E060 Fiona Leatham Comrades Marathon

Let’s Be Well Together Podcast - Episode 60
Date: March 21, 2023

Participants: John Webster, Elise Seifert, Cameron Earnshaw and Sheila Webster
Guest: Fiona Leahtam (Interview) and Simon Phillips (Move That Body)

Start times and Segments:

[0:00:35] What’s On Your Mind: The less you wash your clothes, the less water you use. The less detergent is used. What are some rules of thumb for how many time to wear different types of clothes before washing?

[0:9:35] Expanding Minds Interview: [Physical Wellness] Like John, Fiona Leathan had goosebumps when listening to Episode 73 of Marathon Talk (from 2011), when hosts Tom Williams and Martin Yelling recorded 6 minutes at the start line before running the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. You could feel it’s a special event. John became entranced with Comrades, which is an ultra-marathon in South Africa run between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. It’s either 87 km or 90 km, depending on whether it’s an “up” or “down” year. The race was started by World War I veterans in South Africa as a tribute to fallen comrade who lost their lives during World War I. Over time, it became a long-distance running race of legend. Fiona ran Comrades in 2019. She tells us about her amazing experience.

[0:34:25] Adventures of the Starving Artist: Cameron took part in a song writing circle, where musicians meet, greet and shop songs they’re working on and getting feedback.

[0:38:26] Move That Body: Simon Phillips coaches a couch to 5K jogging program. It’s a rewarding experience for participants and coaches.

[0:45:29] Running Popup: John is grateful to Tom Williams and Martin Yelling of Marathon Talk Podcast. They contributed much towards his wellness journey and breakthroughs.

[0:50:36] Flipside of the Coin: It’s fun to laugh at ourselves. John laughs when others poke fun because his thrift shop hoodie was probably a hand-me-down from a primary school student.

Quotes and Take-Aways:

Fiona – At exactly 12 hours after the cock crows to start the race, there will be someone the other end who fires a starting pistol. At that moment the finish line will be closed. If you’re one second away, even in the finishing straight, you will not be allowed to cross that line. The moment that gun fires the whole stadium goes silent. Those people who have run those 87 kilometres and didn’t quite make it, you just see some fall on the floor to their knees. It’s such an emotional time.

Fiona – Half of the competitors in the Comrades Marathon finish in the last hour.

Fiona – Comrades is the one day participants can ask anything of anybody. They will go out of their way to help.

Fiona – They’re like a sweeper bus. They try and persuade you to drop out. They’re for people who are dropping out of the race. They would tempt you buy saying, “Come and get on the bus. We can take you straight to the end.”

Fiona – That was my entire strategy, that every step I took would be a step closer to the finish on that day. I am going to just keep moving forward.

John – It’s one of the best lessons about long distance running for me. You learn that you can do more than you think you’re capable of doing, and that if you can push through those hard times you build confidence in life generally, because it hurts. You really are pushing through. It really is a struggle. Yet we find out that we can do it, something we didn’t think we could do.

Fiona – Bruce Fordyce is the nine times winner of Comrades. He said to me a couple days beforehand, “On that race what you will do is you will meet your own hero, and it will be you.” That rang so true when I was going through that time that really dark patch and I came out of it. I thought about his words. Getting through that and carrying on was life changing.

John  – I’ve had bad days running marathons. A couple were very bad. At the time it’s so hard not to quit. There’s all this self-doubt. Here we are, we’re together people. We can train for months and do all our training and you’d think that everything is going to work according to plan. But still running teaches you that it’s tough and it’s hard. When you look back you’re the only one who knows what that was like and how hard it was. You can say to yourself. I went through that and I did it

John  – For most of the activities we do in life, you don’t know how strong that little voice in your head is that is saying, “You can’t do this. You can’t do this.” That is such a strong voice and it’s so hard to ignore, but you find a way through.

Bulletin Board Quote brought to you by Cameron: It’s a bit strange. It’s about cannibalism.

Guest Information: Fiona Leatham, lives in North Shropshire, England. She works for the Local Authority (the local council), in organisational development. Her helps with staff wellbeing, staff benefits and staff training and development. She’s a Coach in Running Fitness in her spare time, helping to run a local running club with approximately 130 members.

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Thanks for joining us,
(-(-_(-_-)_-)-)   Your wellness check-in team
John, Sammy, Cameron, Sheila, Elise, Isabelle and Julie

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