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# Andy Buchanan On Marathon Pacing, Super Shoes & Why He Won't Touch AI
- URL: https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/andy-buchanan-the-aussie-marathon-record-holder-is-coming-back-to-defend-his-gol/
- Published: 2026-05-26T06:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-21T01:22:06.000Z
- Description: Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on shoe tech, UTA & ultras, Gold Coast Marathon — recorded on the Gold Coast.
- Author: Courtney Atkinson
- Tags: Episodes, Gold Coast Marathon, Running Shoes, Ultra Running, #Import 2026-07-28 20:58

*Courtney catches up with Andy Buchanan — Australia's fastest-ever marathoner and the defending Gold Coast Half Marathon champion — five weeks out from race day. Andy set the course record at 66:08 last year and is back to defend it, and the conversation ranges from the technical to the personal: the biggest training difference between racing a half and a full marathon, the exact session he'd give Courtney for his own Gold Coast marathon build, and how his sense of what counts as "fast" has completely warped since he started running competitive marathons.*

*They get into shoe rotation — Andy's testing ASICS' unreleased Metaspeed Ray 2 on long runs to build confidence in it before racing in it, and names the Magic Speed as the one shoe he'd hand an everyday runner for both training and race day. On pacing, he breaks down what halfway should actually feel like (a rollercoaster you have to ride, not fight), and his own 5K-split approach to settling into marathon effort without blowing up early.*

*Nutrition gets properly old-school: Maurten 320 drink mix, flat Coke at 40K, and a squeezy sauce bottle from Spotlight because the pop-top on branded flasks is too fiddly mid-race. And when Courtney turns the conversation to AI, Andy is unambiguous — he's never opened ChatGPT, trusts his coach and his own feel over an algorithm, and would rather get an email with a typo in it than a flawless one from a machine.*

## In this episode

- What's the biggest training difference between racing a half marathon and a full marathon?
- The exact marathon session Andy would give Courtney five weeks out from Gold Coast
- How often should you train and race in "super shoes" before marathon day?
- What should halfway (21K) actually feel like during a marathon?
- His old-school nutrition approach — and the sauce-bottle hack he swears by
- Why Australia's fastest marathoner refuses to touch AI for training

## Timestamps

- **\[00:00\]** Andy Buchanan joins ahead of Gold Coast, defending his Goldie Half title
- **\[04:04\]** His course-record 66:08 half marathon and how his sense of "fast" has shifted
- **\[10:23\]** The key marathon session he'd give Courtney five weeks out
- **\[15:37\]** Super shoe rotation: the unreleased Metaspeed Ray 2, and his pick for everyday runners
- **\[19:46\]** What halfway (21K) should actually feel like in a marathon
- **\[26:32\]** His 5K-split approach to marathon pacing
- **\[27:35\]** Pacing advice specifically for the half marathon
- **\[28:09\]** Why he's "really against" using AI in his training
- **\[31:17\]** Nutrition: Maurten 320, no gels, and the Spotlight sauce-bottle hack

## Listen

Listen on [Spotify](https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/inthebeginningpodcast/episodes/ANDY-BUCHANAN---THE-AUSSIE-MARATHON-RECORD-HOLDER-IS-COMING-BACK-TO-DEFEND-HIS-GOLDIE-HALF-MARATHON-CROWN-e3jtjrh?ref=inthebeginningpodcast.com).

## Related In The Beginning episodes

- [Benita Willis Interview](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/benita-willis-interview-in-the-beginning-runs-asics-gold-coast-marathon/) — another elite guest breaking down Gold Coast Marathon race craft
- [Michael Shelley](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/gold-coast-marathon-series-michael-shelley/) — more Gold Coast Marathon-specific pacing and race-day advice
- [EP 90 — Claude AI x Strava Thinks Courtney Is Cooked](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/ep-90-claude-ai-x-strava-thinks-courtney-is-cooked/) — the AI-in-training debate from the other side
- [The Gold Coast Marathon guide](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/gold-coast-marathon/)

## Full transcript

Auto-generated transcript. Timestamps approximate. Hosts: Courtney Atkinson & Liam Flanagan.

**Read the full transcript** 

\[00:00\] In The Beginning Podcast, and we're on our way to the Gold Coast Marathon — we've got the best in the business, the fastest ever Australian marathoner, so we're going straight to the top. Andy Buchanan joins us. Thanks for your time, mate. Thanks for having me on — I've been on the show a few times, so excited to be back again. You're never on one of our proper ones though, because the first one you did was chatting to Liam. I'm travelling at the moment, so Liam's back home on the Gold Coast.

\[00:30\] He's still recovering from his big race — I've seen it all over social media. He's, let's call him a running influencer. You can stop calling me the influencer. It's true now, Liam, for sure. True story — I was playing golf with him last Wednesday and he was hobbling around because his knee was quite big and swollen, and his co-host on the radio, Spider, used to play footy all over the joint. He was telling us a story where they were at the hospital doing

\[01:02\] a radio visit, and a guy literally jumped out of an ambulance shouting Liam, Liam, Liam — about the podcast, wanting to chat to him about the running. So he's actually more famous on the Gold Coast right now for his running than for his paid radio show. Jeez — and he probably listens back to all the episodes, so his head's going to get even bigger hearing this. There you go. Hey mate, talking media stuff at the moment — I've been watching your YouTube videos, they're really good. Yeah, thank you. I don't know, I

\[01:33\] think runners, endurance athletes, we need to get better as a whole at telling our own story. We look at a lot of other sports and see they get supported financially a lot more than us, and I don't think we've traditionally been great at putting ourselves out there. A friend of mine approached me and said he wanted to start this YouTube thing, was I interested — and I said, why not.

\[02:03\] I get along with the guys really well and they make really cool content. It's been a bit of a journey, we're learning a lot, and it's starting to get there, which is nice — each episode we're gaining a bit more traction. And now I'm actually running properly again, which helps when you've got a running YouTube channel. Thank you — anyone listening, search me up on YouTube and you'll see what Courtney's talking about.

\[02:34\] I've found it really — I love it when you go into your store, Verve Running, isn't it? Yeah, that's it — a specialty running store here in Bendigo that I co-own. I like showing, as a runner, people usually only see the last K of a race and that's all they talk about, and I think it's pretty cool for people to see that us runners actually work pretty hard, we don't really have any days

\[03:04\] off — it's about getting out every day, training, doing the same thing over and over. That's what I'm trying to show through the YouTube channel too. Leading up — the reason I was keen to get you on quickly is that leading into the Gold Coast Marathon, we do a lot of episodes talking to different people, and one of the biggest requests we get is that we're always focused on the marathon, but the half marathoners kind of get

\[03:34\] left out of the conversation a bit — the training, everything else. Now, I'm reading off your stats here — you're the defending Gold Coast champion, won it last year.

\[04:04\] Course record too — 66:08\. For anyone listening, when you say times without the hour in front of it, that's how quick it is, mate — even to me, someone who reckons I can run okay, that's foreign, how quick that half is.

\[04:36\] I don't know, it's funny — since I started running well over the marathon, my perception of half marathon times has changed completely. I used to think 62 minutes was a good half, whereas now I don't think that at all — I think I can run sub-60, it's just about being in the right place at the right time. It's funny how warped my perception of times has become — I honestly don't think that's that fast anymore, because that's just where my standard sits now, and it's what I'm chasing. I've actually been thinking a bit about Gold Coast, since it's coming up, and I want to run even faster — remove the one in front and run 60 flat or something like that. But it depends on what

\[05:07\] happens on the day. So you're coming back to defend — how does it work, are there time bonuses attached? How does the half marathon prize structure work — goal time, bonuses on times, course records, Australian records? Yeah, I get bonuses for Australian records — I'll probably get a small bonus from the race, but more from a lot of my sponsors, that's built into a lot of my contracts. I think I got a small bonus for breaking the area record last year too.

\[05:40\] Sorry — it was an Australian all-comers record, which isn't really an official category, Pat Carroll will hate me for saying that, but he absolutely loved it. Essentially, it's the fastest anyone's run a half marathon on Australian soil. I think I got a small bonus through the race for that, but not much.

\[06:10\] If you had to explain the biggest difference between training for the half compared to the marathon — what would you say? I think the biggest difference is what I do on a Friday, my second session for the week. During marathon training, that's going out and running 20 to 26K at marathon effort, and it actually feels pretty easy — I'm chilling.

\[06:41\] If you're running next to me I can chat away, pretty relaxed — it's just the fatigue of running so far that makes you tired, the sessions themselves aren't that hard. Whereas for the half marathon, I did a half marathon session last Friday with a younger guy I used to coach, still at college, who kept up for the hard rep, and I asked him, that's pretty hard, isn't it? And he said yeah. I said, that's what half marathon effort feels like.

\[07:12\] He said, yeah, right. And I told him, you're at the stage where you don't know if you're about to throw up or about to lie down — you're in this really hurt stage that just hurts so much, because the intensity is so high and you're still running for a long time. So that's the biggest difference — those Friday sessions. Marathon training is super chill, just logging more and more volume. Half marathon training is longer reps —

\[07:44\] we're talking 2 to 3K reps, but at a really high intensity. Do you think half marathon training prepares you better for the marathon eventually, having that speed, or have you become a better half marathoner because of the success at the marathon? I think the first one — half marathon speed has made marathon pace feel so easy, like, wow, this is great. But then, mentally, I think being good at the

\[08:17\] marathon has also helped me be good at the half and the 10K and all those other distances. Since we're talking about all distances at the moment — UTA's just been on. What's your take on the whole trail scene, any inclination to dip a toe in the water? Not really — I grew up here in Bendigo running, and average running in Bendigo is through the bush, which I just called running. Everyone these days calls it

\[08:49\] trail running. I grew up doing a lot of that — mostly single trail, over 10K, climbing 300 metres, no flat rocks or anything. I actually love doing that stuff during the week in training. But my goal right now is to run as fast as I can — as soon as that's not the case anymore, I've already thought about it, I want to do Buggery to Hotham.

\[09:20\] I want to do that race, race up the staircase, I'm genuinely intrigued by that adventure side of things — I love the Australian bush, love being out in it, and I'd love to challenge myself over the longer distances. I won't lie, going above 100K feels like too much effort, because it actually comes down to how well you prepare, your fuelling and so on, more than

\[09:52\] the actual talent, and Liam will hate me for saying that. It's survival, isn't it? Exactly. I don't have any interest in doing a backyard ultra, last-man-standing kind of thing though. You say that now — you're not old enough for that yet. Exactly, exactly, once I hit my mid-forties. But no, I definitely want to do Buggery to Hotham, would love to come up and do UTA and

\[10:23\] that kind of thing, just not on my radar right now. I've got you on the phone tonight so I've got to ask — I'm going to run the marathon at Gold Coast, I've given myself what I've called an experiment, but really it's just some rules — training for it, but only running every second day. Mileage-wise I got up to about 75K last week,

\[10:53\] off three or four runs. If you could give me a session five weeks out — I've got a bit of mileage under my belt, not running 130K a week or anything like that — what's the key marathon session you'd say I need before race day? I'll give you two answers. One is a long run, purely doing two and a half hours, hopefully covering 32 or 33K in that time. I think that's the

\[11:25\] session if you want to know you can complete the marathon. If I give you a bit more context — I did run two and a half hours on the weekend, in the bush, and I'll give you some more context — where I got to last week was two and a half hours in the bush, first two hours cruised, then a tempo hour and a half with a climb in it. Only reason I was in the bush was I just decided to go out there — on the road I've got a few

\[11:57\] 26Ks with a couple of efforts under my belt as well. What's the key one you can't miss? I do a two-hour long run and then go straight into 20 minutes at marathon effort — literally not stopping, not changing shoes, you just do your normal long run, for me that's over a lot of hills, and as soon as the two hours is up, straight into 20 minutes at marathon effort. I do that before every marathon,

\[12:29\] a few times in the block, and I find it's such a good way of preparing your legs for how they're going to feel after 35K. I see too many people stop and change shoes, put their fast shoes on — whereas these days the shoes are so good, you can get rolling in your heavier trainer, and I like that feeling of not stopping. That's one. And then the

\[13:00\] other one — sorry, I'll jump in, because obviously you run pretty quick, covering a fair bit of distance over those two hours. I might not cover as much, but I'll be reasonable. For the everyday runner, do you think two hours is enough, given they'll be out on course longer and might need a bit more time? I don't think you need a lot more, and I know what you mean — this is where, as a coach myself, I programme time, not distance, for long

\[13:32\] runs. Because if I programme distance, me running 35K versus you running 35K versus someone hoping to run four hours, those are very different loads. I think two hours is sufficient, because you don't want them out there for four hours — otherwise they're effectively running their marathon two or three weeks, or a month, before they actually step on the start line. And often, if they're running that pace, they may not have the training

\[14:05\] under their belt to back it up. I think it's about getting to the start line — that's the hardest thing, getting there fit and healthy. But the second session, which I love, is two by 3K at half marathon effort.

\[14:35\] Off how much warm-up? I'll do a 20-minute warm-up, but that's me — you could do 10 minutes. Two by 3K at half marathon effort with a 3-minute standing recovery, and then straight into 12K at marathon effort. The thinking there is you've done that 6K at half marathon effort, so you've built some fatigue,

\[15:07\] and then it's about settling into marathon pace, because you've been running faster. That's a tricky part of the marathon — you need to be patient, and if you go out too hard, it comes back to bite you. I quite like doing that — I'll run low 2:50s per K for those 3K reps, and then have to settle into 3:00 per K for the 12K, which is actually a pretty long rep, it challenges you physically but also mentally. Knowing you've got a 12K rep with no recovery, already a little fatigued —

\[15:37\] that's a bit of a go-to for me in my training blocks. I like that one. You mentioned shoes a bit earlier, the heavy stuff — I saw you the other day taking photos in your little fire booth with all the different shoes in the shop. You run in ASICS — two questions. One, you said you don't change shoes, so how often do you actually wear your super shoes before the marathon? I'll wear them in

\[16:08\] training — always on a Tuesday and a Friday. But I've got different super shoes for different races. At the moment there's a new shoe — I think I'm allowed to say what it's called — the Ray 2\. The current Ray is out at the moment, the Metaspeed Ray, and the Ray 2, we've got the final prototypes of it, and it's a great shoe, but I don't know how it'll hold up over 30K, because the

\[16:39\] good thing about the shoe is it's really, really light, but if a shoe's that light it can be quite unstable or not give you the support you need. So at the moment I want to wear it on longer efforts to make sure I can get 42K out of it, because they're making these shoes so light I'm not confident yet. I'll wear that shoe pretty much every Friday to build confidence in it. And then I've got another brand-new pair I'll wear

\[17:10\] once before the race — I like to put about 5 to 10K into new shoes. There's a theory, I don't think it's backed scientifically, that you want to wear the plate in a little, nearly like a cricket bat you want to knock in — get it through a bit of action, doesn't warm it up exactly, but gives it a bit of flex or something. That's it, that's it. I'll wear the super shoes every Tuesday

\[17:42\] and every Friday, but ASICS have such a range of super shoes I'm pretty much wearing a different one on different session days depending what it is. If you were a newer or everyday runner and had to choose just one shoe — you're going to train in it, race in it, that's your shoe for the marathon, or maybe more the half marathon — I know ASICS sponsor Gold Coast Marathon, which one would it be?

\[18:14\] The Magic Speed, I'd actually — have you worn the Magic Speed before, heard of it? I've heard of it, yeah, but never tried it — sometimes with ASICS I get a bit too much fall-in for me. Right, see, I find this shoe even better than the Superblast 2, which everyone raved about — I find the Magic Speed even faster and just as comfy. This is a shoe I'll

\[18:44\] do a lot of my long runs in. When I was coming back from injury I was wearing it in sessions too, because I didn't want to jump straight into super shoes, and I was running sub-three-minute Ks in a shoe I'd worn two days earlier for two hours through the bush, and it was super comfy. That's the shoe that could tick every box, wear it every day. Whenever I travel I take less of everything else so I can fit more than one pair of shoes in.

\[19:16\] But if I could only fit one pair, that'd be the shoe I'd take. You're the opposite to me — I'm literally travelling with a backpack at the moment, if I'm away for three days I'll take one shoe. And generally, like you said, I'll take a heavier trainer over a lighter one every day of the week. The other thing I was thinking — we've heard from you, Benita, and Michael Shelley about when the race

\[19:46\] actually starts, going more towards the 30 or 32K mark, and how you relax into it. I want to know, for my sake and everyone listening, at halfway, 21K — what should I be feeling? We've talked about the 30K mark, feeling like you got there on the bus, but I want to know about halfway, because to me,

\[20:17\] that's already a lot, even if the race isn't — you're still waiting for a bit longer, but it's like, okay, we're halfway, let's move on. It's really hard to answer, because every race is different, and I know you want a clean answer, but if you asked me that about Valencia — honestly, at halfway I thought, holy shit, I don't think I'm going to finish. And that's where I ran the record. I find during a marathon it's a rollercoaster, and you

\[20:51\] just go through ups and downs, and as the race goes on the ups, when you're feeling good, get shorter, and the downs, when you're feeling bad, get longer. It's about relaxing and being okay with that — I work with a sports psych, and one thing he says is, just ride the wave, the wave always ends, you've just got to ride it. At Valencia, at 21K, when I went through thinking,

\[21:22\] I don't think I can sustain this pace, I've gone too hard, I've blown up — I just said, okay, I'm going to ride this wave, ride it out. And sure enough, at 30K I moved to the front of the group, felt good at 35K, made some moves with other guys, ended up finishing third or fourth out of that group, and didn't really slow down. So it's about getting used to knowing

\[21:55\] you'll feel really good, don't get too excited, and when you feel bad, just tell yourself there's a good patch coming around the corner. When I get to 21K, I'm often really bad at doing time maths while running, my brain just doesn't work — I'll look at the time and think, what does that mean, okay, double it because you're halfway, and that

\[22:25\] distracts me for a bit. But I think you should still just be settling into the swing of your group — working out who's who, oh this guy's a bit annoying, coughing and spluttering, or I don't love running behind him because of his gait or something. You should still be figuring out your surroundings and getting comfortable in the race, because the first 5K just

\[22:56\] flies by. From 5 to 10K it's about making sure you're not going too fast. At 15K you're thinking, alright, yep, this is the right spot. At 20K it's, alright, where in this group do I want to be, is this the right group, let's settle in. At 25K it's, sweet, here I am. And then at 30K — I hit lap every 5K, so at 30K I

\[23:26\] hit lap and think, alright, this is where the gloves come off, the race has started. The way you're talking, are you not using GPS then, just a normal watch? It is a GPS watch, but I use the markers on the road, not the splits on my watch, because with a lot of these big city marathons you go through a heap of buildings and the GPS splits can be way off. Is that the Course Integrity mob?

\[23:56\] What are they called — Fish, official something, I don't know exactly, but they do good work out there educating people on it. No, they're doing good stuff. That's the problem, because I think most of the people we talk to, on average, are runners finishing anywhere between, say, 2:50 up to four hours, and I'd say nine out of ten of them wouldn't even think about

\[24:27\] running without GPS, so reliant on it — right, this is the pace I'm setting off on. And that's the thing, feel has a lot to do with it, even at this level. It does. But I'm in a really unique situation — I go to the briefing a few nights before, or often the night before, and they tell us the pace groups, the splits they'll be running, and most of the time they hit

\[24:58\] those splits bang on — I mean, they'll often talk 5K splits, and more often than not they're within five or six seconds of the target every time. So I know I can just go with that group, which is a pretty unique situation, not many people have that — yes, most big city marathons have pacers and they do a great job, but they're not professional runners, and I'm not

\[25:28\] worried about going out with them. I think they do a phenomenal job — I'd be too nervous to do that pacing gig myself, even the 3:45 group at Gold Coast or whatever. But sometimes they can run a bit too fast, because I think they get nervous about not wanting to be ten seconds over, they'd rather be ten seconds under. So I'm in this unique situation where I've never really had to be clock-watching.

\[25:58\] I'm just running with the group, sitting with them. That's still a good approach for a lot of people though — even myself, I've been thinking about paces, thinking, maybe just slot in there for 20K, get to 20K, and then, okay, I'm feeling good or I'm not, but at least then you can switch off. Exactly, and that's the most important part, being able to switch off. My biggest tip is using 5K splits — for every athlete I coach, I look through their training and give them pace ranges for 5K splits.

\[26:32\] I'll say, I want you running between, say, 16:10 and 16:30, because that's what your training shows. If you go out and run 16 minutes flat, you're going too fast, slow down — and don't worry about kilometre splits, they're too small a window. Whereas 5K splits are a really good way to break the marathon up. Then when you get to 5K you're just thinking about 5K to 10K, not all the way to 42.

\[27:03\] And when you get to 10K, you just think 10K to 15K — it's a really nice way of breaking the marathon up. Would you approach the half any differently, pacing-wise? For me personally, the half is just an all-out race. But for any athlete out there, you need to get to 16K still feeling pretty good — if you get there cooked, it's going to

\[27:35\] be a long way home. So be patient to 16K, and then from there start putting the foot down if you're feeling good. That's my advice for the general punters in the half marathon. But we've been talking — I had an objective coming in, everyone's been asking me for half marathon advice, and I got it. One more question, left field, not running related — are you using AI? No, I'm actually really against AI.

\[28:09\] I'm a bit old school, and it freaks me out — at what point does it just take over? I think we humans love human interaction, and I actually love getting an email with a few errors in it, because it means an actual person replied, rather than — I've never used ChatGPT.

\[28:42\] Never, not yet. I don't even know if it's an app or on the web. This is the same as when I asked you down in Sydney at AG1 about your Commodore, and thought you were a hardcore rev-head. The last time I saw you, we were at F1, weren't we? Yeah — I'm not a rev-head, but I do like motorsport, I just have that car because I'd rather spend my money on

\[29:12\] nice things for my house than a car. True, true. What did you end up doing at F1 after I left, I didn't see you again after that. I honestly can't remember — I think I just went into the city. Yeah, that was a good time actually. Red Bull looked after me. We do what we can, mate. So now AI — I'm blown away, because literally I'm in Sydney today and that's the

\[29:42\] topic of conversation, not even running-specific. But it transfers into running too, right — you're not going to rely on AI just for your programming, but even things like, I don't know if you use TrainingPeaks or just Strava for your data, but being able to feed everything into an AI system and pull information out of it — there's endless ways to use it.

\[30:13\] I'm just interested to see where it all ends up. You're probably right, there are endless ways, but I really value experience, and I work closely with my coach — I write a training diary every week, how I felt, the distance I did, whether I gymed, all that, take a photo of it every week and send it through to him. I love that, I'm

\[30:44\] old school, and I trust how I feel — if I feel like I'm doing too much, or I need this or that, I trust that, and I trust Scott, my coach, and his judgement too. Little things too — I had an appointment with my dietitian yesterday, and sure, I could probably type into AI how many calories I need doing this amount of training, but if I'm having a

\[31:17\] monthly catch-up with my dietitian, I'm going to be more accountable than with AI — who's holding me accountable there? No one. Speaking of nutrition — with everything going on around high-carbohydrate intakes in endurance sport, has that moved into your world? Are you still using gels? I use the Maurten 320 drink mix, I'm really lucky, Maurten have been a sponsor of

\[31:48\] mine from the very start, which has been awesome, and that's all I've ever used. I'm pretty sure that's what most of the top guys use too, hearing their numbers — I don't know, I want to see it before I believe it. I often wonder if, when there's money to be made, the numbers get a little fudged. But it's definitely something I'm aware of, and I'm starting to

\[32:23\] always train with fuel when I'm doing marathon sessions — trying to increase the amount my body can take on, because I don't think people understand, like Sebastian Sawe doing 2:51 pace, which is crazy, but running 3-minute-K pace while trying to drink is bloody hard. It's not as easy as just getting it in — your body's got to process it too. So I am trying to

\[32:55\] practise taking on more — my last few long runs I've taken on even more, easier to do when you're just jogging. We'll see. But I trust my gut there, I don't get too scientific about how much I have, I just fill my drink bottles a certain amount and take as much as I feel I can at each drink station, and that differs from 5K through to 40K. I'm still having

\[33:25\] flat Coke at 40K of a marathon, which is super old school, but it works for me — touch wood, I've never hit the wall in a marathon, which shows I'm not depleting my carbs. But then again, could I run faster if I had more carbs? That's the open question at the moment. It's something I'm trialling, but you never really know till race day.

\[33:55\] Mate, I love that old-school approach — I reckon most people who listen every week would understand that. A hundred per cent, though you've got to stay open to what's next too, that trusting your gut and trusting the paces, and being able to vary your training to where you're at at the time — you learn it over years, but it's a trait that comes in handy on race day. Definitely, definitely. I get people asking me all the time, how many grams per hour were you taking, and I've got no

\[34:26\] idea, honestly. I just drink as much as I feel like I can, run with the bottle a bit longer, and I'm actually using sauce bottles I buy from Spotlight — the squeezy ones. Pretty comical, that.

\[34:56\] So are you using the sauce bottles for ease of getting it down, or is it also for identification on the drink tables? Mainly the ease — they've got that thin top, I find really good, you can just tip it up and

\[35:27\] squirt it, versus a traditional pop top which I find quite hard. Not many of the African runners use the same skinny Maurten race bottles, so if you put some pipe cleaners on yours they get pretty wary of it and steer clear, which is good. Good man. Thanks for having a chat, I know it's night time, you like to get to bed early. That's what

\[35:58\] this discussion today's really about — we're both old men. But no, you're not old, plenty of years left in you, mate. Hopefully, hopefully. We appreciate it, and we'll see you up at the Goldie for sure, probably try and grab you for a quick chat, even just on the mic beforehand — Liam's actually going to be on the line as you win the race anyway. Yeah, he was there last year, and it was quite good, I'd had a chat with him a day or two

\[36:30\] before, told him I was going to win — so it was funny, he was probably the first person I saw as soon as I crossed the line. I look forward to seeing him again. Well, good luck with the rest of the prep, we'll see you crush it out there on the Goldie. Thank you — how many weeks is it, did you say five weeks? Someone sent me something last week saying

\[37:01\] six weeks. Heaps of time, heaps — I've still got two of your sessions to do. You'll have to let me know how you go. This weekend's Red Bull Race The Sun, so I'll struggle to get a run in, might have to be within four weeks.

\[37:33\] Hey, when do I get invited to that? Could've come this year — do you need an invite? Yeah, isn't that how these things work? So I've got your commitment to come to the race next year — I'll have to see how it fits the racing schedule, but four weeks before the Goldie Half we had a few runners come through last year, forgot his name, but a New Zealand marathoner who ran at the last Olympics for the Kiwi team, and I expect them to go even quicker this year. No, it looks fun — you're always welcome, we'll get you sorted in a team. Alright mate, thanks for it, see you mate.