 Thank you very much, Jasmine and Damian for joining me on film My Run. 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 did you first kind of hear about the Barclays? How long ago did it enter your consciousness? 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 um 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 because you have to go to that race like a hundred percent wanting to do it you have to be all in I think if you want to finish. 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'm flipping better give it a go I suppose. You talk you still talk Damien like you're a new runner? That may be true but honestly I'm just as in love with this this sport these adventures as I was when I first started you know did my first ultramarathon 2012 pretty sure it was and and just this whole world opens up to you doesn't it of you know there's so many different events it doesn't even have to be an event and I just love it I just love it and I've come back you know in some ways I've failed but I've had an amazing adventure. I've always been kind of excited by the idea of being told that there's something it's impossible especially if somebody says it's impossible for a woman then that's it immediately the thing that would kind of make me say well like you know watch me and kind of um 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. 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. Probably the rounds are the most similar because you take the more direct route straight up something steep so on 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 um 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 um and and but I mean some of that's great fun I mean the the downs can be good fun um there's a lot of uncertainty to them the 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 um so yeah it's not it's not just pure hell out there there it's and it can be can be beautiful um but yeah I guess a felt running round would be the most similar that we've got 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 um 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 um yeah and um there was a kind of a few new book locations that kind of brought people back together a bit so there was you know it felt it felt kind of quite sociable and I would say for the first two-thirds of the first leap this year and um there's this new section of the course that was very brambly um so that wasn't you know that was definitely not a trail run um in that sense I think then we all all cursed a bit as we went through it five times in some cases what did you do in training leading up to this year uh I guess I think me and Damian probably both we did quite a lot of vert um I did um yeah I guess I was kind of for longer runs I was tending to when I was trying to maximize vertical vertical ascent I was kind of finding a hill that had was fairly steep um that I could get kind of the most climb I could get in in a shorter distance and they're just running up and down I did definitely did multiple sessions um of certainly long runs where I would do just go up and down the same hill multiple times like one one night where I actually ran overnight 17 times up and down the local hill in the kind of blizzard stroke sleet storm and then quite a lot of strength work I definitely did more I know Damian'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 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 time do you have to have decent weather to make this a doable race I'm not sure that the start time is that important but I do think the weather is important um certainly in the sense that I think if you had bad weather then it it would very quickly become impossible almost impossible to finish 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 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 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 I learned from those and the remarkable thing was that this year um 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 the more you look at the compass going downhill the more likely you are to land on your bottom and that that happened to be a lot on loop five for both of you looking looking at Keith Dunn's tweets the first four loops were like a breeze for all of you it was 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 Damian tell me what what what happened on loop five well it is interesting because Jasmine and I have almost learned the Barclay from the opposite the opposite directions and and certainly the advice from reading reading blogs before my first go was you know if you're a virgin you've got you've got to go with a veteran and learn all you can and this year I was more conscious to try and to be trying to learn um certainly John John encouraged it as well I did that I did the sort of I think it must have been loop three or four jasmine I don't think you're with us anymore but I did the sort of you were on loop three and did I do most when he was offering opportunities to now okay yeah I think I did most of the stallion section which is the section that's always baffled me the most so I was gaining some confidence but yeah ultimately I need to be better on my own um whether that's yeah I mean I've got an obvious area to work on which which is which is kind of exciting like if it was baffling how I couldn't do it be more more frustrating yeah John was you know he did he's been open that he made you know he was in charge of the nav quite you know 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 very quick at correcting them and the thing was don't let a small mistake become a big mistake so like small mistakes they're 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 when when somebody who doesn't know about the Barclay looks at how long it takes you to do 20 ish miles what is it that takes the time is it the climbing or is it the finding the books when you're actually in the right place which sounds obvious finding the books is not it's not you know a difficult thing I would say once you once you find the right spot like roughly within I know 20 meters you'll recognize the surroundings and you then you find the book if you're not making 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 talk to me a little bit about what Laz writes down as instructions and and is that in any way useful to you yeah no they are useful they are useful fundamentally but he has it you know he has his own personality to them and he's one of his favorite things to write is sort of you come to a high wall which 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 he doesn't say which way it's up to you yeah you used to encourage you to sit down and admire the view and so it's full of it's full of humor but it is yeah it is mostly helpful 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 in those kind of dense instructions so the another one of the iron is a Berkeley you need to have been there before you can understand the instructions what was your general food of choice going around both of you the first two loops were good and I actually even ate all my food I think on loop two Damian gave me a kick at which I was very grateful for sometime I think it was on at the end of loop two and so like I had a mixture of you know I had pizza I had some frittata which I made which actually worked pretty well early on because I could it was fairly easy to eat and I had some yeah pizza frittata I had cheese and marmite and cheese and pickle sandwiches I had and then flapjack homemade flapjack I had like Snickers bars and sweets and kind of saved gels for when I needed them I think those and 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 and so and in camper kind of had things like had some rice pudding porridge pasta and yeah those sorts of things and but I struggled in the later loops to eat and that was definitely one of the challenges for me 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 broccoli bits and stuff yeah it was good oh brilliant it's incredibly rare I get any sort of compliment uh regarding food preparation or cooking so I'm I'm going to take that I'm going to tell my kids um but thank you for the pickle again this is this is the one thing the one success is going to take away from Barclay this year come on you know going out on to loot five 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 um because I felt pretty bad um but it you know I ate my banana and then I actually said to myself out loud come on you're gonna 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 yourself John Kelly does a lot of grunting noises I joined them for a bit of a week in the night yeah Laz said you looked uh dead on your feet at the end of loop four you were sat on a chair you had a little sleep you threw up big time as far as I understand it um and then you headed out on to loop five John Kelly uh 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 cut off 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 I mean that that's what comes home to me is your total self-belief 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 is hard to put into words and I don't really know why it is because you know your spine uh race was unbelievable but for some reason this finish above all the others and you know John Kelly said it's that 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 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 Damien um how how gutted were you and then how elated were you you know what were those two extremes of emotion like for you yeah I felt I felt I suppose very deflated and you're really tired as well so 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 and it was to although Laz you know I was a bit torn because Laz does want you to come in if you if you know you can't finish she 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 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 and get to know some of the bits a bit more but then got sleepy and had a snooze um and then yeah was running in but then you know not far from the gate 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 or 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 in 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 give me a wonderful reception and I actually went like this to make it clear that I haven't done it I don't deserve 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 and then and then I think there's maybe 20 minutes 15 minutes 10 minutes 5 minutes and and yeah people were having the conversation but it's still a great achievement you know 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 youngest 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 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 already 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 in a bit like that I think we're okay but it was yeah it was just magical you were you were kind of hyperventilating or or yeah you're in a massive oxygen deficit now aren't there any critics no um but there was an element of well for me at least was oh is she is she okay and then yes someone someone said we need a can of coke or something and three people dashed off and a can of coke arrived um and you seemed you know it wasn't long before you were sitting up and and yeah but it was yeah yeah just just amazing to witness 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 what do you feel about um going back is it how much of your um 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 it's um yeah financial cost and environmental cost and all but also you know to some people a reputational cost as well of um or at least because of my connection to the green runners um 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 um I mean similar to Jasmine I yeah I pledged to you know only fly once a year maximum I can't think at the moment I have to be careful I phrase this I can't think of anything else that I would fly for you know I've started a petition I have seen that yes thank you um yeah I feel I feel like I'm getting far too much attention for the for everything far too much praise um but yeah I saw that um um yeah I was very touched by all the people assigned well listen you know I I'm I'm not it's not necessarily about giving you you know a glitzy night out at an award ceremony but I you know um hopefully it's again it's it's spreading to to some people who may not be aware of of what you've achieved um the message that you know if you challenge yourself you can do these things and I know that you know um we haven't really spoken about it today but empowering women to get out there stand on the start line of of ultra races and and and do things that they perhaps were afraid of doing perhaps didn't think that they were worthy of of participating in and getting out there and and achieving stuff they didn't think they could yeah thank you very much yeah that's that's why I hope that that I'm able to spread that message now yeah so that's a that's a wonderful thing I think yeah but but if you do win sports personality of the year um 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 thanks jasmine see you take care bye bye