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Scott Jenkinson | The Triple Crown
245 Plays11 months ago
Scott Jenkins is the 1st Briton to complete the arduous and elusive Triple Crown of 200s in the World Series, placing 5th behind Nike athlete Sally MacRae. Scott is also the current British record holder for the Moab 240 race in Utah and is the first Welshman to complete this race, Bigfoot 200, Tahoe 200 and Cocodona 250 as well as being the 2nd ever Welshman to complete Badwater 135. He has also completed the canal slam, a series of 3 races (130, 145 and 145mile races) along the UK canal systems finishing 6th overall. He is known as the UK’s 200 mile man, for specialising in events of 200+ miles and has ran more 200 mile events than any other UK based runner.
In this episode Michelle chats with Scott all about the Triple crown 200s.
An incredible achievement, enjoy this interview with Scott.
Follow Scott on Instagram
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Transcript
Meet Scott: Ultra Runner and Medical Professional
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi, Scott. Thank you so much for joining us on the UK Run Chat podcast today. Could you just give our listeners a brief introduction to you if they've not heard of you before?
00:00:11
Speaker
Yeah, sure. And thank you so much for having me on. I really, really appreciate it. It's great to be here and great to chat about running with yourself. So I think from my perspective, I'm an ultra runner in my spare time outside of work.
Racing for a Cause: Operation Smile
00:00:27
Speaker
Work-wise, I specialize in hip and knee replacement for Johnson & Johnson, which is rather ironic because my hobby is, as I say, ultra running. And yeah, very lucky I get to go and do that in my spare time.
00:00:40
Speaker
have some adventure by doing some challenging races like bad water and like the triple crown of 200 milos and also try to raise money for Operation Smile which the charity have been supporting for eight years as well.
Conquering the Triple Crown: 200-Mile Races
00:00:55
Speaker
Yeah so tell us about your triple crown then because that's what we really want to talk to you about today. So congratulations first of all on fifth place
00:01:06
Speaker
Can you tell us a little bit about what the series is and what it means just to give our listeners a bit of perspective into what an achievement is? Yeah, sure. And again, thanks for the kind words. It really means a lot to me. And yeah, it's just been an epic summer of adventure, really. So the Triple Crown of 200 Mile is a series of three 200 mile races in the United States. So the first one,
00:01:34
Speaker
is the Tahoe 200 race which takes place around Lake Tahoe in California and the mountains out there. This year it was meant to take place in June but because and this still blows my mind they had 58 foot of snow last winter. If we had 58 centimeters we would be
00:01:54
Speaker
you know, falling into ruin here, but 58 foot. So the first race was postponed. The second race, the first race we should say was postponed to the middle of July. The second race, the Bigfoot 200, which takes place in the Pacific Northwest,
00:02:10
Speaker
turned out being two weeks after the first 200 miler which as you can imagine was quite a logistical and recovery based challenge to get ready for a second one like that in such a short space of time and the thing that I should add about the bigfoot 200 is it's 47,000 foot of elevation up
00:02:28
Speaker
and down so it's a real quad killer and then the Moab 240 which some of your listeners may be familiar with is a 240 mile foot race around the deserts and mountains of Moab in Utah and it's such a beautiful place to run. I think the really challenging thing at Moab at this point
00:02:53
Speaker
outside of the mileage, which is a big enough challenge in itself, is the climate at this time of year in October.
Adventure and Charity: Scott's Motivations
00:03:01
Speaker
Very challenging to deal with, you can be dealing with like 30 degrees in the day, and then minus temperatures at night, which means that logistically, you're trying not to make mistakes with your kit and all that kind of stuff and thinking sections ahead. So it's a unique challenge. And yeah, I was
00:03:19
Speaker
aiming to try and become the first Briton to do it. So yeah, it's been a big summer of adventure. Yeah, it sounds it. So I mean, it's a really daunting challenge for anybody who isn't an ultra runner. But even those in the ultra running community must be thinking, you know, wow, what inspired you to get involved? Had you done any of the individual races before?
00:03:42
Speaker
you know, what is it to go for the triple crown? You're far too kind and thank you again for such kind words. I think for me, I'd run Moab in 2019. I absolutely love it. I was hooked on that race and just thought I would love to go back one day and I'd saw back then in 2019 that people were doing this thing called the triple crown. I was like, what's that? You know, would I ever be able to do it?
00:04:09
Speaker
That kind of motivated me to want to sign up for the physical side of the challenge. And then as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, my personal passion outside of the running and day to day life is to try and do a bit of good as well. So I genuinely believe that when we get older in life,
00:04:28
Speaker
Things that will remember won't be the times where, don't go wrong, I love watching Netflix of a cold winter's night, but it'll actually be the times where you went out and had an adventure and create these kind of seminal moments that you hopefully remember and take into old age with you. And I try to couple that with trying to raise money for Operation Smile too, because I think, well,
Logistics and Wildlife: Race Challenges
00:04:52
Speaker
if i can have a bit of an adventure in my life and hopefully try to make other people's lives a little bit or journey through life a little bit better or easier then hopefully that would be a good spot to get to so that's what keeps me inspired i suppose yeah absolutely so just tell us a little bit about the charity you're raising money for and then i'll ask you a little bit about the races then
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So Operation Smile is a worldwide charity that performs surgical intervention for children with cleft lip and cleft palate all around the world. And for $180, $150, it literally is like life change in surgery.
00:05:29
Speaker
You know, I think a smile is the universal language of the world when you and I have never really met before. We get on this call and you smile at each other. You keep kind of create that warmth. And I think that's very sad. Yeah. If you don't have that opportunity in life. So that's what I'm trying to do is try and raise money for them. Yeah. Oh, lovely. Thank you for that. And so so walk us through that these races, they sound very, very different in terms of terrain and climate as well.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, we're going to be here for about 249 hours, I think. Yes, the first race, the Tahoe 200, as I say, it's postponed this year, took place in July. That created a kind of new problem in a lot of the snowmelt had then gone. So accessing water on the course at the high, you know, high mountains and you're talking about mountains that are like
00:06:21
Speaker
So just walk, do you want to walk us through kind of each race briefly?
00:06:29
Speaker
anywhere between 10 to 14,000 feet high, which is pretty high up, especially for me coming from the UK, living in London. I was raised in Wales, so obviously used to running in the mountains. But yeah, it's a difficult course. Incredible views as you're kind of running up above Lake Tahoe itself. So you can see down onto Lake, which is very cool. But a lot of elevation, 37,000 feet of elevation incline.
00:06:58
Speaker
a lot of really nice single track, runnable stuff, but also some technical terrain too. There's one section, they call it the power line climb, and I think it goes up like a couple of thousand feet in just over a mile.
00:07:14
Speaker
it's literally it follows a power line cut on the tree line and it's very very technical going up it wasn't so bad because you can just you know you just get into that grind i'm sure you do i'm sure your listeners do you just got your poles down you're stomping up this mountain and then on the way down i found myself coming down at like 2am
00:07:37
Speaker
and trying to come down something that technical and that's steep at 2am resulted in me falling into a number of pushes and on my butt a few times. Other highlights from Tahoe was running an out and back section short four miles out short four miles back and then coming up the trail and
00:07:57
Speaker
My pacer tells me to stop. I immediately stop. I said, why are we stopping? He said, dude, there's two bear cubs just up the trail there, to which that was the first time during an ultra I've ever experienced that. And then the mother bear kind of came out of the bushes and just sized us up. The cubs ran back to the mum and it took off. But the mother bear looked like the size of a Nissan Micra.
Weather Woes and Race Performance
00:08:23
Speaker
Just absolutely enormous.
00:08:24
Speaker
So that was a unique challenge. It's going through your head then when you hear about bears on the trail. What do you think? Well, I mean, we could literally see them. We could see the cubs up ahead of us. And I've got a photo of the mother bear, which I made my pacer take, so it's too chicken to do it myself. But I mean, it's one of those moments that probably lasted like 10, 20 seconds, but actually felt like 10 hours.
00:08:51
Speaker
A little bit of fear, of course, but I was so tired that after about once the bear had taken off and the adrenaline calmed down, after about 10 minutes I was like, wow, that was quite something to see two bear cubs in the wild and its mum. Yes, it was terrifying and I'm thinking, I've still got to run back this way.
00:09:14
Speaker
But at the same time, I was like, wow, that's going to be something to maybe tell the grandchildren one day. That would be pretty cool. So that was Tahoe. The race itself went really well up until around mile 206 where
00:09:30
Speaker
whatever reason, maybe some GPX file issues, not related to my navigation, but the course ended up being about 11 miles longer than expected. And that happens when you're running this distance, it's just the nature of it. So it ended up, I went from 206 to 217 and probably slowed down a little bit towards the end, but I was delighted. I came home in 19th place, which
00:09:58
Speaker
you know for the first race in a series of three i was fairly pleased with that to be fair yeah that's amazing yeah how was the weather conditions then because you mentioned that the race had been postponed
00:10:10
Speaker
what was it like temperature wise? Yeah, it was hot. There's a couple of photos of me taking a trail nap on a snow bank trying to cool myself down and you're trying to filter water into bottles and there's no water so you're putting snow into the bottle to try and filter that but there wasn't too much of that around either so you know you're talking 20 mile sections
00:10:33
Speaker
As a runner, you know, you can't carry like six liters, seven liters of water. So after three or four hours when it's close to 35, 36 degrees, you're out of water and you're just trying to find a way to survive through that section, replenish and kind of go again.
00:10:51
Speaker
so yeah it was pretty brutal but it did get hotter in the next race as well so Bigfoot is for any of your listeners thinking about doing any of these 200 milers you know Bigfoot is in my opinion one of the most difficult races that I've ever encountered it's
00:11:10
Speaker
It takes place in a very remote area of the Pacific Northwest near a town called Randall and Mount St. Helens. So basically it's, have you ever watched those shows on TV where they're like, I swear I saw her Bigfoot last week. You know, you know the ones.
00:11:28
Speaker
You know, certain types of characters on them. When you go there and you run in that kind of place and it's the second and third night of running through those kind of mountains, I can kind of understand where they might be coming from on the Bigfoot front. It's just so heavily forested and heavily overgrown.
00:11:48
Speaker
It makes it a very technical race. It's a very tiring race, of course, with 47,000 feet of incline up and decline down. Just really saps the life out of you. I think the unique thing about Bigfoot is that every section is a challenge.
00:12:08
Speaker
which I'm sure you've been to races, longer races, where you do a section and you think, you know, we're kind of coasted through that section and then you think, oh, there's that bigger section coming up. At Bigfoot, every section is like that. And you're like, okay, this section is going to be a challenge because of the heat. This section is going to be a challenge because it's overgrown. This section features 7,000 foot of elevation in 18 miles, like on a basically unmaintained trail.
00:12:37
Speaker
and you're bushwhacking, you're getting hit in the face by trees, you're climbing over fallen trees that are literally, some of them are the size of width of cars and minibuses and things like that. It's just insane terrain. How they found that route is incredible. I mean, Destination Trail does such a great job of organizing these events in such a remote place, but Bigfoot is definitely very challenging.
00:13:03
Speaker
and then you make it through all the mountains all these high passes and forests and river crossings spectacular race and then you get to a road section and it's 13 miles half marathon back to town you think after all that it can't be that bad it's only 13 miles back to town yeah i was just thinking yeah
00:13:25
Speaker
I was wrong. Fortunately, or very unfortunately for me, they'd managed to pick a date that the temperature rose unusually and it was 42 degrees Celsius on the road for 13 miles. That's a difficult enough task on its own, but I think when you've run whatever it is, 196 miles and you've got 13 left to go and you're thinking,
00:13:52
Speaker
42 degrees, it's slightly more challenging. So that was Bigfoot. I came home in 35th place, so I was pretty pleased with that as well. The thing, again, for your listeners is that when I ran Tahoe, you're competing against certain runners that are doing the triple crown and others that are just doing singularly that race.
00:14:14
Speaker
Same thing at Bigfoot. So, you know, it was a very competitive field there and people were moving very fast through those mountains. And then you had all the triple crowners, the people that were doing the series of three who were essentially running another 200 mile race two weeks after the last one. So it was it was really, really hard. One of the hardest experiences I think I've had in running, actually.
00:14:39
Speaker
and then came back to the uk reset ate some food rested up a little bit did the recovery thing right and then flew back to utah to run the moab 240 on the 13th
Recovery and Mental Prep Between Races
00:14:53
Speaker
of october um and moab again just a spectacular place to run i think it's 34 000 feet of elevation up and down at moab they tend to match them and um
00:15:06
Speaker
You're just running through. Do you remember watching like, Westerns as a kid? Oh, Mr Love Westerns. Yeah, Clint Eastwood loved his films. Yeah.
00:15:15
Speaker
That's about as close as I can get to Clint Eastwood is kind of running through the same terrain as Moab. It's cowboy country and you're out there, you're really exposed. You're running through daytime temperatures like 30 degrees. Even temperatures, it could be minus temperatures, minus two, minus three. There was snow in the mountains. So you traverse all these deserts and canyons and then in between climb these two massive mountain ranges. So the Abaho Mountains, Shea Mountains,
00:15:45
Speaker
and then the La Sal Mountains, I don't know, 30, 40 miles after the first set of mountains. And it's, again, that section from Road 46 to Giza Pass, extremely technical, lots and lots of rocks to kick your toes off, which is, you know, when I haven't got many toenails left, it's less of a problem, I suppose. And then on that section, just before dawn,
00:16:12
Speaker
on the last day of the race again with my pacer running up the trail this time you know up at i'm guessing around 10 000 feet and my head torch picked up four eyes two sets of eyes in the bushes and i turned again to look and it was two mountain lions this time not bears
00:16:37
Speaker
And the scale of being terrified, I think that was probably a lot higher than the bears, because the bears just were more interested, but the mountain lions, I mean, they're proper apex predators. Also, two nights before, I had seen, again, obviously I'm on the trail, that's where I am. I'm coming up the trail again, and just going into a night's section, it's like five, six in the evening, starting to get dark.
00:17:06
Speaker
and there's an enormous dead cow on the side of the trail and I'm thinking hmm I wonder what's killed this cow and then slowly I got alongside and you could see where the mountain lion had literally ripped his throat wide open so when you're going into that kind of scenario and you're thinking I'm probably going to be six hours before I see the the aid station and my crew I didn't have a pacer with me
00:17:33
Speaker
That, yeah, it definitely gets the heart rate up a couple of extra beats for sure. Yeah, well that's the adventure you wanted, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, that was Moab and it's a big 240 mile loop. And if anyone ever gets a chance to go and visit that place, I strongly suggest to. It's beautiful out there. Yeah, it sounds amazing. They all do. Yeah. I mean, wow. Thank you. I mean, how do you, I'm particularly interested in, I've got loads of questions for you.
Mastering Sleep and Mental Resilience
00:18:02
Speaker
First of all, how do you run 200 miles and then two weeks later go and do that again? How do you possibly recover from that? What does your recovery in between look like? I know you'd normally have longer, wouldn't you?
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a good question as well. Thank you so much for asking it. It is a really good question and it's something that I discussed at length with my coach Jeff Brown in Jeff's an ultra runner from the States. He's actually the Moab course record holder. So he's very experienced at big distances and we were chatting about the recovery element between Tahoe and Bigfoot.
00:18:45
Speaker
First thing I did as soon as I finished the race, not the healthiest start to the recovery, but I had one beer and a burger and chips. So that sorted me out for a little bit. And then it was down to the serious stuff really, because I knew it was going to be on the road. So the next morning we got up and I went and sat in Lake Tahoe, just soaked my legs in the cold water.
00:19:07
Speaker
which help with some of the swelling and then went down to the local supermarket, stacked a trolley with loads of high protein foods just to try and deal with the inflammation. And then we mapped out what we were going to do each day and pretty much involved A, obviously making sure that the feet were recovering well around the blisters element. So
00:19:30
Speaker
obviously popped them all straight away after the race, made sure they were cleared up, made sure there's no infections. And then it was a case of just trying to eat as much as I could. We went up to a place called Boise in Idaho.
00:19:46
Speaker
america like the very good to happen like these recovery centers which i'm not for recovering alcoholics or anything like that it wasn't quite that bad i did not have a couple of days of the race but i was fine and it was it's one of the centers you go in you can do cryotherapy you can get an intravenous iv where you can literally pick.
00:20:08
Speaker
what you want, so it can enable you to rehydrate quicker, all those kinds of things. So basically went in, did some cryotherapy, which was quite literally cool, but very, very useful as well, certainly in terms of the swelling, made me feel a lot better. Then I did an IV, which was saline and magnesium, things like that, which would aid with the recovery process.
00:20:32
Speaker
And then each day, just eating, hydrating, I would do the compression boots religiously every day, morning and night, and then using the Ferrigan massage gun as well, which was really, really helpful. And then, yeah, just kind of try to get my mental game in check, I think, and prepare for what was coming at Bigfoot.
00:20:57
Speaker
I think, you know, I'm sure many listeners would relate to the fact that, you know, these longer distances like that, they're as much mental as they are physical for sure. Because, you know, everyone gets to a point where they're suffering, it's just like, you know, can you keep pushing forward when you're exhausted and physically spent, I suppose. Yeah, because how long are you out there for kind of 200 plus miles? How long does that take you roughly? So it's a long time, isn't it?
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the quickest I've ever done 240 was 77 hours back in 2021. But the races this year, I did Tahoe in 80 hours, I did Bigfoot in 80 hours, and I did Moab in 88 hours.
00:21:47
Speaker
slightly screwed up my sleep towards the end of Moab. I think I've got a bit of finish line fever on the last afternoon. Probably could have done with a little nap, which would have made the difference to the overall time. But I think when you're coming off the back of two already big races, you're kind of thinking, well, I've just got to get to the finish quickly as possible, really. Yeah. So how do you manage to sleep, Jo, in a long race like that then? What happens?
00:22:16
Speaker
I'm guessing you're trying to sleep as little as possible. I think sleepers were really like...
00:22:24
Speaker
unknown variable or unmapped variable that's kind of relatively new and pretty much specific to like, you know, that distance between 100 to 200 miles, because most people can go a night without sleep, you know, you've all done maybe two nights without sleep. But actually doing that when you're physically moving through challenging land landscape and also trying to be competitive is very
00:22:50
Speaker
Strategic, I think, and it's also very unique to the individual. So I, you know, I'm not like Courtney to Walter or Jeff, where, you know, I can sleep for five minutes and then I'm good to go. I need to sleep more in 20 minute cycles.
00:23:08
Speaker
So I think Moab I ended up seeking for about three hours but I'm always kind of mindful of it's either a 20 or 40 minute map pretty much. The only other thing I'll do is that if I'm really suffering on the trail in between sections is that I'll just bed down for five minutes on the sides but
00:23:27
Speaker
more often than not that's the middle of the night and it's really cold and you end up moving pretty quickly. Actually sometimes you know it's not just a sleep element I think it is just almost the ability to just allow your body to reset just not be moving let the heart rate drop maybe put your feet up against the log just to get some lactic acid circulating back down
00:23:50
Speaker
and then get up and move. But also, it's difficult to do, right, when you're trying to be as competitive as you can. And, you know, you might be running really well, and you're thinking, do I need to sleep? Or do I need to force myself to sleep? And then you're thinking, well, maybe somebody can come past me while I'm asleep, or vice versa. So it does become quite strategic, actually. So do you plan that in advance? Do you like have a strategy that you follow for that? Or what are the signs that you need to sleep?
00:24:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I do have a strategy which I follow and it's still not correct and it still needs to mine and out. But every time I run this distance, I learn something else and have a piece to the puzzle, if you like. And then I do plan it ahead of time. Yeah, of course. And sorry, what was the second part of the question?
00:24:41
Speaker
just how do you know, like save your Oh, yeah, the signs, like mental, we talked about mental health earlier, weren't we? And kind of does your mental state drop a bit when you know you're tired? Or is that usually the nail on the head? Yeah, yeah, I think the best way to describe it, I was describing it to someone the other day. So the last section of
00:25:02
Speaker
of the race at moab really suffering from a lack of sleep but i kind of got it into my head that i just wanted to finish and i'll just keep pushing forwards and then it got dark and you're looking through the world you're looking at the world through the head torch essentially and everything's dark and all you can see is this dust kicking up off the trail and
00:25:22
Speaker
It's really confusing. So I think that's the first sign is that I start to kind of get confused and question where we are, asking repetitive questions, such as like, how far have we got left to go? And then my pacer answers that question or somebody answers it. And then I'll repeat the question in like a minute or two. My wife always says that, you know, if I encounter her when I'm like that, that she can see it in my eyes.
00:25:49
Speaker
you know, the pupils are really dilated, it starts luring your words. Essentially, it's very like a drunk on a night out trying to bundle them into a cab. But when that drunk is a runner on the side of the cliff in the mountain somewhere, it's slightly trickier, but still achievable.
00:26:14
Speaker
What a great analogy. I might use that one again. It's good. I've not heard that one before, but it makes a lot of sense. I'm going to call it run drunk. Run drunk is what I'm going with. Yeah, I like that one. So you talked a bit about confusion there and I was reading your race report earlier and you mentioned like hallucinations. Are they kind of to be expected during a race that long? Or are they just down to tiredness? What do you think?
00:26:44
Speaker
Um, so I've never hallucinated in a hundred mile or anything up to like 150 mile, uh, race. It's only at the two hundreds where for me, I've been affected directly by hallucinations. I think it's.
00:27:02
Speaker
When you look at them afterwards, they do become quite scary because you've obviously lost touch with reality and it's quite unsettling. Certainly after the Moab race this year, I was a little bit kind of really confused and really kind of shooken up by the whole thing because you just lose touch so quickly. Yeah, because you're really living in that moment, I guess, aren't you? And you're believing what you're hallucinating, aren't you? So yeah, how do you get out of that?
00:27:35
Speaker
I was chatting to Jeff again about this last week. We had a recap and a rehash of the race. One of the things that I did for the first time was that on the last section, porcupine rims 16 miles down to the finish line.
00:27:53
Speaker
I kind of know that section pretty well and I know it's very remote, very rugged, but it ends with a three mile section onto the road. I was questioning my pace of Ben, he'd come all the way over from Wales and I was questioning, you know, why are we still out here? Where are we going? Why is it taking so long? And he sat me down and he said, look, if you don't sort this out, we're going to be out here for a fair few hours yet.
00:28:19
Speaker
And there was one particular moment where I was staggering around. I sat myself down, and I just had my head in my hands. And I remember saying to Ben, I said, I need you to describe everything that's happening as you encounter it so that I've got something real to hang on to. It's the first time I've done it, and I would do it again in the future. But basically, I asked him to describe what was coming up on the course. So I said, well, look.
00:28:47
Speaker
I know there's a road in three or four miles, and when we got onto that road, I said, can you tell me what we're going to do to get there? He said, right, OK, we've got to go left in maybe half a mile. So then I would hang on to that, and I'd get to that turn. I'd be, right, what's next? And he would just give me enough carrot, if you like, to keep chasing him, which was perfect.
Hallucinations and Overcoming Fears
00:29:11
Speaker
But it's been the first time I ran Moab. I completely lost it. I didn't know anything about sleep deprivation. I had no sleep strategy. I came into the 200-mile aid station at 6 a.m. in the morning. I'd run all night. And my crew said, how was your night? I said, well, it was pretty rough, actually. But I saw two cowboys out on the trail. They said, Scott, we're up at 10,000 feet. There's no cowboys out on the trail.
00:29:38
Speaker
okay well you know we've got 40 miles left to go I need to get done so he said right let's get you some pro plus we'll get you some red bull let's just crack on a very british approach to it so off we went and we got down to the last aid station and they gave me some more red bull some more pro plus and I said right let's make the pack super light and they said yeah let's make the pack light because you're going to be done before sundown so they lightened my pack and off I went again and
00:30:07
Speaker
I got around the corner probably a mile or two away from the aid station, 16 miles left of a 240 mile race and I just started staggering around, falling into the bushes. I couldn't really grasp what was going on, never experienced it before.
00:30:23
Speaker
Eventually I started running again and I was convinced I was being chased by a witch so I ran and I ran and I ran like a madman. I had no idea where I was going and eventually I fell over. I'm sure you remember when you were in school and you fell over on the playground and I cut my hands and I cut my knees and I was nearly in tears and I got back up and I would try running away again.
00:30:49
Speaker
and I found this rock, so I hid under the rock and I could hear the witch calling my name and I was absolutely bloody terrified and eventually I could hear this voice getting closer and closer and the witch stuck her head under the rock and I kind of turned away and went away witch away to which the witch responded I'm not a witch I'm your bloody wife you idiot
00:31:16
Speaker
So I maintain, I maintain I'm factually correct. But I am joking. My wife, Abby, Abby is absolutely brilliant. But I was convinced she was actually pacing me and trying to keep me on track. But the sleep deprivation convinced me that I was being chased by a witch. And yeah, she loves it when I tell that story. Yeah, that sounds really scary from your point of view, though, because for you, that's real, isn't it? And
00:31:44
Speaker
It was real, 100% felt real and it was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. And also I went from 15th to 35th place in the last 16 miles of a 240 mile race. But I did get some retribution from the witch two years later, I went back in the back end of 2021 and I was able to
00:32:08
Speaker
Actually go out and run the race again and in 2019 I've been chased by the witch a lovely man from Utah called Jason had come and eventually led me down and got me to the finish and He came to pace me on the last 40 miles and he posed for a photo under the rock and he actually ended up bringing me home in the 15th place that I should have finished two years prior so that was
00:32:35
Speaker
Yeah, nice bit of karma there. Yeah, well, that's a nice that's a nice ending. Yeah, yeah, you mentioned at your age report that you you literally slept just eight hours across the three races. That's it's not much at all. Yeah.
00:32:50
Speaker
No, it took 249 hours to finish the Triple Crown and eight hours of that was dedicated to sleep, which was pretty rough. Going off to sleep, I'm fine with. When you wake up in a dark, cold aid station, maybe you're at mile 80 and you're thinking,
00:33:11
Speaker
Oof, still got 160 miles to run. It's a pretty sobering thought and yeah, quite overwhelming actually. And I think that's one thing I've learned over the course of running these races is having the ability to put the races into sections and not get too overwhelmed by what's coming up.
Aid Stations and Strategic Planning
00:33:31
Speaker
And I think that's something I definitely had to do for the triple was just take it one aid station, one section at a time for the whole three races, if that makes sense.
00:33:40
Speaker
So how, I mean, how spread out are the aid stations and the checkpoints throughout these events? They tend to vary based on the ability for the race organization destination trail to be able to actually safely put an aid station into these places because, I mean, they're super remote to give you a kind of idea.
00:34:02
Speaker
At the Bigfoot race, the runners run 209 miles, but the drivers in the crew will drive anywhere between 900 to 1,000 miles. It's just insane how remote these places are. You're driving three hours on a dirt road up to an aid station and three hours back.
00:34:24
Speaker
you know, they have an adventure on their own just trying to get to these these eight stations. But typically for a runner, they usually between kind of 12 to 20 miles apart. When you start getting into that 22, 24 miles apart, you know, it can be very, very taxing and very, very challenging. And I think the one thing with those races is, you know, Moab again, it's a great example just because of the sheer distance. But
00:34:52
Speaker
you can be in the middle of the day, it's 30 degrees and you're carrying your puffer jacket and then you've got to be thinking at the next aid station, right, well, what do I need for the ceiling? Do I still need that puffer jacket? Do I still need my head torch? Have we got spare batteries? All those kinds of things.
00:35:13
Speaker
And one mistake, so to speak, can curtail the whole race. I mean, it can quite easily lead to a TNF at Bigfoot this year. I was very lucky. I had my pacer on the section linear with me and my batteries just stopped working. I still don't know why they stopped working. I had backup batteries. I got them out. That didn't work properly after a couple of minutes had cut back out.
00:35:40
Speaker
we ended up running a pretty difficult section up to elk peak which is pretty steep terrain pretty heavy bushwhacking and linear had to give me her head torch so that i keep seeing where i was going and she used the phone to guide her and yeah you gotta be so careful that it's i guess it's
00:36:00
Speaker
it's easier to make mistakes the more tired you get so you're very reliant on having good crew, good supportive people around you to keep you moving forward from my perspective I am at least.
Nutrition Hacks for Endurance
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah so at what point are you allowed paces in the race? You mentioned the last 40 miles. Yeah so
00:36:20
Speaker
It changes each race. So I believe at Tahoe, 60 miles in, at Bigfoot, it's 42. And then at Tahoe, I think it's 72, something like that. They changed. Bigfoot, I think they do it particularly because it's quite, as I say, quite dangerous terrain. And after 42 miles, you've got an 18 mile climb, which is really, really,
00:36:50
Speaker
Honestly, it's such an incredible place to run it is and I feel very lucky to have been able to get out there and run this summer for sure. It's been amazing. So talk to me a little bit about nutrition because that is probably one of the questions we get asked most when people are looking to get into ultra certainly. It's like, what do you eat? How do you plan your nutrition and make sure you stay hydrated? Particularly in hot climates like you've been running.
00:37:18
Speaker
As a pasty Welshman, I'm not really made for the hot climates that well, so definitely the acclimatization part is key. Just starting on that topic of heat, I naturally find it very challenging to run in hotter temperatures, as most people from the UK would.
00:37:42
Speaker
The hotter you get, the more the fluid that is in your body goes to protecting your major organs, so sitting around them and trying to keep them cool. That, therein, creates its own challenge because you need so many calories to keep moving at these kinds of events.
00:37:59
Speaker
But there's no fluid left in your stomach to help process the nutrition that you need, which ultimately leads to a lot of episodes, certainly for me, learning by being sick. So I find that kind of cooler, easier to eat, like gels, stuff like that are really useful at these types of races.
00:38:22
Speaker
One thing we stumbled on is, again, my wife Abby's idea was the idea of like, obviously we're not going to do it if you're running the spying race or, you know, hitting the UK. But at Cocodona last year, which a 250-mile race in Arizona, super hot, she had a brainwave of going off to a CVS or somewhere, a Walmart, comes back with this gallon of ice cream. And at first I was like,
00:38:50
Speaker
Oh, ice cream, I can't eat ice cream in the middle of the race. So maybe I'll give it a try. And I literally ate three quarters of a gallon of ice cream. And when you think about it, it's actually really good because it cools you down. And then obviously it's given you a crap ton of calories as well at the same time, but a sugar as well, pep things up. So
00:39:10
Speaker
I don't recommend that one all the time but during the race I've definitely kind of I'm still working on it but I've honed it down to knowing exactly what I need for each section and trying to keep
00:39:24
Speaker
I think in the past, I've probably, I've keep given myself too many options. And actually, I know now what works for me, you know, whether that's gels or plantains, whatever it is, and putting those into a little pack and putting them in my bag, I think is a smart thing to do. Hydration wise, I think I probably ran the triple crown sponsored by Sprite this summer.
00:39:50
Speaker
If they're listening, I would love to get sponsored by Sprite, but basically, I use Tailwind, I use Scratch, the classic hydration drinks with electrolytes and calories in. I do find that you get this kind of
00:40:09
Speaker
you know, you get a bit sick of tasting the same thing. So having a couple of options on drinks is quite a nice one for me. And then at the aid stations, I like to generally do like having a can of Sprite. I find it really refreshing. Can you drink that fizzy? Or does it have to be flat? Are you okay with the fizzy stuff? Because I've always, I've never really got on with fizzy drinks at aid stations. Do you go for the flat coke? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just can't deal with the fizziness.
00:40:36
Speaker
That's probably the individual thing. Yeah, I think it is. I think that's the great thing about these races. Everyone learns something about themselves and what they can do in each race. And yeah, I've learned that I actually really like these races. I can drink them. It's not a problem. I have been known to have the old beer here and there at one or two eight stations.
00:41:01
Speaker
at Bigfoot this year, I came into an aid station, absolutely roasting hot. And a guy that I know from another race came over and he said, dude, I got your beer. And he just gave me this beer, I drank it and it tastes like absolute nectar from the gods. You know, you're drinking it and you're thinking, wow, life's not so bad. I'm in the beautiful mountains. I got some friends and family with me and we're
Balancing Future Races with Work
00:41:25
Speaker
having an adventure. I got beer in my hands. You can't go wrong. No, no. Sounds great.
00:41:31
Speaker
Just the one though, just for clarity, just the one. No, it's been great chatting to you, Scott. I've really enjoyed hearing about the races. So what have you got coming up next? How do you top being the first British to finish the triple crown? What did you possibly come after that?
00:41:50
Speaker
It's been great chatting to you as well and thank you for taking the time to talk to me and ask these questions about it. It really means a lot because I'm not the kind of person that walks around shouting my mouth about doing these things, so it's nice when you chat to a fellow rather than about it.
00:42:06
Speaker
I think what's next for me, what's next for me? Two days before Moab, I put my name into the Hard Rock 100 lottery over in Colorado. I would love to go and run a newer race called the Divide 200 up in Canada at some point maybe next year. My younger brother, Rhys, has his own running company in Wales called Pegasus Ultra Run-in.
00:42:33
Speaker
and they've got a 200 mile race down there called the wild horse. So I'm sure I'd love to go and run my brother's race as well. This is so many I'd like to do. I'd love to go back to Babwater and run Babwater and try and do a faster time over there in Death Valley in the heat. There's just so much adventure and not enough annual leave. That's the problem.
00:42:56
Speaker
How does that work when you've got a full time job and you're trying to train for 200 mile races?
00:43:06
Speaker
It's challenging and again you've asked some great questions and that's another one because it's challenging on a couple of fronts really. So number one obviously you've got to try and balance a busy corporate world of working in London and fitting in good quality training and I think
00:43:26
Speaker
My coach Jeff has taught me so much over the last couple of years around smart training, around not beating myself up if I miss a session because work's overrun or whatever it is. So I spend a lot of time training in the gym and using the treadmill.
00:43:44
Speaker
and then try which it's not ideal but it's where i'm in my life and i've got a deal with the love to live in the mountains absolutely i think if i live to altitude in colorado it would be brilliant because you know running against these guys and they all live in those kind of altitudes but i don't live in london so i have to get creative i go and run.
Innovative Training Methods
00:44:05
Speaker
you know repeat hills hill repeats on the hill in richmond park i drag my sled up and down here i do box steps i do lunges all these things to kind of get creative and that helps during the week and then on the weekends i tend to go and get my longer runs done so.
00:44:23
Speaker
Those will be wherever I can get to that's got some decent incline, whether that's the South Downs, North Downs, up in the Chilterns, or go up on the Ridgeway, wherever really, just try to mix it up. Obviously when I go back to home, love to try and get a run in Wales and obviously the hills. Went to the Lake District this year for the first time, shamefully. I've never been to the lakes and it's like, wow, this is beautiful. So I need to spend some more time up there if I can this year. But yeah, I was trying to get a balance and then
00:44:52
Speaker
It's not just with the activation piece, but also with the heat and trying to acclimatize to run those hotter temperatures. If you go to run against somebody from Colorado, they train pretty much in the heat in the summer and they train at altitude. That creates a challenge. What we've done here is we've set the treadmill up in the old garage, which taken the time over a few years to convert.
00:45:16
Speaker
Now I've got some Bikram Yoga heaters on the ceiling. Again, Abby's ingenious idea to the room can heat up to, I think it's like 60 to 70 degrees Celsius. So I can crank the heat up during the winter to try and make up for the lack of sunshine that we get. Yeah, well, that's a really helpful thing for you, I guess. Yeah. What generally does your long run look like at a weekend? And are you a fan of the back to back?
00:45:44
Speaker
runs because there's been some discussion over how useful they are recently. What are your thoughts?
00:45:51
Speaker
I am a fan actually. They hurt obviously, but I think if there's a different type of run on the back to back, then actually I can see the benefit of it. And I think specifically for a 200 mile distance, if you're going like, if I go and run a 50 mile distance, what impacts are going to have on my training over the course of the next two weeks? I'm going to be out of it pretty much. But if I go and run.
00:46:18
Speaker
Let's say for argument's sake on a bigger block I go and run a 20 mile on a Saturday and then 17 on the Sunday or vice versa or something similar to that. Chances are because we've had the gap in between overnight of slept well, of eaten well.
00:46:34
Speaker
going to recover a lot quicker and still be able to knock out a good quality training session during the course of the week, but still end up with pretty much the same distance as if I'd gone and run a 50 or 40 mile or whatever. So personally, it's the only way I can do it. It worked for me. Would I love to go and run like 50 miles every day? I'm not so sure. So I think everyone's individual, right? Yeah. I know you do running coaching as well, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.
00:47:04
Speaker
And I'm sure you and every coach out there treats the client, the athlete as an individual. And I think that's the key to good coaching, really, is understanding that individual, understanding not just what they're capable of, but how you can structure a training program that they're going to stick to and it's going to be realistic for their life in general. Is that fair to say? What are your thoughts on it?
00:47:34
Speaker
No, I completely agree with you. It's a very individual thing. I just know that some, I mean, Courtney, for example, she's been saying she doesn't like doing the long, long runs anymore or the back to back ones. She'd rather split them up. But I'm always interested to hear other people's perspectives on it. But like you say, it is a very, it's a very individual thing, isn't it? And how your body responds to training.
00:47:56
Speaker
Maybe I should listen to Courtney, because she gets her outstanding results. She's just insane. It's so amazing what she's accomplished this year and in years prior as well. But I love her humility and I love her athletic capability. Just an incredible person. Seems like a really super cool human that you'd love to hang out with and have a beer with. And that's the other thing she would hang out and have a beer with you, I'm sure. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:48:26
Speaker
So just to finish off then, what advice would you give to somebody who's looking to get into ultra long distance?
Advice for Aspiring Ultra Runners
00:48:35
Speaker
What are your, say, three top tips for people?
00:48:39
Speaker
I think my first bit of advice would be to just go and do it. Life's too short not to take on that adventure like we were talking about earlier, really. You want to create those seminal moments and have an adventure in life and maybe couple it with some good as well. So my advice is to don't say, oh, I'd love to do that one day. I hate that phrase. Just go and do it. Just sign up.
00:49:04
Speaker
Yeah, one day never exists. So that would be my top line advice. But like, specifically, for actually running the races themselves, I think number one, remember that
00:49:16
Speaker
that your body will keep going. Your mind will want to quit way before your body ever will. So think about resilience and fortitude and mental ability as much as you think about training your body. Number two, especially if you're doing 200 miles and those long distances,
00:49:37
Speaker
Think about your sleep strategy in detail. And number three has to be nutrition and hydration. And I think if you can get all of those three amateur bits of advice that I'm offering relatively right, then you'll definitely get to that finish line. And like I say, if you can do that, you will have had an adventure. And if you're doing it for a good charity or something that keeps you motivated,
00:50:04
Speaker
when it gets dark out on those trails that'll keep you going and I just encourage all your listeners to go and give it a go I guess.
Stay Connected with Scott
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah our superb words of wisdom there Scott thank you. Where can our listeners find you on social media if they want to follow your adventures? Oh thanks so my website scottjjenkins.co.uk and my instagram handle is rather originally at scottjjenkins as well and same on facebook so
00:50:32
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to try and launch a YouTube channel very shortly as well. It's the same handle on there as well, but I need to get around to doing that. I don't have the editing skills nor the time at the moment, but it's coming soon, hopefully. Yeah, fantastic. Well, we'll look out for that. Well, thanks again for joining us, Scott. It's been a pleasure talking to you. I hope you've all enjoyed this episode.