Hello there, welcome to another episode of Run Pod. I'm Jenny Falkiner and this week we're going fully international. It's 10 a.m. here in the UK, but it's 7 p.m. down under where this week's guest has been spending a lot of time. Now, he made his name as a personal trainer, but soon became known for his

straight talking fitness advice. There is like no-holds barred. He says exactly what he thinks.

He's a fellow podcaster. He's a best-selling author. And until recently, I'm going to be honest,

he wasn't really a runner. In fact, I'd say he might have been someone that rolled his eyes at runners,

but somehow things have changed for he has caught the running bug.

Welcome to Run Pod. James Smith.

Hello.

Thank you very much for having me.

I'm going to guilty on all of those points and I've said, you know what, I could be a runner now.

I love that.

I mean, what changed?

What was it that made you go

from not really appreciating that kind of like running buzz to suddenly becoming one? I think

for me, a lot of the running that I've had to do over the years is through rugby. I played rugby

for 15 years and I never forget how upset it would make me when I

turn up to rugby training and I wouldn't see any rugby balls. And especially playing in New Zealand,

nearly 10 years ago, the whole sessions was revolve around fitness. And it was just right. No rugby

balls, just cones, bibs, Is and running and i think that through 15 years

of having that thrown down my neck as a back row forward my association with running was more

12 minute runs doing all of these kind of sprints um and the idea of having to run i haven't played

rugby in a few years i'd roll my my eyes at it. See, so because the

fitness and the running required in like rugby is very much sprinting and short, short burst,

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