 Tom, how are you, sir? I'm very well. Thank you, Chris, very well. How are you? Yes, wonderful. Thanks so much for joining us at such short notice, Tom. I really appreciate it. No, no, it's all great to be on. Thank you. Thank you for finding some time in your busy diary to have a nice chat. Yeah, well, I got another thank you for you, which is you were really kind to do a quote for my upcoming book. People watching, it's, is it, it should be up there on my podcast overlay. It's called State of Mind, which is a Royal Marine slogan. And it's the story of how I ran 999 miles, pretty much nonstop bar sleeping in a tent at the side of the road. And Tom very kindly did what we call in writing terms a blurb quote. So thank you very much, mate. No, not at all. I think it's, I think it's so important. It's very easy and sort of modern society to, to see these incredible things going on and to not take much interest, especially when it's an endurance thing. And I'm an endurance athlete and I want, I don't, I want people to talk about me. I want all of this. And because that's what your life is, but actually to be able to sit back and be like, wow, what that is done is, yes, it's something completely different in endurance, endurance nonetheless. But yeah, it's incredibly impressive. And I think the more that people can, can see about it and to understand that it was a state of mind. It's not just a catchy title for a book. It's so much more, it's so much deeper. And I think it's, yeah, I think anything that I can do to, to try and spare that message, I think, and as an endurance sport, as you know, yes, physically it's tough, but it's the mental, the mental barriers are the ones that are much harder to overcome. Yes. So for me, for our friends at home, it really was a state of mind because I'm not like Tom, I'm not one of these fitness guys that, you know, I wish I was, I wish I had more time for it. I wish I had my stopwatch on and I was watching my times get better and blah, blah, blah. But as people know, I believe in, in, in moderate fitness for everybody. I'm very passionate about alkaline lifestyle and diet because it's done so much for my own personal health. But when I did the length of the country, I'd been disabled with a spinal issue for two years. So I couldn't do any training. What I want to talk to Tom about today is something completely different. Tom is an ultra, ultra runner, which basically means running extremely long distances in very fast times up against the best in the world. And Tom is the best in the world because he's in the very highest echelon of which I'm guessing Tom, the people kind of go from number one to number five, from number five to number three, depending on how they, they place in these iconic races. Yeah, it's, it's really difficult to sort of quantify your world ranking because ultra running is such a, one, it's a fairly new sport, but two, it's a very unique sport that each race is different. And for those who don't know an ultra marathon is just anything that is longer than an American. So anything longer than 26 miles would be classed as an ultra marathon, whether that was 27 miles or 100 miles. And obviously a 100 mile race around the Mont Blanc Massif will be very different to a 50 mile race on the South Downs way in the UK. And we'll suit some athletes better than others. So it's very difficult to, they're both ultra marathons, but one person who would win one might not win the other. So it's really difficult to sort of, to say like, yeah, this is, this is where I'm ranked globally in a sport that hasn't really got a national governing body or anything. So yeah, it's been a, it's been a whirlwind journey. I think it's probably the, probably the best. And yeah, I've had some, I've had some great results. I've had some not quite so good results as I was doing my apprenticeship into ultra running, I would say. And yeah, it's just been, yeah, one, one crazy journey so far and hopefully it can, can keep, can keep continuing. And yeah, I'm just having, having the absolute time of my life. Can't really sort of believe that, believe that it's happening. And you were an officer in, in which regiment, Tom? So I was an officer in the Welsh Guards. I commissioned in 2012. And then, yeah, John went straight to the Welsh Guards. They had just got back from Afghanistan from Herrick 16. That's the second proper tour to Afghanistan. So it was a very difficult time to join the battalion because I was 19 when I joined. I was the youngest in my platoon. I was the only one who had not been to Afghanistan. And so yeah, it was a, it was a huge, huge challenge joining what I did. But a very, very rewarding one. Not the sort of career that I thought or expected to have sort of going through training. Everything was so Afghanistan focused. But I sort of joined into the end of Afghanistan era, I guess. And yeah, huge, huge challenges, but incredibly rewarding. So, you know, my friend Simon Wester, then Simon Wester, or you'll, you'll at least be familiar with him. Yeah, no, I've no sort of Simon, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say, well, we probably sort of wouldn't, he wouldn't send me a WhatsApp and me down in the pub. But yeah, met him a couple of times. Yeah, really, really nice. And lots, I've got lots and lots of time with Simon. He probably would WhatsApp. He'd be like, Tom, come and get the beers in. Yeah, probably, probably would. Maybe next season. And was that where, from what I gather from the, the reading that I've done about you, you came to the sport sort of quite quickly. It wasn't like a huge, great build up and you were. Yeah, so it was a, it was a really interesting start. I guess if I take it a step back, I, I'd always been really sporty when I was at school. And then that was also one of the things that drew me into the military. I wanted to, I wanted to keep playing sports because I enjoyed it. And predominantly it always played team sports, rugby, football, cricket, hockey, but also ran and in the school, I would always have win the school cross country and, but it would never really think much of it. I would just ran to be fit for team sports and that's how it worked. And then joined the army and sort of played, played rugby and obviously the Welsh guards being Welsh or a very rugby orientated unit. So played lots of rugby and played for the army at under 23 level. And so just got to the point in my career that I just couldn't rock up to work on Monday morning sort of with a black eye and cut to my face and sort of be hobbling about, sort of trying to do some unit PT and things. So at that point I decided, right, I need, I need to find another challenge. And I sort of thought, right, well, I enjoy the, I enjoy endurance. I like testing myself. I like to push myself mentally and physically. And so sort of thought, right, what's the hardest, what's the hardest thing that I can do? So having never done a triathlon before, I signed up to Ironman Wales. And did Ironman Wales and off a very, very little training at all. I did one, one swim in the sea, 100 mile bike ride and a couple of loops running around Richmond Park. Running and incredibly naive and found it tough. But, but did, we all finished fourth in my age group, missed out on going to the world championships by like four minutes, which I had no idea there was a world championships or anything. So it was all, it was all great fun. And then Kona. Yeah. Yeah. In Hawaii. In Hawaii. Yeah. So, and that was, that was great and sort of did that and didn't think, didn't think too much of it afterwards. And from there, it got a little bit more into running. And it was only in 2016 when I had two army friends who were both in the Welsh Guards who did the race marathon, and they did really well. They finished in the top 300. And when they got back, said out, so having a couple of beers one evening said, oh yeah, you guys did really well, but I'm, I'm fitter than you guys. I could do, I could do so much better as you do. And with your mates and sort of one thing led to another and slightly hung over the next morning. I think I, I ended up signing up to the 2017 edition of math and the Saab. And fast forward six months. I'm there. Still on the, still on the start line of math and the Saab in the Sahara desert in Morocco. About to do my first proper ultramarathon. So, yeah, very much jumping at the deep end, very naive. Yes. I had a training plan, but I wrote it myself. And the kit that I was wearing definitely wasn't the most state of the art. It was, what can I beg, borrow and, and steal off friends. And yeah, it was just a, yeah, pretty, a pretty crazy journey and sort of ended up being, ended up being some of the first non Sub-Saharan African male to, to finish on the podium. Which was. Incredibly unexpected. So I went and wanting to finish. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe I just went wanting to finish, maybe top 20. After a couple of days it was. Oh, the sort of the top Brits to finish like there's any one or two Brits to finish in the top 10, like, or maybe I could finish in the top 10. And I remember watching the James Cracknell documentary when he did. And he was the, the leading Brit finishing 11th for for quite a while. amazing experience and to then get back to the UK and be offered to do and to compete in some races and I'm I'm a massive massive yes man and I just hate saying no to anything and uh can I tell you my marathon disablers yes yes man story then please do um one of my um let's call them a subscriber or or friend at home mail me to say Chris come on he's a french foreign legionnaire right or or former legionnaire come on Chris march or die me and you marathon of the sands we can do it i said yeah i i know i can do it i said but are you going to cough up the five thousand pounds for it he said yeah okay so okay if you want he said right you know do you want to meet me i said no let's we can meet at the start line if you're a tosser i'll just leave you behind i'm joking i'm joking friends but well i'm sort of you know you've always got that option right so learn behold i managed to get two spare places because there's a two or three year waiting list normally isn't there yeah and i think it was because of let's not say the word that's going on at the minute because it gets us in trouble with youtube censorship but because of the current situation people a lot of people had dropped out and so i got a place for me in this guy and when i handed in the bill i never heard from him again he blocked me on everything right oh no so being there i can't say no i'm out with a credit card and and so i was supposed to have run it this year tom and now then they delayed it from they delayed it from the summer until september or something now they've rescheduled it for next year yeah so i'm i'm all ears my question for you is these very fast um sub-saharan African runners do they wear the gators on their trainers yeah yeah everyone does you almost can't i wouldn't recommend it the only person i know who hasn't worn gators on his trainers is dunk and slater um who hasn't got any legs that was the he's the only he's the only person who i'd recommend not to have gators because he is not getting any blisters on his feet um and i i was fortunate enough i know i know dunks really well and we did mountain to sub in the first year and he was the first double leg amputee to finish mountain to sub um but yeah it's it's gators it's gators all the way 100 percent i didn't know if that was some pansy you know i say this a lot in in these kind of sports you people like to be a bit elite and a bit snobbish and i don't think there's ever a sport where people worry so much um before entering a race you go on the forums and it's how many energy joes should i be shoving up my nose every six minutes and you know of course being military i've got the attitude as long as you've got a pair of trainers on and there's water somewhere on the course that's you can worry about everything else later right 100 yeah and i would i would take and i definitely took that attitude but no gators is a is a must yeah yeah you've got a very it would be like pulling on a pair of issue military boots five minutes before deploying on an exercise in the breccan beacons and being soaking wet for the whole thing and just feet just being completely torn apart yes you could get through it but it's going to be bad enough as it is make your life a little bit easier for yourself so for friends at home the marathon disablers it's a it's a week long race it's across the sahara desert or at least the moroccan part of it you're running anything up to two marathons or slightly more a day you can have to carry all your own equipment except for water how much did your pack weigh six and a half kilos so that's you got it down to the which is which is the minute and there is there is absolutely no need to be any heavier i definitely could have gone lighter um but there are a couple of a couple of tricks so for example your first breakfast on day one is obviously when you do your bag weigh in it's obviously included but you're eating your breakfast before you go running so you can have sort of a a tin of Heinz beans and sausage or whatever you want for your breakfast it's obviously very heavy but you're then eating it so you're never carrying it um so there are some little little tricks that but no there is absolutely no need for anyone's pack to be any more than than six and a half kilos was it really hot i know it's a silly question but i i like running in the heat it was it it was a different heat to what anything that i felt before incredibly dry and it's the first time that i'd sort of felt breathing in the air the air felt hot and because the ground is so hard and so light it reflects a lot of the heat but it doesn't come up that high so you've got the heat coming down you've then also got the heat coming up so you do feel there are certain parts that you do feel like you're in an oven and i think i think we got up to like 42 and a half 43 degrees um so it it's hot it's not crazy crazy hot um but yeah it's just it's just an extra an extra element of a challenge that an extra element something you need to deal with um during the race so tom did you leave the army to pursue this or are you still serving no i i left in july july the first last year um i just thought for me as an officer i was going to be doing a huge disservice to my soldiers by spending so much time on myself um um those are the one thing that i didn't want to happen is for my running to to take more of a role and to take more importance than my soldiers um so yeah i i guess that sort of kind of forced my hand to leave so now i can sort of afford to be selfish because as a as a professional athlete you need to be selfish because your career is is how well you perform in these races and in order to perform well in these races you need to sacrifice a lot and and a lot of that is sort of pretty un-conjusive to to working in a team and to having sort of friends that you see every day and doing nice social things because you spend a lot of time on your own a lot of and then when you're not training you're very tired from training um so yeah sadly it was it just it just couldn't work out but having said that there's no way that i'd be where i was now without the support from the British Army and the Welsh Guards in particular sort of giving me the time to to go and train while i was still serving and suddenly my last six months to really go and pursue what i loved and sort of what i was what i was next going on to and still speak to the officers and still speak to a lot of the soldiers who've on a pretty much a weekly basis um yeah which is which is really nice so i definitely know they've they've still got my back which is nice and i'm guessing it frees you up for sponsorship am i am i right yeah exactly it's just getting a little bit a little bit difficult with trail running is a very sponsorship orientated sport now because it's such a hugely growing sport so brands want you to align with them and with the army it was just a little bit difficult and you end up sort of slightly stepping on people's toes so yeah it was just it was the most straightforward thing to do and with where i would like to get in an endurance sport then yeah it's definitely the right decision and i guess with the army as well like i was sort of kind of at the kind of at the stage where i needed to decide on what career path i wanted to go on as i was either either sort of commit and spend the next sort of 10 10 years serving or actually at that point is it is it time to get out and to follow something else so yeah i if i admit that if i had the chance to make the decision again would i make the same one yes 100 but that doesn't mean that i didn't enjoy my time that i'm absolutely loved it it was just it was just time to move on and as i think a lot of people as a lot of people do these days if you do something you love and i would have much rather have left a year before i stopped enjoying it rather than a day after i stopped enjoying it i very well said you know a lot of people get trapped into the forces because they realize it's not for them anymore but the fear of going into what we call civvy street can be very daunting and to find something that's a good bet to to you know that that's quite a fortunate thing to do yeah i have absolutely no idea i had i not had this running route i probably would have wanted to have left anyway and i would have had absolutely no idea what i wanted to do so i probably would have stayed in as i think a lot of people really struggle and you see so many people sort of leave and try and sort of work in civvy street for a couple of years but then end up rejoining because they just didn't find they just didn't find what they were looking for so they realize that the grass the grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side and actually they love what they did and they want to go back to it because it's it's normal for them yeah you you found something that's as exciting as being in the military and it and and as physical and and if i know i know running's a solitary thing but it's still like you're a you're a team as in that you know you've got a lot of fellow performers and you form some good friendships don't you yeah definitely and i think massively as part of a team i guess like like the military and i definitely think if you take a you take a unit for example you've got you take the world's guards for example you have the your infantry soldiers then around that you've got so if you're the signals platoon and you've got the engineers and you've got the remies to look after the vehicles and everyone's doing their specialist role and even now as a yes ultra running as an individual sport i've still got the most incredible team around me from my nutrition list to my physios to my sportsman sir to my coach to my strength conditioning instructor to my manager to my partner sophie we are this great team and everyone plays their individual role in my overall performance i couldn't do what i do without them and without me they wouldn't they wouldn't have to do this um so yeah i think it's 100% of teamwork and i think you realize in i've definitely realized learn the lesson of the military i not there is not one person who's the best at everything everyone's got their own individual skills i think one of the great forms of leadership is finding what people are good at and getting them to do what they are good at and better than you at because then at the end of the day you come up with a better end product which yeah which is what you want you wouldn't ask you wouldn't ask your signals platoon to launch a mortar attack um and vice versa because you know just end up in absolute carnage no probably end up in quite a lot of things if i remember our mortar mortar yeah tom let's talk about the iconic western states um a little bit reverse polarity there or um you're talking about the team you know the team is a bigger thing i as individual i love it in life taking little bits from other other achievers across and that's across a whole every single discipline whether it's eating breathing sports writing podcasting in ultra running you've got some great people to learn from i'm thinking scott jurek um didn't just learn a lot about running from him but i learned a lot about diet um dean carnazes if you're talking doing super ultra silly distances um and by reading such books i got to hear of this western states so it's a hundred mile race at the end it's famous because you get a buckle if you complete it in under the 24 hours and originally it was run by on it was raced on horseback but there was a guy his horse went lame and he said okay i'm gonna run it and everyone said you're crazy it's in america it's through through the mountains and through the desert um over over to you tom yeah it was for me i think the hundred mile distance is just so iconic because certainly from the uk we talk about all of our distances are in miles so it's and a hundred is just such a round number that yeah and i guess it's just growing it's such a huge huge challenge for anyone who's ever thought about ultra running and if you actually look on a map and you see how far a hundred miles is whenever i see it in the car and i put it in my satnav and i realized it's a hundred mile i'm like geez i'm gonna have to stop at least it probably at least twice on this drive and so i knew i wanted to do a hundred mile and i i knew that i yeah i wanted to step in and step up to that distance and see what happened and for me i think i wanted something a little bit more than than just performance um yes i could have done the south downs way hundred mile or i could have done sort of other hundred miles in the uk or anywhere else but i wanted it to be an iconic one and i wanted it to be to mean something more than than just running and for me that the history of the race of western states being the original hundred miler for me just meant like right that's the one that i want to do i think that's that's the one that's the most iconic that's the one that's going to mean the most to me and when i look back and think right what was my first hundred miler to be able to say oh yeah it was western states and people are like oh that's the one that's the one that they used to raise horses along and it's just for me it's having that that buy-in to the race is so important and understanding the race and learning about the race itself was um yeah was fundamental for me for the sort of the planning process of it and yeah a hundred miles is is a seriously seriously long way would be my first would be my first takeaway um and it was a huge challenge but i think yeah as i sort of as you in the military and i think as you do in in everyday life so you can't just take if you get given a huge challenge at work or a huge project at work that's going to take you six months you can't if you looked at it is in one piece or if you're writing a book and if you looked it in one piece it'd be incredibly daunting and a real challenge and very intimidating as does a hundred miles look but actually you break it down and whether it's a book chapter by chapter or paragraph by paragraph or if you're doing a big project at work week by week or phase by phase you then break it you break it down and it seems so much more achievable and for me that's that was sort of my my big mental takeaway my big mental lesson that i learned during western states i just broke it down into sort of bite-sized chunks and for me yes it's still it's still a long distance i i broke the race down into four 25 mile races yes 25 miles is still pretty much a marathon it's still a seriously seriously long way and definitely should not be underestimated but for me it just massively simplified the race i mean it's like right i'm just gonna do four of these like that's fine um and yeah i really learned really learned there that yes i knew that and i sort of would preach and i'd talk about how sort of important mental strength is for for running but when you actually when you're doing something that you believe you can do but maybe six months ago you didn't think was possible but you're doing it and you're then there on the finish line running the race quicker than you ever thought you you possibly could um and finishing on the podium is yeah was was just an incredible experience and yeah one of my definitely one of my fondest memories from ultra running so far um and yeah just such such an iconic race that is yeah that makes it i've got a there's a got a big sort of frames picture in the house of my me finishing the finishing the race across in the finish line um and then below it my race number and i see it every day and every time i see it it sort of does make me remember i can have if i've had a if i've had a hard run here or i've not sort of trained as well as i could have done or i'm a little bit unmotivated and i sort of look in and sort of remember it's sort of the good times and sort of remember how how much how far hard work goes um yeah just um just an incredible experience when how many times have you run the western states now is it just once the once just once yeah did they know because it's such an iconic event and and there's a lot of pre-build-up so they're looking at this guy as the favorite or this this female as the favorite this year did they know how good you are when you rocked up there i think i was i was probably ranked to finish maybe in the top 10 um like yeah i had a i had a little bit of reputation after after winning a couple of big races um in 2018 and going into 2019 um but no i don't think it was no i don't i don't really think it was expected to to be on the podium i think it was a little bit of a little bit of a surprise like i thought that it was if i had my best day then i thought that well it's 100 miles anything can happen um people describe 100 mile races especially western states as life in a day you go through all emotions you go through the highs the lows both mentally and physically and and anything can happen and if you look at the ladies race last year sort of the top those who were ranked in the top four all dropped out of the race whereas in the men's race it was a different story and no one really dropped out so anything anything can happen i think it just makes you have to be even more mentally even more mentally strong because you've got to be able to adapt to these things because you don't know you don't know what's around the corner and i think that's the great thing about trail running is it's not over till it's over um it's not like 100 meter sprint that you can see everyone and you can see the finish from the start this is a twisty turny up down um someone could someone could roll their ankle with a mile to go and you could they catch them with 10 meters to go like these these things happen and i think it's yeah you've got to give your best until the very end and i think i definitely think that sort of my military training and something that something that i learned in the military and i think it's a great phrase is as a professional athlete you're you're training to perform your best when you're feeling your best but as a soldier you're being trained to perform your best when you're feeling your worst and i think that's what an ultramarathon is the races are finished the races are won and lost in the closing stages when you're feeling your worst and can i give my best performance when i'm feeling horrendous um and i think that's definitely yeah definitely something that i've yeah i've i've pulled on in races that yeah i definitely take from from my military heritage you can always fall back on the fact that if i was doing this in the military i'd be doing it with a hangover now so i'm one step up from that exactly what um what about calorie intake then on on the run itself do you practice any kind of diet in your modern in your everyday life um yes yes i do but it is a very i say it's pretty more old-fashioned like i don't i don't cut out any any major food groups um i eat fairly normally and i say the diet my the way that my nutrition is basic it's very similar to my training it's very periodized and and that's pretty much just done on my carbohydrate intake if this morning like today for example i have an easy day my and tomorrow i have a pretty easy day my carbohydrate intake is is very low um but i still eat meat and i don't really i don't really anything processed um and but yeah diet is diet is pretty straightforward and i think is for me it's probably i do a lot of things in life that are are hard and going to as i for example last year i did a two-month training camp in Ethiopia and if out there if i had been vegetarian i probably could have just got away with maybe but you would need to supplement a lot because there just is not like there isn't a supermarket um they don't have fridges they don't do yogurt they don't do cold milk for example so you would find it very difficult but you could probably get away with it but if you were you followed a vegan diet or a gluten-free diet or something like that that was not medically necessary but that was your lifestyle choice i would you are making life significantly harder if not impossible to do without that when you're putting yourself through so much stress anyway just through the training so i guess for me i want to be able to keep consistency so anything that i can sort of eat in the uk anything i'm going to be able to eat sort of away on training camps i want to be able to to have when i'm when i'm in the uk so yes i do follow a diet i don't i don't necessarily count calories um i know i've been doing this now for long enough i know what a serving size looks like i know what a full serving size looks like i know what half the serving size looks like um yes i might weigh things like i weigh porridge in the morning if i've got a particularly hard run um because that's what i do on a race um but no no no sort of hidden diet or anything i think people quite like either it's sort of kind of 50 50 either people want you to have a sort of secret diet of something that you eat this and you're going to be able to do this and then other people like oh it's just great to see that actually you're you're pretty normal with some so much talk these days of different diets and everything and i think i don't get me wrong i if i if i could and yes i i i could it would be great and i'm sure there are there are definitely there is definitely signs that suggest that a couple of years ago that ketosis is the way forward and there is there is signs now sort of that would say that uh being sort of completely plant-based would be is the right thing and the best thing for endurance but i think it it's very it's very individual and definitely depends on your circumstances and yes if i was if i was going to be in the uk forever and i knew that i was going to have access to certain foods or not certain foods for the whole time then great like but i think for me as an athlete you get your main breakthroughs when you're really consistent and that's not just with training that's with recovery and definitely with nutrition as well so i think that's a very long word me answering to know i eat everything um but i was thinking it's so important to be able to treat yourself with food and have you ever um have you ever tested your your ph level with testing strips no i highly recommend it the reason i say it is i was a abysmal runner in the military um always struggled with it always just you know i obviously i always got through because to wear a green berry you've got got to you've got to get through it but it was hard it just even running with the lads for a four-miler on a fizz morning i'd be the guy not at the back but just praying this shit was over and i could be in a nice hot shower and then hopefully they send us home by 12 o'clock but i just remember when i went alkaline um and you can test if you're alkaline you can buy p8 strips time i'm talking to people i'm not lecturing you i'm talking to you know it's really interesting people at home and when and when your body's alkaline i went running and i ran i ran a bit faster then i ran eat and then i just ran flat out my four-miler i couldn't the harder i tried to run and time myself out the the better i just ran and i only thought i mentioned it because um i talk a lot about the alkaline diet on the podcast just because it's i mean just not being ill for 17 years is i think it's something people need to know about them yeah um when i got went to john o groats even though i'd literally done no training i think i might have run a mile around around the block um i just knew i was going to smash it because you you get like on this cloud nine when your ph level's good it's like a real natural high so there's my tip for you if you yeah i give it i'll but and then that that's the thing i think you can you can learn so much from from so many different people and it's something that i've never really considered but i'm a yeah a bit of a through when you use the strips it's going to tell you if your body is acidic and my my i'm a great believer in just using common logic i don't believe in fads or trends my common logic would be if your body's working the way it would be in a natural environment because your your ph is down the middle you're going to be functioning you know on a physical level you're going to be functioning the way nature intended and we are incredible human beings you know yeah no no 100 on the i'm conscious of your time it on because i know you need to get away don't you yeah um should we just sort of finish off then what i was going to say is what's your race nutrition when you're actually running what what what sort of principles do you basically stick to so i think it's it really depends on on the run you're doing so for me sort of training for an old training for an ultimatum racing ultimatum sort of a try and become sort of as fat oxidative as you possibly can and use your fat sources as much as as you possibly can um so you end up not needing to consume that much but take so for race like western states for example because you're still moving pretty quickly for me that was predominantly a liquid liquid diet so it was sort of sports drinks um because it just yeah it just sits really well in my stomach and sort of if you're going to sort of harder patches sort of might have a gel and most people sort of doing ultimatums will eat real food and for a longer race i probably would but it's of any for me sort of anything under sort of 15 hours you can kind of get away with with gels and liquid um you just feel sort of pretty hungry but you're not going to get any you're not getting many stomach issues um but yeah you just you can train for it and so by to becoming sort of slightly more fat oxidative sort of you can sort of achieve that state by sort of doing fasted runs in the morning or sort of reducing your carbohydrate intake sort of at different stages in training and as long as it's not massively affecting your performance in training then then you yeah you can get sort of huge benefits from it but yeah so rather than calories sort of i tend to sort of stick to how many grams of carbohydrate um i'm taking every hour into sits somewhere between sort of one to 1.5 grams of carbohydrate per hour of body weight so for me if you were for example 70 kilos then you'd take somewhere between 70 and 95 grams of carbohydrate per hour every hour after the first hour um i will sort of play around with it a little bit as we've done some long runs sort of very long runs of six hour runs with next to nothing um just to see just to see what my body does um but yeah i think as long as everyone's nutrition is so different everyone's body through burns through burns with calories and uses different energy sources at different points um and yeah i think you just got to find you got to find something that's right and there's that's right for you um and then yeah that would just set you up for success do you use this is it called tailwind this drink no i i don't i i think it's really good and the science the science is there and a lot of people do swear by it i just don't for i need a little bit more energy than that and it's not at sort of in a 500 500 millilitres of liquid you're only getting 25 grams of carbohydrate which which which is great if you're if you're going slowly and you can sort of can afford to carry a little bit more water a little bit more liquid that's great but sort of typically the drink mixes that i'll use have got 80 grams of carbohydrate per 500 millilitres of water i don't want to be consuming that much water unless it's crazy hot but yeah typically if i was for western states for example i'd have a two but two 500 millilitre bottles one of them's got a drink mix that's got 80 grams of carbohydrate in and so i know i need to drink that every hour and then an electrolytes drink mix or just water um in the other bottle and i think it's yeah it's it seems to work um so yeah don't don't sort of try and fix something that's not broken could you name a book a book tom that people listening who want to just start thinking about ultra or maybe they're already on their journey um what's been one of your favorites um i good question i think that there are some really good books out um there and shane benzy um has just released uh a book uh which is really good but also anharod finn or anharon ad finn has just released a book the way of the runner or the way of the ultra runner um well yeah which is really good and so something that i definitely recommend people to have a read through and what's next on your horizon tom what are you what are you building up to now so just a really good winter training block um and then we'll look to to raise the british marathon trial uh for tokyo olympics um which is at the end of march um and yeah we'll we'll roll the dice and and we'll see what happens there but you you can tune yourself to marathon distance yeah we'll we'll see wow you will make you we'll see we'll see is the answer yes are you are you doing the md md md marathon distance no not not next year but i will i will then a year after hopefully okay i was just wondering if we could share a tent next year but no maybe the year after get you back for a second year tom you've been absolutely brilliant on behalf of the board the t-shirt podcast thank you so much um for coming on don't don't feel you've got to hang around i'll just click the the off button on record here to everybody at home big love to you all look after yourselves if you can like and subscribe that's going to help ciao ciao hello friend i hope this finds you well my name is chris trawl i'm a former rawmarine's commando and i fought my way back from chronic trauma and addiction to live work and travel in 80 countries across all seven continents achieving all of my dreams and goals along the way now i pass my simple system on to other people but i can only help you if you like and subscribe so please do so because you get one life and if you live it right one is enough