Final Thoughts and Marathon Advice

We're going on tour and I am so excited about this. Pun 'cause this episode is sponsored by On, so we're going on tour. With On for the On Squad race. So we're going all over the world, starting with South America. Buenos Aires. I cannot wait. The On Squad race has already started and we are going to five different locations to take part in this sick event. Yeah, we're gonna be Finding out all about the local running culture in three different continents, which is pretty cool for us. And racing up and down in a spiral car park, which I feel like is gonna be a test in itself. Yeah, four by four relay, two men, two women on each teams. We're gonna be captaining various teams when we take on these challenges around the world. And on is on a mission to ignite the human spirit through movement, which is what we're gonna be doing by travelling all over the world and meeting all these amazing runners. And if you want to find out more about On Squad Race, then head to the link in the show notes. Welcome to the Running Channel Podcast live from the London Marathon 2026! Great crowd got the crowd in, got the crowd in. Nice, we're really excited to be here at the Running Channel Clubhouse for the fourth year in a row at the London Marathon. It's really exciting. We've got some cool stuff to talk about today. And somehow Rick gets younger every single year. I've paid big bucks for this today. And much like many episodes. Like many episodes of the podcast, this is gonna be about Rick, mainly. No, it's not, mate. Honestly. Well it always ends up being somehow. But I am actually running the marathon, so surely it should have an element to that, you know. Well we're gonna talk about how to enjoy marathons. That's gonna be the main topic today. We've got lots of exciting things. Lots of people in the running channel office are. also you have run marathons this time of year. So we want to talk about the fact that marathons are hard. They're hard to get through them and we want to talk about how you can enjoy them and work hard too. And yes, you're running this year. He's hardly talked about it at all. Quite believe it. Uh I I've given in to this. But no, but but but like to say something nice, you've worked incredibly hard for this. For you. And There was gonna be something. No no, but you're you're someone who, you know, we've we've spent a lot of time together, not just doing the podcast, but we're friends. We've been to one another's weddings, we have our children get together. So I I'm really excited to see how you do on Sunday. And there's no there's no butt here. That's it. Sarah would like to thank you for, you know, not getting rid of us in in favour of uh Aubrey and Jess, which apparently was a go at rumour going round. Apparently they're really good in Boston. So this is the This is the longest intro we've ever done on the podcast. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah I made a Nice comment to just say I've been out in Boston Marathon, which we're also gonna talk about. Um and what a great job Jess and Orby did. But that you two took that as the fact that as it were off. You were getting bored up. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, we better big up Mark, who's gonna come in as well and talk about um Project Three and how he is going to try and run a sub 250 marathon, but not only for Puma. Project three, just so we can beat Andy Badley's marathon time. There's also another fast time in the running channel office as well, which has reset the goalp post for Mark as well. And we can't forget that we have possibly the most exciting challenge that we've ever done to you to play later on. We decided to get Rick on the Wahu Kicker Run treadmill and play a little game of question and answers. With some incredible forfeits, so you can look forward to that later on too. That's the most fun I've had at the Running Channel in recent years. So we should probably get on with a podcast. Hello. Like a default setting and you just wait for getting it. So how are you? Uh yeah, I'm I'm all right. I I did wake up this morning with butterflies in my stomach and I haven't had those for nine years. And uh Since you last did the mouth. Since I last did the mouth and when it was a complete and utter disaster. So I mean I um Buzzing. But yeah, I think it is fair to say that I can feel it's a big deal. I think we can feel like London changes in the build up to London Marathon weekend. Like there is there is this buzz around London. I'm sure it happens to every city where there's a there's a marathon happening, but Today, on the day we're recording this is the first day that we've opened the clubhouse. And it is such a special time of year every single time. Yeah, and it's exciting because we're only we're Thursday now at the point of recording. So the big day's coming on Sunday. We're gonna dive into how Rick's feeling about that in a minute. But I also got to celebrate with some amazing marathon runners out in Boston last weekend, which is really cool. The first time we'd ever kind of showed up and done a a kind of clubhouse type thing in Boston as well. Yeah, how did you find that? Scary. Um scary but exciting to do something in the US and to meet loads of people that I'd never had the chance to meet before, because they might not have been able to come over to London to all of the stuff that we do here. So we are trying to get out into the world a little bit more. Um and then somehow squeezing in my running around that was uh was a challenge. You've got a big challenge coming up as well, which you've kind of kept a little bit under the radar. Rick's been banging on about running London Marathon week in, week out. Oh I've done my longest run, guys. My long run's really long. I've got out some more hot Sunday. Sarah You're trying to do that. Sometimes the loneliest place can be in a room with two people who are supposed to love you. Supposed to Yeah. Do you remember when we had a conversation with Rick about his tapering last week? Absolutely fuming. Can you just talk us through how you were feeling about the taper? Oh, what, the fact that it's a bit of a joke. No, you you were you were like I'm not even tapered at all? My long run's still sixteen kilometers. The taper's I thought the taper was proper feet up stuff. I just couldn't remember how like on literally half. No long run. Last week I was still doing what sixteen what twenty six in a week. And I thought this is just ridiculous. Did you just break down those runs that you were doing? So last week I did a long run of sixteen kilometers on Thursday, and then an easy run on the Tuesday of five kilometres, and then intervals of five K on the Sunday. Right. And which one of those runs w did you have a problem with? All of them. Yeah, you've got absolutely no sympathy from Sarah and myself. We were completely disinterested that this was in any way challenging. Everything is dramatic. I don't think it's it's fair for me to talk about let's talk about the weather for Sunday. Let's just quickly touch on say and a gentle breeze, highs of seventeen, lows of seven. Although it's gone up, it's nineteen now. Yeah. It is today's got warmer. So I started looking on Monday and it was sixteen degrees on Monday. Seventeen, eighteen, now it's nineteen. So by Sunday, on that logic it'll be twenty two. Do you know I learned something about temperatures the other day. Um well, from a running perspective and a carb load perspective. That it's harder to absorb carbohydrate. When has the weather in in hot weather. So that the carb load itself in advance of the marathon becomes more important if the weather is gonna be more w if the weather's gonna be hotter than you expect. Generally though, that is good. So what do I need to do? You just need to I mean you should have been focused on your carbload anyway. Yeah, if you started your car bload. Yes, we have to dinner. No, I just Thursday, so you've got plenty of time. But Friday and Saturday is more important. So are you saying I need to do more because of the weather? Well potentially more. Well, you need to just make sure that you've maximized your glycogen stores ahead of Sunday, because that will be more important if it is a little bit hotter than you anticipate, because your body might find it harder to process the carbs that you're gonna be taking in through gels. Yeah. What's your favorite carb? Well my mum's making a lasagna. On Saturday night. I think I've had your hands' desagna. It's good, yeah? Carol Kelsey's lasagna is not that. Why did that sound weird? You were just winding me up. A bottle of gaffe in between you with a glass. Now every other year we've done this show live before the marathon. I've been able to sit here, have a nigga. Very smoky Ben with it. Yeah. I never look at the athlete. Do you know I got to the stage before Rotterdam, everyone was laughing at me. I had a bag of pick and mix sweets in my in my bag, bag in a bag. And I took it everywhere with me. And it got to the point where the the after the marathon we were waiting for food and it took ages for this food to arrive after us. And I was like, Oh, I'm so hungry. And everyone was like, You still got the pic and mix of your bag. And I opened it up and I was like, no, I can't actually look at this anymore. I've had too much. Yeah. It took me a good two weeks. I can now eat pick and mix. Well related to that. I think just to to to give you hopefully some more useful advice, carb drinks will be your friend as well. In the next four to eight hours. Because it can be quite hard to get it in and you need to avoid really fibre laden stuff. And effectively eat the opposite of what you might normally eat. Okay, so some examples please. Um so avoiding uh whole fruits and vegetables potentially, but juices and then sports drinks and so on would be able to get like high higher levels of carbs in during the carb load. And then things like white rice that are really easy to digest. Um so yeah. You're effectively reducing the follow any of that, or you know. No, I'm I'm listening. Just yeah, I'm I'm ready for it. But you're gonna be the lasagna regardless. Yeah. Yeah, I tell genuinely really useful the article that Mark Dredge wrote on the Run Channel website about the coarse information about where all the water stations Yeah and all the This is I think the most research we've ever done into anything. Yeah ever. And all the um isotonic stations for for fueling. Really useful. Like um I was kind of read it through twice. I'm I'm charge for it. Don't go too fast in the first five kilometers. And Sarah, can I just ask one thing actually works on my mind. Did you take a phone with you on Rotterdam? I did. Yeah. I had a sports bra that had a pocket in the back, so like between my shoulder blades, and I put my phone in there. It wasn't annoying like I was thinking the extra weight might slow me down. Do you want me to answer that seriously? Yeah. I think I think there are other things that could have a bigger impact on your race than your phone. Race favourites? Oh well funny story about this, isn't there? You might be interviewing one of them next week. Yes, I am interviewing. What's his name right? Jacob Kiplemo. Yes. We're joking behind because behind the curtain before we came out, because uh Rick was very seriously practicing the pronunciation of Kiplemo and Sarah and I were trying to plant mispronunciations in his breath. Yeah. As all good friends would. I like how you've gone from interviewing prime ministers to now. people who might potentially be setting course records at London Marathon. Well do you think he's gonna win it? Sebastian Sorway so I never know how you say his surname, Sorway. S A W A. I think it's Sorway. Um they're gonna put up a good fight and I feel like my favourite thing is when you see a good race between two people. Yeah. Like the um do you remember at the end of the uh Olympic marathon? Yeah, and there's a dead heat, right? Absolute dead heat. Or was that Tokyo, I can't remember. Uh uh maybe there have been there've been quite a few, but I feel like when a marathon in the elite field comes down to literally the last one hundred, two hundred metres. So exciting. So a lot of some some British interest as well, which we might talk about with Mark a little bit later. And then Tix to Safa is running in the women's. Yeah, and a women's only world record and maybe there's a course record on the cards, probably quite Sort of conditions dependent. And then also Well it was very hot last year. So Do you think if London d goes ahead with the double header next year? Yeah. So we potentially have uh marathons on the Saturday and the Sunday. Do we think that Rick could run it twice? Well we know the answer to that question. Um Do you think they will have the elite on separate days? And so it might be that we won't have a women's only record? 'Cause I do feel for the female elite field at London Marathon, 'cause it Yes, you've got the crowd. So empty. And there aren't that many people who take part in the Elite Field. I remember watching it kind of set off a few years ago and it's not And you could be in a championship start, I think, as well, which also starts at the same time in the women, I think. Yeah. I think the place doing two separate days. Do the men on one day and the won on the other. I think they'd have to, otherwise you'd otherwise you'd take some of the prestige away from one of the days, I think, wouldn't you? So if you're participating on the day that didn't have the elite start, then I think you might feel like and And also then I don't know how they're gonna do TV coverage, obviously the way the BBC cover it in the UK is a massive part of what makes the London Marathon what it is. Yeah. So who thinks the two day idea for a marathon is a good idea? Okay, a few more. Alright, a few more. Yeah. Oh sorry. Okay. So I've got so excited you changed the screen. Excellent. Um Yeah so I I mean I'm excited to watch it this Sunday, but I'm gonna be tracking you much more avidly, if I'm honest. Yeah, let's talk about you. Thank you. So that this has been a long time coming. Nine years since I'm gonna You basically pushed me into it at the end of last year. I gave in and it's been nine years since you last lined up completely and utterly unprepared to tackle 26.2. Absolutely I saw a picture of me on the start line earlier today and it look like I'm going to a basketball game. It was just nothing. It was just oh it was thing is my experience and there'll be a lot of people in this room who who have had a similar experience of running a marathon. Uh, which is still a very weird thing to do, no matter the fact that we're in a room full of runners who adore this type of stuff. Not many people do it. It's a big deal. But my experience was so bleak and miserable and rotten. that it's taken me nine years to forget it. Which is why I am lining up in 2026 on the start line, having trained hopefully pretty well to take it on this. W and just part to rest. The wretched awful absolutely disgusting experience of twenty seventeen. That was a lovely little monologue. That was visceral. Yeah. I've just got awful memory. The whole thing, my my preparation, the race, afterwards, everything was awful. What who would you say was the worst part? Yeah, let's make you relive it all now. It sounds like a perfect peptop. Or the therapy session, isn't it? What just because I knew after the hype on Tower Bridge, which is the central p point of of the marathon, that after all that, those amazing crowds that I knew I was gonna gonna drop. What were the crowds like in twenty seventeen? Were they as mad as they are now? I don't know. It's not that long ago, so I was in university in twenty seventeen, so I was in another part of the country. Well they they they were phenomenal and and Tower Bridge is definitely put kind of one of the parts of the course which people absolutely buzz about. Um but you know I I hadn't hadn't trade properly. This time I I have and you know for me I'd really like to run the marathon and you know uh the whole way round and if I can get a five past four, I'm buzzing. Well there's something that you no one here might know. Since that twenty seventeen marathon. Yeah. Rick's had knee surgery. Oh my god, have you? We sh I should tell them about this. So Actually has anyone heard of an osteotomy? New listeners of the podcast. How are you actually feeling about that? Because I it was something that you were very concerned about about attempting a marathon. And I think that the most grief part was gonna be all of the training. So have has the knee proved a problem? No. Um but at the same time you've always got it. What were you complaining about? Yeah. But I suppose you've always got it in the back of your mind. Yeah. And you know, you train for it, you prep for it, you do your strength work for it. Uh so it things don't go pop. But you've always got it in the back of your mind. Anyone who's had a big injury will always be thinking, well, you know, is that gonna go? How strong is that? And you know Most of that is mental and not physical. Well what has been the hardest part of the training then? I mean, uh there's so many things. Doing thirty two kilometers with Sarah? Well The running or the company. Just the fact that you were there. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Oh, right. It was just the you know the the distance. No, I've never seen that. Yeah, that wasn't that convincing, was it? As a kind of defensive. No, nothing to do with you and your horrible company here. I have never seen you work so hard. It was it was. No one's ever seen him work hard. No, but it was genuinely I think there's something there's something so wonderful about running and long distances where it It I don't know why, but amongst runners w we somehow seem to really love suffering. And I and if I think of the word suffering and then I think of you. That gives me great pleasure. But it's just not it's not really Rick suffering. It's not really two things that I would ever usually have put together. However, relaxing. Rick relaxing, Rick enjoying. Yeah, yeah. But what I enjo what I enjoyed is that you genuinely Put your mind to it and ran for three hours. And the the level and two minutes. And two minutes. And the level of dedication was honestly phenomenal. Even even when we lost you for a little bit. We did lose you. Even when the hills of North George fell for the bike. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, George. Yeah I just I didn't want He fell off the bike with a camera on it. I I pretended not to notice and just kept running. Yeah that was actually quite no checking if George is anything. Yeah you just when you when you put your mind to it and you realise that you know what your watch is for and what it can do and like the light is actually for running and stuff 'cause like I've only ever used a light to find one of my toddler's toys in a ball pit. And you know, and and use using the features on the watch, using the features of what you've got and you you put it out there, you train well, and then you get to the day and y you've got more confidence that you can do it. So if you were to go back fourteen weeks to Rick. who had reluctantly said yes to attempting to run a marathon. What would you say to that, Rick? I say GET OUT NO DO IT You're an idiot I d I j I go, I can't believe in 14 weeks' time, Rick, you're gonna look at your wine fridge and there's gonna be almost the same amount of bottles in it as there are back then. That's a single bit of advice you would give to yourself. It's obviously not owing that, but I miss the twenty five per cent off the else and in Sainsbury's and stuff. And I whenever the twenty five percent people know what I'm talking about. Come on, uh you know, when the twenty five percent comes on I've missed I've I've I've I've missed it I've missed a a lot of life, not just, you know, the wine. But um it's been great how many days a week you're training. Three. About how much life you're missing from the twenty six kilometers. Hang on, hang on, whoa, whoa, whoa. How many days a week did you train for your first marathon? Yeah, three. Yeah, and see. But I didn't moan about how much lights I was missing. Yeah, but you always. I think you did. I think you did. And you both gave me stick as well about the 14 week plan. And Sarah, how many week plan did you do for Rotterdam? Well, I did a lead-in. Yep. But I did do 14. Yeah, thanks. However, before my 14 week plan started, I didn't take three weeks off. Yeah, total Strava flatline on Rex. I would thoroughly advise that. If you're gonna start you know a big training block, have three weeks off, it's great. That's not advice but bad advice. Oh yeah, bad advice, let's not do any more of that. It's too soon, Rick. It's too soon. Sorry, too soon. If you don't say it! Everyone's thinking it! Okay, everyone's thinking Questions for Rick. What have we got that we can think about? What's then the most enjoyable part of your training box? Real questions. Before we get stupid. Um most enjoyable part of my training block. Probably learning to run with other people. I've not done before. Oh really? Yeah. And how who what's that involved? My brother and stuff. So whoever I'll go out with. So um I just wouldn't have done that before. So that would be it. And you're running London with your brother? Yeah, which is pretty mad. He's fast though. He's fast. What's the dynamic like? Are you gonna be friends by the end of this? What's the dilemma like? Well, uh we get on. For now! This is a good start. What's gonna what's gonna be the dynamic like if it gets tough? Well he is there to hold the GoPro. You can get him actually to hold your phone as well. Yeah. Um we're gonna have to talk it through, we're gonna go to the expo uh and make it plan, but I mean he's he you know he's gonna make a plan. No. No He's in good shape. He's in good shape. So you know he he's gonna be dragging me along. You're not a chatterbox on a run, are you? No. So you're planning on you're planning on meeting him with four and hour four hours and five minutes of silence, aren't you? Yeah. Really? No, probably not. Are you gonna listen to music? No, absolutely no way. Really? Who listens to music on a marathon? Really? Okay. A lot more people than I thought. The audience's gonna be like oh who listens to Oh right, everyone. But don't don't you miss hearing kind of the energy of people. Open their headphones. Yeah, something else to carry, weighs you down. Is there anything that you are scared of going into this race? Um What are your fears? Go on, open up. I I am scared of not knowing if I can continue when I go past thirty two kilometres because I know I've been to thirty two. So I know I can get that. Yeah. So it's past that. I don't know what my body's gonna do. So that is what I am scared of. How do you think you're gonna feel when you come down embankment? At that point you kinda know you can get to the end. What's gonna what's gonna go through your head. Is it gonna be an emotional line crossing? Or is it gonna be a right, done, my job's finished, I'm retiring. I'll just I'll just I'll just have uh cheers, my brother here's to another nine years off. Rinse the repeat. And then you'll come back to the Running Town Clubhouse and we'll be celebrating. Buzzing. I I I think, you know, it's it's mad, isn't it? Like deadly seriously, the the the emotion when you wake up. There's something not quite like doing a marathon. And compared to all the distances, it just feels like the ultimate challenge of humankind. And you get up. It's one small step for it, Kels. You hit the core. And the fear and that passion on the morning, you know, that is all part of it, isn't it? Just being the that if you don't have the fear, then you know, you're not in the game to win it. And if you can do it, I just think you proved to yourself And if you head on to the audiobook store, you can buy Rick Kelsey's motivational mindset audiobook for the small price of just a glass of Gavi. Should we talk about Should we talk about quickly how to enjoy my purpose of the podcast? a marathon, whether that is to go out for fun, whether that is to go for a goal time, whether that's running with other people, whatever the goal is. I think a lot of people have that kind of second goal of I I just want to enjoy it. And we wanted to talk through like h how can you actually do that? 'Cause sometimes it seems impossible because it's such a long way. Well you enjoyed it last week, didn't you? I did enjoy it. And you enjoy it at the time or just retrospectively? Yeah. I enjoyed it, I think, because I found uh I found a way of having a goal that was really motivating. I was achieving the goal. And I think that always helps. You enjoy it. Um and I just really enjoyed executing a plan. I think that for me was what was the most enjoyable is just kind of going out and not looking at my watch too much. Yeah but using my watch to kind of reinforce the plan that we were doing and really running to feel. Yeah, two things there. One, you've talked about effective you've described a process goal, right? We've talked about that before, like that and that's been one of your routes to happiness in running as well than focusing on the outcome that's of twenty minute five K, which became this big fixation and like got on top of you. You had a goal here all the time, but actually you were focused on executing the race. And that is why you hear these boring like platitudes from like track and field athletes in the Olympics or whatever. And they're like, I just fo talk to my coach about executing. But that's because that's how you do a good job. Yeah. You can't focus on winning a gold medal. You have to focus on Yeah, like how you're gonna get there. Also, I've always wondered 'cause you know how like as human beings, if you are going for a time goal, it all it's always even five past four, like you're not aiming for three past four or four past four. We always want the sub something. Or we should have a sweep state on Rick though, I think. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get in on that. No. Um but I've always wondered then, okay, you get like a bell curve of say like sub four is the goal. You get so many people who are like 359 or 401. But then I've always wondered, okay, but you get so many people as well who are four oh two or three fifty seven. How do people get there? And I think that often comes from process goals because you're not necessarily clock watching every single kilometre. Yeah you're just running to feel and like enjoying it, and quite often that that ends up like shaving off that a little bit more time. Yeah, and in a different world, but obviously I was running a much shorter distance, but my personal best of all from when I wasn't looking at the clock. Sometimes I had to look at the clock because I'd go for a qualifier for a major championships or whatever, but in all of the races where I set my fastest ever times, it was because I was trying to win or I was trying to be competitive, I was trying to beat someone else. When you're an American. Okay. I'm not sure if you try to run it as fast as Andy did whether you'd quite agree with that. I wonder though if you asked elite athletes who are using the like wave light technology going round the inside of the track wh how much they look at that if they're trying to beat it. Yeah, I think I think the challenge with the wave light technology is that often it's only there for one athlete. So that's probably got to be quite demoralising for everybody else. It's I suppose it's similar to when they had pacemakers and they still do have pacemakers. Yeah. Uh but sometimes I have a a wave light in there for to try and get a championship qualifying time and things like that. I think it's distracting, but it's ultimately making people faster. So hard to know. But you mentioned your watch. As well. And one of my notes on like how to have a happier, more enjoyable marathon is just only sh use your watch for the things that you absolutely need to know at any moment in time. Heart rate being the big one that you probably don't need to know in a marathon. Use it for training, but then once it's on race day, you've got uh probably your heart rate might be higher because you're taking caffeine or because you're just excited in the anticipation of the day and so on. Yeah. Um so looking at your heart rate and then being panicking because it's ten beats higher than you would expect. That doesn't help at all. It's just your heart rate is what it is. So run the pace you need to run and then Just just get on with it. What helps you to enjoy marathons? I don't think I really enjoy So I'm What's not helping you enjoy marathons? I I'm so competitive with myself that I'm just fixated on the the splits and the and that helps because that's my like it's slightly uh therapeutic for me to be doing the maths in the middle of the math and to work out, you know, how far I am behind based on my m my watch says versus the actual mile markers on the course. And then checking in at halfway and kind of doing those calculations. That's what helps me pass the time. But I I I suppose I I was I've been fixated on the time goals, uh, in a way which probably hasn't meant I've been effective as as you were actually doing those process goals and just thinking like, here's what I'm gonna do at this stage, here's what I'm gonna do at this stage. And then my most recent Valentio, I've had a rough patch in the first half. And its weight was just lifted when I got to halfway. But then I did start doing some of the things that I would say to other people, like I was like, I'm gonna get to that corner, I'm gonna get to this mark, I'm gonna get to the next drink station. And try not to think beyond that. Then all of a sudden I started like eating up the kilometers. You know, just on that question there, you're just talking about then about what's useful to have on your live screen. Let's go through a few to see what's useful or not. This is my live screen. So hill score, useful? Yeah, perfect. Yeah. Park from Barker. No, sorry, let's just rewind a bit. Absolut Obviously I know you're joking, you don't need health score apart from Barco, because that we're gonna go with next. Just running through London being like just anyone scanners anyone which bucket Do you still use your uh pulse weather's one as well? Oh, it's probably you're obsessed with the weather, that might distract you on Sunday. Pulse Ox, yeah, I've got pulse hamster. Pulse hamster. Yeah Yeah, that's fun. Alright, okay, good work. I suppose you've got to embrace the discomfort, haven't you? Yeah. And have you got a mantra? 'Cause that could be a mantra, like embracing the discomfort. Have you got anything are you gonna write anything on your hands? Come on. The faster you run, the sooner you finish as well. There you go, that's it. Slow and steady wins the race. There you go. Makes no sense. I'm willing to take one off the good people who say we need some question, so get thinking of your mantra. Yeah. Um You gotta enjoy it. You gotta smile if you possibly can. Yeah, and that actually does really help. Also, I talked to myself quite a lot in Rotterdam and I thought that's interesting because your previous self talk wasn't constructive. So previous races. And that's why I would say as much as you look a little bit weird when you do it, if you can speak out loud. If you're saying out loud in the middle of Rotterdam. Yeah, I went all in. So there was a section of the race where I was really I miss you, Rick. Yeah, there's just I miss you, Jess and Aubrey. I wish Rick and Sarah would just be a little bit more. Welcome to the final uh Ronnie Child podcast from the London Marathon. Andy Jessin Aubrey. Well our favourite guest presenter, Rick Kelsey, might not be a bad thing. Oh that's painful. Shall we move on to the Warhoo's Kicker run? Shall we? Yeah, we uh very recently put Rick to the the test on the Wahoo Kicker run. So for this one, Sarah's gonna step out and we've got a little video too. Let's do some musical chairs. Don't forget this episode is sponsored by On and their squad race, which we're excited to be travelling around the world to go to various different events together. Yeah, I'm really interested to see how I'm gonna fare going up and down, because I mean you're used to racing flat around a trap. How are you gonna deal with a spiral car park? It's up and down the spiral. Four person relay, two men, two women. We'll be running the On Cloud Monster 3 Hyper, which we're really excited about. So stay tuned to the running channel to find out how we get on with our adventures at the OnSquad Race. Let's explain what we're gonna do. Welcome to a question challenge. You versus us. We have some questions. You are gonna be running at around 10k pace. Every question you get wrong, the elevation will go up by 1%. Questions starting now. Question number one. Which prestigious tree lined ceremonial road does the London Marathon finish on? The mouth. Yes, correct. Oh, we don't even get to put it up. No! I'm glad we start on one percent. Okay, question two. What was Sarah's official marathon time in Rotterdam? Uh oh. Uh Oh, you carry on three hours. Yeah. 20 nine minutes. Oh no. 28 minutes. Too late. Put it up. Put it up, Sarah. Um it's actually important to talk about the fact that you do a lot of your running in North London very, very hilly as you bang out on about on the podcast. Hurry up! But the treadmill on the Wahu Kicker Run is doing an excell of increasing its incline now, but it also simulates the incline if you plug in a GPX whilst you're running, so you can do that on route. I'm turning on the fan! Friend of the channel, Jummer for McFly and Sarah's not so secret crush, Harry Judd will be running this year's London Marathon for the second time. Finish the lyrics. It's all Pixel AU Pixel. You baby! Which elite female athlete won the 2025 London Mathon in a record breaking time. Yes! Unbelievable! It gets pretty excited out on the London Mathon course. It's very exciting on the London Mathon course. Sarah and I just want to give you a little bit. of encouragement right you'll get out there but it can be a little bit distracting. You're doing so well! You're doing so well! Next question, Aubrey from the Running Channel repeated his seventh out World Major Marathon major as a Tokyo Marathon this year, earning a six-star finishers medal! Name all seven world marathon majors! In alphabetical order! Berlin! Boston! Chicago! Yeah! London! Yeah! Keep going. I can't think about the other ones. Sydney! Oh, there's one in America before that. Oh Sarah site. Alright. For God's sake. Let's talk about how that went. I think that was one of my best working days. I bet it was. You two loved it. One of our last working days before Aubrey and Jess. Maybe you'll be on the treadmill when they do that challenge. Well, they can squirt me in the face because that was the most fun thing that I've ever had. That's all of you. That's not me. That's all of you. Perfectly innocent. I was hydrated. I was hydrating. I'm excited for that to do the rounds. Wow. Should we bring him up? After that carnage, yes, we are gonna ask you, Sarah, to step out and we're gonna ask the amazing Mark from the Munning Channel, who's taking part in London this weekend as well, alongside Rick as part of Puma's Project Three. So let's get Mark in now. Woo! Woo Hello mate. Hello. I feel like it's like TFI Friday, isn't it? I'm coming down. How you feeling? Good. Yeah. Excited now, I think. Yeah. It's big, isn't it? It is big. Went to the expo today and then you kinda realise how big it is. And it's bigger than other expos, isn't it? 'Cause it's There's sixty thousand runners gonna be there, so it's huge. Yeah. But yeah. I've done it a few times. I've done lots of marathon, so I kind of know what to expect there. But yeah, I'm excited now. Yeah. And you're part of Humus Project Three, so quickly, what what is that? Yeah, it's a selection of three hundred athletes. I think it's about 200 for London, 10 for Boston, something like that. Who've been selected they're Faster Athletes, so it's sub three for men, sub three three fifteen for women. Yeah and they've been supported like elite athletes. So we get kit, we get support, there's an online community. Each week we've had different chats with different experts. Yeah, it's it's it's been really, really good. So you've had that kind of access. And you've been able to run with some of the athletes as part of that as well? Yeah, which is nice. You know, normally I run with you guys in the office, and you know Oh, so this is better. I get to actually run with really good people. Real athletes. Yeah. Um and your what's your goal? My goal is to beat your marathon time. Yeah. I mean you made no bones about it. So t your P right now is two fifty four? Two fifty five. Two fifty five. Yeah. So I I'm a mean for a big jump, I'm in for a leap. Yeah. This is not You know, a two minute P B, this is I'm looking for six or so minutes. We talked about setting star scary goals before on the podcast. Like does it feel scary? Are you excited? Like yeah, which side of the scary and excited line is it? It's in reach. Yeah. So I know that I have the ability to do it. It's just whether on the day Everything comes together because marathons are so hard, aren't they? You know? You just don't know what is gonna happen. Yeah, right. Marathons are so hard. Don't do that to me, mate. Okay, okay. So it's in reach, it's in reach. And there's lots of motivation to to kind of push on when things get really tough. Yeah. So you're two fifty five, you want to go under two fifty. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I really think I can get two forty. I think my fitness is two forty eight to two fifty two. I'm in that range. Are you working in miles or kilometers? 'Cause you're basically going bang on four minutes. Four minute case, yeah. Per kilometers. So far. Eight and a half. Eight twenty. Minute 5Ks in a row. But you eat more. You eat miles for breakfast though. Yeah, I've done a lot of money this year. I've been over a thousand miles this year. So I've trained for this race. Yeah. I mean you have it it's like I mean I'm not genuinely not doing this to Bash you wick. But it is it's like the opposite training plan. Ask him what his taper look like. I did a twenty eight K long run last week. So how many That's not a good idea, you know. And how many runs have you done over over over that twenty mile? I think I worked out oh over twenty miles. Or over thirty K. Um every week. So that's an unusual. Why did Sarah go off? I should have gone off. You're both running the marathon with different goals, different experiences. And yeah, in fairness, your your strategy is unusual, Mark, in terms of like not most most people wouldn't And there's very few training plans that would be running as many miles as you and as many long runs. But ultimately later in the year you're also training for a big goal as well, right? So it's all building up to trying to run I wanna say a hundred kilometers. What yeah, I I want to do some ultras this year. Yeah, I need to figure out. The focus right now is on this quality for the for the marathon. Exactly. And for me, I just think that the way that I train best is not with speed, it's with volume. So it's just Lots of long slow easy run. So like lots of the most of those runs are not fast. Yeah. Like it's hardly any actual fast run. Actually if I've lacked anything in my training, it's speed. But the volume is there. So I'm confident I can get to the finish line. It's just how fast I can get to the finish line. And we were joking I d uh Mark for for any new listeners to the podcast, or Mark writes all of the articles on the Running Channel website. Obviously a very accomplished runner, also writes about beer. And so you might have seen Mark on TV talking about beer. Next week, actually. Oh, there we go. A little plug. Yeah. Check, check. Sunday brunch next week, twelve o'clock. But you're also like it's a dangerous conversation in the office about various forms of technology. We were joking the other day, I was asking you what shoes so as part of project three, you have access to shoes from Puma's Racing shoes. So have you s we're four days out from math and have you chosen which shoes you're gonna wear? No. No genuinely, because both shoes are really good. And I went out this morning. So what's your what's your choice between So it's between the Deviate Nitro Elite Four and the Fast R Three. Yes. And they weigh the same, they're both super fast. I was watching people in Boston last week and I'm just trying to work out what the elites are wearing. And I thought well it seemed like a split. Yeah. The women are maybe wearing the D V eight. Whereas the men are e wh wearing the fast awesome. But actually that wasn't the case. So that didn't help me either. So then I changed my mind again. This is a luxury position. I know that's the privilege of being a Uh, they're under two hundred grams. Hundred and seventy grams. Wow. They're super light. And and the level of attention to detail from Mark is one, we've taken you up to a lab to do the full like carb oxidation test to work out how much carbs you're burning, how many things you could take in an hour and so on. But then I was talking to you about your running vest selection the other day. And out of nowhere you were like, Yeah. I had one vest, it was too heavy when I weighed it. So I got a new one and then I weighed that one, and it's about 100 grams and I'm okay with that. Like the silence in the room here. I don't know. I've never weighed my running vest. I love that, mate. It was when you you made the comment after that that I would carry two hundred and forty grams of carbs. Yeah. But I will weigh my vest. Yeah. But thing isn't it, when people change their pedals out for carbon ones or I genuinely hadn't ever thought about the fact that I carry two hundred and forty grams of carbs and that's two hundred and forty grams of weight. I almost think of it as like calories, which are not Almost tangible things that are carry around. You do get to shed that weight. Yeah, exactly. Uh in terms of like You're obviously consuming the jam. So like by halfway off of it's gone. Yeah. I might actually I didn't tell you this, I I might actually cut some of that stuff. Really? It's not to say weight, but it's a bit long. Yeah. So I might just trim the edge. You don't need the access. Oh, I love it. Best of luck, and um I'll wave at you when I'm going coming off to our bridge and you will be Yeah, I'll be heading for home. Yeah. Nice one. Nice one. Full conviction there as well. Not even gonna he wasn't even gonna give you like time of day on that. Mark Dredge, everyone. Um if you could have anyone in the world pace you for a marathon or for your next race, who would it be? It would be Kipchoge, and maybe it's too obvious an answer. I've never actually met him properly in person. And imagine being paced by the greatest of all time. That's who I would say. I mean I think it would be overkill having had a Kipchogee pace me. Don't do yourself a disservice. That would be his warm-up. Sorry. Brilliant. I don't know what my answer to this question would be. I would love it to be a phenomenal female athlete, no, with good chat. I think. I just want I would want the person to be really fun. Maybe like a really fast. Well, just fast enough to keep up with me. Female, maybe comedian, tell me some jokes or something. It'd have to be fast. I wouldn't say elite marathon runners are famous for their like comedy. No repartee. Well, I mean if we take you as our resident Olympian sample size of one. Yeah. You're hilarious. I'll choose to take that at face value. And Rick, who would you want an entourage of people to hold his phone, his GoPro, can you remember breaking two? Yeah. I think you'd like that like a full shot. You'd like the arrow of of people and the lasers and stuff. I'd want someone who was consistent and wasn't gonna you know uh go off track. Probably Sophie Rayworth, you know, from BBC News. Yeah. She runs loads of marathons and she's metronomic. Oh that's quite that's really unexpected, but quite a sense of it. Thanks very much. Next question. You're right, guys. Um I managed to get myself to the start line for the Southampton Marathon the week after you guys at London. And I know you don't listen to music when you're running, but I feel a bit lost in my taper. And I'm sort of getting everyone's choices um for tunes for my marathon playlist. So which tracks would do think I should add to my marathon playlist? Maybe one one each. The Last Man on Earth By by Rick Kelsey. It's available on Spotify or wherever you get your music. She do you what do you want the serious answer? Yeah what what would you listen to? If you had to listen to music. I just listened to some the campused 80s tunes possible to get me through it. I like right here, right now. Bridget Mendler, any song by her? Because did you know that she I don't even know who that is. Phenomenal singer. Okay. Apparently, I saw this on her Instagram post, so uh sorry if this is not true, but apparently she left the music industry and now is like really high up in space technology, I want to say. But there's a song Hurricane by Bridget Menburg. Such a tune. Banging. Thank you so much for coming. It's been absolutely ridiculous. It's been great fun. And if you're taking part in the marathon this weekend or any marathon in the next few weeks, have an amazing race. Can we just get a show of hands? Who's taking part in the marathon in the next few weeks? Doesn't have to be London. Huge best of luck. Yeah. Enjoy it. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here and for supporting us by coming to see us do this slight madness. Um we Absolutely love doing it. And as much as we're giving each other stick. I think we have fun. Now I'm a bit worried about it. Well me and Rick did. Yeah, we did, definitely. A bladder blast. I mean, I cannot wait to have a sip of something on Sunday afternoon. Well we'll be out there and go, mate, four days. We can't wait to celebrate with you. So we're rooting for you, we'll be out there supporting. Let's uh wish everyone, like you said, running the marathon and any any runs good luck. And come back next week to hear whether Andy actually made it out on course to support Rick, because how many times did you see Andy in his marathon? Thanks very much! Good idea. Yeah. This episode was sponsored by On and we are heading out to five of their different squad races. We are so excited to be taking on four by four relays, getting competitive against each other in loads of different locations around the world, going up and down different spiral car parks. It's gonna be epic. We'll be in the Cloud Monster 3 Hyper Super Trainer. I'm just really excited, Andy. I can tell. I'm looking forward to meeting amazing people all over the world, particularly to experience the run culture in each of those cities and see how that might be different to the way that we all experience running. So that's what I'm excited to bring to the running channel. We're gonna take you, the running channel listeners, with us on that journey. And we can't wait. So we're incredibly on. Stay tuned, head to on.com to find out more.