 I have no idea. Sorry, I've not been following it. Manchester City? Oh, Jason Guest. I'm so disappointed. Not that I won them. I'm a United fan. I was, I was born. Are you? Yeah. I don't, I don't think United had been doing very well though for my last chats with my dad. Maybe they're better now. Have they got a bit better? Damien, this, this is getting worse and worse, Damien. I've got an Arsenal fan and a United fan. Thank you very much, Jasmine and Damien for joining me on the film I run. I imagine that you've done a number of interviews already, Jasmine. Tell me how many you've done. I don't, I'm not sure, but I know that I did sort of in the region of 30 last week in a few days. So this week I'm back at work, so just the most I can do is like a couple in the evening once the kids are asleep. But yeah, I'm going camping next week in the lake. So I'm looking forward to just leaving all my kind of connection to the outside world behind and just enjoying some time in the hills of the family. 30 is a lot. Daymo, do you wish you'd done 30 in two weeks? As, as we're, I think the secret is you stop, you stop early so that people aren't really interested in you. That's, that's, that's the secret. Hey, don't worry. We're going to come on to that. Oh, right. But then you have to talk about your failure. So yeah. For those watching, we are going to assume that you know who Jasmine Parris and Damien Hall are. We are going to assume that you know a heck of a lot about what the heck the Barclay Marathons is because we could spend hours and hours talking about what the Barclay is. We could spend even longer talking about Damien and Jasmine's portfolio. I mean, where do we start? Damien's obsession with UTMB and his previous obsession with the spine. Jasmine's obsession with the spine and both of their obsessions with the Barclay Marathons. And that is just a tiny amount. You've both done Monterrosa as well, haven't you? Both of you. So, so we are, you know, I'm sure that everybody watching is well aware of what you guys have done. But we're going to concentrate on the Barclays. Jasmine, when, when did you first kind of hear about the Barclays? How long ago did it enter your consciousness? I'm not, I'm not even sure when I first heard about it, like a long time ago. But I can say when I kind of first became aware of it as like properly aware of it was after the spine when a number of people said to me that, you know, that Lazard said in an interview that he was keen to see me try Barclay. And at that point I wasn't super convinced by the idea of running laps in a forest, but it sort of grew on me. It was one of those things. It was like the spine that grew on me in the same way. And then sometime when my son was maybe like nine months old or something, I suddenly decided, suddenly knew one day that I wanted to do it. And that was like a, that was the moment I was waiting for, because you have to go to that race, like 100% wanting to do it. You have to be all in, I think, if you want to finish. What about you, Damien? When did you first come across it? I think I think it was right at the beginning when I was learning about all these different ultra marathons. I think it was my local friend and bad idea, Hawker, Alex Copping, who was the only real ultra runner I knew at first and we'd go for a run on a Sunday. And I'd always be pestering him about different races. What are the races? And I remember I think I said, what's the toughest race? And he started telling me about this one in Tennessee with the books in the woods. And I remember thinking, that sounds pretty crazy. And then of course it just stays in your consciousness. And when I really started getting more interested was probably after running the Penang Way and setting a record in 2020. When, yeah, I was doing more interviews and I don't know if Jasmine's had the same, but so many times you do an interview, whether it's a podcast or sort of a live thing. And nearly always at the end, someone says, what about the Barclay? When are you going to do the Barclay? And after several years of that, you're like, well, I'll give it a go, I suppose. Then you've got to work out how to get in. But then even then actually, I was on the wait list for two years. And then we had the other COVID thing as well, so it's complications. So yes, it's been a long time, a long time coming. You talk, you still talk, Damien, like you're a new runner, because I remember that kind of stuff. I remember people saying to me, oh, are you going to do UTMB? That's the one everyone does. And you still talk with that kind of enthusiasm of like, I've only just started running, but you've been around for years, mate. That may be true, but honestly, I'm just as in love with this sport, these adventures as I was when I first started. I did my first Ultramarathon 2012, pretty sure it was. And just this whole world opens up to you, doesn't it? There's so many different events, it doesn't even have to be an event. And I just love it. I've come back in some ways or failed, but I've had an amazing adventure. And it's quite good, I think, to remind yourself that quite early on, you didn't get the result. You wanted, but wow, I've got memories for a lifetime. Partly thanks to this lady here, but yeah. I still absolutely love it and I hope that never goes. Jasmine, so when you started to think about Barclay, can you identify what it was that made you think, right, okay, I actually want to do this now? And what made you think that you genuinely had a chance? Are you asking it? So I'll start. It's an interesting thing, but when I signed up for the spine, it was when my daughter was like less than a year old and the same with the Barclay and with my son. And I feel like it's something about coming back to running. It's hard to have a baby and then go through the pregnancy and then kind of all the initial kind of post-birth thing and getting fit again. It's hard to do that. In some ways, it's brilliant to have something to motivate you and especially if it's something that's not the same as what you were doing before. It's like a different challenge. You have nothing to compare it to. It's something that you're really excited about. And that's the way it was with the spine for me. I was suddenly really excited about this thing that I had no idea. I had no prior kind of concept of how I could do in this. So there was no expectation in my mind. It was just open to how it would go. I didn't have to compare myself with how I was before I had this child. I was just starting again. It was an incredible kind of source of motivation just knowing that I was going to have to run 268 miles in the case of the spine. And then it was the same for the Barclay. It had that same feel to it like suddenly I've got something to work towards again and I've got a reason to get fit. And so for me, that was like a big motivator. And then just, you know, I've sort of said it in multiple interviews, but then the kind of excitement of not knowing of like firstly the kind of kind of the nervous anticipation of not knowing what this kind of race so legendary is actually all about. And then not knowing whether you can finish it because statistically speaking the likelihood is you can't. And yet clearly it is possible. So and then I guess for me, I've always been kind of excited by the idea of being told that there's something that's impossible, especially if somebody says it's impossible for a woman. And that's immediately the thing that would kind of make me say, well, like, you know, watch me kind of watch me try. And so I was prepared to go there the first time and say, you know, find out maybe it is impossible, but I needed to see for myself first. And actually what happened is I went there and I was like, I think this is possible. I was just going to take a bit of effort. So yeah. So so when you when you went in 2022, it wasn't a case that you you went around the first couple of minutes and thought, Blimey, this this is not going to be doable at all. No, I went around the first loop and there was still quite a lot of people together. I think it's just the kind of standard first leap of Barclay where most people kind of get round the faster people get around in, I guess, eight and a half to nine and a half hours. And I sort of did roughly that. I think it was nine and a quarter. But that year we had incredible rain on the second on the second loop in the night. And I had quite a lot of gear with me partly because I knew it was going to be wet and partly because I kind of come from a fell running background where you have to be capable of looking after yourself in wild places. And you carry a lot of kit being used to running in Scotland. And so I was OK. I was like I was a bit cold, but I had a lot of gear with me and I had fleece and extra layers and heavy water, poos and all that. And I kind of was came through the night. OK. Whereas I think most people dropped out and it was five people left at the end or something that went out kind of on after after the end of loop two. So it was more that it was, yeah, certainly on loop three, I made incredible number of mistakes, which I learned from for future years. But it took me a very long time and actually it was very dramatic the end of loop three for me on that first year because I sort of came the wrong way off the ridge. And it was it was a real sprint to get back to the gate, which is from the opposite side to this time. But yeah, to get back to the gate for 40 hours for a fun run. But I definitely came away from it thinking I did I did made so many mistakes. I could definitely do a lot better, especially if the weather was better. The legendary nature of Barclay, people who haven't been there and I'm one of them. We tend to think of, you know, the way they talk about the steep inclines and the briars. You imagine that it's like nothing you've ever experienced before. Either of you, Damien, what, you know, you've done the spine. You've done you've both done fell runs. You've done the rounds. Is it like is it like anything that you've experienced before? I think I guess no. Probably the rounds are the most similar because you take the more direct route straight up something steep. So the Paddy Buckley going up something like Knicked. That's probably the most similar for that. You know, there'll only be a very few people nodding perhaps at that. But I mean, it's say the tour de Gion or UTMB, you know, there's lots of vert, you know, but it's often switchbacks. So you're not actually moving that steeply. And at the Barclay, I feel like your knees are up to your, you know, above your hips quite often, you know, and your poles. I can't imagine doing without poles. You're cleaning desperately to your poles to put yourself up the hill. It's very steep. And Jasmine actually, I don't know if she remembers, but when I first asked her what it was like, she said, you're either you're either hiking steeply up or sliding down. But I mean, some of that's great fun. I mean, the downs can be good fun. There's a lot of uncertainty to them. They're sort of clinging to trees and not sure whether the branches will snap off and underfoot. Often it's relatively safe, but there are always moments where suddenly it isn't. So yeah, it's not just pure hell out there. And it can be beautiful. But yeah, I guess a fell running round would be the most similar that we've got. But it's still different. It's still different to that. I mean, I think I remember either hearing an interview or seeing something written Jasmine. You said that this year the first loop was like just going on any other trail run. I mean, it wasn't trail run. Quite things. You know, this year, I guess it was interesting how many people were together this year. They will probably agree. There was a lot of people together at the start of this year. We started a kind of a pretty good time. So we kind of had, I guess, darkness for the very first bit, but then it was, you know, into sunshine and daylight. And yeah, and there was a kind of a few new book locations that kind of brought people back together a bit. So it felt kind of quite sociable and I would say for the first two thirds of the first loop this year. I wouldn't say a trail run in the sense that like, as Damien said, I agree with everything that Damien said. In terms of kind of vert and there's this new section of the course that was very brambly. And so that wasn't, you know, that was definitely not a trail run in that sense. Then we all cursed a bit as we went through it five times in some cases. I mean, you know, the things that you say, you know, I remember I've done not the Glencoe, not the Glencoe, but the Ben Nevis Ultra. And I remember sliding down half a mountain on my backside during that. And then I remember in Trans Gran Canaria, it was so steep and so wet one year that we were, we were pulling on branches to get ourselves up this horrendous slope. I imagine that there are, there are sections of a lot of races that are a little bit similar, but put it all together and it just becomes this kind of totally other, other thing. Does the vert, the actual amount of elevation, did that frighten you? Did that put you, did that worry you at all? One of five loops? Yeah, I guess it just makes it very slow. Hello. And I think most people, you know, if they've got a place, they will, you know, they will be aware. There's a lot of vert, we think possibly up to 14,000 foot per loop. And yeah, you train accordingly. You try and get in some steep vert. Yeah, what's interesting with the navigation is that, you know, going up is often a lot easier navigationally than we often have problems on the long descents where the hill splits into several spurs at the bottom. And then it's trying to make sure you're on that right spur. And you're often not. So it adds an element, a navigation element there. But I don't know, I've always enjoyed, I suppose I've always enjoyed rounds and races that have a lot of vert. So it's not, that's not a big, I suppose fear factor for me necessarily. Yeah. What did you do Jasmine in training leading up to this year? Pardon, did you say? What did you do in training leading up to this year? I guess I think me and Damien probably both, we did quite a lot of vert. I did. Yeah, I guess I was kind of for longer runs, I was tending to, when I was trying to maximise vertical ascent. I was kind of finding a hill that had was fairly steep that I could get a kind of the most climb I could get in. Short to distance. And they're just running up and down. I did definitely did multiple sessions of certainly long runs where I would do just go up and down the same hill multiple times. Like one night where I actually ran over night 17 times up and down the local hill in the kind of blizzard stroke sleet storm. So that was kind of a memorable one. And then running up Ben Leady five times near calendar when I was on holiday there one morning. So that sort of thing. But also did did kind of double sessions of like training of doing like a stair climber session in the in the evening before getting the kid from nursery and after school club just about sneaking in. And then a cycle commute when I'm working doing research, though, that's kind of an extra bit of training. And then quite a lot of strength work. I definitely did more. I know Damien's been doing that for a while, but I definitely did more weighted strength work. I did a lot more with weights this time than I've done before. And it was really useful because I've got a chronic knee problem. I've got I've got a missing tore my anterior cruciate ligament when I was 17. And that knee's not been great for the last few years, but this year was for Barclay was incredible. I didn't even have any swelling or anything afterwards. And that's the first time in years that it's been that good. So I was really impressed. It was really good. Do you do you have to have a good year to get this finished in terms of do you have to have the start time at the right? Do you have to have decent weather to make this a doable race? I mean, I can say what I think I'm not sure that the start time is that important, but I do think the weather is important. And certainly in the sense that I think if you had bad weather, then it would very quickly become impossible, almost impossible to finish. Just because you look at the kind of times that people run, you know, even the fastest time is just just over an hour. You know, kind of inside the cutoff and most people are sort of more like the 40 to 20 to 40 minutes inside the cutoff of the finishes this year. And so I mean, you only need bad weather, making it a bit more slippy, a bit of mist to make navigation harder. And then I think you make it virtually impossible, but I don't know. I pass over to Damian, but that's my personal opinion that the weather is a huge factor. Well, this is what adds to my frustration, because I've only really done the Barclay in good weather. Yeah, I haven't tasted this infamous Barclay fog that some other, you know, people more experienced than me talk about. And yeah, you had that rain in the first year, which I haven't tasted. So that's, yeah, I feel like that's what these last two years feel like a bit of a wasted opportunity in that we've had such good weather. But yeah, who knows? There'll be more years like that, Damian. John Kelly said that, because let's talk about navigation briefly as well. John said that you are a jasmine, you are a master navigator. How important is it from loop one or also how much of a detriment could it be on loop five? If you are running with experienced Barclay runners like Jared and like John. You mean how much of a help is it? Would it be on loop? Well, it could. See, from outside looking in, it's great that you get that experience by going around with runners who've done it before, who know the course, who can help you initially find the first few books and you can work together. But then I don't know if Damian, if this is something that has been your problem, but is it that final loop where essentially you're on your own and you have to do all that navigation yourself, having possibly not actually done it on the first four loops by yourself? Is that right? Yeah, I mean, I'll kind of answer for myself, but in some ways I was lucky that I couldn't keep up in the first two years that well with the lead group because basically it forced me to make all the mistakes. And it's John's very kind saying that, but I made a lot of mistakes the first two times I did it on my own. Certainly, you know, just as an example last year in the fourth loop, I made probably a similar to mistake to the one that Damian made this year, maybe a little bit less dramatic. But, you know, and multiple people have made that same sort of mistake descending slightly the wrong angle off that ridge, I guess. So the first year, the first year, as I say on loop three, I think it must have taken me like 16 hours or something. And I made like every mistake in the book almost, but I learned from those. And the remarkable thing was that this year, I mean, this year I went into it thinking I've learned, I've learned my way around this course. What I need to be able to do is be a bit faster in the first few loops so that I can kind of cash in on knowing what I'm doing navigationally in the later ones, because when I can go a bit more slowly, when I need to go a bit more slowly because I'm kind of tired. So I really benefited from those prior mistakes this year. So for example, when we were running with John, and there was a couple of points where maybe we were about to make a mistake or we did something. And I actually spotted, I was like, I've done this before and I know what we're about to do. And we may be able to point it out, but it was only because I'd made the mistake before. And so there are obviously things that are easy to do out there. And it really helps to have kind of recognized before that you recognize that early. And you just get more careful. You get more careful about trying to make sure that you're on the right spur and looking at your compass regularly and things. But it's not easy. The more you look at the compass going downhill, the more likely you are to land on your bottom. And that happened to be a lot on Loop 5. And I was really kind of trying to navigate carefully. So come on, Damien. What did happen? Loop 5? Because the first, you know, for both of you, looking at Keith Dunn's tweets, the first four loops were like a breeze for all of you. It was a walk in the park. It was like a 10K. Not me. On the seafront. That's not the way I was feeling at the end of the week before. I can tell you that. I'm joking. Damien, tell me what happened on Loop 5? Well, it is interesting because Jasmine and I have almost learned the Barclay from the opposite directions. And certainly the advice from reading blogs before my first go was, you know, if you're a virgin, you've got to go with a veteran and learn all you can. And, yeah, in both years, I've stuck with veterans. Yeah, for a good four loops. And I was really thrilled last year. I was like, I've got the physically, I feel like I can get rounds. And then when it came to being on my own, I think last year it was more of a kind of sleep deprivation meltdown and confusion. And this year, I was more conscious to be trying to learn. Certainly, John encouraged it as well. I did the sort of, I think it must have been Loop 3 or 4, Jasmine. I don't think you're with us anymore. I did the sort of... You were on Loop 3. Did I do most of the stallion when you were there? Yeah, when he was offering opportunities to now. Okay. I think I did most of the stallion section, which is the section that's always baffled me the most. Although I remember Book 9, which won't mean much to many people, was still tricky, a new one. So I was gaining some confidence. But, yeah, ultimately, I need to be better on my own, whether that's... Yeah, I mean, I've got an obvious area to work on, which is kind of exciting. Like, if it was baffling how I couldn't do it, it would be more frustrating. It's clear that navigating on my own in the dark is what I need to improve on. I was more gutted than you, Damien. I was more gutted than you. I'd already tweeted, I'm absolutely convinced Damien is coming in. The mantra from John, it was really illuminating actually. John was... He's been open that he made... He was in charge of the now quite a lot of the time, or at least he was backing up people. And he made quite a few mistakes, but he's very quick at spotting them and very quick at correcting them. And the thing was, don't let a small mistake become a big mistake. Small mistakes are inevitable, really, especially as you get tired and it's dark. But yeah, that's what happened to me. A small mistake became a big mistake. And I still found the book, but I just took too long frustratingly. But yeah, well, I don't know if I'm meant to talk about it. But yeah, I want to correct those mistakes. I know you're going back. If you said to me you weren't going back, I would have words with you. I need to redeem your tweet. When somebody who doesn't know about the Barclay looks at how long it takes you to do 20-ish miles. I mean, how long is it? 24, 25 miles and nobody knows, do they? Do you know? No. Anyway, who cares? But 8, 9, 10, 13 hours to do that distance. What is it that takes the time? Is it the climbing or is it the finding the books? I think, I mean, when you're actually in the right place, which sounds obvious, finding the books is not, is not, you know, a difficult thing. I would say once you find the right spot, like roughly within, I know, 20 meters, you'll recognize the surroundings and then you find the book. With the exception of, you know, if it's a completely new location, it might take you a little bit, a little while to initially locate it, but then after that you know where it is. It's being in the right place. So like, as Damon said, you descending from one of the tops and you on the wrong spur and then suddenly you find yourself by a river and are you too far down the river or are you too far up the river and then make working that out. So that's the kind of challenge of it. I'd say that if you're not making a huge, if you're not making those catastrophic navigational errors and what's taking the time is the combination of the climbing and then in places just difficult to rain. So everybody talks about brambles at Barclay and I'd say for most part, they're not massive. They're not slowing you down a huge amount. But there was one section this year when they were, I'd say they did slow us down. Certainly on some loops we got it right and some loops we got it very wrong and we definitely, our pace definitely dropped there. So I think those are the kind of combination of things. Talk to me a little bit about what Lars writes down as instructions and is that in any way useful to you when he writes down his own way how to get around the course? Yeah, you get about three pages maybe of instructions. The classic thing, they are useful fundamentally, but he has his own personality to them and one of his favorite things to write is sort of you come to a high wall, which what they mean is a natural cliff. You come to a high wall one way is much easier, one way around it is much easier than the other. Full stop. And then he doesn't say which way it's up to you. Those are the classic sort of, and it's full of humor. It'll say, you know, this is one of the flattest bits of the Barclay. You know, you should be absolutely hammering yourself here. It goes as fast as possible. One point, what was it? Yeah, you used to encourage you to sit down and admire the view and so it's full of humor, but it is mostly helpful. I found it more useful once you've been there, which is ironic, but once you've been there, then you can understand it. Some of it so kind of detailed for a short section has so many things that there's no way that you can remember it possibly. And you've not got time to read it when you're out there. I mean, you're like holding both poles and breathing hard and there's no way that you're, you might look at a compass, but you're not going to be reading those kind of dense instructions. So it's more useful afterwards when you can go through and pick out the bits that actually are relevant in a way. So another one of the iron is in Barclay, you need to have been there before you can understand the instructions. Do you draw any of the map out when you get the map? Do you do you draw any of it out or how do you go about dealing with that? I just glanced at it on my wall there. Yeah, so yeah, you definitely need to spend time and we probably spent an hour or two, didn't we? This year, yeah, plotting the route onto a map and it does change significantly this year. And I thought it was quieter than the previous year and I was listening to an interview, I think with Jared by Gary Robbins and he said he thought the camp was about as quiet as it ever been that afternoon because of the significant change to the course and we're all sort of trying to plot it onto our maps. So I mean, I was getting my map out more than the others because I'm, I don't know, just trying to learn it and don't seem to memorise it necessarily as well as other people. But yeah, the map's pretty, that's very important, I find, and I'm getting out quite a bit. But yeah, the instructions is another level, but the map is helpful at times certainly. Let's quickly just talk about kit and nutrition. Jasmine, I was watching the single track one that you did and he was out there looking at your shoes all patched up. Tell me about what you wore, why you wore, what you wore. Yeah, I mean, I just wore my mudclaw shoes, which I'm pretty sure I basically wore for both Barclays, partly because I had another pair of mudclaws and actually maybe even two kind of that were like partially broken down used. So I was just using those up in between. So these ones were kind of saved for Barclays. So yeah, definitely they've done three Barclays. And they did four loops and then I had changed into a kind of spare pair for the fifth loop, just because it was nice to get into shoes that weren't full of mud. But yeah, so the pair that I wore for most of it were a little bit patched because I realised they had these kind of slight defects in the uppers. So I actually sewed them and then patched over the top with the kind of hay tape and kind of glue that the Green Runners have in their kind of pair ups. That's what it's called, I think repair kits. So then and then I had, yeah, just the kit that I, I guess I've been since, you know, I've been wearing the same kit for several years now just because like in terms of t-shirts and shorts and things because they still work and I've done a bit of sewing up of my leggings and three quarter lengths because they've got a bit But it's wearing those same things. And I actually had a rucksack that I borrowed from a friend because I'm not, I've not got quite the right size rucksack and I wasn't going to buy one just for Barclays. So I borrowed her from rucksack, which I used last year and worked okay. I love that you call it a rucksack. Oh Pat, whatever you want to call it. No, no, no. Just carry on with that. That's awesome. Hydration vest. I mean, yeah, I'm like a hike. You know, so yeah, that's what I call it. Cagool and a rucksack. What kind of cagool did you wear? Oh dear. I mean, chafing issues, you know, kit that's well worn. You know where all your chafing points are. That's that wasn't a problem over 60 hours. I had, I had no, like the only kind of, I didn't have any chafing, except the significant chafing induced by the briars. And then I had, yeah, I just had a blisters between my big toe and my next toe, which I think happens to me every time I do one of these long races. I don't know. Maybe I should try the kind of toe socks. But that's that's the only place I had blisters. My feet are otherwise. I think they're pretty hard and you know, I spent my childhood walking around barefoot whenever I could. I don't know. They seem, I don't really seem to get that many blisters, but maybe I'm just lucky. So you are no longer with Innovate. Is there less pressure to wear the Innovate? I imagine that Damien was Ted to toe in Innovate clothing. Is that right Damien? Probably. I mean, to be fair, I was wearing mainly Innovate stuff just because that's what I have. And I'm not going to buy new stuff if I don't need to buy new stuff. And it's just the rucksack. I think there wasn't Innovate just because that's the one I borrowed from my friend. But yeah, my other stuff was Innovate as well. I mean, it's just, you know, a lot of people, especially new runners, but you know, I'm the same. If I, you know, the furthest I've ever gone is 100 miles. I want to be comfortable. I want to know that I've got good gear that's not going to rub that's comfortable. I mean, you, you are both, you both seem very kind of, oh, well, you know, whatever about it. But other runners will be very picky and very concerned about choosing the right gear that's going to work for them. I mean, go ahead. Yeah. I was only going to say, I think footwear can be very individual. And but so often you go, I love this shoe. You know, well, I don't say this anymore, but early on there is to say, I love this shoe. You should try this shoe and someone else tries it and it just doesn't suit their feet. So feet can be very, very individual because I coach a lot of people as well. It often, yeah, they're always saying, asking for recommendations and, and yeah, different shoes suit different people. So that's pretty individual. But other than that, I mean, yeah, I've got, I don't know, I don't worry too much nowadays about, I don't know, socks or tops. I mean, nutrition is another whole area of debate, isn't it? But yeah, I mean, you know, most kit was good kit, I suppose. Tell me about what you ate then. What was your, what was your general food of choice going round, both of you? After you, Jess. Yeah, I don't think I got the food kind of very right. Definitely. Like that's definitely one of the challenges I faced. I don't, yeah, sometimes maybe you get it a bit better. I feel like I've had a few races where I've not got it very right. So maybe I just need to, to work on that a bit. I mean, I had like a combination. The first two loops were good. And I actually even ate all my food, I think on loop two. Damien gave me a, a Kit Kat, which I was very grateful for sometime. I think it was on loop at the end of loop two. And so like I had a mixture of, you know, had pizza. I had some frittata, which had made, which actually worked pretty well earlier on because I could, it was fairly easy to eat. And I had some, yeah, pizza frittata. I had cheese and more of my cheese and pickle sandwiches. I had, and then flapjack, homemade flapjack. I had like Snickers bars and sweets and kind of save gels for when I needed them. I think those were cut in some trail mix and those sorts of things. And I'd just say that like as time went on, I struggled more to eat things. What really works for me is bananas. When I come into the camp, that's like the one thing that works really well for me. And I don't even like bananas that much in most of the time. I mean, they're okay, but I'm not like one of those people that has a banana every day. Not by any means, but on races, that's the one thing that like it's perfect. Just always, always hits the spot. So an encamp kind of had things like had some rice pudding, porridge, pasta. Yeah, those sorts of things. But I struggled in the later loops to eat. And that was definitely one of the challenges for me. Does the hot weather affect you when you eat? Does it, you know, depending on whether it's hot or cold? I think it's easier to eat when it's cold rather than hot. And it was definitely felt hot at times on this year. Although it could have obviously been much hotter, but it certainly felt hot. I was certainly dipping into the streams and things quite frequently on the kind of daytime loops. Certainly we had those two, yeah, two, two warm afternoons. And I found I wasn't eating nearly as well. And some of the stuff that was appealing when it was cooler, yeah, wasn't so appealing. But I find I go, yeah, I mean, liquid calories is one sort of option there. And I definitely want fruit more. And I suppose sugars and gels. But yeah, I mean, I made some, well, so my wonderful crew, Karine made bagels with, yeah, hummus and avocado and some of Jasmine's pickle. Actually, Jasmine, I was curious to ask, did you eat some of the pasta that I made? Because I heard a podcast or something and they were complimenting the look of the pasta you're eating. And I was wondering if it was the pasta I knocked together. I had your pasta, I think, early on, yeah. I think I'd share with broccoli bits and stuff. Yeah, it was good. Oh, brilliant. It's incredibly rare I get any sort of compliment regarding food preparation or cooking. So I'm going to take that. I'm going to tell my kids. But thank you for the pickle again. This is the one thing the one success is going to take away from Barclay this year. Come on. The reason I bought a big pickle is because last year we went there expecting to buy pickle and then we couldn't get any. Could we Damien? There was a catalogue of kind of difficulties last year with shopping, including I asked Damien to get some coffee and he bought mushroom coffee. So I never, I never actually dared to try the mushroom coffee on last year's Barclay. So this year I bought my own coffee with me. The heck is mushroom coffee, Damien? I can't remember if it was, you know, it sounds nice, doesn't it? I don't drink coffee, that's the problem. Chicory coffee sounds nice. That wasn't a good choice. Sorry, Jasmine. That might have been the difference. You might have finished it that year. It wasn't the difference, Damien. Don't worry. I'm only talking to you. OK, yeah. I apologize for the mushroom coffee. We'll never know what it tastes like. Well, maybe I'll get, yeah. I'll pick some up next time, please. Jasmine, you made it to Loop 5 and you got further than any woman had got. I mean, you may as well have just called it a day there, hadn't you? How did you feel getting on to Loop 5? Honestly, I've been asked, you know, were you aware of being the fastest Loop 3 and the first woman to finish Loop 4 and the first one to start Loop 5? Like, that didn't even cross my mind. Like, absolutely zero. It was all about finishing. The only reason I thought about how fast I'd run through the three loops was because that was the plan. That was the target, was to finish it in roughly 32 hours so that I'd had, you know, 14 each to do the final two. So it was, yeah, it didn't even cross my mind. What, you know, going out onto Loop 5, the main thought was, can I get round and then, you know, buy 60 hours type thing? And when I first went out, I was like almost stumbling down the track because I felt pretty bad. But it, you know, I ate my banana and then I actually said to myself, out loud, come on, you're going to do this. And you know, I did a bit of kind of a pep talk for myself out loud. It's a nice thing. You're in the forest. You can talk to yourself as much as you like. You can sing. You can shout to yourself. I think Kelly does a lot of grunting noises. I joined him for a better one in the night. Yeah. So yeah, you can do, you can do kind of shouting and yelling at yourself and nobody will hear you. And there are pros and cons to being in the forest on your own. So you, Laz said you looked dead on your feet at the end of Loop 4. You were sat on a chair. You had a little sleep. You threw up big time as far as I understand it. And then you headed out onto Loop 5. John Kelly passed you halfway round and he was doing maths in his head. And he said, there's no way she can do this. Then he heard the, what time you got to the tower. And again, he said, okay, well, it looks like it's just a matter of how much over the cutoff she's going to be. What the heck got you round in what was to be perfectly frank, a ridiculously fast last half of that fifth loop? I think, I think it was just adrenaline. You know, it's interesting because like people keep telling me these kind of facts about how I guess lots of people were writing me off at the fire tower, but I really felt like I could do it. Like I, I really thought, thought I could do it. You know, the only time when I really started to doubt it was the last kilometer when I was suddenly not sure that I could actually make it to the gate in time. But before that, I, I believe that it was possible. So I think that's what kind of, that's what kept me going. The kind of the surge of adrenaline. And I guess once I started, I was just moving faster. Like the adrenaline came, I was moving faster. I was hitting those kind of mental points that I needed to reach at certain times. Like I knew when I wanted to get, like it was pretty close. I mean, I was a little bit over the point when I wanted to get to the fire tower, but not by that much. And I still thought it was possible. And I think that's just what kind of carried on spurring me on. Like I was, I was getting there, you know, and it was the last time I was having to do all these hills. Damien will know that kind of joy of like, you know, the thought like, you know, you must have felt the same the first time the first hill on that kind of that, that fifth loop is that finally, you know, that this is the last time and you're waving goodbye to this summit. And then you're like, I'm not going to see you again till you know, hopefully ever, or whatever. But you just, you know, yeah. So it was like, it kind of is a positive reinforcement, but mainly I just, I just really thought I could do it. I mean, that's what comes home to me is your total self-belief from 2022. And that first loop onwards, the total self-belief that you had that you could do it. And, you know, I have to admit to you that I think I was probably one of the naysayers in the end. So I, I, I tweeted when you got to the tower, I tweeted this is going to be unbelievably tight. And then I did actually tweet times up at about one minute to the hour. And, and then Keith tweeted that you'd think, and I went absolutely mental. It was unbelievable. So it's, it's, it's hard. I mean, I'm sure that you've had people say this to you, Jasmine, but, but it is hard to put into words. And I don't really know why it is because, you know, your spine race was unbelievable. But for some reason, this finish above all the others. And, you know, John Kelly said it's that it's it's possibly the best sporting event he'll witness. And I think you said Damien in, in the flesh, you know, ever. And for me sitting at home looking at Twitter, it was, it was the best thing I've ever seen. It truly was. I was absolutely blown away. And I, you know, you, you, you have to, you just have to hold that in your heart forever that moment. Yeah. It's an incredible thing looking back on it. And now it's like, now he could think he couldn't have written a better story by the time it was very stressful. Yeah. Like I, I like, yeah. So it's nice looking back on it, knowing what the outcome is. But at the time when you didn't know what the outcome was going to be, then it was incredibly intense. And like, yeah, pretty, pretty difficult and pretty challenging kind of making it this final few hundred meters up to the, up to the gate before the clock clock ticked over the hour. Yeah. I mean, and eventually when I saw the video of that, yeah, that was, and the screams and shouts from everybody to get you there. That was awesome. Really was. Damien, how, how gutted were you? And then how elated were you? You know, what were those two extremes of emotion like for you? Um, yeah, I think, I think when I located the, located the book that had caused me trouble and realized how much time I had left. I think it was pretty clear. It was unlike, I think it was that I felt I needed 10 hours from there and I probably had eight or eight and a half. Um, yeah, I felt, I felt, I suppose very deflated. And you're really tired as well. So it adds to it. And yeah, I felt deflated. And then I just kind of thought, well, what, you know, what can you make? What's the best you can make from the situation? I suppose it was to, although Laz, you know, you're not going to get on because Laz does want you to come in. If you, if you know you can't finish, he wants you to come in. Um, that is what I did the previous year. And I did think, I remembered some words from Gary Robbins from previous years of, of like, this is your one chance to recce the recce the course because you can't get on most of it another, any other day. So I did, yeah, I did carry on and get to know some of the bits, a bit more, but then got sleepy and had a snooze. Um, and then yeah, it was running in. Okay. I started getting more anxieties about sort of, well, oh, is everyone else finished and are waiting for me? Will Laz be angry? Um, and then I had this really moving moment of my own, really, when I was approaching the gate and because you're tired and you can't, well, this is probably my problem that when I'm tired, I can't work things out very clearly. I thought they thought I was finishing like I had the pages. Of course, I was coming from the wrong direction for starters and no one had seen me at the fire tower. So they all knew that I hadn't done it. But I, I almost wanted them to stop cheering because they would have a wonderful reception. And I actually went like this to, to make it clear that I haven't done it. I don't deserve, um, these applause, but they, you know, they carried on anyway. And that was, um, yeah, that was really, really touching actually. And then, and then it was probably a bit under an hour. Um, yeah, my first thing was where's Jasmine? As she finished. Um, and then, yeah, I got to see, uh, you know, two, two finishes come in and Sebastian come in as well. It didn't similar to me slightly better than me, but, um, yeah. Uh, and incomplete fifth, fifth loop. Um, and talking of singing actually where there's a wonderful moment, I forget which loop, but in the dark, we're all running on this, a bit of candy ass trail. And, um, he just started singing, uh, in French. Um, uh, just, just felt really surreal, but really perfect. It was beautiful. Um, so yes, Sebastian, who those who don't know as one toward a glassy as twice. Um, he, yeah. So he came in and then I think there's maybe 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes. And, and yeah, people were having the conversation of it. It's still a great achievement. You know, I think most people, and yeah, people, um, most people, I don't want to sort of, um, pretend. I'm still hopeful. I was still hopeful. I hadn't sort of, but, but yeah, most people doing the maths. Um, and then we have this mini drama where John Kelly's young oldest son was wearing red like Jasmine. And he's just down the bottom. You can see to like a corner and he comes around the corner and someone shouted runner, which means obviously runner coming in. So we all go, oh, oh, it's not. There isn't, it's not Jasmine, but he carries on sort of waving his arms and, and he's running across the road. And we can't tell, is he just playing? Does he know what's going on? Is he trying to tell us something? And then, and then yeah. And then Jasmine comes around the corner with, um, I think about three minutes because I was just constantly looking at, but it's quite a, it's quite a mean uphill. It's one of those uphills. You really don't want, you know, in a hundred mile, when no one's looking, you probably hike it, but really, you know, you could run it. But actually the steepest bits just around the corner as well. I think you've just done them more steep bit. And then it's, it's quite, it's quite a pleasant hill. Me and John ran it on one of our loops and, um, yeah, we were both cursing it. Um, so to run, run that at the end of however miles we think it is possibly even 130. Um, and yeah, I ran down. I was, I was trying to give you a time update of like exactly how much time you had, but yeah, you're only, you're only looking at one thing and that thing was yellow. Um, and, but I could see there were two minutes then and I thought that's probably a minute, minute and a bit like that. I think we're okay. But it was, yeah, it was just magical. And then I don't know if you remember the next minute or two, but you sort of Conrad was with you and he sort of cheered you to the gate and then sort of turned around and came back. I tried to give him a hug. So where did he go? On the video Conrad's there with you when you, he's cheering you in and you get to the gate and he runs off. Where did he go? Well, I think he was just letting Jasmine have her moment. But, but Jasmine, you know, you were, you were kind of hyperventilating or, or yeah, you were in a massive oxygen deficit. And then, so I actually sent him back. I said, I'm not sure if she's okay or not and no one's really doing anything. And there aren't any, there aren't any metrics there. Um, but there was an element of, well for me at least was always she, is she okay? And then, yeah, someone, someone said we need a can of Coke or something and three people dashed off and a can of Coke arrived to, um, um, and you seemed, you know, it wasn't long before you were sitting up. And, and yeah, but it was just, just, just amazing to witness. Um, yes. Yeah. Thank you for giving that to me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Can you remember, can you remember those moments? And yeah, but the kind of overriding feeling when I finished was just, I need to breathe, you know, like that desperate, desperate need to breathe. Like I, like in my body, I guess was signaling to me like from the, even from the story about trail that I needed to slow down. And I was like, I'm not listening to you type thing. And then just, um, if anything, I asked it to go faster as I was trying to run up that hill. Um, and uh, yeah, I guess every, all the signals were screaming to me, you need to stop because I can't do this anymore. Um, and so I think I, and yeah, I sort of now get why triathletes sometimes collapse, like meters from the line. You know, you see those videos and I sort of get that now. Um, because if you're kind of, yeah, so I was just, I think in the first few, few kind of first minutes, certainly I was just desperate to breathe. And I was just, yeah, I was just breathing. But, um, yeah, I just wanted to say thank you to you, because obviously it's kind of been a shared journey. And you've obviously coached me through all this, these years of trying to attempt this. So, yeah, it's like, thank you. Well, sometimes I feel like a bit of an imposter coaching, coaching someone as talented and as absolutely nails as you, because, um, yeah, even, you know, even without a coach, you're going to do, you're going to do very well anyway. Um, but, um, yeah, that was, that was incredible. Um, yes. Nice one. Good bimble. Good bimble. Yeah. Uh, Jasmine, you, um, talked about going up that final hill and saying, no Damien's coming back. Um, do you want to do it again? Me, well, you know, honestly, I don't, at the moment, I don't think that I'm, I'm not rushing back. Um, one thing I can tell you for sure, and I already feel a bit sad and nostalgic, is about not being there. Um, to see the whole, yeah, for the whole thing, you know, like it's already kind of growing close to my heart in terms of, yeah, it's a kind of, I think that you do like that way. It's so hard. It's kind of, you know, it's a love-hate relationship, you know, and certainly there's a lot of love there as well, in, in terms of the actual kind of time out on the course. It's very beautiful at times out there, you know, the sunsets and sunrises and, um, just the time spent in the forest, but mainly the people, like the, the kind of Barkley family, like, I'm going to really miss that. I'm going to miss being there next year and seeing all those familiar characters and sharing time out on the trails. Like, I mean, that was, it was an incredible privilege to get to share with so many fantastic people, and find people. You're part of that family now, though. You know, you, there are plenty of guys who, I mean, Gary Robbins, John, how'd you pronounce his surname, Feggy? And, I think, yeah, I mean, he's been coming back for years, you know, and, Jared's always there and John's always there. And, you know, there are loads of guys that are always there. You can just be one of those people, you know, and help the next generation. Yeah, the problem for me is that I already struggled, and I know Damien's got the same kind of dilemma. I already struggled with the idea of flying to the States. I'm trying, you know, obviously represented, like, I'm part of the Green Runners, I'm a co-founder of the Green Runners. We, you know, we're aiming to kind of try and reduce the impact of, of us as runners on the environment and kind of contribution to the climate crisis. And so, this is how, thinking about how you move, and we know that traveling to races or events is, is generally the biggest contributor to your kind of carbon footprint as a runner. So, for me, flying to the States, when I'd said, specifically, that I was going to try not to fly to races if at all possible, was for me, kind of a big decision and it wasn't, something that happened completely lightly, and I did it for Barkley because it's, there's no getting away from it. It's unique, there's nothing like it anywhere else. It's not a race you can replace with something else. There's nothing that you can do at home, locally. So, I did it for Barkley, but now that I've done it, I just, you know, I feel I'm just satisfied, you know, I just, I left it out all, I left it all out there. I did it. I answered that question in my head of, am I capable of it? And I've, you know, and I've done it. I don't even know as well for that reason, if I went back, whether I would be able to do it again or not, because so much of what carried me through that last loop was that desperate desire to get it done and to prove it to myself. And you see that in other people that have been there before, people can't necessarily do it every year. It needs a bit of time to sort of build up that desire to get it done again. And I don't feel right flying for years, you know, multiple years each year to do that race for that reason. And it's a big commitment for the whole winter. You train for the whole winter, essentially for this race and know a family and there's other things in, to get done as well. So there are other things to get done. Absolutely. Yeah, no, that had gone out of my head really when I said about going back every year, of course. I mean, Damien, you put up with so much flack on Facebook and on social media for your stance. You know, what do you feel about going back? Is it, how much of your environmental consciousness is weighing heavy on a desire to finish this race? Yeah, I mean, I was hoping that would be sort of an added motivational element to, you know, sort of focus me in the moments of, of, you know, this means it's, yeah, financial cost and environmental cost and all, but also, you know, to some people a reputational cost as well of, or at least because of my connection to the Green Runners. So I was hoping that would make, spur me on to, you know, get it done this year, so you're not flying next year. I mean, similar to Jasmine, yeah, I've pledged to, you know, only fly once a year maximum. I can't think at the moment, I have to be careful how I phrase this, I can't think of anything else that I would fly for. I don't want to be whole totally to that, but just in case, you know, I don't know, in a few years some amazing idea comes up or some amazing new race, but at the moment, there's nothing else that I could think of that I would fly for. And yeah, I would like to try one more time, but yeah, that would be my third, if I did fly the next year, I'd be, yeah, I did three years without flying, so that would be my third flight in six years, which I think, I think is pretty reasonable, really. But yeah, ideally, ideally wouldn't, you know, get it done next time, so I don't have to fly after that. But yeah, I mean, Jasmine and I both, if we're racing in Europe and stuff, we get, yeah, we get buses and trains and, or lifts. It would be a heck of a triathlon, wouldn't it, to swim the Atlantic, cycle down to Tennessee and then run the Barclay. That would, no. What is next for the Green Runners, Jasmine? What's on the agenda? What are the next things that you need to achieve with the Green Runners? I mean, I guess it's been, Barclay in many ways has actually been really positive for the Green Runners. It's given us a lot of publicity, a lot of, like it's definitely entered a lot more people's consciousness. I mean, a large reason for doing all the interviews that I'm doing is whenever I kind of tried to get a mention of the Green Runners and, and so it's kind of reaching people in all areas of life and actually all over the world even. So done interviews and kind of all over the world for media outlets. But in terms of what we're doing, I guess, yeah, continuing to spread that message just to kind of bring it home to people. It's just just more, more generally across, as I say, the UK and across the world about those pillars of how you move, how you fuel, how you kit up and how you speak out. But largely, I think how you speak out, we know that how you speak out is, I think it's the most important one is because collectively, we're only going to kind of make a difference if we collectively demand quicker action and more significant action on climate change. And so, like the Green Runners, for example, in sport where, you know, calling on trail running or, you know, running events to drop kind of sponsors that are linked fossil fuels, for example. We had this petition to call on UTMB, who are obviously a huge kind of leader in trail running and lots of events might look up to them and follow their example that we took to, we called on them to drop Dasir as their headline sponsor. So that sort of thing, we're involved heavily in the, you know, the climate relay. So, and yeah, so the kind of is far reaching, but I'd say that kind of, the kind of big ongoing thing, the thing that's going to, you know, see lots of change and new things coming and it is that sort of pillar of how you speak out and that's where it'd be great to kind of get people involved and that, you know, for people, everybody's got different comfort levels in terms of speaking out, but it might even just be a case of talking to your friends at your local running club and kind of spreading the message about the Green Runners and it doesn't have to be anything as dramatic as, you know, marching on Parliament or wherever it is, but there's all sorts of ways to get involved. Damien, just on that, has there been any direct contact between yourselves and Catherine Paletti or anyone at UTMB about Daschia? I mean, have you had any direct conversations with them? What's the deal? Yeah, a few. I guess I'm just trying to, yeah, how much can we say? Just to add a couple of things to Jasmine there is, yeah, we did get, we have had a significant bump in membership after her run at Barclay. So obviously people, yeah, people don't see the debate. I think most, most reasonable people don't see the debate as simple as, oh, they flew. So, you know, it's all pointless. So we've had a significant bump in membership and, you know, people in America as well. And yeah, John Kelly joined us recently, which helps. And also, yeah, the running out of time relay is June, I'm pretty sure, which goes from Ben Nevis down to Big Ben. And this will be the third year. And yeah, it's really quite joyous to be part of, actually. And it's like, to be an activist, all you're doing is kind of going for a run. But that, it does count for something. And, you know, it tries to check out the website because it tries to kind of weave around the country as much as possible. And there are, you know, you can cycle bits if you're injured or, you know, and it's quite a leisurely pace. It's, it's brilliant to be part of, actually. Tell me the website. Oh, it's out of time relay. Okay. I'm pretty sure that would come up highly in the searches. First two or three hits. Yeah, starts in June. Yeah, UTMB, I guess, yeah, we sort of started off this, we felt strongly that high carbon sponsors aren't welcome in, in running. So we started this petition. It sort of, yeah, went like wildfire really. I think almost 3,000 people signed it within, within a week or two. And UTMB quite quickly got in touch and said, do we want to have a chat? I think we, we, yeah, I shouldn't say too much, but we've chatted to them three, if not four times. Um, um, I mean, I don't know, what are we now? I think, I think there's, I'm struggling to say, I don't know if the chats have been productive or not. I think we've both shared, you know, shared our views in a civil way. You know, I do applaud them for reaching out and as they have with the other, the several other disputes they have going on with other areas of, you know, I think they listened, or at least acted like they listened. Um, I mean, if they've signed a certain contract for a certain amount of time, I mean, realistically, you know, they're not realistically going to end that contract early, but what we sought other measures like could they be telling their other races or asking their other races to be aware that, you know, a high carbon sponsor is different to a sportswear sponsor, for example, and sends a very different message. I mean, so, yeah, we haven't had a chat for a while and I imagine it will be something we might pick up on again this year. We'll see. But, um, yeah, we've had some chats. I think it made an impression on the depth of feeling that the petition generated and I think that in itself is a really positive thing because it sends that message to other event organisers that actually maybe this actually is something that the running community really cares about and actually, you know, and for future decisions, whether it affects their sponsor currently or not, the hope is that it will affect future decisions on sponsorship both by the UTMB group and other event organisers. So I think that's the key thing. And it was very heartening for us to see the depth of feeling and the kind of response it generated in the running community. So I think we've got a lot to build on. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the difficult thing. You know, I picked up on when I spoke to them about the one of the other issues, the Gary Robbins issue. I did a video on the Gary Robbins thing. They very quickly contacted me and I felt I felt like it was a little bit of lip service. But at the same time, I felt like they did they did get it and whether it would affect like you say, future plans and future thoughts about what they because they don't want to alienate the community, do they? But and they've managed to do that on quite a few levels, haven't they? Yeah. Yes. Interesting times. Talking about petitions, Jasmine. You know, I started a petition. I have seen that. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. I feel like I'm getting far too much attention for the for everything. Far too much praise. But yeah, I saw them. Yeah. I was very touched by all the people assigned. Well, listen, you know, I'm not it's not necessarily about giving you, you know, a glitzy night out at an award ceremony. But I, you know, hopefully it's again, it's spreading to some people who may not be aware of what you've achieved. The message that, you know, you can do these things. And I know that, you know, we haven't really spoken about it today, but empowering women to get out there, stand on the start line of ultra races and do things that they perhaps were afraid of doing, perhaps didn't think that they were worthy of participating in and getting out there and achieving stuff they didn't think they could. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. That's that's why I hope that I'm able to spread that message now. Yeah. So that's, that's a wonderful thing, I think. Yeah. But, but if you do win sports personality of the year, you know, I want to thank you. He wants to be the plus one. No, no, you can be the plus one Damien. You can be the plus one. I don't want to go. Have you got a tux? No. These are my best clothes. By the way, this, this was, this was me being quick and concise in my interviewing technique. It's only taken us an hour in 10 minutes. What do you think? It's pretty good, wasn't it? Yeah. Cheers Damien. I'm going to let you go. Thank you very much. Guys, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. I appreciate your time and I know we've been, we've been a little while. It's time for bed, isn't it? Thanks Jasmine. Thanks Damien. See you in 10 care. Bye bye.