Please introduce yourself

My name is Steve Way and I am the ripe old age of 39¾ . I will be celebrating turning into an official Veteran of the sport of running by representing England in my first major games in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games marathon at the end of July.

My primary distances are marathons and 100km's and I have already had a very strong year in both so far in 2014. I finished 3rd Brit and 15th overall in this years London Marathon with a commonwealth qualifying time of 2:16:27 and followed this up 3 weeks later by wining the UK 100km champs in an all time British road record time of 6:19:20

I'm hoping for a just as successful second half to the year!

How did you get into running and competing?

In an attempt to turn my life around in 2007 from being a very unfit, overweight smoker with high blood pressure and other heath concerns, I turned to road running to help me lose weight and take my mind off not smoking!

As my running progressed over the months and years since then, it turned from just being a form of exercise to a competitive sport as I started to find myself towards the front of local races. Things have just progressed from there!

You recently won the 2014 UK National 100km breaking the British Road 100km record were you expecting to do so well? How did that impact your future goals?

I was hoping that I would have a chance of winning based on my debut over the distance in 2013 when I won the Stockholm 100km in 6hrs 40 but I didn't think I had a 20min PB in me to be honest! I decided quite early in the race though that I had a chance for the British record and decided just to go for it..... the risk payed off!

Based on my performance and time at the National 100km I have real aspirations to represent GB in the World 100km champs which with be in Doha, Qatar in November. I feel I have a great chance to be competitive and race for a podium position. Longer term I am also considering racing the Comrades marathon (87km) in South Africa next year which is the biggest road ultra in the world. The prospect of racing against some of the best road ultra runners in the world is very exciting to me.
  

What is a training session like for you? Where do you train?

I live in the Bournemouth/Poole area down in Dorset so I am lucky to have the straightest, longest track in the country, it's called the Bournemouth promenade! It's great for doing speed sessions on as long as the wind isn't too strong. I also do quite a lot of training over the Purbeck hills when I have had enough of the flat tarmac.

Most of my speed work involves long runs with large amounts of efforts at around marathon pace, I do do some shorter VO2 max work on the track sometimes but my slow twitch muscles do a lot of complaining when I do! When I'm in training for a 100km I quite often will do back to back long runs at the weekend sometimes adding up to over 100km across the 2 days.

How do you prepare for a big race and what kind of sports nutrition do you take with you on the day?

I now have a tried and tested taper process that works well for me. It is only a week long and I still do quite high mileage up until that point. In the taper week itself I keep my runs nice and fast but also nice and short. I also perform a carb depletion phase at the beginning of the week followed by a carb loading process for the last 3 days before the race. This is where my new found love for Chia Charge Flapjacks will come in handy!

On race day for the 100km I will have my breakfast nice and early (4 hrs before the race) which will be a big bowl of porridge. My in race nutrition for the two 100kms has not been that successful so far as I have been struggling to take on solid food while running at race pace and there are only so many "Shot Bloks" I can face! I have now been working with the guys at Chia Charge and am confident that I have found the solution in the form of the Chia Charge original flapjack. They are full of calories and the combination of the light texture and hint of salt has hit the spot for me and I'm finding them very easy to eat on the run.

Try the vegan flapjack in Original Sea Salt

What's the hardest thing you face in training for these races? What keeps you going?

As an endurance runner, one of the keys to success is consistency in your training and when I put together a 3 month plan for my "A race" one of the hardest things is making sure I balance the other things in life like family, work and friends to enable me to execute the plan as closely as I can. Whenever things get tough I always turn my thoughts to race day and how worthwhile it will all be when I perform well on the big day!

A huge thanks to Steve for taking the time to answer and questions, we're delighted he's into our Chia Charge Flapjacks.

Be sure to check out his website or follow him on twitter @Marigold_bac.