UNTAPPED with Spencer Matthews
Super Shoe Secrets, Keely Hodgkinson & The Hardest Distance Race | Seb Coe
11 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the 'Killing Zone' and how did Seb Coe use it in his races?
Seb Coe, thank you so much for joining me on Untappd.
Great pleasure. Heard a lot about it.
Oh, that's very kind. We've certainly heard a lot about you and your incredible career. You're one of Britain's greatest middle distance runners. You held the world record in the 800 metres for many years. You won four Olympic medals back in your day. You won the 1500 metres at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. How was that? You must remember it vividly still.
I do because it was a, look, it was a great games, but if you look back, if I look back at my career, I probably had the greatest span of, or range of Olympic games you could possibly have because Moscow was the first of the communist games, the communist command and control. They were great games, lots of world records, but they weren't without their controversy.
I fought and was quite outspoken against the boycott at the time, which the newly elected prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, pushed for. And in the end, we went, but we went without any support, really, other than the British Olympic Association that took a very independent position. And then it was pretty sort of split back at home. Some thought we should be there. Some thought we shouldn't.
And then when I won my, ultimately won my medal, there were no national anthems. There were no flags or there were no opening ceremonies. The It was a very, very good Games and really well organised, but it was strange. We never left the village. There was a guy who sort of shattered us everywhere we went. His name was Boris.
And Brendan Foster, one of my great friends, one of our great distance runners, summoned up enough courage at one point to ask Boris where the nearest nightclub was when we were all in the Olympic Village. And he never looked up from the newspaper he was reading. He just said, Helsinki. I mean, it was a really, it was an interesting place to be. And then of course, four years later,
You know, I end up in Los Angeles with the comedic, you know, the comedic, you know, extravaganza of 84 white grand pianos with Liberace lookalikes. I'll explain to you who Liberace is. You were probably too young to remember. But we had Rocket Man taking off in the, you know, on the finishing straight that managed to burn a hole in the track. And I roomed with Daley both in LA and in Moscow.
And although we didn't leave the village in Moscow other than to compete in LA, we were just able to walk out of village up into Westwood and have a burger and relax. It was a very, very different atmosphere. And I can't think there were two games that any athletes have been to that have been so different than Moscow and then Los Angeles.
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Chapter 2: What made Seb Coe's approach to the 800m race different from others?
It was there was nothing particularly special. I never I've never taken a supplement. Never remotely approached a supplement. Never had, you know, I've always enjoyed pasta. I lived in Italy for a few years, of course, while I was training for the games. So, you know, a Mediterranean diet is a pretty decent diet.
No self-respecting Italian is going to sit down without fresh meat, fish, good salad. And only in the south do you sort of overload on pasta. In the north, pasta may only get eaten once every week. fortnight. It's not a staple diet. And I lived for two years in Rome while I was training. So I don't think I was ever obsessive about it, but I tended to eat well.
And actually, to be honest, I would drink. I'd have beer and a glass of wine with my meal as well. Obviously, not on the eve of a race and probably not for a few days beforehand. But I wasn't really I wasn't one that somebody that sort of measured everything and calibrated everything. I just felt I knew what my body was asking for at various moments in training.
And of course, if you're running amongst other things, 70, 80, 90 miles a week, it's sort of a bit like feeding machine all the time. You were running 70, 80, 90 miles a week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So not right the way through the year. I mean, my mileage in the summer was particularly low, was lower than that because it was the intensity. So before I broke the mile world record in Brussels...
My last really intensive training session was six by 800 meters with about a minute's recovery. The average time was 151 and the fastest I ran was 146. So I knew that I was always conditioned to speed endurance. And so the whole focus of my training was not mindless mile after mile. It was, you know, what does each and every one of those miles contain?
Yeah, sometimes I'd go out and I could quite comfortably run 15, 16 miles on a Sunday morning. But
at key moments of the season it was speed endurance yeah it was the ability to buffer the acid we talked about and it was the physiological response you wanted do you think that we're close to the limits of human potential in athletics distances because surely records can't just continue to be broken i think they will
Look, you know, there's nothing that tells me in civilization, humanity, any, you know, any strata you want to look at that there's a limit to anything. So I absolutely think that these records will continue to get broken. And, you know, I also have the privilege of watching athletics, not just at senior level, but at junior and even youth level.
I've just come back from the Caribbean under 20 and under 17 track championships. The perennial question I get is, you know, what's, you know, what do you think is going to happen or what do I think would happen when Usain Bolt left the sport? Go to the Carifta Games over the Easter weekend where you've got all the Caribbean countries.
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Chapter 3: How did Seb Coe's training and background influence his success?
We only have to... Thank you, Seb. I can't tell you how relieved I am that you're not going to strip me of my PB...
So the question I ask you is really where, is this where this podcast was leading to? So that you get the sanction from the World Athletics President to be able to run with your illegal shoes?
I promise it was just a bonus. And I did say to Simon, I said, I will ask Seb if he's comfortable with me running the London Marathon in the Adidas Prime X3s. And if he's
I wish you the best of luck. I have no jurisdiction over whatever you wear. You could be wearing ballet pumps. I won my first road race, and I'm now going to carbon date myself. And I think they're quite sought after again. I won my first road race at the age of 14 in a pair of Dunlop Green Flash in Huddersfield.
I'm trying really hard not to sound like the three Yorkshiremen off the Monty Python sketch. So we've come a long way.
Well, that's wonderful news. On the side of my X3s on Marathon Day, I'm going to say Seb Coe said this was fine. This is okay. Listen, I am just delighted.
I'll call my experts off you at the finishing line.
Thank you. I came into this thinking I'm going to lose my PB here and he's going to strike me off the Tokyo Marathon list. Anyway, that's not why we're here. Although I have to say I'm actually very... happy about that as a result, because we have the defining voice of reason here. We needn't ever talk about this again, Simon. Fantastic. This is great.
I have to tell you, the blood is draining out of the faces of my communications team sitting around me. So they're probably going to tell me I have no authority to say that, but I think I'm okay.
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Chapter 4: What strategies did Seb Coe use during his races?
So that's the thinking. So yeah, it's moving out of the world championships, but it is still a world championship marathon. And that city is not yet announced. So that city has been announced and it is Athens. Athens, fantastic. Where it all sort of started. So we thought that was a, that's a good narrative.
That's wonderful. Well, again, look forward to that. Do you envisage any kind of breakout stars in 2030 or will it be the faces we're used to?
That's a good question. You just don't know in our sport, do you? People emerge quite quickly. The thing about the marathon is it's a younger cohort of athletes than we've ever had. When I was sort of competing, it's what you drifted to in your 30s when you sort of no longer got the speed at 10,000 or 5K.
Now you've got marathon specialists who are winning world-class marathons, breaking even world records in their early 20s.
I think it sounds incredible. Very smart, great move. Can't wait to see it happen.
Well, you know, the challenge we've all got, you know, the challenge that any sport has or should have, and if they're ignoring it, then, you know, they're building in their own obsolescence. We've got to keep re-engaging. We have to find new audiences and we have to find younger audiences without alienating our established fan base. And that's the holy grail for any sport.
And unlocking new young audiences, I think, will be attracted to this model. Look, we've been working on it very hard for two or three years. And look, I keep my fingers crossed, but it seems to have engaged a lot of the athletes, a lot of the athlete representatives and the broadcasters are going to take it, which is a good test of the market, I guess. Usain Bolt is our senior ambassador.
And that's the first time he's really come back into the sport. So we're going to use the athletes in a very upfront way. We've got Mondo DePlantis actually writing a song for the, which he's actually going to deliver himself. And he's writing that for the opening ceremony.
Well, again, sounds very exciting and, you know, looking forward to being a fan of the first Ultimate Championship. Seb, I can't thank you enough for spending time with me this afternoon. I really enjoyed learning from you and hearing about your amazing career. And I wish you all the best and see you soon, hopefully, in September.
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