March 19, 2024 • 50 mins
Jonathan Albon is a 34 year old multi-discipline athlete originally from the UK, now living in Norway.
Jon has left his mark on many sports including Obstacle Course Racing where he recently took home the largest prize in OCR history by crossing the line first in Saudi Arabia; completing 100 kilometres in 8 hours with 20 obstacles per 10K lap!
He has some equally impressive results in trail and ultra running including top spots at OCC and CCC in recent years as well as 3rd in the short trail distance at the World Mountain and Trail Championships in Thailand in 2022.
He has twice won the final ranking of Sky Extreme Series and has once been the overall winner of the Skyrunner World Series.
Jon and his wife Henriette, who is also an accomplished professional trail runner, have created a training app, aptly named AlbonApp, for athletes of all levels, incorporating strength training and cardio workouts.
Jon will be making his 100 miler debut without obstacles at Western States 100 this summer.
Here is Jon....
You can follow Jon on Instagram here - https://www.instagram.com/jonalbon/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi everyone, this is Michele Graglia. This is Marianne Hogan.
Hi, I'm Adrian McDonald.
I'm Katie Asmund. Hi, this is Anthony Gasols.
Hi, my name is Meg Morgan. Hey, it's Jordan Trofe. This is John Ray.
This is Ryan Van Duser, and you are listening to the Gotta Run Racing Podcast.
Podcast hello hey everyone we are back with another gotta
(00:22):
run race podcast i'm jody and i'm norm
today i'm feeling a little retro if you're
watching the video version of this episode because i'm wearing my chase the
coyote trucker hat signed by my running idols dean carnas and rob wow yeah i'm
wearing this baby in a while we still get people asking us for this hat But unfortunately,
(00:45):
it is long sold out. Yeah, long gone.
Before we get into today's podcast, a big shout out to our Patreon supporters.
Yes, Patreon, we love you. Yes.
If you want to be a Patreon supporter, please head on over to patreon.com slash
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We really appreciate any support that you can give us because we have big plans
(01:09):
for this year. We want to expand.
We want to grow. We want to attend more races, locally and otherwise, and talk to the people.
Yeah, just keep giving you some amazing content.
That's right. And what's happening in the world of Got to Run Racing?
Well, we have some exciting news for our in-person races.
(01:29):
We have a new sponsor, and that is Shox.
Wow. I know, right? I am in shock.
Shox makes bone conduction headphones, meaning they have headphones that do
not go in your ear and inhibit your ability to hear your surroundings.
We've been using them for quite a few years now. They're fantastic.
(01:51):
And they have graciously donated Open Run Pro. Show them, Norm.
Here we go. Now, we say no headphones allowed in our races, but...
We do, but we make an exception for bone conduction.
There you go. And Shox is the best bone conduction out there.
So we've got three pairs of these babies. We're going to raffle one off at each
(02:11):
of our races. So if you haven't signed up yet, sign up.
These are worth $230 Canadian.
Whoa. And they are amazing headphones. So thank you, Shox.
Thank you for supporting us. And our three races that you sign up for are...
Lost Treasure Trail Race, May 18th, Rainbow Trail Run, July 27th,
(02:32):
and Island Lake Classic Labor Day. Labor Day Monday.
See you there. All right. And who's on the podcast today?
Today, we have Jonathan Alban. He's a 34-year-old multidiscipline athlete,
originally from the UK, now living in Norway with his wife.
John has left his mark on many sports, including obstacle course racing,
(02:53):
where he recently He recently took home the largest prize in OCR history by
crossing the line first in Saudi Arabia,
completing an astounding 100 kilometers in eight hours with 20 obstacles per 10K lap.
I just can't. I can't. Anyways, he has some equally impressive results in trail and ultra running,
including top spots at OCC and CCC in recent years, as well as third in the
(03:18):
short trail distance at the World Mountain and Trail Championships in Thailand in 2022.
He has twice won the final ranking of Sky Extreme Series and has once been the
overall winner of the Skyrunner World Series.
John and his wife Henrietta, who's also an accomplished professional trail runner,
have created a training app, which we can't wait to ask him about.
Yeah, that's all coming up. This is incredible, the fact that he's going to
(03:41):
be our first OCR athlete on our podcast, but that in itself is an ultra.
Yes, and he's going to be running Western, so we've got lots to talk about.
That's right. Here's John coming up.
Music.
Welcome to the podcast, John, and congratulations on your recent win at the
(04:06):
Tough Mudder in Saudi Arabia, where you earned yourself a sweet little paycheck,
which we'll get into soon.
But how are you feeling? How's the recovery going? going?
Yeah, well, thanks for having me. Recovery, it feels good.
The main issues I had in the race was muscular stiffness.
So I don't think I was prepared for running that distance, running in the sand and doing obstacles.
(04:31):
So I generally feel like my engine was prepared and my engine didn't get used
as much as it could have during the race.
So that's actually recovering relatively quickly, but I still need to wait a
few more days for my hamstrings to be ready to run I think.
Yeah, because sand doesn't exactly equal snow. And we definitely know that feeling.
(04:51):
Yeah, for sure. And actually here, there's so much snow that you can't run on it.
There's not many places people sort of like pack down a trail.
So it's either kind of icy road running or treadmill running,
which really doesn't cut it.
And I mean, I've been mainly skiing anyway.
But I have actually really tried to keep the running miles and kilometers there
(05:13):
because I'm doing Western States. And it was always a plan to try and run a
bit more during the winter.
So this was a good opportunity to have something relatively early in the year,
which forced me to keep that running mileage up. Yeah, that's great.
Well, we are strictly an ultra running podcast, but can you tell our listeners
what is a Tough Mudder and all the obstacles that are involved in Tough Mudder race? Yeah, sure.
(05:38):
Obstacle racing is kind of like, it's like as a racing sport about 10 years old,
and it's a running race but there's lots
of obstacles that you have to do on your way around they can
vary from crawling under things jumping over
things climbing stuff carrying stuff
a lot of hanging off things and swinging in between things these days with the
(06:02):
ninja warrior type influence but it's kind of like a sport that tests you in
a little bit more than just you know putting one foot in front of the other
but apart from that it is a running race just with a little bit of extra stuff thrown in.
Well, that's the thing. It is, in fact, an ultra, because you're doing 100k
going all kinds of loops, 10k loops.
(06:23):
But what obstacle did you keep dreading have to repeat 10 times?
I think...
To be honest, no matter like whether there's really hard obstacles or really
easy obstacles, you always think about that obstacle, which is hardest maybe
for you or that you might fail because we did actually have wristbands.
And if you failed any obstacles, you had to then do penalty loops.
(06:45):
And the only obstacle that I really thought I could end up failing is the balance
beam because I mean, you're in slightly higher stack shoes,
balance beams, it's quite easy just to accidentally just fall off,
you lose concentration and the wind did get up a lot as well
so the one that I figured I could fail was the
balance beam but to be honest there was a lot of crawling
(07:05):
and crawling on sandy gritty horrible
rocky ground is just awful so
I actually wore tights pretty much for for
the for the protection it would give my knees so I didn't I didn't dread getting
down on my knees and crawling again and again and again I don't know my my mind
is so blown the fact that you're covering as many kilometers as some of the
(07:31):
pros do in just a running race,
but yet you're doing all of these obstacles.
I can't quite wrap my head around that. At the same time. At the same time.
And it doesn't seem to slow you down.
I'm just so impressed by that because we've loosely followed OCR over the years
and it seems like it's getting more intense, tense, more harder, more challenging.
(07:53):
Are they trying to make these races more difficult? Do you find?
Yeah, I'm not sure. I think obstacle racing has certainly changed through the years.
If you turn back time, it used to be a lot more just like a mud run with just
some ditches and some crawling.
And the challenge was really a bit more natural, whereas now there's a lot more
(08:13):
man-made obstacles and also a lot more convoluted obstacles that almost require
a rule book for each one. So you're, you're allowed to use your feet on this one, but not on this one.
You're allowed to touch these bars, but not those bars and a lot more hanging
grip, intense obstacles, which have become like a lot more complicated,
but then that sort of more raw side of obstacle racing where you got really
(08:37):
cold and had to swim a lot and sort of.
Went over and through hundreds of ditches in a row is kind of, is
receded a little bit but then this this race definitely did
feel a little bit more old school there weren't that many hanging obstacles
it was a lot more crawling it was a bit more sort
of simple so i think the main obstacle for this one really was going to be the
(08:57):
heat but thankfully it wasn't that hot we had rain in the morning and the wind
got up and we had a bit of cloud cover so i was kind of happy happy for that
and also the sand and running in sand is different to snow no, it's not nice.
I think if anything, you should be more of a cyclist to be able to move on sand
(09:18):
well than a runner, because that running stride is kind of negated when every
footfall kind of gets sort of like sucked backwards.
It wasn't the softest sand it could have been. It was about 50,
50, 50% hard sand, 50% sort of soft, softer sand, but none of those really horrible
sand dudes where you take three steps forward and you slide two steps backwards.
So that certainly did allow us to do more kilometers
(09:41):
but then with more kilometers meant my
legs just weren't prepared for that because it's just so early in the season
so it was kind of crazy like it's not often I would really have ever contemplated
running 100 kilometers in February but then when someone says to run eight hours
in February it's like well yeah okay it doesn't sound so bad and I didn't really
(10:02):
connect the dots that it was going to be that far.
And how does it work on your last lap do they
let you go out even though you don't
have necessarily enough time and then they count your kilometer to
where you stop at the eight hour mark no so
they it was an eight hour lap to race and it
was 10 kilometer laps so we had eight hours do as many laps as possible but
(10:24):
you had an extra hour to finish that last lap so that means you could go out
for another lap as long as you came in before the eight hour mark but then if
you didn't complete that lap they didn't really count sort of part of that lap.
It just kind of rolled back to where you finished the position you finished the lap before.
And I did actually come in my 10th lap two minutes before the eight hour mark.
(10:49):
So I could have gone out for another one, but I'd done the math and there was
no way second place was going to come in within two minutes.
So I was very glad to stop there. And the fact that I had to do another one
made me very happy. I'm sure.
So we reached out to one one of our listeners, Brent, who is a OCR guy and a
trail runner, because we thought let's get a question from someone that really follows this sport.
(11:13):
And we've never done this before
in our podcast. So here's our first go at having a listener question.
So he asks, how do you balance your training for OCR with sky mountain running?
Example, training for grip and carries, which I.
To be honest, I mean, I've actually done mostly just trail running for the past two years.
(11:36):
So that means obstacle race training has kind of been on the back foot.
But even then before when I was doing both trail running and obstacle racing,
my specific training for obstacle racing just really wasn't there.
I was mainly training for the trail running and then I was going climbing,
which was a really fun form of grip strength training and a really nice form of strength training.
(11:57):
It's very functional and it's a fun sport in itself. So that means it never
felt like a chore to go and work on my grip strength.
And that's what I did into this race. I did start going climbing and I have
like a little hanging routine on a hangboard that I did. And I do that sort of maybe twice a week.
And then I did one workout where I did a heat training workout on the treadmill.
(12:19):
And then I went out into minus five or whatever it was outside and did a run
where I did some burpees every five minutes.
And I ran to this military area and I did a few obstacles. And then I ran home
again, doing some burpees every five minutes.
That was my main specific training for this race.
And to be honest, this was a training race for me in a sense.
(12:42):
My main focus is towards Western States. So I actually only planned in one week
of real focused training ready for the Tough Mudder in Saudi.
Well, clearly you had a great base heading into it because obviously it worked out for you.
Yeah for sure i think my base at this time of
year is always as strong as it can be but my
(13:04):
leg adaption or acclimatization to being
able to run well or at least run for a
long time is its lowest so then it's the
point when you have to cross that you've still got some base left but
you've acclimatized your legs to the running which is when
you can have your best races and that was the problem i had
i had a good base fitness but my legs just weren't
(13:25):
ready for the the distance i'm wondering
too i just want to ask the question because we're also
big fans of tennis and there's a big controversy right now about the players
going to tournaments in the middle east i'm just curious if you had any hesitation
morally with attending a race there and i you know what,
(13:50):
No judgment, because the money that they're offering to attend these events,
totally get it. It's a very valid question.
And there is something I thought about. But then there's things I agree with
in most countries and things I disagree with in most countries.
I mean, even going to the States to run a running race, it's not as if I agree
(14:13):
with everyone having a gun.
And I don't really think about the fact that I'm going to America.
America so I haven't really thought too much
about it to be honest and it was
a very good opportunity for me to make
some prize money which is going to allow me then to
improve my training facilities and sort of like further my own athletic career
(14:35):
so it's not something I got too bogged down in thinking about I was actually
contemplating more whether it would help me in my running season or whether
it would hinder me in my running season and the moral side of things didn't play so much I mean,
I probably should have done more research into it, but that's the way it happened.
Well, I think that's a very valid statement because when you're in the North
(14:59):
American culture, and it's happening in Canada too,
where gun violence is such a huge factor, yet they sort of push that down as
it's just the norm, which is horrible.
But it's good and bad in every country. We have to look within just as much
as we... How can you point fingers when no one's innocent in anything in this world anymore?
(15:25):
No one is perfect, that is for sure. Yeah, yeah.
But it's quite fascinating that it's happening throughout so many different sports.
And it's great for our sport because we're...
Extremely underpaid in my opinion compared to
what you guys do and how many hours are spent
(15:46):
in the actual sport itself if you
translate the hour spent to the money earned it's
pennies per hour realistically compared
to some mainstream sports we certainly aren't paid quite as
much as some other athletes but then i like
to think that we're rewarded in other ways and one of them is
the fact that trail running is an exceptionally fun sport so i guess we're not
(16:10):
paid as much money but we're paid more in enjoyment maybe good point and another
thing that we've talked about and with other athletes is the fact that i can't
think of another sport where the amateurs can line up.
On at the same start line as the elites the
pros which is i hope that doesn't change yeah it's
fun and also that is actually not in this race but
(16:33):
in previously in obstacle racing in what has allowed them
to have higher prize spots because it is
a mass participation sport there's a lot of people doing them they're paying
to do them and then they're trying to then put that money
back into the sport by then providing a prize spot for the for the elites whereas
i think with this race it was more coming from the saudi government and whatnot
(16:54):
but i i do like the fact that yeah people can go and take part in the sport
and they can be inspired and it is is both sports are certainly very healthy for you,
or at least training for them is healthy.
Maybe the actual doing of them isn't so healthy because I don't think the human
body was really made to...
To undergo what we ask of it. But I think definitely like the lifestyle and
(17:17):
the training for the events can be very healthy.
And yeah, the fact that the sports are so varied means you can train in a way,
which means you can still perform at a high level, but have a relatively healthy body.
I do think fitness and health are two very different things.
And in some sports, fitness really does take priority and health really doesn't.
(17:37):
Whereas you can almost strike like a healthy balance between
two within obstacle racing and travel
yeah great point great point well you
also beat our fellow canadian ryan
atkins you know him obviously race against him.
You raced with him several times and we do know
ryan and lindsey well they lived they did live down the
(17:58):
street from us yeah and they competed in one of our events
chase the coyote but they also
recently just started getting to sky running did you have anything
to do with that getting them into sky running yeah possibly
i mean ryan and lindsey are great people and
we actually we go way back now it's funny how time
flies yeah i know especially lindsey did
(18:18):
have a great sky running season and she came
over to europe for a few races and she did really well but
there is is a thing within trail running as
well that there's so many different series it's hard like that
year i didn't do any sky running at all i actually did the golden trail series
so it's it's a shame we didn't cross paths so much
but yeah no it's great that they're sort of spreading their
(18:39):
wings a little bit and trying some other sports because i definitely
think that trail running is a little bit more of
a competitive sport and you kind of need that in order to keep
pushing your limits and keep pushing your boundaries and improving so there's
certainly a lot of challenging races out there and it's just good to to improve
and to compare yourself to these these great athletes so So I think that not
(19:04):
only can they be very successful within trail running, it's also going to improve their obscuration.
Well, we do have a sky running event here in Canada called Meet the Minotaur.
And it's my my wife will be coming for it yes unfortunately
i will not be because it's i think it's maybe the week
before western yeah so uh so i'll
(19:24):
be i'll be down yeah i guess in the sort
of california kind of yeah down down near
san francisco sort of tahoe type area and hemorrhage will fly up for the for
the sky race so that'll be that'll be fun i'm sure i have to report back to
me what it was like yeah because i was going to ask you if you're ever going
to race it in in the future because
it's deemed the hardest of the series according to the elite anyway okay,
(19:48):
that's that's interesting is stereotypically maybe
not for canada but for american trail races are generally a
little bit less technical and a little bit
not not easier just just different so yeah it'll
be fun to to hear her opinion on that and i mean it's
a hard thing with sky running running because sky running was
a very nail sport you know
(20:09):
there was a lot of scrambling it was almost like mountaineering but
moving fast and then to become a bit more mainstream
they had to dial it back a little bit and they got more events and
more athletes and it had to become a little bit less technical
and and things and then now with golden
travel series and sort of some other series coming about
it does seem that sky running is having to go back to its roots a
(20:31):
little little bit and really say no we are a technical running race.
And get back to sort of you know that that sort
of like dna so it's really cool that they do have some great.
Technical races because it is really fun to
move in that terrain and that's actually something that i enjoy the most
especially within training the winner of
last year from france he won the one in
(20:52):
meet the meditor and he said it was the absolute hell that
he went through according according to every other race that
he's done in sky running so that'll be interesting stuff
yeah i can't wait to hear what she thinks there's so
many similarities between ocr and
trail running are you surprised that more athletes aren't
(21:12):
crossing over to dip their hand in in either
sport i'd love to see a jim walmsley or a courtney to
walter attempt obstacle but i can't
i can't to picture it yeah I'm
not sure like I was certainly expecting more people to
be at this race especially with the prior spot for grabs and
I was expecting the actual obstacle races to take it a little
(21:34):
bit more seriously or to be better prepared as well but maybe that
was just I was having a very good day and
sort of didn't see their best but a lot of even the obstacle
races did the team event so it didn't really feel like there
was even that many of us going for the the individual and
it was really well paid up until 10th place but as for trail runners going to
(21:54):
obstacle racing I'm sure they would do well at least some of them and I'm sure
some of them would just absolutely hate it because it's very type 2 fun I mean
getting down on the ground.
But crawling, throwing yourself over a wall and landing on the other side and
having that impact in your legs, it's tough for the body in a very different way.
(22:16):
It's not just putting one foot in front of the other. So it would be really
interesting, especially to see Courtney run because nothing seems to stop Courtney.
So she doesn't seem to be human. So it would be interesting to see how well she'd do.
And there is the World's Toughest Mother, the 24-hour obstacle race,
which would be, I mean, it would be incredible to see her on there and see how
well she could do. It sure would. Good.
(22:36):
Another event that we want to ask you about was the Festival de Templar in the
south of France, which you've won the ADK a couple of times.
I think it's celebrating its 30th year this year.
And just from what I saw on their website, this is a tough race,
3,500 meters and 80 kilometers.
It looks kind of unique. They give you a nice laurel wreath at the finish line
(22:59):
and a really cool handmade trophy.
Can you tell us a bit about that event? Because we'd never heard of it before.
Fork? It is a really, really nice trail race, which is in Chamonix.
So I guess a lot of trail racing seems to be around in the Alps area.
It's a really old race. It's actually, I think, France's oldest trail race.
(23:21):
And it's a little bit more runnable. So especially the first half is very fast,
a little bit sort of easier trails, a little bit less technical, but
then especially the last 15 kilometers is steeper
and is more technical and that has actually meant that
more americans have come over to try it it
has been a very big intentional event and they
(23:41):
always have a relatively good price price purse
there as well i really do like that event it's just
it's just different to the others it's a bit more trail running
rather than mountain running in sort of my definition it
is sort of a bit more rolling you can have a bit more speed and
it does start very very fast and it's just a beautiful area with this sort of
(24:01):
black plains but then it drops into sort of canyons normally and it's held in
the autumn so you've got the sort of like the autumn leaf color and then a bit
of a cloud inversion with some fog in the valleys it's just a really nice really nice race.
I love the rabbit hole that I sometimes go down when I'm looking at our guest
races because I came across that one.
(24:23):
And then I somehow ended up on this other race called the, it's in Malau,
where the viaduct is. Oh, okay, yeah.
So that's the town where Tom plays.
There's a road race that goes across the highest viaduct in Europe,
I believe. And it just looks stunning.
So I said to Norm, well, we're going to be doing that one. so let's add
(24:45):
that to our never-ending list of races yeah
yeah no that's certainly one i haven't done
but it is a beautiful area so whether you could go for a complier or
the viaduct race i'm sure you'll enjoy yourself and
it's really nice it's there's a lot of other distances
in that week but it definitely is a festival and it feels like
a very small personal event full of
(25:08):
locals and everyone's happy but on a big scale because
there's nine thousand people running so it's just just
kind of you get that sort of you know nice community feeling but
on on steroids it's it's really a nice atmosphere
that's really difficult to do yeah yeah
think about it yeah because i mean it's a great finish
line in chamonix especially during utmb week but then
(25:29):
the majority of people may be watching haven't done
a race or they're tourists or they're just there for holidays
whereas it seems like for tompier the people
that are there watching and cheering on you they've have also done a race and
everyone because they just love traveling and that is a
sort of different sort of feeling when you when you're on love that
last year you won cc which
(25:51):
earned you a ticket to western states and that would be your first attempt at
100 mile without obstacles is that so how long has western states been on your
radar hey guys if you like what you're hearing so far And check this out.
Calling all trail runners to come on out to Mansfield, Ontario this May.
(26:14):
The Lost Treasure Trail Race features both the 5 and 10K on the beautiful trails
at the Mansfield Outdoor Center.
As the story goes, the American outlaw Jesse James buried a barrel full of gold
coins stolen from a train on his relative's property somewhere in the hills of Mulmer.
You'll earn your very own coin medal when you cross the finish line.
(26:42):
To be honest, I mean, it's always been on my radar because it is a very big,
famous, cool-looking race with some great athletes that have done some incredible
things there and it's got a really rich history.
To be honest, a lot of the decisions I've made in my running career have been very accidental.
I mean, I started running when I was 20 and normally how I'd pick which events
(27:06):
I'm going to do is people would ask me to go to them and I'd say yes.
And I think I almost lost that thing in the past two years.
Maybe I made more decisions or sponsors came in and they had things I wanted
to do and Hemreta made decisions for me.
And then i've always found the most success and i've
had the most fun and sort of like been the most relaxed and
(27:28):
the best experience when it has been a bit more random or i've just
you know followed that path not of least resistance but that
is just set out for me and when i
won the golden ticket for western states i
had no idea that was even a ticket race and
i just got an email saying you you've
got an entry for western states if you want it and i thought well let's
(27:50):
go go for it then and see what happens wow what a
nice surprise wow yeah a
nice surprise but then having just run ccc which
is 100 kilometers then you get an email two days later saying you have just
one entry into 160 kilometers you have to decide in the next 10 days it actually
leaves you a little bit tired and stressed to be honest but i mean it wasn't
(28:16):
a a hard decision to make and I'm looking forward to the experience.
And I'm also looking forward to the fact that it is my first hundred miler. I hate pressure.
I hate to be a favorite and I hate expectation and I shouldn't have that in this race.
There's other great athletes which have done very special things on that course.
I'm definitely shouldn't be the favorite.
I just want to go have a good run, see how I do.
(28:39):
And normally that's how the races play out the best for me.
So hopefully I can keep that mindset all the way through to race day,
but it's easier said than done.
Who were you looking forward to racing against or just being there to start line with?
I guess actual people, I guess, maybe, I guess if Jim does race,
(28:59):
it'd be super interesting to, to run with him.
But then usually, to be honest, I'm very sort of self-centered.
I'm just going to concentrate on my own race, my own pacing,
my own fueling, and just my own experience with the course.
Normally I actually prefer running alone. I absolutely hate running behind someone else.
And if I'm normally happiest when I'm just running alone,
(29:21):
normally actually, if I'm in the lead, that's when i'm absolutely happiest but we'll
see we'll see how the race plays out i think the knowledge that
some of the athletes had about how to execute this race
is far beyond my own i mean i've i've been on maybe five percent of the course
when i've been at the spartan world championships in tahoe i i haven't run a
hundred mile trail race before it's very hot which generally doesn't suit me
(29:44):
the beginning at least is at elevation which again doesn't suit me i live that, well,
there's so many things that I need to try and focus on myself,
then thinking about racing the other athletes really does sort of like take
a back seat because I've got my own problems to deal with.
Now, you mentioned that you're going to head to California a little bit early.
(30:06):
How early are you doing that?
That is undecided. So tickets have not been booked. And I am not the admin person of the household.
My wife will plan everything for me and she'll She'll make some key decisions
and that's the way I like it. So I'm waiting for her to make a decision.
To be honest, to go out two or three weeks early would probably be ideal because
(30:29):
I do thrive best when I'm at home and I train best when I'm at home.
But I do have to get out. Seeing the course will be very beneficial.
Experiencing the heat before the race and some altitude would be very good as well.
It's just I need to be able to do it in a way that makes me feel like I'm comfortable.
I have to feel like I'm at home for me to absorb training and for me to be rested
(30:52):
and sort of like be happy and healthy.
So it's sort of like trying to create that atmosphere for me.
I tend to, I guess I do race well abroad.
It's just, I don't travel that well. Maybe I'm just, I'm just happiest when
I'm at home. So we'll see.
I'm definitely not going to be doing the classic head out for three months before
and go to Flagstaff for some,
(31:12):
some kilometers with all the all the best runners over there and sort of spin
my legs that way so i will be training for it in my in my own way that will
include a lot more skiing in the months to come but as for when i'll be heading
out it's not been decided yet okay,
I'm, yeah, excited, but also a little bit scared. It does seem like a rather large undertaking.
(31:33):
And the fact that it's such a runnable course, it does mean that if you're not prepared,
there's no hiding behind your hiking poles and there's no sort of downhill to
sort of have a bit of a rest or uphill to sort of let your legs sort of have
a slightly different training stimulus where you can hike.
It's kind of, if you're, if you've not prepared for it properly,
it could be quite obvious.
(31:54):
Well the one thing i wasn't prepared for is that there was nobody there until
one minute before the start off the gun goes off one minute before nobody was
there yeah that weird with one minute left they all just started walking towards
the start line which is very weird.
That's good that's my sort of style though i'm i like
(32:15):
that and i also am sort of interested
to see how it's going to be with the fact that there won't be any kit list
i've never raced a trail racing in the us and
like just being able to run with a running belt and not
even a shirt if you don't want to for 100 miles is
is crazy to me i mean normally you've got to have waterproof jacket
trousers survival bivy bag whistle phone
(32:37):
i mean the list goes on and on whereas with this
i'm even going to have a pacer that can run with me it's not
even something i've thought about because it's like how someone could
just join me and just run with me like how strange is that
you should you get ryan to come run with you yeah yeah he did say that he's
going to be going out for a mountain expedition but maybe that was a little
(32:59):
bit early so yeah it's something i will have to start thinking about because
i'm sure even though they're not allowed to give you food and drink
having someone to chat to is maybe nice but really having to someone to navigate
for you so you don't have to look up and try and see the flags when you've already
been running for 10 hours that does sound like it would help quite a lot well
(33:20):
that's interesting because all you need is a handheld and but to make things
fair for the other competitors you should wear.
A 50 pound weighted vest as you're running this car as you're running western
that would make things fair when you're running against somebody else i'm not
(33:40):
sure i think jim should be wearing wearing a 60 pound vest.
I mean, I don't even know what handheld is. So that's not something I've even had used before.
So we're really trying in that three weeks before I'm going to have to really
try and Americanize myself with the style of racing.
However, the white tights, very European of you.
(34:01):
I think you need to sport those just to throw the other competitors off.
Yeah i mean uh it might have looked
stupid but i guess eighty thousand dollars isn't stupid so
i mean they worked really well though to be honest i
mean it was probably one of the best decisions i made because they when they
got wet they kept me cool they protected my knees from
the from the sand and to be honest i mean once they turned that sort of red
(34:25):
sandly colored and looked looked like i wasn't wearing anything at all i mean
that must have put off my competitors so it was it was all I think that the
last person who wore white tights at Western was Killian Jornet. Yes.
But they were hardly tight, so they were rather long.
Yeah, they weren't tights. They were short. Booty shorts.
(34:47):
Nevertheless. That's fun. But also, Killian, I believe, he hardly ate and drank
while he was running. He was only in the eight stations on that day.
So I'm sure there's a few things Killian would do differently again if he did
Western nowadays. So I think he'd definitely probably have a handheld or a plexi
bottle in a, in a bell and he'd probably a little bit more through the course.
(35:10):
Is UTMB on your bucket list? Wishlist? So UTMB, I have actually entered.
Well, actually Henrietta entered me, but I am, I am absolutely a hundred percent
certain that I am only going to concentrate on Western States.
And after Western States, I'm going to try my very best to recover until I feel
(35:30):
I'm recovered and not start training for UTMB until I do feel like I have a
good sort of control of where I'm at.
Because I think the worst thing you can do is concentrate on both at the same
time too soon after Western, try and get back into training,
try and reach the same training load or volume or sort of where you were before Western.
(35:51):
But it's never going to happen in that short amount of time.
So, I mean, I'm just going to get Western over with and I'm entered for UTMB.
If I've got any injuries or am I feeling like I'm not recovered,
I can always defer that entry.
So, it's there if I want it, but one thing at a time. Yeah, that's a tough doubleheader for sure.
Very tough.
(36:14):
Well, let's move on to the training app that you and Henrietta have developed.
Can you tell us about the app?
It was really born from just how I see training or how I plan my own training.
And it was a system that was just born from that because I wanted something to use for myself.
And then we turned it into the app. I used the app
(36:36):
and then we tried to sort of includes some functions so
other people could use it as well and and change things
to to sort of make it possible for them to use it
and a lot of people have really enjoyed it so that's
really fun it's very different to just a bog standard training
plan which is both great and also has got some
negatives but it's very much a case of it
(36:58):
helps you coach yourself and hopefully it gives
you that it's the tool you need to be able to coach yourself because
i coach people but to be be honest i prefer when people
learn what works for them and then
they could apply that year on year and again again the
knowledge and the skills so they can actually self-coach because only
the athlete knows the athlete best they know themselves
(37:19):
best so i think it is really good if you can then connect dots and then just
use people sounding boards so we actually have a social wall in there so people
can ask questions and normally reply within a day and they can they can talk
to other athletes listen to podcasts and get all this knowledge but i do think it's very much like.
Tool you can use alongside that so it's a tool you
(37:41):
can use to coach yourself so there's a lot of flexibility you can move things
around uh you could use different workouts within
there you can choose different progressions and hopefully it
is easy to use for the person that isn't quite as confident
in making their own decisions but that confidence does
come through time and i'm always there on the social water to reply if people
have got questions so it's been a lot of fun putting it together and it's a
(38:05):
lot of fun working on it and i certainly do think it's helped my training and
to see how other people use it in their own experiences has helped me as well.
So the whole experience has been great.
It's called the Albin app. Yeah, I lost that battle.
I would never have called it that, but there's four of us involved and I got
outvoted. So it's called Albin app.
And you can download it anywhere and you can have a free service or you can
(38:29):
pay extra if you want the extra service.
Is that how it works? Yeah, so it's on Android and Apple.
There is a free version, but then within that we've
just locked a few functions so then you can only plan one
race at a time so that means you can't create a full season plan
things like there's strength training workouts in
there that come with a timer where you can i'm doing
(38:49):
exercise and you just do it at the same time as me that's locked
for example a few other things like nutrition advice is
locked so we've just restricted the amount
you can use within the app just to sort of create that
free free version because then we would prefer if more
people paid for it obviously but then we do have the social
as well that you're paying for so you can get that full full service
(39:11):
and hopefully feel like you're almost being personally
coached but five percent of the
cost i mean it's i think somewhere between 25 and
35 dollars a month and there's a yearly option as
well so that's very reasonable and and
your whole team is some form of athlete so
whoever's answering the question has the knowledge to to
(39:32):
lend right oh for sure yeah like
uh there's four of us we're all athletes and we're
it's it's still a hobby project we we still have
full-time jobs even though mine is being an athlete but
i really enjoy helping other people and this
is something where i could help other people on mass
and i do really enjoy just analyzing training
(39:54):
and finding better ways to to improve and i do
feel like over the years i have amassed
quite a lot of knowledge which is fun to spread but then.
Also i do feel that a lot of the training platforms out
there are very much based off road running but then just
on steroids to make it into a trail running plan whereas i do feel like we have
(40:14):
a lot of very specific trail running and obstacle racing sessions and and workouts
and things in there which are very much for trail running so that the the training
ethos even is different to to road running and there's a it's a very sort of.
Rounded product which isn't just getting you as fit as possible because that
is only one piece of the puzzle it's also working on a lot of other pieces of
(40:38):
the puzzle which you need like,
fueling and race planning and leg conditioning for
both uphill and for downhill so there's a lot more to it
than just if you can hit these this these
numbers on your on your tempo treadmill sessions then
you'll run your your trail race as good as possible it's not quite
as simple as that with uh with trail run no exactly
(40:58):
well that sounds awesome definitely want to check it out and
we'll we'll post some links in the show notes for people
that want to check it out for sure i mean it's
always it's always fun and also when people do check it out it's always great
to get feedback because we have made it that you can adjust your weekly commitment
level we call it so that means i'm commitment level five or six that's the amount
(41:21):
of training i get in a week But then you can turn that down to say,
I normally do threes or fours.
But then if I'm going away on holiday and I have more time because I've not
got work that week, I can try a five.
And that way you can continually turn your commitment level up and down.
It's always great to hear people's
experience with that system and to see how it works for them. them.
(41:42):
I love that because oftentimes if you have a week where you've not been able
to put the workouts in, then you feel guilty.
And then that rolls into a, well, I didn't get that workout in now I'm off the plan.
And I think that's an easy excuse for people to kind of spiral.
Whereas if you have the flexibility and you can see that just because you have
(42:05):
one week where you didn't complete all your sessions,
but the next week you're back on target, you don't
have that guilt association of and then it
really is a case that flexibility does work it's
just it's hard to trust and that's a battle we've
had that people don't trust it because it's not a digital
sex system where if i do these intervals on that tuesday six months later i'm
(42:27):
gonna have a great race i mean that that's not how it works it very much is
training is analog and it's how you make the training mesh with your everyday
life say family life and work life that that's what you know no relationship
between them is all important.
So normally we're talking about this wave. You've got to build this wave nice
and small, and then you've got to get that wave, that training sort of rhythm
(42:49):
and continuity past three weeks, because that's always the point.
Everyone gets to three weeks and then they see that, oh my God,
I can't do that for another three weeks, or they've made it manageable and they keep it going.
And then that consistency is all important. So that's sort.
Of the system is built for and i mean even this
week i just got back from the race and i
(43:12):
had that into the training race that means the app didn't plan in any
recovery for me whatsoever i was it was down to me to plan in my own recovery
so i put my commitment on commitment four this week and i might even skip one
of the key sessions and i've done all the workouts as cross training because
you can either choose to do the workouts running or cross training usually at
(43:32):
the beginning at this base building phase,
I'm doing more cross training and then steadily start doing more of the workouts running.
And so that's what I'm doing this week. I'm managing the recovery myself.
I've turned the commitment level down and I'm doing more cross training.
And that is possible with the system.
And then next week, I'll hopefully be back up on commitment five and then sixes
in the next couple of weeks as well. We'll just see how we go.
(43:55):
Very cool. Yeah, I like it. I like it too.
Well, we're definitely gonna be watching you in June and all the best at Western for sure.
No pressure no pressure i have actually
got transvolcania as my leading race for western as
well so i will be racing before western but it'll
be slightly shorter but probably hot and
relatively high as well and that'll be a fun one did you
(44:17):
say transvolcania it kind of cut out a bit oh wow
nice very nice well try
that race with a handheld and see how you do yeah i
was planning on trying to have it as a racing station within the
act where i am expected to test shoes test
clothing maybe i'll bring out the white tights who knows maybe
(44:37):
i'll bring out and that will be definitely like a dry run ready for western
so obviously i want to do well at the race but testing everything ready for
western will be one of the key the key focuses nice all right john before we
let you go we like to do a little rapid fire just for fun at the end of our
podcast So if you don't mind indulging us.
(44:58):
What's a TV show that you're embarrassed to say you watch?
Me and him, we have to watch Friends every night for the past couple of months.
And we normally watch the entire Friends series.
And then we start again after another couple of months. It's quite nice evening,
relaxed watching material.
So I guess that's slightly embarrassing.
That's a good one. That's a
(45:19):
good one. Would you rather be a professional writer, painter, or musician?
I'm artistically challenged, so I would suck at all of them.
I'm sure right where i'd be most successful but i'm definitely yeah i would be dreadful,
what's your go-to meal after a really
tough race or workout chocolate milk straight
(45:41):
after workout is always a way then my
go-to meal is actually chicken katsu curry there's
a japanese restaurant based out i think it's the uk called wagamama
so whenever i have the opportunity to go to a wagamama stevo chicken
katsu curry i'm there usually with a few side
orders of plain noodles as well nice how's your
norwegian yeah it's it goes up
(46:02):
and down i guess sort of similar to my running shape it
got better during corona because i took lessons i took
the language tests and got my citizenship so i
got a norwegian passport and then i'm sure it's got
worse all right well then i
can ask you this question so if you're running on the trail and you
stub your toe what would the curse word in norwegian be am i allowed to swear
(46:25):
yeah maybe which is um yeah yeah i guess that would be that would be an okay
one that would be good that would be good is it all fun.
Fine fine fine yeah fine like i
(46:45):
believe it's got one of those extra norwegian letters which
they decided to add into their which is a which
is an a with an e stuck together and the way
i remember that one is the a and the e are stuck together
and it's kind of like ah they're stuck together i've seen that
i've seen that for sure now you've raced around
the world what country have you not raced in
(47:07):
yet that you'd really like to experience new zealand
would be a great a great place
to visit and a little bit less dangerous animal wise in australia
so it'd be great to get down to new zealand actually me and henrietta would
love to live a year in new zealand to sort of like experience all the seasons
but what i expect is the canadian slash norwegian version of the southern hemisphere
(47:28):
so i was just gonna say if she wants to experience new zealand she's He's going
to love Alberta for sure. Okay.
Norm. Pick a superpower that you'd like to have.
Being able to stomach gels indefinitely, I guess.
That would be a superpower. Yeah, I think so.
(47:50):
That's a good one. I'm surprised more people haven't said that actually.
All right, John. Well, we really appreciate the time today and it's been great chatting with you.
And again, Again, we wish you all the best at Western and hopefully we'll see
you more on the ultra running scene in North America. And we might see you there.
Yeah, sounds good. No, I'm looking looking forward to it. Thanks for having
(48:12):
me. It's always it's always fun to chat. All right. All the best. Yes, guys.
And that was John Alban, fresh off his win in Saudi Arabia with a big fat check.
I still can't wrap my head around the fact that he did.
100K. In eight hours. Eight hours with constant obstacles continuously.
(48:33):
That's an obstacle every 500 meters.
And his worst or the most one that gave him some sort of trouble was the balance beam.
I can see that after running. Oh my gosh. I said do balance beam on a good day. On your first.
Hour imagine seven hours
later oh man trying to balance yourself well nevertheless
(48:55):
yeah i like what he said that he's going into western
for the experience and if he happens to have a good day then
so be it but he's gonna lead the charge because he said he prefers to lead than
follow therefore he's gonna go like a bat out of hell up the ski hill can you
imagine if he carries two big big 20 pounds off the ski hill. First one up there.
(49:19):
Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
Well, that would be his first 100 miler without obstacles.
So that is going to be interesting in itself. It sure will be. And we'll be watching.
We'll be watching. I'm definitely going to check out his app because I like
the idea that it's flexible, that you can move things around.
(49:39):
The Albin app. Albin app.
Created by professional athletes. I like the sound of the app because it sounds
flexible and you can move things around.
You can watch his training videos and how he does cross training and.
Ask questions. Ask questions and you'll get an answer. Which is important because
(50:00):
if you just have a blanket plan that you're following, you're not quite sure
if you're doing something right.
It's hard to get feedback. Feedback is the biggest key.
That's right. To a plan, I believe. Yeah, and you can sign up for free or get
the extended version with $25 a month. And he will be there on the other line.
You got it. On the other side of the app.
(50:24):
Well, we're looking forward to him at Western States. And if you enjoyed our
chat with him, please leave us a rating review.
We'd much appreciate it. Thank you. Until next time. Cheers. Bye.
Hi everyone, this is Michele Graglia. This is Marianne Hogan.
Hi, I'm Adrian McDonald.
I'm Katie Asmund. Hi, this is Anthony Gasols.
Hi, my name is Meg Morgan. Hey, it's Jordan Trofe. This is John Ray.
This is Ryan Van Duser, and you are listening to the Gotta Run Racing Podcast.
Podcast hello hey everyone we are back with another gotta
(00:22):
run race podcast i'm jody and i'm norm
today i'm feeling a little retro if you're
watching the video version of this episode because i'm wearing my chase the
coyote trucker hat signed by my running idols dean carnas and rob wow yeah i'm
wearing this baby in a while we still get people asking us for this hat But unfortunately,
(00:45):
it is long sold out. Yeah, long gone.
Before we get into today's podcast, a big shout out to our Patreon supporters.
Yes, Patreon, we love you. Yes.
If you want to be a Patreon supporter, please head on over to patreon.com slash
gotteronracingpodcast.
We really appreciate any support that you can give us because we have big plans
(01:09):
for this year. We want to expand.
We want to grow. We want to attend more races, locally and otherwise, and talk to the people.
Yeah, just keep giving you some amazing content.
That's right. And what's happening in the world of Got to Run Racing?
Well, we have some exciting news for our in-person races.
(01:29):
We have a new sponsor, and that is Shox.
Wow. I know, right? I am in shock.
Shox makes bone conduction headphones, meaning they have headphones that do
not go in your ear and inhibit your ability to hear your surroundings.
We've been using them for quite a few years now. They're fantastic.
(01:51):
And they have graciously donated Open Run Pro. Show them, Norm.
Here we go. Now, we say no headphones allowed in our races, but...
We do, but we make an exception for bone conduction.
There you go. And Shox is the best bone conduction out there.
So we've got three pairs of these babies. We're going to raffle one off at each
(02:11):
of our races. So if you haven't signed up yet, sign up.
These are worth $230 Canadian.
Whoa. And they are amazing headphones. So thank you, Shox.
Thank you for supporting us. And our three races that you sign up for are...
Lost Treasure Trail Race, May 18th, Rainbow Trail Run, July 27th,
(02:32):
and Island Lake Classic Labor Day. Labor Day Monday.
See you there. All right. And who's on the podcast today?
Today, we have Jonathan Alban. He's a 34-year-old multidiscipline athlete,
originally from the UK, now living in Norway with his wife.
John has left his mark on many sports, including obstacle course racing,
(02:53):
where he recently He recently took home the largest prize in OCR history by
crossing the line first in Saudi Arabia,
completing an astounding 100 kilometers in eight hours with 20 obstacles per 10K lap.
I just can't. I can't. Anyways, he has some equally impressive results in trail and ultra running,
including top spots at OCC and CCC in recent years, as well as third in the
(03:18):
short trail distance at the World Mountain and Trail Championships in Thailand in 2022.
He has twice won the final ranking of Sky Extreme Series and has once been the
overall winner of the Skyrunner World Series.
John and his wife Henrietta, who's also an accomplished professional trail runner,
have created a training app, which we can't wait to ask him about.
Yeah, that's all coming up. This is incredible, the fact that he's going to
(03:41):
be our first OCR athlete on our podcast, but that in itself is an ultra.
Yes, and he's going to be running Western, so we've got lots to talk about.
That's right. Here's John coming up.
Music.
Welcome to the podcast, John, and congratulations on your recent win at the
(04:06):
Tough Mudder in Saudi Arabia, where you earned yourself a sweet little paycheck,
which we'll get into soon.
But how are you feeling? How's the recovery going? going?
Yeah, well, thanks for having me. Recovery, it feels good.
The main issues I had in the race was muscular stiffness.
So I don't think I was prepared for running that distance, running in the sand and doing obstacles.
(04:31):
So I generally feel like my engine was prepared and my engine didn't get used
as much as it could have during the race.
So that's actually recovering relatively quickly, but I still need to wait a
few more days for my hamstrings to be ready to run I think.
Yeah, because sand doesn't exactly equal snow. And we definitely know that feeling.
(04:51):
Yeah, for sure. And actually here, there's so much snow that you can't run on it.
There's not many places people sort of like pack down a trail.
So it's either kind of icy road running or treadmill running,
which really doesn't cut it.
And I mean, I've been mainly skiing anyway.
But I have actually really tried to keep the running miles and kilometers there
(05:13):
because I'm doing Western States. And it was always a plan to try and run a
bit more during the winter.
So this was a good opportunity to have something relatively early in the year,
which forced me to keep that running mileage up. Yeah, that's great.
Well, we are strictly an ultra running podcast, but can you tell our listeners
what is a Tough Mudder and all the obstacles that are involved in Tough Mudder race? Yeah, sure.
(05:38):
Obstacle racing is kind of like, it's like as a racing sport about 10 years old,
and it's a running race but there's lots
of obstacles that you have to do on your way around they can
vary from crawling under things jumping over
things climbing stuff carrying stuff
a lot of hanging off things and swinging in between things these days with the
(06:02):
ninja warrior type influence but it's kind of like a sport that tests you in
a little bit more than just you know putting one foot in front of the other
but apart from that it is a running race just with a little bit of extra stuff thrown in.
Well, that's the thing. It is, in fact, an ultra, because you're doing 100k
going all kinds of loops, 10k loops.
(06:23):
But what obstacle did you keep dreading have to repeat 10 times?
I think...
To be honest, no matter like whether there's really hard obstacles or really
easy obstacles, you always think about that obstacle, which is hardest maybe
for you or that you might fail because we did actually have wristbands.
And if you failed any obstacles, you had to then do penalty loops.
(06:45):
And the only obstacle that I really thought I could end up failing is the balance
beam because I mean, you're in slightly higher stack shoes,
balance beams, it's quite easy just to accidentally just fall off,
you lose concentration and the wind did get up a lot as well
so the one that I figured I could fail was the
balance beam but to be honest there was a lot of crawling
(07:05):
and crawling on sandy gritty horrible
rocky ground is just awful so
I actually wore tights pretty much for for
the for the protection it would give my knees so I didn't I didn't dread getting
down on my knees and crawling again and again and again I don't know my my mind
is so blown the fact that you're covering as many kilometers as some of the
(07:31):
pros do in just a running race,
but yet you're doing all of these obstacles.
I can't quite wrap my head around that. At the same time. At the same time.
And it doesn't seem to slow you down.
I'm just so impressed by that because we've loosely followed OCR over the years
and it seems like it's getting more intense, tense, more harder, more challenging.
(07:53):
Are they trying to make these races more difficult? Do you find?
Yeah, I'm not sure. I think obstacle racing has certainly changed through the years.
If you turn back time, it used to be a lot more just like a mud run with just
some ditches and some crawling.
And the challenge was really a bit more natural, whereas now there's a lot more
(08:13):
man-made obstacles and also a lot more convoluted obstacles that almost require
a rule book for each one. So you're, you're allowed to use your feet on this one, but not on this one.
You're allowed to touch these bars, but not those bars and a lot more hanging
grip, intense obstacles, which have become like a lot more complicated,
but then that sort of more raw side of obstacle racing where you got really
(08:37):
cold and had to swim a lot and sort of.
Went over and through hundreds of ditches in a row is kind of, is
receded a little bit but then this this race definitely did
feel a little bit more old school there weren't that many hanging obstacles
it was a lot more crawling it was a bit more sort
of simple so i think the main obstacle for this one really was going to be the
(08:57):
heat but thankfully it wasn't that hot we had rain in the morning and the wind
got up and we had a bit of cloud cover so i was kind of happy happy for that
and also the sand and running in sand is different to snow no, it's not nice.
I think if anything, you should be more of a cyclist to be able to move on sand
(09:18):
well than a runner, because that running stride is kind of negated when every
footfall kind of gets sort of like sucked backwards.
It wasn't the softest sand it could have been. It was about 50,
50, 50% hard sand, 50% sort of soft, softer sand, but none of those really horrible
sand dudes where you take three steps forward and you slide two steps backwards.
So that certainly did allow us to do more kilometers
(09:41):
but then with more kilometers meant my
legs just weren't prepared for that because it's just so early in the season
so it was kind of crazy like it's not often I would really have ever contemplated
running 100 kilometers in February but then when someone says to run eight hours
in February it's like well yeah okay it doesn't sound so bad and I didn't really
(10:02):
connect the dots that it was going to be that far.
And how does it work on your last lap do they
let you go out even though you don't
have necessarily enough time and then they count your kilometer to
where you stop at the eight hour mark no so
they it was an eight hour lap to race and it
was 10 kilometer laps so we had eight hours do as many laps as possible but
(10:24):
you had an extra hour to finish that last lap so that means you could go out
for another lap as long as you came in before the eight hour mark but then if
you didn't complete that lap they didn't really count sort of part of that lap.
It just kind of rolled back to where you finished the position you finished the lap before.
And I did actually come in my 10th lap two minutes before the eight hour mark.
(10:49):
So I could have gone out for another one, but I'd done the math and there was
no way second place was going to come in within two minutes.
So I was very glad to stop there. And the fact that I had to do another one
made me very happy. I'm sure.
So we reached out to one one of our listeners, Brent, who is a OCR guy and a
trail runner, because we thought let's get a question from someone that really follows this sport.
(11:13):
And we've never done this before
in our podcast. So here's our first go at having a listener question.
So he asks, how do you balance your training for OCR with sky mountain running?
Example, training for grip and carries, which I.
To be honest, I mean, I've actually done mostly just trail running for the past two years.
(11:36):
So that means obstacle race training has kind of been on the back foot.
But even then before when I was doing both trail running and obstacle racing,
my specific training for obstacle racing just really wasn't there.
I was mainly training for the trail running and then I was going climbing,
which was a really fun form of grip strength training and a really nice form of strength training.
(11:57):
It's very functional and it's a fun sport in itself. So that means it never
felt like a chore to go and work on my grip strength.
And that's what I did into this race. I did start going climbing and I have
like a little hanging routine on a hangboard that I did. And I do that sort of maybe twice a week.
And then I did one workout where I did a heat training workout on the treadmill.
(12:19):
And then I went out into minus five or whatever it was outside and did a run
where I did some burpees every five minutes.
And I ran to this military area and I did a few obstacles. And then I ran home
again, doing some burpees every five minutes.
That was my main specific training for this race.
And to be honest, this was a training race for me in a sense.
(12:42):
My main focus is towards Western States. So I actually only planned in one week
of real focused training ready for the Tough Mudder in Saudi.
Well, clearly you had a great base heading into it because obviously it worked out for you.
Yeah for sure i think my base at this time of
year is always as strong as it can be but my
(13:04):
leg adaption or acclimatization to being
able to run well or at least run for a
long time is its lowest so then it's the
point when you have to cross that you've still got some base left but
you've acclimatized your legs to the running which is when
you can have your best races and that was the problem i had
i had a good base fitness but my legs just weren't
(13:25):
ready for the the distance i'm wondering
too i just want to ask the question because we're also
big fans of tennis and there's a big controversy right now about the players
going to tournaments in the middle east i'm just curious if you had any hesitation
morally with attending a race there and i you know what,
(13:50):
No judgment, because the money that they're offering to attend these events,
totally get it. It's a very valid question.
And there is something I thought about. But then there's things I agree with
in most countries and things I disagree with in most countries.
I mean, even going to the States to run a running race, it's not as if I agree
(14:13):
with everyone having a gun.
And I don't really think about the fact that I'm going to America.
America so I haven't really thought too much
about it to be honest and it was
a very good opportunity for me to make
some prize money which is going to allow me then to
improve my training facilities and sort of like further my own athletic career
(14:35):
so it's not something I got too bogged down in thinking about I was actually
contemplating more whether it would help me in my running season or whether
it would hinder me in my running season and the moral side of things didn't play so much I mean,
I probably should have done more research into it, but that's the way it happened.
Well, I think that's a very valid statement because when you're in the North
(14:59):
American culture, and it's happening in Canada too,
where gun violence is such a huge factor, yet they sort of push that down as
it's just the norm, which is horrible.
But it's good and bad in every country. We have to look within just as much
as we... How can you point fingers when no one's innocent in anything in this world anymore?
(15:25):
No one is perfect, that is for sure. Yeah, yeah.
But it's quite fascinating that it's happening throughout so many different sports.
And it's great for our sport because we're...
Extremely underpaid in my opinion compared to
what you guys do and how many hours are spent
(15:46):
in the actual sport itself if you
translate the hour spent to the money earned it's
pennies per hour realistically compared
to some mainstream sports we certainly aren't paid quite as
much as some other athletes but then i like
to think that we're rewarded in other ways and one of them is
the fact that trail running is an exceptionally fun sport so i guess we're not
(16:10):
paid as much money but we're paid more in enjoyment maybe good point and another
thing that we've talked about and with other athletes is the fact that i can't
think of another sport where the amateurs can line up.
On at the same start line as the elites the
pros which is i hope that doesn't change yeah it's
fun and also that is actually not in this race but
(16:33):
in previously in obstacle racing in what has allowed them
to have higher prize spots because it is
a mass participation sport there's a lot of people doing them they're paying
to do them and then they're trying to then put that money
back into the sport by then providing a prize spot for the for the elites whereas
i think with this race it was more coming from the saudi government and whatnot
(16:54):
but i i do like the fact that yeah people can go and take part in the sport
and they can be inspired and it is is both sports are certainly very healthy for you,
or at least training for them is healthy.
Maybe the actual doing of them isn't so healthy because I don't think the human
body was really made to...
To undergo what we ask of it. But I think definitely like the lifestyle and
(17:17):
the training for the events can be very healthy.
And yeah, the fact that the sports are so varied means you can train in a way,
which means you can still perform at a high level, but have a relatively healthy body.
I do think fitness and health are two very different things.
And in some sports, fitness really does take priority and health really doesn't.
(17:37):
Whereas you can almost strike like a healthy balance between
two within obstacle racing and travel
yeah great point great point well you
also beat our fellow canadian ryan
atkins you know him obviously race against him.
You raced with him several times and we do know
ryan and lindsey well they lived they did live down the
(17:58):
street from us yeah and they competed in one of our events
chase the coyote but they also
recently just started getting to sky running did you have anything
to do with that getting them into sky running yeah possibly
i mean ryan and lindsey are great people and
we actually we go way back now it's funny how time
flies yeah i know especially lindsey did
(18:18):
have a great sky running season and she came
over to europe for a few races and she did really well but
there is is a thing within trail running as
well that there's so many different series it's hard like that
year i didn't do any sky running at all i actually did the golden trail series
so it's it's a shame we didn't cross paths so much
but yeah no it's great that they're sort of spreading their
(18:39):
wings a little bit and trying some other sports because i definitely
think that trail running is a little bit more of
a competitive sport and you kind of need that in order to keep
pushing your limits and keep pushing your boundaries and improving so there's
certainly a lot of challenging races out there and it's just good to to improve
and to compare yourself to these these great athletes so So I think that not
(19:04):
only can they be very successful within trail running, it's also going to improve their obscuration.
Well, we do have a sky running event here in Canada called Meet the Minotaur.
And it's my my wife will be coming for it yes unfortunately
i will not be because it's i think it's maybe the week
before western yeah so uh so i'll
(19:24):
be i'll be down yeah i guess in the sort
of california kind of yeah down down near
san francisco sort of tahoe type area and hemorrhage will fly up for the for
the sky race so that'll be that'll be fun i'm sure i have to report back to
me what it was like yeah because i was going to ask you if you're ever going
to race it in in the future because
it's deemed the hardest of the series according to the elite anyway okay,
(19:48):
that's that's interesting is stereotypically maybe
not for canada but for american trail races are generally a
little bit less technical and a little bit
not not easier just just different so yeah it'll
be fun to to hear her opinion on that and i mean it's
a hard thing with sky running running because sky running was
a very nail sport you know
(20:09):
there was a lot of scrambling it was almost like mountaineering but
moving fast and then to become a bit more mainstream
they had to dial it back a little bit and they got more events and
more athletes and it had to become a little bit less technical
and and things and then now with golden
travel series and sort of some other series coming about
it does seem that sky running is having to go back to its roots a
(20:31):
little little bit and really say no we are a technical running race.
And get back to sort of you know that that sort
of like dna so it's really cool that they do have some great.
Technical races because it is really fun to
move in that terrain and that's actually something that i enjoy the most
especially within training the winner of
last year from france he won the one in
(20:52):
meet the meditor and he said it was the absolute hell that
he went through according according to every other race that
he's done in sky running so that'll be interesting stuff
yeah i can't wait to hear what she thinks there's so
many similarities between ocr and
trail running are you surprised that more athletes aren't
(21:12):
crossing over to dip their hand in in either
sport i'd love to see a jim walmsley or a courtney to
walter attempt obstacle but i can't
i can't to picture it yeah I'm
not sure like I was certainly expecting more people to
be at this race especially with the prior spot for grabs and
I was expecting the actual obstacle races to take it a little
(21:34):
bit more seriously or to be better prepared as well but maybe that
was just I was having a very good day and
sort of didn't see their best but a lot of even the obstacle
races did the team event so it didn't really feel like there
was even that many of us going for the the individual and
it was really well paid up until 10th place but as for trail runners going to
(21:54):
obstacle racing I'm sure they would do well at least some of them and I'm sure
some of them would just absolutely hate it because it's very type 2 fun I mean
getting down on the ground.
But crawling, throwing yourself over a wall and landing on the other side and
having that impact in your legs, it's tough for the body in a very different way.
(22:16):
It's not just putting one foot in front of the other. So it would be really
interesting, especially to see Courtney run because nothing seems to stop Courtney.
So she doesn't seem to be human. So it would be interesting to see how well she'd do.
And there is the World's Toughest Mother, the 24-hour obstacle race,
which would be, I mean, it would be incredible to see her on there and see how
well she could do. It sure would. Good.
(22:36):
Another event that we want to ask you about was the Festival de Templar in the
south of France, which you've won the ADK a couple of times.
I think it's celebrating its 30th year this year.
And just from what I saw on their website, this is a tough race,
3,500 meters and 80 kilometers.
It looks kind of unique. They give you a nice laurel wreath at the finish line
(22:59):
and a really cool handmade trophy.
Can you tell us a bit about that event? Because we'd never heard of it before.
Fork? It is a really, really nice trail race, which is in Chamonix.
So I guess a lot of trail racing seems to be around in the Alps area.
It's a really old race. It's actually, I think, France's oldest trail race.
(23:21):
And it's a little bit more runnable. So especially the first half is very fast,
a little bit sort of easier trails, a little bit less technical, but
then especially the last 15 kilometers is steeper
and is more technical and that has actually meant that
more americans have come over to try it it
has been a very big intentional event and they
(23:41):
always have a relatively good price price purse
there as well i really do like that event it's just
it's just different to the others it's a bit more trail running
rather than mountain running in sort of my definition it
is sort of a bit more rolling you can have a bit more speed and
it does start very very fast and it's just a beautiful area with this sort of
(24:01):
black plains but then it drops into sort of canyons normally and it's held in
the autumn so you've got the sort of like the autumn leaf color and then a bit
of a cloud inversion with some fog in the valleys it's just a really nice really nice race.
I love the rabbit hole that I sometimes go down when I'm looking at our guest
races because I came across that one.
(24:23):
And then I somehow ended up on this other race called the, it's in Malau,
where the viaduct is. Oh, okay, yeah.
So that's the town where Tom plays.
There's a road race that goes across the highest viaduct in Europe,
I believe. And it just looks stunning.
So I said to Norm, well, we're going to be doing that one. so let's add
(24:45):
that to our never-ending list of races yeah
yeah no that's certainly one i haven't done
but it is a beautiful area so whether you could go for a complier or
the viaduct race i'm sure you'll enjoy yourself and
it's really nice it's there's a lot of other distances
in that week but it definitely is a festival and it feels like
a very small personal event full of
(25:08):
locals and everyone's happy but on a big scale because
there's nine thousand people running so it's just just
kind of you get that sort of you know nice community feeling but
on on steroids it's it's really a nice atmosphere
that's really difficult to do yeah yeah
think about it yeah because i mean it's a great finish
line in chamonix especially during utmb week but then
(25:29):
the majority of people may be watching haven't done
a race or they're tourists or they're just there for holidays
whereas it seems like for tompier the people
that are there watching and cheering on you they've have also done a race and
everyone because they just love traveling and that is a
sort of different sort of feeling when you when you're on love that
last year you won cc which
(25:51):
earned you a ticket to western states and that would be your first attempt at
100 mile without obstacles is that so how long has western states been on your
radar hey guys if you like what you're hearing so far And check this out.
Calling all trail runners to come on out to Mansfield, Ontario this May.
(26:14):
The Lost Treasure Trail Race features both the 5 and 10K on the beautiful trails
at the Mansfield Outdoor Center.
As the story goes, the American outlaw Jesse James buried a barrel full of gold
coins stolen from a train on his relative's property somewhere in the hills of Mulmer.
You'll earn your very own coin medal when you cross the finish line.
(26:42):
To be honest, I mean, it's always been on my radar because it is a very big,
famous, cool-looking race with some great athletes that have done some incredible
things there and it's got a really rich history.
To be honest, a lot of the decisions I've made in my running career have been very accidental.
I mean, I started running when I was 20 and normally how I'd pick which events
(27:06):
I'm going to do is people would ask me to go to them and I'd say yes.
And I think I almost lost that thing in the past two years.
Maybe I made more decisions or sponsors came in and they had things I wanted
to do and Hemreta made decisions for me.
And then i've always found the most success and i've
had the most fun and sort of like been the most relaxed and
(27:28):
the best experience when it has been a bit more random or i've just
you know followed that path not of least resistance but that
is just set out for me and when i
won the golden ticket for western states i
had no idea that was even a ticket race and
i just got an email saying you you've
got an entry for western states if you want it and i thought well let's
(27:50):
go go for it then and see what happens wow what a
nice surprise wow yeah a
nice surprise but then having just run ccc which
is 100 kilometers then you get an email two days later saying you have just
one entry into 160 kilometers you have to decide in the next 10 days it actually
leaves you a little bit tired and stressed to be honest but i mean it wasn't
(28:16):
a a hard decision to make and I'm looking forward to the experience.
And I'm also looking forward to the fact that it is my first hundred miler. I hate pressure.
I hate to be a favorite and I hate expectation and I shouldn't have that in this race.
There's other great athletes which have done very special things on that course.
I'm definitely shouldn't be the favorite.
I just want to go have a good run, see how I do.
(28:39):
And normally that's how the races play out the best for me.
So hopefully I can keep that mindset all the way through to race day,
but it's easier said than done.
Who were you looking forward to racing against or just being there to start line with?
I guess actual people, I guess, maybe, I guess if Jim does race,
(28:59):
it'd be super interesting to, to run with him.
But then usually, to be honest, I'm very sort of self-centered.
I'm just going to concentrate on my own race, my own pacing,
my own fueling, and just my own experience with the course.
Normally I actually prefer running alone. I absolutely hate running behind someone else.
And if I'm normally happiest when I'm just running alone,
(29:21):
normally actually, if I'm in the lead, that's when i'm absolutely happiest but we'll
see we'll see how the race plays out i think the knowledge that
some of the athletes had about how to execute this race
is far beyond my own i mean i've i've been on maybe five percent of the course
when i've been at the spartan world championships in tahoe i i haven't run a
hundred mile trail race before it's very hot which generally doesn't suit me
(29:44):
the beginning at least is at elevation which again doesn't suit me i live that, well,
there's so many things that I need to try and focus on myself,
then thinking about racing the other athletes really does sort of like take
a back seat because I've got my own problems to deal with.
Now, you mentioned that you're going to head to California a little bit early.
(30:06):
How early are you doing that?
That is undecided. So tickets have not been booked. And I am not the admin person of the household.
My wife will plan everything for me and she'll She'll make some key decisions
and that's the way I like it. So I'm waiting for her to make a decision.
To be honest, to go out two or three weeks early would probably be ideal because
(30:29):
I do thrive best when I'm at home and I train best when I'm at home.
But I do have to get out. Seeing the course will be very beneficial.
Experiencing the heat before the race and some altitude would be very good as well.
It's just I need to be able to do it in a way that makes me feel like I'm comfortable.
I have to feel like I'm at home for me to absorb training and for me to be rested
(30:52):
and sort of like be happy and healthy.
So it's sort of like trying to create that atmosphere for me.
I tend to, I guess I do race well abroad.
It's just, I don't travel that well. Maybe I'm just, I'm just happiest when
I'm at home. So we'll see.
I'm definitely not going to be doing the classic head out for three months before
and go to Flagstaff for some,
(31:12):
some kilometers with all the all the best runners over there and sort of spin
my legs that way so i will be training for it in my in my own way that will
include a lot more skiing in the months to come but as for when i'll be heading
out it's not been decided yet okay,
I'm, yeah, excited, but also a little bit scared. It does seem like a rather large undertaking.
(31:33):
And the fact that it's such a runnable course, it does mean that if you're not prepared,
there's no hiding behind your hiking poles and there's no sort of downhill to
sort of have a bit of a rest or uphill to sort of let your legs sort of have
a slightly different training stimulus where you can hike.
It's kind of, if you're, if you've not prepared for it properly,
it could be quite obvious.
(31:54):
Well the one thing i wasn't prepared for is that there was nobody there until
one minute before the start off the gun goes off one minute before nobody was
there yeah that weird with one minute left they all just started walking towards
the start line which is very weird.
That's good that's my sort of style though i'm i like
(32:15):
that and i also am sort of interested
to see how it's going to be with the fact that there won't be any kit list
i've never raced a trail racing in the us and
like just being able to run with a running belt and not
even a shirt if you don't want to for 100 miles is
is crazy to me i mean normally you've got to have waterproof jacket
trousers survival bivy bag whistle phone
(32:37):
i mean the list goes on and on whereas with this
i'm even going to have a pacer that can run with me it's not
even something i've thought about because it's like how someone could
just join me and just run with me like how strange is that
you should you get ryan to come run with you yeah yeah he did say that he's
going to be going out for a mountain expedition but maybe that was a little
(32:59):
bit early so yeah it's something i will have to start thinking about because
i'm sure even though they're not allowed to give you food and drink
having someone to chat to is maybe nice but really having to someone to navigate
for you so you don't have to look up and try and see the flags when you've already
been running for 10 hours that does sound like it would help quite a lot well
(33:20):
that's interesting because all you need is a handheld and but to make things
fair for the other competitors you should wear.
A 50 pound weighted vest as you're running this car as you're running western
that would make things fair when you're running against somebody else i'm not
(33:40):
sure i think jim should be wearing wearing a 60 pound vest.
I mean, I don't even know what handheld is. So that's not something I've even had used before.
So we're really trying in that three weeks before I'm going to have to really
try and Americanize myself with the style of racing.
However, the white tights, very European of you.
(34:01):
I think you need to sport those just to throw the other competitors off.
Yeah i mean uh it might have looked
stupid but i guess eighty thousand dollars isn't stupid so
i mean they worked really well though to be honest i
mean it was probably one of the best decisions i made because they when they
got wet they kept me cool they protected my knees from
the from the sand and to be honest i mean once they turned that sort of red
(34:25):
sandly colored and looked looked like i wasn't wearing anything at all i mean
that must have put off my competitors so it was it was all I think that the
last person who wore white tights at Western was Killian Jornet. Yes.
But they were hardly tight, so they were rather long.
Yeah, they weren't tights. They were short. Booty shorts.
(34:47):
Nevertheless. That's fun. But also, Killian, I believe, he hardly ate and drank
while he was running. He was only in the eight stations on that day.
So I'm sure there's a few things Killian would do differently again if he did
Western nowadays. So I think he'd definitely probably have a handheld or a plexi
bottle in a, in a bell and he'd probably a little bit more through the course.
(35:10):
Is UTMB on your bucket list? Wishlist? So UTMB, I have actually entered.
Well, actually Henrietta entered me, but I am, I am absolutely a hundred percent
certain that I am only going to concentrate on Western States.
And after Western States, I'm going to try my very best to recover until I feel
(35:30):
I'm recovered and not start training for UTMB until I do feel like I have a
good sort of control of where I'm at.
Because I think the worst thing you can do is concentrate on both at the same
time too soon after Western, try and get back into training,
try and reach the same training load or volume or sort of where you were before Western.
(35:51):
But it's never going to happen in that short amount of time.
So, I mean, I'm just going to get Western over with and I'm entered for UTMB.
If I've got any injuries or am I feeling like I'm not recovered,
I can always defer that entry.
So, it's there if I want it, but one thing at a time. Yeah, that's a tough doubleheader for sure.
Very tough.
(36:14):
Well, let's move on to the training app that you and Henrietta have developed.
Can you tell us about the app?
It was really born from just how I see training or how I plan my own training.
And it was a system that was just born from that because I wanted something to use for myself.
And then we turned it into the app. I used the app
(36:36):
and then we tried to sort of includes some functions so
other people could use it as well and and change things
to to sort of make it possible for them to use it
and a lot of people have really enjoyed it so that's
really fun it's very different to just a bog standard training
plan which is both great and also has got some
negatives but it's very much a case of it
(36:58):
helps you coach yourself and hopefully it gives
you that it's the tool you need to be able to coach yourself because
i coach people but to be be honest i prefer when people
learn what works for them and then
they could apply that year on year and again again the
knowledge and the skills so they can actually self-coach because only
the athlete knows the athlete best they know themselves
(37:19):
best so i think it is really good if you can then connect dots and then just
use people sounding boards so we actually have a social wall in there so people
can ask questions and normally reply within a day and they can they can talk
to other athletes listen to podcasts and get all this knowledge but i do think it's very much like.
Tool you can use alongside that so it's a tool you
(37:41):
can use to coach yourself so there's a lot of flexibility you can move things
around uh you could use different workouts within
there you can choose different progressions and hopefully it
is easy to use for the person that isn't quite as confident
in making their own decisions but that confidence does
come through time and i'm always there on the social water to reply if people
have got questions so it's been a lot of fun putting it together and it's a
(38:05):
lot of fun working on it and i certainly do think it's helped my training and
to see how other people use it in their own experiences has helped me as well.
So the whole experience has been great.
It's called the Albin app. Yeah, I lost that battle.
I would never have called it that, but there's four of us involved and I got
outvoted. So it's called Albin app.
And you can download it anywhere and you can have a free service or you can
(38:29):
pay extra if you want the extra service.
Is that how it works? Yeah, so it's on Android and Apple.
There is a free version, but then within that we've
just locked a few functions so then you can only plan one
race at a time so that means you can't create a full season plan
things like there's strength training workouts in
there that come with a timer where you can i'm doing
(38:49):
exercise and you just do it at the same time as me that's locked
for example a few other things like nutrition advice is
locked so we've just restricted the amount
you can use within the app just to sort of create that
free free version because then we would prefer if more
people paid for it obviously but then we do have the social
as well that you're paying for so you can get that full full service
(39:11):
and hopefully feel like you're almost being personally
coached but five percent of the
cost i mean it's i think somewhere between 25 and
35 dollars a month and there's a yearly option as
well so that's very reasonable and and
your whole team is some form of athlete so
whoever's answering the question has the knowledge to to
(39:32):
lend right oh for sure yeah like
uh there's four of us we're all athletes and we're
it's it's still a hobby project we we still have
full-time jobs even though mine is being an athlete but
i really enjoy helping other people and this
is something where i could help other people on mass
and i do really enjoy just analyzing training
(39:54):
and finding better ways to to improve and i do
feel like over the years i have amassed
quite a lot of knowledge which is fun to spread but then.
Also i do feel that a lot of the training platforms out
there are very much based off road running but then just
on steroids to make it into a trail running plan whereas i do feel like we have
(40:14):
a lot of very specific trail running and obstacle racing sessions and and workouts
and things in there which are very much for trail running so that the the training
ethos even is different to to road running and there's a it's a very sort of.
Rounded product which isn't just getting you as fit as possible because that
is only one piece of the puzzle it's also working on a lot of other pieces of
(40:38):
the puzzle which you need like,
fueling and race planning and leg conditioning for
both uphill and for downhill so there's a lot more to it
than just if you can hit these this these
numbers on your on your tempo treadmill sessions then
you'll run your your trail race as good as possible it's not quite
as simple as that with uh with trail run no exactly
(40:58):
well that sounds awesome definitely want to check it out and
we'll we'll post some links in the show notes for people
that want to check it out for sure i mean it's
always it's always fun and also when people do check it out it's always great
to get feedback because we have made it that you can adjust your weekly commitment
level we call it so that means i'm commitment level five or six that's the amount
(41:21):
of training i get in a week But then you can turn that down to say,
I normally do threes or fours.
But then if I'm going away on holiday and I have more time because I've not
got work that week, I can try a five.
And that way you can continually turn your commitment level up and down.
It's always great to hear people's
experience with that system and to see how it works for them. them.
(41:42):
I love that because oftentimes if you have a week where you've not been able
to put the workouts in, then you feel guilty.
And then that rolls into a, well, I didn't get that workout in now I'm off the plan.
And I think that's an easy excuse for people to kind of spiral.
Whereas if you have the flexibility and you can see that just because you have
(42:05):
one week where you didn't complete all your sessions,
but the next week you're back on target, you don't
have that guilt association of and then it
really is a case that flexibility does work it's
just it's hard to trust and that's a battle we've
had that people don't trust it because it's not a digital
sex system where if i do these intervals on that tuesday six months later i'm
(42:27):
gonna have a great race i mean that that's not how it works it very much is
training is analog and it's how you make the training mesh with your everyday
life say family life and work life that that's what you know no relationship
between them is all important.
So normally we're talking about this wave. You've got to build this wave nice
and small, and then you've got to get that wave, that training sort of rhythm
(42:49):
and continuity past three weeks, because that's always the point.
Everyone gets to three weeks and then they see that, oh my God,
I can't do that for another three weeks, or they've made it manageable and they keep it going.
And then that consistency is all important. So that's sort.
Of the system is built for and i mean even this
week i just got back from the race and i
(43:12):
had that into the training race that means the app didn't plan in any
recovery for me whatsoever i was it was down to me to plan in my own recovery
so i put my commitment on commitment four this week and i might even skip one
of the key sessions and i've done all the workouts as cross training because
you can either choose to do the workouts running or cross training usually at
(43:32):
the beginning at this base building phase,
I'm doing more cross training and then steadily start doing more of the workouts running.
And so that's what I'm doing this week. I'm managing the recovery myself.
I've turned the commitment level down and I'm doing more cross training.
And that is possible with the system.
And then next week, I'll hopefully be back up on commitment five and then sixes
in the next couple of weeks as well. We'll just see how we go.
(43:55):
Very cool. Yeah, I like it. I like it too.
Well, we're definitely gonna be watching you in June and all the best at Western for sure.
No pressure no pressure i have actually
got transvolcania as my leading race for western as
well so i will be racing before western but it'll
be slightly shorter but probably hot and
relatively high as well and that'll be a fun one did you
(44:17):
say transvolcania it kind of cut out a bit oh wow
nice very nice well try
that race with a handheld and see how you do yeah i
was planning on trying to have it as a racing station within the
act where i am expected to test shoes test
clothing maybe i'll bring out the white tights who knows maybe
(44:37):
i'll bring out and that will be definitely like a dry run ready for western
so obviously i want to do well at the race but testing everything ready for
western will be one of the key the key focuses nice all right john before we
let you go we like to do a little rapid fire just for fun at the end of our
podcast So if you don't mind indulging us.
(44:58):
What's a TV show that you're embarrassed to say you watch?
Me and him, we have to watch Friends every night for the past couple of months.
And we normally watch the entire Friends series.
And then we start again after another couple of months. It's quite nice evening,
relaxed watching material.
So I guess that's slightly embarrassing.
That's a good one. That's a
(45:19):
good one. Would you rather be a professional writer, painter, or musician?
I'm artistically challenged, so I would suck at all of them.
I'm sure right where i'd be most successful but i'm definitely yeah i would be dreadful,
what's your go-to meal after a really
tough race or workout chocolate milk straight
(45:41):
after workout is always a way then my
go-to meal is actually chicken katsu curry there's
a japanese restaurant based out i think it's the uk called wagamama
so whenever i have the opportunity to go to a wagamama stevo chicken
katsu curry i'm there usually with a few side
orders of plain noodles as well nice how's your
norwegian yeah it's it goes up
(46:02):
and down i guess sort of similar to my running shape it
got better during corona because i took lessons i took
the language tests and got my citizenship so i
got a norwegian passport and then i'm sure it's got
worse all right well then i
can ask you this question so if you're running on the trail and you
stub your toe what would the curse word in norwegian be am i allowed to swear
(46:25):
yeah maybe which is um yeah yeah i guess that would be that would be an okay
one that would be good that would be good is it all fun.
Fine fine fine yeah fine like i
(46:45):
believe it's got one of those extra norwegian letters which
they decided to add into their which is a which
is an a with an e stuck together and the way
i remember that one is the a and the e are stuck together
and it's kind of like ah they're stuck together i've seen that
i've seen that for sure now you've raced around
the world what country have you not raced in
(47:07):
yet that you'd really like to experience new zealand
would be a great a great place
to visit and a little bit less dangerous animal wise in australia
so it'd be great to get down to new zealand actually me and henrietta would
love to live a year in new zealand to sort of like experience all the seasons
but what i expect is the canadian slash norwegian version of the southern hemisphere
(47:28):
so i was just gonna say if she wants to experience new zealand she's He's going
to love Alberta for sure. Okay.
Norm. Pick a superpower that you'd like to have.
Being able to stomach gels indefinitely, I guess.
That would be a superpower. Yeah, I think so.
(47:50):
That's a good one. I'm surprised more people haven't said that actually.
All right, John. Well, we really appreciate the time today and it's been great chatting with you.
And again, Again, we wish you all the best at Western and hopefully we'll see
you more on the ultra running scene in North America. And we might see you there.
Yeah, sounds good. No, I'm looking looking forward to it. Thanks for having
(48:12):
me. It's always it's always fun to chat. All right. All the best. Yes, guys.
And that was John Alban, fresh off his win in Saudi Arabia with a big fat check.
I still can't wrap my head around the fact that he did.
100K. In eight hours. Eight hours with constant obstacles continuously.
(48:33):
That's an obstacle every 500 meters.
And his worst or the most one that gave him some sort of trouble was the balance beam.
I can see that after running. Oh my gosh. I said do balance beam on a good day. On your first.
Hour imagine seven hours
later oh man trying to balance yourself well nevertheless
(48:55):
yeah i like what he said that he's going into western
for the experience and if he happens to have a good day then
so be it but he's gonna lead the charge because he said he prefers to lead than
follow therefore he's gonna go like a bat out of hell up the ski hill can you
imagine if he carries two big big 20 pounds off the ski hill. First one up there.
(49:19):
Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
Well, that would be his first 100 miler without obstacles.
So that is going to be interesting in itself. It sure will be. And we'll be watching.
We'll be watching. I'm definitely going to check out his app because I like
the idea that it's flexible, that you can move things around.
(49:39):
The Albin app. Albin app.
Created by professional athletes. I like the sound of the app because it sounds
flexible and you can move things around.
You can watch his training videos and how he does cross training and.
Ask questions. Ask questions and you'll get an answer. Which is important because
(50:00):
if you just have a blanket plan that you're following, you're not quite sure
if you're doing something right.
It's hard to get feedback. Feedback is the biggest key.
That's right. To a plan, I believe. Yeah, and you can sign up for free or get
the extended version with $25 a month. And he will be there on the other line.
You got it. On the other side of the app.
(50:24):
Well, we're looking forward to him at Western States. And if you enjoyed our
chat with him, please leave us a rating review.
We'd much appreciate it. Thank you. Until next time. Cheers. Bye.
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