still 400 meters away here like we need to make sure they get this we still felt confident that there's like at the end of the day if you're going to try and get into other events it's your chip time that counts it's not your Strava or your Garmin watch it's your chip time so it's like we need to make sure this is under sub three as well so as I said I just I tried to vomit because I cannot just miss this again and then we both got on the line and we're both like like did we actually did we actually do that or not because you're still a bit kind of panicking and then the text came through that we were both like well over 30 seconds or well under so um there's a good wee bit of time to spare but aye no it was excellent to both both of us complete at that time and get that that sub three so still to see what to do with it or not in terms of if you get sub three you can apply to get into some of the bigger events like London and stuff but it's not a guarantee and there's only 3,000 I think places so it depends on who who applies for it in terms of how many folk got sub three and stuff like that but that's that's still to still to find out but yeah it was just such a amazing feeling for me especially just managing to get that sub three goal that I'd been been chasing and Jamie again getting a PB and what was his second two marathons two sub threes and it was it was a quicker it was about more than three seconds this time as well so it was really just good news all around but one thing I will say as well about how the the body really just adjusts and conditions itself was my recovery time after Manchester I don't know if it was to do with the hilt or being flatter but I felt I recovered a lot quicker after it were you? Oh 100% after Holt Ness I can remember it took me a good four weeks obviously a lot of your training runs and stuff you kind of you track on Strava and I can remember writing on my notes saying no I've still not recovered and that would be like two three weeks after Holt Ness but I was back training probably within a week after Manchester yeah feeling like the body was kind of back to normal like you say it's just it takes time for your body to adjust and acclimatise to that sort of stress and that sort of training but no as I say I was only a week I felt as if I was not good to go again but I felt like the training could can resume again yeah and I think it's really just the fact that Holt Ness was the first marathon that both of us had done it was first marathon Jamie had done first I'd done in like five years so the body's not used to that level also we've probably made quite a few mistakes during training as we as we discussed so it was all about training smarter focusing more on our recovery and throughout training everything like that and the body just becoming more adapted to it in terms of like the body know the body's done a marathon six months prior so it's got that it's got that there so that was a big big positive the fact that we recovered really quickly from it but yeah the sub three was definitely it was a goal that I'd set more than a year before Manchester so it took a long time for me to finally get that over the line and just showed you like how how hard I go it was and I've got a lot of respect for like I've learned a lot about running over that period of time and that some of these marathon runners and the professional like the the speed and stuff that these guys go as is is just unbelievable and in terms of just moving on now in terms of actionable sort of advice and tips around achieving the sub three anything that you would like to add mate and even we can relate it to just a marathon in general as well but sub three specifically in the sense that it's need to go above above some in some area like you say this is actionable for not just sub three not I mean a lot of these points are applicable to anybody that's going to go and do any sort of long distance or long endurance events but the first one for me would be how you structure your week but for myself you would reverse engineer your week from your long run so your long runs essentially your most important run of the week and so for example say you're doing an 80k week and you've got a 30 kilometer long run I would subtract the 30 and then you know you've got 50k to break up into the rest of the week and like you say you would break that into interval runs maybe a recovery run maybe a tempo run maybe a marathon paced run you know so you would you would go and work backwards from your long run so I would reverse engineer your week for sure yeah I think having some marathon paced efforts in there as well is a big thing not only just for getting the body used to it but just for confidence point of view as well I think if you can nail some marathon paced efforts it just gives you that confidence that you can run at that pace and that you know you're going to be okay on the day because as I said on the actual race day with the adrenaline and everything like that and you do get a bit of a boost so if you can do some marathon paced efforts by yourself out in the streets then that's going to give you a lot of confidence for the actual event yeah next one would be mate proper nutrition and fueling so proper nutrition and that does not mean on event day I mean throughout your whole block you want to be eating as natural as possible good quality whole foods you know essentially getting in all the nutrients things like vitamin c vitamin d as well because when you're out running you're putting so much stress on your body it can hamper your immune system so eating well staying hydrated and like I say vitamin d vitamin c zinc things like that boost the immune system and try and keep your body as healthy as possible to keep you going through a training block definitely I think with the nutrition point as well I think since doing the marathon block it's really changed my view in nutrition in the sense that I started viewing it as a case of like I'm actually fueling my body with food I'm not just eating food because like I'm hungry or I like this food whatever I'm like I'm actually putting fuel into my body so what fuel needs to go into that for my body to operate at the best that it can it's like a car going up to the petrol station you put petrol in it to get it to run like that's that I started viewing it and I was like anything I was eating I was like right this is not going to be ideal fuel for me like I really want this and I'd be really minimizing that sort of this food and drink because it really is like if you are filling yourself up with good whole foods like you're going to perform at a much better level you know how you feel like if you're if you are eating well if you are training well and stuff like that but you feel great whereas if you've had a big heavy takeaway the night before you're feeling it's full of processed stuff and you're you're feeling bloated and stuff like your training session suffers so it's just like yeah the nutrition point is really really key and in terms of nutrition as well like around the event day and some even longer runs like the kind of carb loading protocol mate do you want to kind of chat through that? Yeah mate so in three days prior to the event the wee rule of thumb that we kind of picked up on from listening to other athletes and stuff was 10 grams of carbs per kilo of body weight so essentially I sit around about kind of 64-65 kilos so I was looking at 650 grams of carbs and I would consume that and foods that I know weren't going to have any sort of gut issues for me so I was like for me it would be things like rice, rice pudding, cocoa pops, muesli, cereal bars all of these sort of things I know that my body can cope with and so that was something that we had to implement on that as well because you don't want to over consume your calories when you're doing your carb load you want to bring down your protein and your fat as well so you're not just consuming just loads and loads of calories you want it to be carb focused to just fill your muscles full of lycogen for the event day and then also as well intra marathon so within the race we took gels with us so again you would test what gels it is that you like because there's so many different brands out there so many different flavors and I took a gel every 25 minutes so I think there's 25 to 30 grams of carbs in each gel so yeah every 25 minutes I would make sure because the last thing you want to do is get so depleted that it's too late you need to stay on top of it you need to keep your body fueled throughout and also as well with the fueling stations and stuff you don't want to actually go and be gulping full bottles of water either you know what I mean you're thinking I'm going to go out and run for three hours or you know it's just wee regular sips and just making sure you just get enough you don't want to be over hydrating yeah definitely I think on that point with regards to the gels and making sure you do practice it make sure like test some gels some gels might not sit well with you and they are necessary and like when you're the rule comes around about 60 to 80 grams per hour in terms of getting your carbs in this is if you are doing longer than 90 minutes running I would say like a lot of people might say oh I've got 5k at the weekend I'm going to carb load there's no need for that like carb loading is only really essential if you're going to be doing sort of more than 90 minutes because typically in sort of carb loading and in terms of intra fueling sorry it's not really necessary if you're doing like a 5k 20 minute run you're going to have the glycogen stores there to get you through that it's normally after say 90 minutes or so that your glycogen will start to get depleted and what you don't want to do is you don't want to leave it too late that's why Jamie's saying 25 minutes in taking a gel at that point Jamie's already got enough carbs in there right it doesn't necessarily it's not depleted but you keep on top of it like you don't want to let your stores completely deplete before then trying to take a gel you just keep on top of it every 25 to 30 minutes taking a gel and that just keeps you topped up I made that mistake in my first marathon I took gels with me but I don't even think I took one until like the half marathon mark like I just waited until I thought that I was getting a bit tired and at that point it's too late you become completely depleted and you know it's just too late I end up hitting the wall so it's just about making sure that you do keep on top of it but as I said this is not really necessary unless you're going to be running sort of more than sort of 90 minutes or at a really really intense pace and so I've getting that getting those in and the 10 grams of carbs as well it is a lot so again practice that practice the carb load before a few long runs don't just load yourself up with 10 grams of carbs three days before event day if you've never done it because it's a lot and as Jamie said it's a lot of carbs it's more a case of like you just reduce the other areas your protein and fats really reduce those have a higher concentration of carbs and although we chatted there about making sure it's full natural foods that can kind of go out the window a wee bit in terms of and on the carb load because you really just want to be eating easily digestible carbohydrates that's going to sit well with you as Jamie says what Jamie mentioned there for instance that might not go down as a natural whole food but it's high in carbs sits well with Jamie's stomach so on the basis of a carb load pre-run they're absolutely fine majority of the time I look for whole unprocessed natural foods but with the carb load you can be a wee bit more flexible with it but the biggest thing as I was saying is practice it literally practice it in your long runs what you're going to eat what works for you what doesn't do not practice anything new on race day right that touching upon that mate the point you've just made about having a practice run that's of paramount importance and so we were maybe about four or five weeks out from the marathon and we done a half marathon test run yeah we wore the same trainers when we're going to wear we wore the same socks we wore the same kit and we took the gels that we were going to use we had the same breakfast it was starting at the same time the rest was going to start yeah we done the same warm-up routine that we were going to do and we ran at the same pace that we were going to run the marathon at and we knew then if we didn't have any kind of stomach issues if we didn't have any blisters if we didn't have any other sort of kind of obviously there's loads of things that can crop up but we knew that if we'd done that it just kind of builds up mental confidence that right we've picked all these boxes we've had no issues so when you turn off on race day it's like bang i know exactly what i'm doing here i know it's worked before i'm ready to go yeah exactly last thing you want to do is be turning up at the start of the start line stomach rumbling like you're not feeling well you're feeling a bit sick because you've taken a gel you've not tried before like your shoes are rubbing because you've just taken a brand new pair of the box like we need to avoid all that you really need to do practice and as i said and all those details that jamie said it's finer details as that like because it can mean so much especially when you're trying to go for a really big ambitious goal looking points of three and many other points maybe three more yeah mate so the the training let's just be honest here it's hard it can be monotonous at times and there's got to be times during your training block where you're maybe doing your longer running you're at 24k and it's like i'll just i'll just take the wee slip road here and i'll jog up the road it'll be nae bothering nobody sees me but you need to build the mental calluses in your head you know because like we spoke about earlier that final 10k is no man's land and you're going to have that wee voice in your shoulder at some point of that event saying i just stopped you know you want to stop this is getting hard you're sore when you do that in training and you know that you can push through the barriers in your training it mentally prepares you for event day you can't really comprehend how big the mind is when it comes to not just sub three i'll talk just completing a marathon because when i finished Loch Ness and i was back and we were seeing maybe the people that were an hour an hour and 15 after us and the pain on their faces and they were still going you know um mentally it's i'd say it's just as much mental as it is physical 100 the mental game is massive like how many times you actually say especially in that last 10k you're just chatting to yourself it's just like right you can do it mate just keep no we're not stopping we're not slowing down it's just constant back and forth food with enough chatting just doing things make things harder for yourself in training like literally do it like i as i said i had the hip issues and i was having to do quite a few runs on the track i actually did 28k around the the track the athletics track 70 times around it at marathon pace and like that was mentally challenging because it was just monotonous at one point i was actually like a wee bit delirious in the sense of like how many times have i gone around this now if i didn't have my watch telling me i would have lost count i would have known where i was and but it was just and also what i did as well i didn't listen to my headphones until halfway through it i said i'm just going to make this even harder so i just had no headphones nothing for 14k around the track and like it sounds madness but i think having putting your mind through that it does make it a bit easier when you're going through it and racing and on events so definitely making things challenging and actually cherishing cherishing those mentally tough moments and getting through them oh definitely i think as well something that i implemented was because it can get quite monotonous i actually changed up my running environment so i would go into glasgow and i would run different areas in glasgow i would go down to barrassie beach down in there and places that i've never been really and run around these areas so you're always stimulated because let's say if you just have your kind of regular routes it just becomes like groundhog day it will go in and being able to and it just takes your mind off the run oh i've never i never knew that was there oh that's quite nice oh what about that area i've never been in there and it just stimulates the mind obviously as well as maybe some parts of glasgow you tend to run a bit quicker but it does it just keeps the mind stimulated definitely i think as well i was lucky with having jamie there was a good few rounds we went out together if you've got somebody who's maybe doing the event with you and you get similar goals just get out runs with them like the difference it makes in terms of running with someone else not only in your own performance but just in terms of like how quickly the run goes by the enjoyment of it just makes it so much better so if you've got that opportunity then make sure to do it yeah and another one mate is specialization like that's something i don't even know if we've actually spoken about this uh but i 100 would visualize what it would feel like on the final straight yeah knowing that i'm going to do sub three what it would feel like running under that clock sub three the guy giving you your medal or the announcer shouting out saying sub three congratulations and the crowd and everything not even cheering yeah like you moments before you're even actually entered the race um i was big on that i used to visualize all the time massive absolutely a lot of times you're doing a hard run actually a lot of things that would make me run faster is really in your head you start thinking you get a bit of a buzz you actually feel you can actually feel the adrenaline going through you as you visualize it yeah there was a like imagine that this being the last kilometer of the race imagine running to imagine your family there and the crowds there like imagine things like that and that that visualization can actually pull you through a hundred percent i'm a massive advocate of that as well um but i mean any any other kind of key points that jump to mind i think we kind of covered and fueling like make sure we're practicing in terms of runs and make sure the training's hard visualization anything else mate do you feel you would add take action yeah take action no i mean i'm i'll be honest i procrastinated probably for about two years you know i'm going to do a marathon i'm going to uh oh i'll do the next one yeah see like if you've got a goal um and you just want to get like you get signed up and the training happens yeah no i mean and that's a big thing as well motivation comes from taking action you know you've got to take it out there sign up and all of a sudden you tend to find that the training just all of a sudden happens you've got to just get out there and go for it yep sign up and then deal with it don't think i need to get fitter before i then sign up or i need to do this before i sign up because that's not going to happen no we need to sign up and then deal with it and that's going to how you're going to get to work but no mate that was um excellent if anybody has any questions at all for myself or jamie and then let us know around marathon running any running at all anything and i'll put jamie's instagram and as well at the bottom of the podcast and just to kind of finish up mate and we've been talking a while now mate on all things marathons and sub three but in terms of now where's the where's the current goals at what are we focusing on so i've got glasgow uh first of october for the half i've actually never done a half marathon event yeah we've done a couple of wee half marathons in our training box and stuff um we say one of the we've done a pure credit time we've done one i think i was 123 58 yeah i was just over 124 so the goal for me is to go into glasgow uh event day and get a new pb yeah if i can go under four minutes or in the threes for a half marathon splats uh that would be a decent wee one to get so yeah the goal for me is a new pb at glasgow so we'll be working towards that now yeah no great thank you for that um in terms of we've done a lot of half marathons over the last year but it's just been within training we've not actually specifically trained for a half marathon um and i actually did a long half marathon at the start of this year but again it was a training run with the focus on the marathon i was actually running it at marathon pace rather than a half marathon pace for most of it so it will be interesting i've got a similar one in the centre of it um next big event is the glasgow half marathon first october and again going for a pb and so i remember setting that pb when we did that during training thinking this is going to be hard to beat but it will be interesting seeing how how it shapes up for training specifically for the half marathon and i'm actually really excited for that and i've actually also signed up for my first ultra marathon and the week after and the glasgow half so i'm doing the 75k dunoon ultra marathon it's birkin it out of the blue but it was kind of various reasons behind it but i thought after i have marathon i'm going to pretty much peak physical fitness in terms of my running and the ultra marathon i'm not going to be doing it to try and get any records or anything like that it's more a case of let's get an ultra marathon ticked off and i think just going doing that at a steady much much slower pace and it's just going to be something else that i can i can tick off and i thought doing it when i'm at my peak physical condition running wise it probably makes sense and then yeah just an experience essentially you want to experience as many kind of events and things like that as possible so that was my thinking but yeah the main focus for me at the moment is 100% on the half marathon the only difference i'll maybe make with my training is the longer runs make them a bit longer and just in preparation for that ultra the week after but it's all kind of full steam ahead for the the half marathon and the track session we did last week mate was a quite good indication that our speed is definitely improving though. Aye 100% man i couldn't believe like obviously when we started out in sub four yeah we were buzzing with um i think my mile was down at 316 my 800s were down in the 310s and then i was under under three kilometre pace for my um my 400 meters so it just shows you how better your technique gets how much more efficiently you're able to run um just by doing the reps. Yeah 100% that's been a probably a solid year that we've been focusing quite heavily on running we've not neglected anything else we've still been training and stuff like that we've still been strength training had other goals but we've had quite a big focus on running and the improvements in a year mate early in the last three or three months has been unbelievable to like that's what i would just say to anybody here if you've never really ran before you're a bit worried about it like just start and start slow and build up and you'll be shocked like you'll sit here in a year or two time and think wow like what i used to think was really fast and you'll be like you'll be quicker than what i thought was a crazy distance and you'll be you'll well done that like i spoke to obviously if you've not seen them do the run club at the weekend there's lots of guys there that when they first came they'd never ever run a 5k and they're only like 12k and now because they've done that they're like oh 5k is like nothing and it's just like your perception and once you just start as Jamie said they're doing the reps consistently you'll see the improvements there and before you know it you'll look back in two years time like it's crazy how much you can improve so yeah that's kind of everything that i had to add mate unless you have anything else to add before we finish up? No mate i just want to say thanks for having us on my podcast debut you know i obviously mentioned at the start i like to chat and so if you're listening to this you might want to stick it on 1.5 times get it through so you can get it all done because i think we're approaching an hour so no mate it was a great day to sit and just chat through what it is that we've we've been up to the last year and hopefully we can inspire and help others to take a bit of action and get out there and one thing i would say is like the feeling of getting that medal at the end it's something that nobody can ever take away from you you know when you're older and you're talking to potentially your kids or your grandkids and stuff and you've got that medal to show it's it's class you know what i mean so if anybody's like sitting on the fence and they want to go and do something go and get it done 100% so yeah hopefully you guys have enjoyed it hopefully you've taken some value from what we said and some of the advice that we've given and if there's any questions as i said i'll put Jamie's instagram underneath here and feel free to drop us a message and yeah if anybody is interested or have any other questions just just give us a shout and we'll speak to you on the next one cheers
