 Now folks, we're going for a bit of a treat this week because the only time that Jaco lets me be question master is when he's got some I'm the guest. You're the guest. Yeah, I'm going to be the question master today. Those who have been long term listeners of the long time listeners of the podcast will know the question master story. If you don't know, get to know by going back to beginning, but it was an illustrious job that Jaco doesn't like to share. I am taking on the mantle today. It was basically, I didn't have the knowledge to be able to answer the questions. So it was automatic. I had to be question master so that you could, you could, you could be the one answering the questions. Well today, Jaco, you have got the knowledge because I have never done a nasal breathing marathon. You have. So that means I can ask you some questions about it. Maybe experience rather than knowledge, but yeah, we'll see. So that is a plan for today's podcast. Jaco, have we got anything else we could tell our wonderful audience about before we start talking about you running 26.2 miles and a bit more actually? Well, I was going to say, we'll get into that. I've got a bone to pick with the organizers, but what the only thing I wanted to say to listeners was that if they want to improve the way they move and enjoy their training a little bit more, and they haven't tried all the programs inside the virtual classroom with our online memberships, then check out a seven day free trial. You get to test out everything. You can cancel anytime and it's only 999 a month at 999 a month after that anyway. But you get seven days to check out to see whether it's the type of thing that's good for you. If you like a little bit of a little bit of fun with the training, if you like looking after your body, if you like to challenge yourself with things like handstands, muscle ups, but equally, if you want to improve your lower body training and how your lower body can help you with the outside of your calisthenics stuff like I've done with the running, or it might be you doing OCRs or whatever that might be, then you will benefit from all the training that is involved in those programs. Marvelous. Right, without further ado, let's keep it short and we're going to get into the main chat. Hold your breath. Here comes Jaco talking about running. Hold your breath. After an XO. Yeah, okay. We'll get into that. Enjoy. Here we go. Roll that jingle. Listen. Players. You're listening to the movement, strength and play podcast by the School of Calisthenics. Here are your hosts, Tim and Jaco. Question number. No, I'm not going to. Let's give the people a little bit of context, Jaco. So before we get into the main bulk of the experience itself, let's talk a bit about... I know that you have wanted to do a marathon before, for quite some time it was on your list of goals. Talk about why you wanted to do a marathon before we start getting into the depths of why you then decided to do it without using your mouth. I would just like to start the podcast by saying that the quality of your workers' question master, despite the lack of experience of that, because potentially you would actually like great questions and the only time you have been questioned is always, which then makes it a little bit challenging. So I'm like, you should be question master, but then as well as answering the questions, but then that leaves me without a job. It was kind of you to say, Jaco. You started for a compliment. I don't know. It was just one of those things where I've always loved sport as a kid and grown up and just seeing a marathon. I don't mean this in the way... Some people will be like, no, I don't want to run a marathon at all and I like training, but it was one of those things for me just for some reason. I really don't know why, but for some reason it was just something I thought I should do or should be able to do. Or just like it's one of those bucket list things of like, if you're really into training, I just got to, I was like, I want to be able to say that I've done one. I want to have experienced one. I don't want to die and have never actually seen, like, can you actually run a marathon? It's loads of people that do it. You think you like training like running like can you do one? You took the right approach to training for a marathon. For somebody who's from like me, like a speed based interval condition or interval effort type sport like rugby, the one thing about running a marathon which puts me off is the training. Now it's probably fair to say that your approach to training was minimalistic in that you hadn't actually run that far in terms of complete distance before going into the event, which I think is the right way to do it. We'll talk about that as to why it was as unscientific as it was scientific. People have asked like, yeah, what program did you follow? It's like program? I went out running sun. So you wanted to say that? Yeah, no, I can't. That's not a very good question, Master. Yeah, and then but yeah, but other sports got in the way like rugby and whatnot. And then I enjoyed playing and was very lucky to play like professionally, but it did mean that like you couldn't do certain things in your contract. Like you couldn't go skiing or snowboarding or whatever and going and hammering yourself in the off season to run a marathon wouldn't be. And you just wouldn't have the time to do the training anyway. That was my excuse as to why I'd not done one. And then it was a Christmas. Last year I was like, the Christmas just been for some reason it just came back into my head about it. So I was doing more running wasn't I? And then it was like, I remember you wanted to do a marathon, but you couldn't because you were playing rugby. This was a conversation in my own head. Just as you do in the just being weird in the evening. And I was like, yeah, but you that excuse ended like in 2013. Like what's your excuse now? So I literally that night just logged actually messes with someone messaged me. He used to work for that. I think he worked for the company that I did it with where I wanted. I didn't want to do a road one or if I wanted to go off road wanted it to be trail love being by the coast. So I was like, yeah, got recommended this one in Suffolk. The endurance life do is the flattest one because a lot of them around the coast are obviously like not very flat. It was the flattest one. It wasn't that flat, but I'm running on the sand. We probably went on to the actual beach maybe about five times on actual sand and that was that that slowed things down somewhat. But in a weird way was just like a like even though it was like not nice. It was just like you completely changed your like gates to just wager way through the sand, which on about mile 22 was actually quite a pleasant surprise. And there were some old people are just going down for their like morning dog walk or whatever that passionate. Like, are you all right? It just feels really nice to run like this. I was like, I'd like sprayed my legs out and was like, sort of like completely like just using. It was weird in them. But yeah. It was like at that point, I think we've been going four hours. It was like, yeah. But yeah, it was. So yeah, I just literally signed up that night and it was like, if I sign up to it, then I got to do it. And then then it started. The listeners would have heard the detail around us, but just for people that maybe have jumped on this and seen it or listening to us for the first time. You when you finish your playing career, your rugby playing career with a head injury, you couldn't run at all. So to come from that to where you are now is to haven't done a full marathon is amazing. And people should hopefully find encouragement in that, that there is from you being in a very bleak situation with not being able to have that kind of that physical ability taken away from you. You've actually now completely, well, I say completely, there's, I think there's a bit of lasting damage, but you've relatively well like rehabilitate yourself, haven't you? It was, yeah. So context was, yeah, a head injury, a seizure on the training field and a bleed on the brain. And that took me, I tried to get back to playing rugby initially, but anytime I did any sort of exercise or anything, I just couldn't deal with the symptoms of like headaches, issues with my eyes and vision and that sort of stuff. And it was a year, it was pretty much a year, like very close to one of those like, it's like a sort of like a year to the day. It was, it was almost that much. It was definitely, it was a year within the month because it was August 2014 was doing some, had some time off and traveled in, was in New Zealand. And we were trying to get to, I think it was Franz Joseph, there was a, one of the, what's Franz Joseph called? It's like a, like, like a big icicle, but it's not think of like a mountain that's full of ice. Why can't think of the word? A glacier. An iceberg. A glacier. A glacier. And it was like, we parked the campfire up and it was like, we had to get to, we had to get to the thing, see it and the sun was coming down. It's like, we didn't really have much time. And then it was like, we was like, well, and then it was like, Catherine started running. And I was like, oh, I had to, I didn't like think about it. And it was like running. And then we got like, maybe ran for like five minutes, got there. And she was like, whoa, this is amazing. And I was like, yeah, I haven't got a headache. And then it was like, so that was, it sort of came up by a surprise, which was good. There was then a year later, 2015, I ran my first 10K, but got far too competitive and like absolutely thrashed myself towards the end and ran like a relatively good. So I like, I think I did about 47 minutes, which surprised me. I didn't think I would do it that fast. And then I had headaches for about three days after that. So there was, it was like, oh, just a little bit of a warning sign to me. So I sort of like backed off. But then just more recently getting into the sort of coming across the Oxford Vantage and the importance of nasal breathing and realizing myself like, oh, when I go out running, I can't breathe for my nose. It's like absolute horror show. Why is that bad? And then linking some of that back to head injuries and concussions messing up with your respiratory system and how you breathe. And then using that as a tool to carry on that sort of like long term like rehabilitation of the brain helps it like some of the breath holding helps improve oxygen supply to the brain. Dr. Cobb from Z Health that we had on the podcast talked about, if that's not done, if that's not gone untreated, oxygen supply to your brain for years afterwards, a head injury and concussion can stay affected. So I was, I was interested in that, like the challenge of it in a way. You know, someone said like, oh, you've had a head injury and you're going out for a run and you're getting a headache. In my mind, you know, before to know what we do know about breathing now, you've sort of be thinking, well, is it like the impact of the brain and is it still some information and swelling? Like that's kind of causing it or some issues around the neck and stability or whatever it might be. Do you think it's a combination of the brain injury having healed over that period of time? Or is it more to do with how you're breathing and or the interplay between the two? Have you kind of like got any insight on what you think might have been like the root cause of why you were getting a headache? Interest. There's probably, I think a little bit of all those things. So there's, if you look at, again, just Dr. Cobb is a bit of an expert in this on like he's got this whole course on concussion that I've done. And that like neck and spine instability, they see it. They call it like a bobble head or what we had that after after someone's had a concussion, that ability to like stabilize your midline is reduced. He could tell you why I don't know whatever that mechanism it is that's affected. And then therefore when you are running, your head's bobbing around more because it's less stable. And then you've almost anything that was like making the head like rattle effectively, then you've got the brain moving in that like would definitely disturb it. That was like would be far worse for me than rather than like cycling on a bike in a gym was like the first thing that I was able to do because there was no real movement, but just a little bit of, yeah. And one of the things that they do is they suggest you like you take yourself up to where you start to get those symptoms and then work at 80% of. See what heart rate that happens at and then work at 80% of that heart rate because actually aerobic exercise, getting the system working, getting training the respirators about trying to improve that breathing is one of the best things to help rehabilitate the brain and then learning about how important it is to nasal breathing compared to mouth breathing and then actually realizing that if you find it difficult to breathe through your nose, that means you need to work on it. If you breathe through your nose when you're running and it's dead easy, it's probably because you've been doing it like that for a very long time. You haven't got the sort of same dysfunctional breathing patterns that are developed to me that is to happen to me and that happened. And that's, you know, this that I'd seen one research paper that said like it was literally 90 it was like 99% chance that you're going to have like disrupted your breathing. Do you think that I guess for you that actually learning to run just as it's probably on the side for people that maybe haven't had who aren't interested in head injuries and nasal breathing just as flip that slightly to across one side to go for you to learn to run at 80% is probably quite, I imagine that was quite difficult for you because you're from our training together you're kind of like all in smash it competitive push the red line. I imagine that you've had to do a lot of disciplined work on not going to go and sit at that threshold kind of place where I'm literally going to go and hang on for as long as I can and actually run within yourself. But that also makes me reflect back on the conversation we have with Martin yelling around sort of that's actually the better way to do these kind of distance running is you've got to kind of manage your ego a little bit. Yeah, but if you're going to go and run for like a long time like you just you got to be in a comfortable comfortable place and like the one of the thing that the starting point for me was like, right. I understand all of the reasons why nasal breathing now is like good for good for your exercise performance but as well as good for your overall health like it's something you need to do. When you go running like trying to nasal breathe is obviously more challenging than when you just sat at rest because you know you need to get more oxygen in and there's more carbon dioxide that's being built up that you've got to deal with it and get rid of and the nose being smaller than the mouth makes that just more challenging of it coming in and out. But it's not to say that it shouldn't that that more that challenges something that we therefore shouldn't embrace it actually helps with oxygenating the body because slower breathing is helpful for for that. And the fact that I and it was like this is actually one time probably that my ego has actually helped me because I tried to run to the I tried to go out and run right right I'm going to nasal breathe I got to the end of the road and my mouth my nose was just pouring with snot it was so blocked I couldn't do it and I was like, I can't do that. And my ego that is normally the worst thing in the world but my ego is actually. Yeah, but you was a professional root player jaco like you should be able to do this. And I was like, yeah, I should be able to do this and then but what it what that then did was make me go right I need to sort this out. So and if you if you like commit to sorting that out some of the breath holding work really helps to clear the nose and you can do that as part of like the walking and jogging and moving stuff but as as just to making a commitment to go and sort this out. So when I go running, you have to run slower to allow your nose to do that I talked to people now going like, let your nose dictate the pace of your name. And in time you'll get back up and then you will feel the positive benefits then you'll feel the improvement in the efficiency. But at the start, because it's blocked, you're going to have to go really slow, it's going to be really hard. That doesn't mean nasal breathing is worse than mouth breathing. What it means is your nose has maladapted to the fact that you've been mouth breathing all the time. So slow it down that so that was a stop and then when I got into when it was like, right, I'm going to do this to this marathon. There's Ben at Vivo running coach at Vivo. I went to see him and he was like, hey dude, yeah, you're you're trying to run the marathon with like the running action of sprinting. It was like that ain't going to work. And one of the things there was around like efficiency. So I was like down with the efficiency of my breath from the efficiency of nasal slower breathing and combining that then with like running economy efficiency of just like they're on like 108. One of his big things is 180 beats or like steps. So it's like three steps every second. And you'd set a metronome and you'd have to like you see it like your steps are tiny and you just like sort of bouncing along and trying to like keep everything behind you. So it's like your feet are landing directly below you just like small little like pickup of the of the foot from behind you and just you feel like you're just flicking your feet behind you. He just like to do to do to do to do and and then you're like it just doesn't really feel like you're doing anything. You're like, yeah, I could probably I feel like I could do this for four hours even though I've only done it for a few minutes now. But yeah, that was that was interesting and some conversations with Tony Riddle who's done like run from land's end to John O'Groats. nasal breathing and barefoot like 40 odd moutains whether it is like just combining those two things and working at one of the things to keep you in that like that goes really nicely with the nasal breathing is staying in that your aerobic zone of tracking your heartbeat of 180 minus your age. So I finally got a garment because I needed something to I'd only use it when I'm running. But to tell me my heart rate I'm a pace. So keeping a 180 minus your age. So for me it was like trying to keep under 140 and actually the start Ben at Viva was like keep it under like like go even easier like 130. It's like running at 130 is like super. It was nice and like the nasal breathing is like I can actually like I can actually practice breathing lights like breathing really gently trying to be almost quietly when at that. And you're pace. Oh, it's it's yeah, it's super nice. And then you're like, it's actually enjoyable to just go as far as you're going slower and you're, you know, my say my pace then might have been seven minute kilometers. And then a few and then and you're like anytime your heartbeat started to go up to that that that point of 180 minus a so 140 for me with my heart rate got to 145 150. I'd be like my nose would start to be then that I'm starting to suck it a bit fast. It's closing in itself and then I check and I'd be like, oh yeah, my heart rate has got right and bring it back down. But what happened was as you start to then train that efficiency, you get more efficient at utilizing oxygen within the body. You have better at buffering any of the the lactates game built up from the from the CO2. But ultimately you're never getting to that stage of like getting outside of that aerobic zone and just getting better at that. And what happened was you'd be running along a few weeks later. You're your nasal breathing and you're like, oh, it feels like yeah, it feels super, it's feeling super nice. Check the heart rate. Heart rates now at like 135 rather than 140. And you're like, oh, but my breathing still feels really nice even though it's a bit higher. And what, oh, and then I'm at six and a half minute case. And it was like, and then this just kept going on. So it was, you know, you're running along, you check your speed. I'm doing six minute case now. My nasal breathing feels absolutely fine. Look at my heart rate. It's like, I'm doing 138. Like, oh, and that fit like my heart rate has barely gone up and yet I'm running. So my pace started to improve. Breathing stayed really nice and easy. So we're just training that breathing, breathing efficiency. And I did all of my training for my marathon like that. You know, someone had asked me like, oh, what, yeah, what program did you follow? Or how long blah, blah, blah. I didn't have anything structured other than that. Other than going, right. This is happening in October. It's Christmas. I've got to start, I've got to start. At the moment I'm like a 5k occasional 10k running type of guy. I need to build up. So I literally just was like doing some 5k and then it was like, I did a few 7k some, some 8s and 9s. Then it was like, okay, 10 is okay. Like they're just getting like, getting to like 12 or 15k. And then I did have some like car fans issues for a bit that like held me back a little bit. Because I just, I was just pushing things a little bit too much of my, my technique. I mentioned this to you before, like we're just in some conversations. That's all since gone away since I've like got that better, that better running mechanics. I don't have any issues. And like I could run in complete barefoot shoes now and it not, not cause me any problems. But yeah, getting to, I only, the plan was to like just keep progressively building up. And I was probably doing like, it was like one long run a week and like try and get another shorter one in like. I doubt that I ever really ever ran. I might have ran three times in a week, a couple of times. Like most times it's like just once or twice. Got up to a half marathon and I think we did three half marathons, but never really got much more than that. I think I did 22k once, which is like a kilometer more than a half marathon. And I used to, I've written a blog about some of the lessons and one of them was like this, this breathing efficiency. So all of it was done at that. But one of the other things I did, which was not planned was, I mean, it's me and Mrs. Jaco would just go out for these runs. We'd never take a drink of water with us and we'd never take any food with us. So one of the tips people were giving me like the week before the marathon was like, oh, like just trying to get some advice from some people. And Brian Keane says, like, you know, don't eat. If you've never had jellies and things when you're out on your training, don't pick them up when you go around it. Just have what you were doing in your training. And I was like, yeah, but I didn't do anything in my training. So during the marathon. And then, and the other thing he said was eat, a couple of people said this to me, eat early. If they give you, if there's, if you've got the opportunity to have something after 5k, 10k, have it. Don't think, even if you don't feel like it, just have it. So I was like, had a banana and a bit of like a paleo bar thing. And it felt like I was cheating. And a drink. I put some electrolytes in a drink that I got. And it was like having a drink every like half an hour or whatever and having a little bit of something to eat. I was like, got to, got to that point of the half marathon. I remember being at 24. There was, there was a sign missing. We're like running through this like forest and everyone went the wrong way because there was one of the signs missing. Luckily, I'd had a piss. So I was like 30 seconds behind everyone else and everyone starts running back the other way. And I'm like, where are we all going? We've gone the wrong way. And then there's one lady had a phone and she had OS maps on her phone. I was like, I said, I said this to her. I was like, I don't know you, but I trust you. Because she looked like she knew what she was doing. Yeah, I can see on my, on my OS map, it's down here. So we go off. And so I'm chatting to her. Have you done many mountains before? She's like, yeah, yeah. She looked super comfortable. We're at 24k at this time. So over halfway through. And she was like, what? You've never, you haven't done more than a half in your training. She was like, be careful. Like just go real steady now. But, you know, and I was waiting for the wall to come and not that it wasn't hard. Like it was flipping hard, but I never got to the point where my body. I can't, I can't, I can't describe to you what the wall is like because I don't feel like I hit it. Because if I did hit it, I don't know what everyone's talking about because it didn't join. I didn't need, there was no sort of like debilitating, like I have to stop. I just kept, kept on with the, with my breathing. Anytime things started getting really nasty, just go to what I know of like larger breaths and slower breaths, breathing out through the nose is more, is more efficient. So anytime you're feeling like, you want to get to that, like, oh, this is just horrible. It was like breathing big. And like do, that's, that's, that's just our focused on and that like felt good. I was pretty nasty as soon as we finished because right. So anything of marathon is 26.2 miles. My Garmin clock to 27.06. The week before I was like checking the route. I was like, hold on. This is 27 miles. Like, and technically, so I'm told anything over 20, anything over a mouth and anything over 26.2 is an ultra. So, but there was an ultra. The guys that were doing the ultra, the guys that was doing the ultra had to do with another 10k once we'd finished. And it was like, oh man, I was running with a guy that was doing it. And as I, I like finished, I see it, I see it in an hour. Like you got to go do another 10k. I was like, that is brutal. But yeah, I was pretty nasty when I crossed the finish line. Pretty nice. That was Saturday. Pretty nasty Sunday morning. Sunday night. Yeah, so, so just, just saw legs. Yeah. And but Sunday night started feeling like good Monday. I actually did a little bit of a training session. Felt all right. One of them, one of the weirdest things, right? And this is what I quite liked. And I noticed this on any of the longer runs I did. And I remember about 18k. Things in your body that you didn't know were an issue would like come and start talking to you. So, you know, I had a, I've had an issue with my right knee. Like when I played rugby, I like tweaked MCL a little bit. And then when we did some stupid yoga challenge thing, I literally something popped. You're laughing because you remember possibly something popped on my knee. Yeah. In like a lot of external rotation. Doing a rotation. And yeah, so that's, that's generally like I can feel that in when I do lots of different things. And saying about my calves, it would be like my, and it would be like my right calf. And then I'd go out on these runs and get to 18k. Right knee is absolutely fine. Right calf is fine. My left calf is like going, oh, not like this on my left hamstring. I never have a problem with my left hamstring ever, ever, ever. There's my right one always pulling, it feels tired. And left hamstrings like, oh, crikey, a bit tired. I'm like, what is going on? And I, the thing in the marathon, my, I was actually a little bit nervous on the Friday night. And it was probably to do with, literally to do with the nerves. It was like my right knee started like aching a little bit. Like almost like in anticipation. Anyway, it was absolutely golden. No issues at all on that at all during the marathon. My left knee, a doctor, like at one point was it nearly, and this is where I was like, that would have, would have been, you know, if something like cramped up, it like my left side, like it just a couple of times looks funny. So I just did the breathing and it went away. And I said, good. But my, yeah, my left knee, or my IT band, like your classic runner's knee, which I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever get on my left side. Like IT band, tight, pulling on kneecap. And my T, like when we finished, I couldn't, I didn't want to stand up. So I was like, tired. So I was trying to sit down and my TFL on my left side was just cramping. And I was like, ah, like, so I couldn't sit. I couldn't, I didn't want to stand up. I couldn't sit down. And that was, but I never, ever, ever, I could do anything to my left leg and it doesn't, it's not bothered. Whereas during that, it didn't, and then what that's made me realise is I'm doing, so something like, um, something like, like a cost, a deep Cossack squat. Go over onto my left side, fine. Go over onto my right. And it's like, oh, my right ankle feels a bit tighter in that right knee. What I've come to realise of some of my issues on that right side is literally because actually that hamstring, a doctor on my, on my, on my left is actually tight, but it was just going under the radar. I just didn't, wasn't ever noticing. And it was all my sort of like attention and focus and everything was actually on the, what was going on with the, with the right. So since then, I've been doing some stuff on that left, which I'd normally just leave alone. Um, and it's, and it's, and it's massively helping. It was just weird that I needed to run about 20 miles before it would start to talk to me. So I found that really interesting. Summarising, thinking just some takeaway points with people. For those that are running a marathon or want to change the way that they, they, they go about their training for a marathon. There's a couple of just, um, interesting things that I think you've said. And one thing which I think you haven't mentioned, which is probably useful for people to know is that you didn't have a time in mind, which I think would then directly enabled you to train probably more intelligently and more in a way where you are actually listening to your body and what your body was capable of rather than going, I've got to do this in three and a half hours or four hours or whatever it might be. Because then you're chasing something which may well be outside of your physiological, at the, at the limit of your physiological capabilities. Whereas you, your focus is very much on an internal sense of one completion, but also like how my body is going to be able to deliver this, this call it a performance or to complete the event. So training relatively modest, I think, in terms of having a different, it's really what many people want to do. You just want to complete it, right? You just want to do it. I had, yeah, there was two goals was like, I didn't want to walk. So I wanted to run all the way through. I didn't want to have to walk and I wanted to enjoy it because I'd enjoyed the training and I wanted to, I didn't want to finish and be like, oh, that was flipping horrible. I never want to do that again because I would like to do some more. I'm doing a half in two weeks, actually. And you're right, my, I took a time out of it because what I wanted to practice and wanted to get better was I wanted to improve. It was like, I wanted to do it, but I wanted to like, carry on improving this breathing and my breathing efficiency to just to help my body. And all of my training was focused on just being more efficient with your breathing, which then makes you a running economy and all that like more efficient as well. So it's all about efficiency, not about time, not about pace. Because if you're trying to hit, what happens if you want to hit a time to go, I'd love to break four hours. Of course I would. I did four hours 53, but we were running on the beach and it was, there was some elevation. It was never going to be fast for anyone. And I think the winning time was like three hours and 20 or something like that. So even the guy that was flipping flying around was like, it's slow in terms of marathon time. But if you set, if you set yourself a time, then that time equates to a pace and then you're trying to hit a pace and like, yeah, I could have done my training at a faster pace for like running the 10K, the 50 or whatever, I could do it at a faster pace. But my breathing then wouldn't have been as good and then I wouldn't have actually been working on the accuracy of how I'm actually getting oxygen in. And therefore that's not going to help me when I'm actually out there, out there running. And I think it wasn't, it wasn't planned in terms of like, I should have ran more than a half in training, but it does, it proved a nice point that if you focus on how efficiently you can get oxygen into the body and how your body deals with like this, the CO2 that's getting produced from that aerobic exercise, you don't get to that point and you keep going because you're not ever getting into that debt. Well done. You've done something which I think, in terms of not necessarily the completion of the marathon which for you is a big achievement and something you wanted to do, but you've done it in a way which I think really respects your philosophy around training and what I've seen in a evolution in you and how you approached that of actually learning to listen to your body. Like you were terrible at that when we first started. Until you broke and then get pissed off about it. Whereas for you to have gone and done this and basically sit inside your potential like physiological limits but then actually to have achieved something which would have been much greater from a learning and reflection experience perspective than it would have been to just kind of red-lined it like the whole time. I think is a really cool, you say it's a scientifically unscientific there is some really solid rationale to back up why you've done what you've done you haven't gone out and done the marathon training that people would have done but maybe you didn't need to because you didn't need to hit a pace so you didn't need to go and see what it's like to run 20 miles at a 6 minute mile pace or whatever it might be because that wasn't the goal and I just think that's a really anybody who's thinking about doing something which is a little bit probably like scary or I don't know if I can do it changed the context the story around why you're doing it and what it's about and interestingly it's sort of like you could just go and run a marathon and you could have gone and done it quite slow and whatever else but you've taken the opportunity to use that as a vehicle to learn something else which wasn't about how fast can I do this thing which I think is really cool I think that's quite refreshing Thanks mate I think the other thing just for people or just like another reason or side benefit like whether someone's wanting to do a marathon or not or they just want to do a 5k or whatever it is that they want to do having some element of your training at that lower aerobic pace 180 minus your age nasal breathing really nice and slow that will benefit like all of your training like even if you like doing high intensity crossfit workouts having some of your training done in that state is going to train your breathing efficiency and if you think that my breathing efficiency is better so effectively when I'm exercising I'm breathing less breaths per minute my heart is beating less times per minute just the overall like work rate of the system in the background is just like drop down so I'm starting at a lower pace before I go on and then do anything else and like how does that feel how does that make you feel for if I train for one hour a day I've got 23 other hours in a day well you improve your breathing like you've improved your breathing efficiency it's not just related to them when you're training my breathing rates now when I'm just sat here doing this are like way lower than they were before like the whole like your breathing is calmer is less the whole system is calmer and less there's benefits for you you use your training but you're going to get benefits for training but you're also going to get those benefits through all the rest of your life in terms of just how you generally feel in terms of managing stress being calmer because the system itself is more efficient and therefore it can be calmer temporary rollers question master no that wasn't it how much ice cream did that eat afterwards sorry I'm kind of dodging the sunlight I'm kind of like I want to be over here people are going to have to watch this I can't so the last question is I know you are that your personality will be constantly now looking not constantly you will now probably I imagine be looking towards the next thing and I'm interested to know within the distance running endeavour is there a next thing is there more marathons or is there more ultras you kind of tickle that itch and you're going you know what it's good every now and again I might do it I've ticked off a marathon it's on my list of things that I've done I'm now going to go and just do something else or keep doing what I was doing before so I in two weeks Catherine Mrs. Jaco's sister's boyfriend is doing a half through some woodland in London somewhere he was like that's quite quick I was like I've done all this training I don't want to just like completely switch off and then when I would come back to wanting to do do a bit more running I signed up for that half which is in two weeks and I'm doing that I haven't signed up for anything else yet I haven't actually even scoured the internet to see what else is I want to do I would what I would like to do is I would like to see if I can back it up as in do something on the Saturday and then can you back it up on Sunday so a two day event or something that involves and it might be there's something about you know sign up to actually a real thing and having other people around one of the things that probably made it hard for me was I was chatting to two guys for most of the way around because when you're talking and you're breathing out but it was nice to be with other people and like definitely if you were to go out and do that on your own run that exact route that I did not as part of an event and just on your own man that would be miserable so I do like the whole sign up for an event and be part of an event and be part of you know get connected with people that are doing it and you feel like you're doing it together which is really nice and it is definitely helpful but I need to find something that is that ticks that box but I sort of like the idea of also maybe just going and doing something there's one where my sister lives in Anglesey so Anglesey is like a little island it just looks like it looks like it's the mainland of where there's a tiny little island and there's the I think the coastal route of that's like a hundred miles or something like that and it's like see do that over a series of like a week I don't know I guess it would be crack it's doing it in four days 25 miles a day that'd be but that's where your mind is going in terms of like distance type events I think I would prefer you know rather than like can I do a marathon faster I'm not like there isn't really anything in me I've not really thought about it so you're making me think there isn't anything in me that really is but just faster it would be a different challenge just to try a different way rather than doing the same thing but to try and do it better which is sort of a challenge that was the best thing someone best advice actually someone goes to me this is like go slower than you think you need to and then even then slow it down because it's going to be a PB whatever you do because it's your first marathon that's brilliant if you just do something for the first time it's always a PB for today I've been reflecting recently around just the fitness industry and the conversation at the moment in the fitness health activity well like training that sort of thing it's all hell bent on like intensity and faster and harder and it's like if you're not pushing the dial in that in that realm like what are you doing and I just think that conversation and fitness is there's nothing wrong with it a lot of people's attention is going and I just think there always needs to be a counterbalance to that of something which is not about that because that is not the route like beating yourself up trying to go harder, faster, heavier is not the route to great longevity in your training whether that's a short term injury or long term performance what you've done is actually going to look at the research around health benefits for three hours there's a difference between health and performance from that angle well keep us posted I think it's interesting for people to continue to watch the journey if the journey continues, if it doesn't then we'll watch you do some other bendy stuff I've still got lines on my face that's still like yeah get on the fucking bendy program coming soon so great insights well done for completing the marathon for the continuation of your current areas of interest which I think is really good to see anyone who has any questions for Jaco you know where he is prolific on the socials and excellent at emails so you can get to him on either just plenty of spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes in both of those written formats I haven't got anything else to say it's well done I just want to say thank you I had a lot of nice messages on food and on emails as well so massive thank you for those people that gave me advice for gave or giving encouragement and yeah there was even a couple of people like did their own little versions of a nasal run on the day themselves just wherever they were at home so that was yeah that was nice if people are interested in that type of stuff I share most of that just my personal Jaco human flag on Instagram and I wrote a blog on the Rooted Life website and it goes into a bit of detail the four lessons I felt like I learned from that nasal marathon so that's on RootedLife.co.uk I'm dodging the sun for YouTube you can see me but I'm going to get out of it because it's in my eyes until next week I've got absolutely no idea what we're talking about next week you can continue to keep exploring you do it I was going to say keep exploring your physical potential through movement, strength and energy