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Elise Downing - Coasting
73 Plays3 years ago
In episode #49 I speak with Elise Downing, Author of Coasting.
Elise ran 5000 miles around Britain and Coasting is her memoir of the journey.
Just six months after coming up with the idea to do this Elise set off with no ultra-running experience at all!
Coasting: Running Around the Coast of Britain - Life, Love and (very) Loose plans is out now.
Connect with Elise on:
Publisher: Summersdale Publishers
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Transcript
UK Roundtable Experience
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey Joe, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I'm really good, thank you. Just looking out the window, a bit of rain in Bristol, but other than that, we're really good.
00:00:29
Speaker
It was really fun, actually. I've always obviously been aware of the UK Roundtable, but I've never kind of participated once, to be honest. And it was really nice to just chat for an hour. And I felt like, yeah, there were so many nice stories and it was really positive. Actually, yeah, I really, really enjoyed it. I would definitely join in other times.
Running Preferences Discussion
00:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, so, yeah, like really lovely. Like, yeah, I thought one of my questions was who is people's kind of like favorite person to run with or do they prefer to run solo? People sending pictures of like they're running gangs and buddies. It was just, yeah, it was really lovely. Really positive.
Book 'Coasting' Surprises Author
00:01:17
Speaker
Yeah, literally it's just been announced seven minutes ago that my book Coasting has been long listed for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year prize, which I think is the biggest sports book award in the world, which just feels mad because we entered it a few months ago and I just really, as I'm sure we're going to over the
00:01:39
Speaker
interview. I just really wasn't sure my book would be, like, sporty enough. Like, there's a lot of books by, like, you know, elite footballers and stuff, and I was like, oh, just me going for a jog around the coast. So, yeah, really exciting.
00:01:57
Speaker
I think I just always kind of grew up thinking that sport, in the traditional sense, was something that other people do, does, other people do, I guess. And I just, yeah, never really, yeah, definitely, yeah, we'll definitely talk about this, but definitely wasn't a sporty kid or anything. So yeah, it was, but I think that's what needs to shift really, isn't it? That sport's something that everyone can do and you don't have to be the best and you don't have to be winning races to get involved. So yeah, quite excited.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good Wednesday morning. Thursday morning, good news for Thursday morning.
Inspiration for Coastal Run
00:02:39
Speaker
Still are, yeah, so we're nearly three months now. Yeah.
00:02:59
Speaker
Oh, it seemed like a good idea at the time. So I was 23, I'd just finished university and I was living in London, working for a startup and I'd done a bit of running. Like I'd just done a half marathon and yeah, I'd kind of recently taken up running, but it really wasn't an experienced ultra runner by any means, which to be honest, I think if I knew now,
00:03:25
Speaker
If I knew then what I know now, I never would have been brave enough. Ignorance was definitely bliss. And I think I just didn't even, I didn't really really, I just didn't know this world of like ultra runners and multi-day runners and people doing these mad adventures really existed even. So yeah, I just finished university. I was working at a startup in London and I was feeling quite miserable, to be honest. Like I just,
00:03:48
Speaker
I hated where I lived. I had a terrible boyfriend. My job was fine and my colleagues were great, but it was a bit boring. And I just remember thinking, I just was feeling a bit down about the fact I'd finished uni and this was my life. Very cliche, but now it's up.
00:04:06
Speaker
I was literally sitting at work one day looking at a mat to see if we could deliver something to a customer. And just this idea of going round the coast of Britain kind of popped into my mind. And I thought, oh, I wonder if anyone has cycled it, walked it or anything like that. And I did a bit of research. It turned out people had cycled and had walked.
00:04:24
Speaker
But nobody seemed to have really run. And at the time, I'd started kind of following online people like Anna McNuff, who was running the length of New Zealand at the time and doing these kind of adventures. And I just thought, oh, well, if those people can do these things, perhaps I can have a go. I totally overlooked the fact that like Anna McNuff is the
00:04:43
Speaker
an ex-GB rower, the daughter of two Olympians, and was probably starting from a different athletic starting point to me. But I was like, oh, they're just people. I could have a go at this. And it seemed like a good excuse to quit my job, leave my flat, leave this awful relationship with what I was in. It seemed like a bit of a catch-all solution. So, and it just got aspired from there really. I started telling people, this was in the March of 2015,
00:05:08
Speaker
I started to tell people about it and then it got to the point where I told so many people that I was like, I'm going to have to have a go now. So in November, I moved to a flat share at the end of the tube line to save some money, got a bit, won an adventure grant and got a bit of sponsorship money from the company I was working for. And six months later, I found myself on the start line, ready to have a go wondering what on earth I'd let myself in for.
Preparation and Planning for the Run
00:05:35
Speaker
Honestly, when I first had the idea, I think I thought I'd maybe do it in like a couple of years. And then somebody was like, no, if you're going to do it, a friend, you have to do it in six months. And I think that to think, yeah, if I'd waited two years, I never ever would have gotten. So I think that was good advice.
00:06:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think, and all my friends seemed kind of, and I'm sure perhaps they were, but I'm sure all my friends seem quite excited to be like launching their careers as it was. And I was just like, I just don't know what to do. And I think I just felt so miserable like sitting in it. I had, yeah, I worked at the startup. It was quite full on. I was working quite long hours. And I was like, I can't believe that I see it at this desk all day. I really wasn't earning very much money at the time. And I was spending it all on living in the too expensive flat. And I was like, this just so miserable.
00:06:49
Speaker
And I think I just couldn't really think about alternatives to things I might have liked to do that would be a bit more interesting, but that's time sitting at a desk or whatever. And I was like, this is just not all it cracked up to be. I think everyone thought I'd be quite excited. I was like, I'm not excited.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah so I was obviously going around the coast, I'm from Northampton so middle of the midlands, I think pretty much the furthest place from the coast in the whole of the UK. So I didn't, it's not like I was from near the coast and I would have started in my hometown so I wasn't really sure where to start to be honest.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Never too late.
00:07:57
Speaker
And then, but I was living in London at the time and you do have to go quite far up the Thames Estuary to cross the Thames, which, wherever you start and finish. So I decided I might as well just actually start and finish in London. I think it added about 20 miles onto the whole thing compared to crossing a bit further out. I think you can cross at Gravesend.
00:08:18
Speaker
so which I think the grand scheme of it wasn't much so I decided to start and finish in London and I picked the Greenwich Maritime Museum because I was on a Sunday walk with a friend and they said oh the Maritime Museum that's related to the sea why don't you start there so I thought oh yeah might as well and Greenwich is obviously kind of out to the east so I didn't add too much mileage on coming into central London.
00:08:41
Speaker
And I decided to start on November the 1st because like I said somebody, a lot of this plan was just informed by other people saying you should do it like this and I didn't know what I was doing so I was like okay I'll do it like that. November the 1st because it was about six months after I'd had the idea which I thought would be enough time to get some funds together I was wrong about that I completely ran out of money but you know I naively thought that that would be the case
00:09:06
Speaker
And although it probably seems a bit stupid staring down the barrel of a British winter, I actually think in hindsight because it took 10 months in the end, which is roughly what I thought it would. And I think the only way to do it really is I guess I could have started in March or February and got rid of the real worst of the winter.
00:09:30
Speaker
But that would have involved then kind of going through summer and then coming back into autumn and winter, which I think mentally would have been really hard. I think actually it was quite good that I got the hard bit out of the way and then it just sort of got better and better as the days got longer and stuff. So although I didn't quite plan it like that, I think actually I chose a good time of year looking back.
Challenges and Adaptation on the Journey
00:09:51
Speaker
And yeah, so I set off from Greenwich on the first of November. I like to say I was following people at Anna McNuff who's doing this adventure in New Zealand and she seemed to be running about 15 to 20 miles a day. And that so I roughly went on that basis that I'd be able to do that. So I
00:10:10
Speaker
thought it would take about 10 months, which works out about 17 miles a day. And in the end, I ended up doing quite a lot less at the beginning and then the mileage really increased as I kind of got fitter and more used to it. So it wasn't like, you sometimes see people doing these kind of things and they're doing like 30, 40, 50 miles a day every day. And I definitely wasn't doing that. Wasn't fit enough for that. So yeah, I set off November 1st and my first leg was 17 miles from
00:10:38
Speaker
London to Dartford in Kent, not the most scenic, and then kind of what made my way clockwise around from there. Yeah, so that was, that's what I chose to go clockwise so that I could be south for the winter and then up in the north for the summer and around Scotland because I didn't really fancy the Scottish Highlands in the middle of winter.
00:11:08
Speaker
So Christmas Day, I was in Cornwall and I had this thing, even though obviously I was in the UK, I could have so easily just got home for Christmas, but I had this real thing that I couldn't go home because I was on an adventure and it would be cheating and I had to stay. So I was lucky that a friend of mine lived in Cornwall and she invited me to spend Christmas with her family, which was really lovely. But then I actually,
00:11:32
Speaker
my one and only kind of injury spell was over that period. So I ended up taking a week off after Christmas anyway. So I could have just, and then I went home because I was like, there's no point in staying here, spending loads of money. I'm like, so we'll just go home for a week. So I ended up going home the week after Christmas. So I should have just gone home for Christmas, but I had a really nice Christmas with Megan and Cornwall.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And there are quite a few bits, like, for instance, there's the southwest coast path, which I followed in Dorset all the way around to Somerset, and then picked up the Wales coast path, which goes the whole way around Wales. So especially the first few bits, the infrastructure around the coast is actually great, really well signposted, loads of resources. So the route finding around there was fairly easy.
00:12:29
Speaker
Well, so I'd say I feel like all the bits had different difficulties. So I think in the winter, the main issue was just, it was just so, it was dark at four o'clock. And I don't know if other people probably don't remember the storms of 2015 and quite the way I do, but we had a really stormy winter. I think that was when we started naming storms. So there was like, we were at the beginning of the alphabet. So there was like storm Barney, storm Desmond, I remember the warm
00:13:00
Speaker
It was...
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, it was like a particularly stormy winter. And it was just so muddy the whole time. And I just remember thinking, I'm never ever going to have dry feet, like my feet are gonna be wet for the rest of eternity. But luckily they weren't. And then as I kind of, and also that the terrain around there, like if anyone's ever done much running on the Southwest coast path around Coneidorset, Devon Cornwall, it's very hilly. And when it's muddy, it's also very slippery. So I think it was, yeah, definitely
00:13:32
Speaker
threw myself in at the deep end a bit there. But I did just, a lot of the time at the beginning, I really wasn't running like crazy miles. Like there'd be a lot of days I was doing sort of 10 miles, even a bit less. And then I did sort of very gradually increase. So I kind of, as the time went on, I got a bit fitter and the weather got a bit better. And it kind of did feel like, yeah, it was getting a lot easier.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my God, the Lympaninsula was one of my highlights. It was great. Yeah, it was just, it was just really like, it feels like really, it's quite remote and wild around that compared to some of the bits of the Welsh coast. And I think it was, it would have been kind of, I think it was April that I was there and the weather was starting, maybe May, March, I mean, but the weather was starting to get a bit better. And I just remember the Lympaninsula being great.
00:14:32
Speaker
Thank you.
00:14:44
Speaker
My preparation was absolutely appalling. Honestly, although I kind of stand by it. So basically, at the point that I decided to often do aesthetic, I'd done one absolutely disastrous marathon where I was dressed as a Crayola crayon.
00:15:03
Speaker
I cried for like eight miles. A small child called me the Crying Crayon. It was really awful. I bought the race pictures from that race a few months ago actually and they are really funny. I look so miserable and I'm just dressed as a crayon.
00:15:18
Speaker
the most miserable crayon you've ever seen. And I really hadn't done much. I wasn't like a seasoned marathon runner by any point, but I entered, I think I was reading a lot about, I was reading a lot of blogs with people doing ultra running and stuff, and it just seemed kind of magical. And I was like, oh, yeah, maybe this is something I could have a go at. And I entered a ultra race in the September just before I was setting off.
00:15:45
Speaker
Um, and I, my logic was I've got six months. I can like really try and train for this race. I'll finish that and then I'll be kind of fit enough to start the coast. But I was just, I was just useless. Life got in the way. I didn't really do any training. The race was a disaster. I pulled out at like the marathon mark.
00:16:04
Speaker
cried in a graveyard. It was terrible. And my friend, I was running with my friend Sophie and her boyfriend afterwards was like, I literally don't know why you think you're going to be able to run around the country when you couldn't even bother to train for this one race. And it was a very valid point. I think I just thought he's right. And then
00:16:30
Speaker
I think what I kind of knew in the back of my mind, even if I couldn't have like, not consciously was, obviously, if you're going to do like a day or even race or even like a multi day race over a few days, you have to really hit the ground running. You've got that one day to get it done, haven't you? And you need to be prepared on that start line. Whereas I really, because I, I didn't really, I thought it'd take about 10 months, but I didn't really mind if it did or
00:16:56
Speaker
It didn't really matter how long it took. I just I did have the time to kind of really train on the job and I think although I could have prepared better and I think like you know yeah doing some strength work being a bit fitter would have probably been an advantage. In some ways I think if I'd done enough training to for instance on the start line be able to run an easy 30 miles
00:17:18
Speaker
I would have like already been, been kind of a bit fatigued by that point from that training. So I didn't, and I didn't, I didn't need to be able to run 30 miles on day one. I just kind of needed to keep plodding along. So I basically did very little training, which book, but because there was so much time to play with, I really could train on the job in a way that you obviously can't, if you're doing like a single or week long.
00:17:39
Speaker
race I wouldn't recommend that strategy for like yeah doing shorter but it did seem to work okay and I think especially it kind of worked well because because the conditions were just so rubbish and I was going so slowly like I was obviously what I was wearing this back carrying myself on my back I was walking up all the hills it was so muddied I was sliding down them like the intensity of what I was covering was really low even if like I was clocking up more miles if that makes sense
00:18:09
Speaker
It wasn't like I was trying to run a really hard 20 miles on the road every day from the start, which obviously would have broken me on that train.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah. And I think it is just, I think also that it's just a case of kind of joining up lots of runs in a row and then you've gone a long way. Like I didn't, I didn't need to be like the best runner or the most spectacularly athletic fit person in the world. I just needed to every day cover a few miles and link them up in a long chain. Yeah.
Community Support and Kindness
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah so the plan was to camp because I knew that I wouldn't be able to afford to do it otherwise like there was no way I would have been able to save enough money to kind of stay in a B&B or even a hostel every night. So the plan was to camp and also I think I just thought well I'm going on an adventure that's what you do on an adventure, you camp.
00:19:24
Speaker
So I have, what's new for my backpack. I know often when people do running adventures they use a buggy but because of the kind of terrain I was hoping to cover that wouldn't have really, it wouldn't have worked at all. So I had a backpack but and it ended up just completely by chance to be honest. I started, I'd made kind of a Facebook page and a blog mostly just to kind of keep my family and friends up to date really.
00:19:47
Speaker
and I started posting these like video blogs and they were just like wouldn't take 30 seconds me talking to a camera about my day basically because I found that was when I was really tired that was a lot less that was a lot easier than like trying to like write something about the day. Well I started posting these video blogs and for whatever reason people kind of seemed to quite like them and more people started to like the Facebook page probably helped by my brother spamming every single running forum on Facebook and being like
00:20:15
Speaker
PR guide, yeah, because I'd never done that myself, he was great. And so people started to kind of watch these videos and through like people from that who followed me and then friends of friends and friends of friends of friends and local running clubs, people kept offering me places to stay. And in the end, I didn't camp at all over the winter.
00:20:37
Speaker
and then even after that I wasn't camping loads and especially in the winter I was so lucky like some B&Bs and hostels and hotels when they were quiet especially and they all had empty rooms like the winter gave me a bed for the night and I really think if I'd actually had to camp
00:20:53
Speaker
all the time, like I thought, I don't think there's any way I would have finished it. I really don't. And meeting all those people were just such like, people were just so kind and welcoming. They were opening their homes to me and letting me read their kids' bedtime stories and doing my laundry. And it became such a big part of it. So yeah, if I'd had to actually do the winter camping, I thought I would. I really don't think I ever would have made it round. Yeah.
00:21:29
Speaker
literally two days in, I think it was the second night, yeah. The first night I stayed at a hotel in Dartford with my parents and then I think the second night, because I knew obviously, and especially when I got up to the Highlands of Scotland and stuff, it was a lot easier
00:21:46
Speaker
to camp because I was quite scared about running around Scotland because I thought it'd be really wild and remote but actually it was easy because it's so much more geared up for doing that kind of thing and actually found it was more built up places like around the south that were a bit more difficult and obviously like it's a lot harder to just fling your tent up and now it's got some London somewhere and I think especially yeah I didn't necessarily feel that safe doing that so but it was actually the third so before I started the summer before I went away
00:22:15
Speaker
I'd started going to quite a lot of stuff with the Guest Tribe in London who were like quite small at the time, quite big now, sort of adventure community. And I started, I just saw an advert on Facebook for like a Friday night camp out and I was like, great, I'll go along to that. It'd be really good to meet some people who are doing this sort of stuff because at the time my friends weren't really interested in adventurey things.
00:22:38
Speaker
And I met all these great people and someone I met through that basically put me in touch with a friend of a friend. So on the third night I stayed with them.
00:22:47
Speaker
actually the S tribe were a huge part of forming that like network of people as I went around, but it was, it was so like, I just couldn't believe how kind and great people were. And when I was doing it, it was, it was 2016. It was in the lead up to the kind of Brexit referendum. And all this stuff on the news was just everybody like being so horrible to each other. And it was, and all this like blame throwing, it was just horrible. But then every single night I was staying with completely different
00:23:15
Speaker
but equally as kind people and I was like I just can't help but think you don't like each other if you just met each other.
00:23:34
Speaker
Not, not for the book at all. I did, I wrote a few blog posts. Um, and then, yeah, I posted these videos pretty much every day in the end, to be honest. Um, but I didn't, I don't, so the book, I'd actually had an email from Debbie who ended up being my editor, um, while I was running saying that she had read my blog and had thought about writing a book. And I, I'd always wanted to write a book. I was so excited to get this email.
00:23:59
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, like, this is the dream. Like, this would be great. And then when I finished the run, I kind of kept in touch with her and I kept saying I was writing something, but I wasn't. And then the sort of years passed by and then it was last year I sort of sheepishly dug out our 2017 email thread.
00:24:19
Speaker
I was like, hey, Debbie, I've actually started writing any chance you'd still be interested in the hair of a proposal. But as part of the book writing process, so I wrote it all last year, I went through and which was really cringy, but rewatched all of those videos and made. So
00:24:40
Speaker
useful. I honestly don't think I would have been able to write a book without them because there were just so many bits that I'd completely forgotten about or like I think it all would have been so vague without them because they like gave me the they reminded me of like specific things I like felt or thought or that happened and so I made this big spreadsheet basically of every single day and put in some where I went where I started where I went to who I stayed with and some notes and
00:25:07
Speaker
Without those videos, I don't think I ever would have been able to write the book.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah, people did join me to run fairly regularly, but I did find it like, I loved people coming along and I really liked sharing a journey and it was especially great when it was like somebody who like, yeah, like a few times I stayed with people from local running clubs and they were so excited to kind of show me their like local stomping ground and it was great. But I definitely did feel quite a lot of pressure when people came to run with me because I think
00:25:45
Speaker
especially after a few months I kind of got into the swing a bit and I knew what sort of pace I could run out which was slow over time and how often I needed to stop and I started to feel a bit more confident in my ability to run the distances I needed to and cover that but then when other people came along it just felt like a lot of pressure to sort of like give them a good day almost even though I don't think they wanted that from me I just completely made that up but I just really had in my head that had that given this great experience and then sometimes people would
00:26:14
Speaker
turn up and they'd look really runnery and I'd think, oh no, you're just going to think broad. So I think I quite liked in the end, running on my own a lot, but then having the like, sharing the experience with people when I was staying with them in the evenings.
Safety Measures on the Run
00:26:30
Speaker
And in the end, nobody ever like, nobody else ever reinforced this pressure. It was always just in my head, but I was just like, you're real runners and you're going to catch me out.
00:26:56
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I think also even just like, I've definitely had this as well, just like running with somebody else on like a single day, like ultra marathon, or even just like a long run. I think your energy levels don't like ebb and flow at different times, don't they? And it can be difficult to match, to match someone, I think. And I always felt like, I know that I need to like, you know, keep this quite low intensity so that I have energy tomorrow. But then I always felt like, oh, I need to keep up with you.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, so definitely something I thought about a lot and also that you kind of get asked about a lot. And I think I always think about it in terms of like, and I've definitely experienced the heckling or whatever, but so much more when I'm just like, well, I live in Bristol now, I used to live in London, when I'm just running around the city than when you're kind of out on a coast path and nobody's there.
00:28:34
Speaker
so that sort of things wasn't quite as bad but I definitely I had a few things that I like did try and keep safe so for instance the people I stayed with I wouldn't just like stay with anyone I generally I mostly try to only stay with people if it was like
00:28:49
Speaker
a friend of a friend or there was kind of some connection there, not just a total stranger. Being honest, I did mostly decline any offers from kind of lone men. Just, I'm sure most people had completely altruistic intentions, but just, you know, just in case. And I mostly say, families and stuff, and often people would message me on Facebook to arrange, so you could kind of stalk them a bit and see that they were just a family who were part of the local running club and whatever.
00:29:18
Speaker
And I avoided research. And then I would always avoid putting, I generally like I'd post by like blogs and stuff a day behind. I tried to avoid posting exactly where I was at any given time. And also I know often people have like trackers so you can see exactly where they are. I didn't have one of those that maybe feel really uncomfortable. I had like a check-in time with my dad at six o'clock every day. And if he hadn't heard from me, he would have,
00:29:47
Speaker
said he would have like you know been worried I guess um and so we did a few things like that but I think the reality is like and my dad always actually talks about the lot like he does a lot of outdoorsy stuff and people I've been at a few talks that my dad's been at and people have asked him if he was worried at first he's like well I don't know what me being worried would have stopped so but he always says that he's much more worried about me when I call him and I'm walking home late at night from the pub than
00:30:12
Speaker
when I was like out on a coast path where although it seems a bit eerie actually you're on your own nobody's really out there so I think you do have to kind of weigh up that look I always think that like perceived versus real risk if that makes sense but um
00:30:28
Speaker
yeah so I think but yeah it's definitely something you have to think about a lot and I think I definitely spoke to kind of male friends who have done adventures and stuff and they'll talk about meeting a random man in the pub who says oh do you want somewhere to stay for the night and they've gone back and had this like great night at his house and I personally would never have done that and I always like pre-arranged up in advance so yeah I told my dad where I was going every night who I was staying with
00:30:53
Speaker
And yes, I did a few things like that, but it definitely is an added layer of stuff you have to think about. But then I do always think, and I've always been aware of things because I, in absolutely no way does this kind of mitigate all the negatives and the risks that I guess being a woman carries. But I do think in some ways, it's such a privilege to be welcomed into people's homes. And I was obviously a very unthreatening young twenties, have blonde plaits.
00:31:19
Speaker
And I don't know that if I'd been kind of, man would quite as many people, especially families, welcome me into their home. And I'm not sure they would have. So I guess in some ways, maybe there's a positive. Not that it outweighs the risk in any way, but I do definitely feel like it's a privilege to be that some people felt comfortable to have me in their homes.
Magical Wildlife Encounters
00:31:59
Speaker
I didn't see any dolphins, but my parents came to visit at one point when I was somewhere in Scotland and they did see some dolphins and I was really annoyed that I missed them. But quite a lot of seals, like I did not realise how many seals there were around. And every time I saw a seal, I just got really excited. I did have this one really magical moment. I was on the coast path coming out of
00:32:23
Speaker
uh Limworth and Linton and on the Exmoor coast path and I was the the coast path there it's like really like cut into quite a steep cliff that like really drops and rises on either side and this herd of Exmoor ponies just came charging towards me and I was like well I'm gonna die aren't I like quite the
00:32:44
Speaker
there's nowhere I can go. There's a cliff on one side and like a sheer upwards and I was like, there's nowhere for me to go. And then they just, because they're so amazing on that terrain, they just parted round me on this coast path and charred round me and I just like the Red Sea and I just couldn't believe it. I was like, and I was stood there at all for about 10 minutes after that. So that was my best animal encounter. It was just magical.
00:33:15
Speaker
Well, it felt like full pelt. I'm not sure how fast I go. Maybe like 8, 10? I don't know. Yeah, honestly, I was like, this is it. It's over for me. And then they just like parted and I felt the bristles on my arms. I was like, this is madness. So yeah, that was definitely a high night.
Journey's Conclusion and Impact
00:33:44
Speaker
Yeah, I finished back in Greenwich in Greenwich Park. It was on August Bank holiday weekend, pretty much bang on 10 months in the end. But I think to be honest, that became a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. Like by the end, I just I was kind of ready to be done. And I sort of worked out how far I needed to run each day to get back for that time. So that was less good planning and more just, yeah, self fulfilling prophecy.
00:34:40
Speaker
I've got to say I didn't really ever solve that problem and when I finished I think the number one thing I'd say to anybody thinking about doing anything like this is to factor in a kind of coming home fund because I finished and I had
00:34:56
Speaker
literally not a penny to my name I was really lucky that I could go and stay with my parents and I had somebody to sleep obviously but I had absolutely no money and I was just like well what do I do now and I did I kind of I've done a few like talks and stuff but I think I really I just didn't want to go down the route of trying to be like a full-time adventurer I just thought that wasn't really for me and so I ended up
00:35:19
Speaker
I took a bit of contract work with actually my old manager from before I went back in London at a different startup, ended up moving back to London and basically kind of spent a year doing exactly the same as I had before and feeling a bit miserable again and thinking what was all that for?
00:35:35
Speaker
But then after that point I definitely from then I've worked at a few different walking charities and sports events companies and I think largely through doing this adventure that have managed to move my kind of career I guess towards doing that stuff that I'm interested in. But I think the main thing I took from doing it was
00:35:54
Speaker
that, I don't know, I just think there's so much, I just love being outside in a way but I find it kind of hard to explain sometimes but I'm sure everybody else you like has been outside gets the same thing where everything just like makes a bit more sense when you're like out running on a trail or whatever it is and I think there's something really nice about running that like when you're out and like a hard trail run and you're absolutely dying and it's really hard and there's somebody else next to you feeling the same
00:36:20
Speaker
It kind of doesn't matter. I think it's a really good level. It doesn't matter who you are or anything. All you need in that moment is fuel, rest, whatever it might be. And I think doing this definitely really reinforced how important that was to me and how much it's like, well, anything else that's going on in my life, I can still always go for a run. And you can fit a lot of that around, like having a nine to five job in a normal life. Until I went freelance a year ago,
00:36:47
Speaker
For the four years before that, I had nine to five Monday to Friday job with four or five weeks holiday every year. I managed to fit in a lot of weekend and holidays adventures and you don't have to quit your job and go do something big to do a lot of that.
Availability of 'Coasting' Book
00:37:06
Speaker
Yeah, I love saying this, you can get it at all good bookshops. So yeah, like Waterstones, Amazon, I always encourage people to shop at their independence if they can. I think, yeah, most local independent bookshops can order any booking you want, even if they don't have it in stock. So yeah, all the regular places.
00:37:33
Speaker
the audio books out now as well, so people can listen to it while they're on their runs, which I always liked the idea of. Oh, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, it was really nice to chat, and thanks for having me on the UK Run Chat our yesterday.