Hello there, I'm Jenny Faulkner, welcoming you along to another gathering of the RunPod Run Club, where runners unite.

So whether you're listening whilst you run, whilst you jog, whilst you walk, while you sit, cook, drive, commute, well listen, I know you're going to enjoy this episode.

I'm joined by very special

guest this week. He is an author. He's a sports journalist. He's a very good marathon runner too. He is

Will Cockrell. Hello there. Welcome to Run Pod. Hello, Jenny. Thank you for having me. Nice to be here.

Oh, that's lovely to have you. Have you been for a run today? It's a very, very good question,

and the answer is I had every intention to, and my body was willing, and then I didn't quite have

time this morning, so I have a 4.5 miler in the diary for the dark, cold streets of Wimbledon

sometime tonight.

So you will do it because you know what?

This is something that I think every single person listening right now

will relate to what you just said because we've all put it off.

But then a lot of people just don't do it, but you're going to do it?

Well, it's interesting.

The reason is that you've just caught me with the blinkers on because it's the national cross-country championships. And I haven't missed them since 1998. So I'm on a nice streak and I can't miss them. So I'm going to walk around if I must. But I'm not very fit at the moment. And I put on a little bit of weight join COVID and stuff like that

and I'm getting a bit wide because it's on hamster teeth which is as you may know ever so slightly

up or down the entire way around and it gets very muddy and if I'm going to not embarrass myself

I need to start training hard so that that starts with today. So today you are

talking to a new man. How far, when you do national cross-country like that, how far is the

event? It's not too bad. It's 12 kilometres. So you're out there for about 50 minutes. But as

many know, cross-country, I would have said that 12K of cross-country is probably the equivalent to half a marathon.

If you think of all the climbing you're doing and all the deep mud you're in, it's probably, I wouldn't know which one I'd prefer to do for less exhaustion, so to speak.

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