The Uneducated PT Podcast - #51 Conor O'Keeffe - Ultra Coach

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

In this episode of the Uneducated PT Podcast, we speak to ultra-endurance coach Conor O’Keeffe. Conor is a former fighter, an ultra-runner, a student of mindset, a proud father and a men’s mental health advocate who brings men together through his cruman community. In this episode expect to learn about dealing with adversity, ultra-running and the common mistakes people make, the prevalence of disordered eating and body image issues in athletes, life’s preparation for fatherhood, men’s mental health, why being undertrained is better than being overtrained. This is an epic episode for anyone who enjoys endurance racing in any aspect, Conor is a great character and has some incredible insights not only in training but in life. Give this one a listen on YouTube or Spotify and please subscribe and share the podcast.

Hello and welcome to the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. The goal of this podcast is to bring on interest and knowledgeable people from all walks of life, learn a little something from each conversation and for you, the listener, just learn something from each episode. So don't forget to subscribe to the channel, press the box below, show some support and I'll see you on the next. First question, I think we're going to go into a few different topics, but I wanted to talk to you about running the length of Ireland

on this big challenge that you have coming up. But before we go into that, you've took on this challenge but you're also recovering from a hip surgery tell me a little bit about that yeah so I started running 2018 and all was kind of going pretty good

and I was just enjoying it tipping away I had no fucking idea what I was doing like you know I was just like no we'll run a bit further today and we just keep stacking it up and see where we go to and I ran a marathon and all that and then I was like fuck it John we'll go and we run a hundred miles and I talk when I made sent to run a hundred miles a couple weeks later

and fucking broke me in half but I kind of was like I just wanted to keep going with this I didn't really know what I was searching for at the time and then I got to the point where I entered a 200 mile race and I ran that and then my hip was like that is terrible

I'm in so much pain and I basically had I had hip pain from 2019 until basically up until four weeks ago so I've had pain in the hip now it wasn't excruciating pain, right? So, like, it's not,

anybody who has what I have, which is called a femoral acetabular impingement, right? That's a good fucking mouthful. You wouldn't know that unless you've had it. Yeah, oh yeah, there wouldn't be many people just fucking bopping around the gaff with that type of knowledge, you know? But that's what I had anyway, right? And, like,

what it is, is, it's like, I had a combine one, right? Which means that I have growths on my femur and on the socket as well. So I had growth, groats rubbing off groats, right? Which was just like awful for running basically

because it makes you really bad at running, right? Because it just basically like what happens then is your body is like I don't want you to move this hip anymore so it just fucking wraps loads of tight muscle around it and you're just like, you start having a limp and stuff, right? So that's what was happening to me. So fair up, blow up,

fucking hip would get super tight, I'd be limping around the place, I wouldn't be able to walk, for two or three days and they were kind of settled down again. And it was happening, recurring and it did not matter what I did. I tried everything. Like, and I am one of those people. If I get something into my fucking mind, I will attack it, like, with everything I have. And I will rest it.

I rested it from once, you know, rest in terms of like, didn't put any major load on it, was trying to rehab it, did everything. And I finally got an MRI and it showed that I had the growth. showed that I had an FAA is what it is for short and your man was like look you can mess around with all this kind of stuff your cartilage is showing

a bit of wear and tear and that's not good by the way and you have this femurro ass tabular impingement as a grant sat on it for a couple of months so it's like fuck it I just kind of keep going see where I go and it just wasn't getting any better so I was like look let's fucking let's do this

like I just want to run and like I want to have that freedom back and like I want to be able to grow within running. I know honestly from when I finished that 200 mile or I just I've hit a walk I fucking peaked then and I just skated along and people would be like Jesus you know you've done a lot in running or whatever but I've never really been able to stitch together a good training block I've never been able to prepare properly to the level that I wanted to do this was this aggravating you when you did the obviously we speak about this challenge but the lot remember the last challenge you did

was the 32 Maritans and 32 counties wasn't it? Yeah. Or 36, sorry. Yeah. 32, 32 mountains. 32 counties.

Yeah, 32 pounds. 32 counties. Yeah. And was this affecting you then? Yeah. So it's affecting me all the time. So everything I have done in running,

it was affecting me. So not necessarily, like it wouldn't, might not be excruciating pain throughout the whole thing, but it did get me to that point where I wasn't able to run in training blocks every time.

So every time I'd put a, you know, a couple of months, together to train for something, I'd always have weeks where I was out. Or I'd always have months sometimes where I was out. And I was just trying to figure it out. Then I'd go back out and run again. It would get fucked again.

And then so on and so forth. And so I never got to the point where I could actually level up. And I feel like, yeah, maybe naturally just because I kept running over five years. I grew as a runner. And I tried my hand at trying to try to do, you know, subterm marathon, tried my hand of trying to get better at ultra endurance and stuff. but it never really happened. And like this is not a guarantee

that this will be, you know, a gateway into having an injury-free block because something tells me that maybe because my hip stops me from training to a load that's really high, it might have stopped me from getting other injuries. So other injuries could come up. So there's no real guarantees in this whatsoever.

But it was just like, right, I just wanted to give it a try. like a fucking we have one shot at living life and I don't want to fucking spend it thinking fuck it I should have gotten the surgery so someone who is very obsessed with pushing themselves to the limits in terms of their train

and how difficult has it been in terms of the rehab for this because obviously that means you have to pull yourself back immensely yeah I think it's it's taught me an awful lot man to be honest like even just like my relationship with running and where it's coming from

and why I want to do it was something that was questioned so many times in this process questions by other people or by you? By me, oh yeah, no, I never really listened to anybody else as fucking questioning why I'm doing anything. It's all to do with my own thoughts and perceptions of myself of who I am. And like, yeah, like, it just slowed me down

and it just got me to the point where I was like, right, you know, I actually realized that I had such a great life and I have a great life and even without running my life is fantastic I wake up and I get to spend time with my son and I run my own businesses

I don't have a boss a beautiful, wonderful supportive wife I've got a great home you know of all these things so it really wasn't for me I think I would have struggled a few years ago well I was about to ask you

did that gratitude come from the process of running because did you have that before like would you have had that awareness and that gratitude before you went on this journey in what 2018 of running. Yeah, no, gee, I was not a grateful person at all for many years. Because I had a lot of things going on at a lot of different times in my life. I've been very, it's not necessarily that I've been very fortunate. I've worked at things quite often and have gotten the fruits of them,

but never saw the fruits, always wanted more, you know, always wanted more. And whatever it was, I wanted it to be the best or me to be the best at it. And try and put that control over things that I can control. That was a huge fucking part of figuring out that I really, you know, I don't have the control over everything. And I have to just learn to, I've learned to kind of manage that. Is that something that you're still managing or do you feel like you're pretty got to nail down, like even in terms of this injury?

yeah no I think I've got it fairly like to the like you know as much as you can oh yeah I've said this to my mate like life is so unpredictable and I can throw things at you at all time so you don't know how you're going to act in a particular situation when something happens

like if something big happens like you know but for all of the like I'm definitely a huge believer in not sweating the small stuff and literally 99% of stuff we go through is the small stuff obviously look life fucks curballs at us you know every now and then

and you have to deal with it as you go but I think For me, I've gotten so much better at that. I used to catastrophize everything, like, and everything was the end of the world, and everything was the worst, and blah, blah, blah. And I feel like if I had still had that mentality through now, I'd be fucking, you know, at the end of my teller.

Can I ask you, if someone, say someone's in a similar situation where they do catastrophize everything, how did you get out of that mindset? I don't know exactly. I do feel like when I started running, it was one of the first times in a long time where I know people and including me and I've thought about this I've meta-analyzed myself

so many times about like do you know distraction it's like is running another distraction yes possibly right could have been and it probably is right that's parked that to the side but I distracted myself so much in my life

with with alcohol with sex with fucking these things that are just like so expedient and kind of meaningless and their their, their distractions, their wants, desires, right? And so when I started running, I moved away from a lot of that stuff. Now, it took me a while. It wasn't an overnight thing of I was put on the runners and I stopped doing that shit. Like, you know what I mean? It took me a long time to kind of get out of those things, but running didn't save anything, but it might have just given me

the arena, the environment, to talk to myself and to realize that I'd actually been so horrible to myself for so long. Nothing was ever good enough. I was never, you know, I could never satisfy the idea I had in my mind for myself. And I was constantly chasing that idea of happiness and an idea of like being the best version of myself. And it, it would have never never I never would have got there if I had continued in that vein of trying to bet you know best everything and get get to that point so where it started was actually just being happy with who I was that's the fucking catalyst of everything I wouldn't have a son I wouldn't have a wife I wouldn't have this lovely home I wouldn't have this anything if I hadn't sorted out with who I was

who I felt I was like if I was if I was a happy with who I was in that moment and not I'll be happy when I'll be happy this yeah I'm gonna go do this thing and I'm gonna get happy it was like I'm just I'm happy with who I am I'm kind I'm a nice person I'm you know I I I feel like I have a lot of value without anything you know not not a monetary value not a value to impart on others but just a value to myself that's where it really I think. I'm interested when you said not having the I'll be happy when but do you find that you have this kind of a push and pull like put it this way you're you're you're trying to attempt something really really difficult you know it would be a huge accomplishment so do you

have a bit of push and pull between the being content with where you are and also pushing yourself to to be more yeah I feel like it's actually a more of a I am happy with who I am, and I realize through that happiness that I have a lot of potential. Yeah. And so I feel like then also I have a duty to myself.

So I have a duty to myself to see out this potential if I have it. So, and I feel like that's actually in everybody, right? It's so weird to think about this, like, but like I always felt by, even when I was like drinking and smoking and just woman, and doing all that shite.

There was the reason why it hurt me so much because I always knew I had potential to do something. They didn't know what the fuck it was. I always had an interest in doing something and just having an adventure, you know, and going out and doing things. But I just never backed myself to do it

because there was that negative voice saying to me, you know, and that negative voice kept me so comfortable as well because it, like those negative, voices they don't really like when you try new shit. Yeah. And they don't really like when you push the boat out or you get uncomfortable or you feel out of your depth that you feel new or shit at something. So

I feel now I'm like I want that Connor when it's all done and dusted to be it, you know, when I'm about to leave this earth that I kind of go, yeah, you fucking, you gave it socks, you know what I mean, and you did everything. So there would be a lot of people listening to this who

probably are in a similar situation that you were in and trying to get out of it and trying to challenge themselves to do more difficult things live up to their potential whether that's you know taking on a 5k or a marathon or running a business or you know doing something difficult something that's out of their comfort zone and a lot of time like you said that they'll get these negative voices in their head oh i'm not good enough to do this and then they'll internalize that and they'll self-sabotage in some way maybe they'll go back on the drink the night before a race or you know i mean they'll skip that exam and pretend they're still

or whatever it is. So did you ever have any of that along that kind of journey out of there that you were self-sabotaging? Or do you find that you are able to internalise what's going on now as you're telling yourself even more? Yeah, I feel like when I was making my way through it, it was like a very much a fucking paw through the dark, you know? Like I didn't have anything figured out. And I still don't think I have it figured out. I don't think there's any figuring it out really, you know what? fucking life just happens, you know.

But I feel like I'm far better at coping, right? So, like, that's probably a different thing. Couldn't cope at all with anything before. Like, you know, it was just like any minute occurrence in my life, like, it just fucking caused me to spiral. And that's the self-sabotage really is, like, self-abotage for me came in a lot of, like, a dog piling type situation. It's like, oh, something bad happened.

Well, fuck a load of shit down on top of that now. Because now I'm fucking drunk. And now it's 3 o'clock in the morning. I'm ringing the wrong person. And it's fucking four o'clock in the morning. I'm throwing something through that glass window or I'm fucking doing something stupid. And I'm, you know what I mean?

So that's what happened. That's what would happen for me. It's like, well, life's shit. I better just fucking amplify how shit it is. Do you know what I mean? So when I started to, I really actually took, it was like I started running in 2018. The whole year of 2018 was actually the biggest shit show ever, right?

So it wasn't running that saved me. it was when I was like 2019 I was like something fucking switched I was like I need to fucking change my life

and what it actually was it wasn't running running again it gave the environment for it to grow it was the water and the earth and the sunshine

that allowed the thoughts to germinate and what it was was forgiveness to fucking forgive myself for all of those fucking times when I would dogpile on myself and where I would do shit things and I would exacerbate, you know, all of the feelings of, you know, of feeling, the negative feelings in my

head and I had to forgive myself and I had to accept regrets. I had to accept a lot of regrets because like when you start to talk to yourself and you start to get really honest and you start to look at the times when you weren't the best person to you or to other people, you're and you start to realize and you go, okay, I forgive you, like speaking to myself, like the amount of times I had this conversation of Connor, I forgive you, man, like, you know, you're fucking, you were, it was your intention was not to do this. Your intention was not to do these things and, you know, it wasn't that I was ever a fucking, you know, a murderous fucking, you know, whatever. It wasn't that it was that deep. It was just that like there was just certain times

when I didn't act well for me, you know, and I didn't act well for others either, you know. And like, that was where, like, this element of forgiveness has actually, had actually come in. And when I started to forgive is actually when I less wanted to sabotage. Yeah, yeah. Because I felt like I was building something. So if I felt like I'm building something strong,

I don't want to be fucking tearing myself down at the same time, you know? Yeah. Well, I even find my clients, even in terms of, you know, improving their relationship with food and just getting them active and stuff like that. A lot of times the ones that are finding the most difficult to make positive changes are the one that are riddled with shame and guilt over the, even the smallest things.

It's very hard to make positive change if you're just constantly berating yourself. Yeah, for sure. You have to be on your own team. I say that all the time, like you have to be on your own fucking team. And the thing about it is, right, and people will know this, especially Manchester United supporters, and all this, sometimes you have to

fucking stick it out with your team and you have to fucking stick it out with it. And sometimes you will do things that are not good

for the team, but you have to realize that most of the time, like, and my mother says this whole time, she's a psychotherapist and she has an awful lot

of good insight. She was like, no one wakes up to have a bad day. No one wakes up to have a bad day. Everybody is trying to put their fucking

best put forward And for some of those people, it's highly irrational behavior. And for some of those people, it's highly rational and logical behavior. And the thing is, is the one person can't differentiate what the other person is feeling. Because in their own mind, this is the right thing to do. You know what I'm saying? So, like, anybody that is feeling that, you know, that it might be listening to this, is like, you're never, like, no team wins every game.

no team is invincible no team gets no goal scored against them life fucking takes shots all the time and it's just about

at the end of the day can we be fucking 51% and the bad shit be 49 yeah yeah Roger Federer has a brilliant breakdown

of all the sets he's played over his years of tennis obviously one the greatest players ever and like he breaks it down to like

he only won like 54% of the points that he played it which is Which is insane because he literally dominated tennis for so many years. So long, yeah, exactly. That's the thing. And even, like, Michael Jordan, finally you, I'm a Michael Jordan fanboy.

And, you know, like, he's missed hundreds of shots at last-minute buzzer-beaters. Do you know what I mean? But he'll be remembered as one of the best buzzer-beaters in the world because he was there when it mattered. You know? And that's the thing. It's like if you're there for yourself when it matters, you actually get through anything. If you're on your own team and you feel like no matter what happens, good bad or indifferent.

Like maybe you've gained weight or you've, you know, falling off the wagon of looking after yourself. It's like, that's okay. Like, it happens. But it's about what we do now. What we do right now

when we're feeling at our lowest is actually, because that's, again, it's like, you know, you feel low, you want to do that self-sabotage thing where you go, well, I haven't looked after my day for a week, I might as well go under points.

Yeah. Do you know that kind of way? And that's that, and that's that, destructive attitude. And again, this isn't not something that's maybe covered in the like there's loads of the nutritionists and fitness people

and they talk about what to eat but I don't think we talk enough about like the why to eat you know why are we doing this we doing this because we deserve it and because we want to best for ourselves not just speak fucking we want to fit into the dress yeah we want to fit into the dress but it's a bigger thing it's like we deserve to be that person do you know what I mean to be to ourselves you know what I mean 100% so tell us a little bit about the next

challenge that you have coming up just for the few where to do you don't know so to break down in a nutshell the the distance is 565 kilometres and the record

is three days one hour and 55 minutes so I'm going to try and do it in three days what's the route where do you start where do you finish starting Malinhead

up in Duny Gaul now you can do it either way whichever way you want but I want to the finish in Cork so Malin Head down to Mizan Head in West Cork

and yeah so basically that's that's the challenge in a nutshell really like of like what it is it's yeah it's a lot so it's going to be like you'd be doing three 100 mile races plus so you'd be about 360 miles so it's 120 miles a day is this non-stop for the three days obviously yeah you could sleep for sure like you know I think the guy who set the record slept for 70 minutes and now I did it when I did the 200 mile where I slept for 30 minutes and I feel like I feel like that that's not really that's a tiny portion of it so the actual sleeping and resting or whatever I don't think that's the big the biggest deal is how you keep your you maintain your energy for those three days yeah and it's the and it's about the bodily conditioning as well so like you just need to be strong like throughout and like the thing about it's I know this is a lot of people know. People are going to disagree with me on this.

It's a bit of controversy, you know, it's a clip. So you can put this up as a clip. Sound bite this. Right, sound bite. Strength training for runners, I don't, I think we're, sometimes overdue it. I think a lot of strength training for runners is actually running and running workouts. So specifically doing running workouts. So like hill repeats and interval sessions, all of those things should condition your body

to be strong with running, right? And so you need to do all of those workouts, so you need to do your easy runs, you need to do these things to build up the body. And yeah, you can go to the gym if you want to, and you can cross-train and all those kind of things. But the main thing for me is just to, like, well, the main thing for me now is not to get ahead of myself.

Yeah. You know, this is what I was about to ask you. Like, in terms of you just having hip surgery, what essentially, what are the limitations for you right now? What can you do? What can't you do? So you can kind of basically do everything except for running and anything that would really require like tons of hip mobility. So like, you know, lateral squats and lateral one-legged squats and all those kind of things, which I'd never really do anyway.

But like all of those movements that would stretch the hip a lot kind of out the door for the moment, right? We're four weeks today. So four weeks post-op today. So I have two more weeks until I can start doing running sets, which is very, going to be very, very low volume. volume like one minute on one minute off running and thing for for a while and just build that up again so I'm limited to the point where I can do like cross trainer like elliptical the bike ski org which I did today really for the first time just to kind of get more of that kind of hip propulsion kind of movement get

in there and then loads of swimming so like after I leave here now today I'm going down to the pool again to do 700 meters in the pool and it's not a lot but it's just you're building it up to where before I do my first run my kind of goal is to swim for a kilometer so I used to do that all the time but now it's like rebuilding the hip to do that and and so that's as markers along the way the whole way so it's all about getting to that next marker it's not about running the length of Ireland yet it's about just getting to the next so breaking it down I work with a lot of people on goal framing and goal setting yeah and like talk about your dream goal your

performance goal and then the process goal that lead to the performance goal, right? And you're hoping then that the performance goal will lead to the dream goal, you know? So like a sprinter would have a dream goal of being the fastest sprinter in Ireland. That's very vague. Like it's a vague goal, right?

So like there's loads of other people running, so you don't know what it is, what's the time, when do you want to do it by? All of those things come under the performance goal. So let's say his performance goal then is to shave 0.1 of the second off of his 100 meter time, right? That's a performance goal. Okay, right?

So what's the process to that? What's the process goals? Well, we need to do sprint-related training three times a week. Okay, when are we going to do it? We do it Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday days. Okay, what time? We do it at 6pm. And you get more specific and specific at each time.

So that's what I'm doing each week now is getting more and more and more specific. So, like, within my time, I built from five minutes on a exercise bike all the way to where I'm 30 minutes on an elliptical and doing five sets of 30 seconds on a exercise bike, on a ski or fast, right? That happened by adding three minutes each time I got on the bike and then once I got to 30 minutes on the bike starting with five minutes on the elliptical

and building three minutes at a time. Then once I got to that point then it was about adding resistance each time I'm on the bike and adding resistance each time I'm on the elliptical to the point where now I'm scaling through not time but resistance and then also then while doing that

at scaling my time in the pool so you're trying to get up to a kilometer so then by the time you hit a kilometer you should be six weeks in and that's when you set your running sets so it's calculated enough you know so i don't and there'll be people listening to this and they'll have goals set and they might even you know obviously the biggest mistake people make a set a goal and then that's it they don't do what you've done and reverse engineer it down to the down to the minutia but what i wanted to ask you then is with a massive goal like this which is obviously going to take so much of your time so much effort

so much dedication, so much sacrifice. And a lot of the times people set goals, but they don't ask themselves what they have to sacrifice in order to achieve that. So that's what I'm curious to ask is, have you taught to yourself, okay, this is what I want to achieve? What are the things that I need to sacrifice

in order to achieve this? So you talk about your priorities. So your priorities is what, like, to inform any goal, there's loads of different aspects as well that I would work with clients on right as well. So values would be one. and priorities very similar, right?

So like your values and your priorities could point you in the direction that family is the number one priority and you value family. So when you talk about your goal and or what you're going to do, inform that by what way you operate within the family unit.

So that's one of the biggest things for me was I fucking love spending time with my son more than anything. And so what I've, I know that I'll be up at like 5 o'clock in the morning because I want to get the long run done in and around the time he's eating breakfast and I'm coming home. So then I have time with him.

Do you know what I mean? And then I've got client calls and whatever the case, me during the days. And then I spend the time with him. I do his bedtime bathe him, brush his teeth, get him into bed, read books, you know, do the stuff that we love doing together and then offer like the second run of the day sometimes

when you have double days or whatever. know that like when it comes to that time like right now it's handy like I'm not not not training as intensely as I would so it's it's much easier but when you have that framing where your you you let your values and your your your your priorities set your intention then you realize that within the goals you have to have healthy boundaries yeah because like and this is the thing the crossroads I came to with Thai boxing was, is it taken from my life or is it giving something to my life?

There's always a cost-benefit ratio to anything. And there's always going to be certain times where it'll take. And there's always going to be certain times there might cause friction within you and your partner. And that's just the way it happens. And you have to be able to accept that too. So you can't have it all, like, you know,

you can't have your cake you need it too. I can't do all of this stuff and expect it to not affect the people that are in my life. You know, so you just have to, fucking sometimes like the the the old adage of just doing your fucking best

comes into play you know what I mean but even then you even gave the example of there that right you had to essentially hang up the gloves and say right

this is this is taking too much much of my time for other priorities not even time it was not even a time thing for tie boxing it was just an actual

it made me hate myself yeah fucking made me hate myself in what way um well I had body dysmorphia because I was losing weight so much and couldn't fucking it had a horrifically unhealthy relationship with food

and which lasted for years after I left and it I saw I was losing so much weight it was unhealthy I was crying all the time when I was when I was losing weight because my fucking body was so my hormones so out of fucking whack yeah and I was you know I was I was fighting and I was winning sometimes I was losing sometimes getting severe concussions which was not helping my mental state either. So it made it fucking it drove me insane. Yeah I have to I have to interrupt you so I had the last guest that I had on is a Mai Tai coach who's a nutritionist and trains them and he literally just spoke about how you know nearly 80% of fighters are suffering with disorderity and body image issues and nobody really talks about it. Oh it's a huge fucking issue. Yeah. It's a ginormous issue. Because then have you seen you know the fucking fat shaming that goes on in the fucking, in the, in the fighting universe is ginormous.

Any fighter that packs on a bit of weight afterwards, he's all over the place. Look at how he's fucking ballooned up. Like, he used to be so shredded and he was fighting and all this type of shit. They're picked apart, like, you know, not that I was, but I'm just saying that it's just, it's the attitude thing.

Yeah. Like, even when sometimes I'd have taken a break from training now, like, let's say college exams, and I take a couple of months off. I might gain a couple of way. You're only fucking eating at the desk. you're studying and shit, you plan a bit of weight, and you get back up then, like, and you're in the change room.

The boy's like, fucking elbow. You've some weight to go if you want to fight again? I'm like, all right, boy, it's my first training session back, like, fucking relax. You know, so it's, it was, it's pressure, and it's also pressure then from yourself. That's the main thing, really, like, and I just, that's the, that's the, fucking, that's the insight really towards anything is, yeah, people can say anything, but it's how you interpret it and internally is it, really that makes it more powerful, you know? What are some of the common mistakes people make when,

trying to take on challenges of ultra running because I know that's essentially what you coach people so when people come to you looking to take on some big challenge in terms of a long distance run what are some of the mistakes you see them like um they scale and build too fast so they ask too much of themselves too early yeah i did that too everybody does it everyone does it in lots of areas of life you just take on you just shoulder too much um like you see it in the gym people ego lifting and all this kind of stuff like you just want to fucking bench a hundred kilos or whatever you know do you ever ask yourself that question about the challenges

that you have coming up yeah oh geez I definitely think I've bitten off a lot yeah um I think the only way to see if I've bitten off more than I can chew is fucking do it like you know so yeah I feel like for me like it's you know and this is something that I was only recently kind of brought into my mind for me it's like I love storytelling

and I love the art and I love theatre and I love the idea that's why I love hip-hop music so much is this fantastic poetry and storytelling within it right and I feel like that has injected so much of my life because if you look at it like the day I the day I got the surgery I literally just fucking came to from the anesthetic and I announced that I was gonna do this yeah you know yeah I remember that it's like this lots of bad man so it's it's that it's this it's the rocky story this guy's going to like

Like this, he's gonna fucking fight Apollo Creed, you know, the thing? So I feel like this is my Apollo Creed in a way. But I feel like I want it without saying it all the time. You can do it, you can do it. But for it to be a beacon for anybody who's like, I don't fucking put any barriers in your own way. You know what I mean? Loads of people are going to try and put barriers in there for you anyway.

Just don't fucking do it yourself. And again, I have a very, very good relationship with failure. I don't really care whether I fail or not at this. And it's, you know, people would say, would that not make you quit in your weaker moments? It's like, no. Because I have no problem with failing if I've given fucking everything.

If I can honestly look at myself in the mirror and say, I gave fucking everything to do that. And I failed, then I just have to, I have to go back and I have to try and see what I can do differently. You know what I mean? So I don't, that, me dancing with failure and success,

it doesn't bother me at all, right? And yeah, I could have, it's a huge challenge. Like, I'm already a month into the amount of training I've given myself, right? And I'm only fucking cycling and shit, like, you know, I'm not even started running yet. But that's the type of stuff that kind of gives me this, like, this is not the hardest thing that anybody's ever done by any means. Like, not even fucking close.

The amount of suffering and the amount of horrible, things that happen to people and they come through it. This is nothing like really, you know what I mean? In the grand scheme of things, it's running. I'll have huge support from people. I'll have huge support from my family. I'll have, you know, I'll have every single advantage

that I possibly can have. I'll have the best nutrition. I'll have the best gear, of the best runners. I'll have the best of everything. So people don't see that though. They just think, this guy's gonna fucking have to run this much. Yeah, but like I've got so many things on myself. So many things helping me And yeah

And I can't wait to get into the thick of it But I have to stay in the process I have to like as I've been saying all the time Chop chop wood carry water Which means like It doesn't matter about the thinking It's doing the work And when you're doing the work

You don't think about anything else Is that a mistake that clients of yours Mike when they're trying for an ultramaritan Like look I I can literally scope out nearly what's going to happen from when I meet somebody to when they run their race. They'll come in, they'll have an idea of what to do, I'll tell them what to do,

they'll think it's too little, then they'll struggle to do what I've told them to do because it's a lot, then they'll get to the race, they'll do the race, they'll fucking enjoy it most of the time and they'll finish it and they'll go, that was great. That's what happens. People come in and they think,

I'm going to ask them to run 100km runs and stuff, or 50K runs and all this kind of stuff and I'm like no be consistent if you can fucking do these weeks and get through this and stay in the process and nothing too far ahead and not fucking thing we will get there why do we overestimate what we can do

because we're human beings and we're stupid and I think I'm even stupid as well from time to time like even tonight I was saying yeah I went white because I was just on the fucking skier going absolutely ham that just happens like you know what I mean so like and you have to realize

like again it's just intentions as well like your intentions are always in the right place. I mean, any of these things, and I think, and that's the thing, I never judge people that come into me, you know, things.

Like, I've had people that have come in that have tried to do ultras and failed, and I've asked them about their training, go, like, I was so sure I was going to do it like, because I had done 65K a week before, and I was like, why are you doing 65K a week before you take on the race? All this kind of stuff.

And then they kind of think, they're just worn out and overtrend. I always say to people, and this is something I actually learn from Thai boxing. I prefer to be a little, under-trained than a little over-trained. Because at least if you're under-trained, you're not going to be sapped.

If you're under-trained, you're not going to be sapped of energy and you're not going to be overly confident, which will kind of keep you in check. Right? So you're going to be fucking, I haven't really done, you know, as much as I think, you know, for this,

so I'm going to fucking back off. Whereas like, I've done fucking loads for this. And it's like, I should feel great. And then they start off, and then they're fucked a third the way through and they're honestly there's really no coming back does it happen a lot of time where

like even if let's say people do the training and then they stick to the plan but then on the actual race day they get over excited or they get overly confident and then they push past what they've been doing in training and that affects them in terms of finishing

the race that happens and I feel like sometimes you know I feel like you know you learn through dealing with clients as you know yourself right like so I know I do make it my business like you know when it's the first time they're doing this distance I'm like you don't know what it feels like to be at this distance you don't know what if someone's doing their first hundred case like you don't know what it feels like to be 80k in and have 20k to do go so just from just remember that like you know take it handy like there's plenty of time to become a

master of ultra running let's just try and get this finished you know I mean because if if people get disheartened if they DNF they if they do it did not finish and they get disarmed they might never revisit this thing before but if they finish and they go oh i could have done that faster that's that's the fucking that that's a great place to be yeah yeah yeah you know what i mean you want to feel like you had more in the time grab rather than you've just hit the wall and so like that's the thing it's like so you know for people that do want to get into this thing like it takes time something i didn't also really think about when i first started as well i just went into it but you know again that idea comes

into my mind is like, is it taken or giving? Ultra running is tough, but it should give you something. Whether it's introspection or whether it's, you know, some sort of a challenge, but if it's, if it's making you feel bad about yourself, then that's when the questions have to answer. I've never had that with ultra running, but I said to my, I've promised my wife, I promised everybody, if I ever had that about running, I quit. if I ever had the feeling that it was making me feel lesser or it was making me you know

it made me not want to be good to myself I'm fucking gone you know what I mean I doubt it would ever happen but like that's really where it's at for me when I take on a client I ask them questions that I don't think many people would ask them like you know so like it's like about do you have kids do you know what hours do you work you know you know

like there's people there that take on they're like fucking you know dental surgeons and stuff and they've worked mad hours and they're high stress jobs and stuff and i'm like you know we can't have this guy running six days a week he just he just he just implode you know what i mean so you have to work around that so you have to make try now that's the challenge you know it's the challenge of of coaching somebody is making it fit into their lives do you think a lot of the coaching that you do is then not even specifically around the training or the nutrition it is around their lives

around the person rather than the project Yeah and I think I think You touch there on the nutrition side of things That's the part where people don't don't realize That like you know people's you know It's a well-known kind of a phrase within the ultra-running community It's like it's less of a running competition And more of an eating competition

Right So if you can fuel yourself properly It is actually half the battle Yeah Because if you train really really hard But you're not putting Like you could have a high performance car If you have a tenor petrol in it

You're not fucking going fair So it doesn't matter You could be the most finely tuned machine you've ever seen But if you're not able to put petrol in the tank Is that a big mistake you see It's not a mistake I see from my clients But it's something that I have to educate them on But it's normal like

Because I have to educate myself Because I've made every mistake in the book And I've underfueled Do you find that you still make mistakes That you even warn clients about not making? still to this day. Not really. I try not to.

Like I always, like even today I had 80 grams of carbohydrates and a drink today, tonight, just for my workout. I try and, like, even if I'm not doing super stellar stuff right now and I'm just getting onto the elliptical

and the bike and stuff, I still, like, I'm training my gut right now. Yeah. And so I do want to be a do-as-I-do. Yeah, yeah. Type of coach, not a do-as-I-say. Yeah, yeah. So, like, I do want to be a,

an example for people as well, you know, to kind of go, yeah, look, this is what, like, I can tell you straight up, because of my hip, I haven't been able to prepare for fucking anything. I got close to doing a sub-3 marathon strictly because I had trained my gut to fucking take on fuel. I got, I finished in the top ten in the carry way last year. Fucking, I did fucking barely any training. I got one, two weeks, I think, where I hit 100K, and that was it. And I was doing 100, and this was a 190k race. The only reason why I was able to keep such a steady pace is because my fueling was perfect

because I had trained it into me. So that's what's giving me such a belief in it. It's like I've tried and tested this stuff myself. I know how it works and I know that it can work, you know. And there's a guy, I give a shout out here to Evan Lynch, who I've worked with on this. I've a meeting with him next Monday to start the Ireland, the run Ireland kind of nutrition path with him, which is different again because I've been running for three days. and you can rub into things like rhabdomyalysis

where your body just doesn't have the ability to digest food anymore or you know what I mean or you can lose proteins and your bones can weaken and all this type of stuff happens so there's loads of things in play then with that you know

so and I want to use that then to educate myself further you know on this whole thing yeah you're basically trial intestine on yourself for sure on my own guinea pig yeah yeah yeah yeah and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about fatherhood because I know that's something that's really

changed and impacted your life so um do you think coaching clients and i'm going through this yourself has set you up to be more equipped for fatherhood uh i think it's the other way around really i think fatherhood has given me such a um to be very honest and very you know um fucking right in here i didn't know how to love or accept love for a very long time. And I remember actually in 2019, when I had started this journey of self-forgiveness that we took on an autism assistance dog, right? My family did. My dad did, right? And he was this little puppy. And as I was going through this journey of forgiveness for myself, I felt like a huge amount of compassion for this dog. tiny little puppy tiny little thing

and we were training him to be a companion dog for an adult and a child with autism right and it was so strange but I grew to love him right and I felt like I had distanced myself so many times

yeah I'd loved people and I'd loved people in the past obviously love your parents you have your family and all of these things but I had loved somebody some people in the past but I had had made myself cold you know true experience and then thinking that was the best way to

stop myself from feeling bad anymore was to shut down that part of my emotion, not get attached to anything, you know? And yeah, so I had kind of been able to show this dog compassion and to empathy and all of these things that I'd never been able to give anybody before. And that was my first time of kind of actually letting that in.

And then I had met my wife and straight away, it was like, this is it. I never felt like that before. I was like, this is fucking it. And like, this is the one. And people talk about that. You know, it's like, beloved foresight.

Honestly, just immediately was like, this is, I knew that what was going to take place. I didn't even kiss her. And I told my dad, I was like, look, if you want it,

because she was coming down to Cork and I invited her over to have dinner. And I was like, if you... Is she from Wiclo? Is that why you... She's from Meath. Mead, I,

but she was living in Wicklow at the time. Oh, okay. And I met her in Wiclo when I was going around the country. Ah, okay. claiming mountains and all that kind of caper. And then I, I was like, to my dad,

I was like, be nice for her, because if you ever want grandchildren from me, be nice. And this was like before he'd even fucking, you know, went on a date with her, like, properly. And, yeah, then two years later, we have our son. And, yeah, like, that was like,

a huge kind of a thing of, I've been constantly trying to question, not question, but figure out, like not how to be better it's a weird way of saying it but you know like am I the man I want to be

not runner or fucking what people see on Instagram but like am I am I a caring accepting compassionate empathetic

strong-minded person that can give this child the best father that he could have and that question and being asked that question has given me such a calmness with my son

that every day I learn something from him and no one's perfect right no one is perfect and things but I what I have tried to do is try to learn from the elements

my parents had the best of intentions with us all the time right and they were very angry people right when we were going hunger, very angry with us. And, you know, we were probably bollockses as well. Like, you know what I mean? But we were, they were very angry with us.

And their kind of thing was, I want to protect you, so I'm going to be cross. And I'm going to fucking, you know, I'm going to drill in. You don't do this. You don't do that. Can't do this. Fuck, don't, don't piss me off. And I didn't want to be that. I didn't want my fucking son walking on egg shells.

Yeah. Which has given me and, like, I've talked at Lint with my parents about this stuff now. Like, my mother has become of psychotherapy. therapists and all since like you know and all this stuff and I see them with with with you know their grandchildren like and they're just they're just not even the same people you know so they've grown a lot too and we've talked about it at length as well and there's a lot of forgiveness there too but we I feel like when I when I look at myself and as a father and my son and our process through

that I've always tried to give that idea of understanding where he's where he's coming from from, even the most erratic, irrational things that children do to just go, like today I goes, I was like, you know, do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? And then I was like, he had a, he had a packet of salt, you know, the sax salt thing. And he was like, trying to pour it into his mouth. And like, I was like, look, I'm going to have to take this from you know because this is salt and I can't have you eating salt.

I have to take care of you. I'm your dad. That's the kind of way I talked to him, right? He doesn't understand that shit. But I take it off me. He starts bawling crane. and I'm trying to comfort him and all this kind of stuff

and then I'm saying things like do you want to Bali or do you want to go to the TV and then I go and then I finally say and I say this all the time you just want to be one and a half don't you know you just want to meet people

where they are and this is it by you I don't want I can't expect him to be 10 years old when he's one and a half I was like you just want to be one and a half you want to cry

and you want to have to you know you want to have your time and all I want to do there is just be there and accept it and kind of go yeah it's okay we'll work through this together we'll find a way and and he this is the thing about about kids is like they'll teach you so much about yourself that it's not even funny you know so i had i had sammy dowland on the podcast before he he's the strength and conditioning coach for the dublin ga and i asked him the same question and i asked him and said what has a fatherhood touch about coaching or the other way around and he and he

said something quite similar he was like you know when he was talking to son Jacob is like, you know, you're talking to him when he's four years of old. You have to talk to him like he's a four year old or you have to talk to him like he's a six year old. And it's like you have to meet the child at the age that they're at. And then it's the same with the athletes that he works with like he could be talking to, you know, a 12 year old girl or, you know, an 18 year old girl or a 24 year old male. Like, and a big thing about coaching is being able to communicate with the person in front of you and understanding that they're not this going to, you're not going to be able to be able to be able to. to speak to them the same way or expect to have the same kind of communication and being able to speak to them at different stages of their life almost.

Yeah, like I think I try and talk to him like I do actually talk to anybody, right? So I don't like the way I talk to him, I have to take this. I want to give him a reason for the reason why I'm taking this thing off. And it's not just like, give me that. You know, you don't have, you shouldn't have that. You don't have that. Because that's what happened in my, you know, thing. I'd have been snatched out of my hand

and I'd have been fucking shoot into the next room or that's the way it would have happened because it's like I, you know, not seeing that it's a child, you know? But I do want to say it to him like, I'm going to take the salt off of you because you can't drink salt because it's not good for you

and I have to look after you. I'm your dad and I have to look after you and it's not because I'm the boss or I'm this and that and that's never what I want that even as it grows up it's like not because I'm the boss. It's like I'm your dad and my job is to look after you

and to make sure that you're okay. and to make sure that, you know, everything is okay. So I'm going to take this off you, and then you have to fucking meet that, meet the child's reaction. You know what I mean? And I'm going to go, realize, he's not even too, you know, so if he has that type of reaction, I can't.

That's not an opportunity or a time for me to get stressed. And because I've seen that an awful lot. It's like, I don't want to blame or pie fingers. Everybody's trying to do their best here, we're parenting, but I do see that reaction from the child causes, an opposite reaction of the parent which might even end up exacerbating what's happening with the child.

So I feel like, yeah, ultra running and even my time in hell week and those high stress situations have taught me an awful lot about being a parent as well. Because I realize that, like, in those fucking situations when things are kind of going to shit

and when things are not going right, the last thing you want to do was stress out. You want to be calm and you want to be, and you want to just be very clear in your community. communication, whether it's to yourself or to anybody else.

Like even if it's somebody in an aid station, you're a hundred and fucking odd miles into race or whatever, you're in an aid station, you go calmly say, look, I have a blister on my foot. Can we pop it? And then can we get some talcum powder and can we get new pair of shoes on? So you want, you just want to be able to, and that has taught me an awful lot about like handling stress and, and then relaying it then to my, to my child. Like, you know, to kind of go, you know, I'm not going to be able to. to be stressed. You're not going to feel stressful energy from me. You're going to feel, you know, understood. Being the common voice, I suppose that works well even with a client coach relationship.

So let's say your client's absolutely freaking about, freaking out about, you know, not being prepared or whatever. The last thing they need is from you is to freak out and to relay the stress that they have. For sure, like I have a girl who's preparing for a race in Carry Away and Carry Away Ultra and she's had sciatica symptoms. And she, two weeks over. from the race and we just had to kind of talk through that you know and I was like look and this is where I suppose the mindset coaching side of things kind of comes in and then when you're talking to people on the ultra endurance scale of things it's like okay what's the worst thing that could happen worse things that could happen and again it's a lot of things to do with tone as well and and how you

talk to people and how you communicate that like it's like what's the worst that could happen it's like you know maybe they they might kind of um say oh you know I don't do the race I'm like, first things to happen you don't do the race is that the

last race you'll ever do? You know? And trying to frame it for people and that's what I kind of

to do with myself really as well so like you know again even when I was like you know trying to rehab

the hip and then I'd realize the hip is not rehabbed and it's fucked again to not go off your

your fucking stupid hip now being a like this is so shit I should be fucking you know back running again and you know

all this kind of stuff and many goals and I can't do that type of thought it just doesn't go anywhere it just goes to think no it's okay to fly off the handle to yourself for a second or two but to realize you know what we're just gonna fucking we're just gonna keep going you know life goes on we get up it's a new day and and we try and make make a make a make a good go of it again you know so that's i think i think when i thought when i couldn't ever talk to anybody clients my parents my my my wife my son in any way well if i

wasn't talking to myself well first. So it all starts with the internal dialogue. And if I hadn't had those conversations of forgiveness and of trying to be on my own team and be my own best friend, couldn't have any other team members. Do you know what I mean? So that's where it all stems from, I think, is like, how do we talk to ourselves? How do we treat ourselves? Are we, you know, do we do things out of fear?

Do we do things out of hate? Like, when I was a young fellow, I was quite overweight and I lost a load of weight from a place of hate. from a place of loathing and from a place of, you know, trying to, you know, to change myself because I'm not good. Whereas now it's like I'm doing it out of a place because I love myself. I love, you know, I love doing these things and testing myself and seeing what's underneath. And, you know what I mean? So again, like, it's the, it's not only having the fuel, like what's fuel in the fire, but like, what, you know, what type of fuel is it?

Is it positive or negative? You know, and that's another thing, like, even your own clients, they're like, you know, when they're trying to lose weight, it's like, where is it coming from? We're doing it because I hate the way I look. Or are we doing it from a place of, I actually deserve to be healthy, and I deserve to have all these things in my life. And I'm going to, I deserve to work for myself, work hard for myself, and to give myself the best.

And that's, you know, if you can get to that point and you're doing it, you're talking yourself in that way, you're fucking unstoppable. I think anyway, you're just, if you're on your own side, it doesn't matter what happens or what tries to shake it,

you'll just find a way, like, you'll find a way forward. Can you tell me a little bit about, is it, is it, is it, who it's pronounced, and is that, and is it a men's group?

Yeah. Yeah, tell me a little bit about that. So, um, I started crewman in November of 2022. And, um, I had, along this kind of journey of, of, you know, this self-acceptance, I've, I realized that there was lots of elements or needs that I was not meeting for myself. So I wasn't doing the things that I loved and I wasn't doing the things that I enjoyed. Like I went to, I claimed Kilimanjaro when I was 17. I loved mountaineering.

I loved those elements if I wanted to join the army. I wanted to join the Ranger wing and I wanted to, you know, be a special force. operative and all these things and then sure like life life happens and you know these these notions get derailed sometimes you know what I mean and if you're not and I wasn't in a in a confident place or a place where you're going to be able to take knocks and get the fuck back up again which I wasn't after a while I was just kind of done really with fucking putting in any effort then I you know it doesn't happen so I really was looking back on all those times that I felt really most alive and most connected to myself and a lot of the times I was outside.

Even I was younger, like, there was no one really living around me, you know, and I didn't go play any sports or go to school in my local account, so I know nobody. So I didn't have many friends as a kid, but I always found, like, a lot of solace and, like, rambling around the forests and stuff near my home when I was young fella, and just being outside and just being away from the house and just, um, I really enjoyed it. And it was such a healing thing for me to be outside. And just thinking back on all of those times, like, you know, I just, I was like, right, I need to, that's what I need in my life.

It's more adventure, more time outside, more, you know, time with myself. And like, that's still to this day. It's still something that I have to do. I have to get outside, whether it's with the dog or my son. I have to be outside. I have to be doing things like that. And so when I. started doing that I realized none of my friends

all my friends that I was drinking away and all that kind of stuff didn't really enjoy doing that type of stuff or they weren't at that stage of life yet and it wasn't that I grew away from them but I just grew in a different way or a different direction and I realised then that I was doing an awful lot on my own and I was like I can't be the only one and I didn't mind that either like you know

I was getting out and doing it on my own but I wanted if there was any other people that kind of was questioning about what way they wanted to live or what they wanted from their day to day that they could have that outlet or they could have an opportunity to get involved with it. So that's what crewman is really is like

wanted to get lads. More lads connected because I feel like you know, you know, the pub and like, you know, and all of those older kind of Irish institutions that men gathered in. They're kind of gone now like really like you know because people

don't even drink as in as much anymore or you know I think they're finding healthier outlets you know and I want it to be a place where men can get together and where they can connect, make friends, have fun, have the crack, tell jokes, tell stories, swap experiences

and grow the community. And it's fucking going. In terms of going amazing well, I never wanted it to be about numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I talk about a growing well, I wanted, like, I wanted to depth, depth to the community,

and it has depth, and it's not just a surface level thing. so that's that you know so basically if there's any dude that's listening to this right now it's at crewman.e is the page and you can get involved with everything through there and it's free i think it's massive because i i keep on seeing stats coming up like in saying stats about the amount of men you know in their 30s in their 40s who don't have a single friend anymore and the the loneliness epidemic that is a rise and i don't know obviously there's multiple reasons as to that but you know i think

a lot of time when we're younger, we'll play sports or we'll go to the pub and then people settle their own, they have families, they stop chatting to their mates as much, they don't realise that they don't really go out to them anymore. So having more kind of men groups like that, I think it's really important. Obviously, you can, you see, I know you've been very vocal about it, you know, men's mental health at the moment, it isn't in a great place. The amount of young boys, 25 to 35 that are killing themselves and I think it's the the biggest predictor of death at the moment in Ireland. So things like that are, I think, really, really important.

Do you know, the thing about, you know, you've heard of the heart attack principle? No. Right? Or like something almost catastrophic has to happen before we change. Yeah. Right? The thing about suicide is people don't tend to get the heart attack principle.

They don't get the chance for something to go catastrophically wrong before it's too late, right? So if, let's say someone's a need. using their body with food and drink and smoking and all that kind of stuff they might have a stroke or a heart attack or something like that that causes them

to have this epiphany to right I gotta wake get my shit together and it happens as well with sometimes with men with that when you're talking about with men that are in their 30s and 40s that don't have friends

their marriage breaks down yeah right marriage breaks down and you know they become estranged when the family maybe and on they're trying to you know, have relationship with their kids and stuff, but they realize that they're very lonely

because, again, they've alienated themselves because they've never carved out that time. And so, and there is time. Like anybody say, oh, I don't have the time for that kind of stuff. I'm like, how many, so much time do you scroll on the internet and stuff? Do you know what I mean? So there's time, and look, there is also time where we just waste our own time.

That's just happens. We just waste our own time. That's perfectly fucking, sometimes as well, I even feel like that even to this day, I have this element of retreating for me where I kind of want to be. to shut off and I kind of don't want to be the fucking high performance, fucking

do the shit all the time and you just want to shut off right? So I completely understand that. But like the that element of it is like men that that's that car crash as well where or the the heart attack where let's say your marriage breaks down and then you're

forced into this thing of trying to make friends or make a social life for yourself. It's like let's try maybe get there before those things happen and maybe the relationships will improve and things would happen. And you know what I'm saying? So, yeah, I feel like just more outlets for people to be connected in that way. And like, then there's friendships and other groups that form out a crewman.

Yeah. You know, outside of crewman, which is the goal. Yeah. Is to have people that are fucking friends in and out of the group, you know? So, like, that's, that for me is like the be all and end all of this whole thing. It's just that lads get an opportunity to fucking laugh and joke and have. of fun and like I then again it's just like it's so funny to people you come across like there's comedians there there's people that own marketing companies there are people that are like

they do astro photography to go to four o'clock in the morning to the sally gap and take pictures of the sky brilliant like brilliant people like you know and that's the thing it's like there's just such a mixed bag and that's what I love about it is like there's just you never know what you're going to get like you know yeah you're not working with people you never would have beforehand because you know it's usually you made your circle of group when you're a kid and a lot of times we then don't venture outside of that so for sure so going into groups like that

is really important for that as well Khan this has been unbelievable today if people wanted to reach out to you in terms of coaching let's say we're ultramaritan running or you know mindset coach or anything like that where can they where can they reach out to find you the main thing is the main hub really is the Instagram page at C-O-K-K-E-E-E

E-F-F-E and all the links to throughout or you can email me on Conoroughkeef Coaching at gmail.com and then if you want to get involved with crewman it's at crewman.i C-R-U-M-A-N dot I-E and any lad is welcome to it and they're free sponsored by Mars Pharmacy who will basically help us to you know to put on these events and so yeah like and anybody that has listened to this and might have had a thought or something that they want to share with me send me a DM do we don't have to work together. Like, you know, if you just want to have a chat, I'm always open to people kind of coming in, giving feedback and stuff. Thanks for watching. If you like that episode and you want to see more content like this,

make sure you're subscribed and I'll see you on the next one.