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Chas Newkey-Burden | The Runners Code
61 Plays3 years ago
Chas Newkey-Burden is a running fanatic who has run at hundreds of events including marathons, half-marathons and over 100 parkruns. He writes about running for The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Metro and The i, and has contributed to Runner’s World and Men’s Health. He is the author of several books, including Running: Cheaper Than Therapy and his new book The Runner's Code: The Unwritten Rules of Everyday Running was released on 14th Oct. 2021.
You can follow Chas on:
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to episode 53 of the UK Sports Chat podcast. I'm Joe Williams and in today's episode I speak with Chas Yuki-Burden. Chas is a running fanatic who's run hundreds of events including marathons, half marathons and over 100 park
Writing and Publications
00:00:17
Speaker
runs.
00:00:17
Speaker
He writes about running for The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Metro and The Eye and has contributed to runners world and men's health. He's the author of many books including Running Cheaper Than Therapy and his new book The Runner's Code, The Unwritten Rules of Everyday Running came out on the 14th of October.
00:00:38
Speaker
As usual, please do give us any feedback, comment and tell us your thoughts on the podcast via our social channels or on info at ukrunchat.co.uk. In the meantime, have a fantastic end to your week and we'll see you on next week's podcast.
Podcast Co-hosting Experience
00:00:56
Speaker
Welcome Chas, how are you? I'm very well, thank you. How are you? Yeah, yeah, very well, thank you. Thanks for coming on the UK Run Chat podcast. Great to have you on.
00:01:05
Speaker
Thank you for having me. And thanks for hosting the hour last night, of course. You had your first co-hosting, didn't you? It was amazing, yeah.
Running Community and Personal Journey
00:01:15
Speaker
I'm sure you hear this quite possibly every week, but it really, you know, from guest hosts, but it really whizzed past. You know, I sort of, when I imagined it, I imagined a sort of
00:01:28
Speaker
maybe not a marathon length affair, but kind of like a half marathon length affair. And it felt, ooh, less than a, more like a 5K probably. Oh yeah, because that was how much fun it was. And it's just lovely how friendly I think that runners are. How generally positive I think runners are. And I sort of noticed that both when I go running and also in any interactions online or in any interactions about
00:01:57
Speaker
my book, and that's not actually the case with all, you know, some other, if you want to say like, as a basic genre, like health and fitness type sort of communities don't have such always such great reputations of friendliness without mentioning any names, cyclists, but I think, you know, whether that perception of cyclists is right or wrong is another debate. But certainly, I just think that runners are generally a very lovely people, and that's why I really enjoyed it.
00:02:27
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. It's very welcoming, isn't it? I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but I can remember it was a few years back now. I remember Michael Owen, the footballer, being interviewed, having just finished the London Marathon.
00:02:41
Speaker
And he was commenting on how he just wasn't used to everybody cheering you along. He was used to beating football grounds and getting, you know, vile abuse thrown at him. And he just couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe how well, you know, being in an environment like that. Which runners are, yeah, as you say.
00:03:02
Speaker
And supporters have run as well, I think, you know, one of the things that I hadn't realized that I'd missed during sort of the main bulk of the pandemic, but that I realized once I emerged back into the world, something I had missed was well-wishers at events. It's actually, you know, occasionally it can get, you know, I can get a little bit teary during an event because people are just so nice. I think that's more perhaps at marathons, but
00:03:28
Speaker
even at half marathons, even at park runs sometimes, you know, a mere five pace, someone will turn up to just stand on the side and cheer you
Running Lifestyle and Influences
00:03:36
Speaker
on. And it's quite funny actually, because quite often if it's somebody out of a park run who's cheering from the side, they can't often have clearly in their head a massively inflated sense of what the degree of challenge is for most of the people there. I think for most people at park run, it's not a once in a lifetime sort of
00:03:56
Speaker
almost deadly level of challenge but you'll get them cheering you on as if you're you know doing an ultramarathon which is always quite sweet i'll take encouragement and praise from anyone yeah yeah damn right i saw on them i saw on twitter that you've you've had a bit of a calf niggle have you recently all good now or
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think it is all good. It's interesting because I've been running, I mean, in a way I've been running all my life. I loved it as a kid, but in terms of an actual weekly hobby or daily or almost daily hobby, doing that since around 2001. So, you know, 20 years and I've had such, such little issue with injuries. I mean, basically none.
00:04:36
Speaker
The only slight things I've sometimes, that have occasionally temporarily, you know, for a week or two, prevented me from running here or there, were things that actually weren't connected to running anyway. So I'm a bad back from the desk, from sitting slouching at my desk all day because I have bad lazy posture.
00:04:55
Speaker
So I'm kind of, whereas there are some runners, you know, I think particularly when you're going to parkrun every week, which I did for quite a while, you get to know other runners and there will always be that person at parkrun who's just perennially, you know, injured or coming back from an injury or about to get injured. Or in my, I don't know if it's just the ones I go to, quite often people who just turn up with injuries and do it anyway, because they've got some sort of addiction issue going on with parkrun.
00:05:23
Speaker
But yes, thank you. I think the calf is now clearing up, which I'm relieved about. I had to take nine days off running, which...
00:05:31
Speaker
absolutely chomping at the bit for it mentally and frankly physically. I sometimes find if I stop running it sounds really weird but you know you see those videos on YouTube and stuff which are quite funny of dogs dreaming and they're kind of kicking or sort of running in their sleep. I start getting like that when I'm sitting at the desk my legs start pumping up and down like come on aren't you meant to be? It's your feet.
00:05:56
Speaker
So you mentioned there that you've been doing it for 20 years, but you also ran as a kid. Have you always been sporty? Were you a runner as a child or was there other sports that you enjoyed? I guess I wanted to be a footballer, to be honest. And I was a sort of a semi-decent sort of marauding right back. And I say semi-decent because it was that sort of irritating level of ability whereby
00:06:25
Speaker
I'd sort of always get picked for the school and I'd sometimes get picked for the district and I was always good enough to get picked for the district. Yeah. You were there, but never enough to, you know, make the shirt my own, as I say. So in a way, I sort of part of me started wishing that I wasn't quite as good because
00:06:43
Speaker
I found it incredibly disappointing, you know, when I'd get into the district side and then just I'd realize within a minute of the match starting that I was completely out of my, or in fact, yeah, not completely out of my depth. I was just enough out of my depth for it to be an issue. So I guess I got into running. I mean, that was at primary school, all of that. At secondary school, I think what I got into running, to be honest with you, is I went to a very, very bizarre secondary school that was actually run by a
00:07:09
Speaker
religious cult and it ended up being exposed in the media and all this sort of stuff. But the upshot of it is I didn't really enjoy myself much at all at that school. But the two things I did like doing were English because I've always liked writing. And that was the one thing that I would get, you know, good feedback from mostly from the teachers. Yes. And the other one was running. And I think it was partly because it felt so it was such a sort of a repressive and a repressed atmosphere in the school. I suppose it's inevitable that me
00:07:38
Speaker
you know, at the time where you get to run on your own and literally run free would be a big appeal. The other thing was about it was that I would find that if I ran really fast, because we'd run in Richmond Park, and if the buses went my way on the way home, you know, if they worked well for me, my bus connections, I could get home and watch three Australian soap operas in a row. Yeah, neighbors home and away.
00:08:03
Speaker
Home and Away Neighbors would definitely have been one. I think the other one was Sons and Daughters. There were two people, I don't remember their name on Sons and Daughters there, but these two characters who just hated each other and it felt like the whole thing became based around their rivalry and I became obsessed with it. So I really, initially, if I'm honest, learnt to run a bit, not very fast, but pretty fast because I just wanted to get back and watch Sons and Daughters. And I'd come bursting through the dawn, I'd make a big hot cup of tea
00:08:32
Speaker
because I'd still be in my kit and I'd put honey in it. I remember at that era, I don't know why I was having honey in my tea, but I was. I mean, obviously to sweeten it, but I don't know why I had it as opposed to sugar.
00:08:44
Speaker
I would just sit there and I'd have the runners glow, the runners high. I'd have three Aussie soaps in a row. I'd have this hot, hot tea with beautiful honey in it. And that was it for life, really. I mean, I just felt so happy. And it was only once a week we did it, but on Wednesdays, I remember one, I'd feel so happy on those days.
00:09:04
Speaker
I think I, I learned about the run as high, perhaps younger than some people do. I mean, nowadays I think running is much more of a thing because this was, because I'm ridiculously old. This was like in the eighties. And, you know, if, if a man, particularly if he was a middle-aged man took up joking, everyone would just laugh. A, because they'd be mocking him because he might not sort of.
Football and Professional Background
00:09:30
Speaker
run as gracefully or have as athletic a body as he might have but secondly because actually running as a hobby was really rare then compared to now yes yes hard for you know younger people now certainly to sort of imagine that it really was a rarity you talk about it like if somebody took up you'd go if you heard well
00:09:51
Speaker
Paul, you know, some middle-aged man in the air, he started jogging, because it was always only called jogging then, which is another thing that's changed. But that's how I started. Sons and daughters, basically. Sons and daughters driven, yeah. Cool. So English and running, obviously, as I mentioned in the intro before we started chatting, you're a writer, obviously, and your latest book from Bloomsbury has come out.
00:10:16
Speaker
and you're a runner. But just to go back to your football bit that you mentioned, I had a look, I was doing a bit of research, obviously, before we had our chat, and I noticed that you used to work for what was my favourite magazine as a child, which was Shoot Magazine, Football Magazine.
00:10:36
Speaker
I used to be there every week with my 65p pocket money ready for the posters because my room was covered in all the posters. What a dream job if you enjoyed that as a footballer and a writer.
00:10:50
Speaker
I did enjoy it. It was, I always think back now that I wish I hadn't taken it so much for granted at the time because to me, I kind of felt like, of course this was my life. But when I look back now, it seems utterly sort of surreal that that was my life. But yeah, it was a staff writer and shoot, as you know, football magazine for, well, most kids first football magazine.
00:11:18
Speaker
And basically my job was just going around interviewing footballers, which was exciting enough as it was. It was made even more exciting in a way because it being shoot, we weren't interested in the, you know, sort of A-list sort of footballers because kids don't want to hear about a write back at Sheffield Wednesday with no disrespect at all to Sheffield Wednesday, but a write back with an interesting quirky story. They want
00:11:43
Speaker
players, the top players from maybe the top four clubs. Yeah. And they're not interested in anyone else. So this was like in the early, early-ish years of the Premier League. So I'd be sort of interviewing, you know, the Beckham and Keene and. Yeah. But Yamp and Michael Owen, who you mentioned. Yeah. You know, just and so often that you'd sort of see them, not very often, not it wouldn't be like you'd be seeing them week by week. But eventually, after a while, they'd start to recognize you. And because we never
00:12:13
Speaker
We wouldn't stitch anyone up, you know, we weren't in that sort of business. We just wanted to ask them the sort of questions that kids wanted answered and, you know, report on what they said. But that was good fun. Who do you support?
00:12:26
Speaker
I'm Shrewsbury Town. Born and bred Shrewsbury. Stick with your local team. As a kid growing up, we all had a Premier League team as well and mine was Arsenal. There was no reason for it. I think it must have been the first in the list that I saw because it began with A.
Running Schedules and Favorite Events
00:12:46
Speaker
I just chose them but yeah, Shrewsbury Town is my local team.
00:12:52
Speaker
Great, so you were collecting just posters of players who you admired, sort of, regardless of who they played for, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Shrewsbury Town posters. Yeah, there weren't many of those in Sh
00:13:21
Speaker
Well I do, so in terms of the week my absolute bread and butter lockdown is a short run on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and then almost religiously a long run on Saturday mornings. Very occasionally I might have to move it to the Sunday perhaps because you know we're doing something on the Saturday or something and
00:13:42
Speaker
I literally, I nearly cry even at the thought of not doing it on the Saturday. So at the moment my short runs are, I mean generally for my short runs, I stick to three miles for each of those and then the long run, where am I currently at? I can't remember because I took a bit of time off.
00:14:01
Speaker
9 miles I'm currently at for that. Every September I run the Windsor Half Marathon, which is my local half marathon. But what I've started doing since then is I've decided to do a quarterly half marathon.
00:14:18
Speaker
The autumn, the September one will be the Windsor half, and then the other three will likely be just half marathon length runs on my own. But I like the idea of constantly ramping up to that distance, then maybe going down a little bit for a couple of weeks afterwards, then ramping back up again. In the past, I've done the Dublin marathon three times, and that's in October, the end of October.
00:14:46
Speaker
When the world is more normal, that's definitely one of the things I want to go and do a few more times, that specific marathon, because everything about it is great for me. I love training. The fact that the peak training comes in
00:15:03
Speaker
late summer, early autumn is perfect for me. I flinch whenever somebody tells me they're doing the London Marathon. I'm sure it's obviously a great event, but to me, the idea of doing the peak of my training in February
00:15:18
Speaker
just doesn't appeal at all. Icy roads. So, and the other reason why Dublin's great is the people are just, you know, we're talking about well wishes earlier, just absolutely off the scale, they're the level of support you get. Yeah.
00:15:34
Speaker
Every year because it's mainly goes sort of through the suburbs. I think you know, I'm not an expert on the geography of Dublin But I think it's so it goes out the city quite quickly through the big park and then sort of lots of times through lots of suburbs of Dublin and The people are amazing. It's like you don't just have the official
00:15:51
Speaker
drink station and stuff you have people like bringing out tables of their own onto the side of the road like big cauldrons of stew and like ladling out and offering stew to really yeah and I mean you know I'm vegan so I'm not going to eat a stew anyway but even in the days where I did eat meat I must admit I never fancied a stew in mile 18 of a marasundra no no
00:16:15
Speaker
But it's kind and they're very, very friendly and so I hope to do more of that. So yeah, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays are my running days. Yeah. It's not, it wouldn't be so much stew as well for me. Because if I was to eat stew, I'm a bread dipper, you know, I'd have the big chunks of bread as well. And I think, I think all that bread at mile 18 wouldn't probably come back up again by mile 18. Yes.
00:16:41
Speaker
So is that your favourite event you've ever done then? Is it just Dublin or is there another one that's stick-saved? I'd have to say that the favourite one is just by a whisker is the Windsor half because although I love the Dublin mouse and I've done it three times and the middle one was the first day, the first time I did it was one of the very best days of my life. The third time I did it was one of the very best days of my life.
00:17:06
Speaker
The middle one was definitely one of the very worst days of my life because everything went wrong. And therefore, I kind of have a very mixed feeling about it. So I'd have to say Windsor Half-Mouton is my favourite because A, because it's a brilliant event and B, because nothing's ever gone wrong now. I've never had any kind of issues with my own running. I think Windsor's great.
00:17:33
Speaker
I mean, it's very, very well organized. It's like everything sort of, you know, runs like clockwork, even the most recent one in September, you know, in the middle of a pandemic, you know, they just kept everything working well. And I'm quite a grown a paranoic. So the fact that they managed to do it all without me ducking it and going, this feels too risky is a great credit to them.
00:17:56
Speaker
Beautiful scenery. The only issue with the Windsor Half is it is very hilly. Anyone who does it the first time. If you Twitter search Windsor Half Marathon the evening after the Windsor Half Marathon, you'll see tons of people saying, I had no idea it was so hilly. My other favourite event is the North Ella Park Run. That is my favourite.
00:18:22
Speaker
I'm kind of guessing at the pronunciation. I think it's North solar. So North O L a all in one world. And it's somewhere between Ealing and Wembley, I think. Okay. We can tell I'm not a driver, but I have friends with cars.
00:18:39
Speaker
is a really, really good one. It's quite Nepalese heavy. I think it's quite sort of organized by local Nepalese community, which just makes it, you know, interesting and really nice. It's a nice park. They have these mounds in the park, which, as I understand, are
00:18:55
Speaker
built artificially, built up from the ground with rubble from the old Wembley Stadium. So what I like to do as I run around is to look at them and think that's where Freddie Mercury sang or that's where Tony Adams scored the winner against the walls. Yeah, you're running where the greats have ran across Wembley. Yeah.
00:19:19
Speaker
You can imagine
Pre-race Rituals and Inspirations
00:19:20
Speaker
that, couldn't you? As you're running along, as you want to be dust distraction techniques, you know, is this where, is this where Gaza stood and put that free kick into the top corner in the FA Cup semi-final that year? Yeah, yeah. Right for you. So, are you superstitious, Chas? Have you got any pre-race routines or?
00:19:42
Speaker
um let me see that's superstitious I mean I'm very much a creature of habit so um interesting on the run chat last night on twitter I asked you know as you saw my I think it was my third or fourth question was you know where would you most like to run a marathon in the world and you know I said Lancari or Belfast but the truth is is that
00:20:05
Speaker
every single time I would just want to go back to Dublin. Even if somebody gave me a magic wand and said you can run a mouse in any event, you'll be a guaranteed place, you'll have a guaranteed place to stay and everything you know will be laid on or you can go back to Dublin or go back to Dublin. So I'm very much a creature of habit. In terms of
00:20:27
Speaker
I need to be on my own before an event. I don't want anyone to, I don't want any well wishes. Anyone that I know that is, one time when I was revving up for the Windsor Half at the park itself, a friend and her sons sort of appeared, because they knew I was doing it, they'd come along to wish me well. And of course, beautiful, well-intentioned, loving gesture, but inside I was seething. And I tend to get very, very,
00:20:56
Speaker
nervous intense before events which is really odd especially when it's when i do that before say the winter half a distance and a track that i've run yeah so many times but i'll still every day wake up as if i'm you know about to stand trial for war crimes it's really common though isn't it people feel like that why do you think that is because you know we're not
00:21:20
Speaker
Well, I suppose it depends on your mindset. We're only really competing with ourselves. Why do you think that is? I concluded like, you know, I wrote about this in the runner's code. I concluded that I think it's, to me, it's a sign of how much it matters to me, you know, how much I care. I think there's also perhaps a more sort of instinctive physical thing, which is to do with, you know, that your body
00:21:50
Speaker
I think if you're very connected with your body, which I think runners are, we know much more what's going on in our bodies than most people. We will notice an issue in our foot or our leg sooner than somebody who doesn't run but has the equivalent issue coming up.
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah. So I think therefore our bodies kind of react and they get, you know, you get that fight or flight thing. That's why you get, you know, without going to too much, I think that's why you get long queues at the pool to lose at the beginning. That's part of the whole nervous thing. It's sort of like, right, we're here for some sort of, yeah, you're right. Cause we're not actually fighting, but it is a feeling of battle, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's, um,
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah, the cues for the toilets. Is that everyone's nervousness or is it there's not enough toilets? I do think a bit of both. And I do feel like and again, I've written about this, but I do feel there's such a gender imbalance here, because certainly
00:22:53
Speaker
nearly all the running events I've gone to, men happily just hop off the side of the course, whether you're talking about in Windsor Great Park where I did the half marathon or on the streets of Dublin and whatever, and we'll just, you know, have a number one and all that and against the lamppost or against the bush and all that and then hop back and it's not as simple for
00:23:15
Speaker
You know, I mean, it could be that simple for women, but in today's Western societies, it's not as simple as that for women. So therefore, what I sort of think was there should be more pull to lose and that there should be more women run a specific pull to lose because it's just not, you know, it's harder for them to sort of deal with all of this stuff because they can't just go up against a
Books and Writing Process
00:23:37
Speaker
bush. Although frankly, if one of them did, it would be, you'd have to applaud them. You would.
00:23:45
Speaker
So tell us about the new book then. What is the runner's code?
00:23:51
Speaker
Well, what I sort of wanted to write a book that would sort of work for all runners. So whether you're new to running, been running for years, and I wanted to cover everything from, you know, literally from how to get started as a runner, to how to run into old age, and everything in between. So the idea is, it's sort of like looking at what's the code of running? What are the rules? What are the do's and don'ts? So some of this is kind of
00:24:19
Speaker
You know, stuff like what to eat, how to avoid injuries, etiquette. But then there's stuff about like how often to post on social media, what to do if someone shouts abuse at you from a car. And then there's hopefully funny stuff like how to work into every single conversation that you've run a marathon.
00:24:39
Speaker
how to deal with, you know, farts when you're running, how to use running as an excuse to get out of other things you don't want to do. And how it came about was I wrote a book in 2017 called Running Cheaper Than Therapy for, again, for Bloomsbury. And that came about because I kept writing articles, kind of, the first one was called Which Park Runner Are You?
00:25:05
Speaker
And then the second one was called, which runner are you? And I just would list these different running archetypes. So for park run, which park runner are you? It'd be people like the one who lies on the starting line, you know, he'll say, oh, I'm not going to go for it today. I'm, I'm just not going to easy. And then he'll take off like you're saying is just, you know, in the distance. And, um,
00:25:25
Speaker
or the other one at Park Clunge would be the over analyser, the one who stands in the car park afterwards and talks to you about it as if you're interviewing him on Sky Sports. I've started off well, but I've struggled a bit in the 3rd K to be fair. I've sort of tried to make up for it in the 4th, and you just go, oh, it's just a Park Clunge. I don't need to... Analyse in every...
00:25:47
Speaker
And then the one who will run through a puddle, everyone on a park run route will go around the puddle and you get that one person, nearly always a man, let's be fair, who just gallops straight through it like a horse. So I'd started writing these things and then from that came Running Cheaper Than Therapy, which is my first book. And the reason I chose the title is
00:26:10
Speaker
I kind of used to bristle a bit when people always said to me, oh, it must be great running because you can stay thin. And although that, I say is true, it was true, it's me. I don't know how much I run now, but I'm not gonna be as thin as I used to be. But although it is true for a lot of us and it does keep us very thin and in shape, I think certainly me and I think a lot of runners, we do it more for how our mind feels after we run than out of any sort of sense of particular vanity.
00:26:39
Speaker
Certainly, if somebody would say to me, right, from tomorrow onwards, you'll continue to get the weight loss benefits of running, but you'll no longer feel that high and that happiness and all that. I would probably quite likely give up after a while. Whereas if it was the other way around, if they said, you know, you're guaranteed your
00:26:59
Speaker
run as high and you run as globe, but you're not going to, do you see what I mean? And so the idea was running cheaper than therapy was to look into the, and to celebrate the emotional.
00:27:10
Speaker
benefits of running. The runners code to eventually answer your question is that came about because I was chatting to my editor right at the start of the pandemic. I told him that I was writing an article with a sort of a runners code for running during a pandemic as in how to be a considerate runner, trying to sort of indicate.
00:27:31
Speaker
if you run past an elderly couple in the park, they might be really, really scared because you're breathing heavily and you're sweating. So just run 20 yards away, you know, just give them plenty of space and stuff. And then from that conversation about that article, we sort of thought perhaps there could be a similar book, but not in book form, but not about how to run in a COVID era, just how to run considerably and well and effectively and enjoyably generally.
00:27:59
Speaker
regardless of the pandemic. Those subjects that you brought up, we see some of these regularly on Twitter. And there's a couple I'd like us to go over. So how often should you post to social media? That's an interesting one.
00:28:23
Speaker
Yeah, I just, how I sort of concluded was a few guidelines. So one of them was, you don't need to run, you don't need to post before you do the run, while you do the run and after you do the run, which is what
Social Media and Community Engagement
00:28:37
Speaker
a lot of people do. They'll sort of get up and they'll say, oh, you know, doing a 10 miler today.
00:28:41
Speaker
great you know it's nice i like to hear what people are doing and then they'll sort of take a picture and put it up five miles in halfway through my 10 miler all going well and then an hour later you'll get one just got back i did a 10 miler today and you'll sort of go yeah okay you know probably those could have been truncated into one tweet or one facebook update um the other ones were you know if there's something you know remarkable from the run if you got a particularly nice um
00:29:10
Speaker
scenery or if you um got a particularly good time or split time or whatever those sort of ones um that those would be acceptable ones the the the other thing is about uh fundraising that's a big part i think of social media guidelines and so i sort of look into that as in there's actual you know people like justgiving and stuff have got their suggestions for how often you post um and so i sort of give ideas of how often you can do that as in
00:29:39
Speaker
you know, when you set up your page, perhaps as you pass milestones during your training. So once if you're doing it for mouth, and once you do your first 10 mile, your first 15 mile, those are good times to post. When you get your race number, that can be a good one. Yeah. And so forth. I remember a bit in the book, which said about how often can you go out to friends and family when you're fundraising?
00:30:02
Speaker
Yes, because the thing is, I think I've done about you, but I've done so many, for a while I would just always do a fundraising thing if I did any half marathon or marathon. And then suddenly I realised after a while that actually once upon a time, in the old days where we'd go around with a sheet of paper and get people to fill their names in with a pledge,
00:30:25
Speaker
it was always because the person who was doing that was doing something that was it was genuinely remarkable and so I thought I either have to start upping my thing to triathlons and ultra marathons or eventually I'm going to have to stop which sounds really measly because I mean obviously there's other ways of supporting charities but I just realized that if I was every single year twice a year going to
00:30:48
Speaker
asked to be sponsored to do a half-mouse and after a while I thought, yeah, but they know that I run further than half-mouse. Yeah, that's exactly the challenge, yeah. They believe that it's not a challenge for you and yet it is, it's still a long way and there's different ways that you can challenge yourselves within it, isn't it? But yeah, how do you go out to the same people asking for the donations again? It is a tricky one that we do get asked as well.
00:31:15
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the other thing is that what you can do is you can choose occasionally a charity, which I've done a few times where I've chosen it predominantly just to give it prominence as in for whatever money I raise for that charity, perhaps.
00:31:29
Speaker
the awareness will be more. So way back in I think 2005 or whenever I did my first marathon, I did it for a Progeria charity. And Progeria is a very, very extremely rare premature aging disease or condition where basically you get kids, they don't tend to live much beyond childhood, but you'll get like a nine year old kid who looks 80. And there've been TV programs about the condition and stuff.
00:31:59
Speaker
And so I did it for that. And I didn't I didn't get a hell of a lot of money. And I didn't necessarily expect to because it's a very rare thing was if you do obviously cancer or heart foundation or something people have. Yeah, everyone has a personal connection to those issues some way or another. But what it did do is it put the issue of progeria in a very small way on the map more. And then in 2000, I think
00:32:25
Speaker
13 or something I did the Windsor half for the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which had just literally just started up at the time. Yeah. And I thought, you know, that would be good, again, just to sort of raise awareness of sort of what they were doing. So I think that's another way of going about it. Yeah. I think another one of the things that was mentioned in the book was actually mentioned in a tweet last night as well, which is the wave and hello debate.
00:32:52
Speaker
I don't know about you, but I just, you know, so many times over the years, I'll be running along and also because I live in quite a quiet area. Yeah. If there's a runner in the distance, I'll spot them, you know, because there's not other people on the pavement between me and them. So I'll have all that time, sometimes a couple of minutes.
00:33:09
Speaker
And I was like, oh, should I say hello? Shouldn't I say hello? I want to say hello, but I'm scared that they'll blank me. Is it too friendly? Oh, actually it's not a man. It's a woman now. I say, well, would that be, could that be weird? It's quite early in the morning in a park, maybe not. But if I don't, will I look aloof? And this whole internal dialogue goes on and I do always end up waving or just nodding or something. But I think that it's a thing that a lot of people struggle with and certainly
00:33:39
Speaker
say if I go and stay with a friend in London or family in London and I go on a run in London, I notice it's very different there. There's much a lower level of interaction between runners compared to where I live, where everybody always says hello.
00:33:59
Speaker
really what I sort of the main code as such in the book is I just sort of say make a decision and use it as an opportunity to think what sort of person you are because there's nothing bad about being the person who doesn't want to say hello it might just be that some people are a bit a bit shy or a bit introverted and don't and actually go running to be alone and therefore don't want
00:34:19
Speaker
even momentary interaction but I think once you know what you're going to do it's a lot easier because then you see someone in the distance and there's no horrible feeling in your stomach of should I say hello or should I not you know what you're going to do and I think generally as again as I concluded and I think it's generally a better thing for the world if there's more strangers waving or nodding at each other rather than fewer. It's a good thing. What's the
00:34:49
Speaker
Hey, come on, how do we deal with a fart then? Well, there's different ways of doing it. So as I say in the book, I mean, if you're with a bunch of men, just absolutely let it go. And if the men around you don't all turn around and high five you as you run along and go, well, hey, then they're just not worth knowing, basically. There's other ways you can wait till there's a loud car or something going past.
00:35:18
Speaker
and just sort of slip it a bit under the radar. I even jokingly, and I should stress jokingly, suggest using it as a tactic in any competitive runs. Just run slightly ahead of your opponent whilst retaining your nascent gust and then sort of let it go so they have to sort of slow down. Tactical.
00:35:38
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, you can cough over it or whatever. Yeah, there's all sorts of ways. But the thing is, is that weirdly, it's like running on several levels actually creates a little bit more, you know, we are likely, I think, runners to be a little bit more windy than usual for various reasons to do as you run.
Running as a Metaphor for Writing
00:36:01
Speaker
you're breathing more deep, which means you're taking more your various parts of your innards and moving around in a way. I looked into all of this. It was a great day of writing. You move around in a way that sort of produces, again, more wind. And often runners have more healthy diets and weirdly more healthy diets can actually certainly more plant based diets can, as I've learned in recent years, can exacerbate the
00:36:28
Speaker
the problem as well. Well it can be almost laxative like you see a lot of people suggesting the two poo rule before before an event because it's the I forget the exact stat but especially on the longer distance stuff because you're pounding and pounding and pounding the movement of your stomach going up and down and up and down it's yeah almost has like a laxative effect so I'm glad someone's addressed this issue in a book I haven't seen this before. It's my favorite bit and
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah, when I was sort of, you know, starting to come to the end of the writing and I would sort of tentatively email little sections to friends. That was all one that I sort of that I sent first because, and I literally I sat, my neighbour even said to me that afternoon I was mowing the lawn and my neighbour looked over and he said, what was going on earlier? And I said, I heard you, you were laughing.
00:37:22
Speaker
your head off what had happened and when i said oh i was writing something it was really funny he did look at me a bit like obviously you were laughing at your own jokes and i was like all about farts so surely it's acceptable but
00:37:37
Speaker
What's it like, I mentioned in the intro that you've written many books, haven't you? In terms of your actual writing, what's your process with that? Do you write spontaneously or do you have set times that you go away and write on your own? Is there a room you go to or do you disappear? What's your kind of process for your writing?
00:38:01
Speaker
very much a morning writer and a morning runner. Yeah, I like to, with both of them, just sort of get, I mean, I don't mean get it out of the way in a sort of negative way, but what I mean is, is I think that if I schedule it and decide I'm gonna do anything in the morning, it takes, I don't like decisions. I don't like should I run or should I not, or should I write or should I not? I like it to be, no, I'm getting up, I'm getting out of bed, I'm getting right into whichever the tool I'm doing.
00:38:29
Speaker
um and therefore you sort of get to lunch time and you've already sort of banked the day in a way you've sort of you've got something out the day and it's it's nice and quite lunch time yeah interestingly in um in both books i did get um sort of guest contributors to do little pieces now in runners code it's various people like um
00:38:51
Speaker
Louise Minchin, Simon Donnelly, the former footballer, Billy Wingrove from EF2 and various running authors and Nicky Campbell from the BBC, they did a little piece, a thing I love about running and a thing I hate about running. But in the running, cheaper than therapy, it was a much more sort of loose brief for the guest contributors. I just said, just write something, you know, shortish about running that means something to you. And they're a,
00:39:19
Speaker
a novelist who's written some quite successful young adult novels. She actually wrote a piece comparing writing to a book, to running a marathon. And the more I've thought about it since, I think she's absolutely right. Because when you start training for a marathon, and certainly when you start running a marathon, it's very, very easy to be completely daunted and freaked out. Like, what do you mean I've got 26.2 miles to go?
00:39:43
Speaker
sorry took to run or what do you mean i've got eighty thousand words to write at that point it seems insane and it seems like the sort of thing where you should just immediately return to your bed and just say to people no i can't write the book or run the marathon um but of course you and you know you and i know in anyone who's who's run a marathon or any long distance knows
00:40:03
Speaker
It's an incremental thing. You build from not being able to run anywhere near that distance over a period of weeks or months, or in some cases years, to being able to do it. And it's the same with writing a book. When you first sit down, and I think the runner's code is like 60,000 words, when you first sit down, it's terrifying. It's like, my goodness, I've got so far to go.
00:40:28
Speaker
But you sort of slowly build it up. You, you, you watch for your milestones. So, you know, when you've run, when you've written, if it's 60,000 words, you know, when I've written 600 words, a little thing in my head will go, Oh, I've written that proportion of it.
Running Philosophy and Inclusivity
00:40:43
Speaker
And then when you get to, you've written a fifth of it. And when you get to that halfway mark in any run, I don't know about you. I already, I always feel a bit, I always get a little lift inside me of half way through the same with the book.
00:40:57
Speaker
Um, in terms of my routine, I do like to sit by our front window because we live in a close in a little village and I like to watch, you know, the people sort of wander past. Um, I find that they're a regular reminder to me of like, as they go past a voice in my head, a wave, but then the voice in my head goes, right. That's, you got to get focused again. Um, and I like, I like to write alone and I love to, I love to, um, I love to run alone. It's, um,
00:41:26
Speaker
And people talk about, you know, people sometimes come up to me at parkour and go, you know, why don't you join the local running club? And I'm like, it's great. And I'm like, I'm sure it's great, but I don't want to be with other human beings when I run. Yes. Yeah. I agree. It's, it's headspace. It's, um, that, yeah, that's the best way for me to describe it. It's headspace to me. And then, and then, sorry, please.
00:41:48
Speaker
Well, it took me a long time to actually have the confidence to or not the confidence, but the willingness to take my phone on runs. What I used to do before was even way past the iPod era and into the iPhone era, I would take what I would do is when I updated my phone, when I got a new iPhone handset, I would keep the old one.
00:42:09
Speaker
just effectively as a running thing, as in it's got a bit of music on it, some audio books and some podcasts. It doesn't actually work as a phone anymore, but it has that audio features. And people say to me, why don't you take your phone? Because then we can contact you and I go, yeah, but that's why I don't take it. But in the end, I just thought, especially as I go through some really, really weird sort of quiet sort of fields and stuff and sort of countryside, I started taking it for safety. But even then, I'm like,
00:42:38
Speaker
You know, anyone who knows me just knows if I'm out running, you should only contact me if it's really, really important because I will not be pleased if I get a message or a phone call during a run. Yeah, it's your time. Your point about those baby steps that you were describing with writing the book and building up to a marathon, it's really important for people to hear that at this time of year. And I know there's a bit about newbie runners and being nice to them in the book as well.
00:43:07
Speaker
that we'll see lots of new runners coming in in the new year. And it's the same with lots of new year goals, isn't it? And the reason why people give up on them so quickly is that we kind of, we think of those 60,000 words, don't we? And the end goal rather than breaking it down and we're in a rush with everything, aren't we nowadays? So why not break it down into these smaller steps like you're talking about and being happy with the 600 word progress and then going again.
00:43:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's a big thing that I say to people because I'm sure you have it as well. You'll have somebody on social media, like an old friend or someone you went to schools or something and they'll message you and they'll say, I see you run a lot. I've just entered my local.
00:43:49
Speaker
half marathon or marathon or whatever it is. And I currently can't even run for the bus. Can you help me? And when, or they'll say, I went out running earlier and now I feel like I want to die and stuff. And I'll say, well, how long did you run for? I'd be like, no, you shouldn't have run for even one tenth as much as that.
00:44:08
Speaker
you know, I'll say to them, run for a minute, walk for a minute, run for a minute, go home. That's your first training thing because you'll go home and you'll feel like you can probably do a bit more. But that's exactly the feeling to take home when you first have first trained as a tried out running or jogging, you should go home thinking, I could have done more than that rather than go home thinking, I literally feel like I want to color curl into a ball and die. And you're right. But you see, the thing I love about running is
00:44:37
Speaker
it buys into what you just said, which is that I just love the, what I'd call the sort of the authenticity of it. There's so much in the world now where people fake things, you know, they'll present a happier relationship maybe on social media or they'll present a richer lifestyle than they really have on social media or, you know, people can cheat in exams or whatever it sort of is. There's a lot of this that goes on in the world to lesser or greater degrees.
00:45:07
Speaker
But running, you will not run that marathon. You will not complete that marathon unless you've done, you know, unless you've prepared for it properly, unless you talk about people who sort of walk it. Even then it takes a certain amount of preparing to even be able to walk a marathon. But you will only get, basically, I'll put it there for you. You will only get a sub four hour marathon finishing time if you've trained for a sub four, effectively for a sub four hour finishing time in a marathon. Yes.
00:45:34
Speaker
You can't just go along and bluff it and put it on Instagram, because you won't do it. And I've known people sometimes to enter marathons and they haven't really trained and they go, oh, just you can't just busk running. There was not that possibility. And I really, really like it about it and like that about it. And this is not said from a smoke point of view, as I've, you know, several times over the years, sort of
00:46:04
Speaker
You know, being, being a bit, had a wake, wake up calls myself where I've certainly that middle mouse. And I talked about where I just hadn't prepared for it properly and saw, Oh, it will be fine. And then had a 20 minute slower finish time than the previous year, which I was really disappointed with, but most I was disappointed with was that every mile after mile eight of that marathon was hell.
00:46:26
Speaker
I basically, how you normally feel 23 miles into marathon I felt on my leg, and that's scary. Yeah, it's very humbling, isn't it? Yeah. Very humbling. For many reasons. One of the things that I like about it is that unless you've been at a really high level as a runner, maybe in your teens and twenties, it is something you can pick up and improve at for quite a long time, you know, before we do naturally begin to
00:46:56
Speaker
you get too old to continue to improve but the challenge is always there and it's great to see people in their 50s, 60s, 70s competing with people in their 20s and 30s. It's a very humbling, very humbling sport.
00:47:15
Speaker
Whereas as every single running event I've ever been at, whether it's a park run or longer ones, there's always that old man or old woman who was just bombing it, absolutely just bombing it. And they quite often, they won't even have, they won't have technical kit on because, you know, they ran, they started running so long ago. They're still in the same habits, but they're maybe, I don't know how old, I'm thinking maybe seventies or something. And they will absolutely speed past me.
00:47:45
Speaker
And there's nothing sort of more bittersweet than when you're running in the final, say, mile of half marathon. You know how when you run in the final mile,
00:47:55
Speaker
of any event there's quite often you see people going home who've run it and you can see because they've got their their medal on and they're sort of walking alongside the thing against the flow of traffic. I do sometimes wonder if they're just doing it just to show off which if it was would be quite funny but when you're running along like especially when I was younger I'm sort of in my late 40s now so I'm no spring chicken but when I was younger
00:48:18
Speaker
And I'd be just about a mile away from finishing, absolutely feeling awful, like really, really tired. And then suddenly I'd look up and there'd be, you know, a 70-year-old man or a 70-year-old woman going home with their mask, with their, with their medalline on their neck, looking as fresh as a daisy. And I would just think, on the one hand, what a sweet thing and good on them. On the other hand, oh, I feel, I would feel really embarrassed as well.
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah, that competitive side kicks in as well. I think that's what all of
Closing and Social Media Handles
00:48:51
Speaker
that encompassed all together makes running what it is. It's great. Charles, thanks ever so much for coming on. Remind us the book and where it is and where people can follow you and interact as well. I know you're quite active on social media as well, aren't you?
00:49:07
Speaker
Yeah. So my Twitter and Instagram handles are all that chess, um, like all that jazz, but all that chess, CHS, um, my books are running cheaper than therapy and the runners code both published by Bloomsbury. Um, if anyone feels like doing me a colossal fail, go and ask for it in a bookshop, but it is available at all the usual online book retailers as well. The runners code and running cheaper than therapy.
00:49:34
Speaker
Brilliant. Chas, thanks ever so much. It's been great chatting. Thank you.