Hi there, I'm Jenny Faulkner. Welcome to RunPod, where runners unite. This is the Run Club of the podcast world. And in fact, do you know what, membership has always been virtual until now. Now we have official RunPod T-shirts and vests. Yes. You can be a true Rumpod Run Club member with all the gear.

They're actually very nice too.

And they're available online.

So you can tap the link in the episode info or check out my Instagram page at Jenny Faulkner.

And the Run Pod links are all there in my bio.

So happy shopping.

But first, now, it is time to welcome today's guest. I mean, he's amazing. David Jackson

was captain, an all-time top scorer of Nottingham Rugby Club until he was 31 when he was told that he'd

suffered a head injury so potentially serious that further violent sport could kill him. Now almost 10 years on, he's stronger and fitter than he's ever been, which is just as well as this weekend.

He takes on a crazy epic race that's certainly not for the faint-hearted.

Welcome to Run Pod, David Jackson, Jacko.

Hello there.

Thank you for having us and excited to be here in chat.

And what a lovely welcome. It's funny funny, like stuff that happened 10 years ago. I don't know if you'd be the same of like, it almost feels like a different lifetime. So when I talk about rugby, it feels, yeah, it feels quite strange. And I guess the way it ended, like I don't remember sort of some of the stuff from the head injury and that, you know, everyone makes various different levels of recovery and, yeah, it can be tough when people

are left with long term sort of issues and symptoms.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, gosh, there's so much that we can talk about.

There are really, really, I suppose.

Look, it's a running podcast.

Let me start by saying, I know you've been doing quite a bit. Have you been for a run today yet? As I'm gradually finding out from peeking, like I'm not an ultra runner, even though I'm doing an ultramarthen, like you said, I'm an ex-Ruby player.

And we can talk about why I signed up to this challenge.

But when I speak to like people that have done a lot of ultramarathens, they're like, ooh, you're doing the ring of fire?

...