Tom Summerscales

In this episode, Dr. Cliff Redford interviews Tom Summerscales, a fitness coach and health expert, as they discuss the unique challenges that healthcare professionals face in maintaining their health and fitness. They explore topics such as perfectionism, the importance of planning, nutrition, and self-care, emphasizing the need for consistency over perfection.

Follow Tom on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tomsumcoach/

More information can be found at https://www.becomeathletic.com/

First, if you haven't watched my film and live in Canada (or have one of those VPN things), you can watch it here:

https://youtu.be/oMUx3yuyznc?si=oagpg7bGnpbuyXlJ

Be sure to follow me on Instagram @drcliffworldwidevet.com and on Twitter at @drcliff_vet
Listener questions, episode suggestions, or if you have a good idea for a guest, email me at dr.redford@vet905.com
Additional information can be found at drcliff.ca

Transcript

Dr. Cliff Redford (00:01)

Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of vet life with me, Dr. Cliff. Today we have, I just had this great interview with Sir Tom summer scales. Tom, Tom is a knight of suffer Landria. We're going to talk about that right at the end. Watch, listen to the whole podcast. It's good. ⁓ Tom is a fitness coach and health expert.

⁓ and let me tell you a little bit about him. He was born in Derby now lives in Edinburgh by way of several years of Manchester in Manchester. So he's a Scots, ⁓ Scottish man. ⁓ he had a high flying corporate career before pursuing his lifelong passion as a fitness and nutrition coach. He grew up in a household full of healthcare professionals and he's married to a doctor as well. His, his practice, although he can help anybody with their fitness goals and health goals.

He really does focus on the medical profession and how difficult some of us are to work with. imagine, uh, says here as an athlete, he's competed across a broad range of sports and events, including jumping into the MMA cage. A few rounds. Uh, some of his fitness milestones include being an Ironman finisher. That is a triathlon where they swim 2.4 miles cycle, 112 miles run a marathon, which is 26.2 miles. Yes.

without rest unless you have to go pee, but the clock keeps ticking. He is a triathlon UK finalist, top 10 finisher in the CHP hybrid competition and a CHP hybrid masters competitor. He's also a member of the British society of lifestyle and medicine, ⁓ of lifestyle medicine. And he has a bachelor of science, honors in applied sports science from the university of Edinburgh. He's a level three personal trainer.

He surfs as often as he can around Scotland. I definitely got to go meet this guy. ⁓ And growing up his sport was rugby and he's also done kickboxing, some judo. I love this guy, MMA and American football. He wants to do some ultra running this year and just do more and more charity fitness challenges. And as I said in the beginning, his last challenge was the SufferFests Night of Sufferlandria.

raising money for a mix of different charities. If you don't know what that is, make sure you listen to the end of the podcast. It's quite a cool story. It was a great interview and stick around. You're really gonna enjoy this.

Dr. Cliff Redford (02:44)

Amen.

Tom Summerscales (02:47)

Hey, how are doing?

Dr. Cliff Redford (02:48)

I'm excellent, how are you?

Tom Summerscales (02:50)

Yes, good thank you. Yeah, very well. I have a slight cold so you might hear the nasallyness but otherwise hang in there. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (02:58)

We'll assume

it's allergy season here in Canada, so you're fitting right in.

Tom Summerscales (03:02)

Okay.

Yes, yeah, it's it's apparently warm here in Scotland for once, but the pollen count's not too bad. I'm usually not too affected, so, ⁓ yeah. Yes, yeah, basically, yeah. Have you been before?

Dr. Cliff Redford (03:12)

There you go. Are you in, you're in Edinburgh? Very nice. Very, very

no Scotland's on our bucket list. ⁓ it's top of our bucket list. I've got a friend, Joanna. She's been on the podcast a few times. That's, at the university there for vet school. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great school. It's a great school.

Tom Summerscales (03:30)

okay. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. there's a few famous people. The, my god, her name's now completely disappeared from my head. But she is the ultra marathon runner who was the kind of, what do you marathon? Jasmine Paris, that's it. I'm sure she's part of the school in some form. ⁓ But yeah, it's a...

Dr. Cliff Redford (03:50)

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Tom Summerscales (03:57)

Yeah, pretty cool. Pretty cool place. So yeah, I definitely recommend if you can Scotland at some point. I think you'd like it. Edinburgh itself is very cool. Lots going on. Yeah, there are lots of pubs. There's a lot of choice. ⁓ Lots of very old pubs. Lots of places to try whiskey as well if you like whiskey. Yeah, lots of, there's a very cool place called the Whiskey Rooms. Whiskey Society, In the center of town. And you go in and there's no labels or anything. It's just numbers on casts on the wall.

Dr. Cliff Redford (04:04)

I hear the pubs. I hear the pubs are nice.

you

Beauty.

yeah, I do.

Tom Summerscales (04:27)

It's all single cast. The barber will ask you like, what do you like? It says a whiskey. Do you like a PT or sweet or whatever? ⁓ And then based on that, we'll then say, okay, yeah, you should try number 5423. Then you'll have some single casks. So you can just kind of work your way around all of it. Yeah. cool. Yes. A lot of trust, good experiences so far with that kind of thing. So yeah, lots to do. And that's just Edinburgh. You know, head up city.

Dr. Cliff Redford (04:44)

your trust in the experts.

Tom Summerscales (04:56)

And you've got all of the Northern Scotland and the Highlands and Islands. Definitely recommend. ⁓

Dr. Cliff Redford (05:03)

Excellent. Yeah, definitely. We'll be checking it

out in the next few years. We're going to, my wife and I are going to make sure we sort of push, push the travel dreams. We spent a lot of time in Greece. She's Greek and we've got, she's got family there. And so we have a little two bedroom in Athens that her mom stays at right now. My stepson, her son is there for the summer. How cool is that? 19 the whole summer in Greece, working at a beach bar and just chilling out.

Tom Summerscales (05:11)

Okay.

on the stage now.

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (05:30)

⁓ but, you know, so a lot of our travel is there, but we've kind of promised, ⁓ other than traveling for her triathlon and she's an iron man, just like you. ⁓ yeah, yeah. She's done one, but she's got another one planned, later this week or later this year. So later this summer, so she's, she's in it. she's in it hardcore.

Tom Summerscales (05:40)

Okay. ⁓

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's hardcore and doing more than what instantly makes you much more hardcore as well. I just did one called her day. So she's on her second. She's already super hardcore.

Dr. Cliff Redford (05:59)

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah. And she was one of those, ⁓ she was one of those people that, you know, so we've been together eight ish years. and shortly after her first marriage, ⁓ ended, ⁓ she sort of had to take care. She wanted to take care of herself, get back into athletics and get back into running. And so she did a five K and then a 10 K and then she couldn't believe it. She did a marathon.

And then her and I met and we were running together and, you know, she slowly built up her triathlon distance, never thinking she would do a full. And, ⁓ now she's, as I said, she's all in, she's got the tattoo. She's, know, she's got the fancy bikes. ⁓ you know, she's had some crashes and some injuries and all the stuff you got to do to pay your dues, I guess. Right.

Tom Summerscales (06:46)

Okay, yeah.

Thanks.

Yeah, yeah, it's, once you get to that kind of distance, it's tough, it's tough going, there's no hiding, think is the thing as well. You can't get away with having just kind of slacking through the training if you really want to make the most of the day and enjoy the day, I think as well is important and not just suffer through sort of 12 plus hours of triathloning. It's, yeah, tough, tough going. It's funny you mentioned Greece as well. ⁓ My in-laws actually live, well they...

Dr. Cliff Redford (07:10)

Mm-hmm.

It's a tough go.

Tom Summerscales (07:25)

They spend most of their living in Greece. They have a not in Athens, but in a place called Vatsaliki, which is like a windsurfing resort in the south west.

Dr. Cliff Redford (07:31)

That's hilarious

because that's my wife's name, Vasilyki. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tom Summerscales (07:35)

Is it? ⁓

she must have relatives or something, I guess, from, ⁓ from there originally. but,

Dr. Cliff Redford (07:40)

It's a very common,

very common sort of root name.

Tom Summerscales (07:44)

Yeah, so yeah, we spent, were there a few weeks ago. ⁓ We spent most of year there. We go for at least a week or two each year to Bruce as well. So it's a nice place. ⁓

Dr. Cliff Redford (07:57)

So your

doctor wife is Greek then? Oh no, that's right. They're just there. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Summerscales (08:00)

No, she's Scottish. Yeah,

they're Scottish, but they've always holidayed there doing windsurfing primarily over the years. And then they sort of thought, actually, we go there so often, why don't we buy somewhere and they're retired and co-spend part of their time there. it's a good activity center for running and cycling and windsurfing. So yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (08:16)

Beautiful.

Yeah, yeah, watch some football

and the whole bit. Yeah. Yeah, that's great.

Tom Summerscales (08:24)

Yeah, yeah, so it's, yeah,

it's a very nice place. ⁓ Pretty remote. And we have a one year old daughter, so she's just starting to like enjoy that and did her first kind of holiday flight. that kind of thing there as well. it's, yeah, lovely, lovely place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's doing well. She turned one this week and started nursery this week too. it's, yeah, whole new experience.

Dr. Cliff Redford (08:38)

congratulations this beautiful

Naaaah

I bet, I bet. And as far

as, will be my segue into our conversation. Like, you know, you help doc, not only just doctors and medical professionals, but you, seems like you sort of focus on helping them deal with their health and find time to take care of their bodies. You're going to have a whole new challenge now with this one year old, little female Tom running around.

Tom Summerscales (09:11)

Yeah, yeah, she, yeah, she's already got a bit of runny nose and already picking up the nursery bugs already. it's, yeah, a whole new challenge. And yeah, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like particular clients, I work with some healthcare professionals across the, across the board. so I guess when I say that I sort of mean human healthcare, suppose, but also veterinary as well and dental too. And sort of the full mix of not just, suppose, doctors, dentists, vets, but also

nurses and technicians, human nurses, dental assistants. The full range really is, think, ⁓ pretty much anybody who works in healthcare at some point in their career will be impacted by working things like nights, on-calls, late shifts, ⁓ awkward shift patterns that are hard to recover from. And not just that, it's the things like the environments you work in quite often as well can vary enormously depending on

practice you work at and the kind of specialty that you are and all those different side of things and the availability of that food and the environment you're in and how much harder that can make it for you to stay on top of your nutrition or whatever your goals might be from a nutritional or fitness perspective. So there's like so many different challenges that you will face that you know, sometimes get asked, do we have it harder? And I'm like, you know, being

being honest, yeah, for the most part, you do have a harder than 90 % of the professions out there and other jobs out there. There's just a lot of check, extra challenges and extra barriers that you face, which are overcomeable. And I think you're probably a good example of someone overcoming those. ⁓ But there's a lot of different ⁓ challenges and things you need to do to kind of help you get there, I suppose. And I guess that's often where I come in is to help people see those common pitfalls that I often see.

Dr. Cliff Redford (10:40)

the

Tom Summerscales (11:08)

and yeah, kind of get through it. So it's tough, but definitely doable to kind of get on top of that. It's a challenge, but I mean, how do you, what's sort of your top tips, I suppose, or how do you manage it?

Dr. Cliff Redford (11:20)

yeah, I mean, I've been, I've been lucky or I guess blessed, or I've worked really hard that I've never been. I've rarely been hit with sort of burnout or as soon as I feel it. And I'm very, very good at, at knowing, ⁓ my stressors and knowing the signs physically and emotionally, ⁓ when I'm, when I'm burning out and rarely is the solution for me time off.

The solution is normally hit the weights, go for a run, know, plan a proper meal, ⁓ that sort of thing. ⁓ you know, fitness, fitness sort of became important in my life when I was about 17. ⁓ I was a little shy, chubby kid. ⁓ the youngest, ⁓ of the family, you know, I have two siblings.

And I came back after a summer job as a junior ranger. I was way up in Northern Canada for two and a half months. All 17 year old boys doing this all at this sort of camp. And we basically cut down trees and planted trees and it was labor. And so I came back. Although I wasn't lighter, I had lost six inches, four inches on my waist. Like I had packed on muscle and

Tom Summerscales (12:32)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (12:42)

lost all this weight. And at the same time, my mom had moved. was living with my mom at the time. She had moved to a new city. So I came back with a completely new world. And so I decided, all right, I'm going to reinvent myself and I'm going to start going to the gym and doing sports. Um, so even through veterinarian school, I was running, uh, I qualified for, and then ran Boston marathon my final year. Um, you know, obviously like any good Canadian boy, played hockey a lot. Um, and so it just,

I've just made sure for me it's, it's important. You know, I sleep a solid seven every single night. I don't do a lot of caffeine a little bit. ⁓ I don't need it. I don't, you know, it's not a big deal and I train every single day, sometimes to a day. ⁓ now partly. Like I think I have a little bit of ADD, I guess, or, or like, can focus really well, but if I'm not physically active, I get really.

grumpy and you know, I can't concentrate. I, for me, I've just learned it and I, and I find sports that I'm passionate about. did judo for years, uh, marathoning, ultra-marathoning, that sort of thing. Um, I've recently four years ago, I had a hip replacement, um, due to both genetic and sports related. So I pivoted and I took up cold water surfing in Lake Ontario and, uh, boxing. And now I compete in boxing, uh, old, old man's

Tom Summerscales (13:50)

Thank

Okay.

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (14:11)

Old man's amateur league, as I call it. and that's, that's what I do. I just, for me, it's a priority. It's an absolute priority. ⁓ I've already gotten in a workout today and I got another one planned later on. And as you can see behind me, I've got a gym in my, in my basement. So, so I'm all set, but how did you get into that? Like, I mean, obviously I read before having you on your, your little bio and, and your high credentials.

Tom Summerscales (14:27)

It's evaporating.

Dr. Cliff Redford (14:39)

But how did you start this business and then get focusing on the healthcare profession?

Tom Summerscales (14:44)

Sure. We'll jump back about 10 years or so ago. I originally studied applied sports science at the University of Edinburgh, which is where I my wife. And I particularly enjoyed the general population focused work, maybe more so than the professional sports application of applied sports science. For me, I've always enjoyed the helping people side of it.

But I guess like a lot of people going through university or college, I sort of fell into a job at the side of it that wasn't in the sports industry. And then just, it was lucky. I was able to take that quite far for the last few years. And so I suppose I spent the last eight, nine years working in a corporate career and kind of had a lot of progression. But I think I found that pretty fulfilling. ⁓

and the more sort of senior I got on that sort of thing, actually I realized less and less that's what I want to do long-term. And I always knew I wanted to do my own fitness business and coaching, early coaching on and off over the years whilst working anyway. And it's kind of reached a point where I was like, actually I just need to make the jump, make the leap. ⁓ And just, yeah, time had worked out and kind of my wife gave me some good advice. It'd just be like, you've just gotta go for it. Stop talking about it and just do it.

And I was like, yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah, she's great. So she's like, stop talking about it. Just do it. I was like, yeah, we'll do. And so kind of full time, suppose, on the business pretty much just over a year ago now, kind of April 2024 was when I went full time. And people I'd hoped that helped over the years have been a range of backgrounds in sports, but quite a few in the sort of medical space. And then

Dr. Cliff Redford (16:10)

I love her already. I love it.

Tom Summerscales (16:36)

As I was going into fitness spaces, I thought, what do I actually want to do as a fitness professional? Like, what do I really care about doing? What am I passionate about? And I come from a medical family. My dad's a GP or family physician, or was, he's now semi-retired. He got bored of being retired and went back to work about three months later. My mom was a practice nurse as well.

She now runs a floristry business after she retired. And my wife's a doctor, sister-in-law's a doctor. Most of my family friends are either doctors, dentists or vets. And so I suppose I have a fairly good insight into the challenges that you will face day to day that most fitness professionals just don't understand or don't get. And for me, I was like, well, actually I can help people like my family and my friends. Then that's the goal for me is it's kind of just what can I do more to help people like them?

I'm just doubling down to that really. So it's been a good kind of full time, full year so far. Huge range of specialties, countries as well. I work with people all over the world. I was on the phone this morning with people in Australia, Germany, Canada, the US, all over the cross-medicine, veterinary, et cetera. it's, yeah, I feel very lucky to be able to work with a really cool range of people doing some amazing things.

kind of globally. ⁓ And ⁓ yeah, yeah, going well so far. It's a big mix of goals as well. For some of my clients, it's everything from just building a routine and structure and being on top of it or back getting back in control of their health and fitness day to day. And for other people, it's they want to go do an Ironman or they want to prepare for ⁓ running park run with their kids, for example. So a huge range of goals, ⁓ depending on the individual.

but a lot of common challenges around time and stress and burnout and nutrition and what can I eat to lose weight, for example, if I'm gonna be in the field for the whole week and on call and on nights and all those challenges. So yeah, it's super interesting.

Dr. Cliff Redford (18:56)

needed and needed. And I would imagine probably more challenging, dealing with like, look, most of us, medical professionals are type A personalities were, were intelligent, were academic, were stubborn, ⁓ you know, and ⁓ yeah, and some of that's that stubbornness is definitely a big problem with us because we just

I just put our head down, drink some more coffee, throw a donut down the gullet, even though we know 100 % what that's doing to our insulin levels and our cortisol levels and our waistlines and our ability to do our work. Do you find, I mean, you've been living with people like us your entire life, you're married to one. So you have a clearly have an innate ability to deal with that.

to deal with people like us. ⁓ But are those real challenges that you face without bad mouthing your clients, of course?

Tom Summerscales (20:01)

Oh, no, no, totally. And I think they're

often the first to admit or recognize some of those traits. think some of the things that make you fantastic at what you do, regardless of healthcare specialty and field, that often that kind of perfectionism or nothingness. You're going to give absolutely everything to being the best at what you do. And you have to do that throughout the whole learning pathway to even get to where you are as well. can't just, you know...

half-bake your way through veterinary school or through medicine. Like you can't just turn up and hope for the best. Like you have to really, really work hard and be good. And that's amazing. You know, I obviously would want my veterinarian or my doctor to be good at what they do and really care. But when it comes to your own health and fitness, it can often be a bit of a downfall in that you see then not being perfect or having really high expectations of yourself and not achieving them as being failure. You know, I often...

circumstances where I talk to people and they'll say, I'm really failing, like I'm not doing well. ⁓ And I'll be like, okay, talk me through why think you're failing. And you know, they've maybe been on a batch of nights and they've got two kids who are sick. And they're also studying, for example, or something at the same time. And they managed to work out still once or twice in the week, they stayed on top of their food. In my view, pretty successful, to be honest, given the circumstances.

Dr. Cliff Redford (21:24)

was pretty good.

Tom Summerscales (21:25)

And they'll be like, no, I'm a complete failure, like terrible week. And I'm like, walk me through why you think you're a failure. And for them to just be, well, I wasn't perfect. didn't hit four or whatever sessions per week. And it's like, okay, let's walk it back a bit, take a step back. Actually, this is that defectionism kicking in and actually you're just trying to be consistently good, not occasionally perfect. That's my sort of common line I throw out there is I'd much rather you be consistent and we look at ways.

to help you be consistent over time and not setting up to fail. whether that's, you know, if I know you're on a week of nights, I'll dial back the expectations in terms of workouts and nutrition, et cetera, and look at what we can do versus just saying, great, go and do six sessions this week or whatever, because for most people that's just not a realistic goal. And even if they know it's not realistic, not hitting it still will make them feel like a failure and in turn could make them.

Dr. Cliff Redford (22:07)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Summerscales (22:23)

then spiral into, okay, well, I'm just going to sack it off for this week or sack it off for this month and I'll start again next month. And then that cycle just repeats and repeats again again. So it's a very, very common thread I see ⁓ in healthcare and professional field. And one the first things that I kind of work on with clients and throughout that journey to help them be able to take that step back and see the perfectionism and how it can help, but also hinder them.

Dr. Cliff Redford (22:40)

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Tom Summerscales (22:52)

that went to just awareness, think is the thing. ⁓ But it's, yeah, how do you find your, do you find your perfectionist? How do you find to kind of imagine it?

Dr. Cliff Redford (23:04)

Yeah, I mean, as you're talking, I'm thinking, first of all, I love that saying, ⁓ consistently good, not occasionally perfect. And I'm, I'm sort of thinking about, the reality is, is not that we have to be perfect in our field, but we have to be better than consistently good. Like we have to be always good and most of the time, perfect. mean, mistakes are going to happen, but, yeah. So, I mean, I, I have.

Tom Summerscales (23:20)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (23:34)

I don't want to say I've accomplished what I've wanted to accomplish as far as health and fitness. ⁓ you know, even though I can't, I don't run more than five kilometers anymore. And my longest run was 50 miles was 80 K, ⁓ three months before I was getting my hip replaced again. So I like, have these amateur weekend warrior, ⁓ metals and things that I'm very, very proud of again, Boston marathon.

while in vet school, you know, ⁓ you know, that was a big deal. got a tattooed it to my first ever tattoo. Now I'm covered in them, but that was my first ever tattoo to signify both running the Boston marathon and that I graduated my little runner tattoo has like paw prints behind it. ⁓ because you know, being a veterinarian, so I don't, I, it doesn't bother me anymore when I'm, you know, like, for example, I'm about to turn 52 next month.

And, ⁓ I've gotten back into some power lifting. ⁓ I had learned that, ⁓ weight lifting reduces cholesterol. ⁓ and so was one of the things that I got back into and improve my, my nutrition and my cholesterol dropped. talked about it in the last podcast, but I had a goal of by my 52, 52nd birthday to deadlift 400 pounds. And, ⁓ I didn't do any deadlifting the last month.

due to, I had a boxing event coming up, which ended up getting canceled. The guy had to pull out. I had some, you know, elbow injuries, that sort of thing from boxing. Boxing's my big one. And so I went back yesterday and I did 325 and it felt great. And I was like, all right, maybe I'll try for 350. And if I don't get it, that's fine. I mean, you know, how many 52 year olds can, can, can, can do that? Not many, right? ⁓ and I was more particular again about my cholesterol and my blood pressure and

Tom Summerscales (25:25)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (25:31)

I've got a history of heart disease in the family. So I had focused on that. So I'm good at pivoting, ⁓ very, very well. ⁓ but yeah, I can see that people in my industry, in the medical industry, ⁓ we are so like, was, we need to get a 92 percentile to get into medical school or vet school. And then we, you know,

Tom Summerscales (25:52)

Yes.

Dr. Cliff Redford (25:55)

Although you don't need those marks to stay, you want to graduate with honors and you want to, know, they, rightfully so they put pressure on you to be as good as you can possibly be. And, know, and then you get out in the field and whether you're running a business or you're an associate, you're working at a hospital, whatever, you know, you don't, you're, I hate to say this and sound difficult, but

You know, the disease that you're trying to treat or the trauma that you're trying to help your patient through doesn't care about what you're going through. You know, so, so we've learned to, well, there's, I'm going to have to share with you. I have a documentary I talk about on my podcast. have this animal rescue documentary. Did I send you? I did send you the link. Right. And so I talk, I talk on in that how, when, when the crap hits the fan and the animals dying right in front of you, you turn into this robot and you just, you just.

Tom Summerscales (26:37)

Yes, I watched it. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I want to, yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (26:52)

focus on the task at hand and then you get like, I'm getting emotional now you get emotional later on. So I'm very good at compartmentalizing and I'm sure there's been times in my life where that has not been good for my mental health, but I've learned through therapy and through talking with family and you know, just journaling was a big thing for me. ⁓ I've learned how to recognize, you know, the need to be as perfect as possible.

but not perfect in my, in my, ⁓ professional life and then consistently good in my, in my, ⁓ my life as far as my own health is concerned. But, yeah, but I mean, there's a lot of us that need to hear that and I've, ⁓ you know, I've made a lot of mistakes, in my life. So I've learned, ⁓ I've learned the hard way, ⁓ you know,

that we have to take care of ourselves. And we have to be sort of tough on ourselves to push and have goals to better ourselves as far as our fitness and our health. then we also, part of that is also give yourself a little bit of a break. ⁓ You know, things don't work out.

Tom Summerscales (28:07)

Yes,

yeah, totally. think it's that thing of self-care or ⁓ doesn't just mean, cool, I'm just gonna sit on the sofa for the rest of the day and kind of wallow on social media. For some people that might be restful, don't get me wrong, but I'd say for a lot of people actually when we think of rest and recovery, sometimes I like to say you wanna think more about regeneration rather than just rest. What's gonna, to use that often used phrase, what's gonna fill your cup.

⁓ sort of thing when it comes to regeneration and for you and similarly for me, you know, I find exercise relaxing, like that's just always how I've relaxed. know, exercise or PC gaming as well. ⁓ Surfing in particular, I find is relaxing for me. Walking the dog. ⁓ But for other people that relaxing might be, don't know, could be anything. And it's kind of trying to find what's going to help you regenerate, I think is the thing, rather than just the default of.

Dr. Cliff Redford (28:37)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tom Summerscales (29:03)

I'm just gonna sit on the sofa and put on Netflix, but I'm also gonna be on my phone at the same time and you're not actually really resting, you're just if anything maybe making yourself a bit more stressed because of all this sensory overload you're giving yourself. yeah, I often get people who tell me they struggle with their days off and to relax on days off. What do you do on your days off? And they're like, oh, well, I'll wake up late or maybe, and then we'll kind of just go to the shops maybe and then yeah, social media on the phone whilst watching Netflix or something.

Dr. Cliff Redford (29:07)

Mm.

Tom Summerscales (29:33)

like, and then they feel stressed, or stressed that they can't relax, for example, they find it hard to relax. And so well, we're setting ourselves up to be to feeling stressed or feeling unproductive. And yeah, that the whole thing. So for me, it's all about let's try to focus on regenerate you and finding what that is can often be a bit of a, you know, is it challenge itself? But yeah, well, that's good for a walk, or whatever it might be. And try to think more about regeneration, think is important to

Dr. Cliff Redford (29:39)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Summerscales (30:01)

I get help with that sustainability of doing things. A good question I like to people to ask themselves, or I like to ask new clients is, what fun thing have you planned for this week? Have you planned in anything fun for the week? And a lot people will say, no, I haven't planned anything fun. And I'm like, okay, when was the last time you planned in something fun? And they might be like, oh, during vet school or two years ago, you know, or something like that. was like, well, you know, let's make sure we're doing something fun each week, because that's what's going to help fill up your cup and you can't.

Dr. Cliff Redford (30:23)

Yeah.

Tom Summerscales (30:30)

You know, it doesn't mean every week needs to be going to a comedy show or ⁓ doing an ultra marathon. It could be the small things, trying to plan in some fun, being intentional about how we spend our time, think is, important. Planning is something I harp on about quite a bit. And you touched on it earlier, which is fantastic without even realizing it. You you plan your workouts for each day and even twice per day. You plan out and it's so important that we do that. think sometimes when we talk about planning, people think.

Dr. Cliff Redford (30:53)

Hmm.

Tom Summerscales (31:00)

huge Excel spreadsheet, getting charts and you know it's this whole cycle, it'll take hours of work but having a basic plan for your week of what you might exercise, what you might do on your day off, what you might have for dinners, all that stuff you can do in your head or very briefly on a piece of paper in minutes but can make such a difference to your week by just having a basic plan to work off rather than just the case of you finish work, you're pretty tired.

Dr. Cliff Redford (31:14)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Summerscales (31:31)

you're relying on yourself making good decisions. Or when you're tired, maybe a bit stressed, maybe a bit hungry, that's the worst time to be trying to make those good decisions. If you've ever been to the supermarket on the way home from the gym, I'm pretty sure you're gonna make maybe not so good food choices sometimes because you're just like, will eat everything in sight. That Ben & Jerry's looks particularly good after the gym. yeah, that bit of planning helps take away.

Dr. Cliff Redford (31:38)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tom Summerscales (32:00)

decision fatigue or trying to make decisions when we're in a not so good place, ⁓ which again, sounds like a small thing, but over time that all adds up to that consistency that sort of touched on earlier, that really helps you be more successful with whatever your goal might be long-term. it's, yeah, planning, I talk about that a lot. think my advice is really you don't plan it.

Dr. Cliff Redford (32:21)

Yeah, yeah, it's huge. And even, mean, wow, I love that, that concept

of, know, your day off isn't just, it's not a, it's not a rest day just because you're not working. Like think of it as a day to regenerate, to heal, heal the body, heal the spirit, heal the mind. And what are you going to do for that? Like people will go on vacation to an all-inclusive, I'm stressed out. You know, it's, I got a week off coming up.

I'm going to Barbados, I'm going to sit in this all, you know, all, all inclusive vacation spot. And I'm just going to relax. And then they go and they relax, but they're on their phone. They're drinking way more than they should. They're eating food they shouldn't be eating. ⁓ and yes, it gives us mouth pleasure, but if they think about it and people in my fields in the medical field understand this more than most, think you're doing seven days of.

toxic damage to your body. And it doesn't mean you don't go out and have a good time. But you know, ⁓ go on the catamaran cruise, go on a hike and see a waterfall and that exercise is going to help you. yeah, looking at and even the day off when I asked my team members, hey, how was your weekend? What did you do? And they're like, nothing. ⁓ Well, I mean, even if they're to say

I just stayed at home and I watched this amazing docu series that I've been wanting to watch for a long time and it blew my mind and it's absolutely amazing and I can't stop talking about it. Okay. So that's, that's the same as sitting in front of the TV and just vegging out. ⁓ except it was with intent. ⁓ and, and, and they feel much more, they feel better about it. You know, they don't after afterwards going, geez, I just wasted four hours watching some silly reality TV show.

Tom Summerscales (34:01)

Yes.

Dr. Cliff Redford (34:11)

You know, ⁓ so that, makes a, that makes a huge, huge difference. then planning, especially nutrition. mean, that, that's gotta be a huge part of your, ⁓ of your recommendations.

Tom Summerscales (34:25)

Yes. Yeah. think it's, um, it's a kind of a sort of foundational pillars, I suppose, for a lot of people that are trying to build in, think, uh, a lot of healthcare professionals, medical professionals, um, if you ask them, are you good at planning? We'll say, yeah, I'm amazing at planning. And I'm like, yes, you're probably amazing at planning in the context of work or, you know, managing the professional side of things. Totally. If I was like, give me a care plan for that new family to, you know, tour his ACL or something. Um, then absolutely you could probably.

whip one out immediately. But if I was like, cool, tell me about how you plan your week. And then they'll be like, what do you mean plan my week? And we're okay, cool. Like, here's where we need to dig in a little bit. And very basic planning. When I talk about this, they'll say, oh, that sounds like it's gonna be a lot of work. I'm like, no, no, here's a very basic spreadsheet that I use. That's days a week. What's the key tasks you need to try and do? What are you gonna have for breakfast, lunch or dinner each day this week?

And it doesn't need to be some amazing, healthy, clean eating kind of all the buzzwords off Instagram, you can imagine kind of thing. It's just Watson, pragmatic, functional nutrition that's gonna get you towards your goals, keep you fueled for work and performing as well. think performance is another thing that often gets maybe overlooked in medical professionals. We come to that in a minute, but yeah, very basic planning. And when I talk to clients who have been through that.

initial stage with myself, suppose, like the difference I see and then from the pre versus post in terms of their ability then plan and the impact that has on their, their week and on their mindset and on how they feel as well is night and day in terms of how they feel. You suddenly feel much more in control of their nutrition. They feel in control of their week often. You know, they kind of feel from a place of whether maybe we're just reacting to life around them to feeling a bit proactive about

that's how I want to spend my week, that's how I want to spend my evenings, that's what I want to do on the weekend. ⁓ It's not necessarily trying to make people super productive or build a productivity complex, ⁓ it's more just giving a bit of structure, how much that can help people in terms of then the planning and do you shop online or do you go to the shops every day after work? It's like if go to the shops every day after work that's maybe half an hour to an hour we lose every day just to that task alone, when if you just did online shopping once a week.

you that's six hours you've saved a week, easy. ⁓ Just little things like that as well that can make a big difference within looking at the planning ⁓ pictures, I think. it's, yeah, planning does not have to be big thing. It can be simple and effective, I think, to try and push on to people as best I can as well, ⁓ because it just makes such a difference for the people. ⁓ But yeah, performance is another one. When you...

When you're going to work, let's say in the morning, do you think about how you are fueled so that you feel like you can be at your best when you're at work? Does that something that comes into your head when you're going to work? Or yeah, how do you approach it?

Dr. Cliff Redford (37:30)

Um, very much so. and you know, partly is I very slightly struggled with again, cholesterol and I'm a, I'm a chubby kid waiting to get out. So, uh, I'm, I'm inherently aware of that and I'm not super vain, but I don't want to fight the big guys in amateur boxing. want to stay at my, uh, 70, 75 kilo range. You know, I was trying to do the math there.

Although we're metric, not for weight, we do pounds for weight and everything else metric, but no stones. Do you guys do stones?

Tom Summerscales (38:08)

No, in the UK we'll do the opposite. So we do kilos, but then we do feet and inches for height. Still kind of. Yeah, but everything else is metric here. That's the one thing we don't do.

Dr. Cliff Redford (38:15)

Yeah, we do feet and inches for height too. That's true. ⁓ everything else is metric.

so I'm, I'm like, I only, I only eat out at the first of all, I work six days a week, ⁓ for various reasons and mostly it's cause I love it. ⁓ and I only eat out once a week. Like I'll grab a slice of pizza or something. It happened to be yesterday. Every other time I brown bag it. I, I, I take food.

with me and it's often what I made. I'm generally the cook in my household. it's often what I cooked the night before, ⁓ leftovers and I cook knowing that, okay, I'm going to have extra. So I have leftovers for my lunch slash dinner. ⁓ and if that's not the case, I'll make something and I, I'm very, I'm a little bit too particular of macros and micros and, and whatnot. And sometimes it can cause a hassle.

I think in my family, but I, but I know how it makes me feel. And, ⁓ I know, as you said, I know my productivity is I'm able to work six days a week and I'm able to take on emergencies as well as general practice cases and sort of overload my schedule if the need is there because I've got rocket fuel in my belly. ⁓ and so I very rarely.

⁓ find myself without something to eat and then therefore, or hungry, cause that's the problem. As soon as you find yourself hungry and stressed, man, that cheesecake looks so good. That donut looks so good. So I'm very, very particular with that. And it's, it's gotta be something you really have to harp on with people.

Tom Summerscales (39:59)

Yeah, yeah. And guess at the workplace, like, do you find that the loss of kind of, don't know if this is an example, but a loss of sugary treats kind of littered about like the staff area or, you know, what's the environment like?

Dr. Cliff Redford (40:11)

Oh, a hundred percent.

Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, clients bring it drug reps bring it. Uh, my associate Dr. Ron, he's the worst and he's the leanest. Like he doesn't eat this stuff, but he, the team loves it. So he brings cookies and croissants and Cinnabons and whatnot, but I'm good at just going, I got no interest. I got no interest in that every once in a while. I'll have to say guys, I need to.

Tom Summerscales (40:25)

Thank

Easy right?

Dr. Cliff Redford (40:38)

Can we put this in the staff room and not have it where I can see it? if I can see it, then it's a bit of an issue, but, yeah, I'm very good. just go, no, I don't, I don't want it. And if I go and eat, I had a plan, you know, I'm gonna, I haven't, you know, I, I get that cookie. ⁓ I'm never just finding myself. my God. ate four of these things. I couldn't believe it. So, ⁓ but it's, ⁓ it's tough and, and I know my team struggles with that. ⁓

I could just say it's not allowed here anymore and that would be better for them in the long run, but I think I'd have a mutiny on my hands.

Tom Summerscales (41:11)

you

Yeah,

right. Yeah. And I think I don't, you know, I don't think I'm always a fan of restraint rather than restriction as I think, yeah, ultimately, yeah, obviously people make their own choices. And also it's, think sometimes when I start with people, they'll be like, I didn't want you see that I ate dessert or, you know, that kind of thing. And I'm like, no, I love seeing your desserts. Like I love dessert. I love seeing clients' desserts when they do food diaries. Cause for me, it's a good sign of kind of a healthy.

Dr. Cliff Redford (41:43)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Summerscales (41:43)

approach to

food as well in time is that yeah, you're eating desserts, but you're actively choosing when to do so and doing it with intent rather than reacting to it because it's there like you described of those that... The Ron's freshly baked goods are on the counter and you're seeing them and you're like, that is really triggering me right now because I'm hungry and I'm stressed and I've not got something to eat. And so I'm just going to grab that and go and maybe without even thinking about it, it's already half demolished.

Dr. Cliff Redford (42:13)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Summerscales (42:13)

And

that's something that a lot of people struggle with across all the normal specialties, because you say patients bring it in, drug reps bring it in, other colleagues bring it in too. And I think particularly if someone's home-baked it for the team, like there's nothing wrong with having that. I think again, it's more about being intentional. There's things that you can do environment-wise in the office that can help people who may be struggling with it a little bit, which can just be out of sight, out of mind. So you have like the treats cupboard where things go into, and you keep

out your fruit or whatever. Sorry. ⁓ no. You keep out your fruit.

on counter, example, know, ways to try and help just the environment. Because it does play a big role for some people. But it's, yeah, keeping dessert is often what I to people. It's about how we do that rather than just banning it completely. For me, when you see people doing very, very strict, restrictive diets for maybe eight weeks or 12 weeks, absolutely, yes, you can lose weight doing that. Totally. You know, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But I find for a lot of my

compliance because of the stress and time challenges they have compared to most people. Ruling out desserts might be the one thing they look forward to sometimes in their day or the end of the day and kind of taking away that treat is makes things difficult. But also it's kind of a case of we're going to eat desserts long term. You we're not going to suddenly just never eat desserts again after the end of the same weeks. And what I kind of don't want people to get to is the end of any week block or 12 weeks and not having desserts.

And then suddenly it's like, wow, dessert, it's like I can eat them again. Doing a very restricted diet for a short period, it doesn't set you up to be able to manage having desserts or access to them long-term. So for me, I try to go with much more approach of, let's keep eating dessert, but let's do it in a way that fits around whatever your goals might be and what you're trying to achieve and help you have more control and mindset tools around that rather than just saying, right.

desserts because I mean, lots of people have kids, have family who want to keep eating desserts. And they maybe not won't be so keen if you suddenly say, right, that's it, no more tiramisu or cookies in the house or whatever it might be. I always say tiramisu because that's my favorite dessert. but but yeah, I think it's keep bringing it to the office wrong. That's that's what I'm saying, first of all. And then, yeah, it's the tools around it. The interesting thing that you said around the performance as well is

is another one which I've been touching on with people of sometimes it can be good to think about going to work from a performance sport perspective of you need to be fueled to be at your best. I don't know if it's how pervasive it is in veterinary, but certainly in medicine, I come across cases of often quite senior doctors or nurses who will treat kind of not being hydrated, for example, as being like a badge of honor. ⁓

you know, I've not had fluid in 12 hours. I'm hardcore kind of thing. Or like, I don't need fluid to keep operating. That sort of thing. can kind of get the mindset to it, but at the same time, ⁓ you know, like your mental and physical performance will be far better if you have some hydration. ⁓ If we find a way to make sure you get a bit more water in you or get some carbs in you, just any kind of fuel.

will likely help you perform better than just having nothing. Do you find that's a thing you've seen in veterinary in terms of a badge of honour of being kind of under-fuelled or under-hydrated or have you not seen it?

Dr. Cliff Redford (45:54)

⁓ I wouldn't say under hydrated, but a big one is, lack of sleep and over caffeinated. And that's a, that's a badge of honor. and, ⁓ yeah, it's weird. It's like, they're proud that they've, you know, they've worked three or four long days in a row and they've hardly slept and I'll just take another, I'll just grab another coffee. ⁓ that sort of thing, but yet also.

Tom Summerscales (46:02)

Yes.

Dr. Cliff Redford (46:22)

When they talked to me and I was like, I sleep great. sleep, you know, seven hours solid and, know, et cetera, et cetera. And then they, they're, they're almost, I wish I could do that. You know, I wish that must be nice. That sort of thing. It's like, well, you can, you can do it. First of all, ⁓ make it a priority, ⁓ stop drinking coffee two hours before the end of your shift. ⁓ that sort of thing. ⁓ but. You know, it takes time and I guess people don't.

Tom Summerscales (46:36)

in this.

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (46:52)

Some people just don't see the forest for the trees, right? They just don't see what's directly in front of them unless they, they almost have to like sit down and treat themselves like a patient. ⁓ a problem we have with, ⁓ with our own, like our own pets. You'd think that veterinarians take such great care of their pets and we do, but I learned over the years that when my animal is sick, I actually have to book an appointment with myself, literally put it in the schedule.

And then say, okay, these 20 minutes or these 30 minutes are for my dog. And I'm going to jot down the history, do a physical exam, put all the notes in exactly as if it was someone else's patient. And then I go, my God, I haven't been, of course, now I know what I need to do. I need to give them this medicine. Like I just, tried to rush through it. So, ⁓ I imagine that's sort of the same thing as, is now, unfortunately people.

Tom Summerscales (47:34)

patient.

Dr. Cliff Redford (47:50)

You know, I hear too often of the 50 year old colleague that, you know, got a rude awakening, shoveling their driveway and they had a heart attack and their, their, their doctor has been telling them for a decade, your blood pressure is too high, your cholesterol is too high. You don't sleep enough. ⁓ you know, I, we need to look at ourselves, you know, as again, medical professionals, we need to look at ourselves as patients, ⁓ and, and preventative.

look at preventative steps instead of treatments, right?

Tom Summerscales (48:23)

Yeah, I think a good quote that I probably use too often now from another coach I've learned from is it's often hard to see the label when you're inside the bottle. And I think for healthcare professionals, it's often very applicable to, you know, were so, you're so amongst it, but then actually taking that step back and see the challenges you're facing yourself and actually deal with that can be really...

Dr. Cliff Redford (48:37)

Ha ha ha.

Tom Summerscales (48:50)

really tough to do without someone being there to be like, you need to do something about this. And often it needs to be the right person as well to tell you to do that. You sometimes the people you maybe have closest to you for whatever reason, it doesn't quite get through to you. you know, sometimes you need something to offer. the unfortunate case is, as you say, sometimes people have that moment, whether that's something going wrong and that gives them that kick to be like, okay, I actually need to do something about this. Whether some of that

of single-mindedness comes into it too of no, can, I'm all good, I don't need help or I don't need to do anything about it until something like that happens. really forces you to reevaluate but it's, yeah, it's definitely, it's a common thing. I think what's often what I try and tell people or like to highlight occasionally on social media is how being fit and healthy or doing, for example, strength training, I think in particular. And if anything, maybe more so for veterinary than in human medicine.

can really help you actually be better at your job or do be more functional at your job, but also actually for people function in general life. think as well as the other thing too, of then you can be fit, active, strong, healthy as you get much older and still be active with grandkids or with animals or whatever, much more so than someone who doesn't do any form of strength training or mobility work or anything. But particularly, think with, so when I was growing up, I used to work on a family.

Dr. Cliff Redford (50:06)

Hmm.

Tom Summerscales (50:18)

farm, not my family farm, but one of my family friends had a farm. And so it was like a lot of work with cows, for example, ⁓ and a lot of fun memories of that, as well as field labor work as well too. But certainly being physically strong certainly helps when it comes to managing large cattle and chasing after sheep and all the other things and horses that get caught in the, or horses that decide to run in with the cows and trying to manage all that.

Just all the other stuff, you know, when he's trying to wrangle a new foundland or a cat that's not having a good time, know, all those things just being a little bit stronger is only going to help you maybe be a bit more effective or efficient at doing so. If a doctor's helping a nurse is picking the patient or an emergency doing it or a paramedic, being stronger is only going to help you be better or be fitter or make things easier. And so it's kind of training can help you better your job, but actually then for general life, it can help you be better.

Dr. Cliff Redford (50:59)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Summerscales (51:17)

or help you do things more easily too, as it will be less injured, all the other benefits which, you know, of preaching to the choir in that, yeah, I'm sure you have lots of moments where ⁓ you're like, yeah, I can do pretty cool stuff. I mean, like jumping in the well, as you did in the documentary, ⁓ you know, can do that completely fine. For a lot of people, that would be completely physically out of the realms for them. ⁓ And you want just to do it, we've maybe taken that for granted ourselves a little bit, but for a lot of people, that would be physically just not doable. ⁓

Dr. Cliff Redford (51:31)

Mm.

the

Tom Summerscales (51:46)

And so it's, yeah, preparedness for life, I suppose, is what training can also give you, whether you're an opt-in vet, dentist, nurse, whatever role. ⁓ It's helpful, ⁓ sure. So how often do find yourself climbing down wells?

Dr. Cliff Redford (51:51)

Mm-hmm.

⁓ not often enough. No, that makes it sound like I want animals to be trapped. ⁓ I definitely chase adventurous stuff like that. not only on my volunteer trips, but like here at home, ⁓ I'm not an adrenaline junkie, but I do like doing interesting things. ⁓ while I prefer surfing, you know, like I went to Panama and I surfed in Panama and whatnot.

Tom Summerscales (52:27)

Amazing.

Dr. Cliff Redford (52:28)

There's something cool about being

⁓ a Lake Ontario Toronto surfer because we only really surf in the cold six months, including when it's minus 20 out. That's our best waves here. ⁓ And so you get the, I get this giant ice beard and, just the fact that people are like, my God, I can't believe, isn't it cold? No, no. I mean, we're, we're wearing rubber suits. Like we're fine. So I do like, I do like that sort of stuff. I was telling a.

Tom Summerscales (52:44)

Yeah, that's good.

Dr. Cliff Redford (52:57)

a colleague of mine, a staff member of mine, she's entering vet school soon. Either she's going to be going to Guelph if she gets in, she finds out next week. ⁓ Or she's already been accepted to Bristol. ⁓ And she's now getting into triathloning. It was my wife who actually ⁓ inspired her. And I told her, you know, when I started running and when I did marathons, there was something really empowering about knowing that if my car ever broke down,

and the side of a abandoned road, I could run 42 kilometers to go find help. Or if the bad, watch a lot of sports or I watch a lot of like cop shows and cop movies. And there's always that situation where they're in some remote forest and the bad guy's chasing them with a gun. And I'd like, this is easy. I just keep going. Like he's now never gonna find me. So.

Tom Summerscales (53:49)

Thank you.

Dr. Cliff Redford (53:52)

There is a benefit of knowing that, you know, for all that stuff, I know I can handle myself physically if I need to. ⁓ If something goes bad, if there's a zombie apocalypse, you definitely want me on your team. ⁓ I will not be the strongest. I won't be the weakest. So it gives you a confidence. It gives you abilities. You can work those longer hours. You can keep your stress levels under control. You can focus more.

And those knowing you can do those things makes you more confident, making you more confident allows you to do those things better. it's this wonderful snowball. So, ⁓

Tom Summerscales (54:30)

Oh yeah,

definitely a positive circle of things that come from it. And then it gives you that outlet as well, think for then outside of work, it gives you goals to chase the art and just work, which I think is important for some people.

Dr. Cliff Redford (54:40)

Yeah.

Yeah. And I, like, I spar boxing with my coach, ⁓ two mornings a week and, ⁓ like I go to work just on this high, like I'm just so relaxed because this 220 pound Scottish dude, Arthur or Brock Arthur, the Highlander ex pro boxer, you know, ⁓ just tried to punch me in the face for five, three minute rounds. he goes very light, obviously.

But it's, it feels great. It absolutely feels great. So as we wrap this up, like how does your service work? So let's say I were to reach out to you and say, hey, I think I heard about you. I heard about you on this really cool podcast called Dr. Cliff, VetLite with Dr. Cliff. How does, like, I guess you first have a meeting with them and find out what their goals are. Like what's the process?

Tom Summerscales (55:36)

Yeah,

so it's pretty straightforward process. ⁓ There's a form on my website, becomeathletic.com. You can just message me on Instagram at, I always get this wrong way around, Tom Sum Coach, I'm pretty sure. No, thank you. ⁓ We have a discovery call. So it's just purely time for us just to dive in and learn more about whatever challenges you're struggling with, your circumstances, your role, your shifts.

Dr. Cliff Redford (55:52)

I'll do the links too on the summary of the website.

Tom Summerscales (56:07)

all the details that mean that then I can put together plan each week that then suits what you're doing. And I think for me, it's all that tailoring to you and your needs. So if you're on nights this week, great, we'll tailor workouts, your nutrition to that and vice versa. So yeah, initial meeting where we'll chat through all that in detail. And then if you'd to move ahead, then that's it. We then look at a start date and go from there. So it's pretty simple. A lot of questions mainly from me and yeah, support.

start at that point. it's a process.

Dr. Cliff Redford (56:40)

And if someone were to say to you, I want to, you know, I've done Olympic distance triathlon and I want to do my first ever full iron man in nine months, let's say, do you, do you break down and actually give them a training plan or is it more broad strokes?

Tom Summerscales (56:57)

Yeah, so they'd get a full training plan, depending on their goals. So whatever that might be. if, you know, let's say they want to trade for the Ironman, but they also want to get stronger. And they also want to ⁓ lose 10 pounds or whatever that might be. I just factor all those things into the training plan and the nutrition plan to make that fit. kind of whatever those goals are, we just factor them in and look at what's doable with their time as well. And then, yeah, they'll build it from there really.

Dr. Cliff Redford (57:23)

Cool. One last question. I read out your little bio before having you on here. What is the Sufferfest night of Sufferlandria that you did?

Tom Summerscales (57:33)

great question.

⁓ there's a cycling training app called, or there was one called the Sufferfest, which I think was acquired by Wahoo, not too long ago, but essentially it's a, ⁓ the training app has these fairly brutal Intel bike sessions that you do on a stationary bike, like Turbo Trainer. ⁓ and they have some signature rides, which are usually around an hour long. And then the of Suffolandria challenges, you do, ⁓ 10 of them. So I 10 of them. I think it's 10 of them.

I remember. I just blacked it out. You do 10 of them back to back with a 10 minute break. Yeah, it's, you're only allowed 10 minutes break between each one. And then the next one starts. So it's actually 10 hours of intense bike intervals back to back. that, yeah, 10 minutes rest in between and that's it to fuel and otherwise you have to be on the bike the entire time. And yeah, I it as a fundraiser. At same time, I I raised a thousand or so pounds for some charities.

Dr. Cliff Redford (58:06)

Little PTSD there.

Tom Summerscales (58:30)

And yeah, but it was a pretty brutal day. I had some sore quads for a week or so. But once you achieve it and they verify the data through Strava and their website, you get a cool... Actually, I've gotten it. You get these literally like personalized stickers in the post ⁓ from them, which has like their sort of their badge, a Knight of Suffolandria. And you go on the website. So there's an official Knight of Suffolandria website of knights and dames on there for people who completed it.

Dr. Cliff Redford (58:43)

You got it there.

Huh?

So I should have introduced you as Sir Tom Summerscales. Yeah.

Tom Summerscales (59:01)

If only, no. Getting that

head would be cool, but I don't think it's probably not going to happen. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (59:10)

That's okay. I don't mind. I'm going to do that next time and we'll definitely

have you on again. This has been a lot of fun. ⁓ So let's one more time, where can people find out about you and reach out you?

Tom Summerscales (59:22)

Yep, so you can find me on becomeathletic.com where you can read more about myself and you can fill in my discovery form. And alternatively, you can also find me on Instagram at tongsumcoach. So T-O-M-S-U-M coach. And yeah, you can reach out to me on there.

Dr. Cliff Redford (59:43)

Excellent, excellent. Anything else you want to add or?

Tom Summerscales (59:46)

No, just want to say an enormous thank you for having me on. Yeah, I feel like we have a lot in common, lots we can chat about.

Dr. Cliff Redford (59:51)

Definitely,

definitely. We're chasing a goal that hopefully we never reach. I think that's something. Constant improvement attempts. Perfect, man. Thank you so, much for ⁓ coming on.

Tom Summerscales (59:57)

Yes, yeah, exactly. The ongoing quest.

Yeah.

Thanks Cliff. Great to meet you and enjoy the rest of your

Dr. Cliff Redford (1:00:11)

All right, you too.