27 Weeks to Go: Running, Recovery, & the Reality Check

In this episode of Project Salt Run, Joel and Hannah sit down with running coach Nina Davis to take a no-holds-barred look at what training for a 100-day ultra marathon really looks like.

Together, they unpack how far Hannah’s come — from a self-described non-runner to someone clocking 30+ kilometer weekends — and what’s made that possible: consistency, patience, and a healthy dose of humor. From run-commuting to poké bowls, navigating toenail trauma to dialing in sustainable nutrition, the trio discuss the highs, the lows, and the very real mental and physical shifts Hannah’s experiencing along the way.

It’s not just about logging miles. It’s about building a body and a mindset that can go the distance.

Transcript

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Hi folks, welcome back to the Project Salt Run podcast.

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I'm here with Joel and Hannah. They're going to introduce themselves in a minute.

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She's after our job. She's after our job. Get her out. I was channeling my inner Joelle there.

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That was perfect.(...) And that was Nina Davis who did not introduce herself, which is why she's immediately sacked from being a podcast host.

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And if you can't tell, she's going to be our host once again. This time not in a dingy weatherspoons, but in the comfort of her own home. Yes. Which to describe to all of you listening is it has a beautiful back garden. It's nice and lush green and the sun's out today. So she's got the door open. How warm is it over there right now? Do you know what? They say it's going to get to 20 degrees today. We are pretty lucky, but don't worry. Normality resumes next week. The rain comes out back. The darkness returns.

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Make the most of it. Yeah, exactly. I want to take advantage of having you on today because I basically want to do a big overall update on Hannah's training, what's going on with it,(...) how you guys are working together.(...) And then I wanted to touch on a bit of the nutritional aspect because that's something I feel like we haven't really had the chance to deep dive into as far as how that's going and how disappointed you are when Hannah is scarfing down pizzas and beer at the end of her big runs. It was alcohol free. It was alcohol free. Alcohol free, lucky thing.

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Okay, but yeah. But anyways, yeah, so you guys run. I'm going to give both of you the floor for a bit and tell us how the training has been going and what's been working, what hasn't, what needs to be worked on. So much has been happening. I can't remember when it was that we last spoke, but I'm sure at that point Hannah probably talked about herself as being a non-runner, a tortoise, like always kind of derogatory remarks. I'm sure Hannah is going to be a non-runner. She is smashing it.

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And you know, it gets, I guess, you know, what's to say, it gets more and more difficult and that's tough for her because it's relentless and there is no stopping. But the nice thing is we've got lots of people who are really, really, really, really, really hard to get to. And I think Hannah is going to be a really, really, really, really, really, really, really,

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really hard at times. And he was the kind of, and I think that we always look very into this, you know, touched on it, but I think it's, it's, when we first start preparing and when we finally start paying attention to what we've got, tribulations come up. It's a places, I think if you look at all those cheering, there can be a couple of collar Anti-V

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peaks divide in a couple of weeks which is a back-to-back day in the peaks so we've been focusing on that and obviously doing stuff that is specific for that a little bit more so it breaks up the monotony of the training so that's going to be Hillier and so we've been doing some hit some kind of descent stuff and she was up in the lakes and doing it Hillier runs and we need that for the coast-to-coast as well which is in nine weeks so we've got a nice kind of lovely milestones in the training plan which we can focus on to break it up but the most important thing is that Hannah is not injured. How are you feeling Hannah?

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Every time I say it I'm like touching wood. Touch wood, touch wood, touch wood. And it's interesting because that's what most people have been surprised about that I haven't injured myself yet and I wonder whether that's though because I am I'm hyper vigilant generally and I think because I'm aware I'm because I'm aware I've got to go so far I'm like not in a rush to get there so I while I will push myself on a run when Nina like asked me to push myself like I know that's when you hurt yourself so I'd rather take longer doing a run then like kind of feel like I was pushing myself too hard and kind of hurt myself and I think there's what there's been like maybe a couple of times Nina where I've like oh I think I think money even if it was a bit funny I'll take like a couple of days off yeah but I think even with that I've been quite over cautious because I just know that getting injured would just put us back by like two months and we just don't have we don't have the capacity with the amount of training that I need to do to not be doing it all the time to the level that it needs to kind of grow yeah they're saying what's the term it's like the fastest way to lose all your progress is to like be injured quickly or something about like talking about like when I was trying to do like weight training and stuff like that they were like you know the quickest way to not get anywhere is to hurt yourself but trying to be too fast yeah I know I and it's patience yeah I mean I think you know that's the thing with with running is that like you know everybody feels like oh we're born to run we should everyone runs like we spend our whole life with kids running and of course we can run but like as adults who generally we don't and for years and years and years Hannah didn't and so you have to sort of relearn it and you do have to be patient and what a concept having to relearn how to run yeah it's such a I mean it's kind of mind-blowing to me but you're absolutely right yeah and I think you have to break free you know so many it's not it's like anything else yeah it's like learning to play the piano or the guitar I mean I've had the guitar sitting here for bloody years looking at me like I'm gonna learn it and like going through that pain barrier of being a shit guitar player is just really hard and it's the same with running you sort of have to go through that pain barrier and and and Hannah's really applied herself to that and I think she's absolutely right to kind of like we we've been really cautious with her plan because the most important thing for her running is to be running and to be consistent that's the biggest challenge we're going to have in India year is like it's it she's got to be able to get up every day and do it again and again and again and so it's practicing that consistency that's that's been so crucial you know I mean you got I think you guys talked about it in a previous podcast of light also that like you know Hannah's life is full of kind of making decisions so we have stuck to that simple thing of like Hannah doesn't have to make any decisions about I think you know that's my job yeah is to take all the decisions away from her when it comes to the running it just make it makes the one thing I can make easier for her and and she doesn't think there's any kind of speed in there but actually there kind of is and there's hidden in their bits that she doesn't this you know like we she ended up joy she's ended up joining a run club and goes out on their sessions and I think you know Hannah sort of said oh I can go in the slowest group and I looked at the groups and sort of thought no you could go one higher and you know and actually she does and that becomes like what I would call a tempo session for her but she doesn't necessarily see that I'm just giving away all the secrets now Hannah you're gonna be like wait a second I do I actually went for one with my friend Molly this morning and yeah when I checked how fast I'd run it was like like

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I'm running faster now but it doesn't feel faster like I'm like I'm like oh I actually used to run this way slower but it but it's it's just been that consistent base build I guess yeah yeah I mean yeah mean that went for that lucky sane run club we there was this sick there five five kilometer group the six kilometer group and the seven kilometer minute groups and then seven six what is it by the way is it six how'd you say it six kilometers per hour yeah yeah six yeah six kilometer hour pace yeah six kilometer hour pace I should know that but I've been doing it for bloody year well not that pace but anyway me and me and Nat were like oh we're going this rather than going the slowest group which was the seven kilometer hour pace we're going the sixth kilometer out and we were fine yeah yeah I was like oh okay so I'm hoping that by the time I get to India I can be like the five kilometer hour pace and just stay there yeah yeah because it and then just stay there like I don't need to be any faster than that but to be to be that fast by the time I get to India and it feel where I am now just in my head feels like that would make me feel quite strong to go yeah that's kind of the trick isn't it it's not necessarily like the the like the fact of just being able to run like playing flat out running it's it's being able to kind of like keep running consistently because that's the big thing that that's a wall I've never been able to beat is like just being able to run for like an hour or like jog for like an hour straight or something like that like I get has that changed a lot for you Hannah or like what's what's kind of been the experience with that well like as we all know had like that worst one of my life like a couple of weeks ago what was it like for I was out for four hours for running for four hours out for five hours I think there's a whole it was a now procrastination yuck yeah what procrastination I would say the hour was like hyping myself up to keep like I kept stopping and being like I don't want to do this and then I'd be like well you've got to so I changed my playlist or have something to eat or you know just like send a text to a mate or something I just literally you say procrastinated but if I hadn't had those breaks I wouldn't have finished so I knew I had to finish but I was like right if I'm gonna finish at least I'm gonna finish however I want to finish but yeah that five hours out for five hours was intense but now I'm starting to see it like tomorrow I've got to go out for 33 kilometers and that'll be quite a few hours I'm just coming to the understanding and expectation that weekends are just running now and now that me and Nina are I mean we're starting to do more run commutes now aren't we Nina as well which is helping get the time in feel feel feel time that would have been spent it's also like replacing stuff does that make sense like I can't get more time so I have to just replace how I do things so how I previously would get into work by walking to the train station getting the train then walking to the office and it would be taking me 45 minutes I now get to work by running which takes me an hour and 15 minutes and I have to I have to so I I'm managing in my head I'm managing to get an hour and 15 minutes worth of exercise in half an hour with that being said that's my that is runners mass yeah with this a question for you Nina is there any are there any massive like benchmarks like that you've seen it Hannah like with her getting stronger or gaining further distances from because what did she start at what what were you guys starting at like running per day being able to run like non-stop you know what I mean I mean we started at like 5k and yeah so we were yeah you know now she's going out on a weekend and as she says doing like 30 35 K's I think for me the biggest benchmarks are actually that she are not necessarily her doing the run it's her waking up the next day and me messaging and saying how do you feel and she's like okay actually because you know and fit and it's the it's the it's the recovery that she's ate that she's improved you know enormously and that links to what she was also just saying about the fact that even though she's not thinking about it she is getting faster so what's happening is her

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running economy is improving so she's not working as hard to run as fast or to run as far and obviously that's our goal because you know the more marathons that she can do without having to push herself and be flat you know be really hard-working means that she's going to be more recovered for the next day and so for me the real milestones are like I my my heart sings inside when she sends me a message the next day and says I did a marathon yesterday that backyard ultra thing I did that and I feel alright today and I could go running and I'm like yes Tana that's you know yeah that that that brings a massive smile to my face so what's been the hardest part about the physical prep so far Nina's made it really easy because she's given me a plan and that's what I like I like to have a plan so as long as I'm taught like told what I need to do and explain why I need to do it that's been I think that the difficult part has been lack of like my whole life has changed like my whole life has changed so I have different friends I have different ways in which I socialize don't I'm not able to do a lot of the stuff that I used to like doing because I'm training but but actually what's been good is I'm actually doing more stuff with my mates it's not just like going to the pub like I'm doing like doing things are really fun and actually creating much deeper friendships with people so hiking running sauna I've I'm meeting some mates to go climbing you know I've started like started climbing now and now I've gone friends that I've known through work you're like oh I didn't know you climbed I didn't know you ran so actually people that I've known for a long time who now have we have a shared love of running together or just physical exercise or hiking or whatever I'm now spending more time with like people I've known in a different way and that's been really great that I've been able to combine that into the physical aspects of it but also I like spending a lot of time on my own and seeing running as like a treat of like time for me to spend time on my own and feel like I'm doing that with a good purpose rather than just sat on my own you know on the boat watching Real Housewives or something which sometimes you need you have rest days right yeah I gotta have a rest days you gotta rest days just to shift gears to our main subject that I really want to get out to which is nutrition and I feel you know because I was giving Hannah a bit of guff earlier about like eating pizza and stuff because I feel like whenever you hear athletes training for something you know they're like usually you hear the most extreme or like I guess the most popular ones you see in our society today is like movie stars when they're they're training for a role and suddenly they get super ripped you know for this one scene or something like that which nobody really sees the ends out of but like I feel like nutrition is such a weird subject and it's so like so misunderstood and it's kind of all all over the place especially with our changing of like oh you know you know carbs carbs are bad and you know egg yolks are bad whites are good you know and then the opposite the next day I wanted to get kind of your opinion and you know your eye Nina as far as how you're approaching and what the realities are I guess I guess let's start off with are there any nutritional myths that you know or nutritional like things about nutrition that just bugged the hell out of you that loads of people go on about or okay massive caveat I'm not a nutritionist yes and but we are lucky to have in our you know in our friendship groups and things brilliant nutritionist who we spoken to and in fact the amazing Rachel White who has been out to India with a runner on a on a expedition so she has been incredibly generous with her knowledge so just putting that out there first but I think like you said the the carb thing isn't for me is a running coach and a runner myself is a minefield because like there's so many theories out there and you've got some of these like amazing coaches in the States kind of like trying pushing it up experimenting with light you know up to like 160 plus grams of carpets an hour which like seriously is really hard work to get on those it's grams cards about an hour and you're talking like you know five five gels an hour or something like you know and they really linked that to improve performance but we're talking about something different now yeah those are elite athletes they're going out to perform for you know four or five hours in one ultra that will be there a race that they've been training for for six months and then you know we're for Hannah it's it we're totally different here we're there for a hundred days to start us so like you know we can't just be thinking about ultimate performance for one piece you know the performance for her is around consistency not being absolutely being able to perform at her flat-out best so I think really for us that you know trying to almost kind of like close off our ears to all the theories and myths and knowledge out there and really personalize it to Hannah and and that's like there's so many layers to that yeah because we've got to find out what she can tolerate herself and like then we've got to find out what she can tolerate in the heat then we've got to find out what she can tolerate in the heat day after day after day and then on top of that we've got to go well and what out of that stuff can we get in India so there's like there's a lot of layers to practicing her nutrition and really kind of personalizing it for her and I think it you know again it's that because it's because we've got to like be able to be sustainable for a hundred days we've got to do we've got to find that right balance of carbs and calories and protein and salts and look at it much more holistically than just smashing enough carbs as possible to get your body to perform for a race so in your mind what is I guess like fuel what is fueling properly training mean to you what like do you have any kind of go-to like diet habits or what yeah what do you suggest yeah I think there's a couple of things to keep in mind and I'm Hannah and I've talked about you know about really looking forward to the coast to coast to really test this as well and so really find out but like I think like there's going to be sort of two parts of nutrition for food for Hannah when we're in India and she's on and she's doing it there's almost like there's food for fuel and then there's food for food food for fun yeah it's like yeah in a hundred days we're gonna need the fun as well and she's gonna need to feel like she's got time off to enjoy local food to enjoy social meals around the table with the team to like you know but we but at the end of the day she's got a serious job to do to make sure she fuels her run and then she fuels her recovery so I think there's a I think it for me and again we'll be experimenting with on the coast to coast but there'll be two really critical things is like ensuring that she has a really controlled breakfast or you know meal before she starts running in a day that does have control number of carbs in it so we know she's getting enough fuel to kick off the day and then we'll be working on her carbs and calorie intake when she runs and then I think there'll be a like you know the running will finish but the job of running doesn't finish until she smashed her like protein shake or whatever it is afterwards so that we know that we've replenished the protein to kickstart the recovery for the afternoon and then we can take the pressure off a little bit that evening meal because that can be not necessarily relying on that for all of her nutrition so I think there's gonna be yeah Hannah and I've talked about this is kind of like there'll be days when she just does not want to eat that breakfast and she feels like shit and she won't want to do it and there'll be definitely days when you know trying to smash the protein shake after she's run will be really hard but we've just got to see that as part of the job and then we just get it down yeah get it done get it yeah well this is but this is this is like the coast to coast is so important this is kind of why so we have for context with the podcast listeners we have like a weekly team call this is why I was trying to get so into it in the call because I was like you know we're actually you know eight weeks away less than that when this podcast goes out I was like I need to like I don't want to be worrying about the accommodation or the van or anything like that because I know for the actual run all I want to be worrying about is is my is my navigation and my food those are kind of my two obviously the running but I just want to be worrying about running food and it's like I need to know that like this is like completely selfish I need to know that when I finish that run that my food is ready and that the place that I was told I was gonna sleep is there with the kit that I know that I asked for is there without feeling like stressed about it and I am a planner and I'm used to being in control of stuff so if I'm relinquishing that responsibility on to someone else I need to feel really confident that they understand what my needs are there because that is it's it is selfish but I'm going to need to have those needs met and it and what will completely throw me off mentally and I because I know what I'm like is if someone says they're gonna do something and they don't do it it will I will find that so difficult you know like even you know even if it's like oh you're gonna eat this or I've asked for something up you know I think that what you know someone on the call said well it should be a mental challenge for you and it's like well yeah it should but it should be that like doesn't mean we should be actively trying to put me in situations which I'm already telling you eight weeks out are gonna make me stressed like so we want to minimize that so that when we know that the the you know the challenging things that will come that we know about this is such a good opportunity for us as a team to be really super prepared for one week and I think if we can show that we can be super prepared and smash a week together then when we are doing those you know 15 in a row or however many it is then even if all 15 of them are like 70 80 percent of what we need them to be we know we're able to produce 100% so we've go into it feeling confident as a team and and how to support each other yeah through it yeah yeah and it's getting that rhythm isn't it because I think you know the most challenging thing about this for all of us is the relentless novit relentlessness of it day after day like and everything will stack up and actually you know nutrition is a really key thing to make sure you stay on to and and hydration when I say nutrition I'm thinking hydration well because once you get depleted you can't catch up like can't Hannah won't you know be really hard for her to catch up on the move yeah but also that's the same for everybody on the team right isn't it because it's like everybody on the team is and that's what you know I was saying about like thinking about people having shift work because it's like our sleep is gonna be important for everybody too isn't it yeah like not just me but like actually the people supporting me like when dad and Dan did his paddy Buckley I had 20 minutes sleep while I was supporting him on that which was fine it's what I signed up for I was happy to do it it's not sustainable to do that man for somebody yeah day after day so actually for the team there's got to be days off there's got to be time for them to make sure they're looking after their nutrition their hydration their sleep yeah yeah and not feeling that they have to they have to deny themselves that because I'm the most important one to get through like it's that balance is it X I I am the most important just if we're not all clear on this I am yeah most important one we will have I do not want that to be at the detriment of like everybody like everybody else yes we need to all be a machine together you know yeah and I've had that before like I've experienced that like you know as a runner like when I did um the bog way and we had like scorchy oh hot weekend and I just I didn't realize at the time that like some of our support crew were not drinking their water so they could save it for us you know and yeah that's as you say Hannah that is fine if it's one weekend it's not fun if it's day after day because what we can't it would be more detrimental to to the expedition for somebody to be really ill or whatever then you know then then making sure that Hannah's got an extra 500 mill of water or whatever you know yeah yeah to be honest the water is something that's likely keeping me awake at night at the moment like I spoke when when I spoke with Rachel who supported um Will Robinson across his seven days in India she was talking about just how many bottles of plastic bottles of water they bought and I was to my I was just like starting to fret like you know that was in seven days like you know what we just you know this and none of us in our team want to buy plastic bottles of water that's something we're all really passionate about so um yeah the kind of like working with I know we started talking to some local local companies and some progressive companies here about filtration systems and how we make sure that we yeah absolutely you know guaranteed to have enough water but in a more sustainable way I think that's going to be a big fake I think it might be vats I think we might have to have some sort of like mad vat yeah plan like there's got to be something like that I work in events and obviously we often put on events in places where there is no water mains so you have to literally bring the water in in tankers and the wastewater and the grey water and stuff so I think there's definitely something in there's definitely going to be a way around the plastic bottle situation because that's just it's not it's not sustainable not just from like loads of plastic bottles points of view but having to continually maintain buying loads plastic bottles as a job on the road when you could get you know a big you know when you get a big thing of something at a Philips spot yeah yeah that was the thing when we did our big brass project like that was the first thing we installed was a giant you know 100 100 gallon water tank well it wasn't a water tank it was a drum it was yeah originally was 250 gallon drums and then it went down to one yeah I think that's it is that that's that's the RV piece that we've been talking about though about having a proper support vehicle that has everything that it needs on it and that's probably something we need to think about for the coast to coast about when we were talking about the van we were going to use I was like we need that van to be as close to what to providing some of the expectations of the up of the van that we're going to want to have in India going back onto the food side of it so Nina what I took away from from you what you said there is as pizza isn't all bad yeah that's why we run so we can eat pizza yeah yes so I wanted to ask you Hannah like how and you know and I guess maybe in between the two of you because I'm sure you've you've worked it out like how is your relationship with food changed through starting all of this and and how do you you know when you do eat a piece of pizza do you are you a little mindful of it or do you do you eat it without impunity I need it without impunity I am way more I'm more mindful of what I mean to definitely I seem to be pretty well on breakfast and lunches just because they have super easy I'm I mean I'm not diagnosed with anything but I can happily eat the same meal again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again like which is good we're gonna need which is good I think that will actually serve me quite well in India because I will not mind eating the same thing again and again if it's there's something I like gonna stop saying again now so we found this like great great cereal company that called a lot who Elle Elle Elle Elle Elle EAT yeah Elle Elle they literally have some banging cereals like they are so nice that was some fruit on top perfect breakfast or porridge or just you know the age old porridge with dates and bits and banana and peanut butter so so I'll have I'll have something like that for breakfast lunch I'm in my poke bowl era slash salad and then dinners I'm actually just eating loads more curry now that I used to because I'm just wanting to get used to eating curries and rice all the time and that's what I'm trying to I live near an Indian cash and carry so what I'm actually trying to do is to get into the habit of having quite a lot of Indian food in my diet generally and just being used to eating those pulses sort of vegetarian chickpeas pulses stuff because I just want to know if any of them are disagreeing with my stomach you know to me yeah and working out what it is that might be the dishes I might want to just avoid for running and that will be very inconvenient yeah but we need to delve into it really probably way more than we have but food wise I mean we've not apart from when I'm doing the longer runs with when Nina's been telling me how I need to fuel myself while I'm running we haven't actually massively delved into what I'm eating when I'm not running that makes sense no and I think you're doing all the right things in terms of like you know also eating real meals quite early you know before you're going before you're going running like you know they'll be let this London Marathon a couple of weekends time whatever and people will be getting up at like 4 in the morning because they're so like I have to eat you know I have to leave two hours after eating before I run and things like that and you know that's just again not tenables really fair you know sleep time is going to be so important and being able to eat and run 10 minutes later is is also going to be really important so she's been practicing more of that sort of stuff as well and real food on longer runs and just you know because the other thing is again like if we were going out for a week's you know challenge fine we can take a suitcase full of you know sports nutrition from the UK but we're not and also we don't you know we want to be we have to rely on the local we want to be and we want to enjoy the stuff yeah yeah yeah so um you know that's why we're sort of doing it in phases trying that trying stuff from a supermarket but also working out what works and then we can speak to some of our contacts are running friends in India as well and sort of say what's you know what here's the list of stuff that we really like what's the equivalent over there what can we get where could we get it and we can start really getting into the nitty-gritty of the planning and the other thing I think you know Hannah and I have talked about as well is some which will be easier once it warms up and getting a real feel for this is is her salts her electrolytes so we talked about doing a sweat test that's right yeah great um but yeah kind of like trying to work out how much Hannah sweats in terms of like liquid but also how but also how kind of salty her sweat is because like without getting really gross like some people can sweat a lot so I mean you can tell yeah like if you've done a lot of exercise and you've got like crusty face at the end of it or if you haven't but you've still sweated so like things like that are going to be really important for us to test and to try and test what she's doing what when the weather warms up when she's running in her layers and starting to on the heated climatization we'll be testing that again so so we can just be more prepared I mean it's not like we're gonna have a blooming lab team with us is it but on the road we can be you know we can know as much as as as we can and that will all be helpful and yeah sharing that with the team will be super helpful keeping on the subject of like things to that Hannah I need to prepare for you know such as the sweatshirts and like the electrolytes things there any other big benchmarks that you guys are working towards something that need to kind of have locked down before we get to day one well for me but I will need or have her probably like once steeped in medical or scientific knowledge but for me personally it's I've got like the nutrition dialed in bit I want I'm like now focused on like I said in previous podcasts now we're under 200 days I'm like I just need to like really dial it in I'm carrying a bit of I just want to get a bit more muscle I feel a bit stronger as a in my body as a runner just to feel like I'm strong enough for potential you know for the road ahead and I'm starting to get Alex is gonna has got the pleasure of starting to look after my feet from next week because my feet need some TLC so that's kind of a thing a lot of people have been saying to me about like sports massage and physio and stuff like that but I'm trying to keep it with your feet mate they're all right but they're not that nice to look at like you haven't lost any toenails though yet yeah I lost two when I did the ultra oh and now I have like quite bruised toe nails so I need to get Alex to decide what he wants to do with them my eyes I think my toes are bad consider I feet a bad when I've seen other runners feet but I don't want my feet to get bad don't want yeah like when you're this like without going into like sifits but when your toenails get bruised the nails just go really thick you seem like kind of like you know older people's toenails and that that(...) gets really sore day after day so like having them like thinned out is sometimes people just choose to having them thinned out what does that mean having them thinned out like we just this podcast should have a trigger warning like this one needs to be like a visual what is wrong with you this definitely does not need to be visual so wait are they literally like shaving your toenail down I haven't seen Alex yet I mean Alex you know Natalie's partner yeah yeah yeah I don't even know how he does it for a job but it's his job yeah he just shaves it down he just thins I will let you know once I've seen him I will tell you if he shaves down my nails he hasn't seen them they're beautiful he might look at them and love them mine but yeah it's kind of been shaved down see I'm always in this like slight sort of dilemma of like how much you know Hannah's in this blissful kind of naivety of ultra running and then there's a kind of like we're towing that line yeah of like oh no pun intended but of like how much do we how much do we let on versus keep you know keep a little bit of blissful ignorance see there you Nina I think we just have opposite directions on that kind of thing because for me I I much rather just go right into it and be like right so you're ready for your toenails to fall off you're ready to poop yourself you ready you know like we're all mentally prepared for these things right are you one of these people that like watches pimple videos Joel because it's what you're striking right now no I mean now that being said I can't watch it but that being said if it's like myself or back I would get right in there but there's that there's that satisfaction of just yeah oh Becca will

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be so glad you shared that with us and all five of our podcasters yep hey these are the harsh realities man like you gotta if we gotta be able to operate on that toe on the road you know wow that's uh that's gonna yeah that's gonna be something else but no feet prepped feet definitely important and like it's a really underrated thing for autorunners I think like you know it's one of those things you probably learn the hard way so you know we can that's hence and I was going to see Alex early and it's great we'll have Alex out there because yeah the best thing the best thing you can do for your feet is to prepare them basically I am prevent stuff happening rather than having to to fix stuff on the road and yeah what I mean on the other thing actually I mean I've just I've actually just come from being a physio this morning and we

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obviously haven't got a physio or a trained Massa or like that sort of team with us on the road but we are going to we are going to have a couple of meetings with a physio so that they can upskill the team in terms of Hannah's biomechanics and her skinny toe skinny toe kind of challenges and the things that we're likely to experience so that we know you know what are the pressure points to massage if we've got a taper knees what had to do it so we'll have the basics and then obviously and obviously them you know when we're on the road we'll hopefully you know we'll have a plan a backup plan for where the kind of local support medics are that we can go and see so it's killing me because I want to keep talking about toenails and all this other kinds of stuff but we're running out of time but just to finish this off would you would you guys both be able to kind of say what what is impressed you the most of how far Hannah's come like or how far your guys's training has come and then also what is it that you think is going to be the toughest moving forward coming up what's impressed me the most I think the way that Hannah just has shifted up a gear in terms of commitment to not missing runs like you know it's it's so easy to talk yourself out of a run if you're not feeling good or if what you've had a terrible week at work or whatever I do that most days yeah everybody does yeah we can all relate to it and I think Hannah's just got it in her head now it's like this is my job it's like every missed run now is like not sending a really important email for somebody in my team and letting them down it's the same equivalent yeah this is her part of commitment and I really respect her for that I think it's I yeah I know what it feels like when you don't want to go and she's she's doing it so that is amazing yeah I mean without scaring her I think for me the hardest thing is just we've just got you know we've just got a continue building volume which just means more time and and and more yeah more more tiredness I mean the reality is it like she's gonna be running 180 miles a week and her training at the moment she's doing you know up to 55 miles a week yeah not that we're going to be training 185 miles a week and nobody like if you're training for an you know a hundred mile ultra you don't run a hundred miles in training so the same we're not going to be doing that but there whatever we do we you know we're trying to keep her non-injured so we're being cautious but it means that whatever we do there is going to be a big step up and that's you know that's frightening for everybody and you know yeah there you go cards on the table honest well Nina thank you so much we can't appreciate you know if I don't know how we would be moving forward at all on this project without you agreed and I'm still in the running yeah well I wouldn't be doing it without you so well but yeah thanks again for for coming and joining us it's always a pleasure Nina and thank you guys for listening we will be back next week also can we get some feedback on our theme tune because every time I listen to it I feel like we are should form like some sort of hair rock band it's so ridiculous I personally love how ridiculous it is but it would be interesting if anyone else is finding it as hilarious as us anyway goodbye I have to say I have to listen to it every day all the time so thanks for listening bye! Bye! Thanks guys!

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that's our show everybody thank you so much for listening we will be putting together a new episode every week until Hannah starts the run once again a big shout out and thank you to 1% for the planet and give star for their amazing support the better business network and of course better not stop please make sure to check out all the links and everything we included in this conversation as well as if you wanted to get involved in our bio make sure you follow along on our social media account especially on Instagram to keep up to date at Project Salt Run the podcast is produced and recorded by myself and until next time safe travels

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