171: How Jonny Davies Built Confidence for the G1M Ultra

NOTE: This was recorded 4/9/26 prior to the G.1. M Ultra In this episode, I sit down with BPN athlete Jonny Davies 24 hours before the G1M Ultra to talk about ultra running, confidence, self-respect, and the work behind becoming the person you want to be. Jonny shares how running helped him rebuild his relationship with himself, why confidence is earned through action, and how journaling, training, nutrition, and discipline shaped his G1M prep. We also break down the backyard ultra format, fueling for endurance, the power of community, and why the process matters more than the finish line. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Intro 03:30 Lessons From Last Year’s G1M Ultra 07:04 Bad Days Don’t Define The Block 12:15 How A Backyard Ultra Works 20:56 Life Before Running 26:02 Choosing The Hard Thing To Heal 28:08 The Full Circle Moment With BPN 35:57 Why Ultras Strip You Down 39:47 Sharing The Journey With Purpose 47:55 Consistency Is The Real Goal 01:06:23 Building A Smarter Ultra Prep 01:26:51 Redefining Success Before Race Day FOLLOW JONNY: @jonnyrdavies ORDER MY BOOK HERE: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210 FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 25% off FOR LIFE ⁠ https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/collections/performance-nutrition IG: ⁠instagram.com/nickbarefitness/⁠ YT: ⁠youtube.com/@nickbarefitness This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal [health or profession] advice. Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) is not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. This podcast may not be republished without the written consent of Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN)

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Nick Bare?

  Okay, today on the podcast, we have Jonny Davies. Welcome, brother.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me on.

• 0:16Nick Bare?

  We are, at this point, wow, at this point, we are just 24 hours out from the G1M Ultra that you've been training for, for months now.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:30Nick Bare?

  How do you feel? I know you, I know you're physically prepared. Mentally, how do you feel?

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Great question. It's a, it's a surreal place to be in because this has been on my mind for the last like six months of preparations. And as much as the physical preparation to any race or any ultra, any challenge is so important. That mental preparation, the week or two weeks beforehand, I think is the big differentiator between those that succeed, those that fail, doing anything of this sort of scale. Um, it's been fantastic. I mean, one thing I've implemented this year heavily is my back of my training journal and just writing out thoughts and feelings and how I'm, how I feel like I'm progressing throughout my training block. And then to spend the last sort of week, two weeks, looking back at everything from November, when I started training for this onwards. It's been so great to see.

• 1:13Nick Bare?

  It's interesting.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15Nick Bare?

  What key takeaways over these last couple of months? Yeah, I think it's like, I think it's really cool that you've been documenting and journaling this.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23Nick Bare?

  Because it's one thing to document on social media, but there's also a performance aspect of documenting on social media.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:32Nick Bare?

  When you have a journal that is just personal, introspective, I think it's a very unique approach.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:39Nick Bare?

  What have you in reflection taken away from these last couple of months?

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Biggest thing, and you're right in saying, you know, when you're documenting on social media, it is, you know, you're thinking of how to, not necessarily create it, but like how to make it appeal more to an audience, whereas.

• 1:51Nick Bare?

  You package it up.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  You package it in a certain way, for sure. And you lose a lot of the nuance, you lose a lot of the level of like introspectiveness to it. Is. Confidence is an action, not a feeling. That's been the biggest, biggest part of this. You know, you don't feel confident and then go into something, you go into something and then you get gain confidence as a byproduct of consistency of hard work. And no matter how great a week of training has been, being able to put a line underneath it and go, right, once I've put those thoughts, those feelings back on onto the page, I'm kind of allowed to sort of separate myself from them. So whether a session was great, whether a session was terrible or average, I'm able to sort of pull myself away from those sessions. And that's been really nice because I think a lot of the time through previous training blocks for ultras, for challenges, I've held on to feelings of a, of a training session

• 2:35Speaker 01

  or of a great week or of a terrible week. And then that's sort of like you said, the bad blood bleeds through. And say I have a bad week of training or I'm not feeling too great. It's very hard to draw a line underneath that because I'm still sitting with the emotions or the feelings of it, especially as, you know, the race or the challenge is getting closer. And there is often an element of pressure that comes with that.

• 2:52Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  And that's self-imposed pressure, right? It's not, nothing external, but unless you're able to sort of take those feelings. And I think the best way to understand the feelings and emotions you often get through sessions is to put it on paper because you're immediately then getting it out of your body, getting it out of your head, separating yourself from them and understand, you know, I'm a big believer in you aren't your feelings or the person experiencing those feelings. So as soon as you can get them on paper, this allows you to understand them a little bit better. And also they can go, okay, that's there. Have the shower, park the feelings and you can kind of move on with the day and go, right, that session was great. Awesome. Let's move on. Or hey, that session was terrible. I felt awful throughout it, but I got it done. And that sounds to be proud of. And I can solidify that and then move on to the next job at hand.

• 3:30Nick Bare?

  Has that approach been different in this prep from previous preps?

• 3:33Speaker 01

  For sure. For the, for the gold ultra last year, it was a bit more chaotic. I still had some body issues from previous challenges from the year before that I was battling. And it was also the first time doing this format. So for me, it was much more, let's go out, let's go with the attitude of this is an experience. Let's see how far I can push myself. But also like this is, this is a new experience and let's take, let's learn from what goes on here. But I wasn't as dialed with that. I was carrying a bit more of the sort of the baggies that comes with the training block. Whereas this year, you know, I spoke to my coach after the race last year and he was like, hey, do you want to give this a go again? Or do you want to kind of move into something else? I was like, no, I really, there's so much I got out of it. But I really would like a good six month full training cycle to approach this with because I think I can really, it's, it suits

• 4:16Speaker 01

  me because the nature of the, the format where you, you know, you don't need to run too fast, run too hard. It's just a case of durability and you know, how long can you last for? That suits my nature quite well. So for me, it was like finish last year. Knowing I was like, okay, I believe I can do really, really well in this format and go a lot further than I did last year. Referring to 102 miles last year, which I'm super proud of is, you know, I felt wonderful to push myself in that heat last year to get to that marker. But at the same time, it was a case of going, okay, what do I want to get out of this training block? How do I want to see myself change that period? And where do I need to get to? What do I need to do? What's the work that's required to get there? And at the same time,

• 4:59Speaker 01

  just be very introspective of what that work is making me become. Because I'm a big believer, you know, the most important part of any training block isn't the outcome, isn't the medal at the end of the finish, the marathon finish line. The most important part is who you become in that process. It is that becoming, that time where you spend 99% of your time anyway, the habits, the skills, the disciplines, all of the things you're picking up and learning along the way, that's you becoming. That's what stays with you afterwards. You know, you finish a race, a marathon, you know, you wear the medal for maybe the rest of the day, but then you take it off, you put it somewhere, and you're not going to wear it again, right? But what stays with you is who you become through that process. And that's why I massively over-index, especially through social media, on the building, the process, how I'm training, how I'm holding myself accountable. And also like, who I'm becoming. Those hard training blocks, as you

• 5:43Speaker 01

  well know, they change you. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. But I think it's a really good case of knowing who you're becoming and where you're going with that training block. And a really great way to keep account of that is with a training diary and a training journal.

• 5:56Nick Bare?

  There's a lot to unpack there.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:57Nick Bare?

  My mind's going like a lot of different places.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Sorry, I kind of went on like three different tangents on that one there.

• 6:01Nick Bare?

  It's really good. It's sparked a lot of ideas in me personally. If I think about like the journey I've been on, and you've been on, and a lot of people, high achievers, go on as well. I think it's really easy to look at someone and either categorize them as that's a confident individual, and that's a unconfident individual. And what determines a level of confidence is trial and effort and failure and success. And I've gone into a lot of, you know, fitness preps, for example.

• 6:44Nick Bare?

  And I've called my shot in the beginning, knowing very realistically, when I called that shot, I did not have the confidence at that point in time that I could achieve that.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:56Nick Bare?

  And then you spend 12, 16, 18, 20 weeks working and through that time, confidence builds.

• 7:04Nick Bare?

  I remember when I was going for my, my last marathon, where I did C I M in 2023, I ended up running two hours, 39 minutes.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Which is a crazy fast pace, by the way.

• 7:17Nick Bare?

  I was really happy with that one. My, my, my goal for that one was sub 245.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 7:23Nick Bare?

  But three weeks, I think it was three weeks before that race, we were back in Pennsylvania, visiting family.

• 7:31Nick Bare?

  It might've been for Thanksgiving, potentially.

• 7:35Nick Bare?

  And I had a big workout when I was in Pennsylvania. I think it was like a, a four mile warm up, six miles at marathon pace and like a four mile cooldown, something like that. And I remember going to that first one mile of the tempo, didn't hit pace. Second mile got slower, third mile got slower, fourth mile got slower, fifth mile stopped. Last mile, I couldn't hit, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm about to go for this, this marathon goal in three weeks. I can't hold the pace that I need to hold for 26.2 miles for six miles, for one mile. And if I would have allowed that to get in my head.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:20Nick Bare?

  There's no way I would have been able to show up come race day and throw down. But where I learned that prep is you got good days, you got bad days.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:29Nick Bare?

  Hey, this is a bad day. I gotta recognize it and I have to figure out what went right, what went wrong. But after this day is over, let's just forget about it, move on, get back to the plan.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:43Nick Bare?

  And not allow that to erode some of the confidence that I built in the. 13 weeks leading up to that moment.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. I mean, that's, that's often the case. I see a lot of people is they'll have a bad session or a bad training week, or they're not hitting pace and not hitting mileage. And they just let that, it erodes all the, all the confidence in good ball they built in that, that training block. But again, whereas you, you know, reflecting on that session, that was a bad session, didn't hit pace. Cool. Line underneath it, leave it there. And then next thing you know, or three weeks later, you went and absolutely destroyed 245.

• 9:12Nick Bare?

  And felt great for the whole 26.2. You had good days, you got bad days. That's what's so unique about this race tomorrow is everyone's been asking me, who's going to win? How far is it going to go?

• 9:27Nick Bare?

  There's no way to know.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 9:29Nick Bare?

  You don't know who's going to have a good day, who's going to have a bad day. It's anyone's shot.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 9:35Nick Bare?

  Last year for the race, everyone was like, top five are going to be these people.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:41Nick Bare?

  The two people who ended up tying Kim McKendall, no one brought their names up. As we were talking about who's going to be the last person standing.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  For sure. They, hey, you know what? They, they both showed up so well. And again, sort of out of nowhere, to be fair though, well, I'll give them credit for it on the, when I was running, because you spend a bit of time with the people you're running with on the, during the race.

• 10:05Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  It was the two guys that ended up going that far, they were so kind to everyone around them. They weren't just focusing on themselves, they were supporting other people going. I remember immediately, I was thinking, Dan, these are both really nice guys. Like, I hope they do well. This is, this is awesome. You know, you, sometimes you'd be at ultras and you've got some guys who are just dulled in, they don't want to speak to anyone. They don't want to be a part of it. They just think about them, their race, their achievements. And whereas both of those two were super helpful. Like, there was a time, like, my head torch went out, Kendall's team shot me a spare one. Kim was being super helpful, talking about his strategy, how he was doing this, how he's done this, how he's done this. And like, very well supported. I always think how you conduct yourself in these things is also just as important as where you come. And how you do that. And like, how you're able to support other people doing these races is super born.

• 10:50Nick Bare?

  Yeah, because as much as you're on your own, you get to a point where you need other people to

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:56Nick Bare?

  to help you get to the next stage.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  That's why this format is so interesting because you spend more time with the people you're racing with than you do your own crew who are there to help you. You end up crewing each other on the course because you're all each other's pacemakers. You're all keeping each other entertained as well, you know, when you're out there for days at a time. You know, you want some sort of entertainment to pass the time away and, you know, chatting away, talking about how you're training, where you're at, especially when you go to those lonely hours in the night time where, you know, a lot of raw feelings are coming out doing something so monumentous.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  And you, you know, you're almost willing other people on to try and do well. You almost like you just want to support each other. I always say this, this format is not really a race until there's two people left.

• 11:31Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  And the whole time I was there, it didn't feel like a race. It just felt, hey, like, let's all try and help each other. Everyone kind of said to each other, hey, I'm trying to get to 50 miles. I'm trying to get to 100K. And the amount of times I was with someone, like, there's this guy, I can't remember his name, but he was running with me and he was like, I just want to get to 50 miles. It's a huge achievement. And I was chatting to him throughout the whole thing and he kept FaceTiming his son, who was within there because he's, they followed me on social media before. And he was like FaceTiming with me together and he's like, can you give my dad a 50? I was like, I'm going to get your dad to 50. And for me, that was so special. Yeah, that was, you know, look, I look back at the race last year. As much as it may, you know, would I want to go further? Yeah, for sure. But I was like, oh, man, there's all these amazing things that are happening at the same time.

• 12:05Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  I think when you've got a format like this where everyone has to spend so much time together, there are so many beautiful moments like that that occur. And it becomes more than just, hey, who could run the furthest?

• 12:15Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it's true. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the format of this race, do you want to briefly explain?

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Go for it.

• 12:21Nick Bare?

  what you're going into tomorrow?

• 12:22Speaker 01

  So tomorrow, the Goldmore Ultramarathons, backyard ultramarathon format, where on the hour, every hour, you run 4.2 miles or 6.7 kilometers for my European and British listeners.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  You have an hour to complete the course. You must be at the start line for the next lap at the turn of the next hour. So you can take as long as you want to do that 4.2 mile loop in. Run it fast and get more rest time. Run it slow and you get less rest time. You have to be at that start line for the turning of the next hour. Otherwise you are out. And the race carries on until only one person remains. Or in case of last year, a biblical storm comes through.

• 12:55Nick Bare?

  Yeah. Last year was like, we couldn't even make that up of how crazy that storm was.

• 13:04Nick Bare?

  I want to talk about your strategy of this prep. Year two, training, nutrition, fueling, recovery, all the things. But before we dive into this prep.

• 13:21Nick Bare?

  Let's set the stage.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:23Nick Bare?

  How you got to this point of your life, running these type of distances? Like what led you to this evolutionary path and transformation of not just your fitness, but your life as a whole?

• 13:37Speaker 01

  For sure, for sure. So I didn't come from a running background. I grew up playing rugby, boxing. Running was actually the, my least favorite form of exercise. I hated it. I was always a big kid. I'm big now, I'm six foot four.

• 13:53Nick Bare?

  What do you weigh right now?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Two oh two.

• 13:55Nick Bare?

  Two hundred and two pounds?

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. For reference, I used to be like two hundred and fifty pounds when I played rugby. So I was, I was big.

• 14:00Nick Bare?

  You are lean right now, dude.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  I appreciate it. Thank you.

• 14:03Nick Bare?

  You're ripped.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  I'm, I feel dialed. It feels good to be this dialed. I, I've worked again with a lot of my coaches to try and get down to like an optimal racing weight that we find works for us. If I go too lean, it impacts my recovery. But I want to get to a point, especially from racing hot conditions where body fat is an insulator. And you know, there's a, there's a certain level you want to get to. We've managed to very carefully dial that weight back without being too much of a deficit. So it doesn't impact my recovery. So I'm still, it feels weird being a deficit where I'm eating an ungodly amount of carbohydrates every day and like training really, really hard. It doesn't feel like I'm dropping weight day in, day out, eating crazy amounts of cereal before, you know, each session, but.

• 14:41Nick Bare?

  What are your calories at on average?

• 14:43Speaker 01

  About five thousand throughout this block. And I've been dropping weight at that. We had to slowly pull it down. But obviously as well, some days you're training three times a day.

• 14:51Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  When it's five, you know, when you're doing five, six hours of training on some days or doing simulation days, obviously we have to crank them right back up again. But it's been good. I've been really just really dialed in with just keeping track and keeping, keeping those scores up to date with nutrition, with weight, with body fat metrics. And that's fantastic. I love the data side to all this as well, because so much of it is in the data. You also have to separate the emotion from the data. Data is just. Just they're just the numbers associated with it and they're not assigning uh value to that from a personal perspective and a lot of people struggle sometimes with tracking calories or tracking their weight um and that's something that I for me it's been such a useful tool in order to take control of my own nutrition and my own um eating and there there's a there is often a fine line between eating disorders and

• 15:34Speaker 01

  structured eating. So I'm quite careful with that. I do like to take a little bit of time away after training blocks where I'm not tracking. I'm eating a bit more intuitively. The problem is when I eat intuitively, I eat everything. Like if I if I don't plan out my food properly and I don't eat like if I don't eat a decent amount of fibre of vegetables of like lean proteins, I will just eat everything. Like I love food as we've talked about before. So for me, it's like when I got when I've got like a food in my food item on my mind, I'm like, well, I'm I'm gonna find that today and I'm gonna eat that.

• 15:59Nick Bare?

  So would you say, I mean, it's a it's a very

• 16:04Nick Bare?

  important point that you just brought up.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 16:06Nick Bare?

  There are certain people who

• 16:10Nick Bare?

  can't lean too heavy into data because of the unhealthy relationship that the data provides. To be honest, I'm one of those people.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 16:19Nick Bare?

  Like when I go into a prep and I have all this data and I'm tracking my macros and all my mileage, my paces, my time, like I know, I'm very aware, I know that I can do that and it's gonna get me to a certain goal.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 16:33Nick Bare?

  But post-prep, I can't just flip a switch and transition out of it because it creates this unhealthy relationship with the data.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 16:43Nick Bare?

  Would you say that you have a very healthy relationship with the data and the numbers so that it doesn't consume you, it doesn't own you?

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. I would just I would just say it's it's it's scorekeeping, it's not direction. Whilst there's days where I need to sort of hit certain targets and whatnot, you know, obviously going off, there's there's elements to feel within. I'll speak to my coach and my nutritionist. And again, it's just understanding that my value isn't associated with those numbers in that in that data, you know, and it's just an important guide for me because I struggle intuitive eating. For me, like when I first found tracking and, you know, we'll get onto that, the the sort of journey through, when I found um tracking my macros and calories, I didn't find it obsessive. I found it was like, wow, this is a really good way for me to understand what I'm putting in my body. You know, it's not a case of Um, demonizing certain things or trying to starve myself. It's just a case of saying, hey, like, are there certain things I just need to put in my body these day for me to function, to perform, to recover. There's also maybe some of these other things I'm eating probably

• 17:34Speaker 01

  actually aren't that great for me to be putting in my body on a continuous basis, time and place and all that. Um, but when I started getting into, like, when I first lost a bunch of weight, like, twenty, twenty twenties, around those sort of times, that was down to the fact that I was able to track these things and just be accountable to something. And again, not being cruel to myself, not being mean to myself, which is saying, hey, I'm just gonna hold myself to a standard here. And I didn't have like an emotional, like, feeling towards that.

• 17:58Nick Bare?

  That's great.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Whereas some people I know do. And again, that's, that's not me saying, well, it worked for me, it's gonna work for everyone. It goes, hey, we're all different, you know, we all have different relationships with food. Sometimes there's a deeper emotional connection to food for whatever reason. Um, and also some people don't like the idea of a number controlling what they, what goes into their body. And I completely understand that as well. Um, but that's why for me, I think it's still healthy to just have a bit of time away from doing that.

• 18:21Nick Bare?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Um, I just be careful because if I go back to straight off, straight off intuitive eating, um, I will very quickly throw back weight on, um, which is the worst in the world. You know, that's why I'm, I'm not lean all year round. I'll go through periods of time when I'm building strength back again, that I'll gain a bit of weight and that's completely normal. Um, I quite like the fact that I, you know, it's past sometimes the year when I'm training something, I do get a bit leaner. Another part of the year, I'm a little bit thicker. I don't mind that too much. It's, uh, it's all right. But you, you can tell when I'm leaner because there'll be significantly more photos of me with my top off on Instagram.

• 18:50Nick Bare?

  Dude, I'm telling you, you're like, you are lean lean right now. It reminds me when I was in Ironman prep, like, I was lean, lean.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  You were dialed.

• 18:57Nick Bare?

  In Ironman prep. And, um, I, you know, my, my body doesn't like to sit there.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 19:04Nick Bare?

  It's not comfortable sitting at that, that light of weight.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 19:08Nick Bare?

  I think my body probably wants to get up to like two fifteen, two twenty.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Is that what feels like the best for yourself?

• 19:13Nick Bare?

  I'd say I feel the best at two hundred, two oh five.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:17Nick Bare?

  But based off of the foods that I'm drawn to. Now, I'd say I'm drawn towards like pizza and burgers, but I'm drawn towards fattier foods.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:28Nick Bare?

  Eggs.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:29Nick Bare?

  Nuts, nut butters, fatty meats. And I find avocados.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:35Nick Bare?

  If I consume a lot of fats naturally, I increase my weight pretty drastically. So for me to stay leaner, I just monitor pretty much my fat intake. And protein and carbs is pretty consistent.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I find that. I've never really been drawn too much to fats. I just kind of keep them quite low normally. I do for recovery periods, like go up a little bit, but for me, it's, you know, carbs are what I'm drawn to. So because of that, we're leaning to that. Great. Well, I need a lot of carbs to fuel what I'm doing and I like carbs. And it's just a case of like, as long as I don't go too crazy, because even if I have a high carb target with all that training I'm doing, I can still easily, quite easily go over that. So just by knowing where that number sits is great. And then I've never ever had a problem getting enough protein in. I love protein. If it was up to me, like breakfast foods would be eliminated. Cause I don't mind having like, you know, a rotisserie chicken for breakfast. I love that. It's fantastic. I haven't got to go straight into recession. The idea of having like meats at breakfast, I really like.

• 20:28Nick Bare?

  I'm the same way. Anyone who ever tells me they have a hard time hitting their protein goals. I'm like, I'm sorry, but I can't relate.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:36Nick Bare?

  I could easily eat 400 grams of protein a day.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Fly right over. Absolutely.

• 20:39Nick Bare?

  No problem.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:40Nick Bare?

  No problem. I have in my fridge right now, sitting leftover flat iron steak from last night. We made tacos.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  So good.

• 20:50Nick Bare?

  And I just want to go home and just say, crush 12 ounces of flat iron steak right now. But I digress. Prior to 2020.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:59Nick Bare?

  What did life look like for you?

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Um, I was in a bit of a tricky spot. So for a lot of the, that period running up to it, so graduated college 2014. Um, and I was out working, worked in financial tech for a number of years.

• 21:12Nick Bare?

  Thirty six years old?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Thirty three.

• 21:14Nick Bare?

  Thirty three.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Oh, Nick, you're killing me. Thirty six years old.

• 21:16Nick Bare?

  I got this number wrong.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Where'd you get that? I'm thirty, thirty three years old.

• 21:19Nick Bare?

  I graduated 2013. I'm thirty five. So I guess you graduated after me.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:25Nick Bare?

  Which wouldn't make you older than me.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  I did a three year undergrad, but I took a year gap year.

• 21:28Nick Bare?

  Okay.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  So there was, there was time out of that one.

• 21:31Nick Bare?

  Thirty three.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Thirty three. Thank God. Um, yeah. So graduated then and I've.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Always a great, my work fantastic, you know, very successful within my career in financial tech. And so on paper, things were very, very good. The problem I had was I had for the longest period of time, and it's something that I've come to understand a lot more as I've gotten older and have better perspective on things. I struggled for the longest time from teenage years into adulthood with liking myself. And that's something that it took me a lot of time to really understand that because from the outside looking in, I was a very fun person. Almost too fun because I would go out most weekends and just throw it down, work hard, party hard. And it was only looking back retrospectively that I'd realised that a lot of the time I would drink and I'd party was because I was trying to distract myself

• 22:21Speaker 01

  from how I felt about myself. And I had discipline in parts of my life with my career and my work, but very undisciplined in other areas. I'd still go to the gym, I still left, I still played a bit of rugby. I stopped playing properly at the end of college. But for me, the biggest challenge was liking myself. And this is something I know a lot of people resonate with because I talk a lot about it on social media, how the most important relationship you're going to have in your life is with yourself. And if that's not a positive one, life can be really challenging. And a lot of self belief, a lot of confidence is built upon that relationship you have with yourself where, you know, starts with self respect, and then downward of that is liking yourself. And as this very interesting period of time where two of my closest friends went to rehab. And it caught me out of the

• 23:03Speaker 01

  blue, the fact that they went. And, you know, I was obviously really happy for them to deal with these reasons, but I didn't realise they were struggling with something like that. And it took them both going through that for me to then realise thinking, okay, wow, like, they recognise there was some challenge in their life that they're dealing with. And it was my best mate, George, he said it best because he would drink and do a lot of drugs. And he was just a fun guy. Like, he was just, he was always just enjoying himself and I spent a lot of time with him. But he always said, you know, he didn't have a drink or a drug problem, he had a liking himself problem. He just did drinks and drugs to try and make himself feel better about himself. Yeah. And which works. It's actually a fantastic way in the short term to feel better about yourself when you're in, when you're in like an uncomfortable period of life. And that really resonated with me. Because I've never felt the urge in the middle of the day to

• 23:48Speaker 01

  be like, you know, I really want like five pints of beer. No, it's more of a case of if ever I felt I got caught myself in my own feelings about myself, I would. Want to go out and I wanna be social and wanna go drink and I wanna be like, right, I don't know, like I'm feeling, rather than sitting with it and confronting and understanding those feelings, I didn't really understand them, I would just go out and socialize and drink and distract myself through that way. And I did that because in the UK, we have quite a big drinking culture.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  And that's something that's pretty well normalized, but I think if you're, and again, there's positives and negatives with that, you know, the pub is a big part of our, you know, society and that's a, that's a real big society. And I love spending time at the pub. It's like our society's meeting place in the UK. But I think if you're in a difficult place and you're struggling with a lot of things, it's probably not the best thing to be doing because it is a big distraction. And it took my friends going through that period of time and then them really honestly talking with me about their struggles and their challenges to why they felt this way, for me to start reflecting on things that had happened in my life, my early life. Unless you know this, I left home when I was like fifteen years old. I had quite a bad falling out with my mum for this period of time. And from the age of fifteen onwards, I just kind of grew up straight away off that point. And that was something that at the time, I didn't realize how much of an impact that made on me.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  And I went from like literally being a child to, I'd just turned fifteen, I felt like I went from like being a child to literally being a full-blown adult. I had to then like commute from where my dad lived, like two cities over to get to my school still, to deal with all this stuff. And that always sat with me as something like, okay, like,

• 25:20Speaker 01

  it made me feel almost like a level of like not wanted, but at the time I didn't realize that because I was fifteen years old, you know, when you're fifteen, you're not really equipped to understand deep things like this. So that ultimately led me to, you know, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen period where I was like, started speaking to people about getting some help around that and looking at my behaviors. And whilst again, one part of my life with work was super successful, I was in so many other areas, especially in terms of my fitness or my discipline or how I would manage the relationships in my life with girlfriends or with my family or whatnot. I noticed that it was really poor on my side. And a lot of that was just down to the deep relationship with myself. That came from a lack of respect for myself. And I basically went to, went to seek some help around that.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  And I was in a very privileged position where I could go and do that. There's a lot of people out there on that sort of position, but I had great friends around me who had been through that process and were very supportive. And again, it just came down to a point of, okay, we need to do something every day where you can respect yourself. And Ironically, I picked running because I hated it. When you're playing rugby, running is like the punishment in the sport. If you miss a tackle, if you drop the ball in training, you have to go run to the post and back as fast as you can. So for me, I was always like, I hate running. So I picked the thing I hated the most. And for me, that was running. There was distance running, something that I was naturally never good at, being six foot four and big, you know? So I thought, you know what? Why don't I do something that is the one thing I can't stand doing and challenge myself with that?

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Because for me, that was the ultimate, like, almost like a bit of a, can I square on this? Yeah. Almost like a bit of a fuck you to like an older version of myself being like, oh, you hated running? Fuck you, we're gonna do some running. And there's a certain irony in that that makes me smile. So I just would start going out every day. And no matter how I felt about myself that day, if I was ever in my feelings where I was feeling a bit, whatever, you know, not great about myself, instead of trying to distract myself with, going out drinking, going out, distracting myself, I would put my shoes on and I'll go out and be like, right, time is set for 30 minutes. I'm gonna run the entire 30 minutes, but I've got to be outside for 30 minutes. Once I'm outside, I'm like, well, I might as well try and run. And I used to do this at night time because I was embarrassed about how I looked when I ran. And that's like, people talk about getting into running now and they're a bit like, oh, I'm worried. Well, people will think like, I used to do this at 10 o'clock at night in the pitch

• 27:35Speaker 01

  dark, so no one could see me running because no one told me how to run. I was just, I was just a big dude running. I thought people would be, I don't know, I thought people would judge me for it. Not, this is, this sounds completely bizarre now, but that's my thought process at the time. And, and I would do this every day and no matter how bad I felt about myself each day, I always had the evidence there that I did something kind to myself, that I took myself outside, I moved my body, I ran, even if I could bear, even if I could run for two minutes, walk for one minute. And that was the basis of respect that I gave for myself. And from that, it built forward. Something I never told you this, by the way, during that period of time, I started like, because I didn't have any friends running, well, who were in the running world. I had to like make do with books or YouTube videos and I was going through my saves the other

• 28:18Speaker 01

  day on my notes of well videos that have always stuck with me and there's something I came across you recognize this video sub six minute mile at two twenty five pounds.

• 28:28Nick Bare?

  Oh yeah.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  That was in my saves.

• 28:29Nick Bare?

  I can tell you right now what the thumbnail looked like.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, can you remember that one? Yeah, this so this has been in my saves ever since then. So this is a period of time, those of you can't see this, I put to the camera here. This is a video from I believe twenty nineteen where you were running around a track.

• 28:42Nick Bare?

  I remember filming that one.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, seven years ago.

• 28:44Nick Bare?

  Yep.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm that that video stuck with me. I remember watching that for the first time it came out.

• 28:48Nick Bare?

  Why do you think? Why that one?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Two twenty five, you're big. It was it was the first time I'd seen someone who was looked more like my size, more my stature and but was doing was pushing themselves in running. I remember thinking six minute mile and obviously I wasn't kilometers. So I was like, at the time I ran in six minute kilometer. I was like, oh, I can do that. Obviously I realized like mile, mile, mile pace and kilometer pace are very different. But I remember seeing that and that's why it's really special being here now and being a part of BPN and being a part of the team, being part of the ultra, being on your podcast, because a huge part of that journey for me was the videos that you were putting out back then and they sat with me and they stuck with me.

• 29:28Nick Bare?

  Hmm.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  And so I just want to say like this is this is that's why it's like it's a really meaningful thing for me to be here and like it's a genuine pleasure not to be on the podcast but to be involved with BPN like that. When that came through, that was a really special thing for me because it was like such a full circle moment from when I was going through that tough time and I wanted to make a change and I didn't have I had great friends around me but none of them ran. I was like, hey, I'm trying to do this thing of running. I want to try and push myself here and the one of the biggest sources from that was yourself.

• 29:54Nick Bare?

  I appreciate that.

• 29:58Nick Bare?

  It's really easy from like a creator's perspective to forget that there's people on the other side of these videos.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:06Nick Bare?

  That, you know, you spend so much time talking to a camera and filming and editing and working on and you see the views, you see the comments, but.

• 30:16Nick Bare?

  When you actually then experience the impact those videos created and

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:21Nick Bare?

  Change the trajectory of people's life, that responsibility is, it's heavy.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:26Nick Bare?

  And means a lot. So I appreciate you sharing that.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  No, of course, of course. I just, I was going through, like, I keep journals and notes of everything. So I was going through this preparation of the podcast. I remember there was a video in there on one of my notes and I pulled that up there. But I remember that. I remember, remember where I, I remember the run I tried to do after I watched that video. And how I was very slow, didn't manage to run a sub six minute mile for reference. But no, that was good. And that's where it started from. So 2019 was where I really started to consistently run.

• 30:54Nick Bare?

  I was gonna ask, what was the running culture like in the UK? At that point?

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Wasn't, you know, it was existed, it was more fringe. It was, you know, there's always, the UK's got a strong history of running and runners, especially from an elite standpoint. A lot of run clubs that are club runners. And so these are guys who are running, you know, insanely fast 5Ks, elite, we've always had a really good standard of elite running because cross country is a big thing in the UK.

• 31:20Nick Bare?

  And they look like runners.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  They look like runners. Yeah. There wasn't many people six foot four and like 240 pounds running around. I can say that was true, but during that period of time, I was, I was, I was progressively getting, getting better. And that was really exciting to see. Seeing, seeing that progress was a really wonderful thing for me to see. Cause again, you know, I'd go out every day, whether it is five minutes of 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it was. And then it started building up and then COVID happened. And the really beautiful thing was I'd never done a race before COVID. Cause I was just running, I didn't care, I didn't particularly care about a marathon or a distance or a race. I was just trying to do something to show myself a level of self-love and self-respect. So that was, that's what was in it for me. It was never about an outcome. It was never about saying, you know what? I want to go run a marathon. I didn't really care too much.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  I also felt like I wasn't included in the running space because of the, how I looked, my size. So it was just something I did for myself. And then COVID happened.

• 32:11Nick Bare?

  And at this point, you're not documenting your life on social media.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  I started documenting my life on social media in like 2022. I, this is, there, there is like years of, of working before I got to the point where I was comfortable enough to start sharing this. And I was also used to working full time as well at this period and it was.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Covid happened. All races were cancelled anyway, so there was then even less pressure to try and do anything from that standpoint.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  And so I would just start going a bit further. I want to say, okay, well, I wonder what like what 20K feels like on the body. I remember the first time I ran 20K and I remember like how bad I felt the next day. Because again, my understanding of nutrition around running was was pretty poor. The point. So I was just not eating enough to recover these sessions. But my weight was incrementally dropping down. I was still also playing rugby at this period of time. I joined a new club in London and I noticed that my fitness was just improving constantly because I was running on the side. My ability to run through the games was was so much better. I was still strength training significantly, but my weight was down from like two, I think 250 at peak, down to towards like two, probably at 230 now. And but I was just able to move over the pitch so much faster. And it was great. I was like, wow,

• 33:20Speaker 01

  this is a, this is special. And it got to a point where I was, you know, running in the mornings and a rugby train in the evening, then have games on weekends. And the rugby was starting to get a little bit in the way because, you know, you're taking hits constantly. So there one, one's a very intense set of running. The other one is obviously distance. And they weren't really sort of fitting together. And it got through, got through Covid. And during that period, I started reading about ultramarathons. And there was something about it that spoke to me. There's something about it that when I was, I remember when I was 17, I read a book by a guy called Mark Beaumont, if you ever know who he is.

• 33:52Nick Bare?

  I don't think so.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Ultracyclist. He solo, I think age like 19, he solo cycled around the world and like 200 and something days. And he recorded on a camcorder. And the BBC picked it up and turned it into like an eight part documentary series. I remember watching that. I remember reading his book first, then watching, watching the documentary. And I was amazed at not only the feat of endurance, but how he was able to communicate his own feelings, his own development, travelling. At the time, he had to go, I believe he had to go through like Afghanistan, Iran, places like this. And he's just him on a bike.

• 34:23Nick Bare?

  Oh, wow.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  And he's self filming it all there, you know, cycling across the entire outback of Australia, cycle across America. Like it was Paris to Paris was the entire route. And I remember watching this thinking, wow, like. The the the upper limit of human possibilities are incredible. And people are, you know, people can do some really crazy things out there. But also his ability to um share that experience through the cam through the camera and through his book. It all that always stuck with me as well. And so I was always fascinated by ultra endurance events where cycling, running, like not to do them, but just like the sheer like, you know, the the the spirit of the human, what what people can do do and achieve when they put their mind to something. And I was going through a period and there's lots of I started reading more books about people who commit ultra marathon, these crazy races. And um I thought, you know what, why don't I now now that COVID sort of comes in and then races come back on?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  What's the nearest ultra marathon I can find? And there's a hundred K, the Thames Park hundred K from Putney in London, which is like at the time I lived like a mile from Putney, which is really convenient um to uh all the way to Henley on Thames. So a hundred kilometers of the River Thames, you're all the way up. And it was super flat as well. So it's like quite a nice hundred K to go into. And um I just started training for that and I just started going a bit further distances. I ran like a marathon in training and that was a really cool moment. That was five years ago last week. I got the um my friend of mine who I ran it with, she just messaged me, been like, happy fifth, fifth marathon anniversary, because this is her first marathon too. Which is so nice to so nice to be able to do and share together. And it just progressed on from there. And um I decided dialing my nutrition in, having a much better understanding of nutrition, what I need to eat, what I need to not eat,

• 35:53Speaker 01

  how to manage my calories, how my strength training is going to change this now. And I remember doing that hundred K and I remember it was the first time I'd done a run that I had stripped so much emotion back during these things. And you know, it's like running ultra, you get so fatigued and so tired that the walls we often put up day to day to kind of protect ourselves or protect our sort of inner voice sometimes. It kind of all fall down. And I would feel it's like you put you're basically putting yourself in such a vulnerable place physically and emotionally. You often will explore certain thoughts and certain feelings that we often sometimes just trying to distract themselves from, especially as men. I often find it a lot hot, a lot. This resonates more with with uh with men, just like we do kind of bottle a lot of things up more so than women.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Big bit of generalization there, but for the sake sake of it. Um and that's something I feel really true about myself, like I'm not always the best day to day. It's talking about how I'm feeling or expressing, I'll journal it down, but I don't often put it out there to people around me.

• 36:51Nick Bare?

  I actually just listened to a podcast talking about this.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:54Nick Bare?

  And. I had Bailey.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:58Nick Bare?

  O'Brien on the podcast yesterday and I had this in my notes, but we just didn't get to it. So that'd be a great way to add this in now, but I was listening to this podcast. It was called intentional fatherhood. And it was talking about how we as men feel this responsibility to bear a large burden.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:18Nick Bare?

  In life. So like things that we are feeling, things we are experiencing.

• 37:24Nick Bare?

  We feel this responsibility not to put ourself in the victim position.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:30Nick Bare?

  And just like bear it and hold it.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  And just crack on.

• 37:33Nick Bare?

  And keep it in and just like keep moving forward. And I think that is a responsibility that we as men were actually provided and created to bear, but we need the appropriate outlet.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 37:47Nick Bare?

  To have the conversations with guys to.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:52Nick Bare?

  Release it.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And again, like I'm, I'm very fortunate in, in the sense I have some very, very close male friends. I'm super close to my dad and like, I will talk about a lot of these deep things at the right time and at the right moment. However, sometimes I find it hard to even understand those feelings myself. I'll, I'll be so, I'll be so bored about them that I won't even think about them all that much. But when I'm doing ultras, the layers come back and I'll be sitting there and I'll, I remember that hundred K, the last 20 K, that hundred. Cause the whole rest, the whole first AD, I was like, this is fantastic. I'm having a great time. It was gorgeous. It was a gorgeous, like sunny September day. Beautiful weather. You go through some of those beautiful parts of England as well. I'm having the best time and that last 20, it all really hit home and I'd so much have been stripped back and I was like, oh wow.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Like I was, at the time as well, my cousin was um, terminally ill with cancer and it was, that was, that was really weighing on my mind. I always, I felt really, I really don't understand how to, how to deal and feel that. And so that was all going on at the same time. And I remember that last 20, I started really feeling it properly and not also not trying to understand my feelings. I think sometimes we can try and over, you can't outsmart feelings is what I often get told. And I'm trying to like, I try and think, I outthink them, I understand them and sometimes you just gotta feel them. I remember that and it was like first time in years I started like pulling my eyes out on a run. I remember the guy I've been running with most of the time who'd been like getting a house on fire and he's like, everything okay? It's a giant bloke just running like tears come down on fire, mate. But it's, it's a really, that's why there's almost beauty in these ultras, because it strips you back. It doesn't matter how big or tough and strong you are, running for that, for that far a distance

• 39:20Speaker 01

  makes, it forces you to be vulnerable because you're physically, you physically are vulnerable. And I remember crossing the finish line of that and I was like, wow, that was a release. Like I got a lot of that off my own chest. I wasn't talking about it. I just sat with those feelings and emotions. And I remember finishing that thing and like, okay, if I can run a hundred K, I can, I know, I know I can run a lot further than that. Cause you know, I finished it and it wasn't, it wasn't destroyed. It was, it was, it was the first time hitting that distance, but I was like, a few years went past, a few weeks went past. I was like, okay, I'm, I'm excited for this. And that's when I started really sharing content. Cause I was like, I didn't want to just make content about running because whilst there's lots of people who make great content about, about running, who are way more qualified than I am to talk about running or coaching, all this kind of stuff there. And I didn't want to become a running coach, you know, I was more interested in

• 40:03Speaker 01

  how I've used running as a tool for self-respect and, you know, which ultimately led to, you know, becoming someone that I really like and I, I respect. And then there's a much more deeper use of it. And that's kind of what I wanted to show through my journey. And that's when I started getting into going like, okay, well, I'll start, start around that period of time, making content. I started on TikTok because I don't want to share on Instagram because my friends won't know. Um, but then once that started getting, getting steam, my first brand partnership came along, Lou Lemon, who being fantastic partners, you know, three years into that relationship and about to carry on with that relationship.

• 40:31Nick Bare?

  Very great first partnership.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  First one. Yeah. No, first one was a full ambassador. I, I had, I had a few offers coming through, but they weren't, they weren't massively aligned in lots of things. They were just trying to say, hey, we'll pay you this, this. I was like, of course, again, previously I was coming from, I'm working in a, a very good job. So it wasn't as if I was, I was, you know, need, need the money, but like, at the same time, I was like, I only want to sign with partnerships that I care about, that want to support me what I'm doing, that understand who I am and what I'm trying to achieve and understand that for me, the biggest impact isn't about how much I can make from this, it's about how many people I can help. Who can I help on the way of me doing these big things, these big goals? You know, that for me is important is who you can bring along the way, inspire, who you can lift up. That for me is really important. Cause all I want to give me is trying to go and achieve big things. If I don't help other people up with me along the way,

• 41:15Speaker 01

  then it's not about that. It's not, it's not worth it for me. And they were the ones who understood that. And they said, okay, we believe in you. Here's a year contract. We believe in you. And they, they said, what do you want to do? And I was like, you've got a great idea. I've always had this idea since COVID. During COVID, I've often cycled to my cousin's place. He lived in North London, I live South. And during COVID, London was completely like shut down. So I would cycle the tube lines to get from where I lived at the time, a place called Ballyham in South London, he lived up in Highgate North. And the Northern Line, which goes right the way through, I would cycle along the Northern Line. London, by the way, is massive. So you're trying to understand London. You understand it on the underground because you just appear in these different places, but above ground to contextualize it, it was quite a nice way for me to learn where actually everything was in London. And I remember going there thinking like, it's kind of cool to run between all these stations

• 42:00Speaker 01

  at one point. And I just kind of had that sitting in the back of my mind. And when they said, do you have any ideas for projects this year? And I go, yeah, I've got this really cool idea. I want to run the entire length of London Underground. It's like 572 kilometres is the total distance, about 350 miles. They would say, sorry about my conversions. Most of the listeners here are American. Most listeners here are American and probably don't understand what I like, don't know what the commentary is. Everything's in miles. So when I'm in America, I try and use miles as much I can.

• 42:24Nick Bare?

  I appreciate that.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  No, of course, of course. It's a, yeah. So about 350, 350 miles. And I said, hey, listen, I'm going to do a different tube line each day. And I'm going to do it for, there's a mental health charity called CALM, the Campaign Against Living Misurably, wonderful organisation in the UK. They are sort of leading the fight against suicide and helping people in crisis. Because for me, it's, I was able to get the support I needed because I had a very close network of friends around me, supported me and cared for me. I had the financial resources to seek help when I needed it. A lot of people aren't in that position. And I think it's well and good me say, hey, I pulled myself out of my bootstraps and got myself out of the situation. I rely on support from other people. And not everyone has that same support system. So I wanted to find a charity partner who could, who provides that support and raise not only money for them, but awareness around their

• 43:09Speaker 01

  services for people who needed it. And that's what I said, that was the goal. And I wanted to raise, I think 40,000 for them in that first challenge. And we went out with that being the goal. And I just started documenting to the journey of, hey, I'm going to trade this thing. It's a wild distance and it's day in, day out. It's 11, 11 tube lines of London, 11 days in a row. And I wanted to do it and get as many people out running with me as possible. So we had a campaign alongside of it with Lululemon where anyone who ran their commute to work that week, they would get like entered into competition into a draw. And we've got 10,000 or people to do that over the course of the week.

• 43:42Nick Bare?

  That's incredible.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  And then I had a few, I had a live tracking device on me. So the entire 11 day process, I was never running it alone. There was always people with me because they had a map of London. And wherever I was that day, people could just come and find me. The best part was they could just go to the next tube station and get a train there. And I would run past them. They'd join in. So that for me was, it was really special because it was less about me trying to do, achieve a big endurance goal. It was, hey, If I can do this, you guys can do this. I want more people involved. And it was one of the most special, deep, meaningful moments of my life completing that because, you know, we had the last day, hundreds of people coming, running with me and finishing up in the centre of London, the end of, or the middle of the central line. And the same crew of guys I've got who are moving that challenge, my physio Adrian, Tommy, my coach, and Nick, my buddy, they're coming out of this race too.

• 44:26Nick Bare?

  Incredible.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  They've been in every single challenge still. And it's so like, so special to have those guys with me. And that's why they went with me last year because this timing's a bit different. I was, I was just feeling this format. But now this year, I said, hey, guys, I'm gonna go for it this year. I'd really love if you guys could be there. And so that was it. So that was the first progression into these multi-day big challenges. And I think with a big challenge, there's got to be more to it than, hey, I want to go set this record. Hey, I want to go see if I can do that. That's, that's great. And that's noble. And I love that. But I think there has to be a deeper meaning or reason why you want to go put yourself through something. And yeah, this is just my own take on these things. I love seeing it when people are doing a big challenge to raise money for charities, something that's meaningful for them, something that matters to them. And they want to try and do it in a way that lifts, lifts other people up. You know, it's, you know, you don't climb the mountain for the world to see. You climb the mountain to see the world. It's really

• 45:12Speaker 01

  important that, you know, the reasons behind doing something are just important as the achievement itself, in my opinion. So for me, it was when I want to do a big challenge, like that multi-day ultra or a big, big event, almost like an adventure for me, there has to be more to it than saying, hey, I just want to, I don't want to do it. So I've said I've done it. I want to do it because two things. One, what it will make of me to do it. I know that training for this is going to be crazy. It's going to be wild. And it's going to force me to be better in lots of different ways. It's going to force me to have, you know, improve my discipline, improve my attitude towards training. Make me more organised. There's one of the other things as well. I'm not sure if you noticed this, that the more you train, the more organised you have to be.

• 45:47Nick Bare?

  Absolutely.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  You have, it's not a case of going like, oh, you know, I've got this session tomorrow. It's, I have this session tomorrow. I start at 6am. It has to get done at 6am.

• 45:55Nick Bare?

  Absolutely.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  There's no other way. There's no bandwidth the rest of the day for me to do this in. Otherwise, it's gonna fuck up the whole day. You then start to holding yourself to a standard. I think that's what, you know, when you talk, you talk about set the standard, hold the standard. That's what it resonates with me. It's like, hey, I said I'm gonna do something. I gotta go and do it. And that, then you build that trust within yourself. And that's a huge, huge, huge way to build self-trust, self-respect, and.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Self-belief as well, and that's huge. And I think that's one of the things, big things running teaches you and training teaches you is that building of self-esteem doesn't just magically happen, it happens through repetitive evidence building. And over the course of now for me, years, it's got to the point where I can, you know, be really confident about myself. I can, you know, have a high level of self-belief when I say, hey, I'm gonna go do this thing. Hey, I'm gonna go start this channel. Hey, I'm gonna start training for this thing. I know if I say I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. And that matters a lot to me.

• 46:46Nick Bare?

  I love that you commented on the organization. Because I don't think a lot of people give credit to these preps and these challenges. I think a lot of people are actually confused why they actually do a lot of these challenges. They don't even know why they're pursuing these challenges outside of vanity.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 47:08Nick Bare?

  But if I think about what I've learned the most from a lot of these preps, not even just preps, but goals that I've gone after, I've learned how to be very organized, very efficient, very committed, especially as life responsibilities have increased. Tomorrow morning, just like you said, I have to start my run at 4:30 a.m. Because if I don't, I'm gonna cut into my kids waking up, I'm gonna cut into getting Charlie to school, I'm gonna cut into my first meeting. It's either I run at 4:30 a.m. or I run late at night when the kids go down. And it teaches you, I say I'm

• 47:49Nick Bare?

  gonna do this one thing, I'm gonna do it. There's no if, and, or, but, I'm gonna do it. So what is the purpose of this year's G1M Ultra for you? What is the deeper meaning?

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Deep meaning for me was consistency. I wanted to really level up my consistency with, that's not just consistency of training, it's consistency of everything, of how I was showing up for my work, for content, for the business I'm involved within, like all that I wanted to be. I've often felt like I'm a bit peaks and trough kind of guy. I'm all in for a period, then I gotta pull back and then you know, up and out. I wanted to say, hey, you know, I would like to, in order to have a great sustained output on most things in my life, you've got to be consistent. You want to have a great relationship, you have to show up consistently. You can't show up massively and you know, for a period of time and then have a massive pullback. Um, fortunately, not how life works. So for me, it's consistency. So I made a deal with, you know, for the train block, I run every day. It's just, that's the

• 48:44Speaker 01

  rule. And there's no negotiating that. And to be fair, as soon as I agree that with myself, it's felt like the easiest thing in the world. I just wake every day, goes, cool, I gotta run. And that's it. Whatever time, whatever time the alarm goes off, great, 10 minutes later, I'm running. And that's just been a rule I've set myself this year. Even to the point this week, when like my coach, like, you don't really need to run this week, you're about to run there. Then I was like, I'll go out for 10 minutes. Or whatever. This morning was 15 minutes, just a 3K, just something. So I can say, hey, I've done it. I made myself a promise. Um, it's ironic because I'm not a big fan of people who do run streaks all the time. But at the same time, I know I've now become that person. I'm like, damn it. But it for me, it was just to really hone in on that level of consistency. Shows you what you can do. It shows you, it's so weird that so many times we create excuses in our own lives for certain things we do. And you know, a lot of the

• 49:28Speaker 01

  time, it's just our self negotiating and we justify certain things in our lives. So, you know, this is this. But you just did tomorrow, what time did you run, 4:30?

• 49:35Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. You've got a lot on at the moment. I'm aware. Like you've got family, kids, responsibilities, the race is on tomorrow, starting in midday, work meetings, like that's, uh, you could very, you know, you could very easily make the, make the argument of yourself, hang on Nick, I got a pretty serious day here. Yeah, I should probably, you know, maybe just not worry about that run and just focus on family, then focus on this, focus on this. But if you say, no, no, um, consistency.

• 50:00Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  I'm up. There's no negotiating.

• 50:02Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I know what that's gonna do for my day.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:04Nick Bare?

  It's gonna set my day up for success.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 50:07Nick Bare?

  I'm not gonna have to try to squeeze it in later.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:10Nick Bare?

  I got a question for you.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Go for it.

• 50:14Nick Bare?

  A lot of people say they pursue a lot of goals and challenges and pursuits, races, preps, because they wanna reach their full potential.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 50:23Nick Bare?

  What are your thoughts on that? Do you think

• 50:27Nick Bare?

  they actually wanna reach their full potential, or is it something a lot of people just say? And I share that to say that I've said it before.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:36Nick Bare?

  And I don't know if I actually believed when I said that. I think that I used to say I would do these things to reach my full potential, maybe just to justify why I was doing these things. I'm not saying there's a right or wrong, but I'm just, I'm curious your thoughts.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  I think it's an easy out. I think saying to reach my full potential is a bit of a

• 50:58Speaker 01

  I think there's always, there's always more to it than that, right? There's always more potential than what? Are you willing to reach your full athletic potential? Your full like life potential? What potential are we talking about here? Um, no, potential is just, you know, we all have potential. It's the doing it that makes a difference. If, if, if, if I had this, if I did this, it doesn't matter. You either do it, you don't do it. Um, to reach my full potential, I don't think I've ever really said that, but I can imagine. I've heard it a lot of times and hey, you know what? I think sometimes it can be a bit of a shield for someone to say as a way of, they maybe have a real genuine reason behind something, but maybe they just they wanna try and protect that a little bit.

• 51:30Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  And I think it's, it's an easy way to do it. And I don't, I'm not one to criticize or judge anyone for when they say their reasons behind doing it, because a lot of the time, these, these things have very deep meanings to people and they may not wanna just put that out there. And so I do appreciate and respect that, but I think full potential looks different to everyone as well. You know, I think what, what, some people wanna just have a life that's not too stressful and they're happy. And that for them, that's for living at full potential. Some people want the stress, they want the responsibility, they want the pressure. And for them, that's living full, fully, with their full potential, because they know, hey, I think I can operate at that level. I think I can, I think I can do this, and I can do this, and I can do this, and I can do this. And I wanna find out if I can. And that, that's true as well. They're all, they're all true statements, you know?

• 52:12Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 52:14Nick Bare?

  I think we go through different. And again, I will reinforce what you just said, like, there's not a right or wrong.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 52:23Nick Bare?

  But as I've moved through different seasons of life and I believe I've matured and gained some wisdom. Cause I was someone that once said, like, I do these things to reach my full potential.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:34Nick Bare?

  And now as my life looks different in terms of leadership and family and being a father and a husband and the man that I want to be. I can't imagine being on my deathbed, being like, yeah, Nick, you did it. You ran the two thirty nine marathon. You did it. You ran the hundred miles.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  You're just, your family's over there. You're looking at the medals being like, we did it. We did it. Yeah.

• 52:58Nick Bare?

  And like, I was thinking about that on a run a while back. Yeah, it does feel a little silly.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:05Nick Bare?

  At this point. But I think it's part of growing and just maturing and wisdom and.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 53:11Nick Bare?

  Uh, I just wanted to get your take on it because I, I can tell by this conversation, like, there is, you have so much intention. I've always respected the way that you approach these preps. There's so much intention and strategy. And I'm seeing this, uh, healthy, emotional relationship to the prep, which is, it's very unique. It's very rare.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 53:38Nick Bare?

  Very rare. And I can tell the, the reason, the meaning behind these preps is very personal.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 53:46Nick Bare?

  And it's very unique. And to be honest, like, in the space that we're in, the fitness industry, I think you'd probably be surprised how rare it is for someone to have that mindset and approach, a very healthy, uh, mature approach to what you're doing. I really respect that.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  I really appreciate that. Thank you.

• 54:09Nick Bare?

  Really respect that.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  No, I think, I think, I think it's a point, I think, as you pointed about earlier, when you have a following, when you have a level of responsibility to an audience, you are, I, I think, I think you should be very conscious about the whys behind doing things. I don't want to, if, you know, if I'm being an example to people, especially younger people, because that's one thing I, I really do, I really do focus on is like, who, who is that fifteen year old that I was watching my content? Who's making a decision in life and maybe isn't too happy with where they're at in life? Like, what? How should I approach this from the perspective of showing that to them? If I'm out there being like, yeah, run a marathon every day and do this, this, this, you know, I don't think that's the wisest thing for me to influence someone, someone to do there.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  I think the important thing is to improve, obviously, fitness is a fantastic tool and a way of improving your relationship with yourself, with those around you, your friends, your family. It's a wonderful thing, but I think sometimes also people can misuse fitness. You know, people can use, it's like they say, discipline without self-love is a form of self-harm. And that's really stuck with me because there've been times when I felt maybe I've gone a bit too hard in my training and I'm really pushing it because I'm maybe distracting myself from feeling, as opposed to understanding my feelings and emotions and opposed to, you know, doing something because it's a healthy way of showing off myself and as a sign of self-respect and self-love, it can almost be a sign of self-punishment. Yep. I'm very careful about that because I think there is a toxic side to fitness that often isn't overlooked

• 55:31Speaker 01

  because the toxic side can often lead to incredible outcomes for people and incredible results for people. And especially when, you know, people go from race to race to race to challenge, challenge, challenge, you know, from event to tournament to this, it can be, whilst it's really cool and good for engagement for lots of people on social media, it can create a bit of a trap for lots of people. And I do, I do worry that that sets a bad example sometimes. That's why I have a massive emphasis on taking time off afterwards. I've got a month where I've got no formal training after this race. I'm just gonna let my body sit, let my body rest. I'll casually train for a month before I, you know, go and have a, again, make sure everything's checked out, make sure things are good, make sure I'm healthy, make sure I'm sleeping well, make sure that, you know, I feel good.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  We'll do some baseline testing with my, with my coaches to see where we're at. But the last thing I want to do is finish a backyard ultra marathon where I intend to go to my absolute limit and then, you know, a week after, start hammering hard sessions again. And I say, no, could I do it? Maybe. Should I? No, and I think it's, I think it would be irresponsible for me to be doing that kind of stuff as well. Because I think, you know, at the end of the day, when you are in a position where people respect you, you know, you're a part of a, you know, I'm representative of not just myself, but BPN for Lululemon, for other brands I work with, I have responsibility to my audience to.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Do things right and do things sensibly and not be a poor influence on them. I think that's really important for me to hold myself to that standard because I, don't get me wrong, when you achieve something big, a part of you is like, let's rip another one, let's do another one. You have to hold yourself back. That's also where like I have a very good team of my agent or my, my coach who's like, you do, there are times when I'm going to have to tell you to stop and pull yourself back. Same way, my physio, Adrian, fantastic guys, currently flying out, landing in a couple of hours. And the only, when we do these big challenges, we did a really big challenge in 2024 that didn't, I was successful at it, but it was, it was, we had a lot of issues on that challenge. The only way that ended was when I, when he pulls the plug on it because he's

• 57:31Speaker 01

  responsible for my health. And if he was to say, hey Johnny, you're now doing something that could potentially hurt yourself in the long run. I'd say cool, then we'll finish that. And I think it's really good to have someone who has that control over you. Cause I know I'm like when I'm trying to run and do these things, I'm probably not the best judge of my own decisions because I'm probably looking at it from an angle of, well, I've invested all this time, this effort, this energy, I want to keep going, I want to push here. I don't care if I get, obviously I do care if I get hurt, but when you're in that moment, it's a lot harder to, to make those calls. So having someone like Adrian for me who has that, who can supersede whatever I'm saying, and he's got my best interests at heart. He's there to take care of me because sometimes I'm not going to always take the best care of me. Talking about ultra running, which is uniquely difficult, where you are ultimately

• 58:15Speaker 01

  pushing through a lot of pain and a lot of, you know, where most people, a lot of people would stop running going, well, my legs are in agony now. So you're 100 miles deep. It takes a very strange person to go, great, now let's keep going. But to know the difference between I'm in pain or I'm injured. There is a line, there is a fine line between that, one that I'm probably not best to make that decision on. So that's why I have him there to really be like, hey, you could be fucking yourself up here.

• 58:43Nick Bare?

  I remember watching your post.

• 58:47Nick Bare?

  G one M ultra last year.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:50Nick Bare?

  And it really like struck a nerve with me.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:55Nick Bare?

  So I remember you went to New York City, but I believe it was after the G one M ultra.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  No, that was after the um.

• 59:01Nick Bare?

  Fifty miler?

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Fifty miler, yeah.

• 59:02Nick Bare?

  That was the fifty miler. I was gonna say, it didn't feel like it was a year ago.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was in, that was in October, yeah.

• 59:06Nick Bare?

  It was after the fifty miler. I remember watching you go to New York City and you enjoyed all this food.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:13Nick Bare?

  And you relaxed and then you took time off from running and then you documented uh yourself starting to run again.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:20Nick Bare?

  And I remember, I don't know why this sticks in my head, but I remember you going for a run and you were talking about how you could do a run walk, your heart, it was jacked up.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:28Nick Bare?

  And that was so relatable.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:31Nick Bare?

  Where typically after I do a prep, I, three days after the race, I start running again or I'm back into it. I, I don't allow myself to rest.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:41Nick Bare?

  But something about that video just like struck a nerve in me where post Ironman.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:48Nick Bare?

  I took three weeks completely off from running because of that video.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, okay. I've had a positive influence on Nick, that's brilliant.

• 59:55Nick Bare?

  And um, there's something about that one, I was like.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:59Nick Bare?

  Dude, Johnny's doing this, I'm gonna do this.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 1:00:04Nick Bare?

  Yeah, man.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  It feels great though. I mean, I'm a big believer in you have to have that time off because it can't be, if you wanna go all out for something, if you are one hundred percent committed to that goal, to that block, to that journey, that progress, that is, that takes a lot out of you. And I think you owe yourself the grace to have the time off afterwards. And I think as well to have that time as deep reflection. I think when I've had it before where I've had events stacked together and I finished the event. And it's almost like it doesn't mean it that much because I'm, my mind's on the next thing. I'm only thinking about the next thing. Whereas, you know, it should, training for something so hard and achieving whatever you wanted to achieve, maybe not achieving it. You've got to give yourself the moment to to to break it down, to understand it.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  And before you can move on to the next thing, I think having a few weeks where you just say, hey, I'm just gonna chill. The problem I got, I got so ill after that race. I actually had a stomach ulcer during, I found out during the 50s. So I went back to the UK, had a great weekend in New York. I noticed my stomach was still really painful. Got back home, had a ulcer there like, hey, you you actually need to have like a couple of weeks in bed and really like rest some medication. And when I came back, I had this god awful cold. It was getting really cold in London. So I had a had a bit cold, a bit fluie. And I remember I went up for this walk run and I was thinking, oh, my God, my heart rate was jumping up to like 150, 160 on the super slow pace. And it felt like I'd lost all my fitness. And it was a very, it was a humble thing. I remember pulling my phone out being like, I'm just gonna rip this video.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  I was just to say, hey, I might be able to run crazy distance ultras and do these big challenges and all this sort of stuff there. But you know what? How great is it? We get to start from square one again, what feels like square one, because about a week or so later, I was back. All of a sudden, my pace was back there. Just that first week back is is is humbling. I think it's good. It's good to humble yourself every now and then. I remember hearing that thinking, I hadn't run in four weeks at that point. And I remember literally, I had to walk run it to try and keep my heart rate down. I remember going around, it's in London where, you know, it's my my city, so lots of people who run, just no one recognized me. And people put up being like, you okay there, mate? Because I'm just walking on my runs. I'm like, yeah, well, good. Just having a casual walk run. I think it's good. I think it's absolutely fine. I have no no issue, no issue doing that.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  You know, I remember that. I remember that point. I'm glad you mentioned that because that video did stick with me. Because much I want to be like, you know, with with social media, there is an element of formlessness to it, where you want to put a great version of yourself out. You want to put the best out. It's sometimes can be a lot harder to shine a light on the more negative things or things you're struggling with. Because that requires a lot of vulnerability. It's very easy for me to hide behind a camera and talk about, there's great things happening here. And I'm looking good at the moment here. It's a lot harder to talk about, hey, I suck at this right now. This is actually, this isn't the easiest thing for me to do.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Because yeah, it requires you to be a little bit more, but also that's the sort of stuff that has a lot of impact on people.

• 1:02:48Nick Bare?

  I agree.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Like, you know, whenever I've seen creators that I love and look up to talk about things from a more deeper perspective, or something maybe they're struggling with, you know, it humanizes, it humanizes. And at the end of the day, we're all human, we're all human beings, we all, we all have feelings, we'll have fears, doubts, worries, concerns, you know, we're not all Superman all times where we're trying to be, you know, great and try and just go crush this and Mr. Converse, hey, we, you know, we all have our own doubts and I think it's okay to sometimes put that out there. Um, and if anything that, you know, makes, I think it makes you more brave to be able to do that, you know, to be able to say, hey, you know what, maybe this is the thing I'm struggling with here. That's why we're social, I always talk about it, where, you know, if I'm, if I'm not feeling great about something, or I'm struggling with something, one thing I'm really trying to do now is be a bit more communicative with that, not just with people on social media, but with people in my life as well.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  I think that's something that, you know, not, not to, not to say that every time I speak, something to be, you know, moaning about, moaning or complaining about my situation, but more a case of just, uh, knowing how to understand that myself and know how to communicate that. I think it's key, if any good relationship is based on communication. And I think that's an important factor to it.

• 1:03:46Nick Bare?

  Yeah, vulnerability is a very easy and quick way to connect with

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:03:51Nick Bare?

  other people, uh, and allows others to be vulnerable as well.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  It, that's the, that's the other side to it, right? Cause it, it gives permission to those around you to share with, with their vulnerabilities as well. Um, and that's why when my friends went to rehab a few years ago, I didn't know I could talk to them about that until they went and then they came out and they were talking to me about these, these, how they had felt and how they, what they were going through. I felt sad at first, cause I, I was actually like, damn, like, they never talked to me about this beforehand. They didn't speak to me about the things they were struggling with beforehand. Maybe as a friend, and I, you know, I, I'd feel terrible as a friend if my friends couldn't come to me and talk to me about their challenges or their problems because they didn't think that I would care enough about it, or I wouldn't want to listen to it. And then it goes, okay, well, what can I do to change that? Well, maybe I can be a little bit more vulnerable with things I'm struggling with, with them. And maybe I can be a bit more open with them about that and.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  That definitely helps, you know, it keeps me great grounded. My best mate, George, one of the guys, he called me on the phone when I was on the way up to the studio here. Give me a little pep talk for tomorrow, but also he was, you know, he was a real, real lovely chat and he was, he was, uh, took the piss out of me completely as well, you know, he, you know, keeps me very humble and grounded. But again, it's the same thing. I know that means a lot to come from him because he talks in the heart about it. And you know, if you wanna, you know, the best way to have to deepen those relationships in your life, the people you care about is to be loving and vulnerable about things. If you're willing to share about your struggles, your worries, your concerns, gives other people in your life permission to talk about their worries, struggles, concerns, and whether or not you can solve those problems for them. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't, but sometimes people just want someone to listen.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  I think that's a really important thing to do for those around you is, is to just be there to be able to listen, you know, and know that, allow them to know that they're not being judged for their feelings.

• 1:05:33Nick Bare?

  Yeah. One of the best pieces of advice that Steph ever gave me, because you're in a marriage, it's all about communication.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  For sure, right.

• 1:05:39Nick Bare?

  And I'm naturally a problem solver.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:44Nick Bare?

  If someone puts a problem in front of me, like, all right, well, here's like, let's lay it out. Here's how we solve it. Here's the plan. Let's go attack this.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:54Nick Bare?

  She's like, hey, sometimes I, I, I don't want to solve these problems. I just want you to listen to them. Say, oh, wow, that's like completely against the way that I approached most of my life.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  It's not very pragmatic, is it? Yeah, it's a.

• 1:06:10Nick Bare?

  But I hear you.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  I understand it, yeah.

• 1:06:12Nick Bare?

  But I hear you. Like, that's, that's what you're asking for. You just, you want to be heard and listened to. You don't necessarily want a solution. I can do that for you.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:22Nick Bare?

  So let's talk about this year's prep.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Nick Bare?

  For the GWM Ultra. What are some of the biggest changes you made compared to last year from things that you learned through that experience?

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Heat training, really important. Obviously, this year is not as hot as last year's race. Tough one still, one day left, still could change. But even still, training from the UK where January, February time, you know, it's just above zero. It doesn't get very warm at all. And coming to Texas where it's pretty warm here still compared to the UK, even though it's not. Last few days has been like not really nice weather. It's still the average temperature is a lot higher than the UK. So my heat training acclimation block started six weeks ago for that.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Then it was also really dialing in form under fatigue. So I'll go out and do these 30, 40 K runs and then I'll go see my physio, get on the treadmill. And we'd start filming my form, seeing how it's looking. Where's the weakest point in the chain of my legs? What's going first? Where's that weakness? We noticed there's a slight overpronation on the, to be fair, both right and left. My tip post seems to that last little, as you step down the heel, that last little area there, super weak point. We've just put a massive emphasis in building that up and building it up and really. And training it and testing it and seeing how we're developing it. That's been a huge one.

• 1:07:46Nick Bare?

  Building that how?

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Oh God, this awful, awful series of exercises. It's actually the most humbling thing because all I'm doing is moving my, my heel like an inch off the ground. And then very slowly dropping it down like a smith machine, single leg calf raise. But the, the, the heel just goes like one or two inches of the ground.

• 1:08:00Nick Bare?

  Would that be considered like plyos?

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Kind of really, I mean, it's, it's much more tendon work. And again, it's, it's to a degree isometric work because you are putting it into a hold. But again, it's just trying to fix that, the weak, weak part of my range of motion within that area. And we noticed that when I, when I go for a three hour run and then I jump on the treadmill. He's looking at my form compared to a fresh form. And he's like, yeah, when, when you're dropping into like the, the pace you're going to run an ultra at and your, your form, your technique there. There's a little bit of instability in that area we got to work on and just finding weaknesses. And I like that. I like, I like, we'll go, go test things out. He's like, right, I need you to be really fatigued. Go for a four hour run, come back and then we're going to test you out. I'm like, okay, great. Let's see, let's see, let's see, let's find the weakness, weak point. That is main one. Second has been nutrition. So last year, I found it really hard to eat last year because of the heat.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Often it can be a byproduct of heat illness, but I found it really hard to get the food in me last year. So I swapped over to a lot of liquids, a lot of G and M sport and gels. But this year I've been test, you know, every time I've done a simulation, we've been testing out a whole variety of foods, not relying on foods in America. I love food in America, but if I'm living in the UK, I'm used to British food that I have in training. So I think half of one of my suitcase was just, was just British food.

• 1:09:16Nick Bare?

  What kind of stuff?

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  Pot noodle. It's like a noodle brand we have in the UK. They come in a big pot. They are one of the most like unhealthiest foods, but they're fantastic for ultra marathons. I've had them on different challenges before and I know that they sit really well with me. I did a 10 hour simulation a few weeks back and every other round I had one. And I was, I felt fantastic.

• 1:09:35Nick Bare?

  No issues.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  No issues whatsoever. Combination of gels, pot noodles and then the, there's a candy or sweets, we call them in the UK called wine gums. They're not actually got wine in them, but they can taste that. I can chuck down like three or four rolls of these an hour and they're fantastic. They're, they're, so they're a little bit more solid. I can get a bit in ultras, like fatigue and powders and just gels. It's nice to have something a bit of what I can chew into as well. So they're, they're phenomenal. I absolutely love those. I've, I've, I've got like a box of like 60 of them for the ultra. So I'll make sure.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  So I'm just, just used to the things I, I'm, I can have access to in the UK. As much as I do love food in America, I'm about to go to the grocery store after this to pick up my last bits of food. And like American food, I'd say is, is actually is delicious. I usually do get a few pounds if I come to America because the food is so good.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  But I've just been sticking to those, those basic ones. I brought a lot of food over for the, over, have had the last week. Just make sure I've got no digestion issues. Your, your stomach can really ruin ultras. Same with like a, like an Ironman or a marathon. If you go into it and your, your stomach's in bits in the day, it really, it can really make it suck.

• 1:10:43Nick Bare?

  Yeah. I mean, I found in any ultra distance race.

• 1:10:48Nick Bare?

  The hardest part for me is always got issues. Like at some point, the stomach turns.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:55Nick Bare?

  Thinking back to my last, the last man standing I did in two thousand twenty three.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:01Nick Bare?

  Everything was dialed and then, you know, you get to a point where you have fatigue of powders, gels, bars, candy.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:11:12Nick Bare?

  So you come in from a loop and it's like, what can I eat right now? And people were handing me pieces of pizza and sandwiches and then everything went downhill from there.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:23Nick Bare?

  Stomach just turned.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  It's really tricky to, I think the best thing to have is options because I don't know what, I'm not, I'm not sure what I want. I did a challenge in twenty twenty four. It was called Run the Capitals, ran to all the capital cities in the UK and Ireland, which is miles. It was six hundred miles in eleven days, twelve hours and we had an RV. We had all this food and I remember I was eating the same thing for dinner every night. So my last five miles, the lads would pass me a bowl of like big, giant, like a family sized portion of like chicken pasta, like tomato maskerponi sauce. It's fantastic, my favorite pasta sauces. They passed out the winner of the RV and I just run with this giant bowl, just getting my last bit of calories in before, before going to bed. And I'm, I think on day three, they passed it to me. I had one bite, I spat it out and I was like, what the hell is this? What have you, how have you made this differently? And the lads were like, we've made it exactly the same.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  It's like, we've made it every other night. I was like, no, it's you've done something to it, you've changed it, you've changed it. They're like, it's literally like five ingredients. It's we've not done anything to it. And my react, my body's reaction to it was I couldn't even swallow it. It was, it tasted so bad. And I think when you're doing these crazy things, one slight like, like flavor fatigue in something, when that goes, you don't, it doesn't matter how hungry you are, you don't want it near you. It always makes, almost makes you want to throw up. And I was thinking, at first I thought they've done something to this. They've changed, they've changed the sauce, they've done something differently. But no, they, they try out mainly exactly the same as every other day. And it's just the flavor fatigue had kicked in. Thankfully we've had an RV full of like different foods and whatnot, but um, I think sometimes like every now and then just having something like fruit,

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  even though there's, there's fiber in it, it's not the most optimal thing to have during an ultra, just something fresh and something that is like, something that's been grown in the ground is quite nice.

• 1:12:58Nick Bare?

  It's not a processed.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  It's, yeah.

• 1:12:59Nick Bare?

  Bar or. Bowl of noodles, something like that.

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Something that is just very simple. Like, I found last year, like, cold watermelon was really nice. And of course, again, watermelon is like super cali- like, not calorie dense at all. It's, you know, it's, it's actually what I like to eat when I'm trying to cut some weight. But like, it was just so nice to have something that was, like, had been grown and was fresh. Um, as opposed to just like hammering gels and powders and all this sort of stuff there and sodas. And, um, it definitely is nice to change up a little bit over these things. And yeah, that's the thing you definitely want. I had, I think last year, like, we'd made loads of, like, PB and J sandwiches. We had our cool box was full of so much stuff. And, uh, I didn't fancy any of it at all.

• 1:13:38Nick Bare?

  Last year was interesting, before the race got started, walking through the campsites.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:13:43Nick Bare?

  And looking at what people had.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:44Nick Bare?

  In their campsites for food. I mean, like, Oreos, cookies, cake, everything. I'm like, I can almost promise you, you don't want to start with that stuff.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 1:13:58Nick Bare?

  Like, that is going to turn very, very quickly.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:14:02Nick Bare?

  I've told this story before, but in two thousand and twenty-three, when I did Last Man Standing.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:06Nick Bare?

  There was a guy there that was running with me, his first ultra ever.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:14:10Nick Bare?

  And you could tell he, he came from a, a strength background, like a bodybuilder. I was like, hey, man, what's your, what's your fueling strategy today? It's like chicken, rice, broccoli after every loop.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  It's just, just.

• 1:14:21Nick Bare?

  I was like, brother, I highly advise against that. Like, come eat some of our food.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:27Nick Bare?

  That, that is, that is going to be a, a bad.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:14:30Nick Bare?

  Bad day out there for you.

• 1:14:33Nick Bare?

  Something that I was thinking about as you're talking about, uh, monitoring the form of, of your running.

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:38Nick Bare?

  Post-long runs. How do you think about, you know, when we, when we, when I go out for my average run on a morning? I'm running like a seven thirty, seven forty-five minute per mile pace. My gait's different, my stride is different.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:14:54Nick Bare?

  When I go into these ultras, if I was gonna go run the GNM ultra tomorrow,

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:59Nick Bare?

  I'd be running a lot slower. My gait's gonna change, my foot strike is gonna change. How do you approach your daily running? Pace, stride, gait, all of that?

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:09Nick Bare?

  Knowing that come ultra, you're running slower.

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  Um, great point. I intentionally do some really slow runs each week.

• 1:15:15Nick Bare?

  You do?

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I often do it on the treadmill. So that way I just, because I think if I'm outside running, I'll naturally wanna speed up a bit. Or especially around London, you're constantly navigating people and places and, um, you're also, there's something about when you're running with lots of the people around, you kind of don't wanna, you feel, I often feel this, I feel an overwhelming urge to not run that slow, especially like,

• 1:15:35Nick Bare?

  Oh, definitely.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't want it, I don't want it to take over me, especially when I run around London, you know, I don't wanna be, you know, going basically a little bit faster than my walking pace. Um, so I just treadmill it. So those runs, I often don't record them as well, because for me, I'm just like, I just gotta do an hour, GNM ultra pace. And so I'll stick the, the speed be like six thirty kilometers a pace. I apologize to everyone, I don't know what is in miles. Very, it's very slow. That's like a, that's like a five and a half hour marathon pace.

• 1:16:01Nick Bare?

  Okay.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  So maybe six hour marathon pace, really super controlled, like one ten heart rate sort of effort. And it just is super tight gait. I just wanna know what that feels like. Where am I landing? How my, how's that landing each step feel? Um, super tight gait, because again, I've been on these big challenges before, like you're forced to run at that, you know, you may not wanna start at that pace, but come day eight or nine, running fifty plus miles a day, like you are gonna have to run at that pace. Like you don't have the capacity to move, everything's so stiff that that's basically all you've got to work with. Um, and just get really comfortable in that, in that position. How, how do I feel? What's my, where's my head at? Where's my angle at? Just get used to it. I did somewhere on the treadmill this week, not in here, because I think when you're at BP HQ, like I have a real big urge to kind of run fast on the treadmill.

• 1:16:45Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I saw you cooking.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Just cooking away there. And then, so my Airbnb has got a nice gym to it. So I just sat there, my buddy Max is over from Dubai as well, was running this, he managed in the, in the race. Um, I asked him, because he did a twenty four hour simulation a few weeks ago. And even then, he actually ran reasonably, reasonably fast pace. I said, you are well like, because he wants to go like, he wants to be well into day two of this. And I was like, you are well like, what that pace is gonna feel like a six, six second pace. And we both sat at treadmill to it. And it was almost like, uh, he was like, This is so weird. For him, it almost felt like it took more effort to run at that slower pace than it did at his natural organic sort of. So I think you gotta train it, you gotta train that pace. You have to get used to that pace because again, it's a different gate, it's a different angle, it's a different, there's less, there's less forward lean.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  It's almost feeling like you're just, you know, you're still lifting the foot, but you're not propelling yourself off there. It's much more a case of perpetually falling and catching slightly and like still having a low ground contact time, but your cadence is going to change. It almost feels like a bit more of a shuffle. You're how you land is a little bit more, I would find a little bit more flat footed. And again, it's also about like, how's that feel doing an hour on that? Where's sore, where hurts? Often find is, you know, that's when you start getting into things like your core and your stability and your ability to hold yourself still standing upright is really important because if you, you know, doing it for an hour is one thing, doing it for 20 hours, 40 hours, like that's where often your legs are the things actually don't, they keep going because you trained them so well, but you know, how are you able to support

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  your upper body? How's that feeling? How's that upper back? You're leaning forward too much. Like really focusing on those form cues are so important. And I look through footage all the time of different challenges and just see how I'm moving day seven, day eight, day nine of these challenges. Where, you know, I'm four or 500 miles into something and I'm like, that's really interesting to see because you can always change up your form a little bit. And for me, it's like, if I know my hamstrings get tight, I'll change to this sort of form. And if my quads are tight, I'm going to be feeling like I'm striking a match under my foot when I run. So every time something gets tight, you kind of have to push the, um, the load off different muscle groups on the body. Same way I'll change out like, um, I've got heel risers in my shoes. So I know that when my quads get tight, I want to try and drop those heel risers down. Oh, interesting.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So I really like, we hone in, hone in that kind of stuff there. And I picked it up from doing like all these, like the London Underground or the capital challenges. Where you're again, you're doing 50, 60 miles a day, like you need to. You have to, every four or so hours, I change the profile, keep the same shoe, or maybe the same shoe but different, like a fresher version of it, but with like a, an extra four or five mil heel on it.

• 1:19:17Nick Bare?

  That makes a big difference?

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  Huge, because what it does, it takes a lot of the pressure on the soles of your feet, it just slightly changes where the most concentrated pressure is, but also what it does is, one, you know, couple millimeter difference on the heel, all of a sudden, the chain of muscles that is going through you, it slightly changes the load across that from glutes, quads, hamstrings, calves, there's a slight change, if it leans you forward a little bit, you know, one, one degree at the bottom, that just changes that lean slightly, and all of a sudden, it, it just takes pressure off certain points, and I find also it keeps your mind more occupied. I know that, oh, see, that's, that's, that's a noticeable difference, my feet feel fresher in these shoes, could be the same shoe, but just by putting a heel riser in, we kind of go between two and six mil on heel risers, um, and then also just changing your shoe profile,

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  sometimes you want something that's a bit more responsive at certain points, sometimes you want to go back to something that's actually a bit more, you know, comfortable and a bit more stable. Um, always having an option to change, I think is really important because it keeps you, I think the biggest trick with ultras is not to spiral, not to go, oh god, this is actually, this is getting worse, getting worse, because again, you're, you're actually feeling worse as time goes on, but you need to be constantly problem solving or trying to get ahead of a problem. So when your legs start to get tired, or your hamstrings are sore, whatever it is, they go, right, they're starting to get a bit sore, let's just change it up now. And then all of a sudden, it takes your mind off the problem, because you're on the, on the focus of the solution. And so for me, having that, that, that constant change out is a really nice thing, um, to do. And again, you know, a lot of the time, it's just,

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  sometimes it's a guessing game, but most of the time, it's just being a bit pragmatic in, in those situations. I always find like, being pragmatic in high-stress situations, when you're just trying to focus on continuously moving, is really important because you're focusing much more on solutions than problems.

• 1:20:57Nick Bare?

  That's smart. I've actually never heard of, uh, someone changing out the... The heel.

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:04Nick Bare?

  Pitch on their shoe.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  It literally just, you pop it underneath your insole and just pop it like a little heel riser on there. It's really good. My physio, they're from the running room, so they're based out of Sydney, Australia. They helped Ned Brockman on his run across Australia and his thousand miles around the running track. They're fantastic, super specialists at running. They've got a few clinics out in London and so my physio Adrian's from that clinic, he's come over. And they're brilliant. They have a deep, deep understanding of getting people through incredibly long endurance challenges. As well as helping people run for, training for a 10K or a half marathon or a marathon, they take a very, very much a data, data first approach to a lot of this stuff. And they've got data from me for five years, from five years of running. Every time I do a gait analysis, every time we wear a different pair of shoes, they've got treadmills, all these sensors on it that are just picking up all that data.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Then we can see changing of landing forces. You know, when I'm, if I go off a four hour run, I come in, jump on the treadmill, they'll then record that data. And then we've got, you know, another set of data in there that we can see.

• 1:22:01Nick Bare?

  That's incredible.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Really good. I like, because it always gives me something to focus on and work on. I always think with running, it's one of those things that it's never, there's no finish line. You never, you never achieve everything. There's always something to try and work on and try and fix. I think especially with ultras, there's only, the first few hours are the only time you feel fresh and feel good. So I don't want to constantly do stuff with him when I'm fresh and good. It's nice to do like at the end of a big week and then go out and do a two, three, four hour session. And then go and see him and then he's going to look through and see, right, let's see how you're moving with the treadmill now. Let's see if this makes a big difference. Looking at even shoot choices, different options on there. And I think I find that to be fascinating, you know, I don't mind geeking out on the data around that sort of stuff. Cause he's looking to, he's, he's looking to make changes to my form or to how I'm moving. And even things like, you know, different body positions, sets up on the camera and you can see like how that impacts landing forces.

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  And again, we're trying to minimize landing forces when it comes to running. The pain you feel is mostly just from your ability to absorb force or how that dissipates across your body. How can we? Reduce that further or how can we make you more efficient absorbing force, which ultimately leads you to have a great capacity to go further.

• 1:23:03Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  And I think putting a lot of effort in that on that side of things is really important. It's also not like, you know, he works really closely with my run coach. They don't want me doing constant massive weeks of mileage. We obviously have simulations, a decent level of consistency and reasonably high mileage. But sometimes you can, you know, we want to get the most return for the effort we're putting into it. So we find for me, it's like a lot of work on the bike alongside of the running as well.

• 1:23:28Nick Bare?

  I noticed that.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Bikes, bikes are real. The biggest jumps I've seen in my fitness has been as a result of that. Still running every day, very specific S and C work for lower body training, which has been fantastic. And again, really putting a massive emphasis on the ability to absorb force through the legs. But the bike's been a wonderful, wonderful tool.

• 1:23:51Nick Bare?

  That's what I love about Ironman training, actually. You're able to get so fit. I'd say mainly because of the bike and the run.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:59Nick Bare?

  I hate the swim.

• 1:24:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24:00Nick Bare?

  So I can't give any credit to the swim. Nor do I want to give credit to the swim because it's like the bare minimum of what I have to do to swim. But I could run nine miles in the morning and then go spend three hours, four hours on the bike in the afternoon. And it's not going to tax the muscular system.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:19Nick Bare?

  Of my lower body, but I'm going to get the cardiovascular aerobic benefits of those three to four hours. I built so much fitness in my Ironman prep.

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:29Nick Bare?

  Because I spent so much time on the bike. I, I think the bike is an incredible cross training tool.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:35Nick Bare?

  That is underutilized by people outside of the, the triathlon space.

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  Hundred, hundred percent. If you look at who the fittest athletes in the world are now, it's all the triathletes. The highest V A two max score ever recorded is that Christian Blumenfeld, one hundred and two.

• 1:24:52Nick Bare?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Try, yeah, try, try athlete, like, like Alex Yee, British athlete. He'd never run a marathon. He just ran two oh six last year at London.

• 1:25:01Nick Bare?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he's like, he won, he's like, uh, he won the T one hundred last year as well. Like he, Olympic, Olympic gold medalist as well. Shout out Alex Lee, shout out Alex Yee, South London.

• 1:25:12Nick Bare?

  Wow.

• 1:25:13Speaker 01

  No, no, two oh six for your first marathon is crazy.

• 1:25:15Nick Bare?

  Crazy.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, these guys are so fit and so fast. And I think, I think it's incredible. And that's why for us is like. There is a, at certain points, there is like a, the ROI on more miles, this doesn't make sense.

• 1:25:30Nick Bare?

  I agree.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  It gets to a point where sometimes it's the ego talking. And no wrong, I've done like 200 mile trainings before, like to see what it's like, to see how far I can go. I've had to do simulation weeks for challenges where I've got to run, you know, 25, 30 miles in a day, back to back, to back, to back, to back. And it's like, okay, let's see what that feels like and looks like. And again, even if you've got a great amount of capacity to do that and to absorb that, what fitness you, you know, how much benefit you're getting from that stimulus?

• 1:25:58Nick Bare?

  Next point of diminishing return.

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Massive diminishing returns there. So but the bike for us, we go, okay, well, we can, we can still kick out. Again, we're not taxing the legs from a muscular standpoint, but we are still working the engine, training the system. And that's, that's been great. I absolutely love the bike. And especially now I've got, I use a what bike, I've got my new, my new place. I just set up in there. I just crack on some YouTube, get flying. And the time just flies by when you're in the bike. Because again, if you're not doing, if you're not doing a hard session, if you're just sitting like in like zone two, it doesn't, you know, for me, I always feel like, I don't really feel like I'm doing much of a workout. But hey, you know, just time, time's going to pass by, keep putting fuel in, keep moving the legs forward. And I say, you know, I say I don't feel like I'm working out, but then after like an hour run and then like a two and a half hour bike ride, I get to like go to bed that night, and I just head into the pillow, I'm out. So I'm like, okay, I must

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  be doing something because I'm crushing hard.

• 1:26:47Nick Bare?

  During Ironman prep, I was like a zombie at night, all the training. So last year, you went 102 miles, 10th place. You made a lot of changes to your training going into this year. How far do you want to go? What, for you, what is, what does success look like outside of winning, obviously?

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  Of course. No, success to me, hey, success is, is multiple different things is, there's obviously my own personal success in the race and distances. And I would love to get Past where the guys came last year.

• 1:27:23Nick Bare?

  Two hundred and thirty five miles.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that for me is like, that's been on my mind. I obviously I'm aware that the the chance of this race is going to go significantly further than that, looking at the field of athletes who are who are here. The success to me is a combination of things. It's doing my absolute best. And that's sometimes on the day conditions, whatever it is, what if what if this rain hits and it's super muddy and boggy and no one's getting that far. Hey, well, I'll do my absolute best. I do. I want to do an effort when I finish and I go to bed, whatever that is, I can be proud of. I do my team proud. I represent BPN on course, make sure I support other runners who are there. There'll be lots of people who got into this raffle. You know, we talk about guys who are trying to go for two, three, four days running here. There's also lots of people in this race who have gone the raffle,

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  who've never ran fifty miles before. I want to make sure I can support those guys as well. I want to make sure that, you know, as well as I'm being here as a competitor, I'm also here representing BPN as an athlete. There's, you know, it's multiple different roles to play within that as well. And so supporting those around me, keeping spirits high on course. Now, my friend Max, he got into running around the same sort of times I did. He's in this race too. He's talking about wanting to go two hundred miles. I'm like, okay, great. Like, hey, we'll help each other out with this one. Executing on what we've been training on. So the micro sleeps, I work with a sleep specialist to try and like, learn how to do these little micro sleeps at nighttime. I want to be able to nail a few sleeps. That for me is like, I feel like I feel like after all the work I've put into it, being able to sleep for like five minutes a lap at nighttime would be amazing.

• 1:28:50Nick Bare?

  You're dialed, dude.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  No, I wanted to leave no record. I don't want to turn up. I don't want to turn up this race being like, oh, I don't know how this works. Like, no, I know how this works. We practice this. We've studied this. I do. Yeah, I didn't want to be turning up. I remember last year, there's a point when I looked over the Kendall team, I was wide awake in my chair, sweat pouring off every whole world. I'm thinking like, oh, my God, look over to him and he's sound asleep, getting fanned, he fanned off there. And I'm looking at him and like, how's this guy sleeping? I'm sweating everywhere, just trying to hold on for dear life. And this kid's just like conked out asleep. And I'm like, oh, that's why he's so fresh at the moment still. So I was no one who one who did so well. And also it makes it a great event, you know, I want to make sure that, you know, if, if anyone gets into trouble on the course, you know, we, we will support each other.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  I think there's, there's always more to these races than who's, who wins and who, you know, does what out of it. Safety is always the most paramount thing of these things. Anytime anyone's pushing their body to extreme levels, there's, there's always a case of that. So make sure that everyone, everyone's safe, everyone finishes well, everyone does their best. And I'll make sure that, you know, I get to lead that course head held high, giving absolutely everything. And putting a number on that, I'd love to be able to hit those distances 250, you know, that, that, that's kind of stuck in my mind a little bit. But again, the only I can control, two things in my control are my effort and my attitude. Yep. And that's it. Everything else, the weather, the competition, none of that is up to me. And that's something that I've just held as a constant throughout this. They're the two things I've got at the top of my notebook, effort and attitude.

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  And it just, you know, I've had a fantastic attitude towards my training, my, um, this process of improvement. How I come about things every day, the excitement I have for training, the joy I found in training this year. And then the other side of it is effort. Am I applying the most, am I trying as hard as I could, could do? And again, that's, that's been, that's been 10 out of 10 this year. I put the most effort in, I've not missed a single session. I've done everything I need to do from that perspective. And then just doing it with a great attitude as well, I think is so important because that's, it's the attitude that's the difference maker, right? I could do every session miserably and drag myself to every session and I gotta do that. I gotta do this today. I've gotta do this session today. Or I could be like, wow, how great is this? I get to go do this session today. I get to go push myself today. I get to go train today.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  And I get to do it with people who I love. I get to go see my friends. I get to train my friends today. And I've got my run club in London. I get to go, oh, it's Saturday. I get to do my long run with 200 other people. Awesome. Like this, that's how great is that? And that attitude of how beautiful is this? I get to push myself to my limit. I get to try, I get to try really hard at something. And I get to improve at my sport as a result of that. How amazing is that? What a great life I've got. What a great opportunity I've got. How lucky I am, I am to have that. And that's been my attitude throughout this whole thing. How lucky am I that I get to compete in the, the Goldmore Ultra for a second time? Like that for me, I, I, you know, I, I'm, I'll sometimes catch myself being like, oh, fuck, I've got, got a long ass day today or tomorrow. Looking at the schedule for the next day, it's like a triple training day and I'm tired, I'm fatigued. And it's like, how lucky am I that I get to go do this and as do it as a part of the BPN team? That's really special.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  And so for me, that perspective of having that attitude of.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  This is special. This I'm lucky I get to do this. So I have no right to complain. So I might as well do it with a big smile on my face and celebrate that work. You know, the work is, the work is the win, you know, the work works a new more than you work on the work. And that for me, that's, that resonates so hard with me because again, knowing that it's the work that's making me better. And my attitude towards it's been brilliant. I get to go to wake up tomorrow and try my hardest again. That's a really special thing to do. And so that's me, you know, that attitude for me has been a very big different thing this year. Compared to last year where I was a little bit more worried about the race. I was a bit like, we've done this format for this is new. This kind of new territory for me here. Um, but this year it's like, cool, learn our lessons. Let's go this attitude and you know, I've got a great team behind me and not just my team of crew, but the team of yourself, the rest of the BPN team here.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  And who also all had that same attitude. That's something that I've noticed ever since I joined, we joined VPN is there's a shared attitude across the board from people who work in the warehouse to be working media to yourself, to the senior team, to the athletes. There is this attitude of this is special. We get to do this. We don't have to do this. And that's a really lovely environment to be around.

• 1:32:54Nick Bare?

  I appreciate that.

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  No, of course. It's probably it's a, it's a culture thing, you know, you, you, I remember you said it's like you also like that, that's that like sheet at the start of the year with all those like.

• 1:33:03Nick Bare?

  The manifesto and.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  Manifesto, yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:06Nick Bare?

  The brand vision.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  Brand vision. Yeah, no, I remember that. You, you put on the stack group and I was like, oh, this is really cool. I thank you for that. Like it's nice. It's, it's, it's a nice that a lot of the things that I care about, about how I operate and how I do my day to day. It's they're not, they're not just words for you guys. They're things that you live by.

• 1:33:22Nick Bare?

  Yep.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  And that's like, it's great to be involved in an organization that takes that kind of stuff seriously. Like standards, like how you treat other people with respect. Those things are really important. They're important to me. And it's nice to get to work brands that it's important with that too as well.

• 1:33:35Nick Bare?

  Absolutely. Well, dude, I'm excited to see how far you go. I'm really impressed with the prep you put in.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:33:42Nick Bare?

  I respected the intention.

• 1:33:45Nick Bare?

  Of your training, nutrition, the, the sleep specialist, the

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:53Nick Bare?

  Heat acclimation, like all of it, man.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:56Nick Bare?

  You put in a big prep and I'm excited to see you throw down tomorrow.

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  I tell you what, after all this work, I better bloody do well because if I don't, no, it's, it's, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. It's, it's been, it's been a really wonderful journey and the final run of that journey is tomorrow. The final run of training was this morning and it's so special to be here now, like the day before the race. Um, on the verge of, of it all going together and uh, it's going to be, I tell you what, it's going to be one hell of an experience.

• 1:34:22Nick Bare?

  About 22 hours out.

• 1:34:23Speaker 01

  That's it. They're making me nervous now.

• 1:34:25Nick Bare?

  Here we go. All right, brother. I appreciate you.

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me on, Nick.