So you're thinking about running but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help. Welcome to Brian's Rompod. Welcome back to Brian's Rompod. And today is a little bit of a different episode as, basically, we're going to go over some of the past interviews and I'm going to take out some of my favorite bits. So the interviews are with Stuart Hayes, olympic triathlete, caitlin Limmer, the founder of the Bearcat Running Club, andrew Ren, a local running coach, and not forgetting Colleen and John, who are both keen runners and who are friends of mine. So anyway, let's start with Caitlin, who's founder of the Bearcat Runner Club, and basically how she got the running bug. She had a really interesting story.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, I got into running. The story is very plain and simple. I was very ill, as you mentioned, and I was given 40 minutes to live, and many people know that story now. A long time ago now 19 years ago and as a result of it, my body was a little bit shot. I was told that my bone density was going to be a real issue in my life and in my naivety at that time I thought bone density, bone density, what does that mean? How can I help myself? And I thought running, running that's what people say build your bone density. So that is how I literally started. I had a year to try and change my bone density before I was going to have this next scan and I wanted to prove to this wonderful woman that had saved my life that we could counteract it and I could make it better. So that's how I started and I hated it. I still do Love, hate.
Speaker 1:Ditto.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a story for many people, and then I fell in love with what it was giving me. So, yeah, that's kind of the moment I laced up my trainers and got on the road really properly.
Speaker 1:I know you said I know this is sort of jumping about a bit, but I know you said that you trained as an opera singer. I mean, did that help you in any way in terms of what you, you know, what your journey you're back to embark on, or not?
Speaker 2:So I think at the time I didn't recognise it, but I totally recognise now that singing and running give you very similar end results in that you get a great big high from singing, using that oxygen working together. You know, I was in chorus of many operas and its discipline, its camaraderie, its community, it's working hard towards a goal. So all of those things I definitely replicate in running. So yeah, beyond that, well, there are quite a lot of similarities anyway, but they're the immediate ones I can think of. But obviously, opera singers in my day, which was 25 years ago now, were not fit, not into exercise necessarily. I could be making a rather sweeping statement, but in my day I never saw many people that were really into exercise. And now, of course, I'm sure that actors and opera singers have to be far more health-minded. And the stronger we are for everything, for shows, all, for running 5Ks, the better.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much for that, Kate Lane, and we'll be hearing from her later. In the episode we also talked to a very keen runner, Colleen, who is a friend of my wife's, and she said she sort of started off by doing quite a lot of gymnastics at school.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Brian. I did a lot of sport while I was in school, but not so much with school. A lot of it was that the running especially was outside. But I also did gymnastics while I was kind of a teenager and in secondary school. But as far as running goes, I was doing quite a lot of running, but I actually wasn't running on a school team or anything like that, so it was completely outside of school that I did running.
Speaker 1:And were you always quite enthusiastic about sport, or is it something that sport has come to you in later life?
Speaker 3:Well, I never thought of myself as that good at sport really when I was probably primary school age or anything like that. But I did then become more and more confident by doing a bit of gymnastics, but I never saw myself as one of the really sporty people at school apart from that. So it's as, I suppose, got more mature and the more I got into running, the more I realised how important it would be to me and how much I really really enjoyed it. So I think for me it was kind of I associated sport at school with PE lessons. For me that wasn't really what motivated me. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much, colleen. And let's not forget, we had a Olympian on the podcast and I was extremely grateful that Stuart Hayes, who was part of the 2012 Olympic team GB Olympic team that has joined us and he told us this story about how he got into the sport.
Speaker 5:Well, I started off as a swimmer. I used to swim at a place in the Houndsville Swimming Club back in sort of the 80s. I was hyperactive. My parents couldn't control me. I was always running around the house. They said we need to take him somewhere that calms him down, because back in the old days I didn't have medication, stuff like I do now. It was just like I was. Kids got too much energy. What do we do with him?
Speaker 5:So they took me to the swim squad and I remember swimming one length and if I could swim one length I could join the club and I did my own length and then that was it. They said, right, you can come in the mornings and the evenings. So I think I was around seven or eight years old, so in twice a day every day the next like 10 years. And then I got to a point when I was about 15 or no, about 13, 14, and I just wasn't growing. I was quite small, but at the time I was quite good at running, because at school I was good running. I did cross country and stuff like that.
Speaker 5:And then we had a guy in our swim squad called Spencer Smith and he was a world champion and he was about to be world senior champions and I was like, oh, I'd like to have a go at triathlon. So I decided, let's try triathlon. I joined twicken them cycling club, I joined Tim's Turbos triathlon club and I was also a member of Ram the Harriers and, I think, richmond twicken them. They were like linked together as running clubs. I also trained with that Houndsville running club as well, where Mo Farah trains and sometimes a go ahead be there. At that point I was like putting all the pieces together and I did my first triathlon, I think at Market Bosworth in early mid 90s, and then I just went from there.
Speaker 1:Thanks for that, Stuart. And we also interviewed a really good friend of mine. In fact, this was one of my first interviews that I did for the podcast, and very exciting, as I was a little nervous and just wanted to know how this might go, as we recorded this just on one microphone. So John tells us about how he got into running.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so probably about 10 years ago. So I've always been trying to lose weight ever since I was too heavy or heavier than I should have been. So about 10 years ago I'd had lots of gym memberships that I'd have for six months and, you know, eventually I'd run out of steam or find excuses of no reason to go. So I thought I'd give running a go. Just give it a go, because it's cheap and you don't need a membership, you can do it anywhere. And I can remember my first. You know I had run at school. You know, obviously in sport you run as well, but I can remember my first sort of proper run and it was probably only a mile. I think it was about a mile and about two thirds of the way through it I tripped over a bit of Ray's pace.
Speaker 6:Ray's pavement and scrapes all the skin off my hand. And then I got back and I was actually sick. Oh no, I was that unfit. So yeah, about 10 years ago, but bizarrely, about a week later, I thought actually I enjoyed that and it was. You know, what I found is that quite quickly, you know, I was able to, you know, get up to 5K pretty easily. And then, about a year after that, I did a half marathon. I've never done a full marathon, but I've done about four or five half marathon since and various other runs. So, yeah, that's how I got into running, trying to lose weight. That was really the main motive.
Speaker 1:So I noticed that you said something about the kind of the benefits, the health benefits, because I know that Alice, my daughter, who's running, is trying to get fit, but she noticed that she couldn't like sort of run to the bus without getting out of breath. Did you kind of get?
Speaker 6:those kind of things. Yeah, definitely yeah, and just natural. Yeah, just running up the stairs, you know, even just things like sweating less, you just have a natural level of fitness that it helps with. And I've always had you know sort of various smart watches and things like that, you know, testing your resting heart rate, and definitely if I'm in a good you know run of running, my natural fitness is a lot better.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much, john. Not only have we had runners and an Olympian, but also you've had a racing driver turn commentator, and I wanted to have Tom Gameron, who works for Sky Sports and does commentating for IndyCar, and he has a really interesting story about his rehabilitation from a career wrecking back injury and here he talks about how he got into motorsport. Yeah, it's a really good question.
Speaker 4:I mean, I love being active and it wasn't until I got a bit older and realised that we all learn in different ways. But I'm a very sort of kinesthetic learner, a very visual learner, and you know that lent itself to sort of being out and about. So I was always looking out the window and longing for break time and PE and games and then when the rain came, that frustration of having to play Hangman and being forced into not leaving the classroom was my pet hate. So you know I loved being active as a young kid and you know I'm 41 now. But even when I was younger we had computers and you know the same mega drives and the Super Nintendo's of the day and the Commodore Amiga who's old and I don't remember what a Commodore Amiga is. But you know I didn't really have any games, consoles. I was always outside and you know, from a young age I always had a bat in my hand, love cricket, love rugby. And then, as I got a bit older, motorsports came into my life as well.
Speaker 1:What's got you interested? Just to segue into that. What got you into it? Because into motorsports, because I know I was listening to a podcast about with Scott Speed and he said his dad was a massive F1 fan and loves Schumacher. And I mean, was there someone in your family who was really mad about motorsport or Formula One or Well?
Speaker 4:do you know what the whole tie into sport? I was very fortunate. My granddad was a wonderful swimmer and he loved open water swimming and you know tried to swim the channel tried to. You know he was always up at Lake Windermere, was always out, you know, swimming in his 80s and he was a doctor. He was the honorary RFU doctor, england Rugby Doctor as well.
Speaker 4:So I grew up around that professional sporting environment and I used to get picked up from school and sometimes go to Twickenham and watch the England team train, captain's day and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:So I you know I had that and you're probably wondering what the link is. But he also had a very good connection, a chat called David Price, who we've just lost, actually 14 weeks ago, and David was a big name in the motorsport world. You know he ran Brabant for Bernie. He was instrumental when it came to success at Le Mans for various different manufacturers and had his time at Benetton and various other things in the sport and I was invited along with my granddad to go and visit David at the sort of tender age of 10. And I never look back because you know we all have, or the majority of us had, the opportunity to play those grassroots or those sports at a grassroots level that I mentioned Football, cricket, rugby. But motorsport isn't something that many people come across and I was very fortunate to have that experience and from that day on it just the smell, the sight, the sound. It was so special that it was a great experience and it was a dream of mine from that moment to try and progress.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much, tom, and we'll be hearing from Tom later on in the episode. I was really keen to get a local running coach onto the podcast, so I spoke to an Andrew Wren, who is a local running coach, and here he talks about the five elements of training.
Speaker 7:There are five facets of running fitness. I'm going to forget one. It's going to be coordination, flexibility, speed, strength, endurance. Endurance is the one that all of my athletes are training. There's absolutely no question about that. Obviously, I care about it a lot, but it's like everyone who comes to me wants to train their endurance Obviously separate. But speed and strength two of the five. Right Now.
Speaker 7:People might not necessarily think that speed is In fact, a lot of people will try and self-deprecate themselves through the floor when I speak to them. I'm not very fast, I'm not very slow and I think people are overly defensive about that, because a large makeup of your muscle fibers will be fast-twitch muscle fibers. So learning to actually use those muscle fibers is going to be extremely useful for every type of runner. Otherwise, you're only utilizing a proportion, whatever portion that is. Some people will have more slow twitch and do a lot more fast twitch, et cetera. But from a fundamental perspective, it's a more rounded way of using your muscle fibers. So that's on the micro level.
Speaker 7:But on a macro level, the way that you move your legs when you do speed work or sprint work or tempo intervals, whatever they are is slightly different to the way that you use your legs and your body when you do your long runs.
Speaker 7:So if you're a new runner especially beginners actually, this is especially relevant to beginners if you're a brand new runner and you're just plowing the same movement through your body, you're using your calves, you're likely to be massively overusing your calves and, all honestly, your calves, your quads, your hamstrings, your glutes, using them in exactly the same way, over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 7:That's the kind of thing that can cause issues with your body, whereas if you start to do some slightly different movements, by which I mean either running super fast or running a little bit faster, it's going to change that, the way that you use your body, meaning that you're not just making the exactly the same movement each time. Like, for example, if you were going to the gym and you were going to train arms, you wouldn't just do the same exercise for an hour, right? You wouldn't just just sit there and do sort of bicep curls for the same hour. And there's a similar number of muscles in the arms there is in the leg. So it's about utilizing the body in slightly different ways so that people don't get issues.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much, Andrew. Going back to one of Caitlin's, here she talks about the benefits of mental health that running provides.
Speaker 2:You know what I was thinking. I was looking over our thoughts on this podcast and just earlier and I think there was, I think you said something about what are the mental health benefits? Yeah, and I think I think that was quite an interesting one. It got me thinking. You know how the benefits of running have been different for me over the years and you know, I mean I started running late, so I was in my 30s. You know the benefits. Then I was a young mum. You know I had to do it really early in the morning. You know the benefits were different. They helped me cope with just being a mum and keeping me strong and happy and fit. You know, then it became sort of the challenge, you know, marathon after marathon after marathon and wow and empowering. And you know, the children got older and it running gave me this confidence. You know more of a confidence.
Speaker 2:And now running, I use running to spend time with my favourite people. I use running. I mean, you know I've, you know, menopause, but I'm very lucky I don't have major issues with that. But yes, bones and joints. You know really thinking. You know I can feel the difference in my body. Therefore, I need to keep doing this, I need to keep oiling the cogs and you know thinking about that. You know right where I started thinking about that bone density again, because that is all changing age.
Speaker 1:For people, women, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. But it's not only that, you know, with the menopause of course, you know we need to do these things for so many other reasons and you know I don't know as, yeah, I mean, you know I care for a couple of relations and it's for me, it's essential for my sanity. Absolutely Well, it's, you know that's mental health again. But you know, when you get difficult, challenging times caring for various people, you know you it becomes, you know it's just, it's like one's saviour in many ways, isn't it? You know it's hard and people, you know it never, never gets any easier to get out of that front door, though that's that's the fascinating thing to me.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much, Caitlin, and I also wanted to get something else out of Caitlin's interview. Just basically, I just wanted to know how did she actually start the Bearcat Running Club?
Speaker 2:Well, it came about. I'll tell you exactly how it came about. I'd been sort of I had group after group each week of people or not, each week each day of more and more people that I was sort of helping with running. We turned up one day at Gunnersbury 10K and there were loads of us and one of my runners won the female event, which was amazing, and we all went to the pub afterwards. People said we want to be part of something, caitlin. People keep saying who do you run for? And we can only just point at you and go yeah, it's that loud ginger bird over there.
Speaker 2:That's that that's who we run for, we're on for her and, and you know, they said we want to be part of something. And you know, and again I speak about this, and I, you know it's I. You know the words running club fill me with fear and you know, and not that they aren't brilliant, but there's a, there's a terrible assumption that I even myself make about running clubs and you know, I thought, well, I don't know several running club, you know I ain't got. You know, I've avoided that kind of thing all my life. Really Well, I just thought they weren't for me. And of course, I thought, well, I hang on, I could set up something a little bit different.
Speaker 2:That's not just about league tables and competition and and please don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for that area, but it wasn't my forte, still isn't my forte, isn't my passion. My passion is the every man I'm just teaching the person. You know, I would say it's the sort of the London marathon of running clubs. You know, for everyone, for the person that wants to, you know, just do that first marathon and run, walk it. For the person, yes, for the person that still wants to kill three and a half hours. Yeah, we've got that as well, but it is. I wanted to sort of fill a possible gap I saw in the market. I mean, to be honest, I wasn't as clever as that. I wasn't thinking that specifically. I just thought, yeah, I want to provide an environment that was nurturing.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much, caitlin. Well, let's go back to our Olympian, who had a really extraordinary story. When I interviewed Stuart Hayes, he told us a story about how he headbutt as a deer in Richmond Park.
Speaker 5:Yes, I did. I was outside in Richmond Park and I was going down one of the hills and I wasn't going that fast, because usually I'm not going to lie. Obviously I trained there as professional. At some point I would have done some speeding. But I wasn't actually speeding this time and I went down and a deer literally ran across the road and full blast into me and it just sent me flying so completely side on.
Speaker 5:Yes side on. It just came out. So I think it was being chased by a dog or something, and it just happened, you know, when you see something coming. And I thought, because I know that I couldn't slam on my brakes because I'd crash anyway, so I thought I'd just try and dodge it Like headbutt, we headbutt, I headbutted the deer, oh, no, my eyes. But then I tried one clip and as I unclipped I slammed my foot into the ground and then my pelvic my leg got pushed up into my pelvis.
Speaker 6:Oh no.
Speaker 5:I had to have. Usually that it's the ball and sock of the shatters, but this time it's the actual, like the main hip and but luckily it shatters all in one piece. So I didn't need an operation, I just had to like Go around in a wheelchair for 12 weeks.
Speaker 1:Oh right, and your wife Michelle was with you, which is is that right he?
Speaker 5:wasn't with me, she can't pick me up. Because Someone said I got kicked by the deer and I was on the floor. I was down there for two hours and then someone turned up. So are you kind of broken your hip? You'll be screaming. I went yeah, okay, well, I'm going to. They sort of lifted me into the ambulance. I think it's because it is shattered all in one piece. That's why I was much pain right Hospital and they scanned it and said oh yeah, it's shattered you.
Speaker 5:And then and then and then I stayed the night and the next day the dots came in and said Like 50, 50, do you know? Do you, would you like an operation? I went oh, am I supposed to fit a coin here or something? I Got excited. The doctor was a friend and I said to the doctor guy I said this is a situation in what would you do? And he said ask the guy, if this was you, what would you do? If this was one, your children? And he said I would leave it for a couple of weeks and see how it heals. So I left it for a couple of weeks and the funny thing was when I went back there I wasn't booked in. That's like forgotten about me and, because I'm a paper lady, came up to me because, oh, you're the guy that got hit by the deer. I went, yeah, I'm here for, like, my, my x-ray to see if I need an operation or not. She goes, oh, I'm quickly make a phone call. And then they made a little phone call and they x-rayed me and I was fine and it just healed.
Speaker 5:And, yeah, I was in a wheelchair for 12 weeks and Michelle to push me around like little Britain. You know, that was an experience they had. I hope he didn't secretly. I mean, it wasn't that. The thing was it was just like it's, the boredom really is quite hard. Basically do nothing, just watch television, just right. And also getting around was difficult as well. Like going to the toilet in the night was really hard and in the bath I had to put like a little plate so I sit on like a little chair and I shout myself and stuff like that. So it was challenging and I could crutch. But the problem was I thought, if I fall over and bang it again from crutching Because when you it's wet, it's very slippery and also they teach you to crush up the stairs, which I thought was ridiculous. I used to just like. I used to like sort of like, like, sit on my bum and sort of pull myself upstairs. No, I'm crutching up the stairs because if I fell back, that'd be.
Speaker 1:I'll be back to A&E again, so yeah it was an experience I think I never did you do some swimming.
Speaker 5:Eventually I got to a point where I could swim. I also did this one on the yeah the hand one, which is good. I did upper body weight, so yeah. So about About two weeks I was in the gym training and and then after about a month, I could swim.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much, stuart. I was really enlightening. Well, I think the last little Sort of piece or segment, or whatever you might want to call it, is from Tom Gamer, and I just wanted to ask him how he became a motor racing commentator. So he's very much our very own Murray Walker. Murray Walker, by the way, for those who don't know, was a very, very famous commentator for the BBC over here in the UK. Anyway, over to you, tom.
Speaker 4:I walked away from the sport because seeing my friends still doing what it was that I wanted to do Was just too raw, it was just too hard and it's almost like a breakup.
Speaker 4:You're still very much in love with somebody, but but but they're not in love with you and and away they go on another journey and and that was the sport for me, it was, it was too raw and so I went and worked with Getty Images for a bit and then, you know, I had the realization that know your lane in life and also don't walk too far away from from from what it is that you know.
Speaker 4:And so I went back to the sport and found a niche in coaching and working with younger drivers and I worked with the national governing body and the various different things around coaching qualifications. But bubbling away in the background was was the commentary? So TV gave me a lifeline and it's the TV that's grown and grown and grown over the last sort of 10 or so years and I've been incredibly fortunate enough to sort of forge a career in TV and broadcasting. No one teaches you how to do it. You are the single swim. Everybody tells you when, when they don't like you and when you've made a mistake, but no one pats you on the back when you've done a good job, especially in today's day and age of social media.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, yeah, and it you know it's it, but I wouldn't change it for the world and it gives me that opportunity to be involved in a sport that that I fed in love with as a 10 year old as a 10 year old child, and my goal was always to get to Formula 1. I've got to Formula 1 now, albeit with with a microphone in my hand and not a steering wheel. So it's a funny lesson as to you know, life is is a journey, and you never quite know where you're going to end up, how you're going to end up, but you know, for me, I've got to where I wanted to get to, just in a in a in a different guys.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much, Tom, and that's it. I just want to say a really big thank you to Stuart Caitlin, Andrew Colleen and John for agreeing to come on this little podcast of mine. So I just wanted to say, yeah, big, big, big thanks. Hope you enjoy this episode. There will be links in the show notes where you can go back to each of the episodes.