In the Beginning runs the Gold Coast. These are the special Gold Coast Marathon focused editions of In the Beginning podcast. We couldn't be more excited to be a part of this. Also, we need to shout out, as we will in every one of these episodes, lace up running. That is the coaching programme that we are jumping into to get us through. And we are joined by the founder, the coach, the guru as she will be known, Benita Willis. Benita, thank you for coming
back. Thanks, Liam. Yeah, pumped to be here. Well, we need to say first of all, not only thank you for being here, thank you for being prepared to participate in this because this is an experiment of sorts, not only for the podcast, but for me in particular as a
runner. I don't know how this is going to go, but thank you for being prepared to take the risk on a 40 year old who's got some history of some calf problems and who is setting himself a very ambitious goal for the Gold Coast Marathon. Courtney, can we just set up where you are on all this? Yeah, well, I was meant to be involved in this. I mean, that's half the thing. I was so excited to get out and run Gold Coast. And then silly old me, I've actually got a bit of a bone,
bone reaction at the moment. So it's taking me out of running. So then I think what the great opportunity that's happened because like most people who listen to us aren't necessary. You're elite runners. I would say 90 percent, 95% of people that listen to us are not elite runners exactly. So some of the feedback was actually like, well, if you're aiming for a three hour run, I was aiming, you know, maybe to go a lot quicker or a bit quicker than that. What about everyone else?
Yeah, we've solved that. We have solved that problem. There is a young woman by the name of Bronte Langbrooke. If you're on the Gold Coast and you listen to CFM in the morning, you'll know Bronte well. She is a star and she's also a run lover. Now she's 12 months into a running journey. She is going to be our and she has signed up for the Gold Coast Marathon. She's our first time runner, first time marathon runner and Benita, you are taking her under
your wing for this race as well. And we are going to be able to give people that taste of or that that journey, follow that journey of the first time marathon runner. 100%, I think we're going to find that will be for me actually. That's super interesting. So there's been so many questions we've asked about what's the right pace, how much you do. If you haven't run anyone out there listening, follow along because we're going to talk
about it all in this lead. And and if if you're listening and you have got your own marathon plan mapped out, wherever you're doing it through, follow along because we are going to go through the ups and downs of this 13 week programme. As it is. We've got a 12 week marathon programme. But Benita, today we are essentially 13 weeks out. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So let's start. Do I have told you that I'm going to try for a sub three hour marathon?
Coach Benita, do you think knowing I've sent all my information to you, where I'm at at the moment, my mileage, PBS, all the rest of it, do you think I can achieve it? Yeah. So looking at all your information and knowing from experience from people that I've had that have run similar times to you before, I think it's gonna be incredibly tough. There's nothing like starting with absolute honesty. This is Liam. This is. Great, this is so good.
But it's it's not unachievable, but it's one of those things that so a sub three hour marathon is I I've had coached guys and girls before that have tried for years to run a sub three hour marathon with a similar PB to you. Mm hmm. And once they've done it once, they seem to be always running in the two 50s. And it's just that it's in a, it's a mental and emotional sort of barrier as well. But also, you know, you're, you're 321, which you've done. Was that your And that was your
first marathon? No, I I've done, I've done probably that. I think that might have been my third. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's, it's an incredibly good run 321, right. So when you when, but when you go from, I think that was like 446 pace or something down to 415 pace, that's a big jump. And just from the the experience that I've had with coaching people, it's sometimes it's quite hard. But one of the things that we can do is like try that pace.
So I always say to people, have a look at your goal pace and we do these specific marathon sessions, which I'll set for you and we can, we can have a look in the first few weeks and see how the pace feels. And, you know, if you can't do it in training and some of the training runs that are sort of, you know, only 88 KS or six KS at that pace, you can't, you won't be able to do it for a marathon in 12 weeks.
OK, so this is this is already where I've got a question because for people listening, there will be people like me, delusional people like me who have set themselves a time goal for the Gold Coast Marathon and they have structured a 12 week plan. Some of these people, unlike me, who has a professional like you to speak to in person, they will have jumped on to a an online programme, punched in a goal time. And this AI or whatever it is, will have spat out this programme for them.
And they will be following this unable to actually track or or ask questions or reassess because they're not keeping up with the the pacing. They won't be able to actually ask questions because it's something that's just been spat out online. So if you're, how do I, you've told me it's going to be incredibly tough, but we're going to try some things to see if I need to adjust it.
What sort of time frame should people be reassessing their time goals at the beginning of a a marathon block? Yeah, that's a good question. I really think in the first sort of 3234 weeks, because I, I think to, it's really disheartening to go through a marathon block and not be able to hit the paces that even if it's something that's AI generated, not being able to hit paces that, that it's said because then you sort of don't feel like you're accomplishing
anything. And but when I say incredibly tough, like I, I don't think it's unachievable. It just might take a few marathons or it might take some more training, some speed. So for you to get faster at say the half marathon and 10K before you're gonna hit that hit that some 3 hour marathon. OK, so I always look at so so for your background, so you've done a 128 half, yes. You know, in an ideal world, you'd want to be running one 23124 for 1/2 and, and have that sort of speed behind you.
So when you get into 415 pace, that feels slow. And so that's that's always my analogy. But we're coming into this programme 13 weeks to go and we're not gonna be doing that sort of speed work because we're straight into the marathon block. Yeah. So you wanna be, you know, you wanna be pumped about training. You wanna be excited to, to get to the, to the race and, and, and you wanna be having a goal
that's achievable. So it's one of those things that people come to me all the time with. I wanna, I wanna run this time, you know, and, and I, I'm always realistic with people because you have to be. But also, I'm realistic to say that a running journey might be two, 3-4 years to get to this brilliant goal. And, you know, I haven't been fit since 2012 when I ran the Olympics and I haven't, I haven't done anywhere near a sub three. I haven't even done a marathon.
Like a sub three hour marathon's bloody hard. Yeah, you know, and like, I know you know that, but it's, it's incredibly tough. So it's one of those things that I think it might take a few years, but it might not. You might, you might do it. You might do it at Gold Coast. So I think we try for what you want to do, but then we can readjust as we go. There you go, I love. I that's amazing. This is.
This is equal parts kicking the pills as much as it is exciting because Benita has literally in the 1st 5 minutes of this thing brought me back to. Her. Yeah, she sure has. But absolutely wrecked me. I did have that. Same reaction when you first said it to me. Why didn't you have the courage to say something to me? Because I want. To I want to encourage you to keep to do these things just like just like Kinani, this is. You know we.
Don't want to tell you too much upfront and discourage you, but I do have a question 'cause I reckon people out. Like when I say people there's back on that three hour mark 'cause it is that real. I would say it's the top of the amateurs right trying to break that three hour. Is there a set distance 'cause this is a question I'd ask, is there a kind of like a set kilometres per week you think you'd need to be able to attain to run 3 hours?
Or it doesn't necessarily exactly have to do with the kilometres you're running. Yeah, that's, yeah. I don't necessarily think that I like, obviously, I think the more you run, the better it is to an extent because we're also busy. I've coached some people that run seven times a week and they get injured, they're running too much and they're trying to break 3 hours. Whereas I've got other people that run four or five times a
week and they can break 3 hours. So I think while you want to run more as much as you can, if you're running too much, you're getting tired and injured, you're not training properly. That's a detriment to to the programme. So I don't have number, a set number that I use. I I have everyone individually coming to me as to what I decide. But generally increasing mileage helps. But you've got to do that over, over a certain time. So say you're running 50-60 KSA
week at the moment. Lee Yeah, ideally you'd want to be running a little bit more, but then it's that push of, you know, running. I don't increase intensity and volume in the same week. So we'll look at one week and we might increase mileage a bit. Then the next week we're we're going to increase intensity. And by intensity, I mean that you're not doing really many interval sessions. I mostly thresholds and tempos and I, I, I think you need to be
doing that every week. So that's intensity. So if we're adding that into your programme, I wouldn't be increasing your volume that week. We'd look at the volume the next week and then go back to the intensity. So I cycle through stuff because if you're increasing everything at once, So with your question, Courtney, if you're increasing volume every week in a marathon block, it's too much as well. So I look at, you know, every second week increasing those long runs and I call them
specific. Oh, there we found Benitas. We found Benitas trigger word specific. Yeah, and there it's sort of marathon pays the efforts and getting longer as we go in the next week, you know, we'd just be making sure that we're doing those tempo runs that are half marathon focused and an interval session. So, yeah, so look, we want to be running more. And when I was an athlete, you know, I was running near 200 KS
a week. But we're looking at people with, you know, that are that have got jobs and they're really busy. And so it's about how can we manage this volume into a really busy schedule? So this is, this is great. This is the first lesson here. If you're a peanut like me whose eyes are too big for your stomach, if you've set yourself a goal in these first 2-3 weeks of your training, block you and you're not hitting your times, reassess, reassess. This is a good opening lesson
for people. If you're out there like me and you've set yourself a specific goal time. What about for somebody like Bronte who is embarking? This is her first marathon now she's run a half before. I mean general words of advice heading into this sort of 1312 week block leading into a marathon. Yeah, look, I think for first time marathoners, it's about getting through the programme, enjoying the journey and and just really being excited to be on the start line and getting
through the race. So it's not about I want to run sub 4 hours in my first marathon. It's not about a time. I always think it's about the effort and enjoying, enjoying the process and, and getting that first one done and having a really good experience. And and that's sort of finishing not, you know, sort of walking the last 10K. So finishing feeling good and thinking I wanna do another marathon.
And then that's when you take a bit more risk and you might have a look at specific paces and stuff. So the way Bronte's programme and the way a first time marathon marathoners programme would be would be similar set up to what I'd how I'd set yours, Liam, but it'd be not focused on specific paces. It might be more time based with the long runs. It's about sort of practising that nutrition and getting into that training structure and and just enjoying it. So not doing too much as well.
So you know, it's always about what what are you currently doing and when you're getting into that 13 weeks to go, increasing your training a bit, but making sure that, you know, don't do too much. So I think a lot of beginners, they, they think I've got to do a marathon, so I've got to run a marathon. To do a marathon, you don't need
to do that. You just need to sort of train, obviously train harder and and and get your long run volume up a bit, but just do it in a in a very gradual way. We've we've kind of given you a little bit of a hard task, only giving Liam to you and Brawny for 12 weeks. But if you took a step back, what's the ideal? Like, what would you consider the ideal preparation phase if you were, say, next year we're gonna do this again?
Yeah, that's yeah. So if if I was coaching you Liam, I'd be looking at increasing your speed. So working on 5K10K half marathon type training and that's also quite similar. And so if you can, you know, get a bit faster it like I think your 10 KP was 41 minutes. Yeah, I've never really had a crack at A10. Yeah, and and that's the thing too.
So, you know, having some really hard races over 5K or 10K, even a half marathon, that that sort of work is so good to to do before you get into a marathon prep. And you don't even need to do a lot of marathons to be good at the marathon. It's about having that speed in your legs. And so when you get into the marathon training and you train properly for a marathon, you know it. Your pace feels slow. So ideally I'd I'd put you in half marathons, I'd put you in
5K10K type races. Maybe you might do one marathon and then really have a crack at that sub three hour goal as well. You've spoken about if people have listened to the previous conversation we had with you about the where we talked a bit about your athletic career. You talked about the idea of the mental side of things as well as the physical side of all this sort of stuff.
To give you an insight into my brain right now, as soon as you said your 10 KPB and I put you into these races, my head, literally, I said, well, I'll go out and run a really fast 10K tomorrow. I'll go out and run tomorrow I'll go and try and set a new PB to show Benita that I can run faster than what my that's just what my brain did. Then just for your understanding, over these next three months working together, that's how my brain works.
OK, just as context. So you understand that, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but like, but I think I think with your like you're so enthusiastic and so pumped about it. And so that's what that's what you need to get into a programme like this as well. And I running is, it is about the training, but it's also about your mental focus and and how you adapt yourself because you'll be doing your training properly by yourself mostly.
And so, you know, I always think people that are really focused and, and are really excited about their goal, they're going to train better than someone that's like, I'm not, not really don't really care about that race. So I'm just going to go through the motions. So that's a really important factor when you go into any
programme. Can I ask a bit of a question about and this, you know, for, for Bronte's programme as well, you, we are both Bronte and I both work early mornings and we work, I have full time jobs and these programmes are going to fit in around our lives. And there's people out there who'll be listening to this who are starting their twelve week, 13 week block and they have a life to incorporate.
They're not full time athletes. They're not being paid to do this is they've got this comes around their lives. Can you talk a bit about the pressure or I guess the ways to be OK with miss sessions or or or the rest of life getting in the way of this goal? Yeah, and that's a really good question. And that's something that we deal with everyday with people we work with.
And so I think, you know, don't get hung up on the fact if you miss a, a session or you miss a day or you get sick or, you know, you're, you've might, you might have a kid that's been sick through the night and you know, you've been up all night and you're just really tired. It's about overall consistency, but it's not about one particular session or one particular day of training. So I'm not one of those coaches that says, oh, you've got to make that session up on another
day later in the week. So if you miss something, forget about that day and you just keep going on with your plan. I do schedule an easy week within our marathon block. And that's really important to absorb the training and just make sure that you're not slightly overtraining. And when I say slightly overtraining, you know, part of training is recovery and people that have busy lives, they don't have time to rest properly during the day.
Obviously they're working or they're looking after kids. And so if you're not getting quite enough recovery week in week out, that's when you're not quite absorbing the training. So we always schedule an easy week and usually some sort of a race or like 1/2 marathon or some sort of a race at the end of an easy week or or not, you know, some people just need an easy week to absorb the training. So I find that's worked really well for me.
And only increasing the long run volumes every second week is really good too. So it's one of those things that if you miss something, don't worry about it. It's just about the overall thing. It's not about any particular day. And even even training sessions, like one training sessions not gonna like, you know, make you, you know. Win Improve 10 minutes of. Your time. Yeah. So it's not about one particular session. It's just about just doing the
best you can. And like none of us, none of us can do this perfect. Like I mean, anyone I've coached, they never do the perfect plan. If I wrote a plan 12 weeks ahead of time, which I don't do because I only write plans a week ahead of time because, you know, life happens and I've got to change things.
And that's why I only programme like I have an idea of what I'm going to do, obviously, but that's why we don't programme 12 weeks ahead because, you know, you can't just think I've got to I've got to sit to this real structure of what I'm going to do in six weeks time might be different to, you know, if you've got an online plan that's like a static plan. That's why I'm not a big of those plans because it needs to sort of move with with what you're doing.
So don't don't stress if you miss something, it's it's totally I. Love that as a takeaway. This is the beauty of having a coach or being accountable to someone else as well, because if you're only by yourself, and I feel this quite often, you do compare the kilometres. You do look at something, but as soon as you have someone outside of just yourself saying to you, it's OK this week, you don't need to run. You know, it doesn't have to be
like exactly right every week. And you've got the confidence from that other person that I think whether you're running a marathon, 10K or doing any sports is one of the biggest kind of assets you can have someone else to be, to have some accountability to, to take that off yourself. And that's what you're going to have for this whole process. I can guarantee there's lots going off in people's heads right now who are listening to this and are thinking Anita
sounds really nice. I'd love to like but from honestly again. Maybe you're getting ahead of yourself here, Liam. No, no, no, I'm just saying laceuprunning.com dot AUI just want to say that again here, laceuprunning.com dot AU because if you're halfway through this and you're hearing Bonita speak about her coaching mentality and her attitude towards this, go and check it out.
Laceuprunning.com dot AU Probably not going to be able to get it in time for the Gold Coast Marathon, but it certainly sounds like it if it if it has set those alarm bells off in your head or lit up something, go and have a look and and you can investigate a bit further and maybe there's something down
the track you can look at well. We just lit up in my head because exactly what you said about the I'll keep coming back to these kilometres because with Strava especially, everyone's so concerned, You know, the graph I sent you, everyone's so concerned about having this perfect graph of, you know, progression and that will make me, you know, get better. But the reality is, like you said, if you miss one session, you just can't keep playing continual catch up or you end up
injured. Yeah, yeah. And look, you know, it's one of those things that I'm not from the thought process of having those perfect rafts or, you
know, anything like that. It's all about how you feel and, and how much you're enjoying it. And that's going to really work towards you having a good marathon rather than having these perfect stats on Strava. So what should Liam or if I was doing it, what, what should I be looking for then each week to kind of like tick off and go, you know, I'm I'm happy with
that or progressing with that. Yeah, look, I think if you can do your long run each week, that's that's probably the main session each week for a marathon programme and then and one other session, so an interval session or something like that. And then the easy days, they're just really easy. I always say people run too hard on easy days.
So you've got to be holding yourself back and just making sure that like if you're trying to break three hours and that's 415 pace, your easy day should be, you know, 5 minute case or slower, so. On the first time as then, because we've discussed this before. What you know, I'm just, it's my first marathon. I'm just starting out. How do you know what that easy run pace should be? Yeah, look, and that's really
hard. Often I just see what they currently run at and then just make sure that when we structure some sessions, that easy pace is slower than that. But I can guarantee you that most beginner runners or people that are just in the marathon for the first time, they're going to be running too fast every day. So what we want to do, you know with your with your week that
the hard sessions are high. You know, if you're looking at a graph and the low sessions are low and you want that big variation with the intensities of your training. But a lot of beginner runners, their graph is just flat because every runs the same pace. And so we want, we will all be telling them to go slower in the easy days and then and we'll do some little sessions. And that's really fun for beginner runners because a lot of people, they don't know what
sessions are. And it's really fun to be doing that. But it's one of those things that it'll be more on feel rather than plugging in paces. But I, I will look, we put all our training on training peaks. So I can look and see, you know, what pace a beginner run is running in their easy runs and just make sure that they're running slow enough. But you can do it at heart rate too. You can sort of just make sure their heart rate's below 130. Yeah.
So for those who don't know what training peaks is where, how's that work? So that's what lead you, that's what you have Liam and Brody on, and that's how you manage everything. Yeah, So that's just an online programme that we use for everyone. So I've got all our all our runners onto training Peaks and, and each and, and for me as the coach, I plug in the training for the week ahead. And then you can see it comes to your phone. You can put the app on your
phone. You can just see what you've got each day. And you know, some days might be rest. So it's not like there's training every day. But you know, I put the specific details for the sessions and then I can see how you went. There's a graph. I can even see where you did the session, but it's more about the feedback. So you can write little comments in training Peaks and that's what I look for. So, you know, you might say I did five times AK at 4 minute pace and felt good or you know,
I really struggled today. And then you might your next session, you might say I really struggled again. And then when I look at these comments, I'm going, I think he's a bit tired. So I might say, OK, we're not doing a session on Tuesday of the next week because you need to recover a bit. Right, so this this is actually really good for me that that honesty of feedback and feeling post session is really important for you to get from me.
Yeah, yeah, it's so. And when I look at, you know, Someone Like You with your job too, and this time of year you're training in some like it's been hot on the Gold Coast, like you're training when it's hot. You're not training at 4:00 in the morning where a lot of people here on the Gold Coast train. So you might, it might be quite hard the first few weeks until the weather starts getting cooler.
Yeah. And that's a hard thing for you over summer too, because you know, if you're doing sort of a lot of training through summer, it it can the weeks can make you tired because you're, if you're training at lunchtime, that's brutal in heat and humidity. Does that give me any benefit I'm trying to find? I'm trying to find positives for myself. Yeah, look. Yeah, like heat. Attuned is that. Good. Yeah. Like you can heat. Heat is a stress.
Altitude's a stress. So it's one of those things that people go on training camps like a we one year before Athens Olympics, we went to Madrid to train because we were living in London and it was too cold. So you know, you want to go, you want, you're only training in heat. But I think our summer in Queensland, the heat and humidity is too much for like a prolonged period of like 5-4 months training. So it's it can be quite hard towards the end of summer. I'm so excited.
I'm I've I've been, I've been kicked down to the lowest rung at the start of this week. Benita's come on and said it's going to be tough. But now I'm slowly, but the excitement is ramping back up. Can I ask some frivolous questions because again, there's people out there listening to this who are about to start their journey.
Can we talk shoes? Yeah, I do have as people who listen to this podcast when I have a brand new yet to be used pair of Nike alpha flies sitting in my wardrobe that I haven't felt worthy of. I intend on running the Gold Coast Marathon in those. What should I be training in? Yeah, look, I think, I think trainers are good, but I think you should wear the alpha flies sometimes in these specific marathon sessions, like just to get used to running in them. But also I think you recover quicker.
And so, you know, we only do in a marathon prep, we might do like six of these. So they're only every second weekend and not even every second weekend. So you might. But I. Should run in those shoes for those sessions, yeah. I think, I think sometimes maybe not all of them, but I think it's good for you to do that because you actually, your body recovers. So I think they absorb a bit of the pounding. So your body recovers a bit
better. And, and marathon training is not only about, you know, getting used to the marathon pace and doing all this training, but you've got to recover between the training to, to get that benefit. So if you're not recovering, you're sort of training, you're, you're, we call it overtraining. You're not really overtraining, but if you're not recovering, you're just getting worse and
worse and worse. So you want to sort of have that training stress and then you're tired and then you get up to that new level of fitness, training stress again, new level of fitness. So you're getting fitter and fitter. And I think the shoes help. And so we gotta use what we can use so. And that's the same advice to a first timer. Yeah, for sure. No matter what pace you're running. Yeah, same, same. But I think with the 1st timer, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be too
focused on the shoes. So the first time is, I think it's all about just getting a struction programme, maybe running a bit more. First timers might need to put in a bit of cross training if they haven't run much and they're looking at the marathon as it. So if you've only been running one or two times a week and I was coaching you, I wouldn't my, my first week of coaching you, I wouldn't be giving you five runs a week.
I'd be giving you one or two runs a week with some more cross training to build up your aerobic base. And then we'd increase the running a bit. So it's one of those things that the shoes, yeah, they're good, great technology. But Liam going for a sub three hours, like that's that, like hardly anyone can do that. So it's one of those things that when the faster we get, we want to use things like the shoes to help us more and more.
Whereas like a a first time marathoner, it's about getting to the finish, enjoying it. Obviously we could use the shoes that they're great technology, but that wouldn't be one of the first things I go to as a coach to tell you what to do. Let's just reiterate that for people out there, the shoes shouldn't be the first thing on your priority list. If this is. If your aim is to finish the marathon, the shoes are the least of your worries, right?
I know everybody wants to look good, Courtney, but the shoes, again, the least of your worries, There's a lot of other things you'd be prioritised. What would you take away about the cross training too? First timers you haven't run much. That's a great. Point as somebody who has very much been in the position of not having money KS much time on feet during the week and then jumping into a 12 week block. If you're one of those people, don't I've made this mistake myself.
All that happens is you'll get injured, you'll get injured, and then you'll get angry and you'll get frustrated and then next thing you know, you're standing on the start line going, I'm not ready to do this. So yeah, that that cross training idea. Can you give us some examples of things that would tick the box of being cross training that's not running? Yeah, yeah. And I think with cross training, you've got to do what you enjoy.
So, you know, I'm not going to tell you to go swimming if you don't like swimming in. Correct SO. I don't have to go swimming. That's awesome. Yeah, I think things like elliptical's good, you know, bikes good. I I reckon, you know, even even doing long hikes, if you've got time is because it's time on
your feet as well. But I've got a lot of people that just love things like, I think elliptical because it's sort of like a bit on your feet, but but not things like the rowing machine, I don't think is as correlational. Like it's a bit of cardio. But I, yeah, I tend to find riding and if you're doing like hilly rides, I think that's, that's good. That's it's a good for you as
well. So, but I coach a lot of people that are quite a number of people that are a bit older than than us, like over 60 that do marathons and they might only do 1 running session a week, but the other session is like a black session or something cross training. So the other intensity session is, is a cross training session because they can't handle 2 sessions a week. And then we do a few easy runs. So you can, you can do it like that too. It's about getting to the start
line healthy. So you want to, and then that and they incorporate strength training, which is I think a really good thing to do for any runner. But especially as we get older, you know, we're losing that bone density and, and the marathon is about strength. You know, like you get past 30K and you've got to be strong. So always like in cross country and marathons because you need,
you need that strength. And if you don't have the strength, you know, I mean, you know, you're not going to get through that last part. So I, I think strength training is important. What are you sitting down?
Smiling about no, I was looking at you just not surprised actually, I keep coming back to this idea that I never really realised as a beginner or you talked about someone over 60, just how little like what was the minimum amount you could run and you're just saying they're like even some of those over 60s. It's once a week plus cross training. I, I, I think so many, including myself, I've got caught in up in this over the years. If I'm only running, you just want to overrun.
You just think you must have to do so much more than you really do. But the takeaway is you can only control as much as you can do individually yourself, right? You can see all the different programmes you hear from elites, all the different sessions Liam CS on Instagram, his mates doing. You've really just got to come back to you're always better to be underdone and be able to get to the start line than you are to be overdone. And I'm a case in point right now.
That is me. I'm loving hearing this, yeah.
Yeah. And look, I think too when we're so busy, I always think have that have that frame of thought that we have to always be a little bit underdone because it's not just the training that's going to get us, but it's just life that gets us. So if you're training, if I'm giving you the perfect plan, if you were just in A and like if you live the life of an elite athlete for the next 13 weeks and I was giving you the absolute perfect plan, that that
would be too much for you because you've got stuff to do. You've got kids, you know, you've got a job. So we have to sort of slightly under train everyone so they get to that start line ready to go. And I've made that mistake as a coach. I've coached so many people and you kick yourself when you think, oh, I probably gave that person a little bit too much training. Yeah. And you sort of think it's more it's your fault as the coach too.
And so you've got to take a bit of that responsibility as well. And you're better to be on the start line and ready to go and excited than be there sort of carrying some sort of an injury. And or, or, or the another thing that's really hard is you're on the start line and you just wish you'd already done the race. You're so sick of it. So you don't want to be like
that either. We're going to get into recovery in an in some episodes down the track a little bit more, but just starting you, you know, from a minimum point of view, is there anything recovery wise that you'd suggest like day to day? Yeah, look, sleep's the biggest thing. So there's so many recovery things out there, and I call them gimmicks, but you know, you can you can go to all these places.
But you know, when I was an athlete and when I tell people that I coach now, sleep's huge and, and being a, being a mum to two little kids, I've just never realised how like I've never been one of those people that I've always been able to sleep properly, right. And then I had my daughter and now I've got like a little baby and you're up all the time and you just feel so tired during the day. And but then some people live their life like that. They never sleep properly through the night.
So number one thing is sleep and just making sure you get as much as you can. But I think, you know, I think contrast showers are good, ice bars are good. You know, I'm not huge on the Normatech boots or you know, the recovery centres as such. I think if you've got time to go to a recovery centre, you know, you should just be having a daytime sleep or something. That's that's my view. I'm here for the daytime sleeps. I'm here for the daytime sleeps.
All right, so this is it. This is we are in the beginning runs Gold Coast. This is the beginning of this 12 week block that we are heading into. I have been told unequivocally that my goal of sub 3 is going to be tough. Bronte is setting out to complete her first ever marathon. We will be following these programmes courtesy Bonita Willis and Lace Up Running. You can go and check them out, Lace up running.com dot AU Gold Coast Marathon as if you signed
up for this race this year. Follow along, keep in touch with the programme. We're going to be talking all things nutrition, fuelling during the race, pre race, post race, all that sort of stuff. We're going to touch on all those points we think matter in a Gold Coast, in a marathon training block for the Gold Coast Marathon over the next 12 weeks as we lead into this. How are you feeling? Mr Atkinson's having to essentially sit on the sidelines for all this. Envy.
Yeah, 100% envy. I had my head in doing this marathon, and that's where half of this idea I'm gonna get yourself and Brody and Benita to go and have all this excitement and I'm just on the sidelines. So I'll be here on the sidelines. I'm gonna be in here for the whole journey because I'm learning along the way. There's so many questions we've asked and now we're gonna get the answers for from someone who's got the expertise in this space. Final words, Bonita, anything.
As we start, this is is there anything you say to your athletes, your clients, the people you're coaching at the beginning of a 12 week block like this? Yeah, like OSO don't overthink it. So when you've if you've got a coach and you believe in the coach and you trust what they're doing, it's it's one of those things that you you should be enjoying it. So, you know, like my job often is to hold people back. So often I'm saying don't do that session. Just have a rest or things like that.
More so than, you know, being really hard on people, but enjoying the journey and the more you can enjoy it and relax, like runnings about being relaxed and, you know, when we think about our best races or our best thoughts about running, it's when we're relaxed and, and, and, and, and feeling happy. And so that's my sort of take on the whole programme is, is enjoying it, but also trusting in someone that's looking after it. So you don't have to sort of second guess everything.
And then you can just go off and, and, and have fun. And, and just remember too, that the race is about a celebration of all the work you've done. So it's not, you know, it's not one of these doom gloom things. It's about sort of it's, it's something to be pumped for. So that's, that's one thing that, you know, and we love celebrating what we've done because it's a journey too, yes. And it's not going to be smooth. It's going to be like a roller coaster, but just be prepared
for that as well. Well, Benita, I believe, I trust, I'm happy. Courtney's envious. Yes. But we're here now, and I cannot wait to go through the next 12 weeks of this. And then, as you say, the race itself is a victory lap. So do everybody out there who's listening along and following along. Just remember that the race itself will be a victory lap for all of us. It's all about just getting their injury free, nail free, all right? See you next step, Cook.
Bonita lace up running. Thank you again. Thank you, now I'm pumped.