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Callum Jacobs | Road Runner: Surviving on the Urban Trails.
294 Plays7 months ago
In this episode Michelle chats with Callum Jacobs, author of Road Runner: Surviving on the Urban Trails.
Michelle and Callum chat about:
- urban versus trail running
- how city running can inspire as much awe as the mountains
- sightseeing on the run
- running the London Underground, overground
- place hacking
You can follow Callum on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/the_urban_trailrunner
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Transcript
Alan's Introduction and Book Inspiration
00:00:00
Speaker
Alan, thank you so much for joining us today on the UK Run Chat podcast. We're really excited to have you on. Can you tell our listeners just a little bit about yourself and then we'll get into a chat about your new book? Yeah. Hi, Michelle. Thank you. It's lovely to be here. So I was founder of Seymour Running Tools, which is a site running tour company taking people on runs around London. I have been running for
00:00:27
Speaker
Well, I kind of came to it quite late, so about 20 years or so. And I'm now the author of the book called Road Runner, surviving on the urban trails, all about running in cities. Yeah, I have to say, I did. I really enjoyed your book. I read it a few weeks ago. I am a self-confessed trail runner. I used to run on roads, started on roads, but
00:00:49
Speaker
There's just so many beautiful trails near me. So I don't do much road running. And I thought when I picked up your book, I thought, oh, is he going to convince me that running in a city is good fun? I actually did. So you talked to me a little bit about that. What inspired you to write a book about road
The Beauty of Urban Running
00:01:04
Speaker
running? Because there's so many trail running books out there, isn't there? I mean, I think that was part of the reason, you know, I love reading running literature. I love reading running books. They are
00:01:13
Speaker
They're always inspiring, I think, but most of them were people, you know, trekking up fells in the Lake District or, you know, running through the Patagonian desert or all these kinds of things, which are, you know, lovely and beautiful. But I mean, that's not where I run. You know, I live in London and I run in the city. And I thought, you know, we just, we needed to redress your balance a bit. And, you know, I think it doesn't have to be,
00:01:41
Speaker
you know, either or it can be both and, you know, it's lovely to get out into the countryside. And on occasions, I will do that. You know, I think I have I've certainly run in some wild places and some beautiful places. But I just wanted to show that, you know, the cities is just as beautiful as well. And it's in its own way. And I think, you know, my, the thing as well I love about city running is all the
00:02:07
Speaker
uh, advantages of being able to stop for a cup of coffee, you know, exactly. You know, so it was, it was after, you know, years of running in the city and just seeing all these things and thinking, yeah, I want to kind of, I want to make sure other people know that, you know, it's not just the, uh, the rural back roads that you can run on. Yeah. It's a fun book. And I think, I don't know,
00:02:33
Speaker
road running is it's obviously accessible to the majority of people as well as in it i think trail running a lot of people just get a bit put off by it because they don't really want to go out into the wilderness as such so i think i guess it appeals to a lot of people in that way yeah and i guess you know to an extent you need to be depending on the uh
00:02:53
Speaker
how far you're going trail running, you need to be a little bit more prepared in that you don't want to get stuck at the top of Helvellyn or something in a storm. And so I suppose if you're doing it at that level at all, you want to make sure you come back. Whereas running in the city, you can always get the bus home. Yeah.
00:03:15
Speaker
And those kind of things. So it is accessible. And it is, you know, for me, it's it's, you know, straight out my door, you know, so I like that immediacy of it. And and the fact that you don't, you know, if you want to go for a run, you can just go. And I think that's true of
Alan's Running Journey
00:03:32
Speaker
most runners, right? You know, one of the joys of running as a sport is just put your trainers on and you're out the door. And maybe you want to, you know, stick a couple of gels in your in your pocket and put your iPod on and stuff like that.
00:03:47
Speaker
But it's that, you know, that's one of the glories of running is you just go and do it. You know, you don't need to wait for other people. You don't need to wait for a team. You don't need any equipment, really. And I think a lot of runners, when they start as well, you know, you're doing in your old tennis shoes or whatever you're doing in a T-shirt, you know, before you get into things like actual, you know, trainers and moisture wicking fabrics and all those kind of things. I think most people when they start,
00:04:14
Speaker
just run around the block, which, you know, was very much how I started running, you know, when I kind of got into it. As an adult, it was with no, no equipment and just like, I'll just go around the block and see how it feels.
00:04:29
Speaker
Tell us about that first experience for you, then. How was it? Well, it was I mean, I think I think my story is probably not untypical in that I didn't I didn't run as a kid. I was quite sporty as a kid. And at school, I played football and rugby and cricket and did a bit of athletics. You know, I was quite fast. But in fact, the one sport which was universally loathed was the cross-country run. Yeah, wasn't it? Yeah, same at our school.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, I was in school in the 1980s, and games teachers then were pretty unreconstructed. It was a pretty brutal place. And they, you know, send us out on this route march across muddy fields, you know, and the games teacher in typical 1980s fashion would drive to the halfway point, get out of his car, be standing there, roll up in his mouth shouting at you, you know, so everyone, everybody hated that.
00:05:29
Speaker
And so, you know, I didn't run a tent again, really until my late twenties, I think something like that. And I honestly, I can't really remember what it was that inspired me just to put on a pair of trainers and run around the block. And that first run, you know, I came back absolutely exhausted after 10 minutes, but yeah, obviously something in it must have appealed because I went back and did it a couple of days later.
00:05:56
Speaker
And then, you know, within a few months, I'd signed up for 10k. And I haven't really stopped.
Running Tours and Experiences
00:06:05
Speaker
So before we get into the book, just talk to us a little bit about how you got into, because you do site running tours now, don't you? I mean, I did. Sadly, we were a victim of COVID and the business is shuttered now. Yeah, I was a teacher for many years. And I quit that in 2016. You know, I've done it for a long time and I needed a break. And I had this idea of
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, setting up a business. I'm quite interested in history. I've taught a bit of history amongst other things. And I'm particularly interested in the history of London. And so I combine that with the running. And we set up a business where it was, yeah, site running is a very simple concept. It's like sightseeing, walking tours, which are massive in all cities around the world having wonderful walking tours.
00:07:00
Speaker
But the idea was, well, you're going to see a lot more if you're going twice as fast, you know, and plus people get to have a bit of a run on holiday. So we did we did a sort of central London one. We had a literary London one which sort of took in famous, you know, sites of poets and artists and writers and stuff. And we did a Hampstead Heath one, you know, which was lovely. And yes, it was just kind of it was it was it was good fun and it was interesting.
00:07:30
Speaker
And yeah, you know, it's a kind of nice idea sort of thing, you know, as a runner you want to do when you're on holiday. Yeah, it's a great way to explore. So there's a chapter in your book all about Paris where you go on just a little, well, it's not even a little running tour, is it? It's quite a long running tour of Paris. So I mean, how do you go about planning a sightseeing?
00:07:51
Speaker
trip like that on foot in a city that you don't know, where do you start? Well, something like that, I mean, that when I ran around Paris, it was and this again, for me is one of the absolute joys of the urban run is I really didn't have a plan. You know, I kind of I knew a bit of the geography of Paris. I've been there a few times. But the the delight is, you know, getting lost. And it's, you know, it's kind of hard to do. It's a sort of funny
00:08:17
Speaker
funny paradox of wanting to get lost and purposefully getting lost. And it's harder and harder to do that in London, you know, because I've been here a long time. But that was on that occasion. Yeah, I just, you know, I was, I think I was training at the time, I think I was, I can't remember if it was an ultra or marathon I was training for. So I knew I needed a good day out. And it was, I think I did about 20 miles of circuit of Paris. But what I often do, and what I did on that occasion is I had
00:08:48
Speaker
I had like a couple of places I wanted to see. So I needed, I wanted to go and see Jim Morrison's grave in Peléches. And there's this sort of rail, old disused railway, which has been turned into a park. It's a bit like there's a place in New York called the High Line, which is the same thing. And Paris has got its own version. And I thought, oh, that, you know, that's interesting. So I had those as sort of points on the route.
00:09:15
Speaker
And then I just, you know, just went and, you know, ended up, well, I kind of ended up doing sort of a whole circuit. But that's, you know, that's, that's what I love about urban running is, you know, you can get lost and you pretty much always guaranteed to be able to find your way home, you know, even if it ends up being on a bus. Yeah. So, I mean, do you often get lost around London then or do you kind of stick to a certain part of it?
00:09:42
Speaker
Do you know it really well? I wish I could get lost in London. I've lived here for... I was born in Sussex in the countryside, grew up in the countryside. And I think that's another part of why I still find the urban run so enjoyable is that I moved to London, came to London for the university and there was nowhere else I wanted to be. I just wanted to be here and it was so exciting. So I've lived in London for 30 years now.
00:10:13
Speaker
And it's very hard to get lost because I run all over it. I still get lost in South London. I'm a North Londoner and we have this bit of a ridiculous kind of thing about South v. North London. So I don't go to South London that much. So I can still get lost there. But the joy of running and suddenly finding, oh, I don't quite know where I am now. It's amazing. And usually within a fairly short period of time, oh, I know where I am now.
00:10:43
Speaker
But I went yesterday, I went for my long run yesterday. I'm in my training block for, I'm doing the London marathon this year. So I was kind of doing a fair bit of running at the moment. And I went for my long run yesterday and I sort of had the vague idea of heading down to Chelsea, you know, it's a sort of fair way down in North London. And I ended up in Chelsea Harbor. And now I've been there before, but I think the last time I've been there,
00:11:10
Speaker
I went for some sort of swanky lunch for my 21st birthday. And back then it was, you know, there was a couple of new bits of building, totally transformed now. And it was, that was like being lost, even though I'd been there, it was like being in a, I had no idea where I was, you know, running around for a bit. And that was delightful, you know, and I sort of knew how I'd get back to where I was, but seeing an entirely new landscape was lovely.
Philosophical Reflections on Urban Running
00:11:36
Speaker
You know, I loved doing that.
00:11:37
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that's part of the beauty of a city, isn't it? I've got a similar experience with Manchester because I live very near Manchester now when I was at university there. I had a 12 year break from it and it's totally transformed. It just looks completely different. I guess you don't get that with the countryside really, do you? Cities are constantly popping up with new roads, new buildings. Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely one of the things. There's been my book where I kind of write about, you know, comparing urban and
00:12:07
Speaker
were running and lots of bits in my book are throwing because I'm a teacher and I've taught philosophy and psychology and sociology, those are my kind of areas.
00:12:17
Speaker
So I end up sort of, you know, throwing in interesting little nuggets of those. And there's a nice bit from Edmund Burke of a philosopher. Right. It's all about what is beauty. It's quite deep stuff about how do we try to sort of pull apart when we see beautiful landscapes? What are we looking at? And he has this hierarchy of, you know, things which are massive are really beautiful or things which stretch into the horizon are beautiful or things, you know, the sort of
00:12:47
Speaker
the high point of the sublime, he says, is standing on top of something looking down. And I get all that. And I was thinking about that when I was out, when I was doing this big urban run. But he also says, and what's also really interesting is change, things which change. And I was like, yeah, I mean, that's not mountains, though, is it? Mountains, they're pretty much going to be the same every time you see them.
00:13:17
Speaker
And the thing about cities is, like you say, it's dynamic and, you know, you turn your back 10 minutes and it's totally different. And I find that just endlessly enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. I love the philosophical perspective in your book, actually. I've just read a book all about, it was a Robert Macfarlane, One Mountains of the Man, that was all about how nature inspires awe.
00:13:43
Speaker
And you really brought that across in how, you know, you're inspired by city landscapes. And I thought, actually, yeah, I've never considered that that could inspire or in somebody, but it does happen, doesn't it? And like you say, it's just about being there and thinking, wow.
00:14:01
Speaker
And it's an entirely subjective thing. And, you know, I completely understand how, you know, these beautiful countryside scenes can inspire awe. And I'm not, you know, immune to that. I can certainly see that. But it's very subjective. And there's, I, there's, there's a bit in the book where it talks about this, this psychologist, a guy called Daka Keltner, whose, whose work is all about awe, you know, understanding
00:14:29
Speaker
what happens to us in the presence of awe. And he's got this he's got this lovely experiment that he runs or he's run way he'd, he'd like to stop people. He works at one of the universities in California or something. And he had this experiment where he'd, they'd stop people and ask him a bunch of questions, you know, pretending it's sort of an interview, but the real experiment is after the interview.
00:14:53
Speaker
They have a stooge like walk past and accidentally drop their books and stuff. And they're interested to see if the participant, the person who's been doing the questionnaire, goes and helps them. Oh, how do they feel? Will they go and help this person out? And they do this in two conditions. In one condition, they angle the person answering the questionnaires. So they're just looking at a brick wall.
00:15:16
Speaker
as condition one. And condition two, they haven't said they're looking at this beautiful, huge oak tree or maple tree or something like that, you know, with the idea that this is going to inspire some sort of awe, you know, this beauty and glory of nature. Anyway, the result is, if the person's been staring at a beautiful tree, they're much more likely to go and help this person. And it's all about, you know, feelings of awe actually have all these incredibly powerful
00:15:42
Speaker
effects. And I thought that was really interesting as well, because he talks, you know, talks a bit about the, the sort of neuroscience behind this as well, what's what's going on your brain and body. And there seems to be a change in your body chemistry, which, and there's a couple of like, you know, it was a one or two removes, but there's all these positive things. And I was like making a link between, you know, these things. And he talks about things like reducing inflammation, and
00:16:12
Speaker
Oh, okay, that's got to be good for runners, right? You know, and so any, any exposure to, or whether it's in nature or in, you know, seeing an impressive building potentially, you know, it's good for, uh, good for us runners to recover as well. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's fascinating.
00:16:33
Speaker
And so your book, one of the chapters actually contrasts, you're in America, aren't you? And you decide to do an experiment of sorts and contrast like wilderness running with city running and somewhere kind of in between. So how did that go? Tell us a little bit about that. I mean, that was firstly, you know, all runs. There were three runs I did over a course of three days because we were traveling around and they were all fantastic. You know, first of all, how lucky to be able to do that.
00:17:03
Speaker
The rural one was in Yosemite National Park, which is absolutely beautiful. And it's got these huge mountains and you're in this beautiful valley. And it was flat out lovely. But there's a little bit of it where I'm running through and I'm looking at these mountains and I'm thinking, well, I've been to Yosemite about 15 years before. And it was lovely then, but it was also identical. And there's this tiny bit of me going, yeah, I mean, OK, it is beautiful.
00:17:33
Speaker
And then so then I did the next day we were traveling, we were traveling across California and I did a run in Fresno, which is the, I mean, it's a, you know, sure. It's a lovely city in California. And we really just stopped off there for the day. And I did a run that in a very weird little bit of town. It was, it was sort of deserted. It was looked like it was very newly built.
00:17:58
Speaker
It was an exceptionally hot day. I mean, I think I almost passed out with heat exhaustion, but it was, it was really eerie, you know, running through this clearly urban landscape, but also entirely deserted. So it was a little bit like being in Yosemite and that, you know, there was no one else there. And yet it was all built up. That was just bizarre. And then the following does in San Francisco. So I had this lovely early morning run.
00:18:27
Speaker
through the middle of San Francisco, you know, which is a full on urban experience with chaos and, you know, all sorts of strange people, the sort of people you only get, you know, in the middle of cities. And just but, you know, very different. And like I say, they were all wonderful runs. But I think probably for me, it was the San Francisco run, which was the winner.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah, the most interesting. It's funny you mentioned Fresno. You just reminded me of an experience I had in New York, actually. And obviously, when you arrive in New York, you're very jet lag, so you're up early, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. I remember getting up the first day after we arrived at about 4am and thinking, let's go, let's go and run to Central Park at the same time square.
00:19:13
Speaker
And it was deserted. It was weird. There were just a few kind of people out cleaning the streets. And it just felt like I was on a film set. And that was just so bizarre. But I think that's what puts me off running in cities. It's all the people. How do you deal with, especially in London, all the tourists and just all the people and are you constantly weaving? I mean, yes, I mean, it depends where you go. I think one becomes fairly adept at knowing which places
00:19:40
Speaker
to avoid at particular times. You know, I love running on the South Bank of Thames in London. It's beautiful, you know, you've got Thames and you got, but that's crazy. You know, if you go to the weekend, there's a there's a there's a not always phrase, which always pops into my head. It's from a sociologist, a book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities. And the author talks about the intricate sidewalk ballet of like trying to get through that. And it is, you know, so I think
00:20:09
Speaker
I think you sort of learn there's usually a backstreet, you know, there's usually a bit and even simple things like just crossing. If I am down there crossing Westminster Bridge, one side of Westminster Bridge, the side which is kind of closer to the sort of central London is always crazy. The other side is empty. It's bizarre, because you wouldn't cross the road. You have to sort of go on the underpass. But just knowing, oh, just just run on the left side of it. And, you know, it's actually fine. So you kind of I guess you pick up
00:20:40
Speaker
things like that. Yeah, you know, I think I mean, you said about being in New York when it's deserted, you know, that's that's cities can be incredibly different experiences, you know, summer to winter, morning to night, those kind of things. So I mean, in your watch, I mean, New York is just the most incredible place to run. How did you did you go elsewhere other than Central Park?
00:21:05
Speaker
That was the only place we ran. We did a lot of sightseeing while we were there. I think that was the only room we did because we, yeah, it was kind of a multi-stop holiday. So we didn't have long there. But yeah, it's an incredible place,
Marathon and Ultra Marathon Adventures
00:21:17
Speaker
isn't it? Yeah, like you said, it's like doing a film scene. So you've done the marathon there, haven't you? You've done the New York City Marathon. I did. Yeah, I did. That was, you know, very lucky. They used to, for the New York Marathon, they used to have a procedure where if you applied and you didn't get into the lottery, you know, like the London Marathon, like a lot of them.
00:21:31
Speaker
And if you didn't get in three years in a row, you got guaranteed a place for fourth year. And they stopped doing that now, unfortunately. But that's how I got in. I applied and applied and applied, and then I got my place. I think that's one of my all-time favorite runs, I think. It was so, so exciting. Just like you say, every street was like being in a Martin Scorsese movie or something. That was incredible. And the crowds were amazing.
00:22:01
Speaker
and it was bitterly cold. You know, it's November, it's first weekend in November and it was a sub-zero temperatures, you know, really, really cold. And we have the way they organize it, they get everybody starts out in Staten Island, you know, cause it famously goes through all five boroughs. So you start out in Staten Island and they have to bus you out there and the buses go quite early. So anyway, it ends up with you being stuck there
00:22:30
Speaker
I think I was there for about three hours waiting and there's no other way to do it really. So those three hours of being absolutely frozen cold, you know, I ended up shutting myself in a porterly for an hour just to kind of keep warm. Yeah, exactly. Was that really the best option? I honestly was. I mean, to their credit, I will say, and you will notice as a runner, the shortage of porterloos at races is always a problem. Not in New York.
00:22:59
Speaker
The New York Marathon, I mean, they must have had thousands of them. Because I think there's, you know, it's like 30, 40,000 people do the New York Marathon. And there were no queues for the Portaloo's anyway. It was incredible. I've never seen anything like it. Like, you know, they say runners all know what we mean by this. But it did mean I had the chance to go to sit in a Portaloo and try and keep warm for now. But that I mean, that wasn't the highlight. I don't think the highlight.
00:23:26
Speaker
was running through the streets with these very, very effusive supporters, you know, Americans pretty all in on that kind of thing. Yeah, a lot of whooping and hollering and foam fingers and bands and stuff like that. And it was it was fantastic. Yeah, really, you know, so very lucky to get to have done it really, really good fun.
00:23:51
Speaker
Fantastic. Which was your favourite bit to run through, would you say? I think, I think the sort of early bit, partly because I wasn't dying at that point, you know, still feeling pretty good first 10 miles of a marathon, you're feeling like, this is going to be easy, how wrong I was. But kind of going through, through Brooklyn, which I'd never been to, you know, I've been I've been I think, to New York, maybe once before, and I've been to Manhattan, which is what, you know, most people do.
00:24:16
Speaker
And so this was a bit I'd never seen. And it was the early, the start of it. So I was feeling very good. I've warmed up a bit, incredible crowds. And just everything was new. Everything was, that looks interesting. I didn't recognize anything. And then I had an unfortunate mile 16. So as we crossed over into Manhattan, you cross over right on the sort of
00:24:46
Speaker
west side, east side. And I stopped and had a, you know, one of the gels, I hand out gels and obviously, you know, and I took one and for some unknown reason, I grabbed a chocolate flavored gel. Now, I don't know about you, but I like my energy gel sort of fruity, but citrusy, something refreshing. And I still don't know what made me think, Oh, yeah, chocolate, that's a good idea.
00:25:13
Speaker
And it upset me for the next couple of miles. It was not pretty, but you know, I recovered. So those were high points or low points, I think.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, that doesn't sound very, very pleasant. Oh, dear. Yeah, well, that's, let's go back to London, then. So you have now this challenge that you did in London to run the London underground lines, but run them over ground really fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You cover quite a few lines in your book, don't you? In various chapters. But that's a huge challenge.
00:25:49
Speaker
Well, I mean, yeah, you say that I took a very sort of easy going approach to it. Now, I just, you know, I was looking for sort of interesting things to do. So, you know, I've done a few marathons, and I've done a few alters. And I wanted a sort of bespoke challenge, you know, something that was, I love doing big races, love doing organized races. But this was I will go and do it on my own. And I thought, yeah, you know, live in London seems like a good thing.
00:26:15
Speaker
And I did a bit of, you know, searching online, it didn't look like, you know, I've had a couple of people who've done this, but it wasn't as popular as I'm, I guess it's quite a long way. I took a very sort of I'm going to do this on my own terms approach to it. To the point where I haven't done them all, you know, it's an ongoing project. I did, I think I've done six of them.
00:26:35
Speaker
And I started off with the little ones. So I think Victoria Line, I think was the first one I did. So it's about 12 miles. It's a good run, but it was certainly within my capabilities. And then I gradually expanded them. But also, I wasn't going to be particularly pressured to actually pass every single station. I thought I could get caught up in
00:27:02
Speaker
difficult routes where you got to run back on yourself and some of the branches, you know, your branches going different directions. So it's like, do I run down and go back up again? I'm like, no, I'm just going to start one end, roughly follow it, get to the other. And then that's what I did. And, you know, that's lovely. And the nice thing about that, again, is it took me out to bits of London I didn't know, you know, because obviously the start and the end of the lines are right on the edges of London. So it often, you know,
00:27:29
Speaker
I think the longest one which I didn't quite manage was the central line, which is 40 miles. I had to call that one about 27, 28 miles. But it started, I mean, I was in the countryside, there were fields and cows and I was like, wow, the tube line goes out this far. So that was quite a nice surprise. Recently, I kind of did this as a guy I follow on Instagram called Johnny Davis.
00:27:58
Speaker
Now, he's recently done this properly. He did all, every single station in 11 days. I did mine over like months. You know, it's amazing. And he's, you know, he raised a load of money for charity. And, you know, it's fantastic. So he really did plan out every single stop, one line a day and did the whole thing. So, you know, in comparison, mine is a relatively mediocre challenge.
00:28:28
Speaker
But it's just that, you know, finding interesting things to do that that's why I did it. And I thought it was it was unique. And I thought that's a great challenge to kind of get you out there and keep you motivated, isn't it? Yeah, you know, I think that's, that's, we all need that from time to time, you know, not everybody wants to run every single day. And I found, you know, one of the things one of those nice as a nice term psychology called a commitment device.
00:28:57
Speaker
you know, which is a sort of thing they talk about in habit forming, you know, you, you tie something you don't want to do in with something you do want to do. And then you say, I'm only gonna do this thing if I do this other thing. So if I'm not really feeling like a run, one of the things I will do is I will tie in with and again, this is the joy of running in cities, I'll tie in with a visit somewhere and it might be to a particular favorite food truck or something. So like, right, I'm going to do this run, I'm going to end up with this food truck where they do these fantastic
00:29:26
Speaker
you know, burgers or whatever, or I'll, I'll tighten with, you know, going to a museum or something, or even just like a kind of errand, I've got to do like, you know, I've got to pick up this thing. So I run there, you know, and that's, you know, that's a nice thing where you can create a little reason to go for a run on those those days, we all feel sometimes I don't really want to go today. Now, you know, that was the idea behind
00:29:53
Speaker
the two blind runs, really, it was like, OK, this gives me a little purpose, I suppose. Yeah, because it was that was the central line. Was that your first attempt at kind of a beyond marathon distance at the ultra distance run? It wasn't on those runs. It wasn't the first ultra I'd done. So my my very first ultra was I signed up for what was I stopped doing. You know, it's called the Royal Parks Ultra. So the Royal Parks have this lovely run in London, half marathon.
00:30:23
Speaker
every October. And it's, you know, it starts in Hyde Park in London and goes through a bunch of beautiful, it's really nice. It's an October, it's a really well supported thing. And for a few years, they set up and ran an ultra, so 50k, what we probably call an entry level ultra, you know, it's only about five miles longer than a marathon. That was my very first ultra. And that was lovely. That was so well, that was such a good introduction to it. It was so well supported.
00:30:51
Speaker
Um, it was only about 200 of us doing it. This was, you know, a few years ago now, which has become, you know, we're catching up on America in terms of their popularity for a long time. Here is a real niche thing, right? You know, it's only kind of a real elite group of people. And when I did this world parks culture, so there's only 200 of us, you know, you get far more people now and there's lots and lots of them. Um, but that was my first over, over marathon distance one.
00:31:22
Speaker
And again, you know, you just kind of, okay, well, I can do that. Maybe I'll be a bit further. You know, it's a bit, well, you'll know it's a bit addictive, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Because you, of course, went on to run. Yeah, you ran from London to Brighton. I did. That's, that's been, that's certainly been my longest down. Honestly, A, I don't know how I managed it. I'm pretty sure I'll never do that again. It was a long way. 100 kilometers. Yeah. It was, you know, so 62 miles.
00:31:52
Speaker
And it was, I'd signed up, so I'd signed up to do a hundred kilometer ultra. Um, it was one of these, um, it was a 10th path one, actually, it was a kind of organized one. So this was a few years ago. It was, it was planned as a, um, sort of celebration of turning 50. Right. This is what I was going to do. And I signed up for it. And then it was in the middle of, uh, 2020 COVID. So it was all canceled.
00:32:17
Speaker
And I'd done all my training and I was like, Oh no, you know, I've been, I've been actually proper first time I've ever followed a training plan. Normally I'm like, I just gotta run a few times. I'll be fine. And usually it is. I thought a hundred kilometers better take this seriously. So I followed a proper training plan. I was running four times a week, you know, doing these big long runs every weekend. And then it was called off and I was, you know, I had a sort of real.
00:32:44
Speaker
I don't know, half a day or so really feeling quite low and like, oh my God, I don't suppose it was all bound up with what was going on generally. And then I thought I had this sort of revelation, like, well, I could just go and do it anyway. You know, I could just go and go around and it's, you know, I'll probably need a bit of support.
00:33:00
Speaker
And I got out Google Maps and I had a look. I thought, well, maybe I could run down to Brighton. That's where I'm from originally. I grew up in Sussex and I went to school in Brighton and I thought that'd be a nice sort of thing. And I looked on Google Maps and it was like it was meant to be. From my door in North London to Brighton Pier was like almost exactly 100 kilometres. It was perfect. And I thought, yeah, OK, we'll do it. And so that's what I did say. Just before I turned 50,
00:33:30
Speaker
I ran, ran from London to Brighton, which was, you know, like I say, I don't know how I managed to do it. The thought of, I'll go out for a run now, you know, and I'll do sort of 15, 20 miles. And then I asked me, dang, I can't go another step. So I don't know what it was. I suppose it was just because I had been training for it, you know. Yeah, you had that motivation there, didn't you? And I guess that connection to Brighton, that's, that's a big deal, isn't it? Yeah. And it was, you know, I think the thing
00:33:56
Speaker
the thing about ultras, it's not a secret, you know, you just do a lot of training, and then on the day, just keep going one foot in front of the other. There's a nice there's one of those books I've read, which was mostly set in that urban wilderness was called relentless forward progress. You know, and that's why it's marathon running so much money just, just keep going. Yeah.
00:34:17
Speaker
So that reminds me actually talking about ultra running. You, the forward to your book is written by a very famous.
Collaborations and Inspirations
00:34:24
Speaker
Carnot. Yeah. Yeah. But he's got, I mean, I'll tell you how I got in touch with him, but he's got a lovely phrase, which is something like, run while you can, walk when you have to, crawl if you must, but never give up. How about how did you get the great Dean Carnot? He's just such a lovely generous player. Literally, I think I
00:34:46
Speaker
think I'd kind of collected him on Instagram a couple of times, you know, commented on stuff. And he, you know, he'll often sort of say a reply and stuff, you know, he's very sort of generous with his time. And then I just I sent him a copy, you know, sent him a sort of early draft of a manuscript of it. And I sort of, I'd had this, I'd sent it to a few people. And again, I'd have this sort of idea borrowed from psychology about
00:35:13
Speaker
how you can sort of encourage people to do the things you want. There's this very famous book in social psychology by a guy called Robert Cialdini and it's called Influence. And it was one of these books he wrote all about how, you know, unscrupulous salespeople get you to do things. And he wrote it, this guy wrote it from the point of view of
00:35:34
Speaker
trying to show you what they do so that you can be guarded against it. And now ironically, he points out that it's now like a must have reading of all unscrupulous salespeople. So it's kind of backfired. But he has this technique, he calls the door in the face technique, you know, which I'm sure all salespeople will be nodding along to. And you make a request which is bigger than the request you want.
00:35:57
Speaker
And so when somebody turns you down, you then make the smaller request that you want. And so anyway, so I kind of had this idea and it felt a little bit sneaky, but I sent it out saying, oh, you know, really lovely if you could write the forward to my book, thinking he'd probably say, no, I haven't got time for that. And then I'd say, well, maybe just like a quote for the back cover, something like that. But he's like, yeah, fine. I'll write the forward. He read it and he loved it. And he's like, yeah, happily do that. I mean, what a lovely guy, you know, he's
00:36:25
Speaker
He's obviously pretty busy whenever you see him on Instagram, Instagram, obviously, and he's always, you know, around the world and doing these incredible things. But he was just very generous. And obviously, I say really liked it. And, and often move us lovely forward for it. So I'm a huge fan of his. And in fact, I think, you know, his his first book is called Ultra Marathon Man. There's a little story in there, which I think really inspired me.
00:36:54
Speaker
which was, you know, talking about why he'd gone for a run, all night run with his, one of his kind of buddies. And they'd been running through San Francisco and they'd like stop at this bar and drink tequila. And I'm like, that's insane. You can't do that on your running. But you know, it's just like, that's a fun of the urban run. You just stop, have a little drink. And then they went and did another 20 miles. And it was that sort of, uh,
00:37:19
Speaker
The run can be whatever you want it to be, right? It's your run, do it the way you want. If you want to stop and go home, you can. If you want to change direction, if you want to do a bit of shopping, if you want to stop and have a tequila. And I found that such a sort of liberating thing. So I'm a huge fan of Cartnose. I think he's an absolute inspiration. Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. It sounds like you've both got a very similar philosophy to what you're doing as well.
00:37:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. Just talking about food briefly, you do like to stop for tacos and things, don't you? And you have kind of pointed out in your book some of the best places that people could eat. Where's your favorite in London? Yeah, in London, I mean, we're talking about how lovely it is where everything's dynamic and changing in cities. The other side of that is you'll find a fantastic place to eat and then you'll go back and it's shut down. I think a lot of restaurants don't last.
00:38:13
Speaker
I think I've got into a particular period of eating these Vietnamese sandwiches called Banh Mi, which I just absolutely love. They're a little bit heavy, you know, for a while. It's French bread packed full of mostly sort of vegetables and chili and a bit of pate and stuff. So I would find myself dotting around different Vietnamese restaurants in London, trying to find those. You know, often it will be
00:38:43
Speaker
You know, you can't move in London. I'm sure it's true in Manchester as well for, you know, a little pop-up village of food trucks appearing. So you'll often just run across somewhere and it will depend how the mood takes me. I think, you know, sometimes I've got quite good over the years, you know, and again, I think most runners will develop this ability to know what you can handle in terms of food, any given point. Sometimes you just want water.
00:39:13
Speaker
Lucas Aid in the gel, you know, on a long run, something a bit heavier might work. And sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But, you know, I think you develop those sort of things. And that's another thing about, you know, running in different cities, you know, I think finding whatever are the interesting food spots in different cities.
00:39:37
Speaker
But also, a couple of times I've stopped somewhere, this happened just the other week, and you'll be buying something and the person selling will look at you sort of sweaty and red-faced and they'll be like, oh, you're up for a run. And you're like, yeah, oh, have you come far? And it'd be usually like, yeah, just run 20 miles or whatever. And they'll be like, oh, okay, have some extra stuff. And this happened the other day. I'm like, I'll have the small falafel pitter and this guy's like,
00:40:04
Speaker
You've run how far, right? Have a large one. Have some extra halloumi. It's all on me. I'm like, okay. So, you know, there's that kind of nice sort of interaction as well, I quite like. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. Talk to me before we kind of wind up just about the concept of place hacking in
Place Hacking and Anecdotes
00:40:19
Speaker
a city. This chapter fascinated me because in the countryside we see more kind of open land being enclosed.
00:40:27
Speaker
had never occurred to me that this was an issue in cities actually. Yeah I mean absolutely that's such an interesting analogy you know because I'm sure you you know I'm kind of very interested in in that sort of way that paths rights of way in the countryside and there was obviously that sort of famous kinder scout thing years ago with people you know making a stand against that and it is less obvious in the cities you're right but it's something that you know I notice a lot where
00:40:54
Speaker
place you ran down before, suddenly you can't go down there. Or, you know, there literally be some guy in a high vis jacket with a clipboard saying, you know, you got to go around. And it, you know, became apparent to me that virtually everywhere the city is owned by, you know, maybe by the council, but often by a big corporation or, you know, whatever. And
00:41:16
Speaker
And we're often running around, you know, basically with their say-so. And sometimes they're like, no, not anymore. And I was reading about this and there's this movement called place hacking, you know, and it's people who make a point of finding these places. Sometimes there's various incarnations of it, you know, it's a sort of
00:41:39
Speaker
It is an academic discipline. I think it's what the sociologists call edge work. It's like, you know, a slightly sketchy edge of society stuff. And it's, it's about, yeah, it's, you know, it's kind of urban geography and economics and all these things tangled together about who does own it and what should we do about it. And this place hacking movement is people who've taken a very practical
00:42:05
Speaker
you know, way of dealing with since gone out. And it's, you know, there are times where it crosses over into probably a little bit criminal in terms of breaking into places. Now, you know, to be clear, I've never I've never done that. I've taken opportunities and advantages if I found a door which perhaps is supposed to be locked open, and I might wander through and have a look.
00:42:27
Speaker
And these kind of serious place hacking guys very often like going up on the top of buildings and down into sewers. And I'm like, I'm not going to do that really. But I love the idea of treating the city as a bit of a playground. And let's see where we can go. And often, I think it's
00:42:49
Speaker
I mean, there's a sort of political point a bit, but it's just fun, right, you know, seeing if if you can go down, you know, I've got trapped in a couple of places and running around. And there's this ends of court in London where all this sort of barristers and stuff are there's a big area that beautiful, you know, it was incredible old buildings, and I ended up running in there and I'd obviously come through a door I wasn't supposed to, because I couldn't find my way out again, that's like jump over a wall. And another time there's this lovely
00:43:19
Speaker
beautiful landscaped garden in just south of Regents Park. And I'd run past it a hundred times. And it's one of those, you know, locked only for residents in these incredibly expensive, huge Georgian terrace houses. And I'd run past this a little bit. Why can't I go there? You know, why is it just for the rich people who can go in there? And I'd run past this and then there's a door there and I'd occasionally try it and it was always locked. And then this one time it wasn't.
00:43:46
Speaker
And it was open, I'm like, fantastic, I'm in. And I have this lovely, and it was absolutely beautiful, it's beautiful landscape gardens. And then I remembered, I'd read this story about there being this secret tunnel from these gardens, which goes under the Marrowbone Road, this huge, you know, really busy road and up on the other side. And there it was, I found it's called Nurse Maid's Tunnel. And it was built in Victorian times exactly for
00:44:11
Speaker
you know, the nursemaids of posh people to go under the road so they wouldn't get run down by a horse and car weather. And it was like it was, it had never been touched. It had these gas lamps and this Victorian tiling. And it was all like, why aren't we allowed to see this? It's beautiful. But then same thing, I couldn't get out. I went back to the gate and obviously someone had come in and shut it.
00:44:34
Speaker
And, you know, there's no way of climbing over the fences here. It's clearly designed, well, to keep people out, but also as it turned to keep people in. And so then I was running around for five minutes thinking, what am I going to do here? I mean, there were a few people in there, but I didn't really want to say, excuse me, I've come in here and I'm not supposed to. Can you let me out? And eventually I sort of spotted someone heading to the exit and just ran in behind them and said, hold the door, please. So, you know, it's not that it's perils, but
00:45:03
Speaker
I felt like a little victory. Yeah, that's quite exciting. Yeah. And you never would have found that tunnel, would you? That's amazing. Yeah, that's absolutely fascinating. Yeah, there are some funny moments in your book, actually. I mean, what's what's probably the most memorable or most humorous moment that you can think of? Well, as humorous now, at the time, it was it was very much not humorous. Well, I think it is probably one of the funniest moments, certainly for other people.
00:45:29
Speaker
And it was when I was, it was when I think I was training for my first ultra. So I was, you know, I was doing sort of a lot of running and I was doing hill work and stuff. And I live very near Muzzle Hill, very steep hill in North London. And I was, I was running up that and it's, you know, it's kind of a good five minutes to run up it. I got to the top and I was, you know, walking back down and then I started picking up the pace again. Anyway, something happened, which I was absolutely convinced only ever happened in cartoons.
00:45:57
Speaker
And as I was coming back down, I saw this group of workmen standing around chatting. I obviously hadn't seen them on the way up. I'd been head down, I'd gone past on the outside. And I sort of, I was picking up the pace of it and I thought, I'll just, you know, chart my little, immomently, I charted my route through the middle of them. And as I passed the first one, I just caught a glimpse of his face, you know, mouth open, eyes wide, which at the time I just thought, oh, he's impressed with my form and speed.
00:46:26
Speaker
And then only afterwards realized was a look of absolute horror about what was about to happen. And suddenly, I wasn't running anymore. I was going sideways. I was flat. And I had run headlong into this massive four meter square bath of wet concrete, which presumably they were supposed to be warning people not to step into, but they were getting away. And there I was lying in this huge bath of concrete, just like, what happened? Oh, OK.
00:46:57
Speaker
And I got up and I don't think any of us said anything. They were just like these four guys were just looking at me with sort of horror and like, I don't know what to do. And I was like, I can't even remember if I just said thanks or, you know, good job or whatever. And just carried on down the hill, dripping with concrete. I had to throw my trainers. Everything else, I had to get rid of the trainers. I mean, it was fine, but you know, at the time it was quite a shock. Quite a good story to tell now.
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't a bigger hole. Yeah, you're lucky, weren't you? Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Well, on that note. Thank you, Callum. It's been absolutely fascinating chatting to you. And you. We want to give too much away about the book, but hopefully it's, it's people's interests to go and have a read because I certainly enjoyed it. Oh, good. Thank you.
Future Projects and Book Sequel
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah, so what have you got coming up next, apart from London Marathon? Anything else? I don't know. Yes, I'm doing London Marathon in April. I've got, I was halfway through sort of one of these bespoke runs where I was doing across London, side to side, up and down. So I did, you know, from M25 to M25. So I did west to east last summer, I think. So I've got a tube right out to
00:48:16
Speaker
Uxbridge or something, you know, where the M25 was and ran right across, which is about 35 miles. So again, a sort of good day out. And then I wanted to do north to south. I haven't done that yet. So I think it's about the same. So again, you know, get the train up to wherever the M25 starts and just go right down from top to bottom. And I'm kind of vaguely thinking as well about doing a sequel to the book, which will just be
00:48:41
Speaker
City runs around the world. So, you know, I think it could take quite a while. I don't travel that often, but Copenhagen in a few weeks, I'll do a run around there. So I've got the idea that I'll gradually try and build up, you know, if I do travel, I'll do a run for every city I go to. So that's that's the plan.
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, well, that sounds fascinating. Yeah. You must let us know about that. We'll look at. Certainly. So your, your book is called Roadrunner surviving on the urban trails by Callum Jacobs. And what can people, what can people find it? That's available in Amazon and all good bookstores as they say. And where can people find you on socials, Callum, if they want to. I'm just an Instagram. I'm the urban trail runner on Instagram. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, I really hope you've all enjoyed listening to this episode.
00:49:28
Speaker
And all the best, Colin. Thanks again. Thank you very much.