In this episode, Charlie and Claire welcome Nick Kershaw, founder of Impact Marathons. The conversation includes details about the origin and evolution of their community-driven marathon events. Initially working in finance, Nick sought a meaningful way to contribute to projects in Uganda, leading to the concept of Impact Marathons. These events combine marathon running with impactful community projects, such as building a water pipeline in Nepal or supporting youth leaders in Guatemala. Impact Marathons aim to create sustainable social impact, fostering a deep connection between participants and local communities. The conversation touches on the logistical challenges of organising such unique events, and the profound personal transformations experienced by participants. Nick emphasises the power of running and community engagement to enact positive change and the lasting impact these experiences have on participants and communities alike.
Highlights:
Contact Nick Kershaw: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram
Nick Kershaw is the visionary founder of the Impact Marathon Series, an initiative that embodies the transformative power of running. In 2015, Nick embarked on a journey that would not only change his life but also the lives of communities around the globe. Inspired by the United Nations' 17 Global Goals, Nick saw an opportunity to make these lofty objectives tangible and relatable, asking critical questions about their real-world implications. Nick's leadership has guided the series to remarkable heights, raising over $1.3 million for grassroots organisations and directly impacting thousands of lives. Nick's story is a testament to the belief that running is more than a sport—it's a powerful force for global change and community connection.
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In this episode, Charlie and Claire welcome Nick Kershaw, founder of Impact Marathons. The conversation includes details about the origin and evolution of their community-driven marathon events. Initially working in finance, Nick sought a meaningful way to contribute to projects in Uganda, leading to the concept of Impact Marathons. These events combine marathon running with impactful community projects, such as building a water pipeline in Nepal or supporting youth leaders in Guatemala. Impact Marathons aim to create sustainable social impact, fostering a deep connection between participants and local communities. The conversation touches on the logistical challenges of organising such unique events, and the profound personal transformations experienced by participants. Nick emphasises the power of running and community engagement to enact positive change and the lasting impact these experiences have on participants and communities alike.
Highlights:
Contact Nick Kershaw: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram
Nick Kershaw is the visionary founder of the Impact Marathon Series, an initiative that embodies the transformative power of running. In 2015, Nick embarked on a journey that would not only change his life but also the lives of communities around the globe. Inspired by the United Nations' 17 Global Goals, Nick saw an opportunity to make these lofty objectives tangible and relatable, asking critical questions about their real-world implications. Nick's leadership has guided the series to remarkable heights, raising over $1.3 million for grassroots organisations and directly impacting thousands of lives. Nick's story is a testament to the belief that running is more than a sport—it's a powerful force for global change and community connection.
Please Subscribe to Business of Endurance on Apple Podcasts, leave a comment, and give us a 5-Star review.
Sponsor Messages:
Sign up for the free Limitless Life Workshop from the Trusted Team here
Get your free sustainable athlete guide from 4th Discipline here
Launch Your Own Podcast:
ShoRunner is the leading podcast production and strategic content company for brands, organisations, institutions, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Our team sets you up with
This episode was sponsored by The Trusted Team and 4th Discipline
I'm Charlie Menning.
Speaker 2:And I'm Claire Fudge.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the business of endures.
Speaker 3:A chap who came to our first ever race in Nepal and he was super quiet. I thought he was really not enjoying it. Something he'd done afterwards is he'd sent me a logo where he'd put together a photo of every single person on that trip into a mosaic of our logo and he went you know that's how an introvert says thank you, and also just like she's lost it and she's lost in the boys around and she's you know, that's phenomenal, and so stories like that are really poor to what made the race, especially after you.
Speaker 1:In today's episode, we're thrilled to introduce Nick Kershaw, the visionary founder of Impact Marathon series, an initiative that embodies the transformative power of running. In 2015, nick embarked on a journey that would not only change his life, but also the lives of communities around the globe. With a simple yet profound belief in running's ability to uplift and empower, nick and his team launched their first marathon in Nepal. They're living alongside a local village. They not only built a vital five kilometer water pipeline, but also discovered their unique ability to enact lasting change through the act of running.
Speaker 1:Inspired by the United Nations 17 global goals, nick saw an opportunity to make these lofty objectives tangible and relatable, asking critical questions about their real world implications. Through the Impact Marathon series, he aimed to demystify these goals, making them accessible and actionable by individuals from all walks of life. Nick's leadership has guided the series to remarkable heights, raising over $1.3 million for grassroots organizations and directly impacting thousands of lives. His journey from a career in finance to leading a global movement showcases his unwavering, passionate energy, which he pours into every race, every meeting and every interaction, including this interview. Nick's story is a testament to the belief that running is more than a sport it's a powerful force for global change and community connection. Join us as we delve into the world of Impact Marathons, exploring how Nick Kershaw turned a dream into a dynamic reality, making an indelible impact on the world, one race at a time.
Speaker 2:So, before we dive into our interview with Nick Kershaw, if you stick around towards the end, I am going to offer you a fantastic download with 10 top hits, so stay tuned at the end.
Speaker 1:So, nick, welcome to the business of endurance. I'm really looking forward to chatting to you, for so many different reasons. I love the fact that you're dialing in from the City of London. I can see some interesting sights in the background there. I think that's really where this all started, wasn't it? So tell us a little bit about why and how Impact Marathons came about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it feels weird to be doing that. I've been back in the old offices where I used to work. So I was originally in finance and financial planning and I was working through an organisation here in the city. We've got this now in again.
Speaker 3:I had a side project which I was doing in the evenings hiding away in a meeting room. I was training for an Ironman. That year as well. It figured to make sense. A lot of people were asking me what are you fundraising for an Ironman? I was only doing it for my own selfish demons. I was trying to solve a lot of problems in my life, in my head. I wasn't really doing it for that, but I had these projects in Uganda. I thought, well, what if I could do something specific for that?
Speaker 3:Then, when we started looking at a really cool project, I put on a drinks party, as you do when you work in London. You put on a drinks party. Everyone came. It was a beer tasting evening, lots of talks, with adventures. I got quite a few of the cool inventors in London to come along and talk.
Speaker 3:I don't know Something about. It just felt like everyone's going to donate tonight we're going to hit a good total, but no one's going to really remember that they did that. When you donate to a friend running London Marathon or whatever, you usually forget a few weeks later. It's that Then you never see the journey, that money goes on, the impact and the good it does. I just thought everyone that night I'd donate and come out to Uganda and see the work you've done, because I think it adds so much value in one's life to actually understand the impact that we've made. Then I just quit in that same line. I don't remember making the script and the video shows that I did. When you do, we're going to run a marathon. Then at the end, people came up to me what's the marathon plan? There was no marathon plan. Sixth week later, we're at the Uganda Embassy launching the Uganda Marathon. That was 2014, 2015.
Speaker 3:From early on in that journey with Uganda, it was obvious that we had something really special where people would come out, really understand more about the community, really enjoy their travel in a way that no one else would normally do on a standard tour. Then you have this special day at the end where everyone gets to run together. Running is the catalyst, but it's not the reason everyone comes back again, or it's not the reason that people give ass to the race. As to why they came, I realized that there was something potentially really powerful there, and I'd just been spending three years working in patch investments. How do I tie all this together? Then I think it was basically three weeks after I got back from Uganda, where I stepped down for my course review and I went I've got to go for this, I've got to see if I can do this. Eight years on here, I am still not wearing a suit in the office.
Speaker 1:Describe what the first six days of that week looks like, and looked like then, and is it different now. That's a great question.
Speaker 3:Then in Uganda, that first year, so that if you arrive in country we've built a pop-up athletes village. We call it sort of I don't want to call it a glamping, because that gives you connotations of bell tents and inflatable beds and generally disappointing More just sort of, yeah, we'll use Safari tents, we'll put beds in there, so it's nice and comfortable, but it's not wow, it's not amazing, but the views are always spectacular. So it's got to have that element of wow where am I? And then it's got to have that element of really engaging the community on a high level. It's very easy to put on simple volunteer projects where we pat ourselves in the back and go, cool, we've done great and you move on.
Speaker 3:But where I've always been obsessed is like how do you genuinely engage all of the participants and the community around a single project? So the first event we did as impact marathon in Nepal was building the five kilometer water pipeline. We had 120, rather, you had 120 villages, we had almost as many pickaxes and we built a five kilometer water pipeline that watches the village all year round, and that element of that single big project was almost too perfect, almost too amazing. It was such a powerful and amazing project that I always felt, like every new location, we can do the same thing. We can do that, but it's actually so hard to find a project that's fully community-led, truly impactful and that can engage everybody for two or three days in a remote location. So now we spend a bit more time with the community, learning and listening and understanding and engaging on a different level, and we found that that actually creates a more powerful impact on both sides, because just simply doing work is good.
Speaker 3:When we get it right it's perfect. But you can easily get that wrong and we have gotten that wrong. So now it's like okay, cool, why are we here? What's the other side? So if you look at Jordan, which we just did we went and visited an amazing center, green in the Desert, where they're using permaculture and regenture farming techniques to literally green a desert with using minimal amounts of water, especially the Greece-Selcius heat, rocky terrain, and they've shown over the last 15 years how to do that. And so now we're spending a bit of time in the two hours of learning that day and then we'll get stuck into actually physical learning and all that. So it kind of blends a little bit more into everything. So you come out with a much more holistic idea of the impact that can be had, the impact your fundraising is doing. So, yeah, that's where I've been obsessed with Like, how do you create something that's just truly making an impact on both sides of the coin?
Speaker 1:So the people that do this, how has that changed in the way they come out of this project? Because obviously going and building the pipelines really good, but I suspect the more they learn about the community, the more they come home and maybe do more beyond that. Has that been the case?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm guilty of a lot of bosses getting resignation notices, congratulations. I don't know how I feel about that. I know I'd be upset, but it's actually some relationships break up as well. You go back and you see the world very differently after this. I think you have those extremes where people go back and go. You know what? This is not what I want in my life. I want to change, I want to move.
Speaker 3:But there was one amazing lady who came to our race in Guatemala, I believe yeah, guatemala 2018. And she went back and she set up a girls running group in Ottawa and that was her thing, was that? And there was another lady that same lady they were friends and she said I just want to go outside my kids every weekend. So there's this micro change that people make, where it's more connected, to make life more purposeful. Then there's the people who go in and they change their policies at work and they change how they're operating and they change the concepts.
Speaker 3:We do services that they've been the people who are on the far extreme. We go home and break up with their relationships, break up with their jobs and everything like this. So there's always just like an impact and there is a truly like. Guatemala is a really good example where we focus on young leaders and actually like their whole focus and the charity we work with. There are just like.
Speaker 3:Well, let's face it, what you're really good at is getting on Instagram and telling a story. So we're going to organize a Women's Day march and you're going to come on that Women's Day march and you're going to share the in tech ban in Guatemala. That's what's happening, and when we did that, we said, yeah, okay, cool, we'll back that idea. That seems cool. Not only does the adjunct attract a lot more attention.
Speaker 3:The year before they had 12 people, that year they had over 300 because they'd gone to the mirror and said we've got this group, they're coming over. Now there's 300 women and men marching through tech ban and so suddenly there's a greater impact. Now that changes the way you think about the different elements of what gender equality means for indigenous community in Guatemala. That's very different to what it means here in the city of London. That's very different to what it means over in the South of France. I can't think of another geographic location on top of my head, but so how? All of those different social impacts and sustainable development goals look in different communities, and so when you get that, everyone changes a little bit.
Speaker 1:As a brief interlude, nick's just referenced the importance of goal setting, but these are also races that are very much on my bucket list or heading onto my bucket list now anyway, and a bucket list is a really powerful tool in setting better goals because you can look through the bucket list regularly and think about when you're setting goals, to create better goals through that bucket list. If you want my help in setting better goals and also my help in creating a bucket list, then we have a three hour online workshop called the Limitless Life Workshop and if you head to the link in the show notes or to wwwthetrustedteam, you can watch our next Limitless Life Workshop for free.
Speaker 3:Everyone changes a little bit and some I only find out years later, like years later, where you? Yeah. One final thing is a chap who came to our first ever race in Nepal. He was super quiet, quite introverted. It was a big group. Even when I tried to talk to him I wasn't sure how he was like I thought he was really not enjoying it, but me. And then a few years later he saw on Strava that I was running in Ottawa and he messes me and just was like hey, should we go for a run? I'm stationed here at the moment. So I went out for a run and something he'd done afterwards is he'd sent me a logo where he'd put together a photo of every single person on that trip into a mosaic of our logo. And I said to him like I hadn't really gotten whether you loved it or not, and I was so touched when he sent me that and he went yeah, that's how an instrument says thank you.
Speaker 1:I love that idea of the mosaic. Have you done that since? Okay, and it reminds me of the Ironman. You buy your Ironman t-shirt because your name's on the back of it. Yeah, I just think that's a lovely thing with the photo. It's really carry. I should go back to doing that. It was. Yeah, I didn't. There must be so many challenges around organizing a business like this, where you're trying to get people out to run. You're taking them to remote parts of the world. What are some of the biggest challenges you've experienced in trying to create this business and how did you? How have you overcome them?
Speaker 3:I think from a business perspective, we're very different, because no one doing it on scale like we're, doing it in terms of very specifically focused like this, and so we're not. We don't think of ourselves as a marathon organizer or a competitive marathon organizer. So you're kind of having to teach people what we're actually doing and people will ask questions about, yeah, the standard questions you'd ask before you went to do a destination marathon. But we're not that, you know. We're not that. We're about the community. So I think our messaging can appeal to different people at different times.
Speaker 3:It's always been very hard to find that niche. Who is our target market? Who is our persona? Because we've seen all sorts, and so that has definitely hampered our ability to message, because from day one, we've seen such a diverse group of people come to each of our races for all different reasons and they're coming across us for lots of and we get hardcore runners and we get people who've never run a race before and we get one lady who just yeah, again, I didn't find out until the very end of the way where she was like, yeah, you know, my son's really into adventure, so I thought if I did this, it would help me connect with him. How do you market to that person?
Speaker 3:And because it's like kind of our heart and soul, it's very hard to make that into sort of business like what is our target market? You need to because you know we have to survive, you have to be sustainable, we have to grow as an organization and then literally you know halfway through a meeting with the team about how we're going to do that this year. Where is the running market today? But even saying that feels weird because yes, we run at the end of the week but no, we're not a running company, we're not a running organization. We don't get invited to the national running show every year to do speeches because we're not thought of us like that. We're kind of a bit of travel, a bit of charity, a bit of running. We kind of cross a few different sectors and I think that's always been a challenge for me.
Speaker 1:Funny how I've said to you before we started recording. I was chatting to one of the guys I swim and cycle with this morning about this, and, like the number of times Claire and I have interviewed somebody that has got, you know, become a very good ultra runner some of the top ultra runners and it all started with Marathon Deis Abel and that's where they started to do that, having never run before. Go, oh my gosh. But Marathon Deis Abel isn't really a run. It's an adventure that involves running or walking, and it strikes me that the people that are signing up for Marathon Deis Abel might well be signing up for yours instead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if it were two of our well? So who introduced us? She's Maddie Deis Abel, who became one of our very early backers and she was brought in by a friend of hers that she persuaded to do Marathon Deis Abel and he's definitely not a runner and he did it and she achieved it. And at the back of that he was like I've got some money in my foundation I want to give to an organization that can grow that. So you know, marathon Deis Abel is sort of weirdly intelligent with us because of our start point.
Speaker 3:But it's absolutely that and because you put through so many different things through the week, sometimes it can be pretty physically tough. You know you're digging a pipeline, it's hard work. We've had some really tough years Altitude, you know, sleeping in a tent, all of those different things and Sophie's always described it as basically it's a socially powerful thing. You haven't seen the episode in Sophie. So people would describe it as an ultramarathon, but the running bit is crammed into the final day and it's a bit like that. It's emotionally taxing, it's physically a bit taxing, but it's powerful and you see what's possible, in the same way as you do with an ultramarathon, but you just have to do a lot less money. We only do that bit in the last day. It's great.
Speaker 1:The first official one was in Nepal, but it obviously started in Uganda. Where are they now? Like you've mentioned? Guatemala, I think already, and Jordan you've mentioned. What's the full list and how do they vary? You know what's the difference between doing Jordan and Guatemala?
Speaker 3:So races now Nepal, jordan, guatemala. We'll be bringing back Kenya and Malawi. At some point through this year We'll be relaunching them. We had to pause a few from the pandemic and we've not been able to get up to our full list again. Before the pandemic we had seven a year where we had four, five impact races and then probably two white labels. So we worked with charities and we put on a race for them. We wear their colors, all of that. So we worked. This year we did a race in Ethiopia for Compassion UK, so we have a white label arm as well.
Speaker 3:The core difference yeah, the race rings are all very different. You know the Himalayas you've got obviously goat trails, higher altitude, far more remote, incredibly remote, incredibly, just like we have to hike to get to the village. You know, it's just crazy and it's really special. It's just super peaceful. Jordan the first night or two is in the month, so, like in, we're talking about a city start now and then Jordan actually cooperates with more of the sort of classic travel elements as well, because we drive past Petra and as much as I try to stop us doing Petra, okay, I gave, I really did try hard on that one, but after. I dreamt classes seven times. I'm like enough, I've got to go in, I'm just going to go straight. But that one, actually, we stay in decent accommodations throughout, even when you get into the desert, the better intense. They're pretty comfortable, that's more. If you want hotel in Guatemala, yeah, that's a hotel throughout and a really nice one, and so it just depends what each one's giving us. The main change would be obviously the race day, but then also through the week, what's the social story? So Guatemala's around youth leaders, jordan is around permaculture and green in the desert. We partnered up with the Invictus Games Foundation this year, so we visited the Invictus team in Jordan, and so there was an element of looking at how the Paralympic team works in that country, in Jordan, and the challenges with accessibility in Jordan. So that was a really interesting, like new challenge for us, where we did a day of that and a day of green in the desert. So each one has a totally different dial and tone.
Speaker 3:Malawi was in savior mode. We had a resort that hadn't been used for 15 years and we literally chid monkeys out of the rooms two weeks before and just, it was on life support machine the whole time, but man alive. It was right on the banks of Lake Malawi. You'd never normally go there. So I guess I'm always seeking that place that you would never normally go. And then the communities and the communities love for it. So that's the consistent thing is it's going to be a wild place because people are still giving their time off. They're giving their days off. We don't have that many, especially if you're in hard jobs and you don't have a huge amount of days off. This is your time. You're giving it to the week. That's the experience of being some less special. But we also really have to find the communities that when we say, like this is what we do, this is how we do it, the communities are buy into that and go yeah, right, so that's the consistent stuff. But apart from that, everything's totally different. Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1:You're not going to these events to come out with a PBI. These are obscure races, difficult terrain, except from what I understand. What makes the fact that you've worked together as a team, been involved with the community? Why does that make the run more special at the end of it?
Speaker 3:Well, imagine turning up to a rut where you've got 30 great friends around you and there's no one else right, there's no one else to help on that right, you've got to help each other through. So that's all its most basic form. That's it. And so the camaraderie and the spirit out and the course is always just unbelievable. Then we as a team, we take it very personally and I always say, on the opening gala, on the night before the race and my race breaching, I always start with the same thing of like you're not a number.
Speaker 3:Through this period I've gotten to talk to your wife on the phone, I've gotten to get to know your story, I've seen you in this situation. We've talked about that over a bit. So by the time you're out on the course, it really matters to me and the whole team that you don't just arrive at my van like good to go, but you have a smile and you give me a sweaty hug, and that element of care for each person and knowing their stories. And the night before the race as well, when we give out the bib numbers, we do them one by one. We get everybody to come up and get a massive cheer from all of them, and that's just one of those things that only happened by accident in one of the early races when I'd the race numbers came late and suddenly I was like I've got to give them out. I just do it this way and then it's stuck as something that's really special.
Speaker 3:You arrive and we write a handwritten note on your bench or when you arrive, so it feels like you're, you know, this is where you're supposed to be, and so all of these little things.
Speaker 3:There's lots and lots of little things. You see things you don't see through your week, but by the end, when you're out on that course, it's special, it's spectacular. We always do courses that make you just pause and we encourage you to pause. We don't. You know, our cutoffs are really generous and it's like this course you're going to take yourself, like your split times are going to be rubbish because you're going to take photos, even if you're really trying hard. Yeah, so if all of those different elements that are really important to what makes that race day suddenly feel like it's not a race by the time you got to that, if we've done our job really well on the social impact, you don't care about the race, you're just going to go out there and have fun, and that, you know, limits our risks. It limits all sorts of different things, but it also just creates a really special energy amongst everybody.
Speaker 2:When you do your marathon at the end have you got the local community that you've just been working with? Are they all running with everybody or are they part of, like, the Port Cree, like how does that work in terms of community?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so in Guatemala, malawi and Nepal we have all the community out running. Jordan's too remote, there's no community. They're doing a very, very sad, sweaty run. Desert there's no community. So that gives a totally different energy because that's like that solitude and that specialness of being somewhere so remote and not surrounded by anybody else. That's kind of I've accepted that. That's actually really cool element that makes that race slightly unique.
Speaker 3:Guatemala, you know Guatemala, the community was so strong that in the pandemic when I couldn't go out, the team there went Nick, everyone still wants to do the race, so we're going to put it on anyway, and so they kind of took the race onto a new level. And then Nepal, yeah, this year, like lots of the school kids from all five of the different schools came and ran. It was just really special. And so, yeah, it depends on each race and each location, but wherever possible, yeah, I mean, if we can get, we will know, I imagine, amongst company here, people listening and the two of you, we will know the importance of running in our lives, the power of running in our lives, and so if we can use our races to encourage that in remote communities where we're running, that's like another level of impact.
Speaker 3:But you don't get to see this one girl who ran her first ever race 2016, nepal, roshila Tamang, and she did. That was her first ever competitive race, did the 10k there. I've got a picture of her the King, like those serious intents on the start line. She was our race director this year. She's one of the best runners in the world. She's winning races all over Asia. She raced UTMB brilliantly this year, and so that's the story of impact that I love, and to have her out on the course this year was just really cool and also just like she's blossomed and she's blossomed the boys around and she's just you know this phenomenal, and so stories like that are really cool. To what made the race, especially after year.
Speaker 1:I mean that's incredible, isn't it? Because that one person, then, is having a massive impact, because if she's ending up in UTMB, the impact that other local people are seeing, that is incredible, isn't it.
Speaker 3:When we first started working there, that was when Mira Rai was sort of coming into the front and her impact was so crucial. And that's why Roshila is there, because she was. You know, she wanted to be part of Mira's crew and that did so much for women in the park going hold on, I can run. And now she's just got signed by a new company today and it is the women in the park now that are leading the charge in terms of professional and elite trail running. It's just amazing. That's all because of Mira, that one lady who came to the fore. But she came to the fore because she won a race that was race directed by Richard Ball and he went. Cool, let's start a crowd fun. Let's get her into the sky running world championships. She gets into the sky running world championships and you know that then she became such a figurehead and there's so many others that are following in her way. It's really cool.
Speaker 2:My other question and you can always trust me to ask a food related question Tell me a little bit about I can imagine these places have got the most amazing food. What happens on camp Like how does it work from? Like have you got local kind of cooking food? Are you all cooking food together, like? I know you mentioned hotels at some point as well, but what did that look like in terms of have you got like a community of you guys like all eating together? What's it like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we always eat together. That's actually an important part and I think it's really special because sitting down and eating together and eating local produce, all of that is such an important part, the narrative around this community. And so we did, and it was really special to have now 150 people all eating together. It's really like that bars and energy. So, as we've before, every race is slightly different. Nepal is all community members that are making the food.
Speaker 3:I think this year sort of 70% of the fruit is from the village itself and about 30% we brought up in Kathmandu but nothing was imported. There's a story around that as well. In terms of eating local produce, Jordan very similar. I mean the Green the Desert Project was one of the best meals I've ever had in my entire life. I mean it's extraordinary because all of it have grown nutritionally on site and it just mind blowing the good food. So that's a narrative.
Speaker 3:There's always a narrative and last year in Jordan, the year before, some of the work we do is in the Palestinian refugee camp and there's obviously right now especially, there's a huge amount of narratives and anger and emotions around those stories and actually one of the most powerful ways you can ever tell a story is by sitting down and eating the fruit of that culture and eating the fruit and the history of that.
Speaker 3:And that, for me, is how impact would tell a difficult story like that. It's not of an opinion or push that opinion, it's like, no, well, that's it. Now, obviously we weren't able to do that this year for fairly obvious reasons, but the point remains. Like, the community we're in had Panashtiri and Harajit, Junaid and some of the Sujiris and with Panashtiri, so there's a narrative there that's really beautiful, that tells people different elements to all the different stories. And we always try and incorporate that into how we tell a story. And now, on the course, I always try and make sure the food at every food station is sourced within a few miles of that food station. But in Guatemala we have all the puttillas that we have. We have puttillas and salt.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 3:And that's all from Cindy, who's just like training to stand on from the aid station who brings up tortillas cooked breakfast that morning. So, like you know, I always try and be a bit quirky with that. We had sugar cane out there. Chappati and honey is always a favorite, you know, and try and be a bit different even out on the course as well.
Speaker 2:And we were talking about impact here, like sustainability as well you know, local foods, utilizing that but also that kind of community aspect of eating together, because throughout the centuries, in terms of communities, we all eat together. We tell stories and I love loving hearing about that.
Speaker 1:In a business like this it must be really difficult balancing the finances versus the sustainability and kind of the impact that you make. And I'm guessing I suppose the follow up or maybe the prequel to that question is has your background in financial planning, particularly given that you were working on the kind of impact investing side. Has that helped you overcome those challenges a little bit in terms of having a business that makes enough money to do whatever you need to do but also to make the greatest impact? How do you square that circle?
Speaker 3:I think I'm still learning that that's been harder than I ever anticipated and that's been the biggest challenge for me personally. Obviously, I was learning pretty well in my previous life and so, yeah, it's not been a good financial decision to do this, but it's probably been a good decision in every other way and I think obviously we've got our way through it. We did a couple of investment rounds in the early days quite small, but we always wanted to be that If I was to do my time again, potentially I would go back and have raised a lot more capital, but then I probably would have spent a lot more capital. Maybe you wouldn't have made it through the pandemic.
Speaker 3:I got into a very good way of being very diligent and frugal and now, looking forward to this year, it's like, yeah, it's a really hard balance and it's harder than I ever thought it would be, and I think back to 27-year-old me sat here planning it all out, but it didn't work out quite like that. But we got through and we've continued to survive. I think for the last three years it's been a case of we're hanging on next year, but now we're dreaming again. We've got some really great things lined up, but yeah, that does mean that we're going to need to bring out some very commercial elements to what we're doing, and what I mean by that is not within impact marathon itself, but we're about to bring out a new brand that is going to use the values of impact in terms of what we'll be staying at local high child, but it won't be a census around that one race that's designed to make an impact. Actually, it's about something that it's about getting people to travel more and run more.
Speaker 1:I think these sound absolutely amazing and I can't quite get my head around whether I want to do it with my mates or my family, but some of these are pretty remote parts of the world. Are you seeing families coming and doing this together and how are you dealing with health and safety and kind of all that sort of side of taking people like families to remote parts of the world?
Speaker 3:We've always seen families involved. We're seeing a lot more now. I think to you know however many years are doing this. There's a trust level that means that people feel comfortable bringing their kids along. We had one lady last year in the park bring 16 year old and 12 year old along and yeah, that was awesome because they get to share memories and create memories that they're really good. That's a really special time to spend with your kids. So we are seeing more and more families join.
Speaker 3:From a health and safety perspective, we've always taken it that high level. That means that it's never really worried me to have kids coming out as well. You know, you might get a couple of extra words, like if there's a 12 year old's first time in Nepal, there's a good chance they're going to have a runny tummy at some point in the week, as it is with most adults actually. But like someone who's exposed after the first line said but we're really on, we're kind of prepared for that. We've always got a medic tent that's completely empty with a bed set and we've got medics there throughout the whole week and we use local medics. We used to use British medics but actually we found in Asian location there's some amazing people and they know the terrain a lot better. They know what to do in those scenarios intimately. So we started to do that and again the kind of second level of impact where it put more money into the actual country and the community. Minutes ago we said, yeah, we've got a full system that we put in place.
Speaker 3:I think probably our most dangerous race is Guatemala, where we're on a live volcano. So all sorts of things have happened there. But we spent a lot of time on there and we know how it all works. We work with a volcano where there's a geothermal energy company there, so they've got pipes that go quite a long way down and so you've always got a five hour warning If you were in a. If you're in a five week warning, then there's also a five hour warning. So we've never had either of those happen in a race. So you feel quite comfortable on the race day that actually the chances of an eruption are very no. So you have those different elements and then I think honestly this sounds a bit la dee da, but like no one's out there really racing and pushing into the red, and that limits the risk so much because people are out there enjoying it, they're taking rest.
Speaker 3:If I say, hey, stop, sit here for a little while, they stop and, like when I do my race briefing, I have a little pet peeve of races that just tell you all the things not to do because no one's listening. Make sure you don't do this, make sure you don't like no one's listening, no one's listening. At this point, you can see it. No one's listening and this is that. So my race briefings are really engaging and I move around a lot, I chat a lot and I really engage with I describe the whole course and you can see like I'm Greek, I've got very handy. So you see that the whole group's engaged. They're listening to a lot of different ways.
Speaker 3:There's obviously all the classic risk assessments and all of those things that you've got to do, but actually, for me, a lot of the risk manipulation is how we communicate, how we build this relation, how we build that trust in the week that when someone comes up and I'm like, hey, you should sit down for a while, they go of course, whereas in a competitive race where it's going out there, but no, no, no, I'm good, I'm good, I've already gotten the night before. Like, if I tell you to sit down. You're sitting down, I'll rub your back with you and get you to sit down, like you know, because and again through the week they've seen the level of care and energy we put into each one, so they trust us at that moment. So it's like the hard and soft, right. The hard is all the stuff that you do, that your insurance company wants to see you've done and that you take seriously to team, because it's a really good way of having their questions. So when we do the risk assessments I sit down with the whole team, we do it together, because then it's like then you understand how that person thinks.
Speaker 3:There was one time in Kenya where we had a beautiful sunny day and then a hail storm came Like I'm talking golf coming from the sky in the middle of the race and we had to shut the course down and they called up my, the guy who is our race director, mark, and we could barely hear each other. But we heard enough when I said we're closing the course and I knew where he was and who's in the vehicle and I knew I was on first. I knew I'd drawn the short store here, but we couldn't communicate but because we'd done every course together and we worked so long together and we played the water game. What if that happens? What if that happens? What if that happens? We'd done the risk assessments together.
Speaker 3:It was like, okay, cool, we just both went into the mode and within an hour everyone was back down by the fires warming up. Some people were running around the huts to make sure they got them out in distance. They're falling just short. And it was just like, and you know, that's the nature of these kind of races and you know, after that race, 10 of them signed on to the Nepal race, the Yorasta, do you?
Speaker 1:get many people coming back and doing the next one and then the next one.
Speaker 3:That's what's made it so special for me. That's what makes it worse. Sometimes the hard times is like yeah, we just had two guys hit five races the first two to ever done five races. So we did a special plan for special things. For people who want to get to that, we've got the three-star trap where you get a discount for life. So there's, you know, 50 or people in that and that's a huge thing to do three different races in three different locations. We've only been around eight years.
Speaker 1:That's really, really good. So we have a tradition on the podcast where the previous guest asks the next guest a question without knowing who that is going to be, and so you have a question from Claire Danson. I think, claire, this Claire has got the question lined up.
Speaker 2:So Claire Danson asks what is the big idea that you try if you knew you couldn't fail?
Speaker 3:So we're just in the process of launching a new brand with an impact called Fastpack Global, and that's going to be all around bringing fastpacking to all sorts of different locations, places You'd never normally go, as well as the classic tracks, and so, whereas Anapona circuit is a 21-day trek, you can fastpack it in, depending on your fitness, 11 to 13 days, and we've got some amazing trail running guides out there in each of our locations. Dana to Petra, another classic gray trek actually, you run it in two and a half three days, and so that gives you more time to go any smaller country or get home and then do another trip that's shorter and intense. So you'll fastpack, you'll run, walk them and just do slightly longer days a bit more intensity.
Speaker 1:So that's a guide taking you through that. And is that carrying everything, or have you got somebody carrying your stuff between the evenings?
Speaker 3:The question for you what would you rather?
Speaker 3:Because we can do both, and I guess that's where we're saying actually, we would quite like it if you arrive and you've got a tent set up and everything like that, and it's a bit like when you do those multi-days the mountain disarms and you've got a tent and you've got some food there, so you're not carrying everything, but we are looking.
Speaker 3:We're literally discussing it just before I came over that's why I was fringing your crests on the bridge to get here of whether we do almost a raw package where it's like, cool, you're carrying everything and you're setting up, but you just got to guide with you. Or if you actually want to arrive into. If you look at Annapurna Circle, it's a good example where there's teahouse a good point camping, you've got teahouses. Don't stop being silly about this, have a bed. But then there will be more remote locations where that's going to be the only option and it's whether we might give two options on that. We're still kind of working through what people want and probably at launch we'll offer one with the other one. Talk to us if you'd like to do it this way.
Speaker 1:I reckon I can guess which Claire's going to go for.
Speaker 2:So I think, if you are an athlete that has done maybe ultra distances, I think there's maybe an element of what can I do to push myself further, what's another challenge, and that's probably to carry everything. I think maybe that appeals to an athlete that wants to have another challenge, another layer.
Speaker 1:I think for me I'm not trying to shorten the trip, I'd run further and not carry my stuff. I remember chatting to Kerry about this. So we did the ARC 50 down in Cornwall and we were chatting to Kerry, who's a very good ultra runner and she was crewing for us, and she said one of the best things about the race in it's an ultra race that ends in Basecam and she said they do carry the stuff and you've got food stations. So actually all you got is kind of your next couple of hours worth of food and drink and it makes the run so lovely because you can actually run it, as opposed to where you've got a tent on your back. You're probably walking nearly all of it. I would imagine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's how I feel and that's why you need to have that. I think we'll offer it as that. But here's the next question and again, these may be answered by the time this comes out. But when it comes to those ultra runnys, do they want a guide or do they want to go and self guide a fast back route, in which case we'll also be providing information for the others to do that. I made that much lessable for people. So there's a number of different elements of what we're doing there, but essentially we've built up this huge network of amazing trail runners, trail running guides, we've got great hotels, we've got really strong rallies and how we organize. So they're different and you don't just tick off things, but actually it has more impact in the community through the decisions of where we put our money, not just the social side of things, if that makes sense and, yeah, we can offer all year round.
Speaker 1:So to me I would do it as the base level and then pay this to add a guide, pay this to add transporting or stuff between one. Because it's like you know once you it's like when you buy a car, isn't it You'll pay 500 quid for a gear stick Once you can. It's totally out of concept now. And then, yeah, if you went into Halfords and you looked at five, that's for the normal little call, stop. But once you've committed you'll just add on. But you're right, the hardcore people probably won't want either the soft core people will want both.
Speaker 3:The hardcore people may not be who wants to do stuff with us. They probably want to do it themselves, and that's okay. I think you have to be again. What I guess I've learned is just be stronger. What we're offering we know we're offering it's not going to be for everybody. Most people will still want to just trick up the space now, not run it. Most people still want to do that. But there's a group of people who really want to do something different and, yeah, I'm just beyond besides about this, because I think it gives an ability for us to carry on doing keeping impacts, values central and having something that can fire those up as well. So I think that it really helps us, because please ask that question earlier how do you make something like this sustainable?
Speaker 3:And it's really hard, especially when I don't want muscle, even on the group. I don't want to have 120 people again. That was amazing and crazy and wild for a first race, but actually 35 people is the right amount of people. It is, and having done 25 of these events now, it's definitely true. The group of 35 bonds in a way that no, yeah, because there's no cliques at that point. Everyone's together. We just did this really special group experience, so I can't go higher. I won't go higher and I'm too strong on those values which are nice, nice people around me. But it's like that's what makes the event special which you go chasing the margins, you go chasing the numbers, you lose the power of the event. And I could do that and it could probably be all right, it'd be successful. But would it be that life changing special?
Speaker 1:thing, If you ever see it being like, for example, we take Nepal, instead of it being once a year, there's one a month in Nepal. Clearly, you're not necessarily running 12 in Nepal and 12 in Kosovo or 12 in Jordan, but could you see that that being the case as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you'd have to find different locations. If you did that in one community, you would overrun that community and then you get. You have to get challenges like so we moved communities up to five years at once because actually the power of the impact had really gone down every year. The big thing when we moved there was after the earthquake they didn't house the year round water. So we solved that in year one, then year two, we took the water pipe, landed three different parts of the village and year three that was by the time we got there.
Speaker 3:Year three we supported them in getting funding. So when it's every single house with a meter was being maintained by year four, they were like we're really things are great, like this is what we needed. We got water. Like and so you reach Brindjia and you know. The other element is if you do one thing like if you make it all in one community, the community across the valley sees that and they're going to get angry and then you get disharmony as well. So I think if we were to do that, it would and we have been talking. We are looking at two new races domestically in the part of the moment that would be more around the domestic market and actually this year in Nepal, we're working on something which has been a dream of mine. I wrote down a lot of goals in 2015.
Speaker 3:One of them we took talks with Jordan, with working with and Victor that was one of my top three organizations to work with. The other was to get corporates in each country to match fund so we get a match giving of our. Anything our fundraisers do is matching country, and we've just had a company in Nepal come up with the idea themselves kind of to us and say, hey, could we do this? Because this would be a really cool way to sponsor. It's amazing. And so because that then bridges that gap between that concept of just saw an investment for an aid, but actually it's like well, no, if this group of runners are coming over, they're bringing that fundraiser and they bring it week of their lives, then the least we can do is match on that, and then we can send up our team of people from our rush list to get involved as well and everyone.
Speaker 3:And then this is a really. This is a beautiful thing and that's something I'm really excited about is those kind of elements I'd like to really spend. If I have my dream life, it would be spending my time out on that side of things. Funny enough, despite the financial background, I would just I would not spend all my time just working on the foundation stuff.
Speaker 1:It's just yeah, awesome, awesome. And the last tradition that I want to cover on this podcast always is to ask for books that have helped, either helped you on your journey or you find yourself recommending to other people. There are any books that particularly stand out that you would recommend? Prisoners of.
Speaker 3:Geocracy, tim Marshall. It's about maps. If that doesn't titillate you enough, I don't know what will. It's about the maps. There's about three versions, though he does a few different things, including his most recent book was about space and the future of space within geopolitics, and it makes you look at geopolitics in a way that you never had before in terms of thinking about how geography, topography, all of that side of things actually impacts political decisions and how the world interacts. He's also got another one, and just you wait for it because he is fascinating about flags and it's just. It's very, it may be very sudden, but it's definitely like one of the best books I've ever read about flags. Well, that's all we stop, but it was about flags.
Speaker 1:I can tell you that nobody's ever recommended those before, and so that's brilliant. I love expanding the reading list in very different ways. Nick, this has been absolutely brilliant. I think this is fascinating. Where can people find out more about impact marathon?
Speaker 3:Say impactmarathoncom. It's as simple as that Impactmarathon on Instagram and yeah, very easy to find us.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be checking out and I will definitely be speaking to my family about this this evening and trying to work out whether they're on board or whether I'm taking my mate so long to my love it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:So, as mentioned right at the beginning of this podcast, I promised that I was going to give you 10 top tips and after that, a fantastic interview with Nick. We touched on there about how he is getting locals to prepare food that actually the food's not coming very far in terms of food masks. And in this day and age, we need to be thinking about sustainability in terms of not only as athletes, in terms of from a racing perspective, but also in our day to day life, in terms of what we choose to eat, where we choose to buy it from. So if you click the link in the show notes below, you will be able to download 10 top tips for sustainability as an athlete.
Speaker 1:What did you make of that?
Speaker 2:Amazing. It's another race, I think, on my bucket list of races. What about you?
Speaker 1:Definitely. Which one would you pick of the ones you listed?
Speaker 2:It's adventure actually, isn't it, rather than thinking about it as a race. Well, it's interesting, isn't it? I think the three races that he talked about, or events that he talked about, are so different as he explains them. I think it depends entirely on what you're looking for, I guess, in terms of what you want to go out and help support, but I think also, just some of those surroundings would be just awesome, wouldn't they?
Speaker 1:The ones that stood out to me were Grottamala and Nepal, and both the scenery would be just spectacular. I think that would be all incredible, wouldn't they? But I love the fact that you get that community. You build that community around the people that are there helping the local community. So I love the fact that you get that good feeling of helping the local community, the amazing feeling of kind of building that community, of going. We can all get through this together and then the run is just the sort of cherry on the top at the end. I think that sounds right up my street. I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:I think it's brilliant, I think, in terms of when you look at kind of teamwork. That essentially is you are building a team, aren't you? And then everybody is supporting each other towards the end at that kind of the marathon. That sort of happens at the end. And I love the idea of, obviously, from a food perspective. I love the idea of how he was talking about sustainability around food, because that's such a massive thing at the moment, certainly in the world of sports, but everyone coming together around sort of eating and that more of a trip and an adventure, rather than going and landing in a country doing an event and leaving. That for me, is so much more.
Speaker 1:I agree. I think there's loads there, and one thing that we didn't touch on in the episode, actually, but I picked up from listening to another podcast was the actual finances. And I really like the way he's done this, because it always bugs me a little bit when people say, oh, can you sponsor me? I'm going to climb Kilimanjaro? Ok, but am I actually just paying for you to go to Tanzania and climb Kilimanjaro? Whereas the way that he does it is you pay for the trip and then you raise money and whatever you raise. And he says I think the average is that people raise about 1,000 pounds per person, but some people raise 12,000, and some people raise a few hundred. I don't know if there's a minimum, but I like the fact that you pay your own way and then anything that you raise goes directly to the charity. I think that's a lovely thing too.
Speaker 2:We've talked about this a lot, about looking for something Different and a new challenge, and he was talking about goal setting actually as well, wasn't he? But a new goal and a new focus and, I think, kind of events for many people, I think especially off the back of COVID wanting to do something slightly different in life as well. I think that ticks a lot of boxes.
Speaker 1:The other thing I love is the fact that he's got into running, because he was in a bit of a mentally low patch and his boss said why don't you need to go for a run? Then he obviously got into running. A lot more seriously, but the fact that he's now created his business out of his passion but not only that, he's also created a business out of his passion for helping areas of the world that need the Western world's help I think that's a wonderful thing. I mean, it just must be so rewarding.
Speaker 2:And actually, if you think about our professions or jobs in general, if we can build our profession in a way that we can be really that passionate about it, I think that's what we're all ultimately aiming for as well, aren't we?
Speaker 1:It is. If you do it, you never work a day in your life, do you? I mean, it just sounds like it sounds amazing. So another great episode of the podcast. If you want us to keep getting amazing guests onto the Business of Endurance podcast, we don't ask for you to pay for us. We don't ask for patronage. All we ask for is that you subscribe to the podcast, ideally on Apple. Give us a five-star rating because it shows us you care and, if you've got time, leave us a comment. One word is fine, something like inspiring or amazing or something like that, but we really do appreciate it and it will help us to continue to deliver amazing guests on what we hope you find to be an amazing podcast. Thanks very much. Enjoy對了].