In the beginning podcast, we are back. We're starting today with a laugh because we are remote today. We are not together in the Courtney Atkinson studio. We are apart. I'm still in the Gold Coast. Courtney, where are you at the moment? Yeah, so I'm, I'm sitting in Coogee. I like being at home in the studio, but yeah, no, I'm, I've been down in Sydney. We've got a a big week here at Red Bull headquarters talking about all the all the marketing plans and sales plans for next
year. So it's a it's a busy week, but an exciting week. You're, you're doing your real job at the moment, whereas I'm actually got, I've got three weeks off. I'm, I'm a bit listless. I'm a bit directionless. I'm for people that listen to the radio show. I've got three weeks off. So I'm, I've just literally today, the reason we're doing this today is because I've just got off the ferry from Stratty.
I've just had three nights over on Stradbroke Island with the kids and lands and, and just relaxing and trying to turn the brain off. Oh. My, that's I, I shouldn't whinge 'cause I was out for a whole holiday the week before, but I'm gonna whinge anyway and that sounds amazing. Anytime you can get lost. What's strady like at the moment? Is it busy at this time of year when it's not school holidays?
No, it's beautiful. So if people who've never been to Australia before and I act, I'll talk about it like I'm a local and I've been there twice, but it is one of the great camping trips. We we now put it down as a as a yearly thing for the family and cylinders beach. It's got everything you'd want out of a out of a campground without having too much like when you go camping. Courtney ILO, you and the Atkinson crew like to get proper, proper rugged. You guys like to go as far away
from Wi-Fi signal as you we can. We aren't, we aren't that, but I still don't like to go to campgrounds where it's basically a hotel. We won't glamp. We we want to set the tent up. We want to get dirty. We want to, you know, have to use the camp. So that sort of stuff and cylinders beach is one of the for people that haven't been there, it's a right hand point break like it's a it's a right hand Bay, a bit like a lot of the classic ones you see on the Gold Coast.
It's got these beautiful calm sand section and the water's a beautiful temperature even in the middle of winter. But the other thing about going at this time of year is it's A, it's the M, it's the whale M1. It is a whale highway. You can just sit there and just spot humpbacks on the way up to give, but it is unbelievable. So you saw a few whales out there. It's a beautiful part of the
world. Oh. The yeah, I think they said this, there's a sign one of the cafes has like the whale count, they reckon that last year's count was 4280 something and this year the count's been about 4000. So, so many whales. And if you do the gorge walk, there's turtles, there's
dolphins. It is like for growing up in Adelaide where the only thing you're probably going to spot in the ocean is a great white going to strategy and, and, and being being able to see all this stuff just, you know, 100 metres offshore is, it's incredible. It's so cool. Yeah, there's those. When I was doing a bit of tourism work over there, there's AI, forgot what they call it, but effectively it's the big Manda Ray station out there.
So the cleaning station, you can go, I don't know, it might only be 500 metres offshore to where you see those rocks out kind of to the the north of cylinders. You drop in the water there and you can dive down and literally be with the big Manda rays swimming along, right. They also tell me that area there is a bit of a shark highway if you go a little bit
further out with the current. But you know, mate, that's what goes with, hey, talking about sea life, have you heard what's going on at Noosa at the moment with the croc siding? No. Yes. No. Yes. So there's been multiple croc sidings in the Noosa River, the one that's like so parks I know have been out there looking for it. But what happened was there was a guy down walk and his dog saw what he thought was a croc that morning or he thought it was a stick and then realised it was
moving, cited it as a croc. Same day, a guy in his boat with his fish Finder saw what looked like a crocodile underneath his fish Finder and they've got the P picture of it in the news and literally you can see it kind of snaking along. Now he wouldn't have thought anything. What what about it? Except he'd heard that they'd cited, you know, a croc down there thing. So interesting. They wouldn't normally come that far South, but it sounds like I don't know.
We'll find out, I assume, because if it's there, they'll eventually find it. I don't like that. I don't like that because for people that live in the southeast, right, the Brisbane River is basically anybody's guess what's under there, but it is it is the brown snake is called that for a reason. You got buckleys have ever seen anything in there? Now if Crocs start making their way into it, just write the city off. Move the city. The city's cooked.
If crocodiles make the Brisbane River, Brisbane as a city should give the Olympics back. That place you, you cannot have crocodiles living in the main waterway of an Olympic city. It's done right. As dirty as the Sen was in Paris last year, for all the diseases that athletes and the triathletes and the ocean swimmers might have caught in the Sen last year, at least they weren't getting chomped by salties. If salties make the Brisbane River, cancel the Olympic Games, right?
And if they do make the Brisbane River, it is a matter of days until they make their way into the Tally Creek in Crumming Creek. And at that point, I'm leaving, I'm heading back, S I'm out of the Gulf. I was going to say they get to, but mate, we're all stuffed. But yeah, we'll find out. I mean, there's often sightings, you know, at different spots. I've heard of them of Fraser, north of Fraser as well, but you never really find out. But interesting news anyway for the morning.
Stradbroke or some crocodiles. Not good running though. Let's talk about the big story. And I reckon it probably broke not long after we dropped last week's episode. So apologies if you listened to last week's EP and you thought maybe we might have talked about it then. Her name is Ruth. Ruth Chip Getich, apologies if I haven't nailed that exactly. Ruth kept Chip Getich, who is the Kenyan marathon superstar who has been suspended for testing positive to drugs. Courtney, your thoughts?
Well, sometimes when it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true. Hey, so let's be clear. She has been suspended and at this stage she's got a diuretic in the system which acts as a masking agent. Now what I did find really interesting, I saw an article on them going through and when you say like, well, hang on, it's a diuretic. They haven't found any performance enhancing drugs in the system.
The diuretic normally they actually, I might go into the name of it, whatever it was, but the, the particular diuretic they said normally they'll pick up at a factor of 20 or a figure of 20. And she had and don't quote me on this, but I think 3400 as a dosage, I haven't. So no idea what that means. By the way, just quickly, I have no idea what that means. We're not, we're not insinuating anything here. But that seems to be like, that's a lot of that diuretic in your system for it to be
natural. For fun fact, for people playing along that might not understand diuretics, remember this is what Warney actually got done with when he was playing cricket and he said he took it for weight loss reasons. He says he took one of his mum's diuretics for for weight loss reasons 'cause he wanted to drop some water weight. But to go to Elite Performance Enhancing, as Courtney said, you take diuretics potentially to mask other performance enhancing
drugs. The thing that she was provisionally suspended for, she tested positive for was something called hydrochlorothiazide or thiazide, which is a diuretic listed on the World Anti Doping Agency's prohibited substance list, as you said, due to its potential reduce to mask for performance in housing drugs.
I think, and don't quote me on this, if anybody wants to go out there and do the research, I think if you go back this when she ran the Chicago Marathon in 2024 last year, this is where she set the new world record. We talked about it on one of our very early episodes, and I think at the time we had, the conversation we had was, I hope it's true.
I hope it's not because around the same time we also had a conversation about the increasing number of Kenyan athletes that were being suspended having tested positive to these sort of things. Now, what we said at the time after Ruth's victory was, wow, what an incredible performance. What a leap forward for women's marathon times. I really hope it's authentic. Now we get to what, 10 months on and something like this comes out.
Now, the test was from March this year, so it wasn't after the Chicago Marathon. It was, you know what, 6 months after the fact. But you can go with the old Where there's smoke, there's fire theory, and this positive test can do nothing but cast doubt on everything she's achieved in the last 12 months. Yeah. Was that, did you read that, that the test was that far after? Yeah, OK, I'm going to take your word for that. I thought it was closer.
But anyway, look, provisionally suspended, right. So there'll be more to hear on all of this, obviously, but it's disappointing, isn't it, when you you get these great performances and then finally it comes out that, you know, there's a a reality to maybe some of the underbelly of, you know, these professional endurance sports. At times. Her interesting also was her manager or her agent is the same agent that there's another few
Kenyans or not just a few. There was a number of Kenyans who also have been pinged over the years from that same agent. So, but as they say, maybe sometimes where there's smoke, there's fire, Hey. Well, let me ask you this do you prior to Lance Armstrong getting done, did you think cycling was the Tour de France was a clean sport? I was probably too young and naive to think either or, but I was a believer. Yeah, for sure I was a believer.
I was an Armstrong believer. I was full on all in. So was I, and I reckon if anybody other than those really close to him or the sport tell you otherwise, they're just trying to be on the right side of history. We're all caught up in the hysteria. He hey, don't take away, aside from his cheating, what he did for cancer cannot be denied. That man raised maybe more money than anybody in the history of the planet for cancer with that Livestrong movement. That was incredible.
You can't take that away from him. But do you look at Tour de France and cycling now and believe that it's a clean sport? Like off the back of that, I find it difficult to look at professional cycling, the Tour de France every year with a, with a clear mindset. I, I just because of all that, I now just look at the sport as being tainted borderline permanently. I'd agree. I'd agree.
I mean, I, I have no idea what what's going, what goes on or what's going on. But you know, I think for most of us in let's call it more the outside European world. So the Americans, Australia, you know, we're on the outside of the European cycling that's been, you know, going on for centuries. I think that was the big wake up call from all of us. Like even, you know, more mainstream. You obviously had the Festina Festina, what was the watch brand Festiva Festina.
But you know what I mean? It was the blue, the teams that, you know, were getting busted and, you know, the police were raiding that one tour and, you know, going across France, you know, all that happened. And I think it was, you know, in within sports and cycling in you. But it really, well, it probably didn't go too mainstream at that time, but Armstrong brought cycling to the mainstream.
And yeah, you're right. Like, you know, it's not so much that you'd go you'd right or wrong, but you'd always question it from then on. So the reason I bring that up, to bring it back to where we are at the moment with Ruth and with running, with these other athletes that are provisionally
suspended. My worry is that this boom of marathon running, this bubble that we're experiencing now where running's never been more popular, suddenly gets prematurely burst because these athletes at the pointy end of the sport, we have that Lance Armstrong moment. We have that crash back down to earth because suddenly a report comes out exposing everybody at the pointy end. Yeah, I mean, I, I think I'd challenge that to a degree.
Like it'd be interesting if we asked Bronte if she knew about the world women's marathon record, you know, as as, as a, you know, let's say as a mid Packer in the marathon at the Gold Coast. Do you even know? Yeah, we've already talked about do you even know who wins the marathon on the day of your race when you're running the marathon? The next question I'd ask is do they, do you actually then look at social media enough to be getting, you know, the algorithm spamming you with this
information? I'm not sure. Or is or if you're a runner in the mid pack and you're following certain people around running, do you just get kind of the algorithm feeding you information at that level?
I can't tell you that I can't. Tell the point it is that no, but but that does bring it back to the idea that we we discussed this notion before that the difference with marathoning as opposed to other sports where people actively support the best of the best that level of fandom and fellowship doesn't actually exist in marathon running. It's almost too disassociated. We don't connect that in that same way that we do it.
The elite and the people who, you know, want to go out and run a. Marathon. I mean, it would be an interesting question to ask someone like who do we know? So like your your new best friend Andy Buchanan. And Oh, my new mate, Andy Buchanan. I know he, I was listening to Tim Vincent's podcast Journey Man, Andy's up training with Tim Vincent at the moment in Cairns. They're doing their marathon
prep up there. You know, it'd be interesting to know when you're at the pointy end like they are at the moment and they see this happen, how does that then affect them in their fields? Because it's pretty much like, I know it's all, it's all it's a women that it's happened in, but the reality is the top of the tree in their sport that they're trying to compete in is getting busted.
You know, how does that kind of make you react when that's your livelihood, that's what you're racing, and then you've got to go out and compete against, let's say, that type of field? Anyone ever get done doing drugs while you were competing at the pointy end of triathlon? Fugot pinned here and there, no one really close to me in the sense of like while I was racing, someone I raced the week before got busted.
But you know, definitely over time in triathlon there were some, I think more recently there's been some more high profile ones in Iron Man. Not this year, but over the past few years. It's endurance sport, right? And as soon as you got money involved, some people are going to try and take shortcuts. Let me ask you another question
about your triathlon career. Was there ever a point where beginning at the end, I'm imagining while you're in the middle, in your heyday, you didn't experience this because you were one of the best in the world. But in the beginning or at the end, did you ever have a moment during a race or an event where you kind of just went, I can't go with that bloke. He he. This is Men V boys type stuff. Yeah, not to be honest, not often, but Alastair Brownlee was the one for sure that I raced
against. So the bread who won obviously won the gold medal in beige, not Beijing, won the gold medal in the London Olympics. Now he he was at a level. So I raced him in his very first kind of like breakout race at like a World Cup level. So that was world class level at a race. But before you went to the World Series and he came out, we're racing in roads in Greece, on
the on one of the Greek islands. And he, I think, I don't know, it was his first race, but it was definitely his first kind of outing at that type of level. And he broke away on the bike as a young kid. I was running the best in the field that day and I think I ran into third place. But him and a Kiwi, a New Zealander, Chris Gammell, broke away and stayed away in that race. And like, I remember it really well because I was running the
best. I should have won the race, but I got beaten by the, you know, this young kid because he just had the nuts to give it to us and break get out there. And then I went on to obviously race him a lot. But there was times when he got so confident in his swim, bike and run ability, he'd run out at a pace and put like a minute into the best in the world. And at that point you're just like, I don't know what more I can do. I don't have a minute up my sleeve.
Like you always think maybe I can improve 20 seconds, you know, maybe if I can improve 30 seconds if I'm really, you know, but sometimes a minute was just out of the ballpark. So for me, he was definitely the one guy that I raced that I never really got like I, I can get this guy today. Great story and the reason I ask is because I think the Gold Coast sons have found their Alistair Brownlee in the Adelaide OHH. I know that we were talking them
up so hard. Yeah, no, we've got a little attachment of the the Gold Coast Suns here in the beginning because obviously I call a lot of their footy games and I got to call their incredible win over Collingwood first. They have a Friday night game in the history of the club the other week. Amazing to get to call that. It was a historical moment for the club.
It was a great game and a huge win for Damien Hardwick and the Suns. Then they go away and it was boys V men stuff against the Adelaide Crows. They got done by 61 points in the end and that and that was
probably flattering them. They were nowhere near the standard of the Adelaide Crows and, you know, we know they're head of high performance riggers and I can't imagine the conversations he would have been having behind closed doors with Damien Hardwick this week because they were simply at. The pace, the irony is I actually know both high performance managers from the teams very well.
So so Darren Burgess is the high performance manager for the Crows. I was going to say it's Darren Burgess. He was over at the D, first met him over at the D's. He's been around Red Bull for a long time. So when Red Bull had a partnership with the D's, he was high performance manager in a year he took them, Well, not him. I mean he's the high performance manager, but the team and the coaches took the DS from literally the wooden spooners to
win the premiership. The following year he moved over to the Crows. So like, I followed their progress just as closely as the Gold Coast. Put it this way, I haven't spoken to either this week. I'll leave, I'll leave, I'll leave. Resting ducks be Resting ducks because you know, yeah, they did give them a good fog. But I'm sure, I'm sure the Gold Coaster are. Who have they got this weekend? Are you calling the game out there?
It's the Q clash. It's the it's Q clash, so it's, it's, it's Gold Coast V Brisbane. Just going back to Darren Burgess for a moment because I believe he spent a bit of time with Liverpool over in the EPL at one stage. Yeah, it was one. Definitely an EPL team. Well. Maybe it was one of the. I should know that. The high performance manager IP stuff, is that what's that
environment like? You would have dealt with a little bit obviously as an athlete, but as you say, Darren Burgess is a gun for hire to some extent. But how, how, how differing is the knowledge of 1 high performance manager to the other? Yeah, same as Arsenal. Over at Arsenal, at the EPLI, think the beauty in Australia is with high performance. There's no real secrets in the sense of it. The information's readily available to everyone.
There is a difference of how I've noticed in these team like, you know, in the football codes and not just AFL, but all the football codes, different teams approach fitness, let's say very
differently. So even, you know, years and years ago I went up and got inside for the day, the Cowboys up in North Queensland in the rugby league and went in and had a chat to their team and kind of got a handle on a little bit of how they trained and what fitness type of things they were doing and, and known different people in the programme. And you know, how they would approach their fitness and what they thought they would need, you know, differ to some of the
other teams. So yes, they have different approaches, but the basis of where they're drawing their information from and the experts are all the same. But what you do see, I think, is once you've had success, I can see how, you know, success breeds success, right? And once you know, you know how to unlock it.
Once I think that's where you see, you know, those in that type of space manage to go from team to team and generally be able to, you know, build some success on top of what they've done when they know how to do. It sure now look but well, from from a Gold Coast Suns perspective, it was men V boys
stuff last week. This week against the Lions will be very interesting because I think the Lions have now put themselves in a position where, I mean, finals is basically guaranteed and they're almost at the point where they can start to manage players through to the end of the season.
So it's kind of a question of I'll be very interested to see, depending on when you listen to this, how that game played out and whether it was Brisbane opting to have a bigger picture towards finals or whether both teams are all in given it's the local Derby. Can I take it back to running for a moment? Because I think on last week's podcast, I told people about the story of Earl.
Now Earl was the fella that if you remember, I managed to catch in the finishing shoot of the Gold Coast Marathon. I got an update from somebody who listens to the podcast melts to 85. Shout out Melanie Long, who listens to the podcast and she rode she she ran the Gold Coast Marathon. She said she rode the bus and she's actually targeting Melbourne or Sydney. So she's looking, she's on, she's got the bug, she's on
board. But she listened to last week's episode and she said, I just listened to your podcast now and heard the mention of Earl. I was a few people ahead of him and we plague tag most of the way throughout the run. He added me on Strava and turned out he was in hospital for two days after the marathon. So poor old Earl, who staggered home in about 5 1/2 hours in this marathon, spent the following two days after the Gold Coast Marathon in hospital.
On the upside, we might have any listener Courtney, because Mel said I've just messaged him to listen to the podcast if he. Hasn't. Oh well, hopefully he's recovered now and getting back, but that's crazy. I wonder what did she what? It was just exhaustion. Or we don't know. We don't know. I assume so. I don't know. You must have been that dehydrated.
I'm here old plenty at the moment of runners or you know, some of the runners I know who ran at the Gold Coast Marathon, they're in that phase, in the phase of like, I'm back running. But Gee, I feel heavy. Gee, I feel heavy. What should I do? Should I keep jogging? Should I? You know, you know, and the answer is you've got to just take it easy, right? Listen to the body. But yeah, there's a lot of that going around at the moment. Few injuries floating around off
the back of it as well. Hey, let me ask you this question because I mean, we've talked about strength training a lot on this pod, particularly with how good my calves are going and with the injury rehab you've been doing with your hip. How do you re enter strength training? What would be your advice? How would you, I know you only like speaking about yourself personally. How do you re enter a strength training protocol? The reason, And let me tell you why I came back to leg weights
last week. I had been, it's been a little while since I'd done any sort of rural league training. So I jumped back in and let me tell you what I did. I did some body weight Bulgarian split squats, one set of Bulgarian weight body weight split squats. Then I went three sets with 7K dumbbells. Then I did somebody weight box jumps. I did A25K goblet squat, I did calf raises with body weights into 10K calf raises straight leg. Now Courtney. I've only just recovered and
that was about 10 days. Actually started with Bulgarian split squats. Made it sound like you knew what you were talking about, Liam. That went over my head at least. Anyway, we are. I mean, yeah, you're going to get sore that first time, right? And I think, I think our analogy around the walk run, getting back into training is very similar. I think you don't want to do back to back days, right? That's also the the, the first thing. But you are going to get sore
the first time you lift. And if you haven't done it in a long time, that's the reality of it. You recover from it. I think, you know, when I think if you take strength training and the way it works where you know, you, you lift, you generally get some soreness from that. You allow yourself to recover, then you come back and you lift that little bit heavy or progress in some way and then recover again. The good thing with that is you feel the soreness.
That's how run training and progression should also be. The difference is you don't always feel that same soreness, but you nearly need to treat it the same way. So I think that if you can understand like how you go through strength training, it's a great guide also to know how to approach running at the same time. There is no difference. I, I feel your pain, Liam, because I started squatting. I got, I got the old squat bar out last week as well. And like I say, I never do what
I preach. I know what you should be doing, but I've been doing it every day and you know, it's started off, you know, 40 kilos next day just out of five. So not, not super heavy yet, but I've been lifting about 65K. But I've got a few days in Sydney just to kind of give myself a three day break and then I'll get back into it. But I do have, you know, some aspiration to get some strength back, you know, and get back into the weights a bit more.
Also, I'm I'm glad I've jumped back into it because I'm now back on the longer run programme and as I mentioned last step, I want to get this 10K time down. So I'm trying to build that slow 15K is kind of my base run. I want that really slow steady zone TO15K run to be a really base run for me. I actually went for a really nice one out on Stratty.
I jump back into the. I can't remember what the model is, but the Salomon Hail Damage shoes as I've been calling them with the golf ball dimples and the. Ultra Glide three that would be. Now, I didn't have a lot of I don't think they were the ultra glides. I thought they were a different model anyway, the hail damage shoes people remember now last time.
This is only the second or third run I'd been for those and I did one which the loop up in the rang, which had a lot more elevation to it. And I came back telling you how I didn't feel like the shoes were very responsive. It was kind of very flat and didn't feel much when I ran. I ran A17K run it on Stratty in them on a fire trail that had little to no elevation. Yeah, right. Amazing shoe. Awesome shoe to run flat on It was he? Loved it, he is.
I mean, that's good to hear that you were loving running in them. Here's a a retake, I suppose. And I think we talked about this earlier and now I've got absolute zero evidence. This is purely subjective. But like I said, I've heard about a few injuries off the back of the marathon. I've heard about a number of different things going about upper leg injuries at the moment.
And I'm still wondering whether all of these built up shoes, you know, sit really, really high stack rubber shoes are having an impact over time with injuries in new locations in the body. And when I say that like prevalent injuries in running generally have been lower limb injuries, you know, we're still having the calf injuries, but like calves lower, you know, a lot of stress around the tibia, phibia, lower limbs, knees. But I'm hearing a lot on the back of what I had around the
hip. I'm hearing a lot more upper limb injuries at the moment that are related to stress. And I'm just proposing the question to our listeners. And is anyone else having similar thoughts? Are these high stack rubber? Because all shoe brands have now moved to there, like every, the progression was slower for some brands. Shoe brands, you know, like you take Salomon, they probably only got to the party in maybe the last year and a half to get up into this really big stack.
You know, even if you take Asic's, what we've talked about last week at the Gold Coast Marathon, they probably really didn't get into the soft rubber until like I'm going to take a guess about two years ago, Like they they weren't there as quick as some of the other brands. But all brands now are playing in this space. And I just wonder, is it
changing everyone's gait? Is it having an effect in some shape or form that's changing the way maybe especially like people who have run, you know, over a long time, you know, we've run 30 years in quite low stacked low drop shoes and then suddenly over a period of two to three years, we're suddenly running in arguably stilts. They feel great but I just wonder what the long term effect of all this is going to be. No doubt they're quicker, but how does that have an effect?
Well, there's a question for the ITB family if you have has anybody who long, long term runners who's who's been running for a while, have you changed the shoes? Have you noticed new injuries creeping in and have you gone back to the shoe you used to run in? Because I guess the point is, as you say, if you're not chasing, if you're just running to run and for enjoyment, you're not constantly chasing those PBS or whatever.
Why wouldn't you find the shoe that isn't so much about performance, it's about durability, it's about comfort, it's about staying injury free. That's the shoe that matters to you, not that one. That's chasing at time, mind you. On that note, my Nike Alpha flies, the Elliott Kipchogo special model, are still sitting unused. You'll save them for a good day. I mean, the, the, the challenge that's going to happen is over time, you, you can't buy those shoes.
So a lot of the brands, you're not going to get new models of shoes that are, that are in an older style. All shoes are moving towards having these higher stack heights, more rubber. There's going to become a time when you, you, you can't walk it back unless you've got an old stock of shoes yourself. It's not like the brands are doing, here's the new kind of shoes models we're doing and this is where we we, we think we should go, but we're also
stocking some of the old ones. It doesn't work like that. So it'll be, it'll be interesting moving forward. If history has taught us anything, everything cycles, you know, the pendulum swings, you know, does it go too far and then come back to the middle? Who knows. But you know, I'm really interested in this space at the moment just because I've heard others having similar challenges to maybe what I've gone through in the past six months.
All right there. I'd be really really keen to get people to send in your voicemail sending you your DMS on the Instagram account if you're having anything similar. If you know of anybody experiencing some of the things, and if there are any physios out there, send them in because you are the ones that are probably seeing correct? Correct. Correct. We should, we should ask Trent. I've been going to see Trent getting a few massages lately. So I'm doing everything.
I'm back doing everything. Strength massage. We're on our way to getting some stuff done. Courtney, I've got a confession to make and I think you need to prepare yourself because I I think of caught the. Bug. Oh, I think I want to do high rocks. We might have to have a conversation then. I think I'm telling us to do high rocks. 40 minutes. I don't.
Know if it's big no, no and I still want to run fast, but I don't know what's happened in the last I don't know if whether it's the post marathon excitement dip but suddenly I'm finding myself normally first half of the year swipe swipe, swipe, swipe. I don't want to watch your what do they call the thing the ski. I don't want to watch your ski crap. I don't want to watch your row. I don't want to watch your farmers carries. I don't care Put your shirt back on go away.
Leave me alone. You CrossFit couldn't be right. That's what I used to think about it. I don't know what's happened in the last few weeks, Courtney, but suddenly Hyrox is interesting to me. Suddenly I am a little, I'm more than a little bit interested. I'm I think I. Want to compete next year? Someone competing in Brisbane or Sydney or wherever the last Hyrox was. Who? What? What have you seen that has made you go, Ah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tip the scales here.
I've got interest now. Is it the alley cats? Have you got made tracing? I don't know. No, I don't. I actually, I mean, I'm sure I know people who are doing it and I feel like I know what it is like. It's not like it's anything new to me. Maybe it's because I haven't been able to run at like I wanted to in the last three months or so. Maybe it's that haven't been the chemicals haven't been firing post long run. I haven't been getting those endorphins rolling.
But suddenly I'm sort of thinking maybe I want to do the skier thing. Maybe I want to do the and then I want to go run really fast for a kilometre and then I want to do the stuff. I don't know, like I'm, I might go train this week and try some of those exercises and see how my body feels, but I don't know what's happened. I feel like that bug has finally embedded itself in my brain and
I want to explore it a little. Bit you know there's 100,000 athletes who'll do high rocks next year in Australia. Just in Australia. I hope I've got that figure correct. I saw it in a document, so hopefully it's correct. 100,000 people that may be global. Actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, I'm on the fishing line. Actually, I'm gonna pull myself back here 'cause that could be globally. How many athletes raced High Rocks in Australia in 2025? No, you know what, Courtney?
You wouldn't be. You wouldn't be. No, it's. 20 no because I'm looking at the chat GBTS telling me that in 2025 / 20,000 thousand. Across Australia next year, yeah, this event, this it's it's trending so hard and you are in you're influenced, you have got you've been bitten by the influence I can tell you what I do want to tell you though is get through Noosa. Get through Noosa so. OK, so I will, and you're right.
Because yeah, I like I am. If if you heard my Brisbane Marathon rant last week, I can jump on board a bandwagon like the best of them. Michael Shelley pitched me the Brisbane Marathon idea and literally within 30 seconds he had me on board waving a banner like I can jump on with the best of them. I've got to remember that a I've set myself a target of breaking 40 for 10K. That is goal number one. That is fitless numero Uno right now. Secondly, it is Noosa Triathlon.
I want to be ready, I want to be fit, I want to actually enjoy my day out there at the Noosa Triathlon. That is number 2 I think, on the podium though. Now suddenly this, this high rocks bug, like our mate Rosie David Rhodes, Olympian as well, he wants me to go up and run Uta Kosciusko Hundred with him at the end of November.
I've got to be honest right now, if you gave me the option to run Kozi 100 or do a high rocks event, I'm going to High rocks, get my shirt off, get me get me in a pair of ONS and I'm doing some what's. That got to do with high rocks. Is that what? Is that what you associate with high they? Seem like a high Roxy. Sharer and a higher and higher rocks go together. I think I do. I think I do. I think I associate. That's people the word on with
high. Rocks I don't I would challenge that's got enough on and high rocks nowhere near together. But if that if that's your perception, it's it's it's it's this is this is market market knowledge. That's your perception of high rocks with on. All right, well, let's let's, let's, let's, let's play this game, right. If you're running along listening to this, let's play this game. When you picture a high rocks competitor, what are they wearing on their feet? Because I, I don't.
And I'm sure the, the good athletes, I'm sure like you know, your James Newberries, who you know, your CrossFit converts and your Tia Tui Smith. Claire Smith. Am I saying her name right? I'm sure, I'm, I'm sure those people at the pointy end of high rocks are wearing your carbon plates, no doubt. But your average punter I'm expecting to be, you know, in more of a gym shoe than a than a running shoe. And I guess for some reason in my head. That's an on the shoe of high
rocks. What's the High Rock shoe of choice? Maybe I'm getting, maybe I'm getting on an Under Armour. I would have maybe I'm probably an Under Armour closer, but no, Puma is actually the the partner and and make make the shoes really funny enough.
Like we're talking about high stack height before to the audience and and the the high rocks athletes do wear the high, the high stack carbon shoes, which is I mean, it makes sense for the running, right, But I would have thought it would be challenging in some of the activities, the strength activities they do then to be that high stacked. But obviously, I mean, I've never raced one. Obviously it still skews way more towards running.
So that shoes helping them way more in the run environment. But yeah, they do wear this other. So yes you are right, the carbon plates and high stack heights yes and Puma is what you should associate with with high rocks. One more thing about high rocks, because as I said, it's just jumped into my brain a little bit at the moment. It's living there. Who knows if I'll go anywhere with it? I have two other priorities ahead of it. But one thing is, does it not
feel like to you? I don't know how much it pops up on your feet, but it feels like to me, everybody wins. It it sort of like I feel like every, if I feel like everybody I know who's done high rolls, yeah, it's it's somehow won their age. Group as a business model, isn't it, where everyone kind of has a chance to win something in their age group or, you know, on the same weekend, you get someone who erase their age group as an individual and then pop up in a
mixed team in an age group. And then there's elite men, there's yeah, the open men. They use a different weight. And then yeah, I mean, it's hard to keep up. But whatever they're doing, they're doing it right as a model. You know what? It's very similar to triathlon age group World Championships where they split it into not only do you have the each age category of, you know, like, you know, 25 to 2930 to 35.
So they split all the ages up and then they say you can raise Sprint distance, you can raise Olympic distance. You know, so they keep bolstering the numbers by offering more and catering to more and more events, more and more ages. But you know what, good on them. Because what it does is it encourages and motivates a lot of people to stay in these sports in older age groups. If, if anything, at some stage you look forward to going to the
next age group, in what? In what other area do you actually look forward to getting older? So right now, seriously, and I've got a bone to pick about this because I reckon at 40, I am in the worst age group. Like my I right now it with this whole boom in fitness, the 40 to 44 or the 39 to 44 age bracket, it's Olympic standard. It's insane how good the athletes in that age bracket
are. And I don't know whether it's because you've got like the elites who are still performing an elite evil that have just aged up or you're also mixing in suddenly these late bloomers who found this thing like, but it is, it is a nightmare. You know how at every World Cup, Australia always seems to find itself in the group of death because we put ourselves against the three best teams in the world. That is what the 39 to 44 year age bracket is in men's amateur sport.
It is the group of death. There is no way out of it. Yeah, I reckon it's pretty. I reckon that also there'd be a few in there who've kind of, you know, worked pretty hard their whole life, had kids and then and then see the light at the end of the tunnel and then suddenly they've got all this time on their hands. You know, kids have maybe left school, yeah, got a bit of time away from work and start training semi professionally again. What we've got, what we've got to look forward to.
Well, no, no, but that's the thing, Courtney, because by the time I go into that next age bracket, the 44 and up, I've probably lost, like, enthusiasm for it. I'm probably playing golf now, Courtney. I'm probably. And then I'm out there on the golf course going. Why are all these golf course golfers in their late 40s amazing when I took the sport up six months ago and they're so much better than me? Yeah. But here's a bombshell for you.
I've always talked about my disdain or dislike to golf. I actually played golf on the week. I played golf on Sunday afternoon, had a hit, a family, a family round of golf and I was out at Royal Pines. The family did say to me, oh, we'll go out to the back nine at Royal Pines. You know, it's the easy 9, not much sand. It was like playing in the bloody Sahara. There was bunkers. There was more sand than there was grass. And when there wasn't sand, there was water.
However, I did see a little bit of light going. You know what I can see the appeal, the outdoor appeal here on a Sunday afternoon. It was a nice arvo sun's out. It was a relaxing experience. I was actually hitting the ball OK too. So that probably helped. But I'm not going to turn into a golfer. But like you and high rocks, I think I put a toe in the water. Oh. Is it? Yeah, there's maybe a little itch to be scratched at a later date. Do you know what's interesting
about this? As we talk about high rocks and we talk about golf and we talk about running, there's a common theme. Courtney non contact no one wants to touch the contact stuff like the the middle ground middle ground contact is is gone right? You think about it because every all these non contact sports are booming and then there's nothing in the mid ground.
And then at the opposite end of the spectrum, the contact spectrum, we've got the Run it competitions where it's just one pure contact moment from 2 massive Islander blokes who want to knock each other. Out. Oh, you're talking about what is it? Run it straight. Run it, run it straight. Yeah, it is wild. You know what?
It's also wild. Have you seen on YouTube some of that backyard boxing, so like Dan, Dan Hooker from the UFC over in New Zealand and that they like put 50 grand up in the backyard and they just get into it quick, quick succession boxing. I mean, entertainment, value, everything going around. But yeah, sorry go, I just got
side sidetracked. No, it's I tried to I was I that I was going to ask you what you think the future of because as we talk about high rocks and marathoning and the boom in these sports, do you think run it that that professional league? How long do you think it lasts? Do you think it? Survives. No, I don't think it survives. I think it's I think it's a quick trend that one. I think it's a quick trend.
It's similar to and I know it's still going and I know it gets a lot of here's here's how we can look at it. So because I was thinking about you got UFC and then they have the what's it called the slap. Don't know the exact name. For it, yeah, Slap league or the. Slap league literally like what were you talking about? Yeah like slap each other in the face until 1 drops. I think with those styles of competition and the run at straight work, they're perfect for social media clips.
So they garnish a lot of attention because it's a, it's a 1 trick pony. You get like big impact. It's like over in three seconds and then you move on to the next thing and it gets a lot of hits, it gets a lot of lights, it gets a lot of attention. How long until that just gets so repetitive that you know there's no more interest in it? It's not like a game, it's not like a fight. It's a, it's a sugar fix. It's a it's, it's a sugar fix for for the user, it's a sugar fix for the audience.
It's like bang. And then interest goes away. Interestingly, and this is where we're weaving off from how we always do starting talking about some running and some sport and now we're talking about content and audience behaviour. But interestingly, this we're talking about this in a week and in a time where Stephen Colbert, who hosts a late night show in the US on CBS oh, hosted basically that's being taken off
air. And it's being it's being sort of revealed that that show was costing the company $40 million a year. That show that employed something like 200 people just to make that show. And it seems we've reached the tipping point of content because that long established world of late night TV seems to be crumbling. And that was always kind of the bastion of of television as we knew it. And now we're turning and maybe forever. I don't think you'll ever see a show like that be made again.
Obviously the Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel still on air. But now, like it's we, I think that style of television or media is behind us forever. Yeah, and and and YouTube is the future I would say. Like I think yeah, it's just an interesting you talk about that, run it straight. How I got here is that that old fashioned style of programming is dying, this new sugar hit thing. And it might be that people don't now create things for
longevity anymore. People create things while they work and as soon as it stops working, they create something else. As soon as that stops working, they'll create something else. It's we're just in this new pattern of content consumption. Yeah, I think, I think that particular show you're talking about has a lot to do with audience change over time, right? And the whole like political landscape in the US had a major
factor on that show. However, you can look at the project here just recently, you know, it's you're, you're dead, right? TV free to air TV is what has, you know, had a shift and change and the it's the viewer behaviour of where you get your content that's changed. That's having an effect on a lot of these shows. However, you know, on YouTube, long form content is still, is
still king. Like, yes, there's all the new fads and everything else, but people are happy to sit there and and not only just long form content as in video content, people will sit there and watch like podcasts, like, you know, pretty much what we're sitting here doing now. And they'll watch, you know, an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours of a podcast on YouTube. So I still think there's an, you know, there's obviously a place for both.
However, what is certain is that short form content is getting more click baitable as it gets more set, as it gets more saturated, you know, you've got to do more and more to be able to get attention and garner attention. And that's where I think that kind of that's going at the moment. But how did we even get to there, mate? Where do we start on that? Where do we even start on that? Who knows where? Who knows where we ever start? The important thing is we arrive
at the end at some stage. Hey, what's coming up for you this week in Sydney? You're gonna get some runs in while you're down there, yeah. I had a had a little bit of a jog tonight along the beach gets a little bit dark. I'll have a few runs down here and then looking forward to get back in. Back home to the squat rack, Liam. When you when you, when are you actually flying out of Sydney? I'll be out later in the week, so back home for the weekend. OK, back home for the weekend.
Are you, is there any chance you're is there any chance you're there on Friday morning? No. What's going on Friday morning? You're you're down here, aren't you? Well, I'm in, I I'm in, I'm in Sydney. Yeah, we're going to cross mid air. I'm coming down to Sydney because I've got I've got a double header of footy this weekend for Triple M. I've got to do the Battle of the Bridge Swans V Giants on the Friday night, then fly back to
Sydney for the Q clash. Sorry, fly back to the gold for the Q Clash on Saturday and I'm going to the reason I bring up the run is because I'm going to jump in with my old crew, the runners in the dark down in Bondi on the Monday, on the Friday morning and. I would have run over I. Was messaging somebody in the crew to say hey, return of the Snail King, which is my nickname in the crew because this crew has gone from being a nice social crew to suddenly a crew
of high performing runners. And the joke is that I was the king of the snails within the group and somebody messaged me and said you are not a snail. And I'm like no, no, no, in this group I am a snail. Like I realise I'm a capable runner but when I come and run with this group of people, I am a snail like I am. It is only a matter of time until I see footsteps disappearing into the morning night, you know. So I'm gonna be in Sydney
running with the crop. This. Perfect. Well, I look forward to hearing how that run goes. I'll have a few more runs along the beach before you get here and here. Look forward to just getting back stuck into it. Have a good weekend and we'll catch everyone again next week as well.