Paul and JP sit down with Rory Coleman, the "Marathon Man" of UK ultrarunning. At 64, Rory has run 1,250 marathons and completed the Marathon des Sables 19 times. He had only just got back from Morocco, where he got lost on the MDS 120 and still won his age category.

It all started on 5 January 1994. Rory was 31, smoking and drinking his way through a decade in the print trade, and in a dark place. He went for a run in his work clothes, managed 100 steps and passed out. Within a year he'd run London, and not long after he was chasing 100 marathons in a year. Along the way came a first Marathon des Sables in a three-piece Union Jack suit, a run to London in a gorilla costume that got him questioned by police over an "escaped monkey", and Guinness World Records for treadmill running and the world's deepest marathon, 1,300 metres underground in a Swedish zinc mine.

Rory tells the story of coaching Sir Ranulph Fiennes across the Marathon des Sables, and how it felt to put a national treasure in his car and think "I haven't killed him". He also opens up about 2016, when Guillain-Barré syndrome left him paralysed from the neck down. A few weeks later he taught himself to walk again, finished a parkrun in last place, and went back to the desert the following year.

Now a full-time coach with around 40 clients, Rory explains why he thinks of his work as life plans, not running plans, and why he reckons ChatGPT can't tell when you've just been made redundant. He also talks about the Rory Coleman Method, running with 16 prison inmates for the London Marathon, why he doesn't care about times, and the one thing that matters most: listening.

Along the way: why the older runners outlast the youngsters in the desert, the tribe you find at MDS, Rory's verdict on whether treadmill-only runners count as runners, and a very tempting invitation to Race to the Stones next year (with the desert in '28) that Paul and JP may or may not regret accepting.

Funny, warm and unashamedly inspiring. This episode is about second chances, community, and going and having an adventure before it's too late.

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The PKS Running Club Podcast is a running motivation podcast for everyday runners — real personal stories, honest conversations about health and fitness, and a growing community built around showing up, not chasing elite times. Hosted by Paul, it's a health & fitness podcast and community sports podcast for anyone running at their own pace, from first 5Ks to ultramarathons.

New episodes every Wednesday. Follow @thepksrunningclub on Instagram, subscribe on your podcast platform of choice, and share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it.

JP is back — this time behind the mic as guest co-host after their planned interview guest (an ultrarunning "legend" JP refuses to fully spoil) had to reschedule. What follows is less structured interview, more unfiltered running-nerd hangout: two grown men trading injury stories, dodgy stats, and increasingly strong opinions about traffic lights.

JP kicks off with a fresh Achilles niggle after switching shoe brands mid-training and a barefoot-adjacent misadventure running sand dunes in 40-degree Morocco heat, which spirals into a genuinely useful conversation about heel-to-toe drop, why you shouldn't mix shoe types without easing in, and Paul's own cautionary tale of a friend who ran 10 miles barefoot and shredded his feet to ribbons. From there it's straight into training science: zone two running, why uphill intervals beat flat sprints for muscle recovery, the phosphocreatine energy system, and why walking back down a hill between reps might be the most underrated recovery trick in running.

The conversation gets properly candid on food and identity — Paul's "treat-free September" after an indulgent trip to France, a full confession of a 900-calorie Saturday-night Pringles binge, and an honest, unflinching discussion of Paul's past disordered eating patterns and how he's rebuilt a healthier relationship with food. JP and Paul also dig into a British Medical Journal study comparing running to antidepressants for depression, with Paul pushing back from 17 years of lived experience on medication — and a genuinely spicy debate about whether someone who only ever runs on a treadmill can really call themselves a runner (spoiler: Paul says no).

Along the way: London Marathon ballot stats (1.3 million applicants, women aged 20–29 the single biggest group), why running clubs aren't for everyone (sorry, Derek), adaptive AI-controlled carbon-plate shoe prototypes, the growing gap between the fittest and the least fit in the UK, and a fully committed pitch for a Strava-linked tax break that somehow turns into "Paul for MP."

Funny, wide-ranging, and unmistakably two mates just talking — this episode is proof that not every conversation about running needs a guest to be worth listening to.The PKS Running Club Podcast is a running motivation podcast for everyday runners — real personal stories, honest conversations about health and fitness, and a growing community built around showing up, not chasing elite times. Hosted by Paul, it's a health & fitness podcast and community sports podcast for anyone running at their own pace, from first 5Ks to ultramarathons.

New episodes every Wednesday. Follow @thepksrunningclub on Instagram, subscribe on your podcast platform of choice, and share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it.

Paul sits down with Mark, introduced through fellow guest Rebecca after a 25-year friendship forged in their first graduate jobs. Mark's running story starts like so many others on this podcast — nearly 30, a neighbour training after childbirth, and a Sunday-night routine that began with not being able to run to the end of the road without stopping. What follows is a conversation about weight, discipline, and the slow work of learning that fitness isn't just about miles logged but what you actually put into your body — portion control, tracking, and finally understanding his own relationship with food after decades of "treadmill specials" and Christmas-to-Lent cycles.

The heart of the episode is Mark's 2019 challenge: 15 marathons in 15 months, run while working for Sands, a charity supporting families after stillbirth and neonatal death, raising money and awareness one marathon at a time. Inspired by local hero Francis Benali, Mark ran through COVID lockdowns, homemade courses, and socially distanced club laps, eventually smashing his sub-four-hour goal at marathon 13 with a 3:52. Then came marathon 14 — run the week before Christmas, six days after his PB, tracing his own life story from the hospital where he was born to the streets of his childhood. He finished feeling wrong. By that night, his wife and friends were insisting something wasn't right.

What followed was a trip to A&E against COVID-era advice not to go, a blood test showing a troponin level thousands of times above normal, and the discovery that Mark had run his 13th and 14th marathons — including a PB — while having a heart attack. His cardiologist's verdict reframed the entire story: rather than reckless, Mark's fitness had likely kept him alive long enough to get help. The conversation doesn't stop at the medical drama, though — it goes deep into what came after: the identity crisis of no longer being "marathon man," survivor's guilt, counselling, and the slow rebuild of trust in his own body.

Six years on, Mark is back running 10Ks and half marathons, has never ruled out a 15th marathon, and carries with him a line spotted on a stranger's race shirt at a parkrun: the comeback is greater than the setback.

Honest, moving, and full of hard-won perspective — this episode is about fitness, faith, identity, and what it really means to be lucky to be alive.

The PKS Running Club Podcast is a running motivation podcast for everyday runners — real personal stories, honest conversations about health and fitness, and a growing community built around showing up, not chasing elite times. Hosted by Paul, it's a health & fitness podcast and community sports podcast for anyone running at their own pace, from first 5Ks to ultramarathons.

New episodes every Wednesday. Follow @thepksrunningclub on Instagram, subscribe on your podcast platform of choice, and share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it.