Episode 4 - Big Bear Events

Welcome to Episode 4 of Solemate Runners, The Podcast! Join hosts Paul and Aimee as they share their adventures doing Big Bear Events’ Elephant Challenge. They dive deep into their experiences, including Paul's ill-fated attempt with new carbon fibre trainers, Aimee's determination to beat her previous records, and the fun of volunteering at race events. Listen as they recount running through beautiful Salcey Forest, battling inner demons, and facing unexpected challenges. Whether you're an aspiring ultra runner or just love a good tale of endurance, this episode has it all!

00:00 Welcome to Solemate Runners

01:28 Big Bear Events Overview

01:58 The Elephant Challenge Explained

05:01 Canicross and Other Unique Features

06:55 Training and Nutrition Tips

11:42 Medals and Rewards

15:43 First Big Bear Event Experience

20:11 Unexpected Challenges and Lessons

30:59 Discussing the Pros and Cons of Altra Trainers

31:41 Trying Out Altra Shoes at Events

32:24 Petzl Head Torches: A Game Changer?

33:38 Marshaling at the Petzl Night Trail

34:25 Balancing Training and Events

35:39 The Elephant Challenge: Goals and Strategies

36:29 Overcoming Mental and Physical Challenges

43:54 Aimee's Marathon PB Attempt

48:38 Unexpected Obstacles on the Last Lap

56:52 Volunteering at Big Bear Events

58:45 Final Thoughts and Future Plans

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 here once again in our running room. For those who are watching on YouTube, it's our room full of running stuff and those who are listening, it's still a room full of running stuff, trainers, clothes, all that stuff. Right? We are March 2025 and we are on episode

Aimee 1:08

4

Paul 1:11

We are still under 10 at the moment, so yeah, we are, we are a bit mixed up with them, so there you go. But Right. We've gotta do this one because we did this event not so long ago and if we don't do it, Aimee'll forget.

Aimee 1:26

I'll forget?

Paul 1:26

Yes.

Aimee 1:27

Okay.

Paul 1:28

Right. The event we're talking about, obviously again, if you are watching, you can see by the t-shirts we are donning, it is the Big Bear Events that we've done a couple of, and we've recently done one, and I'm gonna pass over to Aimee so she can explain what they are because I would just go, it's a race, but

Aimee 1:48

It's not really a race.

Paul 1:49

Anything with a start and finish.

Aimee 1:51

Yeah.

Paul 1:51

To me, to me is a race, but it's not a race. Right, Aimee, what, what is a Big Bear Event?

Aimee 1:58

So, Big Bear Events are events that take place at a number of different locations. The Elephant Challenge that we've done twice now takes place in Salcey Forest near Northampton. It's a six hour event. So it starts at nine o'clock in the morning and in theory you've got till three o'clock in the afternoon. I'm saying in theory it's a three and a half mile loop.

Paul 2:19

Yep. They're all around the same though, aren't they all It's about three to five mile loops.

Aimee 2:23

Yeah, I think so.

Paul 2:23

Different events yeah.

Aimee 2:24

I think so. So you've got six hours to run as many loops. So in this case, three and a half mile loops as you want to in the six hours. But you can technically go over the six hours because the rule is if you've started your last lap before the six hours runs out, you are allowed to complete that lap.

Paul 2:42

Yeah.

Aimee 2:43

So if you went out at say five to three, started at nine, you've gotta finish by three o'clock. If you started your last lap at five to three, you can finish that lap. So you can run for a bit more than six hours if you want to. Don't have to.

Paul 2:55

No.

Aimee 2:56

But that's the point with these challenges, and it's one of the reasons why we like'em so much, isn't it? They're completely accessible and kind of available to all. It doesn't matter what distance you want to run.

Paul 3:07

Yeah.

Aimee 3:08

You can do as few or as many laps as you want. So you could just rock up and do a couple of laps. You could just do a 10k, half marathon, people use it as a gateway to potentially doing, say, a marathon. Or you can use it as a gateway to do your first ultra distance.

Paul 3:25

There's no pressure if you see what I mean. It's not like a race.

Aimee 3:28

You run what distance you want to do for you.

Paul 3:30

Yeah. Yeah.

Aimee 3:30

And I think that's great and they're so welcoming.

Paul 3:34

Yeah.

Aimee 3:34

And inclusive. They're brilliant. And what Paul, not this Paul, the race director is also called Paul. Paul Albon.

Paul 3:43

Yep.

Aimee 3:44

What he does is specifically for marathon distance. Obviously the, the mileage of a marathon, 26.2 miles doesn't fit neatly into the three and a half

Paul 3:54

no

Aimee 3:55

mile loops. So what he'll do is he marks on the trail the turn point. So if you are looking to do a marathon, you know, after you've done however many laps it is,

Paul 4:07

I think he tells you, if you're...

Aimee 4:08

He tells you in the race briefing what you need to do if you want to get a marathon. But when you've done however many complete laps you need to do, you then have to do a part lap to get to the marathon distance. And he marks on the loop, the turning point. So, you know, on your final out, you can get to that marker, turn and just come back to the finish.

Paul 4:25

Yeah.

Aimee 4:26

And you've done your marathon distance. So, I just think it's really good and he clearly says in the race briefing how many laps you need to do to get to certain milestone distances. And obviously within six hours you can do an ultra distance.

Paul 4:37

Yeah.

Aimee 4:37

I think you can go over 50K. I think he mentions potentially 50 miles, but I think you'd have to be going pretty fast.

Paul 4:42

Oh.

Aimee 4:42

If it's doable. I guess if you are an elite runner

Paul 4:45

That's going some, that is,

Aimee 4:46

you could get 50 miles. 50K is more

Paul 4:50

50 miles is going some!

Aimee 4:51

much more realistic.

Paul 4:52

That's Zach Bitter territory. That's going 100 miles in 12 hours.

Aimee 4:55

That's what I'm saying, you'd have to be elite, but

Paul 4:56

which I'm close to, but

Aimee 4:58

Not! So very accessible events.

Paul 5:00

Yeah.

Aimee 5:01

Another thing that's quite cool about Big Bear Events, I'm not sure if this is every single event that he runs, but I know quite a few of them, they're also welcoming to canicross runners as well.

Paul 5:10

Oh, Razzles!

Aimee 5:10

You can enter as Canicross

Paul 5:12

Razzles.

Aimee 5:12

Yeah. Paul calls all dogs Razzle for reasons only known to Paul.

Paul 5:17

No, no. And people of our age group will, if they watched telly when they were a kid,'cause it must have been when, so when was I nipper? Like it's gotta be eighties. There was a program on TV called Johnny Briggs. Now, obviously you probably didn't watch that kind of stuff. I did! Johnny Briggs and it was about a little lad who'd got a dog called Razzle. And I remember the theme tune.

Aimee 5:41

Okay, no, please don't sing

Paul 5:42

No, it's not a singing one. It's not a singing one. It was a trumpet and I think it went...[Paul makes trumpet noises]...and that was Johnny Briggs and people are watching this... well, you Google it and that, you'd think I was the one who did that back in the day.

Aimee 6:14

Okay. I wasn't expecting that.

Paul 6:15

So all dogs are called Razzles and they do the Razzle cross, which I think is cheating.

Aimee 6:20

Canicross. How is it cheating?

Paul 6:22

Look. It's a bit controversial, but it's like bikes. Electric bikes. Electric bikes is cheating. Having a Razzle in front of you that is legging it faster than you, it's pulling you along. It's like battery power bikes.

Aimee 6:34

Okay. That's definitely controversial.

Paul 6:36

Yeah. So, but that's why I don't have a dog,'cause I'd be quicker than you if I had a dog. Yeah. Actually I might be missing summat here! But anyway, you got side tracked then

Aimee 6:45

I got side tracked?

Paul 6:46

So they do, yeah. So six hour events, they do Razzle Cross.

Aimee 6:49

Yeah, some of them you can run as canicross, which is pretty cool. Another thing that we really like about Big Bear Events. I know we've only done the one, the Elephant Challenge for two years, but for us it's great and the reason we signed up this year, it's a great training run.

Paul 7:02

Yeah.

Aimee 7:03

You can use it to practice nutrition. So we've said in our intro episode. We did say how important it is

Paul 7:10

Nutrition?

Aimee 7:11

How important it is to practice your nutrition. You need to do training runs using the nutrition that you're planning to use on your race if you're training for an ultra, and these are great.

Paul 7:21

Pork scratchings?

Aimee 7:23

Don't go there. These

Paul 7:24

They are

Aimee 7:24

These are great events because you could take your own nutrition. So if you've got your own fueling plan, take along what you think you're gonna need to run the distance you're planning to run at the event and just use it. And every time you come,'cause it's a loops, you can come back, they provide a table where you can put your stuff on it, your own drink or food or snacks or whatever you've brought. You can put that there at the start and finish.

Paul 7:46

Toilets. Toilets as well there, which is good.

Aimee 7:48

There's toilets by the start and finish. Yep.

Paul 7:50

Yep.

Aimee 7:50

So you can use it to practice your nutrition and make sure that that nutrition works for you.

Paul 7:55

You just eat whatever's there.

Aimee 7:56

Which is crucial. Or they do put on a really good aid station.

Paul 8:01

Yeah, because

Aimee 8:01

at the start and finish

Paul 8:02

they had electrolytes.

Aimee 8:03

Yep.

Paul 8:03

Coke.

Aimee 8:04

Yep.

Paul 8:04

Water.

Aimee 8:05

Yep.

Paul 8:05

They had quite a lot of, I didn't obviously use that'cause I'm a professional

Aimee 8:07

And there were plenty of, snacks, all sorts of different things. There was little pizza slices, there was different sandwiches. They've got things like jaffa cakes, there was there various sweets, I'm trying to think what else I had.

Paul 8:18

One of everything!

Aimee 8:19

Uh, cheese and crackers.

Paul 8:20

Yeah.

Aimee 8:21

Yeah, plenty of food put on by the race organizers. So yeah, you don't have to take your own food and drink, but you can, if you want to practice your nutrition, you could also use it to practice with kit. So if you've got, I don't know if you've bought new poles or, dare I say it, new trainers. I wouldn't recommend wearing a brand new pair of trainers to try and run an ultra, but... we'll come onto to that.

Paul 8:40

I don't know what you mean!

Aimee 8:41

But you could use the event to practice for that sort of thing. So

Paul 8:44

Yeah, they're good.

Aimee 8:45

And because there's no pressure, it doesn't matter if you go along and maybe you've tried out a new nutrition or a new gel or something and you don't get on with it.

Paul 8:51

Mm-hmm.

Aimee 8:51

Maybe it gives you a bit of an upset stomach. Doesn't matter. Pull out.

Paul 8:54

Yeah.

Aimee 8:54

You know, you don't have to carry on running.

Paul 8:56

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Aimee 8:56

You still get a medal!

Paul 8:57

But it is from our point, obviously this is about ultra running. So from our point of view, doing a good six hour run.

Aimee 9:03

Yep.

Paul 9:03

It's, you know what I mean? It's worth, its weight in in gold.

Aimee 9:06

Yeah.

Paul 9:06

W hen we say there's no pressure,'cause I know, joking aside at the beginning, I said it was like a race. You know, I take it as a race,

Aimee 9:12

It's not.

Paul 9:12

Well, I'm racing you normally, most of the time.

Aimee 9:14

Oh yeah. We race each other.

Paul 9:15

We, and to be fair. Yeah, you beat me.. Anyway, we'll come on to who won these, who won it outta me and you. I forgot what I was gonna say then'cause I was just thinking about my trainers. They are, they're, they're brilliant. Like I said, there's no pressure'cause isn't a race environment. And if you are going from,'cause there was that girl there who she'd done a half, hadn't she?

Aimee 9:32

Oh yeah.

Paul 9:32

And she wanted to do her first.... marathon.

Aimee 9:34

I was talking to a lady. It was quite funny actually,'cause we, we spoke kind of after she completed the marathon distance. I saw her we said there was a turning point you needed to go back to do a marathon. I saw her after that and we'd both

Paul 9:47

Yeah'cause she was doing well, wasn't she?

Aimee 9:48

We were both really happy. We'd seen each other on various laps and I think each time we'd seen each other, we kind of spurred each other on

Paul 9:54

You were racing each other!

Aimee 9:55

Because we were running at similar pace. And I think with any kind of loop event, you kind of do this with people. You overtake them, they overtake you, and then you overtake. And I think we,

Paul 10:02

You were competing.

Aimee 10:02

We spurred each other on a little bit. We both admitted that when we spoke after

Paul 10:06

Spurred each, you were...

Aimee 10:07

Neither of us knew what the other one's target was or anything, but we were aware of each other on the course and we'd smiled a few times but hadn't actually spoken until afterwards. But I saw her after she'd completed her marathon and I was ecstatic because I'd actually got a marathon PB for me. At that point. And we had this little conversation and yeah, it was her first ever marathon. She'd only ever run a half marathon distance. She'd never attempted a marathon before. And she'd booked this event to run a marathon.

Paul 10:32

Yeah.

Aimee 10:32

And she absolutely smashed it. She did amazing.

Paul 10:34

Oh, definitely, definitely. But there's no pressure is there? You, you're doing it yourself

Aimee 10:37

These are perfect events for that.

Paul 10:39

Yeah.'Cause some people would get nervous going into, well, like we did when we started doing our first races. When you are at the start line, you are there and you're nervous and you do

Aimee 10:48

Yeah. Yeah,

Paul 10:49

you do. And you cannot help it. But you kind of look around at these start lines and you're sort of going, oh, no, because you compare yourself to loads of other people.

Aimee 10:58

Yeah.

Paul 10:58

And you're like, oh, I shouldn't be doing this. Oh, he's better than me. Look what he's, and it just, because that can knock you a little bit until you get going. But on these because you are not racing each other. You're just doing, you're just against yourself.

Aimee 11:11

Everybody's doing their own thing.

Paul 11:12

It's so calm.

Aimee 11:13

So I mean,

Paul 11:13

It's brilliant. Brilliant.

Aimee 11:14

I mean there were some people that went out really fast at the start, and normally on an ultra I'd be like, oh, they're gonna blow up. But on this, you just think, well, no. They might be out to get their fastest ever half marathon. And they might be trying to beat their marathon pb and then they'll, they'll run the 26 miles and then they'll stop.

Paul 11:29

I think I was first for about eight seconds, I think I was until that first corner.

Aimee 11:35

Yeah, they're really good events. Really, really good.

Paul 11:37

Yeah. Oh, and they do the night ones as well, don't they? Sorry, I butted in, but what was you gonna say?

Aimee 11:41

Yeah, well we were gonna come onto that. I was gonna talk about the medals.

Paul 11:43

Oh yes.

Aimee 11:45

Another thing that I, I mean a lot of people think that medals aren't that important and

Paul 11:50

Unless you're Aimee!

Aimee 11:50

And I know with a lot of races now you can opt to not have a medal, but I like a medal.

Paul 11:54

You do love a medal, don't ya?

Aimee 11:55

And I really like the Big Bear Events medals.

Paul 11:57

We've gotta try and describe this, so for people listening

Aimee 12:00

Yeah.

Paul 12:01

But obviously people on YouTube, you can see it. It's actually quite good. Look at'em, they're nice. It's a shiny medal and it is, what do you call, what did we?

Aimee 12:08

Enamel?

Paul 12:09

It's enamel, so it's got an enamel picture on it.

Aimee 12:11

Really colorful as well.

Paul 12:12

But one thing you love about

Aimee 12:14

Yeah. What I love about the Big Bear medals

Paul 12:16

Which I find very strange.

Aimee 12:18

I'll try and show it to the camera, but on the ribbon it gives the date. So it actually says on this one Salcey Forest, 7th of March 2024. And that one says 7th of March 2025.

Paul 12:29

2025.

Aimee 12:29

So, and it's a different medal.

Paul 12:31

Yeah.

Aimee 12:32

Even though it's the same event. I don't really like it if you run the same event year on year and you get identical medals with not even a date on it. I don't like that.

Paul 12:40

We've had a few like that'ent we?

Aimee 12:41

Yeah.

Paul 12:42

It's almost like they're trying to get rid of, they brought

Aimee 12:43

They obviously buy a

Paul 12:44

job lot

Aimee 12:44

job lot of them. And I understand that's more cost effective, but

Paul 12:47

Yeah

Aimee 12:47

I dunno. I like it to be unique to the event and for memory purposes, in the future when I'm looking back at what races we've done, I wanna know,'cause I'm gonna forget what years we ran races, but I'll always know that this was the 2024 Elephant Challenge.

Paul 12:59

Yeah.

Aimee 13:00

'Cause it says it on the ribbon!

Paul 13:01

Yeah.

Aimee 13:01

And we'll know that the other one is the 25 one.

Paul 13:03

You do sing praises for their medals.

Aimee 13:05

I love Big Bear medals.

Paul 13:06

And you can get one of them for just doing one lap, can't you?

Aimee 13:10

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul 13:10

One lap or 10 laps.

Aimee 13:11

Yep. Doesn't matter what you run, you still get the medal

Paul 13:14

and which we may have had these last year, but I don't think I picked'em up.

Aimee 13:19

Yeah. We don't remember whether we got a badge last year.

Paul 13:20

You get little badge and little things like, I think these are quirky and I think they're quite cool. So you get a little badge with either ult... I've just, for people listening, it shot out my hand and

Aimee 13:29

He just flicked it across the room!

Paul 13:30

fell on the floor! But you get a little badge. I think there was like Half Marathon, Marathon, 10 K, 5K, Ultra. You get, you get little badges. It's, it's nice, you know what I mean?

Aimee 13:40

Yeah. So we got a badge each that said Ultra Marathon.'cause we, we did both do the ultra distance...this year.

Paul 13:46

Yes, yes. Oh that was an undercover dig. That was harsh!

Aimee 13:52

Yeah. And also just while we're talking about Big Bear Events,'cause we'll come on to the specific Elephant Challenge in a minute. But the six hour events, they do do it quite a few different locations.

Paul 14:01

Yeah.

Aimee 14:01

Don't they? But they also do some night runs as well, which are pretty cool.

Paul 14:05

Yes.

Aimee 14:05

So when we did the Salcey Forest one a few weeks back. We actually stayed on, didn't we?

Paul 14:11

It's the Pretzel Challenge, isn't it?

Aimee 14:12

It's not pretzel! Paul always calls it pretzel.

Paul 14:14

Oh yeah, it's

Aimee 14:15

It's not pretzel, it's Petzl

Paul 14:17

Pretzel

Aimee 14:17

As in the head torch brand.

Paul 14:19

Head torch.

Aimee 14:20

So it's called the Petzl Night Trail.

Paul 14:21

That's the one.

Aimee 14:22

And it's a 10K race. So it's in the same location. 10K race, around the same loop, but it's a night race.

Paul 14:29

Yep.

Aimee 14:30

So they were head torches

Paul 14:31

and the Razzles are out

Aimee 14:32

in the dark. And again, they also allow canicross runners as well.

Paul 14:34

Yeah.

Aimee 14:35

For that event. So we marshalled on that one, which was really good fun.

Paul 14:38

Yeah. Yeah. We've marshalled on two of them through night.

Aimee 14:40

It's the second time we marshalled yeah,

Paul 14:41

Yeah

Aimee 14:42

for night trail races for Big Bear Events. Really good fun.

Paul 14:46

I think I had the best aid station last year, with all my lights and everything. Christmas flashing lights. Yeah, I was there. Weren't sending anybody the wrong way either.

Aimee 14:55

No, no, no. It was good fun. I like marshaling. It's good fun. Yeah, it's good to give back as well...

Paul 15:01

They are

Aimee 15:01

Help out at events like this.

Paul 15:03

Right, right. So what we're gonna do, we are gonna put all the information for Big Bear Events wherever you put it on YouTube and wherever you put it on the podcast doofer. We are gonna put all the information there so you can have a look at it. But

Aimee 15:15

And we should just clarify, we're not sponsored by Big Bear Events. We're not being paid, we're not being paid to do this.

Paul 15:20

No, no. But obviously

Aimee 15:21

He doesn't even know we're doing this!

Paul 15:22

Obviously Paul, if you're watching, you know, I'm just saying! But no, we're gonna go through, like we said about races and that, but this one, because we've just done it

Aimee 15:32

and because we've done it twice, we just thought it makes sense to do an episode just on the Big Bear Events

Paul 15:36

because they were very, very different um, outcomes.

Aimee 15:38

Yeah, we had two very different experiences, a year apart.

Paul 15:41

Yeah. Right. Where are we gonna start? Obviously we've gotta start with the first race.

Aimee 15:46

So let's go back to March 2024.

Paul 15:48

Yeah.

Aimee 15:48

How did we find Big Bear?

Paul 15:49

We've missed something.

Aimee 15:50

Go on.

Paul 15:51

We've missed something. So when you finish, what else did you get?

Aimee 15:54

Oh, yes, yes.

Paul 15:56

Yeah. We forgot this little bit.

Aimee 15:57

You're really bigging it up.

Paul 15:59

It was a drink and so you got a fruit juice if you wanted that, or a non-alcoholic beer, but you also got

Aimee 16:06

a flapjack

Paul 16:06

Which we feel privileged'cause we did the last race. They did these flapjacks that were,

Aimee 16:11

Oh, they're amazing flapjacks

Paul 16:12

Pretty good, pretty good. But geezer's retired, ain't he?

Aimee 16:16

Yeah.

Paul 16:16

Well, bless him. I think from what the race director was saying, he retired two years ago, but Big Bear kept pestering him for these, um, flapjacks. But they were good. I had to remember, it come to my head, so I had to put that in. Right, don't get sidetracked now. Right. Let's start with the first, the first event, because we didn't know anything about these, to be totally honest with you. And it come about because Aimee very stupidly signed up for it the day before.

Aimee 16:41

No, that's not true.

Paul 16:43

Oh, no. It was me. What happened?

Aimee 16:46

It's always you that does these impulsive things.

Paul 16:48

No, there, there was a reason. Well, we blame a friend of ours, David Smart, because he was signed up to do this, and I think what had happened, he put on,

Aimee 16:58

He put something on Facebook saying that he was gonna be running it the next day.

Paul 17:01

Yeah. And I was like, oh, oh, what's that then? What's that? So he put on, he was doing the six hour event. I think we might might've been training for something anyway, last year? We would've been training for something.

Aimee 17:11

Yeah we were training for The Bridge.

Paul 17:13

Yeah. Yeah. So we were training and then this come up and I think I saw it on Facebook of the morning of the day before, but it had closed so you couldn't enter. But then David said, I'll speak to the race director and see what I can do. And one of the reasons I wanted to do this was really because, not through training. I weren't...

Aimee 17:34

You didn't admit this at the time!

Paul 17:35

I weren't that bothered really. But I've got these bad boys, so if you're listening, I've got some Altra. So obviously, you know, we are big fans of the Altra brand. They had brought out their carbon fiber, Lamborghini racing mega, you know, McLaren F1 trainers. I was on a, not a waiting list, you know when you pre-order them?

Aimee 17:57

Yes.

Paul 17:58

I pre-ordered them and they'd come in. So my brain went right, six hour event, I think, I don't even know where, I think I'd seen, I want to say it was the chap off, I may be wrong, but the guy off Tea Trails, what's his name? Oh man, his name's gone. But anyway, the guy of Tea Trails is an Altra fan and he got some of these, I'm sure, well, somebody said they got'em outta the box and did a race in them. And I knew from personal experience that we wear the Altra trainers. So what could go wrong?

Aimee 18:30

Well, one, you've never owned a pair of carbon trainers.

Paul 18:32

No, I have, I have, I've got the road ones.

Aimee 18:35

Did you have those before?

Paul 18:36

Yes. And those I've got on with, but I've only

Aimee 18:38

Okay.

Paul 18:39

The most I've ever done in them is 13 mile,'cause we did a half, we did the Worcester Half.

Aimee 18:43

Okay.

Paul 18:43

So I have got carbons. So anyway, that was, that was one of the reasons,'cause I thought, you know what? I can try these bad boys out. What a mistake that was. Anyway, we signed up for it, didn't we? I gave you loads of time to get ready,'cause obviously you take about as much time as I do. So I said on the day before, we are doing a six hour event tomorrow.

Aimee 19:08

He's saying the day before, it was, the night before that this was actually confirmed.

Paul 19:12

You had a good three hours.

Aimee 19:13

So it was quite late on the night that he said, oh, by the way, we're racing tomorrow. I say racing, we're running. So I like to be prepared, don't I? I like to get everything ready the night before

Paul 19:23

You like to get ready

Aimee 19:24

and charge my watch and that sort of stuff. I dunno, I don't feel I had the usual time to prepare. It was all a bit chaotic and we had to leave early in the morning, didn't we?'Cause it's like an hour and a half drive for us.

Paul 19:33

Wasn't that long

Aimee 19:33

Rush hour traffic. And we needed to get there in good time. So...

Paul 19:36

Yep.

Aimee 19:36

We left pretty early.

Paul 19:38

I think it was about half six.

Aimee 19:38

So I got up, put my watch on charge and then we were faffing around. I was having my breakfast, trying to work out what to wear, looking at the weather and everything. And then we set off and we were halfway there. And I realized I'd left my watch on charge at home. I could have cried. I remember being devastated.

Paul 19:56

Devastated. No watch.

Aimee 19:57

The idea of running without my watch! That means the run didn't happen effectively.

Paul 20:01

Yeah.

Aimee 20:02

That was my view on it at the time. I was gutted. Absolutely gutted.

Paul 20:05

You were not setting off on a good foot, really was ya? You wasn't very happy.

Aimee 20:08

I wasn't very happy about that. So, yeah. So we got there and then, I didn't even know that he was planning to run in brand new trainers outta the box. He'd already put them in the car without me noticing. So when we got there, he produced this box and announced that he was gonna run in them

Paul 20:23

Beauties.

Aimee 20:23

I remember saying, you are crazy and this is not going to end well.

Paul 20:27

But yeah, well could have gone both ways.

Aimee 20:29

We also should point out,'cause we have put footage on Instagram and so it is available for anyone that wants to go look.

Paul 20:37

Oh...

Aimee 20:37

He also did it just as a Roman.

Paul 20:38

As a Roman, yeah. Yeah. With a flag.

Aimee 20:41

I didn't because I didn't have enough time to prepare my costume or anything. We have done Roman runs in the past. That's a whole other story.

Paul 20:47

Yeah.

Aimee 20:47

It's because of a connection we've got with the Beyond Recovery Project. We sometimes run as the Running Romans, whole other story. You decided to do that event as a Running Roman, didn't you?

Paul 20:58

Yes.

Aimee 20:59

So not only was he wearing brand new trainers outta the box, but he was also dressed as a Roman, wearing a big helmet

Paul 21:06

and a flag

Aimee 21:06

and carrying a flag on the back.

Paul 21:09

And it was windy.

Aimee 21:10

And it was very windy, yeah.

Paul 21:11

That's what probably did it for me then. That It must have been the wind.

Aimee 21:14

No, you can't blame the flag because you took it off after one lap.

Paul 21:16

Oh yeah. I had to take it off. It was like a sail!

Aimee 21:18

You were gonna take off, weren't you? So yeah. You took that off after one lap.

Paul 21:21

To be honest, it all started all right. I think we went quite well. I think we...

Aimee 21:25

Well, we ran with David, didn't we?

Paul 21:26

Yeah, we set off. You lot set off way too quick.

Aimee 21:28

We ran with our friend David for the first few laps.

Paul 21:30

So we were here for six hours and you lot were trying to go like Mo Farrah pace.

Aimee 21:33

No.

Paul 21:34

You were going quick.

Aimee 21:35

Well, I had no idea what pace I was running at'cause I didn't have a watch on.

Paul 21:38

Oh you didn't mention you didn't take your watch. You didn't mention the whole time.

Aimee 21:41

I had to run entirely on feel because I couldn't see what my pace was or anything. That... it was a weird feeling.

Paul 21:47

It's probably a good feeling. We do...

Aimee 21:48

They call it naked running, don't they?

Paul 21:50

Do we, yeah, we do rely on these a bit too much and it is,

Aimee 21:53

I very heavily rely on my watch, but

Paul 21:54

Yeah. Yeah.

Aimee 21:56

So yeah, we started running.

Paul 21:57

Yeah.

Aimee 21:58

It was okay weather wasn't it? It was a little bit, I remember it being quite chilly to start. Yeah, we had gloves on, but then you warm up, don't you?

Paul 22:03

Yeah.

Aimee 22:04

We warmed up. It was dry and it wasn't particularly muddy, was it? There was a couple little muddy patches, but it was good weather for running for March.

Paul 22:12

Yeah.

Aimee 22:12

It could have been a lot worse.

Paul 22:13

Could have been a lot worse.

Aimee 22:14

So yeah, then Paul started to moan his feet were hurting. I could tell... when Paul's struggling, he goes quiet and doesn't want to talk anymore.

Paul 22:25

What lap was this? Oh, I think we did two laps,

Aimee 22:28

maybe three.

Paul 22:29

Oh, I think it was a third lap. And I was thinking, hmm. I didn't say anything, but I was thinking,

Aimee 22:33

No, you just went quiet.

Paul 22:34

I was thinking, why are my Achilles hurting? I'm getting some odd, not pain, it was like an ache. It was a feeling around my Achilles that I don't normally get. So I was thinking, don't say anything. I think I kept saying to you though, I think we're going too quick.

Aimee 22:50

You did keep moaning that we were running too fast.

Paul 22:52

Which I was thinking if they slow down, at least hopefully I'll get used to these.'Cause I had bigged up these trainers a lot. I had in my head, I was thinking I was going out there and I was getting 50K, 50K in four hours. That's how quick I was gonna be going. That's, you know, I got these new tires on my feet and I was... they were slicks. I was going...

Aimee 23:09

Okay.

Paul 23:10

Was it after lap 4 I started sulking? Was that when you left me?

Aimee 23:14

I can't remember which lap I left you on, but

Paul 23:16

It was early doors.

Aimee 23:17

I can tell when things are bad with Paul, because that's when he goes, just leave me. Just, just go. Just go. And then I'm like, yeah, he doesn't wanna talk anymore. So, and that, that's another thing when you're running loop races, if you're running it together, it doesn't matter if you...

Paul 23:29

No.

Aimee 23:29

Do separate because you still see each other. Well, actually I don't think I did see you.

Paul 23:33

No, you didn't, no,'cause you just left me stranded.

Aimee 23:35

I didn't see you again...

Paul 23:36

To fend for myself.

Aimee 23:37

Until the finish. So yeah, I carried on running. I remember doing a couple of videos on my phone while I was running. I was like, oh, I'm on my eighth lap, I've no idea where Paul is and haven't seen him. Don't even know if he's still running.

Paul 23:48

Yeah.

Aimee 23:48

And then I think on my penultimate lap, you were at the finish, weren't you?

Paul 23:52

Yeah.

Aimee 23:53

Waiting for me. He'd completely changed. He was just in his normal clothes, different pair of trainers. I was like, well, oh, and he was wearing his medal.

Paul 24:00

Yeah.

Aimee 24:01

Oh, you've stopped then.

Paul 24:03

I had quite a big sense of humor, failure, to be honest.

Aimee 24:05

Yeah. You weren't in a very good place, were you?

Paul 24:06

No, I was very disappointed in my legs.

Aimee 24:10

So Paul ended up running...

Paul 24:12

Oh, got the stats.

Aimee 24:13

We've got the stats here,

Paul 24:13

We've got the stats.

Aimee 24:14

So, you did 24.5 miles.

Paul 24:17

I think they were even saying, because all I had to do, you know, you said earlier about going back to that thing,

Aimee 24:22

You only needed to run to the turning point.

Paul 24:24

Yeah, yeah.

Aimee 24:24

And come back and you'd have got a marathon.

Paul 24:26

Yeah. So I'd got to that point and it was, well, what was it? Two mile, wasn't it? It wasn't even two mile to go out.

Aimee 24:31

Well, you did 24.5. You only, you only needed to do 1.7.

Paul 24:36

One point..yeah. So you were literally going out,

Aimee 24:38

In total, so you needed to run out...

Paul 24:40

Weren't even a mile!

Aimee 24:40

Three quarter of a mile and back again.

Paul 24:42

Yeah. I couldn't, I couldn't. I was struggling to walk. That's how bad... it really did cop me.

Aimee 24:50

So how many laps did you actually done?

Paul 24:52

Not a clue.

Aimee 24:52

You've done 24.5. I think that's seven laps. I think it was seven laps to get to a marathon.

Paul 24:56

Was it seven?

Aimee 24:57

Because you needed to do eight to have been classed as running an ultra?

Paul 25:01

I'll tell you, it probably felt like a lot more than that. It was bad. It was bad. And to see you going off and just smiling and enjoying it and yeah. I think nutrition and what was we doing on nutrition on that? Did we, I think we just used theirs.

Aimee 25:16

I think we were.

Paul 25:17

On that day.

Aimee 25:17

From memory we did have our own water bottles with Tailwind I think. We did have our own water.

Paul 25:22

Was it those carry bottles? I don't using those carry ones. The ones we carry.

Aimee 25:25

No.

Paul 25:26

I don't think we had them then.

Aimee 25:27

No. But I think we did have our water bottles at the table by the

Paul 25:30

Yeah, we might have just had a drink, but,

Aimee 25:32

But I don't think we took our own food.

Paul 25:33

Yeah. So it did...

Aimee 25:35

from memory.

Paul 25:36

I don't think nutrition on that time for me,

Aimee 25:38

No, it wasn't nutrition.

Paul 25:38

Was an issue.

Aimee 25:38

It wasn't nutrition that was the issue. It was your feet.

Paul 25:42

It wasn't my feet. It was my legs. It was my legs. I think what I...

Aimee 25:46

Caused by the new trainers.

Paul 25:47

I dunno.

Aimee 25:48

Oh, 100%. Just admit it.

Paul 25:50

No, because I think'cause it was cold.

Aimee 25:51

Oh my goodness. Here come the excuses.

Paul 25:54

Hear me out. Because it was cold. I think I might have picked up a knee chill. So... this is very serious.

Aimee 26:02

A what?

Paul 26:03

A knee chill. So my knees, you must have heard this.

Aimee 26:06

No!

Paul 26:07

People trekking the North Pole and that get knee chills and what it is. Why are you laughing? I thought you meant to support me on all these?'Cause my knees got really cold,'cause obviously I was wearing shorts and it was cold'cause I had gloves on. I got knee chills, which then my knees went tight, which then affected my calves, which then went down to my Achilles and made them really tight.

Aimee 26:29

Okay.

Paul 26:30

That's what I think I had.

Aimee 26:31

That is the

Paul 26:32

Runner's knee chill.

Aimee 26:33

Biggest load of rubbish I've ever heard.

Paul 26:36

Google runners knee chill! It's all there!| Oh, that's what I think I had. I don't think it was the trainers. Why would it be carbon fiber trainers straight outta the box?

Aimee 26:45

Obviously...

Paul 26:45

When you're not used to them.

Aimee 26:46

It was obviously the trainers straight out the box.

Paul 26:49

Yeah. Yeah.

Aimee 26:51

So Paul did 24.5 miles in four hours 40 minutes. So you ran for four hours, 40 minutes and then you stopped.

Paul 26:57

I'm gonna be honest, I don't think I ran that full four hours, 40 minutes. Oh no.

Aimee 27:01

There was some walking was there?

Paul 27:02

What's it called? Jeffing.

Aimee 27:03

Jeffing, okay.

Paul 27:03

Yeah. But I was doing a lot more F-ing than Jeffing, I tell ya, I was, yeah.

Aimee 27:09

Okay. So I carried on, I just kept running, no idea what pace I was doing'cause I wasn't wearing a watch and I was quite enjoying it.

Paul 27:16

Yeah.

Aimee 27:16

And I think I'd done nine laps because I remember again, videoing going, this is my ninth lap. I have no idea what pace I'm running or how long I've been running. As I approached the finish. You were waiting for me.

Paul 27:27

Yeah.

Aimee 27:28

And you and the race director both said to me,

Paul 27:31

Go again.

Aimee 27:32

You might as well go again. I think i'd got about 20 minutes before.

Paul 27:35

Yeah,

Aimee 27:35

the six hours run out. So they both said to me,

Paul 27:38

Yeah,'cause you genuinely hadn't got a clue where you were at really go.

Aimee 27:40

No, I had no clue.

Paul 27:41

No

Aimee 27:41

Whatsoever. So I went out again and at that point there were very few people on the course. I remember running long sections of it, not seeing another runner. So yeah, I ran again.

Paul 27:50

Yeah.

Aimee 27:51

And I stopped six hours, 12 minutes, 22 seconds. And so that meant I'd run 35 miles. So I definitely did an ultra.

Paul 28:00

Oh, I didn't wanna run 35 miles.

Aimee 28:01

Yes you did.

Paul 28:02

No I didn't.

Aimee 28:02

Yes you did. You did. So that was our first...

Paul 28:07

Yeah. So there isn't a first and second place, but there's a leaderboard for amount of miles.

Aimee 28:12

They do publish a leaderboard. Yes.

Paul 28:13

Come on then. Come on.

Aimee 28:15

What?

Paul 28:15

Tell us where you got, where you come on the leaderboard. We know you want to.

Aimee 28:19

I was second female and fourth overall.

Paul 28:23

It's alright. You did well. Didn't get first though, did you?

Aimee 28:26

Especially considering I didn't wanna do it. And got dragged into it at the last minute.

Paul 28:30

Yeah. Sometimes if you've got too much time to think about stuff, you don't do it. So just, boom, let's go!

Aimee 28:35

Yeah.

Paul 28:35

Let's get it done.

Aimee 28:36

Yeah.

Paul 28:36

And you did well.

Aimee 28:37

I ended up really enjoying it.

Paul 28:38

Yeah.

Aimee 28:39

Yeah.

Paul 28:39

So it was like I said, brilliant event. So we did that.

Aimee 28:43

And then in the interim, so that was in the March 24. In October 24, we didn't run a Big Bear Event, but we did go along and marshall.

Paul 28:52

Oh yeah, we did the evening pretzel thing.

Aimee 28:54

Yeah. We connected up with... there's a Big Bear Facebook page for people that want to volunteer. And we got onto that page and we saw that they were calling out for help for an event at Cannock Chase Forest.

Paul 29:03

Yeah.

Aimee 29:03

It was the Petzl night runner. So we thought, oh, we'll go along and help at that.

Paul 29:07

Yeah.

Aimee 29:07

So we went along and marshalled at that. That was really good fun. We were manning the water station, weren't we?

Paul 29:12

Mm-hmm.

Aimee 29:13

I shouldn't say manning. That's not politically correct, is it? We were crewing the water station.

Paul 29:17

Manning it.

Aimee 29:18

Yeah. Paul lit up like a Christmas tree made it good fun. And then we hadn't actually booked anything in,

Paul 29:25

But, let's just, I just need to skim back. So joking aside, I know we're joking about carbon fiber and out the box and bits and bobs. Genuinely I do think some of these, I think I got roped along with all the hype with this carbon fiber stuff. But genuinely, if you're gonna get them,'cause these are a trail version, if you're gonna get them, don't go head first. I think now I'll try'em out. You do, I don't know, do a 5K or something. Ease yourself in. I think my legs are relatively strong. I think if I would've done that in the early days, that really would've given me some grief.

Aimee 30:02

Mm-hmm.

Paul 30:02

Like it does,'cause it really does, it chucks you into a completely different, is it gait? The running side of it, because even though that's a zero drop, we're all zero drop.

Aimee 30:12

Yeah.

Paul 30:13

It definitely, it puts your leg not in... For me, it felt like it wasn't a zero drop. It felt like I'd got a heel raise. Because they have a bit of a curve on them.

Aimee 30:21

'Cause they're more rocked? They rock more don't,

Paul 30:23

Yeah, because they're trying to fire you forward. It did, it really... when I've looked into it and had some advice off people, I think what it was doing, my big toe,'cause when you've got the neutral shoe, your foot tends to hit the floor.'Cause I'm a heel striker. I'll come onto my shoes at some point, but I do wear the back outta the shoe really quick. And it's been said carbon fibers are not ideal for heel strikers. I love them to bits. But

Aimee 30:52

You can't run in them.

Paul 30:53

I just have to walk in them a bit. You know what? I think I'm good for, I think

Aimee 30:58

Short trail runs.

Paul 30:59

I think I, even now, and I have been, I have been, I can't have used'em a lot'cause I've still got the heel on them. I do use'em a bit, but I think for me, the most I could probably get out of that is 10 mile. I think I could probably, I might a trail half marathon. I could probably do 13 mile, but, and people have said just keep trying them and trying them. But genuine, I don't think they're for me. Because they're expensive as well'ent they?. Don't get wrapped up in all the hype about them all,'cause some people, they just don't work. I love these trainers. Gutted, gutted, but they're not for me I'm afraid. They didn't make me go any quicker.

Aimee 31:32

No, they made you go slower.

Paul 31:33

They made me go really, really slow. But yeah. Joking aside. You know, uh, one good thing they had on here though, didn't they? If you are an Altra trainer wearer, they did have, it was one of the running shops and they had a representative from Altra there, so you could try shoes on, which was quite good.

Aimee 31:50

Yeah. I'm not sure whether they do it at every event, but quite a few Big Bear events.

Paul 31:52

Yeah.

Aimee 31:53

They do have what they call a'Try On' event with Altra. So Altra will be there with, not every model they do, but they'll have some of their models with different sizes and they'll allow you to try them on,

Paul 32:02

You know what?

Aimee 32:03

and have like a little run in them. Not, I don't think you can run like a whole loop.

Paul 32:06

No, they were, people got...

Aimee 32:07

Were they allowed to?

Paul 32:08

People were going out in them and doing... there was one woman and I think she had them on for longer than that. I bet if you did contact them, like if there was one coming up in a couple of months, I bet if you said, look, I'm looking at wanting to try, I don't know, the Lone Peaks 9. I bet you could probably let them know and they'd bring them. So that, that was quite good. And on the night one, the pretzel torch geezer was there. Pet... when I say pretzel, I mean the, torch they were there so you could try the head torches.

Aimee 32:35

Yes.

Paul 32:36

I didn't realize how many head torches that company had got.

Aimee 32:38

No.

Paul 32:38

You can't buy them. He wasn't there,'cause I was like, oh

Aimee 32:40

no, they're not selling them. And it's the same with Altra. They're not selling them.

Paul 32:42

No, no.

Aimee 32:43

So there's no pressure. They don't have any available to buy. They just literally have ones for you to try on.

Paul 32:48

But they did,

Aimee 32:48

And with the head torches you could try, run a lap, wearing one of their head torches.

Paul 32:52

20% off on the trainers, wasn't it for week?

Aimee 32:54

But yeah, you got, 20% discount voucher for Altra, obviously to buy from that shop, which is Up and Running, I think it is.

Paul 33:00

Which was quite good. And you did try on one of the head torches because you hate them, don't you?

Aimee 33:03

Yeah, we are gonna look at the Petzyl torches.

Paul 33:05

It did have a very different,'cause obviously, you know, normal head torch is a strap around your head.

Aimee 33:10

I just find doing the really long ultras that we've done where you have to run through the night so you have to wear it for a long time.

Paul 33:15

It could be 12, 13 hours can't it?

Aimee 33:17

They give me a really bad tension headache across here. And also I get like a massive dent in my forehead.

Paul 33:21

It stays over ages

Aimee 33:22

And it, it, they hurt. I don't like them, but this Petzl brand, they, they did a really lightweight one, didn't they?

Paul 33:29

Yeah.

Aimee 33:29

I tried it on, not on, tried running with it, but I just tried it on for a few minutes and...

Paul 33:32

It did seem quite good, so...

Aimee 33:33

It seemed a lot lighter. So yeah,

Paul 33:34

So that's another little perk of it.

Aimee 33:35

Sidetracked again!

Paul 33:36

Right, sidetracked! So...

Aimee 33:38

So yeah, we marshaled in October at the Petzl Night Runner, and then we'd got all our other stuff booked in. We hadn't got any plans to necessarily do a Big Bear Event, but then again, we saw, I think it was in February, they were calling out for marshals.

Paul 33:51

Oh, that was it, that was it!

Aimee 33:52

They were calling out for marshals for Salcey Forest. Not for the Elephant Challenge, but for the Petzyl Night Trail that was taking place on the same day but that evening. They needed marshals for that. So again, we had a conversation. It's not that far. It's, it's only, it's like an hour and a half drive for us. We weren't doing anything that day or, or early the next morning or anything. So we thought, yeah, we'll do that. We'll go along. So we volunteered to go and help out for the night run on that day. And then we were just working out, that was on the Friday, wasn't it?

Paul 34:22

Yeah.

Aimee 34:22

And that weekend we'd got stuff booked in. I was going to London with some girlfriends for overnight on the Saturday.

Paul 34:28

Oh yeah.

Aimee 34:29

And we'd got on our training plan that we were supposed to be doing a really long run on the Saturday and then a long run on the Sunday.

Paul 34:34

Yeah.

Aimee 34:34

And I was stressing a bit about how I was gonna fit those in'cause with going to London it was gonna be tricky. So I said to you, didn't I? Just a thought, why don't we do the Elephant Challenge again in the day on the Friday and then just stay on and do the marshaling that we've already volunteered to do.

Paul 34:50

Yeah. That was it.

Aimee 34:50

And then we won't need to do our long runs at the weekend. We can just do shorter runs'cause we'll have done the time on our feet that our coach wants us to do, but just on the Friday instead of over the weekend. So that's what we decided to do. And it worked really well, didn't it?

Paul 35:02

Because I've got unfinished business there. Hadn't I really?

Aimee 35:04

Yeah.

Paul 35:04

Because I've got me...

Aimee 35:05

Yep.

Paul 35:06

Me cold knee issue and I saw the weather and it was gonna be warmer. So I thought, you know what?

Aimee 35:13

Yeah. That, that bit's nonsense.

Paul 35:15

But you know what, let's go back. I didn't have any new trainers at the time.

Aimee 35:19

I know, well, one condition of doing it, I said, you are not wearing new trainers.

Paul 35:23

Oh! You're lucky, I didn't buy them new Timp Boas.

Aimee 35:26

No.

Paul 35:26

Yeah.

Aimee 35:27

So yeah, we,

Paul 35:28

Apparently you can wear them out the box? So we, we signed up for it, didn't we?,

Aimee 35:31

So we signed up. Yeah. So we made a day of it effectively.

Paul 35:33

Yeah.

Aimee 35:33

So we, we turned up again on the Friday morning, so it was the same as last year. It was a nine o'clock start.

Paul 35:39

What was your goal?

Aimee 35:40

I wanted to beat what I did last year.

Paul 35:42

Because you, you got...

Aimee 35:43

I did 10.

Paul 35:43

You got the 50 K didn't you? Last year,

Aimee 35:45

It was more, there's more than 50 K,

Paul 35:47

But yeah, you class it, so you've got the 50.

Aimee 35:48

I did 10 laps. Well, I was thinking in laps. So I did 10 laps last year, so I wanted to do 11.

Paul 35:53

Right.

Aimee 35:53

I just wanted to beat what I did last year. So I was like...

Paul 35:55

I wanted... See, I wanted to get the 50 k, didn't I? And so I took my nutrition. Because I have obviously been having a few issues with nutrition. I think that comes down to the cold. When you got a cold, when you've got a cold belly, maybe my belly...

Aimee 36:10

Oh, you're just trying to blame the weather for everything. That's nonsense!

Paul 36:13

I'm not... You know what I'm have to do in the cold is run with a hot water bottle, because then it keep my belly warm. And then that'll help with food.

Aimee 36:19

Yeah that's what you wanna do. Add more weight. That's a good idea.

Paul 36:22

I'll be like a washing machine. So, well, my key element was try me food out and try and get the 50 K. How did yours go?

Aimee 36:29

Well, really well, really well.

Paul 36:32

Really, really well it went!

Aimee 36:33

I really enjoyed it!

Paul 36:34

Really, really, really well.

Aimee 36:35

Yeah. I, I didn't faff about taking any specific nutrition. I just...

Paul 36:39

no.

Aimee 36:39

I decided to use whatever was on the aid station because I think that's good practice for your belly. And I don't tend to have as many issues as you, do I with my stomach?

Paul 36:46

No, no.

Aimee 36:48

I tend to be able to, most of the time, get away with what's traditionally at aid stations. I mean, I'm not saying I can just try random stuff, but

Paul 36:54

Yeah,

Aimee 36:55

I tend to be okay with the...

Paul 36:57

To be fair, I'm bigger though. I'm...

Aimee 36:58

Stuff you get on aid stations.

Paul 36:59

I'm faster ain't I, so I burn more calories?

Aimee 37:00

No.

Paul 37:01

Huh?

Aimee 37:01

You're not faster. You are bigger. You're not faster.

Paul 37:04

Uh, I was like a whippet on those first three laps. You told me to slow down. You can laugh all you like, but was I go... and I didn't even have my carbon fibres.

Aimee 37:11

No because I knew you were gonna burn out.

Paul 37:13

No, you know what? At that time, I didn't feel that bad.

Aimee 37:16

Well, we set off, didn't we?

Paul 37:17

We set off together.

Aimee 37:18

And we were both feeling really good. We were both feeling really good.

Paul 37:20

Keyword here, together.

Aimee 37:21

And we did run the first... how many laps? Three?

Paul 37:24

Three.

Aimee 37:24

Together, quite fast.

Paul 37:26

Yeah. I think I was feeling good on that third lap and I, you were telling me to slow down. I was like, well, I'll just go off. But you wanted to keep together. So let's just put that out there. So on the third lap, you wanted to stay with me even though I was going quicker and I'm

Aimee 37:40

No, because I knew you were gonna slow down.

Paul 37:42

How did you know? No, no, but

Aimee 37:44

I just knew you.

Paul 37:45

But then you would've caught me up. So being the gentleman, I was like, no problem darling. I will stay with you. That's fine. We will run together. And then what happened?

Aimee 37:54

You really slowed down.

Paul 37:55

I can't, you know what, I'm trying to think. As I was talking, I was thinking what was the issue? Oh, hamstrings.

Aimee 38:01

Yeah.

Paul 38:01

I was having, to be fair, it's easing off now, but sometimes I get... and I'd got my trainers, Mont Blancs. So I was wearing trainers that

Aimee 38:09

We both, we were both wearing our Altra Mont Blancs.

Paul 38:11

Yeah. Which these, yeah, the non-carbon version of those.

Aimee 38:16

They're my favorite trail shoes. I love them.

Paul 38:18

Love them. Some people really give them grief'cause they say they don't fit, but we find'em...

Aimee 38:21

Oh, I love them...

Paul 38:21

Fantastic. Love them.

Aimee 38:22

Absolutely love them.

Paul 38:23

But I've been having, I dunno, it's eased off now, but sometimes I get like hamstring pain. So I was getting a little bit of that. And in the past, one of the other key elements for me, in my head, I was like, when you are on that course, don't stop and walk. Don't walk, do not bloody walk.'Cause my head, I get some pain in that and my head suddenly it starts telling me'what you need to do, Paul','cause my head is, you know, obviously the best coach in the world. It says,'what do you wanna do, Paul? You wanna stop and walk for a little bit, which will help your hamstrings and then you can get going again'. But what it's doing, it's been really bloody sneaky and it's trying to make me walk and then I'm like, oh, I like walking, walking don't hurt. So I was determined not to walk and in my head and I'd just listened to, I'd listen to a podcast, I think, Everyday Ultra, Joe Corcione, who happens to be our coach.

Aimee 39:13

He's our coach.

Paul 39:13

And it's, I I think one of the things in there is I, if you're having, if you're having pain. You know, when I say pain, it, it was just, it was uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable. And I think my brain was going, it's hurting now. It's going to get worse. And then it sort of tells you it's gonna get worse. You're gonna get injured, you won't be able to run. It catalogues, it gives you a list of things. It's fake. It's actually making it up. But on this podcast, it was like, it might not get any worse. That just might be the uncomfortable. Look, Courtney Dauwalter says it, don't she? About the pain cave.

Aimee 39:46

Pain cave.

Paul 39:46

You know, you're not gonna run these long distances and not have a few issues. Your body's fatigued, it don't wanna do it. Your body doesn't wanna do it. So you do get niggles. But if you let it get into your head, especially for me, it really does beat me up. And I was like, right, okay, okay. Right. Get some more calories in. The calories this time were going, they were going all right. I did have to swap it around a little bit because... I'll come onto the calories, but it, the calories went well, but I was like, right. Just run, try and run a bit quicker. It's not, and it made no difference. And in fact, after, I think I had two slowish... I think I had two slow laps and then I think my head got into gear,'well he ain't bloody stopping. We tried every angle to get him to stop and he ain't stopping' and it just, it was there. Whether or not it was exactly the same, but I just weren't taking it the same. And I just carried on going. And I did really well, didn't I?

Aimee 40:35

Yeah.

Paul 40:36

I beat you. No...

Aimee 40:37

No you didn't.

Paul 40:37

Well, I could have, I could have. I didn't want to. But yeah, it did for me, it did go well. Not as well as Aimee.'cause Aimee was powering through and just even...

Aimee 40:47

Well we ended up separating'cause you slowed...

Paul 40:48

Oh yeah.

Aimee 40:49

You slowed down. And I didn't want to slow down.

Paul 40:51

Uh,, so when I was going quick and you slowed down and I stayed with you.

Aimee 40:55

No, I didn't slow down. I was saying, I was suggesting that we perhaps should both slow down.

Paul 41:00

Oh it was suggesting now? That's a...

Aimee 41:01

Yeah.

Paul 41:02

Well, when I was...

Aimee 41:02

Because I was worried you were gonna burn out.

Paul 41:04

Well. When I was having a few hamstring issues, I suggested that we stick together. Oh no. Off she went. Off she went! You left me.

Aimee 41:14

Well, it didn't go like that. You said'just go'!

Paul 41:17

No, that...

Aimee 41:18

In quite an aggressive tone.

Paul 41:19

No, no, because you do the..

Aimee 41:20

Yes, you did.

Paul 41:21

You have this amazing ability to tell me you want to run off without telling me you want to run off. You've just got this amazing ability. You go slightly ahead and inching away and I'm thinking, alright. Inch away. Inch away. And you keep looking behind like'You all right?','You all right?'. I'm like, she's going to leave me. And then I just, in my head I'm, my head goes,'no go, sound, no problem. Go off. I'll meet you at the end'. My mouth for some reason...

Aimee 41:52

Says it more aggressively than that.

Paul 41:54

It comes out different don't it, out me mouth.

Aimee 41:55

Yeah.

Paul 41:56

Yeah. I think there's that little, I dunno, the translation bit between my brain and me mouth, which has got me in trouble a few times. But I think I said, no problem, Aimee, if you just go off, enjoy yourself for the rest of the day. And then what I'll do, I'll meet up with you at the end'.

Aimee 42:09

No, you went,'just go!'.

Paul 42:11

Yeah. See it's that translation thing again. But then,

Aimee 42:13

So I did!

Paul 42:14

She shot off. She shot off. But then after like, I think I had two issues with my brain on two laps. And then I got me arse into gear and it went all right kind of thing. I got to the 50 K.

Aimee 42:26

So you did the nine laps?

Paul 42:27

I did the nine laps. I could have gone,'cause that was on five hours, 23 minutes.

Aimee 42:32

So you could have gone again.

Paul 42:33

I could have, uh, it was one of them.

Aimee 42:35

You had time.

Paul 42:36

I had time, but I thought to myself, you know what, I've done the 50 k

Aimee 42:39

And that was your goal.

Paul 42:40

Yeah. And I knew you were going quite well and I thought, you know, I'm not just saying this... I thought, look, I could go again, but I did want to...'cause I knew you were going well.'Cause I asked Paul and said, where are you at? So I knew you'd got past your 10 or anyway, you were doing well. So I thought I might as well get a bit of footage of you coming in. So, yeah. It did, it went well for me. The biggest thing I found on that one, for me, how would you, what would I say? The biggest, oh, what's it when

Aimee 43:05

Win?

Paul 43:05

Yeah. I suppose the biggest win for me was me winning over my head.

Aimee 43:10

Yeah.

Paul 43:10

Because I did not, I didn't walk on any of them. Just, just,

Aimee 43:16

Yeah, I...

Paul 43:16

I'm just stating that. No, that was my biggest thing was I didn't want to walk on any. And I did it, which that was the biggest win for me. It weren't doing the 50 K or doing it at the time, that wasn't, you know, I don't wanna sound like it's bigheaded or anything, but it's 30 miles, it is a training run for us. But it was, it was beating my brain'cause that negativity once you let it in,

Aimee 43:39

Yeah.

Paul 43:40

It's, once you let that negativity, I call that negativity in the back of my mind. Aimee.

Aimee 43:45

Oh!

Paul 43:47

Joke, joke. But you were smashing it so you...

Aimee 43:51

Yeah, I was going really well.

Paul 43:52

Did you have any dodgy laps?

Aimee 43:53

No.

Paul 43:53

No?

Aimee 43:54

No. It was going really, really well and I had my watch on this occasion, so, I could see... I think you had to do seven and a bit laps to get to a marathon. And I could see, I think around lap five, you do that mental arithmetic in your head, don't you? When you've got a goal in mind and a time or whatever, and I'm always like working things outta my head and I suddenly realized that I could potentially get a marathon pb.

Paul 44:17

Yeah.

Aimee 44:17

Because we've never done an official road marathon, but we've done marathon distance in training and obviously every time you do an ultra, you do a marathon'cause you go over it, don't you?

Paul 44:25

Yeah.

Aimee 44:26

So our watches tell us what our fastest marathon is.

Paul 44:28

Yeah.

Aimee 44:29

And I think mine was five hours something. I mean, we are not fast runners.

Paul 44:32

No.

Aimee 44:32

But I was looking at my watch thinking I could actually potentially get under four hours here for a marathon, which would blow my mind to be honest. For me that's fast. And I know, that's not fast at all that, I mean, elite runners do it ridiculously fast.

Paul 44:46

It's good.

Aimee 44:47

I was like, wow, because that's kind of always been a goal of mine. It's like a little bucket list thing. I would like to do a marathon in under four hours. Like an official marathon. I wanna do it in under four hours, at some point train and do it properly. Maybe even do quicker than that. I dunno. But I'd got under four hours in my head and I thought that was like a long way off and I'd never be able to do it without training specifically for that. But I was thinking I could potentially get this. So that really pushed me on. So I was really, really push, push, push, push. And then I, I'd done the seven, so I only needed to do a part, but I wasn't gonna turn and come back because obviously I was gonna carry on and do an ultra. So I was just gonna keep going until my watch told me I'd done 26, 26.2. And I did, according to my watch, I did take a picture of it as well. I did pause, this is what I shouldn't have done. I paused my watch to get my phone out and video. I did stop after I'd gone past what I thought was the 26.2 miles. I paused my watch and stopped and got my phone out'cause I wanted a video that it... What it showed on my watch, my watch was counting down the time. Because our,

Paul 45:45

Yeah.

Aimee 45:45

Because Joe, our coach had put it into our training plan as a six hour training run.

Paul 45:49

Yeah.

Aimee 45:50

And so that's what I'd started on my watch on the start line. So it was counting down from the six hours and I still had something like two hours, one minute, and 56 seconds left, which to me meant I'd done the marathon in under four hours.

Paul 46:02

Yeah,

Aimee 46:02

Because I'd still got over two hours left and I was absolutely ecstatic. Oh my God, I've just done a marathon in under four hours! So I videoed just for a few seconds my watch, and then I unpaused it and carried on. But that kind of took the pressure off me a little bit at that point'cause I was, oh wow, I've got a Marathon PB. I'd still got loads of time left. I'd got two hours left.

Paul 46:19

Yeah. Yeah.

Aimee 46:20

I was like, I'm just gonna carry on and do whatever I do. I still wanted to get 11 laps, but I've got plenty of time to do the 11 laps. It's like, yeah, this is going really well. So on that seventh lap, there was one hill, wasn't there? There's one, it's not particularly...

Paul 46:33

Is that the long hill with the logs on?

Aimee 46:34

Yeah.

Paul 46:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aimee 46:35

It's not particularly steep, but it goes on for a long time.

Paul 46:38

You know you're on it.

Aimee 46:38

And when, when you are on like your eighth, ninth lap, whatever, you can really feel it in your legs. So on my seventh flap, I'd already hit the marathon distance a bit further back, and then I hit the bottom of that hill and I was running up it, and I did walk a small section of that hill. It was only for a couple of minutes. But I did walk, because I'd pushed myself that hard to get that marathon PB...

Paul 47:00

Still walking.

Aimee 47:00

I was feeling a bit like on that hill, I'm exhausted. So I did walk just for a couple of minutes, but then I ran, I probably walked, I wanna say maybe 20% of it.

Paul 47:10

All of it.

Aimee 47:11

No, I didn't honestly hand on heart. I didn't. But then I carried on running and then after that I didn't walk again. So that was the only time I walked and the only time I stopped was when I stopped at the marathon to video my watch.

Paul 47:22

I wouldn't know'cause you ran off and left me.

Aimee 47:24

That's the genuine truth. So yeah. Carried on. And then you saw me when I was just, when I was approaching the finish on lap 10. You were waiting for me.

Paul 47:33

Yeah.

Aimee 47:34

And you videoed me for a few seconds and said, come on. You were taking the mickey, saying come on, hurry up, I wanna have a coffee, hurry up and do another one. I wanna have a coffee. So yeah.

Paul 47:42

Yeah'cause I was waiting for you to come, so I was like, there was a cafe. There's a cafe there on site as well. Cafe, toilets, so yeah. That's the brilliant thing.

Aimee 47:48

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul 47:49

I was, I was like, oh man, I so want a coffee. And I was thinking, right...'Cause I asked Paul when you'd gone out and he was like, oh,'cause he could see,'cause obviously, you got the little chip thing on your foot and I was thinking, well do I have... she's gonna be... guarantee I'm going to go into that coffee shop, walk out with my coffee and I'm gonna see your back end of you running back off out. So I thought, I can't, I'm thinking, hurry up Aimee! Come on, pull your finger out. So you did, I copped you coming in, didn't I? And that was number 10.

Aimee 48:15

That was lap 10.

Paul 48:15

And you'd still got loads, you had got quite a bit time.

Aimee 48:17

No, I, no, I think it was about, it was about quarter to, I think I've got about 15 minutes left on the six hours. But I could go back out.

Paul 48:24

I dunno.

Aimee 48:24

Because my finish time... I stopped running...

Paul 48:27

Ah, yeah.

Aimee 48:27

At 6 21. So,

Paul 48:29

But you, yeah.

Aimee 48:30

I'd got time to go out again. So I went out and did my 11th, didn't I?

Paul 48:33

Yep.

Aimee 48:34

And then Paul came and met me. You, you,

Paul 48:36

There was a little funny bit in that. What happened on your last lap by the logs?

Aimee 48:41

Oh, I completely forgot. Yes.

Paul 48:42

Yeah.

Aimee 48:43

Um, yes. I had forgotten about that. I was running one section just before you start that... we say it was a section of the lap where there was some logs at the bottom and it was that hill that I was just talking about. Before that there was a long, straight bit and then there was a bit of downhill and on that bit of downhill before you got to that hill. I could see in front of me, there was very few runners left on the course at this point, but in the distance I could see this person lying on the floor and he was moving very strangely. And I just think, what is going on? As I was like running closer. When I got to him, it was a runner literally lying on the floor in what looked like a very awkward position. So of course I stopped and I said,'are you okay? What, what's happening?' And basically he'd got really severe cramp, like really bad. He couldn't move and he couldn't get up. And I said,'oh my goodness, what can I do to help you?' Because, one thing with an event like this, I mean you can choose to carry nutrition if you want to.

Paul 49:30

Yeah, yeah.

Aimee 49:30

But we weren't carrying anything. We didn't have water with us or... oh no, we did carry...

Paul 49:34

No I carried, I had me water bottle.

Aimee 49:35

Sorry. No, we did, we both carried a hand held water bottle.

Paul 49:37

Yep.

Aimee 49:37

That was another thing we did as a training'cause it makes you keep drinking as you go round rather than have to gulp a load down between each lap. So we did have little carry bottles, but that's all I had. Like I didn't have any salt tablets or anything that you might wanna give someone that's cramping and like I didn't have, not that the first aid kit would've helped him.

Paul 49:52

No.

Aimee 49:52

But I didn't have anything on me like that. All I had was my mobile, my mobile phone. But I was like,'are you okay?' And he was lying on his front basically, like face in like almost in a ditch but across the track. But I said,'what can I do? What can I do?' And he said, my wife's gonna come and get me.' And I said,'well, does your wife know you are here?' And he said,'well, once I can get my phone out of my pocket.''Cause he couldn't get to his pocket'cause of the way he was lying to get his phone out. He said,'I'm gonna phone her'. I said, look, let me ring my partner because he's at the start and finish. Let me ring him'cause I've got my phone here. And then he can tell the race director who can then tell your wife.'

Paul 50:24

I was with the race director.

Aimee 50:26

So...

Paul 50:26

Having me coffee!

Aimee 50:27

That's what I did. I rang Paul.

Paul 50:29

I was like, why is Aimee ringing me? I was thinking because the first thing I thought was like. Oh shit.'cause you do think something's gone wrong or you've gone that quick. And I was thinking, no way is she coming around the corner now. But you rang me, didn't you?

Aimee 50:41

Yeah, I was like,'we've got a fallen runner. Can you tell Paul we've got a fallen runner'. In the meantime, the guy had actually managed to just about wrestle his phone out of his pocket. So he then started phoning his wife as well.

Paul 50:52

But Paul knew.'Cause we gave the numb... So you gave me the bib number.

Aimee 50:56

Yes.

Paul 50:56

I said to Paul, it's his bib number and he said, oh, it's so, because obviously this geezer must do quite a few. So he said, oh, that's so and so, and I think I said,'oh, he, he's trying to get a hold of his wife' and Paul the race director said'oh yeah, that's her over there'. And I turned, I could see she was on the phone, so I was on the phone to you. He was on the phone to his wife. It was like a bloody four way conversation! And I can remember going. Well tell him. Yeah. He's on his phone to his wife. She ain't exactly, moving very bloody quick'! And she doesn't..., you know what I mean? He was on the floor in bits, ringing his wife up to come and rescue him and she was just tootling off down the path. I was like, what? Oh, but that slowed you down.

Aimee 51:35

So yeah, I did stop for a few minutes.

Paul 51:36

Yeah.

Aimee 51:36

But then I said to him, look, unless there's anything you want me to do, I don't really know what I can do to help you now. And your wife's on the way. And he's like,'no, no, it's fine. Leave me. I'll be okay. I'll be okay.' So I carried on. Yeah, I'd completely forgotten about that!

Paul 51:47

Yeah.

Aimee 51:47

So yeah, then I carried on and finished my lap. You were waiting a little bit along the track. That was quite funny actually,'cause I could see in the distance Paul waiting for me and then he started sort of hobbling towards me,

Paul 52:00

Because my legs had seized up a bit

Aimee 52:00

And he decided to run into the finish with me. But that was quite funny'cause you were really hobbling.

Paul 52:05

It was, yeah. Because your legs, even though, look, if we do these, after 30 miles. Once you stop, your legs do go a little bit stiff, so to try and get going again. And I was like, oh man. Yeah.

Aimee 52:16

But you managed it. You ran in with me, didn't you? You ran in on my last lap. Yeah. So yeah, I did my 11 laps, which I was absolutely chuffed with.

Paul 52:22

Yeah.

Aimee 52:22

Really, really pleased. So I did the 38 and a half miles in six hours, 21. Which on the leaderboard here, leaderboard.

Paul 52:30

Leaderboard

Aimee 52:30

That meant I was first overall. So I know it's not a race, but I was first overall and Paul was fifth overall.

Paul 52:36

Thank you.

Aimee 52:37

And fourth male.

Paul 52:37

Thank you. For me...

Aimee 52:38

You did very well as well.

Paul 52:39

For me in the scheme of this results, that's quite good for me.

Aimee 52:43

It's very good.

Paul 52:44

But

Aimee 52:44

The only thing that annoyed me a little bit was when I uploaded the run to my watch and looked at all my stats. It turned out I...

Paul 52:51

You got fleeced.

Aimee 52:52

According to my watch, I didn't do a marathon under four hours.

Paul 52:55

You got fleeced didn't ya.

Aimee 52:56

I did it in four hours, one minute and so many seconds. I can't remember.

Paul 53:00

Was it even one minute? I thought it was only a few seconds.

Aimee 53:02

No, no. It was, it was four hours, one minute and something seconds.

Paul 53:05

Well...

Aimee 53:05

So I did go over the four hours according to the official...

Paul 53:09

Well, it...

Aimee 53:09

Stats. although I've got video of my watch saying otherwise.

Paul 53:12

It's irrelevant. It's not in your watch.

Aimee 53:14

But, that was still a significant marathon PB.

Paul 53:17

Mm-hmm.

Aimee 53:18

Because my previous time was five hours and something.

Paul 53:20

It's not four though, is it?

Aimee 53:20

So I smashed my marathon PB.

Paul 53:23

Yeah.

Aimee 53:23

Which...

Paul 53:23

Fair play to ya. Fair play.

Aimee 53:25

I'm still really happy about that.

Paul 53:26

I don't even know what my marathon would've been on that then? I wouldn't,

Aimee 53:29

Did it not tell you? Your watch should have told you. Well, I suppose it would only have signaled it if it was a PB.

Paul 53:34

I wonder if I can go in there and see where I was at on the 20...

Aimee 53:36

Yeah, you could probably work it out.

Paul 53:37

Six mile? Oh god, just think if I beat you! That'd be horrible, wouldn't it?

Aimee 53:42

You might have, we'll have to have a look. We'll have a look.

Paul 53:45

Oh...

Aimee 53:46

We'll do an update.

Paul 53:47

Yeah. Yeah. I, you know what? Not a chance. Not a chance.

Aimee 53:52

So yeah, we finished.

Paul 53:54

Yep.

Aimee 53:54

That was great. We got our flapjack, which was the last ever flapjack. It was, well, not, not week, got the last flapjack, literally. But that's the last event at which he's going to hand out those..

Paul 54:03

Good flapjack.

Aimee 54:04

Absolutely delicious flapjacks. And we had a bottle of apple juice.

Paul 54:07

Yeah.

Aimee 54:08

Got our medals and our badges and then we went off for a bit, didn't we? We changed out of our running gear and went off and found a McDonald's. Because we were trying to find somewhere to eat locally'cause we didn't have a lot of time because we needed to be back for half five, didn't we?

Paul 54:22

Yeah.

Aimee 54:22

To help out'cause we were volunteering on the Petzyl Night Run.

Paul 54:25

The night run.

Aimee 54:26

So yeah, that was interesting. Hadn't really thought that through had we? Obviously marshaling you are standing up, aren't you?

Paul 54:34

Yeah. Yeah.

Aimee 54:35

So I mean, I know we've done much longer ultras, but as Paul said, any ultra distance, you do feel sore on the day. Once you stop, your brain goes,'oh, that was a long run'.

Paul 54:46

Your legs seize up a bit.

Aimee 54:47

You're gonna seize up. So we were a bit stiff and sore, weren't we? So we had to walk out to Paul the race director had very kindly given us checkpoint... we were both at a corner on the course where we could see each other.'Cause it was a lap, this particular loop. That this,

Paul 55:03

It's like a figure of eight.

Aimee 55:03

These two junctions were quite close together, weren't they?

Paul 55:05

Yeah.

Aimee 55:05

So we could see each other, but we were on a different part of the course effectively and we had to make sure that our runners, when they got to us, went in the right direction.'Cause there was like a junction. So we, I was basically saying'go left'. That's confusing as well, isn't it? When you are facing them. I was having to say turn left, but point with my right hand, cause they were coming towards me and then turning. That was well confusing.

Paul 55:24

Ah, yeah. You were weren't you?

Aimee 55:26

Yeah, yeah.

Paul 55:26

Lucky I dunno the left from right. So I was going...

Aimee 55:29

Yeah, you're awful with lefts and rights!

Paul 55:29

'Yeah let's go left!' I was getting told off saying go left'cause of the razzles.

Aimee 55:33

Yeah, I, I had to keep saying mentally you've gotta say left, even though I'm pointing with my right hand. But yeah. Just basically had to stand on this corner with torches and everything and cheer them...

Paul 55:42

We had flashing lights.

Aimee 55:42

Yeah. We had flash lights to signal where we were, cheer them on and then make sure they went the right direction.

Paul 55:46

Yeah.

Aimee 55:47

But that meant we were stood... well it was a little bit of a walk to that point. It was probably only half a mile, but it was a...

Paul 55:51

That was nice'cause that had loosened us up.

Aimee 55:53

Yeah. And then we had to stand for a couple of hours.

Paul 55:57

Yeah. Weren't even, weren't even... hour and a half?

Aimee 55:58

Which, which one you are a bit sore. I found myself, I was sort of jigging and dancing because I didn't wanna stand still'cause that was making me stiffen up even more. So I was just basically jigging around. Like, and I put some like cowbell noises on my mobile phone and I was like,

Paul 56:11

Yeah.

Aimee 56:12

Jiggling around, like, cheering on these runners. It was good fun, but...

Paul 56:15

It was.

Aimee 56:15

But it was interesting for our legs. So we ended up doing a lot more steps, didn't we?

Paul 56:19

Yep.

Aimee 56:20

In the evening. But enjoyed it.

Paul 56:22

And fair play to the people doing it.

Aimee 56:23

It was good fun.

Paul 56:24

There was some people motoring around there.

Aimee 56:26

Oh yeah.

Paul 56:27

Was it 10 K?

Aimee 56:27

Oh, fast. It was 10 K yeah.

Paul 56:29

Yeah. Super. Some of them people do those 10 Ks some super fast.

Aimee 56:31

Super fast. Yeah.

Paul 56:32

Ooh.

Aimee 56:33

Yeah.

Paul 56:33

Yeah. They're rapid. Rapid.

Aimee 56:34

I like seeing the dogs as well.

Paul 56:36

Yeah.

Aimee 56:36

The dogs are funny.

Paul 56:37

What tends to happen with the dogs, water, they see a puddle of water.

Aimee 56:41

Yeah, my corner, there was a massive puddle.

Paul 56:43

Yeah.

Aimee 56:43

And nearly every dog just dove straight into the puddle.

Paul 56:46

Yeah. I had a little like swamp thing and they were in there and, yeah. Yeah.

Aimee 56:51

It's funny. Yeah. Then when obviously the tail runner had come through, and then the other marshals who'd already seen the tail runner, they walked to where we were and then we all walked into the finish together. And then we helped.

Paul 57:00

Yeah. Helped pack up.

Aimee 57:00

Helped pack everything away.

Paul 57:01

Yeah.

Aimee 57:02

It's amazing how much goes into putting these events on. There's a lot to pack away.

Paul 57:05

I don't, yeah, I don't think people realize,'cause you just, you rock up at these things, don't you? And you kind of see a few tables. You've got where they put the food on. You've got some gazebos. I think, in your head, you kind of look at it. Oh, it'ent a lot. But...

Aimee 57:18

It is.

Paul 57:18

It is. There's a lot going on. When you've got, you think you've gotta pack it down at night and it, I hold my hat off to them. There is a lot of work that goes into them.

Aimee 57:28

Yeah.

Paul 57:28

There really is. And for the... you know, it's 30, 35 quid or whatever it was, or even not for that. You're getting a lot, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes. I, you know, I hold my hat off to anybody who puts on a race. But it is, yeah. It's really worth doing. It is, I dunno, you feel like you are giving something back.'Cause when we are out running and we've done quite a lot of runs and when you're down on your luck on some of these runs and you've got a nice,

Aimee 57:49

Oh, the marshalls.

Paul 57:50

Aid station or...

Aimee 57:51

Can make all the difference.

Paul 57:52

Yeah.

Aimee 57:52

I think if they're really like trying to gee you up, cheer you on and

Paul 57:56

It really, I dunno, it does help. It does help.

Aimee 57:59

Well we've done it a few times now, haven't we? Yeah, we've done a couple now for Big Bear. We've done another.

Paul 58:03

Yeah. And I'm a bit lively so it probably, it probably does nark some people off'cause I'm well lively. But yeah, I think sometimes, you know, if you're happy messing around and that, but

Aimee 58:13

I would encourage you, any, anyone watching this, if you've not volunteered on a race, do it because it's, it helps keep races going. I mean, a lot of these events wouldn't be able to run without volunteers, so

Paul 58:22

Oh you wouldn't be able to staff it, not with the costs.

Aimee 58:24

And it just feels good to give back, doesn't it?

Paul 58:26

Yeah.

Aimee 58:26

And it's good fun.

Paul 58:27

Yeah.

Aimee 58:28

And we don't do it for this reason, but a lot of events, they'll give you something in return for volunteering.

Paul 58:33

Yeah. Yeah.

Aimee 58:33

So it's different with different events, but you might get a free place on another race or discounts or stuff.

Paul 58:38

Yeah.

Aimee 58:39

So yeah, volunteering. It's good fun.

Paul 58:41

Yeah. Yeah.

Aimee 58:41

And I will encourage anyone to do it.

Paul 58:43

Do it, but, right. So rounding it off. Definitely an event, so if you are thinking of dabbling into ultra distance, say you're on your marathon and you do want to go into summat 30, 35 mile or summat but you're a bit like... an A to B or something, dunno. Because what happens if someone happens? I've not done that extra 10 mile or whatever you are going for, these are brilliant.

Aimee 59:06

Yeah.

Paul 59:07

They are brilliant.

Aimee 59:08

Just try it.

Paul 59:08

Yeah, just try it, try it.'cause you you'll know, I dunno. Like we've said, numerous occasions. You can try stuff and there's no pressure. There's no pressure. If you're having a bad time, you're not gonna DNF on one of these.

Aimee 59:20

No, you can't DNF

Paul 59:22

You're not gonna DNF. So definitely...

Aimee 59:23

Do one lap! If you're not feeling it, stop. You still get a medal. They're really, really good events.

Paul 59:29

A hundred percent. Hundred percent. So they are the Big Bear Events, aren't they?

Aimee 59:34

Yeah.

Paul 59:35

So they're all on the social medias, good website, loads of races. He does a lot of races.

Aimee 59:40

Oh, and also we didn't mention he does a podcast now.

Paul 59:42

Yeah, he's doing a podcast, probably a lot more...

Aimee 59:44

Big Bear Trail Times, I think it's called.

Paul 59:46

Probably a lot more professional than this one.

Aimee 59:49

Yeah. Give him a listen.

Paul 59:50

Yeah, well, I think he's on number eight, so he's got a few in front of us,'ent he really, I don't even know what number we're on! But yeah, that's it. So we've had to get this one in because we've just done it. Other than that, we'd forget it. I don't even know which one we're gonna do next.

Aimee 1:00:05

No!

Paul 1:00:05

Who knows. Who knows. We're just gonna put another one on! Yeah. So I think when we originally said we're gonna go back, it's probably gonna go...

Aimee 1:00:11

We're jumping all over the place!

Paul 1:00:12

Jumping all over the place, but it's just a chat about what we've got up to. So this one then, Aimee beat me on this one. Right. Even though it was a race. So Aimee beat me on this one. So, we'll, uh. We'll have a look and see what happens on the next one. I dare say I can probably predict the future! Right! Let's round it up. We're gonna put all the information in wherever it goes, and yes, hopefully we will see you on the next one, which is about we don't know. We don't know! But it will be us having a chat. So thank you again if you've got this far. Thank you so much don't forget to follow us

Aimee 1:00:49

Social media. Yeah, we're on Instagram and Facebook as Solemate Runners. Give us a like and a follow.

Paul 1:00:55

What do they say on YouTube? Subscribe on YouTube. Subscribe. But yeah. Right. We're going!. Right. Bye!

Aimee 1:01:02

Thanks for listening!