Episode 1 - Introduction

In this inaugural episode of Solemate Runners The Podcast, meet Paul and Aimee, a middle-aged couple with a passion for running. Join them in their running room filled with all things running as they share their motivation behind starting the podcast and YouTube channel. Learn about their background and how they've evolved from casual runners to tackling ultra-marathons and 100-mile races. They discuss their running experiences, the ups and downs, and their future race plans, including a quest to conquer the Arc of Attrition and other challenging events including the Winter Downs 200 in December 2025. Tune in for an honest, humorous, and inspiring dive into their journey in the world of ultra-running.

00:00 Welcome to Our Running Room

00:26 Meet the Hosts: Paul and Aimee

00:45 The Journey to Podcasting

02:03 Aimee's Running Background

03:59 Paul's Running and Sobriety Story

06:45 Our Running Dynamics as a Couple

10:01 From Couch to 100 Miles

14:58 Our First Official Races

16:45 Annual Running Mileage Progress

21:02 The Alcester 10k Races

28:29 Discovering Ultra Running

30:31 Our First Ultra Marathon Experience

37:11 Subsequent Ultra Marathons and Lessons Learned

39:07 Confidence and Preparation for Endure 24

39:29 Heatwave Challenges and Technical Issues

40:08 Aimee's Success and Paul's Struggles

42:06 The Joust and Lessons Learned

43:57 Run Walk Crawl as Arc 50 Training

45:17 The Arc 50: A Proudest Achievement

46:21 Big Bear Events Elephant Challenge

49:25 The Bridge 100: A Unique Challenge

54:51 Endure 24: A Sensible Approach

57:31 The Joust: A Successful Race

59:38 Escape from Meriden Chained

01:05:46 Arc of Attrition 100: A Tough Experience

01:09:20 Upcoming Races and Final Thoughts

Thanks for listening!
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Transcript

Paul: 0:04

Hello and welcome to Solemate Runners, The Podcast. I'm Paul Betteridge.

Aimee: 0:08

And I'm Aimee Tippins. We are a middle aged couple who like to run ultras together,

Paul: 0:12

so we decided to start a podcast about our experiences in the ultra running world,

Aimee: 0:16

especially as we're embarking on an adventure taking on our biggest race yet at the end of this year.

Paul: 0:22

And that race is the Winter Downs 200, a 200 mile ultra marathon in December.

Aimee: 0:28

So whatever you are doing, we hope you enjoy us waffling on for an hour or so.

Paul: 0:32

Waffling on? I don't waffle on. I'm a professional. Enjoy. Thank you for joining us. Episode one, our introduction, March 2025. You join us here in our running room. Where it's all running related, trainers, you name it, we've got everything here. If you're listening, it's a room full of running stuff.

Aimee: 1:01

It is, literally.

Paul: 1:03

It is. But it's our little running retreat, isn't it? Thank you. Thank you for getting this far. I know it's only a few seconds in. Who are we? What's the podcast about? The podcast is about me and Aimee, our running adventures, journeys, whatever you want to call it. It's about us running. We're coming up to 50.

Aimee: 1:22

You're closer than me.

Paul: 1:23

Yeah. We're middle aged. We're a couple. We run together. Why are we doing a podcast? One of the reasons it wasn't necessarily to get it out for the bigger audience really, was it? It was, we do so much stuff, we have so much footage, don't we? And we always keep saying, I keep saying, Aimee, you need to start putting this down! So it's just so when you're a bit older, you can sit back and, we're a digital age, everything's on phones and videos, and it'd just be nice for us to sit back and look at some videos, but we never do. So my brainwave idea was to...that doesn't sound very enthusiastic! Let's do a podcast. So originally it was just going to be an audio podcast.

Aimee: 2:08

Yeah, I think Paul thought this was going to be really easy.

Paul: 2:12

Yeah, I did. I actually did.

Aimee: 2:13

Yeah, after recording three episodes as audio only, he then decided to change it completely and make it a YouTube channel, which meant we also had to have video.

Paul: 2:20

Yep.

Aimee: 2:20

So that meant we had to start again.

Paul: 2:22

Yep.

Aimee: 2:23

Discard the audio episodes.

Paul: 2:25

Yep. And, how many times have we tried to do this one.

Aimee: 2:29

Oh, this is the fourth or fifth.

Paul: 2:30

Yeah. We've done this quite a few times and we are learning as we go along. So bear with us, but

Aimee: 2:36

We don't know what we're doing.

Paul: 2:37

We ain't, but hey, I always go for it. Learn on the job. That's how I look at it. Right back to business. Who are we? Who are you?

Aimee: 2:46

I'm Aimee, I am currently 47, almost 48 obviously. That sounds horrible, almost 48. It's not as bad as you though is it?

Paul: 2:56

Alright.

Aimee: 2:57

I'm 47. In terms of my background, I've never been a serious runner at all. I've done the odd race for life here and there in the past to raise money for charity. And I'm talking sort of 20 years ago. I'd probably say in the last 10 to 12 years, maybe I've been, I would say fit and I've led an active life. I've done a lot of fitness stuff, but not running, until basically lockdown. It was lockdown that got me out running more seriously. I think going forward as well, it's been a way of in some ways, helping me deal with the good old perimenopause, which I'm going through Any ladies listening will understand what I'm talking about. It does present lots of challenges and running is helping me. We can talk about this in other episodes, but I think I'm having to learn how to adapt my running and I have to take into account where I am in my cycle and all that sort of stuff.

Paul: 3:46

Yeah.

Aimee: 3:46

But yeah, running in the menopause is an interesting topic that we will probably explore in later episodes, but it's something I'm dealing with very much. But, that's where I am really.

Paul: 3:55

And I'll give you credit on that, it is a bit of a minefield. I genuinely didn't think, I know women go through, peri, I didn't know peri, I just thought it was menopause. So I knew they went through that, and obviously the men go through'manopause', but

Aimee: 4:06

No!

Paul: 4:08

I'm sharing the experience with you, so

Aimee: 4:10

Ha, OK.

Paul: 4:10

Yeah, but I must admit, I didn't know there's so many different elements to it, isn't there, with the running and that.

Aimee: 4:15

Yeah.

Paul: 4:16

I think we both realised over the last five years I think we both thought, oh, it's only going out running, and you go out running, have a nice meal at night, do a little bit of stretching, you'll be back out the next day, jobs a good'un and you'll be fine.

Aimee: 4:30

It's not that simple.

Paul: 4:30

Oh, it's not that simple. It's not, is it? You don't bounce back like when you were younger, do you?

Aimee: 4:35

No.

Paul: 4:36

Your, simple description.

Aimee: 4:38

Very very brief description.

Paul: 4:40

Mine's slightly different, isn't it really?

Aimee: 4:41

Yeah.

Paul: 4:42

I'm Paul, obviously, I said that probably three or four times. I'm 49, nearly 50. In fact, I'm 50 in a month. So coming up from a 50th, oh man, I say I feel old. I'm the fittest I've ever been, so there's two sides to it, man. You're halfway there, aren't you? If you're lucky.

Aimee: 5:01

Yeah.

Paul: 5:01

You're halfway there. But yeah, I feel good. It's took me a while to get here. Look, I'm open about it. I'm an alcoholic. I am off the drink. It's probably 18 months.

Aimee: 5:10

It's about that.

Paul: 5:11

Yeah. 18 months. Second time around. First time I did it for eight years. Thought I'd sorted everything out. Thought I could be like a, what would you class?

Aimee: 5:19

A social drinker.

Paul: 5:20

A social, sensible drinker. But for anybody who knows me who's watching this or listening to it, they know I would class myself as a professional drinker. When I went out, I would drink. But yeah, it just, it don't do me any favours. This time, yeah, I'm in a good place this time. A real good place. Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to sit here and say running has literally saved me and all that ent, it's a very big part of me not drinking, but it's not saved me by any means, but yeah, don't get me wrong, when I go out and run I might moan a little bit.

Aimee: 5:56

I think Paul has a real love hate relationship with running. He doesn't like training.

Paul: 6:01

To be honest, I don't like racing. I think, you know what, I think I like the thought of it all. I like the thought of training, going out training, and doing the races. I think I like all the thought of it, until I have to do it. I do love running I think, but

Aimee: 6:19

You think?

Paul: 6:20

Some days, I think that's how I do too much. That said, you've got to push yourself, but

Aimee: 6:26

You'll realise as we go forward with these episodes that there's a pattern with Paul, in that It's Paul that has these grand ideas, these massive races, these crazy races that he wants to sign up to. And he goes in all guns blazing.

Paul: 6:39

Head first.

Aimee: 6:40

When I say guns blazing, I don't mean training wise, head wise. He goes in I'm going to win this race, I'm going to smash out 100 miles.

Paul: 6:48

You have to. That's the only way my head deals with it.

Aimee: 6:50

It doesn't usually work out like that as you'll find out over time.

Paul: 6:53

Obviously we mentioned that we've done this a few times recording. We've had to do notes.

Aimee: 6:58

Yeah because we kept forgetting pieces of information so we've got it all laid out.

Paul: 7:01

And this is to help Aimee...

Aimee: 7:02

and we still will forget stuff.

Paul: 7:04

...rein me in isn't it? Because I do go off on a tangent.

Aimee: 7:07

And waffle.

Paul: 7:08

And then get sidetracked to what I think I was talking about. And then go on to something else. Like we have now. So we've introduced ourselves. So I'm Paul, I'm nearly 50. You're Aimee. Nearly 48?

Aimee: 7:20

Yeah, well done, you got that right.

Paul: 7:22

I had to think then, and I was thinking, oh, I saw my life flashing before me then. get your age wrong, I'm in the doghouse. How did we start? So we're, like I said, we're a couple. We run together, which sometimes is good.

Aimee: 7:35

Most of the time it's good.

Paul: 7:37

Sometimes it's not so good. But over the past five years we've learnt how to deal with each other when we're out running. Let me rephrase that. Aimee's learnt how to deal with me when we're out running and I'll get a strop on.

Aimee: 7:57

Yeah, which does happen. Fairly regularly, I would say.

Paul: 7:59

I wouldn't say it's a strop on, I just like to run quietly sometimes. On my own, behind you, sulking. Let's get to business. We've been running, five years? Yeah, so it's a five year journey. Journey, that's, it's cliche. We've been running for five years, and we've had so many adventures. And like I said, that was one of the reasons we wanted to put all this together.

Aimee: 8:25

Yeah, we thought we'd do it as almost like a diary for us. Yeah. So we can document what we've done and so we can look back. But also we thought if anybody can learn along the way, if we can put out there our experiences, what we've learnt, where we went wrong.

Paul: 8:38

Yeah

Aimee: 8:38

If other people can learn from that then that's brilliant.

Paul: 8:40

Yeah

Aimee: 8:40

That's a bonus.

Paul: 8:41

Definitely

Aimee: 8:42

As far as we're concerned

Paul: 8:43

Yeah, because we have I did Aimee got FOMO, signed up for a 200 miler.

Aimee: 8:51

Yeah, so say over the next few months as we record more episodes, we'll keep talking about how we're building up our training for that race, which is not till December. We're doing the Winterdowns 200 in December. Our first ever 200 mile race.

Paul: 9:05

Yep.

Aimee: 9:06

Which, every time I say it, I think, oh my god, what are we doing? But, yeah, that's what 2025 is building up to for us. We have got lots of other stuff.

Paul: 9:17

Before

Aimee: 9:17

that, which you're just classing as training aren't you?

Paul: 9:20

Just training, yeah, look, with the podcast though, this is a pod, it's an ultra running podcast isn't it? Yes. We're not park runners, to be honest I couldn't, some of these guys, doing those fast, that's not what we do, we do leisurely.

Aimee: 9:32

Yeah, we don't run fast.

Paul: 9:34

100 milers.

Aimee: 9:34

Leisurely?

Paul: 9:34

But it is, it's a podcast about ultra running. How we've gone from zero to, we're on a hundreds at the moment, aren't we? So we've done some hundred milers. We've had some good successes. And we've had some real good failures, to be honest.

Aimee: 9:50

Anyone listening wouldn't know that we were both pointing at you then.

Paul: 9:53

Yeah. Where are we going to start? You've got the notes, so you've got to guide me cause I'm just chatting away.

Aimee: 9:59

I think, do we just quickly run through without going into detail about each race? Just. Run through what we've done, just so that people listening can hear our, credentials as well.

Paul: 10:08

I suppose we could say so.

Aimee: 10:10

We do need to clarify. We're We're not qualified coaches or anything like that. We are literally just sharing our personal experience.

Paul: 10:16

and I wing it!

Aimee: 10:17

Yeah

Paul: 10:18

All day, every day.

Aimee: 10:18

We both do to a certain extent.

Paul: 10:19

Yeah.

Aimee: 10:20

We do have a coach now. We have had for a little while actually. We're on our second coach, aren't we? So yeah, we have been coached for a while and we'll do a whole episode about that. But I would recommend being coached if you have that available to you.

Paul: 10:32

Yeah.

Aimee: 10:32

But yeah, should we just quickly run through? Yeah. Like how we've gone from zero to

Paul: 10:37

Yeah. So we've done couch to 200.

Aimee: 10:39

We haven't done the 200 yet. I think we can say couch to 100.

Paul: 10:42

Yeah.

Aimee: 10:42

So as an unofficial thing!

Paul: 10:44

It was covid, wasn't it? When we... so we started running properly, really, I think you flitted a little bit in and out. You did a few things. Before covid, didn't you? But you got injured.

Aimee: 10:54

I did a couple of races. Yeah. I just got swept along with some I'd started doing these fitness classes. I started doing Pilates because I had major abdominal surgery at the beginning of 2012. Unexpected emergency surgery, but. I was recommended to do Pilates to help with my recovery for that. I started doing these classes and once I was on the mend from that, I started branching out and doing other classes that were operated by the same lady. She has a whole range of classes. Very quickly got obsessed.

Paul: 11:21

Started

Aimee: 11:22

doing pretty much her whole, her entire timetable. So at one point I think I was doing over ten, maybe ten or twelve classes a week. And it was all sorts of different things. I was doing Pilates, but also clubbercise, HIIT. Insanity, rock box, anything that was on the timetable, I was doing it. Loved it. But she was also a runner and the instructor and a few other ladies from the class and myself, we ended up doing a 5k Santa Dash in December 2014. Which was just for fun, raised some money for charity. Did that was all good. But in the course of doing what little training I did for that, we explored the fact that the instructor was doing a 12k race, which is a weird distance.

Paul: 12:04

That's a random distance.

Aimee: 12:05

She was doing a 12k race in the January, so January 2015, and I got persuaded to join in. So I signed up for that. Wasn't sufficiently trained, I would say. It's quite a big jump, isn't it? Going from 5k to 12k without really training.

Paul: 12:19

Yeah, because in the early days it was hard for us.

Aimee: 12:21

At that time when you're not a runner, that is, I think that's a fairly big jump in a short period of time. But I did the race, and I finished, but I did have an issue with my knee. It was quite a hilly race and one of the downs, I felt something go in my knee. And it was really painful. Stupidly I carried on running, finished the race. Then ended up going to the doctor because it was that bad. Had physio for months, then I had to scan. And then ultimately I ended up having surgery on it because the consultant said it was mechanical, any amount of physio or steroid injections or whatever was going to do nothing, I just needed surgery. So I had that done in October 2015, and then assumed I would never run again at that point, because I just thought, oh, I've got a dodgy knee, I can't run, and that was it. But then, I don't know why, I didn't run for a few years and then for some reason in November, 2019 I just randomly decided I wanted to do a parkrun. I can't remember why, because I didn't go with anybody, I went on my own, just rocked up one Saturday, on a very rainy day I remember, and I just ran it, and I thought, oh my knee felt alright, it wasn't fast or anything, but I thought, that was quite good actually, so for a few weeks, I did go every Saturday, religiously, I think I did it for about 5 weeks and then, So that was the end of 2019 and then March 2020 was when lockdown hit. Yeah, and after starting to climb the walls, going mentally insane, I think. I don't know why. I did not cope well with lockdown.

Paul: 13:42

Was that looking after me?

Aimee: 13:43

Yeah, I just started going out for little runs and that's when it really kicked in. You started just tagging along on the odd one, not all of them. Just here and there, you tagged along with me.

Paul: 13:54

Yeah, I liked the idea, didn't I, of running.

Aimee: 13:57

Yeah, and then, we didn't do any official races until 2021.

Paul: 14:02

Is that when we first did the Alcester 10k things?

Aimee: 14:06

No, before that, I ended up doing a very last minute half marathon.

Paul: 14:10

We'd done, so with our training then,

Aimee: 14:13

I think, yeah, we had got to half marathon distance just on our own, just out training. Because I remember, it would have been early 2020, or spring 2021, I would say. I think we first hit 13. 1 miles. I remember exactly where we were. In a training run. Yeah. When I say training run, we weren't training for anything, we were just running. But we happened to hit that distance, didn't we?

Paul: 14:33

Yeah.

Aimee: 14:34

We were both over the moon and absolutely blown away that anybody could do twice that distance in one run.

Paul: 14:40

Yeah.

Aimee: 14:40

Because we were knackered, weren't we?

Paul: 14:42

It was a killer. It was hard. We felt like

Aimee: 14:44

we were written off.

Paul: 14:44

Yeah.

Aimee: 14:45

When we'd done it.

Paul: 14:47

I think it took me, Because we always used to say, we'd have a set route, and it always used to be, it took us quite a while to get our breathing in gear, didn't it? So even like from the start, it was hard, it was even doing 3 or 4 miles, it was just, woah, that's hard. But when we did do that half, it worked, I know exactly where it was, and we stopped, and it was just like, because in my head I was like, we'll do a half, we'll do a marathon. You were all blasé about it. Ultras I don't think

Aimee: 15:16

They weren't really on our radar.

Paul: 15:17

All I knew of, which most people do, is half and a marathon. And it was, we were like, I don't think I'd be able to do that. Because it was a day after and it was like, you could hardly walk.

Aimee: 15:30

Yeah, we couldn't go up the stairs everything hurt. How on earth do people do twice that distance in one run? It just blew my mind.

Paul: 15:38

Yeah, it was.

Aimee: 15:39

We had run a half marathon

Paul: 15:41

Yeah

Aimee: 15:41

in training and then I got offered a place and someone I knew was signed up to do this Compton Verney half marathon, which was July 2021. And she couldn't do it. I can't remember why she hadn't trained, I think, so she wasn't going to run it. So she offered me her place. So I took it quite last minute thinking. It's the worst that can happen, I'll give it a go. You tried to get on it, didn't you? But it was fully booked.

Paul: 16:05

Yeah, but I didn't try that hard to be honest.

Aimee: 16:07

I did that one on my own. And it was horrible.

Paul: 16:10

It was alright watching.

Aimee: 16:12

It was a horrible day in terms of the weather because it was a heatwave. It was boiling hot, wasn't it?

Paul: 16:17

Lovely day, a few'beverages', it was lovely. Sat there under a gazebo. I was having a lovely time.

Aimee: 16:22

Blazing sunshine, no shade on the route. It was boiling hot, really hilly route as well. For me, I mean I wasn't used to that kind of hill so I found that challenging. I did it, I finished. And I remember being both happy and annoyed because

Paul: 16:37

Ah you tried to do it...

Aimee: 16:37

My target was, I just got it into my head that it would be nice to get in under 2 hours. I don't think I'd ever run anything like under 2 hours in training. Not that I'd trained specifically for that race but I just thought it'd be nice to get under 2 hours, and I ended up finishing in 2 hours and 47 seconds So I went over by 47 seconds which is really annoying. But equally, I was quite pleased with that, my first official marathon, on a hot day, and it was hilly, I thought it was not bad, it was alright. So yeah, weirdly my first official race was a half marathon, so I skipped 5k and 10k as you do.

Paul: 17:14

And then, I think we did then start getting into training relatively seriously, you've got mileage down here, but jump onto this quickly to give you some idea before we go into the other races.

Aimee: 17:27

Yeah, when we were preparing for the podcast we just looked at our annual running mileage from 2020 when we first started. Yeah. Now I don't have my figure for 2020 because at that point my watch was a Fitbit I don't have access to the stats anymore, so I couldn't tell you how many miles I ran in 2020, but Paul can.

Paul: 17:43

This was when I was this was when I was keen, so I think this was when it was all exciting wasn't it? So Covid was on, I got all the gear with no idea, I did 367 miles in that year.

Aimee: 17:52

I think I can say with confidence, although I can't prove it, I would have run more than that You didn't join me on most of my runs, so I would have

Paul: 18:00

I have a funny feeling, because you beat me on everything else, I think I beat you on that one, and you miraculously lost the figures.

Aimee: 18:08

Okay.

Paul: 18:09

But I'm happy to run with that!

Aimee: 18:10

That's complete rubbish, but

Paul: 18:11

I'm happy to run with that! So, 2020

Aimee: 18:13

2020,

Paul: 18:14

not sure. 367, I did. I was chuffed with that.

Aimee: 18:17

2021?

Paul: 18:19

Yeah, I had a bad year.

Aimee: 18:20

I ran 693 miles. Anyway,

Paul: 18:23

moving on.

Aimee: 18:24

Paul ran 290.

Paul: 18:26

I was injured.

Aimee: 18:27

No you weren't. That was when you were just dipping in and out.

Paul: 18:29

I was, yeah.

Aimee: 18:30

You weren't serious.

Paul: 18:31

You know what I think? We will jump onto kit and everything, but the way I chose footwear was, if it looked nice that'd be perfect and my footwear was so small. Now I look back.

Aimee: 18:44

By small you mean narrow?

Paul: 18:45

Narrow, short, I didn't know anything really about trainers, I just went it was the size that my work boots were I just picked those and I would always have issues with my feet. So I think in my defense, no, I did that.

Aimee: 18:58

There's always an excuse.

Paul: 18:59

Just, it wasn't fun. You know what I mean? Because I've got the wrong kit was some of the reason and I could not be arsed. So yeah, you did 693,

Aimee: 19:06

693 and you did 290.

Paul: 19:08

How did you not run that off to 700 knowing what you're like?

Aimee: 19:12

Because I think at that point I wasn't looking at annual mileage.

Paul: 19:14

Okay.

Aimee: 19:15

I was the next year. Believe me.

Paul: 19:17

Oh, she was

Aimee: 19:18

So 2022. I remember December, the last couple of weeks in December. So Paul in 2022...

Paul: 19:23

Upped the mileage I did

Aimee: 19:26

...ran 548. So that is a good increase on the previous year. I think it's going in the right direction.

Paul: 19:30

Yeah.

Aimee: 19:31

I ran a thousand. Now, the reason it was exactly a thousand was because I realized in, I think the second week in December, by this time I was Garmin. I was looking at my stats and I realized how close I was to a thousand. I think I was on something like 967 or something. It was just over 30 miles I think to do in the last couple of weeks of December, which now I would say is nothing. But then that was a lot and I was thinking, oh my goodness, am I gonna be able to do this? But. When I get something in my head, I can be quite determined. So I think for the last two and a half weeks of December that year, I ran every day.

Paul: 20:06

Didn't see her.

Aimee: 20:07

No, you actually came out on a few runs with me, I remember. You supported me in getting to the thousand. So I achieved a thousand miles running in 2022, which I was absolutely chuffed with.

Paul: 20:18

Yeah.

Aimee: 20:18

You got 548.

Paul: 20:19

2023.

Aimee: 20:20

2023. Now this is when things started to get serious because we did our first Ultra.

Paul: 20:25

And I got my arse into gear.

Aimee: 20:26

Yeah. We have skipped our racing history here but

Paul: 20:29

We'll come back to that.

Aimee: 20:30

So yeah, 2023 was the year we became Ultra Runners I would say.

Paul: 20:36

Amateur Amateur ultra runners.

Aimee: 20:37

We're still not professional. We're nothing like professional. We are still amateur ultra runners. So 2023, we were a lot closer on mileage this year. Paul ran 1,437 miles and I ran 1,667.

Paul: 20:51

Can I just stay though?

Aimee: 20:53

It's only 230 different.

Paul: 20:55

You say it's only 230 different?

Aimee: 20:56

Yes, yours is a much bigger increase than the previous year.

Paul: 20:58

Mine is a much bigger increase.

Aimee: 20:59

I knew you were going to say that.

Paul: 21:01

In the scheme of things I think mine was a bigger improvement on yours. You only did 667 miles more that year. I did 900 odd. So I put the effort in. Just saying. Oh and then it goes back down.

Aimee: 21:19

And then in 2024, so last year, Paul did 1,786. So he's gone up over 300 from the previous year.

Paul: 21:28

Yeah.

Aimee: 21:28

And I did 2070,

Paul: 21:30

So yours is about 300 as well.

Aimee: 21:33

Yeah.

Paul: 21:33

Yeah. So we, so

Aimee: 21:34

No, four

Paul: 21:35

Oh comparison, so

Aimee: 21:36

Mine's 400 more. So yeah that's our kind of mileage over each year as we've progressed. We basically were saying before Paul moved on to the annual mileage figures. I did my first official race being the half marathon in July 2021. And then in October, 2021. We did the Alcester 10k together. Oh, this is the one I beat you on? Yes.

Paul: 22:00

This is the only race I've ever beat you on?

Aimee: 22:01

There is another one you beat me on, but we can't find the data for that one. We're not sure if it was before or after the Alcester 10k. We did that weird one in that park in Birmingham. It's that medal there with the green and yellow stripes.

Paul: 22:14

This thing?

Aimee: 22:14

Yeah. It doesn't say anywhere on the medal the name of the race or the location or the date.

Paul: 22:19

It was Cannock, over Cannock Chase.

Aimee: 22:21

It was something like Cannon Hill Park or Sutton Park or something like that. It was a race.

Paul: 22:26

Sutton Park.

Aimee: 22:26

But I've tried to Google to find results for that race and there's nothing coming up for that time of year. I don't know. We've got a medal but don't know when we got it. It's definitely 21 because it does say it on the ribbon, 2021, but that's all it says. So whenever that was, that, that was a half marathon and a 10k on the same day.

Paul: 22:43

Yeah.

Aimee: 22:44

We'd registered for the half marathon. And it was four loops.

Paul: 22:47

Yeah.

Aimee: 22:48

And the 10k, which was later on in the day, was two loops, but they were slightly shorter loops for the 10k.

Paul: 22:54

Yeah.

Aimee: 22:54

If you were doing the half marathon, it was the 10k loop, but with a little extension added on that you had to do.

Paul: 23:00

Yeah.

Aimee: 23:00

So it was a longer loop. I just remember when we got there, it was horrible weather wasn't it? It was really wet and windy and miserable. I wasn't feeling 100%, not ill enough to think I couldn't go out and do a race. I just felt a little bit sniffly or something. I was just a little bit under the weather. But I thought, no I can do this, I can do this race. We turned up didn't we?

Paul: 23:18

Yep.

Aimee: 23:19

I did the first lap and was hating every minute of it.

Paul: 23:23

Oh, it was hard.

Aimee: 23:23

Oh it was horrible. It was just a horrible loop. And the weather didn't help. And at that point, I did not like loops. I, mentally, I thought they were hideous. I didn't like the idea of it. And I think we didn't know it was loops until we got there, did we?

Paul: 23:35

No.

Aimee: 23:35

Because I was like, oh no, it's loops. I don't want to do loops. So I just went into it quite negative. Did the first loop with you. And then on the second loop, I was just hating it so bad, I said to you didn't I?, I can't do this, I just, I can't, I started to get all sorts of niggles as well, my knees were playing up, I think my back was hurting, I was getting issues everywhere. So I just decided after my second loop, basically when you'd done your fourth loop, there was like a chute down to the finish line, and I started running down it, and you carried on, didn't you, to do your third loop. But I remember the marshals they were trying to stop me no, don't, you can't carry on if you cross this line. And I was like, no, I'm intentionally crossing the line, I want to quit. And then I spoke to the race director afterwards. And I said, I did actually technically do more than 10K, because I did two of the extended loops, which is slightly longer than the 10K race. Is there any chance you could still give me a medal for maybe the 10k? And he was really nice. They basically switched me over as if I'd done the 10k. So my result went into the 10k results and they still gave me a medal. So that was very kind of them because they didn't have to do that. But Paul carried on. And you did finish the half marathon, didn't you? So you definitely beat me on that one. But I can't remember in the timeline whether that was before or after the Alcester 10k.

Paul: 24:44

I have a feeling my stool is going down.

Aimee: 24:46

Oh, not this again.

Paul: 24:47

Bear with. Back in the room. I've got a stool that I keep kicking.

Aimee: 24:51

It's like a comedy stool.

Paul: 24:52

I keep kicking, I think, the thing underneath which makes it go down. So yeah, that was one I won.

Aimee: 24:58

Yeah, one.

Paul: 25:00

Then the next race.

Aimee: 25:00

And then October 2021, and we do know the date for this, but I haven't got the official times either. First time we did the Alcester 10k.

Paul: 25:07

How have you not got the official times when I beat you? But you've got every other official time.

Aimee: 25:11

You be my guest.

Paul: 25:12

That's pretty amazing.

Aimee: 25:13

I can't find them online.

Paul: 25:14

Alright.

Aimee: 25:15

I can find the link to the race, but when you click it the results don't load.

Paul: 25:18

Okay, no problem. I don't need to, it's not about

Aimee: 25:20

winning. But you did beat me. You did.

Paul: 25:21

Oh, that's twice I beat you.

Aimee: 25:22

So yeah, October 21, the reason I remember you beat me was because I remember being quite irritated that you beat me because he hadn't trained at all. Whereas I knew, you'd gone through a period of I really can't be bothered to run at the moment.

Paul: 25:34

Tapered. Big time.

Aimee: 25:36

Whereas I'd been like putting the work in because I knew we'd got this coming up and I wanted to try and get a decent time for me at that time. I'm not a fast runner. And you just smashed it basically. Comparatively, for your first 10k race, you did really well. I think we both went in with a target of getting under an hour. I think that's the level we were at.

Paul: 25:54

Yeah.

Aimee: 25:55

We'd been pleased with under an hour. And from memory, we did both get in under an hour. But you were a few minutes faster than me. You definitely beat me.

Paul: 26:04

49 minutes I think.

Aimee: 26:05

No.

Paul: 26:05

Huh?

Aimee: 26:06

No, that's the later ones.

Paul: 26:07

Oh.

Aimee: 26:08

So he beat me.

Paul: 26:09

Master.

Aimee: 26:10

And then, so that was 2021. 2022, we only did two races that year. And that was the Alcester 10k again, twice. For some reason, it's the only year they did it. It was usually, it's usually always in October.

Paul: 26:24

Yeah.

Aimee: 26:25

But for some reason that year they had a spring and an autumn one. Not sure why. And I got it in my head. We did the May one, the spring one.

Paul: 26:32

Oh, they did those funky medals that went together?

Aimee: 26:34

Yeah, it's two medals that slot together. So I was like, we've got to do both because I want both medals. I want the two medals that fit together. So we ended up doing both of those races. And I basically beat you both times. He doesn't believe me, but the times are there. So May

Paul: 26:49

But now you can't get them times?

Aimee: 26:52

No, I can't get the October 21 times. You be my guest. If he finds them, I'll let him do an update.

Paul: 26:56

No, you know what? I was sad that I beat you on the first one. So I thought

Aimee: 27:00

Oh, here we go. He let me win. That's not true.

Paul: 27:03

It's only by literally, it's a minute.

Aimee: 27:05

Yeah. I beat you by about a minute, yeah.

Paul: 27:07

Yeah, so when we come into the town, I said, you go off ahead and I'll let you win.

Aimee: 27:12

No. The October one I really remember because

Paul: 27:15

Oh, so did I.

Aimee: 27:17

Yeah, So just to say that the May times, I did it in 49:11 and Paul did it in 50:50,

Paul: 27:22

A minute.

Aimee: 27:23

There's only a minute in it. Less, there's less than a minute in it.

Paul: 27:26

I was being the gentleman letting you cross the line.

Aimee: 27:28

The October one, I remember, another thing that Paul does, and he does this on pretty much every race that we do.

Paul: 27:35

There's a theme starting.

Aimee: 27:35

We have a conversation on every start line. Don't go off like an idiot. Start steady. Don't go too fast, because you'll burn yourself out too quickly.

Paul: 27:43

I get very excited.

Aimee: 27:44

Paul gets all hyped up.

Paul: 27:46

I'm very excited.

Aimee: 27:46

And I remember on this October 22 Alcester 10k you just went off like the clappers. And I didn't really appreciate how fast he was going. I was just running, keeping up with him.

Paul: 27:56

Until I overtook Mo Farah.

Aimee: 27:57

And the Alcester 10k starts on a hill. I remember running up this hill thinking, oh my god, why do I feel like I'm dying? I was like, I'm not going to be able to survive this 10k because I remember I couldn't get my breath, I just felt awful.

Paul: 28:08

Didn't have time to get my breath.

Aimee: 28:09

Like really breathing really hard, oh this is so difficult. Carried on running. And then I remember when I got to the first mile, because my watch it gives me my time and we were running 7 minutes something miles. That was the pace we were doing, which is not a normal pace for me, especially up a hill. So I remember looking at it and thinking, oh my god, no wonder I feel like I'm dying.

Paul: 28:26

You should have kept up.

Aimee: 28:27

I'm running way too fast.

Paul: 28:28

You should have kept up.

Aimee: 28:29

We carried on running, but very quickly, Paul just ran out of steam basically and said I can't do this and slowed right down. So I said, okay, I'll see you at the finish and I carried on.

Paul: 28:38

I think I twisted my ankle a little bit.

Aimee: 28:39

No you didn't. So I finished in 47:24 and Paul finished in 51:56 so I beat him by a few more minutes this time.

Paul: 28:48

And I needed a pee break.

Aimee: 28:50

You did have to stop for a pee break.

Paul: 28:51

I had to stop for a wee and then you left me.

Aimee: 28:54

I'm not going to wait.

Paul: 28:55

And I couldn't catch up.

Aimee: 28:56

That was our Alcester 10k 2022 races. So you might be listening thinking, they're talking about 10k's, that's not ultras.

Paul: 29:04

Wow, so that's the only, I've only beat you twice in five years.

Aimee: 29:08

Yeah. Is that true?

Paul: 29:10

Looking at that, yeah! Right, so getting on to the good stuff.

Aimee: 29:13

So now we'll get on to the ultras.

Paul: 29:16

Ah, yeah, but how did we get into them? Because obviously we were tinkering around with them, weren't we?

Aimee: 29:20

Yep.

Paul: 29:21

And then I take full responsibility for this

Aimee: 29:25

Yep.

Paul: 29:26

And YouTube has got to take some responsibility for this.

Aimee: 29:28

I'd never heard of Ultra Running.

Paul: 29:30

No, and I think it was Loyd Purvis Run 4 Adventure. He's got to take some responsibility for this. It was his video. I was just, I don't know, looking around on YouTube and this video come up of the Arc of Attrition. I think it's called The Pirate or something and it was a race in Cornwall in winter and it was a hundred miler. And I watched that and I was like, I can do that. Bear in mind we hadn't run a marathon had we? I can do that. I'm going to train. And I think it was on my Instagram back in the day. I think we'd done the half. Then we'd done, it was a 20 miler. And I took a picture and I think I'd put on there. Half marathon done, 20 miler today. A marathon by Christmas, Ultra next year, 100 miler here we come. So I got it in my head. For me, running a marathon, don't get me wrong, it's a hell of a feat, but, ain't many people who's done 100 miler. Or at the time, it's just, that for me was like, It seems unachievable. Cause if you're trying to get your head around how do people run for 24 hours and do a 100 mile? It was just, what? So of course, like I always do, as you'll see throughout this, right Aimee, we're doing this 100 miler. And you were like, no problem Paul, I'd love to do an 100 miler with you, book it up.

Aimee: 30:50

That's not how it went at all. I thought he was crazy. I just remember looking at you in horror, like why are you even considering this? Why would anyone consider running 100 miles?

Paul: 31:00

So you reined me in a little bit.

Aimee: 31:02

Around the coast of Cornwall, like really horrible terrain in winter. Why would anyone do that? I tried to tone it down. Like, no, no, No, that's unrealistic. Don't look at that. But I did say why don't we just start looking at some smaller races, maybe? So that's how we ended up booking onto our first ultra, which was the Run Walk Crawl Brecon to Cardiff race, which we did in February 2023. So 44 miles was the distance. So that meant we basically did, we'd done half marathon was the longest we'd done as an official race. And then our next race was 44 miles.

Paul: 31:35

I think we got up to about 20 odd mile in training.

Aimee: 31:37

Yeah.

Paul: 31:37

We may have done a marathon.

Aimee: 31:39

We did do a marathon. I think once we'd signed up for this, we were doing marathon distance in training.

Paul: 31:44

Yeah.

Aimee: 31:44

Very slowly, but we were doing marathon distance.

Paul: 31:46

Yeah.

Aimee: 31:47

But we've never run an official road marathon. We still haven't.

Paul: 31:50

No. So we signed up for that. Oh, I smashed it.

Aimee: 31:53

The first ultra was Brecon to Cardiff, 44 miles in February 2023. I wouldn't say we smashed it.

Paul: 31:59

I did.

Aimee: 31:59

We finished it.

Paul: 32:01

Best race I've ever done.

Aimee: 32:03

No, Paul discovered bonking for the first time.

Paul: 32:05

Oh, yeah, bonking, yeah. I got bonked hard, didn't I, man?

Aimee: 32:11

God, that sounds bad!

Paul: 32:12

Oh, doesn't it? Yeah. No, obviously it's a, look, it's a running podcast. Everybody knows what bonking is. It's not like when I was 12 and me mum and dad were upstairs bonking. It's when you basically, you lose all your energy, don't ya? You don't eat properly and then you are just man down. I discovered that.

Aimee: 32:30

Yeah, because what Paul did was, rookie mistake, anyone who's listening to this who hasn't done an ultra, and I'm sure most people have, because why would you listen to this if you're not interested in ultras, but if you haven't ever done an ultra, one of the key things that you need to do is practice your nutrition. It is so important.

Paul: 32:45

You have to eat, don't you?

Aimee: 32:46

Yeah one, practice your nutrition, two, actually eat. You need to fuel your body during an ultra. And Paul basically just did not do that. We had been practising our nutrition leading up to the race, but then Paul randomly decided on the day to try pork scratchings as his fuel, which he'd not done any training with and also not the best fuel source, because it's just fat.

Paul: 33:08

There was method in my madness.

Aimee: 33:10

Okay, there might have been method, but it didn't work.

Paul: 33:13

The way I was looking at it, I like pork scratchings. I eat food every day, so surely my stomach knows what it's doing when it eats food. This was in me novice days. So I thought I eat food, I eat pork scratchings, so they're going to be sound. Because I thought, they're small, but they're very high calorie, aren't they? Because it's just fat. So I thought, carrying it, I don't have to carry a lot of food. Pork scratchings, only a little bag like that, and there's a lot of calories in them. So I thought, they're the, product for me.

Aimee: 33:42

Didn't work.

Paul: 33:42

Oh, no they're not.

Aimee: 33:43

No. You basically completely ran out of energy.

Paul: 33:46

Oh. Did I? Yeah, that was harsh.

Aimee: 33:50

It was a difficult race. We were okay for the first half, I would say, and then it just went downhill.

Paul: 33:55

Another false sense of, what would you call it? Because on this race you had a drop bag. So halfway, 20 odd mile, you had a bag, you could put little bits and bobs in there. So if you wanted to change your trainers, get some more food, you could do that. I think both of us thought, because we were struggling a bit up to there. We get to this point, get our drop bags, change our trainers, get a little bit of food on and it'd be plain sailing because it was a hilly one to start.

Aimee: 34:22

There was a lot of elevation in the beginning.

Paul: 34:24

And then it was uphill but it weren't like right up and down. I changed my trainers. I think I was worse. That last, it was 20 odd mile, it was torture waiting for you.

Aimee: 34:37

What? Waiting for me? Really? No, the issue for me

Paul: 34:42

...was me!

Aimee: 34:44

You became the issue. No, I had an issue with my knee, didn't I? Fairly early on in the race actually. On a down actually.

Paul: 34:51

Wasn't it going over that stile?

Aimee: 34:52

It was on a really steep down section. It was to a stile. And it wasn't the stile that did it, it was coming down. It was really rough terrain. And I don't know, I obviously twisted something or did something. Something went in my knee and it was really painful. And it wasn't the knee I'd had surgery on from memory, I think it was the other one. Because my knee seemed to take it in turns. And I was in a lot of pain, wasn't I? I had to start taking painkillers. And then, I was still able to move, but I was struggling to run. And then he bonked, and we were still moving. But then I just remember near the end, probably the last, I'd probably say the last 15 miles or so, I was in a position where I needed to either be running or walking, not mixing up the two. Because the issue I was having, I could walk consistently at the same pace and my knee would be okay. If I then tried to break into a run, that initial transition, so for a few minutes of trying to run, it would be really painful again, and then it would settle down, and I'd be okay, and I could then run for a while. I needed to either just run, or just walk. He kept, oh, he was driving me insane. He kept saying, oh, I think I can run for a minute, so we'd start running, and I'd go through that pain of, oh, my knee, and then it would just start to settle down, and then he'd go, I can't run anymore, I've got to walk. So we'd have to walk again, and then my knee would kick off again, and this just kept happening and it was driving me mad. And then we got to the last checkpoint, which was only 5 miles from the finish. And they were lovely volunteers in there. They were so lovely, weren't they?

Paul: 36:12

Oh, I can still taste that coffee.

Aimee: 36:13

They offered him a coffee.

Paul: 36:16

Oh.

Aimee: 36:16

And I thought he would maybe just take it in a cup and down it and go. No, he sat down. They gave it to him in a mug.

Paul: 36:21

Oh. It was probably the cheapest...

Aimee: 36:23

and he was chatting away with the volunteers.

Paul: 36:25

It was a lovely day. They'd got food. I could smell sausage and chips.

Aimee: 36:28

They'd got sausage and chips, yeah.

Paul: 36:29

Oh, this coffee, I sat, oh...

Aimee: 36:30

Brilliant, aid station,

Paul: 36:32

It was just, that coffee was like, it was probably the cheapest, crappiest coffee ever, but I sat down

Aimee: 36:40

You were in heaven weren't you

Paul: 36:41

It was like being in an Italian restaurant, with a croissant and a fancy coffee, that's what my mind told me.

Aimee: 36:47

I was next to him, I was next to him dancing, like jigging from one foot to the other.

Paul: 36:51

You were running on the spot.

Aimee: 36:52

Yeah.

Paul: 36:53

Making it very uncomfortable for me.

Aimee: 36:54

Because I find, and I've learnt this over the races that we've done, I don't cope well with stopping, My strategy in aid stations is get in and out as quickly as possible. I just want to grab and go. Definitely cannot sit down. And ideally not really stop, or stop as little as possible. I just wanted to get out of there. We'd only got five miles left, and I was like, come on.

Paul: 37:11

That's a long way.

Aimee: 37:12

Come on. And he wouldn't move. And I just remember in the end I said, see you at the finish. And I just walked out. And bless him, I think you downed your coffee. And then he did come trotting after me. And we did finish together.

Paul: 37:24

Oh, that was emotional.

Aimee: 37:25

That was an emotional finish. It was our first ultra. I think I was just so relieved to get to the finish because by that point my knee was hurting really bad and you'd been very frustrating. I think, I did cry. And you cried like a baby.

Paul: 37:39

Yeah.

Aimee: 37:40

So that was our first ultra experience.

Paul: 37:42

So are we meant to be selling this to people? Because we've only gone into the first one and it was a nightmare.

Aimee: 37:47

We won't go into each race in detail. The point of this is just to let people know that we have run ultras.

Paul: 37:52

Yeah. So then we did that one, and then I was so full of beans after that, I was like, you know what, that went well. Let's go back and do another one. In April. It was my birthday.

Aimee: 38:00

It was for Paul's birthday. He decided he wanted to run another ultra. What else would you do for your birthday? So we signed on to another Run, Walk, Crawl race. Which was the Vale Coastal Ultra. Which was officially badged as 32 miles from memory. But it's actually 34.

Paul: 38:14

It must be Welsh mileage.

Aimee: 38:17

Again, brilliant race. I do love Run Walk Crawl races.

Paul: 38:20

They're really good.

Aimee: 38:20

So we did that one that was a beautiful coastal route. Very similar to the Arc actually.

Paul: 38:25

Yeah.

Aimee: 38:25

But not as wintery conditions and a lot shorter than the Arc, obviously.

Paul: 38:28

Yeah. And that went

Aimee: 38:29

that went okay. We did much better on that one.

Paul: 38:31

Yeah I did. I enjoyed that one. And funny enough. We're going back, aren't we?

Aimee: 38:35

We are, doing it again in a few weeks.

Paul: 38:37

Strangely, as a training run. We'll come on to that, but how odd. We did that one, I won.

Aimee: 38:43

No, we finished together. June 2023.

Paul: 38:48

This was when I was going to do 100 mile.

Aimee: 38:50

Yeah, this was Endure 24 in Reading. I absolutely hated the idea of this when he persuaded me to do it with him. Hated the idea, because it's a 5 mile loop.

Paul: 39:01

But the reason, because the reason, I saw that again, YouTube again to blame, it did look, it's like a little party atmosphere, the event is fantastic, it's really good, lively. I wanted to do this 100 mile. I'd had just a few issues with nutrition on the other ones. My thought pattern was because it's 5 mile loops, I can have my nutrition every 5 miles and get to my 100 mile, because I was out to get this 100 mile on that one. And it did look like quite a fancy event it didn't look like a little A to B. I think it's about 3, 000 people.

Aimee: 39:33

It's a big event.

Paul: 39:34

Yeah because...

Aimee: 39:34

It's a lot of runners. There was around 350 solo runners. We ran it solo, but you can also have teams, and there was lots of team runners. I think it was 3, 000 in total.

Paul: 39:43

About that, yeah. So there's a lot of people around all the time. So it was a brilliant event. So I was there to do 100 miles.

Aimee: 39:48

Yeah, Paul went in telling everybody he was going to run 100 miles. I went in going I'm definitely not going to run 100 miles. I'd be happy with anything between 50 and 75. That's what I've said going in.

Paul: 39:57

I even got t shirts printed for me and Aimee.

Aimee: 39:59

Yeah, we had lap numbers vests on them,

Paul: 40:01

...because I knew I was going to get to 100 miles.

Aimee: 40:02

Yeah, the idea was we were going to change the vest every four laps. So the first vest said laps one to four.

Paul: 40:07

Yeah.

Aimee: 40:08

And then we changed to five to eight.

Paul: 40:10

They might be bad luck, you know.

Aimee: 40:12

That's how confident he was.

Paul: 40:13

So

Aimee: 40:14

Yeah, we went into that. It was a heatwave

Paul: 40:16

Oh yeah, that's, yeah.

Aimee: 40:18

It was a really hot weekend. Boiling hot. Needless to say, it did not go well for Paul. And I did quite well.

Paul: 40:26

Told you there's a theme. Again, in my defence, I had a few technical issues.

Aimee: 40:30

Paul says in my defence a lot, you'll hear.

Paul: 40:33

It wasn't entirely all my fault. You know what, because you did leave me and I fell over in the camper and I was on the floor and I couldn't get up and you'd left me for three hours and I couldn't get up. If you would have come in and checked on me, I would have got up and gone out and run it.

Aimee: 40:50

Okay, now the truth.

Paul: 40:51

All the truth. It went really pear shaped for me. Aimee did 85 miles. Oh, we do need to say on this one, so Endure 24. It's a 24 hour event. You have 24 hours to go as far as you want You could do one lap, two lap, three lap or try and get a hundred miles. When you give them back your tag or something, that's when it's over. So Aimee did 85, I did So that was that event and then we went on to The Joust.... Right, so 85, I did 65 And it was hard.

Aimee: 41:20

And you were running for longer than me.

Paul: 41:21

And I was running for longer than Aimee. But I was also laid down on the floor with cramp.

Aimee: 41:25

Yeah, what happened is, we need to move this on, but just briefly, Paul wasn't drinking enough.

Paul: 41:31

No, you know what though, I think I was...

Aimee: 41:33

And also, I think you got heat stroke. Because it started at 12 noon, it was the middle of a heat wave, blazing sun, there was no shade on the loop. He didn't wear a hat for the first three laps. I was wearing a cap. I think you got heatstroke. He basically collapsed, didn't you?

Paul: 41:48

How would you know? You weren't there. You were out running.

Aimee: 41:50

We had a campervan that was our base. I did check in on you. I couldn't do anything to help you. I remember at one point in the night, because I kept running all through the night, every time I came back to the campervan, because I did, after every lap, to check on you, he was lying on the floor in the campervan, like in the kitchen area, just on the floor, crying. Unable to move. But I couldn't pick him up.

Paul: 42:11

I've never had cramp like this in my life!

Aimee: 42:13

But I did help you. At that point you were crying and saying that when you could get up you were going to go and hand in your timing chip. Because as far as you were concerned your race was over. And I persuaded you not to do that, didn't I?

Paul: 42:23

Yeah.

Aimee: 42:24

And I said, come on, let's get up and I'll walk a lap with you. So we walked a lap together to get you moving again.

Paul: 42:30

Yeah.

Aimee: 42:30

And then you did revive, didn't you? And you started eating and drinking.

Paul: 42:32

And I did one lap that was my fastest lap.

Aimee: 42:34

Near the end, yeah.

Paul: 42:35

Which then messed up your thingy.

Aimee: 42:36

At one point, I was five laps ahead of him, but by the time we finished it was only four, because you'd closed the gap.

Paul: 42:42

You don't half have a lot of stats, don't you?

Aimee: 42:44

I remember. And also, I came fifth female.

Paul: 42:48

Fifth female. There'll be a theme here with Aimee's thing.

Aimee: 42:52

That was in June. September 23, we did The Joust.

Paul: 42:55

So again, I wasn't that disheartened because obviously I had a few technical issues. Fluid, and food, which I had to get my head round. Not being disheartened, I signed up for another 24 hour looped event. to try and get 100 miles. That was in September. So we did June, and then September. So I got my head into gear.

Aimee: 43:14

We found one locally to us, didn't we?

Paul: 43:15

And this time, I was having it. This was my 100 miler. What you shaking your head for? So I was going...

Aimee: 43:25

One of the reasons we booked that was because we thought September it would be cooler weather.

Paul: 43:29

Yeah. And yet again...

Aimee: 43:30

and it fell on another freak heat wave.

Paul: 43:32

It was really hot.

Aimee: 43:34

Sounds like we're making excuses, but it's genuinely true.

Paul: 43:36

I make excuses

Aimee: 43:37

It was boiling hot that weekend.

Paul: 43:39

That said, it was a vast improvement on that. So I went in this one, same as I did all the other ones. I was out to win it.

Aimee: 43:44

You always say that.

Paul: 43:45

I was out to win it.

Aimee: 43:46

You did better.

Paul: 43:48

I did better. I got...

Aimee: 43:49

I didn't, but we stayed together, didn't we?

Paul: 43:52

Yeah. And I was

Aimee: 43:53

We ran it together apart we both sat one lap out.

Paul: 43:56

I had blisters if I remember rightly.

Aimee: 43:57

You had an issue with your feet on one lap. So I did a lap without you.

Paul: 44:01

Yeah.

Aimee: 44:01

And then there was another lap where I was feeling really, just knackered basically I think because of the heat, so I sat a lap out and just rested. So we did the same number of laps, but other than that we did run together.

Paul: 44:11

My blister management wasn't ideal. Getting a pair of scissors and cutting the blisters off, as I now found out, is probably not the best thing to do.

Aimee: 44:17

No, probably not.

Paul: 44:18

No.

Aimee: 44:19

We got to 69.5 miles on that one.

Paul: 44:21

So that was a 4.5 mile improvement on my

Aimee: 44:25

It's worse for me, but

Paul: 44:26

Yep.

Aimee: 44:27

But, I still got second female.

Paul: 44:29

You got second female.

Aimee: 44:30

So I actually got, that was my first ever trophy.

Paul: 44:32

Huh. I got 13th.

Aimee: 44:34

We came 12th and 13th overall.

Paul: 44:35

Yeah.

Aimee: 44:36

But yeah, I got my first ever running trophy at that.

Paul: 44:38

Anyway, moving on.

Aimee: 44:39

Which I was happy with!

Paul: 44:39

Moving on. Moving on. Trophies.

Aimee: 44:42

We need to go a little bit faster here. So December 23, we did another Run Walk Crawl. Now by this time, we had signed up to do the Arc 50. In January.

Paul: 44:50

Yes!

Aimee: 44:51

And we're not going to go into massive detail because we're going to talk about the Arc in another episode.

Paul: 44:54

We are going to talk about the Arc.

Aimee: 44:56

So we decided to do this Run, Walk, Crawl race in December 23 as like a training run for the Arc.

Paul: 45:02

Yeah.

Aimee: 45:02

We signed up for it quite last minute, didn't we?

Paul: 45:04

Yeah.

Aimee: 45:04

We thought, oh, that'd be a good training run. So that was a 34 miler in December

Paul: 45:08

That went well.

Aimee: 45:09

I struggled on that one.

Paul: 45:10

There was a hill, it was up, down, up, down. It was a tough course.

Aimee: 45:15

Yeah. And we talked I'm saying about Paul making excuses, it's gonna sound like I'm making excuses now, but I mentioned at the beginning about perimenopausal issues. I was not in a good place, shall we say, hormonally for that race. And I have learnt...

Paul: 45:26

I'm not going to comment!

Aimee: 45:27

There are certain times I know I'm not going to perform well. And that did fall into that period of time and it was horrible. I did not enjoy that race. Nothing to do with the race itself. It's a brilliant race and I would like to do it again actually. But I didn't enjoy it on that particular day because of how I was feeling. So I just remember the last big hill. At one point I think I did just sit down on the floor and start crying.

Paul: 45:47

You did cry.

Aimee: 45:48

Yeah.

Paul: 45:48

I was like....

Aimee: 45:49

For anyone listening, Paul's just patting me on the shoulder.

Paul: 45:51

Are you alright? Do you want something to eat? Or a cup of tea?

Aimee: 45:58

But yeah, we finished. We did finish together.

Paul: 46:01

It was good.

Aimee: 46:02

Yeah

Paul: 46:02

We did finish that one.

Aimee: 46:02

That was an experience. Then in January 24 we did the Arc 50. Which, that's still one of my proudest races. And that sounds weird because of what we've done since.

Paul: 46:11

Yeah, not mine.

Aimee: 46:12

I love that medal.

Paul: 46:14

It's a good medal.

Aimee: 46:15

I don't know, I think because you'd made such a big thing of the Arc. And I was really dreading it, like really petrified of the Arc. So to finish the Arc 50, for me, I'm really proud I did that.

Paul: 46:27

But quickly touching on why we had to do the Arc 50 in January 24. I wanted to sign up for the 100, didn't I? But, and I get it, some of these big races, you've got to have experience, you've got to have races under your belt. We hadn't got them when we signed up for it. Which, now I look back, it was a blessing in disguise, really.

Aimee: 46:48

Oh, god yeah.

Paul: 46:49

Yeah, because I would have signed up for it.

Aimee: 46:50

We would not have been ready for that.

Paul: 46:51

No, not a chance.

Aimee: 46:52

No way.

Paul: 46:52

But we did the Arc 50, we both finished it.

Aimee: 46:55

Yeah, finished it, big achievement, love that one.

Paul: 46:57

It was

Aimee: 46:57

I say I love it, I hated it, but

Paul: 46:59

it was hard.

Aimee: 46:59

It was a fantastic achievement.

Paul: 47:01

It was hard. And then in March.

Aimee: 47:04

March 24. This wasn't a serious race. Paul signed us up for this the night before. It was that last minute.

Paul: 47:12

My friend said he was doing it

Aimee: 47:13

So a friend of ours was doing it and posted on Facebook something about it and Paul just thought, oh, should we do that? And managed to get us on it at the last minute. So yeah, we did the Big Bear Events Elephant Challenge, which is in Salcey Woods?

Paul: 47:27

Yeah.

Aimee: 47:28

Brilliant event, I love it. We've actually done it again this year.

Paul: 47:31

We've just done it.

Aimee: 47:32

We've just done it a few weeks ago, yeah. Brilliant event. Again, Paul went into it, I'm going to win this, I'm going to get the maximum amount of miles. It was a three and a half mile trail loop, and you've got six hours. The way they do it, if you've started your last lap before the six hours runs out, you can carry on and finish that lap, you are allowed to. So you can go a bit over the six hours. But Paul does a lot of random things as you're probably learning. He decided to wear brand new out of the box trainers.

Paul: 47:56

Yeah, but, yeah, but, you've gotta, I, you know what? There's some method in my madness again.

Aimee: 48:02

There's never method in your madness.

Paul: 48:03

No, I wanted to get a good time on it these have just come out, the Mont Blanc Altra. We are big fans of Altra.

Aimee: 48:11

All of our trainers are Altra.

Paul: 48:12

Zero drop trainers, love them to bits. We, run in them all the time. Then they brought out these carbon fibre race shoes. I was thinking it's a six hour event. I'm going out like the clappers and that. I'm going to wear these, that had arrived six hours before. So I had seen people on YouTube though, take them out of the box and do 100 milers in them and said they were really comfy.

Aimee: 48:37

I don't think that's true.

Paul: 48:38

There was one person who did that. And the chap off Tea and Trails wears these and gets on with them really well. I don't.

Aimee: 48:49

Needless to say...

Paul: 48:50

They absolutely destroyed me.

Aimee: 48:53

It didn't go well for Paul.

Paul: 48:54

Oh no, it didn't. That was bad.

Aimee: 48:56

So Paul stopped running after 4 hours and 40 minutes because he was in agony.

Paul: 49:01

I couldn't run.

Aimee: 49:02

Basically his trainers had crippled him. So he didn't even manage a marathon distance. You did 24 and a half miles, didn't you?

Paul: 49:08

Yeah.

Aimee: 49:08

I did 35 miles.

Paul: 49:10

This seat's going!

Aimee: 49:12

I did go just over the 6 hours.

Paul: 49:14

Anybody's listening, I'm having a few technical issues with my seating arrangement.

Aimee: 49:18

So I did 35 miles, I did go just over the 6 hours, I'd finished my last lap, but the 6 hours wasn't finished, so him and the race director were basically saying, oh go again, you've got time, so I ran another lap. I did 9, 9 laps.

Paul: 49:30

No, it's 3.5,

Aimee: 49:31

oh yeah,

Paul: 49:32

10 laps

Aimee: 49:32

10 laps.

Paul: 49:33

So you got 50K.

Aimee: 49:34

Yeah, no that's more isn't it? 35 miles, yeah, in 6 hours 12. And I was the second female, fourth overall.

Paul: 49:41

Where did this column come from?

Aimee: 49:43

What column?

Paul: 49:44

The column with all your firsts and seconds and

Aimee: 49:47

It's got your positions as well! I'm just conscious we've been waffling around.

Paul: 49:50

Yeah, don't matter, don't matter. We said the first one would be a bit longer than an hour. So we did the Elephant Challenge.

Aimee: 49:56

That was good fun.

Paul: 49:56

Obviously I had some trainer technicalities, but I got the wrong tyres on really. That's the way I look at it. I'd got my winter tyres on and it should have been summer tyres. Then, oh, this is where it all changed.

Aimee: 50:09

Yeah, let's talk about why we signed up to this. So the next race that we did was in May 2024.

Paul: 50:15

Why did we sign up to it?

Aimee: 50:16

Because you wanted to. We did the Bridge 100, which again...

Paul: 50:21

Describe it.

Aimee: 50:22

When Paul mentioned this, my immediate reaction was, no way. You are crazy. Why would you do this? It's a race over the Severn Bridge. So that's the bridge that connects England to Wales, Bristol.

Paul: 50:34

The old Severn Bridge.

Aimee: 50:35

The old Severn Bridge. Is it Bristol to

Paul: 50:37

Pretty much, yeah. Bristol to

Aimee: 50:38

Around Bristol area.

Paul: 50:38

Yeah.

Aimee: 50:39

Lovely big suspension bridge.

Paul: 50:41

It's for cars

Aimee: 50:42

Two miles long. We know that'cause we ran it repeatedly. The idea is you just run back and forth over this bridge. You've got 30 hours and you needed to do 25 laps, 25 out and backs to get to 100 miles. That's the race. So Paul hates tarmac, hates road running, moans about any road running and decided he wanted to do a race on a road bridge.

Paul: 51:05

Yes.

Aimee: 51:06

And it was totally your idea.

Paul: 51:07

It was my idea.

Aimee: 51:08

And I'd said originally, when he first mentioned it, I was like no, I'm not doing that. But then when he actually looked at booking it, I always get FOMO and I'm like you can't do it without me. So we both signed up and I was dreading it. Absolutely dreading it. I say I was dreading it. I was dreading the mental aspect of it.

Paul: 51:24

Yeah.

Aimee: 51:24

I wasn't dreading the tarmac.

Paul: 51:27

You're good on roads.

Aimee: 51:28

I have issues with really technical terrain don't I? I'm not very confident.

Paul: 51:32

I love it.

Aimee: 51:32

I'm getting better but I'm not very confident on like really technical downs and ups.

Paul: 51:38

Like curbs.

Aimee: 51:40

And rocks! What I liked about the bridge was that you weren't going to have terrain issues, you know what you're dealing with, every lap's the same...

Paul: 51:45

Can I just, you did actually trip on this.

Aimee: 51:48

I did trip on this.

Paul: 51:49

On a flat bridge.

Aimee: 51:49

I did stub my toe on a curb, yes, that's correct.

Paul: 51:52

I did sign up for it, it was one of those things, I'd had much success with the loops. So I did think, I saw this it's quirky, the guy who puts these races on, Cockbain Events, he does some crazy ass ultras. There's one in a tunnel for 200 miles, even on this bridge, there was a 200 mile version.

Aimee: 52:13

Yes.

Paul: 52:13

So when we started, guys had been there already, doing it.

Aimee: 52:16

They'd started the day before.

Paul: 52:17

Started the day before, so you've got 200 miles to go out and back on this bridge, and there's one coming up. This one's quite a normal one, really. There's one coming up in May, isn't there? Which is City to City.

Aimee: 52:28

Cardiff to London, isn't it?

Paul: 52:29

Which is

Aimee: 52:30

217 miles, I think.

Paul: 52:33

We're going to man one of the aid stations for that. But his events, if you like some quirky

Aimee: 52:40

He likes to make them as difficult as possible. So for the bridge, and it's similar on a lot of his races, you're not allowed poles, you're not allowed headphones, you're not allowed any support. In terms of an aid station, he had a little gazebo with a table, with a some pot noodles.

Paul: 52:53

Pot of one, pot of choice.

Aimee: 52:54

And he did provide water, which is very nice of him.

Paul: 52:56

Yeah.

Aimee: 52:57

And a horrible portaloo. And that was it.

Paul: 53:00

Yeah.

Aimee: 53:01

There's no frills.

Paul: 53:02

Fantastic.

Aimee: 53:03

Them are the ones. Love it.

Paul: 53:04

That's the one you're, you are going into yourself.

Aimee: 53:07

It's about the run.

Paul: 53:08

You are going into yourself. And we can say...

Aimee: 53:12

...it was our first successful 100 miler!

Paul: 53:14

First 100 miler. We've even got a bloody tattoo, haven't we?

Aimee: 53:16

We've both got it tattooed.

Paul: 53:18

Got tattoos, that, that. Was one hell of an emotional rollercoaster for me Aimee oh, she will state. Oh, does it say Aimee? Oh first place.

Aimee: 53:29

Yes, it does say that.

Paul: 53:31

First place.

Aimee: 53:32

I won it.

Paul: 53:32

She won it. You were the only person to do it in under 24 hours?

Aimee: 53:35

I was the only person to do it in under 24 hours, yeah. My finish time was 23 hours and 14 minutes. And it was 104 miles, not 100. Yeah. Because each lap was just a fraction over the 4 miles, wasn't it?

Paul: 53:46

That messed me head up. I did it.

Aimee: 53:47

When I say lap, out and back.

Paul: 53:49

I did it.

Aimee: 53:50

You did.

Paul: 53:51

In 27 hours, 24 minutes and 57 seconds to be precise and that was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life so far. That was one of the hardest...

Aimee: 54:03

I was just going to say...

Paul: 54:04

It, again, I'm not making excuses. I'm not making excuses because I did it. I did it. I completed it. But, I thought in my head trainers go slightly bigger, because you're going to be on tarmac, you're going to need more room in your shoe, but, not on this occasion, because I think it was so grippy, this surface, I went bigger in my shoe, so every time my foot hit the floor, my foot moved, and then I had blisters. Also, this is, I think this is more of a man thing, isn't it?

Aimee: 54:32

All of the other men on the race had the same issue.

Paul: 54:35

Chafing.

Aimee: 54:35

The women didn't

Paul: 54:36

Chafing. And you don't have to mince your words.

Aimee: 54:40

When I say the women didn't have any issues, I'm not saying the women didn't have any chafing, but none of it...

Paul: 54:44

Not like mine.

Aimee: 54:45

The women weren't having the issue in the same place as the men.

Paul: 54:48

No.

Aimee: 54:48

You all seemed to have it in the same place.

Paul: 54:49

I think sweat running down your back at the end point is obviously bummus cheekus. And that caused a lot of rubbing maximus and I was in a lot of pain. I think, from memory, I think, it's blanked out, I think a lot of, my brain is really good at blanking things out, but I think I had chafing for 9 hours, and I think I had blisters for about 13, 14 hours. So it was a bit of a battle, and what made it even worse was somebody here, kept running past me, You alright? You alright? But, we got it done. And that was a real big turning point for us.

Aimee: 55:24

Yeah. We knew we could do the distance.

Paul: 55:26

We knew we got 100 mile in us. So then, obviously, I'd done the 100 mile, but I wanted to then get it under 24 hours, so we signed up a month later.

Aimee: 55:38

No, what happened is, when we did Endure 24 in 23, because we didn't get the 100 miles, we immediately signed up to do it again the next year, so we'd been booked on Endure24 for nearly a year at that point. We booked on The Bridge much later. And I do remember having this discussion with you.

Paul: 55:53

No, I didn't.

Aimee: 55:54

I thought we wanted to get 100 miles at Endure, The Bridge is really close, I think they were three weeks apart. So you're potentially going to be trying to do two 100 mile races three weeks apart.

Paul: 56:03

Yeah, but I thought we'd be well trained.

Aimee: 56:05

So anyway, we went into Endure24, so three weeks after The Bridge. We were thinking it'd be nice to get 100 miles.

Paul: 56:12

Yeah

Aimee: 56:13

But we realistically knew that we were probably still quite fatigued. So we thought let's just see how this goes and

Paul: 56:20

It went to shit for me It was mad. The thing is, we'd got other commitments, hadn't we? We were going to Morocco.

Aimee: 56:26

Two weeks after Endure24, we were due to fly to Morocco. We were doing an expedition with the Beyond Recovery Project, which helps brain tumour survivors. We were going as supporters, and basically we were climbing a mountain with them Mt Toubkal. And we thought we can't injure ourselves because we need to be able to do that hike with those brain tumour survivors. So we had that in the back of our minds as well. We've got to be sensible. We can't injure ourselves. So we were just sensible.

Paul: 56:49

I was being sensible on this occasion.

Aimee: 56:51

We both, I think potentially could have carried on and got to a hundred, but we would have broken ourselves, I think.

Paul: 56:58

Yeah.

Aimee: 56:59

So I did 75 miles. In 16 hours, 48 minutes and you did 55 miles in 13 hours. So Paul pulled out at 13 hours.

Paul: 57:09

Yeah.

Aimee: 57:10

And I kept going for another nearly four hours.

Paul: 57:12

I think mentally I probably could. It was one of those because I'd come off the back of The Bridge. I was still buzzing a bit and confident that I'd got that mileage in me. But I know if I would have carried on, it would have broke me.

Aimee: 57:23

Yeah, see I felt fine for the first 50 or so miles, and I was actually doing really well, and I was well on target to get to the 100 miles. And I was just like, I've got this, I've got this. But then in the last 25 miles that I ran I started to get niggles, and I remember when I finished The Bridge, I was in agony with my hip, wasn't I? And my one shin had been playing up as well. And they started kicking off again, and I was like, oh, I don't want to be in the agony I was in after The Bridge, so I called it. At 75 miles, I was like, no, I'm going to stop. I had plenty of time. I could potentially have walked. I could have just walked another 5 laps and would have just scraped into the 100 miles, I think. It wasn't worth it.

Paul: 57:59

No.

Aimee: 57:59

Yeah, that was another failed attempt at 100 miles at Endure 24.

Paul: 58:02

Not failed, I chose not to do it.

Aimee: 58:04

The next thing was, again, when we did The Joust last year, so the other 24 hour race, as soon as we finished and didn't get the 100 miles in 2023, we immediately booked on for next year, didn't we?

Paul: 58:14

Yeah.

Aimee: 58:14

We were doing The Joust again in September 2024.

Paul: 58:16

Yeah.

Aimee: 58:18

And this was our most successful race.

Paul: 58:20

Yeah, this was the best race I've had. When I say best race, it was the best result I've had.

Aimee: 58:26

It went really well.

Paul: 58:27

I went into I trained quite hard for that. I was quite sensible going up to that one.

Aimee: 58:32

I think what we'll probably do is an episode about our 24 hour loop races.

Paul: 58:35

Yeah.

Aimee: 58:35

We can talk about that. I don't think we'll go into massive detail about this. But needless to say, we both got 100 miles at The Joust. Which was brilliant. And it just went really well, didn't it?

Paul: 58:45

Yeah.

Aimee: 58:47

You decided to call it when you hit your 100 miles. So that was 19 laps. So The Joust loop is slightly more than the Endure 24 one. It's just over 5 miles. So to get to 100 miles you only needed to do 19 laps. 19 laps got you to 101.6 miles, which is what Paul did. I'd gone into that race I think because I was in Endure 24 mode, I just went in thinking 20 laps, 20 laps, 20 laps. And that was my target. I'd said from the beginning, didn't I want to do 20 laps. We ran the 19 laps together. So, We hit the 100 miles at 21:51.

Paul: 59:20

No, the 100 miles was 21 and a half.

Aimee: 59:22

No, but

Paul: 59:23

I mean,

Aimee: 59:23

officially.

Paul: 59:24

I'm taking that 21 and a half. But it was, 101.6 was 21:51.

Aimee: 59:28

21 hours 51 minutes, so we'd still got two hours left.

Paul: 59:31

Yeah, I was done.

Aimee: 59:32

At that point because I wanted to get the 20 laps. I went again. I did 107 miles. And you were pushing me to go again, weren't you? Because I finished my last lap. My chip time is 23 hours and 42 seconds, so I'd got literally a fraction under an hour left.

Paul: 59:44

You could have done it.

Aimee: 59:45

And he was pushing me, go again, but

Paul: 59:46

If you'd have pulled your finger out, you

Aimee: 59:48

My last, probably most of my last laps, they'd all been well over an hour.

Paul: 59:53

Yeah.

Aimee: 59:53

So I was like, I can't. And when you're that tired, I haven't got any speed left in me, I don't think I can sprint another lap.

Paul: 59:58

Result?

Aimee: 59:59

So yeah overall I came first female, so I got another trophy and I was second overall, so only one man beat me and Paul came second male and third overall. So together we were second and third, which is a brilliant result. So Paul got his first trophy...

Paul: 1:00:16

Yeah, I'll go back this year,

Aimee: 1:00:17

...which is for second male

Paul: 1:00:18

to win it!

Aimee: 1:00:19

So yeah, we are going back this year. I've gotta defend my title and then...

Paul: 1:00:24

Oh, then yeah, another quirky one.

Aimee: 1:00:26

Escape from Meriden Chained was our next race, which was in November 2024. Now this was another Cockbain event, so this is the same guy that does The Bridge.

Paul: 1:00:33

Yeah. But he tags on to another event, don't he?

Aimee: 1:00:36

No, but this is officially a Cockbain event, it's the Chained bit.

Paul: 1:00:38

The Chained bit is his thing.

Aimee: 1:00:40

Yeah.

Paul: 1:00:40

Escape from Meriden is his friend's.

Aimee: 1:00:42

It's a separate race by Beyond Marathon.

Paul: 1:00:44

Yeah.

Aimee: 1:00:44

But he does his Cobain events.

Paul: 1:00:46

Don't want to do that one, that's a bit boring.

Aimee: 1:00:48

We'll probably do another episode about that because I'm just conscious we're waffling on a lot here. So the idea was Escape from Meriden you start from Meriden in Coventry, which is the central point of England

Paul: 1:00:59

Yeah

Aimee: 1:01:00

And the concept is you're escaped prisoners and you have to get as far away as you can. You plot your own route so you can go in any direction and depending on which race you've entered, if you're not doing the Chained event, it's 24 hours to get as far as you can. If you enter the Chained event, which we did, you've got 36 hours to get as far as you can. And it is a real chain.

Paul: 1:01:18

You are chained together.

Aimee: 1:01:19

So we were chained together with this at the wrist.

Paul: 1:01:23

Which, this one I was out, because I was still buzzing off the back of The Joust. Oh, we was out to win this. I was out to get over...

Aimee: 1:01:29

Well, you were!

Paul: 1:01:30

I was. I was out to get about 130 odd mile. We'd done...

Aimee: 1:01:35

We did a lot of training with the chain

Paul: 1:01:37

We knew how that chain worked, we were fine with the chain. Obviously there's certain things you can't do on your own. Any toilet activity you can't go on your own, you can't get changed.

Aimee: 1:01:45

It's very difficult to remove clothing.

Paul: 1:01:46

There was a few, but we got that sorted.

Aimee: 1:01:48

We worked on that, yeah.

Paul: 1:01:49

The other quirky bit was you had to wear

Aimee: 1:01:51

An orange boiler suit.

Paul: 1:01:52

An orange, like the painting suit you have. That, I didn't try on. And that, it was like wrapping yourself in cling film. I have never been so hot in my life. And, it was an odd one this one, because, this one we did a bit of fundraising, didn't we? For a charity, for The Beyond Recovery project. You could guess, we had a kind donor, we got a£500 in the kitty for an Amazon voucher. And you guessed mileage, wasn't it?

Aimee: 1:02:20

We asked people to pay a donation to enter the competition to win the voucher.

Paul: 1:02:24

So there's a big hype to it all. And it's weird because it starts at midnight as well, don't it. And I was buzzing, the whole thing. It was literally, this was my race of the year. It was quirky. We was out to win it. I set the course.

Aimee: 1:02:38

Paul plotted the route.

Paul: 1:02:39

When we do the episode on that, I'll tell you, it was slightly hilly. Run to Wales, it gets hilly, as I found out.

Aimee: 1:02:44

Horrendously hilly route.

Paul: 1:02:45

But, when that bell went, the air horn thing for us to go, we set off, was it within five mile?

Aimee: 1:02:52

Yeah you very quickly, Paul was just not in a good place.

Paul: 1:02:55

This is shit.

Aimee: 1:02:56

I could tell, I could tell we weren't going to do well because your head had gone, like pretty much immediately.

Paul: 1:03:01

It was, I think there was so much build up to it when the whistle thing went.

Aimee: 1:03:07

It was like an anti climax almost.

Paul: 1:03:08

Oh yeah, it was hard.

Aimee: 1:03:09

For you, I mean I was weirdly enjoying it initially. I remember running through Henley in Arden

Paul: 1:03:15

Down the town centre

Aimee: 1:03:16

It like two, three o'clock in the morning running through the middle of Henley in Arden running down the middle of the road

Paul: 1:03:19

Chained together.

Aimee: 1:03:20

There was literally no traffic anywhere.

Paul: 1:03:21

Yeah,

Aimee: 1:03:22

It was dead.

Paul: 1:03:22

I should have been.

Aimee: 1:03:23

It was just bizarre and I was like, this is cool, running down. You could hear the chain jangling and nothing else really. Our footsteps and the chain jangling.

Paul: 1:03:29

I should've been in my element, but...

Aimee: 1:03:30

No, Paul struggled.

Paul: 1:03:33

That suit drained..., I sweat a lot. That thing like exaggerated that by tenfold. And by the time I got to Henley, so it was from Meriden, which is near Coventry. We got to Henley, which weren't even half marathon, was it? It was about 13 to 15 mile. I was dripping. I couldn't get fluid in quick enough. And it just went to shite with me. So we got to Alcester, which was, we've got a place where we could just get some water and stuff like that, and you could go to the toilet, and I just, I had to get the scissors. Cut, because it was November, I put a decent thermal.

Aimee: 1:04:08

We thought it was going to be cold and it wasn't.

Paul: 1:04:10

I had to cut it off with scissors. Then I was freezing cold, trying to if you've lost all your fluid, and you're running to try and carry on running and get that fluid in and I genuinely not make an excuse. And you're going eat, drink, eat, drink, and it didn't matter how much you tried. So we got to Worcester as well. We had another, stop in Worcester and then got going again and I perked up a bit but then once you're going into the second night, oh man, my head, it was, I could not, and this was, I always think of it as a, when people say about depression you can't get out of your head, I could not get out of my head that I ain't running, I ain't, and I've learnt now. If it feels a bit sore when you're running, sometimes it don't get any worse, just run. Like you said, running and walking I, didn't matter what Aimee said, anything, my head, I couldn't get out of it. And I knew what to do, but my head just kept me there. We saw this golf club, lights on obviously she's chained to me, she couldn't go anywhere. Walked up to this golf club, there's two women, all dressed up to the nines. They're outside, and they looked at us.

Aimee: 1:05:18

It was like nine o'clock at night.

Paul: 1:05:19

What did they say? Is this fancy dress?

Aimee: 1:05:21

Yeah, I didn't realise it was fancy dress. They were there for a Christmas party.

Paul: 1:05:23

It was a private Christmas party at a golf club, and me and Aimee rock up. I'm like get me a taxi. I want to go home. And they even said to me, didn't they? Look, we're going to be here for a couple of three hours. Sit in here, sit in the golf club, chill out.

Aimee: 1:05:35

Yeah, these two ladies, they said they'd give us a lift. Because we've got a van parked in Kington. That was going to be our next checkpoint. So we were saying we just need to get to Kington. And that's where they lived. So they said if you could just wait a couple of hours for the party to finish, we can drive you there. But he wouldn't wait. I was trying to persuade him, wait. This place will give us hot food, they were lovely people, their staff gave us a hot drink. They'll let us wait here and rest, you can have a power nap. You might revive and then you'll feel okay and then we can carry on. Because we still had 15 hours to run at this point.

Paul: 1:06:04

And we would have only had to do

Aimee: 1:06:05

We only needed to walk another 28 miles, we'd have hit 100.

Paul: 1:06:08

That messed my head up.

Aimee: 1:06:10

I could not persuade him, couldn't persuade him to carry on.

Paul: 1:06:13

And what happened the next day? Because we got home about two, half two in the morning. Went to bed, got up.

Aimee: 1:06:19

First thing he said to me was, we should have carried on. I could have killed him.

Paul: 1:06:23

That, did wind me up.

Aimee: 1:06:26

So yeah, that didn't go to plan.

Paul: 1:06:27

Anyway, yeah.

Aimee: 1:06:28

Next race was, oh my god, the big one. Now, we can't go into detail on this.

Paul: 1:06:32

We're not going to go into massive detail. We did the Arc of Attrition 100.

Aimee: 1:06:36

We're doing an episode on this specifically, but we did run the Arc of Attrition 100 this January, so a couple of months ago now.

Paul: 1:06:43

Yeah.

Aimee: 1:06:44

Unfortunately...

Paul: 1:06:45

It didn't go to plan.

Aimee: 1:06:46

We got timed out.

Paul: 1:06:47

We got timed... that's the first time

Aimee: 1:06:49

We were chasing cut offs.

Paul: 1:06:51

I've never really concentrated on cut offs.

Aimee: 1:06:53

We'll talk about that.

Paul: 1:06:53

Yeah, so we did 80 miles.

Aimee: 1:06:55

We got to 80 miles, but then we were timed out.

Paul: 1:06:57

21 minutes, weren't it? We got timed out by 21 minutes

Aimee: 1:07:01

Yeah we were 21 minutes late to the checkpoint, so they wouldn't let us continue. So we'd still got nine and a half hours left on the clock.

Paul: 1:07:05

Yeah.

Aimee: 1:07:06

We know if they'd allowed us to continue, we would have got that done.

Paul: 1:07:09

Oh, 100%!

Aimee: 1:07:09

We would have got to that finish line before the 36 hours.

Paul: 1:07:12

We've done a full episode on the beginning so what I do need to say, we'll come back to some in a minute, but we so yeah the Arc didn't go out that and then what's just gone on is the one we spoke about earlier which was the Big Bear Elephant Challenge when I've got the wrong tires on. That come round again so we thought we'd do that.

Aimee: 1:07:34

Yeah

Paul: 1:07:35

Went well this time! Aimee got first overall. We do have to, they say you do have to caveat this. It's not a race.

Aimee: 1:07:45

Yeah, we should clarify, the Big Bear events, they're not really races.

Paul: 1:07:47

You don't come first.

Aimee: 1:07:48

You don't get trophies or anything.

Paul: 1:07:50

No.

Aimee: 1:07:50

They just publish a leaderboard.

Paul: 1:07:52

Yeah

Aimee: 1:07:52

The idea of their events is there they're kind of the springboard for people to experiment with distances that they want to do, so people can use it as their first

Paul: 1:07:59

and they're brilliant

Aimee: 1:08:00

their first half marathon, first marathon. You do as many laps as you want you to get to the distance that you're aiming for

Paul: 1:08:05

Yeah

Aimee: 1:08:05

So I mean like this on this one. I was talking to a lady and she did it as her first marathon.

Paul: 1:08:09

Yeah, they are brilliant, we're gonna do a podcast on that because they're really good I can't praise them enough. Yeah, so this time I got the right tyres on, and I wanted to get 50k, so I went there, it was practicing nutrition, because I've obviously, throughout the past few years I've had an issue with nutrition, nearly on all of them, no in fact on all of them, bar that one. So I was practicing that, 50k, again it was looped, worked well. Like I said, Aimee come first but I've got fifth. I came fifth in the leaderboard thing, which was

Aimee: 1:08:42

..And fourth male

Paul: 1:08:43

Which was very nice. So that's where we,

Aimee: 1:08:47

He didn't actually say what I did. I did thirty....

Paul: 1:08:48

I said..

Aimee: 1:08:49

No, you didn't say how many miles.

Paul: 1:08:50

Oh, Aimee got..

Aimee: 1:08:51

I did 38.5 miles, which was 11 laps. So I did one lot more than

Paul: 1:08:55

yeah.

Aimee: 1:08:55

the last year.

Paul: 1:08:56

You did well on that.

Aimee: 1:08:57

I enjoyed it. It was really good.

Paul: 1:08:58

I had a few little issues, but then for that one, for me was really good. Not a battle in my head, but, I just, I said to myself, Yeah, me hamstrings are giving me a bit of jip. And I was like, speed up a bit, see if they give you jip. Slow down. It didn't change. So I thought, just go quicker. But that one, throughout the whole process, you're learning every time, ain't you? You know what I mean? Not like you, you keep coming first and second.

Aimee: 1:09:22

No, I don't keep coming first and second, that's not true.

Paul: 1:09:25

But that's what we've done. And what we've got coming up, we'll quickly touch on that. Because some of these, what I do have to say, the initial thing when I had this idea to do this podcast, we were gonna do introduction different races, what we've done, do a podcast and all them. But, this has took a lot longer because of me messing around. It's gonna jump around so much until we catch up. Because, obviously we're doing this in March. We had the Arc in January. Which we've done a podcast, we've done that haven't we? But we've got one of the Arc coming up and we are going to do one.

Aimee: 1:10:00

We'll do an episode on the Big Bear events.

Paul: 1:10:02

Because it was, that's what we've just done recently. We want to do it. So they are going to be mixed up, but it is what it is. So what have we got coming up? We've got a race in two weeks.

Aimee: 1:10:10

In a few weeks, yeah

Paul: 1:10:11

Two weeks,

Aimee: 1:10:12

We're doing the Run, Walk, Crawl Vale Coastal Ultra again.

Paul: 1:10:16

Vale Coastal, yeah.

Aimee: 1:10:17

So in Wales, it starts at Penarth Pier and finishes at Ogmore Beach I think it is.

Paul: 1:10:22

Yeah so we're going to do that.

Aimee: 1:10:23

Looking forward to that.

Paul: 1:10:23

Yeah, we want to get a good time on that one.

Aimee: 1:10:25

We want to try and do it a bit faster than we did last year, that's our goal, that's our only goal.

Paul: 1:10:29

Yeah, we're doing that as a training run. The Arc situation, it, it's got to me. It really, that race for me was just everything. That was where it all started.

Aimee: 1:10:43

And being timed out.

Paul: 1:10:44

Yeah.

Aimee: 1:10:45

It's upset you hasn't it?

Paul: 1:10:47

It still makes me emotional.

Aimee: 1:10:49

Don't cry.

Paul: 1:10:51

How bizarre. It still gets me. I don't know why. But, yeah, we're going back Easter to do it. Obviously I turn 50 in April. We're going back. It's unofficial. I've just got to complete it.

Aimee: 1:11:14

Just wanted to try and run it, don't we, on our own. Well, say on our own. We've got a brilliant support crew who are going to help us.

Paul: 1:11:19

I've got to complete it. It was where it all started. In my head, and that, getting timed out, it was my mistake, it was all, the reason that went wrong was because of me. Getting timed out just did me head in, because we would have done it, it would have been hard, don't get me wrong, we would have got in on that time.

Aimee: 1:11:38

We probably would have been close to the cut off, but we would have done it.

Paul: 1:11:40

We would have done it. Don't get me wrong, they do some amazing bling don't they, their buckles, everything, brilliant. I've just got to do it. I cannot let that go. I'm going to be 50. We're going to go and do the Arc.

Aimee: 1:11:53

So we've got two runs in April. We're doing Run, Walk, Crawl first and then a couple of weeks later. That's going to be our last training run. Then we'll taper and then a couple of weeks later, the day after Paul's birthday, we're going to start our Arc attempt.

Paul: 1:12:06

We're doing the Arc. No, there's no attempt.

Aimee: 1:12:08

Okay, we are doing the Arc.

Paul: 1:12:09

I'm telling you now I'll do that even if I have to crawl in. So then we've got, so we're doing the Arc in April. Then we've got

Aimee: 1:12:15

The next one will be Endure 24.

Paul: 1:12:17

Oh yeah, so we've got both Endure 24s. So there's Reading and Leeds. Got Endure 24 in June, which we're, third time we're going to go and get 100 Mile this time.

Aimee: 1:12:26

Yes.

Paul: 1:12:27

Yeah, we are.

Aimee: 1:12:27

We've got to.

Paul: 1:12:28

Yeah, and then one at the end of the month. I'm pointing over there because we've got a big calendar on the wall.

Aimee: 1:12:33

He's pointing at a wall planner that no one can see.

Paul: 1:12:35

I'm pointing at a wall planner that no one can see. So this one we're doing with the Beyond Recovery gang,'ent we? We're doing

Aimee: 1:12:42

Yeah. Endure 24 Leeds, which is later on in June. Relays! So, beginning of June, we're doing the solo Reading, where we're going to try and get 100 miles each. And then at the end of June is the Leeds version of Endure 24. So it's exactly the same, just in a different location. We've never done the Leeds one. But we're doing it as part of a team with our Beyond Recovery friends. Yep,

Paul: 1:12:59

Yep, brilliant.

Aimee: 1:12:59

It's going to be really good fun.

Paul: 1:13:01

Yep. Then...

Aimee: 1:13:02

We've got Joust.

Paul: 1:13:03

September we got The Joust, and I'm putting it out there now. I'm out to win that.

Aimee: 1:13:07

I'm defending my title.

Paul: 1:13:09

She's defending her title, I'm out...

Aimee: 1:13:10

I'm defending my ladies champion trophy.

Paul: 1:13:11

Can I just say, it would be fair, and I think anybody who's got this far and has listened to this. In reality, if we're doing really well, you should let me come first on that.

Aimee: 1:13:22

We'll see on the day.

Paul: 1:13:23

I know that look and that laugh means go to hell. No way, that was you looking at me going, not a chance! That's bad innit? All these times I've let you come in front of me, and you won't let me on this occasion.

Aimee: 1:13:38

You cannot say you've let me win on any of those occasions.

Paul: 1:13:42

Anyway, we were looking at the calendar so we've got The Joust in September then we've got the whopper in December.

Aimee: 1:13:48

Oh no you're missing something out. It's not running related but in November we're doing the Sahara trek.

Paul: 1:13:51

Oh we're going to the desert, we're doing a Sahara trek.

Aimee: 1:13:54

We're doing a 100km Sahara trek with the Beyond Recovery Project so again that's helping some brain tumour survivors. Complete this massive trek.

Paul: 1:14:01

Which they will all do.

Aimee: 1:14:02

That's gonna be amazing.

Paul: 1:14:03

We met the team we had such a banter around in Wales.

Aimee: 1:14:06

A training weekend in Wales, which was good fun.

Paul: 1:14:08

So for the Sahara Desert, we did training in Wales in the peeing down rain.

Aimee: 1:14:12

But in the sand.

Paul: 1:14:12

In sand, peeing down rain. And I did yoga in the peeing down rain. Telling you, there's some weird things that I've done in my life, but not doing yoga in the middle of Wales, peeing down rain, by sand dunes. Not many people can say that! Then, Winter Downs 200.

Aimee: 1:14:27

December.

Paul: 1:14:28

Oh, that's going to be a whopper. You've got four days. Obviously we're going to do quite a lot up to that. Training, and the closer it gets, yeah, that's it. So that's in a nutshell, and we've signed up

Aimee: 1:14:41

We've applied.

Paul: 1:14:41

We've applied for, we were telling you about The Bridge and the Chained Cockbain events, that Tunnel one, which is a 200 mile, in a one mile tunnel. You have a 55 hour cut off. Her bloody idea.

Aimee: 1:14:57

Yeah.

Paul: 1:14:58

Your idea.

Aimee: 1:14:59

It was on a few weeks ago and I was watching some of the footage and I don't know, in previous years I've watched it and gone oh my god why would anyone do that? No way. But I was watching it for some reason this year and just part of my brain was going I want to do that.

Paul: 1:15:11

She said to me and I was like, hello. She's a keeper. So we have, this one though, to be fair, you have to apply.

Aimee: 1:15:19

Yeah.

Paul: 1:15:20

You have to apply for it and because it's limited spaces, because it is on a public footpath

Aimee: 1:15:23

A maximum of 40

Paul: 1:15:25

30-40 runners. So fingers crossed, we have said, we come as a pair, don't we?

Aimee: 1:15:29

Yeah.

Paul: 1:15:30

So if you're going to let one in, let the other, because there's no crew, there's nothing. But, fingers crossed.

Aimee: 1:15:36

So that's what we've got coming up?

Paul: 1:15:37

That's what we've got, so basically we don't do a lot. And that's us trying to put it into a nutshell. I don't, how long's that? No idea.

Aimee: 1:15:47

Way too long.

Paul: 1:15:48

Yeah, but it's the intro, innit? And if anybody's got to this point, fair play to ya.

Aimee: 1:15:51

Yeah, well done for listening, thank you.

Paul: 1:15:54

You didn't rein me in quick enough to be honest.

Aimee: 1:15:56

I kept trying.

Paul: 1:15:56

Yeah I know but I get a bit over excited and you made me cry. That's how much that thing affects me. It's literally in me. So that's episode one, I think we've wrapped it up. Like I said we're going to put some more episodes on, but they're not going to go in any order. We've got so much going on, and look, they're podcasts, they're just out there for information. We're going to put them on, fantastic if you watch them, if not, don't. Are you meant to say all that malarkey about follow, share?

Aimee: 1:16:23

Oh yeah, give us a follow on social media, we're on Instagram and Facebook as Solemate Runners and follow us on YouTube, our YouTube channel.

Paul: 1:16:29

Solemate Runners. You don't need to tell people that because if they want to watch it or follow you they will. That's my belief in that. Let's wrap it up, because I was dying for a wee at the Big Bear event, first one in 2024. Well, until the next time, thank you for listening, and we'll see you soon.

Aimee: 1:16:48

We will.