Ep 527 | A Week Drunk In Spain Then I Led Out The World Champ Finals - Jimmy Watkins

They're bad, they're boys and occasionally they talk about running. Yes, it's the Bad Boy Running Podcast with your hosts Jody Rainsford and David Heller.

Come back, baby, come back, but the bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. I must admit I was a clone to be messing around, but that doesn't mean that you have to leave. Don't go, so do bad. As our next guest We've spoken about it a few times and actually it's it's popped up in numerous conversations running shows have been, or speaking at running shows, and he's always seemed like someone who I thought, wow, this is so fun. And then, when you hear the story like, that's incredible. So our next guest was an 800 meter runner for the UK, got disillusioned, decided to be a rock and roll star instead went on tour in a couple of bands and now does a lot of reviews, where he'll listen to an entire album as he runs and scream his views about them through the camera. It's really, really fun. We met each other briefly at Love Trails because we were kind of back to back, talking, engaged, but then I completely forgot the message, which is really nice. So well done podcast the wonderful Jody Hopkins, but no relation. Yay, yes, how you doing.

I'm very good, thank you. Yeah, how are you doing?

Good mate, really good. Yeah, it's going to be too bad as we're right in the middle of that period between Christmas and New Year. So I'm just really good and I've done some runs over the periods and eaten a lot, and so I feel satisfied, but not too guilty. How about?

yourself. I've done one run. I did a run on Boxing Day because I got paid to do it.

So that's the only run Nice.

Yeah, I had this commission to make like a running review video for the countryside code Just to like put something online about. So people are obviously going to be out and about in the countryside over Christmas, so they just asked me to make a little video in my own style with some of my favorite rules from the countryside code.

So, because they give, you prompts for what the rules were like. You know, leave a gate as you find it, that's everything.

Yeah, yeah. So they sent me like all the rules and they just said, look, just just pick the ones that you think are most relevant to someone who's running or walking. And yeah, just make like a five or six minute video. So I picked, I picked the obvious ones, like leaving the gates. I did a few about like picking up dogs mess, because that's something that happens to me a lot. I will step in a lot of dog mess. Sometimes I think where I live in West Wales is just there must be some kind of black hole with dogs mess around the world just ends up there because I don't get it. I did those and like familiarizing yourself with the terrain and routes before you head out.

So you know, and I know we everyone thinks what they do is is kind of special and great and worth watching. You think someone's really going to watch five to six minutes. If you do that, I mean two or three minutes a minute.

Yeah, well, I know I know very few people watch the full five to six minutes because YouTube tells you yeah, just pack everything that's exciting in the first two minutes definitely, which is a shame. It's a shame for me because the way I kind of try and make the videos funny, I usually leave like a little golden nugget at the end. Yeah, so at the end of this video I did me pretending to phone someone to say look, I've just been running on the treadmill. I hate running outside. Can you just super impose, super impose the countryside. I don't think many people got that far into the video, but that's, that's life, isn't it? That's the way it goes.

Brilliant, brilliant. Well, in terms of your, because you've gone, you've almost got to two separate lines of the run, I guess is the way you see that way?

Yeah, definitely, yeah, definitely. I feel like I'm entering a third, different life as a runner. Now it's quite, it's quite odd. I've had an not the best year for running, even though I've ran some good times. But that was never really my intention getting back into running. But my thing for just why I fell in love with running again when I started again was that I could just do it every day, and I could. It was a good way to set myself up for the rest of the day and just have. I haven't been able to do that at all. Really In twenty twenty three has been lots of weeks where I've done maybe just manage like two or three runs. I know it's a bit of a taboo subject, but my weight's been up and down a lot because of it, so it's been really tough. I just feel like some people will be like I don't worry about your weight, you look, you look fine to me. You know what I mean. Like lots of people, just youth, I think. I find the people think when you talk about your weight, that you're asking for reissue runs. But I'm very on. I very honest with my weight and I know when I put it on, yeah, I'll just drop in. Oh, yeah, I'm. You know I'm. I'm struggling at moment because I put a bit of weight on and people will almost automatically say, yeah, but you look fine. Like don't you know, don't worry about it, you look fine. I was like no, no, I know, I know, I'm all good. Yeah, yeah.

So I think it's the biggest, biggest cycle for downward spirals. For why people don't exercise or why people lose contact with running, is that lack of demotivation from putting on weight and then also the lack of being fit and then reaching for something delicious to make them feel like they care about it.

Yeah, yeah it is, and it's kind of like you know, if your job was galloping horses across the countryside and people kept attaching things to your horse to make it heavier, you'd start getting annoyed, and that's that's how I see my body. When I start attaching extra love handles because of my diet, I start getting a little bit annoyed myself and I lose a bit of motivation.

So why is there's been motivation and the reasons why you've not done the runs.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I kind of I don't know. I think I pretty much fell out of, fell out of love with running by the summer. The year started really well and I had an injury and I've never really been someone to get injuries. I'm quite like a sturdy person, quite, quite like I don't know, just quite tough really. Do you mean quite dense? I'm quite a dense person. I just realised that I'm plug one.

I explained it. Should we do it all again? No, no, let's carry on. I mean, the fact is, it sounds horrific to you.

It sounds lovely. Yeah, some sounds like we're in a room together.

Well, my laptop's not as crap as it was. I quickly turned this.

If that, yes, oh that's loads, that's that's, that's, that's, that's better. Yes, I picked up a little injury in February which knocked me a little bit because I was really going well, I felt like I was running really well and I was really enjoying all my runs. And this injury, just I couldn't figure out where it was. It was like some days was fine, other days I struggled to walk, it was, it was in my knee.

Oh, wow, yeah, I mean really deep read a de-habilitating.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was like my head kind of went a bit with it. So I started doing loads of stuff in the gym and I maybe did like eight weeks of gym work and ran very little. And then I ran a really good Half-marathon. So I was like, oh, hang on a minute, like maybe I don't need to run so much to race. Well, and I, maybe, me, I went the other way. I did so much gym work, that kind of like just bulked up, and then I'd run in, really suffered, and then by the time I got this summer I was like I was making a solo album, I was busy doing other stuff and I just I just kind of stopped running for a bit.

I find that weird. Actually, if I'm surprised by that, because I In my head, if I was writing a solo album, yeah, that would almost be the perfect Recipe to be to be running a bit to like, firstly, escape the studio, but also I'd imagine it would be the creative space that actually be useful.

Yeah, and this is this is where it was odd for me, because that that kind of Thing was something that I banged on a lot about when I started running again was how run-ins amazing for creativity I can't believe I didn't run when I was in a band. I'm running and sober and I feel so creative. And then, when it came down to time management, fitting in writing music and running in the time I had when the kids were in school was impossible. So I had to pick one or the other. So it was kind of like I can go around saying how good running is my creativity or I can create something. It's like I've got to pick one or the other. So I said, like I need to write this solo album, less Create it. And then, yeah, that had to take the place of running in my in my day and it was really weird. It was really weird because I was getting the buzz from writing and I knew like a lot of the ideas had originally come. Well, I run in you know things I'd recorded on my phone and ideas I'd had and I did manage to Squeezing if you run, so I'd write lyrics when I was running and stuff like that.

But yeah, when writing that album and recording it might run in, routine went out the window and I think that's alright, though I think that's really forgivable, because, if anything, when you I think the hardest part of losing Contact with running is when you know it's just because it's totally because you're lazy and actually, and when you look at your life, feel like, well, nothing's changed in my life now to when I was doing nothing, and so why am I suddenly gonna be running again? And it's, I think it weighs heavier on your, on your doubt, and whereas if you, if you compartmentalize your life because I often have periods where I'll struggle to run because, well, a moment, because I haven't, we've got a really young baby, yeah, and I've just let go of the idea of running as much as I did, and yeah, and I know when that changes, I can change and it almost it gives me that forgiveness, but also then gives me, because I've compartmentalized, it means when I change, actually I'm almost ready to be like, now that this has changed, I'm back into my run and it almost feels like it's part of a plan.

Yeah, yeah, definitely, that's. That's like a really good way to look at it. We should have done this podcast in the summer and that's like I was saying before. I went off on a tangent, like I feel like I've entered my third stage of running now, where I realized more than ever that is for my mental well-being, you know, more than ever, and I mean it was definitely something I felt when I started again in 2019. But it had all these like physical benefits I had the benefits of. It was like it helped me go, so, but it helped form like an online running community, had all these benefits. But I feel like things got really raw and stripped back this summer and now I'm just like I Really and at the end of day, I need to run for my mental health, you know. So I feel like I'm I mentioned this third phase of my running thing. Now it's like, okay, you know, yeah, so you know, the gym was good because it helped me run a good half marathon, but it didn't give me the same thing as just been out running on my own through fields and stuff, do I mean? So I really know now that, above everything, I need to make sure that I'm in a position where I can get that run done Most days and was there a moment where you that made you realize, christ, I'm running would have avoided this. Yeah, yeah, when, when I reached out and and asked to see a therapist, we've gone straight in there quite quickly with this talk. But yeah, I was, I was out on a run and I just wasn't happy and Things are just becoming really overwhelming and I'd noticed that, you know, I just wasn't giving myself the time to process a lot of things that were going on. Like this year I separated me, my wife separated, so it's been that going on. You know, we've got two kids.

No, it's all good, it's all good. Then we got two kids.

You know, because of where the kids go to school is kind of in a part of Wales where there's very little work for me to do. I've got no friends there really. So you know, it was all. This thing was just piled up and kind of Pushed to the back of my mind while I tried to make an album. And once I made the album I remember it like I remember it's so clear the album was made, I went for a run and then I was kind of like what do I do now? You know, what do I do? What do I do now? And then that was when I thought that I need, I need someone to help me process all this stuff. That's going on. So and it was. It was wild because I met a therapist who didn't know me they obviously don't know you and One of the first things she suggested was like exercise. You know, I thought about running.

Yeah, I'm like, that's why I'm here because I can't do anything.

Yeah, I'm like that's why I'm here, because I kind of stopped for a couple of months. Um, but it's been great. Yeah, it's been great just to help me, like the therapy and running has been amazing to just, I know, help me realize what's important for me on a day-to-day basis.

Now, and if you when you look back to the album you wrote is Because I imagine if you are writing Going through that experience, you're probably saying some things that are very like, too close to the emotion that you maybe would want to distance yourself with, or at least You're probably more likely to write something you might regret, given the situation. Like, do you have to, almost Now that you've you've been able to process what's happened a bit more and have the therapy and do a bit of running, have you had to go in and actually slightly adjust some of the lyrics somewhat to fucking whore, to like a difficult, like, like difficult, difficult friend, or you know? Have you?

had to like, like to rain it back and think, no, I didn't actually mean those things, and it's been it's really strange because I wrote, I wrote the album when I was like I kind of knew how long I wanted it to be, I knew how many songs I wanted it to be on there, I knew how I wanted it to start and I knew how I wanted to end. Like I had this thing. This is where it's our starts, it's our ends and I've always been like. Lyrics have always come really easy to me and the much like I write a running review will be like that's a funny little line. I'll go in a song or go in a song and I remember just thinking to myself no, throw away funny lines, like just, I'm not gonna do it, I've always done it. All the albums I've made has been like little funny lines. I was like don't do it and keep it really simple. Um, why do you decide that? I don't really know. Like I just had in my head, like I want these lyrics to be simple, honest and just different to anything I've done before.

So I did it and you know it was you kind of writing like ringo starwood. I mean in a ringo.

The lyrics are still strange. They're still strange enough for me, um, but I was really making his effort to like just just keep them quite direct. And you know, um, they're not like dea diary entries or ever. And then I finished the album and then it was a case of like right, how's this album gonna flow? What songs are gonna go away? I knew how it was gonna start and end and I kept listening to it and me and the producer and the people who, like, played on it, we were we're sending versions of track listing together. Then we have to like maybe a month of it. We're like this is it? This is how it needs to flow. And then a couple of us all messaged each other I mean, like this, this is a concept album. There's, there's a story going through this album and I wasn't aware of it. We certainly were. It never came up in conversation in the studio. Yeah, we were noticing how, like the song which followed the song before it was answering something from that last song and this whole thing was like Just this journey and it ends with being Basically like a celebration of being a father. It was like Wild. It was wild when we kind of on the whatsapp group chat or noticed like what this album is about. It was really spooky, really spooky.

So does that shape the name of it.

It's called the album's gonna be called voice. It was always gonna be called voice, because my solo name is Joyce and it just I like the idea of album title and artist rhyming and yeah, like the first song is kind of like. The chorus in the first song is like this is my voice. I know that sounds really Britain's Got Talent or X Factor, but Throughout the album you notice like there's loads of parts of my personality kind of almost a war with each other on different songs. Uh, and then it's the album noise Nice. Yeah, voice by Joyce is nice. So it's been, yeah, it's been a big process putting that together and it's I mean, it's probably the greatest album ever made in the history of music.

I've heard that, so I'm getting anyone early so we can, uh, we can, look back on this, but where should we go from here? Is it do you think going back to the beginning of actually your relationship with running? Because I think that we've spoken to a lot of people who you appears and kind of interviewed them in the past and also, like some of them are still going, you know, some of them are still running international level. But we've also we've interviewed in the past about the like, the roots in to to being a top level athlete, where people, lots of people at St Mary's, and you've got people like Colin McCourt who was wasted their skill. You've got Mary, who obviously did well, people like Dale Butterbuck who came bit after you but yeah, like what was your route into top level running?

And via rugby and football mostly rugby I kind of I've always. It's quite funny to be doing this chat in this room, actually, because this is the room I grew up in as a child and there's a picture on the windowsill which you can't see, which I took, of just behind my parents' house. There's a, there's a mountain and there's a telegraph mast on top of it and I took a picture of it at sunrise when I was a kid and I just loved this tell this mast on the mountain with the sun behind it, and I had it put in a frame and ever since I was really little, it was always something where I'd get up really early and try and run up there before the sun rose and like we're talking like 10 years old and stuff. So I've always picture in the room.

It's, it's here somewhere. Why didn't you take it with you? I thought I could do yeah, yeah we should have had this chat sooner.

Yeah, it's, I'm looking for it now I can't see it. I think. I think it's it's in your somewhere. I'll find it. But this was like the room where, like I grew, I grew up in and I know I did a lot of running around the mountains here, but running in this- what's the major of that?

have been? How old have you been when you were doing these morning runs?

I would say 10. Yeah, it would have been. It would have been around about just after Italy 90 because we moved here. It's pretty unusual. Yeah, definitely, yeah, definitely, yeah, yeah, definitely I would. I would go running on my own as a kid. I would go down the cricket field and do laps of the cricket field at night.

Did you have like? Was there someone that you were emulating or that you loved? Was there someone from against the late 80s who's a runner or Chats of Fire or something where you you visualise yourself as that?

I loved Johnny Walker, the New Zealand Milo he was going to say the whiskey, are you? Seriously drunk. I had barrels of whiskey at the mountain and I was. My dad was a fan of him and we watched like a lot of his, particularly his miles, you know, and I just like that. He looked like a bit of a rock star with his long hair and his, his black vest. So yeah, him and Bruce Lee. I love Bruce Lee Famous runner. Yeah, I just. I mean, I never seen him running, but he looks like he'd be a good runner. He was also in a track suit, wasn't he? So?

yeah, yeah.

And I think I just kind of liked the idea that Bruce Lee seemed to always be working out. So running was my, my version of being Bruce Lee. I'd I'd go for a run and then I'd put the mattress of the bed up against the wall and and punch the mattress like a punch bag, thinking I was Bruce Lee.

At 10 years old and did that quickly lead into races and actually go into a funnel of being in the UK? Aesthetics or no, it was a really long about way.

So where I, where I grew up, in the Ronda Valleys, rugby is the main sport, like most places in Wales. So if you're fast it's like, oh you're fast, you'd be a really good rugby player. It's never, you'd be a good athlete. So I was quickly became a rugby player and in school you had to do like schools. You had to do track and field and I did somehow. I always did 800 meters when you were allowed to run that far. I remember doing 300s and stuff and then 800s. I just loved it. I was just like naturally good. Today I don't think I don't ever remember like losing a race as a kid in school and then I just stopped. I just stopped doing the ethics because rugby was my main sport then and I was playing rugby for Welsh schoolboys and things like that. And yeah, my dream really was to be a professional rugby player. You were a winger then or like in the backs. I was a centre. I was a centre. I was an outside centre Because I was like dull enough to really enjoy tackling people and get stuck in. So I won a sports scholarship to a school called Milfield in Somerset.

Yeah, I know, yeah, so I used to get thrashed by them in rugby, every sport, yeah.

So I had someone from the school came to see me play rugby and then we're like, yeah, he, he do well at Milfield. So I went to Milfield. That's when I became a winger then, and what?

was I like, From being a kid from the valley suddenly being it's quite a posh public school, isn't it? It's very posh.

Yeah, I remember my suit getting laughed at because it was like a Marks and Spencer suit. Those things are cool, those. Those things are absolutely fine with me. I really did. I honestly I really didn't mind. I didn't particularly like like they at first. Maybe the run up to like Christmas or the first term was a struggle. I was home sick a lot. Which age we Sixteen? So I went at three levels, ok yeah, and I really struggled. You know like it was like I had my first ever girlfriend at home. So I was going through that whole process where every time I listened to like a love song I thought it was about me and her and you know I was kind of just finding myself as a teenager. You know I just started going out and and then all of a sudden I was in this really posh boarding school in Somerset where I didn't know anybody.

So they've known each other for five to seven years typically.

Yeah, and I really struggled. I did really struggle. I remember like four in my mum and dad because I wanted to come home and they said, look, if you don't like it by Christmas, then by all means you go back to Trocky comprehensive. And then just something, something happened. I don't know what it was, but something happened and I remember walking back after a day in school and I was just thinking like this is the best place in the world for me to be. This is amazing, you know, and I just fell in love with the place to the point where on school holidays I didn't even come home. You know, I would like go stay with friends in London and I just completely, just this, this switch just flipped. I was like no, this is a world of real good possibilities. What was it about it that I loved? Hmm, I think I really loved how I the teachers definitely liked me, because I think I was a little bit, a bit more of a sort of the earth kind of person, you know, and I think I was. I was always, like I'm always pretty well behaved by and I'm always kind of honest because I think it's something the teachers like, you know. So a lot of the teachers really took me under their wing and we're like you know you could do well at this school. This is, this is your type of student who could come here and you can get a lot of it. And I just felt like they all became really good like father figures even though I've got a great father anyway. But I felt that and I was really encouraged to do like music there as well. Do you know what I mean? Even though I went in a sports scholarship, I said, oh, I play guitar. And I was encouraged to like play guitar with people there. And I know I said I I've always wanted to do a bit of acting. I've never done acting because there wasn't something available in my school. They're like joint, joint, the school play, do it, you know. So I was just encouraged to all these things which I thought were hobbies, but they made them out to not be, not be hobbies. They were like bigger than hobbies. They're like these are things you could do for a living if you really wanted. So that's what I loved about it it was. It was a bit of a Willy Wonka factory for locked away talent that you had. I think it was really encouraged you to to bring it out.

Yeah, I mean that, that's completely my reflection of school as well. Yeah, I was sent off to school School as well. Yeah, I was sent off to a boarding school from because we're in the army and yeah, yeah, acting, public speaking and sports, and and so did the, with the. The focus of music then, and rugby as being the main reason you're, you're there in the eyes of the sports coach, was a conflict and like, how did? Did that lead to anything else?

Well, the music and the rugby, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, they never. There was never any clash. I didn't. I didn't play in a band or anything in school. I was just, you know, days, days where there was no training, I was just they had a rehearsal studio, was there in a few rooms. I was just in there with people playing and just you know, just loving it. I remember there was one kid there. I was really good friends with him and his dad wrote the Rocky Horror Show. Like you had all these kind of people there, do you mean? Like you had, you had kids there whose whose dads did stuff like that?

So a weirdly, the leads of the Rocky Horror Show is at my school. No way, yeah, he's the only famous person for our school, as far as I know.

Yeah it's just like it was just mad to have, you know, have something like that, and it just it just made everything really exciting and you know, like I said earlier, I just it brought you closer to these people who are doing things which excite you as a living.

And so when? Which? Because there's still a long distance from there to running and and also non rugby. And like, what were the decisions after school then?

Well, it happened in school. So there was a guy called oh my God, I can't, no way, can I get his name wrong Alan Llewell. Do you remember Alan Llewell? I think he he did the long jump for gripper in in the LA Olympics, I think he was. He was head of track and field and now and again he used to come and watch the rugby boys training and I think he was like looking for anybody who was fast to jump on the effects team and I remember he came up to me after I think we might have even done a fitness test. To be honest, I remember it was a training session where there was loads of running involved and I was just loving it.

You know, I was just like this is amazing.

He came up to me and he was like you're an 800 meter runner. I doubt it was the first thing he said to me. I remember him saying that you're an 800 meter runner and he said my son's 800 meter runner. He runs for great Britain at the moment. He's coming down next week. I wanted to train with him. I was like, yeah, amazing, yeah, let's do it. So I did a track session with his son and I just like oh, I was like this is it, this is the sport I want to do. You know, I was pretty far off. I was pretty far off. I was pretty far off. I think he was British, under 23 at the time, but I loved it. I loved it. And then, yeah, Alan knew I was just kind of like, yeah, you're an 800 meter runner, let's get you training for that. So when the rugby season was over, I went straight on the track and I did English schools. I got the final 800 English schools and stuff and I just yeah, it was amazing. And then, kind of, I went back to Wales after Millfield and it was all about rugby again then. So I started playing. I signed up for like an academy team, which was like the process to go and professional. So you know, it was obviously love in it, but no more track and field. And then I played a couple of games where I didn't touch the ball once, you know, being a winger playing rugby in Wales. I remember saying to my dad if I play one more game where I don't touch the ball, I'm quitting. And we played Bridgend. I was playing for Ponte Pris and we played Bridgend and I did not touch the ball once. And I was looking for the ball and I remember just speaking to my dad and I said, look, I'm not playing asphalt anymore, I'm going to go back to athletics. So that's when I started running. So I was. That was 2002. Okay, 2002. And then I think I had my first British vest in 2004, 2005.

So it's pretty quick really for you to turn that around.

The first year of athletics was spent doing hundreds and two hundreds, because I kind of put on quite a lot of muscle as a rugby player. So I was like I'm a 200 meter runner now probably, and I spent a season doing that. So I didn't start doing 800 until 2003.

You thought 400 would be a more natural home, then if you I hate 400 though I just like I hate it.

I hate it. It's just cruel making people run that far in lanes. It's cruel.

But because we interviewed Angie Steele quite a few years ago, where he was saying how he was, he'd been trapped almost by a training regime that was assuming that you were a power runner, whereas he was more of an endurance 400 meter runner. Yeah, so the whole training was skewed towards a different type of athlete and he lost a second in a year because by training harder and it seemed crazy, so did you, because I'd almost then assumed that your 100 and 200 meter training would have made it less and less likely that you would have been an endurance runner.

Yeah, I think the way my brain works is very weird. 800 meters felt like the most rock and roll event, the hippiest event, the kind of most spiritual event. It just felt like that's the type of runner I want to be. I really struggled with the macho side of being a sprinter and that definitely went as far as the 400 meters. There was a lot of puffing your chest out and stuff.

That was Michael Johnson time.

Yeah, yeah, I never got why running should be an aggression thing. It's never got it. It's like but you're running, what's that going to do with aggression? I don't boxing, yeah, I get it. Resting, yeah, running, no, it's like a very unaggressive thing to do. So I kind of just thought 800 is like there's no real aggression, it's just you run and you kind of it felt like I had a nice flow to it. All the sessions felt like they had nice flows to it. You never really had to be like come on, I got to do this. It was nothing like pumping yourself up, which are things I've really done like. Even now, as a 41 year old, the idea of getting psyched up and pumped up for a run is just wild to me. So that's why I knew I had to go back to 800, because the whole world around it and the way it felt doing it was how I liked to feel when I was running.

How did you train for it then? Because it doesn't sound as if there was 800m of focus coaches.

So I started off with my dad and we just had this chat and we were like what's the best way to get about 800m? And he's like we'll just run loads of 800s. So we just got on a track and run loads of 800s. That was it.

And then did he sit down when you were young and do the smoking thing and, just like you've got to smoke boxes of these to?

He caught me doing coke and rubbed my nose in it. We had this amazing idea, which went far, far deeper than the actual training it gave me. But the mountain behind our house, my parents' house, there's a straight bit of trail which is about a kilometre long. It's a dead straight line and he measured 800m after that. He's an engineer, so we had a trundle wheel. I remember we measured it and we spray painted, like certain trees, where they were. They still there. No, no, that's all gone, but the path is still there, the trail is still there. And we used to go down there because there was no track here. There is a really good track close by now. But we used to go there and he'd be like, right, run 800m up a mountain. And he'd go on off, you go. And I'd run up and he's like right, walk back, do it again. And he's like right, imagine a race. Now You're doing the last 200m, so run 200m. And that's how we were doing it, and it was always about imagine this now. So imagine the last lap, now run 400m. That's how we always went about our training. And then my dad will admit he's not a running coach. Then I went to a proper coach and did proper track sessions. Every time I stood on the start line I figured I imagined 800m up the mountain every time, and every time I got up the back straight I imagined the last 300m on that mountain. Like every time. It was mad. It's just when those things had just stayed with me.

And did it always feel easier in the race? Then because you weren't up for it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like this is fine, I can do this. I've done this loads in the rain, you know, I've done it with sheep chasing me, I can do it. And I clearly remember standing on the start line of the final, the 800m in Moscow, and I was just like it was really noisy there because it was the last event. Borsakowski was in there, who was the favourite, and he was Russian and we were in Russia and I just remember closing my eyes and just seeing that mountain and I was like this can be fine. I came last, but I was very calm and relaxed. Coming last, all the nerves just went away. All the nerves went away, yeah.

Did you come last because you messed up, or you weren't as good, or you were psyched out?

I came last because I believed I could win it, when I wasn't really meant to win it. In terms of my experience as an athlete, my fitness and stuff, there was no way I was going to win it, but I genuinely believed I was going to win it. So if you watch the race, I get beat maybe like three or four times, but I keep trying to get back to the front and I'm like no, I'm going to win it. I'm going to win it. I really want to watch that I keep going back to the front, I keep going to the front and I fade and then I go, no, no, come on, one more go, one more go. And I give it like one more crack with 200m to go and then I'm like, oh no, I'm done, I am no, I've run, but I'm not.

You need to do. You need to do a. I don't know what they're called my social team would have it but where you should show that and talk to it Like talk about what you're actually thinking and cause it's two minutes. That'd be a great wash on satials.

I should do it. It'd be quite funny. I'll do it. I'll write it down now. That'd be like like a director's commentary kind of vibe, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that, when something like that happened, because did you have that belief? Because you'd not raced at that level before, or because no one was really coaching you about strategies? Or just because that's your mentality is like, come on, let's take it all? I think.

I had that mentality because I went to the World Championships after like a really rubbish season. I didn't win the World Championships, I nearly didn't go to the British Championships. But a good friend of mine, james Thee, said to me like you've got to go, like you've run the qualifying time, you've just got to like come in the top two and you can go to the World Championships. So that's the only reason I went to the British Championships was because he told me to do it. So I was okay, all right, I'll go. But I really wasn't having a good season and I ended up winning the British Championships. And then my sister lived in Spain and I went to Spain for a week and just got pissed and that loads of tapas and ran around this bull ring like the outside of a bull ring. And I came back and I was like I'm just going to go to Moscow for a jolly. I was the slowest athlete there by quite some way. And then I was really made up because my heat I was with Bozakowski, who was my hero, my absolute hero. So I was like, oh, my God, I've come here, I'm going to run in a race with Bozakowski. This is amazing. And I ended up nearly beating him in the heat, which was kind of like what just happened, and me and him were chatting afterwards and he was like you're a great runner, like he never, obviously never. He heard me before and he was really complimentary and he was like no, you're a great runner. He was really happy for me and then he kind of Did he then go?

why don't you try and?

win the final by getting it really fast, yeah. And then he kind of like wished me luck before the semi and I ran really well in the semi. So I kind of like had this thing where it's like I've met my hero. My hero thinks I'm a good runner. I've been on the piss in Spain for a week. You know it's been a shit season, but something's happening now in Moscow. These things are getting really good, and I was like this is the kind of thing where I'm just going to win it, you know.

So I think that's why I thought that Brilliant, so as long as, like, you'd have bought a lottery ticket. That was the vibe you were feeling at the time it was totally yeah, it was like begin as luck when you're gambling.

Do you remember that's what I felt, like, yeah, yeah, that definite vibe, yeah and yeah, I just like I'm going to do it. And this is. I said this is going to happen. And it was such a funny trip Cause I remember Dave Collins was ahead of UK ethics then and he was the night before the final. He said do you want to phone your dad? Do you want to phone your parents? Cause no, no one came out to support there was a few British support. I said, yeah, no, he's, so I phone my dad. And he was on speakerphone in Dave's hotel room and my dad answered and he's like I was like, hey, dad, you're right. And he's like, oh, what are you up to? Then he knew where I was, but I don't know, for some reason he was just acting like he didn't know what I was doing. I was like, oh, I'm out in in Moscow. He's like, what are you doing out there? So I'm doing, I'm running in the world ethics championships. He's like, oh, cool, good, good. I was like I'm in the final tomorrow, all right, no worries. And he was kind of like your mum's doing chicken dinner on Sunday. So if you were coming back for that, let us know. But anyway, have a nice time in Moscow. Speak to you soon. And then it ended. The conversation ended and Dave Collins thought it was serious. He was like your parents don't even know you're here. So I decided to play along I was like, nah, nobody knows they're even running. So it just the whole thing had this kind of wacky wacky comedy feel to it. So I thought, yeah, this is.

I knew you hadn't talked about that before. Your dad just decided to.

He just did it like off the cuff. Yeah, he just started acting like he didn't know what it was, so it was. Yeah, it was good.

It was good, oh, perfect. And when you look back at that performance, do you think I love the fact that I did that? Or is there an alignment thinking? What would that have changed my journey if I'd have actually pasted it properly and potentially topped whatever the numbers you think you could have done?

I think what happened was I did it. Then I tried to be a better athlete and I found the improvements really minimal and quite frustrating. So I quit the sports like a year later because I just wanted to be in a rock band.

And then there's only one year really, from being on the stage to then stepping out.

Yeah, it's pretty much exactly a year, and then I never.

Do you think anything could have changed that?

Yeah, yeah, I think I think if London, if I knew the Olympics were going to be in London, I would have stayed, because that changed a lot. Like once we knew London was getting the Olympics, I felt like athletics in Britain changed almost overnight.

The funding was massive, isn't it?

Yeah, I think people certainly then people didn't really know how to kind of look after an athlete like me, someone who's a bit very up and down in their moods. You know, one day it would be like really hyper and kind of like excited to be on the track. Other days would be like quite quiet and you know, someone who's kind of creative. I felt like that might be a bit new for a lot of people and I definitely think there's been enough characters and personalities in athletics now, so that would have been a lot more normal. So I think I hate to be that person, but I think I was just doing it at the wrong time. I think if I was an athlete now, if I was 24 years old now, with things like social media and so many runners having their own YouTube channels and stuff, it would have been a different thing, a completely different story. But like none of that existed, I was just this really creative kind of wacky person who had no outlet as a runner. So naturally my inclination was to go where you had an outlet, which was become a musician. You know, if I had a YouTube channel, like I'd write my songs, put them online and you know it would have been fine.

And did it have to be one or the other? Was there an opportunity at that time to be able to do some music, or did you have to check it all in?

I mean, if I didn't like drinking alcohol so much, I could have done one and I could have done the two of them. But my problem was when I became a musician I also became a really heavy drinker and then it only took like two years for my body to have totally changed and my health, through drinking and smoking and stuff. So, yeah, if I didn't have that kind of self-destructive nature to me, I could have gone. You know what I fancy, doing a few gigs, maybe mix of music. But me being me, I was like I want to be a rock star, I want to do everything that I think people in bands do. And yeah, unfortunately that kind of accelerated my physical decline from being an athlete really quickly to the point where there was no turning back rather soon. And one big thing I did was that I'd never really took the time to reflect on what I did as an athlete. So you know, that race in Moscow, I never watched it, I never looked back on it, it just existed in my memory and I was always felt like, no, I've done the right thing because I lost that race. You know, I got to a really good standard and I came last. So I've done the right thing and I watched that race for the first time when I was Self-defence, isn't?

it yeah, Telling yourself that yeah.

Yeah, you know, and I watched that race for the first time when I was 37, on my birthday, because someone sent me a link to it. They're like, oh, I've just seen this, I can't believe it. I can't believe this is you. And I watched it as a 37-year-old. That was October the 30th and then January the 1st of following you. And then I started running again because for the first time in my adult life I'd look back on what I'd done and I was like, oh shit, that was really good. I should have been. I should be proud of that. You know, I shouldn't be trying to hide it by being self-destructive and drinking so much. I should kind of try and be a bit more like I used to be, because he was a good person, he was a happy person. So yeah, it was. I say to, like a lot of people, there's no real bad decisions in life, bad ways to react to the decisions you made.

Well, there's, I think there are bad decisions.

Yeah, on that scale, on that scale yeah. And on that scale.

There's also, I think we all make decisions that aren't necessarily the right ones. I'm not saying that that leaving the sport was a bad decision, but I think it's more important actually how we process those decisions and how we then like whether we can actually sit with them and move on in a positive way, or whether they corrode us.

Yeah, oh, that's a good way to put it, Corrodas, yeah.

Just thought of that. Now, that's true, though that's how it feels, because like does it feel like that still?

Not now, not now. I feel like I've done enough to like get people into running. I think to myself you know, if I'd stuck at running and I hadn't quit, what would make me happy now? And it'd be like am I running? Inspired people? That's what would make me probably happier than winning medals, the fact that I'd be like you know how people saw me running in races and inspired them. So I feel like I've done that. Now I've done, I've almost achieved the same thing via a different route. I've inspired people to run and I feel like that was probably my goal all along, because running is something that made me feel so good. You know, I put me in good spaces all the time my long. Yeah, if I'd stuck to being a full-time athlete for the next 10 years, my goal would have been the same as what it is now just to get people out running. So, yeah, it's helped a lot.

And with a friend of mine, his first season in rugby he won the European Cup. Who's that he's? I won't. It's called Mike. I won't say his full name because he had a very what was it, mate? I only discovered this on a stag do, when there was four of us on a stag do. He turned out he'd played for Bath, who were my rugby team, and I was obviously super excited. He'd never watched a rugby game. He quit the sport. It's related to family, it's related to university and elements of bullying, all these things and he'd never watched a rugby game Since until England were in the semifinal against New Zealand. So this would have been four years ago, was it? Yeah, and that was his only way of processing. What he'd done was just to never think about, just never open up the box. Was that the same for you?

Definitely, definitely, yeah, to the point where it's like, don't even run, Don't even run because now and again I don't know how it would happen, but I'd go for a run. I'd say, six or seven years after quitting I'd go for a run and the run would feel really good and I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not what I wanted.

It was far easier for the running to feel like absolute dog muck. So, yeah, just like forget about it, stop watching it. Yeah, don't even think about your own races, just push forward, push forward.

And in the alternative sliding doors life that you've probably painted for yourself, what actually happens in it.

I think I make that decision to stop running. People sit down and say look, why do you want to stop running? Because I want to make music. You can make music at any age. You can make music when you're an old man, but you can only run for a great brand between these years, like next 10 years. So just hang on in there for another 10 years and I would have done that. I would have done that, and it was quite funny that my target race was always London 2012. We predicted I don't know how they do it, but they predict like the age you're going to be and it was kind of like you're going to be at your peak at like 29.30. So that would have been like 2012. So watching David Rashida yeah yeah, 140.

Winning like that, Winning like that, winning like that.

I was like, oh yeah, good job, good job. I remember I was playing at a festival in Croatia with my band and I knew the 800m final was on. I was like, oh, I'm going to watch it, I'm going to watch it. So we played a gig and I watched it. I remember just thinking, yeah, I'm really glad I wasn't in that. But then that's like a ridiculous thing to think. Looking back on it now, if you're going to be an Olympic finalist that one like I know you wouldn't have won but just to run an Olympic final like that which is and didn't, because I think Radisha wasn't it.

He was so fast he dragged seven out of eight of them under the world record, or something like that.

Exactly, exactly, like last place was 143, wasn't?

it. Yeah, something crazy In an 8 and a 10 meter final.

It's just, you know, that's that's. Initially, I was like good job, I'm not there because I never have won. But now you're like that's the race to have been in, though. That is just, that's just. That was historic, you know.

Well, um, to be honest, we've recorded for almost an hour and I don't. I want to. I'd love to talk about your rock career and also the running clubs and also the, but I don't want to squeeze that into 20 minutes and my wife's going to kick my ass if I, if I, if I record for as long as I'd like to. Are you happy to to to do another?

like a part two? Absolutely not. I've hated this.

Because that makes it easier. That makes it easier. No, definitely.

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

And then what I think would be really useful, because we all, we all make decisions that at a certain time in our lives definitely feel right, like the wrong decision yeah, even if they aren't the right, even if they don't turn out to be the wrong decision in the long term, or if you've got no viewpoint, if they are the right or the wrong decision. Like if you've got any advice for for people who maybe sat on a decision they've taken that haunts them, that they they can't, they can't shake off. Is there anything that you'd advise, helps, helped you or you think could help others kind of process and actually come to terms with the fact that there's a fork in the road and you're no longer on that, that journey.

Yeah. So people who've made that decision already, yeah, yeah, I would. I would think I would say, go back to like where you were at when you made that decision and find, like what was good about you. Okay, and you can go back to what was good about you. And that, for me, was the most important thing was, like I decided not to run and I quit, but running really brought me this kind of like happiness and sense of peace so you can live your life in a different direction. But you can always go back to those things which are good about you, so you can just run again and feel like the same kind of happiness and stuff. That's one thing, and that's quite a vague one, but it's a tricky one, isn't it? It's a tricky one. I'd be really open and talk to people about it. You know, just speak to people about it and just I don't know, like I don't know, I don't know, it's really tricky. It's really tricky, yeah, and it might be there isn't a simple solution to it.

It might be that some people will never come to terms with it, and some people will.

Yeah, I think I mean you should be able to come to terms with it. That's the optimistic way to look at it. Okay, I think really, just focus on what was good in your life before you made that decision and what you think might be missing now, and I think going towards that will bring more good things. I got this thing that just being positive will lead to more positive things. So just try and be positive about it and I tell you what you'll meet if you've got a platform to talk about it. People will come forward and have done similar things to you. Like, I didn't really know that lots of people had quit running and when they felt they shouldn't have, I felt there's just a me thing. I guess it's something I've done, but since talking about it on podcasts like this and on my own social media, people have come forward and said, oh yeah, it's similar thing. That happened to me While they were at school or whatever. I wish I kept on running, and realizing that what you've done is a very common thing is very soothing.

And even if people aren't going cold turkey on running, we all go through waves of how much we run and I don't think it is a healthy thing to be constantly running six days a week for all of your life, like there's just unsustainable without it causing impact on physically or mentally or actually on other, without causing you to sacrifice too much else in your life. Well, thank you so much for coming on this podcast and I knew it was going to be fun, but actually I didn't realize we spend quite as much in the end days. But actually I think that's great because it's probably you probably speak less about that than you do the rock music and the rock and roll running and punk, punk running and all of that. So I'm really pleased we spent more time in that area.

Yeah, it was really good and yeah, it was definitely things I've never talked about then. So that's it was. I was a surprise to me to find those words coming out my mouth, but the damage was done, so that picture of the picture of the tree.

That's got to be an album site, or surely I'm going to find it.

I thought it was in this room. I will find it and I'll take a picture.

I'll tag you in and yeah, like an album cover or something would be amazing.

I'll be good. Actually, I'll be good. Actually, I'm really bad at picking album covers, so we'd have to do a vote. I'm terrible at looking at stuff.

I just think everything looks cool and then or can you ask people to design, to design new album covers, because I think you come up with some pretty fun ones, especially with AI these days.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, someone, someone just designed me that album cover. I've done the music, I've done the hard part.

Well, if people can, if people want to follow you, your communities, your bands, like what's the best? What are the all the different handles you've got? I just give you my mobile number.

No Instagram, I'm not. I'm not bush, jimmy limits on Instagram and Biggie Timkins on Twitter. And then, yeah, running punks is everywhere else. You can find me less, less than usual these days on running punks. Is it possible for your own community to give you the ick? Maybe a little bit. So I'm on there less and less.

Really and why? In what sense?

I just feel it's a great thing and it's definitely got a lot of people running. Yeah, but for me it's become less of what it was meant to be at the start, which is absolutely fine, yeah, but I feel like the rebelliousness, and definitely the music music side to me has vanished a bit. It's become, you know, like a really supportive, loving community, which is amazing. Yeah, but I sometimes feel like that's then not the place for me to run around screaming my head off about music. So, yeah, but find me on there, but I mostly be posting on like my own stuff at the moment.

And it's the punk thing to do start a community and of course the punk's going to rebel against it, johnny.

Rotten escaped the jungle.

It's that kind of a I'm a celeb moment.

I feel so bad for doing it, but it's kind of like it's become really loving and supportive, supportive thing which is yeah, yeah, do you know anything like? That Exactly. You know there's, there's loads of that, there's loads of that already. So let's just, you know, let's just keep on being honest and I know keeping it really raw and wild and entertaining, so I'll do that wherever I can.

Well, thanks so much for coming to the podcast and I do hope that we can have a second part soon. So do that is. Oh, I've got questions from from Insta? Yeah, do that in the second episode, but so do that is. If you've got any questions for Jimmy, then go on and go on our Instagram Instagram reel and ask him in there and we'll put him to him next time and hopefully you'll get some good ideas based on what he said so far. You're thanks so much to me and hopefully we'll be chatting again soon. Amazing, thank you. Bye, tries.