Clean Break Chats

James Lloyd spent 8 years trying to get back to four months of clarity he accidentally stumbled into at 38. He'd read Alan Carr's book on holiday in Abu Dhabi - picked it up because it was called How to Control Alcohol, not how to quit - and by the end of it, floating in a swimming pool, he thought: I don't think I'm going to drink again. He stopped for four months. Then started a new job at Ninte...

This week coincides with Alcohol Awareness Week, and this year's theme is Alcohol and Me - an invitation for people to reflect on their own relationship with alcohol and what, if anything, they'd like to do about it. Rich and Andy use it as a springboard for one of the most honest conversations they've had in a while. Rich reads out real, verbatim messages from people in their community - runners,...

Most people who drink to help them sleep think it's working. It isn't. What alcohol does is sedate you - and there's a significant difference between sedation and actual sleep. This week, Rich and Andy sit down with Sam Sidiji, one of the UK's leading sleep practitioners, who works with everyone from babies to city traders to motorsport professionals, to talk about what's really going on when your...

Rich has ditched his watch. Not just for one run - for the entire Yorkshire Marathon training block. No Garmin, no heart rate monitor, no Strava, no data of any kind. Just running to feel, a whiteboard on the wall, and 20 years of experience to go on. He's calling it the naked running experiment, and it's already producing results he didn't expect. Two weeks in, he ran Leeds 10K without a watch an...

He's back. Andy returned from Peru having completed 230 kilometres through the Amazon rainforest over five days, finishing 17th out of 67 starters, and winning the Simon Small Award for his presence and leadership in camp. This week, he and Rich go through the whole thing. It starts at Cloud Forest - 3,000 metres above sea level, clouds rising up from the jungle below, temperatures at 3 degrees -...

David Jacko Jackson played over 300 games for Nottingham Rugby Football Club. In 2013, a month after getting married, he had a seizure on the pitch and a small bleed on the brain. His rugby career was over. What followed was months of emotional dysregulation, extreme fatigue, sensitivity to light, and a nervous system so disrupted he once burst into tears in a supermarket because he couldn't choos...

Andy is calling in from Cusco, Peru. He flies into the jungle tomorrow. In 48 hours, he'll be on a start line for 230 kilometres through the Amazon rainforest over five days - four manageable days of 26 to 36K, and then a 75K final stage that starts at 4am and has taken some people 22 hours to complete. This is the conversation they had the day before all of that. Rich and Andy talk through what t...

Gab Stone had it all mapped out from the age of 14. Loughborough, sports management, his own agency, 22 athletes at London 2012 - 13 of them medalling. He was 29 years old and at the centre of one of the greatest sporting moments this country has ever seen. And behind all of it, he was living a double life. Gab has battled a gambling addiction since university - one that followed him through the h...

It’s just the two of them this week, and they’ve got a lot to get through. Rich and Andy kick things off with some genuinely exciting news - the Valencia marathon experience that became the highlight of Rich’s year is back in December 2026, and this time they’re opening it up. They’re giving up their race bibs, offering a six-month coaching programme, and taking a small group on the whole journey...

Rich is joined this week by the wonderful Louisa Evans  therapist, hypnotherapist, CBT practitioner, and someone who stopped drinking three and a half years ago and hasn't looked back since. Louisa's story isn't about rock bottoms or dramatic turning points. It's about the slow, quiet exhaustion of a decade spent trying to moderate, the physical signs her body kept sending that she kept ignoring,...

Rich and Andy are back together, and this one goes deep. What starts as Andy pulling on a medium t-shirt for the first time in years turns into a genuinely honest conversation about gratitude - not the toxic positivity version you see on social media, but what Viktor Frankl called tragic optimism: the ability to find meaning in life despite inevitable suffering, loss, and pain. They talk about why...

Mark Long has been losing his sight since he was 12 years old. For most of that time, he pretended everything was fine - hiding his condition, masking it with alcohol, and performing a version of himself he thought the world needed to see. It took a car crash, a divorce, and a gym full of tears listening to a podcast about suicide to finally make him stop. Now registered blind, 16 months alcohol-f...

Fifty episodes. And if you were hoping that by now Rich and Andy had everything figured out - the admin, the pack training, the carb loading, the ability to stay on topic - we're sorry to disappoint. EP50 finds Andy six weeks out from a 230km, five-day jungle ultra, feeling physically great, mentally in comfortable denial, and still yet to put his 11-kilo pack on his back for a single training run...

What separates a high-performing team from one that's just going through the motions? According to this week's guest, it usually comes down to three things most organisations never get right: clarity, identity, and the psychological safety to actually fail without consequence. Rich Turner is a high-performance coach, sports scientist, and what he calls a Corporate Athlete. He's spent years taking...

Fair warning: this one goes places. If you've just discovered Clean Break Chats, we'd like to apologise in advance - and also assure you that we do occasionally talk about serious things. Eventually. EP48 starts with Andy somehow surviving 110K in seven days on trails (his legs have not forgiven him), detours through Rich's manic solo parenting Thursday, a heartfelt rant about the alcohol industry...

When Martyn Davies stopped drinking 8 years ago, he had one question that wouldn't leave him alone. What would a comedy club look like without alcohol? The answer he got from the industry he'd spent 20 years in? Laughter. At him. Nobody's going to come to a comedy club without a drink. You need alcohol to laugh. He did it anyway. This week Rich and Andy sit down with Martyn - founder of Sober is F...

We've all heard of the comfort zone. But what if it doesn't actually exist? This week, Rich and Andy make a distinction that changes everything - it's not a comfort zone, it's a familiar zone. And familiar isn't the same as comfortable. It's just easier than facing what's underneath. They explore how alcohol keeps people locked in cycles they know are hurting them - the Sunday bottle of wine, the...

Most people know Georgie Bingham as the voice they heard on Saturday mornings on TalkSport. What most people didn't know was what was happening behind the mic. In this episode, Rich and Andy sit down with broadcaster-turned-coach Georgie Bingham for one of the most honest, raw and genuinely moving conversations we've had on the pod. Georgie opens up about 25 years of early alarms, no weekends, and...

This week’s episode is a personal one. Andy hits 7 years alcohol-free , and we unpack what’s changed - and what keeps getting better even this far down the road. We talk honestly about the midlife runner’s reality: the hidden negotiations, the “badge of honour” hangover runs, and the way running can become both a coping mechanism and a doorway to real change. You’ll hear why 100 days is often the...

This week we’re joined by Mike Mudie , Co-Founder & CEO of Authentic Brew - a 100% natural functional energy drink created after Mike’s life took an unexpected turn. After leaving a high-pressure career, Mike hit a sudden and serious burnout that forced him to rebuild his health from the ground up - and ultimately sparked the idea for Authentic Brew. We talk about the realities of modern stres...

In this episode of Clean Break Chats, Andy and Rich dive into the uncomfortable middle ground of alcohol use - the space where you're functioning, coping… but quietly struggling. They explore the idea of being “not bad enough” to quit, yet not truly thriving either. From emotional reliance and the fading bias effect, to using running as a mask rather than a solution, this conversation gets honest...

In this episode of Clean Break Chats , we’re joined by Ben Gray from Run Talk Run (part of Sport in Mind ) for a conversation that goes well beyond running. We talk about movement as a tool for mental health, why small, consistent community spaces matter, and how simply showing up can be life-changing - even on the weeks when nobody else does. Ben shares his own journey through ADHD, alcohol, iden...

This one’s a proper sit-down, no-filter chat. We start with Ali’s Spine Race update (268 miles, barely any sleep, and she still says it was everything she wanted it to be )… and that opens the door to something bigger: The pain we choose… versus the pain life hands us. Because not everyone’s “Spine” is a Spine. For Rhonda, it was her first Parkrun. For Phil, it was showing up three times in a week...

In Episode 39 of Clean Break Chats , we are joined by one of the most honest, respected and quietly formidable voices in endurance sport — Allie Bailey . Allie is an ultra-endurance athlete, coach, speaker and author of two powerful books : 📖 There Is No Wall 📖 31 Days: a Zero-Bullsh*t Masterclass in Mindset Training For: The Modern Runner Since this conversation was recorded, Allie has gone on...

In this episode, Andy and Rich explore the pressure that often arrives with the start of a new year - the sense that things should feel clearer, calmer, and more organised by now… even when they don’t. They talk openly about: Why January can amplify overwhelm rather than motivation How avoidance, ADHD task paralysis, and self-criticism can quietly stall progress The difference between self-sabotag...