Hi James. How much running do you get to do at the moment? I try to do an hour of something every day – it could be on the treadmill, the rowing machine, the bike – so I keep everything ticking over. If you’ve got the base then you can step up from that for an event.
What’s your favourite thing about running? Running’s great because you just grab your trainers and you go – you’re not hampered by needing a boat or a bike or anything. Running is natural and, although my running style might not be great, you don’t have to think about it. With rowing, no matter how experienced you are and how much training you’re doing, you still have to worry about how the boat’s balanced and how it’s moving. With running you can totally zone out. You start angry, something’s frustrating you, then you’ve kind of zenned yourself by the end of the run. Since the accident I’ve had more residual anger – and in a way I can relieve that frustration through running.
When you were training for the Marathon des Sables (MdS), what was the longest run you did? Around 35-40 miles. I was in Richmond Park, doing five 7- to 8-mile laps of the park, with a weight vest on to simulate a rucksack. I was on the final lap and this guy overtakes me. He looks at me and says: “Aren’t you James Cracknell? I thought you’d be faster, mate.” And just ran off …
What’s the furthest you’ve run in a day? I ran 80 miles across Death Valley during the Race Across America. The heat made the Sahara feel chilly. I’d broken a metatarsal during the MdS and it was the first time I’d run after that … it was just horrible. But I’d love to do the Badwater Ultramarathon. It’s a brutal race in a unique environment, and if you finish the 135 miles in under 48 hours you get a belt buckle, which is kind of cool.
You’ve run in extreme heat in the Sahara and Death Valley – and extreme cold at the south pole – what’s your favourite place to run? By the sea. North Devon is brilliant. And Highway 1 in California between San Francisco and Los Angeles – where the road runs along the Pacific coast – is great.
Do you listen to music when you run? I used to – but now I like the peace I get running. I spend so much time in front of a computer, looking at a screen – now I just want to get away from everything, and you can do that through running.
What the worst thing about running? I was at a marathon training event and someone asked the group: “How many people in the room have got a niggle?” Everybody put a hand up. People wouldn’t have those injuries if they’d stopped earlier, if they’d had the confidence to listen to their body and spent a week doing other stuff. But people are so focused on what they’re doing – they think they can’t take a day off, they’ve got to complete the programme … and then a little pain somewhere becomes more and more serious. A lot of running injuries are lower limb, so they’re weight bearing. If you injured your shoulder or elbow, you could think “all right, I’m not using that”. But if it’s your knee or your ankle, you’ve got to use it. You just have to learn to listen to your body.
What do you eat before a long run? The rule I try to live by is the old adage of breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. Porridge is always the way I start the day, with seeds on it, made with water and milk – it depends on what the kids have left me. I’m slightly fortunate in having no sense of taste after the accident, so I can put protein powder in there and stuff like that.
What about during a long run? If it’s anything over a couple of hours, I include something with protein in it, so it’s not just high glycaemic index stuff. And I make sure the tanks are full for the previous couple of days, and keep topping it up all the time. Then in the first half hour after exercise you have to put the right stuff back in, otherwise your body doesn’t get a chance to recover.
So recovery is crucial? Absolutely. Another name for over-training syndrome is under-recovery syndrome. When I became a full-time athlete, the biggest change wasn’t in the volume of training I did, it was in the the amount of time I had to recover. Before I went full-time I’d train, go to work all day, and then train again – so you’re not recovering properly. If you’re a full-time athlete you get the luxury of spending time chilling out and resting, which is something you don’t get in normal life, especially with kids. That’s underestimated. Getting rest at the end of a training day is the only way you can guarantee training the next day and the day after that … so you can build up to where you want to get to.
If someone asked you for a running tip, what would you say? People spend a lot of money on trainers, on a gym membership, on a bike … but it’s worth spending money getting a training programme. You can plan your own programme – but I would advise going to a professional and saying, this is my weekly routine, this is the time I have available, this is my goal – and they will work it out. That way you maximise everything. I think the key thing about making the most of the training you’re doing – around work, family and the goal – is a programme which gets the balance right between what’s steady stuff, what’s progressional stuff, what’s lactate threshold … You don’t have to do long, slow runs all the time – it’s not actually going to help you that much and there’s only so much you can do of that.
Who’s your favourite runner of all time? Emil Zátopek. His first marathon was the 1952 Olympic final – and he won golds in the 5K, 10K and the marathon – that’s just unheard of. He volunteered for sentry duty when he was in the Czech army so he could run on the spot, and he was one of the first proponents of interval training. At the time, people would go out and do slow 20-mile runs and things like that … He said: “I already know how to run slow. I want to learn to run fast.” He was ahead of his time.
• James Cracknell is a co-founder of Threshold Sports, the company behind the Race to the Stones – a new 100km fully supported route along the Ridgeway, Britain’s oldest path. Entry online is still available.
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