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00:00:01
Andrew Hood
191 Plays6 months ago
In this episode Michelle chats with Andrew Hood.
Andrew is an ultra runner and chats with Michelle all about:
- Andy's love of ultra running.
- Andy's diagnosis with, and recovery from, testicular cancer.
- Andy's recent challenges, including the South West Coast Path, a tour of Mont Blanc, a 50km treadmill run in a shopping centre, and a 50km donut run!
- Andy also asks listeners for ideas for running challenges as he enters his 6th decade.
Andy's blog: www.runningwestwardho.co.uk
follow Andy on Instagram: @runningwestwardho
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Transcript
Andy's Running Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi Andy, thank you so much for joining us on today's UK Run Chat podcast. Would you care to just introduce yourself to our listeners, please tell them a little bit about yourself. I will, and hi Michelle, thanks for reaching out. It's really good to finally meet you and talk to you. Yeah, I'm Andy Hood, I'm a runner, been running for many years. Trail is my go-to, but I can't always get to the trails.
00:00:26
Speaker
So definitely rode as well. And I run just because I love it, Michelle. I love everything about it. I run solo most of the time, but I love the wider running community as well. Yeah, fantastic. So you said you've been running a while. When did you start? Yeah, well, being 51 now, probably my brain's giving up thinking that far back. I used to be a cyclist, first and foremost, for a very long time I was a cyclist.
00:00:55
Speaker
Given that up largely, I found I wasn't enjoying it as much as I used to do. I found there was a different breed of driver on the road sometimes as well, and sometimes I didn't feel as safe as I had done before. And I'd run to support my cycling.
00:01:14
Speaker
And I decided that actually I would drop back the cycling and increase the running just to see how how I enjoyed it. And I loved it. So up until around about 2021, I'd been running sort of up to marathon distances for many, many, many years, although never actually standing on the start line of an official marathon.
00:01:36
Speaker
Oh wow, so you'd just been going out and doing your own marathons, had you? Yeah, just doing my own stuff. Just lacing up and going out and I hadn't followed a particularly structured program. I'd run because I loved it. I fell into trail running as well, living where I do up in North Devon. You and I were chatting just before we came on. I don't live too far away from the southwest coast path, which is a beautiful 630 mile path,
00:02:03
Speaker
charts its way from around the North Devon coast and then the Cornish coast and then swings back around to the south coast. I've got the moors right on my doorstep, I've got Dartmoor, I've got Exmoor, I've got Bobminmoor right on my doorstep. So yeah I run because I just love being out there in the environment, I love being out in nature. Yeah it's no wonder you love the trails to be honest in that part of the world is it?
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think we were saying just before we came on to record that I went down there for the very first time ever last year and it's just stunning like all that coastline. And you have actually run a lot of that, haven't you? Yeah.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, I do a lot of running on the coast path as much as I can. It's just, it's very varied, and that is very different. The trail itself is, well, the path, as I should call it officially, is 630 miles. It starts in Minehead, which is on the North Somerset coast, and it finishes down and pulled in Dorset. So it swings right round that western edge of the UK. And it's very, very different in its character as you go down. It's pretty lumpy.
00:03:07
Speaker
it's pretty rough in places and intersects some towns and villages along the way but I'll get myself out there as often as I can to go and run sections of it and I ran a very large section of it a couple of years back I did from home
00:03:25
Speaker
The closest point I can get onto it is Westwood Hoe. That's about 20, 25 minutes away from home. That's my nearest access point. And I ran from there down to Land's End, which is about 170 miles on the coast path. And wow, the views are, you forget you're in England sometimes. It's that beautiful.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, so how long did that take you? I did it over the course of a week. Yeah, wow.
Running for a Cause
00:03:50
Speaker
I did it across the course of a week. I'd had it in the diary for 2021, and I was mid-training for it. And I had decided to do it because my mum had lost her sister, who was her last sibling. Claire had been in her home for many years in East Sussex. She had dementia.
00:04:15
Speaker
She had been quite unwell and sadly she passed. And my mum, I saw how hard my mum took that. I mean, my mum was one of four and when I was chatting to mum and I realised that she had
00:04:28
Speaker
realised that she was the last of the four. I saw how hard she took that. So I thought, you know what, I'll do something tough myself in recognition of what my mum was going through and to raise some money for like the Alzheimer's Society at the same time. And I thought, well, there's nothing tougher than 170 miles on the coast path with about 28,000 feet of elevation. No. So how was it?
00:04:53
Speaker
Well, it would have been fantastic, apart from I didn't get to do it in 2021. Because I was just, what was that, that was due for September. And in the late June, early July, I was diagnosed with cancer.
Facing Health Challenges
00:05:10
Speaker
So I had to put that on hold.
00:05:13
Speaker
And that was difficult. It was a very difficult time to be out here running shoes. You know, us runners love to lace up. We love to get out there and run. And when you're at an operation in chemotherapy, that's the last thing you can do.
00:05:26
Speaker
But I did manage to get it back in my diary. I got it back in my diary for virtually exactly a year later. I did it in September 2022 and I supported the Alzheimer's Society, Macmillan Cancer Support and Young Minds, the on-person mental health charity as well. The support that I received on the way down was fantastic from people I met.
00:05:50
Speaker
I think the trail running and particularly paths like that that appeal to lots of different types of individuals. You've got day hikers, casual walkers, through hikers that do the whole 630. It suddenly becomes, it takes on a personality of its own and a real environment and community of its owners as well. I found it very cathartic. And I found it challenging. My legs certainly did.
00:06:22
Speaker
I mean, that's, that's quite something we'll come back to your cancer diagnosis shortly. But that's, that's really something to even attempt to run of that length. And then to go through all that chemotherapy really takes it out of you, doesn't it? And then to get back to that just a year later, that's incredible. How did you kind of approach that in terms of mindset and, and training? How, how did that work?
00:06:47
Speaker
I was laying there in bed. I'd had an orchidectomy and it took me quite a long time to recover from the operation. And a few weeks after that, I started my chemo. And it was whilst I was laying in bed recovering from the operation that I thought, I can either go one of two ways. You can either go down the rabbit hole and I really sort of wallow in this or
00:07:15
Speaker
you can take the other route, which is actually this is an opportunity and I can use this experience I'm going through now to be a positive impact on my life. And I made a vow there and then laying in the bed. I said, that's exactly the route I'm going to go down. I said to myself, I'm going to rebuild. I'm going to come back stronger. I'm actually going to come back as what I termed Andy version 2.0.
00:07:40
Speaker
And I do things now that I undoubtedly would never have done unless I had gone through cancer. And the mindset is really important, you know, to focus in and say, you know, this is what I want to do. There are going to be challenges along the way. And I have to learn to adapt and take those into consideration. And it was not long after that I decided to move into endurance and ultra running.
00:08:10
Speaker
which I love. I love the community in both of those as well. And I started to follow a structured training program. I found the PT. I work with a world champion power lifter who's my PT now. And he puts me through hell and back each week, but it's fantastic. The strength and conditioning training has been brilliant. So, Michelle, I'm in such a different place that I wouldn't have been otherwise.
00:08:39
Speaker
Yeah, so you don't think you've got here otherwise. It's interesting that, isn't it? So let's just go back to your cancer diagnosis because I think we've got an important message to get out there in terms of just helping other people as well, haven't we? Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so I had testicular cancer and us men are rubbish. We don't talk about health at all. We are completely fit and we are perfectly fine and we don't talk about it.
00:09:06
Speaker
testicular cancer effects 15 to 35 year olds in the main which became a real surprise to me as I started to read and learn more about it. We've got three boys ourselves who are late teens and early 20s so we talk about it a lot of our household now. In fact on the first Tuesday of every month we have Testy Tuesday just a bit of fun round it and the boys know what they need to be doing. I was 48
00:09:32
Speaker
When I was diagnosed, I had come back from a fantastic summer's run of being at an old rail trail. One of my favorites takes me out through Pine Forest. It was a late summer's evening. Well, it was late June, so it was late in the evening, in the summer. It'd been a warm day, so that pine scent was fantastic. It was a cooling breeze as well. Everything was just perfect, and I came home and had a shower and thought,
00:09:58
Speaker
Do you know what? I've never checked myself. And something had triggered me to remind myself that I should do it. Something I'd seen on television just a few days before. And I did, and I found something very unusual. And it was mid-COVID, of course, 2021, which concerns me that, of course, the NHS was under significant pressure at that point. And what would that mean for me? But within the space of 10 days, I was on the operating table.
00:10:27
Speaker
It was that fast. They knew, I'd been to the doctor. The doctor made it feel like it's the most normal thing to talk about and discuss, made it feel very comfortable. The sonographer, the ultrasound was exactly the same, made me feel very comfortable. And the urologist, well, I had a bit of a debate with the urologist when he said to me, look, Andy, this is definitely cancer, we're gonna need to operate. I said to him, I was mid training for a run to land's end and could we wait until that was over?
00:10:57
Speaker
It didn't go down very well. No, I'm sure. I've become a massive advocate for talking about it. Cancer and men and men's health generally, we don't talk. Us men think we're invincible. We're not invincible. And testicular cancer particularly, there is one person, one man every four hours is diagnosed. That's about 2,600 men a year are diagnosed with testicular cancer.
00:11:25
Speaker
We just need to get it into our routines. We need to talk to our sons, our brothers, our mates, whoever it is, we just need to talk about it and normalise that conversation. Yeah, I mean, do you think men maybe don't check because they're kind of scared of maybe finding something or...
00:11:46
Speaker
I just don't think it's a conversation that we normally have. I mean, I thought back about this, you know, in the 48 years leading up to me being diagnosed, how many people have ever spoken to me about it? None. Not a single person. So there is a definite need there. And there's some really good organizations that do some great outreach programs and awareness programs.
00:12:14
Speaker
to try and break down the stigma and try and normalize those conversations. I've done a few runs for some recently to raise money for them so they can continue their work. But I think it's more, I'm not sure it's a fact that we're frightened of finding something. I just don't think it's in our consciousness. Yeah, so hopefully this prompts people listening to just start thinking about it because something obviously triggered you.
00:12:41
Speaker
to check, and luckily you did. It did, and you've been through my blog. I'm very open on social media about it as well. It's just about talking about it, normalizing the conversation, putting it into our monthly routine. Let's be honest, guys, it's not a department that's alien to us. We're pretty used to it. We're probably jumping the shower most days. It's the most easiest thing to do and to check. There's some great resources online
00:13:11
Speaker
If you want to know what to look for, my simple message is just do it. Yeah, thank you, Andy.
Transition to Ultra Running
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for being so open about that. So you've done a lot of charity runs to raise awareness. Do you want to talk about some of those then?
00:13:28
Speaker
So you kind of got into ultra running, didn't you? I did. I remember I decided to get into ultra running and throughout my training program, I remember doing my first 50K and I designed a loop out from home.
00:13:43
Speaker
And I remember getting to that 31 point, whatever it is, mile mark. And all I can say is I'm glad I live in rural North Devon because I stopped at that point when my watch ticked over and said, yeah, you've done a 50K. And I did shout quite loudly. I had achieved this. I'm glad that I was not surrounded by any housing or anyone. But then I then decided to do, I've done some organized
00:14:10
Speaker
Ultras, particularly with Action Challenge and the Ultra Series they do. I did London to Brighton last year. I'm just just lining up now. I think that's about two weeks out from doing London to Brighton again this year. I'm doing Peak District again with them this year. I've done last August, I did the Tour de Mont Blanc, starting in Chamonix, running around Mont Blanc, which was just life changing in so many ways. But those are very much personal runs.
00:14:37
Speaker
The charity ones I do, I designed myself. So I don't tend to do the organized ultras as a charity run. I come up with my own ideas. So the Lands End run was a charity run. I then have used a treadmill quite a bit in the winter for training as well. And I decided, well, we could use a treadmill and raise some money. So I put one in the middle of a busy shopping center on a Saturday and around a 50K on there.
00:15:05
Speaker
and raised for a local cancer unit and also for the Oddballs Foundation who do great testicular cancer awareness programs in schools and colleges to normalise that conversation. I had the treadmill out again earlier this year. I did a 24-hour treadmill run, which was the hardest thing I'd ever done.
00:15:29
Speaker
I don't think I had appreciated that the body on a treadmill is really very static. So when you're running on the road, particularly when you're running on trails, of course your knees and your hips and your ankles, your whole body is constantly moving. Whereas on a treadmill, your legs are almost operating like pistons. So the force is going through the ankles and the knees and the hips. And about 20 hours in, I really started to feel that.
00:15:59
Speaker
But I did that for a local cancer charity up here in North Devon. And then I've done only just recently, actually, I've done I came up with a great idea. I love Krispy Kreme donuts. And I decided to see where all their stores are in and around London. I mapped them out on Google Maps, took out the real outlying stores. And I just left with this route that was so perfect. Started at Stratford right by the London Stadium.
00:16:27
Speaker
I finished at Canary Wharf, sort of looped round Wandsworth and Putney, and then back on myself as well, took us to real iconic locations. It was 35 miles in total, and I visited 21 Krispy Kreme donuts stores on the way. Wow, tell me you didn't have a donut each time. Yeah, I can tell you I didn't have a donut, I said everyone, but I'm not prepared to admit how many I did eat. But I have proven the fact you can run an ultra on donuts alone. On donuts. So I ate nothing else.
00:16:56
Speaker
That's brilliant. I love it. So did you kind of pre-warn the shops you were coming or did you just show up? I did. I actually I tanked Krispy Kreme into a post when I designed it. I tanked them in on social and they were fantastic.
00:17:14
Speaker
Instantly reached out to me and said, we're totally behind this. They put me in touch with their PR company. They allowed me to use their logo and some other bits as well. And as I went around the stores,
00:17:30
Speaker
I took a photograph at every store with the people. The teams at each of the stores were just so engaging and so good that they started talking to each other. They've got their own sort of social internal, I guess it's like a WhatsApp group.
00:17:46
Speaker
So they were taking a photograph with me and then saying, he's been to me, he's on his way to you. So I was getting this really warm reception at every single one of the stores I came to and it just turned into a day of a huge enjoyment. I absolutely loved it.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds brilliant. Like just really enjoyable and warm and yeah, that's kind of what community and running is about, isn't it really? It really is. I had a great guy I know from Instagram, a guy called Danny. He came to join me for a few miles as well. I then got a surprise visit. I was at the store at Victoria station and I had a tap on my shoulder and Vicky, who's another runner, she lives Manchester way.
Community and Charity
00:18:32
Speaker
And her partner, Alex, who actually lives in Florida, had been tracking me across London, unknown to me, and they were determined to catch up with me, and they did it. So they surprised me at Victoria Station. So you're right, there's so much that can be said about the running community.
00:18:52
Speaker
I think it's like none other. It really doesn't matter who you are or what you're running or what you're looking to achieve. The community is, I think in my complete experience, it's just so supportive of everybody and everybody's achievements. Yeah, it's something special, isn't it?
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, it really is. So what have you got planned next? Have you got any other Madcap challenges coming up? Well, I've got my own personal ones lined up for this year. So I've got London to Brighton, which is at the end of May, Peat District six weeks after that. I decided to do a UTMB Nice this year as well. So I'm flying down to Nice in October to go and do that.
00:19:38
Speaker
they're just personal ones because that's a just such a beautiful route running through the mountains across the med there just just looks fantastic. Next charity event won't be until next year I tend to only do one or two a year but I've got some ideas for for one for next year and I'll do that again I think the first one I'll do next year will be for a local charity I raised for on the 24 hour treadmill run called chemo hero
00:20:07
Speaker
They're based up here in North Thebham. They were started by a lady called Lisa Wallace. Lisa was diagnosed with breast cancer just before her 30th birthday.
00:20:15
Speaker
She lived for 12 years with cancer before passing away very sadly in 2021, leaving behind her husband, Rob, and young family. And Lisa's legacy, while she was going through chemotherapy herself, she realized that it's very lonely and very frightening time. It doesn't matter who you've got around you. It is very lonely. You do feel very vulnerable. And she created these boxes of kindness. And these boxes have evolved a lot over the years.
00:20:45
Speaker
And they contain in there really useful and really thoughtful items that are gifted to chemotherapy patients on their first treatment. Predominantly up here at the unit in North Devon, but they do send them far and wide. You know, if anybody listening has a good friend or family member that is just about to receive chemotherapy, visit their website, Chemo Hero. You can request a box to be sent.
00:21:08
Speaker
And the boxes contain items like a digital thermometer because keeping an eye on the temperature throughout chemo is vitally important. They're very expensive to buy individually. Now there are things like beanies and bobble hats in there for the inevitable loss of hair. And one of Lisa's favorite things in there which I love is two teabags from a local tea company up here in Devon because Lisa said that everything was better over a cup of tea with a mate.
00:21:37
Speaker
And for me, I think that really sums up the box of kindness perfectly. So next year's big charity event will definitely be for them. And I may even be coming your way. That's exciting. Yeah, you'll have to let us know what you've got when you're ready to announce it all. Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah. And what a lovely charity. That sounds that's really nice. A nice touch. Patience going through that. I guess it is lonely. And I suppose
00:22:05
Speaker
Do you find people treat you differently when they know you have cancer as well? Yeah, I'm very open about it, as I said before, so I always talk about the experience I've been through in the hope that the others feel that they can do the same or they can take some solace from it if they're experiencing it or they can just talk about testicular cancer to friends and family. But yeah, you definitely find that people are very interested. They ask the questions around, you know, how did you come out the back end of that?
00:22:36
Speaker
We all face challenges, particularly running, we all face challenges. I'm just coming off the back end of an injury right now. I've got a slight ankle injury at the moment. I've been out of the running shoes for a week and just doing some stretching and some conditioning work on it. And I think we can all get ourselves really very down sometimes when illness strikes or injury strikes us.
00:23:00
Speaker
So a lot of the questions I get around having gone through cancer treatment, chemotherapy and the operation is how did you rebuild? How do you get back out the other side of that and maintain the positive outlook? So I talk a lot about that with runners. Yeah. I mean, you sound just so, so positive and it obviously has flipped something inside you that's kind of changed your outlook on life almost.
Mindset and Motivation
00:23:27
Speaker
So yeah, is that something that
00:23:30
Speaker
You think you can teach other runners easily because that's obviously crucial in ultra running as well, isn't it, in terms of mindset? It is. And as we know, running any kind of distance, whatever you're running, whatever you're looking to achieve,
00:23:47
Speaker
It is more than 50% about your mind. Our minds are incredibly powerful. They are much more powerful than the body. And I'm sure that the majority of people listening to this today will say, yep, I've had those days where the mind has said no, but the body is ready to go. And the mind has won that argument.
00:24:07
Speaker
And it's very easy to let the mind win that argument, particularly as the weather turns or you're tired or you've had an injury or something else has happened in your life, you've had all those grotty days at work, et cetera. So mindset is super important. And I do talk about that a lot around how to win that argument ultimately with yourself.
00:24:33
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess that's just digging deeper and getting to know yourself really well, isn't it? And knowing what you're capable of. I mean, I'm just thinking back to that 24-hour treadmill run you were talking about earlier. That must have been really tough to keep yourself going without any, you know, without any views, because that's part of what inspires many people during an ultra run, isn't it? Like, up the next hill, they'll get a nice view.
00:24:57
Speaker
I'm sure there are people now listening to this, every time we say the word treadmill, like, oh, really? Yeah, I know. It's such a different challenge, isn't it? It's running, but it's a very different type of running. Yes, you're right. My mindset around there was I prepped myself going into it. I've written quite extensively, actually, in a blog article, a six-part blog article I wrote, which is called Training with Your First 100K Ultra.
00:25:25
Speaker
I've got a whole section in there which is something I call the Ultra Devils, which is where your mind really starts to convince you, you know, beforehand, you shouldn't be doing this, this isn't a good idea. And I found on my first 100K, around about the 70-75K mark, my mind was like, there's a rest station here, you've come so far today, why don't you just give up now? It's perfectly acceptable, 75K is a great distance.
00:25:54
Speaker
So it's about recognizing your personal signs as to when you're reaching that point. Now, is it tiredness you're starting to notice? When's that self-doubt kicking in with you? And what do you do? What is your technique or techniques? And I posted about this in a forum just this weekend. A lot of runners were doing the Ida White Challenge this weekend. And I posted in there, I said, look, a lot of this is about your mind
00:26:24
Speaker
One of my techniques is I love twirl bars and I have twirl bars with me when I run the ultras. But when I get to that point, because I recognize I'm getting there, I know what my individual signs are for when I'm starting to get where the mind's becoming quite powerful and I'll stop and I'll grab a twirl bar and it is a fantastic moment.
00:26:50
Speaker
And that helps you carry on, does it? And lots of people were sharing similar comments. People were saying, you know, I love a can of Fanta. You know, a lot of them weren't running the 100K on the Isle of Wight this weekend. Some were hiking it, walking it. They said, look, I carry a couple of cans of Fanta. That's my thing. Someone else said they love licorice. That's their treat, to get them over that zone, to bring them out of that mind game and focus them back on the overall goal.
00:27:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's funny you mentioned that kind of 70, 80k markets, your body kind of goes, no, I'm done, doesn't it? But you can keep going. It's a long way. Yeah. Yeah. You've been in the shoes moving for a very, very long period of time.
00:27:35
Speaker
On the London to Brighton last year, I put a post in the forum before, for the event before, and said, having come through cancer myself, I'm not fundraising on this, it's just about my own personal journey, but I would be delighted to carry on my back, printed out my back the names of friends and family that are either in remission or receiving treatment or those that we remember.
00:27:58
Speaker
And I carried over 150 names on my back all the way from London down to Brighton. I met so many of the people along the way that had suggested names of themselves or family members who are either with us or sadly no longer with us. And it brought real meaning and real purpose to that journey. And when I was finding particularly later on the late stages again, when I was finding the tiredness was starting to kick in,
00:28:27
Speaker
I actually found myself talking to those names on my back saying, look, we're on our way. We're only 10K to go to Brighton. I promised I'll take you there. We're going to get there together. So I drew huge strength from it as well.
00:28:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's lovely. I think having meaning to a run like that, that's so personal, I think is so important, isn't it? I'm doing the same again. You know, as I do London to Brighton again in a couple of weeks time, that's 20, 25th, I think it is, of May this year, I'll be doing exactly the same again. I will carry names. I've got people suggesting names right now. And again, I will take them, you know, their friends and family from London all the way down to Brighton. Yeah.
00:29:08
Speaker
That's lovely. What's been the most memorable run that you've done so far, would you say?
Memorable Experiences and Future Goals
00:29:15
Speaker
There's obviously been a lot of them. What are the standout moments? Mont Blanc, without them. I fell in love with Mont Blanc. I'm running in the mountains. I'd wanted to be out there for quite a while and I decided that I was going to go out and run it.
00:29:32
Speaker
Yeah, I might, I might have the ability to be able to go and do the UTMB. I don't even have enough running stones at the moment to get the ballot. Um, so I will, I will probably try and attempt to get into that one day, but I wanted to see the landscape. I wanted to experience the landscape. So I did it across five days, clockwise direction, starting in Chamonix and finishing in Chamonix.
00:29:56
Speaker
had taken me through France, Switzerland, and Italy, and it was beyond words. The landscape is one thing. But I was a couple of days in, and you're always in the gaze of Mont Blanc, the mountain range, and I felt this really deep connectedness with the mountain. And I came away thinking
00:30:24
Speaker
Actually, I didn't choose to run Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc chose me to run it is the way I felt towards the end. I felt that the mountain kind of reaches into my life or reaches into your life at a time when it knows you're ready for it. And it brings you to the mountain and you experience everything it has to offer.
00:30:46
Speaker
And I spoke to each evening. I had a company that organized it for me. So I had my luggage transfers. I only had to run with my day pack on, which was great. I was staying at places every night. So you sit down and you have good conversations with people around the world. And it was a really common feeling. A lot of people hiking it rather than running it, but it was a very common feeling. People were saying that actually they felt very emotionally connected to the mountain and very emotionally connected to the run.
00:31:15
Speaker
But apart from that, it is the most stunning landscape you can ever experience. Some of it is very wild and very rugged. Other is just through the most beautiful valleys. And I remember turning a corner one day and seeing ahead of me just acres and acres of very low green bush. I mean, dozens and dozens of acres. And as I came up to it, it was blueberry. So I just sat there in the middle of these blueberry bushes, just picking them off, eating them on a summer's day.
00:31:45
Speaker
It's little moments like that that really stand out, isn't it? Yeah, it was absolutely brilliant. My father only asked me just a couple of weeks ago, he says, will you go and do it again? And I'm into mines because it was almost too perfect.
00:32:01
Speaker
And I had the weather, it was 32, 34 degrees every single day. Okay, it was probably a little bit too hot at times. But my fear is if I go back and do it again and you get rain or you get bad weather, that actually does that distill the previous memory that you had of it. And right now I am, well, I actually, obviously I've got my tour de Montblanc top on today. Oh, you have.
00:32:27
Speaker
It was so perfect. And I think a lot of us runners we experience that, don't we? We have that event. We go and do a 5K or a 10K or a half or a marathon and everything just hooks up. Everything felt fantastic. We come away from that. We've achieved everything we want to do. And sometimes you think, I don't want to go and do that exact race again because I don't want to take away from what I experienced this time on it. I'll go and do other halves or other 10Ks somewhere else. But would I do this exact one again?
00:32:58
Speaker
And that's how I feel about Mont Blanc. Yeah, yeah, perfect. Yeah, those moments of joy and those moments of awe you've experienced. Yeah, I mean, there are, I guess, plenty of other landscapes as well that you've yet to explore. Is there anywhere you'd like to go next?
00:33:16
Speaker
Do you know, I have a list on my confusion of places that I want to go and run. Yeah, absolutely. I want to go and play around in the Pyrenees a little bit. There are other parts of the Alps. There's another run actually that goes from Chamonix to Zermatt. I quite like doing that trail. That's called the Walker's Route. That's quite nice. Quite fancy doing the Camino.
00:33:37
Speaker
Oh, I'd love to do that as well. Oh, yes. Yeah, that's on my list. Yeah, I think if I fancy running the Camino, that just looks, again, a very different landscape to go and experience and go and play around in. The world is so big and I think we forget that sometimes. We get very much tied up in our own lives.
00:33:58
Speaker
you get up and you do your daily routine and you go back to bed at night, but actually sometimes we forget that we need to press that pause button and get out and experience that landscape. We are creatures of habit and I very much, since being in remission, I'm very much like this is now about building my bank of experiences
00:34:19
Speaker
I want to come out of each year saying, right, I've built new experiences into my bank of experiences. I've got new memories I've created this year and I want to do that again next year and the year after. So expect to be across my social, expect to see me playing around lots of landscapes. I love the Canary Islands as well. I love Lanzarote particularly. I've only just come back from there. I go down to a place on the island and a professional sports training facility and I train out there a couple of times a year.
00:34:49
Speaker
but I fancy running the perimeter of the island. Oh, wow. I was going to say, was it Transgrancaneria you were looking at? No, I fancy the lands of Ottee. It's such a beautiful, the landscape is just lunar in its makeup in places. It's a really very barren place, but it's a beautiful place to be. Oh, well, watch this space. Yes, do.
00:35:17
Speaker
Yeah. So you're in your fifties now, Andy, and you've got goals, haven't you, for this decade, really? So what's on your list then? I know you've started one on your blog, haven't you? And you were asking for ideas from people. I have. So yeah, 100%. So I decided as I came out of my forties and into my fifties, I really needed to have a bit of a focus for my fifties. So I called it 50 for 50. There are 50 things I want to achieve in my running shoes in my fifties.
00:35:45
Speaker
Some of them have already ticked off and things like the 24-hour treadmill run. They're running in various different countries around the world, running from dusk to dawn, I've done. But I've asked people to suggest, you know, I've got people that have suggested on there that I should run a mountain stage of the tour, the Tour de France. So I'm looking into that. That actually is not as difficult as it seems. It's relatively easy.
00:36:15
Speaker
to access on and off some of those mountain stages. I think I might definitely go and look to do that. A lady I know called Sophie has suggested I do the London Marathon. And whilst I'm not a great lover of being in huge races around lots of people, I think she's right.
00:36:32
Speaker
in a lot of ways, I think I've got to probably go and do London once. So I have, I have entered the ballot, I think so, of eight hundred and fifty thousand other people this year. It's a big year, isn't it? Yeah, it's going to be a big year. But if I get to do it, I get to do it.
00:36:51
Speaker
So I just, I put it out there, I say to everybody, it's on my website, it's called 50 for 50. If you've got something you think I should do in my 50th year in my running shoes, get it across to me, let's get it on the list because life is about experiences. And I always maintain that no one person has got all good ideas. So pulling on the resources of the community. So, yeah, have you thought about this? Have you thought about going to do that? Absolutely.
00:37:18
Speaker
I want to run with a well-known celebrity. I don't know who yet. I'm sure one will turn up. Well, hopefully one's listening and we can hook you up. Yeah, that's right. Come and share a few miles with me. I did invite, when I was running around London, I did invite Rishi Sunak to come and run with me for a few miles. He politely declined, but he did send me a very nice letter. Oh, that's nice. So where can people find your blog then?
Final Encouragement and Call to Action
00:37:45
Speaker
Our website is probably the best place. That's runningwestwoodhoe.co.uk. I keep that pretty much up to date with everything I've got going on and you'll find me on Instagram as the main place. I hang out and I hang out under the same name running Westwoodhoe on Instagram. Yeah, brilliant. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us and being so open and honest and hopefully it's inspired all the men out there to check themselves as well. And ladies as well. And ladies, yes. Yeah.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah, let's not forget, you know, we need to get this into our monthly routines, get it done and, you know, be open with each other about it, talk to your family, talk to your friends and inspire people to, you know, to do great things. Yeah, absolutely. So before we wrap up, is there any final thoughts you'd like to leave our listeners with? I think on those days where you don't want to do it and we all have them. We do.
00:38:44
Speaker
just put your shoes on. That act, that simple act of just slipping your shoes on completely changes everything, your world perspective, and you will get out of that dorm room that day. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. And to our listeners as well, thank you for tuning in today and be sure to follow at Running Westwood Hope for your adventures. We'll look forward to hearing what's next. Thank you. Good to talk to you, Michelle.