April 13, 2025

Back Stronger: Stuart Secker’s 100-Mile Ultra Comeback After Prostate Cancer

Back Stronger: Stuart Secker’s 100-Mile Ultra Comeback After Prostate Cancer
Apple Podcasts podcast player icon Spotify podcast player icon YouTube Channel podcast player icon Amazon Music podcast player icon RSS Feed podcast player icon
Season 3

Stuart Secker's return to the Choose to Endure podcast brings a remarkable story of resilience that transcends the typical ultrarunning narrative. Just eight months ago, Stuart received a prostate cancer diagnosis that would change everything. Four months ago, he underwent surgery to remove his prostate. And incredibly, just ten weeks after resuming training, he completed his 21st 100-mile race at the Daufuskie Island 100 in South Carolina.

The conversation takes us through Stuart's entire journey, beginning with that pivotal moment of diagnosis. Rather than being paralyzed by fear, Stuart immediately shifted into problem-solving mode, asking "what's next?" With characteristic British pragmatism, he made a decision that might seem unthinkable to most – to run the brutally challenging Ultra Trail Cape Town 100-mile race just two weeks before his scheduled surgery. Why? Because it might be his last opportunity to experience the profound joy and challenge of ultrarunning.

Stuart doesn't sugarcoat the recovery process. From the physical limitations of having his core muscles cut through during surgery to the psychological challenges of rebuilding his running capacity from scratch, he shares the raw truth of his comeback. His methodical approach to training – starting with short walks, progressing to gentle runs with his wife, and carefully implementing run-walk strategies – offers a masterclass in patient persistence that runners of all abilities can learn from.

What makes this story so compelling isn't just the physical achievement, but Stuart's transformation into an advocate for men's health. With staggering statistics (1 in 8 men in will develop prostate cancer, rising to 1 in 4 for Black men - UK statistics), he emphasizes the critical importance of early detection through regular PSA testing. His message is clear: cancer isn't something that "happens to other people" – it can happen to anyone, and early detection saves lives.

Subscribe now to hear this powerful conversation about what it truly means to endure, both on the trail and in life. Whether you're a back-of-the-pack hero or simply someone facing your own challenges, Stuart's journey will inspire you to keep moving forward with gratitude and determination.

Choose to Endure:
Email:
info@choosetoendure.com

Website:
https://www.choosetoendure.com/

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@ChoosetoEndure

Instagram:
https://instagram.com/choose_to_endure?utm_source=qr

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552757049526

Chapters

00:00 - Welcome and Introduction

03:10 - Stuart's Cancer Diagnosis Journey

09:02 - Ultra Trail Cape Town Before Surgery

15:10 - Surgery Recovery Challenges

21:59 - Return to Running and Race Strategy

27:16 - Daufuskie Island 100 Race Experience

38:25 - Raising Awareness and Looking Forward

47:40 - Episode Closing and Call to Action

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.641 --> 00:00:05.410
Well, hello and welcome again If this happens to be your first time with us.

00:00:05.410 --> 00:00:07.394
Thank you very much for stopping by.

00:00:07.394 --> 00:00:22.353
You are listening to Choose to Endure the show dedicated to the non-elite runners, where we share stories, interviews, gear and training tips specific to the tail end heroes of the Ultra Universe.

00:00:22.353 --> 00:00:24.454
My name is Richard Gleave.

00:00:24.454 --> 00:00:28.522
I have been running Ultras now since 2017.

00:00:28.522 --> 00:00:42.514
I have taken on and finished numerous distances, all the way up through 220 miles, and I am most definitely a member of the back of the pack, just like many of you out there.

00:00:43.539 --> 00:00:54.341
Well, today I am super honored to welcome back an individual who may just have been actually one of the very first guests on the show back in season one Mr Stuart Secker.

00:00:54.341 --> 00:01:05.611
Now, stuart is a seasoned ultra runner from the UK who's tackled some pretty brutal courses across both the US and the UK, where he lives.

00:01:05.611 --> 00:01:10.087
But this time we're not just talking about racing internationally.

00:01:10.087 --> 00:01:13.081
We're going to talk about something a little bit bigger too.

00:01:13.081 --> 00:01:18.906
Eight months ago, stuart was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

00:01:18.906 --> 00:01:36.254
Four months ago, he had surgery and just 10 weeks after resuming training, he completed his 21st 100-mile race at the and I may butcher this name Daufuskie Island 100 in South Carolina.

00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:50.308
Now in the episode, we're going to dive into the physical, mental and emotional journey of diagnosis, recovery and comeback, and what it means to truly endure, not just on the trail but in life.

00:01:50.308 --> 00:01:59.748
It's raw, it's honest conversation and I think every runner, particularly those of us in the back of the pack, can find something meaningful in it.

00:01:59.748 --> 00:02:08.573
So let's go Discover raw, inspiring stories from runners who've been right where you are.

00:02:08.573 --> 00:02:18.651
This is the Choose to Endure Ultra Running Podcast With your host he's English, not Australian Richard Gleave.

00:02:18.651 --> 00:02:35.062
All right, stuart, before we dive into your comeback and the race itself, I just wanted to first of all welcome you to the show again and to take you back to where this journey really began Last year.

00:02:35.062 --> 00:02:42.414
You're diagnosed with prostate cancer and everything changed, from surgery to recovery to rebuilding.

00:02:42.414 --> 00:02:48.409
For listeners who might not know that full story, I think this was a pretty pivotal moment for you.

00:02:48.409 --> 00:02:53.819
Do you remember where you were when you first heard the diagnosis?

00:02:53.819 --> 00:02:56.367
What was that moment like for you?

00:02:57.069 --> 00:02:58.602
Hey Richard, yeah, it was some.

00:02:58.602 --> 00:03:03.573
I guess the kind of the diagnosis was a buildup to it.

00:03:03.573 --> 00:03:18.312
So I have a annual work medical, which I'm really fortunate to have it's not a routine thing here in the uk at all and that pointed out an elevated level of prostate specific antigen, psa.

00:03:18.312 --> 00:03:25.792
We can probably talk a lot about psa, and so off the back of that they said we think you should go and have a scan.

00:03:25.792 --> 00:03:31.133
So I went and had an mri scan and that showed up something that was maybe not quite right.

00:03:31.915 --> 00:03:45.753
Well, it could be nothing could be, um, could be, could be a problem right so you go and have a biopsy and so by the time you get to the kind of the results of the biopsy and, stuart, you've got cancer.

00:03:45.753 --> 00:04:01.186
You've already mentally prepared yourself a little bit because you wouldn't have gone so far on that journey if it wasn't a possibility right right and so when I'm sat there in the consulting room with my urologist and he, he gives me the results of the biopsy.

00:04:01.447 --> 00:04:04.973
It's it's not great news, but it's not a total shock either.

00:04:04.973 --> 00:04:07.943
So I've had a bit of time to get myself ready.

00:04:07.943 --> 00:04:09.747
For what, if that is the answer?

00:04:10.027 --> 00:04:16.185
goodness me so you know, I I wasn't sat there dumbstruck or anything else, it was.

00:04:16.185 --> 00:04:17.689
It was very much okay.

00:04:17.689 --> 00:04:18.511
So what's next?

00:04:18.511 --> 00:04:19.740
What do we do with that?

00:04:19.740 --> 00:04:21.906
And he was really good actually.

00:04:21.906 --> 00:04:24.880
He just said well, the first thing you need to do is go and read a whole bunch of stuff.

00:04:24.880 --> 00:04:26.983
And he gave is go and read a whole bunch of stuff.

00:04:26.983 --> 00:04:35.035
And he gave me a whole bunch of stuff to read and some websites to go look at and then said come back in a week's time and we can have another chat about where we go from here.

00:04:35.814 --> 00:04:43.139
Did you go through kind of a spectrum of emotions, either by yourself at the house or wherever, or did you move straight to what is it I need to do?

00:04:43.139 --> 00:04:44.269
How did you move straight to what?

00:04:44.269 --> 00:04:44.576
What is it I need to do?

00:04:44.576 --> 00:04:45.028
How did you kind of?

00:04:45.028 --> 00:04:45.122
How did it?

00:04:45.122 --> 00:04:45.944
How did you get there?

00:04:46.786 --> 00:04:53.526
I think I I went through that whole bargaining acceptance thing really quickly and it was just very much.

00:04:53.526 --> 00:04:57.740
Okay, this is not great news, right, but but kind of like, what do I do now?

00:04:58.321 --> 00:05:05.550
there's no point in you know I I I probably had more of the kind of the why is this happening to me?

00:05:05.550 --> 00:05:20.774
Thing once after the surgery actually Okay, when I really did get to a point of feeling a bit sorry for myself and I felt very self-indulgent for doing that, because fundamentally I was a good news story.

00:05:20.774 --> 00:05:23.588
My prostate cancer was caught really early.

00:05:23.588 --> 00:05:26.922
It was all contained within the gland.

00:05:26.922 --> 00:05:32.153
Your prostate is an organ that, once you've had kids, you can basically live without.

00:05:32.153 --> 00:05:38.362
It's not like having cancer of the brain or the liver or the pancreas, where you obviously can't live without one of those things.

00:05:38.362 --> 00:05:41.009
So long as it's caught in time.

00:05:41.009 --> 00:05:45.908
I felt one of the lucky ones and so I felt a bit self-indulgent to feel sorry for myself.

00:05:46.067 --> 00:05:53.987
But yeah that is just how I felt, but but at the time it was, it was just kind of okay, here's a um, here's a hurdle, right, what's uh?

00:05:53.987 --> 00:05:54.970
What do we do about it?

00:05:55.492 --> 00:05:55.932
now is that?

00:05:55.932 --> 00:06:00.939
Has that always been your personality or do you feel like like you've done a lot of hundred mile races?

00:06:00.939 --> 00:06:02.846
You know you dnf some.

00:06:02.846 --> 00:06:04.271
You've succeeded in a lot.

00:06:04.271 --> 00:06:14.266
Do you feel like those 100 mile races and what you've gone through in order to learn how to finish those and and deal with the emotional and physical stuff there, did that help you?

00:06:14.266 --> 00:06:19.733
Do you think, or has that just been your personality and your personality has helped you here and on the hundreds?

00:06:20.375 --> 00:06:21.940
my hunch is it's probably the latter.

00:06:21.940 --> 00:06:32.035
I mean, I'd love to think that kind kind of running 100 mile races has made me bulletproof, but kind of you know, I've got the DNF record to show that.

00:06:32.035 --> 00:06:56.548
Ain't true, being in the moment and, uh, being present in the moment and and solving the problem that's right in front of you is probably key to success in in ultra running, like like, like you know, and I think that that definitely helped also yeah deal with the deal with the.

00:06:56.767 --> 00:07:01.704
You know the, the news last summer did you have any warning signs?

00:07:01.764 --> 00:07:09.916
looking back with, with hindsight, do you feel like there was anything there that would have alerted you, physical or otherwise, that something may be off?

00:07:10.276 --> 00:07:11.980
no, not really.

00:07:11.980 --> 00:07:22.107
I mean, men of our age definitely should keep an eye out for for those, for the sorts of symptoms that go with prostate cancer.

00:07:22.107 --> 00:07:35.872
They're they're private symptoms and so people often don't want to talk about them, sometimes don't go and see their doctor when they should, because you know it's basically problems with, you know, kind of going to the toilet or having sex, right.

00:07:35.872 --> 00:07:40.451
So these are things many men don't want to talk about because basically men are rubbish.

00:07:41.432 --> 00:07:41.673
Yeah.

00:07:42.180 --> 00:07:46.029
But, as it happens for me, I didn't have any of those symptoms.

00:07:46.069 --> 00:07:52.619
It was literally a routine medical check that caught it really early, so you had no no kind of prior prior thought.

00:07:52.619 --> 00:07:57.110
Yeah, yeah, and then I and you told me this just before we got on air here.

00:07:57.110 --> 00:08:05.067
So I think we've got to talk about this too, because, having received the diagnosis, you've worked through some of the mental and emotional stuff.

00:08:05.067 --> 00:08:07.267
You're trying to figure out what you're doing here.

00:08:07.267 --> 00:08:16.014
Two weeks prior to surgery, you go and run the Ultra Trail Cape Town 100-mile race.

00:08:16.014 --> 00:08:22.153
Yeah, now, folks, if you don't know much about this race, this is a pretty darn tough race.

00:08:22.153 --> 00:08:25.028
There's, like I want to say, 25,000 feet.

00:08:25.028 --> 00:08:25.829
What is that, stuart?

00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:29.911
It's about kind of 7,500 meters, yeah.

00:08:31.023 --> 00:08:33.389
Yeah, I mean, this is not an easy race.

00:08:33.389 --> 00:08:43.551
And so you have cancer, you haven't gone for the surgery yet, you're still dealing with some of this and you're off running the Ultra Trail Cape Town 100.

00:08:43.551 --> 00:08:45.447
So walk us through that.

00:08:45.447 --> 00:08:53.331
Was that something you had already previously planned, presumably, and you chose to keep doing that, knowing that you had prostate cancer.

00:08:54.741 --> 00:09:00.690
Yeah, I booked it once I'd had the diagnosis, but before I decided that surgery was the right answer for me, wow.

00:09:00.690 --> 00:09:08.542
But when I did reach the decision on surgery, it then became, I think, really a you know kind of.

00:09:08.542 --> 00:09:12.914
I was mindful that it could be a send-off, the surgery.

00:09:12.914 --> 00:09:15.662
You know you're under general anaesthetic.

00:09:15.662 --> 00:09:28.750
Bad stuff can happen and you never know what you're going to find, and so it was not likely, but it was definitely possible, that this would be it for 100 mile races, and so I wanted to really go out with a bang.

00:09:28.750 --> 00:09:38.633
I wanted to do something really special, and there's no doubt that running 100 miler in Cape Town is an incredibly special thing to do.

00:09:38.633 --> 00:09:43.080
I mean, more cities should just have mountains right outside them, yeah Right.

00:09:44.765 --> 00:09:57.662
And literally you go up and down table mountain, I don't know, kind of four or five times, and it's like a 3 000 foot mountain that stretches from the you know, from the ocean, to the to the summit, and the trail is gnarly as hell.

00:09:57.662 --> 00:09:58.926
And you've got I.

00:09:58.926 --> 00:10:09.761
I had to go past a pack of baboons that were literally within touching distance, at the side of the trail kind of, and the baby looked pretty cute, but the daddies looked pretty mean good grief and you know that's that.

00:10:09.761 --> 00:10:12.268
That's that's just what you um that either.

00:10:12.268 --> 00:10:21.442
That's what you deal with on that, on that course and it was, it was a special place to go and it was a special race to do and I I mean it's a hard rock qualifier.

00:10:21.442 --> 00:10:33.783
For a reason, when I crossed that finish line, I was in floods of tears.

00:10:33.783 --> 00:10:37.129
Firstly, I'd put in 44 hours of effort to get to that finish line.

00:10:37.129 --> 00:10:47.561
It was a big old race, but also it was okay.

00:10:47.561 --> 00:10:48.582
So maybe this is my swan song.

00:10:48.602 --> 00:10:49.605
If it is, I've just had an amazing two days.

00:10:49.605 --> 00:10:51.570
Wow, was that on your mind through the race then?

00:10:51.570 --> 00:11:03.974
Or were you able to just focus on the race and then it sort of all hit there at the finish yeah, I didn't really dare to think about finishing until maybe 10 miles from the end.

00:11:03.994 --> 00:11:11.946
you, you know, once I got through the last aid station and had enough time you know, I had something like four hours to do the last 10 miles I thought, okay, I've got this.

00:11:11.946 --> 00:11:16.705
And that was the point at which I started to think about finishing.

00:11:16.705 --> 00:11:18.009
And then what's next?

00:11:18.009 --> 00:11:33.142
Up until that point I was just struggling to make it to the next checkpoint before it closed, and not necessarily because of the cancer, but because, as a hard flipping race, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a damned hard, it's a damned hard race.

00:11:33.482 --> 00:11:34.245
It really really is.

00:11:34.245 --> 00:11:36.990
As I say, it's, it's a hard rock qualifier.

00:11:36.990 --> 00:11:41.975
For a reason it's the only hard rock qualifier on on the african continent and there's a.

00:11:41.975 --> 00:11:45.926
There's a whole festival of races around it and it's a really international field as well.

00:11:45.926 --> 00:11:50.282
I mean, I met a guy from florida who was there to to bag a hard rock qualifier.

00:11:50.282 --> 00:12:04.067
So you know, you've got people flying from all over the world to to run in this on this race, just because it's so wonderful yeah, it's a long way from leatherhead too to uh yeah it's even further from florida.

00:12:04.629 --> 00:12:09.701
To be fair, I'm sure it is, yeah so I just so you mentioned baboons.

00:12:09.721 --> 00:12:11.907
Were there any other like cool animals like what?

00:12:12.248 --> 00:12:45.551
I have the impression that baboons are quite testy, yeah, yeah, I mean, when you've got a pack of baboons and and, um, I know there's like 20 or so of them and you know they're kind of, and you know they're kind of the, as I say, they're kind of the babies were sat on a little wall by the trail and they look pretty cute, but then they're kind of the daddies kind of like sauntered into the middle of the trail and happily I had my poles out at this time so I could just sort of like, kind of like wave my poles in the big guy's faces and they decided that I could probably go past.

00:12:45.571 --> 00:12:49.264
Wow, how big are we talking?

00:12:49.264 --> 00:12:50.870
I have no idea how big a baboon is.

00:12:52.364 --> 00:12:54.330
Yeah, so they ain't gorilla-sized or anything.

00:12:54.330 --> 00:12:56.485
They're probably kind of a bit bigger than chimps.

00:12:56.485 --> 00:13:00.649
They're mean enough and with bad enough teeth Big enough, yeah.

00:13:00.649 --> 00:13:05.202
Especially when there's a pack of them right, if they wanted to take you down, they really could.

00:13:05.202 --> 00:13:07.669
Good grief, wow, I mean there was a.

00:13:07.669 --> 00:13:17.789
There was a kind of a mean looking snake as well, but kind of to americans, that sort of you know man I I've I've run with gators and bison.

00:13:17.970 --> 00:13:21.022
Bison are pretty mean too, especially in calf season.

00:13:21.022 --> 00:13:26.153
Those are massive animals and we're about to go run with some interesting snakes.

00:13:26.273 --> 00:13:28.385
So but never a baboon that's.

00:13:28.485 --> 00:13:32.599
That's a new one to me, so yeah but nonetheless a fantastic job.

00:13:32.619 --> 00:13:34.864
Getting through the ultra trail cape town.

00:13:34.864 --> 00:13:48.229
I would think that's probably a cancer aside for a moment, that's probably a really good sort of destination race to, uh, oh, completely look out for for folks if they're looking for a different environment, some, you know, a change of run.

00:13:48.229 --> 00:13:49.451
Oh, completely yeah.

00:13:49.451 --> 00:13:54.104
So then two weeks later you're in and having surgery.

00:13:54.104 --> 00:13:58.873
Yeah and so so, yeah, how I assume the surgery went well.

00:13:58.873 --> 00:14:01.163
How was the recovery from the surgery?

00:14:01.163 --> 00:14:03.129
Was it slow going and what?

00:14:03.129 --> 00:14:06.379
What was on your mind coming out of that surgery?

00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:07.802
yeah, so, so, um.

00:14:07.802 --> 00:14:11.289
So the surgery, they obviously they remove the prostate.

00:14:11.289 --> 00:14:14.102
The prostate is wrapped around the um urethra.

00:14:14.102 --> 00:14:18.721
That's the, that's the tube that takes uh, goes between the bladder and and the outside world.

00:14:18.721 --> 00:14:20.384
So you've got a.

00:14:20.384 --> 00:14:22.808
Whilst that heals, you've got a catheter in for 10 days.

00:14:22.808 --> 00:14:24.591
That's not pleasant at all.

00:14:30.841 --> 00:14:32.583
And so your mobility is pretty restricted.

00:14:32.583 --> 00:14:38.793
All prostate surgery these days is basically done as robot-assisted oh really, wow.

00:14:38.793 --> 00:14:59.469
So they kind of put these little holes in the side of your stomach and the sort of the robot arms kind of go into to, kind of to do the cutting and stitching together and stuff, and then there's a kind of a probably a two-inch cut right by your belly button, which is where they take the prostate out from.

00:14:59.469 --> 00:15:09.552
And so the most notable thing really, once you're out, apart from the catheter, is that essentially they've just taken a two-inch slice right down the middle of your core.

00:15:09.552 --> 00:15:24.535
And obviously, as runners, we know the importance of the core, right, yeah, but I had no real idea that it was so essential even for sitting upright in a chair with a back and arms Wow.

00:15:28.179 --> 00:15:39.809
Upright in a chair with a with a back and arms wow, and by one two o'clock in the afternoon, I would be in so much discomfort from from that from my core that basically just been ripped, ripped in half for this surgery, that I just have to lie down.

00:15:39.809 --> 00:15:41.701
I mean, there was no, there was no alternative.

00:15:41.701 --> 00:15:45.043
Even even sitting up in bed wasn't really an option.

00:15:45.043 --> 00:15:56.436
I had to lie down and this lasted for a good like four or five weeks of just not able.

00:15:56.436 --> 00:16:13.735
You know I was able to get out and walk as long as I did it in the morning, because by the time the afternoon came it was just too painful to do anything but just basically lie down on the couch and watch box sets.

00:16:14.320 --> 00:16:20.714
Was there any point at all in there where you were thinking, okay, I don't know how I'm ever going to do running again here.

00:16:20.714 --> 00:16:22.505
When does that come back?

00:16:22.505 --> 00:16:23.649
How is that going to come back?

00:16:23.649 --> 00:16:26.830
Did you have a doubt that you would kind of get back to it?

00:16:26.830 --> 00:16:28.736
Did you always expect to come back?

00:16:28.736 --> 00:16:29.961
It was just a matter of time?

00:16:30.825 --> 00:16:31.366
I mean I.

00:16:31.366 --> 00:16:36.341
I talked to my surgeon about it and he said oh, you should be able to start jogging after four weeks.

00:16:36.341 --> 00:16:48.942
My physiotherapist was like no, no, no, no, no, six weeks at the most, ah, so, so so I did decide to err on the side of caution and listen to the listen to the physio.

00:16:48.942 --> 00:16:56.369
Yeah, there are probably a few moments, especially with the castor in, where and where you just thought I don't know the way back from here.

00:16:56.369 --> 00:16:57.753
I was really helped by.

00:16:57.753 --> 00:17:02.288
I chatted to a guy, robin, before surgery.

00:17:03.230 --> 00:17:44.873
He's a, a coaching client of a friend of my coach, okay, and he'd been through the surgery three years before and had gotten back to running the lakeland hundred like six weeks after surgery in an amazing time, and so I thought, okay, is you know, kind of he's a better athlete than I am, but maybe it's possible, right yeah and I had this race to defusky island I think you pronounced it okay in in in the calendar anyways and um, and I thought, okay, that can be my, you know that can, that can be my focus if I, if I take six weeks off running but try and do some aerobic exercise, some walking, maybe sitting on an exercise bike no, actually I didn't do that.

00:17:44.873 --> 00:17:46.584
That's a bad idea, uh.

00:17:46.584 --> 00:17:51.843
But do so, do some, do some walking and maybe do some kind of body weight squats and stuff.

00:17:51.843 --> 00:17:55.750
Then for six weeks and then kind of 10 weeks of running.

00:17:55.750 --> 00:17:57.920
Maybe I can, maybe I can get around it.

00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:00.142
At least I can give it a go.

00:18:00.602 --> 00:18:02.923
I love that attitude and yeah, yeah, I would agree.

00:18:02.923 --> 00:18:05.125
I think sometimes it's just about belief.

00:18:05.125 --> 00:18:12.910
When you hear and talk to someone who's done it, who is in your situation, suddenly you feel like, oh well, it can be done.

00:18:12.910 --> 00:18:14.490
If they can do it, maybe I can do it too.

00:18:14.490 --> 00:18:18.133
And that gives you that push to believe you can.

00:18:18.133 --> 00:18:21.615
So I assume you did your squats and whatnot.

00:18:21.615 --> 00:18:23.817
But what did those first runs feel like, did it?

00:18:23.817 --> 00:18:25.657
Did it feel kind of weird?

00:18:25.657 --> 00:18:27.202
Was there any lasting impact?

00:18:27.423 --> 00:18:32.381
yeah, first, first time I went out, um, I, uh, I, I persuaded my wife to go with me.

00:18:32.381 --> 00:18:41.483
She, she, she does run, but kind of she, she's perfectly happy doing kind of 11, 12 minute mile pace yeah and so, and so it was a.

00:18:41.663 --> 00:18:41.903
It was a.

00:18:41.903 --> 00:18:47.951
I thought this is the best way of me not getting ahead of myself is to go out with her and um, and and it was.

00:18:47.951 --> 00:18:50.575
It was hard, like you'd expect.

00:18:50.575 --> 00:19:04.608
I mean, if you've not, if you've not run for six weeks or not done any exercise at all for six weeks, it's definitely going to be hard to get out and run, even if it's, even if you're just doing three, four miles, and then you've got the surgery piece on top as well.

00:19:04.628 --> 00:19:06.722
But yeah, I found it really tiring.

00:19:06.722 --> 00:19:15.794
I also found bits of my knees and ankles and stuff hurt because they hadn't been used to doing it.

00:19:15.794 --> 00:19:18.882
They haven't been used to doing anything for six, seven weeks.

00:19:18.882 --> 00:19:32.516
So, um, so it was really for me then a question of trying to calibrate my return to running at the at the level of the weakest part, because I feel like you've got so many different parts with running.

00:19:32.516 --> 00:19:44.750
You've got your ankle strength, your knee strength, you've got your kind of your muscles, you've got your aerobic fitness, I've got my core kind of still with a kind of big scar down the middle and you know kind of still injury.

00:19:44.911 --> 00:19:46.477
Surgery is injury, all right.

00:19:46.477 --> 00:20:02.498
So you kind of still got that kind of the wound inside that's healing, and it was about trying to calibrate to the weakest part, not the strongest part right because it would be easy to get ahead of yourself, because you think, oh yeah, my aerobic fitness hasn't dropped off that much.

00:20:02.557 --> 00:20:10.221
I can, I can, I can kind of go and bash out a tempo session and and that would be a very quick way to get injured.

00:20:10.221 --> 00:20:14.393
Yes, so, um, so, so that's um, so, so it was.

00:20:14.393 --> 00:20:14.713
It was.

00:20:14.713 --> 00:20:21.765
It was a really kind of slow and steady buildup in the mileage over those first eight weeks.

00:20:22.490 --> 00:20:25.519
Did you have any fear of sort of pushing too hard?

00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:28.115
I know you mentioned it a little bit there, but just sort of like.

00:20:28.115 --> 00:20:34.390
It seems like you were deliberately being slow in your return, so to speak.

00:20:34.390 --> 00:20:37.199
But was there ever a time where you were like this might be too much?

00:20:40.069 --> 00:20:42.015
speak, but was there ever a time when you were like this might be too much?

00:20:42.015 --> 00:20:46.464
Yeah, the first time I did 20 miles in my post-op and I got to the end and I and I felt rinsed.

00:20:46.464 --> 00:20:53.469
I thought, oh goodness, I don't, I wouldn't really fancy doing another 80 miles at this point oh, welcome to my world.

00:20:53.648 --> 00:20:55.492
Yeah, that's just my.

00:20:55.492 --> 00:20:56.997
My standard that is stew.

00:20:56.997 --> 00:21:00.423
I'm glad you can appreciate where some of us are at.

00:21:01.511 --> 00:21:26.559
but my, my strategy for this race in in in south carolina was always to do run, walk right from the right from the get-go, and so that's what I built into my training and and I tried to build a good level of fueling into my training at that pace as well, and I got to the point where I was confident I would get far enough in that if I had to walk out the rest, I would be okay.

00:21:27.420 --> 00:21:30.343
And walking was okay, like you didn't have a challenge with walking.

00:21:30.403 --> 00:21:33.726
It was really just the running piece that was the challenge at that point.

00:21:33.746 --> 00:21:35.446
Yeah, yeah okay, so then why?

00:21:35.446 --> 00:21:45.632
So we talked about the Daufuskie Island, if that's how we're saying it?

00:21:45.632 --> 00:21:45.932
I don't know.

00:21:45.932 --> 00:21:48.035
You probably know, as people live there probably are able to pronounce that much better than myself.

00:21:48.035 --> 00:21:49.356
Anyway, you had the Daufuskie Island 100 on your calendar.

00:21:49.356 --> 00:21:49.436
Why?

00:21:49.436 --> 00:21:53.623
I mean, that seems like a race that's a long way away from Leatherhead, near London.

00:21:53.623 --> 00:21:57.449
Why that race for your return to running?

00:21:59.133 --> 00:22:00.917
So I DNF'd it 12 months ago.

00:22:00.917 --> 00:22:07.143
Ah, right, right, it was an inaugural race in 2024.

00:22:07.143 --> 00:22:09.756
And I DNF'd it.

00:22:09.756 --> 00:22:14.701
I got to 60 miles and my guts were complete and utter shambles.

00:22:14.701 --> 00:22:17.298
I could barely walk, wow.

00:22:17.990 --> 00:22:27.829
And so, as soon as it opened up, I, um, I, I, I put myself back in for a repeat visit, and this was this is before I had any inkling that I might have cancer.

00:22:27.829 --> 00:22:41.653
And then um, and then when the then, when the diagnosis did come up, and when the, when the surgery became an option and I was starting to think about dates for the surgery, it became obvious this was a, this was a race that I could go back to.

00:22:41.653 --> 00:22:43.759
I didn't need to cancel it.

00:22:43.759 --> 00:22:44.140
I could.

00:22:44.140 --> 00:22:48.198
You know that I had enough time to um to recover from this.

00:22:48.198 --> 00:22:50.672
I had enough time, in theory anyway, to recover from the surgery.

00:22:50.672 --> 00:22:58.837
To do was to do the Cape Town race to have the surgery and to then recover from the surgery, to then do, then do the race in in south carolina.

00:22:58.837 --> 00:23:00.260
And so it.

00:23:00.721 --> 00:23:01.471
It went from a.

00:23:01.471 --> 00:23:08.083
I just want to go back and kind of not not leave that dnf on my um on my record to.

00:23:08.083 --> 00:23:09.309
This is the.

00:23:09.309 --> 00:23:21.942
You know, this is going to be the focus point for for me, for for those 10 weeks of, or 16 weeks of, post-op recovery, a triumphant return, almost, and I was so.

00:23:21.942 --> 00:23:22.363
I was so.

00:23:22.363 --> 00:23:27.912
I was so pleased to have that already in the diary, because otherwise I might have worried about booking something.

00:23:27.912 --> 00:23:43.099
But having already booked it, it then just became a something that could motivate me to get out, even when I felt a bit uncomfortable, like a big focal point to shoot back for, which I think is great and probably a really good thing in hindsight.

00:23:44.030 --> 00:23:46.619
So tell us a little bit about the Daufuskie Island.

00:23:46.619 --> 00:23:48.556
What is the course like?

00:23:48.556 --> 00:23:54.135
Terrain, atmosphere, I wouldn't imagine it was much like what you left behind in Cape Town.

00:23:55.619 --> 00:23:58.538
No, no, no, it's the other end of the spectrum.

00:23:59.109 --> 00:23:59.330
Yeah.

00:23:59.711 --> 00:24:11.836
So it's a great race and I would heartily recommend people looking for a race down in um, down in the southeastern uh, united states, to to give it a check out it.

00:24:11.836 --> 00:24:15.142
The fusky island is a, um is a is a fairly small island.

00:24:15.142 --> 00:24:15.623
It's um.

00:24:15.623 --> 00:24:17.051
There's no bridge there.

00:24:17.051 --> 00:24:36.939
You have to get a, you have to get a boat to get to the island from the mainland and it's not a big boat either and you know you're traveling through the sound and you've got all these dolphins showing off around you as you get this boat over to the island.

00:24:37.369 --> 00:24:39.529
And there's not many cars on the island.

00:24:39.529 --> 00:24:48.414
Most people drive around in golf carts on dirt roads and there's loads of wildlife on the island, lots of, lots of armadillos.

00:24:48.414 --> 00:24:50.599
You've got two and a half miles of it is on of.

00:24:50.599 --> 00:24:52.463
Every lap is on a beach.

00:24:52.463 --> 00:25:03.294
So the the race is a is six 16.7 mile laps right of the island and part of that loop is you've got two and a half miles of an out and back on a on a beach.

00:25:03.294 --> 00:25:04.477
That's basically.

00:25:04.477 --> 00:25:09.657
Then you've got atlantic ocean right, right in front of you and it's um, uh.

00:25:09.657 --> 00:25:11.144
At high tide you've got not much beach.

00:25:11.144 --> 00:25:13.553
At low tide you've got a massive amount of beach.

00:25:13.573 --> 00:25:24.179
Yeah yeah and at night time all these crabs come out and start kind of scuttling all over the scuttling all over the beach, and it's really just quite a really magical place.

00:25:24.179 --> 00:25:31.502
There's no hotels on the island either, so you can either get a rental or I just camped by the start-finish line.

00:25:31.970 --> 00:25:33.296
How did you bring the gear for that?

00:25:33.296 --> 00:25:36.076
What gear did you have to camp?

00:25:37.313 --> 00:25:42.143
So I brought over a tent, sleeping bag, roll mat, a little kind of a little camp chair.

00:25:42.143 --> 00:25:43.635
I brought over a stove.

00:25:43.910 --> 00:25:48.601
So you flew over with that and then took it on a boat over to the island.

00:25:48.601 --> 00:25:50.835
Yeah, wow, that's pretty interesting.

00:25:51.517 --> 00:25:53.556
Yeah, and I sat there at six in the morning.

00:25:53.556 --> 00:25:54.599
Race started at seven.

00:25:54.599 --> 00:25:58.491
I sat there at six in the morning, made myself a cup of tea, like a true Englishman, Absolutely.

00:25:58.531 --> 00:25:58.932
I started at seven.

00:25:58.951 --> 00:26:07.256
I sat there at six in the morning, made myself a cup of tea like a true Englishman, Absolutely yeah and had some rehydrated scrambled eggs that I'd cooked up in my jet boil.

00:26:07.596 --> 00:26:11.198
Look at you all proper camping out at the start finish line.

00:26:11.198 --> 00:26:12.857
There I need to up my game.

00:26:13.419 --> 00:26:17.160
And it was just a kind of a great all-round experience.

00:26:18.280 --> 00:26:21.142
So did you go into the race then, when the race kicked off?

00:26:21.142 --> 00:26:24.284
Well, first of all, how were you feeling at the start line of that race?

00:26:24.284 --> 00:26:31.287
Having been through all of the things you've been through, what's going through your head at the moments before the start of that 100-miler?

00:26:31.866 --> 00:26:40.731
Well, so actually I was five minutes late to the start line, even though I was camping by the start line, that's hard to do.

00:26:40.771 --> 00:26:41.433
Good job, yeah.

00:26:41.433 --> 00:26:49.077
Yeah, I'd left not enough time to put some sunscreen on and um and uh and all that stuff, but and and anyway, so kind of.

00:26:49.077 --> 00:26:59.773
So I set off, I was literally on my own because I was five minutes late and I just, I just set off with a vision of, okay, I'm gonna do 28 minutes of jogging, two minutes of walking.

00:26:59.773 --> 00:27:00.525
During those two minutes I'm gonna eat something.

00:27:00.525 --> 00:27:00.864
Yeah, and I'm gonna do 28 minutes of jogging, two minutes of walking.

00:27:00.795 --> 00:27:11.210
During those two minutes I'm gonna eat something yeah and I'm just gonna keep that up for um, for as that, that up for as, for as long as I, for as long as I can, and obviously starting five minutes after everyone.

00:27:11.210 --> 00:27:20.873
You know the kind of the I wasn't tempted to kind of like run off too fast, I could stick to my own plan and um, and gradually just kind of catch people up as I am.

00:27:20.873 --> 00:27:27.252
Yeah, five minutes in the scheme of a hundred mile race is is nothing right, not much right, you know.

00:27:27.252 --> 00:27:34.698
So, so kind of I could just let uh, there was no pressure to sort of run off with the front runners or or any of that sort of nonsense.

00:27:34.698 --> 00:27:40.678
I could just stick to, you know, run my own race right from the start and then just gradually pass people as I went along.

00:27:40.758 --> 00:27:42.240
And how many runners were there.

00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:43.063
Stewart is this?

00:27:43.063 --> 00:27:43.703
Was this a big?

00:27:43.703 --> 00:27:45.515
A big field or a small field?

00:27:45.555 --> 00:27:50.067
like no, uh uh so there were maybe 20 doing the 100.

00:27:50.067 --> 00:27:51.711
They do a 50 at the same time.

00:27:51.711 --> 00:27:57.211
So there was right again, maybe 10, 15, doing the, doing the 50 right, so off you've got.

00:27:57.551 --> 00:28:04.095
You know you've got off the start line five minutes late in classic style there Let everybody go and then chase them down.

00:28:04.095 --> 00:28:05.721
I like it, I like your approach.

00:28:05.721 --> 00:28:08.398
Definitely better to pass people than to be passed.

00:28:08.398 --> 00:28:10.678
So I think mentally that's a great strategy.

00:28:10.678 --> 00:28:13.455
So how did your race plan out?

00:28:13.455 --> 00:28:14.398
How did your loops go?

00:28:14.398 --> 00:28:19.170
I would imagine it's probably 16 miles, so roughly six loops or something like that.

00:28:19.349 --> 00:28:19.691
That's right.

00:28:19.691 --> 00:28:21.394
Yeah, six laps yeah, yeah.

00:28:21.434 --> 00:28:21.575
So.

00:28:21.575 --> 00:28:22.798
So how did your race pan out?

00:28:23.358 --> 00:28:25.222
so yeah, so first first two.

00:28:25.222 --> 00:28:27.415
Absolutely fine, kept to.

00:28:27.415 --> 00:28:31.508
The program was pretty consistent time wise between the two.

00:28:31.508 --> 00:28:39.863
So I finished the first one in like three hours, the second one in maybe three hours and ten of um of moving time.

00:28:40.724 --> 00:29:03.298
It then starts to get a bit warm so I so I dropped down from 28.2 to 9.1 on the run walk, oh yeah, which I which I found mentally much easier and I think it was I was better able to cope with the temperatures it was a good bit warmer in south carolina and more humid as well than it was back home, sure, yeah, so I was able to keep that going.

00:29:04.130 --> 00:29:21.063
At the end of lap three I just kind of got to this point of feeling my stomach was really really full of food and fluid and I've been drinking probably kind of four 500ml bottles every lap of the of the of the thing.

00:29:21.103 --> 00:29:41.736
So, okay, I've been, I've been drinking quite a bit, I've been eating a lot of food as well as having a lot of nutrition in the, in the drinks, and I just felt really full and I thought and at this point it was, it was sort of the heat of the day so I thought, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk and try and you know, start, start off the fourth loop with a walk and try and manage it.

00:29:41.736 --> 00:30:00.692
You know, kind of get my, get everything kind of in order, take some more salt tabs and and manage it, and that that loop was really hard, right up until the point of darkness, which was probably about 12 miles, into that, into that fourth loop, at which point I was physically sick.

00:30:00.692 --> 00:30:03.237
Oh, half a dozen times.

00:30:03.237 --> 00:30:12.500
Oh, on the on the front yards of these really nice posh villas, uh, overlooking the atlantic ocean, wonderful, yeah, I'm sure.

00:30:12.500 --> 00:30:20.817
I'm sure the raccoons will have cleared it up in the middle of the night yeah, yeah, yeah obviously, yes, for sure, and, and, to be honest, being sick kind of really saved my race.

00:30:21.557 --> 00:30:44.058
Interesting, because all of a sudden I could, I could drink again without and, and the, the feeling of bloated, the feeling of bloatedness and sloshing stomachs had all gone and I was, I mean, I, I, I then had to do 40 miles on, not very much, not very much food, but, but at least um, but at least I could keep moving, which was the.

00:30:44.058 --> 00:30:52.182
You know, the problem 12 months ago was I wasn't able to be sick, so, um, so, so I, I, I, I got better from that point onwards.

00:30:52.182 --> 00:30:56.758
Loop five was still pretty, um, pretty slow, but then um.

00:30:56.758 --> 00:31:09.227
But then loop six, I realized that if I ran a bit more, I could finish just under 24 hours, which is a completely spurious, utterly arbitrary distinction.

00:31:09.227 --> 00:31:16.791
You know, there's no, there was no kind of like super buckle for finishing under 24 hours, but it just became a thing for me, wow.

00:31:16.791 --> 00:31:20.882
And so I kind of managed to do, of, managed to step up the running a bit.

00:31:20.882 --> 00:31:28.840
I lapped a whole bunch of people midway through my sixth loop and, yeah, kind of finished 23.50.

00:31:29.585 --> 00:31:34.501
Oh, good call, and was really, really pleased with that as an outcome.

00:31:34.589 --> 00:31:48.577
I mean, I was three hours behind the guy in front of me and I was totally okay with that so at any point during during all that like did, did the did the cancer stuff ever crossed your mind, or were you just focused on the run?

00:31:48.577 --> 00:31:50.603
Did the running take over the race?

00:31:51.431 --> 00:32:22.084
focus took over probably not, probably not the cancer, but the, but the um, one of the one of the one of the side effects or consequences maybe of of prostate surgery is incontinence, and so I'm running the entire race wearing a pad, and I've got spare pads in my drop bags and I've got another one in my backpack and so so, and you're just always conscious of the need to manage your fluid intake a lot more smartly.

00:32:22.084 --> 00:32:28.240
So it was more the kind of dealing with the consequences of the surgery rather than the thought about.

00:32:28.240 --> 00:32:29.741
You know, I used to have cancer.

00:32:30.242 --> 00:32:31.065
Yeah, okay.

00:32:31.065 --> 00:32:48.016
Well, tell me about the finish line, then, because that must have been representative of all of this effort everything's happened, everything since cape town, all of the surgery, the recovery, the training and the repairing the dnf from from last year all rolled into one I I'm imagining at the finish line.

00:32:48.016 --> 00:32:52.105
That was a pretty emotional moment maybe it was.

00:32:52.326 --> 00:32:55.534
But the overwhelming emotion was joy, right, this.

00:32:55.534 --> 00:33:04.286
There wasn't a kind of a I had no regrets, I had no feelings of loss, I, I was just.

00:33:04.286 --> 00:33:09.144
I was just full of joy for the fact that I had the opportunity to be there.

00:33:09.144 --> 00:33:41.484
And one of the reasons why I've been so open with, with, with, with my diagnosis, with the surgery, with the recovery from it, is because many men find out that they've got prostate cancer way later than they should and, like I was saying before, if you, if you have prostate cancer and you find it in time, it's really not a bad cancer to have you know, in the scheme of things, if you had to pick one, the because, because you can, because surgery is a um is such a a good tool for managing it.

00:33:41.525 --> 00:33:47.222
You don't need your prostate anymore once you've had kids and and it's it's, it's just a a, a great.

00:33:47.222 --> 00:33:53.422
The recovery options are, are kind of, are absolutely well established.

00:33:53.422 --> 00:34:07.500
But if you don't find it in time, you know, if you don't find out until it's spread to your bones or it's it's um, it's it's escaped the prostate gland, then it can be, it can be pretty dreadful.

00:34:07.500 --> 00:34:17.597
So one of the reasons why I've been so open about it is is trying to encourage men to not be useless men about it but be alert.

00:34:17.597 --> 00:34:18.922
Be alert to the symptoms.

00:34:18.922 --> 00:34:24.177
If the, if you're offered regular screening, take it and and go talk.

00:34:24.177 --> 00:34:34.311
Because I don't know about the stats of the us, but in the uk they reckon one in eight men will get prostate cancer wow and um, and if you're, if you're black, it's one in four.

00:34:35.494 --> 00:34:46.659
And so those, those stats speak for themselves that men ought to be a lot more alert to this than than many of them are, and I think cancer is one of those things that happens.

00:34:46.659 --> 00:34:52.791
Well, the way I perceived it, for me, anyway, was that cancer was something that happened to other people, right?

00:34:53.052 --> 00:35:04.038
and until it happened to me that's wild, yeah, yeah, and I think you, you know, just before coming on air too, we were talking about the PSA testing, the antigen test.

00:35:04.038 --> 00:35:16.398
I guess I would assume that's part of your message, like get out there, and I assume that's a pretty accessible test that you might be able to get at your local health center or GP or whatever the equivalent is.

00:35:17.099 --> 00:35:19.398
Yeah, In the UK they're moving towards.

00:35:19.398 --> 00:35:28.523
They're actually moving towards regular health screening of men in their 50s and maybe black men in their late 40s as well.

00:35:28.523 --> 00:35:30.193
For PSA, I don't know what it's like in the.

00:35:30.193 --> 00:35:48.972
I don't know anything about the health setup in the US, but it's a simple blood test that you know kind of like you will have any number of of other things yeah well, it will I'm sure be, you know, kind of readily available everywhere.

00:35:49.333 --> 00:35:50.556
Yeah, I, I would imagine it's.

00:35:50.556 --> 00:35:54.711
It's not going to be too different stat wise or availability wise.

00:35:54.711 --> 00:35:57.516
You, yes to to uh, to the uk there.

00:35:57.516 --> 00:36:00.021
But, um, definitely hear your message.

00:36:00.021 --> 00:36:01.403
You know I'm one of them.

00:36:01.403 --> 00:36:01.664
I would.

00:36:01.664 --> 00:36:02.873
I would say who's who's?

00:36:02.873 --> 00:36:10.380
Not as proactive as I probably could be about these kind of things, but definitely hearing your message about.

00:36:10.380 --> 00:36:22.382
You know if, if you're listening and you want to, you know you recognize yourself in in any of stewart's comments there definitely get out and make sure you're getting the appropriate testing for for this and and other stuff too.

00:36:22.382 --> 00:36:29.038
Like, just you know, whatever it is, get out and and make sure you're getting the the, the appropriate testing done.

00:36:29.038 --> 00:36:35.798
But do you think, stuart, you're, you know, has this changed your outlook on on life, on running?

00:36:35.798 --> 00:36:38.914
Are you kind of back where you started or do you have a different perspective on on this stuff?

00:36:38.914 --> 00:36:42.655
Having been kind of back where you started, or do you have a different perspective on on this stuff having been through the challenge that you have?

00:36:43.396 --> 00:36:59.159
uh, I'm probably a bit more kind of grateful for the, you know kind of for the fact that I'm for the, for the opportunities that I've got yeah I I'm, I've had a really fortunate life so far and frankly, this is just another manifestation of that, of that good fortune.

00:36:59.983 --> 00:37:02.753
I don't I don't choose to see it as kind of I've had bad luck.

00:37:02.753 --> 00:37:04.197
I I regard it as I've had.

00:37:04.197 --> 00:37:16.498
I've had good fortune that that I work at a place that basically forces me to go have these health tests and um, and will pay for the follow-ups and the diagnoses and the treatments and stuff like that.

00:37:16.498 --> 00:37:29.954
So I'm going to try and it's always hard, you know, when you're in the depths of 100 mile or you know kind of, in your case, 200 mile race, and you know it's hard to.

00:37:29.954 --> 00:38:02.628
It's hard sometimes to stay in that moment, to stay present in the moment, and it's hard to remind yourself that you, you chose to do these things and and you know you're lucky that you, you're able to, because many would love to and can't, but I can at least try to remember those things yeah absolutely and I think I wonder whether it might be one of those, one of those experiences that as you get further away from it, with more hindsight, maybe some of the emotion and stuff comes a bit later on.

00:38:02.648 --> 00:38:05.079
That I don't know, but I do think you're right.

00:38:05.079 --> 00:38:22.594
I mean, physically, this seems like something that was going to happen, that you went and did, you were able to find this early enough and kind of get it taken care of without it having a huge amount of impact.

00:38:22.594 --> 00:38:28.900
So I think that's terrific and I would definitely encourage everybody out there to take advantage.

00:38:28.900 --> 00:38:32.065
Get over to your local health center.

00:38:32.065 --> 00:38:40.085
Doctor primary care physician is what they call them over here, gp in the uk just go make sure you're getting the appropriate look.

00:38:40.085 --> 00:38:42.974
See at what you've got going on, stewart.

00:38:42.974 --> 00:38:44.277
What's next for you then?

00:38:44.277 --> 00:38:47.726
Having got past the defusky island 100?

00:38:47.726 --> 00:38:50.958
What else do you have on the trails or beyond?

00:38:52.239 --> 00:38:56.987
yeah, so next race already in the diary has been for a few months actually.

00:38:56.987 --> 00:38:58.389
I'm running the um.

00:38:58.389 --> 00:39:03.085
It's maybe a race you've heard of, the grand union canal race oh, oh, my gosh.

00:39:03.144 --> 00:39:04.976
Yeah, absolutely, that's on my list.

00:39:04.976 --> 00:39:07.400
So so that's 145 miles.

00:39:07.400 --> 00:39:09.927
Yeah, birmingham to london, right it?

00:39:10.027 --> 00:39:11.336
actually is the other way this year.

00:39:11.336 --> 00:39:12.099
Oh, is it okay?

00:39:12.099 --> 00:39:18.420
So so start in london finishing, finishing birmingham, obviously completely flat, being a cow entirely.

00:39:18.420 --> 00:39:23.277
I mean there's a few locks and tunnels and stuff, but um how do you find those races?

00:39:23.297 --> 00:39:31.630
because I know you and I raised cowboy together and that was relatively flat and straight right and and I've always heard that canal running is just like the worst.

00:39:31.630 --> 00:39:39.018
Do you find the canal style where we were doing doing something similar on the rail trails over here in the us?

00:39:39.018 --> 00:39:45.898
Do you find one or other more challenging, or are you able to kind of flip the script and you're good with either?

00:39:47.041 --> 00:39:48.925
I think, um, I think I'm good with either.

00:39:48.925 --> 00:40:07.561
So before ultra trials, cape town, I did canal corridor in ohio, which is basically 50 miles north into cleveland, turn around and run 50 miles back south again along a, along a disused canal, and it requires a, it requires a different mindset.

00:40:07.561 --> 00:40:09.606
You have to find a way of con.

00:40:09.606 --> 00:40:19.023
I find I have to find a way of consciously building in walking breaks yeah which, obviously on a mountainous one, you don't have to, you don't have to worry about right, you don't have to worry about that.

00:40:19.606 --> 00:40:35.159
so that's why, with the foskey, I intentionally from the you know, from the outset decided I was gonna do run walk intervals and I went for 28.2, on the basis that I could always then drop down to something a bit more manageable like 9-1.

00:40:35.621 --> 00:40:47.918
Right, Whereas I think if I start at something like 9-1, I've got nowhere to go from there other than just walking, so that was the thought process for me.

00:40:47.918 --> 00:40:50.485
Then I'll do the same thing on the Grand Union Canal.

00:40:50.485 --> 00:40:54.025
That's a real low-key race.

00:40:54.025 --> 00:40:59.005
I think you'd call it kind of like dirtbag style in the US.

00:40:59.005 --> 00:41:04.623
It's you get a, so these canals have got.

00:41:04.623 --> 00:41:07.708
This is a fully functional canal, right.

00:41:08.048 --> 00:41:08.268
Yes.

00:41:09.978 --> 00:41:14.527
And they've got kind of bathrooms and water taps for the boat crews.

00:41:14.527 --> 00:41:16.360
But you can get a key.

00:41:16.360 --> 00:41:22.768
You can buy a key that enables you to access the water and the bathrooms that are meant for the boat crews.

00:41:22.768 --> 00:41:24.498
Interesting, and so that's.

00:41:24.498 --> 00:41:26.985
That's basically what everyone does on this race is they.

00:41:26.985 --> 00:41:33.099
They get these keys and then they, you know that's where they, that's mostly where they're going to get their water from, it's where they're going to go to the bathroom.

00:41:33.159 --> 00:41:38.233
It's how cool is that done through the race, or is that something you can do whether you're on the race or not?

00:41:38.253 --> 00:41:41.101
uh, whether you're on the race or not, but the race do organize the race.

00:41:41.101 --> 00:41:42.164
Do have a whole bunch of keys.

00:41:42.164 --> 00:41:44.943
They can, they can, they can sell you it's part of the package.

00:41:45.306 --> 00:41:47.534
Yeah, there's a couple of canal canal races over there.

00:41:47.534 --> 00:41:53.057
I know there's a liverpool to manchester one and then there's uh, there's another one, I think yeah thiseds to Liverpool.

00:41:53.297 --> 00:42:01.063
there's Kennet and Avon, so these are all kind of 100 mile plus digs like you mentioned you, you went and did a canal.

00:42:01.063 --> 00:42:03.184
I never knew there were canals in the us.

00:42:03.184 --> 00:42:04.744
I thought that was a uniquely uk thing.

00:42:04.764 --> 00:42:22.780
But there are a few in the north yeah, they're most.

00:42:23.041 --> 00:42:27.739
They're mostly disused now, I think, as canal they're not, they're most not mostly used as canals they're.

00:42:27.739 --> 00:42:31.476
They're used as, um, you know, kind of for leisure at most.

00:42:31.476 --> 00:42:36.922
And the the, the one that the canal corridor race that I did, I mean there's, there's almost no canal left.

00:42:36.922 --> 00:42:47.072
Yeah, you know, you, you kind of like you run through the middle of disused lock gates, for example, but it's still, it's still quite, it's still quite a cool course.

00:42:47.072 --> 00:42:53.266
You run through the quayahoga uh national park for for a good chunk of it, which is, which is quite pretty.

00:42:53.867 --> 00:42:56.864
I've ran with a few folks that were telling me about a different one.

00:42:56.864 --> 00:42:58.521
I think it's called the C&O Canal Race.

00:42:59.858 --> 00:43:01.083
Yeah, that's in Maryland, I think.

00:43:01.614 --> 00:43:03.824
Yeah, it's somewhere up north.

00:43:04.416 --> 00:43:05.097
That's on my list.

00:43:05.217 --> 00:43:08.387
one year yeah you know, but awesome.

00:43:08.387 --> 00:43:21.724
So now, stuart, having been a prior guest on the show, you will know that every individual we have on here we do invite to choose a song to add to the free Spotify Choose to Endure playlist.

00:43:21.724 --> 00:43:28.956
Typically, it's something I don't know family-friendly, that lifts you up, motivates or just keeps you moving while you're out on the trail.

00:43:28.956 --> 00:43:32.239
Did you choose a song this go-around and then?

00:43:32.239 --> 00:43:37.007
If so, so why does that song particularly resonate with you?

00:43:38.208 --> 00:43:43.869
so I I'm gonna go with titanium by david guetta excellent song, I mean it's just.

00:43:43.869 --> 00:43:46.458
It's just a good tub thumping song.

00:43:46.458 --> 00:43:50.210
Yeah, actually it's got a kind of a work connotation as well.

00:43:50.210 --> 00:43:55.268
One of the one of the major bits of work I did was called project titanium and that was that was.

00:43:55.268 --> 00:43:55.628
That was a.

00:43:55.628 --> 00:43:58.019
That was a hell of a piece of work.

00:43:58.019 --> 00:43:59.403
Like what work?

00:43:59.403 --> 00:44:00.889
Work for you, yeah, yeah.

00:44:00.889 --> 00:44:02.172
Well, if I was a as an accountant.

00:44:03.956 --> 00:44:12.320
But I, you know the kind of the, you know you kind of like you can shoot me down but I won't fall, I'm, I'm, I'm bulletproof, it's it.

00:44:12.320 --> 00:44:16.548
It kind of it kind of works when I'm feeling a bit down in the middle of a race.

00:44:16.548 --> 00:44:26.365
Firstly, it's a kind of like a good upbeat song and it's just a reminder that you can there's almost everything on these races you can get through if you're able to put your mind to it.

00:44:26.365 --> 00:44:33.074
Brilliant, sometimes that's a lot easier said than done, but um, as I I know I've I finished 21.

00:44:33.074 --> 00:44:43.257
Kind enough to call out the number of finishes, I'll point out that my DNF rate stands at about 18.

00:44:43.297 --> 00:44:47.121
I wasn't going to say that I was giving you the credit for the 21.

00:44:47.161 --> 00:44:52.266
So I do know what it's like to kind of not be able to see my way through to the end on some of these things.

00:44:52.686 --> 00:44:52.947
Brilliant.

00:44:52.947 --> 00:44:59.052
I think that's a great song and I'm going to add it to the Spotify playlist, the Choose to Enjoy playlist.

00:44:59.052 --> 00:45:09.978
I'm also going to add it to my own running playlist because I feel like I may end up needing that here fairly shortly just to remind myself, as I'm somewhere in the Arizona desert, halfway up a mountain.

00:45:09.978 --> 00:45:15.385
But I think it's great, and so I think others will love listening to that tune as well.

00:45:15.385 --> 00:45:17.255
Thank you for choosing it.

00:45:17.255 --> 00:45:28.610
So you know, stuart, I think your story really reminds us that endurance is not always just about speed or podiums, or even medals, for that matter.

00:45:28.610 --> 00:45:38.989
I think sometimes it's just about waking up and choosing to keep going, even if you're going through a difficult time physically, emotionally, mentally, whatever it is.

00:45:38.989 --> 00:45:43.826
And, listeners out there, if you took something from this conversation, please share it.

00:45:43.826 --> 00:45:53.385
And if you're over 50 or in one of the risk groups that Stuart was talking about, definitely go and get yourself that PSA test.

00:45:53.385 --> 00:45:56.748
Don't wait, don't guess, just go get it.

00:45:56.748 --> 00:46:01.501
Stuart, thank you for your vulnerability, your humor as ever.

00:46:01.882 --> 00:46:12.639
It's one of the things I love talking about with folks from home the UK humor man I miss that sometimes for sure and for showing us all what it truly means to endure.

00:46:12.639 --> 00:46:23.250
If you're interested in more content like this, please don't forget to subscribe to the show and that way you'll get notified each time a new episode drops.

00:46:23.250 --> 00:46:29.103
And if you're enjoying what you hear, be sure to follow, share and maybe even leave a review.

00:46:29.103 --> 00:46:31.034
That would mean the world to me.

00:46:31.034 --> 00:46:48.411
Your support helps grow the podcast, connects more runners to this amazing community, this ultra community we have, and spreads the word to those who can benefit from the information and stories we share right here with fantastic ultra runners like Stuart.

00:46:49.456 --> 00:46:58.730
You can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Choose to Endure, or visit us anytime at choosetoendurecom on the web.

00:46:58.730 --> 00:47:06.349
I would love to hear from you, whether that's just to say hello, suggest a topic or share your story.

00:47:06.349 --> 00:47:11.306
You can also email me directly at info at choosetoendurecom.

00:47:11.306 --> 00:47:24.427
I have to say, interacting with listeners, just like you, is one of my favorite parts of doing the show, so definitely don't be shy about reaching out, especially, I think, if you're in the UK.

00:47:24.427 --> 00:47:29.206
I would love to get some more UK content going on on the show here.

00:47:29.206 --> 00:47:41.530
So until next time, make sure you run long, run strong, go get a health check and, whatever the results, make sure you keep choosing to endure.