Accountability Corner
Embark on an adventure with Darren, Morgan, and Chris, the dynamic trio steering the ship at "Accountability Corner." As passionate OCR enthusiasts, they're on a mission to share their expertise and enthusiasm for obstacle course racing with the world. From sharing insider tips on overcoming training plateaus to demystifying the complexities of race registration and gear selection, no stone is left unturned. Whether you're a seasoned competitor hungry for fresh perspectives or a newcomer eager to dip your toes into the muddy waters of OCR, these hosts are here to guide you every step of the way. Join them as they peel back the curtain on the electrifying world of OCR, revealing stories of triumph, camaraderie, and boundless adventure.
Don't miss out – tune in and discover why OCR is capturing hearts and minds around the globe!
Accountability Corner
#43: How to train for OCR - Dave Peters gives us years of insights and changess
This episode explores the evolution of training strategies in obstacle course racing, highlighting the shift from casual fun runs to sophisticated competitive approaches. With insights from expert coach Dave Peters, we discuss the importance of balancing enjoyment and technical skill in training, the need for self-assessment, and the role of mental resilience for success in OCR.
• Evolution of training methods in OCR
• Importance of fun and community in training
• The necessity of self-assessment and benchmarking
• Strategies for effective skill sharpening before races
• The psychological aspects of competing and personal growth
Welcome to the Accountability Corner, where we talk about everything obstacle course racing, from staying disciplined in training, affording the sport, signing up for your first race and, more importantly, how the sport is growing around the world, with your hosts Morgan Maxwell, chris Shipley and Darren Martin.
Speaker 2:Right, episode 43 of Accountability Corner, and it's a very big day. We have guests now and we're gonna, we're gonna introduce our, our first guest of 2025 and that is the wonderful the, the biggest name in obstacle course racing person's legs, smallest legs and smallest arms, it's dave peters.
Speaker 3:You're, it's Dave Peters, you alright, dave, I'm good you alright.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:I'm alright. I'm suffering, I've got a cold, but I'm alright. Bit of Barry White in my voice.
Speaker 2:It's a nice deeper tone.
Speaker 1:I've already got a bit light-headed just by hearing you speak.
Speaker 3:Wait till I start singing.
Speaker 1:Oh, don't, don't do it to me, can we?
Speaker 4:get an idea of who Barry White is for the younger audience.
Speaker 3:That's disappointing to hear, mate.
Speaker 2:He's the man of love. I was about to say we've also got Ships and Mo here, so how are you two doing Mo? Obviously we always have to ask this question how is Sheffield?
Speaker 4:Sheffield is good. What did I do today? I'm trying to think I didn't have my Sheffield bit planned for today. I went for a trail run in the new Hoka Speedgoat 6. And they're a very different shoe. For anyone that needs to know. They're not as cushioned, I'd say, as the old Speedcoats, but still got a bit of pop and actually feel faster. So, yeah, that's about it. Message me if you want to know more.
Speaker 2:Great Thanks, Thanks Mo.
Speaker 4:Nice.
Speaker 2:There's always good insight from Sheffield.
Speaker 4:So Kiara's back now. So the insight there, the day and the life of the air have gone. Okay, so my life's changed again.
Speaker 2:Ships. The OCR community would like to know what you've been up to this weekend.
Speaker 1:I have been down nuts having a little look around, trying to get things organised for people to sign up for winter nuts, summer nuts, 3k nuts and all nutty things. So hopefully some things are going to be cool there, some new changes, some exciting bits and pieces. And I've been working because I've got a wedding to pay for and that's about it.
Speaker 2:That's what we're going to hear about now. That wedding no, I'm not like you. You already planned it. In two days it's already done, Done.
Speaker 1:Sorted Bosh, simple, easy, no 48-page document for me.
Speaker 2:We never had a 48-page document. Don't you know what I'm about? No, 44. 44, exactly. We never had a 48 page document. Don't you know what I'm about? 44. 44, exactly. So let's introduce our topic for today, I think, with 2025 starting out, people looking at what they want to do in training, how obstacle course racing races, what they want to do. Do I do hybrid? You heard our last episode Do I do fitness racing? How do I train for all of it? We we wanted to do an episode and talk about how we train, but then we thought let's delve a little bit deeper into that conversation because the trends and everything that's changed over the years is actually quite exciting in obstacle course racing and it and massive things have changed which we can implement into our training now. And we dave. We thought, as you've been in the obstacle course racing for many years, not don't want to put an age on you because I don't do that, but, um, you could give us a bit because I think he's older than me.
Speaker 1:So put put okay, someone a bit bit older, not by a lot, but yeah, still a young, still a young 39. Oh yes, it's nice to hear someone older, you old man do paint.
Speaker 2:Paint this picture for us, dave, because I want to. I want to give the listeners a bit of like where obstacle course racing actually started as a training concept and where it's developed to now because, obviously, just so people don't know. Obviously you train me, and you train me since like 2019, just in COVID, and then obviously you trained Mo all his life. You've raised him from a young whippersnapper. So, yeah, talk to us like introduce yourself a little bit more, just so if anyone doesn't know where you've come from, what you've done, and then we can talk through training.
Speaker 3:Well, many moons ago I would be what I suppose people are now calling themselves as a racer myself um, loosely termed, because I was never that good really. Um, the difference being, I think, back in the day, was I could do the obstacles and a lot of people couldn't, so I was pulling results out of the bag without needing to be a runner, and I guess that sort of starts the journey in terms of what you're talking about training really, that back in the day you would, if you could sort of do the obstacles, you probably would get away with not being the best runners, because there's very few of them that are actually great racers, great runners and could do the obstacles as well. So that kind of pinpoints the beginnings of it really For me personally. I started out doing it for fun, like everybody else does, and then I think, um, the more you sort of got into it, the more you realized that it could be something you kind of found competitively.
Speaker 3:I think for me it was like a lot of people was leaving sport that I've done all my life, I'd played football all my life and I'd left university and that had stopped for me.
Speaker 3:So it was kind of the next competitive thing that I kind of took on um late in my 20s I suppose, um, which does make me feel old now, especially now.
Speaker 3:I've probably been doing obstacle racing as long as morgan's been alive, more or less um, but yeah, it was um. So that's how I started out. And then I kind of because I was working in the fitness industry at the time anyway I kind of started taking people to races with me and then we wanted to make sure that those people were good for going back to work the next day. So we actually started training people from a safety perspective, and I think that's where a lot of people did as well. It was more about staying safe, climbing obstacles and doing rope climbs and stuff, so that people would go to work the next day. Um, and then you kind of started getting tempted into more and more technical races. Then the europe, european and the World Championships arrived and it all kind of went on from there really. And then, yeah, we developed a bit more of a racing aspect to what we do.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to start carbon dating this. When did you first sort of like? Obstacle course racing for me has been around since 2012. But that was like I think it was probably like the second year nuts ever put on their race and there wasn't a lot of commercial races or brands around at the time in the uk. But when did you? When did you start knowing about obstacle course racing?
Speaker 3:probably about 2008, 2009, when I started looking at it, um, started doing like the odd assault thing, really basic level. You know nothing that you would necessarily resemble as an obstacle course now, but it's real basic kind of you wouldn't call them cross country, but then you wouldn't call them obstacle courses. There were mud runs, I suppose from back in the day, and you had a few of them kicking around at a time where you'd get natural terrain obstacles. And then I took it a bit more seriously once I'd left the activity centres that I was working on at the time. So it was from about 2011,. I think was when I first started racing. I did my first one, first nuts, I think in 2012, probably same sort of time as you. And then, yeah, it just kind of took off and I was part of that kind of group of people that really took off in this country 2013, 2014.
Speaker 1:And group of people that really took off in this country 2013, 2014 and, uh, yeah, the rest is history like I say, yeah, it was like the golden age then, when I think that was at its real peak, I think, because that's the similar times when I started doing it as well and around that time it was just, it just blew up and I think they already had the, the originals, the people that were there right at the very start. And then this is the time right now with the high rock sort of boom. It was like that with obstacle racing. There was just so many races and different events putting on different sort of courses. They all had similarities, but every one of them was different. Yeah, I think it's almost like what.
Speaker 3:What I feel is I mean, you can't say it's missing at the moment, because it's always about supply and demand right, if the people are there, you'd see more races and, vice versa, more races.
Speaker 3:You may see a few more races return, but the um, I think back in the day it was like for me there was lots of beginner events. You know it wasn't about the crazy technical obstacles, there was lots of the simple things crawls, climb a rope, maybe get across a monkey bar at best, and the rest was crawl, jump over a wall, do a balance, beam you, you know real simple stuff that it gave everybody an entry possibility and I think that's maybe what we're missing now and that'll probably be when that starts to come back is when you start to see numbers return, because it becomes more about fun and beginning, as opposed to when it kind of hit that top end and we hit, I don't know, 700, 800 people at the British National Championship. That was probably the peak, like you say, 2014-15. And then, yeah, it got a bit too technical, probably just before Covid. It probably went too far and that probably put a lot of people off and reduced some of the numbers of the races because we lost this sort of big contingent of fun running.
Speaker 1:So hopefully we'll see that back yeah, so go with that sort of thing then. So how was you training people for the early days? How, how was that coming about? It's all boot camp.
Speaker 3:All boot camp. So it's all started with our most sort of busiest class, if you like. At the time it was kind of in the woodlands lots of bodyweight training, lots of hill climbs, a bit of carries and stuff like that simple stuff tyre carries, some drags of tyres behind people when you're running, lots of bodyweight work and lots of body weight work, um, and lots of like kind of high intensity intervals and then intersperse that with a load of running, um, kind of. You touched on it last in your last podcast I think. I think darren said about the workout that you did. It was kind of similar workouts to that, but then in a group setting, um, and then, um, we were kind of at the time we were doing lots of fitness events and we're doing.
Speaker 3:We've always had a creative side to us at rumble, so we kind of always have looking for something different or looking for a different aspect of ways to test people. So we were always playing about with ideas. But in terms of fitness and training people, it was all just boot camp style and, to be fair, it was a lot of people doing the same thing in the industry as well, as a lot of british military fitness were quite heavily involved in it. Um, there's quite a lot of other boot camps all over the country. I remember um I think chris you were part of one when you're doing rpcc down at the bottom, down in hastings area and stuff I never actually went to one, but yeah, I was part of one because obviously I was down in a different area.
Speaker 1:But yeah, they just, they just groundhogged me and, uh, made me join the team. But I was doing I was going to crossfit classes, which was similar things, and basically I was enjoying the wads, doing the boot camp style stuff and that's. You know, that's how I was potentially mainly training for the obstacle course racing.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, it was a lot of that um and lots of like I say lots of people were doing it back in day in that and that style. I think loads of people from boot camp backgrounds. I know essex boot camp was one boot camp revolution down in essex as well um, so there, yeah, it's just loads and dozens and dozens all over the country all doing the same thing. And then you add more rather than teams. Back in the day you did have a few teams out there, but they tended to be and I mean this with respect and I talk about our own team like this as well but they tended to be what we would classify as elite division teams. So there was only five or six of them in the team, but they were all top people.
Speaker 3:You know the Innovate team back in the day, the RPCC team back in the day, and then the rest of the people all kind of found themselves in the community team. So you had Muddy Race, you had Muds, the Call UKOCR. So it was kind of a different feel. I think if you were not a serious competitor, it was about being in a community team, whereas if you're serious and you're seriously trying to podium, then you'd probably find yourself in a smaller, more niche team.
Speaker 2:That would all be about high level sort of training and high level um performance. So so you, you left nuffield to start rumble.
Speaker 3:That's correct yes, mate, yeah and and rumble started on the basis of boot camps sort of boot camp, yeah yeah, so we, when I was, I was working at a gym, I was assistant manager of the health club and it was that typical thing. You get bored of working for everyone else, doing anything for everybody else, and whatever you have to make a decision, you're either going to go into the management team where you're pretty hands-off and you're working in finance all the time spreadsheets, or you kind of you want to stay hands-on. So I kind of left and I was running it part-time initially whilst I was working at the gym, so it allowed me to do boot camps a couple of times a week. We did more of a running based one on a Tuesday, more of a sort of get down and crawl through puddles in the woods on a Saturday, and we found that it kind of appealed to a collective of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't really know A whole bunch of people.
Speaker 3:I mean, the same people are still present. They just don't crawl through the puddles anymore. So it's definitely changed. But yeah, it's just people kind of found their little home, you know, and it's just sort of evolved from there. And then, yeah, when we started doing the technical stuff, you know, to keep people safe so rope climbs, monkey bars and rings we started realising we're going to need a bit more kit for this. And if we're going to need a bit more kit, then I need to upskill myself a bit more. So I went and studied gymnastics, parkour, we even studied some martial arts and then climbing. We've combined the knowledge that we gained from that and then my knowledge from me being sports science background of my degree and, yeah, we kind of developed a system of training and took it on from there. And the more you sort of go down the line, the more the introduction to european and world championships started coming. You start realizing you need to upskill yourself again, and so I continue to study and learn and start developing individuals.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, you take people on with kind of lofty goals then, and that's how you develop as a coach as well yes is there's kind of like a very clear collaboration structure of coaches upskilling themselves and also athletes wanting to push the boundaries of the sport that they've put themselves into.
Speaker 2:And as long as they're going in the same trajectory, you're actually going to get quite. You're going to get greatness and you're going to get sport growth from that because you're going to learn more about it. Because this the title of this episode, when I was first thinking about it, was going to be like how did we go from general fitness boot camps to more specialized training of obstacle course racing? And there's such a journey in between that that people just don't don't see it anymore. They think they look at, if you went into ocr right now, you think it's all rig based, it's all very specialized training, it's all. But actually if you go back to 2010, it was boot camps, it was just general availability of fitness and then that went into where do you want to go from there? Like it's almost like a career development path, like where do you want to go now you've got the foundation? Where do you want to go with that? Well, what.
Speaker 3:What's amazing with that as well, though, is that that foundation still exists. It's just that people forget that it exists, and I think when you look at coaching and training, you know people are like oh yeah, I can do a wall, it's fine, I can do a wall. It's like, yeah, but can you? You know, there's a big difference side than there is in racing a wall, so, and I think that's um, it's something we had to learn the hard way, you know, and any coach that's worth their salt, they'll probably tell you the same thing that the rigs and everything else that we've developed working sort of strategies on. Now we're doing that now because we've actually we've done it initially. Then we had to go back and fix our ground game, our walls, our balance beams and stuff like that, and then we came back to rigs and developed them further. I think most people kind of got lost a little bit. We went too far down the rig line, same as the races did. Too far, too many, too much demand for that stuff, and then we actually alienated a massive crowd of people and it became non-accessible, and you realize that your base core product that you were working with didn't exist anymore. You know, and that's kind of where the sport finds itself, I think. So, yeah, it's um, it's definitely a thing that you've now got a bigger picture and you've now got a development in structure, but it all comes from the athletes who've pushed themselves.
Speaker 3:Therefore, the coaches have had to develop as well, and some people come in at different levels and do different things and there's different coaches for different parts. Now I think I think you can look across the country there's dozens and dozens of coaches. I think boss has obviously had an impact on that. The work that I've done, scott's done, sean's done, other people have done, you know, to develop the coaching stuff, and that's kind of made a difference in terms of we've got different levels and grading of coaching now and we've therefore got people who can work in their own specialisms, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think that for a little period of time especially around covid, where everyone's a bit nervous it was almost like you kind of didn't want to accept your strengths and weaknesses, but now I think people are far happier in their lanes and doing their thing. You know, you've got people at spartan specialists, you've got people that are european specialists and so on, you know. So it's definitely changed the face of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everyone's trying to figure out their attributes and then trying to apply them correctly, rather than just building a whole bank of availability that they don't actually know what to do with. Yeah, it mo when. When you first started at rumble what date? When? When was that? When did your mum drag you?
Speaker 4:down to 14 years old. So I think it was 2015.
Speaker 1:14 years, the summer of 2015,.
Speaker 4:I think Wow, Because there was me and then another guy called Andy and we joined when he turned 14. So we joined around the same time and his birthday is, I think, near, like more summer time.
Speaker 2:So what did OCR training fitness? What did it look like at that stage in 2015?
Speaker 4:At that stage, like Dave said earlier, he was just making us in the woods, sending us up hills and then making us do like burpees and cover ourselves in shit and then run back down hills. And that was the crux of OCR. We did have Swarmborne um, that we started to get the the first build, uh, so we did some obstacles, but we'd only did, was it once a month? We did that.
Speaker 3:They will correct me, yeah, so people don't really realize this with Rumble, but we've had um four different training centers that people don't realize. They this with rumble, but we've had um four different training centers that people don't realize. I think we've kind of always been based in the one that we're in now, but we've had four, and the first one we had, like mo says, it was like a big opening to a field. It was actually a venue of a race um, and we stayed there and we used to train there on the first week of the month um to do more technical where we we sort of spent some money on some obstacles by this point, and that's where we did the first one a month, but the rest were in the woods and it was running based.
Speaker 2:So 2015 is actually almost like at the peak. You're talking like peak numbers of OCR at that sort of stage because the world championships are quite well attended. European championships are on the horizon. They're not. They're not day just yet. Um like 2017 or 16 was the first uh european championships and then yeah.
Speaker 2:So where did the catalyst start? Dave of like, all right, people are doing well, people performing an obstacle course, racing with this boot camp availability of fitness, but to get that extra bit out of people, was it? Was it athletes coming to you or did you spot something? Because you, you were racing yourself that there? You need to tweak it and get a bit more specialized.
Speaker 3:I think the real truth of it was me having an absolute nightmare at the first british championships. I think that's the truth. Like we had we we had a few of us that was, you know, half decent and we had a youngsters that were coming through and we'd like we wanted to create something unique and special for the for the future. But I think the real truth of it was I went to the first british championships at nuclear races and it was at fallout so it was cold anyway. Um, and the qualifiers and stuff like that, that, because it was qualifiers for the british national champs at the time, they were all quite easy and because we'd had lots of beginner races, anyone was pretty much qualifying, or in terms of what you were qualifying from, I should probably say was was a far easier race. And then we turned up to nuclear and they they put a bit of effort into some new style of obstacles. There were some short rigs and I think it was the first time the ninja rings had been seen outside of tough mudder um and um. You know I had a. I got to the sort of gauntlet of the obstacles at the end, if you like, and I got to the ninja rings. I've never seen them in my life and for whatever reason just lack of thought, brain power, lack of practice and technique it took me nine attempts to get across the, the ninja rings, you know, and at the time it was the single band. You have as many attempts as you want, but you, you don't do it and you cut your band off. You're not ranked. So I spent sort of nine attempts in the freezing temperatures there waiting to get it done and I doing that it kind of inspired my team, which was great, but it didn't inspire me, inspired me in the sense that I'm not as good as I think I am and I have to start taking things a bit more seriously for myself. And then when I look around and I can see people, you know, we've got the likes of Andy and Mo coming through at the beginning of their journey with it and they're keen to get involved and they've started taking some races on. And I've got some other people in my team who were doing half decent and compared to the, to the, what we would call elites at the time.
Speaker 3:So really we needed to put some focus in if we wanted to improve and in that that next year we put in a rapid expansion in terms of what we invested, both financially and time wise, went through a change of the business as well, changed our training ground, changed the aspects of how much we could train and when, um, and that's when really I started looking at it from a personal training perspective, I suppose and actually implementing some structure to training outside of boot camp sessions and actually looked at periodization and strength and conditioning and and actually putting structure to training and applied that mostly on myself at the time because there wasn't so many people that I was training back then um, to see some progress.
Speaker 3:And then a year later, or just less than a year later, when we did the next british championships, it paid off because you had the likes of morgan who in his first proper year of obstacle racing was almost, I mean, he missed, he missed the bell, basically on the famous Judgment Day rig and I managed it's just to keep my band, um and race through.
Speaker 3:Probably you know it was that typical, like I said earlier on, you keep your band and you do well on obstacles and you rank pretty highly. You know there was many, many names of people that have been beating me for years now, far, far quicker than me at the time, but they just didn't have a clue how to do the rigs and that and the only advantage I had on them was a three meter by three meter rig that we used to get up on one corner and keep going around from corner to corner on and just keep working around sort of 12 meter laps of a square rig. And Morgan was the same and we used to practice on this tiny little room, the room that the rumble barn now that we have that is now our toilets and massage room or storage room now is was our entire training space that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't. You don't realise that, do you? I mean, everyone who's been to Rumble, that isn't a big area at all, I think, yeah, that's tiny. So doing rigs and stuff in there, that's a real sweat, sawdust sort of place to be doing stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we made it work, though you do though don't you yeah.
Speaker 2:Who else was around at this. This time, like you've got, was scotty in the pt barn, or was that yeah?
Speaker 3:so I would say, from a coaching and a training perspective, it was probably me and scott that were doing things differently to anywhere else. I think one thing me and scott we've always had for each other is mutual respect based on the fact that we both believed in a structured way of training. We both believed that strength conditioning was important. You know, it wasn't a case of just get through this by boot camping or you can do it on just crawling through the mud and jumping on an obstacle every now and then. It was had to have some structure and it could still be fun, it could still be varied. You know, we were using things from a farm yard and whatever we could pick up and carry to sort of train with but implement in a structured sort of strength and conditioning routine. It helped us build grip strength, build resilience and back strength. Um allowed us to do the push and pull motions which gave us some good grip endurance as well. Um, and yeah, the rest is history.
Speaker 3:We got through the british national championships pretty well and then we managed to. I went to the first european championships which I think caught out 90 of the british field that went and managed to get through that with my band as well, and that was when I probably from a rumble perspective in particular I probably believed in me and what I do a lot better, because you realize, hang on, this is working here, like when you look around you and all these people that you know they're pretty decent and pretty fit people, but they can't keep their bands. The strength conditioning created the foundation for us to to build a platform, and you can't train technique if you don't have the basic strength conditioning behind you. So it's there, from there, that we developed it onwards from from a training perspective so something like that when was that rig built?
Speaker 2:when was that british championships? Because I didn't attend that. Was that 2016, the first?
Speaker 3:one was 2014, I think, and then the, the one with the proper long I say wrong long rig um, nostalgia is probably the best word for it, because if people saw it now, they'd all cruise for it, you know. And yeah but it was a rig that was long and it was the first time anyone had seen things like chain and balls and things like that on a rig. So the reality was all we needed was a rope, a bar and a ring and that was it. But people couldn't figure that out at the time.
Speaker 1:So that was 2015, um, and then that was a cold I want to give people some respect to that one as well, because the weather did not help a lot of people whether it didn't help. It was a colder it was a cold, windy day, yeah pippenford as well, and it's always notoriously tiring pippenford.
Speaker 3:I think, though, if people had had the opportunity if they don't if they got there in the state, a warmer state maybe, yeah, but also I think the reason the cold got them so bad was because of the retries and the and the second, you know second time through. If they'd hit that first time through, with the conditioning and training people have got now, you'd see a far higher success rate, because they wouldn't have stopped and therefore maybe not got as cold.
Speaker 1:I'm only saying this because did you well, basically right. I'm just going to say this out there. So a week beforehand, right judgment day, actually put the event on with the same rig there, got through it, fine, no problem, that week it was that week it was a cold day I actually got through the rig, but I kicked the bell and that wasn't allowed. I did do it, but I kicked the bell. But, yeah, the weather did play a part, but God, can you remember the amount of people lining up? It got so long and then everyone was just trying it, one after another, one after another. I've got some great photos I'll share online.
Speaker 3:I think it's because you got back when we everyone went walking back up there, didn't they after their races?
Speaker 3:had finished and I think when you got back up there, I think what the reality of that was unless you seem to happen to be in the men's 30 to 34 category, I think it was anyone who's turned up and had to look. They've walked along and it's kind of if you've got through that rig, you've probably podiumed on age group anyway, because there were so many people failing that actually, if you did make it through, you had a massive chance of a podium. So so many people were relentlessly trying because they knew that anyone that they were racing was also in the queue with them. So it was quite interesting watching it, but it was. It was nice actually to see the resilience of people and how willing people were to try, and the best thing that came out of it was everyone walked away and they realized, you know, you had half a dozen people complaining it was too hard, it was a ridiculous conversation after that.
Speaker 1:It was unreal it was.
Speaker 3:But then, I think, where you had characters back then, whether you like them or not, you know whether you agreed with their opinions. You know there was people there james rutcliffe was famously one for me, who you know he was like, look, I failed it and it's because it wasn't good enough. So, you know, he went and made a decision and that was to train, and what he did was something which was brilliant, which was he put a pull-up bar in between every door frame in his house and every time he walked through he did a pull-up. And you just think something as simple as that, you know. And all of a sudden, it weren't long and I would say that james was then one of the stronger ones in the country for a good period of time. So that rig whether you loved it or not, it really sorted out people's attitude towards racing. However, it probably killed it for a lot of people as well who didn't want to do the training. So you could look at it two ways. Really, it definitely moved us on, didn't it?
Speaker 1:it was definitely a pinnacle part in british ocr history, and that was just on the rig side of it. There was a lot of other things that went on with that race but yeah and there's an episode of itself yeah.
Speaker 2:So from a training point of view, you've talked like you've gone from um, from functional fitness, function, and then gone into the health and safety, making sure people actually get for it safely, which is either fundamental thing of doing any obstacle course race because, yeah, it can be a bit dangerous. But then, like you said there, I've heard this so many times, this story of this rig, and I feel like it is a catalyst of people that have taken it upon themselves as a feeling responsible to coach themselves and make themselves better based on that rig. But I think what you've done and what many coaches have done maybe at the time, have actually thought actually it's not just responsibility of my to coach myself, it's a responsibility to adapt and coach others, to build, build this into the plans for the future of actually where this sport is growing and where the coach, the training, needs to go yeah, I mean the first.
Speaker 3:That was exactly the first thing I did and it was the first realization I had, because I put remember when those conversations were kicking off on the community groups. You know I put a video of me doing that rig up on um I think it was on ukocr and I just I didn't put it up to be. I'm gonna put it up with some ideas and just three tips. I think think I put three tips as to how, to how you could have got through this rig and how you can do it in the future. But the video and I think the simplicity of what I was doing kind of made it, highlighted it to a lot of people that oh, hang on a minute. Actually, all he's done here is have the grip strength to hang on a ring and a bar and have the thought of and a decent lock on his feet with a rope. And it was the first time you know I was leaning out. You know what people call him drag back now and stuff like that. You know it didn't have a name back in the time but we were locking ropes and leaning across as many attachments as we could just to get through stuff. And that's what me and mo both did. Mo missed the bell, but that was, you know, if it wasn't for a slip earlier on in the race, he probably would have had another attempt to do that and he would have got through, you know. So when two of you realized, hang on, we've got through.
Speaker 3:And me putting that post up on there was kind of my first, I suppose, coaching the nation as opposed to my own team. It was my first reach into right, here we go. Guys, look, there's some ideas for you. And it wasn't about business at the time, it was about just if I can help. And when you realize it's helping, and then you get people messaging going can you help me, can I come down? And stuff like that. And I was fortunate that I had good friends around us. We had a good group of people. You know we had Connor coming down, so we had Connor Hancock. He used to come down and train people for us and with us. We had a great relationship with him at the time. He was with him at the time. He was undoubtedly one of the world's best at the time and I think, yeah, right, and if not still, we would be, you know, if he was still about and and I think that kind of helped.
Speaker 3:And then from that day on, like you say, darren, that was where we were like right, we can actually help here, we can nationally sort of do a bit more. And we started to reach out. We offered free training to people for the European champs and and we went on from there and I know Scott was pretty similar, doing some similar things at the PT barn as well. So having two people, I think, starting that going off and there was other people out there coaching I'm not saying there wasn't, there, definitely was, but it was less of a thing the technical element and I think there was maybe then half a dozen of us that kind of sprung forwards and stepped in. It was all about the network of people. Then that actually grew and it's probably from relationships that maybe people don't realise.
Speaker 3:So when Phoenix, nuclear Phoenix, for example, originally they were called Phoenix OCR, and when Phoenix came about first time around and we were newly named because we used to be called Energised Mudrunners, we were a different name at the time when we were first newly there as Rumble at the second British Champs they did a thing to have a tent in the village and I think it was about 20 teams and there was one tent left and it was down to basically a vote Whoever got the most votes would be the team that got in. And I think it was us Phoenix and Mudderfudders at the time, who all were sort of going head to head and none of us really had heard of each other. And, um, we kind of went head to head on this vote and we got it um, to which we had replies of like who is this, who is this team, you know? Like who the hell were? Rumble, rumble, fitness and whatever so.
Speaker 3:And then I reached out to robin at um phoenix and just said look, you know we've got a tent space and it's unfortunate for you guys to miss out. But I said to the guys at modifiers and I said to robin at phoenix look, come over and share the tent space. You know, come and put your flags up and do it. And I think that network started and what is now a big rivalry, if you like, in terms of team rivalry, it's always been a good team rivalry. You know, there's always been a great relationship between those teams because we actually stand out of the same same british champs, the same concepts and we shared a tent on that day. So any success phoenix get is now a success for rumble. So I'm just reminding everyone of that that we're actually one team, right, so yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, we take every success they get.
Speaker 1:What's that? What's that saying that goes about is with like your brother's your enemy into your brother's enemies, your your enemy or whatever it is you never heard that one.
Speaker 3:It sounds great.
Speaker 1:Basically it goes on the same. So, like you're, you and your brother are enemies. Until someone's an enemy your brother are enemies. Until someone's an enemy of your brother, then you and your brother are friends, and then you fight the enemies of your brother.
Speaker 1:That's it that's what OCR in the UK is. It's always been that way. Everyone loves to hate each other. I mean we've said it before on our Rivals episode how much all our people that we race against we hate with a passion but we love them so much because of what it brings out of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, this I'm gonna ask you, gonna go into some details now because I want to. I want to know specifics on like training, because when was when did you first do kind of like a very detailed obstacle course race in that program? Like when? When did that actually come up? When was the existence of an OCR program first?
Speaker 3:one for me was for the. What would have been? It would have been the world championships at nuclear, probably the first proper training programs that we were doing. We had like. What we had is we had our um academy systems training, so we were training people as a group, so we had a group training program that we would follow from an instructor perspective. But then it was before the nuclear champs where the world champs brought came over to England, was where. So what was that? Twenty, seventeen, twenty, eighteen, eighteen, I think maybe. Oh blimey.
Speaker 2:It was twenty eighteen yeah.
Speaker 3:Eighteen, yeah, so that would have been the first time that we looked at an individual and then trained them for it, so I probably had four or five people that I was training at the time.
Speaker 1:If I remember rightly, dave, about that time you sent out a post within the community looking for members to train.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it was the first time we kind of extended out and we went out and said look, we're, we're doing our thing and we're reaching out to people to kind of come on board. And it was a case of speaking to. So I put a few sponsorships up, um, firstly, so we put some options out for people to come and um basically train with me as a as an athlete, at free of cost, but at the same time, in terms of the eye on developing some talent in our team, um, beyond the locals. So we've always had a massive local contingent in our team and we always will have, because it's the way that we do things. But it was the first time we'd reached out to individual athletes where we saw potential or vice versa, they they wanted a bit of a leg up on terms of the way that they were training, what they were doing. Um, we we'd already, by this point, I think in 2016 we'd already partnered up with muddy race, so we were actually um kind of co-team, effectively, because they were a community team, but we took um a co-team with them so that their logo was shared on our, on our on our shirts. So we used to carry a Muddy Race logo as well. So we were already working with some of the guys from Muddy Race, but it was when we decided to sort of develop Rumble, if you like, as a racing team. So we took individuals on there.
Speaker 3:I think people like Mo had really kind of had a taste of it and really wanted to kind of push themselves on in their own categories as well. I think kind of push themselves on um, in their own categories as well. I think, like I said, we had a couple of other youngsters as well. We had andy there and we had a guy called stanley who was doing very well as well. So, um, we did, we knew that there was a long-term future in what we were doing, but we needed some people there and then in that moment to kind of come on board. And I think, darren, that's where you thought sort of first propped up, wasn't it? When you first came in.
Speaker 2:I think we brought yourself in, we brought jason morlam in, louise came in, yeah, um, yeah, just thinking like back in the day that I was doing all them functional fitness sort of training, just doing things to really just just hurt, and we've said it with mo, you've said in the last episode, everyone just wants to hurt and that's that's how I was training for ocCR. Just hurting every, every session would just be hurting and I thought that was the way forward. But Mo, like how did you, when you, when you came into them functional fitness sessions, that, how did you see your training develop up to this point of the first ever, like not well, maybe not first ever, but Dave's first ever OCR training plan? Like how did you, how did your training, you know, evolve from that point?
Speaker 4:yeah, so I mean in the beginning stages, like when I was really young, it was just every rumble class that was available. So I think in the beginning it was the boot camps, which were the tuesdays and saturday mornings, and then that soon developed to like when we got the first barn and we started doing the obstacle sessions, um, and I was just going along basically every class that dave offered I'd be there and then dave mentioned this before but also he'd do a lot of events. So then every event that you put on functional, like fitness wise, if you like, I'd be trying to join that and that was kind of like the start of my training. And then obviously then we switched to plans and instantly it just Dave.
Speaker 4:In the original plans there was still a lot of classes on there because I was still doing a lot of the like rumble classes. So we kind of worked a plan that incorporated but the main thing was just the running. I was just running more because I wasn't doing much running unless they were in a class. So the first early stage plans I remember it was just running and me running more, and that's kind of the first that this is different to what I've been doing, and that was the first improvement I noticed as well as I just got became a better runner almost instantly. It was like a few months of just actually some dedicated run work as well. Wow, my 5k has now dropped from 20 minutes to 17 minutes and it's like wow, that happened quite quickly so what?
Speaker 2:what struck? What did that structure look like, dave? What did you think at the time? Like what? How can I put running in with obstacle work? Because obviously it's not like just going to the gym and working aesthetically, like doing your, your, your leg, arm, back split. You've got to think of it a little bit differently, haven't you?
Speaker 3:started it with probably a simpler approach than we're far simpler than now. So now it effectively it was a run plan. It was taking him and going right. We need to make him a better runner, so let's make him a better runner. So we looked at some different run structure, how to train different running systems. So you know, you can look at all sorts of different systems that are out there.
Speaker 3:But just in implementing some interval stuff in there, giving him some pace zones to start hitting, um, I didn't actually train heart rate zones with him at all. I think that's quite a. That's a recent change for for mo in terms of training and for a lot of my guys, they still now work on pace, not on heart rate, because whilst heart rate training has got its own you know I work with heart rate with some people it's definitely got its advantages. I think pace in um obstacle training sorry, in obstacle racing is really important. You got to know what your race paces are going to feel like, and if you're not used to training by what your race paces, what your pace zones are, then you will never have an idea of what that is. And if you're always looking for a heart rate, well, an obstacle can spike a heart rate, so it's difficult to race by heart rate.
Speaker 3:So we started with everything with pace zones, we started implementing some tempo stuff.
Speaker 3:We gave him him, you know, we tested him for a start, which was the first thing, probably the first thing that I started implementing into training plans that hadn't been done before, which was giving us some markers to sort of compare against, like he says there, with his 5k. You know, although he was training, we knew he was fit, we didn't actually know what his 5k was, so we had to go I think his first 5k was 22, 23 minutes or something like that when we first did your first test, mate, um, and then obviously we just worked on it from then on in. And then he said to me oh yeah, one day I'll beat you. And I said you'll never beat me on cardio. I said, if ever you beat me on cardio, I'm giving up.
Speaker 3:And then about two months later he beat me and I didn't give up. But I'm now chasing and that happens ever since. But yeah, it was all pace zone, so tempo runs, interval sessions, um, and gradually creeping the mileage up and I think, as he hit his young adult years, if you like, because we had to look after mo, because I think yeah, well, the thing is, he started with us, so young, right, and what's?
Speaker 1:that when his voice dropped.
Speaker 4:Yeah but david witnessed all of that. That's the thing.
Speaker 3:This is it, baby I can remember things he probably doesn't remember. This is exactly it, but no like so. The reality was was Mo was a young athlete in an underdeveloped sport where we had very little research and understanding as to what the impact of that sport was would have on people. So, you know, we ran a junior development program where we started training from eight years up to 18. And back in the day, because the numbers were quite low, that would literally be sessions where you would have them varied from eight and nine years old all the way up to sort of 17 years old in a group, 16, 15, 16 years old.
Speaker 3:But we had to look after Mo, we had to make sure, you know, we didn't want to rush his development, we didn't want to load him up with too much weight, we didn't want to load him up with too much mileage without the background mileage in it. And it was probably quite frustrating for Mo in some ways because we were holding him back and we knew what his potential was. But we were holding him back because we didn't want him to get damaged, we didn't want him injuring himself. Um, you know, and if you go back in the time I remember famously he was always raced and compared against Alf at the time and Alf was a really promising guy and a really fast young lad, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know he was beating a lot of adults early on, as was Mo. But you know, there was a lot of comparison there and probably from Mo's perspective and he'll tell you this and I don't know but it was probably quite frustrating because I was holding certain things back from him and maybe and I think the amount of times he probably heard me to be patient and wait and his time will come was probably too many times for his ears to handle. But Mo being Mo, fair play to him he stuck to it. And then as he hit sort of 16, 17, specifically 18, then he was really kind of by that point he specifically 18. Then he was really kind of by that point he'd leapfrogged everyone in our team. He was already then the quickest and he started leading from the front.
Speaker 2:So it paid off and he's now obviously doing what he's doing, so yeah well when it came to, when it came to learning the technical aspects of OCR and also the in, how did you find balancing those? Because that's quite difficult, isn't it? Because Thursday sessions down at Rumble for me has always been the technical aspects, the coaching, the very skill-based form of our sport, but then not everyone has the accessibility to practice that skill-based. So when you was coaching people, how did you find to balance that like, especially if you're coaching them from a distance?
Speaker 3:I think on the mains. I think because the majority of the guys that train technique with us at that point in time at the beginning were class members or beginners. They weren't necessarily hitting heavy load on their training anyway. So coming in for a class a week, two classes a week, it wasn't too bad, it wasn't. We already knew that if we were managing the load in that one single class then it was quite comfortable that we could be confident they weren't overdoing it because they were coming to all of our classes so it was rare that we'd have someone on board more distant. So it was quite easy for us to manage it because we'd see them in the classes. We had an academy structure, we knew what we were looking for and we knew what progress we wanted. So we knew that by sending them to our functional fitness classes they were getting the basic grip up, grip endurance through kettlebell training. They were getting the basic lifting through some of the squats and the easier lifts that we were doing. Um, and then when we did our run classes, we knew the intensity added in them. Run classes were managed alongside.
Speaker 3:You know, the advantage to me and a at the time me being the only instructor teaching classes was. I knew who was in every class and therefore I knew what they were doing in terms of their load. So even if they weren't on an individual program, I knew load wise what these, what these guys were doing through the week and I could have conversations with them here and there and I could reduce some intensity for some of them in certain classes. And that's kind of how it developed. And it only really became a bigger deal from, like you say, from going into those championships when the championship races grew, where I had to start thinking about deload periods in people's training. How often was I going to manage what they were doing and then getting athletes to check in more often? So if they're, you know, the more distant they are in terms of their training, then the more they need to be communicating what it is that they're doing. And that's kind of where you can take a hold of that.
Speaker 2:And me personally I've seen the sport grow from the very difficult European races where it's been very rig heavy. At one stage we had a four, maybe like a three, two year period where rigs were very much at the forefront of the sport and that's where everyone thought the sport was growing going. So you're just focusing purely on your grip strength and that in training programs and everyone's training programs at that point everyone was focusing on grip strength. Like grip strength was king, it was grip, and then you you'd be, you'd be doing more grip than you're doing speed work and then that would then doing more grip than you're doing speed work and that would then be a detriment effect to your ability to actually keep up with the best. And now the sport is just developing to find balance and I feel like it's getting to that point more and more every time, every year. It goes on.
Speaker 2:Yes, there is frustrations, but I think those frustrations come out of losing something to gain balance in one direction and we've seen it in the last maybe two, three years since covid. Rigs have sort of reduced slightly but it's given balance to training. So we're we're all now but trying to balance that technical versus strength, versus endurance, versus speed. Like we've been said, it ships. And, like you, came up the attribute cards. We're trying to make our attribute cards balanced rather than one outweighing the other one.
Speaker 3:You should if you want to be the best in sport. It should be imbalanced. But it should be imbalanced towards running. It should be you're a runner. If you're a runner and you're good enough at the other stuff, then you'll do pretty well. You know the other stuff, then you'll be. You'll do pretty well.
Speaker 3:You know, and you only need to look at the recent history in the years of the people that have been winning our races in our country and then go into europe and have a look at those and they're exactly the same. I would say, you know, when I look at the top guys in in europe, they're not the best obstacle people, you know. When I look at across the list and you think, yeah, okay, jesse and stein, you know, from holland, we know that holland's got 30 odd years of history of technical training on obstacles. Okay, albeit, survivor on image is slightly different, but the core principles are the same, you know. So those guys maybe stick out frank, for example, but really, you know, I don't think I'm doing a disrespect when I say that the top guys aren't necessarily the the best obstacle people, you know, and that's not to say that they're not good, because, believe me, they're good yeah, they're the best obstacles, but they're not the best obstacle racer, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3:And that's the difference, right? So you have to be the best runner first of all. You have to be the best runner out of the obstacle runners if you want to be the top top dog. You know and me and my have had this conversation for years about the truth is is is that if you can't run, you know, it doesn't matter how good you are at obstacles, you're not going to win at the top top level because ultimately you've got to be a mountain goat. You know, I mean John Albom. If he walked back into race tomorrow, I've got no doubt in my head he'd win, absolutely no doubt in my head he'd win. You know, because he's good enough.
Speaker 2:And that's where someone like me, when I've always, when I, when you first started coaching me, I was always saying that I just need to be a little bit quicker because I'm really proficient at obstacles and I'll gain time on the gain time on on the obstacles. But, to be honest, I need, I need to have a bit of a reality check. Is that gaining time on obstacles is not going to make me win a race? It's, it is fundamentally running, and that's where that realization has changed maybe over the years, where running is at the forefront of the training. But you, you, you, ships and mo said it last last time, you said it on the alban app about strength being you just need enough strength to get by and that's what we should be of obstacle course racing the more balanced the races become in terms of obstacles, strength and endurance, the more imbalanced we need to be as racers.
Speaker 3:Like you just said, dave, towards the running which it's a hard truth in it that we've all had to swallow countless times yeah the problem is everyone's also developing, so everyone else is learning, everyone else is improving and, like the, whilst we get these new mentalities and, especially in the uk, who we are behind when it comes to our running and our, you know, our obstacle game is definitely caught closer up to what, what the europeans were a few years ago, without a doubt, and that's because we've got more training centers, we've got a better coaching selection, we've got better coaching, um certifications. Now you know bosses and the work that's been done to develop those. We've got better in terms of the obstacle ability, but the running still isn't there, and that's because we don't have a run mentality.
Speaker 3:You know, everybody wants to train new obstacles and the truth being, yeah, go on it's so strange really, because, when you think about it, on our main races they're not even obstacle heavy, no, and we're still not doing it but there's a reason for that and I think the reason for it is the majority of people in the uk that are attracted to take part in obstacle racing are competitive people and usually have some sort of sports background and competitive mindset. But it isn't always a running background that they've come from and it isn't. And the reason that they've done obstacle racing instead of running is because it's more fun. So people want to do the fun stuff. You know people don't want to do the boring 20 hours a week. You know in in training cardio. You know it's my 20 hours a bit excessive, but you know you get my, get my drift with it. Um, just have to throw something in there to throw everyone off. Go whoa, hang on on Dave said 20 hours.
Speaker 2:Dave said 20 hours AI wouldn't even have said that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is it, we're not far off, that though. In truth.
Speaker 4:Look at what other people are doing. They're doing maybe eight hours of running and then they're getting 10 hours of biking, or you're seeing some big training blocks coming out from some of the european guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that, and that's it exactly you know they're training their energy systems it's funny, though, because we we just keep, we are trying to. We're a victim to our own trends. That's what we've done in the uk. We're a victim to the trend that's happened, but we at least we're. We're on this podcast today and we're actually learning. We we can hearing what we're all saying. We're learning from these trends, but very slowly, because we're learning as we get beat. So we've learned that, yes, we couldn't get through one rig at a UK championships, and then we became very good at balancing our training towards more rigs, but then we went to more European races and realized, shit, well, these guys are phenomenal obstacles. We need to get up our obstacle game, and we've done that. Yes, we have update up to our obstacle game. Everyone seems to keep a band now mostly, but now we've realized we can't keep up with them on a 5k. Like we're learning, but slowly we're. We're going to get ahead of that.
Speaker 3:We're going, but slowly. We've got to get ahead of that though. We've got to get ahead of that and that's the coach's job in this country and that's the Federation's job in this country. We have to be ahead of it because the whole time we're playing catch up. They're going to keep developing, they're going to keep changing, they're going to keep improving and we're starting to work together. Races are working together better than they were.
Speaker 3:You know some, what some races are anyway, you know, and and even things like you guys, you know there's community aspects which are trying to pull things together that actually will collectively, and it's like what we said earlier with the, the brother and the enemy.
Speaker 3:You know, people are now actually enjoying being rivals against each other and learning from each other and improving each other. You know, I think I've probably trained nearly, if not all. I've probably trained 99% of the race contingent of the UK. Now, in some point at some training centre whether it be at my own or some other training centre that I've been to to do a session, you know, and I'd say Scott is probably very similar and there'll be other coaches that are also probably very similar, and that's that's a great thing. You know, we're going to be picking up from many different, some different places, and the coaches teach each other, you know. So I think as long as that continues, then we'll be all right. If people can know what it is they're good at and what it is they need to work on and then go and do that, then we'll be all right and we will get ahead of them.
Speaker 1:I think, as an athlete going to all these different training fields and I've been in this game for a long, long time as well and the amount of times I go somewhere with Dave yourself, with Scotty, even just talking to people like Jack when I was at races and things there's always something you can learn and I've always been a good obstacler, but I'm constantly learning new things and you get that just from communication, from chatting and, like you say, having these people coming together and talking about things is the only way you get growth and, yeah, just learning all the time 100%.
Speaker 3:And you've got to accept what it is you want to get out of the racing thing. I think a lot of athletes in particular like they don't actually know what they're trying to achieve for themselves and I think if you're not sure what it is that you, why you're doing what you're doing, you won't really get the success that you're kind of craving. You know, if you want to win because it builds your ego, great, that's okay, that's acceptable. But then you've got to know what the work is to do that. And if it's all hinged on winning, you've got some serious work to do. But actually, if it's that you want to be able to put a post up and go look at me on a rig, that's okay as well and you won't have to do as much work to do that. But you also have to accept that that means you're probably going to get beat in races and you're probably not going to be on the top steps, you know yeah, yeah, find your purpose, because that purpose will drive the right questions that will get the right answers.
Speaker 2:That's it. So, so, like, when am I? My purpose right now is us trying to find out where is ocr going because, like we will say like this, our listeners on this podcast are all trying to figure out what, where, what can I do to get that extra mile or that extra percent, or even just can I improve some aspect of my ability with an obstacle course, racing or any sport? And I'm always looking at ways that I can improve it and and it right now it's it is swallowing that humble pie and realizing I need to put in more work on the running, because running is is key. And I've got the obstacle, but I can't forget about the obstacles. But I don't need necessarily to do more obstacle work, but it's fun. That's the difficult thing.
Speaker 1:Until we go to a race where we can't do an obstacle and then we're like, oh, we need to do more obstacles, yeah.
Speaker 2:But that's what I was going to ask. The trending factor is getting on the front foot, speaking to coaches like you, dave, where you think it's going, but it's also speaking to race directors and race developers of where. Where are they taking the sport as well from from a course perspective, because it's not standardized, it can change at any minute and attachments are forever going to be different. So that is the most confusing part of the sport. Is that okay? If the course is going to change every year, how does the coaching change every year? Does that change the balance of my abilities to perform in that on that race?
Speaker 3:I think. I think that question is a good question because, like you say, if you're not involved in the race directors in this art, in this question, you're not going to know where the direction is. But actually the race directors are kind of you know, the answer doesn't fall in that. The answer falls from the very top if it filters down, doesn't it? Because if you've got a race that's going to be a qualifier for the european or the world championships, it's got to have some form of ladder towards the european and world championships. It's got to have something similar. It doesn't have to be that heavy with the rigs, it doesn't have to be as many of them, but it's got to have that challenge. If it doesn't have that challenge in it, it shouldn't be, um, a qualifying race, you know. And so the federation's got to really marshal this in the correct direction. And the same thing I think you know you work back to uk series races and things like that.
Speaker 3:The series races have got to have a balanced approach. They've got to challenge themselves. I know that obviously I do a lot of work with the 3k series and I know that the 3k series is being planned at where the races are talking to each other. They're talking about their design, their style and what they bring, their individuality, because we all love the variety in these races, but they're also collectively looking at going. How can we make this feel like something similar? You know, how can we make this feel like it's a series, not that we're all independent people just collectively thrown together, and that comes from some management, but it also comes from communication.
Speaker 3:Now, if that happens on all of the other series, races, series that are out there, then you get a feel for what's happening and you get some form of direction.
Speaker 3:That's there and it's down to the federation to marshal that and then it's. Then you've got to have a load of races that aren't qualifiers and aren't series races but are completely open to being fun runs, and they should be looking at their local market, not the racing contingent, not the maybe 1000 people within this country that actually race week in, week out, but they should be looking at their local areas charity runners, fun runners, teamwork, corporate days to fill their races and they should be providing a real basic challenge, but an entry level pathway, because otherwise what we will become is a glorified ninja warrior with, with some running and, and that's not, that's not what we, we all love and have enjoyed for decades, you know yeah, the trend, the trend needs to be towards if you, if you a racer aiming towards your, your peak as qualifying for the european or world championships, you want to make sure that the journey along to that peak is going to build you to it rather than just make it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it needs to be a good line of success. Like, if I want to go to the world championships, I need to make sure that I'm going to qualify a race that's going to feel 70 like the world championships so I can learn from that to build the 30% to perform in the world champs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or not complain if you qualified at a race that isn't got that standard, that the qualifying for the thing is not hard enough. You know the world is too difficult for them. Yeah, one other point I would raise that maybe people lack of forget is where you think about entry-level athletes to. You know, even even participants rather than athletes. When you think about this. We talk about encouraging people to take on our sport and get involved and we love it and we think it's great, and so we encourage people to do it, but not so many people walk through the door and they're put off because it looks so difficult and it looks like it takes decades to learn how to become efficient at doing it. You know, what we've got to remember is if we're trying, if we're keen on growing a sport and this is probably more important for people that host teams and introduce people on it from a coaching and training perspective specifically but if we're looking to introduce people to that, we need to be participating in the fun stuff as well. We need to be stepping back and going down into the fun run elements and showing the fun.
Speaker 3:Running is the beginning. You know, we all probably started from a mud run, basic obstacle perspective. That's probably where our first entry was and that's why we enjoyed it, and the reason we then took that on was because of the enjoyment we had and we developed over time. If we're introducing people to the level that we're on now but you can forget about long-term participation because they're going to see it as, yeah, this is great and it looks fun.
Speaker 3:I like watching it, but doing it is really hard and it's too difficult for me and I'm not going to do it. So we have to be introducing these people at the level that they should be introducing themselves. You know they should be taking part in beginner level races. It's okay to do that, but we're not going to do that if we're only encouraging them to the stuff we go to. Oh, come with me to Tartan Mori, it would be fun running wave with them. Don't introduce them to the elite qualifying waves and expect them to love the event. You know, if you're not doing that yourself, you're not going to be able to show that actually when you drop down into open divisions. That's where the fun is, you know, and that's where it starts.
Speaker 1:That's something we did when we did Nuts at summer. This year you have the Rumble fun wave and I tell you, mudskull used to to do it as well back in the day with their fun running waves. And if you are in a big team in that and doing it, and doing it with other people, it is a laugh. It is a laugh and people are going to, people are going to come back to that, people are going to go there, enjoy it and be like, wow, this is great. And then you get a handful of people are like, yeah, this is great and I'm going to train a little bit more brilliant yeah, 100%.
Speaker 3:That journey starts from there, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah. So where, where does training go from here, dave? Where, where, where is it going for you at the minute? What, what's, what trends and what focuses do you think? Like we said, running. But there's got to be, it's got to be that spice, there's got to be that extra that we can, we can do. Yeah, don't you give away your secret. No, no, at the end of the day, like anything I know is researching and knowledge.
Speaker 3:You know I'm not recreating the wheel, I'm just utilizing what's well known to improve people. You know, doing it in my own style, but I think for me, I think that the current trend, if you like, if the current mindset and training, is what we touched on. I think when you're looking at races and peak races and people choosing races now, which I think people are better at doing, you know some people call them abc races, etc, etc. It's fine, but I think, realistically, you don't necessarily and this is maybe odd to hear from a facility owners you don't need to be on obstacles week in, week out. You know, when you've got big races coming up qualifiers, you know, national races, etc. Yeah, okay, the more often you get on them towards those races, the more important it's going to get. You have to be well rehearsed and practiced. What you don't want to be is over, overworked or injured. You know niggles picked up from repetitive strain and similar sort of things like that. But also it's it's more so for the point. If you've got a facility for you that's local, great, it becomes easy. But you don't need to stress about traveling miles and miles and miles week in week out.
Speaker 3:You know, if you're looking at a basic sort of entry level stuff realistically I would say most people who want to race competitively you're probably looking at your running, bringing your primary training method. You probably need a dedicated strength conditioning session to ward off injury, make sure you're strong enough. Look at doing opposing muscle groups that you don't train in technical training. So things like shoulder press is massively important in um. You know, even bench press is massively important in obstacle racing because it's an opposing muscle group to the pulling that we do. Um, most of the pulling work in season is probably done on technical training or races. Most of the the um, the training outside of that, is probably done through strength conditioning. So outside of race season you probably only need to do one or two strength conditioning sessions, mostly running, and then your technical. You build up as you start to approach the races.
Speaker 3:If you've got the luxury of a facility on your doorstep, great, you probably maybe need to do one strength conditioning session and one technical session, which actually you know, which you'll know from your own training forms, a form of your technical session. That we kind of separate it don't when we say technical training and strength conditioning and running. But technical training is strength and conditioning. You know it's just strength and conditioning with dedicated patterns of movement. So whether you're drilling it or whether you're doing it by going through rigs, it's still strength conditioning.
Speaker 3:So you're just looking to balance that training and I think that's a development in our programming that we've started coming away from actually doing less strength conditioning now, whereas back in the day, you know, like I touched on earlier, it was all about doing more strength conditioning alongside the running. So it's probably doing a balanced approach towards strength conditioning where you your technical form is a small part of it. But if you've got no training facility, need you just go climbing, go bouldering, do that every two weeks, do some grip work in the gym, balance your, your compound motions on another strength conditioning session and run. And if you can do that with an understanding as to what deload needed is, what is needed and when, and you can do that with the idea of how big your training cycles need to be, then you won't be far away from from doing pretty well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the idea of um that technical training session is is strength and conditioning, but it's specific to our sport strength like it, it's the mechanical movements that we make in obstacle course racing. It's specific to our sport strength like it, it's the mechanical movements that we make in obstacle course racing. It's our strength and condition of it. Because if you was doing a weightlifter and you're doing strength and conditioning, you would do it based on that movement. We we do technical, we call it technical training, but it's obstacle training where we're just doing it based on the movement we get.
Speaker 2:Like, if I didn't do any obstacle training and then three weeks time did an obstacle session, I'll be stiff as a board but I'll be sorry I'll be so aching. But that's only because I haven't done that modality of training. My body has been, uh, thinking out. You've moved this different way. You've used these smaller muscle groups that are stabilizers that are hurting from that jumping, that hanging movements. But as long as you can keep that, that system available, you don't need to strain it as much as you think you do yeah.
Speaker 3:No, this depends what you're trying to develop. If you're trying to develop a skill, then you need thousands of hours of training it, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:so 10 000 hours there you go exactly.
Speaker 3:So if you're trying to learn a skill and you're trying to think about motion and movement, then yeah, you've got to drill that. You've got to. You've got to do it through drills and you've got to do it through repetition, and a lot of that repetition will be failure. You know, when we talk about Morgan's training earlier on, mo was probably an advantage from a very early age. We set of, gave him opportunities where he'd be in the gym with me on a random day. You know, what people never saw was the amount of sessions me and Mo went right we're going to figure out how to do this today and we'd fail for like two hours just practicing some basic movements and just falling off of low rigs and just slapping the floor every day, you know.
Speaker 3:But that failing constantly was what you know. It is all the cliche stuff about failure, but it is. It's the truth. You know, we would literally get through a rig, I think, three times in a session for two hours. But doing that we've got all the strength work that we needed. You know, we never trained strength back in the day at all, so it was a case of implement the stuff to ward off injury, to make you strong enough to run hard and race hard and carry. And then the technical stuff we develop that through grip training, whether that be bouldering, climbing or grip work.
Speaker 1:You know specific programs you want to know the science behind that, go on. I thought I'd get it in because I actually did. You know, right, if you wore spectrum glasses, funny glasses that have a spectrum, if you was a child, right, and these glasses put like a pen, like your vision, differently over time, from getting failure, that child will learn where that pen is, even though that pen isn't to your normal eyesight. And it's all because of failure, because it builds up the neurons in your brain that connects pathways to your body and that's how you learn these different movement patterns. It's all from failure. So you don't pick up that pen, you learn again. You pick up that pen, you know. Yeah, I think that was very scientific this time.
Speaker 3:I thought that was quite good.
Speaker 1:I think I nailed that one.
Speaker 3:You throw in the right words, it's always good.
Speaker 2:He's touching neurons and pathways. Oh no, I thought he was going to chuck in a synapse in there, but you know he didn't.
Speaker 1:I don't know what that is. Sorry, don't worry, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 4:I don't know Mo does.
Speaker 1:Mo does he?
Speaker 3:should do, he should do, he's a PT Say yes even if you don't.
Speaker 1:What's the synopsis? What's it? Synopsis, synapse, synapse.
Speaker 4:No idea, we'll move on.
Speaker 1:He's Googling it alright, I'll give you a good answer don't google it.
Speaker 4:I've got to learn how to spell it first S-Y-N. Well, this is definitely not right, but it's a software tool for analysis a what I was coming up with, some AI thing. Have you put synopsis?
Speaker 3:in.
Speaker 4:I don't know what I've put in, don't worry Failure.
Speaker 2:Everyone needs to fail. You let us know in a minute. So where are we going with training, because everything we've spoken about is definitely, definitely in my training program at the minute. Dave, thanks, thanks for that.
Speaker 1:Um, funny enough, it's even in mine, and there you go. But you've?
Speaker 2:you've even had, um, you've even had uh consultations from, like, uh, bracken ships and things like that, and it's, it is. It is the same conversation, isn't it that he, he's actually um, he, he's probably more towards the let even less obstacles, isn't he in terms of his training?
Speaker 2:yeah, which is maybe like it is where we, where we go, but what I was gonna say is that the only time that we really jump on the obstacles is where we try to sharpen. And we do try to sharpen as soon as we know the what, what the needs is of the race that we're training towards. And everyone, when they get that rule book for the UK, for the Euros or any race, literally wants to sharpen, sharpen the end of the tool, every single obstacle on that list. But, dave, when? When do you think is the perfect time to be sharpening for a race? If you knew? Wants to sharpen the end of the tool, of every single obstacle on that list.
Speaker 2:But, dave, when do you think is the perfect time to be sharpening for a race? If you knew, if there's a certain skill set you don't know? I think also, it's like I want to remind all listeners that you know 90% of the skill sets that are going to be the demands of the race. There's 10% you don't need to know. So let's not panic too much because we give a lot of anxiety towards races, but that 10%, that, yes, we do need to sharpen a little bit.
Speaker 3:Six weeks, six-week window. So for me, most phases can be done in a six-week window, right? So if you took a six-week window, you've got 90% of your background behind you and you've got six weeks out from a race. You've got an idea of what's coming. You've got two weeks to fail. That gives you two weeks of just constant repetition, getting it wrong, learning from the mistakes, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't, ripping your hands if you need to. You know, in some people's world you know I train people that are constantly sanitizing their hands, for example you know they're going to rip their hands when they start increasing the training. So but it's two weeks of failure. You failure or ability to fail and learn from those mistakes. Then you've got two weeks to sharpen the skill set, to really kind of okay, work out what it is that was working for you, work out what it is that's twigged a little bit more. You improve on them two weeks. Then you've got two weeks to tidy it up without loading. Take some of the load away from your body. Practice enough that you feel confident. Take some of the load away from your body. Practice enough that you feel confident, practice enough that your body's twitching in the right directions and then take a deload and take the load out of the muscles and the joints so that you're ready for racing. You know I think we've done a lot of work on that in the last few years about not overloading, overcrowding, training instantly before a race and but at the same time not switching off, because I think sometimes if you go in with a complete fresh, you know it's a bit like doing a run on a marathon. Right, how many people go out for a few rate, for a few strides on the day before a marathon, even though they want to go and run a good time? You know, it's important that your body's ready to go and it's feeling ready to go and if you're not hitting it correctly you know I always say this about an elite, an elite athlete in their prime competition in their A races they are one step away from injury because their load is as high as it's ever been.
Speaker 3:They're deloaded, ready for that race, but the training load and the repetitive motion and specific training is what it is they're doing. It's probably at its highest point. So they're deloaded, ready for the race, but their body has been loaded for weeks, months, if not years, when you're talking about Olympic athletes and they're one step away from injury. That's why you see so many people push over and hit an injury in a main race. You know, when you look at an elite sport and that's because they're so close to it. And if you're not so close to it in elite sport you're probably off the pace. You know you're probably not on that edge and that's the risk that you take when you go to elite level.
Speaker 2:So you have to be firing but you've got to be warded off injury enough that you come out of it fresh I asked that question about sharpening because I feel like since, since we've done I think probably one was the hardest um euros I'm thinking back to, like denmark, I think the uk has been sharpening ever since. But so we've been sharpening for like four years when we should only be, we should only be carrying on with the fundamentals of ocr, then sharpening towards the next race. So now, now we are learning that I think we are learning that we don't need to do that all the time.
Speaker 2:Just take what we do you know?
Speaker 3:we train in phases through the year with our technical training. So, even though we run a class every week, you'll be well. I'd say you'd be a testament to it, darren, but you've been disappearing all over with them. Probably a good thing, right, you're probably a good thing I've been running.
Speaker 2:I've been running.
Speaker 3:I talked about that, that's true, but but take, take toros, for example, right, we come out with. Last year, at the end of sort of the summer months, if you like, we took all our Torah stuff away, we stopped training Torahs on a regular basis, we started doing our rape work and ready for our hang on stuff and our survival running experience, if you like, of the year. And then over winter we haven't touched Torahs at all, you know, and we won't, because it's it's abrasive, it's hard work on the joints and it's repetitive, you know, in those motions as. So what we've done is we've simplified it. Over winter We've gone back to some real basics and we've been drilling movement, we've been working on movement patterns, we've been working on joint strength, we've been working on coordination and things like that and agility. So now we're coming back in towards races and we'll start to implement some more basic races. But again, the races that you're going to see early in the year, they'll have some technical elements to them but they're not going to be crazy difficult grips and stuff, because you could open cold temperatures and if any race director's got any sense and the ones that I'm talking about, they have sense. So the races aren't going to be crazy difficult in terms of technical holds and whatever. Then, um, they'll be simple in their nature but just maybe higher volume, and that's what we'll start to introduce.
Speaker 3:Then you go into spring, you've got a European style race and you've got harder attachments. That's when your grip endurance and your grip strength probably needs to be higher and therefore you will probably start pulling the Toro stuff back out again. You know, go through the spring and summer and then you start to ease back off again. So, even though we train every week you know, even us we go through phases of training. We have done for years and we'll continue to do that um, some tried and trusted method, and that's why the variety of training is important. But it's also why people like you maybe do take a bit of a breather over winter, which we do encourage of as well, especially those that are racing hard. Through the year you can go to keep yourself fit and healthy by exploring some fun and other training methods. You know, do some other sports, especially if they're kids, if they're young, go and train other things, do other bits and pieces, go climb it, try other things, you know, get the load off the same joints it's hard.
Speaker 2:It's hard as an athlete, our mentality, we can't switching off. Uh, trying something different means to me that I'm getting worse at my actual sport.
Speaker 1:It means we sign up for something else it does. Yeah, we become obsessed.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's a mental coaching episode we need to do on that one.
Speaker 3:But that's a good point though, darren, because it touched on what you said earlier. You know, when you talk about what you want to do with your training and what's right and what's good, there's a good mentality to have as a generic, sweeping statement. But then you've got to know yourself as well. We, you know, I know people who, if they don't race on, if they don't practice on obstacles week in, week out, they'll disappear from the racing scene altogether, because it's the repetitive nature of doing it is what keeps their interest in doing it. And then when they come back and realize, like you said earlier, they come back for one in eight weeks and they're like j Jesus, my body's killing me now and it's like aches and pains and they fell off stuff they wouldn't normally fall off of. But they lose the interest because suddenly they're asked it's really hard. It's not how I remember it. The embarrassment and the ego gets a bit of a hit and a dent. It changes the mentality.
Speaker 3:So if you're one of those people that needs it regularly, you've got to weigh up what's better for you. Yeah, is it better for you to stay in it and do it regular because you need that personally? And yeah, then say, be it. That might mean you need to sacrifice some strength, work or whatever else. It is that you're giving up to do that. But if that's what keeps you fresh and that's what keeps you in it, then yeah, that's fine, as long as you're managing your injury and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But the reason for listeners and listeners, this podcast is us to remind them from years of years of learning. Like mo, you'd be testament. This, you'd say, based on shipley science. If you've been, if you've got had the experience of obstacle course racing, you've had a few sessions, coming back to it after, say, six months off, two weeks later you'll be back back on, back in the saddle and it'll feel like normal again. It's it's. It's basically like it's that muscle, yeah, yeah it comes back.
Speaker 4:Few little things I can take bigger breaks now from obstacles and not really feel like I've lost too much just because I've done so much of it. And it's like you say. I reckon I, like dave said earlier, six weeks to sharpen. I think I only need three now depends on the race and if it's a brand new obstacle maybe I might need to learn the skill set. But for most races I can sharpen in about three weeks because I've already got the skills learned.
Speaker 3:It's just getting some of that rust away and then making sure I'm ready and let's not forget as well, if you're keeping yourself strong enough to do the obstacles and you've been training obstacles, like you say, and you've got the moving patterns ingrained in you, that you know what it's like to feel like you're in the air when you move in, et cetera, et cetera. You know, even with bad technique, if you're good at running and your strength is enough to keep you off the ground so you don't lose your bands, you're still going to be in the race. You know, look at Tom Tweedle last year at a British Championships he hadn't touched an obstacle race for 18 months turns up and loses the British Championship by one second. You know yeah, it was the difference maybe on that last rig that Dan was fresh and you know his, his obstacle brain was firing on all cylinders because he's been on them all year round and therefore that would made the difference between him and Tom on that rig probably the case. You know, but it came down to one second at the end of the day, right.
Speaker 3:So you know, even if you sort of go into the race and you think I haven't been in training, if you're a good athlete you still got the advantage. If you're a good runner, you've got an even bigger advantage. You know how many triathletes have we seen rock up to an obstacle race? You know, I remember dan corner at the british champs, in the first british champs, at nuclear well, no, sorry, the world championships at nuclear running around getting to the dragon's back asking me what do I do here? You know he's, he's running fourth or something in the world championships and he's asking what you do on a dragon's back because he's never seen it before. You know, and it's, if you're a good athlete, you're, you're, you're up there anyway. So it's, it's all about, like you say, sharpening tools when you're at the top end of the game, but if you know where you're at, that's probably the key part to it. You've got to know what level is for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sharpening's never been easier in the uk right now as well. Like with with all the um, all the available facilities, putting on putting on um, like training sessions for world european championships, even, even training sessions just to stay available. Like it's never been so so accessible to sharpen for a race. Yeah, yeah, I, I, anything else you guys want to talk about? Any any? How'd you want to summarize your training?
Speaker 4:Mo training going well. My training is going great Good.
Speaker 2:More running.
Speaker 4:More running.
Speaker 2:Just running, dave, any any last things you want to like summarize on training and and how it's. I feel like we have given a good sort of timeline and development of training in OCR for years, especially going towards now talking more predominantly finding that balance in what you're training towards and that purpose, but then more towards that imbalance of the running.
Speaker 3:I think, yeah, and I think, if you're going to take that purpose, but then more more towards that imbalance of of the running I think yeah, and I think, if you're going to take one thing as well, I think for anyone's perspective, is learning how to assess yourself. You know you've got to have something to assess against to know whether you're improving. One of the hardest things in ocr is the fact that nothing's repetitive, so you can't compare it, you know. Even go to. You can go to a race one year and go back the next and it'll be totally different, you know. So it's so difficult to know whether you're improved or not, so you've got to find methods of assessment. Now, how you do that and where you do that is down to you, you know. But if you haven't got markers to mark against, you'll never know whether you're improving or not. And you need to know. And it's not necessarily a bad thing if you're not improving it, because if you find out that you're not improving, you know what you've got to do to change it.
Speaker 3:But if you're not assessing, it's all about your own mindset and it becomes a blame game as to where does it fall back. You know, is it you because you're slacking on your training? Is it your coach because the program's not working? Is it that you? You've got too much of a balance towards one method of training and not enough on the other. You know you, you won't know if you don't assess. And so you've got to find a way to assess your training and therefore learn from that to improve yourself. And that goes for any level. You know, from beginner. You've got to know if you can hang on a bar to an elite going. I only need three weeks to train for a race and realising you get there after three weeks and you are not sharp. You know like you've got to have some sort of method. So if you don't have that, find it, whether it be, for a training centre or yourself.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, you've got to stay accountable to yourself.
Speaker 2:Exactly, chuck that in there.
Speaker 1:Ships Got that right there, mate, you've got to stay accountable, it's true, though, but coaches, athletes, anyone who wants to compete at a high level. It is all about, like you say, just staying accountable to yourself. Staying a high level. It is all about, like you say, just staying accountable yourself, staying accountable your coaches, communicating with your coaches, because that's key. Your coach needs to know what you're going through, how you're going through things, what can be developed, because we're all we are learning, and it's a constant learning battle with OCR.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, the sport's developing. That means everything's got to develop with it it's so hard to test OCR, though.
Speaker 2:Isn't it like in a vacuum? If I say am, is my OCR improving? That is like the hardest question to ask, isn't it? But? But if you take it outside of the vacuum and test the attributes of OCR, yes, I could test them individually to say, am I?
Speaker 3:improving the also. The thing is when you ask that question am I improving? Is my ocr improving? Yeah, you've got to be honest with yourself, as, whether it's your ocr that's improving or whether it's others around you are getting better or worse, because it's very easy to think that your ocr is getting better when everyone else is dropping off or vice versa.
Speaker 1:Crazy question. That is because I was literally thinking the other day. I've been looking at my results throughout the whole year and it always seems like I'm always in the same bit.
Speaker 4:But is everyone else improving?
Speaker 1:Everyone else is improving, or I mean, I was still racing against really good competitors back in the day and I'm still in the same sort of spot.
Speaker 3:It's a crazy concept, but that's why you take the standard parameters right. What's your running times like?
Speaker 1:What's your running times like. What's your hang times, like, exactly, you know if you have, exactly so if it's better, you know exactly, I know I'm better, and then also I know that other competitors are just as good, if not better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not to mention the coaches.
Speaker 1:The coaches are improving oh yeah, you're all right as well. Yeah, they do.
Speaker 3:Okay, we do all right, you know, but the truth is is we do, you know, and we're all improving and learning from each other. And you know, I always throw it back to the nuts argument, like when you turn up to your first nuts to do four laps in winter and and you look at it and there was four people getting through. You know, chris, you were there at the time. You know four people are getting through and and you know when you look at who they were, you know, know, john Albom, claire Miller, ross McDonald. You know, suddenly you're not talking about run of the mill people. These are serious athletes, you know. And so now you look at it and go OK, so why do more people get through four laps? Now you go with. The conditions are the same. The course is probably more dense with obstacles. All right, maybe certain things are slightly different, but you know the reality is there's more experience. You know the reality is there's more experience. People wear different kit now because they've learned what works and it's improved.
Speaker 3:There's more outlets to read on research stuff, podcasts to listen to, videos to watch. You know information's available. It wasn't available back there. You know timeframes are different, et cetera, but it's all about that and the coaching community and the knowledge and the information and the federation stuff that gets put out to people. There's more information out there for you to, to improve and learn from. So you know it's it's an ever-changing thing and whilst the sport's being developed, that's going to continue at a rapid pace. But even when it it levels off, you know there's still going to be more and more research, more and more sports science background that comes into things. The more elitist and the more professional sport becomes, the more information becomes available.
Speaker 2:So it's going to keep going like that, you know and, yeah, it is going in that direction and hopefully we're taking it in that direction as well just by having these race racer conversations. It isn't. It isn't that available, like we even did. I think one of the best episodes I had feedback on from all racers was how we pace ocr, which is such a random question, but every single person that I spoke to at races just loved the concept, because no one's no one's talking about it. Like, how do you even pace OCR?
Speaker 3:it's just such a random you can probably answer that, though now you say that's random we tried.
Speaker 1:We tried that. We tried to answer it right. Who did you bring on to talk about it?
Speaker 3:that's not a coach you can probably look at yourselves, you can probably answer the question if you go on your own pace zones. Right? Because if you think about it, so I reckon you three as an average. Let's take an average of the three of you, not not whether on a different day you can all be each other on a different day, right, but let's call it as an average of the three of you. Your race pace is somewhere around six to six and a half minute a mile, right on an obstacle race. It's unlikely to be much faster on an obstacle race, but it also isn't going to be a lot slower than that. Right, tell me, am I right? Am I wrong in terms of that average?
Speaker 1:annoyingly. He's a bit right, isn't he?
Speaker 3:right. So so you can tell me already from your knowledge of your pace zones and your heart rate zones that fit around them that that probably for you that'll probably be just under tempo. For you that's not going to be a tempo run. It might be just under tempo, right? What's the six?
Speaker 2:you're. You're right.
Speaker 3:The the physical, how it feels an ocr needs to feel underneath a 10K tempo pace and your heart rate zone is probably somewhere from zone three to zone four, right, and the reality is most people think that you need to race at zone four, zone five.
Speaker 3:You try and do a race at zone four, zone five. You're not taking into account the stopping points of obstacles and you're probably overworking when you're trying to hold it. So the answer lies in go and do a 10k. Tell yourself what is your, what is your zone three, zone four threshold? That's probably the pace you need to run an obstacle racing and forget your ego that you want to be quicker than that. Forget that you want to be faster because you want to be up the front or you want to chase that pack of people. If you go over 10 to 15 kilometer race and you sit at zone three to four, I guarantee you catch the majority of people that left you on the start line yeah, and then it goes into the mentality aspect of it is that 90 of people are following the zone four five concept.
Speaker 2:So they're in front of you for the first 20 minutes and you either follow them or you don't, or you stick to your own plan and you have to stay accountable to the plan that you've made at the beginning, which is tried and tested in sharpening phase in your training, and if you're not sharpening and training, then you're not knowing what the plan is when you're racing. So goes back to that concept making sure that you're failing and learning and training before you're racing. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:The fitter you are, the closer you'll be to your zone four times. But the reality is you're going to be around that threshold later. There you go. Should have brought me on, I could have ended that podcast.
Speaker 1:You just listened to our episode basically yeah, that's what you did, didn't?
Speaker 2:you just took all our answers, anything else?
Speaker 4:But I think that was a good way to conclude it. Well, I've got one little special thing to do? Oh okay, Should I share my screen? Oh, did you do it? Oh yeah, that's what I've been doing most of right now.
Speaker 2:All right, okay, I forgot about we are, don't worry, don't, worry, don't worry.
Speaker 3:Mo knows what it's like when you have me in a conversation that you basically don't get. I could, I could just shut up.
Speaker 4:I thought dave's on. I don't need to speak much.
Speaker 1:I've had these conversations with him thousands of times so I'll let you boys do the talking and I'll step back and all right, show us the picture, because I bet you've got some good photos of Dave well, I picked this one, but I don't know if I think the card might change.
Speaker 2:But you need to describe what you're doing, mate oh, we have his account oh no, yeah, that is the one for Dave oh, look at this.
Speaker 4:It's very Dave now look at that face are we going to? Talk through all of the stats over to you but conclude okay, so we've got first speed. Now I was gonna be harsh and I did have 65 wrote down. That was more just me trying to wind you up, so I've changed it to 70, which I'll take a solid seven out of ten.
Speaker 3:My spine, I'm accepting of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I have a hundred. That's a 70 is pretty, pretty decent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4:I'm trying to think of other cards that have had similar sort of times and I think what's Alan's?
Speaker 2:Oh, he's in the six. I'm pretty sure he's in the sixties.
Speaker 4:Take the win there. Yeah, take the win there.
Speaker 3:Yes, you've got alan on speed but I want a context card here. I want a context card. If we're talking a five and ten k, we're all right here. But I just want to point something out that super speedy mo has never beaten me over 100 meters. In fact, no one in ocr has ever beaten me over 100 meters, so you want to take me down baron take me down.
Speaker 3:No challenge out to anyone in ocr. You think you've got it, he thought he he had it and he was shown up and embarrassingly, after I'd had four points.
Speaker 1:That's because you're like the juggernaut.
Speaker 3:I am.
Speaker 4:He breaks the ground as he means.
Speaker 1:Once he starts, he just doesn't stop, he just runs out of battery quick.
Speaker 4:Yeah that's true. I am that guy sitting at zone four, zone four, zone five threshold and the thing is, you're the only person that's ever beat me in 100 metres in OCR, which is really annoying.
Speaker 2:Right Agility Mo cool, he's been, he's been he's been generous at that I reckon.
Speaker 4:Well, no, back in the day, though, this guy was quite agile, and I've seen him on a football pitch, I've seen him even just doing like little agility things. He is surprisingly agile, and I think I think he'll agree with that. He'll be humble, but he'll agree with that he can move. The thing is, I look at this from quite a biased angle as well, because obviously, being a kid watching Dave at the beginning of Rumble, he was like you can say it, I was your idol.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, no one can beat you at anything, so maybe these numbers need to come down, as your old man, dave, but we're I don't know, but if you're being compared to the Juggernaut and you've got a 79 agility, that's quite high.
Speaker 2:I've never seen the Juggernaut.
Speaker 4:But he's a Juggernaut that has rockets on the side that move him out of the way.
Speaker 2:I've never seen him do the cha-cha slide I beg to say that's not true. All right, okay, I'm going to just agree with these, blindly agree, just blindly agree.
Speaker 4:Okay, just trust me. Okay, right, go and move it down then to compromised running, so you're believed to run under duress. Uh, I've got you at 81, because actually this is again. I think this is pretty solid, I think you're I definitely add any result through perseverance over talent.
Speaker 4:I can tell you that yeah, you'll, you'll keep moving, no matter what the how feel which I think goes into compromise running, and I think the amount of fitness racing stuff you do now actually lends itself more to that. Yeah, I've seen you push a sled, a big sled and I've seen you get back to work quick.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'll go with you on that. Hybrid athlete isn't he.
Speaker 4:It might not be the fastest, the top-end speed might not be there, but if you put something heavy in, it will slow everyone else down. That's when it all changes. So 81 on your comp, right endurance. Now this is. I did originally have this as one of your highest stats, but actually I think you've just become good at endurance again, for pure grit, yeah, but your run endurance actually probably isn't. It's not that good, mo, let's be honest.
Speaker 3:No, but you just fake it very well, I do fake it well, I'll give you that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because you're just, you're just right down and I'm willing to do things that other people won't.
Speaker 3:That's the difference.
Speaker 2:That's what we've heard that's what you wish should we bring this down to 81 then, though?
Speaker 1:no, I think I've seen it.
Speaker 2:He can keep going okay, I, yeah, I'm waiting for the special ability. Is there's pig ignorance? Just keep going. It doesn't matter if my leg's falling off, mere scrap.
Speaker 4:But yeah, well, to be fair, I think if we were all in a 24 hour race right now, well, me and Dan would be out pretty quick.
Speaker 1:But Ships and Ships have fancied it hey, hang on, you'd have a good battle. I'd like the battle. Yeah, especially you.
Speaker 4:Dave, I'm a fan dance winner, alright, okay that's a four, two and a half hour rest.
Speaker 3:Let's see what you're like when you can't sleep Right.
Speaker 1:And then we move on to power. I think this should be a little bit higher.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think I'm willing to move endurance down and power up.
Speaker 2:I think you should swap strength with power.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know, Dave is strong-ish even with them little legs.
Speaker 4:Dave is one of the strongest guys in OCR. Let's be real. Power is strength times speed. Well, we're talking about rig power, though, and this guy is not flying through rigs powerfully. So, that's where he loses marks.
Speaker 3:Is this where he's talking about my body weight again?
Speaker 4:He is Basically Dave's on the bit of a bigger side. We're just going to body shame him here on the podcast. Okay 85. I thought you looked pretty ripped in this picture. It's about the best I've ever looked that's why I chose it. I was like this is looking.
Speaker 1:I would have used the term wobbly right technical ability.
Speaker 4:Obviously you're a coach. You've taught me pretty much everything I know, so you've got to be pretty high in my eyes. Um, grip strength maybe actually lets you down more than your technical ability, and actually your technical ability probably what's keep you on most rigs in my opinion, yeah although you've got solid grip strength.
Speaker 1:But I I tell you what. I'm just going to give a quick anecdote of a story that I'll never forget with dave. There was a guy that came to rumble to like learn how to do some things, and I remember dave on a rope, and he came down so beautifully, slid down like a silverback gorilla with all this technical ability, and then popped on the floor and was just like, yeah, I can help you with some moves and I thought it was proper it it was quality. So, yeah, good technical ability.
Speaker 4:There you go, and then we move down to strength, which I've given you a 92 because, like I said, you're definitely one of the strongest people. If we're talking just OCR, there's not many weights that are going to challenge you. You're going to pick most things up, throw most things around pretty comfortably, so we're giving you a 92. Taking it Love and love. Which actually I think is the highest strength we've given out so far.
Speaker 2:This is a good card. It's a solid card.
Speaker 1:It still doesn't beat us, Darren, it's all right. Oh right, okay, I've already checked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm happy with it. It looks good. It looks good.
Speaker 3:He's just been putting up all the up-under cards.
Speaker 2:I mean, all right, where does Dave sit? I'd like to say that all of these stats and all these movements is done with the biggest roar ever. That's what I want to know. What this next bit is, Mo.
Speaker 4:Well, I don't know if you two will get this, but I saw the picture and this is my immediate thought. So your special stat is the walrus. Now again, not many people probably know what that is, but dave, when he's working hard, starts making noises.
Speaker 3:Oh, that sounds very much like a walrus, as some have said it's my spirit animal, as much as I want to claim it being a gorilla. The walrus is everything that encapsulates me as an athlete that is dave I like that.
Speaker 2:It makes more sense now and I completely agree because if I met, if I was coming to rumble for the first time and dave in between one of his sessions, I would turn around in the car and go back home. But if you actually speak to Dave one of the nicest people to speak to outside of him yelling at a sledge, it's a very intimidating. It's an intimidating noise.
Speaker 3:It's all noise, though I actually get into a fight.
Speaker 4:I can barely move, I just roll around bearing the task, just shouts at you, right, how are we any?
Speaker 1:I think it's perfect. Anyone got?
Speaker 4:any kind of? No, it's good I fight any of these scores. Are we all happy with these? Yeah, does Dave? Does Dave think they're Dave? Is there anything you want to change? Anything you think?
Speaker 3:Counter arguments. I walked into it going please don't be a 70. Don't be a 70. So I'll take it, I'll take it.
Speaker 4:Maybe it's today Again, maybe my bias has come out here, but I thought no, I think you're bang on the money.
Speaker 3:I don't think there's any bias involved and I think we can all agree that this is acceptable and we can pass it through.
Speaker 2:Pass it through like there's an approval process, not that official.
Speaker 3:Trust me, I'm getting it printed, so it's official. This will be up in the barn.
Speaker 4:Maybe we'll get you a little cardboard cutout.
Speaker 2:Dave, I was actually thinking in this. Maybe a glimpse of the future. We should start doing these for all the 3K races as well. Give them attribute cards.
Speaker 3:I'll let you field the queries and the feedback from the athletes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Don't worry, you'll have a 44-page document coming your way. 44-page document coming. Yeah, Dave's already had them. I know I'll have a 44-page document coming your way.
Speaker 2:44-page document coming. Yeah, Dave's already had them.
Speaker 4:I know I'll bet he has.
Speaker 1:Dave's had a glimpse into our lives. We get them constantly, Dave, don't worry.
Speaker 2:Spreadsheets galore, right, someone's got to keep us organised, haven't we Right?
Speaker 3:Oh, Moe's going to end it.
Speaker 2:Go, you, you put up, you put up no, you're going for it now, put a pin in it moe. Are we saying goodbye? I think we are dave. Thank you so much for coming on. It was awesome to have have you on, talk through coaching and just everything in general.
Speaker 3:No, worries mate pleasure where?
Speaker 2:where can people find you, dave?
Speaker 3:uh, well, anyway, normally loitering at rumble fitness somewhere, it'd be on social media and rumble fitness underscore uk.
Speaker 2:Um, don't bother me individually, I'll probably won't reply I was gonna say we don't really need to plug rumble to uh as much, because we pretty much do that every week anyway. I don't know. Thank you so much, uh, for coming on and yeah, I hope all the listeners you get get some pointers out of this and just comment feedback. Let us know what you think. If there's anything you do in your training or or you think that your training needs to adapt for the future to be better, let us know and maybe it can become an episode for the future. But yeah, thanks all yeah, nice one.
Speaker 1:Good to talk, yeah, all right I will finish recording.
Speaker 2:See you later good night people, you.
