SMD Running

Episode 31 - James Shipley (ATW)

and have a brief non-running catch up before a preview of the 5k - both the Elite race and the Essex Champs contenders.

This was the perfect time to then have a chat with who started as simply a training plan company before taking the reins on a local 5 mile race - a decision that set him on the path to establishing ATW as a running and triathlon events coordinator who now organise 170 events per year!

(note, this episode was recorded before Essex Champs entries were reviewed and finalised - there is a category for U20 (17, 18 and 19 year old) which the younger lads mentioned and Lizzie Wellsted will compete in).

Episode 30 - Gemma Kersey

We had in the studio as a co-host and guest in September 2024 but we decided not to put the interview out at the time because we felt that we only scratched the surface in the limited time that we had back then.

So finally we aligned our diaries and sat down to have a relaxed conversation about Gemma’s life in running.

Episode 29 - The Distance Project

It’s been a few weeks since our last episode but we are back with a bang.
Sacrificing a proper results round-up, after a brief catch-up between Scott and Damo, we talked to footballer-come-lockdown-runner and subsequtnely World Championship Silver Medalist .distanceproject

Callum Elson of and explains the purpose of The Distance Project, how and why he returned from the US as a middle-distance runner and shared our views on the current state of Athletics and whether Grand Slam Track is good for the sport.

It’s Episode 27 and this week we have 2:19 marathoner of and

After going sub 3 in his first marathon at in 2018, he quickly progressed and set his sights on some bigger goals. Alex has since run a club record for his home club in Canada with his 2:23 at@runCIM262 , won the in 2023 and ran his first sub 2:20 at Florence in November last year. Hear about Alex’s journey in the marathon and what’s next!

(Apologies - there are some slight technical glitches with the audio at the begging of the interview which does settle down as the conversation gets underway)

Welcome back to SMD running and a bonus episode.

After a brief (by our standards) catch up between Damo and Scott, we asked : who would be crazy enough to start a running shoes brand, just before Covid, in the boom of Nike’s dominance?

Luckily for us and for episode 26, the answer was with so we sat down to talk about how and why.

www.atreyu.com |

In the coming weeks, we have some more great guests lined up as we look ahead to London Marathon and and will catch up on some of the March results.

Episode 24 with GB runner, and co-founder

Jack Gray is a real clubman of the running world; cspatain of the men’s and women’s teams and earning multiple GB vests over hard and soft ground (and a top 20 marathon finisher at London!)

We invited Jack onto the show to tell us his running story and to talk about the super-shoe of running supplements founded by him and his business partner Josh Carr.

Episode 23 is here and this week we invited High Performance Coach into the virtual SMD studios to talk to us about his various athletic endeavours.

From semi-pro sessional footballer to Deca-Ironman and world strongman finals, there isn’t much Dan hasn’t done!

Listen to Dans story and how he became a performance coach and now a leader of coaches in his role of Head of Athletic Development.

Happy new year listeners!

We are back and in our first episodes of 2025 we spoke with one of Essex’s hottest prospects in endurance running of .1982 and

Lizzie explains how she switched from mountain biking to running and how this quickly shaped her university and life plans.

Here’s an early Christmas gift for you all!

Some final and brief thoughts from Scott and Damo on 2024 before we delve into a conversation with US Olympic Marathoner

Not only a great insight into what it’s like to run a marathon in the Olympics against the legend Eliud Kipchoge, but an engaging and fascinating chat about Jared’s approach to running, goals-setting and why he’s currently living in Oxford, UK.

It’s not every day you get to talk to an Olympian so this was a great way to close out the year.

Episode 20 is out now!

takes a month off running and returns from Benidorm half without a hangover or a half marathon medal as we catch up on some local and international results.

After the formalities we get into conversation with the Mens coach at – David Chalfen – about how he became involved in running, his coaching career including a successful spell at and how these experiences inspired him to write his new book “A few More Laps”, an anecdotal account of his life in running - available to purchase by following the link in our bio.

New Episode Out Now! 🎙️

In Episode 19 we talked to one of the OG Running Content Creators about his early days as a vlogger to the current day with 114k subscribers on youtube.

Ben talks about living in Sweden, traveling to Jamaica and other parts of the world as well as the challenge of balancing content with his desire to improve as a runner which has lead him to using a coach for the first time in his training block for on 1st December.