EP 16 - THE TOUGHEST THREE ATHLETES I’VE TRAINED WITH

In the beginning, episode 16, we are back. And Courtney Atkinson, you've got a lot to answer for to start today. I do you've you've. Broke the Internet? Well, you broke the running part of the Internet anyway. Yeah, we've definitely been trending, haven't we? We, I mean, I don't know what it means, but we hit #13 on the I saw a spot of. 12 today 12 We had 12 on the on the Spotify Sports charts. Yep, I. Think that's got to do with

growth. Yeah. Hey, probably gotta pick up a few more listeners. Yeah, but tell your mates. Tell your mates, share the love. We appreciate everybody that has come on board and the growth that we've seen is in large part because of a bit of a tear you went on last week. Wasn't even a tear, but it was just a a well articulated point. I thought it was just a left handed comment but. No. It definitely struck a nerve, didn't it?

The. Comment you made that in the running world at the moment there is this trend and lean towards people talking about their kilometres and how many kilometres they're doing and how how important it is to continuously be focusing on your kilometres. And you basically went on to say your body doesn't know kilometres, your body knows time and intensity. Now that that little reel has gone nuts. And how have you found the feedback? Because I think it's been very interesting to see.

It was in large part celebrated, but then the critics have started to come out just a bit. Yeah, it's interesting how initially it's super positive and then it's nearly like when something gets big enough, everyone's got to have their two, you know, throw in their two cents worth, don't they? Whether it's, you know, good or bad or maybe bad, just for the sake of being having an opposite view, which, you know, it's

totally fine. I mean, this is probably in part why I, you know, steered clear of this whole world as much as I can in my athletic career, you know, because it was just a left. I don't we we didn't plan that. It was just a left handed comment. I was just talking, you know, liberally in my mind and how I thought and and I still stick by it. The fact that, you know, your body doesn't know kilometres. It just knows the time and the intensity that equals the

kilometres. And we all shouldn't get hung up necessarily on, you know, K by K per mate. It it worked, it's. It's been looking at the comments, it's been, I think there's a lot of, as far as I can tell, not knowing all the people jumping in, as far as I can tell, there's a lot of amateur runners who found that. Encouraging. Peace of wisdom, really encouraging. It was a really nice pat on the back for a lot of people who clearly feel a bit of pressure

about. I mean, one of the comments in there is talking about that Strava is a blessing and a curse because it's great for all the reasons that we love it because it allows you to share your training and look at other people's training. But it does have that social media element of look what everyone else is doing. You can't help but compare yourself.

You keep up with the Giants. And then you find yourself spiralling into I'm not keeping up with all these other people from a per kilometre per week perspective. And then next thing you know, you're not enjoying your running because it's become a competition. Yep. Now I'm gonna we'll just jump to the end of the show. So stay around with this because I've actually got, I suppose a theory or the fundamentals of running that should help keep that fun about it and get away

from that. It's not mine. It's actually something that really resonated me with that what I read. So hang around at the end and we'll go through that. But I agree with you, you know, it's if kilometres or Strava or whatever it is, is taking away from the actual enjoyment and the process. I think that's the key is the process of running, the process of improving and running and everything you get out of it

should be enjoyable. You know, everyone can have their own opinion on what what they reckon is the best way for them to run, but you know, enjoyments would be part. Of to that I would say if, if you've, if you have found yourself, if you're one of those people that saw what Courtney had to say last week about the constant comparison about kilometres etcetera. And you found that weighing on you found yourself really a great jump off Strava for a bit.

Just get off Strava. Yep, just get off Strava and run for yourself. And the other thing as well, and I've done this a couple of times. So run without your watch. Don't track your run. Go out for a run and just run. It's a hard one mate, because it's a hard one if it's not on Strava. Did it happen and? Then this, but that's. This is the. Thing That's the dilemma we face. This is, yeah. I mean, this is the full circle of of technology.

But life as well. I mean, how many people these days, if you didn't take a photo of yourself having a beer in the airport, did you even go on holiday? You know, it's it, it gets back to that question of who are you doing it for? Who are you doing it for? Everyone. Everyone can do it for whatever the reasons they want to, as long as they're run and I'm happy so. But look so everybody.

Appreciate all the all the. Comments so everybody that's jumped on board off the back of that episode last week welcome. We are. We're having a lot of fun here and. We don't take it too seriously. Keep these. Conversations going though because they're great. We love the interaction as long as it stays happy and positive and and I guess non aggressive. We don't want to go down, I don't think. It was gonna take aggressive right? Nothing that's gonna. Hey, happy new year, buddy.

Yeah, Happy New Year. It's great. Off the back of that convo, I, I reckon we get talking about Happy New Year and you know, I know Australia Day is coming up, you know, later in the month and this type of thing. And I saw something that kind of I found really resonated with me. It was on escape, so like a tourism website, but it was about hilarious maps in Australia and how you can divide Australia up. So there's, you know, the Google auto compete map, which is like,

why is QLD backward? Why is NSW important? Why is Tassie cold? Why is SA? You know, it's just all these types of funny things that come out at this time of year. One that got me was it's actually a Sydney map and it was called the Birkenstock border. And they divide, I can't show you the picture, we'll put it in the notes, but they divide up Sydney by the northern Sydney kind of Botany Bay out to central Sydney and then Cronulla in South of Sydney in what kind of open footwear they wear.

So north of Sydney, they've got Birkenstocks in central, you know, western Sydney, central Sydney. Inner West. Yeah, inner W, they've got a pair of slides, Adidas in this case, Versace, whatever you want to pick. And then they've obviously got the flip flops or thongs. What other names are flip flop songs? Pluggers, Which kind of

pluggers? Yeah, you know, obviously the surfy types down South. Now this resonated me because I thought if you did Queensland on this map, what or SE Queensland or kind of central QLD, what would it look like for us? Because it's definitely different. And I'm surprised Crocs don't make an appearance on this. Yeah, well, I don't know if Sydney is very Crocs. It's I don't think I don't think it's Croc territory. I think it Crocs is Moors Queensland based.

Yeah, the easiest way and to to blanket it South of I'm dividing by beers. I'm going north of Brisbane, Great Northern Brisbane itself Forex South of Brisbane Balta. That's that's a. That's that would if I was to create a a Birkenstock map for Queensland I think. People disagree about shoes mate. You just brought in beers. Oh God. That works though Bolter is in North Bolter. The you know the well, the hard to you by the home. Surface. It's in your suburb.

Exactly. In Currumbin and Mick and Joel and Beden And who else was in on it? Kerr they you know, that is the big beer down South. Forex is, you know, Brisbane's still the home of the Milton Mango. Yep. And up north, I would say Great Northern rules. Yeah, I mean, I was, I was born in the north. That's probably why I prefer a choice. Yeah, northern of. Course. Yeah, I love a great of course. But the reason?

The other thing that this Birkenstock border thing got my kind of tickled these I I bought a pair of Birkenstocks for the first time in, oh God, 20 years. I reckon. However long they've been around under duress. I don't like Burks. What's your beef with this? This exactly? What's your beef with the Jesus name? This exact map is my beef with the Birkenstock, you know. I'm wearing. I'm literally wearing a pair as we speak. I can see that. And when you're in Sydney, where

did you live? I was in Bono, actually, I guess. So that that you, you are on the normal side, 'cause this line cut right through the top of Botany Bay. So that's what Maroubra, yes, Yeah. Exactly. There you go. Yeah, but I bought these Birkenstocks because I literally, I destroyed a couple of pluggers. Yeah. And I had to go on a trip and I was literally could not figure out. I knew I'd be in water a bit and it'd be things. So I went and got a pair of the plastic style. Yeah, yeah.

Books. And yeah, I've told you I'm a creature of habit. So I've just worn them out. Yeah, I've never changed since. And I keep wearing them round, but every time I put them on, I'm like, oh man, Birkenstocks, you know, like. So you're not pro Birkenstocks, You're not you've. You're footwear of choice. I'm not pro Birkenstocks. However, if you put me on this map, I should be like we just talked about. I'm probably in the north. I should be pro Crocs. Yeah, but I'm Andy Crocs as well.

But I've got a feeling it's one of those topics where eventually I'm going to come around and eat my own words. So. Hold on, if you're not wearing your runners, what shoe you're are you wearing? I prefer bare feet if anything, but at the moment it's Birkenstocks. OK, so I what? About you. I've got a I've got. A I'm wearing a pair of Birkenstocks right now, but I'm a croc. I've got a pair of Crocs that I

love, absolutely love them. And The thing is I haven't worn pluggers maybe for, I don't think I've worn them for about 5 years now. And I went through, I had a really bad experience when, when I was about 18, first year out of high school, I was at university and I was working at a surf shop in Adelaide. And for maybe two years straight, all I wore at work was Javiana's, you know, because I'm like, I'm getting to go to work in thongs.

How good's this? What I then suffered, I got a really nasty case of plantar fasciitis and the podiatrist I went and saw was like, well, it's 'cause you're walking around in thongs all day, which is giving no support to the arch of your foot, and it's flattening it out. Oh. For sure. So I had to. I basically that was kind of the beginning of the end of my life in thongs, yeah. But for sometimes the way it looks, yeah, you'll end up doing

that. I have to say I don't know what brand it is, but they do do those pluggers. Someone one company made the pluggers with. Archies. Is it archies? They're called Archies. Yeah, there's a few different. And I see a few of the guys rocking around in them to keep the pluggers, but you know, to put that on. But I've gone through a couple of sand up in the cupboard next to us. Actually, I've got this Japanese style sandals, but I'm always buying them online.

Oh. No. And then you can't get the size exactly right. I've got a pair of American dinners in the out in the garage. I'll show you after family laugh at me for them. They've got a pair of Vibram. I bought them because they've got a pair of Vibram and grip on them. Yeah, is Vibram. So I thought of them up on the Vibram, you know, like what the trail runners are made of that that one of the types of grip. Yeah. OK, I'm probably saying that wrong. I don't know. I. Don't know fibrum.

Vibrum, vibrum, vibrum. Fibrum. Fibrum, yeah. Trail runners will know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I bought them because I thought, you know, if I'm climbing on the trailer, up on the 4 wheel drive, getting bikes off grippy yeah, don't fit. Useless mate, I'm having trouble. So we got a, if you've got a good, you know, kind of whether it's a slide or that type of shoe, open shoe that you'd recommend that I can try, I'd be very appreciative.

Just quickly, just as a matter of just to to put a bow on this one, what do you reckon has the faster marathon world record? A pair of Birkenstocks or a pair of Crocs? I'm. Going to say the Crocs because the Crocs have got that sports, the sports, what do I call it? Sports mode where you put the back heel up.

Oh. OK, there isn't much info about Birkenstocks and marathon world records, but the fastest marathon, the world record for marathon in Crocs is set by Kevin Lime Cooler 2051 in a pair of Crocs. He ran it at New York City last year in 2024. All right, Crocs that is flying Crocs have got a good bit of bounce in them. They could they're they're actually, they're actually a decent. Someone will do this. Oh, they're gay Crocs. Oh, there we go. There's a the 2025 prediction.

Yeah, since we're in the new. Year Crocs for the carbon plate. Crocs will come out with a carbon plated shoe collaboration. With do you know what? Satisfy running or someone. I'm here. I'm here for it. Send me a pair. I'm I'm there. I'll run. I'll run Goldie Marathon in a pair of Crocs. If they can find a way to put a carbon plate into them, I am absolutely there for it. I love it.

Well, let's. Keep talking about we'll keep on a bit of what do you call it equipment for my chat tech chat. Yeah. So some loose ends from last episode. We're talking about watches and I I talked about the Apple Watch and having a crash and I like the idea of it messaging you, you know, you wife or you're someone that you've heard or you've had an incident.

But we're talking about are they a good watch to wear whatever it is. So we've got some info in from a few crew about watches who have obviously tried more than myself and yourself. 'Cause you were basically saying you really want you, you the the less on your watch, the better. You want a watch that tells you your heart rate, your how fast you're going, good GPS data, and that's a bad. Correct That's a bad the Holy Grail watch.

Oh, it was about the music up downloads and then yeah, I just want to GPS all the laps in that you usually get yeah heart rate, sorry chest strap GPS yeah and easy ability of podcasts Spotify, whatever on to watch. So Scott Cadbury is it sounds like he is an absolute just loves his tech and watch as he said he's tried mice brands Garmin, Apple chorus, Pola sunto. Funny enough, I've actually run for Sunto and Pola as a sponsored athlete before, so it's not like I haven't tried watches.

Yeah, and that's recently. So Sunto was under the, I suppose the the larger umbrella brands with Solomon. OK. But. They're not alone, but that's not the same company, is it? I'm not sure right at the moment, but at so there's Emma Sports control what Wilson Chanis rackets, Solomon shoe, like a whole range of Terex. OK, wait, ARC. OK, didn't know about that. Yeah. Like like a lot of larger conglomerations. So you know that has a whole bunch of.

Brand OK yeah, yeah. So like a lot of really good brands it's always helpful. I mean, just got a new pair of snow goggles that I'm about to use. I mean it's great how I love gear and it's good when you got some bit when some you deal with some companies, you know, they're fingering more pie than just running. Yeah. OK anyway, let's get back to Scott. So hey team love the podcast. Listen every Saturday doing my long run. Heard your discussion about watches.

So he's got a a Garmin Phoenix aid at the moment. 2050 bucks. Yeah, they're not cheap. They're big watches too. They're expensive. Apple Watch Ultra, $1300 and he's saying the Apple Watch was great. The Ultra, sorry, he's got is great. Full access to my Apple podcast, Apple Music library and it syncs easy with the watch has the $5.00 a month cellular connectivity. So you can actually without your phone also make call, sends messages, all of that. And this is a phone on your wrist.

So this is I like it. I mean, I've known this, but I also like it. Never gone down that route. The downside is the GPS tracks aren't as good as the Phoenix. So in the end he uses the Phoenix. Yeah, everyday as a running watch. OK, that's that's my live without doing a deep dive like it's got as my because my wife has an Apple Watch and she had the Apple Watch before I got my garment. And basically I was doing a big research into it.

The Apple Watch seems like the better day to day functional option the Garmin, and I've never run with Sunto or Polaris or any of those other ones, but the Garmin, this kind of sports specific smart watch seemed like the better choice for everything else, for athletic stuff, the GPS stuff. Yeah, so we're still, like I said, we're still looking for this Holy Grail of in between. Obviously Apple's got the technology so and our local legend Brazilian run at the evil

if you ever want. You know, we talk a lot about going and trying shoes on. Yeah and talk about like run expertise down at Wild Earth here. If you're on a Gold Coast or in Brisbane, I think Wild Earth have got one out at. There's one in the one in West or Burleigh. Burleigh, but no, I think they've got one out at what's the airport place, not Metroplex. Harbour Life Town. Yeah, but the equivalent up in Brisbane Airport, DFODFODFO, there's one up at DFO in Brisbane.

But yeah. And if you ever want advice in there on running, you know, he's switched on on everything. So he's, he's also talked about, he actually said to us he loves the fact we talk about all brands. You know, even though I run for Salomon, you've got obviously some connections with different, you know, brands. We're not. In the end, you need to try everything to know to make a decision, the best decision. That's what we have. We're about here.

He also is saying the Apple were the Apple Watch the worst GPS and battery life really good for everything else but battery life one day so you're charging everyday sunto he just said or sunto. Some people will call it just release some new watches. Okay so really good adventure so I. Watches, yeah. I've never run with. Those watches. But yeah, so he's saying he's hoped. They've fixed a few of the little problems I had in the past. I'm not really cry.

I use them for a long time and I always did get a a longer distance in my GPS first garment. So if I went out and ran with yourself and I was using my Santo. Yeah, it'd say you ran a little bit further. I'd always get a bit more bang from my butt, which is which was always a good thing too because you're that means you're running a bit. Quicker, can I ask quickly about the idea of running as a watch

athlete? And I know you sort of explained that some of these brands live under an umbrella brand, but we are, I think about elite athletes as having, you know, a shoe sponsor makes sense, right? Or an apparel sponsor makes sense. The watch idea is it, is it a case of is it just the same in that they give you a watch and therefore you're an athlete or is there a financial agreement in place or how did that work back in the day when you ran for

these various watches? Well, that that comes back to what we've talked about a lot on this podcast around, you know, influences professional athletes, semi professional athletes and where you stuck, you know, stack up in the pile. I mean, the professional athletes are getting paid by these companies. To run with their watch.

Run with the watch, promote the watch and do all that and now and through the other, you know, I'd say some professional semi professional athletes or amateurs and that are probably getting given product as a deal. They probably no one ever really probably differentiates that in to who they when they're talking to their audience. No one knows that what's going on behind the scenes. And then influencers like to be honest, I think you'll find some of them are getting paid.

To. Promote it because they've got such good reach and and then a lot of influencers are just probably getting a product or getting a discount even yeah, but we don't know that. So that's why you got to, you know, be really careful when you're, you know, watching socials or looking at advice or what everyone's, you know, showing out there's you don't know what, what the motivation

is behind that. Yeah, it's interesting as you talk about that because again, I, this is my second forerunner, Garmin Forerunner I've bought. Full disclosure, I've bought both my garments, paid full price for them too. But the the reason I bought them is because at the time when I needed a watch it had nothing to do with. Influencers or athletes having this watch? So why did you buy that gammon? I bought this gammon because I

was signing up to noose. I was in the midst of doing Noosa triathlons and I was running and I wanted a watch that I just, I wanted a sports watch. I wanted a watch that could track this information for me and track my runs and all the rest of it and give me pace updates and the things that the, the decision making point for me was these tech websites. I would go to tech website. It had nothing to do with individuals.

I would go to these tech websites that independently evaluated these watches alongside one another. Not to the extent of like choice.com or anything like that, but these tech websites that would go, this is Garmin's new forerunner or this is Sunto's new whatever. And this is Apple Watch and this is how they compare alongside one of each other. And I would sit and it had nothing to do with what individuals were running with them, but was purely about the an independent assessment from a

tech. And they're looking at it from tech and new features and everything else, which is if you're wanting all the bells and whistles, that's a great way to look at it. But no one's ever just talking about what do you actually need in the watch?

What do you need? So that's where I always come back to is the basics of, you know, there's that old saying about if you, you're gonna buy something, you know, wait a month and see in a month if you actually really need it, you know, it's a you purchase that you're like, I'm on the online, I'm on Amazon and bang on it now.

Yeah, wait a month. If you still want it, buy it, then buy it. Well, I kind of like backtrack that and kind of think around a watch and go, OK, in the last month, what have I actually used on my watch? What have I, what have I actually done with my watch in the last month and what metrics or how have I uploaded it? And then what information did I take off that watch and then go, that's what I actually need in a watch? This is this is as you say that I've just jumped into my

favourites. Yeah. And in my favourites I have run golf and breath work, right. And I used golf the other day because this has the ability to be like a a range Finder to an extent. Not not hard and fast, not accurate. But then I'm just looking down. There's the other widgets within this watch. There's track run, there's treadmill, there's bike indoor, there's triathlon, there's walk indoor, there's post. There's all these things that I will never use on this watch. Never use, never use.

And then you know, the new ones that are giving you, you know, your fitness went up 4% as you're, you know, beeps that you're running or here's a session and you pretty much just dismiss, dismiss, dismiss. All of that information in there is costing you money and you're not using. It, it's funny you say that because I this when I go, I had

to go for my run with this. Yeah, every day when I click into run, it takes my sleep data and every all the other training I've done in and it suggests me a session and I dismissed that session 95 times out of 100. And I feel like my watch gets offended because it then says after you dismiss it, it says do you still want future? Like it's just and I feel bad and I go ohh yeah yeah, keep keep supplying them to me.

I paid for it. You keep giving, keep giving me the information and I'll just get rid of. It but yeah, anyway, it's a good bit of watch chat. We haven't done which watch chat. Before that was nice. So thanks. Thanks to the boys. Yeah. Saluting. Hmm, who else? Well, there's Sam Y, who's a big friend of the podcast. He just wanted to follow up on that, the question of AI training and ChatGPT providing those training plans we. I think this is good. I like this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one technique he's been using with ChatGPT in particular is to follow up his original prompt with a where did you source? So the idea, if you missed it, talked about the idea of these chat, these AI being able to provide running programmes. Sam the technique he uses is when he asked the AI to provide him a running pram, a running plan. He then prompts it by saying where did you? Source and he can go and check. Check the source and see if they're legit.

Or not, which is an interesting little hack. Or does chat GDP just freak out and go? Well, I've never done it, but it is an interesting prompt to, I guess if you don't want to take a IS training programme on face value and you want to do a bit more of a deep dive on it. I haven't done it, but it's an interesting, I guess test if you are one of those people that's using AI to provide your training programme, maybe just jump in and ask you where I got it from. Anyway, Cool, interesting.

Well, before, yeah. So then running resolutions. Happy New Year again, yeah? Happy New Year. We said we'd shout out. We asked for. We obviously see our running resolutions last year. Sorry. Yeah, last year for 2025. And we'd asked a few people to throw in theirs. We'd give them a shout. Yep. Number 10. We'll go half, half here for you. So I'll go. Dexter. So Dexter we've talked about a little bit here. He won High Rocks, Melbourne.

Wow. He, he, this is, you know, he's right in this sweet spot of I reckon could run in the Clydesdale category. Is he a big unit? Big. Unit ran a 246. OK, here's the story. Ran a 246 marathon at Gold Coast last year with a hydration vest on. What? Yeah, big fella, big fella, big strong fella and. You reckon he'd be in the could be a Clydesdale and he's running 246. 100%. That is. But he's just one of those big guys, you know, like he's a strong one, yeah.

High rocks. So he's got all sub 117 half, yeah. Sub 1117 half that's good running, yeah. Good running that's. That's real good running. He's a legit, serious guy. So from that into Brett Quayle, who says he's just trying to be more consistent and injury free. Perfect. What I would say to that is I reckon Brett's got to, he's got to funnel that down a little bit more. Being more consistent is fine. Being injury free, that is. That's a that's a nice idea. But what are you doing to?

Yeah, well, let me ask you this, Courtney. I'm Brett. I want to be, I want to be more injury free in 2025. Give me, give me two simple things I could do, not even 3. Just give me two simple things I can do generic things that will help me be more injury free. Number one, activate before running. Figure out some exercises that you can do to help activate your muscles before you get out to go running in the morning.

It'd be #1 and #2 would be probably go and see someone and just get some strength work, you know, not over the top. There you go, just get some professional help. There you go, Brett. So just be more injury free, activate before you run, then go find someone who can help with some basic strength stuff. I like that one. Yep. Oh well Quirk. Cool so Bryce Quirk go over one of my best mates Ren raced across the globe within triathlon.

So his son, he trains for AFL and his goal here is 955 for the 3K. Some quick maths on that. So he's running three, wants to run about three 20s. Which for AFL standard, you know, junior AFL standard when they go and do their, you know, two or three K time trials because he's yeah, really good going so. Yeah, Greg, this is Greg from This is BSc. What is a body science? Body science, I mean, Or a body protein. Oh well, they've got everything. Yeah, they've got everything and I like this.

He's running resolution for 2025 years to start. I love that great, great resolution. I I've I've been running into so running into Greg's one of the guys who when they founded BSc Shebie is his nickname. Like shout out to Shebi. He was one of the guys who originally kind of, I suppose was the real.

I mean, I don't know much all that much about the company, but he was one of the I saw him as the bread and butter of BSc. So when they began in protein stuff and doing all of that at the same time, compression wear, you know, your compression tights, that was trending in really big Cellars. And Sheepy. Yeah. So locally down here at Miami, they had a Gold Coast triathlete used to exist just down at the shops, just behind, just down in

the Miami swimming pool. Anyway, next door Sheepy used to bloody do car seat covers. So he used to, you know, sew. I don't know if you sew them, do them however they're making. Type stuff. Yeah, well. Used to you remember you used to get the lambs wool sheep covers. Yeah, right. So that was his trade, right? Greg, yeah, I would love Greg to tell this story one day. Or sheep. Yeah, like on here.

But yeah, he, from my understanding, he literally brought him over, started doing the BSc, the legging compression garments. Wow. And he's been there ever since. But I've seen him out in the in the forest lately. He's been back on his mountain bike trying to get fit. And I know both of them go off and do activities. Well, I love that, you know, get themselves fit so. Good on you Greg. That's his goal for 2025 years to start so well. Done. Yep, awesome.

And then the last one we'll, we'll give a quick shout out to and there was lots that came through. So good on on everybody who's getting out there. And for those of you who kept your running resolutions quiet, shout out to you as well. But Reedy, who friend of friend of the pod he has, he's running resolution for 2025. He's qualified for Boston and he is shooting for a sub three hour at Boston, which will be a good run. But he's also, and this is exciting.

He is on board to pace the 320 bus for the London Marathon which will be an amazing experience. When you say. So the 320 bus when if you hear ever hear someone talk about a bus pacing wise, they're talking about the the pacemaker for. Wearing the balloon the. People with the balloon on the Goldie, they run with the balloons or a flag or something that's essentially like a tour

leader with a big umbrella. Yep, but so he's going to be pacing the 320 bus at the 320 pace group at London Marathon, which is awesome, really perfectly capable of running A320 marathon. But there's that. Have you ever paced for any race? I know you haven't run marathons, but have you ever paced anything like? That not really bit of bit of feel that back in when in the earlier days of the Suns I used to paste one or two of their pre season 2K time trials.

That's about it. But for something like that, that that as a resolution for Reedy is is there's comes a bit of pressure with that. Because pressure. There's a lot. 20 minutes slower than he's PB too. And for the a lot of people, since you're going to be relying on ready at that race to get them to their goal. And ready can talk, you know, so you better you know if you're running next to him. But now now talking about ready yourself, obviously good mates you sub three.

I'm just saying sub three hour goal here at Boston. Yeah, there's a bit of competition. You're with your. No, he is no. Solution at three hours could could it be a ready a ready versus Liam Flanagan run off? That's insulting to ready because he's he's sorry he's he's run under 3 hours multiple Times Now and he's we're in different categories. But no, look, if hey, if you know, we'll lay it down and he's hoping ready blows up at Boston Marathon and doesn't get his

target And I I get minor goal. There you go anyway, alright. So what have you been up to Liam this week? I know I want to know personally. I want to know obviously starting the new job at Triple M on here on the Gold Coast. When's? The start, the 13th first of first day on air with the new crew spotter and Lisa, we are on air 2 weeks. The 13th Monday, 2 weeks. Yeah, 13th of January, 1st day. Yep. So does that coincide with why the 13th start? Does that coincide with school?

Doesn't. Go back on the school won't be back. Is that just a rating start period or? You're asking questions I should know the answer to, but I don't. No. Look, ultimately we. The. In in layman's terms, the radio ratings periods are different depending on what markets you're in. Basically, we it's time to get back on air.

The year has begun. We are people are back to work, people are back into their morning routine and it's time for us to to get get on air and, and start talking to the people of the Gold Coast with this new radio show. It's interesting. I was talking to someone about it the other day. I've got a similar feeling. In fact, shout out to King of the Coast, Luke Bradnam. Yep, Channel 9's Luke Bradnam. I played golf with him the other day. We're at Royal Pines.

Oh, nice. And actually here's a little Segway. Luke is, I think Luke's about 52 now. He's in great shape for a 52 year old. And he talked to me as we were playing golf. And I'm sure he won't mind me sharing this story because he's talked about it openly before. But he credits endurance sport with where he is now in life. He he, he found it late. He's now, I think he's aiming to the Gold Coast Marathon, which he's going to compete in this year, will be his 25th marathon ever.

OK, I didn't realise that. He's done 2 Iron Man's. He's he's A and he's a huge advocate for endurance sport and he's made a he's making a commitment to get back. He's been out of it for a little while, but he wants to get back into it and run the Goldie marathon this year. And his coach or the fella that kind of was coaching him when he was doing the iron Man's and stuff is a bloke called, I think his name was Greg who, and apologies Greg for not knowing

your full name. But the other day messaged Luke and said, mate, give this a listen. I think you'll find it useful and and informative. And it was this podcast and Luke was literally wrote back to him and said, I'm driving to Royal Pines to play golf with Liam

this afternoon. But no, I was talking to Luke about the new show because and I described it as to to pivot it back to running, the feeling I had before the half marathon down in Adelaide. And I talked to you about this, that as I drove down to that, I was shooting for a sub 90. I wasn't nervous about running the distance. I was nervous about running the distance at that pace. But it was an excited nervousness. And it was when I finished and I achieved it, it was amazing.

I've got a very similar feeling about this show. I'm really excited because I know what an amazing opportunity is. And I think we've got all the tools we need to succeed. And I'm nervous because it's going to be something new. I've never done breakfast radio before. I've filled in in patches, but I've never done a long stint. Yes, you know, and I see this as being a 5-10 year job for me now. So I'm really excited. I'm nervous but I just can't wait and. What I I saw her on Instagram.

What are they? What's the show going? To be called Triple M Gold Breakfast, Leisel Jones, Liam and Spider. Well, that's a mouthful. That's pretty. That's simpler than we name this, isn't it? We like going back. You just policeless. And Liam, yeah, yeah, yeah. So no on the from the 13th. So if you're if you're Gold Coast based, 92.5 triple M gold will be on air from the 13th. 5:00 AM. Yep, and I'll and I'll officially be switching into pro hours as a runner.

Well I'm I'm expecting so my school, my school run up to Southport is generally around 7:30 till 8. Yep. So I'm expecting a good segment to listen to. That's peak audience. So I'm Courtney. That's peak audience. OK. Most people in cars around there doing that school drop off. So you'll be getting good. State I'm open to consult over here if you ever need. I don't. I only charge by the.

Minute you're genuinely you're you and I have had conversations though your your insights to this area are genuinely helpful. You talk about, you know, the the Gold Coast better than mice because it's where you've been born and raised, and you spent not born but raised. We're raised here, but you spend a lot of time running around here. You know where the high traffic points are genuinely useful inside. Maybe, maybe I can do your traffic. Maybe I can get a job as the

traffic. There we go. I'll tell you what, it would be a negative traffic report every morning at the moment you. Can give us the trail report? Trail Report. There you go. How's your how's your running week gone? Huge. So much going on. There's so much going on this week. It's just that time of the year where everyone's around. I think I said this last episode. So New Year's Eve. Yeah. New Year's Eve. Morning. Does it make sense? Yep. So on the new. Year's Eve.

Yep, we go. It's not in the we Gold Coast runco. So Jacko Stolo, who runs the more, I suppose, amhr age Group, A kind of group of Gold Coast runco. They bring everyone together for the one morning each year and they do 25, four hundreds. How was it? It was hot, it was hot, it was hard. It was everything he expected. I've got a question for you though, Liam, because I you got an invite to this and you, you made an excuse.

Yeah. I won't say the excuse, but you made an excuse and then I seen you go and you've gone and taken a better invite down at the alley. No, so no, no, no, no, yes, no, no, no, no. You're getting your days mixed up. Oh, OK. No, no, no. We. It was that you're. I messaged you the morning of this 25400 session and I really. And I woke up and I really wanted to be there.

I messaged you because I felt so a bit of a hotspot, a sore spot in my soleus, my calf the day prior when I was doing a bit of running around. And I thought, oh, that's the spot. And that is the injury that kept me out of the Golden Marathon two years ago. I've had some trouble with that. And I woke up and I had a little bit of a flex of the toes and a little bit of a, you know, jump around. And that hotspot was still

there. And I made the very mature decision to message you and say, hey, calf's not good. I'm I'm. I know you're. I know you're joking. I'm joking. It's the it's the right decision 100%. But I did think I then saw you at the alley doing a surfing session with the cool you. You're like, yeah, yeah. It's one of those like times when you get a better invite and you're like, are am I going to make an? Excuse to promise you I did not. I was I stayed very much in bed

and I I looked after the leg. But so I was very disappointed because the IT looked like a really fun session. It was, it was good we got about. Well, look, I took an Esky down with 70 plus Red Bulls in it. Yeah, and I came back with seven. There you go. Lots of friends have more. Lots of friends. Very popular. Very popular that morning. But no, it was. It's great. The thing is, we gave, you know, Matt Hauser. So one of the best triathletes

in the country right now. At the last Olympics, so you've got Olympians and you've got like Jacko's elite squad who you know, Tim Vincent and guys like that who are top ten marathon runners in the country at the moment. So you've got all that kind of eliteness there. Then you've got the amateur group running along as well. Store though that we see down at the Spit most Tuesdays.

A couple of footy guys like Lucky Weller turned up and a few of us like mate it's just an all in and everyone's having a good time. We do it on a 2 minute cycle so it's not easy. So where were you running? I was generally probably 20 to 30 metres behind. The front guys. Just looking after myself a little bit. But it, it was hot.

But what this did get me thinking about was because we had the variance of everyone there and I was 30 metres off the back going, you know, I want to be up there. Yeah. You know, I want to be running up with the guys, you know, and it got me thinking who about people I'd trained with in the past and kind of who were the hardest, hardest trainers that I've come across.

Yeah, because in triathlon, the unique, when I was training around the Olympic Games in triathlon, the uniqueness of that is you're swimming, biking, running, so you're getting to mix in a lot of different sports. So the three guys that I reckon I've been exposed to, which were the hardest, and it's no coincidence that then their results, they got the results because of their training,

right? The first guy I'm going to say is Kenny Wallace. So Kenny Wallace, gold medal, Olympic gold medalist in the K, I'm gonna say 1000. I'm pretty sure it's 1000. Yeah. Now Kenny I never could paddle with because I can't sit in AK1 to say myself, right? I can paddle an intermediate boat all right, but I'd fall out of AK1 and into the shark infested canal, so that's not a good idea.

Kenny I, I never saw him in his actual training environment in the kayak, but what I did get to do is 1 I had a chance to race across Tasmania in an adventure race and it was the Mark Webber adventure race with Kenny. So we got put together as a team. He'd never run more than 10 kilometres in one go in his life. He, I mean, he'd ridden some bikes, but we literally just went and got a mountain bike for him, you know, the week before

this race. For people who don't know Ken Wallace, he looks like an upside down triangle, like he's got shoulders that just do that. He's a big fella. Big guy, I mean, so I'm not surprised he'd never run more than 10 cars because he's a big unit. I took him. So we went down to race this five day adventure race. You know, each day we're doing, we're out there for 8 hours or so. So long endurances and one particular, and he was just an

animal. Never go, never, never whinge, never gave up. I was dragging him around on a bungee cord half the time. But there's this one particular day I remember we went up, we had to climb up. We're in Cradle Mountain around that area, and we've ridden up this climb and it's probably a good hour. And he's at the front of the pack with all these like, elites just giving it some talking, you know? And then it was a 16K trail loop.

So he's never run 16K. Yeah, I've got him on the bungee, and I'm running him hard because we're, like, trying to still keep up and we're doing all right. At one stage he tripped while he was on the bungee and just went flat down on his thing. And when I rolled him over, there was a little stick out of the ground. So they'd gone through with them like a machete, cutting the trees on the side of the path. But as they've cut them, they've left them steeped up. I thought I'd kill Kenny.

I know. I'm not joking. I was waiting to see the blood and kill Kenny. It's not funny, but. Well, it was. You know the bit, you know the famous line from South Park is, Oh my God, they killed Kenny. So that's just what jumped in my end. There. Well, yeah, Yeah. I thought I'd kill Kenny. Anyway, he got up, didn't miss a beat. You know, once we worked out it hadn't gone through. He was gone through his guard. He got up and, you know, on we went. He was just.

And he'd been at it, you know. Well, you talk about sport and how long he'd been at it. He'd been a surf loss. He just grinded for years. So he. That's number. One OK Kenny Wallace. Kenny Wallace, welcome. #2 this is good by the way, and these people I've trained with like this, it's a little tough man party, more tough woman party. Yep, Yep. We don't know yet. Well, mostly it was men I got to train with. So apologies to the ladies on this one. There will be 3 guys.

Michael Shelley So Mike went on to win the Commonwealth. Games Games Gold medalist in the marathon. Mike did all his training on his own pretty much in when he got into his marathon days. Obviously hard training, long training, did most of it on the Gold Coast hot. I'd been running through Narang with him and look, I could never keep up with Mike for the whole time. I was always like, hang on as long as you can. But I was, I, I believe I was at least company for him on a lot

of his longer stuff. And it worked for me as well. I'd seen him in the ring, like most weeks he'd just be barrelling me. And then on a bad day, he'd be chucking up in the trails and he'd just keep going. Like just keep going. He was just, he just, he was relentless on the particulars. It's so much. So I was telling someone else this the other day when we'd finished, like we'd run out, say if we were going to do a 28K run in the forest through the hills, we'd get to the turn and I'd

always need a piece. I'd always need to go to the toilet. I had to time my toilet stop before the turn because Mike wouldn't stop. That's probably why. No compromises. No compromises, right? And he and it finally paid off. No compromises. He was just an animal. That is number 2. OK, And then #3 which I'd never got to try. I grew up with Grant Hackett in the pool, never got really to like when he was obviously at

his peak in the pool. I never was training with him, but I'd be training a few lanes over at Dennis Cottrill squad

and he was relentless as well. The sessions and what they were pumping out in that time, like post Kieran Perkins era, pre the New age of Suits era and all of that, you know, like, and the benchmark was kind of like to swim a one minute 100 in repetition because you know, that would obviously break the 5th if you could do, you know, 21 hundreds on a cycle and under one minute that would set you up to swing under 15 minutes in 1500. And he has just watched him just

do it. And he was in the pool for years. We started, you know, like his eight year olds down there and, you know, he obviously went on to create great things, but he was the third guy. Like I didn't, yeah, didn't get to. I was never quick enough to actually be in lane. One would be every so often Dennis would let me like jump in the back of the four hundreds and that, but it was mainly just watching them. Yeah, There you go, 3.

Guys, I like, I could sit here and listen, you talk about these guys for days because you know when I go running with you and I talk to people about the fact that I go for trial runs with Courtney Atkinson and you very patiently wait for me. You know you don't have the Michael Shelley attitude towards our runs otherwise I'd be stuffed. But I love hearing about and you just mentioned 3 blogs that all achieved. I achieved. That's why success, but it's that attitude towards training.

See, I'm too compassionate mate. They'll wait up for you. And this is the reason I never won gold. I am not taking responsibility for your performances in Beijing and London, mate. I didn't know you then.

Yeah, true, true. It's that it was interesting because as I was, I was talking, I was going for a run this morning and I was thinking about resolutions and the resolutions that some people had sent us through and the idea of, of goal setting and how this time of year for your average person, your average plotter is a time where they, they make a resolution and they say, Yep, my goal is to run X time or this distance or just start and all that sort of stuff.

But for your elite athletes and I, I mean, you've talked about three of the best there. But for you at this time of year, how did, how did you set up your year? Or how did you, when did you set up your year with your coaches or in your own mind? When did you actually lay out your goals and objectives? Was it? Was it on a calendar you set up? How did you do it? It'd always be on a seasonal setup.

So generally your last like let's just say your a race of the year was a world championship or an Olympics or whatever it would be. And then you'd take a period of rest and then you'd set up your next season off the back of that. And you'd always have in your mind, I suppose, progression or periodization over like Four Seasons. Like you've got an end goal more

than just that season. But you'd kind of like pick off what the main race, what the, what's the first main race of the year and what kind of condition you want to be in and for that. And then what's your a race of the year? And then work backwards from that, obviously, to build a base and how long you can build that base. And the longer you could go and build that aerobic base, the better the season would be. So that was always the juggling act. But I'll just do it on a spreadsheet.

So especially around, I suppose when I got later in my career, and I would have, so Sean Stevens would be the kind of guy I would be, I suppose, consulting and my mentor and that kind of around the physical nature of the programmes. And then we just set it out on a, you know, it was never gospel, but you had this plan and it was a progression plan, like each long run would slowly progress or whether it was progressing in intensity or progressing distance.

And they need to always make sure. I think the key to laying out that season was the rest to the most important part of that spreadsheet. Excel spreadsheet that had 52 weeks on it was which were the down weeks. What I'm taking away from that now for all these average plotters that have just set out there running resolutions or whatever it is, I'm going to do a spreadsheet like there's, I think we can all work a

spreadsheet to some extent. But also the thing I was thinking about this morning, because I wanted to ask you about that is this idea of I know, and I know some people at my level that I run with at times are guilty of going well. If my goal is to run my 5K or MY10K or my half marathon at X pace or just achieve it, It's, it's very linear. We, we think about these goals as being I need to be able to run that pace for this long. And at the moment I can only run

that pace for this long. And it's this idea that I can't achieve it. Now, how am I ever going to be able to achieve it? But it's this idea of almost shelving the goal. To well, it's it's cliche, right that you have mini. It's like these all of these micro mini goals in the process that gets you to the end result.

You don't have to think about, as we talk about the process sometimes actually more enjoyable than the end result because you're getting all of these like wins or losses in each week as you go. She's we're drifting very, very close to a are running cliche. They're about enjoying the process. Well, yeah, interesting point. Well after last week and that that we I could be starting to get classed as an influencer so. Mate, you are an influencer. Suck it up. Except that.

Hey, let's jump into have you got anything else from the week? What have I got? You've been running, you've been running back in the trails a bit. You've been running singles. I've been running singles. I ran in an hour and a half loop in the rang and I saw two guys in that whole hour and a half, two guys in a mountain boat. As I ran into them, they said, Courtney Atkinson, we'll just chat about you. We're just saying, just saying we just got spammed with your algorithm.

Oh, no. And I was, no, it was a good one. It was a good. It was a good interaction, though. Got spammed with a thing where we listened. Yeah, they were like good. So I was like, I was pretty stoked because there's only like 2 in the whole thing. I mean, that is like, if you're going to find me in the morning, you're going to probably find. Me, if there's any like mad cognac fans out there, Nerang trails. Just hang there for a week and you'll bump into it.

But now what? The one thing I'm now concerned about a little bit is because running's been going really well, is January is my proper holiday month. OK. So I've got a bit of travel planned next week I am off to Fraser Island for four or five nights. I. Think before the dingoes. Well, this is the issue. You can't run on Fraser. No. Because of the dingoes. You hit the nail on the head. So I mean, you could probably run along the beach if you're on

that side. I mean, it's not pretty much no running on Fraser. That's the whole thing. I just. Couldn't run on Fraser? Well, that's the how long you got. Parks ain't no running on Fraser, right? Yeah, so much so have we got. Have we got time for another long winded story? I had the most amazing project set up with Red Bull and Subaru. It was a combined project. So the idea behind it was, I'm not sure you know Molly Taylor. Yeah. The driver.

Driver. Yeah. Yep. So she commentates super cars now. So Molly is one of Australia's best rally car drivers, full stop. All right. She also drives now in an international, the E the E buggies like the elect. OK, yeah, electronic body. So she's. Heard of the series. I knew she was a part of that, the electronic, electronic. Driver So the idea was on on Fraser Island you obviously have quite hard for driving trucks and you can only go a certain speed.

But what most people won't realise is there's a great walk that cuts through Fraser Island. It's about 50K in length and it goes to all the main key places. So like goes to Lake McKenzie, up to Lake Wobee and touches on a central station. Yeah, touches all on the key things. Now you can drive that as well. And what we worked out is if I ran it, the distance for me running it would actually be the perfect rally race, stage race, Yeah, against someone driving it

in a normal car. So we got a Subaru. It was pretty much, you know, had a bash plate on it, but it was a stock Subaru and we were going to go and do a, we were going to have a rally race on Fraser Island. You running? Molly Taylor driving. Correct. And we were going to race like I was going to do the great Walk stage and she was going to be on the drive it, but under public condition, sure. So obviously not. She couldn't go flat exactly, she had to essentially stick to the speed.

Limit and we're going to do stages and we'd have a winner and and at the end of the day now what we didn't take in consideration is we can't run on Fraser. So we got shut down. Oh, great idea is there. Somewhere else you could do. That we've, if anyone knows, we'll like, let us know. But because that I've, I've looked time and time, you know, to try and figure this out. I love that idea. Yeah. So that was the idea. And then talking about Fraser. Actually, here you go. Here you go.

I've I've figured it out for you. You run on just on the Gold Coast beaches, you just run on the soft sand beaches against the traffic and Molly has to fight the traffic of the Gold Coast. You know what? Yeah, gold. Coast I don't think we need Molly to do that. I think we can get any. I think we can get anyone who's got a licence. I can guarantee you I can win that one. I like it. That's good. But yeah, Fraser's like one of those places isn't amazing, but you know, obviously running.

So that's my challenge at the moment. I'm I'm off to Fraser. I'm going to miss 5 days of running, no gym on. Can you ride your bike? Take a dirt bike over and ride the dirt bikes. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, well, maybe the family will just be will be going and cruising. Your family time, all right, just do some push ups. Just enjoy your family time, all right? Lunges, push ups, just do some strength work. Sounded a bit too professional. Aren't I worried about missing 5

days? Five days. Hey, let's jump into some some WTF loose events from around the Internet. What have you found? So I'm assuming Sam is one of your friends. Sam Way. Sam Way. Yeah, actually he sent this one through. So this is Sam who he's a big fan of the the, the podcast. He's actually, he's laid out some resolutions for himself.

He said he caught up on a whole heap of episodes coming back up from Adelaide. From Adelaide he's he's he's wants to lose some KGS as the wheel, but he sent himself and Sam this guy went to school with who is a he was a great football player, great cricketer, just one of those annoying all round athletes. Wouldn't have ever said he was a

real runner though. He was very much a footballer and he said himself the goal of doing 10 KS at 4 minute pace, which I think given that currently he's running, he's 10 KS at 520 pace. That's that's a lofty goal. So I'm, I'm stoked that he's setting himself a, a tough one, but he's setting. He's sending this WTF event, which is A to go against the the fella that juggled for 1/2 marathon. He is.

He's sending. This is a fella who broke the world record for the fastest marathon running backwards now. Check it out. He's what? What time did he do? I think he ended up doing. I've done, I've got the. You got the data on the. Data I just I just quickly showed Liam the video of him running backwards well. While you find this, I've got an embarrassing story about marathon runners running

backward. First ever marathon I did was London in 2011. Yep, and I came in on very short notice and only just beat this English bloke who ran it backwards. You've actually been in a marathon where someone has run it. It was in was in something of a Sprint finish with a bloke. Oh my God, he ran it in 414. I think I ended up doing

something around like four 10s. But it was I went past him at one point because I'd read in the media about this guy training around the Thames, running backwards and. This so this French guy holds the world record now is done in 23, three hours 25. That's incredible. Finished 19th. That's incredible running running backwards people are out there. Going 03/24 is not that fast. Just try and run your driveway backwards and then and think about how inconvenient it is to

be constantly turning your head. I'm debating keeping bringing these. Up in Let's keep bringing these up. There's so many out there. There's so. Much going on out there. That's that's that's pretty crazy that one because it isn't easy running backwards. So the next one we got in, it is a build off last week again was sent in by Jules Kennel and it is oh, sorry, Jules Kennel was the IG account where I got this off and it's taking Kenny Cross to the next level.

It's Kenny Triathlon. They take their dog swimming. That's fine. They do put a bungee on bike mashing bike jogging. So they have them out. That's the bit I didn't understand. Like so, the dog is pulling on the lead again and then they finish off with a bit of old Kenny cross that we discussed last week. I, I fear for Kenny triathlon because you know, New Zealand's just banned greyhound racing like it's done. It's it's, it's done in New Zealand. So you're for finish.

From a from a is. That one step towards and banning horse. I think so. And this is what I mean, because greyhound in the greyhound industry obviously took a big hit here in Australia a few years ago when it was uncovered there were some really bad practises going on and roughly so they they needed to crack down on those people. But New Zealand has basically said it's done. We're not, we're not, we're not

doing greyhound racing anymore. You would think the logical next step would be that horse racing would be under review. So I fear for cannycross. I think you got to be very careful that you're not mistreating your dogs in these races. Not a fun, not a fun conversation. I. Don't. I don't think we're going to have too much of an issue with Kenny Cross here in Australia considering because I, yeah. Anyway, now I like this last one you found though. This is my favourite of the WTF

events this week. OK, what is it, the Dramathon? Yep. Now I've got to be honest, when I read it I thought it was about acting during a marathon. I thought it was drama. I've got. Someone who can explain it? If you like whiskey and running, you need to check out the Dramathon. Five years ago I flew to Scotland to run this race. I had just started running and like many dudes in their 30s, I had made whiskey my entire personality. The Dramathon is a marathon in Scotland.

The name itself refers to a DRAM of whiskey, which is a Scottish way of saying like a poor or a shot of whiskey. Here's a few reasons why this race is so great. First, the trail itself is amazing. You get to run through a castle and some really cute small towns. You get to run past like 10W

distilleries. My favourite part was getting to run through the Balveni Distillery and it's it's not open to the public, so running this race is one of the only ways to see it. Second, the goodie bag is basically just those little mini bottles of whiskey and that's just perfect. What else could you ask for? And finally, the medal you get is a piece of an old whiskey barrel, which is just so creative. To me, the biggest challenge is just trying to get there.

Basically, it's several hours away from the big. Look, I was a bit disappointed because I thought this was going somewhere where it didn't. You thought this was going to be a whiskey version of the BMR? I thought it was gonna be the whiskey version of the beer crawl. Yeah, where you got to taste along the way? I thought it was gonna be running to distilleries and doing a shot of port or whatever that what is whiskey and I. Couldn't think of anything worse than that.

That's that sounds terrible, but you you. Would have mates here in Australia who do the pub crawls in some type of real whether it's running yeah yeah or the mates yeah N you could join in North Burley they do the old on the skis start down at. Well, and and paddle paddle. And do the surf clubs and do they take some beers in an esky and then they do some of the surf clubs on the way back? Only problem there is I would fall out of the ski and I'd never it. Would be nothing to do with the

drinking. Yeah, it's not because I've been doing beers, but there's a big. Here, I know. I mean, I'm assuming it's the same in Sydney and other places, but here on the Gold Coast this is a big thing people get do a pub crawl at a running crawl. With a run in between. So run from, you know, cool and gather to surface and stop at

every surf club. What I loved about that dramathon is this comes back to what you and I have spoken about, about races and adventure racing and all the rest of it. It's the experience, right? This, this run, this marathon allows you access to places that you literally can't access as a member of the Joe Public day to day. So it's not even about the whiskey, it's about these opportunities to run in places you can't run.

And I love the idea and I, you know, you're somebody that knows the parts of this country better than most with all the adventure stuff you've done. But I love the idea of creating a race that as a one off thing and doesn't even have to be every year, but maybe it's a maybe it's a every two year thing you get access to run. I'm trying to think of like. Private property. Private property. I agree. And This is why, you know, the Roadrunners listening and probably going whatever with the

trail running. But this is what is so unique and what I love about trail running is that you can go and see, well, you can go and do a long trail run or whether it's in a race or whether it's out training or a bit of an adventure, and you get to see so much more of a location than you ever would. You've either got to go and hike it over four days or you can't drive there. The only other options are helicopter. That's what you get out of trail running.

You get to go to locations that no one else gets to go, and you get to do it all in one big hit so you can see more quicker than any other form of transport. Now I know you're Tassi bound in March for the What is it, Kinani? Yes, Kinani. I got sent. Have you ever have you heard of the the King Island run? No. So you know little King Island off the coast of Tassie? This is a cattle. King Island got the cattle. Maybe I got the wrong place. King Island's down off just off Tasmania.

A lot of people go there to play golf. There's a great golf course there, but. It's only thinking of a different place. But playing but this is they have it's called the race that stops an island set on scenic King Island. Enter our unique 32 kilometre race amidst jagged reef, sandy beaches and mush landscape landscapes and epic coastal journey. This looks like we'll talk about it a bit more in like that, but it looks like an awesome race.

Somebody sent me that through and said you'd love this one as far as experiential running. Island Trail run, I mean. Exactly right, yeah. Yeah, nice. OK, So I did promise at the beginning about bringing in some fundamentals. Here we go running because we're saying you. I was nearly cliche around the idea of what was I saying? You told me it which. One give me some help. The saying at the beginning of the episode was I nearly said enjoy the process.

Oh, when you're. Talking about the idea of in this is this is all goes back to the start of Courtney saying that your body doesn't understand kilometres, it understands time and then the idea of goal setting and you want to enjoy the process and so. People are, you know, whichever side you sit on, people are calling out crap. Like I said, we're never going to be too serious. No, you know, take it with the grain. Exactly.

But what this did resonate with me and it came through on a like a EDM, an email I was on and it's from Mario Frioli Frioli. Like aioli? Now, no, he sends out. So I did a bit of research on him because did my due diligence here and looked at where this expertise come from and he sends out a morning like a weekly newsletter about all things running like that he pulls across the Internet.

This seems quite interesting, but what resonated with me is that he pretty much summarised most of what I believe works in running and coming back to the fundamentals. So it was like, you want to get better at running, just be ruthless about the fundamentals. That's his heading And here's like the summary. So you I'm going to give them to you. Any questions or any comments shoot out. But I pretty much agree with this. So number one, you're starting

on your journey. Good runners are good athletes first. So meaning that you know, if you especially when this is comes when you're older, if you believe you can just run and only run and and not look after your body, you're not going to get away with that. But first of all, good runners have come from, you know, doing a range of other sports and then they finally specialised in running. Right. So OK, I'll I I. That makes sense.

So training balance speed being more than just like having going doing 1 motion strength training. I'm gonna, as you go through these, I'm gonna provide the average person take and what I would say if you're listening to that and you might hear that and go, well, I'm not a good athlete. But I think the takeaway is that feel free and feel encouraged to if you're starting out on your running journey, your week doesn't just have to be filled

with running, right? If you're wanting to run, it's OK to go and do a Pilates class or a strength training class or something else in mind with the view that this is going to help my running. But it's also on the most basic level, like if I hear this all the time, especially probably more around our age, is I'm a runner and I run and then I go and play soccer with my kid and I can't move for the next day because your body can't do anything beside running.

So like having a holistic approach to fitness, I suppose is, you know, my belief in more of that Number two, rest and recovery, a part of training, not punishment. So we've talked about this in my spreadsheet pretty much when he said he quotes Bill Bowerman of Nike. Stress your system, then rest. That's what leads to the growth. Stress the system, do the training, rest.

That's where you get the growth. You don't get the growth from training, training, training, training, training, training. That's when you break. Right. So just on that though, because I you hear about we talk about consistency, it's about consistence, not perfection. And it's kind of like that idea of it's finding that understanding of, well, when do I break away from my consistency and reach for something a little bit beyond what I've been doing

in order to find improvement? Does that make sense? That makes 100% sense. So you like you, but that's the stress, right? Slowly build the stress, but then you need to take the rest to allow the body to absorb it and then improve, right? So Yep, I'm 100% agree with

that. To improve, you need to stress your body when no one's disagreeing with that, Like even at the moment I was having, I was running with Jacko this morning from Gold Coast Runcow. And we're talking about the idea of like probably the last few years we've ran too easy. Yeah, to. Really stress ourselves. So we've just been in that nowhere land and then what you find over time, we've just lost our speed base.

You're in a holding pattern. You have to, you have to go through a bit of pain to get the fruit right at the end of it. OK, All right. So number 30, it's kind of the same thing. Small deposits add up to big gains over time. So that's the consistency. Not every workout has to be the breakthrough. A drought. What's he saying here? One of his quotes pushing too hard in a single workout can

derail the long term progress. So you've got to be careful and manage it. You can, we want to stress the body, but you you also the worst thing you can do is tip over the top. This is the same as the worst thing you can do is turn up to a race overdone. You're better off being 5%. 100 done OK. #4 consistency is more important than intensity. Oh, so this could say this is a bit contradictory nearly to the the ones we've said before, but and now this is contradictory to what we just said.

But he emphasises that running regularly, even at a slow pace over time will yield better results than doing fewer and just like sporadic faster runs. That makes sense. That makes sense. It's more we want to put in like simple terms. I say it as building the longer you can go uninjured and uninterrupted, building an aerobic base. So building the the top of the pyramid or how fast you can go. Yeah, will be better. Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense?

And this is so the reason this we're going through all this is right. It's the fundamentals. So this is like running shouldn't be complicated. It's like some really simple things you can do. We talked about double thresholds for the Norwegian method, all that. First things first, let's just get the fundamentals right. I like this. I really do like this one. So it's rating of perceived exertion. So have you ever heard of RPE on a, you know, it's one to 10, how you feeling you use that?

So if you, when I was over at say Red Bull's training centre in Santa Monica as you're doing your lactic testing or this is the same in VO twos, you've got obviously lactate data, you've got oxygen data, you've got heart rate data. But the one thing we always do is RPE as well. So. As you're going through that test, you're correlating that RPE of like, how do you feel like you're, you're, you're how much effort do you feel at this stage? Is it, you know, easy?

Is it moderate? Is it somewhat hard? Is it hard? Is it extremely? Hard now for for your average person out there, what I I because that's a hard thing to do as an amateur athlete. Like it's a cause for most of us, if we go out for a run, at the end of the run we're cooked. We feel knackered, right? And we feel like I'm knackered. That was an 8-9 out of 10 run. All the time. All the time. So it's hard to that idea of the RPE is, is it seems like a simple scale because it's one to 10.

But the reality is you never set yourself, oh, that was only A1 or that, you know, because that lower end of the scale in particular if you're not an elite athlete is something that you don't really feel like you ever explore. So what I would say as an add on to that, I'm calling going to call it the amateur add on to that. Go and find your 5 out of 10. Go and find your middle of the

road run. And we talked about benchmarking, whether it's your 5K, your 10K, whatever it is, go and find your 5 out of 10 run so that you know that's your middle range. And I'm talking about the run that you know, you can just, no worries, go out and punch out any day and make that your middle of the road run so that you then know you have a point of reference on the scale.

And that, you know, if you run below that from an intensity perspective, that runs live somewhere between 1:00 to 4:00. And if you run harder than that, you know it's going to sit somewhere between 6:00 and 10:00. In the simple terms, that one to 10 scale, if you just ask yourself the question, does this feel somewhat easy, hard and you can get the go online and Google it, you'll see the scale. It really does help. It correlates and This is why we

use it even in testing. It does correlate to the metrics that you, you think I'm really, you know what, I'll be really interesting because it's not my expertise and I'm, I'll be really upfront here saying I don't understand it.

But someone who's trying to run, you know, doing a marathon, doing a half marathon, all that, even a 10K, all that distances, and their goal time is really like a four and a half hour or five hour marathon or, you know, come down the distances and similar is for someone in that space who has real expertise on coaching those athletes to get their perspective of what type of paces they recommend for an easy run. OK. You know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. Like I we we think about, I think about like A5 like 5 minutes per K as a run. Yeah. It's like, you know, people throw that around as like, you know, easy run, but it's not easy for everyone right at that pace. But I'm just wondering like, what is the prescription of training paces if your goal is at that?

Because at some point in time you're going to get to a like a, I'm assuming there's a scale that you'll scale down where you're literally jogging so slow, but you're getting that effort out. But I don't know. So the the I'm I want to pick this up during the year and there's something. We might have to. We might. We'll have to find a coach that knows how to or that coaches people at that level. I think I've got someone because that we can.

From like for context for me right now, I'm benchmarking my 5 out of 10 run. What we just talked about there at I'm benchmarking A5 out of 10 run as being about 5A10K run at about 5-10 pace. That's my middle of the road run. That's a, that's a run that I can comfortably go out and do any day, talking, chatting, I get to the end. I'm not cooked.

That's my right. But a 5 minute 10 run for most people with some of those people aiming for that time you're talking about is, is this pointy end that's the 10 out of 10, so. I'd love, yeah, I'd love to get more information to help help, especially people doing that if they're getting into running to begin with. Like prescription of like this is kind of your goal target, yeah, pace to run instead of just going out there without, you know, any idea?

Is that we don't have time to get into it today because how long we've been going today, Courtney. No 116, yeah. We don't have time to get into it today. There's an article saying we might get into it next week. It's there's a fellow by the name of Jeff Galloway, who's an American, and he has this. His name is literally become a verb. It's called Jeffing, which is the run walk.

It's the, I read this article, it's called Jeffing, the run walk method that can get you to the marathon finishing line. And it's this, it's it's run walking essentially. And it's this idea of these people that are setting out to finish their first ever marathons. And this Jeff Galloway fellow says basically you run into your all huffing and puffing and then walk and then run to your huffing and puffing and then walk.

What you've just said brought up that other conversation then Liam about running a marathon verse first doing a marathon, completing a marathon verse, running a marathon and you've just hit with that we. Don't have time we do not have. Time OK, so number number six, once you get fancy, fancy gets broken. Great saying.

I reckon I once you get too fancy with everything, you know, it's things like most elite athletes, like when they achieve that end goal of like, you know, world champions, world records, even at the elite level, everyone's looking at what they're doing at that point, but they haven't seen the consistency over 20 years to get there.

There's a process. I bet you there's like a very simple system that they've repeated over and over and over and over again and that that's what actually gets the results. There is an American basketball player retired now, but basketball fans out there, you'll know as soon as I mention him. But if you don't, his name is Tim Duncan. He is one of the top 10 basketball players all time. He played the San Antonio Spurs. His nickname was the Big fundamental right because he

just did the fundamentals. His practise the basis. Time and time again, there was nothing you're talking about. Once you get fancy, fancy gets broken. There was nothing fancy about Tim Duncan, right? They're not making highlight reels of Tim Duncan because nothing he did was fancy. But what he did every single game was the fundamentals over and over and over again, and he was a winner. So yeah, it's true in all sport. True in all sports, but yeah, I mean, like I said, these are

these. It resonated with me all of these because it makes sense to me. This is like when I come back to what Like what's what's how do you. Something's not right. How do you improve things? Just get back to the basics. Yeah. And then final one, which we're gonna there's a bit of a cliche we talked about earlier, but find the joy, right. It's monotonous. That's not the word I'm looking for. Monotonous. Yes. You were close. It was close.

English wasn't my strange. But finding the joy, it's true. It's so true. Yep, it's going to be day in, day out. You got to get out, but you know that the routine should be in the in. In a way, it's the routine that gives you the freedom because you're not overthinking it every day. You just know what you're going to do. Get in. There's a system to it. Just keep repeating it. Consistency, give yourself the rest and you'll come back. So his conclusion was, it's not

rocket science, right? Running. It's it's exactly Marco Frioli. Yeah. What do you think? I like that. Well it's what I like about it is that he's clearly a bloke and I don't know who he is but he's clearly a high level run coach or he knows running very well. I think he's.

Just done a lot of research, pulling in right, all of like you talk about mental metadata and just bringing in all of the information and coming to this conclusion that, hey, I've looked at everything and all of the little, you know, tricks and bits and it's a common theme. And so to that point, what he's pulled in all those seven points you just run through, there are things that the average person could probably deduce

themselves. But again, we live in this world where Instagram and influences and everything else out there, there's so much information out there and we are like in life, everybody wants to find the shortcut. Everybody wants to find the CHEAT SHEET. Everybody wants to find the hack that's going to allow them to get to to their goal quickly. But the reality is, like everything else, you. Got to do the work you got. To do the work. And do it smart.

So if you've set yourself a run goal for this year, there's going to be days where you're going to be frustrated by, it's going to seem out of reach, it's going to seem unachievable. But the reality is if you just keep doing the work, even on the days when you feel crap, even on the days when you're like, I don't think I can do this or I don't really want to do this.

If you can kind of just put the shoes on on those days, they're the days that are going to add up when that race day comes or when that, you know, total of hours or kilometres or whatever it is you're trying to hit comes, they're the days you're going to go. And that's what Marco's talking about. I think. Keep sway. I read it anyway, but simple. Now we've got a lot we didn't get to today because we've run out of time. We've got some more.

I loved our watch chat by the way, today, Courtney and I know you've got some sunglasses you wanted to talk about. We'll get to that another time. But again, shout out to everybody who's getting the big surge. Interested to see how many of those people hold on after this work. But we will be back next week. Happy New Year to everybody out there. Hope you have a a safe and happy start to 2025 and we'll see you next week.